The Cross in India

...The greatest curiosity was aroused by this procedure and soon many Brahmans called, hoping to get a sight of this strange ascetic from the West...

...he slept on a straw mat spread on the mud floor of the hut and accommodating himself to Indian custom, he used neither desk, chair, nor other furniture...

...The above example points also the way...

...Finally, when the time seemed ripe, a studied ceremonial having been prescribed to satisfy oriental ideas of dignity, one distinguished Brahman was permitted entrance...

...This tolerance is one of the chief glories of Hinduism in the eyes of its votaries, but the very readiness of the Hindu mind to accept the doctrine of Christ's divinity proves a stumbling, block in the way of recognizing Him as uniquely divine...

...The apostolic work of Saint Francis Xavier has been made familiar to all Americans through the preaching of the Novena of Grace during March of each year...

...The work of evangelization thus begun was continued by such worthy successors as Blessed John de Britto, the Fathers Layez and Bouchet, Father Pierre Martin, and others...

...jects, Gandhi says: "I consider western Christianity in its practical workings a negation of Christ's Christianity...

...If India is to be won it can only be through self-sacrifice and love...

...At the first, he cut himself off from association with the outside world and because of the odium in which all Christians were held by the Hindus* refrained for the time being from even using the name...

...Moreover, even among caste Hindus, subconsciously though it may be, the work of preparation of the ground is constantly going on, for caste Hindus in their thousands are attending Catholic schools all over India...

...She has worked with her husband all over South Africa and through her own country, and has proved herself truly a mother to India's suffering millions...

...the number of native priests...

...Special training, however, for this work is imperative...

...It has not been given him to see that it was the giant grip of the Catholic Church acting through the course of long centuries, that finally made it possible for Europe to "think together...

...Equally great must be the amazement of the Catholic traveler to find it possible to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, daily if desired, close to the great temples of Trichinopoly and Madura...

...So adequate, indeed, was his plan of organization that "it has been copied in all subsequent Indian missions...

...the;only...

...The recommendations of prayer, meditation, alms-deeds, and fasting will be familiar to him...

...Then there is the fundamental difference touching religion as a whole...

...Therefore, in Catholic schools attended by Hindus there is today no attempt made to teach religion...

...The wave of nationalism long stirring in the breast of India and which has become tidal since the close of the war, is slowly changing the entire mass of the 320,000,000 of her people...

...By the end of the seventeenth century Christians there totaled 100,000...

...Redemption of man having been effected once for al| through the death of the God-man upon the cross...

...But in the new era new forces must be employed...

...Thus the form, the organization, the rigidity of doctrine, these glories of the Catholic Church, repel from the outset the Hindu mind, accustomed, through thousands of years, to individual eclecticism in matters of belief...

...Small, frail, and shrinking, she reminds one of a nun in her white kaddar sari with the end thrown over the hair as is the custom in India...

...The form of religion he considers as something racial and local, therefore not universal...

...A glance at the directory for India is calculated to fill one with amazement—the number of cities and towns where churches are to be found...

...Anna Dengel, brings forcibly to the fore the question of work for the salvation of souls in mission lands, especially in India...

...The spectacle of God dying for the sins of the world will remind him of similar ideas in his own sacred literature, while the incarnation will fit in perfectly with the avatars of Vishnu and Krishna...

...near the banks of the sacred Ganges at Benares...

...But," says Father Hull, "the form is essential in Christianity and it is here exactly that the difficulty comes in...

...and of the sacred literature and philosophy of the Brahman schools...

...Unlettered as is more often the case, woman in India is a storehouse of divine tradition and in the intimacy of her contacts she molds the mind of succeeding generations in enduring form...

...Granted that Protestantism, even while aided by government prestige and by powerful and extended campaigns of propaganda, has made little progress toward the conversion of caste Hindus to Christianity, the question may be asked whether the quieter methods of Catholicism have been any more successful...

...of schools, colleges, orphanages, and seminaries...

...If Indian Christians would simply cling to the Sermon on the Mount, which was delivered not merely to the peaceful disciples but to a groaning worid, they would not go wrong, and they would find that nov religion is false and . . . they would not need to worry about organizations and forms of worship...

...Notwithstanding all adverse circumstances, Catholic Indians number today almost three millions...

...Today, after the lapse of more than two centuries, the methods of de Nobili are being studied anew and his works, the result of a vast erudition, a deep sympathy, an ardent zeal, are being put into form capable of application to the needs of the hour...

...but all were courteously refused...

...The Hindu sees all religions as at base essentially one, differing only as to form...

...Again, Hinduism, while accepting,.the avatars (as^ God incarnate, has no doctrine analogous: to that ofL Christianity which teaches that the incarnation lifted man to a closer relation with God, or,of the...

