Chapter XXVI: The Tug of War—the Battle of Diverse Creeds in Ceylon (1)

Nestorian Christians—St. Francis Xavier—Portuguese—Dutch—Table of
British Missionaries—Roman Catholic—American Mission—Need of a
Medical Mission for Women—Jaffna College—High-caste students—
Commencement of Wesleyan Mission—Its Mission to Burmah.

I doubt whether in any other corner of the earth so small an area has proved the battle-field for creeds so diverse as those which have successively striven for the mastery in Ceylon. Certainly there is none in which successive mercenary invaders, whether heathen or Christian, have more unscrupulously used the cloak of religion as a political engine for the furtherance of their own designs, or with more lamentable results.

This fair Isle, somewhat smaller than Ireland, has for centuries been distracted by religious and political conflicts, subject to the caprice of successive rulers of diverse race and faith, each imposing its own secular and spiritual government on the conquered islanders, and all alike unstable. From the days when pure, cold, atheistic Buddhism first sought (quite ineffectually) to drive out the devil-worship which prevails to this day, and through Hindoo and Malay invasions, bringing alternate waves of polytheism and monotheism, till Portuguese and Dutch conquerors came, each in turn determined to enforce their own creed, the people have been subject to such conflicting teaching, that to a very great extent all these faiths have partly blended and partly neutralised one another.

At the present day, although out of a population of somewhat over 3,000,000, 1,800,000 are professedly Buddhists, 630,000 are Hindoos, 220,000 are Mahommedans, and, according to the latest census, 283,000 are Christians, the great mass of these people are still in the thraldom of the aboriginal devil-worship, which is a system of ceaseless propitiation of malignant spirits.

As regards the effect on the Christianity of the Isle, it is evident that creeds enforced by conquerors could not fail to be odious in the eyes of the people. As to winning their hearts, that was never attempted until the present century, unless, perhaps, in very early days when Christianity was introduced from Persia by Nestorian missionaries. Of this mention is made by Cosmas, a Nestorian Christian, who, writing in the time of Justinian, tells that in Taprobane (which was the ancient Greek name for Ceylon) there existed a community of Persian Christians, tended by bishops, priests, and deacons, and having a regular liturgy.

These are understood to have been merchants attracted by commerce to this Isle of gems, ivory, and precious timber, which was then the great emporium of Oriental trade. They are supposed to have established their headquarters on the shores of the Gulf of Manaar, but by the close of the sixth century Eastern trade seems to have languished, the Persian merchants no longer frequented the Isle, and no more is heard of these Persian colonists. Their influence, however, remained, for when Sir John Mandeville visited the North-West Province in the fourteenth century, he states that he there found ‘good men and reasonable, and many Christian men amongst them.’

Some lingering trace of their teaching doubtless predisposed the Tamil natives of that district to the Christian faith, for when[221] St. Francis Xavier (like his MASTER preaching to the fishers on the Lake of Galilee) made his earliest proselytes among the fisher-folk of Cape Comorin, those of Manaar sent him an invitation to come and teach them also. Though unable to go in person, he sent one of his clergy, through whom about seven hundred received baptism—a baptism which was straightway crowned by martyrdom, as these early converts were forthwith put to death by the Rajah of Jaffna, who was a worshipper of Siva. This martyrdom was followed by the usual results, for ere long the sons and other relations of the persecuting ruler embraced the Christian faith and fled for protection to the mainland, to the court of the Christian Viceroy of Goa.

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Footnote 221:

A.D. 1544.

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Soon afterward the Rajah himself, terrified by the encroachments of the Portuguese, declared himself a convert, and induced St. Francis to secure for him a political alliance with these irresistible invaders, who accordingly established a sort of protectorate in his realm, which soon resulted in the assertion of absolute power and the expulsion of the tyrant from his dominions.

To this day the majority of the Singhalese and Tamil fishers are members of the Roman Catholic Church, and members, moreover, who pay their tithes in so liberal a fashion, that, when in 1840 the British Government abolished the tax on fish, which had previously been an item of revenue equivalent to about £6,000 per annum, the fishers simply transferred their payment to the priests, by whom it has thenceforth been collected. The Portuguese seem to have discovered the island by accident, while pursuing trading vessels. They found Moorish ships laden with cinnamon and elephants, and straightway their covetousness was awakened. They found a people weakened by dissensions, amongst whom they came in threefold character, as merchants, missionaries, and pirates. They craved an inch, they quickly took an ell, and in truth a knell they sounded throughout the weary land.

So soon as they obtained possession of Colombo and the adjoining districts (A.D. 1505), Don Juan de Monterio was consecrated first Roman Catholic Bishop of Ceylon, and every effort was made to induce the Singhalese to declare themselves converts. So great was the official pressure, enforced by the indescribably brutal cruelty of fanatical soldiers, that multitudes yielded and submitted to baptism. Amongst these nominal converts were the kings of Kandy and of Cotta, but this was not till the former had been driven from his throne, and the latter compelled to seek the aid of the Portuguese to retain his kingdom. The example of their kings was followed by many of the nobles, who carried compliance so far as to adopt the names of the Portuguese nobles who stood sponsors at the holy font—a circumstance of which we find a curious survival at the present day in the Portuguese Christian names combined with native surnames borne by so many of the people of pure blood, such as _Gregory de Soyza_ Wijeyegooneratne Siriwardene, _Don David de Silva_ Welaratne Jayetilleke, _Johan Louis Perera_ Abeysekere Goonewardene, &c.

