ART. IV.—OUR INDIA MISSION.*

ITS HISTORY.

THE mission only reaches back to 1857. It was born amid the storms and trials of an Indian. mutiny. But it was a child of Providence. Rev. Dr. Butler, the ecclesiastical explorer of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was sent out in 1856, arriving in the city of Lucknow, Oudh, November 29. Failing to secure a permanent residence, and discouraged from his undertaking by the government officials, he proceeded to Bareilly, in Rohilcund, in January, 1857, thus escaping the terrible scenes of the Residency. In May, 1857, he escaped with his family to Nynee Tal, and while the storm raged below, safe amid the eternal hills, he preached the Gospel of peace, and firmly established Methodism on the tops of the mountains.

On the 28th of August, 1858, he returned to Bareilly. The first native member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in India was Joel, who came to Dr. Butler from the Presbyterians in Allahabad. Joined in September, 1857, by Dr. Humphrey, by Rev. S. Knowles in 1858, and by Revs. Judd, Waugh, Parker, and Thoburn in 1859, the American Methodist Episcopal Mission was settled permanently in Oudh and Rohilcund, occupying as centers Lucknow, Bareilly, and Moradabad. The Boys and Girls' Orphanages were organized in Bareilly in 1860, numbering some one hundred and sixty souls. In 1861 the Mission Press was established in Bareilly for the purpose of doing job work. In 1866 it was removed to Lucknow. December 8, 1864, in the city of Lucknow, the mission was organized into a conference by Bishop Thomson. It then had ten churches, valued at 10,780 rupees; nineteen parsonages, valued at 74,880 rupees; seventeen missionaries, nine local preachers, one hundred and seventeen members, ninety-two probationers, nine schools, thirty-nine teachers, and three hundred and ninety-seven scholars. One hundred and fifteen had received baptism during the year. In 1864 Paori in Gurhwal was occupied, making the eleventh station. In 1866 there were fourteen stations and twenty-four mem

* "Minutes of the India Conference, 1864-1875." "Allahabad Missionary Conference Report, 1872-3." "Calcutta Evangelical Review." "The Lucknow Wit

bers of conference, (four natives,) distributed through Oudh, Rohilcund, Kumaon, and Gurhwal. In 1869 the Christian Colony of Phanapore (" City of Refuge ") was established. In 1870 it contained thirty-four families, or one hundred and twenty-six souls. A resolution was passed by the conference in 1870 inviting the Rev. William Taylor to the mission, and in 1871 he came. Through the liberality and exertions of Rev. D. W. Thomas, the Theological Seminary was opened April 15, 1872, in the city of Bareilly. Rev. William Taylor was so successful in his labors in Southern India that he and eight others entered the conference in 1874, and formed the Bombay and Bengal Mission.

The history of the India Mission is one of toil, hardship, and self-denial, but, at the same time, one of continued success and triumph. Its history has been onward and upward. A prominent Englishman in India said of the missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church in India: "The more their essential spirit is diffused through the whole of the missionary body in India, the sooner will the whole country become the possession of the Lord of us all.”

ITS FIELD.

When the founder of the mission came to India, in 1856, he selected the province of Rohilcund as by far the most suitable center for his field of evangelistic operations. Rohilcund is one of the north-west provinces, containing five million five hundred thousand population, of whom about one million one hundred thousand, or one fifth, are Mohammedans, and the great body of the rest Hindus. This province has about twelve thousand and ninety-seven square miles, being a little larger than Rhode Island and Vermont. It has about five hundred souls to the square mile. Bareilly is the chief city, and contains one hundred and two thousand souls. Moradabad and Shahjehanpore are the next largest cities, the latter having seventy-two thousand, and the former sixty-two thousand. Chandausi, at the junction of Alyghur branch and the main line of the Oudh and Rohilcund Railroad, contains forty thousand, and is one of the most important business centers. Twelve cities have from between twelve and fifty thousand; twenty-seven from five to twelve thousand. Then Dr. Butler

