Christian Self-support only add a word about self-propagation. I am the founder of Christian melas in the Bengal Presidency. They give a very good opportunity for all Christians who will work, whether by preaching or singing or in any other way, to help in the proclamation of the Gospel. This suits our people. If all foreign support were withdrawn, the Native Church would gather together and propagate itself. But as workers are wanted for this work in all circumstances, Missionaries ought diligently to seek out and cultivate all possible voluntary lay-helpers. REV. T. S. SMITH, A. B. F. M., Jaffna, said:-In our Ceylon in Ceylon. Mission we have 13 Native churches, all but three, self-supporting: the smallest has but 17 members, but supports its own pastor. Several of the churches have upwards of 100 members. This has been brought about in the past ten or eleven years. The churches are governed according to the Congregationalist or Presbyterian plan of our American Missionaries: part are Congregationalists, part Presbyterians. Our rule is, that all shall give something, and if possible one-tenth the annual income. Many of our members are employed on good salaries, and can easily pay one-tenth. In the church with 17 members, one man gets Rs. 150 per month, and another Rs. 100 as Sub-inspector in the Educational Department; both pay one-tenth. Besides monthly offerings there are the harvest offerings. In April or May after the harvest each church holds a special meeting for this purpose. Some bring a tithe of the harvest; some bring rice, others fowls, goats, &c., &c.; after service all these things are sold at auction, sometimes an orange sells for a Rupee, the proceeds going to the fund. Many people give a handful of rice regularly day by day in boarding schools the handful is taken out of the daily allowance, and thus Christian mothers are trained, while girls, to deny themselves. Besides there are special offerings from absent members. We have 1,014 members. Last year they gave us Rupees 5,800; of this Rs. 4000 went to pastors, Rs. 700 to the Native Missionary Society which carries on work in the small islands &c. One of our best givers is a poor woman of the tree-climbing caste, blind of one eye. She works in the field; has an income of a rupee and a half per month. She gives one-tenth, and her handful of rice besides. Our people are in good circumstances and are not scattered: this of course accounts in part for our success. European control cannot yet be withdrawn. : MR. R. C. BOSE, M. E. C., Lucknow, said :-I have scarcely anything to add to what has been so well said in the first of the able papers that have been read. If the principles embodied in it were carried out systematically, the Native churches would in time be thoroughly self-supporting and self-propagating. Let me make a couple of remarks. 2. Foreign or European Missionary control should not, under present circumstances, be withdrawn from these churches. The Apostles were placed under unfavourable circumstances, and they had to do what proved a source of weakness to the infant churches they founded. Their leaving them unprovided for and uncontrolled was a misfortune. What were the consequences of this unsuitable step on their part? Serious errors of doctrine and practice crept into the churches, and almost all of them were corrupted. The majority of these churches are now dead, and the few which live are examples of corruption. Is all this to be repeated? Is that to be regarded as a source of strength which really proved a weakness? If foreign control were withdrawn from the Native churches now, serious errors would creep into them, and they would be corrupted. system. 2. Again if these churches were all at once made self-supporting, they would be under inferior pastoral supervision. They can not, under their present circumstances, command the services of the sort of men by whom they can be raised to a higher platform of intelligence and piety. Nothing makes me more impatient than to hear that the paying system spoils Native preachers. If The paying the paying system spoils them, it spoils the Missionaries also. It would spoil them more, if they continued paid agents, and left their assistants unprovided for; while the masses of our countrymen would look upon them as cheats and these as dupes! The truth is the paying system does not spoil them; and if they prepared their agents as Christ prepared the apostles, that is, if they reproduced themselves in their agents by the closest friendly contact, it would not spoil anybody connected with Missions. THE REV. W. R. BLACKETT, C. M. S, Calcutta, said:-The "Church Council" system described in Mr. Satthianadhan's paper is in operation also in all the Missions of the Church Missionary Society throughout India. It was introduced in Bengal under the direction of the late Rev. J. Vaughan, whose absence this day all must regret, and none more so than myself, on whom the chairmanship of the Bengal Native Church Council has devolved. I am happy to say that the Council is working well, and showing such an amount of independence as even to have declined