Although the influence of Portuguese gold, the hope of official honours, and the dread of barbarous torture combined to produce a general outward conformity, it stands to reason that the majority of the people continued secretly attached to the Buddhist and Brahman faiths; and so great were the concessions made by the Roman Catholic teachers in the way of assimilation as to call forth serious remonstrance from some of the stricter Orders.

Thus matters continued till, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Dutch obtained the upper hand in the struggle for supremacy, and in A.D. 1642 they proclaimed the Reformed Church of Holland to be the established religion of the Isle. Then followed a period of most cruel persecution. Many of the Portuguese priests were deported to India, one was beheaded, all were insulted and oppressed, as were also the native Roman Catholics, many of whom, however, had now become so thoroughly in earnest that no amount of persecution could make them abjure their faith. These were Singhalese, Tamils, and descendants of the Portuguese.

By way of exhibiting their superiority to childish reverence for images, the Dutch indulged in such unworthy diversions as mutilating the sacred figures in the churches, especially that of St. Thomas, the patron saint of the Isle, into which they knocked great nails, and then shot it from a mortar right into the Portuguese quarters. Thus Christianity was presented to the islanders solely as the ground for bitter contentions between these two bodies of those professing it. The Portuguese persuasives having been the sword, the stake, and the spear, the Dutch tried bribery, Government office, and emolument of various kinds.

In curious contrast with their contemptible sacrifice of Christianity to trade in Japan, the Dutch here set to work with a high hand to establish the Reformed Faith. Issuing stringent penal proclamations against the celebration of mass and every other office of the Roman Catholic Church, they took possession of the churches, established Reformed schools, and by the close of the seventeenth century they reckoned their nominal adherents among the Tamil population in the north of the Isle at about 190,000. Nevertheless, Baldæus, one of the earliest Dutch missionaries, who in 1663 records this triumph, has to confess that, though Christian in name, they retained many of the superstitions of their Hindoo paganism.

But the Singhalese of the Southern District were by no means so ready to adopt another new creed at the bidding of strangers; so to quicken their intelligence, proclamations were issued to the effect that no native who had not been admitted by baptism into the Protestant Church could hold any office under Government, or even be allowed to farm land. Of course, upon this there was no limit to the numbers who pressed forward to submit to the test thus sacrilegiously imposed, Brahmans claiming their right to do so without even laying aside the outward symbols of their heathen worship.

And no wonder that they assumed the test to be merely an external form, when in A.D. 1707 they saw the Dutch actually securing peace with the Kandyan king by a loan of ships to convey messengers to Arracan, thence to bring Buddhist priests of sufficiently high ecclesiastical rank to restore the _Upasampada_ order in Ceylon and reinstate Buddhism, which had fallen into decay during the long-continued wars.

The Dutch, however, had every intention of really educating the people to an understanding of Christian doctrine, so free schools were established everywhere throughout the maritime provinces over which they held sway, and attendance was made compulsory and enforced by a system of fines. The natives made no objection to sending their boys, but that girls should be compelled to attend in public was then deemed scandalous.

Even under the pressure of the new edict, the southern Buddhist districts never yielded half so many nominal converts as did the Hindoo population in the north. There was nothing in the prosaic forms of Dutch Presbyterianism which appealed to their imagination. But the Church of Rome received a fresh impetus from the fervent preaching of Father Joseph Vaz, of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri at Goa, who (protected by the reinstated Christian king of Kandy, who backed his advocacy by the persecution and imprisonment of non-compliant subjects) gained 30,000 converts from the ranks of those who had hitherto continued staunch Buddhists.

The Roman Catholics had now resumed worship in four hundred churches throughout the Isle, and the Dutch deemed it necessary to reassert themselves by issuing fresh penal laws, resulting in bitter contentions between these two bodies of the Christian Church, while all the time heathenism continued rampant, the Dutch themselves declaring that multitudes of their nominal adherents were incorrigible Buddhists, who regulated every act of life by the teaching of astrologers, always calling in the aid of devil-dancers, rather than that of the clergy, wearing heathen charms, and making offerings in the idol-temples.

But the penal laws which subjected Roman Catholics to all possible civil disabilities, and even refused to recognise marriage by a priest as valid, continued in force till 1806, when they were repealed by the British Government, and religious liberty established. At the present day scarcely a trace remains of the influence of Dutch Presbyterianism, whereas the numerous descendants of the Portuguese converts continue to be devout members of the Roman Catholic Church (combined, however, with much of the grossest superstition of their heathen neighbours). A very debased form of the Portuguese language is also extensively spoken, and, in fact, was till recently in common use amongst all the mixed races, whereas the Dutch language has entirely died out.

That the Dutch Church, so forcibly established, should have failed to obtain any real footing in the hearts of the nominal converts is no wonder, inasmuch as their clergy would not even take the trouble to master the language of the people, but taught through interpreters. In 1747 there remained in all the Isle only five ministers of the Reformed Church, and only one of these could even understand the language.

After this, however, they were ably assisted by Schwartz and other members of the Danish Mission at Tranquebar, who undertook to train young men for the ministry in Ceylon. But a Church which was so entirely built up on a basis of political bribery and coercion could not stand when these incentives were removed, and so this outwardly imposing Dutch Church has faded away like a dream.

