-- 1

 
 
 OF 
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 % faper 
 
 READ AT THE 
 
 Annual Meeting of the Society for the Propagation 
 of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, April 29, 1873. 
 
 15 Y THE 
 
 REV. J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D. 
 
 CANON OF ST. PAUL'S, ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 printed r.Y R. clay, sons, and TAYLOR, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL. 
 
 1874.
 
 COMPARATIVE PROGRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN MISSIONS. 
 
 It is hardly possible to glance over the columns of a newspaper, or 
 to overhear a conversation in society, where the subject is discussed, 
 without encountering some expression of impatience at the slow 
 progress of modern missions ; and not unfrequently it will be stated 
 that they are an acknowledged failure. 
 
 Now it is my conviction that this disappointment is quite as 
 unreasonable as it is faithless. I beHeve that all such misgivings v/ill 
 melt before a thorough investigation of facts ; that if we would lay 
 this spectre of ill success, we need only the courage to face it ; and 
 above all, that an appeal to history will dispel any gloomy forebodings 
 on this score. It will be found, if I mistake not, that the resem- 
 blances of early and recent missions are far greater than their con- 
 trasts ; that both alike have had to surmount the same difficulties 
 and been chequered by the same vicissitudes ; that both alike 
 exhibit the same inequalities of progress, the same alternations of 
 success and failure, periods of acceleration followed by periods of 
 retardation, when the surging wave has been sucked back in the 
 retiring current, while yet the flood has been rising steadily all along, 
 though the unobservant eye might fail to mark it, advancing towards 
 that final consummation when the earth shall be covered with the 
 knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. History is 
 an excellent cordial for the drooping courage. 
 
 To history therefore I make my appeal. And yet here I am im- 
 pressed with the difficulties which beset my path. Anyone who has 
 endeavoured to arrive at definite results respecting the progress of 
 Christianity in the early and middle ages must be struck with the 
 paucity of data. It is only here and there that he finds a statistical 
 fact on which, as on firm standing ground, he can plant his foot 
 securely. For the rest, hypothetical combinations and plausible 
 analogies must be summoned to fill up the void. Yet out of all this
 
 Comparative Progress of 
 
 uncertainty, unless I am deceived, enough of fact will emerge to 
 justify an inference and to point a moral. 
 
 As a starting point to my comparison of the present and the past, 
 I shall try to ascertain the proportion of the Christian population to 
 the whole human race at two different epochs. The one point of time 
 shall be the middle of the third century, when the Gospel had been 
 preached for nearly two centuries and a quarter, amid all the dis- 
 couragements of a worldly opposition, but with all the zeal of a new- 
 born enthusiasm ; the other, the age in which we live, when it has passed 
 through a chequered career of almost eighteen centuries and a half. 
 
 Now I have compared the estimates given by several able statisti- 
 cians of the proportion which the Christians bear to the whole human 
 race at the present time or in the present generation, and I find that 
 it is generally reckoned at a little more or a little less than one-third 
 of the whole. This is pretty nearly the estimate of Wiggers and of 
 Berghaus.i One authority however places it at one-fifth. ^ To avoid 
 exaggeration, I will take the lowest estimate. 
 
 For the statistics of the earlier epoch v/hich I propose to take, I am 
 mainly indebted to Gibbon's investigations. These I have examined 
 step by step ; and though it is impossible to feel anything like abso- 
 lute certainty about the result, yet I have not found reason to ques- 
 tion the general truth of his calculations. At all events nothing 
 has yet been alleged on the opposite side which deserves the same 
 attention. What then are the facts ? 
 
 Setting aside the rhetorical passages of Tertullian and other writers,^ 
 which I will not venture with Gibbon to characterize as " splendid 
 exaggerations," but which, even if taken literally, bear witness, with 
 one exception, rather to the wide diffusion than to the overflowing 
 numbers of the Christians, we turn to statements at once more sober 
 and more definite. 
 
 Origen wrote his treatise against Celsus about the year 246, when 
 the Church had enjoyed a long period of uninterrupted peace, so 
 that circumstances had been peculiarly favourable to her growth. 
 
