India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

“Yes, it shall come! E’en now my eyes behold, In distant view, the wish’d for age unfold, Lo, o’er the shadowy days that roll between, A wand’ring gleam foretells th’ ascending scene. Oh, doom’d victorious from thy wounds to rise, Dejected India, lift thy downcast eyes, And mark the hour, whose faithful steps for thee Through Time’s press’d ranks bring on the Jubilee!”

PREFACE.

The following pages are, practically, the result of a course of lectures given, on the Hyde foundation, at the Andover Theological Seminary in the fall of 1902. Some of the chapters were also used in lectures, delivered during the year, at the Yale and Hartford Theological Seminaries and at the Western Reserve University. Small portions have appeared in Reviews and Magazines but have been much changed in the transfer. The cordial welcome accorded the lectures, including an expressed desire that they be published, has led to their appearance in this more permanent form.

India should be better known to Europe and America. I trust that the following pages may help the student to understand the vast country and to realise the greatness of the problems connected with Christian work in the land; may they also stir within many a strong desire to present Christ to that great people, and inspire a hope in the ultimate and speedy triumph of our cause in the land of the Vedas.

I gratefully express my indebtedness to the Rev. J. L. Barton, D. D., for his valuable suggestions and kindly sympathy, and also to the Rev. W. P. Elwood for his kind help in proofreading.

John P. Jones.

Pasumalai, So. India.

Chapter I.

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.

No country in the Orient is of greater interest to the West today than is India. It is picturesque in its life, wonderful in its history, remarkable in its present conditions and fascinating in its promise for the future.

It is a land most worthy of study both for what it has been, for what it is and for what it is to become; as the arena for the greatest conflict upon which our Faith and Civilization have ever entered; and for their most magnificent triumph in the world.

Moreover, India is now peculiarly wedded to the Anglo-Saxon race. For good or for evil the destiny of that country, socially, politically, intellectually and religiously, is linked with that of the Anglo-Saxon; and we, as a part of the Anglo-Saxon race, cannot, even if we would, shake off our connection with, and responsibility for, it.

1. The Physical Features of That Land.

It is a very extensive land. More a continent than a country, it stretches, from east to west, a distance of 1,900 miles; and it extends the same distance from the Himalayas on the north to Cape Comorin on the south. It covers an area equal to one-half of that of the United States.

It is physically divided into three portions. The first, on the north, includes the Himalaya Mountains, which separate it from the rest of Asia and which furnish an important element in the meteorological conditions of the country. Then from the base of this mountain range extend the plains of the great rivers which issue from the mountains themselves. Again, from the southern boundaries of these plains gradually rises a very extensive three-sided table-land reaching towards the coast on both eastern and western sides, and extending to Cape Comorin on the south. There may be added to this the narrow strips of coast-land on the east and west. In the land are found some of the greatest and most wonderful rivers in the world. The Ganges, which is the queen of Indian rivers, carries life and fertility to a population greater than that of the whole United States. After a course of 1,557 miles it empties, into the Bay of Bengal, 1,800,000 cubic feet of water per second, which is half as much again as the water of the Mississippi, and nearly six times as much as that of the Nile at Cairo.