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 OCCASIONAL PAPER. 
 
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 IN CONNEXION WITH THE S.P.G. 
 
 INDIA'S RELIGIOUS NEEDS. 
 
 CY THE 
 
 REV. S. S. ALLNUTT, M.A. 
 
 of st John's college and the Cambridge mission. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
 1888
 
 The following Sermon was preached before the University on Sunday, March 
 ii, 1888, and is now printed at the request of the Committee as an Occasional 
 Paper. I have added notes on one or two points which seemed to call for some 
 further illustration. 
 
 S. S. ALLNUTT.
 
 "And he said, Ye have taken away my gods which I made, and 
 the priest, and are gone away, and what have I more ? and how then 
 say ye unto 7?ie, What aileth theeV Judges xviii. 24. 
 
 Such was the pathetic complaint of the idolatrous Jew in the days 
 when there was no king in Israel and every man did that which was 
 right in his own eyes. He had come to his home and found it 
 stripped of all that he had been wont to rely on for help and 
 guidance in his life, and when he has gone in pursuit and the 
 depredators with affected surprise ask what ails him, he feels as 
 if the question were a cruel mockery, an adding of insult to injury, 
 to have taken away all he valued most in the world and then turn 
 and ask with such utter nonchalance what ailed him. "Ye have 
 taken away my gods which I made, and what have I more?" 
 
 Do we consider that a man situated as this man was a fit object 
 of pity and sympathy or not ? 
 
 The stern, uncompromising iconoclast would certainly say "No." 
 He would feel that it was better for such an one to find out by 
 bitter experience how vain and useless were the idols in which he 
 trusted. In and through his desolation he might be brought to 
 seek for help where alone it could be found. 
 
 The mild, tolerant student of comparative religion would pro- 
 bably say " Yes." He would urge on his behalf that (as a French- 
 man has lately undertaken to show) at that particular point in the 
 evolution of Jewish religion from its primitive worship of invisible 
 forces, it was inevitable that the worshipper should seek to give 
 concrete form and embodiment to the anthropomorphic idea of God 
 which was then being assimilated from the nations around. For 
 such an one to be deprived of his idols was to be put out of rapport 
 and correspondence with his religious environment, and as that 
 meant spiritual death, he clearly deserves our pity in his destitution. 
 
 Turning, however, from the merely speculative interest which 
 the ancient Israelite's case presents, I wish to transfer it, "as in a
 
 figure," to the very real and practical interest presented by the 
 parallel situation of a large section of our fellow-subjects in India ; 
 and to endeavour to answer the question just raised by considering 
 what our duty to them is. For in the main the plea of the Jew 
 of Mount Ephraim is being echoed now either in unexpressed 
 feeling or in outspoken utterance by thousands of religious-minded 
 Hindus in India. "Ye have taken away my gods which I made, 
 and what have I more ? " This plea is one the force of which my 
 own work in India has so brought home to me, that I felt when 
 asked to occupy this pulpit that my only justification in doing so 
 would be that it would enable me, as a member of the first brother- 
 hood of men sent out to India from this University, to articulate 
 this plea by endeavouring to interpret its meaning, and to suggest its 
 satisfaction. However it might be wished that the task had fallen to 
 worthier hands, it would be wrong, I felt, to postpone the representa- 
 tion of India's great and urgent need, as well as of the unique 
 opportunity now offered to our Church of satisfying that need, if she 
 will recognise it and her duty towards it before it be too late. 
 
 In its general form the nature of the problem it presents is, I 
 am sure, well understood here. What is needed is that it should, 
 as occasion may serve, be so accentuated that interest may be 
 directed to the immediate hopes and fears of the crisis, and so be 
 quickened and stimulated to practical action. I cannot, indeed, 
 disguise from myself that the interests of other problems nearer 
 home are so intensified, so engrossing, that it would be only natural 
 if the urgency of such far distant claims as I represent should be, so 
 to say, crowded out by the insistent questions which press for an 
 answer in our modern life in England. 
 
 And yet, when I think how wide and catholic is the spirit of en- 
 quiry here, and how far-reaching its range and scope, it seems as 
 natural to be emboldened to hope that a recognition of the distant 
 problems too, and of the way in which Cambridge is fitted to 
 contribute to their solution, will lead to an increase not only of 
 attention but of active cooperation, it may be, too, of personal 
 consecration to the work. 
 
 Recent controversy has served to rouse attention once again to 
 the varied aspects of the great Indian problem. It is only with 
 one portion of it, however, that I would attempt to deal today ; 
 that, namely, which is connected with the sphere of Christian 
 education. It would be to repeat an oft-told tale to recount at 
 
 'owe.
 
 any length what has been and will be increasingly the necessary 
 result of such contact of the West with the East as our rule in India 
 has brought about. That contact is unique and unprecedented in 
 some if not all of its conditions, and must be expected to produce 
 strange and unlooked for, even contradictory, results. But it is of 
 the moral aspect of them only that I wish to speak here. When 
 the Government of India decided that State education must be 
 conducted on the principle of religious neutrality and non-inter- 
 ference, it does not appear whether the disintegrating effect of purely 
 secular instruction was fully realized. It was, indeed, foreseen that 
 young men taught from childhood the simple plain truths of Western 
 science would inevitably come to abandon the false science which is 
 inextricably interwoven with the religious systems of the East. But 
 it does not seem to have been foreseen that in abandoning the false 
 tenets of their science they would be led to abandon not only the 
 rest of their ancestral religion, but the moral sanctions, the safe- 
 guards and preservatives which the caste system of that religion, 
 fraught though it is with peril and injury to the sense of individuality 
 and independence, has fostered and maintained. 
 