 ^ Wiggers (1842) reckons the Christians at 228 millions out of 657 millions; 
 Ben^haus (1852) at 30"7 per cent. It is plain that so long as statisticians differ in 
 their estimates of the whole po])ulation of the glol^e by several hundred millions, 
 all attempts at establishing a proportion must be most precarious. The element of 
 uncertainty hcy;ever is not in the Christian so much as in the non-Christian portion. 
 
 2 Sondermann, in the Church Missionary Socidy's Atlas, where other estimates 
 also will be found, 
 
 '^ Justin, Dial. c. 117 ; Tertull. Apol. 37 ; Adv. Jiul. 7 : see Gibbon ii. p. 369 
 seq. I believe that if anyone will read these passages carefully, making the same 
 allowance for the rhetoric of enthusiasm which he would make in a parliamentary 
 speech or a missionary sermon, he will sec that they are not inconsistent with the 
 conclusions at which I have arrived below. 
 
 ^^\ 
 
 u,ac
 
 Ancient and Modern Missions. 5 
 
 Speaking of the efficacy of the prayers of the Christians, he asks 
 what might not be expected, '' if not only a very few indeed {iravv 
 oXiyoL) were to agree, as now, but all the subjects of the Roman 
 Empire." ^ To a Christian the proportion of the Christians would 
 appear larger than it actually was ; for they would occupy the fore- 
 ground in his field of view. It is no insignificant fact, therefore, 
 that Origen should speak of them as a very small fraction of the 
 Empire.^ 
 
 Though Origen's statement is general, he more especially represents 
 the flourishing Church of Alexandria. Not very difl"erent is the 
 impression derived from a notice relating to Asia Minor. Gregory 
 Thaumaturgus, a pupil of Origen, was appointed to the see of Neo- 
 caesarea, the most important town, if not the metropoUs, of Pontus. 
 about the year 240. After working on for about a quarter of a 
 century w^ith marvellous success, he was able to express his thank- 
 fulness at the close of his fife that he left only seventeen heathens in 
 the town and neighbourhood, though when he went there he had 
 found only as many Christians.^ We are not perhaps required to 
 take his statement Hterally, but after all reasonable deductions it is 
 plain that the Christians then formed only a minute and inappreciable 
 fraction of the population in one of the largest towns in Asia Minor 
 — so minute perhaps, that they would pass unnoticed in the mass of 
 their heathen fellow-citizens.* 
 
 From Asia Minor I turn to Rome. In the capital, there is every 
 reason to think, the Christians were as influential, and bore as large 
 
 ^ c. Cels. viii. 69 (I. p. 794, Delarue). 
 
 2 On the other hand Blunt, Ft'rsf Three Centuries, p. 209 seq., quotes other 
 passages from Origen, in which, like Justin and Tertullian, he speaks of the wide 
 diffusion and great numbers of the Christians. These passages must be taken for 
 what they are worth ; but they cannot seriously invalidate the testimony of an 
 incidental notice such as I have quoted. Origen's words {c. Cels. \. 27), it is right 
 to add, are not nearly so strong in the original as they appear in Mr. Robertson's 
 quotation (i. p. 152). 
 
 ^ Greg. Nyss. Op. iii. p. 574 seq. ; comp. Basil, de Spir. Sand. iii. p. 63. The 
 passages are referred to in Tillemont, iv. p. 327. The saying of Gregory Thauma- 
 turgus is reported, as I have given it in the text, by Gregory Nyssen. On the 
 other hand Basil inverts his brother's mode of statement, and says expressly that 
 there were only seventeen Christians in Neoc?esarea when Gregory Thaumaturgus 
 entered upon his charge. I have felt bound to prefer the account of the former, 
 as being less favourable to my own views and as inherently more probable. 
 
 ■* Gibbon glances at, but docs not solve, the difficulty of reconciling this notice 
 with the account which Pliny gives, more than a century and a quarter earlier, of 
 the rapid spread of Christianity in these parts. The explanation seems to be two- 
 fold : (i) It is clear from his own account that the judicious persecution which 
 Pliny himself instituted was very effective, and perhaps later persecutions also may 
 have done their work. (2) There was a strong Pagan revival in the middle of the 
 second century, which, backed by the zeal and personal character of the Antonines, 
 made great progress in several parts. On this la'.ter point see Friedlander, 
 Sitteiigeschichte Roms, iii. p. 430.
 
