INDIA AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ^ ^ w 0 n , 
 
 Delivered on Sctndat Apternoon, December 12th, 1857, 
 
 BY THE REV. JOHN CTOIMING, D.D., 
 
 AT THE NATIONAL SCOTCH CHURCH, CROWN COURT, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 “ And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children 
 crying in the temple, and saying, Hosannah to the son of David ; they were sore displeased, and 
 said nnto him, Hearest thon what these say? And Jesus saith unto them. Yea; have ye never 
 read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise ? And he left them, and 
 went out of the city into Bethany ; and he lodged there." — Matthew xxi. 15 — 17. 
 
 I WISH to-day, and particularly this afternoon, to address you, first of all, as 
 children attending our sehools,. and receiving the blessings and the benefits of a 
 Christian education, and secondly, as those who sympathise with these children, 
 and are anxious to see the recipients of the greatest gifts made the ministers of 
 the greatest goodness. I have taken, therefore, a text suggestive of thoughts 
 instructive to the young, and that cannot fail in some degree to enable me to 
 convey information and useful suggestions to the old. The young will thus be 
 encouraged in their missionary efibrts, and the old, sympathising with them, will 
 feel it their duty and their privilege to aid them. 
 
 Let us look, then, at the scene which is here submitted to us — first, children 
 exactly the same in years and in nature as those hundreds of little ones I now 
 see before me, had learned under the parental roof that Jesus was the Messiah, 
 and inspired by the old lesson, they went into the temple and gave expression 
 to the public thanksgiving — “ Hosanna to the son of David ! Blessed is he that 
 cometh in the name of the Lord.” The first lesson taught is, therefore, that 
 Christian home education is the best preliminary to efiective spiritual public 
 worship. These children had never so praised in the temple if they had not 
 heen previously taught in their own homes. Thus having been taught under 
 the domestic roof, and having heard there that Jesus was the Messiah, they no 
 sooner saw him in the temple, than they formed themselves into an impromtu 
 choir, became choristers and burst forth into the sweetest music that ears can 
 hear, sweeter than angel’s harps can fling upon the winds, the music of children’s 
 glad voices praising and blessing God. 
 
 Now, the second truth that we learn from this, is that the Scribes and Phari- 
 sees were exasperated by the irresistihle proofs that Christ was the Messiah. 
 You will notice, they could withstand his miracles, they could resist his lessons, 
 they could repudiate with scorn his proclamations of the trnth ; but when they 
 
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 No. 2,891. 
 
INDIA AND CIIRISTIANITT. 
 
 heard children so unsophisticated by prejudice, and so little likely to be biassed 
 by early prepossessions, no sooner seeing Chi'ist than they expressed their ad- 
 miration for him, and their adoration to him, and shouted, “ Ilosannab, blessed 
 is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ” — the moment that they heard them 
 do so, they felt that an infant’s testimony was more effective than an orator’s 
 speech, and they appealed therefore to Jesus to put to silence these little ones, 
 and not suffer them to be heard. But how did Jesus treat them ? He instantly 
 answered their objection, not by a long argument, but by a short and conclusive 
 text — “ Have ye not read what is written in the eight Psalm, that out of the 
 mouth of babes and sucklings God has perfected praise ? ” In other words, 
 “ You Pharisees and Scribes believe the Old Testament if you do not believe in 
 me. I appeal to your own book, I take one of your own Psalms, and in that 
 Psalm you will find a warrant for these children. Instead of being angi-y with 
 these babes praising me, you ought to rejoice that they have been so well taught 
 and that God’s word so truly sanctions them, for in your own Old Testament 
 scriptures, we have evidence of children’s duty to praise and thank God.” 
 
