India, Its Life and ThoughtJones, John P. (John Peter)
Religion
India, Its Life and Thought
Jones, John P. (John Peter)
India -- Civilization; India -- Religion; Missions -- India
We are also told by the Rev. Maulvie Imaduddin, D.D., of North India,
that "117 men of position and influence have become Christians, of
whom 62 became clergy and leading men in many of the Indian Missions,
and 51 are gentlemen occupying positions professional and official.
Out of 956 baptisms of the Church Missionary Society in the Amritsar
District, 152 were Mohammedan converts. In the Punjab there are at
least two congregations made up entirely of Mohammedans, while in
Bengal there is a body of more than 6000 Christians composed almost
entirely of Mohammedan converts and their descendants, a large number
having come over _en masse_ some years ago. These last were converts
in the first instance from Hinduism to Mohammedanism, and hence were
not bound so strongly to Islam."
In South India, less attention has been paid to Mohammedans as a
class, and the results therefore have been very meagre. A few
individuals, here and there, have accepted our faith, and that is
practically all. This is not strange when we remember that out of the
eleven hundred Protestant missionaries, male and female, in Southern
India, perhaps not a dozen have any special training and aptitude for
work among Mohammedans, and hardly more than that number are giving
themselves entirely to the work.
The difficulty of this work should appeal more than it does to the
heroic element in missionaries and missionary societies alike. The
above facts indicate that there is encouragement for one who gives
himself heartily to this people. In no other land has missionary
effort for the members of this religion achieved greater results than
in India. If their numbers are few, they are more resolute and
pronounced in their Christian character than many others. In the roll
of honour among the converts from Islam have been found the names of
a number of distinguished pastors and able writers.
In the recent Conference of Missionaries, held in Cairo, a new purpose
was manifested to take up with more discriminating and pronounced zeal
and better methods the work of reaching and converting the Mohammedans
of the world.
In India, a better organized and a wider campaign for the conversion
of Islam is needed. Men and women who are to take up work in their
behalf must not only be well trained for this specific work by a
thorough knowledge of both faiths; they must also be imbued with
abundant sympathy for the people, and with a sympathetic appreciation
of the vital truths which have thus far animated the Mohammedan faith.
The constructive, rather than the destructive, method of activity must
increasingly animate all. The Mohammedans are peculiarly sensitive;
and there is so much of contact between their faith and ours that
through the pathway of the harmonies of the faiths men must be led to
know and feel the supreme excellence and power of the faith of the
Christ.
CHAPTER XII
THE CHRIST AND THE BUDDHA
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