 6 Co7nparative Progress of 
 
 a proportion to the heathen population as in any part of the Empire, 
 except possibly some districts of Africa, and some exceptional cities 
 elsewhere, such as Antioch. Now in an extant letter of Cornelius,^ 
 who was Bishop of Rome from 250 to 252, it is stated that the number 
 of widows and others receiving the alms of the Church was over 
 1,500. Unfortunately the whole number of the Christians is not 
 recorded ; but in the Church of Antioch, somewhat later, we find 
 that the proportion of these recipients of alms was three for every 
 hundred.^ Assuming this same proportion to hold for Rome^ 
 (and there is at all events no reason for supposing it less), we should 
 get 50,000 as the whole number of Roman Christians. Now, at the 
 very lowest estimate the population of Rome amounted to one 
 million (some make it a million and a half ) ; ^ so that the Chris- 
 tians at this time would form somewhat less than one-twentieth of 
 the whole. This is Gibbon's estimate, and, so far as I am able to 
 judge, it errs on the side of excess rather than of defect. At all 
 events the sepulchral monuments do not suggest anything like this 
 proportion. The extant Christian inscriptions, which can certainly 
 be referred to the second and third centuries, may almost be counted 
 on the fingers, while the heathen inscriptions of the same period must 
 reckon by hundreds or thousands. In De Rossi's collection of early 
 Christian inscriptions in Rome, I find that only nine are included 
 prior to the middle of the third century. Of these several are 
 assumed to be Christian from certain indications without definite 
 proof, and the earliest which is quite indisputable belongs to the 
 year 234.^ 
 
 From Rome again I pass to Gaul. It is recorded in the martyro- 
 logy of Saturninus, who was appointed missionary Bishop of Toulouse 
 in the year 250, that at this time "only a church had been raised 
 
 ^ Euseb. H. E. vi. 43. Cornelius also states that there were m the Roman 
 Church 46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, and 50 readers, 
 exorcists, and porters. 
 
 2 S. Chrysostom (vii. p. 810, ed. Bened.) reckons the number of the Christians 
 at Antioch, on a rough calculation (oT^at)> 'T-t 100,000. In another passage (vii. 
 p. 658) he states that the number of widows and virgins receiving the alms of the 
 Church there is 3,000. As the progress of Christianity was less rapid among the 
 wealthier classes in the earlier ages than in the later, we are almost certainly on the 
 safe side wheji we apply to the middle of the third centuiy this proportion which 
 belongs to the end of the fourth. It should be added, that Cornelius includes 
 others besides widows and virgins in the 1,500. 
 
 3 Gibbon remarks in his note (ii. p. 366) that this proportion was first fixed for 
 Rome by Burnet, and approved by Movie, though they were ignorant of the 
 passage in Chrysostom. He adds that this passage "converts their conjecture 
 almost into a fact." 
 
 ^ For estimates of the population of Rome see Friedlander, Sitiengeschi&hte 
 Roms, i. p. 23 ; Becker nnd Marquardt, Kom. Alterth., iii, 2, p. loi. 
 
 '" On the other hand, some of those included among the collections of heathen 
 in^c^iptions may have been Christian, though they give no indication of the fact.
 
 Aticient a?id Modem Missions. 7 
 
 here and there in some cities " of Gaul, " by the devotion of a few- 
 Christians." ^ It is true that more than two generations before the 
 martyrdoms at Vienne and Lyons bear witness to the presence of many 
 zealous Christians in those cities ; but these, as may be gathered 
 from the narrative, were chiefly Greek and Asiatic settlers. ^ In the 
 middle of the third century then, we may reasonably infer that 
 native Gaul was not more Christian than native India is at the 
 present time. 
 
 These facts relate to some of the principal cities of the Empire ; 
 and if the proportion of the Christians even in these was so small, 
 what must it have been in the rural districts ? The word " pagan " 
 tells its own tale. Long after the inhabitants of the cities had been 
 converted to Christianity, the peasant still remained a synonyme for 
 the unbeliever. 
 