For some time, however, after the British annexation of Ceylon, Dutch Presbyterianism was recognised as the Established Church of the colony, and Mr. North (the first British Governor, afterwards Lord Guildford) not only took active measures for restoring 170 of the Dutch village-schools all over the island, but also offered Government assistance to the clergy if they would itinerate through the rural districts, and so keep alive some knowledge of the Christian faith.

How little the Home Government cared about the matter was proved by the refusal to sanction the sum expended by Mr. North on the schools, which accordingly had to be considerably reduced—a parsimony which was deemed grievously out of keeping with the high salaries granted in other departments.

Meanwhile, however, seeing the interest thus taken in the matter by their new rulers, and expecting that religious profession and political reward would continue to go hand in hand, the number of the nominal converts, both Roman Catholic and Presbyterian, increased rapidly, but only to be followed by wholesale apostasy so soon as they realised that their creed was a matter of absolute indifference to their official superiors. Thus, whereas in A.D. 1801 no less than 342,000 Singhalese professed the Protestant faith, ten years later that number was diminished by one half, the rest having returned to the worship of Buddha!

Likewise in the northern districts, where in A.D. 1802 upwards of 136,000 of the Tamil population were nominal Presbyterians, the cloak of ‘Government religion’ was thrown off so rapidly, that, four years later, the fine old churches were described by Buchanan as having been abandoned, and left to go to ruin, the Protestant religion being extinct, and the congregations having all returned either to the Church of Rome or to the worship of the Hindoo gods. The clergy of the Presbyterian Church had left a district where they were as shepherds without sheep. Only one Tamil catechist remained in charge of the whole province of Jaffna, while priests from the Roman Catholic college at Goa divided the field with the reinstated Brahmans.

So feebly rooted was this Dutch Christianity, that there was reason to fear that those who continued to profess the ‘Government religion’ were really those who cared least about any faith; and though they and their descendants have ever been willing to bring their children to holy baptism, the very term which describes that sacrament, ‘_Kulawa denawa_,’ ‘admission to rank,’ recalls the notion of secular advantage which it conveys to their minds.

Of course, a country in which religion had been thus misused presented the most disheartening of mission-fields. Nevertheless, in the beginning of the present century, the London Mission, the Wesleyans, and the Baptists each sent representatives to try what could be done; but their early efforts seemed to themselves altogether without fruit. The Church of England likewise sent chaplains to minister to the British settlers.[222] About the same time the American Board of Foreign Missions sent its emissaries to commence work at Madras. On their way thither their vessel was wrecked off the north-west of Ceylon. This they accepted as an indication of the Divine will that they were to go no farther. They accordingly established themselves at JAFFNA, which was then a very different place from the civilised town and province of the present day, with gardens and lawn-tennis grounds, its network of first-class roads and travelling facilities. At that time there were no roads, only footpaths over heavy sand, which in the rainy season became impassable. The salt lagoon was not bridged, and the only means of travel was by canoe and palanquin. Bullock-carts were unknown luxuries, and where vast cocoa and palmyra-palm plantations now flourish, all was gloomy jungle, haunted by innumerable leopards, black bears, and other dangerous foes. Packs of jackals infested the suburbs, making night hideous with their cries, troops of monkeys and large grey wanderoos boldly stripped the gardens, while gangs of robbers kept all honest folk in terror.

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Footnote 222:

I may here quote Mr. Ferguson’s Chronological Table of Missions in
Ceylon:—

A.D. 1505. Portuguese visit Ceylon.
— 1544. Roman Catholicism first preached at Manaar.
— 1642. Dutch Presbyterian Ministry commenced.
— 1740. Arrival of Moravian Missionaries.
— 1804. Arrival of London Missionaries.
— 1812. Baptist Mission commenced.
— 1814. Wesleyan Mission commenced.
— 1816. American Mission commenced.
— 1818. Arrival of Church Missionaries (C.M.S.).
— 1840. Arrival of Church Missionaries (S.P.G.).
— 1854. Tamil Coolie Mission commenced.

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At this very uninviting spot the shipwrecked Americans took up their quarters near the old Dutch fort, and devoted all their energies to the evangelising of the Tamil population—an effort which has been carried on without ceasing up to the present time with very marked success.

These pioneers were closely followed by the English Church Missionary Society, whose first messengers commenced work at Nellore, in the immediate neighbourhood of Jaffna, and there studied, taught, and preached for twelve weary years ere their patience was rewarded by making a single convert. Ere that year closed, however, a little band of ten had renounced idolatry, and formed the nucleus of the future Church, which, from that small beginning, has very slowly but steadily developed, and has now just attained that stage of vitality when a Church begins to recognise its own responsibility towards its heathen neighbours—a conviction which inevitably results in self-extension.

Of course, mission work was now commenced on an entirely new footing. So far from aiming at wholesale conversions, all inquirers were henceforth individually subjected to most searching probation, and a rigid standard of character has been maintained, with the result that, though the recognised adherents of each Mission are comparatively few, they are of true stuff, and many are of the kind which seeks to win others.

Thus the position of Ceylon in regard to Christian missions is that of a canvas on which successive artists have tried their skill, each striving to obliterate the work of his predecessors, resulting in an undertone of heavy neutral tint; whereon, at the present moment, many draughtsmen are simultaneously endeavouring to work out a Christian design, although sorely at variance concerning the detail and colour of its several parts.

