Mission Life, Vol. III (new series) (1872), pages 510-516
Transcribed by the Right Reverend Dr. Terry Brown
Bishop of Malaita, Church of the Province of Melanesia, 2006
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[Full particulars of the present state of Travancore will be found in
an interesting work entitled The Land of Charity, published by Messrs.
Snow, Paternoster Row.]
THE Travancore Mission is divided into two districts, North and South,
each under the charge of a resident missionary, who superintends the
native pastorates. The character of the people, and the nature of the
work, is much the same in both districts. In both there are numerous
Syrian churches. Side by side with these are congregations of Syrians,
who have left their Church and joined ours, and whom we now
distinguish as Syrian Protestants.
SYRIAN CHURCH–TWO CATANARS IN FRONT.
Everywhere on the outskirts of each central organization or head
station, where the native pastor resides, there are also two or three
congregations of slaves.
The work among the slaves is of comparatively recent date, and forms a
most interesting feature in the Travancore Mission. The first efforts
were made about 1850 at the instigation of Mr. Ragland, but they did
not meet with much success (so bigoted and prejudiced were the
surrounding heathen Nairs, and even Syrians also, and opposed to any
attempt to raise, or even instruct, the poor down-trodden despised
slaves), until within the last ten or twelve years, which have
witnessed a most remarkable ingathering of converts.
The number of Christians in connection with the Travancore Mission
[511/512] has risen in this time from 7,919 to 14,490, and nearly all
of these have been from the slave caste–the accessions from the
Syrian Church having almost ceased now that it has begun to reform
itself.
These slaves, like the Helots of Sparta, were evidently the original
inhabitants of the country, previously to the great Aryan or Scythian
immigration, which took place, as philologists and Sanskrit scholars
tell us, about 2,000 years ago, when the Sanskrit-speaking race,
called Hindus, because they came from beyond the Indus, or Sindhuh
(lit. black river), took possession of the whole country, and, as in
the case of the Saxons in England, drove back the former inhabitants
to the forests and fastnesses of their native hills, and reduced the
weaker people of the lowlands to the position of serfs or bondmen.
There are thus two classes of Aborigines or non-Aryan races in
India–those which inhabit the hilly tracts, as the Santals and Gonds
and Bheels, who retain their own language and remain a perfectly free
people; and others, like the Mângs of the Deccan, or the Malias of the
Telegu country, or the slave people of Travancore. These last have
become so completely absorbed into the Hindu community, that they have
lost not only their independence but also their former language, and
to some extent their old religious beliefs also–almost everything, in
fact, but their distinctive physiognomy, the preservation of which is
simply owing to the fact that they are regarded as outcasts, the very
scum and dregs of society, and that none, even the lowest of the Hindu
scale, would dream for a moment of intermarrying with them. They
reside in miserable mud hovels, built on mounds amid the rice swamps,
which they are compelled to cultivate for their Hindu or Syrian
masters, receiving as their only wages a scanty pittance of grain, so
insufficient as a rule for even their slender wants, that they are
driven to theft, and make it a practice to enter the neighbouring
plantations at night to steal the cocoa-nuts, or plantains, or roots.
As a natural consequence they are sunk in the most brutal ignorance;
for days and weeks together, at certain seasons, they have to stand in
water up to their waists, and so rife are diseases of all kinds among
them, that they seldom live to old age.
The slaves were formerly bought, sold, or mortgaged, just like the
land on which they lived, or as the cattle and other property of their
owners. No wonder that to such a people the Gospel has been good news
indeed. It offers them, first of all, deliverance from the fear of the
devil, of whom they stand in the greatest terror; their whole
religion, in fact, consisting of various rites and sacrifices
performed to avert the anger of the demons supposed to inhabit
different places. Next, it procures for them their just rights as
human beings, which Hinduism and corrupt Christianity has denied them.
[513] As one might expect, the moral standard and spiritual tone of
such people, even after they become the professed followers of Christ,
is not very high; still there is a marked change, which even their
heathen masters are ready to admit.
“Sir,” said the head man of a Syrian village one day to B., “these
people of yours are wonderfully altered. Six years ago I had to employ
clubmen to guard my paddy [unhusked rice] “while it was being reaped.
Now, for two or three years, I have left it entirely to your
Christians, and they reap it and bring it to my house. I get more
grain; and I know they are the very men who robbed me formerly.”