a course of action suggested from European quarters. I differ from Mr. Satthianadhan on one point; I think selfdirection must precede self-support, or at least accompany its development, and not be deferred till the Church is self-supporting. Add to these a zealous spirit of self-extension, and the future of the Church will be secured. While fully agreeing that highly educated ministers are not required for village congregations, I yet think that one want of the church in India is learned men,men qualified by the study of Church History to take the lead in the organization of a Church for India. THE REV. P. C. BOSE, F. C. M., Calcutta, said :-I will only say a word or two, as it will be to my advantage to sit at the feet of this august assembly and learn rather than to speak. But as I know that this Conference would be glad to be acquainted with the individual opinions of the Indian Christians on so vital a subject as the "self-support and self-propagation of the Native Churches" The Church yet be I feel no diffidence in saying a word or two. The point to which I would specially refer now is, whether the time has arrived for the withdrawal altogether of the pecuniary help which the Native churches in India are receiving from the Societies in Great European Britain. I allude to this subject for I understand that it is being aid cannot seriously considered in certain quarters. Though Christianity withdrawn, has been preached in this country for more than a century, yet keeping in view the spiritual condition of the Native churches, the time has not, to my humble thinking, as yet arrived for the stoppage altogether of the pecuniary assistance rendered so kindly by the different Societies for the ministrations of the Native churches. Such a step, in my humble opinion, would be going from one extreme to another, and would not be healthful. I would readily admit, however, that it is high time that we, the Indian Christians, should stand on our own legs, but alas! our legs, owing to lack of healthful growth, are yet too weak to support us. I would say to the Societies in Great Britain and to their representatives in India, Bear with us a little more when you have done so much for us. Indeed some of us can say we owe, humanly speaking, everything to you. If you had not looked after us, nourished us and cherished us, where would we have been now. It is through your parental and brotherly care, that we are what we are, and therefore bear with us a little more. Bengali F. C. One word more, that is, how to attain the "self-support and Church in self-propagation of the Native churches" gradually. Here I would illustrate what I have to say by referring to that particular church of which I am a member. I mean the church at Corn. wallis Square, established by that prince of Missionaries the Rev. Alexander Duff, for the spiritual benefit of the converts of the Free Church Mission. If I am asked how this church can be self-supporting, is it by the payment of a very liberal contribu tion by those who worship in this church? I would say, No. For this contribution alone would not be sufficient, for it has already failed, owing to the resident members being very few and for other reasons. How is this church to be self-supporting then? It is in my humble opinion by recognizing as assistants to the Pastor one or two of the members who support themselves by secular work, whom the Presbytery may consider worthy for such a calling, and when the pastorate falls vacant, to appoint one of them most fitted for the work to the vacant office. No doubt such a recognition would slightly modify the principles of the Society to which this church belongs, but all that I urge now is, that considering all the aspects of the question whether such a modification would not help materially to an easy solution of the problem, namely, the "self-support and self-propagation of the Native churches." My remarks equally apply to the Native churches connected with other denominations in India. My earnest prayer to God is, that that day may soon hasten when the Native churches in India may be chiefly presided over by men Calcutta. who support themselves by secular work and are spiritually fitted for such an honorable calling-men who are in no way a burden upon those who, in the providence of God, have been entrusted to their care. No doubt there are other modes for making the Native churches self-supporting, but what I have now urged, seems to me to be the simplest of all THE REV. P. M. MUKERJI, S. P. G., Calcutta, said :-Selfsupport and self-propagation are the results of a healthy spiritual growth. It would be absurd to expect the former when the latter is wanting. That the Native Church has been stunted in its spiritual growth is a lamentable fact, borne out by the testimony of Native pastors and others acquainted with the real state of affairs in the Native Christian community. While undoubtedly the Native Christians themselves are to blame for this, some share of it falls upon their foreign teachers as well. And, in an assembly like this, it is but right that this should be clearly stated. When a Hindu