NOTICES OF BOOKS.

Evening Star, Issue 3342, 5 November 1873, Page 3

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

History of the Missions of the Fr<r Church of Scotland in India and Africa, by the Bov. Robert Hunter, If.A. Nelson and Sons, London. William Hay, Princes stm >; , Dunedin. Christian churches of every denomination have been more or less missionary institutions in all ages. Holding different doctrines on many points; varying in their notions of human .authority in spiritual matters ; adopting divers liturgies and forms of worship, they hold in common a conviction that < ’hristiau duty is not fulfilled unless elfort is put forward to spread Christianity through all nations of the earth. This all-pervading feeling- - this enthusiasm to bring all people and tongues under tbc banner of the Cross, lias even been the motive power leading to enterprise and discovery. It has assumed different forms, according to prevailing modes of thought and the opposition it bad to encounter. In the first days men of varied talents adapted to the learned and unlearned classes, devoted themselves to mission work. It needed a Paul to grapple with the philosophic Cl reeks, and a Peter or a James to convince the unlearned (tableaus. When learning became clouded, and barbarous Europe mixed up a spurious Christianity with the war spirit, Crusades became the fashionable means of spreading Christianity. We do not suppose those bellicose gatherings were altogether without their use ; for if no other good resulted, many of the crusaders gathered knowledge from the Last, that, improved by the energy of the Western nations, laid the foundation of the art and science that have latterly been so largely developed, and have so abundantly blessed mankind. We scarcely know anything that partakes more of a miraculous character than the spread of (Christianity. Yet we may fairly say that when accompanied by force it has over failed. Paces upon whom it has been attempted to he forced have either rejected it or been exterminated ; and to this day its triumphs are moral and intellectual: it accomplishes its objects by raising the human being to the rank of an angel, not by degrading him to spiritual slavery. If successful, it arouses to freedom of thought, to aspirations after likeness to Deity : the truth makes man free. The task missionaries propose to accomplish is from its nature almost superhuman. In the first ages of Christianity, we are told that the doctrines proclaimed were enforced by miracles. Not only so, but there was an intellectual seeking after a standard of morality : a dissatisfaction with the teachings of philosophy ; a distrust in, and after all only a very partial knowledge of the theories of Epicurus, Socrates, Plato, et id pains omne. The youth in many of our schools know more about them than the mass of the people did in Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, or Italy. The populace there had < ither views which sanctioned gross immoralities, of which we are glad to say few in our day have even a remote conception. To attack these vices, sanctioned by the usage of centuries and mixed up with religious rites, seemed a forlorn hope ; yet, the fishermen of Galilee achieved it. And age after age witnessed like triumphs until Christianity leant upon the State and put faith in the sword. Then it failed. The pious hopes of Columbus and the Portuguese discoverers were not realised ; their work, says an able writer, “was at first undertaken in a barbarous spirit.” As an illustration, we maygivo an instance of how ('ortez manufactured ('hristiau pi iests in Mexico, “ Having cast down and destroyed the altars in one of the Mexican temples, a new altar was erected, which was hung with rich mantles and adorned with flowers. Cortez then ordered four of the native priests to cut off their hair and to put on white robes, and placing the cross upon the altar, ho committed it to their charge.” They wove Cortezmade Christians. It wgs plainly necessary before Christianity could Spread further, that better teachers should be prepared. The period of the Reformation, therefore, was a transition state, in which the energies of the Churcucs were directed to self-purification; and now, dependent only upon the doctrines that they teach, Churches once more aim at changing existing modes of human thought in barbarous and in civilised lands ; in countries that have traditions, literature, and the terrible barriers of caste as well as settled forms of worship and theology, dated back thousands of years before Christianity was given to the world. Humanly speaking, the missionary of to-day to such countries as India, China, and Japan, has an arduous task to perform. As a citizen of Groat Britain, ho may be, and is more or less protected from outrage ; but he cannot make sure of even that. The volume before us is not written in a sensational style. It is as s,Jier in its way as the Acts of the and to the student of humanity fa interesting. It contains vipadprped narratives of the efforts of a section of the Missionary Church against obstacles in one direction requiring to be combated by learning jnvtience, fortitude, and courage, anil in another by tact and adaptation of means to awaken the divinity within untutored man. One extract will illustrate the impediments of the first class “ On Sabbath, the nth September--the one on which funeral sermons were being preached for Mr Macdonald— Dr Duff baptised the three Brahman converts, along with an up-country Sudra, twenty-seven years of age, in presence of the congregation which assembled in the evening, sorrow and joy being thus strangely commingled, as, indeed, they ever are in the Christian life. “ These baptisms, with ono which occurred about the same time in connection with the Established Chpryh uf Scotland’s mission, galvanised the languishing confederacy into fresh «fe, “On Sabbath, 19th September, a meeting was held to concert measures to stay the further progress of conversion. About 2,000 attended, including Hindoos of all shades of thought, from the venerable men of nltra-conservatjye tendencies, who sighed for the ‘ good oJd times,’ when widows were burnt alive, agreeably to the holy shasters, to young Bengalees, who, when it could be slily done, ordered a beefsteak and champagne at Wilson’s or Spence’s, and having thus rcidly finished their own castes beyond the possibility of redemption, then thanked God that they were not wicked like those C’hristhirr converts who broke caste from conscientious motives. ■ All Calcutta discussed the same questions as those which had boon debated at the meeting, and various measures were publicly or privately suggested, one of them, which clearly emanated from a very practical rather than a very pious mind, being to hire bludgeonmen (a too common Bengalee practice), and beat Dr Duff nearly, if not quite, to death—the evening fixed on being that of Sunday, when it ■was known that he would be returning in the dark through some narrow crooked lanes, from the institution, where he always preached on Sabbath evening. The friends of the distinguished missionary counselled him to take care how he walked out, especially after dark, whilst he himself wrote to a well-meaning and influential baboo, stating that be would go out as freely fps ovef, whether hy night or by day, in discharge of his ordinary duties ; showing how silly it was to think that even if the Hindoos succeeded in murdering him, his martyr death would be advantageous to their cause ; and proposing a public discussion, as the claims of the two faiths could be settled only by argument and not by clubs. The baboo deemed discretion the better part of valor.”