







BV 2391 .N5 1900 v.l 
Ecumenical conference on 

foreign missions (1900 : 
Ecumenical missionary 

conference. New York. 190C 



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Ecumenical-- (* mar 141910 * 
Missionary Conference 



NEW YORK, 1900 



REPORT OF THE ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE ON 

FOREIGN MISSIONS, HELD IN CARNEGIE 

HALL AND NEIGHBORING 

CHURCHES, APRIL 21 

TO MAY 1 



IN TWO VOLUMES 

Vol. I. 



FIRST EDITION, TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND 



New T*rk 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

London 
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 



Copyright iqoo 
By American Tract Society 



4 



Dtwllor* 



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Contents of Vol. i. 

PAGE. 

Preface 5 

Part I. The Story of the Conference. 

CHAPTER. 

I, — Origin of the Conference q 

Providential Circumstances Favoring a Conference — Idea of a Con- 
ference Conceived and Adopted — Preliminary Work — Prayer for a 
Blessing — All-day Meeting — Organization — Exhibit, Hospitality — 
Press — Previous Conferences. 

II. — The Opening Meetings 24 

The Scenic Effect — Personnel — Opening Session — National Wel- 
come — Bible Translation and Missionary Addresses — Woman in Mis- 
sions — Business Men and Missions — Students and Young People — 
Famine Relief. 

III. — Scope and Significance of the Conference 4^ 

Devotional Element — Summary of Programme — Farewell — Impres- 
sions — Significance of Conference. . . 

Part II. The Missionary Idea. 

IV. — General Principles 67 

Authority and Purpose of Foreign Missions — Supreme and Deter- 
mining Aim — Source of Power — Obligation of this Generation. 

V. — Responsibilities of To-Day 104 

The Student Volunteer Movement Proclaims Responsibility — Wom- 
an's Responsibility — Children and Missions — The Church and its Re- 
sponsibility — Possible Power of the Pastor. 

VI. — Methods of Awakening Interest 131 

Missionary Addresses — Public Meetings — Young People's Societies 
— Systematic Study of Missions — Appeals for Conformity to Jesus 
Christ. 

VII. — Literature of Missions 153 

Missionary Interest and Missionary Literature — Use of Public Li- 
braries — Of the Secular Press — Co-operation in Publication of Books 
on Missions — Missionary Periodicals — The Pastor and the Literature 
of Missions. 

VIII. — Prayer and Beneficence 175 

More Abundant Giving — Consecrated Giving — Systematic Giving — 
Efficient Methods of Calling out Gifts — Reflex Influence of the Sup- 
port of Missions. 

IX. — The Missionary Society 209 

Its Need and Value — Women's Organization — Relation of Mission- 
ary Societies to the Denomination — To the Missionary. 

X. — Comity and Co-operation 233 

Spirit and Limitations of Missionary Comity — Co-operation in Spe- 
cial Departments of Work — Division of Fields — Comity in Practice — 
Federation — General Summary. 



4 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER. PAGE. 

XL— The Mission 278 

Organization and Administration — Relations to Native Church — 
Stations and Their Location — German Missionary Methods. 

XIL — The Missionary 301 

Choice — Qualifications — Training — Marriage — Environment 
—Health. 

XIIL — Incidental Relations of the Missionary 325 

Relations to Science, Commerce, and Diplomacy — Careless Criti- 
cisms — Relations to Governments. 

XIV. — Wider Relations of Missions 347 

To Social Progress and the Peace of the World — To Non-Christian 
Religions — To Apologetic Problems. 

Part III. Survey of the Field. 

XV. — Anti-Christian Forces 379 

The Drink Traffic — Degraded Womanhood — Ancient Ethical Sys- 
tems. 

XVI. — General Survey 401 

Reviev^f of the Century — German Missions — Missions of the Nether- 
lands — Pervasive Influence of Christianity — Moravian Missions — Aus- 
tralasian Missions — Statistical Summary — Lessons of the Century. 

XVII. — Western Asia and the Levant 434 

Persia — Arabia — Egypt — Syria — The Hebrews — Turkey. 

XVIIL— Africa 458 

Education in Opening New Fields — Capacity of the People — All 
Doors Open — German Missions — Oppressed Natives — Future Mis- 
sionaries for Africa — Madagascar. 

XIX. — The Americas 476 

State of Christianity in South America — Failure of Rome to Chris- 
tianize — Pagans of the Interior — Ignorant Roman Catholics — The 
Aborigines of North America. 

XX. — The Islands of the Pacific 490 

Beginnings of Work — The Evolution of Hawaii — Micronesia — The 
Philippines — New Hebrides — The Oceanic Converts. 

XXI. — India and Farther India 502 

General Outlook — Education and its Fruits — Character of Native 
Christians — Social Status of Christians in Ceylon — Religions of 
Burma — The Laos — Wild Men of Assam — Siam and Missions. 

XXII . — Japan and Korea 525 

Progress in Japan — Religious and Educational Problems — Power 
of Woman — Formosa — Opening of Korea. 

XXIII. —China 538 

The Missionary Force — Stability of the Chinese Character — Chinese 
Women as Christian Workers — The Reform Movement — The Future 
of China. 



PREFACE 

The form in which the Report of the Ecumenical Conference on 
Foreign Missions is presented requires a few words of explanation. 

The body of the report is made up from papers and addresses pre- 
sented at more than seventy sessions of the Conference. Frequently 
these addresses were made upon the same topic in different places. 
To publish the formal record of each meeting within the limits of a 
salable book was manifestly impossible, so a topical arrangement of 
the material was decided upon. This arrangement, too, gives a bet- 
ter correlation of the utterances of the Conference on each general 
question discussed. 

The controlling thought in the selection and arrangement of the 
material was, to give a true conception of the Conference, to increase 
the motive power of the Church, to enlarge its vision of the great 
world field, and to promote the development of a science of missions. 

A brief history of the Conference has been prefixed as a record 
of its organization and characteristics and the subject-matter of 
the book has been divided as follows : ( i ) The story of the Con- 
ference. (2) The missionary idea. (3) The survey of the field. 
(4) Missionary work, and (5) Appendix, containing the detailed 
Programme and Organization of the Conference, Statistics, Bibliog- 
raphy, and Index. 

It would be impossible to give the names of all those to whom the 
Committee is under obligations for assistance rendered. But the 
Committee would do itself injustice if it did not acknowledge the in- 
valuable aid rendered it by the Rev. Henry O. Dwight, LL. D. Par- 
ticular mention should also be made of the work done by Miss E. 
Theodora Crosby and the Rev. Paul Martin. 

Edwin M. Bliss, Chairman. 
J. T. Or ACE Y, 
W. Henry Grant, 
Samuel Macauley Jackson, 
Silas McBee, 

Editorial Committee, 



PART I. 
THE STORY OF THE CONFERENCE 



CHAPTER I 

ORIGIN OF THE CONFERENCE 

Providential Circumstances Favoring a Conference — Idea of Conference Con- 
ceived and Adopted — Preliminary Work — Prayer for a Blessing — All-day 
Meeting — Organization — Exhibit — Hospitality — Press — Previous Confer- 
ences. 

The story of the Conference, how it was conceived and how it 
grew, what different forms it assumed in the thought of those who 
planned it, and how it finally came to be what it was, can never be 
fully told. The Conference was an affluent with many tributaries. It 
had its origin in the modern missionary movement. It succeeded 
other like conferences. It was recognized immediately as both ap- 
propriate and necessary. Recent events in the political and social 
world gave it peculiar significance. Its form was determined by the 
world-wide and practical nature of the work under consideration. 

The time had come for the Church, as a whole, to grapple with 
the problems incident to the world's evangelization, and to realize 
that the responsibility of meeting these problems could no longer be 
cast wholly upon administrative boards at home and missionaries on 
the field, far in advance of the great body of the Church as they 
might be. The solution of these problems required the united thought 
of Christendom. Thoughtful Christian men and women who were 
working out the many-sided problems of human progress needed to 
relate their studies to the world-wide movement, that they might 
unite, to their deepening insight, fresh faith in the power of Christ's 
Spirit, and that they might make the results of their study and ex- 
perience contribute to an abounding missionary expansion. 

There had been a growing feeling on the part of missionary work- 
ers the world over that such a meeting was needed to gather up the 
results of their common experience in a larger induction, and lead to 
a better distribution of the forces in the field. Following as it did 
the two previous ecumenical gatherings in England and the ten or 
more local conferences held in different parts of the world, it profited 
by their contributions to the discussion of missionary topics. The 
conference of representatives of American and Canadian societies, 
held annually in New York for seven consecutive years, i893-i8qo, 
by drawing these societies together, by gathering data with refer- 
ence to the subjects under consideration, and by the wide circulation 
given to its report, did much to prepare the way for a more general 
meeting. The International Missionary Union, holding its annual 
meeting at Clifton Springs and composed entirely of missionaries, 
contributed to the same end. 

Tlie Conference, too, was held at a time when the political and 



lO ORIGIN OF TIl."^ CONFERENCE 

commercial expansion of Europe and America had directed tiic 
thought of Christendom to distant parts of the earth. America had 
been brought into imniecHate contact with Asia by the occupation oi 
the Philippines, Great Britain was engaged in v^islt in South Africa, 
and the clouds of the coming uprising were even then gathering in 
China. Regrettable as were these disturbances in themselves, they 
widened the circle of thought, and resulted in an increased apprecia- 
' tion of the condition o'f the non-Christian portions of the world, and 
^deepened the conviction that human progress is inseparably bound 
up with Christian missions. The great advance, also, made in al- 
most every department of mission w'ork during the closing years of 
the century, made it desirable that there should be a united consid- 
eration of the new conditions which had arisen. 

All these influences combined to create the feeling that the time 
was ripe for a distinctively ecumenical gathering, in which every- 
thing should be controlled by the one purpose : " That thy way 
may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. " 

" This Conference is called ' ecumienical,' " said the Rev. William 
R. Huntington, D.D., of Grace Church, New York, at a preliminary 
meeting, " not because all portions of the Christian Church are to be 
represented in it by delegates, but because the plan of campaign which 
it proposes covers the whole area of the inhabited globe. Solomon 
speaks of Wisdom as rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and 
as having her delights with the sons of men. This is the key to the 
meaning of ecumenicity. The ecumenical world is the inhabited 
world, so much of the planet's surface as has been taken possession 
of by man. Blot out of the map the desert and waste places, the 
Arctic and Antarctic zones, and what you have left is the ecumenical 
world. Wherever on the surface of the globe there are those who 
' dwell,' we find that of which ecumenicity is compelled to take ac- 
count. What, then, is an Ecumenical Conference on foreign mis- 
sions? It is a reaching after some method of concerted action in 
such an attempt to Christianize the non-Christian portion of the in- 
habited earth as shall be commensurate with the vastness of the 
undertaking. A conference is not a council. A conference is a gath- 
ering together of people interested in a common object who desire 
to compare notes as to the best means of attaining that object. A 
conference binds no one, but, if successful, it enlightens many. Con- 
ferences sometimes lead up to more important things, even as proto- 
cols sometimes lead up to treaties." 

Naxrativc of Pr climinar y Work 

The immediate origin of the Ecumenical Conference of 1900 was the 
discussion of a question put in the " question-box " at the Annual Con- 
ference of Foreign Missions Boards of the United States and Canada, 
which met in New York in January, 1896, as to whether it would be 
advisable to invite the secretaries or representatives of societies from 
the other side of the Atlantic to meet with the Annual Conference of 
the American societies as it was then held, consisting chiefly of the 
officers of the boards. The Rev. F. F. ElUnwood, D.D.. speaking to 
the question, said: "I have had a hope that in the year 1898, ten 



NARRATIVF. OF PRELIMINARY WORK II 

years from the great London Conference, we might invite our breth- 
ren from all lands to a great Ecumenical Conference on Missions." 

Following this suggestion, a committee of five, consisting of the 
Rev. Drs. Judson Smith, F. F. Ellinwood, A. B. Leonard, S. W. Dun- 
can, and William S. Langford was appointed " to consider the ad- 
visability of calling an Ecumenical Missionary Conference, to meet 
in this country within the next four years, to make preliminary 
preparation therefor, if deemed advisable, and to report at the Confer- 
ence of the following year." 

This committee corresponded with missionary societies throughout 
the world, and at the next Annual Conference recommended that such 
a Conference be held in New York City in April of the year 1900; 
that this recommendation be communicated to the societies, and a 
final date agreed upon. In January, 1898, after further corre- 
spondence, the place and date were finally decided. The General Com- 
mittee was subsequently enlarged to include two members from each 
board in the United States and Canada. 

At a meeting of the General Committee at Clifton Springs, N. Y., 
July, 1898, a sub-committee, consisting of Drs. Henry N. Cobb, 
Samuel W. Duncan, and Walter R. Lambuth, submitted a definite 
plan of organization. An Executive Committee, a Programme Com- 
mittee, and several other important committees were appointed, the 
general plan being left to the Executive Committee. 

When the Annual Conference of Boards convened in January, 1899, 
it was deemed expedient to hold a meeting of Christian business men. 
This meeting was held in the United Charities Building, New York 
City, on the nth of January, 1899, and was presided over by Mr. 
John FL Converse, of Philadelphia. The general scheme and im- 
port of the proposed conference was presented, and resolutions were 
adopted to the effect that such a conference, if conducted according 
to the plan proposed, could not fail to be of the highest value. A 
Finance Committee was appointed to formulate the plan upon which 
the necessary funds should be raised and disbursed, and in behalf of 
the Christian men and women of New York of all denominations, a 
cordial welcome was extended in advance to the delegates, mission- 
aries, and others who might attend it. The Christian public was 
urged to give freely to the enterprise such aid and co-operation as 
might be necessary. In the course of the remarks which followed, 
Mr. William E. Dodge (son of the William E. Dodge who signed the 
call for the Union Missionary Meeting in 1854), speaking of New 
York, said : " New York will gladlv do its share in greeting these 
visitors. I believe that we have the heart of the Christian people of 
the United States with us. We are sroing into a centurv more full of 
hope, and promise, and opportunity than any period in the world's his- 
tory. We want to seize upon these opportunities. We want to feel 
our responsibility, and I believe that this grand Conference will do 
very much to wake up the spirit of the Christian people of the United 
States, and to give them a warmer and fuller interest than ever be- 
fore. There are some wonderful tokens of the opening which God is 
making for us in this work. I believe with all my heart that during 
the next centurv the Pacific Ocean is to be the theater of the world's 



12 ORIGIN OF THE CONFERENCE 

history. We are more interested than any other country in that de- 
velopment, and so in our own country and everywhere else we need, 
as never before, a revival of God's Spirit to give earnestness and pur- 
pose, and strength to our work. I believe that there will be no dif- 
ficulty in making all the necessary arrangements, to obtain all the 
funds, and to provide such hospitality as may be necessary." 

In April, shortly after the organization of the Finance Committee 
was completed, a letter was sent to several hundred business men, 
calling for a special guaranty fund of $30,000, and by the end of June 
about one-third of this fund was raised. 

Under date of June i, 1899, a general invitation was sent to every 
missionary whose name and address could be secured, to attend the 
Conference and participate in the discussions. 

In order to secure the closer co-operation of the British societies, 
the Executive Committee appointed (April, 1899) a Corresponding 
Committee, v/ith headquarters in London, and deputized the Rev. 
Judson Smith, D.D., Chairman of the General Committee and the 
Programme Committee, to visit Great Britain in the interests 
of the Conference. The imm.ediate purpose of this visit was 
to consummate the organization of the British Committee and to 
quicken interest by a personal presentation of the plan thus far for- 
mulated, both at the offices of the societies and by visiting some of the 
London May meetings. The result was the immediate organization 
of a representative British Committee, with the Rev. R. Wardlaw 
Thompson, Chairman, and Mr. John G. Watt, Honorary Secretary, 
with corresponding members in Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and 
Belfast. Into the hands of this committee, subject to confirmation 
by the Executive Committee of America, was put the securing of a 
British writer on each general topic. 

The British Committee at once issued a circular-letter to the so- 
cieties in England, Scotland, and Ireland, asking them to send dele- 
gates to the Conference, and to extend an invitation to other inter- 
ested friends connected with their societies who might feel disposed 
to come. The Honorrary Secretary, Mr. J. G. Watt, after a short but 
efficient service, was prostrated by illness and finally compelled to re- 
tire, and Mr. T. Herbert Darlow was elected in his place. 

Prayer for a Blessing 

A Christmas letter, dated December 25. 1899. was sent by the sec- 
retaries to nearly sixty thousand pastors and leading laymen, inclosing 
a prospectus, and calling for special prayer for the Conference. This 
letter was signed. Ecumenical Conference Committees. It recog- 
nized the devotional element as a creating and guiding force from 
the beginning, and laid upon the churches the burden of prayer that 
the Conference might be a blessing. " If," it said. " this Conference is 
to aid the Church in going forward into the new century in the full- 
ness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ, it must itself be lifted 
and carried through on a flood tide of prayer." 

The response to this letter was sufficiently general to show that the 
whole Church was interested in the projected Conference. 



ALL-DAY MEETING 1 3 

AII-<ky Meeting 

On Thursday, January ii, 1900, an all-day meeting was held in 
New York in the interests of the Conference to take counsel as to 
its truest aims and the impression most to be sought. The forenoon, 
without previous design on the part of anybody, was entirely de- 
votional. The afternoon was largely given to an interchange of 
views and suggestions as to the way to secure the best results, and 
in the evening a puiDlic meeting was held, with a large number of 
invited guests present from the churches of New York and vicinity. 

The purpose of this meeting was thus expressed by one of the 
secretaries : " There can not be a great many main purposes in the 
coming Conference, and we want to put our united force into those 
things in which we practically agree. The great object of our com- 
ing here to-day is to get on a mountain top from which we may take 
in the main issues. We can not believe that such a Conference can be 
brought about at all except as God manifests Himself in His power all 
through it. We have sent a letter to the Church calling for prayer. 
We have sent another letter to the missionaries all over the world, ask- 
ing them to enlist the native churches in prayer for this Conference. 
We want to look over the whole field and get the light of God's Spirit 
upon it. We ought to look for God to do something more this year 
than He did twelve years ago through the instrumentalities then." 

" An Ecumenical Conference ! " said Rev. J. T. Gracey, D.D., " the 
very word ought to furnish inspiration. We shall get information 
as well as inspiration, for the men and women from almost every 
quarter of the known globe will tell us what has been done — of the 
mighty struggle in which they are engaged. 

" I trust we shall get an increased solidarity of the Christian forces 
in the world. We want to find out, without sacrificing any of our 
individuality, the mighty idea back of our denominationalism. We 
want to find out how to adjust these into a mighty solidarity. What 
tasks there are for united Christendom ! If there ever was a period in 
human history when men ought to be impressed with the times and 
the tasks, it seems to me it is now. 

" I think we shall find a very great deal to consider, upon which 
our solidarity may be brought to bear. Take a single illustration : In 
India, Mr. Hunter tells us, there are fifty millions of people, who, 
within the next fifty years, will become Hindus, Mohammedans, or 
Christians. They are nothing now. But tens of thousands of them 
are asking to be admitted to the Christian Church by baptism. On 
the other hand are the educated classes of India. The brain of India 
is burning with new thoughts. Large numbers of cultivated men 
who speak English perfectly are saying : ' Away with your Church ! 
Away with your missionary ! but give us your Christ, and give us His 
gospel.' I ask you to look at those two great strata of India's so- 
ciety. What to do with this situation is not a Presbyterian problem ; 
it is not a Methodist problem ; it is not an Episcopal problem ; it is 
not a Baptist problem ; it is not a British problem; it is not a German 
problem ; it is not a problem of the United States. It is a problem for 
solid Christendom. We are not going to get our solidarity any too 



14 ORIGIN OF THE CONFERENCE 

soon, to grapple with the mighty problems which are before the 
Christian Church to-day. 

" We are going to grapple with the great times in which we are 
cast. We are going to start all this, and I hope we sliall give the im- 
pulse to the mightiest educational missionary campaign the world has 
ever seen. 

" I think one thing we shall get out of this great Conference is a 
conviction that, with all the inconsistencies of the Church, with all the 
deficiencies of Christendom, after all, Jesus Christ is the last hope 
of this world ; that in public or in private there is not discover- 
able anything which gives any basis of hope that the world shall rise 
out of its dead past but the principles which Jesus Christ enunciated, 
the moral standards which He erected, and the laws which He for- 
mulated. 

" I quite understand that the ultimate precipitate has not yet been 
realized, and yet to-day the trend of internationalism is toward the 
principles of Jesus Christ ; and kings, and emperors, and persons in 
legislative halls, in church councils, in social life, in the family, one 
and all of them, whether they confess Christ or curse Him. are meas- 
uring human conduct according as it conforms to or diverges from 
the teachings of Jesus Christ. He has become the one great, majes- 
tic Monarch of men, and men are obliged to concede the principles of 
His kingdom. The one hope of humanity is this gospel of the Lord 
Jesus Christ." 

Hon. Seth Low, in opening the evening meeting, said : " At a 
time of such abounding prosperity, at a time when man is so greatly 
increasing his knowledge of natural law, and by that knowledge ex- 
tending his dominion over nature, surely there is nothing that Chris- 
tian people can do which is more timely than to bear witness to the 
eternal truth that the things that are seen are temporal, and it is only 
the things which are not seen that are eternal. 

" So this is a time in which all the nations of the earth are coming 
to know more of each other than they have ever known before. The 
happenings of yesterday in Japan, in China, and in India, as well as 
in Europe and in Africa, were known in our city this morning. So 
the happenings of to-day will be know^n to-morrnw. With all this 
growing intimacy and acquaintance, T think men have also grown to 
realize that God has not left Himself without witnesses, even in lands 
that we are accustomed to think of as heathen lands. And yet, what 
can Christians do better, in such a time as this, than to bear their 
unshaken testimony to their belief that there is no other Name undf 
heaven, whereby men must be saved, but the Name of Jesus Christ? 
— the only Name whereby man, as an individual, can be redeemed 
from the lower life to the highest, the only Name whereby man in so- 
ciety can emerge from the condition of constant struggle merely for 
existence into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 

" I sometimes think that the Lisrht that lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world is like the v/hite light of the sun by v/hich we 
live. It is possible by the use of the spectrum to take that white light 
of the sun and to break it up into its constituent parts. I think some- 
times that the divisions of Christendom have this relation to each 



ORGANIZATION I5 

Other, There is an apparatus which takes these colored rays and 
reunites them into a single beam of white light. That, it seems 
to me, is the great service that missionary endeavor may do 
for the Christian cluirches. This Conference is ecumenical because 
it is concerned with the whole world. So far as Protestantism, is con- 
cerned, it is ecumenical because all Protestant Christendom is to take 
part in it. I trust that it is also ecumenical, prophetically, as looking 
forward to that happy day that may yet come, when all of Christen- 
dom, the Eastern Church, our Roman Catholic brethren, and Protes- 
tants, alike may recognize the common purpose for which they exist, 
and by fusing their different colored rays, do something to reflect in 
the world that great white Light which lighteth every man that 
Cometh into it." 

The effect of this meeting was such that the Executive Committee 
deemed it wise to send out a circular letter, suggesting that similar 
meetings be held in various parts of the country, in which all the 
churches should participate, and with which the laymen should be 
prominently associated. This was asked, not only to extend the in- 
terest already manifested, but with the deeper purpose that such 
meetings should be a part of the larger movement to which it was 
hoped the Conference would give impulse and direction. The sug- 
gestion to hold such all-day preparatory meetings was carried out 
in many places, and the influence of these gatherings greatly pro- 
moted the spirit which characterized the Conference throughout. 

Organization 

The machinery of the Conference was finally arranged on 
a plan that allowed for almost unlimited expansion. The Gen- 
eral Committee appointed a central Executive Committee, which 
in turn, appointed all the other committees, each committee having 
power to add to its number and to appoint as many sub-committees 
as it deemed necessary. As a general rule, the chairmen of these sub- 
committees vvere members of the standing committee which appointed 
them, while all the chairmen of the standing committees w^ere ex 
officio members of the Executive Committee. 

There were in charge of the execution of the programme a general 
committee and some thirty-five special committees ; this simplified the 
work of the executive officers, and made such a division of labor as 
to reduce its weight on any one person to a minimum. The Chairm.an 
and Secretary of the General Comm.ittee were in charge of four 
meetings, the Hospitality Committee had charge of the National Wel- 
come ; the Popular Meetings Comn;ittee, of three evening meetings in 
Carnegie Hall, twelve alternate meetings, and all of the overflow 
meetings. There were seven committees on Woman's Work, in charge 
of their ten meetings ; eiJrht committees on Survey of Fields ; eight 
comm.ittees on the special topics — Evangelistic, Educational, Med- 
ical, Literary, and Home Church Work; Comity, Self-support, and 
non-Christian Religions— caring in all for twenty-four meetings: eight 
committees, each in charee of one meeting, on Administrative Prob- 
lems, Missionary Staff, Wider Relations, Boards and Societies, Fam- 
ine Relief, Widows and Orphans, Industrial Work, and Relation of 



l6 ORIGIN OF THE CONFERENCE 

Business Men to Missions. There was also a general committee on 
Devotional Meetings and Music. 

Besides the Programme Committee, the other committees special- 
ized in the same way. The executive members of the Hospitality and 
Exhibit Committees were assisted by advisory and co-operating mem- 
bers nominated by the different societies. 

As the time for the Conference approached, the executive officers 
were constituted a Committee on Emergencies, with which any spe- 
cial committee could confer when immediate action needed to be taken. 

In addition to these committees, it became necessary to appoint 
several secretarial assistants, more completely to centralize the work, 
so that in addition to the Chairman and Secretaries of the Executive 
Committee (one of whom, the Rev. S. L. Baldwin, D.D., was com- 
pletely prostrated during the entire Conference) those who had the 
chief burden of the work w^ere Miss E. Theodora Crosby, for- 
mer missionary in the Caroline Islands ; Rev. Henry O. 
Dwight, LL.D., of Constantinople ; Rev. J. Hood Laughlin. of China ; 
Rev. J. L. Bearing, D.D., of Japan; Rev. R. C. Beebe, M.D., of 
China, and Rev. Henry T. McEwen, D.D., of Amsterdam, N. Y. 

Missionary Exhibit 

The Exhibit Committee corresponded with some eight hundred 
missionaries and five hundred societies throughout the world in its 
efforts to collect such articles as would most vividly illustrate na- 
tive life or customs and the work and environment of the missionary, 
as well as convey through the eye the material and educational re- 
sults of Christian missions. The main Exhibit was by countries, 
each occupying a separate court or alcove, and the heads of these 
courts and their assistants were most happy in their explanations of 
the articles exhibited. In some cases they were natives or mission- 
aries of the country, and dressed in the costume of the people. The 
Exhibit also contained a collection of missionary literature, maps, and 
apparatus used in the home Church for the circulation of information 
and the collection of funds. The library included the publications of 
the Bible and Tract Societies, and some eight hundred of the latest 
missionary books in the English. German, French, Dutch, and Scan- 
dinavian languages.* 

The spacious Parish House of the Church of Zion and St. Timothy, 
where the Exhibit was held, proved too small for the collection. At 
a conservative estimate not less than 60,000 persons visited the ex- 
hibit during the eieht days it was open. Multitudes who had little 
direct interest in missions and who did not care for the meetines, 
were captivated by this vivid illustration of non-Christian countries, 
and by the stereopticon lectures given twice daily in the Church of 
the Disciples. t 

•The experience cained by the committee has led to the following suggestions: First. 
a-! much material as oossihle should he secured at home before havinrr recour'if to the 
mi«iMonarie!> on the field; second, the work of making the collection should begin at least two 
years in advance- third, a liberal fund should be available to ray for articles. 

fThe Exhibit hns been incorporated as The Christian Missions Museum and Library. 
It has been placed, by special arrangement, in the American Museum of Natural Historv in New 
York ("ity. The directors propose, with the assistance of thr latter institt)tion, In contmtie to 
add to the collfction which mav be recarded as permanent, and missionaries and "'hers havine 
suitable material arc invited tn send a description of the same to Rev. Harlan P. Beach, 3 West 
Twenty-ninth street. New York City. 



HOSPITALITY PRESS I 7 

Hospitality 

The Hospitality Committee had the responsibility of providing en- 
tertainment for the foreign delegates and all missionaries. It was 
assisted in its work by sub-committees appointed by the larger de- 
nominations to care for their own delegates and missionaries as well 
as those of affiliated bodies abroad. The delegates of the American 
and Canadian societies were not entertained, but the Hospitality Com- 
mittee aided them by establishing a Directory of Hotels and Boarding- 
houses, and making full arrangements for them when requested. At- 
tendants, with conspicuous badges, met all incoming steamers, and 
were at the principal railway stations, while at Carnegie Hall a Bu- 
reau of Information and a branch of the New York Postoffice were 
established. The parlors were open to all as a pleasant resting-place, 
and afternoon tea was served by the ladies from the various churches. 

A number of social functions were arranged by the denominational 
social unions of the city, and by other friends in their homes, while 
the British and Colonial residents of New York gave a reception to 
the British and Colonial delegates and missionaries. These gather- 
ings afforded a pleasant opportunity for the reunion of friends and 
for personal acquaintance with fellow-delegates and the Christian 
people of New York. 

The Press 

The Press Committee began its work in the early fall, and continued 
it throughout the winter. Articles and notes for the press were pre- 
pared weeks in advance, bulletins were issued announcing the plans 
for the Conference, and these were sent to upward of seven hundred 
religious and secular papers in all parts of the world. A large num- 
ber of photographs and sketches of representative missionaries and 
others who were to take part in the discussions were secured by the 
committee, and copies sent to all journals that desired to use them. 
The result was that there was scarcely a town or village, certainly not 
a city, in the United States of America, that did not have the Confer- 
ence presented in its local press. The many missionary and secular 
magazines and papers had extended articles, some of them illustrated, 
describing the purpose and scope of the Conference and containing 
brief notes on its personnel. The New York dailies contained accu- 
rate accounts of the preliminary meetings, and detailed some of their 
best men to attend the Conference, while the Associated Press 
planned to report all the meetings in Carnegie Hall and most of the 
sectional meetings. 

Applications for press tickets came in such numbers as to com- 
pletely exhaust the supply ; probably no religious convention was ever 
so fully reported ; column after column was given to it in the Tribune, 
Times, Sun, Herald, and other great metropolitan dailies, as well as 
in other papers throughout the country. 

One of the most important duties of the committee was that of se- 
curing an accurate and detailed account of the meetings, to serve as 
the basis of the Report. A corps of sixteen official stenographers was 
detailed to the various meetings, of which they took the minutes and 



l8 OKIGIX OF THE CONFERENCE 

made verbatim reports of the discussions and of such addresses as 
were not in manuscript. 

Besides these large and thoroughly organized committees, there 
were the smaller committees, whose duties were no less arduous. Thc- 
Popular Meetings Conmiittee, after organizing one set of alternate 
meetings, had to find speakers at the last moment for overflow 
meetings in neighboring churches, thus providing, as it were on the 
spur of the moment, for the great crowds that could not otherwise be 
accommodated, and yet who thus had the opportunity of hearing- 
some of the most popular speakers at the Conference. Through the 
" pulpit service," as it was called, in the care of Rev. J. L. Bear- 
ing, D.D., of Japan, a large number of churches in New York and 
vicinity were supplied with missionary speakers on the Lord's Days. 
Perhaps a greater number of people were brought into actual con- 
tact with the Conference in this way than in any other ; certainly the 
churches entered most enthusiastically into the plan. 

A Daily Bulletin, with an average edition of six thousand copies, 
was issued each evening, containing the programme and announce- 
ments for the following day, and messages from honorary members 
and others, which could not be read aloud in the meetings. The edi- 
tor arrived at her post every morning soon after seven, and left every 
night about eleven o'clock, gathering the information during the day 
and evening, amid incessant interruptions, so as to have the copy in 
the hands of the printer by eight o'clock the next morning. 

The marvel was that so many persons entered so heartily into the 
work of the practical arrangements. As the necessity arose it seemed 
that Providence had the man or woman specially fitted for the work 
to be done ready to come forward and do it. Mr. W. E. Lougee, of 
the International Committee, Y. M. C. A., organized the whole ticket 
bureau, and within a week after the first notice had been sent out is- 
sued more than ninety thousand tickets for adtnission to Carnegie Hall 
and the alternate meetings. Mr. John Seely Ward, Chairman of the 
Hall Committee, had charge of the engaging of the Hall, and kept 
messengers on hand day and night for the use of the Executive Com- 
mittee. Rev. H. A. Kinports, of the Christian Endeavor Society, pro- 
vided volunteer ushers for the evening meetings. The Carnegie Hall 
employees and the policemen also became deeply interested in the 
Conference because of the character of the audience, and rendered 
most valuable assistance. 

The Conference held its morning and evening sessions as a body in 
Carnegie Hall, while auxiliary to this main auditorium were six or 
seven neighboring churches used for the afternoon sectional meet- 
ings and the overflow meetings. At Carnegie Hall there was a 
ticket office, a bureau of information, a bureau of entertainment, a 
postoffice, and reception parlors, a transportation bureau for stamp- 
ing return railway certificates, a book department for the sale of 
missionary literature. In the rear of the Hall were the general 
secretary's office, a registry for special delegates and missionaries, 
a pulpit-supply bureau, and headquarters of the press with its eight 
or more typewriter operators ; then two blocks away was the Parish 
House, containing the Missionary Exhibit, with its attractively ar- 



PREVIOUS CONFERE.VCES 



19 



ranged booths in charge of matrons and their assistants; all these 
departments enlisted hundreds of voluntary workers who gave their 
time freely and enthusiastically, although they knew that by so doing 
they would not themselves be able to attend the meetings. 

Note on Previous Conferences* 

The first Union Missionary Convention was held in this country in the city 
of New York on Thursday and Friday, November 4 and 5, 1854. Its occa- 
sion was the presence in America of Alexander Duff, the most prominent 
missionary of his day. " Its object." as the Report t says— and this language 
we adopt verbatim m description of the Ecumenical Conference on Foreign 
Missions, held in the ?ame city in 1900 — " its object was to unite in cordial 
love and sympathy the friends of missions ; to excite them to higher effort 
for the conversion of the world ; and to discuss, in the presence of the greatest 
and most experienced of living missionaries, topics in which all missionary 
boards are equally concerned. And if the circulation and perusal of this 
report will, in any degree, excite and extend among the churches the warm, 
catholic, elevated, and pious feeling, which pervaded the Convention from 
its opening to its close, its object will be attained." 

Alexander Duff came over in the " Africa " of the Cunard Line, and 
landed in New York on February 15, 1854. Then began a triumphal progress 
through the Middle and Middle Western States and to Montreal, and just 
prior to his departure from the port of New York on the " Pacific " of the 
Collins Line, he was the central figure in this first union missionary conven- 
tion, which numbered as delegates nearly three hundred evangelical clergy- 
men. The resolution to hold such a meeting had been passed in Philadelphia 
on Tuesday, February 2^ ; the names signed to the call embraced those best 
known to the Christian public of that da}' as living in New York and Phila- 
delphia. Those from New York were: R. L. Stuart, Stewart Brown, Jon- 
athan Sturges, William E. Dodge, William Colgate, Francis Hall, John T. 
Agnew, George D. Phelps, and Joh.n Paton. Those from Philadelphia were : 
John A. Brown, William V/elsh, Joseph P. Engles. Thomas Wattson, Colson 
Hieskell, Daniel Murphy, C. E. Spangler. Alex. H. Julian, George H. Stuart, 
and Robert Patterson. The call was sent out on April i. The meeting was 
held in the lecture-room of the Rev. Dr. Alexander's church, on Fifth avenue, 
corner of Nineteenth street, t 

The first session was held at 10 a.m. ; the second at 7.30 p.m. ; the third at 
9 a.m.. the next day. The call for the meeting was a timid document, intimating 
plainly how uncertain the success of the meeting was considered, but it was 
the opinion of all who attended the sessions that they were eminently profit- 
able. Eight questions had been drawn up, nominally for general discussion, 
but no one is mentioned by name as taking part in the discussion, although the 
report says many did, and it would seem that Duff had it pretty much to 
himself. At all events, he drew up the answers to the first five of the eight 
questions, and upon the remaining three he, manifestly, was not qualified 
to speak. 

As a contribution to the history of missions, we here present the questions, 
with Duff's answers, which are in the form of resolutions : 

I. To what extent are we authorized by the Word of God to expect the 
conversion of the world to Christ? 

Resolved, That without entering into any definition as to the technical mean- 
ing of such a term as conversion, and without entering into any statement as 
to the time, or succession of antecedent events, this Convention rejoice in unan- 
imously testifying their single, heartfelt, undoubting faith in the emphatic 
declaration of God's inspired Word that " men shall be pleased in Him," i.e., 



* Contributed by Samuel Macauley Jackson. 

tProceedinjTs of the Union Missionary Convention held in New York, May 4th and 5th, 18.S4. 
Together with the address of the Rev. Dr. Duff, at the public meetins: in the Broadway Taber- 
nacle. Published by order of the Committee. Ncm' York : Taylor and Hogg, 875 Broadway, 1S54. 

t This church was subsequently moved up-tov,-n, stone for stone, and is now the Central Pres- 
byterian Church on V/est ^jth street, v/here the alternate meetings of the Conference of 1900 were 
held, not in the lecture-room as in 1854, but in the auditorium ! 



20 ORIGIN OF THE CONFERENCE 

in Jesus Christ. " all nations shall call Him blessed," yea that " the whole 
earth shall be filled with His glory." 

n. What are the divinely appointed and most efficient means of extending 
the gospel of salvation to all men? 

Resolved, As the general sense of this Convention, that the chief means of 
divine appointment for the evangelization of the world are — the faithful teach- 
ing and preaching of the pure gospel of salvation by duly qualified ministers 
and other holy and consistent disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ — accompanied 
with prayer and savingly applied by the grace of the Holy Spirit; such means, 
in the providential application of them by human agency, embracing not 
merely instruction by the living voice, but the translation and judicious circu- 
lation of the whole written Word of God — the preparation and circulation of 
evangelical tracts and books — as well as any other instrumentalities fitted to 
bring the Word of God home to men's souls — together with any processes 
which experience may have sanctioned as the most efficient in raising up 
everywhere indigenous ministers and teachers of the living gospel. 

ni. Is it best to concentrate laborers in the foreign field, or to scatter 
them? 

Resolved, That while this Convention fully accord in the propriety and 
desirableness of diffusing a knowledge of the gospel as far as circumstances 
admit, or the providence of God may indicate, by means of a duly qualified 
and unrestrained itineracy — they yet as fully accord in the propriety and de- 
sirableness of seizing on strong and commanding stations, more especially 
in countries where hereditary concentrated systems of error have long pre- 
vailed, and there concentrating a powerful agency fitted by harmonious co- 
operation to carry on the different departments of the missionary enterprise, 
in such a way as to constitute them emanating sources of evangelizing in- 
fluence to the surrounding multitudes, as well as the most efficient means of 
perpetuating the gospel in purity to succeeding generations. 

IV. In view of the great extent of the heathen world, and the degree to 
which it is opened, is it expedient for different missionary boards to plant 
stations on the same ground ? 

Resolved, That considering the vast extent of the yet unevangelized world 
of heathenism, and the limited means of evangelization at the disposal of the 
existing evangelical churches or societies, it would be very desirable, that, 
with the exception of great centers, such as the capitals of powerful kingdoms, 
an efficient pre-occupancy of any particular portion of the heathen field by any 
evangelic church or society should be respected by others, and left in their 
undisturbed possession. At the same time, acknowledging with thankfulness 
to God, that heretofore there has been practically so little interference with 
each other's fields of labor. 

V. How may the number of qualified laborers for the evangelization of the 
world be multiplied and best prepared? 

Resolved, That in the absence of sufficient data to give a full deliverance 
on the subject, this Convention cherishes a deep conviction, that in order to 
the multiplication of suitable agents for the heathen missionary field, min- 
isters of the gospel must strive more vividly to realize in their own souls the 
paramount grandeur of the missionary enterprise, in its relations to the glory 
of God as manifested in the design and consummation of the whole redemptive 
economy, and as the divinely appointed and divinely commanded instru- 
mentality for the regeneration of the lost and perishing in every land; and 
to strive habitually through prayer to the Lord of the harvest, who alone can 
truly raise up and send forth laborers, as also through their public and pri- 
vate ministrations, to stamp similarly vivid impressions on the minds of 
Church members, and especially Christian parents. Sabbath-school and othef 
Christian teachers, who may have it in their power to train up the young, 
in simple dependence on God's blessing, to realize the magnitude and the 
glory of the work of the world's evangelization, and lead them to consider 
personal dedication to the work as the highest of duties, and noblest of priv- 
ileges. Moreover, that for the due preparation of candidates for the foreign 
field, it v/ere very desirable that regular provision were made in our theo- 
logical seminaries generally, for bringing the nature, history, and obligations 
of the missionary enterprise before the minds of the students; or what may 
be briefly designated a course of evangelistic theology. 



PREVIOUS CONFERENCES 2 1 

VI. How may the co-operation of all our congregations be best secured to 
aid in the spread of the gospel ? 

VII. How can missionary intelligence be most extensively circulated among 
the churches? 

The time for adjcurnment drawing near, on motion the sixth and seventh 
subjects were postponed for the time, and the eighth was proposed for con- 
sideration. 

VIII. Is it expedient to hold such a meeting as this annually? 

On motion of the Rev. Dr. Nicholas Murray, the once well-known " Kir- 
wan " of Protestant anti-Roman Catholic polemics, it was unanimously 
resolved to call a convention similar to this in New York next year — that a 
committee consisting of gentlemen of this city, representing the various evan- 
gelical churches engaged in conducting foreign missions, be appointed to make 
the necessary arrangements — and that this committee be appointed by the chair. 

On the evening of the second day, May 5, a public meeting was held in 
the Broadway Tabernacle,* beginning at half past seven o'clock. Great 
crowds came ; more, in fact, than could be accommodated. The honorable 
Luther Bradish, of revered memory, one of the most dignified of men, pre- 
sided and made a graceful speech. The Rev. Dr. Nicholas Murray read the 
resolutions adopted by the Convention, and was followed by Alexander Duff, 
who spoke for two hours. He began by expressing his great pleasure in at- 
tending the Convention which had just closed, alluded to the fact that the 
missionaries in the Bengal Presidency, of all evangelical denominations, had 
for twenty years met every month to discuss all measures and plans relating to 
their work, and that in October, 1853, there had been held a great union 
religious gathering in London, which had given one entire day to missionary 
matters. He then proceeded to go over the first five of the resolutions which 
had just been read, and spoke out his mind respecting them with earnestness, 
eloquence, and at times with considerable humor. It was a speech of great 
power, and must have made a profound impression, especially that part in 
which he had the hardihood to contrast the fulsome praise and semi-worship 
given to a returned missionary, like himself, with the well-nigh unanimous 
refusal on the part of the adulators to go themselves upon the foreign field. 
The concluding part of Dufif's speech was " a picture of the present ominous 
state of the world and the awful judgments which seemed to be impending 
over it," but, unfortunately, the reporter's notes of this part of the speech 
were lost, and so no record remains of what would now be curious reading. 

The annual conference resolved upon was never held, but in London, in 
the autumn of that year, an attempt vvas made to collect a similar body, but 
it does not seem to have been much of a success. We have to come to 
Liverpool, and to March of i860, for the next general conference. It con- 
vened on Monday evening, March 19, and was closed on Friday evening of the 
same week. During this time seven private meetings were held, in each of 
which a programme was carefully discussed by such of the 125 members repre- 
senting the officers and missionaries of British missionary societies, to whom 
alone the private meetings were open, who cared to take part. The audience 
and the participants were professionals, the several topics were really dis- 
cussed, and considerable difference of opinion was revealed, but the temper 
was always good. There were also public meetings ; three were called " mis- 
sionary soirees," and one general meeting which attracted a large audience. 
The report of the conference is well worthy the attention of the student of 
missions.!" All the speakers and readers of papers were British, and there 
WIS no attempt to give the conference an ecumenical character. " The delib- 
erations were purely consultative, but in the minutes the conclusions arrived 
at by the conference, respecting the principal plans of missionary labor and 
economy, are embodied." 

Eighteen years passed, during which time missionary work had spread over 
a far wider area and attracted very much increased contributions, so that it 



* The church was then at 320 Broadway, near Worth street. The present congregation wor- 
ships at 6th ave. and 34th street, and there one of the sectional meetings of the late Conference 
was held. 

t Conference on Missions held in i860 in Liverpool ; including the papers read , the conclusions 
reached, and a comprehensive index showing the various matters brought under review. Edited 
by the Secretaries to the Conference. London : James Nisbet& Co., 21 Berners street, MDCCCLX. 



22 . ORIGIN OF THi: CONl'RRKNCR 

seemed time for another gathering, and that, too, of a more general nature, 
taking in, to some extent, societies outside of Great Britain. The conference 
was held in Conference Hall, Mildmay Park, a north suburb of London. The 
first session was on Monday, October 21, 1878, and there were eleven sessions 
in all. The last one was on Friday evening, October 26, in Exeter Hall, and, 
strangely enough, was very poorly attended. A feature of the conference was 
the discussion of missions geographically, exhibiting their number in special 
localities, their peculiar form and their prominent results. The immediate 
effect of this arrangement was to show the great extent and effectiveness of 
missionary work in the world at large. 

Unlike those of the Liverpool conference, the meetings were public 
throughout. Thirty-four missionary societies (11 non-British), represented 
by 158 persons who are named, comprised the official body. The book gives 
a summary of the proceedings in very readable form.* 

But all the missionary conferences hitherto mentioned were small affairs 
compared with that held in London from the 9th to the 19th of June, 1888. 
This was the first attempt at a world-wide missionary conference, for as it was 
in celebration of the centenary of modern Protestant missions on a broad 
scale, it was appropriate that representatives of societies laboring among all 
peoples should come together. So one found in it a far greater and far wider 
distribution of delegates than those of the previous conferences, and no 
longer composed of those whose vernacular was the English tongue. There 
were five open conferences held in the great auditorium of Exeter Hall, and 
twenty-two sectional meetings held in the lower hall and the annex. The at- 
tendance upon all these meetings was large and enthusiastic. On the roll of 
the conference are found the names of fifty-three missionary societies of Great 
Britain, fifty-eight of the LTnited States of America, nine of Canada, eighteen 
of the Continent of Europe, and two from English colonies. The personal 
roll had upon it the names of 1,341 British delegates, 102 Americans. 30 Cana- 
dians, 41 Continental, and 3 Colonial. The social element in the confer- 
ence was sedulously cultivated. There were several receptions by public bodies 
and by private individuals, and one very enjoyable feature was the daily 
luncheon in the gymnasium of the Young Men's Christian Association, which 
was free to all the foreign delegates. The greatest effort was made by means 
of these various meetings to give those interested in missions the best and 
latest information upon the subject, and those professionally interested the 
amplest opportunity to compare notes and receive inspiration. The report 
of the conference was carefully edited by the secretary, and covers nearly 
1,200 pages, in two volumes, and includes a bibliography, lists of societies and 
delegates, and a separate index to each volume. This report was subsequently 
put on sale in the United States, and at least 12,000 copies sold.f 

The connecting link between the Centenary Conference of 1888 and the Ecu- 
menical Conference of 1900, is the fifth general council of the Alliance of the 
Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian system, held in Toronto, Canada. 
September 21-30, 1892. On September 23 the western section of the standing 
committee on Co-operation in Foreign Missions made its report through its 
chairman, the Rev. Dr. F. F. Ellinwood. At the conclusion of the report, 
several recommendations were added, the last one of which is the following: 
" It is recommended that in the near future the executive ofticcrs of the various 
missionary boards represented in the western section of the Alliance hold a 
conference on the practical questions of missionary policy, with a view to 
greater union and efficiency in their common work; also, that during one day 
of their session they invite a broader conference with representatives of the 
missionary boards and societies of other Protestant churches." 

The Rev. Dr. Ellinwood said in his address placing the report before the 
council : " The last of the recommendations which close our report points to 
the holding of missionary conferences at home between the different Presby- 

* Proceedings of ihe General Conference on Foreign Missions, held at the Conference Hall, 
in Mildmay Park, London, in October, 1878. Edited by the Secretary to the Conference. Lon- 
don : John F. Shore & Co., Paternoster Row, 1879. 

+ Report of the Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the World, held in Exe- 
ter Hall ( June 9-iq), London, 1888. Edited by the Rev. James Johnston. F.S.S., Secretary of the 
Conference. Author of "A Century of Christian Progress"; " Our Educational Policy in 
India" ; " Abstract and Analysis of Vice-Regal Report on Education ", etc., etc., etc. James 
Nisbet & Co., 21 Berners street, London, England ; Fleming H. Revell, New York and Chicago. 



PREVIOUS CONFKRENCES 23 

terian bodies, especially secretaries and members of boards, missionaries, and 
others, with a view to a more complete mutual correspondence and a more 
thorough unity of action along all lines of missionary policy. While waiting, 
therefore, for a full realization of the great principles which are set before us. 
the interval of time cnuld be well spent, the best efficiency of our missions will 
be promoted, and the world will behold a spectacle of thorough unity of 
spirit in the one great conference."* 

Accordingly, the Alliance committee, its plans having been seconded by a 
joint invitation from the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, in New 
York, sent forth invitations for two conferences, one between all Presbyterian 
and Reformed missionary boards in the United States and Canada, and the 
other between all Protestant boards and societies in the two countries, to be 
held at the Mission House, 53 Fifth avenue. New York, on the nth and 12th 
of January, respectively, 1893. 

■' At the general conference, held on the second day, twenty-one missionary 
boards and committees were represented, besides the committee which gave 
the invitation, and the American Bible Society and the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association." t These interdenominational conferences have been held 
annually ever since. 



•Alliance of the Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian system. Proceedings of the 
Fifth General Council (Toronto, 1892), Appendix gq ; body of the Report, pp. loi, 102. In the 
Sixth General Council, held in Glasgow in 1896, a report was made upon these missionary con- 
ferences in New York, see pp. 231-239. 

t Interdenominational Conference of Foreign Missionary Boards and Societies in the United 
States and Canada, held in the Presbyterian Mission House, 53 Fifth Avenue, New York, Janu- 
ary 12, 1893. New York : Annual Report published by Foreign Missions Library. See Prefatory 
Note. 



CHAPTER II 

SPECIAL MEETINGS 

The Scenic Effect — Personnel — Opening Session — National Welcome — Bible 
Translation and Missionary Addresses — Woman in Missions — Business 
Men and Missions — Students and Young People — Famine Relief. 

The scenic effect of the meetings in Carnegie Hah was simple and 
impressive. 

Over the back of the platform was a large colored map of the 
world, to keep the world as a whole constantly before the assembly. 
Over the center of the map was the following : 

" The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the king- 
dom." 

Over the Western Hemisphere was : 

" Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole cre- 
ation." 

Over the Eastern Hemisphere was : 

" And they went forth and preached everywhere." 

In the foreground were the veteran missionaries standing for what 
had actually been done as represented on the map — John G. Paton, 
with his wonderful head of silken white hair, representing the islands 
of the sea ; Cyrus Hamlin and George W. Wood, who went to Con- 
stantinople in 1837 and 1838; Jacob Chamberlain and Bishop Tho- 
burn, of India; William A-shmore and J. Hudson Taylor, of China; 
Dr. and Mrs. James C. Hepburn, who sailed for China in 1840, be- 
fore missionaries were allowed in the empire, and afterward, when 
Japan was opened, gave thirty-three years of service in that country ; 
the patriarchal Bishop Ridley, of Caledonia, from his labors among the 
Indian? of the North ; Robert Laws, of Africa, and Dr. Borchgrevink 
and Dr. Cousins, of Madagascar. Behind the veteran missionaries 
were the delegates from Great Britain and the Continent, represent- 
ing seventeen nationalities, and the General Committee, composed of 
two members from each of the American and Canadian societies. 

Of the foreign delegates the greater number were from Great 
Britain. The Board of German Evangelical Missionary Societies, 
composed of sixteen societies, united in sending two delegates. 
Using their existing organization as a basis of union they selected 
the two able inspectors of missions. Rev. Drs. Merensky and 
Schreiber, as their representatives. The societies of Switzerland and 
France also united in appointing the Rev. Henri Grandlicnard, 
French pastor in New York, to represent them. The Netherlands 
Conference, comprising thirteen societies, appointed the Rev. Dr. Y. 
R. Callenbach, of Doom, as their representative, and the societies 
in Finland, Sweden, and Norway were represented by separate dele- 
crates and missionaries. 



PERSONNEL 25 

Personnel 

The personnel of the Conference was broadly representative. It 
consisted ( i ) of delegates appointed by organizations conducting for- 
eign missions outside of Europe and America; (2) the missionaries 
of such organizations, and (3) members elected by the Executive 
Committee. 

The British and Continental and other foreign societies were in- 
vited to send as many delegates as possible. The American and 
Canadian societies were limited in the number of their delegates ; the 
total from both countries, being fixed at 1,666, was apportioned among 
the societies on the basis of their expenditures in foreign missions. 
All foreign missionaries in active service or retired were received as 
full members. Some of the honorary members and vice-presidents 
who were unable to attend desired to have their names connected 
with so historic a gathering. Members of committees and speakers, 
who were not already delegates, were, by a general act of the Execu- 
tive Committee, constituted " special members." 

In addition to the members of the Conference a large number of 
persons came from far and near to attend the meetings. Over fifty 
thousand tickets to the Carnegie Hall and alternate meetings were 
distributed among this class of visitors. Many thousands more at- 
tended the sectional and overflow meetings where no tickets were 
required. 

A large number of professors and students in colleges and semi- 
naries were invited by the Committee on Students and Young People, 
which had some two hundred tickets to each meeting to distribute 
among this special class. 

The first floor of the Hall was reserved for delegates and mission- 
aries during the entire Conference till the opening hour, when it was 
thrown open to the public. Others who had entrance tickets filled the 
galleries, or remained standing about the doors to the parquet and 
boxes, while those without tickets thronged the vestibule and steps 
waiting the hour when the doors were thrown open. The fact that 
there were usually several hundred people waiting to get into the 
hall indicated how thoroughly the people of New York were aroused. 
Those who stood in these crowds were of all classes, by far the 
larger number being people of education and refinement. It was a 
strange sight to see ladies and gentlemen, accustomed to occupy boxes 
in the opera season, waiting their turn in the crush and hastening to 
get a seat in the gallery at a missionary meeting. Those having extra 
tickets or reserved box-seats freely gave them to others. Then those 
who failed to find entrance to Carnegie Hall were drawn away to the 
overflow meetings in Calvary Baptist Church, nearly opposite, while 
the alternate meetings in the Central Presbyterian Church on the block 
west were generally as crowded as those in Carnegie Hall. 

Opening Session 

In some respects the opening sessions, upon Saturday, April 21, 
were the most remarkable of the series. The first gathering, the 
coming together for the first time of over 2,500 able, intelligent, de- 
voted men and women, all deeply interested in the evangelization of 



26 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

the heathen world, was in itself an event of great moment. In the 
audience were veterans who had spent a lifetime in some of the hard 
places of the field ; able administrators under whose guidance the great 
societies have reached their present position of power and influence ; 
and men whose pens have edited the perodicals and written the books 
which, during the last generation, have so largely extended the in- 
fluence and power of missions. Large numbers of ladies were pres- 
ent, in this way emphasizing the universally admitted fact that mis- 
sionary work is one great field of women's influence ; and the younger 
generation was in conspicuous evidence, not only in the officers of its 
various organizations, but in the persons of many of both sexes who 
are quite willing and eager to go to the front as soon as the means are 
forthcoming to send them. The Flon. Benjamin Harrison, for four 
years President of the United States of America, occupied the chair, 
and made an opening speech which was full of Christian enthusiasm 
and statesmanlike grasp of principles and facts. 

Opening Address by Hon. Benjamin Harrison^ Honorary Chairman 

*' I count it a great honor to be called to preside over the delib- 
erations of this great body. It is to associate oneself with the most 
influential and enduring work that is being done in this day of great 
enterprises. 

" My assignment is to the chair — not to the speaker's desk. The 
careful and comprehensive progrannne that has been prepared for 
the convention will, in its orderly development, bring before you 
the whole subject of foreign missions in all its aspects. Gentlemen 
whose learning and special experience will give not only interest 
but authority to their addresses will discuss assigned topics. 

" We shall have the arithmetic of missions, the muster roll, the 
book increase, the paymasters' accounts; some will need these. 
We shall have before us some veterans from the mission outposts — 
men and women who have exhibited in their work an unsurpassed 
steadfastness and heroism; wdiose courage has been subjected to 
the strain of time. They have been beleaguered ; they have known 
the weariness of those who look for succor. From them we shall 
hear v/hat the gospel has done for tribes and lands; and, best of 
all, what it has done for the individual man and woman. These 
reports will be consolidated reports of the whole mission work of 
all the detachments of the evangelical Protestant army. 

" Hours for devotional exercises are assigned. The greatest 
need of the foreign field is a revived, reconsecrated, and unified 
home Church. And this Conference will be fruitful and success- 
ful in proportion as it promotes those ends. There will be, I hope, 
much prayer for an outpouring of God's Spirit. 

" The gigantic engines that are driving forward a material de- 
velopment are being speeded as never before. 

" It is to a generation thus intent — that has wrought wondrously 
in the realms of applied science — that God in His Word and by 
the preacher, says : All these arc worthy only and in pt oportion as 
they contribute to the regeneration of mankind. Every invention, 



OPENING SESSION 27 

every work, every man, every nation, must one day come to this 
weighing platform and be appraised. 

" To what other end is all this stir among men — this increase of 
knowledge? That these great agencies may be put in livery and 
lined up in the halls of wealth to make life brilliant and soft; or 
become the docile messengers of a counting-house or a stock ex- 
change, or the swift couriers of contending armies, or the couriers 
who wait in the halls of science to give glory to the man into 
whose hand God has given the key to one of His mysteries? Do 
all these great inventions, these rushing, intellectual developments, 
exhaust their ministry in the making of men rich and the re-enforc- 
ing of armies and fleets? No. These are servants, prophets, fore- 
runners. They will find a herald's voice; there will be an an- 
nunciation and a coronation. 

" The first results seem to be the stimulation of a material produc- 
tion and a fiercer struggle for markets. Cabinets, as well as 
trade chambers, are thinking of the world chiefly as a market- 
house, and of men as ' producers ' and ' consumers.' We now 
seldom have wars of succession, or for mere political dominion. 
Places are strategic primarily from the commercial standpoint. 
Colonies are corner stalls in the world's market-place. If the prod- 
uct tarries too long in the warehouse, the mill must shut down 
and discontent will walk the streets. The propulsion of this 
commercial force upon cabinets and nations was never so strong 
as now. The battle of the markets is at its fiercest. The great 
quest of nations is for ' consumers.' The voice of commerce is : 
' And my hand shall find as a nest the riches of the people, and 
as one gathereth eggs that are left will I gather all the earth.' 

" But with the increase of commerce and wealth the stress of 
social difficulties is not relieved, but increases in all of the great 
nations. The tendency is not to one brotherhood, but to many. 
Work for the willing, at a wage that will save the spirit as well as 
the body, is a problem of increasing tangle and intricacy. Com- 
petition forces economical devices and names wages that are, in 
some cases, insufficient to renew the strength expended. It sug- 
gests if it does not compel aggregations of capital, and these in 
turn present many threatening aspects. Agencies of man's de- 
vising may alleviate, but they can not cure, this tendency to di- 
vision and strife and substitute for it a drift to peace and unity. Christ 
in the heart and His gospel of love and ministry in all the activi- 
ties of life are the only cure. 

" The highest conception that has ever entered the mind of man 
is that of God as the Father of all men — the one blood — the 
universal brotherhood. It was not evolved, but revealed. The 
natural man lives to be ministered unto — he lays his imposts upon 
others. He buys slaves that they may fan him to sleep, bring him 
the jeweled cup, dance before him, and die in the arena for his 
sport. Into such a world there came a King, ' not to be mini- 
stered unto, but to minister.' The rough winds fanned His 
sleep; He drank of the mountain brook and made not the water 
wine for Himself; He would not use His power to stay His own 



28 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

hunger, but had compassion on the mukitude. I'hem that He had 
bought with a great price He cahed no more servants, but friends. 
He entered the bloody arena alone, and, dying, broke all chains and 
brought life and immortality to light. 

" Here is the perfect altruism ; here the true appraisal of men. 
Ornaments of gold and gems, silken robes, houses, lands, stocks 
and bonds — these are tare when men are weighed. Where e)se is 
there a scale so true? Where a brotherhood so wide and per- 
fect? Labor is made noble — the King credits the smallest serv- 
ice. His values are relative; He takes account of the per cent, 
when tribute is brought into His treasury. No coin of love is base 
or small to Him. The widow's mite He sets in His crown. Life 
is sweetened; the poor man becomes of account. Where else is 
found a philosophy of life so sweet and adaptable — a philosophy of 
death so comforting? 

" The men who, like Paul, have gone to heathen lands with the 
message : ' We seek not yours, but you,' have been hindered by 
those who, coming after, have reversed the message. Rum and 
other corrupting agencies come in with our boasted civilization, 
and the feeble races wither before the hot breath of the white man's 
vices. 

" The great nations have combined to suppress the slave trade. 
Is it too much to ask that they shall combine to prevent the 
sale of spirits to men who less than our children have acquired the 
habits of self-restraint? H we must have 'consumers' let us give 
them an innocent diet. 

" The enemies of foreign missions have spoken tauntingly of the 
slowness of the work and of its great and disproportionate cost, 
and we have too exclusively consoled ourselves and answered the 
criticism by the suggestion that with God a thousand years is as 
one day. We should not lose sight of the other side of that truth — 
one day with Him is as a thousand years. God has not set a 
imiform pace for Himself in the work of bringing in the kingdom 
of His Son. He will hasten it in His day. The stride of His 
Church shall be so quickened that commerce will be the laggard. 
Love shall outrun greed. He exacts faith. He will not answer 
the demand to show a course of stone in His great cathedral for 
every thousand dollars given. But it may be justly asked that 
the administrators of our mission treasuries justify their accounts ; 
that they use a business wisdom and economy ; that there is no 
waste; that the workmen do not hinder each other. The plough- 
ing and the sowing must be well done. These may be and should 
be judged — that is man's part of the work. But the care of well- 
planted seed is w-ith God. We shall have reports from the har- 
vesters showing that He has given the promised increase — some 
thirty and some an hundred-fold. Gifts to education are increas- 
ingly munificent. University endowments have been swelled by 
vast single gifts in the United States during the last few years. 
We rejoice in this. But may we not hope that in the exposition 
of the greater needs of the educational work in the mission fields 
to be presented in this Conference some men of wealth may find 



OPENING SESSION 29 

the suggestion to endow great schools in mission lands? It is a 
great work to increase the candle-power of our educational arc-lights, 
but to give to cave-dwellers an incandescent light may be a better one. 
" Not the least beneficent aspect and influence of this great gath- 
ering will be found in the Christian union that it evidences. The 
value of this is great at home, but tenfold greater in the mission 
field, where ecclesiastical divisions suggest diverse prophets. The 
Bible does not draw its illustrations wholly from the home or the 
field, but uses also the strenuous things of life — the race, the fight, 
the girded soldier, the assault. There are many fields; there are 
diverse arms; the battle is in the bush, and the comrades that are 
seen are few. A view of the whole army is a good thing; the 
heart is strengthened by an enlarged comradeship. It gives 
promise that the flanks will be covered and a reserve organized. 
After days in the bush the sense of numbers is lost. It greatly 
strengthens the soldier and quickens his pace when he advances 
to battle if a glance to right or left reveals many pennons and a 
marshaled host, moving under one great leader, to execute a single 
battle plan. Once, in an advance of our army, the commander of a 
regiment could see no more than half of his own line, while the sup- 
ports to his right and left were wholly hidden. To him it seemed as 
if his battalion was making an unsupported assault. The extended 
line, the reserve, were matters of faith. But one day the advancing 
army broke suddenly from the brush into a savannah — a long, nar- 
row, natural meadow — and the army was revealed. From the center, 
far to the right and left, the distinctive corps, division, brigade, and 
regimental colors appeared, and associated with each of these was the 
one flag that made the army one. A mighty spontaneous cheer 
burst from the whole line, and every soldier tightened his grip 
upon his rifle and quickened his step. What the savannah did for 
that army this World's Conference of Missions should do for the 
Church." 

Address of Rev. Judson Smith, D.D. 

Rev. Judson Smith, D.D., Chairman of the General Committee, 
welcomed the delegates in the following words : 

" In the service that is assigned to me I find it difficult which to 
deem the greater, the burden of it or the privilege of speaking in the 
name of the Protestant Christendom of America, and of welcoming 
the representatives of the Protestant Christendom of the rest of the 
world. 

" In the name of the Committee, which have invited you and have 
prepared for your coming, and of the Foreign Missionary Societies 
of the United States and Canada, who are the hosts on this occa- 
sion, it is my pleasure to extend to you who have come from all 
other lands beyond the sea a most hearty welcome and Christian 
salutations. 

" You who have come from the United Kingdom, representatives 
of the English-speaking peoples, and of those societies which have 
led in this great enterprise with world-famed deeds; you who 
come from the continent of Europe, and you who come from coIo- 



30 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

liies yet more remote, full of the energy and enthusiasm of young 
life in this enterprise — we can not find the words that shall express 
the joy with which we greet you, the reverence with which we read 
of your achievements and of your unflagging purpose. America 
is glad of your presence. We shall catch new inspiration in our 
work from your words, as we have already from your deeds. 

" And you, missionaries from every land and island, in Asia, 
Africa, and Oceania, part of the ' far-flung battle line ' of the 
Christian host, men of wisdom, men of statesmanship, men and 
women of devotion and self-sacrifice, whose deeds touch our spirits 
with enthusiasm, who lift our lives from all common aims and 
touch them with immortal hope and joy, our hearts are yours in 
the welcome we give. 

" I am sure you all will justify me if, at this moment, I recall a 
host not seen by mortal eye, their acclaim not heard by our dull 
ears ; that ' cloud of witnesses ' that hover about all paths of 
human service, who surely share our joy, and, though voiceless, 
yet speak their welcome here. Ah, above all our poor words, 
comes that message of our risen Lord, who, to us, as to the 
Twelve on that first Easter Day, speaks the heavenly greeting, 
' Peace be unto you ' ! 

" What a missionary century it is that we look back upon ! We 
describe the nineteenth century in many another way — a century 
of wonderful exploration, of manifold discoveries, of marvelous 
inventions, of the application of steam and electricity to thousands 
of human uses, wonderfully quickening human intercourse and 
enriching human life. We count it a century of marked political 
changes and social progress, but I doubt not that in the coming 
days that which chiefly shall mark this nineteenth century will be 
the missionary work which in this century has seen its infancy, 
its growth, its present noble proportions. We are at that stage 
in the work when the land has been surveyed, when the field is well 
mapped out. when the strategic positions have been chosen. 
Trained hosts are in the field and the hour has come for the signal 
of swift advance along the whole line. 

" We do not gather here, Mr. President, as the fathers gathered 
at Nicasa and at Chalcedon, to define a creed or to fix a faith. We 
are here rather to stiidy the work of God in many lands, to draw 
out in some detail the story of Christ's advancing kingdom, a 
record more thrilling and more significant than any epic which 
man has produced or the thought of man has conceived. We are 
here to restate the fundamental principles of this great work; to 
revert once again to the Divine authority under which it proceeds, 
and more than this, we shall define, and exhibit, and intensify the 
great vital unity that lies behind this work. We seem to be many 
hosts, of many names, proceeding in divers ways, and the un- 
thinking and the tmobserving make this a charge of weakness 
against the enterprise: but this gathering, like that of 1888 and 
those before it, proves afresh that behind all our dififerences there 
is a unity that every heart feels and responds to. We have one 
Lord, we preach one Gospel, we aim at producing one life of obedi- 



OPENING SESSION 3 1 

ence and faith in the Hving God, and we joy in the hope of that 
advancing kingdom that at length shall fill the world. One God, 
one law, one element, and one far-off Divine event to which the 
whole creation moves. 

" I think we shall agree also that we gather at a time most auspi- 
cious for such a conference. The missionary movement is at a 
stage when immediate enlargement, a vast enhancement of re- 
sults is close at hand. There are conspiring events which we can not 
fail to notice ; the enlargement of territory and of responsibility that 
has come to our own nation so as to constitute this a real epoch 
in our history, not without its dangers, but also with its glowing 
hopes ; that great struggle in Africa between brave peoples, on 
which the world looks with deepest interest, on which the fate of 
states, it may be of a continent, depends; that ferment and appar- 
ent break-up in China, vhere a fourth of the population of the 
globe and the great powders of Europe are so intimately con- 
cerned ; the convention of the Great Powers at the Hague not long 
since, seeking some path by which the peace of the world might be 
promoted and made enduring ; these might seem to some to repre- 
sent the most significant movement of the times ; but a little thought, 
I am sure, will convince us all that beneath these movements and 
over them, with men's will and despite men's will, there is working 
a superior movement which He who is the author and finisher of our 
faith holds in His hands. It is the preparation for a new missionary 
epoch. The great Christian nations are assuming wider responsi- 
bility, exerting greater intiuence. The vast populations of China and 
of Africa are coming out into the swift currents of the modern times. 
As plain as the signs that gathered about the advent of our Lord, are 
the signs that gather about us that God is giving to this generation a 
new summons and a glorious opportunity to win the world to our 
Redeemer. We know the Divine purpose, we see the field. Our 
hosts are ready. The march has begun, and it is for us to deter- 
mine what our share shall be in the struggle and in the victory. 

" * He is sounding forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat ; 
Oh be swift my soul to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet, 
Our God is marching on ! ' " 

Responses of Delegates 

Rev. R. Wardlaw Thompson, Secretary of the London Missionary 
Society responded in behalf of the British delegation : 

" I am here to thank you on behalf of my fellow-delegates from 
Great Britain for the welcome you have given us. If it were not in 
America I should have said, the right royal welcome you have given 
us. We thank you for all the careful preparation you have made. 
American business habits, and alertness of intelligence, and keenness 
for statistics, and hunger for information have almost overpowered 
us during the last two years. Your committees have designed 
and sent out to us schedules and forms of inquiry, and papers 
of questions, and other documents which we have, in our 
humble way, tried to fill up, and I can only say that if you have 
displaved as much care in collating the information as in collect- 



32 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

ing it, we shall have out of this Conference some of the most 
valuable information that can well be desired by those who are 
engaged in carrying on the missionary enterprise 

" I am very sorry that we have so small a delegation from Great 
Britain and Ireland. This happens to be for us the most inconvenient 
time of all the year; all our great missionary societies are having their 
anniversaries. The May meetings in London begin about the 
first week of April and end in the third week of June, and the 
great assemblies of the Presbyterian churches in Scotland and 
Ireland have their annual meetings early in the month of May. 
The result is that many who would fain have been here have been 
effectually kept from coming. But though many have not been 
able to come, I speak in their name, as well as in the names of 
those who are present, when I say that you have their hearts with 
you in this great gathering. We shall watch all the proceedings 
with intense interest, and shall look forward to the published re- 
port of these meetings for information and stimulus, and our 
earnest prayer is that God's rich blessing may come upon all its 
proceedings, so that from this meeting there may go forth an in- 
fluence and an impulse into all the churches. 

" We meet here, expecting many great things from the Confer- 
ence. I do not think, speaking for myself, that the principal bene- 
fit of the meetings will be in consultation or conference. It is 
not very easy to confer when you have 2,000 people together. 
The best way, I find, of conferring, is to have four or five around 
a table, and discussion in any real sense of delicate questions 
which must arise in connection with the administration of mission 
affairs, is a matter which is best relegated to some small body on 
some quiet occasion. But we come to this Conference with some 
hope and expectation of a great demonstration of the unity of 
Christ's Church. We are here from many countries; we are here 
belonging to many sections of the Christian Church. We have 
many individual views, likes, and dislikes, and differences of 
opinion which might very easily become antipathies. But we are 
here as Christian men and women, and we rejoice in being able to 
let the world know that below all the differences there is the one 
foundation, Jesus Christ our Lord, and that we are one in Him. 

" We rejoice in this demonstration and we believe it will have a 
profound effect upon the lukewarm and the unbelievers in the 
missionary enterprise who are still to be found, unfortunately, 
some of them within the Church of Christ. We want men to 
understand that it is not a few faddists who have taken up this 
notion of missions, but that it is the Church of Christ as a whole 
that is waking up to her great duty and responsibility, and that 
we are uttering the voice of Christ when we say that to be mis- 
sionary is to be Christipn. 

" We want the world to know that the Church of Christ has 
waked up at last to the commission her Lord intrusted to her 
nineteen centuries ago; waked up at last to the opportmiities her 
Lord has set before her in her masterful position in this great 
world to-day; waked up at last and intends to use the wealth He 



OPENING SESSION 33 

has lavished upon her, the knowledge with which He has endowed 
her, the power, poHtical and otherwise, which rests with her, to 
hasten the day when ' all shall know Him, from the least even to 
the greatest.' 

" Some years ago in one of my missionary journeys I had the op- 
portunity of seeing a sight I shall never forget. My companion 
and I were traveling in the Himalayas. We rose very early one 
morning, just at the gray dawn, and started forth from the travel- 
ers' bungalow by a hill-path which led us round the shoulder of a 
mountain and above a deep valley. We shivered as we went, for 
it was bitterly cold. The air was full of the night fog and the 
distant mountains were very forbidding in the gray. As the time 
went on, the fog settled down into the deep valleys and we heard 
weird sounds of awakening life from far below. First, the cock's 
shrill clarion. Then the twitter of other birds unseen, and the ax 
of some early woodman chopping wood to make his morning fire. 
As we turned a corner my friend said ' Look ! ' We sat on our 
horses speechless. In front of us was one of the greatest peaks 
of the Himalaya range clad in virgin snow, and the top of that 
peak had caught the first rays of the rising sun and was glow- 
ing like a carbuncle in the wondrous light, a promise of the new 
day. And as we went on the sun arose and the whole mountain 
side was flooded with the light ; and then the night mists rose from 
the valleys, and all nature, awake, went to its daily task, glad, 
because the lord of day was there; strong, because the lord of day 
was shining on them. 

" To-day I bid you look at the mountain top. I bid you hear the 
sounds down in the valleys. You will, as you come to the meet- 
ings next week, hear again and again the story of movements in 
heathendom — the wakened hearts, the cry of need, the hungry 
child wanting the Father's care, the men in the darkness still who 
are needing the light of the day. Oh, but you will hear from the 
missionaries that the dawn has come. It is only dawn, but, thank 
God, it is dawn, and if we will but wait, and work, and watch, and 
pray, this century which is now upon us will see the whole world 
flooded with the glorious light and Christ Himself shall reign." 

The Rev. Dr. A. Schreiber responded for the German delegation : 
" I consider it a great privilege that I am allowed to stand here to- 
day," said Dr. Schreiber. " It is the third time that I have been able 
to attend a conference like this. Now, as I have brought back from the 
London conferences of 1878 and 1888 some special blessings for my- 
self and for my w^ork, I am quite sure the same will be the case this 
time. I am standing here now as a representative of sixteen Ger- 
man missionary societies, with their 850 German missionaries. 
I want to express our heartfelt thanks in the name of all these 
societies for your kind invitation sent to us over the ocean to 
come here. We want to thank the American brethren for the 
great pains they have taken in planning and preparing this Con- 
ference, for the marvelous zeal thev have shown, and especially for 
their fervent prayers offered to Almigh'v God in order to procure 



34 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

a rich blessing upon this Conference. I am very sorry, indeed, 
that only such a small number of us from Germany have come here 
as delegates — only Dr. Merensky, one other brother, and myself. 
I had wished very much, indeed, and I have done my best to bring 
some more of my brethren from Germany here, especially my 
friend, the well-known professor, Dr. Warneck, but it was all in 
vain. It is not so much the sea passage that has detained the others, 
but most of them are not very much used to the English language, 
and that is a great difficulty to me also in speaking to you here to-day. 
Since I have been here in this country and experienced such a 
warm welcome from every side, which makes one feel at home at 
once on this side of the Atlantic in the new world, I have thought 
what a pity that all those other mission men from Germany can 
not share in it, and what a pity that they can not be present at 
the meetings of this Conference, which will show as never before 
the unity of the whole evangelical world, the unity of all of us in 
our faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. If this Conference was not to 
have any other special results I consider it would not have been in 
vain if it demonstrates before all the world, and especially in the 
face of Rome, the unity of all evangelical mission people, and by 
that also the unity of all Protestant Christendom. 

" But I am quite sure a great number of other blessings and out- 
comings will be bestowed upon this Conference. Our Lord can 
not but answer those fervent prayers that have been brought be- 
fore Him in this city and through this whole country. With us, 
too', in Germany, there are many pious people praying now for it, 
asking God's blessing for our Conference, and among them that 
understand the situation best, there is one topic foremost in their 
prayers, and I must not forget to mention it here to-day. Our 
wish is this, that the Conference become the means in God's hand 
of bringing about a better mutual understanding between our Eng- 
lish. American, and German mission people. We know very well in 
Germany that we have learned a great deal from the English and 
American missionaries and missionary societies, but on the other 
hand, we venture to say that perhaps, also, you too, can learn some- 
thing from us ; and by doing so the rule laid down by St. Paul would 
be acted upon that we are to serve each other, every one by the gift 
that is given to us by our Lord and Saviour. 

" Now, at all events, to Him we will look, for His blessing we will 
wait, and to Him we will give all the praise at the end of our gather- 
ing. Soli Deo Gloria! " 

Rev. Joseph King, the Agent of the London Missionary Society, 
responded for the delegation from Australia : 

" The kindly welcome which has been given to Australia this aft- 
ernoon must not be allowed to pass without a word of very 
heartv recognition. I may say that this is the first time that Aus- 
tralia has had such a status as this in a similar conference. Ger- 
man, Scandinavian, Swiss. French, British, and American missions 
have all had their places in former conferences, but Australia, as 
such, was not then known as a home of foreign missionary work. 



OPENING SESSION 35 

The change is very significant. The world is not standing still. 
God is working, working in His infinite wisdom, working toward 
the world's evangelization, and, friends, He is working in ways 
which we do not always sufficiently recognize. The risen Christ 
who is alive forevermore, is living, living in this age, and He is 
working in connection with modern history in ways which we do 
not sufficiently remember. Had the great Head of the Church 
nothing to do with the planting of this great American Republic, 
of which this marvelous city is the metropolis? Verily, yes, verilv, 
yes, and He is now permitting another Christian commonwealth 
to come into existence on the other side of the Pacific. It is no 
matter of chance that Australia is coming to the front in foreign 
mission work. It is God who is circling the world with Chris- 
tian states, states which, if they are mercenary, and alas they are 
that, are also missionary. America, thank God, is a land of mis- 
sions, and I venture to say in this hall here to-day that the Chris- 
tian missions of America constitute America's chief glory, and at 
the same time her safety. 

" And now, God is perm.itting Australia to take part in this great 
work, and this is why I am here. I am very sorry that the dele- 
gation from Australia is so very small. I have no authority to 
speak for Australasia as a whole, but I know the Australian colo- 
nies so well from end to end that I can assure you that the 
churches of Australasia are in deepest, closest sympathy with the 
objects contemplated by this great Conference. It is remarkable 
how very ignorant some people are about Australia. I have no 
doubt there are some in this audience, intelligent as they may be 
otherwise in respect to other things who, when they read this pro- 
gramme and saw in it the word ' Australia,' thought of it as an- 
other mission field. Australia, Australasia, friends, which I repre- 
sent, is a land to-day of spired cathedrals, a land of many churches, 
a land of great colleges, and it is now a land of not a few missionary 
societies. And I am here to-day to bring you the greetings of earn- 
est, devoted, prayerful fellow-workers who are from those Australian 
coasts yonder sending out many new helpers into the mission field." 

The Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, M.D., D.D., of India, responded for 
the missionaries : 

" It has fallen to my happy lot," said Dr. Chamberlain, " to stand 
here and in the name of the 2,400 missionaries in India, nay, in the 
name of the 15,464 missionaries of all churches in all non-Christian 
lands; in the name of the 73,000 native assistants working, each for 
his own people in those lands; in the name of the 1,317,600 com- 
municants and the 4,414,000 enrolled Christian adherents already 
gathered there from among the heathen ; in the name of these, to ten- 
der to you our sincerest thanks for your welcome to this World Con- 
ference for the extension of the kingdom. 

" With united hearts do we thank you, Mr. Chairman, not only for 
your words of welcome, but we thank you, we thank the Chairman 
of the Executive Committee, we thank all your large-hearted col- 
leagues for the inception of the idea, and for the three years of 



36 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

herculean labor in preparation for this Conference, and for sum- 
moning us to it from all the nations. That noted catalogue of the 
languages and the peoples represented at Jerusalem on the day of 
Pentecost, as given in the Acts of the Apostles, dwindles into insig- 
nificance before the list of the languages and the peoples repre- 
sented here to-day, not one-fourth of which were even dreamed of 
by the apostles of the ascended Christ. 

" We thank you chiefly because of the incalculable benefits which 
we believe will accrue to the missionary work abroad, as well as 
to the churches at home from this Ecumenical Conference, as it 
gathers up the results, scrutinizes the methods, and learns the les- 
sons of the nineteenth century campaigns, and plans far wider con- 
flicts, far grander victories for the century to come. 

" It is with earnest longing and ardent expectation that we mis- 
sionaries on the distant forefront of the conflict have been look- 
ing to this gathering of Immanuel's followers. Shall I voice a 
few of the helps to ourselves, to our work at the front, to our home 
churches as well, for which your missionaries are thus looking? 

" The first is the impetus of enthusiasm. 

" Many of you will remember the account given in the papers of 
the day, years since, of a scene at a terrible fire in the tenement 
district of this city. The four lower stories were aflame; the fire 
was mounting upward; it was supposed that the inmates had all 
been rescued. Suddenlv, at an open window in the fifth story, the 
form was seen of a child screaming for help. Instantly the long- 
est extension ladder was shot up to that window; an intrepid fire- 
man clambered up two stories, three, through smoke and heat, 
when flames belched forth from the fourth story and enveloped the 
ladder. Pausing, he was questioning whether it were possible for 
him to proceed. The eyes of the multitude in the street were upon 
him in an agonv of suspense. One man grasping the situation, 
shouted out : ' Cheer him ! cheer him ! ' A cheer that shook the 
walls rang out. Up through the flame the fireman leaped, 
wrapped the child in an asbestos blanket, and, though his hair and 
beard were mowed off by the flames, placed her in her mother's 
arms. The impetus of enthusiasm wrought by that cheer had 
conquered. 

" For such an impetus of enthusiasm do we look to this Confer- 
ence. An enthusiasm that shall nerve your soldiers at the front, 
whether veterans or raw recruits, officers or native levies on the 
field, nerve them to a more impetuous assault on the enemies' in- 
trenchments, a cheer that will smite as with an ague the courage 
of the foe; a cheer that will cause their Jericho walls to fall flat be- 
fore the victorious church of our Joshua — Jesus. 

" Secondly, we look for help in tactics and strategy. 

" We missionaries, on our various battlefields, are indeed trying 
diligently to study the situation, planning over for new aggressive 
movements, while to the utmost using the forces we have, yet we 
know that engrossed and hampered as we are with each day's con- 
flict, we may fail to discover even more available tactics, and that 
others not in the thick of the battle, viewing the field as from a captive 



OPENING SESSION 37 

balloon, may, perchance, discover openings for more effective strategy, 
may discover better measures for sooner planting a self-supporting, 
self-governing, self-propagating native church in each new country 
or part of country won. 

" For that do we look to this World Conference. For, where 
the sages of 400 missionary boards and societies of all Christian 
tongues, where the leaders of the Jerusalem churches in the home- 
lands — where the thousands of Christ's chosen ones among the 
laymen who are backing them, where the gathered representatives 
of the 15,000 Protestant missionaries from all lands and languages 
— where all these meet in earnest counsel under their exalted Cap- 
tain and with the promised presence of the Holy Spirit, there must 
be discovered whatever is faulty in our plans, whatever of change 
will be helpful in our tactics, how we at the front can better organize 
the campaign, better push the battle. 

" As another outcome of this Conference, we earnestly hope for 
more of unity, comity, and co-operation, and less of unholy rival- 
ries concerning and on the fields of conflict. 

" Again, we believe that the time has come for the world-wide 
Church in council to recognize and declare in unmistakable terms 
that this conquest of the world for Christ is the fundamental ob- 
ject of the Church's existence; that the command given to the 
Church : ' Go, evangelize all nations,' was not to a subsidiary 
work, but that that was the divine object for which the Church 
was constituted; that only to the extent in which she fulfills this 
God-appointed destiny will she be blessed of God; that the time 
has now come for each church to support two pastors, one for 
the thousands at home, another for the myriads abroad. 

" And for such a declaration are your missionaries in expectancy 
turning their longing eyes upon this Conference. 

" Nay, more. Not to the Church as an organized body alone 
should such a message go forth, but we hope that from this Con- 
ference will emanate such an influence as shall rivet in the heart 
of each Christian hoping for salvation through Jesus Christ a new 
conviction, dominating his whole life, a conviction that it is his 
privilege, his high honor, his exalted duty to become a junior part- 
ner with that Christ in the salvation of the world. 

"We missionaries on the distant watch-towers at the forefront 
planning the attack, seeing the myriads of the enemy, seeing the 
massive bulwarks of their ancient systems, seeing the paucity of 
the invading armies, yet believing, for God has ^said it. that' the 
battle will be won, seem to hear again the voice that Zerubbabel 
heard, saying : ' Not by might, nor by power, but by mv Spirit, 
saith the Lord of hosts.' And our eyes and yours are longingly, 
believingly resting upon this Jerusalem Council here assembled, as 
we mightily pray for such a Pentecostal pouring out of the Holy 
Spirit upon it, and upon the work here represented in all the world, 
as has not been witnessed since that Pentecost of old. 

" O Spirit of the Living God, breathe Thou upon this Conference, 
and it shall be a blessing to the world and a glory to Thee ! " 



38 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

National Welcome 

In the evening Carnegie Hall was again crowded ; spacious as is 
the auditorium, it was not large enough to accommodate half of the 
people who sought admittance. Within ten minutes of the opening 
of the doors there was not a vacant seat anywhere in the hall, and so 
completely filled did the standing spaces become that fully half an 
hour before the beginning of the exercises it was found necessary to 
close the entrances. 

Punctually at eight o'clock an outburst of cheering at the rear of 
the stage betokened the approach of President McKin];:fy, and as he 
was seen leaning on the arm of Mr. Morris K. Jesup, making his way 
to the front of the platform, the whole audience rose, cheering him 
vociferously, and saluted him with the waving of handkerchiefs 
and hats. 

The vast assemblage made an impressive sight, and the many ele- 
ments composing it a suggestive one. Statesmen were there who 
have attained eminence in politics ; thinkers who have written books 
that are widely read ; theologians who differ radically among them- 
selves in matters of creed ; missionaries who have carried the Bible in 
one hand and their lives in the other into unexplored lands, and con- 
verts and mission workers from those same lands whose bright cos- 
tumes and swarthy complexions formed a sharp contrast to the 
somber clothing of some of their neighbors. That these widely di- 
vergent types should rally from all over the world to the support of 
such a cause shows that missionary work is supported by brain as 
well as by fervor. 

The chairman of the evening was Mr. INIorris K. Jesup, President 
of the New York Chamber of Com.merce, who said in his opening ad- 
dress : 

" This great assemblage has come here to-night in order that it may 
give a hearty and cordial welcome to the members and delegates of the 
Ecumenical Conference, Vidio have come from all parts of the habitable 
world, many of them meeting for the first time on this American conti- 
nent and in this its chief city. If I understand aright the object 
of this assembly, of this council, it is that they may report to us, 
and, through us, to this great country, the progress that mission- 
ary effort has made during the past few years, and by their coun- 
sel and discussions of the great questions of the day, to advise us 
and the world what better it can do to diffuse the blessings of 
Christianity throughout the world. 

" You will not expect an address from me ; it would be very im- 
proper for me to make one at this tim.e ; but at the close of this 
century, when steam and electricity have bound the nations of the 
world almost as one, and when tlie brotherhood of man has be- 
come not an ideal conception, but, through these agencies, a real- 
ity, it is proper, in this great country which has always recog- 
nized liberty, brotherhood. Christian love and charity, that these 
friends should be received among us. It is also important, and a 
source of great congratulation, that the President of this great na- 
tion, one whose heart has always been open to the cause of right 
and of justice — T say it is a cause of great congratulation that he 



NATIONAL WELCOME 39 

has left the duties of his high office for a day and come here with 
his sympathy, and with his cheer, and with his counsel to give on 
behalf of this great nation a welcome to these distinguished men 
and women. And now it is my pleasing duty to introduce him to 
you. What presence could be more potential? What voice could 
utter a welcome with more grace, and dignity, and force than his? 
Ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure in introducing to you 
the President of the United States." 

The President, on rising, was again greeted with enthusiastic ap- 
plause, and it was some moments before he could begin. 

Address o& the President of the United States of America 

" Words of welcome are unnecessary here. This representative 
gathering, this earnest and sympathetic assemblage, is your true and 
best welcome. It attests the profound pleasure and satisfaction which 
all of us feel that the representatives of more than 200 societies 
engaged in the work of foreign missions, in every part of the 
globe, are guests within our gates. To them, from far and near, 
are extended the hospitality of our homes and the devotion of our 
hearts in acknowledgment and encouragement of their faithful- 
ness and unselfishness in the great movement for the uplifting of 
the races of men, teaching them the truth of the common father- 
hood of God and the brotherhood of man, and showing that if we 
are not our brothers' keepers we can be our brothers' helpers. 

" I am glad of the opportunity to ofifer without stint my tribute 
of praise and respect to the missionary effort which has wrought 
such wonderful triumphs for civilization. The story of the Chris- 
tian missions is one of thrilling interest and marvelous results. The 
services and the sacrifices of the missionaries for their fellow-men 
constitute one of the most glorious pages of the world's history. 
The missionary, of whatever church or ecclesiastical body, who de- 
votes his life to the service of the Master and of men, carrying the 
torch of truth and enlightenment, deserves the gratitude, the support, 
and the homage of mankind. The noble, self-efTacing, willing minis- 
ters of peace and good-will should be classed with the world's heroes. 

" Wielding the sword of the Spirit, they have conquered ignorance 
and prejudice. They have been among the pioneers of civiliza- 
tion. They have illumined the darkness of idolatry and supersti- 
tion with the light of intelligence and truth. They have been 
messengers of righteousness and love. They have braved dis- 
ease, and danger, and death, and in their exile have suffered un- 
speakable hardships, but their noble spirits have never wavered. 
They count their labor no sacrifice. 'Away with the word in 
such a view and with such a thought,' says David Livingstone ; ' it 
is emphatically no sacrifice ; say, rather, it is a privilege.' They fur- 
nish us examples of forbearance, fortitude, of patience, and unyield- 
ing purpose, and of spirit which triumphs not by the force of might, 
but by the persuasive majesty of right. They are placing in the hands 
of their brothers less fortunate than themselves the keys which un- 
lock the treasuries of knowledge and open the mind to noble aspira- 
tions for better conditions. Education is one of the indispensable 



4° SPECIAL ISIEETINGS 

steps of mission enterprise, and in some form must precede all suc- 
cessful work. 

" The labors of missionaries, always difficult and trying, are no 
longer so perilous as in former times. In some quarters indif- 
ference and opposition have given place to aid and co-operation. 
A hundred years ago many of the fields were closed to mission- 
ary effort. Now almost everywhere is the open door, and only the 
map of the world now marks the extent of their thoughts and ac- 
tions. 

" Who can estimate their value to the progress of nations? Their 
contribution to the onward and upward march of humanity is be- 
yond all calculation. They have inculcated industry and taught 
the various trades. They have promoted concord and amity, and 
brought nations and races closer together. They have made men 
better. They have increased the regard for home; have strength- 
ened the sacred ties of family; have made the community well 
ordered, and their work has been a potent influence in the de- 
velopment of law and the establishment of government. 

" May this great meeting rekindle the spirit of missionary ardor 
and enthusiasm 'to go teach all nations,' and may the field never 
lack a succession of heralds who shall carry on the task — the con- 
tinuous proclamation of His gospel to the end of time ! " 

When the President closed his address Mr. Jesup happily pro- 
posed the singing of " My Country, Tis of Thee." The National 
anthem was sung by the whole audience, standing. Then Mr. Jesup 
introduced Governor Roosevelt to welcome the delegates in the name 
of the State and city of New York. In warmth and cordiality the re- 
ception given to the Governor equaled the greeting extended to the 
President. 

Address of the Governor of the State of New York 

" I am glad to take part in welcoming you to-night, — you, the men 
and women, who have not only promised, but who have done ; who 
have made action follow pledge and performance square with 
promise. It has not been my good fortune to be able to see 
at close range the work done in foreign missions, technically 
so termed, but it was once my privilege to see close up the 
work done in what was a branch of mission work that is in every 
sense but the technical sense foreign missionary work — No, I am 
not talking of New York City — I mean work in the Indian 
tribes on the Indian reservations of the West. I had at that time 
the honor, General Harrison, of being one of your sul5ordinates 
when you were President; and in carrying out the work that you 
allotted to me, Sir, sure of the heartiest support if I did my work 
well, I had to go to visit certain of the Sioux reservations, going 
up through South Dakota into North Dakota, in those big tracts 
of land lying just west of the Missouri. I had not gone there, 
properly speaking, upon missionary work in the narrowest sense of 
the term, but I got enlisted in missionary work very rapidly when I 
was out there, because, after all, I think that any effort to try to 
further the cause of civic righteousness is missionarv work, and the 



NATIONAL WELCOME 4I 

effort to see that the Indians get a square deal is, at any rate, an ad- 
junct to missionary work. I spent twice the time I intended to, be- 
cause I became so interested in it that I began to travel all over the 
reservations to see what was being done, especially by the mission- 
aries, because it needed no time at all to see that the great factors in 
the uplifting of the Indians were the men who were teaching the In- 
dian to be a Christian citizen. When I came back I wished it had 
been in my power to convey my experiences to those people, often 
well-meaning people, who speak about the inefficacy of foreign 
missions. I think if they could have realized but the tenth part 
of the work that had been done, they would understand that no 
more practical work, no work more productive of fruit for civiliza- 
tion could exist than the work being carried on by the men and 
women who give their lives to preaching the gospel of Christ to 
mankind. 

" Of course, out there on the Indian reservations you see every 
grade of the struggle of the last 2,000 years repeated, from the 
painted heathen savage, looking out with unconquerable eyes from 
the reservation on which he is penned, held there only by the fear 
of the military power, thirsting still for the old, wild, lawless days 
of bloodshed and strife; from him through his nearest kinsfolk till 
you came to the Christian worker of a dusky skin, but as devoted 
to the work, as emphatically doing his duty as it was given to him 
or her to see it, as anyone here to-night. I saw a missionary gather- 
ing out on one of those reservations, just as much the same kind 
of gathering, not the same in grade but the same in kind, as that 
which is here to-night, and it was a gathering where ninety-nine per 
cent, of the people were Indians ; where the father and mother had 
come in a wagon with the ponies, with the lodge poles trailing behind 
them, over the prairie for a couple of hundred miles to attend this 
missionary conference ; where they had their mothers' meetings, 
where all the practical details of missionary work v;ere being carried 
out, and were being carried out by the Indians themselves — helped, 
as was right, by the white missionaries, but doing it mostly for them- 
selves; subscribing from out of their little all they could that the 
work might go on among their brethren who yet were blind ; devoting 
their means and devoting their efforts to it. It was a touching sight; 
a sight to look at and a sight to learn from. 

I don't think I have ever seen any one, man, or woman, who 
struck me as having done more with the materials at hand than 
one half-breed woman in the Ogallala reservation. She was a 
very remarkable woman. She was married to a white man, and 
the family had moved way off, and I think it was she that had 
moved them. They had a big log and canvas house of the type that 
you would see in any frontier town. She had five children, and 
they were being brought up admirably. She ran a general store 
and had a white governess from the neighboring State of Nebraska 
to teach her children. She was a thoroughly practical woman. 
You know I believe in being practical. She was managing her 
store well. She was the center, the focus of civilization for the 
band of some 300 Indians around about her. She had started 



42 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

certainly a dozen institutions, and was having them managed in the 
only way to make them of real permanent good for the benefici- 
aries, by making the beneficiaries do the major part of the work. 
Any of you who have been out among the Indian tribes of the 
West know that the most melancholy feature of their life is the 
disregard of the old, especially of the old women, who often end 
their lives in great want and sufifering; my friend there had started 
an old woman's home, and had put up big tepees — wigwams we call 
them in the East — and she had made each adult Indian contribute 
so much for the support of the poor old women who had no one 
to take care of them, and see to it that they had a little tea, a fair 
amount of clothing, and firewood, and things like that. She was, 
of course, taking charge and helping all she could herself; she was 
not only helping the institutions, but she was helping the individual 
Indians. For instance, an Indian blacksmith had gotten discour- 
aged. He suddenly left his work and went off, and my friend sent 
a messenger to the commander of the post to get hold of the 
Indian and bring him back, which he did. She talked things over 
with him about two days, and then started him again as a black- 
smith; two years afterward I found that he had married another 
returned student from one of the Eastern Indian schools, and they 
were getting along in first-class shape; there was a family of 
American citizens started there who were able to do their part in 
civilizing the country, instead of being a dead weight for others 
to civilize. Now that is a great deal to be able to do. I have seen 
that myself. You who go out throughout the world realize that 
the best work can be done by those who do not limit the good 
work only to their own immediate neighborhood, that the nation 
that spends most efifort in trying to see that the work is well done 
at home is the one that can spare most effort trying to see that 
duty is done abroad. In the field of missionary effort, in the field of 
effort for civilization, the hope of the world must lie with those who 
have the energy, the determination, the resolute perseverance to go 
out and do it ; who do not fail to understand the importance of the 
work at home, but who remember also the importance of the work 
abroad. 

" And oh, my brethren, another thing for us to remember : As 
we face the forces of evil, as we face the forces with which the 
great war" for ricrhteousness must be waged, we must try to keep 
working with and not against all who are honestly and in good faith 
striving" for the betterment of mankind, to work with the wide, 
broad charitv that welcomes to the field fellow-workers, pro- 
vided onlv those fellow-workers are striving toward the same 
goal. The lesson of combining zeal fervor, intense enthusiasm, 
with broad charity and sanity — that is the lesson that we all of 
us need to learn. I was o-kid to listen. Mr. President, to the quo- 
tation from the great missionary. Livingstone; I know that each 
of you feels only impatient scorn for the man who would pity 
him. Woe to the man who pities the worker, not woe to the 
^"orker; I am not sorry for him; I am sorry for the man who pities 
him.. Life means more, infinitclv more, than idleness, and the most 



NATIONAL WELCOME 43 

certain way of failing to have any pleasure, of failing to gain any 
pleasure worth gaining, is to set yourself down to pursue pleasure as 
your occupation in life. The life worth living is the life of the man 
who works ; of the man who does ; of the man who strives ; of the man 
who, at the end, can look back and say, ' I know I have faltered, I 
know I have stumbled, I have left undone things that should have 
been done, and much that I have done had better been left undone, but 
as the strength v.as given to me I strove to use it ; I strove to leave 
the world a little better and not a little worse, because I had lived in it.' 

"And another thing Vv^ith you here : You who work, you are teach- 
ing others to work. You are not trying to save people from hav- 
ing to exert the faculties which the Lord gave them. You are 
trying to teach them how to use them. In the long run, you can 
not carry any one. You can help him to walk, and when you deal 
with the man who is ages behind us, it may be that your teach- 
ing him to walk must last for more than one or even two genera- 
tions, but the aim must be in each case to teach the man to help 
himself. That is the kind of help that is best worth giving. 

" You are doing the greatest work that can be done. It is an 
honor and a privilege to greet you here to-night in the name of 
the great State of New York, which includes within its borders the 
greatest city of the Western Hemisphere. I greet you in the name 
of the people of the State; I bid you Vv'elcome, and I extend to you 
who lead hard and dangerous lives, you who have given up so 
much that most deem attractive in life, to you who have sacrificed 
so much that most hold dear, I give to you no commiseration, no 
sympathy, but the heartiest homage, the heartiest admiration, and 
good- will. I thank you." 

The Chairman then called upon the Honorable Benjamin Harrison, 
Honorary President of the Conference, to respond to these words of 
welcome from the Nation and the State. Prolonged applause greeted 
General Harrison as he arose to speak. 

Response of the Hon. Benjamin Harrison 

" It would have been more appropriate if some one of our dis- 
tinguished foreign guests had been assigned to the pleasant duty of 
acknowledging the generous and kindly welcome which has been 
brought by the President of the United States, and by the Governor 
of New York State, to this great Conference. 

" But in behalf of the delegates who, from far and near, have gath- 
ered in this Conference, I return to the President of the United States 
our most hearty thanks for his presence here to-night. Perhaps some 
of our foreign guests miss the display, and the regalia, and the sound 
of trumpets with which the Chief Executives of foreign nations make 
their progress and are greeted bv their subjects. Could anything be 
more simple, and when the mind receives the thought, anything 
more grand and majestic than the simple presence of an American 
President here to-night! We were quite prepared. Sir (to Presi- 
dent McKinley), because you are known by your fellow-countrymen 
as a Christian gentleman, that vou should extend to these who are 
assembled the sympathy and fellowship of one who has part with 



44 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

them in the work of setting up God's kingdom in the world ; but it was 
kind, Sir, that leaving those duties that some have recently called 
simple, and which, at least, you and I know, are arduous and ex- 
acting to the very extremity of human endurance, that you our Presi- 
dent should leave these and add to them the labor of travel that you 
might witness here on behalf of this Christian nation the sympathy of 
the whole country with this great foreign missionary movement. 

" Of course, it was no trouble for Governor Roosevelt to come 
here. Indeed, I think he rather likes to get away from Albany, and if 
we may believe those unfailing chroniclers of the truth, whose repre- 
sentatives are here before me, he is not infrequently here for the pur- 
pose of having consultations. He availed himself of the few mo- 
ments that we spent together in the reception-room to consult me 
about a matter, and when I had given him my opinion, he said, ' Well, 
that is what I was going to do anyhow, no matter what you would 
say,' I felt very lucky that I had hit upon the conclusion to which he 
had already arrived. We are glad to have from him these hearty 
words of commendation of the cause of missions. I think you can re- 
ceive as the truth what he has said. In my observation of him he has a 
passion for the truth. The only trouble I ever had with managing him 
— and you know, as he has confessed, how thoroughly I did that — 
was that it seemed to me he wanted to put an end to all the evil in the 
world between sunrise and sunset. He was not willing to take as 
much time sometimes as I thought was necessary in order not to frac- 
ture things too much, though we never differed as to the end that 
was to be attained. He wanted to get there very quick — I am, 
perhaps, a little bit too conservative and slow — but it is pleasant 
to have in his person one known to us all to be so thorough a sol- 
dier of righteousness and riefht-doing, to hear from him to-night 
his testimony to the work of missions, a work in this coimtry and 
yet a work among savage tribes, a work identical with that which 
in a foreign field other missionaries are working out. 

" Mr. Chairman, these personal greetings are delightful to us, 
coming from these two great executive officers, but it is not so 
strange, for were their personal sympathies less fully given to 
this cause than we know them to be. it would be quite in line 
with their office that they should come and speak to a Christian 
assembly here to-night, and encourage the work of spreading 
Christianity throughout the world. Upon what conservative ele- 
ment is it that the security and peace of our community depends? 
Out of what do those maxims of life come that make it decent, that 
curb passion, that limit selfishness, and that bind men together in com- 
mon purposes for the security and happiness of communities? It is. 
indeed, in and out of this sncred Word of God that a system of moral- 
ity has come that makes life sweet and gives to it possibilities that 
would otherwise be out of thoueht. It is reported that the aged Ger- 
man Chancellor. Prince Hohenlohe, recently said as he looked about 
over the world, its strugfrles, and strifes, and distress, and grief, that 
it seemed to him as if that geological era had returned when the 
saurians, gigantic monsters, walked the earth in their devouring 
forms. He was addressing, I think, a meeting of scholars, and he 



NATIONAL WELCOME 45 

turned to scholarship as giving him hope for a world that seemed to 
be greedy for the destruction of its own members. Ah ! my friends, 
not scholarship, not invention, not any of these noble and creditable 
developments of our era — not to these, but to the Word of God and 
the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ must we turn for the hope that 
men may be delivered from this consuming greed and selfishness. 

" ' 1 hy neighbor as thyself ' — that second great commandment 
of our Lord — in that and in the power which it has already ob- 
tained, and the power it shall yet obtain over the hearts and minds 
of men, is our deliverance from this perilous condition of which 
Prince Hohenlohe spoke. The Church is not a revolutionary 
hooter. The Church of God as it was started m its way by its 
Lord and Master, did not stir up rebellion, did not set men against 
their governing officers. 'Tribute to whom tribute is due.' Let 
Cssar have his tribute. Respect for our magistrates as the repre- 
sentatives of the chief magisterial power above, our gospel teaches. 
And these missionaries going into these foreign lands do not go 
to disturb the political conditions of the states that they enter. Not 
at all. They preach no crusade ; incite no rebellion, but work by in- 
stilling the principles of the gospel of Christ — the doctrine of the 
parity of man — that God has made of one blood all people — that 
not titles and not robes, not the outer things at all, but the heart 
is the seat of judgment and esteem; and this doctrine working its 
quiet way through the world will yet bring in the kingdom that is 
promised. Thy brother as thyself ; thy neighbor as thyself. Do we 
count the growth of the Church by our membership roll? Has the 
gospel done nothing more? Ah, think for a moment, my friends. 
If you can blot out of your statute books, out of your constitutions, 
out of your codes of morals, out of your social and family institutions 
all that is derived from the sacred Book, what would there be left to 
bind society together? 

" I thank you, and again I thank our distinguished friends in your 
behalf, for their presence and words of cheer to-night. It is a 
great thing that this great city, so full of stir, and rush, and bus- 
iness, should have been so moved upon by this Conference as to 
present to us to-night this magnificent assembly. 

" May the Lord God, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, 
turn our hearts to Him, and keep you, Mr. President and Gov- 
ernor Roosevelt, and the rulers of all these nations represented 
here, in His peace and love." 

Among the more popular meetings were the following: 

Bible Translation and Missionary Addresses 

The meeting on Tuesday evening was one of these, the topic being 
the Bible, followed by two stirring addresses on India and China. 
The meeting was opened by Canon Edmonds, who held the attention 
of the audience for half an hour while he read hi? monograph on the 
Church and Bible Translation. Following him came Jacob Chamber- 
lain, of India, and William Ashmore, of China. 

Dr. Ashmore's address was proohetic of the changes that have 
since begun, sooner than seemed probable at the time. " As our mis- 



46 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

sionaries look at it," he said, " the iniquities of China have now 
come to the full. We are, therefore, not so hopeful of this reform 
succeeding until there is a tremendous revolution. We see these 
men that they call ' Boxers, ' we see these incipient insurrections 
and rebellions, and they are all signs of the coming storm. . . . 
Though there may be a cloudburst in the near future, there will be 
a clear sky in the future beyond. No need for apprehension ; the 
death throes of to-day may be the birth pangs of to-morrow. There 
will be a reconstructed China." 

A similar meeting on Wednesday evening was addressed by Presi- 
dent Angell, of the University of Michigan, on Relations of Mis- 
sions to Governments, followed by Bishop Ridley's remarkable testi- 
mony regarding the power of the gospel among the Indians of Brit- 
ish Columbia, showing the transformation which had occurred in 
thirty-five years. He said : " Then there was not a Christian from 
the tidal waters hundreds of miles to where the rivers rise in the 
midst of the mountains. Now there is not a tribe or a community 
without its church, and school, and band of Christians." 

Voman in Missions 

Woman's work was recognized as never before. At the previous 
conferences held in England w^oman's work had some recognition, 
and a number of delegates attended the London Conference of 1888, 
but women were never in evidence as they were at these meetings ; 
they took part in the discussions, and read papers, besides holding 
ten sectional meetings on the various phases of woman's work. The 
crowds that thronged the churches where these meetings were held 
were so great that at some of them it was found necessary to lock 
the doors, while an immense number were turned away, and an over- 
flow meeting was organized in Calvary Baptist Church, with Mrs. 
Charles P. Thorpe, of Philadelphia, presiding, and a number of mis- 
sionaries speaking. The enthusiasm was contagious, and as one 
woman said: " If any man has had lurking in his heart any objec- 
tions to woman's work, they must melt away before the impressive 
demonstration of these woman's meetings! " 

Perhaps the most inspiring feature of all was the welcome to the 
more than four hundred women missionaries at Carnegie Hall on 
Thursday afternoon. It came after the formal addresses were over, 
and was a sight long to be remembered in the history of missions. 
White-haired women, the greater part of whose lives, in many cases, 
had been spent in the mission fields, were marshaled on the platform 
in groups bv Mrs. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, amid the clapping of 
thousands of hands, the waving of thousands of handkerchiefs, 
and the smiles and tears of a host of women worked up to the highest 
pitch of enthusiasm. Mrs. Gordon would not let the missionaries 
go till she had told some touching or heroic tale of their personal sac- 
rifice, or of the success which had crowned their years of toil and 
teaching. 

The evening meeting was almost equally crowded as the afternoon, 
onlv a coodlv portion of the audience w-erc men. Mrs. J. T. Gracey, 
of Rochester, N. Y., presided, and grouped about the front of the 



BUSINESS MEN AND MISSIONS 47 

platform, on either side, were Oriental women, whose bright, native 
costumes lent a bit of color to the scene. There were young women 
from Japan, China, India, and Turkey. There was the young 
daughter of Pundita Ramabai, who said : "I am here to rep- 
resent my mother',-! work. Within eleven years God has given her 
over a thousand girls." A young Koordish woman had a message 
which she gave in her own tongue : " I am very glad that in such 
a free land as this, you have gone so far forward that you may wor- 
ship Christ. . . . There is a special prize awaiting you up in 
Heaven because you brought me to Christ. " 

And then Miss Lilavati Singh, B.A., of India, was introduced ; a 
young woman, who in her eagerness to acquire the English language 
is said to have read Green's History of England through seven times ! 
It was after hearing Miss Singh's address on the Results of Higher 
Education, of which she herself is an exponent, that General Harri- 
son said : " If I had given a million dollars to foreign missions, I 
should count it wisely invested if it led only to the conversion of that 
one woman." 

Business Men and Missions 

On Friday evening a business men's meeting was held, and a 
representative body of widely known business men occupied the plat- 
form : merchants and manufacturers, bankers, lawyers, college presi- 
dents. Government officials, and members of army and navy,^ besides 
a considerable number of gentlemen who had retired from their stated 
employments to give still more valued service in the interests of the 
public' welfare. A large number of prominent business men through- 
out the country were identified with this meeting as honorary vice- 
presidents, and as many of these as possible attended in person. At 
this meeting Mr. Sankey led the music with all his old vigor, and one 
of the most impressive events of the evening was the singing of the fa- 
vorite hymn of the late Dwight L. Moody, " One Day the Silver Cord 
Will Break." Mr. Sankey sang it as a solo, and first the whole house 
joined in the chorus, " And I shall see Him, face to face." At the 
next verse only the galleries sang, then only two galleries, and. finally, 
only the trained voices in the topmost gallery. It sounded like a dis- 
tant sweet echo of the music that had gone before, and many eyes 
were moist as the last strain died away. 

President Seth Low, of Columbia University, in introducing the 
Chairman, the Hon. James B. Angell, said : " The cause that brings 
us all here is the cause of our common Master, and everyone must 
gather from such meetings as these that no brotherhood less wide than 
the brotherhood of man can satisfy the heart of the disciple any more 
than it can satisfy the great heart' of the Master. It is not a far cry 
from a conference like this to a common front on the mission field. 
Still less is it a far cry from united activity in missionary work to a 
common front everywhere against the forces of evil. The object of 
the meeting to-night is to permit laymen to testify to their interest 
in the missionary work." 

President Angell followed with the remark : " It is desired th?t 
you w^ho have come from far away fields of labor should be assured 



48 SPECIAL MEETINGS 

that in all your trials and your toil you have the support and sym- 
pathy, and the prayers of the great army of Christ's disciples through- 
out all the nations "' ; and in closing a brief address, said: " If the 
laymen of this country will furnish the means, the colleges of America 
will double the number of missionaries in the foreign field within 
five years." 

Students ani Young People 

The definite line of advance that has been made in enlisting the 
students and other young people in the missionary movement was 
manifest on Saturday, when three meetings in Carnegie Hall were 
devoted to them, all largely attended and all in charge of leaders in 
movements which the young people sustain. As a natural result, the 
speakers gathered fervor from audiences alike sympathetic and de- 
monstrative, and every meeting glowed with enthusiasm from begin- 
ning to end. 

Achievements, significance, and possibilities of student movements, 
the obligations upon this generation to evangelize the world, and the 
incentive needed to fire new ministers with zeal to carry the gospel 
to strange lands supplied texts for those who talked, while those who 
listened displayed such hearty accord with the sentiments of the plat- 
form as in itself to work encouraging results. That the colleges will 
be immediately fruitful in increased ofiferings of mission workers, as 
the result of aspiration freshened by the Conference, was predicted as 
confidently as if that end were already brought about. It was evi- 
dent that the young people with heroic faith had faced the problem of 
the world's complete evangelization ; and that the methods they were 
developing were of the steady, persistent character correlated with 
the work of the regular boards and societies, while emphasis was 
placed on the necessity of full information and definite commitment 
in both giving and going. Much was accomplished in bringing about 
a union of forces by a special meeting of the leaders of young peo- 
ple's movements. 

Famine Relief 

On the second Sunday evening of the Conference a famine relief 
meeting was organized by a few m.issionaries from India, in order 
that they might inaugurate a larger national movement in the inter- 
est of the famine sufiferers in India : it was a demonstration close at 
hand as to the intimate relation between the preaching of the gospel 
and the constant relieving of suffering and want ; it was the organiz- 
ing of a relief expedition at an emergency call to hasten to the help 
of those who were overwhelmed. 

After a series of addresses from the missionaries and others, in- 
forming as to the causes of the famine, what the Government was 
doing, and the plans proposed for its relief, a collection was taken for 
the famine sufferers. 



CHAPTER III 

SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFERENCE 

Devotional Element — Summary of Programme — Farewell — Impressions — Sig- 
nificance of the Conference, 

From the opening meetings every session and every topic that 
was taken up seemed to have the same tremendous power to interest 
the people and carry them forward. The devotional element in the 
meetings, though given due prominence, could hardly be reported. 
It was not solely in the words that were used in earnest importunate 
prayer, but in the act of united waiting for the Spirit, morning by 
morning as the Conference gathered, that His presence might suffuse 
the whole gathering with a divine glow and touch the proceedings 
of the day with a blessed illumination. It was as though in a vision 
the non-Christian world was constantly held up before God, and this 
missionary gathering were saying : What can we do ; Thine is 
the kingdom and the power and the glory. Hold Thy people to 
the task ; infuse them with strength and courage. Shed abroad Thy 
love in their hearts. 

But these prayers were not for the assembly ; they were broad as 
the earth and the sea ; they besought a blessing on the Conference 
that it might be a blessing and give a mighty impulse to the whole 
Church. Everyone felt the power of the Holy Spirit; no one 
could sit in the audience and listen to the speaking without 
being impressed with the hush that was over everything. No one 
stirred if it could be helped. People went away realizing the personal 
responsibility which is upon each individual, making in the aggre- 
gate a great power. The whole Conference seemed like a great fly- 
wheel that, being once started, gathered up the power into itself and 
was going of its own momentum. " No one could look at those won- 
derful audiences day after day," said one of the delegates, " and not 
realize the mighty impulse and interest that stirred the people as noth- 
ing had stirred them before. The way in which the Conference was 
conducted evidenced the quiet, persistent work which had gone on for 
so many months, nay, for so many years. The men and women who 
had done the work kept out of sight, and only the result of their work 
was manifest ; the workers were lost sight of in the wonder of the 
work." 

Much of the public interest was undoubtedly due to the fact that 
the discussion bore so heavily on the practical work in which the 
missionaries are engaged. Preaching the Gospel was inseparably 
linked with acts of benevolence and human progress. Christianity 
was shown to be connected with everything best and most beautiful 
on earth. The intimate relation existing between the direct preaching 



5© SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFERENCE 

of the gospel and all other forms of associated effort had not always 
been fully understood, and there has been a tendency to magnify spe- 
cial departments of work or else to regard them as something apart 
from the Great Commission. In the programme all forms of work 
were recognized as parts of the equipment of the Church and as gifts 
of the same Spirit. 

Summary of Programme 

The controlling thought in the construction of the programme was 
not so much to arrange a series of sermons and great addresses on 
the general theme of missions as to present the problems of practical 
work which are involved in the missionary enterprise, and to call 
together such persons of experience as could discuss them with ad- 
vantage to the whole Church. 

Inasmuch as there are naturally diversities of opinion on the va- 
rious pomts under discussion, the committee intended that every 
topic should be presented from different points of view, the oppo- 
site sides of each question having equal opportunity to set forth their 
arguments in the strongest possible light. 

In order to preserve the ecumenical character of the Conference, 
from which it was expected that the most far-reaching results would 
be derived, the topical division of the programme took precedence of 
the territorial, but, notwithstanding this, each mission land was duly 
surveyed, and addresses by missionaries on their respective fields were 
a prominent feature of the general meetings. 

The topical division comprised : ( i ) The missionary idea — assert- 
ing the claims of the Great Commission and its supreme aim. (2) 
The economics of missions, embodying organization, location and 
strength of stations, self-support, and comity. (3) The departments 
of work — literary, evangelistic, medical, educational and industrial, 
work for women, and for special classes. (4) Home administration 
and means of enlisting the Church. 

Under the geographical division fell the survey of mission fields 
and the general view of the century, showing the occupation of the 
field, the opposition to be met in the social and religious aspects, the 
pervasive and leavening influence of the gospel, and the increasing 
armv of converts to the faith in Christ. 

The Conference began its regular sessions on Monday, April 23, 
the morning being given to a general review of the fundamental basis 
of missions, the promised power and appointed aim. On the after- 
noon of the sRme dav the mission fields were severally surveyed 
simultaneously in eight separate sections, and the day closed with the 
historical summarv of the centurv's work, demonstrating the super- 
intending hand of God in missions, for. as one of the speakers said, 
" A11 historv is a mvsterv till it becomes to us His story." 