 From such notices as these Gibbon argues that at the time of 
 Constantine's conversion not more than a twentieth part of the sub- 
 jects of the Empire had enlisted themselves under the banner of the 
 Cross, and this, on " the most favourable calculation." ^ Of the age of 
 Constantine I dare affirm nothing, for the notices do not refer to 
 this late date ; and moreover there are indications of a rapid increase 
 during the interval ; but at the time of which I am speaking, the 
 middle of the third century, we may feel tolerably confident that we 
 are overstating the proportion if we reckon the Christians at one- 
 twentieth of the subjects of the Empire.* 
 
 And if so, what was this proportion to the population of the whole 
 world? Here we have to take account of the densely peopled 
 empires of the East, such as India and China ; we have to reckon in 
 the swarming tribes of barbarians who poured down upon the Empire 
 
 ^ Rumart, Act. Sine. Mart. p. 130, " Rar^ in aliquibus civitatibus ecclesise 
 paucorum Christianorum devotione consurgerent." 
 
 2 Euseb. V. i. The date of the letter in which these martyrdoms are recorded is 
 A.D, 177. The points to be observed are : (i) That the names of the sufferers 
 are Greek or Latin ; (2) That two are distinctly stated to have come from Asia 
 Minor; (3) That the letter is addressed to the "brethren of Asia and Phrygia," 
 evidently because these latter were nearly interested in the incidents ; (4) That 
 the Churche:-: of Gaul at this time are known to have been indebted to Asia Minor 
 for their leaders, as e.g. in the case of Irenaeus. 
 
 •^ ii. p. 372. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, i. p. 152, estimates 
 the proporti(.in at one-tenth ; Robertson (i. p, 156), whose estimate seems to be as 
 high as any, at one-fifth. I abstain from conjecture where there is an absence of 
 data ; but attention should be directed to the fact that the spread of Christianity 
 appears to have been very rapid between the Decian and Diocletian persecutions, 
 in the last half of the third century. 
 
 * Even if the proportion were three or fourfold greater, which is highly impro- 
 bable, it would be difficult to justify the language held by the leading journal in 
 an article on the day of Intercession : " Once on a time a man {i.e. S. Paul) landed 
 on the shores of Europe determined to convert it, and he did convert, for his work 
 is done after some sort, if not quite as it should be."
 
 8 Comparative Progress of 
 
 in countless hordes from the north and north-east, within a very few- 
 years j we have to allow for the unexplored regions of Africa, the 
 unknown western hemisphere, the countless islands of the ocean. 
 Should we then be wronging the Empire if we estimated its subjects 
 as constituting from one-seventh to one-tenth of the whole population 
 of the globe ? If so, the Christians at this time cannot, on the most 
 favourable computation, have amounted to much more than i|oth of 
 the whole human race ; for the scanty congregations outside the 
 limits of the Empire may be dismissed from our reckoning, as they 
 would not appreciably aftect the result. I am quite aware that the 
 relative strength of Christendom at the two epochs is determined by 
 other considerations as well as the numbers. But, after all deduc- 
 tions made on this account, shall we suffer ourselves to be over- 
 whelmed with dismay because, as we pass from the third century 
 to the nineteenth, the proportion of one in 150 is only exchanged to 
 one in five ? 
 
 Soon after the epoch which I have chosen, the proportion doubt- 
 less was vastly increased.^ The conversion of the Emperor had an 
 enormous influence on the conversion of the Empire. Then the bar- 
 barian tribes poured in, sweeping everything before them. They 
 came, saw, and were conquered. Mohammedanism constrained the 
 vanquished, but Christianity conquered the conqueror. Yet even then 
 it is quite a mistake to suppose that wherever the banner of the 
 Gospel was carried the victory was rapid and complete. Take the 
 case of our own island. There were Christians in Britain at all 
 events before the end of the second century, when Tertullian wrote. ^ 
 Yet four centuries later, when Augustine landed, he found the Chris- 
 tian communities feeble and insignificant — so feeble, that they had 
 done nothing towards evangelizing the Teutonic invaders, though a 
 whole century had elapsed since their occujDation of the island. And 
 shall we then, with this lesson before us, hang our hands in despair 
 because after a little more than half a century of not too zealous mis- 
 