 What in short was not foreseen, but is now being daily found to 
 be the inevitable result of the State system of education, is that 
 while it tends to destroy much that was hurtful and fatal to progress, 
 it fails to supply the place of what it destroys by any new and 
 vital principle of cohesion and solidarity. The son goes back to 
 his home and announces to his parents that he has learnt to rise 
 superior to caste traditions and prejudices, and it is found that 
 what this amounts to practically is, that while he has a veneer of 
 Western learning and science, he has lost his hold of what is the 
 very life and soul of any society, the sense of obedience, of rever- 
 ence, of duty in the family and in the State. He has gained, indeed, 
 ideas of freedom, of independence, of equality, of self-assertion, 
 but if he has lost or is in danger of losing these other ideas, which 
 surely it is true to say are more fundamental and indispensable for 
 the well-being of the family and the nation, is not the loss likely 
 to be greater than the gain, at any rate for the Indian ? For has it 
 not been ordered for us in our Western civilization most provi- 
 dentially and most significantly that the evolution of the ideas 
 necessary to progress should have come when what may be called 
 the basal ideas necessary for cohesion, permanence and continuity 
 had already become established in the consciousness of the nations
 
 moulded by Christianity. And if this be so, we can judge how 
 great must be the peril for India if at the very moment when the 
 new ideas have been apprehended, (and they entirely, be it remem- 
 bered, of Western origin and importation), the old ones have begun 
 to become weak and lose their force. If there is any virtue which 
 the caste system can claim to have developed and preserved, it is 
 the instinct of reverence and obedience. And it is this instinct 
 which it is the tendency of our education to weaken if not to destroy. 
 And further, it is precisely in those parts of India which are most 
 advanced in Western knowledge where this tendency is seen in its 
 fullest development 1 . 
 
 What wonder is it then that the parent who hears of the boasted 
 advantages of Western science and education, bewails the result of 
 it in words which seem an echo of the cry of the Jew of Mount 
 Ephraim, "Ye have taken away my gods which I made, and what 
 have I more ? and how then say ye unto me, What aileth thee ? " 
 
 What wonder if we .hear that a father finding that his son was 
 expelled from a Mission School because of irreverence during the 
 Bible lesson, went to the Missionary and on his knees implored 
 him to take back his son, because, he said, the Bible inculcates 
 obedience to parents, and I therefore want my son to learn the 
 Bible ? 
 
 But this is not all. The student, bereft of the moral sanctions 
 of his religion and supplied with no new motives to obedience 
 and rectitude, is exposed to yet other dangers. If the demon of 
 superstition has been expelled, there are the seven other spirits 
 more wicked than the first, ready to rush in and occupy the vacant 
 cheerless room. For the mental faculties of the Indian student 
 are far in advance of his moral faculties. This is so naturally ; and 
 when the course of education tends almost exclusively to develope 
 the intellectual part of him, the disparity becomes all the more 
 marked. The moral element in him, already of weakened vitality, 
 is gradually starved out, and the struggle for superiority is rather 
 between the animal and the intellectual. I speak of course of the 
 student generically. There are many noble exceptions, but they 
 cannot redeem a system which condemns the majority to moral 
 sterility. The average student, as we know him, is restlessly, 
 insatiably acquisitive, too shallow and conceited to think or know of 
 danger, without balance of mind, and with but the rudiments of a 
 
 1 See note A.
 
 conscience : what wonder if he drift from the old moorings, without 
 rudder to steer by, and, cast helpless on some one of the scarce 
 hidden rocks before him, make shipwreck of his soul? Still less 
 is it to be wondered at if the rocks on which he founders are those 
 which contact with certain phases of our Western thought and life 
 (alas ! that we should have to confess it,) render him peculiarly 
 liable to run foul of. The intellectual rock is atheism, rampant, 
 vaunting, undisguised, imported direct from England by an active 
 propaganda. The very fact that it is English and anti-christian, 
 gives it attraction, and its propagators take care that the student 
 even during his course shall receive, often gratuitously, publications 
 tending to undermine not only his faith in God, but his very morals 
 and character. Their word does indeed eat as doth a gangrene. 
 The moral dangers to which he is specially exposed are inchastity 
 and intemperance. So deeply have these evils begun to gangrene 
 the life of students that in Calcutta, where they have naturally 
 spread more rapidly than elsewhere, leading Hindus have begun in 
 alarm to establish temperance and kindred societies for the repression 
 of vice. What must be the manhood of youths whose life has been 
 thus poisoned and corrupted at the source, it is terrible to con- 
 template. 
 
 That Government is at length fully alive, not only to the exist- 
 ence of the danger, but to the need of taking some remedial measures 
 to deal with it, is shown by a most important state document, just 
 issued by the present Viceroy. In it he laments the want of any 
 earnest endeavour to introduce the moral element into state educa- 
 tion. His words read almost like a satire on the present system. 
 " The intellectual part of the process (of imparting Western educa- 
 tion) has," he says, " made good progress. It remains to introduce 
 the moral element, which forms the most prominent factor of the 
 European theory of education 1 ." 
 