Tuesdav inaugurated a scries of meetings devoted to the consid- 
eration of the ecomomics of missions, including comity and self- 
support and the several departments of work, each morning session 
being taken up with one of these topics, supplemented by sectional 
meetings in the afternoon and a more popular presentation of the 
same topic in the evening. The cultivation of the missionary idea in the 



FAREWELL MEETING $1 

home church was taken up under the heads of Home Work for For- 
eign Missions, Woman's Responsibihy, Business Men, Students and 
Other Young People, and, finally. The Pastor, each dealing in turn 
with their special fields and opportunities, and the subjects of Lit- 
erature and Giving as related thereto. 

In the consideration of the several departments of work on the 
field — Evangelistic, Educational, Literary, and Medical — the general 
scheme followed was first to set forth the imperative importance or 
necessity of each as a part of the whole work, then iis sphere of 
action and its effects, following with the tools and facilities it em- 
ployed or demanded, and closing with the training of natives for 
participation and leadership in the same branch of service. 

Farewell Meeting 

The Farewell Meeting was on Tuesday evening. Long before the 
hour set for opening the meeting a large and enthusiastic audience 
filled Carnegie Hall. Not a seat was unoccupied on floor or platform, 
or in the boxes and galleries. Standing room, too, was taken, and 
ten minutes after eight o'clock the doors were closed on seemingly as 
big a crowd as had gained admission. Not one additional person was 
allowed admission after the doors were once closed, either by the 
main entrance or the stage door, and gradually the crowd outside 
dwindled, many going to the meeting in Central Presbyterian Church 
and to the overflow mxeting in Calvary Baptist Church. 

After the regular programme of the evening had been carried out, 
the Chairman, General Harrison, arose and remarked that the dis- 
cussions of the Conference were ended, and that nothing remained 
but to speak the words of parting. He first called upon the Rev. 
Canon W. J. Edmonds, of Exeter Cathedral, England, to voice the 
farewell of the foreign delegates. 

" I speak not in the name of the English delegates only," said Canon 
Edmonds, "but as representing the whole, body of delegates from 
whatever country they come. My eye has just fallen upon one of 
these delegates, a Dutch brother w'hom I met the other day at one of 
our meetings. He shook hands with me, in spite of all the differences 
that put a distance between Dutch politics and feelings, and ours, but 
a feeling of common love for the Master constituted a bridge between 
two strangers thus separated. That is what will unite us. " 

" I have just listened to words of weight, and wisdom, and hope, 
and prophecy from the Bishop of Alba'ny, and I have listened in 
this hall and other halls to the various views which have been 
offered on behalf of our common Master, and my mind is at this 
moment overburdened with the weight of gladness and joy which 
the proceedings of this great Conference have inspired in me. 

" But my business is not to review this Conference, but to thank 
those for their hospitality who brought us here, and who have 
made our stay in this country so pleasant that, as I told my host 
this morning, I was sorry to be leaving his roof. That is the 
sentiment of all of us. We are impressed at the generosity, and 
the completeness, and the dimensions of your hospitality and care. 
There is only one answer we can give you. It is the simplest of 



52 SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFERENCE 

all. We are glad to have been the recipients of those kindnesses, 
and you can be sure that we will publish it on the other side of 
the Atlantic. 

" Oh, American ladies and gentlemen, you arc doing more good 
than you know! You have given us a display of what you are, 
and you send us away with the knowledge that the best in you 
will overcome what is not the best in you. We believe in you. 
You will have your discipline, but you will come out of it, and you 
will be the better and brighter for it. You will find us more and 
more by your side. We have seen you receive your President. 
We have seen the sentiment of loyalty, not to the man only, not 
the sentiment of admiration for a great man's abilities only, but we 
have seen the loyalty of the American people to their own chosen 
Chief Magistrate, and we have seen that when American Chief 
Magistrates are no longer American Chief Magistrates, but are 
philosophical, and loving, and afifcctionate watchers and criticisers 
of those who have stepped into their shoes, your affection is still with 
them, not only for what they are, but for what they have done. 

" There is one thing more that I want to acknowledge besides the 
hospitality which has made us forget our homes and the distance 
we have to go to reach them. I was in this hall on Sunday night 
when you met here to discuss the Indian famine. The programme 
as it was worded seemed to bear rather hardly upon England, 
some of the questions asking if England was responsible for the 
famine, what was England doing for the relief of the starving, and 
so on. But the vindication of England that night was as ample 
as could be, and that vindication came from the lips of three Amer- 
ican missionaries. In the name of the English delegates I thank 
you for it. For your hospitality we desire to offer our acknowl- 
edgments, warmly, gratefully, and respectfully. 

" And now, Mr. Harrison, I have said that we are thankful for this 
hospitality. I saw once a great scene in the cathedral to which I 
am attached. I saw a 'new bishop come to take his place there 
at the head of the diocese. He was not welcomed; his wisdom 
was a little too early for the wisdom of those he had come to rule 
over. There was a fog that morning; it was in December, and the 
procession out from the cathedral was a minute or two late be- 
cause of the fog and a certain unpunctuality. The clergyman who 
was walking in the procession just in front of me, recognizing that 
Bishop Temple was up at the end of the street waiting for us, 
turned around and said : ' Edmonds, he is a little before his time.' 
He is the Archbishop of Canterlniry now, and nobody thinks he is 
before his time, and nobody thinks he is after his time, cither. 
But T will tell you what was the text of the second sermon 
that he preached in that diocese — over which he ruled with a 
strong and affectionate rule that nobody would venture to resist, 
and nobody cared to. It was this, and it is a word that I should 
like to speak in the largest of all possible applications to the 
American people, if T had any right to address them, when they 
are lliinking of English differences; to the English people when 
they arc thinking of American differences; to the great divided, 



FAKKWELL MEliTING 



53 



but really united, Church of God also would 1 say it : ' Whercunlo 
we have already atiained let us walk by the same rule, let us mind 
the same things . . . and if in anything ye be otherwise 
minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.' 

" The twentieth century is coming and 1 hope it will bring with 
it those great common opportunities and that common spirit which 
will help us to embrace tiiem. Meantime, the best encouragement 
to face it in the most hopeful of spirits is to weave those sweet 
and golden bonds which bind the Christian community together. 
There are no people on the face of the earth who have done so 
much of that in the last ten days as the Christian people of New 
York to whom, on behalf of these foreign delegates, I desire now 
warmly, and gratefully, and respectfully to offer our acknowledg- 
ments." 

The farewell for the missionaries was voiced by the Rev. George 
■ Owen, of China : 

" I wish, first and foremost," said Mr. Owen, " to express my own 
gratitude and the gratitude of all my fellow-missionaries for the splen- 
did reception which we received from the President of this great Re- 
public, the Governor of this great State, and you, Mr. President. We 
know that the honor paid to us was simply given because we are the 
missionary servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the tribute of a 
great nation laid at the feet of our common Lord. It is in this that it 
has its significance. 

" I should like also to express for myself and my brother mis- 
sionaries our admiration and wonder at the almost perfect or- 
ganization that we have seen through these conference meetings. 
Everything has gone on so smoothly and quietly that it looked as 
though the whole thing was an automaton. It seems to me that 
organization is a natural product of American life. I had long 
heard of the genius of the Americans for organization, but now I 
have seen it. 

" These crowded meetings have made it plain to us all that the mis- 
sionary spirit is not failing in America. There is no cooling of 
missionary ardor. You are not going to give up the great task of 
winning the world to Christ. 

" We missionaries are only the outposts of the great army of the 
Church, and these meetings have shown the oneness of the great 
Protestant Church in the whole world. When we return to our 
fields of labor we will seem to hear you calling to us : ' We are 
with you in our sympathies, our prayers, our gifts, in all your 
joys and sorrows until the darkness shall roll away and the great 
light of the millennium morn shall dawn.' " 

Then, the final words were spoken by General Harrison: 

" I was designated to speak the opening word when this Conference 
assembled, and the duty is laid upon me to-night to speak the closing 
word," he said. " I do not like to regard this as the end cf the Con- 
ference. We shall have no more lectures; the teachers will be re- 
tired; we shall not gather here any more, but it seems to me that 
we might call these exercises to-night commencement exercises. 



54 SCOPE AND SIGXIFlCANCt; OF THE CONFERENCE 

It is the way the colleges have, you know, when the profes- 
sors are retired, and the classrooms are closed, and they have 
the last meeting. They call it a commencement, and a very ap- 
propriate word it is. What has taken place was preparatory, it 
was fitting out people, it was setting up a mast and springing the 
sails — a very essential sort of work, but of no great account if it 
stops there. The ship must spread her sails; she must turn her 
prow away from the dock; she must throw ofif her moorings, and 
with her cargo of merchandise or of human lives, go out upon the 
sea on an errand somewhere, to carry something or somebody 
where it is needed. That is what all this means. And so I like 
to think of this Conference as a school that is holding to-night its 
commencement; and of these missionaries who have been privi- 
leged to come back, either to their native land or at least to one 
of the homelands of missions, as men Vv^ho have been taking here 
a post-graduate course. Of those of us who are delegates, as Chris- 
tian men and women we have come here to make reports about the 
work and to listen to the story of what has been done ; not to rest in 
the pride of it, but to find in it an inspiration of greater things yet 
to be done. 

" Do you know, my friends, that these ten days of the Ecumenical 
Conference on Foreign Missions in New York have been days full 
of significance and import? I have spoken before to many great 
audiences. I have seen the political spirit in this country kindled 
to a white heat. I have in this hall addressed great poh'tical as- 
semblages, but I never have been associated with a political cam- 
paign where the interest was sufficient to fill this hall and three 
or four overflow halls and churches three times a day for ten days. 
It is a revelation to the city of New York and to the United States, 
and to the world. Men have not taken account of these things ; they 
are taking account of them now. There is scarcely a business house 
or office in New York where they have not been talking of these great 
meetings. 

" Well, if it is commencement, then everyone who has been privi- 
leged to sit here, every one who has had any part in these meet- 
ings, is under pledge to go out into life with a renewed resolve to 
do more and to do better for foreign missions than he has ever 
done before. It has failed of its purpose if it has not touched your 
heart as it has touched mine, with a deeper sense of obligation to our 
Lord to help in the work of evangelizing the world. Every one of the 
mission boards which has been represented here, and every allied 
board and agency in the cause of missions, home and foreign, ought 
to feel an impetus and stimulus, and ought to have its treasury filled 
as never before by the grateful offerings of churches who feel their 
debt to their Lord. 

" The great Christian unity, comity — whatever you call it ; we had 
better not puzzle on names ; it simply means, my good Bishop, that 
your heart and mine have been drawn together and touched, and 
we are more than ever before brothers and brethren. I do not think at 
all that it means that the Presbyterian Church is to dissolve itself, or 



FAREWELL MEETING 55 

that the Protestant Episcopal Church is to abandon its honored and 
useful place among the Christian workers of the world ; not at all. 
The impression we want to make, that we must make, upon Christians 
at home and in mission fields, is this, that we have one Prophet, one 
Lord, one Book. 

" Why, I do not suppose that any enemy who might confront the 
United States would be left in doubt at all in a campaign that the 
Seventh Cavalry and the Twenty-second Infantry were fighting 
for the same flag. And so it ought to be among the Christian 
Churches. We have spent an immense amount of strength very 
foolishly in discussing the question as to which of the churches 
has most strictly preserved the apostolic form. Now that is a 
question that never will be settled in this world, and I think that 
questions that can never be settled might just as well never be 
discussed. T have said, that that question will never be settled 
in this world, and my judgment is — and I say it reverently, too — • 
that it will never be settled in the next, for when the Lord 
comes in His glory, when He is seen in fulfillment of the Father's 
mighty promise and the travail of His soul, and the world has 
come to Him, and every knee has bowed, and every tongue con- 
fessed, there will be no consideration of the question as to which 
of the churches was nearest to the apostolic form. It will be to the 
faithful ones out of all churches : ' Well done, thou good and faith- 
ful servant. ' 

" Is not this supreme loyalty to the Holy Catholic Church Uni- 
versal — the Church whose names are written in heaven? Is not 
that consistent? Is it impinged upon or hurt by love to my own 
Church? Not at all, any more than the love I bear for the State 
I live in impairs the sincerity or faithfulness of my allegiance to that 
great union of the States whose flag floats over us all. I do not think 
a man who does not love his State, loves the city where he lives, the 
neighbors who are about him, the home of his father and mother — 
who has not some special attachments — will ever make a good citizen 
of the United States. I believe this spirit, this discriminating spirit, 
this spirit of love and fellowship has been mightily set forward by this 
great Conference. The army will co-operate, the cavalry will not say 
to the artillery : ' We have no need of you, ' and the artillery will be 
particularly careful to stop firing when the cavalry charges. Of all 
the demoralizing incidents that can happen to an army, the worst is to 
be fired into by mistake — for it can never be done purposely — by some 
of its own men. We expect fire from the adversary ; but when, as has 
sometimes happened in a campaign in the timber or brush, or in 
confusion, a supporting column, forgetting that men of their own 
flag are in front of them, deliver their fire, no troops in the world 
can stand it; it is demoralization; it is dismay. Brethren, we will 
take care as never before that we do not stand in the way; that 
we do not by any possibility deliver a shot that shall find its mark 
in any of the regiments that march under the banner of our Lord. 

" And now, to these gentlemen who have so graciously expressed 
the thanks of the visiting delegates and missionaries, may I be 



56 SCOPE AND S[GN]FICANCE OF THE CONFERENCE 

permitted to say in your behalf that we are all debtors. No one 
ever received a prophet of God into his house that did not receive 
more than he gave. You have brought to us these precious 
women who have come from mission fields; you have brought to 
us, into our hearts and into our homes, sanctifying and inspiring 
influences with which the bread that perished is not to be com- 
pared. We part with you in sorrow, and yet bitter as they are, 
the Christian partings always are cheered b}^ the promise of the 
great gathering where all who love the Lord shall see each other 
again. We thank you for your gracious and instructive words: 
we thank you for the inspiration you have given us; we hope that 
you have caught from our hearts some of the love we bear you, 
and that you will go back to the Lord's appointed work stronger 
for our prayers and for our sympathy. 

" And now, as we bring this meeting to a close, may I not assure 
you all that the prayers of the Church in America will be offered 
with a frequency and a fervor they have never had before, and that 
the pockets and the purses of the American people will be opened 
with a generosity they have never shown before, to conduct this 
great world work — a work which is to^ bring in the day when the 
kingdoms of the earth shall become the kingdoms of our Lord. 

" God bless you all, abide with you in your places, strengthen your 
hearts, fill them with the converts that He knows so well how to 
convert, and give you success in your devoted efforts to make 
known His name to those who are in darkness." 

Impressions 

On the last day, at the close of the morning session, a special meet- 
ing was held at which the delegates were invited to give utterance 
to the impressions made upon them by the Conference in one-minute 
addresses, giving a seed-thought or nugget, as a sort of farewell word. 
" We are down to the shortest possible range," said Rev. J. T. 
Gracey, D.D., President of the International Missionary Union. 
" We are tarrying to give expression to the intensest thing we have 
received, whether it is thought or feeling; and we want rapid-firing 
rifle practice in the form of little sentences." 

Walter B. Sloan, London : " The great gatherings of this week 
have been living embodiments of great missionary movement, and be- 
hind all the instrumentalities there have been the mighty workings of 
God's Spirit. Best of all, God is with us." 

Rev. George Washburn, D.D., Robert College. Constantinople, 
" Seven years ago I came to this country to attend the Parliament 
of Religions, which was a memorable meeting ; at least it proclaimed 
to all the religions of the world, if not in the name of all the religions 
of the world, the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man ; 
but, after all, we went away from that meeting asking ourselves 
whether anything would come out of it. This, also., has been a par- 
liament, but no one to-day is asking himself whether anything will 
come out of it. We are conscious of the existence in this assembly 
of a tremendous will-force and a powerful purpose to go forward and 



IMPRESSIONS OF DELEGATES 57 

fulfill the command of our Lord, ' Go ye into all the world and preach 
the gospel to every creature.' " 

Rev. Henry N. Cobb, New York City : " To us remain the duty and 
privilege of more complete surrender, larger sacrifice, more perfect 
service. To Him the glory and the praise forevermore." 

John H. Converse, Philadelphia, Pa. : " If as business men we can 
not serve Christ as direct ambassadors, we can serve Him by sending 
others and promoting His work." 

Rev. Maurice Phillips, India : " The work nearest to the heart of 
the Master is the salvation of the human race. It was for that He 
left the throne in glory ; it was for that that He endured unparalleled 
sufifering ; and it was for that He died upon the Cross." 

Rev. John Rinman, Sweden : " The Conference has presented to 
us broader, brighter, and yet more solemn views of the mission work 
abroad. With deepest gratitude to our God, let me in all simplicity 
say that He has made known unto us not only His works, but His 
ways, during these happy days as never before. To Him be all the 
glory, to you an abundant reward, and to us grace to use the grace 
so abundantly bestowed upon us." 

H. Francis Parmelee, Japan : '" The thing which gives me most 
comfort is, aside from the inspiration and uplift of the whole grand 
series of meetings, the thought back of it all is that the people at home 
here in the Christian lands do, after all, believe in foreign missions ; 
that their hearts are in the work for the whole world; that they are 
really co-workers together with us in the foreign field and will stand 
back of us and hold the ropes." 

Rev. Dr. Borchgrevink, Madagascar: " This Conference has borne 
witness to all the world that we are going to convert the world with 
the whole Bible, from the beginning to the end, as the Word of God; 
telling all the world that it is only by the blood of Jesus Christ that 
men are saved." 

C. H. Parrish, Cane Spring, Ky. : " In the purposes of God, my 
people were brought to this country savage and slaves. God used 
the white people of the United States in making us Christians and 
citizens, and He will yet use them in the return to Africa of black 
missionaries by the thousands, who shall preach the gospel to our 
kindred. I shall bear this impression to my people, together with 
the uniform courtesy and impartiality with which your committee re- 
ceived the negro delegates from the South. For ten days at least we 
were made to forget that we were colored." 

Rev. William Ashmore, China: "We part now. Give unto us 
the right hand of fellowship and support, while you remain to carry 
on the work at home, and we go unto the heathen. Be ye unto us as 
Moses, and Aaron, and Hur, on the brow of the hill, with hands up- 
lifted toward God and outstretched toward us, and we will go down 
into the valley and fight with Amalek." 

Rev. Dr. Schreiber, Germany : " We go home convinced anew that 
the whole Evangelical Mission is one in the Lord, being quite sure 
that by God's grace this great Conference will become the means for 
advancing His kingdom with even greater rapidity than in times 



58 SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFERENCE 

past, and with more marked success than has been the case till now. 
May we be united in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, although we 
are "separated widely, till we come to meet again before His throne." 

Rev. H. H. Hibbs, Williamsburg, Ky. : " That which impressed 
me most about the Conference was that the greatest men we have had 
here are found among the missionaries." 

Robert N. Barrett, Waxahachie, Tex. : " I am impressed with the 
system and far-seeing plans of the committee and the conception of 
the programme. It was comprehensive in scope and practical in 
detail far beyond anything ever attempted before. I am impressed 
with the personnel of the missionaries and delegates. The world 
must feel the impress of the influences set in motion here." 

H. V. S. Peeke, Japan : " I have been greatly impressed by the re- 
markable agreement of the opinions of the speakers. It still remains 
that after due allowance has been made for the differences in local 
conditions in the widely separated fields of the speakers, and for the 
personal equation caused by early national and religious associations, 
a definite set of principles are gradually emerging, which are com- 
manding general assent, and which must be our guides in the prose- 
cution of our work." 

Rev. Edwin Smith, Nova Scotia : " I return to my home and work 
greatly refreshed and encouraged, having a higher sense of my re- 
sponsibility, and cherishing a deeper conviction of the reality of Chris- 
tianity. I go with the determination to press upon my people the 
necessity of giving the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the perishing world 
in this generation." 

Rev. Wm. K. McKibben, China : " It will be impossible, after 
New York, for the missionaries to doubt that the Christian world is 
with them. Henceforth, v/hen the missionaries, your hand, grapple 
with the foe, they will know they are not thrust forth alone to the con- 
flict, but that Thou, O Body of Christ! art with them. Your prayers, 
your sympathy, your fellowship, shall be courage and strength to 
them. After New York, too, we can never doubt ourselves to be one." 

Rev. W. B. Findlay, India : " The harmony that has been revealed 
in this Conference is a glorious, happy omen of the future of the 
work. Not only the brotherly interest and love which we expected in 
such a gathering, but the harmony going down to the details, seem to 
make it possible that there should be in the future co-operation 
such as will employ a missionary force five or ten times as great as 
that now in the field." 

Eugene Stock. London : ' ]\Iay I leave these verses as a farewell 
message to the Conference? ' The hand of God was to give them one 
heart.' . . . ' All the people answered with one voice.' . . . 
' All the people arose as one man.' . . . ' God grant to us all, in 
the British Empire and in America, the " one heart," the " one voice," 
and the uprising " as one man." ' " 

The Sig^nificarcc of the Ecumenical Conference 

RoHERT F. Spep.r. M.A., Secretary, Board of Foreign Missions 
Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. 

At this Conference men and women from all parts of the world, 



DEPTH OF MISSIONARY INTEREST 59 

from almost all branches of the Christian Church, met in constant 
intercourse, and compared judgments, shared experiences, took fresh 
flame from the warmth of close contact, and then went back to their 
work with new love in their hearts for one another, new zeal for the 
redemption of all the life of man, and new passion for the Saviour for 
whom they worked and by whom they lived. Because it was a rep- 
resentative gathering from the whole inhabited earth, and called not 
to legislate or to enforce opinion, it was, as all felt, a great demonstra- 
tion. It was a revelation of the unabated power of the missionary 
spirit. Its reaffirmation of faith in the fundamental convictions of the 
gospel startled many who had supposed that the Church had departed 
from these foundations. The experiences and calm judgments of a 
great body of sober men and women testified to the vital need of the 
world for the gospel. A multitude of cheap and common criticisms of 
missions fell dead before an evidence of their shallowness and false- 
hood so convincing. The Conference was a demonstration of the 
practicability of missions. Many who felt that the mission enterprise 
is a universally indiscriminate project, or who thought the forces 
were inadequate, or the obstacles insuperable, see now how reasonable 
and feasible it is. The evangelization of the world, which means of 
necessity the evangelization of a living generation in the world, does 
not appear now to be a chimerical thing. Sober and reliable mis- 
sionaries, who know of what they are speaking, proclaim that it can 
be done. Such evangelization may, or may not, mean the completion 
of the work. We have no right to assume either that it will, or that 
it will not. But that it is within the duty and ability of the Church 
thus to evangelize the world, has been one sharp and potent lesson of 
the Conference. It was a demonstration of the economical and sen- 
sible administration of missions. There is no other vrork in the 
world where so many keen, restless minds are seeking better 
methods, where the cost of carrying on the work is so sharply 
scrutinized, and all expenditures are so carefully made. Yet this 
is not a business carried on on the principles of a business. It is 
the life-work of men and women who have invested themselves, 
as well as their possessions, and who do not propose that their lives 
shall be wasted or profitless. The Conference went fearlessly and 
directly at all the practical questions of missions ; it covered over or 
concealed nothing. It spoke of failure as frankly as of success, and 
rejoiced when it found what ought hereafter to be avoided. 

The Conference was a demonstration of the missionary character of 
Christianity. In that regard it was more truly a Christian council than 
some of the great ecclesiastical councils. It proclaimed that Christ's 
religion is essentially missionary, that to receive Christ is to re- 
ceive the obligation of communicating Him, that missionary sym- 
pathy is not a matter of praiseworthy and superfluous consecration 
on the part of a section of Christians, but the solemn and unavoid- 
able responsibility of all. And the Conference demonstrated how 
fully this conception of Christianity, in theory at least, has laid 
hold upon the Church, and how attractive and impressive this view- 
is to all. Men sometimes deprecate missionary agitation on the 
ground that the subject is uninviting, and that it does not appeal 



6o SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFERENCE 

longer to the heart of men who move with their age. The Conference 
demonstrated the fallacy of this view. It interested men and women 
by the thousand. It made missionary principles burn in their hearts 
and missionary facts blaze in their imaginations. 

In an altogether uniqvie way the Conference profoundly impressed 
New York City. When it began, one paper remarked : " The great 
Ecumenical Conference is only an incident in the life of this city. In 
any other American city it would have been an event. London and 
New York are so big that they go on their way oblivious to things 
that interest even a large section of the community." But that tone 
was instantly dropped. The newspapers awoke at once to the wonder 
of it. Crowds thronged to the meetings. " It is within conservative 
limits," said the Evening Post, " to say that during the ten days' ses- 
sion of this great Conference 200,000 people have been present at the 
various gatherings. Doubtless, the same people, delegates, and those 
specially interested, have contributed unremittingly to such outpour- 
ing; but, even so, the multitudes of all denominations and all phases 
of doctrinal belief have flocked to the places where meetings were 
held. Making due allowances for mere curiosity-seekers, convention- 
loungers, and the good folk who always go where the crowd goes, the 
attendance means vast popular interest in the cause of missions. 1 
question whether any other topic, not excepting politics, prolonged for 
such a period in early spring, could attract so many auditors." To 
many this was a great surprise. Even those who had made the prepa- 
rations for the Conference did not know that it would strike the deep- 
est notes, in the newspapers and in the lives of the people of the city, 
that have been struck for many years. The people had not known 
either the magnitude, or the power, or the seriousness of the mis- 
sionary enterprise. They thought it was in the hands of weak and 
fanatical people. Few knew the enormous forces that it was wielding. 
And doubtless, the element of romance which has long since worn 
off the work, so far as those engaged in it are concerned, invested the 
Conference with interest to many. 

But what impressed the city more, and all the thoughtful people 
who attended the Conference, were the sanity, the steadiness, the 
divine wisdom of the enterprise on one hand, and on the other the 
noble, restful, cheery, modest lives of the missionaries who were its 
chief agents, and who came from every land to talk of their work and 
plan for its immense extension in the world. The real spirit of the 
movement was truly felt by the people. That was one of the triumphs 
of the Conference, that with no boasting, no unreality, it set forth, so 
that all could feel it, the real missionary spirit. Everywhere men 
acknowledged its beauty, and were quickened by it. 

It was worth everything to have this view of the nobility, the 
Christliness of the missionary enterprise shown forth. It strengthens 
belief in unselfishness and in the worth of man to see such a revelation 
of sacrifice, of the broad human gladness of it, and of the fine beauty 
of the missionary life. 

Throughout the coun.try, and in some real sense throughout the 
whole world, this influence of the Conference was felt. Weary and 
despondent missionaries waiting for re-enforcements that never came, 



REALITY OF MISSIONARY DEVOTION 6l 

and looking helplessly upon opportunities too gigantic for ten times 
their strength ; workers at home contending against lethargy, selfish- 
ness, the torpor of narrow vision and indolent ignorance ; men and 
women engrossed in other interests and never admitting missions to 
the field of their thought, felt the influence of the demonstration of 
the Conference. What made it so impressive? 

It showed the beauty of the life of unselfishness. The seven hun- 
dred missionaries who were present at it were men and women who 
were seeking nothing for themselves, but had left home and the op- 
portunities andpleasures of home, not for the sake of gain or business, 
or to earn a livelihood, but because of love of their kind. The foreign 
mission work is a supreme unselfishness. It is carried on for men 
and women whom the Church has not seen, whom the missionary has 
not seen when he first decides to give his life to them, who can render 
no return of any sort, who at first often persecute and abuse those who 
come to help them. And, instead of being morose or embittered, 
these missionaries are the sweetest, most v/holesome, hopeful, kindly 
spirited people who can be found. 

Furthermore, the Conference asserted the missionary view of life 
and life's possessions as not held by us as our own, to be used 
as we please or for our own ends, but to be regarded as trusts from 
God. We easily sink into a very tiny insularity. We call ourselves 
cosmopolitan, when we are as narrow as intelligent men can well be. 
Our own ends, our own community, our own nation, are the 
boundaries of our mterests. We will think of the other side of the 
world if we can make money out of it, but not of ourselves as bound 
to it by any ties of high motive or duty. This Conference called that 
view anathema. It asserted that we can not if we will, cut ourselves 
asunder from our brothers of other races and other faiths. All that 
we have of good we owe, and must give to them. If our religious 
faith is not so good that we must give it to those who are without it, 
then it is not good enough to be worth keeping ourselves. If it is 
good — and this Conference rested immovably on the conviction that 
there is nothing else in the world so good — then to refuse to pass it 
on to other men is malfeasance and dishonesty. The Christian con- 
science at once recognized this truth, and was impressed by it. 

And the Conference showed men the worth of association with a 
great cause. There was a visible peace and satisfaction about those 
who attended it, and that spirit of self-repression, and the suppression 
of trivial divergences, which a great cause breeds in men and women 
truly devoted to it. The missionary movement always has this effect. 
It is a liberalizing, enlarging work. Of two men otherwise equal, 
one working at home and the other abroad, the latter is pretty sure to 
become the broader man, wider in his sympathies, keener in his in- 
sight into the hearts of men. When the two men meet after years of 
separation, the missionary may know less of what has been of tran- 
sient interest in the world, but he will know more of what is enduring. 
The greatness and dignity of the missionary movement became ap- 
parent to the world without. It had never known before how great 
and worthy it was, but the movement itself has never been other than 
it is now. It aims ai everything, and it works with nothing. It pro- 



62 SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFERENCE 

poses to spread the knowledge of Christ over the world, whether it 
takes a few years or many centuries. Obstacles of climate, of gov- 
ernment, of death, all these have been met, and they will not prevent 
the missionaries from attaining their end. And yet no official influ- 
ence, no material inducement, no financial gain, none of the motives 
on which men rely can be used. This cause attempts the reforma- 
tion of life, and relies on moral and spiritual forces alone to accom- 
plish it. There is no other cause comparable with it. The Confer- 
ence showed how glorious a thing it is to surrender life to it. 

The best thing about the Conference was its truly .religious char- 
acter. There were devotional meetings each morning, and the Central 
Presbyterian Church was filled, the last afternoon, with an audience 
which gave the whole time to prayer. The sessions were opened and 
closed with prayer, but beyond this also everything was religious. 
Among all the methods of work, some of them quite material ; in all 
the machinery of administration, the supreme aim and purpose were 
never obscured. The name of Jesus was above every name. No 
other name was mentioned as His was. Business and discussion 
kept close to Him, and there was little during all the ten days which 
did not bear His spirit, and which was not done for His glory. That 
was a great lesson. We sometimes speak as though religion had de- 
cayed and lost its force. It is not so. It is a greater power to-day 
than it has ever been in the history of the world. It has not sunk into 
mere morals, and it is not mere emotion. It is still a conviction re- 
garding God and human life, ablaze in the heart, and shaping alike 
mind and will. And through the whole Conference the missionary 
enterprise was set forth as a religious enterprise, aiming at religious 
ends, and appealing to religious motives. Its purpose was declared 
to be to proclaim Christ to the world as the Saviour from sin, and the 
Lord of life. 

In all this the Conference but gave representation to the characteris- 
tics of the true missionary spirit; but it was a great thing to have them 
set forth thus evidently before the eyes of all men. It secured a new 
hearing for the missionary appeal in all Christian lands. It swept 
away much cavil which is usually raised against the summons of mis- 
sionary duty. It prepared the minds of men in a providential way 
for the fresh tide of anti-missionary criticism and unbelief which a 
great upheaval, such as we have since witnessed in China, always 
breeds. It recalled the Church to her true mission and ministry, 
spoke afresh in her ears the words of her Lord about all nations and 
the uttermost parts of the earth, and laid afresh on her heart the woes 
of mankind. 

But there were other regards in which this Conference was preg- 
nant with a great significance. An ecumenical conference after the 
pattern of the early councils would not be possible now. Cardinal 
Newman has pointed out the growing infrequcncy of these coun- 
cils, and the slow development of new doctrine between the Coun- 
cil of Trent and the Council of the Vatican. It can not be said that 
there will never be a Conference on doctrine so truly ecumenical as 
this one. But it is probable that there will not be one in this genera- 
tion. Not because doctrine has come to be regarded as of no con- 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH 63 

sequence. The delegates to this Conference probably held to their 
intellectual convictions regarding Christian doctrine with a tenacity 
and exactness never surpassed. But in some way the proportions of 
life have been righting themselves, and men perceive in their com- 
mon purposes toward mankind, and their common love toward Christ, 
and iheir common faith toward God, a power of union not to be an- 
nulled by their diverse opinions on subjects which, however im.portant, 
are yet less important than their common purposes, and love, and 
faith. In this regard the Conference was but a revelation of a 
method, and a demonstration of a fact. 

It demonstrated the essential unity of the evangelical churches. 
Far above all separating peculiarities the single Spirit of the single 
Lord lifted the hearts of his servants, and they found themselves to 
be brethren. The world which has no cohesion or unity at all con- 
stantly chides the Church for schism and discord. . But back of super- 
ficial divergence and even of deeper conscientious difference, a bond 
of divine harmony relates each Christian to all his fellows, and each 
Christian body to all other bodies. T.hough there be diversities of 
operations, one Spirit rules and pervades the whole. 

It revealed the method of ultimate union. It showed that the 
best way to heal som.e breaches is to bridge them in higher air. The 
members of the body are divided for their various functions; but all 
are united in the Head, from whom the whole body, fitly framed and 
knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to 
the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase 
of the body unto the building up of itself in love. Simply to bring 
together so many of different names, to make them accjuainted, to 
show them that they were men and brethren ; and above all this to 
warm them by the contact of open hearts before the common and 
adored Saviour, was to supply a practical illustration of the spirit, 
not of comity alone, but of Christian fellowship, and to hasten 
a little at least, the coming of the day when we shall be one, to the 
conviction of the world that the Father sent the Son to be its Saviour. 

In this spirit of unity innumerable common judgments were re- 
vealed. Some questions of mission policy, always the signal for 
divergence of view in past years, seemed to awaken but little contro- 
versy now. There never was any Conference in earlier years that 
understood its problems so well, the difficulties to be met, the extent 
of the field, and the available resources. Yet not one note of hope- 
lessness was sounded. The mission enterprise is the one surely tri- 
umphant movement. Whatever else fails, it will not fail. It can not, 
for it is an obedience to God. 

The Conference reassured those who feared that Christian missions 
would not be able to defend themselves, or to make appeal to men in 
a time when conceptions have changed greatly since the days when 
modern missions made their earlier appeals. Considerations of future 
destiny now occupy less place in the thought of men than considera- 
tions of present duty. But could anything be more favorable to the 
missionary argument than this? Such a change onlv brings out more 
clearly the Church's responsibility for the world's evangelization. 
" T]ie thought of the past threw the responsibility upon God ; the 



64 SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONFERENCE 

thought of to-day throws it upon men. The Christian thought of the 
past concerned itself chiefly with the Divine decrees ; the Christian 
thought of the present concerns itself chiefly with man's duty. And 
in this development of thought it is becoming clearer every day that 
Christ has laid upon His Church the duty of evangelizing the world." 
We may be sure that every change in the thought of men will only 
strengthen the missionary apologetic. The eternal duty of man can 
never be a matter of light concern, and missions have nothing to fear 
from the subsidence of emphasis on the future of a godless world so 
long as it is possible to look upon the v/orld's poor face and see the 
stare of its blind and weary eyes. The very impression which this 
Conference produced as it restated the missionary appeal in terms of 
the thought of the present day, showed how much more pow-erful that 
appeal has^ become. Christian missions not only hold the secret of 
all progress and life in the non-Christian nations, but they have an 
argument which irresistibly moves the hearts of all fair men who 
will listen to it and take it in. It will be able to adapt its appeal to 
each new shade of Christian thought and each new readjustment of 
perspective and proportion in Christian doctrine. 

And herein lies perhaps the greatest significance of the Conference. 
It was not a body for legislation. It met merely to suggest and to 
influence opinion and to quicken hope and courage. But whether it 
accomplishes much as a force to shape opinion and to awaken zeal, it 
has at least served its purpose as an indication of the way God's Spirit 
is moving upon life and in the world. Such conferences, though they 
serve to do little — and this Conference did much — yet serve always to 
reveal the great and irresistible movements of the Spirit of God. 
These movements go on in spite of man. They go on while man 
sleeps. They go on when man dies. And no man can fight against 
them and stay them. That impregnable conviction is laid like rock 
under the missionary movement, and is a guarantee that great as this 
Conference was, far as it exceeded all other Christian conferences, it 
was yet but promise and prophecy of more, and not the crest of a 
wave destined never again to rise so high. 



PART II 
THE MISSIONARY IDEA 



CHAPTER IV 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

Authority and Purpose of Foreign Missions — Supreme and Determining Aim 
— Source of Power — Obligation of this Generation. 



Authority and Purpose of Foreign Missions 

Rev. Augustus H. Strong, D.D., LL.D., President Theolog- 
ical Seminary (Baptist), Roclicstcr, N. Y* 

Pascal, the French philosopher and theologian, once said that 
"Jesus Christ is the center of everything, and the object of every- 
thing, and he that does not know Him knows nothing of nature, and 
nothing of himself." In the spirit of Pascal's aphorism I make but 
one reply to the questions proposed to me to-day. What is the 
authority for foreign missions? I answer: Christ. What is the 
purpose of foreign missions? I answer: Christ. He is the source 
of all authority, and the object for which all authority is exercised. 
If I can justify these statements, I shall justify this Conference, and 
all our foreign missionary work. 

Authority is the right to impose beliefs or to command obedience. 
As the etymology of the word indicates, authority is something 
added — added to abstract truth and duty. The thing added is the 
personal element — obligation to a person. We are ignorant of 
much that we need to know: there are persons from whom we are 
bound to learn. We are indisposed to do our whole duty: there 
are persons whom we are bound to obey. 

The only ultimate religious authority must be a person, the high- 
est person, and that person made known to us. Pantheism can 
give us no authority, for it has no personal Being who can add his 
witness to truth or duty. Rationalism can give us no proper au- 
thority — for reason is not the highest — it is fallible and depend- 
ent — i can safely trust and follow it only as it represents God, who 
is absolute rationality and absolute righteousness. Nor is even 
God an authority, except as He is made known to me. Agnosti- 
cism can give me no authority, for it declares God to be unknown. 
Christianity alone gives me a proper authority in matters of re- 
ligion, because it presents to me a God made known, partially m 
reason and conscience, most fully in incarnation, atonement, and 
resurrection. Because Christ is a person, the highest person, and 
that person made known to me. He can truly say: "All authority 
hath been given unto me, in heaven and on earth. 

* Carnegie Hall, AprU 23. 



68 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

The Scriptures give us two reasons why all authority belongs to 
Christ. On the one hand He is the eternal Word, the only revealer 
of God, and Himself God. He is the creating, upholding, and gov- 
erning God — the only God with whom we have to do. Behind all 
subordinate and delegated authorities, such as parents and the 
State, the Church and the Scriptures, stands the personal Christ. 
He alone has original and independent right to tell me what truth 
and duty are. The revelation in nature and in history derives all 
its authority from our apprehension of some personal presence and 
authorship in it all; and, though men may not understand it, that 
personal presence and authorship is Christ's. Christ is the Light 
that lighteth every man, even though the Light has shined in dark- 
ness, and the darkness has comprehended it not. 

All authority belongs to Christ, on the other hand, because He 
has undertaken to dissipate this darkness of the world by a special 
manifestation of God. He has joined Himself to humanity to save 
it. In Him is all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form; He 
is God manifest in the flesh; the God who was before invisible is 
declared and revealed in Christ, for He that has seen Him has seen 
the Father. This manifestation of God's personal love and right- 
eousness in Christ's life and death has added a witness to the truth, 
and a motive to obedience greater than any which abstract reason 
and uninstructed conscience could ever furnish. The throne of 
God has become the throne of the Lamb. And from that throne 
of the Lamb, the throne of the once crucified but now exalted 
Saviour, proceeds the authority for foreign missions. 

Foreign missions are Christ's method of publishing God's re- 
demption, and so of re-establishingGod's authorityover an apostate 
and revolted humanity. Without any uttered command of Christ 
they would have claims upon us, for they are founded in right rea- 
son and in the best instincts of our nature. But that uttered com- 
mand has been added, and to-day I derive the authority for foreign 
missions from Christ's express direction, from His single word 
" Go." His one injunction to the unbeheving world is " Come " — 
" Come unto me." But His one injunction to all His believing 
followers is " Go " — " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gos- 
pel to the whole creation"; " Go ye therefore, and make disciples 
of all the nations." It is the sublimest order ever given on earth. 
When I think of the breadth of the world that was to be subdued, 
of the time it has taken to subdue it, of the small numbers and the 
narrow views of those disciples, the audacity of that command 
seems almost insanity, until I realize that He is God, and that all 
other authority is but the shadow of His. 

The authority for foreign missions is the authority of Christ's 
character, of His work, of His love, of His life. How slowly that 
authority has dawned upon the minds of men! At first it must 
have seemed hardly more than the authority of a human teacher 
and example. But it was teaching about the fatherhood, and the 
nearness, and the compassion of God, about the simplicity and the 
spirituality of God's requirements, and all this emphasized and ex- 
emplified in Christ's own perfect character and life. The disciples 



AUTHORITY AND PURPOSE 69 

knew nothing as yet of Christ's divine nature or of His atoning 
work, but His character compelled their trust and allegiance. 
Ahblcsse oblige — nobility lays under obligation — not only its pos- 
sessor, but all who come in contact with it. We feel bound to imi- 
tation. When Christ said " Go," His disciples went, because they 
saw Him going, to teach, to help, and to save. 

Thus far the authority for foreign missions might be something 
external, and obedience might be matter of duty. There has been 
much religious propagandism of this sort. But there is some- 
thing better than this. Authority may take internal form and 
manifestation. In the case of the disciples it did become, and I 
trust it has become in us, the authority of an inward impulse, of 
love to Him who died for us. That love breaks through the bonds 
of isolation and selfishness, and moves us to go out to the sinning 
and suffering with a compassion like that which Jesus felt for the 
lost and perishing multitudes. When Christ bids us " Go," we 
ivish to go. The outer word has become an inner word. Woe to 
us, if we preach not the gospel. We can not but speak forth the 
things which we have seen and heard. The authority of Christ is 
now the authority of love, the authority of our better nature, the 
authority of reason and conscience emancipated from the long 
slavery of sin and endowed with the glad liberty of the children of 
God. 

There is a larger conception still of the authority for foreign mis- 
sions. It is the authority of Christ as the inmost life of the Church 
and of the universe. We learn that this love of Christ which con- 
strains us is not simply our love to Christ, or His love to us, but 
rather His love in us — His love overflowing into our souls and 
manifesting itself in us who are joined to Him and have become 
partakers of His life. When I hear the word " Go," I hear no 
arbitrary command. It is the echo of the word " Go " which the 
Father spoke to Him, and He sends us only as He was sent by the 
Father. He imparts to us His own longing to redeem; He re- 
veals to us the heart of God; He communicates to us the very life 
and movement of the Trinity; He takes our little boats in tow on 
the broad current that sets in the direction of that one far-ofif di- 
vine event toward which the whole creation moves. 

That word " Go " discloses to me the secret of the universe. 
Since all things were created through Christ and for Him, and in 
Him all things consist, I can interpret by that word the whole 
course of history, — for humanity sundered from God feels its des- 
titution and misery, and its struggles for deliverance are due to a 
preparatory working of Christ's Spirit. By this word I can inter- 
pret the inarticulate groaning and travailing of nature- — the plain- 
tive song of every bird, the sighing of every breeze, the mighty 
currents of the ocean, the steady pull of gravitation itself, all these 
exist to waft His story, all these co-operate with one who goes to 
proclaim His gospel. The sun shines, and the heart of man beats 
within him, in order that this command may be obeyed. For this 
word " Go " is not simply the word of one who lived and died 1900 
years ago in Palestine, but of Him whose goings forth are from 



70 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

everlasting, and who is Himself the very truth, and love, and right- 
eousness of God. The authority for foreign missions is the au- 
thority of Christ's character, of His work, of His love, of His life; 
the authority of Christ as a human example, as a divine Redeemer, 
as a Spirit of self-sacrificing love, as an immanent and universal 
Lord; and this authority includes that of reason and conscience, 
of the Church and the Scriptures, of all nature and all history; for 
all these are but faint reflections of Him who is God over all, 
blessed forever, in whom we and all men live, and move, and have 
our being. 

The authority for foreign missions is Christ. What is the pur- 
pose of foreign missions? Still I answer: Christ. Paul was the 
first great foreign missionary, and he tells us the purpose of foreign 
missions, when he says: " For me to live is Christ." For Christ is 
Christianity, and Christianity is Christ. We say that the purpose 
of foreign missions is to proclaim the truth, but Christ says: " I am 
the Truth." We say the purpose of foreign missions is to diffuse 
the spirit of love, but Paul says: " The Lord is the Spirit." We 
say that the purpose of foreign missions is to give new life to a dead 
humanity, but Christ says: " I am the Life." Truth, and love, and 
life are personal. Christianity is not merely the spirit of Christ, — 
it is Christ Himself. The Christian Church is not only called " the 
body of Christ," the body of which Christ is the soul, but it is said 
that " the body is Christ," and that the Church is " the fullness of 
him that filleth all in all." The Church is the expanded Christ, 
and the purpose of foreign missions is the purpose of the universe, 
to multiply Christ, to reincarnate the Son of God, to enthrone 
Christ in the hearts of men, to make all men the temples for His 
personal indwelling, that He may be the first-born among many 
brethren, and may fill the world with Himself. 

So, through the ages one increasing purpose runs. Let our 
thoughts be widened to take in that purpose and to make it ours. 
Christ is all in all. As His authority is supreme and universal, so 
His purpose is supreme and universal also. The prince in the 
Arabian story took from a walnut-shell a miniature tent, but that 
tent expanded so as to cover, first himself, then his palace, then his 
army, and at last his whole kingdom. So Christ's authority and 
Christ's purpose expand, as we reflect upon them, until they take 
in, not only ourselves, our homes, and our country, but the whole 
world of sinning and suffering men, and the whole universe of God. 
I take this great gathering of representatives from all the earth as 
proof that the earth has begun to hear the word of the Lord, and is 
preparing to obey. May this Conference mark the beginning of 
the end! May it be a sign of the coming of the King! May the 
Lord cut short His work in righteousness and make this one day as 
a thousand years! There is but one authority for foreign missions, 
and that is Christ. There is but one purpose of foreign missions, 
and that is Christ. " For of Him, and through PTim, and unto 
Plim, are all things. To Him be the glory, forever. Amen." 



AUTHORITY AND PURPOSE 7 1 

Rev. Henry T. Chapman, Secretary United Methodist Free 
Churches, Leeds, England."^ 

We are convened to consider the authority and purpose of 
Christian Missions. I want to keep to my text. It is said that 
ministers do not often do that. We have heard in our country 
during the past twenty years, and especially during the past ten 
years, this: Back to Christ; back to Christ; back from history; 
back from tradition; back from the apostles; back to Christ. And 
if there is one subject in which we need to get back in thought and 
heart to Jesus Christ, it is this question of foreign missions. 

I will not stop to speak of that factor in the authority for mis- 
sions which rests on the distinct and specific command of Jesus 
Christ, other than to ask you to consider one short verse in the 
thirteenth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew — that 
chapter of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus Christ, in expounding 
the parable of the sower, said: "The field is the world, and the 
children of the kingdom are the seed." " The field is the world " 
— no section; the whole world is the field, and those who are mem- 
bers of the kingdom of Jesus Christ are the seed which is to be 
sown over that wide field of God. 

But that on which I wish to spend a little more time is the factor 
in the responsibility, in the authority of missions which rests on the 
fact that the gospel of Jesus Christ can meet the deepest needs of 
universal man, and can fulfill the sublimest possibilities. I find in 
my own country that this is a point where there is much divergence 
of view. This is a point where many halt. We hear again and 
again this statement: " Yes, the gospel is suited to the humanity 
of the West." Your continent has given to those of us on the 
other side of the waters a very able book — Rev. Josiah Strong's 
" The New Era." In that book is worked out with great ability, 
the adaptation of the gospel to the Anglo-Saxon race. But then, 
there are China, India, Africa, and the Islands of the Sea. True, 
the gospel of Jesus Christ has lifted the deepest needs of the Anglo- 
Saxon race; has brought to it its richest blessings, on the intellect- 
ual, the social, and the domestic side. The gospel of Jesus Christ 
is suited to the development of the genius of the Anglo-Saxon race. 

But there is India, with its rich imagination, its power of subtle 
thought, its love of all that is gorgeous, and grand, and spectacular. 
There is China, with its genius and idiosyncrasies. There is the 
African race with its rich fund of mirth. Where is the proof that 
the gospel of Jesus Christ can meet the genius of the Hindoo, of 
the Chinaman? Has not the late Professor Drummond told us 
that China is a case of " arrested development "? There is much to 
be said in favor of that view. But where is the proof, that in the 
gospel of Jesus Christ there is the power to set moving onward to 
its final goal of God the arrested life of the great nation of China? 
I say, back from philosophy! Back from what has been done! I 
often feel, as I read letters which come from the foreign field, that 
every missionary secretary ought in the first instance to have been 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 33. 



72 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

a missionary, and a foreign missionary. I believe that many of our 
methods will have to be readjusted, and some of them entirely 
abandoned. But the readjustment of method, the abandonment 
of some improvement is quite a different thing from a failure in the 
gospel as the power of God unto salvation. Why am I confident 
that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to India, to 
Africa, to China, and to the Islands of the Sea? Not to make 
India or China a pale, poor copy of the Anglo-Saxon; but so to 
work in the thought and heart of India, China, and Africa, that they 
shall develop that special gift of thought and heart which God has 
wrought in their very texture, and that they shall partake of the 
Divine love at last, flashing back with other nations the goodness, 
and wisdom, and mercy, and love of God in Jesus Christ. 

I go back to Christ — I go back to Christ for my authority for 
this broad statement; not to a success here, a conquest there, and a 
triumph yonder, but I go back to the central truth of our holy re- 
ligion — " God manifest in the flesh." What flesh? The flesh of 
the Anglo-Saxon race? We are a wonderful people — no doubt of 
that; but we are not the sum total of humanity, thank God! 
The 400,000,000, the 360,000,000, and the millions on the continent 
touching this continent stand for somxCthing in the thought and 
purpose of Almighty God. " Who do men say that I, the Son of 
Man, am? " The son of Abraham? The son of what man? The 
Chinaman? The man of India? The Anglo-Saxon man? The man 
of the Islands of the Sea? " Who do men say that I, the Son of 
Man, am? " The manhood of humanity was the flesh of Jesus 
Christ, and I fall back upon the humanity of Christ as my proof that 
the gospel of the grace of God is that which every nation needs, 
and which will crown every nation in the thought and purpose of 
Almighty God. 

Let me quote just one incident, on the authority of Marcus 
Dods, in reference to a book in which a parallel and contrast are 
drawn between Buddhism and Christianity, and much to the disad- 
vantage of Christianity. Singularly enough, the writer supplies 
the antidote to his own too narrow premises and mischievous de- 
ductions in that very book. He says: " One day I stood near one 
of the great temples. With me was a friend. While we stood 
there, there came a native woman, carrying a little child in her 
arms. She took no notice of us, but when she got to the foot of 
the temple steps, she threw herself prone on the ground, holding 
up the baby in her arms. We looked. We saw the baby was ill- 
shapen; had none of that beauty and loveliness which characterize 
infant life. And then she prayed this prayer: ' Oh, grant that 
my child may grow fair, as other children! Grant that it may grow 
comely! Grant that it may grow strong! Oh, hear the cry of a 
mother, and a mother's breaking heart.' And her prayer was 
finished; and she rose and was passing away, when he who wrote 
the book, said, ' Friend, to whom have you prayed?' She said: 
*I don't know; but surely somewhere there must be someone to 
hear the cry of a mother's heart, and to keep a mother's heart from 
breaking! ' " As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so pant- 



AUTHORITY AND PURPOSE 73 

eth my soul after God, after the living God. And it is that God 
that can bind up broken hearts that the heathen world is waiting 
to be told of, and that is the authority and supreme message of 
Christian Missions. 

Bishop E. R. Hendrix, D.D., Kansas City, Mo., Methodist 
Episcopal Church* 

The missionary idea is a revealed idea. This marvelous inspira- 
tion of men is due to the inspiration of God. Only a Christian 
brain has ever been large enough to conceive of a God great 
enough to love and to save a lost world, and that very conception of 
God comes to us through a divine revelation. Back of every great 
movement is a great idea. God never summoned men to mis- 
sionary service or to work until first He put in them the mission- 
ary idea, and that missionary idea is inseparable from the idea of 
God. It was only as Paul exploited the divine nature that he 
found hid there the mystery that had been hid from the foundation 
of the world — that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
Himself. God never sent out a missionary save from a private 
audience; not to give the gospel to the world until first he had 
an audience with Jehovah himself. It was from the presence of 
their risen Lord that the apostles were sent out with the great 
commission ringing in their ears. It was only as he saw the di- 
vine Christ glorified that Paul obtained that commission that made 
him the world's greatest missionary. The missionary idea is there 
distinctly the supernatural idea, as much so as the idea of the resur- 
rection of the body. It is because this idea is supernatural and re- 
vealed, contained in the Word of God, that men go forth with that 
commission in their hands, and with that revelation, the very center 
of which is Christ. 

The missionary idea is not only a supernatural idea, but it is 
eminently a Christian idea. It comes to us from the very lips of 
the Son of God. He alone, the Son of Man, proclaiming Himself 
the brother of man everywhere, bids His disciples to be possessed 
of His spirit and of His word, and to go into all the world and to 
give this gospel to every creature. 

Moreover, it is the fundamental idea of our religion. It is the 
great fly-wheel that starts all the machinery of the Church. Our 
Lord gave but one command, and out of that command all of our 
institutional Christianity has sprung; out of it your Bible Societies, 
to print the Word; out of it your missionary Societies, to send 
forth laborers, and out of it your great Church Building, and 
Church Extension Societies; out of it your colleges; out of it your 
revivals of religion. 

Andrew Fuller, when alarmed at the spiritual lethargy of his 
church, preached a sermon on the duty of the Church to give the 
gospel to the world, and as he broadened their intellectual life and 
quickened their zeal, and stirred their purpose, he followed it up the 
following Sabbath with a sermon on the duty of the Church to give 
the gospel to the world; the third Sabbath the same theme was pre- 

• Carnegie Hall, April 24. 



74 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

sented from his desk, and then men began to inquire: " Then, if the 
gospel can save the world, can it not save our own children, our own 
community?" and from that missionary sermon there sprang one 
of the most memorable revivals in the history of any church. It is 
the carrying power of the gospel that carries it into all the world, 
that is able to save all the world. The Son of God fixed our eye 
upon that last man that we might see between us and Him every 
other man. This makes our religion, based upon this fundamental 
conception, world-wide. The Church has no other purpose in ex- 
istence; no other end to serve, save the conviction of believers, but 
this great end of giving the gospel to the world. The three things 
that belong to man which belong to no other of God's earthly 
creatures, are his religious feeling, his moral sense, and his per- 
ception of the sublime. And it is the missionary idea that appeals 
to them all. Man's religious feeling is an awakened sense of obli- 
gation in the work that is set before him; vast in conception, diffi- 
cult in execution, the very element of the sublime belonging to it. 
In the carrying out of that, man himself rises to his true greatness. 
I do not wonder that Judson was eulogized by Theodore Parker in 
language like this, when he said that if all that had ever been given 
for missions, all that had been done for missions, had produced only 
one such character as Adoniram Judson, it would have been wortn 
the expenditure. It was that deepened religious life, it was that 
large sense of moral obligation, and it was that kindled sense of the 
sublime, that bade him go forth, a map of the world in his hand, in 
full confidence that that great field should be triangulated and occu- 
pied in the name of his Lord and Master. 

The Supreme and Determining Aim 

Robert E. Speer, M.A., Secretary Board of Foreign Missions, 
Presbyterian Church in U. S. A* 

It is the aim of foreign missions that is to be defined, and not the 
aim of the Christian Church in the world, or of the Christian na- 
tions of the world. There are many good and Christian things 
which it is not the duty of the foreign missionary enterprise to do. 
Some things are to be laid, from the beginning, upon the shoulders 
of the new Christians; some are to be left to be discharged in due 
time by the native Christian churches that shall arise, and there 
are many blessings, political, commercial, and philanthropic, which 
the Christian nations owe to the heathen world, which are not to 
be paid through the enterprise of foreign missions. It is the aim 
of a distinctive, specific movement that we are to consider. 

It will help us in defining it to remind ourselves, for one thing, 
that we must not confuse the aim of foreign missions with the re- 
sults of foreign missions. There is no force in the world so power- 
ful to accomplish accessory results as the work of missions. 
Wherever it goes it plants in the hearts of men forces that produce 
new lives; it plants among communities of men forces that create 
new social combinations. It is impossible that any human tyranny 

* Carnegie hall, April 23. 



THE SUPREME AND DETERMINING AIM 75 

should live where Jesus Christ is King. All these things the 
foreign mission movement accomplishes; it does not aim to ac- 
complish them. I read in a missionary paper a little while ago 
that the foreign mission that was to accomplish results of perma- 
nent value must aim at the total reorganization of the whole social 
fabric. This is a mischievous doctrine. We learn nothing from 
human history, from the experience of the Christian Church, from 
the example of our Lord and His apostles to justify it. They did 
not aim directly at such an end. They were content to aim at im- 
planting the life of Christ in the hearts of men, and were willing to 
leave the consequences to the care of God. It is a dangerous 
thing to charge ourselves openly before the world with the aim of 
reorganizing States and reconstructing society. How long could 
the missions live, in the Turkish Empire or the Native States of In- 
dia, that openly proclaimed their aim to be the political reformation 
of the lands to which they went? It is misleading, also, as Dr. 
Behrends once declared, to confuse the ultimate issues with the 
immediate aims; and it is not only misleading, it is fatal. Some 
things can only be secured by those who do not seek them. Mis- 
sions are powerful to transform the face of society, because they 
ignore the face of society and deal with it at its heart. They yield 
such powerful political and social results because they do not con- 
cern themselves with them. 

It will help us also to remind ourselves that we must not confuse 
the aims of missions with the methods of missions. It is an easy 
thing to select a method with a view to the accomplishment of some 
given end, and then, because the end is difficult of accomplishment, 
because the method is easy of operation, because its results, apart 
altogether from the main aim, are pleasant and useful in them- 
selves, it is easy to exalt the method into the place of the end. Have 
not many of us seen this same happen, to be quite frank, in 
our schools? We establish a school with a view to the realization 
of our aim; the aim becomes a difficult thing, the maintenance of 
the school is an easy thing. It is a good and civilizing thing in it- 
self, and by and by we sacrifice for the lesser good the greater aim. 
Our method rises up into the place of our end and appropriates to 
its support for its own sake that which the aim had a right to claim 
should be devoted to it for the aim's sake alone. Let us once and 
for all distinguish in our minds between the aim of missions and the 
results and methods of missions. 

Having cleared the ground so far, what is the aim of foreign 
missions? For one thing, it is a religious aim. We can not state 
too strongly in an age when the thought of men is full of things, 
and the body has crept up on the throne of the soul, that our work 
is not immediately and in itself a philanthropic work, a political 
work, a secular work of any sort whatsoever; it is a spiritual and a 
religious work. Of course, religion must express itself in life, but 
religion is spiritual life. I had rather plant one seed of the life of 
Christ under the crust of heathen life than cover that whole crust 
over with the veneer of our social habits or the vestiture of West- 
ern civilization. We go into the world not primarily as trustees 



76 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

of a better social life; we go as the trustees of His life who said of 
Himself: " I am come that they might have life, and might have it 
more abundantly." " The bread that I will give is my flesh, which 
I will give for the life of the world." 

" The aim of missions," to borrow President Washburn's phrase, 
" is to make Jesus Christ known to the world." You can adopt other 
phraseology, if you please. You can say the aim of missions is the 
evangelization of the world, or to preach the gospel to the world. 
And if we understand these terms in their scriptural sense, they are 
synonymous with the phrase which I have just quoted. But many 
of us will persist in using them at less than their scriptural value. 
And to make perfectly clear what the aim of missions is, I para- 
phrase them in these other words — the aim of foreign missions is 
to make Jesus Christ known to the world. 

And almost any method, almost any agency, may be recognized 
as legitimate Which subjects itself with utter fidelity to this supreme 
aim. As Alexander Duff said years and years ago, in a confer- 
ence in this city, which was the prototype and forerunner of this: 
" The chief means, of Divine appointment, for the evangelization 
of the world are the faithful teaching and preaching of the pure 
gospel of salvation by duly qualified ministers and other holy and 
consistent disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, accompanied with 
prayer and savingly applied by the grace of the Holy Spirit; such 
means, in the providential application of them by human agency, 
embracing not merely instruction by the living voice, but the trans- 
lation and judicious circulation of the whole written Word of God, 
the preparation and circulation of evangelical tracts and books, as 
well as any other instrumentalities fitted to bring the Word of God 
home to men's souls, together with any processes which experience 
may have sanctioned as the most efficient in raising up everywhere 
indigenous ministers and teachers of the living gospel." I call 
that fair and broad. It sets out openly a range of mission effort 
that will throttle and restrict no useful missionary enterprise, and 
it exalts to a predominant and royal place the supreme end of mak- 
ing Jesus Christ known to His world. 

I choose this language because it does not lift off our shoulders 
the burden of responsibility that we can not escape, and it does not 
lay there a burden of responsibility that we can not bear. We dare 
not say that we have done our duty when we have spoken Christ's 
name to the world, or that we have made Jesus Christ known to the 
world when we have given the world such a proclamation of Christ 
as would suffice for us who already know Him to take in the full 
meaning of the message. Neither, on the other hand, dare any 
man tell us that we are to struggle, hopeless, under the burden of 
the world's conversion. We can not convert one single soul; how 
shall we convert the world? Yet, midway between the position of 
no responsibility and of all responsibility, we stand sharing some- 
thing with God, sharing also something with our brethren of the 
world. We can not sever ourselves from that link of loving sym- 
pathy which binds us to their death; we can not sever ourselves 
from that link of loving sympathy which binds us to His life. We 



THE SUPREME AND DETERMINING AIM 77 

are meant to be, between His life and their death, channels of the 
grace and salvation of God. 

The aim of missions is to make Jesus Christ known to the world 
with a view to the salvation of men for that eternity which embraces 
alike the time that is to come and the time that now is. We can 
not narrow salvation to but one world, this one or the next. And 
yet, even so, I have not exhausted the statement of our real aim. 
It is not a purely individualistic gospel with which we are charged. 
Our duty lies certainly to our own generation, but it does not stop 
there. We are bound to preach to every person in the world the 
gospel that Christ is his Saviour; we are bound also to make known 
to the world that there is a body of Christ, which is His Church, 
and to gather up these saved men into visible churches which shall 
be outward evidence of the body of Christ, and shall secure to the 
gospel an influence and perpetuity which institutions and not in- 
dividuals must supply. We owe it to Henry Venn, one of the 
strongest minds that has ever worked on this missionary problem, 
we owe it to Dr. Warneck, to Rufus Anderson, that this element 
in missionary policy and duty has been properly emphasized. We 
are to establish and foster native churches, self-extending, self- 
maintaining, self-directing, which shall carry out to their own peo- 
ple, whom we may not reach, the message that has come to them, 
and shall carry down into the generations that are to come after 
them the blessings which we have given them as their own. This 
is the aim of foreign missions, to make Jesus Christ known to the 
world with a view to the full salvation of men, and their gathering 
into true and living churches in the fields to which wc go. 

And this is our supreme aim. It is a just thing to challenge 
the world to sympathy with missions, because of the philanthropic 
jaand social results that missions achieve, and the heroic spirit which 
' they display. But our supreme aim is neither to establish repub- 
lics or limited monarchies throughout the world, nor to lead Chi- 
nese or Hindoo people t^ijvear our dress, or to remodel their social 
institutions where these are already wholesome and clean. Our 
supreme aim is to make Jesus Christ known. I make room in my 
uview of the world for all other forces than ours. I believe that 
God is King, and that as surely as His hand is upon us to-day, and 
upon the work of missions, it is upon all the great forces that are 
making this world. I will not acknowledge that the force of politi- 
cal influence has escaped from His control, that He stands impo- 
tent before the commerce and civilization of the world. I believe 
His hand is upon those things; that they play at last into His 
mighty purposes; that they are but part of His tremendous influ- 
ence; that they and all the forces of life do but run resistlessly on 
to the great goals of God. But I believe also that these things 
are but as chaff before the wind, are but as " the fading dews of the 
morning before the roaring floods," compared with the power that 
we hold in our hands from His pierced hand, who died and rose 
again, and who is King of them that reign as kings, and Lord of 
them that rule as lords. This is the supreme aim of Christian 
missions. 



7^ GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

It is also its determining aim. We must confess that we have 
lost sight, too often and too sadly, of the determining character of 
our mission aim. We have sometimes allowed ourselves to drift 
into methods of work that presuppose a quite contrary aim. When 
we lift ofi the shoulders of a new native church, for example, the 
burdens that it must bear, if it is ever to grow, we think we are deal- 
ing kindly, while we are taking its life and are false to our own su- 
preme aim. We are here to do our own work, and not other peo- 
ple's work, or the work of other agencies or other forces. Our 
methods of work, in their proportion, in their perpetuation, should 
be ruled as with an iron hand by the supreme and determining aim 
of our work. 

And not alone the methods of missions must be brought into ut- 
ter subjection to their supreme and determining aim, but our spirit 
and the spirit of the enterprise must be ruled by that aim. We 
propose for ourselves no promiscuous and indefinite project; we 
have set before ourselves, sharp, distinct, and clear, the aim and 
purpose that have been given us to pursue. We have our own 
clear piece of work to do, and with a spirit as clear as our work, 
fruitful, persistent, indomitable, we are to go out, our spirit ruled, 
as well as our plans, by the aim and purpose of the work that has 
been committed to us by' our Lord. 

And, my friends, many of you not distinctively and technically re- 
lated to the mission work, there is a relation between this aim and 
your spirit, too. Those, who in the Christian churches at home, are 
responsible for this enterprise, are not summoning the Christian 
Church to any miscellaneous and undefined task; they are calling it 
to a project plain, clear, simple, practical. The Church could do 
the work if it would, if this aim ruled its spirit. I was glad to read 
on the first page of our programme those dying words of Simeon 
Calhoun: " It is my deep conviction, and I say it again and again, 
that if the Church of Christ were what she ought to be, twenty 
years would not pass away till the story of the Cross would be ut- 
tered in the ears of every living man; " and there came back across 
my memory this morning the words of a resolution of the Ameri- 
can Board, adopted, I believe, at its annual meeting in Hartford, in 
1836, that in view of the signs of the times and the promises of God, 
the time had arrived to undertake a scheme of operation looking 
toward the evangelization of the world, based upon the expectation 
of its speedy accomplishment. Sixty-four years have rolled by 
since then. The promises of God have not been abrogated. Each 
passing year has only given them fresh authentication, has only 
touched with new hope and glory the signs of the times. We 
stand here to-day before these same promises, vindicated by two 
generations more of trial, face to face with an open and appealing 
world. Has not the time now come at last, for action, for great 
action, for a serious attempt by the whole Church to attain our 
aim? 



THE SUPREME AND DETERMINING AIM 79 

Rev. Paul de Schweinitz, Secretary Board of Missions Mora- 
vian Church, Bethlehem, Pa."^ 

There is no authority for foreign missions which will convince 
one who is not a follower of Jesus, the Christ, that it is his duty 
to further this cause. But Christians call Jesus, whom they 
acknowledge to be the Christ — i.e., the very revelation of God to 
them — their Lord and Master. A lord and master says to this 
one: " Go," and he goeth; and to another " Come," and he cometh: 
and to his bondservant, " Do this," and he doeth it. The greatest 
missionary of all ages, Paul the Apostle {i.e., the missionary), calls 
himself the bondservant of Jesus, the Christ. All sinners, who 
have found in the Christ their Saviour, become His bondservants, 
purchased by Him at the price of His own life. Therefore, they 
have henceforth nothing to do but to go if He says " Go"; and 
to do this, if He says, " Do it." This is an absolutely binding obli- 
gation resting upon everyone who has accepted Jesus as his 
Saviour, without any exception whatsoever. The titles " Lord " 
and " Master," which we speak so glibly and use so constantly, 
must mean this or they mean nothing. 

The beauty of this position is that it does away with the necessity 
of struggling with all metaphysical questions about the ultimate 
destiny of the heathen who have not heard of Christ; with all ques- 
tions about the future probation of the heathen, and similar prob- 
lems. For those who accept Jesus as their Master, these things 
have no bearing upon their authority for carrying on foreign mis- 
sions, or upon the duty and necessity of this work. The Master 
has spoken and commanded — that is sufficient; all questioning is 
ended. The whole work of foreign missions is thus reduced to a 
mere matter of personal obedience to Jesus, the Christ, to whom we 
owe our eternal salvation. Is there a single, solitary Christian 
who can claim to be excepted from this obedience? 

But we venture to say that we can cite, if not a higher authority, 
at all events a higher incentive for foreign mission work than even 
the great commission of the Master. The effectiveness of an in- 
centive must be judged by the results it produces. We may be 
permitted to illustrate this by a concrete case. The Moravian 
brethren are admittedly the pioneers in the modern missionary 
movement of the Church of Christ. The record of their labors 
was one of the causes leading William Carey to organize his mem- 
orable missionary society in May, 1792. Throwing a copy of the 
Periodical Accounts of Moravian Missions upon the table, he is 
said to have exclaimed: " See what these Moravians have done! " 

In 1790, after less than sixty years of missionary effort, they had 
twenty-five firmly established mission stations in five widely sepa- 
rated countries, with 15,000 baptized adults, and with possibly 
double the number of adherents. Even to-dav the Moravians have 
for every fifty-eight communicants in the home churches a mis- 
sionary in the foreign fields, maintaining 192 stations in twenty-one 
different countries, and for every member in the home churches 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



8o GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

they have 2.6 members in the congregations gathered from among 
the heathen. 

Now, then, what was and is the incentive for foreign missionary 
work, which has produced such results. While acknowledging the 
supreme authority of the great commission, and yielding it com- 
plete and implicit obedience, the Moravian brethren have ever em- 
phasized as their chief incentive the inspiring truth drawn from 
another word of Scripture. Dwelling, as they ever have, upon 
Christ and Him crucified as the chief theme of their preaching 
both to civilized and to savage sinners, and making His actual suf- 
ferings the spur to all their activity, they fastened upon the great 
prophecy of the suffering Messiah as their incentive to foreign 
mission work. 

When his soul shall make an offering for sin, he shall see his 
seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall 
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and 
shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant 
make many righteous: and he shall bear their iniquities. There- 
fore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide 
the spoil with the strong: because he poured out his soul unto 
death, and was numbered with the transgressors: yet he bare the 
sins of many, and maketh intercession for the transgressors.* 

From this they drew as their missionary battlecry: 

" To win for the lamb that was slain, the reward of his suffer- 
ings." 

That was the incentive that made them ready to become slaves, 
if necessary, among the negroes of the West Indies; that sent, and 
sends, them joyfully to the bleak ice-girt coasts of Greenland, Labra- 
dor, and Alaska; that caused them to count their lives not precious 
among the warriors of the American forest; that sent them fear- 
lessly into the pestilential swamps of Surinam to lay down their 
lives by the score; that sent them cheerfully to the degraded Hot- 
tentots and the fierce Kaffirs of Africa, to the scarce human Pa- 
puans of Australia; that sends them to the revolting lepers of 
Palestine and Surinam, and to uncouth heathen at the uttermost 
extremities of the earth. 

A clear realization of the terrible cost of our salvation to our 
brother-man, Jesus, who is at the same time the Son of God, must 
fill our hearts with a burning zeal to do something for Him. We 
feel that we must compensate Him in some way for the awful suf- 
ferings, physical, mental, and spiritual, which He endured in work- 
ing out our salvation. 

To give Him ourselves, to devote our lives to His service in a 
general way, is not satisfying to the soul yearning with love for the 
Saviour, for that is His simple right; He has purchased that and 
paid a tremendous price for it. The only way we can reward Him 
is by bringing souls to Him. For that He died. When we bring 
Him souls, then we bring Him the reward of His sufferings. That 
is the compensation for the travail of His soul. Then shall He 

* Isaiah 53:10-12. 



THE SUPREME AND DETERMINING AIM 8l 

be satisfied, when He sees this spoil of His dearly-bought victory 
on the cross. 

The more degraded and debased the people brought under the 
sway of the Saviour, the greater His reward, for the more evident 
does the regenerative power of His Spirit thereby become. 

In no other way can we so effectively bring the suffering Saviour 
the reward of His passion as by missionary labor, whether we go 
ourselves or enable others to go. Get this burning thought of 
" personal love for the Saviour, who redeemed me," into the hearts 
of all Christians, and you have the most powerful incentive that 
can be had, and all the authority that is needed, for missionary ef- 
fort of every kind. 

Oh, if we could make this missionary problem a personal one, 
if we could fill the hearts of the people with a personal love for this 
Saviour who died for them, the indifference of Christendom would 
disappear and the kingdom of Christ would appear. 

The explicit command of Christ on the one hand, and this one 
possibility of bringing Christ the reward of His sufferings on the 
other, furnish us with the all-sufficient authority and incentive for 
every form of foreign missionary activity. 

The supreme and determining aim of foreign missions is nothing 
less than the establishment of Christ's eternal kingdom. This con- 
summation, for which all the saints at rest long, and for which the 
whole Church Militant labors, is inseparably bound up with the 
solution of the missionary problem. For Christ Himself has said: 

" And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole 
world for a testimony unto all nations; and then shall the end 
come."* 

So, then, implicit obedience to the Master, personal love for the 
Saviour, and the supreme effort to bring about the consummation 
of Christ's glory, find their most direct and effective fulfillment in 
untiring missionary activity. 

Rev. Henry C. Mabie, D.D., Secretary American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union, Boston, Mass.'\ 

In what I am to say, I wish to speak of the determining aim con- 
sidered as to the instrumental side of it — our human part in the 
setting up of Christ's kingdom on earth. There is one word 
which appears to me to embody this whole thought. It is a word 
that I fear has been very much narrowed and, perhaps, clouded for 
some people. And yet, there it stands upon the pages of the New 
Testament — one word, the largest word in the New Testament, 
descriptive of the human side of this undertaking. I refer to the 
word " witness." It occurs 175 times in the New Testament, in 
one form or another, in simple or compound form. It is spoken 
upon the assumption that the authority for this work is not ours, 
but Christ our Lord's, and that those who engage in the undertak- 
ing have taken their place as absolute subordinates under Him. This 
word " witness," I need not tell you, is synonymous with 



* Matthew 24:14. 

+ Central Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



82 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

" martyr." Stephen was the first martyr in that ApostoHc age, 
and the first witness who went to the uttermost in the expression 
of the Lord's will, and his Lord's message, and died in the exer- 
cise. And prospectively, constructively, everyone that becomes a 
witness of Christ, and His work, and His message needs authority 
constructively, accepts death, death in advance. 

There were two things predicted of the day of Pentecost. One 
was coupled with the command to wait in that upper room: the 
Spirit of Christ was to fall upon the Church, and unswathe it. And 
I take it that in Christ's thought it was a permanent thing, done 
once for all. As the believer is baptized once for all at the begin- 
ning of his Christian life, and is expected to live in the power and 
new import of that baptism, increasing constantly, so the New Tes- 
tament Church on the day of Pentecost received its baptism of 
power once for all, and was to live in the power of that baptism. 
The other followed, upon the induement of power. " Ye shall l3e my 
witnesses." Every disciple of the Lord was to become a witness, 
a martyr — and that is the synonym of missionary; a man sent 
out of himself — not necessarily out of the country, nor across the 
ocean, nor among pagans — but sent out of himself the natural 
man, the self-centered man assuming and presuming to control 
the issues of his own life. Pentecost meant, then: You are to wait 
as the Church of God until the induement falls, and when it comes, 
the Church will be constituted a witness. That was the constitu- 
tion; that was the prime, cardinal, fundamental idea of the Church 
of Christ in all its membership; its rank and file — its laity, if you 
please, as well as its ministry; its women as well as its men; its 
children as well as its adults. " Ye shall become my martyrs " — 
not one exception. 

Where, then, is left the privilege of making the missionary con- 
ception and enterprise a thing optional, according to a man's own 
natural preference, or even his natural gifts, of which he may speak? 
The Church was baptized once for all into that relation of martyrs 
or witnesses. 

Let us freshly study this word and come into its meaning. I am 
perfectly sure that the profoundest impression that will be carried 
away from this great Conference by any delegate or visitor, will 
be that received from the living witness who has come back from 
the New Hebrides, Central Africa, or the heart of China, with a 
testimony, and embodying that thing in himself. So our Lord 
answered to Pilate: "To this end was I born, and for this cause 
came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth." 
That was the synonym of the earthly mission of Jesus Christ, and 
an important side of it — that He should bear witness to the truth. 

Turn to Peter on the day of Pentecost. What makes this man 
so different from what he was a few days before, when he trembled 
at the sight of the servant girl at the palace, and denied bitterly 
with oaths that he knew the man at all? He has simply been 
erected into a living witness. He is a martyr now; no fear of mortal 
death. He is not reckoning with time factors or earth forces. He 
stands bathed with the light of the celestial world; a sort of minia- 



THE SUPREME AND DETERMINING AIM 83 

ture reproduction of the first, the real, and faithful witness, Christ 
His Lord. And so he says over again, in the same spirit and 
power : " We are witnesses." Thus Paul, some years later, says to 
the elders at Miletus gathered before him, that he goes bound in 
the spirit to Jerusalem, the very hotbed of bigotry. He knows 
not the things that shall befall him there, makes no reckoning of 
what harm might come to him, or how he should most adroitly 
escape from the plot of the hateful and bigoted Jews. One thing 
he does know — " in every city bonds and afflictions abide me." He 
was to be the slave and martyr there. The sure mark of his min- 
istry was to be the bond and the affliction for Jesus's sake. And 
then hear him add : " But none of these things " — no matter how 
great the perils were or how certain the death was — " None of these 
things move me." " Neither count I my life as dear." The 
prime qualification for missionary service is that the natural life 
shall be relatively — is — of no account. " If so be that I finish my 
course with joy." Here he has before him the thought of his 
Saviour's plan; nothing morbid in it; because the joy is divinely be- 
gotten, and survives even death. " And the ministry which I have 
received of the Lord Jesus," here is the climax of it all — to do 
what? What is the equivalent of all these great and sublime 
things? " That I may testify (or bear witness) to the gospel of 
the grace of God." That was the equivalent of the apostolate of 
St. Paul. Some use the term of preaching the gospel for a wit- 
ness in a most narrow and superficial sense; but Paul had no such 
conception. Paul was a witness. He never was anything more 
than that, and he never was anything less than that, in so far as he 
was the typal, the arch-typal, the model of all missionaries. The 
determining aim, then, instrumentally speaking, of foreign mis- 
sions, is that he who entertains the thought of that service shall 
be constituted into a witness; saying not his own things, his own 
thoughts, his own words; carrying out not his own self-chosen form 
of life, but holding himself in absolute subordination to Him who 
had an eternal plan for him, and was progressively leading him 
into the realization of that plan. 

So the Apostle could say: " I have learned in whatsoever state 
I am, therein (or therewith )to be content," because he Vv^as assured 
through the witness of the Spirit and the providence of God, that 
he was progressively finding his way into God's eternal plan for 
him. Never hurried, never flurried, nor worried, nor falling into 
a state of fussiness lest he should not accomplish the thing that his 
own ambition seized. " I have learned " — I have been initiated into 
a divine secret — " I have learned both how to abound and hovv^ 
to suffer," " both how to be full and to be hungry." And he meant 
to say, " with equal satisfaction," because he accepted his place, and 
his task, and the measure of his achievement by the plan of God 
for him. He was a martyr; he was a witness. He had the de- 
termining aim of the eternal counsel, and plan, and foreknowledge 
of God to be His witness. 

Often he refers to himself as the prisoner of Jesus Christ. " Paul, 
the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles." I think that is the 



84 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

very essence of the missionary relationship — the Lord's prisoner. 
Not the prisoner of Rome, though, in a Roman prison as he wrote. 
He saw straight through outward circumstances and environments 
God's plan for him. " I am Christ's prisoner — not the prisoner of 
Caesar, nor the prisoner of any Jewish authority — the Lord's pris- 
oner." So, again, he is an ambassador in bonds, or — for he uses 
a verb and not a noun — he is " conducting an embassy." Commis- 
sioned of the most high God. He did not look like it. You can 
hear the rusty old chain of the cell clank upon his wrist, almost as 
he writes the words " I am conducting an embassy in a chain." 
Oh, what a paradox! But, beloved, that is what our missionary 
brethren have been doing in these missionary lands. They have 
been conducting embassies in chains. What limitations they have 
suffered! — sickness, infirmity, separation from wife and children, 
filled with poisons coursing through their veins. They are con- 
ductors of Heaven's embassies in a chain, in a limitation, which 
God's providence permits. But they do not complain about it, 
indeed, they feel a freedom even with the chain; an emancipation 
coexisting with the bond. That is the paradox of life — of Chris- 
tian life, of the martyr's joy and the missionary's triumph. 

Down, then, beneath all these artificial notions of missionary 
service, romantic, sentimental, or what not — back, indeed, to Christ, 
and back to the apostolic times for our conceptions of the author- 
ity, and the purpose, and the determining aim of foreign mis- 
sions! It is all summed up in one word: "Ye shall be my wit- 
nesses." 

Now, thank God! we don't have to accomplish everything. God 
says : " Now, my Church, it is your business to be faithful here. 
I will take care of the execution, and the success, and the outcome." 
Because, forsooth! God has given us a little ingenuity for organiza- 
tion, we attempt to take this work out of God's hands, and do it 
ourselves, as if the power or efficiency were of us. What is the re- 
lation, then, between this witness and the ultimate triumph? 

I want to put together two verses that are often separated, in the 
twenty-fourth of Matthew. We find here the term, " The gospel 
for a witness." That is only half. " This gospel of the kingdom 
shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; 
and then shall the end come," and by " end " I understand the con- 
summation. The consummation, then will come; God's blessing on 
your witness. After the testimony of Peter, Pentecost; after the 
testimony of Luther, the Reformation; after the testimony of the 
Moravians, the Careys, the Judsons, Livingstones, Morrisons, 
Duffs, and Patons! The consummation! Christ does not tell us 
just what kind of a consummation. There are a great many kinds, 
to be climaxed at last by the great, great, greatest of all consumma- 
tions — the personal coming of the Lord. How much may lie be- 
tween this present hour and that final consunnnation, it is not ours 
to know; but we are to believe in tlie consunnnation. So that the 
real theme of that great passage in the twenty-fourth of Matthew, 
if I am correct, is this: the gospel for a witness and a consumma- 
tion. Leave out the consummation and everything lands in ap- 



THE SUPREME AND DETERMINING AIM 85 

parent failure. Keep before the Church the hope of the triumph 
that Christ shall bring, and you will never be discouraged. 

" Be content, Oh 3'e Church of God! to be as living witnesses, 
as martyrs, in America, as really as in Africa, laying life itself, and 
time, and gift, and talent, and fortune on His altar; and as sure as 
God is God, that trust will have its divine and heavenly answer in 
God's own appointed time and way." 

Rev. J. I. Vance, D.D., Vicc-Chainnan Executive Committee 
Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church in U. S. (South), Nashville, 
Tcmi* 

"Why should we believe in foreign missions? Why should we 
contribute to foreign missions? Why should we give our life to 
this great cause? One might argue the case from the needs of the 
heathen world; from the moral degradation and spiritual destitu- 
tion of pagan and heathen peoples. It is possible to draw a picture 
dark enough to touch the heart of the most indififerent. And yet 
I do not think it is necessary to do this in order to get an argu- 
ment for foreign missions. It is possible for us still to clothe 
our call for foreign missions with the words which Christ says to- 
day, not less than nearly 2,000 years ago : " Go ye into all the world, 
and preach the gospel to every creature." And yet, I believe it is 
possible for us at the summit of this century to clothe our cause 
with a new and perhaps a supreme indorsement from God, by rea- 
son of what He has done during the years of the century now com- 
ing to its conclusion. 

It has been a century of most wonderful progress, and its great- 
est triumph will be found in the mission work of the Church of 
Christ. Many other causes have been exploited and championed, 
but the one cause which has been completely vindicated is that of 
foreign missions. I never speak upon this subject without feel- 
ing that there are probably some in the audience who are not in 
sympathy with my theme. A good woman said to me only a few- 
days since, " I believe in home, but not in foreign missions." There 
are many who say the same, yet the two are one. They have 
the same center — the heart of Christ. The only difference is in 
the radius described. I asked this woman what she did with the 
command of Jesus, " Go ye into all the world." She replied: " I 
have never been able to get around what Christ said, yet I do not 
believe in foreign missions." So it is; if you do not believe in 
foreign missions you are taking issue with Christ. But I do not 
come to argue this question. Arguments are not couplers to hold 
us closer together, but buffers to keep us apart. I propose simply 
to recite certain conspicuous facts. 

Think of what missions meant 100 years ago, and then what they 
mean now. Then it was a forlorn cause, indeed. Then the doors 
of the nations were all closed, and the Church was unmissionary 
or anti-missionary. When a young man dared to stand up in a 
general assembly and plead for foreign missions, an old man 
commanded him to sit down, declaring that if God wanted the 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 13. 



S6 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

heathen saved He would find a way to do it, and would attend to 
it Himself. But the flame in the heart of Carey was not extin- 
guished, and now what do we see? Now the sky is ablaze with 
light. There is not a self-respecting church in existence which 
would tolerate in its pulpit a minister who was opposed to foreign 
missions. Here, in the greatest city in the world, in the closing 
year of the greatest century of the world, thousands are gathered 
to discuss the greatest theme of all times — Missions. 

Last year $15,000,000 was contributed to the cause of foreign 
missions; there were 15,000 foreign missionaries in pagan and 
heathen lands; 60,000 native ministers and helpers; a native church 
consisting of 1,255,000 communicants; more than twenty-five mis- 
sionary stations in heathen lands; 76,000 converts brought out of 
heathendom into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and a Christian con- 
stituency in the heathen world of 3,500,000 souls. Just a century. 
What wonderful progress! The picture could scarcely be darker 
a hundred years ago. It could scarcely be brighter now, and God 
bids us at the summit of the century, standing here where we may 
look backward and then forward, turn our faces toward the dawn 
and look into the future at what may be done. 

I want to enumerate some of the facts which have been vindi- 
cated in the history of missions. 

1. It is plainer than ever that the mission of the Church is the 
evangelization of the world. I do not believe that you can get a 
reason, an adequate reason, for the existence of the Church this side 
of the great commission. The Church is a Missionary Society. 
Jesus Christ sent it into the world to evangelize the world. And as 
the Church carries on this great enterprise, it is safe and sound at 
home, and it is accomplishing God's will in the ends of the earth. 

2. The mission of the Church is feasible; the evangelization of 
the world can be done. It is a tremendous task; 500,000,000 souls 
are to change the belief and the life of three times as many. Foreign 
mission work is sublime in its audacity. Yet that audacity is not 
so great now as when Jesus, standing in the midst of a handful of 
disciples, first gave the command — " Go ye into all the world." But 
remember that in its sublime audacity, mission work is divine. The 
conversion of one Chinaman, or of one Japanese, proves that these 
lands can be won to Christ. The most impressive thing to me 
about this great missionary movement is that not a pessimistic word 
is spoken. The missionaries chant no dirge. Theirs is a song of 
hope. They say: " All we want is men; give us the men, and India 
and China will be redeemed within the next generation." 

3. Jesus satisfies the heart's hunger. Human nature is the same 
everywhere. The task of the gospel in foreign lands is the same 
that confronts it here. Christ is a world-Saviour. The gospel is 
like the old village pump. Whoever comes has his thirst slaked — 
the dusty, weary tramp, or the governor in his carriage. So. 
whoever comes to the gospel fountain, white man, black man, yel- 
low man, red man, finds all that he needs in Christ. Why does 
Jesus satisfy heart-hunger? Because the soul longs for God and 
heaven, and Christ reveals these. He is God's home song. 



THE SOURCE OF POWER 87 

4. Jesus is the adequate power and inspiration of all mis- 
sionary effort. There are great difficulties in the way, but 
Christ is equal to them all. I asked a bright young missionary 
what were her chief difficulties. She replied that she had never 
known discouragement, except when she had heard that the Church 
at home was losing interest in the work. We are the greatest ob- 
stacle. But Jesus promises to be with His evangels, and He is 
sufficient. The missionaries all testify that He redeems His prom- 
ise. And it is when we look away from Him that we lose our in- 
terest. On that dark night on the Sea of Galilee, why was Peter 
enabled to walk on the water? Because Jesus said, " Come," and he 
obeyed the voice of the Saviour. It is a picture for our encourage- 
ment. He is in foreign lands. He says, " Come," and when we un- 
dertake to obey, He will give us strength to accomplish. 

5. The spirit of missions is the spirit of Calvary. It is not the 
spirit of worldly interest or endeavor, but the spirit of sacrifice. 
What the Church needs is not more influence or talent, but a fresh 
baptism of the Spirit. If the missionary movement has demon- 
strated anything, it has demonstrated that Jesus Christ, not solely 
here in America, but in China, and Africa, and Japan, and the 
heathen nations of the world, has power to forgive sin; and for one 
to lose faith in this cause is for him to lose faith in Jesus Christ. 
What we need to-day is no new commission, no new Saviour, no 
new scheme of salvation — what we need is a fresh baptism of the 
old spirit of Calvary, because the old spirit of Calvary is the spirit 
of missions. 

The Source of Power 

Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, Superintendent China Inland Mission, 
China. ^ 

Our subject this morning is, the Source of Power for Christian 
Missions, and, in a Vk^ord, power belongeth unto God. 

The strength of a chain is limited to that of its weakest link. If, 
therefore, we are connected with the source of power by a chain, 
the weakest link wiU be the limit to which we can avail ourselves of 
it. But if our connection is direct and immediate, there is no hin- 
drance to the exercise of the mighty power of God. 

God Himself is the great source of power. It is His possession. 
" Power belongeth unto God." And He manifests it according to 
His sovereign will; yet not in an erratic or arbitrary manner, 
but according to His declared purposes and promises. 

Further, God tells us by His prophet Daniel that the people that 
do know their God shall be strong and do exploits ; and they that 
understand among the people shall instruct many. If it be ordi- 
narily true that knowledge is power, it is supremely true in the case 
of the knowledge of God; those who know their God do not at- 
tempt to do exploits, but do them. We shall search the Scriptures 
in vain, from Genesis to Revelation, for any command to attempt 
to do anything. God's commands are always, " Do this." His 



♦Carnegie Hall, April 23. 



88 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

prohibitions are always, " Do not do this," If we beHeve the com- 
mand to be from God, our only course is to obey, and the issue 
must always be success. 

F"urther, God's power is available power. We are a supernat- 
ural people, born again by a supernatural birth, kept by a super- 
natural power, sustained on supernatural food, taught by a super- 
natural Teacher, from a supernatural Book. We are lead by a 
supernatural Captain in riglit paths to assured victories. The 
risen Saviour, ere He ascended on high, said " All power is given 
unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore " — Disciple, bap- 
tize, teach all nations. " And, Lo, I am with you alway even unto 
tlie end of the world." And again, " Ye shall receive power when 
the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Not many days after this, in 
answer to united and continued prayer, the Holy Ghost did come 
upon them and they were all filled. Praise God, He remains with 
us still. The power given is not a gift from the Holy Ghost. He, 
Himself, is the Power. To-day He is as truly available and as 
mighty in power as He was on the day of Pentecost. But has 
the whole Church ever, since the days before Pentecost, put aside 
every other work and waited for Him for ten days, that that power 
might be manifested? Has there not been a source of failure here? 
We have given too much attention to methods, and to machinery, 
and to resources, and too little to the Source of Power; the filling 
with the Holy Ghost. This, I think you will agree with me, is the 
great weakness, has been the great weakness of our service in the 
past, and unless remedied will be the great weakness in the future. 
We are commanded to be filled with the Spirit. If we are not 
filled we are living in disobedience and sin, and the cause of our sin 
is the cause of Israel's sin of old, is the sin of unbelief. 

It is not lost time to wait upon God. May I refer to a small 
gathering of about a dozen men in which I was permitted to take 
part, some years ago, in November, 1886; we, in the China Inland 
Mission, were feeling greatly the need of Divine guidance in the 
matter of organfzation in the field, and in the matter of re-enforce- 
ment, and we came together before our Conference to spend eight 
days in united waiting upon God — four alternate days being days of 
fasting as well as prayer. This was November, 1886, when we 
gathered together; we were led to pray for 100 missionaries, to be 
sent out by our English Board in the year 1887, from January to 
December. And, further than this, our income had not been elas- 
tic for some years; it had been about 22,000 pounds, and we were led 
in connection with that forward movement, to ask God for 10,000 
pounds, say $50,000, in addition to the income of the previous year. 
More than this, we were guided to pray that this might be given 
in large sums, so that the force of our stafif might not be unduly oc- 
cupied in the acknowledgment of contributions. What was the 
result? God sent us offers of service from over 600 men and 
women during the following year, and those who were deemed to 
be ready and suitable were accepted, and were sent out to China; 
and it proved that at the end of the y-ear exactly 100 had gone. 
What about the income? God did not' give us exactly the 10,000 



THE SOURCE OF POWER 89 

pounds we asked for, but He gave us ii,ooo pounds, and that ii,- 
000 pounds came in eleven contributions; the smallest was 500 
pounds, say $2,500, the largest was $12,500 or 2,500 pounds. We 
had a thanksgiving for the men and the money that were coming 
in November, 1886; but they were all received and sent out before 
the end of December, 1887. 

The power of the living God is available power. We may call upon 
Him in the name of Christ, with the assurance that if we are taught 
by the Spirit in our prayers, those prayers will be answered. 

God is the ultimate source of power; and faith is the hand which 
lays hold on God. And how important is that hand! If the con- 
tact of faith with the living God be to any extent broken, may it 
not again be true, as in the days of His flesh, when He could not do 
many mighty works because of their unbelief? How important 
is faith, and what is this so essential faith? Is it not simply the 
recognition of and reliance upon God's faithfulness? Is it not 
simply reliance on the fact that faithful is He who promised, who 
also will do it? With this faith in lively exercise, God may mani- 
fest Himself as He never has done. We are living in days of won- 
derful missionary successes, but we may see far more wonderful 
things in days to come. 

Another important thought, a source of power — the Church. It 
is not an isolated number of units, but an organized body. I can^ 
by no possibility, get my hand four feet in front of my body. If 
my hand is to rescue a drowning man, the whole body must co- 
operate. Individuals have through the ages, and are at present 
doing all that is in their power, but the Church, as a whole, must 
rise to its dignity and realize its responsibility to go forward. We 
must all go into all the world, and not confine our sympathies and 
interests to this sphere or that sphere of labor. Not only must 
the missionaries suffer in going forth from loving and beloved 
homes, and their parents and friends in giving them up, but the 
Church must go forward in self-denial to the point of suffering. 
Redemptive work, soul-saving work, can not be carried out with- 
out suffering. If we are simply to pray to the extent of a simple 
pleasant and enjoyable exercise, and know nothing of watching in 
prayer, and of weariness in prayer, we shall not draw down the 
blessing that we may. We shall not sustain our missionaries who 
are overwhelmed with the appalling darkness of heathenism, we 
shall not even sufficiently maintain the spiritual life of our own 
souls. We must serve God even to the point of suffering, 
and each one ask himself in what degree, in what point, am I ex- 
tending, bv personal suffering, by personal self-denial to the point 
of pain, the kingdom of Christ? The whole Church must reahze 
this. The hand alone can not save dying humanity; the hand can 
not alone deliver man; the body must co-operate with the hand if 
the hand is to rescue the perishing. 

Beloved, you whose duty it is to remain at home, are equally 
sharers with those who go into the mission fields in this work; 
yours the responsibility; vours equally to share in the reward when 
Christ is glorified and His kingdom is everywhere made known. 



90 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

It is a very important fact for us all to bear in mind that, as we 
have already been reminded, the command was not given to a lim- 
ited class; it was given to the whole Church, and we all have our 
share of the responsibility. Let us then, practically contemplate 
for a few moments, briefly, the secure basis of Christian missions, 
and the sources, and the channels of their power. 

First, we have already had brought before us in eloquent lan- 
guage, the Divine assurance and commission, " All power is given 
unto me, in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and lo, I am 
with you alway." Or, as in Mark, " Go ye into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature." This implies the duty of evan- 
gelizing each generation in its own generation. The only time when 
men can be evangelized is the time of their life. But, in view of 
this, how solemn the position of the world, and how solemn our re- 
sponsibility. To-day the Chinese are passing away at the rate of a 
million a month — dying without God to-day, as truly as when those 
lines were written thirty years ago: "Dying without God! " Oh, 
what does this mean? Those only know who know the darkness of a 
heathen deathbed, those only who know something of the terrors 
of a heathen heart looking forward to the next life, the horrors of 
which they faintly depict to themselves, and expect them to be far 
worse than their most terrible imaginings. The darkness of 
heathenism, the suffering of the heathen, with the full knowledge 
that they are sinners — there is no question about that in the heathen 
mind — they know they are sinners, and they know that sin brings 
with it inevitable consequences. The Chinese proverb is that evil 
brings the evil reward, and good brings the good reward. If the 
reward has not come, it is because the time has not come. Come 
it will most surely; and when we imagine how these people have 
not only a fearful anticipation of judgment to come — they know it 
is coming — something has taught them this, every man knows it in 
his own heart, but they are, as Paul says, " without hope and with- 
out God in the world." Even unconverted people are not hopeless 
in Christian lands. They know there is a Saviour; they have some 
hope that He may accept them; they have some belief that if not 
earlier even in their last moments they will have an opportunity of 
repentance and acceptance. But the heathen are without hope. 
They know no God who can pardon sin; they know no power that 
can deliver from the penal consequences of sin, any more than they 
know how to be delivered from its love and power without hope 
in the world. 

We have then the power of a Divine command. And there is 
another power, a power far too little appreciated and sought after, 
the power of self-emptying and unresisting suffering. We have 
tried to do, many of us, as much good as we felt we could easily 
do or conveniently do, but there is a wonderful power when the 
love of God in the heart raises us to this point that we are ready to 
suffer, and with Paul wc desire to know Him in the power of His 
resurrection (which implies the death of self), and the fellowship of 
His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. It is 
ever true that what costs little is worth little. Then how little some 



THE SOURCE OF POWER 



91 



of our service has been worth. If it is true in anything, it is espe- 
cially true of divine things, that what costs little is worth httle. It is 
a serious and a difficult problem very frequently, to know how far 
we should look to and accept the protection of our Governments, 
or their vindication, in case of riot and difficulty. I have seen both 
plans tried. I have never seen the plan in the long run success- 
ful, of demanding help and vindication from man. Wherever I have 
traced the result, in the long run there has been more harm done 
than good, and I have never seen the willingness to suffer and 
leave God to vindicate His own cause, His own people and their 
rights, where the result has not been very beneficial, if there has 
been rest and faith in Him; and praise God, I have known a number 
of such instances in the mission field. I have known of riots that 
have never been reported, never been published in any papers any- 
where, have not been known by many, even of those who are con- 
nected with the same mission, and wherever the course has been 
taken of just leaving God to vindicate, and leaving God to restrain, 
and leaving God to help, the issue has been marvelously success- 
ful, and it has led to great joy and great helpfulness. This is a 
power which God has given us, which sometimes we may leave 
out of account. 

One other power is the gospel itself. The gospel itself is the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Now, 
there are different ways of preaching the gospel. There is the 
plan of preaching the gospel and looking forward to the gradual 
enlightenment of the people, to their being saved as it were by a 
process of gradual instruction and preaching. And there is an- 
other method of preaching the gospel; believing it to be the power 
of God unto salvation; preaching it in the expectation that He who 
first brought light out of darkness can and will at once and instan- 
taneously take the darkest heathen heart and create light within. 
That is the method that is successful. It has been my privilege to 
know many Christians — I am speaking within bounds when I say 
a hundred — who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour the 
first time they ever heard of Him. The gospel itself is the power 
of God unto salvation. 

There are many other powers which time forbids our referring 
to, but God has not left us without power for our enterprise; there 
is the power of sympathy, of love, the power of adaptability, and, 
most of all, the wonderful power of prayer, which might well 
be the subject for a whole paper. Is not the power of prayer 
very much the gauge of our power to do God's work successfully, 
anywhere and under any circumstances? This power, this marvel- 
ous power, would bear much more attention than we have ever 
given it. We may well thank God that He has not left us a diffi- 
cult service without providing us abundant power, adequate power 
and resources for its discharge for all time, even to the end of the 
world. Amen. 



92 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

The Obligation of this Generation 

Mr. Eugene Stock, Editorial Secretary Church Missionary 
Society, London, Eng."^ 

There are six questions which might be put and answered, and 
which I should love to put and answer, on this great question of 
the Evangelization of the World. The questions are these: What 
is it? Why is it? By whom is it to be done? How shall it be done? 
Where shall it be done? When shall it be done? 

When we have answered those questions we have the subject 
pretty well before us. What is the evangelization of the world? 
Mr. Speer has already told us. Why should it be done? For 
two reasons. One is quite enough: Because Christ said so. But 
there is another reason which is worth remembering: Because 
common-sense tells us so, for if it be a fact that a Divine person 
came to bless mankind, all mankind have a right to hear of it. The 
best Mohammedan, the most virtuous Buddhist, the man who is the 
best credit to his heathen religion, put him on the platform, and, 
tell me, hasn't he a right to be told of Christ? Who is to tell him 
but you and I? That is missions. 

By whom is it to be done? Of that I will speak directly. 

How shall it be done? That is what we have been discussing 
all the week; by the various methods which have been under con- 
sideration. 

Where shall it be done? That needs no answer. It has to be done 
in the worst climates. When you give your sons and your daugh- 
ters to the mission societies, don't say: "Yes, they may go, but 
not to Africa." Let them go where the Lord sends them. That 
is the only safe place. And when shall they go? Mr. Mott will 
speak about that. 

By whom is the work to be done? Have you ever noticed this, 
that although the angels would rejoice to do it, the Lord does not 
permit that. It is very striking indeed, when you read the book of 
evangelization — that is, the Acts of the Apostles — to find angelic 
interposition in but eight cases, but in not one of those does an 
angel preach the gospel. You remember the case of Cornelius, 
his prayers and alms ascend to the Lord, and the Lord sent him an 
angel, but the angel could not tell him of Christ. The angel 
simply told him to sail along the coast to Joppa and go to a certain 
house, and there he would find a man named Simon, a mere fisher- 
man, and he would tell him what he ought to know and what he 
ought to do. Why is that? The key to it is in the Lord's Word, 
which He spoke last of all upon earth, " Ye shall be ministers unto 
me " — not heralds, but ministers of that which you know for your- 
selves. And it is the man who knows Christ as his own Saviour. 
Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your own Saviour, your 
own King? Then you are the witness that God wants. Yes. 
And it is when one can go to the heathen of the world and say, 
The Lord has saved me from the guilt of sin by dying for me, 
the Lord is saving me day by day by the Holy Spirit from the 

* Carnegie Hall, April a8. 



THE OBLIGATION OF THIS GENERATION 93 

power and pollution of sin, and the Lord is going to save me with 
His full salvation when He comes again — that is the man who can 
speak, and can go on his own account and speak out of his heart; 
that is the man for a missionary. Can you do that? If you can, 
I say the Lord is speaking to you to-night, you young man, you 
young woman of New York. I am not speaking to the mission- 
aries now. I am speaking to a great many delegates. Ought 
not you delegates to go yourselves? Those who are not delegates, 
the public, men and women, the Lord is asking you to-night, but 
not individually as far as I know, as I shall mention in a moment. 
I want to mention some of the things I have seen. I am speaking 
of various Christian women who have gone out. I think of a cul- 
tivated yoimg woman who is vice-principal of a ladies' college, 
with every kind of distinction and honor before her, putting it all 
aside to go and teach the girls of Japan. I think of the simple 
young lady, not medically trained, just with a little knowledge 
picked up in a dispensary, going to Persia, just because she was 
sent — she was ready to go where the Lord sent her — and, in the 
simplest way, going backwards and forwards among the women, 
in Ispahan, Persia, and its suburbs, until the British Ambassador 
in Persia writes to the Prime Minister of England and says: " The 
Shah of Persia and his Government don't object to all the mission- 
aries, but if you could quietly persuade the Church Missionary So- 
ciety to withdraw that young lady, they would be less afraid of 
what might happen." And I think of a sister of a British Member 
of Parliament going out at the age of fifty-five. Why did she go? 
Because the Lord sent her. She could not learn the language ; she was 
too old, and she found she could not do it. She learned the hymns by 
rote, without understanding them, that she might sing them at the 
bedside of patients in the mission hospital. But she did something 
else; she cared for the houses and homes of the younger mission- 
aries, that they might have no domestic duties to attend to, so that 
they might go out and teach. She wrote to me: " I can not learn 
the language, but I am cleaning the pots and pans for Christ." 
There are diversities of government, but the same Lord is working 
in all. 

Now, are you going? I am not going to ask you are you going 
to give dollars. That is not the point to-night. I never feel quite 
warranted in going to a brother or a sister and saying individually, 
" My brother, my sister, you must go to India, or to Africa, or 
Japan, or China," because I don't know. What I do say is this — 
and I pray the Lord to say it to many hearts to-night — You must, 
by a deliberate act of surrender, say to your Divine Master who 
sacrificed Himself for you, " Lord, here am I, send me if Thou 
wilt; " and if it is an entire surrender, and if you are so accustomed 
to listen to that voice of Jesus that you know it when it is spoken — 
not to the physical ear, but by the inner life, or by circumstances, 
or by the Word of God, or whatever it may be, you will hear it ; 
and then if He says " I don't want you to go, I want you to stay 
at home and mind your sick aunt," then I say in minding your sick 
aunt you are doing as much as Livingstone did in Central Africa. 



94 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

But you must be sure it is the Lord's direction. Get His instruc- 
tion, and then you are right. 

I wonder whether you ever noticed this fact about those won- 
derful words in the sixth chapter of Isaiah. Did God call Isaiah 
that day? I do not see that He did. Isaiah was in a vision, and 
he heard a proclamation going through heaven and earth: Whom, 
whom, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? The voice did not 
say who was to go. The voice did not say whom the Lord wanted 
to send. The voice did not say what the message was that was 
to be sent. The Lord simply said, " I want someone to go some- 
where and to say something." Isaiah was a volunteer; he was not 
addressed personally, but he answered the world-wide proclamation 
and said: " Here am I, send me." And it was to go to his own 
people after all, and it was to give a message — oh, such an awful 
message, not the gospel message that you and I have, 'but a mes- 
sage of judgment. Come forward, therefore, as volunteers. Don't 
wait for some supernatural voice. Come and say, " Lord, here am 
I, send me where and to whomsoever Thou wilt." That is the way 
to get the Lord's approval. 

There is the answer, I think, to the question: By whom is the 
work to be done? By consecrated souls who ofifer spontaneously 
to the Lord, and who are ready to go or to stay, to live or to die, 
as the Lord pleases. Oh, are you ready for that? Then, perhaps, 
someone will say, " But if they all go forward the societies can not 
send them." Others say, " You know the evangelization of the world 
in this generation is impossible." A great many things are impos- 
sible which manage to get done. 

In the year 1887 the Church Missionary Society, under special 
circumstances, came to the resolution, in the teeth of its Finance 
Board, to refuse no candidate who appeared to be God-called, on 
financial grounds. On this ground, not excitement, not gush — I 
believe I may truly say that — but on the plain, simple business prin- 
ciple that if God calls a man, the Lord will allow him to go, and the 
Lord will find the money; and we have a right then, if, as far as man 
can judge, this man or this woman is called of God to go, we have 
a right to say, " O Lord, we look to Thee to enable us to send this 
man or this woman." Now, if anyone had said to us on that mem- 
orable day when we were all on our knees in prayer upon this sub- 
ject — we didn't know what we were doing, it was no credit to us at 
all — but if anyone had said to us, " You will treble your force in 
thirteen years," the answer would have been, " Impossible." And, 
if anybody had gone on and said, " Well, but you will," then the 
answer would have been, " There will be no money to send them, 
it is impossible." But the impossible thing has been done, the 
stafT has been trebled, and the money has been found. God sent 
it. 

Let me remind you of this: I do not care what Christian enter- 
prise it is, I do not care what Christian work it is, if it be a work 
such as saying a word in season to your brother, in your bank, in 
your ofifice, in your store — it is not an easy thing to do, is it? If 
it be to say a kindly word for Jesus to that young girl whom you 



THE OBLIGATION OF THIS GENERATION 95 

know, who is going to be ruined, and you want to rescue her from 
danger — it is not an easy thing, is it? Some would say, " I can not." 
Now, whether it be a Httle thing hke that, or whether it be the great 
work of all the boards and societies in America going in for a 
policy of faith in the Lord, I want you to write upon any of these 
enterprises three mottoes: First — imagine it written in letters of 
fire across this hall — " With men it is impossible." That is true. 
Secondly — " With God all things are possible." Isn't that true? 
What is the third? — " All things are possible to him that believeth." 

Mr. John R. Mott, General Secretary, World's Student Chris- 
tian Federation, Neiv York.^- 

There is a large and increasing number of Christians who believe 
not only that it is the duty of the Church to evangelize the world 
in this generation, but also that it is possible to accomplish the task. 
What is meant by the evangelization of the world in this genera- 
tion? It means to give every person an adequate opportunity to 
know Jesus Christ as personal Saviour and Lord. We do not 
mean the conversion of the world in this generation. We do not 
imply a hasty or superficial preaching of the gospel. We do not 
use the expression as a prophecy. It calls attention to what may 
and ought to be done, not necessarily to what is actually going to 
occur. W^e do not minimize the importance of any method of mis- 
sionary work which has been and is being used by the Spirit of God. 
We rather add emphasis to all the regular forms of missionary 
work, such as educational, medical, literary, and evangelistic. As 
Dr. Dennis says: " The evangelistic method must not be regarded 
as monopolizing the evangelistic aim, which should itself pervade 
all the other methods." The evangelization of the world in this 
generation should not be regarded as an end in itself. The Church 
will not have fulfilled her task when the gospel has been preached 
to all men. Such evangelization must be followed by baptism of the 
converts, by their organization into churches, by building them up 
in knowledge, faith, and character, and by training them for service. 
The great objective should be always kept in mind, namely, the 
planting and developing in all non-Christian lands of self-support- 
ing, self-directing, and self-propagating churches. 

It is the obligation of the Church to evangelize the world in this 
generation. It is our duty because all men need Christ. The 
Scriptures clearly teach that if men are to be saved they must be 
saved through Christ. The burning question then is. Shall hun- 
dreds of millions of men now living, who need Christ, and who are 
capable of receiving help from Him, pass away without having even 
the opportunity to know Him? To have a knowledge of Christ is 
to incur a responsibility to every man who has not. We are trus- 
tees of the gospel, and in no sense sole proprietors. What a crime 
against mankind to keep a knowledge of the mission of Christ from 
two-thirds of the human race! It is our duty to evangelize the 
world in this generation, because of the missionary command of 
Christ. It seems impossible to explain the final commission of 

* Carnegie Hall, April 28. 



96 GENEJRAL PRINCIPLES 

Christ as given in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the Acts, as not im- 
plying that each generation of Christians should at least preach 
Christ to its own known and accessible world. This was obviously 
the interpretation placed upon the final commission by the Chris- 
tians of the first generation. 

Every reason for doing the work of evangelization at all, de- 
mands that it be done not only thoroughly, but also as speedily as 
possible. We are responsible for the present generation — for 
those who are living at the same time with ourselves. The Chris- 
tians of the past generations could not reach them, neither can the 
Christians of succeeding generations. Obviously each generation 
of Christians must evangelize its own generation of non-Christians 
if they are ever to be evangelized. The present generation is one 
of unexampled crisis in all parts of the unevangelized world. Fail- 
ure now will make the future task very much more difficult. It 
is also one of marvelous opportunity. The world is better known 
and more accessible, its needs more articulate and intelligible, and 
our ability to go into all the world with the gospel is greater than 
in any preceding generation. The forces of evil are not deferring 
their operations to the next generation, but with world-wide enter- 
prise and ceaseless vigor they are seeking to accomplish their dead- 
ly work. 

We do not ignore the difficulties in the way of making Christ 
known to the present generation — difficulties physical, political, 
social, intellectual, moral, and religious. It is well, however, to be 
on our guard against the tendency to magnify difficulties unduly, 
and to minimize the providential opportunities, the promises of 
God, and the resources of the witnesses and ambassadors of Jesus 
Christ. 

It is possible to evangelize the world in this generation. It will 
help us to realize this possibility if we look at a number of consid- 
erations. 

It is possible in view of the achievements of the Christians of the 
first generation. They did more to accomplish the evangelization of 
the world than has any succeeding generation. Their achievements 
are remarkable when viewed numerically, or when we consider how 
all classes of society were reached. The persecutions of the first and 
second centuries, the fierce literary attacks against Christianity, and 
the strong apologies in its defense, attest how vigorously the faith 
of Christ must have been propagated by the first disciples. These 
achievements seem very remarkable when we remember that at 
the time of the ascension of Christ the whole number of believers 
did not exceed a few hundreds. They seem all the more wonder- 
ful in the light of the fact that the early Christians had to meet 
practically every difficulty which confronts the Church to-day. As 
we recall the smallness of their number and the difficulties which 
beset their path, and on the other hand, remind ourselves not only 
of our obstacles, but also of the marvelous opportunities and re- 
sources of the Church to-day, shall we not agree with Dr. Storrs 
that the balance of advantage is with us of this generation? In 
studying the secret of what they accomplished one is led to the 



THE OBLIGATION OF THIS GENERATION 97 

conclusion that they employed no vitally important method which 
can not be used to-day, and that they availed themselves of no 
power which we also can not utilize. 

It is possible to evangelize the world in this generation in view of 
recent missionary achievements of the Church. Note the work of the 
Presbyterians in Korea; of the Russians, as well as of some of the 
Protestant churches in Japan; of the Church Missionary Society, 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the American Board in the 
Fukien Province; of the London Missionary Society in Central 
China; of the China Inland Mission in the interior provinces of 
China; of the United Presbyterians of Scotland, and the Irish Pres- 
byterians in Manchuria, of the American Board in the Sandwich 
Islands, the Wesleyans in the Fiji Islands, and of Dr. Paton in the 
New Hebrides; of the American Baptists among the Karens, and 
also among the Telugus; of the Gossner Mission among the Kols 
during its first twenty years; of the Church Missionary Society, and 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Southern India; 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Northern India; of the Re- 
formed Church in India, and also in Arabia; of the German Luther- 
ans on the Island of Sumatra; of the London Mission and the Nor- 
wegian Lutherans in Madagascar; of the Church Missionary So- 
ciety in Uganda, the Baptists on the Congo, the Southern Presby- 
terians at Luebo, and the United Presbyterians in the Nile Valley. 
Recall the medical work of Dr. Clark at Amritsar, Dr. Kerr at Can- 
ton, Dr. Post at Beirut, the Ranaghat Medical Mission in Bengal, 
the Tientsin Hospital, and of many other medical missionaries in all 
parts of the wide world-field. Think also of Dufif College; the 
Woman's College at Lucknow; the colleges of the Church Mission- 
ary Society and the American Board in Southern India; the Jafifna 
College and the Oodooville Girls' School in Ceylon; the True Light 
Seminary in Canton; the Anglo-Chinese College at Fuchau; Dr. 
Mateer's college at Tung Chow; the Training Institute at Tung 
Chow; the early history of the Doshisha; the Women's College at 
Nagasaki; the Euphrates College; the Syrian Protestant College; 
the College at Asyut, Egypt, and many others. Nor should we 
overlook the vital relation which literary work has had and always 
will have to the evangelization of the world. The patient and 
thorough work of the hundreds of missionaries who have devoted 
themselves to the translation of the Scriptures and Christian litera- 
ture, the ceaseless activity of the scores of mission presses like those 
at Beirut, Shanghai, and Calcutta, and the wonderful achievements 
of the Bible Societies in all lands, which have multiplied the power 
and influence of all other workers and agencies, and sown the seed 
of the Kingdom far and wide. The most striking example of 
achievement on the home field in the interest of foreign missions 
is that of the Moravians. They have done more in proportion to 
their ability than any other body of Christians. If the members of 
Protestant churches in Great Britain and America gave in like pro- 
portion, their missionary contributions would aggregate over $60,- 
000,000, or a fourfold increase. And if they went out as mission- 
aries in corresponding numbers, we would have a force of nearly 



9^ GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

400,000 foreign workers, which is vastly more than the number of 
missionaries estimated as necessary to achieve the evangehzation 
of the world in a generation. The' practical question is, What has 
there been in connection with the work already accomplished which 
is not reproducible? In view of the extent to which the gospel 
has already been thoroughly preached, whether with or without 
apparent results, by a comparatively small number of workers, it 
does seem reasonable to expect that by a judicious increase and 
proper distribution of all missionary agencies which have com- 
mended themselves to the Church, an adequate opportunity to 
know Christ as Saviour and Lord might be given to all people with- 
in our day. 

It is possible to evangelize the world in this generation in view of 
the opportunities and resources of the Church and the facilities at 
her disposal. We must not measure the present ability of the 
Church by the standards and practice of a Church in the past; only 
half awake to her duty to the non-Christian world, and under 
far less favorable conditions for world-wide .Tilssionary opera- 
tions. It hardly seems right to call a thing impossible or im- 
practicable which has not been attempted. Livingstone said, 
" You don't know what you can do until you try." The 
world-wide proclamation of the gospel awaits accomplishment 
by a generation which shall have the obedience and deter- 
mination to attempt the task. For the first time in the history of 
the Church, practically the whole world is open. We are not justi- 
fied in saying that there is a single country on the face of the earth 
where the Church, if she seriously desires, can not send ambassa- 
dors of Christ to proclaim His message. 

The Church not only has an unexampled opportunity, but also 
possesses remarkable resources. Think of her membership! 
There are not less than 135,000,000 members of Protestant 
churches. In the British Isles, the United States, and Canada 
alone, there are over 25,000,000 communicants in evangelical Prot- 
estant churches. Contrast these with the few thousands consti- 
tuting the small, unacknowledged, and despised sect which, on the 
day of Pentecost, began the evangelization of the then known and 
accessible world. As we recall the achievements of that infant 
Church, can we question the ability of the Christians of ^ur day, 
were they unitedly to resolve to accomplish it, so to distribute 
within the present generation the gospel messengers and agencies 
that all mankind might have an opportunity to know Christ, the 
Saviour and Lord? 