 ^ Yet even at the close of the fourth century wS. Chrysostom, who certainly 
 would not be likely to underrate their numbers, reckons the Christians of Antioch 
 at 100,000 (vii. p, 810), while he states the whole population of the city to 
 be 200,000 (ii. p. 597). Consistently with this he elsewhere (i. p. 592) speaks of 
 the Christians as "the majority of the city" (to i:\iov rrjs TiSXecos). Gibbon, over- 
 looking the second passage, reckons the whole population of Antioch at "not less 
 than half a million," so that the Christians would only form one-fifth of the whole, 
 and endeavours to show that this estimate is consistent with the third passage. But 
 whatever reasons there may be for taking this larger estimate of the population, it 
 was clearly not S. Chrysostom's. Still the fact is striking enough that "after 
 Christianity had enjoyetl during more than sixty years the sunshine of Imperial 
 favour," the Christians constituted only about lialf of the population in a city 
 which had had greater advantages than any otlier. 
 
 ^ Tertul). (^^Z"'. ym/. c. 7, " Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loc:.''
 
 Ancient and Modern Missions. 9 
 
 sionary effort/ India is not already prostrate at the foot of the Cross ? 
 But let me pass from this comparison of proportions to some 
 analogies between ancient and modern missions, which also have 
 their lessons of consolation and encouragement. 
 
 (i.) When we look to the history of ancient missions, we find an 
 enormous difference in the rates of progress with different religions 
 and races. The rude and barbarous northern tribes seem to fall 
 like full-ripe fruit before the first breath of the Gospel. The Goths 
 and the Vandals who poured down upon the Roman Empire were 
 evangelized so silently or so rapidly that only a fact here and 
 there relating to their conversion has been preserved. At a later 
 date the baptism of a prince carries with it the baptism 'of his people. 
 Clovis among the Franks, Ethelbert in Kent, are instances of this. 
 But wherever the Gospel found itself confronted with a high 
 civilization and an old historic religion, the case was widely different. 
 The religion of Rome was interwoven with its history, with its literature, 
 with its institutions, with the whole texture of its domestic and political 
 Hfe. Against this mass of time-honoured custom and prestige the 
 wave of the Gospel beat for centuries in vain. Slowly and gradually 
 it was undermining the fabric, but no striking results were immediately 
 visible. It is an established fact that the Roman Church for the 
 first two centuries was not Latin. It was composed of Greeks and 
 Orientals, who had made the metropolis their home. Its bishops 
 were Greek, its language was Greek. More than half a century after 
 Constantine's conversion, it is, I think, plain that old Latin Rome — 
 the. senate, the aristocracy, the cultivated and influential classes — 
 was still in great part pagan, so far as it was anything. Not very dis- 
 similar was the case of Athens. St. Paul, though eminently successful 
 with the mixed and floating population of her neighbour Corinth, 
 produced next to no immediate effect on this historic centre of Greek 
 culture and religion, this stronghold of an ancient lEiailaiixovia. 
 
 Now all this is exactly analogous to our modern experience in 
 India. The success of our missions among the rude aboriginal or 
 non-Aryan tribes is everywhere astonishing. Here alone is an 
 enormous field for missionary enterprise : for these races are said to 
 amount in the aggregate to not less than forty millions of people. I 
 
 1 " Bearing in mind," wrote Lord Lawrence to the Times, ^2cs\. 4, 1873, "that 
 general missionary effort in India dates from 1 81 3, and that even now missionaries 
 are sent forth in such inadequate numbers, that, with few exceptions, only the large 
 towns and centres have been occupied (some of them with a single missionary), it 
 was scarcely to be expected that in the course of sixty years the idols of India would 
 be utterly abolished ; the wonder rather is that already there are so many unmis- 
 takeable indications that Hinduism is fast losing its hold upon the affections of the 
 people."
 