...Long ago it was realized by Protestant workers that though caste Hindus as a rule were not open to conversion, yet there was an avenue which permitted effective penetration of social classs in India and that it lay along lines of medical relief...

...This is the new force whose desire to cooperate is becoming articulate on every hand and whose plea cannot be denied...

...The poet Tagore, while differing on many points from Mahatma Gandhi on what is necessary for the well-being of India, is one with him in a belief that a purified Hinduism is the religion to which she must cling...

...It was a Spanish Jesuit, unr derstanding little English, who was occasionally put 598 ' THE COMMONWEAL April 7, 1926 in charge of the class...

...Like Gandhi, his knowledge of Christianity has come to him mainly through non-Catholic contacts and writings^ Once, it is true, at Saint Xavier's, as h^ tells us in his Reminiscences, the touch of a hand and, a gentle word from one of the Fathers left a memory time could never efface...

...When I regained my balance of mind I felt that to me, salvation was possible only through the Hindu religion and my faith in Hinduism grew deeper and more enlightened...

...The great cry is for workers...

...Broadly tolerant by instinct, he is willing to examine any system and even to assimilate what appeals to him...

...The mind of India is awakened as never before in her history, its whole energy being turned inward, seeking in the realm of her own heritage for a solution to her problems...

...What it was that "focussed that common culture" is withheld from the poet's vision...

...He, however, indicates the need of such a coercive force for he continues: "The mind of India, on the other hand, is divided and scattered...

...In a comparatively recent number of his Visva-Bharati Quarterly, the poet compares Europe and India...

...Nevertheless, the Catholic Church is making giant strides in winning to the Faith the aboriginal population scattered over India...

...among its great variety of doctrines and practices, each is at liberty to choose what is personally appealing and to leave what is not...

...It is like gathering coals for our railroad journey, while the locomotive is nowhere to be found...

...Miracles," says Father Hull, "excite no surprise, for his own religion is full of even more striking phenomena...

...and yet, as a Hindu, she is a modern woman, and has even presided at the Woman's Congress held in conjunction with the National Congress...

...Up to the present in all our patriotic endeavors, our effort has been to establish our unity upon the basis of our common interest in the political or economic situation...

...One of the greatest obstacles to conversion he finds in the fact that the educated Hindu is completely satisfied with his own religion, and therefore has no motive for change...

...It must be admitted that the difficulties in the way of winning over India to the Faith are stupendous, but shall the Catholic Church, therefore, deem the task impossible of accomplishment...

...of marriages and baptisms...

...Its roots are deep-set and it may be expected to weather any storm that may blow over it...

...Usually, however, "he rounds off his praises by saying: 'We have the same in our Vedas.' " Thus the moral teaching of the New Testament is accepted by him...

...She has evolved a means by which all the countries of that continent can think together...

...Taking a mud hut in the Brahman quarter of the city, employing only Brahman servants, assuming the costume of a Brahman Sanyasi or penitent, he gave himself out as a priest of a superior order from the West...

...In the space of less than three years— October, 1542 to August, 1545—it has been computed that he baptized some 22,000 neophytes, for whom he prepared, along with 11,000 others already baptized, the necessary instructions and prayers in their native dialects, besides developing an organization fitted to their immediate and their future needs...

...Mahatma Gandhi, in 1921, at a conference of the Suppressed Classes, thus clarified the Hindu view...

...But what he calls the "stone mill of the outward form of religion" crushed his young spirit and he soon left Saint Xavicr's...

...Son of the Father...

...This was the beginning of a movement that at one time seemed likely to spread over the whole of South India...

...It remained, therefore, for a follower of Saint Francis, one imbued with a like spirit of zeal and of Christian charity, to bring about for the first time the conversion of enlightened Hindus to Christianity...

...He found Father de Nobili, now able to converse with his guest, the soul of courtesy and sweetness...

...amid the ancient glories of the Mogul cities of Agra and Delhi...

...Unlike Mahatma Gandhi, the poet is far from repudiating the achievement of the civilization of the West, but has failed to grasp the historic role of the Catholic Church as the basis of that achievement...

...In the beginning he saw no one but his servants and never stirred abroad...

...Thus "in the Chutia Nagpur mission the Belgian Jesuits have converted and elevated socially, educationally, and economically, to a degree that is positively amazing, upwards of 200,000 Ouranon and Mundas within the past forty years...

...Again, writing during the same year to a Christian non-cooperator who asked his advice on definite sub...

...suggestive of the Christian's hope in God's mercy and His forgiveness of sin...

...Passing now to the other side of the question, namely,, the essential differences which reveal the chasm which separates the two religions, Father Hull notes the initial difficulty in discovering the exact tenets of Hinduism: "there is," he says, "no formulated creed or code to be repeated by heart...

