Things as They Are.
by Amy Wilson-Carmichael.
Note
WITHIN a few weeks of the publication of _Things as They Are_, letters were received from missionaries working in different parts of India, confirming its truth. But some in England doubt it. And so it was proposed that if a fourth edition were called for, a few confirmatory notes, written by experienced South Indian missionaries, other than those of the district described, would be helpful. Several such notes are appended. The Indian view of one of the chief facts set forth in the book is expressed in the note written by one who, better than any missionary, and surely better even than any onlooker at home, has the right to be heard in this matter--_and the right to be believed_.
And now at His feet, who can use the least, we lay this book again; for "to the Mighty One," as the Tamil proverb says, "even the blade of gra.s.s is a weapon." May it be used for His Name"s sake, to win more prayer for India--and all dark lands--the prayer that prevails.
AMY WILSON-CARMICHAEL, Dohnavur, Tinnevelly District, S. India.
Confirmatory Notes
_From_ Rev. D. DOWNIE, D.D., American Baptist Mission, Nizam"s Dominions, S. India.
I have felt for many years that we missionaries were far too p.r.o.ne to dwell on what is called the "bright side of mission work." That it has a bright side no one can question. That it has a "dark" side some do question; but I for one, after thirty years of experience, know it to be just as true as the bright side is true. I have heard Miss Carmichael"s book denounced as "pessimistic." Just what is meant by that I am not quite sure; but if it means that what she has written is untrue, then I am prepared to say that it is NOT pessimistic, _for there is not a line of it that cannot be duplicated in this Telugu Mission_. That she has painted a dark picture of Hindu life cannot be denied, but, _since it is every word true_, I rejoice that she had the courage to do what was so much needed, and yet what so many of us shrank from doing, "lest it should injure the cause."
_From_ Rev. T. STEWART, M.A., Secretary, United Free Church Mission, Madras.
This book, _Things as They Are_, meets a real need--_it depicts a phase of mission work of which, as a rule, very little is heard_. Every missionary can tell of cases where people have been won for Christ, and mention incidents of more than pa.s.sing interest. Miss Carmichael is no exception, and could tell of not a few trophies of grace. _The danger is, lest in describing such incidents the impression should be given that they represent the normal state of things, the reverse being the case._ The people of India are not thirsting for the Gospel, nor "calling us to deliver their land from error"s chain." The night is still one in which the "spiritual hosts of wickedness" have to be overcome before the captive can be set free. The writer has laid all interested in the extension of the Kingdom of G.o.d under a deep debt of obligation by such a graphic and accurate picture of the difficulties that have to be faced and the obstacles to be overcome. Counterparts of the incidents recorded can be found in other parts of South India, and there are probably few missionaries engaged in vernacular work who could not ill.u.s.trate some of them from their own experience.
_From_ Dr. A. W. RUDISILL, Methodist Episcopal Press, Madras.
In _Things as They Are_ are pictured, by camera and pen, _some_ things in Southern India. The pen, as faithfully as the camera, has told the truth, and nothing but the truth.
The early chapters bring out with vivid, striking, almost startling reality the wayside hearers in India. One can almost see the devil plucking away the words as fast as they fall, and hear the opposers of the Gospel crying out against it.
Paul did not hesitate to write things as they were of the idolaters to whom he preached, even though the picture was very dark. _It is all the more needful now, when so many are deceived and being deceived as to the true nature of idolatry, that people at home who give and pray should be told plainly that what Paul wrote of idolaters in Rome and Corinth is still true of idolaters in India._
Miss Carmichael has given only glances and glimpses, not full insights.
Let those who think the picture she has drawn is too dark know that, if the whole truth were told, an evil spirit only could produce the pictures, and h.e.l.l itself would be the only fit place in which to publish them, because in Christian lands eyes have not seen and ears have not heard of such things.
_From_ Rev. C. W. CLARKE, M.A., Princ.i.p.al, n.o.ble College, Masulipatam.
