hich is given to our faith in that land can neither be
appreciated nor approved by the educated Hindu. Even native Christians are
bemoaning this fact. I shall never forget the eloquent appeal which the
Hon. Kali Churn Banerjee, a leading native Christian in that land, made
before the Bombay Missionary Conference, begging the missionaries to cease
emphasizing, as he said, "adjectival" Christianity and to dwell more upon
"substantive" Christianity before the people of India. It is a sad fact
that we carry there our Western shibboleths, our antiquated controversies,
and our sectional jealousies. Most of these are not only unintelligible in
India; they weary the people and largely bury the essentials of our faith
from public gaze and appreciation.

The question returns to us with a new emphasis today,--How much of our
Western Christianity can we eliminate and how much must we retain in order
to present to that people the gospel in its simplicity and saving power?
How much of our modern Christianity is the product of Western thought,
interpretation and life, and how much is of the very essence of Christ's
message? We have yet much to learn and are to be overtaken by many
surprises in this matter, I believe. God forbid that we should rob our
message of one tittle of its essential truth. But may He enable us to
discriminate more and more, and lead us to cease encumbering our gospel to
the East with such unessential thought and ritual as are suited to us but
not to them.

I doubt whether we of the West can accomplish this--it can be _fully_ done
only when the Christian Church in India shall have become indigenous and
strong, and, when freed from Western influence and leadership, it shall do
its own thinking and shape its own ritual and ceremonial on Eastern lines.
Then indeed shall we behold that welcome and mighty movement which will
draw completely the culture of India into the Christian Church. Then also,
and not until then, shall we begin to see the Indian Church contributing
her share to the Christian thought and life of the world. We, of the proud
West, are prone to think that our type of life is all-embracing and that
our religious thought is all-satisfying. Nothing can be more fallacious or
more injurious than such a conceit. The East is the full complement of the
West. In life and thought we are only an hemisphere, and we need the East
to fill up our full-orbed beauty. The mystic piety of India will correct
our too pra