 There is no need to point the moral of this as regards the action 
 of Government in the past. Nor is this the place to consider 
 whether the repentance has not come too late, or whether it is 
 possible to introduce the moral element which is thus confessed to 
 have been so far lacking. My object is rather to point the moral 
 as strongly and urgently as I can in regard to the duty of the 
 Church in the face of this now admitted evil. Eor while we should 
 
 1 See note 13.
 
 8 
 
 welcome any effort made by the State to remedy the evil, is it not 
 evident that for the real and effectual solution of the problem thus 
 presented, the Church of Christ is alone competent ? It is, I am 
 sure, useless to look to the people themselves to take the needed 
 action. Though they see and feel the evil, they lack the moral 
 energy, the practical wisdom to cope with a difficulty of such 
 dimensions. Nor can they look to their religious leaders to help 
 them. They can but tell them that it is their destiny to be so 
 demoralized. For was it not foretold that in the fourth or iron age 
 of the world foreigners would possess their lands and take away 
 their religion ? Such fatalistic belief has long since paralysed the 
 very springs of action. Its force is so subtle, its influence so 
 benumbing, its results so fatal. 
 
 Nor can we look to the leaders of the reform party for effective 
 cooperation. The cry is indeed everywhere for reform, but it is 
 mainly if not entirely in the narrow political or social meaning of 
 the words that reform is now being clamoured for. An example will 
 give point to what I mean. A leader of native society in Bombay 
 recently issued a manifesto in which he described in appalling terms 
 the extent of the evils rife in their society. But, he went on to say, 
 since our society is made of so many castes and creeds, it is clear 
 if we would find a common platform to unite all shades of belief and 
 opinion, the agents of reform must cooperate on a purely political 
 basis, and having gained electoral and other rights, leave the other 
 evils to right themselves. Could a manifesto express more clearly 
 the real character and condition of the people or demonstrate more 
 completely that, in the work of moral regeneration, which to be 
 effective must be radical, it is vain for us to look for help from those 
 whose ability and zeal would seem to mark them out as the natural 
 leaders of their fellow-countrymen ? 
 
 If we recall for one moment what made the Reformation in 
 Europe such a power for good, we cannot but be struck by the fact 
 that what made it so was the assertion, stereotyped indeed into a 
 formula, but still a formula instinct with life, of the truth that until 
 man is right with God he cannot be truly, permanently right with his 
 neighbour; of the need of moral change and regeneration as the 
 starting point and prime condition of all true reform. 
 
 It is the absence of such a conviction which condemns before- 
 hand to ultimate failure the attempts of the best-intentioned re- 
 formers in India. For
 
 9 
 
 "How can they fight for truth and God 
 Enthralled by lies and sin ? 
 He who would wage such war on earth 
 Must first be true within." 
 
 And this, let me ask you to notice, is a defect which applies to all 
 classes and creeds alike. The chief reforming party in North India 
 in the present day is known as the Arya Samaj. Its adherents take 
 their stand on the hymns of the Veda and reject all the subsequent 
 accretions of Hinduism, as inventions and impostures. But the 
 teaching of the founder on the subject of sin may be judged by this 
 one fact, that in his treatment of the great theme of salvation, there is 
 not a single allusion to sin, as that from which man has to be set 
 free. And his followers, adopting Christian phraseology, yet show 
 the gulf which separates them from Christian thought by publishing 
 for their worship a series of litanies, in none of which is there a 
 single mention of sin or moral evil \ 
 
 Nor in this respect are Muhammadans in advance of their Hindu 
 fellow-countrymen. I have not in what I have said of the evil tendency 
 of the present system of state education in India had occasion to 
 refer to the effect of it on Muhammadans, for they have until lately 
 stood as a body so aloof from our education that it is not easy or 
 perhaps possible to pronounce on the kind of effect which it will 
 have on their religious convictions and character. But if we would 
 see how little in any work of reform they are likely to go to the root 
 of the evil, we have only to look at the character of the prayers 
 which every pious Musalman daily offers up. In the forms used by 
 him at such times there is not a single distinct allusion to sin or 
 confession of sinfulness. The Shi'a worshipper does, indeed, in one 
 place say, "I seek forgiveness from God my Lord, and I repent 
 before Him." But the orthodox Muhammadan in India would 
 disdain to use the prayer, and brands the user of it as a forsaker of 
 the truth (Rafiz). 
 
 So, then, if we can look neither to the reforming Hindu nor the 
 pious Musalman for a recognition of the truth, which must be the 
 first article in the programme of a truly vital and effective scheme of 
 national reformation, we are led by exhaustive process to the con- 
 clusion that it is to the Christian Church, and that alone, that we 
 must turn for the assertion and vindication of the principles of true 
 
 1 See note C. 
 
 i—5
 
 IO 
 
 reform, as well as for the moral dynamic which is to energize and 
 embody them in and through an actual visible living society. 
 