Another day, as a native catechist was discussing with a heathen Nair
the nature of human responsibility, he illustrated his remarks by
referring to the habits of the slaves, who were accustomed to lie,
cheat, steal, &c. The heathen at once interrupted him, saying, “No,
the slaves do not lie, or steal, or get drunk, or quarrel now; they
have left off all these since they learned your religion.”
I visited some eight or ten of these slave congregations, and was
greatly pleased and interested by the simple earnestness of the
people; their willingness to contribute–far more largely, in
proportion to their means, than their Syrian neighbours–to the
building of their churches and maintenance of their readers, as also
by the remarkable aptitude shown by many of the children in learning
to read. I think there is little doubt that another generation will
find many of them quite on a par, as regards knowledge and
intelligence, with the Christians of higher castes. Care has to be
taken to keep them from getting puffed-up by their
elevation,–especially now that, by an order of the Native Government,
all slaves are declared free in Travancore, and many other of their
civil disabilities removed.
The movement is, however, a very hopeful one as well as a very
remarkable one, and it has done a world of good to the somewhat
indolent, selfish, and apathetic Syrians, who were quite content to
receive the Gospel and education and Christian ordinances at our
hands, but would not contribute a farthing towards it themselves. Now
the zeal and liberality of the formerly-despised slave converts is
beginning to put them to shame,–and, what is better still, the
employment of Syrian (I use the word Syrian here as generally
elsewhere, to denote nationality or caste, and not religion, for our
agents, though Syrian in origin, are Protestant in creed and belonging
to our own Church) catechists and readers, to go among these people
and minister to them in spiritual things, has tended wonderfully to
break down the barriers of caste prejudice, which formerly existed
between the two races, even when both formed a part of the Christian
Church.
As regards the actual Syrians themselves, I saw much that was
encouraging, and calculated to give good ground for believing that a
[513/514] real spiritual reformation was going on amongst them. True,
the catanars, or priests, are still, as a body, deplorably ignorant,
and care for little more than a decent performance of the duties
attached to their office and the saying of masses. There are, however,
some noble exceptions, whose zeal and earnest efforts for the
spiritual improvement of their people is beginning to stir up even the
more careless and lazy among their brethren. One whom I met and had
some encouraging conversation with, has translated the Syrian Liturgy
into the vernacular Malagalim, from which are omitted nearly all the
prayers that a Protestant would take exception to. The Malagalim
Scriptures, translated by our Missionary, Mr. Bailey, and printed by
the Bible Society, are now read in almost every church; and several of
the catanars have mustered up courage enough to expound and preach.
The same catanar mentioned above has got his people to subscribe and
build a little prayer-house, or chapel-of-ease, on the outskirts of
the village where he lives, some two miles away from the nearest
Syrian church, to which the people may come on Sunday afternoons and
read the Bible together and have it explained by himself or one of his
brother catanars. The building, composed almost entirely of wood,
reminded one almost of a Swiss chalet, it was so tastily carved in
front, and altogether so neat and good. At the gable end, above the
entrance porch, two texts were inscribed from the Malagalim Bible: the
first, “There is one Mediator between God and man,–the man Christ
Jesus;” the second, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth.” One could hardly wish for
anything better than this; and if no other result has followed from
fifty years of labour in Travancore, this would be an ample reward in
itself.
At first we began by fraternizing with them entirely, then, after a
few years, when they found out what scriptural Christianity really
involved, and how very far apart they were from us, they drew off, and
would have nothing more to say to us, nor allow us to preach in their
churches. For some twenty-five or thirty years, accordingly, the only
influence brought to bear upon the Syrian Church has been entirely
from without: several Syrian congregations joined us in different
parts of the country; indeed, all who wished to offer to God a
spiritual and scriptural worship were obliged to come over to our
Church, for they could get no instruction or help in their own.
For the last ten years, however, there has been a movement going on
within the Syrian Church itself, and there are now no more accessions
from them, nor could we desire it, so long as there is perfect freedom
given to priest or layman to adopt a scriptural faith and a purer
worship. Much of this reform is doubtless owing to the countenance and
encouragement it received from the present Metran or Bishop, who
rejoices in the high-sounding title of Mar Athanasius. We were his
guests for [514/515] one night, on our way down from Mavelicurra to
Quilon, at a place called Kayen Kulum, where we took up our quarters
in the premises attached to the Syrian Church.
It was an interesting evening, and one that I shall not soon forget.
