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of 1 per cent., on the other hand the native Christians increased at the rate of over 30 per cent. And if we separate off the Roman Catholics, who form about one-half of the total number in South India and increase very slowly, we find the remarkable fact that the rate of increase of the Protestant native Christians between 1891 and 1901 was over 50 per cent., or thirty-three times as great as the rate of increase of the whole population.

I cannot guarantee the exact accuracy of the census returns, but I know for certain that these figures represent actual movements on a large scale which are going on silently and steadily all over India. The upper castes and the educated classes of Hindu society in towns and cities have made little or no response to the preaching of the Gospel. That is true. But at the other end of the social scale, the lower castes, the out-castes and the aboriginal tribes are being gathered in to the Church in large masses. And the reason is obvious. The great obstacle to the conversion of the upper ranks of society is the impenetrable barrier of caste. The social system inflicts such tremendous penalties on conversion to Christianity that a convert from the higher castes is truly a miracle. But at the other end of society, caste, with its iron bondage and oppressive tyranny, simply drives men wholesale into the arms of the Christian Church. The movement towards Christianity among these classes, therefore, is not wholly or even mainly a spiritual one. To a very large extent it is social. Social tyranny supplies a strong motive power which leads men to look to the Christian Church as a saviour and deliverer. For the last two or three thousand years the pariah of Hindu society has been regarded with the utmost contempt and abhorrence, kept deliberately in a state of hopeless poverty and degradation, and treated like an unclean animal. Suddenly the Christian Church has come to him in his misery, taken him by the hand, shielded him from oppression, striven to educate him and improve his lot, treated him with kindness and Christian love, and taught him that he is a son of God. The pariah is not a theologian, nor is he a person of lofty moral and spiritual ideals; but he is quite capable of judging between Christianity and Hinduism by their fruits, and I do not think that Christ Himself would condemn him for doing so. His motive in becoming a Christian may not be very lofty, but neither, on the other hand, is it a low or unworthy one. In judging of movements of this kind we need to clear our minds of cant, and not condemn in the pariah desires for social advancement which we regard as laudable and honourable among ourselves. Nor must we assume that movements of this kind are ever the result of any one single motive. The causes that lead to them are nearly always of a complex character: there is the desire to escape from social tyranny, the desire for social advancement, the attractive power of Christian kindness and sympathy, and the vague feeling after God which lies at the root even of the

weird rites and revolting ceremonies of the village worship. And it is always difficult to say, in any given movement, which of these motives is most prominent and to which the movement is mainly due.

But even the lowest of them are not bad reasons for preferring Christianity to Hinduism. If Hindu society treats men as dogs, and the Christian Church treats them as human beings, I do not imagine that they are greatly to be blamed, even from the most philosophic point of view, for taking this as a rough-and-ready proof that Christianity is a more desirable religion than Hinduism. The importance of these movements, then, cannot be discounted simply because it is undoubtedly true that these classes of men have nothing to lose and much to gain by becoming Christians. They reveal to us the weak spot of Hindu society and the great work of the Christian Church in India in the immediate future. There are, upon a rough calculation, about twenty million pariahs and aborigines in the whole of India. And the experience of the last century has shown that within the next fifty years it would be quite possible to convert them nearly all to Christianity, and build them up into a strong and progressive Christian community, that would have a decisive influence upon the social and religious life of every village throughout the length and breadth of the land.

It is often said, I know, that the ultimate effect of these mass movements is unsatisfactory; that the people come over to the Church from mixed motives, and soon sink down to a state of spiritual deadness and apathy. But that is not my experience. It is quite true that very often these movements have been mismanaged or ignored, that a weak staff of European missionaries has been left to cope with a large influx of new converts, that no care has been taken to provide a proper number of well-trained native teachers and pastors, and that the education of both adults and children has been neglected. Where this is the case the movement naturally comes prematurely to an end and the moral and spiritual results in the Christian community itself are disappointing, or even disastrous. But when the new converts are properly cared for and the movement is wisely guided the moral results are most striking. As I travel about among the villages where these mass movements are going on, I am astonished at the signs of progress in education, social life, morality and religion which I sec among our poor Christians. It is difficult to state the real proofs of progress; but no one who has had any experience of a mission of this kind, where the converts are properly taught and trained, can doubt for a moment that the difference between Christians and non-Christians of the same class is simply the difference between light and darkness. The wonderful reverence of a village congregation at a Confirmation or at the Holy Communion is an experience that See article on The Village Deities of South India' in the October (1906) number of this Review.