 This, then, teaches us a very valuable lesson. That society, of whom these 
 Scribes and Pharisees were the representatives, is very apt to undervalue the 
 force of religion in children ; but it is quite possible for a young child to be an 
 eminent Christian. God can change the young heart as well as the old heart, 
 and the power to change an infantile heart is not so great as that which is 
 requisite to change the adult heart. Here Jesus recognises infant’s songs, and 
 shows that these infants in the midst of the temple praised him as the fulfilment 
 of the promise, and as evidences of the truth of the Word of God, who had 
 declared that “ out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, he had perfected praise.” 
 In reading the New Testament, we must often be struck with the fact that Jesus 
 regards children as of importance. We notice that he selected a child in the 
 midst of the tumultuous crowds that were about him, and placed that child upon 
 the platform beside him, and said, “ Except you, the wisest, the most learned 
 and the best, become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven.” What a tribute to a Christian child is the solemn declaration that old 
 people must become like them before they can enter into the kingdom of heaven ! 
 Our blessed Saviour especially welcomed children, when their ragged mothers 
 brought ragged children in their bosoms to the Son of God, and when the dis- 
 ciples, far less sympathetic than their blessed master, repelled them as if it were 
 an intrusion and an offence, Jesus beautifully replied, “ Suffer them to come 
 unto me ” — what a testimony to children again — “ for of such is the kingdom of 
 heaven ; ” as if he had said. These are not weeds that you should trample under 
 foot, but young, fragrant, beautiful flowers, to be transplanted to the paradise 
 of God. These are not worthless things to be cast away as the refuse of the 
 kingdom of heaven : but these arc the little ones who, if they die in infancy, are 
 transplanted there, and who, if spared to years, may be converted and sanctified, 
 and made meet for the kingdom of heaven, and useful in spreading the know- 
 ledge of it among all kingdoms, and nations, and people. I have often noticed, in 
 tracing the character of our blessed Lord, that he shows singidar delight in i-oung 
 children, and I never saw au aged Christian, of a truly affectionate character, who 
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nfDlA. iSD CHRISTUXITI. 
 
 did not lore young children, and yon must hare been struck, on reading the his- 
 toiy of our blessed Lord, how interested he seems to he in yoimg children. In 
 reality, he was the great model Sunday school teacher, and some of his best, and 
 most glorious lessons are drawn from the habits of young children. For instance 
 who would have thought that while Jesus was beating the weary road of life, 
 his whole soul absorbed with the weightiest and most solemn thoughts, he could 
 for one moment have turned aside to a market place, and there noticed children 
 playing at marbles, or plat-ing at hide and seek, or some other infantile and 
 innocent amusement, and that he should have drawn one of his religious exhor- 
 tations from children playing in the market place. What an evidence is this 
 that our blessed Lord took special notice of children ! while he sanctified their 
 hearts by his grace, he consecrated children’s play, and therefore children’s 
 playing grounds, by his own great and precious blessings. 
 
 In the next place, we shall find in the Xew Testament provision made espe- 
 cially for the weU being of children. Parents are charged to bring them up in the 
 “ nurture and admonition of the Lord : ” and children are to obey their parents 
 in the Lord. Again, we shall find special mportance attached to the early 
 history — the infant history, if I may so speak — of Moses, of Joshua, of Samuel, 
 of David, and the Baptist. Again, we shall find a whole psalm written specially 
 to bring forth and to commend the praises of children. .Again, we shall find 
 Jesus expressing joy, and rejoicing in spirit, on one occasion only; and when 
 was it that Jesus rejoiced in spirit ? When he said, “ Thou hast hid these things 
 from the wise and prudent, but hast revealed them unto babes.” All these pas- 
 sages clearly show the deep interest which Christ felt in children — the watchful 
 eye with which he followed them — the sympathy which he felt with their very 
 playthings and amusements — and the illustrations that he drew from the infant 
 life in favor of the purest and highest Christian attainments. The whole of the 
 passage that I have read is evidence that God may he glorified by the praises of 
 children — “ Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise ” 
 — that is, God gets glory from infants at the breast, and children at their play. 
 And in what respect does he do so ? I answer, first of all, it is to God’s glory 
 that there should be infants at all. He might have made humanity as he made 
 Adam, in its manhood, its perfection and its strength, leaving it gradually to 
 decay and sink into old age ; hut he has not done so. We have children. If 
 we had only old persons to preach the gospel to, how little success should we 
 have ! Man in middle age becomes hardened, impracticable, and difficult to be 
 impressed, and few of such, comparatively, enter into the kingdom of heaven ! 
 but in childhood the heart is susceptible like vvax, and the impression is lasting 
 as welded iron. On children yon may produce rapid, deep, permanent impres- 
 sions. With the old it must be line for line, and precept for precept, before the 
 Ethiopian changes his skin, or the leopard his spots ; and therefore it is to the 
 glorv- of God that a very large portion of every congregation consists of children. 
 .iVnd if we preach to these, it b by an arrangement scarcely less satisfactory, 
 when in a separate place we can have a sermon preached to them specially 
 adapted to their childish minds. 
 
