REPORT ON INDIA AND PERSIA OF THE Deputation sent by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U* S. A. to visit these fields in 1921-22 PRESENTED BY MR. ROBERT E. SPEER AND MR. RUSSELL CARTER The Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church In the U. S. A., 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City 1922 ^ ^ BV 3265 .S6 1922 Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Foreign Report on India and Persia T REPORT ON INDIA AND PERSIA OF THE Deputation sent by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. to visit these fields in 1921-22 ,/ PRESENTED BY y^ ]\Ir. Robert E. Speer and Mr. Russell Carter The Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City 19 2 2 INTRODUCTION WE submit herewith to the Board the report of the visit which Mr. Carter and I made to India and Persia in the fall and winter of 1921-22. Mr. Carter sailed from Vancouver on the "Empress of Russia" July 21, 1921, and spent a few weeks in Japan, Korea and Northern China, joining Mr. Welles and me in Shanghai on September 2nd, on our arrival on the "Empress of Asia," on which we had left Vancouver on August 18th. We met with the China Council in Shanghai on September 3rd to 8th with the excep- tion of one day which we spent at Nanking. We left Shanghai on the S. S. "Dilwara" on September 9th and reached Colombo on September 27th. The following three months were spent in attendance on the three India Mission Meetings and in visiting all the stations of these Missions. We sailed from Bombay for Mesopotamia on December 28th on the S. S. "Varsova" arriving at Busra January 4, 1922, and after visits to Bagdad and Mosul we left Irak for Persia on January 13th. Three months, from January 13th to April 11th we spent in visiting all stations in Persia, including Meshed, but omitting Urumia, where the political disturbances of the region and the military operations which were under way made it im- possible for us to go. From Tabriz we came out through the Caucasus without difficulty or discomfort, thanks to the kind- ness of the Near East Relief, and reached Tiflis on April 16th, Batoum on April 19th, and Constantinople on April 23rd. From Constantinople, on April 25th, we sailed for home direct on the old North German Lloyd boat "Bremen," now the S. S. "Constantinople." of the International Steam Navigation Company of Greece, touching at Piraeus, Palermo and Algiers, landing in New York on May 21, 1922. It was a difficult and intense visitation but very happy and rewarding. Mr. Henry H. Welles, 3rd, who was graduated from Prince- ton University last June, went with us at his own expense as Secretary. His unselfish and cheerful spirit was a constant comfort, and without his help we could not have done our work or prepared our report. I know that this Report is formidable, but our great diffi- culty has been to keep out interesting material, and the mem- bers of the Board and of the India and Persia Missions can read what sections of it they think of greatest importance. Perhaps it would be well to add that through the kindness 3 of some ever generous friends, the Report is published at very muc)i reduced expense to the Board. The date and place of writing of the different chapters of the report are frequently indicated in order to explain occa- sional references which might otherwise be less clear. The letters about the separate stations in China, India and Persia were sent home from the field for the information of the Board and the home constituency. They are included in the report in order to furnish to those who may be unfamiliar with the conditions in the different Missions a sympathetic even though inadequate picture of the living work which is going steadily forward in the midst of all the perplexing questions which are here discussed. I am responsible for all the Report, except the chapter on Property and Finance which was written by Mr. Carter, whose association in this visit to the Missions was a blessing and joy to all. We have both gone over the whole Report together, however, and are of one mind in its representations as we were in all our conferences and communications with the Mis- sions and the Churches. We are grateful for the privilege of this visitation. From first to last we have been with the men and women who most richly embody the Christian spirit and who are most nearly reproducing the work of the Apostolic Church. All the affec- tion which we already felt for them has .been deepened, and our one desire is better to serve them and better with them to serve our common Lord. New York City, June 24, 1922. R. E. S. CONTENTS PAGE I. THE SHIFTING THOUGHTS OF JAPAN 7-16 II. CHINA 19-35 1. The Confusion and Distress of China 19-26 2. The Great Gate of China 27-31 3. The Forces of New Life in Nanking 32-35 III. PAST THE CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD 36-40 IV. INDIA. 1. History of Our India Missions 43-53 2. Letters from the Stations 54- 113 54 57 60 63 67 70 (1) The City of False Gods (2) The Cradle of Christianity in the Punjab (3) The Place of Serpents (4) Kodoli and Islampur (5) The Two Stations of the Konkan (6) Where the Kolhapur Mission Began (7) Teaching and Healing in the Southern Marathi Country 73 (8) Lucknow and Cawnpore 76 (9) Fatehpur, Etawah and Mainpuri 80 (10) On Sacred Ground at Fatehgarh 83 (11) By the Ganges Canal and the Great Trunk Road 87 (12) "Unto the Hills" 90 (13) The City of St. Haroun 93 (14) Ambala and Santokh Majra 97 (15) Jullundur and Hoshiarpur 100 (16) The Village Work in India 104 (17) Lahore 107 (18) Gwalior and Jhansi 110 3. Some Aspects of the Present Political Environment of the Church and Missions in India 114-134 4. Some Aspects of the Present Economic and Religious En- vironment of the Church in India 135-170 5. Problems of the Church and of Evangelization 171-253 (1) Relations between the Foreign Missions and the Indian Church 171 A. Early History of the Question 171 B. Correspondence between the Four Allahabad Brethren and the Board 178 C. The Saharanpur Conference 179 D. Discussion of Saharanpur Conference Report 184-215 a. Expressions of Churches and Christian Communities 184 b. Various Group Conferences 186 c. Actions of the Missions, the Presbyteries and the India Council 199 E. General Observations on the Situation 215-231 (2) The Relation of the Indian Church to Political Problems 231 (3) The Mass Movement 235 (4) A New Aspect of the Movement toward Church Union 243 (5) The Nationalistic Ideal of the Church 251 6. Some Aspects of the Problem of Missionary Education in India 254-303 (1) The General Situation 254 (2) The Conscience Clause 259 (3) The Relation of Missions to Government 275 (4) The Problems of our Mission Colleges 277 IV. INDIA (Continued) PAGE (5) High Schools 282 (6) Village Schools 287 (7) Theological, Agricultural and Industrial Schools.... 290 (8) The Christian Influence of our Educational Work.. 292 (9) Non-Christian Teachers 299 (10) Schools for Missionaries' Children 302 7. Some General Observations Regarding our India Missions. 304-312 V. PERSIA 1. History of Our Persia Missions 315 2. Letters from the Stations 327-356 (1) Basra and Bagdad 327 (2) The Call from Nineveh 331 (3) A Door of Access to the Kurds 334 (4) By the Tomb of Mordecai 337 (5) The Center of Persia's Life and Death 340 (6) The Great Shrine of Persia 344 (7) The Station on the Caspian 347 (8) Tabriz 350 (9) The Station we Could not Visit 353 3. The Need and Destitution of Persia 357-371 4. The Growth of Tolerance and Religious Liberty in Persia . . 372-387 5. Approaches to Persian Mohammedanism 388-402 6. Talks with Mohammedan Converts in Persia 403-425 7. From Shah Abdul Azim to the Shrine of Iman Reza. . . .426-450 8. Problems of the Work for Moslems 451-460 9. The Reoccupation of Urumia and our Relations to the Assyrian People and Church 461-484 10. The Educational Work 485-503 11. The Medical Work 504-508 12. The Occupation of the Field 509-531 13. The Call of Mesopotamia 532-544 14. The Relief Work 545-564 15. Some Miscellaneous Points 565-576 VI. PROPERTY AND FINANCE 577-589 VII. SOME CONCLUDING GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. . .590-620 APPENDICES Appendix I. Report of the Committee on the Relation of the Mission and the Indian Church and vice versa, Punjab Mission Meeting, October 1917 623 Appendix II. Letter of N. K. Murkerji, June 15, 1920 628 Appendix III. Letter of J. M. David, A. Ralla Ram, N. C. Mur- kerji and N. K. Murkerji, June 15, 1920 629 Appendix IV. Letter of N. K. Murkerji, July 8, 1920 649 Appendix V. Letter of N. K. Murkerji, July 22, 1920 649 Appendix VI. Letter of Robert E. Speer to J. M. David, et al., Sept. 21, 1920 050 Appendix VII. Letter of Robert E. Speer to N. K. Murkerji, July 18, 1921 658 Appendix VIII. Letter of Church of Christ in Japan, Feb. 26, 1906 665 Appendix IX. Letter of Church of Christ in Japan, July 3, 1906 675 Appendix X. Report of Saharanpur Conference 680 Appendix XI. Action of North India Mission, Oct. 1921 684 Appendix XII. Paper by Shivramji Masoji on "Indian Church and India's Crisis" ^ 687 Appendix XIII. "God, the Crown and the Nation," from "Nur Afshan," Nov. 15, 1921 690 Appendix XIV. An Indian Christian Manifesto on Church Union 693 I. THE SHIFTING 'THOUGHTS" OF JAPAN We had intended to sail from San Francisco direct for India and Persia on August 13th on the S. S. "Creole State," but travelers on the Shipping Board boats have been subject to many vicissitudes, and we discovered on reaching San Francisco that the sailing had been cancelled by the Pacific Mail and that no provision had been made for the disappointed passenger list. Happily we were able with some difficulty to transfer at once to the "Empress of Asia," of the Canadian Pacific Ocean Services, w^hich sailed from Vancouver August 18th. It is easy to see now the ample providential compensa- tions for any disappointment of our first plan. We lost the visit to Manila, but gained in exchange fresh opportunities for seeing Japan and China again, a full week of conferences with missionaries and missionary committees in Shanghai and Nanking, and the privilege of crossing the Pacific with perhaps the largest number of missionaries and missionary supporters which ever went out on a single vessel to the mission field. The last night before we reached Shanghai, I went out alone on the forward deck to look off across the quiet waters toward China, and to contrast our approach with Robert Morrison's more than a hundred and ten years ago. He came alone in the face of the opposition of the greatest commercial organization in the world, the East India Company. No one was waiting for him. He would find no home prepared to welcome him, no facilities for language study, no readiness of the people to receive him. They wanted nothing that he had to offer. They had awaked as yet to no realization of their need and no thought that the outer barbarian world had any thing to give to them. No doubt on his last night as he drew near the China coast, Morrison had gone out under the stars alone to reflect on his mission. Before him, as before us, the Scorpion stood out clear and sharp in the south- western sky with the Archer over against it, and Vega must have shone as brightly above him as it did over us standing out as brilliant and almost as near as a green light at the masthead. The same God looked down from the same heavens over his ship and ours. But how immeasurably different our missionary situation from his! Thousands of missionaries were settled now over the whole of China. Missionary agen- Alice Meynell's "Mary the Mother of Jesus," Sidney and Beatrice Webb's "The Break-up of the Poor Law," Harold Cox's "Economic Liberty," Lord Askwith's "Industrial Prob- lems and Disputes," Lansing's "The Peace Negotiations," "The Mirrors of Downing Street" (a large pile of them), Hamsun's "Hunger" and "Growth of the Soil," Jevons' "Eco- nomics," Giorgio Vasari's "Lives of the Most Eminent Paint- ers, Sculptors, and Architects," translated by Gaston De Vere in ten volumes, Karl Marx's "Capital." This is a representa- tive list of the stock carried by this little shop. The Japanese titles we could not, of course, read, but I looked over many of the books and the magazines. The advertising pictures were crude but far more chaste than ours, and there was nothing of the salacious and decadent character which defiles the news stands and book stalls in Latin America. New economic thoughts are troubling Japan. Although the labor unions have lost from thirty to fifty per cent of their members as a result of the collapse of business and the hard times following the war, class consciousness and class struggle have increased in tendency. The more radical spirit of labor was shown in the general convention of the Yu-ai-kai, held in October, 1920, where the majority of the gathering "ridi- culed as useless the agitation for universal suffrage and advo- cated direct action, revolutionary if necessary." At the Yawata Government Steel Works twenty thousand strikers destroyed sixteen smelting furnaces, and in one newspaper strike in Tokyo the strikers destroyed all the fonts of type. Sixty discharged workmen at the Adachi Machine Factory in Tokyo in January destroyed all the mechanical instruments. Revolutionary labor songs which had become popular have been forbidden by the government. The Japan Chronicle recently printed an English translation of one of these as follows : "The devilish hands of covetous capitalists with insatiable desire snatch from laborers the fruits of their labors, and lo ! capitalism is now deeply entrenched. "Poor laborers ! They are persecuted by capitalists with tyranny, which cannot be tolerated by Heaven and Earth. Their blood runs like a river and their anger will be ever- lasting. "Up ! laborers ! This is the time to carry the fortress of Capitalism and take into your hands the fruits of your own labors. . "Up ! laborers, up ! Sweep away the incongruous system which has reigned long, and establish the new society of labor autonomy." 10 Between the most autocratic economic Bourbonism on one side and the growing forces of socialism, syndicalism, revolu- tion, and anarchy on the other side, the men and movements, still very weak, which seek a just and constructive reorgani- zation of an unsatisfactory and transitory economic order, seem likely to have an even harder time of it in Japan than in the West. New social thoughts also are abroad. "A new vocabulary of social and industrial terms has appeared," says Mr. Merle Davis, "many of the words being taken bodily from English to express ideas that are not common in Japanese thought, for example, 'efficiency test,' 'survey,' 'clinic,' 'settlement,' 'welfare work,' 'infant mortality,' 'birth-rate,' 'turn-over,' 'in- dustrial democracy,' 'strike,' 'labor union,' 'sabotage.' Women have come to a new place in business and in public life. Mrs. Hiraoka, the banker, and Mrs. Yajima, the teacher and re- former, have been followed by a great company. The business offices are full of girl clerks and stenographers. For the first time women have been admitted as special students into the Tokyo Imperial University, and thirty-two have availed themselves of the privilege. A mass meeting was held in Tokyo on July 18, 1920, to advocate woman suffrage, and sev- eral able Japanese women spoke in behalf of their political rights. The following day a bill to extend the franchise to women was introduced into the Japanese Diet. The galleries were filled with capable Japanese women, and the bill was given a respectful hearing although it was rejected. The old family system of Japan has come under criticism, and no thoughts which ever come to a nation are more difficult and dangerous than those which affect the foundations of its family life. And the rigid political thought and organization of Japan has begun to be troubled by new questionings. The hand of discipline is still stiff enough, as some of those who have lost their fathers' faith in freedom would make it at home. Last November the government sent Prof. Morito of the Tokyo Imperial University to prison for three months for issuing an article on Kropatkin's "Studies on Socialism." Some sol- diers who were coming home from military service were met by friends with a banner inscribed "Congratulation Upon Your Release From Prison." Beyond all doubt this was a "dangerous thought," and the banner bearers were put under arrest. Nevertheless the democratic, anti-militaristic move- ment has steadily gathered strength. The sensible, industrial elements of the nation crowd steadily in upon the militarists. So strong has the democratic movement become that the con- 11 servative spirit has been forced to read it into Japanese politi- cal tradition. "Democracy is said to be a very old idea in Japan practiced by the very earliest emperors. Even the removal of the trees around the Imperial Palace is given a democratic explanation" now. Each year new voices are raised with new courage and strength in behalf of liberal in- stitutions at home and a just and generous policy abroad. Two million school children made a contribution to relieve the famine suffering in China, and a Japanese paper, the Oriental Economist, has recently attacked the idea that the Japanese are justified in a desire for political control over Manchuria and Mongolia, because of their necessity to Japan as sources of food-stuff and raw materials. It has sought to prove that Japan is not so dependent, and that even if she were it would be more to her advantage to obtain her materials by the simple process of trade than to take them from a hostile people under Japanese tutelage. In these matters, however, the Japanese press, to say the least, is not better than our own, and on any day that a visitor may be in the country he can read incendiary material in abundance on both sides of the Disarmament Conference, of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and of the questions of relations with the United States and China. Back of all these new thoughts of which I have been speaking we are interested most of all in the forces of religion. Of the strong and probably strengthened grip of Shintoism, there can perhaps be little question. Six years ago I visited the imperial shrines in Ise around which every influence which could be officially controlled was throwing the glamor and appeal of patriotism and national devotion. I saw also the impressive grave of the late emperor which had just been erected in Kioto at the very heart of the national life of Japan and with obvious purpose to bind together its political and religious significance. And now on this visit I saw the great new Meiji shrine which had been erected at Tokyo and toward which the devotion and worship, especially of the youth of Japan, are being directed with the highest skill and authority. Surely it can no longer be maintained, as for some years the Government did maintain, that Shinto is not a religion in its present day interpretation. Powerful forces in Japan seem bent on making it as pure an emperor-worship as the religion of Imperial Rome. One recalls the letter which Baron Motoda, the most trusted friend of the late emperor, wrote to Prince Iwakura in 1873, at the very beginning of Japan's modern life. It was entitled "Essentials for the Guidance of Em- perors," and this was the way it began: 12 "In these days, when the world contains a whole array of powerful nations, we naturally ask ourselves how it is that our little one-island empire has so far escaped insult from each and all of the unnumbered principalities whom she con- fronts alone. Does it arise from the greater excellence of our methods of administration? from the higher level of our national intelligence? from our successful competition with them in the arts and sciences? from the military strength we can pit against theirs? Undoubtedly not. It is simply because we stand absolutely alone in the world in our posses- sion of a House in Whose Sovereignty, as in Their Descent from the Gods, there has been, through countless generations, neither change nor shadow of turning. It is this that we Their people, Their children, must never for an instant forget, nay, rather, shedding tears of joy, and dancing for gladness before Them, lift up adoring hearts in service unending. Fur- thermore, we are subjects who yield a faithful allegiance, not only in outward seeming but in very truth, not a lip ser- vice but one which reaches down into the very roots of life. "Hence it follows that if the Imperial Virtue were to fall short of that of yore but by the tiniest fraction, the myriads of our foes who stand round about looking upon us, strong in their many inventions and o'erflowing treasuries, would ask in scorn, 'What have we to fear from them?' What we cherished in adoring gladness will then become a source of terror. Let us walk warily, taking thought betimes. What was the great foundation stone our earliest princes laid? What but the Imperial Heart Itself." Baron Motoda set forth this same view in a series of lec- tures delivered to the Emperor. "Ever since the opening and development of the visible universe," said he, "a sole ruler, direct descendant of the unbroken and imperishable lineage of the Heavenly Ancestress, has ruled over the people of Japan. The chief and primary duty of that people has lain in their relation to their Lord, and that has included every other conceivable bond. He has bent upon them the tender gaze of a parent, their eyes have been turned up to him as those of children." Motoda urged the adoption of a definite program of education to maintain and develop these "im- memorial traditions." On the whole it is probably true that ever since Motoda's day and now, the predominant govern- mental influence in Japan has been and is secularistic and agnostic, but there has always been a strong party, and it is especially vigorous today, which would officially direct both education and Shintoism to the strengthening of the cult of emperor-worship. Dr. Genchi Kato insists upon the divine 13 nature of the emperor and exalts him to the same position as the Jewish Jehovah. He and Mr. Yasuhara charge the low state of national morality to the Government's elimination of religious elements from Shinto shrine ceremonies. But surely the Government or some forces which act with its authority are in the most deliberate and powerful way seeking to bind the conscience and devotion of the nation to the religious veneration of the Imperial line in the new Meiji Shrine, whose beauty and simplicity is beyond praise. The identification of a living emperor, however, with Jehovah will be found an impossible task, one may without the least disrespect say, in the face of such an official announcement as was recently made to the effect that the Emperor would have to diminish his active work. "Glucosuria has been observed," said the official bulletin, "hip gout, nervous trouble, along with diffi- culty in speech. His condition has improved but his utterance is not clear. Except in urgent cases, he will refrain from formal duties, such as audiences with foreign diplomats and official ceremonies." It will be interesting to watch the effect upon Buddhism of this tremendous development of Shintoism for politico- religious purposes. It is probably true, as many claim, that Buddhism retains but slight influence among the educated and intelligent classes. Its activities among the people, how- ever, are greater than ever, and nowhere in the world is a greater tribute paid to Christianity and the methods of its propagation than by their unhesitating imitation on the part of Japanese Buddhism. Its claim to the development of a great network of Sunday schools has been subjected, however, to a pretty ruthless criticism by Dr. Reischauer, and the total amount of philanthropic and social service work claimed by the Buddhists themselves in a booklet which they dis- tributed among the foreign delegates to the World's Sunday School Convention in Tokyo cannot compare, though it seems to include the work of forty-six million Buddhists, with the activities of any one of a dozen of our home denominations. How can either Shintoism or Buddhism really meet the needs of inquiring human spirits? What do their own sym- bols confess? All over the world the three monkeys of Nikko, one with his hands over his eyes, a second with his hands over his mouth, a third with his hands over his ears, are supposed to embody the moral warning of Buddhism, to see and speak and hear nothing that we ought not, but what they really symbolize is the doctrine of Buddhism that in this evil and transitory world there is nothing that is worth man's while 14 to hear or say or see. And what is it at which the worshipper arrives in a Shinto shrine when he has come up the long and beautiful passage way between the cryptomeria trees, past the stone foxes, under the many torii, and stands at last where the answer to his long quest is to be found? Nothing but a mirror meets and mocks him there. Shintoism turns the seeker back upon himself and shows nothing but his own longing. It is not strange that both in Buddhism and in Shintoism sect after sect has arisen seeking some new way, and it is not surprising that in Japan today, just as every- where else in the world, the human spirit, foiled in its search, turns aside into oblique ways. Tenrikyo and Konkokyo and now Omotokyo are all evidences that the heart of Japan is still abroad on the great search. All three of these religions were started by ignorant women, and the last, which has made a deep stir in Japan, in the past year is a queer mixture of mysticism, communism, faith healing, and other of the familiar twists and turnings of the human spirit untutored of the Truth. How can the Christian Churches of the West do more to help the Christian Churches of Japan to do their work in the midst of all these new thoughts and groping movements in present day Japan? Whatever these Japanese churches ask of us we ought to do. Since Baron Motoda wrote to Prince Iwakura, the Christian Churches have grown from one to twelve hundred and the membership from a mere handful to one hundred and thirty thousand on the rolls of the Protestant churches alone. These churches have already supplied Japan with scores and hundreds of its ablest and most useful men. Uemura, Ebina, Kozaki, Hiraiwa, Hibiki, Morimura, Ebara, Yamamuro, Ibuka, Imai, Miyagawa, and scores of others are Christian names, the peers of any in any land. I should like to speak at length of many of these and others like Justice Watanabe of the Supreme Court of Korea, Judge Mitsui who deals with juvenile delinquents in Tokyo, Taro Ando and Sho Nemoto, the reformers, and Mr. Tagawa, vice mayor of Tokyo who spoke the truth though it meant imprisonment. It is an inspiration to see the strength and courage and com- petence of these Churches in Japan, to behold their order, their friendly federations, and their sympathetic cooperation with the foreign missions. The present is the day of all days for the churches at home to support these Churches and Mis- sions in Japan by enabling them to put forth the maximum of direct evangelistic effort and to use to the limit every oppor- tunity of press and school. The new Woman's Union College 15 in Tokyo should receive in America and in Japan all it needs. The more liberal attitude of the Government towards Chris- tian schools should be unstintedly utilized. The signs of a freer day are found on every side. At Shimonoseki, where for many years the Mission Girls' School had been accustomed to annual threats of violence, this year honor has descended upon it at the hands both of governor and of mayor. The governor caused a celebration in memory of the thirtieth anni- versary of the introduction of the Imperial Rescript on Edu- cation, and with due ceremony presented to all those who had taught in Yamaguchi over thirty years a beautiful page of language and a splendid box made of the original Yama- guchi lacquer. Miss Bigelow came second in the list of five. At Commencement time the mayor used Miss Bigelow, her "great age" and marvelous energy, as a theme for an address in one of the public schools, holding her up as an example for the youth of this district to follow. In Fukui at a recent exhibit at the Girl's High School there were found among the pictures made by the girls an unusual number of Christian subjects — copies of Madonnas, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the infant Samuel ; pictures not only of Westminster Abbey and Rheims Cathedral, but also one of a humble country church with the caption "Religion is the Basis of Civilization." The place of honor in this same room was given to the three large pictures of the world's great religious leaders, the Lord Jesus Christ occupying the central, most conspicuous position. Shall Christ have this place not in the Fukui High School exhibit only but in all the life of Japan? S. S. Dilwara, China Sea, Sept. 15, 1921. 16 II. CHINA PAGE 1. The Confusion and Distress of China 19-26 2. The Great Gate of China 27-31 3. The Forces of New Life in Nanking 32-35 17 II. CHINA I. THE CONFUSION AND DISTRESS OF CHINA We had unusual opportunity in crossing the Pacific on the "Empress of Asia" to hear statements of fact and expressions of judgment with regard to present conditions in China from many of the men at work there, both in missionary service and in other capacities, who have the most authoritative knowledge of the situation and who are most competent to express opinions regarding it. Their general attitude of mind was one of unlimited confidence and respect with regard to the Chinese people and of unqualified hopelessness regarding the present national government in Peking. This they repre- sented to be financially, politically and morally bankrupt. Those who knew the facts authoritatively stated that the central government was now receiving no revenues whatever from the provinces. During the Taiping Rebellion seventy years ago the revenues from the Yangtse valley and Southern China had been cut off, but now Peking was receiving practi- cally nothing from anywhere. The government schools, in- cluding the ambitious and hopeful university in Peking, were all closed, the teachers had received no pay since last October. No money was going to the Chinese ministers abroad who were in consequence obliged to support themselves and one of whom had had to mortgage his home in Tien Tsin in order to maintain his legation. The receipts from foreign customs and the salt gabelle were all mortgaged to pay the interest on the foreign debt, and much of this is now in arrears. In 1918 China borrowed from Japan $150,000,000 gold, all of it ostensibly under government obligations which cannot be re- pudiated. One-half of this, however, was unsecured and is now long overdue, both capital and interest, to Japanese banks. None of this money had been a benefit to China. Much of it had been stolen by the three members of the cabinet who were forced out by the uprising of the students supported by Chinese public opinion, but the thieves carried their plunder with them and were now building great harems in Peking. And there was no public sentiment to recover their loot and to enforce their punishment. On the other hand, corruption in oflflce was more flagrant and more excessive than it had ever been, even under the Manchus. The real government of the nation, it was recognized in these conferences on the "Empress," was in the hands of 19 the three great military lords who in spite of the presence in the cabinet of a few good men like Dr. Yen, the minister of foreign affairs, gave orders to the President and the Governors and were obeyed. A good part of the money which Peking had borrowed and what revenues it might now expect from Northern China were absorbed by these three men for their own profit or for the support of their harmful armies. Only a few weeks ago these three, Chang tso lin, the high commis- sioner of Manchuria, Tsao kun, the military governor of Chih-li province, and Wang chan yuan, military governor of Hupeh province summoned the Prime Minister to Tien Tsin and gave him their orders as though they were China. While we were in China, it was reported that Chang tso lin, after having received more than four million dollars for work that he was appointed to do as high commissioner of Mongolia, had coolly pocketed the money and resigned the commission. No one had a good word to say for any member of this trium- virate. Though they held China in their control, they were believed to be destitute of any idea of patriotism or any ideal of true progress for China. Men from many different provinces who were on board the "Empress" lamented that they could say nothing more hopeful regarding their own provinces, even such great and self- contained provinces as Szechuen, than had been said of the national government. There were a few exceptions. From this black plight of China the man who knew the national situation best and who was not a missionary said that he saw only three paths of escape. The first is international intervention, which some allege Japan is seeking secretly to bring about in the conviction that America might be brought to assent to it, and then in accordance with her policy of self-absorption would leave the actual control of affairs in China to Japan. We were surprised to discover in Japan, however, that the Japanese papers were attributing this policy to America and especially to Mr. Hoover, and were strongly opposing it, as assuredly the intelligent and patriotic men of China would oppose it. The second solution would be the emergence of a strong, ruthless, courageous, patriotic, unselfish, and righteous dictator, but all agreed that there is no such man, and that a dictatorship is not a good democratic school. The third solution, said this competent observer, was the slow regenera- tion of China or the development of enough honest and un- selfish men to lead the country, by the transforming influences of the Gospel. This was the dark diagnosis of China's present condition, 20 which was given to us in advance. In China, however, in con- tact with the swiftly moving forces which are now at work, and feeling all the while beneath us the great solid mass of the Chinese people, brighter views soon emerged. Economically China has been on the verge of ruin many times before. In 1909 the London Graphic declared that China was "steadily drifting toward bankruptcy" and that only superhuman efforts could save her. The present financial con- ditions of the national government are disgraceful, but they are due wholly to corruption and incompetence and not to the poverty or lack of resources of a nation whose wealth has hardly begun to be developed. If China has been able to main- tain four hundred million people on vegetables and grains, what will she not be able to do when she develops the possi- bilities of animal and mineral wealth and introduces manu- factures and roads? Roads alone, which she has wholly lacked in the past, would go a long way to unifying China and setting in living motion her sluggish blood. Already the rail- roads are coming and in city after city one can now hear the wheels of that vast latent industry of China begin to stir whose thunder will some day fill the whole world. When I first saw Shanghai, I doubt whether a cotton factory or silk filature had yet been built. Six years ago when we were here the cotton mills stretched in a long line along the Whang Poo river. Now mill after mill with the most modern machi- nery has been added and great silk filatures have gone up. Alas, they are not providing rational employment for men and women only but are sucking the life blood of China's children. There is no more vivid illustration of these bound- less economic possibilities of China which banish the idea of a real national bankruptcy than the city of Nantungchow, whose Natoon Embroidery, Lace and Needlework Shop has been opened on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Here in a city of 150,000, a hundred miles from Shanghai, and in a dis- trict of a million and a half people, Chinese enterprise and integrity alone are no^y producing annually a million bales of the best grade of cotton in China; have built more than fifty miles of modern roads, two modern cotton mills with sixty thousand spindles, five hundred looms and three thousand operators, a modern cotton seed oil mill, a match factory, a flour mill, a silk filature, an iron foundry, an electric light plant, and a modern agricultural college; have established cotton and sericulture experiment stations and schools of in- struction, five modern banks, three hundred and thirty-four schools of more than twenty thousand students, and a direct 21 steamer line to Shanghai; and are projecting hundreds of miles of new roads, seven new cotton mills, coal mines, and the reclamation of thousands of acres of flooded lands along the Yangtse. These are but the beginnings of what is coming. The economic peril of China is not bankruptcy but commer- cialism. The political situation also takes on a more hopeful aspect as one feels the swelling forces of the nation at a distance from the corruption and despair of Peking. A most interest- ing movement is going on. It is the deliberate purpose and endeavor of the men who are controlling the local and provin- cial life of China to break up or to ignore the present national government in Peking and also the rival southern government in Canton, which is not acknowledged beyond Kwangtung province and which has not displaced the separate provincial government. These leaders are bent upon setting up in each province a separate and independent provincial government with its own constitution and civil officials duly elected by the people, and then to federate these provincial governments in one national federal government. This is not a new ideal. This very issue arose at the beginning of the Republic in 1911. It was fought over in the first parliament in 1913 between the Peiyang military party which looked up to Yuan Shih Kai, and the revolutionary party, later transformed into Kuomintang, headed by Sun Yat Sen. Thanks to the Tuchuns or military governors established in each province by Yuan Shih Kai, side by side with and always checking the civil gov- ernors, the policy of the military centralizationists has thus far prevailed. There has now appeared, however, a group of Tuchuns like General Wu, General Feng, known as the Christian general because of his outspoken Christian char- acter and enthusiastic evangelism. General Chow, and General Chen, who appear to be in hearty sympathy with the idea of provincial civil self-government. Within the last few weeks they appear to have disposed of General Wang, one of the three unprincipled war lords, and the Federationists now claim that their cause has prevailed and that they have per- fected their political organization, at least in its incipiency, in Hunan, Szechuen, Kweichow and Chekiang, and that Kwangsei and Hupeh are now preparing their constitutions in their provincial legislatures and will soon join the ranks of the self-governing provinces. The aims of the whole move- ment have been distinctly stated by one of its advocates as follows : "The provincial self-government movement in the present 22 form may be defined as an endeavor on the part of each province to substitute constitutional government for arbitrary- military rule with the ultimate aim of uniting China into a Federation of self-governing provinces, independent of and supplanting the activities of Peking and Canton. Its scope can be said to include the following: (1) compilation of a provincial constitution; (2) abolition of tuchun system; (3) abstention from entanglement with the policy of unification adopted by Peking and the cause of the constitution upheld by Canton; (4) promotion of self-government in provinces that are still under military control; (5) a temporary, in- formal alliance of self-governing provinces for mutual pro- tection; (6) federation of self-governing provinces in the end "The ultimate aim is, a federation of self-government provinces. As to the advisability of making China into a federal state, the federalists argue that the unwieldly size of the country, the historical positions of the provinces, the wide differences in geography, climate, the temperament of the people and local interests, and the futility of uniting China with force, all tend to show that union is possible only through federation. At present a federation is gradually becoming a reality and under the existing conditions there is possibly no better way of uniting the country than through a federa- tion of self-governing provinces." Whether in this or in some other way it may be possible to forestall the impending ruin and disintegration of China as a nation is a question which hangs on other questions. Can the abysmal corruption of China be cured? The Chinese Classics declare that man is born virtuous, and probably no other people have ever been educated for so many centuries under a high theoretical morality, and yet a foreigner who lived for a generation in China and who had the greatest affec- tion and respect for the noble qualities of the people, in a series of articles which he wrote several years ago for the National Revietv of China did not hesitate to speak of the stern realities of their life as "so vicious, so falsehearted, and so corrupt as never to have been surpassed in the whole human record. . . . Chicanery, subtlety, cunning, sharp practice, knavery, artfulness, intrigue ... all these have become an integral part of the nature of countless millions of Chinese and this in spite of the teaching of the sages. . . . Duplicity and hypocrisy march hand in hand, lying and deceit become virtues, and bribery and corruption as inevitable as the handling of pitch." These are the judgments of the kindly spir- 23 ited George Lanning, for many years principal of the Shang- hai PubHc School. He would offset them by many admiring judgments of the strength and industry and worth of the Chinese, but he would qualify them little if at all in their application to Chinese official life. Bad as other nations have been, China seems to surpass them all in graft and official corruption. It has been estimated that not more than ten or fifteen per cent of the native collection of revenue ever reached the Imperial treasury. The last ten years of the Re- public have offered even greater opportunities than the offi- cials enjoyed under the Manchus. The money which China has borrowed from other nations has been filched by" her own public servants, and as yet no public opinion has been devel- oped which would call the thieves to judgment. It is even alleged, although I do not know with what truth, that of twenty million dollars collected from the heavy tax imposed on telegrams, railroad tickets, etc., to be applied to famine relief, only four million dollars have ever been paid over to help the starving, and the tax is still being collected. The Shanghai Weekly Review, in its issue of August 20th, charged openly, that Mr. Yen of Kalgan had promised to pay the min- istry of finance two hundred thousand dollars a year for dues to be levied as transit taxes on goods on the Peking-Suiyuan Railway, in return for which he would get, as director of customs at Kalgan, a profit of more than one hundred times that much. The collectors of this tax who were ostensibly receiving twelve dollars a month salary were actually making more than twenty thousand dollars a year. On such rotten- ness no new China can be built up. Can this corruption be cured ? The second question follows obviously. Can the character of the Chinese people sustain an honest and righteous national life? Have they become under centuries of impotent, moral- istic teaching and the pressure of a struggle for existence un- checked by adequate spiritual sympathies and by a sense of social duty, and pulled downward by sin and upward by no sufficient saving power, so weak, so incapable of common trust and unselfish co-operation that they are beyond all hope? Those who know them best and who realize most clearly their weaknesses would be the last to admit this. In spite of the dishonesty and corruption of the tens of millions of the idlers and drones whose indolence is as conspicuous in China as the industry of its toilers, in spite of the fiction at the roots of Chinese family life which exalts filial piety but performs its duties only to the dead, in spite of all that is hopeless and 24 degrading, those who know the Chinese believe that there is in them still the best raw material to be found in the world to subject to the regenerating and transforming power of Christ. ; « — In the third place, can a body of new leaders be raised up in China who will have the character, power, courage, and the readiness for sacrifice which will be required in them? It was at first hoped that the young Chinese educated abroad, now forming a distinct group known as returned students, might form this leadership. Some real leaders have indeed come from them, but most of these young have been separated too far from the body of the nation. They lack experience of life, especially Chinese life, which is the condition of in- fluence. And too many of them have been silenced by the easy device of small official position. Still in the little group of such men on the "Empress of Asia," one could not doubt that there were some whose Christian character and un- doubted abilities would make them useful servants of China and of the Christian Church. But as in every other nation, the real leaders of China must be trained in schools on its own soil. The national schools are just now closed, but the provinces are projecting modern education on a new scale. Kwangtung province is specially enterprising, and its educa- tional commission has adopted a scheme of compulsory educa- tion for the province, and the governor has authorized co- education at the request of the Canton Women's Union, an organization which has procured for women "equal privilege in getting appointments as clerks, inspectors, and to other positions in the national (i. e. provincial) assembly as well as in the railroad and other offices in Canton." The first provin- cial election in this province was held last August when women who desired to vote were not excluded and at least one of them will occupy a seat in the district council of Huengshan. However great the extension of government schools in China, however, the Chinese will not be able financially nor, it is believed, will they be willing on principle, to attempt to make of education a government monopoly. If Japan has found it necessary and desirable to relax its bureaucratic educational system and to allow a far wider range of liberty to private education, it is certain that China will be willing to do so, and the recent experience and investigation of some of the higher Christian schools seems to indicate that there is no necessity and no advantage in the registration now of mis- sion educational institutions in the government system. It is a question whether there is any government system as yet, 25 and the present hold of the mission schools on the confidence and support of the people is so great that all over China they are crowded to their fullest capacity. It would be difficult to exaggerate their present opportunity or the great service which may be rendered in the increase of their efficiency and adaptiveness by the judicious and sympathetic council and support of the Educational Commission which the Foreign Missions Council of North America has sent out. The fourth question which to the missionary faith is no open question at all relates to the power of the missionary enterprise under God's blessing to plant here in China the tree "whose leaves are for the healing of the nations." Some foolish and careless words regarding the missionary body in China have been spoken recently by visitors from whom they might least have been expected. Mr. Lanning's judgment is far more reliable: "The missionary body (in China) as a whole stands out in bold relief as the noblest, bravest, most altruistic, and best of all bodies of men that exist or ever did exist. . . . The Christian religion has been brought to China by a body of men and women never before surpassed for no- bility of character or greatness of aim. . . . It is quite as much due to them as to any other single cause that China today is thoroughly awake. To them is due that new desire which is already re-energizing the old forces. To them and to their native successors . . . will be given more and more of the power that will shape the future of China." Everywhere one sees today evidences of the way Christian faith and truth are striking down and striking out through Chinese life. The very terms in which the Christian ideas are expressed, which at first of necessity were so crude and inadequate, are being transformed or replaced by expressions which more ade- quately utter the Gospel. The Chinese Church is full of a new life and vigor of its own. There is no barrier that we need to fear anywhere in the way of the immediate evangelization of China. The evangelistic opportunity which the two great- est department stores, the Sincere Company and the Wing On Company, allow their employees every Sunday morning while business is suspended and a preaching service is held, are only a symbol of the wide-open door everywhere. There remains the last question — will the nations allow China time? And as to the Church, has she waited too long? Does she intend longer to wait? Once again the summons which the Chinese Christians brought to Archdeacon Moule in the days of the Taipings sounds forth as clear as the call of God, "Now is the opportunity, strike while the iron is hot." S. S. Dilwara, China Sea, September 10, 1921. 26 2. THE GREAT GATE OF CHINA For the past week we have been watching with fascinated interest the huge tides of various race and diverse purpose which flow in and out through Shanghai, the great gate of China. It is China's commercial gateway. In 1920 the trade of the United States with China amounted to $357,000,000, and 49';,' of it was with Shanghai. Here are the headquarters of almost all the great trading companies and banks. Hong Kong is the head office of the greatest of the banks, the Hong Kong and Shanghai, with branches all over the East, but the business of the Shanghai branch far exceeds that of any of the rest, and it is erecting now one of the greatest bank build- ings in the world. It is not trade and wealth alone that pass in and out of Shanghai. This is the gate also of new ideas good and bad, and through it, I suppose, pass nine-tenths of the missionaries who are bearing in with them upon China's life through ail her eighteen provinces, what almost every one whom we meet, whether foreigner or Chinese, now con- cedes to be China's only hope, the regenerating power of the Christian Gospel. Shanghai now has a population of over a million and a half. It is a city of complicated municipal organizations. One-half of the population lives in the International Settlement gov- erned neither by China nor by any foreign nation but by its own municipal council, largely British and American. A quarter of a million of people live in the French Settlement wholly under French control and municipal administration. The remaining three hundred thousand live in the old Chinese city under Chinese government. The security and equal jus- tice of the foreign settlements have drawn thither from all over China much of the enterprise and wealth of the country, driven away by local rapacity and misgovernment. In the five years between the two last census returns the population of Shanghai increased 35'/. When we first visited the city in 1897 and stayed with the late Dr. Farnham, his home at the corner of Szechuen and Range Roads was on the very last outskirts of the city. Now it has grown miles beyond his old home. Houses and gardens equaling any in the world have been built for foreigners and for Chinese and notably for some of the southern Asiatic Jews who acquired immense wealth from the opium traflfic, and extend now far out into the coun- try over what I remember as graveyards and rice fields only 27 a few years ago. Even the great wall around the native city has been pulled down, and a wide avenue with tramways has taken its place. In spite of its many unfavorable physical features it seems clear that Shanghai will be more and more the great gate of China, the doorway into the thought and life of more people than lie behind any other door through which the ships of the world and the feet of men can pass. The foundations of our Presbyterian Missionary work in Shanghai were laid down as soon as the city was opened to foreign residents, and we are carrying on work still on the same site and in the same buildings where the missionaries began. The Mary Farnham School for girls and the Lowrie High School for boys at the South Gate are among the oldest educational institutions of the Christian Missions in China, and their graduates like Dr. T. W. Kwo, president of the Southeastern University of China, and Mr. Bao, head of the Commercial Press, are among the foremost leaders in educa- tion and business. The graduates of the two schools have shown their loyalty in the contributions which they have made for new buildings for both the schools and for the beautiful brick church erected by their own gifts on plans drawn by one of their own elders who was a representative of the Chi- nese Church at the Edinburgh Missionary Conference in 1910. We attended service in the South Gate Church last Sunday morning. It was communion service, and the large church was well filled. The choir was dressed in white vestments, and the elders wore white robes as they distributed the bread and the wine. Little children were baptized, and new members were received with careful counsel and examination before the congregation. We were glad to see and feel the entire independence of the church. The pastor asked no foreign participation. All was in Chinese of course, but the choir sang as an offertory the Twenty-third Psalm in anthem in English with reverence and good taste. Around this South Gate Church are grouped four of the most useful institutions of the Mission, the two schools al- ready mentioned with their lower departments and practice primary schools, the training school for Bible women, and the Nantao Institute, an institutional center nearby in the most crowded and neglected section of the Chinese city where the workers can be provided from the two schools and from this independent and self-supporting South Gate Church, under the able pastorate of Mr. Li, who resigned a profitable business position for the sake of the Christian ministry. Many visi- tors to Shanghai after seeing other mission compounds, pro- 28 tected by lawns and walls from the noise and stench about them, have criticised our Presbyterian Mission at the feouth Gate, where the odors from the canal and the boats which bear away the night soil, and from the pitiful poverty of Chinese life all around, compel new visitors from America to take their lives and their noses in their hands when they visit the South Gate. But where else should mission work be done except among the people where the masses are densest and their need deepest? I am glad that our missionaries have never allowed themselves to be driven away, but have both held fast all that they inherited and have built up a yet greater work for the body and soul of China where the need is greatest. One rejoices to see how all of our work in Shanghai has ful- filled Christ's law of the grain of corn dying to live. From the work at the South Gate, which most foreigners who visit Shanghai never see, hundreds of men and women have gone out to be themselves regenerative forces wherever they have gone. The Presbyterian Missionary Press, the oldest and best mission press in China has done the same kind of service. It trained the men who built and are conducting the Com- mercial Press which is now the greatest printing establish- ment in Asia and which, in the range of its work, exceeds any other printing establishment in the world. It is not only a printing plant but it has a great editorial department produc- ing text books and periodicals, departments of book-binding, orthography, engraving, the manufacture of school furniture, equipment and apparatus of every kind. It has the second largest camera in the world and is now turning out excellent moving pictures. It employs three thousand workers, with a turnover of six million dollars last year, and maintains for its workers many welfare enterprises and has associated with it one of the strongest and most active churches in Shanghai. The growth of many new presses, however, has not diminished the need for the old Mission Press, upon which the Missions throughout China still rely for an increasing volume of work which no commercial press will or can do. And China needs also the illustration which the Mission Press will always give and is giving now of Christian principles applied to business and to the relations of men. If ever nations needed help in the right solution of indus- trial problems, Japan and China need that help today. The factory conditions in the West are still far from what they ought to be, but many of them are beyond praise in compari- son with what one sees in many of the mills here, where little children as young as six work in twelve hour shifts day and 29 night for a wage of ten cents gold, and for seven days a week. Modern factory developments, it must be remembered, also, are just beginning in the Far East. China manufactures as yet only between a half and two-thirds of the cotton goods which she consumes and her consumption is only a fraction of what it is to be, while in the case of many other articles for which she is still dependent on foreign nations, she is sure to develop before long her own manufactories. Where the poverty is so deep and the struggle for life is so fierce, where the economic forces are working with such crudity, and where even such inadequate pities and restraints as we know in the West are undeveloped, the tragedies of the present situation are inevitable, and it is inevitable also that they should deepen the conviction of any one who studies them with regard to the necessity of our finding some new and better order which will not so openly flaunt the justice and the love of God. Shanghai is not only a power house where energies of all nations are pouring in, it is also a city of refuge. Last Sunday afternoon on our way from the South Gate Church and Schools to a large meeting of the most virile life of China in the Y. M. C. A. in the Martyr's Hall, built to commemorate the missionaries who fell in the Boxer uprising, we stopped at the Korean Church. Half a dozen of the Korean pastors including one of the signers of the independence proclamation have fled to Shanghai with some hundreds of simple Christian believers. One's heart went out to the little flock which packed the Korean church building far away from their homes and finding freedom and security behind the generous gate of China. A great community of Russian refugees has also grown up which suffered much hardship at first but has man- fully fitted itself to the new necessities. A bookkeeper em- ployed by one of the mission schools turned out to be a Russian Vice-Admiral. The total number of Europeans and Americans in Shanghai is 18,000. A foreign community like this can be a great bless- ing or a great curse to the land where it is found. Out of this community a great deal of what is strongest and best today is proceeding, and there are many who are seeking to make the influence of these foreign elements still more helpful and wholesome. The American community now numbering two thousand or more has established its own community church and is seeking funds for adequate equipment. We at- tended the service last Sunday afternoon which opened the autumn's work and which packed every seat and all the stand- ing room in the Masonic Hall. The American merchants and 30 missionaries have combined also in establishing for their chil- dren one of the best schools in the Far East, and have bought a site of seventeen acres in the best new section of the city and are seeking to raise now in China and America between one and two hundred thousand dollars gold with which to complete the erection of the first group of buildings. One cannot look upon the American boys and girls gathered in this school representing the finest types of American life with- out longing to have the very best facilities provided. Out of this group ought to come the strongest leaders of the Ameri- can forces which in the future are to help China to reach her own right place among the nations. One thanks God for all the forces that are at work to ofl'set and annul what the presi- dent of the Pacific Association in Shanghai recently declared to be the "indisputable fact that the low moral life which so many foreigners are led into usually against their own better judgments and wills after arriving in China, is a reproach to the nations they represent and a hindrance to the progress of Western civilization in the East." It need not be added that it is a hindrance to the Gospel. But it is inspiring to see in Shanghai the helpful influences, the great mission schools like St. John's University and the Baptist College and the McTeyre (Southern Methodist) School for Girls with their beautiful grounds and buildings, and the co-operative undertakings of the Missions in their common work of translation and of publication through the Bible societies and the Christian Literary Society, and the Mission Book Company. Many of them have now combined their treasury and purchasing work and are uniting their archi- tectural and building work. Shanghai is the inevitable center of co-operation, as necessary as it is desirable, of all the mis- sion forces in China. It is a mistake to think that all this institutional work has displaced evangelization. At least thirty- four missionaries are given wholly to evangelistic work in Shanghai, and the work of the rest is indispensable to evan- gelism. Let the Church at home pray that it may fulfill its functions, and that into all this machinery so admirably pre- pared there may come pouring from on high through the great gate of China the unmeasured and resistless tides of the Spirit of the living God. S. S. Dilwara, China Sea, September 10, 1921. 31 3. THE FORCES OF NEW LIFE IN NANKING The city of Nanking fulfills in one respect at least Mr. Ralph Cram's dream of the ideal unit in the organization of a happy and beautiful human society. It is a walled town. For nearly thirty miles, along the south shore of the Yangtse river, over the slopes of Purple Mountain and up and down across a wide range of broken and now half wild country, stretch the huge walls of the city. There are those who be- lieve that once the whole vast space inclosed within the walls was a settled city, and that the great waste of uninhabited land between the present city and the encompassing walls is the monument of the havoc and ruin wrought by the Taiping rebels who for a dozen years, two generations ago, occupied Nanking as their capital. There are others who find it hard to credit this view and who discover no sufficient evidence that any such enormous population ever filled this ancient capital of China. More probably it was meant to be, according to Mr. Cram's dream, a self containing city, able to shut itself behind its own gates and to sustain itself within its own walls. These are the only two respects, however, in which Nanking can be thought to fulfill the ideal of the walled city. As one looks abroad over it now from the picturesque beauty of the old, red-brick, arched Drum Tower, he sees within the far- circling walls thousands of acres of waste land occupied only by the huge mounds which the Chinese extravagantly set aside from their best soil for the graves of the dead. In the north- west corner of the walled space stands the city, not comparable now in wealth and prosperity with the two heavenly cities, as the Chinese regard them, of Hangchow and Soochow. The shops are poor, and the homes of the wealthy were in large part forsaken on the two occasions, during the struggles which set up the Republic, when Nanking bore the brunt of the fighting. As we saw the city last week, moreover, the heavy floods, which had devastated the country to the north and produced a new inland sea of thousands of square miles over flourishing villages and prosperous farms, had overflowed the ponds and canals of Nanking, and the swamps accentuated the city's need and misfortune. In spite of the sufferings of its past, however, Nanking holds still a central place in Chinese affections, and the pro- posal will recur which has been made again and again in recent years, to remove the capital even from the great splen- 42 dors of Peking and to re-establish it again in the heart of the country on the Yangtse river, the rich artery of the life of China. Even now the city is the terminus of the railroads west from Shanghai and south from Peking through Tsi- nanfu and the province of Shantung. It will be the center of other trunk lines south and west and into the great north- west. Ocean-going ships can ascend the Yangtse and tie up at its docks. The most conspicuous buildings now, outside the walls as one approaches, whether on the river or by rail, are the high concrete factories of a British trading company which buys millions of eggs and ships the separated yokes and whites abroad, and which freezes and exports vast quan- tities of poultry and meats, so teaching the Chinese, who in the past have drawn all their wealth from the vegetable king- dom alone, to turn also to their unlimited possibilities of ani- mal wealth. And as a center for the life-giving influences of Christian Missions, the city offers an unsurpassed oppor- tunity. The Christian Church has not neglected this ODportunity. I have visited Nanking three times, first in 1897, again in 1915, and now this past week, and nothing could be more wonderful and inspiring than the growth of the missions of our own and other churches in all departments of their work in these years. On the most beautiful site within the city, the high hill crowned by the Drum Tower, stand the new buildings of the University in whose various departments the Methodist, Presbyterian, Christian and Baptist Churches are cooperating. Nowhere in China are there more beautiful, and yet substantial and simple buildings. The central admin- istration building was given by Mr. John L. Severance and his sister, Mrs. Prentiss, in memory of their father, the sci- ence building by Mr. Ambrose Swazey, the dormitories by Mrs. McCormick, and the chapel by the Sage bequest and Mr. Day. The buildings are ideally adapted for their uses, solidly built of the great bricks which had been brought from all over China for the walls of the Manchu city inside Nanking, and preserve the roof lines of Chinese architecture. The chapel was also decorated by Chinese artists, and a beginning has been made at least of transfusing old Chinese symbolism with Christian meaning, even as the Christian Church in Europe strove to bring the old life under the regenerative power of Christ. The University conducts one of the two best schools in China for the teaching of the language to new missionaries. It brings the teaching of the Bible in daily chapel and regular 33 3 — India and Persia Bible classes to bear upon the lives of all its six hundred students. It has perhaps the very best forestry and agri- cultural school in China to which the Government has offered official registration. It is helping the people to fight the enemies of their cotton and silk worms and to improve the quality and quantity of their product. It has excellent pre- theological and pre-medical courses, and one of the best organ- ized and equipped libraries in English and Chinese of any of the Christian institutions in China. It is developing a school of commerce supported by the Chinese, and conducts a large hospital whose superintendent has just been invited to Peking to become superintendent of the hospital of the China Medical Board's School. It enjoys in a special degree the good will of the Chinese Christians, some of whose ablest leaders are on its board of managers. It has furnished many of the best teachers for the new Southeastern Chinese University. A short distance away on the rolling hills is the new site of Ginling College for women, the first and as yet the largest Christian college for women in China, maintained by five mission boards with the co-operation of Smith College. The ground has already been broken for the first buildings, the college meanwhile going on with its work with overcrowded rooms in an old Chinese residence belonging to the family of Li Hung Chang. Double the present capacitv could be filled with Chinese girls. Indeed everywhere in China today the Christian schools are packed to their fullest capacity. The women in Ginling are going ahead with their enterprise in faith, believing that the balance needed to complete the first necessary group of buildings will be provided as the work goes on. From the tower of Severance Hall which the Chinese re- joice to see closely adjoining the Drum Tower and overtopping the Japanese consulate on the neighboring hill, one can look out over the whole of Nanking city and see the yellow flow of the Yangtse and the slopes of Purple .Mountain with a new forest growing up which was set out by the University as part of the relief work of revolutionary days. It is amazing to see the growth and the present splendid equipment in churches, evangelistic halls, and schools of the different mis- sions. And it is inspiring to go down into the city and see their work and the work of the Chinese Christian forces : the Union Theological Seminary supported by the Christians and by the Methodists and Presbyterians, North and South; the united evangelistic work under Dr. Price ; the great industrial orphanage conducted single-handed by a quiet little Chinese 34 woman, Mrs. Cho; the beautiful schools, denominational and inter-denominational, for the training of Bible women. The leading Chinese educator of the city and one of the leaders of the nation is a Christian man, educated in the Lowrie High School at the South Gate, Shanghai, and at Columbia Uni- versity, Dr. P. W. Kwo, who is head of the government nor- mal school and of the new Southeastern University. No one can doubt that the forces of a new life have been released in Nanking. The sight of what has been done there gives one a new conception of the power of motive and of the power of achievement which are found in Christ. S. S. Dilwara, China Sea, Sept. 14, 1921. 35 III. PAST THE CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD We left Shanghai on September 9th on an old faithful ship of the P. and 0. For nearly forty years it had been plying in the waters of Asia, and it was redolent of the East. The smells of garlic and ghee; the Goanese stewards; the Lascar firemen and crew; the Chinese ship's carpenters; the little group of passengers so diverse in character and nationality, Japanese cotton buyers bound for Bombay, an English actress, two Indian silk and jewel merchants returning from Manila to Hyderabad in Sind, a little Eurasian girl going home to Singapore from a convent in Shanghai, British business men, a Spanish Dominican priest; the languor of the air; the junks and fishing boats; and the very stars above us were all part of this far-oflf Eastern life whose memories cling forever to those who have felt its spell. Day after day we slipped down across the quiet waters of the China Sea resembling nothing so much as the slumber of a little child, moving scarcely more than a little child stirs in its sleep. The flying fish played across the surface of the sea. The burning sun shone down each day through thin, filmy clouds which neither hid its brightness nor checked its heat. As the sun went down in crimson and opal, pale green and brown, behind the China coastline, dimly seen, with great junks silhouetted against its red eye, while other junks like huge, gray moths flitted past in the whitish blackness of the coming night, one could almost feel the heaving pulse-beat of the world. "Father," I said to the Dominican priest as we leaned over the rail watching the sunset, "that is argument enough for God." "Yes," he replied, "no man could ever paint like that." The Lascar sailors would be ranged in two rows on the after hatches each evening with an old gray-bearded leader before them, saying their prayers toward Mecca. And day by day we dropped down toward the ports where the ships of the world meet and pass at the crossing highways of the seas. We spent our two days while the ship lay at Hong Kong in conference with missionaries from the Philippines and Canton. General Wood had just come in from Manila where he Jiad had a hearty welcome and where we were told there was the most cordial satisfaction at his appointment as gov- 36 ernor of the Islands. The Philippine missionaries are already- carrying on in Manila a successful Union Theological Training School, and are considering, in the hope that the home boards may be able to approve, a plan for the establishment of a union Christian college in Manila. The problems of the Canton missionaries were the problems also of expansion and growth. Nowhere else in China perhaps or in the Far East have the people themselves been so willing to give both equipment and support for Christian enterprises as the Chinese in Canton, and the city is full now of new life and enterprise, and of eagerness to establish and to carry forward the undertakings required for the new day in China. The linguistic and tem- peramental differences of South China make many of its prob- lems distinct. It is exhilarating to any one who remembers the Canton of a generation ago to note the place which the Christian forces are occupying in its life today. Our ship took on two thousand tons of rice in Singapore which had come down from Siam and which was to be de- livered in Ceylon where a rice shortage which had required careful rationing was just coming to an end. The four days necessary for this gave us good opportunities to visit again the faithful and difficult and fruitful work of the American Methodist Missions, their admirable press and book room, the best in Singapore, the Anglo-Chinese School with two thousand boys, corresponding schools for girls, a training school for evangelists and preachers. On the highest hills overlooking Singapore and the Strait the Methodists have acquired a site of eighty acres for their projected college and university. The site commands a noble view in every direc- tion. Eastward one looks down on the whole of Singapore and its great harbor of ships scarcely less numerous than those of Hong Kong. Northward are the hills of Johore and the far stretches of the Malay Peninsula. Westward across the Strait of Malacca lies the long island of Sumatra with its rich resources and its high mountains rising up 9,000 feet. The college plans are in abeyance now as some of the most generous of the Straits Chinese contributors are affected by the slump in rubber and tin which has brought economic depression to the whole colony and to the Malay Federated States. As in so many other mission stations so in Singapore, men and women are trying to carry double and treble loads, and especially in the problem of the evangelization of the Mohammedan Malays they are certainly dealing with one of the hardest of all the missionary tasks of the world. We sailed into Colombo harbor within the shelters of the 37 breakwaters just as the sun was going down. It was good to see a Christian Church spire standing up as one of the most conspicuous landmarks of the city. The delay in Singa- pore cost us all the visit that we had planned in Ceylon, and we left our boat, to unload the two thousand tons of rice and to carry on to Bombay a million ounces of silver, which it had brought from Shanghai to add to the millions of dollars worth of silver and gold which are buried in crocks or treas- ure houses or anklets and bracelets and Indian jewelry. Within an hour we were on our way northward for the ferry which after the night's ride carried us over in the early morning to India. I clipped from the Times of Ceylon the day of our arrival, September 27th, the account of a social service at Moratuwa, near Colombo, where the Korallawella Literary and Improvement Society had just held its first anni- versary. Protestants, Roman Catholics and Buddhists had attended. "The Rev. Pandit Malalankara spoke," so the news- paper account stated, "and paid a high tribute to the Chris- tians of the town who, he said, were far more advanced and enlightened than those of his own creed. The lower strata of people, he said, were mostly composed of Buddhists and were very strongly addicted to drink and consequent evils. He appealed to his Christian friends to make a common fight and abolish two taverns which were entirely responsible for crime, litigation and misery." We landed on the sandy, barren point of the Indian penin- sula. It was interesting to see Christian churches almost as soon and as numerous as the Hindu temples or shrines in the little villages to which we came. The churches were the fruit- age of the work of the Roman Catholic Missions, and even those who criticised the work and its methods for their com- promises with caste and other evils were nevertheless clear in their opinion that, just as Pandit Malalankara had testified in Ceylon, the Christian communities were on a distinctly higher level than the non-Christian communities from which they had been drawn. We came soon upon very attractive little substations bearing the sign of an elephant and the name of the Standard Oil Company, trim and neat and cleanly painted as are such Standard Oil outposts the world over, but we were glad that we had come first on Christian churches and to remember that they had been there long in advance of the coming of any commercial agency. There are types of Hindu religious life and of Dravidian temple art and architecture in Southern India which are not to be found elsewhere. And some of the oldest and most 38 fruitful mission work in India is found in the extreme south. Our chief purpose in going into India in this way, however, was to visit the school for missionary children at Kodaikanal, and one is tempted to say that it would be worthwhile to go to India for such a visit alone. Leaving the railroad an hour north of Madura by motor, we had a twenty mile ride across a hot plain over a red road shaded, however, as so many of the Indian roads are, by the overarching foliage of great trees in which the monkeys were playing. The village folk were just coming home from the fields in the evening time. The village wells were surrounded with the women and girls with their water jars. The bullocks and buffaloes were resting after the day's toil. The smoke of the little wood or weed or cow-dung fires filled the air. At Battalunda we passed the neat little church and bungalow of the American Board sta- tion. Just as darkness fell, we began the thirty-mile climb from Madura plain seven thousand feet up the Palni Hills. The next morning from Coaker's Walk, without a cloud hid- ing our view, we looked down six thousand feet upon the whole southern end of India. Just below us, rich in vegeta- tion and fruitfulness, lay the hundreds of square miles once arid and bare, now watered by the Peryar Project which brought a useless river, which from time immemorial had run westward into the Arabian Sea, through a great tunnel in the ghats, stored it in a huge reservoir, and spread it out with its life giving fertility over the plain. More appealing even than the Peryar Project, however, was the school where in this health giving place nearly a hundred American children were receiving the sort of training both of mind and body which would prepare them for college life at home, and receiv- ing it under influences designed to strengthen in them the purpose and desire to come back to give their lives to mis- sionary service in India. It is hard to conceive of any piece of work more necessary, more appealing, and more fruitful than this Kodaikanal School. After the bracing tonic air of Kodaikanal, the September weather of Madras is a depressing let-down, and we found the colleges closed for a fortnight's holiday because of the Hindu religious festival of Durga Puja. Madras Christian College, associated with the great name of William Miller, still living in an honored old age in Edinburgh, has been for a generation a lighthouse of Christian influence and teaching, and the new Union Christian College for women gives every promise of filling a place of equal honor and usefulness. It is a beautiful compound, on the bank of a little river in a 39 lovely section of Madras, which the women of the British and American missionary societies co-operating have secured. The whole student body is Christian, and Miss McDougal and Miss Coons and their associates are seeking to stamp the college from the beginning with the right spirit and the true ideals. Some of the oldest churches in India are in Madras. The church in the fort is the oldest Protestant church building in the country, and it bears on its wall the magnificent tribute to the old missionary, Schwartz, placed there by the East India Company. In the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Thome is the reputed grave of St. Thomas, the Apostle, and on the wall is a marble tablet containing the names of the priests who in succession have said mass on the spot for three hundred years. On the Esplanade opposite the High Court buildings is the handsome brownstone building of the Young Men's Christian Association which stands as a monument to the energy of Mr. David McConaughy, its first secretary. It is a long, tedious ride over the low plains from Madras to Calcutta. I looked out with most interest for the Godavary river which brings down to the sea the waters of the Wain- gunga, where Mowgli lived and the scenes of the Jungle Books were set, where Mowgli and Akela's wolves fought their Ho- meric battle with the red dogs of the Dekkan, where Shere Khan met his merited fate under the hoofs of the buffaloes, and where Messua dwelt. There is much in Calcutta to remind one of Shanghai, and strong missions both of the British and American churches are carrying on some of the best educational and evangelistic work in India. Our greatest interest, however, was to make another pilgrimage to Serampore to see again the founda- tions which William Carey had laid with a faith and courage which could be the gift of God alone, and to stand with bared heads by the graves of Carey and Marshman and Ward and to reflect upon what they had achieved and what, even yet, we too may achieve, if like them we attempt the things that are great and endure in the faith of the Invisible. East Indian Railway, Oct. 12, 1921. 40 IV. INDIA PAGE 1. History of Our India Missions 43-53 2. Letters from the Stations 54-113 (1) The City of False Gods 54 (2) The Cradle of Christianity in the Punjab 57 (3) The Place of Serpents 60 (4) Kodoli and Islampur 63 (5) The Two Stations of the Konkan 67 (6) Where the Kolhapur Mission Began 70 (7) Teaching and Healing in the Southern Marathi Country 73 (8) Lucknow and Cawnpore 76 (9) Fatehpur, Etawah and Mainpuri 80 (10) On Sacred Ground at Fatehgarh 83 (11) By the Ganges Canal and the Great Trunk Road 87 (12) "Unto the Hills" 90 (13) The City of St. Haroun 93 (14) Ambala and Santokh Majra 97 (15) JuUundur and Hoshiarpur 100 (16) The Village Work in India 104 (17) Lahore 107 (18) Gwalior and Jhansi 110 3. Some Aspects of the Present Political Environment of the Church and Missions in India 114-134 4. Some Aspects of the Present Economic and Religious En- vironment of the Church in India 135-170 5. Problems of the Church and of Evangelization 171-253 (1) Relations between the Foreign Missions and the Indian Church 171 A. Early History of the Question 171 B. Correspondence between the Four Allahabad Brethren and the Board 178 C. The Saharanpur Conference 179 D. Discussion of Saharanpur Conference Report 184-215 a. Expressions of Churches and Christian Communities 184 b. Various Group Conferences 186 c. Actions of the Missions, the Presbyteries and the India Council 199 E. General Observations on the Situation 215-253 (2) The Relation of the Indian Church to Political Problems 231 (3) The Mass Movement 235 (4) A New Aspect of the Movement toward Church Union 243 (5) The Nationalistic Ideal of the Church 251 6. Some Aspects of the Problem of Missionary Education in India 254-303 (1) The General Situation 254 (2) The Conscience Clause 259 (3) The Relation of Missions to Government 275 (4) The Problems of our Mission Colleges 277 (5) High Schools 282 (6) Village Schools 287 (7) Theological, Agricultural and Industrial Schools.... 290 (8) The Christian Influence of our Educational Work.. 292 (9) Non-Christian Teachers 299 (10) Schools for Missionaries' Children 302 7. Some General Observations Regarding our India Missions. 304-312 41 IV. INDIA 1. HISTORY OF OUR MISSIONS IN INDIA The first missionaries of our Church to India sailed from Philadelphia on the "Star," on the 30th of May, 1833. The party consisted of the Rev, John C. Lowrie and the Rev. William Reed and their wives. "Never, it is believed," says the Second Annual Report of the Western Foreign Missionary Society, which sent them, "was the mind of the Christian pub- lic in that city more deeply interested in the foreign mission- ary enterprise." And Dr. Irenaeus Prime has told of the crowd of students at Princeton Theological Seminary, whose shouts aroused him as he lay sick, and whose meaning was explained to him, when he arose to inquire, by the words, "Lowrie is off for India." Lowrie and Reed were the first missionaries who offered their services to go abroad, and they were received under the care of the Society, January 16, 1832, and the Presbyteries to which they belonged, New Castle and Huntingdon, undertook their support. Leaving Philadelphia, on May 30th, of the following year, they reached Calcutta on October 15th. Mrs. Lowrie had been ill on embarking, and failed rapidly on the voyage. She died and was buried in Calcutta on November 21st, "there to proclaim as she sleeps on India's distant shores," as the Report of the Society un- dauntedly declares, "the compassion of American Christians for its millions of degraded idolaters; and to invite others from her native land to come and prosecute the noble under- taking in which she fell." Shortly after, Mr. Reed's health began to fail, and on July 23, 1834, he and Mrs. Reed sailed for America. He died at sea and was buried in the Bay of Bengal, near the Andaman Islands. The solitary survivor of this little band was not dismayed, and as socm as he could wisely proceed he passed on alone into the far northwest, where no missionary had ever gone, to lay there the foundations of the great missions of his Church. Of course there had been Protestant missionaries in India for many years. The first ones were two Pietist students from Halle, Ziegenbalg and Plutschau, sent to Tranquebar in 1706, by Frederick IV of Denmark. One of their greatest successors was Schwartz, a man trusted and beloved by all, foreigners and natives alike. The first American missionaries were the fruit of the work of the little band that under the shelter 43 of the haystack at Williamstown resolved in prayer "to effect in their own persons a mission to the heathen." Judson, Gor- don, Hall and Nott, began the work in 1812, the former in Burmah, and Hall and Nott in Bombay. To the northwest of Benares, however, in the regions to and beyond which Mr. Lowrie desired to go, there were only five missionaries, at Chu- nar, Allahabad, Delhi, Meerut, and Agra. Carey, Marshman, and Duff, were among the missionaries Mr. Lowrie met in Calcutta, and they sympathized with his desire to press on into the untouched fields. The home Church, as in the case of the Africa Mission, was not content with small plans. Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Thibet, were fields which it ex- pected to enter, and even Eastern Persia. There was a great optimism about the beginnings of our missionary enterprise ; some of it not justified by subsequent experience — for ex- ample, the opinion that Islam was peculiarly tolerant in the lands beyond India, and that India was on "the eve of a great revolution in its religious prospects." Two missionaries sail- ing in 1837 were actually designated for Kashmir and Afghan- istan. Yet it was not a careless or small-hearted optimism. There was a Christian large-mindedness about all their de- signs. With the party of new missionaries which went in 1834, the Hon. Walter Lowrie, whose son had established the Mission, sent a valuable set of philosophical apparatus for the use of a high school, with the hope that "by the bless- ing of Heaven it might prove the means of undermining the false systems of philosophy adopted by the heathen, and con- sequently their false systems of religion, with which their philosophy is intimately if not inseparably connected." With large minded ambition, fashioned after that of the great apostle who made it his aim to preach the Gospel not where Christ had already been named, but where no tidings of Him had come, the lonely missionary started from Calcutta, for the far northwest. "There were few facilities in those days for communication between one part of the country and another. The Grand Trunk Road, which began at Calcutta, and in after years extended all the way to Peshawur, reached, at the time now referred to, only as far as Barrackpore, a few miles from Calcutta. In the absence of regular roads, such as wheeled carriages required for easy locomotion, the first missionaries had to make their way up the country in palanquins, or by the more tedious process of sailing up the Ganges in native boats, which, except when there was a favor- able wind, had to be drawn by two ropes ; and woe to the ves- sel, when, through the force of a strong current, the rope hap- 44 pened to break! The time required for such voyages had sometimes to be counted by months. In the rainy season the Ganges is navigable by native boats as far up as Garhmuktisar Ghat, some thirty miles from Meerut. But this is often ac- complished with difficulty. As an illustration of this it may be mentioned, that the second party of our missionaries, hav- ing arrived in India in the beginning of 1835, sailed from Calcutta on the 23d of June, reached Cawnpore about three months later, were obliged then, on account of the usual fall in the river at the end of the rains, to change their boat for a smaller one, and finally to stop at Fatehgarh. From this place the journey was accomplished in a palanquin carriage drawn by oxen. In some places the road was fairly good, but in others certainly bad enough, and intersected every now and then by unbridged streams. Ludhiana, the place of destina- tion, was reached on the 8th of December; so that the whole journey from Calcutta was accomplished in just five months and a half." Ludhiana was the city Mr. Lowrie selected as the first station. It was one of the two cities in this district under the East India Company, whose officers here were very friendly, and it was near the center of the Sikh people, a people of fine physique, who were a sort of reformed Brah- manists, having discarded the old idolatry and in some meas- ure broken the bands of caste, and who, it was hoped, would be open to missionary influence. Mr. Lowrie arrived in No- vember, 1834. The first reinforcement, consisting of the Rev. John Newton and the Rev. James Wilson and their wives, arrived in December, 1835. Six weeks after their arrival, Mr. Lowrie, whose health had been failing, was obliged to leave, never to return. It was thus the Presbyterian Missions in India were begun. The India of that day was very different from the India of this. The British Government had not formally taken over the country. The East India Company still controlled it, though much of the land now under British rule was inde- pendent. In the northwest, Oudh and Rohilcund were under independent native rule. Runjeet Singh ruled the Punjab north of the Sutlej, while Sindh was subject to Mohammedan Nawabs. The Mogul Emperor was still treated deferentially as a king, though stripped of power outside of his own palace at Delhi ; but the old days of native power were almost over. Among the Sikhs at Ludhiana, and also among Hindus and Mohammedans, the work was solidly established in 1835, by the coming of Mr. Newton and Mr. Wilson. The following year a larger reinforcement was sent, including three laymen 45 sent out with the hope that "these brethren by spending a few of the first years of their missionary labors as teachers in the higher departments of education in India, might promote the great object of its evangehzation as effectually as any other." Two printing presses and fonts of type were sent, also, and a practical printer was sent out in 1838, who, in six years, trained native men who carried on the press work after he had withdrawn. In 1836, a station was opened at Saharanpur, one hundred and eleven miles southeast of Lud- hiana, on the invitation of the British Collector and Magis- trate, who arranged for the purchase of a large house for Rs. 400. The large purposes of the Church in the work are illustrated by the Report of the Society for 1835, describing the reasons for occupying this field : "Saharanpur, distant 130 miles southeast from Ludhiana, 100 miles north of Delhi, is situated within twenty miles of Hurdwar, that great ren- dezvous of pilgrims from all the surrounding nations. The annual fair at Hurdwar is attended by hundreds of thousands of all classes ; and hitherto, with the exception of a few tran- sient visits of a single missionary from Delhi, Satan has had the undisputed possession of this great field to himself. No place affords more advantages for the dissemination of the sacred Scriptures and religious publications than the fair at Hurdwar. From this point they will be carried into the sur- rounding countries, and to all parts of Northern India, and even to the tribes beyond Kashmir, inhabiting the high table- lands of Central Asia." The next station was Sabathu, 110 miles east of Ludhiana, and 4,000 feet above the sea, where the temperature seldom rises above 90 degrees Fah. and rarely falls low enough for snow. It was deemed desirable to have one such station so healthfully located, even though the surrounding population was not as dense as on the plains, and hopes were entertained, subsequently disappointed, that the Hill tribes would prove simple-minded and teachable, and yield readily to the Gospel. In 1836 work was begun in Allahabad, in 1838 in Fatehgarh, and in 1843 in Mainpuri and Furrukhabad. The next station occupied was Jullundur, in 1847. The work was begun by Mr. Goloknath, the first convert and minister of our Church in India. He was a Brahman, and son of a tea merchant in Cal- cutta. He had been a pupil in the school of Dr. Duff, who had come to India in 1830, and he had become so interested in Christianity that he could not stay at home happily, and wan- dered off to the Northwest. He was then nineteen, and he appeared in Ludhiana at the door of the Mission house, well 46 dressed, very respectable in appearance, and with a small English Bible in his hand. He and his wife died recently, after more than sixty years of noble service. Jullundur was the first station occupied beyond the river Sutlej in the Punjab proper, which the missionaries had from the beginning de- sired to enter. The Punjab includes now the whole north- western corner of India beyond the Northwest Provinces up to Afghanistan. The Northwest Provinces received their name before British rule was extended beyond the Sutlej. The Punjab is a great plain intersected by five large rivers, the Sutlej, the Beeas, the Ravee, the Chenab, and the Jhelum, these rivers giving its name to the country — The Punjab, that is. The Five Waters. The population o*f the Punjab is now about twenty-one millions. It is made up of Moham- medans and Hindus about equally, including, among the latter, the Sikhs, some of whom, however, scorn to be called Hindus, and the Outcastes, who have scarcely any religion, and are called "some of them Ramdassies (followers of Ramdass) and some Muzkubies (people having a religion), according to the grade of outcasts to which they originally belonged." "The Hindus, on account perhaps of their long intercourse with Mohammedans (most of whose ancestors were themselves Hindus) and on account of their subjection, successively, for many centuries, to Mohammedan and Sikh rule, are less big- oted than their brethren in some other parts of India, and they have not so strong a caste feeling." The Punjab had been divided among a number of indepen- dent princes, but Runjeet Singh, "The Lion of the Punjab," at the time the Mission was founded ruled the whole from Lahore. Mr. Lowrie had not been long in Ludhiana when Runjeet Singh invited him to visit him. Mr. Lowrie accepted the invitation and was the Maharajah's guest for several weeks, treated with every courtesy. The Maharajah's object was to have a school established in Lahore for the English education of the sons of the nobles. Mr. Lowrie insisted, however, that he could not undertake it without including the teaching of Christianity, and the plan failed, though the Maharajah sent the missionary away in splendor, and was greatly astonished when he learned that the present he gave, consisting of a horse, pieces of silk and cotton goods, jewelry and money, in all more than $1,100, would all be transferred to the Mission treasury, and not kept for Mr. Lowrie's per- sonal use. This negotiation having failed, the missionaries were obliged to wait, no European being allowed in those days to 47 cross the Sutlej without permission from the Lahore Durbar (court of the chief). In 1839, however, the Maharajah died, and the country fell into a state of anarchy. When attacks were made on British territory south of the Sutlej, the wars were begun which ended in the annexation of the Punjab. The government of the new province was in the hands of a Board of Administration, of which the two most prominent men were Henry and John Lawrence, the latter afterwards Viceroy, and both splendid Christian men. Lahore was taken possession of in 1849, and before the end of the year, at the urgent request of some of the British officials, the Rev. John Newton and his wife and the Rev. C. W. Forman arrived to establish work h\ the new field. These two men have left an indelible impress on the Punjab. Dr. Newton spent fifty-six years in India, and Dr. Forman forty-six, and each of them spent more than a generation and a half in Lahore. Dr. New- ton was a powerful preacher, both in English and in the ver- nacular, and he had a patience and tact which melted oppo- sition and indifference, and won for him and his Master the admiration and love of thousands. Both he and Dr. Forman were men of exceptionally powerful and spiritual personality. A missionary of the Church of England, recalling the effect produced upon his mind by Dr. Newton's reading a part of the first chapter of Acts at the Lahore Conference in 1865, said, "The impression made by his merely reading a few verses has not been effaced by almost thirty years." He was a man of deep piety, blameless and most winning character, and rare catholicity. He invited the Church of England Mission to the Punjab in 1850, and it was largely due to his influence that such warm fraternal relations were maintained for forty years between the American missionaries and those of the Church of England; and one of the latter said of him that he was "one of the holiest and best beloved men the Punjab has ever seen." All of his children, four sons and two daugh- ters, came back to labor with him in India. He said once that it was his mother's prayers that took him to India. Little did that one woman know of the immense work she was doing for the Punjab. Of the other stations of the Punjab Mission, Ambala was occupied in 1849. It is a walled city, doubled by the canton- ments, or quarter which has grown up round the soldiers, and about seventy miles southwest of Ludhiana. In 1853 work was begun at Dehra, like Saharanpur in the Northwest Pro- vinces, and situated in a beautiful valley or doon, between the Himalayas and the Sewaliks. It is the seat of a famous 48 Sikh shrine, the mausoleum of one of their gurus or religious guides, visited by many pilgrims. Roorkee and Rawal Pindee were occupied in 1856, the former eighteen miles south of Saharanpur, and the latter one hundred and seventy miles northwest of Lahore, and on the main road to Kashmir. The Mission pressed on even farther, and stationed at Peshawur, on the border of the Afghan country, the Rev. Isidor Lowen- thal, a Polish Jew born in Posen, who had had a most romantic history and had been obliged to flee from Poland because of his liberal political views. He was converted by the example and conduct of a minister in Wilmington, Del., who took him in on a cold, wet night, and secured for him a position as tutor at Lafayette College. He was a man of iron will and unresting intellectual power, and although he was shot by mistake by his own watchman at Peshawur, when he was but thirty-eight, and had been only seven years in India, he had already trans- lated and published the whole New Testament in Pushto, and had nearly completed a dictionary of the language, and could preach with facility in Pushto, Persian, Kashmiri, Hindustani, and Arabic, besides being an accomplished musician and mathematician. If he had lived he might have carried the Gospel to Cabul and on to Persia. The money for this attempt to reach the Afghans (rupees 15,000) had been given by Major Conran, an earnest Christian officer. With Mr. Lowen- thal's death the attempt was given up. The Church Mission- ary Society of England, however, which then had a station at Peshawur, continues the work, though it has been unable as yet to get beyond the Peshawur valley. Roorkee and Rawal Pindee have since been transferred to other missionary socie- ties, the former to the Reformed, and the latter to the United Presbyterian Church. Hoshiarpur, the chief town between the Sutlej and the Beeas, save Jullundur, was occupied in 1867. That station has for years been under the charge of a converted high-caste Brahman, the Rev. Kali Charan Chatter jee, a man of fine culture and devotion, whose daughter has taken a medical course in the United States. The Rev. Isa Charan, whose name means "One who is at the feet of Jesus," was put in charge of Ferozepur in 1870, and twelve years later it was made a station under the Rev. F. J. Newton, M.D. The population of the district is about fifty per cent Mohammedan, and twenfy-five per cent each of Sikhs and Hindus. In 1899 the Rev. Robert Morrison occupied the city of Kasur, forty miles from Ferozepur, while resident missionaries had already set- tled at Jagraon and Khanna, both parts of the Ludhiana sta- 49 tion. Moga was occupied as a station in 1911. There are eleven regular stations, and connected with them thirty-nine out-stations, with 241 native workers. In the field of what is now the North India Mission, the first station occupied was Allahabad in 1836. The Rev, James McEwen of the party who arrived in India that year was left there on the way to Ludhiana, to get for the press some parts which had been lost by the upsetting of a boat in a storm, ascending the Ganges. The opportunity for work was so bright that it was decided that Mr. McEwen should return to settle there. When the Rev. Joseph Warren came in 1839, a press was established in a bath room of his bunga- low, and he instructed a native boy, who with a sister had been left destitute and brought up by the Mission. This boy became later one of the proprietors of the press, and an elder in one of the Mission churches. One of the most useful men of the Presbyterian Church, Professor Archibald Alexander Hodge, of Princeton Theological Seminary, was for two years, and until his wife's health required his return to America, a member of the Allahabad station. John H. Morrison was at first a member of this station, but after his wife's death and a furlough in America, he joined the Punjab Mission. His missionary life covered forty-three years. On account of his fearlessness in preaching, he was called by Runjeet Singh's title "The Lion of the Punjab." It was he who led the Ludhiana Mission after the Mutiny, to issue the call to Christendom to the annual week of prayer. His last words as he lay dying were, "It is perfect peace — I know whom I have believed." In 1838 work was commenced at Fatehgarh, where seventy orphans previously supported by two devoted Christians among the British officials, fifty of them at Fatehpur and twenty at Fatehgarh, were gathered and taken charge of by the Rev. Henry R. Wilson. These children were the nucleus of the useful Christian community now to be found at Fateh- garh. In 1843 work was begun in Mainpuri, forty miles west of Fatehgarh, and at Furrukhabad, the native city of which Fatehgarh is the cantonment, in the same year. Ten years later Fatehpur was opened. In 1844 the seat of gov- ernment was transferred from Allahabad to Agra. This led to the removal of many English friends who urged the Mission to open work in Agra. It led also to the government's offer to the Mission of leave to use the government school building in Allahabad, with the furniture and library. A good school was also built up at Agra, with the aid of generous donations 50 from British friends, ))ut after some years the seat of govern- ment was removed back to Allahabad, and the work in Agra was transferred to other Societies. In the year 1845 the first meeting of the Synod of India was held at Fatehgarh, in the chapel of the orphanage, and the senior missionary, James Wilson, preached from the text 1 Timothy 4:14. There are now five presbyteries of our Church in India — Ludhiana, Lahore, Allahabad, Furrukhabad and Kolhapur. In 1857 the foundations of the missionary work and of British rule also in North India were shaken by the Indian Mutiny, when the native troops, roused by the belief that the cartridges supplied to them were greased with animal fat, which was repugnant to their religious scruples, revolted and massacred their officers and all the foreigners in their power. Fifteen hundred were butchered, including thirty-seven mis- sionaries. All of our missionaries escaped save those at Fateh- garh— Freeman, Johnson, McMullen, Campbell and their wives, and the two little children of the Campbells, who were captured with British refugees as they tried to escape down the Ganges in boats, taken to Cawnpore, and at Nana Sahib's order, at seven in the morning, were all taken to the parade ground and shot, Mr. Campbell holding one little child in his arms, and an English friend the other. How calmly they met their fate, their last words show. Mrs. Freeman wrote : "We are in God's hands, and we know that He reigns. We have no place to flee for shelter but under the covert of His wings, and there we are safe. Not but that He may suffer our bodies to be slain. If He does, we know that He has wise reasons for it. I sometimes think that our deaths would do more good than we would do in all our lives; if so. His will be done. Should I be called to lay down my life, most joyfully will I die for Him who laid down His life for me." Nana Sahib was Prince of Bithoor, an educated gentleman, polished and refined, trained in a government college, and he shot down the European women and little children like dogs. His external culture had left him at heart the same cruel and dastardly man he was before. Many of the mission stations had been wrecked by the mutineers, and had to be built up again, but soon the work had recovered all that had been lost, and grew out into new fields — Etawah, thirty-two miles southwest of Mainpuri in 1863, Morar, in the native state of Gwalior, in 1876, Jhansi, two hundred and fifty miles west of Allahabad, in 1886. Etah was occupied in 1900 and Cawnpore in 1901. 51 One other Mission in India was undertaken by the Church in 1870. It is located many miles to the south of the northern missions, in the Bombay Presidency, in the Kolhapur native state, with a population of 800,000, with a population of 1,700,000 in adjoining districts, and about 1,500,000 in the Konkan, the region between the Ghats, or hills, which lie along the western coast, and the sea. Of Kolhapur city it is said : "As seen from a distance the city is beautiful for situation. The most commanding object, next to the king's palace, is the towering white dome of a very large temple. Few cities or places in India have so high a reputation for sanctity. The favorite legend among the people is that the gods in council once pronounced it the most sacred spot of all the earth." The work in Kolhapur was begun by the Rev. R. G. Wilder, in 1852. When the Board undertook the Mission in 1870, there were twenty-one communicants. The number has grown but slowly, though the work has enlarged, and now embraces stations at Ratnagiri (1873), in the Konkan, Pan- hala, fourteen miles north of Kolhapur, Sangli (1884), with a Boys' Boarding and Industrial School, Miraj, occupied in 1892, and the site of a large and efficient hospital to which patients come from towns and villages hundreds of miles away, Kodoli occupied in 1877, and Islampur in 1919, though previously worked by Miss Wilder and the Village Settlement. One great service rendered by the Presbyterian Missions in India was the call to the Christian Church to the annual Week of Prayer. This call was issued by the Ludhiana now the Punjab Mission in 1858. Though the Mission felt that it was a humble body to call the whole Christian world to such prayer it yet adopted in faith this resolution : "WHEREAS, Our spirits have been greatly refreshed by what we have heard of the Lord's dealings with his people in America, and further, being convinced from the sign of the times that God has still larger blessings for His people and for our ruined world, and that He no\v seems ready and waiting to bestow them as soon as asked; therefore, "Resolved, That we appoint the second week in January, 1859, be- ginning with Monday the 8th, as a time of special prayer, and that all God's people, of every name and nation, of every continent and island, be cordially and earnestly invited to unite with us in the petition that God would now pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, so that all the ends of the earth might see His salvation." Why shall we not believe and work toward the fulfillment of this prayer, that at last it may be answered for India and that the long work of preparation that has now been done, may issue in the result prophesied by Sir Charles Trevelyan, who was not a visionary or careless man, who was the Gover- 52 nor General's Secretary when Dr. Lowrie reached Calcutta, and who helped him in his plans, and advised him as to his location at Ludhiana : "Many persons mistake the way in which the conversion of India will be brought about. I believe it will take place at last wholesale, just as our own ancestors were converted. The country will have Christian instruction infused into it in every way by direct missionary education, and indirectly by books of various sorts, through the public papers, through conversation with Europeans, and in all the conceivable ways in which knowledge is communicated. Then at last when society is completely saturated with Christian knowledge, and public opinion has taken a decided turn that way, they will come over by thousands." 53 2. LETTERS FROM THE STATIONS (1) THE CITY OF FALSE GODS East India Railway, October 13, 1921. "Illahabad," the "city of false gods," this is the name which the Mohammedans gave to Allahabad when they came down to this sacred confluence of the Ganges and Jumna rivers many centuries ago. The present city and the fine old fort at the junction of the rivers were founded by Akbar in the sixteenth century, but the Aryans had possessed a very ancient city here called Prayag, which the Moslems had visited and conquered four centuries before Akbar. The idolatry which shocked the Moslems is not less prevalent today, and although the city is not throughout the year such a goal of pilgrimage as Benares, it is still about the month of January every year the site of the greatest Mela in India, when more than a million devout Hindus pour up from all over the land to bathe in the mingling of the waters of the two sacred rivers. There is probably no religious spectacle equal to it anywhere else in the world. Under no other religion and in no other land could hundreds of naked men with matted locks and gro- tesquely daubed bodies, be regarded as the highest embodi- ment of holiness nor could such rites pass for religion and be acceptable to God. Allahabad is one of our oldest mission stations, full of great memories that run back to the Indian Mutiny and be- yond. For the last ten days we have been attending here the annual meeting of the North India Mission and visiting the institutions of the Mission at this central station. There have been some unusually important and difficult problems before the Mission, the consideration of the question of right rela- tionship between the Mission and the Indian Church in the light especially of the new spirit of independence and non- co-operation which is abroad in India today, the question of the absolutely equal place and functions of women in the work of our foreign missions, the new questions with regard to edu- cation growing out of the probability of the enforcement by the Government of a "conscience-clause" as a condition of government grant-in-aid, and the reorganization of higher education by the Government in a way that seems likely to force the Christian Missions out of this field, and the question of the most effective paths of approach for the Gospel to the 54 mind and heart of India. The Indian Church which is feel- ing the pressure of the national spirit is happily seeking not separation from the Missions but a closer co-operation and the North India Mission has sought discriminatingly to provide for such co-operation and yet to preserve the autonomy and responsibility of the Presbyteries of the Indian Church. Re- garding the place of women the Mission voted to approve the principle of their full equality. In the field of education it voted to preserve its full freedom of Bible teaching and Chris- tian influence at whatever cost of government financial aid. The Mission meeting had the benefit of the invaluable council of Dr. J. C. R. Ewing, C. I. E., who is giving all his time to the task of unifying and strengthening the administration of our Church's three Missions in India. The Mission's meetings have been held in the attractive buildings of the Ewing Christian College on the ample mission compound on the banks of the Jumna only a short distance from its union with the Ganges. The days have been hot but the soft, pleasant moonlight nights have been delightful, as we have slept on the stone platform back of Dr. Janvier's house under the open sky looking out across the river and disturbed only by the jackals' weird shrieks at midnight and the distant resonant call to Moslem prayer in the early morn- ing from a little mosque far away. The College is in short vacation now, but we hope later to meet its three hundred and fifty men and the three hundred younger lads in the Jumna High School at the other end of the campus. Most of the students in the school and college are from Hindu and Moham- medan homes. The small minority of Christian boys repre- sents, however, a far larger number of students in propor- tion to the size of the community from which they come. And nowhere in the world is any direct evangelistic work being done which presses more ceaselessly for open acceptance of Christ. By daily chapel, by regular required Bible teaching, by constant, direct evangelistic appeal, publicly and to the individual, the men and women of the college are seeking to win the students publicly to confess Christ. Scores of them do accept Him, but secretly, and it is impossible for us at home to realize the difficulties which stand in the way of a Hindu or Mohammedan student's open baptism. They are faithfully urged to pay all this price, and it is not the fault of missions or missionaries that young men do not break the heavy chains which bind them to their homes and the social life of India, . Directly across the river from the college compound, one 55 can see the buildings and the rich crops of the Agricultural Institute, where the Mission is seeking to build up an institu- tion which will prepare young men as farm superintendents or agricultural village leaders to improve the methods of Indian farming and animal husbandry. Already the farm has become an object lesson in soil-conservation, crop-improve- ment, and the care and efficiency of farm animals. The in- fluence of the extension work of the school has reached out into the native states of northern India and is shaping the agricultural department of the new Hindu Agricultural Col- lege in Benares. Not far from the Agricultural Institute is the appealing institution for lepers, managed by the Mission but equipped and supported by the "Mission to Lepers" and by the Govern- ment. "This asylum," wrote a recent lieutenant-governor of the province when he visited it, "seems to me a model of what such an institution should be." The lepers have their own separate quarters and individual gardens, men and women and married couples having each their distinct section. The Sunday morning leper church service is a sight to remember forever. Two hundred or more women on one side and an equal number of men on the other, some blind, some without fingers or toes, some twisted into grotesque shapes, and the little children with the terrible disease just beginning to eat into their baby flesh. Behind the preacher sat the two score of untainted children, and the most pitiful sight of all was to see the parents ranged round the wall of the chapel after the service while the untainted children were allowed to stand before them just out of reach for ten minutes for their one meeting of the week. Some miles away on the other side of the outspread city are the Mary Wanamaker School for Girls, with its commo- dious buildings and the Katra Church with its associated hotel and school. There are new conditions to be met by Christian schools for girls in Allahabad in competition with strong endowed schools which give free tuition and teach Hinduism and Mohammedanism, but efficient Christian schools have something to offer which even Hindus and Mohammedans know their own schools do not supply. We have had two rare experiences here. One was a great reception of the Christianity community of Allahabad when some six hundred or more met on the wide lawn beside the Katra Church. There were government officials, teachers. Christian workers, and no one could mingle with them without rejoicing in the spirit and promise of such gatherings, equal 56 in character and intelligence to any similar group that might be gathered at home, and representing six or seven times as many people in the Christian community of Allahabad. The other experience was in the Ramalila festival. Uninten- tionally we were caught in the mass of the people who packed the Grand Trunk Road for the great day of the Durga Puja. A mounted policeman escorted us to the nearby police station from which we looked down on the dense crowds, the great processions, elephants, camels, floats representing scenes from Rama's life. It was Hinduism aglow in one of its most enthu- siastic festivals in which the old religious spirit was mingled wth the new political and economic ideals, but of these one fears to write until he has seen and talked with more of the men who represent both the new and the old, and who are able to appraise justly the new tendencies which are so mani- festly at work re-fashioning the thought and life of India. (2) THE CRADLE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE PUNJAB Great Indian Peninsula Railway, October 25, 1921. Ludhiana is the oldest Mission Station of our Church in India and the first Christian Mission Station in the Punjab. Under instructions not to tarry in Calcutta or any other occu- pied place, but to press on to the uttermost possible post on the way to Afghanistan, Dr. John C. Lowrie landed in Cal- cutta in October, 1833. Burying his young wife there a month after his arrval, he made his way alone and undismayed up the Ganges to Cawnpore and thence by palanquin four hun- dred miles overland, reaching Ludhiana on- November 5, 1834. Here Dr. Lowrie worked alone for a year when rein- forcements came, John Newton, James Wilson, and their wives, who took three months to reach Fatehgarh by boat and two months to complete the journey, which we have made all told in less than forty hours. The reinforcements came just in time to relieve Dr. Lowrie whom broken health sent home to America permanently in 1836, but not before he had laid the first stones of an immovable foundation. On his be- ginnings Newton and Wilson and their associates started the first printing press and the first boy's school in northern India. The moment the door was opened into the regions beyond, John Newton and C, W. Forman crossed the Sutlej on the heels of the British troops occupying the Punjab, and settling in Lahore, inaugurated there the work which has been as a fountain of living waters to all northwestern India. The Punjab Mission, embracing now a dozen stations and numbering 102 missionaries and carrying on one of the great- 57 est Christian enterprises in the world, and all of it the out- growth of Dr. Lowrie's lonely beginning ninety years ago, has just been holding its annual meeting in the old church which he founded. It has been an inspiration and a summons to listen to the discussions of the Mission and to its survey of the immense problems and needs of the Punjab in the simple, beautiful old building with its thick, cool walls and its great white pillars and the birds flying in and out of its open windows to the nests which they had found for them- selves, "even thine altars, O God." Again and again I have read the tablets behind the pulpit com.memorating the lives of the founders and have seemed to hear voices whispering out of the great past and calling upon the new generations to complete what the fathers, in their great but simple hearted faith, had so heroically begun. Not only was this old Ludhiana church the cradle of the hundreds of churches of our own and other Missions now scattered over the Punjab, but in two other respects it has exerted a wide and even world embracing influence. For years its Sunday School work was a model. Mr. Manasseh Wylie, whose long service as elder and Sunday School super- intendent is commemorated in one of the tablets, was an Indian lay Christian leader of unique gifts, and the influence of his life as a Bible teacher has given the Punjab some of its outstanding Christian ministers. A beautiful Sunday School building, just erected, almost entirely by gifts in India, was dedicated during our visit so that the scattered classes will not have to be taught as heretofore under the shade of the big neem and eucalyptus trees. It was from this old church also that the call went out which resulted in the establishment of the universal Week of Prayer, and just be- tween the church and the new Sunday School buildings stands a handsome little brick house of prayer built by Mr. Wylie in memory of his mother. One of the most pleasant and encouraging features of these conferences at Ludhiana has been the presence of a large group of most capable Indian men and women with whom the Mission has been conferring on equal and brotherly terms in regard to their common work. The Rev. P. C. Uppal and the Rev. Jaimal Singh, who have been in the Christian min- istry more than fifty years, were patriarchs whose very pres- ence was a blessing and with them were younger men and women, Mrs. Mamgain, the first woman B.A. and M.A. in India, for many years principal of Bethune College in Cal- cutta, Miss Chatter ji, just appointed principal of our girls' 58 high school in Dehra Dun, Mr. Goloknath, who was graduated from Princeton in 1882, the Rev. B. B. Roy, a fertile and in- genious student and teacher of comparative religion. Pro- fessor Siraj ud din, a Christian teacher who came out from and who thoroughly comprehends Islam, Mr. Rallia Ram, member of the Legislative Council of the Punjab and Mr. Jamal ud din, both of whom have now been made full prin- cipals of the two large mission schools in Lahore and Jullun- dur, and young preachers as capable as our best young men at home like Andrew Thakur Das and Talib-ud-Din and many others. No one can doubt the independence or the Christian thought and character of men and women like these or fail to realize the contribution which they have to make and the major responsibility which they must assume in the establish- ment of the Church and in the evangelization of India. An old Sikh fort of the 17th century looks down over the plain and the city. The Salvation Army is carrying on now in the fort a useful industrial work for boys where they are taught to weave silk and cotton goods. The city lies spread out in dusty, sandy bareness eastward from the old fort. In the heart of the city, with the little Moslem mosque and Hindu shrines round about them, are the old preaching hall where nightly for three generations the Gospel has been unceasingly proclaimed, and the old boys' school building where for nearly a century thousands of boys, Mohammedan, Hindu, Sikh, and Christian, have been fitted for useful lives and been taught daily the Bible and the living principles of Christian character. Fathers have sent their sons and their grandsons and I suppose even their great grandsons to the old school, whose beneficent influences have gone out across the length and breadth of the Punjab. The school is a fasci- nating mixture of color — of color of dress, language, race, and religion, dominated unceasingly by the missionary aim. On the wide compound near the old church is the Boys' Boarding School for Christian lads which the Mission pro- poses now to amalgamate with the City High School and to make of it a model high school for Christian boys for all our stations in the Punjab, not excluding non-Christians, but keeping them in the minority and surrounding them with the influence not of Christian teaching only but also of a pre- dominant Christian student body. One of the small boys of the school died during our visit and we marked the impres- sive and significant contrast of the unordered but quiet little throng that accompanied his body to the grave with the de- spairing wailings of the non-Christian burials. The Grand Trunk Road runs straight almost as an arrow &9 into Ludhiana and under the shadow of the old fort and across the ancient bed of the Sutlej River which has now shifted its channel some eight miles further west. One afternoon we ran out by motor twenty-seven miles east to the sub- station of Khanna where there is an industrial school for village boys. Another afternoon we went out ten miles west to Phillour where evangelistic work in the surrounding villages has been under the care of a winning-spirited Mohammedan convert, Ghulam Masih, who was convinced of the supreme claims of Christ by his reading of the Koran. At Jagraon, twenty miles south of Ludhiana the Mission has another school for village girls and little boys where on the faces of the children and their teachers alike the light with which Christ enlightens the lives of all those who come near to Him was as visible a fact as any that one's eyes could see. Ludhiana is the site also of the North India Medical School for women in which we have co-operated from the beginning and which represents human need as deep as human need can be. I am writing this as we cross the great plains south of Delhi covered with the monuments of the Mohammedan con- quests, falling everywhere now into ruin and decay, with such occasional exceptions as the Taj, whose gleaming white- ness we saw a moment ago across the housetops of Agra, rising up dazzling and pure, less like a memorial to the past than a hope and promise of something brighter and better for the India of the days to come. (3) THE PLACE OF SERPENTS Panhala, India, November 3, 1921. Panhala means "the place of serpents," but thus far we have seen not one. Two men went by the other evening carry- ing a huge rock python over a pole between them, its head and tail both dragging on the ground. But not one snake has yet showed himself to us, neither python nor cobra nor karait, save two cobras and one python which a juggler and an old man and a little boy were carrying about with them. We have seen far more wonderful sights, however, than serpents. One has been the sight of this old fort in which we are living and of the far-reaching plains on which we look out. The place is a plateau of one or two square miles rising up with sheer walls, like a table out of the wide Kolhapur plains. The plains themselves lie among the Western Ghats at an alti- tude of 1,800 feet and we are thirteen hundred feet above the 60 plain. The plateau was held as a stronghold by various petty chiefs until the end of the fifteenth century when it came under the Bijapur (Mohammedan) Kingdom and the strong ramparts and gateways of the fort were built. The tradi- tions say that they required a hundred years for building, and one looks back with wonder upon the energy and resources of that far-distant day which left these massive monuments. In 1659 the place was captured by Shivaji, the great Maratha hero, who had slain single handed, with a concealed iron tiger claw, the Mohammedan general Afzal Khan, near Ma- hableshwar. For nearly two centuries the place passed to and fro between Mohammedans and Marathas until it be- came the seat of the Kolhapur Maratha government and ulti- mately passed into the hands of the British. Now the old gateways stand in picturesque ruin, and the tropical vegeta- tion is climbing over the ancient walls. The panthers hide in the jungle around the base of the cliffs, and the monkeys play in the tree tops. The Nautch Girls' Tower, which was made stable by the burial within its walls of a living dancing girl, and the stones on which human sacrifices were offered to Mahakali are still standing. And we have been lodged in an upper room in a wonderful old castle on the north side of the walls looking down on one side on the garden of the country place of the British Residency inside the fort, and looking on the other side from our northern windows straight down over the precipitous battlements and out over hundreds of square miles of fertile plain and terraced hillsides, which in the old days were the granary of the kingdom. The huge old stone warehouses for the grain are still standing in the center of the fortification. It is a wonderful sight to sit in our high tower under the stone peacocks, standing in a row in the frieze of the dome ceiling, and look out through the casement windows over a land which is now, after abundant rains, as rich as a garden but which, in the famine years of drought, is a wide, brown plain of death. The other and even more wonderful sight is of a different harvest, the seed of the Gospel sown far and wide through these villages and growing up, first the blade and then the ear and then the full corn in the ear. Panhala was one of the first stations of this Western India Mission. A beautiful site was acquired on the plateau and from this high place the missionaries went down to itinerate through the villages near and far. Later, other centers were opened more ad- vantageous for this village itineration, and Panhala became, until better and more invigorating places were developed, a resting spot in the hot weather. Of late it has been the 61 location of the Workers' Training School, where simple men from the villages have been brought, to be given a substantial, homely training to fit them to return to their own villages as teacher-preachers, conducting village schools, especially for the boys and girls of the rapidly growing village Christian communities, during the week days and leading the Sunday Schools and preaching services on Sundays. It has been in favorable weather, an ideal place also for the annual meeting of the Mission, lying midway between the eastern stations of the Dekkan, or table land, and the two western stations of the Konkan on the other side of the ghats in the low coast- land of the Arabian Sea. It is for the Mission meeting that we are here now, and we have experienced both types of Western India weather, the warm, cloudless sunshine and the drenching rain and thick mists, which for the last two days have shut off from us all the vision of the far reaching plains. The Mission meeting has been considering also both the bright and the darker problems of its work. Like the two other Missions, it is has been trying to work out in conference with the leaders of the Indian Church wise plans of co-operation which will enable the Church and Mission together to weather the storms of this time of political agitation over nationalism and non- cooperation and swaraj. The Rev. Shivaram Masoji, for many years pastor of the Kolhapur church, and one of the delegates from the Church in India to the Edinburgh Con- ference in 1910, read a thoughtful paper on the subject of "The Christian Church and India's Unrest," which made very clear the difficult task of the Church, to be true both to the spirit of brotherhood and the universal fellowship on the one hand and to the spirit of Indian patriotism on the other. The other most important question before the Mission has been perhaps, as in the case of the two northerji Missions, the problem of training and developing the Christian com- munities in the villages. For generations the Missions in India have done their utm.ost through their colleges and high schools, through preaching and zenana visiting to reach the higher classes and not without avail, but the response has been meagre, and missionary history has shown that Francis Xavier might more truly have cried out before Indian caste than before the walls of China, "Oh Rock, Rock, when wilt thou open unto my Master." In these later years without turning aside from their work for the higher castes the Mis- sions have devoted themselves to the outcaste village people and especially to those classes among them whom the Hindus 62 have regarded as untouchable and for whom Hinduism has had nothing but depression and ostracism and ignorance until forced reluctantly, and as yet only in the slightest measure, to take up a different attitude as a result of the example and the pressure of the Christian spirit. How to train leaders for these village Christians, how to lead them to support and meanwhile to help them in support- ing, schools for their children, how to extend this work now while the harvest fields seem ripe, — these were among the most pressing and living problems of the Mission meeting. The villages in this region have a weekly market day or bazaar, and the Panhala village, which lies just below us in a nook of the hillside within the outer battlements, holds its bazaar on Sunday. Last Sunday afternoon, accordingly, we all went down into the village street, crowded with the country folk, each with his or her little bundle of produce to sell, wheat, rice or some other grain, red peppers, gray salt, or oily brown sugar, peanuts, cocoanuts, and all the innumer- able little articles entering into the minute trading of such a market. Soon in a dozen groups up and down the street the missionaries and Indian workers were surrounded by little knots of people, some listening quietly and others asking questions, in ignorance, in honest inquiry, or in contention. There were some to whom the whole story was new and many more who had heard the words before but to whom the great ideas of the Gospel were still strange and incomprehensible. But still in faith and love the sowers went forth to sow. In the evening as the sun was setting we all went out to the western bastion. A golden glory filled the West. The shadows fell purple and deep over the plain. The lights began to twinkle in the villages and far away Kolhapur city looked like a handful of stars dropped among the farm lands. We sang "Day is Dying in the West" and "Abide With Me, Fast Falls the Eventide," and prayed for the Church at home and for the Church in India that is and that is to be. (4) KODOLI AND ISLAMPUR Ratnagiri, India, November 9, 1921. The Western India Mission meeting closed at Panhala last Saturday afternoon. We were to spend Sunday at Kodoli, and instead of going around by the automobile road through Kolhapur, a distance of thirty-two miles, we preferred to take the foot paths over the hills and through the fields which made the journey by a direct line scarcely more than a seven or eight mile walk. It was a glorious afternoon. The Indian 63 sun shone down with strong. heat, but there were pleasant breezes and before long the sun went down below the Pan- hala hill, and the long, soft evening shadows fell across the plain. We went by the cattle tracks and the little by-paths over the foothills of marl and then down through the rich fields of kaffir corn now almost ripe for the harvest. The farmers with their children were somewhere near their fields to drive away the birds from the ripening crops. The country was rich with all the movement of oriental farm life, the farmers threshing their grain on the hard earth threshing- floors by driving half a dozen oxen, tied together and fastened to a stake in the center of the threshing-floor, round and round over the grain. The women were busy washing clothes in the brooks or pools near the villages or winnowing grain or preparing food with pestle and mortar. Toward evening the children came driving home the herds of goats or buffa- loes, and the men and women came from the fields, their loads on their heads, and the women carrying their babies astride their hips. Near the village of Mala we met a young man whose face, like the faces of so many of these Indian Christians, at once betrayed him. There was a light on it which it is perfectly true to say one finds in so many of the Christian faces here that he comes to trust it as a mark of identification. We asked Mr. Howard of Kodoli who was with us whether the man was not a Christian, and Mr. Howard said at once that he was one of the two Christian men in Mala, both of them won by the influence of their wives, who had come from the Girls' School in Kolhapur. Just as the pink twilight was fading on the hills we met the waiting Christians on the outskirts of Kodoli, were decked with the customary necklaces of flowers, and went on in to the simple but clean and beautiful mission compound with the smiling welcome of group after group of Christians both from Kodoli and the villages round about. The mission Com- pounds were in themselves object lessons of the vivifying and transforming power of the Gospel. As a speaker said in one of the meetings, ''If you wish to know what Christianity can do, see what it has done here even in the way of making these gardens grow where twenty years ago there was nothing but cactus and wild grass." Saturday evening we went down into the village to the large octagonal stone church which the people themselves have built. Alas, they have not been able to put on the roof as yet, but for the dry season and when the sun has gone down the star-filled sky was the most beautiful roof that could be. Moreover, this evening the Christian community was pre- 64 senting an original dramatization of the story of David and Goliath, and Goliath needed the roofless freedom of the sky for the antics of his bamboo spear and the terrific defiance of his roar. It was a most entertaining performance devised by the people themselves, and beside the eight hundred or a thousand Christians present, a great company of other folk packed the open space within the walls or stood in the un- finished windows and doorways. The dignified old hereditary chief of Kodoli sat in an arm chair beside the raised earth platform behind his sash-bearer, who was bedecked, like such retainers, with a huge red shoulder sash and a brass badge not less than six inches square. The Christian per- formers did not lose their opportunity of Christian testi- mony. The poet headmaster of the Mission School, who was one of David's brothers, began and ended the drama with poetic presentations of the meaning of Christianity, and even Goliath furtively bore his testimony when he demanded of David what basis of courage his faith in one God could give him in comparison with the giant's faith in three hundred crores of deities. On Sunday morning we first went the rounds of the three Sunday Schools, and were delighted to see David and Saul and the warriors of Israel and Philistia among the teachers. Then in long processions we marched through the streets past the sacred tulsa plants growing before the houses and the little groups of mud gods left over from the dewali festival, and again filled the stone walls of the unfinished church, which sorely needed its roof now under the scorching heat of the morning sun. Deputations of Indian Christians were present from not less than thirty-nine villages, each deputation bear- ing a banner giving the number of Christians in the village and indicating by the color of the banner whether the village had or had not a Christian school. The largest number of Christians, seven hundred and twenty-eight, was naturally to be found in Kodoli. Yelur came next with one hundred and nine. The last villages were Godva and Mohra with two Christians each. One's sympathy and prayers could not but go forth to these lonesome fellow Christians bearing their witness amid the ignorance and misunderstanding of their village life. In the afternoon the whole great congregation assembled again, this time within the shaded walls, and a large group of women and young men and children were bap- tized, a smaller group taken into the communicant member- ship of the church while a still smaller group of older men stood up and acknowledged themselves as inquirers into the Christian way. The meaning of early Christian discipleship 65 3 — •India and Persia was very clear to one as he saw these people become a marked and peculiar people severed by a great breach from their old life through their Christian confession. All of the next morning we spent with unalloyed delight in the Kodoli Mission School for village boys and girls. There appeared last year a very helpful little book entitled "Schools With a Message in India." The Kodoli School certainly should be included in the list of such schools. For spotless cleanli- ness, for order and discipline, for the spirit of love and kind- ness among both the children and their teachers, for practical efficiency, and for uplifting and transforming power, it would be hard to find a more nearly model school. Dr. Ewing, who was with us, said that he had never seen its equal in India. With its early morning drill, its warm and cheerful chapel service, its sloyd workshop, its neat and happy dormitories, its bright classrooms, so near to and yet so far away from the type of home surroundings from which the children had come, the efficient teaching, — the school and station filled us with delight and gratitude, and we went on Monday noon to Islampur rejoicing in what we had seen of the truest mis- sionary work filled with the manifest presence and blessing of the Lord of Life and Love. Islampur is twelve miles from Kodoli in the direct line, but twenty-five miles by road. It is the center of a field of nearly five hundred villages with a population of nearly half a mil- lion. The station was begun as a village settlement of single women by Miss Grace Wilder, and she and her mother died here in the mission house which they built, looking out over the wide prairie-like plain with its tree-embowered villages. Curiously enough the station is manned now by three men with no woman missionary at present working with them. In the nearest village, to which we went just before sunset, we found the Christian school held in the central hall belong- ing to the low caste section of the village. The front of the hall was wide open to all and just such a throng of village folk, old and young, as often listened to Jesus gathered at once to hear what the missionaries might have to say. One little boy and his father were the only Christians in the vil- lage, and the pressure of loyalty to the village gods, Jotiba and Vetal, was proving too much for the father. Could it be that those who should have been praying far away were forgetting by faith and love to uphold their brother in the hard hour of his testing? 66 (5) THE TWO STATIONS OF THE KONKAN Londa, India, November 12, 1921, The work of the Western India Mission is carried on in two adjoining but very different sections of country and under very diverse conditions. The main body of the work lies in the Dekkan, partly in British territory and partly in a number of small native states on the table land east of the ghats but the Ratnagiri and Vengurla stations lie west of the ghats on the Arabian Sea coast and are the only Christian Mission stations between Goa and the section near Bombay. We came down from Kolhapur to Ratnagiri over the ghats last Tuesday afternoon. In the old days there was nothing but a crude trail, and even after the road was put in, the journey which we made in a few hours required five days by bullock cart when Dr. Gillespie visited the Mission thirty years ago. Our road led up a long river valley through occa- sional villages to the Amba Pass where without a moment's warning a sudden turn left the plains behind out of view and opened before us the hundreds of square miles of the Konkan. We had expected a flat tropical low land, but looked out instead on rolling hills and a seacoast of laterite rock. We dropped down by a side road over the largest bit of flat country in the Ratnagiri field where, with Devrukh as a cen- ter, the villages lie thickly clustered. From these villages, of which one thought in the language of our Lord to His dis- ciples by the well of Samaria, we rode on in the moonlight, frightened the jackals out of the road, past long lines of ox carts traveling by night with odorous loads of dried fish, by the white tomb of old Theebaw, into the Ratnagiri mission compound which the school boys had wonderfully decorated and illuminated in their welcome. We visited all six of the day schools in and about Ratnagiri and as far away as the hidden, little hillside village of Am- bashet. Almost all the children were from the Mahar low caste community, and each school was being used just as fully as the missionaries could use it as a center of Christian teach- ing and influence and was all the more efficient as a school in consequence. It is necessary to see one of these schools and the community about it, the tragically humble homes and poor lives, in order to be able to realize its lifting and illu- minating power. And it is not possible to describe in words, to any one who has not experienced it, the cleanness and friendliness and sympathy and vivifying influence of these mission compounds, planted like islands of good will and human service, and sending forth from their fountains streams of unobserved and silent power. 67 The Christian community gathered in the afternoon in the Theodore Carter School just next to the beautiful home which Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Schauffler built for the single women, looking out past the old Outram house over the sea. In clear and simple ways the Christian workers set forth the difficul- ties of the work in the Konkan, the peculiar strength of caste and Hinduism, the dearth of workers, the conservatism of thought and institution, and the draining away to Bombay and Poona of the responsive lives which could find there the freedom unknown in their home villages. In the evening on the beach under the moonlight as we waited for the boat for Vengurla, I had a long talk with an old Hindu scholar who spoke of Jesus Christ as "Our Lord," and who declared that he could see wonderful changes which had taken place in thought and sentiment even in the Konkan where he believed there were many like himself, who in their hearts believed in Christ but had not the courage to confess Him. The little coasting steamer landed us at Vengurla at four o'clock in the morning. Only a few dim lights were burning in the homes, but we passed one temple where the lamps were aglow and where even at this early hour a company which included quite a group of small boys were at worship, chant- ing together some religious hymns with cymbal and drum. Indeed nowhere else that we have been as yet have we our- selves seen more signs of the solid stability of Hinduism than here. Vengurla is a town of not more than eighteen thousand. One did not have far to go to find a temple or a shrine or the sacred tulsa plant. Two priests in one of Vithoba's temples were full of friendly and assured communicativeness when we dropped in at noonday and we were welcomed in the even- ing to another temple where some sixty people were sitting on the floor while a pandit, accompanied by a little harmoni- cum and two drums, was reciting Sanskrit slokas regarding the moral duties of men to seek God's guidance and to be obedient to it. Bright lights were burning within the inner shrine before the dark images of Vithoba and his consort. Two of the last sights of the day were of a group of three in a brightly lighted shrine before an ugly idol under a grove of palm trees, and of an old Brahman, with no idols at all about him, sitting crosslegged over his sacred Scriptures, teaching them as he was wont to do every night to two nephews sitting beside him. We saw still a diff'erent side of Hinduism here in Vengurla in a delightful conversation with two Hindu gentlemen who had the highest regard for the missionaries and could not speak too warmly of them. These men represented the re- 68 fined and philosophic view. To them idolatry was a gross incumbrance upon true Hinduism, one of the after results of Buddhism. Christ they were more than ready to recognize as a saint of God, but not a truer saint, added one, than "our Tukaram." "All true religion is one," they held. "It is un- true only to exclude the truth." Caste and idolatry, they held, are both doomed, though their end is still many generations away. Vengurla seems an even harder field than Ratnagiri. It is a far off and lonesome station. During the four months of the rainy season the coast boats cannot run. Ratnagiri has then its good road communication with Kolhapur, but Ven- gurla has no contact with the outside world save by the less satisfactory and more roundabout road via Belgaum. The mission hospital, however, is making a way for Christian truth in many homes otherwise inaccessible and the mission High School is doing what such high schools are doing all over India. Though the direct evangelistic fruitage is still small, these schools are providing points of contact otherwise unobtainable and they are drawing into missionary friend- ship and under Christ's influence many of the ablest young men of India. Even in our short visit we could feel the reality of Dr. Goheen's influence through the hospital and Mr. Wright's through the school. Here in Vengurla, also, the village day school is one of the cells of life whose power is unmistakable, and no such school that we have seen has appealed to us more than the simple little mud room in the Mahar quarter under the cocoanut palms where a score of almost naked little children sat at one end of the room behind some chalk marks on the floor while a happy faced, enthusiastic, old leper teacher stood be- hind his chalk line at a safe distance on the other side of the little room and taught his flock as best he could. We shall never forget the picture of the group with the old man be- hind, standing in front of their little school house bidding us farewell. The old leper knew a little English. "We thank America," said he, "for sending us this. American love has done all this for India." We left Vengurla at four o'clock in the morning spreading our bedding out on the deck of the little steamer, with Indian neighbors, men, women, and little children, lying closely packed about us, and when we waked, the pink sunrise was coming up over the hills of Goa. We had all of yesterday there, a never-to-be-forgotten day. What was once a city of two hundred thousand people, the seat of Portuguese empire in the far East, and one of the most notable cities of Asia, 69 is now only a waste of jungle and groves of palm trees. All the buildings of the city are gone save the big churches and convents which Roman Catholic devotion built here in the sixteenth century. It was to the old church of the Bom Jesus that we were making our pilgrimage, to the tomb of Saint Francis Xavier. It is a wonderful monument in mem- ory of a wonderful devotion. Thank God that though the glory of Goa is gone the true spirit of Xavier is here in India still. (6) WHERE THE KOLHAPUR MISSION BEGAN "Calcutta Mail," en route Bombay to Allahabad, November 18, 1921. Kolhapur is the oldest station of the Western India Mission. It is the capital of the native state of Kolhapur, one of a cluster of small native states in the Southern Maratha coun- try. It was one of the centers of the old Maratha kingdom under Shivaji, whose blood still flows in the family of the present Maharajah. It was here that the Rev. Royal G. Wilder and Mrs. Wilder began the work of the mission in 1852. They were then missionaries of the American Board which con- ducted the work until its transfer to the Presbyterian Board at the time of the reunion of the Old and New School Churches in 1873. Mrs. Wilder and her daughter, Grace, from whose prayers and influence the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions really sprang, are buried with other mis- sionaries and many little children, with a large group of Indian Christians in the old cemetery in the midst of the ample missionary compound of forty acres or more which the State has given to the Mission for its work. Below the dates of the birth and missionary service and death of Mrs. Wilder and her daughter are inscribed in English and Marathi John 3 :16 and Romans 15 :21, and below these the words "The Path of the Righteous is as a shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." The increase of this shining > is unmistakably manifest here. "How great has been the change that I have seen here," said the Chief of Police of the Kolhapur State, who is a Christian, as we came out from a meeting in the old church, which had filled it to the doors, with a score of children seated on the floor for whom there was no room on the benches, "I can remember forty years ago when we were reviled and pelted as we came through the bazaar to the church and when the preacher spoke to empty benches, and now see this." The old church is a simple but attractive building with big white pillars, standing in the very midst of the bazaar. Next 70 door to it is the Moslem mosque. Sunday is the bazaar day, and the main church service came at the cool of the day when the street in front of the church was most densely crowded with the sellers and their wares and their customers. Through the open doors one saw from the pulpit all the busy movement of the market place and the rich variety of color and style of dress. The hum of the bazaar was a ceaseless undertone sounding through every prayer and song and spoken word, and in the midst of the service the sonorous voice of the mollah in the mosque next door sounded forth the call to prayer. From the pulpit over the heads of the con- gregation through the open windows one could see the whole white interior of the mosque and the company of the faithful as, in the appealing austerity and simplicity of their worship, they knelt together in their prayers. I do not wish to give any wrong impression with regard to the church. Most of the congregation was made up of the boys and girls from the mission schools, and many of the others were mission work- ers of one kind or another, but even when all allowances had been made the encouraging comparison of the Chief of Police is justified. The light that at first had been so flickering and insecure has now brightened into a certain and steady glow, and the future lord of the market place before the church door is not Mohammed nor Krishna nor Shiv but Christ. The little cemetery contains also the graves of the two faith- ful missionaries whose work is commemorated in the names of the Esther Patton School for girls and the Irwin Christian High School for boys. There are now one hundred and ninety girls in the Esther Patton school of whom one hundred and thirty-three are boarders. The school is a model of neatness and discipline and fine spirit. We have not heard the singing of the girls surpassed anywhere in Asia. Very wisely in these Maratha churches the Marathi music has been pre- served, and the Gospel is sung in the minor, repetitious ca- dences so dear to the people, but it is interesting and whole- some to see these girls so capable also of appreciating and themselves rendering our very best English church music. Their delight in the harmonious blending of the various parts was naive. One of our most pleasant hours was spent in hearing them sing together one evening in the moonlight the music they are preparing for the coming Christmas. Every- where throughout the bounds of the Mission we have met the graduates of this school and found them almost invariably distinguishable by the cleanness of their dress and homes 71 and by the light upon their faces and upon the faces of their children. The Irwin Christian High School for boys is just about to move into a fine new building erected by the Mission in com- pliance with an understanding with the Maharajah who has given a large tract of valuable land in addition to the other mission compound, in order that the Mission might develop a school for boys of the most efficient character, to which the Maharajah expressed his desire to have the sons of his nobles' families go for their education. It is hoped that now with good equipment and continuity of capable management the school will be such an institution as it must be our ideal that every mission school should be and as will secure the main- tenance of the Maharajah's hearty good-will. He belongs to the non-Brahman, Maratha class, and his religious views are liberal. Like practically all the rulers of native states in India he is very loyal to the present Government of India. His spirit is one not of non-cooperation but of cordial friendli- ness, and he represses the local hoodlumism of the disorderly elements in the national movement. The marble busts of the British royal family in the public garden in Kolhapur are pro- tected by wire screens and a police guard. In addition to the church and boarding schools in Kolhapur there are a number of useful evangelizing day schools both in the city and in the country villages, and bands of evan- gelists and Bible women go about from place to place spend- ing a long enough time in each village both to teach the simple little Christian community already gathered and to leave some enduring impression upon their neighbors who are not yet ready to incur the risks of Christian confession. We met such a band of four men and four women in the picturesque village of Kini with its old brick, stone and mud buildings, half glory and half ruin, exactly like one of the old cities of Israel, and the whole scene was just what one might have come upon any day in Palestine two thousand years ago. Nipani, twenty-five miles south of Kolhapur, in the midst of a broad plain of many villages, is another town like Kini, with old temples and old mosques, but now at last with a new Christian dispensary and schools and soon to have a mission- ary family resident in it. The Lafayette Avenue Church of Buffalo is supplying the funds for this new undertaking, and the stone for the new missionary residence was already ac- cumulating on the plot of ground that had been bought on the north edge of the town looking off over a wide vista of farms and villages to the far distant hills near Kolhapur. A good 72 part of the low caste population of Nipani was on the verge of coming over to Christianity when checked by the Hindus, who until then had displayed no interest in these untouchables save to avoid the contamination of their contact or of their shadow. In view of the strong anti-Brahman feeling which character- izes the Marathas one might have hoped that Christianity could long before this have won converts from some other com- munities beside the outcaste Mahars and Mangs. Almost without exception the Christians have come from these de- pressed communities. It is an amazing thing to see with what uplifting and transforming power it has wrought upon them. Many of these Christians have by a perfect miracle of change become qualified to meet as equals or even as superiors mem- bers of castes before which they had been accustomed to cringe. Perhaps it was to the end that this miracle should be wrought before the eyes of India that the doors to the higher castes have thus far been closed. Yet it cannot be the will of God that they should not open, and the prayers of the Church at home and every resource of thought and action should be brought to bear upon the task of winning Brah- mans also in great numbers to our Lord and Saviour. (7) TEACHING AND HEALING IN THE SOUTHERN MARATHI COUNTRY "Calcutta Mail," en route from Bombay to Allahabad, November 18, 1921. We came last in our visitation of the Western India Mission to the two closely adjoining stations, Sangli and Miraj. The two towns are only five miles apart, and for some years the attempt was made to unite them into one mission station. This was found to be a difficult task, however, and each of the two station communities has grown into a strong and varied separate station organization. Each town has about twenty- five thousand population and is the capital of a small native state of the same name, whose head is of the rank of chief or rajah, not of a great chief or maharajah. Sangli is the site of the Mission's industrial, agricultural, and training school. Fifty boys are learning the trades of carpentering, iron working, and tailoring; ten are studying agriculture in the simple and practical ways that will leave them willing and content to go back to the same villages from which they came, to share their knowledge with others. Thirty boys are in the normal training school for village teachers where they study for a year and then go back to the village 73 schools while the teachers whom they relieve come to Sangli. The students of all departments are Christian boys sent up from the Christian communities in the villages throughout the Mission. At the beginning of the year a few non-Christian boys are taken in, but these are usually baptized before the year is over. Many of the pupils are really grown men who have had no educational advantages and who in the classrooms are graded with the third and fourth standards, but who in the workshop or on the farm are learning how to do the full work of a man, on a far higher economic level of value than characterizes India's industrial and agricultural life. It is good to see this crude material from the villages being disci- plined into shape by the morning setting up drill and by the teaching in the class rooms and by the manual labor in the shops and fields. Mr. Goheen has just brought with him on his return from furlough some of the best American chickens, geese, hares and turkeys with which to improve native stocks and help the village people to earn a better livelihood. Sangli, like Kodoli, is the center of a large work among the villages. The Kodoli work has been chiefly among the Mahars who are the coolie class. In the Sangli field, however, the work has been chiefly among the Mangs who were for- merly known as the thief caste. Like the Mahars, they have lived in separate villages or in separate quarters of the towns or villages specially set off for them. To keep a check upon their movements the men have often been required to sleep at night near the police headquarters or to report through the night at regular roll calls. Those earnest people at home who think that the social character and influence of Christianity are a modern discovery should visit these mission stations where the Gospel is at work among the same kind of people as those whom Celsus derided as Christians in the early days of the Church. These Mang Christians are very far from being all that one could wish. They are very ignorant. Few if any of them know how to read until they come to the mission schools. Many of them are weak and timid. What else could one expect in a people who from time immemorial have been regarded as untouchable outcastes? It is of these that the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is taking hold and raising them, in spite of the same kind of moral draw- backs and disappointments which are reflected in St. Paul's Epistles, into new manhood, intelligence, and usefulness. There are more than fifty villages, in which these Christian commu- nities have developed. Seventeen of these have Christians schools with teachers sufficiently traijied to conduct the school 74 during the week and to hold religious services on Sunday and oftentimes to gather the people in some form of daily ser- vice in lieu of family worship, for which in their ignorance they are not yet prepared. We went out to the village of Degraz where this village movement among the Mangs began with a man who had left the Sangli school discontented both with it and with Chris- tianity and who returned to his Hinduism. As he studied it now, however, and tried to adjust himself once again to his old village life, he was forced into a fresh and living com- parison of Christianity and Hinduism. It was no matter of theory or speculation with him. He was considering two ways of life, and the utter inferiority of that to which he was re- turning demolished all the disgruntlement with which he had left Sangli and made him the beginning of this widely ex- tended movement among the Mangs. We have heard of much product of the mission schools like this, the return after many days of bread that seemed to have been thrown upon the waters. As Sangli has been one of the main educational training centers of the Mission, so Miraj has become not only the main medical center of the Western India Mission but also one of the greatest medical institutions in India. Beginning nearly thirty years ago with Mr. John H. Converse's gift of ten thousand dollars. Dr. Wanless, with Dr. Vail's unequaled help in recent years, has built up a great plant which could not be reproduced now for seven hundred thousand rupees, with a score of buildings, with three or four fully equipped operating rooms, between one and two hundred beds crowded almost the year round with thousands of out-patients. Indian hotels and lodging houses to care for the people who come from all over India have grown up about the hospital on property whose value the hospital has multiplied ten or twenty fold. It seems likely that the chief fame of the state will lie in this noble work which the spirit of Christ has built up. "Sir," said a Brahman in a railway carriage to Bombay, speaking to a friend of ours who was a stranger to him, "I have just come from Miraj. That is a wonderful place. I have watched those doctors. It is beyond understanding that such men who might amass wealth anywhere do that work for nothing but love and their own bare support." Fifty men are study- ing medicine in a medical school connected with the hospital, all but four of them Christians. On our last evening they invited us to meet with them in their dormitory quadrangle. The full moon came up over us as we sat together in the court 75 in the quadrangle and listened to their address. "Here," said their spokesman, "you can see India in miniature. We come from all parts of the land. We speak nine languages. We belong to different races. If you ask what brings us all here, I will tell you. First it was Christ. Second, it was the fame of Dr. Wanless." What a fountain of power this place is! Thousands of people have gone out from it to all parts of India grateful for physical healing. Hundreds of young men have been sent throughout the country as Christian doctors. In more than one village we have met them, standing out as the foremost men of the community. In two places we found them filling the positions of chief municipal honor and re- sponsibility, presiding over high caste men though they them- selves had come from the lowest of the outcaste people. It is both the high and the low that this medical work is touching. Out of gratitude and appreciation the Maharajah of Kolhapur has supplied and keeps in order the fine car which Dr. Vail uses in his work, and Dr. Wanless has two decorations from the Government of India. These are but little things, how- ever, in comparison with the looks of gratitude and almost worship which we saw following the doctors as we went with them through their great clinic of love. Here as everywhere, the Christian missionary lays Christ's hands upon the leper, and nothing could better express Christ- like cleanliness and kindliness than the asylum to which Mr. Richardson took us with its one hundred and fifteen lepers, as contented and happy as poor human creatures can be who live within such a doom. On a fine site adjoining one of the best handled mission day schools we have seen, the Mixai church, on land given by the Rajah, is about to erect the church building for which the Fourth Presbyterian Church in New York City has generously given the funds. Just across the street is the convalescent home built by funds raised from Indians by an English woman in Southern India. There amid Hindus, Parsis, Goanese and Mohammedans we met a Christian sadhu, a holy man, without legs, but with a new love and a new light preaching Christ to all. (8) LUCKNOW AND CAWNPORE Fatehpur, India, November 22, 1921 We said good-bye to the last of the Western India mission- aries at Poona on November 16th, after a fascinating trip by railway and motor from Miraj to Wathar and thence to Wai, an interesting station of the American Board, where we were received as belonging all to one family, and from Wai to Ma- 76 hableshwar, a hill station of forty-five hundred feet altitude which the Western India Mission uses as a sanitarium in the hottest weather and as a place of language study for new missionaries. From Mahableshwar one commands a won- derful view of the Western Ghats and in clear weather can look across their summits and see the ships on the Arabian Sea. From Mahableshwar we came on to Poona, passing in the dusk the camp of the elephants who had come to help to welcome the Prince of Wales. The following day we our- selves helped to welcome him as he landed in Bombay. All was peaceful and quiet along the route of the Prince's march, but in other parts of the city there were riots and fighting between the extreme and ungoverned elements of the national- istic movement and the people who were returning from wel- coming the Prince. The result of this rioting and of Mr. Gandhi's appeal to his nationalistic followers seems likely to be a strong reaction against such violence and disorder. We left Bombay the same evening for Allahabad to meet there with the Presbytery of Allahabad in an all-day con- ference on the subject of the best plan of relationship between the Missions and the Indian Church, and from Allahabad we came on to visit our mission work in the other two of the four great cities of the United Provinces, Allahabad, Benares, Cawnpore, and Lucknow. Benares and Allahabad with their sacred river sites, Benares especially as the great sacred city of Hinduism, have a unique and distinctive character but in many respects Lucknow is a still more interesting city, with its magnificent old palaces and mosques, some of them as beautiful as anything that can be found in India except the Taj, and with its great memories of the days of the Mutiny, the ruined walls of the Residency, and the grave of Henry Lawrence with its familiar inscription, "Here lies Henry Lawrence who tried to do his duty. May the Lord have mercy on his soul." Lucknow is not one of the old mission stations of our church, but we have now a vital interest in it through our association with the Women's Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church in support of the Isabella Thoburn College, not only the only Christian college for women, but the only college of any kind for women in the United Provinces. This is the institution into which Miss Thoburn built her rugged and devoted life, and which trained Lilivati Singh whose untimely death prevented her succeed- ing to the principalship and of whom President Harrison said at the Ecumenical Missionary Conference in New York 77 in 1900 after he had heard her speak, "If I had had a mil- lion dollars and had given it all to foreign missions and this were the only result, I should be satisfied with my investment." The Methodist women have given a wealth of love and life to the college, and they have been generous to welcome us as participants in it with a contribution of money and workers as yet but a fraction of what they have put in. A wide reorganization of higher educational work is going on in India at the present time. A number of the provincial governments are seeking to build up unitary teaching uni- versities somewhat after the fashion of Cambridge and Ox- ford or our great American universities, instead of the old Indian universities which were almost entirely examining bodies after the fashion of the University of London. In this transformation what were formerly colleges are required to drop the two higher years and their graduate M.A. courses in order that these may be taken over into the new unitary universities, the colleges henceforth to be known as inter- mediate colleges and to embrace a little less than is covered by the two last years of high school and the two first years of college in the United States. The Isabella Thoburn College becomes thus an intermediate women's college of the Luck- now University. It is at present, as I have said, the only women's college, and the Government has recognized it as the women's section of the University and it will not only deal with the intermediate work but it will also provide for the women students who may join the University proper. It has also its normal training course for the preparation of women as teachers. There are now fifty-seven young women in the college, but preparations must be made for two hun- dred and fifty and for this purpose a new site and buildings must be provided. We were glad to aid the Methodist friends, who are carrying the chief burden of the enterprise, in con- ferences with the authorities with the view of securing, if possible, an adequate site in a nearby park which would be conveniently near the schools and churches and where the beautiful buildings proposed would serve both to improve and to protect the two parks which would lie between the new buildings and the wonderful old palace of one of the kings of Oudh which is the home of Martiniere College, the great legacy of a French adventurer now devoted to the education of Anglo-Indian boys. With happy memories of the center of new life and power which our Methodist friends have developed in Lucknow, both in the Isabella Thoburn College and in their churches 78 and in the great Christian institutions for the eckication of boys and men which they are enlarging with notable courage and foresight, we came on the next day to Cawnpore, the industrial center of northern India. There are thirty or forty mills here working in cotton and wool and leather and em- ploying forty thousand workmen. Four thousand village Christian people have come in to find profitable employment, and the Anglican and Methodist Missions as well as our own and the Women's Union Missionary Society are caring for these Christians and for the evangelization of the city. By an interesting arrangement Mr. Wiser, while still a member of our Mission, is in charge of wide-reaching social work in the mills and is at the head of the two model villages planted by two of the largest mills, each of which houses nearly three thousand people. The four Missions in Cawnpore have united in the Rifa-i-Am Association, a Christian welfare agency, designed to develop co-operatively the community center already begun by the Presbyterian Mission. The mills in Cawnpore are seeking to pursue a generous and enlightened policy. They close on Sundays and give adequate holiday rests and furnish far better working conditions and wages than we have found in mills in other parts of Asia. With all this and with annual bonuses, some of these mills are said to have paid in dividends last year between a hundred and a hundred and fifty per cent. Here there is opportunity at the beginning of a vast industrial development both for em- ployers and for the Christian Church to deal with conditions of labor and of life in the spirit of enlightenment and sym- pathy and justice which will advance human brotherhood and well-being. Cawnpore also has its great memories. Every visitor goes to see the memorial chapel, the cross at the river ghat, and the marble angel over the well which mark the spots of tragedy in the days of the Mutiny. The old city of Cawnpore itself is a living memory full of all the scenes of traffic, the tone and color and movement of Indian life which these streets have known for untold generations. A Moslem school for boys was seated on the ground by the tram line with all the busy life of the city moving around them. Cows and donkeys wandered at will to and fro. The great bullock carts loaded with the produce of northern India churned the road into ever deeper dust. Under all the fascinating medley of race and color and sound I could still hear the voice of the dear old Indian preacher minstrel who had just sung for us on his 79 long Indian guitar, decked with peacock feathers, of the Saviour whose salvation is free and whose messengers are offering it with an ever larger freedom to India. (9) FATEHPUR, ETAWAH AND MAINPURI En route, Mainpuri to Farrukhabad, November 24, 1921. The little waif was lying on his pallet on the ground in front of the simple mud building just like a good house in his village only cleaner than any house that he had known. He had a brass bowl of water beside him. He did not mind the unshaded heat of the sun. After the chill of the early morning the warmth was grateful to him. He was a poor little chap, homeless and friendless and sick, until, directed probably by some one who knew of Christian kindness that might take him in, but of no other, he trudged alone into the mission compound at Fatehpur and found a place in Mr. Smith's little school. There, with two score other lads who had come in, only the least bit less needy than himself, he had found a home and love and his one chance. It jis true that such little centers of Christian life and service seem at first to be trivial and ineffectual efforts to deal with this immeas- urable mass of human need in India, but it is true also that the most powerful thing in the world is just such a cell of life, and the irresistible forces of life wrapped up in it but not to be confined to it, sure instead to break loose and spread with all the contagion of life. Into such a mission compound as this at Fatehpur, sanctified by the sacrifice and the fidelity of the Mutiny days, the lines of need are forever running from villages near and far, and out from it proceed unceasingly the influences which carry sympathy, intelligence, and hope to individuals, to families, and to whole depressed commu- nities. Just adjoining the compound where the one missionary family of the station lives is one of the compounds of the Women's Union Missionary Society with its clean and recrea- tive home for Indian women who need shelter and comfort, and some of them help for themselves and their babies, until they can recover their moral footing again. A mile down the wide, dusty road with great overarching trees, with its camels and its ox-carts, and its passing bahli with its gaudily decorated trappings and its veiled women within, we came to the beautiful Broadwell Memorial Hospital of the Women's Union. In all this wide district the three women of the Union and Mr. and Mrs. Smith are at present the only foreign mis- 80 sionaries, amid a population almost as great as that of New Hampshire and Vermont combined. In Etawah, the next station which we visited, three hours by rail west of Fatehpur, the population is as great, and at present there is no American missionary in the district, which has been under the efficient administration of Mr. Fitch, a South Indian from Ceylon, who with his fifteen fellow work- ers is caring for the twenty-five hundred Christians of the district and seeking to evangelize the multitudes who have never been in any way reached. Etawah city has a popula- tion of nearly fifty thousand and is full of striking temples and mosques and with most picturesque settlements of mud and brick houses built on the sides of the deep ravines cut through the heart of the city by the heavy waters of the rainy season running down into the Jumna river. The non-coopera- tors were boycotting with zealous western methods an exhi- bition which was to be opened on the day of our visit. It was an exhibition of Indian products, and the government officials of the district projecting it were all Indians, but it was a government affair and foreign goods were also to be displayed at it, and its scheme was out of keeping with the principles of Tolstoi and frugality upheld by the preachers of swaraj and swadeshi, so the young nationalists were pick- eting the roads to dissuade those who would patronize the exhibition. Among them was one ardent young man of the Arya Samaj who was convinced that the ancient Vedas con- tain the full truth needed by the world and was devoting him- self, while still conducting his business, as so many of the Aryas do, to earnest religious propaganda. He came to us in the evening to present a copy of one of their strongest books and was at the station next day to see us off and to urge further the adequacy and comfort of his Vedic faith upon us who, he was convinced, had only the less sufficient and less satisfying light of Christianity. He was devoting himself to the long courses of training which would bring him at last to Sunyasihood and then, eighteen years from now, he hoped to go fully qualified to America as a missionary of the Arya Samaj. We promised to read his book if he would promise to read the New Testament, and we left the friendly, energetic lad with the hope and prayer that long before the time for his missionary errand to America might have come he would be devoting himself to the spread of the Christian faith in India. On the evening of our arrival at Etawah the village Chris- 81 tians who had come in to meet us amid many happy festivities read a wonderful original Hindustani poem, and with two boys representing the bride and bridegroom showed us the ceremonial of a village non-Christian wedding, and then dra- matized the parable of the Prodigal Son in which the little pigs were vivaciously personified by the late bride and bride- groom. It was all beautifully natural and unconsciously free, full of vitality and spirit. One wondered whether Christians at home coming out of the same social and intellectual sur- roundings could have done anything to compare with it. It was to us a poignant detail of the drama that the chief sym- bols of dissipation of the younger son and his wild companions were Scotch whiskey bottles. Where we have taught one thing, our obvious duty is to teach something else also widely different. From Etawah a three hours' ride across this immense allu- vial plain of northern India brought us to another of our exclusively Presbyterian fields, the district of Mainpuri, with its population greater than that of Oregon or of Colorado or of Maine. Here in a little town of fourteen thousand, by good judgment and devotion and continuity of missionary service, a beautiful center of missionary influence has been developed. The High School has for eighty years been send- ing out generation after generation of boys so well taught that the school outnumbers the government high school and triumphantly vanquished by love and truth a rival high school which the Arya Samaj built next door and which now stands unfinished and abandoned. For all of these years the school has unflinchingly taught the Bible and set before Hindu and Mohammedan boys the appeal of the Christian faith and the Christian character. There is a great deal of talk in India today of the unjustifiableness of required religious teaching in mission schools. Our own view is that if the schools are justifiable at all it is because of their avowed and integral Christian character, and we were delighted to have a Hindu boy who addressed us in behalf of the school and who spoke before many Hindus and Mohammedans declare, of his own accord, that what they liked in the school was its straight- forward teaching of the Bible and its emphasis upon moral principle and character. Not far from the High School, with its great predominance of non-Christian students, is the Mission Boarding School for younger boys from the villages, practically all of whom are Christian, and on whose lives, as everywhere, the influence 82 of the Gospel is as clear as the transformation wrought by the rains upon these burned Indian plains. Clearer still, if possible, is the change as we noted it in the village men and women gathered in the training school for village workers. One needed only to have the newcomers stand up beside the three year students to mark the almost unbelievable trans- formation. There is need of all this rightly trained and not overtrained service in the villages of this district, where there are five thousand baptized Christians needing most patient schooling in Christian truth and duty. Happy as our visit to these three stations in the heart of the North India Mission has been and full of happy incidents, nothing has been happier or more of a privilege than our meeting again with Dr. Johnson of Mainpuri,now in his eighty- third year. Nearly four hundred publications have come from Dr. Johnson's pen during his more than half a century of notable service in India. With unabated energy, though with failing vision, he is still rendering invaluable service, turning out some of the freshest work of his life and eager to find new ways of making the Gospel words clear to the village folk of India. (10) ON SACRED GROUND AT FATEHGARH En route Kasganj to Bareilly, November 26, 1921. We are glad to have visited Fatehgarh at last and to have got clear in our own minds the varied work of this old and complicated mission station, rich with the memories of the missionary martyrs of the Indian Mutiny and of three genera- tions of fertile and unwearied missionary service. The many forms of the station's work and their location and interrela- tions are clear to us now. The central station itself includes Farrukhabad with a population of eighty thousand, Fateh- garh three miles away with a population of thirty thousand, the village of Bharpur lying between the two cities with a population of five thousand, and the little village of Rakha, a mile and a half north of Fatehgarh. In Farrukhabad are the mission day school of Hindu and Mohammedan girls and a good brick church and reading room in the midst of the bazaar. At Bharpur are the Boys' High School with its hostel for Hindu and Mohammedan boys, and its boarding house for the Christian boys from the villages, the large new hospital, the industrial trade school for boys, and the bunga- lows for the missionaries engaged in these institutions and 83 in the evangelistic work in the cities and villages. There are five Christian groups in each of the two cities associated in one church organization for each city, and there are besides a church at Bharpur and a church at Rakha where also the Boarding School for Christian Girls carries on its work. Here in one united mission center at a total expense for mis- sionary support and all other outlay of less than the cost of a single city congregation or superior high school at home, the missionaries are carrying on a great undertaking of pure evangelism and of social ministry dealing with personal and community health, economic and agricultural welfare, and seeking to communicate the Lord of Life and the life of the Lord to all the life of man. Farrukhabad is a fascinating old city with its long street of ancient shops, its crooked ways and varied color, preserv- ing, no doubt, the typical character of the ancient cities, so many of which have fallen away into ruins in this great center of the ancient life in India. In spite of all the preach- ing and teaching of the years by men and women as earnest and devoted as any who have ever lived, the heart of the city is still closed to Christ. The women in hundreds of its homes, however, are open to those who follow into the zenanas and purdahs the gaily dressed little girls, who, Hindu and Moham- medan though they are, are happily studying the Bible in the picturesque old school, built round its open court with its huge imli tree, under whose shade the classes sit on the ground about their teachers. At occasional services also the big brick church is packed, though, for the rest of the time, few come. A reading room has lately been opened in the church where an increasing number of young men are com- ing nightly for conversation about the Bible. As we came out of the church a huge elephant nearly twelve feet high came swinging gravely down the street with a load of sugar cane on his back. We have met here with one of the most interesting religious groups in this land of infinitely varied religions. These are the Sadhs. They are among the most prosperous merchants of the city, manufacturing beautiful hand printed cloth, of which they export large quantities to London and Paris. They are a small community numbering only four or five thousand in the whole of India, distributed in Farrukhabad, Delhi, Mirzapur, Bijmian and Lairdpur. Half a dozen of them gen- erously came to explain their religion, several of whom under- stood English. Their faith is unlike Hinduism, for it has 84 no caste, no idols, no pilgrinia^j^es, no priests, and no worship of the Ganges. It is unlike Buddhism because Buddhism be- lieves in no creator, while the Sadhs believe in God. We asked them what their conception of God was, and their spokesman answered, **He is the Sat Sub, the true one, the one who is. He was in the beginning with God and he was God." I asked the speaker whether he was quoting these words from any sacred book, and he said not, but that this was the way his people thought of God. It emerged that he had been years ago a student in the Mission High School, and Bible language had unconsciously wrought itself into the very habit of his mind. Evidence could be produced of thousands of such cases, men who while still within their old religions have carried with them from mission schools distinctly Christian conceptions both of religious faith and of moral character. The Sadhs are vegetarians. Polygamy, opium, and intoxicat- ing drinks are forbidden. They carry on no missionary work and they welcome but receive few proselytes. They salaam to no one but to God only, and they do not mourn at death. "If a man lends me a hundred rupees," said our friend, "and the time comes for his repayment, like an honest man and without complaint I pay him his debt. Why should we act otherwise with God?" The community bears a good moral reputation and is deemed honest but very sharp in business. Mrs. Bandy has won many friends among them, and their sick have come to the mission hospital. When will such people find their halflight fulfilled and satisfied in the full Light of the world ! In the schools at Bharpur and Rakha the station is doing its utmost to deal with the problem of the training of the village Christians. There are eight thousand baptized Chris- tians in the villages of this district of more than a million people. These Christians are almost entirely from the sweeper castes, of whom nearly four-fifths have been gathered into the village Christian communities. These communities are very small, however, and there are not enough children in a single community to sustain a school. They are not admitted to the government schools and the children of other castes would not come to schools provided for the sweepers. The only ways in which at present the problems of ignorance and illiteracy among these village Christians can be met are first the gathering of the best children into the central station schools, and second the use of itinerant teachers of whom Dr. Bandy has em- 85 ployed a number, inciting them to more efficient work in teaching the village people to read the Bible by making the salaries of the teachers proportionate to the success of their efforts. The majority of these poor people own no land and can acquire none and the average holding of those who pos- sess land is between a third and a half of an acre. How this land can be made to produce five crops so as to sustain a family is one of the mission problems which is no less evan- gelistic than it is economic. In the corner of the Rakha compound stands the beautiful old church which was built the year before the Mutiny. On its wall is a tablet in memory of the four missionary fami- lies and the Indian Christian family which were killed in the Mutiny, and not far away near the parade ground in Fateh- garh stands the beautiful memorial church and beside it the simple shaft containing the names of all the Fatehgarh folk who fell in the Mutiny. On the side of the monument which we first approached under the long column of names was the single word "Forsaken," which startled one until he read on two other faces, "Persecuted" — "But not." There are two hundred girls in the Rakha Girls' School, four-fifths of them boarders and mostly from the villages. Dr. Rogan's bequest furnished the funds for a new and greatly needed school but one almost regrets to see the present simple school rooms given up, consisting of only the earthen floor, the tile roof, and two mud end walls, the two sides of the room being wide open to the air. It was fine to see the happy faces of the clean and healthy company clad in the simplest little dresses made of a mere fraction of the cloth necessary for a full Indian woman's dress. But when two hundred girls have to be fed and clothed and taught on a mission appropriation of two hundred dollars a month with such help as can be gotten from fees and Government, it is necessary to practice every economy. ! I should have to write another letter to deal with the need and the work of the memorial hospital. To see the poverty and pain and quiet suffering in the hospital, and the Christian love which is meeting it, has made us glad and has made us thoughtful. Why has the Christian Church not multiplied such ministry to Christ and men a hundred fold? 86 (11) BY THE GANGES CANAL AND THE GRAND TRUNK ROAD En route Kasganj to Bareilly, November 26, 1921. We left Fatehgarh by motor in the early morning. The air was crisp and sharp. As we ran through the long, empty street of the Farrukhabad bazaar the smoke of the early fires came drifting through the roofs. Here and there an early riser among the shop keepers had opened the front of his single-roomed, little shop upon the street and was arranging his wares or huddling within his blanket waiting for the warm sun. The funny big two storied wagons drawn each by a single camel were creeping into the city laden with country produce and sleepy, shivering passengers. The farm- ers were just bringing out their oxen to begin the daily work of drawing water from the innumerable wells among the potato fields, by the quaint device of the huge leather water buckets pulled up by the oxen moving up and down a little inclined roadway. Twenty miles out we left the good high- way and turned off to a branch of the great Ganges irrigation canal, and for forty miles ran along the bank of the canal, past herds of wild deer and amid the most varied and beau- tiful bird life I have ever seen. Near the village of Banhari ka lam we left the canal and stopped at Mr. Ogden's evangel- istic camp under a grove of mango trees. For a good part of the cool season each evangelistic missionary is out in his dis- trict moving his camp from place to place. The women of the nearby villages come to his wife and to the Bible women in the camp in the evening when the work is done, and he and the Indian evangelists move about from village to village preaching Christ. Sometimes they meet with indifference, sometimes as in this camp of Mr. Ogden's, they meet with theft and serious loss, and sometimes they find an open door and an interested response. But how great is one man's task in a field like this ! The Kasganj field is one-half of the Etah district and embraces over four hundred thousand people in more than eight hundred vil- lages with nearly eight thousand Christians scattered through nearly five hundred and twenty-five villages. The Christian groups and the sweeper caste communities from which they come are too small to sustain schools, and as yet no central schools have been established in the central station at Kas- ganj. On one missionary family alone the burden of all this great work in a population twice as large as that of the state of Wyoming is laid, save as it is shared by the Indian 87 preachers who have been trained for it and who are willing, as only very simply trained workers are willing, to live in the poverty and ignorance of these village communities. We sat down under the shade of the mango trees for a conference with these simple Indian evangelists. We asked them for answers out of their own thought and experience to such questions as these: What was their thought of God before they became Christians? What were their ideas of sin and salvation then and now? What did they admire most in the earthly life and character of Christ? What did they think of Him now? Which were their favorite miracles and parables? What reasons did they give to those to whom they spoke as to why they should accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour? The characteristics of Christ which they mentioned were His love for His enemies. His unselfish service to others, His fellowship with God, His patience and holiness. Their favorite parables were the parables of the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Lost Sheep, and then, realizing its perti- nence to their own work, the parable of the Sower. In the midst of the conference a man and his wife stood up to state some grievances, and as we listened to his story and thought on what the little company seated there under the mango trees had been saying, it was not hard to imagine that we were back in the Corinthian Church and looking in upon its life instead of on these crude beginnings of the Christian Church in India. From this little camp we went back to the canal again and on until we crossed another of the great roads of India, wide and straight and shaded, and turning down it we came past big flocks of monkeys and scores of wild peafowl into Kas- ganj. From Kasganj we drove out in the evening nineteen miles to the station of Etah, another of the great centers of this village mass movement work from which the Kasgani field had been cultivated until it seemed better to set it off under the care of a missionary located at Kasganj. Here in the Etah field there are nearly seven thousand Christians scattered in nearly one-half of the eight hundred villages of the field. In this field, as in Kasganj and Fatehgarh, schools in the small village communities which are accessible are im- practicable, and the work has to be done in the two central station schools in Etah, one for boys and one for girls. In the simplest way and under the plainest conditions and forced both by the scanty funds available and by sound judgment that would teach these boys and girls so as to fit them for 88 the kind of lives they must Hve within the tight and tyran- nical caste bonds which are still unshattered in, India, the station is training the nearly two hundred children who are all for whom its present inadeciuate appropriations provide. It was as much as one could do, who had little ones of his own to think of, to hold back the tears as we watched the two schools marching in Sunday morning to the big tent where the services of the day were to be held. They came two by two singing their Christian songs and the missionary who came with each company looked just like a shepherd going before the sheep who knew their shepherd's voice and followed him. We were delighted to meet here after the morning service a large company of Christian farmers, elders in the churches, some of them old men and some of them young. They told of the changes which they had experienced in their lives through the influence of the Gospel and which they had seen and could bear sure witness to in the lives of their out-caste and untouchable people. Nowhere in the world, I suppose, could men be found to whom St. Paul's words would more fittingly apply, "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world and the weak things of the world and the base things and things which are despised, yea and things which are not," and likewise it would be hard to find anywhere more homely sense, awakened zeal, and simple and true purpose and ex- perience. When one of the evangelists suggested that the work was very dependent upon rupees from America and that if these rupees should cease the work would decline, the old farmers broke in, "No, no." No doubt, they said much that was being done now could not then be done, but the Gospel was alive in their hearts and would spread, whatever the future might bring. On the subject of present pohtical con- ditions the farmers had also their own clear and intelligent views. They did not believe in revolution. They thought the present government of India was good and whatever changes were to come should be made in orderly and law- abiding ways. Here too the economic problems are very real, and the self-support of the Church is interwoven with the problem of the self-support of these poor Christians who have always hung on the eyelids of poverty. The new thrift and industry which the Christian spirit produces have been of immeasur- able help, but the station has sought also to develop some forms of home industry which will not be impossible for these 89 outcaste folk within the rigid and oppressive structure of Indian society. Some of the most evangehstic-hearted of our home people, like Mr. Charles L. Huston, chairman of the General Assembly's Evangelistic Committee, have seen that it is evangelistic work of the truest kind to help these Chris- tians to be self-sustaining evangelists to their own people. The station's enterprise in supplying these Indian villagers with better chickens has been recognized by the Government as one of the wisest and most effective measures of helpful- ness which has been introduced into India. "It is practical improvements of this kind," wrote the Lieutenant Governor of this province, "which constitute one of the greatest needs of India at the present time and are in themselves a most valuable form of education." And through and beneath and beyond all these things the Gospel is being preached in all this region as our Lord meant it to be preached and promised to bless its preaching. (12) "UNTO THE HILLS" Dehra Dun, November 30, 1921. There may be more beautiful places than Dehra Dun and Landour which we are yet to see in India, but certainly there are no more beautiful places that we have seen. We reached Dehra after a long night's ride from the flat plains just as the day was breaking, and lo, before us, reaching right up to the heavens like a huge wall between us and the coming dawn rose the Mussoorie foot-hills of the Himalayas. One brilliant star was still bright over them, and high up, seven thousand feet above the sea, shone the lights of Mussoorie. Outside the railway station we came upon the picturesque and variegated types which make this north Indian life so much more interesting than the less varied life of southern India. A little wandering group of hill minstrels which had taken in somehow a Scotch bagpipe sat huddled up in the morning chill under a big tree. We rode off at once through the well- watered and well-wooded big compounds of Dehra to Rajpur where horses were waiting for the long climb up the moun- tains. The wide dun of Dehra stretched out below us from the mountains which we were ascending far across to the range of the Sewaliks. All this as we rose above it was beau- tiful enough, but it was very little in comparison with the glory which we looked out upon when we came out on the top of the range beside the Kellogg Memorial Church. There to the north beyond range after range of intervening moun- 90 • tains, green in the wet season but now brown and bare, rose the huge dazzling white range of the high Himalayas. Everest and Kuchinjunga were far to the eastward beyond our sight, but from Naini Tal to Simla the whole glorious range stood out in the morning sunlight without a cloud. Later in the day for a little while the clouds blew up from Dehra Dun, and with entrancement we watched the dissolving and re- appearing wonder of the scene. One instant the mountains would vanish as though they were not and then one white peak would appear and then the whole range and the next instant the glory would be gone as in a dream. Now the sunlit bases would return, the summits invisible. Now the white summits would stand out as though resting on the clouds. The little church stood on the very crest and from its pews one could look out through the windows over the Dehra valley to the far off Sewalik hills on the one side and on the other across fifty or a hundred miles of rough brown tumbled mountains to the alabaster wall of northern India. Years ago through the foresight of the early missionaries property was acquired here of which the Missions now hold a hundred acres or so including the highest ground, barring an adjoining peak held by the Government. On this property the Punjab and North India Missions have the simple hill houses which are so absolutely indispensable to health and especially to the health of the women and children in the heat of the north India plains. Perched on the summit or nestling here and there on the very highest slopes are a dozen of these plain buildings which for three generations have been saving invaluable lives and promoting missionary effi- ciency. About five hundred feet down from the top is the composite group of buildings making up the Woodstock School, and two hundred feet lower, on the crest of a connected hill, are the beautiful buildings of the Woodstock College standing as a memorial to two women whose pictures hang upon the wall of the main school room and whose lives have meant as much as those of any American women in the missionary work of the Church, Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Thorpe of the old Phila- delphia Women's Board. Woodstock School was begun be- fore the Mutiny and is still known to the hill coolies by the name of the Company School. It was in the early seventies that the school was taken over by the Mission on the receipt of what is said to have been the first cablegram that was ever received by the Mission from America, "Buy Woodstock." 