Missions nr Ceylon.— 1. Bomtm Ca(i&o2ic.— During the tenure of Ceylon by the Portuguese (1505-1656), they introduced the Roman Catholic religion. In 1544, Xavier (q. v.) preached to the Hindoos in Ceylon. The mission was very successftil; a Jesuit college and several convents were erected, and the province of Jaffna became almost wholly Christian. The mission- aries did not penetrate {bi into the interior. The Church of Rome has at present two vicariates apostol- ic, Colombo and Jafftaa, and claim a membership of about 140,000, of whom 55,000 belong to the vicariate of Jaffha. Detailed statistical information on the vi- 1
I cariate of Jaffna is given in Battersby's (kdhoSe Di^ rectory for 1864 (Dublin, 1864, p. 897-400). 2. DuUk.—Whtn the Dutch drove out the Porto-
I guese, they began at once to plant the Beforroed rellg^ ion. (In the remainder of thU account we follow Ke v-
I comb, Cydopctdia of Muwmt^ p. 223 sq., and Brown,
i Hituiry ofMiuiorUj vol. L) They to<^ poaseeaion of the Roman Catholic churdies and convents, and ban- ished the priests and nuns. In five years they re- ported 12,887 children baptized, 18,000 pupils in the schools, 65,000 converts to Christianity. When tbe Dutch surrendered the island to the English, the num- ber of Christians was stated at 425,000. Many of these were nominal converts; all that was required before baptism was that the candidates should be able to repeat the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, a morning and evening prayer, and grace npon meat,. By a very mistaken policy, the Dutch would give oo public emplo3rment to an unbaptized native, and the Singhalese were baptised by hundreds with no relig- ious aim whatever. It is not to be wondered at that when the Dutch gave up the island there was little firuit to be seen of their missions in it
8. The London Mitnonary Society.—ln 1804 this so- ciety entered upon a mission in Ceylon, and the Rer.
^Messrs. Voe, Ehrhardt, Palm, and Bead were employed as missionaries for several years; but after several years of effort the mission was abandoned.
4. The EngU$k Baptitt Missionary Sodety, — The English Baptists commenced a mission in Ceylon in 1812 in the person of Mr. Chater, whose efforts to Christianize the Singhalese, or Buddhists, and to Sys- tematize tlie study of their language, have made his name memorable. He died in 1829. The labors oft his successors had reached, in 1858, to 181 villages of the Singhalese, in which they maintained 81 schoda, with an average attendance of 880 pupila. They bad also 488 enrolled as Church members.
5. The American Board, — One of the first missbn- aries of the American Board to the East was the Rev. Samuel Newell. This missionary spent some Ume at Ceylon. In a letter dated at Colombo, Dec. 20, 1813, Mr. Newell urged an American mission in Ceylon on the following grounds, among others, that d^e gov- ernment (English) was friendly to missions ; that the population of the island was from one to two millions ; that there were but two languages to be learned in or- der to preach to three millions of people ; that the na- tives could read and write ; that the whole Bible had been translated into Tamil, and the New Testament into Singhalese ; that there were 200,000 native Chris- tians so called, and at least 100 schools were in opera- tion, and that there but two missionaries in the whole island. The board decided to make Ceylon a mission field, and sent, in 1815, the Rev. Messrs. Meigs, Rich- ards, Warren, BarArell, and Poor, who landed at Co- lombo in March, 1816. In a year Mr. Poor was able to preach in Tamil, and schools were established at dif- ferent points. By 1818, through deaths and changes, Messrs. Meigs and Poor only were left in Ceylon ; but in 1819, Messrs. Winslow, Spalding, and Woodward, with John Scudder, M.D., arrived in Ceylon. A printing-press was established in 1820. In 1824 an extensive revival occurred in the island. By 1827 there was a high-school, 80 scholars, and 80 native as- sistants. The mission has passed through many vi- cissitudes, but, on the whole, its results have been very satisfactory. In 1849 a new version of the Bible in the Tamil was published. The statistics in 1865 were as follows :
ChurolHMi.
Ibmber*.
CbonslMn.
Tillipally
BatticotU
Pandlteripo
Oodoorflle
Manepy
88 12T
49 1«5
88
ChftTagnchen-jr . . .
Oodoopitty
Karadire
Valuiy
40 88 14 12 8T
Naraly
TVrtal
4S
CEYLON
193
CEYLON
The addition hy confession during the year 1865 was only 18, while 9 were removed by death and 8 by excommonication. The aggregate number reported 18 attending the Sabbath morning exercises at 9 of the 10 stations was 1823; 46 preaching- places were reported, and 62 services are condacted each week ; 15 adnlts and 88 children were baptized. The contribu- tions of the churches for 1865 amounted to £102 la. 2^. The income of the Native Evangelical Society was £51. There were 7 stations, 7 sub-stations, 6 missionaries, 1 physician, 8 female assistant missionaries, 8 native pas- tors, 2 licensed preachers, 20 catechists, 6 teachers in seminaries, 40 school-teadiers, and 9 other helpers.
6. Tke Church Missionary Society.— The Church Missionary Society sent four missionaries in 1818 to Ceylon. Two of them — ^Hr. Mayor and Mr. Lam- brick— silationed themselves in Kamdy. The tovm it- self has only about 8000 people, but in the neighboring monntains, to which the labors of these missionaries extended, there is a population of 200,000. The fruits of this mission among the Kandians have been very email. The secluded and solitary condition of the KanHipn territory, within which Europeans seldom entered, had kept this region under the sway of Buddh- ism, and the Kandians preserved a rigid conformity' to all its rules. After five years five schools had been established, numbering 127 pupils; and in 1839 the number of schools had increased to 18, and the number of scholars to 400. During the last twenty years Eu- ropeans have settled among the Kandian Hills, causing some irritation to the peasants, but afibrding protection to the mission, which is still continued. It is stated in a recent report that the labors of the missionaries are confined in a great measure to sojourners from the mar- itime provinces, who reside at Kandy and other places in the interior, and who are nominal Christians, and that the native Kandians have received comparatively little attention.