 And it is quite wonderful to notice how India's need of the 
 Gospel is being recognised on all sides and in the most unexpected 
 quarters. The politician looks to the spread of Christianity as one 
 great source of strength and stability for the permanence of British 
 Empire. The educationalist looks to our native Christian women 
 as at present the most hopeful means of making female education 
 effective among the upper classes. The greatest living authority on 
 Indian subjects has lately said, "Christianity holds out advantages of 
 social organization not offered by Hinduism or Islam. It provides 
 for the education and moral supervision of its people with a pastoral 
 care which Islam, destitute of a regular priesthood, does not pretend 
 to. It receives the new members into its body with a cordiality and 
 a completeness to which Hinduism is a stranger. I believe," he 
 says, " it is reserved for Christianity to develope the highest uses of 
 Indian caste, 'as a system of conservative socialism.' . . . But it will 
 be Indian caste humanized by a new spiritual life 1 ." 
 
 Or to take one or two more specific cases. The tahsildar or 
 head native officer of a large country town appeals to a missionary 
 to send a Christian teacher for a Hindu school, because he finds the 
 Hindu teachers have yielded to the prevailing immorality of the 
 town 2 . The municipality of a large city in the Punjab appoints a 
 native Christian minister its Chairman because they can find no 
 other man so high-minded and honest for the post. The only great 
 modern religious reformer India has produced bore witness on his 
 deathbed to India's need of Christ 3 . 
 
 Quite as striking is the indirect testimony borne by the various 
 movements and societies, sometimes friendly, more often antago- 
 nistic, which Christianity has to a great extent been the means of 
 calling into existence. One such already referred to, the Arya 
 Samaj, was avowedly founded to counteract the spread of Chris- 
 tianity, and to give a locus standi to young Hindus who have 
 renounced orthodox Hinduism, and were often found to be gravita- 
 ting towards faith in Christ. 
 
 If, then, such is at present the expectant attitude, friendly or 
 otherwise, towards Christianity, what is the special line of action 
 
 1 Sir W. W. Hunter in his Lecture on " The Religions of India," reported in 
 the Times of Feb. 25. The whole lecture is worthy of the most careful study. 
 
 2 See note D. 3 See note E.
 
 II 
 
 which the Church needs to adopt if she is adequately to fulfil the 
 expectations thus formed ? Fifty years ago, any one regarding the 
 work which the Church had to do in India might have been justified 
 in maintaining that it would have to be for a long time mainly 
 destructive. The seemingly impenetrable barriers of idolatry, caste, 
 and custom seemed to bar the way to getting at the minds and 
 hearts of the people till the barriers should be demolished. The 
 preliminary work of clearing away such obstacles seemed a necessary 
 preparation for sowing the seed of life. That such was and still is a 
 part of her work no one will doubt. It is an enemy's land, and the 
 pulling down of strongholds is a necessary operation. But what 
 seems to call for special recognition as a changed aspect of the situa- 
 tion now is that other forces and influences are at work, unforeseen 
 fifty years ago, which are of themselves carrying on with ever-increas- 
 ing rapidity the work of demolition. Compared, indeed, with the 
 whole mass of Hinduism, as represented by one hundred and fifty 
 millions of Hindus, the amount that is actually demolished is but 
 infinitesimal. But the disintegrating forces are at work, which must 
 eventually, even without the aid of missionary agencies, destroy Hin- 
 duism as the creed of the educated classes. Mohammedanism will 
 only at best be able to hold its own, and will have to put forth all 
 its powers to do that. It is, then, let us not doubt but earnestly 
 believe, the call,. the manifest will of Providence, that the Church of 
 Christ should fill the breach, the void, that is being made ; and that 
 by asserting her most characteristic, most essential function, even 
 the power which her Lord has given her not for destruction but for 
 edification (2 Cor. xiii. 10). Christ said He came not to destroy but 
 to fulfil, to complete, to realize. Are not those the most critical, 
 decisive words He ever uttered as to the character of His mission ? 
 Did not St Paul express the same truth when, after describing the 
 moral transformation of man by the Gospel in the words, " If any 
 man be in Christ, he is a new creature ; the old things are passed 
 away;" he added, as it were to prevent misconception, "behold, they 
 are become new." The new life is the old life, the ideal life ; con- 
 version is, as has been said, the re-entrance of man into the first plan 
 of God, for which he was made. 
 
 A great preacher has said regarding the application of Christ's 
 words to the work of the Church in all ages, " The Church has wan- 
 dered from this method sometimes, but the inherent genius of its 
 character has always brought it back to the idea that it was not
 
 12 
 
 directly to fight with and destroy the other religions of the world, 
 but to satisfy the longings which those faiths expressed, and to lead 
 on the powers which those faiths were using to their fuller develop- 
 ment and their loftier employment 1 ." 
 
 It is in the application of this principle that we seem to find the 
 mean between the ruthless violence of the iconoclast on the one 
 hand and the mild tolerant indulgence of the philosophic student of 
 religion on the other; a mean that, while intolerant of error and 
 wrong, seeks rather to remove them by the communication of truth 
 than by the demolition of wrong, and so to impart the formative 
 elements of life and growth, that what is contrary thereto shall of its 
 own accord drop away and perish. Let me add that while the 
 powers called into play for destruction are of a lower range and 
 order, such as hatred and vehemence, the powers required by the 
 fulfiller are the nobler ones of sympathy, insight, patience, hope. 
 And are not these just the qualities which the Gospel is alone able to 
 supply and energize and consecrate for the service of man ? 
 