The various Protestant sects do indeed seek to work in harmony, though, of course, their differences must sorely perplex the heathen who is half inclined to forsake his ancestral faith. But reckoning all together, Episcopalians, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists, these, even according to the census, only constitute a total of about 70,000, and of these only about 35,000 are recognised adherents of any Protestant mission. Here, as in India, many who would be no credit to any creed can assume the name for their own ends. The Roman Catholics, who are content to acknowledge very nominal conversions, reckon their co-religionists at upwards of 212,000 but a very large number of these are Christians solely in name, descendants of converts of bygone generations, and absolutely ignorant of even the distinctive outlines of Christian faith.

Of these two great branches of the Church Catholic, it can certainly not be said that they are working in union in their Master’s cause, but never does their estrangement appear so grievous as when thus displayed in presence of an overwhelming majority of the heathen, whom each seek to lead to the same Saviour—at least we would fain believe that such is the object of the whole Catholic Church, though practically even the largest charity must admit that a vast number of the Roman Catholic converts merely exchange one idolatry for another. I have already mentioned having myself seen, in one small chapel the image of Buddha on one side and that of the Blessed Virgin on the other, receiving divided worship; and as to the processions in the Tamil districts, it is scarcely possible to distinguish those of so-called Christian images from those of the Hindoo gods (which are worshipped alike by Buddhists and Tamils), to say nothing of the fact that each are escorted by companies of riotous devil-dancers and truly diabolical musicians, both hired from heathen temples.

But even a most orthodox Roman Catholic festival is startling when considered as a legitimate feature in the worship of ONE who has revealed himself as ‘a jealous GOD,’ saying, ‘MY glory will I not give to another, neither MY praise to graven images.’ Here, for instance, is an account of the Midsummer pilgrimage of our Lady of Maddu as described by the ‘Jaffna Catholic Guardian’ in 1884:—

The annual festival of this celebrated sanctuary was solemnised with
the customary pomp, fervour, and devotion. As the fame of this holy
spot spreads, so does the number of pilgrims increase from year to
year. This year the number assembled on the festival day was
calculated to be between fifteen and twenty thousand. Yet the order
and quiet that reigned throughout the time the festival lasted was
simply admirable. The cheerfulness and resignation of the people
amidst the discomforts and privations of a jungle life, far away from
any human habitation, _and especially in a place where water is
scarce_, was a source of edification to everyone. Nothing could be
more touching than to see the pious fervour with which the pilgrims,
_both Catholics and Hindoos, Buddhists and Moors_, from early dawn
till late in the night, flocked around the altar of our Holy Mother
_to thank her_ for favours received, and _to supplicate her_ for the
grace they stood in need of. The temporary church could not contain
the crowds that gathered at the morning and evening services.

The mixed multitude of pilgrims here represented as worshippers at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin is certainly remarkable.

Perhaps we need scarcely wonder that the Protestant catechists, who insist on a radical change of creed, sometimes meet with more serious opposition from the Roman Catholic priests than from the heathen. For instance, a catechist was recently selling books and tracts from village to village in the Negombo district. The purchasers included sundry Roman Catholics, who in that neighbourhood are numerous. One of these invited the catechist to bring his books to the verandah of his house, and sent a private intimation to the priest, who in the course of a few minutes arrived, angrily denouncing the sale of such pernicious literature. The catechist vainly pointed out that the books he was selling were all the simplest teaching about Jesus addressed to Buddhists, but the irate priest refused to hear him, and informing him that he had already collected and burnt more than a hundred of the books sold in other villages, he confiscated the whole remaining stock. Reckoning the prices marked on those for sale, he paid down the money, but appropriated all that were for gratuitous circulation, and, notwithstanding the protestations of their owner, he carried off the whole lot to burn them. During this scene a crowd of Romanists gathered round, and were worked up to such excitement, that the catechist was thankful to escape from the village without personal injury.

Of the three races whom both Catholics and Protestants seek to influence, _i.e._, the Singhalese, Tamils, and Moormen, the most satisfactory mission results have been obtained amongst the Tamils of the Northern Province, Jaffna, as I have already stated, having long been the headquarters of the American Congregational Mission, as also of a Church of England and a Wesleyan branch, all, happily, proving their love to one Master by working in sympathy, shoulder to shoulder, as beseems loyal soldiers of the Grand Army, who are too deeply engrossed in a real war with dark idolatry to contend over small differences of regimental uniform.

Each of these missions has its own schools and chapels, scattered over the many villages of the surrounding districts. The most notable feature in all three is the recent recognition of the tremendously antagonistic power of the heathen wives and mothers, ‘the backbone of the nation,’ whom it is always so difficult to reach on account of Oriental customs of feminine seclusion; not that these are by any means so stringent in Ceylon as on the mainland. So a great effort is now being made by each of these missions to establish schools, and especially boarding-schools for girls, and in every possible way to win the women.

This effort was indeed commenced at the very beginning of the AMERICAN MISSION, when it was found that Tamil parents were willing to send their boys to school, but declared that it was absurd to send girls, as they could no more learn than sheep! One day, however, a heavy tropical rainstorm came on so suddenly that two little girls sought shelter in the mission-house. As the storm continued they could not leave till evening, and they were hungry and began to cry. The missionary lady gave them bread and bananas, and the younger sister ate, but the elder refused.

Presently their parents came to seek for them, and when they learnt that the youngest had eaten bread prepared by anyone not of their own caste (worst of all by a foreigner), they were very angry, and declared that the child was polluted, and that they would be unable to arrange a suitable marriage for her. They were in sore perplexity, but decided that the lady had better keep the child and bring it up.