We have workers enough to send. It would take less than one- 
fiftieth of the Christian young men and women who will go out 
from Christian colleges in the United States and Canada within this 
generation to furnish a sufficient force of foreign workers to achieve 
the evangelizatisn of the world in this generation. When we add the 
Christian students of P>ritain, the Continent, and Australasia, it will 
be seen that the Christian countries can well afiford to spare the 
workers. Their going fortli will quicken and strengthen, rather 
than weaken the entire Church, 



THE OBLIGATION OF THIS GENERATION 99 

The money power of the Church is enormous. If only one-fourth 
of the Protestants of Europe and America give but one cent a day 
toward the evangeHzation of the world, it would yield a fund of over 
$100,000,000, as contrasted with the $19,000,000 given during the j 
past year. Dr. Josiah Strong said, twenty years ago: "There is S| 
money enough in the hands of church members to sow every acre I 
of the earth with the seed of truth. . . . God has intrusted to His 
children power enough to give the gospel to every creature by the | 
close of this century; but it is being misapplied. Indeed, the world I 
would have been evangelized long ago if Christians had perceived' 
the relation of money to the kingdom, and accepted their steward- 
ship." 

With over 500 missionary societies and auxiliaries there are. 
without doubt, missionary organizations and societies in sufficient 
number, and possessing sufficient strength and experience to guide 
an enterprise indefinitely larger than the present missionary opera- 
tions of the Church. 

The Bible Societies, not less than eighty in number, have trans- 
lated the Scriptures entirely or in part into 421 languages and dia- 
lects. If this work is properly promoted, before this generation 
closes each African, each Pacific islander, and each inhabitant of 
Asia will be able to read or hear in his own tongue " the wonderful 
works of God." 

The organized Christian student movements constitute a factor 
characteristic of this generation. There are fourteen of these na- 
tional or international student movements, comprising nearly 1,500 
Christian Associations, with a membership of about 60,000 stu- 
dents and professors. They are seeking to make the universities 
and colleges strongholds and propagating centers for aggressive 
Christianity. Out of them has come the Student Volunteer Move- 
ment for Foreign Missions, which has in itself become a great fac- 
tor in the world's evangelization. It has enrolled thousands of 
students as volunteers for foreign service. At least 2,000 of them 
have already reached the fields. The Church, in possessing this 
important recruiting and training agency, is equipped as in no 
preceding age for a world-embracing evangelistic campaign. 

The various Christian young people's organizations which have 
been developed within the past two decades have added tremen- 
dously to the power of the Church. In North America alone these 
movements include fully 6,000,000 young people. These young 
people themselves, if properly educated and guided, are able to give 
and to raise each year a sum large enough to support all the foreign 
missionaries who would be required to accomplish the evangeliza- 
tion of the world. 

The Sunday-schools constitute a large, undeveloped missionary 
resource. They contain over 20,000,000 scholars. If these were 
trained to give two cents per week it would yield an amount 
greater than the present total missionary gifts of Christendom. 

The native Church is the human resource which affords largest 
promise for the evangelization of the world. It has 1,300,000 
communicants and over 4,000,000 adherents. The character and 



lOO GENERAL PRINCIPLES 

activity of these Christians compares very favorably with that of 
church members in Christian lands. There are nearly 80,000 na- 
tive workers, and their number and efficiency are rapidly increas- 
ing. There are 1,000,000 children and young people in the various 
mission schools and institutions. From the ranks of these students 
and their successors, during the next few years, are to come the 
hundreds of thousands of evangelists, Bible women, and other 
workers who will be needed to preach Christ to the unevangelized 
world. This emphasizes the importance of the Student Young 
Men's Christian Association movement in mission lands. In unit- 
ing the native Christian students, first, to lead their fellow-students 
to Christ, and then, after their preparation is completed, to go forth 
to evangelize their own countrymen, it is doing much to solve the 
problem of the world's speedy and thorough evangelization. 

In considering the Church's present power of achievement, we 
should take account not only of her resources, but also of the fa- 
cilities at her disposal. Among these should be mentioned the 
work of the eighty-three Geographical Societies, which, through the 
investigations which they have encouraged, have done so much to 
make the whole world known. 

Another help to the Church to-day is the intimate knowledge 
which she now possesses of the social, moral, and spiritual condi- 
tion and need of all races of mankind. 

The* greatly enlarged and improved means of communication 
constitutes one of the chief facilities of which the Church of this 
generation can avail herself. Of the 400,000 miles of railway lines 
in the world a considerable and growing mileage is already to be 
found in non-Christian lands. It is possible, for example, to go by 
rail to all parts of India and Japan. The greatest railway enter- 
prises of the time are those now building or projected in non-Chris- 
tian lands. When even a part of these materialize, as they will 
within a few years, more than one-third of the unevangelized world 
will be made much more accessible to missionaries. It took Jud- 
son eleven months to go from Salem to Calcutta. The trip can 
now be made in a month. Mofifatt was three months on the way 
from England to the Cape. Now the voyage lasts but two weeks. 
These developments mean an immense saving in time to the mis- 
sionary force. The 170,000 miles of submarine cables which have 
cost at least $250,000,000, are also of great service to the missionary 
societies. They help the Church not only by promoting general 
intelligence, but also in facilitating the financial transactions and 
administrative work of missions. The thoroughly organized news 
agencies which, through the secular press, bring before the 
members of the Church facts regarding the most distant and needy 
nations, serve indirectly to awaken and foster interest in the inhabit- 
ants of less favored lands. The Universal Postal Union with its 
wonderful organization and its vast army of well-nigh 1,000,000 
employees, immensely facilitates the work of foreign missions. 
Within a few years, doubtless, it will include within its sphere of 
action practically all of those unevangelized parts of the world 
which have not already been brought within its reach. As a re- 



THE OBLIGATION OF THIS GENERATION lOI 

suit of all these means of communication the world has become 
very small. They have, as it were, united the separate continents 
into one great nation. They have made the most remote parts 
of the inhabited world easily accessible. Ramsay points out that 
" There are no stronger influences in education and administration 
than rapidity and ease of traveling, and the postal service. Paul, 
both by precept and example, impressed the importance of both on 
his churches." 

The printing-press has greatly multiplied the power of the Church 
to disseminate Christian truth. At the beginning of this century 
printing was done on hand-presses, and only from one to two 
hundred impressions could be taken in an hour. Now there are 
presses which print, bind, and fold 100,000 papers in an hour. The 
linotype and many other improvements in printing have, to a re- 
markable degree, reduced the price of books. In past generations 
Bibles were expensive. Carey's first Bible sold at $20. A Ben- 
gali Bible can now be purchased for a few cents. So there is no 
mechanical difficulty in the way of giving the Bible to every family 
under heaven. The influence and protection of Christian govern- 
ments is a decided help to missions. In no age could ambassadors 
of Christ carry on their work with such safety. Over one-third of 
the population of the unevangelized world are under the direct 
sway of Christian rulers. Moreover, the Protestant powers are 
in a position to exert an influence which will make possible the free 
preaching of the gospel to the remaining two-thirds of the people, 
who have not heard of Christ. 

Why has God made the whole world known and accessible to our 
generation? Why has He provided us with such wonderful agen- 
cies? Not that the forces of evil might utilize them. Not that| 
they be wasted or unused. Such vast preparations must have'' 
been made to further some mighty and beneficent purpose. Every 
one of these wonderful facilities has been intended primarily to 
serve as a handmaid to the sublime enterprise of extending and 
building up the kingdom of Jesus Christ in all the world. The hand I 
of God, in opening door after door among the nations, and in bring- I 
ing to light invention after invention, is beckoning the Church of 
our day to larger achievements. 

The undertakings and achievements in the realm of secular and 
non-Christian enterprise should stimulate us to believe that it is 
possible for the Church to evangelize the world in its generation. 
Gold was discovered in the Klondike, and within a little over a year 
it is said that over 100,000 men started over the difficult passes, at 
great risk and cost of life, to possess themselves of the riches of that 
region. Stanley wanted some twenty or thirty English helpers to 
accompany him on his last great African journey of exploration. 
He advertised the fact, and within a few days over 1,200 men re- 
sponded, eager to face the deadly climate and other great perils in- 
volved in the expedition. It is reported that in the last Presidential 
campaign one of the two great political parties, within a few weeks, 
placed two documents on the money question in the hands of prac- 
tically every voter in the whole land. At the present time this 



102 GENERAL PRIi\XIPLES 

country has about 50,000 soldiers in the Phihppine Islands. This 
is not considered an extravagant number for the country to send to 
the ends of the earth to accomplish her purpose. It is noticeable 
that when the regiments return to the homeland they receive one 
continuous ovation from the time they enter the Golden Gate un- 
til they reach their homes. There are now probably 200,000 sol- 
diers in the British forces at the Cape. We have seen Canada 
send oflf contingent after contingent with cheers and with prayers. 
Similar scenes have taken place in the colonies of Australia and 
New Zealand. We have all been impressed by this exhibition of 
the unity, loyalty, and power of the British Empire. We have 
also been deeply moved by the example of the African republics, 
as we have seen not only the young men, but also the old men and 
boys going out to fight the battles of their country. It is looked 
upon as a matter of course that both of the contending parties 
should pour out without stint, the lives and substance of their 
people. And yet, when it is suggested that all Protestant Chris- 
tendom unite in sending out 50,000 missionaries, more or less, it is 
impracticable and visionary. It would be too severe a strain on the 
resources of the Church. The naval budgets of at least three coun- 
tries are from three to five times as great as the sum required to 
sustain the present missionary forces of the Church. The Mormon 
Church numbers only 250,000, but it has 1,700 missionaries at work 
in difTerent parts of this and other lands. If they need more, it is 
said that their system would enable them to send out between 7,000 
and 8,000. The little island of Ceylon has sent out multitudes 
of Buddhist missionaries to all parts of Asia. In the University 
of El Azhar, in Cairo, we found over 8,000 Mohammedan stu- 
dents coming from countries as widely separated as Morocco, the 
western provinces of China, and the East India islands. They 
were being prepared to go out as missionaries of the false Prophet. 
No human, secular, or non-Christian undertaking should surpass 
in enterprise, devotion, and aggressiveness the Church of Jesus 
Christ. Because of the magnitude of the task to which God has 
called us, because of the impending crisis and the urgency of the 
situation in all parts of the non-Christian world, because of the 
dangers of anything else than a great onward movement, because 
of the constraining- memories of the cross of Christ, and the love 
wherewith Pie loved us, has not the generation come for the 
Church to put forth her strength and evangelize the whole world? 
Notwithstanding the considerations upon which we have been 
dwelling, there are here and there to be found those who speak of 
the idea of the evangelization of the world in this generation as 
fantastic and visionary. And yet was it not Gordon Hall and 
Samuel Newell, who, in 1818, issued an appeal to Christians to 
evangelize the world within a generation? Did not the mission- 
aries of the Sandwich Islands, in 1836, unite in a most impressive 
appeal to the Church to preach the gospel to every creature within 
their generation? Did not the Shanghai Missionary Conference 
of 1877 express its desire to have China emancipated from the 



THE OBLIGATION OF THIS GENERATION I03 

thralclom of sin in this generation, and its belief that it might be 
done? An increasing number of the most eminent and experi- 
enced missionaries of the world have expressed their strong belief 
in the possibility of the realization of this watchword. Secretaries 
of several of the leading mission boards of America and England 
have indorsed the idea without reservation. Editors, including 
that thorough missionary student, Dr. Robson of Scotland, have 
spoken of its reasonableness. The bishops of the Anglican Com- 
munion, at the last Lambeth Conference, expressed their gratifica- 
tion at the student missionary uprising which had taken as its 
watchword the evangelization of the world in this generation. 
Early in January of this year, at the great student convention in 
London, Alexander MacKennal, president of the Free Church 
Coimcil, said, regarding the evangelization of the world in the gen- 
eration, when the idea was put before him, " I felt first the audacity 
of the proposal, then the reasonableness of the proposal, and lastly 
that the confidence of young men and women would carry it into 
effect, I was sure. It seemed to me that the very finger of God 
was pointing the way, and the Spirit of God inspiring the endeavor." 
At the same convention the Archbishop of Canterbury said that 
" It is not an inconceivable thing that, as God has within the last 
generation opened the way, so within the present generation He 
may crown His works." It seems as if we who are now 
living, the young men among us who are now joining this very 
union, those who are now studying the great task to which the 
Lord has called them, shall, before they die, be able to say: " The 
whole race of mankind is not yet Christian, but, nevertheless, there 
is no nation upon earth where the Christian faith is not taught if 
men will accept it; there is no place upon the whole surface of the 
globe where man may not hear the message of God and the story 
of the cross." It is significant that during this great Ecumenical Con- 
ference it has not been the young men chiefly, but the veterans of 
the cross who have exhorted us to larger achievement. Was it 
not Bishop Thoburn who said that if this Conference and those 
whom it represents will do their duty, within the first decade of the 
new century ten millions of souls might be gathered into the 
Church of Christ? Was it not Dr. Ashmore who expressed the 
belief that before the twentieth century closes Christianity would 
be the dominant religion among the multitudinous inhabitants of 
the Chinese Empire? And was it not Dr. Chamberlain who af- 
firmed the possibility of bringing India under the sway of Christ 
within the lifetime of some, at least, in this assembly? If these 
g-reat leaders are thus sanguine of victory, should those of us who 
are at home hesitate? 

Let us not forget that the evangelization of the world is God's 
enterprise. Jesus Christ is its leader. He who is the same yesterday, 
to-day, yea, and forever, abides in those who go forth to preach Him. 
The Holy Spirit is able to shake whole communities. The Word of 
God is quick and powerful. Prayer can remove mountains. Faith 
is the victory that overcomes the world. 



CHAPTER V 

RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO-DAY 

Student Volunteer Movement Proclaims Responsibility — Woman's Responsi- 
bility — Children and Missions — The Church and Its Responsibility — 
Possible Power of the Pastor. 



The Student Volunteer Movement 

Rev. J. Ross Stevenson, D.D., Vice-Chairman Executive Com- 
mittee, Student Volunteer Movement, U. S. A., Chicago.* 

The American Student Volunteer Movement came into existence 
fourteen years ago. The fuUness of time for such a missionary up- 
rising among college men and women was then at hand. God in 
His providence had for years been preparing the way, teaching the 
Church that the harvest was great, the laborers few, and that the 
most imperative duty was to pray the Lord of the harvest that He 
send forth laborers into His harvest. The wave of prayer which 
began as a concerted eflfort in 1872 came rolling on with increasing 
volume and momentum, and swept before it the students who had 
gathered for Bible study at Northfield, Mass. This w^as in 1886, 
and then and there one hundred young men signed the declaration: 
" I am willing and desirous, God permitting, to become a foreign 
missionary." The movement thus inaugurated by prayer, and at- 
tended by such unmistakable evidence of the presence and power of 
the Holy Ghost extended rapidly throughout the colleges of our 
land, and soon led to the organization of the Student Volunteer 
Movement for Foreign Missions. Since then, with ever-increasing 
efficiency, the Movement has been instrumental in rallying a con- 
stantly growing number of students around the idea of world-wide 
evangelization. 

That we may better understand the achievements of this Move- 
ment let us call to mind its fourfold purpose. This is (i) to awaken 
and maintain among all Christian students of the United States and 
Canada intelligent and active interest in foreign missions; (2) to 
enroll a sufficient number of properly qualified student volunteers 
to meet the successive demands of the various missionary boards 
of North America; (3) to help all such intending missionaries to 
prepare for their life-work, and to enlist their co-operation in de- 
veloping the missionary life of the home churches; (4) to lay an 
equal burden of responsibility on all students who are to remain 
as ministers and lay workers at home, that they may actively pro- 



• Carnegie Hall, April i8. 



THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT 105 

mote the missionary enterprise, by their intelHgent advocacy, by 
their gifts, and by their prayers. From this it will be seen that the 
Volunteer Movement is a recruiting agency, and not a missionary 
board. It is unswervingly loyal to all the regularly established 
missionary agencies of the Church, and has received their cordial 
indorsement and co-operation. As a student movement, it aims to 
cultivate a most important field from a missionary point of view — 
the institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada. 
For this field — embracing about one thousand institutions — the 
Movement is admirably adapted, and with increasing thorough- 
ness is doing the work which must be done, if America's part in the 
world's evangelization is ever to be accomplished. The Movement 
is under the general direction of an executive committee, composed 
of six ofiticial representatives from the four great student organiza- 
tions of North America, namely, the collegiate and professional 
school departments of the Young Men's Christian Association, the 
Intercollegiate Young Women's Association, and the Canadian In- 
tercollegiate Missionary Alliance. In addition, an advisory com- 
mittee, consisting of secretaries and members of eight leading mis- 
sion boards, renders valuable assistance. 

The Movement em-ploys two general secretaries, one educational 
secretary and from three to five traveling secretaries, to whose 
faithful and self-sacrificing labors the success of the Movement is 
mainly due. 

Thus organized and manned, keeping its great purpose in view, 
the Movement is sending its representatives each year out among 
the students of our land to present the missionary appeal to those 
who are destined to be the leaders of thought and action in the 
Church. At "least 800 institutions are being constantly cultivated 
in such a way as to bring the majority of our Christian students 
face to face with the question of their personal responsibility to the 
non-Christian millions who are living in wretchedness and sin, and 
to whom the Church owes the Gospel. These young men and 
women are quite responsive to the missionary call when it is pre- 
sented in a calm, forcible, prayerful way by those who have them- 
selves yielded to its claims, and through the influence of the Move- 
ment a large number each year are coming to the decision: "It 
is my purpose, if God permit, to become a foreign missionary." 
Through its conservative policy, seeking only those whom God 
calls by His Spirit, the Movement has enrolled not more than five 
thousand volunteers. Of these, so far as v/e have been able to 
learn, 1,550 — nearly one-third — have already gone to the foreign 
field. Of the thirty-eight different volunteers who have been mem- 
bers of the executive committee, or traveling secretaries from the 
beginning of the movement, including this year's force, twenty-one 
have sailed, three are under appointment, three have applied to the 
Boards, and at the request of these Boards are giving their time to 
foreign mission work at home, and six are preparing themselves 
for foreign service. 

Because of the deplorable lack of missionary interest and mis- 
sionary instruction in our colleges and seminaries, the Movement 



Io6 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO-DAY 

found it necessary to provide thorough and systematic courses of 
study in missions, and to organize study classes in the several in- 
stitutions. Although this work was undertaken only six years 
ago, it has developed with remarkable rapidity. The first year 
144 classes were organized, with an average attendance of 1,400. 
Last year 305 classes were organized, with a total enrollment of 
over 42,000. Through the influence of the educational depart- 
ment missionary literature at the cost of tens of thousands of dol- 
lars has been placed in colleges and seminaries. Missionary li- 
braries, in some cases the best furnished in the country, have been 
introduced, and the study of missions is more and more finding 
the place which it should have had long ago in the regular curric- 
ulum. As a result the missionary interest among students and 
professors has increased many fold, and at the same time there has 
been that which, as a rule, accompanies such interest, the deepen- 
ing of spiritual life. This means much, as we shall see, not only for 
the better equipment of those who are missionary candidates, but 
for the intelligent missionary influence of those who are to remain 
at home. Through students the Movement has sought to assist 
the Church in solving the money problem. The young men and 
women in institutions of higher grade have been taught to give for 
missions. A large number of institutions have been induced to 
support a missionary, and by encouraging each college or seminary 
to vmdertake the whole or the partial support of a missionary, the 
contributions of students to missions have increased almost ten- 
fold. A large number of volunteers have secured their own sup- 
port. Numerous instances could be given where students have 
gathered from churches unaccustomed to give, the money sufficient 
to send them to the field, when the necessary funds were not in the 
Board's treasury. Last year, in one denomination, the students 
who were engaged in a summer campaign for missions intro- 
duced systematic missionary giving in eighty-eight churches and 
in forty-seven Christian Endeavor Societies. Furthermore, the 
Movement has enabled the Boards to challenge the churches to do 
their duty in sending forth those who have been waiting to go. 
During the recent years of financial stringency, had there been no 
missionary candidates offering themselves for appointment, the 
churches would unquestionably have been much more indifferent 
to the claims of the foreign field. But the fact that a large number 
of volunteers have been pleading to be sent out, while fields have 
been waiting for them, has not only kept the Church in trying times 
nearer to her duty, but has impelled a number of churches to under- 
take the individual support of some of these w^aiting and lu-gent 
volunteers. 

Besides its work in this land, the Movement has been largely instru- 
mental in arousing missionary interest among the students of other 
lands, not only by taking the initiative, but by lending a helping hand. 
Reports of the work in America have been a powerful stimu- 
lus to the missionary interest already aroused in Great Britain by 
the " Cambridge Seven," and as a result of the tour of Mr. Robert 
P. Wilder, the Student Volunteer Missionary Union was organized 



THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT 107 

in 1892. Thence the Movement has spread not only throughout 
the continent, but to South Africa, to AustraHa, to India and Cey- 
lon, to China, Japan, and other mission lands. In Australia, as a 
result of the movement recently inaugurated, seventy-eight volun- 
teers have been enrolled, and already nine of these have gone out 
to the field. In connection with the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation movement in China, begun only a few years ago, 230 young 
men have been led to give their lives for the redemption of their 
own land. A regular Student Volunteer secretary is employed 
in India, and in connection with the forty different student asso- 
ciations, the Movement is having a sure and steady growth. In 
Japan the missionary idea is being fostered by a fully equipped 
Young Men's Christian Association movement. These various 
student movements have become affiliated by the organization of 
the World's Student Christian Federation, which has, as one of 
its most important objects, to enlist students in the work of ex- 
tending the kingdom of Christ throughout the whole world. This 
Federation embraces twenty-four different countries, with an 
entire student population of 600,000, and a Christian student 
brotherhood of 60,000, organized into about five hundred so- 
cieties. The last Federation meeting was held two summers ago 
in Eisenach, Germany, under the shadow of the old historic castle 
of the Wartburg. The motto of the conference was " that all may 
be one," and there was, indeed, manifest not only the spirit of 
unity, but of prayer and mighty power, and the coming together of 
so many different nationalities, embracing so many divergent de- 
nominational elements, seemed a prophecy of the wider and more 
significant unity, when the students of the world shall join hand and 
heart in a mighty, determined, persistent effort to evangelize the 
nations of the earth. 

Do we grasp the significance of this extensive missionary move- 
ment among those who are to exert such a commanding influence 
in the Church of the future? It should certainly stir our souls to 
gratification and large hopefulness that our institutions of higher 
learning are more imbued with the spirit of missions than has ever 
been the case in any country or age. 

Not only have the volunteers by speech and example urged that 
every Christian should feel a personal responsibility for giving the 
Gospel to all the nations, but the non-volunteers have caught the 
fire and have carried it to their home churches. This appears in 
the increased interest and intelligence in the cause of missions mani- 
fested among the young people of the Church. Much of this is due 
to college young men and women who are recognized as leaders in 
their home churches, and, having come under the influence of the 
movement, they are determined to make their lives count for mis- 
sions, whether they stay at home or go abroad. Since the basis 
of all permanent and growing missionary interest in the Church is 
adequate information, coupled with prayerfulness and consecration, 
the knowledge and God-given enthusiasm coming into the churches 
through the "educated young men and women is sure to be a mighty 
and an availing force in arousing the people of God. 



Io8 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO-DAY 

Again, it is highly significant that there are more missionary can- 
didates than ever before. As Dr. George Smith has said, " Mis- 
sionaries rather than money to send them have been the want of 
the reformed churches of Christendom up to this generation." A 
great change has been brought about in answer to prayer, so that 
one of our Boards could testify " we have had ten offers for service 
in the foreign field where we had one previous to the organization 
of the movement." The missionary agencies of the Church arc now 
able to send out each year a larger number of missionaries; far in 
advance of what was possible fifteen years ago. Not that they 
can always find the men and women needed. The backward policy 
of the hard times, when volunteers were discouraged and given to 
understand that they could not be sent, followed suddenly by an 
aggressive policy, has made it more difficult temporarily to find the 
numbers desired. But, as could not be said fifteen years ago, tliey 
can be found, and this will continue to be the case. While on the 
other hand, since there is a much larger number to choose from 
than formerly, the Boards have been able to raise their standard, 
and it may be safely asserted that with the growing influence of 
the Movement the Church is able to send out better missionaries, 
as a class, each year. The aim of the Movement has been to im- 
prove the quality of intending missionaries, and that it has suc- 
ceeded to a large extent is shown by the strong testimony of Board 
secretaries as to the better equipment of missionary candidates. 
This certainly is of immense moment in its bearing upon thorough 
and effective missionary service. 

Deeply significant is the challenge these student missionary 
movements present to the Church at home. The people of the 
Lord have long been praying as with one voice " Thy kingdom 
come." At one time so few of the foreign fields were open that 
there was little call for more laborers. Then, when the Macedon- 
ian cries were wafted in to the Church from almost every land, it 
was seen that concerted prayer was necessary that the Lord of the 
harvest might call forth the laborers. In answer to this prayer 
the Holy Ghost has been at work, singling out individuals here and 
there, putting into their hearts the purpose to become foreign mis- 
sionaries. Thus a great host of young men and young women 
have been separated, as they believe, l)y the Lord to the work where- 
unto He has called them. This certainly challenges larger faith 
and consecration, and more self-sacrificing liberality on the part of 
those who have been praying. Will the Church also separate these 
students and send them forth? She must do this if her prayers 
mean anything, and if she is to be obedient unto her Lord. The 
churches arc vuiflcr as much obligation to send as the volunteers to 
go, and how shall ihey preach except they be sent? 

H. C. Duncan, M.A., Chairman of the Student J^olitiitccr Mis- 
sionary Union Great Britain, Edinburgh:^ 

The Student Volunteer Missionary Union of Great Britain was 
organized in April, 1892. For some years previous to this date, 

* Carnegie Hall, April 28. 



THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT I09 

however, there had been an ever-increasing interest in foreign mis- 
sions in several of our universities and colleges. The field had 
been prepared by those memorable evangelistic campaigns of Mr. 
Moody in 1873-75 3-"<^^ 1881-82, and in the autumn of 1884 Cambridge 
was startled by the announcement that two of her most promi- 
nent athletes — Stanley Smith and C. T. Studd — were going out as 
missionaries. These two were joined by five others, and the Cam- 
bridge Seven set themselves in earnest to carry the fire of enthusi- 
asm for foreign missions to other colleges. Edinburgh was among 
the centers visited, and the work begun there was carried on dur- 
ing the next ten years under the inspiring leadership of Prof. 
Henry Drummond. From Edinburgh deputations visited other 
imiversities with marked results. In 1887 Mr. J. N. Foreman 
came to England to teU of the formation of the Student Volunteer 
Movement in the United States, and two years later the Student 
Foreign Missionary Union was started in London, and self-gov- 
erning branches established in several other college centers. In 
1891. Mr. R. P. Wilder appeared on British soil, and undertook a 
missionary campaign among the students of some of our leading 
universities and colleges — a campaign which culminated in a meet- 
ing at Edinburgh, at which the Student Volunteer Missionary Un- 
ion was formed, linking together in one strong organization those 
previous efforts to reach the students of Britain for foreign mis- 
sions. 

The purpose of the movement on both sides of the Atlantic is the 
same. We also use the same declaration form — " It is my pur- 
pose, if God permit, to become a foreign missionary." The 
Student Volunteer Missionary Union is a student union organized 
by and for students. The field is consequently co-extensive with 
the student field of Great Britain, with its some 45,000 students 
studying in about 215 universities and colleges. 

When this Union was organized, exactly eight years ago, 
there was no intercollegiate Christian movement in Britain — 
Christian Unions were to be found in only twenty institutions, and 
each of these lived a more or less isolated life. Now the British 
College Christian Union reports 119 afifiliated Unions, as well as 
several Unions which have not yet been afifiliated, and in connection 
with these Unions, 2,000 students are enrolled in 300 voluntary 
Bible Circles. This wonderful advance may be interpreted in no 
small measure as the reflex influence of the missionary movement. 

Since the commencement of the union 1,720 students have been 
enrolled as members, including 381 women. Of these, 566 have 
sailed under 50 or more missionary societies, 606 are still in college, 
and 365 are in further preparation or are temporarily hindered by 
health or circumstances. Thus it is evident that over fifty per cent, 
of those who have completed their college course have sailed. Out 
of the fifty-seven students who, up to the present year have held of- 
fice as secretaries or executive members in the British Student 
Movement, flfty-four have been student volunteers. Of these 
fifty-four, thirty-three have sailed, sixteen have not yet completed 
their college course, and the remaining five hope to sail shortly. 



no RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO-DAY 

But further we must notice that whereas in the early days of the 
Movement the volunteers were drawn from a very limited number 
of colleges, now the missionary spirit is spreading widely and some 
colleges have recently begun to furnish volunteers which hitherto 
entirely lacked missionary zeal. Two years ago, for example, there 
was practically no missionary interest in the three large colleges 
which constitute the Victoria University. Now there are some 
six or seven volunteers at each of these colleges, and missionary 
bands are at work in them all. This point may be further illus- 
trated by a comparison of the state of missionary interest in wom- 
en's colleges at the present day with that reported by the first 
travelling secretaries. Then very few students intended to be mis- 
sionaries, and there was an almost entire absence of missionary in- 
terest and knowledge in most of the colleges. Of the first forty 
women who were enrolled as volunteers, thirty-six were medicals, 
showing that the missionary call had not yet penetrated into other 
faculties. To-day 381 women have signed the declaration, of whom 
119 have sailed. They represent over fifty institutions and are scat- 
tered over the whole country. 

Four years ago the Educational Scheme was inaugurated and an 
educational secretary appointed to promote systematic missionary 
study in our colleges. Textbooks compiled for the use of students, 
on India, Africa, China, the Jews, medical missions and the social 
aspect of Christian missions, have been issued. There are now sixty 
missionary bands with a membership of 350 men and 250 women. 

At the annual summer conference of the British College Chris- 
tian Union, missions occupy a prominent place; but in addition two 
distinctly missionary conferences have been held, one at Liverpool 
in 1896, the other at London in January, 1900. At Liverpool 
there were 717 student delegates. At London the student dele- 
gation numl3ered 1,311, an increase of almost 600. At Liverpool 
we had with us seventy-seven foreign delegates representing twenty 
different countries. At London we welcomed 161 foreign students 
who represented twenty-five covmtries. 

Thus, in various ways, the union has sought to fulfill its purpose. 
The colleges are visited by carefully chosen student travelling sec- 
retaries, missionary study is promoted, missionary literature pub- 
lished, and conferences are held. Through these means many 
students have had their purpose to become foreign missionaries 
strengthened, many others have been won for the cause, and the 
claims of foreign missions are now being systematically presented 
to the majority of Christian students in Britain. In Britain, at the 
present time, one of the chief difficulties which we meet with in our 
work is the refusal of parents to allow their children to offer them- 
selves for the foreign field. When we remember how many of 
our greatest missionaries have in early childhood had their minds 
turned in the direction of foreign missionary work by their par- 
ents, we can, to some extent, realize how serious a thing it is that 
this great home influence is so often not only not exerted in favor 
of the foreign field, but actually exerted forcibly in the opposite di- 
rection. 



THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT Hi 

We have the same watchword as the American and Canadian 
movement — "The EvangeHzation of the World in This Generation." 
Three years ago we issued a memorial to the Church of Christ in 
Britain, appealing to the leaders and members of the various de- 
nominations and missionary societies to recognize our watchword 
as expressive of the present duty of the Church. The watchword, 
severely criticised at first, has gradually won its way to a very gen- 
eral acceptance among the recognized leaders in the various British 
denominations. 

The Liverpool Conference m 1896, attended by seventy-seven 
delegates from foreign countries, was probably, under God, the 
greatest factor in extending the Volunteer Movement to the conti- 
nent ot Europe. The German universities had not been without 
their missionary associations, but the delegates at Liverpool had a 
vision of the greater things that might be, and in March, 1896, a 
Student Missionary Union for Germany was formed, and in 1898 the 
declaration of the American and British movements was adopted. 
They have now sixty-two volunteers on their roll, ten of whom have 
already sailed. 

The Scandinavian Volunteer Movement also was formed in 
March, 1896, with six Norwegian students as members. The Move- 
ment now reports thirty-two members, of whom four have sailed. Of 
these thirty-two, seventeen are to be found in Denmark, seven in 
Norway, four in Sweden, and four in Finland. Time will only per- 
mit me to mention that the movement has also spread to France, 
Switzerland, and Holland, and that thus the Protestant students of 
the continent are being banded together as never before, in the 
purpose to carry the Gospel of Christ to those sitting in darkness 
and in the shadow of death. 

I have still to speak of the extension of the movement to the 
colleges and schools of South Africa. The movement was in- 
troduced in 1890, and now reports 152 students who have signed 
the declaration. Of these, eight left for mission work during the 
past year. The Student Volunteer Movement of South Africa 
is now a branch of the Students' Christian Association, intro- 
duced in 1896. The latter lately reports ninety-five afiftliated as- 
sociations, of which sixty-five are in Cape Colony, seventeen 
in the Free State, and thirteen in the Transvaal. I mention 
this fact to ask that we may be united in prayer for this_ move- 
ment at this time of extreme difBculty. We feel the inspira- 
tion that comes from this great movement, and as we think of the 
magnitude of the work done, and still more of the magnitude of 
the work that remains to be done, we turn away from every thought 
of human agency and anew realize the mighty power of the_ Spirit 
of God, who has accomplished, and we believe will accomplish for 
His glory, what is utterly beyond the limits of human power. 

Mr. Eugene Stock, Editorial Secretary Church Missionary 
Society, London* 

I am not going to flatter the Student Volunteer Union. The 



* Carnegie Hall, April 28. 



112 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO-DAY 

whole advance in the missionary zeal of late years is not due to 
them. Let me say that frankly. But a large part of it is, and let 
me in the name of the missionary societies of Great Britain, and 
especially of my own Church Missionary Society, render to it all 
acknowledgment and gratitude. The Union has lifted up the 
whole missionary cause on to a higher level. People are begin- 
ning to see that missions do not mean " subscribe a dollar or two to 
a hst," but that it means taking up a cause just as men "take up a 
political cause or a social cause; taking it up and pushing it, in- 
fluencing others for it. That is the principal service which I think 
the Union has done in England. But above all, I think the pro- 
mulgation of the watchword is the brightest of its service; there is 
nothing like a special formula to touch hearts. When that watch- 
word, after much prayer, continual prayer day and night, was 
resolved upon at Liverpool, I was not one of those with all readi- 
ness, — notwithstanding my white hair — to receive new words. I 
could not see it at first, and I sat down a week or two later to 
write an article for my magazine on the subject, and I resolved to 
see — Now suppose the watchword is true, what could I say about 
it? And I tried to make an argument for it, and by the time I got 
to the end of my argument I believed it myself. But I know — not 
through any merit of mine — I know God has used those words to 
convince men, and when I see the very incarnation, not of gush, 
but of hard-headed common-sense, like the present Archbishop of 
Canterbury, in his eightieth year, accepting this watchword of the 
young men, I say they have done a service which the Church will 
recognize in the years to come. 

Mr. C. T. Riggs, Student, Theological Seminary, Auburn, N. Y* 

The Auburn Seminary Volunteer Movement Band consists this 
year of eleven men, five of whom are in the senior class, and every 
one of the five expects to be on the foreign field this year. 

The Volunteer Band does three distinct kinds of work: One for 
the members of the band, another for the members of the seminary, 
and a third for the churches and colleges and universities in the 
vicinity. There is a weekly prayer-meeting of the band for prayer 
on behalf of the work, and on behalf of each other, and for the dis- 
cussion of practical problems in connection with the work of the 
band, and with the preparation of the band for the foreign field. 
This prayer-meeting two years ago was held on Sunday, but the 
Sunday prayer-meeting became so large because others came in, 
that it was turned over to the Christian Association, and is now a 
seminary missionary meeting. 

In co-operation with the Christian Association of the seminary 
we publish every year a missionary prayer cycle, containing all the 
names of all the graduates of the seminary who are now on foreign 
fields, for whom in turn united prayer is offered each Sunday of 
the year. 

In connection with the missionary committee also, the band 
ilrives to increase the missionary intelligence of the seminary. 

♦Carnegie Hall, April 28. 



THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT II3 

There have been during this year four mission study classes, study- 
ing missionary textbooks. The number of mission books thus sold 
in the seminary to students has been larger this year than during 
any previous year; and the number of books that have been added 
to the seminary library to compose a part of the permanent library 
has also been large. So far as the work of the seminary Mission 
Band, outside of the seminary itself, is concerned, we endeavor to 
reach all the churches in the vicinity with missionary information 
for study, and aid in forming missionary organizations. During 
the past year over 100 addresses were delivered in the neighboring 
churches, both in Auburn and in the vicinity within a radius of 
about fifty miles, endeavor being made to organize the Young 
People's Christian Endeavor Societies for the purpose of study and 
prayer for missions. 

Mr. F. M. Gilbert, Student, Yale University, Nezv Haven, 
Conn.'^ 

The Volunteer Movement at Yale has increased information on 
missions, and the interest resulting from the information. Three 
main methods have been employed to produce a more widespread 
and deeper information on missions. The first of them is the 
missionary meeting. Meetings are held regularly, all mapped out 
in advance, and are attended by from 150 to 500 of the students of 
Yale. 

The second means employed is the missionary library, which has 
increased each year with the best of the recent publications on mis- 
sions, and which now contains, exclusive of the library of the theo- 
logical school, over 200 volumes which are not only in the library, 
but which are read. 

The third and the greatest means used has been the mission study 
class. There have been this past year at Yale twenty-seven men 
studying regularly, week by week, a scientific, systematic course on 
missions. 

Another result of the Volunteer Movement at Yale has been to 
increase the amount of money given by the students to the work in 
foreign missions. In addition to the amount of money required 
to further the work which is conducted among the lower classes 
in New Haven, there has also been contributed annually over $1,000 
to pay the salary of a representative of Yale on the foreign field. 

A third result, largely of the Volunteer Movement at Yale, has 
been increased prayer for missionary work. Each week a band 
of men meets who spend an hour in prayer for the success of this 
Vv'ork, and they are holding each year meetings at which the duty 
of every Christian has been to pray for the cause of missions. 

But the greatest result of the work of the Volunteer Movement 
in my college has been the increased number of men who are ready 
and willing to go to the foreign field. In my own class, for ex- 
ample — the class of 1898 — there were ten such men. 



* Cainccrie Hall, April 28. 



114 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO-DAY 

Miss E. K. Price, Student Secretary, Y. IV. C. A., Chicago, lU^ 
During the days of these meetmgs God has been pressing home, 
with ever-increasing distinctness, upon the hearts of some of us 
who are privileged by His providence to work among women stu- 
dents in these United States, the burning thought not only of the 
great field among women who need the Gospel of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ in other lands, but of the great field at home, 
out of which God in His providence has thrust forward laborers into 
this other field. 

Thirty thousand young women, the statistics tell us, are in the 
colleges of the United States; 60,000 in the normal training colleges 
where our teachers are prepared for their work; 1,500 in medical 
schools, and an unnumbered host of women in preparatory schools 
and in private schools. Is it any wonder that God is speaking 
to us to-day and is saying to us: "Upon you who work among 
students is imposed much of the responsibility of cultivating the 
mission fields of this and that land or people, that all women may 
learn to know their Lord and Savior." 

It is not enough that in the past, one-third of the number of stu- 
dents whose names are upon the rolls of the Students' Volunteer 
Movement are women. God has, indeed, spoken the word, and 
the women who publish the tidings have been a great host, but God 
says to-day they must be a still greater host. And we are grate- 
ful that He has pressed home upon us this conviction ; that the 
student department of the Young Women's Christian Association 
is side by side with its afifiliated organization, the Student Volun- 
teer Movement, of which it is a part and which is a part of it, and 
that it shall day by day promote the missionary spirit, and that, 
Vi^ith all its machinery, with all its 400 student associations, with its 
membership of 17,000 women students, and with its great summer 
conferences, it shall again and again and yet again utter the glory 
of God. 

Ttc Responsibility of "Women Respecting Missions 

Mrs. Duncan McLaren, United Presbyterian Church of Scot- 
land, Edinburgh.-^ 

Our responsibility in regard to mission work is plain because of 
woman's prevailing influence. Superstition forges many a heavy 
chain, and it is always around woman's neck that these links 
are most tightly fastened. Clinging with tenacity to customs 
hoary with age, she comes, in many instances, to hug these chains; 
thus we find that in dark, heathen lands, woman is ever the great 
obstructer to the spread of the light. It is her hands that raise 
the highest barriers against the truth ; it is from her lips that the 
poison flows which enters deepest into the life of the nation, for, 
shut out from all that would enlighten, woman instills into her 
children's minds the darkness of her own. An old Tamil proverb 
puts it thus — " As is the thread so is the cloth, as is the mother so is 

* Carnegie Hall, April sS. 
^ Carnegie Hall, April 26. 



THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WOMEN tl5 

the child." It is the O-ba-sans of Japan, the Lao-tai-tais, or vener- 
able grandmothers of China, the Bibis of the Indian zenanas, who, 
to-day, are keeping many a man from entering the Kingdom. How 
true it is that 

" The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink 
Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free." 
We shall never see noble men in heathen lands until there are en- 
lightened women. 

Look for a moment on this picture. It is a meeting of men, 
gathered together by an honored servant of God who has been 
pioneering amid the wilds, and has called the men together to tell 
them among other things that they ought to make a proper road, 
as a step upward toward civilization. Such a proposal is far from 
winning the men's approval. One voices the opposition with the 
characteristic assertion that " never since the Zambesi ran into the 
sea was such a thing dreamt of, that they should make a road for 
other people to walk on." But away at the back of the crowd 
there is a woman who, with quick intuition, has grasped the ad- 
vantages to be derived from this proposed roadway, and rising, 
she announces that she will give three weeks' work to help to make 
it. Her words change entirely the attitude of the men; the road 
is made. 

Take another picture. The scene lies far up the Cross River, 
on the v/est coast of Africa, The women of Unwana are displeased 
with a certain action the men have taken, and they make up their 
minds, at the instigation of the old women, to leave the town. They 
actually carry this threat out, and the missionary who sent the news 
home, added feelingly, " And the town was quiet for once! " Now, 
before these women would return, they had to be coaxed and 
bril:)ed, and still they threaten to go away again unless they get their 
own way. Such examples show clearly the immense importance 
of bringing heathen women to the Saviour's feet, that their God- 
given influence may be used to advance the kingdom of righteous- 
ness. 

Our responsibility in regard to heathen women is peculiar, be- 
cause the work of winning them for Christ has been laid upon us. 

To seek to raise the womanhood of the world to the high plane 
where God would have her take her place, is most certainly a great 
and difihcult undertaking, when we think of the numbers to be 
reached, and of the obstacles in the way. The more we study mis- 
sionary problems, the more clearly do we see how much of the real 
undermining work in missions lies in woman's hands to accomplish. 
The tightly shut doors of the zenanas will only open to a woman's 
touch ;"it must be a woman's voice that tells there the story of re- 
deeming love, and the same is true in modified degrees of heathen 
homes the wide world over. 

The Master is still saying to His chosen ones, as He did in the 
long ago in the upper room: "Let not your heart be troubled." And 
the message of resurrection joy, first intrusted to women by the 
empty sepulchre, has never been repealed : " Go, tell He is risen." 
What a message for the women of to-day to carry to a sin-burdened 



Il6 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO-DAY 

world : " Go quickly and tell ! " And, as of old the Marys ran 
with their glad message, Jesus Himself met them and from His 
divine lips the mighty trust was repeated with the tender assurance 
added, " Be not afraid, go tell." We, too, must receive our com- 
mission from the risen Lord and know what it is to walk with Him 
in newness of life on resurrection ground ere we can pass on the 
trust. 

Some time ago the members of the Manchurian Church sent my 
husband a Chinese scroll. It hangs in our home and often 
preaches a silent but telling sermon. The four Chinese charac- 
ters inscribed on it read thus: " He taketh hold of love and passeth 
it on to others." Have not these converts grasped the great 
truth? We need to take hold with a strong grip of the eternal 
Love ere we can pass it on. No Christian living on a low worldly 
plane rises to the level for imparting spiritual blessing. In order 
to do that the source of our supply must be by the throne of God. 

To-day is the day of woman's opportunity, a wide door of service 
is opened to us, and what we need is an intense, dominating power, 
urging us forward and at the same time enduing us with strength. 

Some time ago I went over one of the light-houses on our Scot- 
tish coast, in one of the rooms of which there was a siren whistle. 
It was difficult to believe that this small, insignificant-looking ob- 
ject would emit a powerful sound that could be heard for many and 
many a mile over the dark, befogged sea. But on going down 
to a lower room the mystery was explained ; the siren was con- 
nected with a powerful engine and supplied by it with compressed 
air which enabled it to give its timely and far-reaching warning. 
The hidden engine supplied the power ; the siren was only its mouth- 
piece. Have we not here a parable of woman's work and in- 
fluence? Her voice must reach afar through the mist and darkness 
of superstition and sin, in warning accents and in yearning love 
to save and to deliver. But the power for this is not in her, but 
altogether in the hidden source. 

" Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord 
of Hosts.'' 

Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, M.D., D.D., Missionary, Reformed 
Church in America, Indi-a* 

Will you indulge me for a moment in a very tender personal 
reminiscence? I drank in the spirit of missions on my mother's 
breast. That sainted mother, now for forty years in glory, was 
the instrument of sending out eleven of her sons and daughters, 
nephews and nieces, into the foreign field. I had, in young man- 
hood, so taken in the spirit of missions that though my course in 
life seemed to have been definitely settled, and it had never oc- 
curred to me that I should be a missionary, I remember distinctly 
vowing a most solemn vow to my Master — and this was fifty years 
ago — that if He would prosper me, as I thought I would be pros- 
pered, I would myself support my missionary in a foreign field. 



•Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, l\I.iy i. 



THE RELATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE TO MISSIONS II7 

And never for a moment did I waiver in that vow until the Lord 
turned me over into being a foreign missionary. And when I 
had, with my mother's and my father's blessing, consecrated my- 
self and was leaving for the foreign field, I then learned for the 
first time, that my mother as her first act after the birth of her eldest 
son, had placed me before the Lord and vowed that I should, so far 
as her consecration and her influence should go, be a foreign mis- 
sionary. And now, mothers, seated before me, you can do in that 
way a work that shall fill the missionary ranks abroad. If there 
has been any soul sent to glory through my ministrations in India, 
Christ knows that that soul is a star in my mother's crown. 

Mothers, give us your sons, give us your daughters, as your 
personal representatives in obeying that command, " Go, ye "; and, 
fathers, support those sons and daughters, and send them to us by 
the thousands, and reap your share in glory. 

The Relation of Young People to Missions 

Mrs. a. J. Wheeler, Woman's Missionary Union, Southern 
Baptist Convention, Nashville, Tenn.* 

The purpose of Daniel and the three young Hebrew captives, 
Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego, is yet wielding an influence in 
the world. Blest is the child whose parents before him have pur- 
posed to do God's will. His connection with God and humanity is 
already made, and needs but the current of his own will to be com- 
plete. 

Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, prepared an highway for our God. 
Looking into the face of her beloved firstborn, " she called his 
name Samuel, saying, because I have asked him of the Lord." 
While he was yet young, she brought him to the Temple at Shiloh, 
and with glad,' exultant song gave him into the ministry there. 

That Mary, from the Annunciation, regarded Jesus as holy, and 
pondered the relation He would bear to mankind, we may not 
doubt. For centuries the Jews had anxiously anticipated His 
coming as the lineal descendant of King David (who himself had 
been a pious boy, a great-grandson of the sturdy Boaz and the 
gentle Ruth). When the boy Jesus was found by those who sought 
Him. in the Temple, expounding the Word, and exclaimed, " Wist 
ye not that I must be about my Father's business? "how quickly 
must His mother have called to mind the purpose of His being. Al- 
though He continued to be subject to His parents, He never faltered 
in His intention, and. when after a time, it became again necessary 
to declare it. He defined, also, in an unmistakable manner the re- 
lationship He would henceforth bear to mankind: " Whoso shall do 
the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and my 
mother." 

Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and who, it is said, " seems to 
be the morning star of the Church universal," was yet young when 
he realized his desire, 



* Calvary Baptist Church, April 24. 



Il8 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO'DAY 

" Bore and forbore, and did not tire, 
But looking upward, full of grace, 
He prayed — and from a happ)' place 
God's glory smote him in the face." 

A young man named Saul, a few years younger than Jesus, hav- 
ing been reared to be zealous toward God, upon receiving the 
Gospel, was filled with a high purpose and became the first ambas- 
sador of Christ to foreign fields. Whose debtors we are. 

Timothy, the much-loved assistant of Paul, was but eighteen 
years old when called into the ministry. The " unfeigned faith " 
which characterized him had dwelt first in his grandmother, Lois, 
and in his mother, Eunice. John Mark, according to some writers, 
was also a young man. 

In the annals of modern missions the term " young " is so often 
applied to the volunteer for service in foreign fields, that one in- 
stinctively pauses and reflects. 

With the God-likeness still unmarred in their being, the love of 
Christ constraining and the influence of the Holy Spirit quickening 
their impulses, is it strange that when God chooses to pour out His 
spirit upon all flesh the first manifestations are in visions granted 
to our young men, and the spirit of preaching and teaching given 
our sons and daughters? 

A cause for endless praise was given to all Christians, and to 
Baptists in particular, in the purposeful life of William Carey, the 
pioneer of modern missions. In 1782, in the twenty-first year of 
his age, he began to pray in public and privately, for heathen lands. 
Realizing that love means more than kindly feeling, he began to 
act, also, and when in collecting material for his tract five years 
later, he attended a ministers' meeting in Northampton, he startled 
those present by asking, " Have the churches done what they 
should for missions? " He was met by the reply from a venerable 
minister, " Sit down, young man, when God is pleased to convert 
the heathen. He will do so without your help or mine." The 
Christian world rejoices that Carey did not sit down, but with this 
" one thing" in mind, pressed forward, overcoming opposition and 
discouragement, until he had, under God, achieved stupendous vic- 
tories in heathen lands. 

Adoniram Judson was but twenty-two years old when he re- 
solved to devote his life to foreign missions. With some young 
college mates, of whom Luther Rice was one, he organized a mis- 
sionary society. With a splendid career of youthful prominence 
held out to him as colleague to the pastor of the largest church in 
Boston, he declined it for the purpose of carrying the Gospel to the 
heathen in Burma. Amid unparalleled distresses and dangers, he 
established a work there which long since reached gigantic propor- 
tions. 

Jacob Chamberlain was nineteen years of age when he turned his 
attention to the subject of foreign missions; Sylvanus Boardman 
twenty-four, and Matthew T. Yates, twenty-one years of age. 

Among the first American women to enter the foreign field was 



THE RELATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE TO MISSIONS II9 

the beautiful and gifted bride of Dr. Judson, Ann Hasseltine, aged 
twenty-three years. 

Mrs. Sarah Hall Boardman was but twenty-two years of age, of 
finished and faultless beauty, when she began to labor among the 
heathen. 

Emily Chubbuck Judson, at the age of twelve years, fondly hoped 
to become a missionary. 

Of Livingstone, who was twenty-one years old when he purposed 
to devote his time and talent to foreign mission work, independent 
of sect, and of the host of others, young men and women, time 
would fail me to tell. 

The personnel of our present corps of young missionaries in 
foreign fields is described as of the brightest and best. Young 
men who have refused fine pastorates at home are there; and bright, 
attractive young women, all zealously teaching the way of light and 
peace. These plainly declare a purpose by the witness of their lives. 
" Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God." 

Of the various organizations of Baptist young people in the 
South, the Sunday-school is the largest, and also the strongest 
single organization uniting them to mission work. And so it 
should be; for the Sunday-school movement was the immediate re- 
sult of the missionary movement. Under the direction of the 
Sunday-school Board located at Nashville, and the Woman's Mis- 
sionary Union, auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention, 
" Missionary Day " is observed by the Sunday-schools of the Bap- 
tist churches throughout the South, in September of each year. 

The " Sunbeam Society," a juvenile missionary band of large in- 
fluence, grew from a primary class in a Virginia Sunday-school. 
In the first eight years of their existence the " Sunbeams " con- 
tributed more than $25,000 to missions, besides sending the light 
into China, through their missionary representative there. 

" Baptist Young People's Societies," corresponding in nature to 
" Epworth Leagues " and " Christian Endeavor Societies," do a 
work in foreign missions by contributions and study. Other or- 
ganizations known as " Helping Hands," " Girls' Societies," " Mis- 
sion Bands," and " Baby Bands " are under the guiding and foster- 
ing care of the " Woman's Missionary Union." This union being 
itself but twelve years old, the young people's societies are in their 
infancy. A partial report made last May at the convention, re- 
lates that III new societies were formed, and $2,128.81 contributed 
to foreign missions alone in the year preceding. 

As in the days of Carey, when Mrs. Wallis's parlor at Kittering, 
was the cradle of the first society formed for missionary support, 
and ii3 2s. 6d. the first sum subscribed; so at the present 
time the parlor is frequently the " rallying and radiating 
point " of the Juvenile Mission Band; and no instrument of music, 
or esthetic " cycle of song " can be more patent of purity and peace 
than these lisping child voices raised in praise. 

Froebel, whose birth in 1792 was coincident with the establish- 
ment of modern missions, has revealed to all mankind the pathway 



I20 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO'DAY 

into child nature. His motto, " Come, let us live with our children," 
is not opposed to the ruling text of Carey's life, " Expect great 
things of God. Attempt great things for God." Like Carey, he 
was ridiculed by his contemporaries and honored by subsecjuent 
generations. 

Froebel, after thorough research, found it all-important to bring 
the young into an " early conscious relation with God," and de- 
clares the need of visible signs in order to arrive at the understand- 
ing of truth. So the teacher who would instruct the child con- 
cerning heathen lands exhibits curios and reads aloud letters 
which the children of missionaries have written to the little ones at 
home, in reply to the letters sent them. 

The relation of young people to the foreign mission w-ork of the 
church is a tender, yet growing one, of duty and pleasure. If the 
young be planted aright in the " house of the Lord," we may ex- 
pect them to " flourish in the courts of our God." 

By a process invisible and powerful, common clay is influenced 
and becomes an opal. By another agency it is changed into a 
sapphire, and even the grimy coal by a steady, strong force is trans- 
formed into a priceless diam^ond. 

Potent, silent influences are at work upon the characters of our 
young people. Made conscious of their unity with God, may they 
see the purpose He displayed in the creation, and again in the 
nativity, and with singleness of heart seek to be hidden in Him, 
with Christ, there, by the alchemy of divine goodness, to be trans- 
formed into the nature of Him who preached the Gospel to 
the poor, deliverance to the captive, healed the broken-hearted, and 
set at liberty them that were bound. 

Rev. B. L. Whitman, A.M., D.D., Colnmhian University, of 
Washington, D. C* 

There is a new factor in the Christian problem. There is a 
new recruiting ground. Even I can remember when little chil- 
dren were very scantily welcomed into the membership of our 
churches. To-day, the pastor whose heart is aflame counts it 
double joy, not only seeing a soul saved, but a life and a lifetime, 
too, when the little ones come into the Kingdom. And so it has 
come about that here is a new recruiting ground, and fighters by 
the thousand are called in to do God's work, and there are tangible 
results ; a new spirit in all the churches, a spirit that has quickened 
even the work on the foreign field, coming back to the unnamcable, 
the indescribable, but invaluable elements of this problem that I 
can not handle, but tarry there. 

And then there are the elements that you can handle. Let me 
remind you of the organizations as they exist: the Young People's 
Society of Christian Endeavor, where they recognize a mcmbershi]:) 
of three millions and a half; the Epworth League, with a member- 
ship of a million and three-quarters; the Baptist Young People's 
Union, with along toward a half-million members, probably fifty 



* Carnegie Hall, April a8. 



THE RELATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE TO MISSIONS 12 1 

per cent, of them, however, already named in the enrollment of the 
Christian Endeavor body — and, indeed, concerning all these statis- 
tics, we need to bear in mind the federative character of the great 
movement which has headed all these organizations, and what I am 
saying can be only approximately true for two reasons. One reason 
is that the statistics were furnished nearly two weeks ago, and many 
things have happened among the young people in those two weeks, 
and the other is that there is cross-grouping in many of these or- 
ganizations, and yet I am giving them to you as they are in my own 
mind, and you will not be misled and will make the necessary 
modifications. And going on to the Christian Union of United 
Brethren, or the Lutheran body, 80,000; Young People's Union of 
the United Presbyterian body, 41,000; the Brotherhood of Andrew 
and Philip, 15,000 and more. Now, concerning these, there are 
these matters to be kept in mind, that in some cases we have only 
estimates, in some cases we have cross-groupings, in some cases 
associate members are also included; but also there are other bodies 
with a smaller membership, the aggregate of which, very likely, 
will entirely make up for all of the deductions that we would need 
to make. And what is extremely significant to read of, the in- 
crease in these organizations during the last five years ranges all 
the way from 30 to 100 per cent., and the aggregate is some- 
thing like five millions and a half. Then the corresponding body 
that should be reckoned of believers in this country — and nearly 
all of these organizations are primarily American — of some 15,- 
000,000, more than thirty per cent, of the Church membership in 
this country, which it is proper to speak of at a moment like this, 
is organized in the form of young people's societies of whatsoever 
name. 

Well, now, what are the possibilities? First of all, a larger 
Christian intelligence. Is it no matter of concern to us that all over 
our land there is a quickened interest in the colleges concerning 
this movement, and that hundreds upon hundreds of these organ- 
ized bodies are in daily personal touch with the great centers of 
light and leading and culture all over the world, and that the time 
is coming — God speed it — when the basis of distinct decision shall be 
God only, and man shall be willing to go whithersoever God points 
the task and carry the message on the basis of an understanding of 
what God's will requires. And in the second place, there is here 
the possibility of larger, of closer affiliation in spirit and service. 
There is such a thing as turning out a great deal of effort that 
doesn't turn in a great deal of result. I heard a little while ago of 
a man who described his team as very willing; one horse was will- 
ing to draw all the load, and the other was entirely willing that he 
should. There is a possibility of intense expenditure of effort and 
nothing to come from it, great energy put forth, but the load still 
sticks fast. The cure for it lies in the good old word which Chris- 
tian men, like others, need when it is a question of doing a great 
work calling for great co-operation, " A long pull and a strong pull, 
and a pull all together," and the work is done. 



122 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO'DAY 

There will be a better understanding of the fundamental element 
of the problem — men and women, when, in God's name? When 
we shall understand that the great business of people in this world 
is not to make a living, is not to be successful business men, is not 
to be the successful lawyer, or doctor, or preacher, or missionary 
even ; that, underlying all the achievements within the kingdom of 
God, there is the fundamental obligation to do the will of God in 
heaven, and that the first and the great business of every soul in 
the world is to do God's will. And in the doing of God's will all 
these incidental tasks will be accomplished. I greatly mistake, 
unless the truth lie in these words with which I close ; that the 
Church will have the blessed privilege in these near future days of 
girding itself up to do Christ's work in Christ's way, shaping its 
life up to the great commission under the leadership of these 
young men and women, these boys and girls, who make up God's 
great army. 

Responsibility of the Church 

Rev. W. F. McDowell, D.D., Secretary Methodist Episcopal 
Board of Education, New York* 

" Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send 
and who will go for us? " Then said several thousand students in 
several hundred colleges — " Here am I, send me." And I beheld 
the outstretched hands of the millions who know not Christ, and 
near these millions, one saying, " How shall they preach, except 
they be sent? " 

That is the new message to the churches. One word sums up 
the results of these fruitful days together — consecration. David 
Livingstone used to write at the close of his letters and articles, and 
to say in all his speeches, " The end of the exploration is the begin- 
ning of the enterprise." The end of the Ecumenical Conference is 
the beginning of the ecumenical conquest. The end of the privi- 
lege is the beginning of the duty. The end of the receiving is the 
beginning of the giving. The end of the blessing is the beginning 
of the benevolence. The end of the praying together is the begin- 
ning of the final victory. The end of the learning is the beginning 
of the obedience. 

Seven hundred and fifty missionaries have gathered here. There 
are 16,000 in all fields, who sow beside all waters; they are re-en- 
forced by 73,000 native workers. Mofifat told Livingstone that he 
had seen in the light of the morning sun the smoke of a thousand 
African villages where the name of Christ had never been spoken. 
And Livingstone entered at the southern end of Africa and by his 
journeys drew what Stanley called the rude figure of a cross upon 
the dark continent before he died praying that the open sore might 
be healed. We have told that story in our colleges; we have told 
of Hannington and Coleridge, Patteson and Paton and the rest, 
until hosts stand ready to go. They are our imperial troops wait- 
mg to carry our symbols away beyond our " far-flung battle-line." 

* Carnegie Hall, April 28. 



RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH 1 23 

They seek not ease but service. They have knelt in some new up- 
per room until they have heard the sound of the rushing, mighty 
wind; they have knelt by some new haystack by historic river until 
cloven tongues like as of fire have sat upon their lips; they are the 
children of a material, commercial age, but have been so touched 
by the Spirit that they rise from their knee, a new light upon their 
faces, saying, " the love of Christ constraineth me." On Church 
of Christ, quench not the spirit of your sons and daughters! Halt 
not again at Kadesh Barnea to wander and die in the desert; fail 
not as in past times. " How shall they go unless they be sent? " 

The nation arms and equips her soldiers for conquest. She 
staggers not at any millions needed to plant her flag in triumph. 
Tommy Atkins m London, or Transvaal, is undergirded with the 
strength of the whole empire in island and colony; Bank of Eng- 
land and credit of England are back of him. The empire sees to 
it that her soldiers can be useful as well as willing. She meets 
their readiness with her means. Will the church of God do 
less than that? The Church of Jesus Christ must enable her 
sons and daughters to be able as well as willing. The devotion 
of the volunteer must be ec|ualed by the devotion of the Church. 
The patriotism of the soldier must not fail because of the apathy 
of the country. And the flag must not be brought back to the 
people; the people must move up to the flag. For we bear in our 
hands as the sign of our triumph " the cross that turns not back." 
To your knees then, oh Church of Christ, that you may see the 
vision that has been given to your children! Quench not their 
spirit! 

Individual wealth must be reconsidered in the light of the mov- 
ing of the Spirit of God upon our young people. Rank imposes 
obligation. Possession gives power and power brings duty. The 
philosophy of wealth has only been written in one sentence and one 
life. It was expressed in a phrase, incarnated in a career. It 
touches every bank account in the world this day. It makes the 
atmosphere in which the right man lives, and the wrong man 
shrivels and dies. Gold melts or multiplies at its touch. Stocks 
and bonds, lands, and factories are measured, approved, or con- 
demned by that incarnated philosophy. The old political economy 
is a blistered and blasted thing, because it sought to enthrone an- 
other doctrine. The new political economy slowly and painfully 
comes toward the truth. It holds altruism to be ideal but some- 
what impossible. Meantime, for every man with wealth and for 
every man getting wealth there is one sentence with its living defi- 
nition. " For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that, 
though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye 
through his poverty miglit be rich." 

This is the living philosophy of wealth, written in every page of 
history from Abraham to Christ, and written at last on the cross 
itself. By this philosophy all individual wealth is tested. Cotton 
is not king. The South thought it was and was overwhelmed. 
Commerce is not king. Great cities have thought it was and have 



124 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO'DAY 

perished. Culture is not king. Greece thought it was and lost 
the candle out of her candle-stick. Gold and silver are not king; 
nor oil, nor iron, nor steel. Only Christ is king, and evermore His 
message written in His life and sharpened in His cross is this: 
" Rich, but for their sakes poor, that they through his poverty 
might be rich." To the modern rich man asking anew how he 
may get eternal life. He says as to the other one, " Sell and give." 
Clean hands must be open hands. Indeed, I am not sure but that 
the religion of Christ may come at last to be known as the religion 
of the open hand, Hoffman's picture of Christ and the rich young 
man ought to hang in every counting-house and every stock ex- 
change. For it is only the presence and spirit of Christ that can 
save a stock exchange from becoming a stock yard. Now, in the 
light of this living philosophy of wealth, I ask these questions: 
Would you like to own and support a private yacht unless you first 
maintained a missionary ship like the " Morning Star "? Would you 
like to command and maintain an automobile for your pleasure 
unless you first maintained a gospel wagon? Would you like to 
own and maintain a private car unless you first maintained a cathe- 
dral car for the service of the King's messengers to the destitute? 
Would you like to be served daily by an expensive retinue of ser- 
vants while your brethren perish for the bread of life? Will you 
be ministered unto or will you minister? Will you forget the 
cross of Christ and the philosophy of wealth? Then know that 
no man and no nation can go wrong and come out right. Ten 
thousand young men and women stand ready to go, and ten thou- 
sand men and women hold and withhold the means to have them go. 
It has come in the divine order that the volunteers are ready first. 
Woe to them if they should refuse to volunteer! But ten thousand 
woes to us if this holy offer of life be not met with an enabling offer 
of money. 

The churches as churches must meet this spirit of devotion by 
the same spirit. The Church, which has prayed that her sons and 
daughters should prophecy and her young men see visions, must 
also pray that her old men shall dream dreams. It is an awful 
thing for a small fraction, a remnant of the Church, to live in the 
Spirit while the remainder lives after the flesh. For the remnant 
gets crucified and the multitude dies. Christ-like devotion is all 
too rare with us, and the Christ-like passion does not yet possess 
the Church. We still like to be ministered unto. We still ab- 
surdly count ourselves to have served when we have only praised 
and been served by eloquence, and music, and art. The end of 
the worship is the beginning of the service, and the service reaches 
to the ends of the earth. I can not say my prayers, nor listen to 
the anthem, nor look at the cathedral windows, nor hear the soft 
strains of the organ, nor enjoy the holy sacrament, nor be lifted to 
the heights on hymn or sermon, nor warm mv heart with sacred 
fellowship, unless I hold in my prayer, and gifts, and fellowship, the 
dwellers by the Congo, and the Ganges, and the Yangtse. and in the 
islands. It will not be respectable in the near future for a strong 



THE PASTOR IN RELATION TO THE FOREIGN FIELD 1 25 

church to support only its own ministers; it must also support as 
its regular duty a minister to those who sit in darkness. The 
Hudson, the Thames, the Rhine, and the Hoangho will flow to- 
gether when rich churches in New York, and London, and Berlin 
respond to this spirit. The Protestant Church is liberal with 
Bibles and stingy of men; it is willing to send a book. The Roman 
Catholic Church is liberal with men and stingy of Bibles; when it 
wants a task performed it sends a priest. The Church of the fu- 
ture will send multitudes of men with the open Bible in their hands. 
It will be liberal with both Bibles and men. It will use its ten 
thousand choice young people. These volunteers have the true 
theory of culture. These young soldiers, trained and obedient, be- 
lieve m Christian culture and Christian character for the sake of hu- 
man service in the Captain's name. The modern Christian scholar 
counts himself a debtor to both Greek and barbarian. For him 
there is no foreign land, and to him there is no foreign man. 
Africa holds the heart of Livingstone and the bones of Hannington, 
China holds the dust of Wiley, in India sleeps William Carey, and 
these lands are home lands forever to the Church of Christ. 

That was a magnificent time in history when the revival of learn- 
ing occurred; when the classics broke out of the cloisters, and 
scholars journeyed from city to city with the strange new passion 
upon them. Universities were born, literature leaped into life, hu- 
manity recovered its birthright. Learning ceased to be a thing of 
the cell and became the familiar figure of the mart and the parlor. 
Those were great days when the famous universities were born in 
Germany, Italy, France, England, and America. But the most 
majestic era since the Lord ascended is the era which began with 
three students praying beneath the shelter of a haystack, and 
closes with the Student Federation of the world ; the era that saw 
fifty Cambridge and Oxford men offer to take up Bishop Hanning- 
ton's work after he was martyred ; the era that closes with hosts of 
students in the field and other hosts waiting to go. 

It is said that England and America could unite and whip the 
world. What do they want to whip the world for? They could 
unite, with the other Christian nations, to bring the world to the 
feet of the Redeemer. They could unite to plant the cross in every 
land. They could " bind the whole world by gold chains about 
the feet of God." The students stand ready. Church of God, 
line up with the youth to follow the Great White Captain to vic- 
tory, life, and peace! 

The Pastor in Relation to the Foreign Field 

Rev. George F. Pentecost^ D.D., Presbyterian Church in the 
U. S. A., Yonkers, N. F.* 

To the pastor belongs the privilege and responsibility of solving 
the missionary problem. Until the pastors of our churches wake 
to the truth of this proposition, and the foreign work of the Church 
becomes a passion in their own hearts and consciences, our boards 

* Carnegie Hall, May i. 



126 RESPOiXSIBILITIES OF TO-DAY 

may continue to do what they may or can, by way of organizing 
forward movements and devising new methods for exploiting the 
churches for money, the chariot wheels of foreign missions will 
drive heavily. 

I am charged with the duty of speaking to you on the topic of 
the Pastor in His Relation to the Great Commission. When a com- 
mission is put into the hands of one charged with its execution, his 
first obvious duty is to make a careful study of its spirit, contents, 
and scope. 

The first thing about the commission is that it contains the one 
solitary command of Christ to His disciples, and pre-eminently to 
those who are ofificially charged with its execution. There is noth- 
ing here in respect of ecclesiastical polity or discipline, but every- 
thing in respect of authority, doctrine, power, and marching or- 
ders. All is concentrated in that one categorical imperative, " Go 
into all the world and preach the glad tidings to every creature." All 
other commands and injunctions are summed up here. The say- 
ing of Christ's which is the most nearly parallel with this, and per- 
haps delivered at or about the same time, is that in which He seeks 
to counteract a strong tendency on the part of his Jewish apostles 
to withdraw their eyes and their thoughts from the wide-world 
field to which they were commissioned, and to concentrate them 
upon the re-establishment of the narrow and local " kingdom of 
Israel." For the time being He told them that the kingdom of 
Israel must be relegated to the background. In the meantime they 
must go to Jerusalem and tarry there until they were endued with 
power from on high, and then immediately proceed to the execution 
of the great commission, saying, " Ye shall be witness unto me both 
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter- 
most parts of the earth." This fact should be deeply pondered. 
The local Christian pastor and church have no more right to with- 
draw themselves from participating in this grander and more far- 
reaching work of the ministry, and concentrate their thought, 
energy, power, and money upon themselves and their local fields, 
than the early Jewish apostles and believers had to put the king- 
dom of Israel in the foreground of their work. 

The obvious terms of the commission set the whole world — all 
nations — before the pastor who accepts office and service under it; 
and if he be loyal to Christ and conscientious in the discharge of 
the duties of his office under that commission he will, neither day 
nor night, lower his eyes from its wide and uttermost boundary. 
The preliminary command of the Master was, " Lift up your eyes 
and look! " For what purpose do we ever lift up our eyes? Is it 
not that we may contemplate circumferences rather than keep them 
fixed upon centers? The action of the commission is centrifugal 
and not centripetal. The law of natural gravitation would solidify 
the universe about a single center. The tendency toward eccles- 
iastical solidification can only be counteracted by letting loose the 
tremendous centrifugal spiritual power contained in the command 
of Christ. Let every pastor see to it that he and his charge are 



THE PASTOR IN RELATION TO THE FOREIGN FIELD 1 27 

not crushed together on the home field by neglecting this supreme 
command of our Lord, " Go! " 

The terms of the commission are imperative. Not alone for the 
time when it was given — but for all time. Down through all the 
ages that great and insistent word has been sounding, '* Go." To 
the uttermost parts of the earth, till the last heathen nation, tribe, 
and family are evangelized, that imperative, " Go ! " of Jesus should 
sound like a trumpet in our ears. 

Rightly understood, there is this great dignity in the pastoral 
office. As a missionary bishop his field is the whole wide world. 
No pastor who fully apprehends his relation to the great commis- 
sion, can say of his field, " It is a little one." He may be the pas- 
tor of but a handful of people in the smallest wayside village in the 
whiole land, and yet his commission assigns to him as his field the 
whole world. Nor is this a mere figure of speech. It is in the 
province and power of the pastor of the smallest church in the land 
to make his influence felt around the world. Personally, I should 
feel myself deprived of the larger half of my prerogatives and privi- 
leges, and more than half recreant to my allegiance to Christ did 
I not have a part in the evangelization of every nation under 
heaven. 

No pastor is fully fitted for his work until he has made a careful 
and prayerful study of the great commission in its relation to the 
entire revelation of God. The revelation of the gospel for the 
whole world did not find its first expression in the commission to 
preach the gospel to the whole creation as given by Jesus, but 
goes back to the very beginning. To illustrate, and not to go 
further back than to Abraham's time, who saw Christ's day and 
was glad, we hear God declaring His covenant with him in these 
terms, " I will bless thee and make thee a blessing." " In thee 
and thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Time 
would fail me to trace this golden thread of purpose and promise 
throughout the ancient scriptures. Isaiah saw in the coming Christ 
" the " light that should " lighten the Gentiles " ; Zechariah saw in 
Him a light " to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the 
shadow of death." The virgin mother of Jesus saw in " that Holy 
Thing " that was conceived in her by the Holy Ghost, the fulfillment 
of the promises — spoken to our fathers and to Abraham and his seed 
forever. The angels testified, at His birth, that He was a Saviour 
unto " all people." Old Simeon, moved by the Holy Ghost, took 
the young child in his arms and desired to depart in peace, since 
he had, in Jesus, seen God's " salvation, which thou hast prepared 
before all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of 
thy people Israel." Paul declared that in Him and the gospel 
preached in His name was unfolded " The mystery which, in other 
ages, was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed 
unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit ; that the Gentiles 
should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his 
promise in Christ by the gospel ; " for which cause he was made a 
minister, that he should " preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable 
riches of Christ, . . . and to make all men see what is the fellow- 



138 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO-DAY 

ship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world had been 
hicl in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent 
that now, unto the principahties and powers in heavenly places, 
might be made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." 
For this cause, he prayed that the Ephesians might be strength- 
ened with might by the Spirit in the inner man; that Christ might 
dwell in their hearts by faith, and that being rooted and grounded 
in love they might be able to comprehend with all saints what is the 
breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love 
of Christ which passeth knowledge, and be filled with the fullness 
of God. How few think of this as a prayer of prayers for the de- 
velopment of the missionary spirit in the people of God. That 
Paul never lost sight of this great mystery and purpose of God is 
witnessed by all his life and work. You remember how, after 
having first preached the Gospel to his own people at Antioch in 
Pisidia, and when they had turned away from it, he waxed bold 
and said, " It was necessary that the word of God should first have 
been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge your- 
selves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. 
For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, ' I have set thee to 
be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldst be for salvation to 
the ends of the earth.' And when the Gentiles heard this they 
were glad; and glorified the word of the Lord; and as many as were 
ordained unto eternal life believed." Testimonies to the eternal 
purpose of God toward the Gentiles, such as these, might be al- 
most indefinitely multiplied. 

It has been said that Jesus did not extend His ministry to the Gen- 
tiles, but that, on the other hand, He not only limited it to the Jewish 
people, but forbade His disciples to preach the gospel of the king- 
dom beyond the borders of their own people. This, indeed, was 
true during the time it was necessary that He should ofTer Himself 
first to His own people as their promised Messiah. But even in 
that time He found the highest type of faith in a Roman centurion, 
and in a poor Syro-Phoenician woman, who would not take. No, as 
an answer to her prayer. Any careful reader of the Gospels must 
see that even during the time of His testimony to Israel, Jesus had 
His eye and heart upon the great outside Gentile world — that by 
many words, sayings, and miracles He was preparing His disciples 
for the great commission which Fie gave to them as His last com- 
mand and instruction. How many times over did He say, " The 
field is the world." And again, " Lift up your eyes and look on 
the fields; for they are white already to harvest." " Other sheep 
I have which are not of this fold ; them also I must bring." 
" This gospel of the kingdom must be preached among all nations 
for a testimony." His final words to them were not concerning 
their own kingdom of Israel, but concernmg carrying His gospel to 
the uttermost parts of the earth. It has been well said by some- 
one that " we find in the Gospels God's cumulative reserve of pur- 
pose, grace, power, and instrumentalities " ready to be projected 
upon the whole world by the execution of the great commission in 
the power of the Holy Spirit personally administered by Jesus. 



THE PASTOR IN RELATION TO THE FOREIGN FIELD I29 

In the light of such declarations of scripture as those quoted 
above must the great commission be read and studied, and no 
pastor is worthy of his high office who does not put himself into 
sympathy with its magnificent breadth and draw both inspiration 
and zeal from its world-wide sweep. 

All the soldiers and sailors of the Queen of England are enlisted 
for foreign service. Even the yeomanry, in emergencies, are sub- 
ject to be ordered to the foreign service, as in the present unhappy 
war. Her soldiers from Woolwich to the Vaal River, and her 
sailors from Southampton to the Cape of Good Hope, all see their 
objective point to be the last line of defense taken up and held by 
the Transvaal Republic. Her transports are plowing the seas 
bearing men, arms, stores, and munitions of war for her foreign 
service ; and she has not a soldier in her army, nor a sailor in her 
navy who does not feel that his lines have fallen to him in hard 
places, if he is not permitted to get out on the firing line. But 
the kingdom of God and Christ is vaster than the British Empire, 
and of infinitely more importance. Every preacher of the gospel, 
and all laymen and women, if rightly instructed and fully con- 
verted, should count it to be their highest honor and privilege that 
they are enlisted for the foreign service of our glorious Redeemer 
and King. All may not go to the front, but those who must stay 
behind may have their hearts in that service even while staying by 
the stufif at Besor. Every pastor may not be a foreign missionary 
in the ordinary sense and meaning of that word, but every pastor 
may and should be a recruiting officer and sub-chancellor of the 
exchequer for that service. This should be as true of the humblest 
and most obscure pastor as of the one who holds the world's eye 
and ear, and occupies the most conspicuous pulpit in the land. I 
have sometimes heard pastors of small churches excuse themselves 
from inciting their people to foreign missionary zeal on the ground 
that their churches were small, and that their own position in the 
Church was humble and obscure. It may well be believed that many 
of our pastors always will be obscure and their churches poor, 
for the simple reason that they do not or will not discharge the 
high calling of missionary bishops, and train and guide their people 
in respect to the universal obligation put upon all Christian pas- 
tors and people to take part in the evangelization of the world. He 
must be a blind student of the providential order and the spiritual 
economy of the kingdom of God, who does not see that all the ulti- 
mate home interests and prosperity of the Church — even her very 
existence — are dependent upon the measure of active interest we 
take in the success of our missionary work abroad. As the com- 
mercial and even the political life of modern nations depends upon 
the extent and persistency of their foreign trade, so does the life 
and prosperity of the home Church depend upon the extent and 
energy with which we prosecute our foreign missionary enterprise. 
The business of the pastor is not alone that of " high farming " at 
home, but to send the products of his spiritual ministry abroad. 
It is not enough that he cares for the flock over which God has 
made him an overseer. He must always remember those " other 



130 RESPONSIBILITIES OF TO'DAY 

sheep " of Christ's, which He said must also be brought into His 
flock. 

Alas! how far short of this conception of our high calling many 
of our pastors have fallen. We have hundreds of congregations 
in America, which year in and year out, do nothing, give nothing, 
for foreign missions. If they give not, it goes without saying that 
they pray not, for to pray for foreign missionary success and with- 
hold gifts from the same, would be rank blasphemy, of which I 
should hesitate to charge them. If there are churches that give 
not and pray not for foreign missions, it is because they have pas- 
tors who are false and recreant to the command of Christ. Our 
Lord's command, " Go into all the world and preach the gospel " 
has no meaning to them. Such pastors, masquerading under the 
great commission, either ignorantly, or cowardly, but certainly 
notoriously, misrepresent their Lord and His gospel, and are de- 
liberately disobedient to His great command. To all such I would 
say. Either execute your commission or resign it. 

I have heard some pastors say that their Sessions are opposed to 
their preaching on the subject of foreign missions, because they 
say they are too poor to give to foreign missions, and at the same 
time support their own churches. Such churches are already 
smitten with spiritual paralysis, and such pastors are " ambassadors 
in bonds." 

I have heard ministers of the gospel boast of their loyalty to what 
they call the Pauline theology, who yet have none of Paul's mission- 
ary zeal, and who are not leading their congregations along his 
glorious missionary lines. I know clergymen who are proud and 
confident of being in what they are pleased to call the " apostolic 
succession," who yet do nothing for foreign missions. Permit me 
to say to all such that all the hands of all the popes, cardinals, or 
bishops in Christendom could not put them into the apostolic suc- 
cession if they do not apostolic work. 

Let me close with two observations on the pastor's relation to 
the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made him overseer. 

1. The pastor is the natural leader as well as instructor of the 
congregation over which he presides. He must not care only for 
their souls but must direct their activities. He must not for a 
moment tolerate dictation or repression of duty from non-mission- 
ary or parsimonious ofifice bearers. 

2. The pastor is not only responsible for leadership, but for en- 
thusing his church along missionary lines. Jesus has promised 
to continue the great enduement of power for this very purpose. 
If the pastor has no convictions in this matter, or those convictions 
are not set on fire with a Holy Ghost enthusiasm, then will his 
church be cold, indifferent, and perfunctory in the matter of foreign 
missions. I am almost warranted in laying it down as an infallible 
law, that as no congregation can long resist the enthusiasm of a 
reaUy enthusiastic pastor, so on the other hand no congregation 
can rise above cold indifference or lack of conviction in this matter on 
the part of its pastor. To the pastor belongs the privilege and re- 
sponsibility of solving the foreign missionary problem. 



CHAPTER VI 

METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

Missionary Addresses — Public Meetings — Young People's Societies — System- 
atic Study of Missions — Appeals for Conformity to Jesus Christ 



Means of Arousing Interest 

Rev. J. Fairley Daly, M.A., B.D., Free Church of Scotland 
Deputation to India, 1888. Glasgow* 

The great problem facing the Church of Christ in connection 
with the growing work in the foreign field is — How to provide the 
necessary means. A century has passed since Carey asked the 
Church to give one penny per week, and even now it is hardly more 
than one penny per month. British Protestants give something 
like £700,000 per annum. Carey's penny per week would bring 
in two million, and more than double our work. 

How, then, are we so to increase and deepen interest at home 
as to call forth increasing gifts and increasing prayer? It is not 
that there is lack of interest, but that interest is not adequately dis- 
tributed. Some are deeply interested ; they feel the need of ex- 
tension. Others are only moderately interested. Others have 
no interest at all ; they are not altogether hostile, but they are wholly 
indiflferent and full of objections. Men and women who have lived 
in India, China, and Africa often speak unfavorably about mis- 
sions. Books of travel are often full of bitter hostility and un- 
friendly criticism. These statements are quoted as the opinions 
of people who know, and confirm people in their objections. 

The remedy will be found in information and enthusiasm. Our 
people must be informed and enthused. We must touch their 
minds, their imaginations, and their hearts, so as to awaken their 
sympathy and interest, and thereby secure their prayers and sup- 
port. The agencies to be used to accomplish these ends are 
various. 

I. Undoubtedly the demand for missionary visits is rapidly in- 
creasing. Our congregations naturally wish to see and hear the men 
and women who are actually taking part in the work of foreign 
missions. " Send us a real live missionary," is the unvarying cry, 
although I never heard of a board who attempted to send a dead 
one. Few, if any, can so effectively urge the work upon the sym- 
pathy and liberality of our people, because none can inform them 
so accurately and vividly. We must, therefore, utilize and organ- 

• Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, May i. 



132 METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

ize more than we have done these missionary visits. The new cen- 
tury will need to place the missionary deputation under modern 
scientific methods. 

In the Church I represent we have drawn up a scheme which se- 
cures to each congregation a visit from a missionary on a Sun- 
day once in six years. To accomphsh this, it is necessary that 
each missionary at home on furlough give up to the committee 
twenty-five Sundays, or one-third of the Sundays of his furlough, 
and undertake in cold, wintry weather many long and exposed 
journeys. 

2. An important watchword of missionary work is, Organize. 
By using well the ecclesiastical courts, deputations, meetings, con- 
tributions, etc., can be easily and thoroughly organized. It is 
not enough that a missionary visit our congregations once in six 
or three years. Good organization should secure (i) A visit of 
a missionary once in three years on a Sunday; (2) a visit of a 
presbyterial deputation, say minister, elder, and, if possible, a lady, 
the year following; and (3) a sermon on missions by the pastor the 
year after that. These arrangements should have all the authority 
of the presbytery or like body, a committee of presbytery being 
appointed to see them carried through. The same committee 
should meet annually in conference with the foreign mission 
treasurers of the congregations and carefully inquire into the state 
of the contributions. Under the same presbyterial auspices a 
large public missionary meeting should be held annually at some 
influential center in the district, and addressed by several mission- 
aries. Such a scheme means work, but it is worth it. But even 
with all such ideal organization there are classes who will certainly 
be overlooked unless special efforts are made to reach them — e.g., 
the Established Church of Scotland, desiring to reach the girls or 
young ladies of the cultured and leisure classes and to redeem their 
time, instituted what they call " The Fellow-workers' Union." 
Each member is asked (i) to pay one shilling per annum; (2) to 
send in quarterly a piece of work which shall be suitable for a sale 
of work, or its value in money; (3) to pray regularly for missions 
and missionaries. This union advertises as its saHent features — 
no meetings, no expenses, no subscription lists. In some places 
a monthly meeting is held on Saturday afternoons, with the school- 
boys and schoolgirls, to hear about foreign missions. I read lately 
of one such meeting that gave an afternoon tea to all the schools in 
a large district, the only condition being that each child bring some 
gift suitable for a sale of work. Several missionaries were pres- 
ent, and the meeting was a great success. Garden parties, mis- 
sion teas, family sales, have all been tried, and tried successfully 
with us, and it is well to encourage and sanctify all such ingenuity. 

3. But until the clergy are afire, it is useless to expect the laity 
to be so. There is not a single instance of a minister really inter- 
ested in foreign missions, praying and working for them, who has 
not met at length with an encouraging response from a certain 
number of his people. 

4. The time has now come when each mission center of our dif- 



CAMPAIGN OF EDUCATION 1 33 

ferent missions should have at home a complete set of lantern 
views, showing the missionaries, their homes, schools, churches, 
workers, converts, and natives, their customs, homes, worship, and 
incidents, facts, and figures of the work. With little expense 
these could be multiplied and sets kept at accessible centers, from 
which they could be sent to country churches and schools at the mere 
cost of carriage. We should give up looking upon lantern slides as a 
source of missionary income, but send them far and wide free of 
charge. Experience has taught me that a charge, however small, is 
a serious difficulty in most of our country churches, where all these 
extras simply come out of the minister's pocket. 

Let our missionaries, many of whom are capital photographers, 
once know that their particular mission has assigned to it a special 
set of lantern slides which are circulating through our congrega- 
tions, and we shall find them cultivating the eye for fresh, interest- 
ing incidents and sending home from time to time new views, as 
well as new reports. Of course, this means a small allowance for 
expenses, but such outlays will be found to pay. 

5. The standing difficulty at home is lack of information regard- 
ing the work abroad. The churches all have abundant material. 
What they want is an education campaign. There is no lack of 
printed and written information — reports, magazines, books, etc. 
The materials need careful and systematic use. Hence the need of 
the living voice of the informed and enthusiastic advocate of mis- 
sions. Education is not the work of missionary deputations — gen- 
eral education in missions is outside their function. They come 
to illustrate the teaching. It is the ministers at home who must 
take up and carry through this campaign of education in mission- 
ary principles, motives, and history. 

How to make missionary periodicals prosper and secure their 
being read is the problem and almost the despair of committees. 
Litterateurs and editors of secular magazines have said church 
magazines seldom succeed because they are run too cheap. The 
unfortunate thing is that in many churches the church magazines 
are expected to be sources of income instead of being looked upon 
as means of enlightenment and interest, or as a man of business 
would say, good advertisements. The first thing done with money 
or profits of our church or missionary magazines should be to 
improve the plant, command the best paper, printing, illustrations, 
etc., and the best talent in writing. 

6. " Bene orasse est bene laborasse " — To pray well is to labor 
well — that is, without prayer toil is vain. Yes, but it means more, 
that when we really pray we really toil. The most pregnant definition 
of prayer is : " Prayer is work, and hard work." To give a large 
subscription which calls for sacrifice is easier than to give prayer. 
The Lord ever looks for co-workers, but too often He gets only 
on-lookers. It is told of an old chief in the late frontier war of 
India, that his shots never missed. Asked the reason, he replied, 
" The reason is very simple. I never fire a shot but I pray to God to 
bless it." We want more of such praying and we shall oftener hit 
I the mark. 



134 METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

Mrs. J. M. Gaut, Woman's Board of Foreign Missions, Cum- 
berland Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tenn.''^- 

1. The Christian home is the most effective place for training 
young people in foreign mission work. We ought to find mis- 
sionary literature in every Christian home. Father and mother 
ought to be familiar with the movements of our missionary heroes 
as they press forward into the darkness of heathenism. Children's 
ears are ever attentive to a well-told story. As the little ones 
gather around the mother in the hallowed evening hour, how easily 
can she, out of the fullness of her mind and heart, awaken in them 
an interest in foreign missions. One of our own greatest mis- 
sionaries felt called to his work from his father's knee where the 
boy sat one Sunday afternoon, while the father talked to him of 
mission work and showed him an idol. Children thus trained will 
soon come to pray for missions, and they will give themselves to 
this great work. 

2. Next in importance as training agencies in mission work are 
the different Church organizations. Here the one great requisite is 
a leader, a consecrated Christian filled with the spirit of Christ and 
thoroughly interested in the work; one who possesses, if possible, 
a pleasing personality and that wonderful gift, tact. The leader 
should be one who loves young people and who is in sympathy with 
them, and to whom the young are instinctively drawn. 

3. The subject of missions, in its most fascinating form, must be 
kept constantly before young people. If it is true that eighty- 
two per cent, of the information gained by us comes through the 
eye, then let the eye be used to good purpose. Maps and charts 
are most helpful. If it is not practical to buy them, let some mem- 
ber of the society make them. A piece of muslin or stiff paper 
and a box of colored crayon, with a little skillful drawing, can ac- 
complish a great deal, and usuall)^ the one who makes the draw- 
ing becomes especially interested. It is well to have a map secre- 
tary, whose duty it shall be to take care of such appliances, and to 
have them ready when needed. 

4. Pictures are also a great help. Pictures illustrative of al- 
most every part of the world and of every phase of missionary 
work can be secured for a trifle. Nothing is more impressive 
than thus to see things for oneself. 

5. A great deal of the reading matter of to-day is really mission- 
ary news. Ask your literary member to watch for such items, 
and to give to the society the substance of what is read, referring 
to the source of the information. At this time, when so much is 
known of the heathen world, when there are so many biographies 
and books of description, it is well not only to read of missions, 
but to study missions. Aside from the religious interest there is 
nothing which will afford a greater fund of general information. 

6. It is of great importance that there shall be missionary exer- 
cises conducted from time to time in the Sunday-school. In order 
that the work may be done most effectively, it should be done sys- 



* Calvary Baptist Church, April 24. 



YOUNG peoples' SOCIETIES 135 

tematically. It devolves upon somebody so to train the young 
people that they will realize their responsibility to send the gospel 
to the whole world. They are easily led, and many times fail to do 
their duty because they do not know what it is or how to do it. 

7. The support of a pupil in one of the mission schools is sure 
to create interest. Ask God to call some member of your own 
church to be a missionary. Get your congregation to pledge it- 
self to support such an one and allow your society to pay a part of 
the salary. Name your society for the missionary and every year 
send her a box. This box will usually contain clothing. Cut and 
make the articles yourselves. As you pack the box, putting in 
clothing, a few little luxuries, and Bibles for her to use in her work, 
your heart will go out to her and to the people she is trying to 
save; and when she writes and tells you of the coming of the box, 
how she was cheered by your thoughtfulness, how someone was 
brought to Christ by reading the Bible you sent, you will find in 
your heart a song of thanksgiving and praise for the privilege of 
helping to lead souls into the light. 

Put a picture of this missionary in some conspicuous place in 
your church. Have printed beneath it some appropriate scripture 
verses, showing that while she has gone for you to some far-dis- 
tant country to proclaim the glad news of salvation to those who 
bow down to stock and stone, yet you share in her victories and 
keep her in sweet remembrance. This is a constant reminder; and 
now and then some stranger's attention is caught, and his interest 
kindled. 

8. In my own city there are five young ladies' missionary socie- 
ties of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. They have organized 
a Young Ladies' Missionary Union, whose object it is to draw the 
members of the various young ladies' societies of the Cumberland 
Presbyterian churches of the city into closer union and fellowship, 
to disseminate missionary intelligence among the members and in 
the congregations represented. The meetings are held three times 
a year, the exercises embracing good mvisic, an interesting mis- 
sionary programme, possibly an address by a missionary, all followed 
by a social hour with light refreshments. 

9. It would prove very helpful for young ladies of different de- 
nominations to come together in an interdenominational union, to 
whose meetings they might at intervals with pleasure and profit 
invite their young gentlemen friends. 

We have prayed that the way might be opened and it has been. 
God has seen fit to leave in our hands the evangelization of the 
world; and while much has been done, a great deal yet remains to 
be done. The question which now confronts every young Chris- 
tian of America is, " Am I going to do my part in obeying the 
great command." 

Mrs. T. B. Hargrove, Scarrit Bible and Training School, Kan- 
sas City, Mo* 

The Church is truly but thinking the thoughts of Christ after Him 

Calvary Baptist Church, April 24. 



^2^ METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

when she recognizes the importance of the child in the develop- 
ment of His kingdom on earth, for did He not give children the 
chief place in the new dispensation, and affirm that the only way 
a man might understand God's truth was in getting back to his 
child way of thinking? Truly, of children, and of men and women 
of childlike natures, is His kingdom here and hereafter to be made 
up. 

Nothing in the economy of the Church of God to-day is more 
beautiful, or fuller of promise for the future, than the picture pre- 
sented by a well-organized, earnest, enthusiastic juvenile mission- 
ary society assembled in one of its monthly meetings. Truly, this 
is a sheltered nook, where in fertile soil, and under every favoring 
condition of shower and sunshine, the slips are to be rooted, and 
the choicest varieties made ready for the transplanting into the 
great open field, whose rich fruitage will satisfy the soul of the 
vine-dresser. But the child will grow, and the period of trans- 
planting comes to us all too soon, when the boys and girls of our 
juvenile societies reach that unnameable age when a boy is " neither 
a man nor a boy," and a girl stands " where the brook and river 
meet, womanhood and childhood fleet ; " too old and too wise for 
the juvenile society, and as yet not ready for the sober life and 
steady methods of our adult workers. Does the woman's work of 
the Church meet the needs of these eight or ten years? Without 
doubt our young people's mission bands and societies were formed 
to receive the girls of this peculiar age, and to further develop and 
strengthen them in foreign mission work. But will the work for 
foreign missions, which each of these organizations is doing, suffice 
for our girls? I think not. It certainly will not in those churches 
where the woman's foreign missionary society has distinctive work 
in foreign lands, and must sustain this work from its own treasury. 
In such churches the girls must be kept in direct touch with the 
distinctive foreign mission work of the women's societies; any lack 
of knowledge, or even a division of interest into other lines of mis- 
sion work, means retrogression in the lines already inaugurated for 
the women and children of that church. They should hold them- 
selves bound to their own distinctive lines of missionary activity, 
as they are bound above all other social duties to their allegiance to 
their own homes. Nothing is so potent a factor in missionary serv- 
ice as realization of an actual possession of our very own across 
the seas, and the children in our juvenile societies, the young ladies 
and girls in our young people's societies, should be taught that their 
own schools, hospitals, Bible-women, and missionaries are depen- 
dent upon them for support, and love, and prayers, and this interest 
and effort should never be allowed to grow cold. 

The young people's societies of the Church are so many training 
schools where the workers of the future are being prepared to take 
the places of the veterans of to-day. Much time can be saved and 
greater efficiency secured if our girls uninterruptedly pursue the 
same methods of work, and labor for the same direct ends in their 
young people's societies that will engross their attention as mis- 
sionary workers in after years. A gentleman walking over a 



YOUNG peoples' SOCIETIES 1 37 

beautifully kept farm one day with his friend, the owner, and ad- 
miring the care and skill everywhere manifested, centered his at- 
tention upon the magnificent sheep, and with great earnestness, 
asked how he had succeeded in rearing such flocks. The simple 
answer was, " I take care of my lambs, sir," Did not the great 
Shepherd of Israel bid his people follow the same rule? How shall 
we take care of the lambs? By keeping both juvenile and young 
people's societies under the care of good shepherds. They must 
have our very best; if the choice must come between superior and 
inferior leaders for adult or young people's work, always give the 
young people the preference. The crying need of the women's 
foreign missionary societies to-day, all over this broad land in ev- 
ery church, is well qualified superintendents of juvenile and young 
people's societies. Women are needed for this duty who love 
children and young people for their own sake, and for Christ's sake; 
women of much experience, but young in heart; women who feel 
themselves commissioned of Christ to "feed my lambs;" women 
who count not time dear to themselves, if by any means they may 
win souls for the Master. But these earnest, intelligent superin- 
tendents need help. The adult societies must look upon the juve- 
nile and young people's societies as a mother upon her daughters; 
she must not leave them exclusively to the care of the lady mana- 
gers. Each adult member must look after the children and young 
girls near and dear to herself, and seek to lead them from juvenile 
to young people's, and from young people's to the adult societies. 
Oh, that the work of foreign missions were really on the hearts of 
our women! No weariness or toil is spared, or self-denial is 
counted, when the heart is really enlisted. 

Each lady superintendent should make it her first aim to inspire 
in every individual child real love for Christ and for the heathen. 
Perhaps the training of the young in their homes, in the schools, 
and societies, is more defective just here than in any other one 
point. Parents, teachers, and superintendents need to teach the 
" Thou shalts " and " Thou shalt nots," but they also should 
prayerfully endeavor to guide and instruct the young hearts so that 
they shall voluntarily choose to do the right. 

Hearts truly won for Christ in the juvenile society, and tended 
lovingly and intelligently in the young people's society, will, in the 
great majority of cases, bring into our adult organizations Marys 
whose alabaster boxes of precious perfume will be broken at the 
Master's feet, and their fragrance reach to the uttermost parts of 
the earth. 

The nineteenth century has brought to woman many open doors, 
but none is of greater moment, or of more far-reaching conse- 
quence, than this door, old as motherhood, but presented by this 
century under another phase; the training of young minds and 
hearts in the avenues of public service for Christ, and for the world 
He died to redeem. Let each Christian woman choose as her 
motto, " I can not live without the highest use of life ; " and let each 
realize that one of life's highest uses is the development into noble 
Christian womanhood and manhood of the young people of our 



138 METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

churches, and address herself thereto. Then will " our sons be as 
plants grown up in their youth, and our daughters as cornerstones 
polished after the similitude of a palace." 

Mrs. a * 



I would like to make an appeal for the boys. They have been 
left out as usual. Girls know a hundred per cent, more than the 
boys. That interest can be aroused. In most churches they be- 
gin with the httle boys, but they soon grow too old. I would like 
to speak of one society in this city. I think it has passed its twen- 
tieth birthday. One of the original boys is president of a college 
in the southwest. Whenever he comes back to New York he at- 
tends the meetings of that society. The society was started by a 
lady. Her object was to train the boys to take care of them- 
selves. Although there were two ladies belonging to it the boys 
held all of the offices. Those boys studied. When the earlier set 
had grown, the question was, Shall younger boys be taken in ? They 
rather objected. They said, " The boys will play and will cut up." 
The ladies who had it in charge said, " That depends on how you 
treat them." So the way they were treated was that they were all 
called " mister." And those boys have gone on from year to year. I 
wish I could tell you how much money they have raised and how 
much they know. And now some of them are young business 
men in this city and they still hold their membership in that society. 

I know of another society in Brooklyn which is working on the 
same plan, young ladies at the head of it, but the boys are officers 
and managers. Of course, a great deal of work is done by the 
ladi( s, but it is done behind the scenes, and when the boys come 
together to plan for a meeting the ladies say, "If you want such 
and such work I think you can find such and such material in such 
and such books." The books are usually within reach, but the boys 
go hunting for them, and it is amusing to see how those innocent 
boys think they are doing the work themselves. 

Let me urge the ladies to do work for the boys. There is good 
material and it ought to be worked up. 

Mrs. S. C. Trueheart, Wouian's Foreign Missionary Society, 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Nashville, Tenii. f 

In the juvenile societies the boys arc included. But, unfortunately, 
it is hard to hold the boys after they leave the juvenile societies. 

I am afraid the fault is not with the ladies. I think they want 
to keep the boys, but the boys do not want to be kept. In our 
Sunday-schools after boys get to a certain age they seem to think 
it is rather unmanly to come to Sunday-school. They do not often 
go into what we call the young people's societies, and our church 
has not provided adult societies for the men. I think it would be a 
good thing. I wish the Church would organize men's societies. We 
would have a place for our boys then. 



* Name not given; Calvary Baptist Church, April 34. 
t Calvary Baptist Church, April 24. 



MEANS OF INTERESTING BOYS I39 



Mrs. B- 



May not some of these problems be solved by a monthly mission- 
ary meeting in every junior society? If a systematic study of mis- 
sions be made a part of 4he junior societies and monthly meetings 
in which the boys can take part and be kept in touch with the work 
until they grow beyond the jimior societies, they will be interested, 
and will be ready to go on with their studies until they reach the 
senior societies. 

Mrs. C 1 

Why should we forget the boys any more than the girls when 
they pass out of the juvenile society? We have the boys and the 
girls together in the juvenile society, why should a line of division 
come afterward? Our Lord has not organized men's churches 
and women's churches, why is it necessary to have men's mission- 
ary societies and women's missionary societies? In our young 
people's societies that are studying missions in a systematic way, the 
young men are just as much interested as the girls. 

Is not the secret the fact that our general missionary societies 
are not growing in interest, are not growing in funds, are not grow- 
ing in missionaries as rapidly as the women's societies are? In 
some churches the women's societies are growing out of proportion 
to the general work of the churches. Is it not because at the 
verge of manhood and womanhood we keep a strong hold on the 
missionary interest of the girls and train them into another society, 
but drop the boys as if we had no responsibility for them? We 
are not doing that in any other part of the education of our young 
people. How are we justified in making a plan that draws ofT the 
girls at that point and leaves the boys to go by themselves, uncared 
for? Is it not time for our interests to grow broad enough in the 
whole work so that we shall say " our " of all work, and " our " of 
all the young people? 

Rev. S. S. Hough, United Brethren in Christ, Altoona, Pa.X 
The great need of this country is this, that we, as churches at 
home, stand as churches for this work, and not so much for little 
societies in our churches. I believe that if the pastors will get the 
spirit of the women who are to-day in this great cause, we will 
stand as churches to undertake this work, and in addition to sup- 
porting our boards we will have representatives from our own 
churches to go out and bring the work in touch with our local work 
at home. I believe that the only way to get this work into the 
hearts of the people is to bring it closer to them and let them try 
it. 

S. Earl Taylor, Organiser of Campaign Work among Young 
People, U. S. A.% 

Someone has recently said that the great foes of missions are 

* Name not given; Calvary Baptist Church, April 24. 
t Calvary Baptist Church, April 24. 
J Calvary Baptist Church, April 24. 
§ Carnegie Hall, April 28. 



14° METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

prejudice and indifference, and that ignorance is the mother of 
both. 

Until we can feel that the supreme end of the Church is to preach 
the gospel to every creature, that Christ is the living leader of the 
enterprise, that the presence and power of the Holy Spirit are con- 
ditioned on obedience to His command, we will not get very far; 
but having that basis, then there is a most profound need for a 
campaign of general missionary education. 

How shall this be conducted? The leaders of our great young 
people's societies and the secretaries of our mission boards should 
have under their control this advance work. It is possible for 
these men to convince the young people as they never have been 
convinced that the cause of missions is not something brought in 
from the outside, but that so long as the young people's society is a 
part of the Church of Jesus Christ, its great work is to preach the 
gospel. I think the time has come to cease appealing to the young 
people as an organization apart from the Church. The missionary 
spirit adequate to the needs of this generation will be best fostered 
and utilized by identifying the missionary activity of the young 
people's society directly with that of the church. The problem 
then, is how to arouse the whole Church, and the proper place 
for a beginning is in the home. Mr. Duncan has told us that the 
great obstacle of the British Student Movement is that parents are 
unwilling that their children should become foreign missionaries. 
I have talked this year with many young men whose faces were set 
in the great struggle that comes to a man when he decides as to 
whether or not he shall serve God in the foreign field, and I have 
heard these young men say, " Mr. Taylor, it would not be so hard 
to decide, if I did not know I would have to go out in spite of the 
tears and protests of my mother." These men, in their courage, 
are overcoming even this; they are remembering His word about 
leaving parents and home, but it is a hard fight, and the point I am 
getting at is simply this: that an adequate missionary spirit will pre- 
suppose some missionary books in the home, some missionary 
pamphlets and magazines, and, perhaps, maps and charts on the 
wall, or at least enough intelligence and interest to create a mis- 
sionary atmosphere. 

Then there is the Sunday-school. Here the child passes, in a 
measure, out from the home and into the church for its training. 
The Church of 1920 will meet in the Sunday-school room on Sunday 
morning. The thought-life and the heart-life of the Church of the 
next generation is being molded now, and the Sunday-school is the 
strategic point of occupancy. The Sunday-school superintendents 
are very wisely organizing these Sunday-schools into missionary 
societies, with officers chosen from the older members, it may be, 
but with committees composed of the children, putting the little 
ones at work and making them feel their great responsibility. 

If a proper work is done in the Sunday-school and in the home, 
the work in the young people's society will be comparatively easy. 
I need but call your attention to the general lines of work. First, 
a missionary committee is absolutely indispensable. Under this 



VALUE OF PUBLIC MEETINGS 141 

missionary committee, the missionary meeting, instead of the old, 
long, dry, dreary waste of former times, has become the most spirit- 
ual, the most living, and most interesting meeting of the whole 
year. The missionary library is being circulated, and it is of in- 
terest to note that within eighteen months 40,000 volumes of the 
best missionary literature obtainable in this country have been 
placed in the hands of the young people. The study-course is a 
serious problem, and yet we are getting reports from all over the 
country of successful classes where a properly outlined course is 
furnished. 

Our young people need some good, old-fashioned preaching on 
Christian stewardship. They are simply playing with the question 
of their relation to Almighty God in the matter of property ; and 
everyone knows it who investigates the subject of giving. Is it 
possible to arouse the young people's society? I think of a so- 
ciety in Illinois of just twenty members that has for two years con- 
ducted missionary meetings, has a course of missionary lectures, 
has a splendid missionary library, and is promoting many other 
lines of work, especially prayer for missions. What is the result? 
Five of its members are volunteers, one of them now out on the 
field in South Africa. They have raised his salary and $600 for 
outgoing expenses, and I am told that this is one of the most spir- 
itual and aggressive societies in North America. 

Another society in Illinois gives $9.99 per member. One in 
Cleveland gives over $11 per member. I think of another in New 
York State that gives $16.60 per member, and when I contrast that 
with the gift of some fifty cents a year of the average member of the 
Church of Christ, I say that the young people can be aroused and 
are being aroused. 

But we haven't touched bed-rock yet. Until our pastors are 
ready to back this enterprise there will never be a missionary spirit 
adequate to the needs of the generation. Where the pastor helps, 
almost any plan will work; where he is opposed, scarcely anything 
will succeed. While godly pastors, in all parts of the country, 
have been helping the students as they have worked in the churches, 
we are told here and in Great Britain that the greatest obstacle in 
.arousing the home Church is the pastor, who is afraid his salary will 
be cut down, or is afraid, if he raises a certain amount of money, the 
Church will expect him to raise the same amount the next year, and 
there might be hard times or something, and he couldn't do it, and 
he would be disgraced. 

Value of Public Meetings 

Miss Emma Gary, Missionary, Methodisl Episcopal Church, 
South; China* 

Many of us know how hard it was when we were children, or 
when we first grew up, to tell something that our hearts were just 
longing to tell. The little meetings for the children and for the 
young people, held once or twice a year, if properly conducted, will 

♦ Calvary Baptist Church, April 24, 



142 METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

give confidence to children and to young people, and prepare them 
for that broader work which God may call them later to do. 

Another advantage in these meetings is to give each one an op- 
portunity in the Lord's work. We older people — and I have seen it 
in our auxiliaries and in our churches — all need something to do to 
keep us alive in the Lord's work and to keep us interested. How 
much more children and young people need just a Httle part in the 
Lord's work, that each one will pray about, and think about, and 
study about when getting ready to present it in the meeting. 

A third reason why these meetings are valuable to the church is, 
they are educative. Each child must know its own part. In that 
way the meeting is educative to the person who takes part, but the 
best results from such public meetings is that they are educative to 
the masses. Fathers and mothers and grandparents, friends and 
relatives, and whole communities, come out to see a little enter- 
tainment gotten up by children, and oftentimes these children teach 
us some things we didn't know before. A few weeks ago in At- 
lanta, we had a juvenile missionary entertainment. We called it 
a Japanese entertainment, and we had rice-bowls and chopsticks, 
and hot rice and tea. All sat on the floor, and these things were 
served, the children were delighted, as well as the older people, and 
we studied China and Japan that evening. By each child taking a 
part, having its own rice-bowl and chopsticks and teacup, and try- 
ing to tell something about the Chinese and Japanese, each one had 
learned something, and each one had something to give somebody 
else. 

How are such meetings to be conducted? 

I think there is a preliminary to the meeting. We want to have 
something definite in view. We want to study some mission field 
or present some heathen nation, or to teach the people some one 
thing. We ought to decide what that something is and work to 
that end. And when we have decided on it and brought our young 
people and children to agree as to what we want to do, let us not 
take it just as an entertainment to amuse, but as a study, and let 
us pray about it. If we leave the Lord out of even these little pub- 
lic entertainments we have failed of our purpose. Let us get these 
little ones in their tender years, and the young people, and let us 
have them come aside for an hour of prayer on this special line. 
Let us take the Lord into it first. And then make the meetings bright. 
Where the Lord is it ought to be bright. Make them short. Chil- 
dren and young people don't like too long services. Make them 
musical. Have plenty of bright, sunshiny music. And last and 
best of all, make them spiritual. 

Human nature is alike all over the world. Chinese children like 
meetings of this kind, just as our children do at home. In Shang- 
hai, we had a great Christian Endeavor meeting in the largest hall 
in the city. There was not a church in the city large enough to 
hold the congregation. There were about a thousand Christians 
present and some 500 young people. The bright songs, the music, 
the short, spicy talks went home to the hearts of those young people 
and filled them with more enthusiasm than almost anything else 



SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF MISSIONS 143 

could have done. But these meetings were thoroughly Christian ; 
not simply to show talent among our Christians or give them a 
chance simply to act a part, but there was an object in view ; they 
were telling happy experiences, telling of the work done and the 
plans for the future, and they were showing to a great heathen 
body on the outskirts what Christianity means and the joy in it. 

Systematic Study of Missions 

Miss Abbie B. Child, Secretary Woman's Board of Foreign 
Missions, Congregational, Boston, Mass.* 

I need not speak of the necessity for more information. We 
all agree to that. And so we want to propose that there shall be 
arranged an interdenominational scheme for study of missions. 

When we came together to consider what could be done in this 
line, we were asked to bring our literature with us, and we found 
that two-thirds of the literature of seven different denominations 
represented was on the same subjects. And so we agreed that we 
could all unite on a great part of our study. We feel that there 
would be great inspiration in knowing that others are studying in 
just the same way that we are. And I will try, perhaps, in the 
briefest way, to describe our scheme which has been modeled some- 
what on the idea of the International Sunday-school lessons. 

I. We propose to have a seven years' course of study of mis- 
sions. 

For the first year we would like a history of missions from 
apostolic times down to the end of the eighteenth century. 

For the second, present conditions in different countries. 

Then for the next four years, we would take up the countries 
where women's boards of every denomination have their work — 
in Africa, in India, in China, in Japan; taking one country each year. 

Then for the seventh year, we would wish to take up different 
countries, because there are countries where only one board is at 
work. For instance, the Congregationalists have work in Turkey, 
and almost no other board has work there; the Baptists, in Bur- 
ma; the Presbyterians, in Siam and Laos, and so on. And so, 
for that seventh year we wish that there should be an opportunity 
for us all to take up our special localities, and there would be no 
harm if we study what other boards are doing, of which we know 
almost nothing. 

Then we propose that these studies shall occupy only monthly 
meetings during the year, for seven months, leaving the other 
five months for optional meetings, or for the programme of the dif- 
ferent boards. 

Next, we propose that our meetings shall extend to an hour and 
a half; that the first hour shall be occupied in this study, and that 
the other half-hour shall be given to financial interests, or to board 
work, or current events. 

We think there are good reasons for adopting this scheme: 
First, there is the inspiration in union, and it is possible that there 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 



144 METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

may be times when all the neighboring societies of different de- 
nominations studying the same topics, may come together in some 
pleasant way. 

Then we think that we should be able to produce better literature. 
Every woman's board publishes a certain amount and if each one 
could have the benefit of all the literature on the one subject it would 
prove, it seems to me, very valuable. This might be more economical, 
too, since the larger the edition the cheaper each copy will be. 

Again, we hope that added power will be gained by reading at 
home. An hour and a half every month is a very small time to 
consider our immense subjects. If certain books could be read at 
home on the topics which are being studied, it would increase the 
interest of the meetings. We think that if we give our women 
something worth while when they come to our missionary meet- 
ings, they will be glad to come, month by month. We all know 
the enthusiasm that there is all over this country in women's clubs. 
There was not a woman's club when the first woman's missionary 
society was formed in this country; and we find that not only 
women can find the strength and the time to go to meetings, some- 
times once, and sometimes two, three, and four times a month, 
but that they can stay all the afternoon, and that they can have a 
great deal of enthusiasm over it. And we feel that there is no 
theme that begins to be as interesting; that there is no theme so 
comprehensive, as our scheme of the salvation of the world if it is 
only presented in the right way. 

Miss E. C. Parsons, Editor Woman's Work for Woman, Pres- 
byterian Church, U. S. A* 

This lesson-scheme which has been prepared, not only can be used, 
but has been used. A large Bible class of lOO women, in Philadelphia, 
used it last year. They studied the history of missions, taking it 
by centuries : the conversion of Armenia in the fourth century, and 
the Goths in the fourth century, of Ireland in the fifth century, and 
of Scotland in the seventh century. The practicability of using the 
same lessons for different denominations has not many difficulties. 
One of the first likely to be proposed would be, " But we have al- 
ready our lessons." Why not reserve a part of the hour for this 
universal topic? If we all use these lessons we shall be able to 
avail ourselves of a great deal of literature that hitherto we could 
not use. 

Perhaps some feel that one year is too long a time to give to the 
study of one country. A very active, intellectual woman of our 
church told me that she belongs to a club which meets every Mon- 
day afternoon. For three years they have been studying one city 
in the United States. But she thought that it was going to be quite 
a task to study India for one year, once a month, an hour and a half 
at each meeting. I think, if you will realize how much ground we 
must cover if we are to have any real apprehension of the state of 
that great land, and of the work which wc intend to do for Christ 
in it, you will see that wc can not take less time than we have done. 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 



SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF MISSIONS I45 

Our first lesson would be on the geography of India, and when you 
have found out where India is, and where the missionary fields are, 
how the missions are working, and how they work together, then 
you will begin to find out what the history of this great land is. 

Then, when you have found the Indian history, you will want to 
find when the Indian people first came in contact with Western 
civilization. Then, the religions of India. It will certainly take 
two afternoons even to get a general idea of those religions. Then, 
the women of India, 

Then, the missions. What has the Church done in the past? 
What is our particular work for India? What has been done, and 
what are we doing? 

Now, perhaps, you feel that the ordinary time-honored method 
of leaflets and little cuttings from our papers, placed upon cards, 
should not be cast aside. Some of our women desire to as- 
sist, and it is an excellent thing to provide work for them. But 
how about young women accustomed to study? You invite them 
to your meeting, and you put a little paper in their hand about the 
women in China, and a little letter about the women in India. The 
chances are that that young woman, who is accustomed to study 
thoroughly anything to which she gives her attention, will not come 
to the next meeting. But if she finds that your society is meeting 
the subject deeply, and is going to study it thoroughly, she will 
come every time. 

Mrs. W. a. Montgomery, Woman's Baptist Foreign Mission- 
ary Society, Rochester, N. F.* 

We all know that the greatest need in our mission work is the 
need of a fuller and a deeper realization of the work of the Holy 
Spirit Himself with us. But next to that, I believe that our great- 
est need is a broader and more intellectual and more thoughtful 
grasp of the subject. 

We have had a certain smallness of treatment in our missionary 
meetings. We have trusted to leaflets, and tracts, and items, and 
excerpts. We have done very little original work. We have made 
very few demands upon the brains of the women in our missionary 
circles. And as a result, we have been given over to smallness of 
vision in our missionary life. There is no reason why the State Fed- 
eration of Women's Clubs should have a higher average of intel- 
lectual caliber in the papers that are presented before them than a 
State meeting of Woman's Missionary Societies. 

I believe that when we come to realize that in this cause of foreign 
missions are included statecraft, and civilization, and geography, 
and history, and biography, and philosophy, and poetry, and art, 
and the living history of the living kingdom of the living God, we 
shall find we have so much material for programmes that we will 
not be able to get on with meetings once a month, but we will have 
to have them once a week, to accommodate the women in our 
churches. Why should we feel that the literature that is suitable 
for us must be the customary mission literature? Why should we 

♦ Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 



146 METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

depend upon little leaflets which are prepared by onr Boards and 
given to us in homeopathic doses? Why don't we do as we do in 
our clubs? If we study English history, we go to the librarian of 
our city library, and say, " Can't the woman's club have all the 
books on English history put on a special shelf for us in the library, 
so that those who have papers to read can come to those books and 
consult them? " And then they put all the books on that particular 
subject where we can have convenient access to them. 

Now, the state library of this State, and I presume the state li- 
braries in other States, would be perfectly willing to send us a 
traveling library of fifty or a hundred volumes for the use of any 
Woman's Missionary Society in this State, with the guaranty of any 
church elder that those books should be taken care of. Travel- 
ing libraries for a missionary society can be sent out as well as 
traveling libraries for travel clubs or Shakespeare clubs. 