91 Here during the long history of the school thousands of girls, Anglo-Indians and daughters of missionaries and other for- eigners, have been fitted for useful lives, and many small boys from missionary homes, who otherwise would have had to be sent home to America, have been kept near their fathers and mothers and given their early training in full view of the opportunity and need in India. With the increase of the missionary force of all denominations the necessity of such schools for children is ever more clear and imperative, and our own Missions are now welcoming the United Presbyterian Mission into the support and management of Woodstock. Parallel with this development, however, it has been found necessary to plan for the abandonment of the college depart- ment, the American girls preferring to take their college course in America and the Anglo-Indian girls desiring a normal or commercial training which Woodstock will pro- vide, in addition to its work of caring for the missionary children and the large number of Anglo-Indian girls who come for the middle and high school work. Indian girls who \ care for a college course are provided for at the college in Lucknow in which we cooperate with the Methodists, or in Kinnaird College, Lahore. From Landour we tramped down the steep, stony road to Raj pur, and from Raj pur came back to Dehra. We have lost our hearts a good many times on this trip, but we have lost them again to the Dehra Girls' School with its beautiful grounds and its noble old building and its heavenly view of the hills and its fine spirit. Miss Donaldson has just laid down the principalship of this school after a generation of service which has left the school with a unique endowment of influence and of confidence and of affection, and at her suggestion and that of her associates the Mission has chosen as her successor an Indian Christian woman. Miss Chatterji. This is one Mission school which has got far beyond the elee- mosynary stage. With the exception of less than half a dozen scholarship girls all the girls pay for their board and tuition and provide their own clothing and books. Both the Dehra Girls' School and the Dehra Christian com- munity illustrate the way in which Christianity is reaching other classes of the population of India than the outcastes, among whom we have been in so many stations, and also shows how the Christian community in many parts of India is work- ing its way onward in thrift and prosperity. The company which met us here, in the same kind of cordial welcome re- 92 ception which we meet everywhere, was made up almost alto- gether of Christians of the second or third generation or of converts from the upper castes. The gentleman who made the welcoming address was one of the leading lawyers of northern India and a son of the convert of Alexander Duff who had been pastor of the Fatehpur church in the Mutiny and whose fidelity had been inscribed on the tablet which we had reverently read on the Fatehpur church wall. At the same time it was significant to find that the pastor of the Dehra church, preaching effectively and acceptably to this congregation, was himself a product of the work in the Fateh- garh station among the sweeper out-castes. The roll of missionaries who have worked at Dehra since its occupation as a mission station in 1853 contains the names of many men and women who have been forgotten at home, but whose impress has been made indelibly on the Christian Church in India. Indian Christians tell us that it was this one or that one who led them to the Saviour, and that old and blessed business, the first and last task of foreign missions, the leading of men and women and boys and girls one by one to the Saviour, is still going richly on. But how colossal a task it is! This letter was begun at Dehra, but the train has brought us now to Hurdwar, the great place of pilgrimage for the Hindus coming hither to worship the sacred Ganges, near the gateway of the Himalayas through which the river comes forth. Some say that the great Indian pilgrimages have fallen off from year to year, and we saw in an Indian paper a few days ago a statement of the evidence of this diminution in certain receipts of tolls, but others see no weak- ening in the immense popular worship of the Ganges in north- ern India. To die and to be burned on its banks is still the longing of the true Hindu heart on these great plains to which the Ganges has meant life and fertility for innumerable years. In the far off future of Indian Christianity there will still be room for some special worship of God in consideration of His goodness and greatness as the giver of rivers, but how many generations and centuries will it take to destroy the weakening and corrupting superstition of the Indian idolatry which it is sheer folly to idealize into innocence? (13) "THE CITY OF ST. HAROUN" En route Kaithal to Kurrukhshetra, December 3, 1921. Who this St. Haroun was or whether he was a true saint, I do not know, but this is what Mr. Roy told me was the mean- 93 ing of the name Saharanpur, and he is one of the most thoughtful and ingenious Indian scholars we have met. It is next to the oldest of our mission stations in India. The beau- tiful old church standing in the middle of the ample mission compound of fifty-four acres is one of the pre-Mutiny church buildings, simple, commodious and of thoroughly good taste. On the wall of the church is a tablet to the memory of the Rev. A. P. Kelso, for many years one of our missionaries here and the father of President Kelso of the Western Theo- logical Seminary, and another tablet bearing the following inscription : "Sacred to the memory of the late Rev. J. R. Campbell, D.D., Founder and First Pastor of this Church, And of Mary his wife, who labored together For many years in this district as missionaries In the cause of Christ and in the work of The American Presbyterian Mission." Dr. Campbell and his associates were ministers of the Re- formed Presbyterian Church which had sent them forth and paid their salaries while the expenses of the work were borne by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Later the entire expense was taken over by the Board, and the missionaries became members of the Presbytery of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. which is now of course part of the Presbyterian Church of India. Dr. Campbell laid the foun- dations of the work in courageous faith. While there were yet only eight converts, he built the present church with its ample room for four hundred, and he and his successors acquired perpetual lease for a small annual rental of commo- dious room in this large 'compound for all the varied work of the station for all the years. As everywhere else, the station is not intended to be the city only, but the whole district round about, and although various sections of the field are now made over to other agencies such as the Indian National Missionary Society, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and the Methodist Church, there still remain hundreds of thousands of people whose evangelization is the responsibility of our own Church. There are some twelve hundred baptized members of the Church in the city and in the villages, and the evangelistic workers told us of the situation and problems which they were facing. It was the Indian preachers and Bible women who were bear- ing testimony. The difficulties of which they spoke were the 94 anti-Christian propaganda of the Arya Samaj, the oppression of landlords, the economic slavery of the people, their help- lessness in the face of caste ostracism and exclusion from water and the means of livelihood on their becoming Chris- tians, their ignorance and poverty. On the other hand there were many people who wanted to become Christians and there was the evidence of gain in thrift and character due to even a small measure of Christian knowledge and faith. The new political agitation was not helping the progress of Christian- ity. It was bringing new pressure to bear against the in- crease of the Christian communities. On the other hand, again, even simple Christian folk were meeting the pressure and saying to the Nationalist and Khilafat agitators, "We are Christians, and we were Christians before your movement arose. If you have swaraj and turn us out of our villages, we will go, but we will still be Christians." "As to our diffi- culties and encouragements," said one old man at the end, "as long as we live there will be hardships. The one great diffi- culty is always the same. It is just sin, and our greatest hope is just love." There is nothing idealistic about such little groups of workers or the situations with which they are dealing, unless one views them through the eyes of Christ and realizes that such as these must be just the same sort of folk as those from whom our Lord called the founders of the Christian Church as He taught in the villages of Galilee. The names of two of the most devoted friends of foreign missions at home are associated with the Theological Semi- nary of our Punjab and North India Missions which is located here in Saharanpur. The dormitory quadrangle bears the name of Mr. L. H. Severance and the name of Mrs. Living- stone Taylor of Cleveland is on a tablet over the door of an attractive building containing the seminary chapel, library and class rooms. We asked the sixteen students who were there from our three India Missions what motives were lead- ing them into the ministry and what it was in Christianity which seemed to them to mark it off as superior to the other religions. The two ideas were evidently inseparable. These were some of their answers drawn not from theoretical study of comparative religion, but out of the experience and struggle of life: (1) The death of Christ upon the cross and His resurrection. (2) The experience of repentance and the sense of sin and of emancipation from it. (3) Fulfillment of Old Testament predictions in Christ and the not less wonderful fulfillment in Him of the unconscious predictions and hopes 95 of the non-Christian religions. (4) The love and holiness of a fatherly God who wishes His children to attain to His righteousness. (5) The Christian conception of salvation and its gift by God's goodness as the answer to faith. How can those who have such a possession feel otherwise than bound to share it with others? The wives of the seminary students and their little children were gathered in separate classes of their own, and for once not one baby cried, while the mothers sang a Hindu hymn which had been taken over by Christianity, just as Buddhism is taking over some of our Christian hymns in Japan. It had been an old song of devotion to Krishna in which the women for Krishna had substituted Christ. *'I have made Christ my own," they sang, "let people say what they will. I have made Christ my own." The other mission institution on the compound is the in- dustrial training school for boys. It is a small school now in comparison with what it was in the days after the great famine when several hundred orphan lads were gathered here largely under the support of the late E. B. Sturges of Scranton, whose loving heart took in and upbore hundreds of these Indian famine waifs. Mr. Borup told us that though the orphanage had saved their lives and taught them trades and brought all of them into the Christian Church, neverthe- less nearly eighty per cent of them had died in their young manhood as a result of seeds of disease planted in the days of their starvation. The boys trained in the school have not met any difficulty in finding good wages upon leaving. Many of them went as mechanics or chauffeurs with the Indian army to Mesopotamia and came back with good savings. Both of these training institutions in Saharanpur are able to train many times the number of students which they have at pres- ent, and one of the present problems of the work in India is the larger utilization of these two good agencies in meeting the enormous needs in their fields of work. Saharanpur is an old, typically irregular and confused oriental city. We went through tortuous streets with their specialized trades-folk gathered in their own sections to visit the city day schools, especially the school for Hindu and Mo- hammedan girls conducted in the old building of the boys' high school which was given up some years ago, and a Mo- hammedan theological school where several hundred young men are under training as Maulvies to go out over northern India and as far as Persia. On our way back to the compound we passed the new and the old in India in vivid contrast. The 96 new was a sign over a none too clean shop reading, "London Barber Shop. Haircut in the latest European fashions. Civil and Military hair singed and curled." The old was an aged Indian fakir, naked save for his loin cloth, smeared with ashes over his body and his matted white hair and beard, seated in the blazing sun on a heap of ashes by the roadside. He had traveled far and wide through India, said he, and was happy in his life. Where he was going he did not know. He was content to be where he was. After death? "Who could say. That is to be seen." What did he hope for? "To tell the name of Rama." Of the name that is above every name he did not know. (14) AMBALA AND SANTOKH MAJRA En route Ambala to Jullundur, December 5, 1921. The province of the Punjab is divided into political divisions called districts and these into sub-divisions called tahsils. The general unit of our missionary organization is the tahsil. The Ambala district, for example, comprises five tahsils. One of these tahsils is cared for by the New Zealand Presbyterians, another by the English Baptists, a third falls within the field of the Rupar station, and the two others, namely, the tahsils of Ambala and Naraingarh, constitute the field of the Ambala station. To the southeast of the Ambala district lies the district of Karnal in which is the work of the Presbyterian home missions of the Ludhiana Presbytery, and in which also is the settlement of Santokh Majra, which is an effort, unique in our Missions in India, to deal in a direct way with the eco- nomic problem of the ostracized Christian village farmer and at the same time to develop an indigenous center of financially unaided missionary effort on the part of Indian Christians. Coming by train from Saharanpur we changed cars first at Ambala and then at midnight at Kurrekshetra, one of the most famous of all the battle grounds of India. Here in the fabled times occurred the great struggle which determined the Aryan supremacy in India. Here long afterwards the decisive battle between the Marathas and the Mohammedans was fought. In the present century on the same historic soil were two of the decisive engagements between the British and the Sikhs and the British and the Mutineers. Nearby are the ruined shrines and pools of Thanesar, neglected save in the pilgrimages in the time of the lunar eclipse, where the river Saraswati is believed to disappear under ground to 97 4 — India and Persia emerge again in the juncture of the Ganges and the Jumna at Allahabad. From Kurrekshetra a little branch line which ran one or two trains a day took us out from the great highway of India to the quaint old town of Kaithal. As we got off the train in the early morning we met an assembly of wonderfully decorated ox-teams and ox-carts with gold and purple trap- pings, and faded gorgeous cupolas, which had come to receive a young bridegroom and his party. The poor bridegroom himself was overlooked in the general excitement and was standing alone, rather disconsolate in his gilt and crimson headdress and his pink robe, until some kindly by-stander espied him and hurried him off to his proper seat in the pro- cession which had already begun to move, led by a khaki-clad country band playing Auld Lang Syne. Some of the mission- aries had breakfast waiting in the old palace, now used as a traveling rest house by government officials. In its faded but still dignified grandeur it stood on a brick platform with steps leading down to a pool across which, although within the same great enclosure, rose the battlements of the fortifications and of the women's apartments of the ancient establishment. The monkeys were scampering about in the trees, and thorn bushes were wrapped around the lamp posts to keep the little rascals from putting out the lights. Santokh Majra is eighteen miles out from Kaithal. over a rude road now deep in dust and rutted by the bullock carts. It is a tract of two thousand acres which the Mission holds under a lease from the Government expiring in 1930 and which is sub-let to some fifty or sixty Christian families on terms which cover the rental paid to Government and the other expenses of administration and which at the same time leave a balance available for use in times of emergency like famine and drought, while protecting the tenants against the oppression of the non-Christian zamindars and the petty per- secutions of hostile neighbors. The farmers work average holdings of about twelve acres each, a far larger tract than the average Indian farmer can ever hope to possess. Indeed in many of our mission districts it is not possible for the low caste Christians to secure land at all. Even our superficial experience enabled us to see how much more comfortable and prosperous these Christian farmers at Santokh Majra have become than farmers of the same type. Christian or non- Christian, elsewhere. Useful as such a piece of work is, how- ever, it is not as an economic experiment that it would jus- 98 tify the amount of missionary time and attention it requires. It is rather because of the hope that such a community can be developed into an independent group holding its own land in fee simple and constituting a base of evangelistic eifort un- subsidized by foreign funds. The whole community came together in the simple mud-walled and mud-floored church and school house which the people themselves had built, and as we looked out over the group and through the open windows and doors over their village and listened to the old gray- bearded patriarchs, it seemed to us that we were back in one of the very villages of Galilee among the same kind of people and the same sort of village life with which our Lord had to deal. From Santokh we returned to Ambala, coming in the last twenty miles on the Grand Trunk Road, thinking of the many feet that had tramped that road in the old days when it was the one great highway of northern India from Calcutta straight away a thousand miles to Peshawar and the Khyber gate into Afghanistan. In addition to the evangelistic work throughout the villages the Ambala station has its two extensive centers of activity in Ambala Cantonment, one of the main military headquarters in India, and in Ambala City, five miles away. In the Canton- ment are a fine old church under the care of Mr. Uppal. one of the most lovable men we have met in India, who has been r>reaching Christ to his countrvmen with winning persuasion for fifty-four years, and the dispensary which Dr. Forman is carrying on in the simplest and most unencumbered way but with fullness of personal touch on the forty or fifty needy souls and bodies which come to him daily. In Ambala City are the Boys' High School which was for years the only high school in the city, although it has now four rivals, Moham- medan, Hindu, Sikh, and government, some of them called into existence by its influence; the large day school for Mo- hammedan girls into which Miss Pratt has gathered the half- dozen former little girls' schools in order to make sure, with Christian teachers and her own daily influence, of the most direct Christian teaching; the Philadelphia Hospital for Wo- men with its cleanliness and order and efficiency, witnessing to the love and care of the women who have built their lives into it; and the Mary E. Pratt Middle School for girls to which the younger girls from the Punjab Mission are now sent instead of to Dehra as in the earlier years. Certainly there is no work in the world that is finer or done with a more 99 deft and certain touch or marked by clearer transforming and purifying power, and by more Christlike spirit and result than the work of Christian women for the girls of India. Every girls' school which we have visited has shown this magic touch of Christian women. As we came away from these schools on Saturday afternoon, we stopped at the leper asylum, superintended by the station, though financially sup- ported by the Mission to Lepers, one-third of the sixty doomed sufferers were Christians, and at their desire they stood up in a row by the side of their poor but very tidy and comfortable home and sang "The Lord is My Shepherd." Who could have listened to their song unmoved as the poor, gnarled, scarred, decaying creatures sang together "My cup runneth over. Surely goodnes and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life," and then over the very wreckage of their lives called after us as we went away, "Yisu Masih ki jai," "Victory to Jesus Christ?" Miss Pratt will complete next year her fiftieth year of mis- sionary service in India. I asked her what changes she had seen in these years. She answered, a great decrease of poverty, the opening up of the whole of India in physical accessibility, a great diminution of ignorance, a steady blur- ring of the rigidity of caste, an immense increase of the senti- ment of political independence, the sure growth of Christian character, and a deepened revelation of the inadequacy of any power short of Christ's to meet the needs of India and India's people. (15) JULLUNDUR AND HOSHIARPUR En route Hoshiarpur to Moga, December 6, 1921. These two old stations in the very heart of the Punjab Mis- sion are familiar and sacred names in the missionary affec- tions of the Church at home, and they are associated with the names of two of the best known and most honored of the leaders of the Indian Church. Jullundur was founded as a Mission Station by Golok Nath. As his name indicates, "The master of a hundred cows," he was the son of a Brahman family in Bengal, who wandered northwestward to far off Ludhiana in the early days. There through the influence of John Newton, one of the great missionary pioneers, he was brought to Christ and was then sent on by Mr. Newton across the Sutlej river to open work in Jullundur before any foreign missionary was allowed to go in. When some weeks ago 100 we went out from Ludhiana to Phillaur, Golok Nath's son pointed out to us the spot beyond the Sutlej and just in front of the old Sikh fort, which is now the police training school, where his father was nearly ground to death between stones in punishment for his distribution of the Bible, For half a century Mr. Golok Nath worked in Jullundur preaching the Gospel in the city and the surrounding country. In 1846 he established the Mission High School for boys which for more than seventy-five years has been moulding the char- acter of the young men of Jullundur by daily Bible teaching and daily chapel with its unceasing and sympathetic presen- tation of the Gospel. The winning of any one of these Pun- jabi Mohammedans or Hindus or Sikhs to the Christian faith is a miracle and the miracles have not been as many as prayer has asked or as life has been poured out to effect, but there has been and there is no other form of access or of influence which the best and truest missionaries have been able to devise more effective than this daily teaching of the Gospel to these boys. Ninety per cent of the five hundred boys who sat crowded together with their many colored tur- bans looking like a bed of tulips on the floor of the assembly hall when we met with them are Mohammedans, and only those who have tried to win Mohammedans, whether men or boys, to Christ know the supreme difficulty of the task. But in these schools as in no other audiences the coming men of Islam are listening with docile and friendly spirit to the claims of Christ, and those who would discontinue this kind of mis- sion work as unwarranted must be prepared to point out some substitute for it which will secure the same hearing for the Gospel among the Mohammedan lads of India. As in many of these cities in the Punjab, the spirit of political discontent has been very strong in Jullundur. It has sought in vain, however, to break up the school. Its headmaster, Mr. Jamal- ud-Din, the son of a Christian convert from Islam, has been strong enough to hold his own and to maintain his school, and when on the day of the arrival in Bombay of the Prince of Wales a hartal was proclaimed in Jullundur by the ultra Nationalists and the shops were closed and the boys ordered to stay away from the schools, the Christian High School went right on with its work with the full attendance of its students. Thousands of Mohammedan and Hindu parents in India know enough to prefer and support a school where boys are held under firm discipline and where Christian prin- ciples are grained into their lives. 101 No American missionaries are located at present in Jul- lundur. Mr. Jamal-ud-Din has been placed in entire charge of the school and the Rev. Henry Goloknath, one of the sons of the founder of the station, is in charge of the evangelistic work. The church built in memory of Golok Nath provides fully the salary of its pastor, weak though its membership is. In all these Mission stations, however, the great bulk of the work is among the villages and the low caste people whom Hinduism, and Mohammedanism also, shut out and who found their only hope in Christianity. We went out from Jullundur to a gathering of these village Christians at Phoriwal. It was a wonderful celebration, and the village Christians met all the expense including the cost of the carts which brought us out from the Jullundur Cantonment. First the children, then a group of men with a band, then the old chaudhris or elders of the village met us, and we marched in disorderly procession through the dusty, tortuous village street between mud walls to an open space where a large enclosure had been shut in by curtains and a canopy spread over the chairs where we were to sit. Into the enclosed space thronged five hundred or more village Christians, old men with beards gray or henna dyed, young men, women and children. Several hun- dred more women and children gathered on the housetops and a crowd of Mohammedan landlords of the village sur- rounded the enclosure and looked over the curtains or stood on a little bank a few feet away where they could see and hear all that was going on. After the band had played and a group of men and boys had sung some Indian music, the Christian pastor read us in Punjabi a remarkable address to which the whole audience within and without listened with breathless interest. "We welcome you, sir, with a shout of cheer," he began, and he went on with great power to describe in the very hearing of their oppressors "the low life of utter wretchedness, servitude, and mental and moral degradation," from which, "thanks to the efforts of Christian Missions, thanks to the Gospel of touchability of love as taught and lived by our Lord and Saviour," Christ had begun to lift them. "We are done with groveling at the foot of the social and moral and material ladder of life. We send forth a strong appeal to you as representative of the great and living Church of America to take advantage of our mass movement towards Christianity." We ventured to assure them that the Church at home in America would not fail them in this hour of their need and appeal for the liberty and lifting power of the 102 Gospel, for the alleviation of their diseases, and for the train- ing of their children for useful and efficient lives. We returned to Jullundur and went on the same evening to Hoshiarpur where for forty-eight years Dr. Chatter jee carried on his great work. Like Golok Nath, he too was a Brahman of Bengal. He was baptized in Calcutta by Dr. Ewart, one of Alexander Duff's associates. In response to the call for help in the Punjab he came to Jullundur to teach in Golok Nath's school and married one of his daughters. After six years' work he settled in Hoshiarpur and there for nearly half a century by his noble Christian character, his charm of personality, his ability, and devotion, he com- mended himself to all men everywhere, winning the love of British officials, of Hindus and Mohammedans and Sikhs, and building up a great Christian work through the district of Hoshiarpur, where multitudes of people knew and loved him under his old Bengali name. Kali Charan, "the feet of Kali," — Babu Kali Charan. He and Mrs. Chatter jee carried on for years an orphanage and school for village girls in one of the simplest and most wisely planned school properties we have seen, closely adjoining their house in a compound beautifully laid out with trees and gardens planned by Dr. Chatterjee with rare taste and skill. I remembered him as we saw him last, useful and honored as always, at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, when we met together in the little church, built in memory of his daughter, and later stood beside his own grave where a great multitude of Christians and non-Christians had seen him laid under the plain white stone which bears the simple inscription, "In memory of Kali Charan Chatterjee, servant of Jesus Christ. For fifty-four years a missionary of the American Presby- terian Mission in the Punjab." These words and the dates of birth and death in 1839 and 1916 were all that he would allow as his memorial. Others have taken his place now and the places of Miss Downs and Miss Given, the two con- secrated American women who had worked with him for many years, and the school has grown on the foundations so well laid for it. And the harvests are gathering, and the seed is more widely scattering over the far spread fields where Dr. Chatterjee went to and fro in the work of the Great Sower and with His Spirit. 103 (16) THE VILLAGE WORK IN INDIA En route Delhi to Agra, December 14, 1921. The work of our India Missions which is most immediately and visibly fruitful is the work among the low caste or rather out-caste people in the villages. A large part of our time has been spent in immediate contact with this work, in fellowship with the most immature and simple minded Christian folk, and in studying the problems which this contact of Christian- ity with the most elemental sections of Indian society has produced. The three last stations which we visited before reaching Lahore, namely Moga, Ferozepur and Kasur, are in the very heart of this Christian movement in the villages of the Punjab. At Moga the Mission is developing a training school for vil- lage boys which seemed to us to be well-nigh a model of what such a school should be. The stations of the Mission send iiere the promising boys or even young men from the village Cliristian communities not only to be taught but also to be taugnt how to teach others. Mr. McKee has developed original metnous of remarkable effectiveness in arousing and sustain- ing enthusiasm in the boys and in carrying them forward in a short time and in the most thorough way over ground which often takes three or four times as long. The result of such Slow teaching is that the minds of the pupils are habituated to a retarded and dilatory movement and the momentum is lost which we felt in every department of the Moga Training School. The reports of the government school inspectors are enthusiastic in their comments on the school and its work. The agricultural inspector wrote, "I think this institution is doing a rare service to the rural community, and Mr. McKee, Mr. Jiwa and Mr. Samuel deserve congratulations for the suc- cess achieved m the initial stages of the farm's growth. For me it was quite a treat to have the privilege of paying a visit to this institution." The inspector of schools for the Jullundur division wrote that he was taking steps to have the methods which the school had developed for teaching reading and writ- ing adopted in the government schools throughout his division and he added, "It is a pleasure to see this institution which imparts a thorough, practical vocational training along with literary subjects. These poor boys would have grown up in ignorance but for this institution. The Mission and Mr. McKee are to be congratulated on the noble work they have undertaken for the uplift of the depressed classes. I wish 104 the institution every success and I will do all that I can to promote its welfare." Two years ago the school had forty- seven students; last year it had eighty; and this year it has one hundred and sixty. The only limit to its growth seems to be its own capacity to care for the boys who are ready to come. It has twenty-nine acres of ground and needs at least as much more. It is teaching, in addition to farming, sewing, carpentering, gardening, and the manufacture of baskets, brick, rope and charpais (the native bed). The school utilizes the Indian habit and gift of story telling in its religious teaching. Village boys who have been only a few weeks in the school are able to tell altogether in their own words stories and incidents from both the Old and New Testaments with astonishing naturalness, fluency and accu- racy. The morning chapel service, which came in these winter months in the chill and dark before the sunrise, was not un- like a school chapel service at home, save that the school sat huddled together on their heels on the floor wrapped up in their blankets, but the evening chapel was no such conven- tional affair. The boys would then dramatize some Bible story. They needed no artificial or made-up setting for it. Their own village life today is nothing but a replica of the village life of Israel in the days of David or of Palestine when our Lord was here. The evening we were there a small boy told with great skill the story of Job, and then a group of the lads presented some of the outstanding incidents of that great story as they might have happened in a Punjab village a few days before. It is not to be wondered at that the boys who have been trained at Moga are eagerly sought as teachers and workers in the villages and although the finan- cial ability of the Missions to employ such workers is closely limited, it is hoped that there will be an unlimited field for them either as teachers in government schools or as self- supporting farmers and mechanics in the villages. The head of the municipal hospital in Moga, Dr. Mutthra Das, who showed us great kindness, is famous throughout India and throughout the world for his skill as an eye sur- geon. He is said to have performed more operations for cataract than any other man. Last year his cataract opera- tions numbered 8,102. Since 1903 his cataract cases have numbered 51,745. With no trained nurses and with only the scantiest assistance, his hospital handled last year more than eleven thousand in-patients. In a single day he operated on as many as 151 cataracts. 105 In the cold, penetrating air of the early December morning we ran out in Dr. Mutthra Das's car with the Rev. Talib-ud- Din to visit the Christian community in the village of Dharm- kot. The women were busy in their household duties, but we sat down with twelve men and a score of children in a mud- walled, mud-floored, mud-roofed house. Through cracks in a big barred doorway curious eyes peered through from the street as passers-by heard Christian songs within and the sound of voices speaking strange things. As we sat on char- pais before the row of twelve men seated on the floor I could not help studying their faces and identifying them one by one with those twelve men who years ago rose up and followed Jesus. No harsher words were spoken of those twelve men by their neighbors years ago than these Christians of Dharm- kot have to hear today. It is a slow railway journey of two hours from Moga to Ferozepur. There is a good old church in Ferozepur with a high Scotch pulpit associated with the name of Maya Das for many years one of the most trusted officials of the Gov- ernment and one of the most honored and beloved leaders of the Church, whose children are carrying on the tradition of their father's character and spirit. Apart from the Church, which I believe is self-supporting, with its Indian pastor, the work of the Mission in Ferozepur embraces the work of the Frances Newton Memorial Hospital and the district work. If one wants to know what the touch of love is and how sure is the response in human hearts, let him visit this hospital. And though there is more than enough of opposition and dis- couragement to be found everywhere, the only lament of the Ferozepur missionaries engaged in the village work was that they were so few against the opportunities and the appeals of the 153 villages where there are already baptized believers and the other villages where people might be gath- ered in if there were only those who could go to them in the kindness and the patience of Christ. The Kasur station is right out in the country. The govern- ment census reported 13,000 Christians in this district, al- though the Mission's baptized list is 11,158, gathered in 149 groups. We found the Kasur missionaries in the heart of their field, in the village of Luliani, of whose 4,000 people nearly a thousand reported themselves as Christians. Sev- eral hundred of them were waiting to greet us as we reached the camp. Never shall we forget the meeting that evening. A large tent had been pitched in an open space in the village 106 between the mud walls of the houses. All the sides of the tent had to be taken out for the crowd which packed the floor space and reached out on every side. Two dim lamps shone in the tent and all the space around was flooded with bright moonlight and filled with motionless white figures sitting sheikh-like on the ground and against the walls. There were weird Punjabi hymns and preaching that was full of ques- tions that asked for answers, and straight admonition and appeal. The power of a new life was at work, and we felt, all through, the thrill of its fierce grapple with the forces of darkness and death. What other power than Christ dare essay this grapple? What a privilege and a joy it is to be sharers in it in Kasur or wherever in the world the battle is joined ! (17) LAHORE En route Delhi to Agra, December 14, 1921. We left the evangelistic camp and the hospitable Christians of Luliani just after dawn and set out by motor for the last of our mission stations in the Punjab. The village folk were huddled around their fires or squatting wrapped in blankets against some sunlit wall thawing out after the chill of the night. The smoke lay in a gray mist over the village. The cattle were just coming down to the village pools to drink. The goat herds and the donkey boys were setting out with their charges. Our way was over the Grand Trunk Road, drawing ever nearer now to its terminus on the northwestern frontier. Here and there batteries of British troops which had been camping along the road were moving up the highway with us towards Lahore. We felt like excited countrymen visiting the metropolis when at last, after so many days in small places and among the country people, we found ourselves in this greatest city of the Punjab. The work of our Mission in Lahore consists of the Forman Christian College, the Rang Mahal School for boys, two churches, the Naulakha church and the church among the poor folk in a distant section of the city, a day school for Mohammedan girls in the city, a girls' school near the jail, la dispensary, and the district work under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Harper, who though members of the Lahore sta- tion, are located nineteen miles out in the village of Sharak- pur. Much of the general work of the Mission is cared for also in Lahore, and here Dr. Ewing, the secretary of the India Council, which co-ordinates the work of all our Missions in 107 India, makes his home. Dr. Ewing has been with us through- out all our trip in India, and it has filled us with happiness and pride to see the love and esteem with which he is held everywhere and nowhere more than here in Lahore. The Naulakha church is a self-supporting congregation which fills the building to the doors when the girls of the Kinnaird School of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission attend as they are accustomed to do from their handsome building across the street. On the walls of the old church are three tablets, one in memory of Mr. Newton and his fifty- six years of missionary service bearing the verse, "Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give to every man according as his work shall be;" another to Dr. Forman and his forty-seven years of missionary service bearing the verse, "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of His testimony and they loved not their lives unto the death ;" and a third to the Rev. Talib-ud-Din, for seventeen years pastor of the church, bearing the verse, "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He will keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." Compassed about with such witnesses the Naulakha church is a real power in Lahore possessing in its pastor, the Rev. Andrew Thakur Dass, and in a number of its laymen, the strongest Indian Christian leaders in the Punjab. The Indian Christian community in Lahore is a large and influential body. We had two opportunities of meeting with it as a whole and one of meeting in conference with its leaders. On Sunday afternoon the community held one of its monthly union meetings of Christians of all denominations in the large hall of the Forman Christian College. On Monday afternoon the whole community met again in a cordial and generous reception of our deputation. In addition to British and American missionaries there were present Indian laymen, business men, teachers and government officials as well as Christian preachers and evangelists. No one could look upon this company without realizing that the Christian Church in Lahore is an Indian institution and a living power, and each year it is drawing closer and closer together. "A lady said to me the other day," remarked one of the strongest of the* Christian leaders, "you cannot know with what pain I have heard of your union meetings." I replied to her, "Madam, you cannot know with what pain I think of the divisions which you have established among us." The difficulties in the way of union are many and great, but the strong men of both 108 the Presbyterian and the Anglican Churches, which are the strong churches in the Punjab, are facing the matter with earnestness and resolution. I have spoken of the Forman Christian College and the Rang Mahal School as our Mission's chief educational institutions in Lahore, but to these should be added the Kinnaird College for women (separate from the Kinnaird School for Girls), a union institution supported by the Z. B. M. M., the Church Missionary Society of the Church of England, the United Presbyterian Board, the Indian Christian Conference of the Punjab, and ourselves. It is the only Christian college for women in the Punjab, and it needs and deserves the same hearty support which our home churches of different denominations in America are giving to the other union Christian colleges for women in the Orient. The Forman Christian College is the leading Christian college in the Punjab and one of the foremost col- leges in India. It has been an enormous force for truth and righteousness in the Punjab and though the visible results of its work in the open confession of Christ by Mohammedan and Hindu students has not been what the missionaries en- gaged in it have longed and prayed and worked for, never- theless its distinctive Christian influence in bringing men in their secret faith to Christ and into respect for Christian principle and into friendship with missionary work has been incalculable. The Rang Mahal School founded in the early days by Dr. Forman has been one of the great formative in- fluences in northwestern India. Its present headmaster, Mr. K. L. Rallia Ram, is one of the most forcible Christian per- sonalities in the Punjab, a member of the Provincial Legisla- tive Council and of the Municipal Council of Lahore, who has been instrumental in securing temperance legislation and legislation in behalf of compulsory education of the highest value. On a stone beside the entrance of the school are carved the words of the school motto, "Knowledge, Character and Service," and every day seven hundred boys are brought under the persistent and pervasive influence of these ideals. The district work of the Lahore station presents many prob- lems. The number of Christians has trebled in the last five years, but it has been difficult to find an ideal center of work. A city home is not suitable for the missionary engaged in the district work. He wants to be among his people and to live where the simplest villager can come to see him in a natural and homelike way as he cannot do in a city. Sharakh- pur seemed to be the best center, but new conditions as to 109 roads and administration seem likely to make it no longer so suitable. One of our happiest days, however, was spent with the Sharakhpur church and the workers in this tahsil. Some of them were men of the most loving and winsome char- acter, men of prayer and real tenderness of spirit, and Dr. Ewing and I were deeply moved when we were taken to lay the corner bricks of the little church which the Sharakhpur Christians were building, eighteen feet by twelve with arch- ways for walls and a little mud brick wall enclosure surround- ing it. The lumbardar or head man gave us some little pres- ents which, having thought of their poverty, we were ashamed to take, but, having thought of their pride and self respect, were ashamed to refuse and which consequently were received with grateful hearts and the resolution to be more worthy of the trust and good will of these little children of Christ just entering His school. As I came back to Lahore I was thinking on the contrast between this little village church, eighteen feet by twelve, and the great Anglican Cathedral in Lahore where I had spoken the evening before. Not even the Cathedral with its tall spires and the rich service, so full of the dear memories of home, is more a house of God or the temple of His Spirit than that little room in the low caste quarter of the village of Sharakhpur. The Bishop's invitation to the Cathedral was only one of many courtesies of our British friends, and in addition to other kindnesses Sir Edward Maclagan, the Lieutenant Governor, and one of the best type of British serv- ants, sent the big government elephant with its red trap- pings to take us from the Delhi gate through the narrow, tortuous streets of old Lahore, another contrast with the new life pulsating in school and college and church. Nothing is plainer than "the old order changeth, giving place to new." (18) GWALIOR AND JHANSI En route Jhansi to Bombay, December 22, 1921. After attendance at the regular meeting of the three Mis- sions, North Lidia, Punjab and Western India, and at special meetings of the five Presbyteries, Kolhapur, Allahabad, Far- rukhabad, Ludhiana and Lahore, and after visits to all the twenty-nine stations of our Board in India except two, our schedule called for a final conference of four days with the India Council and provided for visits to the last two stations, Jhansi, where the Council was to meet, and Gwalior, through which we would pass on our way to Jhansi from Lahore. 110 The only spare day which our schedule since reaching the Missions had allowed was the day in Goa, visiting the tomb of Saint Francis Xavier. Now at the very end, however, two days were left free between Lahore and Gwalior which we spent at Delhi and Agra and at the two long abandoned cities of Kutab Manar and Fatehpur Sikri. Of all the things which we have seen in India, including the Taj and the Hima- layas, nothing has impressed me more than Akbar's noble mosque at Fatehpur Sikri. Over the right doorway of the high south gate, the most conspicuous but not the most im- pressive feature of the mosque, is the inscription, "His Ma- jesty, King of Kings, Heaven of the Court, Shadow of God, Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar, Emperor, He conquered the Kingdom of the South and Dandes, which was formerly called Khandes in the fifty-sixth year of his reign, corresponding to the Higira year 1010 (A. D, 1602). Having reached Fateh- pur he proceeded to Agra. Said Jesus, on whom be peace, 'The world is a bridge, pass over it, but build no house there. He who hopeth for an hour may hope for eternity ; the world is but an hour, spend it in devotion: the rest is worth noth- ing.' " Over the left doorway are the words, "He that stand- eth up in prayer and his heart is not in it does not draw nigh to God, but remaineth far from him. Thy best possession is what thou givest in the name of God; thy best traffic is selling this world for the next." I shall never forget the thoughts or the prayers of the moments alone under the cen- tral dome of the mosque before Akbar's pulpit and on the very spot where he must have knelt and prayed. The man who built Fatehpur was not miscalled Akbar, "The Great." Only second to the old forts of Delhi and Agra in historical interest is the fort of Gwalior, but not to be compared with them in the beauty and the significance of its palaces. From its great rock it looks down on the three neighboring cities of Lashkar and Gwalior and Morar. Here for years, after the death of her husband, Mrs. Joseph Warren carried on the work of our Church alone, a stalwart and fearless char- acter. Many a time she had held the present Maharajah as a little boy on her knee and as long as she lived he treated her with respect and affection. He holds her memory in reverence still and has sanctioned the continuance of our work in the native state of Gwalior because it is the work of the Church which Mrs. Warren represented. The work of the Mission consists at present of a Sunday School and small congregation in the large church at Morar which Mrs. Ill Warren built, largely with gifts from English officials and others in India who held her in high regard, a small preaching place and tract depository with street preaching in the heart of Lashkar, a most living school for Hindu girls and house visitation and village work carried on by Miss Hill, formerly one of the leaders in the Y. W. C. A. work and now a member of our Mission. The only ordained missionary in the station, Dr. Henry Forman, has with the assent of the Mission under- taken at the Maharajah's request the headship of the Sardar's School in which the sons of the noblemen or officials of the state are trained for service. Dr. Forman has felt that this was a unique opportunity to be of help to these young men and to the State, by influencing the lads in the formation of upright character and true ideals of honor and service. Whether he will be free to do this in the way that will satisfy his missionary conscience without exceeding the allotted re- sponsibilities of his position, only time will disclose. The Gwalior State is an intensely Hindu section of India. To go about the temples and shrines of Lashkar after seeing the Mohammedan austerity of the Punjab is like a return to the religion of southern India with its innumerable temples and idols and its intense popular loyalty to the Hindu faith. The Maharajah wants his young men given a moral and religious training, and he has confidence in Dr. Forman as a Christian missionary, although he himself is a strong Hindu believer and has prescribed a remarkable prayer for use in all the schools in the State ending with the petitions, "Have mercy on us children and bless our labors with success. The pur- port of this our prayer is that our intelligence be directed always toward good work and protect it from evil. In re- membering Thy most holy Name, let our hearts be purified so that all sins, faults, dangers and disasters be kept away from us. Although our faults are innumerable, yet Thy Nature is not to look at or consider the faults of Thy Shara- nagat (protected) and this is our only hope." The Maharajah has working with him in the service of the State, for the de- velopment of agriculture and other natural resources and the improvement of machinery, three of the young men who came out for service of this kind in connection with the agri- cultural work of the Allahabad Agricultural Institute and who are permanently released for this work in Gwalior. Another of the great forts of northern India looks down from its rock foundations upon the mission station in Jhansi. Memories of the Mutiny and of the Rani of Jhansi, who was 112 its great female inspiration, cluster around the fort and the Rani's palace, just adjoining the big brick church which Dr. Holcomb built and beside which Miss Lawton has erected her efficient girls' school, opening the doors into the hearts of a hundred and twenty Hindu girls and through them the doors of their homes and the hearts of their mothers. The Boys' School reaches a similar number of boys, about a third of whom are Christian lads. Dr. Pittman with his medical equipment is working with Mr. Cornuelle in Jhansi and the adjacent city of Sipri and in scores of villages to the east in which the seven hundred baptized weaver Christians are liv- ing. Here as in Allahabad, Cawnpore, and Fatehpur and wherever else they are at work the Missionaries of the Wo- men's Union Missionary Society are joined with us in perfect unity and accord and are carrying on their admirable hos- pital for women and children. Just behind the hospital is a large cluster of ancient Hindu temples almost totally disused now for Hindu worship and occupied instead as homes by a squalid, tenement population of Mohammedans. There are other Hindu temples, however, nearby which witness to the living hold of Hinduism. One of them. Dr. Wilkie of the Canadian Presbyterian Mission told us, is devoted to the left- handed Tantric worship which represents the basest degra- dation to be found in Hinduism and perhaps in any religion in the world. This is the only temple in which, after scores of inquiries, we have been able to locate the worship of the Tantras, except one notorious temple in Benares. On a rocky prominence in Jhansi there is a stone tower al- leged to be the central pillar of India. It may be so. At any rate the India Council finds Jhansi to be the most central point for its gatherings, and here year by year this central execu- tive committee of our Missions in India meets to bring the work of the Missions and the requests which they wish to lay before the home Church into balanced order and unity. Dr. J. C. R. Ewing, C. I. E., is the trusted and beloved head of the Council. Under his leadership, as under the leader- ship of Dr. Griswold who preceded him, the Council has grown year by year in influence and efficiency. It is an indispensable agency in the wise and fruitful administration of our foreign missionary work. We need something like it in every one of our mission fields, and the Church at home seems to be in- creasingly conscious of a similar need. 113 3. SOME ASPECTS OF THE PRESENT POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE CHURCH AND MISSIONS IN INDIA Among the chief factors in determining the problems of the Church and the success of missionary effort are the pre- vaihng conditions of poUtical thought and organization, the measure of freedom allowed by the laws, or by the sentiments controlling social and religious movements, and the concep- tions which are dominant in the nation and which neither individuals nor organizations can ignore or escape. This was true in the Roman Empire. We know its truth from our own experience both at home and in all the fields where we have sought to carry on missionary work. It is assuredly true in India today. The tides of national feeling and politi- cal activity which have arisen can no more fail to influence the Church in India now than corresponding tides influenced the Church in America at the time of the Revolution and the Churches of Europe and Great Britain at the Reformation period, with its awakening of peoples to the sense of national personality. Every such time is marked by follies and excesses. With each such new awakening one hopes that, learning wisdom from the past, men will act with full tolerance and patience and judgment as well as with boldness and courage. But one hopes and, I suppose will always hope in vain for any such perfect movement of human forces. Nevertheless, what- ever the imperfections, one can only rejoice, as the wisest politicians and the wisest missionaries are rejoicing, over the present growth of national consciousness in India. This is what the best British administrators in India hoped for and looked forward to from the time when the conscience of Great Britain first awoke to the responsibilities in which she had become involved through the occupation of India by the East India Company. Men like John Lawrence, Herbert Ed- wards, and Donald MacLeod, of the group known as the Pun- jab School, who saved India from the anarchy and disorgani- zation of the Mutiny, the Queen in her proclamation taking India over under the Crown from the East India Company when the Mutiny had been quelled, and the voices of many Englishmen, high and low, who have given their lives for the service of India across the century, can be quoted in evi- 114 dence of the hope which has been cherished of the develop- ment in India of a true freedom and national life. And cer- tainly, though the rise of a nationalistic spirit brings with it many painful and perplexing problems for Missions, these are greatly to be preferred to any situation in which the Churches resulting from Mission work are satisfied with the relation of subjection and dependence and are not alive to the necessity or the possibility of standing on their own feet and determining their own policies and relationships and finding their right place among the guiding forces of the nation. It ought to be easier to develop a self-dependent Church in a self-dependent nation. But while one rejoices in the growth of national conscious- ness in India, the present situation is beset for the student of missions by two difficulties. The first is the difficulty of really understanding it, of estimating the true character and strength and direction of the various tendencies. There is a great deal of literature on the subject which is available, but it does not resolve this difficulty. Books like Lovett's "A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement," Rushbrook Williams' three volumes "India in 1917 and 1918," "India in 1919," and "India in 1920," the reports of the Indian National Congress, the "Resurrection of the Congress" by D. N. Ban- nerjee, Mr. Athalaye's "Life of Lokamanya Tilak," and the books and speeches of Sir Rabindrinath Tagore and most of all of Mr. Gandhi and Lajpat Rai are only a fraction of the great volume of literature which is already accessible. But all this literature, so far from answering our questions as to the character and strength and direction of the present tendencies, only makes the difficulty greater. And the diffi- culty is further increased by a careful study of the situation on the field. During the past three months we have traveled over India from Ceylon to the Himalayas and from Calcutta to Goa and Bombay, and I suppose there are few who in so short a time have seen more of India or have talked with more people of every class and type than we have done, but the mass of evidence which we have gathered, instead of uniting in support of any one view, is so divided that it could be cited in support of almost any estimate of the present forces and any forecast of the future. The second difficulty to which I have referred arises from the incessant and rapid change that is going on in movements and in the attitudes of indi- viduals. It is easy to attribute some of this change in indi- viduals to inconsistency or even insincerity. There are few who would charge Mr. Gandhi with insincerity, but both his 115 opinions and those of Lajpat Rai appear to undergo most remarkable changes. Lajpat Rai, for example, during the war could say nothing too bitter against Great Britain and was deported, taking up his residence in New York City. Then he returned to India in an apparently different frame of mind repudiating the idea of Indian political and social reactionism and advocating the unity of India with the British Empire. In his book on ''The Problem of National Educa- tion in India," he wrote, "The process of self-praise and the glorification of our past has its dangerous side also. It has the tendency of making us look to the past rather than to the future, thus sometimes blinding us to the progress which the world has made since Aryan times. If modern truths (truth is truth and is neither ancient nor modern) are to be tested by the sanctions of the ancient times and to be promul- gated only if they accord with the teachings of our Rishis then woe to India. . . . No progress is conceivable unless we have an open mind and do away with the superstition that all truth was revealed to us in the beginning of the world and that all that was worth knowing was known to our an- cestors and that they had said the last word on all questions, be they religion or sociology or politics or economics or art or even science. It is essential that we should realize that we are living in a new world It is sheer and unjustifi- able waste of time to insist on the dissemination of theories that have been superseded by and discarded in favor of others proved to be better and truer than the former For example, it would be sheer folly to replace the modern treatises on arithmetic, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and kindred subjects by Lilawati or other books on these subjects in the Sanskrit language. . . . Truth is neither local nor national nor even international. It is simply truth." The aim of India, he held, should be "to remain a part of the British Commonwealth on terms of equality with other parts of the British Empire." And now this same Lajpat Rai, though his son is studying in America, is unqualifiably denouncing Western education, preaching Indian social reactionism and entire withdrawal from Empires, and just before we reached Lahore was arrested, and imprisoned for sedition. In all great human movements of this kind, however, one must be prepared for a great deal of inconsistency and still more for a great deal that looks like inconsistency but which is really only the readjustment of men's minds to the pressure of the social forces which in part they make and by which in part they are made. 116 The shifts in Indian viewpoint often explain and justify themselves by the changes in British official sentiment and action. Only nine years ago, for example, Lord Crewe, Sec- retary of State, expressly disclaimed in Parliament any idea that Great Britain was prepared to contemplate Indian self- government approaching that which has been granted in the Dominions. "I see no future for India on these lines. The experiment of extending a measure of self-government practi- cally free from parliamentary control to a race which is not our own, even though that race enjoys the services of the best men belonging to our race, is one which cannot be tried. It is my duty as Secretary of State to repudiate the idea that the despatch implies anything of the kind as the hope or goal of the policy of Government. At the same time I think it is the duty of the nation, and of the Government for the time being of the nation, to encourage in every possible way the desire of the inhabitants of India to take a further share in the management of their country." Again, he said on June 29th, 1912: "There is nothing whatever in the teachings of history, so far as I know them, or in the present condition of the world which makes such a dream [as complete self-government within the British Em- pire] even remotely probable. . . . Is it conceivable that at any time an Indian Empire could exist, on the lines, say, of Australia and New Zealand, with no British officials, and no tie of creed and blood which takes the place of these mate- rial bonds? .... To me that is a world as imaginary as any Atlantis or any that was ever thought of by the ingenious brain of any imaginative writer. ... I venture to think that it is only those who think less of service and more of distinc- tion who would lose heart if they braced themselves to set aside this vision altogether and to settle down to closer co- operation with the Western race, to which they can teach much, and from which they can learn much, in co-operation for the moral and material bettering of the country to which they are so deeply attached and of which we are so proud to be governors." Now whatever else may be said of these views, it is certain that they were not the view of many earlier British statesmen, and they are distinctly repudiated in the legislation embodied in the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms under which India is now being governed. The principle of these reforms is clearly stated in the instructions issued under them to Governors, which declare that by these reforms, "provision has been made for the gradual development of self-governing institu- 117 tions in India with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in that country as an integral part of our Empire." And governors are instructed to execute their office, "to the end that the institutions and methods of government shall be laid on the best and surest foundations, that the people shall acquire such habits of political action and respect such conventions as will best and soonest fit them for self-government." There are many Indians who believe that the shifts of British attitude are due wholly to the extent of pressure exerted by India, that such an attitude as Lord Crewe's was due to Indian supineness and servility, and dis- satisfied with the extent to which the present reforms have gone, they believe that, by the pressure of moral if not physical forces. Great Britain can be coerced into granting complete and immediate independence. A few years ago, it is said, India would have been satisfied with what is now offered, but it was not offered then and would not have been offered later except in response to pressure. Such offers are always tardy and reluctant, and such pressure once successful will not be satis- fied so long as there is anything further to be pressed for. The struggle, so it is said, between the reluctance of Great Britain to let India go and India's demand to be let go is in- evitable and will continue until complete independence is secured. We have met with Englishmen in India who say candidly, "Why not let India go? Great Britain has no desire to rule a reluctant people. India is not essential to the Empire. We should be in favor of saying to India, Certainly, if you do not want us here, we do not want to stay. On the 31st of De- cember, 1924, you will find us completely gone." There are very few, however, who say this, fewer probably than those who take the directly opposite view expressed by the anony- mous writer in "Blackwood's Magazine" of February 21, 1921, in an article entitled "India on the Threshold," who speaks contemptuously of the present political reforms and holds to the doctrine of the divine right of Great Britain to rule any- body whom she deems unfit for self-rule: "No longer are Indians to be treated as the children they are — to be kept in order by straight talking and punished with the rod when they are naughty. . . . We have done a great work in the material development of the country but we have failed in the education both moral and intellectual of the people [pre- sumably the people's fault.] . . . When Christ said, 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,' He did not condemn but approved one race ruling another race which is unfit to 118 rule itself." It is the amount of talk of this kind and of the spirit which it embodies both at home in Great Britain and in India which has intensified the nationalistic movement and been responsible for a good deal of its bitterness and indignation. It has made vastly more difficult also the task of the great body of the British in India who are here in the way of duty and human service, who do not believe that India is ready for absolute independence or that the great mass of the people desire it or that Great Britain could in honor and fidelity, before either God or man, summarily throw overboard her responsibility in India. It would be the easiest course to fling India free, but what would be the judgment of history and humanity? "No," say Englishmen of this type, "such a course would be easy, but it would be cowardly. History is a continuous process. To run a knife across it is to cut living fibres. Difficult as the situation is, we owe it to India to secure to her the best conditions of an independent national life, and we must stay and see the thing through." The moderate party in India takes this same view and de- sires to co-operate with Great Britain in carrying forward and enlarging the present reforms. They were adopted for a period of ten years, looking toward revision and enlarge- ment at that time. Both the moderate party and the Gov- ernment of India believe that if wisely and harmoniously carried forward the time of complete self-government in India may be greatly hastened. Against all this, however, the ex- tremist party which has control of the All India Moslem League and the Hindu Indian National Congress stands op- posed, denouncing the present Government as satanic and demanding immediate and complete independence. The outstanding personality embodying the whole move- ment and recognized by every one as its head is Mr. Gandhi. One meets a few who disbelieve in his sincerity, many more who wholly distrust his judgment, but the great mass of the Indian people believe in him absolutely, and even most of those who disagree with him respect deeply his character and his devotion. The literature about him is full of references to his Christ-like qualities. Some of the characterizations are very bold: "Those Christian doctors of Europe and America who liken the Mahatma to Christ, are not mistaken. I have been closely observing the Mahatma's movements, his preachings and prac- tices, his words and deeds, their causes and effects, and I am satisfied — thoroughly satisfied, of the similarity of these two great personages. In spite of the opponents* (I was an oppon- 119 ent) declaration that nothing that theMahatma has prophesied has come to pass, we see that everything that he has prophe- sied has been fulfilled. . . . It is not in the least exaggerating if I say that the life of Christ is being re-enacted by the Ma- hatma, the opponents of the Mahatma enacting the part of the opponents of Jesus Christ, seeking how they may arrest him without rousing the people, his followers. . . I am, there- fore, absolutely certain that when the Mahatma is arrested and tried, the Judge will once more wash his hands and repeat the same verdict that Pontius Pilate had pronounced upon Jesus Christ : 'I am innocent of the blood of this just person.' " (Letter of T. Ruthnam, "Bombay Chronicle," December 24, 1921.) "One does not feel it blasphemous to compare him with Christ and Christ, too, one suspects, gave infinite trouble to reasonable and respectable followers. For Gandhi is a philo- sophic anarchist — a new edition of Tolstoy without Tolstoy's past, and a Tolstoy who has long since subdued Nature and shrunk into simplicity." (Colonel Wedgewood, "The Indian Review," March, 1921.) "From the first it must be realized that consciously his teaching has been influenced by that of Christ, for whom his admiration has long been the almost dominating feature of his spiritual life and probably the external character of his daily activity has been modeled also upon Him. He made a curious observation during our conversation, which throws some light upon his interpretation of the Galilean Teacher. In answer to a remark of mine that Christ strictly abstained from interfering in politics, Mr. Gandhi answered, 'I do not think so; but, if you are right, the less Christ in that was He.' " (Percival Landon, "The Indian Review," March, 1921.) "The key to Gandhi and Gandhism is wrapped in his self- revealing sentence: 'Most religious men I have met are poli- ticians in disguise : I, however, who wear the guise of a politician, am at heart a religious man.'" (D. P., "Indian Review," March, 1921.) "In Mahatma Gandhi we have a volcanic personality, a moral genius of the first order, who has revealed to us all the hidden power of a living freedom from within, who has taught us to depend not on any external resources but on ourselves. My whole heart goes out to his appeal and I have a great hope that, along this path, independence will be reached at last. .... Such personalities as that of Mahatma Gandhi which 120 can inspire a whole nation are rare indeed in human history." (Mr. C. F. Andrews, "The Indian Review," March, 1921.) We asked a great many Indians what they regarded as the secret of Mr. Gandhi's influence, and they invariably replied, "His asceticism." And this is the element in his character to which Dr. Williams attributes his power in his report to Parliament entitled "India in 1921": "It has often been re- marked that every Indian, no matter how Westernized, will ever retain in his heart of hearts a reverence for asceticism. Even educated Indian gentlemen who play a prominent part in public life cherish before them the ideal of worldly re- nunciation and retirement to the practice of individual au- sterities. Furthermore, the insistence of Mr. Gandhi upon the supremacy of soul force in opposition to material might; his advocacy of national fasting as a means of influencing Government; his conviction of the irresistible power of pas- sive resistance, have all three their logical basis in the ancient Hindu doctrine of Dharma, that is, the application of moral pressure to another through physical austerities deliberately endured by one's self. Hence it is that to Indians of all classes Mr, Gandhi, of lowly birth though he be, who stands forth, not only as the perfect ascetic but also as the perfect exponent of Hindu tradition, makes an appeal of well-nigh irresistible force. Even those who are most profoundly convinced that his political opinions are unsound, unpractical and even disas- trous, can rarely be found openly to criticise, far less to oppose, him. During the whole of the year 1920, the tendency of the time has been to place a premium upon Mr. Gandhi's opinions. India is now suffering from reaction against the more materialistic manifestations of Western civilization. In addition to this, the events of the Punjab disturbances of 1919, which only became fully known during the period under review, gave rise amongst educated Indians to feelings of in- tense and bitter humiliation. Against the all-dominant tide of Western materialism. Western might and Western achieve- ment, Mr. Gandhi, with his explicit scorn for that which we call modern civilization stands before the injured national pride of many of his countrymen like a rock of salvation. He embodies an other-worldliness essentially Indian, a spirit the West does not possess, a plane of detachment to which it cannot hope to aspire. Hence it is that his behests have the influence of semi-divine commands; and even those whose intellects are too keen to be dominated by his sway can rarely be found to resist the appeal which he makes to their inner- most heart." 121 Just as we were leaving India this amazing influence which Mr. Gandhi has acquired reached its highest possible expres- sion in his appointment as dictator by the National Congress in its meeting in Ahmedabad, giving him the full powers of the Congress. This had been foreshadowed by many articles in the Indian press from both Hindus and Mohammedans appealing for the unquestioning acceptance of Mr. Gandhi's absolute leadership. There were some, of course, who fore- saw the criticism which such action would meet from those who would be unable to reconcile it with democratic principles and who would find themselves unable to respect the national- ist movement, if it could no longer respect or trust itself but should abdicate the representative and responsible popu- lar direction of the movement and surrender it to a dictator- ship. Both these misgivings and the repression of them find expression in the editorial on "The Dictator," which appeared in "The Bombay Chronicle," the leading nationalist newspaper, on December 27th: "Much capital will be sought to be made by the opponents of India's cause of the election to virtual dictatorship of Mahatma Gandhi, of the vesting in him of all Congress' authority. Sudden solicitude for the principles of democracy will animate the reactionary Press which will al- most tearfully tell the nation that they have betrayed them- selves and the liberties of individuals. But no Nationalist will question for a moment the supreme wisdom of the step. "Mahatma Gandhi is no ordinary man. He is the greatest man in the world today. He is to India and the world a prophet — the Prophet of Freedom. Those, who in the past put implicit trust in messengers of the Truth, did not act undemocratically or unwisely — for if they had acted otherwise, there would be today no religious system and no moral code existing in the world. If anything were wanting to secure India's confidence in ultimate triumph of her cause, the Con- gress decision to delegate all authority to Mahatma Gandhi has supplied the deficiency. Even the Mahatma's bitterest enemies proclaim him to be a great and good man. The worst they can say of him is that he is an idealist. The Mahatma and India will admit the charge. For the Mahatma and India have resolved to prove to a sceptic world (and that very shortly) that idealism need not necessarily be divorced from administration. If India is to establish an ideal government of the country, who but an idealist should lead her?" This is a very dangerous position both for Mr. Gandhi and for the movement in India toward the development of a true national consciousness. India is seeking for self-government 122 and here on the very threshold surrenders the principles of self-government to the expedient of an autocrat. And Mr. Gandhi has committed himself to opinions which he must retract or with which he must deal insincerely, because they are untrue or impossible. I shall refer to his religious posi- tion in another chapter. I have in mind here the economic and social views which he has expressed. Let any one read Mr. Gandhi's book, "Indian Home Rule," or extracts from it, and he will see what a sure end Mr. Gandhi has prepared for his own leadership. These are some of the views expressed there: "Parliaments are really emblems of slavery." "If money and time wasted by the Parliament were intrusted to a few good men the English nation would be occupying today a much higher platform." "It behooves every lover of India to cling to the old Indian civilization even as a child clings to its mother's breast." "In order to restore India to its pristine condition, we have to return to it." "Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization. It represents a great sin." "We should only do what we can with our hands and feet." He appeals for the retention of "the same kind of plow which existed thousands of years ago," "the same kind of cottages that we had in former times." "Railways accentuate the evil nature of man." They should be given up together with tram cars and electric lights. "Hand-made earthen saucers" should be used as lamps. "Where this cursed modern civilization has not reached, India remains as it was before. The English do not rule over them. ... I would certainly advise you to go into the interior that has not yet been polluted by the railways and to live there for six months. You might then be patriotic and speak of home rule. Now you see what I consider to be real civilization." He opposes mod- ern education. "Tilak and Ram Mohun Roy," he has recently said "would have been far greater men if they had not had the contagion of English learning." And in his paper, "Young India," January 26, 1921, he wrote: "My conviction is deeper today than ever. I feel that if India would discard modern civilization she can only gain by doing so." Now it is open to any man to hold prejudices and theories like these and to lament the materialistic temper that is part but by no means the whole of Western civilization, but Mr. Gandhi's economics and sociology are simple reaction and futility. He would per- petuate the impossible conditions of old India, "The primi- tive condition of sanitation in rural India amounts to the virtual negation of any sanitation at all. ... It has been calculated that every year no fewer than two million Indian 123 babies die while many others survive only to grow up weak and feeble from unhygienic surroundings during infancy." Yet Mr. Gandhi would not have doctors and hospitals, for "hospitals are institutions for propagating sin." Mr. Gandhi himself has begun to hedge in the interest of practical politics. In "Young India," January 26, 1921, he wrote referring to his book on Home Rule : "I would warn the reader against think- ing that I am today aiming at the Swaraj described therein. I know that India is not ripe for it. It may seem an imperti- nence to say so. But such is my conviction. I am individually working for the self-rule pictured therein. But today my corporate activity is undoubtedly devoted to the attainment of Parliamentary Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India. I am not aiming at destroying railways or hospitals, though I would certainly welcome their natural destruction. Neither railways nor hospitals are a test of high and pure civilization. At best they are a necessary evil. Neither adds one inch to the moral stature of a nation. Nor am I aiming at a permanent destruction of law courts, much as I regard it as a 'consummation devoutly to be wished for.' Still less am I trying to destroy all machinery and mills. It requires a higher simplicity and renunciation than the people are today prepared for. "I offer these comments because I observe that much is be- ing quoted from the booklet to discredit the present move- ment. I have even seen writing suggesting that I am playing a deep game, that I am using the present turmoil to foist my fads on India, and am making religious experiments at India's expense. I can only answer that Satyagraha is made of sterner stuff. There is nothing reserved and nothing secret in it. A portion of the whole theory of life described in 'Hind Swaraj' is undoubtedly being carried into practice. There is no danger attendant upon the whole of it being practiced. But it is not right to scare away people by reproducing from my writ- ings passages that are irrelevant to the issue before the country." One studies the phenomenom of Mr. Gandhi's influence and leadership with the deepest interest. There is no possibility, however, that India will follow in the pathway either political or economic which he has marked out. It is clear, as Mr. S. N. Agnihotri, the President of the Dev Samaj, declares, that Mr. Gandhi "considers parliamentary government, that is government by elected representatives of the people for the people a sign of slavery and waste of money and time and instead of this he advocates the government by a few men. 124 In short, the democratic ideal of government, ideal of govern- ment by the people and for the people, is rejected by Mr. Gandhi, and it appears that in place of the English bureau- cracy he wants an autocracy of a few Indians." But even if this were not a justified charge, it is none the less clear from Mr. Gandhi's writings that he would be satisfied with forms of government with which the great body of educated Indians who have breathed the spirit of English freedom will never be satisfied. Likewise India will not follow on Mr. Gandhi's economic pathway. No doubt the achievement of independence at pres- ent might mean, as Mr. Gandhi argues is desirable, the disin- tegration of railway and telegraph service and the deteriora- tion of roads, industries, irrigation canals, and the innumer- able contributions of civilization which Great Britain has in- troduced. But India will never consent to this return to "its pristine condition," to economic infancy. One can only conclude that great forces, either personal or impersonal, which will never follow Mr. Gandhi politically or economically are still, either deliberately or unconsciously, making use of him and of the tremendous influence which he wields for the sake of securing ends, which once secured will make Mr. Ghandi's disappearance from the place of control both pos- sible and inevitable. All this, as I have said, may be un- conscious and it may be impersonal, but it is the explanation which would suggest itself to any one who is studying the present movement dispassionately and who has to account for a situation which is full either of intellectual contradic- tion or of moral insincerity. This second alternative one de- sires to reject. In so far as he is able to do so the intellectual paradox is intensified. The problem is no simpler nor the difficulty less when one turns from personalities to policies. The program under which the nationalistic movement has been proceeding the past year was adopted at a special meeting of the Indian National Congress held in Calcutta in September, 1920. The Moderate party held entirely aloof from the Congress. They share fully in the present national spirit in India and in the desire for independence, but they want this independence within the Empire, and they were opposed to Mr. Gandhi's program. Many of Mr. Gandhi's own party were opposed to his recommendations, but nevertheless they prevailed. They called for the surrender of titles and government offices, the refusal to attend government functions, for the with- drawal of students from schools and colleges controlled or 125 aided by the government, for the boycott of the courts by lawyers and Htigants, for the refusal of military service in Mesopotamia, for abstention from candidacy or voting in connection with the political reforms, and they contemplated as further measures, not at that time yet adopted, civil dis- obedience, the refusal to pay taxes, and the cessation of en- listment in the army and police. At the regular meeting of the Congress at Nagpur at the end of December, 1920, in spite of many secessions and protests, Mr. Gandhi's creed was reaffirmed, and Article 1 of the Constitution of the Con- gress as adopted in 1908 was amended. It had read: "The objects of the Indian National Congress are the attainment by the people of India of a system of Government similar to that enjoyed by the self-governing members of the British Empire and a participation by them in the rights and respon- sibilities of the Empire on equal terms with those members. These objects are to be achieved by constitutional means by bringing about a steady reform of the existing system of ad- ministration and by promoting national unity, fostering pub- lic spirit and developing and organizing the intellectual, moral, economic and industrial resources of the country." This article was eliminated and the new Article 1 is as follows: "The object of the Indian National Congress is the attainment of Swaraj by the people of India by all legitimate and peaceful means." Mr. Gandhi was clear in his teaching that the means used must be peaceful, that the policy to be followed as he repeatedly insisted was to be one of "non-violent non-coopera- tion," that India must win its freedom not by physical force but by "soul force." He held that the real trouble with India was its "slave mentality," the harlotry of its spirit with Western civilization and modern education, that salvation was to be found in intellectual and economic self-sufficiency, that non-cooperation though a negative term covered a deeply positive policy, a policy of self-reliance, self-purification, self- discipline, and self-realization (Vaswani, "India in Chains"). It was pointed out by the Moderates and others who sym- pathized with a reasonable principle of swadeshi, or develop- ment of home industries, and who believed in Indian self-gov- ernment and who approved of its achievement by the legiti- mate and peaceful means of constitutional agitation and par- liamentary reform, that the methods which Mr. Gandhi was advocating, the definitions and the indefinitions which he was putting forward, the spirit that he was engendering, and the forces which he was releasing were certain to play havoc with his principle of non-violence and to rob "soul force" 126 of its spiritual power. The events of the year have proved that these forecasts were justified. In any other land than India the consequences might have been far more grave and disastrous; how grave and disastrous they have been even in India perhaps does not yet appear. It would seem, how- ever, that the bonfires which have burned up foreign cloth in the name of swadeshi have burned up some other things as well. It has become clear, as Mr. Gandhi has sorrowfully acknowledged, that his name and the cause that he represents, in spite of the principle of non-violence, may be made to cover gross violence and wrong. Posters used in Lahore at the time of the outbreak in April, 1919, "called upon the brave people of Punjab to enlist in the Danda Fauj and kill the English, who were described as pigs, monkeys, and kafirs," and the same month posters were put up in Lyalpur in which "In- dians were called upon in the blessed name of Mahatma Gandhi to fight to the death against English cheats and to dishonor English women." No one lamented such outrageous proceedings more than Mr. Gandhi. He denounced the "mobo- cracy" of his followers. When on November 17th, when we were in Bombay, on the day of the arrival of the Prince of Wales, riots were begun by men who call themselves Mr. Gandhi's followers and who wore the Gandhi caps and home spun cloth, and scores of lives were lost, no one mourned more deeply than Mr. Ghandi. But Mr. Gandhi has been warned again and again by his own countrymen and by those who have been among his closest followers, both that the words he has been speaking and the principles he has been advocating were bound to result in bloodshed and violence. In a pamphlet entitled "Mr. Gandhi and the Light of Truth," Mr. Agnihotri wrote last November: "Alas, he is unable to see that the abominable and very horrible fire of race hatred which he ... is kindling into flame, will surely bring great havoc in India, of which the riots that have hitherto occurred are but only forerunners. It appears, however, that he him- self is not altogether unaware of this, and he is not at all anxious to avoid violence in future. For the following sig- nificant lines appeared lately in his own journal called 'Young India' over his familiar initials M. K. G. : " *We must be scrupulously truthful to our pledge. We can succeed beyond all expectation only if we remain non- violent in thought, word and deed. It need not be our final creed, but it must be our present creed for the attainment of our goal. ('Tribune,' 17th July, 1921.) " 'Again, Mr. Gandhi said in his 'Young India' : 127 " 'I can clearly see the time coming to me when I must refuse obedience to every single state-made law, even though there may he a certainty of bloodshed.' (Vide 'Indian Mirror,' August, 1921.) "Do not Mr. Gandhi's words that have been italicised by me, give sufficient ground to strongly suspect that the creed of non-violence of which so much fuss is being made by non- cooperators, is only a temporary political ruse, as long as they are weak in physical force, but as soon as they get the re- quired physical force, they will become ready to wade through blood to attain their goal of worldly Raj and power, and it can not long remain Non-violent Non-cooperation." And Mrs. Annie Besant, who for years had been almost as conspicuous a figure in the National Congress as Mr. Gandhi has become, wrote when at last the Government felt that it was forced to take action to check the disorderly forces released by Mr. Gandhi's policy: "Many have been blaming the Government of India for a policy of drastic repression which has not only been unduly severe but leads nowhere. Such censure ignores the fact that the policy of Mr. Gandhi has been deliberately and intentionally provocative, and that defiance of the law for the mere sake of defiance encourages a spirit of lawlessness among the ignorant and the criminal classes which strikes at the very foundations of society. If the present Government permitted this to continue unchecked they would bequeath to their Indian successors the painful task of reducing to order the chaos they had permitted, instead of handing over to them a well ordered and law abiding people. .... The whole responsibility, therefore, now rests on Mr. Gandhi and the non-cooperators, for the Government cannot remain quiescent in the presence of intimidation and the para- lyzing of the peaceful life of the community. ... He might have restored peace to the country and ensured constitutional progress. He has chosen the path of law-breaking and revo- lution, which can only lead to bloodshed and anarchy." There are those who think that Mr. Gandhi's eyes are wide open in this matter and who believe that the creed of non- violence is not a creed of conviction and principle. The lead- ing Indian in West India told me that Mr. Gandhi had said to him, "If I had arms, I would use them." But I believe that the true Gandhi does not want violence and would count it a great triumph to lead India along peaceful ways to Swaraj. But one difficulty is that Swaraj is still undefined. And ah- other is that the forces which appear to be united under his leadership are not united on the principle of non-violence. 128 The last newspaper which we saw before leaving India, the "Bombay Chronicle" of December 27, 1921, one of the organs of the nationalist party, contained significant statements on both these points in its report of the All India Congress just beginning its sessions in Mr. Gandhi's home city of Ahme- dabad : "At five this evening, the All-India Congress Committee adjourned till Tuesday morning without making any appreci- able progress in connection with the main resolution which alone was discussed today. . . . Almost from the beginning. Maulana Hasrat Mohani, President-elect of the All-India Moslem League, led the opposition, demanding deletion from the resolution of those phrases which excluded the possibility of resort to violence, or even the thought of it, so long as the pledge of non-violence was in force. Mr. Hasrat Mohani emphasized that as Islam allowed him to take to violence he did not want the door closed against him by insertion of the phrase which said that non-violence alone could help them to achieve their end. On being pointed out that his contention indirectly involved a change in the Congress creed the Maulana observed that he already intended to move in the open Con- gress for such a change Maulana Hasrat Mohani is a recognized leader of the minority which counts among its ranks not only some staunch Mussalmans but several equally staunch Hindus. . . . Another resolution defines the meaning of Swaraj, and declares that in the event of the British people making common cause with the people of India, in securing the redress of the Khilafat and Punjab wrongs, the Congress has no desire to declare complete independence, but in the event of the British people and Government remaining hostile to the Khilafat and not making full reparation for the Punjab wrongs, the Congress will strive to sever all connection with England and declare complete independence. The Congress de- clares its irrevocable decision not to enter into any compromise or settlement with Government about Swaraj without the set- tlement of the Khilafat question. Another resolution congratu- lates Ghazi Mustafa Kemal and the Turks on their success and assures the Turkish nation of India's sympathy and sup- port in its struggle to retain its status and independence." Often in talking with educated Indians we told them that the two things that it was most difficult for Americans to understand in the present day thought of India were the Hindu idea of the sacredness of the cow and the Khilafat movement with its anxiety for the restoration and preservation of Tur- key. Regarding the sacredness of the cow I shall speak in 129 5 — India and Persia a chapter on present religious conditions in India. With regard to the Khilafat agitation, it is exceedingly difficult to determine how much of it is genuine and how much of it is nothing but a political agitation used to embarrass the Gov- ernment and to furnish nourishment for the program of Hindu-Moslem unity. The rottenness and incapacity of Turk- ish government, the oppression and massacre of its Chris- tian subjects, the fictitious character of its religious preten- sions, these are so indisputable and so notorious that it is hard to see how intelligent Indians can maintain the agitation without a blush or at least without a smile. When we asked for an explanation from one very able Hindu lawyer, he re- plied that he felt about the matter just as we did, and that if things were settled in this world on a basis of righteousness, the Turkish government would be wiped out, but they were not settled on this basis but on a basis of expediency. India saw this with perfect clearness and intended to use the lever- age that the Turkish situation gave it to put pressure upon the British Government in India. And they have done so with great success, as witness the actions of the Government of India in response to the Khilafat demands, the answers of the Government of Great Britain both to these demands and to the Government of India, in connection with them, and such statements as Sir Theodore Morrison's letter in the London "Times" and the editorial which accompanied its re- publication in the "Times of India" of December 23, 1921. And without one word regarding the history and character of Turkish rule or her deliberate murder of her Christian people, the Indian Nationalist organ calmly demands the immediate and unconditional restoration of Constantinople and the full and undiscussable recognition of Khilafat claims, and the Indian National Congress will have no freedom for India that is not preceded by the freedom of Turkey. It is not to wondered at that there are many Christians in India who look with misgiving upon such a Swaraj, nor is it surprising that many Hindus look with amazement upon such an alliance. If this unity of Hindus and Mohammedans were real it would have tremendous significance for the history of religion and for the missionary enterprise and the Christian Church in India. It is certainly not real. Not one of all the men with whom we talked, who could be thought of as taking a de- tached view of Indian conditions, believed in the reality of this Hindu-Moslem unity. One of the ablest Hindus said quite bluntly, "I don't believe in this idea of Mohammedan democracy or brotherhood at all. There is no democracy 130 whatever in Islam outside of the mosque." "Hindu-Moslem unity," said one of the leading Mohammedan Christians, "will not last one day after the attainment of Swaraj." These were no doubt both over-emphatic statements. Yet all over India there were religious clashes between the Hindus and the Mohammedans in 1920, and while there have been many honest and laudable efforts to draw the two communities together and while they must learn to live together in a free India, they are bound together now by a negative hostility alone and by none of the positive unifying influences without which the attainment of Mr. Gandhi's Swaraj will bring disaster to both of them. There are many other elements in the political situation in India which have their bearing upon the problem of the Church and the Missions, but this discussion has already reached undue limits and has perhaps gone beyond the ordi- nary bounds of such a report as this. We shall certainly be asked, however, several questions which missionaries and In- dian Christians are asking themselves in India. 1. What is the British Government intending to do? It can safely and surely be said that it will try to do what is right. The Secretary of State for India has said very clearly in Parliament that the Government intends to go forward with the present reform scheme in the orderly development of self-government for India within the Empire, and although one hears British officials in India speak as though something more radical than this is to be expected, and although people wondered in India what could be the meaning of the Prince of Wales' visit if he were not coming to offer India some- thing more than had been promised or to offer it more expe- ditiously, nevertheless the official utterance both at home and in India has been clear, and whatever course others may take it is within the bounds of that utterance that the Church and the Missions should do their thinking and plan their work. If the British Government of India were an oppressive tyranny or if it were resisting the legitimate aspirations of the people, the problem of the Indian Church would be dif- ferent, but while the Government may have been paternal- istic and dilatory in its past recognition and development of Indian autonomy, it is seeking with the highest conscience and with a changed attitude of mind, which is as wonderful as it must have been psychologically difficult, to abandon once for all, as Lord Chelmsford said, the old principle of autocracy and to replace British rule by Indian rule. It would be a great day for India if the forces which Mr. Gandhi 131 leads should cordially give themselves to the peaceful work- ing out of this program and abandon the agitation of hatred and of separation, and forego the substitution of exceptional grievances or mistakes or fabricated agitations like the Khila- fat movement for the steady processes of justice and freedom which are under way. Americans are estopped by the facts of their own national history from denying the right of revo- lution, but they have learned from their own national history also how much wiser are the constructive processes of justice and brotherhood than the upheaval and ruin of rebellion. 2. Is India ready for self-government? India has been well governed by Great Britain, but the conviction of India and the policy of the British Government now agree that she is ready for a larger measure of self-government than she has had. The National Congress claims that she is ready for complete self-government at once. The student class take the same view. In one sense their position is the right one. It is a bad thing for a nation to be told or to tell itself that it is not capable of self-government. With all the excesses of thought and language which ever accompany in history such nationalistic movements as this one that is now going on in India, one nevertheless rejoices in the upheaval, and he is sorry to hear Indians speak of their slave mentality, their race servility, their political impotence. These certainly are not self-respecting terms. What one wants to see is just what is going on inside the Christian Church in India. Here with far less to be regretted than is to be found in politics, men are setting themselves to the building in Indian life of those qualities of character and those conceptions of human relationships on which alone a true and free state can be built. Here they are seeking to achieve the unity which has never existed in India and without which there can not be a united national life in India. I know that there are those who, in the interests of this national life, are glorifying India's past and discovering there a unity which they think will suffice for India's present need. They are mistaken. There never was such a unity in India, and there is not now a unity that can stand the strain of a modern solidified nationality. The great body of Indian people deride the idea, but it is a fact never- theless which they might learn from a book which many of them are fond of quoting. Sir John Seely's "The Expansion of England," that India is not united and that neither Hin- duism nor Mohammedanism will ever unite her, and that Christianity can. 3. Will the future unfold in peace or will there be revolu- 132 tion and war? One hears this question answered in both ways. It will be enough if I give the reasons which we heard in India for the hopeful view, (a) The responsible men in India are preparing not for anarchy but for order and pro- gress. The number of people who would profit temporarily by a redistribution of wealth in India is enormous, but those who possess wealth are not in fear of any such upheaval. In spite of Mr. Gandhi's denunciation of machinery and indus- try, Indians are buying up all the capital stock they can in British mills and are founding constantly new enterprises of their own. In city after city they are acquiring land and building new homes of the most modern type. Government loans are oversubscribed at once. Land owners whose titles run from the British Government in India instead of getting rid of such property because of its insecurity are eager to acquire more. The National Congress in September, 1920, called for the surrender of all titles and government offices. Out of an approximate total of 5,000 title holders, up to February, 1921, titles had been surrendered by twenty-one. In one large city we were accidentally caught in the midst of a great mass of people in the main street of the city on the great day of the Ramalila festival. We were able barely to make our way through the crowd to the police station. On either side of our car gangs of young men wearing Gandhi caps and carrying lathies were shouting, "Mahatma Gandhi Ki ji" ("Victory to Saint Gandhi"), while others answered back, "Angrezon Ki chhai" ("Destruction to the English"). I asked the Deputy Superintendent of Police as we watched the Ramalila procession go by with its floats on which there were cauldrons burning foreign cloth, and representations of General Dyer with bloody victims lying before him at Amritzar, and of the Ali brothers in an iron cage, and of Mr. Gandhi proclaiming Swaraj, whether trouble would not come from all this. "No," he said, "this is an escape valve. The responsible men are not doing this. We know the real facts, and we know that the really responsible people of India who have property investment in the country at stake are not financing disorder." Perhaps he was over-optimistic, but it is certainly true that the economic forces of India are expecting not anarchy but peace. (b) "No," we were told again and again, "India is not a land of violence. The Indian people are a mild and peace- loving people." Perhaps such views forget too much, includ- ing Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi, but they are certainly true of the Indian people. The report of the Government of 133 India on the disturbances in the Punjab in the spring of 1919 states that "It must not be forgotten that the loyalty of India as a whole remained unshaken, and that even in the Punjab the bulk of the population maintained its reputation and did not fall a victim to the infection which so disastrously affected a portion of it. . . . The vast rural tract in the five districts concerned have remained tranquil and loyal." Even the shout- ing crowds of whom I spoke a moment ago seemed to be act- ing more in sport than in anger although no doubt a fanatic might throw a match into such powder with disaster, as happened in the riots among "the hooligans of Bombay," as Mr. Gandhi called them. But certainly the great mass of simple village people in India, making up eighty-five per cent of the population, are not people of violence, and they know of no quarrel which they have with the Government. No doubt they have been deeply affected by Mr. Gandhi's cam- paign. Probably no single name is known so well through the Indian villages as his, although we listened to many in- teresting disputes as to the extent to which, after all, the nationalistic movement has affected the village life of India. (c) "There will undoubtedly be disturbance," said the British Resident in one of the Native States, "but it will be sporadic and the Government will be able to suppress it in one section before it emerges in another, and in the end the transition will be peacefully made." This has been true of the situation thus far. It seems likely to continue to be true if the army and the police remain loyal. Some say that they will not, especially the police. Others declare that they will. And it is always to be remembered that one-third of India is made up of Native States and that one-fourth of the population of India lives in these States and that for various reasons the rulers of these States are dead set against the nationalistic movement. Mr. Gandhi would not be allowed to set foot in some of them, and even the white homespun caps which bear his name are forbidden. (d) Ideals of justice and right are abroad in India. It is in their name that, justly or unjustly, the new movements in India claim that they are proceeding. Surely they will prevail, and the new day dawn in peace. And yet this whole view may be proved false before this letter reaches America. S. S. Varsova, Persian Gulf, January 4, 1922. 134 4. SOME ASPECTS OF THE PRESENT ECONOMIC AND RELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENT OF THE CHURCH IN INDIA If it is difficult to appraise justly the present social and political tendencies in India, it is still more difficult to form a just judgment, and especially a just comparative judgment, as to religious conditions. The facts for which one is seeking are intangible. Both the witnesses and the weigher of their testimony are inevitably biased. Even neutrality in religious judgments is itself a bias. In any comparison of the present with the past the difficulty of fixing the first term of the com- parison is insignificant in contrast with the difficulty of fixing the second term. Our knowledge of the actual religious con- ditions of any ancient period is very unsatisfactory and un- dependable knowledge. When we consider what opposite opinions one hears in America as to whether Christianity is gaining or losing ground, whether present conditions are bet- ter or worse than conditions a generation or a century ago, whether men are losing faith or regaining it, one can realize how much harder it is to form a right judgment in India where religion is unorganized and without sta- tistics of its own, where there are no fixed creeds or defini- tions, and where almost anything may be allowed or denied the name of religion. 1. Economic conditions may be more surely grasped, and it will be best to begin with these. The outstanding fact con- ditioning many of the problems of the Church is the poverty of India. The opponents of the Government compare the present with an idyllic past and hold that the masses of India are becoming ever poorer under British rule. "The evidence to the contrary," Dr. Rushbrook Williams writes in his 1920 "Report to Parliament," "is apparently very strong, even if it be indirect. The increasing popularity of railway travel, as witnessed by the ever-growing numbers of third-class pas- sengers, would seem to indicate that more money is available, over and above the bare necessaries of life, than was previ- ously the case. The recent greatly increased absorption of rupees, which two years ago threatened the whole currency- system of India with inconvertibility, combined with the growing employment of silver for purposes of adornment by classes of the population previously, and within living memory, accustomed to brass and iron, would seem to point 135 in the same direction. Further, the gradual substitution of a monetary for a natural system of economy, with its accom- paniments of dependence upon imported cloth, imported min- eral oil and imported metal utensils for domestic purposes, would seem to show that those who advance India's claim to increasing prosperity have something more than personal prejudice upon which to base their contention. But symptoms of increasing prosperity such as have been described, cannot blind the observer to the poverty which besets masses of the Indian population — poverty of a kind which finds no parallel in the more exigent because less tropical, climate of Europe. That the resisting powers of the poorer classes are on the increase, may fairly be deduced from the manner, already mentioned, in which the famine crisis of 1919 was sur- mounted ; but it is equally true that the recent high prices have been the cause of much suffering which is not the less real because of the silent endurance of the suft'erers. It is little indeed that any administration can do to mitigate the gigantic problem of Indian poverty, although, as was amply apparent in 1919, governmental action may in times of crisis avert sudden disaster. Even today with all the knowledge and science of the West at his disposal, man can in India do little as compared with the monsoon. As time goes on, it may be hoped that the increased development of India's re- sources will gradually create a per capita figure of wealth which will suffice for her needs as a nation. But the industrial regeneration of two hundred and forty millions of people, the majority of whom are poor and helpless beyond Western conception, is not a matter which can be accomplished in a few years." Primarily the problem is an agricultural problem. Dr. Williams sets this forth in his report. "For many years to come, the prosperity of India seems destined to rest upon agriculture rather than upon industries. Three persons out of every four in India gain their livelihood directly from the soil. Hence it is that the improvement of that livelihood con- stitutes the readiest way of regenerating the economic life of India. "The world's progress is affecting agriculture equally with other occupations, and unless the agriculturist can be equipped with the knowledge as well as the capital, for developing the resources at his disposal, it is difficult to see how he will in future support his share of the economic burden from which no nation on the road of self-government can escape. More- over, the economic upheaval resulting from the war has thrust 136 agriculture into the foreground, and has intensifuMl the de- mand in India, as in the rest of the world, for higher pro- duction. During recent years, an extraordinary change has taken place in the position which the Department of Agricul- ture occupies relative to the agricultural population. In many places, the cultivator has already learned to look on the agri- cultural expert as a friend and a guide, and his old attitude of suspicion towards new methods is beginning to be substan- tially modified. When the successes of such methods can be (luickly and plainly demonstrated, they spread with remark- able rapidity. The fact is that the conservatism of the agri- cultural classes is in many ways breaking down before the economic influence of high prices. The return received by the farmer for his food-grains, oil-seeds, cotton and other fibers has been of late so large that he is awakening to the fact that he is not extracting from his land all that it is capable of producing. In Southern India, in particular, the willingness of the agriculturist to learn how to improve the quantity and quality of his crops is being hailed by those in a position to form a sound judgment of the matter as the dawn of an era of intensive cultivation. "If only the central and provincial Departments of Agricul- ture can be expanded proportionately to the magnitude of the task before them, the future prosperity of India may be regarded as assured. Great areas of land, at present either wholly unutilized or insufficiently exploited, lie ready to yield, after the application of labour, manure, and water, tons of valuable crops. Hitherto, unfortunately, it has not been found possible to expend upon scientific agriculture that amount of money which India's necessities really require. The head- quarters of the Imperial Department of Agriculture at Pusa, are maintained at a cost of only 60,000 pounds; while the total expenditure of all the Provincial Departments amounted in 1919-20 to the comparatively small sum of 700,000 pounds." It is interesting to compare these expenditures with cor- responding items in America where in 1921 the National Government spent through the Department of Agriculture over $300,000,000 and the State Governments many millions in addition on agricultural research, experiment and educa- tion. In common with all the rest of the world India has felt the trade reaction following the war, and this as well as the pov- erty and the agricultural backwardness of the nation has been fuel for the nationalist agitation against the Govern- ment. The net exports of merchandise which were 127,000,- 137 000 pounds sterling for the year 1919 were transformed for the year 1920 to net imports of 27,000,000 pounds. As compared with the year before the war there was an apparently great in- crease in foreign trade both imports and exports, but the in- crease was due to the advance of prices. In actual volume the imports decreased in 1920 as compared with 1914 by 45% and the exports by 199^. Viewing the industrial facts somewhat in detail, it may be noted that India now produces about one- fourth of the world's cane sugar. It imported 94,000,000 gal- lons of kerosene of which 48% came from the United States, 34% from Borneo, and 16% from Persia. So far from going back, in response to Mr. Gandhi's appeal to saucers of oil with wicks in them, India more than doubled the import of metal lamps rising from 800,000 to 1,600,000, and so far from confining herself to ox-carts brought in 9,000 motors, of which 94% came from the United States, as against 400 motors in the previous year. So far from returning to home-made cot- ton cloth the production of piece goods showed an increase of 475,000,000 yards or 41% as compared with the pre-war year. "It is interesting to note," reports Dr. Williams, "as an ex- ample of the difficulty of immediately applying modern indus- trial ideas to India that the leather industry encounters a considerable degree of opposition, partly politically inspired, based upon the widespread abhorrence of the Hindu popula- tion for the slaughter of cows." Nevertheless India is one of the largest hide and skin producing countries in the world. It exported last year raw and tanned hides valued at 36,000,- 000 pounds as against 19,000,000 in 1918, the United States taking the lead in buying India's raw cow hides, with over 15,000 tons. The export of tea in 1919 and 1920 surpassed all previous records and amounted to 379,000,000 pounds. "Despite her wealth in raw materials, India is poor in indus- trial achievement and in several important branches of in- dustry she is compelled to buy back the finished product to which she has contributed the raw material." As Mr. Lowes Dickinson has pointed out, however, India is sure to be dragged along the road of organized industrialism so familiar to the West, with an all too rapid movement. Already there are in India 270 cotton mills with 115,000 looms and 248,000 employees and 76 jute mills with 40,000 looms and 270,000 employees. In Cawnpore we visited the great Muir Mills, a third of whose capital is held by Indians, which employ 3,000 workmen and are said to have paid last year dividends of 115%. Unaffected by the swadeshi movement they were sell- ing all of their product in India, 80%. of it in the native ba- 138 zaars. A large and increasing volume of Indian capital is going annually into industrial and manufacturing enterprises. 2. The great economic problem of India is not the lack of raw materials nor of capital. The industrial potentialities of India in these respects are only beginning to be utilized. Perhaps no other country in the world has so much silver wholly withdrawn from productive uses and worn as orna- ments or buried for security. It is estimated that India has locked up in this profligate way billions of rupees. Between 1835 and 1909 imports of gold and silver into India exceeded exports by £346,000,000. Where is it all? ''Within the past four years no less than 1,200,000,000 rupees have been drawn from the India mints. Sir James Meston, the financial mem- ber of the Government, remarked in March, 1919, that unless this continuing panic were checked and the hoarded coin were restored to circulation the whole basis of Indian currency and exchange policy would be reconsidered." (Lovett, "A History of the Indian Nationalist Movement," page 234.) Great as this waste is, however, India's heaviest economic load is caste and the social isolation and ineffective use of nearly a third of the Hindu population of India. As one of the most distinguished Indians, Sir Narayan Chandavarkar, recently declared, "With the liberalizing forces of the British Government, the problem is leaping into full light. Thanks to that Government, it has become more than ever before an all-India problem. The curse of untouchability prevails to this day in all parts of India. It is not mere untouchability. It is worse than that. While all of the depressed classes have been for centuries un- touchable, some have been unshadowable, some unapproach- able and some even unseeable by the higher castes, and this degradation has been imposed by these castes of Hindu society on one-fifth of the total population of their own country, race and creed — on 30 per cent of the Hindu population of India. Out of every ten Hindus, three are treated as beyond the pale of decent humanity." And to this statement Dr. Williams' "Report to Parliament" adds, "The Madras Presidency in- cludes no fewer than 6,500,000 persons belonging to the un- touchable class. Particularly on the west coast, some of the restrictions which encompass these unfortunates in their deal- ings with the higher castes are almost incredible. In nearly every village the public water supply is absolutely forbidden to a population which numbers one-sixth of the people of the Presidency. The report of the Madras Commissioner of Labor mentions that last year an English gentleman, while driving through a municipal town with a student, was sur- 139 prised at a request from his neighbor that he might be allowed to get down and walk and join him later on. He was still more surprised to find from his companion that his reason for descending was that owing to his caste he was not allowed to pass through a particular street. Theoretically all Gov- ernment offices are open to persons of every class and creed, but a rich and respected gentleman, recently returned from abroad, was made to go outside a certain public office when it was discovered that he was of a low caste. These extra- ordinary social restrictions, so it is related, operate so power- fully that on a respectable Panchama gentleman being ap- pointed to a seat on a Municipality, five members, including a Mohammedan, immediately sent in their resignations, and were with difficulty induced to withdraw them. The disa- bility extends also to education. Though in theory all schools financed with public money are open to every class of the community, in practice there has been great difficulty in giv- ing effect to this policy. The administration can legislate as much as it likes, but until the social sense of the commu- nity in general has advanced to a level which will enable it to disregard these heritages of a more primitive age, the dis- abilities under which the lower castes labor will persist. As has already been indicated, the disabilities extend at present to the minutest operations of daily life, and a laborer or small farmer belonging to the depressed classes is continually a loser in buying his ordinary purchases or in disposing of his pro- duce, through his inability to enter a shop or even to pass through many streets where the shopkeepers live." "In Bombay Presidency alone," said the "Times of India," Decem- ber 1, 1921, "there are somewhere about a million people who by the rest of the population are regarded on religious grounds as pariahs and out-castes, whose touch is regarded as a de- filement, who are not allowed to draw water from the village well, whose children are not allowed even to enter the ordi- nary school. These disabilities are in force altogether apart from the personal cleanliness or position of the individual and are solely based upon caste." Even the affliction of leprosy, which is contemptuous of caste distinctions, can not erase caste consciousness. In the leper asylum at Miraj the women of one of the higher castes had built a low wall across the cooking room to separate themselves from ceremonial defile- ment from women with whom they shared one common physi- cal pollution. A shrewd observer of Indian society expressed to us his judgment that caste had weakened as a religious institution, 140 but as a social institution was stronger and stiff er than ever. Theoretically this may be true. Some of the worthier religious movements have involved the condemnation of caste. "Vaish- navism," said Sir C. Sankaran Nair, "is admittedly what is called the Bhakti or devotional worship which is inconsistent with the spirit of caste." "India's mission," says Rabidranath Tagore, "has been like that of a hostess who has to provide accommodation for numerous guests whose habits and re- quirements are different from one another. This gives rise to infinite complexities whose solution depends not merely upon tactfulness but upon sympathy and true realization of the unity of man. Towards this realization have worked from the early time of the Upanishads up to the present moment a series of great spiritual teachers whose one object has been to set at nought all differences of man by the over- flow of our consciousness of God." Nevertheless even the strongest of these movements have not been able to relax the grasp of caste both as a religious and as a social institution. The Bhagavadgita, the great text book of Bhakti and the most popular religious book in India, sought "to give all Vaishnavas a truly spiritual religion by bringing 'release' within reach of all men and women of the four chief castes, in itself a religious revolution, the Gita thus becoming 'the laymen's Upanishads'," But among the four chief castes the Gita has not democratized society or dissolved the control of the Brahmans, and it has not opened the doors to the vast excluded mass. "No out-caste is admitted to Bhagavatta temples in Maharashtra." "Brahmans who recite with ad- miration the verses of Tukaram hold jealously to caste distinc- tions." ("The Times of India," Oct. 8, 1919.) "The touch of the Bhangi, Chamar, Dhed, Holiya, Mhar, Mang and Mochi is unclean, and none of these castes are allowed within the interior of the ordinary Hindu temple." ("Indian Census Re- port," 1911.) Mr. Gandhi calls himself a Sanatanist Hindu, that is a follower of orthodox Hinduism, and he gives his strong endorsement to caste distinction, "Caste system," says he, "is the chief strength and basic principle of Hindu Dharma." Mr. Gandhi's influence is, however, a powerful democratic force, and he is supporting in the most unequivocal way the growing movement for the deliverance of India from the eco- nomic incubus of the caste system and especially from the wrong and the impoverishment of the exclusion of the low caste people. "I should consent to be torn to pieces," he says, "rather than disown the suppressed classes. . , , Hindus will 141 certainly never deserve freedom nor get it if they allow thieir noble religion to be disgraced by the retention of the taint of untouchability Let us not deny God by denying to a fifth of our race the right of association on an equal footing." Under his leadership the last National Congress appealed for support of the cause of total prohibition, the removal of untouchability and the improvement of the condition of the submerged classes. There are some who see more clearly than Mr. Gandhi that the nationalistic movement and the movement against untouchability both demand a far more radical handling of the whole principle of caste. On the day of our last visit to Allahabad, which happened to be the birth- day anniversary of Keshub Chandra Sen, founder of the Brahmo Samaj, Mr. Chintamani, the minister of education of the United Provinces and one of the foremost of the Mod- erate Nationalist leaders, delivered a memorial address on the great Indian social and religious reformer. One lesson, said he, that they must all learn was that caste and nationality did not go together. The greatest reform that an Indian nationalist should take up was the abolition of caste, and while it was true that Mr. Gandhi had expressed himself strongly against untouchability, he has not condemned caste and Mr. Chintamani maintains that that greatest evil of untouchability has still its root in the institution of caste. From many quarters this institution is now under attack. The intelligent young men are assailing it. "These 53,000,000 people," says one of them, "are able bodied men. They have an infinite capacity for work, and without them the big and petty landlords of India would come to grief" ("Young Men of India," Dec, 1921, page 565). The Gaekwar of Baroda has built separate school houses for them or insisted on their admission to the regular schools and has required their equal treatment by the teachers. He and the Rani have received them personally at the palace and have eaten with them. In western India the Marathas have always disputed the suprem- acy of the Brahmans, and the humbler classes are increas- ingly expressing themselves in movements like the Satya Shodhak Samaj, or "Society for the Search of Truth," which was founded "with the object of emancipating the non-Brah- man communities from the state of intellectual and religious bondage to which they were reduced by the craft of the Brahman priests." All the communizing influences of modern life are working also against caste isolation. One day on a dining car, on the great Indian Peninsula Railway we counted at the tables two Mohammedan men, two Sikhs, sev- 142 eral high caste Hindu women with tlie religious mark on their foreheads, several Parsio, four or five Eurasians, Hindu men of various castes, some British officers, and tommies, and two English women. We watched the Mohammedans and the high caste Hindu men and women and saw them refusing none of the food. The Mohammedans even took the bacon which was served with the omelette. A few years ago a dozen cleavages, now wholly ignored, would have cut this company into fragments. The British would have had one or two dining cars of their own, and the Indians would have sepa- rated into half a dozen groups. In one of the native states I called upon one of the leading doctors who was sent some years ago by the Maharajah to study homeopathy in New York City where I had met him. He had come to America, Brahman though he was, in dis- regard of the caste limitations that forbade the defilement of such a trip. I asked him what were the greatest changes that had taken place in India since I had seen him in New York. He said at once that he would mention two, the weak- ening of caste and political progress. I asked him what evidences there were that caste had been weakened. "I will show you one," said he. "I am a Brahman, but I have married a wife of another caste. That would not have happened some time ago or if it had happened, it would have made my position altogether different. And I will introduce my wife to you." And he went out and returned with a handsome and handsomely dressed Hindu lady who shook hands with us and set forth tea and confections of which we all partook together. "We have an out-caste Chamar as our municipal executive now," he went on, "not a Brahman or a member of one of the higher castes, but one whom a few years ago none of us would have touched or met. Now he presides in the municipal council, and every one receives him. The Mahars and Mangs are coming steadily forward and are recognized more and more not as out-castes but as men. We have a long way to go, but we are making progress. And India is making progress politically also. The attitude of the British Gov- ernment is far more fair and generous than ever. I believe in the continuance of the present government and that there will be a peaceful evolution toward the rightful self-govern- ment of India. I do not anticipate any violence unless it should come from the Mohammedans. You have made a great mistake," he added, "in coming as you have. You should have let me know and come and stayed with me in a Hindu home where we could have eaten together and talked together 143 of these problems of the life of India." And he went on to praise a missionary long dead who had influenced his boy- hood and whom he numbered among the saints. Great changes have occurred, but as my friend said, there is still a long way to go. "In India," says Dr. Williams, "where the social system lends itself to the application of social, moral, and religious pressure in a degree to which the more materialistic West, with its cruder forms of intimida- tion, can supply no parallel," generations must elapse before the oppressions of caste will disappear. Even the Christian Church finds it difficult to exclude the caste spirit. The Ro- man Catholics let it in years ago and cannot now cast it out. In Ahmednagar until recently there were separate churches for the Mahars and Mangs. At Kodoli a Mahar elder refused to baptize Mangs, and the Mahars and Mangs were unwilling to use the same well. The Christian spirit has enabled both elder and people to transcend these old prejudices. There is scarcely a Mission station where the Gospel is at work uplift- ing the low castes where the bitterness of caste prejudice in seeking to hold them down does not also appear. A few quo- tations from the reports of work among the Chamars in North India will suffice: "A young Chamar Christian, who was newly married, was called into the high-walled courtyard of the landlord and forced to sign a stamped promissory note for Rs. 25, on 24% interest, as he had married with Christian ceremony without the landlord's permission. "Another as he had sent the tax due from him by money order was forced to sign a blank eight anna stamped paper by which he could be sued for Rs. 50, at any high compound interest the landlord might choose to fix. "A third was prosecuted for becoming a Christian without the landlord's permission on a false charge that he owed him a fabulous amount. "A fourth was called into the courtyard and was forced to put his thumb impression to papers which showed that he had sold his excellent pair of oxen and two buffaloes and a cow to the landlord and had realized the full amount, when he was paid not a single pie. "A number of temporary tenants were dispossessed of their fields as they had become Christians. To earn a livelihood they took to cutting grass. When they took the grass to the town for sale they were dragged to the landlord's courtyard by his sepoys and when they waited inside for the landlord, their bundles of grass which they had left outside were re- 144 moved to the landlord's stables and his horses and cattle were fed freely. "If fruits were missing from mango trees it was the Chris- tian boy who had picked them. If a child accidentally fell into a pond it was the Christian boys again who pushed her down. The parents were called and fined heavily on these and similar false charges. "The Christians were stopped from grazing their cattle in the open maidan and gathering fuel in the jungle where they were accustomed to go. Wherever they went they were looked down on with sneers and were called sweepers, the lowest despicable class. "The question naturally arises under these circumstances: Is there no redress for these grievances? The chief difficulty lies in this that absolutely no witness can be had to testify against the landlord. The Chamar is a coward, especially when the landlord is concerned. Even when a brother is beaten to death, the Chamar would argue, 'Now my brother is dead, why should I get into trouble with the landlord — my bread provider.' "However, one case was brought forward before the Col- lector by a Chamar Christian against a Bania for calling him a sweeper and threatening to beat him; unlawfully de- taining him in the house and for laying a blackmail of Rs. 50. Though the witnesses proved the charges made, the accused was acquitted to the utter surprise and disappointment of all interested. The trial was summary in its kind and a re- vision of the case in a higher court was useless. This has cast a great gloom on the hearts of the people and has dis- heartened even the bravest of the lot. It is impossible for the people to understand why a Christian Government cannot help a poor Christian when he is persecuted. Chunni, the plaintiff, is obliged to pull down his house, the home of the family for several generations, and go and live in another village." 3. India's educational problem is a problem not of the out- caste only but also of the huge uneducated caste population. Indeed one reason for the new interest of Hinduism in the out-caste is the steady rise of the out-caste population to which Christian Missions have brought those influences of the church and the school which are lifting the out-castes to an economic and intellectual level above even a portion of the Brahman community. I cannot state the general facts with regard to the achievements and the shortcomings of education in India better than they have been stated by Mr. Rallia Ram, head- 145 master of the Rang Mahal School in Lahore and one of the best type of leaders in the new India, and by Dr. Rushbrook Williams. Mr. Rallia Ram writes: "One of the foremost and greatest deficiencies which India is to make up is her lack of facilities for securing a speedy program of education. Today, three villages out of every four are without a school- house, and about 30,000,000 children of school-going age are growing up without receiving any instruction. No doubt, in some provinces the Government has passed an Act authorizing the Local Bodies to introduce free and compulsory education up to the primary standard, but for want of proper funds, initiative, and public spirit, very few Municipalities or Dis- trict Boards have taken advantage of the said Act. Of the 315 million people living in India, only 18,500,000 persons, 16,900,000 men and 1,600,000 women were returned as literate in the census of 1911, giving a percentage of 5.8 of the popu- lation in point of literacy. The corresponding percentage of literacy in Japan is 95, United Kingdom 94, and the United States of America 90. The number of existing schools for primary education in British India amounts to 142,203 and the number of pupils attending them comes to 5,818,730, of whom 5,188,411 are boys and 630,319 girls. If we take all classes of educational institutions together we find that there is only one institution for every 1,717 persons of the popula- tion. The school-going population in more advanced countries varies from 15 to 20 per cent. "The expenditure in British India from all sources, includ- ing fees, in 1916-17 was 11.2 crores or rupees. This gives a rate of Rs. 14.4 per head of school-going population, or 7 annas of the entire population. The corresponding expendi- ture in other countries is as follows : United Kingdom, Rs. 38 per head; Canada, Rs. 104; Japan, Rs. 13; United States, Rs. 114. The provision for technical and commercial educa- tion in India is sadly low. It was found in 1917-18 that only 16,594 throughout the whole country were receiving any tech- nical and industrial education." And Dr. Williams writes: "There are still only 8,200,000 in all the educational institutions put together. That is to say, only 3.36'/r of the population is under instruction, this figure being made up of 5.5% of the males and 1.2% of the females. And although expenditure had increased by 15% the total sum expended upon education in India during the year 1919-20 amounted to only 14,890,000 pounds. About 2.5 %i of the population is enrolled in primary schools, and less than 3% is undergoing elementary instruction of any kind. 146 In secondary schools on the other hand 0.5' f of the popula- tion is under instruction, an abnormal figure comparing very remarkably with the 0.6% which has been estimated as the figure in Great Britain. Considering that the female popu- lation of the secondary schools is very small, it would seem that if the male population alone be reckoned, no less than 0.9% is found in the secondary schools — a proportion far greater than the corresponding figure for England and Wales, and approximately equal to that of Germany before the war. In University education, the percentage of the Indian population undergoing instruction is no less than 0.027%, which, considering that here again the female popu- lation of India may be almost eliminated, compares remark- ably well with the 0.054'/,' of England and Wales. As was mentioned in last year's Report, an examination of the pro- portion of the college-going population to the total popula- tion of single tracts like Bengal, indicates that with a popu- lation approximately that of the United Kingdom, the propor- tion of the educated classes who are taking full-time univer- sity courses is in such tracts almost ten times as great as in England "Out of her revenue of something ov§r 180,000,000 pounds, at the new ratio of the rupee, India is already spending 15,000,000 pounds upon education, and inadequate as is this sum in proportion to the calls made upon it, it represents a fraction of her public resources which compare not unfavor- ably with that devoted by other countries to the same pur- pose. But India is a poor land, and the section of her small revenue available for education is inadequate to the demands made upon it. However, it is not easy to see how the figure can be substantially increased. As was pointed out in pre- vious reports, there are many heavy charges upon the re- sources of the country; of which the most important are the defence of a long land frontier and the maintenance of law and order among great masses of a widely varying population. Vital as educational progress may seem, its foundations will sink in shifting sand unless there are certain pre-requisites to its existence. The stability of the administration and the security of the individual, whether from external aggression or from internal disorder, must first be achieved. It is charges for these ends that have hitherto crippled the eff'orts of ad- ministrators to set the educational structure of India upon a foundation sufficiently extensive for the requirements of the country. It is to be hoped that the Indian agencies henceforth in charge will be able to solve this problem. Conviction on 147 their part of the necessity of a great educational campaign directed towards preaching the gospel of Indian nationhood, can alone awaken those upon whom the pecuniary sacrifices will fall to the benefits which will be derived both at the present and in the future from such a project. The difficulty lies not merely in the magnitude, but also in the urgency of the problem. If the funds cannot be found and the educational structure of India cannot expand in proportion to her needs, the realization of responsible government, with all which that realization implies in the way of national progress, may be long delayed. Nor is it merely necessary to consider the population of school-going age, of whom at present roughly two-thirds never make their way into an educational institu- tion of any kind. A very large part of the education needed in India is adult education — education which will supply the great new electorates with some guidance in the use of the power which constitutional reforms have placed in their hands ; which will encourage them to efi'ort on behalf of their own communities, and impel them to grapple with the pov- erty which now hangs like a miasma over so large a part of India." ("India in 1920," pp. 163, 165.) 4. And the educaMon which India needs today is not only an education of the children in school. It is an education also of every community in sanitation and hygiene. Mr. Gandhi praises the ancient village life of India and deprecates the introduction of modern ideas including medicine and hospitals, and the advertisements in the periodicals of some of the most enlightened groups of social and religious re- formers are scandalous in their exploitation of Ayur Vedic medicines, but nothing is more necessary than that India should be rid of her old ignorance and superstition in these matters. Human life should be conserved under new ideals of its sacredness and value both to God and to the State. "It is an acknowledged fact," says Mr. Rallia Ram, "that the sanitation of most of the towns and villages is abominably bad. The average death-rate for all India for th^ past ten years has been 31.8, while the corresponding recorded death- rate for Japan is 21.9, Canada 15.12, United Kingdom 14.6, United States 14.0 and Australia 10.5. It is interesting to note that the average life of an Indian is supposed to figure out 23 years, as compared with 45 to 55 years in Western countries. No doubt this is influenced to a certain extent by the climatic conditions and other causes, but one cannot pass by the stern fact that a low standard of living and un- 148 healthy and insanitary environments are chiefly responsible for this palpable shortness of life in India." 5. "The three great hindrances and retardations which hold India back today," said an Indian teacher in one of the colleges, "are caste, untouchability, and purdah." And he meant by purdah not only the seclusion of woman in the home but the loss from society of the forces which the emancipation and the education of women release. The progress that has thus far been made in female education in India is not in- considerable, but what has been done is wholly inadequate. The task is no easy one. As Dr. Williams writes in "India in 1920" (page 168) : "The problem of female education is beset by many dif- ficulties. . . . Rapid expansion depends first upon an ade- quate supply of competent women teachers, secondly, upon devising a course that shall commend itself to conservative opinion which regards female education suspiciously; and thirdly, upon an alteration of the existing structure of educa- tion, which is unsuited to the needs of Indian women. The main difl[iculty remains, as hitherto, the lack of effective de- mand. During the last few years there has been a substantial improvement in the number of women under training, and in the provision of women's colleges. At the present moment in India there are 16 women's colleges and 118 training schools for women. Altogether there are a little over 1,200 women undergoing university education, and about 3,500 in training schools. It will be difficult to increase this number to any considerable degree throughout India at large until such institutions as purdah, early marriage and the like, can be modified by the growing enlightenment of public opinion. The importance of overcoming the existing female illiteracy is shown by the fact that throughout India only 1,380,000 women and girls are under instruction of any kind. Female illiteracy constitutes a serious bar to educational progress, since with half the population growing up almost without education, the incentive to education in the other half must be appreciably lowered. Mention was made in last year's report of a resolution issued by the Government of India out- lining the main difficulties to be overcome in this sphere and indicating the lines along which future expansion might proceed. The two principles which underlie the proposals of the Calcutta University Commission in regard to female education, namely, modification of the curriculum to suit the needs of different classes and the utilization of the advice of ladies in formulating a suitable scheme for instruction, 149 have been accepted by the administration. Unfortunately, there is every reason to believe that public opinion is far from realizing the importance of educating Indian womanhood. But now that the problems of education are made over to Indians for solution, it is to be hoped that means will be found to break down the apathy which has hitherto operated to hinder the expansion of female education. Only a great social change can call forth the teachers who are the primary requisite for such expansion. The Calcutta University Commission pointed out that peculiar difficulties and dangers surround young women who set out to teach in lonely village schools. 'The fact has to be faced,' the Commission reported, 'that until men learn the rudiments of respect and chivalry towards women who are not living in zenana, anything like a service of women teachers will be impossible.' It will therefore be seen that the problem does not merely depend for its solution upon the good will of the administrators." It depends upon a new religious conception of woman. "Woman never did have a vedic value," declared Cornelia Sorabji. Of the most popular religious poet in Western India his latest expositor declares, "His poems have no recognition of woman's true place in society and of her needed restoration to her proper position in the world" (Frazer and Edwards, "Life and Teaching of Tukaram," page 264). And of the failure of Hinduism in its treatment of women no one has spoken more plainly or more bitterly than the great Indian reformers of the last century. 6. The earnest leaders of India today are struggling for the emancipation and education of women with all the influ- ence of the Government supporting them. In their struggle against the growth of the liquor evil in India they have had the influence of the Government against them. The ordinary Englishman is utterly unable to understand the prohibition movement. It is a question of unfailing interest and often of extreme irritation. Not only is the example of individual Englishmen in India antagonistic to the suppression of the liquor traffic, but many of them openly and violently oppose the movement. The editor of the "Indian Temperance News" reports an illustrative incident concerning a temperance meet- ing in the South India High School crowded with Indian hearers : "Using charts and a few other demonstrations, we centered our attention for nearly an hour on the 'Reasons for and the Results of Prohibition in U. S. A.' At the conclusion of this lecture one of the most intelligent and one of the most 150 attentive of the audience rose. He was not an intelligent villager whose domain was his village, but the District Magis- trate, a British official of wide experience and culture. At some length he brought forth counter-arguments to disprove the lecture of the evening. He used all the stock arguments which have been worn threadbare by opponents of prohibition since agitation began, such as 'Prohibition does not Prohibit,' 'Personal Liberty,' 'Revenue,' 'Employment,' etc. He was sin- cere in his argument and our debate lasted for nearly another hour." The income from liquor licenses has been a large and grow- ing item in the government and provincial budgets. In 1919- 20 the revenue from excise in the Madras Presidency was Rs. 53,142,317. More than a ninth of the income of the Na- tional Indian Government was from excise and opium. In Bihar and Orissa the revenue derived from excise increased in fifteen years from nearly 70 lakhs of rupees to 150 lakhs, the largest income under a single head. A Hindu, a Christian and a Mohammedan member of the Bihar and Orissa Legisla- tive Council brought in resolutions to stop the sale and manu- facture of liquor, and all were lost. Regarding temperance legislation in Madras the Rev. D. G. M. Leith wrote in "Young Men of India," September, 1921: "Undoubtedly the new Gov- ernment is afraid of loss of revenue and those who previously were pronounced temperance reformers but are now respon- sible members of Government are afraid lest by the loss of the excise revenue they will be compelled to impose a new tax upon the people, thereby incurring unpopularity and possibly early political defeat. As so often, it is the case of money versus morality." Nevertheless with economic, moral and religious reasons supporting it the prohibition movement is sure ultimately to prevail in India, as in the United States. Already, thanks to Christian leadership, local option measures have been adopted in the Punjab. Both the Indian National Congress at Ahmedabad and the All India Christian Confer- ence at Lahore in their meetings in the last week in Decem- ber spoke vigorously in behalf of entire prohibition. One tragic feature of the present political situation in India has been the identification of some forms of prohibition propa- ganda with sedition. The non-cooperators have picketed the liquor shops to keep customers away, partly in a temperance interest and partly to cut down the government revenues. This picketing has been punished as seditious, and the anti- excise agitation has been denounced as unpatriotic. The saloons, on the other hand, have set up their cause as the 151 cause of order and patriotism, and we saw over one liquor shop in Bombay the impudent sign in large English letters, "If God Be For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?" It will have to be admitted that this shameless doctrine of religion was borrowed from the West. 7. But India has her own amazing inversions of religious ideas. None of these is more strange to us than the worship of the cow. Mr. Gandhi himself has set forth the place which this idea has in Hinduism in language that is almost in- credible : "Every Hindu believes in God and his oneness, in rebirth and salvation, but that which distinguishes Hinduism from every other religion is its cow protection. "The central fact of Hinduism is cow protection. "Cow protection to me is one of the most wonderful phe- nomena in human evolution. "Cow protection is the gift of Hinduism to the world, and Hinduism will live so long as there are Hindus to protect the cow. The way to protect is to die for her. "Cow protection means conquering the Mussulmans by our love. "Hindus will be judged not by their tilaks, not by the correct chanting of Mantras, not by their pilgrimages, not by their most punctilious observance of caste rules, but by their ability to protect the cow. "I have made the Khilafat cause my own because I see that through its preservation full protection can be secured for the cow." These are not mere figures of speech. There are temples like the temple of Vithoba, at Pandharpur, the great place of pilgrimage in the Dekkan, where the cow is actually used as an object of worship. The belief that the excreta of the cow has power to cleanse men from sin is a belief well nigh universal among Hindus (Frazer and Edwards, "Life and Teaching of Tukaram," page 159). It cannot be said that these conceptions have been helpful to India. They have de- graded religion, and by hindering veterinary science and the hygienic care of animals they have injured and not advantaged the useful creature whose products and service entitle her to the care and gratitude of the people. It is not a trifling thing to say that India must learn to think differently of cows as well as of women. How can India think as she does in these and other matters ? We asked these questions of a very clever Indian lawyer with whom we spent a pleasant afternoon on a railroad train 152 between two north Indian cities, passing through one of the most fertile and thickly settled parts of India where the fields were full of husbandmen and the whole world was bathed in the glorious unclouded sunshine of an Indian winter day. He was glad, he said, of the opportunity to talk. One of his complaints against the average Englishman was that he did not care to talk with the Indian people and knew very little of their real life and thought. He believed that the common people had now been thoroughly reached by the nationalistic agitation. He did not share its non-cooperation principle. He believed that the majority of the intelligent people of India held his own convictions that Great Britain should not with- draw from India, that India was not ready for complete self- government. Divided within and weak without, she could not yet go alone. The right solution, he believed, was Dominion status for India within the Empire. But Great Britain had mishandled the situation. It had been folly to pass the Row- latt Act. At the right time it might have been a legitimate precautionary measure against a seditious or inflammatory press, but as a matter of fact it had accomplished nothing except to irritate the people and to give the non-cooperators a new and effective weapon. It had been especially foolish to pass such an act when no concessions had yet been made in the direction of self-government and when the popular tem- per was raw. If the reforms had been given first that Act and other Acts might have been safely passed afterwards. We asked him whether he was convinced that the political ferment had reached the vast quiet mass of the village people, and I told him of some old village head men whom we had asked regarding the Khilafat and Swaraj and Gandhi who had professed ignorance of them all. Perhaps the old chaud- hris might not have known of the Khilafat and Swaraj, he replied, but they could hardly have been ignorant of Mr. Gandhi, whom everywhere the people knew and rightly rever- enced. The real trouble, he went on, was that good British government did not reach down deep enough. It was the na- tive police who represented Government to the great mass of the people. If he had his way he would abolish the native police and substitute, if it were possible, a pure British police force instead of the corrupt and tyrannical native police who made Government feared and hated among the people. We asked him whether he would be willing to explain two matters which Americans could not understand in India, namely, how intelligent Indians could worship cows and how they could support Turkey in the Khilafat movement without one word 153 of reprobation of her bad government and of the massacres with which she had again and again defiled her history. "As to Turkey," he rephed, "I wholly agree with you, Turkish rule, at least over Christian populations, should have been wiped out long, long ago. In London I had an Armenian friend, and I often wept with him. At the end of the war all India would have accepted any righteous dealing with Turkey. But we saw at once that Turkey was not to be dealt with, any more than she had been in the past, on a basis of righteousness. When some Indian Mohammedans spoke in behalf of lenient treatment of Turkey, England answered, 'We are dealing less severely with Turkey than with Ger- many.' What did that have to do with it? It was not a matter of lenience, less or more. It was a matter of justice. If England had replied, 'We intend to do justice by Germany and Turkey alike though the heavens fall,' all of India would have been satisfied, but we saw that now as always, Europe did not intend to proceed on a basis of righteousness, but on a basis of policy and expediency. Indian Mohammedans per- ceived that it was clamor and politics that would prevail and not righteousnenss. If the problem of Turkey was to be used by England and France as a mere counter in the game that they were playing for national advantage, why should not India use it too? That is the meaning of the Khila- fat agitation. India is more sincere in it than England has ever been in her Turkish policy. As to the cow, I will tell you frankly, that I do not eat the meat of cows, but I do not disapprove at all of the use of meat by those who care for it. The religious idea, which you do not understand and which has grown into grotesque forms, was originally only the recog- nition of the value of the cow to man, its worth as the source of five products essential to his comfort and life in this tropical land. What is worship but worthship, the according to an object of its real worth? Ultimately this true feeling was superstitionized into the silly religion of today. I disapprove of these Cow Protection Societies which oppose veterinary science and destroy the very creatures they purport to pro- tect." Did he think that Hinduism was in any respect losing its grasp upon the people? "Indeed I do," he replied. "I believe that caste is relaxing and that religion is declining. Brahmans are not entering the priesthood as they did in former days, because priests receive no such support from the people now as they did in former times. Personally I am a Hindu, but I am not a religious man, and I think I am detached enough to see the tendencies which are at work. In this part 154 of India it is the Arya Samaj and the Christian missionaries who are responsible for the dechne of Hinduism, but they do not offer anything very attractive as a substitute for the old Hinduism. The high caste people do not see that the new movements offer them anything of practical material advant- age. So the old religion is dying and nothing is taking its place. Among the low castes it is very different. There your missionaries have done a wonderful work in lifting up these depressed masses. I see this. I think we are losing our old life and that we are not taking over the good from our western teachers as we ought. We are not learning your persistence, your pertinacity, your enterprise, your sacrifice, your spirit of adventure and service, your determination upon great and good purposes and the subordination of life and all of life's resources to their accomplishment. We do not learn these things. We learn collars and these clothes. There is no teaching of religion in the homes as in the old days. If I were to have it in my home, I suppose I should look to the Arya Samaj for it. There have been other deteriorations too in India. The British who come to India today are- far in- ferior to the old type." We drew him back to the subject of religion. "Oh," said he, "a man can be a good man in any religion. I don't see any essential difference in the great re- ligions. No, I know you would not agree. As to the modern education of women, I disapprove of it. I am not a rich man, but I have comfortable means. I gave Rs. 30,000 to the war funds. I raised many millions in the loans, and I kept five men at my own expense recruiting troops. We can have serv- ants, but we live in the old Indian style. My wife gets up at five in the morning and works till eleven at night. I think we ought to train our girls for the old frugal life." He was opposed to free trade. He would keep India simple and real and maintain, as far as possible in this new day, the old indus- tries. It was the Sikhs in the Punjab, who had formerly been a great stronghold of loyalty, who were now seditious. As for himself, he was loyal to the government and was not afraid of the unpopularity and opposition he had met in supporting it, but he did not believe that it had handled India wisely. It ought to do more to win the good will and to promote the interest of the common people. Was it not the common peo- ple, we asked him, who had profited by the establishment of order, by fixity of land tenure and taxes, by roads, and most of all by the wide and ever-widening system of irrigation works? "Yes," said he, "but look at the government budget. Compare what it spends on mechanical and trade schools with 155 Birmingham University." He had lived once in England and had known well some of the most earnest Christian men, Lord Radstock and others. We asked him what he would think of the suggestion, which we had heard a British official make a few evenings before, that the British should offer definitely to leave India at the end of five years. "Futile," said he. "In the first place, India would not believe them. Look at Ireland. And in the second place, the agitators would not cease their agitations. They would redouble them. No, in- stead of the British leaving India every one of the native states of India should be made British territory." He had lived in them, and he knew the conditions, the fall in real estate values the moment one crossed the boundary line be- tween British India and a native state, the inferior govern- ment, and the different atmosphere. There might be excep- tional native states, but he was speaking of what he knew. Had we been surprised at his views about woman's place in India? We had intimated as much and had asked him about suttee and child marriage. "No," he answered, "suttee will never be revived. And in the old days when it was practiced it was an atrocious thing when it was forced upon the widow. But was it not noble when it was voluntary — life given up in joy and freedom for love? As to child marriages, whether of young boys to women or young girls to men, I would hang all who are concerned in them to the nearest tree." What can one say of such views except that it was the same kind of positive entertaining opinion that one might hear from an intelligent man of any nation looking out criti- cally upon the society which had produced him. I began to quote this conversation for its reference to the Hindu wor- ship of cows, but it bears on a good deal else besides and may well lead on to the little that there is room to say, even in a report that is growing as voluminous as this, on the illimit- able subject of Indian Religion, especially on some of the phases of chief interest to Missions. 8. The initial difficulty is that Hinduism is incapable of definition. "Occasionally law-givers have found themselves compelled to try to define a Hindu, The attempt has always failed, since in practice those Indians are Hindus who are neither Mohammedans nor Jews nor Parsis nor Christians nor members of any other Indian community that can be de- fined or disposed of . . . . If we use the word of the prevalent type of life and belief which the Mohammedans found in India we may describe Hindus as marked by the following charac- teristics: Their social system is based on caste and they 15G recognize the spiritual ascendancy of the Brahmans. They venerate the Vedas and the cow. They worship and believe in one or more of the usual Hindu gods, in Vishnu or his Ava- taras, in Siva, or in others. They believe in the cycle of re- birth. They use images in religious worship" (Frazer and Edwards, "Life and Teaching of Tukaram," page 25, Far- quhar, "Primer of Hinduism," chapters XIII and XIV). This would seem to be a clear and satisfactory definition, but the Indian census takers are unable to make it or any other defi- nition work. The Census Report of 1911 refers to "the im- possibility of framing a comprehensive definition of Hinduism intelligible to the average enumerator and of drawing a hard and fast line between Hinduism and other religions, Jainism, Islam, Animism and Sikhism." In Bombay Presidency there were "35,000 Hindu-Mohammedans whose creed and customs partake of both religions." The "Census Report" states, "various tests have been suggested to fix what constitutes a Hindu, but finally it was decided to treat all who call them- selves Hindus as Hindus." Indian religion does not like defi- nitions. It is the erasure of distinctions and the obliteration of clear boundaries which is characteristic of it. As one of its greatest poets has sung, "My heart has never trod the Pilgrim way • The vows I make I know not how to pay. 'Ah, God is here,' I cry. Not so, not so, For me distinctions have not passed away." What Missions meet in India, accordingly, is an attitude of mind which believes that all that is essential and, for that matter, all that is unessential also, exists within the amorphous comprehension of Hinduism, and that resents only the West- ern habit of intellectual exactness and the Christian principle of the singleness and exclusiveness of truth. "I have always felt," wrote a Hindu gentleman of the highest character, on the occasion of our visit to his city, "that the well meaning and earnest activities of the foreign missions in India were wholly misdirected. To bring religion to India from the West showed an extraordinary knowledge of India, for religion is ingrained in us. It is in our very blood and bone. Religion is still a rule of life with us that should govern every activity. And so it is that today in our fight for freedom against British imperialism, religion is our sheet anchor. We fight with the unique and matchless weapon of non-violence, for we feel that victory will at last come to those who suffer for the sake of truth and not to those who inflict the suffering. . . . The basis of Indian art is the representation of the ideal, of the 157 soul of a thing. The student who wishes to understand it must not go by externals. He must dive deep and find the spirit behind the form. Even so those who desire to know what India is, what India thinks, and what India seeks must not be misled by forms and appearances." This identification of Hinduism with the whole of life, its tropical richness of form and symbolism, its want of intel- lectual definiteness and precision explain various features of the present day resistance of Hinduism to Christianity, such as its defense of idolatry, the new apologetic for im- moral symbolism, the dislike of clear Christian doctrine, and the spirit of syncretism and assimilation. (1) Under the powerful and uncompromising attack of Ram Mohun Roy upon Hindu idolatry, as not merely symbolic but literal, and moved by the influence of Western education and of the Christian view of God and the world, there grew up in India a great shame and disavowal of idols. That shame and disavowal are sure to increase, but, instead of the frank confession and condemnation of idolatry, one finds to- day both in the nationalistic movement and in the most ad- vanced of the Samajes a new spirit of defense and apology. "I do not disbelieve in idol worship," says Mr. Gandhi. "An i(fol does not excite any feeling of veneration in me, but I think that idol worship is a part of human nature. ... I do not consider idol worship a sin." The Prarthana Samaj is perhaps the most enlightened of all the reform groups, but it has members who "have banished neither idolatry nor caste from their homes." Its Bombay branch in 1920 carried by a vote of only 19 to 12 a resolution requiring each appli- cant for admission to declare at the time of becoming a mem- ber, "I undertake to perform all domestic and other cere- monies according to theistic rites discarding idolatry." A second resolution proposing to add to the rules of the Samaj the following: "Any member who performs a domestic or any other ceremony with idolatrous rites, or worships any idols while performing such rites, will ipso facto cease to be a member of the Bombay Prarthana Samaj," was lost, only seven members voting for it. ("Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics," Vol. 9, Article "Prarthana Samaj," "Dnyano- daya," July 17, 1920.) There has undoubtedly been a great diminution of blind idolatry in India. Many have given over idolatry altogether, and many who practice or allow the use of idols truly conceive them as mere symbols. But Mr. Gandhi is mistaken when he says, "No Hindu considers an image to be God." Millions of Hindus worship images as gods or as 158 God, and I do not see how the thousands of pure spirited Indians Hke Mr. Gandhi can visit Benares or Allahabad or any one of a hundred thousand temples in India or see the place of idolatry in home and village life without a feeling of sickness and almost utter hopelessness of soul. (2) Another feature of present-day religious thought in India supported in part by Western tendencies in philosophi- cal and ethical teaching, in part by the patriotic defense of everything Indian, and in part by what is animal in the human spirit is the new apology for the immoralities, or un- moralism, which the life-embracing character of Hinduism has gathered up into its indiscriminating bosom. Even Mr. Gandhi says, "I know the vice that is going on today in all the great Hindu shrines, but I love them in spite of their unspeakable faihngs" ("Kaukab i Hind," Oct. 14, 1921). And writers are now found both in and out of India who defend the Tantras, which, until recently, no one has even dared to translate into English, and Tantric worship as representing a higher and fuller religious view than Christianity. "Chris- tianity," they say, "as ordinarily interpreted, puts an impass- able gulf between the ideal and human nature. The Agama (that is the Tantra) on the contrary throws its circumference around the whole circle of human activity. ... It includes worship with flesh foods, intoxicants, and sex because it recog- nizes that these are inherent in certain stages of human de- velopment and because it believes that they are more certain to be transcended through being associated with the religious idea than through being left alone or in an antagonistic rela- tionship to religion. . . . Simple religion such as Christianity removes God from His creation and removes Him also from full contact with a complete humanity, by speaking of Him as single-sexed and so vitiating the whole superstructure of commentary and custom. Simple philosophy, on the other hand, reduces everything to abstraction. The Tantrik teacher, however, declares, 'It is as impossible to hold the firmament between a pair of tongs as it is to worship an atributeless Brahman by a mind with attributes.* Tantra replaces the attributeless as an object of contemplation by Shakti (the Creative Energy in all its forms personified as feminine) as an object of worship and holds that the subtler aspects of Shakti can only be reached through her physical and mantra forms" ("The Modern Review " Feb., 1918, article "The Aga- mas and the Future") . This is a view, however, which India is certain to abandon unless she is induced to retain it by West- ern influence. Against the teaching and influence of the 159 Tantras every other religion of the world, including all that is good in Hinduism, has been a protest. This new apologetic represents a pathological aspect of the human mind. (3) One meets in India today just as at home the easy deri- sion of "creed and dogma." In the West one has to recog- nize that such talk represents an inevitable reaction against the distorted religious teaching which gave a disproportionate place to the intellectual and doctrinal elements of religion and forgot the full truth of Christianity. The religion of character and conduct might not have spurned the religion of creed if the latter had not also erred. But whatever the cause of the reaction, it has been real enough or, at any rate, the expressions which have become its shibboleths are com- mon enough. We met them in some of the addresses which were presented to us by the sympathetic but non-Christian students in some of the great high schools. Here are two illustrative passages from two of the schools each of which had in the neighborhood of 700 students: "Your schools were founded primarily for religious instruc- tion and for the propagation of the Christian Faith. Judged from the standard that the goal of missionary enterprise is to add as many converts to the Church as possible, it appears that their efforts have failed, at least in the educational insti- tutions. We who belong to other religions find it hard to ac- cept certain metaphysical dogmas of Christianity. But after all what should be the object of missionary effort? Is it the spreading of the Spirit of Christ or is it the spreading of the dogmas of Christianity. The love, sympathy and in many cases the self-sacrifice of the teachers, and the daily reading of the teachings of Christ from the Bible never fail to intro- duce the essential spirit of Christianity into the mind of even the dullest student." "With these brilliant records of success in secular instruc- tion, religious instruction has by no means been ignored; rather, it has been attended to with redoubled zeal, and we honestly believe, that our success in one branch is primarily due to the purity of thought resultant from devoted attention to the other branch. We have regular Bible readings and even if certain metaphysical dogmas of Christianity may not be acceptable to certain minds yet these lessons never fail to impress us with the spirit of Christianity — the spirit of love, sympathy and self-sacrifice." One meets constantly this rejection of the historic Christian doctrine coupled with the expression of highest admiration for Christ and His Spirit. It is characteristic of India as it 160 is common in the West today to hold the sheer fallacy that the teaching and spirit of Christ are separable from the New Testament valuation of the person of Christ. We met this view in conversation with two high-minded and earnest Indian gentlemen with whom we talked one morning on a wide veranda in western India looking off across a wealth of waving cocoanut trees. They were both Hindus, one a retired judge and another the most respected lawyer in the neighboring district, from which he had come down to meet us. Conver- sation began with an attempt to define religion. These two friends were agreed in conceiving it to be the ecstatic spiritual consciousness of God. But, we asked them, ought not religion to be conceived in terms of service rather than of ecstasy. No, they replied, this was just the radical difference between their religious view and Christianity, or at any rate the Euro- pean interpretation of Christianity. In Christianity spiritual ecstasy was recognized but it was a means to the end of ser- vice. In Hinduism service and worship were only means to the end of ecstasy. Idolatry was a darkening shadow upon the essence of Hindu religion. They themselves made no use of idols. It was Buddhism, they held, which was respon- sible for idolatry in India. It was not in the Vedas, and it was not in the teaching of Buddha, but when after Buddhism had prevailed in India for a few centuries the Vedanta move- ment destroyed it, it left idolatry as its bequest. By a strange irony Buddha, who had taught that there was no god, was himself deified, and his effigies were worshipped all over the Buddhist world. It was an evil legacy which he had left to India. But had he not also left the doctrine of the sacredness of life and had not mild and benign influences flowed from his teaching? On the other hand, they held that it was the Jains whose religion was older than Buddhism who' had taught the doctrine of the sacredness of life. Caste also was unessential to religion, and it was slowly but surely disappear- ing. After all it represented little more than the notions of social distinction embodied in the British nobility. All ideas of class hatred and pride had been imported into caste either by Western imagination or by Western influence. A distinction had been drawn in our conversation, they said, between Christianity and Hinduism, but in reality they were prepared to recognize all religion as essentially one. They were joyfully ready to acknowledge Christ as a saint like Tukaram, but perhaps not superior, and certainly they were not ready to acknowledge any exclusive claim. Christ they could accept but not the European gloss. But, I reminded 161 6 — India and Persia them, Christ's exclusive claim was not a European gloss. The same records which gave us the picture of Him that they were ready to accept gave us also and with equal authenticity His exclusive claims. "What claims have you in mind?" they asked. I quoted them: "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me;" "No man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him;" "I am the Light of the world;" "Verily, verily I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." "I cannot accept those sayings," said the older man. We returned to what they had said about caste, and they expressed their conviction that caste as an influence of social segregation was declining through social, intellectual and economic changes. Plague, which had been such a sorrow to India, had nevertheless mixed all the people together in the democracy of disease. Many like themselves were ready to break caste and did not do so, simply because others were not ready for it and would be offended. As to Swaraj, it would not come for fifty years. We passed back to the subject of religion again and the idea that all religion is essentially one. Surely this was so, they urged. For example, they disagreed widely between them- selves, these two friends. One was a monist, the other was a dualist. One of them longed to be one with God ; the other longed to be nearer to God. They were both Hindus. Were they not both longing for the same thing? Were not all religions after all but different ways of reaching God? But what did they mean by God, we asked. "Ishwar, the Divine Essence." Why did India not worship Ishwar then? In all India there was not one temple of such worship nor one to Brahma, the Creator. How could this be? They re- plied that God conceived as Brahma, the Creator, is really outside of human life. His work is done. What is the use of worshiping him, — so the heart of India felt. It worshiped God conceived as Preserver in Vishnu and as Destroyer in Siva. To the extent that men worshiped idols they worshiped foolishly, and such foolish worship would inevitably disappear. Some of their best friends, they said, were missionaries, es- pecially American missionaries whom they regarded as toler- ant and just men. They said that in their judgment Mission*" had greatly improved. They used to say, "Your religion is false and mine is true." Now they say, "Mine is better." The 162 judge said he had read a Httle book which I had written on comparative rehgion entitled 'The Light of the World," and that he liked the sentence, "Westerners are worse than their religion." He thought this was true. I asked him with re- gard to the rest of the sentence, which embodied an opinion which I had heard Sir Andrew Frazer express, "In the East men are better than their religions." The judge said that he was not aware of that. After the manner of such friendly talk as we were having we returned to the beginning, and I cited from the Epistle of James his conception of religion as purity and service. "It is not satisfying," said they. As to truth, what were its criteria? I cited Christ's judgment, "By fruits ye shall know." Not so, they held. The full ecstasy of spiritual experience was the true criterion, and this was the longing of men rather than their possession. There were not five men in India who had experienced religion, the full satisfaction of the spiritual consciousness. They were glad to have had this meeting, for they were hunting for the truth. We discussed, before they left, the different ways in which men's minds were moving in different parts of India and the changes that had taken place in their own part of India within their memory. "I can remember," said the younger man, "when as a boy the shadow of an untouchable out-caste fell upon me my mother would send me home to bathe. It is not so now." Some weeks later I received from the older man a letter which he had promised to write giving his impressions after re-reading the Christian Gospels. His letter concluded, "The Gospels do not contain the whole of the real teachings of Jesus, what He privately taught to His dis- ciples, in other words. His religion. That teaching, that re- ligion is lost." (4) This kindly attitude towards Christ which is at once so critical and so uncritical is very characteristic of present religious thought in India. The doctrines both of the Incar- nation and of the Atonement are a stumbling block, the for- mer to Mohammedans and the latter to the Hindus, but the comprehensive spirit of Hinduism is very ready to respect and admire Jesus. "In it (Hinduism) there is room for the worship of all the prophets of the world," says Mr. Gandhi. And, admitted on any terms even though not His own, Christ inevitably asserts His moral supremacy. A generation ago, in spite of all that Keshub Chandra Sen said with courage and love, which yet fell short of full faith, with regard to Jesus, the thought of India was cold to Him. The influences which have been at work, however, of which Mr. Gandhi '*' 163 has been one of the strongest, have brought the thought of India to the recognition of Christ's moral authority. Mr. Gandhi has again and again exalted the authority and moral glory of Christ. It is quite true that he rejects our conception of Christ's Person and nature, but he has ever referred to Him with reverence and even when he has not mentioned Christ's name or perhaps been at all conscious that his thought was influenced by Christ he has upheld the ethical ideals and principles which historically owe their vitality to our Lord. In these respects and in a great deal of his moral and social influence Mr. Gandhi has been a very great and a very righteous force in India. Indians complain of government action which is not in ac- cord with Christianity. They make this complaint not only because the Government purports to be a Christian govern- ment, but also because they are coming to recognize Christ's standard and ideal as the ultimate basis of moral judgment. Mr. Natarajan, one of the leading Indians in Bombay, editor of the "Indian Social Reformer," recently presided over one of Dr. Stanley Jones' meetings on "Jesus Christ and Present Day Problems," and declared, at the close of the lecture, that he entirely agreed that the pressing problems of society can be solved only by acting on the principles of Jesus' life and teachings ("Dnyanodaya," December 22, 1921). The "Bombay Chronicle," the leading nationalist newspaper, in an editorial on December 24, 1921, appealed to the example of Christ in support of the non-cooperation movement. It pic- tured the attitude which, in its view, Christ would take if He returned to India. It appealed to His authority in support of Mr. Gandhi's policy as embodying "the truths of Christi- anity and of all religions as applied to politics and statecraft." "The Servant of India," another nationalist paper, in an edi- torial on cowardice and non-violence, held up before the non- cooperators the example of Christ in His trial : "When Christ was brought before Pilate, His reply to all the latter's im- pertinent and irreverent questions was a dignified silence. This is a significant indication of how we should meet the insulting outbreak of irresponsible power. We must make it feel — how, only the actual circumstances can suggest — that it is in the wrong" (Quoted in the Delhi "Eastern Mail," Oct. 25, 1921). 9. The influence of Christianity on religious thought in India is evidenced in many movements where it is not ac- knowledged, or where it may even be resisted or denied. The 164 earlier samajes joyfully recognized their indebtedness to Christianity. They began, and their first inaugurators recog- nized that they had begun, directly under Christian inspira- tion. The later movements like the Arya Samaj, which arose in direct opposition to Christianity and which is now the most vigorous of all the Samaj movements, and the Dev Samaj, which some would regard as deistic or even atheistic in its theology, but which represents a definite humanizing and moral tendency, both owe their best elements, consciously or unconsciously, to Christianity. The other strongest re- ligious movements in India which long antedated the modern missionary era, namely, Vaishnavism and Vedantism, likewise have been deeply influenced in many of their expressions and their advocates by Christian truth and by the Christian spirit. No one better illustrates in his own statements and in his own person the view which the sentiment of India has come to take of Christ than Sir Narayan Chandavarkar, President of the Bombay Legislative Council and one of the most highly respected men in India, a man of noble mind and noble char- acter. "The best minds of India," he wrote, were "striving to diffuse among the masses the best that is in the Indian religion and to show that the best is not different from, but is the same as Christ's teachings" ("The Times of India," June 8, 1921). Sir Narayan is one of the leading spirits in the Prarthana Samaj, a theistic society whose theology would not differ greatly from that of some members of the left wing of American Unitarianism. The Bhagavadgita is their New Testament, supplemented by the poems of the devotional school, especially Tukaram. There is one of these entitled "Santi," or calm, which Dr. McNicol, of the Scotch Mission in Poona, has translated under the title "He Leadeth Me." "Holding my hand thou leadest me, My comrade everywhere. As I go on and lean on thee, My burden thou dost bear. "If, as I go, in my distress I frantic words should say, Thou settest right my foolishness And tak'st my shame away. "Thus thou to me new hope dost send, A new world bringest in; Now know I every man a friend And all I meet my kin. "So like a happy child I play In thy dear world, O God, And everywhere — I, Tuka, say Thy bliss is spread abroad." 165 Sir Narayan made this poem the theme of one of his ser- mons to the Prarthana Samaj. "Mark the succession of changes of the relation," he said. "We start in life with God as our Master ; we begin by obeying him ; His will is our law ; and soon the Master develops into our Friend as we go on serving Him; then the Master and the Servant begin to be familiar ; and the Master stoops to serve the Servant The nectar of Tukaram's hymns is shed for us when they are sung; and of this hymn it is especially true. It has no falls — line rises upon line, thought grows with thought, and the poet pictures to us our God changing from Master into Friend, Teacher, Lover until at last His companionship turns Him into our very being. . . . And growth from within means walking with God, feeling His touch, realizing His presence and communing with Him, filling ourselves with the spirit of what the Bible speaks of as the Holy Ghost." I went to call upon Sir Narayan in Bombay. While waiting for him I was interested to see on the wall a large picture of Spurgeon. When he came in I spoke of it, and he expressed his great admiration for Spurgeon, whom he had gone to hear preach in London. He said he liked the earnestness of his conviction, but he did not like one sermon which he heard describing the penalty and judgment on sin, and he thought unfavorably of the way in which Mr. Spurgeon sometimes announced the collection, "If any one is not willing to part with something, let him leave." He thought that Christianity would not be accepted by India as Europe had accepted it, as a new religion from without, but that Hinduism would discover in itself the principles and values of Christianity, not reading these into Hinduism but discovering that they were already there. There was no Hindu book, however, like the New Testament. And Hinduism was not like the Western systematic construction of Christianity, but was full of confusions and illogicalness. He thought, if we rightly understood him, that idolatry and caste were likely to endure. He told us of a visit which he had made to Pand- harpur and of his falling down thrilled before the feet of Tukaram. He admitted that his feeling was not one of re- ligion. It was veneration and affection. Yet his act had been just like the act of the people in idolatry. He had visited the nearby temple of Vithoba, but he did not even clasp his hands or bow there. He had no belief in the reality of Hindu- Moslem unity. The Moslem was a democrat in the mosque but an aristocrat outside, using the words in a political sense. He had no patience with the Khilafat agitation, but he thought 166 the Turkish question should be dealt with in a conference of the Turks and Europeans sitting down together. Many people thought India could govern itself, just as his two-year- old grandchild thought he could rule the house. India was not ready for such Swaraj, but she was ready and had a right to ask for self-government within the Empire. Sooner or later the Government and Mr. Gandhi would have to come to an issue. He thought some measure of violence was sure to come, that history had shown that great political develop- ments were seldom achieved without the spilling of blood, but he did not believe that there would be any general violence. The agitation which Mr. Gandhi represented must surely be put down. I ventured to bring forward what seemed to me to be the fundamental distinction between Christianity and the non-Christian religions, namely, the fact and meaning of the Resurrection. No, he replied, there was no resurrection in Hinduism, neither of God nor saint, but he held that all that is of moral value in the conception was supplied by apparitions and that the idea of apparitions in the body was very familiar to Hindus. But I asked how the idea of trans- migration could be reconciled with the doctrine of the Resur- rection or how the moral values of the Resurrection could be drawn from apparitions in a religion of transmigration. He replied that Hinduism was a philosophical and vague religion, not logical and accurate, that the English temporized in politics and the Indians in religion, that Hinduism could not be pressed into any logical exactitude. Those who have come as far as Sir Narayan has come towards Christ are preparing the way for a generation who will come further. The evidences of the filtration of Christian views into Indian thought might be multiplied indefinitely. I could quote from my notebooks conversations with all types of men indicating the place to which Christ has been already admitted in the mind of India and to which He cannot be restricted. Groups like the Chet Rami sect arise, small in themselves and often transitory, but all of them eddies on the surface which show the movement of deep undertides. There is one of the native states in which the visitor feels the weight of a pecu- liarly distressing and oppressive idolatry where nevertheless in all the schools of the state a strange prayer is offered which mingles the ideas of a sort of Hindu Shintoism with a Chris- tian thought of God. 10. I have spoken eieewhere of the significance of the sup- posed alliance of Hinduism and Mohammedanism in relation 167 to Indian politics. Such a unity would have profound signifi- cance also for religion in India. Is this unity real? The All- India Congress, made up of Hindus and Mohammedans alike, was united in making Mr. Gandhi dictator of the Nationalist Movement, with authority to appoint his successor and in- vested him and his successor and all subsequent successors, appointed in time by their predecessors, "with the full powers of the All-India Congress committee." The only limitation imposed was that "the present creed of the Congress shall in no case be altered by Mahatma Gandhi or his successors except with the leave of the Congress first obtained." So creeds do matter after all. It would be interesting to hear Mohammed express his mind on this acceptance of a Hindu as the absolute political leader of the 62,500,000 Moham- medans of India. The resolutions of the Congress set forth as one of its goals the "consolidation of unity among all the races and communities of India whether Hindu, Mussulman, Sikh, Parsi, Christian or Jew." It remains to be seen whether this alliance of Hindu and Mussulman is real or not and whether any Hindu-Moslem unity is permanently possible that does not mean either the conversion of Hindus to Islam or the absorption of Islam, as Buddhism was absorbed, into Hinduism. An Indian gentleman in the Punjab, who ex- pressed his own opinion to me that Hindu-Moslem unity was a pure fiction, toid me that he had not long before asked Lala La j pat Rai whether he thought there was any reality in this union and that Lajpat Rai had tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Don't ask such questions." One could wish that there were reality in these movements. After Christ one of India's greatest needs is unity. One of the things she needs Christ for is the unity which He alone can bring. There is no unity today. "The Hindu-Moslem entente is only super- ficial," writes a friend in India, in a letter which we received in Persia. "The feeling among Hindus themselves is any- thing but a feeling of unity. The Marathas are against the Brahmans and even the barber caste is claiming that it is as good as the Brahman caste and as much entitled to wear the sacred thread." An enemy of India might desire the perpetuation of the old anarchy of Hinduism. One reason why those who love India want to see her come to Christ is because they are convinced that it is only through Christ that a solid and veracious unity can ever come to her. 11. No mistake is greater than that of the friend whose letter I have quoted earlier in this chapter who thought that 168 Christian Missions were an intrusion in India because India already has religion. She does, but not a religion that will meet her needs. The Viceroy made a speech while we were in India before the University of Benares, the new Hindu University, commending the great objects of the institution, "to preserve and foster all that is noblest in Hindu ideals, in Hindu life, in Hindu thought, in Hindu religion, tradition, culture, and civilization. You have also implanted, in its nat- ural soil," he added, "what you think beneficial for your pur- pose of Western science. Western industry, and Western art, so that your young men when they go out into the world should not only be e(iuipped with the teachings of Hindu tradition but also with other knowledge which somehow or other we in the Western world have managed to acquire. And consequently when they have to take up their avocations in life, they will not only be fitted religiously and ethically to fight the battle of life but will also have the necessary equip- ment for more material progress." It is desirable that all that is noble in India's past should be conserved. That is one reason why India should be Christian. Only Christianity can conserve her noble past for her. But that is not the only reason. Neither for their avocations, which is a small matter, nor for their vocations, which is a matter of consequence, will the young men of India be fitted by what is noblest in their past or by what they may borrow of Western science, industry and art. India needs one thing more, greater than all these, of which any viceroy and especially Lord Reading might have found it difficult, if not impossible, to speak to the University of Benares. She needs Jesus Christ, the only Saviour and Lord. "I have tried to show," says Sir William Hunter in the preface to his most sympathetic little book, "A Brief History of the Indian Peoples," "how an early gifted race, ethically akin to our own, welded the primitive forest tribes into settled communities. How the nobler stock, set free from the severer struggle for life by the bounty of the Indian soil, created a language, a literature, and a religion of rare stateliness and beauty. How the absence of that very striving with nature which is so necessary a discipline for nations unfitted them for the great conflicts which await all races. How among the most intellectual class the spiritual and contemplative aspects of life overpowered the practical and the political. How Hinduism while sufficing to organize ohe Indian communities into social and religious confederacies ■failed to knit them together into a coherent nation." Modern India is full (h great and worthy visions. One of 169 her best loved and most justly trusted leaders has put them in words, "With a liberal manhood, with buoyant hope, with a faith that never shirks duty, with a sense of justice that deals fairly to all, with unclouded intellect and powers fully cultivated, and lastly with a love that overleaps all bounds, renovated India will take her proper rank among the nations of the world and be the master of the situation and of her own destiny. This is the goal to be reached. This is the promised land." (Ranade.) What will thus renew India? Not the vision of it, not the longing for it. Only He who says, "Behold I make all things new," and who makes nations new by making new men. The renewal of India depends on the renewal of Indians by the one Redeemer who can cut away the barnacles of retarding and debilitating sin and who can re- produce Himself in men as the spring of a new joy in their spirits and as the power of a new life in their nation. S. S. Constantinople, Atlantic Ocean, May 11, 1922. 170 5. PROBLEMS OF THE CHURCH AND OF EVAN- GELIZATION I. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE FOREIGN MISSIONS AND THE INDIAN CHURCH It was not because of the vivid emergence of this question in 1920 that the Board instructed us to visit India to confer with the Missions and the Indian Church this year. Our visit to the India Missions had been planned long before the present discussion began. But this was one of the foremost questions which we were instructed to take up in the fullest conference both with the Indian Church and with our Mis- sions. (A) EARLY HISTORY OF THE QUESTION This problem of relations between the Missions and the Church and the missionaries and Indian Church leaders be- gan with the beginning of the mission work. It was one of the most living and painful questions with which Alexander Duff and his associates had to deal at the outset of their work in Calcutta. The same questions, the same contentions, the same difficulties, and the same efforts for a just and true solution with which we meet today were met also in the his- tory of the Scotch Mission in Calcutta a hundred years ago. It would be a good thing if all who are working at the prob- lem now were to reread Smith's "Life of Duff" and Day's "Recollections of Duff." It was the discussion of this ques- tion in Calcutta which led the late Dr. K. C. Chatter] ee and others of Duff's converts to leave Calcutta and go on to the United Provinces and the Punjab in the search for different conditions. Dr. Chatter jee often remarked toward the close of his life that it was a curious thing that he, who had left Calcutta to escape from a situation where the Scotch Mission held everything under its control, should have come to a Mission which, while fostering the entire ecclesiastical inde- pendence of the Indian Church, pursued the policy of the dis- tinct responsibility of the Mission in missionary administra- tion, and had lived his life with the greatest happiness and contentment under this system. Our own Missions in India were begun, however, on the principle of making the Presbytery, of which American and Indian ministers would be members on an equality and which would be organically related to the General Assembly of the 171 Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., the general administra- tive missionary body. The early theory of our missionaries on the subject and the historical process through which that theory was abandoned may be studied in Dr. Lowrie's "Mis- sionary Papers" and Dr. Fleming's ''Devolution in Missions." Dr. Lowrie, who was one of the first missionaries of our Church in India, where he served for three years, and who was then for more than fifty years secretary of the Board, held the view that a mission was a human device, but that the Presbytery was a divine institution and that the admin- istration of Missions should vest in the Presbytery, that the Presbytery should be composed of the male foreign mission- aries as well as of the Indian ministers and elders, that the whole Presbytery should administer funds given by the native churches but that the foreign members should administer the funds from America, that the Presbyteries on the field should be organically and ecclesiastically related to the Church in America until they "reach the ground or stage of self- support." Dr. Lowrie's views are set forth in detail in "Mis- sionary Papers" and in condensed form in his notes on Dr. Ashbel Green's "Presbyterian Missions." The Missions on the field developed, however, as bodies separate from the Presbyteries, and handled matters of missionary administra- tion and provided for the care of work supported from America and for the work of women who were not members of Presbyteries. The Presbyteries on their part cared for the ecclesiastical affairs of the Church. Many questions arose through the years. 1. There was discussion at various periods with regard to the dissolution of the Mission and its absorp- tion by the Presbytery. The policy of separate organization has, however, been maintained. In 1891 this question was carefully considered by the Punjab and North India Missions at the time of Dr. Gillespie's secretarial visit and the pro- posal to turn over all the work of the Missions to the Pres- byteries was earnestly discussed and rejected on this ground : "We believe the giving over of all or even a great part of the business of the Missions to Presbytery would injure the Church." 2. There was discussion as to what functions be- longed to the Missions and what to the Presbytery. 3. There was long discussion as to whether the Presbyteries should be Presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. sub- ject to its General Assembly, or whether the Church in India should be independent. The latter view prevailed and the Indian Presbyteries of the Church joined with other Pres- byteries founded by other Presbyterian and Reformed Mis- 172 sions in establishing the independent Presbyterian Church of India in 1904. 4. There was long discussion as to whether Indians should become members of the Foreign Missions and whether foreign missionaries should be members of the Pres- byteries. Prior to 1904 all were members of one Church, the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. How could the missionaries justify themselves in refraining from transfer- ring their relationships when they came to live in India? Ought they not to act in India just as they would have acted at home in moving from one part of the Church to another? When the anomaly of this foreign connection of the Indian Church came to an end and the congregations and Presbyteries which had grown out of our mission work became part of the inde- pendent Presbyterian Church in India, the Indian Church still earnestly desired that the missionaries should be an integral part of it. Much has been said on both sides of this question as to whether it is wise for missionaries to join the native Presbyteries, and both in Japan and Brazil the national Churches and the Missions have decided the question in the negative. In India, however, both the Church and the Mis- sions have taken the contrary view, and the constitution of the Presbyterian Church in India embodies this view, while recognizing the desire of some Churches, such as the Scotch Churches, that their missionaries, while free to act as asses- sors in the Indian Church, should retain their home ecclesi- astical connection. The provision of the constitution of the Presbyterian Church in India on the subject is as follows: "While ordained Foreign Missionaries and Ministers would ordinarily be expected to be full members of the Presbyteries within whose bounds they live, yet, owing to the objection of some Churches to the severance of the connection which sub- sists between them and their Missionaries (Ordained Minis- ters and Elders) who represent them, and also on account of the peculiar, varied and temporary position of Foreign Missionaries, each Presbytery shall, in conjunction with the Home Church or Churches concerned, determine the nature of their relationship to the Presbytery." With very few exceptions our missionaries have transferred their membership from the home church and have become full members of the Indian Presbytery. Whether this has been a wise course, whether it has tended and will tend to develop the Indian Church and to promote its attainment of the full ideal of an independent, national Church "self-propagating, self-governing, self-supporting," only time will show. Neither the Church nor the Missions would consent to make any change 173 at the present time, and both believe that it would be well if the few missionaries who have still refrained from trans- ferring their membership should now under present conditions and until the Missions are agreed as to the wisdom of a gen- eral contrary policy attach themselves in full membership to the Indian Presbyteries, In accepting this view we are yielding to a situation in which the fact with which we have to deal is the almost unani- mous judgment, desire and practice of the Missions and the Presbyteries. It is a course at variance with the policy of the churches in Brazil and Japan and with the view expressed by Dr. Chatterjee in 1905 with regard to the organization of the new united, independent Indian Presbyterian Church: "I am strongly in favor of the proposal (that missionaries should not join the new Church, but should help and influence it from without), as its adoption is sure to develop the new Church. What is our object? If I mistake not, it is to start a strong National Presbyterian Church in India, and this could be only accomplished by allowing the Indians to do their own work, without being hampered by the presence of men of superior intelligence, and many of whom stand to- ward Indian members in the relation of master and servant. They may at first work awkwardly and unsatisfactorily, but will soon overcome all difficulties, every fall bringing new experience and new strength." Ten years later Dr. Chatterjee wrote of the Church: "Its constitution and canons ought to be revised so as to secure a larger representation of Indian members and a larger election of Indian Moderators." One would give a great deal to have Dr. Chatter jee's judgment on the present situation in India. If missionaries were to be members of the native Presby- teries, the question naturally arose as to whether Indian ministers should not be members of the Foreign Mission. For many years, however, this question did not go further in our Missions than the case of Dr. Chatterjee. Everybody recognized that he was the peer of any foreign missionary in India. In all questions his judgment was consulted by foreign missionaries as if he were one of their number. He was president of the Board of Directors of the Forman Chris- tian College and sat with the missionaries in equal conference in all things. For years the Punjab Mission and Dr. Chatter- jee's friends were aggrieved because the Board steadfastly re- fused to denominate Dr. Chatterjee a foreign missionary in his own land of India but insisted that that there was a far more glorious position for him as an Indian leader of an In- 174 dian Church, unseparated in any way whatsoever from the Indian Church and the Indian people. It is interesting to note that the Board's position on the matter is now unreserv- edly accepted and approved both by the Missions and by the Church and by none more heartily than those who are the spokesmen of the Church in the present discussions. The pressure, however, for a solution of the problem of relations between the Church and the Missions, by the process of having missionaries members of the Presbyteries and In- dians members of the Missions, continued for many years, and was one of the living issues at the time of Dr. White's visit to India in 1912 and 1913. It was clearly seen then that such a course of action would result, first, in creating two bodies practically identical so far as their male member- ship was concerned, which would meet in one capacity as an Indian Presbytery to deal with the ecclesiastical affairs of the Church and in another capacity as a Foreign Mission to administer the missionary work; and secondly, inasmuch as such a division of activity of the same group of persons was not likely to continue long there was every probability that the Presbytery would fade into the Mission or that the Mis- sion would fade into the Presbytery; and thirdly, it seemed likely that either result would debilitate the Church and blur its national personality and weaken its vision of respon- sibility and its autonomy of action, while if the Mission faded into the Presbytery the great body of American women would be left without any controlling voice in the direction of their work. The conference which Dr. White held with representatives of the three Missions faced the question as it presented itself at that time, and adopted the following state- ment of policy: "I. (a) The Indian Church and not the Mission is the per- manent agency in the evangelization of the people of India. (b) The work now carried on by the Missions, especially pastoral and evangelistic work, should be trans- ferred gradually to the sessions, presbyteries, synod and General Assembly of the Church. (c) Positions of responsibility should be related to the courts of the Church rather than to the Missions. (d) The highest and most responsible positions in every department of work carried on by the Missions should be open to members of the Church whose gifts and character show them worthy of trust and honour. (e) The Presbytery should supervise the evangelistic 175 work within its bounds without control of the Mis- sion or Council, provided half the evangelistic force and three-fourths of the pastors are supported by the churches of the presbytery, subject to the con- ditions of grant-in-aid which the mission. Council or Board may lay down, (f) Foreign missionaries who are ordained should unite with the presbytery within whose bounds they labor, and lay missionaries with the church where they reside. "II. As a measure looking toward the drawing into the management and control of the work of our Mis- sions and Church the sympathy and practical help of the stronger and more devoted of the members of the Indian Christian community, we suggest the adoption of the following plan: (1) Let each Mission organize itself into departments or boards such as, one for district work, one for boys' schools, one for girls' schools, another for medical work, etc., after the method now in more or less successful operation in the Punjab Mission. (2) On these boards or departments there should be ap- pointed selected Indian workers, and to them should be given all the privileges of full membership. "In this capacity these brethren will be in a position to become familiar with the work of administration, giving meanwhile most valuable aid. "We believe this plan will result in the positive preparation of a considerable number of Indian brethren for the time when the pastoral, evangelistic and other work of the missions may be taken over in whole or in part by the several Presby- teries of our Church in India. "III. That the following explanatory statement be recorded. We believe that acceptance by the Board of the principles and policy thus outlined, and their sympathetic application by the Missions and Council will more and more encourage young men of education and spiritual gifts to enter the min- istry and prepare them for leadership in the Church. We recognize that there are difficulties in transferring the evan- gelistic work carried on by the Mission to the presbyteries. One is that many of the ministers and elders are on the evan- gelistic staff of the Mission. To transfer the evangelistic grant to a presbytery whose members draw their salaries from this fund, they as its administrators having power to increase or decrease one another's salaries and allowances, 176 would be to create discord and divisions. Tlie Board in New York does not commit to tiie Mission the iixing of the salaries and allowances of the members of the Mission ; and so a board outside the presbytery, or the Council, should lix the scale of pay of each grade of workers from the lowest to the highest. "Through the patient and sympathetic application of the principles and policy outlined above the wall of distinction between the Indian and foreign laborers built largely by the present policy will be broken down within the Church. Posi- tions of trust, responsibility artd honor will, by the proposed policy, be given to the members of presbytery, session and church by their fellow members irrespective of their nation- ality. The diverse gifts of the nationalities in the Church will thus find a field for their exercise. Above all we may confidently expect the Head of the Church to give us apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, helpers; the church, the session, the presbytery, the synod and the General Assem- bly, with the boards organized by these courts of the churches, in time furnishing ample scope and opportunity for the exer- cise of every gift of the Spirit." The Missions moved forward much more actively than the Presbyteries in carrying out these measures. They developed the plan of departmental committees under which they divided the work into the three sections, evangelistic, educational and medical. Indian Christians were made members of these de- partmental committees. Each committee considered the work falling within its sphere and made its report to the Mission. This scheme was not adopted by the Western India Mission until the meeting at which we were present. It has been in operation for several years, however, in the North India Mis- sion and for a longer period in the Punjab. It had the ad- vantages of bringing Indians into the mission councils in connection with the work in which they were engaged and their judgment was indispensable. It enabled the workers in each department to deal with their work more adequately and effectively than could be done in general mission meeting. And it greatly abbreviated the length of the Mission meet- ings. On the other hand, it did not satisfy the Indian feel- ing. The Missions might traverse and annul in their separate meetings, when Indians were not present, the conclusions of the departmental committees. The Punjab Mission especially sought to think its way to some more radical and comprehensive solution, and at its meeting in October, 1917, adopted a careful report of a com- mittee "On the Relation of the Mission and the Indian Church" 177 which, though it has been left behind by the rapid movement of the discussion of the last few years, deserves to be studied both because of the careful and conscientious work spent upon it and as a historic document in the consideration of this central and unavoidable question, which we are disposed to believe can never be solved in any theoretical or absolute way and will only disappear when the work of foreign mis- sions is done. (Appendix I.) (B) CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE FOUR ALLAHABAD BRETHREN AND THE BOARD The steady growth of the Indian Church, the logical con- tinuance and evolution of the discussion of the problem which could only disappear with the disappearance either of the Church or of the Mission or some satisfactory solution which would provide for the continuance of both in right relations, and the new spirit which was abroad in India, soon issued in a fresh development. In June, 1920, four of the ablest and most respected leaders of the Allahabad Presbytery, through their secretary, N. K. Mukerji, Esq., B.A., addressed, under date of June 15th, two letters to me as secretary of the Board for India, attaching to the second letter a most instructive appendix. These were followed by two further letters by Mr. Mukerji, one to me, dated July 8, 1920, and the other addressed to the members of the Board of Foreign Missions and dated July 27th. To these letters I replied in behalf of the Board under date of September 21, 1920. Mr. Mukerji acknowledged my letter under date of January 6, 1921, and asked for further information with regard to the discussion of the question of co-operation between Mission and Church in Japan to which I had made reference in my letter of September 21st. I sent Mr. Mukerji this informa- tion under date of July 18, 1921, accompanying my letter with copies of two communications from the Church of Christ in Japan, one dated February 26, 1906, and addressed "To the Boards of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian and Re- formed Churches," and the other dated July 3, 1906, and addressed "To the Ministers and Elders of the Church of Christ in Japan." I believe that all these documents should be made available and preserved, and as they are essential to this report of our dealing with this matter in the Board's behalf both at home and in India, I cite them in full as ap- pendices to this account. It would be well if readers of the report would turn to these documents and read them at this point. 