 If then this is true of the Church's work and mission in general, 
 it is so, as I have endeavoured to show, most especially and empha- 
 tically of her work and mission in India now. And there is no part 
 of that work which gives such scope for the application of this prin- 
 ciple and the exercise of these gifts as that of Christian education, 
 such as that which Mission Schools and Colleges are designed to 
 supply. There is, I would fain hope, no need to enforce further its 
 importance as the fittest direct agency for supplying India's special 
 need. What I do desire to enforce is the need of more zeal and 
 enthusiasm, more hearty belief in it on the part of those who, going 
 from our Universities to devote themselves to missionary work, find 
 themselves in charge of Mission Schools in India. Too often the 
 part taken by the Missionary in such cases is but perfunctory. He 
 acts mainly as a superintendent, not at all or but little as a teacher. 
 Stress of other work may, I know, often be pleaded for this. But 
 often it is doubt as to the efficacy of the work, its value as com- 
 pared with other agencies, that leads to half-heartedness in its dis- 
 charge. And yet I know of no other sphere of work imaginable 
 which offers more scope for the exercise of the highest powers, the 
 most intense devotion, the most burning love of souls, than that of 
 the teacher in a Christian college or school in India. I will not 
 dwell on its mere intellectual interest and attractiveness as bringing. 
 1 Twenty Sermons, by Rev. Phillips Brooks, p. 220 f.
 
 the teacher into such close and intimate contact with minds and 
 characters so different from his own, but withal so fresh, so eager, so 
 receptive. To do so might seem to lower the force of my plea. 
 Rather would I insist on its opportunities for the highest consecra- 
 tion of all our powers, our learning, our culture, our experience. 
 No endowment, no acquirement, spiritual, mental or physical, will 
 be found to be without its use j each may be brought into play and 
 be found in unexpected ways to serve towards the great end. Add 
 to this the special unique claim which India has upon us, of which 
 we are only beginning as a nation, as a Church, to realize the extent 
 and the grandeur and the responsibility. Add, too, whatever force 
 there may be in the view of India's need which I have set before you 
 to-day, and I am fain to believe its claim, its obligation, its promise, 
 its urgency, will be doubted by none j and I cannot refrain from ex- 
 pressing the hope that all this and more may become articulate to 
 some one, it may be, of my hearers as a call to work all too feebly 
 but most earnestly recommended to your sympathy and prayer. 
 
 If it was right to speak of the appeal of the Israelite bereft of all 
 he seemed to have to rely on for light and guidance as pathetic, even 
 though it was in his case so ignorant, so unconscious of his true 
 need, it cannot surely be wrong to speak of the appeal which India 
 makes to-day as pathetic, as eloquent in its helplessness, just because 
 it is so ignorant, so unconscious, so helpless and hopeless in its 
 vacancy, its poverty, its darkness. When the man of Macedonia 
 stood before St Paul that night in the vision, did not the pathos of 
 the cry, " Come over and help us," arise from the very fact of its 
 being the unconscious appeal of the heathen world for help ? And if 
 the response to that cry was the mission to Europe, which was the 
 origin and cause of all that is highest and best and noblest in our 
 life and thought here today, shall the Church's response to India's 
 cry be less prompt, less devoted, less full of faith and hope and love 
 when she has that greatest of all examples to inspire and stimulate 
 her, the experience of the power of the message he bore to support 
 and guide her in her task, the certainty of final victory, not in our 
 time but in God's time, to cheer and encourage her till Christ comes 
 to claim the kingdom for His own? "For this is the victory that 
 hath overcome the world, even our faith." "Thanks be to God who 
 giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 0YpA ANecpreN Mer^An kai eNepn-ic, k<\i ANTiKeiMeNoi noAAoi.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 The following extract from the Times of June 7 forms a significant commentary 
 on the extent to which the loosening of the sanctions of morality among educated 
 Hindus has of late been carried ; — 
 
 " At the last criminal sessions, after a long trial, a Bengalee youth of good 
 position was found guilty of murdering his father, a well-known doctor practising 
 in Calcutta. Parricide is a crime almost unknown among Hindoos, and this trial 
 has therefore created a feeling of profound horror, especially among the more 
 conservative sections of the Hindoos. These men have been complaining bitterly 
 for some time of the demoralizing influences of the present system of education. 
 While the ethical sanctions of the Hindoo religion are being loosened or destroyed 
 by a purely secular and scientific education, no precepts, either religious or moral, 
 are permitted to take their place. The urgency of social reform in this and other 
 respects is becoming day by day a question of paramount interest to that portion 
 of the Hindoo community which views with dread the growing immorality of the 
 younger generation, and this case has had the effect of focussing native opinion on 
 the subject. Sentence has not yet been pronounced, as a point of law was 
 reserved." 
 
 As an illustration of the lawlessness which now characterizes the Hindu student 
 I may mention an incident which provoked a good deal of comment in the Indian 
 press last year. A professor in one of the Government Colleges in Calcutta had 
 observed that the students in his class had got into the habit of finishing their 
 morning meal during his lecture. When he ventured to remonstrate with them 
 on the unseemliness of the practice and to forbid it in future, they all arose 
 in a body and with much noisy demonstration, not without a sort of mild attempt 
 at personal violence (such as Bengalis would be equal to in such an emergency) left 
 the lecture-room in a body. They at once proceeded to hold an indignation 
 meeting, and, in true Babii fashion, to draw up resolutions condemning the 
 Professor's action. The College authorities suspended the whole class, and then 
 the native press took the matter up and waxed very eloquent over this fresh 
 example of "rampant Anglo-Indianism." Appeal was made to Government who 
 had the temerity to support the action of the authorities and dismissed the ring- 
 leaders. 
 
