My reference is to Dr. W. A. P. Martin, who has resided in China for over fifty years, was President of the Royal College at Pekin for about thirty years, and when under the leadership of Li Hung Chang the Imperial University of China was founded after the war with Japan, Dr. Martin was made its chancellor. Since our college days we have beeen friends and correspondents. I look on him as one of the most, perhaps the most, gifted of the men who have gone from the United States of America to foreign lands.

This overture, without the suggestion of a modification, was emphatically approved by him as well suited to China.*

INDIA.

India will next claim our attention. There is no more important mission field than it, unless it be China, with one-fourth of the human race. Next comes India, with its one-fifth. It is estimated that British India, whose census gives about 300,000,000, embraces nearly one-fifth of the inhabitants of the world. It is barely second in importance to China, and a greater host of Christian missionaries has been devoted to its Christianization. These labors have now been in progress for over a hundred years, for Cary entered India before Morrison entered China. There is in India a much greater missionary and Christian population than in China. The story of these missions is one of surprises and thrilling interest. But our topic restrains us. Africa is a complex dependency of complex Protestant and Catholic powers; Japan and China are independent Pagan empires; but India is, and has been for a century and a half, a depend

*I will give in part Dr. Martin's exact language of approval: “Your views as to the attitude of the Church on polygamy and concubinage, I heartily indorse."

ency of England, the most influential Protestant power of the world. This background, hostile at first, and then friendly, has served as a special stimulus to missionary enterprise in India for more than fifty years.

There is a singular witness for monogamy in Ceylon, among the Dravidians, who are esteemed the lineal descendants of the original inhabitants of India, who, by the Aryans, more than a thousand years before the Christian era, were reduced to abject slavery, and have come down in history as the Soudras, the lowest of the four castes. They were driven out and trodden down by the Aryans, and their language is a mixture of Aryan and Dravidian. the Yakkos of the Sanscrit writers. people observe lifelong monogamy. peoples, polygamy and polyandry are There is no prostitution among them. Conjugal fidelity is remarkable. Free courtship exists, and children are treated with kindness. This looks like a stray number from the primitive files of man's original society; and it is suggested that it places the onus on those who question the original monogamy of the race.

They are thought to be
This poor, downtrodden
Uninfluenced by foreign
unknown by them.

The Dravidian monogamist is taken from one extreme of Indian life; and it seems fair to single out from the opposite extreme, as more nearly representing the moral condition of the Hindus, an incredible Brahmanic practice of polygamy. The facts are taken from the History of the London Missionary Society for 100 years-1795 to 1895 (p. 49).

The Kuhlin Brahmans at Bengal are original orthodox, and are now the highest of the three orders of Brahmans. The lower ranks of Brahmans aspire to the Kuhlin rank, but can only gain it by marrying their daughters to a Kuhlin Brahman.

"This custom has led to a widespread and degrading profligacy. A considerable dowry is given at the marriage, and the wife remains at her father's house. Her support is no charge to the Kuhlin. The Kuhlin Brahman often marries into forty or fifty different families, and spends his time going from home to home of his many wives, honored as a god, and all the while living a life of sloth and debauchery that would degrade a beast." "This system is a great obstacle to the gospel."

One is hardly prepared to appreciate this shocking abandonment till reasonably well informed of the superstitious esteem in which the Brahmans are held by their countrymen. According to their doctrine amongst the Hindus, all things have emanated from Brahina-the Brahman priests from his head; the soldiers, or kshatrizas, from his arms and chest; the merchants and industrial classes, or vaisyas, from his thighs and legs; and the sudras, or slaves, from his feet. The Brahmans are the priests of their religion, and alone have the privilege of reading the sacred books, or vedas. "They are the mediators between heaven and earth, themselves worshiped as demi-gods. Cursed indeed is the man who is cursed of a Brahman, and thrice blessed if but a Brahman's shadow fall upon him" (Russell's Religions of the World, p. 89).

In 1873, I heard Rev. Norayan Sheshadrai, a converted Brahman, deliver an address in the Madison-Square Presbyterian Church, New York City, on India and his conversion to Christianity. I distinctly recollect his saying, "I was taught as a Brahman to believe that I was a god on earth." The most remarkable thing about this Brahmanic pretension is, that the mass of the people devoutly concede it to them as a great honor to the nation.

Where imperialism and royalty prevail, especially in the East, the example of the court, as in China and Japan, in favor of polygamy is almost irresistible. An analogous and perhaps more irresistible influence emanates from the divine Brahman of India. In India, the moral influence of the Viceroy and of Europeans for the Christian family is neutralized or handicapped by the fact of their being foreigners. But the example of an ignorant Brahman of beastly life inspires reverence, admiration, and imitation. A Brahman, dying, may cry in hopeless uncertainty, "Where am I going?" Although his professed faith is that of reabsorption into Brahma, and though he may have prayed for hours daily, the most acceptable service his friends can render him, in extremis, is to clasp his hands about the tail of a cow!

From the first till now polygamy has been a vexed question in India among the missionaries, but it is now on the eve of a local and final settlement, so far as Presbyterians are concerned.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE POSITION OF THE CHURCHES.

I.

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, U. S. A., 1875.

It was in 1875, thirty-one years ago, that an overture came from a Presbytery in India on this subject to the Northern Presbyterian General Assembly, to which the answer was given "That polygamists cannot be received into the church while remaining in that relation." That is to this day the unrepealed rule of the Presbyterian Church in U. S. A.

Polygamists Cannot be Received Into the Church While Remaining in that Relation.

Overture No. 14. From the Presbytery of Kolapore, asking for an answer to the following questions, namely:

Can a man who, before his conversion from heathenism, had been the husband of two wives, each the mother of several children, and with whom he continues to live in apparent harmony, be received into the Christian church while retaining them both, or should he be required to separate from one of them? In the latter case, from which ought he to separate? and why should he be separated from her?

The committee report that they have given the subject the most careful consideration, and have called before them all the foreign missionaries in attendance on the Assembly, and fully consulted with them. As the result of all their deliberations, the committee recommend that the following answer be returned:

Under the light of the gospel no man may marry a second wife while his first is living in conjugal relation with him, without offending against the law of Christ. Such a relation, although it may be justified by human law and entered into in ignorance of the truth, cannot be perpetuated by one who has become a follower of Christ; neither can he be justified by his church. Converts from heathenism should be treated very tenderly in this most painful situation, and yet they should be dealt with in all fidelity, and, when a converted man is called to separate from all but his first and only wife, he should be enjoined to make suitable provision for her that is put away, and for her children, if she have any, to the full extent of his ability.