CHAPTER XIIOutline of Christian Missions in Burma
Christianityentered Burma with the incoming of traders and Governments from the West, as it did in the other portions of Southern Asia. Some of these traders and some of these representatives of nominally Christian Governments were unscrupulous adventurers. They were seldom men of strict moral integrity, much less spiritual Christians. They would not measure very high by present-day social standards, much less by the lofty standards of the gospel. They were Christians in name only. The Portuguese gained some footing in Burma, as in all this tropical world, in the sixteenth century, and continued with varying influence for nearly two hundred years. They gained a foothold in Burma, and built a city called Syrian, and still bearing that name, just across the Pegu River from the present site of Rangoon. Here, however, they met utter defeat and destruction at the hands of the great Alombra, the founder of the Burmese Dynasty, of which King Thebaw, deposed at Mandalay in 1886, was the last sovereign. This great king completely overthrew the Portuguese Government, and with it the only form of Christianitythen known among them, that represented by the Roman Catholic Church of that day.
These venturesome Portuguese carried with them their religious observances, and their priests always were active missionary agents. They built a church at Syrian, the well-defined ruins of which still remain. They made converts among the Burmans. Whether their methods in converting the Burmese were as unscrupulous as the Portuguese traders’ methods were, we have no detailed account. But in this matter we are not left in much doubt, as their attempts to convert the Burmese could not have been much different from that employed in India at the same period, which unhappily we know only too well were in utter disregard of the true Christian spirit. But these missionaries of the Catholic Church counted their converts by possibly the hundred thousand.
These foreigners on their shores were then, as all are now, regarded as representatives of the Christian religion. In Asia every man is regarded as an adherent of some religion. Little account is taken of whether he represents his faith or misrepresents it. His Government and his personal and social life are supposed to flow from his religion; so that the Christian religion, as represented by the Portuguese, was probably despised as cordially by the Buddhists as their commercial prestige and Government authority were hated by the Burmese people. And when they made war to the extermination of the Portuguese settlements and their fortified city, and sunk their shipsin the river, they also dealt a fatal blow to Catholic missions in Burma. There remains little trace of their old-time teaching. This is very unfortunate; for it is only just to say that even the Catholicism of two centuries ago taught more truth concerning God and God’s dealings with men than Buddhism ever did in its best state. Nominal Christianity, even when half idolatrous, kept the name of God alive in the minds of men, while they waited for a better day in which the gospel would be preached in its purity.
With the beginning of the nineteenth century the British began to get control of Burma, and this advantage has been followed by further acquisitions of territory until in 1886 Upper Burma was annexed, and so the whole land has come under the English flag. During this century, with its better Governmental conditions, the Catholic Church has re-established its institutions in all parts of the province. For many years its growth was slow, and even now, in numbers, it is far exceeded by the Baptist mission. But in the last ten years there has been a marked growth in the Catholic community. This has been to some extent by immigrants from India, who are Catholics. But the Church has been aggressive in every respect. Its priests are multiplying in the cities, and they also have occupied strategic points in the interiors. They are especially far-seeing in the acquisition of great properties in cities like Rangoon and in building schools and charitable institutions. They are now engaged in buildinga great cathedral, to add to their already enormous properties in the capital city, and, as usual, have chosen a most conspicuous location, near the great Government offices.
Of course, in Burma, as elsewhere, they need the Protestant Churches, though they will not admit it. They regard us all as heretics. But they have been improved by Protestant missions, and need a great deal more of the same influence. While they give Protestants no recognition, save in an external civility, they are indebted to Protestant activity for the revival of that which is best in their own methods of work, especially in education; and we will still have to teach a pure, spiritual, experimental religion as a protest against their mechanical ritualism and exclusive pretension, and, most of all, against their semi-idolatrous practices. A concrete example of this is found in the usages that make the Catholic cemetery on “All Souls’ Day” look like the adorning of a Buddhist feast; that make them still celebrate mass annually with great pomp for the repose of the soul of their late bishop, a noble man, whom we Protestants would gladly believe to have been accepted of God in Christ Jesus, and not needing the unbiblical fiction of purgatory to purify his soul and fit it to dwell with God.