took half of Oudh, or as much of it as lay between Rohilcund and a line drawn north and south through the center of the city of Lucknow. That gave the mission a population of near four and a half millions more, making a grand total of more than eleven million souls taken under the care of the young but enterprising organization, for in all this vast field there was as yet no regularly organized evangelistic work. The field was open. The Macedonian cry was being answered by Methodists, and the followers of Wesley were unfurling the banner of Jesus and driving down their stakes in the very center of earth's mightiest empire. The Gospel leaven in the center of the mighty lump must leaven the whole. That line north and south, through the center of Lucknow, could be no barrier to the followers of Him who said, "Preach the Gospel to every creature;" or of him who uttered the sentiment, "The world is my parish." And so they took all of Oudh. In 1871 and 1872 Cawnpore and Allahabad were occupied. At the same time Methodism had spread from Nynee Tal, both ways, to Paori, and Palee, and Eastern Kumaon, and now threatens to swallow up Almorah. It has gone down to Bombay, has carried the outworks and some of the inworks of Calcutta, and taken everlasting possession of Madras. In these three last cities there are to-day more than one thousand Methodists. It has swept over into Scinde, and Poona, and Secunderabad, and Bangalore. On the 6th of last January it formally took possession of the grand old city of Agra. Dr. Thoburn, next to Taylor the Evangelist of India, has gone to Dirgeeling, the Nynee Tal of Bengal. So that to-day the India Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church occupies a vast parallelogram across the center of India, whose corners are designated by the cities of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, and Nynee Tal; and whose seven hundred miles in length, and within which are more than one hundred and fifty millions of immortal souls.

God has thus given us the key to the conversion of the world. Brahmanism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Parseeism, the superstitions of thirty centuries, must fall when India falls. The belief in the Vedas and the Koran can be obliterated between the presence of saved India and Christian Europe on the one. hand, and China must unbind the feet of her daughters and

unshackle the hearts of her four hundred millions, as India joins America in the conquest.

ITS WORK.

In Rohilcund there are seven mission stations. In Bareilly there is a fine brick church. It cost 16,000 rupees. There is a membership of two hundred. Here is the Theological Seminary. It has thirty-two students, three professors, and an endowment of 128,000 rupees. The Girls' Orphanage, numbering one hundred and sixty, divided into seven classes, and a fine hospital and dispensary, in which were three thousand one hundred and twenty-nine dispensary patients, and from which five thousand and twenty-one prescriptions were given last year, are situate here. Moradabad means not only a city of sixty-two thousand people, but a district of one million five hundred and seventyfour thousand four hundred and seventy-one acres, and four hundred thousand souls, in which we have seven preachers and one hundred and fifty members, five stations, the mission high school, and twenty-five others, containing one thousand scholars, a boarding-school, and a large dispensary. The new school building for the high school cost near 25,000 rupees, and has an American clock and bell.

Shajehanpore has a native Church of ninety members. The Boys' Orphanage contains one hundred and twenty boys and six boarders. And there is a Christian colony at Phanapore, and a large day school in the city.

On the Budaon work are four hundred Christians. The work is carried on from eight different centers, each of which is under an exhorter, and in lieu of an exhorter, a teacher. The circuit is larger than an Annual Conference. Amroha Circuit contains six hundred square miles, and has one hundred and twenty villages in which reside native Christians. This is under a native member of conference.

Bijnour is a flourishing field fifty miles from Moradabad. Sambhal is the Bethlehem of India. Here the last incarnation is to take place. But here Christ has already come, and Brother Taylor's interpreter is doing a good work among the people. In Oudh, there is Lucknow, with its English and native Church; its press, which sent out three million pages last year; its "Witness," with six hundred and fifty subscrib

ers; its boarding-school, and its one thousand Sunday-school scholars. Cawnpore, in which is a flourishing English boarding-school, opened in 1864, and an English and native Church, with five Sunday-schools. Allahabad, with its real live, selfsupporting work. Roy Bareilly, Seetapore, Gondah, fields among the masses; and last, but not least, Agra, where already half a hundred Methodists "praise God, from whom all blessings flow," under the very shadow of the Taj Mahal. In the Kumaon and Gurhwal District six stations are taken up. This district is about the size of Vermont, with a population of six hundred and thirty-four thousand five hundred and thirty-two. In Nynee Tal during the "season," from April to November, there is a good English congregation which gave last year 326 rupees missionary money. There is also an encouraging native work. In Paori there is a good school. The natives in the mountains are much more independent than elsewhere, hence harder to reach and more firm when saved. So much for North India.

What can we say of Bombay and Bengal? Does it need any thing more than that Methodism is firmly established in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Poona, Secunderabad, Bangalore, and that in less than three years the membership has run up from zero to one thousand and thirty-one; that in Calcutta a church is going up at an estimated cost of sixty thousand rupees, and that no public building in the city is large enough to hold the crowds that flock to the services? An old missionary, upon visiting Bombay, wrote: "Methodism here is alive, earnest, simple, self-supporting, and aggressive. There are many earnest workers. God is with them."

In Madras, Methodism numbers three hundred and fifty. Methodism in India is unity. The work is one. The mission is united. Those who think otherwise live twelve thousand miles away. Paul plants, Apollos waters, but God gives the

increase.

ITS MEN.

There are fifty-one of them members of conference, fifteen of whom were raised up in India, and five of them natives. Our Conference has only seventeen less than the first Method