GEOGRAPHY AND MISSION

In the year 1858 the Christian map of India was very different from what it had been in 1800. In the earlier year, apart from the European settlements strung out along the coast, the Christian presence in India was scattered, thin, and for the most part ineffective. By 1858 the ‘Christian occupation’ of India was beginning to take shape. The number of missionaries, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, had greatly increased, though it was still very small in relation to the size of the country and the many millions of its inhabitants. From small beginnings the Christian forces had spread themselves out and taken the first steps towards making their presence felt over the country as a whole.

Before the development of the modern network of roads and railways, communication in northern India was mainly by water. The great cities of the Gangetic plain were connected by the Ganges and its tributaries. Early in the century the Baptists had become aware of the opportunities that lay before them in this direction, but their work had been spasmodic rather than systematic. The Anglican CMS, both methodical and adventurous, opened up work in one city after another; other British, and later American, societies were not far behind.

A watershed in more senses than one was crossed when missionaries advanced from the Gangetic plain into the vast area watered by the Indus and the tributaries which flow down from the ranges of the Himalaya.