But the greatest missionary labors wrought in Burma have been wrought by the American Baptists. From Adoniram Judson, who landed in Burma in 1813, until the present generation of missionaries, there has been an increasing forceof faithful and heroic men and women who have devoted their lives to the redemption of Burma. It is safe to say that the sum of the work of all missionaries of all other societies combined would not equal that done by the Baptists. It is also true that the number of their converts from among the people of Burma equal, or exceed, the sum of all others. The mere outline of their extensive mission, with a history of eighty-eight years behind it, can not be given in the space allowed in the plan of this book. It is the writer’s joy, however, to make the fullest recognition of their great work that space will allow, and also in justice to others and the field, to point out some of their limitations as a mission.
It is well known that the quality of their spiritual work is of the best. They are faithful teachers of experimental religion, and they lead blameless lives. They are, and have been from the beginning, faithful examples and witnesses for a sterling morality in a land where lax morals were too common. They have been advocates of total abstinence in a land where dram-drinking was, until recently, almost universal, and is still deeply intrenched in social usage, as liquor-selling is in business.
These same missionaries were pioneers in education, having extensive schools long before the Government had an educational system. They had given the Karens, among whom they have had their greatest successes, a written language, as well as having led tens of thousands of theminto the Christian Church. The census of Burma in 1891 says the Karens have been preserved as a people only by the labors of the missionaries. These people now have many primary schools, as well as some of higher grades.
There are two institutions of this higher education worthy of special mention. One is the Baptist college of Rangoon, with Rev. J. N. Cushing, D. D., and a full corps of well-equipped teachers, and an attendance of more than five hundred students, including primary grades. In schools of higher education in the East the lower grades are always taught also; hence the large total. The other is their theological school at Eusein, near Rangoon, with which Rev. D. A. W. Smith, D. D., has been connected for nearly forty years. This school has from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty students preparing for the ministry. They represent several races, but are mostly Karens, corresponding with the greater numbers of these people in the Baptist Churches in the province. A large amount of the money for the support of this theological school is paid by the Karen Churches.
Here may be noted another important feature of the successful work of the Baptist mission. They have probably done as much toward teaching the native Churches self-support as any other great missions of Southern Asia. They have many churches and schools practically supported by the villages in which they are found. It is true that most of these are in the Karen villages, wherethe people live apart from all others and do not migrate much. It is noteworthy, also, that all peoples in Burma are in possession of far more means than in any other portion of the Indian Empire, and they can give more easily and more in amount than in Upper India, the Telegu missions. Yet, after all allowances are made, the fact still remains, and it is most creditable to the mission, that they have developed self-support to an encouraging extent, by which other missions could profitably be instructed.
This mission has a large publishing-house, and a great quantity of literature, mostly periodicals and tracts, is published. It also circulates many books and pamphlets. The young Church has need of much of this, especially the Karens. This same press issues several different styles of Judson’s translation of the Bible into the Burmese tongue, and also the Karen, Shan, and Kachin, translations of the entire Bible, or portions of the Scriptures.
It is here, however, we meet a serious lack. The Burmese read more than any other Oriental people, unless the Japanese be excepted. Yet the literature adequate to carry on a great campaign of Christian enlightment of these Buddhists has never yet been produced. Perhaps this lack is due to several causes, one of which is that there are only a comparatively few Burmese Christians. But still, all missionaries should face this need, and provide for it.