 What occurred in the Christian College at Madras early this year shows 
 that such insubordination is not confined to Government Colleges. Almost the
 
 15 
 
 entire body of students was in a state of rebellion for some weeks in that College, 
 brought about by some cause quite as trivial as that just mentioned. 
 
 I am thankful to say that at Delhi we have so far had no signs of any such 
 disposition to lawlessness and insubordination. If ever our students have a 
 grievance they come forward and state it with a frank but respectful demeanour 
 which entitles them to a patient hearing. 
 
 I subjoin to what I have said the pungent and penetrating criticism of an 
 eminent French writer, Dr Le Bon, taken from an important and original work 
 just written by him, entitled "Les Civilisations de l'lnde." His standpoint is that 
 of an ardent sympathizer with what is good in the manners and beliefs of the 
 peoples of India. The extracts are taken from the chapter which deals with the 
 effects of English education in India. 
 
 " Le Babou forme un type parfaitement defini, possedant une physionomie 
 intellectuelle et morale toute particuliere. On peut l'etudier comme le representant 
 d'une sorte de race a part, absolument caracterisee. Rien, mieux qu'une pareille 
 etude, ne montrera combien l'instruction, que les temps modernes sont arrives 
 a considerer comme une panacee universelle, peut produire des effets desastreux 
 quand elle n'est pas adaptee aux cerveaux destines a la recevoir. 
 
 " Au double point de vue intellectuel et moral, le Babou est un etre qu'on ne 
 pourrait mieux caracteriser qu'en disant qu'il a perdu toute boussole. Les mots 
 que Ton a accumules dans sa cervelle representent pour lui des idees qui lui sont 
 trop etrangeres pour qu'il puisse les comprendre. Si Ton considere qu'une 
 definition n'a jamais eu la moindre valeur pour celui qui ne possedait pas deja 
 l'idee qu'elle devait faire naitre ou des idees tres analogues, on comprendra que le 
 Babou soit a l'egard du monde nouveau ou son education artificielle l'a transporte 
 exactement comme un aveugle a l'egard des couleurs qu'on chercherait a lui definer 
 par des mots. L'incoherence de ses idees n'est egalee que par son incurable manie 
 de parler a tort et a travers, sans relache. 
 
 "L'abaissement du caractere, produit sur les Babous par 1 'education euro- 
 peenne, n'est pas moins frappant en effet que la desequilibration absolue de leur 
 intelligence. Mais avant de decrire ce cote special de leur physionomie, je veux 
 encore citer sur leur etat intellectuel le propre temoignage de l'un d'eux, 
 M. Malabari, qui depasse infiniment d'ailleurs le niveau de ses confreres, et dont 
 l'excellent petit livre sur le Guzerat m'a deja fourni plusieurs citations. Void 
 comment il parle de lui-meme et d'un de ses amis qui avait fonde un journal. Le 
 journalisme est une des manies de Babou, et la presse etant absolument libre, il la 
 satisfait immoderement. 
 
 '"Notre ignorance,' dit M. Malabari, 'n'avait pas plus de bornes que notre 
 arrogance. Mais n'etait-ce pas glorieux de pouvoir critiquer et tourner en ridicule 
 les hommes les plus distingues de l'empire? Un jour, ecrivant sur la bataille de 
 Plevna, mon ami P. me demanda ce que c'etait que la Porte. Je repondis que la 
 Porte etait la principale epouse de sultan des Turcs. P. croyait que c'etait settle- 
 ment le nom europeen du Khedive d'Egypte. II nous arrivait souvent de penser 
 aussi ingenieusement, et nous nous montrions chaque jour, dans notre journal, 
 un couple de sots vaniteux. Lorsque, le lendemain, nous decouvrions notre 
 erreur, nous nous jetions l'un a l'autre la pierre.' 
 
 " A cette confusion effroyable dans les idees, se joint chez le Babou un autre re- 
 sultatde Tcducation curopeenne, qui est de le depouiller de toute Incur de muralite.
 
 i6 
 
 Les solides fondements religieux sur lesquels il basait sa conduite out ete detruits 
 sans retour. II a perdu la foi de ses peres, sans avoir pour cela adopte les 
 principes de conduite d'un Europeen. Son honnetete se trouve ainsi strictement 
 limitee a l'observance des principes de moralite vulgaire que le gendarme oblige a 
 respecter. 
 
 "Nous nous sommes quelque peu etendu sur les resultats de l'education 
 anglaise de l'lnde, parce qu'il n'est pas dans l'histoire d'exemple qui puisse 
 montrer aussi clairement le danger de donner a peuple une education mal adaptee 
 a. sa constitution mentale. L'education europeenne, appliquee a l'Hindou a pour 
 consequence de detruire les resultats de sa longue culture anterieure, et de lui 
 creer des besoins qu'il n'avait pas, sans lui fournir le moyen de les satisfaire, 
 part ant, de le rendre tout a fait miserable, partant encore, de le transformer 
 en ennemi implacable de ceux qui lui ont donne cette funeste education. Le 
 pauvre Babou souffre de sa situation fausse, et s'en plaint amerement. Les 
 evenements se chargeront sans doute de le venger mieux que ses vaines paroles. 
 La puissance qui a cree le Babou perira par le Babou." 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 The memorandum referred to is entitled "Discipline and Moral Training in 
 Indian Schools and Colleges." As the paper is one of great importance and has 
 been followed up by another containing still more explicit injunctions in pursuance 
 of the suggestions made in the earlier paper, I subjoin one or two extracts giving 
 the salient points in it. 
 