To this she gladly agreed, and the little one was soon quite at home. Her new friend sprinkled sand on the floor of the verandah, and thereon wrote the 247 letters of the Tamil alphabet, a few every day, till her young pupil could write them all herself. Some little Tamil playmates came to see her, and were so delighted with this new game that they came again and again, and very soon they were all able to read, to their own great delight and the surprise of their parents.

Seeing how happy and well-cared for the first little girl was, other parents consented to intrust their children to the foreign lady, and thus in 1824 commenced the Oodooville (or, as now spelt, Uduvil) Girls’ Boarding School, probably the earliest effort of the sort in a heathen land.

(I may remark in passing, that in 1887 several girls in the Oodooville training school passed far ahead of any of the boys, a circumstance which proved quite a shock to the Tamil believers in feminine incapacity for intellectual studies!)

This school grew to very great importance under the care of Miss Eliza Agnew, ‘the mother of a thousand daughters,’ as she was lovingly called by the people. When herself a child only eight years of age, at home in New York, her school-teacher, in giving a geography lesson to her class, pointed out the large proportion of the world which is still heathen. Then and there one little pupil resolved that, if God would allow her, she would go and teach some of these to love her Saviour.

Domestic duties tied her to her home till she was a woman of thirty, when the death of her only near relations left her free to follow her early impulse, and she was allowed to join the newly-established American Mission at Jaffna. There she worked without intermission for forty-three years, loved and loving, and teaching successive generations, the children, and even some grandchildren, of her first pupils. Upwards of a thousand girls studied under her care, and of these more than six hundred left the school as really earnest Christians.

These became the wives of catechists, teachers, native pastors, lawyers, Government officials, and other leading men in the Jaffna peninsula, so that the influence exerted by this one devoted Christian woman has been beyond calculation. Hundreds of these families attended her funeral, sorrowing as for no earthly mother.

The two sisters who told me these details, and who themselves carried on her work and tended her last hours, added: ‘In hundreds of villages in Ceylon and India there is just such a work waiting to be done by Christian young women as that which, with God’s blessing, Miss Agnew accomplished in the Jaffna peninsula. Heathen lands are open to-day as they have never been open before; the stronghold of heathenism is in the homes. It is the women who are teaching the children to perform the heathen ceremonies, to sing the songs in praise of the heathen gods, and thus they are moulding the habits of thought of the coming generation. If we are to win the world for Christ, we must lay our hands on the hands that rock the cradles, and teach Christian songs to the lips that sing the lullabies; and if we can win the _mothers_ to Christ, the _sons_ will soon be brought to fall at the feet of their Redeemer.

‘Zenanas, which forty years ago were locked and barred, are to-day open. We have been told by Hindoo gentlemen that there are many educated men in India to-day who are convinced of the truth of Christianity, and would confess Christ, were it not that a wife or mother, who has never been instructed about Him, would bitterly oppose their doing so.’

They added that in India alone there are 120,000,000 women and girls; that in Great Britain alone there are about 1,000,000 more women than men, and yet the total number of women who have as yet volunteered for this honourable work in India, counting all in connection with every Protestant Missionary Society, is barely 500; and knowing from full personal experience the gladness of life and fortune consecrated to this grand cause, they ask; ‘Cannot many more women be spared from their homes, and cannot more go who are possessed of private means, and here realise how satisfying is this life-work?’[223]

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Footnote 223:

For most interesting details of the work of these two sisters, see
‘Seven Years in Ceylon,’ by Mary and Margaret Leitch. Published by S.
W. Partridge and Co. Price 2_s._ 6_d._, post free.

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From their own personal knowledge of pitiful cases of the terrible suffering of women, owing to the total lack of the very simplest medical skill, and to the barbarous system of so-called ‘sick-nursing’ (which makes one marvel how sick persons ever survive), these ladies specially plead for trained medical women to come to the aid of their sisters in Ceylon and India. But on this subject I cannot do better than quote part of a letter from Dr. Chapman, a native Christian doctor at Jaffna, who, speaking of the need for a Medical Mission for Women in Ceylon, says:—

A favourite prescription is a pill made of croton seed. One pill will
act, perhaps, forty times! The stronger the pill is the better, so
they think. Sometimes one pill is enough to kill a person. Two cases
of such mistreatment, and death from that cause alone, happened
recently to two Christian women, both of whom were teachers in
mission-schools.

He also writes at some considerable length about the heathen doctors not allowing their patients water or sufficient food, and speaks of many cases of death simply from starvation.

Speaking of barbarous native customs in regard to child-birth, he says:—

A few days ago I was asked to go to a house where a woman was being
confined. The woman was tied to the roof of the house by a rough rope
and kept standing upon her knees. She was also supported by other
native women. The room was very small, and as no ventilation was
allowed, was very hot. The poor woman and her friends were in profuse
perspiration. She was held up in this position _three days and two
nights_. She was not allowed to rest or lie down at all. The friends
of the woman, who were holding her up, took turns with each other and
rested themselves, but the poor woman had no one to change with.

When I reached the house, her limbs were cold, and she was not able to
hold up her head, and was fast sinking. I ordered that they should
take her down and let her lie on the ground, and that they should give
her brandy and ammonia.... I did everything in my power to save her,
but she died the following night.