178 1. Letter from Mr. N. K. Mukerji, June 15, 1920, Ap- pendix II. 2. Letter from J. M. David, A. Ralla Ram, N. C. Mukerji and N. K. Mukerji, June 15, 1920, Appendix III. 3. Letter from Mr. N. K. Mukerji, July 8, 1920, Appendix IV. 4. Letter from Mr. N. K. Mukerji, July 22, 1920, Appen- dix V. 5. Letter from Mr. Speer to Mr. David, et al., Sept. 21, 1920, Appendix VI. 6. Letter from Mr. Speer to Mr. N. K. Mukerji, July 18, 1921, Appendix VII. 7. Communication from Church of Christ in Japan, Feb. 26, 1906, Appendix VIII. 8. Communication from Church of Christ in Japan, July 3, 1906, Appendix IX. (C) THE SAHARANPUR CONFERENCE The letter written -M^ behalf of the Board, under date of September 21, 1920, met with the approval and satisfaction of those to whom it was addressed. They brought the mat- ter before the Synod of North India at its meeting in De- cember when a commission was appointed made up entirely of Indian members representing the different Presbyteries with instructions to prepare a scheme for the consideration of the India Council, which is the central committee of our three India Missions made up of two representatives from each Mission with the addition of Dr. J. C. R. Ewing, CLE., as chairman and secretary. I have not been able to learn defi- nitely of any action taken by this commission. The question was considered also at the Punjab and North India Mission meetings in the fall of 1920, and their actions were reviewed and embodied in the following action taken by the India Council at its seventh annual meeting in Jhansi in December, 1920: Action of India Council, 1920 The question of the relations of the Indian Church and the Mission has received careful attention this year, though it can- not be said that any large conclusions have been reached that can be considered generally acceptable. The action taken by the North India Mission was as follows: 1. "The work of the Mission should have in view the estab- lishment of an independent Church in India. 2. For the best development of the Church the functions of the Church and Mission should be separate. 179 3. Also for the best interests of the Church there should be close and sympathetic co-operation between the Church .and the Mission. To this end the Mission should so arrange its organization as to efficiently avail themselves of the opinion and help of the Indian Church. 4. In the development of the Departmental Committee plan of the Mission, increasing power should be given to these Committees and an increasing amount of Indian opinion should be admitted. 5. To this end these Committees should be encouraged to meet at some other time than Mission Meeting. This will give greater time for full consideration of policy and work and will give an entity and importance to the Committees that they do not now have." The Punjab Mission took the following action: "That in order to secure fuller co-operation between the Church and the Mission, the following steps be taken : "Representation of the Presbyteries in the Mission "That the Mission request the Lahore and Ludhiana Presby- teries to select eight representatives each, of whom the Mis- sion shall elect four from each of the two Presbyteries, and these eight Presbyterial representatives shall have the right to speak on every question and also the right to vote. Each Presbytery shall, if this plan be accepted, submit the name of eight persons to the Mission from the membership of the Churches within its bounds. The term of service shall be two years, two representatives from each Presbytery or four in all retiring each year. "Those retiring shall be eligible for re-election, but no repre- sentative should serve for more than two terms in succession. At the beginning the Presbyteries should have four of the eight representatives elected for two years and four for one; so that, of the four selected by the Mission from each Pres- bytery, two will retire after two years and two after one. But thereafter all elected shall serve for two years. After the scheme has come into full operation, each Presbytery shall submit four names to the Mission each year. At least half of the representatives finally selected by the Mission should be Presbyterian laymen or women in full Church membership, but not necessarily members of the Presbytery. " Represe7itation of the Mission in the Presbyteries "The same procedure as that outlined above should be adopt- ed by the Mission and the Presbytery, namely, the Mission should present to each Presbytery the names of eight foreign 180 missionaries from whom the Presbytery shall elect four to become full voting members of the Presbytery. At the begin- ning the Mission shall name four of each group of eight to serve for two years and four for one. But after the scheme has come into full operation, the Mission shall present to each Presbytery each year the names of four members, of whom the Presbytery shall elect two, and each year two will retire from membership in the Presbytery. Missionary re- presentatives shall be eligible for re-election, but shall not serve for more than two terms consecutively. To overcome any ecclesiastical difficulty in connection with this scheme, we suggest that every foreign missionary, if he is a fully ordained minister and at present a member of the Presbytery, be allowed to become an associate member without any power of voting or speaking, but that he can be called upon to speak at the special request of the Presbytery. Such associate membership shall not be considered of such a nature as to deprive the minister of his privileges as an ordained minister. That is, it should be regarded as a voluntary surrender of the right on the part of the ordained minister, and not as compulsory retirement by the Presbytery. The object of the above recommendations is to secure exactly the same repre- sentation of one body in the other body, and is expected to lead to a greater degree of co-operative effort in the strength- ening of the Church of Christ in India." In the Western India Mission no official action was taken. While it is evident from these actions that no decision has yet been reached that could be considered final, it may be believed that the Missions are making progress in that direc- tion. It is, perhaps, too much to hope that any decision can be reached that will meet the wishes and the judgments of all Missions, missionaries and Indian Christians alike. There will have to be more or less of give and take in any decision reached, but it may be none the less valuable even if received with considerable misgiving by many. Two principles should be kept in mind: One is, that there must be a measure of liberty given to each Mission to make experiments, for it is probable that by experiments rather than by abstract discussions the most workable conclusion will be reached. By experiment some difficulties that loom large may disappear, while others that were not foreseen may prove to be important. Hence the necessity of liberty. The second principle is that there should be a due con- sideration by each Mission of the situation and the present state of opinion in each one of the other two Missions so as 181 to avoid any action that would needlessly add to their diffi- culties. In admitting these two principles it is to be remem- bered that to do so, will not always bring agreement as to what is or is not in harmony with them. A large patience with views that do not meet our approval, and a readiness to give time actually needed to reach tested conclusions — while at the same time giving no cause for an irritating belief that there is undue delay — must also be kept in mind. However keenly any individual or group of individuals may feel in regard to what is or is not desirable, no decisive action should be taken by any Mission that would disregard the views furnished by the Post-War Conference, and the views of the Indian Church as expressed by its most respon- sible leaders, and the present consensus of opinion of each Mission. To neglect any of these factors would be no less dangerous than to proceed in such a leisurely fashion as to justify the impression that the problems had not been taken up seriously, or that there was no earnest desire for the ear- liest settlement consistent with mature consideration. 1. We would recommend to each one of the three Missions the careful consideration of the proposals placed before the others. 2. We would also recommend that each Mission should take up the consideration of its organization with a view to better meeting present day needs, due to the increas- ing size of the Missions and the amount of business to be transacted. 3. The Council recommends that the Punjab Mission be given permission to try out its plan (see Minutes of 1917, Appendix VI, pp. 77-85 and 1920 pp. 42, 43) for a period of two years, if the previous consent of the Board be secured. At the end of this period the whole question shall again come before the Mission, the Council and the Board. 4. Resolved, that the North India Mission be authorized to put on trial for two years the plan adopted by that Mission, providing the previous sanction of the Board be secured. In addition to this action of the India Council in December, 1920, Dr. Ewing, further acting on his own account and in con- sultation with the Council, and with its approval, called a con- ference at Saharanpur, March 30 to April 2, 1921, attended by all the members of the Council, by those members of the India Missions who had been present at the Post War Con- ference at Princeton and who could be at Saharanpur, and 182 by representatives from each of the five Presbyteries. After long and careful deliberation and most conscientious work on the part of various sub-committees the Conference unani- mously adopted two statements, one a statement of general principles and the other a statement of a definite plan of co- operation between the Missions and the Church. A full report of this Conference embodying these two statements is printed herewith as Appendix X. The Statement of Prin- ciples reaffirmed the principle of independence of the National Church, not identified with the American Church but free. It recognized that "the Church has a right to a voice in all work carried on within the bounds of its organization and closely related to it." It declared, "While advocating mutual co-operation between the Church and the Mission we yet believe that the best results of Mission work in India will be attained when right lines of distinction are observed be- tween functions of the Indian Church and those of the foreign Mission, the Mission contributing towards the establishment of Indian churches and looking forward to passing on into unoccupied regions when its work is done. . . . Holding this view it would seem to us that the solution of the present problem is to be found not in disparaging the Indian Church nor in dividing its strength, nor in diminishing its responsi- bilities, but in just the opposite course, by increasing its au- thority, by expecting more of it, by making it the great agency of evangelization." Instead of transferring Indian leaders from the Indian Church to the foreign Mission it proposed to transfer the administration of mission funds to agencies of co-operation. It recognized that if this were done provision should be made for the healthy increase of the giving of the Church, and it affirmed that "there should be some ratio between the gifts of the Church for missionary work and the share she takes in the administration of funds from America." On the basis of this statement of principles a plan was proposed "to secure more effective co-operation between the Church in America working through the Missions and the Church in India." This plan contemplated the constitution by each Presbytery of "a committee to which shall be intrusted the evangelistic work now carried on by the Mission, educa- tional work carried on in and for the villages, and zenana work," the committee to be elected by Presbytery and to be composed both of foreign missionaries and Indians in a pre- scribed ratio, its establishment being conditioned upon the contribution by the Presbytery of one-fifth of the total amount contributed by the Presbytery and the Mission for evangelistic 183 work. Joint committees somewhat differently constituted on educational and medical work were to be set up. An Inter- mediary Board was to be established of nine members, mis- sionaries and Indians, which would receive the estimates of the committees for transmission through the India Council to the Board and which would "hear cases of appeal from the Joint Committees and review the proceedings of the Joint Committees with the view to co-ordinating all branches of the work." (D) DISCUSSION OF THE SAHARANPUR PRINCIPLES AND PLAN The report of the Saharanpur Conference was laid before the Board in New York. The Board expressed its deepest interest in the report and in the problem with which it dealt, but deferred action pending consideration of the report by the Missions and by the Presbyteries and pending the visit of the Board's deputation and its discussion of the matter both with the Church and with the Missions. Before leaving New York, accordingly, I wrote to each of the Presbyteries telling of our coming and expressing our desire for opportu- nities for fullest conference both with the Presbyteries and with individual members of the Church. Each of the five Presbyteries called a special meeting for this purpose, and at three of these meetings the Presbyteries took definite action with regard to the Saharanpur principles and plan. We dis- cussed the question also with many individuals and small groups, and no subject received more consideration in the meetings of the three Missions. Both for the information of the Board and for the purposes of record I think it will be well to report rather fully the expressions of opinion with which we met. (A) From. Churches and Christian Communities. A few illustrative statements will suffice, (a) Address in Allahabad from the two Presbyterian Churches presented at a large and representative gathering of the entire Christian com- munity. "Dear Sir: "The churches at Jumna and at Katra, connected with the great missionary society which you represent, extend to you and your colleague, Mr. Russell Carter, a cordial welcome on your arrival in our midst. "You will find, we trust, many things to interest you during your sojourn with us. The long spiritual travail of an ancient people, not without the Light that lighteneth every man that Cometh into the world, cannot but, we feel, enthrall and fasci- 184 nate you. You will also be interested to find the West very much in the East, the result, in the first instance, of English education and British government, but one ultimately trace- able to the influence of Christianity as embodied in the culture and civilization of the English people. You will find new impulses and new ideals stirring in our midst, impulses and ideals which mark the transition from the new India in which we lived to the newer India which has grown up with such startling rapidity and is around us. The great experiment of self-government, the first installment of which has been inaugurated in our midst as a recognition of these changes, will doubtless arrest your attention. And the shrewd student that you are of men and things, you will not fail to observe the rocks ahead, and the possibilities of danger that lie hidden in the situation before us. In particular, you will not fail to notice how the Monster of Non-Cooperation has reared its head in our midst and feeding on the memory of past wrongs is making present reconciliation difiicult, and would, if it could, drive a wedge through the unity and brotherhood of man. "It is in such an environment that you will find — the par- ticular subject of your interest — the Church in India trying to strike its roots deep into the soil and seeking to offer the response to the feelings and sentiments actuating our people today. Whatever our success, or ill-success in this direction — and you could be trusted to find it out for yourself — we are convinced first, that the Church holds the key, if only she will use it, to the solution of the hitherto unsolved problem of the relating of the West to the East; and, secondly, that in the evolution of her national Church India cannot afford to be out of the historical development, or neglect the riches of the experience of the West. "We understand the question of the relation of the Church to the Mission will specially engage your attention. As you will be conferring with our representatives on this subject we forbear touching on it here, except to say that it is a question which the development of events has forced on us, and it is a question which does not affect any one body of Christians, but all bodies. The thoughts of the whole Indian Church, we can assure you, will go with you, and the delega- tion of the Church Missionary Society which will shortly be coming out, as you set about the settling of this question. "We cannot stop without expressing through you our grati- tude to the Board for the self-less labors of their foreign missionaries in our midst. However separated we might be 185 at times from them in our thoughts and sentiments, we do not wish to be blind to the fact that their interest and ours are one — viz., the extension of Christ's Kingdom in our land. "Trusting that you will have a pleasant sojourn in our midst and looking forward to much inspiration from your visit, etc." (b) From the address of welcome of the two Churches in Fatehgarh: "It is not our intention to touch here on matters which may be controversial, such as the relation of the Indian Church to the Mission, but we cannot help expressing our appreciation of the sympathy which has made you come to India to study the problems on the spot and for helping to devise plans for greater co-operation and more cordial rela- tionships between the Indian Church and the Mission, so that the work of evangelizing this land may be accelerated and everything may redound to the glory of His name. "We are confident that your visit to this land will be fruitful of results which will help to smooth over present difficulties and lead to greater support and sympathy. We are glad to have you in our midst so that we may meet you personally, and will remember your visit to our station for years to come, and hope that we may have the pleasure of meeting you here again." (c) From the address of the Church in Ludhiana, our oldest Church in India: "Finally, we make one request through you to our Parent Churches in America, and it is this — To win India for Christ, because it is through them that Christ has claimed India. Our mission history tells us so. American missionaries were the first who waged war in northern India, and the battle is raging in all its ferocity. It is not ended. Satan is making frantic efforts to dislodge us from our posi- tion. India is in throes and in unrest seeking hopelessly pros- perity, peace and comfort in worldly things: in almighty dollars, in their intellect, in Western science, in their leaders, and in an ideal democratic government, but they are nowhere to be found except in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Prince of Peace and the fountain-head of all God's blessing. We fully hope that our American Parent Church will, on no account withdraw from the battlefield and leave the battle indecisive when the victory of our Lord is sure and certain. It is the most difficult task that is worth doing." (B) From Various Group Conferences. At some of these missionaries were present, at others only Dr. Ewing and I with Indian brethren, while in other groups I met with the Indian brethren alone. As soon as possible after reaching Allahabad I sought a conference with the four men who had 186 signed the letter on the subject of relations between the Mis- sions and the Indian Church which had been sent to America. I asked the Indian brethren whether they wished to talk the matter over alone, but they said that they preferred to have Dr. Ewing present also. They had absolute confidence in him and wished to have him hear whatever they said to me. This arrangement seemed to me very desirable for various reasons. I was asked to make any preliminary statement and to ask any questions, the Indian brethren stating that they had already expressed themselves in their letter. I reminded them, however, that there had been no time for them to an- swer my second letter to Prof. Mukerji in reply to his request for further information as to the experience of the Church and Mission in Japan and also that the Saharanpur Confer- ence had been held since their letter to America. They re- plied that they realized this and regarded the Saharanpur Conference and its findings with the greatest satisfaction. All of them expressed themselves as in full accord with the principles adopted at the Saharanpur Conference, and three of the four approved also of the definite plan which the Con- ference proposed. The other member of the group thought that the plan should be changed to bring it more into accord with the statement of principles. The Conference which we then went on to have together was like every other conference which we held on the subject, entirely frank and entirely friendly. The Indian brethren began with pointing out the difi'erence which was fundamental between their position and the atti- tude of the political non-cooperationists. Their deep belief was that the Indian Church needed the education, the train- ing, and the practical help of closest association with the Missions and the missionaries. This was true, they believed, not only of the administration and financial support of the Church but also of its development in self-propagation. The Church and the Gospel could not be commended to the people so long as the people knew, as they know now, that the Mis- sions and the Church, and the missionaries and the Indians, are not bound together in complete unity and have not solved among themselves the problem of co-operation and equality, and of Christian love expressed in practical unity. It was true that a great deal had been done to relate missionaries and Indian workers co-operatively in the departmental com- mittees of the Mission, dealing with evangelism, education, and medical work, but the Missions still retained veto power over all conclusions of departmental committees and such 187 Mission absolutism was inconsistent with the principle of true co-operation and equality. The fact that far the largest part of the funds were provided through the Missions, they held to be a secondary consideration. Unless under present conditions this fact were to be given a subordinate place and the Missions were prepared to provide generously for the support of men of superior education in positions of large freedom and responsibility, they did not believe that Christian service could offer any call to the ablest and strongest men. When I urged the New Testament ideals of unpaid Christian service, they replied that these days and conditions in India are different from the Apostolic times, that the ablest and most useful Indian Christian leaders today are men supported in accordance with the present day models of church organi- zation in the West, that the development of the Church in India must follow the same lines as its development in Amer- ica and that its financial independence can best be promoted by a liberal provision of help now on a basis of co-operation which will stimulate the development of a strong Indian leadership. Furthermore, it was pointed out that the Indian Church had never been started on an independent course and charged with the responsibility of its self-development. Its present organization had been prescribed for it and its gravest prob- lems, such as the mass movement and the establishment of marriage customs in village communities, the character of Christian teachers and preachers, etc., had been created for the Church far more than by it. In dealing with these and all the other problems both of the Church and of the Mission each body needed the other. The Indian Church could not meet its problems alone, and the Missions needed not less what the Indian Church could provide. They did not raise again the question of Indian membership in the Mission, al- though they saw no reason why Indians should not be present and believed that they would have much to contribute at Mis- sion meetings and ought to be present unless the conclusions of departmental committees of which they were members were accepted as final without reversal by the Mission or unless the Saharanpur plan which provides for the devolution of Mission authority should be adopted. They did feel, however, that it was indispensable that missionaries working within the bounds of the Indian Church should connect themselves with its Presbyteries, transferring their membership from the Presbyteries in America. They believed also that it was im- portant that Indians should be represented in any body, 188 whether Mission or Intermediary Board, as provided in the Saharanpur plan, by which the question of the proportionate development of work and distribution of funds in the evan- gelistic, educational, and medical departments is to be deter- mined. It was recognized by all that the Saharanpur plan must be considered as purely experimental, subject to later revision and modification as experience might show to be necessary or practicable in order to bring it more into accord with the declaration of the Saharanpur principles, especially if it should be found that the plan operated to weaken instead of strengthen the freedom, independence, and self-development of the Indian Church. One of the brethren suggested the wis- dom of a definite time limit for the experiment of the pro- posed plan. Another pointed out what he regarded as defects in it which represented even too wide a departure from the Saharanpur statement of principles. He thought that the plan might exclude too many missionary men and women who are engaged in evangelistic work from membership on the committee administering this department; that the plan does not sufficiently safeguard the distinctness of function of Indian Church and Mission as recognized in the principles;- that it risks the commitment of very great responsibilities to bodies whose membership has not been sufficiently closely related to these responsibilites and who will not bring to them obligations as great as the authority entrusted to them; that the scheme does not adequately regard the great differences in character and position of the five different Presbyteries; that it appears to confuse financial responsibilities which might result in a financial pressure upon the Indian Church to care for tasks which it is not prepared as yet to assume and which might legitimately be left for a time to the Mis- sions; that the problem could be better dealt with by a less radical and more organic development of the joint committee system of the Missions which would leave to these committees, composed of Indians and missionaries, final judgment within specified fields. The general view with which all shared was that it was in- dispensable that Mission and Church should be governed by a spirit of mutual trust and common purpose that could not be gainsaid, and that this spirit and purpose should find defi- nite expression in some clear plan of co-operation by which Church and Mission would administer together those respon- sibilities vitally concerning the Church which had heretofore fallen within either the full or the final control of the Mission. 189 Another conference was held in Ludhiana at the time of the Punjab Mission meeting with a group of the ablest men and women of our Church in the Punjab. Here again I asked whether it would not be best to meet alone, in case there was anything they wished to say privately. They replied that they desired no such meeting but preferred to make their statements before the entire Mission. It seemed better, how- ever, to defer any such general discussion, and it was agreed to have present just the representatives of the Mission who had been at the Saharanpur Conference, namely, Dr. Ewing, Dr. Griswold, Dr. Fife, Mr. McKee, and Miss Morris. Of the Indians there were present twenty men and three women, including Mrs. Mamgain of Dehra Dun, first woman B.A. and M.A. in India and for many years principal of Bethune College for Women, Calcutta, Miss Chatter ji who has just been asked to take the full principalship of our Dehra Dun Girls' School which the Mission proposes to raise to an inter- mediate college under the new national education scheme. Prof. B. B. Roy of the Saharanpur Theological Seminary, the Rev. P. C. Uppal, one of the oldest and best beloved Christian leaders in the Punjab, Prof. Siraj-ud-Din, professor of Phi- losophy in the Forman Christian College and one of the ablest Mohammedan converts in India, Mr. Rallia Ram, now in full charge of the Rang Mahal school in Lahore, the largest school of the Mission, who is a member of the Lahore Municipal Council and of the Legislative Council of the Punjab, Mr. Jamal-ud-Din, principal and headmaster of the Jullundur Mis- sion High School, the Rev. Andrew Thakur Dass, pastor of the self-supporting Naulakha church in Lahore, and a number of others of equal clarity and strength of conviction. Dr. Ewing, to whom many of those present looked up with unlimited trust and almost filial affection as his old pupils, made a short introductory statement, and I followed with a full and as sympathetic a presentation as I could make of what I believed to be the view of the question which the Board would like to have expressed, and asked for the frankest and most outspoken utterance of their views. In reporting what was said it is not necessary to identify the speaker. Mr. A. was the first speaker. "We do not want you to withdraw," he began. "At this crisis in India we need you more than ever before." He then read the following state- ment which he had prepared : "On behalf of my Church, and also on behalf of my mother land, India, I beg to give you a hearty welcome. What I would like to lay before you now, may not be the expression of the 190 whole Church in India, and I would not make any one respon- sible for what I desire to say. "1. It is needless to mention here the benefits we have derived from your Mission. You can convey our heart-felt gratitude to your Church and to your people, who have sent to us such a noble army of men and women to raise us from our fallen condition to the life of grace in the Son of God. "2. But at the present age we and our land are passing through a great crisis, and I believe, you will sympathize with us and help us to solve our Church and national problem. In the present crisis of our Church and nation's history, we never can think or desire that you would withdraw your Mis- sions from India. We need you, and we need you more at this juncture. We need you even for our own selfish ends, if the word selfish can be used in this connection. Suppose you withdraw your Missions from this land, what would be our condition? (a) Thousands of villages will have no Gospel message for a long time, (b) Thousands of Indian children will be deprived of education, (c) Thousands of suffering men and women will die without medical help. The Church in India cannot at the present moment undertake such a great responsibility of work, which you are doing here. "Yet it is an age of self-determination. The international dependence may continue, but the age of slavery cannot last long. Every nation wants to express itself. We cannot re- main where we were a decade ago. Neither the Indian nation, nor the Indian Church can continue in her present condition. So from this desire and necessity, there must arise tremendous questions, as to our relations with you. "In India today we have two-fold responsibilities: (a) that of building up a Church of Christ, (b) that of building up our Indian national life and its institutions in the light of Christ. Perhaps our task is much more perplexing and diffi^ cult than that of Japan and China. "Now in this great work there must be an objective before us, and our objective must not collide with yours. We must have a common object before us. So may I very humbly ask you, sir, what is your objective in India at this age of our national regeneration? Unless we know that very clearly, we cannot determine whether we can co-operate with you or not. "To make this question a little more clear, I may humbly say, that some of us have begun to think, that though we have accepted Christianity, and though we consider all Chris- tian nations as our sister nations, yet we do not desire to lose 191 our own distinctive Indian individuality. We must continue as Indians. Our religions and social institutes, purified through the blood of Jesus Christ, must continue distinctively Indian. Christ has come to save us, not to annihilate us. If your objective is our salvation, then you are welcome. But if your objective is to annihilate us, or to change us into some- thing un-Indian, then you will pardon me if I say that I hesi- tate to come to you for your help. We want Christ, and we want many good things which you possess, yet at the same time, we do not desire to lose our national existence. Sir, I hope, you will pardon me if I say for myself that I am a Hindu of the Hindus. "In past we or our fathers did not adequately realize this fact. The pioneer missionaries established a Church in India, and from a very pure and noble motive naturally they tried to fashion the life of the Church according to their own ideals. So for many years, though Indians, we were American Presbyterians in your Mission field. Now we have come out from that stage, and with that we have a clearer vision of our self-existence and self-determination. Therefore we very humbly ask you this question. "We acknowledge that we belong to a fallen race. We had a past, but it is needless to mention it. Yet for the sake of truth I can only say that we are not without our national traditions and heritage. "We are poor. How long we shall struggle with our pov- erty, we do not know. But I believe, even our poverty has taught us a great lesson. We do not rely on riches to propa- gate the Gospel of the poor Nazarene. Externally He was poor, but internally he possessed the incomprehensible riches of God in his mysterious Divine-human personality. We can rely on that personality — the fullness of the self-expressed God — the pleroma of joy and peace. And with this message accompanied by our inherited poverty, if we approach our people, I believe, they will not turn a deaf ear. "Therefore, Sir, I come to you, as a representative of my country and Church, not with a request, that you should grant me a high place in your Mission, to handle your temporal riches, or to drive your motor cars and cycles. But I desire, Sir, that you and I must have a common objective to carry the message of joy to this joyless people of mine. If your objective and mine is the same, then let us work together as brothers — forgetting the difference of our colors — forgetting the difference of our superiority and inferiority — trusting each other for the glory of the God-man, and for the salvation 192 of souls. Let us both contribute to this great work what we possess: you, your riches, I, my poverty; you, your learning, I, my ignorance; you, your power, I, my nothingness. The Lord will accept both, and the result will be a glorious Church in India, a glorious kingdom of God — perhaps devoid of many things you possess — yet rich in many things, which are our natural heritage." Mr. B. was the next speaker. "We have nothing but praise for the missionaries," said he. "We cannot do without them, but neither can they do without us. We feel that this Church of ours ought to be an independent Church, and we have complaints against the Mission because it is not. (1) After seventy-five years the Mission has not produced six great leaders of the Church. We have been given a slave mentality, Mr. A. and myself among the rest. We are Mission servants. (2) A divided Church has been established in the Punjab. The real problem is the problem of the unity of the Church. There are three lakhs of Christians in the Punjab, but we are all split up into denominational groups. I know of one section where there are 2,200 Christians divided between six denominations. I don't agree with Mr. A. in his opinion that if the Missions should leave we would fail, but I do believe that unless some solution is found in the different de- nominations of the problem of co-operation all the Indian Christians will revolt and make up one new independent Church. (3) The Mission follows the same old methods and policies of seventy years ago. The Government policy changes with every viceroy, but the Mission policy remains stale and unaltered. The system has a petrifying influence. We do not see the Mission decreasing and the Indian Church increas- ing. We would like to see Indians placed in positions of re- sponsibility and given charge of districts. The Government is doing this. Every year Indians are appointed to the heads of districts where formerly only Englishmen were ap- pointed. The Missions are not doing this. We do not have a real or adequate voice. We feel that we are not in the game. We are not real fellow workers. The intention of the Mission is good, and we do not believe it has any race feeling, but the system embodies racial discrimination and cripples the growth of the Church. I believe that we should try the Saharanpur plan. If we act wisely, I think that in thirty years the Indian Church will be independent and will be sending its own missionaries abroad." Mr. C. followed. "I agree with Mr. B. If we were left by the missionaries, we would live and go on. I have nothing 193 7 — India and Persia personal against the missionaries. I do not love them all any more than I love all Indians, but I would not say one word against the Mission. It is the system that is wrong. India is a religious country. My father was a Moslem con- vert. I have the blood of Islam in me. There is no caste in Islam, and we do not have it in the Indian Church. I know the Brahman Christian married in the Church to a sweeper woman. But there is not this equality between Mis- sion and Church or missionary and Indian. Under the system which has prevailed the Mission has been the employer and we have been the employees. We are servants, agents whom the Mission can dispose of or dispense with. What we object to is the idea of subjection and inequality. Your Board has always refused to appoint to the Mission men and women we recommended. On no other condition than the ap- pointment of Indian men as full members of the Mission will the Church co-operate. We demand absolute equality Sn Church and Mission, equality from every point of view. Oth- erwise we break with you. There can be no co-operation." Mr. D. spoke next. "Not one of us is for turning the mis- sionaries out, but no one can say how long their work may be possible. We talked yesterday with two Moslem friends. They said that after Swaraj (political independence) has been won, they will fall on the Hindus and others and take the country for themselves. I know the feeling of the Moslems. They all feel this way. We Christians rejoice that the British Government has been here. We will be the greatest losers if Great Britain or the Christian Missions should withdraw. We realize that this is a very critical time in India. The British are not wedded to India forever. Some day they will leave, and India will have to look after itself. We will hope for stability within and for right alliances without, but no one can foresee the future, and I fear that a great struggle is ahead of us. We do not know what may happen in five years. The missionaries may have to leave any day. In a short time there may be no place for Christians in the Gov- ernment or any public service and there may be no room for foreign missionaries. The struggle is coming. God forbid that it should be violent. We are not prepared for this struggle. It is time now for the Missions to lift up Christians and the Christian Church to meet the issue. In unity and equality the Mohammedans and Hindus have gone far ahead of the Christians. The Missions and Church should be united in spirit and policy. They have not been. Take the mass movement for instance. The Church was not ready for this, 194 and the missionaries went forward in it against the judgment of the Church. They ought to take the council of men of the country. If I were to go to a new country, I would welcome the ablest natives of that country as my equals. Mohamme- danism did so. The Mohammedans married their daughters to the natives of the countries to which they went. I think that both the Church and Mission have failed and that if we both confessed failure it would do good. We want now while there is still time to have the American missionaries make their full contribution to the Church in India so that we may be able to fight our battle. You have given the Gospel but not all that goes with it and that lies behind it, social and eco- nomic. You ought to co-operate in sending Indians to Amer- ica to get scientific knowledge there and to come back and help India. To give us only the Gospel and not art and science is a lack of consecration. There ought to be a change of policy. Take Indians who are able into full partnership. And it is a great mistake to let Churches call only pastors of the grade and salaries they can pay rather than men of the kind they ought to have in order to make the Church a stronger and different Church. The result of the past sys- tem has been that no first-class men are now available for the ministry. We are responsible for the paucity. We ought to get the best men that can be got irrespective of where the funds come from, whether India or America. The great defect of the Indian Church is want of life, and I believe that is due in part to a lack of a wise solution of the problem of co-operation. The Indian should be given equality. I think also that the properties which have been acquired in India, so many of them by government grant, should be held for the benefit of the Church, especially against the day of economic ostracism which is coming when the Indian Christians could be settled, many of them, on these large lands. You should give Indians full voice in determining the policy of the Church and Missions. Their voice would be against giving up to so large an extent the work among the educated classes and the absorption of strength among the village low castes. It seems to me that work among educated Indians has been almost given up by the Missions and that our schools have become less and less fruitful, and the conscience clause will probably make this situation even worse. Indian counsel is needed, also, in the problem of the co-ordination of the edu- cation of both boys and girls. The Missions' schools are educating more girls than they are preparing boys for as husbands. Many of these girls are lost accordingly to the 195 Church in non-Christian homes. In the education both of the Christian community and the masses Indian counsel is needed. Last of all, I would point out that much of the problem that we are facing is the reflex of much that is going on in government and politics and is not the result of any new spiritual revival that has raised these problems in the Church. Nevertheless the problems are real and you must be patient, remembering the Indian proverb, 'A son may turn out to be an ungrateful son, but fathers and mothers are never to be impatient.' " The last speaker was Mr. E. "I believe that foreign mis- sions in India have made a mistake in the employment of indigenous agents under payment. The Church would have expressed its life spontaneously if the Missions had founded churches as Paul did and had let their life develop in vital and natural ways. Ezekiel's flood rose spontaneously with no steam pumps or mechanisms forcing it to higher levels. One thing which makes the problem so hard now is the exist- ence of paid native agents receiving salaries far above the power of the Church. We know the arguments for pecuniary inequality, and they are all right for the past. Ultimately the Church must do it all, and I fear it cannot continue the Mission salary scale, I am glad that in the Uganda Mission in Africa the Missions did not introduce a wrong money scale. In the second place, the nationalistic spirit makes our problem and introduces both good and evil elements. When the Indian Church has control and supports the work, things will be different. I believe that both from necessity and from desire it will support fewer and better agents. There are many of us who now loathe the cheap ministry represented in the village work of the Missions. The poor people themselves despise it. There are times when I am ashamed to be called a padre. Do you know what the people call a padre? They call him a 'glutton,' an 'idler,' a 'tale bearer,' and this is the kind of worker of whom the Missions have employed too many. Let there be equality of method and counsel and these evils will be done away. Another reason for doing away with inequality is that the present situation creates the popu- lar impression that the missionaries do not love the Indians and feel toward them as brothers. It is not a matter of the amount of salary paid. Probably the Mission is giving to some workers more than they need. The matter is one of equality and sympathy and love. I know that we love our missionaries. I live near the Kinnaird College, and if all the students should go away and if a mob should come to attack 196 the missionary ladies there, I and my brethren would stand in the gate and die for them. And I know that the mission- aries love us. We are true friends across all race lines, but this love needs a more visible and practical expression, and our organized plans and relationships need to be given new form by it. When we have done this, we will have taken a long step forward toward the accomplishment of what I be- lieve to be the right goal of all our efforts, namely, the substi- tution of Indian men, Indian money, and Indian management for foreign men, foreign money and foreign management. This is a thing that must be done and can be done." After Mr, E. had spoken, they all said that they had noth- ing further that they wished to add, and would be glad to have me close the discussion. It is obvious that many things that were said might have been taken up for further inquiry or comment, but as there were to be many other conferences and later meetings of the Presbyteries, I thought it best sim- ply to restate as clearly and strongly as possible our duty as Christian men and women to find a true solution of the problem of rightful and effective co-operation, the great gain that had already been secured in the acceptance by the Indians and missionaries who had been at the Saharanpur Conference of a statement of fundamental principles with regard to the relations of Missions and Church, and to point out the oppor- tunity which we had to achieve a great victory through the spirit of Christ in a field of human relationships where defeat would be both easy and disastrous. Before the Saharanpur Conference report was considered by the Punjab Mission it was discussed in a further confer- ence with the District Work Committee of the Mission. This committee is composed of the members of the Mission engaged in evangelistic work and of the Indian evangelistic leaders. This committee unanimously approved the Saharanpur state- ment of principles and proceeded to discuss the plan. The question was raised as to whether the plan would in its prac- tical effects exalt or disintegrate the Presbytery. Would not the result of the working of the plan be that all the living work of the Church would be cared for in the proposed joint committees and that the Presbytery would be nothing but an ecclesiastical mechanism? Mr. E. replied that Presbytery is at present little more than a licensing and ordaining body, that it is not performing the living functions which are as- signed by the Saharanpur plan to the proposed Presbyterial committees. Ultimately all this work ought to be discharged by the Presbytery as such, and it was to be hoped that the 197 plan would prove a step toward this goal. Mr. U. pointed out that the Presbyteries would oversee the proposed com- mittees, receiving and passing upon their reports, that the Presbytery was now largely an ecclesiastical body but would be greatly strengthened by the Saharanpur plan. Mr. G. pointed out that the Presbyteries are not exclusively ecclesiastical, that even now they carry on Presbyterial mission work, that their relations to such work would be increased under the Saharanpur plan and that they would be strengthened ac- cordingly. There were some, he added, who expressed the fear that Mission control would extend to the proposed com- mittees, as Indian members might not express themselves. Mr. A. argued that the only way for the Presbyteries to learn to swim would be to go into the water. The question was raised as to the relation of the present grant-in-aid scheme to the Sarahanpur plan. Would the Missions continue to pay the Presbyteries for their home mission work at the present rate of rupee for rupee according to the missionary gifts of the churches? Mr. E. held that the Saharanpur plan does not touch Presbyterial home mission work and the grant- in-aid, that that is to be left with the Presbyteries and not to be placed under the new committee. The new plan is due to the increased self-consciousness and capacity of the Church, rather than to any economical considerations. The ground of the Church is that it has a right to a voice and capacity for a voice in the work which the Missions are doing within its bounds. The Saharanpur scheme is a response by the Mission to a just demand of the Church, which believes that its ability to contribute to administration exceeds its ability to contribute funds, and which asks for a just and educating share of the management until the day comes when it can also supply the funds. I am not quoting the views which were expressed from time to time in the discussion by members of the Mission ; but to meet some of the questions asked, Dr. Ewing suggested that the Indian brethren should say why they believed that a new scheme of co-operation is needed. Their composite answer was: (1) A great deal of work is going on within the bounds of the Church and in the name of the Church and for the avowed interest of the Church of which the Church does not know. The Church wants a voice in all this work, for example, the village work, (2) The Apostolic example calls for a fuller co-operation. Wherever Paul and Barnabas went, the converts shared in the control of the work. The missionaries took Timothy into their fel- lowship, and they worked with the Church. (3) India is 198 our country. We know it. You cannot do the work here in the way in which it should be done without the contribu- tion that we are able to make. (4) We want a measure of brotherhood and counsel which we do not now have. The Missions have repeatedly employed men against whom we have warned them. They ignore suggestions that we make to them. We want this new scheme because it gives us equal power. (5) It is true that here in the Punjab the Mission has taken some of us in, for example, Dr. Chatterjee and Mr. Uppal and Mr. Goloknath, but there has been no equality between the Mission and the Church. The Church as a Church has had no equitable responsibility. The Church has been a Mission church under the Mission, not a missionary Church with the Mission. (6) Past arrangements have given the Indian a sense of inferiority. He was given no power. He was a servant of the Mission. The principle on which the work was organized was the principle of subordination rather than co-operation. There will still, of course, be organization, carrying with it the necessities of authority and obedience, but the discrimination will be no longer racial. (7) There is now no check on the employment Of a cheap ministry, of low grade workers who bring Christian service into disrepute. (8) Let it be pointed out again that the thing that the Church is asking is not money but a voice. It is obvious, as I have already said, that many of the statements made in this conference and the others that I have reported are open to comment. Some of the statements that were made may sound hard in their written form, but every- thing was said in an excellent spirit, and frank words were spoken in correction of wrong notions or false principles. I do not now offer any qualifications, however, as it seems desir- able, instead, to seek to enable the Board to appreciate for itself the attitudes of mind, the sound and the unsound judg- ments, and the many diversities of temper and of view pre- vailing in the Church in India. (C) Actions of the Missions, the Presbyteries, and the India Council, (a) Actioyis of Missions. The first of the three Mis- sions to consider the Saharanpur Conference report was the North India Mission. The Mission had thoroughly discussed the whole question and had considered several courses of action with regard to it at its meeting in 1920. As a result it had adopted at that meeting the policy of enlarged influence for the departmental committees, on which there were Indian members. In the light of later developments it was clear that this course would not satisfy at least the Allahabad Presby- 199 tery. The objections to it were, first that it was purely a Mission scheme, and second tliat it retained in the hands of the Mission, at meetings at which no Indians would be pres- ent, full veto power over the actions of the joint committees. There was a prolonged discussion, in which the Mission had before it in addition to the Saharanpur Report three other plans, one of which proposed the transfer of "Class Four" (evangelistic work) appropriations to the complete control of the Presbyteries, with the Mission's full co-operation in the Presbyteries, a second of which proposed such a transfer with the complete withdrawal of the missionaries from rela- tions with the Presbyteries, and a third which proposed a new system of joint committees free from the veto power of the Mission but different in character and in principle from the committees proposed in the Saharanpur plan. Those who advocated this last proposal believed that it was more closely in accord with the Saharanpur principles than the Saharanpur plan itself. It was this last proposal which the North India Mission finally adopted in the form given in Appendix XL The Punjab Mission was the next to consider the Saharan- pur Conference report. The report came up first before the Boys' High School Committee, composed of missionaries and Indians and having charge of the Boys' High Schools. It was involved in the following communication presented to the committee by nine of its members who included all the head- masters. "To The American Presbyterian Mission, Punjab, through the Rev. F. B. Llewellyn, Chairman, Boys' High School Committee, Lahore. "Dear Brethren in Christ: "Allow us to state, in all friendliness and brotherly spirit that we, the undersigned, share the general feeling that the spirit of co-operation of the Mission towards its fellow work- ers is not what it should be. The Headmasters especially feel that their whole hearted and strenuous efllorts, their zeal for their work, and their faithful, loyal and successful services are not fully appreciated ; they are not shown the desired and deserved amount of sympathy; little attention is shown to their legitimate needs and aspirations, and, sometimes, mate- rial motives are unfairly attributed to them. The very machin- ery created by the Mission for a consideration of their work along with that of others engaged in the High School work has been criticised by our missionary friends, though no substitute has been provided for, so far. "It was in the year 1912 that Headmasters and some 200 Indian Professors were invited to participate in the delibera- tions of educational questions affecting our schools in a sub- committee of the Mission. Eight years' experience has shown us that our position in the said Sub-committee is anomalous, and at times humiliating and embarrassing. The Constitution which allows the American members, mostly comprised of persons knowing little and having no experience of the work- ing of our educational system in this country and with no knowledge of our Schools, to accept or reject the recommen- dations of the sub-committee, at the entire exclusion of the Indians, is defective, to say the least. "We therefore desire that an Educational Council should be formed consisting of: (1) All the Principals, Managers and Headmasters. (2) Three Indian Christian Professors and four American Professors of the Forman College elected by the Council. "The decision of this Council in all Educational matters relating to the Boys' High Schools should be final. Failing that, we find it incompatible with our dignity and self-respect to continue to be members of the Boys' High School Com- mittee. "We are, dear friends, your fellow-workers in His field, Y. Jamal-ud-Din, Sec. Boys' School, Committee BiHARI Lal K. L. Rallia Ram N. C. Ghose Sardar Khan R. SiRAJ-UD-DiN E. J. Sinclair I. DURGE Parshad P. K. Sircar" This proposal involved a rejection of the section of the Saharanpur plan with regard to the Joint Educational Com- mittee. That Section provided for the election of this com- mittee by the Mission's Schools and Presbyteries. The head- master's proposal practically took this power away from the Presbyteries. If the headmasters were unprepared to vest power in the Indian Church in carrying out a fuller plan of co-operation, it would be difficult to make an argument for such a transfer on the part of the Missions. Fortunately after a long discussion in the Boys' High School committee in which all headmasters were present, the following action was taken as expressing the mind of the committee : 201 "I. Resolved. That we approve of the principle underlying the Saharanpur scheme of co-operation between Church and Mission. *"II. After consideration of the letter of the Indian members of our Committee along with the Saharanpur scheme for a Joint Educational Committee, the following resolution is proposed: "Resolved, That in view, however, of the present constitution of the Presbyteries and looking forward to the time when the entire work of the Mission will be made Church-centric, we have after a lengthy dis- cussion almost unanimously come to the conclusion that so far as the method of electing the Joint Educational Committee is concerned, we strongly recommend the adoption of the following scheme for the next three years only: "III. Resolved, That the Joint Educational Committee be composed as follows: "1. All principals, managers, and headmasters in our High Schools, members ex-officio. "2. Four Indian Christian professors and four American professors of Forman College, of whom one shall be the principal, to be elected by the Board of Directors of the College. "3. Four members to be elected by the Presbyteries (i. e., Ludhiana and Lahore), one American and one Indian by each Presbytery. "4. Equal representation of the Indians and Americans is to be maintained. The Mission shall elect Americans to equalize their num- ber and the Presbytery in which the vacancy occurs shall elect the In- dians to equalize their number. "IV. Resolved, That the decisions of the above Committee be final in all matters relating to the High Schools of our Mission." The Saharanpur Conference Report came up next at the Punjab Mission meeting before the District Work Committee composed of Americans and Indians and having charge of the village evangelistic and educational work. There w^as a most interesting discussion which I have already reported, but no action was taken. Last of all the Saharanpur Report came before the Punjab Mission Meeting itself with Mr. Uppal and Mr. Goloknath sitting with the Mission. After long discussion the Mission, which had before it both the Saharanpur Report and the action of the North India Mission, adopted almost unanimously the Saharanpur statement of principles, merely altering one clause in the paragraph numbered 6 so as to read, "or to some such co-operative body as was carried out by the Church in Japan." The Mission then adopted also the Saharanpur plan with a few verbal changes and with a few modifications. (1) Schools for non-Christian girls and the Theological Semi- nary were included in the work to be transferred to the new Joint Synodical Committee. (2) Missionaries were to be eligible to serve on this committee after two instead of five years' experience in India. (3) The specification of qualifi- cations of members of the Joint Educational and Medical Com- 202 mittee was eliminated save that they were to be representa- tive of the educational and medical institutions. (4) It was made clear that there was to be an Intermediate Board for each mission area through which estimates should be for- warded to the Board in New York through the India Council. The Western India Mission Meeting was the last of the three, but this Mission had the advantage which the other Missions lacked of having before it the action of the Presby- tery to which it was related. This meeting of the Kolhapur Presbytery had been held at Islampur on October 13th, just a fortnight before our arrival. A special meeting of the Presbytery was held, however, at Kolhapur on October 27th, the day of our arrival, and two days later at Panhala in connection with the Mission Meeting two conferences were held with the Indian brethren prior to the Mission's consideration of the Saharanpur report. These conferences were opened by an illuminating statement by Mr. Howard surveying the history of the relations of our Presbyterian Missions and the Indian Church from the be- ginning and describing the Saharanpur Conference and ana- lyzing its report. It will suffice to report from the ensuing discussions the views of four or five of the Indian brethren. First the Rev. Anandrao Padghalmal, stated clerk of the Presbytery and pastor of the Miraj Church, who was one of the delegates to the Saharanpur Conference: "We want and need co-operation. I think it is unfortunate that missionaries are not taking as great a part as they used to do in sessions, churches and Presbyteries. We want to have all the women missionaries and the laymen identified with the Indian Church. We are not yet ready for non-cooperation. We need to learn by experiment, working along with you. I believe that this co-operation in administration will promote Indian self- support. Our Presbytery objected, however, to the ratio pro- posal or to any financial requirement of the Church as a basis of co-operation. Our people are giving more and more each year, but we do not want to be bound by a law. We are often asked, how long are you going to be a child by the side of the Mission. I know that it is not a matter of time. It is a matter of strength. I have been here forty years, and we have grown in those years and will grow, but you must trust us more. I would like to have all the missionaries members of Presbytery, and I would like to have the full administration of all the work transferred to the Presbytery. Some have questioned whether the Saharanpur plan provides adequately for the share of the women missionaries in the administration 203 of evangelistic work upon which they may be engaged. The plan certainly contemplates the inclusion of women's work under the supervision of the Presbytery's committee, and it provides for women missionaries on this committee. I see that there is doubt as to whether the Saharanpur plan puts the educational and medical work under the supervision of Presbytery in the same sense as evangelistic work. I had supposed that it did. I am sorry that in this matter of the Saharanpur report I differ for the first time from my friend, Shivaramji." The Rev. Shivaram Masoji, who was for many years pastor of the Kolhapur Church and was one of the representatives of the Indian Church at the Edinburgh Conference, spoke next. "My position is delicate," said he, "for I differ from our Presbytery. This new scheme will not forward our com- mon ideal. I believe in co-operation, but not this method. I am in favor of allowing the Church to develop separately, to develop as Indians can give and as they determine. While doing this separately, we would ask your help and guidance. Only so will Indians take a living interest and pride in the Church. It should follow the model of the National Mission- ary Society, which has no missionaries in it, although it is glad to seek their advice. It prospers because it is carried on by Indians with Indian money. It is on those lines that we should proceed, but the proposed scheme will mix up things. Perhaps in North India and the Punjab it will be all right, but not here. Our Church is too weak. It is not competent to bear these responsibilities. Our financial ability is very limited. We cannot carry on any scheme of expensive paid evangelism and ought not to be involved in it through the proposed plan. The Indian Church can evangelize in its own way by voluntary bands and await the employment of evangelists until it is richer. Let the Indian Church stand for this position and not be swamped by taking over the ad- ministration of Mission funds. If we accept the proposed scheme with its plan of ratio and organization our immediate voluntary obligations will be lost sight of. I feel that there is also danger as to property holdings. Some churches will be in native states and foreigners are not allowed to hold property in such states without special permission. Now as some Presbyteries are half, or more than half, foreign it may be a hindrance in holding property. I love the Ameri- can missionaries, and I like to have them in our church courts, but I would rather see all our courts from the session to the General Assembly made up of Indians entirely, with mission- 204 aries only as advisory members. Then our Church will grow. But so long as it is a mixed organization it will drag on as heretofore. Look at the history of the Indian National Con- gress and other organizations. Let us have the Indian Church Indian, too, and not handicapped by this confusion of func- tions. Let the Mission and the Church each carry on its own work and devote ourselves to making the Church self-support- ing, self-governing, self-propagating, and teach each Chris- tian to preach to his neighbor in his own way." At the second conference the leading speaker was Vishwas- rao, Anandrao's son, who had been educated at Poona, and who was working with the Methodists at Belgaum, but who since we left India has joined our work at Vengurla. "I feel deeply," he said, "but speak as a window through which you can see Indian feeling. The wave of Indian nationalism is real. India is said to be slow in democratic feeling, and she is, but she is surely responding to the world movement. I am trying to look at this problem objectively, as a Christian first, and a nationalist afterward. The plane of nationalism is far lower than the Christian plane. My money, your money, my energy, your energy, my people, your people, — this distinc- tion is on a level far below Christianity. God's work is one. We want to co-operate with missionaries, that through this closer contact they may communicate the higher life which they represent. We need the education of this fellowship. Christ's law of love and life ought to make us one. Our great problem is the evangelization of India. How are we to ac- complish it? Only by the co-operation of missionaries and Indians. They need to understand the Indian psychology and view, with the help of Indians. Whether the life of mission- aries, their homes, their scale of living, their mode of behavior commends the Gospel, this is one question. I don't say that they should be ascetics, but I do say that missionary life ought to represent the Gospel persuasively to the Indian people. Closer co-operation would enable missionaries to judge whether it was doing so. Specially do the Missions need the viewpoint of Indians as to some of the greatest present needs of India and of the Church. We do need Indians, whether educated or not with the burning Word, but we need also evangelists of the highest education. I have some regrets to express. I do not mention the poverty of our poor Chris- tian people, but I do plead for their ignorance. We need more fully prepared men than the Indian Church can afford to train. The flexible influence of Vedantism has eaten the moral mar- row out of India. We have to give something higher and 205 stronger than Vedanta philosophy. We need Christian apolo- gists equal to this task. We do not ask that the work should be handed over to Indians, but we do ask that all should be one in the work. The missionaries have crossed seven seas to pour out their life in India. We have not crossed the seas, but we, too, are pouring out the life. Let us put all our lives together and pour them out as one." Most of the discussion at this second conference related to the matter of the support and the education of the Indian Christians, but one other speaker dealt with the co-operation question. Dr. Jadhav. "The world is growing more demo- cratic," he said, "and there should be Indian representation on all the agencies of administration and in all places to which appeals may be carried in the Missions, and if appeals are ever made to New York, Indians should have some one to speak for them there. With regard to many of our past plans the people say that the Mission selects the Indian it wants, who will obey it. We need our own representation. There ought to be equality of payment, too, I do not say between missionaries and Indians, but among the Indians, just as all the foreign missionaries have the same salary with no grades or discriminations among them." Several days later the Mission took the matter up, with Anandrao and Shivaramji meeting with it, and after long discussion in which the question of the financial ratio was the chief point debated, the Mission, in addition to providing for its entire reorganization under a scheme of departmental committees, passed the following action : "1. That the general principles presented by the Saharan- pur Conference be adopted. "2. That the Saharanpur plan for the transfer of work in Class IV, be adopted in the following modified form, the Board being requested to sanction same: "(a) That the Mission express its willingness to transfer Class IV, with the appropriations for the same, to the Pres- bytery of Kolhapur when the Presbytery has prepared a plan for the prosecution of the work satisfactory to the Mission. "3. That action on the Saharanpur plan for the transfer of educational and medical work be postponed. (b) Actions of Presbyteries. It had been hoped that the representatives of the five Presbyteries at the Saharanpur Con- ference would report the Conference findings at the regular Spring or Fall meetings in 1921 in order that the Missions when they met might have the help of the previous considera- tion of the question by the Presbyteries. For various reasons, 206 however, the Presbyteries did not take action until after the Mission meetings, at the special meetings ^vhich had been called to meet with us. The one exception was the Kolhapur Presbytery. In 1920 this Presbytery had approved a plan proposed to it by Dr. Wylie and which had been considered, but not adopted by the Western India Mission at its meeting in October, 1920. This scheme was as follows: A Proposed Scheme on Relation of the Church to the Mission PREAMBLE Article I. The Aim should be to make the Church and not the Mission the center of all work. II. To bring this about, work now conducted by the Mis- sion, should be made over, gradually, to the Presbytery, the missionaries becoming members of the Presbytery, so that the Mission as a controlling body, should disappear. III. In the meantime, until the transition shall be accom- plished, a temporary body, composed of representatives of the Church and of the Mission should be formed, which should have ultimate control in all forms of work. IV. The present Mission Stations should be redistricted with a view to more intensive work, and new Stations opened and so districted; and qualified Indians should be appointed in charge of districts and stations, with the same standing and responsibility as Europeans. V. The Indian Church should bear from the first, a share proportionate to its resources, in the financing of missionary work, and steps should be taken to put the finances of the Church on a systematic, business-like basis. The scheme proposed to carry out the proposals in the above preamble : I. The organization proposed in Article III above should be called "The Board of Control." 1. The Board of Control should consist of members, chosen in equal number, the total not to exceed four- teen, some of whom should be women, — (1) By the Presbytery, (2) By the Mission, 2. All members of the Board of Control should have equal voting powers. 3. The Board of Control should have Control of all branches of Mission Work, including Evangelistic, Educational and Medical. II. The Mission should consist of men and women ap- pointed by the Home Board ; and its functions should be to 207 deal with matters which have to do with the foreign mission- aries onl3% such as furloughs, resignations, recalls, etc. At its meeting at Islampur on October 13, 1921, the Kol- hapur Presbytery considered the report of the Saharanpur Conference and took the following action : "The whole scheme of Saharanpur Conference is adopted except the following: " 'In recognition of this principle there should be some ratio between the gifts of the Church for Missionary work and the share she takes in the administration of funds from America.' (Principles, last sentence of Sec. 6.) " 'That representation shall be based upon the amounts con- tributed by the Board of Foreign Missions and the Presbytery respectively. If the Presbytery contribute for Pastoral and evangelistic work within the bounds of the Presbytery 1-5 of the total spent by the Presbytery and the Board for such work, this plan may be adopted, and the presbytery shall have the right to elect Indians as members of the committee up to >4 the total membership of the committee. As the con- tributions of the Presbytery increase a different ratio of representation is to be worked out.' " (Saharanpur Plan, third paragraph of Sec. 1.) The Allahabad Presbytery met in Allahabad November 18th, and devoted the entire day to the discussion of the subject. We were cordially greeted by the Presbytery with a statement which spoke of the new generation which had grown up since my previous visit to India "with new ideas, new equipments, and new aspirations" and of "the delicate situation existing at present in India both in matters national and ecclesiastical." I was then asked to make a statement and did so with such judgment and Christian spirit as I possessed, and the Pres- bytery proceeded to hear explanations first of the Saharanpur principles and plan and then of the substitute plan which had been adopted by the North India Mission at its meeting in October. A resolution was presented rejecting the North India Mission plan. The terms of the resolution were not satisfactory to the Presbytery, and after a long discussion the Presbytery contented itself with the simple statement that the plan proposed by the Mission was not approved. At the end of the day, with only four adverse votes, three of which were cast by missionaries, it voted to approve the Saharanpur principles and plan with the understanding that the Presbytery might desire to suggest some modifications in 208 detail and that it might be desirable to fix the period of time for the experimental testing of the plan. I followed the discussions of the Presbytery from morning to evening with the greatest interest, and regret that there is no stenographic report of the debate which was very ear- nest and determined. I can only summarize briefly a few of the statements which were made. "The trouble comes," said Professor Mukerji, "from the idea of co-operation. What we want is union not merging, not losing independence or na- tional character — but we want union." And he developed the idea that a wrong view of life lay behind the principle of co- operation embodied in the North India scheme, in line with the thought which he and his associates had presented in their letter of June 15, 1920. (Appendix III.) Mr. N. K. Mukerji followed, pointing out the differences between the North India Mission and the Saharanpur Conference plans. The former put a few Indians into a committee of the Mission. It did not create a properly representative body but only a glorified departmental committee, which would not meet the needs. Moreover, it provided for no Indian representation on the India Council, which was the ultimate body which could overrule the Mission or its departmental committee. The scheme still kept the Mission Committee and the Presbytery separate and perpetuated the old system. "What is the object of the Mission's existence?" asked Mr. J. M. David, "Not the supremacy of the white man. But the North India scheme perpetuates the dominance of the American missionary. The Saharanpur scheme appeals to Indian imagination, which is done with the idea of difference between brown man and white man. Indians will not admit any such scheme as this of the North India Mission. It is not authority which the Indian Church wants but the opportunity of service." Mr. Ralla Ram, pastor of the Jumna church said, "The American Church and the Indian Church are both^at work in India to- day. Do you want to absorb one and have only one Church at work here? If all the work is absorbed by the Indian Church, it loads upon that Church what it cannot bear. The Saharanpur plan sets up an irresponsible committee which will be in effect independent of the Presbytery. It does not make adequate provision for the participation of women missionaries. It endangers indigenous movements towards Church union and pure Indian work. It imperils the identity both of the Indian Church and of the Mission. The North India scheme preserves these, and it is notable that in that scheme the Mission gives up its old veto power." The Rev. 209 Sakh Lai of the Katra Church thought the Saharanpur scheme was generally acceptable to the people, that the Conference which had drafted the principles was the most competent body to erect a plan upon it. He stated also that the com- mission of the North India Synod which had been appointed to deal with the question of co-operation had met just after the Saharanpur Conference and had approved its report. It was a great advantage that both Indians and Americans could be present in the Presbyterial committee and in the Inter- mediary Board. The Rev. Moel David, superintendent of the Presbytery's home missions, was the only speaker who ques- tioned the provisions of the plan with regard to the required ratio of giving on the part of the Church. Mr. Mukerji pointed out that the plan was an experiment, that it did not merge the Mission and the Presbytery, that, as far as he knew, the women missionaries were not making objection to the plan, and that as to Church union it was not wise to let the hope of it interfere with what present conditions called for in each communion. Elder Jacob of the Jumna Church said that houses are not built in one day, that it was not necessary to look too far ahead, that it was the present situation that needed to be dealt with, and that any present action might justly be thought of as tentative. As one listened to this discussion, and indeed to all the others at which we were present, it was evident that there were not only differences of view between those who recog- nized their disagreement, but also that there were differences of understanding and of interpretation and of expectation among those who appeared to be agreed. It was voted to favor a second Saharanpur conference to consider all the different actions that had been taken by different groups and to pre- pare, if possible, a plan agreeable to all. At that time also any points of uncertainty as to the meaning or effect of any of the provisions of l^e Saharanpur plan might be examined. The question also emerged in the Allahabad Presbytery as to what the relation of the Presbytery and the Mission should be for the immediate future. The missionaries present pro- posed that, pending the outcome of a second Saharanpur con- ference, the Mission and Presbytery should go forward, under the plan which the Mission had proposed at its recent meet- ing and which represented a great advance upon the previous departmental organization. The Indian brethren opposed this on the ground that the new plan provided no alleviation of the past conditions, that it would weaken the movement in the direction of more satisfactory co-operation, that it 210 would be construed as an acceptance of a scheme which the Presbytery had just rejected, that it was better to go on under the old unsatisfactory conditions than to accept a half loaf when it was the full loaf that was required. The vote against this proposal, however, was much less emphatic than the pre- vious actions of the day. The Farrukhabad Presbytery met in the Bharpur Church at Fatehgarh on November 25, 1921. It appeared that under the form of call for the meeting legal action could not be taken, but the Presbytery resolved to discuss the matter and deal with it informally, reporting its action to the next regu- lar meeting of the Presbytery. In its address of welcome the Presbytery said : "We hope and desire strongly that you will kindly give us a message from the Church at home, and that you will convey our thanks and compliments to it in the name of Him who has laid the burden of evangelizing India on the heart of the American Church, and who is working through the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Indians to respond to the Gospel. "We are sure that you are aware of the fact that the Church in India is seeking a fuller and stronger relationship between the Mission and the Church, so that she may give of her best in sharing the responsibility of evangelizing India, together with the missionaries. We rejoice that a Conference was held at Saharanpur last winter, where a scheme was drawn up to help" solve the problem. We trust that through this scheme and further conferences between the Church and Mission, a happy and permanent solution of the problem will be arrived "We pray that God, the fountain of all wisdom, may give you and all of us the guidance necessary to work out all the problems connected with the advance of His Kingdom in India, in such a way that all may work whole heartedly together for the glorification of His name in this land." Only about one-half the members of the Farrukhabad Pres- bytery were present, and when after the afternoon's discussion the vote was taken as to whether the Presbytery should ap- prove the Saharanpur principles and plan or accept the plan of the North India Mission, it was voted first to approve the Saharanpur principles, and second by a vote of nine to six the North India Mission plan (Appendix XI) was preferred to the Saharanpur plan. The Ludhiana Presbytery met at Saharanpur on December 1st. In its address of welcome the Presbytery said, "We 211 hope and believe that this visit of yours will prove a great blessing to our Presbyterian Church in India by opening a way for the full exercise of our talents. No doubt the Pres- byterian Church has taken root in this land, but we are still depending on you for assistance in the development of the Church. It is our desire so to strengthen the present Church spiritually that she may become a strong sister of the churches in Europe and America, and be the Master's instrument to lead India to Him. This goal is the centre of all our hopes. We are happy in the recollection of past relationship between the daughter in India and the Mother Church in the United States, but growth involves change and we feel that the future relationship must be different from what it has been. To this end we are here today in the Providence of God to study together the ways and means of the speedy realization of the above-mentioned goal. "It is not our wish that you should leave us now, but we request you to invite us to share with you your present responsibilities; not that we seek power or authority for its own sake; but we crave the training necessary to the full growth of the Indian Church. "Now we humibly request you to accept our hearty welcome and convey our deep love and gratitude to our brethren in Christ whom we love though we have not seen their faces." The points which received chief attention in the discussion of the Saharanpur report were the provision with regard to the initial ratio of the Church's giving and the qualifications for membership in the Evangelistic Committee. The argu- ments which supported the ratio provision prevailed and the amendment proposed by the Punjab Mission regarding qualifi- cations satisfied the Presbytery. After a full discussion the Presbytery approved both the Saharanpur principles and the Saharanpur plan. The Lahore Presbytery met in Lahore on December 12th. A committee of the Presbytery of which Prof. Saraj-ud-Din was secretary presented three resolutions which were unani- mously adopted by the Presbytery and to which a fourth was added as follows: "I. Resolved, That we ask Dr. Speer to make a declaration of the future policy of the Mission with regard to the status, emoluments, etc., of equally capable and efficient Indians in the service of the Mission, as compared with those of the foreign missionaries; and that we ask Dr. Speer to explain his attitude regarding the desirability of such Indians becoming superintendents of district work on the same conditions as mentioned heretofore, minus the overseas allowances, 212 "II. Resolved, That we ask Dr. Speer to express his attitude towards the question of Church Union in India and towards the position of the Indian agents of the Mission in view of the union. "III. Resolved, That we ask Dr. Speer to express his attitude towards the question of the effect of such union upon the schemes of co-opera- tion between the Foreign Missions and the Indian Church. "IV. Resolved, That we express our sense of gratification to the Mission for the Saharanpur scheme with which, in general, we show our agreement." In my address to the Presbytery I sought to deal with all these points and with the whole question fully and frankly, and the Presbytery expressed itself as satisfied with the state- ment which was made. (c) The India Council at its meeting at Jhansi, December 18 to 22, 1921, reviewed the situation resulting from these actions of the Missions and Presbyteries and adopted the following minute: "(a) A Conference composed of approximately an equal number of members representative of both the three Missions and the five Indian Presbyteries met at Saharanpur, March 30 to April 2, 1921, under the chairmanship of Dr. Ewing, the Secretary of the India Council. The Conference unani- mously approved a plan for co-operation between Church and Mission known as the 'Saharanpur Plan.' This plan was submitted to the three missions for their approval and also to the Presbyteries. "(b) The Council notes (1) that each of the three Missions has accepted the general principles proposed by the Saharan- pur Conference, and (2) that each Mission differs from the other two in the application of the general principles to the solution. The Punjab Mission accepts the whole of the 'Sa- haranpur Plan' with some slight modification in details. The Western India Mission accepts the same plan in a modified form, but only in relation to Class IV, and leaves to the Kol- hapur Presbytery the task of devising a working plan which shall be satisfactory to the Mission. The North India Mission prefers a particular development of the 'departmental' idea as a modification of the Saharanpur plan, and adopts the same 'tentatively subject to the assent and co-operation of the Presbyteries.' "(c) The Lahore and Ludhiana Presbyteries have approved in general the 'Saharanpur Plan' in the form adopted by the Punjab Mission, subject to modifications in detail, and hence this Mission is justified, with the approval of the Board, in bringing the new plan of joint control into effect after repre- sentatives of the Mission and of the two Presbyteries have 213 met together and settled all details. The Kolhapur Presbytery has approved the 'Saharanpur Plan' with the exception of the ratio between the gifts of the Church in India and its share in the administration of funds from America, but has not yet formally acted upon the plan approved by the Western India Mission. The Allahabad Presbytery has accepted the Saharanpur Plan and rejected the plan adopted by the North India Mission, while the Farrukhabad Presbytery has accepted the North India Mission plan. "(d) The Council recognizes that different rates of speed in moving forward toward the goal are both natural and legiti- mate. Each Mission understands its own situation and must face its own problems and perils. The Council can do noth- ing more at this meeting than to recommend that every proper effort be made to move forward in hearty co-operation with the Indian Church." It seemed to the Council that no other action than this was possible at the present time. This is the kind of question regarding which a settlement cannot be reached by coercion or authority. The only solution which is real must be volun- tary and free and harmonious. While in one sense it would seem desirable and necessary, as it was in Japan, that our Missions should pursue a common policy in the matter, it must be recognized on the other hand that the conditions are wholly different in the three Missions and entirely unlike the conditions in Japan. In Japan the field was small and the Church of Christ was a compact body, acting as a unit through its central organization. In India, on the other hand, the traditions, the temper, the capacities, both executive and financial, of the Presbyteries in the three Mission areas differ widely. There would seem to be no reason why the Punjab Mission and the Lahore and Ludhiana Presbyteries should not go forward on the lines of the Saharanpur plan so far as this is practicable for the Punjab alone. Likewise in the West- ern India Mission it would seem entirely possible for the Mis- sion and Presbytery to go forward to the extent that their respective actions allow. The Mission has agreed to waive the financial requirements which the Presbytery had excepted from its approval, although it appears to have accepted the principle involved in these requirements in its action of 1919 which has been quoted. The Mission asks only that for the present the operation of the Saharanpur plan should be con- fined to evangelistic work. If so much of the plan is to be made really effective, it will require all of the power which the Presbytery possesses. Any effort to operate the educational 214 and medical sections of the Saharanpur plan in Western India, would certainly be premature and ineffective. The anomaly of the situation in Western India, however, is the fact that there is not one self-supporting church or pastor of a self-sup- porting church in the Presbytery. The Presbytery has 24 ordained members and 12 of these are missionaries. The most difficult situation, however, is in the United Provinces where the North India Mission and the Allahabad Presbytery are in wide disagreement and where the Farrukhabad Pres- bytery accepts the mission's plan by a divided vote which it is conceivable may be reversed at the regular meeting of the Presbytery. It would seem that the wise and only practicable course is for representatives of the Mission and the Presby- teries to meet in full and unhurried conference and to work out the best possible solution which they can, by such adjustments of view as may be necessary to hold men together in true per- sonal confidence and love and fellowship. (E) GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SITUATION 1. This is a great human problem. Any attempt to deal with it dogmatically or authoritatively will be sure to go wrong. Any one of us who thinks that it is a matter which can be settled by a formula or by a few phrases or by a thesis or a program is mistaken, and any one who discusses the matter impatiently or under the influence of national or race feeling or with harsh judgment of the past or of those who disagree with him is not contributing to a constructive and Christian solution. The issues that are involved are greater than men's thoughts about them, and the problem will reach its solution not by the processes of argument and politics and organization, but by the processes of love and of life. 2. The problem is not only a great human problem, it is also and on that account an inevitable and a desirable problem. It is inevitable. It is to be met in every mission field. The Board is familiar with the forms in which it has arisen and been dealt with in the past, especially in Brazil and in Japan. The problem is inherent in the foreign mission enterprise and for that matter in the home missionary enterprise, wher- ever an organized Church seeks to establish another organized Church, or even where, inside any one Church, an organiza- tion of that Church such as a missionary board carries on work within the field of another organization of that Church whether it be a Presbytery or another church board. Chris- tianity was meant to spread unceasingly, spontaneously, and 215 vitally. The attempt to atone for the failure to evangelize the world through such organic evangelization by the estab- lishment of missionary societies and missionary boards, neces- sary as this attempt is, brings with it the problem of how to relate such agencies and the Church acting through them to other forms of the Church's action and organization. There are those who believe that this problem as a problem of con- stitutional statement or form of government is insoluble. Certainly every attempt to write such organizations into the Form of Government of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. has thus far failed, and it seems probable that the rela- tion of home boards to home mission Presbyteries and foreign Missions to native Churches, of missionary societies to bishops, of the whole temporary device of missionary agencies to the permanent institutions of the Church, can never be covered and settled by formulas or resolutions, but must re- main as a discipline for the spirit of Christian men and an opportunity for the exercise of their qualities of good sense and patience and love. And the problem is not only inevitable, but is also desirable. If the energies of life should die down and the American Churches discontinue their missionary work on one hand, or the Indian Churches should accept the doom of a perpetual dependence and subservience on the other hand, the problem would no doubt be escaped, but at the price of the failure both of Foreign Missions and of the Indian Church. Who would welcome such a deliverance? Foreign Missions were established for the very purpose of creating a Church which would raise such questions as have now been raised. If the discussion brings with it painful experiences and foolish words on one side or the other or on both sides, these spring not from the necessities of the problem but from our own human infirmities of mind and spirit, and are a chal- lenge to us to prove that the Gospel which we preach as suf- ficient for all the needs of the world is sufficient for our own needs as Christian men engaged in the business of building up the Christian Church. 3. The judgments which have just been expressed are con- firmed by the fact that this problem is common to every Church and every Christian agency at work in India. From what we learned in India I am sure that not one exception is to be made. One meets with some good men and women who think that in their particular organization the problem is not present, but I think that in each case it can be shown that they are mistaken. It is to be desired that it can be so shown. Otherwise these agencies would not be sharing in a 216 really hopeful and living movement. It is not the existence of the problem which is to be deprecated. It is the inability of Indians or foreigners to deal with it with good temper and patience, with the quietness of spirit which comes from faith in God and brotherly love, and the ability to see history and the processes of human progress in long perspective. I have gathered material from many Churches and Missions and many individual missionaries in India of other Churches than our own and from Indian Christians of various denomi- nations which is at the disposal of the Board for its informa- tion. The fact that these discussions have arisen in the Church in India with which we are co-operating is, accord- ingly, a matter not of distress but of joy, and we urged this view upon our Missions and pointed out to them how much they had to be thankful for both as to the tone and the form of the issue as it has arisen. The Church is not asking us to withdraw. It is not setting up a principle of non-coopera- tion. It is not asking for the control of the missionaries and contributions sent from America. It is asking for co-opera- tion and for the closest and the most brotherly and the most efficient method of carrying on our common work. If now and then some things have been said or some spirit has been shown that was petty and unworthy, this has been the excep- tion. The tone of our Presbyteries and our fellow workers has been in general manly and respectful and self-respecting. We should be proud that such a Church has grown up as it has been given us to plant and foster. I trust that we can all feel this way with regard to the matter and that the Pres- byteries and the Missions can carry this discussion forward on the plane of the highest spirit and judgment, setting the thought of duties constantly above the thought of rights, and seeking to realize that the highest interests of the Missions are the interests of the Church and that the highest interests of the Church are the interests of the Missions. 4. It is helpful in the consideration of this matter to put ourselves in the place of the Indian Church and its leaders. Suppose that the United States were a foreign mission field and that the British or the Japanese Churches were carrying on work among us. How would we wish them to act? How would we feel toward their Missions if the situation in Amer- ica were just what it is in India? Furthermore, we need to remember that the India Church is what we have helped to make it. No doubt conditions of character and environment over which we have no control have had a great deal to do in making the Church what it is, but it was we who con- 217 tributed the other elements, who gave it organized form, who created its ideals and traditions, who by our own methods of work and personal influence helped to produce many of the problems which are now perplexing us and the Church. When some proposed as a solution of the present difficulties that we should turn over everything to the Church and break loose from it, we pointed out that such a course was not open to us, that we had brought the Church into existence and that we shared full responsibility for the present situation and that we must stand by and with the Church. And we must do this now more than ever, in the face of the trial which may be before the Church in India and in which it has a right to expect us to walk with it though we walk through fire. More- over, we pointed out as it was pointed out years ago in Japan that our missionaries and our American Church have no ecclesiastical authority in India. All this authority was trans- ferred to the independent Indian CRurch, and whatever eccle- siastical functions missionaries perform within the bounds of the Indian Presbyteries, they can perform there only by the authority or the sufferance of those Presbyteries. The only possible solution of the question of relationships between the Missions and the Church must be found by relationships not by disrelationships. It is a method of co-operation which must be worked out, not a schism which must be opened in a family. 5. We need to appreciate also the present situation in India. The Church is in the midst of a society in which the two most living present ideas are the idea of nationalism and the expression of this idea in the principle of non-coopera- tion. I shall speak later of the problem of the relation of the Indian Church to present political movements, but we need to note here the bearing of these movements on the ques- tion of relation of Church and Mission. In sympathy with the extreme nationalistic spirit, shall the Indian Church break completely free from all foreign relationships, relate itself to Indian tradition and temper rather than to the stream of historic Christianity and thus settle the question in the radical way that an occasional missionary suggested? "The Memo- randum on The Further Development and Expansion of Chris- tianity in India," issued by the Christo Samaj, a group of young Christian leaders in the Madras Presidency sets forth this possibility, though rather as a theoretical view, I judge, than as a purposed course of action: "The new nationalism has not left untouched Christian life and thought. It has afl'ected the community both from the 218 inside and outside. Within the community it has made us realize, as never before, that Christianity has a part to play in national life, and that there is a spiritual heritage of the past to which we have been denied access. It has been slowly dawning on us that it is only to the extent to which Christian life reacts to the Indian past and present that Christianity can become a living factor. But the unpreparedness of Indian Christians for fulfilling their destiny is now becoming more apparent with the recognition that we have been hitherto in a world apart from India, created for us by the genius of foreign missions. As to the external influence of Christianity in politics, though there have been conspicuous cases of Indian Christians in public life, the community as a whole has not responded, rightly or wrongly, in any efltective manner to political movements. This is now gradually passing away, and Indian Christians are showing greater interest in all that concerns the political future of India. . . . "The ideal line of action that suggests itself to us is com- plete independence and even exclusiveness, and to work out the salvation of Indian Christianity without any reference to foreign missions. This is necessary to recover our normal character as Indian Christians and will have to be jealously adhered to, until there comes into being an Indian Christi- anity with a distinctive character of its own. It was stated by an Indian belonging to our school of thought that we do not want any more foreign missionaries and that the better type of missionary is even a worse enemy of Indian Christi- anity than the ordinary run of missionaries. While it may be suicidal for Indians to dissociate themselves from and com- pletely disown Western Christianity, we perceive that our training under the present system has so greatly westernized our ideas and outlook that we cannot recover or discover the Indian standpoint without a negative policy of dissociation from the West as well as a positive policy of devotion to the East. In so far as the Indian is imbued with the Western mentality, he is himself an enemy to Indian Christianity. While therefore the Indian has to fight against his own west- ern mentality in his attempt to recover his Indian outlook, he would immensely complicate the situation by association with Western Christians, who could hardly be expected to fulfill the requirements that even most Indian Christians lack. And the more avowedly sympathetic to Indian stand- point the Westerner is, the more subtle and insidious will be the way in which he will consciously or unconsciously transmit his Western mentality and retard the progress of the Indian 219 in the path that he alone can discover. We therefore look for real salvation from only such adventurous spirits as would turn a deaf ear for the present to the temptations of associa- tion with foreigners and dependence on foreign help. They will pre-eminently be the heralds of the new era and the crea- tors of the new Christian edifice, wherein the religious as- pirants of India will find their natural abode. For the sake of Indian Christianity some Indian Christians will have to take this self-denying ordinance and will have to be severely left alone to accomplish the task to which they have been called. It will be the great privilege of sympathetic Indians to stand by these pioneers and prophets and directly help them. It will be the duty of all interested in the progress of Christ's Kingdom in India to pray for the advent of such men and hold them up before God when they arise." One cannot but have a great deal of sympathy with this view. He almost wishes that some such leaders would arise, and yet on sober second thought he realizes, as the writers of this Memorandum have done, that probably the present problems are to be worked out not by revolt and alienation but by co-operation and unity. Certainly the leaders of the Presbyterian Church in India have taken this view, and as the address presented to us by the churches in Allahabad indicated, they have deliberately turned their backs on the doctrines of bitterness and alienation. They have not taken this attitude lightly. There was a time in some parts of India when the temptation to take a diiferent attitude was very powerful. We ought to rejoice that, while the Church is earnestly seeking to find its right place in Indian national life, it has steadfastly refused to adopt any un-Christian prin- ciples of separation and withholding. 6. It is a great gain that all three Missions and five Pres- byteries have accepted the Saharanpur statement of princi- ples. These seem to me, on the whole, to be sound principles. Indeed, they are drawn almost verbally from the letter sent from the Board in reply to the communication from the four brethren in Allahabad. No doubt this statement is not final and complete. No doubt it has taken its form and color from outer conditions and actual experiences. As new conditions develop and experience enriches, a fuller and more discern- ing and more comprehensive statement will become possible. No doubt also these principles are open to some criticism. The problem is really not one of relations between the Church in India and the Church in America. Such a view of it can, I think, be shown to be unsound. The actual problem is one 220 of relations between the MissionvS and the Presbyteries, and back of that between the missionaries and the Indian Chris- tians as persons. Furthermore, while the language of the principles recognizes that the Church is a means rather than an end, it has been difficult in the discussion of the matter and of the acceptance of the principles always to keep this clearly in view. It is true that, in one sense, the end of Mis- sions in India is the establishment of the Church, but the Church itself is established as a means for the accomplish- ment in human life of the will of God, and there have been Churches which God destroyed and which it was the duty of men to help Him in destroying because they were not f ulfdling the end which alone justified their continuance. Nevertheless, these principles are so good and they go so far towards pro- tecting both the Church and the Missions from evils which I believe the courses of action proposed in some of the other denominations in India are inviting, that it seems to be a matter of the greatest satisfaction that they have been ac- cepted by all the Missions and Presbyteries. It was a special satisfaction to the members of the Pres- byteries to call attention to the fact that the independence of the Presbyterian Church in India is an existing fact and that it is not for ecclesiastical autonomy that the Indian Church is asking. It is now an independent national Church subject to no external jurisdiction or ecclesiastical control of any sort whatever. Whether the Saharanpur plan, however, is in accord with the Saharanpur principles is a very significant auestion that was raised more than once in the discussions in India and to which different answers were given. Nevertheless it was a plan on which representatives of all the Missions and all the Presbyteries had been able to agree and when we landed in India, it was with the hope that the plan as well as the prin- ciples might be accepted by all as an experimental solution of the problem, good for the present emergency. This hope was not based on the belief that the plan was an ideal em- bodiment of the principles, nor did it rest upon the assurance that the working out of the plan would certainly be helpful to the achievement of its right character and ideals by the Indian Church. But the fact that the plan had been unani- mously adopted by the Conference and that unanimity of plan and purpose was of far more importance than any pro- visions which the plan might or might not contain, led us to think that the wise course of action at the present time would be to accept the plan and make full trial of it, and we sup- 221 ported this view in the Missions and the various conferences that were held. As we observed, however, the different conditions and atti- tudes of mind and preparations of spirit in the different Mis- sions and Presbyteries, we were forced to abandon as im- practicable the hope with which we had landed and to be content with the judgment already expressed in reporting the action of the India Council. 7. The primary question as it seems to us is the question of the true interests of the Indian Church. What plan, in the actually existent circumstances in each Mission and Pres- bytery and with the actual persons who have to be related by any plan and to carry that plan into effect, will really promote the freedom and power of the Indian Church and its attainment of the ideal of what a Church should be? Is the Saharanpur plan a plan which will effect this or would it weaken the personality of the Indian Church by confusing its functions or by laying upon it tasks which it has not the resources to undertake and perhaps of its own accord would not have undertaken if it had the resources? The plan has been criticized on just these counts by two members of the Allahabad Presbytery, one of whom voted for it and the other against it. In the Makhzan i Masihi of February 15, 1921, the Rev. M. Sunder Lai writes in comment upon the letter of the four Allahabad brethren and the Board's reply: "If I err not, I think the desire for the fusion of the Mis- sion and the Church on the part of our leaders recognizes the spiritual and organizing superiority of the American Church as represented by the Mission. The communication pays a compliment to the American Church (as represented by the Mission) by desiring closer union. This compliment is as un- suitable as uncalled for, for the American Church is as in- capable of leading the Indian Church of today as the Indian Church is unfit to co-operate with the American Church. The national consciousness makes us underrate, mistrust and even boycott all that is foreign, even in the religious life. It may be painful to hear that there are not many from the West who really inspire us. A closer union that is demanded is on the other hand not based on the conviction that the Indians even of the best intellectual, moral and spiritual calibre can lead the white brethren. No union of organizations will solve the problem. The problem is in fact more one of religion than of administration or policy. A little more love, backed by spiritual insight and obedience will do more good than our 222 unheeded contentions and their consequent unpleasant retorts. I see a great danger in the fusion of the American Church (as represented by the Mission) with our Church, the danger that the American Church may swallow up our Church, which may require remedies. There is already a cry that the Indian Church is Western. In the fourth century A. D. the Roman Empire conquered the Church, the unfortunate results of which are well known. Our Church needs to formulate its own methods of work of evangelization and uplift of souls along with ways of worship (it may not be out of place here to disapprove of the Western idea of short religious services) and need of Christian literature. Our Church ought to enter the work with the utmost sacrifice and deepest faith. To my mind our Church should abhor the idea of fusing it with the Mission. It must regard itself 'related to other Churches as an equal.' Our leaders will do well to give us a scheme which will really increase our responsibilities to make us feel as real stewards and leaders. . . . "The question of fusing the Mission with our Church does not get any support from the advance made by other Missions in the matter. Those Churches which have attempted the solution this way are those which can never lose sight of their ecclesiastical authority over the Indian sections of their Churches. They will develop complicated Church organiza- tions and doctrines from which the Indian Churches will need to break off some day. The organic union of the Ameri- can Church with the Indian will no doubt be a pretty arrange- ment, quite undesirable and unhealthy. We may thankfully receive annual contributions of money from the Board, but only for the time being and on the condition of a sliding scale. This pretty arrangement is fraught with untold possibilities for our losing our initiative by entangling us in the meshes of the Missionary politics, to end our lives in vain. We do not want to look for guidance to any other Church in this matter even at the expense of being considered too self-sufficient and even arrogant. "Lastly, we shall see if 'the organic point of view' of life ought to desire the fusion of the Mission and the Church. Under the circumstances this view of life does not solve the problem. Life is a unity and one life must influence another life, but in order to achieve this end it is not absolutely essen- tial to unite one life with another to make one organism (if we can use the term). Spirit ought to meet the spirit to bring about spiritual results. The lives that inspire, guide and control us have no visible or organic connection with us. 223 Our Church in order to influence the American Church must be free, independent and national in a way that it can go hand in hand with the Catholic Church in the march of progress, in the regenerating work for humanity. We ought to find our Church first, to relate it with others as an equal." In a long letter reviewing the whole question the Rev. A. Ralla Ram, pastor of the Jumna Church in Allahabad, writes out what he said very forcibly in explaining his nega- tive vote on the Saharanpur plan in the Allahabad Presbytery, "The Saharanpur scheme, to my mind, confuses the respon- sibilities and work of the Church in America with that of the Church in India. In plain and unmistakable terms it takes the work of the Mission and hands it over to the Church here in India through a committee responsible to the Church through its recognized organizations. I owe it to you to confess that at Saharanpur I voted for the scheme myself, but I am glad that my thinking did not terminate when the Scheme was drawn up in a cut and dried form, and my further contemplation has convinced me that it is a move in a wrong direction. It is but right that I should cry 'halt' for myself and give expression to my belief which is the result of maturer thinking. In one word, the scheme gives over to the Church in India, work which is not its own, and has not grown out of its experience, and while on the one hand it may look very generous of the Church in America to tack this work on to the Church in India, it will in the long run bring about results that shall not be conducive to the promotion of the best interests of the Church." The writers of the ''Memorandum" of the Christo Samaj set forth their view in an extreme form : "In addition to the devolution of all authority to the Church and simultaneously with it, we suggest the desirability of the separation of the definitely religious ivork from the institutional work (of social service carried on through schools, colleges, hospitals, etc.), and placing it completely on a basis of self-support. Such institutional work will be a millstone round the neck of the Indian Church in the achievement of its financial independ- ence, and still, worse, it will seriously retard its spiritual emancipation. If the Indian Church is at all anxious to play its role as the spiritual guide of India, it will have to con- centrate itself on this primary task and divest itself of its secular responsibilities, however good and useful they may be. Moreover, the institutionalism of the present missionary system is neither a creation of Indian Christians, nor is it the distinctive genius of Indian religion. Further, these 224 forms of socal service legitimately belong to the State and were undertaken by missionary bodies as pioneers and philan- thropists according to their innate genius and financial ca- pacity. Our conviction is that foreign money is neither neces- sary nor desirable in India for defiyiitely religious %vork. In India religion has never suffered through lack of financial support, and the financial support evoked may be regarded almost as an infallible test of the reality and worth of re- ligious service in any country and especially in India." This separation of religion and social service is traditional in India. It is earnestly to be hoped that it is not this part of India's religious inheritance which is to be the contribution of the Indian Church to Christian faith and life. The Indian Church could not more completely cut itself off from the New Testament and from the living forces and fellowship of Chris- tianity nor could it more surely effect futility and decay than to set up such a distinction. The resolutions of the All India Christian Conference at Lahore the last week of December, 1921, do not set it up. They look in the opposite direction. Nevertheless there is great force in all these contentions, and one's anxiety with regard to the Saharanpur plan is lest in its actual working out it should result in the debility and dependence and not in the power and freedom of the Church. The strongest men with whom we have talked among the Indian leaders are sure that it will not have this effect. They are confident that the Church has come to a position where the new responsibility will act as a stimulus and an incentive to it to increase its own contributions as they cannot otherwise be increased, and we believe that the experiment of the Saha- ranpur plan should be made in the hope that their judgment will be justified. 8. In order that this hopeful judgment may be justified it is necessary that the Church should keep before itself un- ceasingly the full ideal of a Church. A Church does not be- come such by merely assuming the name. It must achieve the character, and only as it does so can there be such a thing as real co-operation. The Missions are real Missions and the Church must be a real Church in order that there may be real co-operation. And one of the essentials of a real Church is financial self-dependence. There has been and is real danger in India, that this element in the ideal and char- acter of a Church may be slurred over. "I am sick," writes one Indian Christian, "of hearing self-support, self-support on all sides. Self-respect, self-government, self-propagation always precede self-support. Self-support should never be 225 S — India aiul Persia the initial step. It is a blessing that comes of itself without the present straining of nerves and pounding of pulpits with self-support sermons" (The National Missionary Intelligencer, August, 1921, p. 84). "With regard to money contributed by Churches in the West for the evangelization of India," says an appeal signed by South Indian missionaries and Indian Christians, "the chief question is not by whom the money is administered, but whether it is spent in the most fruitful way for the extension of Christ's kingdom. The principle that a body because it contributes money must have a voice in the spending of it, should not operate in the Church of Christ." {Christian Patriot, June 8, 1918). "Let the doctrine of he who pays the piper has the right to call for the tune be decently buried" ("Memorandum" of the Christo Samaj, p. 20). As a reaction against wrong views on the other side and the use of missionary money as a basis for missionary influence and authority, there is much that is wholesome in this emphasis, but, while the Indian Church may properly resent the idea that foreign funds entitle foreign Missions to control the Indian Church, it must not shut its eyes to the hard fact which does not grow out of missionary obstinacy and domination, but rests on true psychology, true economy and true history, that the Indian Church must be financially self-dependent. That does not mean that it may not receive financial help from without. The American Church is intel- lectually independent and spiritually independent, but it is drawing all the time upon the churches of Great Britain for intellectual and spiritual help, and it is even more indebted for spiritual help to its foreign missions and their work in foreign lands. But the principle to which I am referring does require relentlessly, and the Indian Church will never be able to escape from it, that that Church should set for itself the goal of complete self-support and should go a great deal further at once towards the achievement of that goal than it has gone. There are those in the Missions and the Indian Church who see this clearly. "Mr. ," writes the Rev. Bernard Lucas in an article entitled "The Indian Church and Indian Leader- ship," "would relegate to a quite subordinate position the financial aspect of the question, and, ignoring the source from which the funds are obtained, would use the funds of the Home Church for the support of Indian missionaries, who as regards status and salary would be very much superior to their ministerial brethren. I would put the financial aspect of the question in the forefront, and make the Indian Church 226 funds the controlling factor in the matter of salary, and the Indian Church organization the supreme sphere in the matter of position and influence. The goal which must, in my judg- ment, regulate the whole missionary policy is the substitution, not of Indian for European missionaries, but of the Indian Church with its own ministerial and mission service, for the Home Church with its foreign missionaries and its foreign- supported workers" (The Harvest Field, November, 1917, page 423) . And the Rev. Andrew Thakur Dass in a paper on the "New Day in the Indian Church" writes: "While it is becoming clear that Christianity is to be naturalized in India, it is not easy to depict and define its future forms and features. We have not, as a community, fully set ourselves to this task. It is easy, however, to see the steep path which will lead us to the goal. An indigenous church has to be an independent and self -sustained Church. Undoubtedly one of the keys of this situation is an Indian ministry. As long as the Indian agents are dependent on foreign funds and subject to foreign control, so long it will be impossible for the Indian Church to take a vigorous step forward towards this ideal. Foreign support and control are apt to act as narcotics, and check the spontaneous development of Indian Christianity. A mission- paid ministry tends to create a barrier between the minister and his people, by bringing him more into touch with the for- eigner than with those whom he serves, and makes him re- sponsible not to the Church, but to the Foreign Mission which supplies the money. The situation becomes very serious when we consider that, while on the one hand foreign paymaster- ship is deadening, on the other hand Indian congregations are not rich enough to support suitable ministers. It may be possible for Missionary Societies to continue payment without exercising control, but it will damp Indian self-respect and advance." "What we have to do," said Mr. Thakur Dass at the Punjab Mission Meeting, is to keep steadily before our eyes the necessary goal of replacing foreign money, foreign men, and foreign administration by Indian money, Indian men, and Indian administration." As I pointed out in my letter of July 18, 1921 to Mr. Mukerji, the Church of Christ in Japan, which for a time had been taking the view which the first writers quoted above have taken, came to see clearly that for its own sake and as a prerequisite to being able to deal satisfactorily with the question of co-operation it must achieve a genuine financial independence and it adopted heroic measures towards this end. Nothing helped more to accomplish the results which 227 the churches in Japan have achieved than the example of men Hke Paul Sawayama who not in a spirit of bitterness or separatism or resentment against the foreign Missions, but in the spirit of love and co-operation and for the sake of the life of the Japanese Church and for the sake of the evangeli- zation of Japan undertook, at great self-sacrifice and perhaps at the cost of his life, the responsibility of leadership in estab- lishing both evangelistic and educational work in Japan on a purely Japanese and absolutely self-supporting basis. It would undoubtedly be a great help in India if men would come for- ward, with the courage described in the "Memorandum" of the Christo Samaj and with Sawayama's spirit, to found and carry forward purely indigenous and self-supporting activi- ties. All who long for this will pray that such undertakings as that of the hospital and brotherhood at Tirupatter may meet with great success and be the forerunners of many such agencies in India (National Missionary Intelligencer, April, 1921). It should be said again that this insistence upon the self- dependence of the Church is not an obstinate prejudice of the Missions nor the attempt to use the money help of the American Churches as a condition of authority. The Boards and Missions are eager to have the Indian Church take up and exercise all the power that it can. It is in its own best interest that one desires to see the Church filled with a keener consciousness as to the inevitable connection between self- respect, self-administration and self-dependence. The conditions in this respect differ greatly in different sections of the Church in India, due in part to economic con- ditions and in part, no doubt, to the missionary education of the Church. In some stations we were flooded with letters asking for financial help, for the education of children at mis- sion expense, for the increase of salaries of preachers and teachers, etc. In other parts of the field not one communica- tion of this kind would be made either in writing or in speech. The Missions do not fail to appreciate the importance of the principle of self-support, and a great deal of progress has been made in some parts of the field and in some institutions. A great deal more progress remains to be made, and the ques- tion needs ever to be kept alive as to whether, here and there, different forms of organization, or of the rejection of organi- zation, may not be employed from those which characterize the church in the West. 9. We suggested to the Indian Church that in the discus- sions of the subject of co-operation it was desirable to keep 228 in mind the effects of what might be said and of what plans might be adopted upon the mind of the Church in America. If the day had come when the Indian Church no longer needed help from without and when it was entirely able to undertake the task of Christianity in India, this consideration was of less consequence, but no one who would look at the facts in India could for one moment think that the day of distinctively foreign mission work was over. On the other hand, the bare fringes of the work needing to be done have as yet been touched. A thousand times the present volume of evangelistic work must be done by some one. Hundreds of institutions are needed, schools, hospitals, leper asylums, — innumerable ministries which it may be said are the business of the State, but which the state in India cannot now undertake and will not until Christianity has permeated far more deeply and broadly the life of India. If now the Indian Church should create in Great Britain and America the impression that it does not need or desire any more missionaries or that it was very ready to accept the money of Great Britain and America but did not care for their personal help or if, in the way it thought and spoke of money, the Church should give the American Churches the impression that its ideas of self- respect and self-dependence and of the relation of money to responsibility are different from the sturdy notions to which our people at home are accustomed, we said that we thought the effect would be to chill the sympathy of the Church at home with the Church of India and to diminish the contri- butions of money and of life and of prayer which India needs more today than she ever needed them, before. The Presby- terian Churches in India were not slow to disabuse us of any misgivings on this point. Their utterances which I have al- ready quoted express their sincere spirit. It is not less of our help that they want but more, and they want it in yet closer and more personal and co-operative form. 10. It was of help both to many missionaries and to many of the Indian brethren to reflect that any plan of co-operation must of necessity be tentative and experimental, that in adopt- ing either the Saharanpur or the North India plan they would be seeking to deal with the present situation by a present expedient, and that they were not binding themselves in a permanent commitment. New conditions will inevitably arise with the growing strength of the Church and will require the revision of any present arrangements. What was desirable was any arrangement that would fairly and justly meet present psychological necessities, provide for the 229 expansion and harmonious development of the work, and bring individuals together in good will. The fundamental difficul- ties of the problem are after all, I believe, just two, and one is personal and the other is financial. There are some who resent this view of the matter, but I think the "Memorandum" of the Christo Samaj is right in singling out these two ele- ments. K. L. Ralha Ram, Esq., as moderator of the Lahore Presbytery in his honest, blunt way went straight to these two points in his closing remarks at our meeting. "First of all," he said, "this is a matter of personal relationships, and whatever we may say at times, the fact is we love and trust the missionaries and we want them and we want to work with them. If any one tried to harm the missionaries of the Punjab Mission, they would have to trample over our bodies to reach them. If you propose to withdraw them, we will protest, and we will interpose every hindrance and objection before we will let them go. In the second place this question is, in spite of what any one may say, largely a question of money. That is the root of the trouble. Sometimes I think it would be a good thing if all the foreign money should be stopped. I know that this is foolish and that the financial help of the foreign Churches and the use of money in missionary work is indispensable. It is legitimate and necessary in many ways and for many things, but it is out of the problem involved in its administration that much of our difficulty comes." I be- lieve that this is true, and I often have grave and unexpressed misgivings as to the character and method of the modern mis- sionary enterprise. But dealing with the whole matter on the basis of reality, we have just two things to do. One is to try to handle the financial aspect of the matter under the best and most acceptable plan we can devise, and the other is to pour into personal relationships the deepest measure of love and life, and by the cultivation of friendships and the conquest of racial pride and distinction and by the glow of a richer evangelistic fervor, of which the Indian Church is in even greater need than the Missions, solve this problem of relationships on the only ground upon which it can be solved, namely, on the ground of personality and life, on the ground of Christ. It would help greatly if in the Indian Church there might arise a larger number of men who, in prayer, in the glow of devotion, in evangelistic power, in spiritual authority and influence, would surpass the missionaries and exercise a leadership in true religion which is India's great need as it is the longing of the Missions and of the writers of the Christo 230 Samaj "Memorandum," and before which the Missions would fall back with the ancient cry, "This my joy, therefore, is ful- filled." The real core of the whole problem is that the Mis- sions, with their conscious imperfections, have had to fur- nish, until the Church comes to its own, this energy of spiritual and executive action. F'or the Missions to share with the Church the administration of funds from the West is a longer road to the true goal than for the Church to draw the resources of a full spiritual freedom and a bold spiritual leadership from on High. 2. THE RELATION OF THE INDIAN CHURCH TO POLITICAL PROBLEMS I have discussed elsewhere in this report the general politi- cal environment of the Church and the Missions in India to- day. Something needs to be said here in this section, which deals with the Church and its problems, regarding the rela- tion of the Church to politics. The question is a far more difficult one for the Indian Church than for the Church at home, and it is difficult enough at home. Both in India and America it is only a part of the larger and still completely unsolved question of the relationship of Church and State. The present situation of the Church is not unlike that of the Anglo-Indian or Eurasian community, the large and grow- ing community of mixed Indian and European blood which is neither European nor Indian and which values most its European inheritance but experiences the greatest prejudice from the side of its Indian inheritance. So long as India itself was part British and part Indian the problem of the Anglo-Indian community, though real and perplexing, was still greatly softened. Now, however, India is to be not British and Indian but Indian. What will the Anglo-Indian be? He cannot leave India. He cannot live in India as a European or a half European. Will he throw his iot in absolutely with India as an Indian or will he go forward into the new day that is coming into India as an Indian Ishmael, an Indian who is no Indian at all, rejecting India and rejected by India, and yet bound to India? There are few more interesting problems in the world than this. The one right and possible course is obvious and yet it is immensely difficult and it remains to be seen whether the Anglo-Indian will take it, and take it in time, and throw his whole lot in unreservedly with India and win now a place in the new life of India which he may never have a chance to win again. Something of the same problem confronts the Christian 231 Church. It is a problem which no one can solve for it, but in which it is entitled to the prayer and sympathy of the Church at home as it seeks to find and follow the right way. It will help the Board and the home Church in their understanding of the situation and in their prayer, to have before them two papers on this subject which appeared while we were in India and which I report herewith. The first on the subject of 'The Indian Church and India's Crisis" was read before the annual meeting of the Western India Mission by the Rev. Shivaram Masoji, one of the oldest ministers of the Kolhapur Presbytery and one of the representatives of our India Mis- sions at the Edinburgh Missionary Conference. (Appendix XII.) The second of these papers appeared in the Urdu lan- guage in *'Nur Afshan" of November 25, 1921, the vernacular paper of the Punjab Mission and of the Presbyterian Church in the Punjab which has now been placed by the Punjab Mis- sion wholly under Indian editorship. It was anonymous and bore the title "God, the Crown, and the Nation." (Appendix XIII.) The Roman Catholic Church in India is facing the same question and also the question of its own unity. The All-India Catholic Conference was held in Bombay while we were there at Christmas time, and we read the address of the president, Mr. T. Arminatheum Pillai, a member of the Madras Legisla- tive Council. "The President said the Catholics of India were living amongst the teeming millions of non-Catholics — Protestant, Hindus and Mohammedans — and in that state of affairs the question arose, What was the position of the Catholics going to be? They had to consider that position from three stand- points: (1) What was their duty towards the Catholic hier- archy? (2) What was the duty of the Catholics towards their own community? And (3) What ought to be the attitude of the Catholics towards the sister communities ? As to the first question, an assurance had been given to them that in all their endeavors to promote the material and social interests of the Catholics of this land they would have the whole-hearted sympathy and ardent support of the Catholic hierarchy, and they must thank them for that assurance. The laymen on their part had, on the other hand, to consider what they could do to help the clergy in the selfless work which they had been carrying on in this country for such a long time. As to the second question, the position was this. In this vast continent of India the Catholics were separated by miles and miles, and yet they had to meet each other. Their interests were 232 united. What affected the Catholics of Bombay affected the Catholics of Madras or any other province, and therefore it was essential that all the Catholics of India should be united and stand up as one single man. Unfortunately they were divided by all sorts of castes and other sub-divisions, and it would be the aim of this Conference to overcome this difficulty and make the Catholics united. In this connection he was afraid the South Indian Catholics had to take a lesson from the Hindus. The fact that Mr. Gandhi had made it a condition that the removal of untouchability was a necessary step to- wards national advancement, showed that the Hindus were realizing the necessity of doing away with the social bars on the depressed classes. He asked : Was it not right that they, the members of one Church, should have got rid of this thing long ago? "As to the last question, namely, the attitude of the Catho- lics towards other communities, they had to bear in mind that the Catholics after all formed an infinitesimal portion of the people of this country. As the Chairman of the Reception Committee had said a challenge had been thrown out to them as to what they were going to do in the present state of affairs. He would say they would be committing the worst sin possible if the Catholics were to take up a stand against any of the reforms coming in. However much they might complain and murmur, and say that India was not fit for these reforms, still the reforms were going to come in. They had to recognize that fact, and if they were not prepared to take their share in the affairs of the country, they would be absolutely washed off and would bring about their own down- fall as a community and also that of their Church. Hitherto the Catholics had neglected their duty in this respect and not taken their proper share in public affairs. In proportion to their numbers they had more educated men than any other community, and it was up to them to direct the affairs of the country in a saner manner than some people sought to do at present and save it from ruin" (Times of India, Dec. 28, 1921). Just as we were leaving India the All-India Christian Con- ference was assembling in Lahore simultaneously with the meetings of the Indian National Congress and the Indian Moslem Association in Ahmedabad and of the General As- sembly of the Presbyterian Church in India in Allahabad. The resolutions of the conference were almost exclusively devoted to social and political problems. One resolution dealt with the relation of the Missions to the Indian Church and 233 one with the two union educational institutions at Alwaye and Bangalore. All the other resolutions were politi- cal. There was no utterance regarding the evangelization of India, regarding the attainment by the Church of the essen- tial attributes of a free and independent national Church, or regarding the spiritual life and functions of the Church as a religious force in India. There was no reference to the low castes or the untouchables or to the mass movement, although the movement against untouchability is social as well as re- ligious and was emphatically dealt with in the resolutions of the National Congress at Ahmedabad. The other social and political problems before India today, however, were dealt with in fourteen resolutions. They urged that on the one hand the campaign of non-cooperation should cease and that on the other the Government should desist from enforcing the acts repressing alleged seditious agitations and should release those who had been arrested and imprisoned under these acts. They advocated true swadeshi and the wearing of clothes of Indian manufacture, woman suffrage, industrial and tech- nological education, the protection of Indian industry, pro- hibition, improvement of labor conditions, the immediate granting of a much larger measure of responsible self-gov- ernment, the establishment of local Indian Christian Associa- tions for the satisfactory discussion of all public questions, etc., etc. The two resolutions which bore most directly on the subject of the relations of the Indian Christians to the Nationalist movement were the following : "III. The Present Situation. "In view of the gravity of the present political situation in the country and also in view of the possibility that the situation may become still more acute in the near future, this Conference resolves: (a) That in order to restore peace and harmony in the country it is necessary for Government to adopt a policy of conciliation by ceasing to put into force the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908, and the Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act of 1911 and such other measures as have a repressive effect, and by releasing those arrested and imprisoned under these Acts, while on the other hand the campaign of Non-cooperation should forthwith be sus- pended by the leaders of Non-cooperation so as to facilitate a sane settlement under conditions essential for mutual under- standing, (b) That in order to facilitate a sane settlement, a Round Table Conference be arranged of some leading Non- 234 cooperators, Moderates and Government Officials, to see on what grounds a compromise can be arranged." "XI. Responsible Self -Government. "This Conference is of opinion that as a result of one year's working of the Reforms Scheme, a much larger measure of Responsible Self-Government should immediately be given to the people of India by making the Provincial Governments to a greater extent responsible to the legislature and by mak- ing such modifications in the Government of India Act as would introduce the principle of responsibility in the Central Government." No reproach of neglect of social and political ques- tions could lie against the deliverances of the All-India Christian Conference. Judging from the resolutions, how- ever, some might feel a misgiving lest the primary religious character and the primary religious business of the Indian Church should not be adequately dealt with. If some of our American Churches have neglected the social aspects of re- ligion, it will be a poor compensation to have the Indian Church neglect the religious aspects of society. It needs to be recognized, however, that it is with the social and political aspects of their life and duty that the Indian Churches have organized the All-India Christian Conference to deal, as the Mohammedans have dealt with them in the Indian Moslem Association and the Hindus in the Indian National Congress, until recently when the Hindus and the Mohammedans merged their gatherings. 3. THE MASS MOVEMENT What is known as the mass movement of the low caste or out-caste people into the Christian Church began in Northern India about thirty years ago. This was not the first mass movement in India. In earlier years large bodies of people had come both into the Roman Catholic and into the Protestant churches in Southern India and the extensive Christian communities among the Tamils and Telugus were the result. For a quarter of a century the movement has gone on in the United Provinces and the Punjab, and as a result some scores of thousands have been enrolled as Christians by our own and the United Presbyterian Missions and several hundred thousand by the energetic missionaries of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, under the lead of Bishop Thoburn and his successors. Within the last few years, although on a much smaller scale, there has been a similar movement among the outcastes in the Sangli and Kodoli fields in the 235 Western India Mission. There can be no question as to the reahty of this movement as a social and intellectual and, I believe also, a religious up-reaching. Something of its mean- ing was set forth in a remarkable address presented to us in the village of Phoriwal in the Jullundur district on the occasion described in the letter on the Jullundur station. The address was written by the Rev. Henry Goloknath of Jullun- dur and read in Punjabi by one of the Indian evangelists while the Mohammedan land owners of the village listened in breath- less amazement to this fearless utterance from the spokesman of the people who for centuries had endured their lot of serf- dom without murmur of complaint or of aspiration. This was the address: "We welcome you, Sir, with a shout of cheer. . . . "We express our appreciation of what has been and is being done by your Mission towards our uplift. We with others of the unfortunate class who are condemned as untouchables, constitute one-sixth of the whole population or say six crores, or sixty millions all told. We are counted low, based not on the natural standard of personal qualities but on the accident of birth. We are thus condemned to live the low life of utter wretchedness, servitude, and mental and moral degradation. The forces of custom, religion, and social prejudice have de- prived us of equality of opportunity to enjoy the good things of the world. We are deprived of public service, free use of tanks or public works, or inns or temples. We are handi- capped in business and work through untouchability. We are deprived of the benefit of civilization, the solace of educa- tion and society. We are deprived of all those accessories which are indispensable in a social organization, such as the services of a barber, washerman and so forth. We are regarded for all purposes of national self-interest with them, but for purposes of caste, not of them. "Thanks to the efforts of Christian Mission and thanks to the Gospel of touchability by love as taught and lived by our Lord and Saviour, self-respect is awakened in us, and we re- sent deeply the treatment meted out to us by caste-ruled men. We are beginning to be restless, to be no longer content with our present lot which is galling in the extreme, and we refuse to acquiesce in environment not of our making, but in which we find ourselves to be. We want to progress with the tide in the affairs of men, and which waits for nobody. For pur- poses of preservation of society, caste may have achieved something, but in caste system we are doomed forever to a life of bondage and serfdom. For purposes of progress we 236 have come out of caste, for it is unsuitable to progress, thanks again for the God-sent dehverer from bondage, namely, your Christian Mission to this country. We appreciate and are grateful for what it has done and is doing for our uplift. Habits of self-respect and cleanliness have come to us, and so also an interest for education of our children and for self- improvement. In our efforts to improve ourselves, the spirit of antagonism shows itself in villages where we reside. Even here, where we are met on such a happy occasion when you. Sir, and your party and others have made common cause with us, we are looked at by the villagers with suspicious rather than friendly eyes, as encroachers on vested rights, and as opponents of Privilege and Exclusiveness. But Christianity has taught us to respect ourselves as human beings, and there- fore we want to be led to higher planes of life and to nobler pursuits. Christianity having pointed the way, and given us the truth regarding ourselves, even as we are groveling in the dark and in the lowest ditch, our dead bones in the valley are becoming instinct with life. We are done with grovel- ing at the foot of the social, intellectual and moral and mate- rial ladder of life. Our children must be trained and edu- cated, and made vital parts of the social organism, and not as at present the isolated and dead parts of the same. Now is come at once a challenge and opportunity to save us from this caste tyranny of ages, and give us a lift in the scale of humanity. We send forth a strong appeal to you, as represen- tative of the great and living Church of America, to take ad- vantage of our mass movement towards Christianity which like the tide is flowing full in this district and elsewhere, and undertake to educate and train our children in useful voca- tions. We need medical relief; we need to be taught ideas of cleanliness and hygiene. Help us to remove our gross ignorance. We have found God, and we want to find our- selves. In this district there is already a baptized Christian community of 4,000. We are trying to be cleaner and more decent in our persons and homes. We are giving up vices to which we are addicted. We are gradually substituting Christian marriage and other practices, and displacing heath- enish practices. Our Panchayats are becoming more and more a power for good. But we are handicapped in many ways and we need your help. Some of our men, in other districts of the Punjab in view of equal opportunity for all have stood their own and have acquitted themselves as men, and are holding influential positions in life. We too have been sending our boys to your Boarding Schools; others are 237 studying in village schools; and the percentage of literacy is on the increase. We need vocational and industrial schools, and we are willing to contribute our mite towards our chil- dren's education in this district. We employed a man from our own class some months ago to teach village Christian children. He is now sent with his wife to the five months' teachers' course in Moga, and we are meeting the cost of his maintenance in that school. Other non-Christian commu- nities are now up and doing, who see in our conversion to Christianity the serious depletion of vital blood from the Hindu organism. Shudi or purification work is now started by Arya Samajists and the Sikhs. All-India-Shudi Sabha has been established. It has inaugurated day and night schools and lectureships; and a medical mission is maintained for the benefit of the depressed classes. Those communities are actuated more by National self-interest and consideration of self-preservation than by humanitarian considerations. The percentage of literacy of the total population of India can be between fifteen and twenty per cent. It was five per cent in 1901. When such is the progress of literacy in the whole of India among the higher classes during all these years, how can it be expected that they would undertake to educate us, laboring as we do even now under serious limitations and dis- abilities. Besides, we are so poor that in our families each woman and child, boy or girl, has to be wage earning. It is a tremendous effort of sacrifice of both time and money on our people to undertake to educate our children, but in spite of this we are doing all we can. "Government has not stood by us in any practical way. It has asserted the equality of men under the law, and it main- tains order, but it has not provided means of progress for the depressed communities. The declared policy of neutrality on the part of Government in our case cuts both ways. It will not interfere with the religious and social customs of India, and yet. Sir, 'those customs are a dead weight resting on our breasts. Under their weight no progress is possible from either within or without. Government is concerned with providing education for higher classes alone. It has not attempted to remove or abolish social disabilities. It has not moved as yet to open special schools for us. In schools that are opened to Hindus and Mohammedans the parents do not hke their children to study side by side with our chil- dren; and those of our children who are attending village schools are made to sit apart from others, which makes our children feel that they are of commoner clay than their neigh- 238 bors. In spite of such indignities our children go on study- ing, small in number as they are. The tyranny of custom is being felt more and more. The Christian Mission alone stands the chance of removing our disabilities. It is true that Cha- mars, Ramdasias and Rahtias of the Punjab have not as yet moved towards Christianity, but it is due to the fact that the modern movements of new sects in India have allowed, with a thin veneer of their own special teachings, side by side the primitive beliefs of the depressed classes to exist. They are tolerant of the superstitions and primitive practices; but Christianity is from the first intolerant of a mixture with it of other faiths. It weans its votaries from untruth and superstitions. Hence the mass movement among them has not as yet taken root. But once give us education and Chris- tian enlightenment, improve our character and help us towards our own uplift, and we will soon appear as, an object lesson to follow. Education will not pauperize us, but rather it would lead us on to new ideas of the value and the possibihty of progress and create in us the feeling of self-help and self- respect. "With these remarks we close and now wish you God-speed in your arduous undertaking in India, and safe voyage home ; and we humbly request you to convey our message of hope to the good and generous people of America that they may con- tinue to be as ever in the forefront of their Christian and humanitarian work in India and elsewhere, because we too join in hope and prayer that in due time they will see the groaning of the Spirit and the travail of their zealous yearn- ing for us give place to joy in sight of the birth of a Christian nation in India." The detailed problems involved in this mass movement have been presented to the Board annually in the reports of the Missions and the minutes of their meetings. How can this mass of ignorance be enlightened so as not to be a dead incu- bus upon the Church? How can the economic conditions of these poor people, many of them serfs and many of them not free even to rise to the privilege of cultivating the soil be improved? How can the thousands who have been bap- tized, but who are not prepared either in knowledge or in character to be admitted as full communicants, be properly trained and developed into worthy members of the Church? How can they be organized into churches? Into what sort of churches should they be organized and with what kind of a ministry? How can their children be best educated, and how can they be provided with churches and schools without 239 pauperization or permanent dependence upon mission sup- port? How can heathen customs be eradicated and how can Christian customs and institutions be introduced, which will have a living flavor and a native color and not be mere dry importations from the West? How can this work be rightly related to work for the higher castes and made a help to it and not a hindrance? How can the composite and hetero- geneous Church which is growing up be made democratic? On these and other such questions we gathered a mass of material from individual conversations with all kinds of people, from many happy conferences with the low caste Christians themselves in groups, and from dozens of naive letters from these Christians and the teachers and preachers who had come from their ranks. Never shall we forget the morning with the Christians of Kodoli in the hall of the Kodoli School, or the afternoon with the group from the villages of the Kasganj field under the big mango trees at Banhari ka Ian, or the meeting in the big tent at Etah with the rugged farm- ers who were earning their own bread and preaching Christ, or the night in Luliani where the sides had to be taken out of the tent and the village Christians sat in a packed mass reaching far out into the moonlit spaces, where I could see the last row of them sitting in white sheikh-like dignity against the mud walls. No one could have gone among these people as we did without feeling as though he were back in the New Testament and seeing the primitive Gospel beginning to lay hold on the bottom groups of life in human society. The questions which have arisen regarding the relations of the Mission and the Church, however, have included within their sweep the question of the legitimacy of this mass move- ment work. Some who do not question the legitimacy of what has been done still raise enquiries as to the wisdom of its exten- sion. The new attitude of mind which has grown up on this subject among some of the leaders of the Indian Church, par- ticularly some of those who have discussed with strength of feeling and competence of mind the question of relationships, is well illustrated in the "Memorandum" of the Christo Samaj : "A discussion of the problems relating to the Indian Church will be incomplete without a reference to the chief method of enlarging the Christian Church, followed perhaps by all missions, viz., mass movements or mass conversions. We do look forward to a time when India will be brought to a uni- versal recognition of the undoubted supremacy of Christ in the realm of religion and would not but rejoice when its 240 peoples shall vie with one another in forcing their way into the Christian Church. But we find serious drawbacks and mistakes in connection with the way in which whole villages and families have been and are being brought into the Chris- tian Church. We raise no serious objection on the score that these mass movements are from the lower classes; for the Gospel should indeed be preached to the poor. But we per- ceive questionable motives mixed up in the mass movement phenomena, which have led to serious complications in the Christian organism. It is to the social and material aspira- tions of the lower classes that the method has largely appealed and the spiritual motive is not given the emphasis and pre- eminence that it always should claim. It is openly avowed that persons without a real perception of Christianity are admitted into the Christian fold in anticipation of the spir- itual benefits that might result to their children or succeeding generations. While we seriously question even such a result, we submit emphatically this is a fatal error in the building up of the Church, which was intended to be an assembly of those who have deliberately given themselves to the lordship of Christ. Also it does little justice to the inherent religious capacity of the lower classes attested by their past history, and does permanent harm to Indian Christianity by estab- lishing a low standard of spirituality in the Indian Church. This low standard of spiritual life is one of the chief stumbling blocks to the true expansion of Christianity in the land; for, converts of a higher order who have accepted Christianity through higher motives could hardly find their spiritual home in the Christian community as it is at present composed, with the result that they either succumb to the prevailing standard of the community or go out of the Christian Com- munity or remain as unbaptized Christians outside. Mass movements have also reproduced the caste divisions inside the Christian Church and have, we are afraid, forever com- mitted Christianity to development on caste lines. They have given the lie to the hopes held out by Christian mission- aries in the past of Christianity proving the most effective force in the formation of an Indian nation. We are there- fore even forced to disown the Christian community as not being a creation of the spirit of Christ and would differentiate between this community and the true Christian Church, which should consist of true followers of Christ. Such methods of enlarging the Christian Church have been followed in the West, and such nominal Christianity does exist in the West. But that is no sufficient reason for perpetuating them here, where 241 the Christian Church is yet in its initial stages with its task of evangelization still largely before it. This drawback comes to the forefront especially at the present juncture in India, where the struggle between Christianity and Hinduism clearly lies in the spiritual realm. That the large accession to the Christian churches from these classes is a drag on the wheels of progress becomes apparent. Whenever any desirable re- form is proposed, the missions that are responsible for these movements at once point out that it is only a small section that would countenance the change and that the less developed Christians are averse to it. Thus, by the continual expansion of the Churches by the initow of mere numbers, their period of tutelage and subordination can be indefinitely postponed, and it is even contended that these lower classes cannot be entrusted to their more educated brethren, and that the mis- sionary alone can hold the scales even between the two parties." Some of the discussions of this question in which we shared led us to ask whether if those with whom we were speaking had had matters in their own hands there ever would have been any mass movement at all or whether if they could have their way now the movement would be allowed any fur- ther development. In our own Presbyteries these questions were answered unequivocally in the affirmative, and one does not see how any other answer could be given. The teaching of our Lord and the history of the Christian Church in the New Testament, in the centuries of the expansion of the Church, in the Reformation, in the best activities of the Ro- man Catholic Church; the institution of the human family with the principles and processes of its unequalled power; the laws of life and progress in institutions and in society are all against too tight and hampering an attitude with re- gard to the providence of God in the founding of His Church. One can sympathize deeply, as we do, with the individualistic and selective view expressed in the quotation from the memo- randum of the Christo Samaj, and yet one cannot but believe that in the long run we shall see that this mass movement with all its problems and difficulties was and is of God's will. Only we should certainly seek to make fewer mistakes than we have made and should certainly look with restiveness and discontent upon our present failure to make all that should be made out of this opportunity. There are those who believe that only Indian Christians of the higher castes could use this opportunity to the full. It would be a tragic thing if leaders of the Indian Church from the better castes were led to ter- 242 minate or to oppose a movement which they might not only save from mistake and loss, but by which it might be the will of God through them to save India. 4. A NEW ASPECT OF THE MOVEMENT TOWARD CHURCH UNION Within the bounds of our three Missions there appear to be no ecclesiastical movements under way looking toward any new form of Church union. A commission of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in India is in cor- respondence on the subject with various bodies, but no defi- nite proposals were passed upon by the last Assembly, and we heard of none that were to come before the Assembly in Allahabad on December 28, 1921. We found the Presbyterian attitude of mind wherever we met it almost always friendly toward every union proposal. Our Missions are in the habit of welcoming every possibility of co-operation and unity which does not imperil essential evangelical conviction. We met, however, especially in connection with the discussions of union between the United Church of South India (Presby- terian, Reformed and Congregational) and the Church of England, but emerging elsewhere also, a new attitude of mind growing out of the present nationalistic spirit and critical of the union movement or of any leadership or aggressive effort on the part of the foreign Missions with regard to it. Hitherto Missions have been reproached for their re- luctance in this matter. Now they are reproached for their zeal. The new situation is well illustrated in an address on "The Co-operative Efforts of Missions and their Relations to the Indian Church" before the Bangalore conference by Mr. K. T. Paul and the editorial comment on the address in the organ of the National Missionary Society of India: "In the course of an address on 'The Co-operative Efforts of Mis- sions and their Relation to the Indian Church' before the Bangalore Conference Continuation, Mr. K. T. Paul is re- ported to have said: 'In the mission field various Missions were pooling their resources in a greater or smaller degree of co-operation for educational and medical work resulting in institutions like the Bangalore Theological College, the Madras Christian College, the Women's Christian College, the Serampore College, the Vellore and Ludhiana Medical Schools. Side by side with these there are trusts and combines for administrative purposes and government patronage and recog- nition, like the Provincial Representative Councils of Mis- sions, the National Missionary Council and the International Missionary Association which replaced the Edinburgh Con- 243 tiniiation Committee which the war had killed. These were all purely mission combinations in which the Indian Church as such had no place although by courtesy a few Indians are nominated. He emphasized the fact that these mammoth organizations were magnifying the difficulties of the Infant Indian Church. Lack of training in leadership, funds and unsuitability of such institutions to the Indian genius make it difficult for the Indian Church to cope even with the powers transferred to the Indian Churches by some Missions, with the result that the latter remain the dominant factor in the situation. The thing becomes more difficult when the Indian Church is confronted with the huge organizations of national and super-national combines of missions. He seemed to in- dicate that the solution might be in the direction of a re- organization of the Indian Church which would tackle the situation more effectively.' We have always been told that the co-operative efforts of missions are the very crown and glory of missionary work. Some of the best and ablest mission- aries in India are engaged in the activities carried on by these organizations with the financial and moral support of powerful American and British missionary combinations and influential missionary statesmen. And there is no doubt these inter-mission organizations are becoming effective in- struments in the hands of missionaries for carrying out their ideas and policies. What is the effect of the growth of these organizations on the infant Indian Church? Can the Indian Church in her present state of financial dependence on foreign missions and lack of leaders who could hold their own with keenly diplomatic missionary statesmen hope to make her influence felt on these bodies in any way? If not, what are the steps the Indian Church has to take to protect herself from the danger of being carried off her feet on vital questions affecting the progress of real Christianity in this land?" This view, which as those who hold it recognize, has much to be said against it, has also, I believe, a great deal to be said for it, and it is set forth very positively in "The Memorandum on the Further Development and Exposition of Christianity in India," issued by the Christo Samaj : "Another foreign feature of the present order is the de- nominationalism of Western Christianity. It has divided Indian Christians into different compartments, some of whom have imbibed the exclusiveness, rivalry, dogmatism and false pride that is characteristic of it in the West. It finds expres- sitDn in these days when the question of Christian Unity is 244 pressed home, in such vehement cries as 'Lutheranism in danger/ 'Methodism at stake.' It may be pointed out that a spurious loyalty is often assumed with a view to please or bring oneself into line with the missionary heads and pay- masters. Whether assumed or imbibed, western denomina- tionalism is not true to Indian conditions, its historic roots being found in circumstances which are foreign. At a time when even in the West there are movements toward Christian Unity, it should certainly appear curious to find reaction- aries in the adopted homes of the denominations in the mis- sionary fields. The equality and brotherhood of all Christians and all ministries belonging to the different denominations must be regarded not only as a widely accepted article of faith with the Indian Christian, but as the only desirable position that is natural and calculated to promote the highest interests of the Kingdom of God in this land. "We have here to refer to the Church Union movement or controversy that has been absorbing the time and energies of some of the missionary bodies and Indian Christians for the past two years. It may appear rather strange to those who have not gone deep into the matter that the progressive party represented by the Christo Samaj, the Bangalore Con- ference and the Christian Patriot should have arrayed itself against it. It has brought upon us the charge of being im- bued with merely an anti-missionary spirit that opposes the missionary in everything that he does — in days gone by for his denominationalism and at present for his unionism. We partially accept the charge, but disown any desire to criti- cise for criticism's sake. Most certainly our chief objection to the union movement has been the lead that has been given and taken by the foreign missionaries in the matter, and in the questionable manner in which Indian support has been elicited through conclaves of clericals and some laymen in mission service, dependent on and ever anxious to please the missionaries, and the unbecoming haste with which the move- ment was being precipitated without any attempt to find out the wishes of the general body of Indian Christians or to educate them in the issues involved. When after a Church Council with all its clergy have been persuaded by interested parties to pass a resolution accepting the Union proposals, the mission goes on to arrange a Summer School for the clergy- men to impart instruction in the elementary issues involved in Church Union; — for Indian Christians to protest against this method of putting the cart before the horse, rather, of constructing the building before the foundation is laid, nay, 245 of treating the Indian clergy and community as mere pawns in the game of missionary diplomacy is but to make the barest demands of self-respect for his community. The above remarks apply to the negotiations for union carried on between the S. I. U. C. and the Anglican Church in S. India, which fortunately have received a set-back recently and we hope the reaction will put an end to the contemplated organizational union on the basis of the historic episcopacy. But an eccle- siastical crime of a worse character has been perpetrated in the inception and establishment of Episcopacy in the Tamil Lutheran Church within the space of twelve hours by the Church of Sweden Mission — a feat, we believe, unprecedented in the history of the world and indicative of the helplessness of the Indian Church on the one hand and the high-handed- ness of missionaries on the other. Before proceeding further we wish to draw your attention to the Edinburgh Missionary Conference Report about Church Union in South India, which says: " 'When we turn to India, the evidence is more conflicting. It has hitherto at least been undoubtedly a characteristic of the Indian to leave action for the most part to any one with energy or authority, and merely to acquiesce or stand aloof, according to circumstances. The movements in the direction of unity thus far have owed their inception and success chiefly to the work of foreign missionaries.' "But not only have the union manipulations been an offence against the self-respect of the Indian Christian, but the whole movement belongs essentially to the present order of things, which we have criticised as being foreign to the Indian soil. Apart from a foreign denominationalism that Western Chris- tianity has introduced into India, it has also brought with it, as we have pointed out, an administrative, ecclesiastical and evangelistic machinery that is beyond the natural capacity and unsuited to the instructive genius of the Indian. Indian religion has laid far less emphasis on close organization and on costly institutions and has depended far more on the per- sonal and voluntary service of unorganized religious workers of the type of Sadhus. While the present missionary system itself is open to criticism from this standpoint, the excessive centralization of authority and the much more complicated and heavy machinery that a united church implies will be the culmination and triumph of a foreign system that will clothe young David not only in the armour of King Saul, but still worse in that of the Philistine Goliath. It will have the re- sult of perpetuating the present administrative and financial 246 dependence on foreign missions and create a brown bureau- cracy within the Indian Church, who will become a menace to the true progress of Indian Christianity far more than the present missionary rulers. The administrative independ- ence of the Indian Church cannot be effected by the imposi- tion of a machinery essentially foreign in its conception and execution, but by making room for simpler and spontaneous organizations natural to the soil. We entirely disapprove the proposal for the formation of a centralized single eccle- siastical organization comprehending the entire Christian community in all India. It will be a national church of the western pattern, which will for ever be a handicap to the development of Christianity on Indian lines. It is doubtful if Indian Christianity will ever evolve a national church on the western model, but even if such a possibility be antici- pated it will have to be allowed time to take shape naturally. But we plead that the development of an Indian type of Chris- tianity, embodying Indian ideals, should precede any effort to organize an Indian Church. Our attitude towards the problem of church unity has already been made public through the Indian Christian Manifesto published in the Christian Patriot and the Resolutions on Church Union passed by two successive sessions of the Bangalore Conference." The manifesto and the resolutions referred to will be found in Appendix XIV. The desire to safeguard the simplicity, the reality, and the freedom of the Indian Church is a right desire. It is an open question, however, whether if the Indian Christians were really united in one Church they would not be in a better position to protect and assert their freedom than they are now. Once or twice we heard able Christian leaders contend- ing that if the separate denominational Missions did not settle satisfactorily the question of their relationships with their co-operating Churches these Churches would take mat- ters into their own hands and unite and then be in a position to have their own way. We were disposed to reply that there were many in the West to whom such a prospect was far from being a warning and who would be disposed to follow a course of action that might have this result. Among the leaders in the five Presbyteries with which we dealt, we found no such attitude of mind as has been just set forth. The Kolhapur Presbytery seems to be coming into closer relation with the Congregational and Scotch mission churches and the four other Presbyteries, especially the Lahore and the Allahabad Presbyteries, are in close relations with 247 other Church bodies, and we were glad to find the minds of their leaders thoroughly hospitable to the idea of Church unity. In the Lahore Presbytery, indeed, it is not mission- aries but Indian Christians who are taking the leadership, and the Punjab Christian Conference represents a notable drawing together in common understanding and common action of the Christians of all denominations. One of my most interesting hours in India was a meeting with a committee of this Punjab Christian Conference. There were ten Indians present. Most of them were the strong men of the Presbyterian Church who are the foremost Chris- tian leaders in the Punjab. The others were from the Church of England and one or two other bodies. One of their num- ber explained the origin and work of the Indian Christian Conference. There had been an Indian Christian Association in existence for twenty years. At first it had to do with education. Then political questions arose. The Indian Chris- tian Conference declined to engage in these qaestions, and in consequence the Punjab Christian Conference was formed for this purpose two years ago. First it asked the Govern- ment for Christian representation on the Provincial Legis- lative Council. The Government assented and Mr. K. L. Rallia Ram was chosen as the Christian representative. Through his influence a local option measure had been passed which was a good thing because Christians had been regarded by the public as favoring the liquor traffic. The Conference had also taken up the cause of Christian workers on the North- western Railway and had secured for them more equitable treatment. At one of its meetings, in half an hour's time, the Conference had subscribed more than enough to provide the salary of one of the Indian Christian teachers in Kinnaird College. They believed that the Christian community had great resources which had not yet been called out, and they had started a Christian bank with shares and deposits of Rs. 30,000 and aimed at Rs. 100,000. They wanted Missions to help in this and in many other enterprises. What they desired was a real co-operation in all the work of the Chris- tian Church in the Punjab. Without mentioning names, it may be well to summarize statements which the individual members of the committee proceeded to make. A. "I am not a Presbyterian. I will tell you the opinion of the Christian man in the street. As a child I avoided the padres. As a man I have never heard a Mission servant say that such ser- vice was good. When the war came, I heard the call to Chris- tian service, and I joined the Y. M. C. A. because I thought 248 it was the least objectionable Christian agency. The situation of missionary servants is poverty, insufficient support, and insecurity of tenure, but I find these in other Christian agen- cies besides the Missions. My complaint is that the Missions have never given responsibilities to Indians, and the impres- sion prevails that this has affected the type of men who join Mission service. I am glad to see that you are giving more responsibility to Indians now. As to money and power, we feel that the money should be spent on the best. We do not think it follows that those who give the money should control its expenditures. We feel that we are the equals of the mis- sionaries and that we should be related to expenditure as well as the Missions. We deprecate the attitude of the Mis- sions in making men feel that they are doing wrong if they go into business or law or worldly affairs. The Missions should rejoice in this. Also I believe the Missions have been wrong in discouraging political interest and activity. Fur- thermore, judgments on Indian workers should be deter- mined by the judgments of Indians, and in the case of mis- sionaries Indian fellow workers should have the right to express their judgment as to whether missionaries are tem- peramentally fitted to India and whether they should return after their furloughs." B. "You can tell the missionaries what I say. Indians know India better than foreigners know it, and we are honest and devoted. We are hospitable too. Why is it then that there is so little friendship between us and missionaries. I will tell you why. We have lived in India under autocracy for thousands of years. We have been made a servile people, and we have taken an attitude of ser- vility towards sahibs, including missionary sahibs. On the other side also, missionaries came here thinking to find an inferior people, atheistic or idolatrous and heathen. They came as employers to employees. Westerners have brought organization to India too. We had never had it before. Mis- sionaries brought it with them, — organization and the prin- ciple of salaries in religious service. They did not found mission work on the old Indian religious basis nor are they and the Indian workers they have trained, yogis. When the missionaries give up salaries and become yogis, I will do so at once. We want to live as they live. If the missionary move- ment is to be projected on a basis without money the mis- sionaries must do it first. Our mode of living, our method of support, our desires are only patterned after the mission- aries. Europeans and even missionaries have clubs without Indian members. We can pray together but we cannot play 249 together." C. The third speaker was of the Church of England. "The situation is the same in all churches," said he. "There are exceptional missionaries of course in the different Missions to whom what we are saying would not apply, but the general system of missionary organization and rules and the paymaster scheme of things prevails in all the Missions and soon engulfs any exceptional individuals. If a new missionary wants to enter the life of unity with India he is soon coerced by the influence of his associations. I have read the Saharanpur plan, and it seems to me that that offers a solution." D. "The impression prevails in India that mis- sionaries are in general an obstacle to political progress. Their behavior in certain political crises within the past few years may have a permanent evil effect. They must beware of being anti-national. There are missionaries who have lost all influence even among Christians because of their political attitude. The people call them, especially some of the Eng- lish missionaries, government spies. It is increasingly difficult for these reasons for missionaries to preach to non-Chris- tians." Upon this an animated discussion arose which de- veloped divergent views. Some held that in all matters of politics, missionaries should be scrupulously neutral, others that on public questions missionaries ought to take sides with what they believed was right, even though it was antagonistic to Government. As to the mass movement they thought that, if left to themselves, they would have gone forward with it, but admitted that there was a time when Indian Christians were indifferent to the village people. "It is not so now, however." If the mass movement had been in their hands, they believed different methods would have been used, and that more of an effort would have been made to make the village Christians independent. Missionaries too often went to them with the idea that the people were poor and could not be made independent. I intimated that if they were in favor of an ideal of financial independence for the churches in the villages, they must not demur if Missions held up a simi- lar ideal for the churches in the towns and the cities, and I asked them whether the history of the National Missionary Society confirmed their opinion that the Missions had followed unwise methods in the village work. They replied that the National Missionary Society had followed the same methods as' the Missions. They did not think that the mass move- ment had hindered the Christian movement among the castes. Some argued, however, that it had done so, that it had not raised the outcaste people socially or the higher castes would 250 have been more influenced by it. Here too there was diverg- ence of view. Some one cited resolutions which the Indian Christian Conference had adopted criticising the Missions for pressing the mass movement too fast and for carrying it be- yond the point where education adequately followed it up. "I do not agree with these strictures," said one. "The mass move- ment has been a great success and an unqualified help, politi- cally and religiously, to the whole Church. Many of our city churches have been fed by Christians who have come in from the villages." "My complaint," said B., "is that missionaries are transferred too often. Especially in the village work frequent transfers weaken the sense of responsibility of mis- sionaries in the matter of speedy baptisms, arouse rivalry as to the number of baptisms, and interfere with the continuity of a sustained policy of village visitation." Whatever one might think of these varying views, he was glad to meet with such a group of men and proud to have them for his friends, and he was sure that God would guide them and the missionaries who, as they well know, are their truest and strongest allies, into right forms of co-operation and keep them all in the spirit of Christlike love and trust. 5. THE NATIONALISTIC IDEAL OF THE CHURCH One meets in India today the question which was so familiar in Japan twenty-five years ago as to the influence of the nation- alistic spirit upon the ideal of the Church both as to organi- zation and as to doctrine, and many articles are written and many speeches are made with regard to the contribution which India should make in the development of Christian institu- tions and in the interpretation of the Gospel. It is always wholesome to have such questions raised, more wholesome perhaps even for the home Churches than for the Churches on the Mission field. We may be sure that life is an organic process and that it all hangs together. The roles of East and West would be exchanged today, if it were not the fact. In politics and economics and social progress and, just as truly, in religion, yes even more truly in religion, the East has a great deal more to learn than it has to teach. The East did teach its best to the West nineteen centuries ago when it gave it Christianity. It has nothing to give now comparable with that gift whose influence is responsible more than all else for the difference between the East and the West. If the West has not adequately understood Chris- tianity or not adequately developed its institutions, the cor- rection will be made as much by the West as by the East. 251 I think that the view which Mr. Lowes Dickinson sets forth in his little book on the "Civilizations of India, China, and Japan," is open to criticism, but I fear also that it holds a great deal of truth, "To sum up," he writes, "I find in India a peculiar civilization antithetical to that of the West. I find a religious consciousness which negates what is really the religious postulate of the West, that life in time is the real and important life and a social institution, caste, which negates the implicit assumption of the West that the desirable thing is equality of opportunity. I find also that in India the contact between East and West assumes a form peculi- arly acute and irritating owing to the fact that India has been conquered, and is governed by a Western power, but the contact none the less is having the same disintegrating effect it produces on other Eastern countries, and I do not doubt that sooner or later, whether or no British rule maintains itself, the religious consciousness of India will be transformed by the methods and results of positive science, and its insti- tutions by the economic influences of industriahsm. In this transformation something will of course be lost, but my own opinion is that India has more to gain and less to lose by con- tact with the West than any other Eastern country." Mr. Dickinson closes his essay with the contention that the future civilization will not be the balance or new synthesis of Eastern contemplativeness and Western energy, that the West will not learn new lessons from the East while the East holds its ancient inheritance and traditions and learns some selected lessons from the West. "The West may receive a stimulus from the East. It can hardly take an example. And the East taking from the West its industrial organization will have to take everything else. I should look, therefore, for a redress of the balance in the West, not directly to the importation of ideals from the East but to a reaction prompted by its own sense of its excesses on the side of activity. And on the other hand I expect the East to follow us, whether it like it or not, into all these excesses and to go right through not around all that we have been through on its way to a higher phase of civilization. In short, I believe that the renewal of art, of contemplation, of religion will arise in the West of its own impulse and that the East will lose what remains of its achievement in these directions and become as 'materi- alistic' (to use the word) as the West before it can recover a new and genuine spiritual life." The consciousness and the conscience of India and especi- ally of the Christian Church in India, are right in resisting 252 and seeking to falsify this forecast. Nothing will help them better in this effort than the actual facing of facts and the successful resistance of the temptation to gloss facts over under the influence of the nationalistic spirit. The glorifica- tion of a past that never really existed, the attempt to read into the past, its institutions and its language, ideals that never were there, the composition of impossible eclectic pro- grams, the exaggerated imagination of social and intellectual and religious contributions which India has to make to Chris- tianity and to civilization, all these things are enemies of the truest life and the greatest power in the Indian Church and the leaders of the Church should pray to be delivered from them. This is exceedingly unpopular counsel, but is sound counsel none the less. The real contributions to human pro- gress and to wider vision and larger life have not been made in this self-sacrificing way either by individuals or by races. If India can develop simpler forms of Christian life, if she can find more effective ways of making Christ known to men and enthroning Him in their wills and in human society, if fresh methods of missionary propaganda can be devised, as it was hoped the National Missionary Society as an indi- genous missionary organization might devise them, if any lessons can be learned beside the obvious lesson from the amazing lack of organization in Hinduism and the desultori- ness and yet pervasiveness of its worship and activity, if in- dividuals and groups will actually develop new models of Christian achievement and pay the costs which such new dis- coveries ever involve, the whole Church throughout the world will be grateful. But it needs always to be kept in mind in these matters that one deed, one steadfast, continuous and persistent deed, is worth more than many dreams. India's religious history shows her capacity for these deeds, and many names, ancient and modern, rise to one's mind. It is for the Indian Church to show, as it will show, how much more wonderful the achievements of Christ in Indian hearts can be. It is for the Indian Church to show, also, as it will show, that such deeds can be done not in the spirit of sepa- ratism, of race assertion, or of national pride, but after the mind of Christ. S. S. Varsova, Persian Gulf, Jan. 2, 1922. 253 6. SOME ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM OF MIS- SIONARY EDUCATION IN INDIA 1. GENERAL SITUATION Not a few pages but a volume, and not one volume but many, would be required to deal in any adequate way with the problem of missionary education in India. That problem is interwoven with the general problem of Indian education, and how immense and intricate this general problem is may be gathered from the fact that the report of Sir Michael Sadler's Commission on the University of Calcutta embraces thirteen large volumes. This unique report deals indeed with many general educational questions, but to no greater extent than seemed necessary in connection with its specific task. Missionary education is even more intimately related to the whole of Indian education and to the whole of Indian life than is the problem of the Indian university, and if any in- dividual or commission were to set out to deal with it exhaus- tively, the task would be formidable. Our deputation would have no competence for such a task nor be possessed of the resources or the several lifetimes which it would require. Our duty is merely to report briefly to the Board on a few of the concrete educational problems with which our Missions are called to deal responsibly at the present time. Education in India today is pretty constantly under fire. An influential Christian leader, Dr. S. K. Datta, in a paper on "The Problem of Education," very judicious and temperate in comparison with much discussion of the subject, sum- marizes the criticism of the modern situation. In the ancient days he holds that there was a system of temple or mosque schools widespread all over the country, that the learning they provided was cultural and supplied the students with a phil- osophy of life, that this was accompanied by a vocational education through the caste as an occupation guild which taught the young trades or handicrafts by family education and by a system of apprenticeship. "Apart from cultural and vocational education," Dr. Datta writes, "The family has been a most powerful source of education. . . . which indi- cated to each of its members from the days of childhood their duties, the relationship of man to man, responsibilities and rights — all that the Hindu includes in the term Dharma or duty. The father taught the son, by precept or example, 254 his trade or profession. The priest gave him his culture, but to the mother came the duty of training the boy in Dharma, and this last has been the most powerful factor in education." Perhaps this view of ancient education in India glorifies the past just as we are wont to do in America and Europe. What we know of mosque schools and of temple teaching where these have still been carried on, unharmed by Western influence, does not support a high estimate of their educational effectiveness, and only an erroneous principle in the interpretation of history warrants the judgment in the West, and no doubt the same is true in the East, that the economic and social efficiency of society in the earlier cen- turies was to be preferred to the conditions of today, un- satisfactory as these assuredly are. Whatever may be our judgments of the past, however, whether in the East or the West, it is certain that our present day systems of education are meeting and ought to meet the most stringent and unflinching criticism. The Calcutta University report deals exhaustively with the present situa- tion, and Dr. Datta in his paper summarizes its findings: the whole of modern education has been directed towards the University; it has restricted the economic worth of the individual through its purely literary values and has produced a supply of men with this type of education in excess of the needs of society; it has multiplied institutions of unsatisfac- tory educative values whose product swells the ranks of the badly employed ; it provides a curriculum so restricted in scope as to prove useless to the student when he enters life ; the use of a foreign language as a medium of instruction and the pressure of examinations renders education lifeless and unprofitable ; the disharmony between social education and cultural education is complete, bringing moral bankruptcy in its train. Dr. Datta recognizes the good in the midst of the evil: "In spite of pessimism the failure, though obvious, is relieved by great gains. Western education has contributed very greatly to the intellectual life of India. The knowledge of the English language has made available to thousands the thought and ideas of the most forward nations of the world. Thousands have benefited by this renascence ; above all it has stimulated nationalism, which in spite of its defects has been the most purifying moral influence in modern times." But in common with other Indian leaders he feels yet more deeply the evils and seeks for a remedy in a new system of education. He quotes Sir John Woodroffe's statement in the Calcutta University report: "The fault of the Anglo-Indian 255 educational system is that instead of harmonizing: with and supplementing national culture it is antagonistic to and de- structive of it. . . . Wrong education is the cause of physical and mental strain and sapping of moral strength. It is pro- ductive of instability, leading in the case of some to violence, in the case of others to the paralyzing inner conflict or a sense of intolerable oppression, and in a large number of ordinary and inferior natures to imitation, automatism and subservience." Dr. Datta's program of educational recon- struction calls for a national system of education whose pur- pose is to create a united self-governing India, to abolish illiteracy, to insure that every one learns how to earn his livelihood by the provision of industrial and vocational educa- tion, to provide social education by remaking the home an educational center, to develop an Indian cultural training that will be not a return to the old, which is impossible, but a har- monizing of the old and the new, by a race of students like Bose and Roy and Tagore, who know the modern education but whose minds have not been made sterile by it and who will preserve the ancient treasures of India. These views have been quoted not because thev are excep- tional, but because they are so illustrative. With us in the West at present there is a great tide of criticism of tradi- tional education which probably errs both in its idealizations and in its condemnations, but which does not err in its reso- lute purpose to get rid of what is found to be evil or in- eff'ective and to discover a better way. Great as the need of reform may be with us in America, it is greater still in India. If the problem were one simply of better education of the youth, it would be great enough, but the real problem of national education in India, where only a small fraction of the people have ever gone to school or ever will go, is far greater. The problem here, as another of the ablest of the Christian leaders in India, has vigorously stated it, "is the education of three hundred and twenty million people, a fifth of the human race, and it has got to be done forthwith. The problem cannot be solved by accelerating the education of the young. The whole question of education in India suffers greatly because the term is equated in the mind exclusively with the school room and the child. If the education of the nation depended entirely, or even mainly, on elementary schools, figures tell a significant story: 256 Total No. of children Expenditures Years in all institutions (in crores, i. e., 10,000,000. (in millions) of rupees) 1861 25 .40 1871 75 1.25 1881 2.00 1.75 1801 3.75 2.75 1901 4.25 3.75 1911 6.25 6.75 1919 8.00 13.00 "While in forty years the progress has been from .25 to 8.00 millions, the proportion to the population is still only 3 per cent., whereas population is now increasing every year at half per cent., i. e., an addition of 1.5 millions. And it is officially stated that 39 per cent, of the children educated in India relapse into illiteracy within five years of their leaving school. The fact is that, notwithstanding our high death- rate, our teeming millions pile up in such numbers that, with all the enthusiasm for it which will undoubtedly result in consequence of the Reforms, elementary schools for the young cannot possibly overtake the task of educating the community sooner than in some centuries. They are entirely out of con- sideration in the matter of fitting the average Indian of today to the task of citizenship to which he is summoned with im- mediate urgency." The best point of attack, however, upon the problem of national education, as every nation has discovered, is the edu- cation of the young. Side by side with this, as national ex- perience has also shown, is the preaching of religion. In both of these respects Christianity has its contribution to make and, as the foreign missionary enterprise presupposes, is the one force essential and effective toward moulding the char- acter and service of individuals and of peoples. What it can do in India at the present time is twofold. It can make the best of the present situation wherever its institutions are a part of, or of necessity conditioned by. the government edu- cational requirements. By the Christian spirit and the provi- sion of adequate personal contacts and influence, it can, as far as possible, atone for the evils of the present system and make an even greater contribution than it has been making towards producing men of character and unselfishness. In the second place it can supply model institutions, departing from the government types and aiming to meet the real needs of India. Tagore is working out at his home at Bolpur an institution to preserve the good of India's past and to meet the needs of the present and the future. Many must experi- 257 !) — Iiulia and Persia ment in this field, and liere Missions have the same contribu- tion to make which Christian men acting under the Christian spirit have made again and again in other lands in the struggle for educational reform. It is in some such concrete and experimental v^^ays alone, perhaps, that any progress can be made at the present time. No one can read the innumerable discussions and reports on the subject in India without perceiving how chaotic the situa- tion is and how great is the mixture of dream and illusion and fact and reality. As in the case of swaraj, or political independence and swadeshi, or economic independence, so in the case of national education no one is able to state just what the term means or what its limits are or how it is to be achieved or how it is reconciled with those larger universal conceptions with which, without impoverishment or limita- tion on either side, we now see that all our national concep- tions must be co-ordinated. The difficulty of the problem is indicated by many facts. For example, for some time edu- cation in many parts of India has been in Indian hands. In all the native states it has been under Indian control, and they embrace one-third the area and one-fourth the population of India. Since the Montague-Chelmsford reforms were in- troduced, education has been entirely under Indian control, limited only by the financial resources available. In the Pun- jab, for years the University which has control of all the ideals and principles of higher education has been in the hands of a large Indian majority. Furthermore, great independent Indian universities have been established such as the Hindu University in Benares and the Moslem University in Aligarh. One would say that there had been ample opportunity for Indian educational leadership to have developed, or at least to have illustrated, what is meant by "National" or "true 'Indian" education. The fact that practically nothing of the kind has emerged, but that in all these fields the traditional forms of modern British education in India have been followed shows how immensely difficult the problem is. What one fears is not the present spirit of criticism and reform. The thing to be dreaded is that men may not be willing to endure the pains and sacrifices necessary for the discovery of a better way. The easy course will be to make dissatisfaction with the Western forms of education a reason for independence and then to use independence in the imitation of the Western forms, elapan has been under no constraint with her educa- tional policy, and her system of national education has been only an intensification of the educational policies of Germany 268 and America. The Indian temper which will be likely to save India from this course is beset with no less perils of a dif- ferent kind. If India cannnot save herself from these perils, no one can save her, and she cannot save herself from them by mosque or temple. They have had their day. If now Christ cannot save her, or if she cannot save herself by Christ, then the problems which the past has not solved will be unsolved still. 