Christian Effort in India in Behalf of the Mussulman

Missionaries have everywhere presented to Mohammedan and Hindu alike the Gospel Message. The follower of Mohammed has never been ignored in the proclaiming of Christ and in the work of the Mission school.

Generally speaking, they are a very hard class to reach; they very rarely seem impressed, or are willing to consider the message as a personal call to themselves. The high character of their faith above that of the surrounding people partly accounts for this. Moreover, the religion itself inculcates intolerance, and naturally narrows the vision of appreciation and sympathy amongst its followers.

It is also, in some measure, due to their supreme ignorance of the teaching of their own faith. They have many fantastic notions about Islam, such as intelligent members of their faith repudiate, and such as make them inaccessible to the Christian worker.

And yet they are not reached and impressed with more difficulty than are the Brahmans and some other high-class Hindus. Though conversions from among them have been relatively few, accessions from Islam to the Christian faith have been continuous during the last century. There have not been many mass movements among them. It has been largely the struggle of individual souls from the trammels of one faith into the liberty of the other. Dr. Wherry informs us that: "In the North, especially the Punjab, and the Northwest Frontier Province, every congregation has a representation from the Moslem ranks. Some of the churches have a majority of their membership gathered from amongst the Mussulmans. In a few cases there has been something like a movement among Moslems toward Christianity, and a considerable number have come out at one time. But perhaps the fact that tells most clearly the story of the advance of Christianity among Moslems in India, is this, that among the native pastors and Christian preachers and teachers in North India there are at least two hundred who were once followers of Islam. Among the names of those who have gone to their reward (many of them, after long lives of faithful service), some of my readers will recall the names of the Rev. Maulvie Imaduddin, D.D., Maulvie Safdar Ali, E.A.C., Munshi Mohammed Hanif, Sayyad Abdullah Athim, E.A.C., the Rev. Rajab Ali, Sain Gumu Shah, the Rev. Abdul Masih, the Rev. Asraf Ali, the Rev. Jani Ali, and Dilawur Khan. These faithful servants of God have left behind them memories which still live. Many of them have bequeathed volumes of literature, which have added much to the literary wealth of all the churches. They give an index wherewith to guide us as to what the strength and character of the Church of the future will be when the strong champions of the Crescent shall have become the Champions of the Cross."

We are also told by the Rev. Maulvie Imaduddin, D.D., of North India, that "117 men of position and influence have become Christians, of whom 62 became clergy and leading men in many of the Indian Missions, and 51 are gentlemen occupying positions professional and official. Out of 956 baptisms of the Church Missionary Society in the Amritsar District, 152 were Mohammedan converts. In the Punjab there are at least two congregations made up entirely of Mohammedans, while in Bengal there is a body of more than 6000 Christians composed almost entirely of Mohammedan converts and their descendants, a large number having come over en masse some years ago. These last were converts in the first instance from Hinduism to Mohammedanism, and hence were not bound so strongly to Islam."

In South India, less attention has been paid to Mohammedans as a class, and the results therefore have been very meagre. A few individuals, here and there, have accepted our faith, and that is practically all. This is not strange when we remember that out of the eleven hundred Protestant missionaries, male and female, in Southern India, perhaps not a dozen have any special training and aptitude for work among Mohammedans, and hardly more than that number are giving themselves entirely to the work.

The difficulty of this work should appeal more than it does to the heroic element in missionaries and missionary societies alike. The above facts indicate that there is encouragement for one who gives himself heartily to this people. In no other land has missionary effort for the members of this religion achieved greater results than in India. If their numbers are few, they are more resolute and pronounced in their Christian character than many others. In the roll of honour among the converts from Islam have been found the names of a number of distinguished pastors and able writers.

In the recent Conference of Missionaries, held in Cairo, a new purpose was manifested to take up with more discriminating and pronounced zeal and better methods the work of reaching and converting the Mohammedans of the world.

In India, a better organized and a wider campaign for the conversion of Islam is needed. Men and women who are to take up work in their behalf must not only be well trained for this specific work by a thorough knowledge of both faiths; they must also be imbued with abundant sympathy for the people, and with a sympathetic appreciation of the vital truths which have thus far animated the Mohammedan faith. The constructive, rather than the destructive, method of activity must increasingly animate all. The Mohammedans are peculiarly sensitive; and there is so much of contact between their faith and ours that through the pathway of the harmonies of the faiths men must be led to know and feel the supreme excellence and power of the faith of the Christ.