We should take up first the study of the past because we are not 
going to be enthusiastic about foreign antecedents as long as we 
are ignorant of them. When we realize that Christianity in its 
growth has always been and must be missionary; that missions be- 
gan when the Lord Jesus began, and that they have been in every 
country and every civilization ; when we find that our missionary so- 
cieties are built upon the foundations of 1,900 years, we are going 
to be a great deal better able to come back and study the work 
of our particular Woman's Board in our particular department of 
the great field. 

So we are asked to study for one year the fascinating story of the 
spread of Christianity throughout eighteen centuries. In the first 
lesson we take a bird's-eye glance at Christianity in the Roman Em- 
pire; we see the conditions into which Christianity was born; we 
find a little about the civilization of old Rome; and if we take this 
course we will find enough material to keep us reading for seven 
years, instead of seven months. Follov/ing that, we study for an- 
other month the story of the wonderful dawn of Christianity in Ire- 
land. In the next month we follow some of the missionaries in 
their travels to the land of the Goths and the Franks. We next 
follow the conversion of the Teutons and the Northmen, and the 
story of the gospel among the Slavs and Mohammedans, and the 
work of the early Danish and Moravian missionaries; and finally, 
the great colonizing epoch of the eighteenth century, that estab- 
lished Christian missions in all the portions of the earth. It would 
not be possible for any society to take that course without finding 
enough work for all the women in the church to do, and without 
finding enough kinds of work to interest every kind of woman in 
the church. 

Miss Lucy C. Jarvts, Protestant Episcopal Training School for 
Deaconesses, Neiv York."^ 

The motive of personal interest has been mentioned for wishing 
to know how we of the present Church obtained our Christianity. 
Three other motives could be mentione4: 

♦ Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 



SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF MISSIONS 147 

1. The Conversion of the Jews. No one who has worked in the 
slums of New York and in the country districts in our land can 
for one moment doubt that the conversion of the Jews will soon 
become a question of vital and personal interest to us all. Our 
work among them is slow; almost hopeless. To the first history of 
missions we must turn for our lesson to know how to succeed in 
convincing them. The Acts and the Gospels, with the sermons 
preached, which won the hearts of these same stubborn Jews, con- 
tain the secret of success. The first and greatest of all mission- 
aries were Jews. When Jews are again converted, then will the 
world in its entirety be won to Christ. 

2. The Destruction of Intellectual Heathenisms. We can meet 
the paganisms of to-day and conquer them. Intellectual heathen- 
ism is another matter. For lessons of success here in method and 
in argument, we must turn to the history which tells of the men and 
the means which conquered the philosophies of Greece and Rome. 
Those philosophies lie in essence at the root of all intellectual 
heathenism to-day. 

3. Church Unity. I firmly believe that if we spent more time 
on the missionary aspect of Church and secular history, and less 
on the doctrinal and controversial, the nearer would we be drawn 
together in a common heritage of suffering and love about the 
Cross of Christ. St. Paul, Ulphilas, St. Patrick, St. Cyril, and 
Methodius belong to us all, not to one portion or another of Chris- 
tendom. 

Dwell on their lives, learn from and copy their work, leaving all 
else. They will lead us together and to Him. There is but one 
Sun of Righteousness. In the prism of our blind self-consciofis- 
ness, we have broken up its rays into the many colored lights of red 
and blue and purple, which often divert us from the oneness of 
their source. The history of missions is the basis on which to 
reunite these tinted differences into the " oneness " for which our 
Shepherd prayed. 

Mrs. J. T. Gracey, Secretary Women's Foreign Missionary So- 
ciety, Methodist Episcopal Church, Rochester, N. F.* 

The various missionary boards are raising from one to three mil- 
lions of dollars a year, and that amount is increasing each year. 
What is the cause of it? Because the women are studying about 
missions, and every board has felt the necessity of making greater 
efforts. We want to know for ourselves the condition of mission- 
ary work, the conditions of the peoples. We want to know about 
the women of all lands. There has been a woman in New York, 
this past winter, saying that the women of India are having a de- 
lightful time, that they are not in bondage at all, and that we could 
take some lessons from the delightful way in which they live. We 
want to be thoroughly informed ourselves, to contradict such things 
as these. 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April a^. 



148 METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

Miss Irene H. Barnes, Secretary Church of England Zenana 
Missionary Society, London.^' 

It has been my privilege for two years to be the superintendent 
of the pubHcations of the Church of England Zenana Missionary 
Society, and during that time I have been anxious to get into touch 
with the American societies. I find only one fault: we can not 
get hold of enough of your interesting periodicals and your inspir- 
ing magazines. I do feel, when I have one of these placed in my 
hands, that there is a new impetus given to this cause, that there 
has been so much done here. I do feel happy and thankful my- 
self to hear these good things that seem to be flowing as a sort of 
mighty river compared to our tiny attempts. 

So I wish you to feel that you have a trustworthy channel of 
information, and that if you will only trust us with some of these 
good things that you are getting, we shall only be too glad to follow 
your bright example. f 

The Young Men of the Future Ministry — How Fire Them with the Missiona*y 
Passion 

Rev. Chas. Cuthbert Hall, D.D., President Union Theological 
Seminary, New York.X 

According to the New Testament standard the passion of a 
Christ-like love for human lives is a greater thing than eloquence, 
knowledge, or faith. " If I speak with the tongues of men and of 
angels, but have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a 
clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all 
mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith so as to remove 
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." The passion of a 
Christ-like love for human lives develops in the soul of a Chris- 
tian disciple from the presence in himself of powers and activities 
that reflect the mind of Christ. These are: Clear vision of the 
world, Deep feeling toward the world. Actual efifort for the world. 

Our Lord saw all human life clearly. He saw the world as it 
is. No mists of optimism deceived Him, no veils of pessimism 
blinded Him. While taking note of every local interest, while lov- 
ing and toiling for the individual, yet ever with clear eyes He saw 
the world, loved of God, cursed by sin, groaning and travailing for 
redemption. 

And with this clear vision of all human life our Lord joined the 
deep feelings of perfect appreciation and divine compassion. What 
He saw He felt. Upon His own holy soul He bore the griefs and 
carried the sorrows of humanity. The sighing of the prisoner 
came up before Him, and the cry of the oppressed was in His ears. 
When He beheld the city He wept over it. He had compassion on 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 

+ The ladies unanimously approved the following: recommendation : 

" We, the delegates and others at the Ecumenical Conference assembled, wish to recommend 
that the plan of a lesson scheme be presented to all women's societies, and that the matter be left 
in the care of a world's Missionary Committee, to appoint other committees and to make such 
arrangements as they deem best." 

X Carnegie Hall, April 28. 



THE YOUNG MEN OF THE FUTURE MINISTRY 149 

the multitude, because they were as sheep without a shepherd. 
With unwavering face He turned toward Jerusalem that He might 
be Hfted up and draw all men unto Himself. 

And to this clear vision of the world and this deep feeling toward 
the world, our Lord added actual effort for the world. His sor- 
row was not the impotent lament of one who fain would do yet can 
not. His burden was not the crushing burden of pessimism. It 
was the weight of the sacrificial cross. It was the mediatorial bur- 
den. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, 
despising the shame. He came not to lament but to redeem. He 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His 
life a ransom for many. 

And out of this holy triad of powers, His clear vision of the world. 
His deep feeling toward the world. His active effort for the world, 
issues the passion of his love for human lives, the love of Christ 
which passeth all knowledge — the love which for us to know, is for 
us to be filled with all the fullness of God. No conception within 
the range of human intelligence is so magnificent as this — the love 
of Christ for man — the boundless, fathomless, deathless love of the 
Son of God. 

It is this conception that underlies the theme which engages our 
attention. We are attempting to answer this question: How can 
we fire the young men of the future ministry with the missionary 
passion? How make them leaders of missionary churches? The 
minister of Christ must have the spirit of Christ, or he is none of 
His. He may speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but if we 
have not the passion of Christ-like love, he has not the spirit of Christ. 
He may have all the knowledge. He may have a faith that could 
move mountains, but if he have not the passion of a Christ-like love, 
he has not the spirit of Christ. 

To ask, therefore, how we may fire with missionary passion the 
young men of tine future ministry, is to ask, not how we may add 
unto them something beyond and additional to their ministerial 
training, but how we may make them true ministers of the Lord 
Jesus. For without the missionary passion they are not able min- 
isters of the New Testament; they are disabled, deficient, half- 
equipped ; they lack the fullness of the spirit of Christ. 

The problem of the divinity school is this; not how to train 
an occasional man for the foreign field, but how to kindle the mis- 
sionary passion in every man that passes through the school, that 
he may thereby become an able minister of Christ. For if, as 
Canon Edmonds said in his address on the translation of the Holy 
Scripture, " the missionary idea is conquering the life of the 
churches," then the missionary idea must conquer the Hfe of every 
man who proposes to enter the ministry of the churches, whether 
abroad or at home. In the last analysis it is a secondary consider- 
ation whether any individual student in the divinity school has voj-. 
unteered for service abroad. The primary and essential thing is 
that there shall be within the school a sacred altar of missionary 
passion, whereat the torch of every man shall be kindled and the 
lip of every man shall be touched with the living coal. 



150 METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

This conception of the life of the divinity school, as a life trans- 
fused and saturated with the spirit of missions, is founded upon two 
practical needs: The need of the man who may possibly have the 
gifts for service abroad, and the need of the man who shall enter 
the pastorate at home. 

As to the man who may possibly have gifts for service abroad, it 
is his need, it is his right to have an atmosphere about him that 
shall promote the deep self-discovery which may lead him to vol- 
unteer; or that shall establish, strengthen, and settle the purpose 
formed in college days to do his life-work upon the foreign field. 
The divinity school should be hot with the zeal for evangelization ; 
it should be radiant with the appreciation of missionary heroism ; it 
should be alert and eager for contact with the living workers ; it 
should be charged with solemn anxiety for the world's condition, 
so that no man can live within its walls without facing for himself 
the vital issue: " Is it Christ's will for me that I go forth to serve 
Him in the regions beyond? " 

As for the man who shall enter the pastorate at home, he can 
not be an able minister of the Lord Jesus until his torch has been 
kindled at this altar, his lip touched with this living coal. Deny 
him this access in the days of his ministerial training, fail to provide 
him with the world-wide interest, neglect to teach him how to lift 
up his eyes and look upon the white harvest fields of the world, 
omit to conquer him with the missionary idea, and he goes forth to 
his life-work lagging behind the eager spirit of his time, shackled 
with disadvantage, condemned in an age of catholicity to lead a life 
of provincialism. If he has not found within his training school 
the atmosphere that feeds the missionary passion, if, in his imma- 
turity and inexperience he has been suffered to pass through and 
pass out into the active ministry ignorant of the mighty world of 
missions, he has been robbed of his birthright. For this knowl- 
edge, this atmosphere, this impulse belong to him in his own name 
and in the name of the Church he seeks to serve. 

He requires it for himself that he may become a man of vision, 
a man of large and powerful conceptions, a man of capacity to in- 
spire others. He requires it for himself, to protect himself against 
a dry scholasticism, to advance him beyond intolerance and imbit- 
tered partisanship, to lift him above feeble, petty, and trivial am- 
bitions, disputes, and jealousies. He requires it for himself, to 
make him great in sympathy, meek and lowly in heart, apostolic in 
his view of Christ and Christianity. He requires this missionary 
passion, not so much for himself alone, but in the name of the 
Church he seeks to serve. For four great functions belong to him 
who, in the Christian pastorate of these latter days, expresses the 
relation of the ministry at home to missions abroad: 

It is his to overcome the resistance of unrestricted prejudice. In 
the mighty consensus of this Conference it requires efifort to realize 
that in any Christian heart there can be resistance to foreign mis- 
sions. Yet, such resistance on the part of some has come within 
our observation, a resistance negative rather than positive, born 
of misapprehension and the lack of knowledge. God grant that 



THE YOUNG MEN OF THE FUTURE MINISTRY I51 

the vast influences radiating from this Christian gathering may help 
to dissolve the last vestiges of that strange unreasoning antagon- 
ism. 

It is his to awaken the attention of apathetic minds, which, con- 
tent with the form rather than the life of Christianity, are blinded by 
local religious interests to the larger questions of the world's 
evangelization. This apathy can be broken. The same keen in- 
terest that springs to the realization of political events can be awak- 
ened toward the facts of the kingdom of Christ. But the man who 
thus conquers must himself first be conquered and set on fire of 
God. 

It is his to educate the Church's intelligence. Knowledge is the true 
and substantial basis of an interest in missions. Vague percep- 
tions of duty may help a flagging interest to survive, but the zeal 
that endures, the zeal that grows, the zeal that rises to the level of 
consecration is the zeal that is according to knowledge. The edu- 
cational function of the missionary pastor can not be overstated. 
He must mediate between a great but little known literature and a 
community of minds not likely to come under its influence except 
through his leadership. 

It is his to raise at home supplies for the Church abroad, to find the 
means that shall maintain the work of God. The far-ofif workers 
at the front depend upon him to co-operate with them by maintain- 
ing their supplies. He is a missionary as well as they, for the ef- 
fects of his influence are telling on the maintenance of evangeliza- 
tion. By his acceptance of the pastorate he accepts an implied 
obligation to co-operate with those who are face to face with 
lieathenism. To place a man in the pastorate in whom there is not 
the missionary passion is a twofold disaster ; it breaks faith with 
those who have gone to the front, believing that the leaders of the 
Church at home will keep pace with their advance ; it occupies the 
place of a better equipped man, who, having that passion, might 
stir a whole community to acts of sacrifice. 

These considerations bring before us the relation of the divinity 
school to world-wide missions. The question now under dis- 
cussion. How shall we fire the young men of the future ministry 
with the missionary passion, is already in process of solution, and 
it is not impossible to show the main lines alone which that solu- 
tion is destined to advance. 

The study of missions is slowly rising to the rank of a theological 
discipline. That it has not done so sooner is not altogether so 
strange as at first appears. The literature of missions is com- 
paratively a modern literature, and recognition of its importance 
has not been unduly delayed. The Church is making her modern 
evangelistic history so rapidly and abundantly that it is but time to 
begin to feel the thrilling effects of that history reacting upon the 
divinity school. At many points that most salutary reaction is 
taking place, and the study of missions is finding its appropriate 
rank and proportion, while the opulent and splendid literature of 
missions is pouring into the library. It will soon be impossible, in 
all the divinity schools that seek to keep pace with the times, for 



152 METHODS OF AWAKENING INTEREST 

a man to pass through his course of training without having the 
world-wide point of view, without seeing the world-wide vision, un- 
less he rejects it for himself, and shuts his eyes against it. The 
contact of living missionary workers with the divinity school life 
shall become frequent and intimate. The realism of missions 
shall demonstrate itself to many who once had but a speculative 
interest therein. The philosophical aspects of missions shall ap- 
pear in the light of the modern literature, and the whole subject of 
missions in its largest and noblest relations shall take its place in 
the curriculum beside the study of the doctrines of faith. 

But the study of missions as a discipline of the divinity school 
can not by itself bring to pass that setting on fire of the future min- 
istry with the missionary passion. I see other forces at work 
which make for that glorious end. 

I see developing at many points a new conception of the minis- 
try that must attract toward it many of the most gifted and conse- 
crated of our young men. The college and the seminary are draw- 
ing closer together. The study of missions in the colleges is 
bringing out a type of manhood which is full of heroic beauty, en- 
thusiasm, and faith. The undergraduate is studying the world to- 
day as never before, is feeling in his fresh young heart the thrill of 
the new conceptions of applied Christianity, is realizing Christ's 
love and Christ's present salvation for the world in terms of reality. 
And in many a college to-day are found the very flower of our 
youth, to whom the ministry appears not as a reserved and gloomy 
world of ecclesiastical technicalities, but as the King's own highway 
to joyful and abundant service. 

I see a spirit developing among our young men that portends a 
vast accession of missionary enthusiasm for the ministry of the fu- 
ture. The Lord Jesus Christ is manifesting Himself in His ab- 
solute Godhead, in His availing atonement, in His enlightening 
Word, to a great company of our most educated and most gifted 
youths. Personal consecration for personal service is a conception 
of living that grows more and more attractive to a multitude of our 
finest minds. And out of this class of minds shall be gathered the 
ministry of the future. It shall be a ministry devoted to the high- 
est scholarship and the most fearless search for truth, looking upon 
the culture of the mind as no foe to the spirituality of life. It shall 
be a Christ-filled ministry, beholding the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus Christ; worshiping Him with the enthusiasm of an abso- 
lutely fearless afifection, and presenting Him as the only name given 
under heaven whereby men must be saved. It shall be a Biblical 
ministry; holding fast the faithful Word and preaching that Word 
as the one great sufficient message and revelation of God to man. 
It shall be a missionary ministry ; full of passion to redeem, clear- 
eyed to discover the ongoing of Christ's work, faithful in its stew- 
ardship at home and abroad, apostolic in its assurance that Christ 
has ordained it to bear much fruit, apostolic in its eagerness to 
spread far and wide the Gospel of the risen and ascended Lord, 
apostolic in its blessed hope that that unseen and crowned Saviour 
shall surely come again. 



CHAPTER VII 

LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

Missionary Interest and Missionary Literature — Use of Public Libraries — 
Use of the Secular Press — Co-operation in Publishing Books on Mis- 
sions — Missionary Periodicals — The Pastor and the Literature of Mis- 
sions. 

Missionary Interest and Missionary Literature 

Mrs. J. T. Gracey, Secretary Women's Foreign Missionary So- 
ciety, Methodist Episcopal Church, Rochester, N. F.* 

An informed Church will be a transformed Church. 

Possibly one of the greatest factors in the development of mis- 
sionary interest is the systematic study of missions. The power, 
extent, and influence of this, month by month, we can not calculate. 
Nearly every Woman's Missionary Society has its course of Study 
carefully prepared, covering its own fields and work, with some- 
thing besides of a general character. Women prepare papers, 
search cyclopedias, clip the secular and Church papers, read the 
magazines, study the latest maps, make maps of their own, make 
imaginary itineraries to mission fields, hold imaginary conversa- 
tions with their missionary representatives, until every phase and 
condition of missionary work is assimilated. 

Woman's clubs, in some instances, are combining the study of 
missions with their other literary work. I know of a woman's 
club which has issued a syllabus on India, which for clearness and 
comprehensiveness can not be excelled. 

Here is the outline: 

A prelude by leader with general conversation. 

1. Geography of the coimtry. 

2. Early history, architecture, monuments, palaces, mausoleums. 

3. England and India. Under this head cover the history of 
England in India, from the East India Company's possession to the 
present time. 

4. Relation of government to education, laws, taxes, revenue, 
system of English schools, universities, attitude of the nation to 
government, etc. 

5. Religions of India, under twenty-four diflferent heads. 

6. The people of India, caste divisions, family system, child-mar- 
riage, widowhood, domestic usages, social life, music, moral con- 
dition, intellectual conditions. 

7. Early Christianity in India, under seventeen topics. 

8. WilHam Carey as founder of modern missions, translator, etc. 



♦ Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 30. 



154 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

9. A study of Alexander Duff and his work. 

10. A study of Judson and his work. 

11. Denominational work. 

This same plan is pursued in the study on China, and other fields. 

The educational department of the Student Volunteer Movement 
has rendered the cause of missions an invaluable service by publish- 
ing, in the last few years, textbooks to illustrate the courses of read- 
ing on missionary subjects which they have published. These are 
especially adapted to young people's societies, universities, and 
seminaries. When the Movement began its work in the higher 
institutions of learning, it found less than a dozen collections of mis- 
sionary books, adapted to this need, abreast of the times, and in a 
very few cases could there have been found in the reading-room a 
single missionary periodical. Catalogues of missionary literature 
have been prepared from time to time, and courses of study have 
been outlined, and carefully selected missionary libraries have been 
introduced into a large number of institutions, and thousands of 
the most helpful and stimulating books have been scattered 
throughout the student field. 

Annual missionary reports have been and are still by some con- 
sidered to be an anodyne, and in many instances they are ; but in 
the last few years there has been a marked change, for life and 
power have been put into the report. The up-to-date report is to 
be a vadc-mccnm or " go with me " to every missionary worker. It 
is a mine of information, a working power, and ought to be found 
on the writing-desk of ever3^one who has addresses to make, let- 
ters to write, or societies to enthuse. It tells of the location of 
workers, the appropriation and expenditure of money, it gives a 
record of schools, native pastors, itinerating trips, evangelistic and 
medical work — in fact, everything that pertains to your work and to 
the answer of your prayers. Between the lines you may see con- 
gregations organized, Sunday-schools established, people redeemed 
from heathenism in the prayer-meeting, the children rescued and 
in orphange and boarding school, and women going from house 
to house making visitations. 

The missionary leaflet is the product largely of the last quarter of 
a century. Condensation is the demand of the day. Everything 
must be prepared and at hand. The busy man or woman has not 
time to read long articles, and so these little messengers arc writ- 
ten carefully, clearly, and to the point, and put into the hand of the 
worker. They cover all subjects and sides, telling incidentally of 
home and foreign work. They have been helpful and instructive 
to read in the monthly meeting, have been slipped into letters, and 
have been an omnipresent help and inspiration to the busy worker. 

Five of the seven Woman's Boards of the Presbyterian Church 
publish leaflets. 

Some of our colleges and universities have missionary libraries, 
notably that of Yale. Starting in 1891 with 1,500 volumes, there arc 
now over 5,000 volumes, and over seventy missionary periodicals 
regularly received. Sometimes an alcove or shelf is given in the 
town library. Periodicals are given and bound at close of the year. 



MISSIONARY INTEREST AND LITERATURE 1 55 

An experiment was tried last year by the women of Minneapolis 
who are interested in missions. Their first proposition was to 
form a small missionary library, to be used by all denominations, 
and to be placed in some central place. Then they appealed to the 
public library, and a special rack was granted them in the library 
reading-room, upon which all missionary magazines are placed. 
The committee then made out a list of all the books in the library 
which bear upon the subject of missions, and this list is left at this 
library for consultation at any time. This experiment is being 
tried, and very successfully, in many large cities and towns. 

Every Sunday-school library has or ought to have good, attrac- 
tive missionary books, and could have, if those interested in mis- 
sions would suggest to the library committee some good, helpful 
book. Let some of the miserable books, without respectable lit- 
erary style, or without good moral teachings, be eliminated from 
our Sunday-school libraries and be replaced by attractive mission- 
ary biography or story, and the young, to whom the management 
of our churches must be given in a few years, will have spiritual 
and missionary stamina. 

All missionary Boards are now giving attention to the printing 
and distribution of miscellaneous missionary literature. 

The greatest variety of such literature is published by the Church 
of England Missionary Society. Besides its 2,444,000 copies of its 
four missionary periodicals for adults, young people, and children, 
it issues a large list of books, sketches of its missions and workers, 
a Church Missionary atlas, a missionary hymn-book, a monthly let- 
ter to Sunday-schools, a missionary pocketbook and diary, a calen- 
dar, and a large number of books and pamphlets for children, mis- 
sionary games, colored diagrams, a plea for missions, and about 100 
leaflets for free distribution or at a nominal price. 

Nearly all Woman's Boards make a specialty of missionary litera- 
ture, issuing monthly magazines, children's papers, lesson leaflets, 
prayer calenders, mite-boxes, thank-ofifering literature, topic cards, 
etc. 

The various Woman's Boards and a few of the general Boards is- 
sue missionary prayer calendars, giving in connection with sub- 
jects for prayer, statistics, facts about work, pictures of mission- 
aries, which serve to make real and vivid to the constituency the 
personality of those for whom prayer is offered. This forms a close 
bond of connection between workers at home and abroad, and is a 
delightful assurance that the missionary and the work are remem- 
bered. 

Some of the Woman's Societies issue a year-book, giving the 
names of all the missionaries under their boards, with a little ac- 
count of what they are doing, and where they do it. Each month 
of the year is devoted to some mission field, and each day to some 
special missionaries on that field. It is hoped that the people of 
the churches will thus come to know the missionaries by name and 
to pray for them. 

Taking ten years, during which missionary leaflets were issued 
and distributed gratuitously in one society, we find the annual con- 



156 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

tributions steadily advanced from $76,000 to $226,000. There has 
been in all societies a steady advance in finances where missionary 
literature has been freely used. 

No one society furnishes all that the members of that society 
want or the society can supply, and one is not considered intelligent 
or broad who only knows what his or her own Church is doing in 
this line, and an interchange of magazines, leaflets, and general 
literature is very helpful. 

Missionary literature is twofold in its influence. The torch we 
hold up illuminates our own path. The Church is watching, and 
working, and praying for immortal souls. It is a struggle between 
the forces of life and death. Our representatives are out in the 
thickest of the battle. Are we so swathed in our environment that 
we care for no tidings of their contest with heathenism and the 
forces of darkness? If we are in earnest in our efforts to plant 
the Church of Christ in the ends of the earth, let us hear the report 
of progress and pass it on. 

Miss Irene H. Barnes, Editorial Secretary Church of Eng- 
land Zenana Missionary Society, London."^ 

The literature of a missionary Society occupies a primary place 
among its instrumentalities. Side by side with its deputations 
stand its publications; the active and passive voices of the one im- 
portant verb — to inform. 

We have to meet those who are worse than callous toward the 
Church's greatest enterprise. Prejudice has to be overcome. 
Slanders and innuendoes against missions and missionaries are be- 
ing circulated and are quietly accepted by the ignorant and the care- 
less; they are repeated again and again without challenge. Only 
knowledge can refute unfounded statements which bring God's 
work into disfavor with many of God's people. But information, 
accurate and attractive, will assuredly create favorable missionary 
opinion and widen its radius of influence. 

How then shall we make the best use of missionary literature? 
Let us begin at the beginning, in our homes and our nurseries. En- 
courage the children to look upon the missionary alphabet, or pic- 
ture book, or story, as the great treat to be enjoyed at mother's 
knee on special days. Let the schoolroom children gather round 
us on Sunday evenings for the game of missionary lotto or mission- 
ary visions, when each will have to remember facts or relate stories 
culled from magazines or books. 

Let the voung people hold their own missionary meetings; invite 
members of the household to " reserved seats," elect mother as 
chairman, and be called upon to give five-minute addresses, the re- 
sult of perusal of some missionary gift-book or prize._ Encourage 
them to compete in missionary examinations, to recite missionary 
dialogues, to conduct services of song. 

All this will necessitate the use of missionary literature and help 
to form characters that will be full of missionary bias. Let us give 



♦ Carnegie Hall, April 26. 



LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN I57 

to the sons and daughters going out into Hfe at least the nucleus 
of a good missionary library. See that reading-rooms of colleges 
and public institutions, waiting-rooms of professional men, and 
railway stations are supplied with magazines, and receive from time 
to time grants of well-bound books. Never travel without a sup- 
ply of uncrumpled, unsoiled, and recent literature bearing upon the 
question so near your heart. 

At missionary exhibits and meetings, large or small, give the 
bookstall the prominent place due to it. Do not grudge the space 
it occupies nor the proceeds that fall to it from the sale of work. 
We fear that many of our missionary Boards do not realize as they 
should the importance and value of a persistent pushing of their 
literature without undue anxiety for immediate financial results. 

In order to reach the people there must be outlay which is specu- 
lative. But the investment is one which we do not hesitate to say 
will ultimately produce high dividends. It is a well-known fact 
in Great Britain that the Missionary Society which expends the most 
upon the production and free distribution of its literature is the one 
which has the largest income. 

A word in conclusion. Let us pray more often, more fervently, for 
the writers, the editors, the compilers, the publishers, the committees 
upon whom such enormous responsibility rests. It is too much to 
hope that one outcome of this Conference may be a world's federation 
of Christian authors, editors, and publishers, bound to support each 
other in their noble enterprise by prayer, counsel, and activities, un- 
jealously furthering the one great interest? 

Mrs. E. Moody, Woman's Missionary Society, Free Baptist 
Church, Hillsdale, Mich* 

It is useless to expect a missionary Society to do any good work 
without missionary knowledge, and particularly is this the case in 
regard to children. There has been a strong feeling that all money 
must go direct to our mission fields, and must not be spent for the 
less important subjects, such as books, magazines, and leaflets. We 
know this to be a very bad policy, and that increased information 
would bring increased gifts into our treasury, by continuing and 
arousing an interest in missions, in our boys and girls who are be- 
coming the men and women soon to take our places. We 
must take everything and employ everything that will advance that 
work. Therefore, it is necessary to scatter broadcast tracts and 
leaflets. They are small, but they can contain a vast amount of 
information, and at the same time no one can be too busy to read 
a small leaflet. The mistake is that they are so often used merely 
at auxiliary meetings, or as helps to programmes, instead of being 
given to the child, that they may then find their way into the home, 
and touch many a parent's heart that has remained indifferent for 
want of knowledge. In every home there should be at least one 
illustrated magazine — illustrated to teach the child by the eye, ere it 
can take in the deeper lesson. And knowing that the magazines 
are not in every Christian home — and it seems almost impossible for 

♦ Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 



158 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

US to get them into every Christian home — it is more and more im- 
portant that we should pour these small leaflets into those very- 
homes, that they may get the information. 

For the boy, we need stirring literature that he will devour eag- 
erly. The boy has been starved, neglected; and for want of this 
food, that boy has been lost to the missionary cause. He was a 
good subject to work upon then. Others have him now. They 
spare no literature in their work. For the boy, we need books that 
will arouse within him dormant heroism — stories of self-denial and 
labor in unknown lands. 

Mrs. M. D. Kneeland, Woman's Board of Foreign Missions, 
Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., Boston, Mass."^ 

It is said that two or three years ago, in a convention of liquor 
dealers, the question was brought up : how to create an appetite. 
The ranks of their customers were being depleted constantly by 
death, and they discussed methods of creating in the young an ap- 
petite that would fill the ranks thus depleted. Shall not the chil- 
dren of righteousness be wiser than the children of unrighteous- 
ness? I have only two methods, which have been tried and which 
have proved of use in instructing and creating a love for missionary 
literature in the young people: the study of missionary books in 
bands, circles, and clubs for children, and using the lives of 
famous missionaries. Children have a very vague idea of a mis- 
sionary. Not only is he a far-off person; he is not real at all. But 
by using the life of a missionary, giving him a real habitation, and 
the club getting a book and studying his life, it will create in the 
children an interest which will never be forgotten. 

Mrs. a. F. Schauffler, Woman's Board of Foreign Missions, 
Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., New York. 

Reference has been made here to the International Lesson Com- 
mittee for the Sabbath-school lesson, and it seems to me that we 
could take a hint from the lessons which they have learned during 
twenty-five years. They have not found that to the average class 
of small children a passage from the Lamentations or from the 
Prophecy of Jeremiah has much interest, but they find that the 
story of Jeremiah himself has a fascination and an interest on which 
the prophecies may be hung. It seems to me that the missionary 
biographies, so full of live interest, are like great pegs on which 
theliistory of these countries may be hung. If we want to study 
Africa, get the young people and children to know the story 
of Moffat, and Phillips, and Livingstone, and all those men who 
have worked, and lived, and labored there. Then they will be 
wanting all the additional information that they can get on that sub- 
ject, and it will all fit into the lives of those men. I am asked 
especially to recommend preparation of a series of brief biogra- 
phies of splendid missionary women, wives and mothers, and single 
women, who have labored on the mission field, and whose lives are 
an inspiration to us. If we have domestic difficulties, trouble in our 

• Central Presbyterian Church. April 24. 



LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN 159 

housekeeping, and look at these women, then we feel ashamed that 
we have had one moment's trouble come over our souls. When 
we think of what privations, and what trials, and what persecution 
these women have endured with faithfulness, and courage, and zeal, 
we get an inspiration to strength and brightness in our own religious 
life. 

I assure you that I have found, in all my experience in working 
with young people, that when you can teach them the life of the 
man or woman who has done something, then it is possible to get 
the missionary enthusiasm into them, and the spirit of missions 
aroused in their hearts. 

Rev. a. T. Pierson, D.D., Editor-in-Chief, " Missionary Revieiv 
of the World," Nezv York^ 

Now, I want to say just two or three words with regard to one 
special form of missionary literature that has scarcely been touched 
upon. Let me preface this remark by a general observation. 1 
think we ought to understand the relation of fire and fuel. Mis- 
sionary literature is fuel, but fuel does not make fire. It feeds fire, 
and there would be no use in the accumulation of the most abun- 
dant missionary literature if you have no fire. But when fire is 
there, with this fuel you can make the fire burn with far more in- 
tensity. I believe that there ought to be education in missions 
from the cradle. And then, as the child's mind and heart are in- 
spired with a desire for the uplifting of mankind, feed the fire with 
fuel appropriate to the child's measure of intelligence. 

But I want to speak particularly of the sketches of individual 
triumphs in the various parts of the world. Take, for instance, 
such a narrative as was given us by Bishop Ridley the other night, 
and put that in a brief, interesting, comprehensive form, with il- 
lustrations, it will compel the conviction that the Gospel is the 
power of God unto salvation. And the beauty of such a narrative 
as this is that it can be put into very brief form that you can take 
home and read in a half-hour. I want especially to emphasize this 
side of missionary literature — brief, interesting, pictorial, and 
graphic descriptions of what men and women have seen in the wide 
field of missionary labor, so that coming into contact with people 
that have little opportunity to read and perhaps little interest at the 
beginning in missionary work, we shall compel them to take a deeper 
interest and a more enthusiastic interest in the work of God. There 
is no form of the evidences of Christianity that has ever filled my 
mind with such absolute and irrefragable proof that God is still work- 
ing as in apostolic days among nations, as the subject of missionary 
triumphs. 

I may add a word with regard to the way a pastor can interest 
his people in missions. 

Dr. Arthur Mitchell, formerly of Cleveland, afterward Secretary 
of the Presbyterian Board, stood before me for years as the finest 
model that I had ever known of a pastor who had power to inter- 
est his people in missions. Do you know how he did it? He took 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 30. 



l6o LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

a book and he read it, he mastered it, and he went into his monthly 
concert and gave his people, not readings from this book or maga- 
zine, but he took out of them the most interesting and the most 
striking, and the most effective incidents that he could find; he 
clothed them in language of his own, and he infused his people with 
his own missionary fire; and the consequence was that that man 
was never in a church that did not lead the way in missions. 

Mrs. a. Wheaton, Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary So- 
ciety, Mystic, Conn* 

Someone has said that a preacher's work must be very discour- 
aging, because one part of his congregation already believes, and 
the other part does not want to believe. And it is something like 
this with out missionary work. One part of our Church already 
believes, and the other part does not care, and they do not want to 
care. Ignorance is the greatest source of weakness in missionary 
effort. Know, and you will believe. Know, and you will pray. 
Know, and you will help in the front rank. Every church that does 
missionary work should have a library. It may not be large, but 
it should be well selected. The motto should be, " Quality, and 
not quantity." It should be calculated to stimulate a general in- 
terest in the subject of missions. There should be biographies of 
missionaries, books on the history of missions, books on different 
phases of missionary work, books written by missionaries, and 
especially books adapted to interest young people. Such a library 
need not require a large expenditure of money. Appeal to the 
church for money for the treasury of the library. Ask the mem- 
bers to each give a book. Ask for individual contributions. And 
the Women's Missionary Society will find this a matter after its own 
heart, for it has often experienced a revival while prosecuting such 
an effort. Plan prayerfully, and work your plan carefully, and you 
will have a missionary library. 

I have read of a footman engaged by a wealthy family, who 
was in doubt as to his duties. He didn't know whether he was to 
assist his mistress to alight, or to stand by the step, and allow her 
to alight. He hesitated a moment, and then said, " Ham I for use 
or ham I for ornament?" The missionary library should never 
be for ornament. Get one, and use it. 

Miss P. J. Walden, Publisher " Missionary Friend," Woman's 
Foreign Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church, Boston* 

The committee suggests publication of a map roll, giving the sta- 
tions of the different societies in colors — the price not to exceed $i. 

The question divides itself into two parts. Why do we need a 
map roll? Is it practicable? 

It might seem a reflection on this intelligent audience to say that 
the chief reason why we need it is ignorance in regard to our mis- 
sion stations and other locations. It is, nevertheless, a lamentable 
fact that this ignorance exists among the women of our churches; 
and if we are to do intelligent work we must know where these sta- 

♦ Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 



SPECIAL LITERATURE l6l 

tions are located; because we have given of our money, and even 
our dearest friends, we must know where they are located. In the 
Spanish-American War, when Admiral Dewey entered the harbor 
of Manila and gained such a wonderful victory, many of us had no 
new atlases in which to find just the location of the Philippines. 
We had an intense interest in these islands, and our secular papers, 
always awake to the thing that will bring money and interest, is- 
sued maps, that they might tell us exactly the location, size, and all 
that would interest us in regard to these islands; and as we went 
out on the streets, we found the newsboys calling out, " Map of 
the Philippines." Now, shall we let the children of this world be 
wiser in their generation than the children of light? I think we 
have satisfied ourselves that we need maps because of the ignorance 
of the people, and because we should be intelligent as to the loca- 
tion of these our mission stations. It is very practicable — and not 
only practicable, but necessary — that we should have a map that 
will give the stations of our denominations. We can have a map 
showing the rivers, and the stations of six of the denominations, if 
desired also the mountains, and on thick, linen paper, for possibly 
$1, at most not over $1.25. If all our large denominations would 
take hold of it, as has been suggested in regard to the publication 
of uniform studies, we could put them, I am sure, at the price of $1, 
and have them useful for every auxiliary in our churches. 

Mrs. J. E. Scott, Woman's Baplist Foreign Missionary Society, 
Chicago.'^ 

I want to call attention again to the missionary library. At our 
meetings, are we satisfied with one speaker? Then, if literature in- 
fluences more than the speaker, sometimes, we have dozens and 
hundreds of speakers, and why not dozens and hundreds of mission- 
ary libraries in the cities? Students' Volunteer libraries could be 
placed in every church all over the United States, at a very small 
cost. But I do not see why the Bible is not more recognized in our 
mission studies. It is our first missionary book. Should we not be 
instructed that we take a few minutes of the hour, or a half an hour 
of the two hours, to give to the Bible, studied as a missionary book? 
Let us take up this first missionary book of every missionary epoch. 

Mrs. Harriet Newell Jones, Woman's Baptist Foreign Mis- 
sionary Society, Philadelphia, Pa* 

I have had the privilege of preparing a great many programmes 
for one State — a privilege attended with considerable pleasure and 
some pain; and a part of the pain has been caused by the lack of 
suitable hymns. If you have ever been called upon to make a mis- 
sionary address at some convention, or to preside at some mission- 
ary meeting, and you were not able to be there until about the time 
the meeting began, and you didn't know what hymn-book was be- 
ing used; or, if you have seen somebody else in that same predica- 
ment, and seen them frantically turn over the hymn-book, which 
would be lying on the desk, to find suitable hymns, I am sure you 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 



t62 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

are ready to say with me, Give us a missionary hymn-book which 
will be suitable for all missionary meetings of all denominations. I 
see no reason why we should not have it — something that does not 
cost much, something that will be inspiring — hymns whose thought 
shall lift us nearer our Master, and shall enable us to do more faith- 
ful and effective work than we have done, and shall be set to fitting 
music. Perhaps there are hidden away some poets that we do not 
know about; perhaps there are hidden away some beautiful hymns 
in the different hymnals. Why can't we have gathered some choice 
hymns? These schemes about books and hymnals will succeed if 
you go straight ahead, and I am sure the workers, and perhaps the 
uninterested women, are waiting for them.* 

Utilizing Public Libraries for Missionary Literature 

Mrs. Joseph Cook, IVoinan's Board of Foreign Missio)is, Con- 
gregational, Boston.-f 

A brilliant literary woman of Boston, prominent as a lecturer be- 
fore clubs, found that in her crowded life a selection of reading 
must be made, so she ruled out fiction and substituted missionary 
literature, and felt rewarded, both intellectually and spiritually, for 
so doing. 

Nearly every one of our denominational magazines issued by the 
various Woman's Boards can be read from cover to cover in one 
evening. Bvit the reason is often given for not taking the magazine, 
"Why should I subscribe for what I never read?" Taking the 
denominational magazine as a matter of principle should be urged 
upon Christian women, and if those who are induced to take it will 
also promise to read it from the same high motive, much will be 
gained. Some denominations use effectively every large mission- 
ary gathering to solicit subscribers to the magazine. 

We women have been working along foreign missionary lines for 
more than thirty years, and we are admirably organized for ag- 
gressive work, but we are still confronted by the appalling five- 
sixths of the uninterested in the home churches. 

I would not undervalue the timely leaflet, nor the strategic letter 
from the worker at the front, but these can not take the place, from 
an educational point of view, of such books as Dr. Dennis's " For- 
eign Missions After a Century," or his " Christian Missions and 
Social Progress," or scores of valuable publications, of which these 
are typical examples. 

Just as soon as the ordinary auxiliary, depending on leaflets and 
letters and missionary addresses, can become a study-class and 
evolve their own speakers, with brief papers or a conversational in- 
terchange of strategic information, the books necessary to furnish 
this information will be asked for. Such a society, the Advance 



* The ladies unanimously approved the following recommendations : 

First the committee would recommend the publication of a volume containinp concise his- 
torical sketches of women's boards of foreign missions, from their foundation to the year iqoo; 
this volume to be compiled by an editor chosen by the general committee, from the sketches 
presented by the different boards at the time of this Conference. 

Second, they would also recommend that a committee be appointed, composed of the com- 
mittees from the different boards, that shall arrange for the publication of books of common 
missionary interest by responsible publishing houses. 

t Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 



UTILIZING PUBLIC LIBRARIES 1 63 

Club, exists in Rockford, III,, and the printed programmes of a 
year's study of India and two years' study of China are most in- 
teresting and valuable documents. In these programmes a list 
of books from the public library, with the library numbers attached, 
is given, bearing on the questions to be discussed at each meeting. 
Nearly every woman takes part; consequently all are interested. 
The free public libraries already contain valuable aitd largely un- 
used missionary literature which could be increased and put in cir- 
culation, if only the intelligent and influential women who form our 
constituency in all denominations would unite in making the proper 
demand. 

The education department of the Student Volunteer Movement 
has brought such pressure to bear on the Detroit Public Library 
and the Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore, that these institu- 
tions have published separate catalogues, with the titles of books 
on Christian missions. As the literature of missions must draw 
largely on history, travel, biography, ethnology, sociology, and 
other subjects, a special catalogue which refers to books in every 
class that have a bearing on missions is the best expedient, and the 
most that should ordinarily be expected of the public library. 

If representatives of the mission boards were to examine the 
general catalogues of local libraries, and select and publish lists of 
books available to their own communities, this might secure at 
least a temporary massing of missionary literature in a special al- 
cove, and also a considerable addition to the material. Such a de- 
fined department in any public library would doubtless lead to many 
gifts of standard works on missions. While an entire alcove de- 
voted to missions might not always be available, certain shelves 
could undoubtedly be given to strictly missionary literature. 

In the Otis Library, of Norwich, Conn., there is a missionary al- 
cove containing 193 volumes, and the librarian states that it is quite 
freely used by all denominations. 

In the Utica Public Library, while they have no separate cata- 
logue, everything pertaining to missions is arranged on the card 
catalogue under that head, and the books can all be found on cer- 
tain shelves, to which the public has free access. 

Not all States are so well supplied with public libraries as Massa- 
chusetts, but many of the States have a well-developed system of 
traveling libraries, and these in the hands of the Church agencies 
or missionary Boards, might be made to furnish valuable aid. There 
also exists a well organized society in Chicago, which sends out 
what is called " A Gospel Extension Circulating Library," having 
ten missionary books in each collection of fifty volumes, which. 
would solve the problem of the intellectual starvation of rural dis- 
tricts where there are no public libraries. 

One philanthropist in Chicago has tried the experiment of circu- 
lating missionary literature in the West at his own expense. This 
gentleman writes me that " Wherever there was found an enthusi- 
astic, intelligent young woman to take charge of the library and 
push it, the system worked well." It is the conviction of this prac- 
tical distributer of missionary literature that " One good mission- 



164 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

ary book carefully read is of more permanent value than a dozen 
speeches by a district Secretary at a ministers' Association." 

It is an encouraging fact, as we look forward to the future con- 
stituency of the woman's foreign missionary Societies, that there 
are now some 1,500 young women who are enrolled in the study- 
classes of the educational department of the Student X'^oluntecr 
Movement. Two thousand five hundred sets of the Campaign Li- 
brary of sixteen volumes on missions, and sold for $10, have al- 
ready been placed in churches and young people's societies. An- 
other library of twenty volumes, and also sold for $10, is nearly 
ready. These thirty-six volumes are chosen with a view to cover- 
ing all lands and phases of efifort. No remotest rural district need 
to be without proper helps for conducting meetings of study classes 
while the best books can be had for a trifling sum. 

But the ideal missionary society, which would be the natural 
evolution from ecumenical and interdenominational conferences, is 
the Woman's Missionary Social Union, of Springfield, 111., 
which embraces the woman's missionary Societies of all denomina- 
tions in that city. They report as follows: 

" The membership of the Union is about 1,200, including women 
and children. About 650 volumes of missionary literature are in 
the city library, placed there by the co-operation of the union with 
the librarian and directors. These books represent the work of 
Protestant Christendom. They are largely read, and are exerting 
a deep and wide influence. A missionary table is placed in the 
public reading-room of the library, and provided with twenty-four 
of the best missionary periodicals now published, these being paid 
for by the societies represented. Many persons sit at these tables 
and read these papers with interest. Such a work in spreading a 
knowledge of missions would be impossible, except through the 
co-operation of the missionary workers of the city." 

UtiHzmg tiic Secular Press 

Rev. E. M. Bliss, D.D., Editor " Independent," Neiv York^ 
Some months ago I was talking to the manager of the Associated 
Press of this city. We were laying plans for the report of the Con- 
ference, and he said to me, " You gentlemen do not apparently un- 
derstand the great, widespread interest that the great public, the 
non-Christian public, have in your work." The very people whose 
eyes are so dim that they can not see the color, whose ears are so 
dull that they can not take in the sweet music, are waiting anxiously 
to get the news of God's kingdom in all the earth. 

What is missionary news? Is it merely the report of what comes 
from one station and another, of what God has done? Is it merely 
the statistics of those gathered in the churches, of the pupils in the 
schools, or items of that kind? No, the crying element in mission- 
ary news is personality. Who is it that these reporters want to 
know about? They did not ask me who of the Secretaries were 
coming. Th.ey were glad to know of them. They did not ask me 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 30. 



UTILIZING THE SECULAR PRESS 1 65 

who of the pastors were coming, but " Who of the missionaries are 
coming? Who of them are here, and what story have they to teh? " 
They were the "people that they wanted to know about; and every 
item that has been given through them has gone through the length 
and breadth of this land. 

How are you to get this information into the hands of the press? 
By personal contact with them. One of those young men said to 
me, " It is a hard life we lead. We see the rough side, and 
it is good for us to see the other side sometimes." Has there 
come to some little hamlet, way off in the Rockies, perhaps, 
some word from India, or Japan, that tells of someone who has 
done a thing for Christ? Tell it, and it will go to the whole circle 
of these papers that bring the word home to the heart. There is 
something there that the Church has scarcely touched, because it 
has seemed to think that it was outside of its sympathy, because it 
has seemed to think that the eyes were too dim and the ears were 
too dull. They are not. The eyes are quick to see and the ears 
are quick to hear that which breathes of men and women working 
for God and their fellow men. Underneath all the outward life of 
our city there throbs a sympathy for humanity, and you have got 
to reach that, and when you do reach it, then you touch the power 
that moves the nation. 

Rev. C. H. Daniels, D.D., Secretary American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions, Boston.^ 

Permit me to say just a personal word in regard to an item that 
has come to my knowledge, of a little group of missionary boards 
employing a press agent, the larger part of his time being given to 
those societies, taking the varied bits of information which come to 
those several boards, putting them in most excellent news form, 
and sending that out through the Associated Press, through syndi- 
cates of daily and weekly papers. As a result, every year hundreds, 
yes, thousands of columns of missionary news are circulated all up 
and down this land. A little telegraphic dispatch, or cablegram, 
that came to one of the missionary boards from far-off India, 
speaking of the health of its missionaries in connection with the 
famine and plague in India last year, was the basis for a quarter of 
a column of information of all the missionaries who were at work 
there, and the forms of work in which they were engaged, the num- 
ber of years in which they had been laboring in that field, with the 
number of churches established, and the number of converts in 
Christian schools; and on that little cablegram all the information 
concerning the work of that missionary board was given out. It is 
the feeling of those missionary boards that it has paid very well 
indeed, in the amount of information that has been given. 

Missionary Periodicals 

Rev. E. E. Strong, D.D., Editorial Secretary American Board 
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Boston* 

The century which has come under our review during these days 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 30. 



l66 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

of our convocation has been marked wonderfully by the establish- 
ment and development of a missionary literature. A hundred 
years ago but one strictly missionary periodical was known to the 
Christian world. Now their name is legion. I have a list of forty- 
nine publications in Great Britain and Ireland, most of them issued 
monthly, some of them quarterly, entirely devoted to foreign mis- 
sions, while there are twenty-two other journals which combine in 
their view missionary work at home and abroad. On the conti- 
nent of Europe there are nearly a score of magazines devoted to 
this cause, while on this side of the Atlantic we have a list of thirty- 
two publications altogether foreign missionary in their character, 
while a dozen or more monthly magazines report the missionary 
work of the churches they represent, both in the homeland and be- 
yond the seas. These lists are doubtless incomplete, and it is quite 
within bounds to say that there are to-day not less than lOO publi- 
cations, chiefly monthly, which are entirely devoted to foreign mis- 
sions. Surely this is a changed world since the day when Jona- 
than Edwards searched the meager " news-letters " of his day, hop- 
ing that he might find " the least hint " of something concerning the 
progress of the kingdom of Christ. 

The special topic of missionary periodicals has been assigned to 
me. Under this topic there are three fundamental principles, 
which I venture to call axiomatic. 

1. It is the bounden duty of each missionary organization to use 
every practicable means for awakening and intensifying mission- 
ary zeal throughout its constituency. 

2. One of the most efficient means for thus stimulating mission- 
ary zeal is the periodical which shall present the needs of the work 
and keep its readers in touch with the workers. 

3. The cost of such periodicals, if kept within reasonable bounds, 
is as legitimate a charge upon the treasury of the organization as is 
the support of a missionary. 

We can not stay to consider possible exceptions. There may be 
some exceptions, but as a rule every foreign missionary Society 
representing a large body of Christians and having an extensive 
work should have an organ solely for the presentation of its own 
work. And why? 

(i) Because only so can the proper relative position of the for- 
eign missionary cause be kept clearly before the constituency of the 

society. 

In every Christian land there are numerous objects which should 
call forth the interest, and gifts, and prayers of believers. It is 
no disparagement to any or all of them to say that they stand sec- 
ond to the "supreme work given the Christian Church, the work of 
reaching the uncvangclized world It should never be forgotten 
that this cause embraces in its operations abroad various forms of 
effort, which at home are relegated to the care of several distinct 
organizations; one for Sunday-schools, one for colleges and higher 
education, one for Bible and tract publications, for Church support 
and church building, for city missions, and for nmnerous distinct 
classes in our communities needing aid. TIkm-c are nuiltiplied or- 



MISSIONARY PERIODICALS 1 67 

ganizations for the home work, one for foreign. But to place the 
one side by side with the many, in a single missionary magazine, 
gives at the outset a wrong impression as to proportion, an im- 
pression which the average Christian will not overcome, and one 
which will seriously imperil a proper world-wide view. 

(2) These mission fields are in far-away lands. Only the smallest 
fraction of the constituency supporting them have seen them per- 
sonally. The peoples are strange and in strange surroundings. They 
are of all grades of intelligence. They are interesting, if only they 
were known, but they are unknown. How shall Christians at home 
be brought to see the various races of men in the several conti- 
nents, to see them so that they shall look upon them as brothers 
who need and are waiting to receive the gospel? They certainly 
will not do this if they are limited to a few pages, monthly, in the 
midst of many other pages bearing upon a great variety of other 
subjects. 

Look at the methods employed in the business world to-day. 
The newspaper directory of the United States shows that we have 
twenty-nine publications, many of them weekly, devoted solely to 
the iron and hardware trade; sixteen to lumber interests; twenty- 
one to photography; eighty to the raising of poultry; while the 
butchers and packers have nine periodicals, and even the barbers 
have six tonsorial advocates, and so on. How the business world 
would scout the suggestion that all branches of trade should be cov- 
ered by one commercial periodical. Does not the supreme busi- 
ness of the Church of Christ, the giving of the gospel to the un- 
evangelized world, call for a presentation by itself, so detailed and 
ample that it shall be distinct and commanding in its impression? 

Assuming now that each foreign missionary organization has a 
distinct periodical, one or more, the question as to the nature and 
contents of its issues remains for consideration. 

It is obvious that the periodical must be adapted to the age, and 
intelligence, and spiritual apprehension of those whom it is de- 
sired to reach. Who ought to be reached? There are: 

First, the young. It is of vast importance that they be not over- 
looked. In the formative period of their lives, they will get im- 
pressions which will never be lost. But they can not be expected 
to read with interest or profit the graver discussions or reports 
which are suitable for their elders. The children's missionary 
paper is a necessity. Nothing will appeal to the young more 
strongly than stories from beyond the seas, of strange people who 
know not Christ, but who need His gospel. 

A second class to be reached are at the opposite extreme from 
the young, they are the advanced Christians, whose principles are 
established, who are presumably well informed as to the progress 
of the kingdom. Their wishes would be met by the discussion of 
missionary principles, the review of great movements, and the pres- 
entatitMi of elaborate articles concerning methods of administra- 
tion, and the like. Happy is that missionary society that is large 
enough and rich enough to meet this call, while giving what is 
necessarv in other lines. But this is not the case v/ith most so- 



1 68 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

cieties, Practically this department, for the present at least, must 
be left to independent enterprises, either individual or associated. 
These broader themes which concern world-wide missions can be 
treated quite as well by a general missionary periodical as by the 
organ of any one society. Provision being thus made for the 
young on the one hand, and for the most mature on the other, 
there remains the great middle class, of various grades of intelli- 
gence and education, very busy, most of them, in the afTairs of life, 
and living in the whirl of modern society. What sort of periodical 
is best fitted to catch and hold the interest and impart intelligence 
and missionary enthusiasm to these average Christians? I 
venture to suggest that they do not care for the discussion of 
theories or principles. They are not fond of extended homilies 
or dissertations. They are too busy to read them. They want 
facts of life, bringing before the mind vital interests which concern 
the reader, and others for whom he should care. Of course, in any 
missionary periodical, there should be room given for exhortation 
and dissertation, in moderate amount, but the ideal would be a pre- 
sentation of the actual work in the mission fields, the character of 
the people, the hindrances and helps, all in sufBcient detail to make 
the scenes in these several lands distinct pictures before the mind. 
If men thus see, they certainly will feel, and if they feel, they will 
act. Visit even for a day a mission station in any part of the 
world, and you will come away with an enthusiasm quite beyond 
an^'thing otherwise obtainable. So far as the missionary maga- 
zine succeeds in bringing the varied life of the mission fields to the 
apprehension of its readers, just so far will it fulfill its function. 
Of course, in these days of the ever-present camera, the aid of pic- 
tures must be sought. Yet even more important are the pen 
pictures from the workers on the ground. Their individual let- 
ters are needed. For to make missions real, the personal element 
must ever be kept prominent. A difiticulty which the average Chris- 
tian finds in respect to the foreign work is that it is indistinct, and 
the missionaries are unseen, so that it is all vague. The men and 
women who are doing this work must be set in the forefront, and 
be seen and known, if their work is to be understood, and cared for, 
and prayed for. The missionary magazine must let these soldiers 
speak for themselves in an extended way, so that they shall be 
known and kept in mind. While the periodical of each missionary 
board may well give glances at the work of others, there will be 
little room for this general view if its own work is made distinct 
and vivid. For this wider view reliance must be had mainly on 
other publications. 

A word should be said on the demand sometimes heard, that mis- 
sionary publications should be made interesting and attractive, like 
the so-called " popular " magazines. What makes any pu]:)lica- 
tion popular? Why is it that during the recent campai.qiis in South 
Africa immense crowds of people jostle one another before the 
bulletin-boards of the War Office in London; why are the news- 
paper extras on both sides of the Atlantic so eagerly bought and 
scanned? Doubtless, many have personal interest in soldiers at 



MISSIONARY PERIODICALS 169 

the front, of whose welfare they are anxious to learn, but unques- 
tionably the intenseness of the interest felt is because of the issues 
involved afifecting British prestige and power. Were Christians 
as loyal to their King, had they a like eagerness for the establish- 
ment of His sovereignty over the regions which He claims, then 
would messages from the battle-line be scanned with avidity. No 
tidings of this sort would be counted as dull. Just here lies the 
difficulty in reference to missionary publications. They will com- 
mand the attention of those only who are truly at one with Christ 
in His world-wide redemptive work. Given a Church whose mem- 
bers, in fact as well as in profession, are seeking first the kingdom 
of God, and they will demand, and will have fresh and full tidings 
of the progress of that kingdom throughout the earth. There is 
no excuse for dullness or want of enterprise in presenting the 
stimulating facts of missionary history, and biography, and current 
work. But the demand occasionally made that these publications 
be made so attractive that the unconverted and indifferent will cry 
out for them, is preposterous. As well ask that a painting be 
made so beautiful that the blind shall see it, or music so sweet that 
the deaf shall hear it. Let a quickened love for our Lord and His 
kingdom fill the hearts of His people, and reports from the fielti of 
contest will be welcomed with eager acclaim. May Christ our 
Master give such love and zeal to all who bear His Name. 

Rev. Dr. A. Schreiber, Inspector, Rhenish Missionary Society, 
Barmen, Germany.'^ 

I appreciate very much indeed all kinds of magazines that bring 
interesting news from all parts of the world. We could not do 
without them. They are most interesting to read, of course; but 
those periodicals of single societies have quite something else to 
do, and that is also of great value. 

I might compare the general magazine with the great guns that 
make a great noise, but, as we have been told just now, from the 
south of Africa, they don't kill so many people as the little Mausers 
do; and like such little rifles are also the periodicals of the societies. 
What is their aim? They are to keep up communication between 
the missionaries abroad and the people that stand behind them here in 
the home field. Because our missionaries abroad are our com- 
missioners. They are doing the work for the churches that stand 
behind them; and to the missionary abroad, it is of the utmost im- 
portance to know that there are really people standing behind him, 
not only giving money for him, but what is of much greater value, 
who are praying for him. I was myself a missionar}^ for several 
years out in India and Sumatra, and, therefore, I can speak a little 
of what I have done, and experienced, and felt myself. And now 
I say of every missionary who is sometimes standing quite alone 
by himself, and has to struggle with up-hill work against a very 
stubborn people, perhaps, it is to him a great help, and will give him 
strength every day to know that there are people standing behind 



* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 30. 



170 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

him that know him and take a part in his doings. And that is the 
aim of the periodicals of these societies. 

But I have been, afterward, the editor of such a periodical my- 
self, and now I will say something also about the difficulties. Such 
an editor must train the readers as well as the missionary writers. 
Let the people that are at home not care only to hear about suc- 
cesses, about the great things going on ; we must train them that 
they take also an interest in the struggle, in the most difficult work 
the missionaries are doing abroad; because, when a missionary is 
going on beautifully with his work he finds it very easy ; he doesn't 
care so much for the people that are standing behind him, but when 
he has difficult, up-hill work, and doesn't see any result from it, then 
it is very encouraging for him to know that there are people behind 
him that are helping him by their prayers. And just for this 
reason such a periodical ought to bring during the year an account 
of every man stationed abroad, in order that his friends at home — 
his special friends — may hear from him and may be impelled anew 
to think of him and to pray for him. 

Miss L. A. DeMerritt, Free Baptist General Conference, Ocean 
Park, Maine. ^ 

There are people who give money who do not take a missionary 
magazine. There are many that take it, I suppose, to get rid of the 
magazine agent, and then put it in the waste-basket. There are 
some who make choice of a magazine because of its general mis- 
sionary intelligence, and perhaps take an undenominational maga- 
zine: and this is a very commendable reason for taking a magazine, 
and yet it is no excuse for not taking what is our very own. I am 
in favor of interdenominational unity, and yet we can never meet 
our obligations to the work that our Heavenly Father has given us 
to do, until we take our own missionary magazine and become en- 
tirely familiar with our own work. Indeed, that is the reason why 
there is such lukewarmness in missionary work ; few take the maga- 
zine and know the work that is committed to them to do. All 
missionary workers know this is too true. 

Now we might go out after this Conference with a mighty im- 
pulse for general missionary work. And yet not until this impulse 
is turned into well-directed channels will the work be done. 

And so I do urge, this afternoon, that the appeal be made strong- 
ly and constantly to the constituency at home — " Take the mission- 
ary magazine: take the one that is your very own. Take it be- 
cause, in this way alone, we find out what are our own duties." 

Not only this, but I believe that any who do anything because 
they believe it to be right, even though it is done merely for 
duty's sake, will sooner or later come to love the thing that they 
do. That is the way God has made it possible for us to work in 
this world — to come to love the thing we ought, by doing the thing 
we ouGfht. 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 24. 



USE OF MISSIONARY LITERATURE BY THE PASTOR 171 

The Use of Missionary Literature by the Pastor 

Rev. D. C. Rankin, D.D., Editor " The Missionary/' Prcsby- 
icriaii Church in U. S. (South), Nashville, Tenn.'* 

I think we all agree as to the value of missionary periodicals, but 
the living question with us, especially with our pastors, is how to 
get this literature in the hands of our people. If we can get the 
people to read them we shall have gained the victory. 

In the first place let these periodicals be made the equal of any 
monthlies of the day. And this is being done in a very marvelous 
degree. Let us make them just as good as we can. Let us put 
into them the freshest and the best of things, and the best of pic- 
tures, and make these magazines as good as Harper's or as the 
Century, or any other magazine. 

But when we have done this, what next? Y/hen the editors have 
made them as good as they can, then the pastors should come be- 
fore their people and tell them of this literature. They should 
make their people feel that this special literature of each Church is 
a literature to be proud of, and put it before them with such earnest- 
ness that the people shall feel that this is something they can not 
neglect. 

In the next place, let our pastors confer with good women of the 
churches; let these take up the magazines; obtain sample copies, 
and take them out among the people. Let our pastors glory in 
the missionary literature. Let them feel that it is in advance of 
everything, in telling the story of what is transpiring in the earth. 
Not even the London Times can keep pace with our missionary 
magazines in gathering the news from the ends of the earth, to tell 
their audiences. 

Rev. a. W. Halsey, D.D., Secretary Board of Foreign Missions, 
Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., Nezv York.'^ 

It was said of the late Keith Falconer by one of his instructors that 
" he approached the world of ideas as great observers approach the 
world of nature ; with wonder, with reverence, and with humility." 
In some such spirit must the pastor approach the study of mission- 
ary literature. 

Two facts, apparently contradictory, need to be taken into ac- 
count: the history of missions is already made, and per contra the 
history of missions is always a-making. The roots go back to Beth- 
lehem, to Ur of the Chaldees, to the councils of eternity; the fruit 
is ripening every day. 

But all missionary wares have not the same value. The point 
of view of the pastor is different from that of the editor or author. 
It is as a specialist that the pastor studies this great subject. I 
take it that every bit of missionary information he gathers must, in 
the final analysis, be chiefly valued along three distinct lines : 

(i) The audience value — is this of worth for my audience? (2) 
The apologetic value — by presenting this will I add to the force of 
my appeal? (3) The spiritual value — is this calculated to deepen 



* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 30. 



172 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

the spiritual life, quicken the spiritual nature, awaken love and 
loyalty to Christ and His cause? 
I. The Audience Value: 

Dr. Arthur T. Pierson says: "To learn facts takes pains and 
patience, but nothing save holiness commands such homage as a 
thorough mastery of facts. It is tJie rarest and costliest product in 
the mental market." Weigh every book — what is its audience 
value; weigh every fact — what is it worth to me in my trade. The 
newspaper man, the lawyer, the orator does this, and so must the pas- 
tor, if he is to compass even a tithe of the literature on this immor- 
tal theme. Such volumes as " The Romance of Missions," or 
" Modern Missions, Their Trials and Triumphs," or Bliss's " Con- 
cise History of Modern Missions," are admirable for the Sunday- 
school library or the library of the busy layman, but not for one 
who is to be a teacher and expounder of missionary themes to oth- 
ers. 

I have no law to lay down on the subject, but as a guide-post 
take the remark of Henry Drummond on Mr. Moody, " He is the 
biggest human I ever met." Look out for the big humans in mis- 
sion literature, you will not go far astray. Even in studying false 
religions keep close to the missionary. The account given in the 
life of James Gilmour of his visit to Urga and Wutaishan, the sa- 
cred cities of Buddhism, is the most trenchant argument I have ever 
read against that false system of unbelief, which has held and still 
holds millions of our fellow-beings in bondage. " The Light of 
Asia " is a taper when you come close to it. 

No true missionary ever lived who did not wind about him a 
thousand human cords which so bound him with the people to 
whom he ministered, that in photographing the one you reveal the 
other. 

The medical, educational, philanthropic side of the work is very 
large. Each year our literature on these various aspects of mis- 
sionary activity is enriched by splendid volumes. The pastor must 
choose wisely, keeping his audience in mind at every turn of the 
page. 

2. The Apologetic Value of mission literature is a fruitful field. 
I do not refer to the missionary apologetic to be found in learned 
argument, or philosophical discussion of the fundamental principles 
that underlie the whole movement. The pastor has quite another 
mission. The best defense of missions is missions. To exhibit 
to the people what has been done, to exercise care, and judgment, 
and wisdom in selection of material, so that all unconsciously to 
the hearer the splendid results will become the impregnable de- 
fense of missions, this, I take it, lies very close to the work of the 
pastor. 

The apologetic side of missions can often be presented by a right 
use of the extraordinarv aspects of the subject. 

Contrast the life of Guido F. Verbcck, of Japan, with that oi 
" John, King of Surinam." The cultured Christian scholar with 
the old-world training and the new-world polish, seems to have 



USE OF MISSIONARY LITERATURE BY THE PASTOR 1 73 

nothing in common with the rude bush negro whose parents lived 
in grossest heathenism, whose mother beheved in the power of the 
evil spirit dwelling in a snake, and whose school was a hut, canoe, 
or bush. Yet Japan owes not more to the gifted Verbeck, whose 
hand and heart did so much to shape her destiny in the transition 
period, when she was passing from the old to the new, than does 
Surinam to the bush negro, who, for thirty-four years, preached the 
Gospel in her towns and villages, and so won the hearts of his fel- 
low-countrymen that with one accord they chose him for their ruler. 

The pastor must keep his eye open for these splendid results of 
missions, and by contrast, or comparison, let the full searchlight of 
investigation show that the Gospel is still the power of God unto 
salvation to everyone that believeth. 

Smokeless powder is much in vogue in these days of scientific 
warfare. It is not out of place in missionary apologetics. Medi- 
cal missions need no argument, only recital. 

Many an educated man in the Church has been won to the cause 
by having brought before him the great educational work done by 
the missionary. The missionary teacher, editor, bookmaker, is in 
all mission lands. The pastor who has not found him has read to 
little purpose. A native helper who had assisted Dr. Goodell in his 
translation of the Bible into the " Armeno-Turkish," said as he 
neared death, " I have been permitted to dig a well at which millions 
may drink." And his words were both a prophecy of the benefi- 
cent work that the missionary does and an apologetic of no mean 
value. 

3. The one characteristic most prominent in the life of every mis- 
sionary, and of every mission, is the presence and power of the 
Holy Spirit. Whatever the cause, the fact remains that the record 
of missionary literature is starred with peculiar and unique mani- 
festation of the power of the Spirit of God. Dr. Gordon's book, 
" The Holy Spirit in Missions," is suggestive, but every pastor can 
compile his own volume on this theme. I know of no life of any 
great missionary that does not furnish abundant proof of the pres- 
ence and power of the Holy Spirit. 

If missions had done nothing else in this country than to make 
vivid to a Church steeped in worldliness and engrossed in material 
things, the presence of the Holy Spirit, it were worth all it has cost 
in prayer, money, and blood. 

One need not accept all the conclusions of W. H. Murray, to be 
convinced that he was led by the Spirit of God to the great discov- 
ery that has given sight to so many of China's blind millions. He 
himself claims that at the noon-tide hour, while weary with the toil 
and burden of the day, a revelation from God was vouchsafed to 
him. He ma}' have been mistaken in this view, yet as you trace 
the story of his life from the hour when, as a miller's son, he re- 
solved to obtain an education, to the time when in a Chinese inn he 
saw his wonderful vision, it is a life of prayer, of faith, of self-de- 
nial, of reliance on God. of dependence on the Spirit. 

The history of the China Inland Mission is not faultless. It has 
changed much from its original idea and adapted itself to the ex- 



174 LITERATURE OF MISSIONS 

igencies of missionary life as they have arisen, Hudson Taylor is 
only a man like the rest of us ; yet no one can read the story of this 
man, from the hour when a lad of fifteen he was brought to Christ, 
while his mother, far away, spent the afternoon in prayer for him, to 
the moment when under the direct guidance of God he began in 
prayer and faith the China Inland Mission, and not be convinced that 
he had with him all the way the Angel of the Covenant. 

I know of no two missionaries more devoid of fanaticism or less 
given to strange hallucination than M. Coillard and Jacol) Cham- 
berlain. Yet both these men claim to have heard the Divine 
voice. The devout Frenchman tells us in that most fascinating 
volume, " On the Threshold," that ere he entered upon his work 
among the Barotsi, " he and his companions had a vision under 
the shadow of a bush, near the river Key." Read his wonderful 
story — it is like a chapter from the New Testament ; there is no ex- 
planation of his words and his work, save as you find it in the guid- 
ing power of that Spirit of God, in whom he believed, and whose 
divine leadings he implicitly followed. 

Jacob Chamberlain is not the type of a man to be led away by a 
delusion, yet he confidently affirms " In the Tiger Jungle " that he 
heard a voice audible to him, but not to others, " Turn to the left to 
the Godavery." He did turn, and that too against the advice and 
remonstrance of his best guides, only to find that God had once 
more proved faithful. 

The vision of Paul at Troas is no more real to me than the vis- 
ion of Chamberlain at the Godavery. I put it on a different 
plane, one coming from the inspired Word of God, the other from 
the lips of uninspired man, but the uninspired man is a godly man 
in whom dwells the Spirit of God, and I gladly recognize him as 
one worthy of the apostolic commendation — " full of faith and the 
Holy Ghost." 

The recent little volume, " Mary Reid," reveals a Holy Spirit life. 
The beautiful leper homes at Chandag, on the slopes of the Hima- 
layas, the work of her hands and heart, and the more than 130 lep- 
ers led to confess Christ, attest that this sister is no visionary, or en- 
thusiast, or mystic. She may have been mistaken in her leprosy, 
she may have mistaken the voice of God ; but there can be no mis- 
take that her life is hid with Christ in God, or, as she so quaintly 
puts it, quoting from the marginal reading of Joel 3:16, " The Lord 
has been to me a place of repair and harl)or." 

We could multiply instances indefinitely. The conviction deep- 
ens as you study the literature of missions that, though you are 
reading the lives of Christians of many denominations of varied 
intellectual attainments, engaged in a great variety of work in 
many lands, yet the one fact that confronts you, whatever your field 
of survey, is that these missionaries believe in the presence of the 

Spirit of God. 

The pastor who neglects such literature robs his people of their 
spiritual birthright and " wrongs his own soul." 



CHAPTER VIII 

PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

More Abundant Giving — Consecrated Giving — Systematic Giving — Efficient 
Methods of Calling out Gifts — Reflex Influence of tlae Support of Mis- 
sions, 



Need of More Abundant Giving 

Hon. E. E. Lewis, American Baptist Missionary Union, lozva.'-^ 

The enthronement of the missionary idea in the hearts of our 
people at home imphes an impetus to the labor of our missionaries 
abroad. When I was young I was taught to pray that the heathen 
nations might be opened so that our missionaries might have en- 
trance. As I grew up to manhood I found that very many of us, 
however, are about in the same condition that the Scotch congre- 
gation was when they went up to the kirk to pray for rain. There 
was one little girl among the whole outfit who had a big umbrella 
and they laughed at her, but she turned to them and said : " Aren't 
ye gang up to the kirk to pray for rain, and dinna ye expect that 
the Lord will answer ye?" And as they went home there came 
down a great rain from the mountain, and the little girl was the only 
one that was protected. 

The Lord has answered our prayers. Look around. Our 
doors are open from South America to Japan, the walls are all down 
and every man may go up before him as the Jews did at Jericho. 

I have listened to all the good things that have been uttered here 
respecting our army of missionaries, respecting the millions of dol- 
lars which have been raised, and no man shall charge me with any 
lack of appreciation of these, but away from below comes up the 
statement of Dr. Northrup before the American Baptist Union in 
1890, a statement based upon figures prepared by Dr. Angus of 
Regent's Park. He said that the consecration of the wealth pos- 
sessed by the Christians at that time in Great Britain and the United 
States, could send the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth 
within ten years. Those ten years expire next month, and let the 
black spots upon the missionary map tell us how far we have fallen 
short. 

We have got to go home with one thought embodied deep in our 
minds. That there are eight hundred millions of human souls wait- 
ing to be taught what music is in their souls by hearing the voice of 
Almighty God ; and in His dispensation it is cast upon us to carry 



+ Carnegie Hall, May i. 



176 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

that music to them. Eight hundred miJHons waiting for the gospel 
of the Lord Jesus Christ; eight hundred millions waiting for us to 
bring them into harmony with the Divine ! 

Mrs. J. P. Jones, Missionary, Aincricaii Board of Couiniis- 
sioncrs for Foreign Missions, India. ^' 

No amount of money can save a human soul, and no money can 
produce character or consecration; and yet it is one of those factors 
without wdiich the result can not be accomplished. If your child 
is very ill, money can not prevent pain; it can not insure the return 
of health, or vigor, or life, but it can procure the best, most ap- 
proved means and treatment, and give the best opportunity for the 
return of health. Money is powerful in soul-saving in just the 
same measure as it is in life-saving; without it the result can not 
be accomplished. 

There are those in the new India, the Christian India growing up, 
who can do for their people what we can not do. The evangeliza- 
tion of India must be from her own sons and daughters, but they 
must be trained for this. When we look upon ourselves, the forces 
that have determined our lives, we see an ancestry, we see our 
schools, our colleges; we see a conscious power of race and power 
of thought. All this the Indian Christian must make up for, and 
this is what our schools, our training schools, our colleges among 
the native Christians are for; to develop character, to develop that 
degree of character that shall be capable of going forth and doing 
for India the work that needs to be done, and which we are power- 
less to do. For idolatry, caste, pantheism, devil-worship are not 
the shades of the past; they are the storm clouds of the present and 
the menace of the future. The characters that come out of those 
training schools are the greatest encouragement and the greatest 
of hopes to every missionary upon the field. 

But when these men and women are trained, money will set them 
at work. We must not train more than we can use, and yet again 
and again a preacher must be stopped, a school disbanded, a Bible- 
woman's place not supplied because the money faileth. One lady 
supported for some years a young man in our training school. He 
turned out a particularly valuable man, and since then this lady 
and her family have paid his salary as a teacher in our training 
school for native preachers, and so have gone on year by year 
teaching the young men of India to teach their fellow men. A 
group of young ladies supported a young man in this same train- 
ing school. He was not a man of much ability, but since his grad- 
uation they have paid his salary as a catechist in a far-ofif Indian vil- 
lage, and so worked year by year among the humble and outcast. 
Another lady, not connected with our churches, has supported for 
vears a Bible-woman in our work, and has become so closely inter- 
ested in her work that she speaks of it as " my work, which I must 
do as long as it is possible, whatever else goes undone." 

Money is needed for very many other purposes. We need in 



* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 24. 



NEED OF MORE ABUNDANT GIVING 177 

India a Christian literature, A lady who visited us not long ago 
was interested in our press-work and gave us the money for a new 
press. Every year she has sent a donation for Christian literature. 
All this past year her press has been kept at work in publishing 
translations of modern devotional books for our Tamil Christians. 
We need this kind of literature. The Tamil Christian is debarred 
from many of the pleasures of his people, from the festivals, the so- 
cial family feasts, the caste gatherings, and we must make up to 
him in some way. Many, many can never read our English books, 
but will seize with avidity the literature put into their own tongue, 
and yet how little can we do in this line without money. 

Blessed are they that sow beside all waters. Money will open 
and keep open innumerable schools for the training of Hindu 
children, heathen boys and girls, and women. You can not count 
in these our schools, I grant you, so many souls for so many dol- 
lars; but it is part of this great sappers and miners' work of which 
we have heard, that will break down sometime the curse of heathen- 
ism that is over that land. 

There are very many ways in which money will work for what 
may be called pure humanity. No work has so opened hearts to 
us as our medical work. And especially I would speak of the 
medical work for women and for those outcast classes, the lepers, 
and the blind, for whom the Lord Christ showed such tender sym- 
pathy. In the same line with this, as work for humanity, I would 
put work for orphans in orphanages. This year will make many 
orphans in India, and there is great, imperative need for humanity's 
help in training them into good life. 

There is great need for money in India on what may be called 
economic lines. It is not in our hands to determine India's future, 
with her dense population, her famines, and her pestilences; but 
there is very much that can be done. The native Christian is, to 
say the least, as well of¥ as the heathen of the class from which he 
has come, and yet he feels far more bitterly the pressure of the 
poverty in which he lives and the limitations of his life. Our na- 
tive helpers, and preachers, and teachers come to us constantly 
with requests that we will give them help in many ways to help 
themselves, to establish training schools, to establish Christian vil- 
lages where improved methods of agriculture may obtain, to estab- 
lish industries where may be employed multitudes of those ready 
and anxious to work, if only the work can be given them. All 
these do not come in strictly missionary lines, but it is good work 
to do, and work that would be approved of by the missionary and 
the government servants all over India. 

We exalt methods and means, and yet it is the personal element 
that counts; and if you could know, as I know, some of the men 
and women whom your gifts have made, whom your gifts have 
framed into character and life, to whom they have given the very 
best of the life that now is and the promise of the life to come, you 
would never feel that you had given too much or feel for them that 
ever afterward you might give too much. In that we have the 
advant:irc of you in that we have seen, and know, and can under- 



178 PRAYER AND BILN'EFICENCE 

Stand what this money does; and it, perhaps, takes less faith for 
us to go than for you to keep on giving year by year, and year by 
year, and yet is there not a promise to you, an especial abounding 
promise, for blessed are they who not having seen have believed. 

Mrs. Belle McPherson Campbell, Secretary, JVoman's Pres- 
byterian Board, Northzvest, Chicago.'^' 

With the present income in the mission treasury we can not hope 
for rapid advancement. We shall be doing well to hold fast to what 
we have, but we must take a broader outlook and strike boldly for 
larger sums, which are needed and needed speedily. Does $14,000.- 
000 seem a large sum to give to foreign missions the world over? 
Let us see what nations consider necessary amounts when humani- 
tarianism or even so modestly unobtrusive an object as expansion 
is in view. The Spanish-American war cost $95,000,000, with a 
present expense in the Philippines of $300,000 per day. The 
British-Boer war costs England at the rate of $800,000 per day. In- 
clude the emergency appropriations, and the tax burden upon the 
British subjects for this war is $268,000,000. We can not look for 
great results or for great blessings until we are ready to give in 
the same open-handed fashion to the campaign fund for Jesus 
Christ, 

We are coming more and more every year to feel satisfied if, 
when the books are balanced, we do not find ourselves in debt; and 
many Christians are satisfied to come up to the help of the Lord 
with an offering which represents only the waste of their purses. 
When God called for a sacrifice he wanted the best of the flock. 

John H. Converse, Baldzvin Locomotive Works, Philadelphia.^ 
It is a matter of rejoicing that the support of missionaries by in- 
dividuals is increasingly a feature of modern methods. The in- 
terposition of the Board or other agency of the Church is, of course, 
both wise and necessary. It facilitates the selection and the su- 
pervision of the work in behalf of the giver, while in no respect in- 
terfering with the cordial relations and the personal interest which 
result from this policy. If business men generally would recog- 
nize their duty and opportunity for service in the individual sup- 
port of missionaries, the force in the field could be increased ten- 
fold, and the efftciency of the Vv'ork would be promoted in still 
greater proportion. " Fervent in spirit " and " serving the Lord " 
are as much parts of our obligation and privilege as " not sloth- 
ful in business." 

On a lower plane the obligation to make business contributory 
to missions is found in their connection, as evidenced in the history 
of missions. Commerce follows civilization. Civilization, 
whether confessedly so or not, means the ideas and the principles 
which the Man of Nazareth came into this world to establish. Even 
those not professedly Christians arc indebted to the religion of 
Jesus Christ to a greater extent than they realize for all the methods 



* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 24. + Carnegie Hall, April 27. 



NEED OF MORE ABUNDANT GIVING I79 

and usages which make business possible and profitable. The 
good order of society, the obligations of equity, of honesty, and of 
fair dealing are founded on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. 
Without these safeguards business would be hazardous or impossi- 
ble. Commerce owes a debt to missions. It must recognize the 
service which the missionaries have rendered as pioneers in new 
countries. Together with the story of the cross they have spread 
the knowledge of material progress; they have prepared the way 
for the railroad, the telegraph, and the electric light. They have 
procured the " open door " which the manufacturer and the mer- 
chant have been only too glad to enter. They have been the picket- 
guards, and have held the fort until the commercial traveler could 
occupy. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that entirely apart 
from religious work their influence in aid of the extension of our 
commerce and manufactures has in many cases fully justified the 
cost of their maintenance. 

The great problem which presents itself to business men is more 
effective organization and more earnest work for the evangelization 
of the world. It is trifling with this great problem to attempt to 
evangelize the world with basket collections of dimes and nickels. 
More direct and more effective plans must be adopted. A dis- 
tinguished minister, now gone to his rest, who was pastor in one 
of the great cities of our country, told the story of an effort under- 
taken by some one in his church to raise a fund for a special ob- 
ject, support of which had heretofore been given only by a church 
collection. The first three persons to whom application was made 
subscribed an amount in the aggregate greater than had ever been 
given in any one year by the entire membership of his church. 
When interest in missions is sincere, when the obligation is fully 
realized and met, and when business men apply to the work of mis- 
sions the same energy and intelligence which govern in their com- 
mercial ventures, then the proposition to evangelize the world in 
this generation will be no longer a drearn, 

Hon. W. J. NoRTiiEN, cx-Govcrnor of Georgia* 
I recognize with profound concern that I am speaking to the as- 
sembled Congress of the nations ; assembled, not to consider some 
principle of international law or commerce ; not to say to all na- 
tions, let there be no more war; not to strike down the colossal 
crime of the ages, the saloon ; but to determine the best ways and 
suggest the best means of proclaiming the gospel of God through- 
out the whole earth, as the solution and the only solution for all the 
problems that trouble governments and vex men. 

God, in His supreme power, is ready to save the world whenever 
men are ready to co-operate with Him in the great service. 

This congress recognizes that in all the conflicts in life there are 
but two dominating forces: God on the one side, representing right, 
whatever is riglit, everything that is right; beautifying, elevating, 
redeeming, making honorable and high. The devil on the other 



* Carnegie Hall, April 27. 



l8o PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

side, representing all that is wrong, tearing down, destroying, hu- 
miliating, making wreck, and ruin, and shame. 

I have been invited as a layman to speak for laymen, and I am 
asked to say upon which side of the great and vital questions in- 
volved in life and set out in the deliberations and discussions had 
by this conference, these, my brethren of the laity, stand. 

I am here to say for myself that I am on God's side. The presence 
of these who sit with me upon this platform authorizes me to say 
for them that in heart, and soul, and purpose, and purse, they stand 
ready to do whatever may be needed and made possible, that will 
carry forward the great work, which, under God, you have under- 
taken for evangelizing the world. 

President Angell has told us if the laymen will furnish the money, 
the colleges will furnish the men and the women to become mission- 
aries. 

Money is good. God has given us money and He has given 
some of us the power to accumulate large amounts of it. He has 
further furnished admirable opportunities in this Conference for its 
profitable investment. 

While money is good, men are far better. The bishops, the 
ministers, the missionaries, and the women all need the money to 
invest in men. 

" How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? 
And how shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they 
preach except they be sent? " If I may be allowed to add: How 
can they be sent except by the laymen's money? 

Money makes the relation of the laymen to missions. There is 
enough money represented on this platform to furnish the means, 
if righteously used, under God, to convert a nation, and nobody be 
financially damaged thereby. 

All you have to do is to present your case properly and get the 
money. 

Let me say to my brethren of the laity, as I say, also, to myself, 
men are not great simply because they can fill their purses with 
monev and keep it there. Men are not great because of what they 
do, in any sense, for themselves. Men are truly great because of 
what they do for humanity, for the world, and for God. 

Need of a More Consecrated Giving 

D. Brewer Eddy, A.B., of the Yale Band^ 

Ignorance has been spoken of as one of the great hindrances that 
is barring our way in the missionary advance. There is another 
equally great, the hindrance of selfishness. Careless it may be, 
thoughtless it is in the main; it finds its source in that very super- 
fluity'^of worldly things which makes the young people of this coun- 
try so mighty in their resources. Where does it first show itself 
to us? In the prayer-life. 

How shall an unselfish prayer-life be developed? First of all, 
bv the example of our pastors from the pulpit, and by the leaders 

* Carnegie Hall, April 28. 



NEED OF A MORE CONSECRATED GIVING iSl 

of our prayer-meetings. If we pray first for the needs of the 
world, as did He who taught us to pray, surely those who hsten will 
catch the tone from us. 

The unselfish prayer-life must, in the second place, be developed 
by the preaching and teaching of our pastors. Let them give us 
from time to time a missionary meeting based upon answered 
prayer in the lives of these missionaries on the field who know how 
to pray. 

And in the third place, and most practical of all, the unselfish 
prayer-life can be developed by some use of systematic prayer- 
cycles. There are many forms in use nowadays. Many denomi- 
nations have issued their own. I have one here which is simple in 
its form ; twenty-six topics, covering the principal needs of foreign, 
home, and city missions, with the suggestion that five minutes in 
every meeting of the young people might be spent in prayer for 
these objects, girdling the globe twice a year with our intercession. 
A number of suggestions have been used v/ell by different societies. 
Print it on the blackboard in the front of the room. Let one mem- 
ber of the committee have sole responsibility for the success of the 
plan. Have one or two asked to give information on the subject 
beforehand, and possibly one or two to lead in prayer. Three ob- 
jects will be served. First, a broader horizon will be gained for 
our sympathetic prayer. Second, information will be instilled into 
the heart of everyone who hears. Third, and above all, we will be 
laboring together in love with these on the mission field. 

The second place where selfishness hinders among young people 
is in giving. 

How shall we develop unselfish giving? Perhaps the first 
means would be the tithe, which is proving, both from its spiritual 
basis and from its wide use and results, to be one of the chief step- 
ping-stones to larger things. Are you using it in your church 
among your young people? Let there be one meeting a year, per- 
haps, upon such a topic. And, in the second place, a means of de- 
veloping unselfish giving, even more important than the first, is 
system. It can not be that we can commit the vital and fatal error 
much longer of leaving giving for missions to a collection on Sun- 
day, when there are but a small percentage of the givers present, 
and when they have left most of their money at home. Shall we 
not continue agitation until systematic giving in proportion, and 
with sacrifice, shall be first in the thought of our benevolences ? 

But once again let us think of the blank wall of ignorance, indif- 
ference, and selfishness against which we are to go. What prin- 
ciple shall guide us as we go up against these children of Anak, 
these walled cities barring our way into a land of plenty ? In the first 
place there should be tact and wisdom guiding our work. In the 
second place, fairness to other lines of benevolence. Any mission- 
ary agitation that warps our giving or our interest in favor of the 
foreign field must end in failure; Christian fairness, and more than 
fairness, is demanded toward every other line of the work. In the 
third place, the importance of leadership must be emphasized. Let 
us put to usury that talent which sets others to v/ork. You are 



l82 TKAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

the leader. We, 6,000,000 of young people in this land, are willing 
to follow you, if you will guide us. This is the responsibility of the 
pastor. The most definite impression, perliaps, of the five mem- 
bers of the Yale Band is this: that the praise or the responsibility 
and blame for present conditions in our missionary Boards must be 
laid at the doors of the pastors. 

The leader must use definiteness and persistence. No wild talk 
of charging batteries, but the earnest purpose to circulate a library, 
to get an average gift of five dollars from our membership. Diffi- 
cult? Yes. Impossible? No. It can be done. 

And, finally, the leader must uplift ideals. If you come to us 
with an appeal for an oyster supper and a twenty-five-cent-contri- 
bution, then we must return to you a corresponding reward. If 
you base your appeal upon emotional stories of terrible suffering 
in the field, you have not plovv-cd deep enough to reach the solid 
ground that will yield the hundred-fold. If you base your appeal 
on grounds of pastor's pride, or of individual church benevolence, 
or of denominational loyalty, thus exaggerating any doubtful posi- 
tion, our young people will return a reward commensurate with the 
grounds from which such an appeal is made. But come to us with 
the deepest spiritual note you can sound, with a message from the 
very life of the Master we are learning to love more and more, and 
we 6,000,000 will follow you to the best of our ability. 

Mrs. Eliza C. Armstrong, Wouian's Foreign Missionary So- 
ciety of Friends, Center Valley, Ind/^ 

A proportionate part of one's income should be set aside as 
sacred to God ; offered as an act of worship, and solely for the estab- 
Hshing and maintenance of the kingdom of God in this world. 
When God laid the foundation of His kingdom here He made ample 
provision by which there would always be means in His treasury 
with which to meet every need; this was by claiming one-tenth of 
income, which each loyal subject was expected to return to Him. 

Earthly kingdoms have patterned after this plan in providing 
a way to get money with vidiich to support, protect, and extend 
themselves, which is by taxation. '' The earth is the Lord's, and 
the fullness thereof." " The gold is mine and the silver is mine, 
saith the Lord." Hence the earth, with all its resources, is His 
capital. He turns it over freely to us, stipulating a certain amount 
to be returned to Him for His use, which is one-tenth. With this, 
and the offerings of His people, He will not only meet all the run- 
ning expenses of His kingdom here, but will extend it until " He 
shall have dominion from sea to sea." " The tithe is the Lord's." 
We have no right to change this law any more than we have to 
change the Sabbath from one day in seven to one day in ten. 

Paul clearly supports the teaching of proportionate giving when 
he teaches the Church to give as God hath prospered. The little 
word as points clearly to a fixed ratio. So the old covenant and 
the new arc in perfect agreement in this matter. 



» Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 24. 



NEED OF A MORE CONSECRATED GIVING 183 

As our taxes are an acknowledgment of our allegiance to the 
governments of this world, so our tithe is our expression of loyalty 
to God's kingdom here, and our offerings prove our affection and 
heart's devotion to a beneficent Father, 

We may feel that we can not afiford to give a tenth of our income, 
but all Christian experience will witness that we can not afford to 
disobey God, or alter His plans. One may feel that he can not 
afiford to pay his taxes. But these must be paid, if it takes the 
home. 

In rendering " unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," we 
should with faithfulness and joy render " unto God the things that 
are God's." 

What would be the consequences were all to give proportion- 
ately and systematically? (i) It would bring a very greatly in- 
creased amount of money into the Lord's treasury, in a regular, 
steady stream, without freezing up in winter, or drying up in sum- 
mer. (2) Our gifts would be distributed through many channels, 
resulting in a broader view of the great world-field. (3) It would 
develop a wider liberality. Opportunities would be sought for 
using the Lord's money in our possession. (4) It would check the 
spirit of covetousness and v/ould cultivate a more conscientious 
use of money for ourselves. (5) It would enable the Church to 
" have all things in common " on a very practical basis. It could 
then meet the needs of humanity, physically, mentally, and spirit- 
ually, and the question of sociology would be largely solved. 

Mrs. J. H. Randall, IVoman's Baptist Foreign Missionary So- 
ciety, St. Paul, Minn.*' 

The purposes of God concerning the salvation of the world are 
accomplished chiefly through prayer and giving. Like our Lord, 
we must give ourselves to God, a sacrifice for others. Our great 
life-purpose and work, like Christ's, is to pray for believers and 
for those who do not know God. " Neither pray I for these alone, 
but for them also which shall believe on me through their word." 
We are God's remembrancers — chosen in Christ to be intercessors. 
Let us center our thoughts around four points: 

I. Prayer Inspires the Gift. — The testimony of the multitude of 
sainted men and women who have labored long years among the 
heathen, as well as that of the host of missionaries now in active 
service, indicate that the gift of themselves was the result of prayer. 
Carey, Judson, Livingstone, Keith Falconer, Hannington, Paton, 
Fidelia Fiske, Ann Hasseltine, the haystack heroes, the consecrated 
band of Moravian missionaries who went out from Herrnhut — all 
these first gave themselves to the " regions beyond," and were 
inspired to do this while in secret prayer they poured out their 
souls to God for guidance and help. 

Not less m.arked has been the effect of prayer in securing the 
money needed to carry on this work. The history of mission 
boards reveals the fact that again and again in times of emergency, 



* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 24. 



Io4 FRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

and no less in times of prosperity, back of the small, as well as 
the large gifts, have been the " Days of Prayer and Fasting " — 
the waiting before God — the claiming of the promises, so that 
out_ of these intercessions has come the sacrifice — the consecrated 
giving of self and property. Only get people praying for missions 
and they must give. 

II. Prayer Multiplies the Gift. — This is true from the time the 
little lad gave his few small loaves and fishes into the hands of the 
Master to bless, in order that they might be multiplied a thousand- 
fold. How rich and wonderful the testimony has been that a few 
dollars, or even a few cents, given out of deep poverty, perhaps, 
followed by earnest, trustful praying on the part of the giver, has 
been the means of opening a new station, the beginning of a school, 
a college, an orphanage, a printing-press, or, better still, the con- 
version of souls. 

One great and imperative need to-day of foreign-mission work 
is the almost forgotten secret of prevailing prayer. " Missions 
have progressed so slowly abroad because piety and prayer have 
been shallow at home." 

III. Prayer Continues the Gift. — Continuous praying will make the 
act of giving the habitual exercise of life instead of the occa- 
sional, spasmodic thing it so often is. Nothing but continuous 
prayer will solve the missionary problems of our day. " God must 
be inquired of to do these things for them." " This kind goeth not 
out but by prayer and fasting." " Continue in prayer, watch in 
the same." " Ye have not because ye ask not." 

IV. Prayer Enriches the Gii'er and Honors Christ. — " The Lord is 
rich unto all that call upon him. Able to do exceeding abundantly 
above all we can ask or think." God has promised great things 
to His Son, and to His Church, concerning the heathen. He has 
also promised great things to His children in the work of extend- 
ing and hastening His kingdom. But notice — these promises are 
conditioned. His Son, His Church, His children, are to intercede 
and to sacrifice. The condition and consequence of habitual inter- 
cession will be a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the indi- 
vidual, the Church, and upon all the missionary work of the world. 
" Whoever prays most, helps most." 

Rev. William Perkins, Secretary, Wcsleyan Missionary So- 
ciety, London.* 

The Foreign Mission movement was born in prayer, and prayer 
is the vital breath by which it lives. A stream of benevolence, 
widening and deepening in volume from year to year, has accom- 
panied it and sustained its advance. There has been more prayer 
than we know of, and more things accomplished on the field by 
prayer — prayer of those far distant as well as of those engaged in 
the work — than either the Church or the world recognizes. The 
beneficence manifested has been very great, in some cases magnifi- 
cent; in not a few cases, especially among comparatively poor and 

♦ Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, May i. 



NEED OF A MORE CONSECRATED GIVING 1 85 

obscure people, there has been a real self-denial and sacrifice. All 
this is gratefully acknowledged. 

But prayer and beneficence have not been systematic, and much 
loss and weakness have resulted. They have belonged to the few, 
not to the many, not to the all. They have been periodic, spas- 
modic; thy have not been part of the common, regular life of the 
Church. Great as are the results of foreign missions, over which 
we rejoice and give thanks, they would have been a hundred-fold 
greater if the Church of Christ had been systematic, that is, been 
what she ought to be, in the two great matters of prayer and 
beneficence. 

As we read the reports of all our societies, the first thing we 
note is the smallness of the number of those who contribute, com- 
pared with the number of those who constitute our churches and 
congregations. Societies rely, in most cases, and are compelled 
to rely, upon the large givings of the few, rather than upon the 
general sympathy and general beneficence of the many. Mission- 
ary expenditures go on regularly month by month all the year 
round. Missionary support, as to the bulk of it, comes to hand 
as the year closes. The activity of churches in relation to foreign 
missions is crowded into a few days, and during these few days, 
if the weather should be unfavorable, if certain important persons 
should be away from home, if sickness should break out, or if there 
should be a popular preacher in the neighborhood pleading another 
cause, there is a loss for the year, which is never retrieved. 

Systematic beneficence is easily understood. The giving to for- 
eign missions of a definite sum and of a definite proportion of 
one's income, payment at fixed times — all this is easily grasped. I 
believe fully that any definite attempt at systematizing our gifts 
would bring out their smallness. A gentleman said to me not 
long ago: " I thought most seriously that I was giving to God 
a definite proportion of my income. But one day it came into my 
mind to go carefully into the question, and I found that on my own 
basis of giving I owed God for that year no less a sum than £1,400." 

The term systematic, as applied to prayer, is not so easily 
grasped. Prayer is the expression of a life. It is nothing unless 
it is free and natural. " Can love," says Seeley, " be done to order? 
Has the word * to love' really an imperative mood?" The 
same remark might be used as to prayer. And yet the Lord Jesus 
Christ Himself taught the duty of systematic prayer in behalf of for- 
eign missions, putting the petition " Thy kingdom come " beside 
the petition for " daily bread." And what is needed is that the 
spiritual life of every Christian, and that of the whole Church, should 
be so deepened, instructed, inspired by the Holy Ghost that it 
shall become as easy and natural to pray daily for foreign missions 
as to pray for daily bread. 

What is necessary, then, is that there should be wrought into 
the mind and heart of the Church, by the Spirit of God, a true 
conception of Christianity. Few of us are aware of the feeble- 
ness and narrowness of the idea of Christianity which possesses us. 
It is personal, local, national, and little more. We live within a 



1 86 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE ' 

narrow horizon, which only now and again allows us glimpses of 
the great world beyond. There is one man I can make a Chris- 
tian, and that man is myself. True, and having become a Christian 
it is your instant duty to try to make some other man a Christian, 
or your own Christianity will be imperiled. But even that is not 
enough; it is also your plain duty to try to make every other man 
on God's earth a Christian, or you have not understood the Chris- 
tianity of Jesus Christ. We can not do with aught less than a 
world. 

There must be wrought also in the mind and heart of the Church 
the conviction that the law of sacrifice is the law of life; that with- 
out obedience to that law the work can not be done. We must 
find time for prayer, even though it may mean the withdrawal of 
time from pleasure or business. 

" Sacrifice alone is fruitful," says Westcott. And if this be true, 
and it is, fruitfulness can not be found and can not be expected 
from gifts that have no trace of sacrifice in them. It is necessary 
that the cross should no longer flash in gold and gems upon the 
person among outward adornments, but that it should be burned 
deep in our hearts. 

There must also be wrought into the heart and mind of the 
Church by the Spirit of God, a penetrating and abiding sense of 
the world's dire need, its misery, and darkness, and despair. The 
multitude of Christian people have no conception of what heathen- 
ism is, what it means, what it works in the lives of those who are 
subject to it. 

The need of the heathen escapes us. We hear, but we see noth- 
ing; and a power must come to us that shall make the need so 
real, so terrible, and so crushing and destroying, that our first 
feeling shall be one of helplessness in presence of it, our next feel- 
ing, I'll go pray about it, and the next, I will divest myself of 
luxury and indulgence; I will give up and sacrifice some things that 
almost are like necessities, in presence of woes like these, woes 
Christ died to remove, and for the removal of which He waits and 
has waited long. 

Duty of Systematic Giving 

Hon. S. B. Capen, LL.D., President American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions, Boston."^ 

With the world wide open for missionary work, and with men 
everywhere eager to be sent forth, the serious problem is how to 
secure adequate funds to put these men more rapidly into the 
open field. 

A friend said to General Kitchener, " I suppose the first thing 
you will do when you get to South Africa will be to reorganize 
the transportation service." " No," he replied, " the first thing I 
do will be to organize it." 

I think it is a fair statement to make that the majority of our 
churches have never yet been organized in any real or true sense 

♦Carnegie Hall, April a?. 



DUTY OF SYSTEMATIC GIVING 1 87 

lor missionary giving. This condition in our churches is the more 
to be wondered at from the fact that organization in all branches 
of business and in the whole scope of pohtics has been considered 
essential. Organization is a necessity to give efficiency and power 
to any movement; without it there is hesitation and indifference. 

The need of a better organization is growing because of the 
rapid increase in the number of appeals to Christian men. Local 
interests are absorbing money out of all proportion to their value, 
and our great missionary work suffers in consequence. People 
will give five dollars for that which they can see, where they will 
not give five cents to send the Gospel across the ocean to some 
brother whom they have not seen. There are twenty of these 
appeals to-day where there was but one twenty-five years ago. 
Hospitals, libraries, kindergartens, etc., are constantly making 
their appeals. Even in the house of God the regular missionary 
work of our denomination has to make large concessions to other 
interests. Furthermore, for most of these outside objects those 
representing them make individual appeals. They either send a 
personal letter, or, more often, visit you at your office or home. 
It is sometimes very difficult to say, No, to such solicitations. There 
is a definiteness about them which appeals to many, and then it is 
very soothing to the natural pride to have someone thank you 
and inform you of your great generosity. 

Under these conditions, it seems to me to be absolutely impera- 
tive to have the whole subject of missionary giving put upon an 
entirely different plane. It should have the best thought of our 
wisest men in order that there should be some organization about 
it worthy of the name, and on a basis similar to our methods in the 
business of the world. 

First, there should be a missionary committee chosen in each 
church, to plan and carry out a campaign for raising the money 
for the missionary organizations to whose support we, as denom- 
inations, are pledged. We must begin in the local church. This 
committee should, from time to time, send out literature to the 
members of the church in order that they may be intelligent as to 
the needs. The committee should, either by a personal canvass 
or in some way, try to reach every person in the congregation with 
this definite appeal, to the end that " no guilty non-contributor may 
escape." In some cases it may be thought wise to take up the 
work of each missionary society of our denomination in turn. In 
others, it may be better at the first of the year to secure pledges 
from each one as to the total amount they will give during the 
twelve months for the missions of their church as a whole ; the sum 
to be divided in some fair proportion for the different societies, 
and to be paid through the church treasurer, either weekly, month- 
ly, or quarterly, as most convenient. 

Notice what a contrast this is to the method in vogue in most 
of our churches. No pledges are now made; some time during 
the year, in most of the churches, the plates are passed; if the 
pastor is interested, he may preach upon that particular cause, or 
he may not. Then those who are present give, a few generously, 



1 88 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

the majority on a scale entirely inadequate. As a rule, no effort 
is made to reach the absentee. If the day is stormy, so much the 
worse. This is the " slipshod " way in most of our churches. 

In place of this, suppose every member of every church every- 
where around the world were personally asked to do something 
every year for Christ's sake and for humanity. I believe the gifts 
would be greatly increased, and that there would be such a for- 
ward movement possible at home and abroad as would show the 
world the reality in our religion, and bring speedy triumph to 
righteousness everywhere. We often say we have only " been 
playing " at missions. To quote from General Beaver, I think it 
is, we have not even done that. In the language of the football 
players, we have never done " team " work. They plan a battle 
and keep together; they all have their places, and contend for vic- 
tory with every power they possess. When we organize our 
churches on this basis, victory v/ill be in sight. 

Second. With these missionary committees in each local church 
to organize a systematic campaign, there should be added in each 
conference and each State similar advisory committees to have, in 
a certain sense, an oversight of the work and to see that the local 
interests are not overlooked in any parish. 

Such organization will be a help to greater loyalty in the support 
of missions. I am glad to bear my testimony to the interest of 
most of our ministers in missionary work. But I have had some 
painful experiences of the opposite character. Too many of our 
ministers seem to think that the local church to which they minister 
exists exclusively for the community where it happens to be placed, 
and that it is to help the world outside only if it can do so without 
much inconvenience to itself. 

The Dead Sea has no outlet. It constantly receives, but never 
gives, and it is a fitting illustration of too many churches, which 
seem to be wholly wrapped up in their own individual interests. 
A pastor of an important church told me recently of the dif^culty 
he was experiencing in his conference v/ith some ministers who 
hesitated about allowing more urgent missionary appeals to be 
made in their churches because they feared it would interfere with 
their own support. To say nothing about the narrowness of such 
a ])osition, it is, from a selfish standpoint, supreme folly. It is the 
shortest possible road to kill a church and to kill oneself. 

Such a systematic plan of missionary organization working 
through the churches as a whole, will help to bring the indifferent 
and careless churches into line with others with which they are in 
fellowship. A minister, for his own sake, if for no higher motive, 
will not want to be out of step with his brethren when they are 
moving steadily to the front in the battle for the King. Let no 
one fear that in putting the emphasis on fidelity to our own denom- 
inational missionary work, it will in the least blind our eyes to the 
ultimate motive for it all — loyalty to Jesus Christ, and fidelity to 
His last marching orders, to " disciple the nations." Christ's 
message to go and give to all who need, must ever be the con- 
trolling motive. It is downright selfishness to forget any brother 



DUTY OF SYSTEMATIC GIVING 1 89 

of ours in all the earth. We are in honor bound as denomina- 
tions to stand by our representatives at the front who have gone 
with our commission to flash the Gospel light that streams from 
the Cross into the midnight gloom of the dark continents. 

Such a definite plan of organized work as proposed, if adopted 
by our churches, would help to save a great waste. Good business 
and common-sense declare that money given to our missionary 
societies, whose work is publicly and constantly open to review 
by a whole denomination of givers, is the money least likely to be 
wasted, and most likely to bring permanent results. The world 
learned long ago that money that helps to support organized work, 
as a rule, shows the largest returns. 

Every missionary official could furnish illustrations almost with- 
out number to show how great the waste is. Let me give but one: 
A native of a far-away nation is in this country, raising money osten- 
sibly for a church in his native land, and is deceiving the very 
elect. He gets fifty dollars here and a hundred dollars there, and 
the dear people who are giving it are comforting themselves with 
the thought that they are carrying the Gospel definitely to a be- 
nighted parish across the sea. What are the facts? The man 
has married an American wife; they spend the summer at a fash- 
ionable watering-place, and live at an expense of about $4,000 a 
year. And how much does the little far-away church get? About 
$150! On the other hand, of the money given through our various 
foreign missionary societies, only from 5 per cent, to 8 per cent, of 
the receipts is used in the expenses of administration, publications, 
etc., and the balance — from 92 per cent, to 95 per cent. — goes di- 
rectly to the field. To put this in a few words, a person gives one 
dollar to the independent work referred to, and ninety-six cents of 
the dollar goes to pay the expenses, and four cents goes abroad. 
Of the dollar given through the regular missionary organizations, 
on an average, seven cents goes to pay expenses, and ninety-three 
cents goes abroad! 

Better organization is our present duty. More and more our 
Christian merchants are to put the same thought, the same intelli- 
gence, the same intensity that go into their business, into the 
missionary work, and we shall have an enthusiasm for missions 
which, by the blessing of God, will sweep everything before it.^ 

There is one condition absolutely essential to success. While I 
believe we must expect our business men to have a large share in 
planning for this better organization, we shall still need devoted 
pastors to lead in its execution. The pastors are to be the leaders 
still in all this mighty work, and a consecrated pastor will always 
mean a consecrated church. We glory in the story of Lexington 
and Concord, and the brave deeds of the men of that generation. 
But who was it that suggested the organization of the " Minute 
Men" of Lexington? Who was it that all through Middlesex 
County was the master mind, urging, counseling, inspiring all? 
Read the records of those early days, and you will find that it was 
Rev. Jonas Clark, the village pastor. So in this new epoch of mis- 
sionary work, the pastors of this generation, if they only will, may 



190 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

be the leaders in this holy war for righteousness in all the earth. 
We seem to be on the eve of a great movement which is to conquer 
the nations for righteousness. We must federate our own work 
at home, and federate all our missionary work abroad, that thus, 
standing together, we may strike the hardest possible blow for 
the kingdom of God. This passion for redeeming humanity has 
been one of the greatest phenomena of this century, and it is based 
on love for a personal Christ. With courage and faith our mission- 
aries throw themselves, as, for instance, in China, against the cus- 
toms of the oldest nation in the world. There is nothing like it 
in secular history. What an absurdity, the world might say! Yes, 
it is the same absurdity as was shown by the fishermen of Galilee, 
when, inspired by their risen Lord, they threw themselves against 
the Roman Empire. Who triumphed then? Who will triumph 
now? God is back of it all. 

Business Methods in Giving 

Miss M. D. Wingate, Secretary, Woman's Board of Missions 
of the Interior, Congregational, Chicago.'* 

Business men understand that a large capital is needed for a 
large work, and do not waste time or thought in trying to persuade 
themselves it should be otherwise. They accept the fact and ar- 
range their plans on that basis. Here we have the most stupen- 
dous and magnificent enterprise undertaken by human beings since 
the world began, world-wide and world-embracing, to go on 
through all time, with its final dividends in eternity; and our plans 
must include large and larger expenditures of money. Wise busi- 
ness forethought will increase the force and the capital as enlarge- 
ment of operations becomes practicable. 

Probably not much more than one-third of the church member- 
ship gives anything to foreign missions, and the larger number of 
those who do, give in small sums. To increase the number of large 
givers, and to reach the indifferent two-thirds, who may be con- 
sidered as good but unavailable assets, is clearly a part of our 
business. 

Giving with business methods presupposes some knowledge of 
the business, some conception of its aims and its scope, some fa- 
miliarity with the condition of the work and what it promises — a 
sense of partnership and accepted rcsponsil)ility. As these come 
only through reading the missionary periodicals, a far-sighted busi- 
ness policy would greatly enlarge their circulation. 

Those to whom the disbursement of funds is intrusted must know 
approximately what amount to plan for in order to prevent the 
wasteful economy of retrenchment on the one hand, or an unprofit- 
able debt on the other. An annual canvass for individual pledges 
early in the year is important. The old method of flcpending upon 
collections, either stated or special, is unreliable. 

Recognized and successful business methods demand a well- 
devised svstcm; a system which includes thoroughly organized 

♦Madison Avenue Reformed Church, Aiiril 34. 



BUSINESS METHODS IN GIVING 19X 

and prompt attention to details, great and small; a system which 
will prevent miscellaneous drifting. The officers of auxiliaries and 
boards should be those who can and will take a wide look over the 
field abroad, and wisely estimate the available resources at home — 
see what is to be done and plan to do it. 

Financial matters should always be so conducted as to inspire 
the confidence of others, pre-eminently so when they are connected 
with the Lord's business. There should be no careless handling of 
funds and no loose accounts. A clear-headed, accurate treasurer, 
and a strict, impartial auditor, are most essential in all depart- 
ments, from the local society to the Board. Pledges should be paid 
promptly when due and the money forwarded at regular intervals, 
as the expenses of the work go steadily on. Ten dollars paid 
promptly by each society would often prevent a debt, when delay 
results in a wasteful expenditure of time and strength on the part 
of those who must try to keep the work going until it is certain 
whether the funds are to be provided or not. 

Giving, in the last analysis, rests with the individual, and the 
work moves forward or halts according to the measure of personal 
fidelity in regard to stewardship. We depreciate the cause of 
Christ, and we fail in true self-respect, when we give just as it hap- 
pens, give only when we feel like it, or employ strategy to persuade 
ourselves to give at all. It is singularly true that when we have 
no particular method in our giving memory is faithful to the occa- 
sion when we " gave to that ! " It may be two or three years since, 
but it seems as yesterday. We forget " The mill can never grind 
with water that has passed," and are surprised to find " they are 
after that missionary money again." If all will have some plan for 
regular giving, whether it be much or little, and will keep a private 
account of the date, object, and the amount given, uncertainties 
and misapprehensions will be avoided and the Lord honored. 

A good business policy always keeps the machinery in good run- 
ning order, ready to move with as little noise and friction as pos- 
sible, and, what is most necessary, keeps it well connected with 
the Source of power. However excellent our plan of organiza- 
tion, it is of supreme importance that the work itself should not so 
engross the attention or exhaust the energies that the vital power 
of the Holy Spirit can not be felt through every channel. 

Special Appeals 

Rev. Donald Sage Mack ay, D.D., Fifth Avenue Collegiate 
Church, Nczv York.* 

In a perfectly normal condition of spiritual life, special appeals, 
it may be argued, should be unnecessary. The gifts of the Church 
at home should increase spontaneously with the necessities of the 
Church abroad. The ordinary channels of missionary information 
should be in themselves sufficient to convey to our people the en- 
larging demands of the foreign field. As a boy outgrows one gar- 
ment, parental care has already supplied him with another. So with 

•Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, May 1. 



192 



PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 



the church which reahzes its enlarging responsibihties in the for- 
eign field. As the necessities of its children in heathen lands are 
brought before it, the mother church at home is naturally expected 
to respond with a corresponding increase of gifts and men. The 
necessity of special appeals, from time to time, is too often due to 
the indifference of the home pastor or the home church to keep in 
touch with the actual conditions of growth on the field. Too fre- 
quently the special appeal is a confession of relaxed duty and 
evaded responsibility. It is the last resort by which the screws are 
turned a little tighter on the generosity of the few to make up the 
deficiencies of the many. That is why so often a special appeal car- 
ries with it a sense of irritation, and even antagonism, toward the 
cause it is intended to help. The people who receive it are for the 
most part the very people who have already given to the limits of 
their ability, while those persons whose failure to give at all has 
called forth the appeal, are shielded by the remissness of their 
pastor to arouse them to duty. But new emergencies arise; new 
doors of opportunity are suddenly thrown open; new responsibili- 
ties are thrust upon the Board ; and to meet these conditions a 
special appeal must be made to the Church at home. The question 
is: How shall we make such an appeal not only effective for the 
moment, but permanent in its results? 

1. The special appeal, to be effective, should be essentially opti- 
mistic, not pessimistic; a challenge to faith, not a dirge of despair. 
Suppose for a moment a Board makes an urgent call for funds to 
clear off a debt which has accumulated. The effect of that finan- 
cial burden is to paralyze the work of the Board. It means the cut- 
ting down and the cutting off of appropriations, the cramping of 
agencies to the smallest possible limits, sometimes the abandon- 
ment of a territory where already the gospel had found an abun- 
dant door of entrance. Now, it is not suggested that these facts 
should be concealed or even disguised; but there are two ways of 
presenting the facts, one with the note of threatened despair and 
calamity, the other with the note of hope and intensified faith. Let 
the fact that the work is God's work and not man's, and because 
it is God's work its future is assured, be emphasized, and the sor- 
didness, the discouragement of debt-raising, will be removed in 
the path of quickened faith and intensified prayer. You can not 
scare a man into liberality, but you may inspire him to it. 

2. A special appeal, to be effective, should be directed primarily 
to the heart and conscience, not to the pocketbooks of the people. 
Oftentimes a special appeal fails because of its sordidness. Noth- 
ing so quickly dulls a man's charity as anything that savors of a 
dun or suggests a debt-collecting agency. What is needed is so to 
present the appeal in its spiritual side that its necessity will be felt 
first of all by the quickening of the interest and the stirring of the 
conscience, before the demand on the purse has been felt. The 
spiritual side of the appeal being emphasized, the financial side will 

take care of itself. ,,,••• 

^,. A special appeal, to be effective, must have not only bchmd 



SPECIAL APPEALS I 93 

it, but in it, pulsing through it, the pervasive personaHty of the 
local pastor. To scatter a few leaflets in the pews and simply call 
attention to them, with sometimes the added suggestion that they 
be taken home and read, is one of the surest ways by which a 
pastor can kill a special appeal. A government, in time of war. 
issues to its soldiers so much ammunition; but the effectiveness 
of that ammunition depends on the accuracy of each individual sol- 
dier in the line who fires it. So the Board issues its special appeal 
to the churches. It prints that appeal in denominational and mis- 
sionary papers, in circular-letters. But the effectiveness of the ap- 
peal to reach heart and purse depends in the last instance on the 
man behind the appeal — the pastor — who, with loving zeal, sends 
home the plea and through his agency makes the special appeal 
mighty for the pulling down of strongholds of indifference and 
worldliness which hold the citadel of the heart against the claims 
of Christ for the salvation of the world. I do not depreciate in 
any way the helpfulness of missionary agents from time to time 
in our pulpits; but no church can give generously, and intelligently, 
andi consistently, which depends for its inspiration on the chance 
visits of returned missionaries or agents of the Board. It is the 
fidelity of the local pastor, translating the special appeal into an 
individual message to his own people, that is, after all, the secret of 
success in the commissariat of foreign missions. 

Support of Missionaries by Individual Churches 

Hon. S. B. Capen, LL.D., President American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions, Boston."^ 

Our subject concerns itself solely with those missionaries who, 
having been approved by some organized Board, are supported by 
some individual church at home. It does not refer to men and 
women who may be doing missionary work without responsibility 
to any organized body. 

During the past few years there has been in this country and 
in England, under some of our missionary Boards, a growing 
tendency for the stronger churches at home to have their own 
representatives upon the foreign field. Some, of course, have chal- 
lenged the reason for the plan and have prophesied that it would 
not be permanent, 

I recognize the force of the objections, and that there may be 
such a thing as '' over-specialization." There is a necessity for 
large gifts for missionary work which can not be attached to any 
special field. There are expenses of administration, there is the 
support of children in schools, there are expenses for printing, 
supplies for hospitals, etc., all of which must be paid for out of a 
general fund, and can not well be given specifically to any one 
church. 

Nor ought a group of home churches to be allowed the entire 
care of a station on the foreign field. Other churches might have 
one of their own number at (or other interest in) this particular 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, May i. 



194 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

Station, and would therefore seriously and reasonably object to 
being deprived of some share in the support of that field. 

I recognize the still further objection sometimes made, that for 
a home church to care for a special missionary abroad, tends to 
narrow its interest in the whole field, and therefore to make its 
piety less broad and generous. 

One other difficulty ought to be mentioned. An unusual and 
often unhealthy climate, and the great pressure of work, often 
make it necessary for the missionary, either for his own sake or for 
that of his wife, to return home for rest. The church then feels 
disturbed because its representative is away on a furlough, and 
hesitates about paying the salary. It is discouraged and feels like 
abandoning the plan. 