 lo Co7nparative Progress of 
 
 have heard it stated (and, so far as I can see, the statement is quite 
 justified by past experience) that we have only to send fairly zealous 
 missionaries among them in sufficient force, and their conversion in 
 any numbers may be reckoned on almost as a matter of course. 
 Only the other day I was shown a letter from the chief missionary 
 station among the Kols. At a recent visit of the Bishop to this 
 station there were not less than 250 communicants in one day, and 
 375 on the next — none the same as those who had communicated the 
 day before. Are there many churches in England where such a 
 muster as this could be found ? On this same occasion 5 natives 
 were ordained deacons and more than 250 confirmed j and in the 
 last twelve months over 700 persons have been baptized, of whom 
 more than 450 are converts from heathenism, with their children. 
 The missionary triumphs among the ruder tribes in another part of 
 India, in Tinnevelly, are well known. The number of native Chris- 
 tians there now amounts, I believe, to 50,000 or more. It increases 
 quite as rapidly as, with the existing staff of teachers, we ought 
 perhaps to desire. But with the Hindoo proper the Gospel has 
 hitherto made no progress, which is very appreciable at a distance. 
 Does history encourage us to expect any other result ? Not in one 
 generation, nor in two, nor perhaps in ten, will the victory be achieved. 
 We must be prepared to labour and to wait. If our faith needs 
 sustaining by immediate tangible results, we must look elsewhere for 
 consolation — to the ruder tribes of India of whom I have just spoken ; 
 or to Sierra Leone, where at least seven-eighths of the people are now 
 Christians, though the first mission does not date farther back than 
 the present century ; or to New Zealand, where the native population 
 was converted almost within a single generation. 
 
 (2.) But again ; it is a patent fact, becoming more patent every 
 day, that though the educated Hindoo does not readily embrace 
 Christian it}^, yet his own religion is relaxing its hold upon him. The 
 prominence given to this " disintegrating agency " of contact with 
 Christianity is perhaps the most remarkable feature in Sir B. Frere's 
 very remarkable paper on Indian Missions. " Statistical facts," he 
 says, " can in no way convey any adequate idea of the work done in 
 any part of India. The effect is often enormous, where there has not 
 been a single avowed conversion." ^ To some persons this negative 
 
 ^ The CJiurch and the Age, p. 339. In a lecture delivered July 9th, 1872, 
 Sir B. Frere speaks even more strongly : "I assure you that, whatever you may be 
 told to the contrary, the teaching of Christianity among 160 millions of civilized 
 industrious Hindus and Mohammedans in India is effecting chnnges, moral, social, 
 and pulilical, which for extent and rapidity of effect are far more extraordinary than 
 you or your fathers have witnessed in modern Europe.' The testimony of Lord 
 Lawrence, in the letter alreaily quoted, is to the same effect.
 
 A?icient and Modern ^Missions. ii 
 
 result may not appear a very encouraging fact. Yet, read by the 
 light of history, it is far from the reverse ; for history teaches us to 
 regard this as a natural, almost a necessary, stage of transition from 
 an ancient historic religion to Christianity. It is the great shaking 
 of the nation which, in the prophet's image, preludes the inpour- 
 ing of its gifts to the temple of the Lord.^ The cultivated classes 
 among the Greeks and Romans passed through a period of deism 
 or of scepticism, after the popular mythology had ceased to satisfy 
 and before Christianity had secured its hold. The Brahma Somaj 
 is not the first instance in the history of Christianity where a system 
 too vague and shadowy and too deficient in the elements of a per- 
 manent religion has filled the interval between the abandonment of 
 the old and the acceptance of the new. 
 
 (3.) But we may carry our comparison a step further. If ancient 
 missionary history, like modern, has had its periods of slow and pain- 
 ful progress, the importance of such periods has been vindicated in 
 the sequel. These epochs of patient working and waiting have been 
 succeeded by magnificent and sudden triumphs — fitful and capricious, 
 as we might be disposed to regard them. But is it not more reason- 
 able to look upon these triumphs as the long-deferred fruit of painful 
 labour which has been expended in tilling the ground ? Thus, when 
 very little seemed to be doing, as a matter of fact everything was 
 doing. Such a time of preparation was the period preceding the date 
 which I took as my starting point, the middle of the third century of 
 the Christian era. The missionaries in New Zealand worked on for 
 several years without making a single convert, for full twenty years 
 without producing any striking effect. All at once the aspect of 
 things was changed, and within an incredibly short space of time 
 more than half the Maori population became Christians. Can we 
 suppose that there was no connection between those long labours and 
 that rapid triumph ? Shall we believe that if Mr. Marsden had first 
 visited New Zealand at the end of those twenty years, instead of the 
 beginning, the result would have been quite the same ? But let us 
 apply this experience to our Indian Empire. We are still in the midst — 
 perhaps not yet in the midst- of this probationary period : for where 
 the aim is more magnificent, the effort also will be prolonged. But 
 shall we throw away all the toil expended in preparing and watering 
 the ground, because the plant has hardly yet appeared above the 
 surface of the soil, and the harvest is still distant ? 
 