 "It cannot be denied that the general extension in India of education ac- 
 cording to European principles and of a purely secular character has in some 
 measure resulted in the growth of tendencies unfavourable to discipline and 
 favourable to irreverence in the rising generation." 
 
 After quoting the remarks of the Education Commission on the subject, the 
 minute proceeds : — 
 
 "A slight consideration of the recommendations (made by the Commission) 
 will show that good so far as they go, they go but a little way towards the 
 establishment of that standard of discipline of which we feel the want. It is 
 manifest that as a body of rules whose operation will tend to create such a 
 standard, they are insufficient, and need to be supplemented by other rules 
 which .... will have the effect of creating a healthy tone of feeling, self-restraint, 
 reverence for and submission to authority." 
 
 The memorandum proceeds to indicate the principles on which such a system 
 of discipline should be formed. As they are mainly technical, it is needless to 
 quote them here, but one obiter dictum on the subject of home influence may 
 be referred to as showing how very little the actual state of an ordinary Hindu 
 household is understood by "the Governor General in Council." "Over the 
 home life of the school boy," it is said, "we can directly exercise but little 
 influence ; but the conviction that it makes entirely for good should not induce us 
 to spare," etc. Put this optimistic conviction by the side of the following descrip-
 
 17 
 
 tion of home influence, written by "one of themselves," a student in our Mission 
 School. 
 
 "I am sorry to say," he writes, "that this vice (of impurity) has been so much 
 loved by our countrymen that they teach their children from their cradles to use 
 abominable words, as if they are impatient to inculcate their vices upon their 
 children, and to hear those very foolish words, which they themselves use, from 
 the mouths of their dear children: and thus the children, instigated by the 
 guardians of their lives soon acquire the bad habit." 
 
 The minute then goes on to recommend the preparation of a "moral text-book, 
 based on the fundamental principles of natural religion." Lord Cross, the 
 Secretary of State for India, had already expressed his conviction that such a 
 book was greatly needed and that "the Government of India should not be content 
 until a serious endeavour had been made to supply... a grave defect in the 
 educational system of India." Such a text-book is now, I believe, in course of 
 preparation and its issue will be awaited with great interest. 
 
 Twice in the memorandum the hope is expressed that there may be an increase 
 in the number of aided Colleges where religious instruction may be freely given. 
 "It is in this direction that the best solution of this difficult problem can be 
 found." This is an important admission and one that should be carefully weighed 
 by those who believe that Mission Schools are a mistake or at best only a 
 necessary evil. 
 
 The concluding paragraph is a remarkable one, and though optimistic to a 
 degree scarcely warranted by the very meagre suggestions put forth in the minute 
 seems in the sentence italicised to betray a lurking sense of their inadequacy 
 to meet the crisis which has evoked them. 
 
 "It is sometimes observed by the opponents of our educational system that .... 
 while Western civilization is sapping the framework of Indian society, it is 
 unequal to laying the foundation stone of reconstruction .... The magnitude of 
 the change may well have been exaggerated ; but even if it be allowed to have 
 taken place to the fullest extent supposed, the old order must be replaced by 
 a new one; and there is hope that the new may be better than the old. Let it 
 be granted that European intellectual training has cut loose the rising generation 
 from many of the moral and social bonds of their forefathers; other forms of 
 restraint must sooner or later take their place. Western education, if persevered 
 in, must in time bring with it Western principles of discipline and self-control. 
 The intellectual part of the process has made good progress; it remains to 
 introduce the moral element which forms the most prominent factor of the 
 European theory of education. The reforms indicated have this object in view, 
 although they may not be all that is required. They seek to fill the vacuum which 
 a purely intellectual training has created, and to mitigate the evils of a one-sided 
 development." 
 
 It may be noted as a significant coincidence that the report of the Home 
 Education Commission published in the same year as this minute deals largely 
 with the same deficiencies in our home system of secular education and aims to 
 remedy them on lines similar to those suggested by the Government of India.
 
 NOTE C. 
 
 The Arya Samaj was founded in 187 1 by Pandit Dayananda Saraswati. 
 His avowed object was to offer educated Hindus a sort of asylum or half-way 
 house, in order to arrest the tendency which he saw was setting in towards 
 the acceptance of Christianity. Its main feature is the acceptance of the Vedas 
 (the Hymns only, not the Brahma/zas or Upanishads) as the sole and infallible 
 source of authority in matters of religion, all else (when it does not agree with 
 the Vedas as interpreted by Dayananda) being rejected as spurious accretions. 
 Curiously enough, they reject Sacrifice, the most distinctive doctrine of the Vedas, 
 and accept Transmigration, of which there is not a trace. The extraordinary 
 vogue which the movement has attained among educated Hindus is not a hopeful 
 sign for the future of India. Though professedly a theistic society, devoted 
 to the social and moral reform of the country, hatred of and antagonism to 
 Christianity engage its main efforts. Avowedly atheistic attacks on Christianity 
 are propagated by the agency of this society and for some time the President of a 
 branch established by Hindus resident in London was himself an avowed atheist. 
 The following extract from one of its organs will give some idea of the virulence 
 (as well as the absurdity) of their attacks. For the sake of comparison, to show 
 how differently other bodies, such as the Brahmo-Samaj, regard the spread of 
 Christianity, an extract from one of the organs of the latter is subjoined. 
 