_In all such cases of confinement the women are held up in this
standing posture for days and nights until the child is born or the
woman dies._ The reason of this great superstition, among the poor and
the rich, among the educated and uneducated, among the Christians and
heathen, all alike, is that they think gravitation will assist the
mother in the birth of the child. By thus being held up for days
without rest or food, the mother loses her whole strength, and, in
many instances, becomes unable to bring forth her babe.

However, if a child is born, the mother is taken to another room and
is bathed, that is to say, she is laid on a cold mud floor and cold
water is dashed all over her till she is thoroughly chilled. This is
immediately done with all possible haste, without letting the mother
rest a moment, of course causing a fearful shock to the system.

If she escapes this crisis, she is laid on a mat, and a
strongly-spiced paste is given her to eat, which is made of pepper,
garlic, and ginger. Nothing else is given her for three days. No water
is given. On the fourth day rice is given, with hot spices and dried
fish. She is daily bathed in hot water; spices and oil are freely
given her to eat; not a drop of water is she allowed to drink. The
mother is allowed to nurse the child only on the fifth day. Every
woman must get fever on the fifth day. Fever is good, they think.
Before the fifth day the child is fed with some decoction.

The population of the province is about 316,000, and taking the
birth-rate at 3 per cent., there must be some 9,480 births every year,
and yet there are no trained midwives to assist in such cases.

The fact that this doctor was only called after the woman had been tied up to the roof of the house for three days and two nights, and when it was too late for him to render any aid, shows the extreme reluctance of the people to call for the help of a male doctor at such times.

Miss Leitch tells me that in such cases she has gone into homes where the poor exhausted woman was lying shivering on a cold mat, and literally dying for want of a warm drink, while the house has been crowded with relatives bewailing as for one already dead. By turning them all out and applying needful warmth, she has had the happiness of seeing the poor mother recover, but knew that, however exhausted she herself might be, she dared not leave the house, as all the relatives would at once return, and pandemonium would again surround the sick-bed. In many houses devil-dancers are called in to exorcise the evil spirits supposed to be present, and the wretched patient is distracted by the beating of tom toms for hours at a time.

Here, then, is one grand field of work for Christian women, as yet wholly unoccupied, and assuredly, of all phases of work, is that which most closely assimilates to His, the merciful MASTER, Who won men’s hearts by healing all manner of sickness and disease.

A very important step was taken this year when Dr. Kynsey, the principal medical officer of Ceylon, sought the Governor’s sanction for the admission of female students into the Medical College at Colombo, there to be trained as doctors for their countrywomen. The College will be open to them from May 1, 1892, when they will attend the same lectures as male students, but have separate class-rooms for anatomy, their studies being directed by Mrs. Van Ingen, a fully qualified lady-doctor, herself trained in the Indian Medical School for Women, founded by Lady Dufferin in 1885.

That great scheme has already resulted in the establishment of thirty-eight hospitals specially for women, with forty lady-doctors, while 204 female students are now being educated to aid the suffering women of India.

Scholarships and other inducements will be offered to attract students in Ceylon; and, as in India, the scheme will be worked on entirely unsectarian lines, no attempt being made to influence the religion of either students or patients.

It is certainly much to be regretted that Christian medical missions should have been unable to occupy this field, and secure so important a means of influence, instead of its becoming an altogether secular agency.

As regards the quiet extension of purely spiritual work, many of the native Christian women now recognise the duty of trying to influence their heathen sisters by visiting them in their homes; and though such work implies very great effort on the part of those in whom the second nature of custom has exaggerated natural timidity, a considerable number are now doing excellent service as Bible-women, even making their way in the wholly heathen villages.

Some of the Tamil women who have undertaken this good work are the wives of Government officials, doctors, or lawyers, so that their words are the more certain to carry weight with their countrywomen, who invariably receive them with respect, and acknowledge that only a strong conviction of religious duty, combined with a remarkable love to their unknown neighbours, could possibly have induced them to come forth from the privacy of their own homes. This movement was commenced in Jaffna in 1868 by the Wesleyan Mission, and was successfully adopted by the English Church and American Missions there. The latter has upwards of forty of these good pioneers now working in various parts of the peninsula.

From one district the superintendent writes: ‘The Bible-readers teach in the forenoon, and every afternoon go from village to village, collecting the women and holding meetings. Thus twenty villages are visited. The great interest of our work consists in the willingness of the women of all classes to learn to read for themselves. There are now in this district 373 women under instruction. One hundred can now read the Bible, and all the rest are learning. The majority of the women are of the Vellala or farmer caste. Last year we had nine Brahman women, now we have twenty-two. Of other classes we have a few from the barber, carpenter, washer, and tree-climber (_i.e._, toddy-drawer) villages. Many of these attend the weekly meetings of the “Helping Hand Society” for study and recitation.’

Another superintendent of ten Bible-women tells of their weekly visits to 375 women in their respective village-homes. Each of these women undertakes to learn by heart[224] each week four verses of the Bible and part of a hymn, the portions selected being those assigned in the village day-schools, in order that the little girls, on their return home in the evening, may thus become pupil-teachers, helping their mothers and grown-up sisters to learn their lessons. In truth, the story of the Mission records some very pathetic instances of how the ewes follow the lambs—in other words, how the simple faith of little children has resulted in the conversion of their parents. Of course, the primary object of each visitor is to teach every woman to pray, and they have reason to hope that a very large proportion of their pupils do so, many having had the courage openly to confess their conversion.

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Footnote 224:

‘To memorise’ is the expressive American abbreviation.

