THE CONDITION OF THE CONVERT 471
doing the work has been well expressed by the late Duke of Argyle when he said:
“There is no method of reform so powerful as this. If alongside any false or corrupt belief, or any vicious or cruel system, we place one incompatible idea, —then without any noise of controversy or clash of battle, those beliefs and customs will wave an idea. It was thus that Christianity, without one single word of direct attack, killed off one of the greatest and most universal curses of the pagan world,—the ever deepening curse of slavery.” [1]
Whatever may be the importance of an idea, I am sure, history does not bear out the conclusion of the Duke of Argyle. It is debatable question whether the end of slavery in the Roman Empire was due to the influence of Christianity. It is beyond doubt that serfdom continued in Europe although Christianity was an established institution for several hundred years. It is an incontrovertible fact that Christianity was not enough to end the slavery of the Negroes in the United States. A civil war was necessary to give the Negro the freedom which was denied to him by the Christians.
The dependence of those in charge of Christian endeavour upon planting of an idea and leaving it to work a miracle is therefore one of the reasons why the untouchable has remained an untouchable notwithstanding his Christian faith.
Let me take the other part of the question. Does Christianity inspire the untouchable to move on ? I am constrained to say that (it)does not. So far as I am able to see, Christian preaching to the untouchable is less centered on ‘practical’ reforms and more centered around the development of Christian social attitudes. Christians who desire the conversion of the untouchables insist on regarding Christianity as purely “spiritual”. To teach that Christians have an obligation to love others is no doubt very valuable. But to stop there and argue that spiritual life expressed in a social attitude is quite unrelated to material life and Christians can have nothing to do with it, is in my judgment to preach an empty doctrine. What is the use of a daily exhortation to a wrong doer to be good and just if the exhortation is not followed by action to make the wrong doer just and good. The Christian Missionaries have never thought that it was their duty to act and get the injustice that pursues the untouchables even after his conversion to Christianity removed. That Missions should be so inactive in the matter of the social emancipation of the untouchable is of course a very sad thing. But far more painful is the inaction of the untouchable who becomes a convert to Christianity. It is the saddest thing. He
1 Quoted by C. F. Andrews. Christ and Labour, p. 25.