 Again, “ Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, God perfects praise ” in 
 
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INDIA AND CHRISTIANITT. 
 
 an indirect way. Have you not notieed a softening influence produced in a 
 home by the presence of infants in it ? A household composed exclusively of 
 adults, is material, mechanical, and commonplace ; but a home in which children 
 predominate, has a halo and a sunshine cast upon it, that nothing else can com- 
 municate. What flowers are in a garden, children are in a home, giving to that 
 home a poetry and a beauty that their absence destroys. Children also are 
 suggestive to many of the best and the ripest saints. I will teU you an instance, 
 and if children listen to me, I hope they will not forget it. Melancthon, the very 
 celebrated Reformer, the opposite of Luther in manner, but the very brother of 
 Luther in love, and faithfulness, and light, one, day went in company with 
 Luther to a few friends who were assembled to consult as to the success of the 
 reformation. Melancthon left greatly depressed, and in great son'ow, and think- 
 ing that there was no power that he could see which could be equal to the great 
 and predominating superstition that oppressed them. As he went from the 
 council, and was passing along the street, he saw a group of little children 
 from seven to fourteen years of age, and he noticed that one of them was kneel- 
 ing at prayer. He listened, and he heard that child praying as he had learned 
 to pray at home, for that is the first school and church to a child — praying to 
 God that he would help blessed Melancthon and Luther, and would enable them 
 to conquer the enemies of Christianity and Jesus. Melancthon, when he saw 
 this, went back to the council, and said to Luther, “ Dear Martin, be of good 
 cheer, for I have seen the very children on the streets praying for a blessing on 
 our labo. s, and if out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God has perfected • 
 praise, he ^^■ill no doubt give to these children’s prayers a blessed answer.” 
 
 In the next place, God glorifies himself, or gets praise from children, by 
 making childr n capable of deep and lasting impressions, and in these children 
 creating all the beauty and the perfection of the maturest saint. I do not say 
 that a child’s language is the evidence of grace; I do not think that children 
 ought to be taught to use the phraseology of Christian experience, when there is 
 no counterpart of that Christian experience within ; but it is true that a child 
 may become by grace a great and true a Christian, as a man thirty or forty 
 years of age. Have you never seen, when you looked through an oxyhydrogen 
 microscope, that the insects in a drop of water have as perfect and complete an 
 organism as the animals we t ee around us ? I have seen the blood vessels beat- 
 ing and palpitating in an insect so small that you could not see it with the naked 
 eye, and that required a prodigiens magnifying power to make it visible at all. 
 In the organism revealed in the m ^roscope, you have all the organisation of an 
 animal as perfect as an elephant or a horse, or in the largest creature that swims 
 in the ocean, or breathes in the air, or c oreads its wings upon the wind. So it 
 may be that in the youngest Christian there may be developed as perfect a Chris- 
 tian character as in the maturest saint ; ano. hence, we have sometimes discov- 
 ered, however rare, in children young in years, all the parts developed, if not 
 perfected, of saints old in grace, and ripe for the ’kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Again, God gets praise from children when he tak._S them to himself. What 
 a solemn thought is it that half the human race die before they attain seven or 
 eight years of age ; what an evidence of the havoc of sin ; Dul what a blessed 
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INDIA AND CHRISTIANrTT. 
 
 thonght that fact suggests, when we learn from the scripture, as the most casual 
 reader of it may discover, that all infants dying in infancy and before years of 
 responsibility, are without exception justified, sanctified, and saved. I believe 
 that infants dying before seven or eight years of age, baptised or unbaptised, 
 children of heathen parents or children of Christian parents, are without excep- 
 tion, God’s elect children, whom he takes, in special love, to himself, saves from 
 the pilgrimage, snares and martyrdom of this world, and transplants them from 
 the garden of grace, cold, and wintry, and poor, to the garden of glory, where 
 they blossom in everlasting beauty, and by their fragrance send forth incense 
 of thankfulness, adoration, and praise, to him who redeemed them and washed 
 them in his precious blood. 
 