2. THE CONSCIENCE CLAUSE One of the specific problems in the field of education which we were to consider with the Missions was the question of the course of action which should be taken in case the govern- ment should require as a condition of its grants-in-aid the acceptance of a conscience clause by which the Missions would bind themselves to make religious teaching optional and to excuse from chapel services and Bible classes all pupils whom parents or guardians should desire to have excused. The question is not a new one. It was considered at the time that the present system of government grants-in-aid to pri- vate institutions was adopted in 1882. At that time a com- mission of which Sir William Hunter was chairman, realizing the impossibility of the adequate development of educational facilities by government and the desirability of promoting private enterprise recommended that the responsibility for higher education should be laid on private bodies with govern- ment aid. It was believed, also, that this system would make provision for religious teaching, which Government, by its principle of neutrality, was prohibited from giving, and that as financial aid would be given to all institutions of whatever religious view, which might still meet the Government's edu- cational requirements, there would be no abridgment of the principle of religious freedom and neutrality. Sir William Hunter's commission recommended the introduction of a con- science clause in the case of institutions located in what are now known as "single school areas" : "When the only institu- tion of any particular grade in any town or village is an insti- tution in which religious instructon forms a part of the ordi- nary course, it shall be open to parents to withdraw their chil- dren from attendance at such instruction without forfeiting any of the benefits of the institution." It was to be under- stood that parents in entering their children in any school consented to the children taking the full curriculum, includ- ing the religious teaching, unless notice was given of the withdrawal of the child from religious instruction at the 259 time when the child was entered or at the beginning of the subsequent term. When the Government of India considered the recommendations of the Commission in 1884. it declined to embody any conscience clause as a condition of grant-in- aid, "as no practical difficulty has arisen from the absence of such a condition in the scheme of education laid down under the despatch of 1854." The present discussion of the question originated in 1915 in the publication of a pamphlet by the Honorable V. S. Srini- vasa Sastri. who was India's representative at the Peace Con- ference at Versailles, and who is now one of the leading mem- bers of the Government of India. Mr. Sastri proposed a great deal more than Sir William Hunter. He wanted a conscience clause that would assure that no religious instruc- tion was to be given to any child in any Government-aided school until the written consent of the parent or guardian had been given. Ostensibly his proposal affected all religions, but it was clear even in his original statement, and it became much clearer in later discussions, that it was Christianity that was aimed at. He held that a conscience clause "would probably secure a more considerate treatment of our religions and religious institutions at the hand of teachers of Christi- anity." Further, his proposal at first seemed to relate to the problem of religious instruction as part of the curriculum, but later discussions appeared to indicate that what was aimed at was not religious instruction in the curriculum only, but the use of the school as an evangelizing agency. Here also it was Christianity again at which the agitation was obviously directed. The discussions, moreover, indicated that the Koran and the Shastras would be left in a position from which the Bible would be excluded. Mr. Sastri, we were told, later made no concealment of his purpose to deprive Christianity, if possible, of the power which it had exerted in its Government-aided schools. If it had been a question as to the religious neutrality of Government schools, there would never, of course, have been any doubt in the minds of American missionaries. That was not, however, the question. The question was as to whether in the schools and colleges built and conducted and maintained by Mohammedan, Hindu and Christian bodies, which no one was required to attend if he did not desire to do so, and which the Government had encouraged because they relieved it of a great educational burden and were free to meet the re- ligious necessities of the people as the Government could not, the payment of grants-in-aid by the Government warranted 260 it in forbidding such institutions to require of all their stu- dents that they should take the religious instruction embodied in their curricula. In as much as the (juestion was raised as a matter of conscience, the Christian Missions at once care- fully reviewed the whole matter. No body of men in India are more sensitive to conscientious considerations than they. They realized that "a conscience which, while holding firmly to the consolations of its religion, is unwilling to wound the religious susceptibilities of others, is pre-eminently Christian. Once more," wrote one of them, "we have evidence of some harvest from seeds we ourselves have sown, and if there are tares mingled with the wheat, we need not be surprised." The missionary body in India, accordingly, reviewed the whole matter, and in October, 1916, at Jubbulpore, Dr. Ewing, as convener of the Standing Committee on Christian Education of the National Missionary Council of India, called a meeting at which the whole question was discussed. There were some missionaries who argued, as many do now, in favor of purely voluntary religious teaching, on the grounds on which the same position is supported in America, with supplementary considerations drawn from the situation of Christianity in India. There were others who believed that the religious in- struction should be an integral part of the teaching in every missionary school. Still others believed that the principle of a conscience clause ought to be recognized in the case of schools which Missions are conducting m single school areas, if they receive Government grants for such schools, and especially if these grants are accepted with the understand- ing that the area will be left to the Mission school. I have a most instructive private report of the discussions at this conference which is at the Board's disposal. As a result of this discussion and upon the recommendation of this com- mittee, the National Missionary Council at its meeting im- mediately following, October 27 to 31, 1916, adopted the fol- lowing resolutions: Resolved: — V. — 1. That all education given by Missions or Missionaries must be i-adically Christian, centering in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and including instruction in the Bible as the greatest of books for the teaching of truth and the building of character, and at the same time as a book necessary to the understanding of the history and literature of Christian peoples. The Council therefore claims a definite sphere in which Missions may give practical expression to this conviction. On the other hand, Christian principle requires both respect for rights of conscience and the exercise of fairness and justice. 261 The problem of reconciling these two aspects of Christian duty has always engaged, and still engages, the attention of Missionaries, and it is essential that they should solve it for each new set of conditions by their own spontaneous action. 2. That a careful memorandum should be prepared by the Educa- tional Committee and sent to the Home Boards and Provincial Councils on the subject of the Conscience Clause in single school areas, stating (a) the different arguments which have been adduced as bearing on this subject, and (b) the facts about single school areas, their numbers, con- ditions, etc. And the Home Boards should be invited to give attention to the subject without delay. 3. That a statement of the Council's policy in regard to the question of a Conscience Clause be postponed till further information is available. 4. That the Council, while commending the subject to the careful study of Provincial Councils, and, through them, of Missionary Societies, urges these bodies to take no independent action without the fullest con- sultation with this Council through the Educational and Executive Committees. The issues which were raised were very carefully examined by the Missions on the field and by many of the missionary agencies at home, with ever increasing clarity of conviction, although with by no means unanimity of judgment. Indeed it has been the diversity of judgment which has been expressed which has opened the missionary body to the risk of misunder- standing. The expressions of those who were prepared to accept a conscience clause as a condition of receiving Govern- ment grants or even to put it into effect on their own judg- ment and initiative led some Indians to suppose that this was the general missionary view. Arguments to this effect were presented, while we were in India, before the Madras Legislative Council in behalf of the enactment of a conscience clause. If missionaries are not agreed, it is of course illegiti- mate to misrepresent them, but a great deal would have been gained if missionaries could have seen eye to eye in this matter, or even if those whose educational responsibilities and contributions are slight had not, by their expressions, weakened the position of the missionary agencies who are doing most of the higher educational work in India and which are clear in their convictions that they cannot relinquish their full liberty of religious teaching and influence. The official sentiment of the missionary bodies which were called upon to deal with the question was generally clear and harmonious. At its meeting in May, 1917, the Representative Council of Missions of the United Provinces adopted the fol- lowing resolution : "A. This Council is of opinion that while the present agitation for a Conscience Clause does not spring mainly from conscientious objection of parents and pupils and is largely due to a growing uneasiness at the 262 increasing- influence of Christianity in this country, it yet behooves the Missionary Societies to define their attitude towards it. "B. It desires to affirm its own position as follows: — "(1) Christian Missionaries have founded Schools and Colleges with the object of extending a knowledge of the Gospel of Christ, and of im- parting an education which, based on Christian conception of life, will foster the growth of Christian character, and they have been encouraged in the maintenance of institutions, whose object was known to be this, by the Government and people of India for more than 60 years. They are not prepared to withdraw from this policy and to devote themselves to the promotion of a purely secular education. "(2) They regard the regular and direct teaching of the Bible as the main though by no means the only way of fulfilling their object, and therefore while they have no desire to offend the conscience of anyone and while they will always be glad to give consideration to particular cases of genuine grievance they are not willing as a general principle to make attendance at the daily scripture period optional even in the so-called single school areas. "(3) They consider that in the event of a Conscience Clause being introduced into the Educational Code, Missionary Societies should close down (except in very special cases) such Schools and Colleges as cannot be carried on without Government Grants, but that in view of the place which is now held by Missionary Institutions in the Education system of the country, it would be just to Government and the public not to close down any Colleges or High Schools till two years from the date on which the Conscience Clause comes into effect." The National Missionary Council at its fourth meeting at Coonoor, November 9 to 13, 1917, adopted the following resolutions : "Resolved: — "1. That this Council expresses its conviction of the soundness of the principle on which the educational policy of the Government in India is based, viz. of giving impartial aid to all institutions which contribute efficiently to general education, without reference to the religious instruc- tion given, and deprecates any departure from that principle in the widest interests of the public. "2. That all education given by missions or missionaries must be radically Christian, centering in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and including instruction in the Bible as the greatest of books for the teaching of truth and the building of character, and at the same time as necessary to the understanding of the history and literature of Chris- tian peoples. "3. That Christian educational institutions exist to provide such education for all who are willing to receive it and claim a definite sphere in which to exercise this function, and it is unreasonable to require Christian missionaries to participate in giving any education which is not fundamentally Christian. "4. That inasmuch as missionaries have always taught as a Christian principle the duty of loyalty to conscience, they rejoice at every mani- festation of such loyalty and desire to show the utmost regard for the conscientious convictions of others. "5. That wherever there is a sufficient demand for other than Chris- tian education, the Council holds it is the duty of private or public bodies 263 to provide it. In all save single-school areas such education is available, and all that can be rightly demanded by those who object to Christian teaching is already provided. In single-school areas where local con- ditions warrant it relief may be found by the provision of alternative schools. But where either the total number of pupils or the number of conscientious objectors is too small to render this course feasible, the wishes of parents for the exemption of their children from the Scripture period, when expressed in writing, should be given effect to by the school authorities. "6. That in regard to Missionary Colleges, this Council holds that no College can be said to occupy a position analogous to that of a school in a single-school area, and that it remains for Principals of Missionary Colleges to make it abundantly clear that religious instruction is part of the regular curriculum, and recommends that this be stated on all forms of admission which have to be filled in by intending students; and further that at the commencement of each academic year the offer of a free transfer be given to any student desiring to leave on conscientious grounds." These resolutions were ratified by the India Council of our American Presbyterian Missions at its meeting in Decern.- ber, 1917, with the following changes: In the second reso- lution after the word ''Bible" insert "as God's revealed mes- sage of salvation and of eternal fellowship and service with Him. We also regard the Bible, etc." In the fourth resolution before the word "conscientious" insert "genuine." In the third resolution for the word "relief" substitute "other than Christian education" and for the words "given effect to" sub- stitute "dealt with sympathetically." In the sixth resolution after "Missionary Colleges," in the first line, insert "and technical schools" ; for "College" in the second line substitute "such institutions"; and for "Missionary Colleges" in the third and fourth lines substitute "such missionary institu- tions." On our visit to India we discussed this question wherever we went, especially with the Scotch Presbyterian missionaries in their three great colleges in Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, with Indian Christian educationalists like Dr. Banerjea, vice principal of the Hindu College in Calcutta, with the head- masters of our remarkable group of Mission High Schools in the Punjab, with other missionary and Indian teachers and laymen and with the three Missions at their annual meetings. While some held the contrary view, we were glad to find the large majority with whom we talked unequivocally in favor of the maintenance by Mission schools and colleges of their full freedom of religious teaching and influence. The India Council at its seventh annual meeting of December, 1920, had adopted the following resolution: "It is the con- viction of this Council that Missions would not be justified 264 in carrying on educational work in India if deprived of the right to give Biblical and Christian teaching. While in the single-school areas special regulations should be made to meet the conscientious convictions of patrons, who can send their children to no other school, the Council holds that the right to require attendance at Bible classes and chapel exer- cises in all other areas cannot be surrendered." Each of the three Missions at their meetings which we attended took this position. The North India Mission ratified the action of the Representative Council of Missions quoted above which the Mission had already adopted at its meeting in October, 1917, and appointed a committee consisting of Dr. Janvier and Mr. Mitchel to draw up and present to Government the Mission position as expressed in this action. The Punjab Mission on the recommendation of its Boys' Schools Committee of which the Indian headmasters of the high schools and Prof. Siraj- ud-din of the Forman Christian College were members adopted the following resolution: "Resolved that, in the event of the introduction of the 'Conscience Clause,' we recommend that the High Schools announce in their prospectuses that those who are permitted by their parents and guardians to attend the regular Bible period shall be enrolled as pupils if they be otherwise qualified. In case this procedure is dis- allowed by the Government, we recommend that Government grants-in-aid be no longer received." The Western India Mission adopted as its action the resolution of the India Council of December, 1920. It may be well to summarize the arguments which were advanced in support of this view in the different Mission meetings. 1. We have a right and a duty to determine what should be the content, especially the moral and religious con- tent of the education of the students for whom we are re- sponsible and who bear the name and stamp of our institu- tions with them into life. They will be known always as they are now known as Forman Christian College or Mainpuri High School men, etc., and it is our legitimate responsibility to seek to fashion them into the kind of men who should bear our name. 2. The men who built up these colleges and who alone can maintain them are men who believe in religion as the deepest thing in life, who did not come to India to give a non-religious education, but who have come in the past and will come in the future only because of their belief in a full education, including the open and earnest avowal and teaching of their religion. 3. We object to the term "compulsory Bible study." No one has to attend our colleges or schools. For 265 those who voluntarily come, the Bible is a regular part of the curriculum and is known in advance to be so. Parents or students who do not desire such instruction or who are not willing to receive it for their children or for themselves are at entire liberty to use other institutions. 4. The Government grant-in-aid did not create our schools and it does not con- stitute them state institutions. It is not given to schools with any reference to religious considerations, but solely be- cause of the educational contribution made by the school and its fulfillment of Government educational requirement. The schools are aiding the Government rather than the Govern- ment the schools. We are relieving the Government of a great burden which it would otherwise have to bear, on the simple condition that we shall not be interfered with in our religious work and shall receive any grant we may earn. On this under- standing and assumption many of the Mission institutions were built up, and, as the Scotch missionaries in Madras repre- sented to the Government, this assumption and understanding cannot now be lightly disregarded. 5. The idea that by accepting a conscience clause we should be making Bible study and religious instruction voluntary is without foundation, (a) The voluntariness will not be on the part of the students but on the part of the guardians. A conscience clause would not provide accordingly, as some argue, a body of students who would be taking Bible study of their own accord, (b) By making Bible study attendance voluntary we should actu- ally, in the present conditions, be making it compulsory for the student to stay away. A very large proportion of the students are glad to come, but under a conscience clause re- quiring the parents or guardians to give written consent, the pressure of caste or of organizations like the Arya Samaj or the intimidation of various forms of influence, now especially in evidence in India, would inevitably compel many people, who send their children to Mission schools because they want them to be under the full influence of these schools, to require their non-attendance at chapel and religious teaching. Re- quired religious teaching, instead of coercing the conscience, is the only method by which many Indian parents and children are allowed their freedom. 6. Unrequired religious teaching places false ideals before students and gives them wrong con- ceptions. By it we say to them, in effect, "It is for secular teaching we are here, and we are quite satisfied if you will come and pay your fees and take the secular instruction. We require you, whatever your conscience may be with regard to animal life, to study biology, and you must take physics and 266 astronomy, no matter how they collide with Hindu cosmology, but we are willing to waive our teaching of religion, though we believe that this is the very foundation of all things and though we have always told you that we held that the most important thing of all in education and life is what we be- lieve about the basis of duty and ideals of character and the power of righteousness." 7. Why is it wrong to require men to study one kind of truth, and right to require them to study another kind? If it is immoral to insist that a boy who comes to our schools should study for himself what we believe as to the very highest ranges of truth, is it not still more im- moral to try to make him study anything else? There are many who speak of required teaching as though it were synonymous with the required acceptance of teaching. It would be un-Christian, as it is impossible, to compel the stu- dent to believe. This is true in mathematics and science as well as in ethics and religion. But it is both Christian and necessary to require students to study truth and the founda- tions of truth and to make up their minds with regard to it for themselves. 8. The argument that voluntary Bible teach- ing would be more effective and persuasive than required teaching is simply a confession on the part of the teacher. If voluntary attendance is essential to efficiency it is not less so in other subjects. That Bible teaching has not been as well done as it ought to have been is undeniable, and it is not probable that with some teachers, for a little while, the attempt to make voluntary classes a success would spur them to an effort which they had not made before, but with such teachers, such a motive would operate only temporarily, and they would soon be as inefficient in their duty under one set of conditions as they had already been under another. Better Bible teaching should be secured in our schools by a con- science clause of a different and very much older type applied to teachers. 9. The plan of voluntary Bible study is disastrous from the viewpoint of discipline. We divide the student body into two contending camps, the Bible men and the anti-Bible men, each inevitably working against the other. More than that, we encourage lads to do what surely any one can see is mean and dishonorable, namely, to accept all the benefits of our institutions and then to refuse to submit to the very thing for the sake of which they know that our institutions exist. 10. "Without judging those who take the opposite view," says the Principal of one of the Mission Colleges, "or at least assuming that they have not realized the situation fully, I dare to say that the proposed voluntary Bible scheme 267 is dishonorable. It has frequently been said by those who favor the scheme that teaching the Bible is not the only way to present Christ to the students. It can be done in the course of the teaching of other subjects and by personal work in the dormitory or on the campus. In other words, you will save your grant-in-aid by promising not to teach the Bible to those who do not wish it, but you will accomplish the same purpose by indirect means. You will hoodwink the Government and the parents." It seems to be increasingly clear that it is not the Bible to which objection is felt. It is the Bible as a sign of the purpose of our Mission schools. What is objected to is the converting or evangelizing influence. It is this from which the school must desist, in spirit as well as in form, if it is to comply with the conscience clause and satisfy the demands of those who are contending, in reality, not that Hindu, Mohammedan and Christian schools receiving Government aid must be neutral, but that Christian schools receiving such aid must be neutral. And if, as some argue, such schools can exert a more powerful Christian influence by voluntary religious instruction than by required then a fortiori, it is obligatory to desist from such influence. 11. Least of all ought a conscience clause to be accepted under pres- sure of the loss of Government grants-in-aid. To give up required religious teaching for the sake of government finan- cial help would be to bring the Missions into contempt. If religious teaching should, in principle, be voluntary, it ought to be made so at whatever cost, but to have accepted Govern- ment grant-in-aid for forty years with required religious teaching and only to discover now that this is a wrong prin- ciple when it is proposed that the conscience clause must be accepted as the price of continued grants, is to expose our Missions in India not to suspicion only but to open charges of the most lamentable character. This is one of the reasons that many of the ablest Indian Christian laymen with whom we have talked have urged against any surrender by the Mis- sions of their historic position. These men believe that the present issue is a test and is intended to be a test of the in- tegrity, the independence, and the essential rights of the Christian community in India. They foresee very difficult times ahead, and they realize that the only safe, as well as the only right, course for the Indian Church is to stand solidly on the principle of religious liberty and the untrammelled freedom of Christianity, and they think that if the Missions and the Church wobble on the present matter they will find themselves driven into positions of hopeless weakness and 268 subservience. 12. Lastly it is urged that Christian Missions have a conscience also, and that the freedom of that conscience to determine the processes and limits of its action cannot be surrendered to Government either for something or for nothing. I have stated the case as it appeared to our own Missions and missionaries. I am glad to add to this statement the careful deliverance of the Educational Board of the Bombay Representative Council of Missions signed by the chairman of the Board, the Bishop of Bombay, and by its secretary, the Rev. John MacLean: "Statement on the Pri7iciples of Missionary Educational Work 1. There are circumstances at the present time which seem to call for a statement concerning the conceptions which mis- sionaries entertain about educational work and their reasons for engaging in it. The following statement has been pre- pared by the Educational Board of the Bombay Representative Council of Missions and it is issued on its responsibility only. That Board has not had an opportunity to consult officially the directing or governing bodies of the missions either in India or in Great Britain and America, and consequently none of those bodies are officially committed to this statement. However, the Educational Board has reason to believe that the opinions expressed in the following statement would be endorsed by a large number of the Missionaries and Missions working in West India. Retrosvect 2. It is common knowledge that at different periods in the last hundred years Christian Missionaries have been pioneers in higher education, in the education of girls, in industrial education and in the education of the dwellers in villages. Many of the educational institutions in India owe their exist- ence to Missionary Societies: and in these institutions mis- sionaries have liberally spent time and labor. Since 1854 it has been the settled policy of Government to regard these efforts of missionaries, and similar efforts of other private persons and societies, as valuable contributions towards the solution of the stupendous problem of Indian education, and to avail itself freely and gratefully of their assistance. In accordance with this policy Government has given aid im- partially to all institutions which maintain a satisfactory standard in general education, without any reference to or interference with the religious education given in those in- stitutions. 269 New Conditions 3. The elected representatives of the people under the new system of Government may see fit to depart from this policy. Though missionary societies have devoted many of their best workers and large sums of money to education under the be- lief that Government is committed to this policy, we desire to make it known that we do not question the right of the elected representatives of the people to alter the conditions under which grants-in-aid are given. As, however, these conditions might be altered in such a way as to make it very difficult for missionaries to continue their educational work, it is im- portant that it should be clearly understood why they engage in educational work at all. Education Must he Religious 4. Missionaries believe that, though the branches of study commonly called secular are necessary to the emancipation of the people and to the amelioration of their lot, yet education is incomplete which is not addressed to the whole man, and must fail of its purpose unless it touches the heart and purifies the conscience. Missionaries are thus firm believers in re- ligious education: that is to say, education conducted by re- ligious persons for the purpose of implanting religious prin- ciple in the souls of the pupils, as the one ruling principle of all life and of all knowledge. This being the general ideal, neither our own convictions, nor our estimate of the signifi- cance of Christianity for the world, permits us to give any religious education but one founded on the Christian religion. 5. Thus, if missionaries engage in education at all, it is to offer to all who will receive it full Christian religious edu- cation. For such education, there has been, and, we believe, will continue to be, a demand in this country. On the one hand, it is essential to the growing community of Indian Chris- tians that they should have such an education available for their children. On the other hand, many non-Christians have in the past been, and many in the present are, desirous that their children also should receive such an education. In regard to those mission schools and colleges which edu- cate only these two classes of pupils. Christians and such non- Christians as desire a Christian religious education, no ques- tion of conscience can arise either for pupils or for teachers or for Government. Grants-in-aid can and will be rightly re- ceived and gladly paid, unless indeed Government decides to set up a universal system of secular education. But we cannot believe that a Government of Indians will ever set up such a system; and it is plain that no Government in this country 270 can accept the responsibility for the religious education of the people. Consequently, we anticipate the continuance of the present system, under which voluntary religious agencies of all creeds provide schools and colleges and Government recog- nizes their contribution to the national educational system by paying to them grants-in-aid in respect of the secular edu- cation which they give. The Crux of the Situation 6. The difficulties which have lately been exercising men's minds, have nothing to do with the existence of missionary schools and colleges whose pupils are either Christians or such non-Christians as desire the Christian education offered to them. The crux of the situation lies in the emergence of a third class of pupils, viz., non-Christian pupils who in vari- ous degrees do not desire to receive a full Christian education and yet desire admission to missionary schools and col- leges. Here it is claimed that a question of conscience arises for the parents and pupils; and, we must add, another ques- tion of conscience arises for the staffs. Conscience 7. We have always taught that consciences should be re- spected: and in this matter we both desire to respect the consciences of others and claim that our own should be respected. ^ ^j <^ 8. In regard to the consciences of the pupils our position is that we do not wish anyone to come to our schools or col- leges whose conscience will be injured by any instruction which he or she will be given there. It is not for such pupils that we maintain our educational work. We would rather that they should go to other institutions. If the numbers of students who find themselves today involved in such consci- entious difficulties should prove to be large, we should regret it, but we should still maintain the position which has just been stated; we do not wish to admit them to our schools and colleges. 9. In regard to the consciences of educational missionaries, we have a clear position which we want to be understood. The giving of a Christian education is the aim to which such mis- sionaries have dedicated their lives. They must be really free to give it if they are to fulfill their vocation. Whether any particular legislative enactment would interfere with this freedom, it will rest with individual missions and missionaries to decide, and until the terms of such enactments are before us, it is impossible to forecast what their decision would be. But this can be said. If any conditions attached to grants-in- 271 aid were such as to prevent educational missionaries from giving a full Christian education with a clear conscience, they would renounce the grants for institutions affected by the conditions. Again if the general result of the proposed conditions were that the education to be given by missionaries would be secular or neutral instead of religious, they could not consent to give such education, for that is not their busi- ness. They may and do differ in regard to the importance which they attach to particular educational methods. But they would not be true to the object with which they them- selves give their lives and their supporters their money, if they spent those lives and that money on any education which is not Christian in motive, in principle and in atmosphere. Single School Areas 10. Though educational missionaries are unwilling to con- vert whole schools or colleges into secular or neutral institu- tions, they have been and are willing to give special treatment to small minorities in certain cases. So long ago as 1917 the National Missionary Council, at its meeting in Coo- noor, considered the case of Single School Areas and agreed to make the following recommendation. Where local con- ditions warrant it, relief should be looked for in the provision of alternative schools for or by those who do not desire the education given in a mission school. But if a mission school is the only school in an area where either the total number of pupils is too small to warrant the existence of two schools, or the total number of conscientious objectors to Christian teaching too small to make up a school by themselves, the authorities of the Mission school should exempt from the Scripture period the children of such parents as express in writing their wish to have their children so exempted. We concur in this recommendation. We agree that in the cases contemplated by the National Council exemptions should be given, and we believe that where the numerical proportion of the exemptions would be small, the giving of exemptions would not destroy the balance and emphasis of the curriculum, nor obscure the ideal of the education offered in our schools. Again there are missions whose educational work is mainly devoted to the education of Christians. Some of these are willing to admit to schools where the majority of pupils are Christian, a certain proportion of non-Christian pupils with- out demanding their attendance at the Scripture classes. Recapitulation 11. To sum up, all educational missionaries agree in be- lieving that they have a definite service to offer to India, a 272 definite contribution to make to her educational system. We ofTer an education based on religion and permeated with the religious spirit. Our contribution is the practical exemplifi- cation of this ideal of education. For us, as Chrstians, religious education can only be Christian education. On those who do not want such education, we have neither the power nor the wish to press it. But neither should they press us to give secular education, which is as alien to the genius of their own people as it is inconsistent with our own convictions." Signed on behalf of the Educational Board of the Bombay Representative Council of Missions. How imminent is the question of a conscience clause? In the Punjab both the Lieutenant Governor and the Minister for Education, a Mohammedan, assured us that the Govern- ment would most certainly not raise the question, and there was no pressure for its consideration outside the Government which threatened to bring it forward at the present time or in the immediate future. In the United Provinces the Provin- cial Legislative Council had passed a resolution requiring a conscience clause as the condition of Government grant-in-aid, but it had not yet been accepted by the Government. In the Bombay Presidency the Minister of Education was known to have declared himself in favor of similar legislation prior to his acceptance of office, but in an interview with representatives of the Educational Board of the Bombay Representative Coun- cil of Missions, he made it clear that he did not desire that anything should be done at present, or in the immediate future, which might result, as the imposition of a conscience clause certainly would, in a falling off in the educational work done in the Province. In his personal opinion any conscience clause legislation if adopted would not be made operative for a period of, say, five years after it had been passed, and he recognized that it would, in any case, be impracticable to legislate so as to eliminate missionary influence from education. The most significant action on the subject was taken while we were in India by the Legislative Council of the Madras Presidency, as indicated in the following report from Madras, dated Novem- ber 16th, which appeared in both the Allahabad Pioneer and the Bombay Times of India, for November 18, 1921 : "Among the resolutions on matters of general public interest brought up for consideration before the Madras Legislative Council today was one which recommended to Government that a new rule be inserted in the educational grant in aid Code, that no grants would be paid to any institution that com- 273 pelled any student to attend any religious classes without the consent of his parents or guardian. "The resolution was moved by Mr. C. V. Venkatamana Iyen- gar, member for the Coimbatore district, who made a long speech in support quoting the opinions of Christian divines, including the Bishop of Madras, that it was quite legitimate on the part of Indians who were not Christians to ask for the insertion of a conscience clause so that they might not be com- pelled to attend religious instruction which they did not believe and which was not consonant with the religion of their parents. "A very large number of the members of the House, most of them Hindus, strongly opposed the insertion of this clause, as it was calculated to affect prejudicially the financial stability of a large number of missionary institutions which had done so much in the past for the spread of education in this country. "Mr. 0. Thanicachellam Chetty, non-Brahman member for the city of Madras, put in a strong protest against the attempt to weaken missionary institutions in this country, to which the non-Brahman masses were so much indebted for their edu- cation. If the missionary institutions to be closed for want of funds by the grant in aid being withdrawn owing to their compelling attendance of Hindu students in their religious classes, it would be a death blow to non-Brahman education. He quoted figures relating to national schools and colleges in which he contented that more Brahman students were admitted than non-Brahmans, and in the missionary institutions there was a large preponderance of non-Brahman candidates. "From this stage the discussion took what several members looked upon as a party turn of Brahman versus non-Brahmans many members speaking against the insertion of a conscience clause and paying glowing tributes of praise to missionary education. The backward and depressed classes were im- mensely indebted to the missionaries for their elevation. "The Director of Public Instruction made a clear statement of the position in regard to this conscience clause. The resolu- tion, he said, was not acceptable, as it sought to throw the onus on the management of the schools instead of on the parents, who should move in the matter if they were anxious to with- draw children from the religious classes, secondly, they had not yet explored all the avenues of finding out a means for children to be withdrawn from religious instruction. He quoted from the report of the missionary educational conference re- cently held in England, and pointed out that there were indi- vidual missionaries who were perfectly willing to allow chil- dren to be withdrawn from religious instructions which 274 formed part of their school curriculum. They would not, how- ever, allow this withdrawal to interfere with the general ethical and moral principles of the teaching which underlay all the instructions. The Director did not wish that the argu- ments of finance should be put forward against the argument of conscience, and pointed out that the acceptance of the reso- lution would not of necessity compel preliminary action to be taken in the schools in single schools areas. As regards schools in multiple schools areas the necessity for a conscience clause did not arise. If a school manager in a single school area compelled attendance at religious classes it was the duty of Government to open another institution in that area or grant scholarships for students to pursue their education else- where. "The mover of the resolution, in replying to the criticisms, said that his object was to provoke a discussion on the sub- ject, and he was satisfied that the discussion had been fruit- ful. He would not press the resolution if the House would permit him to do so. "The House declining to permit him to withdraw the resolu- tion was put to the Council and rejected by a large majority, 13 voting for, 64 against and 10 remained neutral." It was believed in India that this action would have a wide influence, and it was hoped that the Government of the United Provinces would not accept and put into effect the resolution of the Council. If it should do so, as it may, then the North India Mission and the Board would have to face the result, and either secure funds from home to take the place of the government grant or cut down the volume of our educational work or perhaps, as I hope would be the case, modify the character of some of it, as we should then be free to do. If, however, acceptance of the conscience clause should be made a condition of the affiliation of the Ewing Christian College with the Allahabad University, or if schools without govern- ment grants are discriminated against, a new and very difficult problem would emerge. 3. THE GENERAL QUESTION OF THE RELATION OF MISSIONS TO GOVERNMENT IN THE MATTER OF EDUCATION The question of a conscience clause as a condition of Gov- ernment grant-in-aid is only one aspect of the much larger question of the relation of missionary education to Govern- ment and to present-day tendencies in governmental control of education. This problem in some of its larger outlines has been very suggestively discussed by Professor Paul Monroe 275 in an article on "Missionary Education and National Policy" in the Inteniatunial Revieiv of Missions in July, 1921, and by Sir Michael Sadler in an article entitled "Educaton for Life and Duty," in the October, 1921, issue of the same review. There are those who fear that, in the interest of national character, governments will exercise an increasing control of education, tending to become so absolute that private educa- tion will be deprived of all its liberty. Against this view it may be argued, (1) that the prnciple of nationalism is not likely to be given this unchecked development; that without surrendering what is good in that principle, the minds of men are much more likely to require that that principle should be construed in terms of larger freedom and in better co- ordination with the total concept of humanity; (2) that even if the agitation for centralized and politically controlled edu- cation should increase, it will still meet with sufficient resist- ance in the ground of principle and, for a long time and until the world disarms, will be so hampered for funds that free education is not in danger of any immediate extinction and that the most tightly administered and bureaucratic govern- ments, like Japan, instead of moving in the direction of a curtailment of private initiative and freedom in education are providing a great expansion for it; and (3) that even if the worst expectations of those who anticipate national educa- tional uniformity are realized, the Christian Church will still find a way to do its work and will ultimately reopen human liberty. In any case, it will not surrender any of its freedom essential to the discharge of its duty, in return for financial aid or any governmental privilege. As Sir Michael Sadler says in closing his article, "Where this (i. e., the freedom of the Christian school to teach the Christian way) is made impossible by the Government, the Christian school has no choice. It must refuse to accept the conditions imposed by the Government. . . . Only those whose knowledge of educa- tional history is imperfect will expect such restrictive methods of educational governance to succeed for long." But suppose it is not merely a question of surrender of Gov- ernment privileges or of submission to hampering but un- avoidable conditions. So long as the problem moves in this sphere it is simple. Missions must retain their full freedom to give such instruction and to exert such influence as they feel to be their duty. But suppose it is a question of life and death, of the bare existence of the schools, of their pro- hibition by Government if they refuse to accept Governmental conditions. And it seemed likely for a time in Korea that this 276 would become the actual situation there, namely, that the Church would have to give up its schools entirely and send all its children to public schools, or, if not this, be allowed to continue its own schools only on condition that all religious worship and instruction should be completely excluded. Hap- pily we do not have to face this question in any country, but we ought to be prepared with our judgment as to the course of action we should take if we were forced to choose between Church schools with religion excluded, but in which, never- theless. Christian children could be protected from anti- Christian influence, and state schools, in which, though they might be called religiously neutral. Christian children would nevertheless be subjected to continuous anti-Christian pres- sure. 4. THE PROBLEM OF OUR MISSION COLLEGES The Sadler Commission recommended a radical reorganiza- tion of the Indian Universities by which each university, in- stead of being a merely examining and degree-conferring body, would become a unitary, teaching, residential institu- tion. This scheme carried with it the reorganization also of the colleges which are affiliated with the existing university. The new type of university would take over the two upper years of the present colleges, would add three years to them, and would provide in one central organization for the entire work of a modern highly developed university. The present colleges would have the option of two alternatives. They could take over the two upper years of high school and retain the two lower years of their present curriculum and become intermediate colleges, in reality preparatory schools to the universities. Or they could become university hostels with readers and supplementary courses, and perhaps with some work recognized as internal to the university. This new scheme has already gone into effect at Lucknow and Dacca. The scheme has been approved for Calcutta, but the financial resources necessary for the change are not available. No steps towards a proposed change have yet been taken in Bom- bay and Madras. In Allahabad the scheme met with earnest resistance when it was pressed by the Government represen- tatives in the University Senate. By no one was it resisted more vigorously than by Dr. Janvier. The project has been carried through, however, and the Ewing Christian College is now in process of readjustment to meet the new conditions. It is proposed that on the present Jumna compound the col- lege will go on as an intermediate college and that it will at the same time in its buildings just across the road develop, 277 as fully as may be possible, a department internal to the University. It remains to be seen how this plan can be worked out under the new conditions, and whether the College will have the resources in staff and money necessary to meet its very difficult problems. As the only Christian College in Allahabad and the only center of Christian influence and teaching in higher educational work, the Mission and the College directors feel that they must do everything in their power to hold this ground in the name and interest of the Christian Church. At Lahore a somewhat similar change is under way, although there is strong divergence of view in the University Senate between some of the Government repre- sentatives, who are pressing for the unitary University, and a large group led by the Forman Christian College, which is standing for the preservation of the values of the present system. And the Forman College has long possessed a position of great influence and power in the University of the Punjab, If the new university organization is introduced into Lahore, the Forman Christian College will no doubt seek to meet the situation in very much the same way that the Ewing Christian College has done in Allahabad. This reduction of Christian Colleges of university grade to the status of intermediate colleges is defended by some on the ground that it will enable Missions to concentrate their work on students in their most impressionable years, the years during which, if at all, they are likely to be won to Christian faith and character. There are others who are not satisfied with this view and who believe that it will be a great loss to the Church if all work of university grade passes into the hands of the State. They point to the struggle of the Missions and Churches in Japan at the present time to de- velop institutions of university grade and to the existence in India of great Hindu and Mohammedan universities with charters from the Government of India, and they argue fur- ther from the experience of the Missions in Japan that if such a Christian University is not established now while conditions are plastic and by the Missions acting unitedly, it will be far more difficult later to accomplish anything either unitedly or otherwise. We discussed this question both in the United Provinces and in the Punjab where alone at the present time there appears to be any great interest in the matter, and while we were in Lahore we attended a con- ference of representatives of the Missions and Mission Col- leges in the Punjab and of the University of the Punjab in which the question of a Christian University for India, or, 278 if not for the whole of India, for the Punjab alone, was dis- cussed. The whole scheme deserves, and I hope may receive, the most careful consideration upon the field. I shall be glad to submit to the Board, if desired, reports of conferences upon the subject, especially of the conference in Lahore, and copies of a statement issued by Dr. Dudgeon of the Ewing Christian College in behalf of the plan for such a university and of a number of letters received by him from leaders of the Church in various parts of India in reply. We suggested to the con- ference in Lahore that the Boards at home would wish very full information on the following points: 1. Are all the agen- cies on the field agreed and will they unite in a Christian University? 2. What is the scheme of the proposed Univer- sity as to its organization, relationships, scope, character, support, etc.? 3. Will it absorb or be an addition to the present Christian Colleges? 4. Is the University now pro- posed in the Punjab to be for the Punjab alone and the Uni- versity proposed in Allahabad to be for the United Provinces alone, or is it to be for all India? If the former, how many universities will be called for for the whole of India? If the latter, is it feasible? Will a single Christian University be accepted by the whole of India? If so, why is Serampore, which already has a university charter and prospectus, im- practicable? 5. Can a satisfactory Christian staff be secured for one or more universities? 6. Can the full Christian character of the University be maintained? 7. Is there an adequate available Christian student body? 8. A careful and complete, conservative and yet adequate, estimate of expense, indicating what field resources are available, whether from contributions in India or from the sale of existing college properties. The two Women's Christian Colleges in which our Board is interested are going forward in a happy and encouraging way. In the Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow the Wo- men's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church has welcomed our co-operation most cordially. The College is related in a most interesting and for the present most satisfactory way to the Lucknow University. Accord- ing to the ruling of the Calcutta University, which Lucknow has accepted, a woman's college is not asked to separate its B.A. classes from its intermediate college, and as Isabella Thoburn College is the only woman's college in the University and as the University's committee on women's work has voted strongly against any plan of co-education in the Univer- sity, although it has left the opportunity of attending Univer- 279 sity classes open to women students, the result is that the College is practically the women's department of the Univer- sity. Miss Nichols, the Principal of the College, writes: "While the tuitional arrangements of the B.A. classes are in the hands of the University, our students live and work as last year. This is due to the fact that our professors teaching the B.A. subjects are elected as readers of the university. Consequently, our B.A. class work proceeds in its usual way under our American and Indian professors, with the addition, however, of courses of lectures at the University which are open to all. "For the vague future, there is talk of a Woman's Depart- ment of the University, and land has been reserved across the river for such a department. But the Hindu and Moham- medan members of the Committee declared that there was no need of thinking about such a department, until a demand should come from their communities. The struggles that our seven Hindu and Mohammedan girls are having to secure a college education indicates how backward is the feeling for women's education in the United Provinces. Evidently we can settle down to many years of teaching the B.A. classes. In our new property investments we are taking this into consideration." We visited the proposed new site of the College, the site we asked for on our visit to Lucknow having been refused. It is inconveniently far away from the present site and the practice schools, but it provides ample room for the certain expansion of the future. The Government offers the property on a ninety-nine years' lease at a very reasonable rental. We advised that a long term should be secured, if possible, and that any provision for the revision of the rental after a term of years should specify if possible a limit to the increase that might be made. In the Kinnaird College, in Lahore, we are co-operating with the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, the Church of England, the United Presbyterian Mission, and the Punjab Indian Christian Conference, a conference of Christians of all denominations in the Punjab which provides the salary of one teacher. This is the only women's college among the people of the Punjab. It has only rented buildings at present, and is in urgent need of a permanent and adequate home. The United Presbyterian Mission joined in the College too late to make it possible to include the College as a Union Christian institution in the joint appeal which has been made 280 in America .for the Union Women's Christian Colleges in the Orient. The Punjab and North India Missions which jointly main- tain the Woodstock School and College, have reluctantly con- cluded, on the recommendation of the Board of directors of Woodstock, to give up the college department. The daughters of missionaries who go to the Woodstock School go home to America for their college course. Indian girls take their college course at Kinnaird or Isabella Thoburn. The Anglo- Indian or Eurasian girls, for whom the Woodstock College was intended, are not taking the college course. They are going to commercial schols instead, and turning into clerical and commercial positions. The problem of the Anglo-Indian community, its status, relationships, and duty is one of the most interesting human problems presented anywhere in the world, and I have re- ferred to it in another section of this report. One other question with regard to the higher education of women is the problem of the medical school. The Missions in India have founded two good schools for this purpose, one at Ludhiana in the Punjab and the other at Vellore in the Madras Presidency. Our Board is contributing to the former, but having no Missions in the Madras Presidency and being committed to the most useful medical school for men in connection with the Miraj Hospital, we have not yet as- sumed any responsibility in Vellore. It would be a great satisfaction to recommend to the Board that we should con- tribute a doctor to Vellore, but having in mind all our other obligations in India which as yet we are so inadequately meet- ing, Dr. Ewing and our deputation are agreed in advising that we defer for the present the assumption of any liability on account of Vellore. Some special problems have arisen in the organization of the Ludhiana School where we ought to be prepared to render any assistance necessary, and there are beside at least four places in our India Missions where addi- tional women doctors are needed. The only medical college for women in India which is of full university grade is the Lady Hardinge Medical College for Women in Delhi, to which the Government of India is con- tributing annually rupees 200,000. Its construction and equip- ment have already cost about rupees 1,600,000. The present number of medical students is eighty-five and of nurses thirty-one. In order to provide facilities for the training of one hundred students and seventy-five nurses and compound- ers, the college proposes to expend rupees 1,400,000 more, 281 of which rupees 900,000 are now in hand. It is to be hoped that this necessary institution can be fully equipped and sup- ported, but the large amount required for this purpose gives added impressiveness to the work done at Ludhiana and Vel- lore with such comparatively small resources but with the richest contribution of love and life. Whatever may have been the status of woman in ancient India in the Vedic and epic periods, there can be no doubt that in the ages succeeding Buddhism adverse influences acted upon her place in Indian society. Contrary to the glori- fication of Buddhism so common in the West, it is interesting to hear thoughtful men in India trace to it some of the gross- est elements in Indian life. In widely different parts of India some of the most intelligent Indians with whom we talked, both Hindus and Christians, laid upon Buddhism a large measure of responsibility for popular idolatry, for the in- feriority and subservience of women, and for the pessimism and moral lassitude of Hinduism. The Code of Manu, dating from the Buddhist period, while not without honorable teach- ings, contains the most objectionable passages with regard to woman and her subjection and dependence. In the later Puranic period a tendency of disintegration and social de- terioration was carried still further and was accentuated by the shattering influence of Mohammedanism in which great glory has always and inevitably hidden deep shame. India never lost all of its ancient respect for woman, but it lost enough to come into the modern world with its womanhood secluded and uneducated. And its greatest incubus today is the ignorance and illiteracy of its women. The head priest of one of the leading Hindu temples in Bombay came only a few months ago to the Christian women in the Women's Uni- versity Settlement to invite them to come to his own home to teach his wife and daughters and not to hesitate to teach them the New Testament. Thousands of highly educated Indian men feel the limitation of the uneducation of their wives. Here as in several other great fields of human need in India Christianity has a work to do and a motive for its doing which gives a unique opportunity and which constitutes a call to Christian women at home which can never be affected by the political turmoil or the discussion of relation- ships between the Missions and the Indian Church. 5. HIGH SCHOOLS There are fourteen high schools in our three India Missions distributed as follows: Punjab Mission, for boys at Lahore, JuUundur, Ludhiana, (two. City School and Christian Boys' 282 Boarding School), Ambala and Dehra Dun. For Girls at Dehra Dun. North India Mission; for boys at Allahabad, Farrukhabad and Mainpuri. For girls at Allahabad. West- ern India Mission ; for boys at Kolhapur and Vengurla. For girls at Kolhapur. General statements regarding these schools were presented in behalf of each Mission to the India Council which I con- dense somewhat. Punjab Mission. About ten years ago the Mission became dissatisfied with the High Schools as they then were, in spite of the excellent work that they had done and began a deter- mined effort to bring the schools into closer conformity with missionary ideals and to introduce better methods and more Christian teachers. The results of this effort soon became apparent. Christian young men in larger numbers had their thoughts turned towards teaching as a profession and as a field of Christian service. A yearly conference was held at Beas for the teachers. Bible courses were carefully worked out and introduced into all the schools. Suitable text-books were selected, and in some instances prepared, to meet the needs of the schools. Teachers were made to feel in a new way that the teaching of the Bible to non-Christian lads called for the best teachers and their best work. A new dignity was given to Bible teaching and the entire work of the schools. Salaries were increased, Provident Funds were made avail- able, and the career of teaching was made more attractive. Years of striking progress inevitably followed such measures. The time is ripe now for some new set of advanced measures and for a further strengthening and enrichment of the char- acter and influence of the school. All these schools carry the lower classes as well as the high school years, and while they are better staffed with trained teachers than in earlier years, yet owing to the increased provision by Government for primary education there are neither so many pupils nor teachers as there were before. The recognition of the worth of the schools is to be found in the report of the government inspectors who cannot be suspected of undue favoritism. The place they have taken in steadying the school boy world in these days of political unrest has been officially recognized both by the Mission and the Government. One headmaster has received a Kaiser-i-Hind medal and another holds the very honorable post of member of the Provincial Council. The work of one principal in connection with the Boy Scouts has been recognized by the Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces. This year decisions have been made regarding 283 the management of the schools which are significant of the changing times and also of the courageous and forward look- ing spirit of the Punjab Mission. It was long the accepted ideal that a fully equipped high school should have an Ameri- can principal and an Indian headmaster. This year in three of the schools Indians have been placed in complete charge with the title of principal, Mr. K. L. Rallia Ram in Lahore, Mr. Jamal-ud-din in Jullundur, and Miss Chatter jee in the Dehra Dun Girls' School. Five years ago 175 Christian boys were studying in the High Schools. Now there are 193. Of the 107 pupils in the Dehra Girls' School there are some Hindu and Mohammedan day pupils, but of the 80 boarders all are Christian girls except two Hindus and three Mohammedans. The enrollment in the boys' schools is as follows: 1921, Pupils, total Pupils, Christian Lahore 720 27 Jullundur 632 18 Ludhiana City 653 14 Ludhiana C. B. B. S 119 110 Ambala 366 5 Dehra Dun 418 12 1906 186 Five years ago the Punjab Mission High Schools were re- ceiving a total monthly grant-in-aid from the Government of rupees 3402. This has now risen to a monthly grant of rupees 5297. This is the amount that would be given up in the event of the enforcement by the Government of a Conscience Clause. It is possible also, of course, that the refusal of the Missions to accept such a clause would involve not only the surrender of a government grant but a falling off of school fees also, through the withdrawal of boys. The Mission schools have no fear, however, on this score. They believe that it is just because of their uncompromising religious character and the type of the influence which they exert on their pupils and the superior quality of their teaching and moral disci- pline that they are able to hold their own now against Mo- hammedan and Hindu opposition and to draw their students in such large measure directly from Hindu and Mohammedan homes. North India Mission. The three High Schools in Allaha- bad, Farrukhabad and Mainpuri this last year lost 90 boys. The two Middle Schools in Allahabad and Jhansi show a de- crease of 44 boys. The Ewing Christian College reports a falling off of 88 students. There are several reasons for 284 this. One reason is the non-cooperation movement of the past few years. Another reason is the increased competition, partly because of the rebuilding on a larger scale and the improve- ment of the Government Schools and partly because of "Na- tional Schools" started by the non-cooperators. There also have been other aided schools opened in several of our centers. Another reason for a smaller attendance is the increased price of everything in comparison with the income of those mostly patronizing such schools. There may also be some religious reasons for the decrease in attendance but it is hard to disassociate it from the racial and political cause. Another economic cause is the greatly increased opportunities for young men in industrial pursuits. There is nothing like the monetary value of manual labor to change the attitude of the people toward it. The results in examinations do not seem to have much affected attendance, for though Mainpuri and Farrukhabad Schools have done well, they have had heavier losses than Allahabad. In Farrukhabad there is the local reason for a decreasing attendance in the new location of the school outside the city. The reduction in attendance is not confined to Mission Schools. The prices paid for teachers in the Anglo- Vernacular Schools is becoming a serious matter. The Government has taken a strong lead in the matter of raising salaries and this compels us either to keep pace or to lose our best teachers except an individual Christian here and there who is willing to take a lower salary for the sake of the greater religious influence he may be able to exert in a Mission School. Recently most increases in grants-in-aid from Government have been ear-marked for increased salaries of teachers. But even so we are still far behind Government standards in the matter of wages. The new plans for regrading College and Secondary Educa- tion will doubtless have an effect on our Anglo- Vernacular Schools. Ever since the Government Middle School examina- tion and certificate was discontinued the Middle Schools have fallen off in importance. With the discontinuing of the High School examination and the possible transfer of all High School work to the Intermediate College the High Schools as now known will either continue under a severe handicap or cease to be. Thus the forces that threaten the finances of our schools are various and powerful. The following table shows the make up of the income of our Anglo-Vernacular Boys' Schools: 285 Mission Govt. Grant Fees Jumna 2700 10800 11142 Katra 1671 1725 1100 Farrukhabad 2740 6752 5600 Jhansi 2643 2220 1500 Mainpuri 4570 7200 5400 Rupees 14324 28710 24742 These figures are taken from the estimates for 1922-1923. The Farrukhabad High School is in an especially difficult position. During the past five years the fee income has fallen off about Rs. 4000. The one High School for girls in the North India Mission is the Mary Wanamaker Girls' High School in Alla- habad. The school experienced a heavy falling oif in attend- ance some years ago and has not recovered fully what was lost. A largely endowed free school has been opened near by which has cut in upon its attendance, and the school has not been able to compete with other girls' schools in Allahabad in sending about conveyances to bring the girls from their homes. By a careful study of its problems, however, and provision for efficient and uninterrupted administration, it is hoped that the school with its beautiful plant may develop high school Christian education for girls as it ought to be developed in such a center and in the one girls' high school of the Mission. Western India Mission. The Esther Patton High School for girls in Kolhapur enrolls 236 girls from the kindergarten through high school. The school is a model of cleanliness and order and the musical training of the girls excelled any- thing that we saw in any other school in India. The school is as a light-house for all the Southern Maratha Country. In former days in northwestern Persia it was customary to divide the villages into light villages and dark villages. A light village was one which contained a graduate of Fiske Seminary, and a dark village was one which held no such illumination. The Esther Patton School is just such a foun- tain of light throughout the Western India Mission. By the brightness of their faces and the fragrance of their influence its graduates can be picked out in any of the communities where they have gone. The two High Schools for boys have their very grave and distinct problems. At Kolhapur, with a new building, the number of pupils is increasing and is now about 100, of whom forty are Christians. The school was started with the patron- age of the Maharajah and with the hope on his part and on 286 the part of the Mission that the sons of his noblemen's fami- lies would be sent to it. There were no specific stipulations, however, as to the obligations on either side, and there has been some uncertainty of mind and plan in the Mission with regard to the enterprise. Our own judgment is that if the school is needed by the Mission, as we believe it is, the Mission should go forward to make it the best possible school that it can, trusting to the merits of the school to draw such patronage as is desirable. In both the Kolhapur and Ven- gurla schools, as well as in the Esther Patton, the great prob- lem is the problem of teachers. Six of the fourteen teachers in the Esther Patton School are Brahmans, as are almost all the teachers in the Boys' High Schools in Kolhapur and Ven- gurla. I shall retutn to this general nuestion of the non- Christian teachers and the Christian influence of all our schools a little later. I would only say here that the schools, which, as it seemed to us, presented special problems which can be taken up in correspondence with the Missions were Ambala, Farrukhabad, and the Boys' High Schools at Kol- hapur and Vengurla. It seemed to us that it would be a great pity to close any one of these schools, and that every effort should be made to provide what is needed to do suc- cessfully the missionary work which only they can do, whether this need is for equipment as in the case of Vengurla, or of repairs and physical improvement, as in the case of Ambala, or in Christian staff as in all these schools, or in other matters of which we spoke with the missionaries in charge. 6. VILLAGE SCHOOLS The general problem of village education in India has been carefully studied and discussed in the report of the commis- sion sent out by the Mission Boards of Great Britain and America two years ago, and Dr. Fleming's little book on "Schools With a Mission in India," deals in a most helpful way and, by the use of concrete illustrations, with the problem both of the village boarding and the village day schools and the training of teachers for such schools. Our three Missions have all given special study to the subject and have made very great even though unequal progress in dealing with it. The minutes of their Mission meetings report the excellent village school policies which they have adopted and are actu- ally carrying out. It must be remembered that the conditions are very unequal in the three Missions. In the Punjab there are large Christian communities. The total baptized commu- nity, outside of the cities, scattered through the villages and the districts is now 34,028. Many of these are in large groups, 287 as in the village of Luliani in the Kasur field, where one-fourth of the population of 4,000 is Christian. Here, accordingly, there are many groups of children adequate to supply local schools. In the United Provinces, on the other hand, where the number of baptized Christians in the districts of our Mis- sion is over 30,000, the Christians are scattered in small groups. In the Fatehgarh field the 7,500 Christians are spread out in 750 villages. In the Kasganj station the 8,000 Christians are distributed in 525 villages. There are not enough children in the Christian community in a single village to maintain a school, and as the Christians are all from one of the lowest out-castes, the children from other castes can- not be persuaded to come to the same school with them, and the out-caste children are not admitted to the government schools. In the Etah field where there are 6,607 Christians, Mr. McGaw estimates that there are 1,455 of school age for whom he has twelve teachers. Each teacher has on the aver- age 130 pupils of school age, but these are scattered in 21 villages, making on the average six to a village, and of these many cannot be spared from field work or the care of the cattle or the pigs. In the Western India Mission again the conditions are different from either of the other Missions. The total number of baptized Christians in the whole Mission is 4,000, or only half as many as are found in a single station in the North such as Kasganj, and of these more than three- fourths are found in the Sangli and Kodoli fields. In these two fields the conditions resemble those in the Punjab, and the problem is one not of finding pupils or getting teachers so much as of providing for the support of the teachers. In the other stations of the Western India Mission, however, especially at Ratnagiri and Vengurla in the Konkan, the day schools are not schools for Christian children, as everywhere? else in our Missions in the main, but are distinctly evangelistic agencies, furnishing almost the only points of contact am certainly the only factors of continuing influence in the com munities. Each of the three Missions is dealing with this vital prob- lem. In the Punjab the Village Education Board of the Mis- sion is handling both the village day schools and the boarding schools for village children as effectively, I believe, as any Mission in India. The number of village schools last year was 65 and this year 76, of which 55 are reported as being thor- ough and efficient schools. There are 1,485 village children under instruction, 466 in the boarding schools, and the re- mainder, or 1,019, in the day schools, an increase of 32 per 288 cent, over the year preceding, 109 of the day pupils are non- Christian boys, and one-eighth of the total number are girls. By the use of inspectors, by the development of school man- agement, by the training of teachers in training courses and institutes, by a Village Teachers' Journal, by the development of community work, by the following up of literate Christians who have left school, and most of all by the work of the re- markable training school for village boys and village teachers which Mr, McKee has developed in Moga and which I have described in the letter on that station, the Punjab Mission is making steady and encouraging progress in dealing with this vital problem of the education of the great mass of low caste village Christians who have been brought into the Church and who must be lifted up lest they drag the Church down. While Moga is the chief of the boarding schools for village children and is the head of the entire organization, the Mission has a careful and comprehensive plan covering the entire field of the Mission and co-ordinating in one efficient system the boarding schools at Ambala for girls, at Hoshiarpur for girls and little boys, at Jagraon and Kasur for boys and girls, and at Moga, Khanna, and Saharanpur for boys. Much remains to be worked out both in organization and in reorganization, but we cannot praise too warmly the way in which the Punjab Mission is dealing with this matter. As has been pointed out, the problem of" the village day school in the North India Mission is peculiar, but the Mission is doing its best to meet the situation by its boarding schools for village children at Etah, in two schools, one for girls and the other for boys, at Mainpuri in a school for boys, and in the Rakha School in Fatehgarh for girls. By the use of itinerant teachers and the contract system, by which teachers were paid in proportion to the number whom they had actually taught to read satisfactorily, and by constant visitation and super- vision on the part of the missionary inspector of village edu- cation, the Mission has done what it could to meet its problems. We rejoice that Miss Lee has decided to return to India, The Mission owes much to her energy and efficiency in dealing with village education. The Mainpuri training school for evan- gelists and teachers is also contributing to the solution of the problem. There is a fine spirit in the school, and the change wrought in the minds and characters of the students by even one year of the school's work was unmistakable. It is to be hoped that, with this school as a center, the village work of the North India Mission may be developed, in spite of its greater difficulties, as the work in the Punjab has been. 289 10 — India and Persia In the Western India Mission Mr. Knapp has been set aside as inspector of mission schools and has been placed in charge of the normal training department of the Sangli Industrial, Agricultural and Training School. There are 3,062 boys and girls enrolled in all the schools of the Mission, 2,009 boys and 752 girls in the primary schools, 106 boys and 19 girls in the high schools, and 125 boys and 51 girls in the upper primary and middle schools. There are 164 teachers altogether, of whom 131 are untrained. The distribution of the pupils by caste is as follows: Christian 1,104, Mahar 774, Mang 286, Mussulman 84, Chamar 66, Brahman 107, other castes 641. The schools of the Mission are all open to village boys and girls, but the two institutions which are dealing most directly with this class are the Agricultural, Industrial and Training School at Sangli and the school for boys and girls at Kodoli which I have described in the letters regarding those stations. We saw no school in India that appealed to us more than the Kodoli School in its cleanliness, its spirit of love, its simplicity, and its effectiveness as an institution for teaching village chil- dren and sending them back to their village homes to live as Christians there. It seemed to us also that the Sangli School was projected with right aims and that with its three de- partments it ought, if carried forward with united and con- tinued administration, to meet the needs of our Western India Mission in the training of village Christian leadership. 7. THEOLOGICAL, AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS We have and, at present, we need only one theological seminary in our three India Missions. Indeed one institution can serve not only our Missions but a number of other Mis- sions also, and our Missions would be glad if the United Pres- byterians, the Scotch Presbyterians, and the Methodist Epis- copal Missions would join them in one adequate union theo- logical school. In the past the seminary has aimed to provide both the higher theological course and the lower course for village evangelists. This latter work the North India Mission is doing for itself at Mainpuri and the Western India Mission is so far away that it must needs meet this need on its own territory and is doing so by its preachers' training school, located heretofore at Panhala, but moved for this year to Kol- hapur. The Punjab Mission has not made any distinct pro- vision for the training of evangelists, and it would seem that Saharanpur Seminary could easily continue to do that work for the Punjab. The great problem of the Seminary is the supply of students. There were sixteen students in the Semi- 290 nary when we visited it of whom six were from the Punjab, nine from the United Provinces from the North India Mis- sion, and one from Ratnagiri from the Western India Mission. Of the nine from the North India Mission eight were from Etah and one from Kasganj. These facts were significant. The men from Etah, representing one-half the seminary, were there because of the influence of Mr. McGaw. What he had done in getting men to Saharanpur a dozen or a score of other missionaries could have done in greater or in lesser meas- ure also, if they had been of the same mind in this matter with Mr. McGaw. The problem of the Seminary is not an easy one. It depends for its solution on the demand and opportunity there may be for its graduates, on the attitude of mind prevailing in the Indian Church with regard to the Christian ministry, on the right settlement of the question of relationships between the Mission and the Church, on the existence of a living, evangelistic momentum in the Indian Christian community, and on the exercise by individual mis- sionaries and individual Christian Indian leaders of their personal influence in leading young men to devote their lives to Christian service and in directing them to the Seminary in Saharanpur. A great deal is rightly said in India with regard to the economic problem of the Indian Church, and the Missions have often been admonished to do more in preparing young men for trades and industrial pursuits and to turn in this direction some of the resources and energy which are being devoted to providing a literary education. Realizing the justness of much that has been said on these points, our Missions have been striving to provide industrial and agricultural training. Such training has been introduced in the schools at Moga, Saharanpur and Khanna in the Punjab. The Agricultural Institute has been established at Naini, just across the Jumna river from the Ewing Christian College at Allahabad. An industrial and trades school has been opened under a man specially equipped for such work at Fatehgarh, and industrial teachers have been introduced in the Etah boys' school which it is hoped also to relate closely to Mr. Slater's work for the improvement of poultry and of the economic condition of the low caste Christians through the poultry industry. In the Western India Mission the Sangli Industrial and Agricultural School is designated to meet this very need. It cannot be said that there is any rush of students to these schools. The low caste boys simply will not come to the trade school at Fatehgarh. Their castes have never been connected with 291 trades. The school is very well managed and unreservedly commended by the Government inspectors, but the only con- dition upon which it could get students would be to aid them financially as it is unable to do. The Saharanpur School also is finding it difficult to get students. In the schools which are caring for village children and which make industrial training incidental, the matter has not been so difficult. We heard of several missions which had attempted industrial schools and had been constrained to give them up. We trust that our Missions will not have to give up the experiments which they are making in this field. The Agricultural Institute at Naini is an institution by itself. We have discussed its problems at length with Mr. Higginbottom and have written specifically with regard to them to the Board. As a result of Mr. Higginbottom's last visit to America and his untiring work there, a number of new men have been added to the staff, a large tract of new land has been acquired, and adequate resources have been secured. It seemed to us that what is needed now is Mr. Higginbottom's continued presence in the Institute and the careful working out in detailed and effective organization of the large useful plans which have been conceived. After visiting Allahabad we saw several of the government agricultural schools and experimental farms, and we realized even more clearly than we did in visiting the Institute the greatness and the difficulty of the task which has been undertaken, and the need of the application to it of steady, unremitting, and efficient organiz- ing skill. 8. THE CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE OF OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK There have been decades of debate over the subject of mis- sionary education with opinions ranging all the way from those who advocate education even without religious instruc- tion or direct evangelistic aim to those who deny the legiti- macy of any form of educational effort at all and hold that missionary work should be restricted absolutely to the simple oral preaching of the Gospel. After having been quiescent for some years this discussion has now become very much alive once more. It is not necessary to spend any time upon it here, however. The policy of our Board and of the General Assembly with regard to missionary education, whether low or high, for Christian or for non-Christian, has been clearly defined and established, and in numerous reports and published statements Dr. Lowrie, Dr. Ellinwood, Dr. Brown and I have set forth the grounds for this policy. We believe in the use of education as a missionary agency, but we believe that use is subject to very clear and definite aims, and we believe that foremost among these is the aim to win students to the acceptance and confession of Christ as their Lord and Saviour and to the dedication of their lives to the work of bringing in His Kingdom. It does not trouble us in the least to have this aim denounced as proselytism. If by proselytizing is meant the effort to persuade Hindus, Mohammedans, Budd- hists and Confucianists and all men to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour and openly to confess and follow and serve Him, then the work of proselyting is exactly the work in which we are engaged, and to forward that work is the main reason for our establishing and maintaining Chris- tian schools of whatsoever grade. Are our schools in India forwarding this aim? I believe that they are, and that this is our warrant for their continu- ance. They are not, indeed, accomplishing all that could be wished. Neither is our evangelistic work, whether in our churches or in our chapels or in bazar preaching or in house visitation. Neither is our medical work nor the circulation of the Bible nor Christian literature, but all these things are making their contribution, and the contribution of the schools is not the least. The Rev. E. M. Wilson of the Western India Mission told me that he had asked the teachers' training class under his charge what missionary agencies had contributed most both in direct results and in building up the church, and that in their answer they were unanimous in putting the village and boarding schools first. Professor Ismail of the Forman Christian College, said that he could not think of a man engaged in Christian work who had not been in a missionary or Christian school. For nearly three months we travelled over India with Dr. Ewing who had been for thirty years Principal of the Forman Christian College. Wher- ever we went, especially in northern India, men would come to see him, to greet him when he arrived and to bid him fare- well when he left, to place themselves and all that they had at his service, to help him and us, as his companions, in any way in their power, because they had been his students. Again ' and again such men as these who have not had courage to confess Christ, but who believe on Him in their hearts, have used their influences to advance the Christian cause. And most of those who have confessed Christ and who are the leaders of the Church in India today are men who were trained and many of them won to Christ in missionary school and college. The school is our most direct and effective approach to 293 the higher classes in India. Indeed the school and the zenana are our only approach. Our preaching reaches the Christian communities and the poorer and lower classes. These classes and the middle element in society furnish the great body of patients in our hospitals. If we give up our schools, we sur- render the most powerful influence which Christianity has exerted upon the men of India. There is a great deal of un- -easiness of mind in the Indian Church and in the Missions to- day over the diminution of our access to the higher castes. Many new interests have arisen to divert attention from them and to lessen the influence exerted upon them by missionaries. If our schools and colleges are surrendered or reduced we shall find this contact with the main forces of India still more curtailed. This is not theory but fact. We closed some years ago our boys' high school in Saharanpur, and we know the result. It is for this reason that we shrink from the thought of our being obliged to give up the high schools in Ambala or Vengurla. We ought to keep all that we have and find the men and money for new work by the increase of our contri- butions at home. We ought not only to keep what we have, but we ought to make it more intensively and more in- tensely Christian and evangelizing, and we have not the least hesitation in saying, more intensely proselytizing than it has ever been. Indian Christians have no question in their minds as to the efficiency and necessity of education as a missionary agency. Of the mas.j of evidence which is available on this point it will suffice to select two of many statements placed in our hands in India. The first is a letter which we received from the Dekkan Christian Educational Society, and the second is an address from the Christian teachers of the Mission High School in Mainpuri. Never shall we forget the evening at Mainpuri in the headmaster's home when he and his wife and his fellow Christian teachers welcomed us with a social simplicity and charm and a warmth and delicacy of Christian feeling which could not be surpassed. "Sir:— "It is unnecessary to say anything as regards the present Indian movements but at the same time it is not unwise to give a general survey of the present Indian politics and the relations we Christians bear towards them. "India is a religious country and to turn the minds of such men towards Christianity is not an easy job. Religion and the ultimate salvation of mankind is deeply rooted in the minds of the uneducated classes. As for the highly educated 294 classes, they do not believe even in their own theories and doc- trines, given to them by their greatest law-giver, Manu. The educated classes, as such, have thoroughly understood the pure motive of Christianity — that of leading men towards Christ. But they do not like to see their own kith and kin converted to Christianity, and as a supplement to this motive, they have started different sects among themselves. The main business of these sects is to maintain the fundamental Chris- tian principles as their own and thus put a full stop to or lay a hindrance in the way of the propagation of the Gospel of Christ. Theosophy, Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, Satya-Shod- hak Samaj and many other such sects have borrowed our Christian doctrines as their foundation and have been trying to compete with Christianity. The leaders of these sects are highly educated people and, of course, we need men of their calibre to convince them of the truths of Christianity. At such a critical time, when our Christian community has to face so many political, religious and social difficulties, we need highly educated Christians to convince the judgment of those who try to contradict Christianity. By preaching the Gospel of Christ in a better way, we should be able to tell them that Christianity alone supersedes all the religions in the world. "When we look to our Kolhapur Mission with this view, all our future happiness and hopes are frustrated. Will not the Mission look to this matter and foster education in this part ? "As for the state of the Christians in this part of the coun- try, the majority of them lead a hand-to-mouth life and it is simply impossible for them to educate their children easily without at least some help. Our hopes are that the young men, on whose shoulders the future of the community depends, should be well-fitted for their work. But if they are left without good education, not only our hopes will be marred but also our community will be in danger. So it is for the sake of the welfare of our Indian Christian community that we need good Christians, advanced in their modern views, ready to face the dangerous problems that are before us, anxious to propagate the Gospel of Christ in a better way, able to answer the questions put to them by the Hindus, and prompt and quick to differentiate Christianity from these supposed good sects. If we do not penetrate into these mat- ters, how would Christianity prosper in India? "Keeping this view in mind, we have started a Society, called 'the Dekkan Christian Educational Society,' to educate 295 young Christians. The main object of this Society, by edu- cating our young men, is to elevate the fatal low condition of the Christian community of Western India. It is not our desire to start new High Schools or Colleges but the Society wants to give scholarships to young boys and girls to prose- cute their higher studies. We have started the work but as you know very well, such societies require a solid sum of money, which the Christian community at large is, unfortu- nately, not in possession of. "In India every community has done something for the edu- cation of its students. The men in general feel the responsi- bility and do their utmost to make their societies successful. The Dekkan Educational Society has produced thousands of graduates, the Maratha Association has brought forth a thou- sand young men with excellent education. Other societies have gone a step further, they have been sending their stu- dents to America, England, Germany and Japan to prosecute higher studies. Contrasting this with our Christian commu- nity in Western India, we see only two graduates. What a tremendous progress. This is all that our Mission has achieved in fifty years' time. Of course, we cannot but extol the work done in the Miraj Medical School. It has done a great service to the Mission by producing a big number of doctors. What is required at the present time is college education, theological training, engineering, etc. We have to face the educational classes of other communities and if we, in this twentieth cen- tury, go to challenge them with our illiterate men, if we go to spread the Gospel of Christ without theological or compara- tive religious training, then the goal of the success of our society will be in grave danger. "Our Society has its own happy prospects in the future. The Society begs you. Sir, kindly to bear our message to America. The message is the yearning of our young men and women after academical pursuits and higher education. We crave your help, Sir, to spread the news all over America. We strongly hope that the Mission as well as our generous sym- pathizers in America will try their best to make our Society a real success by raising a good amount, or otherwise, for the education of the young generation of Western India. "The true translation of our 'Appeal to the Public' with a vernacular copy is enclosed herewith. "We invite you and your friends' generosity in this matter to give a chance to our young men and women. "I remain. Sirs, yours respectfully, "G. K. Khabade, "Hon'y Sec'y The Dekkan Christian Educational Society." 296 "Sir:— "We the Christian teachers of the Mission High School, Mainpuri, accord you a most hearty welcome and take this opportunity of expressing our sense of gratification at having the rare honor and pleasure of having you in our midst. "Your visit to our school and your presence today in our midst will be looked upon by us as a notable event in our life here. "We have looked forward with great pleasure to our meet- ing the chief representative of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in America and we thank you, Sir, for your kind presence here among us. We are grateful to the Board in America for sending you out to this country to see for yourself the Christian activities of her Missions. "The institution in which we have the privilege to serve is, as is well known to you, the outcome of the earliest efforts of your missionary undertaking in this Province. It has been the pioneer of English education in this district and has ex- erted and is still exerting a far reaching influence through the Christian ideals it is endeavoring to set up before its stu- dents in all the departments of its activities. "Through this institution we are enabled to create points of contact with the communal life of the city here for the spreading of Christian influences. The* task before us is fraught with tremendous difficulties as we are only a drop in the ocean, a handful in the midst of a large non-Christian community. Occasions often arise when we have to struggle against forces which run counter to our cause and give rise to feelings of discouragement. But, Sir, the faith that is in us of the ultimate victory of the ideals we are out here to set forth buoys us up with hope and enables us to carry on our work with patience and fortitude. "We beg to be pardoned. Sir, if we take the liberty of expressing in a few words our judgment, so far as we have been able to form it, from personal experience and considera- tion, with regard to the educational work of the Mission as an agency for the evangelization of this land of ours. "Our country, as you are well aware, Sir, is now in the throes of a great political, social and, if we may say so, religious upheaval, and as education is the foundation of all activities in a state, we feel that as Christian teachers we have an important part to play in equipping the younger generation for the right kind of citizenship. "The Mission is at present faced with a tremendous prob- lem with regard to her policy in her educational work. We 297 as the children of the soil and with all our love and loyalty to our motherland, and above all as followers of Him whose name we bear, feel that the cause of education has never been more urgent than now. The contribution towards the cause of education in this country by missionary enterprise has been great. Its philanthropic and benevolent character alone is a glowing testimony to the Name of Him who went about doing good. It has set many a thinking mind to face the issue and ask the vital question, 'What think ye of Christ?' though they have not as yet acknowledged Him as their Lord and Saviour. The very national reawakening so visible in these days has been to a very large measure the by-product of the silent and invisible forces of good which have operated through institutions like this. ''Much of the apparent anti-Christian antagonism is noth- ing but a sullen and tacit admission of the death blows which the power of Christ, operating through institutions like this, has dealt to the superstitious and caste ridden social struc- ture of Hinduism. We have arrived at a critical juncture when in determining the future policy of the Mission in her educational work in this country the wisest Christian states- manship is needed. . . . "The tremendous influence for good which eminent mis- sionary educationalists have exerted and are still exerting has been made possible only through institutions which mission- aries have set up for the education of the children of our countrymen among whom the percentage of literacy, we feel ashamed and humiliated to say, still amounts to the appallingly small figure of 6. It will be another decade before the country can provide adequately for all the education of her children. We shall be losing golden opportunities if at this critical stage we take our hands off such noble work because of any change in the attitude of the Government towards Mission institutions. Our hearts go out, Sir, in deep gratitude to that noble band of pioneer missionaries who have gone before and to those with whom it is our privilege at present to be asso- ciated in Christian service for what they have accomplished and are accomplishing for the uplift of our motherland. "And if we be permitted to dream dreams and see visions we have now before our mind's eye the picture of a rising Indian Christian community with its self-governing and self- supporting churches scattered through the length and breadth of this country — its members occupying positions of trust and responsibility in the public life of the country and having their influence felt in all the spheres of its activities. Our 298 community, Sir, is struggling to rise, and though there are desperate odds against us, we feel confident that a time will come when many of our cherished dreams will be realized by our children if not by us. "We thank you, Sir, and those who are here with you today as our guests and desire you to convey to the Board our fer- vent wishes for the further growth and success of her work and our heartfelt thanks for providing us with opportunities for Christian service." 9. NON-CHRISTIAN TEACHERS I think it will be deemed allowable to quote several para- graphs from a confidential statement prepared for the Boards at home "On the Educational Position in India," by the Edu- cational Board of the Bombay Representative Council of Mis- sions: "All supporters of missionary work must be asking themselves how it will be affected by the great changes which have come over India and by the yet greater changes which seem to be coming. No department of missionary work is likely to be more affected than that of the educational mis- sionaries. . . . The changes which have come about gradu- ally, and produced great results which have not as yet been adequately considered, are the following: (a) A great increase in the number of pupils and stu- dents attending missionary institutions, (b) A great decrease in the proportion which the number of pupils and students attending our institutions bears to the number attending other institutions, (c) A great increase in the number of Christians to educate. We offer a few remarks on each of these points : "(a) Mission Schools and Colleges were among the earliest to be founded, and the numbers attending them being small, a strong Christian influence was felt throughout them, and the Bible was taught by men who .were well able to teach it. While, no doubt, there were numerous exceptions, this was the general character of missionary education in those days. Now, however, it is a common thing to find large schools with very few Christian teachers, the majority of the staff being non-Christian, and the Bible teaching is often done by people who would not be entrusted with the instruc- tion of the same classes in secular subjects, and who have not even any training in Bible teaching. "(b) The number of pupils and students in India has increased with great rapidity, especially that of those attend- 299 ing High Schools and Colleges. The percentage of the popu- lation in India which receives secondary education is almost as high as in England. (Cf. 'International Review of Mis- sions,' Jan., 1921, p. 19). Therefore while the missions are educating far more persons than formerly, they are educat- ing a much smaller proportion of the total number of those who are receiving education in India. "Both the change noted under (a) and that noted under (b) seem to call for a change in the direction of missionary policy, and it is the same change which is suggested by both. The attempt to diffuse influence among great numbers by means of institutions with preponderatingly non-Christian staffs should be abandoned in favor of an attempt to exer- cise more definite and intense influence through institutions which are thoroughly permeated with the Christian spirit." Even in the absence of these changes, however, the obliga- tion upon Missions to staff their institutions with men and women of Christian character. Christian efficiency, and Chris- tian influence is clear. The common arguments for the employ- ment of non-Christian teachers such as that their employ- ment is necessary to reassure the minds of Hindu and Moham- medan parents, that Christian teachers demand more pay than equally efficient or more efficient non-Christian teachers, that Christian teachers are often incapable and dishonest in their work and that they will not go to difficult or remote places, where, nevertheless, non-Christian teachers can be secured, etc., are arguments which either temporize somewhat with the definite evangelizing aim of Mission schools or which recognize the need of developing the Christian community and of developing, in the Christian community, a higher grade and more adequate number of teachers. So far as the village schools are concerned, the Missions are dealing with the situation very successfully. It remains for them to deal with it in the matter of teachers in colleges and high schools, and here probably no wholesale methods will avail. What will be needed is the unceasing effort on the part of missionaries to find and carry forward good teaching material and to work it into efficiency and availability. The Western India Mission discussed at great length the question of the employment of Brahman teachers. In its ver- nacular village schools it is employing seventeen such teachers out of a total teaching force of 139. In its middle schools of ten teachers eight are non-Christian and in its high schools out of fifteen native teachers only one is a Christian. It is obvious 300 that a rule immediately excluding all non-Christian teachers from the middle and high schools would extinguish these six schools. Such a rule applied to the village schools would leave most of the ninety-one schools intact. It would, however, wipe out many of the village schools in the Konkan where the number of Christians is small and where Christian teach- ers from the Dekkan are loath to go. The India Council care- fully considered the Mission's action which was in favor of the closing of all the village schools which are not employing Christian teachers exclusively, by March 31st, 1923, and the Council felt that this action was too radical and that the schools should not be wiped out until further effort had been made to replace the non-Christian teachers with Christians. Certainly one is slow to give up any point of approach what- ever in the most difficult field of the Konkan. Nowhere in India did we find Hinduism more solid and difficult than in the Vengurla field. I have spoken of this in the letter regard- ing that station. So long as the missionaries and any Chris- tian school inspectors can use the schools which the station has established as centers of genuine missionary influence, one is loath to surrender them, insistent as our efforts should be to staff them as soon as possible with Christian men. The high and middle schools present an even greater problem, and the Western India Mission should bend every effort to replace Hindu teachers in these schools, and if there is any help which the two northern Missions can give or that the Western India Mission can obtain from the American Marathi Mission of the Congregationalists or from the Scotch United Free Church Mission it should seek and secure it. This problem certainly cannot be solved by money. That method has been tried in part with the result of setting Mis- sion schools to bidding one against the other and of aggra- vating the evil. Ceaseless personal effort and the wise use of existing agencies of training provided by the Government for teachers of high school grade will alone avail. The present situation as to the number of Christian and non-Christian teachers in our Missions is set forth in the following table. Total Number of Teachers in Our Missions Christian non-Christian Punjab 200 134 North India 147 74 Western India 125 39 (Total 719) 472 247 301 The above teachers are distributed as follows: Anglo- Vernacular Middle and High Schools Vernacular Schools Christian non-Christian Christian non-Christian Punjab 76 104 124 30 North India 57 30 90 44 Western India .... 3 22 122 17 (Total 719) .. 136 156 336 91 We believe that our Missions should study to increase in every way the direct evangelizing power of all our schools. We trust that in the test to which the three Indian Christians, who have been placed at the head of the Rang Mahal and Jullundur High Schools for boys and the Dehra Dun High School for girls, will be put in this matter, they will gloriously succeed. In all our High Schools and in both Forman and Ewing Colleges there should not be, as I believe there is not, any concealment of our definite Christian purpose and desire, and ways should be found to multiply many fold all the legiti- mate influences of persuasion and conviction that can be brought to bear upon each student body and upon every stu- dent one by one. It is a question whether the efficiency of our missionary edu- cation, both as education and as missionary, might not be increased by a very much larger use of women, both Ameri- can and Indian, in the teaching of younger boys. The Mis- sions have found it easier to develop an adequate supply of Christian women teachers than of Christian men, and the use of such teachers with younger boys in the boys' schools both primary, middle and high might call a still larger num- ber of young women into the work of Christian teaching and might very greatly improve the work of our schools. What Miss Morris is doing in the primary department of the boys' school in Ludhiana and what the Indian women are doing in the lower classes in Mr. Jamal-ud-din's school in Jullundur are illustrations of what might be accomplished. We were impressed by an action of the Council of the missionaries of the Methodist Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in India, at its meeting in October, to the effect "that the educational and hostel life of all boys up to about ten years of age be in the hands of women. It is to be decided by the needs of the situation whether this education be in separate hostel arrange- ments." 10. SCHOOLS FOR MISSIONARIES' CHILDREN The needs of the Western India Mission are satisfactorily met by the school at Kodaikanal in the Madura District in 302 South India, on top of the Puhii Hills, 6,800 feet above sea level, although it is a long distance from the Western India territory. Mahableshwar, the regular sanitarium of the Mis- sion, in the ghats in the Bombay Presidency, is much nearer, but this place would not serve nearly so large a missionary constituency, and it cannot compare as a hill station with Kodaikanal. There are now seventy-six children in the school, of whom fifty-nine are Americans, eight Canadians, six British, and three Swedish, distributed over eight school grades, namely through the first two years of the American high school course. More than a hundred children, all but six missionary, were expected the following year. The present plant represents an equipment and land area of nine acres valued at rupees 109,709. Its annual budget is approximately rupees 30,0uo, and it is used by sixteen missions and supported by six missionary bodies, to which it is hoped the American Baptist Missionary Society and the Y. M. C. A. may be added. The plant thus far has been provided by three bodies, the A. B. C. F. M., the Dutch Reformed Board, and our own Board. It is hoped that the other boards will join in contributing approximately rupees 30,000 needed to complete the equip- ment and rs. 100,000 for endowment. The Woodstock School at Landour has been relied upon to meet the needs of the Punjab and North India Missions so far as these have not been met by local arrangements in the differ- ent stations. Some have felt, however, that Woodstock did not provide an education as distinctly American as was desir- able for children who were to be sent home to the United States for their college training and, perhaps, for the last two years of high school. The Missions are now considering with the United Presbyterian Mission the development in connec- tion with the Woodstock School of hostels distinctively for American children, the provision of an adequate stafit of British and American teachers in which the missionary ele- ment shall predominate, and of special instruction for Ameri- can children to enable them to enter the regular classes in the schools at home. Conversations with missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church, led us to think that it would be wise if our Missions would consult with the Methodist Mis- sions as to the possibility of their joining in such an arrange- ment, S. S. Varsova, Arabian Sea, Dec. 30, 1921. 803 7. SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS REGARDING OUR INDIA MISSIONS 1. The India Council and Secretary. We had the oppor- tunity at Shanghai in September and Jhansi in December of meeting with the China and India Councils in their annual meetings and of seeing them at work. Probably these two Councils were organized as early as was possible in the unforced development of our Mission work in China and India. But certainly they were not organized one day too soon. We found them both firmly settled in the confidence of the Mis- sions. There were some missionaries at the first, and there are some still, who are shy of the Councils and of their exer- cise of authority, but I think there are not many of our mis- sionary family who do not see the necessity and the advantage of the Councils and of their officers as agencies of coordination and equalization between the Missions, and of forethought and of comprehension with regard to the work as a whole, its necessities and problems and tendencies. The Councils have acted with wisdom and with restraint and have grown in the respect and confidence of the Missions. They have been for- tunate from the outset in their choice of executives, Dr. Lowrie, Dr. Garritt, and Mr. Patton in China and Dr. Gris- wold and Dr. Ewing in India. There is danger all over the world in our mission work and in all the work of the Church of overloading with overhead committees and agencies. I shall refer to this in the closing chapter of this report, but in these Councils and their executives we are not overload- ing. We are supplying an essential link in the chain between the individual missionary and the Church at home. The supreme unit in the whole enterprise is the individual mis- sionary and his efficiency, but he needs as a safeguard against his isolation, as a support to his judgment, and as a reinforce- ment to his appeals the help which the Council and its officers provide him. The Board is doing wisely in trusting the Coun- cils with increasing funds for use at their discretion, and both the Board and the Missions should encourage the Councils to enter into the discharge of even larger responsibilities with regard to the efficiency of the Mission personnel, the initia- tion and the discontinuance of activities, the expenditures of funds, the determination of policies, the encouragement of wise tendencies both within and without our Missions and resolute resistance to the tendencies which, now and again, 304 arise and which deflect the pathway and dissipate the strength of the missionary enterprise. 2. Mission Property. There are many obvious and urgent needs for property equipment in the India Missions. The Mis- sions and the Council are both subjecting all calls for new property to an increasingly rigid scrutiny, and even of the clearly needed objects they have resolved to present each year a reduced number for the consideration of the Board and the Church. We shall do all that we can to aid the Missions in securing these additional properties. At the same time we cannot dismiss the feeling of anxiety as to the effect upon mission work, in the Missions of all denominations, of the enormous burden of equipment in lands and buildings which they are carrying. Again and again we have seen mission policy given a shape by reason of the existence of property investments which it never would have been given if the Mission had been free to do what was best, independent of property holdings. Missionaries have been assigned to sta- tions to which they would not have been assigned but for the fact that a house was available there, or if they have been sent elsewhere where they ought to be sent, it has been with a twinge of conscience on the part of the Mission because sometimes the unused property represented an injudicious expenditure. There are large church buildings wholly, or almost wholly, unused that were never really needed. It would have been better if simple inexpensive buildings had been sup- plied or if the people had been left to worship under a tree or in a verandah or wherever they could until they were able to provide an appropriate place of worship of their own. The character of the modern missionary enterprise requires an adequate property equipment. Let us pray that this equip- ment may be servant and not master. It represents also untold wealth in the eyes of weak and poor native churches. Let us pray that it may not be an incubus upon their development in self-sacrifice and in self-respecting independence. The same question with regard to the ultimate ownership and disposition of these Mission properties which arose many years ago in Mexico has arisen today in India. One of the communications which we received in India argued for the immediate free transfer to the Indian Church of certain of the large compounds belonging to the Mission. Some Indians who thought such a transfer at the present time was unwise still maintained that the Missions should regard themselves as simply holding these properties in trust for the Indian Church to take over in the future. It was even urged that in the 305 event of political changes in India that would overthrow the Government and that might draw lines of social and economic exclusion against the Christians the mission properties, espe- cially the large compounds, should be turned over to them as their homes and means of subsistence. Recently the Church Missionary Society in order to meet the deficit of 112,000 pounds with which it closed the year 1919-20 and to provide against a recurrent deficit "decided," as a letter of the Society's representatives published while we were in India declared, "to ask its supporters in England to make special efforts to meet the increasing current expenditure and to look to the sale of its properties in various missions to provide for the wiping out of the debt." Its action in effecting some such sales of unneces- sary property in India was severely criticized by some of the Indian Christians on the ground that it was alienating money which really belonged to the Indian Church. It was to explain and justify its course that the letter referred to was published. The letter proceeded, "The Society holds certain properties in trust for the building up of the Christian congregations but no suggestion has ever Ijeen made that these should be sold. It also has other properties which it has bought for the exten- sion of its work, and from among these selections for sale are being made. "Frequently, properties greatly increase in value, when held for a long period; and in some cases the sale has enabled the Society to maintain the work and still secure considerable help for its needs. In other cases, conditions have changed and the property is no longer needed for its original purpose. In some cases, some work must be closed in order to make the necessary sale ; but whether retrenchment in work is effected, or not, the money needed to pay for the work done must be provided . . . "Financial conditions in England make it more and more difficult to provide for large expenditure, and with the growth of Christian Missions, the Missions must themselves provide more of the money needed, and rely less and less on gifts of friends of Missions in England." Our own Board dealt with this issue definitely long ago in connection with the sale of the Zacatecas property in Mexico. It declared that where property had been bought by the native Church in whole or in part and was held by the Board the Board would regard such property or the Native Church's equity therein as a trust, and would recognize that such prop- erty or equity should be turned over to the Church, or, if disposed of, that the proceeds should be used in the Christian 306 cause ill the country. Where, however, the property had been purchased by contributions from America, the Board must regard it as held in trust not for the Church in the particular country in which the money was first spent, but for the whole enterprise which the Board was incorporated to carry on, and the Board would have to determine in each particular case, in the light of all the facts, whether the property or its proceeds should be turned over to the Church in that field or reinvested in the work there, or should be transferred to some other field where the Board's responsibility under its charter was still unfulfilled. I think we should take the same view in India and that the Indian Church should be educated steadily in this view and not be allowed to grow up with the assumption that all the money which our American Church has invested in India is the property of the Indian Church, which the Board, for the time being, is merely holding in trust for it. Such an assumption would work injury to the character of the Indian Church. It needs, on the contrary, every incentive with which it can supply itself, or others can supply it, to develop a character of robust financial self-dependence. At the same time it is to be kept in mind that there is a great deal of mission property in India which was provided neither by the Indian nor by the American Church, but by the Government. Much of this is held under titles which involve its recession to government if not longer used for missionary purposes. Other properties have been secured by the earnings of the schools or hospitals under skillful missionary manage- ment or by the generous gifts of British civilians or non-Chris- tian Indians. On many such properties the presumption would seem to be that an Indian trust is impressed and the time will come when it will have to be decided in the case of each of these properties how this trust can best be fulfilled, whether by the continuance of missionary administration, by transfer to the Indian Church, or in other and more appropriate forms. 3. Santokh Majra. In the station letter from Ambala I spoke of our visit to the Mission agricultural settlement at Santokh Majra about sixty or seventy miles south of Ambala. As stated there Santokh Majra is a tract of two thousand acres leased from the Government until 1930 and sub-let to some fifty or sixty families of Christian farmers. The Mission pays an annual rental of Rs. 2,000 which is covered by the rentals paid by the tenants. The Mission could now buy the property from the Government for Rs. 8,000 cash. We visited the estate with the Mission's committee. One proposition before us was to recommend the establishment of a full Mission sta- 307 tion at Santokh. This we could not do. There are far more advantageous and fruitful centers. It seemed to us, moreover, that the fact that this little Christian community was not cared for by a mission station was an advantage and that the Mission should leave it as an indigenous center, to be visited and helped, of course, but to undertake of itself the evangeliza- tion of the surrounding villages. The second proposition was to buy the property and conduct it under the Mission as per- manent landlord. It seemed to us that it would be better not to follow this course, either, but to encourage the tenants before the expiration of the Mission's lease to prepare to buy their holdings from the Government or, if they are unable to do this, here is a good piece of work for the Indian Church itself to take over and conduct. In any case it did not seem to us a wise plan that the Mission should continue indefinitely as landlord to an agricultural colony. It is most desirable that Indian Christians should be helped to acquire agricultural property on terms that free them from oppression and depend- ence, and it is certainly legitimate for the Mission to do every- thing in its power to facilitate such results, but its undertak- ing in connection with each particular enterprise should involve it in a diminishing and not an increasing measure of responsiblity. 4. Medical Work. Save in the Western India Mission our medical work in India represents a far smaller proportion of the total of the work of the Missions than is the case in Persia. In the Punjab Mission we have only the two women's hospitals at Ambala and Ferozepur and the two general dis- pensaries at Ambala and Lahore and our participating interest in the Medical School for Women at Ludhiana. In the North India Mission we have the general hospital at Farrukhabad and the medical work without hospital equipment of Dr. Douglas Forman in Allahabad and of Dr. Pittman at Jhansi. In the Western India Mission we have the outstanding medical work of the Miraj Hospital and Medical School, the general hospital at Vengurla which influences the whole of the Konkan from Goa to Bombay, the dispensary carried on in connection with the closed hospital buildings in Kolhapur, and the itiner- ating medical work of Dr. Ellis from Islampur. It seemed to us that the Punjab Mission was conducting its two admirable hospitals for women with too narrow a margin in the matter of staff. The Mission ought to have one if not two additional women doctors. There was much discussion in the North India Mission as to whether the hospital at Farrukhabad should be continued as 308 a general hospital or made distinctively a hospital for women. The poor village Christians have not come into the hospital as it was supposed they would, and Dr. Pittman's transfer to Jhansi left Dr. Adelaide Woodard alone. She could not leave the hospital for district work, and though a woman she had the charge of a general hospital for men and women both. Whatever mortal can accomplish. Dr. Woodard can be counted on to do. And the first medical need on the India Council's preferred list of new missionaries is a man doctor to be asso- ciated with her. With such an addition and with Dr. Marian Lockwood, who has been already assigned by the Board, this hospital with its large new plant will be in a good position to carry forward the work which Dr. Woodard has inaugurated. The Medical work at Miraj is perhaps the best known medi- cal mission work in India. It is a wonderful achievement of two remarkable men. Dr. Wanless and Dr. Vail, who with their rich gifts have worked together for twenty-three years in the most beautiful fellowship and cooperation. Their work together is a proof of the possibility of the happy and trust- ful association of men of the highest ability in a common ser- vice absolutely free of all jealousy and petty friction. It is an uplifting experience to visit this great institution and to realize that it has been built up from the beginning during Dr. Wanless's service of thirty years. The Bryn Mawr church which has supported Dr. Wanless from the beginning has rea- son to rejoice at the work which it has made possible. No mission work anywhere was dearer to Mr. John H. Converse than the work at Miraj, and his strong and benignant face looks down from the oil painting on the wall on all who come into the building which bears his name. Last year the out- door patients in the hospital and its out-station dispensaries numbered (excluding duplicate treatments) 22,247, and the number of in-patients 2,709. 5,189 surgical operations were performed. Since the establishment of the hospital in 1892. the total attendance of out patients has been 901,067 and of in-patients 34.804. The entire expense of the hospital with all its work and out-station dispensaries, amounting to nearly rimees 100.000 this past year, is met by the hospital's receipts, with a balance left over to be applied to new buildings and eouipment. The patients, both Indian and foreign, come from all over India, attracted by the fame of the surgical work done in the hospital. Associated with the hospital is a Medical School which had forty-eight students at the time of our visit, of whom forty-four were Christiaus. The teaching force is too small to conduct four classes simultaneously, so a new class is admitted only every second year. Of the in-patients about 309 one-twentieth are Parsis, slightly under one-tenth are Moham- medans, slightly over one-tenth Christians, and the remainder are Hindus. The medical school is not of university grade, but it ranks next to the few university institutions. The doc- tor on the ship which took us up the Persian Gulf had taken some work with Dr. Wanless at Miraj, and his admiration for him and the whole Miraj enterprise was unbounded. So long as Dr. Wanless and Dr. Vail go on with their work the success of the Miraj Hospital and medical work is sure. We need to pray that the younger men who will succeed them will be men of like ability and spirit. The Miraj work is pervaded with a deep and loving evan- gelistic purpose, and the pastor of the Miraj Church is active in work in the hospital, and Christ is first both with the doc- tors and with the nurses, who use their unequalled influence to make Christ known to all those who come suffering and needy to the hospital doors. But in Miraj as everywhere the supreme problem is how to make the work more effectively fruitful in leading men and women to the open acceptance of Christ. That is the problem of our evangelistic and educa- tional work too. Our best hope of solving it is by the method of intensive individual work. No doubt great forces are gath- ering which will some day move as resistless social tides across the life of India, and no doubt all that we are doing in our general preaching and in our quantitative educational and medical work is contributing to swell these forces, but our best method and the most pressing need in every field and in every department of the work is more intensive influence persistently and lovingly exercised by individuals upon indi- viduals. 5. The Punjab and North India Missions are near neigh- bors geographically and their missionaries meet each summer at common hill stations and in occasional educational and mis- sionary conferences. The Western India Mission is far away, and its members and those of the two other Missions seldom meet. It would be well to encourage all possible inter-visita- tion between the three Missions, and in spite of the large expense we think it would be well if the India Council would some time meet within the Western India Mission and allow its members opportunity, before or after the meeting, to visit at least the Dekkan stations. And the conditions in the two Konkan stations are so different and the intrenchments of Brahmanism in the Konkan are so strong that it would be very desirable to have the members of the Council visit and study those stations also. 310 We would suggest to the Missions that they consider the expediency of holding sometime within the next five years a representative conference of the three Missions. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in India provides an opportunity for helpful conference of ordained men, both Indians and Americans, who are in attendance from the five Presbyteries which include the field of our three Missions. No women commissioners attend the General Assembly, how- ever. The conference which we have in mind, accordingly, might best serve its ends if it aims simply to bring the men and women of the three Missions into closer acquaintance. It is not only our Missions in India that would be helped by closer acquaintance and a better understanding of one anoth- er's problems and policies. It seemed to us that the Pres- byterian Church in India would be greatly helped by closer acquaintance with the Churches in Japan, Korea, and China, and with the measures which those Churches have taken, in cooperation with the Missions, to achieve independence and efficiency. If the India Council thinks that it would be a wise thing to do, I believe that the funds could be specially provided for sending a deputation of the most wise and influ- ential leaders of the Church to visit the Churches in Japan, Korea, and China or for bringing to India a deputation from the Church of Christ in Japan and from the churches in Korea and China, with two or three of the most experienced of our missionaries in these fields. Such an undertaking would only be worth while in case the right men could be found to go and would give time enough to their mission to assure its usefulness. 6. We have many schools and colleges and the volume of educational work they are carrying on is very great. But there is one form of educational work which may or may not be done in schools and colleges and which may be done alto- gether without them. It is the use of life to reproduce and multiply itself in the training of others to do of their own will and through their own opportunities, with the pliability and power and genuineness of true life, the thing that they have been taught. Tested in this way our Mission work in India has some glorious results to show. There are Indian men and women who are not imitators or dependents, on the one hand, and who, on the other, do not strike off on inde- pendent roads in the willful way which shows that their inde- pendence is a spurious thing, a striving to be what they actually are not. They are men and women with a true life of their own, knowing the meaning of prayer and of divine 311 guidance, glad of human friendship and help, but dependent only upon God and seeking to do His will as life's whole duty. It is the strength of our mission work that it has produced so many of these men and women. It is its weakness that it has not produced more. And both the Missions and individual missionaries need to study the ways in which they can find and develop free character and spontaneous service in others. First of all it is a matter of individual action, but also we need a great deal more careful attention to the training processes which will fashion the Christian Communities and which will make the Presbyteries really strong and efficient. Both the individual members and the various organizations of the Church in India should be laid and held under living spiritual responsibility that the lives of Christians and the life of the Church may not be perfunctory and dependent, spent on ques- tions of privilege or authority, of money or relationships, but real and living and free. S. S. Constantinople, Mediterranean Sea, May 8, 1922. 312 V. PERSIA PAGE 1. History of Our Persia Missions 315 2. Letters from the Stations 327-356 (1) Basra and Bagdad 327 (2) The Call from Nineveh 331 (3) A Door of Access to the Kurds 334 (4) By the Tomb of Mordecai 337 (5) The Center of Persia's Life and Death 340 (G) The Great Shrine of Persia 344 (7) The Station on the Caspian 347 (8) Tabriz 350 (9) The Station we Could not Visit 353 3. The Need and Destitution of Persia 357-371 4. The Growth of Tolerance and Religious Liberty in Persia . . 372-387 5. Approaches to Persian Mohammedanism 388-402 6. Talks with Mohammedan Converts in Persia 403-425 ^- 7. From Shah Abdul Azim to the Shrine of Iman Reza. .. .426-450 8. Problems of the Work for Moslems 451-460 u^' 9. The Reoccupation of Urumia and our Relations to the Assyrian People and Church 461-484 10. The Educational Work 485-503 11. The Medical Work 504-508 12. The Occupation of the Field 509-531 13. The Call of Mesopotamia 532-544 14. The Relief Work 545-564 15. Some Miscellaneous Points 565-576 313 V. PERSIA 1. HISTORY OF OUR MISSIONS IN PERSIA Modern missionary work was begun in Persia by the Roman Catholic monks in the sixteenth century, among the Armen- ians. The earliest Protestant work was done by the Mora- vians, who came in 1747 to evangelize the fire worshippers, of whom there are now about 5,000 left in Persia, though fire worshipping was once the established religion of the land. In 1811 Henry Martyn passed through Persia and spent eleven months in Shiraz, where he preached Christ boldly. Though in Persia so short a time, and already enfeebled by disease, Martyn completed his translation of the New Testament, and he stamped his influence indelibly on some hearts. "Just as I was leaving Persia," said Ur. Perkins, sixty years ago, "I fell in with a Chaldean bishop about seventy years old, in the district of Salmas, with whom Martyn had stopped as a guest for a week, forty-seven years before. This aged man is the only Persian I have met who personally recollected Martyn. He was charmed with the missionary, pronouncing him the finest Englishman he ever saw ; and his remembrance of him was very vivid so long afterwards. He spoke of him as social, active and inquisitive, writing from morning until night, yet always ready to engage in conversation with all who called — as very temperate, eating (as the bishop figura- tively said) an egg for breakfast, and dining on a chicken wing. When riding out to visit antiquities in the region, he was accustomed to propose a topic for discussion ; for instance, when they mounted their horses one day, Martyn said to the Bishop, 'Let us discuss the question. Was darkness created? you take one side, alid I will take the other, and see what we make of it;' showing Martyn's taste for metaphysics, and his knowledge of the Persian taste and mind. The bishop repre- sented him as small in stature and frail in appearance. There must have been wonderful power, as well as singular fascina- tion, in Martyn to have left so enduring and grateful an impression on that Persian." Dr. Perkins himself was the first American missionary to settle in Persia. In 1829 the American Board had sent Messrs. Smith and Dwight of the Mission in Turkey to explore north- western Persia. Their welcome in Moslem villages was very different from the welcome missionaries receive now that the 315 people know and respect them, and have been made grateful for the medical help and treatment which have done more than anything else to break down Mohammedan prejudice. "It was a Moslem village," writes Mr. Smith, of one of the last stop- ping places as they neared Tabriz, ''at the entrance of a pass in the mountains, which conducts to the Lake of Urumia. A corner of a miserable stable was the first lodging place that offered, and the best that the villagers could be persuaded to give us. Dirty as it was, I was never so glad to reach the best American inn; nor did ever a fire seem more cheerful than the burning cow-dung which was blazing here when we entered. I remember no more, for a stupor, which had been gradually increasing during the morning's ride, now com- pletely overcame me. I sank upon the ground, and remained unconscious of what passed for two days. My companion could not obtain from me an answer to the simplest questions, nor had I the strength to turn in bed, if that name may be given to what was under me. It was a cloak and a carpet laid upon the ground, and made, at length, somewhat softer by the addition of some coarse weeds, procured with difficulty from our Moslem host. The stench of the cattle, which filled our stable at night, polluted the air, and the lowing of the calves disturbed us. No motives my companion could use were sufficient to procure another room, or even to cause the cattle to be removed from this. And such was the dread of ceremonial pollution from Christian contact, that the slight- est conveniences or attentions were denied us, or given with the greatest reluctance. Our food even had to be cooked in our own dishes, by our own servant." Among the Nestorians their reception was quite different. "Hardly had we dis- mounted," wrote Mr. Smith of their reception at Ada, which was repeated elsewhere, "before nearly the whole village crowded around us. They followed us to our room, and filled it almost to suffocation. Pleased as we were to see such an interest excited by our arrival, we feared it would seem to their rulers like a tumultuous rising, and would gladly have persuaded many of them to retire. But our remonstrances were in vain, and the bishop, when urged to exert his author- ity, assured us that the whole was but the overflowing of pure love to us, and we must bear with them. They listened to our conversation until late at night, and were finally persuaded to retire only by our declaring that we were going to bed." When Messrs. Smith and Dwight had examined the situation, they reported advising the establishment of a mission to the Nestorians. Mr. Smith said, "For myself, I felt a stronger 316 desire to settle among them at once as a missionary, than among any people I have seen," and though he pointed out that it would be a lonely position with no Europeans near, and Constantinople eleven hundred miles away by land, and Trebi- zond, on the Black sea, five hundred, and very dangerous, yet he added. "We must not calculate too closely the chances of life," and he was sure that the missionary who should come here would "feel the advantage of his position ; that he has found a prop upon which to rest the lever that will overturn the whole system of Mohammedan delusion, in the center of which he has fixed himself; that he is lighting a fire which will shine out upon the corruptions of the Persian on the one side, and upon the barbarities of the Kurd on the other, until all shall come to be enlightened by its brightness; and the triumph of faith will crown his labor of love." On the basis of this report the RfiY- Justin Perkins, a tutor in Amherst College, with his wife, was sent out in 1833, and in 1835 Dr. and Mrs. Grant joined them in Tabriz, and the party removed to Urumia to reside among the Nestorians. "Our arrival to reside among them," says Dr. Perkins, "was welcomed with the strongest demonstrations of joy by all classes of that people, and with at least a high degree of satisfaction by the Mohammedan population. The Nestorians, in some villages, marched out in masses to meet us, with their rude trumpets and drums, to express their gladness on the occasion, and would not be dissuaded from doing so by our earnest remonstrances." The missionaries were instructed to have as their object in establishing this Mission: "(1) To convince the people that they came among them with no design to take away their religious privileges nor to subject them to any foreign ecclesiastical power: (2) To enable the Nestorian Church, through the grace of God, to exert a commanding influence in the spiritual regeneration of Asia." The Nestorians claim a traditional lineage, running back to St. Thomas. After the death of Christ, it is said Thomas went east to India. He stopped by the Lake of Urumia and con- verted the people there and then walked across the lake, certain islands being pointed out now as his stepping-stones. The way was prepared for him by the Three Wise Men, who when they returned to Persia, supposed to have been their own land, of course spoke of Christ. Other traditions credit the introduction of Christianity to Thaddeus, one of the sev- enty, and St. Mari, his disciple. As Christianity gradually spread eastward from Antioch. the Christians on the borders 317 of Persia began to be known as the "Church of the East." Their national name is "Syrians," After the Council of Ephesus in 431, when Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constanti- nople, was deposed and excommunicated for his heretical opinion regarding the nature of Christ, (namely that He had two distinct personalities) the Church of the East held another meeting where Nestorius was pronounced orthodox. Since then, these Christians have been cut off from western Christianity. They still flourished however, sending mission- aries far into China. The Church reached the height of its prosperity in the eleventh century. When Tartar sovereigns succeeded the Caliphs of Bagdad as rulers of Persia, perse- cution soon laid waste the Church and Tamerlane in the four- teenth century completed the ruin. In the sixteenth century, these eastern Christians were divided by a controversy over the Patriarchate. The section in the plain of Mosul in Turkev went over to the Roman Catholic Church. The rest, about two-thirds in Turkish Kurdistan and one-third in the Persian Province of Azerbaijan remained independent, subject to the Patriarch who resided at Kochannes in the mountains of Turkish Kurdistan. "The theology of the ancient Church of the East," wrote Dr. W. A. Shedd, some years ago when conditions differed a great deal from later years, "is of course, Nicene, with the addition of the Nestorian definition of the relation between the human and Divine natures in the incarnate Son of God. Definite and logical development has not gone much farther, due partly to the character of the Syriac mind, impulsive in initiative and often vigorous in execution, but not construc- tive of either theological or ecclesiastical system. Another reason perhaps the principal one, is that the vital conflict of this church has not been with heresy or variations of Christian doctrine, but with heathenism and Islam. On most theo- logical questions, except the person of Christ, the Trinity, and the authority of apostolic and Old Testament Scriptures, a diversity of opinion is found in their literature. For example, transubstantiation is both affirmed and denied. There is, however, a practical tendency to replace simple faith in the crucified and risen Saviour with some sort of sacerdotal mediatorship. Still stronger is the tendency to trust to legal works instead of living faith. The fast is the greatest Chris- tian institution, votal offerings and pilgrimages to shrines are most important auxiliaries. The priesthood of the clergv in succession to the levitical priesthood is recognized, but he is called 'elder' (Kasha or Kn^hisha), the New Testament 318 presbyter. The sacrament holds a high place in popular regard, and yet the fact that there is no confessional deprives the priest of inquisitorial power. Vows to famous saints are trusted means of curing disease and procuring blessings. Religion is largely divorced from morals, and has little power of moral restraint. The clergy are no better than the common people in general morality, are more given to idleness, and possibly more generally demoralized by begging in Russia. The higher clergy (there being at present the patriarch, one metropolitan, and eight diocesan bishops) are, with a few exceptions, shamelessly venal, and in some instances of notori- ously evil life. Two favorable points may be emphasized. "The authority of the Scriptures has never been impugned, and is a holy tradition of universal acceptance, nor is there any objection raised to the Scriptures in the vernacular. The old dispute of Cyril and Nestorius has been fought over again by every educated Nestorian for fourteen centuries; and the appeal is always to Scriptures as against conciliar authority. The possession of a pure and ancient version is an additional advantage. "The true catholicity of the Nestorians is the second point — that is, if catholicity consists in the recognition of other Chris- tians as members in the visible body of Christ. How far this has been true in the past is a subject for historical research, but certainly Protestant missionaries have been recognized as true ministers administering valid ordinances." ("Mis- sionary Review of the World," October, 1895, Article: "Rela- tion of the Protestant Missionary Effort to the Nestorian Church," p. 741f). Dr. Grant maintained that the Nestorians were the descend- ants of the "lost Ten Tribes," basing his argument on tradi- tions, physiological affinities, customs and institutions. His argument was not conclusive but probably nowhere in the world is there such a preservation of the atmosphere of the Old Testament and of the institutions and customs of Bible life as among this small people whose Christianity runs back to the dawn of the Christian era and who, with the Armenians, for twelve centuries have held their faith against Moslem tyranny and persecution. The missionaries began their work quietly and tactfully. They established village schools and seminaries for training young men and women as preachers and teachers; but they "had not expected to enter their churches as clergymen and formally preach the gospel," said Dr. Perkins, "for we appre- 319 hended that the native ecclesiastics, much as they rejoiced in our more general labors, would be likely to regard them- selves in danger of being undervalued by their people in their clerical capacity, by a comparison with the missionaries, and so take offense at the measure were we to assume the atti- tude of regular preachers in their churches." But in 1840 they began to be urged by the most influential ecclesiastics to go into the churches every Sunday and preach. "The scene was more interesting," said Dr. Perkins, "than can possibly be conceived, as we took our places in those venerable churches, a Nestorian Bishop standing usually on one hand and a priest on the other, and a congregation of both sexes and all ages seated on their mats, on the simple earth floor, crowded shoulder to shoulder, and listening to the words of life as they fell from the speaker's lips, with an eagerness of countenance that would almost loose the tongues of those of our number who had not yet learned the language, and inspire them with the power of utterance. It is always an unspeakable privilege to preach the gospel of salvation, but especially under such circumstances." In these years, 1840-1850, came the first great revivals among the Nestorians, revivals of which Dr. Perkins could say, "They have reminded me more of the revivals associated with the labors of Nettleton. in the days of my youth, than any others I have witnessed." It was in one of these revivals that Deacon Gewergis, the mountain evangelist, was converted. He was a noted thief and robber, of notorious reputation for roil rage and crime. He had brought his two daughters down to Miss Fiske's Seminary, and came over to visit them during a revival. He and his companions bristled with deadly weap- ons, and at first he was angry at the sight of the deep convic- tion of the pupils ; but some words from Miss Fiske went like an arrow to his heart, and a conversion like Paul's wrought a like transformation in his character, and he spent his life going UD and down the Assvrian Mountains, with which the name of Samuel A. Rhea will always be connected, suffering reviling, abuse, and beating, dying at last in a delirium, crying, "Free grace ! free grace ! free grace !" Of one of these revivals in the young men's seminary, Deacon Gewergis wrote to a friend: "Glory to God, there has been such an awakening among the boys as I have never seen — a lamentation, a mourn- ing for sins, that is wonderful. Many of the boys prostrated themselves on the floor to pray; others left the room; and there rose such a sound of weeping in the yard, prayer closets, 320 and elsewhere, as to melt our hearts; and this continued until midnight." As years went on, and the spirit of a warm evangelical Christianity spread through the Nestorian Church, it became increasingly difficult to maintain the integrity of the Old Church. The missionaries had hoped to reform the spirit of the Church without interfering with its organization ; but at length a separation came, and the evangelical element broke off from the Old Church, and formed an evangelical knooshya or synod, with five presbyteries, three in Persia and two in Turkey. The separation was felt to be unavoidable. The Patriarch became hostile, and tried to destroy the evangelical work in the Church. In 1844 his brothers issued this order against the girls of Miss Fiske's seminary: "Be it known to you all, ye readers at Seir, that if ye do not come to us tomor- row, we will excommunicate you from our most holy Church ; your finger nails shall be torn out; we will hunt vou from villJige to village, and kill you if we can." The converts became restless under the abuses and unscriptural practices of the Church which they could not reform. They demanded also better pastoral care and instruction than the dead language in use in the churches and the old rituals allowed. So the disruntion came quietly and naturally, through the converts and the missionaries uniting in the Lord's Supper. In time those interested in the reform met, and, in 1862, held the first conference or knooshya. Though a large section of the Church broke off in this way, it was not the occasion of the cessation of the reform within the Old Church. That has con- ^"inued to this dav. and the missionaries still preach and work in and for the Old Church as well. There are some who disapprove of our American missions to the oriental Christian churches because they have in this way established separate reformed organizations. But they® never did this until forced to it, and until in some cases the evangelical element was practically excommunicated. It may be suggested, however, that there is adequate reason for the organization of these new churches, in the fact that only thus can we hope to commend Christianity to the Mohammedans, who have despised the unreformed churches for their impo- tence, their superstitions, their idolatrous ritualism and prac- tices. As'Sir William Muir says : "It is no wonder that Chris- tianity in the East has made little way, but has remained, all these twelve centuries, passive and helpless under its oppres- sive yoke. And so it will remain under any effort of the II — IinMa and Persia Churches themselves, and not less of those who would work in conjunction with them. In establishing an Eastern propa- ganda, for which the path is now being thrown so marvelously open, it would be a fatal mistake to attempt the work hand in hand with the unreformed Churches. The contempt of cen- turies would attach to it. The attempt, so far as concerns its influence on the Moslem world, is doomed to failure. Far otherwise is it with such eiforts as are now being made by the Churches which distinctively call themselves 'evangelical,' planted in Syria and adjoining lands, and rapidly extending there in numbers and in influence. They come into the field as a young and vigorous force, which at once socially, politi- cally, and spiritually, command from the Mohammedan races surrounding them, inquiry and respect." Besides the direct preaching of the gospel and the medical work, the school and the press cooperated to secure the great results which had been accomplished among the Nestorians. The College sent out scores of young men to lift up their nation; and Fiske Seminary, named after Fidelia Fiske, one of the most remarkable missionaries ever sent out from America, was a fountain of light to Persia and Turkev, send- ing out women who have renovated their villages and churches and homes. The press was established in 1840. Among the first publications was a part of the Bible. "Some of the Ablest of the Nestorian clergy had aided in the translation, and the contents of their rare ancient manuscripts were now given back to them in a language which all could understand. They stood in mute astonishment and rapture to see their language in print; and as soon as they could speak, the exclamation was, *It is time to give glory to God. since printing is begun among our people.' " In thousands of homes there have been light and truth because of these schools and this press. When the missionary first went to the Nestorians. the people, as Dr. Perkins said, "were in a night of deep darkness. Ground down to the dust by their Mohammedan rulers and masters, toward whom, in that relation, they naturallv cher- ished a bitter hostility, as sore oppressors, luxuriating in idle- ness and voluptuousness on the fruits of their own severe and ill-requited service of those hated oppressors. Falsehood, among those nominal Christians, also, was nearly universal. The Sabbath was a day of business, trade, and recreation, and almost every command of the Decalogue was habitually vio- lated with little compunction or even shame. Indeed, in their morals, the Nestorians were nearly on a level with the corrupt 322 Mohammedans around them . . . The Nestorians were very ignorant, as well as immoral, their ignorance doubtless being a fruitful cause of their immorality. Not a female among them could read, except the sister of the patriarch, who being regarded as belonging to a higher order it was deemed befit- ting that she should possess that peerless accomplishment. And but very few of the men could read, — hardly any except their ecclesiastics, — and most of them being merely able to chant their devotions in an ancient and unknown tongue — the Syriac. They had no printed books, and but very few in manuscript." In the ninety years which passed until the World War, a complete change came over the people. Thou- sands were converted to a living faith. Educated priests took the place of ignorant priests. Native doctors were trained in modern medical science. Hundreds of village schools taught by the graduates of the College and Fiske Seminary spread enlightenment through the whole nation. Every home was supplied with books and the Bible in modern Syriac. The people had a secure position before the Moslems, and all the Nestorians, whether Evangelical, Old Church or Romanist, perceived and acknowledged their unmeasured obligation to the "Mission to the Nestorians." From the beginning, the relation of the Missions to the Mohammedans and other peoples of Persia had been kept in view, and in 1869 its name was changed to "The Mission to Persia." In 1871, at the time of the Reunion of the Old and New Schools, the Persia Mission was transferred by the American Board to the Presbyterian Church, with the Syria Mission, and at once plans for enlargement were made. It was felt to be a duty to embrace within their work the Armenians and Moslems of Central Persia. Accordingly Rev. James Bassett, who had reached Urumia in 1871, made an extended tour the followincr year, visiting Tabriz, Hamadan, and Teheran, the result of which was warmly welcomed by both Mussulmans and Armenians. Here was a population of 200,000, most of whom were Moslems; but there were 1,000 Armenians, 5,000 Jews and several hundred Europeans. "We occupy." wrote Mr. Bassett. "the only tenable ground for labor designed to reach either Eastern Persia or the Tartar tribes of Turkestan. The Turkish language spoken here enables a person to pass ouite through Turkestan to the birthplace of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, into Chinese Tartary and far to the northward, while the Persian makes accessible all central and southern Persia, through Khorassan, to Afghanistan, and even large 323 populations of India. Central Asia has in nearly all the past been neglected by the Church of Christ; the result has been that it is the great source whence have proceeded the scourges of mankind; and the Tartar and Iranian hordes have, age after age, as in great tidal waves, quite overflowed Christen- dom, overthrowing its civilization and nearly extinguishing its light." The Rev. J. L. Potter, D.D., soon joined Mr. Bassett, and in 1876 the Evangelical Church of Teheran was organized, of eleven Armenians and one converted Moslem, In 1879 and 1880 great interest was manifested by Mohammedans. "So numerous and prolonged were the calls upon the missionary," says Dr. Potter, "that it was sometimes difficult for him to find time for his meals." The Persian Government was alarmed and notified the missionaries through the British minister that they would not be allowed to remain if they continued such work. In consequence, the Mission discon- tinued meetings for Moslems, but they soon began to come to the public services of the Mission, so that these services in the Mission chapel had to be discontinued until 1882, when the Shah so far relented as to consent practically to the attend- ance of Moslems at the chapel, while he warned them acrainst apostasy. At the Friday meetings groups of white-turbaned Mohammedan priests were often seen, and they came to the missionaries for personal conversation. Teheran is so large a city that men are under less surveillance than in the villages, and are less cautious about manifesting interest in Chris- tianity. The Government has grown much more friendly as years have passed. At times the majority of boys in the Teheran Boys' School are Moslems, many of them sons of officials; and in 1890, the Shah himself visited the Mission premises, .and so gave a sort of imperial sanction to the work. Dr. Potter describes this event : "One morning word reached us of the intention of His Imperial Majesty. Immediately all was excitement, and we began to put the place in readiness for so great an honor. His Majesty was met at the outer gate by the male missionaries. The pupils of the boys' school were drawn up in line on either side of the avenue leading in from the gate, and as the august visitor advanced they strewed flowers in his pathway. He first proceeded to the residence nearest the gate, where refreshments were served, and a little experimental telephone, which had been set up between two residences, was shown him, one of the missionaries running over to the other house to speak with him over the wire. Next 324 he advanced to the court of the boys' school, where the boys were again drawn up in Hne. Here an address of welcome prepared by the Persian teacher in flowing language was read by one of the boys. His Majesty, however, did not enter this building, but went over to the girls' school, and with a num- ber of his ministers he entered the beautiful schoolroom. After saluting his picture hanging on the wall, he sat down. He desired one of the girls to write on the blackboard, but she being very much embarrassed, the Shah himself proceeded to the board, and taking the chalk in hand wrote, both in Persian and in French, *Hakeem-al-Mamalek,' — The Physician of the Kingdom. This has since been framed with glass over it, and there the 'blessed handwriting' remains until this day. A hymn in Persian was sung by the school, and his Majesty proceeded through the hallway to the dining room, where he seemed greatly impressed with the scrupulous neatness of the place, for he exclaimed: 'Tameez, tameez,' Clean, clean. Next he proceeded to the corner of the property where the work of drilling the artesian well was in operation, and the various processes were explained to him. He was here served with coffee in his own golden cups, and then took his leave without entering the Mission chapel, which stands conspicu- ously in the center of the grounds, and around which he had made a complete circuit." The third station to be established in Persia was Tabriz, about 140 miles from Urumia, and northeast of Urumia Lake. The city had been often visited by missionaries, but the first to take up permanent residence were Mr. and Mrs. Easton and Miss Jewett, in 1873. The foundations of the work, as in Teheran, were laid among the Armenians. Perhaps for this purpose these little bodies of Christians had been preserved in this Moslem land, where without them for a base of work Christian missions would have found their position almost impossible. The Armenians in Persia numbered less than sev- enty thousand. Their race is one of the oldest in Western Asia, and was one of the first to embrace Christianity. The people are quiet, with bright minds, skillful in trades, and they are the shrewdest merchants in the country. They have progressed greatly during the century, having favored educa- tion, and spent their money very generously on schools. The Patriarch of the Gregorian Church lives at Echmiadzen in the Caucasus. The Church holds to the seven sacraments of the Roman Church, and believes in the mediation of saints, the adoration of images, and trans-substantiation. 325 The fourth station in Persia was established in HamM&n in 1881, by the removal thither of the Rev. James W. Hawkes. Hamadan is identified as Ecbatana (Ezra 4:2), the place where Darius found the roll with the decree of Cyrus for re- building the temple. Resht was occupied in 1906, Kermanshah in 1910 and Meshed in 1911. Our Church has undertaken one of the most difficult tasks ever set for men in these missions in Persia. But some day the people will be free to turn to Him whose truth has been so long denied and His name so long obscured by Mohammed. That day seems now to be very near. That it may be hastened in Persia, all who wish to see Christ in His rightful place in Moslem lands must pray, as the missionaries in Teheran used to pray each Sunday afternoon in the little service held for English Christians: "Almighty and everlasting God, we are taught by thy holy Word that the hearts of kings are in thy rule and govern- ance, and that thou dost dispose and turn them as it seemeth best to thy godly wisdom. We beseech thee to bless thy serv- ant, the Shah of Persia, and all who hold authority under him, and especially those upon whom new responsibilities may come, and so overrule and direct their actions that thy name may be glorified and thy kingdom advanced. We be- seech thee to open a great and effectual door for thy truth, and to establish religious liberty in this land and throughout all the earth. Grant this, 0 most merciful Father, for thy dear Son's sake, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen." 826 2. LETTERS FROM THE STATIONS (1) BASRA AND BAGDAD Hamadan, Persia, January 18, 1922. After a strange but happy Christmas in Bombay we sailed on December 28th by a direct boat across the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf to Basra. It was a strange Christmas because the day was as warm as midsummer at home, and there was nothing in the atmosphere of a great Hindu city in keeping with the spirit of Christmas Sunday. But it was a happy day through the cordiality of the Scotch friends with whom we worshipped in the early morning, reading the old familiar Christmas story and singing the old and endeared Christmas hymns, and through the warm-hearted kindness of the Congregational missionaries in their Christmas services at Byculla and in their homes. One cannot but reflect, in the experience of such a Christmas day, on how much of the significance and dearness of our best days depends upon the affectionate tenderness of the memories and associations in- woven with them. The direct boat passed by the interesting mission stations of the Reformed Church in America at Muscat and Bahrein and Koweit and the needy unoccupied cities, across from Arabia, on the Persian shore. It was night when we entered the Shat-el-Arab, the broad stream formed by the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, and in the dark of the early morning before the sun was risen it was weird and suggestive of many thoughts to see at Abadan, where tw9r>*^j-- five years ago when I was here before there wan nothing but an uninhabited plain, the smokestacks an^ glaring lights and long line of tankers which have come as a result of the open- ing of the oil fields of southwestern Persia. Basra itself, however, which is the head of ocean-going navigation, shows even more vividly and with deeper shadows than those of the f^arkness around the night lights of Abadan, the enormous cha.^ges of the last few years. Hardly in north- ern France can (^^e find more fearful witness of the appalling waste and wreck^^ge of war. Hundreds of useless river boats, acres of aba^^/^oned military equipment, square miles of the huge army camp, now a desolation, remain as the memorial of the ene'^gies of war. If what was of necessity spent in the havoc Qf ^^^ last eight years could have been spent in the recla-^ation and improvement of Mesopotamia, the pros- 327 perity of the ancient times might almost have been brought back again. Basra has been for thirty years a mission station of the Arabian Mission, at first a semi-independent mission but now for many years one of the regular missions of the Reformed Church in America. In the beginning by a hospital and direct preaching and now by direct preaching and schools for boys and girls which aim immediately at reaching the Mohamme- dan people, the Mission has been carrying forward its work in accordance with its fundamental principle of making the evangelization of Mohammedans its primary and direct under- taking. The conditions surrounding direct work for Moham- medans, however, in the Arabian Mission are not less difficult, and in some parts of its field are far more difficult, than in most other sections of the Mohammedan world. From Basra the Mesopotamian Railway to Bagdad instead of running north along the Tigris, on which Bagdad is located and which is the natural waterway, runs northwestward along the Euphrates, crossing over not far from Babylon to the other river and to the palm trees and the minarets of Bagdad. Our train stopped for breakfast at Ur of the Chal- dees whence Abraham went out not knowing whither he went, save that he had God for his guide and his friend. It is a dreary enough place now and to all the motives which led Abraham to depart in that ancient time the modern condition of Ur would add others. It is a dreary collection of tents and sundried mud buildings with the shops and sidings of a railway division point. An Indian restaurant keeper served breakfast in an old army tent on a mud floor from enamel ware. Little life was visible on the wide plains where Haran and Abraiiai'r2 fed their flocks. Here and there a lone wolf watched the railway, and far off in the distance a camel train would go by. The ancient orientalism of Bagdad which twenty-five years ago was as unbroken as it hiid been for centuries is only a little less shattered than the oriental] ism of Basra. A wide street has been cut through the city parallel with the river. Railroads run out of the city south to Basra and north to Shorgat and northeast to the Persian frontier. On our for- mer visit there was not a native born American in Bagdad and the only mission work was that of the Church Missionary Society of England. Now because of financial limitations the C. M. S. is withdrawing entirely from Mesopotamia, and the work in Bagdad must be abandoned or provided for by American missionary agencies. The Reformed Church Mis- 328 sion has Dr. and Mrs. Cantine here who are admirably quali- fied to lay the foundations of a wise and efficient work for Mohammedans. Our own Board is represented at present by Dr. and Mrs. McDowell and Miss Lamme, who are here, how- ever, primarily not for the Mohammedan work but because of the Syrian refugees from Urumia left from the twenty- five or thirty thousand Assyrians who were cared for by the British military authorities, first in the great camp at Bakuba near Bagdad, and later in the great camp at Mindan near Mosul whither the people had been moved in the hope of their return over the mountains to their old homes. When this effort failed, the people scattered, as many as possible going to America and the mountain people settling in the regions north of Mosul some of them in their old mountain valleys, but most of the nation making their way back to Persia where they are scattered in Kermanshah, Hamadan and Tabriz wait- ing the oportunity to go back to the vineyards and villages of Urumia from which they were driven away. More than a thousand of these refugees are still in Bagdad. They are receiving no relief money but are manfully making their own way. Many of them are chauffeurs, carpenters or masons. The best restaurant, the best bakery, the best laundry, the best optician's shop are conducted by Assyrians. Several hundred of the women and fatherless children are still shel- tered by Dr. and Mrs. McDowell in the unfinished hospital building of the C. M. S. We attended the Sunday morning service of this Syrian refugee colony in the big unfinished hallway of the hospital which is regularly occupied as a home by a score or more of these poor women, each spreading out her household on an allotted portion of the earth floor. The place was packed in every corner and doorway and two hun- dred children sat on the stairs. Never have I been in a gath- ering where it was more difficult to control one's emotions. These were modern exiles by the waters of Babylon singing the Lord's songs in a strange land. As Dr. Packard, to whom many of them owed their lives, and I spoke to them of the old Urumia home and of the meaning of the unequaled discipline of suffering through which they and their nation had passed, it was hard both for us and for them. It is one thing at home in America to think of the sufferings of these people. It is another thing to stand in the midst of it and to see the women who saw their men killed before their eyes and to hear the little children who were carried as babies or who trudged along, tiny ones though they were, in the great flight from Urumia in August, 1918, as they sang, while the crowded 829 congregation was making its way out, their children's hymns, "Jesus, Tender Shepherd, Lead Us," and "When He Cometh, When He Cometh to Make Up His Jewels." We asked them what their hope was and all with one accord spoke of Urumia and the longing to return, as those Jewish exiles of old in the land of their exile longed for the hills and the valleys of Palestine. We shall be studying of course in Persia this perplexing problem of the future of the Assyrian Christians, but here we meet it before ever reaching Persia in the case of this appealing colony in Bagdad. In justice and truth these people ought to be allowed and enabled to return to the homes which they and their fathers have occupied for more than a thousand years. They are working hard for themselves, but it is with no thought of remaining permanently in their present work unless compelled to do so. They will do all that they can to equip themselves for the re-establishment of their old homes, and they deserve whatever help may be necessary. During the British administration of Mesopotamia as man- dated territory there was a large number of British and Indian residents throughout Irak, as Mesopotamia is officially called, and in Bagdad as the capital there was a large com- munity of English-speaking people. Part of this community, though only a small part, remains and offers a field of real need and Christian opportunity. Anglican services are main- tained by chaplains still remaining. The only other service for the good number who want such a service and the very much larger number who need it is carried on in the building formerly used by the now discontinued Young Men's Christian Association. I spoke here on a Sunday evening to such a company as only one of the far off border cities of the world can provide. It was gathered by the energy and devotion of Padre Brown, a Wesleyan army chaplain, who was expecting soon to go home leaving no successor. Of the four-score or more who gathered some were British army officers, more were tommies, and perhaps as large a number were Indian Christians of different denominations who did not wish any separate denominational organization but who desired to join with their fellow Christians of other races and of other de- nominations in seeking to maintain their common faith and to fulfill their common Christian duty in a lonely place. The meeting hall was on the banks of the Tigris. One looked out over the heads of the congregation to the tawny waters swirl- ing past in the dusk. In the wide new street nearby and through the narrow ways of the old arched bazaars were 330 flowing the strange and mingled tides of human life. It would be hard to find anywhere in the world a place where the need of men for Christ so far exceeds the effort to bring Christ to men. Upon no one more than upon our Presbyterian and Reformed Churches does the responsibility rest to make the effort more proportionate to the need. I shall write of the way in which it is proposed that this should be done in the next letter which will deal with our visit to Mosul by the ruins of Nineveh. (2) THE CALL FROM NINEVEH Meshed, Persia, February 8, 1922. Of all the rich experiences of this trip none has been of deeper interest or has made to us a stronger appeal than our visit to Mosul just across the Tigris river from the ruins of Nineveh. We left Bagdad at half past nine o'clock on the evening of January 8th on the line of the Mesopotamian Rail- ways running north across the great plains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Only a few widely separated villages lay on the line of the railways. The water tanks and little bridges built on sand-bag abutments over the gullies in the plain were guarded by Arab soldiers and barbed-wire en- tanglements. For miles and miles, however, no life was visi- ble, neither man nor beast, until toward noon of the following day we drew near the end of the railway at Shorgat nearby the huge mounds which mark the ruins of the old city of Ashur. Here where the railway stops amid a cluster of mud houses and canvass tents great herds of camels were waiting for the merchandise which they were to carry out north and west- ward to the cities and villages which were old thousands of years ago. At Shorgat we found Armenian drivers with old Ford cars who were ready to take us the eighty-six miles northward across the plains and through the water gullies to Mosul. Even here in this hidden corner of the world the marks of the great war lay around us, the abandoned wreck of a German armored truck, shells lying here and there, and trench holes along the top of the ridges where the armies had fought to and fro. An airplane sailed north above us bound like ourselves from Bagdad to Mosul. The evening light was just fading as we came to the top of the low hills and looked down upon the winding yellow course of the Tigris and the far-off lights of Mosul against the dark mounds of Nineveh. It is in part the greatness of the memories of the past which makes such an experience as this memorable forever. We 331 had come by ancient Ashur, and not far away lay the ruins of Nimrood. The next morning we walked about on the mounds beneath which the glory of Nineveh is buried and where the shepherds were pasturing their flocks. Just north at Elkush is the grave of Nahum, and a few miles to the east is the vil- lage of Erbil, the ancient Arbela, where Darius was over- thrown by Alexander. And at Nebi Yonas, the village of Jonah, within the walls of Nineveh in an old mosque which no doubt had been one of the old synagogues or Christian Churches we were shown the very tomb of Jonah and hanging on the wall beside it bones of the fish which had swallowed him. We were amazed to discover that it had been a sword fish, but no such childishness of the present day can detract from the impressiveness of these scenes so inwrought with our greatest history. But it is the call of present life which makes Mosul even more appealing. This is the frontier city between Arab, Turk and Kurd, and one-seventh of its population is made up of non-Moslem elements, Chaldeans, Syro-Catholics, Jacobites, Nestorians, Sabeans, and Jews. At present also strange tides of political movement interlace, assisting and resisting one another, the new Arab Government of Irak seek- ing to establish itself, the British Government seeking to with- draw but finding it difficult to transfer authority and re- sponsibility, the Turkish traditions lingering persistently and the possibility of new Turkish influence feared by some and by others much desired, French purposes not altogether clear, and new life astir in the breasts of many who have learned of liberty what their fathers never knew. As we talked with group after group representing many of these elements of life so mingled and varied, we seemed to hear a voice speaking to the missionary conscience of the home Church as clearly as that voice spoke to Jonah hundreds of years ago, "Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city." We talked with the British oflficials, with the father and mother of the present Nestorian patriarch, with representatives of the evangelical Assyrian Church, with the leaders of the Prot- estant community in Mosul, with the younger men of the Jacobite body who are eager for the coming of new and living forces, and with individuals who helped to fill up the measure of such understanding as we sought to acquire of the mis- sionary need and opportunity in this old city. This is the lower edge of the country of the mountain Nestorians who have always been a part of the field of the Urumia station, and here we found the remnants of this section of the As- 332 Syrian Christians trying to make their way back again into their mountain homes. A few of them had got back into the lower valleys, but most of them were still waiting in villages just north of Mosul depressed by poverty and debilitated by disease. Only slowly will they be able to get back to their old homes. The timbers of their houses have been destroyed. The terraced fields which they had built up have been torn down. All their cattle and their sheep are gone. But against every difficulty they long for their old homes and will not be content until they are back again. They brought their appeal for sympathy and help. The Protestant community holding its own against immeasurable odds recalled to us the names of the missionaries from whom the Gospel had come to them, showed us their beautiful old church and school, and asked for the help which surely they have a right to expect from us in their struggle to keep their light aglow. And the young Jacobite laymen, graduates of the college at Beirut and full of sympathy with the spirit and the ideals and the principles of life which they had met there, were eager to lend their support to any effort to meet the needs of men's minds and souls as well as of their bodies. Years ago Mosul was one of the stations of the American Board in Turkey. Then it was transferred to our own Board with the expectation that we would make it a base of our work among the mountain Assyrians. When this seemed to be impracticable our Board withdrew, transferring the work to the Church Missionary of England. Now the Church Mis- sionary Society is giving up all its work in Mesopotamia and is withdrawing from Mosul and Bagdad. Our own Board has taken over the work of Aleppo and Mardin in recognition of its distinctive responsibilities in connection with the Syria Mission in this distinctly Arabic field. Surely we must now return to Mosul. It is an integral part of our missionary re- sponsibility, and the opportunity and need make the call not one whit less clear or imperative than God's call to the prophet in behalf of Nineveh. In the evening we went up on the house- top of the residence of Miss Martin, the last of the C. M. S. missionaries, who is expecting to leave this spring, and as we looked in the moonlight over the city with its minarets and its forty mosques and far off to the old Jacobite church where Dr. Grant was supposed to be buried, it seemed to us impossible that the Church should not hear God's call. The plan which has seemed to us all, to Dr. McDowell and to Mr. Wright of our own Mission and to Dr. Cantine and Dr. Van Ess and Mr. Barney of the Reformed Church Mission 333 with all of whom we went over the matter carefully and which has already met the approval of our own and the Re- formed Church Boards, to be the best possible plan is the es- tablishment of a joint mission of the two Boards, to care for the whole Mesopotamian field, leaving Basra for the present in the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church, but embrac- ing all the rest of Irak. Such a Mission should have at once strong stations in Bagdad and Mosul and should look forward to developing the adequate occupation of cities like Hillah near Babylon, Kerbela, the great shrine of the Shiah Moham- medans, Nusairyeh which is Ur of the Chaldees, and other centers both south and north of Bagdad. For many reasons medical work and schools should be used strongly in these stations as in Persia and elsewhere in the Mohammedan world, but the door to a straight and courageous, while at the same time a wise and careful, direct presentation of Jesus Christ to Mohammedans is wide ajar. "And the word of God came unto Jonah the second time saying, 'Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.' " (3) KERMANSHAH I A DOOR OF ACCESS TO THE KURDS Nishapur, Persia, February 15, 1922. Twenty-five years ago in mid-winter Mrs. Speer and I made the long journey from Kermanshah to Bagdad which we have now made at the same season though in the opposite direction. It is the same country through which we journeyed then, but how great are the differences. Then it was a long horseback journey, all the way over mere caravan trails. Now we left Bagdad at half past nine in the evening and by noon the next day were at Tairuk, the rail head only a few miles from the Persian frontier. Twenty-five years ago there was nothing here but empty hills and prairies. On January 13th this year as we stepped off the train into a sea of mud, around the flimsy station build;ings and the barbed wire customs inclosure were a strange assortment of mud huts and canvass tents, horses and wagons and camels and a mixed throng of Kurds, Arabs, Persians, Indians, Armenians and Assyrians. A crude springless wagon carried us and our luggage out of the mud to the fine military road which the British had built from the old rail-head immediately on the Persian border at Quraitu through Kermanshah and Hamadan to Kasvin where it joined the good road already existing between Resht and Teheran. A few miles beyond Quraitu two decrepit Ford cars were waiting at Shah Gedar, the Persian customs house, having 334 no license to cross the border into Irak, and our new trans- portation through the same old Persia began. The fine road which the British had built and left to the Persians in perfect condition was already showing the effects of mis-use and neglect. Retaining walls needed to protect the road on precipitous hillsides were being tumbled into the road and broken up to repair holes which were too bad to ignore, while the whole upper hillside above the road was of rock which might just as well have supplied all necessary- repair material. It was the same old Persia also of highway insecurity, although this bit of road from Mesopotamia to Teheran is probably the safest and best policed road in Persia. Gendarmes and gendarme stations lined it at frequent inter- vals. Before we left the customs house a little flurry of fright of robbery gave spice to our setting out. Shots were heard in the distance and a number of horsemen suddenly emerged from an opening in the hills to be followed by others who scattered out across the plain and came riding down upon Shah Gedar. The guards and customs officials all ran for their guns and bade us give up all thought of starting out on our journey. It turned out to be only a Kurdish hunting party displaying a little horsemanship and bravado, but none the less two gendarmes rode with us with their weapons in their laps. The first night out we spent in an old caravanserai near the ancient ruins of Sarpul, and the next night in a little mud room in the gendarmerie station at Khosroabad, where the bitter cold froze up the cars so that it took until noon of the following day to get them started. Even so, however, we reached Kermanshah the next evening, four days' journey from Bagdad. Twenty-five years ago the same journey took between two and three weeks. When we were here last Kermanshah had not been occupied yet as a mission station. It was then an outstation of Rama- dan under the care of Kasha Mooshe Dooman and his mother, Syrian Christians from Urumia, who endeared themselves to every one, Mohammedan, Kurd, Jew or Christian, and who bore a witness to Christ and the Gospel which is remembered in Kermanshah to this day. The home which they then occu- pied is now the church. We climbed to the roof to look over the city, and I remembered our standing there with Kasha Mooshe's dear old mother as she pointed away off northward beyond the hills of Kurdistan toward the fields and pleasant vineyards which she loved and where she longed to return. The opportunity of Kermanshah as a center of itinerating 335 work among the Kurdish tribes of Western Persia was so great that shortly after Kasha Mooshe's return to Urumia, Mr. and Mrs. Stead came to Kermanshah to live or rather to make it a point of departure for their long itinerating trips among the Lurs and Bakhtiaris. Mrs. Stead's medical service opened the homes and hearts of the women through all the villages of these wild people, and the great famine of three years ago and the relief work provided by the British and placed under Mr. Stead's care brought with it new influence and new burdens. The Kurdish orphanage in Kermanshah is one fruitage of the work of these years. The forty-nine boys and girls who are now in the school are living a very simple, crude life in comparison with our life at home in America, but it is a life of heavenly comfort and plenty to these poor waifs. Fed on the ample supplies left behind by the British troops when they withdrew, and clothed and shod with all sorts of remnants of cloth and leather of military memory, and sleeping in the open air but with a roof to shelter them and blankets to keep them warm, any one who has seen the shivering, hungry, barely clad children of the Kurdish villages does not wonder at the peaceful contentment of these once wild youngsters now learnings things of which they had never dreamed in the ignorance and darkness of their mountain homes. Children though they are, they do all the work of their household life, and already some have gone out from the school as evangelists to their own people. Many of the orphans had no memory of the villages from which they had come. Others could vividly recall the old life with its poverty and hardship. Now that this Kurdish orphanage is meeting the needs of the children who can come from Kurdish village homes, there remain some other very clear and outstanding needs. One is for a school for Kermanshah itself. What government schools there are here and in other cities of Persia are so woefully weak and inefficient as to leave the Missions almost unlimited opportunities of approach and influence to those homes in the community which ordinarily it would be most difficult to enter with the Gospel. Secondly, there is need of such a strengthen- ing of the evangelistic force of the station as will enable it to carry on an adequate, persistent, comprehensive and continu- ous itineration throughout the wide field of western Persia accessible to it. Third, the city of Kermanshah itself has barely been touched as yet. There are not a few among the Moham- medan people who understand and sympathize, but who have not as yet found courage to confess. Some of the best young 336 women teachers of the station are Mohammedan however, and there are men who have said frankb missionary friends, "Christianity is undoubtedly the hgion, but you do not reahze that a man cannot confes. here in Kermanshah." Elsewhere in Persia a wise and and believing effort to reach the Mohammedans direct met and is meeting with rich results. There is no reasoi ,*ny the same results should not be achieved in Kermanshah. And fourth, there is need of the adequate development of the medi- cal work which has always been and is still one of the most powerful forms of missionary influence in Mohammedan lands. What has already been done has opened the door for a much larger service, and already materials and supplies purchased from the British military hospital upon its withdrawal have provided the beginning of what ought to be made an efficient Christian hospital for Kermanshah and for the whole region westward from Hamadan to the border of Persia. In the great and far off years the tides of the world's most significant history passed up and down through Kermanshah. Nearby on the great cliff at Beseitun are the inscriptions re- citing the triumphs of Darius. Cyrus and Alexander and Xerxes and the armies of Rome moved across these plains. During the Great War the armies of Russia and Turkey and Great Britain passed over the same great highway. Measured against the tread of these armies of the past, how few have been the feet of those who have preached glad tidings and published peace! Why are they so slow in coming now? (4) hamadan: by the tomb of mordecai Hissar, Persia, March 1, 1922. We are snow-bound in this caravanserai of Hissar on the road between Teheran and Kasvin. We have visited now all the stations of the East Persia Mission except Resht and are on our way thither. We left Teheran yesterday morning at nine o'clock after several days of snow and rain. All day the snow gusts came and went, but we were not halted until just as a gray fog of night fell, confusing in one dim blur the white snow on the ground and the gray mist in the air, we found ourselves blocked within twelve miles of Kasvin by the deeper snow and the drifts which had been piled up by the winds that blow unhindered across these wide spaces between the hills. How long we shall be kept here we do not know. Nothing has come through yet from Kasvin, and whatever has come from Teheran has been halted here or stalled in the deeper snow beyond. It is the sort of thing 337 that any one traveling in Persia in the winter time must be prepared to meet without chafing or impatience. But how different all the surroundings are from the scenes which I have been recalling all day from Whittier's "Snow- Bound." Here is no New England home, but just a set of crude rooms with mud walls and mud floors and mud roof built around several snow filled courts and joining the mud stables which shelter the animals of the caravans and the carts which have sought refuge here with us. The largest room is a mud tea room with a samovar boiling at one side, and little groups of chavadars, muleteers, and other travelers huddled around braziers on the raised mud platforms around the walls. A little beggar lad with his bare skin showing be- tween his cotton rags and without shoes is standing wistfully in a doorway. An old man equally ragged and with one foot showing through his torn sandal is leaning over the little fire with a prayer to Allah. Some Persian officers are anxious to get on to join the troops which are operating against the Kurdish chief, Simko, who holds Urumia. There are Russians from Resht, a Goanese chauffeur from India, Persians, Arme- nians, and we three Americans. And outside the tea room are three Mohammedan women and a little girl half conceal- ing and half disclosing faces which certainly it is not neces- sary to veil. Whatever there is either of poetry or of sodden- ness in Persian life is here in this snow-bound group in the caravanserai of Hissar. We came over this same road some weeks ago after our visit in Hamadan whose memories abide richly with us. There under the very shadow of the tomb of Mordecai and Esther we worshipped with the group of Christian converts from Judaism and Islam, and in another quarter of the city near the grave of Avicenna watched Dr. Funk at work in the city dispensary giving relief with a skill and understanding of which Avicenna never dreamed. It is the next to the oldest of our East Persia stations, and it is beautiful to see here as one sees in so many mission stations throughout the world the persistent influence and fruitfulness of the memories of the good men and women who gave their lives to the revealing of Christ and the founding of His Church. The first visit that I made in Hamadan was to the grave of Mrs. Hawkes marked by a big boulder and a solitary walnut tree in the missionary cemetery where she rests alone, and on Sunday morning in Saint Stephen's Church where the body of evan- gelical Armenian Christians meet to worship, in the fine old building which the Shah of Persia, Nasr-i-din, helped them to 338 secure, we sat by the graves of Mr. Whipple and Miss Annie Montgomery, one with a tablet set in the wall over it, "In loving remembrance of William L. Whipple, faithful servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, stationed at Urumia, Tabriz, and Hamadan, Persia, 1872 to 1901. Born at Mount Vernon, Ohio, U. S. A., July 13, 1844. Died at Hamadan, Persia, May 1, 1901. 