The translation of the Bible into Burmesewould alone render the name of Judson immortal. But it has one serious defect that can not be overlooked in writing even a sketch of missions in Burma. He, being an ardent Baptist, has fixed the extreme Baptist teaching on the mode of baptism on the translation of the New Testament. Other bodies justly contend that this is not translating, but interpreting a modern doctrinal controversy into the text of the Burmese Bible. The Baptists declare they can not yield anything of this position, and all other missions are equally convinced they can not use a biased text. After long negotiations seeking ground for a compromise, but failing, it has been decided to put out another translation of the New Testament, which alone, in the Judson translation, bears this particular defect. This new translation is now in progress under the direction of the British and Foreign Bible Society. On this question the great Baptist mission needs the teaching of other Protestant bodies on the mission-field as they do in the home lands.
While noting the extensive work of the Baptist mission in Burma, and so cordially rejoicing in their success, it becomes necessary to point out another limitation of this very successful mission. This defect is merely a limitation in the means to an end. Much as has been done, this great societycan not evangelise Burma alone. It is exceedingly difficult for the people at home to understand that Burma is a very great country, and her peoples are diverse to a degree an Americanwho has not lived in Southern Asia can not understand.
The population of Burma numbers more than 8,000,000. Of these the Burmese Buddhists number more than 6,000,000. From these millions of Buddhists there are less than 4,000 converts in all the evangelical missions in Burma. Karens number less than 500,000, and yet there is a Christian community of nearly 100,000 among these people. So far as evangelization is concerned, the ingathering from the Karens has, to date, been nearly twenty per cent, while among the Burmans it has not been one-fifteenth of one per cent. Yet the Burmese people are the important people of the land in numbers and influence. They are superior people to the Karens, and they assert that superiority. It was hoped that the Burmese would be evangelized by the Karens, but that hope has not been realized, and it is not within practical missionary expectation to look for it longer. There must be a stupendous and prolonged missionary campaign made to convert the Burmese millions. This will require every devoted man and woman of every society that can be rallied to this gigantic task. The further fact should be noted, also, to show its urgency. While the Karens have been converted by the scores of thousands and the work of conversion and organization goes right on, though at a slower pace than at one time, it is probably true that the Karens are being Burmanized and converted to Buddhism faster than they are being converted to Christianity.Hence our greater missionary campaign has yet to be planned, and it must be fought out with Buddhism, and this will require all the available men and women and all the money all the societies now at work in Burma can get.
Here we witness a providential ordering. God has called missionaries into Burma from various lands and set them to a common task. Each set of missionaries may easily think they alone are, or should be, assigned to this field; but God, whose plans are far greater than man’s narrow vision, thrusts diverse agencies into the field, and the writer believes each could have abundant justification of its presence and hard work in the land.
One of the Churches longest represented in Burma is the Church of England. It is the policy of this Church to provide some service for its people in remote regions. With the early planting of the British flag in Burma, as elsewhere, came some representatives of the Established Church. They were not always very devoted men, but some of them have been among the godliest servants of our Lord. They usually have ministered to the English-speaking people as chaplains of civilians or of the military. As such they are found in every locality where Europeans or their descendants congregate. Had this considerable number of clergy always been spiritual men, their influence for good would have been of incalculable value. Had the majority stood for evangelical truth, as a few have, had they been teetotalers in a land of dram-drinking, and had they spoken withmoral and spiritual authority against the licentiousness of many, they would have saved the people and themselves, and won an unfading crown and the favor of all who love righteousness. Some have so lived. One such died in Rangoon a few years ago, one of the most devoted and best loved ministers I have ever known.
These ministers of the Church of England have had the ears of the people as none others could have had, by reason of their social and official standing. But because they have not always pursued their calling with single-eyed devotion, others have been required to help them save the neglected people.