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one does not casily forget, and, when placed in contrast with the bloody rites and wild orgies that make up the ritual of the village deities, it illustrates more vividly than words can describe the difference between the crude and coarse superstitions of Hinduism and the spiritual worship of the Christian Church. And when we say that these people have nothing to lose and everything to gain by becoming Christians, and that their conversion involves no sacrifice, we forget what it means for them to abandon their old superstitions. Often, when all the pariahs of a village become Christians, they are required before they are received as catechumens, as a mark of sincerity, to pull down their old heathen shrine and build a Christian prayer-house in its place. It is difficult for us to realise what a moral and spiritual effort this demands on the part of poor, ignorant people, who have been steeped from childhood in the grossest superstition. Very touching it often is to see how each man tries to put the responsibility on someone else. They generally ask the missionary to do it. When he tells them they must do it themselves, they try to get the head-man to begin, and he in turn gives orders to the rest, till at last some man, bolder than the others, takes his courage in both hands and sets about the work of destruction. And then sometimes there is a pathetic touch of humour in the superstitious fear that recurs when the deed is done. In one village all the people except one man agreed to the destruction of the shrine. After holding out for a long time, he at last consented, and then the shrine was pulled down. Next morning his cow gave no milk! It seemed an obvious sign of the wrath of the goddess, and the shrine was hastily rebuilt the next day. It was some time before the people could be brought to shake off their fears and once more pull down the shrine. These may seem to us trifling or even humorous facts; but these victories over superstitious fears, that have dominated the minds of these poor people for thousands of years, form steps towards moral freedom that might well be compared to the release of Israel from Egyptian bondage.

I do not say for a moment that they attain to any high standard of morality or religion in one, two, or three generations. It would be unreasonable to expect it. They are full of faults and vices, often of the grossest character; but I do assert, from what I have seen myself, that when they become Christians they show a capacity for progress which separates them off by a wide gulf from the Hindus among whom they live. My own experience in South India would certainly lead to the conclusion that, taken as a whole, the native Christians are the only community in South India that are steadily advancing in morality and religion, or who can be said to have any definite ideal of moral and religious progress in the future. It is, after all, to these mass movements towards Christianity from below that we must look for the regeneration of Indian society. It may seem a strange and paradoxical idea that the future of India lies in

the hands, not of the Brahmin, but of the pariah. Yet I believe that it is true. No social progress in India is remotely possible until the tyranny of caste is crushed and destroyed, and if the history of the past fifty years is any guide to the future, that will be brought about, not by the gradual enlightenment of the Brahmins, but by the uprising of the pariahs and aborigines through the influence of Christianity. It was said of the first preachers of Christianity that they turned the world upside down. The same might be said now of the Christian. missionaries in India. They are turning society upside down, and rapidly bringing about a great social revolution. It is their work in the conversion and elevation of the poor and out-castes that is paving the way for the progress and civilisation of the future.

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INDIAN ADMINISTRATION AND
'SWADESHI'

A FEW years ago in an article in this Review,' on the masterpiece of Mogul art, the Taj at Agra, I ventured to draw attention to the importance, from an imperial point of view, of Englishmen studying and trying to understand the artistic ideals of the East, for, I said, the Indian Question, which then seemed smaller than a man's hand, might fill the Eastern horizon to-morrow. I may, perhaps, without posing as a prophet, quote this as an example of how in the East the unexpected is always happening, for to-day Indian and Eastern questions loom in our political sky as large as Home Rule for Ireland -which to stay-at-home politicians, who make no attempt to grasp the significance of Eastern problems, may seem a monstrously overdrawn comparison.

To many others whose education and environment have taught them to regard art as external to the serious affairs of life, and only a pleasant amusement for hours of leisure, it may not be easy to understand the connection between art and politics, or to trace the coming of the Japanese into the front rank of modern nations to their marvellous artistic instinct. Yet a mere cursory view of history will show that the nations with the greatest artistic record have always been those whose political Empire has been the greatest and most lasting. Their rise and decay may be traced without any other documents than those their art has left in marble, stone and brick, in metal, wood and clay. Unless, therefore, we are right and all the centuries wrong, or unless the natural instinct for beauty hitherto inherent in human nature is going to be satisfactorily replaced by something else not yet manifested, it is evident that art is an index to national vitality, and cannot be left out of account by politicians whose ideas rise above a county council or the exigencies of party manœuvres.

No Anglo-Indian statesman has fully understood the administrative uses of art. Akbar, whose rule presents many analogies to our own, showed his marvellous political genius more conspicuously in his understanding of art than in the organisation of the machinery The Taj and its Designers.' June 1903.

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