The clergy of London have been asked to join in a protest against a proposition which has recently issued from the new India Board. The President of that Board has declared that the spheres of theological opinion and of government are entirely distinct. The protesters see in this maxim the commencement of a scheme of policy which shall identify the Queen, now the direct ruler of India, with that doctrine of religious neutrality by which the acts of the Company during the period of its supremacy were directed. England, they think, will be forfeiting her national position, her duty to the religion which she professes, by committing herself to this course. They wish therefore solemnly to state to the Sovereign why they think she is pledged, by her position and her oaths, to a different course.
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of these propositions in themselves, even apart from the consideration of the millions of beings who may be affected by their truth or their falsehood in Hindostan. We should not therefore, it seems to me, be in haste to express our concurrence with either of the statements which are in actual or supposed opposition. We should ask carefully what each means. I do not think that a statesman so accomplished and so well read in history as Lord Stanley can mean that the spheres of theological opinion and of government are separate in this sense, that governors have found it very easy to prevent them from becoming confused with each other. He must know perfectly well that those who have been most anxious that they should not interfere, have nevertheless found in practice that they did. The Romans were exceedingly tolerant. If some, from a general habit of tyranny, would have meddled with a new faith, as they would have meddled with a new game, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius would surely have been disposed to let theological opinions alone. But they could not. They came to the conclusion that the Christian Church and the Imperial world were rival kingdoms; that one must extinguish the other or make it a servant.
That was an experiment on a large scale. I pass over the age of the new Western Empire, in which theological opinion and government were of course confounded; the Capitularies of Charlemagne mixing them as much as his wars. I pass over the Mediæval period, during which every one will admit that they were kept as little distinct by Christians as by Islamites. But the Reformation was the assertion of the distinct individual Conscience. Monarchs had apparently nothing to do with it. Yet every prince of Germany was affected by it; the policy of Charles V. was changed by it; France was torn to pieces by it. The monarch of England became, first, the Defender of the Faith; then the great assertor of the rights of the National King against the Universal Bishop. For two centuries it was proved by the wars of the League, the Thirty Years’ War, the Civil Wars of England, that the spheres of Government and of Theological opinion, by some strange fatality, will not separate themselves from each other. But the eighteenth century, which substituted questions about the balance of power for questions about Romanism and Protestantism,—did not that establish for ever the division of provinces? Was not that the great triumph of its philosophy? If it was, the philosophy strangely defeated itself. The child destroyed the parent. For it brought forth the French Revolution, and that Revolution asserted, from first to last, not more by the overthrow of Catholicism and Christianity under the Convention and Directory, than in the attempt to restore them under Napoleon: “The spheres of Theological opinion and of Government have not learnt the art of separating themselves more in this century than in the second, or the ninth, or the sixteenth, or the seventeenth.”
But if the experiment has been impossible in Europe, has it not been possible in the East? That appears to be the very region in which Theological opinion,—opinion about divine things,—has most mixed itself with all human transactions, has most affected all the acts of Government. Every relation of life, all intercourse, the administration of justice, clothing, food, cleanliness, all are not indirectly, but directly influenced by the “theological opinion” of the natives. Supposing the rulers to have divested themselves of all theological opinions—formally and practically,—still they bring their traditions, habits, an indifference, a scorn, which will come into collision in a thousand ways with that they find, and will compel the interference of a Government, wishing to maintain its own position, wishing even to protect its Hindoo or Mussulman subjects.
Of course Lord Stanley is better acquainted with these facts than any of us are; of course he cannot have intended to ignore them. And he cannot have the slightest expectation that a sic volo, sic jubeo, proceeding from a Board not six months old, will create a division of provinces which so many previous statesmen have been unable to effect. But he has evidently a strong conviction that the working of Government ought not to be impeded by theological opinion, and that theological opinion ought not to be made less sound or less sincere by the interference of Government. I do not think the protesters really differ with him on this point. I think they would say that theological opinion among the natives of India often clogs the wheels of Government because it is mixed with so much falsehood; that it clogged the wheels of Government in the Middle Ages because it was mixed with much falsehood. They would admit also that Governments have done immense mischief to faith, and more by some of their efforts to advance than by any of their efforts to retard it. What Lord Stanley appears to imagine is, that these points being admitted, Englishmen shall work together, and that they may work together more effectually than the members of any nation have done, to prevent those evils, of which experience has given them warning. Here again I cannot believe he is really at issue with those who dread a neutral policy for India, who wish that the nation should do what in it lies for the deliverance of India from an immoral worship.
