Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877Kennedy, James
History
Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877
Kennedy, James
India -- Description and travel; India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947 -- Biography; Missionaries; Missions -- India
I have already said there are very unworthy persons bearing the name of
native Christians. To judge our Indian churches by these is as unfair as
to judge English Christians in India by Englishmen, of whom, alas!
there are many, soldiers and others, who are notorious for drunkenness
and licentiousness. We have even English beggars in India, wretched men,
who have drifted out of the army, railway, or other department, and who
disgrace our name. Strong men have come whimpering to my door, to whom I
have given help, and I have seen them a few hours afterwards--I remember
one case well--rolling in the bazaar in beastly drunkenness. It would be
as fair to take these men as a specimen of English Christians, as to
judge native Christians by persons bearing the name while they disgrace
it.
The very acknowledgment of missionaries about the imperfections of their
communities, about the utter hollowness of some individuals, has been
turned into adverse testimony. In the recent meeting at Exeter Hall to
welcome the Madagascar missionaries, Messrs. Cousin and Shaw, Mr.
Cousin, in the course of his very interesting address, said that much of
the Christianity of the Malagash was "purely nominal and utterly
worthless." I should not at all wonder if some day I found this brought
forward as a missionary's acknowledgment that the Christianity of the
Malagash is purely nominal and utterly worthless, and that missions in
Madagascar, as elsewhere, had been a failure.
[Sidenote: THE SUPPORT OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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