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In addition to this house-to-house visitation, these ten Bible-women teach sewing to upward of 250 girls at twelve day-schools; they also teach in the Sunday-schools, and otherwise make themselves useful in arranging women’s meetings.

Similar reports, more or less encouraging, come from the other districts, in one of which, at a meeting of heathen women, one told how, fifty years ago, when quite a child, she had been for six months at one of the Mission boarding-schools, when her parents removed her in consequence of an outbreak of whooping-cough, and she had not been allowed to return. But those six months seemed to remain in her memory as the one bright spot of life.

To some of the high-caste women, the fact that the Bible-women are mostly of low caste is in itself an objection to submitting to their teaching, which is only overcome by the ambition of learning to read; the fact, too, of having to sit on equal terms amongst pupils who are also of low caste is at first a great barrier to women of the higher castes attending any meeting. In many cases, however, this difficulty has been overcome, and a kindliness hitherto undreamt of seems to herald the dawn of the faith which teaches unselfish loving-kindness.

Remembering how the first girl was given to the care of the missionaries, because, having eaten of their bread, she was polluted, it is touching to hear now of an annual meeting at Batticotta of the Native Missionary Society, at which upwards of a thousand communicants assemble, the native Christians of the town providing an abundant meal of curry and rice for all visitors—a putting aside of caste prejudices which is indeed a triumph of grace.

Formerly some heathen families who sent their daughters to the mission-schools used to insist on elaborate ceremonial ablutions before allowing them to re-enter their home in the evening!

The regular work of the American Mission at Jaffna is carried on by eleven native pastors and about sixty assistants, under the supervision of five married missionaries. Here, as in the Hawaian isles, the venerable American missionaries, several of whom have here toiled ceaselessly for half-a-century, are affectionately designated ‘Father’ of their flock. Thus the late much-loved Principal of the College, Father Hastings, is succeeded in office by Father Howland. Father and Mrs. Spaulding, and I think Father Smith, also each gave upwards of fifty years’ work to Jaffna, and have left sons and daughters who follow in their steps. Each district has at least one chapel, but great efforts are made to carry on systematic preaching in as many villages as possible, and it is hoped that the numerous books, Bibles, and portions of Scripture sold by colporteurs will prove silent teachers in many homes. Not only all the schools, but also the police-courts are found to be suitable preaching centres, on account of the large number of people who generally congregate in the neighbourhood.

It is also hoped that much good may result from the multiplication of what are called ‘moonlight meetings,’ which are informal meetings in the homes of any of the people who care to call together their friends and neighbours for religious discussion or instruction. The workers of all denominations agree as to the advantage of diligently prosecuting this system, which seems to find much favour with the people, who in some districts assemble to the number of several hundreds. In some of the Singhalese districts even Buddhist priests sometimes attend these meetings in quite a friendly spirit.

Naturally, however, this is not always the case, the zeal of the Christian preachers sometimes awakening a corresponding energy in the more rigid Buddhists. For instance, the marked success of the moonlight meetings in the neighbourhood of Cotta, near Colombo, induced the Buddhists to commence holding opposition services. The majority of the people, however, refused to countenance these, declaring that the Christians ‘were only doing their own work and trying to do good, and that to commence such meetings simply out of spite or envy showed a very bad spirit!’

As regards open-air preaching in the streets or other public places, Buddhists and Christians being alike protected by the British Government, have precisely the same liberty and security.

The total number of Church members in connection with the American Congregational Mission is as yet only about 1,300, but the attendants at public worship are about 7,000; and there is reason to believe that a very much larger number are converts at heart, although the fear of domestic persecution, and the difficulties of strict Sabbatical observance and of disposing of extra wives, prevent many from professing themselves Christians.

One of the most remarkable Christian institutions in Ceylon is the College for Tamils at Batticotta, in the Jaffna peninsula, which originated in a purely spontaneous effort made in 1867 by the native Christians in that district to secure for themselves and their descendants a superior education both in English and Tamil. They succeeded in raising 1,700_l._—a large sum in a land where the wage of a labourer is but 6_d._ a day. This nest-egg was supplemented by 6,000_l._ from America, and in 1872 the college was started under the control of a board of directors. These are the Government Agent of the Northern Province, eleven representatives of the native Christian gentlemen of the community, and the senior missionaries of the three Christian regiments which work in that province in such admirable brotherly union, namely, the CHURCH OF ENGLAND MISSION, and the AMERICAN and WESLEYAN MISSIONS, all of whom are in full sympathy with the work of this noble institution.

While the college is undenominational, it is essentially Christian, and the form of worship adopted is Congregational. Not one heathen teacher has ever been employed in it, and all students are required to live on the premises, and are thus continuously under strong Christian influence.

It might be supposed that Hindoo young men of high caste would object to paying full price for board and lodging in a college where a standing rule is that all inmates shall refrain from heathen practices, and from wearing idolatrous marks on their foreheads; but so highly is the education prized, that no objection to these conditions is ever made,[225] and the Hindoo students not only eat, sleep, and live with the Christians, but unite in the daily study of the Bible, and are present at morning and evening prayers, the Sabbath-school, and Church services of the American Mission.

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Footnote 225:

Perhaps I ought to say ‘no objection by those really concerned.’ In
point of fact, a party-cry of ‘religious intolerance’ was raised a few
years ago by certain wealthy Hindoos, who, although too indifferent to
establish schools for themselves, made this a ground of attack on
missionaries, who rightly insist on all children who attend Christian
schools coming with clean faces, that is to say, without the temple
marks of cow-dung ash on their foreheads.