After weighing all these objections at their full worth, I think 
it still remains true that there is a work to be done by individual 
churches in assuming the support of individual missionaries. 

One of the greatest needs of the present hour is to enlarge the 
gifts of our churches. What we need, and what we pray for now, 
is the money that shall enable us to send the men in through the 
open doors to the work which presses to be done. 

How, then, shall we enlarge the gifts? I reply, by increasing the 
number of givers. There are in our churches many who are all 
aglow with missionary zeal and ready for sacrifice. For Christ's 
sake and for their own we want to reach those who are indifferent, 
and one of the best ways to do this is to make this work 
more personal by giving the individual churches their own specific 
and definite work. I believe it will accomplish this in four ways : 

First : It makes the missionary problem seem more capable of so- 
lution. To many minds, this now seems so vast, the numbers to be 
reached so immense, that they are paralyzed and do nothing. But 
when you show them how, if the thousands of churches at home will 
each take a field of its own and cultivate it, the whole heathen 
world will soon be covered and cared for, there is a definiteness 
about it which seems practical. In this work we have another 
illustration of the old maxim, " divide and conquer." That this is 
the case is not a theory, but a fact. The last few years, many men 
in our churches, who have hitherto held aloof from foreign mis- 
sionary work, have been touched by the above consideration and 
are beginning to be interested, and to show their interest by their 
gifts. 

Second : It zvill reduce the 7vaste of money. A pastor of one of our 
strongest churches, whose gifts to foreign missions have been very 
small, told me recently that the men in his church gave away a 
great deal of money, but they liked to give it to things they could 
see. The things that were out of sight were unreal to them. As 
a result, their gifts often go to support enterprises of doubtful per- 
manent value, and are practically wasted. When the churches to 
which these men belong have some definite work of their own in 
the support of a pastor and a mission, then the work which was so 
unreal to them before will become most real; they will no longer 
be indififerent to foreign missions, and their gifts, instead of being 



SUPPORT OF MISSIONARIES BY INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES 1 95 

wasted, will go where they will count most for the kingdom of God. 

Third: The indifferent are reached by this individual-church plan 
of work because they become interested in some person who, in a very 
definite and real sense, is their representative at the front. There is 
nothing clearer in all the history of the past and the present than 
that men become interested not so much in abstract ideas as in 
individuals who represent those ideas. Victories are won in peace 
and war because men follow in faith some leader whom they have 
learned to love. This personal touch is the strong bond that will 
lead men to sacrifice almost everything in their devotion. Living- 
stone went to Africa. But his regular work excited very little in- 
terest until he plunged far into the interior. Then the world be- 
came interested in him as a man. Stanley followed, and the world 
followed Stanley, until, as a result, we have the wonderful story of 
the Central African Mission. 

In a similar way, the individual church is to have its heart go out 
in love to some man or woman who is fighting the battle for it. 
You may say this is not the highest motive; that Christ left His 
marching orders, and that ought to be enough. I reply, Christ 
works through means, and one means is the definite love for men 
and women which He himself implanted in the human heart. The 
Master, who loved with a peculiar affection those who dwelt in the 
little home in Bethany, will not rebuke us if our affection for some 
of His servants is the motive that leads us to higher things in 
His name. Let us cultivate in our missionary work this buried 
seed of love for a person and see what a harvest will spring up to 
the glory of God. 

Fourth: The indifferent are to be reached by this new plan of 
a definite responsibility because they will become more intelligent. 
Ignorance in our churches is the mother of much of the present 
indifference. It is not more exhortation, but more education, that 
is to lead us to better things. Suppose, now, a church at home be- 
comes responsible for some individual missionary. What is the 
result? If you have a boy in the army, do you not follow every 
day the division which contains his regiment? Every item of news 
that has any bearing upon the country, the people, the force op- 
posed, is of supreme interest to you. In a similar way, when our 
churches become interested in some missionary at the front, they 
are going to study the field where he is placed. They will know 
the conditions of the people, what they believe, how they live, what 
the gains and losses are from time to time. In other words, we 
shall have an increasing number of intelligent Christians, and they 
will become interested, not only in the missionary, but in the field 
which he is occupying as their field. It will become a part of their 
parish, for which they will be gladly responsible. The missionary 
may die, but the field will remain, and their interest will remain also. 
They will have a new interest in every word of intelligence that 
comes from the parish abroad. 

Furthermore, when we become thoroughly interested in one 
field, we of necessity become interested in all. It follows a natural 
law. A scholar devotes himself to one branch of science that he 



196 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

may comprehend it in its length and breadth. But this study- 
quickens his intellect, his specialty touches other branches of sci- 
ence, and in every way he becomes a broader and larger man. So, 
when we become especially interested in one missionary field, the 
whole work will have a new meaning, and we shall see it as a part 
of one whole. If the new plan of individual missions was to lead a 
church to pray and give only for its own field, and take no interest 
in aught besides, I would do all in my power to prevent its adop- 
tion. It is because I believe it will have just the opposite efifect, a 
tendency to broaden and not to narrow missionary work, that I 
urge its general adoption. 

May I give you an illustration which seems to me to prove the 
truth of that for which I have been arguing? It is of a church with 
which I am very familiar. It is in a neighborhood where the 
churchgoing habit is greatly neglected. The church was started 
a few years ago as a mission enterprise, and almost all its mem- 
bers were poor. Its gifts a year ago for the American Board were 
but $70, but last autumn a young lady who had grown up in the 
church, and who was greatly beloved, gave herself to the foreign 
missionary work. At once, out of love to her, these people, in their 
poverty, subscribed the whole $500 needed for her support. It 
was personal devotion to this woman that furnished the motive ; 
and this is not all, the people are all aglow with missionary inter- 
est, and want to know every week the news from their representa- 
tive. The little children have caught the spirit, and a missionary 
band has been organized among them; and the story does not end 
here. So far from their generous gift reducing the interest in 
other directions, it has increased it. The contribution to one of 
our Home Societies has increased thirty per cent, over last year, 
and to another over sixty per cent. Here is the regular evolution ; 
the church supports a missionary, interest increases, and where 
their treasure is their heart will be also. 

Yes, in developing the new plan of " individual churches " sup- 
porting " individual missionaries," I believe intelligence will take 
the place of ignorance, and interest will conquer indifference. The 
plan ought not to be despised, even if it were only a wise method 
of providing more money for saving men who need Christ, and the 
education and civilization which Christ always brings. But it is 
far more than this ; it is a plan which will permanently educate the 
church, young and old, in the grandest work of the century. 

Mr. W. C. King, American Baptist Missionary Union, Spring- 
Held, Mass.* 

Last year some of the members of our Board came to our city and to 
our church and spent an evening with us to rouse the interest of our 
people. It was suggested that we support a foreign missionary. We 
were $27,000 in debt, and our people said, " No, we can't do it." The 
amount that was raised the year before was only $96, and to raise $800 
for a foreign missionary was impossible ; and they said it was really 

♦ Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, May i. 



SUPPORT OF MISSIONARIES BY INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES 1 97 

absurd. Every one of our standing committee said "No," except one. 
The result of that evening, however, was that we brought it before 
our church, and the church very quietly, almost silently, said, " Yes, 
if we can raise the money." We appointed a committee to raise the 
money. We got out a little circular with a picture of the proposed 
missionary on the foreign field, a few words about him, and about the 
work on that field. We sent that in a letter with a little card for 
the subscription, with a stamped envelope inside, to return it either 
filled out or unfilled. The result was that nearly $900 was sub- 
scribed, and to-day we have our missionary on the foreign field. 

Immediately following that — remember we had our debt, as I 
stated, of $27,000 on our building, our church and equipment cost- 
ing about $60,000 — our pastor went immediately around about our 
people, and $7,000 was subscribed on that debt, bringing our in- 
debtedness down to less than $20,000. A year ago when we came 
to the annual meeting we were $1,100 behind on the current ex- 
penses. Last year we were only $105 behind, and that was sub- 
scribed in less than five minutes. 

Mr. John H. Converse, Baldzvin Locomotive Works, Phila- 
delphia.'^ 

All the elements which make up effective foreign missionary work 
center more than in any other method in the method of the sup- 
port of missionaries by individual churches. 

Now, if I may be pardoned for giving a concrete example of this 
work, I will mention one within my knowledge. It is a church in the 
suburbs of Philadelphia. Its annual contribution to foreign mis- 
sions was about $140 a year up to twelve years ago. The pastor was 
a missionary in spirit. He led his people to consider the question of 
supporting a foreign missionary. Pledges were asked from the con- 
gregation, with the result that $2,500 was subscribed the first year. 
Instead of sending one missionary to the foreign field, two were sent. 
That work has been steadily maintained for twelve years, and the 
increase in the contributions of the church to that cause has been 
thirty-fold. 

The usual objection, that by giving to a special object the money 
which is required for the support of the work of the Board for gen- 
eral administration will be lost, has not been made. The annual con- 
tribution to foreign missions for the general work has nearly doubled, 
while the special contribution has been thirty-fold. 

In the Presbyterian Church, North, with over 700 missionaries or 
missionary employees in the field, over 600 of them are individually 
supported. In the Congregational Church I am credibly informed 
that the proportion is similar. It would seem as though the problem 
had already been solved, and that if there were any significance in 
the leadings of Divine Providence, it is that this is the method 
requisite to awaken in our people an interest in foreign missions, to 
draw out systematic beneficence and to engage the prayers of all of 
Christ's followers in this most important work. 



* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, May i. 



198 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

Rev, Wilton Merle Smith, D.D., Central Presbyterian 
Church, New York* 

I have been asked to tell about our own experience in sending 
missionaries to the foreign and home field, and I do so somewhat 
reluctantly, but with the hope that it may be an inspiration to some 
other churches to " Go and do likewise." 

When I came to this city, about ten years ago, I said to the young 
people's society, " Can you raise $50" for a certain object, and they 
said, " No," About two years afterward they began a systematic plan 
of benevolence, and they began to raise a little money, and the first 
thing we knew they were raising about $400 a year for missions. 
And then they started another fund, and before we knew it they were 
raising about $900. Then they came to the Session, and there was a 
stirring of the dry bones there. They said, " Will you let us send 
a missionary into the home or foreign field?" The Session said, 
" If the Christian Endeavorers are determined to do this, we had 
better go in with them and send a missionary from our whole 
church," In about six months we had a missionary down in the Ken- 
tucky mountains, in the village of Hayden. Hayden is sixty miles 
from the railroad. There was not a single church in the whole 
county that had a settled pastor or regular services, although there 
was a population of over 25,000 in the county. The result has been 
that within the six years we have been in Hayden we have absolutely 
changed the face of that town. The people there have started a beau- 
tiful school. They have a beautiful little church costing $2,500. We 
have foreign missionary societies. Christian Endeavor societies, a 
large Sunday-school, we have five out-schools, and a Hayden Acad- 
emy, Almost every district school-house in that county is presided 
over by those who have been educated at our academy. These teach- 
ers go out to the little places in the mountains there and establish 
Sunday-schools ; and that work has practically evangelized the whole 
county, and the church is doing a work for Christ which I believe 
to be as valuable as any home mission work of which I know. 

But that did not satisfy the church. They said, " We must have 
a missionary in the foreign field." In 1895 we sent a missionary and 
his wife to Peking. The wife became sick, and they had to return. 
The money we had put in that venture all seemed fruitless. Then, in 
1898, we chose two young men, one being one of the brightest 
students of Yale, and another one of the brightest students in Prince- 
ton. They have been studying the language at Nanking, and are 
preparing to go inland a little later and found a station. But last 
fall they wrote home and said, " Can't you send a medical mis- 
sionary?" We found Dr. Samuel Cochran, who said, " I am will- 
ing to go, but my brother is just graduating in the school, and he 
wants to go to India." And so we had to send them both. And so 
four new missionaries started out to China last September, and they 
now are with our other missionaries at Nanking. 

I forgot to say that one of the sisters of one of the young men whom 
we first sent out, went out at her own charges, and she desires to be 



* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, May i. 



SUPPORT OF MISSIONARIES BY INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES 1 99 

considered one of the missionaries of our church. So we have in 
Nanking seven foreign missionaries ahiiost prepared to preach the 
gospel to the heathen. 

Now, has it been a hard thing to do? Not at all. Eleven years 
ago we gave about $250 to foreign missions. Our annual offering 
for the Board was more than ten times that sum last November. And 
I want to say to you that the result has been that our annual offering 
has suddenly increased, notwithstanding the large expense that we 
have been put to to send these special missionaries out. And the 
interest is so great in our own church that when special demands 
come up there is always someone to volunteer. For instance, we 
wanted a church at Hayden. A man said, " I will give a thousand 
dollars." Another man said, " I would like to buy the parsonage." 
And another has said, " When you are ready for a hospital at Hayden, 
I want to build that hospital." Anything that those missionaries 
want they can have from our church, and have it gladly. 

We took our offering last Sunday for two or three objects, amount- 
ing to between five and six thousand dollars for the special work. 
I felt a little skeptical about the result last Sunday. But we had 
every bit of it on the plate ; and one man came to me afterward and 
said, " You want a special missionary school in Hayden, I believe. 
I was waiting, thinking I would take that $600, but I find you have 
got all the money without it." And I said, " Bless your heart, we 
will find room for your $600 somewhere else." 

But the beautiful thing about it all is, it gives such tremendous in- 
terest in the home church. All the missionaries have kodaks. They 
send home their pictures, which are thrown on the screen by the stere- 
opticon at our monthly missionary meetings, the first Monday of the 
month. These are the most interesting and invariably the largest 
attended prayer-meetings of the entire year ; and the result has been 
that the interest in the work has been so great that it has reflected 
upon our own spiritual growth, and I do not believe there is a mem- 
ber of our church that does not rejoice that we have our six mis- 
sionaries in Hayden County and seven in China. These missionaries 
have been with us, two of them worked with us six months in our 
own church before they went away. We know them, our children 
know their faces, we have their pictures on the screen, and their let- 
ters are read at every missionary meeting, and the whole scheme has 
worked so successfully in our own church that I could wish it to be 
multiplied a thousand times in other churches. 

Of course we do it through our home and foreign Boards. That is 
the only way to do it. 

Rev. T. S. Barbour, D.D., Secretary American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union, Boston.'^ 

I have been fully in the spirit of the occasion, heartily in sym- 
pathy with what has been said. But I had in mind to suggest a_ slight 
modification in this plan of individual support of missionaries by 
individual churches, which has seemed to some to conserve the very 
greatest advantages of this plan, while eliminating some of its recog- 

• Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, May i. 



200 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

nized disadvantages. I believe that this plan which has been pre- 
sented to us so strongly is in general accord with a tendency inborn 
in human nature and recognized in the divine scriptures, the tendency 
to be particularly interested, not so much in the abstract, even in ab- 
stract Christian work, as in the concrete work of known men. The 
scriptures, I say, recognize this. It is not by accidew^t that the Old 
Testament is so largely biographical, and I think not by accident that 
the story of the conquests of the early Church is so largely the story of 
the life of Peter and the life of Paul. But while this is true, as I be- 
lieve most heartily, you know there are certain objections urged 
against this plan that has been proposed to us, and many have urged 
that there is danger that it will not be a permanently successful, work- 
ing plan. Some of these objections have been proposed to us. There 
are others that are currently raised. I can not stop to speak at length 
of these objections, but in a word to propose what has seemed to 
some upon our own Board possibly a wise modification of this plan, 
and that is to seek to establish a definite relation between individual 
churches and Station work, rather than the work of individual mis- 
sionaries. This is a comprehensive plan that can reach all churches ; 
the very smallest that is not able to furnish the full support for a 
missionary. It does not give a sense of proprietorship in the mis- 
sionary that may awaken criticism of the Board, and misunderstand- 
ing that may stifie all interest in case one is in the missionary force 
who is not of it, as sometimes, alas, even among the disciples of our 
Lord was the case. It secures that which it is so important to secure, 
the deepening of interest by knowledge of the details of work, such 
as can not be had of the work as a whole. It secures on the part of 
each church that full weighing and determining of the question of its 
due responsibility in the matter of the spreading of the kingdom of 
God throughout the world, and it secures a careful canvass of the 
church by which all the members are reached and brought to face 
this their personal responsibility. 

We face the fact that we are giving from impulse ; giving as the 
weather is wet or dry, as has been said; giving without thought or 
plan. At least may this result come from this service, that every one 
of us shall say, " From this hour I will thoughtfully and prayerfully 
decide what my offering shall be for the greatest work that God has 
committed to my trust." 

Reflex Influence of the Support of Missions 

Mrs. W. E. Nokvell, Woman's Auxiliary, Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, Nashville, Tenn* 

Anyone who will study the records will find that modern missions 
have grown within the past fifty years, from a weak and ill-supported 
enterprise, to one of such prominence and magnitude as to impress 
every student of history and current events with the fact that mod- 
ern missionary effort has been a potent factor in shaping the events 
of the world. 

Thus it matters not what one's sympathies may be toward the 

* Calvary Baptist Church, April 34. 



REFLEX INFLUENCE OF THE SUPPORT OF MISSIONS 20l 

cause of missions, he is not an intelligent reader who takes the posi- 
tion that foreign missions have been of small significance. 

It, therefore, would seem unnecessary to have to argue for the 
educational value and importance of the great cause of foreign mis- 
sions. While the attitude of all the churches on this question is right, 
and while many men and women of the world, of large brains and 
broad views recognize the value of it, still it is true that a vast num- 
ber of people do not understand the method and scope of missionary 
effort, or its bearing upon the lives of those who lend it aid. This 
general ignorance of the subject, then, is a very cogent reason why 
young people should be given special missionary instruction ; the 
earliest age being none too young at which to begin. 

The history of missions when studied by the young people of our 
Christian land will bring them face to face with the fact that they 
themselves enjoy the blessed privileges of Christianity as a result 
of those foreign missions that proceeded from Jerusalem, and which 
have gone on from country to country through the ages until we, in 
this new America, learned to know and love the great Head of all 
missionary effort, the Lord Jesus. 

Now, then, wherein is the value of such a study to our young peo- 
ple ? First, it tends to help them to appreciate the individual respon- 
sibility that each one has in carrying on this great forward move- 
ment for the enlightenment and betterment of the world, the potent 
factor in this world-work being foreign missions. 

The science of missions properly understood has a distinctive edu- 
cational value in widening the horizon of young people, in helping 
them to realize the great truth that all God's peoples are made of 
one blood ; more than anything else would it help them to regard all 
peoples of every nation, even the inhabitants of the waste places, the 
far distant and heathen tribes, as members of the great human family, 
each one having the same inherent right to know God as revealed in 
Christ Jesus, and to call him Father. 

The study of missions and a personal interest in furthering the 
cause would tend to overcome that selfish individualism which is 
such a menace to the spiritual growth of so many of our congrega- 
tions. It helps us all to realize that while it is our manifest duty to 
contribute to the support of our own congregations, the duty is no 
less pressing to look beyond and find out and help relieve the neces- 
sities of others. 

The minds of the young are always impressed by reading the lives 
of great and good men and women. Of all the biographies in the 
wide range of literature, none are so full of thrilling adventure, pa- 
thetic incMent, or noble self-sacrifice and heroism as a history of the 
lives of those consecrated men and women who have entered the mis- 
sionary field. The child who reads such literature must of neces- 
sity be inspired with a love of his human kind, and a desire to grow 
up and do something for the betterment of the world will certainly 
be implanted in the breast of the young reader. 

Such a study of missions would create an interest in the cause, the 
practical outcome of which would be to form early the habit of giving 
toward the support of missions, until in the next generation the 



202 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

funds at the disposal of missionary boards would not be lacking for 
carrying on the great work of evangelizing the world. We would 
then no longer have to contend with the pettiness of the means at our 
disposal in contrast, as Dr. Huntington says, " with the grandeur 
of the achievement at which we aim." 

And now last, but not least, the value of foreign missions as an 
educational agency can scarcely be estimated when account is taken 
of what a study and right understanding of foreign missions is going 
to do in bringing about Christian unity, the one purpose that seemed 
so near and dear to our Saviour when he pleaded with His disciples 
" to be one," foreseeing then at the very dawn of Christianity, the di- 
visions that were to rend asunder His followers, and retard the 
growth and spread of His kingdom. In foreign missions all 
Christian bodies are agreed ; the world is the field of work, and " in 
that field there are no divisional lines which it were trespass to cross." 

Mrs. J. W. Childress, Southern Presbyterian Union for Mis- 
sionary Work, Nashville, Tenn* 

H in our young Christian life we are imbued with this missionary 
spirit, much drops away that might hinder growth in grace, and a 
stimulus is given to spiritual life. In the first place, right views of 
the world are formed. Instead of looking upon this beautiful earth 
as a great playground, only for selfish enjoyment, it becomes a field 
and we the workers. Life takes a tinge of earnestness and reality 
that does not always belong to youth, and the thought of some work 
to do, and the effort to do it, even in a childlike way, strengthens and 
develops character, and prevents a morbid sensitiveness that some- 
times shadows the lives of our sons and daughters, from too much 
thought of self. 

Again, teaching along the lines of foreign missions will at the 
same time bring right views of the Church. Instead of regarding 
this great and glorious organization as a kind of prison house, whose 
rules are painful and restrictions irritating, the young worker will 
feel that his efforts are not wasted, but well directed and made to 
tell for their full value, as through the agencies of the church socie- 
ties the dimes grow into dollars, and the dollars into hundreds, in a 
way most astonishing! Another result of this training in foreign 
missions is the correct view concerning money. A Christian has 
made decided progress toward the deepening of his spiritual life who 
regards himself as the steward of the money God has given into his 
keeping. 

If one has been taught this love of foreign missions early in life, a 
cheerful giving of the tithe, self-denial, and a habit of careful thought 
concerning expenditures will be formed, which will prove a safe- 
guard in times of temptation, while the constant planning to give to 
others will make unnecessary the luxuries for self. 

Another benefit arising from this kind of training is the right view 
one gets of pagan faith. Many tell us to-day that we have no right 
to interfere with the religions of the East, not realizing the difference 
between a saving faith and a cult, and forgetting that salvation is 

* Calvary Baptist Church, April 24. 



REFLEX INFLUENCE OF THE SUPPORT OF MISSIONS 2 03 

through the blood of Jesus Christ alone, as revealed to us in God's 
Word. So the cross must be elevated, and the sooner our young peo- 
ple learn this great and blessed truth the better; for it immediately 
solves the problem, and in establishing itself in the heart places the 
life in the right attitude toward everything, economizing spiritual 
power by taking the soul's attention off self its own happiness and 
well-being, and filling it with interest for others. 

In considering, then, the economic value of missions for training 
young people, we find that in giving them correct ideas of the world, 
teaching them to lose sight of self in planning for the well-being of 
others ; in helping them to a just estimate of the grand work of the 
Church ; in opening up before them the comparative worth of money 
and a truer conception of heathen conditions ; one has made a con- 
tribution to humanity above estimation ! The child thus trained is 
not only a strong pillar in the Church of God, but a man the world 
will delight to honor. 

Rev. David H. Greer, D.D., St. Bartholomezv, Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, New York.^ 

There are, it has been said, three kinds of charity. There is a char- 
ity which relieves immediate distress, whose tendency, if terminating 
there, is to make men paupers. There is a charity which helps men 
to help themselves, whose tendency, if terminating there, is to make 
them selfish ; and there is a charity which so helps men that they in 
turn are moved to help and minister unto others, whose tendency is 
to make them Christian. 

We have learned from experience that the first kind of charity is, as 
a rule, neither expedient nor wise. The distress which it relieves, it 
relieves but for a time. The symptoms are abated, but the cause is 
aggravated and inflamed and the malady is made chronic. That 
charity is not good, and we are outgrowing it ; and instead of trying to 
mitigate distress by giving alms and doles, and thus helping men di- 
rectly, we are trying now to help them to help themselves. That is 
the form which our benevolence now assumes. That is the motive, 
too, which inspires our other helpful effort, of a semi-benevolent 
character, by means of our public schools, our trades schools, and our 
industrial schools, and other educational agencies. Our aim by these 
various methods is to give such assistance to those who need as- 
sistance that they will not continue to need it. 

That charity is good, or better at least than the charity which con- 
fines itself to giving immediate relief. But is it good enough? Is 
there not something radically lacking in it, which makes it incom- 
plete, which mars and impairs it and gives a blemish to it? There is ; 
for while we thus develop self-reliant character, we also thus develop 
self-seeking character, or create thus for men and set before them a 
self-seeking standard, thus virtually proclaiming that the chief duty 
which they owe is a duty to themselves, to promote their own ad- 
vancement and interest and success. And so, while with one hand 
we are eliminating from our modem social life that self-degrading 
pauperism which has been like a running sore upon the social body, 

• Carnegie Hall, May i. 



204 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

we are with the other hand insinuating into it or intensifying that 
self-seeking secularism which is already in it, and which inflicts so 
many gaping wounds upon it. 

Is it not the duty of the Christian Chwich to-day to try at least 
to abate these social rents and ruptures and animosities? Clearly 
enough it is. And how can the Christian Church best perform that 
duty to-day? Not simply by the charity whose aim has been and is 
to help men to help themselves, and which the Christian Church to- 
day is trying to administer through its various benevolent agencies, 
its guilds, and clubs, and classes, its employment bureaus, and loan 
bureaus, and penny provident funds, and all that kind of church ac- 
tivity and work which we call " institutional Christianity." That 
kind of charity is not enough ; for its tendency as we have seen, if 
terminating there, is to make men selfish, and thus, if not to aggravate 
tllfe present situation, at least not to reform it. 

How, then, can the Christian Church abate these social strifes ? By 
plunging into the arena of economic controversy and grappling with 
those economic problems which this age so urgently and threat- 
eningly presents, of capital and labor, employer and employed, of work, 
and wage, and money, of time and hours of service ? That is one way, 
but it is not the best and most effectual way. It does not go down to 
their root, it does not remove their deep and latent cause, it only heals 
their superficial symptoms, like the charity which relieves immediate 
distress ; and if healed only in that way, the wounds will break out 
again, more aggressively, perhaps, than ever. 

How, then, can the Christian Church heal those social wounds and 
abate those social disorders? Well, it must go round the world to 
do it, with a charity that girdles the earth. Not merely with a charity 
which prompts a person to content himself with asking, in the secular 
sphere of life, What must I do to get on? or in the religious sphere, 
What must I do to be saved ? It was a pagan who asked that ques- 
tion first, and there was and is still a pagan selfishness in it. And 
not merely with a charity which prompts a person to content himself 
with asking. What must I do to save that form of national life, 
American, British, or German, immediately about me, and with which 
I am more or less intimately connected? for there is still a touch and 
taint of selfishness in that, but a charity which asks, or which prompts 
a person to ask, What must I do, what can I do, to help to save the 
world? — a charity, which, like the charity of Jesus Christ Himself, 
like the charity of God, touches and covers the world. That is the 
charity which the Christian Church must have and teach and instil 
into the secular life at home, as the way in which to meet and most ef- 
fectually minister to that secular life, with its social strifes and fric- 
tions and economic enmities, and disturbances, and disorders ; not heal- 
ing them from without, with superficial treatment, but healing them 
from within, with constitutional treatment. Then, as, with that love 
in their hearts, men enter upon their struggles and activities at home, 
their barterings and bargainings, their plannings and projcctings, 
while the wheels will be the same, there will be a new force and spirit 
in the wheels, and whichever way they turn, with the face of one like 
the Son of Man in front to guide and direct them, a higher and nobler 



REFLEX INFLUENCE OF THE SUPPORT OF MISSIONS 205 

humanity issuing fortli from them will be the product of them. The 
greatest Charity Organization Society for helping and reforming the 
secular life at home is foreign missions. 

But again, foreign missions exert a beneficent influence upon our 
life at home also by putting into it a truer and worthier conception 
of Jesus Christ Himself and of the religion of Jesus Christ. The dis- 
tinctive feature of that religion is its universalism. Other religions 
are local, national, or ethnic, for particular races and peoples ; but the 
religion of Jesus Christ is for all races and peoples. It is a religion 
of human life, and if we make it anything else or anything less than 
that we change not only its compass and its scope, but its character 
as well. Then it is not the religion of Jesus Christ ; it has a provincial 
narrowness in and a provincial accent on it. Jesus Christ Himself 
is not Jesus Christ. He is made to appear provincial ; and it is not to 
a provincial Christ or to a provincial-appearing Christ that people 
will respond, in mission fields or other fields. " I, if I be lifted up," He 
says, " will draw all men unto me." Yes, so He will, and so He does. 

When, therefore, we hear it said, as we sometimes do, that there 
are heathen at home, and that our Christian efforts should be confined 
to them, my answer is. Yes, so there are ; and there are heathen notions 
at home, and that is one of them ; and further, that we can not reach 
and touch the heathen at home unless we are also trying to reach the 
heathen away from home. We can not get the full power of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ into the cities, and towns, and villages of 
America, except as we try to get it there by going round the globe. 

We are told that the Christian Church to-day is not reaching the 
working classes. And why? Just because it is trying to reach the 
working classes as the working classes, the " hands," as we some- 
times call them, in our factories and shops ; and we are beginning now 
to discover, as Mr. Maurice has said, that they who use those 
" hands " are men, and that a religion for " hands " is not a religion 
for men and men do not want it. Then let the Christian Church 
make it a religion for men, as it was meant to be ; a religion meant to 
minister not to the needs and wants of particular races and classes, 
but to the needs and wants of all races and classes, because all are one. 

As never before, we are now beginning to perceive that human life 
in this world is all of a piece and related, that it is not many, but one ; 
with a multitude indeed of individuals in it, and yet they all, in feel- 
ing, thought, and fellowship, in human touch and sympathy, meet 
and mingle in it. Thus is there an opportunity given to men to-day to 
build and establish in the world large dominions and thrones; and 
that is what as never before they are trying now to do. The passion 
for dominion is the passion of the hour. Let it also be the passion of 
the Christian Church to establish a world-wide enthronement and do- 
minion of Jesus Christ. And only as thus it tries to lift Him up for 
all men can it lift Him up for any. _ _ — 

Foreign missions are not only foreign missions, they are home 
missions, purifying the home life'with that larger conception of char- 
ity, redeeming the home life with that worthier conception of Christ 
which they teach and give. 



2o6 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

Rev. a. J. F. Behrends, D.D., Central Congregational Church, 
Brooklyn, N. Y* 

It is too late in the day to discuss the propriety and the wisdom 
of foreign missions. Retreat and compromise have become forever 
impossible. Universal conquest or abject surrender are the only al- 
ternatives. 

The discipline of all nations will change the face of human history. 
But it will also profoundly affect the life of the Christian Church. 
This gigantic task forces to the front many most intricate problems 
at home and abroad. There is in this movement an energy which is 
sure to result in great ecclesiastical and theological modifications and 
resolutions. Upon a few of these, the more important, I propose to 
touch. For one thing, the historical mission of the Church is com- 
pelling ever more earnest attention. Eschatological problems are re- 
treating from view. Sin, salvation, and judgment are moral forces in 
present earthly history, operating not only in individual character, 
and determining the eternal destiny of souls, but shaping the historic 
life of the race. We are beginning to realize that the campaign on 
earth is one of vast proportions, and of amazing results. We are 
beginning to see that the new Jerusalem, builded of God in the 
heavens, is to be located in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and in all 
the islands of the sea. We are here to save the present world from 
sin, and to establish it in the righteousness which is by faith in Jesus 
Christ. That is our only task, the task to which we are summoned, 
the task for which alone we are equipped. The keys of death and 
Hades hang upon the girdle of the Son of God. Judgment, so far as 
it involves the eternal issues of the future, is His exclusive preroga- 
tive, in which we have no share. No department in our theological 
thinking is so complicated and unsettled as that which deals with the 
issues after death. I lielieve that it always will be so. I believe God 
intended it to be so. We only know that man is immortal, that holi- 
ness alone constitutes blessedness, and that Christ died for all whom 
He will judge. The lesson is plain ; God means that the present shall 
occupy and practically monopolize our attention. He will build the 
eternal empire ; we must build the vestibule in a regenerated earth. 

I pass to a second change which foreign missions is certain to effect 
in the life of the Church. It needs no argument to prove that such a 
task, from which no individual disciple and no single church can be 
excused, makes co-operation an imperative necessity. The time has 
come when Christian comity fails to meet the urgent demand. That 
was well enough, so long as continents and islands enjoyed a com- 
parative isolation. But steam and electricity are rapidly tearing down 
all Chinese walls. The world is coming to be every Christian's par- 
ish. We must come to terms among ourselves. History is rapidly 
laughing our comities and compromises out of court. What right 
have I to say that you may go here, but not there? The workl is your 
field by the authority of jesus Christ. What right have I to say that 
I am ready to limit my work by geographical lines ? The round globe, 



♦ Carnepie Hall, May 1. This paper was revised by Dr. Behrends but a few days before his 
death, and is probably the last work which engaged his thought. 



REFLEX INFLUENCE OF THE SUPPORT OF MISSIONS 



207 



every square foot of it, is my field by the command of Jesus Christ. 
Hardly had Porto Rico come under the American flag when there was 
a race of the denominations for the occupancy of the little island, and 
we began to parcel out the territory. That was comity. Shame on us, 
I say. What an object-lesson it would have been, if we had had co- 
operation for our watchword and had left our denominational ban- 
ners behind us. I like not that word " comity." It is veneered self- 
ishness. I like it as little as I do the word " toleration." That word 
savors of ill-concealed superiority. I want not toleration ; I claim my 
liberty as a son of God in the republic of Jesus Christ. Comity is a 
snare and a delusion. You can not enforce it. It will collapse under 
pressure, and it can not collapse too soon; for it is wrong in piinciple 
and it is unworkable in practice. Fusion is what we need ; co-opera- 
tion is what we must have. Do not misunderstand me. I am not an 
iconoclast. I would not break up any existing ecclesiastical or mis- 
sionary organization. But in this matter I am a Christian evolution- 
ist. I believe that our present-day methods are utterly inadequate ; 
and I can not evade the conviction that foreign missions carry in them 
the swift doom of our petty sectarian divisions. I do not know how 
this co-operation is coming; but come it must and will. Let it come, 
whoever is crowded to the wall ! Our rituals and our creeds must 
not stand in the way of the massing of Christian forces for the world's 
redemption. When that co-operation comes it will be free ; the spon- 
taneous expression of a Christian life which has burst through the 
bandages of ecclesiastical traditionalism. We are nearer to each 
other than were our fathers, and our children will keep up the con- 
verging march. I plead for the fullest liberty in Christ, no matter 
how multitudinous the forms of service ; but I believe that liberty in 
Christ will some day bring in an irrepressible eagerness for co-opera- 
tion at home and abroad. When it does come, it will come like a 
resistless flood ; and then, look out for the tramp of the great host, and 
the flaming feet of the Captain ! That will bring the fulfillment of the 
apocalyptic vision ! 

And now for a third suggestion. Does it need my argument to 
prove that this co-operation in Christian service, made imperative by 
the track of the world's evangelization, must be associated with a 
fierce sifting of our theological convictions? Foreign missions oper- 
ate as a flail upon the threshing-floor of ancient scholasticism and of 
modern criticism. I have noted a habit of condescension where for- 
eign missionaries are the theme of conversation. We are told that 
abler men, and more of them, must be sent out. As if every man in 
orders at home was a Gabriel ! Pardon me, but what little I have seen 
of foreign missionaries has created in me the conviction that they 
constitute the most cosmopolitan class in our ministry. The East 
and the West have mingled their streams in their life. They have 
thought their way through to a simpler theology than have we. They 
have ceased to tithe mint, anise, and cummin. They have learned 
that Japan and China will never utter the shibboleths of our 
schools. They have concentrated upon fundamentals. They 
listen in silence, with wondering eyes and with burdened hearts, to 
many of our disputations. They know what kind of a gospel the 



2o8 PRAYER AND BENEFICENCE 

great world needs; and I have sometimes thought that it might be 
well if they should draw up a creed binding upon us who stay at 
home ! At all events, the simplicity which experience has forced upon 
them must master us. 

Nor is it difficult to state what that ultimate simplicity of doctrinal 
conviction must be. It must be the primitive simplicity. There can 
be no other. We must come back to the New Testament. Our re- 
ligion must centralize in personal devotion to the personal Christ. 
He is our Master; He alone. We must stop deifying dogma. We 
must stop deifying ritual. Both are good and even necessary. Creeds 
must be. Definite and strong convictions there must be. Effective 
men must have intellectual backbone. Reduce your theology, if you 
will (and you can afford to throw away a good deal of it), but let 
what remains be virile and aggressive. And the Christian sanctuary 
has its beauty. Worship must be reverent, impressive, and orderly. 
There must be close and compact organization, for discipline is in- 
dispensable in any army. But, but, creed and ritual and organization 
must have the incarnate and atoning Son of God at their hearts. We 
shall never conquer each other. But I hope that we are all willing that 
Christ shall conquer us all. I wonder — I wonder, my brethren and 
sisters, what we would say and do if Jesus Christ were to appear in 
visible form upon this platform. My lips would be dumb. You 
would have eyes and ears for Him only. What a hush would fall 
upon this assembly ! How we should hang upon His lips ! Would 
we not do what He might bid us do? With loving, piercing eyes He 
would look into all our souls ; and that look would make us one. But 
is He not here? Then is co-operation possible, if we will only let 
Him conquer us all completely. But we still have " many masters." 
We follow Him " afar off." We specialize where He does not. We 
impose tests where He does not. We are writhing in the nets of our 
own weaving and we dare not break through the work of our own 
hands, though the heart in every one of us cries out for a closer fel- 
lowship with Him, and with one another. The problem of universal 
Christian co-operation in service for the world is confessedly in- 
tricate. There seems to be no way out of the labyrinth. Yet it is 
simple. We are here of many different creeds. That which will make 
us one, in practical and co-operative endeavor, will make Christendom 
one. We need only to begin with ourselves ; for in the love which 
Christ has for every one of us, we find the imperative law and the 
joy of Christian brotherhood. And when all who bear the name of 
Christ shall have eyes and ears for Him alone, then shall be true what 
sometimes we sing : 

" Like a mighty army 

Moves the Church of God." 



CHAPTER IX 

THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

Its Need and Value — Women's Organizations — Relation of Missionary 
Societies to the Denomination — To the Missionary 

Its Need and Value 

Rev. G. Scholl, D.D., Secretary Board of Foreign Missions, 
General Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church, U. S., Baltimore, Md.^ 

The best, and perhaps the only, way of determining the need 
and value of missionary boards and societies is to attain, if possible, 
a clear understanding of the aim and object of such organizations. 

Let it always be clearly understood that the Church itself is 
distinctly and peculiarly a missionary body. The chief, if not only, 
reason for its existence in an organized form is the establishment 
of God's kingdom in the world. However the Church may be di- 
vided into different denominations, or any local congregation sub- 
divided into societies, bands, and circles, the only mission that any 
of them has in the world is to give the gospel of Christ to those 
who have it not. 

It is at this point that the organizations known as missionary 
boards and societies come into existence, and their aim and object 
are to bring together all the forces of the various divisions and sub- 
divisions of any given body of Christians, and bring them to bear, 
in the most effective way possible, in the direction of the world's 
evangelization. These boards and societies, then, represent the 
effort of the Church to move upon the forces of evil in the world in a 
united, systematic, and organized way, rather than after the guer- 
rilla method of warfare. 

We will be further aided in coming to a correct understanding 
of the subject by considering, somewhat in detail, the work that, 
in these times, actually devolves upon a Board of foreign missions. 
I say in these times, for we must not lose sight of the fact that the 
methods of doing a given work are liable to undergo greater or 
less changes with the passing of the years. 

To set the Divine and consecrated human forces mto practical 
operation in any given field for its conquest for Christ is the aim 
of the foreign mission Board. 

The time was when the work was comparatively simple. A few 
men were sent out, and an occasional letter served to secure the 
money for their meager support. Contrast with that condition the 
work of many of our Boards at the present time, which disburse tens 
and hundreds of thousands, and some even a million of dollars annu- 



* Church of the Strangers, April a?. 



2IO THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

ally. To maintain harmonious and helpful relations with the govern- 
ments under which the work is being carried on, not unfrequently calls 
for the exercise of diplomacy that would tax the resources of our best 
statesmen. Problems relating to commerce and finance come up for 
consideration and adjustment that require business qualifications of no 
ordinary character. Systems of elementary and graded schools 
and institutions for higher education are to be established and con- 
ducted that, in the home-land, would not only require, but also 
command, the best educational and managerial talent of the coun- 
try. The gospel is to be preached to people of a strange tongue, 
whose language is difficult to acquire, and whose habits, customs, 
and modes of thought are so entirely foreign to us, their prejudices 
so deep-seated, and their opposition to any innovation so strong 
and persistent, that only men and women of a high order of mental 
qualification and an uncommon fund of sanctified common-sense 
may ever hope to achieve even a moderate degree of success in 
dealings with them. False philosophies, hoary with age and in- 
trenched in a literature that was already ancient centuries before 
our nation was born, will have to be encountered and reckoned 
with. The lowest forms of savagery and barbarism must be met, 
and to deal successfully with these will tax the keenest insight, the 
profoundest knowledge of human nature, and the most unswerving 
faith in the final triumph of the gospel of which men are capable. 
Moreover, the work, as a rule, will have to be carried on under 
climatic and other conditions that are hostile to life and health, and 
which, if not positively fatal, in many instances so sap the energies 
of the worker as to make frequent furloughs for rest and recu- 
peration absolutely necessary. To select men and women who 
possess the requisite qualifications of body, mind, and spirit for 
such a service, under such conditions, presents a problem that 
calls for the exercise of careful and discriminating judgment, that 
can be gained only by large observation and long experience on 
the part of those called to administer the trust. Hospitals and 
orphanages are to be established, the conduct of which, in the 
case of similar institutions in the home-land, would require the 
whole time and undivided attention of a board of managers of 
special qualifications and a high order of fitness for the work. 
Moreover, all these operations, as a rule, must be carried on at a 
great distance from the base of supplies, requiring months for the 
transmission of information and plans; so that, in order to main- 
tain an adequate supply of men and means in a given field, it is 
often necessary to forecast a probable situation, not only for 
months, but for years, in advance. Then there is the home con- 
stituency that must be looked after. Willing or unwilling, the citi- 
zen of a State pays his taxes, and the policy of the dominant party 
in the government is carried out. Not so in the conduct of this 
work. It depends entirely on the voluntary offerings of the friends 
of the cause. 

It must be evident, therefore, to every thoughtful person, that 
one of the prime requisites of a Board is that it should be able to 
conduct the affairs intrusted to it with such care, intelligence, and 



ITS NEED AND VALUE 2H 

judgment as to command the confidence, the hearty co-operation, 
and Hberal support, of a reasonable constituency. Dr. Alexander, 
of the Presbyterian Board, in an admirable paper read in this city 
in 1896, says, the Board, " in the face of keen and hostile criticism, 
has to do this work in such a way as to secure and retain the confi- 
dence and the enthusiastic interest of groups of Christian people 
all over the land — that confidence and that interest being substan- 
tially the Board's sole capital." 

There can be only one opinion, then, as to the magnitude of the 
work that is before us, and Dr. Alexander may well say that " there 
is no corporation on the face of the earth that has a business to 
conduct more varied, more intricate, than that of some of our 
large Boards, or a business that requires a broader intelligence for its 
successful prosecution." 

The question now arises whether this stupendous undertaking 
is more likely to be accomplished through such organized agen- 
cies than by independent and individual efifort. The writer, after 
twenty-three years of connection with and experience in the work, 
has no hesitancy whatever in declaring, most emphatically, in favor 
of the organized method. 

We admire the heroic devotion of the men and women who, with 
an unswerving faith in God that all needed things will be added, 
are ready to go and preach the Gospel, but we also admire the faith 
of their brethren in Christ who, by a no less direct ordering of 
Providence, are engaged in some so-called secular occupation, and 
are not willing that those who have gone to the front should bear 
all the sacrifice and brunt of the conflict, but insist on doing their 
part in the work by giving of their means to transport the mis- 
sionaries to the field, to give them comfortable homes in which to 
live, schoolhouses and church buildings in which to teach and 
preach, and a salary that will keep them in reasonable comfort and 
in the highest possible degree of physical and mental vigor for the 
prosecution of the arduous work in which they are engaged. 

We all believe, most heartily, in faith-missions. There are no 
other kind of missions that deserve the name. Every true mis- 
sion is founded on faith — faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the 
final triumph of His gospel. Take that away and there is noth- 
ing left. But what the situation calls for is not a one-sided faith, 
confined to a handful of men and women who feel themselves called 
of God to go to the field, but a many-sided, all-around, well-bal- 
anced, rational faith on the part of the whole Church that recog- 
nizes the fact that God employs the ordinary human instrumen- 
talities for the accomplishment of His purposes in the world, and 
that the high honor and blessed privilege of working under the 
Great Head of the Church for the world's evangelization belongs 
not to the few, but to all of God's people. 

One reason, possibly the chief reason, why the cause has not 
made greater progress is that we have not suf^ciently emphasized 
the human side of the work. Here, if anywhere, is to be seen 
clearly the need and value of organized effort. And such agency, 
whether it be an individual or society, must not be self-constituted. 



212 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

It must receive its appointment from, and be responsible to, its con- 
stituency if it would secure and retain that confidence and enthu- 
siastic interest of the people which are its sole capital. The people 
who give the money to carry on a work claim (and have) the right 
to know how it is expended. 

And this is the principle on which the finances of our Boards are 
conducted. Every dollar received is acknowledged, as promptly 
as possible, to the donor, and printed statements of all receipts and 
expenditures are issued at regular intervals, so that all who are in 
any way interested in the cause may fully inform themselves as to 
the financial status of the work which they have supported by their 
offerings. No careful and intelligent business man can fail to see 
the advantage of conducting a work like this through a regularly 
appointed and properly constituted Board, that derives its authority 
from and is responsible to the church that furnishes the means, 
rather than through a self-constituted agent or agency. 

And this same principle, so essential in the conduct of affairs in 
the home church, holds equally true in the foreign field, whether 
reference is had to the expenditure of money, the distribution of 
the missionary force, or the particular character of the work to be 
done. 

To secure the harmonious co-operation of all the missionaries 
working toward a common end, viz., the establishment of a self- 
supporting and self-governing native church ; to keep the various 
departments of the work in proper relation to and balance with 
each other ; to arrange for and evenly distribute the periods of leave 
or furlough so as not to leave the field undermanned at any time ; 
to insure the economical expenditure of the funds ; indeed, every 
consideration looking to rational progress and large success, points 
unmistakably to thorough organization and systematic effort. 

It is not claimed, however, that any Board in this country is to 
continue the superintendency of a foreign work indefinitely. As 
soon as a qualified ministry can be raised up and the native church 
brought to the point of self-direction and self-support — and the 
sooner that can be done the better — the Board in this country will, 
so far as that particular field is concerned, cease to have any value, 
or need of existence. 

Rev. J. A. MacDonald, Presbyterian Church in Canada, To- 
ronto, Can* 

There are just two points I wish to make. The first is this: I 
am not a member of any committee and do not defend any, and yet 
I agree that the best way to give money is through the Boards. I 
believe it is the best investment, rather than through independent 
organization, but I would like to feel free, after the Presbyterian 
Church, to which I belong, has had all the money it can use 
(which will be after my day), to give any help I can to independents. 
But the thing I want to ask is this. What responsibility has the 
Board, the committee, to protect me, not against the China Inland 
Mission, which I know, or against any other organized independent 

•Church of the Strangers, April 27. 



ITS NEED AND VALUE 213 

institution which I know, but against the self-appointed irrespon- 
sible men who belong to nobody and are responsible to nobody? 
These men come about with letters, the certificate of a minister, a 
doctor of divinity it may be, or a doctor of laws, go through the 
churches and tell their story and sing a song, maybe in their own 
language, we don't know. Now, the responsibility of the Boards 
and secretaries who know these men, who are traveling in the 
United States and sometimes slip over into Canada, is great. 

The second thing I wish to say is this : The Boards have a duty 
to put themselves in close and sympathetic relations to the news- 
papers. Might not the editors of newspapers be ex officio members 
of the Boards? They discuss the problems and sometimes fool 
themselves, but the point I wish to make is this, that newspaper 
men as I know them, the religious newspaper men, would be pro- 
foundly thankful to make use of good copy, that will be read and 
will create a public opinion behind the Boards. I do think that 
the Boards could utilize the press far more than they are doing now, 
that newspaper men will be glad to use good copy, and if they are 
allowed to attend the meetings of the Board, probably they would 
better understand the great problems and would not settle them 
offhand as you know we sometimes do. 

Rev. J. D. Wells, D.D., President Board of Foreign Missions, 
Presbyterian Church in U. S. A., Brooklyn, N. F.* 

Let me suppose for one minute, to make things plain, that we were 
suddenly intrusted with the responsibility, as a people connected 
with no missionary Society, of evangelizing the people of the Rus- 
sian Empire. VVhat are we going to do about it? What shall 
we do? How can we touch the subject unless we select the wisest 
persons that we can find and have them act for us, charging our- 
selves with the responsibility of raising the money and putting it 
into their hands? What under the sun should we do if we were 
charged with that responsibility, if we could not throw it off upon 
men whom we could trust and who would report at least once a 
year what they have done with our money? There must be or- 
ganization. 

I have been with the Presbyterian Board of Missions since 1854, 
that is, forty-six years. The personnel of the Board has changed 
utterly within my short time and connection with it, but the Board 
goes on. It is like the brook, it goes on, and it widens and deep- 
ens, and it contains, let me say, the recollection of the past; all the 
wisdom that has been in that Board from the beginning has been in 
a certain sense accumulating, and it comes down as an inheritance 
to us. 

Another thing interests me very much in regard to Boards. That 
is, the quality of the laymen. I won't say anything about the minis- 
ters, but I can speak for the laymen, presidents of banks, lawyers, 
eminent business men, coming together now twice every month 
and giving two or three hours to hard work, close work, without 
any payment excepting the pleasure and the profit of doing the 

* Church of the Strangers, April 27. 



214 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

work for the Master. And they do it faithfully and with wonder- 
ful discernment of what is necessary to an understanding of the 
principles applicable to this great missionary work. 

Results of Forming Woman^s Missionary Societies 

Mrs. N. M. Waterbury, Secretary Woman's Baptist Foreign 
Missionary Society, Boston, Mass.* 

Forty years ago here in the city of New York, under the inspira- 
tion of the sainted Mrs. Doremus, began the first Woman's Mis- 
sionary Society of this country. Following closely have come 
other societies at home and abroad, until we can report to-day fifty- 
two Women's Boards, whose united gifts last year amounted to 
$2,600,000. 

Let us glance at some of the results of the work: 

First, and of greatest importance, is their immense educational 
influence. Through meetings for study and prayer the spirit of 
missions has been fostered in the city, and town, and village, until 
we have an army of women ; one and a half millions, enlisted in all 
women's organizations. To meet the demands for facts the Boards 
sent out 150,000,000 of printed pages last year. 

Children have been gathered into mission bands, and if you ask, 
whence the great revival of student interest in the past fifteen years, 
I will point you to mothers on their knees offering their dearest 
gifts to God, who has accepted these noble young men and women 
as He accepted Samuel of old from the arms of his mother. The 
flood of missionary literature has not left the land parched and 
barren; all over the world to-day the seeds of missionary interest 
are bearing fruit. 

I have spoken of gifts of these Societies over and above the large 
sums paid into the treasuries of our general Boards, and which, to a 
great extent, have relieved the general Boards of pressing burdens, 
and allowed them to turn their energies toward expansion and direct 
evangelization. One mighty influence of Women's Societies has 
been the cultivation of systematic benevolence about which we 
hear so much. Many of these Societies have been organized on 
the basis of small sums systematically collected, and you see the 
vindication of the two cents a week in more than $30,000,000 paid 
into the Societies since their organization. We have taken a third of 
a century to prove that women understand the systematic giving of 
littles. Is it not now time for them to turn their attention to pro- 
portionate giving? — not two cents a week, but as the Lord has pros- 
pered. 

Have you ever thought of the emphasis our Lord puts on the 
giving? We know nothing of the final destination of the two mites 
of the widow, though it sounds strangely like a weekly contribu- 
tion to a women's foreign missionary society ; but we know that 
the precious gift of a loving mother's heart called forth positive ad- 
miration from her Lord, and comes to us as a model of Christian 
beneficence. Is it not just as precious to Him to see true devotion 

* Carnegie Hall, April a6. 



women's organizations 215 

developed in the hearts of His children as to see the heathen hearts 
turning to Him? We welcome the little life as it comes to us, but 
what joy compares with the joy of seeing our children growing 
strong, and noble, and useful to the world. 

I can not stop to speak of results that have followed in the organi- 
zation of work for those at home. This can not be tied to statistics. 
More than facts or figures are the broadened lives, the heroic hearts, 
the unselfish hands that through this work have been developed. 
There are still too many women who act on the principle of the 
woman who said to the patient collector, " I would like to know 
what the heathen have ever done for me? " But oh, if I could only 
make you see the results of women's foreign mission work as I 
see them — in the sweet, wrinkled faces of those women who lay 
their missionary prayer-list beside their Bibles, whose greatest sorrow 
is that they can not give more, whose prayers, beautiful, blessed, 
unselfish prayers, ascend to God for those sad-hearted women 
across the seas ! H I could show you the girls, glorious girls from 
Wellesley, and Vassar, and Smith, from high schools and normal 
schools, working girls from printing office and factory, from 
kitchen and sewing-room, all united in one great girls' club — our 
missionary garden of roses, I feel, as I work among their sweetness 
and freshness ! There is the little child, Christ's own object-lesson, 
learning as soon as it can reach out its dimpled hands to give to 
the dear Saviour, and even the babies as soon as they can boast of 
a name, must have it inscribed on the cradle roll. And we have 
only just begun. There is one text which we so often hear quoted, 
which I could not write in this little summary, though I took up 
my pen to do it. Not, " She hath done what she could," no, no, 
we have not learned that, but we have begun to see faintly, dimly, 
what we can do, and we have already done what we thought we 
could not. 

Mrs. W. a. Montgomery, Woman's Baptist Foreign Mission- 
ary Society, Rochester, N. F.* 

One of the surest signs of the abounding vitality of the women's 
foreign missionary Societies is the activity of their critics. 

The opposition of unsympathetic criticism is the least formidable 
which the women's organizations have to meet. Added to it is 
the opposition of those, both intelligent with regard to missionary 
achievements, and in full sympathy with missionary ideals and pur- 
poses. They claim that their work is done and the time ripe to merge 
them with the general denominational Boards. 

Nor can the thoughtful student of mission matters afiford to pass 
slightingly by the arguments which are adduced in support of their 
position. There is the financial argument, which points out the 
waste by the duplication of administration entailed by the main- 
tenance of separate treasuries and offices. There is the argument 
of the loyal denominational adherent, who fears that the opulence 
of the women's treasuries is gained at the expense of the general 
boards. He points out that we are robbing Peter to pay Paul, 

♦Carnegie Hall, April 26. 



2l6 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

Paulina, perhaps I should say ; that we are getting pennies when dol- 
lars are due, and are dividing denominational strength. Then 
there is the argument of those who object to women's organiza- 
tions on general principles. " We have enough," they tell us, " of 
women's clubs, women's papers, women's charities ; let us not have 
woman in religion. The gospel is one, the work is one, let us 
then unite in one great missionary reservoir all the streams of 
beneficence now turning the wheels of many societies." 

There is something wonderfully attractive about all these argu- 
ments. They seem sensible, broad, and in the very line that we are 
accustomed to hear regarding commercial affairs. They are 
stronger, however, on paper and the platform than anywhere else; 
and there are things to be said on the other side. The financial 
objection, for example, will not bear inspection. True, a few thou- 
sands are deducted from missionary receipts each year to pay the 
administration expenses of the women's societies, but they bring 
to the general work a thousand dollars for every one spent in this 
way. By their army of unpaid officers and helpers, by their close 
contact with the local church, by their system of minute super- 
vision, by their network of meetings and conferences, by their flood 
of missionary literature, they are the advance agents of missionary 
prosperity, the John the Baptists preparing the way of the denomi- 
national boards. The sowing and cultivating, and I fear, harrow- 
ing of the home field, by these indefatigable women's societies, is one 
cause of the harvest of the past twenty years. It is as unreason- 
able for the denominations to complain of the expense of the 
women's organizations as for a business house to grudge the 
salaries paid its agents, or the expenses of its advertising depart- 
ment. 

Moreover, such are the different conditions of the lives of men 
and women that it is possible to secure from women what can not 
be given by men, unpaid service; men are the bread-winners, ability 
must be paid for. There are thousands of women of wide vision 
and high ability, able and glad to give their services to this work. 
How shortsighted, how wickedly wasteful it w^ould be if the 
Church of Christ should leave unutilized such resources; resources 
only to be developed by women's sharing in the burdens of mis- 
sionary administration. We learn by doing: and it is only because 
we have been given a definite work for which we are solely respon- 
sible that the women of the Christian Church have had laid on their 
hearts the burden of foreign missions. 

It would be easy, were there time, to show that the second ob- 
jection is not borne out by facts; that the churches with the most 
active women's circles are uniformly the most generous contribu- 
tors to general boards; that denominations with the best organized 
women's societies are also those having the largest per capita con- 
tributions; that the legacies received from women quite generally 
go to the denominational boards. The objection falls by its own 
weight; since it impeaches the loyalty and good sense of two-thirds 
the membership of the Church. An occasional woman may sec no 
farther than her dollar to the women's circle. Her dollar, how- 



WOMEN S ORGANIZATIONS 217 

ever, represents lOO cents additional to mission funds ; as without 
the annual pressure of the woman's circle she would give nothing. 
But the membership of the women's societies is for the most part 
made up of those who love the gospel of our Lord, and will meas- 
ure their gifts by no lower standard than their loyalty and faith. 

As to the third argument, we accept all the premises and deny 
all the conclusions. We want no woman's gospel, but we remem- 
ber that the first commission on the resurrection morning was to 
Mary Magdalene; that the kingdom of heaven is likened not only 
to the shepherd seeking the lost sheep in the wilderness, but also 
to the woman sweeping the house for the lost coin. And so, in spite 
of objection or argument, we believe that there is the outlook for 
a great work and abundant for the women's foreign missionary so- 
cieties. 

We believe this for two reasons: 

Plrst, institutions, like men, are immortal till their work is done; 
and the work of the women's foreign mission societies for the 
women of our home churches is just beginning. We need their 
enlarged conception of life to make us more faithful to present 
duties, more courageous in solving hard problems, stronger to do 
the right and trust in God. If these missionary societies accom- 
plished nothing more than to make Christianity mean more to us 
in the home churches, they would be worth every cent they cost. 
And until all Christian women have learned that the cross of Christ 
is not to be sung about, nor wept over, nor smothered in flowers, 
but set up in our pleasures ; that He never commanded us to cling 
to that cross, but to carry it, the work of the missionary circle will 
not be done nor its warfare accomplished. 

Second, there is a work to be done on the foreign field which can 
be done only for women and by women. Our Lord gave it to us in 
a picture when He said, " The kingdom of heaven is like leaven 
which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the 
whole was leavened." The final citadel of heathenism is in the 
home, and that fortress can be taken by women only. It seems 
such slow work, this gathering of children into kindergartens, this 
friendly contact with little groups of mothers, this teaching of 
needlework, this living one's own home-life through long, lonely 
years that seem to count for nothing. It is women's work, the 
patient hiding of the leaven in the lump until the whole is leavened. 
And there is no one agency which has such power to hasten the 
triumph of the kingdom of our Lord as this hidden work commit- 
ted into the hands of women. 

Mrs. Moses Smith, President Woman's Board of Missions of 
the Interior (Congregational), Chicago, III* 

It is not our purpose to compare this force with other forces, but 
simply to turn on a searchlight and see the providential prepara- 
tion of woman for a world-wide service, and the place and power of 
Women's boards among redemptive forces. 

Early in the nineteenth century woman was not prepared for the 

* Carnegie Hall, April 26. 



2l8 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

work which the century should bring to her, and the vision of the 
largeness of her place and power in God's plan of redemption was 
yet withheld. The century became vibrant with new forces, all tribu- 
tary to the world's progress and the ultimate end of redemption. In 
the world's widening horizon higher education became an unmeasured 
factor, reaching even women. Under the courageous leadership of 
such women as the scholarly Mary Somerville in England, and 
Mary Lyon in America, colleges and universities opened their 
doors, and Christian woman returned unto her Eden birthright, a 
" help meet for man." 

In God's own unheralded way a revolution had been wrought 
which would eventually touch and transfigure the outmost circle 
of human life. 

The world was quick to perceive that a new force had entered 
the arena of life. In the Church woman was held in a conserva- 
tism which only heroic courage could surmount. A great force 
for love and service lay dormant. 

There was needed a call which had in it the urgency of an appall- 
ing need, and the authority of a Divine voice. Such a call came to 
the women of England when, in 1834, David Abeel, an American 
missionary returning from China, tarried long enough in London to 
meet a few praying women in a private drawing-room, to portray to 
them the pathetic degradation of the woman of the East, and impart 
to them something of his own vivid consciousness that the mothers 
and little children are the great fortressed power of heathenism, 
and reiterate that all confess that Christians hold the only key to 
the fortress. This resulted in the founding of the Society for Pro- 
moting Female Education in the East, and was the beginning of 
woman's organized work for woman. 

Mr. Abeel hastened to America, hoping for like speedy results; 
but it was only twenty-five years later that the thought that had 
lain all that time in the heart of Mrs. Doremus took form in the 
Woman's Union Missionary Society of New York. 

There was great skepticism about women being able to manage 
the affairs of such a society. Moreover, such was the degradation 
of Oriental women that those familiar with the conditions through 
it hopeless to attempt to reach them. One honored man said, 
" As well attempt to scale a wall fifty feet high as to teach the women 
of India." 

When a few years later the prison house zenanas were opened 
to the entrance of Christian women, the wall fifty feet high had been 
scaled. 

This arousal of woman to a sense of personal responsibility, to a 
consciousness of citizenship in the Kingdom, became a factor in en- 
largement and spiritual development, and was itself the first fruits 
of women's boards as a redemptive power. 

An incident in my own experience will illustrate. In the early 
history of this work I was one day speaking in a small church in 
Michigan. I noticed in the audience a woman whose whole appear- 
ance spoke of deepest poverty, but there was a light in her faded 
face which fascinated me. I took occasion to speak to her. 



WOMEN S ORGANIZATIONS 219 

Thanking me for the words I had spoken, confidentially she added : 
" Two years ago I learned for the first time of this woman's work 
for woman, and each month since I have been able to put something 
into the treasury." 

Her bent form straightened, her head lifted, and her eyes shone 
as she continued: " When I have given my gift I am conscious that 
I am no longer simply a part of this little town or even of this great 
commonwealth. I am a part of the forces which God is using in 
the uplifting of nations." I stood thrilled in her presence. It 
were useless to ask that woman if life were worth living. The secret 
of the Lord was hers. 

Opportunity was a beckoning banner leading on to a higher serv- 
ice, and this was God's way of broadening the horizon of l30th men 
and women. The Church came to see that she had gone forth to 
conquest with one arm bound to her side. 

The entering of woman into this larger Christian service marked 
an era in the history of the Church which the future historian will 
be quick to recognize. As yet, it is apparent many fail to appre- 
hend the place and power of woman's work in foreign missions. 
Three correlated facts or conditions will place the whole subject in 
clear relief: 

First : In the Divine economy mothers and home determine the 
character and condition of any people. This is too evident to need 
illustration. No people rise higher than the mothers. 

Second: In the light of the mother's power the status of woman 
throughout the world becomes paramount. Barbarism and the 
ethnic religions combined to degrade womanhood. Among uncivi- 
lized people woman is a slave, nude, filthy, her life but a degree 
above the brute. Only a woman can teach her purity, delicacy, and 
the divine art of home-making. 

Third: The perspective of history places forces in their right 
relation, and enables us to determine their value. " God is his own 
interpreter," and history becomes the most convincing Christian 
evidence. 

The present-day problem in missions is to reach the great cen- 
tral power in society, the mothers and homes, with "the life that 
is in Christ Jesus." In all the Orient, and largely in all uncivilized 
lands, only a woman can break the Bread of Life to woman. 

Logically, it follows that the agency through which this can be 
done is the most far-reaching and certain force which the Church 
has for the redemption of the race. 

Thus is demonstrated the value of women's Boards of Missions 
among redemptive forces. 

Given a God of love ; given a divine plan of salvation ; given 
the atonement, Christ, the Saviour walking among men, and with 
the urgency of yearning love bidding His chosen, Go preach the 
gospel unto all people ; on the other hand, given nations with- 
out the knowledge of Christ; given woman in the degradation of 
uncivilized peoples ; given woman in the seclusion and impure im- 
prisonment of zenana and harem, where only from the voice of a 
Christian woman can she learn the way of salvation; and the or- 



2 20 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

ganization of women's Boards, through which women should be 
sent with the gospel message to women, becomes an evident part 
of God's plan of redemption. 

Here is a work of unmeasured magnitude; a work evidently 
given of God to this generation of Christian women; a work which, 
in a half century of testing, has proved its power in redemption; a 
work without which the world can not be speedily evangelized. 

Relation of the Missionary Society to the Denomination 

Rev. James M. Buckley, D.D., Editor " Christian Advocate," 
New York* 

The logical order would imply that in every closely organized de- 
nomination or communion, and in every state Church, missionary 
enterprises should be managed by the Church as the center of au- 
thority and direction. 

This was done for many years by the state Churches, so that it is 
very difficult to trace historically their purely missionary opera- 
tions. On this account more credit is probably due them for mis- 
sion work, in the early periods of the Reformation, than is usually 
accorded. 

Yet, if there be a well-defined radical difference in the bosom of a 
state Church, it may be far better for missionary societies to oper- 
ate through separate corporations. That there are such differences 
of view, with the exception of a few minds of peculiar liberality or 
adaptive facility, in the greatest Protestant state Church, so as to 
make it impossible for those holding them to work together satis- 
factorily, is obvious. 

Thoroughly organized denominations not connected with the 
state must manage their own missionary organizations. They 
must do so to secure universal financial support and sympathy. 
That support will be dissipated, attracted to independent enter- 
prises, and much latent ability and means will never be elicited with- 
out universal pastoral instruction and persuasion, which, in its 
turn, can not be produced without the missionary spirit pervades 
the Church and controls to a large degree its legislation. 

If these principles be true they must find abundant illustration in 
all organized denominations. 

Thus, we find the Church Missionary Society, founded April 12, 
1799, to send the gospel of Christ to the heathen and Mohammedan 
world, whether within or without the dominions of Great Britain. 
It is a strictly Church of England Society, yet evangelical and vol- 
untary. It is conducted by a patron, a vice-patron, a president, 
vice-presidents, and a committee. These must all be members of 
the established Church of England or the Church of Ireland. The 
patron must be a member of the royal family, the vice-patron must 
be His Grace the Primate of all England, the president may be a 
tcmpoi»l peer or commoner, and the vice-presidents shall consist 
of all archbishops and bishops of the churches of England and Ire- 
land, who belong to the Society and will accept the offices. The 

* Church of the Strangers, April a?. 



RELATION TO THE DENOMINATION 221 

Committee must consist of twenty-five lay members of the Society, 
who must be members of the Church of England or the Church of 
Ireland, and of all clergymen who have been members of the So- 
ciety for at least one year, and of some other officers. 

Under the authority of the law of the land the bishops of the 
Church of England ordain and send forth, ecclesiastically speaking, 
the Society's missionaries. To prevent disturbances between the 
Committee and local bishops, all questions that may arise of eccles- 
iastical order and discipline are referred to any tribunal having 
cognizance of the same, but if not, they are to be referred to the 
archbishops of Canterbury and York with final authority. 

This seems to be an admirable arrangement, and no doubt ac- 
counts very largely for the enthusiasm, the immense contributions, 
and the general success of the body. 

Prior to 1837 the Presbyterians of this country co-operated large- 
ly with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
sions. Their Board is incorporated by the State of New York. The 
act declares that the management and disposition of the affairs and 
property of the said Board of Foreign Missions and the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States of America shall be vested in twenty- 
one trustees, who shall be appointed from time to time by the Gen- 
eral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
America, for such terms as the Assembly may determine. 

The Board of Foreign Missions is required to make a report an- 
nually, and to surrender its entire records to the General Assembly 
for their investigation. The General Assembly refers the same to 
a standing committee, who examine the records, and, if necessary, 
make a detailed scrutiny of all transactions. It is as thoroughly 
incorporated with the Church as is possible, and its result in unity, 
efficiency, and receipts is in proportion to this closeness of incor- 
poration. 

In a similar manner the foreign missions of the Reformed 
Church in the United States are conducted, and the powers of the 
Board of Commissioners elected by the General Synod are absolute, 
provided they are not repugnant to the constitution of the United 
States, the constitution of Pennsylvania, or the constitution of the 
General Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States. 

The Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church is 
similarly mortised into the body and cemented into the life of the 
denomination. Its Board of Managers are appointed by the Gen- 
eral Conference which invests the Board with power to fill vacancies. 
This body also elects the corresponding secretaries, the treasurer, 
and the assistant treasurer, and it reserves to itself the power of at 
any time amending the constitution of the Society, and the act of 
incorporation provides that the Board of Managers shall be subor- 
dinate to any directions made or to be made by the said General 
Conference. That body also elects a general missionary commit- 
tee which alone has power to establish new missions, or to close up 
missions, and to determine the amount of money which shall be ap- 
propriated to each mission. The Board of Managers by the charter 
holds all property. 



22 2 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

This system had worked so admirably that when the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, was formed it adopted in substance the 
same system. 

Wesleyan missions, after many sporadic, and individual, and local 
efforts, were organized in 1818. The institution is named the Wes- 
leyan Methodist Missionary Society. The conditions of member- 
ship were adopted by the Conference, which appoints a committee 
which is intrusted with the general management of the missions 
and the raising and disbursing of money, subject to the general rules 
and usages of the connection. The treasurers and the genera! 
secretaries are also elected by the Conference, the governing body 
of the denomination. This body has a more detailed and compre- 
hensive system of rules for the management of missions throughout 
the denomination than can be found elsewhere. 

The Moravian Church is practically a Society for propagating the 
Gospel. Its highest body, the General Synod, is composed of rep- 
resentatives of all provinces and of missions. It elects the Unity's 
Elders' Conference, which is charged with the administrations of the 
missions and other joint affairs. The directing Board is respon- 
sible to the General Synod of the Unity of the Brethren over the 
whole range of its actions and management. This Society was 
incorporated in this country by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania 
in the colonial period, in the year of our Lord 1788. 

There are in the different organizations of Lutherans in this 
country different methods, some not radically different from those 
already described, others come more properly under a different 
classification. 

An examination of the constitutions of German and Scandinavian 
Protestant missions shows no methods of organizing missions 
which do not exist elsewhere. 

The denominations that deposit final authority in the local church 
must co-operate through societies created for the purpose by means 
of boards more or less limited in jurisdiction. Of these, the most 
renowned in the western hemisphere is the American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions. This institution was or- 
ganized in t8io by the General Association of Congregational Min- 
isters of Massachusetts. It is professedly undenominational, and 
in its early days was co-operated with by several other denomina- 
tions, especially the Presbyterian, but the different bodies having 
formed denominational societies, it is now left practically in the 
hands of the Congregational churches. 

The American Board has demonstrated the possibility of the 
essential elements of success previously named, in what is to all in- 
tents and purposes a strictly voluntary organization. 

There is a remarkable similarity between the history of this body 
and the London Missionary Society, which was from the beginning 
undenominational, founded by evangelical members of the Church 
of England, Presbyterian bodies, and Congregationalists. It is fif- 
teen years older than the American Board of Commissioners, and 
for the same reason that that body has fallen into the hands of the 
Congregationalists, owing to the formation of missionary societies 



RELATION TO THE DENOMINATION 223 

in most of the churches whose members originally co-operated with 
it, this work also has fallen chiefly into the hands of the Congrega- 
tionalists. These two bodies are among the most successful mis- 
sionary organizations in the world. 

Four years after the American Board was founded, the American 
Baptist Missionary Society was organized, growing out of the 
change of sentiment upon the subject and method of baptism ex- 
perienced by Adoniram Judson, who had been sent out by the 
American Board, and by Luther Rice. It is an organization quite 
similar to the American Board. 

For thirty years all the missionary work of American Baptists 
was done through the Baptist General, afterward known as the Tri- 
ennial Convention. This gave rise to the establishment of the 
American Baptist Missionary Union, organized in 1846. Though 
it is composed of delegates, the real business is done by a Board of 
Managers, of whom one-third are elected at each annual meeting, 
and by an executive Committee chosen by this board. 

Undenominational and private organizations, from the nature of 
the case, are independent of the government of any one denomina- 
tion. The China Inland Mission is the most conspicuous example 
of this method of missionary labor. It was founded by J. Hudson 
Taylor in 1865, with the help and co-operation of W. T. Burger. 
Mr. Taylor is general director, assisted by those who, at his in- 
vitation, are associated with him in the conduct of the work. It is 
supported by the free-will offerings of the Lord's people. The 
directors can not and do not guarantee any fixed amount of sup- 
port. It is, in fact, governed by a personal head as really as was 
Methodism in its early days by Wesley, and as the Salvation Army 
is by William Booth. 

Societies of this kind, however successful and worthy of support, 
can not be considered as being under the scope of the present topic, 
except to recognize their existence. 

A comparison of the charters, constitutions, by-laws, and reports 
of the principal societies in Great Britain, Ireland, and Canada, on 
the continent of Europe, and in the United States, abundantly jus- 
tifies certain generalizations. 

The success of missionary societies under the direct government 
of religious communions depends upon the selection and revision 
of executive boards. Rich men who give nothing but money, rich 
men who give nothing but counsel, are not suitable as members of 
mission boards of management; nor are poor men who give noth- 
ing but attendance on board meetings and zeal ; for they can do 
little but assist in making a quorum. But men of substance who 
give sympathy, counsel, intelligent scrutiny, and money; poor men 
who bring wisdom in counsel, and vigilance, and bestow according 
to the gifts of God to them; and men who are neither rich nor poor, 
but are competent, interested, devoted, and faithful, are the ele- 
ments which should prevail in every board. Assemblies, confer- 
ences, councils, conventions, or synods should not be content with 
perfunctory reference of the reports of such boards to a committee 
who will approve indiscriminately and recommend a rising vote of 



224 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

thanks. Such boards deal with trust funds, given without expecta- 
tion of dividends in the natural, but in the hope of large returns in 
the spiritual order. 

In the denominations which from the nature of their government 
must work through societies formed for the purpose, more impor- 
tance should be attached to the competency of the commissioners 
or managers than to popular oratory. 

The reflex influence of the board upon the denomination may 
energize and it may also paralyze. The senility of the board, in 
part due to the old age of some of its members and to the want of 
force in others, the combination including a majority of the voters 
and regular attendants, may congeal the spirit of the denomination 
as really as the dotage of the senior partner may conduct a stable 
business into the bushes and briars of insolvency. Old age, how- 
ever, is not so much a question of years as of fixity and lack of sym- 
pathy and judgment. 

Boards as servants and guides give the best results. Boards as 
tyrants are shackles. The ligaments that bind the boards to their 
denominations should be elastic enough not to stop circulation, and 
firm enough to bear the strain of resisting extravagant appeals or 
the pressure of conservative cowardice. 

Some undenominational societies, depending on one or more in- 
dividuals, have done, and still are doing, good, though very many 
have failed, and others have wasted many thousands of the Lord's 
money while boasting the superiority of their methods over those 
of the churches. 

The only communicants of Christian churches who can consist- 
ently support such institutions are those who have supported and 
continue to support the missionary enterprise of their own religious 
communion. Those who do this and have time to examine the 
work of individual enterprises, may extend to the worthy among 
them a helping hand, even as those who do not shirk the payment 
of the war or peace taxes of their own governments may with pro- 
priety contribute of their substance to aid struggling foreign states. 

Mr. Eugene Stock, Editorial Secretory Church Missionary So- 
ciety, London, EngJ^ 

We are not to expect that all societies and boards shall be alike. 

There are three classes of missionary societies. One is the class 
of which the China Inland Mission is the representative. Although 
that is quite different from the Society I represent, I see that God 
blesses it, and that is enough for me. Of course, I do not think a 
mission of that class could cover the world. It is suitable for a par- 
ticular country. But the typical example has been so great a blessing 
that I think we nnist acknowledge that that description of mission 
has a right to exist. 

Then,' secondly, there is the class in which the Church itself in its 
corporate capacity administers and governs by means of boards its 
missionary work. In that respect the Presbyterians are a typical 
example, and who shall say that it is not illustrative of rich blessings 

* Church of the Strangers, April 27. 



RELATION TO THE MISSIONARIES 225 

from the Lord. I have been present at great discussions in their 
Synod, where I confess I felt there was a weak point about it, but I 
don't want to discuss their weak points; I am hardly qualified to do 
so. 

Now, the third class, large, well-organized, but voluntary so- 
cieties. Now, Dr. Buckley, in his perfectly accurate account, gave 
an impression that would mislead. The Church Missionary Society 
is announced to belong to the Church of England, and societies of 
this sort have traditions as well as laws. The Church Missionary 
Society is downright evangelical in its traditions, and that can not 
honestly be said of the whole Church of England. Therefore, we 
are practically a society of an exceptional character, representing a 
section of the Church. If the bishops or any other great authorities 
in Church or State, any authority whatever, were to tell the Church 
Missionary Society's committee or the Church Missionary Society 
as a body, to do anything contrary to evangelical principles, our 
constituency would rise as one man and say: " No, we won't." For 
example, if some of them had said: " Don't send Mr. Stock to that 
mixed-up New York Conference," our constituency would have 
risen as one man and said : " Let him go. We want to show sympathy 
with all our brethren." 

Perhaps you will hardly believe it when I tell you what our con- 
stituency is. Not one-fourth of the Church of England, not more 
than one-fourth of our congregations, give any contribution to the 
Church Missionary Society, and yet, as a matter of fact, we are the 
largest society, although we represent but a section of the Church. 
Why is that? It is because of the enthusiasm of praying people. 
It is because of the enthusiasm of those who believe that outside 
of all organizations the gospel of Christ is the power of God and of 
salvation. We hold to the rightful independence of any Christians 
to band themselves together to teach the gospel as the Lord shall 
teach them. 

Our Board consists of four classes. First of all, the Anglo-In- 
dians. When they retire from their State service, if they are godly. 
Christian men, they delight to come and spend hour after hour in 
the administration of our affairs. Then, secondly, a similar num- 
ber of professional business men, bankers, and lawyers, who do not 
stand aloof. They are not merely men of money ; we don't want men 
of money simply because they have money, we want men of interest. 
Thirdly, there is a certain proportion of the home ministry, ministers 
who can give time to the long meetings and sit them out. And, fourth- 
ly, retired missionaries and missionaries while at home, not re- 
tired, but on furlough or sick leave, are invited. And as a matter 
of fact, we do feel that God is with us and giving us His blessing. 

Its Relation to the Missionaries 

Rev. R. Wardlaw Thompson, Secretary London Missionary 
Society, London, Eng* 

The difficulties of this question are greatly increased by the fact 

* Church of the Strangers, April 27. 



226 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

that the governing bodies of missionary societies usually meet and 
deliberate, and legislate under conditions wholly different from 
those which confront the missionary, and are, necessarily, to a 
large extent, ignorant of those conditions, while the worker, on his 
part, immersed in his great task, knows little or nothing of what is 
transpiring at home, and equally little of the conditions and the 
needs of other parts of the great field, and is tempted to become 
very impatient if his views are not adopted, and if the needs of his 
work are not supplied. 

How are the difficulties which arise out of such a situation to be 
most effectively met? 

It seems to me that in considering this question both parties 
concerned have to recognize, more clearly than they sometimes do, 
the conditions under which their partners in the enterprise are do- 
ing their share of the work, and the silent yet sweeping change 
which has come over those conditions in recent years. 

Our home churches and missionary boards need to keep in view the 
alteration in the whole of the conditions of missionary work. 

Formerly, the mission field was far off, the men who were at work 
were almost out of reach and beyond control or criticism, and often 
they were alone, or almost alone, upon their field of labor, not hav- 
ing the advantage of consultation with colleagues. As the work 
has advanced, however, there have been very great modifications 
and changes in the conditions of missionary labor. The opening 
of the world to commerce and the subjugation of large portions 
of the world by European nations, have taken an ever-increasing 
number of white men into the great mission field, and the mission- 
ary has become the object of much observation, and he and his 
methods have inevitably come in for abundant criticism. Some of 
this criticism has been altogether unreasonable and prejudiced; 
some of it has been perfectly fair and just. Missionaries make 
mistakes as other men do. They make mistakes sometimes in the 
methods of their work; in their judgment of and dealings with the 
natives; in their judgment of and relation to other white men, and in 
their personal conduct. So far as I know, the criticism, though 
often unkind and ignorant, has been wholesome. 

Then there has been, and is. constant change in the nature and 
extent of the work that is being done. The opening up of the 
world to which I have already referred, has brought many power- 
ful external influences to bear upon the peoples among whom mis- 
sionaries are laboring, influences which have not all been helpful 
to the progress of missionary work. The work itself, in propor- 
tion to its success, has required different treatment; has made more 
varied demands upon the intellectual quality as well as the spirit- 
ual consecration of the worker. There has also been a very great 
development in the direction of multiplying forms of agency. 

Once more, there has been a change in the quality of the men 
and women who have gone out; they have been better prepared 
for the work to which they are appointed; they have learned their 
own strength in the success of their work; their judgment has been 
clarified and made increasingly valuable by experience. Large 



RELATION TO THE MISSIONARIES 227 

numbers have also entered the field, operating powerfully upon 
each other's thoughts, ideas, and methods, and developing prin- 
ciples of action as the result of their united experience. 

Now, I want to point out further that, as there have been changes 
in the field, so there have been changes at home. There is a 
marked change in the personnel of missionary boards and commit- 
tees which is not always for the better. First, it seems to be in- 
creasingly difficult to get the active help in counsel of the strong 
leaders of church life, and other men are quite willing to take the 
position of administrators. 

Again, there is an increasing number of men at home who have 
seen the world, some of whom have resided long in mission lands 
and have had large opportunity of observation. Often these are men 
of leisure, and are glad to take a share in the administration of mis- 
sions. There is a natural disposition to bring them into the councils 
of the missionary societies ; their help is often most valuable, but 
it must be confessed that sometimes it is quite the opposite. 

Further, while foreign missions are making ever-increasing de- 
mands upon the pocket and service of the Church, the churches, 
from which they derive their support, have awakened to the dis- 
covery of the great needs and serious responsibilities which press 
upon them at home. The seniors among us may recall the time 
when the missionary anniversary was the only great religious fes- 
tival of the year outside the immediate circle of the Church. Now 
every church is deluged with appeals for help for many objects, ev- 
ery Sunday-school, every Christian Endeavor Society has a dozen 
difterent channels of expressing its sympathy and interest, and ev- 
ery generous contributor to mission funds finds himself burdened 
wdth shoals of circulars appealing for all kinds of help. It is quite 
true that there has been an enormous increase of wealth in the com- 
munities of which we form part, but I fear it is also true that the 
bulk of that wealth is to be found outside the circle of those who 
are directly interested in missions. Hence the difficulty of adminis- 
tering missionary societies and receiving the money for which the 
missionaries ask increases year by year. Sometimes, as a result, 
there is no small danger of serious misunderstanding on both sides. 

What is the remedy for this state of affairs ? How may the mission 
boards and the missionaries best come to a mutual understanding 
of each other's position and do most satisfactorily their share in the 
work that is to be done? Clearly more full and accurate knowl- 
edge is the first desideratum on both sides. The idea that the mis- 
sionaries are merely the agents of the home committee ought to be 
entirely exploded, if it is not already dead. I am not at all dis- 
posed to say — as it has been said — that the missionaries are the 
society, but they are emphatically partners in the concern, whose 
views, wishes, and judgment ought to have very serious considera- 
tion from those who are at headquarters. They are local partners, 
with an immediate knowledge of the local conditions which can not 
be obtained by others. On the other hand, they are only local 
partners, who, on account of the very position of advantage which 
they occupy in relation to one station or field of labor, are unable 



228 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

to have as fair and comprehensive a view of the whole as those who 
are at the head of affairs. 

CuUivation of mutual confidence and free communication be- 
tween the home board and the missionaries should be constantly 
striven after. The arrangement by which every missionary is ex- 
pected to come home on furlough after a certain number of years, 
provides this among other advantages, that it furnishes an oppor- 
tunity for the worker in the field to have personal communication 
with the workers at home. The more freely a missionary can be 
encouraged to make known his thoughts and plans, as well as the 
conditions under which he is laboring, the better it will be for him 
and for the society which he represents. 

The practice of havinglocal conferences or committees of mission- 
aries in different districts, to which the discussion and settlement 
of questions of detail are intrusted, is now so general that the judg- 
ment of a tmited body of missionaries can usually be obtained in 
any matter of importance, and such an expression of opinion cer- 
tainly ought to have and usually has great weight with those who 
are administering the affairs of the society at home. 

Can the home committee on the one hand, and the missionaries 
on the other, be kept in constant and close touch with each other? 
Should the missionaries have representation on the home boards? 
These questions have been raised in connection with several of our 
British societies. The answer must, to some extent, be aflfected 
by ecclesiastical arrangements. My personal judgment is not in 
favor of the principle, for several reasons, but mainly because an 
earnest missionary must be and ought to be an advocate rather 
than a judge, while the home committee ought to be in a position 
impartially to discriminate between different claims and appeals. 
The admission of missionaries to the governing bodies of societies 
would introduce a personal element which would prove often ex- 
ceedingly inconvenient for eminent missionaries with gifts of 
speech or with the authority of long service, and would put a pres- 
sure on the home committee which would not be desirable. 

It seems inevitable that the connection between the missionaries 
and the home organization should largely depend upon the perma- 
nent officials of the societies. 

They ought to be able, by knowledge of the whole field and by 
personal sympathy, to be reliable mouthpieces for the missionaries 
in their communication with the home committee, and reliable 
mediums of communication between the home committee and the 
missionaries. 

Some societies, I believe, already have traveling bishops or super- 
intendents, who regularly visit the mission field, and who have ad- 
ministrative authority. Such arrangements can not fail to be of very 
great value, if the bishop or superintendent is a wise and strong 
man. I venture to think, however, that on the whole, it i-s better 
that deputations to the field should not be intrusted with adminis- 
trative powers, but should go out as a means of communicating to 
the missionaries the position of affairs at home, and of learning from 
the missionaries and from personal observation the conditions of 



RELATION TO THE MISSIONARIES 229 

the wcfk in the field. Such deputations should consist always of 
at least two members, one of whom should be a permanent ofticial, 
fully acquainted with the details of the society's working; the other 
should be an independent member of the board, sufficiently in touch 
with the administration of affairs to be able to examine the work 
with educated intelligence and to form opinions which may be re- 
lied upon. Such visits to the field should be not only periodical, 
but in these days of rapid change they should be frequent. For- 
tunately, the means of communication are so abundant, and transit 
is so expeditious, that the difficulties which attended tours of in- 
spection in the days of our fathers no longer exist. From the 
point of view of the home churches, who need reliable and compre- 
hensive information about the whole field; from the point of view 
of the directors or committee of arrangements, who have to dis- 
criminate between the needs of various parts of the field and 
to apportion men and means for missionary service according to 
the relative importance of these needs ; and from the point of view 
of the missionaries themselves, who need to know the position of 
the society and need to be assured that the home committee has 
an intelligent knowledge of their work, such deputational visits 
would prove to be invaluable. 

Nor is this all; if they are conducted in the right spirit they 
ought to be a means of help in many ways to the company of mis- 
sion workers and to the churches which are being gathered from 
heathenism. There are times of perplexity and depression in the 
experience of every worker, when he begins to despair of the suc- 
cess of the work in which he is engaged, and at such times 
consultation with earnest friends who have seen the work in many 
places, and who may be able to make suggestions of new methods, 
or, at least, to bring new inspiration and cheer, may prove to be 
invaluable. 

Rev. W. R. Richards, D.D., Presbyterian Church U. S. A., 
Plainfield, N. /.* 

Dr. Thompson has made very plain in his paper the danger of 
misunderstanding between the missionaries and the board. Our 
own Presbyterian Board has felt very deeply and anxiously on that 
subject. We do believe thoroughly in the policy of visitation by 
our secretaries and members where it is possible. But we also be- 
lieve that it is desirable, if possible, to bring our missionaries per- 
sonally into personal acquaintance, not onlv with the secretaries of 
the Board, but with all the members, so that they shall no longer 
think of the Board as a mere abstract trust or corporation without 
sympathy and kindness. We want them to know that the mem- 
bers of the Board are men deeply interested in their work. And 
on the other hand we want all the members of our Board to know, as 
far as may be possible, the many representatives of our churches 
in the foreign field, that they may be helpful to each other and to 
others, and there are tw^o steps which seem to us helpful to that end. 

One is the very simple step of making it a standing rule that all 

* Church of the Strangers, April 27. 



230 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

our missionaries shall consider themselves invited, when they are 
at home on a furlough, to visit the Board at some one of its stated 
meetings that they may be presented to the members of the Board ; 
that we may take each other by the hand and look for a little while 
into each other's faces and be cheered by the sense of each other's 
good-will. 

And the other step is this : For two years past we have, of 
course at the expense of the Board, gathered the whole company 
of outgoing missionaries who are likely to leave during the year, 
together with any other missionaries who may be in the country, 
here in New York for a period of time, a week or more, that they 
may meet daily and almost constantly in our offices with each other 
and with the secretaries, and the members of the Board; that they 
may be advised and instructed as far as possible by older mission- 
aries present, and by the officers and members of the Board ; that 
they may learn to know each other and learn to know us. They 
have all testified to us that it has been a great blessing and encour- 
agement to them, very practical in the information they have been 
able to secure, and we know it has been a blessing to us. 

Rev. Wheeler Boggess, Missionary American Baptist Mission- 
ary Union, India. *" 

It is a self-evident fact that boards are useful or useless in pro- 
portion as they are in close or remote connection with God, with 
the Church and its servants and missionaries. Often, as a mission- 
ary I have felt somewhat at odds with my Board, but now that I do 
know the men and feel with them I can bow down with them and 
ask in unity for the blessing of God. 

But God has also blessed the missionaries that have gone out in- 
dependently of the Boards. We can not criticise them because, 
forsooth, they have not walked in the paths in which we have 
walked. And so, though I have worked often along different lines, 
I would in nowise criticise those who have worked along other 
lines. 

Now, about the Boards as the servants of the Church. 

It has sometimes been the fault of the Board in dictating to the 
Church. The Board has spent money on the missions and then 
sent the bills to the churches, and the churches have groaned under 
the difficulty. Why. I don't know. The missionaries, too, have 
felt the burden of this. I, as a missionary of one of the big 
boards here have been deeply pained to know that the money that 
was sent to me was borrowed money, that the churches have held 
back what they should have contributed, and have forced the Board 
to borrow. 

Rev. M. H. Hutton, D.D., President Arabian Mission, Reformed 
Church in America, New Brunswick, N. /.* 

There are two difficulties, an upper and nether millstone, be- 
tween which we members of the boards are ground together. On 
the one side there is the cry from the people to the boards, " What 

* Church of the Strangers, April 27. 



RELATION TO THE MISSIONARIES 23I 

are you so extravagant for?" They say, "Why are you running 
into debt, why don't you cut your coat according to the cloth?" 
Supposing you have a boy you send to India, we will say in knicker- 
bockers, and it takes a yard of cloth to make him a coat. A year 
goes by and there is your cloth and you cut out a coat to send out 
to him, and out it goes. And the next year again. What a 
ridiculous looking creature that boy would be in the course of ten 
years ! Now, it is very much the same way in the missionary busi- 
ness. Anything that has life in it grows, and people do not gener- 
ally understand the condition in which the board is in that matter, 
and they give them the cloth, but not half enough. That is the 
first dif^culty. 

Now, on the other side, I think, besides the impression of a 
good many people, that the board is a set of lunatics, there is an 
impression on the part of a great many missionaries that the board 
is a hard sort of trust trying to grind everything down to the lowest 
point, to get the biggest percentage out of it. Ah, friends, if you 
were sometimes in our board room when reports come home — we 
are conservative, we Dutchmen, we retain the old sort of executive 
committee — I have seen actually the jaws of our executive commit- 
tee fall when the report came in, and they have looked at one an- 
other in consternation; I have seen those nine men put their hands 
in their pockets and raise a necessary thousand dollars without ap- 
pealing to the Church, because they were so sorry for the mission- 
aries. I have seen that more than once. 

I don't ask you missionaries to ask for less, but do not be too 
hard on us, remember we are only buffers, as it were, between those 
two things. We are your warmest friends, and if we could we 
would give you the earth for which you sigh in order that you might 
present it to Christ. 

Rev. J. L. Barton, D.D., Secretary American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions, Boston, Mass.* 

There are three marked constituents in a foreign missionary or- 
ganization at work. There are the churches at home and there are 
the missionaries abroad, and between them is the missionary organi- 
zation itself. It is like an hour-glass. At one end the churches 
and the constituencies, and at the other end the missionaries, and 
between them the board. 

The sand from the churches goes through the organization out 
to the missionary. The supplies are furnished by the churches and 
sent out to the missionaries, supplies both of men and money. 
Now, what is this organization that stands between? It is not a 
board of autocratic control. The missionaries at the front are 
not controlled by the board at home. They are a part of the board 
at home and a part of the constituency behind the board, and the 
constituency behind the board and the board and the missionaries 
are co-operating in this great work. 

Another thing, the board is not a board of strategy. There is 
no doubt that the secretaries and the members of the board can 

* Church of the Strangers, April 27. 



232 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

form more theories and plans as to the best method of carrying 
on the work in six months than the whole missionary corps could 
carry out in a century, and there is no doubt that the advancement 
of the Lord's cause has been wonderfully helped by pigeon-holing 
most of those plans. It is as undoubtedly true that the mission- 
aries sent out to the front are as able as the committee which oper- 
ates at this center; just as able originally, but after they have been 
at the front they are a hundred times more able to deal directly 
with these matters, and they will avoid mistakes whenever respon- 
sibility is left to them. 

One thing more, carrying out this figure of the hour-glass. When 
you cut ofif the supplies of money and men, and when knowledge of 
this dearth of supply reaches the field and the cry comes back for 
more, you get at once the upper and nether millstones and the men 
in the field grind, and the Church at home grinds, and the secre- 
taries between are ground to powder. 

The work in the field should be left to the missionary, and if the 
committees at home have not missionaries upon the field to whom 
they can intrust the administration, they must appoint better men 
and better women for their work, and after the best men and the 
best women are appointed and sent out there they can be trusted 
with the details of the administration. 



CHAPTER X 

COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

Spirit and Limitations of Missionary Comity — Co-operation in Special De- 
partments of Work — Division of Fields — Comity in Practice — Federa- 
tion — General Summary. 



The Spirit and Limitations of Missionary Comity 

Rev. H. M. King, D.D., Chairman Executive Committee Ameri- 
can Baptist Missionary Union, Providence, R. /.* 

Missionary comity is, in its essence, the spirit of Christ manifest- 
ing itself in all the forms, and methods, and activities of foreign 
evangelization, and in all the intercourse and relations of those who 
are seeking to prosecute it. It is the illustration of that spirit which 
evangelization is professedly seeking to realize in all human society. 
It is the expression of that courtesy and thoughtful regard for the 
rights, and the feelings, and the convictions of others which should 
ever and everywhere characterize the intercourse of Christian gen- 
tlemen. 

In a word, missionary comity is born of the love of Christ 
shed abroad in the hearts of His disciples, and is the manifestation of 
the life of Christ in the lives of His followers. It is inculcated with 
great frequency in the Scriptures, as in the language of the Golden 
Rule ; in Christ's commandment to His disciples, '' That ye love one 
another as I have loved you ; " and in His sacerdotal prayer for all be- 
lievers, " That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I 
in thee, that they also may be one in us," a prayer which may not 
necessarily include outward organic union, but must involve a unity 
of spirit and of life that shall in some manner make itself visible and 
felt in the world, and be a convincing evidence of the divine nature of 
Christ and the superhuman character of the Christian religion, " that 
the world may believe that thou hast sent me." 

The spirit of comity does not necessitate or contemplate any organi'b 
union of churches under one particular form of government or one 
prescribed ritual of worship. As another has recently and wisely 
said : " Organic unity, on lines accepted by any one of the existing 
Christian bodies, is clearly, for the present, out of reach. No plan of 
union has been or can be suggested, which will not involve the sur- 
render, on the part of some, of truth which they hold vital. The run- 
tiing together of the separated churches, and their reshaping in the 
outward mold of any existing organization is the dream of unintelli- 

* Carnegie Hall. April 26. 



2 34 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

gent enthusiasm." Differences in polity must be left to the decision 
of an intelligent and conscientious interpretation of Scripture. The 
outward forms of worship must be determined by the tastes and the 
convictions of the worshipers. Compulsory conformity is neither 
desirable nor possible for any length of time. The enlightened spirit 
is free, and demands freedom in administration and freedom in ex- 
pression, subject only to the law of Christ. 

Comity implies a lack of uniformity, but insists upon living and 
thriving and triumphing in the midst of it and in spite of it. It holds 
fast to the great underlying unities, and derives its strength and its 
sweetness from these. It declares " There are diversities of gifts, 
but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but 
the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the 
same God which worketh all in all." " There is one body, and one 
Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, 
and through all, and in you all." 

Moreover, missionary comity not only recognizes the great under- 
lying unities among the followers of Christ, but it places the supreme 
emphasis upon doctrine that is essential to the regeneration and sal- 
vation of the soul. The personality and power of the Holy Spirit ; the 
supernatural birth, the atoning death and the glorious resurrection 
of our Lord Jesus Christ; the offer of God's pardoning mercy to peni- 
tent men through the blood of the everlasting covenant ; and die hope 
of a blessed immortality through faith in the one Divine Saviour ; 
these constitute the burden of the missionary's message, whatever the 
denominational name he bears, whatever the Board that sends him out, 
and whatever the people to whom he goes. The preaching of Christ 
and Him crucified to a lost world, is the primary motive in his 
consecration to missionary service, this is the paramount aim of all 
his toil and self-denial, this is the first, and second, and third item 
in the good news he carries across the seas and over the mountains. 
He ever keeps in mind the fact that the cross of Christ is far higher 
than any denominational standard, and overshadows them all, his own 
not excepted ; that personal faith is more essential than forms, and 
polities, and administrations, and that " blood is thicker than water." 
And so he exclaims with the first great missionary to the Gentiles, 
" Notwithstanding, every way Christ is preached, and I therein do re- 
joice, yea, and will rejoice." 

There is time only to suggest a few practical applications and 
proper limitations to the spirit of missionary comity. 

1. All branches of the same general church division, and all de- 
nominations in which a union could be effected without the surrender 
of any faith or practice that is held to be vital, ought to unite their 
work when prosecuted on the same mission field. It seems not only 
unnecessary, but culpable, to transplant and perpetuate divisions 
which have resulted from circumstances which have long since passed 
away or from the laying of emphasis upon unimportant matters. 

2. Where a field has already been taken possession of by one mis- 
sionary body, that body should have the exclusive right to cultivate it, 
no matter how accessible and attractive the field, or how rich the 



SPIRIT AND LIMITATIONS 235 

promise of the harvest. Great centers of population, too large for any 
one society to compass, and large enough for the representatives of 
two or more societies to enter without danger of friction, may be ex- 
empted from the operation of this rule. 

3. In entering upon new territory there may be, there should be, an 
amicable division of the field, a careful and friendly drawing of the 
boundary lines, not for the sake of restricting missionary activity, but 
for the sake of extending the preaching of the gospel, of scattering 
more widely the seed of the kingdom, and of bringing more speedily 
under Christian cultivation the barren wastes of the heathen world. 

Our niotto as missionary bodies may often be : " Divide that we may 
conquer, scatter that we may increase, separate that we may com- 
pass." 

But if so be that any society, by reason of limited resources or the 
pressing demands of its other fields, finds itself, or is found, unable 
to cultivate the new field, the responsibility for which it has assumed, 
it may ask for aid or surrender its claim. Missionary comity must 
not long be allowed to hinder the carrying of bread to the starving, or 
water to those who are dying of spiritual thirst. Government grants 
of land are conditioned upon their being occupied and improved. 
Missionary titles are invalidated by continued neglect. 

4. Among missionaries of different societies occupying the same 
or adjacent fields, the common love for Christ and the supreme regard 
for the coming of His kingdom which that love engenders, will 
prompt to frequent conferences, in which the interests of the common 
work shall be frankly and fully considered, and all matters which 
might lead to friction, and about which there is any possibility of 
misunderstanding, shall be examined in the spirit of prayer and in the 
holy light of Christ's radiant presence. His spirit regnant in the 
hearts of His disciples will not only preserve peace and harmony, but 
will give birth to mutual helpfulness, charity, concession when neces- 
sary, and uninterrupted good-will. No problems are conceivable 
which this spirit has not power to solve. 

It should be understood that union and concession are to be ex- 
pected only so far as they involve no surrender of truth that is con- 
scientiously held. Comity can never demand disloyalty to conviction 
or the violation of conscience. It has its limitations at this point. It 
is the business of comity to discover a modus vivendi, when convic- 
tions are divergent. To grant to others the same rights of conscience 
and of private judgment that we claim for ourselves, and still to love 
them, and honor them, and rejoice in their successes, that is comity, 
that is liberality, that is Christianity. 

Missionary comity also makes allowance for a possible honest 
change of views among missionaries and native converts and workers. 
Such changes are not frequent, but they do sometimes occur, and if 
not rightly treated, are likely to produce alienation and lack of con- 
fidence and Christian esteem. 

This has no reference to those native converts who are under dis- 
cipline or have been dismissed for cause, and who offer themselves 
for membership in another communion, or to those cases of professed 
change of views brought about by unworthy means, it may be by a 



236 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

money consideration. Missionary courtesy and Christian honor pre- 
scribe the same course of action in all such cases. 

A young woman finds it conducive to her happiness and her in- 
creased usefulness for Christ to marry into another fold. A young 
man, in whom a missionary society has largely invested, and from 
whom it expects corresponding returns, under a change of view and 
consequent conviction of duty, seeks fellowship and service in another 
society. How shall such cases be treated? What has missionary 
comity to say? Shall it demand that the society which gains a new 
helper shall reimburse the society which suffers loss, for the expense 
of outfit, and passage, and salary during the time of preparation and 
comparative inactivity? That has been thought right and equitable, 
though it is not easy to determine the fair amount of the reimburse- 
ment. 

Besides the underlying unities of our evangelical faith, there is the 
indestructible tie of a common obedience to Christ's last commission, 
and a common purpose to help on, in some way, and in every way, the 
evangelization of the world, and a common fellowship and partner- 
ship in this glorious enterprise. Christ is not divided. His plan in- 
cludes all workers. 

And in God's good time, when the work of Christian missions shall 
be accomplished, when the kingdoms of this world shall become the 
kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, that beautiful exotic, which 
we call Christian comity, will ripen and flower, in its native atmos- 
phere, into the perfect oneness of faith, and life, and service of all 
God's redeemed children. 

Rev. F. p. Haggard, Missionary American Baptist Missionary 
Union, Assarn.^ 

Since coming to this place I have received a letter from a business 
firm in the West, upon the envelope of which I v/as addressed, " care 
of the ECONOMICAL Conference." Can we not, ought we not, con- 
fidently to expect that this gathering shall prove to be just that — the 
expenses connected with it being money wisely used in helping us to 
a clearer vision of the fields already white for the harvest, and a 
closer sympathy and fellowship with that Holy Spirit who never has, 
and never will, lead us astray in the cause which concerns Him far 
more than we are capable of being concerned. 

In our hasty summary of facts, let us not forget these principles : 

First. Any territory really occupied can not — in fact, ought not — 
to be divided. 

For example, if the American Board, or the representatives of the 
American Board, or the churches which have grown up as the result 
of the labors of those representatives in the Hawaiian Islands are re- 
ally occupying those islands in an adequate and effective manner, it 
would seem to be unwise for other societies or organizations to crowd 
in there — at least so long as multitudes of other fields are still un- 
entered. 

Second. Concerning territory as yet unoccupied, I think our mis- 
sionary societies have already demonstrated their willingness, desire, 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



SPIRIT AND LIMITATIONS 237 

and ability carefully to consider, devise, and actually carry out plans 
for division of, and harmonious work in such territories ; and these are 
remarkable for the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of true comity dis- 
played. 

Third. Without approving the theory that we should hasten to 
all the nations simply for a witness, it must be self-evident that the 
spirit of the gospel teaches us to make haste in the proclamation and 
spread of the truth, and this can be accomplished best by a proper 
division rather than a duplicating of our forces. 

Fourth. It must also be evident that this is a question in which 
no hard and fast rule can be established. " The Holy Spirit in Mis- 
sions " is more than a mere phrase. It is conceivable and quite possi- 
ble that He may ignore any geographical lines we may lay down. 

Fifth. We must not forget that while this is a conference on for- 
eign missions, many of the principles discussed and policies approved 
are equally applicable to the work in our home fields. If there should 
be a comity abroad, there should likewise be a comity at home. We 
must not be impatient with the brethren in distant lands if they do 
not at once attain to that ideal condition in this respect which we do 
not even approximate here. 

In the Thirteenth Ward in the city of Boston there are 26,000 peo- 
ple without a church, while in the Eleventh Ward, the aristocratic 
Back Bay district in the same city, there are only 25,000 people, with 
thirty-three churches. 

Rev. Dr. A. Schreiber, Secretary Rhenish Missionary Society, 
Barmen, Germany* 

What I have to speak is not in my own name alone, but in the 
name of our German mission people ; we want to complain a little bit 
about some lack of comity. I am quite of the opinion that it is true, 
what we have heard this morning already two or three times, that out- 
side in the fields of mission work there is much more comity to be 
found than at home. I suppose it is true that charity ought to begin at 
home, and not alone that, but that comity ought to begin at home also. 

I make bold to give only two hints. There has been an old wish 
with us in Germany that all missionary boards, in England as well as 
in America, might be good enough to make a clear distinction between 
proper mission work among the heathen, and evangelical work among 
Italians, and in Spain and Austria, and other parts of Europe. We 
do not oppose in the least such work, but what we are a little afraid 
of is that by mixing these things up, by and by you will go so far 
that you will consider also the v/hole of Germany as heathen country. 

I do not care anything about the map ; never mind the map, if they 
only understand Germany as really a Christian country. I am not 
going to tell you the names, but I could give you the names of very 
prominent men here in America who have put Germany into the same 
line with any heathen land, and are sending out people to Ger- 
many to convert the heathen Germans. Now, dear friends, I only 
protest against that and remind you that Germany is the land from 
where Luther came, and I remind you that during tlie whole century 

•Carnegie Hall, April 26. 



238 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

there have been lots of theological writers in Germany whose works 
have been translated into the English and read by thousands in Eng- 
land and the United States. I know that. All I say is this, please ; I 
should like very much indeed if these boards would send many men 
to Germany, not as missionaries, but just to come to see us, and I 
assure you we will do our best to give all those people the same nice 
reception as we have known here in this city and in this land. 

One word more and I have done. About a year and a half ago I 
was going out to East India and to China, and on board the vessel 
there were with us about sixty mission people, male and female, from 
fifteen different denominations and associations, and there were also 
with us four Roman priests, who I fancy were very curious to 
know how we were getting on. Well, v^^e went on beautifully ; we 
had every day our prayer-meetings, and they couldn't see the least 
failing of the link between us. Now, my dear friends, all of us are 
also in a great ship going on together for a little while to meet our 
Lord, and when we meet Him He will ask us all, Have you been quar- 
reling on the way ? 

Rev. Paul de Schweinitz, Secretary Board of Missions Mora- 
vian Church, Bethlehem, Pa.-^ 

The topic this morning gives me an opportunity to say something 
that has been in my heart ever since Monday evening. 

The unstinted praise which has been heaped on the Moravians dur- 
ing the progress of this Conference and by every one of the kind 
speakers on Monday evening, has almost overwhelmed us, and I feel 
as though I must endeavor to say something in return. 

We do not desire this praise for ourselves, but accept it as unto the 
Lord. Now, it is true, as perhaps some of you have heard and others 
not, that for every fifty-eight communicants at home we have a for- 
eign missionary abroad. But it would be utterly impossible for us 
to do that and to carry on our work if it were not for the support 
of Christians of other denominations. 

Now, should you bear with me, I want to give you three or four 
concrete cases. I understand that in one of the sectional meetings 
one of the missionaries from Australia was constrained to be dis- 
couraged about the work there ; but will you look at that little penin- 
sula there on the map to the north from North Queensland ? There 
we have a work among the aborigines, begun only a few years ago, 
and which has been marvelously blessed of the Lord. The mission- 
aries are all Moravians, but evciy cent of the cost of that mission is 
borne by the Presbyterians of Australia, and I want them to have 
some of the honor and glory of men, and, I hope, of the Lord. 

My dear brother here who has just preceded me will bear me out 
when I say that on the continent of Europe there are thousands and 
tens of thousands of members of the state Churches of Germany who 
most generously and liberally contribute to the support of our Mo- 
ravian missions, but I can not, from memory, give you the exact fig- 
ures of the amount they have been giving us. And it gives mc great 
pleasure to say also, in my official capacity, that even in this country 

* Carnegie Hall, April 26. 



IN HIGHER EDUCATION 239 

where there is such a wonderful division of boards and churches, I 
have received contributions in small sums from Congregationalists, 
from Presbyterians, from Lutherans, and it gives me great pleasure, 
indeed, on this occasion to return public thanks for this wonderful fra- 
ternal spirit which has been shown unto us. We certainly believe in 
missionary comity. Well, I wish to say also that we try to practice 
it for the benefit of our other brethren. We have never in our whole 
missionary history of 168 years occupied a field already occu- 
pied by some other board. There have been two or three fields where 
the same kindness has not been shown us. When we reach the con- 
clusion that some other board can do better than we can, we are will- 
ing to withdraw. One of our most historic fields, around which clus- 
tered some our most precious recollections, is the work in Green- 
land, where we have been laboring for 167 years, but we have become 
convinced that another church, at this juncture, can carry on that 
work better than we, and at this present time, or, in the month of 
May, at least, the negotiations will perhaps be brought to a prelimi- 
nary conclusion which will turn over that entire field of labor to the 
Danish Lutheran Church. That is practical Christian comity. 

Comity in Higher Education 

Rev. F. F. Ellinwood, D.D., Secretary Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions, Presbyterian Church in U. S. A., Neiv York* 

Assuming that in regard to the importance of academic and col- 
lege education all are agreed, we urge that the aggregate of its 
efficiency and power may be greatly increased by practical comity 
and co-operation. Instead of four or five colleges in the same 
field, one strong institution, broad enough to admit of pupils of 
all Protestant denominations, ought to be possible and feasible. In 
favor of this, we have the example of our old-fashioned American 
colleges. They were founded by one denomination or another, 
hut were broad and catholic enough to admit pupils of other de- 
nominations without any attempt to proselyte them or render them 
less serviceable to their own churches. 

Every missionary college should be, first of all, Christian. Clearly, 
and without compromise, it should be consecrated to the service 
of Christ and His kingdom, and we believe that experience has 
shown that, both here at home and on the mission fields, those col- 
leges which have a vital and responsible relation to some Chris- 
tian denomination or society, have best maintained this high re- 
ligious character. 

Too great emphasis can not be placed upon the opportunity 
which such an institution offers for direct and sustained influence 
in leading the most select and hopeful youth to Christ. The 
bazaar or the preaching-tent, however thronged by miscellaneous 
and ever-changing multitudes who, perhaps, hear the gospel but 
once, is not to be compared in opportunity with an institution in 
which for weeks and months, and even years, bright and intelligent 
minds, young and plastic hearts are brought under the influence of 
the labors, and example, and prayers of earnest missionary teach- 

^ Central Presbyterian Church. A-^ril 26. 



240 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

ers. In an institution, of whatever denomination, in which such 
positive spiritual influence should be exerted, other missions would 
doubtless be glad to place their youth for instruction, and would 
help to support it by their prayers and influence. Should such a 
state of things exist, what a blessing would be secured to the hearts 
of all the missionaries, what an effective example to native Chris- 
tians, what an object-lesson even to the most critical outside ob- 
servers. 

Two questions here emerge : First, could this work be done 
without necessarily proselyting the students and so winning them 
over to the denomination under whose auspices they were being 
trained? This ought to be possible; and fortunately, we are able 
to cite actual illustrations in the missionary history of recent years. 
Thirty years ago a notable work in the training of native preachers 
and teachers in the Arabic language was carried on by the saintly 
Calhoun, at Abeih, Syria. For years most of the teachers and 
preachers of all Arabic-speaking missions were trained at that in- 
stitution, and we have to learn of the first instance, if any ever oc- 
curred, in which a student was drawn away from his own church or 
mission. The College of the American Presbyterian Board at 
Tung Chow, China, has had a similar history. Of the many preach- 
ers and teachers who have graduated at that institution, probably 
a majority have gone into the service of other missions. It has, 
to some extent, furnished the faculties for the colleges of other de- 
nominations. And this service has not been confined to those who 
had been sent from other missions. As a rule, they were the chil- 
dren of the mission that educated them. 

The second practical question which arises here relates to the 
fair business principle of compensation. In the instances above 
named, the teachers and preachers who have gone forth to other 
than their own denominations have been a clear contribution to 
those whose service they entered. For the years of training which 
had been expended upon them, no compensation was received or 
asked. In some cases students have been carried through ten or 
twelve years of study and then handed over to another mission 
for a life service. And there have been some serious infelicities 
along this line. In instances which might be named, this diversion 
of graduated students has been stimulated by the fact that higher 
salaries could be secured by seeking employment in other missions. 
This not only deprived the mission by which they were trained, of 
their services, but it had the effect of demoralizing its whole native 
force with a desire for advanced salaries. 

Another species of injustice resulting from this state of things 
has appeared on the home side of the work. Comparisons are 
often made of the number of converts gained by different missions 
in proportion to the expense, or, as it is sometimes expressed, the 
cost per convert. In a certain instance a mission expending large 
amounts in higher education and furnishing ready-made preachers 
for other missions which were thus enabled to devote their re- 
sources to evangelistic work, was placed in disparaging contrast 
with these sister missions in the proportion of converts to the out- 



IN HIGHER EDUCATION 24I 

lay, or what its constituents and supporters might call the spiritual 
quid pro qiw. 

At this point, the question of comity in education comes into 
close relations to comity in the support of the native ministry and 
the employment of native teachers. If the missionary business — 
to speak of it as mercenary natives are sometimes tempted to think 
of it — if the missionary business is understood to claim better pay 
in one mission than in another, that fact is sure to be known in all 
the educational institutions, and to create an unhallowed ambition, 
and sooner or later a dominant worldly spirit. Nor is this all. 
This mercenary thrift will probably end in a desire for greater pay 
than any mission on the field can ofTer, and the enterprising student 
will appear in New York for a campaign of church collections 
which shall enable him to so far denationalize himself that he may 
return to his countrymen as a foreign missionary on a full mis- 
sionary salary. May the time never come when educational in- 
stitutions on the mission fields, like our colleges and seminaries 
in this country, shall be appealed to for their respective bids for 
the privilege of educating young men who are desirous of securing 
the best possible terms. 

The evil of overbidding is equally apparent in cases where, for 
the want of established institutions, a missionary is striving to pre- 
pare men for work by private instruction. Within the last month 
a complaint has been received from a missionary who was striving 
to train his young men in the principles of wise economy and self- 
help, but who had the misfortune to see two of the brightest men 
drawn away to another mission which gave them employment as 
helpers. Thereupon, others were anxious for employment. 

On the supposition that the general principle of comity or re- 
ciprocity is to be greatly extended, and the overlapping of mis- 
sionary work is to be avoided in the interests of general economy, 
some mutual understanding should be had by which the burdens 
and expenditures shall be equally adjusted. This may be done 
sometimes by a principle of reciprocity, or what might be called 
missionary barter, as between different lines of institutional work. 
One mission having its educational plant well established may ren- 
der this service to another, and that other may reciprocate in the 
line of medical care of missionaries. A third may have established 
a printing-press whose work may be an offset to educational .vork. 

In a few instances, something like this has actually been carried 
into practice. In many cases the payment of a fair cash tuition 
fee might be the simplest plan. We would not mar the beauty 
and disinterestedness of missionary service by applying too strictly 
the principle of business exchange, but if this work is to be organ- 
ized and developed upon a large scale, and for the aggregate good 
of all, some equable principles of reciprocity will be found con- 
ducive to the highest efficiency, the greatest harmony, and the 
noblest standards of disinterested character in the native Christians. 

It is perhaps doubtful, as has already been hinted, whether in 
theological training these principles of comity could be carried out. 
Each denomination has some particular views with regard to doc- 



242 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

trine and ordinances, or church order, which it feels constrained 
to emphasize. But in the academic and collegiate grades of edu- 
cation, exchange may be, and as shown above, actually has been 
found entirely practicable. It were not wise to occupy our atten- 
tion with plans which are ideal but scarcely practicable. It is bet- 
ter to consider what may reasonably be done. It would be im- 
possible to establish by the vote of a great ecumenical conference 
any general compact looking to comity along the lines here dis- 
cussed, nor could we by any means whatever bring about a united 
efifort, of all missions employed in a particular land or district, in the 
maintenance of any one educational institution even to the extent 
of patronizing it. The movement, if entered upon, must be grad- 
ual. Let any two missions which are nearest akin in doctrine or 
order, make a beginning. The principle, once established and com- 
mended by practical success, will naturally extend to a wider range 
of co-operation. Certainly, those which represent substantially 
the same denomination, might unite in the practical economy which 
has here been recommended. It is said that in India there are no 
less than fifteen different Presbyterian bodies at work, in some 
cases in near proximity to each other. In other fields are per- 
haps, perplexing varieties of Methodists or Baptists. In these 
cases certainly, fair opportunities present themselves for the prac- 
tical work of comity. In Japan various Presbyterian bodies are 
working together so far, at least, as to establish and to foster one 
organization essentially Presbyterian. In college education, 
however, only two of these denominations share in the financial 
burdens. Without multiplying institutions, might there not be a 
general co-operation in bearing, at least, some part of the expense 
by a fair adjustment of fees or contributions? 

We have thus far, in dealing with the problems of higher edu- 
cation, advocated the principle of support and distinct control of 
colleges on the mission fields as weU as here at home, as being most 
conducive to compactness, directness, and efficiency of manage- 
ment, and as most likely to conserve a positive religious character 
and high spiritual aim. We have not favored union establish- 
ments with the mixed administration and control of different 
churches or societies. But few rules are without exceptions in 
practice, and it is possible that in some special line of educational 
work there may be need of united action. Reference has already 
been made to the fact that there is now demanded in Christian educa- 
tion in some of our mission fields, at least, as high an intellectual 
grade as those which obtain in Christian lands. 