'Be thou faithful unto death. I will give thee a crown of life ;' " and the other marked by a tablet set in the floor over the spot where she used to sit just beside the pulpit and where she was buried, "In memory of Annie Montgomery. Born May 17, 1847 at Princeton, Prince Edward Island. Died November 6, 1917, at Hamadan. Thirty-five years a mission- ary of Christ in Persia. 'Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.' Age 70," And though he is not buried on the field, but was compelled by health to leave Persia long ago, the memory of Dr. George W. Holmes as a physician and as a witness of Christ is as fragrant and as vivid as though he had been here but yes- terday. The work of the Hamadan station today is a very simple and yet a very complicated work. It is carried on for five races, Persians, Kurds, Jews, Armenians and Assyrians. Some four thousand or more Assyrian refugees are under the care of the station which with the help of Dr. and Mrs. Coan and Mr. and Mrs. Bentley and Miss Guild of the West Persia Mis- sion is conducting evangelistic and relief work among them. Two hundred and thirty orphan boys and girls are housed in the old barracks of the British Indian troops. Three thou- sand refugees, two-thirds of them Assyrians and the rest Armenians, have been settled in the villages of the Hamadan plain to live there as self-supporting farmers in case they are not able to return to Urumia. The Bahais have made many converts among the Hamadan Jews as among the Jews else- where in Persia, but there is a strong group of Jewish Chris- tians led by half a dozen of the best doctors of the city who received their medical training from Dr. Holmes and Dr. Funk. The station is carrying on also the well developed and ap- proved agencies of all the older stations in Persia. There is organized church work for the Armenians in one group, for the Assyrians in another group, and for the Jews and Moham- medan converts together, but it is proposed to divide this last work both because of language and residence quarters and because it is believed generally in our own Mission stations in Persia and in the Arabia Mission of the Reformed Board 339 • that the work for Mohammedans can be made more effective by making it more clear and distinct and by laying the re- sponsibility for it more fully and directly upon the Moham- medan converts themselves. There are also the two schools for boys and girls where all the races are studying side by side and sitting together in the Bible classes and the chapel exercises every day. On the outskirts of the city in a beautiful new compound, which was purchased through the co-operation of one of the leading Mohammedan Mollahs, is the hospital which after much use and abuse by the three different armies which occupied Hamadan during the war is now once more, cleansed and re-equipped, rendering to Persia the service which she is receiving from the missionary hospital alone. But complicated as the work may be, it is still as simple and direct as true missionary service is everywhere, and is doing just one thing, making Christ known to all men in love and faithfulness and manifesting His power to heal the hurts and to redeem the lives of men. It was a great privilege to meet with the organized Churches and to visit the Faith Hubbard School f.or Girls and the boys' school and the Lily Reid Holt Hospital and to hear of the out-station work of Mr. and Mrs. Zoeckler at Doulatabad and to see the station body now so strongly though not strongly enough re-enforced, but there was no greater privilege than to sit one evening and to hear from the lips of old Kaka the story of the conversion of himself and of his brother, Dr. Saeed Khan, now one of the leading physicians in Teheran. They were sons of one of the most influential and most respected Mohammedan ecclesiastics in Senneh, a leader among the Kurds. When he first learned of his younger brother Saeed's interest in Christianity, Kaka had thought to kill him, and then in mid-winter did turn him out of his home. Now the two men, one in Hamadan and the other in the capital of Persia, are among the most fearless preachers of Christ to their fellow Mohammedans, and though in the early years they were again and again threatened with death in their old home, they go back to it now to be received with honor. And these are only two of scores whom we have met who have come to Christ from Islam. This is what ought to be by Mordecai's tomb. (5) THE CENTER OF PERSIA'S LIFE AND DEATH Hissar, Persia, March 2, 1922. Teheran is the center of Persia not only in those wholesome and necessary ways which should characterize the service of a nation's capital in the national life but also in the unwhole- • 340 some ways which betray the sickness of the nation and the evil influence of its capital in aggravating its disease. It is much the largest and the finest city in Persia, beautifully situ- ated on the northern edge of a great plain with a noble moun- tain range rising like a wall behind it to the north and west and the white peak of Demavend, the highest mountain in Europe and Asia west of the Himalayas, looking down upon it. The gaudy tiled gates of the city, three on each of its four sides, are tawdry and shabby. The streets are pools of mud these wet winter days. Its oriental splendor is a euphemism. It dominates the life and drains away the substance of the rest of Persia. The governors and officials throughout the land are largely Teheran men, and too often, according to the Persian system of revenue and national support, they have had to buy their offices, and not knowing how soon they may be bought away from them are obliged to recoup themselves from any attainable revenues of their post without delay. What national revenue there is is spent almost entirely upon the maintenance of officials and the support of the army. Roads, schools, hospitals, sanitation, irrigation, improvement of agriculture, all the main services which are the duty of a state are almost or totally neglected, even in Teheran itself. Still the picture in the national capital is not altogether dark. There have been many improvements since I was here twenty- six years ago. There are the same old tram cars in the city and only the same little five mile railroad out to the shrine of Shah Abdul Azim, but there are better buildings and a neat wall around the great drill square. A great many more trees including evergreens which have advantageously affected the city's rain-fall. A parliament sitting now, it is true, for only the fourth time in sixteen years, represents the surrender of the Shah's absolutism and the establishment of constitu- tional government. Educational and philanthropic institu- tions, some of them unfortunately closed now for lack of sup- port, have nevertheless been established and recognized, and furnish the germs of good future development. Most signifi- cant of these and many other changes has been the growth in tolerance which opens here in the capital of Persia perhaps as wide a door for the evangelization of Mohammedans as can be found anywhere in the world. Without hesitation our Mission has pressed through this door. It is our Church's Mission, and yet in a true sense it is the Mission of our American Christian people to Persia. Indeed I think it is a fact that, although President Harding has just appointed an esteemed Jewish Rabbi as American 341 Minister to Persia, every one of the permanent American residents in Persia is a Christian missionary. The Mission is known everywhere in Teheran as the American Mission. The hospital is the American hospital, and the schools are the American schools. In character and spirit and unselfish- ness the Mission gives shape to the Persian conception of America, and it requires real effort to make and to keep it clear that we are not representing the American Government, but are a simple spiritual Mission of Christian love and Christian witness to the people of Persia. I happened to speak of this aspect of our work to a member of the diplomatic corps in Teheran remarking that the Mission enterprise was a purely unselfish undertaking of the Christians of America, that they were helping people whom they had never seen and whom they never would see, and that they did not seek and would not receive anything in return. "In one sense you are right," he replied, "but in another sense you are wholly mis- taken. There is no enterprise from which America receives as much in honor and good-will and in respect for its national character and in trust and confidence as from the missionary enterprise." It may not be a usable motive, but the fact is that no other investment yields anything like the moral and commercial return which America derives from the mission- ary investment made by her Christian people. The American hospital is one of the two oldest hospitals in the city, and it is still the most trustworthy and reliable. It has suffered from inadequate staffing, but has repeatedly had the benefit of the competent and unselfish help of Dr. Scott and Dr. Neligan of the British telegraph and diplomatic ser- vices. It needs additional doctors and additional funds for maintenance. It is operating now on a smaller appropriation than the annual cost of one endowed room in an American hospital. Patients of all types and from all parts of Persia come to its doors. One of the last to enter while we were there was a camel driver whom a wolf had attacked in open day on the desert near Teheran frightfully lacerating his nose and lip. Another was a small boy whose arm had been broken and mangled by the bite of a vicious camel. It is a small hospital built largely with gifts from Persians themselves, but it is well equipped and maintained, and Christ walks through its wards. They must not be closed to Him and to those in whom He suffers. In the American School for Boys and the American School for Girls there are nearly nine hundred pupils, and a few of them Jews, but most of them Mohammedans and Armenians 342 in nearly equal numbers. There are no other schools in Persia unless it be the West Persia Mission Schools for Boys and Girls in Tabriz which are equal to these schools in Teheran. Scores of boys and girls from the most influential families in Persia are sent to them, although their Christian character and their avowed missionary purpose are everywhere known. They are leading scores of these young people to Christian faith and many of them to open Christian confession, and they are raising up a great company of the kind of men and women on whom Persia must depend if her sickness is to be healed. One meets these young men everywhere and finds them in associa- tion with every institution and influence which is seeking to promote progress in Persia. We had a vivid illustration one afternoon of the influence of the Boys' School during the quarter of a century since I was here before. Then we in- vited as many young men in Teheran as could understand English and would be willing to meet for the purpose to gather to hear a statement of the claims of Christ. Less than a score could be gathered together. This time in response to a similar invitation, hastily given, of necessity, so that not all who would otherwise have responded could come, a large company assembled which packed the Church and list- ened with sympathy and response to all that was said in the plainest and most direct way regarding Persia's need of what only Christ can supply. The boys' school has acquired a beau- tiful site of about sixty acres just outside the city for its college development, and the girls' school has selected a no less satisfactory site within the city for the future college for women provided for from Mrs. Sage's bequest to the Women's Board. These schools are and these two colleges will be the greatest light-houses in Persia. But in Teheran as everywhere else, our chief interest has been in the organized Christian Church, and this Teheran Church and its work are unique. It is one organization, guided by a committee of fourteen men and women, representing the Mohammedan converts, the evangelical Armenians, and the station. In some services all meet together. In others the Armenians and Persians meet for separate services in their own languages. A joint public preaching service in Per- sian is attended every Sunday by many Mohammedans, often including mollahs and sayids who hear their own former Moslem associates openly preaching Christ. We asked the church officers for a statement of the changes which have taken place in the last quarter of a century and also of the difficulties which Christianity still met. The foremost change 343 they thought to be the decay of fanaticism and the chief difficulty the fanaticism which still remained. But that which has not hindered in the past will still less hinder now that direct presentation of Christ to men which is the first and last aim and activity of the mission in Teheran. (6) THE GREAT SHRINE OF PERSIA Hissar, Persia, March 1, 1922. Meshed is the great shrine city of Persia. Its holiest city, to be sure, is Kerbala beyond the bounds of Persia in Mesopo- tamia, southwest of Babylon. Here are the graves of the mar- tyred sons of Ali, Mohammed's son-in-law and the fourth of the caliphs as the Sunni Mohammedans count the succession, but the Shiah Mohammedans of Persia repudiate Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othman and hold by the rights of Ali and his line alone. The Imams are the prophets who from time to time have appeared since All's day to guide the people, and of these Imams the most esteemed in Persian eyes and hearts was the Imam Riza whose gold domed tomb stands in the heart of the city of Meshed and beside it a mosque in memory of one of the Mohammedan women saints. To this great shrine of tomb and mosque pilgrims come from all sections of the Shiah Mohammedan world, from Mesopotamia where the Shiah Mo- hammedans outnumber the Sunnis and from Turkistan, Af- ghanistan and Bokhara and Central Asia as well as from all corners of Persia. It is a long and weary journey for most of these pilgrims. We know, for we have made it for ourselves under conditions which no doubt seemed great luxury to the poor people riding their little donkeys or plodding along on foot, but which for all of us was one of the roughest experiences of our lives. It is five hundred and sixty miles from Teheran to Meshed by the caravan road which is the old road of travel crossed by the feet of innumerable men between Europe and Central Asia since the dawn of history. It is a Persian post road all the way now, and what are called post carriages are available on it with change of horses every ten or twelve miles. Two of these carriages went to pieces with us on the way out and a third on the return journey, so that we had to come the last four hundred miles on a springless, uncovered post wagon running day and night through snow and rain and cold. Even the hardened old post courier who was in charge of the mail found the conditions difficult. One mid- night when we came to a changing station with the snow deep on the ground and the thermometer not far from zero and 344 the road blocked and when the drivers refused to bring out fresh horses and to go on and one of our fellow passengers, a Mohammedan merchant from Meshed, declared that he would freeze to death unless we could stop and find shelter, while yet the old man felt the urgency of his duty to press on, we heard him, as at midnight in the little mud room where we were he stood up to say his prayer, pause and interrupt the set Moslem phrases with a real cry from his heart, "Oh Allah, thou seest in what a sore strait I am." We can only thank God for the endurance which made possible this long trip of more than eleven hundred miles in the month of February, It has been a wonderful revelation to us of two things. One is the appalling extent of our unaccomplished task in Persia. This whole field of northern Persia has been left to our Church for missionary occupancy. There is little hope that any one else will come in to aid in its evangelization. Across this whole stretch of five hundred and sixty miles east and west and an equal distance north and south, there is not a single resident Christian worker save at Teheran on the west and Meshed on the east. Passing eastward one crosses plain after plain dotted with villages in most of which the Gospel has never been preached. The main road runs through many small and inviting cities like Semnan and Damghan and Sharoud and Subsavar and Nishapur. These cities have of course been visited occasionally in the past and memories of these visits of Mr. Bassett and Dr. Potter and especially of Dr. Esselstyn and Dr. Cook still remain, but the Persian Mis- sion should be strong enough to carry on a comprehensive and persistent program of itineration which would reach all these cities and larger villages regularly, and send out from them the influences which would make Christ's name and Gospel known in all of these thousands of accessible communities. It is the fact of this accessibility which has been the second of these great revelations to us. I do not refer to the physical accessibility. That is difficult enough. I have traveled now about four thousand miles in Persia on horseback or on foot or in the wretched conveyances which are available, and one can sympathize with the objurgations which he hears in every tea house along the highways with regard to Persian roads and means of travel. It is the moral and religious accessi- bility, not the physical, which is the notable thing. The work of the Meshed station has been a wonderful witness to this. By the direct preaching of the Gospel to Mohammedans not only in these towns and villages of the province of Khorasan but under the shadow of the great shrine itself they have with 345 tact and conciliation and yet with courage and rich fruitful- ness made Christ known to men and women who have believed and who, like sheep who know their shepherd, have recognized the Voice which has called to them and have arisen and fol- lowed after Him. There are now in Meshed and Nishapur and Seistan and Birjand between forty and fifty of these converts from Mo- hammedanism who are openly confessing Christ and preach- ing Him to their people. It is obvious that such work has had to be done with great patience and wisdom. It was in this spirit that Dr. Esselstyn founded the Meshed station. At first he met with threats and open antagonism, but he held his ground and bided his time and walked in love and wisdom. When he first visited Meshed in 1891 he was mobbed in a caravanserai and was only rescued by the British con- sulate. Twenty years later, however, his presence as a per- manent resident was quietly accepted by the people, and soon no figure was better known in the city than his with his bald head and long red beard and perfect knowledge of the language and his Christian faithfulness, as considerate as it was un- fearing. When some years ago the Russians bombarded the Shrine and then entered its sacred precincts which had been forbidden to all non-Moslems, they invited Dr. Esselstyn to accompany them. He refused with the remark that the Per- sians had not invited him in and he would wait until the invitation came from them. His word was quoted for years up and down the bazaar, and men who had looked upon him with hostility spoke now of him with kindness and respect. By just such wisdom mingled with full and fearless faith in the power of the Gospel to convert Mohammedans, mind and life and will, to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Meshed station has already gathered into the baptized company of believers many with whom it was our joy to meet. Never will we forget especially two of these gatherings. One was in Mr. Donald- son's house where we sat with a score or more of men who had confessed Christ, and heard their leader speak to them from the verse in the first chapter of John, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." He warned the little company of the dangers of their faith, great just in proportion as they were faithful to Jesus, and he reminded them of persecutions which had be- fallen the Church in Persia in early centuries and for which the new Church in Meshed must be prepared today. The other gathering was in Omar Khayyam's city of Nishapur. Dr. 346 McDowell of Teheran and I made our way through the dark bazaars and down the side streets in which the snow was falling to the home of one who had been the head of one of the Moslem sects and to whom the Gospel had come in just the same persuasive, convincing way in which it came to the men of Peter's time and Paul's. An old merchant and an old farmer met with us, and we five spent the evening to- gether with our Lord Jesus Christ and in His Gospel and talked of His cause which is to prevail. These Meshed days will be forever memorable to us. We have seen the love and faith of the Gospel at work in the hospital, in the reading room, on the Bala Khiaban, the big central street leading into the Shrine, in the homes and lives of missionaries and Persian Christians, in the study of the Bible, in the fellowship of believers, in word and deed. This is the very work which Christ has sent us forth to do. (7) THE STATION ON THE CASPIAN Kasvin, Persia, March 13, 1922. The last of the five stations of the East Persia Mission, Resht, lies just a little north of the route which we were to take from Teheran overland to Tabriz and the West Persia Mission. The road to Resht turns off at Kasvin, about ninety miles directly west of Teheran. A good motor car, when the roads are in good condition, ought to run through from Te- heran to Resht in one day. We were hoping in a somewhat decrepit but still respectable Ford car to make the journey even in mid-winter in three days. Instead it has consumed twelve to go from Teheran and to return to Kasvin. Seventy miles west of Teheran we ran into increasingly heavy snow and within twelve miles of Kasvin were held up for three days, as I have written in the letter on Hamadan, in a cold and cheerless wayside stopping place. On the third day through deep but melting snows we got into Kasvin. It was Friday, the Mohammedan day of rest, and the shops were closed, and the men at leisure were walking up and down the center of the main street which had been shoveled clear of snow. Not far from the declining ex-Russian, ex-Armenian, Persian hotel where we were lodging rose the blue tiled dome and two shapely minarets of the main mosque of the city. In the evening as the pink sun went down behind the snow- white western hills the call to prayer floated out from the top of one of the minarets. More strenuous and more per- sistent, however, than the call to prayer have been the in- cessant wails of the beggars. Nowhere have we met with 347 beggars so implacable, so undiscouragable, so professional as these beggars of Kasvin, old and young, men and women, with even little babies taught to wail for hours. Women and chil- dren, barefooted and barely clad in a feAv cotton rags, actually lay down in the slush by the roadside. On the main street we saw one old man dead on a snow bank. We can bear assured testimony to the need of this city of Kasvin with its population of perhaps thirty thousand, for every helpful and strengthening influence which the Gospel can supply. For some years one family of the East Persia Mission was located here, but the Mission has been unable to continue the occupation of the station, and with the exception of a very small Armenian community, divided between the Gregorian and Catholic Churches, the small Greek Church for the Russians and two or three families of evangelical Christians, the city is wholly Mohammedan. The Bahais claim to number between five hundred and a thousand, and while their influence has been useful everywhere in Persia in breaking down Mohammedan fanaticism, they cannot be said to have contributed anything to the moral renovation of the country, more desperately needed every year. A Christian Mission, with all the wholesome influences of healing and teaching which accompany it, would be welcome here in Kas- vin where, as in so many other cities of Persia, the growing tolerance of the country and its growing consciousness of need open each year an ever wider door of opportunity. After four days in Kasvin waiting for the snow drifts on the road between Kasvin and Resht to be cut through and despairing at last of getting any accurate information in Kas- vin as to just what the storm conditions really were, we set out and found that a wisdom greater than our own had guided us, as we arrived at the last bad drifts just as the force of snow shovelers who had been cleaning out twenty miles of impassable road cut through the last mile. The severity of the storm had not been exaggerated. We passed through snow drifts higher than the top of the car. On one hillside we counted four dead donkeys who had found the struggle in the snow with their heavy loads too much for them. Once over the pass between Bekendeh and Uzbashchai the snow was all behind us except on the mountain-sides, and we ran easily down a long, narrow, winding valley to the Shahrud which brings down the water from the northwestern slopes of Mount Demavend. I shall never forget the moment when without an instant's warning our road turned westward down the valley of the Shahrud to Pachinar. All afternoon, stand- 348 ing far ahead and right across the bleak tortuous valley we were descending, rose a great wall of dark mountains marked by angry gashes of snow, their tops hidden in a shroud of sullen clouds. It was like the wall of death. Then in an in- stant, so suddenly that one caught his breath at the change, the road turned to the left down a long sun-lit valley. A brown river sang along the bottom of the valley. The evening sun lighted with soft colors a wall of white mountains to the west, radiant as the celestial hills. The road soon turned sharp to the north again, and after a night at Manjil and the glory of an unsurpassable sunrise on limitless hills of snow, we ran on for a whole morning down the valley of the White River, out of the barren highlands, first past olive and evergreen trees, then by oak and poplar, to green fields where the violets were blooming and great beds of yellow primroses, and the plum trees were in bloom, and the balm of spring was in the air, and then across a wide semi-jungle of low- lying land to Resht, the capital of the province of Gilan, one of the Persian provinces bordering on the Caspian Sea. Resht is very different from all the other Mission stations in Persia. They are on the high plateau, varying from 3,500 feet altitude at Meshed to 6,000 at Hamadan. Resht is a few feet above the Caspian Sea which itself is 85 feet below sea level. The population of the province is not gathered in vil- lages as in the high lands, but is scattered on separate farms. The houses are not of mud, but of wood or brick or wattles with shingled or tiled or peaked thatch roofs. The gathering places of the people are at the weekly markets or bazaars. The population of Resht is a mixture of the upland Persians with the Jangalis, or people of the low woodlands, and Kurds who come down from Azerbaijan for the winter, scores of whom, men, women, and children, with heavy burdens on their backs representing the earnings of the winter, we met on the road toiling back on foot to their mountain homes for the summer. As the nearest important city to Russia also, there is in Resht a larger proportion of Russians and Arme- nians. It was a very different city from Kasvin, but of no less need and perhaps of greater opportunity. The political disturbances of the last five years during which British, Jan- galis, Bolshevists and Persians have controlled the city have interfered with the continuity of Mission work and have left dreadful scars of devastation. It was pitiful to go about and mark the havoc wrought by the great war in this far off city of a nation that wanted to be at peace. The two useful schools for boys and girls which the Mission 349 had conducted in the years before the war were both closed, but with the new re-enforcements which have come to the Mission it is hoped that the boys' school at least can be re- opened this fall. We met the fruitage of the old school in more than one community and have seen here as we saw at Saharanpur in India how great the loss is which results from the closing of such a fountain of light and influence as every good mission school proves itself to be. The hospital also was interrupted during the unsettled times, and a good part of its equipment, now replaced in large measure, was carried off by the Bolshevists on their withdrawal to Russia. Patients from a dozen different communities throughout Gilan may be counted in the hospital at almost any time. Every such institution, however local it may appear to be, is in reality a great piece of itinerating work. As everywhere else our chief joy was in meeting the little group of Christian believers and sympathizers, a score and more, some sure of Christ, some timidly moving toward Him. It is the old and ever new story of the good seed on the many kinds of soil. Just to see this little group was to us an ade- quate word of hope and of new appeal. Upon our way back to Kasvin at midnight two wolves stood on the waste of snow beside the road and watched us pass. (8) TABRIZ Tiflis, Caucasus, April 17, 1922. We got away from Kasvin at last on March 17th after more than a fortnight's detention on account of the snow. The same storms had delayed Dr. Packard and Miss Lamme, whom the West Persia Mission of which they are members had requested to come on from Kermanshah and Bagdad where they had been at work, in view of the impossibility of their return to Urumia, to share in the conferences which we were all to hold together in Tabriz. Dr. Packard had been compelled to come over the Assadabad pass on foot, a twelve hours' tramp through the snow, and he was badly burned and blistered by the sun and wind. From Kasvin to Zenjan, a distance of a hundred and four miles, we traveled in two-wheeled, one-horse carts, walking nearly half the way in the deep and glutinous mud through which the horses could barely drag the carts. We were six days in getting over this hundred and four miles. From Zenjan to Tabriz the distance is about a hundred and eighty miles, and the road crosses two notable passes, the Kaflan Kuh and the Shibli, and climbs over innumerable 350 ranges of hills. We were eight days in covering this part of the journey on horseback, more than a third of the way through mud and snow sometimes belly deep for the horses. More atrocious roads than the Persian roads in winter it would be hard to find, and yet this road runs between the two most important cities in Persia and is one of the oldest roads in the world. Alexander and his troops must have traveled it twenty-two centuries ago. "Yes," said the Persian governor to whom I made this remark, "and if he were to come back today, he would recognize it as the same road, unchanged." We were met at Basminj, twelve miles out of Tabriz, by the whole mission station, and from there into the city we had the greatest peshwaz which we have met on our whole trip. Scores of horsemen and carriages met us and fell into a long procession. Thousands of the Armenian and Assyrian refu- gees lined the road. Groups of refugee school children sang their songs of welcome. In a garden on the edge of the city Hadji Nazim, the mayor of Tabriz as we would call him, with a group of the leading merchants and bankers were met to welcome us and to serve tea. There were friendly mes- sages also from the governor and the kargozar. The govern- ment had sent mounted guards out to meet us even on the other side of Basminj. The British consul and the British heads of the bank and the telegraph had come out with the missionaries for the picnic lunch which we all ate together by the side of a brook under some willow trees coloring with the first green of spring, while the almond trees were just bursting forth with the pink and white blossoms which within a week filled all the gardens of Tabriz with the most glorious beauty. So far as the missionaries and the English friends were concerned we should have had such a welcome as this at any time, but for the rest, as we knew, the greeting of the officials and the people alike, of mollahs and Armenian ecclesiastics, was not personal at all but altogether represen- tative, welcoming us as an expression of their gratitude for American Relief and of their faith in America's continued disinterested service. This spirit of gratitude and hope toward America we met on every side during our whole stay in Tabriz. A new gov- ernor had just come to Azerbaijan. We called on him, and he called on us and then invited all the men of the Mission to dinner to meet some of the leading Persian officials. No one could have been more kind and sympathetic or, as it seemed to all of us, more sincere in his gratefulness and good- will. When we thanked him and the Armenian Archbishop 351 and leading Moslems both ecclesiastics and laymen for all their kindness, their invariable reply was that any kindness that they could show was simply their duty and that they could do nothing to repay America for all the help and sympathy which they had received. And Persia's need for this help and sympathy is undi- minished. On every side wherever we went we met with the earnest desire that America would come to the help of Persia in the development of her natural resources and industrial possibilities. Unless such help could be given all the Persians with whom we talked despaired of their country. And the need of help for the Assyrian and Armenian refugees through the Near East Relief is just now at its most acute stage. Unless the Near East Relief is enabled to complete its work, much of what it has already achieved will be lost. We met constantly with representatives of the ten or twelve thousand Armenian, Assyrian and Moslem refugees in Tabriz and spoke to great throngs of them in the refugee yard, in the Armenian theatre, and in the churches. Not only ought the orphans and the abandoned children to be cared for, but the people should be either repatriated in their old homes or settled in other villages with seed and, if need be, oxen and equipment in order to establish themselves again in self-support. Some thousands of them had been employed on road and street work which has transformed Tabriz. Since the funds for this failed, these willing workmen are standing about by the thou- sands wholly unable to find employment. It is earnestly to be hoped that both the Near East Relief and the Mission will be adequately supported in their effort to accomplish a genu- ine and lasting salvation for these poor people who have waded the rivers of death. In addition to all the relief work which they have to do, the missionaries have carried forward all their mission enter- prises to a standard of efficiency and fruitfulness which filled us with gratitude as we compared the work of today with the work of twenty-five years ago. Then there were no Moslem students in the schools and no converted Moslems in the church or helping in the work. Now the majority of the pupils are from Mohammedan homes. The daughter of the most influ- ential Mohammedan ecclesiastic is in the Girls' School. A converted mollah is studying to be a Christian evangelist. The leading Persian doctor of the city is an outspoken Chris- tian man who goes about with the respect of every one wit- nessing to Christ in the leading homes of the city. The hos- pital and the dispensaries, especially Dr. Vanneman's work 352 for a generation which has made him perhaps the best known and the most respected citizen of Tabriz, in spite of the reti- cent modesty with which he hides his Christlike service, are gathering an unmeasured harvest of gratitude, and nowhere are the power and opportunity of direct preaching and evan- gelistic work greater than here. Kasha Auraham Moorhatch, one of the ablest and best loved leaders of the Assyrians, is carrying on with rare tact and with his extraordinary knowl- edge of Islam and of the Turkish language a direct evan- gelistic service for Mohammedans which is bringing the Gos- pel to hundreds of people who a few years ago were wholly inaccessible. The Tabriz station still needs a strong body of reinforcements both for work in this great city, now so uniquely accessible, and also for the adequate cultivation of the vast unreached field through part of which we rode com- ing from Zenjan. It deserves these reinforcements all the more because of the earnest and tireless way in which it is employing its present forces whether in school or hospital or itineration or city and personal evangelism to make Christ known to the people of Azerbaijan. A sayid, a descendant of Mohammed, was standing at the church gate the first Sunday afternoon when we were speak- ing to Mohammedans, warning people not to go in. Mr. Wil- son overheard him. "Why do you say that," said he. "Do you know what is being said inside? Won't you come in and hear for yourself?" So in he came and heard and went away not objecting but pondering what, he said, seemed to be true. "Why did I come from Mohammed to Christ?" said one of the able young men who had been won, "because I found in Christ the power of the new life." Even so. For truth and power and life it is to Christ that Tabriz and all Persia must come. (9) THE STATION WE COULD NOT VISIT Tiflis, Caucasus, April 17, 1922. The station which we wished most of all to visit is the only one of all the stations of our Church in India and Persia to which we have not been able to go. We knew that the way was closed when we left America last summer, but we had lived in hope that by the time we reached Tabriz the dis- orders from which the Urumia plain has suffered might be quelled and that we might go in with one of the first parties to plan for the reestablishment of Urumia, where ninety years ago our Mission work in Persia was first begun. The situa- tion, however, as we left Persia was worse than it had ever been. The Kurdish chief, Ismail Agha or Simko, as he is 353 12 — India and Persia usually called, holds all the country on the west side of the Urumia lake from Soujbulak in the south to the Salmas plain on the north and has turned it into a devastation. The entire Christian population had been driven out in the sum- mer of nineteen hundred and eighteen. This took away a great part of the most industrious and prosperous element of the population and left scores of villages empty of their inhabi- tants and the fields and vineyards destitute of their cultiva- tors. For a little time that section of the Persian Mohamme- dan population which wished to be rid of the Christians for good and all were satisfied. Its gratification was of but short endurance. The Kurdish invaders with their Sunnee fanati- cism and fanatical counsellors and with their instincts of loot and destruction, having driven out the Christians, turned now upon the Persian Shiah Mohammedans, stripped them of their property, helped themselves to their wives and daugh- ters, pillaged their shops and their homes, tortured out of them the secret of any hidden wealth, and then drove out the best of the Moslem population just as they had driven out the Christians. While we were in Tabriz, in addition to the conferences with the refugee Urumia Christians, we met several deputa- tions of Urumia Mohammedans and a number of individual Mollahs and others, some of whom had just come away from Urumia, and again and again on the highway between Kasvin and Tabriz we met groups of ragged penniless fugitives who had fled from their village homes in the Urumia or Salmas plains before the destruction of the Kurds. Mohammedan refugees from Urumia who had been among the wealthiest residents of Urumia city and who had owned rich villages on one or another of the three rivers watering the plain, were now begging bread in the streets of Tabriz, and every house in their villages was burned down. The wild boars, they said, were rooting up their vineyards, and the wolves were com- ing into the streets of the city. The Near East Relief having naturally and properly con- ceived it to be its primary duty to care for the Christian populations of the Near East, harried and decimated by oppression and cruelty, the Persian Government has not unnaturally directed what relief it could provide toward these Moslem refugees. Persians who had been close to the admin- istration to the funds were frank to confess the immense proportion of the Government relief which had been eaten up by officials or committees through whose hands it had passed, but even so considerable relief had 354 been afforded by the government through the retention in Tabriz with the authority of Teheran of a good frac- tion of the wheat tax to be used to succor these suffering Urumia Mohammedans. The Persian Government has also inaugurated unusual military operations against Simko. He is reported to have between four and six thousand armed Kurdish soldiers. Against these the Government has now mobilized twelve thousand, and these are waiting at the present time to be joined by two or three thousand more before the attack on Simko is begun. The Persians declare that it is their intention to shatter Simko's banditry once for all. If they merely drive him over the border into Turkey, as one very intelligent man put it to us, they might just as well do nothing, for either he would return as soon as the Persian troops withdrew or if they remained their presence would make the peaceful reoccupation of the villages and the indus- trial restoration of the country impossible. We could well believe this from our own observation in following for two weeks in the train of the regiments which had been moved from Kasvin to Tabriz. The villages were ruined behind them. Many of the villages had been completely deserted by their inhabitants who had taken out the woodwork of their houses and had gone off with their remaining possessions to the mountains to escape any further visitations. One can hardly wonder at the depredations of the troops who had been marched through in the depth of winter with no com- missary arrangements, save in the case of one or two regi- ments, with scanty equipment, and with their pay long in arrears. If Simko's power is broken and the Kurds are driven out and the Persian troops are withdrawn, then the question remains whether the former Christian and Mohammedan inhabitants can go back to rebuild their destroyed homes and to restore to Urumia the prosperity which made it in old days the garden spot of Persia. We took this question up with the proper Persian officials in Kermanshah, Hamadan, Tehe- ran, and Tabriz, and were assured by them all without excep- tion not only that the Urumia Christians would be allowed to return but that they would be encouraged to do so. "There will be no opposition to the return of the Christians," said one of the deputations, made up of some of the most responsible Mohammedans from Urumia. "They and we are in the same situation. We have suffered together, and we must all go back and rebuild together. Our one purpose is to strengthen friendly relations between the two peoples." "I think," said 355 the oldest and most influential man in the group, "that in all the world no people have suffered as the Urumia people, Mos- lem and Christian, have suffered. If nothing is done by next fall to drive out the Kurds, most of the Persian Moslems who are left in Urumia will starve." No doubt there are Urumia Mohammedans who do not share these kindly feelings. I was told of some who when they met Assyrian Christians in Tabriz told them if they ever came back to Urumia, they would be hewn in pieces. And unquestionably the return of the refugees will raise innumerable difficult problems as to property rights and legal relationships and proceedures. It will be as necessary as it will be difficult for the Mission to hold itself aloof from entanglements in the solution of these problems. It has been inspiring in all these conferences to see the unlimited confidence and regard in which the people both Moslem and Christian have held Dr. Packard. Now and then it seemed wise to talk with the people without his presence in order to make sure that what they were saying was not due to the fact that he was there to hear. Whether in his presence or alone we have met with only one expression from all, an expression of eager desire for the restablishment of the Mission in Urumia and for Dr. Packard's return to reestablish the medical work. It is now as it was in Dr. Coch- ran's time. The loving help of efficient Christian medical service has made itself indispensable. "When are you coming back to stay?" the old Kargozar, the official who has charge of the interests of Christian people in Azerbaijan, said to Dr. Packard. "I do not like your waiting in Kermanshah. I am thinking of preventing your going back there and of keep- ing you here now." Of the many clear and unmistakable calls which we have heard in Persia no one has seemed to us more indisputable than the call to reoccupy Urumia the very instant the way opens to return. What one regrets is that the political complications did not allow us to attempt to continue a medical mission in Urumia even through these bloody days of Kurdish occupation. Nowhere else in the world is such a mission of healing and of love more needed this very day than among the Kurds in Urumia for whom also Christ died, and among whom are so many of good qualities and of friendly hearts. 356 3. THE NEED AND DESTITUTION OF PERSIA There is nothing more interesting in Persia than the old Shah Abbas caravanserais scattered over the country from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. Shah Abbas reigned from 1586 to 1628. He was a contemporary of Queen Eliza- beth, a statesman, and a builder. He founded Bunder Abbas, the port which bears his name on the Strait of Ormuz as an outlet for the trade of his country with Arabia and India, and he developed the caravan routes across the deserts and the mountains of his far extending kingdom and scattered along them for the comfort and safety of travelers the 999 caravanserais which, in spite of the negligence of his suc- cessors and the ravages of time, stand still as his noble memorial. One wonders how in the lonely and desert places where so many of them are found his workmen burned the brick and made the lime and got the labor with which to construct these massive and enduring buildings. His archi- tects were tied to no monotonous model. They built in squares and parallelograms and octagons usually with great open courtyards, single or with two or three adjoining, wide enough to hold caravans of hundreds of camels. Sometimes they built with no open courts at all, but with spacious domed roofs covering recess after recess in which hundreds of travelers with their animals and their goods might find shelter and security. Sometimes they laid their brick in plain courses and again in a dozen rich designs in a single caravanserai. Vast domed stables ran around the courtyard, and arched recesses within and without, with fire places set in the brick walls, fur- nished lodging places where men might sleep with their cara- vans at rest beneath their eyes. The doors in the great gate- ways which constituted the only entrance were made of heavy planks covered with iron bosses and set in stone. The national life which produced and sustained caravanserais such as these must have had a solidity and volume which are gone from the life of Persia today. All over the land the fine old cara- vanserais of Shah Abbas's time are in ruin and decay. Now and then a shambling stable, set up in a corner of the sturdy walls, houses the horses of the modern Persian Government Post, and only the picturesque ruins, a few local traditions, and here and there a marble tablet still remaining over the gateway, preserve the story of the great past from which 357 Persia has come down to the mean little mud caravanserais which are built today and abandoned tomorrow, to the help- lessness and negligence of a government which despairs of doing a government's work, even of collecting its taxes, and to the pitiful but appealing destitution of the Persia of our own time. The deterioration of Persia has been a long process but not so long that one cannot see it going on under his eyes. Com- munities where we lodged twenty-five years ago have nov7 completely disappeared, and on every one of the roads over which we passed were viHages wholly or partly depopulated because of agricultural and economic misfortunes which energy and forethought might have forestalled but which no one had made the least attempt to prevent. We asked the governor of one of the largest provinces of Persia whether he thought Persia had advanced during the last twenty-five years, and he answered that he thought it had done so in the matter of political liberty, but commercially and economically it had gone steadily backward. One must allow of course for Persia's share in the trade depression which all over the world has followed the war. Indeed there are few parts of the world where one can see so clearly the merciless consequences of war upon the innocent. One feels this outrage to the very roots of his soul standing on the Parthenon and seeing the wreckage which ancient war made of all that glory. One ought to feel it equally as he looks at the ravages of recent war in Persia where it made a desolation of the fairest sec- tion of Azerbaijan and where it has cut almost every strand of Persia's commercial well-being. The destruction of Russia alone has cost Persia more than a half of all its trade pros- perity. Its poverty which was deep enough before the war is still deeper now. The cities and villages are full of idle men and the roads of travelers who have left no work and are going to none. Beggars abound on every hand. I think we met fewer of them in Teheran than in any other city, but they are lacking nowhere. Again and again on the highway, toiling through the mud or sitting on the snowy wastes or out in the deserts we would come upon groups of wanderers, sometimes refugees from the disturbed area around Urumia, but more often mere vagrants, clad in rags or barely clad at all, and living on nothing but the scraps of bread which they begged from place to place. The begging is worse in some of the cities, and of all the cities which we visited it was worst in Kasvin, worse there even than in Tabriz with its thou- sands of Assyrian, Armenian, and Mohammedan refugees. In 358 Kasvin small children with bare legs and bare bodies lay by the roadside in the snow and mud and wailed all day long. Blind men and women were led up and down the street by ragged children. It was impossible to stand still anywhere because of the crowd of paupers which at once gathered round importuning and plucking at one's garments. We saw one old beggar lying dead on a snow heap in the principal street of the city. A great deal of this beggary is professional. For years in Hamadan an old, blind, red-headed man has begged all day by the wall near the Ottoman Bank. At home the old man is comfortably off and supports two wives. In Kasvin we heard an old woman beggar berating across the street one of the begging children because she did her work so poorly. "Do you want me to come over there and twist your ear?" screamed the old woman. "Why don't you attend to your business better?" And Islam fosters this rot of mendicancy by making indiscriminate and undirected almsgiving one of the five great religious duties. The poverty of Persia is encouraged by this giving of doles. It can never be eradi- cated in this way. What is needed is a deeper treatment that will cut at the roots of the very commonest ideas that control conduct in Persia under the sanctions of religion. _One is saddened but not surprised by the poverty of the country, but he is both saddened and surprised by the mass of illiteracy and ignorance. There is so much culture and intelligence and literary taste in Persia that one looks for a good local system of education and for a large percentage of literacy. There are no accurate census returns, nor indeed any census returns at all, but the accepted estimate of illiter- acy in the towns and cities is 95 per cent and in the villages 98 per cent. There is no public school system throughout the country. In many communities there are no schools of any kind. In others the mollahs conduct small schools for boys where the Koran is unintelligently memorized. Real prog- ress, nevertheless, has been made in education during the last twenty years, and so far as the scanty revenues of the country permit, many communities are developing schools which aim at giving a modern education. Not one of all these schools, however, approximates a good American high school. The only schools of this quality are the Mission schools in Teheran, Tabriz, Hamadan, and Isfahan. The lack of schools is no evidence of a lack of desire for them. - Hundreds of communities want them who have no way of providing them. There are no trained teachers, and there are no funds for their support. The internal poverty of the 359 country and the lack of foreign trade are poor fields from which to reap a revenue. The Belgian head of the Persian customs in Kermanshah, through which the foreign trade by way of Bagdad enters Persia, told us that two-thirds of all Persia's import trade is now coming in by this route, but that it was only a fraction of what ought to enter in times of real prosperity. Persia does not publish any statement of national and provincial receipts and expenditures, and prob- ably no one knows what the revenues of the country are. Taxes that should be sent to Teheran are held for provincial uses, and in many cases the income of the central govern- ment from crown lands or foreign loans is expended through the provinces. The national budget submitted to the last Me j lis, or Parliament, contemplated an income of tomans 16,000,000 and an expenditure of tomans 19,000,000 with no provision for the deficit except the hope of a foreign loan. The income of the government is derived from crown land, from import duties, from taxes on opium and liquor, and from taxes, direct and indirect, upon agriculture, and to a very limited degree on trade. City property in a city like Tabriz, for example, unless rented pays no tax. Leading reve- nue officials said quite plainly that the country was bankrupt, that it was no longer possible to collect the taxes which were necessary for the maintainance of national and local govern- ment. In one of the largest provinces the revenue depart- ment was collecting now only two-fifths of the amount assessed, all of which had been collected before the war. What import trade was coming into the country helped in the matter of revenue, but on the national balance sheet it was offset by no corresponding exports, and the inevitable result unless a foreign loan could be contracted, the revenue officials declared, was bankruptcy. "For that matter," they said, "the country is bankrupt now. All the government hos- pitals in Teheran are closed except one and that is barely maintained. The government schools are closed, and the teach- ers unpaid. Without a foreign loan it will not be possible to maintain the army which has been sent to suppress Simko and to restore order and govern authority in Urumia." "All this is true," one of the Swedish officers in the gendarmerie said to us. "I have been here ten years and conditions are worse than when I came. I have had no pay for three months. The Swedish head of the gendarmes in Resht has had no pay for five months, and many of the civil officials in Teheran have been unpaid for six months." Nevertheless in spite of these gloomy vievs^s the country is not bankrupt. The deficit 360 of tomans 3,000,000, on a proposed expenditure of 19,000,000 and income of 16,000,000, gives a ratio of revenue to expendi- ture of 81 per cent as compared with the corresponding ratio of 50 per cent in the French budget for 1920, 34 per cent in the Italian budget, 64 per cent in the budget of Switzerland, 85 per cent in the budget of Holland, 36 per cent in the budget of Germany, 34 per cent in the budget of Greece. Persia moreover has no such foreign debt as these other nations are attempting to bear. By her treaty with Soviet Russia all her indebtedness to Russia was obliterated. All that remains is the debt of approximately £4,500,000 to Great Britain. Against this indebtedness and her adverse trade balances, Persia has her almost entirely undeveloped natural resources. Of these she has alienated as yet by trade concessions only the rich oil rights in southwestern Persia which have proved immensely lucrative to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The Persian currency also has been saved from debasement. One shudders to think what would have happened to Persia if she had been cursed with a paper currency. All of Persia's money, however, is silver money, and when we have been disposed to complain at the enormous weight of two kran pieces (six- teen cents at present exchange) which we have had to carry, we have consoled ourselves with the thought of the suffering and ruin which Persia has been spared by the solidity of her national currency. The contrast with the currency conditions in the Caucasus is tragic. One hardly dare have gold or silver money in his possession in the Caucasus. The best paper money there is the rouble of the Georgian Republic which exchanged in April at the rate of one American dollar for roubles 250,000. We paid for our railroad tickets in a box freight car from the Persian border at Julf a to Erivan, the capital of the Armenian Republic, with the money of the Azerbaijan Republic whose capital is at Baku. It is a hun- dred and twenty miles from Julfa to Erivan, and we paid for each ticket 2,700,000 Azerbaijan roubles, worth fifty cents a million. We rented a samovar for breakfast tea for 500,000 roubles. Persia has been spared all this, and the government deserves credit for its refusal to take the paper money path- way to apparent prosperity and certain ruin. Furthermore even though her foreign trade has suffered severely, Persia has escaped the ruinous exchange depreciation of the conti- nental countries. During the war the toman, which had in normal times been at par or a little under par with the dollar, rose to two dollars. Even as late as the summer of 1920 the toman was worth a dollar and sixty cents. In August, 1921, it 361 fell as low as sixty-two cents, but had risen again during the first quarter of 1922 to eighty cents. One evening when we stopped for the night in an unusually prosperous village on the road between Teheran and Tabriz, we were hardly settled in our menzil before the governor of the district called. He had had a son in one of the Mission schools, and, as emerged at the close of the call, he was desirous of consulting Dr. Packard professionally. He began with pleasant and friendly words of appreciation and of under- standing. We were of one heart, said he, he and we. He knew the ideas that were in our mind and the purposes which had brought us to Persia, and he approved of these. I asked him if he felt hopeful about his country. "I have no hope at all," said he, "unless some civilized nation will put Persia upon its feet." Which one of the nations might be expected to do this, we asked him. "There is only one," said he, "and that is America. It is the richest and the most civilized of the nations, and it has no axe to grind. Its purposes are unselfish purposes. Our hope is in America." I said that it was a doubtful hope, that politically our country would not intervene, and that commercially, if American trade came, it would come, to be sure, for the mutual profit of the two coun- tries, and if the best American spirit controlled it, it would not seek to exploit Persia or to take advantage of her, but would develop an honorable interchange which would help both countries, that there was an ever increasing number of men in America who realized that trade did not mean defraud- ing one country for the benefit of another but mutual benefit to both. Nevertheless there were many who were still ungov- erned by this spirit, and it was not unlikely that some might come who would seek only to gain and not to give ; that there were not many enterprises like the Mission enterprise whose only motive was to serve and which sought only to give and not to gain. Yes, he said, he understood this, and he and the missionaries were of one mind, but he believed that America was unselfish and he knew that it was wealthy, and it was best for a poor man and a rich man to walk together. America wanted no Persian territory, and Persia wanted American help. I asked him if the country had gone backward or forward within his memory. In its military organization, the gendarmerie and the army, it had gone on. In its revenue and its commerce, no. It was difficult to collect the old taxes of wheat and barley and money levied on each village. The new taxes on rented properties in cities, on opium and liquor, and on each load of merchandise or grain entering a city were 362 more readily collectible, but altogether they were insufficient for the necessities of government. Did he not think, we inquired, that perhaps some of the taxes restrained pros- perity? In America cities sought to attract trade, and instead of raising barriers against it or imposing a fine upon its entrance, encouraged it in every way. Yes, he said, there were educated men in Persia who, like himself, understood enough of economics to realize that there were better ways, but they could not change things now. I told him that my impression was that in twenty-five years poverty and tolerance had both greatly increased in Persia. This was his judgment also. What then were the causes of this poverty and why had the caravanserais of Shah Abbas fallen into decay? What explained the difference between those noble old buildings and the cheap mud caravanserais of today? "I think of three reasons," he replied. "In the first place the population has increased. Persia then had an even larger area than now, with greater agricultural wealth and with a much smaller number of people, so that there was more general pros- perity. In the second place the cost of government is now much greater than it was then. There was more centralized authority and control and the Shah had money for the build- ing and the upkeep of the caravanserais which he scattered all over the land. In the third place there was less rebellion and political unsettlement and provincial independence then than now. There were poorer firearms, and people like the Shahsavans and Shekoik Kurds could not harrass trade and keep the country in turmoil as they do today. But we are hoping for better days now with our new army." We asked him about this new army knowing that a good part of it had passed through his village on its way westward. We had seen the closed tea houses and the abandoned villages through which it had passed. Yes, he admitted, there was still a great deal to be done. The army had no adequate commissary. Some officer came on one day ahead of his regiment and had to gather food for it as best he could. In the case of one regiment there had been payment. Another had come from Resht and had brought its own rice. A third had come with no advance commissary preparations at all, bringing nothing with it and living off the country it came through. What else indeed could the soldiers do? Our good friend's analysis could be subjected to criticism in a number of particulars, but there is a great deal of truth in it. Government in Persia has been both arbitrary and Uberal. In the old days the Shah had absolute power, and 363 the political system consisted in the sale of this power from the top all the way down to the village khoda, each purchaser recouping himself for his expenditure as quickly as possible by the exercise of his authority, not knowing when he should be bought out of his place by his successor. The system made no provision for schools, communications, public improve- ments, or any of the functions of a progressive modern gov- ernment. Apart from its financial exactions, however, it did allow a great measure of freedom, and both from Turkey and from Afghanistan those who desired some measure of liberty were sure to find it by crossing the border. The old abso- lutism of the Shah is gone and with it the diffusion of his autocracy among lower officials is going. There seems to be much less of the old system of bribery and recovery of the bribe by financial extortion. The establishment of the consti- tution in 1906 and the meetings of the Mejlis, or parliament, even though there have been but four of these in sixteen years, have in part expressed and in part engenderd a new spirit of popular freedom and political responsibility. The whole system of government is still very loose- jointed and irregular in comparison with the old system of regularized corruption, but great progress has been made, and there is intelligence enough, if character also can be found, to assure the future progress of the country in orderly and constitutional self- government. It has before it the problem of every weak gov- ernment dealing with large territories with inadequate means of communication. A man like Mohammed Taghi or Ismael Agha, the former in Meshed and the latter in Urumia, very different men at the two extremes of the country, defends his revolt against the central government in Teheran with obvious arguments. The first answer to these arguments must be honest and capable central government. The second answer is the assertion of the central authority in the effec- tive military . control of disorder. And the third is the improvement of communications. A fourth, which ought not to be last in time, is the adequate support of education. Almost every Persian official with whom we spoke with regard to the progress of Persia cited the development of the Persian army. This has been something that the Persians could see. It has been associated with the rise of Reza Khan, the present Minister of War, who is said to be unable to read and write but who is a man of great force and power, and who has risen from the common ranks to be the outstanding personality in Persia at the present time. It is to be hoped that he will not use his power in any foolish or harmful way. 364 There is no evidence that he intends to do so. His one pur- pose thus far appears to be to repress disorder and to maintain the proper authority of the government. I saw the Persian army in the old unkempt drill s(iuare in Teheran twenty-five years ago and I saw it again on this visit, and it is a new drill square, and a new army very creditable to those who have developed it and quite adequate now, one would hope, after order is established in Urumia, and without further expan- sion, to furnish the police force needed to repress brigandage and to maintain peace throughout the country. The gendar- merie is a police force begun by Mr. Shuster to aid in the reve- nue department. It has been officered and taught by a Swedish personnel who are now being released, and the body which they built up has been incorporated with the army. Just prior to the incorporation and a few weeks before we reached Tabriz local anti-government leaders made use of the gendarmes in a political coup which was only frustrated by the recall of troops which were in the field against Ismael Agha. If the Persian army is not needed to repress disorder there is certainly no better use to which it could be put than build- ing roads. Persia has no roads except those which Russia and Great Britain built for her before and during the war from Enzeli to Kasvin, from Teheran to Hamadan and Tairuk, from Julfa to Tabriz and from Seistan to Meshed. A few excep- tions should be made to this statement, such as the wide straight road from Teheran to Kasvin and the road which the strong old governor of Meshed, Neir-i-Dowleh, built from Meshed to Sharifabad, the road from Teheran south to Kum, and the stone road over the Kaflan Kuh Pass. With these exceptions there are no made roads in northern Persia at least. The want of good roads makes both travel and the transport of goods difficult and expensive. It took us a fortnight in the month of March, traveling stead- ily in all kinds of weather to cover the three hundred miles between Kasvin and Tabriz. This was as fast as ordinary caravans would have traveled in the best weather. It was over the only road between the two chief cities of Persia. Even when roads and bridges have been once built, they have not been kept in order. There is a magnificent old arched brick bridge over the Karangu river just east of Mianeh. The approaches are fast falling into ruin, and not a hand is lifted to maintain the beautiful old structure which is necessary to travel and commerce. Many streams are wholly unbridged. Gullies are allowed to deepen until the road is entirely destroyed and a circuitous route has to be found. Bogs that 365 could easily have been crossed by causeways are allowed to grow into hopeless morasses. Nothing but the patience and sense of helplessness bred into camels and donkeys and horses and men by centuries of suffering and endurance could keep Persia's trade moving at all over its execrable highways. "I know that our country is backward," said one Paris educated governor, "and it is chiefly because of our roads." A thought- ful Persian will defend his country from the disgrace of its roads by pointing out that the people have never used wheeled vehicles, that all travel and traffic has been by caravan, that the feet of the animals preferred soft desert trails to metaled roads, and that the population is sparse and unable to build or maintain the necessary highways. On the other hand the climate is not unfavorable to the preservation of good roads; road material is always near at hand for building and repairs ; the Mohammedan religion requires pilgrimages and ought to have been the great road-building faith ; and the terrible roads which the country has endured for unnumbered centuries have cost far more in the lives of animals and of men and in the price of merchandise than it would have cost to build and maintain the few good highways which the country needs. But the lack of roads in its relation to national prosperity and character is not so much a cause as an effect. One must look deeper than this for the reasons for Persia's decline, for her loss, like Spain's and Portugal's, of the great place which she once filled. Some attribute it to the breaking down of the nation's physical health. What forces could have done this? We asked the doctors whether the indolence and anemia of so much of the population could be due to hook worm, to which similar conditions are traced in many other lands. No, the doctors said, hook worm was practically unknown. For some years the doctors, both Persian and foreign, had been seeking for it, and only one had encountered it. Malaria, they said, had been the great curse of Persia, malaria and unname- able diseases, which have always flourished in Mohammedan lands. The pilgrimages also as in Arabia had been a great source of moral and physical contagion. Meshed, as the great- est, has been the worst of the shrine cities in Persia in this regard, maintaining a host of mosque women for temporary .marriage to pilgrims. As much guilt probably must be laid to opium as to malaria. The doctors differ as to the extent of its use, which no doubt varies greatly in different sec- tions of the country. In some sections it is almost universal. It is used much less, one would judge, in western Persia. In one hospital it was found that 95 per cent of the children who 366 were brought in had been given opium at home. Often times a traveler discovers that what he took for incompetence or stupidity was nothing but the torpor of opium. But opium also is a symptom rather than a cause of national degeneracy. There are moral reasons, found in the ignorance of the people, especially of the women, in bad government, in falsehood and dishonesty, in religious tyranny and corruption. Something more may be said about each of these. Thp want of activity and of enterprise is due in part to the want of probity and confidence. Of course Persian society could not hold together at all without certain forms of trust, but it can- not progress without far more trust and trustworthiness than are found in Persia today. We were welcomed when we entered Tabriz by the head of the municipality, surrounded by the leading merchants and bankers of the city, in a beau- tiful garden. As we left Tabriz a fortnight later our host was in prison under accusation of having "eaten" some sixty thou- sand dollars of wheat revenue. I do not know whether he was guilty but this sort of thing in Persia is too common. Islam also has unquestionably worked as an influence of dis- integration and corruption in Persian character. There is a great deal that is noble in Mohammedanism and in the Koran, and one is glad to recognize all these elements of nobility and power ; but on the other hand both the teachings and the teach- ers of Islam have wrought evil in Persian life. Emerson could never have likened the Days that looked scornfully on the loss of opportunity, to Dervishes if he had known Persia. "It is the mollahs and the mujtahids who have been the great enemies of education, at least of modern education and the education of women," one of the most intelligent of the men we met declared. For a generation now, however, the Moham- medan ecclesiastical power has been breaking down. For a long time the rift has been opening between the urf or civil law and the shar or ecclesiastical law. There was a brief revival of ecclesiastical prestige when the mollahs led the popular opposition to the proposed Tobacco Regie monopoly supported by the government a generation ago, but this prestige soon waned, and although mollahs and mujtahids exercise, and not unjustly, because of their gifts, a large public influence and fill a disproportionate place in the Mejlis, never- theless it is upon a democratic basis that they now have to maintain their influence, and what they will have to reckon upon increasingly will be popular prejudice and not privilege or prestige. We could not but feel sorry as we travelled over the country 367 to see the disrespect in which the Shah is held. Poor and weak as liis government has been, one would still like to find that he had held in some way the good will of his people. We met one old farmer one day who spoke of him with real regard and who pointed out the energy with which he had developed an army and was trying to put down disorder. He did not know that the Shah was far away from his country and bearing no share in meeting its great difl^iculties. Several times I spoke to groups of young men with regard to Persia and always referred to the Shah in the respectful way in which it seemed to me the ruler of a country should be spoken of. In each case the young men listened without response and afterwards expressed amazement that any one should speak in such a tone with regard to the Shah. In this and in a score of other ways I reflected one afternoon as I walked along the road alone, how different is Persia from Siam ! In many respects the two countries are in similar position. They are very much alike in area and population. They have had similar external political problems to face. Each bears the burden of an anesthetizing and sterilizing rehgion. Each copes with the problem of national illiteracy and ignorance, of lack of communications, and of the consequences of gen- erations of autocracy. In meeting all these problems Persia has distinct advantages over Siam in climate, in proximity to markets, in the character of the national stock, in energy and industry, in a larger class of alert and intelligent men of modern outlook and experience, and in the stimulus of con- stitutional government and parliamentary institutions, and yet in efficiency and achievement the Siamese government has completely outdistanced the Persian. It has developed efficient and honest administration. It has solved its external political problems. It is seeking to abolish the opium traffic and to cancel the item of opium excise in the government revenues. It has begun the establishment of a good school system. It has a small army not less efficiently equipped and organized than Persia's and with a flying corps which Persia lacks. Persia has no railroads except the line between Julf^ and Tabriz which Russia built and operates, while Siam now has an excellent and well maintained railway system from its southern boundary in the Melay Peninsula to Bangkok and from Bangkok north through the heart of the country to Chieng Mai. And the contrast is vivid between the rulers of the two lands, the uneducated Shah and the king who was trained at Oxford, the Shah with his harem and the bachelor King who has said that he did not intend to be married until 368 he could abjure the polygamous precedents of his fathers, and whose good name in Siam is free from scandal ; and the Shah who has but little to do with his own government and who is now far away from its problems in Paris and the King who is the actual administrative force in Siam devoting himself unremittingly to the interests of his country. What might not the Shah do for Persia if he would follow such an example as this and give himself to the service of his needy and lovable people ? But the great weight which holds all Moslem peoples down beyond all hope and from which they must free themselves if they are to rise and go forward is the subordination of woman. It may well be that in the Arabia of the seventh century Mohammedanism was a boon to women, giving them a pro- tection which they had not possessed before and diminishing the wrongs and inequalities from which they suffered. There are those who hold a contrary view. Be the truth what it may about the seventh century in Arabia, it is certain that in Persia and Turkey today the forces and conceptions which hold women down, by the same grasp hold society back. "The great intolerance of Mohammedanism," says Professor Flin- ders Petrie, ''and the lower position accorded in law and prac- tice to women will always be a bar to its surpassing in civiliza- tion the races of other creeds." Both in Persia and in Turkey the women are already beginning to cast off the old shackles. As we came out of the mosque of St. Sophia in Constantinpole, we met a company of seventy or eighty Moslem school girls coming in in a body. They wore their black tcharscheffs but not over their faces. As they went by with their laughing eyes and ruddy cheeks unconcealed, they vividly illustrated the change that is taking place. The old ideas still hold with such a tenacious grip, however, that many Moslem women have no hope. One of the ablest apologists for the old order in Tabriz is a Mohammedan woman who was educated in Europe and who returned with bold ideas which she has come to despair of realizing, and who is now preaching the doctrine of resignation to the inevitable. The subjugation of women to the ownership of man is not inevitable, however. It is inevitable that human society will ultimately rebel against any estimate of woman which prevents her rendering her full service towards social progress. It is a tribute to the durability of the fine elements in womanhood that they have not been crushed out under the influences of Islam, and no small part of Persia's hope is to be found in the undestroyed capacities of Persian women. And it is a grave mistake to 369 take a discouraged view of Persia or of the Persian people. One of the ablest and most detached students of Persia told rne that he attributed the long decline of Persian civilization to dessication. The country and the race had dried out. It was clear, he said, that in old days Persia had been a much better forested land, that the disappearance of the forests had robbed the soil of necessary nourishment and had been accom- panied by a change of climate which had diminished the rain- fall and dried up the water fountains and dessicated the char- acter of the people. There were many title deeds, he said, which forbade the planting of forests because of the shelter which they gave to outlaws. Perhaps his judgment is sound, but one would like to see the test made as to whether the moral and physical and economic forces which are within man's control could not be used in Persia to restore the pros- perity of the nation and to recover its character. If it is true that the country has lost ground in the last quarter of a century, it is equally true that it has gained ground. It is more intelligent and free spirited. It has entered into the inspiration of a new sense of political rights and duties. It knows what modern education is and it wants it both for intelligence and for character. It has grown in tolerance and freedom. Compared with its neighbors it has held its own in troublous times not without skill and success, and it is looking onward and not backward. It is true that Shah Abbas's caravanserais are in ruins, but so also are the abbeys of England and Scotland and the works of Queen Elizabeth's time, who built when Abbas built. And if old castles and villages are gone in Persia, what has become of the manor houses and the villages and the people who once filled the parish churches and whose children cannot fill their porches in the England of two or three centuries ago in the valley of the Avon? (See Cobbett, "Rural Rides in England," Vol. II, Chap. "Down the Valley of the Avon in Wiltshire.") No doubt a great deal of Persian stock both in city and village is debili- tated beyond recovery, but a great deal of it is as sturdy and vital as any stock to be found anywhere, full of cheerful- ness, long suffering, patience and good-will. What Persia needs is a friend, and no country in the world is asking more earnestly for a friend than Persia is asking for the friendship of America. Wherever we went, we were asked with regard to the possibility of American help in the development of the resources of Persia. One old farmer had gained the idea that America had fully resolved to do for Persia whatever was necessary and that as soon as Ismail 370 Agha was disposed of America was coming to build roads and to bring prosperity. The practical hope of intelligent per- sons was that the Standard Oil Company would accept the concession which the Me.jlis had voted to give it for the development of the oil resources of the five provinces of Azerbaijan, Gilan, Mazandaran, Astrabad, and Khorasan. There was not one dissenting voice among all those with whom we talked from Meshed to Tabriz. They wanted America's help. If America would not help them then they had no hope for the future of their country. America ought to help them and can very well do so in ways which will be to Persia's advantage and her own. But Persia needs a greater friend than the Standard Oil Company or the United States of America and who can do more for her than build roads or develop oil or promote trade. She does need prosperity instead of poverty, but that will not be a mere economic change. Slie needs the enlightenment, the freedom, the purity, the righteousness, the Truth, and the Life which are also the Way. She has had enough of Moham- med. She needs Christ whom Mohammedanism has praised, ilris-truer^ut has also effaced — long enough. S. S. Constantinople, Mediterranean Sea, May 8, 1922. 371 4. THE GROWTH OF TOLERANCE AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN PERSIA In November, 1896, Dr. Coan of Urumia and I made a chap- par journey from Hamadan to visit the missionaries in Tehe- ran. We rode post horses eastward from Hamadan as long as they were obtainable, changing horses at the end of each three hours and covering between seventy and a hundred miles a day. At the end of the third day post horses were no longer available, and we covered the last stage to Saveh, where we joined the great carriage road running from Teheran to Kum, in a rough cart drawn by one big horse between the shafts and a little horse hitched outside the shaft by ropes. The driver of this equipage assured us that our troubles would be at an end when we reached Saveh at noon, for there the post diligence from the south to the capital would be waiting for us, "And once you are on board," said he, "it will travel like a flame." The flame-like diligence was not waiting, but it toiled in at midnight. It was a covered Russian forgan very much like the prairie schooner of the old days in the West. It was loaded with bags and mail parcels, leaving but a scanty open space between the cargo and the wooden ribs over which the canvas top was spread. It had already a good complement of passengers including three sayids, descendants of Mohammed. They were somewhat dandified young men, wearing, beside the green sashes that marked their order, nice camel hair abbas and rather dainty heel-less slippers. They made it plain at once that we were no welcome addi- tion to their company, and they set up a barrier of luggage across the wagon, leaving Dr. Coan and me an isolated sec- tion of our own at the rear. The next day we encountered snow and heavy storms which almost blocked the road. I remember our finding one poor traveler dead by the roadside, lying cold and stiff in the snow. For hours we trudged along in the cold and wet, stopping in the roadside tea houses as we came to them for a few moments of warmth and shelter. We were all caught in one common misery, but our Moham- medan friends made it plain that even in misery there was to be no community with us. We were bad enough dry, but our wet infidelity was doubly contaminating, and they would touch no tea glasses out of which we had drunk, and by the tea house fires drew their cloaks about them that they might 372 not be defiled by our touch. Neither food nor fellowship would they share with us, and not one human courtesy did they show us. Perhaps this group possessed less of the cus- tomary kindness of the Persian heart than was usual in those days even among sayids and mollahs, but in general their attitude of intolerance and bigotry was characteristic a quar- ter of a century ago. No doubt there were many exceptions and even then Persian Mohammedanism was far more kindly and accessible than the Sunni Mohammedans of Turkey, but the day of toleration and religious freedom had not come. Last February on our return journey from Meshed to Teheran we had a very different experience. For a week we had with us as a fellow traveler on the post wagon a Moham- medan merchant from Meshed on his way to Teheran to buy goods. He was a very devout man. Morning, afternoon, and night, when we stopped to change horses, he would wash him- self, bathing his feet and washing his arms from elbow to fingers, after the Shiah fashion, and then before us all, with- out either shame or ostentation, say his prayers. We sat together day after day in close and friendly fellowship, shar- ing our food and wrapping him in our own blankets when the weather was too cold for the insufficient cloaks he had brought. One long afternoon and evening we were all drenched together by a heavy rain which ended in a fierce wind and sleet so that even the dogged old post courier, whom nothing could daunt, was forced to give in and order the wagon to lay up at the next caravanserai until the storm should abate. It turned out to be no caravanserai at all, however, but only a desolate chappar station with no accommodations. The wagon was sheltered, in a roofed passage way, and the old courier and Dr. McDowell of Teheran who was with us wrapped them- selves in their blankets and slept on the load. The three of us, however, and the merchant set out in the night to find, if we could, a tea house in which to dry out and rest. Through the whistling wind and rain and the mud and a little running stream we made our way to a closed tea house which the mer- chant got open for us. Then he had fires built at which he helped us to dry our wet clothes, arranged places where we could lie down for a little sleep, got tea for us with his own hands, and then insisted on carrying a pot of tea out through the stormy night to Dr. McDowell. No mother could have been more solicitous for her children, more full of tender and loving care than the good man was of us. He was as devout a Moslem as we had met, and he lived in the most sacred city of Persia. The whole week that we were together he treated 373 us as his brothers and friends and we said good-bye to him at last with what, I am sure, was genuine mutual affection and sincere regret that we would never meet again. As we sat together in our wet clothes around the little brazier fire in the tea house at Mehman Dust I recalled the experience of twenty-five years ago in the post wagon on the Kum road. No doubt some of the difference between that experience and this was due to differences in personal character, but unques- tionably also the two experiences are representative of the great change which has taken place in Persia. The letters which I wrote home from the different stations in Persia cite many instances of this change in the attitude of the people. I wish to bring together here some more of the evidence which came to our attention in addition to the station letters and the testimony which I have set down in "Talks with Mohammedan Converts in Persia." There could be no more notable indication of the change which is passing over Persia than is found in the increased freedom of women. For a long time the influence of the mollahs resisted the education of girls, but within the last few years mollahs who undertook to resist the movement have been openly flouted. A large proportion of the girls in our Mission girls' schools are now from Moslem homes, includ- ing the homes of the most prominent oflficials and ecclesiastics. They are all openly taught the Bible, in some cases by well known Moslem women who have become Christians. The old limitations of woman's dress have not been thrown aside, but they have been greatly relaxed, and the women are increas- ingly careless in covering their faces. Mrs. Boyce has writ- ten out for us a short statement regarding some of the most recent changes in the life and interest of Persian women. "Since Persia adopted constitutional government in 1906, there has been a great awakening among the Mohammedan women of this country. This awakening has found expres- sion in the opening of many girls' schools in the larger cities, notably in Teheran. Three years ago the Government opened ten free schools for girls in Teheran and a number in other places. These government schools offer a four years course which a child would naturally complete at the age of ten. The private schools give two years more. In connection with two private schools the Government has established an addi- tional three-years course, designed to train girls for teaching. A significant fact about these higher courses is that men are teaching some of them ; up to now men have not been employed in Persian schools for girls, except in our own Mission schools. 374 About fifty girls are taking the advanced courses which a girl would ordinarily complete at the age of fifteen or sixteen. French is taught in many of the private schools but only as a language, not as a medium of instruction. There is no demand in these schools for English. The only other train- ing open to girls is a course in midwifery, given in French by a French woman doctor connected with one of the govern- ment hospitals. Judging by the wonderful progress in the last fifteen years, we can be very sure that the Persian schools for girls are going to increase in numbers and in standard of work done. "Another sign of awakening has been the publication of four papers for women, — the first in Isfahan, three years ago, the second in Teheran, the third by the alumnae of our girls' school in Teheran, the fourth appearing in Meshed and then moving to Teheran. The Isfahan paper was suppressed because the bright woman who published it could not keep her pen out of politics. The Meshed paper was sensationally supressed because it spoke too frankly on the subject of free- dom for women and aroused the opposition of the mollahs. The second on the list moved to Tabriz and probably stopped for lack of funds, so that the magazine our alumnae are pub- lishing is the only surviving member of the quartette. "A third sign of the times could* be discerned in the anjomans or societies, several of which existed in Teheran last year and there were said to be some in other cities. These societies were short-lived, as a change in the Government for- bade all kinds of meetings for several months. The purpose of these societies was to work for the freedom of women, especially for their unveiling. The society I knew most about had about 50 members, men and women together with open faces, the only condition being that every man who attended should be accompanied by wife or sister as his chaperon ! This year a group of young men, graduates of our boys' school, have formed a similar society among themselves to work for the freedom of women. "The unveiling of Mohammedan women in Constantinople is bound to have a great effect on the Mohammedan women of Persia. With the unveiling of Persian women there will come tremendous changes in the whole state of society and a demand for the kind of education which will fit women to fill many positions which the .veil now prevents and forbids women to occupy." The work of every one of our stations in Persia is a witness to the new freedom which has come. The very existence of 375 the Meshed station would not have been possible twenty-five years ago. At least one of those who undertook missionary work there in the early days had to be sheltered from harm in the British consulate. No one would have dared then to rent us property for missionary use. Today leading eccle- siastics connected with the Shrine itself are ready to facilitate the purchase of property for the Mission. Some thirty years ago the Persian Government demanded the removal from Urumia of a German missionary who had come for direct work for Moslems. Today we have been urged by Persian officials and by Moslem ecclesiastics not to let anything interfere with the return of our Mission to Urumia to work there both for Christians and for Mohammedans. Some thirty years ago when it was reported to the Shah that Moslems were attending the Mission services in Teheran, Nasr-i-din replied, "I cannot prevent their hearing, but if they apostatize let them beware." When the Teheran hospital was built, the Shah conditioned his permission for its building, declaring, "all the workmen and servants must be Mohammedans. A Mohammedan chaplain must be supported from Mission funds, and the call to prayer must be regularly sounded in accordance with the customs of Islam." It is needless to say that nothing of the sort was ever done, but the significant thing is that the very idea of such conditions as these would never enter any one's mind today. The change that has taken place in Tabriz is perhaps even more notable. In 1874, the Armenian priests stirred up the Moslem mujtahids, or ecclesiastics, and a number of Moslems attending the services on Sunday were seized and beaten, one of them to death. In consequence, more Moslems than ever came to hear the missionaries, and to learn what it was that so offended the priests. In 1885 again fanaticism broke out, and the city was in an uproar against a Moslem, Mirza Ali, who proclaimed belief in Christianity, and who had to flee from the country. In 1892 the government without any noti- fication locked up the doors of the church and school, and put red sealing wax over the keyholes. When at last an explanation could be obtained, the reasons assigned for seal- ing up the buildings were, "lack of proper permission to build the church, having the Ten Commandments written in the interior of the church in a Mohammedan language and in the sacred blue color, having^a water tank under the church in which to baptize converts, having a tower in which we intended to put a bell, baptizing Mussulmans, of whom Mirza Ibrahim was now in prison, receiving Mussulman boys into 376 our school and women to the church, having Dr. Bradford's dispensary near the church." After explanations and a long delay, the seals were removed, the government issuing the following order to the missionaries: "That we must not receive Mussulman women and children to our schools or church, that we must not take photographs of Mussulman women, that we must not conduct ourselves contrary to cus- tom." Over all the work for Mohammedans at that time hung the black shadow of remembrance of the fate of Mirza Ibrahim. He was a Mohammedan of Khoi who found peace in Christ for his troubled heart, and was publicly baptized in 1890. The mollahs reasoned with him, and tried to bribe him. His wife and children left him, and took all his property accord- ing to Moslem law. While he was going about the village preaching, he was arrested and taken before the governor in Urumia. When he spoke for Christ, saying, "He is my Saviour," they cried, "Beat him." He was beaten and reviled, but he only replied, as his face shone, "So was my Saviour beaten." After a short imprisonment he was removed to Tabriz. As he was led away from the prison, he solemnly called his fellow-prisoners to witness that he was free from their blood if they should reject the way of life, and "they all rose with heavy chains on their necks and bade him go in peace, while they prayed that his God and the Saviour whom he trusted would protect him." One of tne Monammedan officers who had watched him, said to the Mohammedan crowd in the yard: "This is a wonderful man. He is as brave as a lion. A mollah has just been trying to convince him of his error, but he replies to everything, and the mollah has gone away with his head hanging down. He says that Mohammed is not a prophet, and that unless they can prove that he is, from the Holy Books, he will not give up his faith in Christ, even if they cut off his head." His last request as he set out for the capital of the province was: "Pray for me that I may be a witness for Christ before the great of my people. I have no fear'though I know that I shall die. Good-by." Some of the officials in Tabriz and Urumia seemed to be in real sympathy with the prisoner, but he was cast into the dark dungeon at Tabriz, chained to vile criminals, beaten, stunned and deprived of his clothes and bedding. One night when he witnessed for Christ to his fellow-prisoners, they fell upon him, kicked him, and took turns in choking him. His throat swelled so that he could scarcely swallow or speak, and on Sunday, May 14, 1893, he died from his injuries. When the 377 Crown Prince was informed oi! his death, he asked, "How did he die?" And the jailor answered, "He died like a Christian." "He through fiery trials trod, And from great affliction came; Now before the throne of God, Sealed with His almighty name, Clad in raiment pure and white, Victor palms within his hands. Through his dear Redeemer's might More than conqueror he stands." He was buried by night in the grave of a rich Moslem, whose body had been removed. Twenty-six years ago I went to see the dungeon in which he had been imprisoned and where he died, but his grave, it was said, was secret, and I could not be taken to it lest the betrayal of the place might lead to some fanatical riot. On this visit the dungeon was no longer to be seen. Only the site of it remained, but there was now no concealment of the grave, and the Mohammedan who had buried Mirza Ibrahim in it, now a Christian, offered to take me to the spot. We attended large gatherings of Moslem converts and inquirers who came and went without hindrance and fear. We visited the tea houses in the central bazaars where the Scriptures were sold and the Gospel was preached not only without opposition but so long as the work was tactfully done with the thorough good will of the people. A policeman came into one of the tea houses while we were there, and with a smile of friendly greeting, bought his bread and sat down while Mr. Wilson and Rabbi Ephraim, the agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, sold Scriptures and read the story of our Lord's temptation and talked about the Saviour and offered prayer. Not long ago one of the Moslem converts was called up by the police. "There is nothing secret," he replied. "Come and hear what is said and see what is done." In what was formerly an inaccessible Moham- medan quarter of the city there is now a flourishing school for girls from Moslem homes. We were taken to visit it, and the visit of four men to a Mohammedan girls' school instantly aroused questioning. A deputation of ecclesiastics called at once to order the suppression of the school, but when it was known that we had requested the girls according to their own custom to draw their chudders over their faces before we came in a favorable murmur went about the city, and the school continued entirely undisturbed. "The city is greatly pleased with Mr. Speer's visit," one of the leading men told Dr. Vanneman, "because he told the Mohammedan girls to cover their faces before he spoke to them at the Khiaban 378 school." There are eight other requests for similar schools which the Mission could establish if it were able to do so in other districts of Tabriz. The doors are still wider open, if that be possible, in the villages. Garabed, the evangelist who worked for so many years with Miss Holiday, told us of calls that had come for village schools from twenty-three Moslem villages in the district of Garadagh. All these calls were sealed by the Moslem village masters. He had a list of several hundred Moslem families who wanted to move to some Christian village and join the Christian community there as soon as they had reaped their present harvest. He was meeting with no oppo- sition either from the Moslem village owners or from the mollahs. In all the villages they were treating him as a friend, entertaining him as their guest, and providing for his transportation from village to village. A new freedom of speech has come in Persia, at least as regards religion. In politics the censorship is still rigid enough. When we were in Tabriz, every newspaper had been suppressed. They will emerge again, however, and no doubt be many more times suppressed before the day of complete liberty of political discussion comes. So far as religion is con- cerned no one who will behave prudently and temperately need fear. One hears the frankest talk about Islam from all classes of the people, high and low. One of the most influential pub- lications is the "Kaveh," a monthly magazine published by young Persians living in Berlin but widely circulated in Persia. Recently it has printed a series of articles entitled "Famous Men of the East and West." The number of October 3, 1921, contained the life of Martin Luther. Mr. Donaldson showed us the article in Meshed and summarized its translation for us. "It starts out by saying that it is generally recognized by European thinkers that if Martin Luther had not broken the power and bigotry of the Catholic priesthood, Europe would not by any means have reached the modern degree of civilization and enlightenment. He showed that there must be freedom of thought in religion and that religion in itself is not contrary to reason. His work was in the beginning of the reign of reason, when science and philosophy were taking new life, and with the new freedom of thought, the Chris- tian religion made rapid progress. Accordingly the science, civilization, and religion of Christendom, owe an everlasting debt of gratitude to Martin Luther. "The article goes on to point out that in Mohammedan coun- tries today there are reforms needed in many lines, among which the following are mentioned: 379 1. Considering others than Moslems unclean. 2. The imprisonment of women by the purdah system. 3. The legalizing of polygamy. 4. The ease of divorce. 5. Deeming those of religions other than "ahl-i-kitab" infidels and worthy of death. 6. The restriction of religious teaching to the Arabic language. "The story of the life of Martin Luther is then narrated, and throughout there is emphasis on the necessity for free- dom of thought in order that civilization may advance and intellectual progress be made possible." Whether or not Islam is breaking up in Persia or elsewhere I do not know. A religion which has lasted for twelve hundred years and which has laid hold on personal and com- munity and national life with a thousand pervasive invisible bonds is not likely to break up over night. One hears both from Mohammedans and others strong judgments as to the decay and disintegration of Mohammedanism, but then one hears the same kind of talk in the West with regard to the decay and disintegration of Christianity. We asked constantly in Persia for opinions as to the real facts. Were the pilgrim- ages diminishing? Were the revenues of the shrines and the mosques decreasing? Did the people still pray in their homes or in their public places of prayer? How were the fasts observed? What was the influence of the mollahs and the mujtahids? On these and similar questions one could present a body of conflicting testimony, but I believe the sound con- clusion is that Islam as a religious force is weakening, but that as a political instrument to be utilized as an agency of nationalism it has stiffened greatly in Turkey and India. The stiffening is not so perceptible in Persia. Now and then there are evidences that the forms of Shiah Mohammedanism are being encouraged in the interest of political nationalism, but Persian character is so easy going and everything is so unorganized and careless in Persian life that any galvaniza- tion of Mohammedanism in a political interest is far more than offset by the disintegrating influences. These disintegrating influences grow ever stronger and stronger and more outspoken. One of the papers recently repressed in Tabriz was entitled "Azad," or "Freedom." In its issue of January 1, 1922, appeared the following article: "A Medicine for Those Tied to Moslem Ecclesiastics. Let all Persians, both religious and irreligious, read this. 380 "Oh Persians of the Shiah sect, either you believe or you do not believe. But those who do believe, let them give ear and hear what I am saying. How unworthy are those who confess that Islam is a religious system both spiritual and worldly, but who forget that a tree must be known by its fruits. While, as you say, this religion has the happiness of this world to offer as well as the coming world, yet in every point all Moslems over the world are low, poor, unclean, with- out civilization, foolish, ignorant and in general they are two hundred years behind American and European Christians and even behind the Zoroastrians. "If it were only in some places that we found Islam in this condition we might attribute the results to some other reason but where we find Islam everywhere in the same condition we can see no other reason but Islam itself. This appears true to every man who looks at the question, because Islam has lost the real Islam. The foundations of true Islam have been dropped and other superstitious things have been brought into their place. "We Moslems must recognize that the very thing which has brought us to this point is that we have followed the faith of the ecclesiastics. Our learned and able men have under- stood that each age has its own ways and its own leaders and therefore every age must follow a new leader. And they think that their command is the command of God and His prophet. If the leader of a certain age says that paper money, for instance, is unclean; then no poor Moslem can touch paper money no matter how useful a thing it may be, and so of other things. "Now let us see what great losses have been brought in our age by our following these ecclesiastics. Now I ask you ad- vocates of Islam, can the judgment of one man be trusted to such an extent? Anyone with a little wisdom will say, No. Even more than that, are our ecclesiastical leaders ready to give up all selfish motives? I am sorry to say. No ! No ! Now I pray all believers, let them bestir, arise and gird themselves, and find the rules of the genuine Islam which will be a great help for us in this world and the one to come. "Now for Persians who have no religion. You will say that Islam is not true, but do we not need something to hold to- gether and provide for the welfare and progress of the coun- try? You will say that we have no money and there is no unity in our country. What shall we do? I say that we must come under the standard of Islam (but true Islam). Let us throw away this following of the mujtahids. I have heard 381 that once upon a time a King of Persia was visiting at the court of King William of Germany, and after reviewing all the regiments of splendid troops he sat down to dinner and spoke to Kaiser William : 'What shall we do in order to make Persia as successful as your country?' Kaiser William an- swered: 'You can not feed one hundred thousand soldiers and you can not maintain order in your cities as we do, and you can not have manufacturing plants as we have, but you can do the following things that will be acceptable all over the world. First, you can refuse to tie yourselves as all the followers of one man and say that his command is the com- mand of God and the prophet, and second you can treat your various tribes so that they will not be tools in the hands of your neighbor nations. If you do these things I assure you that your kingdom will be great.' Therefore arise and take your sword and dig up all those thorns which have grown up around Mohammed, — may the blessings of God be upon him and his children, — so that we may be blessed both in this world and the world to come. I shall be glad to receive any suggestions or any advice from any reader of this paper." I met the editor of this paper and the writer of this editorial and had several very interesting conversations with him. He does not believe in Mohammedanism at all. Kasha Moorhatch asked him with regard to this editorial, "Do you really mean that there is a true Islam?" And he replied, "No, there is no true Islam. I have merely spoken as though there were to save my head. I realize that there is no good in Islam." And he told me quite frankly that there was no hope for Persia until the power of Islam was shattered. If I were free to do so, I could quote similar opinions from some of the most influential leaders of the Near East. Among the Mohammedan ecclesiastics themselves there is growing up in Persia an increasingly kindly and tolerant feeling toward Christian Missions. Mollahs who have acted as language teachers to the new missionaries or as teachers of the Persian language in the schools have been brought near to Christianity, and some of them have openly accepted it. We met mollahs in homes and in Christian services who were either openly or at heart Christians, and we had friendly talks with others who were ready to discuss temperately the claims of Christianity. During the Turkish occupation of Tabriz when Dr. Vanneman and Mr. Jessup who had remained in the station were imprisoned by the Turks, the two leading mollahs of the city were their strong defenders. One, the head of the largest Shiah sect, openly preached in the mosque on their 382 behalf. He declared that he had known Dr. Vanneman and Mr. Jessup ever since they had come to Tabriz, and that he had never known anything but good of them, and that unless they were released he would take it upon himself to stir the city in their behalf. The other was the head of another Shiah sect, and he went himself to the Turkish pasha to speak for the missionaries. It was afterwards learned that the mollahs and merchants of the city had prepared a paper to present in behalf of Dr. Vanneman and Mr. Jessup in case they were courtmartialed. In Hamadan, the leading mollah of the city bought for the station the land on which the hos- pital and its residences stand, and turned it over to Dr. Funk. At the time of the Turkish occupation there the mollahs declared to the Turks that Dr. Funk must not be sent away from the city. When Dr. Funk broke his leg and was confined to the house his room would often be full of his white tur- baned mollah friends who had come to inquire after him. An endless tale not of kind words only but of kind deeds also could be told, revealing the ever deepening good will and en- larging friendships which are binding together the mission- aries of the Christian Gospel and these Moslem people of Persia who so greatly need and so truly deserve our love and help. It was a satisfaction to meet especially two Moslems from Urumia, One was the man who helped Judith David during the long weeks when almost single handed she kept alive a terror stricken company of destitute Assyrians in Urumia and could not have done so but for the loyal help of this humane man who is still doing all that he can to pro- tect the propertv of the Mission in Urumia and to assure its return. He had just come to Tabriz from Urumia and drew a vivid picture of its ruin and its despair. He was returning to do what he could and when I thanked him he replied that he was glad to serve us and that what he was doing was not for the sake of protecting properties only but that the work of God in which he believed might go on. The other man was the one Moslem in Urumia who after the last dreadful massacre came to Dr. Packard and took him by the hand to escort him safely out of the carnage into the yard of the governor. No one has had a better opportunity to observe the changes that have been taking place in Persia in the past twenty-five years than Kasha Moorhatch, who after his education in the Mission schools in Urumia, took his theological course in Mc- Cormick Seminary, and has for twenty-five years been preach- ing first to the Assyrians and of late years to the Moham- 383 medans with a wisdom, faithfulness and power which mark him out as one of the most useful evangelists of our day in the missionary approach to Islam. I asked him in Tabriz whether he would be good enough to jot down some of the changes which he had seen and the reasons for them. This he was good enough to do as follows: "For 1300 years Islam has been the seeming insurmountable obstacle in the way of Christianity and the greatest enemy to be conquered, for the reason that Islam has the appearance of the knowledge of God without the power and Spirit thereof. From my experience of nearly half a century as a preacher and from personal knowledge of this religion and nation. I can see that the walls of Islam are tottering to their fall. The great changes could be arranged under three heads: Per- sonal, Social and Religious. "(1) Personal changes or changes in relation to the home and personal life in Islam. Not many years ago the home life and the way of living and dressing among Europeans was not only despised by Islam but looked upon as 'm.urdar' (religious- ly unclean). A real Moslem was forbidden to dress and eat and live like a non-Moslem. I have heard Islam's 'ulema' (doctors of the religious law) speak of Christian dresses as 'murdar.' and so also Christian food ; but now you will see the streets full of Moslems dressed like Europeans with necktie, collar, etc., and among the higher classes of people the women dressed entirely like Western ladies, although they do not go out of doors without being veiled. The use of forks and knives, tables and chairs, and ornaments in the house like Europeans and the idea of educating their women are growing. "In recent days there was a paper being published in Tabriz named *Azad' (Free). In one of its numbers, the editor, although speaking with 'taggiyah' stresses very freely and boldly the cause of the decline of Islam. 'It is Islam itself.' The present writer started some meetings in Teheran, now continued in Tabriz, in which the men and women sit, talk and eat together without the latter being covered or veiled. Although these meetings are secret, they are continuing. "(2) Social Changes, i. e., in their relation to non-Moslems. I remember well when it was impossible for a Christian to use the sacred greeting 'salam alakum' (Peace be to you) to a Moslem. If by mistake a Moslem should give the same salam to a Christian, the Christian had to suffer for it. But today the use of this salam is common between Moslem and Christian. Twenty years ago it was impossible for a Moslem to shake hands with a Christian, but now, not only do they 384 shake hands, but like Orientals, they quite often kiss each other. Then it was a death penalty for a Christian to speak before Moslem fanatics about the divinity of Christ, but now if a Christian is well informed in language and intelligent in speech, he can say openly that Christ is God-Man, the only Mediator, outside of Whom all else are sinners incapable of mediatorship. Then it was impossible to sit with Moslems at one table, but today among the higher classes it is very common and free. Twenty years ago it was dangerous to preach in one of the Moslem languages in the presence of Moslems, but today any intelligent man who knows the lan- guage can speak about the Trinity, the Atonement, the New Birth, and can openly condemn Islam as a religion of pure formalism. "(3) Religious Changes. To any one who is acquainted with the foundation of Islam, it is clear that Islam is opposed to progress, civilization, equality and freedom and will, there- fore, never accept the advances made by the intellect and civilization. Thus said to me a man by birth a Moslem, when I asked him if he were a Mussulman : 'Adami ki yek misgal agl darad, Mussulman bashad?' or 'Can a man who has an ounce of sense be a Moslem?' In Caucasia the Moslems have translated the Koran into the common speech although this is contrary to their faith. There is a great awakening going on showing dissatisfaction with Islam. Many are looking back toward Zoroastrianism ; many have gone astray to Ba- haism; hundreds and thousands have gone toward rational- ism; many are awakening to see the folly of the Muharrem and of pilgrimages to sacred shrines. There is talk among the intelligent party of starting a Protestant movement in Islam which looks toward a revision of Islam in order to reach the 'real Islam.' My hope is that they will continue in their search, for at bottom they will reach nothing. Oh, how many of their learned Ulema have spoken to me with contempt of the book 'Zad-al-Ma'ad' (Provision for Eternity) ! "I am sure that Islam has reached the days when it should fall. We need workers — intelligent, acquainted with Islam, and self-sacrificial in spirit. "The causes of these changes may be noted as follows: "(1) Intermingling with Foreign Nations. In the last few years many Persians have gone west for merchandising, edu- cation and travel, and many Western people have come to Persia for different purposes. Many native Christians who have been educated abroad or educated in mission schools have been having dealings with the Moslems. In seeing these 385 13 — India and Persia things any intelligent Moslem must discover that there must be something behind Christianity that cannot be found in Islam. "(2) The wide work of Christian missions. From these missions many influences have scattered through preaching, education, medicine and social life. When an intelligent nation like Persia sees such things they cannot help saying there must be some mystery in Christianity undiscoverable in Islam. "(3) The distribution of so many thousands of the Bible and religious tracts which give to mankind the highest ideal of life, not to be found in Islam. "(4) The work of traveling evangelists, who have preached the Gospel to thousands and have showed by their lives the power that lies in Christianity and not in Islam. "(5) The relief work. Although some foolish Moslems have a superstitious idea that Mohammed compelled the Christians to help the Moslem, the best and intelligent part of them have come to this thought : 'Really there must be some- thing secret in Christianity not to be found in Islam.' "(6) The spirit of the Persian Constitution (mashruta). This spirit is the greatest blow against the tottering walls of Islam. The Constitution means freedom, equality, brother- hood which smite the foundations of this false religion. I say freely that Islam and the spirit of constitutional govern- ment are incompatible forever. "(7) The increase of education in Islam itself. Either this was borrowed from the West or from the American Mis- sion Schools, with the result that a great many schools have been started for boys and girls on modern principles. I am sure that such schools, if they do not make Christians, will certainly make the children non-Moslems. "Advices for the Future Work. — The plan is only one, started by Christ and followed by Paul and his companions, viz., to preach Christ and Him crucified. The object is one: to build up men in the stature of Christ. Suggestions: (1) Let all the mission institutions, such as schools, orphanages, hospitals, relief work, etc., find their proper place. Let it be known that these are not worldly institutions but Christian. The object of missionary work is not education of the world but to lead the world to Christ. "(2) It seems to me that the time has arrived when instead of dissipating our efforts in unrelated tours in which the one touring spends only a few days in a place and passes on to forget it for years to come, we should concentrate our efforts and systematize them by placing a missionary and a native 386 helper in centers which can be used as a base of operations for the methodical touring of a whole district. "(3) A special effort for the distribution of the Bible and tracts. "(4) To use as workers those who are orthodox in faith, zealous in the work, loving in their social life, skilled in preach- ing, acquainted with Islam, filled with the Spirit and self- sacrificing. "(5) Great caution should be used in building the founda- tions of the Islam 'Church,' because this nation believes and works by 'taggiyah' (which permits freedom to lie if to gain a personal end favorable to one's self) under which wolves may creep in under the guise of sheep. Therefore there must be care and patience and examination into the real character and motive of those accepted into the church as proselytes from Islam lest later we be shamed before God and men by too hasty admission of unworthy members. I cannot stress this point too strongly. Be sure that undue haste will bring us into unpardonable mistake." Kasha Moorhatch's analysis of the causes was confirmed by many others. There has been a great seepage of Christian conceptions into Persia. The mollahs have been judged by new canons of character, and western conceptions of the sepa- ration of the Church and State have cut at the very founda- tion of the Mohammedan principle of their identification. As I sat in the Persian parlament one evening and saw the score of mollahs there, constituting a small minority, and listened to one of their number debating ineffectually before a body which was regarding him not as a mollah but as a man, I realized afresh over how wide a space the thought and life of Persia had passed since the young sayids folded up their privilege in their brown abbas in the tea houses on the Kum road twenty-five years ago. There is opposition and diflficulty enough remaining, moral inertia, the terrible effects of the moral education and the social institutions of Islam, ignorance and fanaticism and sin. There is hostility as well as hospi- tality. But as an able Armenian woman said to us in Teheran, "The ground has been broken up and softened by the rain and is open for the seed. The old days of the hard closed soil are passed." Once again let the sower go forth and sow. S. S. George, Black Sea, April 22, 1922. 387 5. APPROACHES TO PERSIAN MOHAMMEDANISM It it an easy thing anywhere in Asia to talk with men on the subject of religion. Nowhere is it easier surely than in Persia, where the subjects of conversation are few and where the interests of men are elemental. Outside of the cities not two per cent of the people are literate, and in most of the towns and villages there are few if any books, no post office, no newspaper, no news, and no new thoughts. Yet the land is full of intellectual curiosity and interest. In every tea house the men are happy to listen to any one who will bring them information of the world or lift their thoughts off their ceaseless talk about barley and debts and the passage of the days and daily bread. The wise itinerating missionary can go anywhere and find those who will listen to him with friendly interest. Colonel Gray, formerly the British consul in Meshed, and an earnest Christian man, who cared for Dr. Esselstyn in his last illness and laid his body to rest in the little cemetery beyond the city walls, and Sir Mortimer Du- rand, formerly British minister in Persia and later British Ambassador to Washington, have both told me of the delight with which they used to listen to Dr. Esselstyn talking to the people. Colonel Gray knows Persia well, but he said that each time he heard Dr. Esselstyn speak he learned something more, as he heard him with a skill that entranced his auditors putting the truth of Christianity to them with a more perfect command of their own idioms of thought and speech than they themselves possessed and finding no difficulty in setting forth the Christian truths in a way that silenced the thought- less and sent the thoughtful away thinking new thoughts about Islam and Christ. Sir Mortimer told the Student Vol- unteer Convention in Nashville in 1906 of sermons which Dr. Esselstyn had preached even in Shiah mosques on the invitations of the mollahs, sitting down beside them on the preacher's pulpit and talking with the kindness and skill which never want a cordial response in Persia. Nowhere in the Moslem world can the Christian preacher find more points of sympathetic contact than among the Per- sian Mohammedans. The Persians are Shiah Mohammedans and are looked upon as heretical by the great body of Mussulmans. The division between the Sunnees or orthodox Moslems and the Shiahs or sectaries began in the first generation after the -388 prophet. The Shiahs claim that the Caliphate should have descended through the family of Ali, the cousin of Moham- med, who married his daughter P^atima. Ali who was the fourth Caliph was assassinated and his sons were killed. From that day the Shiahs and the Sunnees, while both Mos- lems against Christian foes, have been at enmity with one another. Their chief points of difference are: 1. That the Shiites reject Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman, the three first Caliphs, as usurpers and intruders; whereas the Sunnites acknowledge and respect them as rightful Imams. 2. The Shiites prefer Ali to Mohammed, or, at least, esteem them both equal ; but the Sunnites admit neither Ali nor any of the prophets to be equal to Mohammed. 3. The Sunnites charge the Shiites with corrupting the Koran and neglecting its pre- cepts, and the Shiites retort the same charge on the Sunnites. 4. The Sunnites receive the Sunna or book of traditions of their prophet, as of canonical authority; whereas the Shiites reject it as apocryphal and unworthy of credit. . . . — (Sale: "Koran," Preliminary Discourse, Sect. VIII.) The Shiah theology is a very simple theology of five Roots and ten Branches. The five Roots are : (1) The unity of God. (2) Justice, asserted as a principle of the divine character over against the Sunni conception of rigid and arbitrary sov- ereignty. As between free will and determinism Shiah theo- logians say that A Middle Statement is as close to the truth as they can see. (3) The Prophets, 124,000 in all, of whom Mohammed was the last. (4) The Imamate, wherein they differ most from the Sunnis. (5) Eschatalogy. The ten Branches are religious duties which the Shiah theologians ar- range in five pairs: (1) fasting and prayer, (2) pilgrimage and holy war, (3) the giving of one-fifth to the Sayids and one-tenth to the poor, (4) treating the friends of God as one's own friends and the enemies of God as one's own enemies, (5) the duty of guiding others towards the truth and the duty of warning others against infidelity. Every point offers opportunities for sympathetic religious discussion. Mr. Pitman, whose knowledge of Persian, Armenian and Turkish and constant study of Shiah theology, and wide and sympathetic contact with the people, are making him, in spite of his modesty and self-effacement, one of the most efficient leaders in the evangelization of Persia, has no difficulty any- where in avoiding profitless controversy and in setting forth the loving but plain spoken truth. I asked him what his method of presentation was, and he said it was always the simple positive presentation of the Gospel, (1) our need 389 of a Mediator, challenging his hearers to find one verse in the Koran which called Mohammed by the name of Shafi, the word for mediator in the Mohammedan traditions, (2) our need of a perfect example which could not be Mohammed, who in the simple matter of marriage had forbidden his followers to follow his example, for he had had nine or eleven wives but had limited others to four, and (3) our need of a Divine Power to follow this example. Who met these needs but Christ? One day as we rode along together on the road west of Nikbai I asked Mr. Pittman whether the ordinary Persian villager knew anything about Roots and Branches or the points of his religion. "Yes," he said, "The Shiahs regard this knowledge as important." Toward the close of the after- noon after a long, hard day's journey we came to the village of Sarcham. Just before reaching the village we had to ford twice a swift brown river. The road had run beside the river at the foot of a high hill, but had been entirely cut away by the stream, and with customary improvidence the Per- sians let it go and submitted to all the inconvenience and dangers of the double ford. With the same improvidence they had allowed the fine old brick caravanserai built by Shah Abbas between the hill and the village to fall into complete ruin. The only lodging places were the mud-walled, mud- roofed houses of the village and the big plain behind them where the camel caravans encamped. At Sarcham I went up on the roof of the gate house of our lodging place and spread out my shoes and stockings and puttees, which had been soaked at the ford where two of the horses had fallen in the water, to dry in the warm Persian sunshine. The load horses had not yet come in, and while we waited Mr. Pittman sat down in the shaded street just beneath me and was soon surrounded by a little group of a dozen men and boys in pleasant conver- sation. Presently from the roof I asked the little group be- low if they all knew the Roots and Branches. "What did it matter?" they replied, "whether they knew them or not?" I explained to them that I was a stranger from America visit- ing Persia and interested most of all in what the Persians thought about the greatest questions of life, and that I wanted to be able to tell the people at home whether the Persian people really knew their own religion. Thereupon all of them avowed that they knew the Roots and Branches, and one of the men at once named the five Roots, but none of them would go on to name the ten Branches. As soon as the drift of our conversation had become evident one of the boys had 390 slipped away, and just at this point he returned bringing with him a pleasant faced man whose dress indicated that he was a Sayid, or descendant of Mohammed, and after the custo- mary respectful greeting to and fro, and an explanation of what our conversation was about the new-comer named over the ten Branches. Then I asked them why, if it was a duty to go on pilgrimage to the holy shrines, no roads had ever been built to make this duty easier for the weak and the weary. Mohammedanism, one would think, with its requirement of pilgrimage would have been the great road building religion. As pious Mohammedans had been wont to lay up merit for themselves by building shrines and bridges, why had they not served their religion equally well and laid up for themselves much merit by building also good roads? The Sayid answered that the roads were an affair of government, and that the government took no interest in religion. But I replied that for many centuries the religion and the government had been identical. In those days when Church and State were one, why had not the roads been built? The Sayid answered that it was for fear of other countries, that good roads and rail- ways opened an easy path for foreign invasion, but he admitted that the real reason for this and many other defects in Persia was the lack of religious zeal in government and people alike. I suggested that one strong evidence of this lack of religious zeal was the total absence of the missionary spirit in Per- sian Mohammedanism. He himself could see what the mis- sionary spirit in Christianity was doing for Persia. They replied that it was true that they were sending no religious teachers to other peoples, but that it was the duty of these other peoples themselves to seek the truth which they needed. When they came of their own accord looking for the truth, then the Shiah Mohammedans would be glad to teach them. But were they sure, I asked them, that they had the truth and that they themselves did not need to go in search of it? A good part of the world believed that of all men they needed to seek it most. Perhaps this was so, they admitted, and they were not unwilling to seek. Well then, had they ever read the Bible to which their own Koran bore witness or were they willing to read it? No, the Sayid said, he had never seen the book although of course he knew of it and was very willing to study it. At this point one of the men who had slipped away a few moments before returned, bringing with him a white turbanned mollah. Again, in the pleasant, leisurely way of the East, friendly greetings passed to and fro until at length the course of conversation passed back to the Bible 391 again, and the mollah remarked that he had a copy of the New Testament which he had secured in Zenjan and of which he had read a little but not all, and he did not have it with him at Sarcham. On my part, I told him, I had read the Koran and had my copy with me. Had he read enough of his copy of the New Testament to gain an impression of Christ's character, and if so, how did it compare with the character of Mohammed? Upon this there was much discussion in which some of the group at first claimed Mohammed to be superior, but at last they all agreed in the view, or at least in the statement, that while a claim of superiority in behalf of Mohammed might be made on the basis of the Koran, they were of the opinion that in reality Christ and Mohammed were of equal character. I asked them what they made of the fact that Mohammed died and that was the end of it and that Christ died and rose again. All waited for the mollah to answer. "Outwardly," said he, "it is true that our Prophet died, but inwardly he lives and is nearer to us than our jugu- lar vein." This is a favorite figure of speech with Persian Mohammedans. Yes, we asked, and did he have conscious spiritual communion with Mohammed, and could he tell us where in the Koran Mohammed had authorized this idea of a conscious spiritual fellowship between his immortal spirit and the faithful believer? No, he could not cite the sura of the Koran in which the idea could be found, but with un- diminished earnestness he repeated his metaphor of the jugu- lar vein. "But that is not for us common people," one of the laymen broke in. "What the mollah says may be very true, but such ideas are only for him and the Sayids and mujtehids. We common men know nothing of this communion with the Prophet as close as our jugular vein." Looking up I saw the load horses coming through the ford, and our little gathering broke up in friendliness and good-will, the mollah promising to read his New Testament through, and he wrote down his name on the fly leaf of my pocket Testament, "The name of this despised one is Jalal-ud-din of Khalkhal," and that we might have his name in order to send him a Bible from Tabriz, the Sayid wrote down his name also, "Sayid Khalil of Sar- cham." I have written down this simple incident not because it is unusual in any way, but because it is so truly representative. Everywhere in Persia the missionaries and the Persian evan- gelists find unending opportunity for friendly and hospitable talk about the Gospels. Controversy and hostility can, of course, be easily aroused, and now and then a Mohammedan 392 ecclesiastic will seek to break up a household or a village gathering. But such occurrences are exceptional, and with tact and kindness the Gospel can be preached almost any- where in Persia, and almost invariably with response. "What was it in Christianity," we asked some capable young men in Tabriz, one of whom had been a mollah and who had come from Islam to Christ, "What was it in Christianity which made appeal to your mind and heart?" "Its inward power," replied the ex-mollah. "Other religions work out- wardly, Mohammedanism most of all. It is a religion of statutes and performances; Christianity works within men's hearts with a living spiritual power." "I agree," said another, "and I would like to add the love of God, shown to the world through Christ. Islam knows nothing of a God of love sacri- ficing Himself for us." What Islam needs, they agreed, is to have the power and love of Christianity made clear to it with love and power. "Yes," we asked them, "but what is the best way to present the Gospel to Mohammedans?" This is one of the two supreme missionary problems in every field. The other is how we who preach Christ may also live him in illustration and verification of our preaching. And this is a problem for the Church at home as well as for the missionary abroad. "The best method of presentation," said the mollah, "is to compare the foundations of Christianity and Islam, to ^lake the Mohammedan understand there is something he does not know or possess. Mohammedans think they have all the truth. They must be shown that they do not have it." "No," said one of the others, "in this I do not agree. From my experience I believe that comparison creates antagonism. I believe that we should show the love of God positively. This is the principle I follow, just to preach Christ. If we make comparisons, then people must defend themselves." What the Christian converts from Mohammedanism in Persia regard as the weakness of Islam and the attractions of Christianity, and what they believe to be the best method of approach to their fellow Mohammedans are set forth in an ingenious and instructive way in the answers which a score or more of these converts gave to a set of seven ques- tions sent out by Mr. Wilson of Tabriz. I am glad to be able to quote some of these answers which Mr. Wilson let me copy. They come from all types, educated and ignorant, men and women, young and old, from different social levels. As indi- cated in the answers to the first questions, some had been Christians for long years before their open baptism. Others were recent believers. The questions were as follows: 393 (1) How long have you been a Christian? (2) In what ways did Islam fail to satisfy you? (3) What first attracted your attention to Christianity? (4) What brought about your conversion? (5) What has Christianity done for you? (6) In trying to convert Moslems should Christians argue with them on points of religion? (7) What do you consider to be the best methods to be followed in winning Moslems to Christ? The following are representative answers: Mirza Khan. (1) Fourteen years. (2)1. The teachings of the Koran are against the conscience. 2. The different teachings of the prophets. 3. The fruits of Islam are wickedness, lies, enmity and many other bad things which are among the Mohammedans of today. (3) The first thing which attracted my attention to Chris- tianity was the character of Christians, and then conversing ^ith the American missionaries at Resht. T4) (5) Christianity has delivered me from the death and has comforted me and given me a new birth. (6) In conversing with a Moslem the Word should be read to him and one should explain it and speak so kindly that he should be made silent. of Teheran (woman) : (1) Eighteen years, from childhood. (2) The character of Mohammed and the errors of the Koran prove them to be from man and the Devil. (3) The Messianic prophecies. (4) The thirteenth chapter of Zechariah. (5) Christianity made me over again. It made me a dif- ferent person. I am in the Kingdom already. (6) We should argue only on special occasions. (7) In order to win the Moslems to Christ it is necessary, to show them what religion is. Make them understand the horrors of sin and call their attention to certain passages of the Koran where Mohammed has confessed himself to be a sinner and has stated that people can be saved by the Law^ Khan , of Teheran: (1) Four years. (2) 1. Lack of salvation. 2. The corruption of the priests. 3. The law of Mohammed being a copy of the Mosaic Law. 4. 894 The qualities of God. 5. The shrines. 6. The person of Mo- hammed having very shameful qualities. (3) The sinlessness of Christ. His crucifixion for our sal- vation. The firm faith of the missionaries in Him. Their kindness to the Gentiles. (4) Reading the Holy Book. Speaking to the Christians on religious truths. Going to the Church and other religious meetings. (5) It has saved my life. It has given me inward peace and happiness, and a firm belief in the world to come. ^-(6) No. (7) The method to be followed is to show them the corrup- tion of Islam, and their hopelessness to be saved through a man who was a sinner himself. Proving to them, by quoting some verses, that no prophet should come after Christ and through Christ alone salvation could be received. Showing them the loving kindness of God and His desire to receive us in His Heavenly Canaan above. It is advisable to ask them to read the Bible from first to end; and also to kneel down and ask God to help them in finding the true way that leads to salvation. Khanim of Teheran (woman) (1) Eighteen years. (2) 1. Because I found out that Christians were not looking for any prophet to come after Christ. 2. Because Islam failed to satisfy my spiritual desires. (3) The Messianic Prophecies. (4) A Heavenly vision. (5) Christianity has quenched my spiritual thirst. I can forgive and I have protection against sin. (6) It depends upon persons. (7) 1. By our conduct. 2. Make them understand that Christ is the First and the Last. 3. To show them with great patience that they have nothing by which they can be saved. Khan, of Teheran : (1) Twenty-four years. (2) I saw that the fruit of Islam was bad, and as I looked closely I understood that the tree was bad. (3) (4) I do not know. God knows how. (5) It has given me peace at my heart, and has kept me in the peace of Christ. (6) No. (7) 1. That Christ is the last of all the prophets, and the 395 Saviour. 2. Nothing in regard to Mohammed is written in the New Testament. 3. There is nothing new in the Koran. Mohammed Khan, of Teheran: (1) One year. (2) 1. The opposition of the Koran with the Heavenly- Books. 2. The opposition of the verses with each other in the Koran. 3. The self -loving of Mohammed and taking the wives of others by the verse which he made for his lasciviousness. 4. The words of Mohammed did not give me peace at the heart. 5. The untruthful actions of the Moslems and the lack of love between them. And thousands of other things which cannot be mentioned. (3) Reading the Word and knowing that it is true. The treatment by Christians of each other according to the Gospel and their sincere love to each other. (4) As the one who asks this question is a Christian, of course he knows that conversion will not happen unless by the help of the Holy Spirit; and if one has not received the Holy Spirit, he has not been converted; and if he has not been convei-ted, he has not known Christ. (5) I was a sinner and Christ has forgiven my sins. I was dead and He has given me the everlasting life. I always was afraid of death, but now being anxious to see Christ, I am ready to meet the death. My heart was always beating be- cause of the fear of sin, and I was living in trouble, but Christ has comforted me and given me an external peace, and I know the blood of Christ has cleansed my sins and I have part in the blessing with Him. (6) Yes. (7) In the first place a Testament should be given to him, to read it attentively, in order that the Word itself may lighten his heart. Then the cutting sword, i. e., "The Mizan-el-Haq," should be given to him, so that, if he is a conscientious man he may understand that Mohammed was a false prophet. Mirza --=-, of Teheran: ^__. (1) Fourteen years, (2) It takes a long time to answer this question, but the most important thing which unsatisfied me was this, that Islam was not able to give me peace at heart, (3) At first reading the New Testament, then speaking with somebody. (4) In the time of conversion I felt that I entered a new world, (5) Christianity has given me peace at heart and has de- livered me from the punishment which was due me, 396 (6) Yes. (7) In the first place ask him whether in the time of death liis heart is at rest or not, and then it should be proved for him that there is nothing in Islam which can give one peace of heart. Prove for him that Mohammed himself was a sinner. He must be told that there is nothing in regard to the com- ing of Mohammed in the New Testament. of Urumia : (1) Three or four years, but I just recently confessed openly. (2) Mohammed was a man like me and cannot help me. If Mohammedanism were true how could all of its followers fall so far short of the truth. I was satisfied the mollahs were not proper religious leaders. (3) Reading the New Testament. (4) From what I heard in the school at Urumia, from preaching and from reading I was converted. I first openly confessed in revival services in Tabriz, March, 1922. (5) The great blessing is that Christ gave Himself a sac- rifice for us and gaA^e jis salvation. Christianity has shown me the true morals. (6) Yes, we must bring to them the proofs of Christianity. (7) For those who can not read, preaching salvation is the best way to convert them. For those who can read both preaching and books and especially the New Testament. Mirza of Tabriz: (1) Eight years — on probation six months. (2) The proper foundation for world relations, I had long considered to be love but I found no love in Islam. I never found assurance in Islam as to what the final state of man- kind would be. Mohammed was himself a sinner as proven by his own prayers and verses from the Koran and can never bring salvation to the world, (3) I worked with a Christian and heard his conversations with Kasha Moorhatch and especially saw his good life. (4) Reading the New Testament and holy books of other religions. (5) My conscience and heart are at peace and I have assur- ance of Salvation. (6) The first thing to show is Christian Life — let him compare that. Then discussion is sometimes profitable. (7) 1. Christians must live according to the program set forth in the New Testament. We must strive to live like Jesus. 2. We must endeavor to find what obstacles lie in 397 men's minds and remove these obstacles. 3. We must en- deavor to co-operate to the fullest extent in keeping converts from going astray. 4. Just as we must plow before we sow seed, so small tracts and words scattered here and there are necessary to prepare Moslems to accept preaching and the New Testament. We must first awaken the sleepers of Islam before they can see and understand the Truth. B. of Meshed (woman) : (1) Almost five years. (2) All I found in Islam was superstition. There was no salvation. (3) I came in contact with the English missionaries in Kerman and heard the Bible read. (4) My husband was converted first. I saw the change in him, so I knew it must be right. (5) It made me secure in my home. I was childless for many years and relatives suggested that my husband divorce me or take another wife. He did neither. Then the last few years I have been sick a great deal. If we had not both been Christians we could never have lived together. (6) If they understand Islam it is all right to argue; but if they don't understand, it is useless. The best way all round is to live the life that will illustrate your words. (7) of Meshed (woman) : (1) About four months. (2) I was never happy, but did not know why. My hus- band mistreated me. We quarreled constantly, and there was nothing in life for me. (3) My husband's changed life. (4) My husband's patience with me, and his teaching me the Testament. (5) It has made me happy, and now in place of quarreling and jealousy we are happy and have confidence in one another, and I know Jesus is my Saviour. (6) No experience as yet. of Meshed : (1) 14 months since baptism. (2) Three years ago I saw the mollahs were corrupt, and they defended themselves by saying they are following Mo- hammed. Now I see Persians being made Moslems at point of sword. (3) Reading a Bible which a native Christian had given me. (4) I saw how different Jesus was from Mohammed and 398 that I had been deceived. My heart became bright, and I believed. i^P (5) Before, I loved evil, now I love good. Before, I abused my family, now I am kind. Before, I used to ride over people on the street, now I won't hurt any one. Before, my heart had no rest, now I have peace. (6) Sometimes it is necessary to argue fiercely. - — il) We must not live in sin, as Moslems do. We must prove Christ's divinity from the Bible. We must sell Scrip- tures, but try to follow up and explain. A hospital and Sun- day nieetings are a help. (1) 2 months since baptism. (2) I saw that the leaders of Islam said but did not do. There was no Saviour from sin. (3) I saw that the ivord and the action of a certain Persian Christian was one. (4) I saw that the Bible was true. I asked God to give me a dream if I should accept Christianity, and that very night I saw Jesus Christ and believed. (5) I used to quarrel with men. Now I have no desire to do so. I forgave a man a debt of Ts. 200. (6) It is necessary. Vj7) Right conduct of Christians. Conversation with men. B of Meshed : (1) 14 months. (2) Dissatisfied first after a study of Moslem law in con- nection with a study of the Bible. (3) Impressed by the consistency and agreement of the moral teachings in the Bible. Christ in the New Testament seemed to fulfill the Messianic hope of the Old Testament. (4) Fellowship with Christian friends, especially in the reading room. (5) Personal assurance of faith and happiness in living. The pleasure of helping others to the same state of salvation and Christian fellowship. (6) With friendship, love, and patience argument may be used to advantage. (7) Through the evidence of Christian character, friend- ship, and love, in all the natural contacts that one Christian may have with friends, relatives and acquaintances. Mirza , of Meshed : (1) 14 months since baptism. (2) I saw that there was nothing but lying, stealing, op- 399 pression, pride, etc., from the days of Mohammed till now. I saw that the mujtahids were not at one in their beliefs and teaching, and so some of them must be wrong. (3) The love and character of the missionaries. (4) The love of Christ in enduring the most terrible suf- ferings for me. (5) I think my conduct has improved. I am happy now, as I was not formerly. (6) It is necessary. (7) We must mingle with men and be kind to them. We must talk with them, proving the truth of Christianity. Sell- ing Scriptures without follow up by personal conversation, etc., is of no value. Reading Room, Hospital, etc., not bad, but work of Christian brethren more important. I give these answers in all their simplicity and naivete. Here and there an imitative note appears and there is much that will grow into more. But these are genuine lives. And the work from which they have come is genuine work. The most powerful although for many years it may seem to be an indirect approach to a nation or a religion is through its women, and the next generation will reveal, as we cannot estimate it now, the immense influence which Christian mis- sions are exerting upon the world in the quiet work which they are doing for the women and girls of the non-Christian lands. The Christian ideal of woman, the redemption and the release of her immense creative energies for social progress, the enrichment of life which she is to make when first her own life has been enriched by Christ, these things change the face of every society to which they come. No society needs them more or will be more profoundly influenced by them than Persia. They will revolutionize the villages of Persia, turning to usefulness forces of womanhood which now are wasted or worse than wasted in the deterioration which they effect in home and community life. The doorway to the new Persia through the hearts and minds of the village women, now so empty of all but deadening manual toil and the animal activi- ties of life, is wide open to the approach of Christian women and the interests and expansions and purities which they bring with them. "Your prophet has done well for you Christian women," a Moslem woman once remarked to Mrs. Hawkes after watching Mr. and Mrs. Hawkes together on one of their itinerating trips to the villages and noting the courtesy and thoughtfulness of a Christian man towards his wife. "Khanim, your Prophet, did well for you Christian women. Our Prophet did not do so well for us. I shall have words with our Prophet 400 when I meet him in the next world. And I am going to stand by the open gate of Hell and watch the men of Islam march in first." One day on the road near Turkomanchi, where the treaty of peace was signed between Russia and Persia in 1828 which took away from Persia its territories between the Caucasus Mountains and the Aras river, we met a Moham- medan farmer and his twelve year old boy on their way to the village. He was a kindly, friendly soul, intelligent but simple minded, and he walked along beside the horses almost the whole farsakh to Turkomanchi. It was a nice village, he said, of about five hundred houses. There had been seven hundred, but the famine of two years ago which wiped out many villages of western Persia had destroyed not less than two hundred households here. As to politics, he thought the Shah was a good man trying to help his country. Had he not organized an army and sent it to fight against that terrible Kurdish bandit, Ismael Agha, who had turned the Urumia plain into a desolation and from whom the ragged, penniless refugees were fleeing whom we were even then passing upon the highway? Yes, it was a very bad highway, he admitted, as the horses struggled through the deep mud, very bad in- deed, to be the one highway between the two most important cities in Persia. But as soon as Ismael Agha was repressed, America was coming to build roads for Persia. As to religion, yes, he prayed and his son. For what? For the peace and prosperity of the country, for happiness and for health. There were four mosques and five mollahs in Turkomanchi, and, oh yes, they were good men. "Was there polygamy in Turko- manchi, and how many wives did Islam allow?" "Five or ten," he replied, "or forty or fifty, as many as a man might want, but our village is a poor village, and no one has many wives there." But on further testing he hedged in his num- bers, and he did not know what the Koran had to say. But no one could have all these wives at once; only five at one time perhaps, and the others in succession. Was divorce so easy as this, we inquired, and were these rights and obliga- tions mutual. "Yes and no," said he. "A man can divorce his wife when he will, but not a wife her husband; and a man can beat his wife, if necessary, but no wife might beat her husband." Well, how many men were accustomed to beat their wives in Turkomanchi. "Oh," he said, "there were sev- eral good women whom it was never necessary to beat." How many wives beat their husbands? we inquired. Were there not many men in Turkomanchi who deserved a good beating, and was there any adequate reason why if the husband might 401 beat his wife, when it was necessary, a wife should not also, when it was necessary, beat her husband? He looked up in amused astonishment at this. "That would never do," said he. Did Mohammedanism forbid lies? The religion said nothing on this subject, he replied, but on second thought he modified this. Liars were regarded as bad men in his vil- lage, and certainly God did not approve of lies. How many wives had he? Only one, he answered. Did the women of Islam prefer polygamy, we asked him, or would they rather live in homes where there was only one wife? "Oh, if women were left to themselves," said he, "a man would have only one wife, but then they have no choice in the matter." Why shouldn't they have a choice, we asked, and more than that, if it was right for a man to have a number of wives, why wasn't it right for a woman, if she desired, to have a number of husbands, and beat them too, if it was necessary. "No," said he, "that would be the end of society." We were draw- ing near the village, and we made bold to ask him whether he loved his wife. "Khanim," said he to Miss Lamme, who was interpreting, "those who tell lies are not the friends of God." I asked him as we parted whether he had ever heard of a queen of Persia or a queen of Turkey, two of the most ruined and wretched nations on earth; whether he had ever reflected on the fact that the head of the greatest nation in the world, during the nineteenth century, for more than fifty years had been a woman, and that there was no hope for his country or for any other country that kept its women in the position which falls to them and to which they fall under Islam. And when they rise as they will rise, what will they do with Islam? Let those who have a word for this religion be adequately mindful of its most exposed and effective path- way of approach. I have not spoken here of the approach to Islam through the hospitals and schools. I have meant only to call attention to the accessibility of Mohammedanism in Persia to imme- :diate and direct approach. All the facts of the Christian '.ijGospel and the full offer of Christ as the Saviour of men from 5in unto life may be spoken all over Persia today with the full assurance of welcome and response. S. S. George, Black Sea, April 21, 1922. 402 6. TALKS WITH MOHAMMEDAN CONVERTS IN PERSIA The first of them was Kaka. He was a grizzled old Kurd living in the city of Hamadan. Every one knew that he had been a fierce Mohammedan believer and that he came of a long line of Mohammedan ecclesiastics, and everybody knows, too, that now he is a Christian, going to and fro in Hamadan and the villages round about and openly preaching Christ with no one able to answer him or gainsay his word. We asked him one evening for his story, and this is what he told us. "Mirza Saeed and I were brothers." Mirza Saeed is now one of the leading doctors of Teheran, and I shall tell his story later. "For seven generations," Kaka continued, "our fathers had been mollahs. Our neighbors were Christians. Being Sunnis, we sometimes ate with them, but we never talked on the subject of religion. Forty-four years ago a Nestorian evangelist named Kasha Yohanan was sent from Urumia to the region of Kurdistan in search of a teacher of Kurdish, and he came to our city of Senneh. An Armenian Christian pointed out Mirza Saeed to him as such a teacher as he was seeking. Saeed was only a boy then, but very cap- able. He came to me as his older brother, as our father had died, to ask permission to give Kurdish lessons to Yohanan. I consented. For six months my brother taught Yohanan, and then one day he told me that some Jews were coming to Yohanan to discuss the Scriptures. I 3aid that this was noth- ing at all for us to consider, but I did not know that Yohanan had given Saeed the Bible and other books to read and that he stored these in his mind. Before long he began to absent himself from Moslem prayers. One day a blind mollah came to me for help. He knew the Koran by heart and was memo- rizing a book on the birth and life of Mohammed. I was greatly pleased to help him. One day as the blind mollah was reciting this book, Saeed, who was listening, said that if these things were true, the Prophet should have foretold them. I reached for my rifle to shoot Saeed for reviling the Prophet, but the blind mollah seized the rifle. I certainly meant to kill Saeed, for I was one of those who are devoted to the Prophet, even the Prophet who came with a sword. The blind mollah took Saeed away and warned him to be more careful, bidding him to reflect what, if his own brother had tried to shoot him, another might have done. I soon noticed 403 that Saeed was sad and troubled, and I asked him to tell me as his brother the cause of his sorrow, but he would say noth- ing. I asked him again one night later, and he said he would write it out for me, but when he had written the paper he hesitated to give it to me. A week later at midnight he brought it, saying, 'Whatever you intend to do, do. It is two years now since I have left Islam and accepted Christianity on the basis of what I have read in the Koran and the Bible.' It was winter time and snowing, but I said to him, 'Saeed, there is nothing I can do but turn you out as an apostate.' So I opened the door and he went out into the night. I think he sat in a shop window until morning, and the rest of the night I spent crying to God, 'You have taken away my father and my mother and now my brother is taken from my hand.' "In the morning Saeed went to the Imam Jum'eh and said, 'I have been reading such and such things in the Koran and the Bible. What do you say?' Later I learned that thirty men had bound themselves together to kill Saeed, so I too went to the Imam Jum'eh and asked him what to do, 'Do nothing,' said he, 'but leave the matter to me.' On Friday, accordingly, the Imam Jum'eh spoke openly in the mosque to all the people, saying, 'Mohammed Saeed is my child. Leave him to me. I will bring him back with proofs from the Koran.' But Saeed was lost to Islam forever, and because I relented and protected him, conditions became so bad that some of the Moslems of Senneh planned to kill me as well as Saeed. One day I found a letter at the post for Saeed, which I read, from Mr. Hawkes, bidding him to come to Hamadan. And I got a horse for him and sent him off by night. "When I got back, the neighbors gathered and wept over Saeed, and I thought of what he had written in his statement and of all that he had told me. Not long after I went to the mosque and heard a man read from Sirat el Navi, a book on the private life of the Prophet and his relations with his wives. I bought this book, and as I read it, I wondered how such things could be true of a Prophet. A little later I went to the Catholic church in Senneh and talked with a Chaldean priest there and tried to get a Bible to read, but was unable to do so. While I was still endeavoring to get a copy, I one day saw a man named Ossitur of Hamadan coming through the bazaar with a bundle under his arm. I asked who he was, and upon learning, introduced myself as Saeed's brother and got a Bible. As I read it, I came to the passage, 'I will raise up a prophet like unto his brethren.' I thought surely this meant Mohammed, and I decided to come to Hamadan 404 and take Saeed off to Bagdad or to some other place where strong influences could be brought to bear upon him to win him back to Islam. So I sold my home and told the people I was going to get Saeed and to take him where he would be turned back from his errors. Some of the people doubted my purpose and sought to detain me by offering me the place of leader of the prayers in the mosque, but at last I went, though I was not sure of myself. My heart had become two. "On reaching Hamadan I found that Saeed was a pupil of Dr. Alexander, the medical missionary there, who welcomed me and gave me some books to read, among them 'The Balance of Truth.' As I read this book, I found in it the indictment of sin and the message of Christ's love, and these began to have an effect on me. Each day I went to the big mosque, but I found nothing in the preaching. It was all about what Hassan had suffered. And as I saw more clearly what Islam and its preachers were, Christ's w^ords about the Pharisees came home to me — the upper seats, the wide borders. But what impressed me most was the contrast between Moham- medans and the missionaries and Christian preachers whom I had come to know and between their lives. I began to go to prayers at Dr. Alexander's house and then sometimes, with great fear, to church. So things continued until twenty- four years ago, when Mr. Watson was going home to America and asked me to go on the journey with him to the border of Persia. I went, and on the journey was thrown from my horse and broke my knee cap and was brought to the home of Dr. Holmes in Hamadan. I had nothing to do but to read, and I read the Bible and found Christ. "As I was getting well, Hajji Mirza Hassein and the chief preacher to the Shah were speaking here in Hamadan. I went to hear and got into debate with them. They came for a renewal of the debate to the mission residence at the dis- pensary, and I saw that the truth was with Christianity. Saeed was there, and they could not answer his words. 'Be silent,' they said to him, 'and let the Sahib do the talking.' After the debate I called on these men, and they gave me a Moslem book to read, but it proved nothing, and I held to Christ. "At first I was afraid to speak openly of my new faith, but now I am not afraid of anybody. For some years I had charge of the boys in the boarding school, but now for twelve years, I have gone to and fro in the evangelistic work preaching the Gospel of our Saviour. The people do not resent my message. 'If you are in doubt,' I say to them, 'the Koran itself says, 405 Ask the people of the Book. Who are the people of the Book and what is the Book? I have the Book here. Let us ask it now.' " The old man, lame from the effects of his fall and grizzled like a veteran of many wars, whimsical, loving, and unafraid, with a living experience of Christ and an authoritative knowl- edge of Islam, is one of the most faithful and untiring preach- ers of Christ in Persia, and his children are following in his steps. Far off in the opposite corner of Persia, near the frontiers of Turkistan and Afghanistan in the city of Meshed we met with a group of forty-five believers and inquirers, all of whom had been Mohammedans save one who was a Russian. We met almost under the shadow of the great mosque in the leading shrine city of Persia, where a generation ago a Christian would not have been tolerated for a day and where some years since the whole Jewish community was forcibly con- verted to Islam. The little group asked us to tell them of what we had seen in Japan and China and India and other lands, and we spoke to them of the Christian Church in these countries and the conditions which surrounded it and of the rich experience which we had had in these and in many other lands of the universality and power and brotherly love of Christianity, of which we were having fresh experiences also in this new Christian community in Meshed. The morning after our arrival I had met two of the Christians who were working in the hospital. I did not know that they were mem- bers of the brotherhood, but they knew who I was, and their greeting was full of the warm and simple affection of new and true believers. The old man had taken me in his arms, and rubbed his shaggy whiskers first on one cheek and then on the other, and the young woman, in Moslem dress but with unveiled face, had given me an appropriate but equally cordial welcome. In our little gathering there were many different types, faces from Herat in Afghanistan, characters from many different parts of Persia and central Asia who had been drawn to Meshed, some on pilgrimage to the Shrine, but all of whom were now feeling the power of a stronger drawing. Some wore turbans, some sheepskin caps, many were common laboring folk, but some were better clad in long brown camels' hair abbas. We asked them what their own knowledge of Persia convinced them was its greatest need. A tailor made answer for them all, "The salvation of Jesus Christ, and that faith and confidence in one another which we do not possess and which can come only in and through Him. It has never 406 come and it never can come through Mohammed." We asked them what were the great difficulties and obstacles in the way of the spread of the Gospel. They answered : "The want in men of the right spirit, our fear of one another, our dread of ridicule and shame, the conviction of the sincere Moham- medan that honest comparison shows the Koran to be at least as good a book as the Bible, the knowledge that if a man be- comes a Christian people will boycott his shop, economic fear." We asked whether any one had yet been killed for leaving Islam and embracing Christianity. "Not so," was their reply. Was there any danger of such result? "Perhaps," they said, "but very little. There was no danger to life, but much an- noyance." What hindered most, they thought, was the domi- nance which Mohammedanism exercised over common life. The rules of conduct laid down by the Koran operated, they be- lieved, as a barrier to life and progress. When we asked them wherein this was true, they instanced at once the mar- riage customs of Islam, the uncleanness of thought which they declared it bred, and the falsehood which everywhere permeated Moslem society. On the surface, they said, it might appear that Mohammed had not given permission to lie, but his conduct and that of his followers had thrown a religious sanction around hypocrisy and falsehood, and the fact that Persians had originally become Moslems by force, had laid a religious foundation for insincerity. We asked this little group what it valued most in Christi- anity. Its first answer was, "Its love," to which they ex- plained some of them had come only by a rough road, "I was like a sheep astray," said one old man, "guided by stones thrown from this side and that, by an unknown and resisted guidance to a safe shelter and a great love." "The consistency between the teaching and the practice of Jesus which we did not find in Mohammed," said another. "Likewise," said a third, "the humility and self-abasement of Christ and the ab- sence in Him of any spirit of retaliation." "In my heart," said a fourth, "believing has seemed like a light and a revela- tion." "As among the Jews," said another, "religion was the traditions of the Pharisees, so it always seemed to me in Islam. It was in Christ that we first found truth and reality, a True and Living Comforter." What arguments, we asked this group, were they accus- tomed to use in presenting Christ as Lord and Saviour to Mo- hammedans. And these were some of their replies : "All men are sinners, a mediator without sin must be found, he cannot be found among mankind, he must be from God himself." 407 "The teaching about love in the Bible that is not to be found in any other book." "The birth of Jesus Christ supernaturally through the Holy Spirit." "A dried up tree gives no fruit ; a living tree bears fruit." Were there many secret believers in Persia, we inquired. Their ansv^ers differed. "Many," said some. But others, "It cannot be. If they were really believers, they would confess." "No," said others, "there are many who really believe, but who are afraid. If there were any protecting power here to assure them safety, many would confess." But there was no such protection in the early Church, they were reminded. "Yes," said they, "that is so." When we asked what we should tell the Church at home to pray for in connection with the cause of Christ in Persia, their answers were very simple; first for the progress of Christ's Kingdom and that the Church should be multiplied, second for freedom of religion, and third that to those who believe God might give the grace of a new faith and love. I asked some of these Christians to write down for us the story of their religious experience, first as Mohammedans and then as Christians, and here are several of these stories just as they have told them: Testimony of Mirza Khan "I beg to present the following brief statement of my chief reason for leaving both Islam and Bahaism. As I thought about it, an instructor must first have acquired knowledge himself before he can impart it to others. And when I con- sidered Jesus Christ, I saw in Him the very perfection of per- sonality— and He was not involved in the acquisition of mate- rial things. He did not choose any merely temporal end as the purpose of His life. And habitually He conducted himself with humility. When I examined the gospels, I saw that when Judas delivered our Lord into the hands of the chief priests, one of the disciples cut off the ear of a soldier, and Jesus commanded him to sheathe his sword, telling him that he who resorts to the sword shall perish by the sword. As we think about this we see the ideal that is set forth for His disciples. At another time He said to them, I wash your feet that you may learn to wash one another's feet. And so we see also in the conduct of His disciples, the burdens they bore and the hardships they suffered were but tokens of the love they had for mankind. "On the other hand, what must I think of Mohammed, when I think of what is written in history about the battles he fought, and the zeal he had for conquest. Likewise his twelve 408 disciples or representatives, whom we call the Imams — usually they were men of war and of bloodshed. First there was Ali who was famous for his valor in battles, and his fighting with the Jews has been much celebrated. So also it is perfectly evident from history how Imam Hasan and Imam Hosein lived and fought. And this criticism applies to Islam in gen- eral, and every tree is known by its fruit. Success in war was the only proof Mohammedans had, whereas they should have considered that a real prophet would not extend his teaching in this way. "I was a Bahai because my father and grandfather and all my family were Bahaies. But I have found nothing more perfect than the teaching of Jesus Christ. What specially impressed me is what I have written above, though there are also other factors. Whoever has ears to hear, can arrive at real happiness, and I think I have found this happiness in Christianity." Testimony of Mirza , (a carpenter) "I thank God for my brethren in Christ. "1. In the first place, I object to Islam in that Mohammed carried on his propaganda by the force of money and of op- pression. He could not be a Saviour. "2. Anyone who has numerous wives can not have fellow- ship with God ; of necessity he must be a worshiper of his own lust. He could not be a Saviour. "3. Anyone who instigates strife and turmoil, saying that if anyone strikes you on the ear, strike him in return, and saying many more such things, even sanctioning retalia- tion in murder, — he could not be a Saviour. "4. In so much as Mohammed got his daily food by theft, and this is so well known that the Arabs still justify theft by saying, 'It is the work of Mohammed,' and Mohammed says in his own behalf, 'By the help of God we have made a great conquest,' *and much of his teaching and many of the alleged miracles are in the same strain, — he could not be a Saviour. "5. Mohammed said that every one who was not of his religion was an infidel and unclean, and thus he did away with fellowship among mankind, in so much as he was taken up with greed, force, lust, hatred, murder and self-seeking. We Mohammedans came to understand all this. He could not be a Saviour. "Why I became a Christian. * A standard on a Moslem banner. Approximately the same thing is found in Sura 48, verse 1. 409 "Now I thank God that he has given me ears to hear and a heart to understand. I saw that in the Moslem faith all leads to destruction, and I searched for truth, to find a Saviour, until God, of his grace, showed me the way. I searched the Bible and I saw the glory of God, and I saw that the Bible leads mankind to God, and that God himself has provided a way of salvation. Convinced that Jesus was no worshiper of lust, my heart said, This is the man to be a Saviour.' "I realized that I did not find retaliation taught in the Gos- pels. But on the contrary, here are a few verses, the gist of which I recall: "What you wish men to do for you, you do those things for them. If any one is your enemy, you be his friend. If anyone injures you, do not seek to injure him in return. In so far as you are able, always act with love. Do not regard anyone with evil intent. Always seek grace from God and it will be given you. "I appreciated that what Mohammed taught has been the source of lying and hatred, and that which I learned concern- ing Jesus was that which I have stated above. And I am con- vinced that all others have been sinners, and that Jesus alone can be a Saviour. The Holy Spirit helped me, and from the hand of my spiritual shepherd I received baptism, and now I seek, by God's help, to follow the way of life. God knows the conscience of his unworthy servant, and I surely thank the God of all grace that he gave his Holy Spirit, that I might have hope. 0 God, show me in my weakness, the way of life, that I may grow more perfect. I thank God that the brethren pray for one another, that we may all be saved and kept." Testimony of Mirza Khan, (a tailor) "Reasons for leaving Islam. "1. In the first place it is impossible to be content with the Moslem system of belief on account of the superstition and credulity involved in it. "2. The use of force in religious propaganda during the time of Mohammed throws suspicion on the genuineness of the teaching. "3. In subsequent history there has been a conspicuous ab- sence of enlightenment and an attitude of aloofness and en- mity towards other people. "4. My heart found no comfort in Islam. "5. I became convinced that the backwardness of Persia was largely on account of bigotry and the lack of religious and intellectual freedom. 410 "Reasons for becoming a Christian. "1. A new birth at thirty years of age. "2. The study of the Bible. "3. The invitation of Christ, on the basis of love, virtue and peace. "4. The increase of the glory of the kingdom of Jesus Christ throughout the world. "5. The finding of assurances, and of comfort for heart longings, and reaching a basis in belief for loving all man- kind. "6. My prayer is for freedom in Christ Jesus for all Persia." Testimony of Mirza — (a rug weaver) "Question. — Does the teaching of the Koran prove that it is a book from God? "Answer. — No. "Question. — These one hundred and forty suras of the Koran, by the power of what person did Mohammed declare them, — by the power of the Holy Spirit? "Answer. — No. "Question. — In regard to the Koran, what then is your belief and on what authority? "Answer. — It is a compendium of the teachings and customs of other peoples, e. g., the customs of the Jews and other Semites, Zoroastrians and Hindus, of Roman Catholics, of Arabs of that time, and of the followers of Hanif ; and one of its obvious results has been the imprisonment of women, sepa- rating them from their natural rights of humanity and de- priving them of learning and progress. For the preparation of the Koran Mohammed had no special command of God and no singular learning to qualify him for this work. He obeyed his instincts and among these jealousy was prominent. "Question. — Thirteen hundred years have passed since the Hejira, and from generation to generation Islam has made progress, and up until the present there has been no revolt against it among the Persians. They are divided into 72 sects, but they have rejected neither Mohammed nor the Koran. Why is this? "Answer. — The spread of Islam and the persistence of it can not be considered as a proof of the authority and right of Mohammed, for idol worshipers are still numerous and per- sistent enough, and I am waiting, according to the prophets and in conformity with the declaration of Jesus Christ, with the expectation that all will believe on Jesus Christ and be one communion of the Christian faith. 411 "Isaiah 60 :6-7 ; Isaiah 19 :23-25 ; Isaiah 2:1-5; Isaiah 49 :22- 26; John 10:16; Matt. 24:14; Phil. 2:10, 11. "Question. — What then is your faith and belief? "Answer. — I believe in the New Testament, and am a Chris- tian, with faith according to the instruction of Jesus Christ. "Question. — Assuming that you are a Christian, are you able to deny that the Koran is from God? Cf. Sura 'The Spider' (29) V. 45. 'Thus have we sent down the book of the Koran to thee : and they to whom we have given the book of the Law believe in it.' "Answer. — The answer is in James 2:19: 'Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well; the demons also believe and shudder.' "Question. — But what reply have you to Sura 'Women,' vv. 169, 170, where we read: 'God is only one God! Far be it from His glory that He should have a son ! His, whatever is in the heavens, and whatever is in the earth ! And God is a sufficient guardian. The Messiah disdaineth not to be a servant of God, nor do the angels who are nigh unto Him.' "Answer. — The answer is found in the Gospel of John, ch. 1:1-4: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the be- ginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that hath been made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.' "Question. — But we read about the creation of Jesus in Sura (3) 'The Family of Imran,' v. 52. 'Verily, Jesus is as Adam in the sight of God. He created him of dust ; He then said to him, "Be," and he was.' "Answer. — The answer is found in 1 Cor. 15:45-50. 'So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth earthy; the second man is of heaven. As is the earth, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.' "Question. — But about Jesus' death, did God really let it happen? cf. Sura (3) Al Imran, v. 48. 'Remember when God said, "0 Jesus, verily I will cause thee to die, and will take thee up to myself and deliver thee from those who believe not." ' 412 "Answer. — We find Jesus' death explicitly stated in Matt. 27:50. 'And Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit.' "Question. — How do you interpret Sura (19) 'Mary' v. 34, which says: 'And the peace of God was upon me the day I was born, and will be the day I shall die, and the day I shall be raised to life.' "Answer. — See John 20:16, 17: 'Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself and saith unto him in Hebrew, Raboni ; which is to say. Teacher. Jesus saith to her. Touch me not ; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father;- but go unto my breth- ren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.' "Question. — But did Mohammed consider that the Jews really killed Jesus? Of. Sura (4) 'Women,' v. 156. 'Yet they slew him not, and they crucified him not, but they had only his likeness.' "Answer. — In regard to this it would be well to read I John 4:1-5, 'Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the spirit of God; every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God; and this is the spirit of the anti-christ, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already. Ye are of God, my little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.' "Question. — I can give no further answer to this, but it would be well for you to consult Moslem scholars and teachers. "Answer. — Jesus gave instruction concerning the scholars and teachers. We find it in Matt. 23 :30-38. "Question. — I agree that there is resemblance in every par- ticular with the present scholars and teachers of Islam, but I still thank God that I can believe that Mohammed is my prophet and saviour, and that he was himself without sin. "Answer. — According to Moslem practice the witness of three persons is enough in most cases, and thousands have held this belief from instinct or tradition, but it would be well to consult the words of Mohammed, which are found in the Koran itself, Cf. Sura (40) 'The Behever,' v. 57: 'Therefore be steadfast thou and patient ; for true is the promise of God ; and seek pardon for thy faidt, and celebrate the praise of thy Lord at evening and at morning.' Sura (47) 'Mohammed,' V. 21 : 'Know, then, that there is no God but God ; and ask 413 pardon for thy sin; and for believers, both men and women.' Sura (48) 'The Victory,' vs. 1-3: 'Verily, we have won for thee an undoubted victory. In token that God forgiveth thy earlier and later faults, and fulfilleth his goodness to thee, and guideth thee on the right way.' "Question. — This is obvious. A prophet may be a sinner, but not so with a mediator or a saviour who is to accomplish an atonement for sins. So what must I do to be saved? "Answer. — The answer is found in Acts 2:37-39. "Question. — But where do we learn that Jesus was without sin? "Answer. — In John 8:46, and as I said, when you read the books of the prophets, they will throw light on this. Jesus himself says, in John 5:38, 39, 'You must search the Scrip- tures, etc' "Let us pray about it. "O God Almighty, I thank Thee that Thou didst set us free from the oppression of fanaticism, and that the Holy Spirit, given unto us, poured forth Thine own love into our hearts. We love Thee with our whole souls, and know certainly that Thou didst first love us, and didst give of Thine own life in Jesus Christ on behalf of mankind. Thou didst bring us to a knowledge of thee, and we have hope that on this earth we may soon be one flock, under one Shepherd. This is our prayer, in Thine own name. Amen." On our way from Teheran to Meshed we had passed through Omar Khayyam's city, Nishapur, at midnight. On our return, however, we stopped for a day in Nishapur, and three of the six believers in the city were waiting for us, as our poor old broken post carriage halted in the snow before the post house. Nothing would do but that we must go with them at once to the home of the leader of the little company, and as we sat about a brazier and ate our frugal meal, he told us the story of his finding Christ. He began with a bit of Per- sian verse, "When God wants a man. He will draw him to Himself." Mohammed had borne testimony to Jesus Christ, why should he not bear testimony too? Then from Omar Khayyam he quoted some saying that all men are sinners save God — Father, Son and Spirit. This was in the Mesnavi of Jalal-ud-din too. The Prophet and the poets alike testify that Christ is the only person who has come on earth who has not sinned. "The Koran gave me this thought long before I found it in the Bible. From the Mesnavi I learned also that Mohammed was greatly troubled over his sins and cried to God for forgiveness, and I was troubled, too, but knew of no 414 way of deliverance. About five years ago I got a Bible from a long bearded man who, I think, was an Armenian, for five krans. I found the New Testament a spiritual book and be- gan to compare it with the Koran, and from that comparison I found peace in the Injil (the Gospel). Then I learned that there were spiritual Christians in Meshed, and I met one of them, Hajji , but he gave me no satisfaction. Soon after Mr. Miller came to Nishapur, and I and my son and my friend, the Hajji, here, were baptized." Mr. Miller had writ- ten to me at the time of this visit, and his account of it may well be preserved here. It was dated "Nishapur, October 25, 1920." "About two months ago we began getting letters in Meshed from a Mirza in Nishapur saying that he had met one of the Meshed Christians who had told him of us, and begging one of us to come to Nishapur and instruct him. After seven letters had been received it was decided that somebody would have to go, so our Persian associate and I set out on donkeys on the three day trip over the mountains. We were met 12 miles outside the city by our inquirer and I'm sure no mis- sionary ever had a warmer welcome anywhere. When we were seated in his home my companion, like Peter in Corne- lius' house, said, 'Now we have come to you. Will you kindly tell us why you sent for us?' "Mirza replied by giving us a brief account of his life. His grandfather had been the head of the Ismailian sect of Islam in Herat, and he himself had 5,000 households of this sect in Persia under his supervision. As a boy he had been in India and a medical missionary had said something to him about Christ which he had never forgotten. For some years, however, he searched in vain here and there for a re- ligion that would satisfy him, till six years ago he bought a book from a man with a long beard (Dr. Esselstyn) . He soon found that this was what he was looking for. Three years ago he believed on Christ. But he did not know there were Christian ministers in Meshed, and he had been waiting in vain for someone to baptize him. 'So,' he concluded, 'I sent for you to baptize me that I may be a complete Christian.' "I stayed in his home some days and was convinced that he was ready for baptism. The only thing that stood in the way was that he had two wives, both of whom he loved, and they and their children all lived happily in one house! At first I made up my mind that this ought not to keep a man out of the church of Christ and I sent to Meshed for approval of my purpose to baptize them all. But before the approval 415 arrived the father arranged to put away one of the wives and to provide for her, so this problem was cleared up. Three weeks ago I baptized this man and his twelve-year-old son and another convert from Meshed who now lives in Nishapur. It was a bit difficult to conduct the examination on nine months of Persian! But this didn't lessen the joy of us all a bit. You should have seen us all kissing each other in good apostolic fashion afterward ! And the converts drank up the water in the baptismal bowl and pronounced it very good! "Mirza says that his sect does not accept Mohammed or the Koran, only Ali ; that they have no Bible and no set prayers or rules ; that they are largely sufi in theology ; and in teaching are not far from Christianity, polygamy and divorce being condemned. He feels it will not be hard to evangelize the whole sect and is eager to make a tour of his villages in order to tell his people of his discovery. Several days ago he received a formidable document from his superior in India saying that it was rumored that he was straying away from the faith and calling on him to deny the charge. Mirza replied by making a bold confession of his faith in Christ and asking that his resignation from his official position be accepted. "Two weeks ago Dr. Hoffman came here too and he is now having a busy time in our 'hospital.' Saturday he saw 176 patients, did one major and seven minor operations and made a house call. The Bible Society agent is with us too, and we are selling a good many Bibles. Every day men have been coming to read and talk with us about Christianity. I believe there are a number of men here who are not far from be- coming Christians. The mollahs of the city are considerably disturbed over it all, I hear, and some of our inquirers have been frightened away. "There is a sheikh who comes to see me every morning early. He does not want people to see him coming, but he is evidently gripped by the power of the Gospel and he can't keep away. The heart of the conflict between Christianity and Islam is the old question of faith and works. I have been taking this sheikh through Romans and many of Paul's argu- ments take on fresh meaning as one sees how they cut through the self-righteousness of a Mohammedan Pharisee. Matthew and Romans seem to be written for the special purpose of cutting the ground from under the feet of Islam. One can- not realize the impregnable and irresistible force of the Chris- tian religion till he has seen it tried out against another re- ligious system." In the evening of our stay in Nishapur, with our friend, 416 Hajji, the merchant, who had been with us at noon, we made our way through the dark and closed covered bazaars and down some side streets where the snow was falHng heavily to the leader's house. Our host was sick, and reclining on the floor against some pillows with his body under the quilts thrown over the kursee, a little wooden stand set over a bra- zier and covered with blankets, which hold the heat of the little fire and under which the whole family sleep. Five of us sat about the kursee, our host, the old merchant, a young farmer, and two of us Americans, and ate our supper of rice and meat, spread upon the kursee, and talked together of the Gospel and Persia. Our host said he liked all the New Testa- ment eoually even as he loved all of us, but that the chapters of the Gospel according to Matthew from the 14th to the 19th were the best to use in presenting the Gospel to other Moham- medans, because these were the chapters which set up just the ideals of life in which Islam was most barren. The times were dark in Persia due to the economic ruin of Russia. The old merchant's business was entirely gone. So the talk ran on. They did not know much about Russia except that the conditions were worse than in Persia. Nothing sadder could be said. No caravans came any more from Askabad into Khorasan and none crossed back again. Islam was very bad. It had three great evils, falsehood, self-centeredness, and de- ception. Yes, and as to women, Islam did not teach husbands to love their wives, and it put woman's religion under the husband's control, and turned mothers into hypocrites. Christ was of an order superior to Mohammed, a spiritual being with a spiritual influence. Yes, they had known persecution, but they were suffering far more from the general economic conditions of want and destitution from which all were suffer- ing. The church was small now, but all seeds are small, and the power of life and growth was in it. Confessing Christ had meant no economic gain to them. All of them were poorer and found the way more difficult, and they knew that greater difficulties probably were in store. "The mollahs and mujta- hids are opposed to all enlightenment. Light is their enemy, and they are light's enemies. The road ahead of us will be hard, no doubt, but what it is, it is, and we will travel it." The old merchant walked back with us through the black night and the gray falling snow to the chill post house where we prayed before we went to sleep for Christ's little flock, so poor and alone, in Omar Khayyam's city.* * Under date of April 17, 1922, Mr. Miller writes from Nishapur of additional baptisms but of the sori'owful necessity of suspending the first Nishapur convert. 417 14 — India and Persia Before going to Meshed I had spent a Sunday afternoon with some of the Mohammedan converts in Teheran. Sev- eral earnest Christians from the Armenian community met with us. Indeed the little group was made up from the com- mittee of twelve which is the official body of the one Church of Christ in Teheran composed of both Mohammedan and Armenian converts. I had asked them what the changes were that had taken place in Persia since I was here twenty-six years ago and also what they regarded as the great difficulties and needs of the work. They said they would answer the questions briefly, but that they preferred to meet again after our return from Meshed when they would be prepared with more careful replies. So on our return we met again with the full committee of the church. I will combine the judg- ments which they expressed in these two conferences. One of the men, perhaps the oldest, an Armenian, was one of the most respected tailors of the city. "Twenty-five years ago," said he, "the people were far more fanatical, both Moslems and Armenians, than they are today. Then bitter speech and bitter deeds were common. I think it is the witness of Chris- tian love, in part at least, which has wrought the change. The Moslems considered all non-Moslems as infidels, but now they admit that Christians are good people. The love of God and man has been revealed. With such changes behind us I believe that if the laborers are adequately increased we shall see manifold greater changes in the future. But though fanaticism has diminished, it is still our greatest hindrance, and the two main needs of Persia are religious liberty and teachers of Christ. What was true on Christ's lips, I can speak with equal assurance today. The Harvest truly lis plenteous, but the laborers are few." "I agree," said a second member of the group, a devoted Armenian teacher, "fanaticism has surely greatly decreased. Years ago Moslems would come into the church and instead of touching books with their hands they would take them in their abbas (cloaks) so as not to be defiled. Afterwards they would go to the pool in the mission compound and wash their hands. Then few Mohammedans ever came to church. Now the chapel is crowded with them, and even mollahs attend. Then no Moslem boy could safely be taken into the school. Now they pay to be allowed to come. Then colporteurs had almost no liberty. Now they go about with freedom and sell Scriptures even at the shrine of Shah Abdul Azim. Then a convert from Islam could not confess Christ openly or escape persecution, even if he believed secretly. Now Moslem con- 418 verts preach even from the pulpit when there are Moham- medan ecclesiastics present and nothing happens to them. Yet the one great obstacle is still Islam, with its morality so flexible and corruptible to the level of low desire. You must pray that Islam may be broken down." "I am only a young man," said one of the Mohammedans, one of the promising young doctors of the city, "and I cannot remember conditions twenty-five years ago. but I have heard how impossible confession and preaching of Christ were then, and I know how great is our freedom now. Then Moslems looked on Christians, especially if they were wet by rain or snow, as unclean. Now it is common for Moslems to eat with us. Still, as the others have said, Mohammedan bigotry and exclusiveness are our great hindrance. The Bahais are a diflficulty too. They are always claiming that almost all Americans have now become Bahais, and Persians know very little of the world and believe such statements. I think that we need three things. We need more doctors to go out in the towns and villages to preach and heal. We need more help from America to lift Persia out of her poverty and eco- nomic ruin. And we need a center for the hundreds of young men in Teheran who are idle on Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath, and who do not go to the mosques and are very open and ready for any Christian influence that will help them." I knew how just these opinions were, from experi- ences of which I shall write elsewhere. This Bahai story is a common tale, and Persians will hardly believe it when they are assured that the census returns show that there are less than fifteen hundred Bahais in the United States and that many of them know nothing of what Bahaism really is. After some others had spoken, we all turned to the two most influ- ential Mohammedan converts, one a man with no regular education but very clever and able and the other a devoted and capable Mohammedan woman, an open teacher of Christ to the girls of the city. "Twenty-five years ago," said the man, "the Persians did not believe that a Mohammedan could be converted to Christianity, but today they believe it is pos- sible. Then if a Mohammedan dared to confess Christ as his Saviour and Lord, the Ulema would have excommunicated him. His life would have been at the mercy of the people, and his property would have been confiscated without question. It is not so today. At present the Moslems know that some of their numbers have been converted to Christianity. May be they think that Christianity has had a better progress than it really has. As to the present obstacles, they are first 419 the Ulema, second the Koran, third fanaticism, fourth the ignorance of the people who do not know that Mohammed and his Koran cannot save them, fifth the bad example of Armenian unbelievers. What are our great needs? First prayer, second hard work of the brethren, third more doctors for the healing of the people; fourth, invitation to Christ by- means of trade in the hands of the brethren. I mean that there is more need of evangelists who will approach the people in the channels of common daily intercourse as trades- men or merchants or peddlers. Fifth, translation, printing, and publication of the Koran in the Persian language. Per- sian Mohammedans read Persian not Arabic. They are igno- rant of the Koran, and therefore they accept the Mohammedan view of it. If they could only read it in their own language and know just what kind of a book it is, in three years I believe that one-third of the Persians would repudiate it. They are already beginning to distrust Islam. They know that Persia was an educated country before Islam came and that it is an ignorant country now. Even the mollahs are beginning to blame the wretched plight of our country upon Islam. It is true that there is a Persian translation of the Koran already, but it is very poor and costly. A good and cheap translation would destroy the faith of Persia." "Twenty-five years ago," said the Moslem woman, and her unveiled face was full of strength and character, "Moslems had wrong notions of Christianity. They did not know that Christians worshiped God, have careful marriage ceremonies, and a proper moral law. I myself as a Moslem woman thought then that to speak to a Christian woman was one of the great- est of sins. Now as a Christian woman who was a Moham- medan, I have many dear Moslem friends. They say that many Moslems, even sayids, have become Christians, and there is no reason any longer why they should not welcome Christian acquaintances. Yet it is true that the great difficulty is the lack of religious liberty. Many Moslems say that Chris- tianity is better than Islam, and that they would like to be- come Christians, but if they do they will be killed. Islam has suffered a great defeat, but still the old barriers stay." What defeat? I asked. "The Christian work here," she replied, "has been a revelation to Persian Moslems, and the old pro- hibition to confession has been destroyed. I hear many people, even prominent government officials, say that Christi- anity is the better religion and superior to Islam. If you ask me what are our great needs, I think they are two, first a boarding department for girls in our girls' school which 420 will keep the Mohammedan girls steadily under Christian influence instead of allowing so many of them to go home at night where the school work of the day is undone. Many Mohammedan families will be glad to send their girls to such a boarding department. Second, the translation of the Koran into Persian and its wide circulation among the people." One of our most interesting evenings in Persia was spent at dinner in Teheran in the house of Dr. Saeed Khan, the story of whose conversion has already been told in connection with his brother Kaka's. Dr. Saeed Khan is one of the best known and most influential Christians in Persia. After study- ing in Hamadan he took a medical course in London and is one of the most trusted Persian physicians. One of his patients is the last governor of Kurdistan whose predecessor a few years ago would no doubt have felt it to be his duty to respond to the demand of the mollahs in Senneh for Dr. Saeed's execution for apostasy. He is a great student both of Christianity and Mohammedanism, with a keen eye for old Persian books of which he has sent a number to Prof. E. G. Browne, and he gave me for Mrs. Speer, with whom he and Mrs. Saeed formed a great friendship when we were in Hamadan in 1896 and 1897, one of the most beautiful copies of the Koran I have ever seen. It is a small book about two and a half by three and a half inches exquisitely done by hand, with marginal decorations by some loving Mohammedan scholar, on parchment sheets with a lacquered binding with soft ornamental flowering. He told his story in choice Eng- lish. It was just as Kaka had narrated it to us but with many added touches. After his father's death as a boy of sixteen he had been given by the old mollahs a turban to wear and a school to teach. He was curious to learn other lan- guages, and on that account, was willing to exchange his knowledge of Kurdish for Kasha Yohanan's knowledge of Syriac. At first he had thought that all the Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah referred to Mohammed, and he used to rejoice in them and repeat them to Kaka. But when he came, in Isaiah, to the great chapter about the Ser- vant who should not strive nor cry nor be harsh or violent, he was halted. That certainly could not apply to Mohammed. When he himself had become convinced of the truth of Chris- tianity and Kaka had become interested, one of their chief diflaculties related to their father. He had been a good and earnest and honest man. Once he had found a bag of money and though in great need, had kept it intact until its owner was discovered. How could so good a man, Kaka asked, be 421 lost for not accepting Christ? Saeed's reply had been that he and Kaka would be judged according to the light that had been given them, and that that light had never reached their father. It was after seven years of Christian teaching that Saeed had at last been baptized by Mr. Hawkes. Not long afterwards some European teachers of perfectionism had come to Hamadan, and, taken by their teaching, Saeed had gone to Sweden, but the second verse of the third chapter of the first Epistle of John corrected for him any thought of a present sinlessness, and he went on to England to find many friends there and to prepare for his life work in Persia. More than once since his conversion has he returned to Senneh, at first with peril but at last with great honor. Once in his early years in Teheran the Senneh ecclesiastics sent a formidable communication to the Turkish legation demanding his death as an apostate, but it was intercepted by friendly hands and destroyed. And no one now would think of lifting a hostile hand against the familiar and honored figure of this sincere and mature Christian who walks to and fro wherever he will in Persia, by life and by word bearing witness to the True Prophet and only Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ. Many of the Mohammedan converts in Persia have been deeply influenced by dreams. Dreams play so large a part in the thoughts of Persians in matters of duty and points of decision that it is not to be wondered at that so many of the converts trace their resolution to follow Christ to the guidance which they believe they received in a dream. One of the Meshed Christians said: "I was in great doubt whether I should leave Mohammed and follow Christ or should reject Christ and hold to Islam. I had been reading the Bible and was almost convinced that it was true, but I was not sure, and I did not want to make a mistake. If I confessed Christ, it might turn out in the end that Mohammedanism was true ; and if on the other hand I held to Mohammed, I might dis- cover at last and too late that Christianity was the true re- ligion. In this perplexity I asked God if He would not guide me by a dream, and that night in a dream I saw on the floor of my room the Bible and the Koran, and the Koran lay on top of the Bible. Suddenly, however, the door opened and an angel entered who walked across the room and without stooping to touch it with his hand brushed the Koran aside with his foot leaving the Bible alone. So I awoke and knew that the Bible was the book of God." And not only simple folk like this Meshed believer but some of the ablest and most 422 strong-minded Christians in Persia liave been thus influenced by dreams. One of the most interesting and capable and influential Christians in Persia is the leading Persian doctor of Tabriz, who was educated in part in Persia and in part in Europe, and who bears the title of Fakr ul Ataba, "The Glory of the Doctors." He belongs to one of the oldest and most respected Mohammedan families in Persia. Not knowing who he was, I was at once impressed by his face and bearing in the con- gregation the first Sunday we were in Tabriz, first at the Syriac service for the Urumia Christians and then at the Turkish service held specially for the Mohammedan converts and inquirers. The church was packed at each of these ser- vices. At the Turkish service, however, there were a num- ber of Assyrians and Armenians as well as Mohammedans. After the services I met the Fakr ul Ataba, and the last even- ing of our stay in Tabriz he invited us and all the men of the Mission to dine with him in his home. "Oh, yes," said he, as we sat at his hospitable table at a great banquet, partly Persian but mostly European, but without any wine such as is, alas, counted an essential part of a European banquet in Persia, but with sour milk flavored with wild thyme in its place, "Oh, yes, there have been immense changes in Persia since you were here before. Even within the last fifteen years everything has changed. The old fanaticism is gone. When I went abroad to study in Paris fifteen years ago, the mollahs and the muj tabids were supreme. Now their power is entirely broken. If there are ten leading families in Tabriz, mine is one of them. Formerly they were all under the power of the ecclesiastics. Now I can do what I could never do before. I can go to church and sit down publicly at the Lord's Supper, and no one says a word. I can go about, as I do, in all the leading homes of the city and speak of my Christian faith with freedom. What has brought about the change? In large part the Mohammedan ecclesiastics themselves. They were so oppressive, so dishonest, so full of devilish deeds that the people came to despise and hate them. There are many secret Christian believers now. Next to the influence of the ecclesiastics in destroying their own power I think nothing has done more to break down fanaticism than the Mission hospitals and the work of men like Dr. Vanneman and such preachers as Mr. Moorhatch, who know both the Koran and the Bible, and who are able to present Christianity in ways that convince men and do not offend. Yes," said he, "I would like to tell you the story of my conversion. Thirty-five years 423 ago in Teheran I used to -go to the Mission church there just after it had been built. Then I moved here to Tabriz, and lived in a garden near the Girls' School. One evening I was walking up and down in the porch of my house when I heard the girls singing some Christian hymns. As I walked to and fro and listened to the hymns, I reflected on the different religions of the world and why it is that some people follow one and some another. Then a poem of Saadi's came to my mind: " 'It is not clear where that which I ought to worship is. I go about that I may find it, But every one according to his experience, Goes after one thing or another and worships it.' I went on in my thoughts and told myself that even if there was no future world, a man ought to find the right law for this world by which to order his way and his relations to his fellow men. Then I lay down to sleep and had a dream. I saw a great book, and written in the book on opposite pages were the names of Mohammed and Christ. Then a hand ap- peared and dipped a brush in ink red as blood, and with the brush blotted out Mohammed's name. With this dream I awoke and rose from my bed and took a drink of cold water and walked up and down the room. My wife awoke and asked me what my trouble was, and I told her all. 'Perhaps you ate too much supper,' she said, 'and the Devil has awakened you with this unpleasant dream.' But when morning came I went to see the late Dr. S. G. Wilson, who was living in Tabriz then, and I told him my dream. He did not say that the red ink was the blood of Christ, but he said that perhaps the reason why the red brush came and blotted out the name of Mohammed was that it was by the shedding of so much blood by massacre and misery that Mohammedanism had been estab- lished. I did not confess Christ at that time, but sixteen years after this incident when I was seriously ill and had made my will and expected to die, this dream recurred to me, and I reflected that it was not enough to know the right law for this world, but that a man ought to know which way he was going into the world beyond. This was seven years ago, and I sent for Kasha Moorhatch and was baptized. From that day I have had only peace of mind and health of body. Yes, surely a man must choose and follow his religion with intelligence. How could I prefer Christianity to Islam and justifiably fol- low one rather than the other, if I did not understand both religions and if I were not rationally convinced that Christi- anity is superior to Islam. What is the most effective way 424 of preaching Christianity to Moslems? First of all the practical way, showing them by evidence which they cannot dispute, such as the hospitals, the superiority of Christ and the fruits of Christ ; second by the preaching of men who know Islam and can present Christianity on the basis of a full knowledge of Mohammedanism. Mohammedan literature is rich in the material for such men to use. There are many Moslem traditions which assign Christ a place nearer to God than Mohammed's, and which make Jesus and not Mohammed the final personality. Yes, the status of woman is a great matter, but I do not urge the taking away of the veils from the faces of the Persian women yet. The veils within must be first removed. First purify the hearts of men, then drop the veils of women." Our host is engaged in producing a Persian-English-French- Russian dictionary. He is both editor and publisher and showed us the beautiful printed sheets of nearly half of the volume which he is issuing at his own expense. "This is one of the happiest nights that I have known," said our friend, as we thanked him for his hospitality and rose to go, and he quoted again from Saadi : 'If you wish to see the Shah, Make friends with his gate keeper. By and by you will meet the vizier, And then the Ameer, And then at last you will come Where you may touch the Shah.' And so tonight here in my home I am so happy with you who have been my guests. I shall some day reach to God." And so we have met them all over Persia, these who are coming up out of trouble and difficulty, "Who climb the steep ascent of Heaven through peril, toil and pain." Already they have "reached to God," and it is we who have had fellowship with them for a little while, who have walked with them amid their shadows and have drunk with them out of their cup. who have reason to be grateful for the inspiration of their courage and their faith. S. S. George, Black Sea, April 21, 1922. 