Life of Ahmad — Page 384
DEBATE WITH ATHIM as 384 But the advent of Ahmad as and his vigorous defence of Islam seemed to have encouraged the people to stand up for their faith. Pind Dadan Khan C. M. S. in 1881 The Salvation Army appeared in India in 1883 In the Historical Sketches of the India Missions (Mission Press, Allahabad, 1886) we read: 'From the very beginning, officers of Government generally have done everything in their power to facilitate the work of the Mission. ' A few facts may be mentioned to illustrate this. Before Mr. Lowrie left Calcutta the Governor-General, Lord William Bentink, expressly approved his establishing a mission at Ludhiana. The British Political Agent at Ludhiana, Capt. Wade, procured land on which to build the Mission houses, and afterwards another plot close to the city on which to build a Christian villiage exempt from Government taxation, and liable to pay only the small rent claimed by the native land-owners. After this from time to time, five separate grants were made of sites in the city and cantonment for school houses and chapels: for none of which was any rent or tax to be paid. Similar advantages were obtained through the friendly spirit of the civil officers at Saharanpur and at Jullundur. When mission property, and the property of persons connected with the mission at Ludhiana, was destroyed by the mutineers in 1857 and their sympathisers, to the value of about Rs. 50,000, the Local Government caused the whole to be refunded. A History of Missions in India by Julius Richter (Oliphant and Anderson and Ferrier, 1908) records the following : 'It was remarkable that this new province (Punjab), so difficult to pacify, should receive as Governors a succession of highly gifted and brilliantly distinguished men like Henry and Sir John Lawrence, Robert Montgomery, Sir Herbert Edwardes, General Reynell Taylor, men who, in addition to their other distinctions, were men of decided piety and great missionary zeal. These men not only made no secret of their Christian profession before Hindu and Muhammadan alike and allowed Christian principles to control the administration, but they supported the work of the missionaries with a self-sacrifice and an energy of personal initiative such as have hardly been equalled in the history of India missions. ' (pp. 193-194).