________________
-
Have Christian Missions to India Been Successful ?
the average street-sweeper is frequently more profoundly versed in the subtle metaphysics and divine philosophy than the missionary sent to convert him. The Aryan Hindu will not change his religion simply because some one tells him to do. He has an active brain and an intellect that will not blindly bend at the will of any man; there must be reason; there must be philosophy; mere assertion is valueless.
Besides this, there are popular reasons why Christianity has made itself disagreeable to Hindus. Christians being meat-eaters and wine-imbibers seem to the Hindus to represent a religion devoid of humanitarian or spiritual principles. You do not know what disgust and horror the meat-eating produces in the eyes of the simple-minded Hindu. The very practice of using wine at your Lord's Supper sanctions the use of wine at any other time.
The Hindu cannot and does not want to accept such a religion. This is the reason why certain sects in India excommunicate their members who go to foreign countries and use there meat and wine. That the representatives of a nation who fatten and kill hundreds and thousands of hogs and steers every day for self-gratification should go to a mild and humane people and preach humanity to them without ever practising it is beyond the comprehension of the Hindu mind.
Sitting at a distance of ten thousand miles, Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot have any ideas of the conduct and acts of the missionaries in India. Englishmen as conquerors of India claim extra-territorial right throughout the whole of India. They make a small colony in each city and live there. The missionary goes and lives in that little colony and keeps himself steady.
He is bound to fawn and flatter these Anglo-Indian officials and condone, and directly or indirectly sanction all the horrible brutalities which the Anglo-Indians perpetrate. Like other missionaries Bishop Thoburn has devoted one chapter in his
105
Jain Education International
For Personal & Private Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
