OPENING SPEECH BY THE REV. T. P. HUGHES, C. M. S., Peshawar. Approach the a Muslim I have listened with much interest to the two able papers which have been read, especially that by Mr. Wherry. I am able to testify to the good effect of Mr. Wherry's labours for Mahomedans. Not long ago an Afghan chief told me he regularly read the Nur-i-Afshan, a semi-religious paper published at Lodiana, and he added that if anything would lead him to Christianity the articles in that paper would. If we would gain the Mahomedan we must approach him with a Muslim mind which, unlike the Hindu mind, is essentially dogmatic. The average uneducated, essentially Muslim is better instructed in the leading dogmas of his creed dogmatic and than the average uneducated Christian. Again, the Muslim mind is essentially religious, and this the Missionary has often forgotten. Among our Peshawar Maulvies I believe there are many men who are of a truly religious mind, and, according to their imperfect light, lead a moral life. religious. Work than the Amongst the Afghans I commenced Missionary work very much as it is generally carried on, but I soon learnt that I was through the speaking on sufferance, and that if I would influence them for heart rather good I must, as has been said regarding the Hindu, do it through the heart rather than through the brain; and after all this is true Christian philosophy, for faith appeals more to the emotional faculties than to the mental. I quite agree with what has been said as to the necessity of the Missionary to the Muslims being well armed, but still let us keep our learning in reserve. In our frontier wars Government usually sends first a friendly Political to negotiate with the tribesmen, and it is only when friendly overtures fail, that the weapons of war are brought into practice. So let us approach the Muslim. We endeavour to do this at Peshawar; we entertain strangers and visitors, we write letters of sympathy to the suffering, and in every way try to be the friends of the people. Not very long ago a Sayad of good family, who had lost six out of seven of his sons, came to me for sympathy, and I read to him Hebrews xii. His heart has been completely gained by the power of sympathy and love, and although he has not yet embraced Christianity, he is one of our best Afghan friends. I was asked by a lay member of this Conference whether there are many converts from Islam? Yes, some of our best Christians in the Punjab are converts from Mahomedanism. The great difficulty regarding such converts is their constant tendency to apostasy. It is not altogether to be wondered at, for it often happens that such converts before they embraced Christianity had settled down to a state of scepticism, from which they head. Keep our learning in reserve. Work at Peshawar. Converts from Islam. The do not completely recover. On this account our constant effort should be to keep up the religious life of our converts, and set forth to them rather the devotional than the polemical side of our faith. Mr. Wherry has dwelt on the subjects best suited and most Christian's effective for Muslim audiences. I would add that of the sonship sonship. of the Christian (Gal. iv. 6), the power of love as the motive of obedience as compared with the legal slavery of the Muslim. REV. T. R. WADE, C. M. S., Amritsar, Punjab, said :—The waves of Western civilization and education, now rapidly rising upon the shores of India, have not only shaken Hinduism, but they have sufficiently soaked the foundations of modern MahomeNew school danism to cause considerable consternation in the camp, especially of thought. amongst the educated classes, and students of Government and Missionary schools and colleges. So much so that a new school of thought, often called " Naturi," has been evolved in order to make Mahomedanisin reasonable, and to hinder the further advancement of Christianity. Something what neo-Platonism was to the ancient systems of Grecian and Roman idolatry, what Brahmo-Somajism is to modern Hinduism, that this new school is to the common Mahomedanism received by ordinary orthodox Muslims. The leader of this school is the Hon'ble Sayad Ahmad Khan Bahadur of Alighur, whose works in English and Urdu are read throughout the whole of India, but especially in the North. He professes to have studied other religions—and there is certainly much that is admirable in his Commentary on the first chapters of the Bible-but the conclusion he has come to is that Islam alone is consistent with reason and science. And now in his works by a system of twisting and squeezing, of explanation, elimination and misrepresentation, he endeavours to reconcile the spirit of the Koran with the teaching of the Christian Scriptures, and with all modern science, discovery, and philosophy I desire to draw the attention of the members of this Conference to this movement which, though only in its infancy, is yet increasing in extent and influence. Enlist Mr. Wherry in his paper has especially noticed the vastness of volunteers in the field and the