THE MISSIONARY OUTLOOK IN INDIA [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.] Sm,—You were good enough to publish a letter from me in the month of March on the above subject. Though no correspondence has appeared in your columns I have received some private letters from men whom I greatly admire and respect feeling grieved that I should have written as I did, and the impression in many minds, especially of those who know me, has been created that I am against Christian Missions and very doubtful about my own stand in religion I feel in justice to my own deepest convictions, and to those scores of personal friends amongst missionaries whom I have known in India and with whoni I have Lived and worked, to send this further communication. Perhaps I expressed inyself clumsily,
While holding that Western Christendom will have to undergo a still deeper spiritual experience if it is going to serve the world in its present state, I do not wish to leave the impression that it has nothing to offer us at this time.
It is one of the proofs of the Immortality of the Church—
the Body of Christ on Earth—that in spite of its chequered history it has continued to make its witness to the Living and Dynamic Person of Jesus through its choicest spirits who have remained true in the darkest periods of the Church's history to the Heavenly vision that has been granted to them.
The spirit of adventure in the deep waters of humanity has led many to go to the uttermost parts of the earth, and the workings of the Divine Spirit which overcome our human frailties can be seen in the freedom from old chains which has come to peoples who within the living memory of many of your readers were in a state out of which mere trade and commerce and science could not have rescued them.
This irrepressible Dynamic Spirit India surely cannot afford to do without, and the hospitality which Hinduism has in the past shown to every great teacher will not be denied to the Galilean. What I wish to lay stress on is that Indian Christianity cannot separate itself from the deeper currents in the ancient faiths of India, and in its expression it will be influenced to a considerable degree by the forces around it. That while I cannot but cling to the belief in the unique- ness and supremacy of Jesus Himself, I wonder if that can be attained without the absorption by Hinduism of all that He peculiarly stands for ? Moreover, in the efforts that are being made to create a deeper and also an outward fellowship in the Indian Church, will the Churches of the West rise to the height of allowing us unhindered to make bold experiments at Unity in our loyalty to a common Lord and Master, and in
doing so help themselves to fulfil the prayer of their own common master that " they all may be one " ?
I would further very much wish to apologise to those friends of mine whom I have inadvertently wounded or hurt. They have been good enough out of their personal regard for me to hesitate to criticize me and have shown their Christian charity and heaped coals of fire on my head. I owe too much in my deepest convictions to their fellowship -and friendship to appear forgetful of the fundamental unity I have enjoyed with them. I only wish to reiterate that old mentalities and points of view and methods will have to go in order to make the never-changing and everlasting challenge of the Son of Man of greater effect.—I am, Sir, &c.,
112 Gower Street, London, Ir.C. 1. SHORAN S. SINGH-A.
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