{
  "bookName": "History of Christianity in India: Source Materials",
  "authorName": "M. K. Kuriakose",
  "publisherName": "Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge",
  "publicationYear": 2011,
  "chapterNumber": 90,
  "chapterName": "1835. Bishop Wilson’s Description of Holy Communion Service without Caste Distinction",
  "pageFrom": 121,
  "pageTo": 121,
  "pages": [
    {
      "pageNumber": 121,
      "ocrText": "SOURCE MATERIALS\n121\n4. Schools should be established in connection with every\nparish church.\n5. The clergy should expound the Gospel each Sunday to the\npeople during the Divine Service.\n6. Prayers should be in Malayalam instead of in Syriac.\n90. BISHOP WILSON'S DESCRIPTION OF HOLY\nCOMMUNION SERVICE WITHOUT CASTE\nDISTINCTION (1835 A.D.)\nIn his diary, under the date 27 January 1835, Bishop Wilson\nof Calcutta describes a service of Confirmation and Holy Communion\nin the Madras Presidency, in which distinctions of both caste and\nclass (though he did not see the necessity for eliminating the latter\ndistinction) were disregarded. Cited in Daniel Wilson, ed., Bishop\nWilson's Journal Letters, pp. 52-53.\nA fine rain of two hours has been falling; but a more gracious\nrain has also, as I trust, been descending. Such a Confirmation\nand Sacrament at the Mission Church at nine this morning! Forty-\neight candidates. Two came forward at the time to renounce\nheathenism and Popish Christianity, and receive the Gospel. There\nwere 149 communicants, the chief civil and military personages\nkneeling at the altar with Soodras and Pariahs without dist nction.\nThe congregation consisted of upwards of 1000 persons, of whom\nat least 300 were heathen, crowding outside every door and window\nas far as the eye could see. Seventy were European gentry, the rest\nwere native nominal Christians from twenty villages around. The\nservice lasted nearly four hours. I pronounced the Confirmation\nprayer, the Sentences on delivering the elements, and the Benedic-\ntion, in Tamil. I told the congregation that I aimed at no distinc-\ntion of civil ranks; that the Europeans would naturally approach\nthe altar first; that the respectable and educated natives, Soodras\nand Pariahs, would naturally come next; that servants and persons\nof the humblest stations would follow; but that there was to be no\ninseparable barrier, no heathen dread of defilement, only the natural\ngradations of society which prevailed in Christian churches at home.\nHowever, the English gentry voluntarily mixed themselves, on\npurpose to show the natives there were no inseparable divisions in\nChristanity, but all were one body. Positively, a Pariah kneeled\nbetween the Collector (the chief personage of the station) and his\nlady, at the lady's request. Out of five hundred, ten or twelve\nonly left the church, and would not submit to my demands. Such\nis God's goodness!",
      "status": "completed"
    }
  ]
}