Among the things which the Christian Church has learned, espe- 
cially within the last few years, is the fact that our faith is con- 
fronted not merely by the simple and grotesque superstitions of 
pagan tribes, but by hoary systems of profound philosophy; that 
these are not only intrenched in the pride of many generations, but 
are aggressive; the false religions of the East entering into alliance 
with the irreligion of the West, and bringing their propagandism 
to our very doors. It does not require any peculiar prophetic 
foresight to realize that the missionary conquest of the twentieth 



IN HIGHER EDUCATION 243 

century must be a great intellectual as well as spiritual struggle. 
If departments of apologetics are imperatively demanded in the 
highest educational institutions of Europe and America in order 
to meet the assailments upon our faith which appear in popular 
literature or the academic teachings of modern philosophic specu- 
lation, they are no less necessary in the far East, where all the burn- 
ing questions of the day are more fully presented, and more gener- 
ally discussed by the highest classes of students. This modern 
era is not the first in which Christianity has been called to grapple 
with the elaborate philosophic systems of the heathen world. The 
Church of the early Christian centuries was confronted by non- 
Christian dialectics quite as keen as those of the Indian Vedantism, 
and by types of mysticism quite as vague and dreamy as that of 
advanced Buddhist philosophy, and there came a time when the 
fathers of the Church appealed to the learned Origen to prepare and 
publish a reply to the sharp thrusts of Celsus and others. History 
in this respect repeats itself; and in order to meet this demand of 
to-day, there should be in such mission fields as India and Japan 
at least one or more institutions under the care of those who, by 
life-long study, shall be able to explore the realms of science, the 
histories of false religions, the intricacies of ancient and modern 
philosophy — who, in a word, shall place Christian education on the 
highest level and maintain the supremacy which it has ever held. 
Busy as the diiTerent missionary organizations are with lower 
grades of educational work (and these must always hold the first 
place, and the need of this is always pressing sorely upon adminis- 
trators of missions and upon the men in service on the fields), no 
one mission can be expected to make such provision as shall ade- 
quately meet this demand. Sooner or later something of the kind 
will probably claim the united attention of all the great missionary 
forces. The time is not yet, perhaps, nor does any particular 
method present itself, but if it be recognized that all missionary 
societies alike are interested in the future development of an able 
apologetic work in some of the great mission fields, the means and 
methods will be found when sought for; and then a united effort 
in full force will be needed. Whether by common consent the work 
shall be distributed among various missions, each providing a man 
for some advanced sphere of scholarship, as has been done by se- 
lected expert translators of the " Sacred Books of the East," or 
whether there shall be some closer union of effort, as when British 
and American scholars of different denominations were chosen for 
a revision of the English Bible — in some way, we are persuaded, all 
missionary organizations will unite in placing our common Chris- 
tian faith in a position of impregnable defense and resistless con- 
quest among the nations. 

Comity in Medical Missions 

O. R. AvisoN, M.D., Missionary Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 
Korea* 

The reasons for medical mission work are: (i) To give medical 
care to the missionaries. (2) To give medical care to the natives. 

* Carnegie Hall, April 30. 



244 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

(3) To aid evangelistic work by disarming prejudice and bringing 
the gospel to the notice of those who are not attracted by merely 
evangelistic methods. (4) To train native physicians and nurses. 

For the purposes of this paper only hospital and dispensary work 
will be considered, as other kinds of work are less affected by 
comity. 

All the hospitals yet established in Korea are deficient in build- 
ings, equipment, staff of workers, and annual income. The reason 
for this is lack of funds, and the reason for lack of funds is that 
the comparative expensiveness of this kind of work makes it im- 
possible for each Board to equip the right kind of a hospital in each 
of its centers of work. For instance, there are eight hospitals and 
dispensaries in Seoul operated by nine physicians and six or seven 
nurses. 

One-half of the medical force now working in Seoul could do 
with ease and greater efficiency all the work that the whole force 
now does with difficulty and indifferent results, leaving the other 
half to itinerate or carry on work at another point. 

The present plan of separate denominational hospitals practically 
destroys all chance of financial help from the Government or the 
foreign community (other than missionary) residing on the field, 
while one general hospital, carried on in a way to commend itself 
to those who know how a hospital should be conducted, would 
command donations that would greatly relieve the demands on the 
mission treasuries. 

To my mind a very important consideration is the future de- 
velopment and support of these hospitals. There is no hope that 
the Church in this and other Christian lands will always continue 
to support hospitals in what are now mission fields, and there is no 
reason why we should expect it. Indeed, had we no prospect that 
the spiritual germ we are now introducing would have sufficient 
vitality to grow and develop a life that will be self-supporting and 
self-propagating, we might well hesitate about continuing the ef- 
fort to introduce it, so that we look forward to the assumption, 
either by the Churches or by the State, of the responsibility for the 
support and continuance of these institutions. It seems to me 
that it will be a long time before the native churches will be strong 
enough for each denomination to maintain a hospital in each center, 
and it will be a considerable time before we have enough native 
physicians and nurses trained to man so many institutions, so that 
the policy of separation is likely to be fatal to an early assumption 
of this responsibility by the native church. 

There are many incidental advantages to a consolidated medical 
work as opposed to numerous weak establishments: 

(a) Better equipment, a larger staff of physicians, and better 
nursing would make it possible to undertake a much more serious 
class of surgery and increase the probability of better results. 

(b) The presence of several physicians would make possible a 
division of the work, each giving more attention to his own depart- 
ment, and so becoming more expert and still further insuring suc- 
cessful treatment. 



IN MEDICAL MISSIONS 245 

(c) It would give more time for reading and professional study. 
If it is necessary to exercise care in sending out only good physi- 
cians to this work, it is equally essential that they fall not away from 
that standard while on the field, but rather grow more efficient as 
the years pass by. 

If a fossilized physician is not to be depended upon in this land, 
where further assistance can be so easily obtained, how much more 
necessary is it that the lives of the missionaries and the fate of this 
great work be not left to the care of fossils in a land where further 
assistance is not to be had! 

(d) It would give the physicians more time to devote to personal 
evangelistic efifort — a very necessary condition if they are to main- 
tain their own spiritual power, retain their active sympathy with 
the evangelistic work of the mission and make the medical work 
that direct evangelistic force which it should be, which it can be, 
and which both the evangelistic workers and the physicians wish 
it to be. 

(c) The presence of two or more physicians at one hospital would 
make it possible for them to take turns in itinerating without inter- 
fering with the work of the hospital, which could be carried on by 
the rest of the staff while one itinerated. This is important. 
Nothing else is so useful as itinerating in helping the physician to a 
knowledge of the evangelistic work, the hearts of the people and 
their home life, the conditions under which they live, and all those 
factors which render them prone to certain diseases, and which 
have to be taken into consideration if he is to be successful in treat- 
ment, and wise in advising. 

(/) A very important part of the missionary physician's duty is 
the education of native physicians; but this necessitates special 
study of the language, translation or writing of textbooks, and 
much devotion of time and energy to teaching. This work can not 
at all be adequately accomplished under the system of many insti- 
tutions with one man in each. 

The best medical service can be provided in strong, consolidated 
institutions, rather than in the many scattered weak establishments 
now in existence. 

Why, then, should we any longer continue the system of separa- 
tion which is so expensive and so detrimental? 

My third proposition, therefore, is the one that it is the object 
of this paper to introduce to the consideration of this body ; the 
plan of well-equipped, consolidated medical institutions requires 
the application of the principle of comity; it can only be carried out 
by combining the forces of the various boards in a system of union 
hospitals located at important centers, each furnishing medical 
service to the missionaries of the several boards, and performing 
all the functions of a mission hospital for each of the missions. 

Three methods of accomplishing the purpose appear to my mind: 

(i) The establishment of union hospitals at selected points, each 
board contributing, according to a prearranged ratio, to their build- 
ing, equipping, manning, and maintenance. 

(2) The establishment of individual hospitals at selected points, 



246 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

one board occupying one point, another a second point, and so on, 
each hospital, however, to perform in its own locality all the func- 
tions of a union institution. 

(3) The application of the principle of exchange of works. For 
instance, in a given field one board might undertake the mainte- 
nance of hospitals at the important centers, while other boards ap- 
plied themselves to the carrying on of other special lines, such as 
printing establishments, advanced schools, etc. 

The use of any one of these plans would necessitate a careful 
survey of the field, the selection of vantage points for hospitals, and 
an agreement among the boards as to relative responsibilities. 

The first one would appear to be the fairest and the easiest of 
execution, as it would give each mission representation at each 
center of work; and it would seem less difficult to determine the 
ratio of responsibility of each board in each center than to decide 
upon the relative importance of the several centers and which board 
should supply medical service to each. 

On the other hand it carries with it the possibility of dispute over 
the government of the institution. 

But the general policy of the hospital would be settled by the mis- 
sions; the policy in detail would be decided by the staff in consul- 
tation; the superintendent could be elected annually by the staff 
in council, or the filling of that position might be a matter of 
seniority. 

I am quite willing to admit that there are objections to union 
hospitals, some of which are serious enough, but they are none of 
them too great to be overcome; and the advantages so far out- 
weigh them that we may with confidence go forward. 

Another point in this subject of comity is the propriety of one 
mission making charges for medical services rendered to members 
of a sister mission. 

Let us start with the general proposition that a board is respon- 
sible for the physical well-being of the missionaries it sends out 
up to the measure of its ability to provide for it. It, then, follows 
that provision should be made for medical attendance, which can 
be done in either of two ways — by sending out a physician to at- 
tend to this duty, or by arranging with some doctor already on the 
field to do so; either method is legitimate and proper. In the lat- 
ter case the doctor will be either a missionary of some other board 
or a lay physician in ordinary practice, and, while it is quite evi- 
dent that the lav physician would rightly expect compensation, it 
is also plain that, although personally the missionary physician 
would gladly perform the service freely, the time occupied in so do- 
ing must be taken from work which would otherwise be done, and 
which his own board is supporting him with the object of having 
done, and that there devolves upon the board which thus secures 
a portion of his time, the obligation to compensate his board for 
their loss. I would, therefore, prefer to consider the question 
from the other standpoint, and instead of asking, " Should charges 
be made?" would ask, "Should compensation be given?" This 
is a much easier question to answer because divested of sentiment. 



IN MEDICAL MISSIONS 247 

Comity could be made use of either by a return of similar favors 
in another place — you attend to our missionaries here and we will 
attend to yours there, or through another department — you do our 
medical work, and we will do your printing. 

If settlement is made by a money payment, how shall the amount 
be determined? By deciding in advance either upon a fixed sum 
to be paid annually and based upon a probable average amount of 
attendance, or upon a fixed charge for each attendance. I think 
the former plan — i.e., the payment of a fixed sum annually — will be 
found to be the more satisfactory, as the physician will then regard 
those so arranged for as being under his care and will feel more at 
liberty to advise them when he sees they need advice, without fear- 
ing that his attention may be misinterpreted. 

How much should such a charge be? I think it would be fair 
to calculate on the basis of what similar attendance would cost on 
the average at home for persons in similar circumstances in life. 
I would suggest $50 gold per year as being perhaps a fair sum 
to be paid for an ordinary family, with proportionate amounts for 
single missionaries or very large families. 

Medicines had better be charged separately, their value being 
reckoned at their actual cost plus a percentage for time spent in 
ordering, and dispensing, and for inevitable loss in handling, so that 
the board supplying them may not be at any money loss in the 
transaction. 

Several minor questions in comity in this department occur to 
one's mind as he thinks over his experience. One of these is the 
basis on which the medical missionaries of one society should treat 
the native Christians of another mission. Should they be treated 
freely, or should they be charged, and, if so, how much? 

I think all will depend upon the circumstances under which they 
come for treatment, the ability of the patients to pay, and the 
standpoint of the mission with which they are connected. 

Some missions appear to hold themselves responsible for the 
free medical treatment of their converts, and in such cases the au- 
thorities will doubtless send a written request for treatment with 
such patients as they feel themselves responsible for, and then the 
way is clear — a bill to cover the expense involved should be sent 
to the mission, and it will, no doubt, be cheerfully met. 

In cases where a society not holding itself responsible for the 
free treatment of its converts has no physician in a given locality, 
its native members will be treated by whatever physicians are in 
the place on the same basis as other natives. 

Each body has a right, of course, to pursue its own method, but 
it is difficult for those who believe in making charges to meet the 
competition of the free hospitals, and it is sometimes advisable to 
waive rights for the sake of expediency. I think it is a question 
which missions may do well to consider, for it is bad policy to have 
even the appearance of competition between our hospitals. Of 
course, missionaries must become convinced of the propriety and 
wisdom of making charges before they will insist on their hospitals 
and dispensaries doing so; the writer can see no reason why mis- 



248 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

sion money, so badly needed to increase the force of workers or to 
better equip the hospital, should be used in supplying free medicine 
and food to those who are, in many cases, better able to pay for 
their medicines than are some of the home people who have con- 
tributed the money. Of course, none of this applies to the poor 
whom we must treat freely, but we shall be able to help a greater 
number of such and do it more efficiently if we receive from those 
who are able to pay some return for what they get. 

Medical education of natives is a subject that assumes a good 
deal of importance if we think of the future of the work we have 
inaugurated. It is a great work that can not be successfully car- 
ried on by one man, and, until we attain to the more desirable con- 
dition of complete comity in medical matters, this phase of it might 
very profitably be undertaken jointly by the several physicians of 
the missions at work in a given station.. 

Comity and Co-operation in Mission Presses 

Mr. Gilbert McIntosh, Missionary, Presbyterian Church, 
U. S. A., Chiliad 

I shall speak especially of China, where my own work has been 
in the American Presbyterian Press in Shanghai. 

So far as I know there are seventeen missionary printing estab- 
lishments at work in China. These are spread over ten provinces 
and are connected with eleven missions. Of these, only three, how- 
ever, take in general missionary printing on a large scale. Six of 
the remaining fourteen are practically worked as industrial de- 
partments of the colleges responsible for their establishment. 
Seven small presses are carried on under the supervision of handy 
members of missions, who find it convenient (for reasons of dialect 
and distance) to print locally part, or all, of their mission litera- 
ture. Two or three of these seven have been helped by printing 
local editions of Scripture for the Bible societies. The other press 
not referred to is that of the National Bible Society of Scotland, at 
Hankow; but while it has a good plant, a splendid output, and an 
energetic and practical management, the great needs of the Bible 
and Tract societies having their center at Hankow leave little time 
or opportunity for undertaking other work. 

The three already referred to are (in order of amount of output): 

The American Presbyterian Mission Press first established in 
Macao, in 1844, removed to Ningpo in 1845, ^^^^ finally to Shang- 
hai in i860. 

The Methodist Episcopal Mission Press, Fuchau, established 
1862. 

The American Board Press, Peking, established t868. 

Among all the seventeen mission presses, large and small, the 
greatest harmony has prevailed, the stronger and better equipped 
helping the smaller institutions. As the oldest and best furnished. 
the American Presbyterian Mission Press has had the privilege of 
aiding in the establishment of some of the smaller mission jircsscs 
in the provinces of Chih-li, Fuh-kien, Shan-tung, Cheh-kiang. 

♦Chamber Musk Hall, April 26, 



IN MISSION PRESSES 249 

Shansi, Szechuen, and Kiang-su. No dog-in-the-manger policy 
being believed in, therefore, we can more easily discuss the query: 
Where should proposed new presses be established? 

In 1891 the veteran Dr. Murdoch, the agent of the Christian 
Vernacular and Religious Tract Societies in India, visited China in 
order to make inquiries and give advice in the matter of supplying 
cheap Christian literature, clearly and accurately printed. He 
recommended the equipping of a central press at Shanghai, having 
the American Presbyterian Mission Press there as a basis. 

Missionary developments during the past nine years, however, 
indicate the inadvisability of confining publishing work to one cen- 
ter. 

The important centers of Shanghai, Hankow, Peking, and Fu- 
chau being already occupied by strong presses, new establish- 
ments could, with great advantage, be started in Canton, Chung- 
king, Hwei-ngan-fu, and Newchwang. As one mission, however, 
has under " serious consideration the establishment of a publish- 
ing house or book concern for the purpose of fostering and pub- 
lishing a distinctively Methodist literature in the Chinese language," 
the further suggestion might be made of strengthening the Metho- 
dist Press in Peking and reviving the Kiukiang Methodist Press. 
Under the present vigorous management the Methodist Press at 
Fuchau is capable of easy development. 

1. Reasons for one press only in each center. 

(a) As publishing work generally requires to be carried on with 
scanty facilities and slender resources, all waste of money must be 
carefully avoided. 

(b) All appearance of competition, and denominationalizing, and 
occasion of friction should be shunned. 

(c) Such an arrangement is in harmony with all the efforts being 
made for the economic distribution of missionary effort. The 
avoidance of overlapping and duplication can best be attained in 
such well-defined lines as hospital, educational, literary, and pub- 
lishing work. 

As may already be known, the missionary body in China works 
most harmoniously in literary matters, along certain recognized 
lines, in co-operation with Bible, Tract, Educational, Medical, 
Vernacular and other societies. Such organizations, especially the 
Educational Association of China, are glad to have approved work 
printed under the supervision of the author. Rather than undergo 
the hardship of being in Shanghai, away from regular work, amidst 
a dialect that forbids their active participation in preaching, etc., 
many missionary authors prefer to remain at their stations and 
arrange for style, alterations, etc., by correspondence. More well- 
equipped presses at convenient centers would enable missionaries 
to remain at, or frequently visit, the printing office at which their 
work is being published. 

2. Comity's claims on such central presses. 

(a) If no other press is to be started, the first established press 
ought to be adequately equipped and generously conducted, so as 
to allov/ all proper publishing facilities to the societies and mis- 



250 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

sionaries of the districts radiating from the center where the press 
is estabhshed. 

(b) Appoint two representative committees (or one possibly), the 
first to be local and advisory in the matter of management, assist- 
ing the superintendent with advice; such a committee could be com- 
posed of representatives of the missions or societies utilizing the 
press. 

The other committee would be the editorial one. As a press 
superintendent is guided by certain recognized principles, it would 
not be necessary for all work to be submitted to such a committee. 
But all work could be submitted to their judgment which did not 
fit in with such principles, or regarding which the superintendent is 
in doubt. 

3. Comity where there are two or more presses in one center. 

The central position of Shanghai and its commercial importance 
has led one or more societies to consider the advisability or other- 
wise of starting publishing operations there. One great induce- 
ment to doing so has been the fact that the press staff of the Ameri- 
can Presbyterian Mission has also sufficed for the treasury, ship- 
ping, and other business and administrative interests of that mis- 
sion. These other observant missions longed for a business cen- 
ter in some such central port, and felt the two lines could well be 
combined. In case a new press or presses (unfortunately for wider 
comity) be established where, already, there is a mission press, a 
few words on local comity and co-operation might be appropriate 
now. 

(a) There should be uniformity in charges. — There is a great 
tendency on the part of missionary printers to put prices too low. 
It takes time to realize the many incidental expenses that make up 
the cost of production. 

(b) There should be agreement as to scale of wages of native 
workmen. — It would naturally be expected that where, in each case 
the employers of labor are Christian missionaries, there will be less 
hesitation on the part of native Christian workmen leaving the 
establishment where they obtain less remuneration for the one 
offering more pay, than where the one offering more pay is a purely 
business establishment. 

It would be taken for granted, of course, that discontented work- 
men would not be employed by another mission press. 

(c) There should be agreement as to business printing and 
self-support. — As a rule, it is well, if there are sufficient mercantile 
printing establishments, to confine the output of mission presses to 
missionary and philanthropic work. The American Presbyterian 
Mission Press has followed the policy of not taking in business 
printing (excepting in exceptional cases of legitimate obligation, 
or helping mercantile presses whose type-casting and stereotyping 
resources are scanty). The idea has been kept prominent that 
the press is, or ought to be. an evangelistic agency. 

An understanding of what is meant by self-support is desirable. 
When I mention that I know of one press which received three 
grants in three years to help in clearing off financial entangle- 



NOT COMPETITION 25 I 

ments, it will easily be understood how a liberally subsidized press 
might seriously handicap another one having a higher ideal of self- 
support. 

The foregoing points are suggested by a fourteen-years' expe- 
rience of mission printing. They are not put forward to discourage 
legitimate rivalry. In the Lord's work we must strive to excel; 
but in that work should we not have the strength which comes from 
true union — a strength and union which are oftener more charac- 
teristic of the undertakings of the mercantile world than of the 
armies of the living God? 

Not Competition, but Co-operation 

Rev. Wallace Radcliffe, D.D., Washington, D. C* 
By comity we do not mean, and personally I am free to say we 
do not expect, organic unity of the visible Church. The Church of 
Christ tried that sort of thing once on the banks of the Tiber, and 
it didn't work very well. There are great varieties of expression 
through which the Spirit will declare Himself, and will show 
His most powerful and most beautiful exhibitions. I personally 
do not look for the organic unity of the visible Church as long as 
the visible Church is made up of common men and women. The 
Churches, in their long and distinct historic lines of development, 
will assert various truths that need to be asserted and developed, 
various lines of Christian life which need assertion and develop- 
ment. I believe that we are coming more closely together in a 
federated union, and I will hail gladly and help earnestly all things 
that will aid, both at home and abroad, in the assertion, and active 
assertion of what we call comity. 

What we seek for is more and more the wiping out of antagonis- 
tic ideas, and anything that tends toward rivalry and antagonism 
in the church life and church work. What we more and more must 
seek for is not competition, but co-operation, where we can stand 
shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart, recognizing differences of 
thought and differences of expression, having our own regimental 
duty and our own regimental pride, and very likely our own dis- 
tinctive regimental achievements, but marching solidly, with one 
cheer, with one love, with one aim, under the one inspiring and all- 
conquering banner of our Lord, Emmanuel; and so we are consid- 
ering to-day, very wisely, those things that will make for economy, 
that will destroy rivalry, that will more beautifully illustrate the 
unity of believers, the simplicity of our faith, the common ardency 
of our love, and will before the world set forth the fact that there is 
one Lord and one Father of us all, in Whom we all live, and move, 
and have our being. 

Rev. J. H. Garrison, D.D., St. Louis, Mo^ 
The whole world is getting closer together, drawn by many 
common interests and the growing consciousness of human 
brotherhood. Shall the Church belie its mission by resisting this 
tendencv to union? 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



252 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

Jesus Christ, foreseeing- the mighty issues of this age, prayed 
for the unity of His cHsciples, that the world might bcheve on Him. 
He clearly makes Christian unity a condition of the success of His 
mission. Shall we not recognize that fact and act accordingly? 

That unity does not yet obtain among Christians. We are 
dividing and wasting our resources at home, and confusing the 
heathen world abroad. Missionaries in foreign lands are appeal- 
ing to their boards to send them — not sectarian propagandists — 
but broad-minded men, who can preach Christ to perishing men, 
and leave denominational dogmas to the theologians at home. 
Shall we heed this request of our missionaries, seconded by the con- 
verts whom they have won from paganism? 

These facts — not theories — raise a tremendously solemn issue 
with the religious world — namely : Denominationalism, plus its ac- 
companying hindrances to co-operation, or the conversion of the 
world — which? This question should be answered by every one in 
the light of that petition which went up from the Master, from the 
shadows of Gethsemane and of the Cross : " That they all may be 
one; . . . that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." 
Let us see to it that we do not make an issue with the Master on this 
transcendent theme. 

What mighty motives prompt us to be one in Christ! (i) The 
misery, crime, and wretchedness of the great ungospeled masses in 
our large cities appeal to us in trumpet-tones to bury our differ- 
ences and make common cause against the sources of all this pov- 
erty, sin, and wretchedness. (2) The darkness and idolatry of the 
pagan world, whose population is increasing more rapidly than our 
converts, call mightily upon us to close up our divided ranks, and 
send the glorious gospel of hope and inspiration to the perishing 
tribes of earth. Every breeze that comes to us across the two 
oceans brings the pathetic cry of our brothers and sisters for the 
Bread of Life. (3) Large numbers of intelligent people in our 
own land, who are kept out of the Church by our denominational 
divisions and strifes, wait for a united Church, l)efore whose moral 
and spiritual power they would yield their objections to Christian- 
ity and surrender to the Lord Jesus. (4) The great, loving heart 
of Christ, so long grieved by our unholy divisions, would rejoice in 
the unity of His followers, and lead them on to victory. 

The signs of promise are all around the horizon. The heavens 
are red with the foregleamings of the brighter day. Denomina- 
tional walls are getting lower and men are shaking hands across 
them. Interdenominational organizations are multiplying as an 
expression of the union sentiment. Our great Captain is mar- 
shaling his forces for the decisive conflict. Men are exalting 
Christ and sinking party differences. As when, during war, the 
commanding general gathers his army corps, divisions, and bri- 
gades from different sections, and concentrates them at a given 
point, a great and decisive battle is anticipated even by the common 
soldiers, so may we not see in this coming together of the scat- 
tered and alienated forces of Christendom at the call of our great 
Captain a sure sign of an impending conflict with the powers of 



DENOMINATIONALISM A HINDRANCE 253 

darkness, which shall result in a signal victory for the cause of truth 
and righteousness? Is it too much to hope that, when the gates of 
the twentieth century shall swing open, there shall pass through, 
at least, the advance guard of a federated Church, marching for- 
ward to the music of the Cross, to subdue the whole world to 
Christ? 

God grant that it may be so ! First Union, then Victory ! 

Rev. Alan Ewbank, Missionary, South America Missionary 
Society.^ 

I wish this afternoon to say a little bit about the division of fields. 
It is not a difificvilt subject, because I intend to confine my remarks 
purely to the division of fields in South America. South America 
itself is more than twice the size of the United States. There you 
have hundreds of heathen tribes. The question is, how are we to 
divide up these tribes so that we may reach them ? 

I want to point out to you, leaving out the question whether the 
Roman Catholics are really heathen or not, that if you start away 
to the north and go right down to the south of the continent, you 
can travel in heathen lands, among people who do not know who 
God is. The whole of that Southern Continent, except the 
fringes around the edge, should be colored heathen. In one of the 
parts that is labeled Roman Catholic we have a missionary at work 
with hundreds of miles of heathendom around him. In which- 
ever direction he looks, he can go hundreds of miles among people 
who absolutely worship not only not God, but nothing at all. Are 
those people Roman Catholics? They don't even worship the 
Virgin Mary. 

Denominationalism a Hindrance 

Rev. G. Owen, London Missionary Society, China* 
It is very delightful to see the unanimity of these meetings in re- 
gard to co-operation in missionary work abroad. I have always 
myself been a warm advocate of co-operation, and I have done 
what I could, in my small way, to bring that about. But there are 
very great diflaculties in anything like co-operation in the mission 
field. First, and foremost, there is a great lack of co-operation at 
home. There is not much of this comity, of which we are speak- 
ing, here in America or across the water there in England ; and if 
you want comity abroad you must have something like comity at 
home first. Men, like sponges, will only give out what they have 
drunk in. I hold myself to be a broad-minded and liberal man, 
but I think if you could look into my mind — at least I fear — that 
you would see written over the broad-minded and the liberal the 
word " Congregationalist." And out there in China, well, we go 
there as Congregationalists, as Presbyterians, as Methodists, etc., 
and what we learned in youth, and what grew up around us, and 
the atmosphere we breathed, we take away with us out there into 
the foreign field. 

There is another thing. We have different standards, different 

♦ Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April ?6, 



254 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

methods, different ways of carrying on our work; and if you will 
leave us a certain amount of latitude and divide us a little, we will 
get on admirably together. But I am not sure that we should get 
on better abroad than you do at home if you bound us too closely 
together. One day two gentlemen entered a drawing-room, and 
they saw a cat and a dog lying side by side, very comfortably, on 
the hearth-rug, in the warmth of the fire. " Why," said one. " talk- 
about cat and dog life? Look at that picture of unity and peace." 
" Ah ! " said the other, " but you tie them together and see what 
would happen then." 

Let people have a certain amount, as it were, of individuality, 
with which they have grown up, and the denominationalism to 
which they are accustomed. 

There is also another difficulty, the fear of losing our influence, 
the influence of the individual mission over the students in the 
high schools and colleges, should they become united. You know 
young converts are very pliable, and they are apt to take the tinge 
of their immediate surroundings in an alarming way. Suppose, 
for instance, a Congregationalist sent some of his students to a 
Presbyterian college; that is, a college over which the predominant 
influence was Presbyterian. Well, the fear would be that when that 
man came back to his own mission to work he would be out of 
sympathy, to a very great extent, with the methods of that old mis- 
sion, and he v;ould become a Presbyterian really, and there would 
be an element of friction. 

Rev. E. B. Ryckman, Brockville, Out.*- 

I am not a missionary. My forty-four years in ministerial work 
have been spent in the work of a pastor; but I have been, to some 
extent, a student and observer. I have not only been delighted, 
but I confess myself somewhat surprised at the very strong, and 
warm, and noble terms in which missionaries on different fields, 
coming originally from different lands, belonging to different 
churches, have spoken of each other's characters and labors, and 
their disposition to work together. 

Proposals for union, proposals for consolidation of institutions, 
such as publishing, and education, and others, come to us from the 
field. They come first to the boards. Now, we have had hints 
to-day that in some instances boards have given a quietus to pro- 
posals for union in certain directions. Well, now, I am satisfied 
that the governing boards of the various churches and missionary 
societies are most sincerely desirous of devising and putting into 
operation the very best possible plans, the best in their judgment, 
for the promotion of the kingdom of God and for the salvation of 
lost men. I have some experience in this field, and I am sure 
that tlie boards governing our missionary societies and operations 
are not influenced by denominational considerations, especially in 
any bigoted sense, in any narrow sense. Of course, each board 
has to look after the interests of its own society, but they are not 
unfriendly to any other society. And yet, we are told that the 

♦ Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



DENOMINATIONALISM A HINDRANCE 255 

boards have looked unfavorably upon certain proposals for co- 
operation. I think that this matter has to go beyond the board, 
has to go behind the board, and that is the point to which I wish to 
speak. 

The question is, are our people, the membership of our churches 
from whom our resources for the prosecution of missionary labors 
are to come, are they as undenominational, are they as free from 
bigotry as the boards and most certainly the missionaries? The 
question is, whether the people when appealed to for missionary sub- 
scriptions would support a mission or missionary institution that 
is not purely Baptist as liberally as if it were purely Baptist; would 
their hearts be open to support a part of the work that is not purely 
Methodist as they would be if it were Methodist throughout? And 
so other churches might be mentioned. 

I think I shall have some work to do when I go home at anni- 
versary time, missionary anniversary time, to preach on this ve. / 
subject of comity in mission fields, and in mission work. I think 
we have a work to do as pastors in trying to reach the great body 
of the people over this vast continent, and I think that will be the 
result of this great Conference in this city to-day, to reach them in 
such a way as to bring them entirely into sympathy with this pro- 
posed union of work and of institution, that they may support it 
none the less heartily because it is not entirely denominational, but 
pan-denominational. 

Rev. C. S. Bullock, Baptist Missionary Society, Jamaica* 
One of the most vivid experiences and recollections of my school- 
days is attending a convention for home missions and hearing a 
man plead eloquently for a certain section of the city which was 
neglected, and he pleaded in vain. Another man followed in the 
same strain with the same result. Finally, a third speaker said: 
" Brethren, if we don't do this work the Presbyterians or Metho- 
dists will do it," and then came the money. I have wondered if 
the same thought might be the trouble in mission fields. We are 
so much wrought up whether we shall do a thing or whether some- 
one else will do it, that we are not willing that God should have the 
glory, no matter who does the thing. When shall we be brought 
to the point that we do not care what kind of crutches men use, 
what kind of gloves men wear, so long as they are able to walk 
with their crutches, or able to reach out with their hands, to rescue 
men from perishing? 

Rev. J. B. McIntosh, Wesleyan Missionary Society, 'Jamaica.^ 
In the West Indies we know somewhat of missionary duty, but 
there is much room for improvement. To the northwest of the 
island of Jamaica there are three small islands known as the Cay- 
man Islands, which are dependencies of the colony of Tamaica — 
part of them. In the island second in size, the Baptist Missionary 
Society some years ago started a mission, but five years since a 
goodly number of the people there forwarded a memorial to our 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 26. + Carnegie Hall, April 26. 



256 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

conference, asking that a Wesleyan mission should be started 
among them. Knowing the circumstances of the case and the 
population of the island being only about 600, we replied to the 
memorialists at once, saying that we considered their island was 
abundantly provided for by the presence and work there of the 
Baptist Missionary Society. 

Co-operation Practically Exemplified 

Rev. J. W. Butler, D.D., Methodist Episcopal Church, Mex- 
ico."^ 

The territory of Mexico as a mission field, when compared with 
the vast Empire of India, may seem small, or our upwards of 14,- 
000,000 people may sound insignificant by the side of the 400,000,- 
000 the churches are attempting to Christianize in China. But 
these limitations only give emphasis to the importance of the ques- 
tion under consideration, when it is remembered that in our field 
we have the following emulators in "good works": the Congre- 
gationalists, three branches of the Baptist Church, the Episcopal- 
ians, the Friends, two Methodisms, four branches of the Presby- 
terian Church and two independent missions — i.e., fourteen Protes- 
tant bodies. 

There has been some considerable overlapping of agencies, some 
waste of time and money, and occasionally some little conflict which 
has resulted detrimentally to the cause we all love and are trying 
to serve. On the whole, however, there has been a disposition in 
favor of harmonious action, and between some missions an almost 
perfect accord. Could the condition of things obtain among all 
the missions which now obtains among most, we could soon have 
an equitable and satisfactory division of territory, a cordial and 
sometimes helpful exchange of workers, and the utilization of 
schools, hospitals, and presses that would greatly hasten the 
spread of a pure form of Christianity among the millions of Mexico. 

How could this desired end be reached? 

Some would say, bring all the missions laboring in Mexico un- 
der one administration to be located in that country. Perhaps no 
plan would better please the vast majority of our supporters at 
home. Is it not a fact worth considering that the majority of the 
laymen at home who give of their means have no desire whatever 
that our denominational peculiarities be emphasized abroad, so 
long as men are really turned " from darkness to light, and from 
the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive the forgiveness 
of their sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by 
faith " in Jesus Christ? 

But if we arc not ready to enter into such a scheme, could we 
not group all these missions in some such way as the following: 

1. Unite all the Baptists under one administration. 

2. The Congregationalists and all the Presbyterians under an- 
other. 

3. The Episcopalians and the Church of Jesus under another. 

4. The two Methodists and Quakers under another. 



♦ Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April a6. 



EXEMPLIFIED IN MEXICO 257 

Would not four denominations in Mexico be better than four- 
teen? The independent missions might choose one of the four 
with which to join. Such a union would be especially helpful to 
them, and avoid the disastrous results which have attended the 
heroic labors of the lamented James Pascoe and others who might 
be mentioned here. 

But, we repeat, if one of these two schemes can not be carried 
out, we certainly can strive after perfection along the lines now 
obtaining among us. 

Let us briefly review them. 

1. Over twenty years ago the representatives of all missions 
laboring in the capital, organized a union tract society for the 
publication of such gospel tracts as would be entirely acceptable 
to all of the evangelical bodies working in that country. Since 
its first organization the society has broadened out so as to in- 
clude all Protestant missions desiring to co-operate in the circula- 
tion of gospel tracts. 

2. Later, conferences were held by the representatives of the dif- 
ferent missions in Mexico City to consider all interdenominational 
questions which might arise. After much deliberation and prayer 
it was proposed (i) that no mission enter previously occupied terri- 
tory unless it be in the case of towns having 30,000 or more inhabi- 
tants. (2) That no worker previously employed be received into 
another mission who failed to bring " a clean bill of health," and 
(3) that where joint occupancy of territory already existed, no in- 
ducement whatever should be held out to members to pass from one 
church to another. As one of the missions interested failed to 
sign the above rules, they were not considered as binding by all, 
but, we are glad to say, they have been generally adhered to by 
most of the missions throughout all these years. 

3. In the conferences just referred to, many suggestions were 
made concerning the advisability of a union college and a union 
publishing house. As a result, a meeting was held later in the city 
of Zacatecas, which was attended by representative men from sev-. 
eral of the missions, and which, after two days of earnest, thought- 
ful consideration, evolved a plan which was submitted to our home 
boards, looking to the establishment of a union college of high 
grade. The home authorities failed to concur for financial and 
other reasons. Notwithstanding this fact, the agitation of the 
matter in Mexico brought the workers nearer together, and has 
not been entirely lost sight of yet. 

4. In 1888 the first general assembly of Protestant workers was 
held in the City of Mexico, and brought together the representa- 
tives of all the missions at that time in the country. Distinguished 
representatives of several home boards were with us. The most 
delightful Christian harmony prevailed, and such questions as 
comity, self-support, school, press, and evangelistic work were 
discussed with profit to all. 

5. In 1897 a second assembly was held, when the same questions 
and the additional one of medical mission work were all under con- 
sideration. 



258 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

6. At this second assembly a committee of reference was ap- 
pointed, in which nearly all the missions of the country have per- 
sonal or proxy representation. In this committee matters of 
mutual interest are discussed, and questions of differences arising 
between missions in the field may be hereto referred for arbitra- 
tion. Happily, such questions are few. Indeed, as a rule, when 
there is a matter in dispute as to joint or single occupancy, or when 
occasionally a worker wishes to pass to another mission, the repre- 
sentatives of the two missions interested are generally able after a 
little conference and prayer to amicably adjust all. 

It is a very common thing with us all over Mexico, to hold 
union meetings during the Week of Prayer. Three years ago a 
movement was started looking to a federation of the Epworth 
League, Christian Endeavor Societies, and the other Young Peo- 
ple's Societies of Protestant churches in the land. From the mag- 
nificent convention held last June, in the city of San Luis Potosi, 
with its 340 delegates, some of whom traveled a whole week on 
horseback to reach the place of meeting, went out an inspiration 
and enthusiasm into all the churches, which abides with us still. 

In conclusion, let me cite some of the advantages which will re- 
sult from a more perfect co-operation in our field: 

(i) The robust development of Protestant Christianity, and the 
day of self-support will be hastened. 

(2) Our churches, institutions of learning, hospitals, and pub- 
lishing houses will be more wisely located. 

(3) We shall build all these more substantially and more attractive- 
ly when we do not have to multiply them as rapidly as unholy riv- 
alry sometimes suggests. 

(4) We shall secure increased influence, and consequently more 
generous support from our home constituency. 

(5) We shall make certain a greater influence with public men, 
and, therefore, have more ready protection, even than we now 
have, from the Government in time of need. 

(6) A united front will multiply a hundred-fold our influence 
against the intolerant opposition of fanatical and misguided people. 

(7) Such a front would unequivocally demand and surely obtain 
a mighty reforming influence in the Roman Catholic Church. 

(8) Above all, we as workers, would surely enjoy greater peace 
of mind, the angels of heaven would have greater joy, and the 
glorious day be hastened when " pure religion and undefiled " would 
be the atmosphere of every home, and the conscious inheritance of 
every soul in all the republic of Mexico. 

Rev. T. M. McNair, Missionary, Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 
Japan z^' 

I wish to give an instance of the beauty of practical union, and 
then to make one or two suggestions, by way of emphasis, of what 
has just been said. In our mission work in Japan, as many of you 
know, we have a union of Presbyterian bodies, but more than that, 
we have practical association in work with other than Presbyterian 

♦ Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



EXEMPLIFIED IN JAPAN 259 

bodies. Some three years ago an attempt was made to bring to- 
gether the Methodists with ourselves, or to join them, in the prepa- 
ration and circulation of Sunday-school literature. They had, 
for some years, been preparing lesson leaves, lesson series, as we 
Presbyterians had been doing; and for now two years that work 
has been joined. I just hear that the Baptists and the Congre- 
gationalists are associated with us in this work. Reference has 
been made also to publication work. The Methodists have an 
admirable publishing plant at Tokyo. We Presbyterians avail our- 
selves of it, and we are very glad to do so, thereby saving ourselves 
from establishing such an institution, and helping on the Methodist 
interests of that character. 

It may be suggested that there are conditions on our mission 
ground which are national in their character, which will foster such 
union; and if we on the mission field have the assurance from the 
boards, and more than that, from the churches that are behind the 
boards and behind us all, that such union would be welcome, I am 
very confident that the fellowship and desire on the part of mission- 
aries to harmonize their work and to avoid friction, to avoid any 
waste, would be encouraged, and definite proposals would sooner 
or later come to the Church here at home. 

Rev. Julius Soper, D.D., Missionary, Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Japan* 

I have been a missionary in Japan for nearly twenty-seven years, 
and I am glad to say that there are friendly feelings and harmoni- 
ous relations existing between all the missionaries, or nearly all 
the missionaries, in Japan. I am glad to be able to report that to- 
day. 

We all are agreed, in a large measure at least, upon these great 
fundamental principles of comity, but the great question is how to 
apply them. The Presbyterians have all united in Japan in 
one ecclesiastical organization, and so have the Episcopalians. 
We ought to have in Japan to-day only five, at the most six, 
Protestant organizations, and I believe the day is not far dis- 
tant when that will be a practical realization. But, in fegard to the 
Methodisms, all have united in having one Christian paper. That is a 
glorious beginning, and we work practically through one publish- 
ing department. But what we want at a very early date is unity; 
we need union in higher educational work and in theological work. 
We have to-day, at least, three Methodistic theological schools in 
Japan. In these three or four theological schools or departments 
we haven't to-day twenty-five students. To carry on these schools 
and to teach these twenty-five men we have to employ the time of 
at least five or six men. We could do it with at least three or four. 
I feel that there ought to be very early in Japan an organization of 
those four or five Methodist bodies. Why is it not so? That is 
the question. It is not because the missionaries do not desire it. 

The difficulty is not in Japan, but for some reason the difficulty 
Hes here at home ; and my prayer to-day is that God's Holy Spirit 

* Carnegie Hall, April 26. 



2 6o COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

may come down upon the Methodisms in the United States and 
Canada, and so influence the minds of our good brothers and sisters 
here that in less than five years we may have one Japanese Methodist 
Church. 

Rev. E. W. Parker, D.D., Missionary, Methodist Episcopal 
Church, India* 

I am a very strong believer in Christian unity, in co-operation in 
work, and in mission comity. In North India, in the beginning 
of our work, our fields were divided. The Methodist Episcopal 
Church had a field in which there were no other missionaries, ex- 
cept in one province. The other missionary societies occupied 
fields in the same way. In the large cities there would be more 
than one missionary society, but in the country usually but one. In 
Lucknow, for the six years that I was there, we had Christian unity. 
There were the Church Missionary Society missionaries, the Wes- 
leyan missionaries, the Methodist Episcopal Church missionaries, 
and every month we had our prayer-meeting together, and every 
quarter we had a meeting for consultation concerning our work, and 
we worked together in perfect harmony. It happened so that when 
we went to Oudh, the province in which Lucknow is the center, 
the Methodists had much of the field outside of the city. The Church 
of England brethren said to us one day, " Almost all of the coun- 
try belongs to you, in a way. You commenced there first, can't 
you give us part of it?" I asked, "What part would you like?" 
They said, " You yourself suggest." I suggested a division of the 
province on condition that they would take care of our native Chris- 
tians within the bounds of that field. My suggestion was perfectly 
acceptable, and we made arrangements, giving them a part of the 
field in Oudh. And they are occupying that field still, and we with- 
drew. In other provinces last year there was a field in which we 
were working among low caste people. When we commenced 
there our Presbyterian brethren were not working among that 
class of people. Last year they commenced. I said to them, 
" That, naturally, is your field. Will you take care of those Chris- 
tians, if we will make that field over to you ? " They said, " We 
will." We made over a certain portion on one side of the river 
that naturally came to them, and they are working it now. 

I believe in working in this way, unitedly and harmoniously, and 
while we can not form an organic union, and would not — for I am a 
Methodist all through and through — yet we can work harmoniously 
together in this way. In our theological school we have educated 
the London Missionary Society young men for the Hills for several 
years. They have no theological school. They send their young 
men to us, and we try our best to make them good Methodists and 
send them back to the London Missionary Society again. But 
they never have complained that we made them too much Metho- 
dists, I am glad to say. 

Still, while we can work this way harmoniously, I do not believe 
you can divide territory so that it will always remain divided. 

♦Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



EXEMPLIFIED IN CHINA 261 

When we commenced as Methodists to work among the out-castes, 
our work spread naturally, and we were the only mission at the 
time that was giving- special attention to training men for those out- 
castes and working among that people, and hence, as our work 
spread, and our people were converted, and their friends were con- 
verted over the line in another's territory, and the missions there 
were not working among that class, and they had no men fitted to 
work for that class, our work spread into the regions beyond. But 
we worked only in those places among that class of people which 
had not been touched and were not being touched by the missions 
there; and never in my experience, as I have worked among those 
people, and our work has spread over into other fields, have I ever 
touched one of the converts of another mission, or one of the 
preachers of another mission; but I have been glad a good many 
times to give them some of ours. 

Rev. Thomas W. Pearce, Missionary, London Missionary So- 
ciety, China* 

I shall confine my remarks to the subject of comity from the 
missionary's point of view, and with special reference to the field 
where my work lies. The conditions of such comity were set 
forth in a striking and felicitous way on one occasion by my friend, 
the late Dr. Wright, of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He 
said workers in the same field are like men and women climbing 
the same mountain by different paths, paths which converge as they 
near the summit. 

" Then draw we nearer, day by day, 
Each to his brethren, all to God." 

In the field from which I come, there are more than fifty mission- 
ary societies represented. And why are there so many different 
societies there? Because of the life, the vigorous, aggressive life 
in our Protestant churches. Thank God for the life that throbs 
throughout Protestant Christianity. We are thankful for the 
brethren who view Christian truth from their own standpoint, 
though their standpoint be very different from our own. And I 
am here to express my gratitude to God and to acknowledge here 
before you what benefit I have received by working in perfect har- 
mony during twenty years with brethren belonging to seven sec- 
tions of the Protestant Church. 

At every large center there are regular conferences of workers 
on the spot. Such conferences should be used to a larger extent 
to foster real unity. Their watchword should be not organic unity, 
and not uniformity; but the watchword should be true unity, the 
unity that allows of differences of administration, of diversities of 
operation, but the unity which renders impossible schism in the 
body. I would have at every one of these conferences of work- 
ers maps showing the whole field occupied and unoccupied, with 
which that conference can possibly be concerned. I would have 
an_ intelligence committee show by flag-markings not only the 
principa l stations and out-stations, but the theological schools, the 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



262 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

itinerations of colporteurs. Every worker in that field should have 
his place on the map, and I would have such maps accessible at all 
times, especial attention being called to them at the general con- 
ference of missionaries on the spot. I feel sure that information, 
clear, and accurate, and full, set forth in the way I suggest, would 
lead to further co-operation in itinerancy and evangelistic work. 
I may say that I have itinerated with missionaries belonging to 
nearly all the seven sections of the Christian Church to which I 
have referred, and I have found the greatest joy in such itineration 
in evangelism. 

Then, in reference to literary work on the mission field. Surely 
here is another ground for co-operation. I would have intelli- 
gence or advisory committees supply catalogues of all the publica- 
tions which can be of use with which the conference is concerned; 
not only lists of existing books, but other lists of books that are 
required to supplement the existing literature. Surely, this action 
would avert some overlapping, a multiplying of books that are not 
needed, when so many good books are so needed to forward the 
work of that particular mission. 

Then education affords another point of contact where workers 
can work harmoniously together in a useful activity. I have the 
honor to be associated with the London Missionary Society at the 
Hong Kong station. We have no training-school for native 
agents, for young men whom we wish to train for the ministry. 
Our way during the last twenty years has been to send such young 
men to be trained at the Lutheran Mission College, and other 
young men to the American Presbyterian College in Canton. Now, 
I have to testify that the advantages to our own mission of this 
course of action are so manifest that I do not think we could have 
had more satisfaction had we trained the men ourselves. The 
men are not preaching Lutheranism or Presbyterianism. We find 
them efficient workers, at least as efficient as we could have hoped 
to find them, had we trained them ourselves. This is a very prac- 
tical matter, and here, certainly, we may find a common ground. 

Then I know something about the working of hospitals, medical 
missions, of opium refuges, of foundling houses, of asylums for the 
lepers, of various Christian philanthropic agencies in the mission 
field, and I say that where these are worked by two or more socie- 
ties in union, the better it is for the work that is done in these 
philanthropic institutions. I do think that this branch, this 
sociological branch of our mission work, affords the best oppor- 
tunity for union without the sacrifice of principle. You know, I 
dare say, if not, I can tell you that in China a large portion of the 
funds that maintain such institutions as I have referred to, are col- 
lected from the non-Chinese communities, from the Chinese com- 
munities, too, but from the foreign communities on the spot. Such 
institutions as hospitals, and foundling houses, and asylums of vari- 
ous kinds appeal much to the sympathies of our foreign country- 
men at the coast ports where missionaries live. Now T venture 
to think that this appeal would be greatly strengthened if these in- 
stitutions were worked by the different missionary societies in har- 



EFFECT ON THE PEOPLE OF THE FIELD 263 

mony. Here, certainly, is the possibility, a large possibility. My 
own strong opinion is that many laymen who give liberally to 
Christian missions do not care much by which society the world is 
evangelized, or any part of the world is evangelized, so long as it is 
evangelized. I think that many of our best subscribers to mis- 
sions have their hearts set on seeing Christ's work done and well 
done, but I do not think they are anxious to have that work done 
specially by one society or by another particular society. 

In conclusion, sir, I wish to touch another practical point. I 
think a home board might say to a young missionary going to the 
field : " Now you must enter into the closest possible relationships 
with the best workers of every society represented in your field. 
You must cultivate the acquaintance with the missionary specialists 
on the spot." There are men in every large center who are spe- 
cialists in evangelistic work, men who are specialists in educational 
work, others who are specialists in literary work. Surely, a young 
man might be instructed to seek to know such men, to get all the 
help possible from such men, and it might become a kind of un- 
written law in the mission field that men of light and leading, men 
whose experience is large, who are in every way qualified to do it, 
should devote at least a small part of their time to helping the 
young man, to showing him how mission work should be done as 
the result of their long, varied experience; and then, I think, in 
conclusion, the bonds of union would be formed at the outset of 
every young missionary's career, such bonds as would be strength- 
ened as the months and years went by and he tested by experience 
the value of the help given to hun by the older missionaries. Then 
I think, sounder lines would be adopted and better traditions would 
grow up at every mission station. 

Comity and the People of the Field 

Rev. Thomas Barclay, Missionary, Presbyterian Church in 
England, Formosa.^' 

I think we shall certainly agree that the subject is a very impor- 
tant one and one that deserves much careful consideration. I would 
just like to say, however, that it is, perhaps, well to enter a cau- 
tion here lest we should be misunderstood and lest the Church and 
the world should gain the idea that the want of comity and co- 
operation is at present very great in the mission field, and acting 
very disastrously upon our mission work. I do not think that is 
the case. No doubt our mission work does sufifer for want of this 
comity and co-operation, and, no doubt, not to the extent that we 
might believe, and it would be a pity if you or others should gather 
from the amount of time given to its discussion, that it is a very im- 
portant and critical question. Especially, I think, we are apt to 
be misled by what we hear of the effect of this want of comity on the 
heathen world. We sometimes have it put to us as if they were 
very largely hindered by the presence among them of warring sects, 
each of them Christian, intent on making their own proselytes and 
spending their time in misapprehending one another. You do, 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 26, 



264 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

sometimes, hear of a Hindu or a Japanese who makes this objec- 
tion, who says, if the Christians were only agreed among them- 
selves, he himself would become a Christian also. Now, in any 
case where I hear such an objection, I always think to myself, this 
is not a real reason for his not becoming a Christian, only an ex- 
cuse, only something he has got hold of to ward off a more than 
usually earnest • appeal to his conscience. It is an excuse and not a 
reason. 

And further, there may be a feeling that if we were more united 
the gospel might proceed much more rapidly. Well, my own ex- 
perience is as follows: Take the case of the Island of Formosa in 
which I live. That island, from north to south, and from east to 
west, is entirely Presbyterian. There is not a representative of 
another Christian church in the whole island, and, yet, we do not 
find the heathen simply pouring into the church in such numbers 
as this argument would lead us to expect. Our experience in 
Formosa in regard to comity and co-operation has been very satis- 
factory. About thirty years ago or more, our mission of the Eng- 
lish Presbyterian Church began work in South Formosa. Two or 
three years later the Canadian Presbyterian Church sent out their 
representative. Dr. George Mackay, whose work on " Far Formosa " 
deserves your careful perusal. Instead of settling down in our 
field, he proceeded at once to the north of the island, and by a sort 
of tacit understanding it became agreed that we were to work 
northward to a certain river, and he should work southward to that 
river, and that arrangement has never been interfered with, and 
we have had perfectly harmonious and helpful work in the island, 
working together in this way without any interference, one with 
another, and the arrangement has been so far satisfactory from our 
point of view. But I do not find it has had such a wonderful effect 
on the rapid conversion of the heathen as you might expect, from 
what we sometimes hear said in the other direction. 

My own belief is that this idea that the heathen are observing our 
business is very much exaggerated. We sometimes hear that in 
China disturbances are made against missionaries as foreigner^, 
because Chinese are not suthciently observing to be able to dis- 
tinguish between a missionary and a merchant; and if they are not 
able to distinguish between a missionary and a merchant, it is not 
likely they are able to distinguish between a Baptist missionary and 
a Methodist missionary. In fact, we may say one of our difficulties 
in missionary work arises from their not being able to distinguish 
between missionaries. I mean in regard to the Roman Catholic 
Church. When we go into a field where the Roman Catholics 
have been at work, we have to share in the odium and ill-feeling, 
which I am sorry to say, much of their work has brought down 
upon them. Now, if they do not distinguish between a Roman 
Catholic and a Protestant, they won't find those differences to be a 
stumbling-block, I believe. I certainly can recognize that there 
is a question calling for consideration, but my meaning is that it 
is rather from our point of view to avoid difificulties between the 
missionaries themselves, to avoid overlapping, to avoid waste of 



EFFECT ON THE PEOPLE OF THE FIELD 265 

energy, and waste of money especially. I think this is the question 
pressing at the present time when China, and, I believe, other fields, 
are open to the preaching of the gospel as never before, when we 
are calling for re-enforcements as never before, and when re-en- 
forcements are not coming, and when it is necessary for us to use all 
the forces at our disposal, and not to waste our forces in doing 
work which another can do as well as we, but rather to do what 
we can to use our forces against the common enemy. 

This question is really a home question, to a great extent. The 
difficulty lies at home, and so long as the churches at home are di- 
vided as they are, it is inevitable that they should be divided on the 
field. But I do not think the waste of energy on the field of mis- 
sions is owing to this division into different camps, as we may say, 
or into different regiments, and I do not think that the trouble 
abroad is as great as it is from similar reasons at home. There 
are earnest and loving Christians who wonder why we should go 
abroad and spread those peculiar doctrines of Episcopacy or Pres- 
byterianism, or any other church organization; why can't we simply 
bring the heathen to Christ Jesus and content ourselves with that? 
This is impracticable. You may start individual missionaries with 
such a desire, and possibly to some extent in the case of individuals 
you may satisfy yourself with that, but in the case of no large or- 
ganization can you apply it. It is not sufficient for the Christians 
in China that they should be, if I may use the expression, simply 
Christians. They must have some church organization, some or- 
ganization which shall help them as our church organization helps 
us at home. They go to the missionary naturally, who has been 
influential in leading them to Christ Jesus, for his guidance, and the 
missionary naturally — at least I would do so — the missionary being 
himself convinced as to what is the wisest form of church govern- 
ment — and if not, why do we belong to these different churches — 
will naturally advise in a certain line, and so perpetrate a distinc- 
tion. It is inevitable. What we desire is to avoid any waste of 
strength under competition. 

Now, we are not the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman 
Catholic Church has solved this question, or some such question as 
this, by supreme authority. In China, for instance, different 
provinces are allotted to the different sects into which the Roman 
Catholic Church is divided; so that I believe the province of Canton 
is served by Dominicans, the province of Fu-kien is served by Fran- 
ciscans, who are mostly Spanish, and, so in this way the provinces 
are divided. But we are not Roman Catholic. We have a dif- 
ferent life, and while we rejoice in that life, we must know there 
are certain disadvantages and certain things can not be arranged 
in connection with Protestant work as with Roman Catholic work, 
and, therefore, it seems to me that there is a great difficulty in com- 
ing to any definite conclusion as to what is wisest to be done. 
More depends on the spirit in which we go to work than any regu- 
lations which can be laid down. I believe, myself, that probably 
more could be effected by the secretaries and missionaries of the 
different societies meeting together around the table with a good 



266 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

map to decide each concrete case as it arises, than by a large popu- 
lar meeting in which the beauties of Christian union and harmony 
are dwelt upon. You have those fields where missionaries are al- 
ready, and we must recognize the fact that there are certain por- 
tions of the field where missionaries do congregate, and we can only 
trust largely to their action as Christians, even as Christian gentle- 
men, that they will come together in such a way as to forward, not 
the interests of their own sect, but the interests of Christ's kingdom. 

One thing that the Church at home can do; it certainly shouldn't 
lag behind the missionaries; it should in no case interfere to pre- 
vent union and to prevent co-operation, as, perhaps, has sometimes 
been the case. I imagine, sometimes, the missionaries themselves 
have hindered union in this way with the native Christians, who, 
dwelling together and loving one another, might have been pre- 
pared for Christianity, were it not that they were kept asunder by 
the fear that the missionaries who were the means of their con- 
version belonged to difi'erent Church organizations. 

Now, take this illustration from the town of Amoy, the treaty 
port of Amoy, and the missionary work there. There are three 
missions working there : the London Missionary Society, the 
American Mission of the Dutch Reformed Church, and our English 
Presbyterian Mission. At an early date they divided that field be- 
tween the three, and this has been observed during this whole half 
century, so that there has been very little clashing or overlapping 
between the two, American and English. From an early period 
the Reformed and Presbyterian missionaries agreed that while they 
were connected with two boards, there was no reason why there 
should be two Presbyterian churches in the neighborhood of 
Amoy, and consequently, there was only one church in the neigh- 
borhood. The critical question came when the Presbytery came to 
be formed. The question was whether there should be two Pres- 
byteries formed, one of Americans and one of English, and the mis- 
sionaries on the field, led by such great and good men as Dr. Car- 
stairs of our own mission, and Dr. Talmage of the American Re- 
formed Mission, resolved that there should not be two Presbyteries. 
Our English Presbyterian Mission gave them permission to go for- 
ward to set up one Presbytery. The American mission, according 
to their professed practice, sent out instructions that that could not 
be done, that the universal practice of their Church was to set up 
a separate Presbytery, and, therefore, that their American mission- 
aries should prepare to set up a separate Presbytery. The mis- 
sionaries altogether objected to such a course, and they wrote 
back to their board, saying they would undertake no such respon- 
sibility of breaking up what hitherto had been a united Church of 
Christ; that if the board wished there should be two churches in- 
stead of one in Amoy, they must send out some other men to do 
that work, and they sent back their resignation as missionaries 
rather than take such a step. This, of course, led to a reconsidera- 
tion of the matter, and permission was given, and the one Pres- 
bytery was set up ; and from that day to this there has been no 
breach of harmony. Later on, when it was necessary to divide 



THE CASE OF AMOY 267 

it into two Presbyteries, the division was not at all into American 
and English, but into North and South, according to the require- 
ments of the native church. Of course, the expenses are borne 
by the different boards, but the churches are one, and the native 
pastors are called indiscriminately by churches belonging to either 
mission. The statistics of the churches are published all together, 
although the home statistics are sent home on two sheets. As an 
illustration of how this works in the economy of labor, we have at 
all our centers a high school and a theological training college. In 
Amoy the two missions have united to have one school and one 
training college. The high school is under the charge of American 
missionaries, and all the boys go there. The theological training 
school is under the charge of the English missionaries, and all the 
students are trained there for the work of the ministry. In this way 
there has been much harmony, much economy, and much lessening 
of labor. It is not given to all missions to have such men, but in all 
missions, if Christ rules in the hearts of men both at home and 
abroad and we are able to sink our own interests, sink our own de- 
sires, sink our own glory as a Church, a missionary organization, 
and seek the glory of Jesus Christ, there is need of no serious diffi- 
culty, I think, in carrying forward some wise and well-considered 
plan for the increase of the comity and co-operation of our mis- 
sions abroad. 

Rev. a. Sutherland, D.D., Secretary Department of Missions, 
Methodist Church in Canada, Toronto* 

I think that more and more it is growing in the thought and feel- 
ing of Christian men and women who have had to do with the great 
enterprise of missions, that this, after all, is one of the great 
strategic points in the work of the future. We have been so accus- 
tomed to locate these strategic points in the mission field among 
the heathen, that we almost overlook those strategic points which 
are in the churches at home, and I think, when the Church has 
practically solved this question of mission comity, it will have taken 
a very long stride forward in the work of evangelizing the world. 
There are various aspects of this question of mission comity. One 
of the practical aspects of it which is continually coming up is the 
possibility by means of co-operative work of exercising a greater 
degree of economy than we have done in the past. There are so 
many open doors, so much work that we could do if we only had 
the means wherewith to do it; and the disposition is to blame in 
somewhat unmeasured terms the Christians who withhold the 
means they have which could be used to such glorious advantage. 
It has sometimes occurred to me that perhaps there is a deeper 
cause for this than we have hitherto understood. What if it be 
true that He, in whose hands is the gold and silver of the earth, 
will not intrust us with more until He sees that we are using faith- 
fully what He has already given us. And we can scarcely be said to 
be using it faithfully if we are using it on separate interests that 
could accomplish vastly more by co-operative effort, 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



268 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

The Argument of the Need of the World 

H. G. Guinness, M.D., "Regions Beyond" Missionary Soci- 
ety, London* 

Our conferences ought to make it a central, pre-eminent matter to 
forcibly present to the Church of Christ the unreached and impera- 
tive need of the heathen world. 

May I just give an instance. A dear friend of mine in London, 
a hard-worked pastor, knocked at the door of my house one day, 
and I invited him in. He invited me to speak at the new church 
he was just opening. Willingly I agreed to go. But I asked him: 
" How is it you need a new church?" "Well," he said, " you see 
my neighborhood is very destitute. The fact is, we haven't got a 
really evangelical place of worship within a quarter of a mile." He 
saw me smiling, and asked me why I smiled. I said: " My dear 
brother, I was only thinking of the contrast. I was only thinking, 
for instance, of one of our stations in Africa, on a tributary of the 
Congo. It is 800 miles from the coast." I told him I was think- 
ing of how, when I stood there and looked northward, there was 
not an evangelical place of worship for 2,000 miles. There was not 
a place of worship to the east of it until you reached the ocean, un- 
less you came a little out of the eastern line direct and touched the 
blessed work on the Nyanza Lake. There is not an evangelistic 
place of worship until you reach the waves of the Atlantic. And 
if you turn to the south I presume you would have to go down 
1,500 miles to where the wave of gospel blessing is coming in with 
the advancing civilization. 

We might divide our subject into suggestions for home co-opera- 
tion and suggestions for co-operation in the field. In connection 
with home co-operation, for reaching these regions beyond, may I 
suggest the following, the Saviour's own words: " Look on the 
fields." I understand that not only to involve study but to involve 
careful study, and prayerful study, and strategic study, and per- 
sistent study on the part of the Church of Jesus Christ and those 
who are interested in this thing; and if I might venture some con- 
crete suggestions I would say this: Let every missionarv society 
that wishes to co-operate in this holy task give itself not merely 
to report what has been done, but to report definitely what is not 
done. Let every missionary paper give a definite section to al- 
lowing the Church of Christ as a whole to understand what remains 
to be done. Let people give, say, money prizes, or what not, to 
stir up magnificent research essays on that subject. Let there be 
definite study and instruction with regard to those great unreached 
fields. 

As to finance, we have had a great Twentieth Century Fund at 
home. The Twentieth Century Fund has cut pretty deeply into 
some of the missionary work. Why should not we have a great 
fund for reaching the regions beyond? Why should not Chris- 
tian financiers say: "We will put down money for that express 
purpose." If I were a millionaire, that is what I should do at the 
present moment. 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



THE ARGUMENT OF THE NEED OF THE WORLD 269 

I feel that comity is going to be based on committee. I don't 
know whether you catch my thought, but you may view comity as 
a restrictive element. You may say: "This is my parish and you 
are not to come in here," and call that missionary comity. I be- 
lieve that the true view is a helpful, not a preventive view ; it ought 
to involve a meeting together, it ought to involve the positive co- 
operation of every society represented in any given field : firstly, in 
earnest study as to what is not being done; secondly, in strategic 
suggestion as to what might be done; and, thirdly, in communicat- 
ing to the home societies any alterations that might be effective, 
so that workers might be liberated for this great work. I will tell 
you what such committees might do. I was much struck when I 
walked in your park to-day, at the contrast that I saw between the 
trees there compared with Central Africa. I was in Stanley's 
great forest, and there the trees, oh! in what profusion they shot 
up, and the stunted undergrowth could not get any hght at all. 
The trees were encroaching on one another's domain. Take that 
most beautiful stretch of trees yonder, that avenue in Central Park. 
Ah! the trees are separated, their branches meet and produce an 
exquisite shade over the road beneath, but although the leaves 
meet, the trees are so stretched apart that there is no kind of in- 
fringement upon each other's domain. And we want to produce 
a gracious shade in heathendom, but in order for that there must 
be a separation of the trees, and in order to do that there must be 
an intelligent planting of the trees, and in order to that there 
must be co-operation in the field and co-operation at home, so as 
best to discover how those trees may graciously be separated. 

Another thing. Not only could they prevent overlapping, but 
they could suggest certain strategic steps. Look at Stanley. 
Stanley made a suggestion to the Church Missionary Society, and 
said: "Why not send someone clear out to the Victoria Lake." 
It struck the imagination, it struck the heart, and the Church Mis- 
sionary Society did it. Beloved friends, may we not believe that if 
earnest consensus of opinion and conviction could be obtained 
from the foreign field, the home society could be induced to do 
strategic and useful things? 

I believe that there can be co-operation along the line of extend- 
ing business facilities to foreign bodies. For instance, one society 
in the west of Africa wished to send out some mission to the Congo. 
We said " Go. Don't you trouble to establish missions down on 
the coast; don't trouble to put out an agent to attend to your busi- 
ness. Use our paraphernalia; use our experience, use our busi- 
ness houses, use our transport; we will do it all for you, and thus 
enable you to get into regions that otherwise you could not at- 
tain." I believe that if independent effort — and independent ef- 
fort is going to be the order of the day, you may depend upon it, 
in reaching many of these places — if independent effort would only 
consent to co-operate, I believe that a great deal could be done; if, 
instead of encroaching upon the sphere of some other society, they 
were to go, before entering the field, to this society and say : " Could 
we co-operate with you? Do you think we could be useful 



270 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

in getting into regions still untouched ? " I feel that a fraternal 
bond would be immediately formed and blessed suggestions might 
immediately take place; and I think the most practical method of 
co-operation in reaching untouched regions would thus be brought 
about. 

Did you ever hear the old illustration, written by my dear mother, 
now in heaven? She supposed herself standing in an English rail- 
way station, and saw one of those carriages charged with the lights 
that were about to be put into the train. All the lights were con- 
gregated together in one flaring mass. But now the porter has 
taken one and dropped it into its place, yet another and dropped 
it into its place, and presently the lights are distributed and the 
whole train is illuminated. Unfortunately, in the foreign field, 
there are aggregations of light that are very considerable in many 
parts, and some of us can not help thinking that conferences in the 
field would enable some of those lights to be removed, some to be 
planted in regions of darkness, and thus, to a certain extent, even 
without sending out one more worker, we believe that conference, 
or as I put it just now, committee, might form the base of comity, 
and we should be able, with our present forces, more strategically 
to occupy the enormous unreached areas. 

Conferences of Missionaries 

J. Hudson Taylor, Superintendent China Inland Mission, 
China* 

This subject is one of immense importance and great interest 
to us as missionaries. There has been so much said and well said 
on the subject that one scarcely knows what one can add to it, but 
I think that practically it may interest you to know that about a 
year ago I took part in a large conference of missionaries in West- 
ern China, in which this subject was before us. We did not con- 
sider it simply in an abstract and theoretical way. The conclusion 
arrived at was one very satisfactory. All the missions concerned 
united in forming — shall I call it a board or a committee? — to deal 
practically with this question. There are three large provinces in 
Western China — Szechuen, Yun-Nan, and Kweichau. Representa- 
tives of the missions in each of these provinces were present, and a 
united committee or board was formed to deal with this subject. 
In the first instance, they were instructed by the conference to 
study the fields, to look on the fields and see what required to 
be done. When we began practically to consider what was re- 
quired to be done, it really seemed as if it all required to be done, 
as if there was nothing done. All that we had done was so small, 
and the work as yet done so very incomplete, no place could pre- 
tend to be properly occupied. There was the most cordial con- 
currence and agreement between the missions represented, the 
Episcopalian and Methodist, and really, I am not quite sure how 
many other denominations were there. Baptists were present, and 
I can not tell how many others, for I did not ask my neighbors what 
denomination they were, and they did not ask me, and I have no 

» Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



CONFERENCES OF MISSIONARIES 27 1 

doubt that sometimes we were in doubt as to one another's relations; 
but in Christ Jesus we all felt we were one; and, with a vast pro- 
portion of the country wholly unevangelized, anything like undue 
overlapping or trespassing on one another's ground we felt would 
be waste time and waste efifort. And, we have, by means of this 
association on the spot, a board that will advise with any new- 
comers and recommend them to go where they are most needed, 
and there will be the most happy co-operation, I feel quite sure, in 
the future as there has been in the past, to a very large extent. 

During the forty-six years I have been connected with missions 
in China, I have seen sometimes very bad mistakes made from the 
absence of such a board, from the absence of missionary comity. 
It is very disastrous if native Christians get an idea that there is 
rivalry between fellow-workers, if, instead of co-operation, compe- 
tition comes in and is a temptation to those who are weak in the 
faith, to look out for the society that will pay best rather than the 
one where the services are the most needed. I am so glad that 
these things are, I believe, things of the past. I hope they will 
never occur again as they have occurred in the China Inland Mis- 
sion. Having been a pioneer mission we have had the privilege 
in many cases of leaving a field altogether when we found it would 
be sufficiently occupied by others. It truly seems to be a very 
small matter who are those who reap the harvest, if we only sow 
good seed and it is reaped. When we get to heaven we shall be 
very glad to appear together and we shall belong to one society. 
We shall all be one happy family there. 

I trust that in every part of the world the suggestions that have 
already been made will be carried out, and there will be more ref- 
erence to the work that needs to be done and can not be done with- 
out co-operation than any fear of being too thick on the ground. 
It is really very trying to travel, as I have traveled in China, weeks 
together without coming across any place where any attempt has 
been made to preach the gospel to the masses who are living with- 
out God and dying without hope. Let us bring it before God in 
prayer and look to Him by His Spirit, so to knit our hearts together 
that we shall all co-operate. I have great hope that the boards 
at home will not put difficulties in our way. So far as I have had 
personal contact with them, they have been just as eager as we are, 
and that is saying a good deal, that the best shall be made of the 
missionary staff at present available. 

Federation 

Rev. G. W. Knox, D.D., Union Theological Seminary, New 
York.* 

It is perfectly apparent that there is deep dissatisfaction with the 
present method of foreign missionary work. And there is good 
reason for dissatisfaction. It is wasteful, inefficient, schismatic, 
and needless. Its greatest fault is it multiplies agencies needlessly. 
Take an illustration from Japan. In the city of Tokyo there are 
four missionary colleges, and not enough students in them all to 

* Carnegie Hall, April 26. 



272 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

keep one faculty occupied; six theological colleges, and not enough 
students in them all for one. And in Japan, how many denomina- 
tions calling themselves Christians? Presbyterians, North, and 
South, and Cumberland; Reformed, German and Dutch; Methodists, 
South and North; Episcopalians from the United States, from Eng- 
land, and from Canada; Congregationalists; Lutherans; Christians; 
Salvation Army; Friends; to say nothing of the Romanists, and 
Greeks, and Unitarians, and Universalists. I am told that this con- 
dition in Japan is extraordinary. But this is true, that if the Church 
of Jesus Christ sends forth the re-enforcements necessary, what is 
now extraordinary in Japan will be ordinary everywhere. 

And it is ineiificient, because the differing denominations, in their 
effort to go everywhere, are unable to do their duty anywhere, and 
from the multiplication of their stations can equip no station as it 
should be equipped. Then, it is schismatic, and I will appeal to 
every missionary in this land, whatever denominational name he 
bears, if it be not true that the missionaries of Jesus Christ preach 
the same gospel, and proclaim everywhere the self-same tidings of 
one common Lord. Your missionaries do not preach denomina- 
tional peculiarities. They do not go forth to preach those things 
that divide us one from the other, but missionaries everywhere and 
always proclaim the same truth by which the Christian lives and 
for which the Christian would rejoice to die. Divisions which are 
not essential are schismatic. 

And then the present method is needless, because the other 
method is so plain and so easy. It is already pointed out. Mis- 
sionaries in Japan of differing denominational names, have proved 
that union can be effected. Four Presbyterian bodies with two 
Reformed bodies united in organic union, and three Episcopal 
bodies united in organic union, but otherwise union on the foreign 
fields has been defeated. It is possible to unite those that stand 
so near together on the foreign field, if the Church at home will 
only say. Amen. 

Then, beyond that, it is possible to unite in a federal union every 
branch of the Christian Church — in a great federal unity. Comity 
is too weak, far too weak; we must have more than that. Comity 
is too weak for the work; our faith is too weak for the unity of the 
Christ; too weak for the organic union which will come when the 
Christian's prayer is answered. Meanwhile, we can have a federal 
union of Protestant churches for the proclamation of God's truth 
to all the world. We can have it when the churches at home 
recognize three things : first, that the present method is wasteful ; 
second, that it is inefficient; and, third, that we are one in our faith 
in Jesus Christ. Recognizing these, surely we can have as much 
wisdom in the Church as the founders of our country had when 
they bound together these differing States and made in one glorious 
Union room for men who differed as much as the dwellers in 
Louisiana from the dwellers in Massachusetts. And in such a 
union as that — such a federal union — the Church of Jesus Christ 
can husband all its resources and use them best for the winning of 
the world to Christ. 



VARIOUS ASPECTS OF THE SUBJECT 273 

Various Aspects of Musion Comity 

Rev. a. Sutherland, D.D., Secretary Department of Missions, 
Methodist Church in Canada* 

In discussing the subject of Mission Comity it is not to be as- 
sumed that there is any friction between the boards at home, or any 
conspicuous lack of brotherHness among missionaries abroad. 
There are no breaches to be healed — no quarrels to be made up. 
But in the rapid development of missionary enterprise now taking 
place, and the still more rapid development that may be expected in 
the near future, it is quite possible that mistakes made in the home 
fields may be repeated on a larger scale abroad, resulting in waste 
of money, waste of effort, the retarding of self-support, and the cre- 
ation of jealousies and antagonisms among missionaries of dififerent 
boards. The conviction is evidently growing that a time has come 
when these possibilities should be honestly faced, and such mutual 
understanding reached as will obviate the overlapping of work and 
the unnecessary multiplication of agencies in fields that are fairly 
well supplied, so that destitute fields may be more quickly reached 
and occupied. 

It should also be understood that the advocates of an enlarged 
measure of comity in foreign mission work are not aiming at a 
comprehensive organic union of Protestant Churches at home, or 
even abroad, but only at such mutual adjustment of plans and dis- 
tribution of territory as will result in efficient work, rapid exten- 
sion, and economical administration. However much we may 
seek to minify the differences which separate the great divisions of 
Protestantism, it still remains true that each division stands forth 
as the exponent of certain aspects of truth which it regards as fun- 
damental; and it would not be reasonable, nor in accord with Chris- 
tian charity, to expect men to surrender even methods which they 
deem important, much less principles which they hold sacred. 

At the same time, we should not forget that there has always 
been a tendency in human nature to exalt opinion into dogma and 
to mistake prejudice for principle; and this tendency is responsible 
for not a few of the divisions so characteristic, alas! of Protestant 
Christianity When closely and impartially investigated, the 
causes which keep evangelical Christians apart shrink into small 
proportions — too small to plead as a justification of rivalry, wasted 
resources, and vast portions of the vineyard left untilled. And, 
although the time may not be opportune to introduce the large and 
complicated question of the organic union of Protestant Christen- 
dom, yet, in presence of the colossal problem of the world's evangel- 
ization, there are strong reasons why at least churches holding 
the same general system of doctrine and church order should con- 
sider whether a closer, or even an organic union, would not be in 
the interest of the work of God among the heathen. The com- 
paratively recent union of five Methodist bodies in Canada, and of 
the Presbyterian churches in both Canada and Japan, are illustra- 
tions of what may be accomplished in this direction, if only there 
be, first of all, a willing mind. 

* CameErie Hall, April 26, 



274 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

As to the desirableness of comity and co-operation in foreign 
mission work, there is now a remarkable consensus of opinion 
among missionaries, and also among leading members of the home 
boards. This indicates not so much a change of opinion as a 
growth of conviction. A quarter of a century ago it was only an 
occasional voice that could be heard echoing the sentiment of Dr. 
Duflf denouncing rivalry and pleading for comity; but this was not 
because the missionaries were opposed to a policy of comity and 
mutual helpfulness, but because few^of them had come as yet into 
personal contact with the evils arising from the undue multiplica- 
tion of agencies and the organization of rival churches. Until 
recently there has been a strange misapprehension between 
boards and missionaries on the question of comity. Boards 
seemed to think that co-operation was desirable, but impracticable 
because of opposition on the mission field, while missionaries 
thought it quite feasible if only the boards would consent. At the 
present time there need be no doubt as to the attitude of these two 
parts of the missionary force. 

Assuming, then, that comity and co-operation, in the foreign 
field at least, are both desirable and practicable, the way would seem 
to be open for a consideration of underlying principles, of the di- 
rection and limits of practical comity, and of the methods to be pur- 
sued to accomplish the best results. Among the principles to be 
kept in view are the following: 

1. That the supreme aim of all missionary effort is the establish- 
ment and extension of the kingdom of God among the heathen; 
hence, everything which does not contribute to this end should be 
studiously avoided. 

2. That in prosecuting this aim each mission has rights which 
every other mission is bound to respect, and the measure of that 
respect is indicated by the precept, " Whatsoever ye would that 
men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them." 

3. That rivalry in the Lord's work, or striving against each other 
is altogether foreign to the spirit of the gospel. " For one is your 
Master even Christ, and all ye are brethren." 

4. That wasting resources is as much to be deprecated as hoard- 
ing them; hence all unnecessary expenditure is to be avoided if we 
would escape the guilt of the unrighteous steward who was accused 
of wasting his lord's goods. 

If these principles are valid, the application of them will go far 
toward solving the problem of mission comity. They also indicate, 
to some extent, the scope and limits of the problem. But in what 
direction and to what extent is practical comity possible? In di- 
rectly evangelistic work, perhaps only to a limited extent — at least 
at the present time; missionaries of different boards have their own 
methods of working, and may not be disposed to change them; 
and each missionary, as things now stand, will feel an obligation to 
gather his converts into his own denominational fold; but this need 
not hinder — has not hindered — meetings for mutual consultation 
and prayer, nor need it hinder united effort in evangelistic services, 
and a frequent interchange of preaching between missionaries of 



VARIOUS ASPECTS OF THE SUBJECT 275 

different boards. These are measures well calculated to promote 
the spirit of comity, and would probably bring before native con- 
verts a wider range of truth than under the labors of a single mis- 
sionary. But there are other directions in which practical comity 
may be worked out in a more definite way. Among these may be 
reckoned : 

1. Printing and publishing interests. 

2. Hospital and dispensary work. 

3. Higher education. 

4. The division of territory. It should be an understood prin- 
ciple that where a town or village is so occupied that the religious 
needs of the people are fairly well provided for, other missionaries 
shall refrain from entering in; and even where there is room and 
need for additional workers there should be consultation as to the 
ability of the existing mission to provide re-enforcements; and only 
in case of its inability to do so should another mission feel justified 
in planting a station. There might also be a readjustment of 
boundaries, or even exchange of stations, when, by so doing, the 
work of God will be promoted; and when, by the union of several 
weak congregations belonging to different missions, a strong, self- 
supporting church can be formed, there should be no hesitation in 
taking steps to that end. The policy of several missions compet- 
ing for a foothold in communities where the agents of one society 
can reach all the people, is utterly without excuse, either at home 
or abroad. Then, in regard to the occupation of new territory, 
let there be frank and full consultation among the missionaries of 
the various boards, and let that mission occupy the ground which 
is best prepared with money and workers to do it efifectively. 

5. The employment and remuneration of native helpers. Comity 
demands that the agents of one mission shall not offer induce- 
ments to the native helpers of another mission to change their 
church relations, either by promise of preferment or higher pay. 
An approximately uniform scale of remuneration would hinder na- 
tive workers from seeking transfers from mercenary motives, and in 
any case transfers should not take place without the consent of the 
mission directly concerned. 

What has been said is sufficient to indicate the principal directions 
in which practical comity is desirable in the foreign mission field. 
A word or two in regard to the best methods of achieving the de- 
sired results will now be in place. In the first place, in promoting 
the spirit and practice of comity there are certain things which 
should be studiously avoided, such as: 

(a) The unnecessary overlapping of fields of labor. I say un- 
necessary, because there may be circumstances where it is unavoid- 
able. Let us take almost any province in China by way of illustra- 
tion. In that province there may be a city which, because of 
geographical position or other circumstances, is a natural center 
or headquarters for missionary effort. Besides, the population 
may be large enough for the operation of half a dozen boards. 
Then there may be other strategic points in the same province 
which must be occupied if successful work is to be done at all, and 



276 COMITY AND CO-OPERATION 

many places populous enough for several missions to operate with- 
out friction. Outside of such limitations the principle of non-in- 
trusion should be allowed full scope. 

(b) Encouraging, or persuading converts, or native workers to 
forsake one mission and join another. All such transfers should 
be voluntary and with the mutual consent of the missions con- 
cerned. Breaches of the true spirit of comity may sometimes oc- 
cur through inadvertence or lack of information, and may be easily 
forgiven, but the deliberate proselyting of converts or workers is a 
death-blow to comity and can not be too strongly reprobated. 

(c) All unfriendly criticism of the missionaries of sister 
churches or their methods of work. Nothing will more quickly 
or surely poison the spirit of comity and render co-operation im- 
possible. A safe rule to be observed is this: Of our brethren let 
us speak nothing but good. 

In the second place, there are certain things to be carefully cul- 
tivated. The spirit of comity needs to be cultivated among the 
missionaries. Some will doubt this, and be ready to indorse the 
testimony given in a missionary conference a year or two ago, 
that " among missions in Eastern Asia there is everywhere the most 
complete unity, and harmony, and brotherly kindness among the 
missionaries." If this optimistic view is correct, then this whole 
discussion is out of place. If there be no problem there can be no 
discussion. The simple fact that an important place has been as- 
signed in this Conference to the question of comity, shows clearly 
that in the minds of those who framed the programme, the prob- 
lem does exist and has not yet been solved. Perhaps the misap- 
prehension has arisen from a slight confusion in the use of terms. 
The friendliness, the brotherliness which undoubtedly exists among 
many missionaries in their personal relations with each other, 
has been taken as synonymous with that deeper and wider comity 
which stands ready not only to recognize the rights of others, but 
to adjust its own plans and aims in view of those rights. The re- 
sults aimed at can not be brought about by resolutions of confer- 
ences or instructions of boards, but if the true spirit of comity be 
cultivated among missionaries, all the rest will be easy. 

The same spirit needs to be cultivated among members of the 
boards at home. Very many of them now favor comity and co- 
operation in the abstract, but are hardly prepared for it in the con- 
crete. This arises, in part, from the fact that few of them have 
ever visited a foreign mission field, and hence, have not felt the 
sore need of a policy of co-operation. They judge largely by 
what they have seen at home, where obstacles to comity and co- 
operation have grown up through many years of denorninational 
rivalry, and they apply the same rule to countries where the condi- 
tions are very dilTerent. The cultivation of the spirit of comity at 
home would do much to promote its acceptance abroad. 

But to speak more definitely, methods like the following would 
be found helpful: 

(a) Conference between representatives of the home boards as 
to the lines on which comity and co-operation are desirable. 



VARIOUS ASPECTS OF THE SUBJECT 277 

(b) Instructions from the home boards to their missionaries, 
not only to cuhivate assiduously the spirit of comity, but by con- 
ference with other missionaries to promote the policy of co-opera- 
tion in mission work. I am of the opinion that many questions 
in practical comity could be settled by the missionaries on the 
ground without the necessity of referring to the home boards at 
all, except by way of information. 

(c) The formation in each foreign field of a committee of consul- 
tation and reference, composed of representatives from each mis- 
sion willing to co-operate; such committee to consider the larger 
questions of practical comity, such as amalgamation of small con- 
gregations, occupation of new fields, and the establishment and 
maintenance of printing-presses, hospitals, and dispensaries. The 
judgment and recommendation of said committee to be sent to the 
home boards for approval or otherwise. 

It goes without saying that a universal acceptance of such sug- 
gestions as I have made is hardly to be expected in the immediate 
future. Indeed, some may consider the whole thing as visionary 
and impracticable; but I submit that nothing has been suggested 
beyond what ought to be done, and I cherish the unwavering belief 
that what 07/0^/1/ to be done can be done, and in the not distant' fu- 
ture, will be done. That all the boards and missions will at once 
coHDperate would be too much to expect; but if even two or three 
could be induced to lead the way and demonstrate the practicability 
of comity and co-operation, doubtless other missions would soon 
follow; and if, in this way, we can reduce to a minimum the evils of 
rivalry and competition, guard against the sin of wasting our Lord's 
money, give increased efficiency to existing agencies, spread the 
gospel more swiftly in the regions beyond, unify the aims and ef- 
forts of the native churches, and demonstrate before the world the 
essential oneness of Protestant Christianity. Such results will justify 
a far larger sacrifice of denominational preferences and prejudices 
than we have yet been asked to make, and will do much to hasten 
the fulfillment of the Saviour's prayer, " that they may all be one, 
even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may 
be one in us, that the world may believe that thou didst send me." 



CHAPTER XI 

THE MISSION 

Its Organization and Administration — Relation to Native Church — Stations 
and their Location — German Missionary Methods, 



Basis of Organization 

Rev. T. S. Barbour, D.D., Secretary American Baptist Mission- 
ary Union, Boston, Mass."^ 

There is almost nothing among the marvels of Christianity 
greater than this fact: that when the Lord Jesus had bidden us to 
do so great a work, when He had said, " Go ye into all the world 
and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to do all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you," He said no more. He did 
not tell when that work was to begin; He did not tell the agents 
who should be selected for carrying the glad tidings to the end of 
the earth; He did not instruct His disciples as to the method by 
which this work was to be prosecuted. 

When Christ had given this great commission. He did say : Lo, 
I am with you, personally with you, always, even unto the end of 
the world, and that being so, we might say that, the problem 
is a very simple one that is presented in the question, How is this 
work to be done? Why, here are the two agents — an obedient 
servant, and an all-powerful Lord, always present with His serv- 
ant. He can direct him, He can lead him, disclose to him the wise 
way that he is to follow. And I think it is one of the most glorious 
testimonies of Christian missionary workers that the Lord does 
this work at times by direct interpositions; that He does give im- 
pulses that they know come from on high, and could not come from 
any human source. We may believe that He will not fail us in 
any sudden emergency. He is present to do whatsoever needs to 
be done for His servants; but it is true — and, perhaps, that thought 
needs to be recognized and emphasized — that God guides, not alone 
through impulse, but that He guides through the use of the faculties 
He has given to His children. And so to His servants there has 
been left this problem of deciding by the use of the faculties that 
He has given, and which He interpenetrates by His own indwelling 
life. It is true that " The more we connect the missionary cause 
with the person of Jesus Christ, rather than with effort and organi- 
zation, the more divine will be the inspiration for the work." 



♦Chamber Music Hall, April 34. 



ADMINISTRATION 279 

Administration of the Mission 

Rev. W. H. Findlay^ M.A., Missionary, Wesleyan Missionary 
Society, India.^'- 

It is right that the subject of mission administration should have 
in the programme of this Conference a place second only to those 
questions which regard the spiritual principles and motive forces of 
the missionary enterprise. Free lances, "independent workers " 
have no doubt done and still are doing good service here and there. 
But they must ever be the exception to the rule. The transfusion 
from Christian to heathen lands of the fullness of the blessing of 
the gospel of Christ is no simple, easy process to be effected just 
by eager and confident devotion. It is an undertaking stupen- 
dously vast and complex, and in addition to mighty faith, fervid 
zeal, patient and strenuous toil, calls for the exercise, under Divine 
guidance, of such judgment, skill, and wisdom as men apply to the 
greatest worldly concerns : to waging war, to extending commerce, 
to founding and administrating empires. History, common- 
sense, and Scripture alike indicate that it is in marshaled regi- 
ments and armies, and not by an unorganized, undisciplined horde 
that the Lord's battles can best be fought and won. 

The natural articulation of mission work seems to be as follows: 
The unit is a station, with one or more resident missionaries and 
with out-stations around it. A group of stations form a " mis- 
sion," a group of missions in the same or neighboring countries, a 
' field." A number of fields are embraced in the area of a " so- 
ciety " ; and the system would be gloriously completed, and a splendid 
unity and incalculable impetus given to the whole advance of the 
army of God, if the societies could be knit into an ecumenical con- 
federation. Would that this Conference might herald, might even 
initiate, such a union! 

I shall apply myself mainly to the question of the administration 
of the mission, asking what should be the constitution and the func- 
tion, what the duties and rights of a local administrative body 
formed and related to a group of neighboring stations. I have 
two reasons for this choice: First, that I believe the most serious 
of the remediable defects of missionary administration center here; 
and second, that in determining the relation in which the mission, 
as an administrative unit, should stand to the home committee on 
the one hand and to the individual missionary on the other, we 
settle many of the chief questions regarding both the society and 
the station. 

That local administrative bodies are a necessity in a well-ordered 
missionary organization, would scarcely need arguing, were it not 
that some societies, swayed by irrelevant considerations of 
ecclesiastical policy, have repudiated them, and tried to administer 
each station direct from headquarters, and independently of its 
neighbors. This intrusion of the doctrine of independency into a 
non-ecclesiastical sphere is to be deprecated for two strong reasons. 
The stations of a society are rarely scattered in wide isolation. A 
healthy evolution can only produce a group of stations in the same 

* Chamber Music Hall April 24. 



250 THE MISSION 

locality; so that each station has comparatively near to it a num- 
ber of missionaries familiar with it, instructed in local conditions, 
experienced in the work. That a home committee itself, thou- 
sands of miles distant, should decline to use for administrative pur- 
poses the collective knowledge, experience, and judgment of its 
own missionaries in the locality, and should choose to deal direct 
with each station on the mere representations of the missionary or 
missionaries resident on it. is a perversity hard to credit. In- 
formally, no doubt, the opinions and wishes of the mission in gen- 
eral will find expression and will influence the action of the home 
committee; but common-sense indicates, and in any other depart- 
ment of affairs it would be reckoned a truism, that such a body of 
local experience and judgment should be formally organized, and 
that the distant home committee should devolve upon it much of 
the administration of details and be largely guided by its authority 
in all matters affecting the stations. 

And the local administrative body, while an invaluable auxiliary 
to the home committee, is still more urgently called for to give 
unity to the mission. Both missionaries and home boards tend 
too much to think of the work in terms of stations rather than of 
missions, to look on the stations as independent centers of work, 
grouped into missions for purposes of description or other con- 
venience, instead of recognizing the mission as the real unit of 
operation, and the stations as its component parts. No single 
station can advance far in its history without ceasing to be self- 
sufhcing, and the justification of the grouping of stations in the 
same locality is that they may help each other and promote a 
broad Christian movement throughout a whole district, rather than 
merely plant churches in particular spots. A well-ordered mission 
is an organization in which each station has its separate functions, 
and each contributes to the progress of the whole; so that no sta- 
tion can say to any other, " I have no need of thee." It is obvious 
that for the healthy existence of a mission in this conception of it, 
a local administrative authority is indispensable. Institutions for 
the common service have to be maintained, a common policy in 
various matters of aim and practice to be enforced, apparatus to be 
provided for various forms of mutual help and for combined opera- 
tions beyond the strength of a single station. Objects such as 
these can only be compassed by organizing the mission under a lo- 
cal administrative authority with not inconsiderable powers. 

Taking it as proved, then, that there should be a local authority 
to administer the mission, I go on to discuss various questions re- 
garding this authority: 

I. What should be the area of a mission? How many stations 
should it embrace? These questions must, of course, be very vari- 
ously answered according to varying circumstances, but a limiting 
consideration at either extreme may be indicated. On the one 
hand, the number of stations grouped into a mission should, if pos- 
sible, be large enough to provide an administrative board superior 
to personal bias, or to the influence of single strong stations. On 
the other hand, the area should not be so large, or embrace such 



ADMINISTRATION 2 51 

heterogeneous conditions of life and work, that the members of 
the administering body can not be in inteUigent and sympathetic 
touch with all that they have to administer. Where the number 
of missionaries in a locality exceeds, say, forty, it would probably 
be best to organize two or more missions in the locality, and then, 
for certain purposes, to group the missions into a field. 

2. What should be the constitution of the local administrative 
body of a mission? The practice of the societies affords some 
singular answers to this question. Here, a single missionary is 
autocrat of the mission ; there, every missionary, old or young, man 
or woman, ordained or lay, has an equal voice in the administra- 
tion. In one mission the committee comprises all the ordained 
ministers, foreign or native, and no laymen, foreign or native; in 
others it is confined to foreigners. In nearly all cases the settle- 
ment of the question has been influenced by an extraordinary mis- 
conception — the error of assuming that considerations of church 
polity should govern mission polity. The student of varieties in 
mission administration finds that in Congregational societies the 
tendency is to give independency to the missionary on his station, 
in the Methodist body, to subordinate everything to the connec- 
tional principle, and so on. Now it is natural, and on many 
grovmds desirable, that when native churches begin to appear they 
should be organized according to the polity of the church by whose 
efforts they have been planted. But there is no reason why mis- 
sion work proper should be regulated by the same principles. 
There may be excellent and scriptural reasons why one church 
should not be under the authority of another, but they are all irrel- 
evant to the relations between mission stations; for a mission sta- 
tion is as unlike a church as a military camp is unlike a township. 
Synods, conferences, presbyteries, diocesan courts may all have 
much to say for themselves as ecclesiastical institutions; but this 
gives them no status whatever upon the mission field until indig- 
enous churches are found there. The missionary can no more 
expect to carry with him to the mission field the surroundings and 
relations of his church life at home than the soldier to enjoy on 
foreign service the rights and comforts of a citizen in his own land. 
No one would dream of applying to the army in the field the ad- 
ministrative principles that regulate civilian life in a settled com- 
munity; everything must there yield to the one aim of military 
efficiency. Similarly a missionary society should hold itself abso- 
lutely free to adopt on the field whatever administrative arrange- 
ments will best promote the success of the work; and the mission- 
ary, whether in his relations with his fellow-missionaries or with 
the home committee, must be prepared to dismiss all preposses- 
sions of church order and status. 

Among the main objects to be sought in constituting a mission 
administrative committee are that it should command the confi- 
dence, on the one hand, of the home board, and on the other hand, 
of the missionaries ; that it should provide for stability and con- 
tinuity in mission policy, and that it should engage in the task of 
administration the best wisdom and experience of the mission. In 



282 THE MISSION 

pursuing this ideal much variety of method will naturally be ex- 
hibited; but two or three generally applicable rules suggest them- 
selves. One is, that some minimum of experience of mission 
work should be required in order to qualify for a seat on the com- 
mittee; a provision secured in some missions by the wise regula- 
tion that only missionaries who have passed their vernacular 
examinations shall be appointed, whether to stations or mission admin- 
istration. Except on the ground of inexperience, it is general- 
ly advisable that all members of the mission, that is to say, all work- 
ers sent out from the home country by the home committee, or- 
dained or lay, men or women, should belong to the committee. If 
this would make the committee too unwieldy in size, it is important 
that the members of the mission should at any rate elect the 
greater part of the committee. The isolation of missionaries, fre- 
quently from each other, necessarily from the home authorities, 
brings danger of misunderstanding and friction in administrative 
relations, which it is as important as it is difficult to avoid. Hearty, 
cheerful, whole-souled work is only to be expected from men and 
women who feel that on their stations they are not unduly ham- 
pered by authority, and that they have due opportunities of influence 
and service in the counsels of the mission. This is a strong reason 
why the committee should either include, or at least fairly repre- 
sent, the whole body of the mission, except those newly arrived on 
the field. 

At the same time there is no reason why the committee should 
be limited to members of the mission. Christian residents in the 
area of the mission who give practical proof of sustained interest 
in its work and can bring sound judgment and local knowledge to 
its administration, will as appropriately be found on the mission 
committee as lay supporters of the society are found on the home 
boards. Such additions to the committee, where opportunity is 
afiforded for them, not only attach valuable supporters to the 
cause, but insure for the deliberations a breadth and balance that 
is sometimes lacking when only the professional missionary point 
of view is represented. 

" Should the mission committee include natives, or consist of 
foreigners only? " is a question much debated to-day in some parts 
of the field. Intelligent members of the native churches raise the 
cry: " No race distinctions! The same rights for the native pastor 
or professor as for the foreign! " To which the answer is made: 
" Foreign administration for foreign funds." Neither claim nor 
counterclaim seems to me to treat the question from just the right 
standpoint. On the one hand, the question is not one of " rights," 
whether of the foreigner or the native. The missionary has as 
little technical " right " as any native Christian to a voice in local 
administration. The home churches which subscribe the funds 
are free to make through their home committee what arrangements 
they please for the expenditure of them. They are not obliged to 
institute a mission committee at all; they are not obliged to give 
this or that missionary a place on it; and they are certainly under 
no more moral obligation to make the native church their partner 



ADMINISTRATION 283 

in the administration than to invite the help of a neighboring mis- 
sion of another society. Rights and status the native Christian 
has, but they are in relation to the indigenous church and the ad- 
ministration of its funds; he can have none in relation to funds 
from a distant land that come or cease to come quite independently 
of his volition or efifort. On the other hand, the cry, " Foreign 
administrators for foreign funds," equally puts the matter upon a 
wrong footing. It has an odor of race jealousy about it which 
only its absolute truth could make supportable; and when tested, it 
turns out to be one of those assertions which try to pass themselves 
off as axioms, because they can never hope to obtain the degree 
of Q. E. D. A home board, in constituting mission committees, 
is no more bound by any principle to exclude natives than to in- 
clude them; and circumstances are easily conceivable in which a 
native committee would admirably administer foreign funds. The 
question, in fact, is not one of principle, but of expediency; and 
the solution I should ofTer of it is as follows: Native knowledge of 
native character and life is of inestimable value in a thousand mat- 
ters that come before a mission committee; and where there are in 
the area of the mission natives of ripe judgment and experience, 
and of proved attachment to the cause, wise policy will find a place 
for one or more of them upon the committee as readily as for 
foreign non-missionary residents. At the same time wise policy 
will dictate that the missionary element on the committee shall 
always be strongly predominant, and this for two reasons, of which 
neither has any tinge of race prejudice. The first lies in the fact 
that the missionaries have been sent from the home country pur- 
posely to carry on the work of the society and manage its affairs, 
and so long as the administration of the stations is mainly in their 
hands, the administration of the mission should naturally be there 
too. A stronger reason — indeed the cardinal consideration of the 
whole matter — is that, if missionary money is to be spent econom- 
ically and with a due sense of responsibility, it must be admin- 
istered, predominantly, by men who are in close touch with the con- 
tributing churches. It is an axiom of good administration that 
license to spend money should be as little as possible separated 
from responsibility for raising it. Set people to administer funds 
that come into their hands merely as so much money to be spent, 
and, however conscientiously they may approach the task, they 
will not manage the funds with the same sober economy, the same 
scrupulous regard for the aims of the donors, as if they realized 
what it had cost to raise the money. The same reflection which 
warrants confidence in intrusting to native administrations the 
funds of the native church — namely, that the burden of raising the 
money is tied to the privilege of spending it, and givers and spend- 
ers are in intimate touch with each other, indicates that a mission 
committee should consist mainly of missionaries, who, by religious 
association and spiritual instinct, are more closely identified than 
natives can possibly be, with the supporters of the society. The 
missionaries may have had little of the actual burden of raising the 
missionary income, but they have lived among the people from 



284 THE MISSION 

whom it has come; they can measure its cost and reaHze the faith, 
and love, and hope which it expresses; they have proved their har- 
mony with the spirit and aims of the whole enterprise by giving 
themselves to the cause to which the money is given. Such money 
is not mere coin or paper; it is prayer, and faith, and zeal, it is tears 
and even life blood; and should be handled by those who can best 
realize its sacredness, and can most intimately enter into the aims 
and the spirit which it expresses. 

3. What should be the functions of the committee of a mission? 
If carefully constituted on lines such as those suggested above, it 
may safely and with advantage be intrusted with considerable au- 
thority. The home committee, so distant from the field and with 
so little personal knowledge of it among its members, can not feel 
itself competent for the detailed administration of the stations. 
Even when, as sometimes happens, men are on it who have resided 
on the field, experience gives room to doubt whether their local 
knowledge is of real service to the committee. Such knowledge 
soon gets out of date, and especially in regard to such rapidly 
changing fields as those of the East may in a few years serve only 
to give its possessor a delusive self-confidence and a dangerous au- 
thority. The case is different, no doubt, with the executive offi- 
cers of the society. The knowledge they obtain by constant corre- 
spondence with the missionaries, supplemented as it should be 
by frequent visitations of the field, doubtless goes far to qualify 
them to deal with all questions that arise. But I have little doubt 
they would be the first to welcome the aid of, and to be willing to 
transfer authority to, a competent body of local administrators. 

The natural division of functions between the home and the 
mission committees is that the latter should conduct the detailed 
administration, while the former, receiving from the mission com- 
mittee full minutes of its proceedings and full annual reports, sta- 
tistical, financial, and descriptive, of the work of each station, will 
watch the general trend of affairs and lay down the broad lines of 
policy that the mission is to follow. It will insist, for instance, that 
its specific sanction shall be required for the adoption of new, or 
the abandonment of old, methods or spheres of work; it will, per- 
haps, allow superintending missionaries to appeal to it against the 
administrative action of the mission committee; it will certainly 
reserve for itself the final decision in all serious cases of discipline 
affecting missionaries. As the authority of the mission commit- 
tee is only delegated, and the home committee can exercise a most 
effective veto by its control of the purse, the mission committee 
can not easily get out of hand, and may safely be intrusted with 
whatever powers are necessary for effective administration. 

An undisputed sphere for the activities of the mission committee 
is found in those agencies, institutions, and operations which con- 
cern the mission as a whole. Maintenance of seminaries and other 
central institutions, preparation of statistics and reports, conduct of 
journals, arrangements for conventions, united evangelistic cam- 
paigns, etc., representation of the mission in public movements, and 
in co-operation with other missions; all that makes the mission a 



FUNCTIONS OF MISSION COMMITTEE 285 

unit and wields it as a single weapon in the great warfare, forms 
the province of the mission committee, as his station is the sphere 
of the individual missionary. And on the careful, wise, and vig- 
orous administration of these common agencies largely depends 
the health of all the stations and the general progress of the cause. 

More debatable questions emerge when we examine the relations 
in which the mission committee should stand to the stations and to 
the native church. The missionary loves his independence at least 
as much as the average man does, and in adjusting the relations 
between the mission committee and the stations, it is a matter of 
some delicacy to steer between over-control, such as would chafe 
the energies, discourage the enthusiasm, and repress the original- 
ity of the missionary, and under-control, such as would risk mis- 
management of stations and would enfeeble united action. If it be 
true, however, that the progress of the whole mission is in the long 
run more important than the development of individual stations, 
it must be wise to give to a mission committee, constituted so as 
to command the general confidence of the workers, a considerable 
measure of control over everything in the mission. It may be 
well to consider the question under some of the chief heads of ad- 
ministration. 

Appointments. It is the practice in many societies to appoint 
direct from home to the stations and not allow any control to the 
local administrative body over the location and sphere of work of 
the missionaries. I can not but think this a mistake. It en- 
courages, for one thing, the mischievous tendency to put the em- 
phasis in missionary work on the station rather than on the mis- 
sion, and tends to connect missionary and station more closely 
than the best interests of the mission as a whole would dictate. 
It also often involves needless injury to stations through their be- 
ing left vacant during furloughs, or transferred suddenly from an 
old to a new missionary when the old leaves the field. The wiser 
course would seem to be for the home committee to make appoint- 
ments simply to the stafif of the mission, and to leave it to the mis- 
sion committee — subject always to the home committee's veto — 
to distribute the stafif among the stations. The intimate knowledge 
which the mission committee has, both of the capacities of the men 
and of the needs of the stations, can thus be used to provide suitably 
for those posts, such as seminaries, which are the concern of the 
whole mission, to make transfers such as shall maintain the con- 
tinuity of the work on stations temporarily or permanently va- 
cated, and to maintain in the mission that elasticity of adjustment 
to changing conditions which is as essential to its welfare as gen- 
eral stability of arrangements. 

Agents. There are obvious reasons why a common policy 
should be maintained throughout the mission in regard to the pay, 
qualifications, discipline, etc., of most classes of native agents. 
While there will commonly be some less-qualified and lower-paid 
agents, whom the missionary in charge of a station may engage or 
dismiss at his discretion, the bulk, especially of the evangelistic 
workers, should be reckoned as agents of the mission rather than 



286 THE MISSION 

of the missionary. The status thus given to these workers in- 
creases their self-respect, their attachment to the mission, and in 
general their value to the cause. It should, therefore, be the busi- 
ness of the mission committee to lay down the necessary qualifica- 
tions for each rank of native agents, to admit them, train them, and 
fix their pay, supervise their conduct and work, and promote or dis- 
miss them. The committee should also have power, at least in the 
case of the more important agents, to locate them and appoint 
them their work, so that each may be employed in the sphere for 
which he is best fitted. 

Finance. The chief financial functions of the mission committee 
should be: 

(a) To advise the home committee as to the appropriations 
needed. 

(b) To distribute among the stations the appropriations granted. 

(c) To review the expenditure at the end of the year, and 

(d) To audit the accounts of the stations and the mission. 

In some societies the home committee judges of the financial 
needs of the missions mainly by their estimates for the coming year; 
in others it relies chiefly on the expenditure schedules of the past 
year.* 

Whichever method be followed, the mission committee should 
form an invaluable intermediary between the home commit- 
tee and the stations. It is competent, as the home com- 
mittee can not be, to criticise in every detail the estimates 
or the expenditure of the stations, and can prepare for the 
home committee consolidated statements which will exhibit to 
it the financial situation much more effectually than would a 
mass of minute information from each station. The same 
considerations suggest that the appropriations should be made to 
the mission as a whole, and distributed among the stations by the 
mission committee according to its judgment of their needs. That 
broad control over the policy of the mission, which it is alike the 
right and the duty of the home committee to maintain, will be amply 
preserved if it divides its allotment to the mission under depart- 
ments, such as foreign agency, native agency, subsidies to native 
churches, medical work, etc., and forbids the mission committee 
to transfer from one head to another. And in distributing the al- 
lotment among the several stations the mission committee can, by 
a similar arrangement, at once maintain that general control over 
them which wise policy requires, and leaves to the individual mis- 
sionary freedom for the exercise of his administrative gifts. 

Native churches. We have seen above what defects in the consti- 
tution and action of mission committees have arisen from the curi- 
ous error of confusing them with church courts; another mischiev- 
ous result of the same confusion is that they have in many cases as- 
sumed the position of church courts in relation to rising native 

* The labor spent in many missions in preparing detailed estimates six months or more before 
the year begins, only to find, perhaps, that the appropriations granted are from one-third to two- 
thirds below the estimates, so that the budget for the year's expenditure has to be entirely recast, 
seems a waste of time. Seeing that the home committee's allotments must be governed primarily 
not by the needs of the missions, but by the Society's income, the expenditures of the missions 
n the previous years would appear to be a sufficient guide in fixing the appropriations. 



RELATIONS TO NATIVE CHURCH 287 

churches. It is true that in the infancy of the work, when native 
Christians are yet too few and too uninstructed to be organized into 
a church, the mission committee must in some respects fulfill 
toward them the functions of a church court; but its action in this 
department should from the first be kept quite distinct from its 
regular administration of the mission, and should be recognized as 
a strictly temporary expedient for the present welfare of the infant 
church. The funds contributed by the native church, whether for 
its own pastorate and church buildings, or for aggressive work 
similar to that done by the mission, should never be confused with 
mission funds proper; the discipline of members of the church in 
their relation to it should never be confused with the discipline of 
mission agents in their relation to the mission. Close to the great 
tree of the mission organization, the tiny shoot of the native 
church has to push forth, and live, and grow; and in determining 
the functions of the mission committee, the greatest care must be 
taken not to repress, or absorb, or overshadow even the smallest 
beginnings of ardor, liberality, intelligence, independence in its in- 
fant neighbor. As the child is allowed to run alone long before it 
has reached the steadiness and vigor of the full-grown man, so the 
native church should be administered by its own courts and should 
have charge of its own funds, even when its mental and moral 
qualifications for such responsibilities are patently immature; for 
its capacity will only reach maturity by exercise. If it is still un- 
able to support its own pastorate, and the mission committee is sub- 
sidizing it, such subsidy may afiford a ground for representation of 
the committee on the administering body of the native church; but, 
except for such temporary connection, the two bodies should be 
entirely distinct, and the attitude of the mission committee to the 
native church should be : It must increase, but I must decrease. 

Considering how vast and momentous is the foreign missionary 
enterprise, and what unity of ultimate aim characterizes all the 
diverse energies applied to it, it is strange to observe how unor- 
ganized, how little tinctured by scientific method, how slow to profit 
by communicated experience and counsel, are the multitudinous 
agencies at work. It should, under God's blessing, be one of the 
achievements of the coming century to co-ordinate, in a scientifically 
marshaled campaign, the companies and regiments of the churches 
so that without waste of force and folly of misdirection they may 
be hurled against the kingdom of darkness. And the first step 
toward reducing the chaos to order may, perhaps, be the evolu- 
tion of the mission as the carefully constructed unit of missionary 
organization. Order introduced here will tend to spread down- 
ward to the station, and upward to the society; uniformity estab- 
lished here will render possible great co-operative movements, 
which, in the present disorganization, are hopeless dreams. May 
this great Conference bring us nearer together, not only in brother- 
ly sympathy and affection, but also in understanding, in methods, 
in systems; so that in the years to come, as heart answers to heart, 
so hand may be joined to hand, and step march with step, in the 
great and glorious enterprise to which God has called His Church! 



288 THE MISSION 

Rev. R. H. Pitt, D.D., Editor " Religious Herald," Richmond, 
Va* 

It is proper to say in the outset that problems of administration 
are more or less modified by forms of church government. Nat- 
urally they are not precisely the same in Episcopal, Presbyterian, 
and Congregational polities. The views here presented are from 
the standpoint of a denomination whose polity is distinctly and pre- 
eminently congregational and democratic. 

It is the policy of our Board, while retaining ultimate authority 
and control, to exercise these as rarely as possible. The details 
are left almost entirely to the missionaries on the field. Impor- 
tant changes in stations or missionaries come before " the mis- 
sion," and the board gives great weight to their suggestions and 
recommendations. A spirit of mutual confidence and brotherly 
love prevails, and it has hardly ever happened in the history of the 
work that any radical difiference has arisen between " the mission " 
and " the board." The matter of organization is still further af- 
fected by the circumstances in the particular field in which the 
work is progressing. In some of our fields the missionaries are 
few and far apart, and the board finds it better to deal with them 
individually. In a word, then, the policy which commends itself 
to us is flexible and adaptable to a variety, not to say a contrariety 
of conditions. 

In the matter of government of missions, the same general rule 
prevails. It is constantly borne in mind that the men who are 
giving their lives to the work in the far-away lands are very likely 
to be alert, attentive, responsive to the situation; that they have 
better sources of information concerning the needs and promise of 
their respective fields than are open to the board, and that the 
board ought to treat with perfect respect all their recommendations. 
At the same time it has been abundantly shown that the board 
can judge far more clearly of the relative needs of the various 
fields, can take a far more comprehensive view of its own ability to 
meet these needs, and so can act more judiciously on the whole in 
the administration of its trust, than if it followed wholly the views 
of individual missionaries, or of groups of missionaries. The very 
zeal and consecration of the laborers are apt to cloud their judg- 
ment. However, we know very little of arbitrary authority. We 
have a slight formula of specific regulations to prevent misunder- 
standings and alienations, but in the main we govern our missions 
by letting them govern themselves. 

It is, of course, very important that missionaries shall have as 
many opportunities as possible for conference. The sense of iso- 
lation, of unutterable loneliness must often be oppressive beyond 
description. They, in common with all Christian workers, and to 
a degree far beyond those who work amid favorable surroundings, 
need the elbow-touch of other workers; need companionship, fel- 
lowship. Moreover, the many novel and perplexing questions 
which arise in the course of their work need for their solution 
mutual counsel. 

* Chamber Music Hall, April 34. 



SPECIAL PRINCIPLES 289 

We seek to have at least two male missionaries at every station. 
This is not always practicable. Sometimes one man must hold 
the post for a while at least, until we can send him re-enforcements. 
Usually, however, this man has a faithful and godly wife to cheer 
and help him. But " two and two " the Saviour sent His followers 
forth, and not less than two ought to be sent to any one station. 
The companionship in toil and responsibility thus secured, will go 
far toward lightening the strain which missionary work, particu- 
larly in great pagan cities, must create. As the work grows and 
the ability of the board justifies, other laborers are sent out. 

Dr. Gustav Warneck, Professor of Missions, Halle, Germany.'^ 

The historical and theoretical study of missions has been my spe- 
cial work for over thirty years, embracing more and more the full 
extent of the field, and this work has become my very life. As a 
veteran, therefore, in mission service, perhaps I may venture to call 
your attention to a few thoughts and wishes which have occupied 
my mind, and which are as much based on missionary experience 
of the past as they appear to me of importance for the mission work 
of the future. 

The nineteenth century is rightly called a mission century. As 
regards the number of mission workers, the total of mission ex- 
penditure, the extent of mission enterprise, and the organization 
of mission activity, this century has no equal in former missionary 
periods. Through God's grace, much has been done; but we 
ought to have the humility and the courage to examine honestly 
whether everything has been done well. A conscientious exami- 
nation of our missionary methods based on the facts of mission 
history, appears to me to be one of the chief purposes of the Con- 
ference. 

The mission century behind us has accomplished great things, 
but greater things are expected from the one before us. The 
longer we study them the more clearly should we not only under- 
stand theoretically the special mission problems, but also be better 
able to solve them practically. 

What we need beside expert mission directors is, above all, mis- 
sionaries really capable for their great work. The general cry is 
more missionaries. And let me add emphatically more men. But 
the petition that the Lord of the harvest should send forth laborers 
into His harvest, has also reference to their quality. Missionaries 
must be weighed, not merely counted. Spiritual equipment is, of 
course, the chief consideration. But the experience of more than 
a hundred years should prevent us from falling into the mistake of 
thinking that this alone sufifices without a thorough training. 

It is a hopeful sign of the increase in missionary interest that a 
growing enthusiasm for the work is spreading among young men 
and students. Very energetically are the watchwords promul- 
gated nowadays, " expansion," " diffusion," " evangelization of the 
Avorld in this generation." I will not deny that in view of the 
present openings all the world over, such mottoes are entitled to 

* Union Methodist Church, April 25. 



290 



THE MISSION 



consideration, and so far as this is the case, I certainly have no 
wish to weaken their force. But without due Hmitation and com- 
pletion, I consider them dangerous. The mission command bids 
us " go " into all the world, not " fly." Fcstina Icntc applies also to 
missionary undertakings. The kingdom of heaven is like a field 
in which the crop is healthily growing at a normal rate, not like a 
hothouse. Impatient pressing forward has led to the waste of 
much precious toil, and more than one old mission field has been 
unwarrantably neglected in the haste to begin work in a new field. 

The non-Christian world is not to be carried by assault. Mis- 
sion history should also teach us not to specify a time within which 
the evangelization of the world is to be completed. It is not for 
us to determine the times or the seasons, but to do in this our time 
what we can, and do it wisely and discreetly. The catchword 
" diffusion " is really a caricature of evangelical missions, if its 
antithesis " not concentration " leads to the destruction of organi- 
zation. If evangelical missions are suffering from one lack more 
than another, it is the want of organization, in which the Roman 
Catholic missions are so much their superiors. The many so- 
called free missionaries are not an addition of strength to the evan- 
gelical missions, but a waste of strength. 

Perhaps the greatest of all mission problems is the implantation 
of Christianity into the foreign soil of heathen nations in such a way 
that it takes root like a native plant and grows to be an indigenous 
tree. No doubt, the first object of mission work is to bring the in- 
dividual heathen to faith and through faith to salvation. But the ob- 
ject of mission work must be also national and social; to permeate 
whole heathen nations with the truth and the power of the Gospel ; 
to plant in them a true Christianity and to sanctify their social and 
national relations. If the native Christians become estranged from 
their national and popular customs, Christianity will never become 
a national and popular power. There is a great danger of con- 
founding the spread of the gospel with the spread of European or 
American culture, and as far as I can see, this danger has by no 
means been avoided everywhere. If I am not greatly mistaken, a 
chief reason why the success of missions is not greater is to be 
found in the fact that the national character is lacking to-day in 
so large a part of the Christianity of mission lands. A not incon- 
siderable percentage of the native helpers (Chinese perhaps ex- 
cepted), and of the young people who have passed through the 
higher schools, is more or less denationalized and mis-educated. 
Hardly any mission has been exempt from this experience, but it 
is chieflv noticeable in many English and American mission fields. 
We must have the courage to see this, if there is to be an improve- 
ment. 

