THE ORISSA MISSION. TH HE word Orissa, for the purposes of this sketch, is used in its ancient and missionary sense, as descriptive of the whole of the territories of India inhabited by the people who speak the Oriya language; and not with its present and official restriction to that portion of these people who reside in the administrative division of Bengal. The dimensions of the wider area embrace 60,000 square miles, occupied by not less than eight millions of people, allocated for Government purposes chiefly to Bengal, but also in part to Madras in the south, and to the Central Provinces in the west. It was in this larger sense the word passed the lips of Carey and Peggs, Ward and Bampton, on to the General Baptists of England; and became the symbol of a missionary movement consecrated by the faith and self-sacrifice, patience and heroism of a glorious company of apostolic men and women; and sustained through three-quarters of a century by the prayers and gifts of a community of believers in the Lord Jesus, and in His redemption of all men from sin and death. The Orissa Mission is the creation of the Spirit of God. Its story is a brief fragment of the literature of the Spirit. An English Bishop, having read the narrative of John Williams's labours in the South Seas, laid it down exclaiming, "There is the twenty-ninth chapter of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles." That twenty-ninth chapter was not the first deserving such honourable mention; still less was it the last. The modern" Book of Acts" grows from day to day. Luke's successors, in increasing numbers and from every land, tell us what Jesus continues "both to do and to teach." True! Orissa has not yet had its day of Pentecost. But at each succeeding crisis in its history cogent evidence rises up in proof of the Divine presence, leadership, and inspiration. The bush of Orissa Mission History is aflame with the living God. The Holy Ghost who flashed the life-giving light of the central missionary truths into the mind of Andrew Fuller, and fused the soul of Carey to a white heat of enthusiasm in saving men, not only chose our field of work, but wrought in various pioneering ways for our arrival; distinctively "separated" the first missionaries for their specific task, and so stirred the soul of John Gregory Pike that he could not rest till the Mission in Orissa was placed on indestructible foundations.* THE REV. J. G. PIKE AND THE FORMATION OF THE SOCIETY. Pike was intrinsically a missionary. This was the heart of his life and ministry. As Paul was constrained by the love of Christ, as Brainerd wished to be a "living flame for God," so at the very beginning of his new career J. G. Pike yearned that he might preach amongst the sons of Africa the unsearchable riches of Christ. Scarcely had he gained a place amongst the General Baptists, when he succeeded, though a stranger, in compelling the attention of the "Association" gathered at Quorndon, Leicestershire, to the pressing duty of establishing evangelical missions to the forgotten nations of the earth. Incessantly, and with contagious importunity, he urged his appeals in the pages of our denominational magazine, and he so quickened the faith and zeal of the church at Derby of which he was pastor that, though it was unable to support him, he persuaded its members to undertake the responsibility of providing for a native preacher connected with the Serampore Mission. Ready to take advantage of all occurrences, he seized the occasion of the destruction by fire of the presses, machinery, and buildings at Serampore to quicken the generous enthusiasm of the General Baptist churches in mitigation of so grave a calamity. But these spasmodic efforts could not content him. He saw that more could be done and ought to be done. The Midlands of England were astir with missionary zeal; if not * J. G. Pike was born April 6th, 1784; died Sept. 4th, 1854, and was Secretary to the General Baptist Missionary Society to the day of his death. Cf., “A Memoir and Remains of the late Rev. John Gregory Pike," edited by his sons, John Baxter and James Carey Pike. 1855. Dr. Buckley accepted the secretarial post for one year, after Mr. Pike's death; then James Carey Pike, son of the founder, and filled and fired with his missionary devotion, discharged the duties of secretary for the next twenty-one years. On his decease, the Rev. William Hill, who had been a missionary in Orissa for twenty years, was chosen by the Association, and retained the position up to June, 1891 : the great year of Baptist amalgamation. To Mr. Hill I am deeply indebted for much of the information contained in these pages. |