So many Europeans seem to think that they cannot yield sufficiently
courteous recognition to heathen customs, that the strong words of
Bishop Copleston on this question may well be remembered: ‘It matters
everything what we teach by our action to our heathen neighbours and
to our Christian people. Let us teach that the symbol of Siva—if it
means anything but a dirty face—is an outrage on the majesty and love
of the One True God, that it is what Scripture calls “an abomination,”
to be abhorred by all loyal children of the One Father. And let us
remind our own people that THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A SOUND AND TRULY
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE, WHICH IS NOT TOLERANT OF AFFRONTS TO OUR GOD;
WHICH WILL NOT TREAT AS ONE AMONG MANY FORMS OF RELIGION THE WORSHIP
OF IDOLS AND THE DENIAL OF OUR LORD.... Our heathen neighbours will
have reason to thank us in the end, and in the meantime will respect
us, if we are determined both to speak and act the truth in love.’

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This college takes no grant-in-aid from Government, and until June 1891 it was not affiliated to any university,[226] as experience proves that students who are working for passes grudge the time bestowed on Biblical study, which does not count in their examinations. Naturally a college which recognises the training of Christian catechists and schoolmasters as the primary object of its existence prefers to be independent of a purely secular superior.

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Footnote 226:

The directors state that the decision of Government to give up
Cambridge and introduce London has compelled them to affiliate the
Jaffna College to that of Calcutta.

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The result of this system has been that, out of about 350 students who have been educated here, fully 150 have gone out into the world as Christians and communicants, and are leading such consistent lives as tend greatly to uphold the honour of their faith.

In India, on the other hand, where in the Government schools absolutely secular education is given, with entire disregard to religion—even Bible-reading being set aside—the statistics of the four universities show that only between four and five per cent. of the graduates are Christians; the rest, for the most part, while learning to despise heathenism, drift into agnosticism, and even atheism.

I cannot refrain from quoting a paragraph on this subject from a non-Christian Bombay paper. The writer says: ‘Education provided by the State simply destroys Hindooism; it gives nothing in its place. It is founded on the benevolent principle of non-interference with religion, but in practice it is the negation of God in life. Education must destroy idolatry, and the State education of India, benevolent in its idea, practically teaches atheism. It leaves its victims without any faith.’

This lamentable result, which is flooding India with a multitude of highly-educated utter sceptics, was vividly brought home to the Christian workers in Jaffna when they found the existing college totally inadequate for the number of promising young men in the schools, who were consequently compelled to cross over to India, and there seek the ‘higher education’ in Government schools.

Many of these were apparently on the verge of professing themselves Christians, but after a course of two or three years in totally heathen and grossly immoral surroundings, they invariably returned either as bitter heathen or atheists; a state of matters all the more distressing as they were in many cases betrothed to Christian girls in the mission-schools.

It was evident that the Christian college at Jaffna must be placed on such a footing as to enable it to meet this ever-increasing need. A sum of 30,000_l._ was required for its immediate extension, and it is delightful to know that this has been almost raised by the efforts of the two sisters of whom I have already spoken, and who came to Britain and to America for this purpose.

There is every reason to believe that this college is destined to fill a very important part in the evangelisation of India, for this reason, namely, that a singularly large proportion of the Tamils resident on the peninsula of Jaffna are of very high caste, and the 15,000 children attending the Christian day-schools and the 2,500 communicants connected with the three Missions are mostly of high caste. It is scarcely possible for Europeans to realise how deeply ingrained in Hindoo nature is the reverence for all members of the upper castes, however poor they may be, and the natural tendency to look with contempt on low-caste men. Now it so happens that in India the majority of converts are of low caste, and these, as a general rule, are not only intellectually inferior to the higher castes, but are generally too poor to afford the highest course of education. Consequently, Brahman teachers, whose caste secures unbounded reverence, are frequently found even in the mission-colleges and high-schools, with the badge of heathen gods on their foreheads, instructing the students in the highest classes, while native Christian teachers take the lower subjects. Possibly the native pastor who gives the Bible-lessons is by caste a Pariah, and however excellent he may be, is, as such, despicable in the eyes of the Hindoo student.

Thus the social barrier of caste enters even into the Mission colleges, acting as a very serious drawback. Of course the various Missions would gladly replace the Hindoo and Mahommedan teachers by thoroughly educated and influential Christian men, could such be procured. The Principal of the Lucknow High School alone states that he would thankfully engage two hundred Christian teachers for the schools of the American Mission in that district, were such available; but as it is, heathen teachers are engaged of necessity.

Now in these respects Jaffna is very remarkably favoured, and is apparently destined to become to Southern India what Iona once was to Scotland—the school for her teachers. It must be borne in mind that Tamil is one of the four great Dravidian tongues, and is the language of 13,000,000 of the inhabitants of the Carnatic, extending from Cape Comorin to Madras. Glorious indeed is the prospect thus unfolded, that (as has been said) ‘after having received its two false religions from India, Ceylon shall, by a Christ-like retribution, send over her sons to preach the one true religion to India’s millions.’

Already a large proportion of the students trained in Jaffna College (men whose attainments fully qualify them for secular work on salaries of from £5 to £10 a month, with prospects of promotion) have voluntarily chosen to devote their lives to Christian work as teachers, catechists, or pastors on a salary of £1 10_s._ to begin with, and no prospect of ever rising above £4 a month.