paucity of labourers. May I impress upon you the work. the importance of endeavouring to enlist the services of volunteers in this great work. We all know how much Sir W. Muir in North India has done for the cause, and Captain Aitkin in the South. Sir W. Muir's attention was directed to this subject, I believe, by the late Missionary Dr. Pfander. There is a great lack of spirituality and of root principle in Mahomedanism. It is a human second edition of legal Judaism, plus a spurious Christianity and the apostleship of Mahomed. Christianity is as incomprehenNature of sible without Judaism as Judaism is incomplete without ChristianMahome- ity, but there is no place found for Mahomedanism. In it there is no deep sense of sin, and therefore no felt need of an atonement and divine Redeemer; no new birth, no sacrament, no danism. L sonship for Christian believers and no fatherhood of God. It is contradictory in its teaching, and it does not satisfy the cravings of man's higher nature, for it can only give husks for an awakened spirit to feed upon. In proportion as our Christian converts from Mahomedanism grow in spirituality, the danger will decrease of their ever returning again to barren legalism. Let them but realise the privileges of the Gospel Land of Promise, and there will be little danger of their desiring to return again to the bondage of Sinai, or the more degraded bondage of Egypt. I wish to direct the attention of the members of the Conference to the works of the Rev. Imad-ud-din of Amritsar, one of the ablest, if not the ablest native opponent of Mahomedanism in India. He has already published some 16 treatises for the defence of Christianity, and the edification of believers. His works should be in every book depôt throughout the land where there are Mahomedans. Lastly I wish to make a suggestion. Could not the Committee of this Conference arrange that some of the ablest of our Native brethren, converts from Hinduism and Mahomedanism should, in the cold season, visit our large Mission stations and give lectures? It is a fact that there is a growing spirit of enquiry abroad, fostered by modern civilization and education. Lecturers on Brahmo-Somajism, and Arya-Somajism, and Mahomedanism, and Theosophy, and Self-government, go from place to place gathering crowds, and instilling their principles, and scattering seed broadcast; why should not able Christian lecturers do the same? If the hungry cannot obtain good wholesome food they will eat what is injurious. There can be no great difficulty as regards expense. Travelling is easier, quicker and cheaper now than it has ever been before in this country, and I am quite sure there would be no difficulty in collecting audiences if we could only find the right kind of lecturers. Works of Rev. Imadud-din. Let competent Natives travel and give lectures. Let us realise the fact that there is a great religious revolution Religious taking place around us, old creeds are being undermined, dark revolution. ignorance is retiring before the light of dawning science; education and civilization are expelling the spirit of superstition and folly; and if we would not leave the house empty, swept and garnished, for the sevenfold worse spirit of infidelity and lawlessness to enter in, we must fill it at once with the pure spirit of Christian truth. THE REV. K. S. MACDONALD, F. C. S., Calcutta, said :-I rise to Mahomedans speak, fearing Bengal may be forgotten in this afternoon's discus- in Bengal. sion, for the readers of papers and the speakers as yet, and the chief workers among Mahomedans in India, are all from outside Bengal. Yet of the 41 million Muslims in India, a number larger than that under the Sultan of Constantinople, as Mr. Wherry has just told us, more than the half, 21 million according to the last census, live in Bengal. That is, in Bengal there are more Musulmans than in all the rest of India put together. Another fact of Their condition. Number of i in Bengal. startling importance to the Bengal Missionaries and Christian workers is that in Bengal Proper, including Calcutta and its popu lous suburbs, there are more Musulmans than Hindus. And yet of the Indian Missionaries, specially qualified for work among the Muslims, of whom Mr. Wherry spoke as being so few in number that he could count them on his fingers, not one labours in Bengal. Not one single male Missionary working in Bengal knows the Arabic language, or the Muslim controversy, or is specially devoted to work among the Mahomedans. I say male, because I understand some lady Missionaries have recently been set apart specially for this work. Another fact to which I wish to direct the attention of this Conference is, that the Musulmans of Bengal are the despised, down-trodden, poor and illiterate portion of the population. Of the 9,000,000 Mahomedan females in Bengal Proper only 9,000 can read and write, that is one in every thousand; and in the same number of males only 360,000 can read and write: Here is surely a neglected field, to which the attention not only of this Conference