Perhaps they will exclaim when they hear these words, immoral worship, “Yes! you want to preach an ethical religion to supersede that which exists among Hindoos and Mussulmans; but we want Christianity,—definite Christianity.” I presume that to be the aim of the protesters. I presume them to wish that a message should go forth to all the races under our rule not less definite than that which St. Paul preached at Corinth and Ephesus; in fact, the very same. Nay, I will go further. Though that was a universal message to all kindreds and tribes, though it proceeded from the member of no dominant race, though in the process of delivering it St. Paul had to encounter the exclusive national prejudices of his own people, still I do not wish to forget that we are a nation, that we must send forth this message in the form in which we hold it; and therefore I take it for granted that being a Protestant nation we must evangelize India according to Protestant maxims, in a Protestant way. Starting from these premises, let us consider to what conclusion they lead.
There is a Society, as we all know, for the Propagation of the Faith. Many Protestants, many countrymen of ours think, I suspect, that this Society would be labouring for a very great and good end, if only it were a Society for the propagation of our faith, instead of the Romish faith. They admire, as they well may, the pains which are taken to qualify men for that service, the colleges devoted to the study of the languages which the missionary must speak; the devotion and courage of many who have gone from them into distant lands. “Oh!” they cry, “if such zeal, if such gifts, were but spent on the diffusion of a Scriptural Christianity! Oh, if our Government would favour efforts on behalf of our Church, as some Governments of the Continent did or do favour the propagators of Romanism!”
I cannot join in these longings. It seems to me that the idea of propagating a Faith is a false idea in its root; that if we import that idea, we, of necessity, import the Romish system along with it; for it is part and parcel of this system. When we try to throw a faith outward, to present it as a formal thing to our minds, which can be conveyed and delivered to others, we must mean by it a certain congeries of notions and opinions that we have inherited or adopted. It is a set of theological notions, of tenets concerning God, which we are seeking to propagate. The Romanist at once admits this to be the case. The Church is in custody of certain doctrines, which men ought to believe under peril of damnation; to bring men within the circle which holds those doctrines is the first of all duties. Priests are to fulfil it chiefly. Kings are to aid it with money, patronage, arms, if needed. I am confident that Francis Xavier, and a number of great Romish missionaries, in the course of their labours, became conscious of another object than this, I am confident that another object was unconsciously present to them from the first. The name Christian—even the name Jesuit—suggested to an earnest, self-denying man, not a set of opinions, but a living Person, Whom they might proclaim to men everywhere as their Saviour and their King. Still this must be the Propagandist maxim; a Romanist would have a difficulty in framing any other which should define, clearly and adequately, the end for which he goes forth among savages or civilized men, amongst heathens or heretics.
I think we ought to have no such difficulty. I think there is a word which expressed very distinctly to the Apostles what they were sent into the world to do. They were to preach a Gospel; not certain tenets of certain doctors or of a certain Church concerning God; but His own message concerning Himself. The Reformers clung vehemently to this phrase, as denoting their work at home. Our ancestors, when they became alive to the duties and responsibilities which we had contracted towards our colonists, adopted it as significant of our missionary work abroad. In King William’s days they established a Society, not for the propagation of the Faith, but for the Propagation of the Gospel.