While a proper attitude to the customs of the natives has in 
many cases not yet been found, another side of the problem in ques- 
tion claims particular attention — namely, the fostering of their own 
language. Without doubt, evangelical missions of all nationalities 
and denominations have in the course of this century produced ex- 
cellent results as regards native languages ; there are among evan- 



SPECIAL PRINCIPLES 29 1 

gelical missionaries linguists to whom is due a position of honor in 
the science of languages. Also the principle is generally accepted : 
each nation has a right to hear the gospel in its mother tongue. 
On the other hand, the fact can not be denied that this principle is 
not always put into practice in our preaching and teaching. There 
are plenty of missionaries who never become independent of the 
help of the interpreter, nay more, who have scarcely understood 
the language problem at its real root. This problem is the diffi- 
cult one of becoming so completely acquainted with the spirit, the 
whole mode of thinking and reasoning of the foreign people, as to 
be able to render Scripture terms into their language, so that the 
truths of the Gospel, naturally foreign to them, shall be fully un- 
derstood by the natives. This is, perhaps, the greatest intellectual 
task demanded of the missionary, English has become the lan- 
guage of intercourse throughout the wide world, but that must 
not tempt us to make it the language of missions. The mission- 
ary command does not say: " Go ye and teach English to every 
creature." Not more, but less English in the missions, this should 
be the watchword of the twentieth century in this respect, if the 
great missionary problem is to be solved. 

One more point in conclusion. It is now generally acknowl- 
edged among evangelical missions that the aim of the work is the 
formation of independent churches of native Christians. This 
has only been perceived in the course of the work; the beginnings 
of missionary activity seldom took the roads to reach this goal. 
And to this day there is in many missions a neglect in this respect 
which should be remedied. On the other hand, too much haste 
and unwise impatience have been shown in placing native churches 
on an independent footing, especially where republicanism has 
joined hands with ultra-independent theories. The result has been 
unsatisfactory everywhere. It has even damaged the young 
churches because they were not yet ripe for full independence. 
Here we have another great mission problem, toward the solution 
of which catchwords will not help. It can only be solved by slow 
and solid work carried on with patient wisdom and keeping the end 
aimed at always in view. The great majority of those upon whom 
our missionary efforts of to-day are exercised can not be treated 
as Englishmen or as Americans, nor as the Greeks were treated 
in apostolic times; differences of race, of education, and weakness 
of character forbid it. Let us pray for both patience and wisdom 
that we may, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, become in 
every respect true educators, and not spoilers, of the heathen na- 
tions, to whom, by the will of God, we are permitted to bring the 
gospel. 

The Station 

Mr. W. Henry Grant, Assistant Secretary Ecumenical Confer- 
ence* 

There is a wide difference probably in the experience of many 
here, brought about by the character of the country they live in, 

♦Chamber Music Hall, April 24. 



292 THE MISSION 

or brought about by their mission tradition, somewhat by their 
home organizations, but a great deal by their mission traditions — 
the way things started, and the way they found them when they 
got to the field; and missionaries, like other people, are very con- 
servative about adopting any new form of organization. 

We ought to be wise enough, when Vv'e see that our work is not 
succeeding in the degree to which we think it ought to succeed, to 
take in new ideas. Considering the world as a whole, there are 
certain principles for which we can make some claims, at least. 
One of these is the principle that strong central stations have a 
greater influence upon a mission as a whole than scattered sta- 
tions, with individual missionaries. The paper of Mr. Findlay has 
brought out the question of how much administration should be 
committed to the missions of the field. Now, unless you have a 
mission organized, or unless you have a strong central station, you 
must have a large amount of the administration from the home office. 
But when you have a strong central station to which the other stations 
naturally defer, then a much greater degree of the responsibility 
can be borne upon the field. 

But there are other objects of a strong central station than that 
of mere administration. I think one object is the sustenance of 
the missionary himself, keeping him up to the standard; surround- 
ing him with such mental and moral influences as sustain him, and 
for lack of which many men break down. Of missionaries that 
go out and live alone in stations, the larger number, I am sure, 
break down from this cause of isolation. Moreover, the station 
becomes more or less stamped with the stamp of their personality, 
and it is very difficult for some other person of larger or smaller 
shoes to step into their tracks. 

A strong central station has two other very decided advantages. 
One is in regard to differentiation of work that may fall to in- 
dividuals. I know of one very strong central station, in which 
each individual goes out to two or three county centers, and holds 
in those centers two or three days every month a sort of rally 
for all the leaders in that part of the field. And there come 
in to them those who wish to make application to go up to 
the central hospital, or to secure directions as to what is best to do 
in medical lines. Then they have meetings for several days for 
those who desire instruction. And so that sub-station gradually 
works itself into a recognized, strong, central church body, without 
too much of the presence of the foreigner in it. That foreigner 
falls back upon the central station for his home life, and for his 
inter-work with the others. But, since he really does everything, he 
is virtually the medical adviser — not the physician — he is the superin- 
tendent of schools, and he directs the distribution of the Scriptures, 
and he does the evangelistic work of the county with the assistance 
of one or two native helpers. In a much older station of the same 
mission, a1)OUt sixty miles distant, there are six men engaged in 
superintending different lines of work. There is the literary man, 
the medical man, the superintendent of schools, the man who looks 
after the church, the man who gives theological instruction, and so 



SIZE OF STATIONS 293 

on. If one man lives alone, he can not leave his station, he can 
not leave his wife and family. If two live together — well, what 
are they unless they agree? And if three live together, it is al- 
most certain that two of them will gradually grow together arid 
leave the other one out. We need four or five in the station to 
bring that balance which makes it strong, which makes it easy, 
which takes the friction out of it, to allow young men to go in and 
get the language, and get settled before the responsibilities of au- 
thority are thrown upon then 

Rev. J. H. Brock, Missionary, American Baptist Missionary 
Union, India.^ 

There are two general kinds of missions in India: organized and 
unorganized. I praise the Lord that I belong to an unorganized 
one. When I went to India, I believed in an organized mission. 

One of our most respected missionaries made a tour through 
India. He was an advocate of organization in our mission. 
When he came back to our conference his report was that he found 
that some of the missions were organized to death. All of the 
individuality which some of the men had was screwed out of them. 
I do not believe in the organization, at the present time. I have 
had only eight or nine years' experience, but I do not believe in 
having five or six missionaries in a station. Instead, in the Telugu 
District stations, we have one man for five or six stations. We 
haven't even got men enough to put two men in one station; it is 
not possible to have five or six men in one station for one thing, 
and I do not want to be in a station with five or six missionaries. 
I can get along pretty nearly with myself, and I think nearly every 
missionary is made on pretty nearly the same plan. It seems to 
me that missionaries get along with themselves better than with 
anybody else. 

Rev. a. C. Fuller, Missionary, American Baptist Missionary 
Union, India/'' 

As far as my experience goes, the individual on the field is best. 
Scatter your forces among the forces of the enemy as much as you 
can, in order to accomplish the greatest good to the greatest num- 
ber. We should follow the example of Christ. Now, we read in 
the Scriptures that His name was given to Him, " Immanuel, which 
is, being interpreted, God with us." 

God did not, from His great headquarters in heaven, save His 
people, but He sent His Son among us. 

Now, if God has sent His Son among us so that He has seen 
things through our eyes, and understands things as we understand 
them, isn't it right that we, instead of centralizing ourselves in 
great headquarters, should go out, so that we can each of us see 
the conditions through the eyes of the people among whom we 
labor, and be ourselves intimately associated with everything 
that pertains to them, instead of having our attention drawn aside 
by one another, as it would be apt to be if we were located in large 

* Chamber Music Hall, April 24. 



294 



THE MISSION 



central stations? Although I do agree that there is a great deal 
to be said upon the other side, yet, according to the way in which 
I look upon it from my local field, and from the region round about 
where I am, it seems' to me that a man located here, and another 
at a distance, some miles away, will accomplish most. I had for 
my field about 600 square miles in area, about twenty-five miles 
one way by twenty-five miles the other, with about 70,000 people. 
Another missionary is beyond, in another area equal to it, and an- 
other missionary at the right, and another missionary to the left, 
and another missionary to the rear. Is it not better that we should 
be thus separated, and he each of us accomplishing what we can 
with those about us, understanding them fully, than it would be 
that we should dwell together? I would not miss an hour of my 
experience, although I have had some bitter experience through 
being alone, Christ sent out His people two and two. Now, I 
think that is a good example for us, and I think the two and two 
idea — man and wife — is the true idea. If the woman is conse- 
crated, she will be willing to dwell alone while her husband is on 
tour ; if need be, God will protect. Has He not protected us ? And 
will He not, whether we leave a wife alone in the station, or whether 
we leave her with three or four others there? 

Now, how shall we best reach the people? Shall we best reach 
them by great centralizing organizations, having one, say, in 
Madras, and others, say, in Rangun, and Bombay, and Calcutta? 
What does the business world do? Every village must have its 
postofifice. A great postoffice here in New York isn't enough. 
Each must have its own. So it seems to me that in our work we 
must divide our forces. Well and good ; if we can have here and 
there a central station, it would be a great help, but we should 
need larger forces. It seems to me that in the present time of need it 
is hardly desirable. 

Rev. George Scroll, D.D., Secretary Mission Board, Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Church (General Synod).'* 

I believe most thoroughly in organization, and even think that 
the last brother who spoke believes in organization. You want 
your postofifices planted here and there, but we have a Postmaster- 
General, and all must work together. But there will still be left 
enough individuality in every missionary who goes out into such a 
vast field. A field of 60,000 souls — now, look at it, brethren. Our 
pastors in this country have parishes of anywhere from 100 to 
500, and when a man gets over 500 parishioners, he begins to hint 
to his session that he needs an assistant. And this brother has 
60,000 raw heathen, possibly 10,000 of them babes in Christ, who 
are just out of heathenism. I know I would plead as for nothing 
else, for more men, more helpers; but the question is whether a man 
can magnetize that mass of people; whether it is wise to attempt it; 
whether it would not be better to plant himself down with a dozen 
men, as the Master did, and try to set them on fire, as the Master 
did, and send them out. instead of trying to spread himself over 

* Chamber Music Hall. April 24. 



SIZE OF STATIONS 295 

60,000 people. If he wants to follow the Master, there is one con- 
spicuous example for him to follow. The training of the twelve 
seemed to be His great work. For that we want organization, 
systematic work, co-operation among the missionaries, not tak- 
ing too great an area of influence, because the influence becomes 
too much dissipated. We want central organization in this coun- 
try, we want central organization in the field abroad. How much 
better it is to combine the experience of a dozen men through a 
period of fifty years than to go by the experience of one man for 
nine years. Organization; thorough, complete organization, is 
what the work calls for, in my judgment. 

Rev. J. L. Bearing, D.D., Missionary, American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union, Japan* 

During the ten years I have been permitted to labor in Japan 
I have seen a great variety of methods in use. It seems to me 
that one of the arguments which was made in the earlier part of 
the session concerning scattered missions was answered in the very 
speech of the man who made it. He who would have stations with 
only one man, was found in his own speech defending stations with 
no one there to man them. It seems to me from my experience 
on the mission field I have seen more waste of money, more wasted 
eflfort, more loss through locating stations in such a way as that: 
sending only one man to open a new station. That man stays 
there and wears out, or for some reason he must go away, and the 
station is left alone, and no one to care for it, and there is great 
loss through this scattering; the church there losing property in- 
vested in buildings, and in various other ways. And so it seems 
to me that the stations should be so located that at least two men 
should be in one station ; then, when one man must go away, there 
is still left one brother to hold it until another one shall come to 
work by his side. 

In my early life in Japan I heard a missionary say something 
like this: " It is unwise to have two missionaries in one station, be- 
cause they can not agree." In Japan we have found that men of 
that sort do not accomplish very much anywhere. Those men do 
not agree with the natives of the local church. A man who has 
not the spirit of giving up to his brother of the same blood, will not 
be likely to have the spirit of giving up in dealing with one not of 
the same blood. 

One other thought which has not been very much dwelt upon 
this afternoon: it seems to me that there is call for greater wisdom, 
and greater prayer, and greater thoughtfulness concerning the lo- 
cation of stations. My own experience has been that there has 
been a great deal of haphazard location of stations. A station 
should be located in a central point, so that the missionaries not 
only working in that city, but reaching out into the country beyond, 
may come in touch with the native churches, with the unevangelized 
towns of the surrounding country. So they shall cover a large 
territory. The central station where the missionaries reside, is a 

♦ Chamber Music Hall, April 24. 



296 THE MISSION 

place of residence and a place from which influence may radiate in 
all directions. In a country the size of Japan I would have one 
strong centrally located station, where you put your educational, 
especially your theological plant, where you should congregate 
your translators, and also make it a strong center of influence. 

This trying of experiments — it is time it ended. Brethren, we 
have carried on mission work long enough to know something of 
the science of missions. We ought to gather up the experience 
of the men of the past. We ought to be able to go forward, sav- 
ing money, saving strength, concentrating the work, and making it 
more profitable for the advancement of God's kingdom. 

Rev. E. W. Clarke, Missionary, American Baptist Missionary 
'Union, Assam* 

After an experience of several years as a foreign missionary in 
Assam, I believe if I had the whole force of Assam here to-day they 
would say: " These two brethren are right." They would say that 
it is not a man and a woman to be sent, but a man and his wife, and 
another man and his wife — two men and two women. We could 
bring statistics here from Assam that would astonish you in re- 
spect to this matter. We have wasted thousands upon thousands 
that were needed in the Assam mission by stationing men and 
their wives singly. We have had most marvelous results where 
two or three men have been stationed together, and have been 
able to encourage each other, to give each other suggestions — one of 
these missionaries being more adapted to a certain work than the 
other — and in these stations where we have had two or three mis- 
sionaries together, working heart to heart, our results in baptisms, 
and in the upbuilding of the Christians, and the evangelistic work 
in general, have been some of the brightest in all missionary his- 
tory and work. We have had our missionaries at isolated sta- 
tions. They have been some of the most wretched in all history. 
Our missionaries have broken down in some stations and have 
gone home, just as I did myself, and nine years passed before ever 
another missionary visited that field. And that is just an illustra- 
tion of what has gone on over and over again in Assam. 

As I say, there is no field in the world where results have been 
larger for the money and men expended, when we have had two or 
three men together, and possibly no field in the world where the 
results have been less, when we have had our men in isolated sta- 
tions. 

German Missionary Methods 

Rev. Dr. A. Meri<:nsky, Inspector Berlin Missionary Society, 
Germany* 

It is of very great importance to have a clear understanding re- 
garding the methods in which mission work is to be carried on. 

I am to speak of German missionary methods and will do so with 
pleasure, because our German societies, according to my opinion, 
have made more progress with regard to uniformity in their work 

* Chamber Music Hal!, April 34. 



GERMAN METHODS 297 

than your American or the English societies. We have a long mis- 
sionary experience behind us and have been benefited by it. 

This uniformity has also been promoted by the constant ex- 
change of experiences of the different societies, and one periodical 
has been founded with the express purpose of discussing questions 
of methodic character, the well-known and highly estimated " All- 
gemeine Missions Zcitschrift " of Prof. G. Warneck. We also 
have held and still hold conferences where the unity of purpose and 
the uniformity of method are constantly recalled and aimed for, I 
refer especially to the conference which is held every four years 
at Bremen, to which the German and other continental societies 
send their delegates. 

In giving a summary of our experience and practice regarding 
these matters, I would first of all call your attention to the very 
important question : Wherefrom do we draw our supply of mission- 
aries? Our Master has said: " Pray ye the Lord of the harvest 
that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." We, therefore, 
agree ; missionaries we can not make, nor produce them through 
our education or teaching; God must give them. In former years 
our good brethren, the Moravians, have tried to find them by bal- 
lot, now they rather call upon those whom they deem fit for the 
service and ask them whether they are willing to go, and more than 
this, they follow the example of the other German societies in taking 
in those who call upon them for help and guidance regarding their 
preparation, thoroughly believing themselves to be called of God. 
Applications to be admitted into service are coming into the hands 
of every German society by hundreds every year, but, as a rule, 
only those are accepted who are below twenty years of age and are 
not married. Out of the list of applicants we select some who are 
to be tested with respect to ability and sincerity during the course 
of one year, and after that time the ablest are admitted into our 
seminaries. None of our old German societies are sending out 
men who did not receive their education in one of our universities 
or in one of our seminaries, because it is our common experience 
and conviction that a foreign missionary must have a sufficient 
scientific education. Such as can not acquire sufficient knowledge 
may be sent out as missionary helpers. So it happens that mis- 
sionary education by seminary training has been cultivated in Ger- 
many more than in other countries. We have in Germany eight 
seminaries of this kind with about 350 students. But remember, 
only those study here who are willing to go to the foreign field, 
and all the instruction they receive points directly toward this 
object. So we have in Germany not only the larger number of 
seminaries in which missionaries are educated, but we can be proud 
of the fact that the first Protestant seminary of this kind was 
opened in our country 100 years ago. The time of study required 
in these seminaries is from four to six years. We ask of the stu- 
dents to master the Hebrew and Greek languages sufficiently to be 
able to read the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament in the 
original. Also some Latin and English is taught, and of the other 
branches of theology, dogmatics, eibjcs, homiletics, and especially 



298 THE MISSION 

exegesis, as much as the Hmited time of preparation will permit. 
When the student has finished his course he is expected to pass a 
thorough examination. Our societies have, in course of time, 
raised the standard, not lowered it, for experience has taught us 
that the better prepared a missionary is when going out into the field 
the more useful he will be. We expect of those whom we send out 
that they will serve a lifetime. We not only give them a good 
outfit, but hand to them a book of rules which comprises in compact 
form the essence of missionary wisdom and experience that we have 
been able to gather in the time past. 

With regard to the field of labor to be chosen, I am happy to 
state that it is our principle never to invade the sphere of labor of 
any other Protestant society. Since all our German societies up- 
hold this principle, they in friendly consultation fix a line of de- 
marcation which is not to be overstepped by either party. 

Regarding the special work of the missionary, we believe that it 
is not wise to intrust a young and inexperienced man with an in- 
dependent piece of work. Therefore, we ask of him to pass 
through a time of practical training under the supervision of some 
elder missionary. Under his guidance and with his assistance, he 
will study the language as well as the character of the people. For 
to acquire a full knowledge of these seems to us one of the most 
essential conditions for the efficient labors of a missionary. We, 
therefore, do not like so much that missionaries go from one tribe 
to the other, for a man staying for years among one and the same 
people will in every case gain an influence and be universally 
known and respected. 

Regarding the establishing of stations, we try to find places in a 
large population where the conditions for health and work are 
favorable, and after the station has been founded we hold this fort 
under all circumstances. We do not leave the place even if our 
labors seem to be in vain, and if the workers die they are at once 
replaced by others. We have ofttimes found that the hearts of 
the heathen have been deeply impressed by this persevering spirit 
manifested by our missionaries. The head-stations we surround 
with as many out-stations or preaching places as possible. Such 
head-stations we try to plant all over the country and to link them 
through preaching stations into a network, and we have found that 
through such united efforts greater results have been accomplished. 

The great medium to convert the heathen is for us the preaching 
of the gospel, and mark this, if you please, not in German, nor in 
English, but in the language of the native people. Medical work, 
erecting of schools, and so forth, we only value as means to pre- 
pare tht way for the message of salvation. In their preaching the 
missionaries are told to avoid polemics, but to put before the people 
the love of God revealed to us in Christ. 

If now it is given to some souls by the Father to come to the 
Son, and if they ask: What must we do to be saved? they are taken 
under special care and instruction. The time of such catecheti- 
ical instruction varies. In India and China it requires at least six 
or eight months, in Africa from one to two vears. We do not at 



GERMAN METHODS 299 

once insist that the catechumens should break caste or abandon 
their wives if they are polygamists. As regards things to be 
learned by heart, we only require of them to learn the Ten Com- 
mandments, the Lord's prayer, and the words by which our Lord 
has instituted the two Sacraments. Young people learn how to 
read, but young and old we earnestly try to bring to Christ, teach 
them how to pray and to make them fully know and understand 
the way of salvation. 

Who is fit to be baptized? We hold, all those who can answer 
in the affirmative the three vital questions which in the early 
Church, were put to the candidates applying for admission: First, 
Do you renounce Satan and all his works? Secondly, Will you 
give yourself soul and body to the Lord our God? And, thirdly, 
Are you from your own free will and conviction desirous to re- 
ceive the sacrament of baptism? The question, however, whether 
baptism should be granted, is decided not by the missionary alone, 
but the congregation is given a hearing in the matter. 

Those who are baptized we care for as new-born babes. They 
are not as yet intrusted with offices of responsibility. We hold it 
to be our sacred duty to look after them and see to it that they not 
only attend the Bible class and go to church on Sunday, but prove 
their Christianity in every-day life. If it is necessary and practi- 
cable, we open and provide for them means of support by either 
buying land and letting it out to tenants, or by planting industrial 
schools, as the Basel Mission has done most successfully in India 
and on the west coast of Africa. We also superintend the educa- 
tion of the children who have been baptized, and see to it that they 
be brought up in a Christian way. We try to impress the parents 
with the sense of duty in this respect, and we erect schools where 
those children receive daily religious instruction. xA.t all our Ger- 
man mission stations you will find a good vernacular school. The 
course of instruction is finally completed by the lessons which they 
receive during the year before admittance into full membership. 

About the administration of the congregation, we agree in Ger- 
man missions that congregations gathered from a heathen popu- 
lation must exercise a strict discipline over their members. Those 
who have ofifended God and men openly must be punished openly, 
and those who do not show repentance must be put away from the 
church. 

Again, I may mention, that we foster the spiritual life of our 
Christians by creating a Christian literature; no German mission 
is slow in doing so. Translations of the Gospel, of the New Testa- 
ment, of Biblical history, catechisms, hymns, and schoolbooks are 
prepared as soon as possible. In the Transvaal our German missions 
were founded in i860; there we have now a Christian literature in 
the language of the natives, and two Christian periodicals are pub- 
lished there monthly by our missions. 

Part of the education of native churches is the endeavor to make 
them support their churches and schools by their own contribu- 
tions, and we have arrived in that respect at very favorable results. 
The Rhenish congregations in South Africa number about 15,000 



300 THE MISSION 

souls. They provide not only entirely for themselves, but con- 
tribute to the expenses of their society more than 200 pounds a 
year. The Rhenish Society has in Sumatra fifty congregations 
which are self-supporting. Our Berlin mission has in South Africa 
about 36,000 souls, who contributed in the year 1898 the remark- 
able sum of £120,000. But then it is not our way to part with 
such self-supporting congregations entirely; we do not let them 
go in order that they might do as they like on independent footing, 
but we provide for them ministers and schoolmasters as before, 
and try to help them on in the ways of the Lord. 

If congregations are to be educated in such a way, the church 
records are to be promptly and exactly kept in order from the very 
first beginning of the work. Such records and roll books are 
those of baptism, of the children going to school, of those who were 
baptized as children and admitted afterward to membership, of the 
deaths, and also books showing incomiC and expense of the station, 
and contributions of the congregations. 

We employ faithful Christians as helpers, elders, deacons, and 
church wardens, without offering them salaries; other helpers, such 
as_ schoolmasters, evangelists, and heads of out-stations, are sal- 
aried. Our aim is church organization, and our mission organi- 
zation we simply consider to be the framework, which may be taken 
away after the building is completed. 

Though our experiences and our methods be somewhat dilTerent in 
minor things ; though English missionaries follow out one plan and 
German missionaries another, I am convinced and rejoice to con- 
fess that in the great and single aim and purpose of our work, 
we all stand united as one man in Christ Jesus. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE MISSIONARY 

Choice — Qualifications — Training — Marriage — Environment — Health 



Choice and Qualifications of Missionaries 

Rev R. p. Mackay, Secretary Foreign Missions Committee, 
Presbyterian Church in Canada, Toronto."^' 

The Rev, John Ross, of Manchuria, in a letter bearing upon this 
Conference, says: " Far and away the most important topic in the 
programme is the mission stafif. Without the proper man as mis- 
sionary, every method is certain to be a comparative failure, and 
discussion on other topics will be purely academic. The home 
churches have hitherto quite failed to realize the overwhelmingly 
vital importance of the kind of man sent into the mission field. If 
you have the proper man you may leave him to discover and utilize 
the means most likely to be effective. Every mission station must 
be dealt with specially and individually. No methods can succeed 
without the proper man; such a man will succeed under any meth- 
ods. . , . One Paul did more for the spread of Christianity 
than the ten Apostles. If the Conference can depict the ideal mis- 
sionary, and make Christian lands ring with the special need for 
him, he will be found, for he does exist. Here, and here only, is 
the key to unlock all the obstacles in the way of expediting the 
kingdom of God throughout the world." These sentences give no 
uncertain sound. They really sum up the whole situation. 

I. If then the man exists, who is he? and how can he be found? 

Can it be repeated too often and with too great emphasis that 
none but Spirit-filled men are wanted? There are other traits of 
character of great importance, such as health, capacity to acquire 
a foreign language, consideration for the feelings of others, and a 
temperament that can co-operate with others. Yet no lower quali- 
fication nor combination of qualifications will compensate for the 
lack of that Divine vision that has captivated the heart and life for 
Christ, that makes a man live, move, and have his being among 
the unseen realities. 

Selection and preparation should be considered together. It is 
too much to expect any board, however sensitive and devout, to 
decide satisfactorily as to the suitableness of candidates by one or 
more interviews. At Antioch, Paul and Barnabas had already 
made proof of their ministry, and the definite call of the Holy 

* Church of the Strangers, April 24. 



302 THE MISSIONARY 

Ghost made the path of duty plain. But it is not always so plain. 
Young men and women make application who have not been tested 
as Paul and Barnabas had been. With the best intentions they 
may be self-deceived. The most hopeful to the eye of man may 
prove unfit, while the modest and self-distrustful may in the day 
of trial approve themselves true and valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ. 
It is as important to candidates that they should discover them- 
selves, as to the Church that only competent agents be sent. Hence 
we say that in the course of preparation the colleges should come 
to our aid. The period of training should be a time of self-revela- 
tion. How can a man satisfactorily know his fitness for a work, or 
department of work, when he does not know what the work is? 
A man does not enter blind-fold upon an engagement in the home 
land. Yet men pass through our seminaries, absolutely ignorant 
of the climatic and social conditions, and the intellectual and spirit- 
ual requirements of even the mission fields of the church to which 
they belong, and in which they hope to labor. 

When foreign missions have grown to such proportions, is it 
not a reasonable demand that colleges should give some attention 
to such studies as directly ecjuip men for that work — and studies, 
too, that cultivate the intellect and heart, as well as help men to take 
their own measurements, to determine the place in the world's 
economy for which they are designed? Ordinarily, an honest 
man is himself the best judge of what he should do. If his incli- 
nations are the result of prayerful and intelligent study of himself, 
and of the conditions of the work to which he aspires, his own 
judgment should be a large factor in the decision. 

Boards can not be too careful. They can scarcely be guilty of a 
greater wrong than by disposing of this part of their work in an 
easy-going and indififerent way. Selection demands to-day 
thought, and conference, and fasting, and prayer, as much as in 
Antioch in apostolic days. 

2. If the right man has been discovered, the question of support 
is simplified. He will be too honest and too loyal to Christ, too 
thoughtful as to the poverty of the many whose self-denying gifts 
support him, too tender toward the souls to whom he is sent, to 
spend needlessly upon himself money that would help to send 
other laborers into the whitening field. 

He, on the other hand, will be too sane to risk his own health, 
and lifC; and efficiency by a false economy. Boards generally fix 
the salary upon the basis of comfortable support, which, of course, 
varies with varying conditions. It is unfortunate, however, that 
such great disparity exists as to the interpretation of what " com- 
fortable support " means. Slight variations might be easily ac- 
counted for by incidental conditions, or tastes, or early training, 
but when the disparity amounts to 50, or 75, or 100 per cent, 
in the same field, it is not so easily explained, and is dis- 
quieting to the Church at home. Yet, after years of experience 
and contention neither solution nor compromise has been reached. 

3. Closely allied to the question of support is the question of 



CHOICE AND QUALIFICATIONS 303 

the marriage of the missionary, at least, in the initial years of his 
ministry. It need not be said that this is not a question as to 
whether a cehbate is in itself superior or more holy than a mar- 
ried life. It is simply the question of the most economical and 
most effective expenditure of life and money for the salvation of 
souls in the foreign field. The arguments for both views are well 
known. On the one hand are recited the value of the Christian 
home, with the mutual respect and affection of parents and chil- 
dren, and the freedom and dignity of motherhood as an object-les- 
son; the effect of home Hfe in sustaining the physical and spiritual 
vitality and tone of the missionary, and the direct missionary work 
done by the wife, perhaps in departments of work that the husband 
could never by any possibility reach. On the other hand it is said 
that thousands of pounds of mission funds gathered for the purpose 
of converting the heathen are expended on the support of children 
who are not and never will be any direct benefit to the mission; 
thousands of pounds more are expended in travel, owing to the 
sickness of wives or children, requiring also, the absence of the 
missionary from the field, the work, thereby, ceasing, but the ex- 
penditure going on; the necessary restraints, especially in pioneer 
work, arising from domestic responsibilities and cares; the distrac- 
tion and diversion of energy which is unavoidably associated with 
parental relations; the frequent abandonment of the work after 
years of preparation. These and other reasons are certainly not 
without weight. The argument is not all on one side. The lives 
of Paul, and Patricius, and Columba, and Bishop Patteson, and 
MacKay of Uganda, still speak. It can scarcely be doubted that if 
there were more of that high consecration and singleness of pur- 
pose so supremely important and needful, there would be less haste 
in entering upon matrimonial relations. Men would wait, at least, 
until they had seen the field and the conditions in which they were 
to work, before forming alliances that, for many reasons, may pre- 
vent them from fulfilling their highest destiny. Surely, if loyalty 
to queen and country cause men to leave wife and children in times 
of war to endure hardness in camp and battlefield, it ought not to 
be accounted an impossible thing for men and women to abstain 
from some domestic comforts for His sake, who became poor that 
we might be rich. 

The resolutions adopted by the New York Inter-denominational 
Conference in 1896 are cautious, and probably wise. In sub- 
stance, they state that it is desirable, especially in pioneer work, 
that missionaries should remain for a limited time unmarried, and 
that it is also wise, for those who are so led by the Spirit of God, 
to follow literally the high example of the Apostle Paul in devoting 
an entire life to the work of a single missionary for the Master's 
sake. It is manifest that mechanical laws and prescriptions will 
not accomplish the purpose sought. Better have high ideals in 
whose light and inspiration men will lean to the side of freedom, 
and courage, and sacrifice, and strive to follow in the footsteps of 
the heroes who have made an imperishable impression upon the 



304 THE MISSIONARY 

world, who endured the cross and despised the shame, for the joy 
that was set before them. 

4. The same high ideal will determine the length and continuity 
of service. The furlough problem is one of growing difficulty as 
missionaries multiply. In no other service known to us is so 
much of life spent away from life's work. The difficulties are 
evident, and again we say mechanical regulations are unsatisfac- 
tory. We must revert to the thought stated at the beginning, and 
with which we close, that no methods can succeed without the 
proper men. Such men will not be creatures of any method, but 
will make methods, as they make themselves, subserve the end of 
their being : the glory of God in the salvation of souls. 

W. H. Thomson, M.D., LL.D., President of the Nczv York 
Academy of Medicine."^ 

The first instructions to Christian missionaries were given by our 
Lord Himself, as we find them recorded in the tenth chapter of 
Matthew. Among other directions. He commanded them to be 
wise as serpents, and this injunction is as binding now as ever. 
To be thus wise implies on the part of the missionary a correct 
appreciation of circumstances and conditions, and then acting ac- 
cordingly. Now circumstances and conditions vary indefinitely, 
and particularly so by change of time. Thus the experience of the 
Apostles and of the Church in the apostolic age is often cited as 
an example for the modern Church to follow in its missionary work. 
But the field which the Church of Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas 
into had very little resemblance to any part of our present foreign 
field. Humanly speaking, those first missionaries would have 
had no success had they turned east instead of west, because God 
had not been preparing the East for them as He had been prepar- 
ing the West. For many years before the Apostles, the devout Jew 
had raised his synagogue in every large city of the Roman Empire, 
and thousands of men and women who had wearied of the vanity 
of idols had entered its gates and there first learned the infinite 
superiority of the religion of the true God. A wonderful intro- 
duction had thus been amply provided for the first herald of Christ 
to render his announcement glad tidings, indeed, to great num- 
bers waiting at the door of the synagogue, and it was thither that 
the missionary always first bent his steps. Not a single modern 
missionary ever had such a preparation or introduction for him 
anywhere in Asia, Africa, or m the Pacific. Had Paul presented 
Christ to people like our contemporary Hindus, Chinese, or Afri- 
cans, not a recorded speech of his would have been understood. 

Now human history may repeat itself, but Divine times and sea- 
sons never do. We can not seek for the conditions of the Dis- 
persion nor of the apostolic age, but we have other preparations 
made for us such as the Apostles did not have, nor any other age 
of the Church ever had. The signs of our times portend oppor- 
tunities for the Church to go forward as never before, and what 
should be the first aim of the modern missionary is a wise adapta- 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 30. 



CHOICE AND QUALIFICATIONS 305 

bility to present conditions. For this purpose the first requisite 
of a foreign missionary is to learn how to put himself in others' 
places. I mean by that, to ponder how he would be likely to think 
and to feel if, instead of being born in a European or an American 
environment, he was born in, for example, a wholly Asiatic environ- 
ment, whether Arabic, Hindu, or Chinese, etc. 

But even this is an easy undertaking compared with the efifort 
needed to recognize how the other's environment has created him 
in his thought, conceptions, beliefs, and above all, feelings. Now 
one of the greatest obstacles to the spread of the gospel is mutual 
misunderstanding. I emphasize the word mutual. To be wise 
as a serpent the missionary should first fully understand those 
whom he is seeking to convert. He very commonly does little of 
the sort, but approaches his man or men with preconceptions 
which often are utter misconceptions. If men could truly under- 
stand one another, human enmity would greatly diminish every- 
where, but especially between those who, by birth and by race, 
are primarily foreigners to each other. Hence the next duty of 
the missionary is to have his men understand him. Generally, he 
is at first a very suspicious enigma to them, and the old human dis- 
trust and dislike of foreigners always operates as a great and long- 
continued obstacle. The first endeavor of the missionary, there- 
fore, whch should precede all others, even that of preaching the 
gospel, is to show that, though a stranger, he is a friend. Once 
let him really prove that, and he can begin to work with hope, and 
not before. This is because his is the religion of love, and he need 
not expect to spread that religion unless he himself is loved. 

How is the missionary to do this? One effectual way is by show- 
ing that he can and does appreciate and admire what is good in 
them and about them. For example, among the advanced Asiatic 
peoples like the Arabs, the Chinese, and the Hindus, there is noth- 
ing so acceptable as a missionary's appreciation of their literature. 
We are apt to forget how much those ancient races revere their 
literature and in what high esteem they hold their learned men 
and scholars. I shall never forget an illustration of this, which 
occurred in Damascus, a city whose streets have been reddened 
by the blood of thousands simply because they bore the name of 
Christians. Yet in that city an American missionary once passed 
an evening in a circle of famous Mohammedan learned men who 
themselves personified the fiercest spirit of Islam, and they pro- 
ceeded to test his knowledge of Arabic learning and Kterature. 
Their astonishment at finding that he was quite their peer in these 
respects was only equaled by their admiration for him, and led to 
an entire change in their attitude toward American missionaries as 
such. Again, when two American missionary families once went 
for the summer to a village of bigoted Mohammedans in the Leba- 
non, the people at first were very shy of them, until a great learned 
man, who lived among them and whose fame extended to distant 
Mohammedan lands, visited the missionaries to find whether they 
were learned men or not. I was present at that interview, and 
soon found that the grave and dignified Arab was certainly a re- 
markable man and a great scholar. The missionary talked with 



3o6 THE MISSIONARY 

him for two hours on Arabic poetry. The next day the people in- 
formed us that the great sheikh had told them that these men were 
a different kind of Christians from any other, and that they should 
treat them as brothers, which they afterward did. 

Another prime duty of the missionary is thoroughly to learn the 
social manners and customs of the people he is living among, so 
that he can become a perfect gentleman in their society sense. He 
may then find that this does not call for any real change from be- 
ing a gentleman in our own strictest sense of the term, in fact, that 
a true gentleman is a very cosmopolitan being, and quite as likely 
to be a pure-blooded Japanese, or Chinese, or Arab, as a pure- 
blooded Anglo-Saxon. To have gentlemanly manners in social 
intercourse is worth one's while in foreign lands, whatever the rea- 
son for going there, be it for trade or travel ; but for a missionary 
it is one of the first requisites. In this respect it must be admitted 
that Roman Catholic missionaries are often more proficient than 
our own, but at any rate, it is not out of place to note that in the 
matter of manners we are certainly the inferiors of the Asiatics. 
They are much more affable and polite to strangers than we are ; 
they do not laugh at foreigners making mistakes in their language, 
and they are more courteous in conducting either conversation 
or discussion. The Lebanon peasant always salutes you with a 
raised hand and smile, while the Connecticut farmer stares at you 
as if he resented your nodding to him. I never pitied a man for 
a deserved humiliation more than I once did an Anglican bishop, 
who brusquely contradicted a remark of a highly descended Druse 
Sheikh. The Sheikh at once bowed with the utmost dignity, and 
protested that he could not presume to know as much as the great 
Englishman, who knew more than an Arab could think. The 
American Board once sent to Syria two excellent men, who would 
have done very well somewhere in America, but nowhere in Asia. 
Among other conceptions of duty they believed and practiced the 
doctrine that if Christians stopped drinking tea and coffee and 
would devote the money for such superfluities to spreading the 
gospel, the world would be converted much sooner. One of 
them was sent to begin a new station at the city of Homs, where 
it was reported that a decided movement had taken place among 
the people to have a missionary come among them. As soon as 
he arrived, the Mohammedan governor of the city sent an invita- 
tion for the missionary to call upon him, and he received him very 
kindly, saying that he was glad to hear that the missionary pro- 
posed to open a school there, because American missionaries were 
noted for their learning. Soon the inevitable little cup of black 
coffee, which Arabic etiquette prescribes for every visitor, was 
brought in and our conscientious brother refused to taste it. " I 
am not going to poison him!" angrily exclaimed the governor, 
nor was it possible for the missionary to convey to him the faintest 
comprehension of his real reasons for putting aside this graceful 
piece of Oriental courtesy. The result was that the open door in 
Homs was completely closed for eight years by two tablespoons 
of coflfee. 



CHOICE AND QUALIFICATIONS 307 

" Why do you not like the Rev. Mr. ? " I once asked an 

Arab. " Oh! he is a he-goat," was the answer, " and 'his family in 
your country must be fellahs." 

We have, indeed, to go to Asia to find that general and public 
sociability which well nigh has departed from us, ov?ing to our habit 
of betaking ourselves to the daily newspaper instead of speaking to 
our neighbors. In the Oriental bazaar everyone is talking to ev- 
eryone else, and perfect strangers meet with a free hiterchange of 
civilities and mutual expressions of pleasure at making each oth- 
er's acquaintance. That this great element in Oriental manners, 
which afifords complete accessibility of every man to every other, 
is an ordering of God for us to take advantage of, goes without 
saying. Political opening of doors into countries is as nothing 
compared with this social entrance which the missionary can find 
free to him if only he will walk therein and gladly avail himself of 
every opportunity to meet men with wise Christian good-v/ill. 

After all is said, men, the world over, are constituted to be won 
by good works whose benefits they feel. It is a good trait in 
men to return good-will for good received, and our Lofd Himself 
appealed to that element in human nature when He went about 
conferring benefits upon both the rich and the poor. I have seen 
many an object-lesson in that same Galilee of how His days were 
spent, when to an American missionary physician would be 
brought, at each stopping-place, all sick people. They came to that 
missionary physician, because, like his Master, he was known to be 
among them to do them good, and I can bear testimony to the 
fact that this part of the Gospel work was not in vain. 

That particular American physician was my first preceptor in 
medicine, the late Dr. Cornelius V. A. Van Dyck, and I will men- 
tion two instances in his career which will illustrate our subject bet- 
ter than any detailed exposition which I may give. 

On Dr. Van Dyck's return to his station in Sidon after a year's 
visit to America, a cavalcade of hundreds of the people, including 
the leading men of all sects in the town, met him, beginning at a 
distance of three miles from the city, and gave him a welcome as 
if he were one of the greatest rulers of the land. On the celebra- 
tion, at Beirut, of his fiftieth anniversary as a missionary in Syria, 
the Sultan himself sent orders to the Governor-General of Syria 
to present in person an expression of the Sultan's esteem. On that 
occasion a large deputation of leading Mohammedan Ulemas or 
learned men was followed by a similar deputation from every one 
of the religious sects of the land, who, though all so bitterly hos- 
tile to one another, yet joined in doing honor to this veteran repre- 
sentative of American Christians. 

A physician has unusual opportunities everywhere to come 
nearer to men and to men's hearts than other men. If he is the 
right kind of man he makes fast friends as hardly anyone else 
does, and this privilege does not leave him when he goes abroad, 
but rather follows him the world over. Moreover, his gifts, unlike 
the giving of money, do not tend to pauperize the recipients. 
Instead, it puts them under more real obligation to him than even 



3o8 THE MISSIONARY 

do alms. Under that sense of obligation I have known men to 
raise no opposition to him as a missionary when, otherwise, opposition 
would have been strong and persistent. It is true that many who are 
helped by him soon forget all about it. So it was with Christ 
Himself, and so it is with thousands of recipients of medical char- 
ity in our own land, and yet the title " beloved " still remains a 
very frequent designation for the medical man, and nowhere more 
so than where he is following the example of his Lord in preach- 
ing the Gospel as he goes about healing the sick. 

For this purpose, however, the equipment as regards medical 
training and education should be the best which can be obtained. 
I have no patience with any system which would make it easier for 
a man to become a missionary physician than to become one at 
home. Medical science and practice have made great progress in 
our day, and by so much has that progress given increased powers 
to the medical missionary. But all the more does that necessitate 
the most thorough education of those who, in the foreign field, 
generally find themselves called upon to perform every kind of 
professional work, while at home it may be committed to dififerent 
specialists. Let the intending medical missionary, therefore, be 
furnished with the best facilities which his own country can afford 
to secure for him, the completest professional education, and, if 
need be, let that be done for him by the churches which are to com- 
mission him for his doubly sacred calling. By so doing the modern 
Church will only be adapting itself to one of the providential condi- 
tions of the field of the present world, and while nothing will take 
the place of love for preaching the Gospel, as the first requisite 
for Christ's laborers, yet to make that love effective, one of the 
greatest helps is a vast possession of modern medical science. 

Training of Missionaries 

Miss M. O. Allen, polls Institute, Herkimer, N. F.* 
A training school for missionaries is expected to give what it is 
not the province of the college or the university to furnish — a tech- 
nical education. 

It aims to prepare the student for the specific work of bringing 
men to Christ and raising the degraded to the Christian plane of 
living. 

As a basis for all training, personal character should receive the 
most careful attention. When the strongest searchlight is cast 
upon it at home or abroad, there should be revealed strict integrity, 
absolute uprightness, unselfishness, generosity with fellow-work- 
ers, dignity, good temper, Christian courtesy, self-restraint in 
speech, and a due recognition of the opinions and even the idiosyn- 
cracies of others. The instructors in a training school should get 
at the root of each individual nature and develop, strengthen, re- 
strain, or remove as may be necessary. To this should be added, 
where needed, training in the best social form. Many a noble 
missionary has been denied an entrance to hearts sorely needing 
her, on account of lack of what the world calls good breeding. 

* Carnegie Hall, April 27. 



TRAINING SYSTEMS 309 

The intellect should be trained to its utmost power of concentra- 
tion and acquisition ; to habits of painstaking investigation, thor- 
oughness, and accuracy, whether the field covered be great or 
small; to habits of rapid right thinking, quick perception of right 
relations, and clear expression of thought. 

The subjects taught should embrace: 

The historical movement of the Gospel in its conquest of the 
world, a survey of religious ideas and movements of the world, the 
social movements of the present, and the relation of the Christian 
worker to the whole social movement, including the great race 
movements of the day. 

The training should include accurate knowledge of the laws of 
mental development and of the quality of mind with which the 
missionary will come in contact. To a study of sociology, com- 
parative religions, psychology, etc., should be added a study of 
kindergarten methods, and of vocal and instrumental music. 

The English Bible should be studied first, last, and through all, 
scientifically, lovingly, as an authority and source of power. 

The training school should also give opportunity for development 
in dealing with people. Skill may be acquired by practice. 

The missionary candidate must be trained to obey the laws of 
health as a sacred duty. 

The atmosphere of the school should stimulate to breadth of 
thought, noble achievement, patient endeavor, unwavering faith, 
supreme love; love to Christ, love unfailing for the lowest and most 
debased of our fellow-creatures. 

Examples of Training Systems 

Mrs. L. O. George, HasscUinc House, Nczvton Centre, Mass."^ 

If great spiritual results are to follow the missionary work, then 
the workers must be called of God, that they should be ensamples 
to those who believe, in word, in manner of life, in love, in faith, 
in purity, able to exhort in sound doctrine, and to convict the gain- 
sayers. How shall we know that those who want to go will be all 
these things and more? Can we accept the verdict of partial 
friends, or of busy pastors, or even the pleadings of the applicant? 

The board of managers of the Woman's Baptist Foreign Mis- 
sionary Society felt they must have a personal touch with young 
women before they could accept them as missionaries; a touch 
which would give them a real insight into their hearts and lives. 

Hasseltine House, at Newton Centre, Mass., is the outgrowth of 
this desire on the part of the board. It is simply a home where 
graduates from colleges, normal, or training schools, who feel God 
is calling them to higher service in foreign work under our Society, 
may spend a year in preparation. 

The faculty of Newton Theological Seminary admit these young 
women as students. They receive the same teaching, take the 
same examinations as the young men who are preparing for the 
ministry. A very thorough course in the study of missions is 
given; in the methods and work of different denominations, the 

* Carnegie Hall, April 27. 



3IO THE MISSIONARY 

needs of the world, different religions, racial problems, and cus- 
toms of the heathen. Such a presentation of facts tests the mo- 
tive and call of the candidate. Romantic notions take flight before 
the test, and sometimes the timid girl goes with them. 

For ten years this quiet work has gone on. The benefits of 
Hasseltine House to the Society and to the candidates may be 
briefly stated: 

Thousands of dollars saved to our treasury in the sifting out of 
those unfitted for service. 

A beautiful and loving fellowship between those who enter the 
service and the members of the board of managers. 

Higher ideals of service, with a clearer knowledge of the policy 
and methods of the Society. 

Improvement by simplifying the work of designation or choice 
of field for candidates. Each )'ear confirms our conviction that 
this way is an improvement over the old way of selecting workers. 

Miss S. T. Knapp^ Training School for Deaconesses, Nczv 
York* 

The New York Training School for Deaconesses was first opened 
in 1890. 

Candidates for admission to the school must not be less than 
eighteen years of age; and thirty-five is the maximum limit general- 
ly observed. The applicant must be well indorsed by a clergyman 
and physician, and must pass an entrance examination, unless she 
possesses a certificate of graduation from some approved school or 
college. That women who enter the school should be gifted, is 
most desirable. That they should be industrious, is a clear neces- 
sity. The course required is to be successfully accomplished only 
by the industrious and persevering. But the indispensable quali- 
fications for a deaconess, either missionary or parochial, are, first, 
the spirit of consecration, and second, the spirit of harmony. 
Without the first, no woman, understanding herself, would assume 
such a life and work; without the second, no woman in such a life 
and work could hope for success. The two years' training given to 
the student is divided into two periods each year. The scholastic 
course lasts seven months, from the first of October until the last 
of April, and the hospital course begins the eighth of May and closes 
the last of July. 

The intellectual work required of the student is similar to the 
course in a theological seminary, and it is the steady purpose of the 
authorities of the school that a high standard for the intellectual 
work should always be maintained. There are in the faculty seven 
clergymen, one physician, and four women. 

Thorough instruction in the Bible is given, also in theology, 
liturgies, Church history, and, if desired, the Greek Testament. A 
class in teaching is held, in which the students prepare lessons upon 
an assigned passage in the Bible, and in the class they present and 
discuss their analyses of the passage and their scheme for teaching 

* Carnegie Hall, April 27. 



GERMAN SYSTEMS OF TRAINING 31 1 

the lesson. The practical studies in the winter course are hygiene, 
bookkeeping, and cooking. 

During the school year the students are expected to teach Sun- 
day-school classes, and also to make a study of certain important 
parish and institutional works. They devote one afternoon or 
evening of each week to this part of the training. Each student 
remains one month, or, if advisable, two months, in the work she 
is studying, and is then moved on to another. In this way she 
has an opportunity to visit the sick poor in their own homes under 
the guidance of a physician, to conduct mothers' meetings, to teach 
in the different grades of a sewing-school, to assume duties in a day 
nursery, etc. Those who have had their first three months of hos- 
pital training are also admitted to certain dispensaries to assist 
at the clinics. 

The school gives careful attention to the study of missions. In 
addition to the courses of lectures on missions, there is a missionary 
society under the direction of the house-mother, the aim of which 
is to contribute annually to the support of certain missionary work, 
and to provide a missionary service for the students and deacon- 
esses of neighboring parishes. We have sent graduates to China, 
Brazil, Alaska, and other less remote fields of the West. 

German Systems of Training 

Mrs. J. Fairley Daly, W. F. M. S., Free Church of Scotland, 
Glasgozv* 

From the very inception, the deaconess work was connected with 
foreign mission work, although begun for the needs of the home 
field. Fliedner sent out four deaconesses to Jerusalem, April 
17, 1852, to begin the work among the sick. The sisters, since 
1868, have also worked in the orphan home, " Talitha Kumi," at 
Jerusalem, educating the destitute ones. In Smyrna, Fliedner be- 
gan the work of higher education. In 1852, a hospital for the 
deaconesses was founded at Constantinople. Eight years later, i860, 
marks the beginning of the orphans' home, Zoar, at Beirut, after the 
massacres of the Lebanon. 

This work, to which must be added many institutions in other 
German fields, determines the course of training. It must be (i) 
for work among the sick; (2) for education, both primary and 
higher. In general no special training is provided for the foreign 
field. The candidate must be between the years of eighteen and 
thirty-six, must possess a certificate from her pastor and from a 
physician as to a sound body and mind, and must also give evi- 
dence of Christian life and character. A good general education 
is required, and if there is a deficiency in any branch, it is made 
up. Special emphasis is laid upon the knowledge of history and 
geography, and of those who go to the foreign field, a knowl- 
edge of the peculiar work to which they are called is required. 
The initial period of probation is six weeks in Germany, followed 
by a year of practical work in schools and hospitals, and then by 
the regular course of instruction. After another period of probation 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 17. 



312 THE MISSIONARY 

lasting at the utmost six years, the candidate is consecrated as a 
helping sister and afterward dedicated to full work. 

In Philadelphia the initial probation is from October to Easter. 
Then follows a year of instruction and a period of probation for 
from four to six years ; but the instruction continues even beyond 
the special time of instruction. During the time of probation the 
sisters are under a mother-probationer. Afterward the instruction 
is imparted by the pastor or rector of the house, and the other 
training is given by ministers and by teaching sisters. The sister 
must be in sympathy with the work of the church in which she 
serves; but she is made acquainted with the whole sphere of Chris- 
tian work and activity. 

Marriage of Missionaries 

Rev. John Morton, D.D., Missionary, Presbyterian Church in 
Canada, Trinidad.'^ 

With regard to the selection of missionaries, you can not make 
a missionary by selecting him. The preparation of the foreign 
missionary should be rather the preparation of all workers, at home 
and abroad. 

Let missionary candidates, if they are young, take churches at 
home, and show what they can do; and then, having all ministers 
imbued with a missionary spirit, obey literally the commands of the 
Lord Jesus; whenever there are openings, ask Him to thrust out the 
right man ; to thrust him out, to make him uncomfortable until he 
goes to the mission work. 

Of course, many settle for themselves the marriage question. But 
whether that be the case or not, the question has been widely discussed 
at home in favor of sending out young men unmarried. Some came 
out unmarried, but I do not think any of them lived any cheaper than 
we did; I do not think that any found housekeeping less trouble or 
anxiety tlian we did, and I know by experience that their house- 
keeping was of a quality very inferior to that of those who had 
wives. I am in favor, therefore, of treating this question of wives 
on general principles. Train all your men at home; let them go 
to work at home as city missionaries or ministers to gain valuable 
experience, and get a wife, and then let them come out prepared 
with a certain amount of quiet, self-possessed determination to 
stick to the work, having the confidence of the Church behind them. 
Of course, a man may live in a smaller house if he has not a wife, 
but the question of health is so very important that it should be 
looked at in connection with the question of marriage. It is 
good to have something like a healthy house. A waste of mission 
funds far greater than any waste in connection with wives and 
children of missionaries is to have men scarcely fit to drag them- 
selves about, barely living, yet feeling that they are bound to re- 
main in the field until the end of their five years' term, and to have 
them then spend a year and a half in their native country before 
they are fit to go back. Far better to give them something like a 
comfortable home and keep them in health. Far better spend the 

*Church of the Strangers, April 24, 



MARRIAGE OF MISSIONARIES 313 

money on wives and children rather than on doctors and quinine. 
Then note that the wife comes in as a factor in mission work, and 
it is worth paying for some women to go out as missionaries ! 

The question of heahh is a difificult question. One remark I 
wish to make is this, that I think ministers break the fourth com- 
mandment more than any class of people I know. I know if I 
have any sin on me, it is that I work the whole Sabbath day from 
morning to night. Monday is a busy day, because it is market-day, 
and all the other days are similarly busy, and the result is we get 
no Sunday rest and get sick. Another reason why missionaries 
break down is that they interpret wrongly the idea of having only 
one thing to do, one great impulse ; and the missionary sometimes 
suffers because he takes it too much to heart, and thinks that every 
little diversion from his work is a waste of time. It is a great mis- 
take; it would be better for him if he would go out and play golf 
or some other healthy pastime. In my own case agriculture is a 
diversion, and it works beautifully in with our school system and 
school work ; the missionary should not allow his mind to be- 
come too much absorbed and narrowed into one idea, which is al- 
ways wearing on the brain. The law of self-sacrifice is a great 
law, but the law of self-development is another, and the man is sin- 
ning against his own soul who is so intent upon saving others, on 
developing and training others, that he has no time to give any at- 
tention whatsoever to self-development ; no tim.e to let his life 
broaden out. There is plenty of time to do the work if we only 
lay it out properly, do it deliberately, and then allow Providence to 
ripen His own wheat when we have watered it just as well as we can. 

Rev. J. G. McLaurin, D.D., Missionary, American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union, India* 

It was written in a very good book a long time ago that it is not 
good for a man to be alone, and I want to say that in my observa- 
tions of over thirty years, in one of the hottest countries upon the 
face of the earth, more men are saved from going home by the 
wives that they have been sensible enough to marry before they 
went out, than are sent home on account of their wives. I am an 
example of this fact myself. I believe that, humanly speaking, I 
would have been dead three times at least, to use an hibernicism, if 
I had lived during the last thirty years, were it not for my wife. 
And I believe that the wife should go out with the man; I do not 
like that idea of her going out two or three years afterward. I be- 
lieve that the wife, other circumstances being equal, should learn 
the language by the side of the man. My wife did that with me, 
day after day, and she could talk the language as well as I could, 
and could use it safely, and I am not sure but what she was the 
better half of the two in the work and the influence that she ex- 
erted upon the people with whom she came into contact. Thank 
God, she is living yet, and she is a stronger man than I am, too! 
These unmarried men, in nine cases out of ten, have to depend 
upon some other man's wife, for, unless they establish monasteries, 

♦Church of the Strangers, April 24. 



314 THE MISSIONARY 

they must live in some other man's home and eat food cooked by 
some other man's wife. We are referred to Paul, and we thank 
God every day for Paul, and we thank God for every man that has 
had the call that Paul had, to go out as he did; for Livingstone, for 
instance, after the death of his wife, and the work that he did. They 
have a call, but the call is not universal. Paul never went outside 
of the zone of his own climate. Paul never went outside the cus- 
toms of his own home. He was always surrounded by his fellow- 
countrymen, and he was never outside the home influences. He 
was almost always in a brother's home. 

Rev. L. B. Wolf, Missionary, General Synod Evangelical Luthe- 
ran Church, India.* 

I believe that our English societies and German societies have 
been settling one of the questions which confronts the Christian 
Church and the missionary world at the present time, and that is 
by sending out a missionary unmarried for a certain number of 
years until it has been demonstrated that he can stand the climate, 
and can acquire the language of the country in which he is to labor. 

Several English and German societies test their men three or 
four years in these two particulars of which I have spoken, and I 
think that is wise. 

But when the marriage question does come up, and we do get 
married, what then? I stand here after sixteen years of service in 
South India. I do not know at the present time which way to 
turn. I had a Christian home, which I believe under God, was as 
powerful in India as my own work. But that home is broken up. 
Why? Because I dare not keep my children on the plains of South 
India; and if I go back as a missionary now, I must go back alone. 
That is the other side of the shield. What are we to do, then? 
We must go back after years of hard work, with no loving family 
around us, but as single missionaries to all intents and purposes. 

Now, that is the situation. I am not speaking of one case alone; 
but let me ask all the missionaries in South India if that is not the 
position which presents itself to every missionary, if he wants to 
do his duty toward the family which God has given him. 

Breakdowns in health, I believe, even in South India, are easily 
avoided if men will use common-sense. I do not think God gave 
me a stronger body than to any other man, but in sixteen years I 
have spent but six months outside of India, and I am not broken 
down. I came home because I had to bring my family home, and 
for no other reason. All that has been said by the brothers on 
health is absolutely true. Lay strong hold upon God; place your- 
self in His hands and go on where He leads, and then do your work 
systematically. After two years in India I was invalided. Why? 
I did not use that sanctified common-sense which is always needed, 
and I tried to do two men's work. Then I listened, as I hope 
every young missionary going out to India will listen, to the ad- 
vice of my senior missionary, who said : " Wolf, when five o'clock 
in the evening comes, shut up your books and go out and take a 

* Church of the Strangers, April 24. 



MARRIAGE OF MISSIONARIES 315 

change, and try to get new life and new blood for the next day." 
And with that I began to pick up. I played golf and tennis, and I 
believe I served God as well when I played tennis and golf as when 
I worked in the college. 

Rev. R. M. Mateer, Missionary, Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 
China. "^ 

I have been in China for nineteen years and have had to do with 
the opening of a new station. As an American missionary I stand 
in a somewhat different relation to my wife, and she to me and the 
missionary work, than if I were an English missionary. We are 
not only the husbands of these American wives. The Church in 
this country expects and practically demands that a missionary's 
wife should be something more than a mere wife, occupied with 
the care of him and his family, and doing no missionary work. Our 
American women are first and always missionaries; and their work 
and their influence are not one whit behind that of the men. We 
have eight of them in the station where I am, and I am prepared to 
say that they have had more to do with the great results of the 
work in that station than the men. It is unfair to ask the women 
to stay at home four or five years before they join the men they 
are going to marry. Let them have an equal chance with the 
men. Our American Church knows that no successful station can 
be established without women, and no successful station can be 
established, as a rule, without an older man and woman in that 
station, so that the church with which I am connected has made 
the rule that an older man should go along with the young men 
to establish a station. But what happens? You take three young 
unmarried missionaries with the older missionary and his wife, and 
you expect these latter to take care of those young men. I lived 
there with a wife who tried to take care of young men that came 
to her under those circumstances, and in two years I laid her in the 
grave. It is unfair, inexcusable, and unwise; irrational from ev- 
ery standpoint, to undertake to establish a station without women; 
and it is unfair to expect that one woman should be called on to 
bear the burden that belongs to the station. The men ought to be 
married for the sake of the women. 

Then, again, as to the study of the language. If the wife goes 
out with her husband, we provide for her until she learns the lan- 
guage. But when she goes out later she has not the benefit of his 
companionship and help in learning the language; she is called 
upon to undertake the duties of the home, and she gets discouraged, 
and is really only the " wife " of that man. She is not a mission- 
ary. In learning the language she is at great disadvantage. 

Suppose you do send a young woman out, it is natural that a 
young, unmarried missionary should fall in love with her. Now, 
what are you going to do about it? The board has asked the 
young man to go out for three or five years without being married. 
Are you going to ask those young people to remain in their station 
unmarried? You can not do it in any heathen country. You can 

* Church of the Strangers, April 24. 



3l6 THE MISSIONARY 

not question whom the man shall marry, and it is a very serious re- 
sponsibility that the board assumes in such a matter, I say em- 
phatically, that no board has a right to take God's place and de- 
cide for the missionary in this matter. When I first went out, 
without another foreigner within forty miles of the place, I know I 
should have broken down if my wife had not been with me. 

You talk about Paul. He was under different circumstances 
from ours. Paul was constantly having a change of scene or asso- 
ciation. He did not have to deal with an alien language nor with an 
alien climate. We have to wrestle v^^ith a trying language and the 
depressing efifects of isolation and monotony in a heathen country. 

Regarding this whole matter of missionary policy and admin- 
istration, I say, leave a little for God to attend to, and when God 
provides a helpmeet for a man he should leave father and mother 
and cleave to his wife. If that is necessary here in this country, 
it is infinitely more so in a heathen land. Do not encourage this 
halo of romance and sentimentality. This is a time for a great 
campaign to be undertaken on rational principles. So I say, let 
the wife accompany her husband to the mission field. 

Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, Superintendent, China Inland Mis- 
sion* 

All the world is not in similar circumstances. Mission fields 
differ, there are many questions to be considered. One of my best 
friends — an American missionary — has six of his wives lying side 
by side in a cem.etery near the place where I have done a good deal 
of work. His seventh wife lies in America, not with the other six. 

Now, my dear friends, it is a very easy thing to say: marry 
whom you will, when you will, and as you will, but a sight like that 
is calculated to impress a thoughtful man. In China, where I have 
labored for some forty-six years, the climate is far more serious in 
its effects on a woman's life than on that of the man. You will 
meet in China with a large proportion of missionaries not more 
than thirty years of age, who are living with their third wife. Is 
not that a serious question in mission work? After we buried so 
many young wives, we were constrained to make rules in regard to 
the matter. Our rule is now that our men and women must pass 
two years in the field, must break the back of the language, must 
prove their physical powers before they are united in marriage. 
This rule has cut down our death rate of missionary wives fifty 
per cent. It is a very serious thing, indeed, to send out a woman 
under circumstances which practically condemn her for life, either 
to sickness, or to leaving the field altogether without her husband, 
to taking her husband away from the field, or to other contingencies 
which I must not dwell upon. I do not know any more difficult 
question in the whole missionary problem. I have had the pleas- 
ure of living as a married missionary for forty years and I know all 
the advantages, and the comfort, and the blessing to the work of 
having a faithful and competent partner by one's side; but for near- 

* Church of the Strangers, April 24. 



ENVIRONMENT AND HOME 3^7 

ly twenty years of my married life, my wife has had to be in one 
part of the world while I have been in another. Mr. Wolf brought 
this question before us in a very practical light: what is to be done 
with the children, or wife, or both, when they can not live in the 
country to which the missionary is called? There is nothing for 
it, if he go back to his field, but to become practically a single mis- 
sionary. In the statistics of our mission I may tell you that twice 
as many married as single missionaries have to take furloughs. 
In our experience, single men and single women do not break down 
in the proportion of the married missionaries. With the latter 
the sickness of either man or wife brings the missionary home. 
The matter of expense ought not to be considered in this question. 
The glory of God and the good of the world are the only questions 
that we have a right to consider. 

One other topic which I should refer to, and that is the acqui- 
sition of the language. It has not been the experience in our mis- 
sion — which has 800 missionaries connected with it — that those who 
went out married have acquired the language either as accurately, 
or as fully, or as easily as those who have gone out single. Nay, 
so serious has been the disadvantage that in not a few cases mar- 
ried missionaries have voluntarily separated for a season from their 
wives in order that they may have more of the advantages that 
single persons enjoy in this matter of study. 

Environment and Home 

Rev. Irwin H. Correll, D.D., Missionary, Protestant Episco- 
pal Church, Japan.-'^ 

To our mind the first work which should engage the attention of 
the newly arrived missionary in any field is the acquisition of the 
language of the people among whom he is to labor. It has been 
the case that men who have come into the mission field have either 
been assigned to, or allowed to spend their time in, work v/hich 
prevented them from beginning the study of the language at once, 
with the thought that after a time they could be relieved from the 
duties claiming their immediate attention and then they could ap- 
ply themselves to it. It may, however, be stated as a rule, with 
very few exceptions, that the missionary who does not get a fair 
knowledge of the language within the first two or three years of his 
missionary life, will never make a success of it. If his energies 
are devoted to any other work, the probabilities are that he will 
be a disappointed man ere many years pass. We do not wish to 
be understood as saying that there are no fields in which the mis- 
sionary can work by using the English language, but we are pre- 
pared to say that no missionary can do his best work for the Church 
and the salvation of souls in any field if he is ignorant of the ver- 
nacular of the people. 

It is a mistake to suppose that the acquisition of the language is 
important simply to enable him to communicate his thoughts to the 
people and deliver to them his message in their own tongue — 
essential as this is to his real success. He needs to get into the 



* Church of the Strangers, April 24. 



3l8 THE MISSIONARY 

very thought and Ufe of the people, learn their true condition, so 
that he can get down by their side, not to lower his standards, but 
in order that he may in true sympathy and love lift them up and 
become instrumental in bringing them into such relations with 
God and each other as their Maker intended. This can be done 
successfully only when he can speak to them in their own language. 

While the missionary is engaged in his work, environments have 
much to do with the maintenance and growth of his spiritual life. 
The atmosphere of heathenism is filled with bacteria which threaten 
not only the vitality, but the very spiritual life itself, and it is en- 
tirely lacking in those soul-invigorating, vitalizing, and nourish- 
ing qvialities so marked in Christian lands, and so essential to full, 
vigorous manhood and womanhood in Christ Jesus. The mis- 
sionary at his best is but human, and, although he has not only the 
promise of, but can also unquestionably enjoy, the companionship 
of Him who said : " Lo ! I am with you alway," yet he has no 
greater claim upon the fulfillment of this promise than has the 
laborer who dwells in so-called Christian lands. While the latter 
needs his seasons of refreshing and communion with those who 
give him a spiritual uplift, the missionary is frequently cut off en- 
tirely from all these privileges. We would not for a moment think 
of giving the impression that the little church which the missionary 
raises up by God's help is no stimulus or source of comfort to him, 
but whenever he appears before these converts it is as a teacher ; 
there is a constant giving out, with little or no taking in for him- 
self. The blessed Master found it necessary repeatedly to retire 
with His disciples to some quiet place for rest and prayer. 

For the missionary this place is the home. His physical, intel- 
lectual, and spiritual natures demand this, and they unite in calling 
for the very best that can be furnished. We say the very best, not 
the most luxurious. There is a wide difference between luxury 
and necessary comfort and nourishment. Who, let me ask, is 
more in need of, and more justly entitled to, a comfortable home 
and resting-place, than he, who for days and weeks has been travel- 
ing about exposed to condiHons of life which are entirely opposed 
to what he has always been led to believe are requisite to health 
and longevity? The true missionary is very unlike the tourist. 
He, as a rule, can choose the places he visits, and these, naturally, 
are the most beautiful and attractive the country can afford; he 
can carefully select his hotels, etc., where he wishes to stop, but not 
so with the missionary; duty frequently calls him to enter the hovels 
of the humblest, and in the prosecution of his work, he will find 
himself in the midst of surroundings which are far from conducive 
to the comfort and rest of body which he finds needful. 

After long experience of this character the rest of a Christian 
home, fashioned after the one in which he was born and reared, 
is necessary, that he may be prepared for the next tour he is to 
make. Not only is the physical man recuperated, but the spiritual 
nature which has become more or less depressed by its contact with 
heathenism and its deadening influences, is also quickened within 
the sacred confines of the Christian home, where it breathes an at- 



ENVIRONMENT AND HOME 319 

mosphere purified by the presence of the Divine Spirit Himself, 
and uncontaminated by the degradation with which he has been 
so recently surrounded. It becomes, indeed, a haven of rest to 
the weary soul, where the hungry soul is fed and strengthened for 
better service. 

A well-educated Japanese gentleman, who had spent a number 
of years in the United States, and had discovered the strong and 
active forces which assert themselves in a true Christian civiliza- 
tion, in speaking of his own country in contrast, said: " What we 
need in my country more than any other one thing, is the Christian 
home." He was right. The true Christian home possesses a 
power which molds nations and develops that which is noblest, 
purest, and best. 

The missionary is sent to foreign lands to spend his time and 
strength in laboring for the evangelization of the people of those 
lands, and yet, in some places he can not close his eyes to the need 
of doing something to help those to live virtuous lives who have 
come abroad and are temporarily thrown upon foreign shores and 
surrounded by temptations of the most subtle character. What 
a wall of defense and place of refuge the missionary's true Chris- 
tian home may become to these sojourners who find so much to 
ensnare and so little to help! We are convinced that much can be 
done in this respect. The Christian home, opening its sacred doors 
to them, introduces them not only to its pure moral atmosphere, but 
also to the work which absorbs the missionary's time. The in- 
fluence of such visitors is gained and exerted in favor of that work, 
and the reports given in the home land are favorable to the work 
of Christian missions instead of pronouncing them a failure. 

The greatest influence of the missionary's home, however, is that 
which is exerted upon the inhabitants themselves. What a marvel- 
ous contrast between a Christian and a heathen home! For a short 
time every day work ceases ; all the members of the family, servants 
included, are gathered together, the voice of praise is heard, God's 
Word is read and prayer is unitedly offered. Morning and evening 
this hallowed influence rises from the altar erected there. The 
voice of prayer may also be heard in the heathen home, but as the 
monotonous, unintelligible prayers are accompanied by the dole- 
ful clang of the gong which is beaten at the side of the worshiper, 
it sounds more like the death knell of the spiritual life of the devotee 
than the announcement of a season of joy and refreshing for the 
soul. Perhaps the greatest contrast is noticeable in the family 
which comes out of heathenism into a true Christian life and, fol- 
lowing the pattern given, establishes the Christian home. Before 
Christ came to reign in the heart and the home, the husband and 
father looked upon wife and children as far inferior to him, but 
when the home is Christianized, the inmates live in an entirely dif- 
ferent atmosphere. The severe words of command are changed 
into the gentle words of request, the stern tones of continuous fault- 
finding are changed into the milder tones of admiration and ap- 
proval for the good things done, and loving entreaty that the 
wrong-doing may be corrected. It should not be difficult for any 



320 THE MISSIONARY 

one to see at a glance Vv'hat a power for good and what a recom- 
mendation to the rehgion of the Lord Jesus Christ this changed 
home would be. Thus, the missionary's home may be a constant 
object-lesson, proving clearly that the teaching of the meek and 
lowly Jesus is not only superior in theory to anything the world 
has ever known, but that in practical life it redeems its promises 
and brings to its believers untold comfort and joy. 

We can not close this paper without referring to the personal 
character and influence of the missionary. His life is looked upon 
as the exponent of Christianity, rather than his words. He is in 
a very special sense the representative of Christ, for Christianity 
and its power are judged far more by what the missionary is than 
by what he says. As we carefully consider this aspect of the case 
and see the tremendous responsibilities which thus rest upon the 
missionary of the cross, we may well ask with one of old : " Who 
shall be able to stand? " and the answer comes from one who had 
fully tested the source of all needed grace: " I can do all things 
through Christ which strengtheneth me." Through Christ who is 
formed within me. Then it is that the influence of the Christ 
which we have appropriated to ourselves can exert itself through 
us, and we can stand as His representatives before the nations of 
the earth. 

Hon. J. B. Angell, LL.D., President University of Michigan* 
I sometimes think that those of us who have never been upon 
the foreign field do not altogether understand what the real trials 
of the foreign missionary are. I think it is true that the real 
trials are often not those which we suppose to be so, and that the 
trials of which we know little are the real trials of the mission- 
aries themselves. I have had the good fortune to be in the homes 
of princes and in the palaces of the rich in many lands, but I am 
speaking the simple truth when I say that I have never been any- 
where in the world in homes which impressed me so with the happi- 
ness of the dwellers as the humble homes of our hard-working 
missionaries on the foreign field. It was not the happiness of 
pomp, but it was that highest of all earthly happiness, which God 
grants to every man and every woman who makes the supreme end 
and desire of life to do the work of the Master, regardless of personal 
comfort. 

We often think that the long journey from home is the great 
trial, or that the hard and discouraging conditions of the toil is 
the hard trial, but these the missionary goes from home fully de- 
termined to confront, and rarely finds them so very serious a mat- 
ter. But there are three great trials, I venture to believe, which 
I simply wish to name, for I am not going to make a speech, which 
I think we ought to remember as the friends of all the mission- 
aries on the foreign field, and if I mistake not, they are their 
greatest trials, and trials which, in some degree, we may, by prayer 
and by help, do something to alleviate. 

The first of these trials is that which comes upon the father and 

* Carnegie Hall, April 27. 



HEALTH 321 

mother when the sad day arrives that they must send their children 
home for education when they so need the companionship of 
father and mother, and when father and mother even more, per- 
haps, need the companionship of their children. We can do some- 
thing to help in this matter by caring in all ways possible to us for 
the comfort and help of the children at home. 

The second trial, which it is impossible for one to understand 
who has not been in a non-Christian country for some con- 
siderable time, I find it somewhat difficult to describe. It is that 
great trial to the soul, to the moral and spiritual nature, which 
comes at last when, after months of solitude in a non-Christian 
community, the terrible weight of non-Christian thought and cus- 
tom and habit weighs upon the soul and seems to stifle the spiritual 
life and hope itself. It is to the spiritual and moral life what im- 
prisonmnent in a narrow cell is to a man where he is robbed of the 
oxygen of the vital air ; and more than one missionary has found 
his reason has at last tottered under this great and abiding trial 
of life. All that we can do for them is to pray for their relief and 
support to the only Source of support, but it is a trial greater than 
you can imagine, and I would venture to appeal to every mission- 
ary here in confirmation of this statement. 

The third and last which I shall name, is that great trial which 
comes upon the missionary when he finds that after he has begun 
to plant his seed, and there is hope of a harvest in sight, he is 
stunned by the sad tidings from home that there must be curtail- 
ment in his Vv'ork, and that all his promises must be blasted be- 
cause the Church at home is not ready to support him in this 
great and Godlike work. There is no trial like that to the human 
soul, and that it is that we can remedy. It is for us laymen, who 
have the purse, to furnish the comfort and cheer to our workmen 
who have gone to the front. There is no lack of workmen ready. 
I venture to say, as the president of a university, and I would ap- 
peal to every college president in the land for confirmation of my 
words, that if the laymen of this country will furnish the means 
the colleges of America will double the number of missionaries on 
the foreign field within five years. 

Health 

C. F. Harford-Battersby, M.D., Principal Livingstone Medical 
College, England^^ 

The question of the health of missionaries has been my life work. 
I have devoted the last seven years to studying the whole question, 
and I believe it is a question that is more neglected than any other 
in the missionary problem. We pay any amount of attention to 
the training of missionaries in theology and in all the branches of 
mental equipment, and yet, in too many cases missionaries are sent 
forth without any idea of knowing how to care for their health. 
They are sent forth into unknown climates to meet the dangers 
and difficulties they have to meet as best they can. Now, it is my 
great work in life to protest against this, and to try and remedy it 

* Church of the Strangers, April 24. 



32i THE MISSIONARY 

where possible. I am not connected so much with the repair of 
missionaries, but rather with the preventing- of their getting out 
of order. Prevention is a great deal better than cure. 

I think one great difificulty that we have had to meet is the sort 
of way in which they have treated the terrible results of what we 
I have called " climate " in the field. We find that missionaries go, 
/ for instance, to West Africa, or to other unhealthy regions; they 
/ get invalided; they die; and when the news comes we pass resolu- 
' tions of sorrow and sympathy, but we do not realize the full im- 
portance of the sad events — that is, that many of these deaths are 
preventable — and it is merely because we do not use our sanctified 
common-sense that these sad events take place. We talk about the 
climate affecting people so much, but if we went about things in 
this country, or in Europe, or in any other civilized land, in the 
way that our missionaries go about them, the very same things would 
come without any question of climate entering into it at all. 

Take the question of food. A man goes out from a country 
where he has been accustomed to get his food from a butcher store 
which can be relied upon; where he can get exactly the vegetables 
that he chooses, and have his bread baked in a proper place. 
Then our missionaries go to a mission field where all they are able 
to get is yams or plantains, or something of that kind. If they 
have been taught nothing of cooking they do not know what to 
do. We wish to teach people the food question and the water 
question ; so I say in a word to them to boil the water. If we did 
even this, how many furloughs on account of sickness would be 
prevented. 

We want to tell our missionaries what kind of house they ought 
to live in, and give them some idea as to its sanitation, and what 
the sun means in the tropical climates, and what the cold means in 
Arctic regions. If they are going to isolated places without any 
medical knowledge, we want to give them some sort of training 
which will fit them for those climates. 

We are accustomed at the heat of the summer to take our an- 
nual holiday. I think all missionaries ought to be able to have an 
annual holiday, in order that after the strain of their missionary 
life they may have some opportunity of recovering their forces, 
impaired by their heavy work and overwork in the field. 

Let us not forget that the missionary is not merely a spiritual 
being, but that he has a body, and let us help him to take care of it. 

Henry Foster, M.D., Clifton Springs, N.Y.* 
For fifty years returned missionaries have been coming to our 
house for repairs. We have felt that we have done as much good 
by repairing as others have by preparing. Acquainted with them 
and their work, we have come to be very much interested in the 
cause of breakdowns; for it seemed to us that there were too many 
unnecessary breakdowns among our missionary workers. I came 
to the conclusion at last that there are three factors in the matter. 
Two of them can be remedied to some extent; one can not. That 



* Church of the Strangers, April 24. 



HEALTH 323 

one is the environments of the missionary on the field. The horri- 
ble sights and sounds, and vile odors, and the depressing influences 
that touch the missionary every day in all his work, remains and 
will remain until Christianity has lifted the people into a citizenship 
above heathendom. 

The next factor is the neglect of the body, and we do not now 
hesitate to charge the missionary with that fault. They seem to 
think when they have received a mission from God to go out into 
the field to work, that their body belongs to Him, and He will take 
care of it, and they must put their whole force into the labor of the 
day and the night, and continue without cessation as long as they 
can walk. This is the great mistake; for under such continual 
labors they begin soon to weaken and fail to do their work. The 
nutritive functions are weakened, and they become impoverished, 
and finally they are so let down that there is but little of the original 
strength left, and, yet, gathering up the forces that they have, and 
putting their whole strength into the work, trying to bring some- 
thing to pass, they still go on — and finally collapse. They are 
then sent home, sometimes never to recover; again, to recover and 
go back and do a better, a more intelligent work. 

Now, they should learn something of the laws by which they live; 
something of their limitations, and conform to them, and get one 
thought into the mind: that they have no more right to transgress 
the physical law, than they have to swear. Yet, they do not carry 
reasoning to that extent. It is very strange that being Bible 
students they do not recognize the example set by our Lord Jesus 
Christ. When He came into tlie world, and took upon Himself 
our form, He came within the limitations of His humanity, and He 
could not break that law any more than the moral law, for had He 
done so, the redemption would have gone to the ground, and you 
and I to-day would have been without God, and without hope in 
the world. But He did not break the physical law. When He 
was laboring so hard that it was said that He had not time so much 
as to eat bread. He turned to His disciples and said to them private- 
ly: " Come aside and rest awhile! " It is not said what His mo- 
tive was, but the act proves the motive, for He always went aside 
when the pressure became heavy, and when the burdens were hard. 
He always went aside and took His disciples and rested; and that 
was the motive. 

Work never hurts anyone. Work is one of the conditions of 
long life and happiness, and health and success. Work itself is 
one of the greatest blessings — the greatest blessing, save redemp- 
tion — that God has given to man. I would not exchange the 
seventv years of hard work that God has given me for all the gold of 
the nation ; for, in that work, we touch the hand of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Tn lb at work we touch His very heart, and have flowing 
in, as the result, the Divine strength and the Divine love. 

There is another factor I will mention, and that is. neglect of 
soul. It mav seem very strange to tell a missionary that he neg- 
lects his soul, for that is the very part he is after, and the very part 
he o-lories in, and has committed to God. Yet, he neglects it. The 



324 THE MISSIONARY 

fact is the soul needs feeding, constantly, more than the body, and 
we must give time to the feeding and refreshing of the soul. Paul, 
while this subject was before him, seemed to stand astonished. He 
said, What ! know ye not that your bodies are the temple of the 
Holy Ghost, whose temple ye are? And the Lord Jesus said. It is 
needful that I go away. If I go away, the Comforter will come; 
and when He comes He shall lead you into all truth, and bring all 
things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said. 

Now, that Holy Spirit, enthroned in the body, permeating the 
entire being, dominating the whole nature, becomes wisdom's guid- 
ing light, strength, and help. It is our duty to take in the Divine 
Spirit as the dominating power of our nature and of our being, and 
then to receive from Him direction, and guidance, and help, and we 
will find that there will come inflowing thoughts, impulses, di- 
rections, and unfoldings of truth that we never dreamed of; that 
they come without taxing the body, without taxing the nature, but 
come with a divine uplifting and a divine strength that gives new 
impetus and new help. 

The humble soul that is committed to God, and goes to Him thus 
for help, will find ever a response to that honest inquiry. There 
will come back the will of the Father, with all the fullness and glory 
of an inner life that give an uplift and give a joy. The missionary 
should be able to go rejoicing all the while, instead of with a pack 
on his back and borne down with the awful reality that is before 
him, of humanity lost unless saved by grace. 

The fact is, if the missionary would come into that state of mind 
and live there, he must spend hours in communion with God. He 
must spend hours before Him in waiting for His will, asking, re- 
ceiving. No soul breaks down under such circumstances, for he 
comes under the guiding Spirit, and the Spirit leads him to do the 
thing that Christ says, and that is. to obev the physical law, and 
when there comes a time for rest — it may be an hour, it may be a 
day, it may be weeks — he should strike the balance as often as 
possible, and by work and alternation there will come the largest 
amount of success, and he will grow stronger as he goes on. We 
have missionaries who can testify to this. We have those whose 
experience proves it to be true ; and it is true of every Christian in 
foreign lands, or at home. 

Better it is for any missionary when he has been accepted by 
any board to stay at home until he has learned the science of health 
and of right living. 



CHAPTER XIII 

INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

Relations to Science, Commerce, and Diplomacy — Careless Criticisms — Rela- 
tions to Governments. 



To Science, Coiiimefce, etc« 

G. A. King, Esq., Religious Tract Society, London.^ 
The importance of the topic propounded for our consideration is 
manifest. In any enterprise the points of external contact with 
other enterprises must be material factors, not only in its well-being 
as a whole, but in the determination of its domestic details and in- 
ternal institutions. 

Mutual relations imply interchange of that which is valuable to 
each; the giving and receiving of assistance, information, experi- 
ence, for which not the thing given, but its equivalent of the same 
sort, is to be returned, and I present for your consideration, there- 
fore, each of the suggested subjects in turn, considering in each case 
what missionaries and the missionary boards may contribute to it, 
and what it may contribute to the Divine enterprise of missions. 

I. Discovery is our first suljject; by which, with delicious egotism, 
we always mean the discovery by us of someone else. What does 
the missionary owe to the explorer, and the explorer to the mission- 



arv 



It is a happy thing for both and for the world when their mutual 
relations are clearly defined and thoroughly understood. I sup- 
pose the most striking example of the contributions of discovery 
to missions is the action of Mr. Henry M. Stanley, who, finding 
himself at the court of Mtesa, convinced that astute and unde- 
sirable potentate that it might be advantageous to have a mission- 
ary at his capital, and at once sent off his challenge to the Christian 
Church to enter the open door. Everyone here knows how that 
letter, taken from poor Linant de Bellefonds's boot after his death, 
reached Europe, and among the members of this Conference is 
the very first missionary to reach LTganda (Rev. C. T. Wilson, C. M. 
S.). Missions owe to the explorer this fruitful mission field, in 
which, though but a small fraction of the population has as yet been 
won, there have been during the last few years between 2.000 and 
3,000 adult baptisms every year. The contributions of missions to 
exploration and discoverv, both in the general sense of the promotion 
of science and in the particular sense of assistance given to individual 



* Union Methodist Church, April 25. 



326 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

explorers, are sufficiently familiar to members of this Conference, and 
only too unfamiliar to the world. In general the former are mini- 
mized ; the latter either ignored or ill requited by acrid and ignor- 
ant criticism. It is only too clear that in their wider relations both 
missions and discovery would be none the worse for more charita- 
ble consideration of, and the more cordial co-operation in, each other's 
enterprises. 

2. That which in discovery is local and transitory, becomes in 
geography permanent and continuous. Two immense advantages 
are possessed by the missionary with regard to his mission fields: 
he is there first, and he is there to stay. 

The missionary, in many cases, is the only skilled observer avail- 
able. There are not a few parts of the South Seas in which navi- 
gation is possible or safe by reason only of the geographical and 
meteorological observations of English or American missionaries 
which form the basis of the accredited charts. These contributions 
of missions to geography might, with great advantage, be enlarged 
and encouraged; and I venture to suggest to missionary boards 
that it is quite worth while, from a missionary point of view alone, 
to afford candidates in waiting some definite training in the faculty 
and methods of geographical observation. 

For, while the contributions of missions to geography are con- 
siderable,* the contributions of geography to missions are far from 
insignificant. Missionaries can collect facts, though their leisure 
is far smaller than geographical societies suppose; but the collation, 
comparison, investigation, and publication of those facts is the re- 
turn with which the geographer discharges his obligations to the 
missionary. But there is another method in which the geographer 
may contribute to missions — I mean the acknowledgment of mis- 
sionary authorities and the inculcation of missionary facts as part 
of the ordinary teaching of geography in schools. It would be a 
real gain to the cause of missions if children were early familiarized, 
casually and by the way, with missionaries' names and with their 
observations in the course of secular education, and the infant mind 
no longer left to picture to itself the missionary merely as " A thing 
you put your money into." 

3. Every missionary, even to the most primitive nations, is con- 
cerned in commerce; every merchant is a condensed missionary so- 
ciety. What, then, are their mutual contributions ; what should 
be their mutual relations? To commerce the missionary con- 
tril)utes opportunity and direction; he gives it fresh chances and 
hcl]is it witli princi])les and practice by which alone it can be either 
beneficial or permanent. Connnerce was not unknown in Uganda 
before the missionaries came, but to compare its volume then and 
now, is to compare a runnel to a river, or a pond to the Nyanza. 
That which has happened in Central Africa has happened in almost 
every other continent. In the missionaries' wake have followed 
merchants and then colonists. They have not always followed the 
missionary's princij^les, but they have always benefited by his 



* Out of sixty-one auilioritics (|uotcd in the pai'.cr on Africa in 1870, by Rev. J. O. Means 
D-D., forty-four were missionaries. 



TO SCIENCE, COMMERCE, ETC. 327 

pioneer work. The saying tliat, " The worst kind of traders pre- 
cede the missionary, the best succeed him," is well exemplified from 
Uganda. The earlier Arab traders, whom some paradoxical per- 
sons would have us regard as the missionaries of civilization and 
the most efficient elevators of the African, had taught almost every 
vice. The present traders may not be perfect, but they are a great 
improvement on the former. 

The principal contribution of commerce to missions consists in 
means of communication — physical and mental — transport, and lan- 
guage. The former is, perhaps, more necessary, the latter more 
remarkable. Without transport, missionary operations arc re- 
stricted; without a common language, they are impossible. It is 
not only our true wisdom, but it is also after the apostolic model 
to develop our missionary operations along the great trade routes; 
and the areas covered by great commercial languages like Swahili 
or Haussa are as clearly, thereby providentially, prepared for evan- 
gelistic operations as was the ancient Roman empire through the 
prevalence of Greek. I trust I am not trespassing upon the 
province of any other speaker when I urge tlie importance of the 
speedy preparation of a complete version of the Bible in every such 
conmiercial language. 

There is, however, a method whereby commerce may contribute 
to missions, to which I desire particularly to call attention. I mean 
the agency of business men in the mission field. There are many- 
Christian business men to whom no missionary or ministerial call 
has come, but who may be perfectly prepared to go out to suitable 
openings in heathen commercial centers, with the double view of 
showing to the heathen the effects of Christianity on their lives, and 
on their commerce, and of rendering to the missionary bodies as- 
sistance similar to that which they are already rendering to the 
parochial clergy at home. This is a department of auxiliary mis- 
sionary operations which will amply repay organization. I am 
not aware, however, that it has been definitely attempted, except 
by the London Lay Workers' Union of the Church Missionary So- 
ciety, who have a special sub-committee for the very purpose. 

4. The mutual relations of missions and colonization are inti- 
mate and necessary. Each mission station can not but be a colony 
in miniature. The colony which is not missionary has failed to 
grasp either its opportunity or its duty. I fancy the results have 
not been wholly uniform. I do not suggest for a moment that the 
intentional formation of a colony, when one is in process of being 
formed, should not proceed upon Christian lines, but I understand 
it is more than questionable whether the formation of Christian 
colonies is a really remunerative branch of missionary enterprise. 
Are thev not something like greenhouses, which, indeed, have many 
advantages with a few defects, but which lose every utility so soon 
as the sharp division between them and the outside world begins to 
be obliterated? 

The contributions of colonization to missions are distinct enough. 
No one can read the Acts of the Apostles attentively without seeing 



328 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

that the success of apostolic missions depended very largely upon 
the nucleus which the Jewish colony in every city provided. 

But I am told by a candid friend that, in what I have just said, I 
have missed the real point of the subject propounded for our con- 
sideration, and that the mutual relations of missions and coloniza- 
tion are most important, not during the inception of either enter- 
prise, but when both are fully grown and are working side by side. 
Those relations are not always harmonious, the missionary and the 
colonist look at the natives in different aspects; the one from the 
point of view of commiseration, the other from the point of compe- 
tition. From this arises that necessity of seeing that " the Indian 
has a square deal," which is not only, as Governor Roosevelt told 
us the other night, an important adjunct of missionary work, but 
often the imperative, though incidental, duty of the missionary. 

5. What should be the relation of the missionary to the Minister; 
of the ambassador of heaven to the ambassador of earthly powers? 

It is clear that the mutual relations of missions and diplomacy 
may be of the greatest benefit to each if they understand each 
other. Comprehension is essential to co-operation. Too often in 
the past the missionary's idea of diplomacy has been that it is an 
organization of hide-bound officialism, administered by persons 
whose main attitude is an unsympathetic aloofness, whose main 
occupation is to obstruct promising enterprises, and to be absent 
on a holiday when their interposition is most desirable; while the 
ambassador thinks of the missionary as a middle-class nonentity 
who acquires a fictitious notoriety by getting murdered or assaulted 
at inopportune moments. 

The mutual relations of missions and diplomacy are well illus- 
trated by the present situation at Peshawur, the great British 
military station on the Afghan frontier. In the military hospital 
there the doctor keeps a map of the adjacent Afghan territory in 
which, for the present, diplomatic considerations prevent direct mis- 
sionary work. On his map are ringed in red the villages from 
which patients come to the hospital, and to which they return with 
new ideas and seed thoughts which they have acquired during their 
sojourn there. It is impossible to overlook the fact that the re- 
straint placed upon missionary enterprise by diplomatic considera- 
tions in this case may ultimately prove exceedingly beneficial, and 
that the sporadic preparation which is thus forced upon the nation 
may be the foundation of a far more permanent and extended work 
than would otherwise have been possible. 

On the other hand, the same example illustrates most clearly the 
assistance which missions give to diplomacy. What the diplomat- 
ist wants is quiet, and it is difficult to conceive an influence more 
likely to produce good-will to Europeans than that of men who, con- 
scious themselves of the practical benefits they have received from 
loving Christian hands, diffuse a general knowledge of those bene- 
fits in localities which are inaccessible to the political agent. 

To sum up, then, the great desideratum in the relations of mis- 
sions to discovery and geography, commerce, and colonization, 
and diplomacy, is an extended co-operation; and co-operation 



TO SCIENCE, COMMERCE, ETC. 329 

means " give " as well as " take." And this, of course, on both 
sides. Biit our concern is mainly with missionary action, and we 
may well be ready to realize that there are lessons by way of ex- 
ample, as well as warning, which the missionary may learn from the 
explorer, the geographer, the merchant, the colonist, the ambassa- 
dor; ready to realize that our methods are not the only methods, 
nor of necessity the best, just because they happen to be ours. 

Rev. Joseph King, Agent, London Missionary Society, Aus- 
tralia.^ 

I have not yet discovered that there is any antagonism between 
spiritual fervor in evangelistic work and scientific research. The 
most earnest missionary I ever knew along the line of spiritual 
work in the mission field, a man who spent forty years in evangel- 
izing the natives of Samoa, was a Fellow of the Linnean Society. 

I went along the coast of British New Guinea three years ago. 
One thing pleased me not a little. As we passed along that coast 
we continually came upon mountains, and bays, and rivers, and 
large river deltas, bearing names which had been given to them by 
our missionaries. There are missions and periods in missions 
when the missionaries are of necessity the geographers. It is from 
them we glean our first knowledge of these new countries. 

Just before I left Australia I had a correspondence with a gentle- 
man about starting an inland mission in New Guinea. We 
went over to see him and his wife, and the result was he gave me 
2,000 pounds toward starting it. It was decided to start the mis- 
sion around Mount Douglas, and after going into the question with 
a map before us, we found there were two Mount Douglases. This 
was a difficulty, and one of our missionaries in New Guinea sug- 
gested to the Governor that one of the mountains should have its 
name changed. The Hon. John Douglas consented, and it was 
decided to name the second mountain Mount Angus, the name 
of the gentleman who had given us the i2,ooo. So there is a 
very distinct connection between geography and large gifts to mis- 
sions. If there are any friends here in New York who want to 
have their names on mountain tops away in New Guinea we would 
be very glad to receive their contributions. 

Mr. Eugene Stock, Secretary, Church Missionary Society, 
London.^ 

I will confine myself to two illustrations of the relations between 
missions and the outside world. 

The first is with regard to the progress of geographical discovery. 

There went out to Africa as a missionary of the C. M.S., a German, 
named Ludwig Krapf, in 1839; and a few years after that he went 
down the eastern coast, not far from Zanzibar, and there began a 
series of journeys, and inquiries, and studies in regard to the center 
of Africa, which was an absolute blank on the map. He was the 
pioneer of all subsequent discoveries. It was in consequence of 
his discoveries that the great geographers went out. His com- 

» Union Methodist Church, April 25. 



330 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

panion in the missionary service, John Rebmann, another Ger- 
man, one day as he was walking in the hill country about 300 or 
400 miles inland, discovered a snow-capped peak, and he inquired of 
the natives what that was. They said it was a dreadful place, no- 
body could go up there, they had tried to go there, and spirits bit 
off their fingers and toes up there. We know what that spirit was. 
He sent home the discovery, and it was published in Number i of 
the Church Missionary InicUigcnccr, which happened to be started 
in that year, 1849. When the discovery was announced the scien- 
tific men laughed. Oh! he is only a poor missionary, what does 
he know about snow-capped mountains. Ridiculous! There can't 
be such a thing under the equator ! So, that came back to him, and 
he said : " Well, I was bred in Switzerland, and if I don't know a 
siiow-capped mountain, who should."' That mountain, Kilimanjaro, 
has been measured since then, and his statements vindicated. 

Half a dozen years later another German, Erhart, who is living 
to-day in Germany, constructed a map which went far beyond the 
journeys of these brethren into the interior, showing regions of 
which they had only heard from the native tribes. On the basis of 
the information given by natives, he constructed this map which 
showed a gigantic inland sea at twelve degrees of latitude in the 
south, and of great extent. This was brought home to England, 
and hung up in the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society, a 
missionary's speculative map. We have recently published a fac- 
simile of it. As soon as that appeared. Captain Burton and Cap- 
tain Speke, the first two explorers of East and Central Africa, went 
out to see what this meant. They discovered the lakes, Tangan- 
yika, and Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and in that way the geography 
of Central Africa began. Of the other discoverers, Livingstone, and 
Stanley, and others have mapped out tlie whole of Central Africa. 

Now, those German brethren, at the beginning said they did not 
go out to be geographical discoverers, but to preach the gospel to 
these dark people, but God has rewarded them as He rewarded 
Solomon. Solomon asked not for riches and wealth, but for wis- 
dom to govern the people, and God gave him that, and in addition, 
a tremendous fame all over the Eastern world ; and so God rewarded 
these men by making them the initiators of all those wonderful dis- 
coveries, which have resulted to-day in the practical partition of 
Africa among the great European powers. 

And here is an illustration of the relation of the missionary to 
his Government: 

There came to the Church Missionary Society about eleven or 
twelve years ago a young man who had been inspired by Gordon 
with a desire to go into the heart of the Central Soudan, the enor- 
mous territory occupied mainly by Mohammedans, and supposed 
to be populated by fifty or sixty millions of people, among whom 
there is not a single missionary. Wilmot Brooke was the name 
of that young man. He said to our committee: "I am going, 
and will go in connection with you if you will have me. I will go 
300 miles up the Niger, and T am going to put on the Mohammedan 
dress and go right into the heart of the Soudan. Now, I ask one 



TO SCIENCE, COMMERCE, ETC. 331 

thing, if I am taken prisoner by the Snltan of Soccoto, no consul is 
to come after me, no gunboat is to be sent up the Niger to rescue 
me, I want to be able to say to the Mohammedans, ' if you come 
to Christ and believe in the Saviour, you will probably be killed, but 
so will I. I want to be one of yourselves.' Whatever risks they 
run in becoming Christians, I want to run, too." 

Well, of course, it was very natural that our committee should 
hesitate to let one of our brethren go up there to be killed, no in- 
quiry to be made. However, he stuck to his point, and he was 
sent forth with a godspeed. And God called him to Himself with- 
in a couple of years, so that he was not taken prisoner or killed by 
the Mohammedans. 

That is the spirit of the true missionary, and when you hear men 
who don't know missionaries say that the missionaries in China 
are always asking for gunlioats to go after them, just reply with 
the short word in the English language spelled 1-i-e. 

Rev. Dr. Y. R. Callenbach, Representing Missionary Societies 
of the Netherlands.'^' 

First of all, I have to say something about the work done by the 
Germans in our colonies. There is one text in the Bible I think 
the Germans are very fond of : Let not your left hand know what 
your right hand has done. And so they won't tell you all the 
good things they have done, and now I will do so. 

There is one work the Germans have done in our colony in the 
north of Sumatra. When, some years ago, missionary work was dis- 
cussed in our Chamber of Commerce, the Minister of Colonies arose 
and said: " Gentlemen, let me tell you that if the work of the Rhine 
mission had not been so good and so thorough, war would have 
spread all over Sumatra." 

That was a help given by the mission to the colony. 

Comprehension creates co-operation, and nowadays when mis- 
sionaries want medicine our Government gives it to them gratuit- 
ously. When a large missionary hospital was erected our Govern- 
ment gave to the medical men there all the instruments — the most 
expensive instruments — they wanted. That was the help Govern- 
ment could give and remain neutral at the same time. Another 
help given was this: Some years ago the Government saw that it 
was quite necessary that in some villages and in some towns of the 
East Indies, where there was not good medical help, at least there 
should be women who were well instructed in midwifery. The Gov- 
ernment called upon several medical men to instruct native women, 
and the medical men of the missionary hospital instructed several. 
Those women have done splendid work and have spread Christianity 
in Java, in some villages where there was not yet a missionary. 

Something has been said about commerce and mission work. 
When our missionaries came to New Guinea it was difficult to 
work there, and when we had worked there for some time there 
came several merchants, Chinese, and others, who did much harm to 
Christianity and to morality. Then there was founded there a 

♦Union Methodist Cliurch, April 25. 



Z3^ INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

Christian business house. It was not a mission, but some Chris- 
tian merchants came there to carry on commerce. They were not 
missionaries, but they were Christians. The same thing has been 
done by the Moravian brethren in our West Indian colonies. I 
think it quite necessary that the missionary should not be a mer- 
chant, but Christian merchants should work with the missionaries. 
There should be co-operation between missionaries and Christian 
merchants. 

Mr. W. B. Grubb, Missionary, South America Missionary So- 
ciety, Paraguay.* 

The South American continent knows comparatively little of the 
Christian Church. Yet, it can show what missions do for com- 
merce. The tropical part of that continent is the greatest unex- 
plored region at present known on the earth. It contains, as far 
as we know, 300 distinct Indian nations, speaking 300 distinct lan- 
guages and numbering some millions, all in the darkest heathenism. 
As far as is known, it is one of the richest regions in the whole 
earth, and the future of it depends entirely upon what population is 
going to work it. The Indian population, I believe, is capable 
of rising. You all know of the Indians of Peru, what they did four 
centuries ago, and the state to which they have risen. Those peo- 
ple have by no means died out. Those among whom I am work- 
ing have trades; they weave in cotton and wool, and they make 
pottery. But they will require civil rights, protection of the Gov- 
ernment, some capital to develop their country with, and good lead- 
ership. In no other part of the world could self-supporting mis- 
sions be more easily worked than in the tropical portion of South 
America. And when Christian young men seek openings in com- 
mercial enterprise with a view to forwarding the work of Christ, 
that enterprise can be carried on in that tropical region. 

I went to that region in 1889. Nothing was known about the 
region or the people. The language was unknown. Other mis- 
sionaries may use interpreters, we can not. We had to learn the 
language. We have succeeded in reducing that language to writ- 
ing, we have got a grammar and a dictionary, and we are now 
making some translations. The members of our mission have 
opened up the country, and we are the only people in the world 
who know it, and geographical societies at home have been much 
interested in what we have been able to tell about it. We find that 
in the interior of that country the Christian Church can gather up 
the natives. They have just built a nice central village and a nice 
church at their own cost and expense. We have native teachers 
doing admirable work, and we hope through native instrumentality 
to evangelize these 300 Indian nations. But behind us emigration 
is now coming in a steadily advancing tide, and it is of the very 
worst kind you can find anywhere. The people who are emigrat- 
ing to South Africa are angels in comparison. If you can find a 
more corrupt lot of people than those coming into that region, I 
would like to see them. 

* Union Methodist Church, April 25. 



TO SCIENCE, COMMERCE, ETC. 333 

Shall we open up that country, tame those people, and then allow 
these others to come in and sow curses of all kinds among them, 
making them worse than they were in heathenism? Here we have 
the material at hand to develop that region; people who will become 
a strong Christian Church, and people who will become a strength 
instead of a weakness to the states in which they belong. A great 
India rubber trade can be built up, hundreds of thousands of 
pounds, millions of pounds, lie there. What keeps it back? Fear 
of those savages. Now, we are prepared to go into the most sav- 
age part of that country to open it up. The Indian gets for that 
rubber only the very worst gin. A Christian trader can give the 
Indian a hundred times more value in useful articles and still have 
an ample profit. Another business there will be cattle ranching, 
and a better paying business will not be found, nor a better class of 
people to work it than the Indians. People ask how can we trust 
them. I can assure you I have not lost, up to the present, a single 
fowl. I took in some cattle to begin the work. I said to an In- 
dian, here are so many cows. These are my property, but half the 
calves will go to you and half to me. You look after them. That 
man took care of the cows and he is sharp enough to see where his 
interest lies. 

The great curse of the country, infanticide, will disappear when 
the people get a substantial means of livelihood. I am pleased to 
be able to tell you that in the vicinity of the mission infanticide has 
practically died out, and the population is already increasing. 

Careless Criticisms 

Rev. J. H. Barrows, D.D., LL.D., President Oberlin College.^ 

I sometimes ask myself why is it that so many good people are 
not firm believers in this world-wide evangelism, and I usually 
answer it is their ignorance or misinformation. 

Travelers come back from a journey around the world, and say, 
we have been in Japan, and China, and India, and we heard few 
good things said about the missionaries. I would like to say to them 
first, that they would learn more that is close to the facts if 
they would consult those who have spent many years in India, 
and Japan, and China. One of the great statesmen of India, Sir 
Alexander MacKenzie, said to me three years ago, that he was not 
only a strong friend of the missions, but he looked forward to the 
time when multitudes of the people of India would be pressing into 
the kingdom of heaven. Such critics might learn some of the 
facts if they consulted some of the non-Christian social reformers 
of India who are beginning, some of them, to realize the utter im- 
possibility of lifting from the measureless depths of moral rotten- 
ness the great masses of the Hindu population without the power of 
a Biblical Christianity. I had the privilege when I was in India of 
visiting the native city of Jeypore, and there I was honored by a call 
from the Prime Minister of that State, a very learned man, who is 
known for his justice and for his ability, and he sat down in the 
missionary's home where I was, and we talked together for an hour, 

* Union Methodist Church, April 25. 



334 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

al)oiil many tilings, and esi)ocially ahoul Shakespeare. J fonntl lie 
knew more about the great dramatist tlian 1 did, ami I was de- 
lighted with his aecomplishments and with his spirit. As he was 
leaving the room lie look me by the hand and said: " Dr. Barrows, 
all that I have and am, 1 owe to my education in Huff College, Cal- 
cutta." He was there trained by Christian men. 

But I wouUl like also to put a few queries to those critics of mis- 
sions: Since our missionaries are doing such a vast variety of 
tilings will you please tell us what kind of work you found in- 
effective or harmful? Do you disapprove of the work of the trans- 
laticni of the Bible or the publication of Christian literature in llie 
vernacular? Do you disapprove of the work of teaching the truth 
to the young men in colleges and the little children in the schools? 
Do you disajiprove of the great work of education? Do you dis- 
approve of village preaching, and the work of the dispensary, and 
of the hos]Htals? Have you ever come to know one missionary 
personally? If you have never come to know one missionary per- 
sonally, never with your own eyes inspected any form of mission- 
ary work, wdience do you derive these unfavorable opinions? 

I have seen enough of the practical workings of Buddhism, and 
Hinduism, and Islamism to crystallize into adamantine firmness my 
previous strong convictions as to their futility to give the soul abid- 
ing peace with God, to lay the sure foundations of a permanent 
civilization, of a permanent individual and national moralitv, or to 
brighten earth with the sure promise of a blessed immortality ; and 
I have seen enough of the actual working of the Christian missions 
in Asia to fill me with enthusiasm and triumphant hopefulness. 

I say these things because so many who go around the globe see 
everything but missions and come back with misleading reports. 
I know of a very intelligent woman in the city of Chicago who was 
tokl, and who believed it, that the work of the Christian mission- 
ary in Ja]:»an was so bad that whenever a Christian mission was 
started there it became necessary for the Japanese Government to 
o]HMi a prison near by to take care of those pure Asiatics who be- 
came criminals through the work of the missionary. And yet we 
talk about the credulity of the Hindu! The credulity of some 
good people in America is more abysmal and wonderful still. 

Crossing the Pacific Ocean a few years ago, I had in my hands 
two volumes from English travelers on work in Asia, China, Jai)an, 
and India, and several ]iages were given up to missions. Tltese 
pages were reviewed by a man from Peking, who was one of my fel- 
low-travelers, and he said to me that every statement made in those 
books with regard to missions in China, so far as he knew, was in- 
correct. I have come home from Asia with a new sense of the 
value to everythiiig in civilization of that Christianity which has 
made civilization in England, and Germany, and in America. Chris- 
tianity: A religion which shows us God seeking after men and not 
men groping blindly through mists of error after God. 

I see before me this afternoon one who was my hostess in Yoko- 
hama, and 1 can not forget the morning, when looking out from 
the window in her home, I saw the ships, I saw the harbor into 



TO GOVERNMENTS 335 

which the ships came nearly fifty years ago, to introduce civihza- 
tion into Japan, and I saw for the first time the snow-white wedge 
of Fuji Yama, the sacred mountain. I look upon Christianity as 
the bright and beneficent mountain of God's truth and love. It 
looms up before my faith, and my hope, and my imagination like 
that snow-white wedge of Fuji Yama. About its base are fertile 
farms, and peaceful, prosperous, happy homes. In its heart are 
the treasures of all wisdom and all knowledge. Down its sides 
flow the streams that have made European and American, and that 
will make Asiatic, civilization possible. Around its summit play 
golden splendors, and it dominates all other systems, even as the 
snow-white cone of Fuji Yama dominates the fields and hills of 
Japan. 

Present Problems in the Relations of Missions to Governments 

D. G. Barki.ey, Esq., LL.D., Formerly Judge Supreme Court 
of the Punjab, Iiidia.'^' 

I propose to limit the scope of the paper by omitting all reference 
to government such as those of tribal chiefs in Africa, or of the rulers 
of islands in the Southern Pacific who retain some measure of inde- 
pendence. 

While the subject is one in regard to which some general prin- 
ciples should, if possible, be arrived at, I hope that any views I may 
put forward will be looked upon as rather of the nature of a contri- 
bution to the discussion of the subject than of an attempt to lay 
dovv^n final conclusions. The latter could not be attempted with 
advantage until the subject has been adequately discussed. 

The first branch of the subject is the relation of the missionary to 
his own Government. When he leaves his own country to evan- 
gelize the people of another land, he remains a subject of his own 
Government, and he is clearly entitled to the same protection which 
is extended by his country to its subjects when residing for any 
lawful purpose in the land in which he labors. 

The question has sometimes been raised whether, as a missionary, 
he should avail himself of this right, and attempts have been made 
to prove from Scripture that to do so shows want of faith in God, 
and undue reliance on the help of man. But governments and mag- 
istrates are means appointed by God, and a Christian man, whether 
he is a missionary or not, is not forbidden to seek their protection 
when he is wronged or threatened with injury. The Apostle Paul 
himself did not hesitate to claim his rights as a Roman citizen, and 
to cause the chief captain at Jerusalem to be informed of the plot to 
assassinate him. There are, no doubt, times when it is better not 
to insist upon one's rights, and even to submit to wrong; but a 
missionary is not in this respect on a dififerent footing from any 
other Christian man, and should be free to act as seems wise and 
proper in the particular case. His own good sense will show him 
that he should seek to establish and to maintain friendly relations 
with those among whom he lives, and that it would be unwise to 
claim the intervention of his Government unless for adequate cause, 

*Church cf the Strangers, April 24. 



336 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

The matter of indemnity for injuries sustained is a topic which 
may be noticed in this paper. I do not see that more can be said 
of it than that in proper cases the missionary, or his representatives, 
or the society or board in connection with which he works, will 
prefer his or their claims through the accredited representatives of 
his own Government, and it then rests with them or the Govern- 
ment which they represent, to determine whether there is a case 
for intervention, and, if so, what redress should be sought. Less 
may be obtained than it has been thought right to ask for, but it 
rests with the Government to decide whether what is oftered as the 
result of negotiation can be accepted as on the whole a fair settle- 
ment, or whether the case should be kept open until stronger 
pressure can be brought to bear. 

It may be well to add that a missionary is in no sense an agent 
of his own Government. He is not concerned in extending its 
power or its influence. The kingdom on behalf of which he labors 
is a kingdom " not of this world." Erroneous views as to this mat- 
IfT nuist create a prejudice on the part of the Government of the 
land in which the missionary labors, against his work. In some 
European countries the idea seems to prevail, even among states- 
men, that British missionaries in countries not under British rule, 
are emissaries of the British Government whose duty it is to seek 
to extend British influence and to instill a desire to come under Brit- 
ish protection in the minds of the people among whom they work. 
I do not know that there is anything in the history of Protestant 
missions to support this view, the origin of which is probably to be 
found in the relations which exist between the French Government 
and Roman Catholic missions, especially in Asia. But missionaries 
should carefully avoid anything which might give countenance to 
the idea that they are political agents, which must prove a hindrance 
to their work, even if it does not lead to their expulsion from the field 
in which they labor. 

There may be times when the representatives of his own Govern- 
ment may see it right to advise a missionary to withdraw for a time 
from his sphere of labor, because circumstances have arisen which 
would make it impossible, or very difficult, to protect him. His own 
country may be at war with that in which he labors, or the latter 
may be invaded by the armies of another country. In such cases a 
missionary who is able to act upon the advice and who disregards 
it should understand that he does so at his own risk. It would not 
be right that his own Government should continue to be held respon- 
sible for his protection, or that it should be expected to use force to 
deliver him from captivity or from other unpleasant consequences of 
his own decision. 

The second branch of the subject — the relation of the missionary 
to the Government of the people among whom he labors — is one of 
greater difficulty, and it is not possible to disentangle all the compli- 
cations in which it is involved; but even here some general principles 
seem to be applicable. While the missionary may see much to dis- 
approve of in the way in which the Government is carried on, it is 
clear that he, as a foreigner, permitted to reside within its dominions, 



TO GOVERNMENTS 337 

has no rig-ht either to mix himself up in any political or revolution- 
ary movement, whether for the overthrow or the reform of the Gov- 
ernment, or to incite others to take part in such a movement. On 
the contrary, he should teach those who are disposed to receive in- 
struction from him their duties to the Government under which they 
are placed, and to its officers, in accordance with the principles set 
forth by the Apostle Paul.* It will be remembered that, when these 
principles were laid down, the Government of the Roman empire, to 
which they were applied, was a heathen Government, and the Chris- 
tian people were taught to render all due respect to it^ to its laws, and 
to the governors and magistrates holding office under it. 

Those who are responsible for the Government may view with 
apprehension and dislike the work of the foreign missionary when 
they see that converts become united in the membership of the Chris- 
tian Church, dreading that this organization, with the principles of 
which they m.ay not be acquainted, will be hostile to their authority, 
or may give rise to disturbances which can not be suppressed with- 
out difficulty, or even danger. It is not to be wondered that rulers 
should be jealous of anything which they think likely to shake their 
power or disturb their authority. Prudent conduct may do much to 
allay such fears, and if all appearance of encroachment by the 
Church or its agents on the functions of the state is carefully 
avoided, rulers will learn by experience that their apprehensions were 
groundless. In the meantime, until all distrust on the part of those 
in authority is removed, it may be necessary to submit to restrictions 
designed to gtiard against the work ot the mission becoming a source 
of danger to the state. Prejudice may be lived down, where at- 
tempts to defy and contend against it would be unavailing. 

In Oriental countries, in which the subjects of foreign powers 
have been placed under the jurisdiction of consular or mixed courts, 
and in which natives of those countries may have been allowed to 
obtain exemption from the jurisdiction of the ordinary court by plac- 
ing themselves under the protection of a foreign power, there may 
be grounds for the apprehension on the part of the rulers that their 
authority may be undermined by their subjects being encouraged to 
seek foreign protection ; and where, as in China, France claims to 
protect Roman Catholic Christians, the authorities are likely to be 
prejudiced against all Christian missions, until it is made clear to 
them that Protestant missions do not seek to withdraw their converts 
from their allegiance, or to make the Church a political organiza- 
tion which will take up the quarrels of its members and use the 
power arising from combination to bring them to a successful issue. 
In all such cases a special responsibility rests upon the foreign mis- 
sionary to check attempts to use the power of the Church for private 
ends, and to combat any notion that a man, by becoming a Christian, 
becomes entided to foreign protection against his own rulers. If a 
man is persecuted for the exercise of the Christian religion, treaties 
may give a foreign Governm.ent the right to intervene, but further 
than this the subject should be made to understand that he can not 
claim the privileges of a foreigner because he is a Christian. 

* Rom. 13 ; Tit. 3:1;! Pet. 2 : 13-17. 



338 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

In countries under Mohammedan sovereigns, such as Turkey or 
Persia, the authority of Mohammedan law is so great that it becomes 
a special difficulty in the way of mission work among Mohamme- 
dans. Under that law any person who has been brought up as a 
Mohammedan, or who, as an adult, has freely professed the creed of 
Islam, becomes liable to punishment as an apostate if he renounces 
the Mohammedan religion ; and even where individual sovereigns 
have been persuaded to issue edicts establishing a measure of tol- 
eration, it is oj^en to question whether, when they come into conflict 
with Mohammedan law, such edicts have any legal validity, and 
whether, if a court administering that law disregards them, the sov- 
ereign can interfere, except by pardoning the ofifender, who may 
have to leave the country in order to escape further molestation. 
Mission work in countries like Turkey and Persia must, therefore, 
have its chief field among Jews and Christians, and while a mission- 
ary may feel bound to instruct a Mohammedan inquirer, and may be 
free to do so, he can not hope that converts from the Mohammedan 
religion will be permitted to remain in the country, and to take part 
in proclaiming the gospel to others. Where a Mohammedan state 
is subordinate to a Christian power, greater liberty may exist, but 
how far this is so will depend upon the precise relations between 
the sovereign and the subordinate state. 

India and the colonial possessions of Great Britain supply an 
example of a very dififerent state of things. Missionaries from for- 
eign countries are as free as those from the British Isles, and mis- 
sionaries in general are, and have long been, as free to prosecute 
their work as persons engaged in any other lawful pursuit. Frontier 
regulations, such as those which restrain Europeans and Americans 
from crossing the British frontier into Afghanistan, Nepal, or T.ibet, 
have sometimes been ol)jccted to, as if they applied only to mission- 
aries. But the same rules apply to merchants, travelers, or officers 
of Government, and the Government of India must be the judge 
whether such regulations are necessary under the circumstances. 
There is no discrimination against missionaries, and missions both 
to Afghans and to Tibetans have long been established within the 
British frontier, on the great trade routes, and their influence extends 
beyond the border. The Moravian Mission in Lahoul has always 
had more converts in Tibet proper than in British territory, and 
native itinerant agents can cross the border, though the missionaries 
themselves can not. When we speak of Afghanistan and Tibet as 
closed against Christian missions, we mean only that they are inac- 
cessible to European and American missionaries, and that mission 
stations can not be established in them. We do not mean that they 
are absolutely closed against the gospel, which is translated into 
their languages, and finds its way over the border. 

In native states in India under British jirotection, greater diffi- 
culties may be met with than in I'ritish India : but in many of these 
states Protestant missions exist, and though the rulers of some of 
them may be unwilling to allow missionaries to take up their resi- 
dence in their territories, there are iirobably none in which they 
woifld be hindered from traveling. In some of the most important 



TO GOVERNMENTS 339 

states there is the fullest toleration for mission work, and where a 
different spirit is manifested it is probably largely due to a fear that, 
if foreigners were allowed to settle and acquire property, their pres- 
ence would tend to undermine the authority of the rulers. In some 
of these cases it is not unlikely that where a European or American 
missionary could only pay occasional visits, a native of India would 
be at liberty to settle and carry on mission work. But the tendency 
is, and will no doubt continue to be, as native rulers learn by expe- 
rience that missionaries do not pursue political ends and do not en- 
courage resistance to lawful authority, to give increased freedom to 
mission work. Missionaries of experience and tact will remember 
that the rulers of native states are possessed of great authority in 
their own dominions, and should always be treated with the greatest 
respect ; and that, when any favor is sought from these rulers, it is 
more likely to be granted if they are applied to direct, than if an at- 
tempt is made to bring external pressure to bear. 