but of the friends of Missions in Europe and America should be specially and immediately directed-a neglected yet a promising field, for I can say that the little labour spent on it by the Bengal Free Church Mission has proved more fruitful of spiritual results than the same or like labour spent on Hindus. THE REV: I. ALLEN, B. M. S., Dacca, said :-As I was engaged almost exclusively in this work for several years in Dacca and East Bengal, I wish to say a few words about it, as respects that section of India. Of the 42 millions of Indian Mahomedans, nearly half live in Mahomedans Bengal Proper, and half of these, again, are found in the districts east of the Ganges, the basin of the lower Brahmaputra. In the N. W. Provinces, only 14 per cent. of the population are Mahomedan; in Patna and Behar, often thought strongly Mahomedan, only 12 per cent.; in Bengal Proper, they form half the population; but in East Bengal, they number from 60 to 80 per cent., and in some parts of these densely crowded districts, they form the whole rural population. And these densely packed millions, too, are not split up into rival castes and classes, but knit together by the bonds of a common faith and a common ignorance, by dim memories of lost supremacy and proud dreams of its possible restoration, fanned by Wahabee agitators: Our duty Our object in coming into contact with these densely ignorant towards them. and prejudiced masses is, to evangelize them, which means something more than to stand up for an hour in a crowded market, which you may not be able to revisit for one, two, or five years, and tell the ignorant villagers that Jesus is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, perhaps also denouncing Mahomed and the Koran as useless or worse. It means the presentation of Christianity so frequently and clearly, especially in its many points of contact and conflict with Islam, divested of the misunderstandings born of ages of previous ignorance and prejudice, that they may plainly see its true and attractive character as God's plan of salvation for the whole world. This implies that the agency employed be adequate to the end proposed. The present evangelizing agency in East Bengal consists of eight European Missionaries, and some forty native preachers, amongst the 13 million people of its nine districts. Most of the native preachers are engaged amongst the churches, whilst not one amongst us, European or Native, is adequately fitted for Mahomedan work by a knowledge of Arabic and Urdu literature. These nine millions of Mahomedans are thus virtually without any adequate means of evangelization, and hence our converts in East Bengal come from the two or three million Hindus, rather than from the vast Mahomedan majority. The agency should be adequate, That the means should be adapted to the end in view, is oftener and adapted. admitted than acted on. In the army, men are specially trained for each arm of the service; drill, arms, dress, nothing is left to chance or caprice, but fixed by the teachings of experience. In the Missionary army, no special training is attempted for special work, each man finds his place in the ranks, if he finds it at all, by chance, or choice, after a series of failures; the round man is too often found in the square hole; power is wasted, and perfunctory duty too often takes the place of enthusiastic and scientific effort. Instead of this haphazard system, or want of system, the men intended to act upon Islam should be specially trained, not only in the dialect of the district in which they are to labour, but also in Arabic and Urdu literature, able to meet the Moulvie on his own ground as his acknowledged compeer, or superior. Acquainted with the differing views of the rival Mahomedan sects, they should accept the challenge of the Koran, "If it had been from any besides God, they would have found many contradictions," and show from its many points of contact and conflict with the Injil, and with the voice of God in nature and in history, the baselessness of its claims to be inspired, its insufficiency to meet the needs and nature of man, and its defective delineation of the character of God. Indeed, the issues between Mahomedanism and Christianity are so direct and few, that I very much prefer dealing with an educated Mahomedan than the more pliant Hindu, who admits everything and accepts nothing. The and English education. Another reason for this special preparation is the attitude of the Mahomedans towards English education; that powerful solvent Mahomedans of Hindoo caste and superstition is powerless against Mahomedan error and prejudice. As a remedy for their ignorance, Government has now established Arabic and Persian classes at all the Mahomedan centres of population, Dacca, Comillah, Rajshaye &c., but the remedy will be worse than the disease, by the new impulse thus given to their age-cemented prejudices, unless we supply the antidote of evangelization in some effective and acceptable form. Now, the East Bengal Mahomedans are, if anything, more ignorant |