...This means that native priests even are helpless in the matter, and this regardless of how numerous they may become...

...To him the form does not matter, it is only the substance which counts...

...Indeed, today among the aboriginal converts, trained native catechists and the little barefoot Sisters are the mainstay of the clergy...

...I cannot conceive of Jesus, if He were living in the flesh in our midst, approving of modern Christian organizations, public worship, or modern ministry...

...On the contrary, Hinduism is eclectic...

...Furthermore, there is nothing to be found in Hindu teaching...

...In the American mission of the Dacca diocese, at least 50,000 of the Garos and other hill tribes are knocking at the door of the Church...

...There is no hierarchy with authority to teach or to preach, no imposition of dogma under pain of sin...

...A philosophical discussion started which was continued through twenty meetings at the end of which time the Brahman announced himself vanquished and submitted to baptism...

...no manuals of dogmatic or moral philosophy, ritual or canon law...

...Robert de Nobili, a young and high-born Italian Jesuit, having been assigned in 1605 to Madura, centre of a great university and of Brahamistic culture for South India, adopted the method of Saint Paul, making himself a Brahman to gain the Brahmans...

...of conversions...

...But there is another side to the picture...

...Serious difficulties later arose, however, largely caused by problems of jurisdiction, and it was not until the Concordat of 1886, made by the great Pope Leo XIII with Portugal, that peace was restored to the distracted mission field of South India...

...In the Statistical Review of the 1904 Catholic Directory of India the following worthy recommendation is to be found: uIn the glorious work of converting India it is meet that laymen—hitherto neglectful and neglected by an overworked clergy—should assert themselves as also instruments of God in building up the Church...

...For answer one needs but to go back 300 years to find it written large across the map of South India...

...For the Catholic Church to attempt to push matters during this crisis would only mean to indefinitely postpone the day of final triumph when "a knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea...

...there is no common pathway along which we may reach it...

...The real significance of the fact lies deeper still for not until Indian women are brought to the Faith will Hinduism be vanquished...

...As proof of what Christian workers must overcome in changing the beliefs of Hindu women, witness the family of Mahatma Gandhi: Shrimati Kasturibai Gandhi is one of the gentlest, most modest, lovable and loving women in India...

...The headquarters of this school of missionary thought is in Calcutta with that of its organ, The Light of the East...

...He says: "What has given such enormous intellectual power to Europe is her concentration of mind...

...April 7, 1926 THE COM M0NWEA1 597 THE CROSS IN INDIA By ELIZABETH S. KITE THE recent founding in Washington, D. C, of the International Society of Lay Medical Missionaries with the cooperation of the Foreign Missionary Seminary of the Holy Cross and under the direction of Dr...

...One of the points brought out in the prospectus of the above-named mission needs particular emphasis so that its importance may be rightly understood, namely, that "a knowledge of Christianity can reach the women of India only through women...

...There was a time when I wavered between Hinduism and Christianity...

...He restricted himself to one scant meal a day from which all animal food was excluded...

...All her different thought-rays have been focussed in one common culture, which finds complete expression in all her great European universities...

...In this seclusion, following a life of the most severe asceticism, he devoted himself to a study of the Tamil and Telegu languages, later adding Sanskrit...

...If we accept the dictum of Reverend E. R. Hull (until recently editor of the Bombay Examiner) then we shall be compelled to admit a like failure...

...India will always worship such a one," he said, "because asceticism is her religious ideal...

...the number of religious orders, especially those of women...

...Even so, her conservatism is such that it has almost defied her husband's will to bring about a change and he has won only at the cost of self-inflicted fasts...

...Whatever the future of this land, one cannot doubt that the Catholic Church is destined to play a great role in the nation that is to be...

...Stupendous as was this accomplishment, it must not be forgotten that Saint Francis touched only the lowest classes and these only in that part of India along the west coast which had fallen under the rule of the Portuguese, for with this power went a system of "compelle entrare ad nuptias" from which caste Hindus freed themselves by choosing exile or death...

...The poet Tagore, speaking to an American missionary priest not long ago (Reverend M. Mathis) emphasized the fact that only one who was at heart an ascetic could influence his people...

...for Christianity is essentially a universal and not a racial or local religion...

...In spite of all the obstacles put in his way, at the time of the death of Father de Nobili in 1656, the mission of Madura and its dependencies numbered April 7, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 599 40,000 Christians with thirty-two churches established...

...Whenever I looked at him," the poet says, "his spirit seemed to be in prayer . . . I felt in him a great soul, and even today the recollection of it seems to give me a passport into the silent seclusion of the temple of God...

...It is one of those strange paradoxes of history that women in India, deprived for a thousand years of the possibility of exerting pressure from without, have nevertheless succeeded in developing a power from within whose influence is all the more real because veiled from the world...