 And indeed, though the progress has not been so rapid as our zeal 
 or our impatience would demand, it has been distinct, and it has been 
 
 ^ Haggai ii. 7,
 
 12 Comparative Progress of 
 
 steady. The decennial returns of Indian Missions for the years 
 185 1, 186 1, and 187 1 have been placed in my hands. I find that 
 the rate of increase is, roughly speaking, 50 per cent, in each decen- 
 nium. The numbers of native Christians, catechumens, and learners 
 at these three dates are over 91,000, 138,000, and 224,000 respec- 
 tively. Thus the numbers have considerably more than doubled in 
 twenty years. This return does not include the independent States ; 
 neither does it include Burmah, in which latter territory alone the 
 numbers of native Christians at the end of the year 1861 amounted 
 to nearly 60,000, the progress of the Burmese missions having been 
 remarkably rapid. Moreover, these calculations do not comprise the 
 Roman Catholic missions, of which I have no returns, and which 
 doubtless would very largely swell the numbers. The totals in them- 
 selves, I ventvrre to think, do not at all justify the disparaging language 
 which we frequently hear ; but the point on which I would especially 
 lay stress is the steadiness of the increase. 
 
 For this steadiness is the most healthy sign. Where whole multi- 
 tudes are suddenly converted without any previous preparation, the 
 result is always precarious. What was the after-history of those 
 500,000 whom S. Francis Xavier is said to have evangelized in the 
 south in nine years, when the magic of his personal presence was 
 withdrawn ? Or of those 300,000 Singalese whom the Dutch in 
 Ceylon had already converted at the close of the seventeenth century, 
 when the Dutch supremacy was removed ? 
 
 (4.) Again; we hear much of the obstacles thrown in the way of 
 missionary success by the divisions between Christian and Christian. 
 We may indeed quote the high authority of Sir B. Frere for saying 
 that this hindrance is much less on the spot than it appears at a dis- 
 tance. But let it be granted that we have here a most serious 
 impediment to our progress. Was there nothing corresponding to 
 it in the first ages of the Church ? We need only recall the names 
 of Ebionites, Basilideans, Ophites, Valentinians, Marcionites, and 
 numberless other heretical sects — differing from each other and 
 from the Catholic Church incomparably more widely in creed than 
 the Baptist differs from the Romanist — to dispel this illusion at 
 once. The sectarian divisions of the early Christians supply their 
 heathen adversary Celsus with a capital argument against the claims 
 of the Gospel and the Church. Nos passi gravm-a. We have 
 surmounted worse obstacles than these of to-day. 
 
 (5.) Lastly: whatever discouragements we may have encountered 
 in our English missions in this nineteenth century, they pale into 
 insignificance before the unparalleled disasters which have overtaken
 
 Ancient and Modern Missions. 
 
 13 
 
 the Church of Christ in the past, and from which nevertheless she 
 has ever risen again to develop fresh energies and achieve higher 
 victories. Shall we be disheartened if at one point the frontier of 
 Christianity should seem to be receding rather than advancing, or if 
 at another some tribe of converts should suddenly relapse into semi- 
 heathenism ? Let us remember how the once flourishing and populous 
 Church of Africa, with its 600 or 700 bishoprics, dwindled away under 
 the withering blast of the Donatist schism and the ruthless devasta- 
 tions of the Vandal invasion, till at length the inpouring tide oi 
 Mohammedanism overwhelmed the land and swept away the last traces 
 of its existence. Or, if we would console ourselves with an example 
 on a yet grander scale, we may place ourselves in imagination in the 
 middle of the tenth century, and survey the scene of desolation which 
 meets the eye on every side. I can compare the condition of the 
 Church at this epoch to nothing else but the fate of the prisoner in 
 the story as he awakens to the fact that the walls of his iron den are 
 closing in upon him, and shudders to think of the inevitable end. 
 For on all sides the heathen and the infidel were tightening their grip 
 upon Christendom. On the north and west, the pagan Scandinavians 
 hanging about every coast and pouring in at every inlet ; on the east, 
 the pagan Hungarians swarming like locusts and devastating Europe 
 from the Baltic to the Alps ; on the south and south-east, the infidel 
 Saracens pressing on and on with their victorious hosts — it seemed as 
 if every pore of life were choked, and Christendom must be stifled 
 and smothered in the fatal embrace. But Christendom revived, 
 flourished, spread. How then shall we suffer a petty disappointment 
 here or there in the wide field of missionary enterprise to dishearten 
 and to paralyse us, where there is so much to cheer and to stimulate ? 
 Again I say, JVos passi gravioi'a. We have survived worse calamities 
 than these. 
 
