The Missions in the PUNJAB & SIND

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH  MISSIONARY SOCIETY
  AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
  ZENANA  MISSIONARY SOCIETY
  PUNJAB AND SINDH
  BY THE LATE
  REV. ROBERT CLARK, M.A.
  Edited and revised by
  ROBERT MACONACHIE,' LATE I.C.S.

          PREFATORY NOTE.

 THE first edition of this book was published in 1885. In 1899 Mr. Robert Clark sent the copy for a second and revised edition, omitting some parts of the original work, adding new matter, and bringing the history of the different branches of the Mission up to date. At the same time he generously remitted a sum of money to cover in part the expense of the new edition.  It was his wish that Mr. R. Maconachie, for many years a Civil officer in the Punjab, and a member of the C.M.S. Lahore Corresponding Committee, would edit the book; and this task Mr. Maconachie, who had returned to England and was now a member of the Committee at home, kindly undertook. Before, however, he could go through the revised copy, Mr. Clark died, and this threw the whole responsibility of the work upon the editor. Mr. Maconachie then, after a careful examination of the revision, considered that the amount of matter provided was more than could be produced for a price at which the book could be sold. He therefore set to work to condense the whole, and this involved the virtual re-writing of some of the chapters. The references to names and statistics have been brought up to the Annual Report for  1902-03. The book may now, therefore, be almost said to have a double authorship.      No Mission of the Church Missionary Society has been of greater importance, or has excited greater and more varied interest, than that of the Punjab. Besides the regular and ordinary Mission enterprise started in 1852 at Amritsar, and subsequently extended to many stations, it comprises the unique work at Peshawar, the Medical Missions at Kashmir and on the Afghan Frontier, the Divinity School founded by T. V. French, the itinerant labours of Gordon and Bateman, and the extensive women's work of the Church of England Zenana Society; to say nothing of the Province of Sindh and the Himalaya hill stations. The Mission has been remarkable for its distinguished converts from Mohammedanism, particularly the late Dr. Imad-ud-din; and for the hearty and often munificent co-operation of high Civil and Military officers, including such men as Henry and John Lawrence, Herbert Edwardes and Robert Montgomery, Reynell Taylor and Charles Aitchison.

Robert Clark was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, being 28th Wrangler in 1850. In 1851 he went out as one of the first two English missionaries to the Punjab, his comrade being the Rev. T. H. Fitzpatrick. He started successively the important Missions at Amritsar, at Peshawar, and in Kashmir. He assisted T. V. French to found the Lahore Divinity College; he established the Alexandra Christian Girls' Boarding-school; he organized the Punjab Native Church Council; he was for years the Hon. Secretary of the Punjab Bible Society and the Punjab Religious Book
Society. He helped the Rev. Dr. Imad-ud-din to prepare Commentaries in the Urdu language on St. Matthew, St. John, and the Acts. When the Diocese of Lahore was established in 1877, and the Punjab and Sindh Missions were removed from the administration of the Calcutta Corresponding Committee, he became Secretary to the new Punjab and Sindh Corresponding Committee, which office he held for twenty years. His knowledge of the work was, naturally, unequalled. He laboured for nearly half a century; and almost all the stations and the various agencies described in this book were started by him or under his auspices. He died on May 16th, 1900, honoured and beloved by all who knew him.

 The Punjab Mission is now fifty years old; and in no way can its jubilee be better commemorated than by the publication of such a work as this. No one can read its chapters without perceiving the hand of God in the successive developments of the work, and in the fruit vouchsafed to the labours of the missionaries. The field has been in many ways a hard one. There have been as yet no mass movements towards Christianity, as formerly in Tinnevelly and latterly in Uganda. But the grace of God has been conspicuously manifested, and the diligent seed-sowing has already
been rewarded by at least the earnest of a coming abundant harvest.