that has ever been drawn and since they proceeded in direct opposition to all the instructions and examples of the New Testament, it cannot surprise the ingenuous and religious mind, that their work was left to fall to the ground. 38. The author we are now quoting has assigned one more cause for the decline of the interests of Rome in India :-" The suppression of the order of Jesuits in Europe." This, as we have seen, took place in the year 1773 by order of Pope Clement XIV. The immediate consequence was, a deficiency in the number of missionaries. Accordingly, "a national black clergy was formed, and the attendance on the remaining congregations entrusted to their care. Those native missionaries, not having the advantage of a proper education, and many amongst them showing themselves more attached to their own interests than to those of religion, enjoy but little consideration even among their flocks, and none among the natives of any other description. Nevertheless, ignorant and degraded as these native clergy were, they succeeded in many parts in keeping the congregations together, with the assistance of an occasional visit from a missionary. But their flocks are described, by the same unquestionable authority in such questions, as more debased than themselves, and sunk in the lowest deep of demoralization:7 and in confirmation of his statement, he gives the following instance of "6 5 Section 25. Note 3. 6 Abbé Dubois' Letters, p. 12. 7 Ibid, pp. 124-135. We have refrained from quoting protestant writers to the same effect; but reference may be made for the purpose, to Dampier's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 96, to Millar's History of Christianity, vol, ii. pp. 387, &c. apostasy, which is as disgraceful as that which, we have seen, took place at the beginning of this century in Tanjore. A. D. 1784. A. D. 1784. in Mysore 39. "In order to give you a striking idea of the religious dispositions of the Hindoo, and as General a strong instance of what I asserted above, that apostasy there was to be found among them nothing else under Tipbut a vain phantom of Christianity without any persecution. real or practical faith, I will with shame and confusion quote the following scandalous instance.' "When the late Tippoo Sultan sought to extend his own religious creed all over his dominions, and make by little and little all the inhabitants in Mysore converts to Islamism, he wished to begin this fanatical undertaking with the native Christians living in his country, as the most odious to him, on the score of their religion. In consequence, in the year 1784, he gave secret orders to his officers in the different districts, to make the most diligent inquiries after the places where Christians were to be found, and to cause the whole of them to be seized on the same day, and conducted under strong escorts to Seringapatam. This order was punctually carried into execution; very few of them escaped; and I have it from good authority, that the aggregated number of the persons seized in this manner, amounted to more than 60,000." "Some time after their arrival at Seringapatam, Tippoo ordered the whole to undergo the rites of circumcision, and be made converts to Mahometanism. The Christians were put together during the several days that the ceremony lasted and, Oh, shame! Oh, scandal! will it be believed in the Christian world? no one, not a single individual among so many thousands, had courage enough to confess his poo Sultan's CHAP. IV. State of the faith under this trying circumstance, and become a martyr to his religion. The whole apostatized en masse, and without resistance, or protestations, tamely underwent the operation of circumcision; no one among them possessing resolution enough to say, "I am a Christian, and I will die rather than renounce my religion." "So general a defection, so dastardly an apostasy, is, I believe, unexampled in the annals of Christianity." "After the fall of the late Tippoo Sultan, most of those apostates came back to be reconciled to their former religion, saying, that their apostasy had been only external, and they always kept in their hearts the true faith in Christ. About 2,000 of them fell in my way, and nearly 20,000 returned to the Mangalore district, from whence they had been carried away, and rebuilt there their former places of worship. God preserve them all from being exposed in future to the same trials; for should this happen, I have every reason (notwithstanding their solemn protestations when again reconciled to Christianity) to apprehend the same sad results, that is to say, a tame submission, and a general apostasy. 98 The fact of this shameful departure from their Christian profession is unquestionable, and we are not surprised that it excited our author's indignation and the character that he subsequently gave of this people fully justifies his anticipation of a like result, should they again be subjected to a similar trial of their fidelity. 40. Thus have matters since proceeded in 8 Abbé Dubois' Letters, pp. 73-75. A. D. 1784. the romish missions in India; but it cannot be necessary to pursue these disgraceful details any further. It will be more suitable, and, missions in doubtless, more acceptable, to close the subject present cen with the latest authentic account published of tury. their state. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Jesuits described their Madura mission as containing forty thousand converts. At that 9 Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, &c. F. de la Lane to F. Morgues, Jan. 30, 1703. See other letters, from the same, to the same, in that collection of the Jesuits' correspondence: also from F. Martin to Fathers de Villette and le Gobien, and from F. Bouchet to the same. The Jesuit mission had been established at Madura at least a century; and about fifty years before its commencement, F. Xavier had laboured, as described in the foregoing pages, in the southern parts of this country. So that in one hundred and fifty years their converts, from a population of about four millions, amounted, according to their own returns, to forty thousand. This, under all circumstances, is much more likely to be correct than the hundreds of thousands, and even the millions of converts, which some romish writers have asserted to have been made in those times and provinces, It is worthy, however, of remark, that the protestant missions within the very same country, which commenced there little more than a century ago, contained, in 1822, at least twenty-three thousand converts. The details of this estimate have been given elsewhere, and we challenge for them the closest investigation. (Vide the author's Reply to the Abbé Dubois, and examination before a committee of the House of Commons on the affairs of the East India Company, 19th July, 1832.) In ten years the converts in only one province, Tinnevelly, were more than doubled; so that, if the other missions in the S. Carnatic progressed in any thing like an equal ratio, the native Christians in that country, in 1832, would exceed forty thousand, and that within considerably less than one hundred and fifty years after the Gospel was first preached there by Ziengenbalg and Grundler. Here then we have a fair comparison between the operation of the two systems on the same field, and within the same period. Speaking only of numbers, their success was nearly equal. A fact like this furnishes an answer to the reiterated assertions of Romish advocates, that the protestant missions in India have proved a total failure. India to the CHAP. time this mission comprehended the whole country East of the Ghauts, from Cape Comorin to Pondicherry, between the eighth and twelfth degrees of N. latitude, and containing a population exceeding four millions. Their mission in Mysore was less flourishing; and that in N. India they do not seem to have considered in a condition worth describing in other than very general terms. The romish missions on the western coast have always been the most numerous, but we have no particular account of their number at that period. 2 The account of these missions about the middle of the eighteenth century represents them in a more prosperous condition. The Abbé Dubois states, " it appears from authentic lists, made up about seventy years ago, which I have seen, that the number of native Christians in these countries was as follows, viz., in the Marawa about 30,000, in the Madura above 100,000, in the Carnatic 80,000, in Mysore 35,000." There is an apparent discrepancy between this and the accounts just referred to. For the Madura mission is there said to include a considerable part of the Carnatic; whereas, here they are described as distinct missions, and their numbers seem greatly to have increased. But they soon began to decline; as we have seen from the same authority, who, when he gave this statement, went on to say,"at the present time hardly a third of this number is to be found in these districts respectively."3 1 According to the census of 1822, the population of this tract of country exceeds five millions.-Hamilton. 2 This was written in 1815, Letters p. 7. 3 Ibid. See the Jesuit missionaries' correspondence in the Lettres edifiantes, &c. referred to above. |