I am not inquiring now to what extent the acts of that Society have been worthy of its pretensions. That it is less magnificent in its plans and its machinery than the body in Italy to which it corresponds, all will admit. I should be inclined to say that in its feeblest time it had given some proofs of the blessing of a rightly chosen title; that in its best times it had not quite cleared itself of the false associations belonging to the title which it rejected. Its admirers have a right to boast that it has proclaimed, with special earnestness, our duty to the children of our own soil; its enemies may say that it has not cared enough for the outlying world. But the last, even more than the first, would prize the word Gospel above every other,—would admit that word to have a peculiarly Protestant sound. This is the point I am pressing now. I want that Churchmen and that Statesmen should earnestly consider what we mean when we say that we have a Gospel, or good news, to declare to all nations.
To the first the doctrine is at least a familiar one; part of their earliest belief and education. People may often say to them—“What? you know these things, then, that you are going to proclaim? You are sure of them? You can announce them as if they were true?” People may say this with some wonder; perhaps with some contempt. But Churchmen have always made answer in act, if not in word, “Yes, we do speak of things that we have known, we testify of that we have seen. We have indeed had, we have often now, racking doubts whether anything is, whether all things do not seem, whether we are not ourselves mere shadows of the dream. And that which saves us from this horrible confusion, in which all action is impossible, all thought impossible, is just the belief, God is. We are in an order, not a chaos, because there is an absolute Being, a living Being, a righteous Being, from whom law and order proceed. We look upon every mythology as a search after that Being, a series of experiments to feel Him and find Him. Believing that He is, and that all men in their inmost heart need Him, and must make lies about Him if He does not reveal Himself, we think He has answered the cries which He has taught His creatures to pour forth. We believe He has revealed Himself in His Son. Our fathers came at that conviction by hard fighting. To believe in dark gods, bloody gods, hateful gods, was their inclination. Continually that inclination returned. It mingled itself with their faith that there was a righteous God, who had shown Himself to men in His only-begotten Son; who had reconciled them to Himself, and had claimed them as His children; who had endued them with His Spirit, that they might be like Himself. But that faith, held amidst all inconsistencies, was that which kept them from sinking into the cruelty, superstition, foulness that were natural to them. It led them to struggle after manhood and bravery. We have as hard work to retain the belief in this Name as they had to receive it. It has as much to fight against in us as it had in them. If we take it as an heirloom from them, we take it surrounded with many opinions and habits which are at variance with it. We have had to grasp it for ourselves, as our protection against superstition, grovelling thoughts of God, hateful feelings about men, an unbelief in the glory of our race, a readiness to become cowards and slaves, by which we are every instant beset. And because we believe that God is the God of Hindostan as well as of England; because we believe that Hindoos and Mussulmans have thought about Him, felt after Him, in their different ways, and that their whole history and life have been moulded by their speculations; because we believe that it is God’s will to reveal Himself to them; because we see no hope of their deliverance from moral and intellectual and physical degradation, but from this knowledge: therefore we will, as Christ’s messengers did of old, preach this Gospel to them. Those may call it a theological opinion who will; the other name is shorter and simpler, and expresses our object far better.” So Churchmen have been wont to speak; so, I trust, many of them speak still.
“Oh yes,” it will be said, “that high discourse may do very well amongst us. But it is not intelligible to Statesmen. We must talk to them about advancing our English religion. They may not agree with us, but they will understand our purpose.” Oh, silly, ignoble policy, which has degraded Churchmen, which really makes them unintelligible as well as insolent to those whom they hope to influence! I say that Statesmen can understand, when you speak to them of a Gospel to our subjects in India, and that they cannot understand, when you speak about spreading a particular religion in India; because they have a calling themselves to preach a Gospel, and they know and confess that they have; and because they have no calling, and they feel that they have not, to advance a religion. They have a calling to preach a Gospel;—they do preach one whenever they see that justice is administered in a Law Court, whenever they impose taxes and collect revenues honestly and fairly, whenever, through military or civil servants, they labour to establish order and put down anarchy. All these acts of theirs are witnesses of Righteousness and Truth. They are parts of Christ’s witness; for when He declared God’s Kingdom to His disciples or the multitudes by words, He also healed the sick and cast out devils. Any acts of healing to the bodies or outward condition of men, any deliverance from the devils by which they are tormented and possessed, is a testimony against the false and unrighteous powers whom they worship, is a testimony for the true and righteous Power whom we profess to worship. Here is that common national duty to which the remonstrants against our Indian policy think that we are appointed; here is that distinction of spheres which Lord Stanley earnestly desires. The Priest cannot deliver one part of the Gospel message, the civil Ruler cannot deliver another. Each delivering his own, fulfils his portion of the Nation’s vocation; each doing his own duty helps the duty of the other.