I have worked as Princ.i.p.al of a College for over seventeen years amongst the caste people of South India, and I entirely endorse Miss Carmichael"s views as to the actual risks run by students and others desirous of breaking caste and being baptized. While the teaching of the Bible and English education generally have removed a great deal of prejudice, and greatly raised the ethical standard amongst a number of those who come under such influences, Hinduism as held and practised by the vast majority of caste people remains essentially unchanged. To break caste is held to be the greatest evil a person can inflict upon himself and his community, _therefore practically any means may be resorted to to prevent such a calamity_. It is a commonplace amongst missionaries, that when a caste man or woman shows any serious intention of being baptized,--in any case, where caste feeling is not modified by special circ.u.mstances,--the most stringent precautions must be taken to protect the inquirer from the schemes of his caste brethren.
_From_ KRISHNA RAN, Esq., B.A., Editor, _Christian Patriot_, Madras (himself a convert).
The question is often asked whether a high caste Hindu convert can live with his own people after his baptism. _It is only those who know nothing of the conditions of life in India, and of the power of caste as it exists in this country, who raise the question._
The convert has to be prepared for the loss of parents and their tender affection; of brothers and sisters, relatives and friends; of wife and children, if he has any; of his birthright, social position, means of livelihood, reputation, and all the power which hides behind the magic word "caste"; of all that he is taught from his childhood to hold as sacred.
_From_ Miss READE, South Arcot, South India.
I am not surprised that anyone unacquainted with mission work in India should be staggered at the facts narrated in _Things as They Are_. But as one who has worked for nearly thirty years in the heart of heathenism, away from the haunts of civilisation, I can bear testimony _that the reality of things far exceeds anything that it would be possible to put into print_. One"s tongue falters to tell of what is custom in this country. I know a case where a young girl of ten was placed in such a position that her choice lay between two sinful courses of life, _no right way being open to her_. I think one of the most distressing things we have to meet in caste work in this country is the fact that often as soon as a soul begins to show interest in Christ _he or she disappears_, and one either hears next that he is dead, or can get no reliable information at all.
_Extract from_ a letter to Miss CARMICHAEL on _Things as They Are_. (The writer is a veteran American missionary.)
_I could duplicate nearly every incident in the book_; so I know it is a true picture, not alone because I believe your word, but because my experience has been so similar to yours. Many times, while reading it, the memory of the old heart-break has been so vivid that I have had to lay the book down and look round the familiar room in order to convince myself that it was you, and not I, who was agonising over one of the King"s own children who was being crowded back into darkness and hurled down to destruction, because Satan"s wrath is great as he realises that his time is short.
I wish the book might be read by all the Christians in the homeland.
_From_ PANDITA RAMABAI.
While I was reading _Things as They Are_, I fancied I was living my old life among Hindus over again. I can honestly corroborate everything said in regard to the religious and social life of the Hindus. I came from that part of the country, and I am very glad that the book has succeeded in bringing the truth to light.
_From_ Miss L. TROTTER.
There is hardly a phase of all the heart-suffering retold that we have not known: page after page might have been written out here, word for word.
Preface
THE writer of these thrilling chapters is a Keswick missionary, well known to many friends as the adopted daughter of Mr. Robert Wilson, the much-respected chairman of the Keswick Convention. She worked for a time with the Rev. Barclay Buxton in j.a.pan; and for the last few years she has been with the Rev. T. Walker (also a C.M.S. Missionary) in Tinnevelly, and is on the staff of the Church of England Zenana Society.
I do not think the realities of Hindu life have ever been portrayed with greater vividness than in this book; and I know that the auth.o.r.ess"s accuracy can be fully relied upon. The picture is drawn without prejudice, with all sympathy, with full recognition of what is good, and yet with an unswerving determination to tell the truth and let the facts be known,--that is, so far as she dares to tell them. What she says is the truth, and nothing but the truth; but it is not the whole truth--_that_ she could not tell. If she wrote it, it could not be printed. If it were printed, it could not be read. But if we read between the lines, we do just catch glimpses of what she calls "the Actual."