425 7. FROM SHAH ABDUL AZIM TO THE SHRINE OF IMAM REZA The morning sun was shimmering on the gold dome of the shrine of Shah Abdul Azim as we rode out from Teheran through the Meshed gate on the last Monday morning of January. It had snowed the night before, and the tall poplars and chinars were glistening white at the sunrise. As we passed out of the gate the snow had melted under the warm brightness of the day, and the streets were the characteristic seas of mud which one knows he will find after snow or rain in any of these Persian cities. We were in a post carriage, the strongest we could discover in the motley assortment in the post house yard. It was a long journey of five hundred and sixty miles upon which we were setting out. We could change horses every three far- sakhs or twelve miles, but we would keep the same carriage all the way through, and as there were long stretches of the road where there would be no possibility of help or repairs in case of accident, we wanted a vehicle which would last. The one which we got looked durable, but its springs were wrapped with rope, and the front and rear wheels were not set in a straight line, so that the body of the carriage tilted over and at severe jolts leaned against the left rear wheel. All the glass was gone from its windows, which were boarded up with strips from old packing boxes, and, in one case, with tin from a Russian case of petroleum. Shreds of the blue upholstering of a happier day still clung to the roof. The pole of the carriage was a trimmed but unpainted and crooked sapling. Our luggage was hung in a rope sling fastened to the rear springs and axle. This conveyance lasted for three hundred and fifty miles. On the Persian post roads the stages vary in length from two to four farsakhs, but our general average was three. The f arsakh is Xenophon's parasang. Some of the Persian drivers said that it was ten thousand paces. It is not an accurately measured distance, and on many of the Persian roads it seems to be a time and not a linear measurement, or both, i. e., the distance which a man or a horse will travel in an hour over the particular piece of road under consideration. In general the farsakh is about four English miles. And traveling day and night, with allowances for bad roads, and a delay of from anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours in changing 426 horses, although our changes fortunately averaged but little more than half an hour, we were able to make about eighteen farsakhs a day. The first two stages out from Teheran carry one across the edge of the plain, up the long low hill on the side of which stands the white tower where the Parsis of Teheran expose their dead, and down on the other side, with Teheran lost to view, but with the sun still gleaming on the mosque of Shah Abdul Azim, to the caravanserai of Khatanabad on the north- ern edge of the great Veramin plain. It is Veramin with its hundreds of villages from which Teheran draws a good part of its food supply. All afternoon we rode eastward. To the north the white cone of Demavend, the highest mountain west of the Himalayas, shone dazzling and clear, until in the even- ing it grew pink and soft in the glow of the sun setting. To the south, here and there across wide plains rose the ancient mounds of the fire worshipers, the first of which we had seen at Yengimam, the little shrine of one of the minor Imams, between Kasvin and Teheran where a fortnight before we had been warned off the road by a Persian officer in a sky- blue uniform on a fine bay horse, and had watched the Shah roll by on his way to Europe, far off from the poor and needy land which he is said to have lamented that Allah had given him to govern. With the glorious light on Demavend and on the little streams that ran across our road to be lost in the wide plain, one could hardly wonder that the ancient Persians, in the midst of the shadow and tragedy of human life, had found the object of their worship in the sun and fire. Twelve farsakhs from Teheran after five changes of horses we drew into Awan-i-Kaif , "Doorway of Delight." The drivers would not go over the next stage of the road at night. We had to wait till morning, accordingly, in the little mud room on the roof of the post house, preferring this, bare and cold though it was, to the dark tea room with its mud platforms for beds, unlighted save by the door by day or a little brazier fire by night, and unventilated when the door was closed. The next morning as we crossed the stage between Awan-i- Kaif and the "Mouth of Khars" we understood the drivers' reluctance. From the post house the road ran down through the river bed and then up through the village and across a wide plain, by deep gullies ending at last in a mud bog where a tea house had sprung up beside a pool in the bog. Beyond this lay a rough broken country where the road ran in and out among hills along a deep bedded stream, with not a hand- breadth of roadway to spare beyond the carriage wheels. For 427 two farsakhs or more this bad-land country extended, until we emerged, below a sentry tower which guarded the eastern gateway, upon the wide fertile plain of Khars. We changed horses at noon at Kishlak where the road ran through the tor- tuous streets of the little town and rode on across the north- ern edge of the plain, dotted with the ruins of mud castles of the nearby feudal days of Persia, to Dehnamak where the housetops in the streets were filled by the small population welcoming a wedding party which rode into town behind us with drums and a horn and a huge blue gramaphone trumpet. The women friends of the bride were gathered expectantly with trays of presents, and the weird band gave a sombre tone to an occasion filled with life by the small boys and the horsemen who raced their horses up and down the unkempt street. We changed horses three times this second night, and drove into the fine old Shah Abbas caravanserai at Semnan at nine o'clock on Wednesday morning. Shah Abbas was the great caravanserai builder in Persia, and the substantial buildings which he put up of good burned brick, with domed rooms and little water pools in the center of them, and stables all around the ample courtyard, are still standing along the main high- ways and stretch from Teheran eastward as a noble series of monuments, to the memory of one ruler who wrought for the development and prosperity of Persia. One marks all these Persian towns and cities from a distance by the sight not of their buildings but of their trees and gardens, and now and then of the minarets of their mosque. It has been sometimes said that the Shiah mosoues of Persia have no minarets like the mosques of the Sunni Mohammedans, but as I write I am looking out on the two decorated minarets of the Jum'eh mosque in Kasvin, and the traveler sees from afar the mina- rets of Sharoud and Damghan and Meshed. We stopped long enough at Semnan for a good meal of chicken and rice stewed in the polluted water of the tank in the caravanserai floor, but the chicken had been orthodoxly slain, "In the name of God and Mohammed," and the water was boiled. And we went on uneventfully that afternoon and night over the high- est passes on the road where we had very different experiences returning. On Thursday about noon we changed horses at the post house in Damghan. An old beggar asked alms be- cause it was Thursday, the day before Friday, a meritorious day on which to give alms, as Saturday, also would be and for other reasons each other day. At Mehman Dust, the next post house east of Damghan, it was not a beggar who greeted 428 us, but an old man who nine years ago had had a cataract removed at the Mission hospital. It was the American Hos- pital in Teheran to which he had gone, but he told the little group of wondering bystanders that he had gone to America and that there this miracle had been wrought upon him. The interest of the crowd was divided, however, between the old man's eye and a moonstone about the size of a robin's egg which the driver wished to sell. He thought perhaps it was a diamond, but a bystander maintained it was a pearl. "A pearl," exclaimed another "why such a pearl as that would be worth more than the whole kingdom of Persia." We offered the driver five krans or forty cents for his stone, but this fell far short of his appraisal. From Mehman Dust which means "Beloved Guest" it is three farsakhs, the last of them over a crooked road up and down deep gullies which seems bound in any but the right direction, to Deh-i-Mollah, "The Mollah's Village," memorable also on our return journey. Another fine old caravanserai of Shah Abbas stands just across the road from the squalid tea house and stables of the modern post station. Huge cavernous rooms for caravans run round the court of the old caravan- serai. Hearing in one of them the deep boom of camel bells, as I supposed, I went in to see the caravan settle for the night and found instead of the camels a multitude of little donkeys wearing the deep toned bells of their big companions of the road and loaded too with a consistent irony with loads which were camel burdens. If there be a heaven of equalizing recom- pense for poor beasts which have suffered here on earth, the donkeys of Persia will be foremost among its happy in- habitants. Without complaint, unfrightened by any novelty, poorly fed, beaten and abused, bearing at the same time often both his full burden and the added burden of his master, the donkey is the least resistant and the most long suffering of all the beasts of the road. His only protest is mutely to lie down when he can bear no more and when he has borne to the last to die and be forsaken by the wayside. On Friday evening, sixty-four farsakhs east of Teheran, we rode in through the moonlight to the attractive little city of Sharoud or "Shah's River." A clear stream of water lined with trees, poplar and willow, ran down the long main street. A wall of hills rose to the north of the city. Wide walled gardens bound it on the south and west. Here as everywhere the medical missionary who was with us was given a warm welcome. He had never been over this road before, but as soon as it was known that he was in any town. Dr. McDowell 429 would be surrounded by patients. The first patient he had ever treated in Persia welcomed him here in Sharoud. No missionary has ever been stationed here, but it is a center which ought to be visited every year for several weeks by an evangelist and doctor traveling together. They would find a wide open door. Many friendly men greeted us on the street and women with unveiled faces looked at us unabashed. If a doctor would remain a few weeks he would soon be besieged by people coming in to see him from villages far and near. A friend who had given us a list of the post stations with annotations for the journey had marked down that the trav- eler's carriage must be overhauled at Damghan, Sharoud, Sub- savar, and Nishapur. We assumed that it was the post road authorities who required this of the traveler, but experience taught us that it was the traveler who must require this of the post authorities. We did our best to have the carriage overhauled and succeeded at Sharoud in getting a broken whiffle-tree mended, but every appeal for precautionary re- pairs was in vain. "It isn't broken, is it?" the reply would run. "It has come as far as this, hasn't it? If it has done that, it will hold for the rest of the way." We didn't believe in this philosophy, and we didn't like to continue bumping the body of the carriage against the rear hind wheel, but the pre- cedents of centuries were not to be changed for us. When a thing was broken, it would be mended. Until then it did not need to be mended. So with helpless trustfulness we rode on into the wide waste country which stretches from Sharoud for forty-three farsakhs through the Turkoman land and across the upper end of the salt desert to Subsavar. Some seven or eight farsakhs east of Sharoud just beyond Farashabad, the most desolate and forsaken place we had seen, we suffered, not what we had expected, but as we had expected. At the next station, Jadona, on the edge of a wide plain where we passed four antelopes, the only wild animals we had met, we found the nut gone on a rear hind wheel. A search for miles back along the road failed to find it. There was neither another nut nor a blacksmith to be found till we reached Subsavar, a hundred and forty miles away. After long delay and a consideration of all possible expedients the old head of the post house and a half-witted lad together con- ceived the idea of taking one of the pole chains and looping it over the hub of the loose wheel and around the iron axle, so that it would revolve with the wheel, and though allowing it a wide latitude of wobble, would still keep it, so long as the chain itself held, from slipping off altogether. With this contri- 430 Vance we got within twenty miles of Subsavar. At the end of the next stage from Jadona, however, tlie driver insisted on taking off the chain, as part of the equipment for which he was responsible and which he could not replace, demand- ing that the next driver should use one of his chains for the stage over which he was to take us. One cannot wonder at this frugality where all supplies are inadequate and irreplac- able. We could buy no chain even from camel drivers along the way and went many miles before at last we found a driver *who was willing to let us count his chain a part of the perma- nent equipment of the carriage. He was the driver from Meandasht, or "Middle of the Plain," the largest and finest of all the caravanserais which we saw bearing the great name of Shah Abbas. A whole village had grown up in one corner of the old establishment, and a schoolmaster was teaching an unruly group of small boys on the roof of a village house built against the sunny wall of the caravanserai. On every side stretched out a wild and desolate plain. Different social and economic conditions from those which prevail today and which sustain this wretched village in a corner of the neglected caravanserai must have prevailed in the days of Shah Abbas. Only two stages further on at Abbasabad our new driver pre- pared our downfall. He had been with the British army and in two months more he would have been a master mechanic ! Overriding every protest he bound the chain on so fast that within a few miles it broke. With a chastened spirit and less assurance of his mastery of mechanics he rearranged it. But now not for long. First the tire of the wheel came off. Then sections of the rim, then spoke after spoke until only the hub was left. This was the end. We tramped mournfully behind across the barren country while our humble driver dragged the ruin to the post station three farsakhs out from Subsavar. It was a faultless winter day, and while a new driver rode in for us with his horses to Subsavar, the one point on the whole road where it was fortunately possible to get another carriage, I filled up the tilting body of the old carriage and lay down to read "Hajji Baba of Ispahan" and to watch the sights of Persian life before the dirty tea house door. It was the same road over which Hajji Baba had traveled, and before him all the great tides of human movement which through the centuries passed between the Mediterranean and central Asia. How far gone was all that greatness ! An old beggar clad in rags lay asleep on the ground in the sun with scores of flies settled undisturbed on his lips. A thoughtful father was conducting a much needed and deadly hunting expedition over 431 the head of a small son. Four little boys were playing sheep knuckles and varying the game by wallowing barefooted in a mud hole where the ice had been thawed by the sun. A sol- dier rode by with good equipment, a modern automatic pistol in a wooden case by his side. A Persian official passed in a mud-stained private carriage drawn by four horses like our own, with shabby servants on the box and perched on the bag- gage behind, and with his two wives and children within. A peasant and his wife rode by on the same little donkey, and a few pilgrims came and went, the first drops of the great* stream of many thousands that would begin to flow with the opening of Spring, Those who had a few shahies with which to buy stopped to drink tea or to eat a bit of bread and cheese. It was a ne'er-do-well wastrel life on which one was gazing, with shabbier remnants, grown self-conscious, of what was shabby enough but still deemed itself great in Hajji Baba's day. In four hours our driver was back, an extra toman having inspired his extraordinary promptitude, and as the sun was setting we entered Subsavar. A long white range of moun- tains to the south which had been gray and reticent all day long turned pink and soft and genial like some human lives in the evening time. The deserts were replaced by wide, fer- tile, irrigated plains. A tall pillar of varied brick work rose conspicuously from a field without the city, a remnant some said of Zoroastrian days, but others of a later Mohammedan time. Nearby stood a neglected shrine with most of the blue tiles gone from its domed roof. The bast chains, however, with their sanctity, like the gates of the cities of refuge of the Old Testament, still hung in the doorway. The brick roof of the big water umbar by the roadside was hung with bits of paper or rag, prayers of the pilgrims who had passed by on their way to Meshed. Here and there pitiful little grave- yards line the highway as one meets them everywhere, many of them the graves of pilgrims who had died on the way, others the graves of those who had wished to be buried by the way- side that passers by might make for them a prayer. All Mohammedan graves lie east and west that the dead, when in the Resurrection they sit upright, may look toward that which is to arise in the East, There are some who say that the Moslem graveyards are built by the roadsides that in the Resurrection day it may appear that the feet of the dead had been bent on a pilgrimage, but two old Moslem friends scouted this idea when I asked them of it. Subsavar is the largest city between Meshed and Teheran, 432 An old, decaying mud wall surrounds it, and its moat is now waterless. At nine o'clock we were startled to hear a modern whistle blow and learned that it was on one of the half-dozen cotton presses. In normal times this province of Khorasan raises large quantities of cotton which it shipped into Russia not by water but by these silent moving orderly fleets of desert vessels, the camels. Now the cotton trade, and indeed all trades between Khorasan and Russia are dead, and what little cotton is now exported goes out westward to Teheran or south through Seistan to India. A Russian Armenian at the head of the cotton press in Nishapur told us that what little cotton he sold now went to Calcutta. Formerly he paid twenty and thirty tomans a kharvar (650 lbs.) for unginned cotton. Now he pays ten tomans selling it for double what he pays. The Nishapur cotton he considered better than the cotton of Sub- savar, but less than half as good in quality as American cot- ton. The grown-up boy in the tea house of Subsavar who brought us our food had never heard of the Great War. Of America he had heard, but he did not know where it was or what, whether a city or a country. East of Subsavar there was a marked improvement in the service on the post road. The horses were better and were more promptly ready. In the road itself there was no im- provement. Indeed, with the barest touches it is no road at all all the way from Teheran to Meshed, but simply a cara- van trail following the natural line of travel and altered only, here and there, from the route of Alexander. Six farsakhs eastward of Subsavar we came to the caravanserai of Zafara- nieh. Here and at the next post, Sankaladan, Shah Abbas had built two more caravanserais, the equal of his best. The one at Sankaladan is an octagonal brick building entirely roofed over, with no central court, the stables running all the way around, with big niches on each side in the heavy brick walls for the chavadars, the muleteers, and the camel drivers. The caravanserai at Zafaranieh is the traditional brick building built around a great square, the brick work laid in many patterns and the roof of strong brick tiles. There were huge gates, each of two big planks six inches thick, the product of no trees growing now within many miles of Zafara- nieh, and the gates were studded with heavy steel bosses and set in beams. And all is now neglect and decay. Two one- roomed, mud-walled tea houses stood across the road from the massive old caravanserai. A long rug was spread on a little raised bank of earth before their doors. A group of old men with long beards, saffron colored with henna dye or dark like 433 the fabled but quite real Bluebeard's, sat on their heels in the lee of the sun-bathed wall. A farmer indolently filled a don- key's panniers with a half bushel or two of manure which he took lazily off to a nearby field. The boys were piling up, for fuel, on the housetops, bundles of the frail thorny weed from the desert. A lad came up with both eyes dirty and ruined by trachoma. A caravan of little donkeys passed, each bearing two bales of straw two or three times his own dimension. The women went and came barefooted, though it was February, bearing on their shoulders their water jars, which they filled at the stream which emerged from a long line of kanaats, wells connected under ground by a tunnel dug from well to well and running far up the sloping plain toward the snow clad hills to the north. A little group of black tents of Turkoman nomads, here today and gone tomor- row, was pitched beside the strong enduring walls which Shah Abbas had built three hundred years ago. A soldier well armed and well dressed untied a beautiful horse from be- side the caravanserai door, climbed into his high cossack saddle, and galloped away. A long line of camels passed laden some with grain, some with cotton, and some with the big tins of Russian petroleum which are beginning again to come from Baku. The whole scene was a miniature of the present day life of Persia, and as we rode away a beautiful little wire- haired terrier ran with us the whole twelve miles, whom we knew to be no Persian but the strayed or stolen treasure of some Englishman, and whose desiring owner we found in Meshed in the head of the Imperial Bank. He had asked many travelers in vain whether they had seen his lost dog along the way, and rejoiced in the word we brought him. The worst part of the road, if one may risk a choice among abysses, the worst at least at winter time, is the wide alkali plain of Hassanabad which in wet weather is turned into a six mile bog where the wagons sink to the hub in a sticky, gluti- nous swamp. There is no escaping it, and the first stage through it is only four miles, as many horses being provided as is necessary to drag the vehicle through. Big freight wagons come to the bog in groups and double up the teams of four to six or eight horses. Strewn across the bog on our return journey we met the stalled wagons, often untended, while their drivers were helping other wagons through, to receive help in their own turn. Around one wagon a little group of American turkeys walked at liberty. On our out- ward journey the night came down upon us before we crossed the bog, and we changed horses in the dark under the shadow 434 of the ruins of the castle of the robber baron of Hassanabad who years ago held this oasis in the middle of the bog and levied toll on every passing caravan. The great snow wall of the Nishapur mountains rises just eastward of the bog of Hassanabad, and it was midnight as we came along the base of the hills and rode into the city of Omar Khayyam. We had dreamed of going at once to his grave in the moonlight, but when we asked about it at a tea house near the chappar khanna, although all knew of the poet and his grave, and one assured us it was at least a hun- dred years since he had died, we found, as we ought to have known, that the shrine of Shah zde Mahmoud where he is buried, is two miles south of the city and off the post road, so we promised ourselves to visit Omar's tomb upon our re- turn, and with fresh horses rode on past the walls of the old city and through the night until just as day was breaking we turned up an avenue of huge gnarled pine trees and stopped before the shrine at Ghadamgah, "The Place of the Footprint" of Imam Reza, still preserved in stone in the little gaudy, neglected, octagonal shrine with its blue dome and its green and white and yellow tiles. The shrine is set in the ruins of a fine old terraced Persian garden of walnut and beach and sycamore trees. The terraces are lined with arched brick re- cesses for the accommodation of pilgrims. On either side, on little hills behind the shrine, stood the walls of an ancient Persian village and the mud ruins of a baronial castle. A few half-naked beggars shivered in the cold, whistling winter wind, and behind the shrine eastward and looking down the wide avenues of twisted old pine trees westward one saw the glistening white walls of mountains, brown and hot enough in summer time but now clad with snow. At Fakhridaood, "The Glory of David," the second stage beyond Ghadamgah, a fatherly old drives took us under his care. We asked him how long it would take us to cover the forty miles still re- maining to Meshed. "Why should I say?" said he. "I would surely only be lying to you, for who can know? It will be as it shall please God." The fine old caravanserai of Gha- damgah with its long quadrangle open at one end, with the shrine at the other, and the brick dormitories on either side bringing vividly to one's mind Thomas Jefferson's noble uni- versity buildings at Charlottesville, was the last touch of the great hand of Shah Abbas. From Ghadamgah to Meshed there were only the inferior buildings of later hands, and the later the hands the greater the inferiority. But with the pious pilgrims who flock from all over Persia 435 to the great Meshed shrine, there is Httle thought, now that they have seen Imam Reza's footprint at Ghadamgah, of lodg- ing places. All their longing now is to see far ahead the golden dome of Reza's shrine. It is many a weary mile still, however, before that view breaks, and from Fakhridaood on to Sharifabad there is a bitter wind which comes angrily down through the winter months from the Nishapur hills, and the road runs through a lonely land, with the ruins of old fort- resses here and there upon the hills. At Sharifabad the Teheran road which has come south- ward to turn the foot of the Nishapur mountains joins the fine military road which the British built from Duzdap, the end of the railway across Baluchistan from India. The road, like the other great military highways which England made dur- ing the war and then turned over to Persia, is neglected now and fast falling into disrepair. All the way from Teheran to Meshed, including this British road and the great road which the Neir-i-Dowleh built as Governor of Khorasan from Sharifabad to Meshed, we met not one man working on the road to improve it or keep it in repair. There is a pretence of upkeep on the road from Teheran to Kasvin and from Kasvin to Resht on the Caspian Sea and from Kasvin through Hamadan and Kermanshah to Shahgedar on the border be- tween Persia and Irak. Even the milestones on the road from Meshed to Duzdap, marking the distances at least as far as Turbat, have been defaced. Were they not irreverent, saying unequivocally what ought only to be said conditionally upon the will of God? A holy man saluted us as we waited for the fresh horses at Sharifabad. "If you will give me money," said he, "I will make a prayer for you." "Many thanks," said we, "but we would rather make our own." Still it would have been interesting to have heard his prayer or to have seen it as he would have written it down. On the top of the last hill beyond Sharifabad was a little shrine and below it the caravanserai of Hauz-i-Mohammed Reza, or "Reza's Pool," and soon thereafter we looked out over rough low lying hills to a plain between two ranges of snow- covered mountains and the scene, so longed for by pilgrim hearts, of the domes and minarets of the mosques of Meshed lay before us, hidden, however, from our eyes by the gather- ing storm of wind and snow which at the end of eight days of perfect weather broke as we changed horses for the last time at Turuq, a ruined old place, and drove in through the gather- ing dark and tempest to the friendly homes that awaited us at Meshed. As we turned the last corner the tire flew off a front 43(; wheel of the carriage we had got at Subsavar, and with grate- ful hearts that it had held so long, we finished our long ride to the most holy city of Persian Mohannmedanism and its great shrine. The Persian Mohammedans are Shiahs, while the rest of the Mohammedan world belongs to the orthodox party called the Sunnis. The enmity between the two sections of the Mos- lem world is implacable. It arose with the murder of Ali, the fourth caliph, and his two sons, the Shiahs holding that the supreme authority in Islam belongs to Ali and his descendants, and denying the legitimacy of the succession of caliphs recog- nized by the Sunnis, and, of course, denying the title of the Sultan as head of the Moslem Church. But in another direc- tion the chief point of difference is found — the Shiah doctrine of the Imam. "The Imam is the successor of the Prophet, adorned with all the qualities which he possessed." Ali was the first Imam, and there have been, according to the Imam- ites, eleven successors. "They are believed to be immaculate, infallible and perfect guides to m.en. ... As mediums between God and man, they hold a far higher position than the proph- ets, for 'the grace of God without their intervention reaches to no created being.' The Isma'ilians are the other sect of the Shiahs, who differ from the Imamites as to the number but not the character of the Imams, and both sects agree that there never could be a time when there should be no Imam. 'The earth is never without a living Imam though concealed.' 'He who dies without knowing the Imam, or who is not his dis- ciple, dies ignorant.' " The eighth of the Imams according to the Shiahs was Abul Hassan Ali, al Reza, commonly known as Imam Reza, who died in March, 819, in the village of Sanabad near Tus, a martyr, as the Shiahs believe, at the hands of the Caliph Mamun. It is the Iman Reza's shrine which is the object of Shiah pilgrimage. Christians are not allowed to enter the shrine now but Eastwick two generations ago appears to have been in it. His description in "A Journal of a Diplomat's Three Years' Residence in Persia," gives one a rather brighter picture of the shrine than the visitor looking in from without gets today : "The quadrangle of the shrine seemed to be about 150 paces square. It was paved with large flagstones and in the center was a beautiful kiosk or pavilion, covered with gold and raised over the reservoir of water for ablutions. This pavilion was built by Nadir Shah. All round the northern, western and southern sides of the quadrangle ran, at some 10 feet from 437 the ground, a row of alcoves, similar to that in which I was sitting, and filled with mullas in white turbans and dresses. In each of the sides was a gigantic archway, the wall being raised in a square from above the entrance. The height to the top of this square wall must have been 90 or 100 feet. The alcoves were white, seemingly of stone or plaster; but the archways were covered with blue varnish or blue tiles, with beautiful inscriptions in white and gold. Over the west- ern archway was a white cage for the muazzin, and outside it was a gigantic minaret 120 feet high, and as thick as the Duke of York's column in London. The beauty of this mina- ret cannot be exaggerated. It had an exquisitely carved capi- tal, and above that a light pillar, seemingly 10 feet high; and this and the shaft below the capital, or about 20 feet, were covered with gold. All this part of the mosque (shrine) was built by Shah Abbas. In the centre of the eastern side of the quadrangle two gigantic doors were thrown open to admit the people in the adytum or inner mosque (shrine) where is the marble tomb of Imam Reza, surrounded by a silver rail- ing with knobs of gold. There was a flight of steps ascending to these doors, and beyond were two smaller doors encrusted with jewels — the rubies were particularly fine. The inner mosque would contain 3,000 persons. Over it rose a dome entirely covered with gold, with two minarets at the sides, likewise gilt all over. On the right of the Imam's tomb is that of Abbas Mirza, grandfather of the reigning Shah. Near him several other princes and chiefs of note are buried. Beyond the golden dome, in striking and beautiful contrast with it, was a smaller dome of bright blue. Here begins the mosque of Gauhar Shad. The quadrangle is larger than that of Shah Abbas ; and at the eastern side is an immense blue dome, out of which quantities of grass were growing, the place being too sacred to be disturbed. In front of the dome rose two lofty minarets covered with blue tiles." The reigning Shah at the time of Eastwick's visit was the great grandfather of the present Shah. Gauhar Shad whose mosque stands near Imam Reza's shrine was a woman, the wife of Shah Rukh. She was murdered by her husband's successor in 1457. Tens of thousands of pilgrims come to Meshed each year. There were but a few in the city in the midwinter when we were there, and the movement of life about the shrine bore a commercial rather than a religious aspect. No one resented our presence and we spent a week at Meshed wandering about the old city and its bazaars stopping always in the long covered 438 street of the bazaar where the looped chains hanging from the domed arches indicafed that the shrine area began, talking with the old Meshed folk, with the attaches of the shrine, and with those to whom new ideas were coming, wholly at variance with the old thoughts on which the veneration of the shrine had been built up. Mr. Donaldson of Meshed gave me a trans- lation which he had made of the "Ziarat Nameh," or "Order of worship round about the tomb of the great Imam Reza, peace be upon him." I think no English translation of this ritual which reveals a great deal of the character of Persian Mohammedanism has ever been published : "Permission for the First Entrance, (i. e. to enter the first building) "In the name of God the Merciful and Compassionate. God is great, God is great, God is the greatest of the great. Praise be to God abundantly, praise be to God in the morning and in the evening. Praise be to God for His guidance to His re- ligion, and for our arrival at that to which He called us, for Himself, according to His way. "0 God, Thou art more noble than any purpose and more noble than any can approach. Truly I have come to Thee, 0 my God, drawing near unto Thee by means of the son of the daughter of Thy prophet Mohammed, — Thy mercy be upon him and his descendants. And 0 God, do not disappoint my effort and do not ignore my hope. Appoint me to an honorable place before Thee in this world and the next, among those near to Thee in Thy mercy, 0 most Merciful of the Merciful. "Permission for the Second Entrance. "In the name of God the Merciful and Compassionate. Praise be to God who has led us to this pilgrimage, and we would not have had guidance, except that God guided us. Verily the apostles of our Creator came in truth. "Then say: O ye who have believed, do not enter the houses of the prophet unless permission is given to you. And behold 1 am one who has sought the permission of Thine apostle. Thy mercy be upon him and his descendants. Let me enter, 0 God ! Let me enter, 0 apostle of God ! Let me enter, 0 our Benefactor, King of the Faithful ! Let me enter, 0 our Bene- factress, Fatima the Fair, the most honored of the women of the two worlds ! Let me enter, 0 our Benefactor, Hasan the son of Ali ! Let me enter, 0 our Benefactor, Hosein the son of Ali ! Let me enter, 0 our Benefactor, Ali the son of Hosein, the ornament of worshippers ! Let me enter, 0 our Benefac- tor, Mohammed, son of Ali ! Let me enter, 0 our leader, Jafar, son of Mohammed ! Let me enter, 0 our leader, Musa, son of 439 Jafar! Let me enter, O our Benefactor, Ali Reza, son of Musa ! Let me enter, O our Benefactor, Mohammed, son of Ali! Let me enter, 0 our leader, Ali, son of Mohammed! Let me enter, O our Benefactor, Hasan, son of Ali ! Let me enter, 0 our Benefactor, Hajat, son of Hasan and sahib-i-zaman ! (i. e., ruler or possessor of the present time). Let me enter, 0 ye angels, ye who are serving, standing, surrounding, and guarding this honored shrine, and the mercy of God and His blessings be upon you. "When you enter the sacred precincts, stand and say : "In the name of God and by God and in the way of God and unto the followers of the apostle of God, God be gracious unto him and his descendants, I bear witness that there is no God except God alone and no one is associated with Him and I bear witness that Mohammed is His servant and apostle. 0 God, have mercy upon Mohammed and the descendants of Mohammed. "The Prayer before the Face of the Blessed One. "In the name of God the Merciful and the Compassionate. "Peace be unto thee, O Imam, the Stranger ; Peace be unto thee, 0 Imam, the Martyr ; Peace be unto thee, 0 Imarr^ the Oppressed ; Peace be unto thee, 0 Imam, the Sinless ; Peace be unto thee, 0 Imam, the Poisoned ; Peace be unto thee, 0 Imam, the Bereaved ; Peace be unto thee, 0 Imam, Grieved ; Peace be unto thee, O Imam, the Guide and Protector of the followers of the right way! Before God on High, I have no sympathy with those who were hostile to thee, and I ap- proach the most high God by those who helped thee. Peace be unto thee, 0 my Benefactor and son of my Benefactor and the mercy of God and His blessing be upon thee. "The Prayer at the Feet of the Blessed One. "In the name of God the Merciful and the Compassionate. The Mercy of God be upon thee, 0 my Benefactor, the mercy of God be upon thee, 0 my leader! The mercy of God be upon thy spirit, and upon thy clean flesh and upon thy pure body! Thou didst wait and thou didst hope, and thou wast confirmed as the speaker of the truth. God kill him who killed thee. And God curse those who oppressed thee by their hands and their tongues! But for my part, may the peace of God be upon thee, 0 my Benefactor, and the son of my Benefactor. Thou art my intercessor and the intercessor of my parents by thine own right, and by the right of thy grandfather and of thy 440 forefathers, those who were good and clean and sinless, the mercy and blessing of God be upon them. "Prayer of the Heir to be read behind the head of the Blessed One. "In the name of God the Merciful and the Compassionate. Peace unto thee, 0 heir of Adam, the Purity of God ; Peace unto thee, 0 heir of Noah, the Confident of God ; Peace unto thee, 0 heir of Abraham, the Friend of God ; Peace unto thee, 0 heir of Moses, the Speaker of God ; Peace unto thee, 0 heir of Jesus, the Spirit of God ; Peace unto thee, 0 heir of Mohammed, the Lover of God ; Peace unto thee, 0 heir of the Prince of the Faithful, the Appointed One of God. "Peace be unto thee, O son of Mohammed Mustafa ; Peace be unto thee, 0 son of Ali Murtaza; Peace be unto thee, 0 son of Fatima the Fair, the noblest of the women of the two worlds ; Peace be unto thee, 0 son of Khadija the Illustrious, the Mother of the Faithful ; Peace be unto thee, 0 martyr of God and son of a martyr ; thou art unique among the distinguished, and I bear witness that thou didst resuscitate prayer and that thou didst bring about the giving of alms. Thou didst order religious instruction and thou didst prohibit that which is forbidden. Thou didst obey God and His Apostle until thou didst arrive at the truth. And may God curse the tribes that killed you and the people who oppressed you, and may God curse the people who sympathized with and countenanced this crime. "0 my benefactor, 0 father of Abdullah, (i. e., Hosein), I bear witness that thou wast the light in the loins of noble lineage and in purified wombs. Heathenism did not pollute you with its uncleanness and did not clothe you with its gar- ments of darkness, I testify that thou art from among the supporters of religion and the pillar of the faithful. I testify that thou art the Imam, righteous, temperate, kind, pure, and the guide who is rightly guided. And I testify that the Imams are from thy descendants, thou Word of Power, Sign of Guid- ance, Hope of Trust, and Ambassador to the inhabitants of the Earth. Let God be witness, and His Angels and His Prophets and His Apostle that I am faithful to you, (O Imams) and true to your father in the laws of my religion and the purposes of my conduct. My heart is at peace with your hearts and my action in accord with your commands. The favor of God be upon you and upon your spirits, upon the corpses of your followers who are dead, and upon the bodies of your followers who are living, upon those of your followers 441 who were associated with you and upon those who did not know you, upon those who accepted you openly and upon those who accepted you secretly. "Then consider that you are worshipping at the shrine of Ali the son of Hosein, and say: "Peace be unto thee, 0 son of the apostle of God, peace be upon thee, 0 son of the prophet of God, peace be upon thee, 0 son of the Prince of the Faithful, peace be upon thee, O son of Fatima the Fair, noblest of the women of the two worlds, peace be upon thee, 0 son of Hosein the martyr, peace be upon thee, O Martyr and son of a martyr, peace be upon thee, 0 Oppressed One and son of the Oppressed, and may God curse the tribes that killed thee, and may God curse the people who oppressed thee, and may God curse the people who gave ear to this crime and countenanced it. "Then consider that you are worshipping at the tombs of all the martyrs, peace be upon them, and say : "Peace be unto you who are near unto God and loved of Him, and affectionate friends of His; peace be unto you, 0 De- fenders of the religion of God ; peace be unto you, 0 defenders of the apostle of God; peace be unto you, 0 defenders of the Prince of the Faithful; peace be unto you, 0 defenders of Fatima the Fair, the noblest of the women of the two worlds ; peace be unto thee, 0 defenders of Ab-i-Mohammed al Hasan, son of Ali, pure, sincere, and faithful; peace be thine and my mother thy delight, — and may your graves be pleasant, having perished in the great slaughter. Would that I were with you in the garden of Paradise, with the Prophets and the Truthful and the Martyrs and the Sincere. What a happy privilege to be friendly with you! Peace be unto you, those of you who were white and those of you who were black, unto the dead who were with you on the field of battle, and unto those who were not with you on the battlefield, — especially upon my Sayed arid Benefactor, Abu Fazal Abbas, and Ghasim the son of Hasan, and Muslin the son of Aegil, and Hani, the son of Urvat, and Haoi, the son of Muzahir, and Al Hur, the martyr of Reahi (a town in Arabia). Peace be unto you, my Sayeds and my masters, all of you, and the mercy of God and His blessing upon you. "Prayer above the Head of the Blessed One "In the name of God the Merciful and the Compassionate. Peace be unto thee, 0 my benefactor and son of my benefactor, and the mercy of God and His blessing upon thee; I witness before God that thou dost know my standing here, dost hear 442 my word, and dost answer my salaam, and thou art living, and that prosperously, in the presence of thy Preserver. I ask God, my Preserver and Thy Preserver, to bring about my salvation in the world and at the last. 0 Confident of God, O Representative of God, between me and God, mighty and glo- rious, I declare there are sins, and this burden of sin weighs upon my back and prevents me from sleeping, and the very mention of it stirs my soul with commotion. And truly I flee unto God most high, mighty and glorious, and unto thee, and by thy right, and by the right of the one who instructed thee with his mysteries, and made thee a shepherd in the ser- vice of His people. Verily the worship of thee is near to the worship of Him and following thee is near to following Him. So be for me a mediator before God on high, a saviour from hell fire, on earth a support, and on the road of life an assur- ance, and in the grave a most intimate friend and companion, and the mercy of God and his blessing be upon you. "A special Prayer for Imam Reza, to be read above the head of the Blessed One. "0 God, bless Ali b Musa r Reza, al Murtaza, leader of the self-controlled and pure, a sign of Thee on the face of the earth, and under the earth, a sincere martyr. Let there be upon him many blessings, sufficient, increasing, righteous, con- sistent, general and well-ordered, — and of such excellence as Thou would'st grant to one of thine own trusted friends. "Prayer in the name of the Sahib i Zaman, may God hasten his appearance. (The Sahib i Zaman, or pastor of the present age, refers to the twelfth Imam, now believed to exist but not as yet to have appeared.) "Peace be unto Thee, 0 representative of God the Merciful! Peace be unto Thee, 0 Col-laborator in the Koran ! Peace be unto Thee, 0 Leader of Men and Jins ! Peace be unto Thee and unto your pure fathers, and unto your cleansed ancestry, and the mercy and blessing of God be upon thee. "Prayer above the Head of the Blessed One "0 God, answer my prayer, O Allah ! Accept my praise, 0 Allah ! Unite me with my friends, O Allah ! I ask for the sake of my mediators, Mohammed and Ali and Fatima and Hasan and Hosein and the sinless Imams descended from Hosein, peace be upon them." Meshed is a far away place, but not so far that adventurous spirits do not come there on their way to still remoter places. 443 On several occasions we met Professor Foucher and his wife, of the Sorbonne, who were in Meshed on their way to Afghan- istan for archaeological work after many months in India studying the old frescoes of Ajanta. Most of all, of course, we were minding our primary business in connection with Christian Missions in Meshed, for which twenty-five years ago we would not have been allowed to come to Imam Reza's shrine. The snow storms of the week were over as we drove out of Meshed on our return journey. All the way to Nishapur mountain and plain were white with the new fallen snow. We had started from Meshed with a fresh carriage. It developed a broken spring before we had reached Turuq, the first post house eight miles out from Meshed. The post driver bound up the spring with rope and a wooden block with the assur- ance that we need not fear. It would now hold all the way to Teheran. It was broken once for all, however, and beyond repair before we reached Nishapur at noon the following day. Here a blacksmith undertook to make a new spring which would be ready, "Inshallah," in twenty-four hours. With the aid of a little backshish, however, it was ready in eight. The afternoon and evening we spent with Ghulam Ali and some friends of his who had lost interest in Islam and who were studying the Christian view with a freshness and interest that gave that view a new vitality to us. We had counted surely on some such delay as this for the visit to Omar's grave, but there was no way of reaching it except on foot, and though we set out bravely for it through the snow and mud, a new storm settled down which blotted all the landscape out of sight, and we had to turn back with the consolation that the poet's resting place is the simplest sort of Persian grave and that he lies in no shrine of his own, but in the corner of the tomb of some inferior Shiah saint. The following morning, after a fresh snow fall, with the sunlight glistening upon the hills, we set out with our new spring and new confidence for Subsaver, crossed the Hassana- bad Bog in safety and soon left behind the white slopes of the Nishapur hills. All that night the camel caravans glided silently past laden with cotton or oil or grain or bales of the scanty merchandise which is at present passing in or out of Persia. Hundreds of camels would go by us these nights, tied each camel to the one before in detachments of from five to ten camels each. Often we passed the long caravans in the day, but usually the camel fleets made their short stage by night, and in the morning would be settled on their camping 444 grounds in the open desert or by the edge of some village, the loads standing in orderly disorder on the ground, the camels squatting in long parallel rows facing each other or in little circular clusters, each detachment of camels with their heads together, around the fodder in the center of their circle, and the camel drivers somewhere in the midst on the ground about their fire. Now and then on the road we would meet som.e sick camel left behind, squatting by the side of the trail or directly across the way, with a driver lying close against its leeward side for warmth and shelter, with his square shouldered felt coat drawn over him. Our fresh Meshed carriage lasted five f arsakhs beyond Sub- savar and then a stupid driver, doped with opium, smashed a front wheel beyond all repair in a little gully on a bank, a few miles east of the post station at Mehr, which is Persian for "mercy." We tramped in behind our shattered hopes and sat down in the squalid little tea house beside the road. This was the third carriage to go to pieces with us. We could not get another except by sending back to Subsavar. Any fresh one that we could get would be sure to go to pieces as its prede- cessors had done, and there was no telling how long it would be before we could get word of our plight into Subsavar. "Why do you fret so?" asked our Persian friends in the tea house. "If you will just sit down, somebody will be coming by within a few days on his way to Subsavar, and he can take word for you, and then maybe they will send some help to you." Whatever deterioration we had suffered from Per- sian travel, however, the full torpor of Persia had not yet settled upon us. What causes this torpor? I suppose it has a dozen causes, climatic, social, and economic. It is unmis- takably associated with religion, but it is hard to say how much the fatalism of Islam is the cause of indolence and petri- faction of national character and how much it is these quali- ties of character that find shelter and defend themselves under the fatalism of Islam. And, likewise, with opium one is in doubt how much stupidity and inaction are its results and how much the wretchedness of life and the futility of effort in Persia are the cause of its use. All night long in the tea house at Mehr I watched the opium smokers come and go. It was but a little of the drug that they could afford. They would come in ragged and weary from the road dragging their clumsy heavy foot gear, would lie down for a little delu- sion of rest, and then go out into the night again. Twenty-four hours after our breakdown a post wagon came by. It was a rough, springless, uncovered wagon like a 446 farmer's wood wagon or a topless prairie schooner of the old days, but it was strong and durable, and it had first claim on the horses at each post station, and it was due to go through, traveling day and night, to Teheran within seven days. It was the only absolutely sure way we saw to escape leaving our bones to bleach at Mehr or somewhere along the edge of the great salt desert of central Persia, and we climbed on board for as rough a journey as one could find perhaps anywhere in the world, but we went through in six days with- out delay and without mishap, through storm and sunshine, snow and rain and mud, by day and by night, safely to our journey's end. Horses and drivers change on the post wagons at each station, but a post courier goes straight through in charge of the mails to their destination. On this long run from Meshed to Teheran one courier brought the post as far as Sharoud where he turned it over to a second man to take it the rest of the way. Our first man had the look of a pirate, and he never prayed, but our second man was a pious and prayerful Moslem. They were both as warmhearted and solicitous for our comfort as though they were old friends, and we parted from them with real affection. Neither one of them lacked in energy or sense of responsibility for his trust. As we drove up to each post station, our first man was already calling out for new horses, and our second courier would allow no hardship or diflficulty to delay him. Beside the two couriers and an occasional local passenger we had one through companion to Teheran, a Mohammedan merchant from Meshed who had heard that an importation of goods from India had reached Teheran and was on his way thither to buy. The fact that we were not Russians, as was every one's first supposition, nor Englishmen, who are just now suffering what one hopes is only a temporary though a very great un- popularity in Persia, but Americans, was an occasion of un- failing interest. "What is America?" some one would ask, as we changed horses before the post house or drank tea with- in. "Oh," some one would reply, "that is the country of which no one knew where it was until lately." "Yes," said another, "the Americans are the people whom the English discovered just a little while ago, and they taught them their civiliza- tion, and now the Americans have gone far ahead of them and know more than the English do, and can do everything better than the English can." Once on the wagon the courier and the merchant and the driver had a discussion as to what 446 language Americans spoke, and the three of them made a wager. At the next tea house they called on us to decide as to whether Americans spoke Russian, or English or French. We were tempted to tell them that many of us could speak neither one. One long night as we rode on under the stars wrapped up warmly from the cool winter air we asked our friends, the courier and the merchant, about the opium habit. It was their opinion that almost every one used it. A good part of the large land holdings of the Meshed shrine was devoted to its production. There ensued a long discussion as to the reasons for its use. These they at length agreed might be classified as, first the erotic value of opium smoking, second the thoughts that it allayed and the other thoughts that it evoked, third its alleviation of pain, softening or for a little while at least banishing, the weariness, the cold, the hunger, and the misery of life, fourth custom, and fifth companionship. They were not defending opium smoking. Indeed they were not thinking of its moral aspects at all. It was simply a universal fact in Persian life, as they regarded it, thai they were seeking to explain. The practice of opium smoking is not equally preva- lent, in all parts of Persia, but we met it everywhere in the misery of life in these tea houses along the great pilgrim road. The old grizzly courier who took charge of us and of the through mail at Sharoud had good stuff in him. It was his business to get the post through from Sharoud to Teheran in five days, and he was resolved upon doing it. Persian character shows itself in some of its best qualities on the caravan road. There through all kinds of weather against all kinds of difficulties post drivers, camel men, muleteers, donkey drivers, and chavadars go about their hard task with patience, endurance, and, for the most part, with uncomplain- ing good cheer. It is as rough and hard a life as men lead anywhere in the world. One does not despair of a race which for so many centuries has suffered and achieved as the Per- sians have done on the great caravan roads that run east and west and north and south across the mountains and the deserts of their broad plateau. Our old man had two tough testings. The first of them came the night after we left Sharoud. An hour or so before we reached Deh-i-Mollah it began to rain, a drizzle at first and then a steady downpour. The courier got from under the load a heavy canvass just big enough to spread flat over the wagon, but not enough to set up as a roof allowing breathing space between. We all tried at first the plan of lying flat on the load under the canvass, 447 but this became unbearable. The canvass was soon water- soaked and as heavy as lead and to lie under it meant botli drenching and suffocation. A couple of hours after leaving Deh-i-Mollah the rain turned to sleet driven by a wind so cold and bitter that the horses refused to face it longer or to go on through the black night, where in any case, as it seemed to us, only a miracle could keep us in the narrow track. Just as it seemed impossible to endure the misery longer, the old man got the horses forward to a dark building which loomed ahead and which proved to be the post station of Mehman Dust. It was an old caravanserai with a big covered entrance, and as the wagon turned in and the gates closed behind us and the bitter storm roared without, chilled and soaked though we were, the shelter was blissful, and miserable though the caravanserai was, it seemed for the moment to deserve its name, Mehman Dust or "Guest Loving." The old man waited only until the storm had gone by, and long before daylight, under the chill of a cold, star-filled, storm-swept sky, he pushed on again across a country where the road was a muddy, running stream. The next night he met even greater difficulties. In the flush of a cold winter sunset we left Ghoo- seh for the long climb up the eastern side of the Ahuan Pass. It grew colder and colder as we went on into deepening snow to Faizabad where the worst of the pass begins and where we stopped at ten thirty for fresh horses. It was bitter cold. The snow crackled and sang under the wagon" wheels. The merchant who was wrapped up in all his own rugs, and some that we had loaned him, declared that he was freezing to death and implored the old courier to stop for Ihe rest of the night. The new drivers refused to bring out their horses. It was madness to go on, they said. There had just been fresh falls of snow. In the morning with eight horses and shovelers to go ahead, it might be possible to get through. The old man was in dire perplexity. He did not want to do what would turn out to be foolish and to frustrate his own purpose. On the other hand, he did not want to yield to timid counsels. He did what he could, and then in the cold, dark tea room, lighted and heated only by a little fire of crackling camel thorns, while we lay on the mud sleeping platform and waited, the old man stood up to say his midnight prayers. They were the customary sentences until suddenly the old fellow stopped and sent up a living cry. "Oh, Allah," said he, "Thou seest in what a sort strait I am." It was from his heart and it was as far as he could go. No child's request for help from a father, and yet an earnest cry out of need 448 to an all-seeing God. When he had done all he could, and no one would move for him, he let us sleep till the first flush be- fore the dawn and then at four we drove off with six horses over the high mountains, asparkle as though strewn waist- deep with diamonds in the unclouded brilliance of the dawn, and down into the huge cup of the valley set deep in the hills with the Ahuan caravanserai in the middle of it, close beside the noble ruins of the old castle v/hich is said to date back to the time of Anushirvan, fourteen centuries ago. Still a third test the old man met when the last night before reach- ing Teheran he would listen to no protest from the drivers, whom he compelled, though they prayed aloud to God to for- give the religion of his father, to drive straight through the dark along the gulleys and hillsides between the plain of Khars and Awan-i-Kaif, he himself walking ahead with the lantern in the worst places or holding the reins while the driver walked backwards at the horses' heads to keep them steady on the steep inclines. With sincere regret and affection we said good-bye to our old friend when we left him on the road where the motors came out to meet us within sight of Teheran. Some weeks afterward standing on the balcony of the Grand Hotel, so called, in Kasvin, miles away on the other side of Teheran, I saw a post wagon go by westward with our old friend in charge. Looking up he recognized me at once, and his face was all aglow with pleasure, and he looked back and waved his arms as long as the wagon was in sight. This is the life he will be living, he told us, all his days. He had held some office position in Teheran, but he loved the country and the open air and he could not stand the imprisonment of city life. Often at night I think of him wrapped in his sheepskin coat lying on top of his mail sacks under the far-off Persian skies or shielding himself against the storms that have never daunted his brave old spirit. The first faint whisperings of spring were in the air on our westward journey. A surer sign even than the soft tints of color in the willow twigs were the first groups of pil- grims. There was no mistaking them. This was their great life time's holiday. All that they had been able to save was for this. All the past of life had been preparing for this. They would go back now to their homes, unless they died on the way or were left penniless at Meshed, to live in the glory of the pilgrimage and to bear the honored title of "Meshedi." One cannot say that Meshed will disillusion them or that they will not find at the shrine of ImamReza what they seek, for they 449 15 — India and Persia are not seeking much, and it is no great vision that is calling them. They are of simple hearts and simple minds, these pil- grim folk, and those who will pillage them all along the way have not set out to be rogues but are only following on with- out complaint or resistance in the way trodden as plain by the feet of the generations as these clear wandering tracks that turn this way and that and yet run ever eastward till they come to the hill behind the pool that bears Mohammed Reza's name and look off to the gold-domed tomb and blue tiled mosque which are the goal of their dim desire. We are glad to have trodden the pilgrim road with these poor Persian feet, and thank God that we have seen in Persia the forces of love and light at work which are seeking to guide these feet into a better way. Kasvin, Persia, March 13, 1922. 450 8. PROBLEMS OF THE WORK FOR MOSLEMS Within the last few years the character of the Mission work in Persia and of its problems has undergone a complete change. All the older stations in Persia were begun with work for Assyrians, Armenians, or Jews. There were three reasons for this. In the first place these people were in want of mis- sionary help. They were without evangelical teaching and in dire need of the enlightenment and the healing of educa- tional and medical work. In the second place, this was the only way in which missionary work could be begun at all. The door of access to Mohammedans was not open, and the only ground on which the Christian Mission could be admitted or be allowed to continue was its relationship to an existing Christian community. In the third place, it was believed that only by the purification of these oriental Churches could a reproach be removed which, so long as it continued, would effectually prevent the presentation of Christianity to the Mo- hammedan world. On the other hand, it was conceived that if these churches were enlightened and warmed by evangeli- cal truth they would become the great agencies for Moslem evangelization. For many years therefore the work of the Missions was primarily for these Christian communities and for the smaller Jewish communities, especially in Ufumia, Teheran and Ra- madan. The problems of the work took form accordingly. Now, however, the conditions are entirely changed. Massacre or persecution or other decimating influences have greatly re- duced the size of these communities. Evangelical churches have been established among them and their influences extend among these communities far beyond the membership of the evangelical groups, and, most significant of all, the situation has entirely altered as regards the accessibility of the Moham- medans. It has become possible at last for the Missions to undertake as their major work, and in many stations as their entire work, the task of giving the Gospel to Mohammedans. I had hardly realized the greatness of the change that has taken place until one day in Zenjan I read the report on Persia which I presented to the Board twenty-five years ago and a copy of which Mr. Pittman, who had come there to meet us, had brought with him. A large part of that report deals with the problems of the strong evangelical Church which 451 had been built up in the Urumia plain and which is now scat- tered to the four winds. There are still problems which must be dealt with of our relations to the Armenian and the Syrian communities and to the evangelical and old Churches among them, but these are no longer the great questions of the work in Persia. Our Missions there have at last become what we have long prayed for, namely, an avowed, recognized, and welcomed effort to make Christ known to the Moslems of Persia and to bring to Persia all the wealth with which only Christ can enrich men and nations. 1. The foremost of all our present problems, accordingly, is how best to present Christianity to Persia. This is in part a problem of attitude of mind, of point of contact, of mode of statement and approach, and in part a problem of Mission method and policy and especially of resolute Mission purpose. These matters are dealt with in other sections of this report. The one point which I would emphasize here is the necessity, which we were rejoiced to find recognized in every one of the stations in Persia, of setting the direct evangelization of Mo- hammedans in the foreground as the governing purpose of all our work in Persia. The one point of solicitude of the Re- formed Church missionaries in Mesopotamia with regard to a union Mission was whether Moslem evangelization could be clearly recognized as the dominating aim of such a mission. We assured them that it certainly would be so recognized by us, and that all our work in Persia had been begun with the hope that the day which we now joyfully welcomed would come. The Missions in Persia should be generously supported, both with reenforcements and with appropriations, to enable them to carry forward this direct approach which is now possible for them in a measure unequaled in any other Mo- hammedan land. 2. The new situation has raised in a new way the old question of the relationship of the oriental Churches to the evangelization of the Mohammedans. It was long ago recog- nized that the unreformed Eastern Churches were a positive hindrance. No one ever disputed Sir William Muir's judg- ment in this matter. It was believed, however, that if these churches could be reformed and the true fires of Christianity kindled again upon their altars, they would prove to be the great missionary force for the evangelization of the Moslem people. Now, however, this view is called in question, and there are many who hold that not even through reformed East- ern Churches nor through evangelists drawn from the ranks 452 of evangelical Eastern Christians is the Mohammedan world to be won, but rather by Christian converts from Islam going out to their fellow Mohammedans. It is said that the evan- gelical Churches have had their opportunity and have not used it, that the same reproach which attaches to the old Churches rests in some degree also upon the evangelicals, that recent years have seen, for many reasons, a great embitterment of the feelings of Christians towards Moslems and of Moslems towards Christians, that many of the Eastern Christians have no faith in the conversion of Mohammedans and no desire to forward it. I do not know that it is necessary to go into these matters. Two facts stand out with sufficient clearness. One is that many of the most effective evangelists to Moham- medans at the present time are Eastern Christians and that we ought to look in Persia at least to the Assyrian Christians to continue to supply men for this work like those who have been supplied in the past. The second fact is that the great evangelists to the Mohammedans must be from among the Mohammedans themselves. "Did you ever hear the fable of the axes and the trees?" a Mohammedan asked me one day as we were talking together. He was not a Christian, but he was a very intelligent man who had lost faith in Islam and who viewed with favor the propagation of Christianity in Persia. "You should learn the lesson of that fable. Once upon a time the trees heard that men were coming against them to cut them down, and in great fear they went to the oldest and the greatest of the trees and asked for counsel. 'Who are coming?' said the great tree. 'Men,' replied the trees of the forest. 'What shall we do?' The great tree was silent for awhile and then asked again, 'Who did you say were coming?' 'Men,' replied the trees. 'They can do you no harm,' said the big tree. 'You need not fear.' 'But they have sharp irons in their hands,' the trees replied, 'and they intend to cut us with these.' The big tree thought again. 'What did you say they had?' at last it asked. 'Sharp irons.' 'They cannot hurt you,' said the big tree once again. 'You need not fear.' 'But,' the trees answered, 'they have parts of us in their irons, bits of our own selves.' *0h,' said the great tree, shaking also with fear, 'then our fate is sure. We shall all fall.' " But the Missions in Persia are facing the present very prac- tical problem of the relationship between the evangelical churches made up of Armenian or Assyrian Christians in Hamadan, Teheran, and Tabriz, and the new Mohammedan converts. In Hamadan the problem is more prospective than 453 present. The Hamadan station feels that unless the Moham- medan work there is dealt with distinctly and a separate group of Mohammedan converts is formed who will work for others and to which others can be joined, the progress of the work will be very slow. In Teheran and Tabriz there are already considerable numbers of Mohammedan converts, and these are happily in the best relationships with the other Christians. But it is the strong feeling both of the mission- aries and of the Mohammedan converts and of some of the best men from the Syrian and Armenian Churches that the work for the Mohammedans would be greatly promoted, new inquirers could be more readily brought in, and the respon- sibility of the Mohammedan converts would be more dis- tinctly felt if they were gathered in a distinct church group. The problem will be how to secure these gains without sowing the seeds of permanent racial division. Perhaps the problem can be solved by the plan of organization which Dr. W. R. Richards held to be ideal and which, he believed, prevailed in the early Church, of having one church organization in each station administered by a central body but with different groupings so designed as to carry the Gospel most effectively both to all the geographical quarters of the station and also to all the different elements of the community. 3. The Persian Missions have always been agreed in pur- suing a very conservative policy in the term of probation of Mohammedan inquirers. Some of them have been kept wait- ing five or ten years. The old and tried Mohammedan con- verts are themselves among the most cautious in the admission of new inquirers. The general rule has been to require one or two years of instruction and testing, and undoubtedly the Missions have been right in exercising the greatest care, but they recognize also the possibility of launching the new Mos- lem Church in an atmosphere of suspicion and retarded en- thusiasm. And Mr. Miller of the Meshed station felt led of God to give baptism more speedily than has been customary in Persia but not more speedily than has been the rule in the village work in India to some inquirers with whom he was dealing in Seistan last winter when he was waiting there to meet us, in the expectation that we might be coming to Persia from India, as we had at first planned to do, across Baluchis- tan. I cannot forbear quoting the reports of these baptisms which Mr. Miller, who returned to Meshed just two days be- fore our arrival from Teheran, read to the station in our hearing. "I had planned to leave Seistan on November 15, but as my 454 camel man failed me, I arranged to go by mule November 17, and so on November 16 had leisure to write the above report. On the evening of November 16th G , one of the enquirers, begged so earnestly for baptism, and showed in his face and attitude and conversation such clear signs of being converted, that on the request of Mirza Abul Ghasim and Hajji Hasan I baptized him, the first fruit of Seistan. It seemed a rash thing to do, but we felt it was God's will, and we must leave the results to Him. "On November 17th the mule driver failed me, promising to start next day. But that afternoon a man named A walked in to see me. I asked him what he wished, and he replied, *I was sitting in my house just now, and someone seemed to touch me and say, "Go see the sahib. That book he read from in the Bazaar and hospital was very good." So I have come to see if you have anything to say to me.' Hajji Hasan talked with him a little, and then I talked with him, and then G and Abul Ghasim were called in, and he told us he wanted to be a Christian. He could not read, and he had heard the Bible read but three times, but his heart seemed to grasp everything that was told him, and he ap- peared to be one of those men who in a moment of the Spirit's instruction learn truth that wiser men cannot gain from years of study. After several hours conversation he also asked for baptism. G knew the man well and had perfect confidence in his sincerity, and was anxious for him to be baptized too, so that they could help one another. He could have no worldly motive, for he knew we were to leave next day, and he seemed ready to face the persecution he might encounter after our departure. So at the request of the breth- ren I baptized A the night of November 17th. "Next day the animals were all loaded except one, when it became evident that two horses were too sick to start. There- fore the chavadar said he would have to give up taking me altogether. Accordingly my departure was delayed till Nov. 23. But in the meantime the sister and younger brother of G apphed for baptism. The sister said, *At first I was angry with my brother when I heard he had become a Chris- tian, and persecuted him. But when I saw how he had changed I wanted to become a Christian too. He used to treat me very badly, but now he does so no more.' The brother was a boy of 16. If we had been planning to remain longer all of these baptisms would of course have been delayed, but in view of our departure it seemed best to baptize the sister and brother also. And this was done on November 22. The 465 woman's name is K , and the boy's name is Hajji M . The woman says she is coming to Meshed to be taught of the Khanim (Lady Missionary). "We had a final communion service on November 23d for the four Christians, and the Church in Seistan being founded, the Lord allowed me to depart that same day. The brethren ac- companied us out of the city, and we kneeled down and prayed, and there were tears in the eyes of more than one of us as we waved 'good-bye.' " "A good many Scriptures had been sold in Birjand in pre- vious years by Dr. Esselstyn and Mr. Donaldson, and I was told that the mollahs had forbidden people to read these books and had ordered them to be burnt. And so Mirza Abul Gha- sim and I decided that I should make no effort whatever to sell books outside of our house and should not go into the bazaar to read or talk with men, as such effort on my part would the sooner stir up opposition against us. And so I stayed at home and talked with the men who came to see me, while Mirza Abul Ghasim went into the bazaar and into the homes of the people and preached the Gospel to all who would listen. "Of course it soon became known who we were and what our purpose was, and numbers of people began to come to me for books. At first most of those who came were boys of the Madreseyi Shokatiya, the large well conducted school of eight grades supported by the private funds of the Gov- ernor. I visited the school, and after that crowds of boys came to call on me, not only to buy books but to get help in their English lessons. Then all at once they stopped coming, and I was told that the Modier had forbidden any student of the school to come to my house, 'lest they trouble me.' "Beside the school boys there were a good many others who came for books or for conversation, and the response seemed much more encouraging than in Seistan, in spite of the fact that people seemed to stand in great fear of one another and of the Governor. But by far the most effective part of the work was done by Mirza Abul Ghasim. The last few weeks of our stay in Birjand he followed the plan of having himself in- vited to some household for lunch, the cost of which he would pay. He would then be able to talk for several hours to a group of people who were ready to listen. In this way he made a large number of friends, and his message was spread far and wide. The whole town in fact seemed to have heard something at least of what we wished to say. 456 "At last the mollahs were stirred to action. They issued an edict that no one should come to our house, and that any one who read our books would become unclean. Just then crowds of boys from the school of the mollahs began to come to see me and to beg me for books — they were never ready to pay for them. Their attitude was most friendly, but when I found that they were stealing all the books they could get their hands on and were carrying them away under their abbas I began to suspect that the mollahs had sent them to spy on us and annoy us. Several older men also came as spies. But I dare say some of them will find the books they carried away to be interesting reading. "Soon after our arrival two men came to see us who very soon confessed their faith in Christ. One was a sergeant in the Gendarmes, a fine, manly fellow named Hajji, with no education but with a good conscience and absolutely fearless. He had exchanged a few words with us on our way to Seistan ten months previous, asking who we were, etc., and he told us that from that day he had wished to be a Christian. The other man was an officer in the infantry, M . He too had but little education, but he bought a book and read it ear- nestly and came to see us often, and his faith became very real and sincere. Toward the end of our stay Mirza Abul Ghasim met a man in one of these house meetings who had come to Birjand on business from Mud (25 miles south). His name was B , a carpet weaver and a man without edu- cation. He also believed with all his heart, and these three men were baptized and given the Lord's Supper on Sunday morning, January 22d, the first fruits of Birjand. "Two days later word came that we must leave at once in order to meet Mr. Speer in Meshed. We did not want to leave just them, for there were several other men just on the point of believing and the door seemed wide open before us. Our sudden departure was also understood by the people as flight, and it was rumored that the Governor had ordered us to leave. But 'He who fights and runs away Will live to fight another day,' and it was probably best for the Birjand Christians that we left them, for our continued presence would have subjected them to more or less persecution. They can now go quietly about their work of talking with others, learning to trust not on the mis- sionary but on the ever present Christ alone. But generally speaking I would say that two months is too short a time to 457 stay in a new field like Birjand. Another month or two would have brought a good harvest, I believe." We read this beautiful report to the missionaries in Te- heran and Tabriz, and they would not say that Mr. Miller had done wrong. Their hearts were touched as ours had been, and they prayed rather for these new Christians that they might grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour and witness by their words and by their lives a good confession. Missionaries are in as great a strait betwixt two courses in this matter as ever St, Paul was. On the one hand there is the danger of chilling the teal and eagerness of new be- lievers, of changing Christianity from an energy to an in- struction, of banking the fires of a little church until they go out. On the other hand, is the peril of the hasty admission of instability and insincerity, of bringing ignorance and un- worthiness into the Church when it is too weak either to carry or to throw off such a burden. No doubt we are doing right to guard as carefully as we do the purity and integrity of these little churches, but one cannot at times repress the feeling that he would like to see the fires blaze up beyond our control, and a great movement begin, indigenous and free, even though it might be marked bj'' crudity and might throw us and our just precautions aside in the rush of its eagerness and power. 4. A movement inside Persian Mohammedanism which has been brought to America and which embodies the Sufi dispo- sition of the Persian mind is Babism. Mirza Ali Mohammed, the Bab, who founded the new religion, was born at Shiraz on October 9, 1920. He took up the Shiah doctrine of the Imams or prophets of whom Ali was the first and Abul Kazim the last, Abul Kazim having mysteriously disappeared one thousand years ago, and hence called Al Mahdi or "the con- cealed." Mirza Ali claimed to be the Bab, a gate for men to the Living but unseen Imam, Al Mahdi, His religion spread over Persia. It had at first its martyrs and its missionaries, and is still spreading but has lost its first vigor and has ceased to oppose orthodox Shiahism, its adherents believing that it is legitimate to conceal their opinions and dissemble. They now accordingly appear as regular Moslems outwardly, though privately abandoning the limitations and prescriptions of Islam. Their doctrine "enjoins few prayers, and those only on fixed occasions; enjoins hospitality and charity; pro- hibits polygamy, concubinage and divorce; discourages asce- tism and mendicancy; and directs women to discard the veil 458 and share as equals in the intercourse of social life." (Beach: Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions," Vol. I, p. 398.) The Bab was succeeded after his death by Baha who carried his claims further, calling himself the incarnation of God the Father and most of the Persian Babis are Bahais or fol- lowers of Baha, to whom the Bab was only a sort of John the Baptist. There are different opinions in Persia as to whether this movement with many secret adherents is favorable to Christian missions or not. "This movement has not only weakened Mohammedism in Persia," says Bishop Stileman, "but the followers of the Bab and Baha are friendly to Chris- tians, accept our Scriptures as the Word of God, admit the Divinity of Christ, long for religious liberty, and seem to be in many ways helping to prepare the way of the Lord. But there is also much error in their system, and what is needed is the breath of the Spirit of God to convince them of sin and reveal to them our Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour and Redeemer. However, the people are no longer Mohammedans, and we now have in Persia, 'a house divided against itself,' which we know cannot long stand against the power of the Gospel." ("The Subjects of the Shah," p. 78f.) On the other hand, the late Dr. Potter wrote of Kasvin: "At one time, there seemed a bright prospect of reaching the Babis, but the expectation was not realized. They seemed in some respects to present a more hopeful field for mission labor than the Moslems, because of their ready acceptance of the Scriptures and certain Christian doctrines rejected by Mohammedans. On the other hand, however, their fanciful interpretation of plain Scripture declarations renders it very difficult to make any impression on them by proof texts from the Bible whose authority they readily admit. They reply, 'Yes, but we must break open the word and extract its mean- ing.' Their hospitality, zeal and earnestness in the propaga- tion of their belief are worthy of praise and emulation; but their easy dissimulation of their faith, even to openly curs- ing Babis, and the unreliability of their promises, are dis- couraging," 5. A very real present difficulty which it is to be hoped will disappear as the number of Mohammedan Christians in- creases is the question of the support of new converts. It is only natural that many of these new Christians should be rejected by the society whose fundamental religious views they have repudiated. One ought to be able to take a dis- passionate view of the perfectly natural grounds on which new converts are sociallj^ and economically ostracized. The ^ 459 difficulty is much less in Persia now than it would have been if as many converts as are coming today were coming a gen- eration ago. Many of these Christians are able to hold their own either in their old economic relationship or in new ones which they establish. The difficulties are still great enough, however, especially for the poor, and if only political protec- tion or industrial employment could be provided, it may well be, as some of the converts declare, that thousands would come and that they would not come insincerely. Perhaps it is better that we should have the difficulties than the political and economic protection, but they produce many a painful situation for the missionaries and the Church. When urged to enable the Mission to provide some means of industry or employment for the people, our answer was that this was a problem for the new Church itself to deal with just as it was dealt with by the Christian Church at the beginning, and we were glad to see that the new Church was dealing with it sensibly and sturdily, though at times almost despairingly by means of its poor fund and by such a bearing of common burdens as was binding the new converts together in the brotherly unity of the first believers. S. S. Constantinople, Aegean Sea, April 26, 1922. 460 9. THE RE-OCCUPATION OF URUMIA AND OUR RELATIONS TO THE ASSYRIAN PEOPLE AND CHURCH As set forth in the historical sketch of the Missions in Persia which is prefixed to this report, Urumia is the oldest of our Persian stations. It was here that the first mission- aries sent out by the American Board in 1829 and 1833 were welcomed with open arms by the Nestorian Church. For nearly thirty years the early missionaries did their work within the old Church. Gradually, however, a separation grew up between the element in the Church which responded to the evangelical life and teachings of the missionaries on the one hand, and those priests and bishops who were either unresponsive or resistant on the other, and this separation came to expression in the organization of a distinct evan- gelical Church. There was some divergence of opinion at the time as to whether the new organization was necessary or desirable, and there have been differences of view on the subject since, although the general sentiment and policy of the Mission, with qualifications of which I shall speak, have always firmly supported the policy which was finally adopted in 1862. When I visited Persia in 1896-7, the evangelical Church had grown into a strong and active body with 136 congrega- tions, of which 25 were organized churches ; 64 ministers and evangelists, 82 schools with 1,846 scholars. It comprised the best educated and the most active and prosperous element of the nation. The chief problems of our Mission work in Persia at that time were related to this church. It seemed not improbable that, but for the policies at that time pursued by the Roman Catholic Mission and by the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission, the evangelical influence represented by our own Mission might come either through the evangelical Church or through a complete readjustment of relationships with the old Church to inspire the life of the whole nation. In the summer of 1897, however, the situation was entirely changed by the advent of the Russian Greek Church. The Russian Government was just beginning to exercise an in- fluence in northwestern Persia which soon became so domi- nating that the Russian consulate in Tabriz was recognized as the real seat of government, and a few years later the chief political and religious authority in the Urumia region passed 461 into the hands of the Russian consul and the Russian mission- aries in Urumia City. With the exception of the evangelical Church the whole Assyrian Church organization in Persia went over to the Greek Church. The work of the Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries among the Assyrians in Persia almost entirely disappeared. The Anglicans retained some influence in the larger section of the Assyrians living in the mountains in eastern Turkey, especially through the high character and personality of Mr. Brown who had lived for many years in association with the Patriarch's family in Kochanis. Shortly after the coming of the Greek Church missionaries another event occurred which deeply shadowed the work of the station. A band of Kurdish outlaws committed depreda- tions which included the cold blooded murder in his vineyard of Mooshe Dooman, a young Assyrian, who had been natural- ized as a British subject in Canada. Dr. Cochran was active in his efforts to have these depredations checked and this murder punished, and his activity aroused the hostility of this band with the result that, intending to avenge themselves on him, they murdered the Rev. B. W. Labaree on the road between Salmas and Urumia on March 9, 1904. I have set forth the history of these times fully in the Biography of Dr. Cochran and have explained there the immensely complicated political situation at that time in northwestern Persia. Dr. Cochran did his utmost to clear away these complications and to bring about an order of peace and good-will among the confused and mingled elements of the population, Mohammedan, Kurd, Assyrian Christian and Russian. After his death in 1905 Dr. Shedd, with great judgment and devotion, carried on the task, seeking to reconcile the conflicting elements, to separate the Mission from all political entanglements, and to guide the evangelical Church into its full spiritual duty. When the world war began in 1914, the condition of the evangelical Church and the economic situation of the As- syrians as a whole were probably better than they had ever been. The evangelical Church had a communicant member- ship of about three thousand with about an equal number of adherents. There were more wholly self-supporting churches than we have in all our Missions in India, and the Evangelistic Board, the native board which administered the evangelistic work of the Church, had establshed the principle that help could be given to those churches which were not wholly self- supporting only if the people themselves contributed at least one-fourth. The Church had sent forth a large number of 462 strong and efficient Christian ministers wiio were preaching in America and Russia and Turkey and in almost all our sta- tions in Persia. There was a good school system, beginning with a well organized body of village schools, supervised by John Mooshie, an Assyrian graduate of Colgate University, whose murder by the Turks and Kurds on July 31, 1918, while he was lying ill in bed was one of the direst losses suffered by the Mission during the war. Higher education was cared for in the Urumia College and Fiske Seminary, two of the best known and most fruitful institutions of modern Missions. The Mission hospital which Dr. Cochran had found- ed and which had been developed under Dr. Packard's care was influencing the whole of western Persia and eastern Kurdistan. Many of the young Assyrian men had gone to Russia and America, and while this exodus was in some regards a grievous loss to the Church and the nation, it was at the same time a source of economic prosperity. The young men were constantly sending back their earnings to their old homes, and some of them were returning to buy vineyards and gardens or to engage in prosperous trade. I spoke to a group of the refu- gees in Bagdad of the beauty and fruitfulness of Urumia as I had seen it twenty-six years ago. "Yes," they replied, "but that was as nothing in comparison with the Urumia of the days just before the war." And now all this is gone. Nowhere and among no people has the war left behind a darker trail of ruin and of anguish. The sympathies of the Assyrian people would inevitably and in any case have been with the Allies, but the course of events in northwestern Persia prior to the war had forced their political identification with the interests and the protection of Russia. When the American missionaries came in 1833, it was no doubt in part the hope of political protection against Mohammedan oppression which led to the hearty welcome which they received. Later when the French and Anglican missionaries came, it was the hope of relief from France or Great Britain more than any religious zeal that prompted their welcome also. In all these cases the Assyrians had been disappointed. The three missions were religious missions and they brought with them no intervention from the govern- ments which they were supposed to represent. The Russian missionaries, however, were followed at once by the Russian Government, and the settlement of Russian military power in Urumia in 1912 seemed to promise the permanent political control of the country, and one cannot wonder that the political policy of the bishop. Mar Sergis, and the instincts of the great 463 body of the nation which had gone over to the Orthodox Greek Church should have associated the people beyond recall with the cause of Russia and consequently of the Allies. The exigencies of the war led to the withdrawal of the Russian army from Urumia on January 1, 1915. As a result some twenty thousand of the Assyrian Christians from the Urumia region fled after the army, thousands dying from dis- ease and exposure, among those who fled, and thousands more dying from massacre and disease among those who remained to meet the invasion of the Turks and the Kurds. On May 24, 1915, the Russian army returned. Those who had fled soon followed, and there was a general re-establishment of the people in their old homes. In 1917 Russia broke up, and her military forces faded out of Persia little by little. Up to this time Ismael Agha, or Simko, with his Kurds had co- quetted with the cause of the Allies. Some hold that it was to square himself with the Turks that on March 16, 1918, Simko treacherously murdered the Patriarch, Mar Shimon, just after he had embraced and kissed him at his castle door. With Russia gone, with the Turk and Kurd openly bent upon their extermination, with the knowledge that in Persia itself there were hostile Mohammedan forces that would welcome the opportunity to pillage and destroy them, the Assyrians were forced to choose between certain annihilation and taking up arms in their own defense and in the cause of the Allies. It was true that they were in a neutral land, but it was a land whose neutrality the Allies did not recognize and the land itself could not defend. The official agents of the AUies, moreover, constrained the Assyrians to do what their own self-preservation also necessitated. In the winters of 1917 and 1918, in one of the darkest hours of the war, they called upon the Assyrians to stand in the breach between the Cas- pian Sea and Mesopotamia and to bar the way of Germany and Turkey across Persia to India. If they would hold out for a few months, the Allies promised them sure relief, and relying upon this promise and knowing that in a real sense the issues of the great war as well as their own existence as a people hung upon their courage and faithfulness, this little nation took up arms and stood in the way of the eastward rolling tide. For seven months they held their ground. In one of the blackest times a British aeroplane landed near Urumia City and assured them that the long promised help was at hand. It was indeed not far away, but it never came, and unable to hold out longer the people fled in despair before the incoming armies of the Turks and the Kurds on July 31, 464 1918, southward over the mountains to Hamadan. There were seventy thousand of them, men, women and little children. Their enemies pursued and shot them down from the flank and from the rear. Thousands of them died of hunger and cholera and weariness. Dr. Shedd, who went with them, to give them such comfort and assistance as he could, died himself of cholera and fatigue three days' journey south of Urumia. After weeks of hardship the survivors reached Hamadan and thence traveled on three hundred and twenty miles more to Bagdad. The Assyrian people numbered before the war perhaps 100,- 000, of whom approximately 40,000 lived in the Urumia plain and 60,000 in the mountains of Turkish Kurdistan. Fifty per cent of the Urumia people and forty per cent of the people of the mountains have been wiped out during the war. Of the seventy thousand who fled from Urumia several thousand remained in Hamadan, and of the other survivors thirty thou- sand or more reached Bagdad and were cared for by the British in the relief camp at Bakuba thirty miles north of Bagdad. From the fall of 1918 until August, 1920, they re- mained in Bakuba and were then removed by the British to Mindan, a camp thirty miles northeast of Mosul. From Min- dan the British, who had spent not less than two million pounds on the care of the refugees, and who recognized their grave obligations to the Assyrians, in view of the failure, for reasons which need not be set forth here, to fulfill the pledges which would have saved the nation from its great disaster, undertook to return the Assyrians to their homes. The moun- tain tribes, who were the fighting element of the nation and who had been driven down to Urumia by the Turks and the Kurds in 1915, and who had been part of the great flight from Urumia to Hamadan and Bagdad, were to be restored to their mountain valleys, and the Urumia people to their villages on the Urumia plain. The women and children were to wait in the camp at Mindan while the men crossed to make all preparations in Urumia, the mountain warriors going with the Urumia folk. The project was postponed, however, until the fall of 1920, when it should have been undertaken in the spring time either of that or the following year. I do not know whose wrong judgment or wrong will was at fault, but both the time and the management of the expedition doomed it to failure, and no doubt the people themselves have their own share of responsibility for the failure. In any case, long before they reached Urumia the mountains were blocked with snow, and the expedition ended in discord and disaster. The British 465 officers in cliarge abandoned any furtlier attempt, and the people were left to drift back, the mountaineers to Mosul and the villages to the north of Mosul, and the Urumia people, first to Bagdad, and then across the border into Persia again. When the Assyrians fled from Urumia on July 31, 1918, it was decided, as I have said, that Dr. and Mrs. Shedd should go with them, but that the other missionaries should remain. Six thousand of the Christians had not gone in the flight, and they needed protection. The Mission, moreover, was a neutral body and, throughout the war, had served all who were in need, striving to protect the Christians from the Turks and the Kurds, and to protect the Kurds and the Per- sian Mohammedans from the lawless and cruel elements among the Assyrians when the latter were in the ascendancy and v/ere tempted to make reprisals for all the suffering and outrage which they had endured. On October 8, 1918, how- ever, the Turks deported all the remaining missionaries and many of the Christians to Tabriz, and the 900 Christians who remained were heroically shepherded by Judith David, the daughter of Kasha Moorhatch, with the aid of a friendly Mohammedan of whom I have spoken elsewhere in this report, until May 2, 1919, when Dr. Packard after twice visiting Urumia from Tabriz, in February and April, 1919, returned with Mrs. Packard and his family and Dr. Ellis for the pur- pose of remaining. Dr. Ellis shortly returned to Tabriz, but Dr. and Mrs. Packard stayed, witnessing one final shameful massacre of the Assyrians on May 24th and were then brought back to Tabriz with the Assyrians who survived by a rescue party in June, headed by the American consul in Tabriz, Mr. Paddock, who throughout the entire war had shown himself the wise advisor and the steadfast friend both of the Ameri- can missionaries and of the Assyrian Christians. Beside the visit of the rescue party, three missionary visits have been made. Dr. Packard accompanied General Beach of the British army in July, 1919; Dr. Ellis and Mr. Muller of our mission and Mons. Franssen of the French Roman Catholic Lazarist Mission visited the place in September, 1919; Mr. Wilson and Mr. Muller in February, 1920; and Mr. Muller in October, 1920. The break up of the station and of the hopeful plans for the re-establishment of the work in May, 1919, was due to the imprudence of a new governor who tactlessly precipi- tated a conflict between the Kurds and the Persian Moham- medans, which released the base Persian elements for the massacre of the 24th, and which, though for a time the Per- sians held Urumia against the Kurds, ended at last in the com- 4G6 plete overthrow of Persian authority and the complete spolia- tion of the Shiali Mohammedans of Urumia by the Sunni Kurds of Ismael Agha. It is a year and a half since the last missionary visit to Urumia in October, 1920. The conditions at that time seemed to indicate that the immediate re-establishment of the station was impracticable, and the situation has grown steadily worse. I have described the present conditions in the station letter with regard to Urumia, but it may be well to set forth the facts as we found them at the time of our visit, although before this report can be printed it is certain that the present conditions will have greatly altered either for better or for worse. In view of these conditions and the military opera- tions which were going on it was not possible for any for- eigners to go to Urumia at the time of our visit, but we met with several groups of influential Urumia Mohammedans who were refugees in Tabriz and with one of the best Mohammedan men remaining in the city who had succeeded in making a visit to Tabriz while we were there. I would report these three interviews for the light that they throw on the Urumia situation and also on the attitude of the best Urumia Moslems with regard to our return. The first deputation was made up of Hajji Shuab-i-Dowleh, Muazam-i-Sultaneh, Hajji Arslan Khan, and Mirza Mustapha Khan. They said that from the first coming of the American missionaries to Urumia they and their families had been their friends. Some of them owned villages in which the Christians were the chief tenants. Their interest and the interests of the Christian people, they declared, were all bound up together. They had prospered together, and they were now suffering to- gether. Only ten thousand Persian Moslems, they said, were left in Urumia at the mercy of about eight thousand Kurds, half of them armed men, against whom the Persian Govern- ment had in the field, as they understood, about four thousand troops at Sharifkhana, to the north of the Urumia Lake, and two thousand troops to the south, with twenty-five hundred more on their way from Teheran. All the best Moslem people had been driven out of Urumia and the villages to Maragha, Tabriz, and elsewhere. There used to be two hundred thou- sand people in the Urumia region, where now there were not half this number. There was no money in Urumia City, and the bazaars were pillaged and empty. The villages and vine- yards were in ruins, and there was no cultivation of the fields, except in the vicinity of Urumia. The price of wheat was twice as much as in Tabriz. The country was a desolation. 467 This was their report. There would be no opposition on their part, they declared, to the return of the Christians. The Christians and the Mohammedans were all in the same situa- tion, and must all go back together. The oldest man of the group, who afterwards wrote me a touching letter, declared that his one purpose was to strengthen the friendly relations between the Christians and the Mohammedans and to get them back together. He was from one of the oldest and best Moslem families of the Afshar tribe which, he said, for six hundred years had been friendly to Christians. He hoped that peace might soon come, for unless it did the Moslem people who still remained in Urumia would starve. "In my villages," he said, "the very houses are burned down. Relief must come within two months or our people will die. Many of those who were once rich are starving now either in Urumia or here in Tabriz." The second deputation was made up of Mirza Hussain, Mujtahid Zadeh, son of the leading mujtahid of Urumia, Sadik ul Memalik, the acting kargazar who took charge of such mis- sion property as was left by the Turks, Mutamad ul Vizerah, one of the leading customs officials and a great chess player, and Hossein Khan. They said that they had heard that I had once been in Urumia and that it was well that I could not look upon its sorrow now. I replied that all this should teach us a lesson that we should never forget as to the sure and bitter fruitage of racial strife and hatred. Yes, they replied, such strife and hatred were bad for this world and for the world to come. There should be peace among men. All intelligent men in Urumia appreciated, they said, what in the eighty-five years and more of its history the Mission had done, but the problem was how to restrain the ignorant and lawless elements of society who were at fault on both sides, Christian and Mohammedan. As the people return to- gether, they said, each side would be bitter in its resentment against the other, in view of its past wrongs. One way to avoid the perils of recrimination and strife would be to make sure that the people were not idle for lack of employment or capital on their return. Military force would be necessary to expel the Kurds and to settle the people again in their old rights, but only common industry would keep the peace. This was true, we told them, and the chief responsibility would rest with the Moslems who were the dominant race. There would have to be a righteous recognition on their part of the equal rights of Christians. No peaceful society could be built on race oppression and injustice. Yes, they replied, but Dr. .468 Packard would remember how fairly Christians had been treated, often better than the Moslems. Dr. Packard admitted that this had been true in the case of a few outstanding men like the Assyrian physicians, but we recalled to them the facts regarding the past, and the inferiority and subjection of the Christian people, and pointed out to them that we must learn in these Moslem lands as everywhere the lesson of democracy and brotherhood and equal rights, and of no sub- jection and oppression of races or men. They answered that in the Urumia region the Persian Shiah Mohammedans had not been fanatical, and they pointed out that, as a matter of fact, in Persia Christians had been given a disproportionate recognition. They cited the internal tax department in Azer- baijan which was wholly under Christian officials, as we knew to be the case. "You must not despair," they added, "Persia has progressed in freedom, and we must look forward to bet- ter days in Urumia, for which we ought now to be preparing the prescription." And the prescription, we added, is justice, equality and industry. "Yes," they said, "it is with these principles that we must all go back together. Dr. Packard is a physician and he knows our needs." "You, too," they said to him, "are a son of Urumia and you, too, must come back. There are blind eyes to be opened, and there are sick folk to be healed." "And I have a lump back of my ear," said the spokesman, "and you must take it off for me." The Moslem visitor from Urumia to whom I have referred who came over to Tabriz during our stay there brought with him a most dismal report. Simko had just made a fresh levy on the city, unearthing what buried treasures any of the people had hidden. We had several talks also with a very kindly Shiah mollah from Urumia, who told of the havoc wrought in their mosques and among the people by the plund- ering Sunni ecclesiastics whom the Kurds had brought in. The question of the reoccupation of Urumia and the asso- ciated problems were considered at length in our conference with the West Persia Mission in Tabriz. Mr. Muller pre- sented a careful paper on the subject which he began with the following assumptions : 1. Ismael Agha's present attitude toward our Mission is not friendly. 2. It is unwise to make another attempt to reopen work in Urumia so long as the Persian war against Ismael Agha centers about Urumia. 3. The Persian Government will willingly tolerate us in 469 Urumia when it is again in control, especially if that time comes while our relief activities are fresh in their minds. 4. The Persian Government will in its own way probably regain control of Urumia within the next two or three years. 5. The Persian Government and the local Persians will not, in general, interfere with the return of Christians whose homes were formerly in Urumia. 6. The return of Christians will give rise to many. com- plicated legal questions of property ownerships, old debts, in- heritances, etc., both among Christians and between Moslems and Christians ; and possibly troublesome criminal cases may also arise. 7. If Christians re-enter Urumia at all and are granted moderate justice there will be a gradual return of Assyrians to their ancestral home. 8. It is not possible for us to relinquish our responsibility for the Kurdish field to the Lutheran Mission in Soujbulak. 9. Urumia is not necessarily the best center, but a good center from which to do Kurdish work. There was a tenth assumption underlying Mr. Muller's paper which was so fundamental that he did not even put it .in words, namely, that it is the purpose of the Board and the Mission to reoccupy Urumia at the earliest possible day. The needs of the work and of the field, our obligation alike to the Mohammedans and the Assyrians, and our solemn duty to the past make it binding upon us to go back to Urumia the instant that the way is open. 1. It is our missionary duty to reoccupy Urumia in the interest of the Mohammedan people and in the fulfillment of our primary missionary aim in Persia, which is to bring the Gospel to the Mohammedans. At the same time it is our duty to render every assistance in our power to the Assyrian Chris- tians in their effort to return to their old home. Their longing to return is natural and right, and one does not wonder at the intensity of the feeling of the people wherever he meets them in their places of exile. Powerful influences were brought to bear upon them to keep them in Mesopotamia, but they poured back in a resistless stream in large companies or in small groups or alone, if need be, penniless and ragged and afoot, striving to get back as near to Urumia as possible. At the time of our visit the Urumia people with the exception of those who had gone to America and Russia were distributed as follows: Approximately 2,000 in Bagdad, 1,000 in Ker- manshah, 5,000 in Hamadan, and 4,000 in Tabriz and Ma- ragha. Their hearts were all set upon their repatriation in 470 Urumia. The letter which they addressed to me in Tabriz represents the indestructible longing of the nation : "Sir:— "Your visit to these parts, we Assyrians take as one of the greatest and most timely events that Providence has granted us during the blackest days of our flight. It is a pity that this welcome which we extend to you now, does not take place in our native land and our own homes where big receptions and sweet meetings could be held, to prove to you our love and respect, worthy of your station. But, unfortu- nately, during the last four years of our flight we have lost all our property, land, and money, wandering aimlessly and getting lost on the roads of Persia, Russia, Beth-Nahrin, India, clear to America. Our environment and our situation make us feel awkward in trying to fulfill our duties towards you as befits your honor. But we wish to make it clear to you, that, although we are bereft of all our property and be- longings, still we we can say gladly and truthfully that our love and respect are growing greater and greater towards you every day. Your sympathy, your great efforts in the past and at present to help our nation, are plain facts which have left deep marks on our hearts. . . . We hope to God that we might reach the day of our clear sky, when our words, our writings to our friends and loved ones, should not be marred by the clouds of our trials and tribulations. But the circum- stances in which we are, and knowing your friendly attitude toward us, encourage us to put before you the following requests : "1. Since it is evident to us that the greatest part of our men and women are real lovers of their tongue and nation, and are ready to put down their lives in its behalf; since it has been proved to us from the words uttered from trembling lips of our dying ones in exile, 'Only Home, Native Land, and Nation,' and because we do not wish to see the funeral of our nation and language : since we hold ourselves respon- sible to the souls of our forefathers who through tribulations and repeated massacres kept their nationalism, whose bones and the dust of their bodies, the stones and monuments of their graves, today cry out to us with a low but thrilling voice, 'Keep national existence' : since we believe that the existence of this ancient nation and tongue depends on the opening of our beloved native place, which we hope will be the nucleus to gather all our people around it in the future, therefore we beg you to exert your influence to secure the opening of our land, and the altars of our nationalism, and preserve the foun- 471 dations of character by re-establishing Christian schools and rebuilding our destroyed churches. "2. But before we beg of you this request we wish to make clear to you this one point. It was not coincidence or luck which brought us these hard days, thus driven from our homes, scattered and dying in exile, fallen under the curse of beg- gary; it was our political smallness and diplomatic infancy; as we were lured by false promises of representatives of the Allies, who, we believed, would stand by their promises and repay us for our good service; but, we are sorry to say that, at the end of the war each one went his way working for the personal benefit of his own country and government, careless, thoughtless of the unfortunate small nation which was sacri- ficed in the way of their respective interests. "During all the time of our exile we have had only one friend who has been in sympathy with us in our trials. That friend is the American Relief, to whom we extend our hearty thanks, who for four years has helped and supported part of our people. But we are sorry to say that of late this friend too is getting tired and turns away his face from us. It is true, every prolonged work becomes tedious and wearisome. We, too, feel ashamed to be a burden to others, but what shall we do ; driven from our homes with nothing to live on ; seek- ing employment, but there is no work; Russia the house of refuge for our people is in misery ; America, the land of free- dom, has closed its gates on us. Our last hope lies in the efforts of the Persian Government to open Urumia. We hope that God, for the sake of this nation, will bring success to her efforts and preserve this nation. On this basis and with this hope we beg you to use your influence with the Relief Committee to extend an immediate help and security to our people who are on the point of starvation. "3. Since we have some hope in respect to the opening of our old home, therefore we beg you to take into consideration the help and support needed for our people at Urumia and Salmas, till they stand on their own feet and become self- supporting, uy^^y respectfully yours. Representatives of the Assyrian Refugees in Tabriz, MAR ELIA, Bishop of Urmia, A. MOORHATCH, A. B. DOOMAN, M. D. E. E. SAYAD, M. D. LAZAR ELIA, ASKANDAR S. KHOSHABA, M. D. and others." 472 We did everything in our power in conferences with the Persian authorities and with the American and British Lega- tions in Teheran to support the claims of the people for re- patriation in their homes, pointing out to the Persian offi- cials not only the moral grounds of the cause of the Assyrians but also the economic advantage to Persia of restoring them to the region which they had made so prosperous and which they would soon redeem from its present waste. We were glad to receive assurances from every one of the Persian of- ficials with whom we talked, and who included the men most directly responsible for dealing with the problem, that just as soon as peace and order were re-established and the author- ity of Persia set up, the Christians would be heartily encour- aged to go back. The Legations felt that there was nothing they could do at present, but they were ready to lend every good office toward the repatriation of the people as soon as it was politically possible for them to return. One of the Persian officials most closely related to the whole matter inti- mated that there were some Assyrians, probably no longer Persian subjects, whose political activities in advocating an Assyrian republic detached from Persia and under the pro- tection of the Allies had made them unacceptable to Persia and who might be discouraged from returning; but when I asked some of the other Persian officials whether it was in- tended that any discrimination should be made, they replied that they knew of none. We are not deceived into thinking that, either economically or politically, the return of the Assy- rians to their old homes will be simple or easy. It is certain on the other hand to be a very difficult process, but one be- lieves, as one certainly hopes, that before many years have passed a good nucleus of the Assyrian people will have settled once again in their old villages. As soon as this has been accomplished, others of the people will be sure to filter back until as much of the nation as has not been able to go to America will be re-established in its ancient seat. 2. Among the questions considered at the conference at Tabriz were two which we had already considered at home with the Urumia missionaries who were on furlough, namely, the staff which the station would need on re-occupation and the expediency of sending back the older missionaries, who had been through the tragedies of the station's recent history, or sending instead a force of new missionaries or of mission- aries transferred from other stations, who would be disasso- ciated from the entangled relationships of the past. A few of the missionaries whose return would remind them always of 473 painful experiences are desirous of being stationed elsewhere, but others are equally desirous of returning and our con- ferences with Moslems and Christians alike convinced us that it would be an immeasurable loss not to constitute the older Urumia missionaries the re-occupying force. After a very full discussion it was voted at the Mission conference in Tabriz that (1) "It is our policy to reoccupy Urumia as a full station of the Mission as soon as practicable. (2) The older Urumia missionaries desiring to return to Urumia should be among those who return. (3) It is not necessary at present to plan a complete reduplication of the old work. (4) That we contem- plate a Mission force in Urumia embracing four ordained men and three women for evangelistic and educational work and two doctors (men) and one nurse for medical work. (5) While recognizing our responsibility to the Assyrian Chris- tians we believe that upon re-occupation, the primary and direct purpose of the station should be the evangelization of the Moslems. (6) For the present and pending the re-occu- pation of the station, we should use the Urumia force and funds in the best possible way for work looking towards the evangelizing of Moslems and Syrians. (7) The force and funds should be used in ways that will permit such part of them as are to be transferred back to the Urumia field to be so transferred with least embarrassment to the present work. (8) The Urumia staff and appropriations that would not re- turn to Urumia when the station would be fully occupied should be placed to the best advantage in other parts of the field." 3. Friendly Mohammedans have done what they could to protect the Mission property in Urumia, but many of the buildings have been dem^olished and it is probable that every- thing needed by the re-established station will have to be re- built. It is hoped that the Westminster Church of Buffalo which has for years carried the medical work in Urumia will provide whatever is needed for the hospital which ought cer- tainly to be one of the first enterprises to be re-established. Residences also will be needed, and both Fiske Seminary and the school for boys should be re-established. A special effort should be made to have in hand a special re-establishment fund available for use immediately upon re-occupation. $100,000 ought to be more than enough for this purpose. The amount now in the Board's Treasury for Urumia rebuilding is $8,871.48. 4. No one can think of the situation in Urumia today 474 without reflecting upon our missionary responsibility to help and befriend the Kurds. No other missionary agency either in Persia or in Turkey has ever influenced the Kurds as deeply as the Urumia hospital and medical work. To the extent that the Kurds are accessible from Urumia, the hospital will un- doubtedly serve them in the future as in the past, but there should also be a far more adequate direct effort to reach them both by preaching and by schools. I shall speak of this else- where in connection with the problem of the adequate occu- pation of our field. It must suffice to point out here the dif- ficult service which the station will have to render in healing the bitterness of the past and binding together the Kurds, the Persian Mohammedans, and the Assyrian Christians in common brotherhood. 5. The action of the mission conference at Tabriz indi- cates that in its judgment the chief work of the Urumia station from henceforth should be for Moslems. From this point of view it might be well if the missionaries could return in advance of the Assyrians. From another point of view to which I shall refer in a moment it might be better to have the Assyrians return first. In either case it will be the task of the station to establish from the beginning the right rela- tionships with the Moslem people. One must recognize that the views of the two deputations of Urumia Moslems which have been quoted are not representative of all. Monsieur Frannsen of the French Lazarist Mission told me that he feared the predominant Moslem feeling would be hostile both to the Christians and to Christianity. It may be so. The wonder is that anything but hate and ill will could be the fruitage of these bitter sowings of the years of the war. Nevertheless we must go forward in the faith that the forces which are at work everywhere else in Persia, opening a new door of access to the Mohammedans, will not be closed in Urumia, and the work there must be projected from the be- ginning with a policy and attitude designed to win the good will and love of the Moslem people and to commend Christ and His Gospel to them. Some wise measures of friendly assistance and relief, available for Moslems of good will, as well as for Christians, would be of great help in promoting racial good feeling and in setting the Mission in right and kindly relationships with the Urumia Moslems from the out- set. 6. The situation will be altogether different after the re- establishment of the station as regards relationships with the Greek Church and the Roman Catholic and Anglican Missions. 475 None of these Missions has followed the people in their wan- derings or ministered to them in their refugee camps or worked with them in their village repatriations or in their effort to return to Urumia. Several exceptions should be made to this general statement. The Archbishop of Canterbury has shown the fullest sympathy with the Assyrians and has sought in the most generous and high minded way to secure the ful- fillment by the British Government of its duty to the people in view of the commitments of its representatives during the war. Members of the Archbishop's Mission, in connection with the British Army relief, helped in the care of the people in the Bakuba camp. And Monsieur Frannsen, of the Roman Catholic Mission, is striving manfully to help in getting the Tabriz refugees settled in villages. But at the time of our visit our Mission was the only one at work for the Assyrians whether at Mosul, Bagdad, Kermanshah, Hamadan, or Tabriz. So far as its work is for Mohammedans it will have the field to itself when Urumia is reopened. None of these other Mis- sions ever worked for the Mohammedans. Indeed it is stated that the Roman Catholic Mission in entering Persia pledged itself to abstain from Moslem work. As to the Assyrians, in the event of their return, I do not know what other Church agencies may be involved. Some of the Nestorian bishops and priests will doubtless retain the Greek Church affiliations which they had taken up before the war, but the Orthodox Church will have more than it can do at home in Russia and will probably be unable to do anything in Persia. The Arch- bishop of Canterbury's Mission has had no missionaries in Urumia for a long time, and if it resumes work at all among the Assyrians it seems more probable that it would seek to re-establish its relations with the Patriarch's family. As to the French Lazarist Mission we have done everything that we could to promote kindly relations. When Dr. Packard visited Urumia in May, 1919, he took with him one of the French missionaries. Monsieur Clarice, who lived with him in one of our Mission residences in Urumia during that fateful month. Monsieur Frannsen has been a very brotherly worker in Tabriz, and I felt a real attachment to him. It would be a great thing if, as was the case for so many years, this field and these problems could be left to a single missionary agency. If this may not be, at least two other things may be hoped for, first that between the representatives of the three great Churches to which I have referred there may be, with a clear recognition of any divergent Church principles (some day surely to be reconciled in a richer and 476 more comprehensive unity than any of us now understands) , nevertheless a full brotherly sympathy and trust, and second that there may be an end of all the wildcat individualistic undertakings of Assyrian adventurers and of well meaning but misled Christians at home, which have been a scandal and a shame in Persia and in the West. 7. The reoccupation of Urumia will bring into still sharper focus the question of the relations of the Mission to the As- syrian people and to the evangelical Church and to what remains of the old Church. (1) Has the spiritual duty of the Mission to the Assyrians been discharged? There are some who say that it has, and that the people should be left alone now to work out their own problems unaided. I do not believe that this is a tenable view. I believe that we still owe the Assyrian people all the friendly and spiritual help that we can give them. We should aid them in the re-estab- lishment of their schools and the reorganization of their churches both in the city and in the villages of Urumia. They should themselves assume the leadership and the full burden of responsibility as they had done before the war. But in their evangelistic and in their educational work they should have the sympathy and the co-operation of the Urumia sta- tion, and there ought to be at least one of the men and one of the women of the station who know Syriac thoroughly. Even if one has in mind only the claims of the Moslem work we should have in thought also the Assyrians, from whom some of the best evangelists and teachers for the Moslem work have come and are still to come. "Since mv connection with the field," wrote Dr. Coan in a paper on "The Rehabili- tation of the Assyrians" which he presented to the Hama- dan station, "I have personally known over one hundred and seventy Assyrian preachers and workers, most of them gradu- ates from the theological seminary. About twenty have also been graduated in medicine, working in widely separated parts of the field. Of this large number one hundred and ten are dead, forty of them having entered their reward during the last six years as the result of the war and many of these have been honored with martyr death. Thirteen are in the service today in Persia and Mesopotamia. Five are working in the United States as pastors of the Syrian colonies in New Britain, Yonkers, Gary and Chicago, and in the Near East Relief. More than ten have worked as pioneers in distant places laying the foundations for the stations of Tabriz, Te- heran, Hamadan, Resht and Soujbulak, the last of which hai been given over to the Lutheran Church. One man as col- 477 porteur has done remarkable work in southern Persia where he has often been beaten and thrown into prison and some- times left for dead. Another labored faithfully in Russia for many years, was exiled thirteen times, and finally died in exile after winning many thousands of people to Christ. Out of the one hundred and seventy, twenty-three were dropped mainly for inefficiency, but only four for bad conduct. Many have done faithful work in tours in the Mountain Field, and some have done splendid work as evangelists among the Moslems." The Assyrian people ought still to be regarded as a great reservoir of spiritual resources for the work among the Moslems. (2) At present, outside the Mountain Field very little of the Urumia appropriations is being spent for work or workers among the Assyrians. Out of their deep poverty the people are still doing everything in their power for themselves. They should continue to do so, but I believe that in addition to the aid that they ought to receive toward their re-establish- ment either from indemnity or from relief, they should, if necessary, be helped by the Mission both in their church and in their school work until they can be self-supporting again. This need not be a great amount of help, and it should not exceed what is necessary to supplement what the people them- selves can do, with the assistance which they have a right to expect from the Assyrian colonies in America. (3) The return of the Assyrians to Urumia will involve many difficult legal Questions as to property rights and boun- daries, relations to Mohammedan creditors and debtors, the recovery of property and of enslaved women and girls, and as to litigation growing out of old and new relationships. The mere existence of a Christian community in a Moham- medan land and under Mohammedan law-codes, regarding which there must be capitulatory exceptions made for Chris- tian communities, involves questions of the greatest difficulty. It was never possible for the station in former days, try as it would, to escape some measure of implication in these problems. It had almost succeeded in escaping before the war, thanks to the growth in strength and maturity in the Assyrian evangelical body. For many reasons it will be hard for the station to hold aloof from these matters on its re- establishment. It will be much easier for it to do so if there might be in Urumia American and British vice-consuls repre- senting their governments purely, caring for the legitimate interests of American and British native born and naturalized 478 citizens, and exerting the wholesome influences which repre- sentatives of great Christian nations should exert in such a peculiar situation as will exist in Urumia and which they can exert without trespassing upon the functions of the Persian Government and with untold advantage to the interests of Persia. It will simplify matters greatly if very soon after the reoccupation of the station by the missionaries such con- sular representation might be established and if thereafter the Assyrians should return. (4) One of the most difficult questions of all is the question of the unity of the Assyrians among themselves, the relations especially of the evangelical body and the old Church and the family of the Patriarch, and the relation of the Mission to each of these two elements. Any one who studies the con- dition of the Assyrian nation today and who confers sympa- thetically with representatives of its different sections is led almost to despair as to the possibility of its unification. The geographical division of the people is by itself a radical divi- sive influence. Part of the nation lives in Turkey under Turkish rule and part in Persia under Persian government. There was never any chance whatever of the fulfillment of the hopes of some of the Assyrians that they might be given now a distinct territory of their own and be set up as an independent political nationality. There is not, and there is not likely to be in the near future, any possibility of political unity. If the whole nation would see this, its problem would be simplified, but one element of difficulty is the fact that there are many leaders who confuse the real problem of the racial and religious unity of the nation with the at present unreal and delusive problem of its political unity. The prob- lem of racial and religious unity is difficult enough. In edu- cation and many other features of their civilization there is a wide difference between the mountain tribes and the Urumia people, and in military qualities they can hardly be regarded as one race at all. As to their religious unity there are ele- ments entirely beyond the control both of the evangelical body and the patriarchal party in the Roman Catholic Missions, and in the Orthodox Russian Church and the Anglican Mission, in case the two latter should return. Both in the patriarchal body and in the evangelical party also and in the large un- governed group between them there are individuals whom no one can control, who for mercenary reasons or for motives of personal ambition or out of sincere individual convictions will go their own way. When one has examined all these various tendencies he begins to doubt, as I have said, whether 479 any unification of the nation is possible. None the less it seems to me clear that we should all work for such a true unity, the binding of all the people together in a pure spiritual church built simply upon the New Testament and with what- ever organization will best serve the religious needs of the nation and enable it best to fulfill its mission in the light both of its past history and of the actual facts of its religious life today. In concrete form the issue as it presents itself to the Pres- byterian Mission is simply this, shall the Mission both in Persia and in Turkey pursue a policy of building up the evan- gelical Church, even at the expense of the old Church or shall it absorb itself in the work for Moslems and Kurds and give at the same time all the spiritual aid it can, both to the evan- gelical and the old Church alike, or thirdly, must it recognize the difference in conditions in Persia and in Turkey and pursue in each field a policy adapted to the actual facts. In Persia the old Church was wiped out by the landslide into the Orthodox Church of everything but the evangelical body, so that now as a matter of fact there is no old Church in any of the Assyrian communities into which the Urumia people are divided. The only church body that there is in Bagdad, Ker- manshah, Hamadan, or Tabriz is the evangelical Church. Whatever has been done for the people, either in relief or spiritually, has been done either through the Near East Relief or through our own Mission. When the people return to Urumia if present religious conditions continue, there will be in reality only the evangelical Church with perhaps some orthodox Greek and Roman Catholic remnants, small and without resources. It would seem to be the duty of the Mis- sion to cooperate with the evangelical Church, which it is not within the power of the Mission to deliver to the Patriarch and which would repudiate any effort of the Mission toward such delivery. In the interests of the religious unity and the very life of the nation it is desirable that what remains of the Assyrians in Persia should be gathered together in the loyalty and devotion of the evangelical body which has borne the brunt of the storm and which alone has been able to endure it. I doubt whether this is practicable, but if the Church in Persia could be unified and made what it ought to be, the day of the true spiritual unification of the whole Church with the preservation of what is most worthy in its history would be hastened. The situation in the Turkish section is different, and it has been long recognized to be different. The landslide into the 480 Orthodox Greek Church did not wipe out the old Church in the mountains as it did in the plains, though for a time it certainly threatened it. The Mission also has worked for many years, while Dr. McDowell has had charge of the Moun- tain Field, under a policy which sought, in full loyalty both to the Patriarch's family and to the old Church on the one hand, and to the evangelical Church, on the other hand, to build up the spiritual life of each and to unite all the people in Christ, however they might be divided in their ecclesiastical organization. In the year 1904 a conference was held in Urumia between representatives of our Mission and of the Archbishop's Mis- sion in the effort to reach an agreement with regard to the policy of the two Missions towards one another and towards the Nestorian Church. The results of this conference were considered both by our own Mission and by the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission. Dr. McDowell has for twenty years worked in accordance with them, holding the confidence and affection of the evangelical church in the mountains on the one hand and slowly winning the trust and sympathy of the Patri- arch and the old Church leaders on the other. With the ap- proval of the Patriarch, Mar Shimon, who was murdered by the Kurdish bandit Simko, there was to be held a church con- ference of all the religious forces in the mountains, the clergy of both bodies meeting on the same level. Had Mar Shimon lived and the whole life of the mountain people not been shat- tered by the war, there was good reason to believe that all that was true and most dear in the thought and life of both parties might be conserved in a new and comprehensive under- standing. Barely half of the mountain people, however, are now strug- gling painfully back to their mountain homes. Their churches are destroyed, the Patriarch and his family are impoverished, the schools and churches which were the pride of the evan- gelical communities are gone, the new situation is one of great difficulty for all. We were glad of the opportunity to discuss it at length in Mosul with Daoud Effendi and his wife, the father and mother of the present Patriarch who is just a little boy, and with good Kasha Keena, Malik Khoshaba, and other leaders of the mountain people representing the evan- gelical body. A heavy snowfall which blocked some of the mountain roads prevented our meeting Surma Khanim, the sister of Daoud Effendi, of whom every one speaks with the greatest respect and of whom I have known for many years as one of the most forceful and admirable personalities in 481 * 16 — India and Persia the Assyrian nation. It was not difficult to enter with living sympathy into the problems which all these men and women are facing. I believe that they are good men and women who are trying to do right and who need all the sympathy and help which we can give them as they seek to re-establish the broken remnants of their people. 8. In the past generation the work in the mountains has been conducted as part of the work of the Urumia station. In earlier years missionaries like Dr. Grant and Mr. Rhea made their home in the mountains or the mountain work was based upon Mosul. For more than thirty years, however, it has been conducted from Urumia although Mr. McDowell as a member of the Urumia station has virtually lived in the mountain villages. Even when Urumia is reoccupied, the separation which the war has effected between the two sec- tions of the nation seems likely to continue, and it was the judgment of all with whom we conferred that the mountain work could best and perhaps only be conducted from Mosul. The West Persia Mission conference in Tabriz voted, accord- ingly, in approving the plan of a united Mesopotamian Mission that as much of the Mountain Field as cannot be better cared for from the re-established Urumia station should be trans- ferred to the Mesopotamia Mission together with the appro- priations therefor which had hitherto been made part of the Urumia appropriations. I do not know of any more difficult Mission field in the world than this Mountain Field nor of any missionary who has done more heroic, perilous, self-effacing, and Christlike service than Dr. McDowell. No book of missionary experience which has ever been written surpasses the story that Dr. McDowell could tell if he would. He is nearing his three-score years and ten, but has all the vitality and energy of a young man just beginning his service, and he is looking forward to one more term of service to be spent among the dear dangers of these valleys and hills. All the difficulties that rise ahead darker and greater than ever, he sees not as a warning, but as a challenge. Kasha Keena, gray haired under his years, but with ruddy cheeks and robust faith, thinks of them in the same way. Just as we were leaving Mosul he handed me the following appealing letter in English: "gjjj. "Mosul, 10th January, 1922. "Having received your honor most cordially in this ancient country, where you have come to look into the spiritual con- dition of the people, and where I have been working for 37 years, including its neighboring mountains and towns as far 482 as Gawar, among the most savage people, I take the Hberty of offering a petition to your honor in connection with the difficulties and hardships of this country. "There are a number of workers, many of whom are not here at present. I on behalf of them beg to bring before your honor the fact that the inhabitants of this country are far from real salvation, and yet it is possible to turn them by teaching them the Commandments of God. "For fifty years back I can remember the American mis- sionaries and the natives. The missionaries worked in this land as evangelists for short periods only, except Dr. Mc- Dowell, who has worked for 33 years with his heart and soul, sparing no effort. He has worked himself as a missionary and has brought four classes of people to the light of our Lord. During past years, however, it was difficult for work- ers to reach their aim, whereas now on account of the pre- vious influences it is easy. "1. The clergymen of the various tribes were in the way of our work in time past, but at present they are very near to our reach. "2. The uncontrollable savages dwelling in the narrow valleys of the mountains who were the enemies of mission workers are now a bit enlightened and desire to learn more about the world and religion. "3. The inhabitants of Mosul and round about including Yezidees, Mohammedans and the Roman Catholics were in extreme opposition to our work, but now the door is open and only waits for the shaking of water from the Evangelical Church like palsy in the pool of Siloam. "4, Among Mohammedans, as you are aware, it is difficult to teach the doctrine to them. And before the last great war the missionary workers were sent among the Kurds, for preaching, but the opinion of the Kurds remained unaltered. They only said that the Americans were trying to turn Islam into Christianity. At present, however, they have discovered their wickedness, both physical and spiritual, and long to learn a religion that is better than Islam. "5. Unlike the past, the war has now brought us an oppor- tunity of preaching the Gospel to the people without hindrance. Now having arrived at this favorable time, our aim is as follows : "a. Many of the religious workers amongst us have been murdered and some died during the great war and now we are only a handful left as tools in hand. "b. We have wandered to others' doors without a house, 483 a place, or a shelter of our own and without books, the few which we had having been burnt by Mohammedans. "c. We remaining workers are old and near enough to leave the world and our regret is that we find no young men coming forward to occupy our places. The many American missionaries and native workers who were at one time keen upon their aim and were waiting to conquer the world in the salvation of Christ, have now shrunk back from their work. Therefore our humble request with your honor is to establish a running mission in Mosul (headquarters) with branches to the north and to open out a College of Theology and Medicines for the education of our intelligent young men and thus to conquer the tribes of Mosul and Kurdistan, as the Assyrians form good tools to be used in the hands of mis- sionaries. "Who knows whether at this time of persecution and exile when we are far from the worldly hope, God may call us near as he called our fathers to be preachers to the Eastern world? "I beg to remain, Sir, "Yours respectfully, "Kasha Keena." Indeed, who knows? S. S. Constantinople, Ionian Sea, May 1, 1922. 484 10. THE EDUCATIONAL WORK 1. Extent. At the time of our visit there were in the East Persia Mission four High Schools with lower departments, one for boys and one for girls in each of the two older sta- tions, Teheran and Hamadan. In addition there were a day school of lower grade for boys in Doulatabad, a school in the Kurdish orphanage in Kermanshah, and two schools for the Assyrian refugees in Hamadan, one an elementary school in the orphanage and the other a graded school efficiently organ- ized and administered by Rabi Ester, one of the teachers in Fiske Seminary. Not counting the Assyrian school there was a total enrollment in the East Persia Mission schools of 1,403, 870 boys and 530 girls. The Teheran Boys' School and the Hamadan Girls' School had boarding departments. The total tuition receipts in East Persia in the schools were tomans 10,907 and in the boarding departments tomans 21,159, a total of tomans 32,066, It is interesting to note that this amount paid on the field toward the support of the schools exceeds by many thousands of tomans the total appropriations of the Board to the East Persia Mission for all its native work. The total appropriations of the Board for educational work in the East Persia Mission were in native currency tomans 7,291 and for West Persia tomans 18,060. The following table shows the educational work of the West Persia Mission at the time of our visit. EDUCATIONAL WORK LOCATED IN WEST PERSIA, APRIL 15, 1922 Xot incluiling W. P. Work done in K. Persia or Bagdad area. Ti 1 Total Cost of School Schools Boarders Day Pupils . ^, ^. , , ^ •^ ^ to the Board, Col. C 1896 1921 1896 1921 1896 1921-22 Tabriz Boys' 25 . . 70 400 Ts. 1,118 4,751 Tabriz Girls' 25 .. 55 301 1,792 2,928 Teheran Boys' .... 82 80 590 1,300 2,000 Teheran Girls' . . 40 . . 17 334 1,550 2,000 Hamadan Boys'.. 8 .. 73 235 724 480 Hamadan Girls'. 35 11 60 151 637 1,642 It is to be hoped that the boarding departments in all the schools where they have been closed, may soon be reopened as the Missions plan. 2. Influence and Results. From the moment when we presented our passports before sunrise in an old army tent at Quizil Robat for endorsement by an Irak official, who was a product of the Urumia schools, to the last hour of our stay in Persia when an old student of the Teheran Boys' School, now head of the Persian customs at Julfa, insisted on our taking lunch with him before crossing the Aras river into 486 the Caucasus, we were in almost constant touch with the fruit- age of our Mission schools in Persia. When snowbound at Kasvin an old Teheran school boy in charge of the telegraph office was our friend and helper and supplied us with English books from his little library. The Persian Secretary and Interpreter of the American Legation, esteemed both for ability and for character, was a graduate of Teheran. At Zenjan another old student who was in charge of the Indo- European Telegraph office entertained us as his guests and facilitated our journey in every way. Illustrations of this kind we could multiply indefinitely. Whether in the lega- tions, the banks, the telegraph offices, the service of the Gov- ernment, in business or medicine or education or in the evan- gelistic work of the churches and of the Missions we met the old students everywhere. The two most responsible men in handling the finances of the province of Azerbaijan whom Moslem influence had tried to dislodge because they were Christians, but whom the Persian government has steadfastly^ supported are old students of the Teheran and Tabriz schools. Mr. Gifford gave me the following statement regarding some of the results of the Memorial school for boys in Tabriz : "It is a matter of regret that many of the valuable records of the school have either been misplaced or lost during the past few years of disturbance in West Persia. Necessarily the statements relative to the number of graduates, etc., is incomplete but is fairly accurate concerning students men- tioned. "Since 1887 there have been approximately 75 graduates from the Common and High School Courses. During part of this time there was only a common school course. There is no attempt made to register those who have dropped out before the actual completion of their course, although these are quite large numerically. There were four students gradu- ated before 1887 who had had special training in the Bible, and of these two became preachers. "Of these 79 students just mentioned 21 are now dead. Eleven of these were either murdered or killed or died as a direct result of disturbances during past eight years. Some were murdered by Kurds and Turks — one killed in action against Kurds. Some died from hunger and fatigue. Amongst those killed by Kurds and Turks were four former graduates in Khoi ; these included Br. Stephan Haritunian, our faithful evangelist, who was cruelly murdered (we understand) by the Kurds. "There are now in America four former graduates complet- 487 ing courses of study in colleges and universities. Seven gradu- ates have settled in the United States: one a dentist, one an electrical engineer, one a doctor and captain in the Army, one a manager of a large business, one a preacher, the others seem to be in school work. Four or five students are in Eng- land and Europe. "Graduates of the school are in the departments of finance and customs, police and military departments and bureaus. There are a number of men in the business world, some in the Imperial Bank of Persia, some in independent business. There are some former students who did not quite finish their courses who occupy positions of responsibility. It is no exag- geration to say that the Memorial School men are highly thought of for their character and ability. Br. Hampartsum Dserunian, an ordained man, is now head Armenian teacher in the school and is assisted by Br. Marcos, a man of warm evangelistic faith. Two sons of Dr. Hampartsum are teach- ing in the school. One of our best Persian teachers is Mirza Ali Askyar, whose character and ability is recognized by many outside of the school. "The present student body, composed of about 102 Persians, 33 Syrians and 294 Armenians comes from all ranks of society, including some refugees to sons of Governors. Two Governor's sons are in our dormitory as well as the grand- son of the Amir-i-Toman of Ardebil. About 40% of the Moslem students now come from the best homes in the city, and a few come from outside of the city, — Urumia and Sain- Kala are represented. Twenty-five years ago there was not a Persian in the school, and when the Bible was first taught the Book could not be placed in the hands of the pupils. Now every class has some systematic Bible study! Among our students this year are two boys from a prominent family which was bitterly opposed to us three years ago! The bitterness of the past years seems to be passing away. Several Mos- lem pupils are showing a lively interest in Christian teach- ings, and at least one is reckoned as a convert. We have hopes of our Theological Class arousing new ambitions for Christ in the minds of the students." Mrs. Boyce has prepared a statement regarding the gradu- ates of the Iran Bethel School for girls in Teheran. The list shows eighty-four graduates of whom fifty-four were Arme- nians, twenty-five Persians, four Jews, and one German. About half the graduates are married; twenty-two are teaching; two are nurses ; one who is married has a girls' school of her own in Kurdistan; two came to America to study medicine; 488 four are in the government educational service, one as in- spector of girls' schools. The schools have been one of the most fruitful agencies in recruiting for the Church. In an article written in 1915 Miss Annie Montgomery, for many years in charge of the Faith Hubbard School for girls in Hamadan, w^rote: "Thirty-three years after Faith Hubbard School was founded in Hamadan, 255 members had been received into St. Stephen's Church. Of these, 113 were girls, pupils from F. H. S. and of the 34 boys received from the Boys' School, 22 had first been pupils in F. H. S. Besides these, of the mem- bers received into Peniel Church, after it was established a separate institution, ten were pupils from F. H. S. Of the 284 baptisms in St. Stephen's up to the same time, 108 were children of those who had been pupils in the school and four others were pupils baptized as adults who took their letters to Peniel." The schools have been one of the most potent agencies of the Missions in breaking down prejudice and winning the good will of the Moslem people. In Hamadan one-fifth of the girls and one-half of the boys in the two schools are now from Mohammedan homes, in Teheran one-half of the girls and two-thirds of the boys, and in Tabriz one-third of the girls and one-fourth of the boys. One-fifth of the boys in the Teheran Boys' High School are the sons of government offi- cials. Among the fathers of sons in the school are two former prime ministers, the chiefs of the Bakhtiari tribe, governors, army officers, and members of the Parliament and the Cabinet. Last year in the group of about 70 boys living in the one dor- mitory there were two brothers of the Prime Minister, the son of the Prime Minister who had just gone out of office, six grandsons of the three most noted and efficient Prime Ministers who have ruled Persia in the past- 50 years and who together ruled the country more than thirty years. A first cousin of the Shah has graduated from this school and there are now several more of his first cousins studying in it. Every year scores, if not hundreds, of Mohammedan boys who are ready to pay double the tuition charges of any other school in Persia are turned away because of lack of room. The Boarding Department has always been operated at a profit. Nine wealthy boys are charged enough to support ten and in addition pay a fair rental for the dormitory. In this way the school has helped and is helping a number of especially promising poor boys through school. Last year this one school collected from the pupils fees totaling 26,916 489 tomans — which is more than the total amount spent by the Board in the whole East Persia Mission excepting missionary salaries. In a paper on "Education in West Persia" presented at our conference in Tabriz Mr. Gifford wrote: "There would be more students in our mission schools if we had both funds and missionary force as well as trained and trusted national Christian teachers with which to found and maintain schools in other centers in Tabriz and in the outfield. The Amirghiz District has had those who are anxious for a school for girls to be established there — a district that has always been most fanatical. The Kheaban Section of the city has had those who now want one or two schools established for Moslem boys; Davachi and Magsoudia have made similar requests. A request has come from the Gara- dagh region and regions around Marand and Sofian, a request from the Moslems of Khoi, a request for a girls' school among the Moslems of Maragha, a direct request through the Sayid- ul-Vizara of Kukargan, brother-in-law of Ibrahim Sardar-e- Fateh, for the establishment of one of our schools there." In many places we heard from Mohammedans expressions of their approval of the Mission schools and their desire to have new schools established. And this favorable sentiment has not yet been purchased by the Mission through any ad- justments, beyond the closing of the schools on Friday as well as Sunday, or by any sacrifice of religious teaching. In one or two instances government officials have endeavored in a somewhat perfunctory way to have the Bible teaching and chapel attendance given up or made optional to the students. Recently a Tabriz illustrated paper entitled "Mollah Nasr-ud- din" published a cartoon showing a stone doorway with the word "Chapel" over it, into which two fierce school teachers were driving .with rods a terrified company of school boys. The cartoon was accompanied by an article entitled "The Mission," which said: "There are yet many remains of tyranny in Persia and one of them is the Mission. . . . Let us suppose we are lib- erals. For this reason we are justified in asserting that Mohammedans should have the right to preach their religion in America and Japan and that the Christians may preach theirs openly in our free country. But the point is here, the ' Christian Mission in Persia is formed under the obligations of the capitulations, and it is from this source that the Per- sian Government has come to many difficulties, and does not have the money to stop them. . . . We are a weak nation, we 490 may expect every kind of help from a great country like America, for which we should express our sincere gratitude. Within these past few years great help has come to our poor and therefore we boast that there exists such a nation on the globe, but . . . what a great pity that America, being the center of all kinds of arts and science, instead of sending us experts to help us, sends gifts of long-dressed and long- bearded missionaries. But they, too, for the sake of liberality and the present conditions of the world must consider this and stop their spiritual tyranny and leave off their religious preaching. They are not compelled to register the non- Christian boys in their schools, but if they do not wish to leave the poor illiterate, as they always have pity on them, they must not insist upon a boy of seven or eight years being required to study all of the Christian lessons and accept their way of worshipping. How can it be right to make a Moham- medan child forget the religion of his ancestors? Shall his brain be filled with the lessons of Jesus and the Bible? Shall he be compelled to go to their churches? Ridiculous. Does America, a country of light, think it is wise to do this? There has never been such force used as that which is being exerted now by the Mission in Persia." This article is significant for its impotence, its ignorance, and its understanding. It caused not the slightest opposition, but served only to advertise widely the school, which the Per- sians themselves recognize and esteem as the best school in Azerbaijan, to which they desire to commit the education and moral training of their boys. No doubt they would prefer in some cases^not to have the Bible taught, but yet the knowl- edge of the Bible is commended by the Koran itself, and the moral ideals which the Bible teaching carries are the very ideals which Persian fathers want set before their sons. The article was ignorant because it implied that the boys were compelled to go to churches which they are not. And the character of the schools is made perfectly plain to parents when they send their sons and daughters, and it is clearly understood that if they are not willing to have their children attend the Bible classes and services they must not leave them in the school. The chief value of the article in "Mollah Nasr-ud-din" is in its clear recognition of the power which the schools are wielding as a direct Christian force. "Our two schools in Tabriz," wrote Mr. Gifford in his paper, "have a total attendance of some eight hundred (800) pupils. All of these are brought into daily contact with the plain teach- ings of the Bible and meet once a day in a chapel service of 491 song, prayer, Scripture reading and exposition. There have been special services in the schools at the time of the Week of Prayer. Each class in the Memorial school, from the third to the twelfth, has been spoken with separately during the last few weeks of special meetings in the church with the object of laying before the pupils the need of making the decision of surrendering their lives to God. Chapel services in both schools have given the pupils the opportunity of hear- ing many outside the school force. But the main opportunity for evangelistic work is found in the atmosphere of daily Bible classes and in personal conversations with the pupils them- selves. . . . The results of the education of our schools are seen in the creation of an atmosphere in which it is possible for the church to live and grow, in the production among the . influential classes of a feeling more friendly to Christianity, in the exhibition of the relation of Christianity to learning, progress and the higher life of men. in the promotion of re- ligious toleration, and in the establishment of a new spiritual basis for the life of society in the place of old foundations which are passing away. In all these ways and probably others our Christian education tends both to the elevation of the life of a nation and to preparation for its ultimate accept- ance of Christianity. A year ago this fall Miss Beaber was requested by the Alam ul Mulk, the government director of education, to train teachers for Persian schools ; last fall re- quests came to our Boys' School for teachers to teach in Per- sian schools." 3. Aim and Policy. The aim of missionary education is a theme of unceasing interest. The Post War Conference at Princeton found more difficulty in devising a satisfactory statement on this subject than on any other, and everywhere we found even that admirable statement undergoing discus- sion and rearrangement of emphasis. No subject was of greater concern and drew out more diverse points of view or different judgments of proportion and balance in the discus- sions on the "Empress of Asia" held by the Commission going out to study missionary education in China. There is a sufficiently full discussion of the subject in the Post War Conference report, and our own convictions are set forth adequately in the Reports on Persia and China presented to the Board in 1896 and in the Report on the Philippine Islands and Siam, presented in 1915. As to educational program the East Persia Mission at its last annual meeting adopted the following recommendations of its standing committee on education: "We recommend 492 (1) the adoption of the policy that the opening of schools for the education of converts and the children of converts take precedence over the establishment of schools for non-Chris- tians; (2) that our educational undertakings be in the fol- lovv^ing order: (a) providing foi- the present needs of the school for converts and the children of converts in Kerman- shah, (b) establishing of a school for the children of converts in Meshed if conditions warrant, (c) reopening of the schools in Resht, (d) the establishing of a school for non-Christians in Kermanshah, (e) the establishing of a school for non- Christians in Meshed." As to the program of the West Persia Mission, Mr. Gifford wrote in his paper : "In missionary education in West Persia it may be stated that we are generally agreed upon the following points : "First: The maintenance in Tabriz of a Girls' School and a Boys' School of such standards educationally as to command the respect of Christians and Persians, and preserve to the Mission the opportunities now offered the schools for Chris- tian influence. "Second: These schools should be awake to the needs of the community in which they are placed. They should be not only the schools to which village schools or schools estab- lished in other centers of the city may feed, but in themselves should endeavor to turn out students fitted for some position in life. Above all they should plan to incorporate in their courses of instruction such subjects and departments as will raise up primary, elementary and possibly secondary school teachers, and provide training for Bible teachers and workers and evangelists as well as preachers of the Gospel to be or- dained to the Gospel ministry. As concerns girls the courses should be adjusted so that they may be trained to become good mothers and home makers. "Third : The amount of money and personnel now assigned to educational work should not be decreased. "Fourth : That it is well to staff these institutions adequately, for as the Report on Education of the Edinburgh Conference states, 'this is essential, not only for the sake of educational efficiency, but also for the attainment of the ultimate aim of missionary work. . . . If a college or school is to be main- tained at all, it should be equipped and staffed in such a way that it can reach the highest standard educationally, and the number of Christian teachers should be sufficient to leave them leisure to come into intimate personal relations with 493 the students and exert a direct missionary influence upon them.' " As a result of our conferences and observations we would supplement these statements on several points. (1) It is clear to us that the school work of the Kurdish orphanage should be maintained and strengthened and that there should be a good mission school for boys in Kermanshah, It ought not to require the time of more than one missionary. Perhaps the part time of a missionary would sufRce if a good staff of Christian teachers could be secured. Very probably the older Kurdish boys could be best taught in such a strong boys' school as ought to be developed. In due time there should be a girls' school also conducted preferably, if possible, by capable native Christian teachers, and the older Kurdish girls might ultimately perhaps be provided for in such a school. The orphanage and its school meanwhile, it seemed to us, might well be made the base of educational work for other Kurdish boys and girls than orphans, if they can be brought in. As to the orphanage the Mission decided, it seemed wisely, to transfer the Assyrian children to Hamadan. It did not appear to us that it would be a wise policy to absorb missionary strength in building up a large orphanage in Ker- manshah. There ought to be an educational work for the Kurds, but it ought not to be limited to an orphanage work, nor should it take its character from an orphanage institution. And whatever orphanage or educational work should be pro- jected should be conducted as an integral part of the work of the Mission on the same financial basis as the other agen- cies of the Mission and not subject to the hazards of an institution individualistically developed and supported. (2) Meshed. Nowhere in the Mission field did we meet a situation where it seemed more difficult or more important to decide aright as to educational policy than in Meshed. Is it wise to open any school in Meshed ? If so, shall it be' a school for the children of converts or for non-Christians or for both, or shall there be two separate schools, and if so, which shall have precedence? We do not know what answer to give to these questions, and the station was in great doubt. It is a purely Moslem work which is going on in Meshed. Thus far it has developed wisely and fruitfully. In due time the Chris- tian community must, of course, be educated, but it could not at the present time afford a school of its own, and the establishment of such a school for Christians by the Mission might militate against the maintenance of the principle of independence and self-support in the Christian community. 494 To establish a school for Moslems might interfere with the supremacy and success of the method of direct evangelism which the station has thus far used, and while it might be an agency of conciliation and good will, as such schools have been elsewhere, it might also, although improbably, arouse opposition which is at present dormant. The little group at Meshed is feeling its way prayerfully, and we approve of its request for the appointment of an ordained man who is also an educationalist who will study the problem with the station and be prepared to recommend and develop a wise educational program or to devote himself to evangelistic work if it seems best to postpone a little longer the establishment of schools. (3) The Resht station which was closed and scattered at the time of the Bolshevist occupation in 1920 was reopened the fall of 1921 and is now in a position to re-establish its boys' school. This will be done without delay. In due time when the Mission has been adequately re-enforced the girls' school also should be reopened. It would seem that both of these schools should some day have boarding departments in order that they might bring their influence to bear upon the scattered population of the Resht field. Such a development should be based, however, on reality and upon the result of actual need brought to light by a more adequate evangelistic visitation of the entire Resht field. (4) The Woman's Board has set aside from the Sage be- quest the sum of $200,000 for the establishment of a Women's College in Persia. This was one of the dreams of Miss Annie Montgomery, whom Mrs. Sage supported for many years through the New York Women's Board as her own missionary, and which Miss Montgomery urged upon Mrs. Sage. The obvious location of such a college in Persia is Teheran, and we were requested by the Women's Board to take up with the missionaries in Teheran the plans and prospects of such an institution. It is clear that the immediate establishment of such a college is not practicable. It is equally clear that in due time such a college is indispensable and that the higher education of women will need to be provided for and should be provided for first and best by the Christian Church. It is clear, also, that the present Girls' School in Teheran is the right base upon which the Women's College should be built. The two practical questions which we considered were, first, what the Girls' School should now be doing in preparation for the future establishment of the college, and, second, the question of land. After a full discussion of these questions 496 before we went to Meshed the station appointed a committee to draw up a plan to consider after our return. The report of the committee which was later approved by the station was as follows : "We are glad that sometime it will be possible to have a College for Women in Persia; glad there are indications of a demand for it by the women of Persia and glad that money has been set aside for this purpose, although we do not believe the present educational situation warrants starting college work for women in the immediate future. We believe, also, that before such work is undertaken the present school should be strengthened and expanded and that in this strengthening and expanding we can use to advantage some of the interest of the Sage Legacy. Therefore we make the following re- quests : "a. Annual appropriation of not more than $700 from the interest of the Sage Legacy to CQver current expenses of the school not covered by the regular appropriation of the Board nor by receipts on the field. Note — The reason for this request is evident in the deficit of the last two years, a deficit due to increased salaries which we felt to be only just and reasonable because of length of service and the in- creased cost of living. It would be understood that this sum is untransferable. "b. We believe that a boarding department is the most important step in expansion. We hope to get permission from the Mission to open a boarding school in the fall of 1923, at which time we expect to ask for funds from the interest of the Sage Legacy for equipment (possibly $1,000). "c. Household Economics. We are requesting the Board to send as the fourth Lady for Iran Bethel a specialist in household economics. After she has studied the situation here we expect to ask for funds from the interest of the Sage Legacy for equipment. "d. College Site. There are two adjoining pieces of prop- erty in the northwest section of the city, opposite the west end of the Russian Legation, near the French Legation, and on the way from the central premises to the Boys' College that can be bought on the following terms: one a corner lot of 3 acres or 11,800 sq. zars at 14 or 15 krans per sq. zar. The second is north of this and has 5 acres or 18,000 sq. zars at 7.50 krans per sq. zar. The total cost would be about 30,000 tomans or at the present rate of exchange about $25,000. From every point of view this is a very desirable location and we are expecting to ask the Committee on Higher 496 Education for Women and the Mission to approve this pur- chase, after which we shall make formal request to the Board. If we get this property a wall should be built at once. 686 zars of wall will be necessary, which at a cost of 4 tomans per zar would require 2,744 tomans or at the present rate of exchange about $2,287. If in the judgment of those familiar with college plants in the East this is not sufficient land, there is another piece lying directly west of these and separated by a small street, that contains 20,000 sq. zars and the price is 10 krans each for 13,600 sq. zars and 7 or 8 krans each for the remaining 7,000 sq. zars. "e. If these approximate sums of $25,000 for the property and $2,287 for the wall are taken from the principal of the Sage Legacy we request the Board to hold the balance, minus the amounts asked for in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3, and to allow this sum, principal and interest, to accumulate from year to year to provide for the future needs of the College both for building and for endowment." We approve of these requests and were glad to receive be- fore we left the field the cablegram authorizing the purchase of the property. We were not without doubts as to the neces- sity of buying land at the present time, but probably this is the wise course, and the land which has been purchased seems to be a very desirable and appropriate site. It is a great thing that the Mission is in a position to take the leadership in the higher education of women in Persia, It means far more than any one of us, either in Persia or in America, is able to comprehend. The station is planning to open a boarding de- partment in the Girls' School. It has the necessary building for the purpose adjoining the school. Such a department is greatly needed. (5) Just as the opportunity for the higher education of Persian women should be provided through the development of the Teheran Girls' School, a similar opportunity for men is to be provided by the development of the American High School, as our Mission school for boys in Teheran is called. The plans for this development were made long ago, and a fine site, now embracing sixty acres, has been secured just outside the city gate nearest to our present central compound where the two schools and the church are located. The title to part of this property on which we have already built two residences and a dormitory has been disputed. The question was to be brought to an issue, and it was hoped to a settlement, shortly after our visit. The station had in hand indisputable evi- dence that the proceedings were nothing but blackmail. The 497 school has been in actual possession of the property for some time. Some good gifts toward the college project were re- ceived during the special campaign in 1916-17. It is to be hoped that generous friends will be found who will enable the Mission to deal with the need for higher education for men as the Sage Bequest has made possible in the case of women. Meanwhile the Mission should go forward building a staff and college classes, as young men are found who are ready to go on beyond the high school to college work. It is difficult to hold the students even through the full High School course, so strong is the commercial pressure, but it cannot be very long before the young men of Persia will want the work of at least junior college grade, and the school should supply this and perhaps various courses of graduate pro- fessional training, certainly at least in pedagogy, theological teaching, and business. Dr. Jordan, who was in America at the time of our visit, writes : "For the past ten years since the capacity of the school was increased to 360 we have had an active enrollment of about 540. Every year we have turned away hundreds for lack of room. Every year we have refused numerous appli- cants for the boarding department. "You will recall that the items which have been included in the property needs are : Administration College Building $80,000 Furnishings 20,000 One double dormitory 26,000 Three residences 24,000 $150,000 "We can expand no more till we have this large building. We hope that it can be built in the summer of 1923. The plans for this building have been approved by the station and the mission (plans have been exhibited at two annual meetings) and we have been authorized to proceed with buildings as soon as funds are available. As soon as this building is ready for occupancy we will move the junior and senior high schools to it, along with the College students, between 300 and 400 boys. By the end of the school year there will probably be an increase of about 100, who will have entered the special pre- paratory class from the Persian schools. The places vacated when they move out will probably be promptly filled by appli- cants who otherwise would be turned away. I suppose you know that the third day of school last September- we sent out 498 notices that we could accept no more pupils, except in two or three classes. "The dormitory asked for would probably be filled within two years of completion. We already have the families for the three residences. "We think that within two years of completion of the ad- ministration building a junior high school building to accom- modate 300-400 boys will be needed as senior high school and college will fill the main building. If American advisers go to Persia things will move even more rapidly. "In the leaflet issued six years ago you said : " *I believe that no greater need or opportunity for a Christian College can be found than the need and opportunity in Teheran. There is unhindered access to every element of the population. The Mohammedan fathers rich and poor are not only ready but eager to have their sons admitted into the institution. The Mission and the Board are anxious to develop it to full college grade. Its Christian character and influence are pronounced. Many of its Mohammedan students have already accepted Christ and the work that it can do in forming character and spreading knowledge and supplying leadership is the work which Persia most needs. Having visited Teheran and seen the conditions I endorse this appeal with earnest conviction.' Why would it not be well to quote yourself in your report with an added remark to the effect that 'The war test of the past six years has added emphasis to what was then true.' " We can indeed speak now with new emphasis of this oppor- tunity and need. (6) Tabriz. The West Persia Mission is right in its pur- pose to keep the two schools in Tabriz in their present place at the head of all the educatonal institutions in Azerbaijan. We agree with the view of Mr. Gilford in a paper on "The Memorial School," prepared for us in Tabriz: "I am reminded of one of the seeming axioms of Dr. Wilson : 'As I judge the situation we must provide a better education than the Persians can or our opportunity to teach the Gospel will diminish and not increase.' The moment that the Memo- rial School falls behind the Persian schools in efficiency, that moment shall we lose contact with our Persian pupils. Dr. Wilson in 1906 and 1907 speaks of the inspiration he received from the opening up of numerous schools in the city. Even a cursory survey of his reports, and of Mr. Jessup's, brings out the fact that our schools — the Memorial and the Girls' 499 School — have been great factors in impelling the Persians to better educational standards, and not only the Persians but the Armenians as well. "It then may be stated that whatever the educational stand- ards of the Memorial School may be (or for that matter the Girls' School) they must be higher than those in the Persian schools in the city. It is not necessary at this time, nor is it advisable, to plan definitely on the Memorial School becoming a college. In a spirit of co-operation with East Persia, we may try to turn some of our graduates to the American Col- lege in Teheran although this is very doubtful: first, because of the distance and the expense involved; second, because the student who is ready for higher education prefers to go to Europe (if not preferably to America) or to Robert Col- lege or to Beirut. It is encouraging that the tendency is to- ward America rather than Europe. There is a demand for more education on the part of many young men. "The Memorial School must take the leading place in Chris- tian education in Tabriz. At present this place is best defined as of approximately high school grade. Time must decide the question of higher development." I think this is the right policy for both the Memorial School and the Girls' School, both of them admirable institutions of which we cannot speak with too great praise. (7) Urumia. Whenever the work in Urumia can be re- established, Fiske Seminary should be opened with a boarding department as of old, and it should provide for both Assyrian and Mohammedan girls. The same change which has taken place in the other stations and which has brought such a large number of Mohammedan girls into our schools is sure to take place in Urumia. A high school and preparatory department, with a boarding department, for both Moham- medan and Assyrian boys should also be re-established. It cannot now be determined how much of the good system of village day schools which was in existence before the war can be restored. (8) Theological Education. There is a very hopeful theo- logical class in Tabriz, which has its home in the Boys' School and is taught by missionaries and native pastors. It is com- posed of two former Mohammedans, one an ex-mollah, and four Assyrians. All of the six are giving some of their time to teaching in the mission schools. In East Persia there is no regular training class, but Dr. Schuler has a good plan for one, taking the young men with him in itinerating work. 500 And the plan of work of the Meshed station is giving a very efficient practical training to a number of Mohammedan workers. Here as in every field it seems to us that the Pauline method of finding and preparing young men for the service of the Church needs to be more sedulously studied and fol- lowed. 4. Some Supplementary Questions. (1) Shall the Koran be taught in Mission schools? The arguments advanced in favor were the desirability of the Mohammedan students knowing their own religion, the certainty that the knowledge of the Koran and its comparison with the Bible would destroy its authorit3^ the obligation to Moslem parents incurred in accepting their children. On the other hand, it was argued that the schools are established to teach not Mohammedanism but Christianity, that the Koran could not honestly be taught , admiringly or sympathetically, that if it were so taught there was danger that to this extent the aim of the school might be frustrated and that if it was taught in a hostile spirit, or critically, opposition would inevitably result, that if the Koran were introduced there would no doubt be a demand that Mo- hammedan mollahs should be admitted to teach it, that all the truth there is in the Koran is in the Bible, and that all the strength that can be given to the teaching of religion should be thrown into the Bible teaching and into the chapel exercises, that if the children did not come to the mission schools they would certainly not be taught the Koran at home. It may be true, as almost all the converts from Mohamme- danism argue, that the best way to destroy faith in Islam is to acquaint the people with the Koran, but a still better way is to acquaint them with Christ, and this is the view that is held by all of our missionaries both in and out of the schools. (2) Both Missions employ to a very limited degree short term teachers, and the Board has been asked to assume the expense of sending out and supporting some of these teachers. The arguments for this type of worker are familiar, namely, that some young people can come to the mission field for this form of temporary service and cannot come permanently, that some of these teachers later decide as a result of their experience to devote themselves permanently to the service who would never have done so but for the chance which short term service gave them to see missionary work and to test their fitness for it, that these workers are able to give their whole time to the work of the school without language study and without other missionary responsibilities, that they bring fresh life into the school and can mingle as older and regular 501 missionaries cannot in the student activities, that they live with the boys as one of them, and lastly that it is not neces- sary to provide full missionary salary for these workers who can live in the school dormitories and often share the student food, so that the plan is advantageous to the school finances. On the other hand, it is held that this scheme of experimental missionary service substitutes weaker motives for the old motives of missionary duty which led missionaries to stick to hard missionary tasks whether they liked them or not, that the educational efficiency of such untrained missionaries is so unsatisfactory that the British educational authorities in India have come to look askance at such teachers on the mis- sionary staff, that there is no financial saving in this plan in- asmuch as the cost of travel is just as great as in the case of all unmarried missionaries and comes so much more fre- quently that any small saving in salary if such there be is more than offset, that experience has shown that the plan of getting these short term teachers specially financed by special gifts, supposedly outside the appropriations, soon breaks down and that as a result the presence of the teachers on the field sim- ply becomes the basis for pressure for the preferential in- crease of appropriations for educational work which ought to be dealt with upon their merits, and lastly, that it is better to use the inadequate funds available either for the employ- ment at much less expense of efficient native teachers or for the appointment at no greater expense of single missionaries who will learn the language and the people and will give their whole lives to the service. (3) Continued study should be given by the Missions in Persia to the type of education which our schools should sup- ply, having in mind especially the great majority of the pupils, who never finish the course and who ought to be given during the time they are in the school the sort of preparation best suited for the lives they are actually going to live and the work they are actually going to do. And the problem of industrial work and self-help needs careful study also elsewhere than in the orphanage in Kermanshah. Experience in America seems to indicate that industrial training is one of the most expen- sive forms of educational work, and our experience in Urumia many years ago, when Mr, E. T. Allen was sent to Urumia for industrial work, shows that' the problem is not less per- plexing in Persia. The Persian people have a great esteem for education. The schools of our two Missions are far and away the most effec- tive and respected schools in the country. There is no national 502 system of education, and there are only a few government schools. A sure instinct of the incompatability of Moham- medanism with modern education has inspired much eccle- siastical opposition to the schools in the past. The opposition is dying but the instinct is ever clearer and stronger. How great are our opportunity and our duty! S. S. Constantinople, Mediterranean Sea, May 8, 1922. 503 11. THE MEDICAL WORK We have at present five hospitals in our Persia Missions, namely, Tabriz, Teheran, Hamadan, Resht, and Meshed. Three of these are in Mission property, and the other two, Resht and Meshed, in rented buildings. There is money in hand for the purchase of the present rented property in Resht or for the erection of a new hospital, and there is available now a con- siderable fund for mission property at Meshed. Prior to her death Mrs. Stead had erected in Kermanshah the walls and roof of a hospital building which Dr. Packard is rearranging and planning to complete during his stay in Kermanshah pending the re-occupation of Urumia. There are twelve medi- cal missionaries connected with the two Missions, with the Urumia station three men, with Tabriz three men, with Meshed two men, with Teheran one man and one woman, with Resht and Hamadan one man each. Urumia, Tabriz, Teheran arid Hamadan have each one nurse. The total num- ber of patients in the two Missions when the work is running normally is about 25,000. I do not believe that there is any other Mission field in the world where the medical work exerts a greater influence than in Persia. Both in Persia and in India, however, we found the mis- sionaries, doctors and evangelists alike, full of questioning with regard to the efficiency of the medical work as a direct agency of conversion. It was a disappointment to all that a larger number of men and women had not been led openly to accejft Christ as a result of the influence of the dispensaries and hospitals. It may be said that a great deal of other mis- sionary work including direct evangelistic preaching has been without visible results in conversions, and also that the influ- ence exerted by the hospitals has fully justified them even without larger fruitage in conversion. This is true. But the question remains whether the medical work might not also be made more effective as a direct evangelistic agency, and it is our conviction, as it is the conviction of the Missions in Persia, that it should, and to this end the doctors in charge of the hospitals should regard themselves also as primarily and chiefly responsible for the evangelistic work in the hos- pitals, that they should seek, instead of the largest volume of operations and treatments, to make their work both in its medical and in its evangelistic efforts qualitatively as effi- cient as possible, that they take time to deal especially with 504 all in-patients in ways that should send them out not only healed in body, but possessed in mind and spirit of the Life that has brought the medical missionary to the field. To emphasize the necessity of conceiving the medical work as a direct evangelizing force is not to lose sight of or to depreciate the importance of the medical work in Persia as an instrument of friendship and good will and an embodiment in itself of the Gospel that we are seeking at the same time to express in words. The medical work has opened doors of access to individuals and to classes of people whom otherwise it would have been difficult to approach. It has made friends in all levels of society from the beggar to the Shah. It has bound mollahs and mujtahids, even in the precincts of the Shrine at Meshed, to the missionary doctors and to their cause with the bonds of closest confidence and gratitude. As we were leaving Meshed, a rapidly driven carriage overtook us to beseech Dr. Hoffman, who was pouring us on the road, to return to the house of one of the leading officials connected with the Shrine. It was a pleasure just to walk the streets of Tabriz with Dr. Vanneman and to see the veneration in " which he was held. The city gave him a grand welcome when he returned in March from his furlough. Within a week after the arrival of the new governor and upon his first indisposition he sent for Dr. Vanneman. "Every one trusts Dr. Vanneman," said the leading Per- sian physician in Tabriz. "He is the chief of the phy- sicians. The son of Fath Ali Shah was a doctor who could go to every home and see every one, women and children too. Dr. Vanneman is this man in Tabriz. There is no one who does not hold him in respect." A few years ago when there was a possibility that Dr. Packard might be transferred from Urumia to East Persia the Board received in New York a score of letters from the leading Persian officials and Moham- medan ecclesiastics of Urumia protesting in the most earnest way against Dr. Packard's removal. We called with Dr. Pack- ard on many of the leading officials in Tabriz, and I think there was not one of them who did not appeal to Dr. Packard to return to Urumia and meanwhile to come to Tabriz. One old man remarked playfully that he was thinking of exercis- ing his authority to prevent Dr. Packard from leaving the city. I have referred elsewhere in this report to the attitude of the leading mollahs in Hamadan toward Dr. Funk. It was one of them who acquired the hospital land for him, and they came in groups to visit him during his illness. All our doctors have won unique influence. The medical work has commended 505 the Missions and the Gospel which they bear to the Persian people. The East Persia Mission at its annual meeting in August, 1921, adopted a careful and complete statement of its policy with regard to its medical work which was reported to the Board in full in the minutes of the Mission. This policy recognizes the differing necessities of the various stations and does not propose any unform medical staff and equipment for them all. As we studied the subject on the field, it seemed to us, and I think this judgment represents the mind of the East Persia Mission also, that the needs of Hamadan, Ker- manshah and Resht would be met by a doctor and a nurse in each station, that there should be at least two doctors and a nurse in the Teheran hospital, and at least three doctors and a nurse in the Meshed hospital. Perhaps there should be a third doctor attached to the Teheran hospital who would be free to fill furlough vacancies in any one of the one-doctor stations. Such a staff would allow the full time of at least two doctors, one from Meshed and one and sometimes two from Teheran, for medical itineration. The West Persia Mission, also, at its last meeting considered the question of its medical work and developed a tentative program which was discussed fully at the conferences at Tabriz when Dr. Vanneman and Dr. Packard who had not been present at the Mission Meeting and who were the two senior medical missionaries of the Mission, were able to share in the discussion. The ultimate opinion, I think, in which Mr. Carter and I agreed, was that there should be two strong and well equipped hospitals, one in Tabriz and one in Urumia, that each station should have two or three medical mission- aries, one of whom in each station, or the equivalent of one, should be free for medical itineration or for some months' service annually in such centers as Zenjan, Mianeh or Ardebil. There are a great many Persian doctors in Tabriz, but there is not one of them who does major surgical work, and there is now a government hospital with a few beds and an un- satisfactory equipment, but it does no surgical work, and one of the leading Persian officials told us that it had been proposed to close the hospital and to transfer its subsidy to the Mission hospital. A hospital has been in operation also in connection with the relief work for which the Mission doctors have supplied the medical service, but this is only a temporary institution. As I have stated in the section on the reoccupation of Urumia, one of the first institutions which should be built there is the hospital, to serve even more in 506 the future than in the past as an influence of good will and unification among the conflicting elements of the population west of the Urumia Lake. The question of medical itineration is an old and disputed question in every field where medical work is carried on, but it is our conviction and that of the evangelistic mission- aries and I think, to a large extent, of the doctors in Persia that such work in Persia is practicable and necessary. All the way to Meshed we met with evidences of Dr. Cook's in- fluence not only in the Teheran hospital but on his medical itinerating trips. As soon as it was known that Dr. McDowell was with us he was surrounded with those who solicited his help. And Dr. Packard met with beseechings on every hand as we traveled together from Kasvin to Tabriz. There is a vast deal of suff'ering in Persia that will never reach station hospitals. It is true that there is much work that a surgeon cannot do in a Persian village, but it is true also that there are blind eyes that can be opened in the villages, as Dr. Cook used to open them, under the shade of some village tree, and that a great deal of suffering and misery can be alleviated or removed. And hundreds of patients who would never have gone to a station hospital otherwise will be drawn in through medical itineration and hundreds of patients who have been in station hospitals and have gone back to their villages can be followed up for the Gospel's sake by the itinerating physi- cian. The Meshed station has carried on this work in a sys- tematic way which has convinced it of the value and mis- sionary necessity of such service. The plan of the Meshed doctors, as yet only slightly carried into effect, has been to go for a month or two at a time to each of the smaller cities in their field, to remain there long enough for it to be known in the city and the surrounding villages that they are there, to do all the work that they can locally, and to send any necessary cases to the hospital in Meshed. The doctor and the evangelistic missionary going together to these cities opens a door to each of them in a more effective way and leads to the gathering together of groups of friends or inquirers which the station looks upon as the nuclei of future Christian churches. At the conference in Tabriz Mr. Pittman urged three reasons for the help of a doctor in his itinerating work. First, it would give him points of contact with the people which he could follow up on subsequent tours alone. Second, it would give many Moslems a reason for coming to talk about Christianity who were anxious to come for this purpose, but who were afraid to do so. The presence of a physician would 507 be a complete justification of their coming. In the third place it would bring healing to many who would never otherwise hear of the doctor and it would enable him to speak of Christ to people whom otherwise he would never see. Each of the two Missions has considered the question of its possible duty in the matter of medical education. There is no good medical school in Persia. There has been for some years an institution under government support in Teheran, but it is as yet inadequately developed, and, under the in- fluence of Mohammedanism, dissection and adequate labora- tory work are not yet possible. Some of the missionaries in East Persia have cherished the idea of a Mission medical school as part of the Teheran College, while the last meeting of the West Persia Mission considered the project of such a school in Tabriz. We do not believe that either Mission has now or is likely ever to have the resources with which to establish and to maintain an organized Class A medical college, but for many years to come each Mission will have to provide for the training of its own medical assistants and for the preparation of men for useful medical work among their own people. No government school in Teheran for many and many a day will meet these needs. Probably each one of the medical missionaries will have to do what the doctors in Persia have always done, namely, give a few young men a good practical training as their apprentices. And perhaps one or two of the stations with a larger equipment and staff can go a little further than this and provide a little more formal and extensive training. S. S. Constantinople, Mediterranean Sea, May 4, 1922. 508 12. THE OCCUPATION OF THE FIELD The population of Persia according to the "Statesman's Year Book" is between eight and ten millions. The section of Persia falling within the field of our Persia Missions lies north of a line following the 34th parallel of latitude from the Afghan frontier to Kashan and running southwest from Kashan to the Turkish frontier at latitude 33 degrees. The part of Persia lying south of this line is by agreement the field of the Church Missionary Society. It was further under- stood, in agreeing upon this division of the field, that whichever one of the Missions was in a position first to occupy Seistan or Kashan was to be free to do so. The population of our Presbyterian field in northern Persia is approximately 6,000,000. 1. Our primary business is the evangelization of these people. The direct evangelistic aim must be primary and final with us and controlling in every department of activity of the Mission work. I would not diminish in the least the emphasis that we are laying in Persia on the schools and hospitals as mission agencies, but we need, both absolutely and proportionally, a great increase in the amount of mission- ary time and strength given to the direct evangelistic occupa- tion of our field. The following table shows the number of our missionaries twenty-five years ago and now and the number assigned to each department of the work. The table is not exact as the departments overlap and interfuse. Urumia Tabriz Teheran Hamadan .... Kermanshah . . Resht Meshed Mosul 26 38 20 30 14 27 Since our last visit to Persia the three stations of Resht, Kermanshah, and Meshed have been occupied. I do not be- lieve that we need to establish any more such regular stations 509 Evan gelistic Educational Medical 1896 1922 1896 1922 1896 1922 9 12 4 4 2 7 6 6 4 7 3 6 4 6 6 11 3 4 3 5 5 6 3 3 0 3 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 0 0 4 4 2 1 0 3 0 for some time to come, but we need to have in each of these stations a larger number of missionaries free for direct itin- eration providing for its entire field, and it should carry out this program with the same continuity and efficiency with which our educational institutions are maintained. There are those, both missionaries and native leaders, who depreciate the value of itinerating work and who argue for the establish- ment of permanent institutional stations. Such a course means the abandonment of the ideal of any speedy evangeliza- tion of the field. If the execution of the missionary task depends upon the indefinite multiplication of institutional centers financed from the West, then the missionary task is impracticable of accomplishment. The funds for such a policy can never be supplied and such a policy will never produce a living indigenous Church filled with the spirit of propa- ganda and spontaneously spreading itself through every town and village. I believe that the right policy is to Dlant a limited number of strong training centers and from these to instigate and guide an indigenous movement, spreading, bv directed and evangelistic itineration and bv the use of all the natural means of intercommunication and business and social inter- change, through the whole framework societv. This was the method by which Christianity spread at the beginning. It is the way in which every great living religious movement has been propagated in the past. The argument which Dr. Holmes made for it in the paper which he presented at the Hamadan conference in 1895 and which was printed in full as an appendix in my report of 1896 is. I believe, a valid argu- ment. The present reaction against itinerating work is per- haps a just result of the superficial and spasmodic type of itineration which has been too common, but the wise course is not the abandonment of itineration but its adeouate prose- cution with a sufficient force and under a policy of continuity and definiteness which contemplates the actual and speedy evangelization of the whole field. We took up this question with each station of the East Persia Mission and with the whole West Persia Mission at our conference in Tabriz. At this conference Mr. Wilson presented in behalf of the Mission a model statement on "The Evangelistic Situation in West Persia," which I quote in full herewith. THE EVANGELISTIC SITUATION IN WEST PERSIA Changed Conditions. The upheaval of the war destroyed much of our established work in West Persia. Since the war a series of lesser eruptions has kept us from going in to 510 repair the ruin. Tragedy has been all about us until we have been forced to guard constantly lest we become enured to the appeal of human suffering. Among the consequences of the awful years since 1914 one result is of vital importance for our work. The old, hard ground that resisted all our efforts has been broken. Throughout the whole of our field the war has plowed deep and the ground lies fallow waiting for the seed, while other seed planted patiently through years is springing up to harvest. Prejudices have been swept away by suffering and men with the loss of their worldly goods have been forced to a spiritual issue. As Zwemer has said, Persia is the keystone of the great Moslem arch ; we see before our eyes that the keystone is cracking. Our duty to Christ and His cause requires that we take advantage of the present situation with all the mission force possible and with renewed zeal and consecration. To Be Ready for Urumia. The Urumia section of our field has remained closed for a longer period than even the most pessimistic would have predicted. The Assyrian people have sighed beside the waters of Babylon for their lost homes and they have spent years in the desert being taught of God. The Moslems of the Urumia plain have been taught a severe lesson too; and unless we of this mission have ears that hear not we have learned many things. The Urumia portion of our territory will be open again to our mission and we must have a mobile force in Azerbaijan ready for that moment. Whether the section west of the lake is to be part of an autonomous Kurdistan or whether it is to remain a part of Persia we can not say. But all the parties concerned are tired of the struggle and peace must soon supersede these times of strife. Then our mission will be able to occupy the territory which- ever political power may be in control. Salmas and Khoij. The Plains of Salmas and Khoy are in the same plight as the Urumia district at present and closed to our work temporarily, but the ruin there must be rebuilt as soon as the opportunity offers. There will be a native Protestant Church too, that will reoccupy when the people return to their homes as many of the Salmas and Khoy people have found Christ during their stay as refugees in Tabriz. Evangelistic Divisions of Our Field. The other sections of our field are open to our work and wherever we have been able to answer the challenge we have met with a responsive- ness that to us seems to make our present duty plain. For the purpose of evangelism the open portion of the field may be divided into seven sections ; the regions of Zenjan, Maragha, 511 Garadagh, Mianeh, Marand, the villages near Tabriz, and the City itself. A Mobile Force for Zenjan and Maragha. In order to properly reach our field with the Gospel Zenjan and Maragha should be occupied at once with a mobile force. The time has come when we can make the direct evangelistic approach to the people of our field. The effort should be then to found churches in these cities and not stations of our mission. In- stitutional work should be left almost entirely to Tabriz and Urumia. No David who may be sent to Zenjan or to Maragha should be encumbered with the Saul's armor of an institu- tion. When churches have been founded that will stand upon their own resources and propagate the Gospel in their dis- tricts, the mission force should be ready to leave. To this end no property, or at least no institutional property, should be bought in these cities at least for the present, but the effort should be toward straight preaching with medical evangelism stressed in Zenjan and the present school made a more direct evangelistic agency in Maragha. The touring of the many villages in the vicinity will take up a large part of the time in the case of both these centers. The Challenge of Zenjan. In the past our visits to the Zenjan field for evangelistic work have been only a little more frequent than Board Secretary visits to West Persia, yet who can see the large villages that dot the plains on every side of Zenjan without feeling the burden of this great un- reached field. Into some of these villages the least ray of Gospel light has never filtered ; in others they recall the one or two or two times in their lives when a preacher has come to visit them. The Indian physician who was stationed for a time in Zenjan last year was so rushed with outside calls that he was almost forced to neglect the soldiers under his care. Strategic Position of Maragha. Maragha should be the center for a great village work. At present it also occupies the strategic position of the most direct approach to Kur- distan. It should be occupied by a force which would not settle there permanently but which would be ready to move at the call of the mission. Several Protestant Christians who live in Maragha would form the nucleus for a church. Mianeh and Marand Districts Toured from Tabriz. The Mianeh and Marand districts should be regularly and sys- tematically toured from Tabriz. In Marand two Moslem converts are working with their friends and neighbors, and we are interested to see what will develop from their work 512 if they are left alone except for the visits of missionaries and native evangelists when on tours in that region. In Julfa, w^hich falls within Marand district, two hundred and eighty- eight Armenians have confessed Christ and expressed their desire to join the Evangelical church. Repeated petitions for a school and pastor are coming also from a village near Sophian where something like two hundred people have been patriated by the Relief Committee. They also report that many Moslems attend their religious services and evince a great interest in the Gospel message. Mass Movement in Garadagh. In the Garadagh region there are more than four hundred villages, less than thirty of which are Armenian. About two thousand of the Arme- nians heard the Gospel in Tabriz as refugees, and since they have returned to their villages there has been something of a mass movement toward Evangelical Christianity. Whole villages have expressed their desire to join the Protestant Church and have said they would bury their own dead and refuse to receive the ministrations of Gregorian priests until we could send them preachers and spiritual leaders. At least one evangelist, an ordained man if possible, must be stationed permanently in the Garadagh region and the force should be much larger. In addition missionaries should tour the district thoroughly and with regularity. The little schools in Garadagh make ideal evangelistic centers. Owe Hundred Villages near Tabriz. Any way we turn from Tabriz whole groups of villages await our coming with the Gospel. There are more than one hundred villages within a radius of twenty miles and these villages constitute a splendid field in themselves. The small amount of touring that has been done in the environs of the city has been most encour- aging and many openings have been made as well as actual conversions. The members of the theological class could help greatly in this field. They should go out in Gospel teams of two or three with a missionary, especially during the sum- mer vacation period. Tabriz. — In the last place there is the city of Tabriz with a population estimated at about a (}uarter of a million. This has been known in times past as one of the most fanatical cities of Persia and yet today we can preach, and pray, and sell copies of the Scripture in every district of the city, and as long as we are tactful we encounter very little opposition. We must so divide our work that we will reach the great out- lying districts 'of the city where thousands have never heard the story of Salvation. 513 1" — liuiia and Persia Tabriz Church. The church is becoming an increasing center of evangehsm as i'S best shown by the results of the series of evangelistic services last month when one hundred and sixteen persons confessed Christ and applied for member- ship in the Protestant Church. Of these sixty-eight were Armenians, forty-one Assyrians, five Moslems, and ttvo Jews. We should have an evangelistic reading room for Moslems and one or two other rooms where men could come for con- versations on spiritual subjects. Meetings in homes through- out the city have been and will be one of our most fruitful methods of evangelistic effort in Tabriz. There is a religious revival slowly but surely coming upon this city and to a greater or less degree all over our field. Other religions are busy and I am sure we would be both surprised and shocked if we knew just what per cent of the people of our field had turned to Bahaism, though 'we must remember that all who do not follow the outward forms of Islam are called Bahais in many instances. The unorthodox sects are constantly draw- ing out of Shiah Islam and new sects are springing up con- tinually. Men are everywhere thinking deeply about religious things and this constitutes our great opportunity and will be our lasting regret if we are not able to take advantage of the situation now. Persecution a Lessening Factor in Our Work. There are still great obstacles to be overcome in the conversion of Mo- hammedans and many problems to be solved before there will be a strong national church of Moslem converts in Persia; but the old opposition and persecution is fast diminishing artd ceases to be the largest item with which we must reckon. The actions of nominal Christians, ignorance, and the lack of a sense of sin I would consider greater hindrances to our work today than persecution of our converts. Evangelism Among Refugees. We have had great popula- tions at our very doors as refugees the past few years and there are still probably as manv as fifteen thousand here if we count both Christians and Moslems. It would have taken generations to reach them in their homes and scattered vil- lages. While in Tabriz they have been peculiarly susceptible to the Gospel message. Jarred out of their nests of com- placency and satisfaction, as well as their homes, they have come ready to hear the Word of Life and have returned to their homes in many cases to send Macedonian calls for more of the Gospel. Systematic Work to Cover Whole Field, and Methods With Converts. There are two large questions before us at present. 514 The first is, How to cover our field systematically and thor- oughly; and the second is, How to handle the large numbers who are turning to Christ. In answer to the first we must have the proper force in strictly evangelistic work and not connected with any institution. As a minimum there should be two men for the city, one to spend much of his time in touring nearby villages; two men for touring and a touring doctor. Edwin Wright, because of his knowledge of both Armenian and Turkish is needed here at once and the other men should be supplied from forces on the field or appointed to this special work just as soon as possible. With the return of Miss Lamme and Mrs. Jessup, the evangelistic work for women should be handled for the present. In the second place, the Moslem converts should be organized in a separate branch of our church since they have begun to feel their own entity and request such an action. If a separate church of Persians comes as a natural development the mission should not stand in the way but should give every assistance that will make it self-propagating and self-supporting. The Question of Group Movements to the Church. The other part of the second question is how best to handle the people of Julfa and Garadagh and groups of refugees in Tabriz who have applied in such large numbers for membership in the Protestant Church. In each of the groups there are sev- eral men of more than the ordinary ability who are recognized as leaders. Would it not be the best method to take these leaders on a term of probation and train them intensively at the same time watching for the signs of their conversion and new life? When they prove ready they should be taken in as the first members of the Evangelical church in their group and with proper education and preaching they should be the nucleus for a church. It is probably true that many of these people came first within the influence of the Gospel hoping to receive loaves and fishes, people came to Christ in the same spirit, and whatever their first motives they offer a stirring challenge and the most open sort of a field for the Gospel. We can not neglect them and let them sink back into a greater indifference than that of the old days when they resisted every effort to give them the Gospel of Salvation. I stood beside a Garadagh mother with the last of her three children dead at our feet and asked where she turned for comfort in that dark hour. She replied, "I have no comfort." When I asked if she were not a Christian, her reply was in the affirmative, but she did not know who Christ was and she did not know how to pray. She has since that time found the greatest Com- 515 fort in the world and thousands like her are coming to our services in Garadagh and other regions like hungry sheep going out to pasture. Christ commands us, "Feed my sheep." Our Opportunity and Duty. This is our field. God has given it to us and we thank Him for it. We thank Him for the opportunities that are pressing in upon us. All the doors are open. From the standpoint of strategic value no field is more important. There is a responsiveness both among nominal Christians and Moslems never known before. Our duty to God and His Son, Jesus Christ, compels us to go in now and possess the land. Respectfully submitted, J. Christy Wilson. At this same conference in Tabriz Mr. Pittman presented the following definite suggestions regarding the direct evan- gelistic work in the Tabriz field: "l. CITY OF TABRIZ "1. Kasha A. Moorhatch should be continued as City Evangelist among all native races with special emphasis on work among Moslems. "2. One missionary should give all his time to city evan- gelization and have one native evangelist under his control. "II. OUTFIELD "1. There should be extensive systematic itineration touching every part of the field now open. For purposes of itineration the field may be divided into four parts as follows: "(1) Gyuna, Salmas, Somai, Khoi, Maku. "(2) Maragha, Mianduab, Sain Kala. "(3) Mianeh, Zenjan, Khalkhal, Ardabil, Sarob, Hashda- rood. "(4) Maraud, Julfa, Garadagh, Moghan. "2. For beginning this work two evangelistic missionaries should be free to give their whole time to itineration, each one taking two of the above four divisions as his field for systematic itineration and remaining for longer periods in the larger towns and especially spending the winter months in some large central town. As soon as a third man is available, the question of locating one of the three in a new center for reaching the surrounding districts should be con- sidered. "3. Each itinerating missionary should have one experi- enced native evangelist and one in training to accompany him. "4. As rapidly as possible native teams of two, one of whom at least should be experienced in itineration, should be 516 secured and sent out to co-operate with the itinerating mis- sionary in his section of the field. "5. As itineration must be systematic and regular in order to be effective, it is important that those engaged in this work should be free from such institutional and routine work as will interfere with itineration. "6. It is desirable that new centers for the itineration of a particular district be opened by native evangelists rather than by missionaries, that the work may be indigenous from the beginning. "7. We should flood the province with the best apologetic tracts in Persian, Turkish and Armenian. "8. We should urge the British and Foreign Bible Society to send out itinerating colporteurs. "9. The duty of self propagation should be urged upon the native church as its foremost aim. And Bible training should be encouraged and provided not only for the prepara- tion of paid workers but with special emphasis on volunteer work by all church members. "10. Some reasons for emphasizing extensive itineration at this time are: (1) Relief work in Maragha, Ardabil, Ma- rand, Ahar and other Moslem cities has advertised Christianity among Moslems, giving opportunity for wider hearing of the Gospel message than would otherwise have been possible; (2) The unsettled political conditions make itineration in some parts of our field the most • desirable form of work at the present time; (3) We believe that a greater faith in the direct proclamation of our Gospel, thus honoring God's Word, would be rewarded by a greater blessing on our work." The West Persia Mission meeting voted to occupy Maragha and Zen j an as sub-stations and to locate Mrs. Shedd and Mr. and Mrs. Dillener at Maragha and, in case Urumia should remain closed, Mr. and Mrs. Muller and Dr. and Mrs. Ellis at Zenjan. We are unconvinced that the policy of locating one or two missionaries at a sub-station in Persia will effect as wide an evangelization of the territory as might be accom- plished by these same missionaries working from a central station. In the North India and Punjab Missions there are many stations with only one or two families from which a wide and continuous itinerating work is carried on, but in Persia the location of single families in Kasvin and Doulata- bad has not had this result, but in each case has tied the resi- dent missionary to local work. There is always the risk in such cases that a small local church may be built up largely composed of household servants and other attaches of the 517 missionary family, so dependent in character, that with the removal of the missionary the church disappears. We stated the case of the small sub-station, pro and con, as fully as we could to the Mission advising it to follow its own judgment, however, with the resolute purpose to modify its plan if it should discover that the tentative location of the missionaries proposed did not actually result in a larger volume of itinera- tion and the wider evangelization of the field. The staff which the mission conference in Tabriz at the time of our visit proposed for the Urumia station, namely, four ordained men for evangelistic and educational work, and two doctors and four single women, one a nurse and the other three for evangelistic and educational work, ought to make possible the thorough cultivation of the Urumia station field. With the Mountain Field attached to the Mosul station, the field left to Urumia is not, in comparison with the other Persia stations, extensive either in area or in population. Such a staff will furnish Urumia a body of workers very dis- proportionate for example to the staff in Meshed. There are special reasons springing from the history and character of the Urumia work which led us to acquiesce in the Mission's judgment, but unless all the stations in Persia can be ade- quately reenforced it is doubtful if so large a staff should be maintained permanently in Urumia. 