One seemed transplanted back at once to the early days of Christianity
as one gazed on the venerable old man with long iron-grey beard,
clothed in a purple silk robe which reached nearly down to his feet,
but in all other respects living in the most simple and primitive
fashion; indeed, so scanty seemed his commissariat that we
congratulated ourselves on having brought supplies with us, and being
able, accordingly, to entertain him as a guest at table while we
shared his quarters.
Fortunately for me he knew English, and could speak it with tolerable
ease, having been educated, in fact, in our own institution in Madras,
when presided over many years ago by Mr. Gray. We had a great deal of
conversation together in reference to the Syrian Church, and he seemed
really desirous of help and sympathy, and anxious to do all he could
to raise the spiritual tone of his people. His position is a somewhat
difficult and precarious one, for there is a rival Metran in the
field, who also claims to derive his episcopal commission and
authority from the Jacobite Church in Mesopotamia, with which the
Syrian Church of Malabar has always been connected. Mar Athanasius
has, however, been recognised as the rightful Metran by the Travancore
Government, and he has certainly justified thus far the hopes then
entertained of him that he would rule his people faithfully and
promote among them a real reform.
We arrived just at dusk, and were welcomed on entering the churchyard
or “close” by some seven or eight catanars, who greeted M. as an old
friend. Among these was a young man, a nephew of the Bishop’s, who, a
few days before, had performed his first mass–as great an event,
apparently, in the Syrian Church, as preaching the first sermon in
ours; or greater still in one way, as it was followed by the feasting
of no less than 5,000 persons at the Metran’s expense, all of whom had
come in to witness the ceremony.
After going up-stairs to the hay-loft sort of place over the gateway,
which formed the episcopal residence, where we shook hands with the
Metran and exchanged a few complimentary greetings, the young catanar
spoken of above asked us if we would join them at their evening
service. This we did, and found that he had summoned together a
considerable congregation in the hope of hearing M. preach afterwards.
The service consisted partly of extemporised portions of the Syriac
Liturgy, translated into Malagalim, which the officiating catanar
repeated sentence by sentence, and which was afterwards taken up by
the people; partly of prayers from the Liturgy itself. When it was
over, the young catanar exchanged places with M., who read a portion
of Scripture and [515/516] expounded it, evidently to the great
satisfaction of his audience, for they were most attentive, the other
six or seven catanars also standing by. There are only a few catanars
as yet who venture to preach even from book, so that the people get
very little teaching, and this makes them welcome all the more the
occasional visit of a Missionary.
Another very interesting scene, which I also greatly enjoyed, was a
visit paid one day to a Syrian house, where the owner, a well-to-do
farmer, with a most pleasing countenance, received us most warmly,
placed beds and mats at our disposal to recline on, and feasted us
most sumptuously with all manner of curries, which he insisted on
providing, though we had brought our own food with us. The room in
which he entertained us was like a good-sized English summer-house,
raised about three feet above the ground, with a floor nicely boarded
and matted, and a roof thatched with cocoa-nut leaves. My seat was a
bed, with one of the nice stained grass mats spread on it. At the edge
of the platform M. sat on a low stool, and read a Malagalim tract
about the Russian nobleman and the wolves to a group of some forty men
and boys, who were seated outside on the ground, under the shade of
the cocoa-nut trees, in the midst of a grove of which the house stood.
Our host, who was a venerable patriarch, sat close to him, as he was
rather deaf, drinking in every word, and nodding audible assents and
occasional comments as he read.
On our way here we halted for an hour at another village, where there
is also a congregation and a church. The people were all waiting for
us, and some cannon, consisting of iron pipes, each four or five
inches long, closed at one end, announced our approach. The little
church has lately been renovated and almost wholly rebuilt by the
congregation, and a nice porch added, and some fifty or sixty were
present to meet us, and received a few words of instruction. Some
plantains, a basin of milk, and another of coffee, had been provided
for us, of which we were bound to partake, though we knew another
repast awaited us at our next halting-place.
And so it is wherever we go. Every Syrian house and church is open to
us; the people are all delighted to see us, and hear the Bible read
and expounded.
On the whole, I must say that the Syrians are a most kind, hospitable
people, and I felt greatly drawn to them. There is somewhat the same
kind of hospitality to be met with from the monks connected with the
Greek Church in Palestine, but, on the whole, I rather prefer the
Syrians of Malabar. Nothing would be more interesting than spending
three weeks or a month in a tour though all their churches, which
number, I believe, some fifty within the immediate neighbourhood of
our Mission Station at Mavelicurra.
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