changes his faith and is baptized, there is always an interval between his baptism and the time by which he settles down outwardly in some form of Christian life. This interval is always a critical period, upon which depends much what sort of a member he is going to be of the Christian Church and community. If sufficient care and attention be given to the new convert during this period, so as to help him in forming proper habits and rules of Christian life, much of the things so much deplored at present would be avoided. The convert is left too much, and alas! too soon to himself. He takes his place in the Christian community, and is received it may be as a full member of the church, but not perhaps with that vivid realization of faith, nor with those habits and rules of life which go so far to determine his Christian character. Under such circumstances it is no wonder that the spiritual growth of the Native Church should become stunted; and that being so, how can it be expected to be self-propagating? Again, we are speaking of self-support. Have the converts been taught while young that it is their duty to give, and to form habits of giving? On the other hand, has not everything been provided for them, and giving found no place in whatever training they might have received at the hands of Missionaries? I do not say that the Missionaries were wrong in providing things needful in the case of helpless converts under exceptional circumstances, but the mistake was in not teaching them to give while they were yet young, and in not requiring them to help themselves where they were able to do so. The result of this mistake is seen in its worst form in some of the village churches with which I am acquainted. Need of healthy spiritual growth. The time following baptism a critical period. It has been mentioned by one of the speakers that one of the Divisions in great hindrances to self-support is the unhappy divisions which the Church. have broken up the infant Native Church. Nothing is to be regretted so much as this. Perhaps the foreign Missionaries The poor themselves regret it as much as we do. That speaker very earnestly and eloquently urged that if the Native Church be left alone in this matter of division, and be helped to unite together as one body it will soon stand upon its own legs. I incline fully to agree with him. I think the time has come when the Native Church may be safely left alone to a certain extent at least, and helped if possible to find out if in the history of the Christian Church, at least so far as England is concerned, there ever was a time when the Church was undivided, and to see if the faith and polity of that undivided Church, which were good enough for the forefathers of our spiritual teachers, would do for us Indian Christians. THE REV. P. BISWAS, S. A. M., Furreedpore, Bengal, said:ought to give. When I became a convert I had the idea that it was the duty of the foreign churches not only to pay our native pastors, but to provide us with sacramental wine and everything else; many converts have the same idea. The early Missions could not be self-supporting, but the time has come when the Native Church should begin to support itself. Many say, "We converts are too poor to give." But as we know, in Christian lands the givers are not all rich. Of the money received from foreign lands, a good part is made up of widows' mites and children's pocket money. I have been to Australia and have seen something of the givers. A poor widow gave her boy a three-penny piece as he started to school: when he returned she asked how he had spent it: "O, mamma, I've put the money in the best possible place, the Missionary box". She gave him another piece of silver and it went the same way. Let us follow the example and be self-denying. Persevere and the result is certain. To our European friends I would say, Don't be impatient to withdraw your aid, the time is coming when we of our own accord will release you from this burden. The time is coming when the men and women of India will accept Christ. MR. J. G. SHOME, Editor Indian Christian Herald, Calcutta, said:-Missionaries in India have not laboured in vain. We are better then we were: I am a better man than I would have been had I remained a Hindu. One reason why Native Christians do not give more liberally is because they do not understand the need. I know of one Native Christian whose salary is Rs. 1,000 per month who gives not one-tenth but one-third his salary to charitable purposes: perhaps he does not give much of this to the support of any pastor. The Hindus give to Brahmins blindly, i. e., whether the latter are rich or poor. Are Christians to give thus? It has come to be expected that in the Church the sermon should be well written and well delivered. I believe there should be churches where one of a number of praying men should be set apart to lead in worship; he should not be paid: let there be a fund from which teachers may be supported. There are No need of a paid pastor. 300 Brahmo Somajes. These carry on their own services and also support a band of Missionaries-they are following the |