( 107 ) 
Those wlio insist that the work of Missions is a 
failure, will call the modern expansion an artificial 
and the ancient a natural piocesf. They will 
point to what thej will term the ininiei.se outlay 
of money on organisation in the oca case, and 
their absence of or£;anisalion and payment in the 
other. The reply to this is — Other an;es, ether 
manners, vvhether for good or evil, organised effort, 
and the use of money which it necessarily involves 
is as much a characteristic, as much an instinctive 
tendency of this age, as effort moie individual, 
more spontaneous, more sporadic was of that. Not 
only in regard to endeavour to extend the King- 
dom of Heaven, but in regard to everything that 
men set themselves to do, it is natural in our age 
to form associations, to trust to "division of 
labour,'' to set men apart for doing definitely and 
CDUsciously the things vi hich in other ages were 
done, less definitely and less exclusively, by every 
one who cai'jd for the object aimed at. 
Another thing which is certain to be said is 
that those 964,000 persons alive at present, who 
are the visible outcome of the labours of Pro- 
testant Missions, are drawn from outcast races, 
or from poor wretches who have nothing to lose 
and perhaps a little to gain by becoming Chris- 
tians. " Dr Oldfield goes so far as to hint, by no 
means obscurely, that it would be better if not 
one of them had been won over. The sweeping 
statement on which his opinion rests is far from 
true. In not a few regions a very appreciable pro- 
portion of the native Christians belong to classes 
which both by birth and intellect stand high in 
the social scale. It is granted that the great 
majority of them originally belonged to ti:e lower 
classes, and not a few to the lowest of the 
low — to classes as low comparatively as the slaves 
who bulked so largely in the Churches of the 
earliest days. 
I shall not either affirm or deny that the 
churches and societies have given an excessive 
share of their attention to the lower section of the 
Indian community. That question can be decided 
by those alone who are qualified, by personal con- 
tact with all classes and by deep thought and 
long experience. But that forty millions of people 
should be totally uncared for — they being the very 
ones whose need of every kind of elevating help is 
greatest, and to whom access is at the same time 
easiest — is a pioposal which no Christian with 
the plain facts befoie him will entertain. 
This is but a sample of Dr Oldlield's imperfect 
knowledge of the coudit'on of India as a whole. 
Another may be found in thestress he lays on the 
division of Christian workers into sects and deno- 
minations. Certainly this division is to be 
regretted, but no cultured race is better prepared 
than the Hindus to make full allowance for sub- 
ordinate divisions within a great society. As 
regards both number and violence of opposition, 
the sects and parties of Ohristendoin are lessi than 
those of Binduism. 
At the same time though their basal principal 
be wrong not a few of Dr, OMfield's strictures 
deserve attention. That their is need of a higher 
spiritual standard among all workers for Christ in 
India — need for a greater number of " saintly men 
of high intellectual capacity and child like chari- 
table faith " — few missionaries will deny. And 
many will grant that much linrm has been done 
."by arrogant denunciation of Hinduism," and by 
forgetfulness "that the sacred books of the East 
are full of sublime teaching." This, however, is 
an error of the past rather than the present, though 
the need for dwelling on it has not entirely passed 
away. 
Once more. Dr. 01d.6eld is, at least partly 
right in what he says as to the line of social demar- 
cation being so deep and sharp, one " can hardly 
be a social comrade of the Indian people and 
retain social intercourse with the English official 
class." This difficulty is seldom sufficiently em- 
phasised. To get into close touch with the " con- 
servative Hindu"' is hard for anyone, but parti- 
cularly hard for the "missionary," who is "in 
touch with Anglo-Indian official life, . . . and 
therefore at once comes on lo the other side of 
the road" There is a regrettable amount of the 
truth in the reiuark that "there is the strongest 
belief throughout India that Indians, who are 
independent thinkers, will sooner or later become 
maiked men, and will be made to suffer in some 
way or other, on the plea that th>-ir loyally is 
doubted." The actual warrant for this^ wide- 
si read belief is immensely less than the ex 
cessive sensitiveness of our Hindu friends leads 
them to suppose, but that facts give some 
warrant for it cannot be denied. 
This leads to consideration of the question about 
missionaries sharinc- in the asmusenients of their 
countrymen, of wliich so much is made in Dr 
Ohlfield's article. For myself, I sympathise with 
the views propounded. As a rule-though a rule 
with very numerous exceptions— missionaries, in 
places which are Anglo-Indian centres, tend to 
bccTuie merged in ordinary society more than is 
expedient, if not more than is right— at all events, 
to an extent whijh does something to accentuate 
their being Foreigners rather than ofoneblood with 
those for whose benefit tliey labour. Thus it 
happens that, unintentionally and to a large 
extent unconsciously, missionaries seldom bear 
themselves towards Hindus of good social position 
as in my opinion they ought to do. Here again, 
however, the sensitiveness of the Hindu and the 
extreme suaviiy of his own manners make him 
reckon the evil as more than double what it 
actually is. The whole question is replete with 
difficulty. Beside dangers which I have not space 
to mention, too rigid a separation of missionaries 
from their natural associates would involve the 
danger of their beirg regarded as — and by and by 
of their becoming— a mere official class, saying 
and doing not what their hearts dictated, but what 
routine prescribed. A priestly caste, isolated from 
ordinary life, has rarely exerted much of really 
beneficial power. 
The native church of Southern ^ndia has move 
than enough of defects and faults. At the proper 
time 1 am willing lo join in giving them all due 
emphasis. Neveitheless there is something at 
woi k in it of that life which ^ave power to the 
chr.rches of the early centuries, in spite of faults 
which in their caee also, were not few or small. 
I am ready to use Dr Oldfield's own words in this 
case. Hindus of all classes are beginning to think, 
if not yet very often to say "these rhrislians are 
Letter, are gentler, are more honest, are more 
truthful, are more self sacrificing" (I would insert 
'more purposeful and strenuous'), "and live iu 
all thingsata higher level than we do.' The 
Native Church is visibly growing iu vigour and 
purity, aud cohesion. 