But how stands the case as to the “theological opinions” of the Native? How it stands while the notion of propagating a faith displaces the older Apostolical doctrine—the Protestant and English doctrine—of propagating a Gospel, it is hard to explain; such complications and contradictions are inevitable under that theory. It is quite natural that the Christian Priest, thinking he has to set up his own faith against a rival one, should be very glad of the help of the civil magistrate in crushing what his words are powerless to crush. It is very natural that the Civil Magistrate, feeling that he is to care for a whole land, should resist that cry for assistance, should even wink at practices which he feels to be unsocial and criminal, because they are part of the popular religion. But this is an inversion of the right and proper relation of the two parties. Naturally the Magistrate is the stern Iconoclast; the Priest, perceiving signs of good, dawnings of truth, under the superstitions of a people, is too inclined to be gentle with them. When both feel that they have different sides of the same message to proclaim,—when neither feels that his business is to suspect and supplant the other,—that will again be the rule. The Civil Magistrate will put down widow-burning or any other enormity, not the least out of compliment to Christianity, simply because it interferes with social order. The Christian Priest will remember that St. Paul laid the axe to the root of slavery, not by denouncing it as an institution, but by telling Philemon to receive Onesimus as a brother; he will be perfectly content to follow that precedent in all his intercourse with Hindoos and Mussulmans. He will sometimes point out to the Civil Governor how a venerable institution of the Eastern World may be rescued from its corruptions and restored to the meaning that was hidden under it. He will be certain that the zeal of a Magistrate, bent upon the moral improvement of his land, will always impel him to be sufficiently destructive of the evil rites and habits that hinder it; to quicken and renovate is his function.
So the Teacher and the Ruler will be fellow-workers; they will act in some degree also as checks upon each other, but in a sense altogether the opposite of that which we commonly imagine. It seems to me that Buchanan and the eminent men who were the instruments of establishing an Episcopate in India, as well as those who have extended it since,—contributed to this end—not chiefly (as it is sometimes said) because they placed the Anglican Church in its full proportions before our subjects and the natives,—far more because they presented the Gospel as the Gospel of a Fatherly Kingdom over all nations, rather than as the announcement of a certain religious system belonging to England. If our Bishops indeed strive to be Fathers,—Fathers to the English of every creed,—Fathers to the Natives——they will be that which mere Governors cannot be, that which they should not attempt to be. We know in Europe what mockery, what tyranny, lies under the affectation of a Fatherly Monarchy. The King who loves his subjects best, will know that he is the just head of a Nation, not the gracious parent of a Family. But awkward attempts to unite the offices prove the need of both. Nowhere, I believe, more than in India may they co-operate for the blessing and education of the land.
The word Education suggests a long question upon which I shall not enter. But I believe the hint which is given in this paper might make that controversy less embarrassing. The Missionary School in which the Bible is taught, unquestionably presents to the native child a Being altogether unlike those which its fathers have worshipped. The Government School, teaching European Science, outrages the doctrine of the Shasters equally. Both are introducing a light from which the darkness must recoil. Both should do their utmost to wound no feeling of reverence in the child for its fathers, only to make it rejoice that it has been permitted to find what they were groping for. If the Government aims at this end for the sake of peace and order, the Missionary must desire it equally, that he may not kindle self-conceit when he is sent to cultivate humbleness of mind. The task of both is difficult; it will not be easier by their thwarting each other. If they are willing to do God’s work each in his own place, He will make the whole nation an Evangelist.
[See the Note on this Homily, at p. 274.]