 "The cause of Christianity in this country is becoming more and more hopeless day by day, 
 its absurdities are no longer secure from public gaze, but are examined and exposed mercilessly 
 in all intelligent circles. The Aryan religion, ever since its revival by Swami Dayanand has been 
 unceasingly undermining the foundation of Christianity in this country. The bigoted Christian, 
 the genuine disciple of the Jehova of the ' sacred volume,' has the greatest reason to regard the 
 religion of the Vedas with bloodshot eyes. Had not the Aryan faith appeared on the scene and 
 exposed the Divine character of Christianity, and thus given it a shock from which it is utterly 
 impossible for it to recover, at a time when it was revelling in an abundance of deserters from 
 Hinduism and Mahomedanism, the probability is that we would have by the time twice as many 
 native Christians in our midst as we have now." — Arya Patrika. 
 
 " Let us unceasingly strive after the attainment of a right knowledge of the Son of God and Son 
 of Man. Christ is a tremendous reality. The destiny of India hangs upon the solution of His 
 nature and function, and our relation to Him. Let us not hide in darkness, and rest contented 
 with random streaks, but place ourselves in open light, and solve the problem ' Who and What is 
 Christ ? ' " — Interpreter. 
 
 NOTE D. 
 
 The case referred to occurred at Balapgarh, a good-sized town about 25 miles 
 from Delhi. The reason assigned (and that without any sense of incongruity) 
 for the immorality was that the worship of Krishna so corrupts the morals of 
 the women, that the Hindu teachers were apt to be led into sin by them, and he 
 hoped that a Christian teacher would be proof against the temptation. It is not, 
 I think, generally known how the Hindu Shastras account for and justify the 
 immoral character of this worship. Vishnu, it is said, having failed to attract 
 mankind to virtue by a virtuous incarnation (thence called maryada-avatar, 
 "moral-incarnation") when he became man as Rama, resolved to see whether 
 his end could not be effected better by a more popular and attractive sort of 
 incarnation (thence called lild-avatdr, "sporting-incarnation"). So he became
 
 19 
 
 man as Krishna who "sported" i.e. led a life of shameless immorality, in order 
 that men when reading or hearing the account (as recorded in the Prem-Sdgar, 
 "Love-Ocean") might, involuntarily even, be led to fix their thoughts on God. 
 In order to understand the rationale of this, it should be borne in mind that, 
 according to the Hindu conception, meditation on God is an opus operatitm 
 having its due effect quite independently of the intention of the worshipper. 
 Hence the well-known paradox in one of the Puranas, that the enemies of 
 Krishna are saved sooner than his friends, because while the latter indulge in 
 sleep at night, the former lie awake and plan their plots against him, and thus 
 win for themselves a double portion of merit ! 
 
 NOTE E. 
 
 Keshub Chunder Sen, the founder of the eclectic Society known as the 
 Brahmo-Samaj or New Dispensation, is the leader referred to. The following 
 quotations from his speeches and sermons will show how he valued Christian 
 education. "Native Society is being roused, enlightened and reformed under 
 the influence of Christian education." "The spirit of Christianity has already 
 pervaded the whole atmosphere of Indian Society, and we breathe, think, feel 
 and move in a Christian atmosphere." 
 
 One or two more recent testimonies may be added: "Behind the British 
 Empire, from which the sun never turns away his face, behind modern enlighten- 
 ment, behind America, behind Science and all its triumphs, behind new conti- 
 nents... lies the single great personality — the greatest of all known to us — of 
 Jesus Christ.... He lives in Europe and America and Asia and Africa as a King 
 and Guide and Teacher. He lives in our midst. He seeks to revivify religion 
 in all its ancient earnestness. We owe everything, even this deep yearning 
 towards our ancient Hinduism, to Christianity." The words italicised in this 
 quotation are very remarkable. In commenting on the passage as a whole, a 
 Brahmo-Samaj Editor wrote: "Is this Hindu singular in entertaining such 
 profound reverence for Jesus Christ ? Such utterances will be echoed by many 
 more. We draw the attention of Christian Missionaries to this. Let there be 
 no misunderstanding between the educated Hindus and the Messengers of Christ 
 in this country. Christ is respected, honoured and loved in this land. Much 
 misunderstanding may be removed and the work of the Evangelists rendered 
 smooth if they were to bear this fact in mind." 
 
 I close with the following, taken from a recent Essay: "At a missionary 
 meeting at Dharmtullah in 1882 the Rev. W. Hooper, C.M.S., said that a 
 member of the Civil Service while riding along the road was overtaken by a rai's 
 (native gentleman), who accosted him and said, 'Tell your Missionaries not to 
 despair. There is something taking place they know nothing about. The whole 
 ground is undermined, and sooner than they expect all will become Christians.' " 
 Education and Missions in India and elsewhere, the Maitland Prize Essay for 
 1886, by C. R. Haines, M.A., a most interesting and instructive pamphlet, 
 which will well repay perusal. It is published by Messrs Deighton, Bell and Co. 
 
 Cambridge: printed by c. j. clay, m.a. and sons, at the university PRB$S.