2. Tn a statement which he presented at our conferences in Teheran Dr. Schuler estimated that the population in the C. M. S. territory in Persia was 4,900,000 and in the territory of our Missions 5,245,000 in the East Persia field and 2,700,000 in the West Persia field. The West Persia responsibility em- braced, he stated, 2,500,000 in Azerbaijan and 200,000 in western Gilan. Of the East Persia population he estimated that the Resht station field included the remainder of the population of Gilan, approximately 800,000, and the western section of Mazandaran with a total population of 1,000,000. The center and east of Mazandaran and the whole of Astrabad and most of the great province of Irak Ajmi fell to the respon- sibility of Teheran. In the Teheran field there were ten cities of over 10,000 population each, with a total population of 600,000 of whom 400,000 were in Teheran. All of these figures are disputed by some as excessive, and there are no trust- worthy census facts to rely upon. The total number of villages in the Teheran field was unknown, but there were eight itin- erating circuits which the Mission had planned, and in one of these alone, to the southeast of Teheran, there were 600 vil- lages of which not over forty had been reached. We were 518 not able to visit Mazandaran and Astrabad, but we crossed the whole Teheran field once north and south in going from Hamadan to Kasvin and from Kasvin to Resht and twice east and west from Kasvin on the west to Sharoud on the east, and we spent a fortnight in Kasvin delayed by snow storms and had opportunity there as we had also in cities like Sem- nan, Damghan and Sharoud and in towns like Kishlak, Deh- namak, Lasgird and Sultanieh and in many villages to see how great is the unreached field. I am not sure that it would not be well some day to have temporary sub-stations and perhaps sometime full stations in centers like Kasvin, Sharoud, Astrabad, or Barfrush, but I am very sure that we ought first to have in connection with the Teheran station a sufficient force to enable the Mission to visit each one of these more important centers for at least a month's stay in each once a year. 3. With an adequate itinerating force the Hamadan and Kermanshah stations with the sub-station of Douiatabad ought to be able to cover the portion of the East Persia field between the Aveh Pass and the western border of Persia. This field includes southern Kurdistan, more accessible from Hamadan and Kermanshah than from any other points except Senneh and also the northern half of the country of the Lurs and Bakhtiaris. The Kurds, the Lurs and the Bakhtiaris are all strong semi-nomadic tribes with which the Mission has established friendly relations and who are in dire need of all the help that the Gospel, with its ministries of healing and enlightenment, can bring to them. Of this Kurdish work I shall speak separately. Of the Hamadan field Mr. Zoeckler wrote in a paper prepared for our visit : "The Hamadan field naturally divides itself into four main divisions each having a fairly centrally located city; the Kur- distan section with Senneh as its center, Hamadan with the city of Hamadan as its center, Araq with Sultanabad as its center and Malayir with Douiatabad as its center. The means of communication, so far as our work is concerned, have not been materially changed or improved in recent years. We have to deal with a mixed population speaking no less than six languages two of which have several dialects, and though it is frequently possible to reach a large percentage of the men through the medium of the Persian language the women know only the language of the village in which they live. For our present condition, however, we can practically disregard two of these languages, Armenian and Syriac. Persian, Turkish, Kurdish and Lurish, the latter two with their dialects we will 519 be called upon to employ in reaching the entire field, for though there is a considerable colony of Armenians in the Kamareh district and in the neighborhood of Sultanabad and colonies of Jews in all the important centers of the field, to both of which peoples we owe consideration, our principal problem in the outside field is that of reaching the Moslem population. Aside from its more than one thousand villages the Malayir division alone includes the cities of Doulatabad, Tuserkan, Nehavend, Burujird and Khoramabad and all of the Pish-Kuh Luristan. This group of villages is not far from the Lurish border and its people are in constant contact with the people of Luristan. Close to this group of villages are a number of half Lurish villages which will form even a closer link with Luristan. Reaching the field, whether in the farther advanced stage when we have work throughout large sections of the field, or whether in the immediate future when we may have only a comparatively small amount of village work under way, can be done only by adequate itineration on the part of the missionary force." The Hamadan plain itself is a rich and appealing field. Coming down from the Assadabad Pass one counts scores of large villages. In not one of these at present is there a per- manent Christian group. One man might well put in all of his time for five years carrying out a consecutive plan for the evangelization of this one plain. The large number of Assyrian Christians now scattered through these villages afford at once a great number of new and friendly points of contact. 4. The Resht field is unlike any other field in the Mission. It lies wholly on the southern shore of the Caspian between the sea and mountains. It is not a village field at all. With the exception of Resht and a few towns like Lehijan, which has a population of 7,000, the people live in scattered home- steads. 300,000 live within forty miles of Resht. A plan of village itineration, Dr. Frame thinks, is impossible. It must be replaced by work in Resht and at a few other points which will be available as disseminating centers, and by some plan of systematic visitation of the markets which are held regularly at appointed places and where all the people of the countryside come together. 5. The province of Khorasan in northeastern Persia cor- responds to the province of Azerbaijan in northwestern Persia. The population of Khorasan is slightly less, but its area is considerably greater. Azerbaijan has the two strong stations of Tabriz and Urumia while the evangelization of 520 Khorasan falls to Meshed alone. No new station is asked for at the present time, but Meshed should be re-enforced. It is asking for three more ordained men for evangelistic itineration, one ordained man for educational work, and at least one additional doctor for medical itineration. There are many centers which the station wishes to be able to visit, for periods of from one to two months each, annually, such as Nishapur, Subsavar, Bujnurd, Kuchan, Turbat, Tun, Birjand, and Seistan, (Nasirabad). Birjand and Nasirabad lie south of the line of division between our field and that of the C. M. S., but a wide desert separates them from the C. M. S. sta- tions, and the C. M. S. missionaries have rejoiced to have our Meshed force cover this field. Meshed is already reaching many people from Afghanistan and Turkestan who come to Meshed on errands of trade or religion, and many of whom come into the Meshed hospital. To go through the hospital and read the home cities of the different patients inscribed on the chart at the head of each bed is to gain an idea of the far-reaching influence which such an institution exerts. Herat in Afghanistan and Merv in Turkestan are less than half as far from Meshed as Meshed is from Teheran. The station ought to be staffed strongly enough to enable it to send out prospectors into these nearby fields. They are already, or if not they will soon become, accessible to missionary work, and Meshed is the natural center from which the work which must be established in these fields should be projected. We have long waited for the opening of Afghanistan. It was in large part with a view to entering that field when the time should be ripe that the Meshed station was established. Already there are many signs of the passing of the old day of rigid seclusion. We were in India just after the successful issue of the negotiations for a new treaty between India and Afghanistan and had a long talk inFarrukhabad with a nephew of two of the most prominent Afghan officials on the treaty commission who had publicly accepted Christ and was hoping some day to return to Afghanistan to preach Him. Members of the Afghan ruling family have recently been abroad an- nouncing a new policy of hospitality to foreigners on the part of their country. In Meshed, as I have reported elsewhere, we met Professor Foucher of the Sorbonne, who was on his way, with the approval of the Afghan Government, to make archaeological investigations in northern Afghanistan. The country is at last sending its young men abroad for education also, and the history of Japan and of Persia shows what is sure to happen when the young men of the nation are sub- 521 jected to the expansive and liberalizing influence of study in the West. In a statement on "Modern Persian and Afghan Thinking" which he gave me in Meshed, Mr. Donaldson re- ports the ceremony of the sending out of this first deputation of foreign students : "In a little weekly magazine published in the Persian lan- guage in Kabul, called the Iman-ul-Afghan, dated the 8th of November, 1921, I have at hand a full report of an inter- esting function before -His Highness Amanullah Khan, the Amir of Afghanistan. A group of young men were being sent at government expense to study in Europe and America, and this occasion was an official send-off. A few quotations from some of the speeches that were made are suggestive of changes that have been taking place in the public sentiment of Afghanistan. "First, the Minister for Foreign Affairs addressed the Amir and the assembled company. *In the first place,' he said, *as one of the fathers of the boys who are going away, I wish to emphasize that we are to remember that these young men are leaving their native country as a patriotic and as a religious duty. Although the Amir began his reign with a religious war (iahad) that has improved the position of Afghanistan, nevertheless he is now undertaking a more important religious war — against folly and ignorance, in that these our own dear- est sons are being sent abroad to study science and philosophy. And this is quite in accord with our religion, for we should take pains to know the science and philosophy even of the lost peoples. It is not incumbent upon us on this occasion to weep at the departure of these our boys, but to sing and be happy, for there is every probability that their going will result in the advancement of our country. We who are fathers are not able, in fact, to express our gratitude, but can only say to the Amir, our sovereign, that we thank him, and shout sincerely, "Long live the Amir." ' "The Amir himself then arose and replied as follows: 'I am hoping for the good name of these young men, both those chosen from the people and those of the royal family. And in regard to this service on my part, if fortune should favor, and when you return I should be living, that will be good, and if I should be dead, you can come to my tomb and enumerate your accomplishments, one by one, and after that I will rest in my grave in peace. So now I commit you unto God. Go in peace, and may you return.' "There were other addresses, notably a rather long one by one of the Afghan schoolmasters, but a most significant 522 feature followed, namely, the presentation of money contribu- tions, on the part of fathers who were not sending sons, to help pay the cost of sending this group of young men to study." This area of the very heart of Asia was in the mind of the Board in the beginning of its history. In the earliest reports of the Board in 1835 and 1836 it declared its purpose to press forward into Afghanistan and even Bokhara and Eastern Persia. The report of 1835 states with regard to the missionary occupation of the Punjab : "Apart from the fact that the opening of the Indus and its tributaries to an active commerce by steam communication, now in contemplation, and the concentration of a considerable trade from Thibet and Tartary, through the defiles of the mountains, carrying back into these benighted regions the arts and religious light of Christian nations, it is to be observed, that the political ascend- ency of the powerful chief of the Sikh nation, already makes the Punjab the most safe and convenient entrance into Cabul, Bokhara, and Eastern Persia. In these countries, it is true, the Moslem faith, in a milder form than in Western Asia, has long prevailed; but it is believed that Christianity would even now be tolerated, as Hinduism is ; and Burns states that while traveling in these unfrequented countries, he gathered from the conversation of the Mohammedans of Cabul and Persia among themselves, that there existed among them a prediction that Christianity was speedily to overturn the entire structure of their faith. The Scriptures have been translated into the Mongolian language — a language spoken by many tribes, from the shores of the Baikal to the borders of Thibet, and from the Caspian to the gates of Pekin, including millions in the Chinese empire ; and if our Society should eventually establish a mission at Selinga, Kiatka, or some other spot under the protection of a Christian power, in Asiatic Russia, and an- other on the borders of China or Tartary, on the great thor- oughfare from Pekin to Tobolsk and St. Petersburg, these two remote positions would stand towards each other, and the great plateau of Central Asia, in the most interesting and powerful relation." The report of 1836 speaks of the station at Ludhiana which had been organized and to which new missionaries were going: "At Ludhiana there are residing at present, under the protection of the British Government, two exiled kings from Afghanistan, who have their , followers with them to the number of 2,000 or upward. There are also more than 3,500 Kashmirians residing at that station, and many at other towns in Upper India, who were driven from their 528 native valley by famine and by the oppression of their rulers. They are employed in manufacturing the fine fabrics for which their country is so celebrated, and they retain the lan- guage and the usages of the tribe of the Hindu family to M^hich they belong. Owing to the residence of these people at the principal missionary station, everj^ opportunity is afforded of learning the language of those countries, and among them making known the way of forgiveness of sins through the risen Saviour. The opening of Divine Providence, in thus bringing such large portions of two nations who have never heard of Christ to the very door of missionary opera- tions, was too plain to be neglected. One of the brethren of the next reinforcement will be appointed a missionary to Kashmir, and another of them to Afghanistan. Until they have learned the respective languages, these brethren will reside at Ludhiana, and in every way endeavor to promote the best interests of those to whom they are sent." Surely before a century is completed we ought to have begun to fulfill these great purposes of the founders and to have laid the foundations of a Mission in Khorasan, Afghan- istan, Turkestan, and Bokhara which would have mission stations in Meshed, Herat, Balkh, Bokhara, Samarkand, and Merv, and in due time in Khiva, Tashkend and Khokand. Those men are to be envied to whom the privilege of pioneer- ing such a mission can be given. 6. The Kurdish Field. For more than half a century our Urumia missionaries, through the Mountain Work in Turkey and the hospital in Urumia have sustained a closer relation- ship to the Kurdish people than perhaps any other mission- aries. The story of these relations is told in part in the lives of Dr. Grant and Mr, Rhea and more fully in the Biography of Dr. Cochran. They have been a wild and unbroken people, however, and there has never been any adequate effort made to reach them. The Kurds were estimated to number before the war about 3,000,000 of whom 600,000 lived in Persia and the remainder in Turkey. Dr. Packard, who knows the Kurdish problem as well as any man and whose medical work has brought him the friendship of many of the leading Kurdish chiefs, made a comprehensive and illuminating statement at our confer- ences at Tabriz. One-third of the Kurds, it is estimated, were wiped out by the war. They are believed to be the descendants of the Karduchi of Xenophon's Anabasis, and they live in a territory circumscribed by the cities of Urumia, Hamadan, and Kermanshah in Persia and Mosul, Mardin, Diarbekr, 524 Harput, Bitlis, and Van in Turkey. There are four branches of the Kurds speaking various dialects: (1) the Hakkiari tribes who are the largest branch and who speak Kirmanji; (2) a smaller section who speak Mukri. Most of the Persian Kurds with their center around Soujbulak speak this lan- guage. The Mukri Kurdish is much more nearly related to the Persian language than is the Kirmanji. (3) The Jaff Kurds inhabit the upper stretches of Mesopotamia, the water shed between Persia and Turkey, extending from the Urumia region to Jezireh. The Jaff Kurdish is nearest to the Kurdish original and the Jaff Kurds are the most likely descendants of the folk who gave Xenophon so much trouble. (4) The Shekoik Kurds between the Salmas plain and Van are of the Hakkiari Kurds, the great central body. Ismail Agha or Simko who now controls Urumia is the head of the Abdouy branch of the Shekoik Kurds. The contact of our mission with the Kurds began in Dr. Grant's time, eighty years ago. The missionaries itinerating in the mountains have constantly been in contact with the Kurds and have met both with friendship and with repeated robbery at their hands. Kurdish patients have come from all over Kurdistan, as far as Bitlis and Mosul, to the Urumia hospital. No men have had more influence among them than Dr. Cochran and Dr. Packard. Perhaps the way had not been opened hitherto for a direct and effective attempt to reach the Kurds, but it may be, on the other hand, that such an effort made years ago might have done something to divert the sufferings that have come through the Kurds both on the Assyrian and the Armenian people and on the Missions in Turkey and in Persia and on the Kurds themselves. In any event, it is clearly our duty now to project a more adequate missionary effort among these virile, impulsive, and sturdy people. The small mission to the Kurds in Soujbulak, maintained by some of the Lutheran congregations in the United States through the Lutheran Orient Mission Society, incorporated in Minnesota in 1913, represents a devoted effort to reach one section of this large Kurdish field. Our West Persia Mission began work in Soujbulak forty years ago by sending there Mirza Mesrof Khan, who is now living in Tabriz, one of the trusted leaders in the church there, and filling an honored place under the Persian Government in the tax and revenue department. Soujbulak was constantly visited also in mis- sionary tours. When in 1905 the Rev. L. 0. Fossum came as an independent Lutheran missionary to Urumia, the Mis- 525 sion urged him to settle instead in Soujbulak and take up work for the Kurds. He was later reinforced, but his death from fever and the disturbance of the war and the murder in October, 1921, of Mr. Bachimont by the Kurds under Simko has broken up the Mission for the present, and the earnest women who have been left are working efficiently and happily with our own Mission in Tabriz. The Lutheran churches supporting the Mission have met these heavy trials with a courageous spirit and have issued an appeal which has its wholesome lesson for all of us who have been called, as our Lutheran friends have been, and who may be called again, to face death and disaster at the hands of those whom we have come to help. I venture to quote two paragraphs from this truly Christian appeal: "Let us pause for a moment and look back over history's pages that we may not judge ourselves in that we pass judg- ment on others. Were not the British Christians mercilessly driven from their abodes, and their churches and homes de- stroyed by the Saxons in the 5th century? Did not King Radbod of Friesland, intoxicated by successes of war in 716, devastate all the fruits of Willibrord's labors in that country? Did not Boniface, the papal ambassador and missionary to Friesland, attired as a priest robed for festivity, die at the hands of a mob from among the same people 39 years later? Did not the Prussians in 977 treacherously murder the noble missionary, Adalbert? The sad news that the heathen at Birks, Sweden, had killed or imprisoned all the Christians, did not discourage Ansgar, the Apostle of the North. And did not the first Christian king of Norway, King Haakon the Good, burn with anger and threaten revenge when the Treniers at Mere had destroyed the churches and killed the pastors in about 950? These are our ancestors. The Eng- lish, Germans, Scandinavians of today would not have been what they are were it not for the determination of the mis- sionaries who halted at no obstacles. An incident from Norse history occurs to my mind. King Haakon the Good, engaged in battle, is lost sight of by his comrades, and Giviad Skrnia calls out: 'Where is the Norseman's king? Has he fled, or where is the golden helmet?' To this the king, at the front of the battle line, answers: 'Continue steadily towards our goal, and you will find the king of the Norsemen.' The pioneer missionary to the Moslems, Raymond Lull, the noble Major- can, courted martyrdom and gave his life at Borgia, Africa, in 1314. May his words never be forgotten by the pioneer Ijutheran Society working among the Kurds : 'Let Christians 526 consumed with burning love for the cause of faith only con- sider that since nothing has power to withstand truth, they can by God's help and His might bring infidels back to the faith, so that the precious name of Jesus, which in most regions is still unknown to most men,' may be proclaimed and adored.' Sorrow had befallen us, but can we be dismayed? "Looking for a man to send as missionary to Denmark, Lewis the Pious asked : 'Where will we find a man who loves God so dearly that he will accept the dangerous task for Christ's sake?' Well may we ask the same question. God grant that an 'Answer' may come to us, as 'The Apostle of the North' came to Lewis the Pious." It is in this spirit that we should go forward with our own large responsibility towards the Kurds. We ought to use every present opportunity in our station work to reach them. The Resht station might well put forth special effort to reach the large numbers of Kurds who come down to Resht in the fall from Kurdistan and who return in the spring. We met hun- dreds of them upon the road, men, women and children trudg- ing back to their mountain homes in the first flush of the springtime with heavy bags of rice upon their backs. The Kurdish population is one of the chief groups to be reached in the Resht area, and, as they are migrants, whatever they learn in Resht will be scattered in a hundred villages from Ardabil to Bijar. Dr. Packard says that many of tne Kurds in the Kermanshah region are not three hundred years re- moved from Christianity and that they are altogether ready to come under Christian influence. Some of the Kurdish chiefs belong to the sect of the Ali Illahees and are alleged to have appealed to the British consul in Kermanshah for protection in case they should come back to Christian allegiance. Miss Mary Jewett worked a great deal among these Ali Illahee people. She wrote of them: "They call themselves 'The People of Lies.' Hiding their light under a bushel, it has gone out. All lie and deceive, swear and revile. Many of them are wild men — highway men and robbers. Chameleon- like, they adopt the manners and customs of the people among whom they dwell, 'accommodating themselves to their sur- roundings, providing they are not able to overcome them.' . . . Their religion is a strange combination of truth and falsehood, mostly falsehood. They do not accept the Koran or Mohammed. They say they have a sacred book of their own, but it is too sacred for profane eyes. They hold to the traditions of their ancestors and these traditions handed down from father to son, they call a 'white book,' as they say, 'writ- 527 ten on our hearts.' There is one Benyamen (Benjamin) for whom they have a profound reverence, and whom they call a prophet. He lived a long time ago in a town called Khora- man and was buried in Kerind, where there is a shrine over his grave, which they consider sacred. The history of this man is shrouded in mystery. He certainly was a man of in- fluence. A sign of their nationality which he imposed upon them is kept universally, viz., that no man of them shall ever trim the mustache, not even a hair of it, and you may know them everywhere by their long untrimmed mustaches. They tell a story of a man who trimmed his mustache and was vis- ited with dire calamities as a punishment. "They believe in the transmigration of souls. After a man dies his soul wanders about for a thousand and one years, when it again enters a human body and lives again. If he was a wicked man, he may be punished by having to enter into the body of an animal. There is a story of two brothers who quarreled. One drove the other away and he never heard of him again. One night, an old, sick donkey came and laid down at his gate and died. He thought it was his brother come home to die. So he had the dead donkey buried with all honor, and this atoned for the wrong he had done his brother. "It is given to some who live a very devout and holy life to become God Himself. So God appears at different times, in different forms, in different human beings. Thus Moses, Gabriel, Jesus Christ, Ali, Benjamin, Henry Martyn, David Livingstone and others were one and the same God, manifested in the flesh. Many of them are Pantheists. Some worship Satan. Some worship fire. ... As the Ali Allahees do not keep the Moslem fast, or make the Moslem prayers, they are often called upon to practice deceit when thrown among Mos- lems. They are very hospitable and not forgetful to entertain strangers. They receive the missionary with apparent love and kindness. Some call themselves Christians. Some ac- knowledge their sins and long for a better life." ("Twenty- five Years in Persia," pp. 16-18.) In Urumia and Kermanshah and Mosul we have three sta- tions surrounding the Kurdish field and in each of these sta- tions there should be at least one missionary who knows Kurdish and whose chief work is Kurdish evangelization. Sen- neh also is directly among the Kurds. The Urumia hospital, when it is reopened will furnish one wide door of approach. We have another in the Kurdish orphanage in Kermanshah, and Kasha Keena's letter which I have quoted in the section 528 of this report on the reoccupation of Urumia speaks of the new opportunity in the Mountains to bear a message of love and reconciliation to those at whose hands the Christian people of the Mountains have suffered for many centuries. There are those, of course, who say of the Kurds what used to be said of the American Indians, "There is no good Kurd, but a dead Kurd." I spoke of this view to a group of the Urumia Mohammedans in Tabriz and asked them whether they did not think that the sufferings of the Mohammedans and Christians in Urumia at the hands of the Kurds might have been prevented if years ago the Kurds had been reached by good will and kindness. After Simko was dead they thought such a policy might be wise, and I told them of what had been done for the American Indian and of the duty which our Mission feels so clearly to reconcile Kurd and Moham- medan and Christian, where alone they can be reconciled, in the faith and service of Christ. And even in such characters as Simko, with all their wildness, there are great elements of good which ought to be subdued to the fearless loyalty of the Saviour. 7. The Native Church and the Occupation of the Field. The native churches in Tabriz and Teheran have made great progress since I visited them twenty-five years ago. They seemed to us to be really living forces. The three congrega- tions in Tabriz had each its own minister, the Armenian con- gregation Baron Arsen Khachigian, the Assyrian congrega- tion Kasha Babilla Shimmon, and the Turkish speaking con- gregation Kasha Moorhatch. These are unusually strong men, and the Armenian and the Syrian congregations were well on the wa}^ towards self-support. The Teheran church has developed greatly under the responsibilities which have been left to it by the Mission, and it is to be hoped that it may soon have either one duly installed native pastor or two, one for the Armenian and the other for the Persian congregation, and that in the case of all these organizations both in Tabriz and in Teheran, the real leadership and obligation can be laid upon native shoulders. In Hamadan the missionaries felt that the churches had made very little progress since twenty-five years ago. Both in finances and in church activity their feelings towards the missionaries were so wholly filial that while they were ready to give in some measure they wanted the missionaries to take the leadership and hold the administration in their own hands. Mr. Allen presented to our station conference in Hamadan a very plain speaking statement of the unsatisfactory situatior;. This problem of 529 dependent and anemic churcheri is to be dealt with in two ways. On the one hand missionaries may simply refuse to discharge responsibilities which do not belong to them. On the other hand, they may seek to bring the church into its true life by enhsting it, and the sooner this is done the easier it will be, in the aggressive work of evangelization. Some- thing is to be said, no doubt, for the poHcy of discouraging immature Christians from propagating misleading concep- tions of Christianity, but if on the other hand the native church does no propaganda until all its members have had an adequate theological training, it will never be a propagating force at all. It may well be that certain members of the church should be set aside for the more explicit and direct evangelistic work, but it should be the responsibility of the church to set them aside, and every member of the church and every inquirer and catechumen should be taught from the outset to share whatever knowledge of Christianity he has gained or at least whatever interest in Christianty he has acquired. The Armenian people have a natural and praiseworthy devotion to their own language. In Teheran the only mis- sionary who speaks Armenian now is Mrs. Schuler, and in Hamadan Mrs. Funk. In each of these stations the Armenian men know Persian but the women as a rule do not. It would be desirable if in each of these stations some one of the men and also one of the single women should know Armenian, but the Armenian population is not large, and in each station the natural desire of the people to have a minister who would preach to them in their own language and in their own lan- guage baptize and marry the living and bury the dead ought to be met by the consecration to the Christian ministry of young Armenian men from the evangelical Armenian com- munities themselves. It is estimated that ther-3 are 500 Armenians altogether in Hamadan and 3,000 in Teheran. In each case the majority have a nominal attachment to the Gre- gorian Church, but in reality their Armenianism is national and not religious. In Tabriz, where Mr. Pittman, Mrs. Pitt- man, Miss Beeber, and Miss Johnson all speak Armenian, the Armenian population is estimated at 4,500, of whom nine- tenths do not attend church services at all while the remainder are divided between the Gregorian, Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations. Persia has an area of 630,000 square miles, equal to two- thirds of the area of the United States east of the Mississippi River. Approximately one-half of this is the territory of 530 our two Persia Missions. Scattered over this large area of northern Persia is a population for which our Mission is responsible about that of the population of Illinois. For this population there is a total missionary force, including wives, of 95 missionaries, while there are 1,000 ordained Protestant ministers in the city of Chicago alone, and 3,500 in the State of Illinois. How many more missionaries ought there to be adequately to occupy northern Persia and to do the work of founding in this great and difficult field a living church of converts from Mohammedanism which will bear Christ to every city and village and soul in Persia? S. S. Constantinople, Mediterranean Sea, May 9, 1922. 681 13. THE CALL OF MESOPOTAMIA For several years the five foreign mission agencies of the Presbyterian and the Reformed Churches (namely the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., the Executive Committee of Foreign Missions of the Pres- byterian Church in the U. S., the Board of Foreign Missions of the United Presbyterian Church, the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America, and the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in the United States) have had under consideration a plan for their con- solidation in one united foreign missionary organization. The full story of the negotiations, together with an outline of the plan and the favorable or sympathetic actions of the different Boards and their superior ecclesiastical bodies, is set forth in a printed statement which the Boards have issued and need not be reviewed here. Pending the further development of any such plan it was suggested by Dr. Chamberlain and Dr. McKenzie of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Re- formed Church in America after their visit to Asia in 1920 that a beginning might be made, either by the territorial apportionment of missionary responsibility for the Persian Gulf area and for Mesopotamia among the five Boards in- volved or by their establishment of a united mission, to care for this mission territory. Dr. Chamberlain and Dr. McKenzie visited Arabia and Meso- potamia in October, 1920, and conferred with the Presbyterian and Reformed missionaries on the field and with the British Mandatory Authority. As a result they came to the conclu- sion that the joint occupation of the field by a united mission would be the wisest arrangement. This proposal was pre- sented to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions on Janu- ary 17, 1921, and the following action was taken: "The Council reported a conference with Dr. McKenzie, Dr. Cham- berlain, Mr. Potter and Dr. Warnshuis of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America with reference to the missionary occupation of Mesopotamia. Dr. Mackenzie and Dr. Chamberlain had just returned from Mesopotamia and brought with them a recommen- dation of the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church of America urg- ing the establishment of a union mission in Mesopotamia, to be supported and administered jointly by the Presbyterian and Reformed Boards. It was voted to approve the recommendation of this conference'between 532 the officers of the Presbyterian Board and the Board of the Reformed Church in America, as follows: "1. That the Presbyterian Board would gladly join with the four other Boards proposed in the conducting: of a joint mission in Mesopo- tamia, to be staffed and supported by the five Boards, on such a basis as might be arranged. "2. That if the Boards of the Southern Presbyterian, the United Pres- byterian Church and the Reformed Church in the United States which are as yet less closely related to the situation in Mesopotamia do not feel prepared now to join in the undertaking, the Presbyterian Board would be prepared to join with the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America in conducting such n unite'H missionary work in Mesopotamia as might be found practicable. "3. That pending any more complete arrangements for co-operative work, the Presbj'terian Board would be glad to approve of service by any of its missionaries in Persia who might be released to work in con- nection with the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church in Mesopo- tamia, such missionaries to serve as full members of the Arabian Mis- sion, their support to be continued by the Presbyterian Board through the Persia Missions. Mr. Speer and Dr. White were appointed to repre- sent the Board in further conference with the representatives of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America and to serve on a joint Committee to plan for the proposed missionary develop- ment in Mesopotamia." The only two of the five Presbyterian and Reformed Boards which seemed to be in any position to deal with the matter were our own Board and the Board of the Reformed Church in America. Preparatory to any further action in the matter the Board of the Reformed Church requested our deputation to confer with the missionaries of that Board in the Arabian Mission, We have been very happy to fulfill this commission so far as was possible. We were not able to visit Arabia, as I did twenty-five years ago, but we were received with character- istic hospitality and friendliness by the missionaries of the Reformed Church in Basra and in Bagdad and went over with them fully the question of the duty of our two Churches with regard to missionary work in Mesopotamia. The con- ferences in Bagdad embraced not only Dr. and Mrs. Cantine of the Reformed Church but also Dr. and Mrs. McDowell and Dr. and Mrs. Packard, Miss Lamme and Miss Burgess of our West Persia Mission. In Mosul the conferences included Mr. Wright of our West Persia Mission, Mr. Lampard of the Near East Relief, and Miss Martin, the only remaining mis- sionary of the C. M. S. in Mesopotamia. Later we discussed the whole question of the Mesopotamian field carefully with 533 each one of the East Persia stations and with the West Persia Mission in our long conferences in Tabriz. The population of Mesopotamia is approximately three mil- lion. The majority of the people are not Sunni Mohammedans like the Turks but Shiah Mohammedans like the Persians, The Shiah majority is not very great to be sure, but it is great enough to indicate the close relationship between the Mission problem in Mesopotamia and the Mission problem in Persia. The great shrine of the Persian Mohammedans, greater even than Meshed, is Kerbala. Around Kerbala and Nejef and Kufa cluster the affections of the whole Shiah Mohammedan world. The main cities of Mesopotamia are Basra, at the head of the Persian Gulf with a population of 75,000, Amara 8,000, Kut 10,000, Nasiriyeh 8,000, Kerbala 80,000, Hillah 10,000, Bagdad 150,000, and Mosul 100,000. All these figures are approximate. At the time of our visit the Reformed Church had two missionary families and two single women missionaries in Basra, one family at Amara on the Tigris river and one family in Bagdad, while our Mission had Dr. and Mrs. McDowell and Miss Lamme caring for the Assyrian refugees in Bagdad and Mr. Wright working from Mosul northwards into the mountains. The Reformed Church had also occupied Nasiriyeh, but the missionary located there was home on furlough. The Church Missionary Society which had formerly occupied both Bagdad and Mosul has entirely given up its work in Mesopotamia for financial reasons, leav- ing a large unfinished hospital property in Bagdad which Dr. and Mrs. McDowell were occupying with some of their refu- gees and which Dr. Cantine has power of attorney to sell. It is a good property, but with some unsettled dispute as to its boundaries. The only mission property in Mosul is a resi- dence with some attached buildings belonging personally to Miss Martin. The clear conviction to which we were all brought in our conferences in Basra, Bagdad and Mosul was that the Meso- potamian Mission should be undertaken as the joint respon- sibility of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America and our own Board, with an open door for the entrance of any of the other Presbyterian or Reformed Boards whenever they might be able to join in the enterprise. The administration of the Mission could be cared for by a joint committee of the co-operating Boards, operating in the same way as the committees or trustees of union institutions like the University of Nanking. In this case, however, for the present at least, there would be no need of the legal incor- 534 poration of a new body. Each one of the two Boards could hold the titles to any properties provided by it, and the inti- mate acquaintance and perfect mutual confidence of the two Boards would make their co-operation in sqch an enterprise as easy and delightful a co-operative undertaking as has ever been attempted. The Reformed Church missionaries were of the opinion that for the present at least Basra should continue as an in- tegral part of the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church. The city and the work there have relations with the work in all the rest of Mesopotamia which will inevitably, I think, relate them to the new mission in due time, but for the present its natural and appropriate relationship is to the courageous and faithful Mission of which it has hitherto been a part. As soon as it is prudent and helnful. Hillah and Kerbala should be occupied in wavs which will commend their occupation to the good will and friendship of the people. The two stations. however, which should be occupied carefully and effectively at the earliest day are Bagdad and Mosul. With regard to Bagdad I cannot do better than quote from the report which Dr. Cantine presented to the annual meeting of the Arabian Mission at Karachi in September, 1921. After sneaking of the withdrawal of the Church Missionary Society Dr. Cantine wrote as follows : "I was given Power of Attorney to administer the C. M. S. property. This Dropertv consists of nearly an acre of land on the river bank, a mile below the South Gate of the city. On it is the incomplete building which was to be the Mission Hospital. This property the C. M. S. is willing to sell to us for what it cost them. Although there has been a certain amount of deterioration due to its use by the Turkish and British forces, vet the greatly enhanced values of today would make it a profitable investment for the future. The ouestion is to what use the present incompleted structure could be put? The adaptation of a hospital building into a dwelling is a doubtful possibility, but it might easily be used as a school or dormitory. "The present Protestant school is an uncertain, perhaps doubtful missionary asset. Fostered by the C. M. S. until it had gained a recognized position among the schools of the city, it suffered greatly during the war. Thrown upon their own resources, the community deserves great credit for the sacrifices made to keep it in existence. Last year they re- ceived a grant of Rs. 1,000 from the C. M. S., another of Rs. 2,000 from the Government, and some help from the 535 English Garrison Church. With the school fees and speeial subscriptions from the Protestant families, they have main- tained a respectable school of one hundred pupils and three teachers. During the latter part of the year I taught a class in higher English, The grant from the C. M. S. will not be renewed, and that from the Government and the English Church will be cut down, and unless they receive substantial help from other sources they cannot maintain their position. Together with the financial difficulty is the evident purpose of the Government to gradually discourage denominational schools, and to draw the children into their own now attended by the Moslems only. One sympathizes with their viewpoint, that the future stability of the country requires a better under- standing and mutual respect between the various religious bodies, and that this can best be brought about by a general public school attendance. My own belief and hope is that this can eventually be done, while still conserving to the Chris- tian minority many of the privileges of Christian instruction now enjoyed. If the Mission at Bagdad is to enter into this sphere of activity I would advise emphasis being put upon higher and specialized education. At present taking into consideration the fact that there are no Moslem children in the Protestant school, and that the large majority of the pupils are not Protestants but Catholics, the question of monetary aid from the Arabian Mission should be carefully considered. "And now a word about the Protestant community. In Bagdad, as at Basra, Protestantism is identified with mis- sionary effort, whose history, throughout all the Near East, proves that however much a Protestant organization may in- tend to work for the uplift of the Moslem population alone, yet wherever there is an Oriental Church there will also be in time those who will come out and attach themselves to our faith. It may be called a by-product of our effort, but none the less its importance must be recognized. The Protestant Christian who comes to us from the older missions to the North, or from our own midst, is, in the mind of the Moslem, the only evidence, in general, of what Christianity can do with the Oriental, what he himself may expect to become if he accepts our preaching of Christ. The responsibility for the leadership of such a factor for good or evil cannot lightly be put aside. Most of us are acquainted with the Protestant community at Basra. That at Bagdad is larger, and in some ways better equipped to be the exponent of a purer Christi- anity than may be found in the several Eastern Churches. They are well organized, and the isolation and strain of long 53S endured war conditions have given them an independence that is admirable. As would be assumed from their association with the C. M. S. they have become accustomed to the liturgi- cal service of the Church of England, and maijy of them con- sider themselves members of that body. With this connection I have not in the least interfered, though I have been able to help them in many ways, especially in their relations with the Government. I see no reason why their independent organi- zation should not be assured of the active sympathy of our Mission, or of any other that might come to Bagdad. "Passing on to what may be considered the most important section of this report — the Moslem population and the Mis- sion's interest in it — it must be borne in mind that there is no essential difference between the Moslem population of Bagdad and that of Basra ; between the Mission work that we have done in the latter place and that which we might do in the former. The slight differences due to a larger population and a position inland may be readily understood and dis- counted. What I mean is that the change in latitude will bring no new problems to confront us ; there is no hope of discovering in the City of the Caliphs a new and easy road to the Moslem heart ; nearness to the seat of Government and a speaking acquaintance with the King of Irak will not make it easier to speak of the King of Heaven. I see no indications that mission work in Upper Mesopotamia will be a bit more promising than in Lower; in Bagdad, than in Basra, Amara and Nasariyeh. But this is not to say that the reorganization of missionary effort in Bagdad is not of the utmost import- ance and worthy of the most careful consideration by the Arabian Mission. "The limited amount of time at my disposal, and the some- what chaotic conditions, have militated against my obtaining as broad and varied an acquaintance with the Moslem thought of Bagdad as I could have wished. But I have talked with enough men representative of the various strata of society to know that the advent of an American Mission will be gen- erally welcome. I say 'American,' for that designation is still in Mesopotamia an introduction that insures respectful consideration. It is perhaps in educational work in some of its many branches that the most promising future lias. Just what and how depends so much upon men and means that the question can perhaps be better answered a year hence. But it seems to me that a high school for boys, with attached hostels might be the first thing attempted. I have been repeat- edly assured by Moslem and Christian, that such a school, 537 obviating the necessity for sending their boys out of the coun- try, would be greatly appreciated. While the government educational officers are a bit non-committal, not being very sure of their own policy as yet, they have said that they did not doubt but that they and we could work with hearty co- operation and success. Very much good could be done by a man qualified to be a leader who would interest himself in the literary, social and general development of the civic life. Medical Missions would be more appreciated in the outlying districts. "To Bagdad itself, the capitol city, the place to which in the future, as in the past, will converge so many roads not alone of commerce, but also of culture and religion — to the Bagdad of today the Church should only send of her best. No knowl- edge of the Arabic language and literature, no proficiency in religious discussion, no acquaintance with the Arab character, its strength and weakness, will come amiss in the equipment of the future laborer in this great central city of Islam. If the field is entered at all by the American churches it should not be done half-heartedly ; the cost should be counted and paid ungrudgingly, and without undue expectation of a quick re- turn. Much will depend upon a right beginning. I do not think the best results will follow a division of the entire field between the existing missions, even though some of them are working adjacent territory and might be able to send at once of their older, Arabic speaking missionaries. Nor do I be- lieve that 'the powers that be' would look with favor on such a decentralized occupation of Mesopotamia. The other method would be for the churches interested to send out young mis- sionaries who have chosen this field as a life work, who have their own constituencies at home interested in Mesopotamia, and who have prepared themselves for this very thing. It would mean an extra Board or Committee at home and an extra Mission abroad, but surely the field in extent, population and importance is worthy of that very thing. I do not think that volunteers will be lacking. To those who will acquaint themselves with the history of this ancient land, its long past of Christian life, suffering and martyrdom ; its legacy of divine promise; its present day religious importance; its awakening and entrance upon a new era among the peoples of the world, Mesopotamia will still be a word to stir the pulse and kindle the zeal of those who work and pray that the Kingdoms of this world may become the Kingdom of our Lord. "And now what part may the Arabian Mission play in this hoped-for consummation ; not in the future but for the coming 538 year for which we are now legislating. I think it is recog- nized that our little mission is not able to assume the financial obligation that would follow even our taking over of Bagdad alone. To do as much there as was done by the C. M. S. just before the war, and less should not be attempted, would absorb a large fraction of our income. And perhaps I speak for others also when I say that we might prefer not to build on other men's foundations, but to follow our own star westward into the interior. However, the same question faces us as it did the last Annual Meeting, and we know but little more now as to its final solution than we did a year ago. The Re- formed and the Presbyterian Boards seem willing to enter into some form of union effort for Upper Mesopotamia, but so far as we know no definite plan has been presented or acted upon." Dr. Cantine has stated the needs and opportunities with care and restraint. He has not spoken of the ten thousand Jews for whom nothing is being done nor of the Indian and European Christians in Bagdad who had been gathered in a company for united worship and work largely through the instrumentality of a Wesleyan army chaplain, whose expected withdrawal from the field was mourned by every one. There had been some talk of the organization of this group into a de- nominational enterprise in connection with one of the strong Protestant bodies in India, but all of those whom we met, both Indian and British, desired instead some united and in- terdenominational association. Nowhere in the world, I think, have we met a field of larger need or seen the Christian Church so inadequately coping with her task. If there has been one other city which has spoken with yet stronger appeal, it is Mosul. Dr. Cantine in his report recog- nizes its singular call. "As with' Bagdad," he wrote, "its importance as a missionary center has been recognized for many years both by American and British societies. It also has just been vacated by the C. M. S. and its needs and oppor- tunities are about the same as its sister city. Indeed, looking to its population and especially to its large village environ- ment in the nearby hills, it presents certain features which might make residence and work there more attractive than in Bagdad." I have described elsewhere our visit to Mosul and the deep impression which our experiences there made on our minds and hearts. I cannot think of the city now without a fresh eagerness and anxiety. Rich memories of the past call to us from every side in unceasing protest against the idea of th^ abandonment by the Church of this great field. 539 The Protestant community in behalf both of its church and of its school appealed for the help of a strong mission in meeting the situation infinitely beyond its strength. The edu- cated young Jacobite leaders pled for a school that would do for Mosul and the whole upper valley of the Tigris what they knew only a mission school could do. "Why do you spend millions of dollars on relief work feeding the stomachs of people? Why do you not feed their brains? Fed bodies will die. Bodies had better die unfed if they are bodies only. But fed minds live. Do something, we beg, for the starving human spirit here." Representatives of the Assyrians, both the evangelical body and the old Church, set forth the pathetic needs of these broken people seeking to regather the remnants of their lacerated life. The C. M. S. workers had just begun to lay hold upon the affections of the people with a hospital in the same marvelous way in which our Missions in Persia have done, but this had been given over to Government and was going on, though no one knew for how long a time, with- out the ministry to the Church or the fruitage to the cause of Christ which it had had and would have again as a Mission hospital. As clear as the call to Bagdad, which Dr. Cantine had set forth, seemed to us to be the call to Mosul, and we urged Edwin Wright to remain there as the West Persia Mission had authorized him to do until its mission meeting in the fall of 1922, and we urged Dr. McDowell as soon as he was able to close up the relief work in Bagdad, which would be about March 31st, to go to Mosul and to rent Miss Martin's house pending decision by the West Persia Mission and the Board as to the re-occupation of Mosul as a regular station and the purchase of Miss Martin's house or other property there, or pending the establishment of the new united mission of which Mosul would be a station. Many considerations in- cluding the political uncertainties seemed to us to make it desirable to have as strong a missionary force as possible in Mosul this spring, and the same considerations strength- ened the hope that if Dr. Cantine was to return on furlough this year his place should not be left unfilled by the Arabian Mission during his absence. With regard to the political problems in Mesopotamia and especially in Mosul, lying on the frontier between Mesopotamia and Turkey, it is not neces- sary to set down here any written statement. The one relevant question is whether Christian Missions would be allowed to operate within the bounds of the mandated territory of Meso- potamia or, to be more exact, within the bounds of the King- dom of Irak into which this mandated territory is being trans- 540 formed. This question would seem to be explicitly and satis- factorily answered by articles 15 and 16 which appear in the Draft Mandates for Mesopotamia and Palestine : "The mandatory will see that complete freedom of conscience and the free exercise of all forms of worship, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, is ensured to all. No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine on the ground of race, religion or language. No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief. "The right of each community to maintain its own schools for the education of its own members in its own language (while conforming to such educational reouirements of a gen- eral nature as the Administration may impose) shall not be denied or impaired. "The mandatory shall be responsible for exercising such supervision over relierious or eleemosvnary bodies of all faiths in Palestine as may be required for the maintenance of public order and good government. Subject to such supervision, no measures shall be taken in Palestine to obstruct or interfere with the enterprise of such bodies or to discriminate against anv representative or member of them on the ground of his religion or nationality." As will be seen there is no explicit mention of missionary agencies or of missionary activity, though the last paragraph obviously refers to them, and while undoubtedly these pro- visions are meant to protect those who change their religious faith thev are not phrased with any direct reference to such contingencies. In November, 1920, Sir Percy Cox, the High Commissioner of Great Britain for Mesopotamia, assured the missionaries of the Reformed Church "That the advent of the Arabian Mission to Bagdad will be very welcome and that there will be no objections to the arrangements that you propose." We called on Sir Percy with Dr. Cantine, with whom Sir Percy had been associated in friendly ways in earlier days on the Arabian coast. In reply to our question with regard to mis- sionary freedom he recalled the terms of the mandate and the guarantee which they gave of religious liberty and, as he understood, of the freedom of missionary activity conducted in the wise way in which he had observed that the Presbyte- rian and Reformed Missions did their work. It is to be as- sumed that the Arab officials into whose hands the British have been rapidly passing the administration of the country 541 will hold the same view and maintain the same attitude. King Feisal assured the Chaldean bishop in Mosul that there would be entire religious freedom. "I have heard nothing," one of the best informed observers in Mesopotamia told us, "either about King Feisal or about his personal advisers that would lead me to think that he would attempt to antagonize wisely directed missionary effort." Perhaps there may be those who may question the wisdom of our undertaking our share of this resiDonsibility in Mesopo- tamia when the needs of all our other Missions for more ade- quate support are so pressing. Are we warranted in assuming this new responsibility? This is an entirely fair and necessary question. 1. In the first place, it is not a new responsibility. Mosul is one of the oldest mission stations to which our Church is related. We have connections with it which go back to the early years when the New School Presbyterian Churches were carrying on their foreign missionary work through the Ameri- can Board. In 1892 the station was transferred with all its work and personnel from the American Board to our own Board. In 1900 we transferred it in turn to the C. M. S., and now that the C. M. S. is compelled to withdraw it is our own responsibility, consecrated by time, and not a new task which we are called upon to take up. 2. It is an integral part of the Arabic and Mohammedan field extending from Syria to Persia. In recognition of the unity of this field and of our distinct relation to it, we have recently taken over Aleppo and Mardin from the American Board, although we had no such strong historic relations with these stations as we have had with Mosul. 3. In God's providence this whole Arabic speaking Moslem area in the Near East has fallen to the missionarv responsi- bility of the Presbyterian and the Reformed Churches, Egypt to the United Presbyterian Church, Arabia to the Reformed Church in America, Syria to our own Church, and Mesopo- tamia to the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches together. Mosul is an integral part of this responsibility, and in reas- suming it and in joining with the Reformed Church in the adequate missionary occupation of the whole Mesopotamian field we are responding to what seems to be a clear and un- mistakable providential call. 4. The Shiah faith of more than half of the Moslems of Irak relates this population intimately to our missions in Persia. These are the Missions which above all others in the 542 world, save the C. M. S. Mission in southern Persia, must work out the problem of the effective presentation of Chris- tianity to the Shiah branch of Islam. The prevailing language in Kerbala is Persian. A stream of Persian pilgrims pours annually into Kerbala. One of the most influential diplomatic representatives in the East remarked once on the anomally of the fact that the religious life and thought of Persia were controlled from a center beyond its soil. 5. Mosul is the base from which the work for the moun- tain Assyrians must be carried on. It was largely for this purpose that we took it over from the American Board in 1892. Now that for the present, and perhaps for a long time, the connection of the mountain Assyrians with Urumia is utterly broken, Mosul is our only door of approach. All the other friends of the Syrians have forsaken them. Now more than ever, reduced by famine and disease, struggling in pov- erty and disappointment to rebuild their homes, needing more than ever our sympathy and our spiritual and practical help, thev have a right to look to us for aid which we can only supply through missionaries working northward from Irak. 6. Mosul and northeastern Mesopotamia are an indisDen- sable Dart of the Kurdish field. I have sDoken of this considera- tion elsewhere, but would simply point out now that Mosul is one of the main centers from which the evaneelization of the Kurds must be undertaken. The lonsr delav of the Church in undertaking this task has been paid for literally in rivers of blood. 7. The establishment of this united Mission and the strong but prudent occupation of Bagdad and Mosul should be under- taken without delay. A little reflection will suggest to any one who knows the condition of the Near East convincing reasons why this missionary duty ought not to be postponed. I am glad to report that we found the Persian Missions heartily in svmpathy with these proposals. Thev agreed with us that the best way to meet this clear responsibility in Meso- potamia was by a joint mission of the Reformed Church Board and our own, that Dr. and Mrs. McDowell should remove to Mosul, which we were glad to learn in Persia they had done on the conclusion of their relief work in Bagdad on March 31st, that our two Churches should provide adequately the forces and support necessary for the work, that pending the establishment of the new Mission Mosul should be resumed as a station of the West Persia Mission, and that the estimates for the Mountain Work of the Urumia station should be trans- 54S ferred to it. It was characteristic of these two good Missions in Persia that, feehng as earnestly as they do their own needs, they should nevertheless be ready to favor a courageous re- _ sponse to this new call. This new call and yet so old, so old. 1 S. S. Constantinople, ' | Aegean Sea, April 26, 1922. 544 14. THE RELIEF WORK We were commissioned by the Near East Relief to see as much as we could of the Relief work in Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Caucasus. And no part of the duty assigned us by the Board was nearer to our hearts than that of visiting the communities of Assyrian and Armenian refugees and bearing to them a message of sympathy from their fellow Christians in America. We began to meet with the refugees first in Bombay, and from there to Constantinople we were in con- stant contact with this immense tragedy, the result in part of the sudden catastrophe of the war and in part of forces of unbrotherliness and wrong which have been at work in these saddened lands through many years. When we reached Mesopotamia in January, the great refugee camps of the Armenians at Nahromar and of the Assyrians, first at Bakuba and later at Mindan, had been broken up. The Armenians had been taken by the British at British ex- pense by sea from Basra to Batum in the Caucasus and from Batum by rail to Kamerlu in the Armenian Republic in the Caucasus where we saw them in April. The British Govern- ment provided them with tents and other equipment. When we were in Bagdad Der Vahan Tajirian, the acting Armenian bishop, came to express his gratitude to the American people and the Near East Relief and to tell us of the Armenian refu- gees in Mesopotamia. In Mosul, he said, there were thirty Armenian families who had lived there before the war and about one thousand refugees. In Bagdad there were one hun- dred and twenty families resident and about two thousand refugees. In Basra there were thirty families and five hun- dred refugees. Of the ten thousand in the Nahromar camp six thousand had been already carried to Batum, the first ship having sailed on November 11th. Three thousand more were to be sent by the British Government which was declin- ing, however, to send one thousand others who had left the camp and had started to earn their living but were desirous of being sent on with the remainder to Batum. He had petitioned the High Commissioner in behalf of this thousand, but the Government had replied that it could not take them. As far as he knew there were no other Armenian refugees in Irak. The first president of the Armenian republic and other oflficials who had been driven out when the republic became soviet under Russian pressure in 1921 had recently passed through Bagdad on their way to Constantinople. Of three and a half million Armenians before the war, he be- 545 18 — India and Persia lieved that a million, six hundred thousand had been killed. But dark though the outlook was, darker than ever before in their history, he still had hope, and he believed that the Chris- tian faith of the people was undiminished. They had had to fight for their country before, and they could fight for it still. If driven out they would go where they could, but a century hence, with undiminished faith and unbroken hope, they would still claim their own land. The bishop stated that nine hundred orphans who were at that time in Nahro- mar were to be taken to Jerusalem to be cared for by the Near East Relief and the Armenian committee, and that a hundred and twenty Armenian orphans in Mosul were to be sent with them. Dr. McDowell had had one hundred and sixteen Armenian orphans in a Near East Relief orphanage in Bagdad, and these had been sent at the expense of the Near East Relief by the British Government with the chil- dren it was sending from Nahromar to Constantinople and Batum. After the failure of the Assyrian expedition from Mindan back to Urumia in the fall and early winter of 1920, the Assyrian refugees scattered. As many as could do so, but far less than a thousand in all, went to Europe or America to join friends or relatives there. The mountain Assyrians remained in upper Mesopotamia or made their way back into the mountains. Their situation shortly before we visited Mosul in January was described for us in a statement that Dr. McDowell wrote out: "Some of the mountaineers, being given their freedom, have gone outside the British lines and have settled in their own homes in Supna, Amadia, Berwar and Ashitha and lower Tiary. The house of Mar Shimon have been placed in a village close to Amadia. How safe it will be for these people, only time can determine. "The remaining mountaineers, whose homes were still be- yond reach, were settled in villages about Mosul, or rather to the north of Mosul and within the British lines. These num- ber several thousand. "These have been most unfortunate. They have been on the land for over a year but have not been able so far to make a living from it and have been reduced to almost famine conditions. Further to add to their misery, an epidemic of malaria broke out among them and, according to the report of the medical authorities, 99 per cent of them have been prostrated by it. Mr. Lampard, our Relief colleague at Mosul, and Mr. Wright of our Mission have been doing heroic service 546 in these villages the last two months going about and per- sonally dosing the sick with quinine supplied by British re- sources. The epidemic is subsiding for lack of material, but the victims of it have been left in a most debilitated condition. Beyond all doubt these Mosul people, i. e., the refugees settled in the villages, are the most destitute and most deserving of assistance of any under our care either in Mesopotamia or in Persia "On this side the Persian border our mountaineers will gradually feel their way back until their valleys will be re- occupied as far as Julamerk, possibly as soon as next summer. This would account for the chief mountain tribes of Tiary, Tkhoma, Jelu and Baz." Before we left Persia, we heard from Dr. McDowell of the instructions which had reached him from the Near East Relief in New York, discontinuing all relief grants for Mesopotamia and proposing the transfer of Mr. Lampard to Persia. Dr. McDowell was planning accordingly to move from Bagdad to Mosul on May 1st. I believe that he thought that he had funds enough on hand, remaining from the appropriations already made by the Near East Relief, to enable him to clear off all unfulfilled commitments and to provide some final help in meeting the desperate situation of the mountain people, ravaged by malaria and yet courageously seeking to make their way back into their rough valleys, to rebuild their little terraced fields, to gather a few sheep, and to restore their demolished homes. At the time of our visit in January all the Urumia Christians who had not gone to America had made their way back to Persia with the exception of two thousand who were still in Bagdad. No general relief was being given. An orphanage of one hundred children and a number of homeless and de- pendent women were housed in the incompleted hospital build- ing in Bagdad rented from the C. M. S. The orphanage had numbered two hundred, but when it was proposed to remove it, as it was clear should be done, to Kermanshah one hun- dred boys had disappeared, absorbed in one way or another. It is not undesirable that from time to time in the future extreme pressure should be brought to bear upon both the As- syrian and Armenian communities to reduce yet further the number of children being cared for by relief. The Assyrian refugees in Bagdad have had better opportunities than the other communities for employment, and with characteristic industry and self-respect they have improved these opportu- nities. Practically all the men had found, or were likely to 547 find, economic footing. The best restaurant, barber shop, and optician's store were all in the hands of Syrians. They were supplying some of the best carpenters, masons, house servants and railroad conductors and workmen. It was clear that the women and children, however, who had no men to support them ought to be sent on in the spring to Hamadan to join the larger community there. Dr. McDowell was waiting until all had gone who, by any possibility, could go without help, and he was hoping to be able to provide the remnant with sixty rupees each if possible for their journey. All the Assyrians in Bagdad declared that they would return to Urumia when- ever it was practicable and prudent for them to go. Many of the people had found decent homes for themselves, but most of them were living in the tents of the Assyrian refugee camp. There was also a large camp of Kurdish refugees where the level of life was far below anything to which the poorest of these Assyrian refugees would allow themselves to fall. Of the Assyrians who had made their way back into Persia we found something less than a thousand in Kermanshah, most of them living in a great quadrangle of old government buildings, where the sanitary conditions, on the whole, were not bad and where the people were doing their best to main- tain the decent standards of living characteristic of the Uru- mia Assyrians. Some of the men had found employment in Kermanshah, but most of the people were idle though entirely willing to work if work could be found. Bread was being supplied to the neediest, partly through Relief contribution from the Near East Relief funds provided from Hamadan, and partly through the aid of the kargazar, the Persian official in charge of the interests of Christians, whom we found to be one of the most intelligent men in Persia with regard to the whole Assyrian problem, and who was engaged in taking a census of all the Assyrian refugees in Kermanshah and Hama- dan. It seemed probable and desirable that these Kerman- shah refugees should join the colony in Hamadan as soon as they could be provided for there. The Hamadan community is now the largest concentration of the Urumia Assyrians. At the time of our visit in January there were approximately 5,000 Assyrians in Hamadan and the surrounding villages. The Relief work here had been cared for from the beginning by Mr. Bentley and it illustrated the advantage of continuity of administration and policy. As in the case of all relief work there were some, especially the grafters, who had complaints to make, but Mr. Bentley 548 deserves the greatest praise for the persistence and patience with which he has done a very difficult task. He early realized, and the Hamadan station agreed with him, "that there is no sufficiently immediate prospect of the repatriation (in Uru- mia) of the Syrian people to justify planning on that basis, but rather that the fact of the partial rehabilitation of 3,000 Syrians or more in the Hamadan district constitutes a per- manent problem to be met in this field." Under this convic- tion he set to work at once to get the people out of the city, where they must be a relief charge, into the villages where they might hope to support themselves. He found village masters ready to co-operate with him in order to fill up many of the villages around Hamadan which had been in large part depopulated by the famine of 1919. 3,000 of the people had been got out into such villages, leaving 1,000 widows and orphans who must be cared for in Hamadan and 1,000 more of the people who can make their own support. We visited some of the refugees who had been established in the villages. It was winter time and there was little work that could now be done, but many of them had planted grain, and with a little help could get along until harvest, and then, if they had not been compelled to mortgage their grain, and could be given a little further help, might be expected by the time of another harvest to be on their feet. They were very poor, sleeping on the ground or on thin pallets with only a blanket or two to a family, and living several families in one room, but they were full of gratitude and courage. We were so well pleased with the way in which the problem had been handled at Hamadan that we joined with the local com- mittee there in a cablegram to New York urging that sufficient help should be given to enable the committee to complete its work of village rehabilitation in addition to the care of widows and orphans. A later letter from Mr. Bentley, dated February 16th, stated that he had prepared a studied estimate of their needs, the result of which was to show that, with what they had in hand, they could complete the rehabilitation work which had been begun if they could receive further help of not less than $25,000. $50,000, he wrote, was the amount which they would prefer to name, as in addition to the rehabilitation work they have the widows and orphans to provide for. Our own judgment was that they should have the larger amount, if possible, as it is certain that the scanty crops which will be gathered this year will not suffice to meet the needs of the villagers. They will need seed for the next harvest, and they lack clothing and the scantiest household equipment. Of 549 course if Urumia opens, almost all these people will want to return and should be encouraged to do so, but it is not likely to open soon, and even if it does, nothing that has been done will be lost, while the settlement of the people in self-support- ing industry is indispensable to the maintenance of their racial and individual character. There were two hundred and thirty children in the Assyrian orphanage in Hamadan, half boys and half girls. The number is likely to be increased by children from Bagdad and Ker- manshah, but will be reduced by the settlement of the people in village homes, enabling many of them to care for the orphan children of relatives. The orphanage is made up of children from one and a half years upward and is housed in the old barracks of the British Indian troops. It has been admirably organized under Miss Guild's care both as an orphanage and as a school. In addition to the educational work in the orphanage the Mission has helped the Assyrians in the re- establishment of an admirable school under the care of a noble Assyrian woman, Rabi Ester, one of the teachers in Fiske Seminary, who should be given every assistance, so that the institution can be carried back to Urumia when the day of repatriation comes. The Relief work in Tabriz is set forth in a statement which Mr. Muller, who has devoted himself with unremitting faith- fulness and efficiency to the administration of the work, pre- pared for our conferences : RELIEF WORK IN TABRIZ I have been asked by the Relief Committee in Tabriz to prepare a paper on the subject of relief work in Tabriz for presentation to Dr. Speer and Mr. Carter, I regret that lack of time has prevented me from making a more comprehen- sive survey and I also regret that this statement must come to the attention of Dr. Speer and Mr. Carter without having been first read and approved by the Committee in Tabriz. The refugee population in this area comprises Armenians from Urumia, Salmas and Khoi (3,500), Erivan (1,000), and various parts of Turkey, Garadagh, Dasht, etc., (1,500) ; Assyrians from Urumia and Salmas (3,500) ; and Moslems from Urumia, Sulduz and Salmas (1,000), and Nakhchivan (500). During the past year a negligible amount of Relief work has been done for Moslems, and that little in the form of work relief — the maximum number of Moslems helped at any one time was about 200 men. 550 Armenians. Close to 2,000 refugees have been repatriated to their homes in the Garadagh; three hundred to their own home in Russian Julfa; and 113 to their own homes in villages in Persia near the Russian border. These 2,300 or 2,400 were repatriated in their own villages in the spring and summer of 1921 after a moderate degree of order had been restored to those sections. In the autumn the following Armenian refugees were repatriated in villages not their own homes: 52 Armenians from Turkey have been furnished with seed and oxen in Muzhambar, a village one day's journey from Tabriz; 127 Armenians from Garadagh were furnished simi- larly in the village of Bagh-i-vazir, near Soflan; 82 Armenians from Khoi in a village near Erivan called Karadaghlu; and some in the villages near Maragha. In addition to these settlements that have actually been accomplished, others are in progress ; 400 Salmas Armenians and 180 Khoi Armenians have been invited by the Armenian government at Erivan to migrate thither and with our assist- ance some have already gone across the border toward their new home and the rest are about to go. A large number of political refugees from Erivan have been refused permission to return to Erivan and they are seeking a home on Persian soil. We have offered to help these to the number of 1,000. Another group of Salmas Armenians are seeking a place near Tabriz where they may farm. It should be noted that many Moslem land owners are definitely bidding for Chris- tian refugees to repopulate their villages, but they are un- able to outfit them ; the deterring element in the movement is the small amount of help we are able to offer in the villages. The Assyrian refugees have been less ready to move into villages, partly because they are few in number and afraid to scatter ; partly because they still have some hope of return- ing to their own land ; but mostly because they have no leaders and spokesmen, no influential resident fellow Assyrians nor ecclesiastical figures who are recognized in political circles. A very few have gone to a village near Maragha; a group of Gavalan Assyrians wished to be settled in the neighborhood of Kuchi, near their own homes, but our committee was not ready to risk an investment there. Village repatriation is the only form of relief work in this area that holds out hope of self-support to refugees in large numbers. Here and there an individual may be helped to self- support through a trade or business, but settlement in villages, and nothing else, can provide for the great bulk. All other forms of relief in this area have been recognized as makeshifts 551 to meet temporary situations. These makeshifts during the past year have taken the following forms in Tabriz : 1. Road construction. With the co-operation of the local government refugee men have, since last October, been put at road construction. The maximum number of men availing themselves of this form of help at any one time was about 1,560, all of whom were Armenian and Assyrian refugees from various sections with the exception of about 200, who were Moslem refugees from Urumia. During the winter these workmen received two krans (about 17 cents) a day for actual time ; this was reduced to one and one-half krans on March 13th in order to stimulate the movement village- ward ; it will be further reduced to one kran on April 3rd and discontinued altogether on April 15th. The main work done by these men was (a) The reconstruc- tion of the Kheaban, the Teheran road as it enters the city; (b) The building of a new road bed from Kajil Kabrastan to the present railroad avenue, thus making the roadbed for an absolutely straight road from the Christian section of the city to the railroad station; (c) The extension of the American hospital road beyond the hospital; and (d) Street improvements within the city. 2. Near East Factory. With the able assistance of a prominent Armenian business man a factory was started in October with a capital of 2,000 tomans. The capital has been increased from time to time and is now 5,500 tomans. The object of the factory has been to furnish work for women, and the hope has been cherished that in some form or other the factory would continue as a business enterprise after the Relief need has passed. The number of employees is now at its maximum with 664 on the factory payroll. Of these 597 are Christian refugee women — spinners, carders, washers, etc., — most of them taking raw materials from the factory to their homes and bringing back the finished product. Em- ployees are divided as follows : Wool spinners 367 Rug weavers 52 Cot. spinners 88 Basket weavers 2 Carpenters 2 Carders and combers 72 Cloth weavers 31 Wool washers 11 Lace workers 17 Knitters 11 Masters and administrators 13 "664 552 The following rates paid in the factory do not indicate what we would like to pay, but rather the maximum we have been able to pay as a business institution. Lace work girls. An average day's work is from 2,500 to 2,800 stitches of very close work, and for this they receive about eight cents (one kran). Rug weavers. An average rug weaver can make about 13,000 knots a day. For every 13,000 knots he receives 2.25 krans. The rugs we are weaving have 35 knots to every linear ponza (2% inches) or 1,225 knots to the square ponza. A small rug 6i/t by 414 feet contains about 1,372,000 knots and can be made by two weavers working steadily in from one to two months. Spinners of woolen yarn use a very crude spindle and with it can spin a batman (6 or 7 pounds) of wool in from sixteen days to one month. For this they receive 17.60 krans pay. Wool carders receive 3.50 krans for "fluffing" one batman of wool, this is the work of about three days. Cloth weavers receive .35 krans for weaving one arsheen (4414 inches) of cotton cloth and .50 krans for woolen. About seven arsheen can be woven in one day on the average. 3, Free Relief, Tickets have been issued during the win- ter to a total of about 3,700 refugee children and 610 aged men and women who were unable to help themselves. These received five krans a week each during the severe part of the winter; it was later reduced to four krans and is now three krans a week. A twenty kran outfit of baby clothes has also been provided for each of 258 refugee babies born since Sept. 1st, last. (These figures are up to March 18.) 4. Orphanage. An orphanage of about 100 orphans has been maintained during the winter. Very respectfully submitted, Hugo A. Muller Tabriz, March 23, 1922. Since this resume was written a cable has been received from the New York office reading: "Referring to minutes of Tabriz Committee Jan. 5th and 12th. Near East positively impossible to provide funds for road building while homeless orphans elsewhere starve. Further Persia appropriation withheld pending receipt of budget planning strictly on the basis of child care." We feel that the New York office does not fully understand the Relief situation here (largely, to be sure, because of our failure to send adequate reports) ; and that they proceed on the 553 presumption that a large proportion of the refugees are orphans, and of ages too young to work. As a matter of fact the full orphans in our area are few; there are many half orphans; and there are many children with both parents living. But the problem is rather this: given a large Christian population of men, women and chil- dren, refugees from their homeland and unable to return because of war conditions and political conditions, living in the midst of an unfriendly Moslem population — to find a means of self-support for them. Last Autumn all those whose homeland was restored to order were helped back to their land and are there now. The plan has been to settle the rest this year in villages where order has been restored. During the winter this plan could, of course, not be carried out, but it was necessary to keep the population alive until Spring. We had taken a firm stand against a continuance of general free relief, but the difficulty was to find profitable employment for the refugees. Road construction was resorted to, this furnishing physical occuDa- tion and a meagre support for all needy men and boys. The "Factory" organized at the same time did the same for women and girls but on a still more meagre basis. We deprecate any relief measures that further break up the family unit, and we believe the heads of families should be helped again to the position of the main bread-winner of the family. Accord- ing to plans the road building gangs were gradually breaking up and going to villages and to farming with their families as the Spring opened up ; and the road work was to stop very shortly; on receipt of the cable we stopped the road building work at once, about two weeks earlier than planned. In reply to the above cable we wired on March 28th as follows: "In reply to telegram March 24th. only method child-care we can conscientiously endorse involves patriation villages, where parents' relatives will support children. Stop. Our Committee disapproves making thousands children wards Relief for an indefinite time when proper action will place their support on their own people. Stop. Speer expected to arrive on first prox. Will consult regarding budget." It is extremely difficult to prepare a budget when so many elements remain unknown. How many will apply for repatria- tion? In what district will they be settled? How favorable terms can they get from their landlords? How good a har- vest will thev reap? Will the price of bread and of seed con- tinue to rise? etc. In view of all these uncertainties as near as it is possible to 554 make a budget for repatriation (and that is the only kind of child-care that we have enthusiasm for) the budget for the Tabriz area would be as follows: (Budget as revised by com- mittee.) Tomans 1,000 families. One ox per family at 30 Tomans 30,000 1,000 Kharwars seed grain at present prices 50,000 Five months free relief at 15 krans monthly per person 52,500 Shovels, plows, etc 3,000 Orphanage for one year, 200 children 7,500 143,000 It would be necessary to add to this amount about 20,000 tomans if villages are rented. This project is now under con- sideration but we hope to make some arrangement which will render such action unnecessary. The Relief Committee feels that if appropriations are made on a monthly basis they may attempt to carry such a re- patriation policy to a successful conclusion with an appropria- tion of 30,000 tomans monthly for the Persia area. This is a minimum and needs for this program could not be met with a smaller amount. With the funds that we have we are proceeding with the plan, giving, not one ox and one kharwar of seed for every family (which we believe is the minimum with which self- support can be attained), but only one ox and one kharwar of seed for every two families — in the hope that later funds will enable us to bring it up to this minimum. Among the refugees who have gone to villages since March 23d is an increasing number of Assyrians. Respectfully submitted, Hugo A. Muller March 30, 1922. We join in these recommendations, not for the purchase or renting of any villages, but for the establishment of the people in village homes, under arrangements between them and the village owners, as soon as possible. A good part of our time in Tabriz was given up to the Relief problem, in conferences with the Persian officials, the Relief committee, the Armenian Archbishop, the Armenian consul, and committees and individuals representing the Armenian, Assyrian, and Moslem communities. It was all that one could endure to listen to what one had to hear and to go about the streets, lined with groups of grateful but appealing people. One of the many meetings which we shall never forget was a 555 great gathering in the yard of the Relief administration offices where Dr. Packard and I told the people as sympathetically, but yet as plainly as we could, what the relief situation was. I can still feel the deep and significant silence with which the throng passed quietly out of the yard when we were done. We were deeply moved also by the plight of the "intellectuals," who included the students, teachers, and leading men of the Armenian Republic who had been driven out when the Soviets overturned the government in the spring of 1921. Just as we left Persia there seemed to be a good prospect that these refugees might be allowed to return to Erivan. Another type of appeal to which we listened with even deeper sympathy, if possible, was from those whose daughters had been carried off from them. One letter from an Assyrian father which I received in Tabriz will be sufficiently illustrative: "Honorable Sir: "I beg to inform your honor about my daughter, named , who is a captive in Constantinople, in the harem of a Mohammedan. I lost her in our flight from Urumia in the summer of 1918. She found refuge in the French Mission house there. When the Turks took Urumia, she was left to the mercy of the Turks and was taken by one Turk to Con- stantinople. After my eagerness, researching about her and from the information which I heard, I learned that she was in Constantinople. Now I have heard that she has married the Turk. I mean that she has been forced to do so, and she has lost her religion of Christianity and has been forced to be a Mohammedan. In the name of our God I pray you to save my dear daughter. I ask you in the name of our Jesus Christ to save my daughter from the hands of Turks and to restore her to the Christian faith." We share earnestly the hope of the Relief Committee in Tabriz that it may be possible for the Near East Relief to provide the small sum necessary to effect the settlement in the villages of the refugees remaining in Tabriz, so that they may be employed in self-supporting labor in their own homes again and be able to take over in large part, and if it may be wholly, the care of their own dependent women and orphan children. At Julfa, where we crossed the Aras river from Persia into Trans-Caucasia, we met Armenian refugees on both sides of the border. In Persian Julfa the group had been held up by passport technicalities. They complained to us that they could not even find enough grass to eat. At the railway station in Russian Julfa, now in the Soviet Tartar republic of Azer- 556 baijan, a large group of Armenian refugees, men, women and little children, were drawn up to greet us. They were clothed in rags and behind them the once handsome railway station was a gutted ruin. The company was made up of two groups and they presented the following petitions: "Petition from the Aza Refugees near Julfa to the American Relief "Being in a very unendurable condition, we are unable to live. Our people are starving. Besides our people have not sown any seed. We believe that in our present difficulties only the American Relief can save us from sure starvation and that it will stretch out its hand to save us from the claws of famine. We humbly ask you to help us in every way pos- sible. "On Behalf of the Aza Refugees." "Petition from Julfa People to the American Relief Committee "With this petition we wish to inform you of our condition. In 1918 the Turkish sword met us. We left our homes and our properties and fled to Zangizoor and Erivan. In 1919 we returned to our homes, where we again met persecution from the Osmanli Turks. Again we fled to Tabriz, where we found refuge under the care of the Relief Committee. We were helped from that time until 1921, Coming here we have no oxen and no seed. We are obliged to plow our fields and sow our seed by the help of Tartars to whom we are to give one-half of our crop. If all this were ours it would be sufficient for us and we would not be in need. We ask your attention to our shortage of bread. As to the matter of our clothes, all of us as you see, old and young, men and women, are almost naked. This winter we have sold our clothes to buy bread. Therefore we request you to help us needy people. , . . Please read Isaiah 58:6, 7, and then James 2:15, 16. We are very thankful that you have carried out the spirit of these verses until this time. We request you to continue your help until the harvest, giving us oxen, agricultural implements, and seed, "On Behalf of the Julfa People," At Kamerlu on the railway between Julfa and Erivan we saw the refugees whom the British Government had trans- ported from Basra to Batum by sea, and who had been brought by rail from Batum through the Caucasus. The Lord Mayor's Fund of London was aiding these refugees to settlement in the villages in the fertile country around Kamerlu. On a green near the railway station several hundred children from 557 the orphanage were playing games, and then as the dusk came on marched away, singing, to their fatherless and moth- erless home. Mr. Muller and Dr. Lamme, as representatives of the Relief Committee in Tabriz, had been sent with us by the Committee to confer with the Near East Relief authorities in the Cau- casus and to arrange various matters with regard to the Relief work. The Near East Relief people met us at Erivan, the capital of the Armenian republic, and from Erivan to Batum, and again in Constantinople, they cared for us with a kindness and hospitality and efficiency for which we can never ade- quately thank them, and they gave us every facility for seeing the wonderful work which in the name of the American people they are carrying on for the succor of the starving and the dying in the Caucasus. The total population of the Caucasus as estimated in Harold Buxton's report on famine conditions is 5,600,000, distributed as follows: Georgia 2,200,000, Azerbaijan (not the Persian Azerbaijan) 2,000,000, Armenia 1,400,000. Mr. Buxton says that the Commissary on Foreign Affairs in Armenia told him that there were 1,100,000 native Armenians in the Armenian republic and 300,000 refugees, and that 150,000 were doomed to starvation if help did not come. Of the 2,000,000 in Azer- baijan, 432,000 were in towns, the remainder in villages. Fifty per cent of the acreage was unsown in 1921, and 100,000 people in the towns, and 200,000 in the villages were in need of relief. In Georgia, Mr. Buxton's report stated, 60,000 people were starving. The chief work of the Near East Relief in the Caucasus, naturally and in accordance with the purpose of its supporters, is in Armenia where its two chief centers are Erivan and Alexandropol. Erivan was normally a clean, attractive city of 40,000 people. The population has now been doubled by refugees, but ten per cent of the houses were destroyed in the war, and the city bears an aspect of desolation. At the time of our visit most of the starving children had been gathered up from the streets, and there were 4,000 of the little waifs in the orphanages and hospitals, and 7,000 people were being fed daily in soup kitchens and by rations. The people were being settled as rapidly as possible in villages, and the naked were being clothed with the garments sent out from America. One could wish that donors at home might know the im- measurable comfort and help which these bales of old clothes from America have brought to hundreds of thousands of people in the Caucasus. Babies were born and sick people 558 were dying in the crowds that waited in the soup kitchen yard. The turned down covers in the hospital beds disclosed the thin, wasted bodies of the little children who were being nursed back to life and health again. At Alexandropol there are 15,000 orphans. Old Russian barracks have been trans- formed into three amazing institutions. In one dining room 1,500 children can be seated and in one shower-bath 450 washed at a time. The children do all the work they can, in- cluding mending clothes. They have school half a day and instruction half, under good teachers available from among the refugees. They are happy and grateful. All these chil- dren are suffering from trachoma and many of them from scabies. It was a pitiful sight in one of the Erivan hospitals to see the little children coming by twos to the barbers to have their heads shaved, the blood pouring from the sore scalps. 27,000 people are being fed in the soup kitchens at Alexan- dropol. When the Turks went away in the spring of 1921, they stripped these cities and Armenia bare, taking off cattle and the timber and the food stuffs, and leaving desolation behind them. The want and suffering of the country, as we saw it evidenced in Erivan and Alexandropol, is tragic. Armenia is a fertile land, and the Armenians are an indus- trious and energetic people. They do not ask or need perma- nent or indefinite assistance. They will struggle to their own feet, if the destruction of war is not released upon them again and if they have temporary economic help. This is what the Near East Relief is trying to provide. Its task would have been done before this in Armenia except for the care and training of orphans, if it had not been for the Turkish inva- sion and the Soviet overturning. Even now, howjever, through the provision of seed grain and the necessary help for agri- cultural re-establishment, the dependent adult people should be in a position of self-maintenance by next year. If adequate help especially in the supply of seed could have been given this year, the people would be out of danger by the coming harvest, but the children will be a charge for a long time yet, and the proper care of this great trust will call not for funds only but for the wisest and truest personal service. Tiflis is normally a city of 300,000 population and is now congested by the crowding in of double that number. There is not here the depth of poverty and need which is so visible in Armenia, but there is an immense amount of want and un- employment, and it is difficult to see how still worse conditions can be avoided. We saw no drays or wagons or any merchan- dise whatever moving on the streets. Many shops are closed 559 and others are open, with the scantiest stocks of goods, for only part of the day. There are no factories except a few cigarette factories which represent an economic waste. The central administration office of the Near East Relief of the Caucasus area is in Tiflis, and Near East Relief workers are carrying on seven feeding stations, which are feeding nearly 10,000 people, seven schools, four orphanages, and two old clothes distribution centers. We visited a great deal of this work and talked with the people in charge of it, many of them Russian men and women of high social position and rare abilities who were thankful for this opportunity of ser- vice and for the bare subsistence which it provided. The widow of a Russian general in charge of one of the dining halls for children gave me a remarkable set of papers and dia- grams which she had prepared showing the work of the center under her charge with a general memorandum in Eng- lish which I venture to quote as illustrative of the spirit of the personnel which the Near East Relief has been able to employ. MEMORANDUM "From the Manager of the 1st American Ganovskaia Dining- room. ''Before attempting to give an idea of the activity of our organization, I must first express our feeling of deep gratitude to the highly humanitarian help the noble American nation spreads throughout the world, and which has now reached the southern borders of our once so grand and brilliant coun- try that is now ruined and perfectly prostrate and would be condemned to perish, were it not for the Almighty Hand manifested in the charity sent to it from America. We cer- tainly have reason to fear that time and length of help may have limits and exhaust the givers thereof, but the acuteness of want and misery are in no way allayed and would be ex- actly as mortal to the thousands of children's lives, as the situation was when the American help was first given to Tiflis, now, already three years ago, when our Ganovskaia dining- room began providing dinner for 100 poor children, and has gradually grown into dimensions of various help to the num- ber of 1,100 children. Thanks to the geographical situation, and conditions of climate the Caucasus, notwithstanding its being but a part of the old Empire, has now become a refuge for the unhappy widows and orphans of Russians, and 53 per cent of the children we assist, are Russians, the next in num- ber are Gregorians, and there follow Armenians, Germans, Poles, and Jews. 50 per cent of all the number are orphans. 560 The aim of our dining-room is the help to children, and we begin providing nourishment to their mothers a month or two before their confinement. The ordinary age of our boarders does not surpass 14 (30'; are under 7 and 50'; are between 8 and 12), but sometimes we make an exception and provide to older ones struck by tuberculosis, recovering from severe illnesses, quite destitute of any help, or being students on the last course of their education. "Scarcity of food and general destitution have acted most destructively on the youthful inhabitants of this town, and we count 35 per cent of consumption and 50 per cent of weak and sickly children among our boarders. "The actual program of our activity is the following: (1) General nourishment consisting of a dinner and one-fourth lb. of bread. (2) Increased nourishment for the sickly and chil- dren recovering from severe illnesses. (3) Help in clothes and shoes, drawn from the bales of old clothes sent from America. (4) Medical help expressed in daily reception in the ambulatory of the D. R., visits to the ill children by our physicians and their assistants and delivery of medicines. (5) Elementary education in a kindergarten attached to the D. R. and primal classes in the apartment itself consisting of teaching manual works, as shoe-making, and weaving and sew- ing and instruction in teaching, reading and writing and arith- metic and even foreign languages, as English and French, to small groups desirous of learning them. "All our endeavors are directed to save not only the physical growth of our children, but to develop in them the moral gifts Nature has provided them with, and to save them from the destructive influence of the street. The surroundings they live in are a sore trial for such an object, but we have had more than once the gratifying consequence of seeing the influence of mild discipline and teaching in a complete change of manner and spirit in a child, formerly rough and coarse. They come to us at a little past 8 in the morning and try to remain as long as they can and disperse after 6 in the evening, visibly enjoying the influence of their surroundings. Our incompe- tent and unorganized ways of education giving good fruit proves to me the great necessity of moral help to those poor children, that might be given to them by organizing a regular refugee primal school where the children might profit, in an established order of daily occupations, bringing them ef- fectual use in their future lives and preparing them to be use- ful citizens, capable of helping themselves and others. I am not a partisan of resident pupils, because in that way children 561 become too detached from the life of general conditions and very often expect from it too much external help and are blind to the surrounding miseries that unhappily life is so full of, but rational teaching would help them in that struggle with- out giving the bitter feeling of not being in any way pre- pared for it. "Being aware of the elevated interest you have in the wel- fare of humanity, I here express my earnest hope that you will perhaps help us to advance and augment the amount of good already given to our unhappy people by your generous nation. "Manager 1st American Ganovskaia D. R. and Kindergarten Eugenie Kayanavitchy, "Widow of a Russian General." "Tiflis, Ganovskaia Str. No. 3. 18th of April, 1922." The Near East Relief has been able to secure from the Governments in the Caucasus free transportation of its goods and personnel. So efficient has been the management of this work both at Batum, the receiving center, and on the railroad that there has been practically no loss whatever from theft. In the conditions which prevail at the present time in the Caucasus, this is little short of miracle. We were unable to see all we desired in Constantinople, because of erroneous information as to the time of sailing of our steamer, but we saw the headquarters work of the Near East Relief, conferred with the new Patriarch of the Greek Church, had a meeting with the missionary body, and visited the admirable orphanage of that admirable woman. Miss Cushman. No one can handle such work or any work more efficiently than Miss Cushman, and she finds it difficult to pro- vide for the care and training of the children and all the necessary overhead relief expenses on the budget allowance of two liras or $7 a month for each child. We cannot speak too warmly of what we saw of the Near East Relief work. (1) It is doing a great work of human salvage. It has kept alive thousands of adult people who otherwise would have died, and it has rescued tens of thou- sands of children who will live to redeem the waste places and to rebuild the ruins in the Near East. (2) It has lifted the name of America to a unique place in the respect and aifection of the people of all races in Turkey and Persia and Russia. We were charged with innumerable messages of gratitude to the American people from the Greek Patriarch in Constanti- nople, the Armenian Catholicos in Etchmiadzin, other eccle- 562 siastics, Persian political officials, and hundreds of the people to whom the American Relief has been their only friend and hope. This was again and again their very language. "Our only hope is America." "But for America, our nation would have died." It is this service of the past which has begotten in the minds of these people the confidence that we will not fail them now. "The great country of which you are a citi- zen," wrote the Armenian archbishop when we were in Rama- dan, "has by her humane effort in the relief work for these sufferers set the nations of the world a unique example of Christian fellowship and brotherhood, and has carried on this great humane work for so long that it seems to be impos- sible that she should leave the undertaking unfinished and, at this the critical hour of their need, when death is awaiting every man, woman and child of them, leave these refugees to their own resources. Most of these refugees have settled down in the villages and sown in the hopes of reaping the harvest in the coming season, and if no relief reaches them they will either be forced by circumstances to leave every- thing and wander about or else to stay where they are and await death by hunger." (3) We were impressed by the unity and the economy of the relief work in the Caucasus. It was gratifying to see the spirit of co-operation and loyalty which animated it. And I doubt whether any great relief undertaking has ever been carried through with a larger meas- ure of efficiency and frugality. There are many people with- out employment in the Caucasus who are glad to do faithfully any work that will yield a bare subsistence. Dr. Elmer told us that it was possible in Tiflis to get a good doctor who would give all his time to relief service in one of the dispensaries for seven dollars a month, and he stated that the average cost of the Russian and Armenian personnel in the Tiflis area was four dollars a month. (4) Somewhere in the Near East we heard a jibe at all this relief work of the American people to the effect that America got back one hundred and fifty per cent of all that she gave away. I do not think that it is Phari- saical to believe that to him that gives it shall be given again and that in the end a blessing of just prosperity does come to the nation which gives generously to human need, but no such thoughts as these have been in the minds of the Ameri- can people in this service. It has been an unselfish and truly Christian ministry. No doubt there is much in our national life to justify the charge of selfishness and commercialism, but in a work like this one rejoices to believe that our country is engaged in a great and loving deed for love's sake alone, 563 and that amid the many judgments that await her, whether of sorrow or of joy, she will not fail some day to hear a Voice saying to her, "I was naked and ye clothed me ; I was hungry and ye fed me; I was a stranger and ye took me in." S. S. Constantinople, Ionian Sea, May 2, 1922. 564 15. SOME MISCELLANEOUS POINTS 1. Sketch of Persian History, 1897-1922. As a background to this report on Persia, it mav be well to summarize briefly the history of the country for the last twenty-five years. Nasr ed Din Shah, the last strong Persian ruler, was assas- sinated at the shrine of Abdul Azim in May, 1896, and was at once succeeded by his son, Muzaffar ed Din, who reigned until his death in January, 1907. Modern ideas had begun to pene- trate Persia and the growth of these ideas and of a sense of nationalism was accentuated by the resentment of the people at what they deemed the gradual extinction of their depend- ence by the influence of Russia and Great Britain. The Shahs had been absolute but in 1905 the Persian people demanded representative institutions and in January, 1900, the Govern- ment announced that the Shah had given his consent to the establishment of a National Council (Mejiis). "Under the rescript of August 5, 1906, it was decided that the National Council should consist of and be elected by members of the reigning dynasty (princes and Ka.iara), clergy, chiefs, nobles, landowners, merchants and tradesmen. An ordinance of Sep- tember 10, 1906, fixed the number of members at 156 (60 for Teheran and 96 for the provinces), and early in October elections were held. On October 7th, the National Council (or as many of its members as could be got together) met, chose a president, and was welcomed by the Shah, whose speech was read before it. A further rescript dated Decem- ber 30, 1906, signed by Muzaffar ed Din, and countersigned by the Vali-Ahd, and by the Grand Vizier, deals with the decree of August 5, 1906, and states the powers and duties of the National Council, besides making provision for the regulation of its general procedure by the National Council itself. The number of members was limited to 156, but could be raised to 200; members were to be elected for 2 years; would meet annually on October 8 (14th Mizan), and have immunity from prosecution, except with the knowledge of the National Council. The publicity of their proceedings (except under conditions accepted by the National Council) was secured. Ministers (or their delegates) could appear and speak in the National Council, and would be responsible to that body, which had special control of financial affairs and internal administration. Its sanction would be required for all territorial changes, for alienation of State property, for the 565 granting of concessions, for the contracting of loans, for the construction of roads and railways, and for the ratification of all treaties, except such as in the interest of the State require secrecy." ("The Statesman's Year-book," 1916, p. 1220.) Muzaffar ed Din was succeeded by his son Mohammed Ali who confirmed the new constitution. The Me j lis and the Shah soon came into collision and the Mejlis was dissolved and a time of disaster followed. In 1907 Russia and Great Britain partitioned Persia by a convention of their own into two spheres of influence and the fall of the Mejlis was followed by increasing Russian dominance in Teheran. When the war which had begun between the Nationalists and Royalists threatened the Shah's security in 1909 he fled to the Russian Legation and thereupon the National Council met, and inter- preting the Shah's action as abdication, chose his son, Ahmad Mirza, the present Shah, to succeed him. The Mejlis met again on November 15, 1909, and was formally opened by the Shah, then a boy of 13. The new government attempted to reorganize its finances with the help of American advisers under the assurance of theRusso-British agreement that Persia was to be left free to manage its own internal affairs. But the activities of Mr. Shuster, the American who was chosen to be Treasurer General, soon brought him into collision with Rus- sian and British interests and after seven months' service, which the Persians still remember gratefully, he was forced to resign and within a few years the whole financial administra- tion was back in Persian hands again. Russian and British influences were paramount in Persia until the war. Then the collapse of the old Russian Govern- ment was followed by a new treaty between the Soviet Gov- ernment and Persia by which Russia forgave the debt owed her by Persia and turned over to Persia all Russian Government property in Persia except the buildings needed for diplomatic and consular purposes. "In August, 1919, a treaty was drawn up between Great Britain and Persia in which the British Government (1) reiter- ated the past undertakings to respect absolutely the independence and integrity of Persia; (2) undertook to supply whatever expert advisers may be necessary for the several departments of the Persian administration; (3) also to provide such officers, munitions and equipment as may be adjudged necessary by a joint British and Persian Military Commission for the formation of a uniform force for the main- tenance of order in the Country and on the Frontiers; (4) to 566 provide a substantial loan to finance the reforms in 2 and 3; (5) to co-operate in railway construction and other forms of transport; (6) to appoint a joint committee to revise the existing Customs Tariff. The agreement was on February 27, 1921, denounced by the then Prime Minister, Seyed-Ziaed- Din." ("The Statesman's Year-Book," 1921, page 1164.) The Persians felt greatly aggrieved by this treaty which, rightly or wrongly, they regarded as bringing Persia under the con- trol of Great Britain, practically on the same basis as India, and it accentuated the strong anti-British feeling of the coun- try. In consequence Great Britain removed all the troops which the war had brought to Persian soil and also withdrew many other forms of influence. At the present time, accordingly, Persia is free from all outside political control. The Shah is abroad in Europe. The Mejlis is in session for the fourth time since it was first founded. The spirit of democracy and constitutionalism is stronger than it has ever been. The nation can now prove, if it will, its capacity and desire for orderly progress and free institutions. 2. Organization of the Missions. We considered in all our conferences the question of the relation of the two Persia Missions. Has the time come for uniting the two Missions as has been done in Shantung, Japan and Siam? Or should there be three or even four Missions, our two present Mis- sions, the Mission in Mesopotamia, and the Khorasan-Afghan- istan Mission? The considerations, which are familiar to the Board in connection with the Missions in Shantung, Japan, and Siam, in favor of unification are equally valid in Persia. For the present, however, the difficulties in the way of the consolidation of the East and West Persia Missions appear to over-balance the reasons for union. Even at the best season of the year Tabriz and Meshed are a month's hard and ex- pensive journey apart. At the worst season of the year it may take two or even three months to travel between these two stations. There is a clear linguistic separation between the fields of the two Missions, West Persia using the Turkish language and East Persia Persian. Hitherto the problems of the two fields were in a measure diverse because of the pre- ponderance of work for Assyrians and Armenians in the Uru- mia and Tabriz stations. Now this diversity has been dimin- ished through the predominance of work for Moslems in West Persia on the one hand, and the addition of the large Assyrian community to the East Persia Mission field at Hamadan on the other hand. There are no railways between the difl'erent 567 stations, and between some of them the roads are nothing but caravan trails passable only on horseback. The general opinion seemed to be that the union of the two Missions should be effected whenever the means of communication improved sufficiently to bring all the stations into nearer and easier ac- cess, and that until then there should be as full correspond- ence and visitation as possible and a resolute effort on the part of each Mission and all the stations to think of their own wbrk in terms of the w'nole field and its needs. I have reported elsewhere the general opinion that the work at Mosul and in the mountains should be made a part of a new Mesopotamian Mission to be staffed, supported and ad- ministered jointly by the Reformed Church and our own, and to be buttressed on the south by the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church, on the west by our Syrian Mission, on the east by the East Persia Mission, and in the northeast by the Urumia station of the West Persia Mission. There remained the question whether the Meshed station should be constituted a separate Mission. Several years ago this idea was urged upon the Board by the Meshed station with the acquiescence of the East Persia Mission. We were glad to find the station at the present time strongly in favor of its continuance as a station of the East Persia Mission. It seemed to us all that Meshed needed the association of the Mission and that the Mission needed the association of Meshed. Ultimately as we have set forth in the section of this report dealing with "The Occupation of the Whole Field" there should be a new mission growing out of Meshed and embracing a great region at present wholly unoccupied by any missionary agencies. Until then special effort should be made to bring the whole East Persia Mission into relationship with Meshed and its problems. Only two members of the Mission who are now on the field, Dr. Frame and Dr. McDowell, who accom- panied us, have ever visited Meshed and only one of these since its occupation as a Mission station. It is desirable that others should be sent, and it might be very wise to have a small deputation of the most experienced and trusted Moham- medan converts from the older stations visit and advise with the little Church which has been founded in Meshed. 3. Property. The Board has excellent mission properties in Teheran, Tabriz, Hamadan and Kermanshah. Almost all of these are in admirable order and repair. They are among the most beautiful, most healthful and most useful properties in these various cities. Most of the improvements and addi- tions which are necessary have been made possible by the 568 rehabilitation and Sunday school offerings. The chief re- maining needs are for additional missionary residences and for the property equipment funds at Resht and Meshed, and for the college expansion of the Teheran Boys' School in East Persia and for the rehabilitation of the Urumia station in West Persia. Mr. Carter deals with these property matters in a separate chapter. The only property whose title, so far as we know, is in dispute, is the portion of the college property first pur- chased without the walls of Teheran. It is believed that there is no real flaw in this title, and that the title may soon be declared as secure as any titles in Persia can be said to be. All our property at Resht and Meshed at the present time is rented property. There will be no difficulty in purchas- ing in Resht and we went over the various available properties with Dr. Frame, who has probably by this time made final purchase of the property which he is now using as a hospital and of some adjacent property available for residences and the boys' school. The present Mission premises rented in Meshed are very satisfactory. Three good residences have been secured side by side for moderate rent, and good build- ings excellently adapted for the hospital have been rented across the street, with another residence adjoining. Ample and desirable property for all the present and future needs of the station has been offered it for purchase, and one of the leading mollahs has been promoting the transaction and is ready to validate the deeds. The kargazar, however, hesitates to approve so large a purchase without special authorization from Teheran, not because he lacks sympathy with the Mis- sion in whose girls' school in Teheran his daughter has been educated, but because he desires to save both the Government and the Mission the trouble that might arise from arousing dormant fanaticism. Both for this and for other reasons we were not clear that it was wise to press for the immediate acquisition of a large piece of property in Meshed. It may, however, be wise to do so, if after further tactful investiga- tion, it is found that property can be secured without oppo- sition or ill will. 4. Press and Literature. The only press which the Mis- sions in Persia possessed was the Syriac press in Urumia which was entirely destroyed during the war. The mission- aries presented in each conference the question of the estab- lishment of one central Mission press for all of Persia or two presses, one in each Mission. The multiplicity of languages, Persian, Turkish, Syriac, Armenian and Kurdish, and the 569 segregation of some of these languages from others and the slow communication and difficult transportation between the stations make the establishment of a single press a doubtful expedient. At the present time Hamadan is the most poly- glot of the stations and is as geographically central as any of them, and so long as the Caucasus trade route is closed, is nearest the foreign markets from which supplies must be secured. After reviewing the whole question with the Missions and in the light of the Board's experience with Mission presses in other lields and the increasing disposition of the Missions for good reasons to abandon Mission presses and have all their printing done by public presses wherever this is pos- sible, we advised the Missions against at this time setting up any new press establishment. A full experiment should be made in the use of the printing plants which now exist in Tabriz and Teheran and elsewhere. It may possibly be found necessary, after the re-establishment of Urumia, to have a small press there. That can be determined later. Meanwhile, however, immediate provision must be made to provide new fonts of Syriac type which can probably be used in Tabriz to supply literature for the Assyrians. All their school books and other literature were destroyed and should be replaced. There is no Syriac type in Persia, and the Mission would like to have new fonts made at once from the matrices in America and sent out to the field, the expense to be met out of the press appropriations which are still continued in the Urumia grants. The question of literature is a separate question from that of a printing press. There can be no doubt as to the need of a far larger and better supply of Christian literature both in Persian and in Turkish. Nothing has been produced in recent years equal to such early publications as the "Balance of Truth" and "Sweet First Fruits." Effective literature can- not be produced in any mechanical way, and the shelves of the presses in Beirut and Shanghai testify to the folly of using missionary time and missionary money in printing pamph- lets or books just because some good man or woman has pro- duced them. But when some one is raised up who has the taste and the faculty for the right kind of literary work, the Mission should make the fullest use of such gifts. Only eter- nity will show the results of the amazing contribution which Dr. W. F. Johnson has made to the literature of the Church in northern India. It is possible that some of the apologetic literature for Moslems which has been published in India and 570 Egypt might be translated in Persia. It is more probable, however, that the literature needed for work with Shiah Mo- hammedans will have to be produced by men and women engaged in this work, and ultimately, of course, the best of it by converted Mohammedans themselves. We urged upon both Missions that some of the individuals who seemed best adapted to this work should be encouraged and even required' to undertake it. The people who can read in Persia are eager to read, but good reading material is very scarce. It was pathetic to see the eagerness with which tracts would be received and Scrip- ture portions purchased. A boy came running after Mr. Wil- son, as we went through the Tabriz bazaar selling Scriptures without any hindrance or difficulty in the tea houses and in the shops and desired to buy a Gospel. "Can you sell me the Gospel of Matthew?" said he. "I already have the Gospel of Jolin." Bible Society reports will not show any such quantity of sales in Persia as can be shown in the densely populated fields, but nowhere will the copies that are sold be more genu- inely appreciated or more extensively read. It would be a good thing if the Missions were able to supply a monthly Christian paper published in Persian and Turkish editions, and the evangelical Church in Urumia should be encouraged and helped to resume the publication of the "Rays of Light" in Syriac, that in some new form it may illumine and mold the people as it did in its old form for a generation. The present edition of the Bible in Azerbaijan Turkish is exhausted, and the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Mission have been in doubt as to the wisdom of republishing it without complete revision. The conclusion of the Mission Conference in Tabriz was that it was better not to undertake a revised version at the present time but to ask the British and Foreign Bible Society to print immediately a new edi- tion of the present version of the New Testament of 2,500 copies with additional portions. A revision is needed, but it ought to be postponed until it can be thoroughly made with the aid of competent native scholars as well as missionaries. A partial revision now which would have to be followed by a further revision later would be confusing to the Church and a satisfaction to its Moslem adversaries, who buy up all the different versions they can and argue from them that the Christians have found errors in their Scriptures and have been obliged to change them. I have spoken elsewhere of the arguments which some of the converts from Mohammedanism advance in behalf of the 571 translation and the publication of the Koran in Persia. There is a large volume containing the Koran in Arabic and Persian in parallel columns, but it is too expensive, and the Moham- medan converts urge that a more satisfactory Persian trans- lation should be made and issued in cheap popular form. They were convinced that this would result in a destruction of popu- lar respect for the book and in many conversions to the re- ligion of the Bible. We asked them why the publication of the Koran in the vernacular would have this effect in Persia, when such effects had not followed the circulation of the Koran in Arabic, in Syria, Arabia, or Egypt where Arabic is the vernacular. They replied that in those countries the people had a deep reverence for the Arabic language and that they did not test the book as a religious document but viewed it patriotically as a great national monument written by their greatest Arab. Persians, however, felt no such pride either in its language or in its nationalism, but considered it only as the Word of God, and once they were able to read it they would repudiate it altogether in this character. They had already come to distrust Islam and to regard it as responsible for having degraded Persia from its old position of intelli- gence and power to its present state of illiteracy and weak- ness. Let them see what a futile and foolish book the Koran is, and their growing disposition to reject its authority would be increased. Probably it would, and one would like to see the plan carried out which these converts are urging. But in the first place it would be no easy task to get a proper trans- lation, and in the second place it might be questioned whether this would be a proper use of Mission funds. It is very difficult at present to get paper in Persia. All printing paper has to come from Russia or India, and for a long time the Russian supply has been cut off. Old American magazines and periodicals can be sold in Teheran for more than the subscription price, to be used for wrapping paper. Many of the bags used in the bazaar are hand-made from old Russian letters pasted together. Bibles even have been bought for wrapping paper or in order that their covers may be used for Persian books. We picked up in a shop in the Kerman- shah bazaar what looked like an English book. It was bound in cloth covers bearing the title "The Secret Cave." The old shop-keeper at once showed signs of distress and motioned to us to replace the book. We did so at once with apologies, having discovered upon opening it that it was a copy of the Koran clad in the garments of an English novel. One of the converts in Meshed was converted through reading a page in 572 the New Testament wrapped around a package of tea. Dr. Cook was accustomed deliberately to wrap up medicines in New Testament pages, knowing that each one of them would be read and re-read. It seems clear to us that in many ways a much larger evangelistic use should be made in Persia of Bibles, books, tracts and periodicals. 5. Presbyterial Organization. The Assyrian Evangelical Church was organized as an independent Church body having no ecclesiastical relationship to the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. It had its own general synod or knushya, with three presbyteries named after the three rivers which divided the plain, Sulduz, City and Baranduz, with its synodical boards caring one for the evangelistic and educational work of the Church and the other for the legal affairs of the Church and its people. All ecclesiastical functions were discharged effi- ciently by this Church, and the station was free to carry out its distinctively missionary work without any ecclesiastical authority, in full and happy co-operation with the Church. Elsewhere in Persia the only ecclesiastical body was the East Persia Presbytery connected with the Synod of New York. When it was formed in 1890 and for some years all the mis- sionaries joined it. It was such an unreal body, however, that its missionary members had misgivings regarding the wisdom of its continuance and advised the younger men com- ing out to retain their connection for the present with their home presbyteries in America. The Presbytery has now four missionary (Mr. Hawkes, Dr. Jordan, Dr. Schuler and Dr. Stead) and three native members (Badvali Kaspar of Te- heran, Baron Ossitur, and Mirza A. Hyeem of Hamadan). The Presbytery has been able to meet only at the time of Mission meetings, and at one recent meeting only three mis- sionaries and no natives were present. At the time of our visit three of the missionary members were away on furlough. There are only three organized Churches in the Presbytery, no one of them with a settled pastor. The missionaries raised the question whether it was not desirable to dissolve the Pres- bytery or whether it was better to ask the Synod of New York to allow it to rest in a quiescent state in the hope that before long the organization of new churches and the instal- lation of pastors may make it possible to revive the Presby- tery and to organize it as a genuine Persian body. The gen- eral view was that the latter course is the wiser one. Mean- while the missionaries at Meshed have been obliged to dis- charge some of the functions naturally belonging to a Pres- bytery although they have no such status. It seemed to us 573 that they might be forgiven for this, and that it was better that the work in Meshed should grow to the point where it needs a genuine Persian presbyterial organization rather than that an American Presbytery should now be imposed upon it. It is to be hoped that the work in the Tabriz field also will develop necessities which cannot longer be met by the simple processes which appear for the present to be sufficient. 6. Indemnity for War Losses. The Urumia and Tabriz missionaries lost a great part or all of their personal property during the war as a result of the occupation of the station by the Turkish forces and the exposure of all the missionary property to looting at the hands of Turks and Kurds and Per- sians. All the Mission property also in Urumia was destroyed and heavy damages were done to some of the property in Tabriz, especially the hospital, standing on the edge of the city. Later the Bolshevik invasion which reached Resht and which threatened Tabriz and Meshed led to the withdrawal of all the missionaries from Resht and most of the mission- aries from Tabriz and Meshed, involving additional sacrifices, and in the case of Resht the actual looting of some of the Mission property. In accordance with instructions from the State Department a statement of the losses of the Board's property was pre- sented to Washington, and the missionaries have sent in or are sending in, as required, statements of their personal losses on the forms provided by the Government. All these are just indemnity claims and must be left to the American Gov- ernment to be dealt with in the manner that is appropriate and right. Meanwhile the Board has sought through the special Persia Rehabilitation Fund to secure gifts from the Churches ade- quate to provide (a) such reimbursement of the missionaries for their personal losses as might be equitable and just, so that they could reestablish their homes, pending the receipt of any indemnity through the Government, and (b) the amount required to restore necessary Mission property in Tabriz and Urumia and to provide other essential property equipment for the Persia Missions. The Board Treasurer's Office reports that the total amount received toward the Re- habilitation Fund up to March 31, 1922 is $47,566.26, most designated for special property objects. This amount is divided between the two Missions as follows: East Persia $24,657.88, ($15,356 for specified property and $9,031.88 un- specified) ; West Persia $22,908.38, ($10,971.48 for specified objects and $11,936.90 for unspecified). 574 The East Persia Mission has disposed of all personal losses of its missionaries in the following action taken at the Mission meeting in August, 1921: "We recommend that the funds appropriated under Treas- ury Notices Nos. 3459 and 3466 for rehabilitation should JDe distributed as follows: For reimbursement of missionaries or personal losses in Resht, as follows : Dr. Frame $2000 00 Miss Amerman 400 00 Mr. Wilson 200 00 $2600 00 Reimbursement of personal losses in Meshed due to evacuation Mr. Donaldson 300 00 Dr. Hoffman 300 00 Dr. Lichtwardt 300 OO' Mr. Miller 100 00 $1000 00 Reimbursement of losses due to fire in Meshed, Jan. 1919 Mr. Murray 500 00 Dr. Hoffman 250 00 750 00 Resht Medical Equipment looted 724 93 Resht School Equipment 276 95 Hamadan Repairs 1550 00 Finish Doulatabad Residence 1100 00 Additions Kermanshah Hospital 1300 00 $9301 88 "In regard to the sums assigned above for reimbursement for personal losses we recommend that the mission treasurer be directed to pay out to the missionary if the latter so desires one-half of the sum indicated above at once, the balance to be paid only after presentation and approval by the Executive Committee of detailed statements of losses of each missionary. It is not to be assumed that the amount indicated above is to be drawn unless it is needed to replace actual loss nor is it to be assumed that the above action will preclude the missionary from presenting a request for a total in excess of that in- dicated." The personal losses of the West Persia missionaries on fur- lough were not a matter of record, so that the total amount of personal losses sustained by members of this Mission could not be ascertained at the time of our visit. Reports from eleven families, however, showed a loss of tomans 36,000, equivalent, when the toman costs eighty-five cents, to $30,600. A small committee with Dr. Packard as chairman was ap- pointed to review the new lists that were to be made upon a uniform basis and to see what could be done at once to relieve 575 the missionaries who had been carrying as overdrafts the amounts they had expended for absolutely necessary house- hold equipment, and to make funds available for those who had not furnished their present homes in any adequate way. Dfiring the last days of the Tabriz conference it was not pos- sible to secure all the lists, to make all the necessary compari- sons and adjustments and to report recommendations to the conference. Dr. Packard assured us, however, that he would follow the matter through as speedily as possible and report to the Mission and to the Board in New York. His committee estimated that the final figures for personal losses of West Persia missionaries might be $45,000 to $50,000. Towards this, judging from the list of unspent appropriations that we had taken with us from New York, it appeared that there was only some $13,000 available. Some of the missionaries called attention to the fact that they had received from the churches supporting them, or from other sources, certain sums for re- establishing themselves upon the field. These gifts were to be reported to Dr. Packard in connection with the revised list of losses. But making allowance for such items it was ap- parent that not more than 30 per cent of the losses could be paid from funds in hand. Some families need the full sum or approximately the full sum now. Others called attention to the fact that, though they expected full indemnity through the Government, they did not need full reimbursement imme- diately through the Board, as their lists included lost equip- ment for which, in view of their present work and under their present household arrangements, they could wait. It is understood of course that all payments for personal losses from the Rehabilitation Fund are to be regarded as advances to be returned in case of Government indemnifica- tion. S. S. Constantinople, Mediterranean Sea, May 5, 1922. 576 VI. PROPERTY AND FINANCIAL MATTERS INDIA We were very much pleased to see that the properties which the Missions are enjoying in India are so adequate and satis- factory. Land is, of course, relatively cheap and with fore- thought our early missionaries secured, either through gov- ernment grant or by purchase, or long term lease, large plots of ground admirably located for Mission purposes. The titles to these properties stand in the name of the Board. The deeds are in the possession of the Treasurers of the Missions. In most cases these plots have been well treated, shade trees planted, and buildings well placed. There are many beautiful compounds such as the one at Mainpuri where there are magnificent old trees, and where the residences and school buildings are well spaced, and are either to the side or rear so that there is a fine stretch of un- broken campus in front similar to the front campus at Prince- ton; or the one at Rakha, where there is a similar grouping, though the school buildings are too congested, and where at one end of the great campus the fine old church building is seen in its beautiful setting; or the one at Ferozepur, where in the ample nine acre compound you approach the bungalows and hospital buildings by a driveway that winds through stately trees and beautiful palms. At Allahabad the Ewing Christian College is located on a tract of twenty acres on the banks of the Jumna River, and the College buildings, the resi- dences, and the Jumna High School have been happily located around the sides of this tract so that there are acres of turf playing ground in the center unbroken by anything except one immense banyan tree with its aerial roots (under a great sweeping mass of foliage that must be one hundred feet across) and the old community church where we had a sweet com- munion service ministered to by Indian elders. The compound at Saharanpur is a glorious one of fifty-four acres and very centrally located, but you cannot quite throw off the feeling that it is not being adequately used. In the industrial school there were only thirty boys whereas its capacity is one hundred and fifty; and in the seminary there were only sixteen students, though it can accommodate one hundred. These two groups of buildings were erected espe- 577 19— IncliH and Persia cially for their respective purposes and are well adapted to them. The industrial plant represents an outlay of some $15,000.00 and the. seminary buildings even more. With so few students there is not money enough in the reduced budgets to keep up the repairs on the buildings. Only one of the three wings in the dormitory of the industrial plant was in use, and the roof timbers and roofs of the other two were in complete disrepair. The Punjab and North India Missions discussed frankly the future of these schools and full report is made elsewhere. The Government has taken over by condemnation proceedings a strip of the compound lying next to the railway, and one could not altogether wonder at it as one saw the rela- tively small use to which these beautiful and extensive grounds are being put. At Lahore we are sorry to say the general effect is not pleasing to the eye or satisfactory to those who are adminis- tering the work. The College is very centrally located and has recently acquired quite a strip of land adjacent to its former holdings which will enable it in time to remedy the situation somewhat. But at present the existing buildings are very congested and there seems to have been no well considered plan in locating them. Again, they are limited on one side by a Moslem cemetery and on another by valuable business properties. To properly enlarge the site is, therefore, an expensive and difficult matter. The redeeming features are the beautiful new Ewing Hall, a model in style and execu- tion, and the attractive approach past the president's house. We were completely carried away with Dehra. It is a beautiful compound, retired and restful, with the largest vari- ety of trees we saw anywhere, with roses and chrysanthe- mums in abundance, and well kept vegetable and fruit gardens. The buildings are well planned, well kept, with ample light because the buildings are detached and they have that glorious view from the windows and housetops off towards the foot hills of the Himalayas that ought to inspire anyone to do good work. In general, we would say that the India Missions are very well provided for in the way of land, and in looking over the India Council's preferred list we see that the only places where additions to present compounds are asked for are at Moga and Jagraon, amounting to only some $3,500.00. The other land askings amount to only $15,000.00 and are necessary not because of any shortage of land, but because it has been thought wise to change locations. The old sites should be sold in time to cover in whole or in part the cost of the new 578 sites. In general, too, we have found the buildings very satis- factory. In some places it looks as if in times past mission- aries have been given too much latitude in planning and building according to their individual ideas, but the building committees of the Missions are now giving these matters more careful attention, and it is definitely understood that no building will be started until the plans have the full approval of the committee. It was a very great satisfaction and joy to see the mission- aries so well housed. The residences are of the bungalow type, usually built of hard burned bricks, so that the exterior can be brick or stucco. The walls are very thick to keep on' the heat, and the ceilings high, sixteen to twenty feet. The roofs are usually flat and of mud and have to be kept well rolled to prevent leakage. These flat roofs afford cool sleeping quarters in the summer months. In Western India, where the rainfall is excessive, the roofs are pitched and covered with tile. Now that most of our missionaries get away to Landour or Kodaikanal or Mahableshwar for the hot season it may be that it will not be necessary to make the rooms so large or the ceilings so high, thus effecting something of a saving to offset in part the increased cost of building. Some of the residences appeared to us to be unnecessarily spacious, but, of course, we were there in the cool season. There are eleven new residences asked for on the India Council's pre- ferred list of new property estimated to cost 186,000 rupees; this in a list of fifty-three items totaling 550,000 rupees. We are very happy to say that in only two of these eleven stations was there any doubling up, that is, two families in one house, when we were on the field ; the other nine requests repre- sented future needs. We think we can safely say, therefore, that our missionaries in India are comfortably and almost adequately housed, and for this we were profoundly thankful as we visited with them from station to station. This is due largely to the new buildings erected by the more than $800,- 000.00 set aside for property from the munificent Kennedy bequest and by subsequent generous gifts through the Wo- man's Board and from individuals and churches. Now there should be from three to five new residences provided each year to keep abreast of the situation. It would be difficult to generalize as to school buildings. The college groups of buildings are the usual miscellaneous lot, neither college having a uniform treatment or style of architecture. But they have established themselves with so little money directly from the Board and have built so eco- 579 nomically and are doing such a magnificent work that one is not disposed to be at all critical. He only wishes at Lahore that there was better light and air in the buildings and that at Allahabad the really fine buildings were all of one style of architecture. The primary and middle school buildings erected within the last ten years seem very well adapted to requirements, and we were happy to see that there is more light and air being introduced. Some of the best of the late buildings have been planned or the building overseen by wo- men. The new school building at Kodoli was a delight with its large windows to the north giving fine light, yet avoiding the glare and heat of the direct sunlight. Too much credit cannot be given to our women in charge of schools. You could tell before you had gone far whether a woman's hand, with its orderly and delicate touches, was responsible for the up- keep. We were agreeably surprised to find the buildings in such good repair. Not that the Missions are able to put aside from present appropriations what is needed for upkeep, but they seem to be using effectively what they have and they were quite in accord with our suggestion that out of the next increase given to the Missions in Classes IV-X an attempt should be made to provide for upkeep more adequately. The amount specified for repairs should be kept intact, not subject to transfer, and any balance unspent should be carried over to the next fiscal year. The India Missions were very sympa- thetic to the Board's request that a reasonable limit be placed upon the amount of new property approved by the Missions and took such action this year, following the suggestion that until some other ratio be agreed upon the amount be limited to the total of the appropriations to the Missions for native work classes. We left New York purposing to secure a complete number- ing of all our properties in India and Persia, so that reference could be made to them by number instead of name, and the photographs and plans in the Board's property files be given corresponding numbers. Those in the Missions and the vari- ous stations best advised in property matters have given their hearty co-operation, and this work has been completed for every station. The plan of numbering that met with approval, and which was followed, was to give number 1 to the land in a station and the following numbers, say, 2-9, to the various principal buildings on that plot. If there was a second com- pound in the station, to give to that tract the next number, in this case number 10, and the following numbers to the 580 buildings upon that tract, and so on. In some stations there were from two to five different compounds and it did not seem wise to number the buildings chronologically, according to the date of erection, for this would not permit of consecutive numbering on a given compound; building number 2 would be on land number 1, whereas building number 3 might be on a tract in another part of the city. All the photographs and plans in the Board files will now be numbered in accord- ance with these lists made on the field, and copies of the lists of property, plans and photographs will be sent to the field. These reports will make it very apparent where we lack photographs or plans of important buildings and there has been agreement on the field to try to make these shortages good as soon as possible. Note should be made of the fact that we are losing or have already lost a strip of land, say 30 to 75 feet in width across the front of our property at Dehra, between the edge of the stream and the top of the bank, because the boundaries of our property were not plainly marked. Those who worked the property and were next door owners were allowed to do so without a clear understanding as to ownership and now claim the property. On another side a roadway jointly owned, and no longer required as a roadway, has all been taken over and put under cultivation by a zealous neighbor. And we are also forced to allow a right of way over a portion of the property because care was not taken to indicate, when certain ones were allowed to pass over it because they were friends of the Mission, that it was private property. We appreciate the fact that in a small station and where there is frequent change in the personnel, it is easj^ to lose sight of property rights. But this one instance makes it clear that the property committees of the Mission must be alert in such matters as these, considering them a part of their responsibility, if it is not safe to leave them in the hands of the station. We feel, too, that the Missions should carefully consider the question as to whether there are properties now held un- used that might better be disposed of. We have in mind such properties as the city properties at Hoshyarpur and some of the properties at Jullundur. We recognize that in some of our Missions it is becoming very diflficult to acquire land and that there is a natural hesitancy about selling property now owned. It seems, however, as though the Mission should face the question as to whether it is likely to use for Mission pur- poses the properties formerly used as a preaching center at Hoshyarpur and not now so used but rented. On general prin- 581 ciples we do not believe that it is a good thing for the Mission to retain properties for rental purposes. PERSIA We have v^^ork today in Persia in seven cities. From the south to the north as we traveled, Kermanshah, Doulatabad, Hamadan, Teheran, Resht; to the east, Meshed; to the w^est, Tabriz. In only five of these seven does the Board own prop- erty. There are funds available, however, for the purchase of property in the other two, Meshed and Resht, and we spent considerable time in the study of the various possibilities at Resht, and went over the large tract of land they were consid- ering purchasing at Meshed. Kermanshah. We have there a compound of seven acres containing a residence, a group of three buildings for the orphanage work, and the new hospital building started by Mrs. Stead and now completed by Dr. Packard. The residence is a roomy, square, two-storied building very much in need of repairs. The ceilings in the second story are badly disfig- ured where the plaster has fallen because the roofs were not kept tight, and the house needs freshening up all over if it is to be made at all inviting for young people coming out from America and setting up their first home. The house is well located on high ground and fine orchards have been estab- lished. The plot was laid out, we fear, without any definite thought of a second residence and it is going to require some good planning to locate satisfactorily the second house now needed and for which the funds are available. Buildings in Persia are made largely of bricks sun dried only, not kiln dried, and the walls are very thick, sometimes three and a half feet, and plastered on the outside with mud. Sometimes the corners of the buildings are of hard burned brick, giving a little finish as in the case of Dr. Funk's hos- pital building at Hamadan and the new hospital building at Kermanshah. They use fine cut straw in the mixing of the mud and sometimes there are kernels of grain left in the straw. These prove an attraction to mice, and holes in walls and roofs are started by these creatures which lead to serious damage unless detected and filled up. They say that a Persian mud building will last a hundred years or more provided the roof is kept in repair. Poplar trees, which are fast growers, are grown and used for roof timbers. In fact, in the 2,100 miles which we traveled in J^ersia, we saw in only a few places any other varieties of trees than the willow, grown for firewood, and the poplar, for timbers. In the native houses these round poplar roof beams show overhead, and also the 582 cross strips and thatch upon which is built the thick roof of mud. These roofs are made with only a slight pitch so that they can be used summer evenings. This means that the mud must be pounded hard when the roof is made and must be kept well rolled after rains. All snow has to be shoveled off immediately after a storm, and as the streets are usually very narrow, in most cases only eight to twelve feet wide, many of them become impassable for carts for weeks at a time in winter. In buildings erected by foreigners these mud walls are usually plumb with clean edges and angles, and they look very trim. Some garden walls have copings of kiln-dried bricks to protect them which gives a good finish, but ordinarily native mud walls are poor looking affairs. They mix the mud and put it up in layers, stamping it down with their feet, and the various layers are very apparent. Sometimes these cheaper made walls are improved by rubbing them down or coating them over with a mud finish. As all streets are lined with such walls and all yards are surrounded with them they give the character to a village. With village buildings all made of the soil and generally only one story high, it would be difficult when traveling to distinguish villages at any dis- tance were it not for the few trees aiong the water courses. These catch the eye when nothing else can be seen. At Hamadan they have a beautiful site for the hospital and two residences just outside the southwest corner of the city wall. There is nothing between the compound and the snow- capped range of mountains, which includes Mt. Elvend, 12,000 feet high, and which stretches away indefinitely to the north and south. This compound appealed to us as one of the choic- est spots in Persia to live. The Hamadan plain lies at an elevation of from 6,000 to 6,200 feet, and there is no need of summer resorts for any except those who live in the more crowded quarters of the city. Our work in Hamadan is in six different localities and is pretty well scattered through the city. The day school of one hundred and fifty boys has a good auditorium and several class rooms in separate build- ings. The additional ground recently purchased was badly needed by the school, and it serves the further purpose of connecting the school property with the residence property where formerly the head of the school lived. That residence was low and old and became unfit for use longer as a residence. The site was admirable, however, and the Easter offering of the Sunday schools makes it possible now to erect a new residence which will be convenient to the school. Mr. Allen, the present head of the school, is living in the residence con- '>« 583 nected with the building that was both dispensary and wo- men's hospital. This is on a third plot of ground ten or fifteen minutes' walk from the school. The house is old, but the rooms are good and have a fine exposure and there is ample playground for the children. Dr. Funk has found that patients will not come out to the dispensary which he fitted up in the basement of the hospital on the new site outside of the city, so he comes into the city daily to this old dispensary and there ministers to some nine thousand patients a year. The rooms above the dispensary are the ones formerly used for a woman's hospital ; not very satisfactory quarters. The fourth compound at Hamadan is that of the Faith Hub- bard School in the Armenian section of the city. This build- ing needs some repairs badly. It is a rambling building and gives every evidence of having been added to from time to time. It is as difficult on the Mission field as elsewhere to enlarge an old plant satisfactorily. Perhaps lack of ground was a handicap here, or possibly those advised in building matters should have carried this end of the burden. St. Ste- phen's Church, the Armenian Church is on its own plot of ground adjoining the Faith Hubbard School, and a sixth plot carries what formerly was Mr. Hawkes' residence, now used by the Jewish Church and Sunday school. There is a seventh plot with a building on it formerly used by the evangelist, Kaka, but now rented and which some think should be sold. When we were there we felt that the Hamadan property needed improvement. The central properties looked run down. The building of the new residence and the opening up of the addi- tional land will, however, go a good ways toward what is needed. We did not go out to Doulatabad as the roads were bad and Mr. and Mrs. Zoeckler kindly came in for the station meeting at Hamadan. The Boys' School building there was erected by the people and the property does not stand in the Board's name, so that all the Board owns there is the residence in which the Zoecklers live. The property at Teheran is very satisfactory indeed. The central compound is admirably located and accommodates the Girls' School with its present staflt of four American teachers and two hundred and fifty girls, all but the boarding depart- ment of the Boys' School, the church and two good residences. The Boys' School with its nearly five hundred boys is too con- gested. It would relieve the situation greatly if money could be found to erect a class room building on the fine college site of sixty acres outside the city walls and facing the great 584 mountain range topped by beautiful Demavend almost 20,000 feet high. This would enable them to move the high school out to the college site where as yet they have had money to build only two residences, and a dormitory for the fifty boys in the boarding department. It is a great sight to see almost five hundred boys and two hundred and fifty girls pouring out of this central compound. These are the best schools in the city, and these boys and girls the best that the capital of Persia has. We had the pleasure, too, of joining in the con- ference as to the site for the Woman's College and were very glad to see that the station decided to abandon the thought of building next to the Girls' School. We went over the new site in the Legation district and near the Boys' College, and were delighted with it. The third compound is the attractive one of the hospital, almost thirty minutes' walk from the cen- tral compound. This has a well-equipped hospital plant and two good residences. There are five acres here, beautiful trees and flowers, capable doctors, a good nurse and winsome little Martha Ann McDowell, and you feel that if you are going to be sick at all you would like to be sick here. At Tabriz there are four compounds, and everything is very attractive. The Memorial School (boys) compound is cen- trally located. It has two good two-story brick residences, one for the director of the school, the second for a doctor; the dispensary building, with wing now used as a residence; and the main school buildings. All are good except the school buildings, and Mr. Gifford now has the money in hand to put the main school building in shape. The hospital compound of several acres on the outskirts of the city is also most satis- factory. The building is admirably planned, there is money in hand and bricks on the ground for a second story, and there is a skillful, happy and very much liked doctor with an un- usually competent American nurse. On this plot are two good brick residences, both two-story, one for the doctor, and one for a touring evangelist. It does you good to go over the school property on the third compound. Miss Beaber has that planned and kept to please the most exacting. The school rooms are fine, well lighted rooms, and it all bespeaks order and efficiency. The Church is on a fourth plot nearby, and the Sunday school offering has now provided a much-needed Sunday school room and pastor's house. This will give them a good working plant. A fifth plot in the heart of the city contains two old residences, one used by the Station and Mis- sion and Relief Work Treasurer, the other by Kasha Moor- hatch, Moslem evangelist. Not much can be said for these 585 buildings except that they have helped greatly during these months when the Urumia missionaries were in Tabriz. The one building is quite roomy and has housed the Dilleners and Miss Gillespie in addition to the Muller family. Practically all the residences in Persia are two-story buildings. The properties in these four stations are simple and sub- stantial, and they house a group of workers doing a-fiine solid piece of work. Our thoughts are with them daily with ever- increasing admiration as we journey homewards and, amongst other things on shipboard, write this report. The Board can- not take title in its own name to properties in Persia, but the title is taken in the name of some of its missionaries and they execute "Declarations of Trust," indicating that they are holding the property for the Board of Foreign Missions. These "Declarations of Trust" have now been executed in all cases except where the missionaries concerned are on fur- lough in the United States, and arrangements were made to have these completed as soon as these missionaries return to the field. We should have said that although the Meshed missionaries were not in Board-owned property, they were most happily located. They have been able to secure three adjoining houses in a very desirable locality. The houses looked to us, and the missionaries said they were well adapted to their require- ments, well arranged, with good exposure, and attractive little gardens. The hospital is located directly across the street in quite new buildings and so exactly adapted to its needs that the cutting of one extra doorway was the only change made. At Resht Dr. Frame thought so well of the property he is using for dispensary and hospital purposes, that he is likely to buy it if satisfactory terms can be made. MISSION AND STATION TREASURERS We had many very satisfactory conferences with Mission and Station Treasurers in India and Persia. They were good enough to help us to a far better understanding of the finan- cial questions of the field, and they were very responsive to any suggestions or help that we could give. There seemed to be no matters in which we did not come to a full and com- plete understanding. The Board has as its treasurers in these fields men who are very competent and faithful and very much liked by the missionaries. In fact, we could not help feeling that it was partly this personal element that influenced the Punjab and North India Missions to vote against a com- mon treasurer in Bombay. Mr. Smith, for example, is not 586 only Treasurer, but also Secretary of the North India Mission, and he knows thoroughly and intimately all the conditions bearing upon the questions of the various stations and con- cerning every missionary. The Mission feels that there would be a very distinct loss to its work, as well as in the enjoyment the missionaries now have in their transactions with their treasurer, to have to deal with a man in Bombay who they naturally think would not be so familiar with their life and work. It was found in one Mission that one or two consider- able payments had been made by the treasurer on order of the executive committee of the Mission in excess of appropria- tions and without any authority from the Board, and in an- other Mission that loans had been made without authority, but these matters were all handled promptly and wisely by the Missions and by the India Council and reference need not be made to them here in detail. We were quite ready to acquiesce in the judgment of the India Council that there should not be a common treasurer for the three Missions located at Bombay, though we were not quite convinced that it would not be the best thing to do. We can see some decided advantages in having a Board repre- sentative in Bombay. The treasurers of the three Missions have found that they could secure better rates on their bills of exchange by selling through a representative in Bombay. His commissions on what our India Missions sell in a year amount to approximately the India salary of a married man. Again, it w^ould be a very distinct advantage if the Missions could have their representative in Bombay to secure trans- portation to America, help missionaries as they pass through Bombay, and expedite the forwarding of freight. The last is important, for as yet we have not been able to find a satisfac- tory forwarding agent, and other societies report the same difficulty. Bombay is, for most people, a trying climate, and rents are high, and we recognize the difficulty of having a one-man office, for it is difficult to cover the work of the office when furlough time comes. Also, it would take a good ex- perienced all-around man to fill this position well; but we venture to think that it is coming. There are twenty-two exchange banks in Bombay and our experience in Shanghai and elsewhere has demonstrated that there is quite a margin of difference between the rates quoted on the same day by the various banks according as they are in need that particular day of exchange on New York or London. This saving should be effected, and is quite a different thing from the attempt to make money on exchange by selling in anticipation of re- 587 quirements. This latter the New York office acquiesced in once when we were cabled for permission, though it was really against our judgment, because no very large sum was involved and we wished the field to have the experience for itself, as the good judgment of the Board in these matters is sometimes called a question. We make record of the outcome of the trans- action only because, when on the field, we were surprised to hear of it several times, as though it had been quite a money- saving venture, and the inference was that if the usual policy of the Board had been followed there would have been this loss. The rate of sale did look attractive as compared with the rates that had prevailed for sometime, but the fall in price of the rupee continued and the rates grew still more favorable. The result was that by this one sale the Mission was loaded up with funds bought at Rs. 3.63 to the dollar which met its requirements for almost a year, and yet there was not a time during those months when a better rate than 3.63 could not have been secured. The other Missions sold against their requirements at rates from 3.80 to as high as 4.30 Rupees to the dollar. Instead of a gain, therefore, there was a very considerable loss on this transaction. When the Mexican dollar was climbing from 47 cents to $1.20 the Board's Finance Committee considered very seriously the question as to whether it was justified in putting money into China in anticipation of its needs, but the highest financial authorities advised that we were likely to lose as much when the price fell as we had made on the rise, that it would even up in the end, and, what was more, they felt that neither the Board nor its agents on the field should speculate in exchange. So we are all of us still to follow the policy of selling only as there is need. We have ourselves now been over the main roads of Persia. We have seen the patient little donkeys toiling up the Assada- bad and Aveh Passes suffering all kinds of inhuman treat- ment, falling by the roadside, and we fully realize why pack- ages should be limited in weight. We have seen the loads of the camels when going through a bog put upon the wet ground, and we have seen the cart driver when he could not make the evening's caravanserai because the horses could not pull the loads through the mud or up the grades throw off half of the loads by the roadside to lie there, in whatever weather should prevail, until he could send other carts for them, and we realize that goods should be packed in water- proof wrappers. We have seen Mrs. Allen's stove, which arrived in Hamadan in 56 pieces (and only a patient and a 588 resourceful woman could have put the picture puzzle together) all beautifully riveted (at a cost of $30) and at work in her kitchen, of which we had many most satisfactory proofs, and we appreciate why goods should be carefully and securely packed. Both property and financial matters seemed to be of intense interest to the missionaries, but it was difficult for us often- times to tear ourselves away from the things of living interest to give sufficient time to these things. What gripped us was the children in the schools, sometimes with faces old and care- worn beyond their years, but always bright and intent upon their work and with real love for those who were devoting themselves to them; the native teachers, whose beautiful strong faces revealed the love and capacity which beget love ; the sick men and women and little children in the hospitals to whom men and women of Christ's spirit were making known His healing power ; and above all, perhaps, those groups of Christian believers and workers whose answers to questions and whose prayers made it very clear that the love of God as it is in Christ Jesus and as it is revealed by His missionary servants today had been welcomed into their hearts. Our joy increased from day to day as we beheld and felt it all. We were subdued and, we trust, prepared by it to render to Him and to His missionaries a fuller and better service. Russell Carter. 589 VII. SOME CONCLUDING GENERAL OBSERVATIONS 1. We bore with us two letters from the Moderator of the General Assembly: "St. Paul, Minn., June 28, 1921. "To the Missionaries of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America Laboring in India and Persia. "Dear Brethren: "I avail myself of this opportunity to write you in the name of the Church which you represent on foreign soil, and to assure you of the joy and pride which the Church has in each one of you and in your work. And for this purpose I am asking Dr. Speer and Mr. Carter to be the bearers, of this greeting from the home land. The perplexities and distresses which have fallen upon the world during tlie past few years have affected you in a special way, no doubt, and have created for you new problems peculiarly vexing in character and try- ing to faith. We wish you to know that while you have been bearing these unusual burdens you have not been forgotten at home. The tide of missionary interest among the churches of America has never run fuller, and, though other activities have languished, God's people have never been so ready as now to consecrate their persons and their means to the work of spreading the Gospel throughout the world. The Church at home has not faltered in the face of new difficulties, but her faith and enthusiasm have increased steadily. "This gratifying result has been due, in no small degree, to the record which our missionaries have made on the field. News of your devoted faithfulness has stimulated us greatly and the Church is now realizing, more fully than ever, that the courage and steadfastness of those who represent it at the front, must be answered by a loyalty and sacrifice at home, which will prove some adequate response to the noble example which is being set for us overseas. "Could you have witnessed, at our last General Assembly, the fervor and optimism of the commissioners when this great, world-wide interest was presented, your hearts would have been cheered and your faith renewed. Every Sunday in our churches and in myriads of meetings through the week and at quiet altars in Christian homes, you are being borne above in the fellowship of prayer to the bosom of Him whose death- less love and infinite merit and irresistible might will yet avail for the world's redemption. 590 "Commending you to Him and to the tender ministry of His boundless grace and to the unchanging comfort and pro- tection of His presence, I remain, in behalf of the whole Church, "Very faithfully yours, "Henry Chapman Swearingen, "Moderator General Assembly, Presbyterian Church in the United States of America." "St. Paul, Minn., June 28, 1921. "To the Churches in India and Persia, "Dear Brethren: "I have just learned that Dr. Robert E. Speer and Mr. Russell Carter will visit your countries this summer as repre- sentatives of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presby- terian Church in the United States of America. I am asking them, therefore, to be the bearers of a message of greeting to you from the Church in America. "The Church in this land has its own problems which test both its courage and its faith, but these only serve to make it more conscious of its fellowship with the Churches in coun- tries abroad that are facing their own struggles, sometimes with a martyr spirit and always with a fidelity which wit- nesses to the grace of God in them. We wish you to know how our hearts have gone out to you in affectionate sympathy as news has come of the trials to which some have been sub- jected, and how earnestly we have besought the throne of grace in your behalf. "Your perseverance, in the face of many afflictions, has heartened us here in America and has taught us how needful it is that we, too, shall show a similar devotion and stead- fastness. "We are looking to you to build a Church which shall be a true light in your respective countries, and to raise up a Chris- tian leadership that shall know the mind of God and that shall exemplify, both in personal experience and in missionary policy, the love and power of Christ. "Joining our voices with yours in prayer to God for the redemption of the world whose fundamental needs are not different in any land, and of which Christ alone is the sure and sufficient hope, and assuring you again of our love and unity in this fellowship of service, and, if need be, of suffer- ing, we remain, in the bonds of our Lord Jesus Christ, "Faithfully yours, "Henry Chapman Swearingen, "Moderator General Assembly, Presbyterian Church in United States of America." 591 These letters met with warm acceptance, and we were charged to bring back to the Moderator, to the Board, and to the Church at home the assurance of the gratitude, confidence and affection of the Missions and the Churches both in India and Persia. 2. We considered with the three Missions in India and with the stations in Persia the Findings of the Post War Conference, the Report of the Chosen Commission of the Gen- eral Assembly, and the matter of the fidelity of our mission- aries to the fundamental doctrinal convictions of the Church. The North India Mission had already considered at a special meeting held in the hills, June 27-29, 1921, the findings of the Post War Conference and had taken action on all save the section on "The Church on the Mission Field." A report on this section was considered but laid over for action at the Mission meeting which we attended in October. The full actions of the Mission at that time and also the actions of the Punjab and Western India Missions have been reported to the Board in their Mission meeting minutes. In the minutes of the special June meeting of the North India Mission there was no mention whatever of the section of the Post War Con- ■ ference Findings dealing with Union and Co-operation. We were informed by the Mission that this entire section was covered by the general action of the Mission "that unless ex- ceptions or additions are indicated a finding be considered as approved in general." The actions of all the India and Persia Missions with regard to the Report of the Chosen Commission have been reported to the Commission. The only point to which I would refer in these actions is a phrase in the action of the Western India Mission, which had been taken by circular letter prior to the Mission meeting. The phrase was quoted from the action of the Japan Mission, namely, "wherever it (an organized Mission) is established certain inherent rights and powers exist." We ventured to suggest to the Mission the view that the individual missionary had inherent rights of the most sacred character, but that as regards the Mission and the Board the General Assembly might naturally and properly hold that their rights were not inherent but delegated, com- mitted to them by the Church at home through the General Assembly. The doctrinal question we discussed with the three India Missions, the China and India Councils, the West Persia Mis- 592 sion Conference in Tabriz, and all the stations of the East Persia Mission. We explained the action of the last General Assembly and the incidents which had led to it. We reported the attitude of the Church and the Board in the matter, as expressed in their past official actions, and stated as clearly and positively as we were able the unswerving conviction of the Church and of the Board, and, as we well knew, of our Missions, that our Mission work could be carried forward on no other foundation than the great evangelical faith of the Church, and that it was not to be thought of that any mission- aries would be sent out or maintained by the Board who were not true to that faith. None such were known to us in any of our Missions, but if any were known to the Missions it was their duty to see that the matter was brought to the attention of the proper courts of the Church. Both the China and the India Councils took action in the matter as follows: "Through two communications and a statement from the Board (Board letters Nos. 7, 11, 12) and more recently through the Board's deputation to India the Council has learned with surprise that the evangelical loyalty of some of the Board's missionaries in the various foreign fields, India included, has been questioned in some quarters. The Council knows of no missionary in the Board's service in India who does not heartily accept the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith as laid down in the Standards, including the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, His sacrificial death on behalf of sinners, and the inspiration and authority of the Bible as the Word of God. The Council holds strongly that the evangelical loy- alty of the missionary body is its most precious asset, and must be guarded with all care. All missionaries, both ordained and unordained, are members either of Presbyteries or of Churches in India or America, and are thus amenable to dis- cipline. "Mgst or all of the members of the Council have received copies of a proposed Bible League of India, Burma and Ceylon. The Council is in sympathy with the general purpose of the League, namely, the defence of the divine authority of the Bible as the Word of God, but believes that the responsibility for establishing doctrinal tests belongs to the proper ecclesi- astical authority. The following reply of Rev. J. J. Lucas, D.D., to an invitation to join the League expresses also the opinion of the Council and shows that membership of such an association is not indispensable as an evidence of evangelical loyalty : • 593 " 'Landour, Mussoorie, U. P. July 21, 1921. " 'Rev. Watkin R. Roberts, Scripture Gift Mission, Calcutta. " 'Dear Mr. Roberts : — " 'Your letter inviting me to join the Bible League of India, Burma and Ceylon came duly to hand. I have read the paper accompanying the invitation, which gives the reasons which have led to the proposal to form the League. There is a state- ment in the paper "very many young missionaries have al- ready had their faith destroyed or their service for Christ rendered inoperative by the modern destructive criticism of the Bible." " 'I belong to the Presbyterian Mission which has more than one hundred and fifty missionaries in Western India, the Union Provinces and the Punjab. If I were called on, as I would be if I signed this paper, to name the young missionaries who have already had their faith destroyed or their service for Christ rendered inoperative by the modern destructive criticism of the Bible, I would be unable to bring that charge against even one of them, and so you see how impossible it is for me to sign such a serious charge against many young missionaries. " 'I have read the charges made in American papers against our young missionaries in China, that they have largely given up their faith in the inspiration of the Bible, and I have also read the reply of Dr. Robert E. Speer, Secretary of our Board in New York, denying the charge. " 'Several years ago I gave my pamphlet entitled "How the Death of Christ Differs from the Death of Prophets and Mar- tyrs" to a missionary who was supposed to belong to the school of higher critics and he not only commended the pamphlet, but read it as a sermon to a congregation to which he was min- istering. Thirty years ago a young missionary of my acquaint- ance was considered a higher critic, and yet he is today ^mong the conservatives. I feel that we ought not to stir up contro- versy by instituting, even indirectly, discussions as to the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of our missionaries. Our Board in America certifies that they hold to the Bible as the Word of God, and that they love the Lord Jesus as their Saviour and Deliverer from sin. " 'I have no doubt that lack of prayer, and with it the fail- ure to meditate day and night on the Scriptures as God's very message to us, and through us to others, are the chief reasons why our service of Christ is not far more fruitful than it is, 594 • but I do not think controversy is the way to make our younger brethren love the Scriptures and interpret them just as we do. " 'With great regard, " 'Yours sincerely, (Sd.) J. J. Lucas.'" So much for India. As to Persia, the suspicions and care- less charges which have been abroad are simply incomprehen- sible in face of the facts as to the personnel, spirit, conviction and character of the two Missions in that land and their members. We have not the slightest misgiving as to the evangelical fidelity of our foreign missionaries. If ever exceptions arise, there will be no question of their discovery. If the few sor- rows of the past may be taken as a criterion, it may be expected that any rare individual who may become uncertain in his faith will be the first to seek to withdraw from a com- pany to which he will recognize that he does not belong. Those who spread general rumors of distrust with regard to the missionary body are guilty of a grave wrong. As we moved to and fro among the missionaries of India and Persia and saw them in the most intimate unveilings of their lives, the home originators of distrustful rumors seemed to us like the men who in a time of war, amid the peace and security of their own firesides, question the loyalty of those who, under the free constraint of their faith and love, have gone out upon the battle field to live or to die for the cause that is more to them than life. 3. The supreme and essential factor in the missionary enterprise is the spiritual and practical efficiency of the in- dividual missionary. The whole machinery of missionary organization, — Board, Council, and Mission, — exists only to help the individual missionary and to make it possible for him to do his fullest work as an ambassador of God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Our Missions and our missionary enterprise are just as weak or strong as the weak- ness or strength of the missionaries whom our Church sends out to the field. We have known the missionary representa- tives of our Church well for many years. I have seen most of them go out to the field and have watched them from their college days. Of our 260 missionaries in India all but a score have gone to the field since I became secretary of the Board in 1891. There are only four missionaries in the East Persia Mission who were members of the Mission at the time of my visit in 1896-7 and only five missionaries in the West Persia Mission. But in spite of all past acquaintance this visit has 595 given a new understanding and deepened our respect and trust and love. It has been inspiring to see the position which the missionaries have won and hold both in India and in Persia. Every one places implicit and unlimited confidence in their character. At Mianeh a Persian who wished to go to Tabriz attached himself to our caravan. He had some fifty or sixty tomans in money which he did not wish to carry but which he wanted in Tabriz. Mr. Pittman needed some money for the journey, and he took over the man's bag of coins and sat down to write him a receipt. "What is that for," the man asked. Mr. Pittman explained that it was a receipt for the money. "Why do I need that," the man asked suspiciously. "Haven't you got my money? Isn't that all the receipt I want?" And Mr. Pittman had some difficulty in prevailing upon him to accept a proper acknowledgment. We went to and fro in the company of missionaries everywhere. There was no one to whom they were not able to take us from the highest Government officials, European or native, down to the humblest out-caste. I have spoken elsewhere of our three months' trip with Dr. Ewing through India and of the opportunity which we had of seeing the affection and esteem with which he is regarded everywhere. Those ignorant critics who speak of missionaries as intruders, unwelcome to the people to whom they have gone, know nothing of the real facts. At the same time and just because they are the good men and women that I have described, no one is readier than the missionaries themselves to acknowledge failure and short- comings, the need of securing the best young men and women of the home Church as recruits and of giving them the best preparation for the work, and the need of the spiritual and intellectual enrichment of the life and character of each mis- sionary now in the service that he may wield a still wider and more creative influence. As we have talked with the mission- aries and native Christians there have been two points es- pecially on which they were ever laying emphasis. One was the need of power and the other was the need of love. In part, no doubt, power is a matter of gift beyond our own wills. Men have one or five or ten talents according as the Lord has apportioned them, but talents can be buried or multiplied, an^ we have seen and rejoiced in the visible growth in power of men or women who have met the painful conditions which must be met if old horizons are to be enlarged and old limita- tions transcended. Many missionaries are resolutely submit- ting their brains to the disciplines which God has ordained 596 for their growth. Every one of our missionaries ought to be doing this. But in the matter of love, though here too en- dowments differ, everything is within the reach of each. And we see more clearly than ever how love controlling the lives of men and women in little things and in common human con- tacts is the great missionary power. One of the foremost Christian laymen in one of our India Mission stations, a man holding important official position and a stalwart friend of the Mission, told us how he had first come to Christ. He was a boy of twelve in a distant station when two of the early missionaries, husband and wife, came to establish the work. It was a great day for the small boys of the town. They joined in pelting the newcomers with sticks and refuse. They were met with no anger or retaliation, and the boy went home that night thoughtful and ashamed. And the restraint of Christian love exercised by those who were unconscious of their influence set his feet on the path to Christ. We could cite a score of instances that came to us on this trip of the power of love in little things to communicate Christ and of harshness and of heedlessness in little things to obscure Him. I have a letter from one of the ablest native Christian women in one of the Missions we visited written in the fullest love and sympathy but with trenchant and unsparing exposure of the weak points in our American missionary character. "Missionaries sacri- fice in large things," she writes, "often their precious lives, but they do not realize the need of sacrifice in small actions which effects far more." One of our American women sent me this letter, writing with it: "Alas, this criticism is only too just. 1 have given much thought to the effort to analyze this grave stumbling block to usefulness on the foreign field, this fault which is almost universal though in degree it varies immensely. It seems to me that it is compounded of the fol- lowing unpleasant ingredients: "Lack of willingness to sacrifice in the precious small things. "Lack of consecration sufficient to reach through the whole life. "A rigidity in individual temperaments. "Our ugly un-Christlike race prides and prejudices. "May those who under God have charge of the young men and women who are to be missionaries preparing them for richer service and holier living among those who know not Christ be enabled to lay upon their souls as never before the absolute necessity of forgetting themselves and their Anglo- Saxonhood. The enclosed verse gives my deep feeling on the subject of adaptable missionaries that came to me not many 597 weeks ago." These were the verses that she had written out of living experience : ''The Test I "I cross four seas to come to you. What is it that I bear? A faith-evaporated creed, A bait of life to snare A not too steadfast Hindu foot With Bread that satisfies, Then give a mouldy crust (once Life), Long napkined from fresh eyes? "I cross four seas to come to you. And is it just to rant An Oxford wisdom, Hull House path, Augustine, Calvin, Kant? At touch of Shakespeare leaps my blood, Ramayan calls your soul to flood. Can it be true the Christ I bring Is but an English Spirit-King? II "How can I unmake myself now made, Unform myself formed, my soul unprayed, Unthink the thoughts that have tracked my brain, Unravel habits of joy and pain. Be mere warm human creature, there With the Gift of Life to show and share? "When I have stripped off the outer self And western ways are dust on the shelf, I build up my life to meet the mood And tense by the Hindu understood, I school my building self — God can — To be a servant of Hindustan. Ill "At last I can know the Christ of God, At last I can bring the Christ of God To the Christless hearts of Hindustan. Now, they can find Heaven's Lord made Man." What we saw and heard impressed upon us anew the im- portance of the work of the Board in the appointment and assignment of new missionaries of deaHng as carefully and sympathetically with candidates as though they were children of the secretaries who are dealing with them and of the Board members who are disposing of their lives, of seeking for and 598 helping to develop the right missionary character and fitness in those who are to be sent, of sending promptly to Missions the information that will help them most in welcoming and locating the new missionaries, of watching health qualifica- tions and precautions with increased vigilance, of filling the relationship of Board and missionary with the fullest measure of understanding and trust, of keeping the missionary enter- prise on the highest level of courage, of true sacrifice, of energy, and of faith. One of the foremost moral qualities of foreign mission work has been its tenacity. "What," exclaimed one of the Turkish officials in Mosul in 1895, when the slates which had been ordered for the use of the mission school arrived, "What, here are slates and pencils for 200 children, and yet we are trying to drive the Mission out ! It is of no avail." At Yeung Kong in the South China Mission when they were digging recently for the foundations for the new mission house which was going up, they came on old foundations and discovered that they had unwittingly chosen the very site on which Dr. J. C. Thompson had started a dispensary a generation before. Chinese opposition had expelled him and obliterated the build- ing, but the spirit that is in the missionary enterprise and that never lets go had brought its agents back to the very spot to rebuild. One is anxious that the shorter terms of service, the more frequent furloughs, the easier travel, the spirit of probation and of experiment shall not be allowed to relax the ancient deathless grip of the missionary enterprise upon its undertakings. Many of the missionaries discussed with us the compara- tive merits of the policies of permanence and mobility in the location of missionary personnel. It is the rule of the Punjab Mission that missionaries when they go home on furlough relinquish any claim on continued assignment to the station and work in which they have been engaged, and are to be re- assigned afresh by the Mission upon their return. There are good reasons for this policy. It seems to be called for by fairness to the missionaries who are put in charge of the work which the furloughed missionary lays down. It gives the Mission a free hand and malleable use of its force. It makes maladaptations easier to handle. In the Persia Mis- sions on the other hand the tenure of missionaries in their first station has often been life long. Such a policy allows the accumulation of influence. It conserves all the assets of acquaintance and confidence which a good missionary acquires. In actual working eff"ect the two policies have not resulted 599 in as great a divergence as might have seemed probable. There have been transfers from station to station in Persia, and there have been permanent assignments in India. The Punjab policy would seem to be the only practicable one v^here there are so many stations staffed by only one or two families, but it is certainly desirable to seek with it the largest con- tinuity of service for each missionary in one community where his life can be woven into all the interests of the com- munity. I have spoken elsewhere of the danger of excessive develop- ment of overhead organization. Mission committees and con- ferences and interdenominational agencies are for their appropriate purposes and within their appropriate limits in- dispensable. It is a good thing that they have been developed in correction of the ultra-individualism of the earlier days. But those missionaries and native Christians are justified who feel apprehensive lest this overhead conferential and supervisory organization should be developed beyond the necessities of the work and should absorb and ineffectually use missionary energy which ought to be spent not in the manipulation of the Christian forces, far too scanty, which have as yet been called into existence, but in the creation of new Christian forces. I have seen a great deal of the work of overhead agencies, and a great deal of one's time at home is given to them. I believe in them, but I believe still more in the fundamental cellular work of the individual pastor at home, making his local church a power of salvation to the in- dividual and to the community, and of the individual foreign missionary abroad, winning definite persons to Christian faith and hfe and bringing into being the beginnings of Christian churches. In this work every institutional agency is justified that is in any way serviceable to the end in view, but the first and last agency is human intercourse, the communica- tion of the truth of the Gospel through word and deed by one man to one man. "Preaching," said Herzen, the Russian thinker, speaking of another gospel than the Gospel, "is neces- sary for mankind, incessant preaching, provided it be rational, preaching directed alike to worker and employer, to burgher and to tiller of the soil. We have more need of apostles than of officers of the advance guard or sappers of destruction. We need apostles who will preach to opponents as well as to sympathizers. Preaching to the enemy is a great deed of love." 4. Next to the individual missionary is the Native Church as a fundamental missionary factor. Just as Boards anc 600 Missions exist for the sake of the individual missionary, so his end is found in establishing and assisting a living native Church. I use the word "native" without hesitation. It is a current fashion in missionary literature to eschew it on the ground that it is a reproachful term. What makes it re- proachful? Not its history. It is a good and honest word, one of the best and honestest words in the English language. If it has been tainted by any conditions existing in the mis- sion work, the right course is to change the conditions and not to allow a noble word to be degraded. So long as the conditions exist they will taint any other word that may be substituted for it. They will taint "indigenous" faster than they tainted "native." They will taint "Church" as they are already beginning to do. They will even taint the word "Christian." What needs to be changed is not the good word "native" but the facts of dependence and subservience in the native Church. It is desirable that there should be clear thinking and straight speaking in this matter, because there is danger that in some countries the mission enterprise will be led into a morass in which both Missions and Churches will be bogged to their detriment and confusion. The supreme and determining aim of missions in any coun- try, India for example, is to get Jesus Christ made known and accepted in India. Elemental to this aim is the establish- ment of a Christian Church in India, but the establishment of the Church in any land is not a matter of terminology. It is a matter of fact. And a Church that is a Church in fact and not merely in term will be self-dependent, self-governed, and most of all a force of living and spontaneous propaganda. I do not say that it must be. I simply say that it will be. To give up the idea of financial self-dependence is to accept the fact of dependence, and that fact, no matter how it may be obscured by mergers or by agreements, will keep the Church, so long as it remains a fact, from fulfilling its func- tions or wielding its power. The spirit of race superiority on the part of Missions in whatever way it displays itself, in temper or in policy, as to money, relationships, or anything else, is a baneful thing, a barrier to be overcome in the effort to plant and develop an efficient and sovereign native Church. But the fact of financial dependence is a barrier also, and the Indian Church ought resolutely to set itself to overcome that barrier. Until it does so, no subordination of missionaries to it nor any merging of Missions with it will make it inde- pendent or set it in its rightful place of national religious leadership. 601 The emergence of leadership hke Mr. Gandhi's in India is in many respects an encouraging and an inspiring sign. His is a free voice, morally and economically free. The Church in India is not without such leadership. It has men as free as Mr. Gandhi and freer. With a spirit of good will and trust and co-operation they are seeking to bring foreigner and native alike into the unity of Christ and of the universal Church of Christ, at the same time that they are seeking to make the Church in India independent and national. Would that there were more such men who would do for the Church in India what Paul Sawayama, of whom I have spoken al- ready and whose biography every leader of the Church in India would do well to read, did for Japan. 5. The world with which we have to deal today and through whose shadows we have moved these past months is a hungry, weary and divided world. It is a hungry world. The compassion which our Lord felt for physical hunger when he was upon the earth would be deepened into anguish if he were abroad in the flesh among the nations today. There are millions of men who have plenty and to spare, but there are millions more who hunger for daily bread and who suffer from sickness and pain. I have been in Japan many times and have always heretofore come away with the thought of the nation's comfort and health, but the impression with which the visitor comes away today is of the nation's sickness and need. 20 per cent of the young women who return from the industrial world every year die of tuberculosis. According to the Tokyo "Asahi" of 1,800,000 children born each year 140,000 are still-born and 300,000 die in infancy. "The Christian Movement in Japan" cites the director of one of the national schools as stating "that over 95 per cent of his pupils were suffering from some form of nervous disease upon entering school." "The Christian Movement" continues, "The squalid and crowded condition of the three and four mat homes, the home industries carried on, sickness, quarreling, carousing and incessant turmoil in his own or adjacent hovels make impossible the normal sleep, quiet and development of the child. Lack of chance for play and for following out his own ideas and childish pursuits un- molested also stunts him mentally and physically. The total absence of pictures, books, helpful conversation, educational trips and uplifting atmosphere still further hinders the de- velopment. The school is faced with the difficult task of injecting into the child physical, mental and moral training 602 and stimulus to enable him to go out into the world at the age of twelve or fourteen with a fair equipment for life." In China even the children of upper class homes are in- sufficiently nourished. One of the handicaps which China bears today is the physical weakness of its upper class men due to a number of causes, but insufficient nutrition is one of the chief of them. One of the most prominent business men in Shanghai, of excellent family, told me that as a boy he had never been adequately fed, that their evening meal had con- sisted only of weak tea and bread. As to the poor and the conditions under which they live one may quote the testimony of an old resident and lover of China: "There is no country where the struggle for existence is harder and where those who do work approach nearer to slavery. The carpenter, the tinsmith, the shoemaker, and other artisans labor early and late for the pittance which keeps soul and body together. Sunrise sees such men at bench or anvil, and sometimes at ten, eleven or even twelve o'clock at night they are still occupied. What a smile of mingled wonder, admiration, longing and despair would pass over the features of a Chinese artisan were the Western movement for an 'eight-hour day' clearly explained to him! "If the Chinese workman after his sixteen or eighteen hours' labor had a comfortable home to go to, a cheery fireside to sit by, a dining table on which were set tempting viands fitted for the support and the consolation of man, then there would be some recompense for his daily grind; but there are none of these things. His workshop is his home, his only fireside the earthen pot which holds the bits of charcoal to melt his glue, and the tempting viands — save the mark! — what are they? The cheapest grade of rice, a little salt cab- bage, and maybe a bit of fish now and then, and, for drink, hot water with a few tea-leaves of the cheaper kind infused in it. This for the artisan. For the many grades below him, the English language, rich as it is, falls short in descriptive power. Rats, mice, dogs, cats, and everything with fins that may be available find welcome on the menu. The condition of these people with regard to cleanliness is a subject which it is impossible to discuss. "What of the surroundings? What of the means of sani- tation, of supplies of clean water and fresh air? Visits both to country villages and crowded cities are necessary before these questions can be answered. And then what do we find? We find that, until the foreigner arrived in China, the nation, as it is, seemed to care little or nothing about the need either 603 for pure water or fresh air, and, if they knew their value either would not or could not do anything practical for their provision. The cities depend on their water supply from a filthy river if there be one, from filthier creeks, or from sur- face wells into which there is every facility for the infiltration, sometimes for the direct draining, of sewage. In the country, things are sometimes better. Nature amongst the hills pro- vides a purling stream perhaps, though even there, there is no law to prevent man from doing his worst for its befoul- ment. On the plains, especially in dry weather, the water sup- ply is far less ideal than this. It seems incredible that at the very spot, in stagnant water, where the household foecal utensils have been faithfully scrubbed in the morning, there the evening rice will be 'cleaned.' Yet so it is. One degree lower even than this is the sanitary, or rather, insanitary condition of a permanent beggar's camp.^ Ever since the For- eign Settlement of Shanghai began there have been some of these just outside the limits. They could not be tolerated within. At the moment, the most populous, though not per- haps the most offensive, is in the district of Chapei. We will not introduce the reader to it for obvious reasons, but we do desire him to consider for a moment wh«t moral conditions are likely, in the majority of instances, to result from birth and breeding in such an environment. That physical weakness must be common is plain. Inferior parentage and bad food have never yet produced a perfect physique. The only wonder to Western residents in China is that in some surroundings it is possible to live at all, and the only explanation offered is that, after ages of elimination, all who could be affected by dirt diseases have already died, and those that remain are immune. One saving factor in the situation has been the wretched construction of the Chinese house, made, as it is, so flimsily and loosely as to admit a large amount of outside air, which may sometimes be pure." (Lanning, "Old Forces in New China," p. 43f.) In India many millions of people live on one meal a day and never know what it is to have enough to eat. In the United Provinces covering one of the most fertile areas in India only one-third of the population has as much daily food as is given to the prisoners in the Naini jail near Allahabad. This is the bare amount really required by the body, and two-thirds of the people of the United Provinces do not aver- age even three-fourths of this ration. 