 Now, having shown how God takes'praise from the lips of children, let me 
 turn your attention to one field on which especially I am requested to address 
 j'ou, and for whose benefit I am requested also, and I do it with the greatest 
 delight, to ask your countenance, co-operation, and aid. W e have Day schools, 
 Sunday schools and also Eagged schools, and we are increasing them on all 
 sides. We have a vast body of children, many of whom, in our ragged schools 
 especially, are taken from the very lowest depths of degradation and shame. 
 We are most anxious, not simply to teach children, but to train children. Now, 
 one thing we teach them is, to make a sacrifice for spreading the gospel at home 
 and abroad, and one of the things we tiy to train them in — not only to teach 
 them but to train them in — is the habit of giving to that object. If you can 
 induce one of your children to give up a halfpenny a week to swell the contri- 
 butions to missions, you have done more than a thousand lessons from the 
 teacher’s desk can do. You have thereby trained a child to give, and what it 
 does constantly when young, it will not leave off very readily when it grows old. 
 Now, the special field on which I wish our children to act — and I need not tell 
 you that we have raised up some years thirty or forty pounds towards the spread 
 of the gospel, and therefore it shows that our teachers are training the children 
 as well as teaching them — now the field on which we think they should expend 
 especial labor, is that field, the scene of so many stirring recollections and of so 
 many painful anxieties ; the field on which so many of our brave soldiers have 
 shed their blood, and where so many of the best and choicest of our country 
 have suffered such revolting and unspeakable cruelties. It is the duty, first of 
 all, of our country, to vindicate the law, to punish the mutineers, to repress 
 insuirection, and restore the balance of law, of rule, of subordination and order ; 
 and that seems likely to be near, and we thank God for it. But the question is, 
 what is to be done with the Hindoos and Mahometans after we have subjected 
 them to law and order ? I conceive that our first dnty to them, more pressing 
 and paramount than ever, is to bring them to the knowledge of that gospel 
 which, by the admission of the world itself, is the only guarantee for India’s 
 prosperity and progress. 
 
 Now, in speaking of this subject, let me remark, in the first place, that India 
 is ours in the providence of God ; for a hundred years it has been part of our 
 empire. How we got it I do not discuss ; by what steps it was attached to this 
 country I do not stop to discuss ; for who does not know that if you trace back 
 
 833 
 
INDIA AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 a nobleman’s title and patrimony to its first bestowal upon him, you will have a 
 very doubtful opinion indeed of his riglit to it ? That if you trace .the history 
 of our country you will fiud, that Normau, Dane, aud Saxon, have in succession 
 warred and quarrelled about it, and that if you were to trace it back to its first con- 
 quest,itis questionable whether you, the inhabitants ofLondon, have the best right 
 to the eountry you now live in. We find ourselves, in the providence of God, the 
 inhabitants of highly favored Britain. It is our country and our home. We find 
 ourselves, in the providence of God, the possessors and the lords of the vast 
 empire of India. It is not necessary to discuss the policy of the first step ; it is 
 enough to assert the historical fact, wdiich no one can deny. Now, suppose what 
 some have asserted, that England, and Scotland, and Ireland, the lords and pos- 
 sessors of India, were to withdraw from it, would it be a blessing to India, or 
 would it be the reverse ? I answer, it would be the reverse. The very greatest 
 curse that could fall upon India would be our withdrawal from it. Hindoos are 
 incapable of self-government ; they are like children in a school — they require 
 to be ruled by a master ; they arc not intelligent subjects to constitute a well- 
 governed nation. We can leave America to itself, for America can govern 
 itself ; but you cannot leave Hindostan, for its inhabitants cannot govern them- 
 selves. 
 