 In this comparison of the present with the past, I have attempted 
 to show that the missions of the nineteenth century are in no sense a 
 failure. But I seem to see the advent of a more glorious future, if 
 we will only nerve ourselves to renewed efforts. During the past 
 half-century we have only been learnmg our work, as a missionary 
 Church. At length experience is beginning to tell. India is our 
 special charge, as a Christian nation ; India is our hardest problem, 
 as a missionary Church. Hitherto we have kept too exclusively to 
 beaten paths. Our mode of dealing with the Indian has been too 
 conventional, too English. Indian Christianity can never be cast in 
 the same mould as English Christianity. We must make up our 
 minds to this. The stamp of teaching, the mode of life, which
 
 14 Comparative Progress of Ancient and Aloderji Missions. 
 
 experience has justified as the best possible for an English parish, 
 may be very unfit when transplanted into an Indian soil. We must 
 become as Indians to the Indian, if we would win India to Christ. 
 This lesson of the past I find frankly recognized and courageously 
 avowed from at least two distinct quarters of the Indian Mission 
 field quite recently — in the stirring appeal which the Bishop of Bombay 
 has addressed to the English Church through our Archbishop, and 
 in those noble letters from Lahore, so zealous, so thoughtful, and 
 so bold, which Mr. French has written to the Church Missionary 
 Society. This coincidence, representing, as I doubt not, a much wider 
 feeling, is surely full of hope for the future. 
 
 LONDON : R. CI.A.Y, SONS, AND I'AYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.
 
 RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON MISSIONS. 
 
 1. THE GREAT COMMISSION : Meditations on Home 
 
 and Foreign Missions. By Dean Goulburn. Price 2d. (Rivingtons. ) 
 
 2. INDIAN MISSIONS : A letter addressed to the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury by the Bishop of Bombay. New Edition, dd. 
 (Rivingtons. ) 
 
 3. INDIAN MISSIONS. By Sir Bartle Frere, 
 
 G.C.S.I., &c. Reprinted frovi '^ The CJiiirch and the Age.'' (Murray, 
 Albemarle Street.) 
 
 4. HAVE MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN BEEN 
 
 A FAILURE? An Answer to some popular Objections. By the Rev. 
 A. R. Symonds, M.A. Price 3c/. (George Bell and Sons.) 
 
 5. UNDER HIS BANNER : Papers on the Missionary 
 
 Work of Modern Times. By the Rev. H. W. Tucker, Assistant Secretary 
 of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, ^s. (Society for Pro- 
 moting Christian Knowledge, Lincoln's Lm Fields, W.C. ) 
 
 6. THE CONQUEST OF THE EARTH : Sermon 
 
 Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral at the 172nd Anniversary of the Society, 
 July 2, 1873, by the Lord Bishop of Derry. Price 6(/. (George Bell 
 and Sons.) 
 
 7. THE UNIVERSAL KINGDOM OF CHRIST: 
 
 Sermon Preached in Peterborough Cathedral on July 3, 1873, by Alfred 
 Barry, D.D,, Principal of King's College, London, and Canon of Wor- 
 cester. Price id. (Hamilton, Adams and Co.) 
 
 8. VALUE OF MISSIONS IN INDIA, Estimated by 
 
 Laymen who have Seen Them. (Published by the Society for the Pro- 
 pagation of the Gospel, 20, Duke Street, Westminster.) 
 
 9. PRESENT RESULTS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS 
 
 OF EXLSTING MISSIONS IN INDIA. Extracted from a Statement 
 of the Progress of India, prepared at the India Office and based on the 
 Administrative Reports and other information received from India, and 
 printed by order of the House of Commons. Price id. (Published by the 
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