INDIAN MISSIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13888, 24 October 1905, Page 6

INDIAN MISSIONS.

ADDRESS BY THE REV A. W. BROUGH. There was a public meeting at the Congregational Church, Worcester Street, last evening, to' hear an ad-' drefis from tho It&v A. *W. Broughj of India, a deputation from th© London • Missionary Society. The Rev D. Hird, ; who presided, said that he was glad to i see representatives of tho clergy or | other denominations present. Ho read - letters received from the, committees of Wellington and Dunedin, congratulating Mr Brough on the success of lus work? The Missionary Society,’ he continued, had already covered ten years of the second century of its existence, and the Congregational people in New Zealand rejoiced to have some share in the Society’s work. Mr Brough said that the Congregational Mission was working in all partis of the world, in South and Central Africa, Madagascar, China, India, New Guinea, the South Seas, but the work was being hampered on every hand by want of funds. _ The work was extending, but the funds were stationary. Appeals were being made by the poor natives of India for more catechists and teachers, but the requests had often to he refused because the had not money to send out more men. The result was that the people were cast back, and would bo more difficult to teach than they had ever been. The speaker, reviewing the benefit which Christianity had brought to India, said that taking every 10.000 women of the population there would bo 919 Christians that could read and write, while there would he only seventy-seven Hindoos and eighty-nine Mahometans. Out of ■23.000 women in South India receiving higher education, 18,314 were Christians. For every sixteen Mahometan men who could read and write there was only one woman, and the proportions were the same the Hindoos, but for every two Christian men who were similarly educated there was one jwoman. Formerly the missionaries had been obliged to exert themselves in various ways to attract the people to hear them, but now the natives came begging for teachers. The British people had an opportunity ot giving tho Indian natives Christianity ill nlace of a religion which a Brahmin newspaper, hostile to Christianity, had described as an “ abominable worship.” «* Our reli-ricns institutions,” another Indian mutual had stated, “are a festering mas of crime,' vice and gigantic swindle.” It therefore behoved the people of the British Empire to seize tho present opportunity of enlarging the Scope of the missions in India. If this opportunity was lost now it would probably be lost for over. The people wanted to know the truth, and they should receive it. If this opportunity of evangelising the heathen world was lost, it would be not merely a calamity, but a crime. Christ loved the heathen world, and if Christians loved Him they must love the heathen.