30 per cent of the babies in the United Provinces die under twelve months of age. In America 50 per cent of the babies live to be 60; in 604 the United Provinces 50 per cent die before they are 10. The probability of Hfe in India for a ten year old boy is 60 per cent of the probability of an American boy. A census of beg- gars in the city of Bombay in November, 1921, counting only those w^ho were "following their avocations in the streets, in the compounds of temples, and other holy places showed 6,883. About one-fourth of them were children under 16, including infants in arms." In Persia we were always within sight of human misery, and the beggar's cry was never far away. In some places it was impossible to stand on the street because of their impor- tunity. Thousands of men and women and children were clad only in shreds of rags in bitter winter time. When we crossed .into the Caucasus, the poverty was deeper still. Consider the conditions that prevailed in Russia before the war. Three- fourths of the peasant families had insufficient land. 70.7 per cent of the peasants secured less from the land than would suffice for a decent living. 20.4 per cent could feed themselves, but not their stock. Only 8.9 per cent could buy anything more than the bare necessaries of daily consumption. On the fruitful black soil of southern Russia, after all taxes had been paid by a Russian family of five, not more than 82 rubles remained for the whole year's subsistence. (Masaryk, ''The Spirit of Russia," Vol. I, p. 163,) The Agrarian Committee appointed by Witte in 1903 reported, "When the harvest is normal, the amount of nutriment obtainable by the peasant is on the average 30 per cent below the minimum physiologi- cally requisite to maintain an adult worker on the land." And today this dark picture must be replaced by one still darker, black with famine and death. "Then Jesus said, I have compassion on the multitude be- cause they have nothing to eat." It is a sad and weary world with which we have to do. I read in the Caucasus the report of an English visitor to those hungry peoples, who wrote that even the little children could no longer play. Alas, that was true of many. All they could do, unless relief reached them, was to lay their wasted little limbs down by the wayside and wait the end. But so long as their little legs would carry them they would play their childish games. It was a woeful play to watch, and one could not watch it and wonder at the sadness of the world. And the world knows very well that it is not by bread alone that men live. It is sad with other sadness than that of hunger or of seeing little children hungry. Some Hindu poet set it forth in some lines in a paper in Madras: 605 "Weary are we of empty creeds, Of deafening calls to fruitless deeds; Weary of priests who cannot pray, Of guides who show no man the way: Weary of rites wise men condemn, Of worship linked with lust and shame; Weary of Custom, blind, enthroned, Of conscience trampled, God disowned; Weary of men in sections cleft, Hindu life of love bel-eft; Woman debased, no more a queen Nor knowing what she once hath been; Weary of babbling about birth. And of the mockery men call mirth; Weary of life not understood, A battle, not a brotherhood; Weary of Kali Yvga years. Freighted with chaos, darkness, fears; Life is an ill, the sea of births is wide, And we are weary; who shall be our guide?" t It is not only a hungry and weary world. It is a divided and a distracted world. "A battle not a brotherhood," the Hindu poet says. And who is responsible for this battle? There are some who lay the responsibility upon the Asiatic people, who speak of a "Rising Tide of Color" threatening the white race, or "a revolt of the colored races against the ascendancy of the white races." "The Times of India" of November 17, 1921, reported the debate in the House of Lords on the Outlook in India. Lord Curzon had been followed by the late viceroy of India, Lord Chelmsford, who said: "The dominating factor in the present situation in India was the race and color issue. There was a revolt of the colored races going on all over the world against the ascendancy of the white races. But though it was not merely an Indian Prob- lem, it met them in almost every Indian question which came up — it was an all-pervading issue. Two consequences had flowed from this. In the past, we governed India on the basis of the acknowledged superiority of the British race. That superiority was now challenged, and, in surveying the situa- tion, they could not ignore that the challenge had been made. The color issue had becojne a unifying force in India, and through all the diversity of creeds and races it was creating union. That, again, was a fact that they could not ignore in a survey of the situation in India at the present moment." Now there was a day when the Asiatic races resisted the as- cendancy of the white races. There was a day when they fought against this ascendancy. It is significant that all the battles were fought in Asiatic waters or on Asiatic soil. 606 Who was the aggressor? All that is past and with one notable exception the Asiatic nations have accepted the military as- cendancy of the white races and have even assisted in main- taining it. And the one exceptional nation has been entirely willing to accept a minor ratio in naval development. And intellectually the yellow races have not rebelled against white ascendancy. They have paid it the greatest tribute they could. They have gone to its schools. They have imported its teach- ers. They have sought to master its knowledge. Wherein are they waging any battle or proposing any conflict? What are they asking for that is not absolutely just and right, neither ascendancy nor subserviency, but simply the recog- nition of human brotherhood, the right of every race to fulfill its duty, and the duty of every race to possess its rights? We did not meet in Asia, and I have never met in any land in Asia, any disposition whatever to invade the rights of the white races, any claim to an unfair share in the world which God has made for all His children. If there is racial discord because the peoples of Asia accept as valid for themselves, subject to the actual political facts that condition them, the great principles on which our own national life is based, the guilt is not to be laid at their doors. 6. Across these confusions and necessities great forces are moving, to one or another of which men fasten their hope of a better and happier world. Men are approaching the task with new and larger conceptions of the function of govern- ment. One afternoon as I sat in front of a woe-begone road- side tea house in Persia I read a clipping from "The New York Times," containing a speech which Mr. Vanderlip made at a dinner of the Economic Club last November on his return from a study of the financial and economic conditions in east- ern Europe. He was arguing that government activity is as legitimate in building up the new world as in tearing down the old. "Curiously," he said, "as governments are organized in this world and time, they find it impossible to make expen- ditures for those very objects which would be of the greatest possible value in improving civilization. Moved as we are, governed as we are, it is possible for nations to raise by taxation huge sums, provided those sums are devoted to cer- tain purposes. Without much grumbling a nation will tax itself to build at frequent intervals a $40,000,000 battleship. It will tax itself to support a great army and to maintain a too numerous civil service. As a matter of course European nations tax themselves vast sums to pay for the costs of past wars and to provide against the possibilities of future wars. 607 "While a nation will, with prodigal hands, spend money on those things which have furnished the chief items of national budgets for a thousand years, it will at the same time refrain from doing an endless number of things which, if done, would profoundly affect for the better the nation's future and pro- foundly influence for the better the course of civilization. "Most of such admirable projects are now left to be worked out in a puny way by an occasional philanthropist or, far more often, left altogether undone. Any one with wide experience and awakened imagination knows that it would be possible to make expenditures of a character, now rarely, if ever, sanctioned by the taxpayer, the return upon which in terms of the welfare of mankind would be incalculably greater than is the return from most of the objects upon which government incomes are lavished." Mr. Vanderlip proceeded to argue for a like new mind in international relationships and to describe a humane method of handling Europe's war indebtedness to the United States. I laid Mr. Vanderlip's speech down and looked out over poor Persia. Upon war with Persia, with adequate cause, other nations would spend to Persia's destruction and their own certain loss enough money if rightly expended to make Persia a new land, a home of new happiness to the Persian people, and a source of new wealth and prosperity to other nations. According to the old notions of government the destructive expenditure would have been legitimate; the creative expen- diture chimerical. The whole national income of Persia for three years would barely build one modern battleship. The cost of the War for one day would have supplied Persia with roads, schools, sanitation, unsealed her national resources, and opened the industries appropriate to her economic life. Some day quixotic ideas like these and Mr. Vanderlip's may creep into men's thoughts about the functions of government and be seen to be not quixotic at all but only Christianity and common sense. Meanwhile there is the hungry and weary and distracted world. There are two functions, however, which governments are using today in the influence of human life which in one view may be regarded as new but which in another view are very old. One is the use of religion in a political interest. There can be no doubt of such a present day use of Islam both by governments and by political movements seeking to acquire governmental control. "Islam," said one of the shrewdest and most competent observers of life in Irak, "has now be- come politics even more than religion. Moslems know that 608 Christianity is right and that Islam is unfit to be the religion either of individuals or of the state. Nevertheless they stick to it as politics. The Moslems of Irak are Arabs. Arabic is their tongue. They have no future save in the preserva- tion of Arabic traditions and institutions, or so they believe. And this present day stiffening of Mohammedanism is not an utterance of religious devotion or conviction. It is a manipu- lated political development." We quoted this view to a group of leading young men in one of the cities of Mesopotamia and asked them whether they thought it well founded. "Yes and no," they answered. "Politicians are using the Islamic revival for political ends, but it is our conviction that there is more true religious feeling in Turkish and Arab Moham- medanism today than there has been for a long time. Moslems pray in all the mosques for the Sultan as the true Caliph of Islam, and they pray with a deeper and warmer religious faith than before 'the war." I asked a group of the most in- telligent men, bankers, merchants, doctors and others in one of the Persian cities what they thought of this view. "The Mohammedans of Persia." they replied, "are Shiahs, or as the name implies schismatics. The schism between them and the rest of the Mohammedan world is real. They are not interested in the Khilafat or in Pan-Islam. They care nothing for the Sultan, and they distrust Turkey. Many of them are very poor Mohammedans. One reason why Bahaism has spread so in Persia is that it serves for a cloak for Moslems and Jews who do not care much for their own religion, but who want still to have a pretence of religion and at the same time to be free to do as they please. Nevertheless we believe that in Persia, also, Mohammedanism is being used in a nationalistic interest and that men in positions of political leadership, who have no faith in Mohammedanism at all for themselves, are still trying to use it to stiffen Persian nationalism, without at the same time releasing forces of fanaticism that would prejudice Persia's good name for tolerance." In India the nationalistic spirit has unquestionably stiffened Hinduism, and Hinduism has been used as the instrument of nationalism. And it is hard to see hpw more effective use could be made than has been made, both in India and in Great Britain, of Mohammedan religious feeling to forward, by the Khilafat movement, the political ends both of the Turkish Government and of the Indian nationalists. The Hindu-Mohammedan alli- ance has made it impossible to use any one religion as a politi- cal rallying cry in India, however, and, on this account as well as on others, the consequences of that alliance will be 609 20 — India aiitl Persia very far reaching and by no means of the character which the manipulators of the movement will have foreseen or de- sired. The effort to use Confucianism as a patriotic and exclusive political force in China was boldly and ably made several years ago under the leadership of men who had been educated in American universities, but was defeated in part by the Chinese secular temper, in part by Chinese good sense, and in part by the influence of Christianity. In Japan the State has used Shintoism in the most skillful and persistent way to buttress the authority of the throne and to produce the political temper among the people which was believed to be essential to the maintenance of the national character and the accomplishment of the national destiny. The King of Siam has followed zealously in the same pathway and sought to make use of Buddhism as an agency for the creation of a national consciousness and the preservation of national tra- ditions. The other of the two forms of government influence to which I have referred is the deliberated use of education in a political interest. Germany was the outstanding illustration of this policy in the West and Japan in the East. Professor Monroe has described present day tendencies in this direction in his article on "Missionary Education and National Policy" in the "International Review of Missions" in July, 1921. It cannot be said that this tendency is as yet of any appreciable conse- quence in some countries, Persia for example. In other coun- tries, such as India, where governmental influence in education has been supreme, it cannot be said that it has been exercised in a distinctly political interest, and it is significant that in India education has been one of the first departments of gov- ernment of which the national government has divested itself, committing it to the provincial governments, and which in the provincial governments has been transferred under the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms to Indian administration and control. It is not to be doubted, and it is surely to be desired, that governments will feel an increasing responsibility to pro- vide adequate education for all their people. Nothing surely is more clearly the duty and privilege of a government, unless it be the maintenance of order and the protection of rights, and to both of these ends popular education is the indispens- able means. But no use of religion or of education by government can ever go far enough to meet human need, to reform human character, or to renew the broken world. Such use can go so far as to hinder the achievement of these ends, but it can 610 never go far enough to accomplish them. Nor will economic forces avail. They too have gone abroad over the world, and no small part of the hunger and the weariness and the discord of the earth are due to the way in which man has violated economic laws, whose rational and docile use, in obedience to God who ordained them, would have helped to bring in a new paradise, but which disobeyed have turned upon men in judg- ment. The redemption of the world is not to be found in any gospel of government or of education or of trade. 7. Nor is the gospel of America to save the world. It is pathetic to see the way in which many of the Asiatic people grasp at this gospel. To escape to America is the one longed- for deliverance of the Persian Assyrians. They desire their old homes in Urumia, but if the doors of America had opened to them they would have gone forth from the camp at Bakuba in a solid body. If they cannot go to America, they asked next, "Cannot America come to us and bring security and prosperity with her?" Wherever we went in Persia, from Meshed to Tabriz, and from Tairuk to Resht, we heard but one sentiment from the Persian Mohammedans, Why would not America come to help them? They believed in her disinterest- edness, that she wanted no territory and no authority. Did she not know how eagerly she was desired, not with her capital only but with her counsel and with her friendship? Even in Turkey where the Christian populations have longed for America's coming in acceptance of the mandate which had been offered to her, there were Christian men who, in spite of the refusal of that mandate, trusted America's unselfishness and even saw in the refusal an evidence both of unselfishness and of wisdom. They did not believe that the mandate had been offered in a form or with a territorial range that would have made it possible for America to deal with the whole problem. It had been nothing, they thought, but a scheme on the part of European governments, who had already helped themselves to all that they wanted of the Turkish EmDire. to unload the rest in an impossible form upon America. These men were glad, so they said, that America had not taken even in the form of a mandate one single acre of the territory of the defeated nations. They did not go back to our earlier wars, and they were not advocating the little American spirit. On the contrary, they were appealing for an American service of the world in the spirit of the address which Mr. Vanderlip had made to the Economic Club. The good-will which we met towards America everywhere made us tremble for the future and the answer which America will make to 611 the expectations of the peoples. Certainly we shall not alto- gether fail them, and there are immeasurable services whichf we can render by a just example in all our international deal- ings, by purity of social and political life within our own borders, by the unboastful use of our great strength, by expanding our trade with all peoples and conducting it in honor and through men of honorable lives, by helping people wherever they need help and are willing to accept it from a nation which offers it on terms of respect and righteousness. Never did any nation have such an opportunity for human service on a scale as wide as human need as our nation has today. Such service must certainly be a part of God's pro- gram for the good of His children and of His earth. 8. But the force which is to meet the needs of the world is not in the keeping of any government to wield. There is an old word of St. Paul's which seems ludicrous to many today, but which, the Church knows, holds the one solution of the problem of this hungry, weary, and disordered world. "It was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. Seeing that the Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumbling block and unto Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Neither Hinduism nor Mohammedanism nor government nor education nor trade nor national service will avail. The mis- sionary enterprise rests upon the conviction that Jesus Christ alone is the Saviour of the world, and that, while in the end His salvation will include, as on the way to the end it will use, all the good that there is in human purpose and endeavor, still the root of all, the one fundamental necessity, is the per- sonal relationship of individuals to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. This report is simply a body of facts sus- taining and validating this conviction. This view is undeniably at variance with all religious syn- cretism, with the easy modern view that all religions are essentially alike. It might not be hard to bring the world to this view. Beginning with the first Christian century other religions have again and again offered to compromise with Christianity on these terms. Hinduism is very ready to recog- nize Christ as the avatara for Christians in the same sense in which Krishna is the avatara for Hindus. "Pandit Sivanath Sastry in his book 'Men I Have Seen' relates that a Christian preacher who was the Pandit's friend, once accompanied him on a visit to Ramkrishna. When he introduced his friend to 612 the Paramahamsa, Ramkrishna bowed his head to the ground and said, 'I bow again and again at the feet of Jesus.' The Christian gentleman asked : 'How is it, Sir, that you bow at the feet of Christ? What do you think of Him?' 'Why, I look upon him as an incarnation of God — an incarnation like our Rama or Krishna. Don't you know there is a passage in the Bhagwat where it is said that the incarnations of Vishnu or the Supreme Being are innumerable?' " ("The Indian Social Reformer," Sept. 14, 1919.) Even Mohammedanism is pre- pared for a new comprehension. I have reported in an earlier chapter the conversation with a little group of Mohammedans in a Persian village who agreed that they were prepared to abandon any claim to superiority of character in Mohammed over Christ, and I remember a striking expression of an old Mohammedan teacher in a Persian city who told me that he knew the New Testament well, that he thought he had the whole of it by heart. "And do you believe it," I asked him. "Sir," said he, "I am a banker in words. Just as the banker in money knows the true coin from the false, so I know words, and I declare to you that these words of the New Testament are true." And yet he has not given up Islam. Not in the East only but in the West as well, this tolerant syncretism is gathering strength. I read in India in an Indian magazine an address by Viscount Haldane delivered in London on July 3, 1921, applying the doctrine of relativity to the ideals of a university and incidentally to religion. It was a moving ad- dress, on the high plane and in the great spirit characteristic of Lord Haldane, but the doctrine of relativity appeared with new significance as a leveling and syncretising theological in- fluence. The note is more than familiar in books, new and old, on Asia and Asia's religions. One out of a hundred paragraphs will suffice for illustration: "The differences between us lie less in the fundamental teaching of the 'holy sages,' be they Confucian, Buddhist, Taoist or Christian, and more in the narrowness of the super- structure which their respective followers have built on it. We can easily imagine the loving friendliness with which Christ and Confucius, Lao-tsz and Gautama, Zoroaster and Mahomet might have met and discussed the broad foundations of a system of moral teaching in which all could have agreed. Side by side they might have worked, stone by stone they might have built, each giving to other his aid, his sympathy, his love. The lower portions of the spacious edifice doubtless would have comprised a number of separate rooms, but none secluded. Hand in hand the sages would have traversed the 613 corridors in friendly converse, and had they done so, and had their followers kept strictly to their teaching, there might have been peace on earth." (Lanning, "Old Forces in New China," p. 39f.) The contrary, missionary view of Christianity and of the world may be called narrow. Very well, let men call it what they please. This is the view on which the missionary enter- prise rests, the view that Jesus Christ is the one incarnation of God, that He is the only Saviour of the World, that what- ever truth there is in any other religion is only a broken light of Him, that He is the real "desire of the nations," and that all that they are feeling after is to be found in Him and in Him alone, that the world for which men long or ought to long can only come as individuals pass into His purifying power and as through them His Kingdom comes upon the earth. This was the way the early Church conceived the Christian faith, and this is the way the missionary enterprise conceives it. On the way from Shanghai to Singapore I read Bishop Westcott's "Commentary on the Epistles of St. John" and the accompanying essays, and I copied two extracts from them to quote at the close of this report. One referred to the impossibility of any compromise between Christianity and Roman religion: "The martyrs might have escaped tortures and death by the affectation or semblance of conformity to popular customs, but such conformity would have involved a complete sacrifice of their faith. Christians were not contented with permission to exercise their personal religion without molestation: they demanded freedom for expansion and conquest. If indeed a distinct conception be formed of what Christianity is, it will be evident that a sincere and zealous pagan could not but persecute it. The Christian Faith is universal : it is absolute : it is aggressive; and once more, it is spiritual and not only temporal. On all these grounds it necessarily came into col- lision with the Roman laws "Here then lies the second difference between imperial paganism and Christianity which made persecution inevitable. Christianity is absolute. It can admit no compromise. It is essentially grounded upon personal conviction and not ac- cepted as an accident of descent. It is embodied in a Church which is held together by unity of faith ; and not in a Nation which represents at least unity of race. "Nothing struck the apologists with more amazement than the first natural consequence which followed from this differ- ence between the Christian and heathen conceptions of re- ligion. They saw the popular gods held up to mockery upon 614 the stage, degraded in the works of poets, ridiculed by philoso- phers, and they could not reconcile such license and sarcasm with resolute devotion. But to the polytheist of the empire — and to all later polytheists — the offices of worship were an act of public duty and not of private confession. Outward conformity in act was owed to the State, complete freedom in opinion and word was allowed to the worshiper. There was no complete and necessary correspondence between the form and the thought. With the Christian it was otherwise. His religion in every detail was the expression of his soul. So it was that the Christian confessor would make no compro- mise. This phenomenon was a novel one; and we can see in the records of the martyrdoms how utterly the magistrates were incapable of understanding the difficulty which Chris- tians felt in official conformity. In their judgment it was perfectly consistent with religious faith to drop the morsel of incense on the fire, and still retain allegiance to Christ. All that they required was the appearance of obedience and not the distinct expression of conviction." (Westcott, "The Epistles of St. John," pp. 255, 261.) But the conviction of the Christian Church was set for life or death the opposite way. Hinduism is entirely ready to make the same terms with Christianity today that Roman religion was ready to make. Such a triumph of Christianity in India might be speedy, but it certainly would be fatal. Christian missions have gone out not to compromise but to achieve Christ's absolute supremacy. 9. It may seem to some that the view set forth in this report has leaned too strongly to an individualistic interpre- tation of the aim and methods of Christian missions. I have nothing to take back of anything that has been said that might support this impression; for I believe that in the end it will be found that this is the broadest social principle and that all social movements that cheapen the significance of in- dividual personality and of the relationship of individual char- acter and action to social progress will prove shallow and ineffectual. But side by side with the steady effort to hold fast, in the interest of reality, to the principle of personal action pursued by our Lord and dominating all the great move- ments in human history, I haiie striven to do full justice to the significance of corporate influence and to the value of all the institutional and collective forces which are both personal and impersonal, and also to the tendencies which are often so impersonal as to elude our sight though they operate with tremendous power. Chapter after chapter of this report has shown the pervading and transforming social energy of 615 the missionary enterprise. It is affecting in the most radical way the East's conceptions of society, of the relationship of man to man and of man to woman, of industry, of the treat- ment of poverty, of popular education, of hygiene and sanita- tion and the conservation of public health, of the care of children, of marriage and of the institution of the family, of patriotism and the interrelations of races and of nations, of the possibility, the method and the goals of human progress. The place and influence of foreign missions and of the native churches in the movement of human life is immeasurably out of proportion to their numerical strength. They are the most powerful single social force in Asia. And their strength as a force of social redemption is fundamentally due to their gospel of personal redemption through our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Saviour of man and of men. There is no conflict between the individual and the social principle, and, as I have shown elsewhere, they have been recognized and interwoven from the beginning of the mis- sionary enterprise. "Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptation, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." There is no discord between these statements. There will be no saving of the world without the saving of sinners, and the saving of sinners is to the end' of the saving of the world. It is a saved world that allures the imagination and hope of men today. In one of his papers on the Washington Dis- armament Conference, Mr. H. G. Wells drew an engaging picture of "a world at peace with mankind striving for and accomplishing only the best things." As the colors were drying on the picture, he added, "this is no idle prophecy; this is no dream. Such a world is ours today — if we could but turn the minds of men to realize that it is here for the having. These things can be done ; this finer world is within reach." Why then do we not have it? Is there one man out of a hundred or a hundred thousand in the world who does not want it? How are we to get it? Mr. Wells answers as best he can, "I must needs go about this present world of disorder and darkness like #n exile doing such feeble things as I can towards the world of my desire, now hopefully, now bitterly, as the moods may happen until I die." This is a much more individualistic attitude than any that I have set forth in this report. We must look for some larger prescrip- tion. I would close this report with three of these picked out of the reading that it was possible to do in these crowded 616 months. Let any one answer which of the three holds in it the hope of the world. The first is from a book which I read crossing the continent to San Francisco, an old and germinal book, Galton's "In- quiries Into Human Faculty": "It is clear from what has been said, that men of former generations have exercised enormous influence over the human stock of the present day, and that the average humanity of the world now and in the future years is and will be very different to what it would have been if the action of our fore- fathers had been different. The power in man of varying the future human stock vests a great responsibility in the hands of each fresh generation, which has not yet been recog- nized at its just importance, nor deliberately employed. It is foolish to fold the hands and to say that nothing can be done, inasmuch as social forces and self-interests are too strong to be resisted. They need not be resisted ; they can be guided. It is one thing to check the course of a huge steam vessel by the shock of a sudden encounter when she is going at full speed in the wrong direction, and another to cause her to change her course slowly and gently by a slight turn to the helm. Nay, a ship may be made to describe a half circle, and to end by following a course exactly opposite to the first, without attracting the notice of the passengers. . . "While recognizing the awful mystery of conscious exist- ence and the inscrutable background of evolution, we find that as the foremost outcome of many and long birth-throes, in- telligent and kindly man finds himself in being. He knows how petty he is, but he also perceives that he stands here on this particular earth, at this particular time, as the heir of untold ages and in the van of circumstance. He ought there- fore, I think, to be less diffident than he is usually instructed to be, and to rise to the conception that he has a considerable function to perform in the order of events, and that his exer- tions are needed. It seems to me that he should look upon himself more as a freeman, with power of shaping the course of future humanity, and that he should look upon himself less as the subject of a despotic government, in which case it would be his chief merit to depend wholly upon what had been regu- lated for him, and to render abject obedience. "The question then arises as to the way in which man can assist in the order of events. I reply, by furthering the course of evolution. He may use his intelligence to discover and expedite the changes that are necessary to adapt circum- stance to race and race to circumstance, and his kindly syin- 617 pathy will urge him to effect them mercifully." (Galton, "In- quiry Into Human Faculty," pages 206 and 218.) The second is from an article in the "Yale Review," Janu- ary, 1922, by Prof. Flinders Petrie, on "The Outlook for Civilization," read in a box car between Alexandropol and Tiflis: "If we were able to mould the future, the reasonable course would be to look around for a race which would best counteract the deficiencies of ourselves, and to favor a mixture in isola- tion. We need to remedy the unrest and excitability of the present population by producing a more stolid and hard-work- ing people; to counteract the lack of security by a sense of permanence and commercial morality; to hinder the prevalent waste by the development of a frugal and saving habit; to keep our knowledge to its right uses by a peace-loving people who do not glorify fighting; to turn our intellectual frivolity into a love of solid reading and literature. We need a race less sensitive in nerves, though not less perceptive in thought ; and, above all, it must be a race which commands the respect and affection of those who have lived among it and know it best. I leave it to the reader to think what cultivated race of the present world would fulfill these conditions." The Chinese people are the only race which answers this description. A third quotation is from the essay of Bishop Westcott's to which I have alreadv referred, on "The Two Empires: The Church and the World:" "The burden of St. Paul's first teaching in Europe was that there was 'another King than Caesar, even Jesus.' The same apostle when he sums up his work describes himself as having gone about 'preaching' 'the Kingdom of God;' and the last glimpse which is given of his labors at Rome shows him there still preaching the Kingdom. "Everywhere the same idea is prominent in the history of the Acts and in the Apostolic letters. At one time it excites the hostility of unbelievers ; at another time it gives occasion to mistaken hopes in Christians. But however the truth was misrepresented and misunderstood, however much it gave occasion to unjust attacks and visionary expectations, it was still held firmly. The idea may have grown somewhat un- familiar to us now, but it is clearly impressed upon the New Testament. The distinctness with which we have learned to realize our personal responsibility and personal relationship to God in this last age of the Church has brought with it some 618 drawbacks, and this is one of them, that the sense of a visible Kingdom of God on earth established in righteousness and embracing all the fullness of humanity has been deadened. . . "The Christian creed cannot stop short of a social realiza- tion. It deals with men not as isolated units but as members of a commonwealth. Opinions may differ as to the form in which the society will be revealed, but the fact that Christi- anity must issue in the perfection of social life, and must manifest its power in dealings with social relations, cannot be lost sight of without peril to the dignity and essence of Faith. "It is. then, quite true to say that two Empires, two social organizations, designed to embrace the whole world, started together in the first century. The one appeared in the com- pleteness of its form ; the other only in the first embodiment of the vital principle v/hich included all aftergrowth. But the two Empires had nothing in common except their point of departure and their claim to universality. In principle, in mode of action, in sanctions, in scope, in history they offer an absolute contrast. The Roman Empire was essentially based on positive law ; it was maintained by force ; it appealed to outward well-doing; it aimed at producing external co- operation or conformity. The Christian Empire was no less essentially based on faith; it was propagated and upheld by conviction ; it lifted the thoughts and working of men to that which was spiritual and eternal ; it strove towards the mani- fold exhibition of one common life. The history of the Roman Empire is from the first the history of a decline and fall, checked by many noble efforts and many wise counsels, but still inevitable. The history of the Christian Empire is from the first the history of a victorious progress, stayed and sad- dened by frequent faithlessness and self-seeking, but still certain and assured though never completed." Where else than in the completion of this Empire is the hope of the world to be found? And how is its completion to be achieved? By many forces wielded by the purpose of God, — good government and honorable trade and true education, care for human health, the production and conservation and just distribution of wealth, man's fuller knowledge of himself and of his brothers and of the world. The Mission enterprise does not speak slightingly of these or of any of the unnum- bered ways in which God is advancing His purpose of right- eousness and unity upon the earth. But it believes that it is doing His work in the most central and fundamental way of all. "How do you plan to help Persia?" we asked a young 619 Christian man in Tabriz. In his own English he replied, "By preaching Christ in the crucified style." That is the one supreme business of missions, "Preaching Christ in the crucified style," — "Crucified and Risen;" for we believe that He is the one Hope- of the world, and that the completion of His Kingdom upon the earth depends upon man's accept- ance of Him as King. S. S. Constantinople, Mediterranean Sea, May 13, 1922. 620 APPENDICES PAGE Appendix I. Report of the Committee on the Relation of the Mission and the Indian Church and vice versa, Punjab Mission Meeting, October 1917 623 Appendix II. Letter of N. K. Murkerji, June 15, 1920 628 Appendix III. Letter of J. M. David, A. Ralla Ram, N. C. Mur- kerji and N. K. Murkerji, June 15, 1920 629 Appendix IV. Letter of N. K. Murkerji, July 8, 1920 649 Appendix V. Letter of N. K. Murkerji, July 22, 1920 649 Appendix VI. Letter of Robert E. Speer to J. M. David, et al., Sept. 21, 1920 650 Appendix VII. Letter of Robert E. Speer to N. K. Murkerji, July 18, 1921 658 Appendix VIII. Letter of Church of Christ in Japan, Feb. 26, 1906 665 Appendix IX. Letter of Church of Christ in Japan, July 3, 1906 675 Appendix X. Report of Saharanpur Conference 680 Appendix XL Action of North India Mission, Oct. 1921 .... 684 Appendix XII. Paper of Shivramji Masoji on "Indian Church and India's Crisis" 687 Appendix XIII. "God, the Crown and the Nation," from "Nur Afshan," Nov. 15, 1921 690 Appendix XIV. An Indian Christian Manifesto on Church Union 693 621 APPENDICES APPENDIX I Report of the Punjab Mission's Committee, October, 1917, on the Re- lation of the Mission and the Indian Church, and vice versa : The members of this Committee were first of all supplied with con- siderable information collected by the Chairman concerning the relation of Foreign Missionary Societies to Indigenous Churches both in India and in other lands. The members of the Committee were also asked to read Mr. Fleming's book on "Devolution in Missionary Administration," as well as other pamphlets and articles. After this preliminary preparation, the four Lahore Members of the Committee had several meetings and framed a tentative scheme. Prac- tically the whole Committee met at Saharanpur on June 27th and largely approved the work of the Lahore Sub-Committee. A meeting of three members of the Committee was held in Mussourie on August 25th and the final meeting in Lahore on October 19, 1917. The following are the report and recommendations of the Committee : — Part I General Statemeyit (1) The Task and Functions of the Church and Mission. (a) We believe that the fundamental purpose of both the Church and the Mission is to bring India to Christ and to establish a society of Christian men and women through whom the Kingdom of God on earth may be advanced and realized. (b) That the functions of the Foreign Mission and the Indian Church in attaining these ends are different and that, therefore, right lines of distinction should be observed between the two. To illustrate the above (1) The Foreign Mission is a Standing Com- mittee of the Board in America and is responsible for the control of the work of the missionaries and the administration of the money furnished by the Board. Its function is to establish a Church in India, carrying on Evangelistic and Educational work, etc., until the Church is able to do this for itself. (2) The Indian Church is responsible for the training and government of its membership, the propagation of the Gospel and the administration of whatever funds are either raised by itself or re- ceived as grants-in-aid. It is an independent and self-governing institu- tion and responsible to neither the Board in America nor the Mission. (2) We believe that the Church is the permanent organization in the evangelization of India, the building up of Christians in the faith and the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth, the Mission only to exist as long as its help is necessary in strengthening the hands of the Church in securing these ends. (3) The fundamental aim of the Mission and the Church being thus the same, we believe that the interests of the Kingdom in India will be conserved, not by separation between the Mission and the Church, but rather by full and hearty mutual co-operation. For example, missiona- ries to co-operate with the pastor and session of the local Church, to lend their sjinpathy and support to all efforts of the Church and Pres- bytery to express themselves in training and service. The Mission also 623 to secure the advice and co-operation of qualified Indians in connection with its affairs, e. g., representation on the Departmental and Special Committees of the Mission and also in the Mission meetings. (4) We believe that as a corollary to 2 above, the plans and organi- zation on the part of both Church and Mission should be such as to de- velop an Indian leadership and a self-propagating, self-supporting and self-governing Church; the Mission constantly tending to decrease and the Church to increase. (5) We believe that the Church can best be magnified at present through great interest and zeal in self-propagation, the members of the Church working individually and collectively for the propagation of the Gospel. We also believe that this is a very necessary means towards securing a self-supporting, self-governing Church. e.g. Through the present Evangelistic Campaign, enlarging the parish of each church, churches undertaking the support of evangelistic workers; through greater interest on the part of each member in the Home Missions, The National Missionary Society and through taking over definite evangelistic work from the Mission. Nevertheless it is our conviction that machinery, however good, is not sufficient without the energizing influence of the Holy Spirit and that it is not by might nor by power, but by the "Spirit of God" that the co-operation of Church and Mission will be harmonious and fruitful in the evangelization of India and the building up of Christians in character and service. Hence we would put the emphasis upon the need on the part of both the Church and the Mission (1) of realizing more fully the nature and magnitude of the common task, and (2) the need of the deep- ening of the spiritual life of all the members of Church and Mission. (6) We believe that positions of responsibility in the conduct and government of the Indian Church and in committees of the same in Ses- sion, Presbytery, Synod and General Assembly should be so far as pos- sible in the hands of Indians, the missionaries heartily co-operating with these officers in every way possible. (7) We believe that the work now carried on by the Mission, es- pecially evangelistic and pastoral work, should be transferred gradually to the Church as they have qualified and capable men available to superintend and direct the work, and as they furnish a fair proportion of the cost of carrying on and developing this work. In this matter greater emphasis should be laid upon the securing and developing of Indian leaders, as we believe that this is at the present time the greatest need of the Indian Church. The following definite proposals were approved and recommended to the consideration of the Presbytery and Mission: — Part II General Recommendations (a) The City Church (I) The relationship between the pastor, session and missionaries should be that of the fullest and heartiest co-operation, (a) Missionaries on their part should attend the Church, co-operate in every possible way with the pastor, session and congregation and assist both sym- pathetically and actively whenever possible in all efforts and work undertaken by them. They should, however, keep in the back ground giving prominence to the pastor and session and avoiding all unnecessary interference, (b) The pastor and session on their part should make 624 full use of the missionary's outlook and experience and should confer with him and seek his help as need arises. (II) In order to develop a self-propagating and self-supporting Church : — (1) The Church should be magnified and every effort should be made to have the men and women of the congregation become members and not attendants only. The Church should also through the Sunday School, Bible Classes, Christian Endeavor, Mission Study Classes, etc., and also through the efforts of both pastor and session, seek to train each member of the Church in the development of Christian character and in preparing them to engage in the various forms of Christian service. (2) If possible, the City Church should enlarge its parish and be responsible for all villages and communities within a definite radius, say, 3 to 5 miles. It should enlist the co-operation of as many lay-members as possible in this work. (3) For this work the Churches in addition to the above might also undertake the support of one or more workers, they to be under the con- trol of the session and to report through them to the congregation and Presbytery. It is to be understood, however, that this work is not in any way to interfere with or take the place of the contributions for the sup- port of the Home Mission Work. (4) Through Campaigns and special evangelistic efforts as well as through definite organization for steady, continuous work, seek to get every member of the Church interested and working in some definite form of Christian service (evangelistic, educational and social service). The object of these recommendations is to develop the evangelistic or missionary spirit in the Indian Church and to give each congregation definite work it can do. (5) Seek to make the congTegation realize through bringing them into closer touch with the Home Mission Work by means of sermons, reports, visitation, etc., that this indigenous missionary work and the workers supported by them are their work and part of their contribu- tion to the evangelization of India. Congregations might also assume the support of certain Home Mission workers or even of stations (see also IIIc). (6) As an aid to securing the above results, seek to train the Church in giving, and endeavor to have each Christian give a definite proportion of his income to the Church and other Christian work. (7) An intimate acquaintance should exist between the District Su- perintendent and the City Church and every effort should be made to interest the Church in this village work. Part II (6) The Village Church (1) From the beginning train one or more Christians to conduct simple services of worship in each village, where there are Christians. (2) Have at least partial organization (panchayat) as soon as can be arranged. (3) From the beginning lay the responsibility of evangelism upon each Christian. Have them bring their families and relatives. See that they get hold of at least one simple, but effective evangelistic message for use among their non-Christian neighbors. (4) Urge upon each preacher that his most important work is the teaching and training of the Christians to become full members of the 626 Church. Also the selecting and training of leading men to become elders and leaders in the Church and community. (5) As soon as the people have thus been taught and trained, tx) or- ganize the Church and further train in self-preparation, self-develop- ment, self-support and self-government. This in order to link the work with the Presbytery and not with the Mission. (6) Present the Scriptural basis of tithing. Develop in self-support and missionary giving. Let the people know what their money is being used for. Set definite objects before them and lead them on to under- take great things for the advancement of Christ's Kingdom. (7) Give special attention to the women and the young people. Part III Specific Recommendations (a) Representation of the Church in the Missiori. In order to secure the fulleri co-operation between the Church and the Mission: — (1) Have an adequate representation of qualified Indians on the Departmental Committees of the Mission. (2) Select six representatives to represent the Indian Church on the floor of the Mission. These men to have the right to speak on every question and also the right to vote. Each Presbytery should at the be- ginning submit the names of six men to the mission from the member- ship of the churches within its bounds. After the scheme has come into co-operation, each Presbytery should submit two names each year to the Mission. From among the 12 names thus submitted the Mission should select six. At least half of the representatives finally selected by the Mission should be Presbyterian laymen, not necessarily members of the Presbytery. The term to be for three years, one representative retiring each year, but eligible for re-election. No representative should serve for more than two terms in succession. (6) Representatioyi of the Mission in the Presbyteries. Although the constitution of the Presbyterian Church in India does not permit the adoption of a scheme for the representation of the Mis- sion in the Presbytery, similar to that of the proposed representation of the Presbytery in the Mission, (see III a-2) nor does such a with- drawal of missionaries seem wise at present, yet we feel strongly that the courts of the Church should in time be entirely, or at least largely Indian, that the foreigner's influence and power should decrease, es- pecially in the Presbytery Offices, and that measures should gradually be formulated toward that end and other positions of responsibility in the Presbytery should be in the hands of Indians as far as possible and every effort should be made to develop a strong, capable self-reliant Indian leadership. Our conviction in this matter of missionaries re- maining in the Presbyteries for the present has been strengthened by the fact that certain Presbyteries as well as considerable correspondence with leading Indian Christians makes it very clear that the entire or partial withdrawal of the missionary element from the Presbytery at the present time would not be to the best interest of the Church. (c) Inter-Relation of the Church and the Mission. In order to lay larger responsibilities on the Indian Church, provide a larger sphere for its activities and develop an Indian leadership, we recommend to the Mission the adoption of the following: — (1) The Presbytery as soon as possible to take over all pastoral work, both City and Village, and seek in every way to train and develop 626 the Christians in Christian character and service. (See also General Recommendations under II A. and II B.)- (2) That as soon as qualified and capable Indian leaders are available to superintend and direct the w^ork of a district, and the Indian Church is willing to assume the responsibility, the Mission transfer districts or portions of districts, subject to the following- conditions: — (a) The work to be placed under the control of a Committee to be called the Punjab Presbyterial Evangelistic Board. This Board shall consist of 9 members, 3 of whom shall be elected by the Ludhiana Pres- bytery, 3 by the Lahore Presbytery and 3 shall be representatives of the Mission. This proportion to continue until the Indian Church shall con- tribuate one-third of the cost of the work, after which each Presbytery shall be entitled to 4 representatives, the total number of members then being 11. When the Church contributes one-half of the cost, each Pres- bytery shall be entitled to 5 representatives, the Mission representa- tion decreasing to 2 making a total of 12. When the Church contributes two-thirds of the total cost, the Mission shall cease to be represented on the Committee and the Presbyteries shall assume entire control. At least half of the total number of Presbyterial representatives shall be laymen, and they should all be men taking a keen interest in the Church and pos- sessing the necessary education and experience. In our opinion the men selected as the representatives of the Presbytery to the Mission would be specially qualified for the duties and responsibilities of this Board, except in the case of workers employed by this Board who shall not be eligible for membership. (b) The Mission to transfer the work of districts or portions of districts to this Board, and to give it a grant equal to the appropriations now given by the Mission Board in America under the silver classes exclusive of class VIII; provided the Indian Church is prepared (1) to make itself responsible for the salary of the Indian Missionary who shall superintend and direct the work (2) to maintain the work up to its present strength and efficiency, and (3) to make every possible effort to secure further support from the Church so as to relieve the Mission, and thus to ultimately make the work entirely self-supporting. The grant shall not under any circumstances be increased, the Indian Church being not only expected to raise additional funds for the expansion of the work but also to take all possible steps to reduce the amount of money received from the Mission and to make the work in time entirely self-supporting. After each period of 3 years this Board shall report to the Presbyteries and the Mission the progress of this work, both as regards its growth and development and its financial support. (c) The Board shall have full control of the work transferred to it, and shall have power to open new stations; but not to close old ones except in consultation with the Mission, to establish schools and other institutions, to employ workers, to transfer and to dismiss them, and to fix their salaries and allowance, proxaded these do not exceed the scale obtaining in the Mission. Should it be necessary to increase salaries and allowances, the Board shall act in consultation with the Mission. (d) Property shall be held as heretofore in the name of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., and shall be subject to the same rules as in the Mission. Noi alterations or additions shall be made, and no new building erected without the ap- proval of the Property Committee of the Mission. This Mission property shall be held on lease by this Board, the Board paying a nominal rent to the Mission for its uses. Churches, however, and Schools and other 627 buildings erected and other property purchased from funds furnished by the Indian Church shall be registered in the name of the Presbytery. (e) The Board shall prepare an annual report of its work and sub- mit it to the Presbyteries and to the Mission. This report shall include a statement of income and expenditure during the year. It shall also prepare estimates with full details for the coming year and submit them to the Mission to be forwarded to the Mission Board in America. The total amount asked from the Mission Board in America shall not exceed the total of the appropriation now received from the Foreign Mission Board for the work of such districts. No reduction shall be made in the appropriation by the Mission except in the case of a cut from the Mission Board in America which the districts placed under the control of the Committee shall share proportionally with the Mission. (/) This Board shall serve as an intermediary between the Church and the Mission to study and discuss the work and relation of the Mission and the Church, all policies, methods and advance work, all strengthening and development of evangelistic and educational work, the development and strengthening of the Church, as regards its propaga- tion, development, self-support and self-government and to report their findings and recommendations to both the Presbyteries and the Mission. 3. We also suggest that evangelistic work of the Indian Church would be better unified and strengthened if the Home Mission work of both Presbyteries were brought under the control of the Board mentioned above. We suggest this to the Presbyteries for the following reasons : — (a) The confusion resulting from having so many committees in Presbytery controlling pastoral and evangelistic work. (b) The confusion in the minds of the members of the Indian Church as well as to the Mission Board in America of being asked to give money to several committees doing the same work. (c) It will serve to bring the forward work of the two Presbyteries under one common control resulting in fuller co-operation of the Pres- byteries, greatly to the advantage of the work of both. (d) It would serve to relate the work more vitally to the Church enabling the members to know more about the work, through the Board's reports, etc. (e) It would do away with all unnecessary multiplication of organi- zation, expense and waste of time and effort. 4. We also recommend that the Mission arrange each year through the Language School or elsewhere some definite instruction for new missionaries regarding their relation to the Indian Church and to Indian Christians. IV. Resolved, That this whole plan be re-considered after a period of six years to determine such matters as alterations, further advance or even of abolition. . (Sd.) W. J. McKee, Secretary APPENDIX II 18, Clive Road, Allahabad, 15th June, 1920 To R. E. Speer, Esq., D.D., Secretary, Board of Foreign Missions, Pres- byterian Church of United States of America, 156 Fifth Avenue Street, New York. Dear Dr. Speer. I am forwarding to vou a letter, the joint production of a few of us, members of the Indian Presbyterian Church, under the Presbytery of 628 Allahabad. You will not, I am sure, be surprised to get a communication from us on a subject of such vital importance as "The Relation of the Mission to the Church." I should mention that the joint letter was a second thought. I had corresponded individually with a missionary friend of the North-India Mission on the subject, and with our greatly respected Dr. Ewing of Lahore. The latter suggested my forwarding to you these letters, as his letter to me, a copy of which I am enclosing herewith, will show. But we thought that a formal statement on the subject will be more in place on a question of such magnitude. Hence the present shape of the com- munication to you. We have not thought it necessary to canvass in our Presbytery for more signatures to our letter, as every one conversant with the situation will know that in our sentiments we do not merely represent ourselves, but the whole Church in India. For the same reasons, we have not felt the need of formally or informally approaching' members of our sister Presbytery of Farrukhabad on the matter. I should like to mention that though the joint letter has not been submitted to the missionaries of the North-India Mission for approval, yet I need hardly say that some of them at least will agree with its main features, e. y. the veteran missionary in our Presbytery, who will be completing next December the fiftieth year of missionary life — I am referring to our Dr. J. J. Lucas — and who has been for over thirty years urging a radical change as to the mission policy. I should add that we are sending a copy of this letter to the members of your North-India and the Punjab Missions, and also to some members of the other missions in our country. We are also sending it to the Press. The deliberations of some of the other missions, e. g. the Church of England Missions, have been published in full, and it is nothing but proper that we should let them see what progress we are making in the matter. Canon Davies of the C. M. S. (Principal, St. John's College, Agra) in a letter to me about their projected advance in this matter, wrote: — "I hope that real progress and wise progress will be made by all missions in this very vital matter." The sentence was striking not only as a testimony to the oneness of spirit necessary, but also to the oneness of the problem facing different bodies. It is in this belief that we have taken this step. Our earnest hope is that this little effort of ours might be used for the common cause even through its many imper- fections and mistakes. And it is in this hope that we have ventured to approach you and your Board on this subject of moment. I should men- tion that the italics in the quotations are ours. With every good wish, I remain. Yours sincerely, N. K. MUKERJI APPENDIX III Allahabad, U. P., (India), 15th June, 1920 To R. E. Speer, Esq., D.D., Secretary, Board of Foreign Missions, Pres- byterian Church of United States of America, 156 Fifth Avenue Street, New York, U. S. A. Dear Sir. We, the undersigned members of the Indian Presbyterian Church, feel constrained to address you on the question of the relation of the Mission to the Church. The seriousness of the situation confronting us is our 629 only apolo^ for doing it. In expressing ourselves on the matter we feel we are faithfully voicing the sentiments of our Church and our people. The present policy of isolating the Mission and the Church and keep- ing them apart from each other, has resulted in such friction and misun- derstanding as practically to paralyze all mission work and retard the growth of the Church in India. There is not a single mission station in India which does not bear testimony to this unfortunate state of things, and missionaries and Indian Christians are at one in regretting it. It is, further, a cause of offence to the non-Christian who sees in it the failure of practical Christianity. We appreciate the motive which dictated the present policy — a desire not to pauperize the Indian Church, and hinder its development by putting the Mission in the place of the Church. But, by an irony of fate, it has been perverted from its true ends and has succeeded in achieving what it set out to avert, viz., the hindering of the growth of the Church. It is a case where attendant events seem to be too great for "policy," and have provided it with a setting which has given it a very different meaning from what it was meant for. The outstanding menace of the world today is the possibility of a conflict between Asia and Europe, or the East and the West — a conflict between the white and the yellow races. The religion of Christ, in theory, is the solvent of this racial strife, but in practice, it will be dependent on the institutions of Chris- tianity and its presentation as these are to be met with in life. Any presentation of Christ, or any expression of the Christian life in insti- tutions which are rooted in a narrow individualism, will only intensify this racial strife, fail to furnish the Christian corrective, play into the hands of the enemy, and hasten on the day of destruction. This is just what we venture to think has happened with the present policy of isolat- ing the Mission and the Church from each other. It has preached "self- help" and "self-determination" to the Indian Church, but has failed to observe a just balance, by forgetting that in life there is such a thing also as "other-help" and "other-determination." The response in the Indian Church of this teaching has been a fierce resentment against the foreign missionary and the foreign missions, a determination to have as little to do with them as possible, and boycott him and his work. This policy has made mission work of all grades a by-word and reproach, and has practically emptied our theological classes and has created a deep- rooted aversion in our young men against entering whole-time Christian work. This unfortunate situation has not been without its redeeming fea- tures. It is true, it has roused a passion for lay service amongst us, deepened our responsibility for self-support and self-extension, the out- standing illustration of the latter being the founding of the National Missionary Society of India, and given an impetus to our desire for an Indian Church. But the tragedy of Indian Church life consists in this that the more seriously we have grappled with the problem of evangeliz- ing our country, the more thoroughly we have realized how utterly im- possible it is for the Indian Church alone to accomplish it, as it is for Missions to achieve it single-handed, and that the only hope lies in a coalescing of the forces of the Church and the Mission and a consequent fusion of their organizations. But right here we are met by the ring- fence of "policy" which, in the name of the interests of the Church, shuts the Indian out from the councils of missions and control of its funds. To accept mission work, with these bars against us, "for the sake of Christ," 630 as we are enjoined by our missionary friends to do, would not only be sinning against our national self-respect but giving a distorted inter- pretation of Christ to India, and doing a disservice to our Lord and Country. It will be a treason alike to both, and we dare not be a party to it. We do not think we are using exaggerated language when we say that the anomalies and indignities of the present situation are too great for any self-respecting people to bear, let alone higher considerations of the Christian ethic. To numerate all the disabilities would be a long and woeful tale to unfold, but we shall run over some of the salient points in brief. (1) We have, under this system, the Mission and not the Church legislating about Mass-Movement methods. This process has been hast- ened on, in our Presbyteries, by the missionaries, whose work has been made a subject of adverse criticism by missionaries and Indian members alike, developing a tendency to withdraw themselves from membership with us. The Church is ultimately the body responsible for these meth- ods, for she has not only to assimilate the innumerable converts which are being swept into the fold by this work, but her very rites and cere- monials (as Dr. Griswold's very able paper on "Non-Christian Rites and Institutions, and their Christian Equivalents" indicates) are being changed and modified by it. Yet, by virtue of this present policy of di- vision, there is no means of making the two bodies concerned — the Church and Mission — move together on this grave question, and a dead- lock is the result. (2) This system is also responsible for a Board Secretary coming out from America to decide on important mission matters, conferring only with mi.ssionaHes, and ending up by straying into the province of the Church and making recommendations vitally affecting it. The con- ferring only with missionaries was significant. Speaking of a needed change in the mission policy, Sir Andrew Fraser wrote: — "Societies at home should get into touch with one another on this subject; but they cannot frame their policy except in consultation with the men who are carrying out the work on the spot, and the men who are carrying out the work on the spot are not only the missionaries and the mission coun- cils, but also the leaders and representative members of the Indian. Church" {International Review of Missions, Vol. VII, No. 25, page 83). A truncated "policy" was responsible for the omission of the second head of this advice of a tried Indian administrator, himself long an Elder, and a Moderator of the Indian Presbyterian Church, and well conversant with Church and Mission conditions. Another illustration of the same type is furnished by the "June 1920 Conference" in New York, which also supinely ignores Indian repre- sentation, though decisions vitally affecting the Indian Church and Missions in India are expected to be arrived at in it. (3) This system also has presented us with the spectacle of our col- lege men being vehemently urged to enter mission service when there is in reality no place for them in the Mission. Appeals, under such con- ditions, become a solemn farce, and do more injury than good to the in- terests of true religion. (4) This system has also given us, in the North-India Mission, a solitary Indian appointed to missionary rank, one who holds this position more by sufferance than by right, and which is hedged round by disa- bilities which are humiliating and which come in the way of a man's doing his best work. For the fullest co-operation is only possible xvhere 631 there is perfect equality, and any rankling feeling of unequal treatment is fatal to it. Social good-fellowship, of a sort, we have between mis- sionaries and Indian Christians, and sometimes plenty of it from some quarters, but such is the contrariety of the situation that such fellow- ship instead of covering, helps to expose more the inequalities of the situation. For a fellowship which stops at social functions and does not extend to fellowship in office adds but insult to injury to the ag- grieved party. We have to remember that an organization, whatever justification it might have had when we were, to all intents and purposes, a subject people, is not only out of place, but positively harmful now, when we are coming to be regarded in practice, as well as in theory, "the King's equal subjects." What the State has conceded to us the Church cannot with- hold. If we are told that it is to our interest that it should be so, we have difficulty in believing it, especially our younger men, when the same argument was used in the State and has been found out-grown. All this, however, leads us to the central argument in the question: the argument that only those who contribute the money should have control over it. We cannot accept this as a formal principle of universal application, when there are exceptions to this rule to be found all around us. We have, as the most outstanding exception, a fact which touches every day the lives, in so many ways, of the millions of India — we mean the stewardship of Great Britain over us. We will challenge a declara- tion on this point: whether this has not been a case of wise use, on the whole, of other peoples' money. The fact is that it depends on the character of the people entrusted with this use. Your people. Sir, have, we feel, a doctrinaire hold of this principle, and however different and wide-removed other questions might seem — like that of "mandates" for example — your position on- all these is of a piece, as we hope to show later. Before there can be a change of policy, we have to have a changed view of life in your people. As to the application of this principle to the Church in India, we admit freely that there might have been conditions present in the early days which justified it. We admit also that in early Indian Christian thought there was present too much a consciousness of the paternal theory of missions. But what we, as strongly, assert is that in our evolution we have left that stage behind ; that the newly awakened national conscious- ness of our people has provided the antidote to it; and that this feeling of self-respect has come to stay in the country and will increasingly grow inside the Church, as we get more and more converts from the higher classes — men who have not been brought up on mission money from their childhood upwards — and could be trusted, with adequate safeguards in the mission constitution, to preserve us effectually from a lapse into a condition where financial control over other peoples' money might be a source of danger. We believe that, with the changed conditions in our national characteristics, we shall have a situation where we will not rest till the Indian end of the contribution — in men and money — outweighs the foreign, and India takes her proper share in the evangelization of her own people. But towards this consummation we cannot bend all our energies, so long as the relation between the Mission and the Church is not righted, and the energies which should be saved for constructive effort dissipated — on both sides — in mutual recrimination, and mere destructive criticism of each other. We may mention here that as a part of the plan to fuse the Mission in the Church, we shall heartily support a measure, to get the Indian Church from the 632 outset to take its rightful share — a share which should increasingly grow and make itself felt — in the financial burdens of the missionary enterprise. We trust we shall not be taken as invertebrates, or parasites, in plead- ing for a closer union of the Church and the Mission. It is not the line of least resistance for us. That lies the other way, viz., in making the Church break off entirely from the Mission and Western Christianity, and stand on its solitary resources. We have had instances of it in the past, as in the "Khristo Samaj" of the early days of the late Kali Charan Banerji, — a position, however, from which he retracted long- before his life's close — and the volcano is still active underground and ready to erupt on provocation offered. But we are convinced that our peace does not lie that way; that it will be a calamity to the Indian Church, and through it to Asia and the world, if it were to lose the note of catholicity in the midst of nationality. We wish to emphasize the lesson which the political situation in India and the East, in general, has for us in the Church. It is a fascinating cry, that of "India for the Indians." But it is not consistent with the whole truth. India is for the Empire as well, and for the world. With the cry of "India for the hidians" goes also "passive resistance" or "Satyagraha" or "the policy of non-co-operation," as it is called, and an individualistic view of life, which has no place for a commonwealth of nations and the common good. By isolating the Mission and the Church we fondly think that we are strengthening the Church. But we are raising, perhaps, a spirit which we shall not be able to lay. By refusing to fuse the Mission and the Church we shall soon enough have a National Church, but one which will give us a distorted view of Christ, and instead of being a messenger of good-will will be a stirrer up of strife. As a result of the situation we have sought to envisage, we feel we should press on you, with all the earnestness at our command, to take up the question with your Board of revising the present relation between the Mission and the Church. We are further emboldened in this view by noticing the changes which have been coming over other missionary societies, changes in consonance with our ideas. We note, also, with gratification that the recommendations of the Edinburgh Continuation Committee Conferences followed the same lines, when it was urged that Indians should be put "on a footing of complete equality, in status and responsibility, with Europeans" and that "Churches and Missions should open for Indians the highest and most responsible positions in every de- partment of missionary activity," and that positions in the mission field should be related to the Churches. We are giving in an appendix to this letter the advance recorded, of late, in this direction by missions, and a few brief suggestions of ours towards a solution of the problem. While changes are sweeping over other missionary societies, we, who have learned to appreciate American ideals, should not like to see an American Mission lag behind in its thought and practice. We realize to some extent the historical reasons and the national characteristics which are responsible for the present policy. Like other countries and other peoples, your people suffer from the defects of their virtues. American Christianity suffers from an excess of Protestantism. "The dissidence of dissent" marks its Christian life conspicuously, it having largely sprung from extreme forms of Protestantism. The individualis- tic view of life comes to it uppermost therefore, a supreme exhibition of which we have in your Monroe Doctrine, and the present withdrawal of America from the responsibilities following the war. With such pro- 633 nounced individualism, it was no surprise therefore that we should have the total isolation of the Mission and the Church, and a failure to realize how the best interests of both would be served not in mutual isolation but in a fusion of the one in the other. But this is, we must admit in all fairness, but one side of the picture. How American Christianity can rise superior to this national limitation, when it lays itself open to other and counteracting- forces, is shown in the splendid oneness which the Methodist Episcopal Church has realized in its relating of these two bodies in the mission field. The Methodists are above all "clannish" — we say it in no disrespect — and this characteristic has neutralized the na- tional individualism, with the result that there is the greatest co-opera- tion among them between the Mission and the Church, with happy re- sults to both alike. The mention of the Methodist Episcopal Church suggests, to our mind, the significant fact that it is the Episcopal Churches, both in England and America, that have taken the lead in the fusing of the Mission and the Church. It is, however, but in the fitness of things. The organic view of life is strongest in the Episcopal bodies, whereas non-conformity — we think we should be able to admit it without depreciating its great historical services^ — has ever put a premium on individualism. Life is a unity, and our views on different questions are all of a piece. One can see therefore in the present mission policy, whether it be the relation of the Mission to the Church, or of the foreign missionaries to the Pres- bytery, or the question of self-support in the Church, the working out of a fundamental view of life — a view of life which is distinctly individual- istic and which is rooted in historical and national conditions. The world is at the cross-roads today. The old order has died in a great conflagration brought about by the evil effects of an individualis- tic point of view. On the ashes of the old a new order is being built. But though the old order is dead, the old leaven is not. The choice that besets the national life of your great people supremely — the choice be- tween living out one's life in the strength of self-sufficiency, and the going out of oneself and the making of us at one with others — is one which faces all peoples in their several measures. On us all, therefore, who love the New Day and its coming is enjoined this other, the organic point of view, a point of view which is rooted in our view of life, our conceptions of the Church, and our understanding of Christianity itself; and we cannot but believe that if this point of view were given effect to, there will be co-operation where there is now distrust, love where there is now hate, and on a weary world will descend "Peace, and good-will among men." We beg to remain. Dear Sir, Yours sincerely, J. M. David, (B.A.), Elder, Katra Church, and Moderator, Allahabad Presbytery, {Asst. Registrar, University of Allahabad). A. Ralla Ram, (B.A.), Minister, Allahabad Presbytery {In charge, Jumna Church, Allahabad) . N. C. MUKERJI, (M.A.), Elder, Jumna Church {Professor, Ewing Christian College, Allahabad) . N. K. MUKERJI, (B.A.), Elder, Katra Church {Secretary, North-India Christian Tract and Book Society, Allahabad). ■ 634 Appendix To a letter to Dr. R. E. Speer, Secretary, Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, on "The Re- lation of the Mission to the Church." A Statement, by the Signatories to the Letter, of Points Which Should be the Basis of any Abiding Solution of the Relation Between the Church and the Mission. (1) The aim should be to make all work church and not mission centric. (2) To realize this end all work now conducted by the Mission should be eventually made over to Presbyteries, the present separate Mission organizations dissolved, and all missionaries become members of Presbyteries. (3) But till then, for the period of transition, there should be erected a new body, composed of representatives of the Mission and the Church, which should have the ultimate control in all things; that the lines of Dr. Ewing's scheme be followed for this body, as being altogether free from the blame of half-measures, which would be suicidal. (4) While we should understand by the Indian Church a national church, no attempt should be encouraged on the part of missionaries to withdraw themselves from membership in it, and that they should not withhold their share of developing it, consistently with its character as an Indian Church. (5) A policy of devolution should be adopted by which the present mission stations should be partitioned for more intensive work, and qualified Indians appointed to the charge of stations on a basis of per- fect equality of status and responsibility with Americans. (6) The Indian Church should bear, from the outset, a share, pro- portionate to her resources, in the financial burden of the missionary enterprise — and steps should be taken to ensure its being a gradually increasing share. B. Schemes for a New Central Body Relating the Church and the Mission A very brief outline of suggestions for changes in the method of con- ducing mission business by the Rev. J. C. R. Ewing, D.D. I. — The Council of Missionaries. — This shall include men and women directly appointed by the Board to a particular Mission. The function of this Council shall consist of all those matters, which have exclusively to do with the foreign missionaries, such as, furlough, allowances, re- call, and so forth. The business of this Council would ordinarily be transacted in one day. II. — The Mission. — This shall consist of all the members of No. 1 and Indian members, men and women, selected in such a way as to make them representative of the Church. I should strongly oppose the idea of their merely being individuals named by the Mission. A constituency charged with the duty of selecting representatives for membership in the Mission must be found. In order to secure this I would suggest, in 635 the North India for example, that a given number of persons be elected for terms of a fixed length by the following bodies : — (i) The Ewing Christian College Board. (ii) Saharanpur Seminary Board. (iii) The Allahabad Presbytery. (iv) The Farrukhabad Presbytery. To these should be added in future any other bodies suitable for the exercise of such powers. (v) The Council of Missionaries. It only remains to suggest for this bare outline one or two points. In general only men and women engaged in actual missionary work and devoting their time to such service ought to be added to II. The reason for this is obvious. Members of such a body, as the Mission, to be useful must be able to attend meetings and give time to such work regarding it as a first duty. Persons engaged in Government service for example are usually found unable to attend meetings except when they are held on public holidays, and this restricts the time for doing Mission business altogether too much, and they could not be fully familiar with all the details of the work. The pastors of churches would of course be eligible. Much in the way of detail would have to be worked out in connection with this sketch plan. I have not attempted this because I only want to put before others what seems to me a very workable idea, and am not at all enthusiastic as to the details. I should have said above, that in the case of the members, foreign and Indian of No. II voting power should extend to all on equal terms, and that Mission (II) should deal with all the branches of missionary work, educational as well as evangelistic. / am personally inclined to believe that any half-way measures will fail and that the only kind of legislatioyi, which we can count upon likely to be effective, will from the very outset, recognize the members of the Church, to be chosen in the way indicated, as equally interested with ourselves in all branches of work. 2. Report of the Committee Appointed to Con'sider Dr. Griswold's plan for the better relation of Church and Mission, as adopted by the Presbytery of Allahabad, March, 1920 Members of the Committee: — Rev. J. J. Lucas, D.D., Rev. A. Ralla Ram, B.A., Mr. J. M. David, B.A., and Rev. J. C. Manry, M.A., (Con- vener). We find that there is a general agreement as to the end at which we should all aim, namely, a self-supporting and self-propagating Church in India: the difference of opinion that exists is in regard to the means for achieving this aim. In the Christian Church there is no room for racial and national lines of cleavage or demarcation. The sole principle by Which policies must be judged and fixed is their fitness to secure the above-mentioned end, namely, a self-supporting and self-propagating Christian Church in India. The following plan commends itself to us: — A Board of Mission Work should be established to consist of, say 15 members, 5 to be elected by the Presbyteries, 5 to be elected by the North- India Mission, and 5 to be elected by some method to be prescribed by the Board of Foreign Missions in New York, say, by the India-Council of American Presbyterian Missions. Members of this Board should be elected for a term of three years, and should be eligible to re-election. 636 The Board should employ a full-time executive secretary, and should have a small executive committee and finance committee. It should frame its own by-laws, and its decisions should be final. It might well adopt a rule to admit and discharge workers only on the recommendation of some Presbytery, but it should have discretion in regard to transfer, increase or decrease in pay, and such other questions as arise, although it would normally consider the representations of local ministers and sessions. The proposed Board, in co-operation with the Presbyteries and the Mission, would work out the details of a plan for increasing the repre- sentation of the Presbyteries from time to time as developments may warrant it, and for decreasing the Mission representation until finally it shall reach the vanishing point. The Presbyteries, the Mission and the Board may elect any minister, elder, or missionary who must be a member of the Presbyterian Church of India, without regard to nationality, to the proposed board. To the Board when established should be committed the care of all evangelistic work. Evangelistic work for women should be in the charge of a Woman's Board, related to the general Board somewhat as the Woman's Boards in America are related to the general Board there. All funds received for Evangelistic and Pastoral Work should be in the care of this Board, which should prepare estimates for advance work and execute the plans formed. 3. A Conference called by the North India Mission met at Allahabad on the 2nd April 1920 to consider the question of the constitution of the Mission and what changes, if any, are necessary. The following is a free translation of the resolutions which were passed by a majority of votes. (i) That a Board be created between the Mission and the Church. (ii) That this Board consists of 15 members elected thus: 4 each by the Allahabad and Farrukhabad Presbyteries, and the remaining 7 by the North India Mission; these bodies to have perfect freedom to elect Americans or Indians just as they may wish. (iii) That the functions of the Board be confined to evangelistic and pastoral work. (iv) That for the present the functions of the Board be advisory. (v) That the proceedings of the Board be published both in English and in Urdu. (vi) That the N. I. Mission be requested to ask the Home Board for permission to co-opt four Indians as full members of the Mission. (vii) That ordinarily all matters appertaining to evangelistic and pastoral work should pass through the Board. C. The Following Quotations Will Show What Missionaries and Others Who Are Familiar with the Work in India Feel About the Question Under Consideration. 1. In an article on "Religious Self-Expression of Christian India" which appeared in the Harvest Field the Right Rev. Bishop E. H. M. Waller, M.A., D.D., of Tinnevelly and Madura (who started his missionary career as Principal of the Christian Boys' Boarding School at Batala, Punjab, and then spent several years in the United Provinces as Prin- cipal of St. Paul's Divinity School, Allahabad, missionary at Benares, 637 and eventually as Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, United Provinces, and was also Secretary for India at the Headquarters at Salisbury Square, London) expresses himself thus: — "I believe we must make far more real endeavor to give to indigenous congregations the guidance of their own affairs; and to associate them with us in our plans for the work of the Mission and the Church. / believe that this separation of Mission and Church is at the root of a- great deal of the difficulty we are discussing. As Christ is one, His work is one. I have heard distinctions drawn between foreign money and Indian money, between missionary and Indian clergyman, between missionary conference and Indian committees that made my blood boil. It may be that in administration there must be specialized committees, but such committees should be based not on the lines of race or of the separation of the Mission and Church but simply on capacity for the ser- vice of Christ's Kingdom. "Our aim then will be to take practical steps from the very beginning to abolish as far as possible the difference between the Mission and Church. . . .It may be impossible and undesirable at the present time to get rid of it at home:. . . .that is a large question which we cannot discuss now: but while we benefit by the enthusiasm and the prayer that lie behind the present system, let us see that it does not do real harm to the cause that it exists to benefit." Commenting on the Decennial Report of the National Missionary So- ciety of India — The First Ten Years of the N. M. S. — in the International Review of Missions, Vol. VII, pages 127-128, the Rev. N. H. Tubbs, Principal, Bishop's College, Calcutta (who previously held the post of Warden, Oxford and Cambridge, Hostel, Allahabad and Manager of St. John's High School, Agra) writes: — "Indeed the thoughtful reader of this ten years' report will find him- self facing the great question of decentralization, which is being forced upon the Home Mission Boards. The story of the National Missionary Society clearly shows that Indian Christians possess spiritual wisdom and capacity for leadership in a marked degree. They do not lack patient and far-seeing statesmanship, executive ability, financial integ- rity, enthusiasm, and devotion combined with prudence and caution. In the realm of politics the British Government is contemplating great and far-reaching reforms in the direction of self-governing institutions in India. European and American missionaries in India are more and more realizing that the time has come for a similar great advance in missionary politics and administration, but too often the home mission boards are obsessed with the thought that 'he who pays the piper must call the tune,' and thus the generosity of the churches in the West is in danger of keeping the young churches of the East in perpetual bondage. Members of the home boards will find much food for thought in these pages." o o. The Informal Conference between some Indian Christians and British missionaries held at Allahabad in 1919, expressed the following opinion on this matter: — "It will also be said that so long as the supplies for the Church's work in India are drawn almost exclusively from Europe or America, it must be willing to submit to control by these countries. We question the in- evitableness of this conclusion. There is a growing agreement among 638 Indians and missionaries that self-government will have to precede self-support, and ivill indeed stimulate it." 4. Sometime ago, in South India, a group of Christians, Indians and foreign, spent ten days in Retreat and fellowship, to consider the problem of Mission and Church when they concluded: — "The problem has an official and economic as well as a personal aspect. Money, freedom and responsibility, must be gladly and frankly entrusted to the Indian Church. With regard to money contributed by the churches in the west for the evangelization of India, the chief question, is not by whom the money is administered, but whether it is spent in the most^ fruitful way for the extension of Christ's Kingdom." 5. The Right Rev. V. S. Azariah (Bishop of Dornakal) — an Indian — during the course of his sermon at St. Bride's Church, London, on the occasion of the 121st Anniversary of the Church Missionary Society, said: — "The relationship between Missions and the indigenous Church is another problem calling for thought and action. This is a problem that affects equally but divergently all parts of the mission field. It may be safely asserted that in many of the larger Missions the time has come for greater recognition to be given to the Church as the chief factor in the evangelization of India. The time when the Mission was the promi- nent partner is fast passing away in these fields, and the time has come when the Church ought to occupy that place. In almost all fields careful watch must be kept over the development of the community, so that the devolution of responsibility from the Mission to the Church may be car- ried out wisely and steadily, and that at every stage of development, in all departments of work — both transferred and reserved. Indian co- operation and counsel may be secured at once and complete self-govern- ment may be prepared for and consummated in the future. The All- India Missionary Conference of 1912, held in Calcutta, under the Presi- dency of Dr. Mott, passed the following resolution: — 'This Conference would emphasize the principle that the work carried on by foreign missionary societies should be gradually transferred, as opportunities offer, to the Indian Church, and that suitable plans and modifications of existing organizations should be adopted, wherever necessary, so that this principle may be carried out by missionary bodies.' The principle underlying the resolution is now universally accepted by all missions, and many steps have been taken by different societies to give effect to the resolution. But the progress is all too slow. The situation demands a more vigorous and bolder policy. The hearty co-operation of the Indian leaders is most essential for the missionary enterprise of the future. Moreover, the educated Indian Christian is naturally being thoroughly permeated with the new national spirit of the country. It is important that his love, sympathy, and services be won for the Church and the missionary cause. The Hindu, too, is watching with keen interest the place that the In- dian Christian is taking, and is invited to take, in the work and govern- ment of the Church. 'Responsible Government,' 'Home Rule,' 'Tran.s- ferred and Reserved Subjects' — the.se have become familiar phrases in modern India. Is it to be wondered at that the Indian Christian is at- tracted by the glamour of these ideas, and expects it in the sphere of Church and Mission administration? Courageous action should therefore 639 be taken everywhere to devolve responsibility of some kind or degree from 'the Mission' to 'the Church.' Where a complete transfer is not immediately possible, the giving of full responsibility in certain depart- ments and the securing of Indian co-operation and counsel in all branches of work must be the rule, and not the exception, in Mission administra- tion. The devolution and co-operation should not depend solely on a money test. Again and again lue have seen that the policy of trust and confidence and of devolution of responsibility is what secures greater self-siipport and greater efficiency in administration. In spite of all ex- ceptions and disappointments, as a rule the hearing of responsihility breeds a sense of responsibility and confidence begets trustworthiness. The time must come soon when, at least in the older fields all the mis- sionary work under the foreign missionary societies must become obviously and permanently related to the Church in India. This does not mean that these fields will not require men and money any longer. The Church will still require all the sympathy and help that the older Churches of the West can give it for a long time to come. Even if the Church in some of the districts should become entirely self-supporting tomorrow, yet, for the training of the workers and of the clergy, for manning the educational institutions for its youth, for conducting its colleges and hostels for non- Christians, and for developing in its work- ers a strong spiritual life and a spirit of self-sacrificing service, it will need for some long time to come the best men that the Church and the Universities of the West can produce. Financial support also will still be required for the training of the clergy and other leaders of the Church, until Indian Christians themselves can equip and endow their own theological colleges. But the centre of gravity must move unmis- takably from the Mission to the Church. You will still send men, but to be associated with the Church in India, and to labor with its leaders for the Christianization of the nation. Only, the men you send out will be men in full sympathy with Indian Christian national aspirations; men who will be more conscious of their relationship to the Church in India than of their connection with the Society that sends them out; men who will find their joy in identifying themselves with that Church and serving that Church, thus, perhaps all unconsciously, making their peculiar contribution to the Church in India. You will still send money, but not as a means of holding the converts in bondage to a particular sect or a particular view, but to help the Indian Church, as long as it needs such help, to carry out its own program for the fulfilment of its mission to the nation. Possibly you still will be required to give your thought and counsel to the problems of the work: but largely it will be to enable the Church in India to come to its own, so that 'the glories and the treasures of the nation' may be brought into the Church of Christ, and that the Light of God proceeding from it may guide the destinies of the many races yet outside it. All this is no mean service. Perhaps it requires the greatest self-abnegation and the wisest Christian states- manship that missionary societies and individual missionaries have ever been called upon to exercise. But will the daughter churches in India look to the older churches of the west in vain for this important service?" 6. The late Sir A. H. L. Fraser, K. C. S. L, LL.D., writing in the Inter- national Review of Missions, Vol. VII (pages 74-83) on "Leadership in the Mission Field," and after dealing with the changing conditions in India in political matters, and the success of the policy of appointing Indians as Assistant Collectors, Collectors, Commissioners of Divisions, 640 Members of the Board of Revenue, Members of the Provincial Execu- tive Councils as well as of the Viceroy's Council, writes thus of the problems facing the Church in India; — "It seems clear, I think, that this is very much what we want in re- gard to the similar problems now affecting the Church in India. We want to have a clearly defined policy; end wc want to have that policif consistently enforced. It must be kept before our missionaries, who must realize that they are not doing their best work unless they are assisting in the development of the Indian Church, and putting Indian workers into positions of responsibility ajid trust quite equal to those which they themselves have occupied. The time has come not only to have a vague desire to do justice to Indian aspirations and to employ the Indian Church and Indian ivorkers, but also to go beyond that. We must have a clear and definite policy in regard to all the problems that are involved — the share which Indians are to take in every department of mission work, and also the work the Indian Church is to do and the share which it is to take in the evangelization of India. Great progress, for which we thank God, has been made of late years in organizing the Christian Church and setting it to work; but this is a case in which we cannot afford to be weary in well-doing. Alongside of progress in this matter also, there must be a determined effort to give Indian workers a due share of responsibility of missionary work, and an ever-increasing part in its direction and administration. All this involves going into the question in respect of every department of missionary and Church work; and the consideration of all the problems which will arise in this con- nection seems to me to be now so urgently demanded that it cannot be postponed. Societies at home should get into touch with one another on this subject; but they cannot frame their policy except in consultation with the men who are carrying out the work on the spot; and the men who are carrying out the work on the spot are not only the missionaries and Mission councils but also the leaders atid representative members of the Indian Church." 7. In the International Review of Missions. Vol VII (pages 522-530) dealing with the subject of "Relationships between Indians and Euro- peans," Mr. William Patton writes: — "Take one more example — the whole question of Church and Mission and the relation between the two. It is, of course, commonplace to say that the object of missionary endeavor is to build up a truly Indian Church, that the mission itself is a temporary thing, that it must de- crease, while the Indian Church increases. This principle is generally accepted by all who give serious thought to missionary work. Yet I must confess that I became almost afraid to mention the principle in a company of Indian Christians. There would be a look of polite incredul- ity, or a laugh, indicating quite clearly that the principle in question was in the opinion of those present more a matter of theory than of practice. I found educated Christians in all parts of India very loath to believe that the object of the western missions is really to minister to the Indian Church, and that the missionary is really anxious to hand over responsibility to the Indian and to work with him and under him. Exceptions they would cordially admit but they would go no further Not less grave is the issue confronting the Church (I use that word to include Indian Christians and missionaries) in India. If the present atmosphere of estrangement and misunderstanding can be dissipated and the educated Indian Christian be really united in fellowship with 641 21 — India and Persia the European missionary, India is ripe for a very great Christian ad- vance. If estrang evnent is continued, and there is not enough faith, hope and love to banish it, then there are bad days ahead for Indian- Christianity, and worse still for Indian missions .... No one doubts that the question of the right relation between the foreign mission and the Indian Church, between the Indian worker and the European worker, is the most urgent question facing Christian statesmanship in India, and some of the ablest missionaries would heartily back schemes today which only yesterday would have been condemned as Utopian .... To make great experiments in exploring the depths of Christian love is the task to which we are called, and only the love which is utterly human because it is utterly divine, the love of Christ, is adequate to the need before us. Whether in missions or in government, in private life or in public affairs, there is need today for men and women in India who have got past the point of caring about themselves and can approach the life of India and the heart of Indians with that self-effacing and yet utterly simple and natural attitude of brotherly equality and love which is the gift throughout the ages of Christ to those who look for strength to Him." 8. Dr. D. J. Fleming in his recent book "Devolution in Mission Admin- istration," after his own experience as a missionary in India, and after a thorough study of the principle and policies of the home boards and societies and of missions on the field, writes: — "No phrase occurs more often in articles on this subject than the one spoken in the spirit of John the Baptist — we must decrease and they must increase. But when it comes to practice, lack of imagination, in- ability to put one's self in the other's place, the neglect to make explicit the implications of that phrase, prevent the adequate embodiment of this principle. Fine ideals are expressed in resolutions, but examination shows that all too often definite practical plans of procedure are not in- dicated by which the high and contemplated are to be secured." D. ADVANCES RECORDED BY OTHER MISSIONS The American Methodist Episcopal Church. In the Methodist Church there are no two separate bodies like the Mission and Church. They have what is called a Conference comprised of Indian and foreign ministers, the former outnumbering the latter very considerably. All questions appertaining both to mission and church are dealt with by this body. The Conference appoints a Finance Committee which attends to all financial matters. Indians are also members of this committee. The following extract from the Indian Witness will indicate what further progress in the direction of trusting Indians with what is commonly termed "foreign money" is being con- templated:— At the recent session of the Executive Board of the Methodist Epis- copal Church two actions were taken looking to wider influence of the Indian membership in the affairs of the church in India. As it already exists, the mini&ters of the Church of Indian nationality have exactly the same ecclesiastical standing as do the missionaries that come from abroad and every office in the gift of the Church is as open to one nation- ality as the other. But, in the past, in the administration of the finances, a rigid rule required that, in the election of members to the finance committees, one-half must be of one nationality and the other half of 642 the other. The Executive Board now recommends to the Home Board that, hereafter in India, the annual conferences be allowed to elect with- out any restriction whatever, save as to total numbers. Inasmuch as in all conferences but perhaps one, the Indian membership is decidedly the larger, this makes it possible for the latter to decide as it deems best as to the most fitting men for the place. The second action has to do with the membership of the Executive Board itself. While in the past, election to this body has been open to missionaries and Indian ministers alike, the nature of the work has decided the election of the former as better acquainted with the duties required. But it is deemed advisable that, whatever the particular qualifications needed for this work, the Indian ministers should be represented on its membership. The Execu- tive Board therefore recommends to the Central Conference, which meets in Lucknow next January, such a change in its rules as will allow each annual or Mission Conference to elect an Indian delegate to the Board membership, and it is practically certain such change will be granted. The Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Episcopal ad- dress to the Thirteenth Session of the Central Conference of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church in Southern Asia held in Lucknow in January 1920 made the following pronouncement on the question of "Transferring of Responsibilities to the Indian Church:" — "This question has been prominently before the National Missionary Council since 1912, when the following resolution was passed: — 'This Conference would emphasize the principle that the work carried on by Foreign Missionary Societies would be gradually transferred, as oppor- tunities offer, to the Indian Church, and that suitable plans and modi- fications of existing organizations should be adopted, wherever necessary, that this principle may be carried out by missionary bodies.' Since the writing of the above, there has arisen a new national con- sciousness in India, a reaction against all things foreign, and a desire for everything to be Indian. We not only rejoice in a national awaken- ing, but also in the fact that, with the rest of the nation, the Indian Church is awakening. We feel that the pi-oblem of an adjustment to the nexv natiorial consciousness is a most vital one; but that it is not so difficult for jn the Synod and the Missions, the work has grown, and God's blessing has been upon the Church. The conditions may not always have been what we would have chosen, or the Synod or the Missions, but it is possible that in the future, when we can look back and study philosophically the history of the Church in Japan, we may see that God allowed just these conditions to prevail which He saw would be most favorable to the development of the Church as a great national institution. We do not say this as justifying these con- ditions or their continuance, for we believe that the time has arrived for a wise solution, if wisdom may be given to the Church and to the Missions, of one of the most important problems of the Church's life, — a problem inevitable sooner or later in the founding of Christianity as an independent institution in that land. It is our earnest hope that the consideration of the problems before us may be lifted to this high level, above all temporary and personal elements. "We have said that we are not disturbed that the issue which the Synod's Communication presents has arisen. We will even venture to go further and to say that we rejoice in it. We should be sorry if it had not arisen in some form. We have never entertained any other thought than that the Church of Christ should attain the fullest measure of national autonomy, and we shall be happy to see a further step taken in that direction. We welcomed the ecclesiastical independence of the Church. We rejoiced in the union of all Presbyterian and Reformed congregations in one body, with a simplified doctrinal basis which guarded against the errors against which the Church of Japan had to bear its testimony, but which did not perpetuate the doctrinal disa- greements of the West, or raise in Japan a creedal obstacle in the way of a yet larger measure of organic Christian unity in the future. We were glad to see the Church received on this basis into the fellowship of the Alliance of the Reformed Churches as a sister Church of sov- ereign freedom, and we are not at all disappointed now to have the question of a real administrative independence and autonomy brought forward for discussion. Our aim in the work which we have tried to do in Japan has been from the outset the aim which we conceive should control all foreign missionary work, namely, the establishment of a truly national Church, which will be able to take up all the responsibili- ties of such a Church, and leave the missionary agencies free to pass on to other fields to do there the same work. A truly national Church, supporting its own institutions, administering all its own affairs, and capable of evangelizing its own people is the euthanasia of foreign missions. The stronger, the more independent, the more truly autono- mous, the more missionary the Church of Christ in Japan, the greater is our joy. "The road which we have been over in our relations one to another has not always been a smooth road. That is of no consequence. We have trusted one another, and have been earnestly and sincerely seeking one end. And that end has been .so far realized. Now there arises the necessity of a further adjustment. We see no reason why this should not be made. If the Church of Christ has the Spirit of Christ and the Missions have the spirit of John the Baptist, which was the Spirit of Christ, it will surely be possible to reach a satisfactory basis of co-opera- G53 tion. Our Missions have no ambition save to advance the interests, to extend the influence and to enlarge the work of the Church of Christ. They realize that this is a transition time, and that new adjustments are called for. We know that they are prepared to consider the whole matter with you in the spirit of which we have just spoken. The problem you have to consider with them has three solutions. One is the withdrawal of the Missions from Japan. We are glad that this thought has not occurred to you. With 30,000,000 and more people still to be reached by the Gospel, with large districts containing hundreds of thousands of souls unprovided with any Christian agency whatsoever, with institu- tions now crowded with pupils which still require support from abroad, our conscience would not approve our deserting you in your immense and vitally important struggle. Moreover, such a course, on the face of such facts, would be a confession of weakness and failure on your part and ours. A second course would be the continuance of the present situ- tion. But this is no solution at all, and would be intolerable to you and to the Missions and to us. The third course would be a settlement between you as a Synod and the Missions jointly, or, if no joint action could be reached, between you and the Missions separately, or, between the Presbyteries and the Missions at work within their bounds. We do not understand from the Communication of the Synod that it wished us to make any detailed suggestion, and this understanding is confirmed by the clear statement of your Committee's letter, to the effect that the Missions and the Church, acting as independent organizations, should make clear and definite arrangements with each other under the prin- ciple set forth. That principle you have stated with equal clearness in the declaration that the Church 'has a right to a voice in all work carried on within its organization or closely connected with it.' We do not see why there should be any hesitation in accepting this principle. We accept it heartily. We would accept it in the case of a Church far less advanced in autonomy and independence than the Church of Christ in Japan. We recognize that the terms in which the principle is stated will need some definition. What 'voice?' How 'closely connected?* Does the phrase 'all work' limit the personal freedom of a missionary more closely than the personal action of a presbyter or layman of the Church of Christ? But these are questions which we are entirely prepared to leave to determination in conference between the Church of Christ in its Synod or Presbyteries and the Missions or missionaries. "We think it might help to a clearer understanding of the problem if the Church and the Missions could put themselves each in the other's place. We have endeavored to do so here. How would the Synod of New York feel, for example, with reference to Missions established within its bounds by the United Free Church of Scotland? This is not a purely hypothetical case; for shortly after 1717, when the Synod of New York was established, the Mother Churches in Great Britain gave us aid, and the Synod of Glasgow raised $5,000, one-tenth of which was sent to New York, and the remainder was used to send missionaries throughout the colonies. Such conditions were not found unendurable then. In due time the Church of Christ will probably face this problem in its own missionary experience in other lands. Those principles should be followed now in Japan which we should wish followed here were the United Free Church at work in the Synod of New York, and which you will wish followed in China or Afghanistan in future years. "There is one feature of the situation that is of special interest to us. It is the proposition to deprive of full ecclesiastical standing all churches 654 which fail within a reasonable time to attain self-support. The prin- ciple involved here is not novel to us. Many missionaries have held the theory that no church should be fully organized, have a pastor installed over it, and be admitted to presbyterial standing that is not self-sup- porting. Your proposition is simply the firm application of this principle to your own congregations. We shall watch the outcome with deepest interest. It will be a step far in advance of our own Church in America. Here, of 7,536 fully organized churches, having full presbyterial stand- ing, about 2,500 are not self-supporting. The course you propose, if applied here, would either force some of these churches to self-support, or would reduce the number of our organized churches about thirty- three and a third per cent. If applied in some foreign mission fields, it would annihilate the Church entirely as an ecclesiastical organization. We are not prepared to say that the course you propose is not wise everywhere, and especially so in Japan at this time, and we shall earnest- ly pray that it may result in greatly increasing the number of self- sustaining churches and in stimulating the whole body. "We have replied to the Communication of the Synod and to your letter with fullness and with entire confidence, as brethren to brethren. We feel sure that we have represented the mind of our Mission in Japan. There is one further thought, however, which we wish to suggest. As we have said, the problem now raised is inevitable. It has arisen, or it will arise, in everly land where the work of founding the Christian Church is under way. Must we say that the problem is insoluble, and that Christian men in the highest and most Christ-like of all undertak- ings can do no more than disagree courteously, and separate? We can not believe this. We are sure that the problem can be solved, and we believe that the privilege of solving it is now given to the Church of Christ in Japan, — the problem of cordial, harmonious, co-operative work with the missionary force in the field, during the period intermediate between that of the first founding of the Church and that of its full ettablishment, when foreign missions shall be needed no more, because their place will have been taken by home Missions in power. This problem, if solved by you in Japan, will be solved for other countries also, and the solution will be an honor to the Church in Japan, and a rich gift to the Church of Christ in other lands. We do not anticipate, how- ever, any solution by means of formal stipulations unchangeably opera- tive. It is a living movement in which we are engaged, and what we rather hope for is such living and sympathetic adjustments as will meet the present needs, and be capable of such further modification as the changed conditions of the future will be sure to necessitate. "This reply to your Communication is sent not only in behalf of our own Board, but also in behalf of the Board of Missions of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, whose work will henceforth be consolidated with the work of our Board, as the two Churches are now reunited in one. "With earnest hope that 'the future, the wonderful future,' of which you justly speak as perhaps lying before the Church of Christ in Japan, may be all that you and we could wish, and that it may bring to the Church the richest measure of the Holy Spirit of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, "We are, in behalf of the Board, etc." The situation in Japan at the time of this correspondence differed from the present situation in India, but the spirit in which our common prob- lems must be met was the same then as now. Moreover the principles for which we are seeking are principles which will be good always and 655 everywhere. Of these principles one which we think is clear and unques- tionable is the principle of the primacy of the national Church. To be sure the Church is not an end in itself. It exists for service, for the purpose of witnessing to the Gospel, of evangelizing- the nations, of sanctifying human life. And its glory is found in the measure of its achievement of these ends. To aid in the establishment of such churches and to work with them toward the evangelization of the world is the aim of foreign missions as we conceive it. This is our aim in India. There, we rejoice to remember, the Church is already an independent national church. Neither the Church in the United States nor any of its missions has any ecclesiastical jurisdiction within its bounds. There was a time when this was not the case, when the Presbyteries in India were Presbyteries not of the Church of India but of the Presbyterian Church of the U. S. A. and when Indian churches and ministers were amenable to a foreign General Assembly sitting in a foreign land. We are glad that that day is gone by. We do not want to see it or anything that perpetuates the principle of it restored. There are some other denominations which hold to the idea of a universal ex- tension of the denomination, with all its parts governed from the home centre in Europe or America. But we have never accepted this idea. It is not our endeavor to spread the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America over the world amalgamating with it and subjecting to its jurisdiction the churches which may have been founded by its missions in Japan and China and India and elsewhere. We believe in an Indian Church, not identified with an American church but independent, national, free, related to the churches of other lands as an equal, working with them to save and unite mankind. Holding this view, it would seem to us that the solution of the present problem is to be found not in disparaging the Indian Church, nor in dividing its strength, nor in diminishing its responsibilities, but in just the opposite course, by increasing its authority, by expecting more of it, by making it the great agency of evangelization. Instead of transfer- ring a few strong Indian leaders from the Indian Church to a foreign mission, removing or dividing their obligation and allegiance, in order that they might share in the administration of money from America we would transfer the administration of the money to the Indian Church or to some such joint co-operative agent as proposed by the Church in Japan. To transfer a few individuals in the way proposed might or might not be good for them or for the administration of the work, but it would not give to the Indian Church its rightful place or development, and it might be a positive injury to that Church, involving undemocratic distinctions, withdrawing vital responsibilities and the leadership essen- tial to their discharge, and exalting a temporary and purely subsidiary agency, such as the foreign mission is, into the place of the authentic and enduring Church. We are sure that the Board is entirely ready to consider the transfer to the Indian Church — Presbyteries, Synods and Assembly — of any of the responsibilities or functions remaining to the Missions (which have, even now, no ecclesiastical authority whatsoever) which the Indian Church is prepared to take over, and with them to transfer such annual con- tributions as its means allow on such a basis of understanding as will gradually accomplish the financial self-support of all its work by the Church. Various suggestions have been made, as your communications indicate, as to the method of this larger fulfilment of the missionary ideal. In 656 different countries progress has been made in different ways. In some, and nothing could be more healthy than this course, the national Church has risen in its own strength and taken over its real work. It has sug- gested no allowances, and sought no human help. As in Uganda and Korea, it has claimed the power of the spirit and entered into its mission. In other lands the local churches or Presbyteries and the Missions co- operating with them have simply and as a matter of course done the work together, in common counsel and sacrifice and endeavor, with mutual regard and trust. It is thus in China today, where churches and mis- sions are working together as one great body in their colossal task. In Japan definite co-operative plans have been adopted as proposed by the Church of Christ in 1906, whereby the evangelistic work of the mission in any Presbytery is carried on by a joint Committee representing both Presbytery and mission. In some fields local agencies of joint adminis- tration in other forms have been effective. In India we would suggest that the India Council representing the Missions of our Board and official representatives of the Presbyteries within whose bounds the three Missions are at work should meet to study the question and to suggest wise plans to the Presbyteries, Synods and Missions, and to the Indian Church and the Board. We recognize also that the Indian Presbyterian Church embraces a great deal of missionary work carried on by the other Presbyterian and Reformed Churches, and it may be that the problem is so great that the Church as a whole and all the Missions associated with it will unite to give the question their combined study and seek to reach a common solution which will bring both to the Church and to the Missions the power and joy in the service of our Lord in India for which we all pray. There is one other element of this problem to which we should refer. It is not touched upon in your letter and it has been largely passed over in other mission fields in the discussions of these questions. It is the work and place of women. Here in America women are now on a politi- cal equality with men. In common life they have long been accorded a superior position. In our Church life the question of their equal par- ticipation is now before the Presbyteries. In our Missions they have the same status with men. The transfer of functions and activities from Missions to the Church should provide in some way for the full partici- pation of women, in the administration of work to which they contribute equally with men. The views which we have sought to set forth here are in strong accord with that intense national feeling in India of which you write and of which we have many evidences. The solution of the problem which would be acceptable to such a true national spirit ought to provide, it would seem, for the exaltation of the agencies of the Indian Church, for the equal participation of the ministers and elders of the Church in the fulfilment of its task, for the maintenance of the full Indian responsi- bility of every representative and member of the Church, and for the right relation of the work of the Missions not to a few chosen Indian individuals but to the Indian Church itself and its official agencies. Please allow me to repeat in closing what I said at the beginning of our satisfaction in receiving your communications and our confidence that out of these discussions great good will come. We shall need to pray for help that our limitations of vision and imperfections of judgment and our personal temperaments may not prevent our guidance by God's good Spirit in the discovery of the principles of action which are right and 667 true and by which the Church in America no less than the Church in India may be led to a deeper life and a truer service. With kind regards, Very faithfully yours, Robert E. Speer APPENDIX VII July 18, 1921 Mr. N. K. Mukerji, B.A., 18 Clive Road, Allahabad, India. My Dear Mr. Mukerji: — I am sorry to have been delayed so long in answering your letter of January 6th acknowledging my letter of September 21st addressed to you and the three brethren who had signed with you the letter to me with regard to the relations of the Missions and the Indian Church. I am very glad that my letter commended itself to you. In your letter you speak of your interest in the experience of the Church in Japan of which I had written, and you ask whether I could send you a copy of the scheme which is in force in Japan, with the feeling that perhaps the experience of the Church and the Missions in Japan might be help- ful to you. I have pleasure in enclosing herewith a copy of a letter issued by the Church of Christ in Japan dated July 3, 1906. As you will see, it deals with three questions, the financial independence of the churches, the relation of missionaries to the Japanese Church, and the problem of co-operation between the Church and the Missions. On the first of these points the Synod of the Church of Christ in Japan, as set forth in the letter had voted that thereafter Presbyteries should not organize any churches unless such churches were prepared to be financially independ- ent. In the case of existing churches it prescribed that "when a church is unable to support a pastor and meet all ordinary expenses without aid from some evangelistic organization it shall be dissolved as a church and constituted a Dendo Kyokwai" (i. e. a company of believers not yet organized as a church). With regard to the second point the action of the Synod provided that "by a vote of the Presbytery missionaries who are members of Missions recognized by the Synod as co-operating with the Church and who sincerely and openly accept the Confession of Faith, Constitution and Canons may be elected associated members. All asso- ciated members may speak, introduce resolutions and be appointed on committees," but they were not entitled to vote. On the third point the Synod action stated that in its view, "a co-operating Mission is one which recognizes the right of the Church of Christ in Japan to the gen- eral care of all evangelistic work done by the Mission as a Mission within the Church or in connection with it, and which carries on such work under an arrangement based upon the foregoing principle and concurred in by the Synod acting through the Board of Missions." The letter of the Church further specifically states on this point, "The co- operation which the Church seeks is a co-operation of the Missions as Missions with the Church as a Church." The Missions and the Church, acting as independent organizations, should make clear and definite ar- rangements with each other and the evangelistic work of the Missions as Missions carried on within the Church or in connection with it should be controlled by such arrangements. As you will see by reading the whole letter, the Church in Japan faced the question in the most earnest and competent way and sought to deal with the problems involved with both courage and judgment. 658 A long and interesting history went before these actions in 1906, and interesting history has followed. I shall try to summarize the story briefly for you in the hope that it may be of service to you and others who are dealing with similar problems in India. At the same time one realizes clearly that conditions differ greatly in different countries. The Churches have grown up out of different experiences and the temper and character of the national life in which they are set enters very clearly both into the creation and into the solu- tion of their problems. At the same time principles are the same every- where, and whatever real principles the experience of the Church and the Missions in Japan embodies are doubtless valid everywhere. As the printed letter which I enclose indicates, the Church of Christ saw clearly that the problem of co-operation is interwoven with other problems. I think it might be well if I should mention a few of these before trying to tell you the history of co-operation in Japan, because that history was determined again and again in its course by the appear- ance in the foreground of some one of these other problems found to be associated with it. Among the questions which emerged in the course of things in Japan and which either were definitely settled or are still open, are the fol- lowing: 1. What is the thing to be aimed at? The Japanese Church decided from the beginning, and the Missions agreed with it, that its aim should be the establishment of a completely independent Church in Japan, and this independence was understood to be both ecclesiastical and financial. This consciousness of its own autonomous character and responsibility has been dominant in the Japanese Church from the beginning, and as you can see, it emerges emphatically in the definition of the co-opera- tion which the Church desired, namely, "A co-operation of the Missions as Missions with the Church as a Church. The Missions and the Church acting as independent organizations should make clear and definite ar- rangements with each other." There were times in the history when this aim may have been confused, but only temporarily. There has been almost complete unity of mind from the beginning as to this funda- mental point. What all were seeking to achieve was the establishment of a genuine Japanese Church that would embody the genius and com- mand the confidence of the people, that would live by its own life in Christ, and take up its own great task of evangelization. 2. The second problem was to define co-operation. Is it the friendly association of individuals working together as individuals, either self- selected or brought together by their own processes? Is it the carrying on of common work with common resources without regard to the origin of these resources or the effect of this work upon and its relations to the different groups of workers associated in it? Or is it such co-operation as the Japanese Church had in mind, namely the definite agreement of living corporate bodies of diverse functions to relate themselves in great common tasks which have for their end the strengthening and permanent continuance of one of the co-operating parties and the cordial disappear- ance of the other? 3. Such questions made it necessary for the Missions in Japan to study again their true character and purpose. One of the missionaries in Japan, in giving an account of the Convention of the Co-operating Missions in 1893 which was called to consider this whole question, states that this very issue of the aim of a Foreign Mission was raised at that Convention and the two following answers were given : 669 I. The end of mission work in any country should be to raise up a native Church, with an efficient organization, a sound theology, and a consecrated and able ministry. When this is accomplished the work of the missionary is done. The unevangelized portion of the nation, how- ever great, may and should be left to the care of the native Church. The Churches in America might still need to assist the native organizations with funds; but as soon as an efficient native Church is established, as defined above, the work of the missionary body is over and they should, therefore, be withdrawn. II. The aim of the foreign missionaries to any country should be to evangelize that country, i. e. to cause, if not all, then at any rate the larger part of its inhabitants to know the truth. The establishment and organization of a native Church is a means, and the most important one, to that end, but it is not in itself an end. As the missionaries have a work to perform before the organization of the native Church, so they have a work after it has attained such a degree of eflnciency that it no longer needs their superintendence. Their work is then to press on the evangelization of the mass of the people, a work that is never finished so long as a large part of the people are lying in heathen darkness. Perhaps these two aims are not as irreconcilable as the writer sup- posed, and in either case the question of co-operation exists and must be rightly settled, but it is interesting to see in the discussions in Japan how this question of the real aim of a Foreign Mission again and again emerged. 4. A fourth and equally important question was as to the character of the Church. If co-operation is what the Japanese Church conceived it to be, i. e. an arrangement between two responsible bodies for the determination and discharge of their common responsibility, then obviously the Church must be as competent and as autonomous and as responsible as a negotiating body as the Mission. I think it was the perception of this that led the Church in Japan to take such drastic meas- ures in 1906 to accomplish financial self-support. It realized that a Christian Church did not become a Christian Church by receiving the name, but that it was a Church when it had the true marks of a Church, namely, first, a genuine religious faith and life of its own; second, the spirit of self-propagation; third, the will and the capacity for the ef- fective administration of its own affairs; and fourth, such indigenous rootage as made it financially autonomous and self-supporting. 5. Another problem which constantly emerged in Japan was the question of how the Church should deal with its task, whether in some centralized way or by as democratic a diffusion of responsibility and effort as possible. Japan is a small country, and the government is highly centralized in Tokyo. These were influences which the churches felt strongly. Moreover the strong leaders of the Church were largely centered in and about Tokyo. The result was that constantly through the years there were discussions and alternations of policy between the allocation of responsibility to Presbyteries and the working out of the problem of co-operation locally on the one hand, and concentration on the other hand in Tokyo and the working out of the problem of co- operation there at the top, so to speak, as a problem between the central Board of the Church and the Missions as such, rather than as a problem of human fellowship of individuals, Japanese and foreigners in their local fields. As you will see by the printed letter enclosed, the final solution was in reality a combination of these. It brought about the sense of honorable understanding and agreement between the Synod, which is 660 the highest body of the Church, on the one hand, and the Missions, on the other, whereas in the practical working out of the plan co-operation became a matter of conference and action in the Presbyteries. 6. I think there is only one other general point of which I might speak before sketching the history, and that is the interesting way in which the alternations of public feeling in Japan affected the discus- sions of the problem of co-operation between the Church and Missions. Undoubtedly throughout the years the Church in Japan has kept a more steady mind in these matters than any other body of Japanese people, but even it was unavoidably affected and in the eras when anti-foreign feeling was strongest in Japan the problem of co-operation would take one turn, while in the eras when the sentiment gave place to a more kindly and trustful spirit, the problem took on different forms. Looking back over the history as a whole, one rejoices to see the noble way in which the Spirit of Christ has controlled both the Church and the Mis- sions and enabled them to maintain fellowship and achieve a co-opera- tion such as only the Christian spirit could produce. Turning now to the history of the problem in Japan I think the main facts can be set forth under six or seven periods. The material bearing on this historv is verv extensive, and I cannot do more than sketch it in the briefest way. 1. Until the year 1884 the functions of the Missions and the Japanese Church were quite clear and distinct. The Missions carried on their work on their own responsibility and the Church did the same, and while in informal ways there was constant conference, this was not or- ganized, and the Japanese Churches sustained no relationship to work supported by the Missions. 2. In the year 1883 or 1884, the Missions at that time constituting the Council of Missions decided to call in the Japanese ministers and workers associated with them for conference concerning matters relat- ing to evangelistic work. (I have taken it for granted that you know that in Japan all the Presbyterian and Reformed Missions are united in a common Council of Missions which meets annually for conference, but which does not absorb the authority of the separate Missions. Like- wise all the results of all these Missions are united in one Church of Christ in Japan which comprises, accordingly, all the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches. The existence of this Council of Missions has made it possible for the Synod, i. e. the highest court of the Church of Christ, to confer directly with all the Missions, at the same time of course that each Presbytery has dealt directly \vith the Missions in its territory.) For a time these Japanese brethren, accordingly, met with the Missions and were consulted on various questions relating to the work. The plan soon came to nothing, however, for various reasons. The Japanese felt that their responsibility was not very substantial. They realized that they were expressing judgments where they were not contributing to the resources which were administered. Furthermore the work had grown, ideas had developed and a more definite plan of co-operation began to be talked of. 3. In 1886 the Church organized a Dendo Kyoku, or Mission Board which consisted of a certain number of Japanese members elected by the Synod and an equal number of missionaries also elected by the Synod. The Missions agreed to pay three yen for every one yen contributed by the Japanese. Dr. T. T. Alexander, one of the early missionaries, greatly trusted and beloved by the Japanese, gave me once a sketch of the history 661 of the relation of the Missions to the Church in which he referred to this Board as follows: "The duties and powers of the Board were confined practically to the collection and apportionment of funds among the Presbyteries. The administration of the work lay with Presbyterial committees. These committees were constituted precisely like the Board itself, that is to say, each committee consisted of a certain number of Japanese elected by the Presbytery, and an equal number of foreigners also elected by the Presbytery. The Committee selected places, appointed workers, deter- mined the amount of salaries, rents, etc., and arranged all the details of the work. The powers of the committees were limited only by the amount of the annual appropriations (for each), which amount was determined by the (Dendo Kyoku, or Central) Board. Of this plan it must be said, (a) That it tended toward a unification of the Church as a whole, (b) That it set the Church to work as never before, and showed that it was capable of accomplishing something, (c) That it did good work, as good as the Missions ever did; it worked well and with little or no friction. Indeed, the plan was so satisfactory that the Missions in Tokyo and the immediate vicinity soon turned the whole of their evan- gelistic work over to the Presbyterial Committee on the ground. This plan continued in operation for about eight years. It failed at last, first, because it lacked creative power; it had no grasp on the churches, and consequently could not arouse and maintain a live interest in the work. Second, for want of administrative authority. As already said the sole power of administration lay in the Presbyterial committee, and not in the Central Board." As you can see, reading between the lines, the issue had arisen be- tween centralization and de-centralization in the Church in Japan, and looking back now I think that one of the reasons for the failure of this plan was that not enough was being made of the development of strong self-supporting local congregations. As these grew up, and as the later action of 1906 multiplied them, the Church in Japan became a much more vital and efficient body. 4. At a meeting of the Synod in the fall of 1892 it was decided to elect a Board composed of members residing in Tokyo and Yokohama which should take entire charge of the work, dispensing with the Pres- byterial committees. The Board was accordingly elected by the Synod, two missionaries being among the number chosen, and the Missions were asked to agree in the new arrangement. They preferred the old plan, however, and there ensued two years of very earnest study of the whole problem both by the Japanese and by the missionaries, involving the questions of Presbyterial as contrasted with centralized administration, of the real aim and purpose of the Missions, and of how to increase the efficiency both of the Church and of the Missions. The result was that at the next meeting of the Synod, in July 1894, it was agreed by all that some change must be made. In consequence the Church established a central Board, entirely independent of any relationship with the Missions, to carry on all the missionary and evangelistic work of the Church, and provided that the supervision of this work by the evangelistic committees and the Presbyteries should be turned over to the Central Board. For the next few years the Central Board carried on its work independently while in the different Presbyteries the situation varied in character and intimacy of relationships between these Presbyteries and the mission- aries working in them. 662 From this time until 1906 the Church and the Missions worked to- gether not innarmoniously, but without any definite plan of co-operation; the Synod of the Church on the one hand, and the Council of Missions on the other, taking up positions which seemed at the time to be at vari- ance. The action of the Synod in July 1897 was as follows: "The report of the committee to investigate the subject of co-operation with the Missions: The Committee has examined the matter of co-opera- tion as reported from each of the Presbyteries, and since we do not ob- serve a single instance of proper co-operation we propose the following resolution. That, whereas, a co-operating Mission is one that plans and executes all its evangelistic operations through a committee composed of equal numbers of the representatives of a Mission working within the bounds of a Presbytery of the Church of Christ in Japan, and of mem- bers of said Presbytery, be it Resolved, That a committee of seven be appointed to consult carefully with each Mission having hitherto held co-operative relations, and further that if it appear necessary to the committee, it shall have power to call a special meeting of the Synod." The action of the Council in August 1897 was as follows : "Whereas, the Synod at its late session in Tokyo adopted a minute in regard to the matter of co-operation between the Presbyteries and the Missions, stating what, in the opinion of the Synod constitutes co-opera- tion, and appointed a committee of seven to confer with a similar com- mittee of the Co-operating Missions on the subject, be it Resolved, that in view of individual and widely differing responsibilities, co-operation is, in the opinion of the Council, best carried out where the Japanese Church organization, in its sessions. Presbyteries and Synod, directs all ecclesiastical matters, availing itself of the counsels and assistance of the Missions or missionaries as occasion arises; while the Missions direct their own educational, evangelistic and other missionary operations, availing themselves, likewise, of whatever counsel and assistance they may be able to obtain from their brethren in the Japanese Church; and that under the circumstances it does not seem best to enter into co- operation as defined by the Synod, but to recommend (to the several Missions) that a committee be appointed of one from each Mission to confer with the committee of the Synod in a spirit of fraternal good will, for the purpose of communicating the opinion of the Council and endeav- oring to promote a better understanding on the subject of co-operation." I was in Japan in 1897 and attended this meeting of the Council, and had many most interesting conferences with the Japanese leaders. It was interesting to see how earnestly and courageously everyone was seeking to find the right way. The people were not looking for what was easy or smooth, but for what was right, and all were prepared to make whatever sacrifices were necessary in order to accomplish the right. With strong conviction but with fine spirit and patience the Japanese and the missionaries agreed together to work on steadily side by side, hand in hand until they could work out some satisfactory arrangement. 5. In 1905 the Synod felt that the time had come to take the matter up afresh and it did so both with the Missions and with the Boards at home in a printed communication (dated Feb. 26, 1906), a copy of which I enclose. This was the letter to which our Board sent the reply which was embodied in my letter of Sept. 21, 1920 to you and your three asso- ciates. The Missions and the Church of Christ in Japan took the matter up afresh in the same spirit which had marked all their fellowship through the years, and plans were worked out which were accepted both by the Church of Christ and by the Missions of our Board, of which 663 there were two at that time in Japan, now united in one. I should add that two of the three missions of the Reformed Churches reached the same conclusion with our Missions while the other Reformed Church Mission and the Southern Presbji^erian Mission entered into a somewhat different arrangement. The arrangement in the case of our Missions is that in each Presbytery in Japan where we are at work "all evan- gelistic work done by the Mission as a Mission within the Church or in connection with it is carried on under a co-operating committee repre- senting the Presbytery and the Mission." The full plan is as follows: "1. Presbytery to elect a Board of Counselors for Mission evangelis- tic work, the number together with a representative appointed by the Dendo Kyoku to be the same as the number of missionaries. "2. The Board of Counselors, together with all the ordained mission- aries, members of the Mission working within the bounds of the Pres- bytery, to constitute a joint committee for the administration of the evangelistic work of the Mission. "3. This joint committee to decide in regard to all the evangelistic work of the Mission within the bounds of the Presbytery, such matters as the opening and closing of evangelistic fields, the appointment and dismissal of evangelists, the fixing of salaries, the amount of aid to be given to Dendo Kyokwai, etc. The Committee may also make sugges- tions to the Mission concerning the supply and distribution of the evan- gelistic missionary force. "4. An annual meeting of this joint committee to be held in connec- tion with annual meeting of the Presbytery. At this meeting the work of the past year to be reviewed, and estimates for the work of the com- ing year made out and the work planned for. Thereafter any questions that may arise to be decided by the local m.issionary or missionaries in consultation with the Board of Counselors or a sub-committee of the same. "5. This plan of co-operation may be modified by the joint action of the Church of Christ in Japan and the Mission, according to the teach- ings of experience and the growth of the work. Should either party de- sire to terminate this arrangement, it may be done at any time upon a year's notice." I do not know how helpful this history may be to you in India, but I think that it teaches many lessons which will be of service and which I trust there may be opportunity for us to talk over fully in India. There are one or two' of these lessons, however, on which I venture to speak just a word. One is that evidently the thing of chief importance is the spirit in which these problems are dealt with. Where men work at them in, the patient, fair way in which they have been worked out in Japan a practical solution is ?ure to be found. Another is that it is important that these problems should be dealt with as realities. The problem was a very real one in Japan. There were two living vital forces at work there needing to be and eager to be wisely related. It was no mere question of authority and many of the Japanese never had any desire to share in the administration of foreign funds. Indeed they have shown a feeling of hesitation about doing so and in several import- ant instances have expressed their embarrassment because they were not meeting, as they felt they ought to meet, their full share. The main lesson, I think, is that adjustments are of less consequence than the spirit in which men make them. I have no idea that the present arrange- ment in Japan is more than a makeshift to deal with existing situations. The important thing is that both the Church and the Mission there are GCA 1 earnestly at work with all their hearts in mutual trust and common purpose, seeking to do two things, first, to make the Church of Christ in Japan the most powerful agency that it can be made, strong in num- bers, fearless in purpose, devoted in its effort to reach the whole popu- lation, rich and poor; and second, by and with the Church and in what- ever way may be open, to make Christ known to Japan as its only Saviour and Lord. Numerically, the Church of Christ in Japan is not a very large body, although it is the largest of the Protestant groups. Its communicant membership is now 34,000, and it has 178 ordained ministers and 82 self-supporting churches. It represents, I believe, the most wholesome and vigorous and fruitful element in the life of Japan. It is shining as a light where light is greatly need, and its leaders whom I have known for many years are men whom I esteem as highly and love as warmly as any men in the world. I look forward with joy to meeting the Church in India, and to seeing it, both in the cities and in the villages, and to joining with you in prayer and study over your great responsibilities and opportunities. Let me only add in conclusion that the Church and the Missions in China seem to be working out the problem in a way quite different from Japan, as a result of conditions of temper and national life which are very unlike those prevailing in Japan. It is evident that the essential thing is the spirit of love and self-reliance and unselfishness, and of ser- vice, not authority; of independence and responsibility and respect, of spiritual purpose and aim; of hope and above all of the life of Christ within controlling all. With kind regards. Very faithfully yours, Robert E. Speer APPENDIX VIII Tokyo, February 26th, 1906 To the Boards of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches Dear Brethren: We send you the accompanying communication by the direction of the Synod of the Church of Christ in Japan; and to the communication we add a few words of explanation, though only on our ovm authority. It is now more than thirty years since the Church was first founded, and already it has a history that may rightly be described as eventful. Among its ministers and private members there are many who are well deserving of respect. It extends from one end of Japan to the other, and carries on its work through a Synod, presbyteries, and congregations. It has a Board of Missions actively engaged in the work of evangelization and the establishment of churches. Therefore it seems to it reasonable to claim that it has a right to a voice in all work carried on within its organization or closely connected with it. That is the principle for which the Synod stands; and for which it believes that Churches in other lands, under like circumstances, would stand. The question of co-operation has agitated the Church and the missions from time to time for nearly fifteen years; and there are those who think the agitation uncalled for, since co-operation is already a matter of fact. Whether it is matter of fact or not depends upon the sense in which the word co-operation is used. The fact that the missions employ evan- 665 gelists, aid in the support of pastors, established and maintain preach- ing places, while at the same time they also in fact practically retain such matters solely within their own control, does not in itself constitute co-operation; if by co-operation is meant a co-working which recognizes the principle for which the Synod stands. Even though the work done extends the Church, the system as a system is that of an impermm hi iniperio. The co-operation which the Church seeks is a co-operation of the mis- sions as missions with the Church as a Church. The missions and the Church, acting as independent organizations, should make clear and definite arrangements with each other under the principle set forth; and the work of the missions as missions carried on within or in close con- nection with the organization of the Church should be controlled by such arrangements. Co-operation should find a partial analogy in the alliance between England and Japan; not in the relations between Japan and Korea. The original of the communication is of course in Japanese; and it was prepared primarily for circulation in Japan. In a few instances therefore brief additions have been made, supplying information for the sake of a clearer understanding on your part. The translation is free rather than verbally literal; but the aid kindly rendered by Dr. Ibuka is an assur- ance that it conveys the thought of the original. The Church of Christ in Japan owes much to the missionaries of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches. Some of them will be remembered as among its founders and early guides; and to the Churches from which they come, and the Boards of Foreign Missions which they represent, it will always be a debtor. The future — the wonderful future which now perhaps lies before it — may bring many changes. But no changes of the future can change the past; and the past with your sympathy and kindness is a pledge for the future. The Rev. Mr. Nagai may be addressed at No. 23, Sugacho, Asakusa, Tokyo. Sincerely yours, Y, ISHIDA, K. KlYAMA, N. Nagai. A COMMUNICATION ON THE SUBJECT OF CO-OPERATION The Synod of the Church of Christ in Japan, at its nineteenth meeting held in the City of Tokyo in October 1905, feeling the need of a clear understanding regarding co-operation between the Church and the several missions related to it, adopted the following resolution: — 1. The Synod, in the year 1897, clearly recognized the fact that no co-operation in the proper sense of the word existed between the mis- sions and the Church of Christ in Japan. Since that time no change has taken place; nor is there any prospect of such a change. 2. A committee of three shall therefore be appointed to prepare a clear historical account of the matter, which shall be signed by the Moderator and sent to all the churches of the Church of Christ in Japan, and also to the several missions and Boards of Foreign Missions related to it. In accordance with this resolution the following statement is now presented : — A careful study of the history of the Church of Christ in Japan shows that from the very beginning it was organized on the basis of complete 666 ecclesiastical independence of the Churches in foreign lands. Never- theless it has been from the first the recipient of many favors from the missions. Of especial value has been the influence of many missionaries of deep learning- and high character; and directly or indirectly the Church has been, in no small measure, indebted for its growth and de- velopment to their leadership. But as a natural result of this growth, the Church has come to a clearer and clearer self-consciousness of itself as a Church; and also because of characteristics which are national it has often found itself in opposition to missionaries, not only as to ideas but also in regard to methods for the carrying on of evangelistic work. The presence of mis- sionaries of experience has preserved harmony between the Church and the missions; but the large increase in the number of missionaries from year to year has made the relations between the bodies different from what they were in the earlier days. And yet the Church is still weak, and unequal alone to the great burden of the evangelization of the nation. There is moreover an earnest desire on the one hand to lessen as much as possible waste in mission operations, and on the other to utilize the forces of the missions for the accomplishment of the great work of the ' Church. The question of co-operation has its origin in all these facts. For a number of years (from 1886 to 1894) there was co-operation between the Church and the missions. The Synod elected a Board of Missions composed in equal numbers of missionaries and Japanese min- isters or elders; and each presbytery elected a Committee chosen on the same principle. This Board is now commonly spoken of as the old Board. For reasons which are familiar, gradually there came to be a conviction that a change in that particular method of co-operation was desirable; and in 1892 the Synod proposed that the Board be reorganized. It was in connection with this proposition to reorganize the old Board that the question of co-operation first appeared as a question.* The distinguishing feature in the proposed reorganization of the Board is found in the following clause, "The Board shall be organized by the Synod, and shall be composed of three Japanese and three foreign members." On the motion of Dr. Knox, who was then in Japan, the for- eign members were to be elected by the Synod in the same manner as the Japanese. The scope of the new Board did not embrace the entire worTc of the missions, but only a small section in which co-operative evan- gelistic work was to be undertaken. The first members of the Board * The following more detailed account of the old Board appears in the Appendix to the Proceedings of the General Conference of Missionaries in Japan, held in Tokyo in 1900. The period beginning in 1886 may be described as that of financial co-operation and joint control. The Synod elected a Board composed in equal numbers of missionaries and Japanese ministers or elders; and each presbytery elected a Committee chosen on the same principle. The powers of the Board were virtually limited to the collection of funds, and their distribution among the several Presbyterial Committees. The actual direction of aflfairs was given to the Committees'. On this basis it was agreed that for every one yen contributed by the Church, the Council of Missions would contribute three. Into this plan both the missions and the Church entered cordially; and for a time the plan suc- ceeded. The Church contributed funds and work was done. In some cases much of the evangelistic work that properly belonged to missions was really, though not in name, under the direction of the Presbyterial Committees. But in process of time interest and confidence in the plan began to wane. The chief argument against it, pressed with in- creasing urgency by the Japanese, was that it was not effective; and the plan advocated by them instead was a Board appointed by the Synod, which should carry on the work directly and without the intervention of Presbyterial Committees. Among the missionaries, some favored the abolition of the Board as an unnecessary piece of machinery but with a continuance of co-operation in Presbyterial Committees. The plan advocated by the Japanese was ohiectcd to as characterized by an undue centralizatiiin of power. This fundamental difference regarding policy led at last to the abandonment of the plan just described, and to the adoption of the one now in operation. 667 were to be Messrs. Ibuka, Uemura, Oshikawa, and Drs. Knox, Verbeck and Imbrie. At the meeting of the Synod two years later (1894), the Chairman Dr. Ibuka presented the following report: — Your committee has communicated with the several missions with which the Church has been co-operating in evangelistic work under the regulations of the (old) Board of Missions, requesting them to continue co-operation under the new plan proposed by the Synod. But only one mission, the Cumberland Presbyterians, expressed unqualified approval of the reorganization of the Board and readiness to co-operate in it. The others either attached various conditions, offered temporary support for three or four months, or absolutely refused approval. When the Synod proposed to reorganize the Board, it was with the ex- pectation that the missions connected with the Church would continue to co-operate. But as now stated the great majority of them decline to do so. For this reason we regret to state that the plan proposed has proved to be impracticable. Notwithstanding this attitude on the part of most of the missions, the Synod did not give up the desire for co-operation. During the war with China urgent need of evangelistic work was keenly felt, and the Synod resolved upon a great special work throughout the country and requested the missions to co-operate. But again, greatly to its regret, their concurrence could not be secured; and a peculiar opportunity for the extension of the kingdom of God was lost. But the Synod could not abandon earnest effort to accomplish the work to which the Church of Christ in Japan is called of God; and it was proposed to establish a Board of Missions independent of the missions. But still desiring to secure co-operation, before discussing the proposal a committee was appointed to present the matter to the Council of Mis- sions. The Council 'however did not approve of the reorganization of the Board in accordance with the plan proposed; on the ground that the presbyteries should carry on evangelistic work themselves and that co- operation should be between the presbyteries and the missions. The Synod therefore expecting co-operative evangelistic work to be estab- lished between the missions and the presbyteries, organized a synodical Board entirely independent of the missions, with the object of carrying on evangelistic work in places where the presbyteries had no work. This was the first really independent Board of Missions, not only in the Church of Christ in Japan but also in all Japan. Co-operation was thus transferred to the presbyteries. But the Synod, fearing that without synodical oversight there would be no co-operation on sound principles, adopted the following resolution: — 1. In accordance with the regulations for the new Board of Missions, the several presbyteries may themselves carry on evangelistic work within their own bounds; but the regulations of the Presbyterial Evan- gelistic Committees shall be presented to the Synod, and must receive its approval. And where evangelistic work is carried on in conjunction with the mission, the agreement with the mission must be presented to the Synod for approval. 2. Each presbytery shall report at every meeting of the Synod all important business transacted during the year, the condition of its evan- gelistic work and the state of its finances.* * Following is the account of this part of the history which appears in the printed min- utes of the meeting of the Council of Missions held in Tokyo in July 1894. The Rev. Messrs. Oshikawa, Ishiwara and Kitayama appeared as a committee of the Synod to explain a proposed plan for the reorganization of the (old) Board of Missions. 668 The Synod, after thus making' careful preparation, and after waiting for three years for the development of presbyterial co-operation on sound principles, at its meeting in 1897 received the following report from a committee (Messrs. Uemura, Oshikawa, Hattori, Aoyama, Tada and Kumano) appointed to inquire into the matter of mission co-operation within the several presbyteries: — Your committee, having inquired into the matter of co-operation as reported by the presbyteries, has not found a single case of co-operation in the proper sense of the word. It therefore presents the following for adoption: A co-operating mission is one which carries on its work within the bounds of a presbytery of the Church; and which plans and conducts all its evangelistic work through a committee of equal numbers (i. e. of missionaries and Japanese ministers or elders) appointed by the presbytery.f This resolution was adopted by the Synod; and a committee of seven (Messrs. Oshikawa, Uemura, Hattori, Ishiwara, Kumano, Hosokawa and After the explanation had been heard and the committee had retired, there followed a lengthy discussion of the plan presented. Dr. Stout then offered the following as a sub- stitute for the plan of the committee of the Synod: — Whereas the plan for joint evanpelistic work, viz., the (old) Board of Missions, is generally acknowledged to be unsatisfactory; and whereas the plan presented bv the committee of the Synod contains features which would probably make it impracticable; and whereas, in the opinion of the Council, evangelistic work within the bounds of the presbyteries can best be conducted by those on the immediate field; and whereas some of the presbyteries favor a substitution of Presbyterial Committees in place of ihe Board of Missions; and whereas only twx) presbyteries would be financially affected; and whereas we believe that these deficits would be more than made up by increased contributions growing out of increased interest, therefore — Resolved that the Council recommend that all plans for joint evangelistic work be left to the several presbyteries in connection with the missions co-operating therewith; but, in order to connect the work with the Synod, that each presbytery be required to report the work of its Evangelistic Committee to the Synod. Dr. Stout and the Rev. Messrs. Price and Alexander were then appointed to report this action of the Council to the committee of the Synod, and to confer with it upon the whole subject. The Council having met at the appointed time, the Committee on the Board of Mis- sions reported presenting another plan of reorganization proposed by a committee of the Synod (Messrs. Oshikawa, Ibuka and Ogimi). The Rev. Mr. Moore then offered the following resolution which was adopted, to wit: That we reaffirm our preference for tJie presbyterial plan; but w-hile approving this, we should be glad to see the Synod form an independent Board of Missions. The committee was instructed to report this action to the committee of the Synod. To this extract from the minutes of the Council, the following report from the minutes of the Synod w"hich met in Tokyo at the time of the meeting of the Council should be added. Your committee (Messrs. Oshikawa, Ibuka and Ogimi, see above) inquired of the committee of the Council whether there were any unsatisfactory points in the rules of the (old) Board of Missions. The reply was that there were no particular points which were unsatisfactory, but that the results of the work were unsatisfactory; and further that the Church was lukewarm towards the Board — a feeling in which the committee of the (Council itself shared. That the Council approved of the plan of each presbytery organ- izing a Board of Missions and carrying on work separately; and in addition to this, that the (Tbuncil would be greatly pleased to see the Synod organize a Board of its own.... Inasmuch as this is the position of the Council, your committee after careful consideration has framed a new plan for the Board which it now has the pleasure of presenting to the t As bearing on the subject the following is quoted from the Annual Report of the Council for 1896. • j , . ^ 1 u r Dr Wyckoff presented the report of the committee appointed last year to lay before the Synod the letter of the Boards of Foreign Missions in the United States concerning self-support. The report was accepted and the reply of the Synod was ordered to be entered upon the minutes. The reply (omitting the opening and closing sentences) is as It is a cause of regret to us as well as to you that there are churches in the Church of Christ in Japan which have not reached the point of self-support; but since it is a matter which "the Synod has for years past urged on the churches we do not think it necessary to specially present the matter at this time. Of course we thoroughly appreciate the spirit of what you have said; and furthermore we will endeavor more and more to have the reality of self-support extend to every church. In reference to this we could wish that each 'mission in extending help to churches, might do so after consultation with the presbytery in regard to the means and amount of help to be given. Since we regard this as a most important matter in securing the aim of self-support, we beg to urge it upon your attention. 669 Hoshino) was appointed for further friendly conference with the mis- sions. At the next meeting of the Synod, (1898) the committee through its Chairman, Mr. Oshikawa, presented the following report: — Your committee, in February of this year, met a joint committee of the missions of the Presbyterian (Northern and Southern), Scotch Presbyterian, Reformed (Dutch), Reformed (German), and Cumberland Presbyterian Churches. This committee reported that while the missions did not reject co-operation, they desired to co-operate in accordance with their own views ; and that they firmly declined to co-operate in the sense of the word as defined by the Synod. Your committee finding it impossible to press the matter any further; and regarding this as a final conference, has had no other meeting. Un- happily it was unable to accomplish the earnest desire of the Synod. It has considered plans for the future, but has none to propose; as under the circumstances it fears that any plan proposed may invite a conflict between the Church and the missions. On the other hand, believing the position of the Synod to be right and proper, it can not ask that it be reconsidered. It is therefore of the opinion that, no other course is open but to recognize the fact that there are no co-operating missions. In view of the past it is eminently fitting that the most cordial intercourse in brotherly love be maintained; but there are no longer any formally co-operating missions. Your committee therefore deems it important that a clear formal distinction be made between the work of the Church of Christ in Japan and that of the missions. The action of the Council of Missions at Karuizawa was reported to the Synod by Dr. Oltmans as follows: — That in compliance with the request of the Synod a committee had been appointed ; that the co-opera- tion hitherto maintained was regarded as real co-operation; and that co-operation under the definition of the Synod was not possible. After mature deliberation the following resolutions were adopted by the Synod: — 1. That the Synod express its thanks to its Committee on Co-operation and directs the Stated Clerk to publish its report in the minutes. 2. That inasmuch as it appears that the Synod and the Council of Missions differ in opinion regarding the wisest method of co-operation, further conference on the subject be postponed for the present 3. That although unhappily it has not been possible to reach an agree- ment regarding the method of co-operation, the Church of Christ in Japan recognizes its great obligations to the missions, and holds that the relations between it and them should be those of cordial friendship and mutual helpfulness. 4. That the Stated Clerk of the Synod send to the Secretary of each mission a copy of these resolutions. As opposed to the unyielding attitude of the missions the action of the Synod may be open to the charge of weakness. But the Synod was patient; and not only endeavored to avoid breaking the friendship of many years, but also left open the door for conference and reconsidera- tion.* * Following is the account of this part of the history which appears in the Annual Reports of the Council for i8g7, i8q8, and igoo. I. Action of the Council on co-operation in 1897. A committee of three having been appointed to review the recent action of the Synod in reference to co-operation and to report with recommendations during this meeting of the Council, the committee brought in both a majority and a minority report; and after much discussion the following action was taken: — Whereas the Synod at its late session In Tokyo adopted a minute in regard to the matter of co-opernfion bctwe-eii the presbyteries and the missions, stating what in the opinion of 670 For seven or eight years longer the relations between the Church and the missions remained unchanged; and during the present year (1905) a number of ministers belonging to the Presbytery of Tokyo (Messrs. Hata, Ishiwara, Nagai, Kiyama, Arima, Matsunaga and Fukuda) took counsel together; and, acting as individuals, presented the following proposition to the Council of Missions at its meeting in Karuizawa: — 1. Hereafter the evangelistic work of the missions within the bounds of a presbytery shall be administered by a joint-committee appointed by the presbytery and the mission concerned. 2. The matters regarding which the joint-committee shall act in con- sultation are such as the selection, maintenance and discontinuance of preaching places; the engagement, discharge and salaries of evangelists; et cetera. 3. The details of this plan shall be subject to the approval of the presbytery and mission concerned. the Synod constitutes true cooperation, and appointed a committee of seven to confer with a similar committee from the Co-operating Missions on the subject, be it Resolved that in view of individual and widely differing responsbilities, ■oo-operaton is, in the opin- ion of the Council, best carred out where the Japanese Churcli organization, in its sessions, presbyteries and Synod, directs all ecclesiastical matters, availing itself of the counsels and assistance of the missions or missionaries as occasion arises; while the missions direct their own educational, evangelistic and other missionary operations, availing them- selves likewise, of whatever counsel and assistance they may be able to obtain from their brethren in the Japanese Church; and that under these circumstances, it does not seem best to enter into co-operation as defined by the Synod; but to recommend that a com- mittee be appointed of one from each mission to confer with the committee of the Synod in a soirit of fraternal good will, for the purpose of communicating the opinion of the Council and endeavoring to promote a better understanding on the subject of co-operation. 2. Action of the Council on co-operation, in 1898; i. e. after the next meeting of the Synod. The committee appointed by Council to confer with the Committee on Co-operation appointed by the Synod, gave a verbal account of the conference, and also of the dis- cussion of the matter at the recent meeting of the Synod. The committee also presented the action of the Synod, which was as follows: — Resolved, That the Synod expresses its thanks to its Committee on Co-operation, and directs the Stated Clerk to publish its report in the minutes. That inasmuch as it appears that the Synod and the Council of Missions differ in opinion regarding the wisest method of co-operation, further consideration of the subject be postponed for the present. That although unhappily it has not been possible to reach an agreement regarding the method of co-operation, the Church of Christ in Japan recognizes its great obligations to the missions, and holds that the relations between it and them should be those of cordial friendship and mutual helpfulness. That the Stated Clerk send to the Secretary of each mission a copy of these resolutions. The report of the committee having been heard, a special committee was appointed to prepare resolutions with reference to the matter. The committee presented the following resolutions which were adopted: — Resolved, That the Council expresses regret that a difference of opinion exists between the missions and the Synod as to the method of co-operation, but agrees with the Synod that further discussion of the question for the present is unadvisable. That the Council reciprocates the feelings expressed in the third resolution of the Synod, and re-affirms the position that has always been occupied by the missions composing it, which is to cultivate friendship and to assist one another. That the Secretary of the Council be instructed to send an English copy and a Jap- anese translation of these resolutions to the Clerk of the Synod. Subsequently the following resolutions bearing on the subject were adopted bv the Council: — That we pledge ourselves to heartfelt, faithful, and continual prayer for the whole work committed to Hie Church of Christ in Japan and the Co-operating Missions. That this resolution be sent to the Svnod and to the Fuknin Shimt>o. ^. Account of the action of the Synod written bv Dr. .\lexander and included in the Annual Report of the Council. Another report of great interest was Chat of the Committee on Co-operation. This com- mittee was appointed by the Synod at its previous meeting to confer with the Mission-; Co-operating with the Church of Christ in Japan with a view to securing co-operation of a closer and more formal character than that existing at present. The committee reported that a conference had been held with representatives of the several missions, hut without attaining the result desired. The missions, though not averse to co-operation in a general and somewhat vague sense of the word, were nevertheless unwilling to co-operate upon the plan suggested by the Synod. The committee regarded this as unfortunate and had used every means in its power to reach a satisfactory conclusion in the matter, but in vain. It was therefore with regret that it was constrained to report that the Co-operating Missiins are unwilling to co-operate, in any formal or official sense of the term. .\t the same time, the committee did not f irgct the great work done by the missions in the 671 4. In order to maintain the unity and consult for the advancement of the evangelistic work in the several presbyteries, a conference of all the Presbyterial Committees shall be held annually at the time of the meeting of the Synod. Concerning these seven members of the Synod it is worthy of note that at least the greater number of them have always maintained a most moderate attitude towards the missions in regard to this question. Their action in the matter therefore makes it evident that the call for co- operation is not confined solely to those who are more insistent as to its necessity; and the mode of procedure adopted by them was the one best suited to the circumstances. For, much as the Synod desired co-opera- tion, it could hardly as a Synod without loss of self-respect again make overtures to the Council which had repeatedly refused co-operation and had for years remained perfectly unyielding. But what the Synod could past, and recognized the work still being carried on by them. It also recognized the value of co-operation of this informal and moral kind. In conclusion there seemed at present no course open to the Synod but for it and the missions to go on very much as at present, each party working on its own lines. The committee suggested however that hereafter, as a matter of information, the statistical tables indicate in some way what work is done by the Synod and w^hat by the missions. A prolonged discussion followed the presentation of this report. A large maiority of the Synod was in favor of simply accepting it and allowing the matter to rest. The min- ority however strenuously insisted that the question was one of the greatest importance, and that a committee should be appoined to negotiate further with the missions, and if possible to secure co-operation of a more definite kind and more in accordance with the views of the Synod. Finally it was decided to refer the whole matter to_ a committee with instructions to consider the subject carefully and recommend what action should be taken. At a later session, the committee thus appointed presented the following resolutions which were adopted by a large maiority: — Resolved. That the Synod expresses its thanks to its Committee on Co-operation and directs the Stated Clerk to publish its report in the minutes. That inasmuch as it appears that the Synod and the Council of Missions differ in opinion regarding the wisest method of co-operation, further consideration of the subject be post- poned for the present. That although unhappily it has not been possible to reach an agreement regarding the method of co-operation, the Church of Christ in Japan recognizes its great obligations to the missions, and holds that the relations between it and them should be those of cordial friendship and mutual helpfulness. That t'he Stated Clerk send to the Secretary of each mission a copy of these resolutions. While these resolutions were adopted by a vote that was nearly unanimous, a small minority was still urgent for some further action. On two points in particular they pressed for a decision. In their view, the position that the co-operation between the Synod and the missions is not formal or official necessarily affects the position of churches and preaching places receiving financial aid from the missions, and also raises the question of the propriety of missionaries sitting as Advisorv Members of the presbyteries and the Synod. The first of these points the Synod decided was sufficiently met by the action already taken that hereafter the statistical tables shall indicate which of the churches and preaching places receive aid from missions nr other outside sources. To the second point the Synod answered that any action regarding the position of Advisory Members would involve an amendment of the Canons which could be effected only in the constitutional way. A resolution however was adopted directing the presbyteries to see that the terms of the Canon (Can. 2,v § 6) are strictly complied with. With this the long discussion came to an end. The whole subject is a delicate and complicated one growing out of the transitional stage through which the Church as^ a whole is now passing. As soon as it is able to assume the entire responsibility financial and otherwise, the present difficulties will disappear. Meanwhile the situation calls for prudence and forbearance on the part of both the Church and the missions. 4. The action of the Council in 1897 was the outcome of a change in policy on the part of the missions. Prominent no doubt among the causes of that change were the disap- pointment, discouragement, and critical spirit in both the Church and the Council, which - marked the period commonly k-nown as the Reaction. The distinguishing features of the change were two: The cessation of co-operation and a call for an increase in the force of Missionaries. A brief account of the matter is given in the following extract from a historical sketch at the beginning of the General Report for the Year in the Annual Report of the Council for 1900. It (the period of the Reaction) was an era of councils and conferences and cornmittees. Self-support and co-ooeration were household words. For the Co-operating Missions, the convention held at Kobe in 1893 cleared up some confusion; and some hitherto vague ideas were crystalized into shape. So that, though the chief questions of that conference, viz.. What is the proper policy of cooperation ? and. Are more missionaries needed? were not answered then, the discussion marked a turning point, which progressing in the new direction found expression in 1897 'n the adoption by the Council of the resolution re- garding co-operation; and in 1899, in a resolution emphasizing the need of an increase of the missionary force. 672 not do they did; and their action also afforded the Council an oppor- tunity to move in the direction of co-operation if it should be so minded. The reply of the Council was as follows: — 1. The missions are free to engage in work in unevangelized places; it bring understood of course that wherever practicable consultation shall be had ANith the local workers and Christians. 2. In the case of organized groups of believers, until they supply half of their total expenses, their affairs shall be administered by themselves and the representative of the supporting mission, subject to the ecclesias- tical oversight of the presbytery. 3. When such a group of believers supplies half of its expenses, its affairs shall be administered by the local congregation and the presby- tery; any aid from the mission being given directly to the local organi- zation. This reply of the Council not only rejects the mode of co-operation proposed to it, but in its second section evinces a willingness to obtain lormal recognition of an authority not hitherto recognized as possessed by a mission.* * Following is the account of tiie conference between the committee of Tokyo min- isters and the Council at Karuizawa which appears in the Annual Report of the Gsuncil for iQOS. A communication with regard to the subject of co-operation with the Church of Christ in Japan was rtreived from the Rev. Messrs. Arima, llata, Ishiwara, Na«ai, Matsunaga, Fukuda, and Kiyama. The communication is in the form of a resolution which the signers propose to introduce in the Synod at its coming session, should the Council con- sider it favorably, and is as follows: — The Synod hereby resolves to appoint a committee to consult wifh the missions in regard to the following items, in order to co-operate in evangelistic work. 1. Hereafter, the evangelistic work of the missions within the bounds of any presby- tery shall be carried on by a joint committee, appointed by the presbytery and the mission concerned. 2. The matters regarding which the joint-committee shall act in consultation, are such as the selection, maintenance and discontinuance of preaching places; the engagement, discharge and salaries of evangelists, et cetera. 3. The details of this plan shall be subject to the approval of the presbytery and the mission concerned. 4. In order to maintain the unity and consult for the advancement of the evangelistic work in the different i)resbyteries, a conference of all the Presbytcrial Committees shall be held annuallv at the- time of the meeting of the Synod. This commmiication was referred to a committee, consisting of Drs. B. C. Haworth, D. A. Murray, A. D. Hail, S. P. Fulton, A. Oltmans, the Rev. W. E. Lampe, H. V. S. Peek*-, Miss Julia K. Hand and Miss Mary Deyo. The committee made a tentative report, whereupon the Council went into informal session and discussed fully the whole question of co-operation with the Church of Christ in Japan. Aftr discussion, the matter was recommitted, and the committee made the following report which was unanimously adopted: — The comniittee, appointed to consider the matter of co-operation between the missions and the Church of Christ in Japan, which question was introduced in the Council through a communication from the Rev. Messrs. Ilata, Ishiwara, Nagai, Kiyama, Arima, l-iikuda and Matsunaga, proposing a plan of co-operation and requesting an expression froin the Council with reference to it and to the general subiect of co-operation, having considered this and several other plans and proposals, begs leave to report, recommending that the Council reply to these brethren, as follows: — The Council of Missions Co operating with the Church of Christ in Japan, records with gratitude to God the growth of the Church in this country, and recognizes the fact that such growth brings with it new problems to solve and new plans to be proposed for the furtherance of the' kingdom of Christ in this country and the world. It is profoundly grateful also for the able, educated and faithful ministry and laity, raised up in God's providence to be leaders in this Church. It deems it a privilege and a pleasure to be associated with such men in the promotion of the work of our common Lord, and most heartily desires that form of co-operation which promises to be most effective in the accomplishment of the common end in view. It is greatly encouraged also by the desire, so prevalent throughout the Church at this time, to hasten the day of absolute self-support and true independence; and expresses itself in favor of co-operation upon a suitable basis with the Church of Christ in Japan. Such co-operation, in the judgment of the Council, should conserve the following in- terests:— 1. The rights of the presbytery. 2. The rights of the local church. 3. The rights of the mission. The Council therefore approves of the following plan: — 673 23 — India and Persia Immediately upon the opening of the meeting of the Synod in this year (1905), a number of the ministers who had presented the proposition to the Council, on the ground that the existing co-operation with the mis- sions is one of an indefinite nature, asked for the appointment of a com- mittee to inquire into the matter with a view to a clear understanding on the subject. A committee of five (Messrs. Nagai, Inagaki, Igaroshi, Ojima and Ishida) was appointed, and presented a resolution which the Synod adopted by a very large majority. That resolution is the one which appears at the beginning of this communication. For the sake of greater convenience it is here repeated: — 1. The Synod, in the year 1897, clearly recognized the fact that no co-operation in the proper sense of the word existed between the missions and the Church of Christ in Japan. Since that time no change has taken place; nor is there any prospect of such a change. 2. A committee of three shall therefore be appointed to prepare a clear historical account of the matter, which shall be signed by the Mod- erator and sent to all the churches of the Church of Christ in Japan, and also to the several missions and Boards of Foreign Missions related to it. A committee, composed of Messrs. Ishida, Kiyama and Nagai, was appointed to prepare the historical statement; and also a committee of five (Messrs. Ishiwara, Uemura, Kiyama, Kumano and Nagai), mem- bers of the Standing Committee of the Synod, to form plans for the future welfare of those churches and preaching places which are now aided by the missions. Thus the question of co-operation, which for many years has been a question between the Church and the related missions, has now received a clear and definite exposition. To one who reads with care the history of the case as here presented, it will be plain that while from the begin- ning the spirit of the Synod has been that of self-government and ecclesiastical independence; and while also in this matter of co-opera- tion its purpose has been fixed, its attitude towards the related missions has been one of patience. The Synod need not say that it does not re- joice in the fact that there seems to be no prospect of co-operation; nor is there any lack of good will towards the Christians in Europe and America who are its elders in the faith. From the beginning the Church of Christ in Japan has emphasized the principle of the oneness of the Church, and its desire is to prosecute the evangelization of Japan and the Far East which are blessed in the hearty and united labors of breth- ren and sisters in the Lord in other lands. But it desires to accomplish this great task without the surrender of sound principles. Such in brief is the history of the question of co-operation; and while the Church is no longer in co-operation with any of the missions related to it either in fact or in name (in the sense of the word as used in this connection), it remembers with gratitude the favors which it has received I. The missions are free to engage in work in unevangelized places, it being under- stood of course that wherever practicable consultation shall be had with the local workers and Christians. II. In the case of organized groujis of believers, until they supply half of their total expenses, their affairs shall be administered by themselves and the representative of the supporting mission, subject to the ecclesiastical oversight of the presbytery. II T. When such a group of believers supplies half of its expenses, its affairs shall be administered by the local congregation and the presbytery; any aid from the mission being given directly to the local organization. 674 from them; and it earnestly prays that abundant blessings from our Father in heaven may be bestowed upon all the missionaries. HiDETARU YaMAMOTO, Moderator of the Synod of the Church of Christ in Japan. Tokyo, October, 1905. APPENDIX IX Tokyo, July 3rd, 1906. To the Ministers and Elders of the Church of Christ in Japan. Dear Brethren : As is well known to you, the Synod at its last meeting took action regarding two matters of great importance, viz: The financial independ- ence of the churches and co-operation with the missions of the Presby- terian and Reformed Churches. Since that time these matters have been constantly in our minds; and, in accordance with Canon 25, we now give notice that certain amendments of the Canons, and also certain reso- lution.s, will be presented at the next meeting of the Synod for adoption. Financial Independence of the Churches I The Synod at its last meeting, considering the vital importance of the financial independence of the churches, adopted the following resolutions: 1. Presbyteries shall not hereafter organize as churches bodies of believers unable to be financially independent. 2. A body of believers not financially independent shall be called a dendo-kyokwai. 3. Each presbytery shall inquire into the condition of all the churches within its bounds; and shall endeavor by September 1907 to bring to financial independence such as are now dependent. Those churches which at that time are unable to be financially independent it shall take steps to constitute dendo-kyokwais. Besides adopting these resolutions, the Synod amended Canon 1 as follows : — Dendo-kyokwais A body of baptized believers connected with the Church of Christ in Japan not organized as a church shall be called a dendo-kyokwai; and shall be under the direct care of the presbytery to which it belongs. Its affairs shall be conducted by a committee appointed by the body. After careful consideration we think that the purpose of the Synod will be accomplished more perfectly by a somewhat fuller statement than that of the Canon as thus amended; and the following will there- fore be presented for adoption as a further amendment of the Canon: — Canon 1 Dendo-kyokwais 1. A company of believers large enough and strong enough financially to warrant organization, but unable to support a pastor and meet all ordinary expenses without aid from some evangelistic organization, may be constituted a dendo-kyokwai. 2. A dendo-kyokwai shall be under the direct care of the presbytery to which it locally belongs; but ordinarily its affairs shall be conducted by a committee appointed by the body. The committee shall keep a regis- ter of the members of the dendo-kyokwai; record its own proceedings and also those of the body; and report statedly to the presbytery. 675 3. A dendo-kyokwai, at a meeting of the body, may appoint one ©f its members (men) to represent it in the presbytery, as set forth in Canon 23: § 6. 4. Nothing may be done, either by the dendo-kyokwai or by the com- mittee, which is contrary to the Confession of Faith, Constitution and Canons of the Church of Christ in Japan. II The Synod at its last meeting amended Canon 23 : § 6 by inserting the following: — By a vote of the presbytery, lay-preachers and representatives of dendo-kyokwais may be elected associate members;* but they may not vote, serve on committees, or be appointed delegates to the Synod. There are good reasons why dendo-kyokwais should not legislate for churches; and therefore it is proper that their representatives in pres- bytery should not vote. On the other hand, they are bodies large enough and strong enough financially to warrant organizations; they meet in part at least their own expenses; and they are expected to contribute to the expenses of the presbytery and Synod. Therefore on further con- sideration we think that the representatives of dendo-kyokwais should be of right (i. e. not by election) members of the presbytery and eligible to appointment on committees. It also seems necessary that the provision regarding ministers becoming associate members be" made more definite. f Accordingly the following will be presented for adoption as Canon 23: § 6. * In the English edition of the Confession of Faith, Constitution and Canons, the term advisory member is used; but throughout this communication the term associate member is employed as a better rendering of ingwai-in. t The present Canon 23: § 6 begins as follows: — "Ministers who sincerely and openly accept the Confession of Faith, Constitution and Canons, and who statedly co-operate in the work of the Church of Christ in Japan, but who are unable to apply for admission under Canon 14, may be admitted as associate members by a two-thirds vote." It may be worth while to add to this communication (in English) the following footnote showing historically the real intention of this section of the Canon. As is generally known, a resolution was adopted by the Convention which met in Yokohama in 1872 favoring an endeavor to found one Protestant Church in Japan; and when that endeavor had failed the question was raised whether it was not possible to form one Church ecclesiastically independent of all foreign Churches but presbyterial in its organization. Accordingly, after much conversation between those directly inter- ested, a communication was addressed by the mission of the Presbyterian Church to the mission of the Reformed Church expressing the thought common to the minds of both missions, viz: "We have long entertained the hope that a plan may be devised by which our respective missions may become fellow laborers in a common presbytery." This com- munication received a cordial response; and as a result the (old) Church of Christ and the Presbytery of Japan (a body connected with the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.) united and formed the present Church of Christ in Japan. Among the questions considered in the conferences held by the missions was that of the relation of missionaries to the presbyteries; and it was thought best that tliey should be m-embers in full standing. But there was a difficulty in the way. The members of the mission of the Reformed Church were not free to bring letters of transfer; it being necessary for them to retain their membership in classes connected with the Reformed Church. How best to meet this difficulty was something of a puzzle; but finally it was agreed to put the matter thus: "The introduction of Christianity by missionaries from a foreign country creates an exceptional and temporary situation; and such a situation may properly be met by exceptional and temporary methods. There- fore let us retain our connection with the presbyteries and classes in America as pres- byters; and as missionaries become members of the presbyteries in Japan." To this the (old) Church of Christ and the Presbytery of Japan assented; and the following sentence was inserted in the chapter on Presbyteries in the Constitution of the new Church: "Missionaries who assent to the Standards of Doctrine and Rules of Government of this Church shall be members in virtue of their office" (i. e. as missionaries). From the beginning it was the feeling of many of the Japanese that members of pres- bytery in full standing should be subject to its discipline, which was not the case under the arrangement now described; and when the present Constitution and Canons were framed the same feeling was expressed. Accordingly it was proposed that missionaries un- able to bring letters of transfer be made associate members with all the rights of mem- bers in full standing excepting the right to vote. Canon 23: § 6 was therefore drafted as follows: "Foreign missionaries: All foreign missionaries (men) connected with missions 676 Canon 23: § 6 Associate members: Representatives of dendo-kyokwais are associate members. By a vote of the presbytery lay-preachers may be elected associate members. By a vote of the presbytery, missionaries who are members of missions recognized by the Synod as co-operating with the Church, and who sincerely and openly accept the Confession of Faith, Constitution and Canons, may be elected associate members. All asso- ciate members may speak, introduce resolutions and be appointed on committees. Missionaries who are associate members shall be appointed associate members of the Synod as follows: For every four or less than four, one; for every eight, two; for every twelve, three. No committee shall have a majority of associate members. Ill The legislation of the Synod regarding dendo-kyokwais necessitates certain changes in a number of the Canons. The following amendments will therefore be presented for adoption : — 1. At the end of Canon 16 (Admission to Full Communion), add as follows: "The principles set forth in this Canon apply also in the case of those seeking admission to dendo-kyokwais." 2. At the end of Canon 17 (Transfer and Dismission of Church Members), substitute "dendo-kyokwais" for "companies of believers con- nected with the Church of Christ in Japan not yet organized as churches." 3. In Canon 18 (Discipline) § 2, after "lay-preachers" add "and dade, let us prepare ourselves for them. It is time for the leaders to act. The question we are asked to consider is this: Whose right are we going to set aside? If we can retain all three, namely God, and the Nation and the King, well and good: then let us set to work and find 692 out a way in which this may be done. If not, then the time demands that you should reject one of the three claims to your allegiance. In the remaining portions of this article the writer discusses the question as to what Christians should decide to do. The conclusion at which he arrives is that they should throw in their lot with the Moderate party, and that it is impossible for them to join the Extremists. 1. Be- cause neither the Congress nor the Khilafat party represents the people of India as a whole. 2. Because Hindu-Moslem unity is not a real unity. It is only on the surface and is bound sooner or later to come to an end. 3. Because in the new Government which the Extremists wish to establish there would be no place for the Christians or for any other minority. 4. Because Christians are required by their religion to be loyal to the exist- ing Government. They can do so, and yet remain true to their national aspirations. This article was written with special reference to the All India Chris- tian Conference, held during Christmas week, 1921, in Lahore. APPENDIX XIV An Indian Christian Manifesto on Church Union In view of a world-wide desire for a fuller realization of the unity of the different sections of Christendom and with particular reference to the negotiations for the organizational union of the South Indian United Church and the Church of England in South India, the following state- ment is made as an expression of Indian Christian opinion. The fundamental unity of all believers in Christ is a truth that is fully acknowledged by and deeply rooted in the Indian Christian mind, and any movement intended to give expression to that unity cannot but meet with the general approval and support of Indian Christians. It is also felt that in the interests of the further progress of the Kingdom of God in this land, a full recognition of the unity and spiritual equal- ity of the diff'erent denominations is highly necessary. It has to be noted, however, that the negotiations that are being car- ried on to effect the union of the Churches proceed on the basis that the adoption of a uniform system of Church Government is a condition precedent to such unity. This attitude does not faithfully reflect the Indian Christian mind. The vast majority of Indian Christian laymen and even clergymen feel that the existing denominational differences should not be allowed to hinder in any way a full realization of Chris- tian fellowship, and would gladly welcome the immediate introduction of intercommunion, interchange of pulpits and intercelebration of the sacraments, notwithstanding the existence of these differences. It is therefore desired that, in the interests of the free and natural development of the Indian Church, larger schemes of organizational unity should be deferred till independent Indian Christian opinion makes such a demand and that for the present attempts should be made to in- troduce intercommunion, interchange of pulpits and intercelebration. Bangalore Conference Resolutions on Church Union Note. — The first three are resolutions of the last Conference re-affirmed. (1) That this Conference of Indian Christians, consisting of mem- bers belonging to the Anglican, Wesleyan, Lutheran, Baptist, Presby- terian, S. I. U. C. denominations, held at Bangalore, is of the opinion that the several denominations of the Christian Church are in all es- 693 sentiai respects within the one Church Catholic, and that in the interests of true Christian fellowship and for the extension of the Kingdom of Christ in this land, a recognition of the equal status of the denominations within the one Church of Christ, and their ministries as of equal validity, is necessary. (2) The such recognition (Sic) should be given effect to along the following lines: (a) Ministers may receive due authorization to minister fully and freely in the churches of other denominations, it being understood that the above authorization is not to be regarded as reordination or as re- pudiation of the present position of their ministers as validly ordained. Ministration would mean preaching (interchange of pulpits) and ad- ministration of sacraments. (b) All the denominations should recognize fully the members of one another and admit them to the Lord's Table. (3) That in the opinion of this Conference, further negotiations to- wards union of an organic character should not take place until the above two resolutions have been given practical effect to and until the Indian Churches have attained financial and administrative independ- ence, which, it is hoped, will conserve the best elements of Indian re- ligious experience. (4) That this Conference feels confident of the general approval of Resolution 2 by the laity of the different denominations and therefore calls upon them to do all in their power to bring about intercommunion, interchange of pulpits and intercelebration of the sacraments without any reference to organizational union. 694 Princeton Theologic 1 1012 01121 2521 1 Date Due ■ . ■■X . 1 <"' 'rf^ '1 ISH^ ■\\i -L \ «****.,. - ,.-liiillW»^ ga- ''**«*(i>ii^l8^»a ki^ i/f*si^S #jlilk,.- v.! -WUPWu ft JL> 'Aific " iitflj ^ i 95