 Again, the Mahometans, though not the most numerous, are the most power- 
 ful in subtlety, genius, and ferocity, and the instant we left India, the JMahom- 
 etan ivould take our place. Would the crescent be an advantageous substitute 
 for the cross? If the Mahometan w'ere to take our place, you would fiud that 
 the Rajahs and Princes who govern India at this moment, would pull the whole 
 country to pieces, in contending who should be the supreme and all-powerful 
 ruler. Therefore, suppose that we were dastardly enough to say, let us leave 
 India, I sec in it the greatest cal.amity to India, and therefore it is our duty to 
 hold it fast, and to feel our responsibilities towards it. 
 
 In the next place, in reference to the recent mutinies, have we done what has 
 provoked them ? I mentioned, in my sermon this morning, how prone our 
 country alwaj's is to find out somebody to lay the blame on for anything that 
 has overtaken us, or has occurred to us, and then the moment it is over, it is 
 forgotten. Now men have been very prone, and have tried ver}' hard, to lay 
 the blame of the recent mutinies upon the injustice and the severity of the rule 
 of our country, or rather, of the East India Company and the government of India, 
 and those sent out to rule the country. Now I want to show you how unreasonable 
 this is. I do not mean to say that there have not been great aud scandalous sins, 
 great and scandalous injustice, but I mean to say, whatl am prepared to prove, that 
 that is not the cause of that revolt. The sepoys, or native soldiers, who constitute 
 the army, have been indulged, and petted, and deferred to, to the very utmost, 
 and they are the discontented and dissatisfied people. The farmers, the Zemin - 
 dahs, and others, constituting the civil population, are at this moment paying 
 their taxes, and that, with all the loyalty and quietness with which they pay 
 them in times of peace. The only people who might reasonably say, we have 
 been unjustly dealt with, are constitutional and quiet : and the only peojjle who 
 have been indulged and petted in a way deferential and almost submissive, are 
 834 
 
ISDIA .VXD CnRISTlANIIT. 
 
 the people who are in mutiny against our Country and our Queen. This shows 
 that whatever be the cause, it cannot be unjust treatment of the civilians. 
 
 Again that vast and splendid empire must, it seems to me, be given to us, not 
 to give situations to the young and to the very old ; not to be a prize to the am- 
 bitious, but, as I humbly submit, to receive our light, our civilisation, and our 
 Bible. It is!our duty therefore, having India attached to our own empire, to 
 send there those who are lights of the world, the representatives of our religion, 
 as well as the representatives of our constitution, and that it is our sacred duty, 
 in reference to India more than in reference to Africa, to seek the erring, to save 
 the lost, and to bring that land to the reception of that blessed gospel, which, 
 alone, is that righteousness which exalteth a people. 
 
 But, some have said, this very Christianity has been the spring of the mutiny 
 that we are trying to repress, ily answer is, facts are all against this, for what 
 do we find ? It has been amongst the sepoy soldiers, where Christianity was 
 proscribed, that the mutiny has broken out. It has been in the Bengal army, 
 where the lust, the cruelty, and the savagism of human nature has been exhib- 
 ited in all its atrocity, that Christianity has been prohibited, so much so, that one 
 man was dismissed because he became a Christian ; it is in that army where the 
 Christian missionary has had no reception, that the mutiny originated. Now, 
 what a lesson is this, that amongst the Bengalese sepoys, and there alone, a 
 revolt has taken place, and that amongst the Bengalese sepoys, and there alone, 
 Christianity has been proscribed, kept at bay, defied, detested, and despised. 
 
 Let us learn another lesson. In those horrid and revolting cruelties inflicted 
 upon men, women, and infants, when infants were tossed upon bayonets, and 
 ladies of rank, and delicacy, and piety, were cut to atoms before their husbands, 
 and young girls in the presence of their mothers, not one Christian Hindoo is 
 spoken of, or alluded to, or hinted at, as having taken the least part in it, or 
 expressed any sympathy with it. As far as evidence goes, those cruelties were 
 perjvetrated by men who were not Christians, and therefore, I say that Mahom- 
 etan superstition and Hindoo idolatry are at the root of this frightful episode in 
 the history of that country, and that all the crimes that have stained its annals, 
 are to be traced to those sources alone. 
 
