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 INDIA

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INDIA

to train up. Wiien the hierarchy was established in 1886 the same regime was retained, the bishops being generally of the same order or congregation. The foregoing list shows the orders and nationalities in the various dioceses. The fewness of missionaries of British extraction in India is sometimes made a matter of criticism by Englishmen not conversant with history. They forget that at the time when India was assigned to vicars Apostolic, England was not in a condition to send out foreign missionaries. Secondly, it is much less than a century ago since England began to acquire anything like a general footing in the country. Even at the present time the clergy of England have their hands full in attending to the needs of their own country, and have few men to spare for outside enterprise. Then again, as re- gards the far greater part of India, the nationality of the missionaries is a matter of indifference, since the work is almost entirely with native communities, who have to be dealt with in the vernacular. In the larger towns, where English is a current language, the clergy manage to equip themselves with a sufficient knowl- edge of English, and the same is true of military chap- lains, though in individual cases a deficiency may sometimes be found. Those who travel will never come across a European missionary in British territory who cannot make himself understood in English, and in the majority of cases the proficiency attained is remarkable.

The actual statistics of the clergy for the whole ecclesiastical group already described may be esti- mated approximately at 2800 priests, of whom about 1050 are Europeans, and about 1750 of native ex- traction. By a cross division about 2000 may be classed as secular clergy (including the Mill Hill Fathers and the Foreign Mission Fathers), and about 800 as members of religious orders or congregations. There are also more than 500 brothers of various orders and congregations, and about 3000 nuns; and the number of churches and chapels served rises above 5000.

Catholic Missionary Work. — The figures of Catholic population given above include only those who are ascertainably members of the Church — all converts being subjected to careful tests and instruc- tion before baptism. The numbers are mostly made up of native Christians, partly of the higher but chiefly of the lower castes, together with a certain percentage of Europeans belonging to the army, government and civil service, railways, etc., and a number of Eurasians. The Catholic population is densest among the Thomas Christians of Travancore, where the ecclesiastical divisions are of the smallest. The coast districts east and west (the scene of the ancient Portuguese and French missions), and espe- cially the south of the peninsula, come next in order of numbers; and here the dioceses are larger. The farther north we go the more scanty the Catho- lic population becomes. Thus the Province of Agra, which in dimensions covers almost as much space as the other seven provinces taken together, contains the smallest number of Catholics — this being a field which has only begun to be worked in recent times. At present the largest mission centres for natives are in Chota Nagpur, (Diocese of Calcutta) the Godaveri districts (Hyderabad), the Telugu districts (Madras), the districts of Trichinopoly, Madura, Pondicherry, Kumbakonam, Mysore, etc., in the south. Smaller but growing missions are in the Ahmednagar District (Poona) and the Anand District (Bombay). It has been estimated that the number of converts baptized in the year 190.3 amounted to about 16,000; while the number of catechumens preparing for baptism counted about 45,000. .\t the present time the rate of progress, though not definitely ascertainable in detail, has certainly advanced. Missionary Success. — One of the moot questions

in connexion with India is the real or supposed dif- ference between missionary progress in the past and in the present. The prevailing surface impression is that the Catholic body of India was built up suddenly within the space of say a century and a half by the Portuguese missionaries, the fruits of whose enter- prise we inherit and to some extent keep up without adding much thereto in modern times. Special in- vestigation would be required in order to give a docu- mented answer; but the following considerations will help towards a sound view of the case. In the first case, the reason usually regarded by non-Catholics as an adequate explanation of past success, viz., that the Portuguese spread the Gospel by force; or, as it is sometimes said, "at the point of the sword", is cer- tainly an exaggerated one, and in many respects false. There are on record a few isolated cases in which, equivalently at least, physical force was used — for instance, where a ship-load of captured pirates were given the option of embracing Christianity or being thrown into the sea. But such acts were entirely unsupported by authority, ecclesiastical or civil, besides being so rare as not to count. As to the

Public Mosque, Delhi, India

Specimen of Moslem architecture in red sandstone and

white marble — a. d. 1658

policy of the state, the local tendency was rather to be tolerant of paganism and to let religious propa- gandism go; and when, under pressure from the King of Portugal, an organized policy of support for the Faith was framed, physical coercion was not one of its elements. It may safely be said that there existed in the legislature no law forcing a born pagan to liecome a Christian ; nor was compulsion exercised in practice. The methods adopted by the State con- sisted, first, in a ruthless destruction of pagan temples, and fouling of sacred tanks in districts where the civil power was fully dominant and the Gospel had been preached; and also in forbidding the public exercise of any alien religion within the Portuguese confines. Political and social advantages of various kinds wore attached to conversion, and corresponding disabilities to non-conversion; and in certain parts, all adults over the age of fifteen were compelled to listen to Christian instructions on Sundays under pain of fine and, if obdurate, of expulsion from the di.strict. This policy had partly the effect of bringing converts, often of dubious quality, into the Church, and partly of driving away from Portuguese confines those who were tenacious of their ancestral creed. But it is to be noted that these measures were by no means carried into effect uniformly at all times and in all places, and their sphere was in any case confined to the narrow limits of actual Portuguese territory, or even to a small radius round the chief centres such as Goa and Bassein. More defensible and even praiseworthy methods were also in vogue, such as making great account of public baptisms of converts, in which the