The Church in India is directed by an apostle who, until the Spirit shall send one more worthy, is John White in the Blood of the Lamb.

Snow was guilty of a good deal of abusive language with reference to Christianity. The founder, who is still alive and resides at Cocanada in South India, writes:

The late Daud Khan Bahadur, head of the Kurnool family, and a few other Muḥammadans were very sympathetic supporters of the movement. After I left Kurnool I endeavoured to form a Nazariah or Qadiani Jamaat at Ellore, at Secunderabad and in Madras, but nothing came of it.

So the movement soon ended.

The two Hindu movements which use the person of Christ are small groups, almost altogether confined to the common people.

7. THE CHET RĀMĪS1

In a village in the Lahore district of the Panjab, Chet Rām was born about 1835. The family were Vishņuites by sect, and belonged to a class of shop-keepers and money-lenders. Chet Rām was uneducated, and almost illiterate. He could keep his shop accounts but that was all. He spent some two years in China, from about 1858 to 1860, as a camp-follower in the second Chinese war. When he returned, he settled down in his father-in-law's village Buchhoke, and kept a shop and sold opium and liquor.

To this shop there came from time to time a Muḥammadan ascetic of the Chisti order, named Syed Mahbub Shah. He was given to drink, and was often seen in the village in a dull intoxicated condition. Clearly, the man's teaching was

1 All my information about this sect is derived from Dr. Griswold's pamphlet, The Chet Rami Sect, Cawnpore, Christ Church Mission Press, 1904. The references are to its pages.

eclectic; for he gathered Hindu as well as Muḥammadan disciples, and he was accustomed to speak about Christ. Up to this time Chet Rām was an idolater. Then, probably when he was about twenty-seven years of age, he became fascinated by Mahbub. He became his disciple, and henceforward followed him everywhere, and served him with the utmost faithfulness. We have no record of what Mahbub taught him; but it seems clear that he led him to reverence Christ and the Bible.

Mahbub died when Chet Ram had been his disciple for some three or four years, probably about 1865 or 1867. He was buried at Buchhoke; and, for three years, Chet Rām haunted the tomb, sleeping on it every night, or actually inside it, as tradition now goes. Then one night he had a vision of Jesus Christ, and received a command from Him to build a church on that very spot and to place a Bible therein. A simple Panjabi poem, ascribed to Chet Rām, describes the vision. We quote a few of the stanzas of a translation made by the Rev. G. L. Thakur Dass of Lahore:

1. Upon the grave of Master Mahbub Shah
Slept Sàín Chet Rām.

2. O dear (reader) it was midnight,

Full moon, stars were as hanging lamps;

3. Unique was that night, surpassing the shab qadr;
Rays were falling from the full moon.

4. There appeared a man

Whose description is without bounds;

5. A man came in a glorious form
Showing the face of mercy;

6. His countenance beautiful as the full moon,
No man could look at that beauty;

7. Glorious form, tall in stature and erect,
Appeared as if a clear mystery of the Deity.

8. Sweet was his speech, and simple his face,
Appearing entirely as the image of God.

9. Such a glory was never seen before,

The coming of the Lord Himself was recognized in it.

25. Afterwards I began to think,

What was all this which Omnipotence did?

26. Then my soul realized

That Jesus came to give salvation.1

The date of the vision must have been somewhere between 1868 and 1870. From that time Chet Ram became, in his own way, a follower of Christ. He built a small church and placed a Bible in it, and began to gather disciples "in the name of Christ." He succeeded in inducing a number of men and women, both Hindu and Muḥammadan, to attach themselves to him. He lived a wandering life, moving about the country with a number of his followers, everywhere proclaiming Jesus as Lord, and suffering much persecution from both Hindus and Muḥammadans. He sought the friendship of Christians and missionaries in a general way, but did not join the Christian church. One Sunday in 1897, Chet Rām and his followers came to the American Mission Compound in Lahore; and both the Rev. C. W. Forman and the Rev. C. B. Newton give accounts of the appearance and the behaviour of the leader and his disciples. Mr. Newton went with them to Buchhoke, and saw the church. We have also a report from a missionary in Ludhiana of the year 1888.

Chet Ram died at Buchhoke in 1894 and was cremated; and his bones were buried beside his master's.

1 Pp. 4-6.

Of Chet Ram's character Mr. Newton gives us a very pleasing picture, though it is clear that he had but little knowledge of Christ: 1

During my stay, I had an opportunity of observing Chet Ram's conduct and character; and certainly the case is a remarkable one, though the good in him is so obscured by superstition and ignorance, that one can scarcely call his case a very hopeful one. He manifests on all occasions a strong feeling of love and reverence for Christ, and undergoes persecution and contumely for His name. His treatment of others is marked by a spirit of rare kindness and generosity. One day a faqir, a total stranger, from some distant place, came to the takyà, and told a story of his sufferings, having been robbed of some article of clothing. Chet Rām at once pulled off his own principal garment, and gave it to him. He never refuses appeals of this kind.

He was no real student of the Bible. He was ignorant and had no desire to read. Sometimes his talk was quite incoherent.

Chet Ram's daughter was appointed his successor and the head of his sect, while the leader was alive. She is an unmarried woman, and is pledged to lifelong celibacy. She lives at the headquarters of the sect, which are now in Lahore.

Just outside the Taxali Gate, Lahore, and at a distance of only two or three hundred feet from the Royal Mosque is a small garden thickly planted with trees and flowers and trailing vines and containing a tiny square building and several faqirs' huts. The square building has one room, perhaps fourteen feet by ten, and contains certain relics of Chet Rām such as his bed and his Bible. In front of the building is a pole surmounted by a cross. Such are the monastic headquarters

of the Chet Rami Sect in Lahore.2

The only other leader whose name is known is one Munshi Nathu, who has been called the theologian of the sect. He has interpolated large pieces into Chet Rām's poem.

The creed of the sect is quite short. It is engraved on a tablet over the door of Chet Ram's cell at headquarters. The translation is as follows:

Help, O Jesus, Son of Mary, Holy Spirit, Lord God Shepherd. Read the Bible and the Gospels for salvation. Signed by Chet Ram and the followers.1

In this we note the recognition of the Trinity, the duty of reading the Bible and the belief that salvation is made known in the Gospels.

The sect teaches another doctrine of the Trinity besides that contained in the above creed. They believe in the existence of Allah the Creator, Parameśvara the Preserver, and Khuda the Destroyer; and they use this trinity to set forth the supremacy of Jesus. Allah represents Muḥammadanism, Parameśvara Hinduism, and Khuda, who is the greatest of the three, is Jesus. Jesus is the true God. He is the giver of all gifts. All the Muḥammadan prophets and saints and the Hindu gods and incarnations were sent by Jesus. He is the supreme ruler over all. He is the Son of God. The Father and the Son are of one nature.

Now that Chet Ram is dead, his followers give him a very exalted place. They say he is not dead, but is present now and works in the hearts of his followers. As Hindus recognize their guru to be God, they consider Chet Rām to be Christ Himself. They praise Chet Rām as much as they praise Christ. They are accustomed to say:

There is a God, if Chet Rām says so;

There is no God, if Chet Rām says no.

After his cremation, his ashes were mixed with water and eagerly swallowed by his disciples. It is their veneration for their Teacher which keeps them from joining the Christian Church.

1 P. 13.