 But the crowning argument still remains. I have shown you that only where 
 Christianity was proscribed, only where the Bengalee Brahmin had absolute 
 power, mutiny has taken place, but I strengthen that position, still more, when I 
 tell you that in Madras and around that city where Christian converts are nume- 
 rous, where the countrj'is dotted with clrristian temples as the sky is dotted with 
 stars there has been perfect order, perfect qmet, no mutiny, no revolt. It is plain 
 then, from this, and I rejoice to see that the papers are beginning to advocate it, 
 that where Christianity has been the least, there mutiny and revolt have been 
 the intensest, and that wherever, in India Christianity has struck the deepest and 
 spread the furthest, there quiet, order and peace have been most perfectly main- 
 tained. The inference which I draw therefore, from the whole of this reflection 
 is, the justification of the great truth, which the Church of Scotland was one of 
 the earliest to embrace, and through its missionaries, more than half a century 
 ago, to inculcate and uphold, that Christianity will be the saving of India, that 
 
 835 
 
INDIA AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 you can attach it to the mother country by no other means, and that if you do 
 not christianise it,— as Dr. Duff I recollect, more than twenty years ago, most 
 powerfully taught — if you do not christianize it, as far as human instrumentality 
 is able to do so, you will have, in India a mine that will one 'day explode, 
 and devastate the whole population that are now the subjects of Great Britain. 
 It therefore appears that the highest policy, and the noblest patriotism is in con- 
 formity with the gospel lesson, “ preach the gospel to every creature.” If you 
 would extinguish cruelty and crime ; if you would lay doivn railways for the in- 
 tercourse of different presidencies and people ; if you would have a place for the 
 employment of our children, and our children’s children ; if you would put an 
 end to cruelty, anddissension, and bloodshed ; if you would save souls for heaven 
 and for glory, taken from the kingdoms ot this world, circulate the Bible and 
 spread the gospel and win to Christ the length and breadth of India, and having 
 begun to do so we are bound to carry out what we have begun. If we never 
 make the attempt the responsibility will not be the same, for what awoke the 
 Hindoos so powerfully against us ? They said, these people are bent on making 
 proselytes ; but they added, they are determined to make us proselytes by fraud 
 and by force, by the rifle and bayonet and the sword. We taught the Hindoos 
 so much Christianity as showed them that we felt it a duty, having got light, to 
 he light to others ; but we have not taught them sufficient Christianity to show 
 them that fraud and force are forbidden by the Bible that commands us to go 
 into all nations, and preach the gospel ; it is therefore our duty to persevere and 
 give them those enlightened ideas and apprehensions of the gospel of Christ 
 that wiU show them that it is our duty to atempt to christianize all the nations 
 of the earth, and that we are strictly forbidden to use one weapon or to wield 
 one instrument incompatible with spiritual and moral power and truth. 
 
 Such then, is the value of children, and such is the field on which we seek 
 our children’s contributions, at this time, to operate. Let me ask you there- 
 fore children who in this congregation have money, and there are many such, 
 and adults who have a penny or sixpence to spare, let me ask each of you to 
 give something, and whatever you give, as you retire from this sanctuary will 
 be put into our school missionary fund, and will encourage the children, not 
 mind you, to be apathetic and inactive themselves, but it will encourage them to 
 be active and zealous, and I shall hope to be able to teU you, at the close of the 
 missionary year, that through the encouragement that you gave to our children’s 
 efforts they have redouble^.;^BSl5^Soffl>^i®B4^iven their contributions like their 
 songs of praise, to mi(J^ly hps{i|i 4 ms, t^ himYi^is King of kings, by leaven- 
 ing that empire w^fnth^ti^hipifes’OT'lov^lt^^glffe^d peace, which is now the 
 scene of so mium crii^ and sorrow. ... 
 
 il ’f iJh ^17 
 
 
 836