It is evident that the auth.o.r.ess deeply felt the responsibility of writing such a book; and I too feel the responsibility of recommending it. I do so with the prayer of my heart that G.o.d will use it to move many. It is not a book to be read with a lazy kind of sentimental "interest." It is a book to send the reader to his knees--still more to _her_ knees.
Most of the chapters are concerned with the lives of Heathen men and women and children surrounded by the tremendous bars and gates of the Caste system. But one chapter, and not the least important one, tells of native Christians. It has long been one of my own objects to correct the curious general impression among people at home that native Christians, as a body, are--not indeed perfect,--no one thinks that, but--earnest and consistent followers of Christ. Narratives, true narratives, of true converts are read, and these are supposed to be specimens of the whole body. But (1) where there have been "ma.s.s movements" towards Christianity, where whole villages have put themselves under Christian instruction, mixed motives are certain; (2) where there have been two or three generations of Christians it is unreasonable to expect the descendants of men who may have been themselves most true converts to be necessarily like them. Hereditary Christianity in India is much like hereditary Christianity at home. The Church in Tinnevelly, of which this book incidentally tells a little, is marked by both these features.
Whole families or even villages have "come over" at times; and the large majority of the Christians were (so to speak) born Christians, and were baptized in infancy. This is not in itself a result to be despised.
"Christian England," unchristian as a great part of its population really is, is better than Heathen India; and in the chapter now referred to, Miss Carmichael herself notices the difference between a Hindu and a Christian village. But the more widely Christianity spreads, the more will there a.s.suredly be of mere nominal profession.
Is the incorrect impression I allude to caused by missionaries dwelling mostly on the brighter side of their work? Here and there in the book there is just a suggestion that they are wrong in doing so. But how can they help it? What does a clergyman or an evangelist in England tell of?
Does he tell of his many daily disappointments, or of his occasional encouraging cases? The latter are the events of his life, and he naturally tells of them. The former he comprises in some general statement. How can he do otherwise? And what can the modern missionary do in the short reports he is able to write? Fifty years ago missionary journals of immense length came home, and were duly published; and then the details of Hindu idolatry and cruelty and impurity, and the tremendous obstacles to the Gospel, were better known by the few regular readers. Much that Miss Carmichael tells was then told over and over again, though not perhaps with a skilful pen like hers. But the work has so greatly developed in each mission, and the missions are so far more numerous and extended, that neither can missionaries now write as their predecessors did, nor, if they did, could all the missionary periodicals together find s.p.a.ce for their journals.
The fault of incorrect impressions lies mainly in the want of knowledge and want of thought of home speakers and preachers. I remember, thirty years ago, an eloquent Bishop in Exeter Hall triumphantly flinging in the face of critics of missions the question, "Is Tinnevelly a fiction?"--as if Tinnevelly had become a Christian country, which apparently some people still suppose it to be, notwithstanding the warning words to the contrary which the C.M.S. publications have again and again uttered. Even now, there are in Tinnevelly about twenty heathen to every one Christian; and of what sort the twenty are this book tells. Tinnevelly is indeed "no fiction," but in a very different sense from that of the good Bishop"s speech. Again, a few months ago, I heard a preacher, not very favourable to the C.M.S., say that the C.M.S., despite its shortcomings, deserved well of the Church because it had "converted a nation" in Uganda!--as if the nation comprised only 30,000 souls. Some day the "Actual" of Uganda will be better understood, and the inevitable shortcomings of even its Christian population realised, and then we shall be told that we deceived the public--although we have warned them over and over again.
But the larger part of this book is a revelation--so far as is possible--of the "Actual" of Hinduism and Caste. G.o.d grant that its terrible facts and its burning words may sink into the hearts of its readers! Perhaps, when they have read it, they will at last agree that we have used no sensational and exaggerated language when we have said that the Church is only playing at missions! Service, and self-denial, and prayer, must be on a different scale indeed if we are ever--I do not say to convert the world--but even to evangelise it.
EUGENE STOCK.