The Church of England has not been primarily a missionary Church in Burma, though latterly it is doing a good deal of work directly for the non-Christian peoples. Their greatest native work is among the Karens, who came to them years ago chiefly by a secession from the Baptist mission. They have held most of these seceders, but have not gained rapidly from among the heathen Karens. It is among a people like this that strict habits of life tell so much. The Karens as a race are much given to drunkenness. Most missionaries—all of the Baptists—are total abstainers and constant advocates of this most wholesome practice. But some of the Church of England and Catholic missionaries are habitual dram-drinkers. The effect of this practice among the missionaries is very bad in its effect on the native Church. It is not a pleasant thing to write of these defects,but this drink-habit is so common among Europeans, and the example of men who assume the office of missionaries counts for so much for good or bad with native Christians who have this vice to fight that the unwillingness of the missionaries to abstain from strong drink is most reprehensible. This fact is only a little less important among ministers to Europeans. I have yet to see the minister of any class whose influence for good is not dissipated by taking the intoxicating cup under any circumstances.
The fact that any considerable number of clergymen in a mission-field drink intoxicating liquor will surprise most people in America, where, if a clergyman tipples, he is at once under a social ban. But it is a pleasure to write that the reprehensible practice is growing less in the entire East. The Churches and ministry which make total abstinence an unyielding rule would be needed in this mission-field for their testimony and practice of total abstinence, if for no other reason. We dare not gather a native Church and leave them under the curse of drink. We dare not keep silent and by our practice encourage the drink-habit among Europeans and their descendants. The minister or missionary who has the temerity to do it takes great responsibility for wrecked lives of those who follow his practice. It would seem to be as clear as sunlight that, knowing the evil of the drink-habit in the East, as they do, all ministers and missionaries would stand unitedly and unwaveringly for total abstinence.
The Catholics, Baptists, and Church of England have been operating in Burma through the greater part of the century that has just closed. But the Methodist Episcopal mission and the Wesleyans came upon the scene much later. Of the Methodist Episcopal missions I have written elsewhere. It is only necessary to indicate here that, in the language of Bishop Thoburn, “our work in Burma was thrust upon us rather than sought by us.” It was taken up as a far-away outpost of our beginnings in Calcutta. It has since become one of the important smaller missions established in all strategic centers from Karachi to the Philippine Islands. Our organization in Rangoon dates from 1879. We have only fairly gotten our footing, and hope soon to move forward with a good degree of momentum. A detailed account of the mission is found in following chapters.
The Wesleyans began their work in Burma in 1886, just after the annexation of Upper Burma. They made the great city of Mandalay their chief center of labor, and they have occupied important towns on the Irrawaddy River, the Chindwin, and on the railway. Their location was wisely selected, and their advance has been made with equal good judgment.
They wisely selected the Burmese people as their objective from the first, and excepting their first superintendent, they have made the mastering of the language the first duty of every new missionary. In this they have been exceedinglyclearsighted. While the mission has not been large in numbers, it has maintained a good working force, and had latterly sent forward re-enforcements. They maintain nine or ten missionaries, men and women, who are in the full vigor of their earlier manhood and womanhood, and they are steadily gathering a native Church. Meantime, they have added English work and taken up the lepers, mentioned elsewhere, as a specialty. They have the vigor and hope of a healthful young mission.
There are two other special features of their mission worthy of note. They have strongly-fortified themselves with Christian schools, one of the most potent agencies for breaking down Buddhism. Buddhist schools must be met by Christian schools.
Then, they require five years’ service from every young man entering their mission before they allow him to marry. This gives a period of probation at small outlay of money, and insures that the young man will acquire the language and be safely proven worthy and suited to his calling before the mission becomes responsible for his family. It has one disadvantage. When the young missionary does marry, his wife is a novice in the land, wholly unacquainted with the people and their language, and can hardly hope to become her husband’s helpmate, as she could have done if they had entered upon their missionary life together. Yet, on the whole, it is a policy worthy of careful study and wider application.
This outline of missions in Burma leaves much more unwritten than it records. It is only intended to give a general survey of the forces that are gathering which shall make the Burmese, the Shans, the Karens, the Chins, and all the nations and tribes truly Christians. They all aim at the speedy redemption of this stronghold of Buddhism with its attendant demonology.