While British India has its own laws and legislative bodies, it dif- 
fers in one important respect from most of the countries with which 
we are familiar. This is that in extensive departments of the field 
of law, such as inheritance and succession to property, adoption, 
marriage, and divorce, the great masses of the population, especially 
the Hindus and the Mohammedans, are governed by laws of their 
own, which were not made by the legislature, and with which it is 
very slow to interfere. The existence and authority of these laws 
have been recognized, on suitable occasions, both by the Government 
and by the legislature, and they are known as personal laws, because 
they apply, with variations depending on established usage, to par- 
ticular sections of the population, and not to all the inhabitants of 
any particular territory. These laws are closely connected with the 
religions of the people, and the Government has always pledged itself 
to protect the people in the exercise of their religion. The Govern- 
ment of India, therefore, can not act upon the theory that India is a 
Christian country, inhabited by a Christian population. While it 
can, and does, prohibit bigamy or polygamy among Christians, it 
can not declare invalid a marriage contracted by a Hindu or a Mo- 
hammedan, on the ground that he had another wife living when it 
was entered into, nor can it deprive the children of such a marriage 
of the right to inherit their father's property. In these and other like 
respects it stands in a different position from what we are accus- 
tomed to call Christian countries, but yet the principles on which it 
is bound to act can not fairly be described as unchristian. It has, 
after careful inquiry, passed marriage laws, and laws of inheritance 
and succession, applicable to Christians, and laws as to the effect of 
conversion to Christianity upon marriages already entered into, and 
upon rights of property, inheritance, and succession. It is necessary 
that missionaries, whether themselves British subjects or not, should 
take notice of such laws, and that, wdien any question of marrying a 
convert arises, they should carefully observe them. The previous 
marriages of a convert from Hinduism are not void, though they 
may be voidable if, after the prescribed procedure has been followed, 
the wife will not live with the husband who has become a Christian, 



340 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

It may be expected that, from time to time, as fresh cases arise, de- 
fects in the law appHcable to native Christians will come to light, and, 
in order to remedy these, changes in the law will be sought for. In 
such circumstances it would be well that missionaries should inquire 
how the law works in other parts of the country, and whether the 
hardship they have noticed is due to the law itself, or to the mode of 
administering it, and that they should afterward lay before the Gov- 
ernment as full information as possible as to the defects they have 
observed in the law, the evils which flow from them, and the way in 
which, in their judgment, these could be remedied without injustice 
to other classes of the community. Any representation of this char- 
acter is sure to receive careful consideration, and if the case made 
out appears to the Government, after such inquiry as it may think 
right to make, to call for a change in the law, the necessary legisla- 
tion will no doubt be introduced. 

Indeed, in regard to any matter bearing on the laws or the adminis- 
tration of the country, as to which missionaries may desire to make 
representations to the Government of India, they may expect that 
the Government will be ready to give a hearing to properly framed 
representations from men of intelligence and sound judgment, who 
have been careful to verify the facts they put forward. When the 
representation has been made, it is for the Government to determine 
what action it should take. If the question is one of social reform it 
may be of opinion that the case is one in which interference by au- 
thority with established usages would not be advisable until the 
people themselves are prepared for a change. If the question is one 
of administration, it may relate to abuses which have grown up in 
particular places without the knowledge of the Government, and 
which it would take measures to remedy when it becomes aware of 
their existence. But it may have to institute inquiry to assure itself 
that the abuse exists, and to enable it to give orders which will put 
a stop to it. 

By communicating directly with the Government, missionaries have 
in the past been able to assist in bringing about important social 
reforms ; and this course is greatly to be preferred to that of becom- 
ing the accusers of the Government, which is sometimes urged upon 
them by well-meaning but injudicious advisers who are often ready 
to denounce the missionaries themselves if they will not accept their 
guidance. To ask missionaries to pass resolutions condemning the 
Government unheard, because some good man, whose zeal may have 
outrun his discretion, comes forward to bring shocking charges 
against it, or to sign memorials intended for home circulation, in 
which wicked designs are attributed to the Government, or some of 
its ocificers are accused of grave crimes without giving them any op- 
portunity of clearing their character, is to propose that they should 
do unto others what they would not that men should do unto them. 
In these days missionaries arc sometimes urged to unite in such 
action, which is described as warfare against evil; but they should 
be on their guard against the temptation to associate themselves in 
this way with vv^hat may prove to be calumny, and they should not be 
content to follow the lead of others, who mav be blind guides of the 



TO GOVERNMENTS 341 

blind, not having themselves taken due care to ascertain the truth. 
It is not for them to be hasty to judge others, or to do evil that good 
may come. 

President J. B. Angell, LL.D., University of Michigan.^ 
The problems in the relations of missions to Governments may all 
be brought under two classes : 

1. Those involved in determining the rights and privileges of mis- 
sionaries in foreign lands ; 

2. Those involved in determining the duties of Governments in 
protecting missionaries and the property of missionary societies. 

I. It will aid us in solving the problems in the first class if we clear- 
ly affirm at the outset that the rights and privileges of missionaries in 
foreign lands are to be determined by exactly the same principles 
that determine the rights and privileges of other citizens of their 
country. Those principles are such as are given by treaties between 
their own Government and the Government of the land in which they 
are at work, or by general international usage. 

It has sometimes been alleged that missionaries claim, or friends 
claim for them exceptional rights and privileges above those of their 
fellow-citizens. I am not aware of any ground for this charge. Cer- 
tainly they have no legal justification for such a claim, except as 
treaties or usage make discriminations in their favor. An illustra- 
tion of such discrimination is found in the admission, free of duty, 
into the Ottoman Empire of the articles needed in the prosecution 
of their work. This is a very ancient concession made by the Otto- 
man Government, and the missionaries of all lands have a perfect 
right to avail themselves of it. 

Some critics of missions seem to claim that missionaries are not 
entitled to the same treatment by foreign powers as men engaged in 
mercantile pursuits. The tone of their criticisms indicates that in 
their opinion a man engaged in any trade, even in selling spirituous 
liquors, in a Mohammedan country, may, if interfered with, properly 
invoke the assistance of his Government in securing for him the 
privilege of carrying on that business, while a missionary who is at- 
tempting to teach the Gospel or heal the sick without charge, if he 
is interfered with contrary to treaties, may not properly invoke 
such aid. 

Now, we are surely on solid ground in affirming, with the utmost 
confidence, that missionaries have the same legal right to reside, 
travel, trade, teach, heal, transact their legitimate business in a for- 
eign country as any of their fellow-citizens have to follow their 
chosen pursuits there, unless by international stipulation some lim- 
itations are imposed upon them in respect to the work they propose 
to do. That distinguished attorney-general of the United States, 
Caleb Gushing, gave it as his official opinion that where it is de- 
clared in the Fourth Article of our treaty with Turkey that " citizens 
of the United States of America, quietly pursuing their commerce 
. . . shall not be molested," the word " commerce " means " any 
subject or object of intercourse whatever."! In the eye of the law 

* Carnegie Hall, April 25. + 7 Op. Att'y-Gen., 567. 



342 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

missionaries arc in a foreign land primarily, in most cases, merely 
as citizens. They do not, and can not, lose their citizenship by be- 
ing- missionaries. They are not divested of a single iota of their 
rights and privileges as citizens by their special calling. It is, 
therefore, an injustice and an impertinence for critics or for foreign 
powers to discriminate against them in defining their rights and 
privileges as citizens. 

Furthermore, in some countries, as, for example, in China, mis- 
sionaries have the liberty guaranteed to them in specific terms to 
teach the doctrines of the Christian faith. The Twenty-ninth Ar- 
y tide of our Treaty of 185S with China permits our Christian citizens 
or their Chinese converts to teach, as well as to practice, the prin- 
ciples of Christianity in the empire. It reads thus : " The prin- 
ciples of the Christian religion, as professed by the Protestant and 
Roman Catholic Churches, are recognized as teaching men to do 
good, and to do to others as they would have others do to them. 
Hereafter those who quietly profess and teach these doctrines shall 
not be harassed or persecuted on account of their faith. Any per- 
son, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, who, 
according to these tenets, peaceably teaches and practices the prin- 
ciples of Christianity, shall in no case be interfered with or molested." 
The right and privilege of doing this appropriate work of the mis- 
sionaries are thus secured to our citizens under the same sanctions 
as the liberty of trade in certain ports. Therefore, the missionary 
who claims the right to preach the Gospel there is no more presuming 
or obtrusive, so far as the matter of legal rights is concerned, than 
the merchant who offers petroleum or flour for sale. 

So, in the Ottoman Empire, by the usage of centuries and spe- 
cificallv by the so-called Capitulations of 1535 with France, and later 
capitulations with other powers, and by the provisions of the Treaties 
of Paris, 1856, and Berlin, 1878, the missionaries have indisputable 
rights to maintain their hospitals, schools, and chapels, subject to 
reasonable provisions of local law. There is no ground for the 
charge, sometimes recklessly made by those who are ignorant of the 
legal relations of ecclesiastical bodies in Turkey to the Government, 
that missionaries are lawless intruders in th.e Ottoman Empire. 
They are there carrying on their work by as unquestionable a legal 
right as any foreign merchant or banker in Constantinople. 

But while declaring these rights and privileges of the missionaries, 
we must recognize that they are to be enjoyed like all rights and 
privileges of men in society, under certain limitations. And so far 
as I know, missionaries and mission boards recognize these limita- 
tions. Let us notice two of them. 

T. Missionaries in a foreign land have no right, under color of 
teachingreligion,toassail the lawful authority of the Government, or 
to encourage subjects to be rebellious, disloyal, or disobedient to law. 
They are not, for exam])le, to lead their disciples to avoid the pay- 
ment of taxes or the discharge of military duties. They may l^elieve 
that the Government is had and its laws oppressive. But they are 
not in the country to carry on reform or revolution in the Govern- 
ment. I think that our American missionaries have, with great dis- 



TO GOVERNMENTS 343 

cretion and fidelity, observed this limitation upon their activities. 

2. In the conduct of their schools, and in their publications, they 
must conform to the regulations fixed by law. If these regulations 
are in violation of the treaties, diplomatic intervention must secure 
the modification of them. In the Ottoman Empire our missionaries 
obey all the laws concerning the establishment of their schools, the 
censorship of textbooks, the qualifications of teachers. It is fair to 
say that the laws on these subjects are not unreasonable, though 
sometimes exception is justly taken to the manner in which they are 
executed. Sometimes annoying and unwarrantable interference with 
the schools is practiced by ofBcials, but the consul or the minister 
interposes to stop it. 

I would add that it is the moral duty of the missionary, without 
always claiming all the privileges to which he is by law entitled, to 
avoid giving needless ofTense to the people among whom he resides 
by disregarding their tastes and prejudices, or even their supersti- 
tions. For instance, the Chinese consider that the erection of a 
church, especially if it have a spire, in proximity to the magistrate's 
office, is calculated to bring disaster upon the city. A wise mis- 
sionary will avoid selecting such a site for his church, even though 
he may have bought the site and be legally entitled to erect his 
church upon it. I think the American missionaries have usually 
shown courtesy, and delicacy, and tact in accommodating themselves 
to circumstances, so as to prevent, as far as possil)le, friction with 
the Chinese. 

It is also the duty of the missionary to be patient under petty an- 
noyances, and, by courteous and respectful approach to the local offi- 
cials, to adjust his difficulties, if possible, without invoking the in- 
tervention of consul or minister. He thus strengthens his position 
by sparing the local official the humiliation of being called to account 
by his superior. Many of our missionaries have shown great skill 
and aptness in that kind of personal diplomacy. 

But none of these limitations should be interpreted to prevent our 
missionaries from using their good offices, either directly with the 
officials or indirecdy through diplomatic interposition, to relieve na- 
tive converts from requirements and from taxes obnoxious to these 
converts on Christian grounds. For instance, in Chinese villages 
there are at times theatrical shows and festivals, which are in the 
nature of religious oiTcrings to gods, and all the villagers are levied 
on to meet the expenses. Pung Kwang Fu, a former Chinese min- 
ister to this country, maintained at the Congress of Religions at Chi- 
cago that the Christian villagers are rightly required to join in de- 
fraying these expenses. But in 1881, at my request, the Chinese 
Government readily issued decrees freeing native Protestant con- 
verts from this burden, which the natives were reluctant, on consci- 
entious grounds, to bear. The Roman Catholic converts had pre- 
viously been declared exempt from these assessments. 

So our missionaries have very justly, on many occasions, peti- 
tioned the magistrates against the practice by petty officials of an- 
noying and persecuting native converts. But this is merely an act 
of friendly intervention. 



344 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

II. How far should our Government go in securing to our mis- 
sionaries the enjoyment of their rights and privileges in the prosecu- 
tion of their work ? This is a more difficult question than the first. 

Can we say any less than tliis, that, in general, it is our Govern- 
ment's duty to protect missionaries as it protects all other citizens 
in anything that they have a right to do? How can any discrim- 
ination against them be made? They ask for protection only as 
American citizens, and onl}^ in the enjoyment of rights to which 
they are clearly entitled under treaties or the recognized princi- 
ples of international law. And this protection no self-respecting 
Government can refuse them without forfeiting the esteem of its 
citizens and the respect of foreign states. 

It is, in my opinion, not wise for our Government to interpose 
except by respectful request for the protection of native converts 
against persecution and injustice. The French do, under the Capit- 
ulations, take native Roman Catholic converts in Turkey under 
their formal protection. Possibly, we could make an argument 
for similar action in that country on the same grounds, and in China 
under the Treaty of 1858. But we have generally refrained from 
taking foreigners under our protection, though, for a time in Tur- 
key, we had several foreigners enrolled in our legation as proteges 
of our Government. To attempt this carries us onto delicate 
ground, and it is better not to make the effort. 

Again, I suppose, we shall all agree that vv'e should not make war 
upon any nation for the sake of carrying Christianity into it. I 
need not pause to argue on that point. 

But when missionaries have entered a country under treaty 
stipulations, and all the resources of diplomacy have proved un- 
availing to secure their protection, shall a display of force be made 
to protect them? 

Many hesitate or refuse to give an affirmative answer to that 
question. They say first, that it is incompatible with the spirit of 
Christianity to use force in propagating the Gospel of peace and 
love, and secondly, that the display of force is of no service, and is 
a sham unless the Government is ready to follow it with greater 
force, and so to resort to war, if protection can not otherwise be 
secured for the missionaries. 

To which it may be replied : first, that in the case supposed, force 
is not used or threatened for propagating the Gospel, but for pro- 
tecting the lives and property of citizens, whose guaranteed rights 
as citizens are threatened. And if their rights are not respected, if 
their own Government allows them to be divested of their rights 
and makes no effort to see that the treaty stipulations are enforced 
for their safety, what assurance will there be for the rights of other 
citizens of their country? The Government which breaks treaties 
with respect to missionaries and sees that their own Government 
takes no steps to protect them, will easily yield to the temptation to 
infringe on the rights of other citizens. Is it not possible that be- 
cause our Government has allowed outrages against our mission- 
aries to go on since 1883 in Turkey — highway robbery, brutal as- 
sault, destruction of buildings — without any demonstration beyond 



TO GOVERNMENTS 345 

peaceful and patient argument, that the Ottoman Government is 
now proceeding in so high-handed a manner to prevent by false 
allegations the importation of our flour and our pork? A nation 
which allows one class of its citizens who are of the purest charac- 
ter and most unselfish spirit to be insulted and outraged with im- 
punity in a foreign land, must not be surprised if other classes of 
its citizens are also imposed on and wronged in that land, Wherever 
selfish interests are invoked against them. 

We are now rejoicing over the prospect of an " open door " into 
China, not only in the sense of that term in the correspondence of 
the Secretary of State, but also in the larger sense of freer access 
for trade to all parts of China. We are hoping to build and equip 
railways for that empire. We, therefore, need absolute protection 
for our engineers, mechanics, and merchants in the interior of 
China. Have our business men reflected on the probable conse- 
quence to their agents in China of allowing our missionaries to be 
attacked by mobs? A foreigner is to those mobs a foreigner, 
whatever his occupation, and they rarely discriminate between the 
foreign merchant and the foreign teacher. If we allow teachers to 
be mobbed with impunity, we must expect railway builders and 
merchants to share the same fate. 

The question we are considering is by no means so simple as the 
critics of missions think. Careful observation will show that our 
large mercantile interests are likely to be imperiled by our neglect to 
insist on the rights which citizens of any honorable calling are en- 
titled to under treaties or international law. 

Secondly, a display of force does not necessarily mean war. It 
is certainly an emphatic mode of making a demand. It may, at the 
worst, issue only in reprisals. It often insures the prompt settle- 
ment of difficulties which, if allowed to drag on and accumulate, 
would end in war. Therefore, wisely and opportunely made, a 
proper demonstration in support of a just demand may obviate the 
ultimate necessity of war. 

So far as the missionary interests are concerned we could not de- 
sire a war to be waged avowedly in defense of them alone. Not 
only would it seem to us all out of keeping with the spirit of Chris- 
tianity, but it might destroy all prospect of subsequently disseminat- 
ing Christianity among the people with whom we should be at war. 
If our missionaries can remain in a foreign country only on condi- 
tion that we extort from the Government of that country permis- 
sion for them to remain by covering them with a battery of artil- 
lery, then, so far as they alone are concerned, we might better obey 
the injunction of our Lord to His disciples to shake the dust from 
their feet at the gates of hostile cities and move on. 

But tha't is not the alternative actually presented to us. The two 
countries in which the missionary crises are oftenest acute in our 
day, are the Chinese and Ottoman empires. In neither has the 
Government undertaken to expel the missionaries. In the former 
it has often failed to suppress lawless attacks on them and on their 
property. In the latter, sometimes instigated by mischievous rnen, 
the officials have often interfered with the labors of the mission- 



346 INCIDENTAL RELATIONS OF THE MISSIONARY 

aries, and the Government has failed to pay for property destroyed 
by its own soldiers in time of popular tnnmlt. There is reason to 
believe that in both countries on certain occasions, the Govern- 
ments were not unwilling that some of the offenses named should 
be committed. In China whatever animosity has been shown to 
the missionaries has generally been manifested against them as 
foreigners, rather than as Christians. In Turkey, the animosity, so 
far as it exists, has been largely due either to the rivalry of other 
sects or to the fact that largely the missionary work is carried on 
among the Armenians, with whom the Turks have of late been so 
at variance. 

The problem then actually is, not how to prevent the expulsion of 
missionaries, but in two empires where they have unquestionable 
right to labor, how to protect them from unlawful annoyance, and 
from the destruction of their property. 

The problem is not a simple one for the Government. If it does 
nothing but register requests for justice, injustice may be done, not 
only to missionaries, but also to other citizens. 

These dilatory Oriental Governments, embarrassed by many 
difficult problems of internal administration, do not willingly act 
except under some pressure. And pressure, which is not war, and 
which will probably not lead to war, can be brought to bear by 
diplomatic and naval agencies. 

Our Government was never in so good a condition to pursue such 
a policy. It has a prestige among Oriental nations before un- 
known. Its voice, when it speaks with an imperative tone, will 
now be heard. The question for it is far larger than a missionary 
question. An influential American citizen, not a missionary, has 
lately written me from an Oriental country, where our requests 
have received little attention, saying: " If our Government proposes 
to do nothing for American citizens, they should say so and turn 
us over to the care of the British embassy." 

Such language as that makes one's blood tingle and stirs us to 
ask afresh, not alone as friends of missionaries, but as American 
citizens, what policy will our nation adopt to secure the rights of all 
our countrymen, of whatever pursuit, who are dwelling under treaty 
guaranties in China and Turkey. The friends of missions ask no 
exceptional favors from the Government. They simply seek for 
such protection as their fellow-citizens need. 

It is, of course, for our Government to say at what time and by 
what methods it shall act. It is sometimes wise and even neces- 
sary for a government to postpone seeking a settlement of diffi- 
culties with a foreign power, even when it is clear that a settlement 
is highly desirable. Great exigencies may require delay. We 
must allow our authorities to decide when and how to proceed. 
We must exercise the patience which patriotism calls for. But we 
may be permitted without impropriety to express our desire and 
our opinion that our Government should find some way to make 
it absolutelv clear to Oriental countries that it intends to secure the 
protection for all our citizens, including missionaries, to which 
they arc entitled by treaties and by international law. 



CHAPTER XIV 

WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

To Social Progress and the Peace of the World — To non-Christian Religions 
— To Apologetic Problems. 



To Social Progress and the Peace of the World 

President C. D. Hartranft, D.D., LL.D., President Theo- 
logical Seminary, Hartford, Conn.'^' 

By social progress we are to understand the genetic advance made 
by the collective body of men in the material, intellectual, and spirit- 
ual features of civilization and of social life. This involves their 
environment as well, and the increased capacity and resultfulness 
occasioned by the ministry of their surroundings to their well-be- 
ing. We must, of course, limit ourselves to the average develop- 
ment of the entire human structure. We take it for granted that 
there is a determinate law of progress, not permanently conquerable 
by external accidents, nor utterly a prey to the vices and deteriora- 
tions of the race, but animated by the power of an inward life prin- 
ciple which, in spite of corruption and degeneracy, does not cease 
to assert itself and to move on upward, with lapses greater or less, 
to higher areas of an advancing equilibrium. Society must reach 
its goal. The state must become a sublime constituent of the 
kingdom of God. The recessions of evil, as portrayed in the 
apocalypse, are followed by its great choral songs of deliverance, of 
progress, and of peace in God forever! 

Now, what is the peace of the world? Such a condition of out- 
ward circumstances and of inward culture as shall give to the world 
an unhindered, unrestricted career of progress and advancement in 
all the avenues of culture, and especially in social morality and so- 
cial religion. Such a peace may be determined through the agen- 
cies of treaties, of alliances, and given guaranties through the 
medium of human law. But do we not, who worship the'Christ, 
rise above these superficialities into the depths of the heart of our 
Lord Himself? Is not His kingdom a kingdom of peace? Is 
not He Himself a Prince of Peace? Does He not ride forth in His 
chariot to establish ethically, judicially, finally, an eternal peace? 
Is not this our aspiration? Is not this the true goal after which 
the Church seeks in her realization of her chartered liberties? Is 
not this the regnant idea in the minds of those who love Him, who 
hang upon the idea that He will draw all men unto Himself? The 



* Carnegie Hall, April 30. 



348 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

peace of God that passeth understanding; this is the universal 
peace; this is the sign by which advancement in progress shall have 
its maintenance secured. 

Foreign missions are simply the apparatus by which the Church 
endeavors to spread these elemental principles and to leaven the 
world-mass with these assimilating and unifying qualities ; so that 
the ideals of collective progress and peace may be attained. 

What then do we mean by the relation of foreign missions to 
these signs of spiritual evolution? 

I presume the object of this hour is not to concern itself with a 
statistical rehearsal of the works of God, but rather to arouse re- 
flection concerning a stupendous advance in the face of vigilant and 
malignant foes, and to surcharge intention that we may be 
prompted to fulfill augmenting obligations, and to intensify and ac- 
celerate the agencies by which progress may be driven forward and 
the world come into its heritage of peace, so that the good-will of 
the Father may verif}^ itself in the world. 

It will be well to bear in mind that communal development de- 
pends upon the renewal of the individual. Nothing can be con- 
stant in progress or peace which is not under the rule of a religion 
that includes morality. There is no permanent advance in ethical 
prosperity, or culture, or orderliness in society, which does not 
begin with the regeneration of the individual soul. Unless men, 
as personal units, are under the law of the spirit of life in Christ 
Jesus, there is no health, or sobriety, or tranquillity for mankind. 
There is no genuine collectivism without individualization; a truth 
of logic, of history, of sociology; so it is also the central fact in the 
organized system which our Lord called the kingdom of God. 

It should also be premised that foreign missions are not responsi- 
ble for the defects of our religious practice at home, much less for 
the iniquities and utter selfishness of so much of our commercial 
enterprise abroad, and still less for the unintelligent, irrational, and 
immoral slanders of the hostile traveler. A harder problem than 
the heathen of foreign climes, is the heathen at home, and the un- 
mitigated heathen on his pleasure trip. The lack of adequate en- 
deavor to determine the world's career is due to the distorted views 
of the Divine commission which are prevalent in the churches. 

Not a little hindrance to the acceptance of the claims of 
foreign missions is the professed search for other principles than 
Christianity as determining social progress and the peace of the 
world. Rut if our religion is universal, it must be the sole principle, 
not only for the salvation of you and me, but of the social fabric in 
its elaborations and in the structural toil of the centuries and gener- 
ations. Indeed, we are warranted in saying that this theme ought 
scarcely to be put as a proposition for discussion; it should be ac- 
cepted as a truth already and completely established, and victori- 
ously validated by history. 

Which are the civilized lands, the political powers that rule the 
mind and the energy of the world? Are they not those very nations 
who are the indisputable fruits of apostolic labor? Are they not 
the offspring of the zeal of F])aphroditus, Luke, Timothy, Origen, 



TO SOCIAL PROGRESS 349 

Chrysostom, Ulfilas, Augustine, Columbanus, Boniface, Waldo? 
What we now impart to east, and south, and north, and west, is it 
not the refraction of that hght whose incipient rays fell on the night 
of Rome, and upon the darkness of the Goth, the Frank, the Teu- 
ton, and the Slav in advancing beams, until the sun reached our 
Western world? Can antiquity in its primary states, or in its oc- 
casional pagan renaissances, lay claim to the parentage of one of 
this noble progeny of nations, save as those ancient forces were 
baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire ? 

Our social progress is a Christian evolution ; it is an evidence of 
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, of the ineradicable 
desire which the Prince of Peace has put within us as our deepest 
spring of action. Even those philosophers and ethicists who 
swing loose from faith and yet desire the triumph of spirit, place 
this as their summitm bonum. It might be sufficient to rest the case 
here; the best in us is what it is by reason of the energy of the 
apostolic and really catholic Church ; by her ability to herald 
abroad the principle of love as the all-sufihcing principle for progress 
and the determining force for peace. One must marvel that men 
seek for other causes rather than acknowledge their involuntary 
participation in the more abundant life that the cross of Jesus Christ 
has given to us as a heritage; but so it is; ungrateful sons and heirs 
compel us to remind them continually of their true ancestry. 

I. If we consider the forces which devolop the social order, we 
find the basal one in the family. 

Foreign missions plant this unit as an idea and illustrate it as a 
type. No matter how Christianity finds the households con- 
structed, the moral institution which our universal religion presents 
is not only a topic of teaching, but is demonstrated by the families 
of the missionaries. They, in general, bring the most refined type 
of domestic life visibly before races and communities whose hearths 
present a violent contrast. The Christian household offers a silent 
protest against child-marriage and other debasing traditions which 
usage has made immemorial. Here is the genuine physical foun- 
dation of society; hereby is laid the substructure of a wholesome, 
rational, and religious development. The home has in its loving 
bosom the reserves of all things individual and communal; here are 
the beginnings of the training of mind, heart, and will; what the 
father and the mother are and do, abides forever. It is the quality 
of the households that produces the tone, as well as the numbers 
of population, and that affords the cohesive material by which em- 
pires glow or fade. Foreign missions foster the principle of 
monogamy, and so demonstrate in what a moral unity consists, and 
unfold as a symbol of Christ's relation to the Church the majestic 
conception of the bride that forbids corruption of the beautiful sign. 

The home manifests also what aspirations a just government 
must satisfv, for the family stands for freedom; it certifies the im- 
portance of the individual; it is the school of self-hood; it institutes 
the choicest relationships for parents and children, sisters and 
brothers, who are physically and spiritually united in social train- 
ing. Out of this grows the conception of the human brotherhood, 



350 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

or better yet, of the family of God. Nor less significant is that ele- 
vation of woman which the Gospel has wrought. Educated, free 
womanhood is in every field a peer of man in spiritual value; emanci- 
pated from toy or degrading conditions ; quick, alert, sympa- 
thetic in the rich qualities and stores of her trained intuitions, and 
already at work among her far sisters and their children, and with 
what immeasurable regenerations! And what for childhood it- 
self, with its rest upon the infancy and youth of Jesus? The heart 
of the new generations, shall it not be sweetened? Shall not Chris- 
tian nurture be bestowed? Who does not know that the key of 
truth in the kingdom of God lies in the hearts of little children? 
The Master took speechless infants into His arms, the objects of 
His singular affection, and of His comprehensive afBrmation : " Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven." It is they who will straighten 
and level the highway of social progress and of the kingdom of 
peace. There is not one spot in the vast domains of Protestant 
mission extension where these social truths are not exemplified, 
where these initials of spiritual civilization are not displayed. 

n. Nor less eflicient and inclusive are the services of foreign 
missions in the introduction of new or in the modification of exist- 
ing forces that are instrumental in developing the social order. For 
who inculcates a higher ideal than the missionary of the present 
life, and of the methods by which that ideal shall be most carefully 
preserved and advanced? Who has a better philosophy of the 
body, in that he views our physical framework as the divinely or- 
dained instrument of righteousness? 

Under the regimen of Christian instruction the entire system of 
economic forces obtains a finer significance as a subordinate of 
character. A deeper thought is discovered to underlie agrarian, 
industrial, commercial occupations. Invention acquires a fresh 
impulse; discovery a new object; commerce a richer freight; her 
ships a more affluent argosy; migration becomes a law for the 
transmission of a sacred fire and for the fusion of now divided and 
hostile elements. The spirit of enterprise pulses through all 
these arteries, in order to break down barriers between men, to ele- 
vate environment, to dignify labor, to Vv'iden the area of our regency 
over nature. Who can carry this banner of authority so high or 
so far as the pioneer of the Gospel and his generous succession? 
The heathen from a Christian land may go in his van, but more 
frequently he goes in his rear to the full length of the leash of his 
selfish desires. He may settle for his own ends among an alien 
people, who, out of their native conscience, perhaps, respect right 
more than he does. Of course, he decries the man of God, who is 
a galling protest against his iniquitous economics and sensuous 
manner of life. l^ut the worldly epigones are not greater than 
their fathers. The patterns of economic fidelity and the teachers 
of an altruistic use of wealth are the missionaries, from the days of 
St. Paul of Arabia until St. Cyrus of Turkey, and St. John of the 
New Hebrides. Who has not read tliis in the apostolic records 
of all time? Who has not seen it with his own eyes? Who does 
not recognize the results of missions in the exalted mood of his own 



fO SOCIAL PROGRESS 351 

age and country? And, as he surveys the harvest of our century 
gained by their labors, and acquired under unutterable hardships in 
the shadows and on the crags of impassable mountains, notwith- 
standing contumely and persecution by the children of greed, and 
in the teetk of the noxious, baleful contact of seliish travelers, one 
can well feel justified in his faith that humanity will satisfy its de- 
sires for this noblest end, the expenditure of its goods upon the 
welfare of the race. 

The main features of the developing forces, the missionary nat- 
urally discovers in the higher agencies of the spiritual nature; his 
chief ally is education. He puts the boys and girls to school; he 
establishes grades from the lowest to the highest; he seeks to 
cjuicken that which is best in each pupil; and to what is wholesome 
in the intellectual heart of the people he gives liberty. He incul- 
cates the divine standard of character, ideal, law, principle, and 
highest good. The sovereign ideas of God as Spirit and as Father, 
of Christ as Saviour, of sonship by the Spirit, through the atoning 
cross; these are the fountains of imperishable culture he sets store 
by. The elements of art, morality, and religion are combined in 
this fostering work ; that native energies may become appreciative 
of and productive in all that elevates the spirit of man. The mis- 
sionary is not given to the didl delusions which now clog under- 
standing of history. Neither Christian conception nor experience 
falls into the gross error of those who explain the currents of prog- 
ress as phases of pure succession instead of contemporaneous 
growth. No sons of Adam are wholly possessed with one idea at 
a time. Their desires develop into parallel forces, with expansions 
of certain individual features here and there. We do not make 
progress in a barren uniformity of single sequences. As evidences 
of this group of developing forces survey the languages that have 
been put into written form; the literatures that have been created; 
the arts and sciences with their museums and laboratories that are 
the necessary adjuncts; the vistas of a nobler life of thought, and 
sensibility, and volition thus opened ; above all, the hundreds of 
versions with constant revisions of that Book of God which has 
been the saving and constructive element in nine-tenths of the 
world's life. Thus, one can begin to get a glimpse of what mis- 
sions mean as a power regulative of development among the races 
of the globe. 

HI. But foreign missions encounter conservative elements, espe- 
cially in the older civilizations, that seem insurmountable, all the 
more so, if they have survived amid national decline and their very 
significance has been lost. How shall the missionary transmute 
automatic customs? There is a venerable sanctity in these tradi- 
tions. They hold together what else might scatter or embroil 
households, and races, or disturb the stagnant and shadowed pool. 
Can these colossal edifices, representative of primitive thought and 
life, and now so unfit to meet the conditions pressing from within, 
or to stand alongside of the free and graceful structures of modern 
thought, be transfigured? What shall be done with this sacra- 
mental inheritance of law, custom, and institution, always neces- 



352 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

sary as a conservating force, and forever loved because it vivified 
the ancient world? Does our modern age understand what a prob- 
lem this is? Does diplomacy, or statecraft, or militarism compre- 
hend what it is to transform antiquity by wholesome processes and 
by wise-tempered selection of means, and to infuse progress into 
these sluggish and incoherent masses? What restraining criticism 
shall the teacher direct upon unthinking and impervious dogma- 
tism, and yet prevent the swing of the awakened mind into irrational 
skepticism, whose evolution would be into nihilism? Foreign mis- 
sions have been solving the problem from the days of our Lord in 
Palestine, and His Apostles in the Roman empire. Until now his 
messengers preach the same heavenly laws, and customs, and insti- 
tutions in Africa, Asia, and Polynesia, and with silent but availing 
operation. Wherever you put this leaven, malformed spirits give 
way to those new occupants which are universals of goodness and 
truth. What wrought in Palestine and in all the lands washed by 
the Mediterranean, and in all the medieval nationalities, is labori- 
ously but certainly pervading all continents and all sea-girt shores, 
whether of the North, or the South, or the East. 

Everywhere does the missionary initiate higher conservating 
forces by creating the sense of history and the desire for peace. 
These effect a firmer reverence for individual life, they are more 
regardful of those archaic forms which bind men together in a real 
ethical oneness. Before God and in Christ, the exercise of an in- 
telligent faith, the kindling of a holy feeling, the persuasion to 
choose the noblest motive, and to intend the best conduct; the 
grave awakening to a sense of individual responsibility and the 
right of private judgment; these arouse criticism and provoke to re- 
flection and the revision of mental and spiritual habit; these 
straightway impel to a higher sense of relationship. The sacred 
tree is planted; the roots issue in trunk and branches; the leaves 
may change, but the essential tree remains and grows forever. 
Communion with God in the soul, and the consciousness of the unity 
of the race are the genuine principles of conservation, as well as the 
undying impulses to progress and peace. 

IV. Nor is the energy of the missionary enterprise less regard- 
ful of the deteriorating forces which affect, retard, and destroy our 
frail humanity. Modern life everywhere is still subject to grievous 
calamities, by reason of its persistent ignorance of physical law. 
Much of its labor and life is still paralyzed by the shock and sweep 
of material forces yet unbridled, because the most of us think more 
of gold and silver than we do of the sciences which enable us to ob- 
tain the sway over our God-given empire. Famine is still allowed 
to stalk abroad, simoons and cyclones to slay and destroy, because 
we are too parsimonious to prevent the dearth of food, and too in- 
different to life to study and anticipate the path of the winds. 

Governments the world over are invoked, not onlv to tolerate, 
but to support, unspeakable vices and cruelties. The state still 
continues instruction in crime by some of her awful penal methods; 
the world still worships the man of the sword in preference to the 
man who labors for the elevation of his kind. Cruelties, and slav- 



TO SOCIAL PROGRESS 353 

eries, and castes, and wars have not disappeared from the best of 
our civiHzations. Ostracisms on the basis of color, ot poverty, of 
riches, still appall us. While there is some political, there is little 
social consciousness of brotherhood, natural or spiritual, between 
white and black, and copper, and yellow. Czech and German, 
Mongol and Saxon are not as near together as even community of 
interest would dictate. The open door is still a door that is forced 
open against a reluctant people, to whom it is the overthrow of 
their inheritance. Civilization is still compulsory, because over- 
driven by greed and by ambition, impatient of the slow but vital 
method of education in principles. Those who are themselves 
the heirs of ancient and medieval missions stand over against one 
another in unseemly and intolerant rivalries and boasts, instead of 
unifying their energies by a federation in the love that thinketh no 
evil. These are the beasts and dragons rampant on our shield pf 
humanity and of Christianity — no, not of Christianity, but of Chris- 
tendom. 

Yet, for all this, Christianity has taught the state charity, and 
education, and intercommunion, and federation, and arbitration, 
and freedom, and democracy. These divine elements have made 
the commonwealth alive to her ethical calling and function, to the 
fact that as a heavenly institution she is a mighty factor in the 
kingdom of God. Missions from Christ until this day have laid 
the foundations of institutions for the blind and the mute, the in- 
sane, and the suffering from bodily ills manifold. Preservation, 
rescue, refuge, redemption, these are their watchwords. Count up 
these remedial agencies planted of old by the common faith in 
North Africa, in Europe, in Asia Minor, and now reared in Asia, 
Africa, and the islands; who shall declare the total? What myriad 
attestations are these of the gcsta Christi. Mark the sum of the 
educational institutions of Christianity; consider her benignant ef- 
forts at the elimination of slavery, cruelty, caste, war, idleness, vice, 
race-hatred. Look at those multitudinous and most variant com- 
munities reared in and by her principles, as the irrefragable wit- 
nesses of her renovating power ; see the signs of arousal from stag- 
nation and indifference, to consciousness of manhood and woman- 
hood; the creation and expansion of home; the mutual helpfulness 
of the social order; the thirst for improved political conditions; the 
responsive sacrifices of property in unwonted percentage, the con- 
tributions made by converts for the regeneration of the world. 
Since Golgotha are not these everywhere and in every way to be in- 
terpreted as the affluent fruits of the cross? 

This Ecumenical Conference is itself a flaming scroll in our 
modern sky. Turn back to the era of the modern assertion of the two 
irreconcilables for reaching the same end. At the close of the last 
century the rights of man, apart from religion, were promulgated 
through seas of blood. Contemporaneously there set out men de- 
voted to teaching freedom from the bondage of sin, as the true path 
to rational liberty, and the true and immovable basis of righteous- 
ness. Whose results have been the greater, whether in area or 
in quality, the rights of man as won by the sword of blood, or the 



354 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

rights of man as won by the sword of the Spirit and the heavenly 
wisdom? And from those incipient organizations of a century ago 
for these ends has grown in this vast representative body of to-day 
some manifestation of that spiritual energy which pursues love and 
justice for Christ's sake. 

In these accumulating outgrowths of our faith, now becoming 
massive and crying for unity, do we not have the noblest defense of 
foreign missions? Are not the contributions of foreign missions 
to social progress unparalleled? Do we not hail in their colossal 
achievements the heralds of universal peace? 

Rev. Charles Williams, Baptist Missionary Society, Accring- 
ton, England* 

It is necessary, I think, that we should not lose sight of the fact 
that the more intent missionaries are upon accomplishing the pur- 
pose for which God has raised them up and sent them forth, the 
nobler will be their influence alike on social progress and the peace 
of the world. 

I need not say much for social progress. I want to emphasize 
the fact that there is a close relation between foreign missions 
and the peace of the world. It has ever been the case that the 
first effect of the Gospel upon a convert has been to make him a 
man of peace. Fifty years ago a standing illustration of the fruit 
of mission work was the African of whom old Robert Moffatt tells 
us. He was a famous chieftain, the terror of his neighborhood, 
he became a mighty man of God; his conquests had been many; 
he had been feared; he had accepted every challenge and he had 
provoked conflict. Then he heard of Jesus, and his heart was 
changed, and he took his place at the feet of the Master. What 
was the result? He laid aside his bow and his spear, and he re- 
fused ever again to go into battle. When he heard of quarrels 
among his people or neighboring people, he would travel any dis- 
tance in order that he might reconcile the parties and the factions, 
and plead with them about his past. He would say to them: 
" What have I of all the battles I have won and all the battles I 
have taken part in, but shame and remorse?" So the gospel 
preached by our missionaries makes peace between those who have 
been warriors and enemies to their neighbors. 

I am told that the Singalese point to the aggressiveness of 
Europe, and say: "You Christians make war. Buddhism on the 
contrary is a religion of peace." If there is any obligation on the 
missionaries to promote the peace of the world, I submit that the 
obligation is upon us at home; our obligation can not be the less. 
I am not a " peace-at-any-price " man. T,here are things that 
should be valued more than life — righteousness, truth, honor, lib- 
erty, are all worth more than life. And a life given in defense of 
them is given, I believe, in the spirit of Christ, nobly, generously, 
heroically given, and any man who thus stakes his life rather than 
forsake the cause of truth, may, I think, claim to be in that very 
conflict in which he is engaging, the servant of the Captain of our 

* Carnegie Hall, April 30. 



TO THE PEACE OF THE WORLD 355 

Salvation. But even then war is a cruel necessity. Christians 
deprecate it. There is no one fact more to be lamented; I think 
there is no one greater hindrance to the spread* of the gospel in 
heathen is the Gospel of peace, intended to m.ake converts not only 
If it is true, as I believe it is, that the Gospel that we send out to the 
heathen is the Gospel of Peace, intended to make converts not only 
the advocates, but also the exemplifiers, of peace, then it becomes, 
I think, proper that we should consider this very serious question, 
to what extent we at home should contribute to this end. Our 
missionaries go from us; they are of us, and if there be defects in 
them, we are responsible largely for those defects. 

We stand for the great truth of the Fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man. Do we stand for this great truth? We be- 
lieve that God hath made of one blood all the nations of men to dwell 
upon the face of the earth. We believe that Jesus died for all ; not only 
to reconcile men to God, but also to make peace between man and 
man. You and I hold that in the new creation there can not be 
Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, 
Scythian, bondsmen, freemen, but Christ is all in all. Well, if this 
be so, should we not more distinctly than we do make this ques- 
tion of peace prominent in our Christian missions? I have no 
doubt that as soon as Great Britain and the United States take the 
lead, other civilized nations would follow. 

Let us, then, in this great missionary enterprise, be true to the 
Gospel of peace that we preach. If we are not, China will suffer. 
If we are not, India will suffer. If we are not, Africa will be 
wounded more and more. God grant that those that delight in 
war may be scattered; that peace may be established the world 
over, for then I am confident the Lord of love will win the loyalty 
of the children of men, and all of this world of ours will be filled with 
heaven's benediction. 

Rev. W. R. Huntington, D.D., Rector Grace Church, New 
York.*' 

I shall be dealt with indulgently, I am sure, if my words are few. 
But, as a New Yorker for New Yorkers, I desire that the predomi- 
nant note of those few words shall be gratitude — gratitude to the 
members of this Conference. Gratitude on civic grounds. We 
thank you that you are shaking us out of our provincialism. In a 
sense we are the most cosmopolitan of cities, and we like to boast 
of our cosmopolitanism. In a way we have a right to do so. The 
city which is the largest Irish city in the world, almost the largest 
German city, the largest Hebrew city, and almost, if not quite, the 
largest Italian city, is certainly in a sense cosmopolitan. And yet, 
the French have a saying, you remember, that one sometimes can 
not see the forest for the trees, and the very fact that there are so 
many interests here in New York with which we are absorbed some- 
times prevents our opening our eyes to those larger interests that 
you represent. We are busy with such questions as under which 
boss shall we live or die? Shall the East River be tunneled? How 



* Carnegie Hall, April 30. 



356 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

about the grading of the streets? Which corporation shall have 
the most valuable franchise? These are not unimportant ques- 
tions, by any means; they are important; but, I submit, they are 
provincial. It is good for the people of New York to have rolled 
out before their eyes the pictured world. 

Gratitude on religious grounds. We look for a great incre- 
ment of blessing as the result of these gatherings. It is sure to 
come. The attention of this community has been drawn for seven 
days from things of the temporal order, and fastened upon things 
of the spiritual order. That can not be without good results. I 
was struck with an editorial remark of the London Spectator, 
apropos of the somewhat inflated and very sanguine speeches made 
at the opening of the Paris Exposition by the President of the 
French Republic and the Minister of Commerce. These men laid 
great stress upon the sociological results destined to follow upon 
the Exhibition. So, says the editor of the Spectator, our mem- 
ories run back fifty years. We remember the Exhibition of 185 1, 
and what the Prince Consort expected of that in reference to the 
peace of the world. Four of the greatest wars ever waged have 
been fought since that era of peace and good-will. No, this lan- 
guage of the French orators is over sanguine. The Exhibition will 
not bring peace as President Loubet dreams, not for an hour; nor 
will it, as the Minister of Commerce hopes, hasten on the ascend- 
ency of justice and mercy in the world. Those qualities grow 
strong on other nourishment than trade, and are enriched not by 
profits, but by ideas. All the traders all over the world have not 
done so much for the happiness of mankind as the moneyless 
Teacher who, on the hills of Palestine, laid down as the pioneer law 
of society : " All things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
imto you, do ye even so to them." That Teacher you represent. In 
His school you are the under masters. It is Christ to whom all your 
work leads up. 

I have spoken of the civic ground for gratitude and of the re- 
ligious ground. Let me say a single word of the ecclesiastical 
ground. Yes, ground for ecclesiastical gratitude — a strange ex- 
pression, perhaps you think. Yet, we are rather here as members 
of the Holy Catholic Church, in which, in the Creed, we say that 
we believe. Shall we assign to that membership any limits less far- 
reaching than those which the Holy Father at Rome, the late Pope 
Pius IX. in his famous letter to the Emperor William laid down? 
He appealed to the Emperor as child of the Church, on the ground 
of his baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost. That Holy Church we represent. It has been a 
most instructive and a most gratifying circumstance, noted by 
many, and one that will be remembered for long, that whenever the 
word " comity " has been uttered in these gatherings, there have 
been loud expressions of approval, but whenever the speaker has 
gone on to say that " comity " was not enough, the applause has 
risen to enthusiasm. There is another word than " comity," that 
looks like it, and sounds like it. Its realization may be far away, 
but it is bound to come — Christian uni< v. 



TO NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS 357 

To non-Chfistian Religions and Apologetic Problems 

President John Henry Barrows, D.D., LL.D., Obcrlin 
College."^ 

One feature or element in the right spiritual attitude of Chris- 
tianity toward other religions is a beneficent and hopeful courage. 
The ultimate contest in the world of religions will not be that be- 
tween Christianity and the non-Christian faiths, but between Christ 
and unbelief or the natural heathenism of the human heart. The 
non-Christian faiths have been found out, and the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ has no reason to be abashed before them. In time they 
will become like the religions of Egypt and ancient Greece, and 
the only serious inquiry which should concern us is our proper at- 
titude toward these doomed systems. What is the temper becom- 
mg the Christian mind, and what are the best methods, resulting 
from this temper, of approach to the non-Christian world? 

The resurrection of the crucified Son of God, the central fact in 
history, was the message of Christianity at the start, and was the 
demonstration of its central truth — namely: Incarnation with the 
purpose of redemption. Christianity, identified with the crucified 
and risen Christ, has no parallel, and the chief business of an 
aggressive Church is to set forth the redeeming and risen Lord. 
This message should be carried to all men with glowing love and 
radiant loveliness of spirit. The missionary effort is not primarily 
to measure this or that ethical or theological conception of the 
Bible or the creeds with the ethical and theological conceptions 
to be found in the other sacred books of the East. " The aim of 
Christianity," as Dr. Dennis has said, " is to impart a blessing 
rather than challenge a comparison." The missionary is primarily 
a messenger sent to tell a great story, and also a witness of what 
the Christ of that story has wrought for himself and the world. The 
great mass of heathendom is not scholarly, is not philosophical; it 
needs not argument so much as mercy, relief, sympathy, primary 
instruction, the sight of pure homes and Christly lives, and, in the 
midst of all these things, the lifting up of the one Lord and Re- 
deemer. The Christian messenger does not reproduce the mind of 
the Mohammedan, who, with yell and threat, sets forth a stern 
prophet and a sterner god. He does not go forth like the yellow- 
robed monks of Gautama to announce the eight-fold path, a 
method of right living and right thinking which springs from dismal 
views of life and of the desires which make life worth living. Chris- 
tianity is not primarily an apologist, but a prophet. Confronting the 
non-Christian faiths, Christianity must never lose its brave, 
prophetic, hopeful tone and spirit. Coming from God, as His 
o-reat gift to the world, the Christian religion must always stand 
as a beneficent king, conscious, but not boastful, of suprem- 
acy. Even kings have duties of kindness and tolerance. They 
should be approachable, reasonable, gracious, afifable. Christian- 
ity, tolerant, gentle, patient, kindly in spirit, but always firm in set- 
ting forth the Christ as the one and only Saviour of men, brings 
its message of Fatherhood and brotherhood, tells of the incarna- 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 28. 



35^ WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

tion and the life beyond, and when most persuasive, reaHzes that 
the frowning eye, the clenched hand, and the scornful word are not 
the symbols and forces of the Gospel of Christ. 

I have seen the non-Christian world, and I have seen hundreds of 
men and women of our faith whose lives are dedicated to its en- 
lightenment and uplifting, and I have learned from the wisest mis- 
sionaries whatever truth I am endeavoring to declare at this hour. 
They have been my teachers and always will be. Missionaries 
are keenly alive to the fact that some of the non-Christian faiths are 
keeping their place in the world because they minister in a measure 
to some of the needs of the human heart. They are preserved 
from utter condemnation by the great truths which, amid all errors 
and perversions, they undoubtedly contain. There is much beauty 
in Confucian morals. There are Christian elements, if not a Chris- 
tian spirit, in the Buddhist ethics. Christian theism, teaching the 
Divine unity and omnipresence of the Spirit, is not wholly out of 
touch with the monotheism of Islam, or the pantheism of the Hindu 
philosophies, but the uniqueness of Christianity is the historical 
Christ and the one incarnation of God in man for redemption 
through sacrifice. There is no second Jesus. The best claims 
which others can make for their faiths is some likeness to the Chris- 
tian in some particulars. But who else is sinless? Who else brings 
together God and man? Who else has cleansed the conscience 
from the perilous load? Who else has brightened the darkriess of 
the grave with sure revelations of a personal immortality? 

A shining and hopeful courage is one element of the spirit in 
which Christianity confronts the non-Christian world. The mis- 
sionary's life may be in some measure a debating school, but be- 
fore the debate ends he preaches, he testifies, he pleads, he prays, 
he calls upon God's Spirit to help him set forth the Christ, he in- 
sistently urges men to abandon the imperfect for the perfect, the 
false for the true, the symbol for the reality. Whatever mistakes 
men have made in the great propaganda, however unlovely their 
temper may sometimes have been, and irrational their judgment, 
and imperfect their lives, the Christian never makes a mistake, so 
far as he is Christian, in announcing the truth which has become 
incorporate in his very nature, that Christianity is not merely one 
of many competing religions, but is God's way of salvation, is the 
final, authoritative message from heaven to earth, written in the blood 
of the Cross and stamped with the seal of the resurrection. 

Just in proportion to the strength and serenity of his faith and 
the pervading Christliness of his temper, will he be glad to meet 
all God's children, however wayward, in true friendliness of mind, 
to see the goodness in the heart of things evil and the truth in the 
heart of things erroneous. God has not left Himself without wit- 
nesses among the nations. Their religions are adumbrations of 
the Gospel; they give glimpses and foreshadowings of what were 
historic facts in the life of Jesus. All men need a diviner passion 
for truth, to be more inclusive in their hearts and their faith, to 
think God's thoughts after Him in a wide-reaching sympathy for 
every manifestation of Himself which He has made. Is it not un- 



INIQUITIES OF CHRISTENDOM 359 

wise to refuse faith in the supernatural, evangelic history, because 
that history is so precious that it has been foreshadowed by myth, 
because it is so desirable that men have invented legends that are 
remotely like it? Why should the Gospel record be deemed less 
true because of the stories of Krishna, Buddha, and Hercules? 
Why should any reject an incarnation, established by such evi- 
dences as are furnished for the coming of God's Son, because the 
Oriental, the universal heart, has longed for a celestial avatar. 
Stars disappear when the sun rises in its strength, but starlight is 
better than utter darkness. It was a starry radiance which led the 
wisdom of the East to the Sun of Righteousness. 

There is a certain modesty, also becoming the ambassador of 
Christ. The wise-hearted missionary is not proclaiming the per- 
fection of Christendom, is not picturing his own Church as the 
stainless bride of Christ, but is patiently striving to give men a full 
vision of his Lord. Many things beside the wickedness of the 
human soul prevent the pagan nations from coming rapidly into 
the ranks of Christendom ; memories of wrongs, rapacities, all 
the more brutal because perpetrated by strength upon weakness ; 
liquor traffics, opium shames, rude and domineering ways, official 
discourtesies, mixed races rising up in the Oriental cities as proof 
of licentiousness, careers of vice and villainy, to say nothing of the 
divisions of Christendom — all these things have stood in the way. 
I do not wonder that China has not fallen in love with all the nations 
of Western Christendom. Even Japan thinks she has some old- 
time grievances to remember. Before there can be an unprej- 
udiced estimate of Christianity, Christendom must clear its skirts 
of many shames and iniquities. Christian evangelism is marvel- 
ously successful in many ways, but every clear-eyed missionary per- 
ceives how progress is handicapped and what a misfortune it is, as 
Prof. Roswell D. Hitchcock said years ago, here in New York, 
that " Christianity is compelled to apologize for Christendom." 
Even in his political subjugation and social inferiority, many a 
proud Oriental deems himself the spiritual superior, at least in some 
things, of his masters. It is not the best of Christianity that has 
always made itself most prominent and pervasive in the non-Chris- 
tian world. 

In spite of all this, however, those who know the best of heathen- 
dom and the worst of Christendom, we who have seen compre- 
hensively and fully both of these two worlds, believe that heathen- 
dom is the condemnation of heathenism, and that Christendom, 
with all its faults, is an argument for Christianity. I think it has 
been the misfortune of Prof. Max Muljer not to have seen India, 
but even he declares that the study of Hinduism and the other 
Oriental religions is the surest revelation and proof of Christian- 
ity's immeasurable pre-eminence. The world which Buddhism has 
reached with its so-called " gospel," is morally dead, because held 
in the iron grip of agnosticism and pessimism. As B. de St. 
Hilaire has said: " The system of Gautama has contributed little to 
the happiness of mankind ;" it has left Asia wretched, stagnant, and 
morally lifeless. Nevertheless, the sins of Christian nations are 



360 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

SO conspicuous that the ambassador for Christ is compelled to be- 
come an apologist, and if this position is one of weakness, it should 
also be one of candor, frankness, and modesty. 

Those who are sensitive to the failings and sins of Christian na- 
tions and churches, have often been worried when scholars have 
unearthed the beautiful truths which shine like jewels here and 
there in the non-Christian creeds. They have feared the result, 
and they have had a natural resentment at the effort of rationaliz- 
ing theologians to place Christianity on the level of ethnic faiths ; and 
in their perplexity they have not always fully recognized what are 
the best ways of winning the hearts of men who are imbittered 
against the truth of Christ by unnecessary resentments. It is balm 
to the wounded pride and intellectual haughtiness of the Oriental 
that Christian scholars are now approaching the ancient faiths with 
a less merciless opposition. Even on the most unfavorable view 
of them they are a part of the great world of religion. Knowledge 
of them is obligatory. We must know them to know man, to know 
ourselves, and to know God in all His revelations. They show 
what the Divine Spirit has wrought, as well as what lapses men have 
made. Men may proclaim war to the knife against all the devil- 
tries in heathendom — and in Christendom as well, but intellectual 
errors must be treated in a different spirit from moral aberrations. 
Christ must rule, but it is the spiritual and not the dynamic Christ 
that is the more effective and permanent. Christ must be exalted 
as the King of the nations, showing His redemptive radiance in 
cross and broken sepulcher, but we should also acknowledge that 
He is the original " light, enlightening every man " beneath the skies 
of India or the skies of Japan, who has groped after God. 

In His wide and wonderful way God is training the race through 
the races. He has a large, and complicated, and wide-reaching 
problem, requiring long spaces of time for its solution. If the final 
aim and end is a perfected humanity, that perfection is to be 
achieved not along lines of simplicity, where only one force shall be 
at work, but along lines of complexity, where many forces, ap- 
parently "discordant, are to blend into a higher harmony. In this 
evolution of mankind, nations stand for special truths, and their 
mission having been achieved, their lessons having been taught, 
such nations sometimes disappear; they pass from the stage of his- 
tory, as Egypt and Assyria have done. Perhaps, we may truly say 
of Egypt that she represented man's certainty of a future life. Her 
eternal monuments are the memorials of faith in immortality. In- 
dia, most religious of nations, represents chiefly the omnipresence 
of the Divine, the spiritual significance of all life, through the pres- 
ence and power of the gods. Israel represents the Divine oneness, 
righteousness, and personality, and the plan of God for human re- 
demption. Greece stands for the glory of beauty, the reality, and 
the splendor of the outer world, and the immortal loveliness of 
mind. Persia represents the granrleur of creation, especially in the 
form of light, the source of life and power. Rome represents the 
majesty of human government, and the possible political solidarity 
of mankind. China represents the reciprocity of human relations; 



NON-CHRISTIAN SYSTEMS AND SALVATION 36 1 

ancient Germany, the glory of strength and the purity of the family 
life; ancient Japan, the sacredness of the state. I have thus im- 
perfectly expressed ideas which have had a long and special de- 
velopment in various peoples and civilizations. 

Now the peculiarity of the Jewish-Christian revelation, which has 
also been progressive, is this: that while it has not shown the fruit- 
age of all truths essential to man's perfection, or represented at 
one time in their fullness and purity all the forces of the highest re- 
ligion and civilization, still, it essentially, ideally, potentially, con- 
tains them all, while it exalts the sovereignty of love and righteous- 
ness, and the fact of an actual redemption through divine grace, 
as no other faith has ever done. It has pre-eminently stood for the 
best, and the highest, and the truest in the knowledge of God, and it 
is historically certain that the Judeo-Christian revelation has been 
the main stream of history. There is no second Bible; there is no 
second Christ; there is no second Calvary. Heathendom is with- 
out Christmas and without Easter. All other historical streams 
are tributary to Christianity. It has already absorbed most of 
them. It does not need to go to India to learn of the omnipene- 
trativeness of the Deity. It does not need to go to Egypt to learn, 
from tomb and pyramid, or Book of the Dead, that life continues 
beyond the grave. It does not need to sit at the feet of Athens to 
find the splendor of beauty, and the sacredness of the intellect. 
Whatever is true in the thought of Persia or in the social ethics of 
China, has been a part of Christianity. 

The possibilities of man are such that he does not, even unaer 
Christian influences and teachings, expand to his highest and best, 
swiftly and universally. He is still learning the elements of Chris- 
tianity, and the non-Christian religions are beginning to teach us 
by their very excellences what are some of the hidden treasures and 
virtues of our own faith. But, although we, who know the Chris- 
tian and study the non-Christian faiths may, for a time, be amazed 
and dazzled by similarities, it is only to discover, in the end, the 
profound divergencies. There can be no close sympathy between 
Christianity and Buddhism, for example, which has no knowledge 
of the just and holy God seeking after men with purposes of love 
and reconciliation, and through atonement removing every ob- 
stacle on the part of men to the highest blessing which heaven can 
ofifer. It is only a beggarly salvation after all, which Buddha can 
ofifer, an almost worthless salvation. It is not an escape from guilt 
and pollution, it is not receiving into the soul the Spirit of God and 
divine life, holy and immortal; it is only a release from the bondage 
of desire and the final sinking of the spirit into a quiescence border- 
ing on extinction; and even this salvation, according to the original 
teaching of Gautama, can be obtained only by a very few. You 
may remember the discourse said to have been spoken by Gautama 
himself, telling how a voung mother, "who was really only a child, 
gave birth to her first-born, and when the bov was able to walk by 
himself he died. The young girl in her love, carried the dead child 
clasped to her bosom, and went about from house to house, asking 
if anyone could give her medicine for it. When the neighbors saw 



362 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

this, they said: " Is the young girl mad that she carries about on 
her breast the dead body of her son? " But a wise man, thinking 
that she did not understand the law of death, said to her: " My good 
girl, I can not myself give medicine for it, but I know of a doctor 
who can attend to it. Buddha can give medicine; you must go to 
him." She did homage to Buddha, and said: " Lord and Master, do 
you know any medicine that will be good for my boy? " The sage 
answered: " I know of some. I want a handful of mustard seed." 
The girl promised to secure it, but Buddha continued: " I require 
some mustard seed taken from the house where no son, husband, 
parent, or slave has ever died." The girl said: " Very good," and 
went to ask at the diflferent houses, carrying the dead body of her 
son. The people said: " Here is some mustard seed, take it," and 
she asked: " In my friend's house, has there ever died a son, a hus- 
band, a parent, or a slave?" They replied: " Lady, the living are 
few, but the dead are many." And she went to other houses, but 
one said: " I have lost a son "; another, " I have lost my father "; 
another, " I have lost my slave "; and she began to think, " This is 
a heavy task; I am not the only one whose son is dead." And 
thinking thus, she acquired the law of fear, and putting her affec- 
tion for her child away, she summoned up resolution, and left the 
dead body in the forest, and went to Buddha and paid him homage. 
He said: " Have you procured the handful of mustard seed? " " I 
have not," she answered, " the people of the village told me ' the 
living are few, but the dead are many.' " And Buddha said to her : 
" You thought that you alone had lost a son. The law of death is 
that among all living creatures there is no permanence." And 
this was all that he was able to do. Could anything more touch- 
ingly illustrate the utter helplessness of Buddhism to comfort in 
the presence of death? How impressive the contrast with the 
words of Him who once stood near an open grave, and said unto 
the mourners: "I am the resurrection and the life; he that be- 
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." The atti- 
tude of the Christian missionary, therefore, is naturally one of pro- 
found pity, mingled with something of respect for what, after all, 
has been the only refuge for millions of souls. Courage, hope, 
sympathy, modesty, respect, appreciation — these are some of the 
elements in the right Christian attitude, but all these may finally be 
dissolved in the Christian heart in a great, overwhelming com- 
passion and pity as one confronts the non-Christian world. 

Samuel Macauley Jackson, Nezv York* 
The Christian world formerly held the non-Christian religions in 
contempt, but now many in Christian lands are inclined to treat 
them with, perhaps, too much respect. Yet the modern attitude 
is more Christlike than the old, because the Master would not de- 
spise the feeble attempts of- man to come into contact with the 
Heavenly Father, or ridicule his false notions as to the Father's 
character. The true conception of these non-Christian religions 
seems to be this : That originally they had more or less revealed 

♦Central Presbyterian Church, April 28. 



NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS AND THEIR FRUITS 363 

truth in them, but as time went on they lost much of this pristine 
excellence, and so, as we find them to-day, they present a sad mix- 
ture of a little truth and much error. Yet the fact that they have 
some truth in them indicates the way of approach to those who hold 
these faiths, viz. : by the truths we have in common. Our religion 
has in perfect form whatever they have in imperfect form, and so 
we can say to each non-Christian religionist: " Give me the very 
best and highest idea you have, and I will show you that I have it 
also in my religion, and that this truth is found in my religion more 
fully stated than in yours, and with it are other truths which make 
more plain to you the mind and will of our common God." Never 
fear the result. There is only one religion; all others are imita- 
tions or adumbrations of it. When we preach the Christian faith 
we hold up for the acceptance of the non-Christian religionist the 
sole religion which, in fullness, deserves the epithet divine. But 
that is no reason why we should not see in his some good. Because 
we walk in the sunlight is no reason for our denying that there are 
rushlights and even electric lights, which some claim, make all 
things as bright as day. Let us hail with gratitude whatever Chris- 
tian truths we find in these non-Christian religions, but let us not 
be so weak as to grant that their way of putting any truth is su- 
perior to ours, or that they have any truth which we have not. 
There is truth in these non-Christian religions, and that is evidence 
that God has everywhere given His gracious help to man struggling 
toward heaven; but there is still more error and defect in these non- 
Christian religions, and that is evidence that God has for some rea- 
son suffered die great majority of men to follow the devices and 
desires of their sinful hearts, even in the things of religion. It is 
also a reason, and an irresistible one, why we should let others 
share in our perfect revelation of the mind of God. 

Rev. T. S. Wynkoop, D.D., British and Foreign Bible Society, 
Allahabad, India* 

The non-Christian religions should be studied not in books only, 
but in living men, and in the religious and social institutions which 
have grown out of these religions. 

With due deference to the many able scholars and writers who 
have essayed translations, expositions, and popular lectures on the 
religions of the East, it is impossible to state Eastern thought in 
terms of the English language. Not to insist upon the absence 
from our speech of properly differentiated technical terms, we must 
remember that our language is essentially Christian. If you look 
upon a landscape through a colored glass, the color of the glass 
tinges all you see. The language we use is not a colorless medium 
of thought; a Christian language of necessity gives a Christian col- 
oring to the thought expressed. Edwin Arnold's " Light of Asia " 
gives a semi-Christian Buddha. It is a beautiful poem, but not 
Buddha history. 

But to gain a sufficient knowledge of the non-Christian religions, 
it is not necessary to fathom their underlying philosophies. To 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 28. 



3^4 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

see what Hinduism is, we have only to look at India, in all its dark- 
ness, superstition, and folly, the outcome of 3,000 years of the 
Vedas and Shastras, with the philosophies and phases of religion 
which have followed them in the course of the centuries; the Chi- 
nese nation is the practical out-working of its ancient classics; 
Burma and Siam are the living Buddhism; Arabia and North Africa 
are the Koran and the Hadis in concrete form. 

This will, perhaps, explain a certain impatience on the part of 
many missionaries with most European and American studies in 
comparative religion. We are conscious that they are written from 
a partial knowledge of the facts. We see those religions in real 
life — by the fruits we judge the tree. 

For these religions the only Christian attitude is pity and com- 
passion. Love alone, which springs from the love of God shed 
abroad in our hearts, can believe all things, bear all things, hope 
all things. When that love rules the spirit, it can not be that the 
Christian missionary could look upon the idolatry and supersti- 
tion around him with other than a pitying, sympathizing heart. 

Moreover, he recognizes, even in the lowest forms of religion, 
some aspiration of the heart to God. He finds with delight some 
fragments of truth which came originally from God. 

All our best tracts and treatises in India are auricled with quota- 
tions from the Hindu sacred books. Hindu writers, ancient and 
modern, furnish us with many weapons to attack their vices and 
superstitions. 

Rev. a. C. Dixon, D.D., American Baptist Missionary Union, 
Brook'.yn, N. F.* 

Above all things I love peace, but next to peace I love a fight, 
and I believe that the next best thing to peace is a theological fight. 
" My peace," Jesus said, " I give unto you, not as the world giveth." 
The world gives the peace of compromise, Jesus gives the peace 
of victory. If a man wants a drink of whisky, the world says Sat- 
isfy your thirst; Jesus says. Conquer your thirst. The world 
would give the peace that Napoleon got at Waterloo, and that 
Robert E. Lee got at Appomattox. Jesus Christ would give the 
peace of Wellington at Waterloo, and of Grant at Appomattox. 
We have to choose between the two, as to whether we will have 
the peace which is one of compromise, or whether we will fight the 
good fight until we get the peace of victory. 

To the foreign missionary I would say: You know the Gospel 
of light, it does its work so. clearly that it dispels the darkness. You 
recall how the Lord dealt with Satan. He flung him out of heaven 
like lightning, and in this world we need lightning as well as light; 
light for the man that is in error, and lightning for the error. 

I know the charge of narrowness is frequently presented, and 
it is possible to be too narrow. But I am afraid the tendencv in 
that direction is much less than the danger in the other direction. 
When a man is narrow on the Ten Commandments, you like him, 
when he is broad on the Ten Commandments, you hold your pocket- 



» Central Presbyterian Church, April 28, 



NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS AND IRRELIGION 365 

book. If he is broad on the command, " Thou shalt not steal," he 
is a thief. If he is broad on the commandment, " Thou shalt not 
commit adultery," he is a rake. In ethical questions we are expected 
to be narrow. 

The best apologetic in this world, it seems to me, is the breadth 
of Jesus Christ in sympathy, in love, and in compassion, and the 
narrowness of Christ in loyalty to truth; just as broad as the world 
in sympathy and love for man, but in love for truth just as narrow 
as a razor's edge. Our apology here is to assert God's truth, to 
proclaim Jesus Christ as the sinner's Saviour without apologizing. 

Rev. George Robson, D.D., United Presbyterian Church of 
Scotland, Perth."^ 

The contact of the Christian missionary with non-Christian re- 
ligions is based upon the presupposition that Christianity is the one 
true religion, and, therefore, the one religion for all mankind. But 
it is significant that he does not claim for Christianity the exclusive 
use of the word " religion." The word is quite properly inclusive 
of non-Christian forms of belief and worship. For these, at least, 
recognize the existence of superhuman powers; they recognize that 
these powers impinge upon and affect human life, fortune, destiny; 
they recognize, farther, that human conduct along certain lines of 
action influences these powers. Wherever you have this three- 
fold recognition in whatever form, you have what is entitled to be 
called a religion; where you have this threefold recognition in its 
perfect form, is Christianity. 

Our theme is exclusive of the irreligion to be found in the no:i- 
Christian. In every man, whether inside or outside of Christen- 
dom, the effect of sin has been to generate an inclination toward 
evil, a dislike of submission to spiritual influences, a materialistic 
self-centered temper. This irreligion is the great difficulty of the 
evangelist dealing with degenerate human nature in Christian 
lands; for the missionary in heathen lands, it is a difficulty not less 
in any way, but rather the greater that it lies intrenched behind re- 
ligions which conceal and shelter it. The actual task of the mis- 
sionary implies a dealing with men who are not simply erringly or 
defectively religious, but who are antagonized by sin to true re- 
ligion. At present, however, we are concerned with a section 
only of the concrete task devolving upon the missionary — namely, 
his relation to non-Christian religions; and the limits assigned to 
this paper oblige us to treat it only in brief and broad outline. 

Bishop Westcott has expressed the conviction that all the time 
and toil spent in revising the translation of the New Testament 
would have been well spent, even if it had done nothing more than 
restore the preposition " in " to its proper place in describing the 
relation of the Christian and of all his life and work as a Christian 
to the Lord Jesus Christ. " In Christ Jesus," by stating the posi- 
tion of the Christian, defines his point of view, defines the inspi- 
ration and law of his relation to everything outside of Christ, and 
defines the source of the power that is effective through his activity. 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 28. 



366 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

It seems a truism to say that this formula lies at the basis of the 
missionary's relation to non-Christian religions. His relation to 
them is determined first, by the relation of Christ to those religions, 
and secondly, by the fact that he is himself a witness of Jesus Christ. 

First, then, what is the relation of Christ to those religions? In 
the record of His earthly sayings we find only two references to 
the heathen : the one characterized their manner of life as material- 
istic and sensuous ; the nations of the world were inspired by con- 
cern alxjut food, drink, and raiment, from which His disciples were 
emancipated by their trust in the Father. The other saying char- 
acterized their manner of worship as a superstitious reliance on 
quantity. They thought that they should be heard for their much 
speaking. In both these criticisms the purpose of our Lord was 
obviously practical — to guard the simplicity of faith, both in life 
and in worship, from the corruptive tendencies of degenerate hu- 
manity. He taught His disciples no polemic against heathen re- 
ligions. 

Once, only, do we find Christ dealing apologetically with one of 
another religion than His own — and the incident is the more in- 
structive that His purpose in it was directly missionary — it was 
when the woman of Samaria confronted Him with the claim of her 
ancestral religion : " Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and 
ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." 
In reply, Jesus implicitly recognized the limitation in the religion 
of Israel, which unfitted it for becoming the national religion of 
Samaria — " the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this moun- 
tain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father " — and He an- 
nounced the true order of worship in which no race should pos- 
sess superiority over another. Not the less, however, did He de- 
clare the fundamental and disqualifying defect of the Samaritan 
religion : " Ye worship ye know not what," while He claimed for 
the religion of Israel the true knowledge of God and the trusteeship 
of blessing for the world — " We know what we worship ; for salva- 
tion is of the Jews," But there comes in the point of reconciliation. 
The Samaritan was not absolutely a non-Christian religion ; it had 
its Messianic hope, " I know that Messias cometh," and in the dis- 
covery of the Person who satisfies the latent hope of that erring 
religion, the climax and end of the apologetic is reached : " I that 
speak unto thee am He." We need, I think, go no further than 
this interview to learn sufficiently for our present need the relation 
of Christ to non-Christian religions. His dealing with her has, of 
course, its evangelistic suggestions ; but leaving these out of view, 
we notice in His attitude toward her as a Samaritan worshiper these 
three principles : first, a discrimination of the local as subordi- 
nate, preparatory, transient, and of the universal as paramount 
and abiding ; the national has for Him its time and place, but the 
human is more for Him than even the best that is only national ; 
His thought is not of the Jew nor of the Samaritan, but of the man 
in the Jew, the man in the Samaritan, the man everywhere ; it is the 
man He seeks and for manhood that Fie seeks him. Secondly, we 
notice uncompromising explication of truth and error. Ye know 



Christ's method in apologetics 367 

not what ye worship ; we know what we worship. The failure and 
falsity of error are not glossed over; the exclusive claim of revealed 
religion is not abated. And, thirdly, we observe the satisfying in 
Himself of the hope that even in the midst of error and evil yearned 
for fuller light. That hope is not spurned because of association 
with debasing ignorance and failure, but is welcomed with promise 
of fulfillment, " I that speak unto thee am He." 

Now, it is an easy step here from the Christ of history to the 
eternal Christ ; His relation yesterday to the Samaritan worshiper 
is the prophecy of His relation to-day to all non-Christian religions. 
It may be described in brief, as determined by the sympathy of a 
perfect humanity, by the exclusiveness of a perfect truth, and by the 
comprehensiveness of a perfect fulfillment. Behind all non-Chris- 
tian religions are the worshipers; they are men and women for 
whom the Son of Man laid down His life ; the erring forms of be- 
lief and worship that intervene between Him and them can not im- 
pede the outgoing of His love to seek for them deliverance into the 
liberty of God's children. Now, this implies that everything in 
these forms of belief and worship that is at variance with the law 
of life for man in Christ Jesus is condemned by Him to exclusion 
from the order of His kingdom. The birth from above is the only 
v/ay of entrance into that kingdom. Even the master in Israel 
needed to be born again; how much more the master in Buddhism 
or in Taoism? On the other hand, it is not only in the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures that the law and the prophets are found. There is 
a law given in the mind and conscience of those who are without 
the written revelation; and there are prophecies lurking in their 
rites, their traditions, and their prayers. This law and these pro- 
phecies have saved the life of the nations from utter corruption; 
and to them, too, may be applied the declaration of the Christ: 
" Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I 
am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." Every fragment of truth 
imbedded in those erring and imperfect religions, every gerrn of 
spiritual insight however distorted, every motive of moral origin 
however misguided in operation, every yearning proper to a human 
heart however faint and uncertain, the Son of Man regards as part 
of the inheritance to be rescued, conserved, purified, and perfected 
in Himself. ^ , 

I have said that the relation of the missionary to non-Christian 
rehgions is determined ultimately by the relation of Christ to them^;^ 
and what this means for the missionary who is " in Christ Jesus " 
and is at the same time a witness of Christ, may best be indicated 
by a brief reference to the man who pre-eminently answers to this 
description — the Apostle Paul. In him we find strikingly repro- 
duced the threefold characteristic of Christ's relation to non-Chris- 
tian religions. 

First, the Sympathy of Humanity. Never was a man more in- 
tensely Jewish than Saul of Tarsus, by descent, upbringing, con- 
viction, and the fervid self-abandonment of his temperament. But 
when he became a new man in Christ, and went forth as His wit- 
ness, he exhibited the truest and freest humanity. It was not 



368 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

simply tH'at he resolutely combated every attempt to narrow Chris- 
tianity into anything that was not equally for all nations, but where- 
ever he went, the sense of a common humanity stretched across all 
religious differences and enabled him to speak simply as a brother 
man to the man of Lystra, and Philippi, and Corinth. His mission 
was not inspired by a purpose of polemic against their forms of re- 
ligion, but by a spirit of love to them in Christ Jesus, which had its 
plane of action in the universally hum.an. 

Secondly, the Exclusiveness of Truth. In exposing the errors 
of heathen religion and in proclaiming the distinctive message of 
Christianity, Paul was uncompromising, not in the temper of a sec- 
tary, but in simple loyalty to truth. The idols of the heathen he 
boldly branded as vanities; those who plied the black arts of re- 
ligious deception and witchcraft in malignant selfishness he un- 
hesitatingly antagonized; while on the other hand he did not refrain- 
from pressing such a doctrine as that of the resurrection on the 
acceptance of the philosophers of Athens; and everywhere woe was 
imto him if he preached not the Gospel. It is surely an instruct- 
ive fact that the strongest and sharpest statements of the doctrines 
of Christianity have come from the man who, both in the spirit and 
sphere of his service, was the most catholic of all missionaries. 

Thirdly, the Comprehensiveness of Fulfillment. It is treading 
familiar groimd to recall how keenly Paul realized the elements 
common to other religions with Christianity, and how deftly he en- 
listed them in the service of his missionary purpose. When we 
see him among the rustic people of Lystra, appealing to their com- 
mon experience of providential goodness as a reason for lifting the 
offering of thankful hearts to a heavenly Lord, or when we see 
him among the scholars on Mars' Hill at Athens, adducing a rare 
recognition of the spirituality of the Great Being who is the Father 
of human spirits, as pointing them toward the proper object and 
manner of worship, we are led to wonder whether Paul would have 
been willing to brand any religion as absolutely non-Christian. 

It is comparatively easy to recognize in Paul a missionary whose 
relation to non-Christian religions was determined by the relation 
of Christ to them, and to exhibit Paul as presenting in this respect 
the ideal for every missionary. And it might be comparatively 
easy to show by illustration from the mission fields of the present 
day that this ideal is really the master-key which unlocks for the 
missionary every problem which meets him in his relation to non- 
Christian religions. But such illustration is precluded by the limits 
of this paper; and, after all, the fitting of this key into each practical 
problem which arises must be the work of the individual mission- 
ary confronted by the problem. 

There are, however, a few considerations of general character 
suggested by modern missionary experience which should be 
brought within purview alongside of the a priori aspect of the sub- 
ject already presented. Let me name three: 

I. Purely apologetic problems are neither primary nor frequent. 
It is true that in the bazaars of India the missionary is continually 
called to fulfill the role of apologist. But the missionary is com- 



FETICH RELIGIONS AND APOLOGETICS 369 

monly constrained to realize that the active antagonism to Chris- 
tianity does not proceed so much from heathen dogma as from the 
traditional customs which have been invested with a religious sanc- 
tion. It is the social system, so far as it is organized and per- 
meated by the religious system, protecting the latter by innu- 
merable vested interests, which furnishes the main resistance of 
heathenism to the gospel. If the Christian faith could possibly be 
presented as nothing more than a creed, its triumph over heathen 
systems of belief would be comparatively easy. But the ethical 
character and the ethical corollaries of the Christian faith excite 
liostility to it, and complicate the apologetic problems. In almost 
every field, however, especially in those where religion appeals to 
ancient writings, there occur cases, more or less frequent, in which 
noble souls, seekers after truth, pure and sincere beyond what we 
could have looked for in their circumstances, men whose minds 
adore and whose hearts rejoice in the truth which shines for them 
in their traditional systems, and whose lives are lifted by conform- 
ity to it into ethical loveliness — cases in which such men come to 
question Christianity. These men are representative of those ele- 
ments in non-Christian religions which require from Christianity a 
wise and complete apologetic. This special exposition of the truth 
as it is in Jesus may not be included in the task of the common 
missionary; it is certainly included in the task of the missionary 
enterprise. 

2. But before referring to the way of accomplishing this task. I 
wish to interpose a second remark — namely: that this apologetic is 
required not only in dealing with the religions of the so-called cul- 
tured races, but also, though not so obviously, in dealing with fet- 
ich religions. These have no religious books furnishing authori- 
tative expositions of their faith ; they do not exhibit to a wondering 
view those saintly souls and earnest students, developed under the 
influences of cultured religions, who challenge comparison with the 
Christian. They resemble a miasmal plain shrouded in darkness, 
without any peaks rising into higher light, and catching there a 
radiance that still contrasts with the beam that shines from Zion's 
Hill. But the more one learns of these fetich religions, the more 
is the conviction deepened that they are not wholly inventions of 
wickedness, but that just as traces of the divine image in man sur- 
vives, even in the most degraded savages, giving promise of their 
recovery to the perfect man in Christ, so, behind all the deviltry 
and cruelty of their religions, and underneath customs and practices 
in themselves utterly to be reprobated, there are to be found relics 
of truth, survivals of purposes and aspirations that, however mis- 
directed, were originally pure. These, of course, can only be sifted 
out by an insight educated through long years of growing familiar- 
ity with the conceptions inspiring the rites and customs of fetich 
religions. To some it may seem as if the grains of gold to be ex- 
tracted were not worth the labor and cost of crushing so huge a 
mass of quartz; as if over against these degraded religions no 
apologetic is called for, and the proper attitude of Christianity is one 
of simple antagonism, and its task to accomplish their immediate 



37° WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

extinction. But this is not the manner of Christian science. It 
is not a Christian method of deahng with those cryptic elements of 
faith and hope which have helped to conserve in degraded natures 
and amid degrading influences a capacity for the gospel. A true 
apologetic is here necessary for exhibiting the glory of Christianity 
as the final religion for all mankind ; and to accomplish this in all di- 
rections is the function of the missionary enterprise. I venture 
to think that this department of missionary apologetic has been 
comparatively neglected, and that it is most desirable that it should 
receive immediate and systematic attention. 

3. This leads me to my last remark which is that, for the 
truest apologies in favor of Christianity, we must look to native 
scholars converted from the non-Christian religions. Western 
scholars have labored long and with comparative success in the 
field of comparative religions. But their argument is necessarily 
influenced by Western conditions and appeals to Western modes of 
thought; it comes to the native inquirer with an implicit invitation 
to enter a foreign school and learn a foreign style in order to possess 
himself of truth which can never be to him so full, and luminous, 
and satisfactory as it ought until he sees it in the light and phrasing 
of Eastern thought. We must look among the followers of each 
non-Christian religion for men who shall do for it the service which 
Saul of Tarsus rendered to Judaism; men who have been so 
steeped in a sincere adherence to the systems they abandon that 
they shall be able, at every necessary point, to show how Chris- 
tianity at once abolishes and perfects it. We want more books 
like " Sweet Firstfruits," the powerful apologetic of a converted 
Mohammedan, basing on the Koran itself an argument regulated 
by a perfect knowledge from within of what most powerfully in- 
fluences the Mohammedan mind. It should be the care of mis- 
sionaries to watch for gifted intellects among native converts which 
might be claimed and educated for the preparation of an apologetic 
presentation of Christianity ; and for the gift of such converts from 
the enthroned Lord the Church should pray. 

Mr. Everett P. Wheeler, New York.* 
As far as I can learn from what has been told me by those who 
have gone into foreign fields, it is the nominal Christian who offers 
the greatest difficulty and stumbling block in the way of mission- 
ary work. Now, my friends, we can all be apologists and most 
successfully for our religion in our own church work, in the rela- 
tions between the different church organizations, in the relations 
which we seek to cultivate in the mission field, by seeking as far as 
possible, to eliminate — first, from our own breasts — whatever may 
remain there of race prejudice or of religious prejudice, which would 
hinder us from working with our fellow-Christians. And if we 
once can do that, if this spirit, which is certainly the preaching of 
Christ, which was certainly the spirit of the Apostle Paul, the great 
world missionary, is in us, it seems to me a new life and spirit will 
go into mission work, both at home and abroad, which will change 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 28. 



CHANGES IN APOLOGETIC PROULEMS 37 1 

the whole face of the religious earth, and which will give us a num- 
ber of things which nothing has given in the past. If we can con- 
quer our own hearts in this respect we will present an apology, a de- 
fense, a vindication for our Christian faith which will win hearts, 
which will bring them into the fold of loving and tender affiliation. 

Rev. a. T. Graybiel, Missionary, Presbyterian Church, U. S. 
(South), Mexico* 

I have just one illustration to give in support of what has been 
said about the necessity of preaching Christ as the best of apologet- 
ics. A few months ago I was invited to the house of the principal 
man of a town, who had great influence there. My friends said to 
me: " Take care, that man is a very intelligent man, he is a ration- 
alist, and does not really believe in anything." I went there with 
a great deal of trepidation, and found gathered a large and intelli- 
gent audience. I had been thinking that I ought to refute in some 
way the contentions of the agnostics, but when we assembled there, 
I saw a crowd which had never heard of Christ, and I felt I must 
preach Christ. I took for my subject. The Priesthood of Christ, 
and I showed that the human heart had always needed a priest, 
because man always felt himself responsible to God, and that Christ 
is the only power that can stand between man and God ; a priest who 
knows the human heart, and who has the power of propitiating God, 
and, moreover, a priest who is infinite in mercy and in tenderness. 
I presented just those points. The next morning that man came to 
me and said : " You have preached what I feel I want, and also what 
my wife and my old mother feel they want, and I want you to come 
here and preach again." 

Rev. George T. Purves, D.D., LL.D., Princeton Theological 
Seminary.* 

The subject before us is what apologetic methods are best 
adapted to meet the situation created both abroad and at home by 
the progress of the missionary movement. This is a theme which 
deals with an intellectual side of the great Christian outlook as it 
now exists, and calls for the prolonged and thoughtful considera- 
tion of the Church. 

It is wholly impossible that the great and successful foreign mis- 
sionary movement of modern times should not have its effect on 
Christian apologetics. Once more, as at the beginning, Chris- 
tianity is confronted with paganism, and both for her own sake and 
for the sake of those won out of paganism does she need to con- 
sider in the light of the situation thus created the arguments of her 
defense. Permit me to point out certain ways in which foreign 
missions have affected the apologetic outlook. 

I. By bringing Christianity into close and critical comparison 
with ail other religions. This has been done in the face pf the 
whole world. It has made possible the science of comparative re- 
ligion. Religions have been studied by the practical missionary 
and the scientific expert. A vast collection of facts bearing on the 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 28. 



372 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

subject has been placed in many books at the service of the inquirer. 
Moreover, not only has the existing condition of other religions 
been disclosed, but the history of the chief pagan religions has been 
investigated, and some approach made to an understanding of the 
genesis of even the less notable ones. 

The good elements in them also have been recognized as well as 
the evil. Christianity has thus been brought into immediate com- 
parison with the religious phenomena of mankind in gen,eral. By 
not a few it has been included with them as making but one phase of 
those forces in humanity which have created religious manifesta- 
tions, while on the other hand its distinguishing differences have 
been noted and found to demand explanation. Without pausing 
to discuss the various theories of the origin of religion, it must be 
evident that the immense contribution to our knowledge of the sub- 
ject, and the sharp, practical comparison of religions which modern 
missions have effected must have a profound influence upon Chris- 
tian apologetics. The situation of the second and third centuries 
has been curiously revived, but with a much more complete under- 
standing of both Christianitv and its competitors. 

II. Again, the foreign mission work has affected already and is 
likely to affect further the apologetic argument through contract- 
ing the area which the apologist feels bound to defend. This is 
due to two causes; on the one hand the union in foreign missionary 
work of various bodies of Christians naturally leads them to lay 
the stress of their defense on that which they have in common, 
rather than on that in which they differ at home. The need of mak- 
ing a united front against heatheni-sm is so great that emphasis is 
rightly placed on the essentials; and the result is to turn the at- 
tention to the fundamentals of the common Christianity. On the 
other hand, it is naturally felt that these fundamentals are the suffi- 
cient basis for foreign Christianity, and that it is at least a matter 
of less importance to defend the peculiar types of Christianity than 
Christianity itself. It is almost inevitable that under such circum- 
stances the Christian apologist should contract his area of defense. 
Foreign missions direct apologetics to the essential questions at 
stake. It would be folly to divide forces before a common enemy. 

III. Still, again, the enterprise of foreign missions has proved 
conspicuously the real, spiritual vitality of evangelical Christianity. 
It has revealed the faith of the Church in her Lord's command, the 
willingness of Christ's disciples to make sacrifices, the love of hu- 
manity which is part of the Gospel of Jesus, and the continuance of 
the aggressive impulse which sent forth the first believers to win 
the world. It has set before the world likewise the heroism of 
the faith; the pure and holy lives of its followers and the power of 
our religion to use the whole intellectual, and educational, and 
scientific resources of the world in the service of the world's Re- 
deemer. This spectacle of the persistent vitality of Christianity 
in its evangelical forms can not fail to have an immense effect on 
the apologetics of our day. 

IV. And, finally, with foreign missions has gone into pagan lands 
the stream of Christian civilization. This, however, has had its 



DEFENSE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 373 

evil side as well as its good. It is rapidly making the world one 
not only in the benefits of civilization, but also in its intellectual 
doubts, and its social and political conflicts. The convert from 
paganism can point to the great greed and lust of the nominal Chris- 
tian, Christendom has even been responsible for some of the most 
enormous evils now found in heathen lands, and the pagan can not 
be expected always to discriminate between the true spirit of the 
Gospel and its sinful accompaniments. The influence of Christian 
unbelief also meets the missionary on pagan soil. The arguments 
of Western infidelity are encountered in India and Japan, as 
well as in America and Europe. All this must affect our apolo- 
getics. These facts have, at least, the result of making the issue 
practically the same all over the world. The apologist must be 
prepared to deal with much the same problems abroad and at home; 
so that the intellectual conliict has been immensely broadened in its 
sweep. In view, then, of this interesting situation, I inquire what 
the problems are which confront the apologist. I shall not deal 
with the general problems of apologetics in view of the difficulties 
raised by unbelief wherever found ; but solely with those which are 
suggested by the development of evangelical foreign missions. 

I. In the first place, in view of the comparison which missions 
have instituted between Christianity and other religions, how shall 
we best defend the Christian life as the fulfillment of the true re- 
ligious life of man? The question is a more difficult one than it 
may appear to be. It is not sufifi^ient to appeal to the moral and 
social fruits of Christianity, strong though at times this argument 
may be; for Christian life is not perfect either in its individual or 
collective forms. The unsympathetic critic points to the enormous 
vices of Christendom and to not a few virtues in heathenism. While 
none of us doubt that a fair estimate would throw the balance wholly 
in favor of Christianity, it is a question if this line of defense will be 
found in practice a practical demonstration. On the other hand 
the pagan has his own idea of a religious life, which appears to him 
oftentimes to commend itself both to history and experience. 
Around his ideal has grown a multitude of usages based on his 
fundamental conception of religion itself. We think of Brahman- 
ism with its proud pantheistic basis ; Buddhism, with its ideal of 
perfection wrought through self-discipline; of Mohammedanism, 
with its stern, silent creed, and its fatalistic life; of China, with its 
reverence for ancestors; and of polytheism in general with its mani- 
fold forms of ritualism. Over against all of these, sanctioned in 
each case by immemorial usage, evangelical Christianity teaches a 
life of simple faith in an Almighty Redeemer, of personal and im- 
mediate fellowship with a personal God. Its idea of the religious 
life is antagonistic to every other type at some crucial point in each. 
The apologetic problem, therefore, is how can this type be shown 
to be the realization of the idea of religion on its subjective side, 
the only complete, and therefore the only satisfying, and therefore 
the only true form of the religious life of man? I doubt not that 
many a missionary has met this difficulty in his practical work ; 
and it is certain that in view of the comparative study of religions 



374 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

it is a problem with which apologetics must grapple; and all the 
more that in recent years the tendency has been strong to base the 
argument for Christianity on the experience of the Christian life. 

How then shall the apologist frame his defense of the Christian 
life? I am here only to suggest. Can it not be shown that the 
religious life as taught by evangelical Christianity embraces every 
good element that is found in other religions? It recognizes the 
immanence of God by His Spirit in the Christian; it enforces the 
discipline of the soul by a higher motive than the hope of obtaining 
deliverance by good works; its great purpose is to do the will of 
God; it teaches reverence for family and social ties; it makes every 
activity an act of worship. Can it not be shown to the satisfaction 
of inquiring minds that the Christian's is thus the complete life, 
while the best in paganism is but a broken and partial fragment? 

And can it not be shown that since the idea of life as one of per- 
sonal fellowship with a personal God, who, in His character is the 
perfect Being, preserves intact the full idea of man's personality, 
it is thereby evidenced to be the highest realization of the religious 
ideal? The value of this will be felt in proportion as paganism is 
stirred by the progressive forces of civilization, for these call into 
activity the individuality of man. As mission work advances, and 
as with it the civilizing and quickening influences of the political 
and scientific ideas of Christendom enter, as they are beginning to 
do, into the masses of heathenism, the value of personality, its dig- 
nity, and its rights, must be more and more realized, as was the 
case at the beginning of our era: and, therewith, the idea of re- 
ligion as consisting in moral and intelligent fellowship of the in- 
dividual with the perfect Being must surely appear the highest form 
of the religious life. And then, it certainly can be shown that the 
Christian life of faith in the saving power of the Redeemer alone 
satisfies the universal craving of the human soul for peace of con- 
science. This last fact is the best attested of all our Christian ex- 
perience ; and its cogency becomes immeasurably increased in the 
presence of the dissatisfaction and unrest, the ever-returning fear 
of retribution, which is well known to be characteristic of all types 
of heathen life. 

Thus I venture to suggest that apologetics may deal with the 
problem presented by the comparison which missions have occa- 
sioned between Christian and pagan ideas of the religious life. 

2. Turning next to the sphere of doctrine, the apologetic problem 
raised by foreign missions is how much of positive Christian dogma 
shall the apologist set himself to defend. As I have said already, 
foreign missions naturally tend to contract the area of apologetics 
in their sphere of doctrine; since it is and ought to be a united move- 
ment in which many types of Christianity join hands, and also be- 
cause it is of supreme importance that paganism shall be taught the 
central truths of Christianity rather than be confused by the dififer- 
cnccs of type. Yet it must be confessed that this natural tend- 
ency to contract the area of defense may easily be carried too far; 
especially in view of the fact that in Christendom itself the drift 
is toward a minimizing of the essence of our religion. We are 



THE SUPERNATURAL IN CHRISTIANITY 375 

all aware that the great danger exists to-day of the churches giving 
up the historical statements of doctrine which have been wrought 
out of the Bible through centuries of thought and experience, and 
reducing the essence of our religion to little more than the moral 
influence of Jesus. Under cover of the ambiguous cry of " Back 
to Christ," there is a strong disposition to lay aside as unessential 
not only the historical behefs of the historic Church, but even of the 
Apostles themselves, and to be content with presenting Christianity 
in the teaching of Jesus, forgetful of the Lord's own promise 
of the Spirit to guide His Apostles into the truth. Yea, even the 
repeated teaching of Jesus is made the subject of criticism and not a 
little of it rejected as unauthentic. I apprehend that foreign mis- 
sions make this question acute. How much of Christianity shall we 
defend? One can easily imagine the temptation to reduce it to a 
minimum in order not to lay upon pagan converts more truth new 
to them than may be possible. But in yielding to this temptation 
foreign missions may easily commit suicide. It would be practical- 
ly an admission to paganism that historic Christianity is merely a 
natural development and possibly a mistaken one; which would be 
quite equivalent to a surrender. It would also reduce it to such 
vague, indefinable limits that its message to paganism would lack all 
positive character, and would be capable of various interpretations 
by paganism. It ought to be obvious that while the foreign mis- 
sionary movement may properly contract the area of defense to 
that which evangelical Christians hold in common, it must stoutly 
defend all that content of Christianity which they do hold in com- 
mon, since this alone justifies missions themselves. It must de- 
fend the reality of our historical revelation and the truthfulness of 
the records which embody it. It must loyally hold to apostolic 
authority as that which rightly interprets to the world the person, 
and work, and teaching of the Lord. It must accept and defend 
also that interpretation of apostolic teaching in which the Church 
has agreed by the consensus of the catholic creeds and by the expe- 
rience of believers. These are essential to the very being of for- 
eign missions; they also give us a divine Christ, a real atonement, a 
supernatural religion; and thus a basis on which alone we are justi- 
fied in calling the whole world to faith in its only Redeemer. The 
apologist in view of our foreign missions dare not contract his 
area of defense beyond these limits. If he do he will cut the throat 
of the foreign missions he is called to defend. 

3. Still, again, turning to the sphere of history itself, the apologetic 
problem is how best to defend before paganism the supernatural 
origin of Christianity. In regard to this the foreign missionary 
churches have again to repel attacks both at home and abroad; they 
m.ust defend their religion as a supernatural one given by revelation 
to prophets and apostles, and embodied in an inspired Bible which 
is the immediate authority by which men are to learn the will of 
God. But abroad as well as at home they find substantially the 
same opponents in this field. As already noted, rationalistic at- 
tacks emanating from within Christianity itself are constantly met 
on foreign soil; so that the missionary, if he is to control the intel- 



376 WIDER RELATIONS OF MISSIONS 

lectual respect of the thinking class of pagan inquirers, must be pre- 
pared with his answer to them. No man is prepared to be a leader 
of men in many of our foreign fields who is not trained thoroughly 
in these defenses. We need our best scholars and our most per- 
fectly trained students on this part of the firing line. Moreover, 
apart from specific attack, the vast spread of the doctrine of evolu- 
tion under the teachings of modern science, whatever of truth there 
may be in it, has made possible a view of all religions which refuses 
to distinguish between them as absolutely true or false, but bnly as 
relatively better or worse. This influence is felt among the more 
intelligent classes of paganism, and, indeed, has a peculiar attract- 
iveness for some types of pagan thought. Hov/ then shall the 
Christian apologist, confronted by this phase of the missionary 
situation, defend the historically supernatural origin of his religion 
and of her sacred Books ? Again I can only suggest : There is 
need in this emergency for a vigorous dissemination of the best 
class of apologetic literature, both scientific and popular, to meet 
the opposing swarm of rationalistic writings. The historical evi- 
dences for the supernatural origin of Christianity still stand firm, 
and the missionary agencies should not be surpassed by infidelity 
in the literary propagation of their arguments. There is further 
need for a thoroughgoing attack on the whole doctrine of natural- 
ism in religion. Here the Christian apologist must especially train 
his guns. Can he do it better than by a direct appeal to the human 
consciousness, which will confirm his assertion that true religion is 
a personal relation with a personal God; that if so, it needs and 
may expect immediate direction from God; and hence that it is nat- 
ural to expect a revelation both for the individual and the race? Nat- 
uralism in religion dies before the conviction of divine and human 
personality; and it may be our hope that as the nations are awak- 
ened to the worth and reality of the individual person, the truth of 
the personality and the Fatherhood of the one God will replace 
pantheism and nature-worship, and vindicate to the mind the con- 
ception of a supernatural revelation. 

The apologist may also fearlessly invite the comparison which is 
being already so widely made between the Bible and other sacred 
books. He need not fear it. The Bible does evidence itself as 
such a revelation as God might make, while the sacred books of 
other religions run off into metaphysical abstractions or grotesque 
puerilities, or mere ethics. We need to press the comparison ; 
only being careful that the whole Bible with its progressive and uni- 
fied system of truth is put into the hands of the pagan world. Tes- 
timony is abundant that there is no better defense of Christianity 
than the Bible itself. 

And this leads to the final remark' that for the historical argument 
as well as for the experimental one, the Christ of the Bible is Him- 
self the crowning proof of the supernaturalness of Christianity. I 
say the Christ of the Bible, not- the Christ of the Gospels alone nor 
the mere historical person. The preparation for Him in the teach- 
ing, the laws, the history of the Old Testament: and the unveiling of 
Him by the teaching of the Apostles, must be united with His own 



A UNIVERSAL CONFLICT 377 

person, teaching, and career, in order to give the full proof which 
will make on the mind of the world the impression of a supernat- 
ural Saviour and the author of a supernatural religion. This alone 
is the sense in which we may wisely go back to Christ. The Bible 
is unified by the system of truth of which He is the center. In this 
it stands in entire contrast to the relation of all other sacred books 
to sacred teachers. Christ is not only in the Bible, but He is the 
substance of it; and the unique relation between Him and it will 
ever form a cogent defense of both. It will be impossible for men 
long to believe that the idea is a natural product of the Hebrew 
mind; or that the person was a natural product of the Hebrew race; 
or that the idea and the person were fortuitous combinations of the 
early Christians. To place Him before paganism in his complete- 
ness, as the Bible reveals Him, is, perhaps, the best of all ways of 
meeting the doubts of both pagan and Christian inquirers. 

4. Last of all, missionary Christianity has furnished the apolo- 
gist with cogent arguments by its successes and its fruitage. There 
can be no question as to its regenerating and elevating power. It 
need only be compared with Mohammedanism in Africa, Brah- 
manism in India, Buddhism in China, heathenism in the islands of 
the sea. It regenerates the individual and reconstructs society. 
It purifies man, liberates the slave, ennobles womanhood, estab- 
lishes order, overthrows tyranny, emancipates the intelligence, civil- 
izes life. Yet, I mention this argument last because some reply 
that these results are due to the accvmmlated power of civilization 
rather than Christianity itself. Hence I would lay more stress on 
the other phases of the apologetic problem. Still this has its place. 
Many will feel its force more than that of the others. And it can 
be shown that the seeds of all that is good in civilization do spring 
out of Christianity itself; that without it civilization would not have 
been born. What can paganism, abroad or at home, say to a re- 
ligion which leads the onward march of the whole world's finest 
progress except that it is true, that it is God's way of reclaiming His 
lost world. 

Let me add in closing that the spread of Christianity through for- 
eign missions is swiftly resulting in one long, world-wide battle 
line between Christianity and unbelief. Instead of a scattered 
guerrilla warfare, there is fast forming a conflict between two great 
hosts. All non-Christian religions are uniting against the one. 
The questions at issue are becoming universal. Its battle-cries are 
For or Against Christ. It behooves the Christian apologist not 
to relinquish the achievements of the past, not to part wath the truth 
which has been won, but to defend it at home and abroad in firm 
reliance on Him who said, I am the truth. The twentieth century 
is likely to witness a harder battle than the nineteenth. It is not 
likely to be a short fight. We must be prepared to use our best 
intelligence, as well as to consecrate money and men, that Chnr-*- 
our divine Lord may find us good soldiers for His final conquest of 
the world. 



PART III 
SURVEY OF THE FIELD 



CHAPTER XV 

ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

The Drink Traffic — Degraded Womanhood — The Ancient Ethical Systems. 



The Drink Traffic as an Anti-Christian Force 

Rev. John G. Paton, D.D., Nezv Hebrides, Missionary, Pres- 
byterian Church of Victoria, Australia* 

After we give the Gospel to the heathen, and life and property 
are safe, trade follows us, not to uphold the work of God, but to 
give the natives rum and brandy, which ruin both their bodies and 
their souls. I have been sent to remonstrate with the traders' 
agent not to give to the young men, the natives, this maddening 
liquor, and he would stop it for a short time, and then return to it 
again. At last we sent a deputation to him, but he said he could 
not help it, he could not stop the business ; to do so would ruin 
himself, his wife, and his children. On the west side of our island, 
three years ago, a missionary was placed. At the time he did 
not know a word of the language. He labored hard, and he 
succeeded in converting many of the people. After the chief of the 
natives there had embraced the Gospel, this chief came one morning 
to the missionary and implored him to go with him to the Amer- 
ican traders and beseech them not to give his men the " white man's 
firewater "; for, he said, " When their reason is dethroned by it and 
they are brought under its influence they commit shocking crimes, 
and I have no power to prevent them. It is working havoc here 
among my people. I have wept over it. When you come to give 
us the Gospel, why do your countrymen come with the white man's 
firewater to destroy our people ? " These natives eagerly desire 
to embrace Christianity, but when they are under the influence of 
liquor they shoot each other, and they shoot themselves. Even a 
white man sometimics, under its dethroning influence over the rea- 
son, shoots his friend, and not a few of them have fallen victims to 
their own madness. We grieve over this, my friends. The Aus- 
tralian churches support that mission, and the mission sent me to 
America eight years ago to appeal to the American people, and 
to the President of the United States, and to the Congress of the 
United States, to place American traders under the same prohibi- 
tion that England has placed her traders imder in regard to the 
sale of intoxicating liquors, and ammunition, and opium. At that 

* Carnegie Hall, April 30. 



382 ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

time, when I came here, I spent several months in America plead- 
ing with God's people, and thousands sent in petitions to the Presi- 
dent and to Congress, beseeching that this foul stain upon America's 
honor should be wiped off, and that the traders of the United States 
Government should be placed under the same prohibition that Great 
Britain has placed hers under; but somehow, though President 
Harrison was eager to join the prohibition, and President McKinley, 
following him, was equally eager, yet the documents were not sent 
out, and the object I had in view w^as not accomplished. I tell you, 
my friends, we have suffered a great deal during these eight years 
by the influence of into>;icating drink, and I am sent again to 
America to renew the plea that Christian America may do what 
Christian Britain has done in the interests of humanity, to prevent 
the mischiefs that have taken place every now and then by men 
imder the influence of intoxicating liquors. I have appealed to the 
President, and I have appealed to Congress through the President, 
but it all seems of no avail — at least it has not accomplished any- 
thing up to this time. Week before last I went to Washington and 
had an interview with President McKinley. He received me very 
graciously, and promised that he would do what he could. I also 
had an interview with the Secretary of State. They both heard what 
I had to say, and they seemed to sympathize with me, and they said; 
" We will look into this question, and we will try, if possible, to do 
what you wish." Since then we received a letter from the Secre- 
tary of State saying that they can not interfere without an act of 
Congress. • Certainly we never expected they could interfere without 
an act of Congress. We appealed to Congress through the Presi- 
dent. Now, however, the Secretary of State tells us that they can 
not do anything for us unless there is an act of Congress passed. 
Surely there are some congressmen in America who, from the love 
of God and the responsibility of their positions, will take up such 
a question as we contend for and get the act passed. Surely, surely, 
America will unite and try to drive out from the Philippine Islands, 
and from every other island where it has acquired possession, the 
influence of this terrible curse. 

We appeal to every Christian in America, and to every associa- 
tion in America, to try, if possible, to bring this about, and to try 
to get this Government to place its traders under the same prohi- 
bition that England places hers. It would not cost America one 
cent if she would only do this. France and Germany would almost 
surely follow. Then we would get this terrible hindrance to the 
work of God forever removed. We are doing all that is possible, 
and we hope, with God's blessing, that you will be led to act with 
us before God and man. 

I return to the islands in a short time, and I shall be exceedingly 
grieved if I have to go home and report that we came again to 
America and appealed to get American traders put under the same 
prohibition that English traders are, and failed. Our missionaries 
have done, and are doing, all they can to Christianize those poor 
cannibals and teach them to serve the living God ; and yet our own 
countrymen come there and undo the work we are doing, and fill 



THE DRINK TRAFFIC AS AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCE 383 

these people with Hquor, and cause them to commit crimes while 
under its maddening influence. 

C. F. Harford-Battersby, M.A., M.D., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., 
Hon. Sec'y Native Races and Liquor Traffic United Committee, 
England* 

I do not think there can be two questions here as to the awful 
wrong of civilized nations taking strong drink to lead to the de- 
moralization of the weak races committed to our care. The only 
excuse by which the stronger nations have gone into such countries 
as Africa and the islands of the sea is, it is said, that we believe these 
nations are too weak to protect themselves, and they need to be 
protected ; and yet we know the awful history of this terrible curse 
of 'Strong drink, and the way in which whole races have been almost 
exterminated by means of the traffic which has been carried to them 
by so-called civilized nations. I do not need to deal with that 
to-night, but I should like to tell you of what has been done to deal 
with this question. We have heard a great deal of the unfortunate 
divisions between Christian peoples ; of the need of co-operation in 
different questions. Thank God, on this great question it is possible 
to have co-operation ; and I am thankful to be able to say that the 
Committee with which I am connected is representative of every 
great missionary society in Great Britain, and also of almost every 
great temperance society. We have formed a federation of all these 
societies to deal with this question of the protection of the native 
races from the liquor traffic. It was formed in 1887. I" three 
years' time the subject of the liquor traffic was brought before the 
great conference of the Powers of Europe in Brussels. That con- 
ference was glad to deal with the slave trade, but at the instigation 
of the British Government, acting under the influence of this Com- 
mittee, this subject was dealt with by that conference, and regula- 
tions were made in regard to Africa by which the liquor traffic has 
been prohibited from entering the greater part of the Congo Free 
State. It has been prohibited from entering the great territory in 
the upper waters of the Niger, and in that recent conquest of Great 
Britain in the Egyptian Soudan we know that Lord Kitchener has 
declared that liquor shall not be allowed to be given to the native 
races. This is of very great importance. But something more was 
done. The principle was established at that time of international 
agreement on this question, and a small duty was put down as a 
minimum which should be recognized by all the civilized nations. 
Last year the conference of the Powers of Europe met to consider 
this one question alone. As someone has said, it was the most re- 
markable temperance meeting ever held in the history of the world, 
when the Powers of Europe sent representatives to meet together 
to consider a great temperance question. I think this is a great 
encouragement. It certainly is not any reason for us to rest upon 
our oars, however. We must never be satisfied until the same regu- 
lations are applied to every land, and until better regulations are 
established among all the weak rpces of the world. 



♦Carnegie Hall, April 30. 



384 ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

I have come here to-day as a representative of that Committee 
to plead with you, the people of the United States particularly, to 
join us in this great movement. We want you to co-operate with us. 
I know something of the ardent spirit of those who feel in this mat- 
ter. In Sierra Leone, where I have many times been, I remember 
there was one factory alone which did not sell strong drink ; and 
the fact will interest you very much that the reason that strong drink 
was not sold in that factory, which was an American factory, was 
that the ladies of America had prevailed upon the heads of the 
company not to sell strong drink in connection with their trade. 
Now, then, what are you going to do? 

I propose that there shall be formed in this country just such a 
committee as has been formed in England on this subject. We have 
representatives in Belgium, and in France, and in Germany. We 
want to make a great international committee on this subject. We 
want representatives from all the Christian nations. We want them 
to stand shoulder to shoulder, that we may be able to keep one an- 
other informed of what is happening; that we may be able to do 
something to avert this terrible curse. 

We appeal, then, to America to take up this question. I appeal 
to all the men and women workers represented here to see to it that 
there may be co-operation in this regard. I appeal to the temper- 
ance workers in the United States to deal with this matter fairly and 
brotherly, and with real common-sense, because we can do harm 
if we do not deal with the subject in a fair and common-sense way. 
We want to deal with this question as a serious one, in a serious 
way. I appeal to the statesmen of this country. This is a matter 
in the interest of commerce, because a people that are demoralized 
by rum are not a commercial people. I appeal to the press of this 
country — the press that wields such a powerful influence — to take 
this matter up and to agitate it, and see that the right opinion is 
formed on this important subject, and that we all co-operate as 
Christian men and women, as those who are interested in missions, 
in seeing that, whatever nation we belong to, our flag shall never be 
stained by the fact that we have helped demoralize the weaker races 
of the world. 

What the United States Might Do 

Rev Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D., Brooklyn* 

Although it is not permissible to present resolutions to this Confer- 
ence, if I were to do so I would frame one something like this : 

" Whereas, One of the most serious obstacles to the spread of the 
gospel is the exportation of alcohol into heathen countries by Chris- 
tian nations ; 

" Resolved, That our Christianity needs a little more christianiz- 
ing at the core." 

When ex-President Harrison gave the keynote to this Conference 
at its opening, he uttered these words : " The missionaries who 
go out from Christian lands go out as the pioneers of civilization, to 
unlock the treasuries of knowledge, and to bring the heathen to a 

* Carnegie Hall, April 30. 



TO THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC AS AN ANTI-MISSIONARY FORCE 385 

knowledge of Christ; and not to acquaint them with the vices of 
civilized peoples." 

I am sure that the history of foreign missions has been a con- 
firmation and a corroboration of his words ; for think of the many 
years that ships from Christian nations have carried to heathen ports 
missionaries in the cabin and rum, firearms, and opium in the hold. 
Even such advanced nations as Great Britain and America have 
gone out to the heathen nations holding a Bible in one hand and a 
bottle in the other, and the bottle has sent ten men to perdition for 
every one that the Bible has brought to Christ. 

Four years ago a Christian chieftain in Bechuanaland, converted 
under David Livingstone, went to London on the extraordinary mis- 
sion to tell the Christian people of London that he had made a 
prohibitory law for the protection of his subjects, who were negroes ; 
but he said the chief difficulty that he had to contend against was the 
smuggling in of liquors by British subjects, and he implored Her 
Majesty's Government to second his efforts to make prohibition 
successful. Think of it, a converted African savage on his knees 
before the Queen, imploring her people not to poison his nation ! 

Well, we have something nearer home than that: among all the 
honored heads that have been on this platform, not one has been 
looked upon with more reverence than the good, gray head of the 
veteran. Rev. Dr. John G. Paton, of New Hebrides. Since Living- 
stone went from his knees in Africa to God's throne, and the elo- 
quence of Alexander Duff died away from the echo, no one has done 
more than Paton. 

Now, my old friend. Dr. Paton, came here a few years ago to im- 
plore the American Government — yours and mine — to prohibit the 
importation of firearms and whisky among his Christians of New 
Hebrides. The grace of God had saved them from cannibalism, 
but the problem was whether they could be saved from the importa- 
tions of Christian America. Now, you can not get anything closer 
than that. 

You may be certain that I am not going to handle that hot potato 
of Philippine politics in a political way, but whatever may be the 
future relations of our country there, and whatever may be the 
attitude of our country to the millions of those human beings, we 
are now, before God and before Christendom, responsible for their 
morality as much as any mother is responsible for the morality of 
her child. They are under the flag. That means authority, oppor- 
tunity, responsibility. Under the flag ! It is a most terrible truth 
that that flag, our " Old Glory," as we call it, floats to-night over 
American drinking-dens and American slaughter-houses of body 
and soul in Manila. (Cries of " Shame! ") Yes, shame! Shame! 
Oh, if it must hang above those drinking-hells, then, for Heaven's 
sake, hang it at half-mast ! The flag that we love better than any- 
thing else except the Bible! 

Well, the highest authority in reference to what the native race 
has suffered comes from my friend vSchurman, of Cornell Univer- 
sity, who, you know, was the president of the commission that the 
President sent to the Philippines ; and President Schurman says 



386 ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

this : " I regret that the Americans allowed the saloon to get a 
foothold in the islands. That has hurt the Americans more than 
anything else, and the spectacle of Americans drunk awakens disgust 
among the Filipinos. We suppressed the cock fights there, but left 
the saloon to flourish. One emphasized the Filipino frailty, and 
the other the American vice. I have never seen a Filipino drunk- 
ard." And he adds : " It was most unfortunate that we introduced 
and established saloons there, for that not only made corrupt the 
natives, but exhibited to the world the vices of our own race. I 
found the Filipinos a sober people when I went there." 

And he says, in another place, that one of the Filipinos said to 
him : " You have brought us the blessings of civilization, and you 
have lined our most beautiful street, the Escolta, with saloons." 

\\'ell, I am not going to weary you to-night with sickening statis- 
tics from the chaplains of our gallant soldiers and the workers in 
Young Men's Christian Associations out there, or with excerpts 
from remarks of Bishop Thoburn and other authorities, all confirm- 
ing the terrible debasement and the abominable demoralization that 
are growing out of the American introduction of alcoholic poison 
into those beautiful lands. Now, what is to be done? Abraham 
Lincoln once, by a single stroke of his pen, swept away that other 
great evil, the darkest blot on our national escutcheon. Oh ! that we 
could find that pen again, and that our honored President, with a 
single dash and stroke of it, should extinguish this most terrible 
stigma on our national character and Christianity ! I tell you, if he 
would, we would give him a shout that would make the great ovation 
of this Conference when he came upon this platform last Saturday 
appear as the murmur of a zephyr. 

I must not devote too much time to the peculiar stigma that we 
are praying may be lifted from our beloved land, and I have talked 
very freely about my native country on the same principle that Ran- 
dolph, of Virginia, used to say, " I never let anybody abuse Vir- 
ginia but myself." But I do say, let the Christian people of this 
land — let this great Conference — send a protest to the President and 
to Congress imploring, entreating, that the importation of alcoholic 
intoxicants be prohibited among these weak native races. Eight 
years ago sixteen nations — our own among them, I am happy to say 
— enacted a treaty forbidding the introduction of alcoholic drinks 
into the Congo country in Africa. All right. Now, that establishes 
the principle. What we want is the enlargement of it. This Con- 
ference asks, I say implores, the Christian nations of the earth in the 
name of a common humanity, out of pity to the weak races that God 
has bidden us treat as our brothers, for the credit of Christianity, 
for the glory of God, to pass such legislation as shall sweep out of 
existence this terrific curse of humanity, this destruction of God's 
children. 

I imjilore you, good friends of the Conference, to use all your 
efforts in this direction, to carry out this great proposal that has 
been presented. And I ask it finally for the sake of the mission- 
aries themselves, who, for the last week, with face and voice, have 
been a heavenly benediction to this community. I make to-night 



DEGRADED WOMANHOOD 387 

one closing plea for these self-denying, consecrated heroes and hero- 
ines who have come back to us, bringing in their garments the 
smell of the fields that God has blessed. 

Degraded Vomanhood 

Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, Edinburgh* 

I can most profitably utilize the time allotted to me by passing 
on to you a few of the impressions produced on me by years of in- 
timate contact with the peoples of Japan, Korea, China, Western 
Thibet, the Malay States, Kashmir, Persia, and Asiatic Turkey. 
These countries represent the great creeds of Asia with their num- 
erous ramifications, demonism underlying all. These creeds and 
their founders undoubtedly started with much that was noble in 
their teachings and with ethical standards higher than the world 
then knew. But the good has been lost out of them in their pas- 
sage down the ages. 

Of the Christless population of the world, over 500,000,000 are 
women. We are here chiefly concerned with them. Throughout 
Asia the natural result of the universal distrust of women by men and 
of the degrading views held concerning women is seclusion behind 
high walls, in separate houses, known to us as the harem, the zenana, 
and the anderun. I have seen much of the inmates of all, owing to the 
detentions in traveling which have made me frequently their unwill- 
ing guest, and have had unveiled for me the mysteries of their se- 
cluded lives. Such contact has banished from my mind, so far as 
Asiatic countries are concerned, all belief in purity in woman and in- 
nocence in childhood. We know what Christianity has done for us. 
We realize it more or less fully to-night, as we meet to discuss the im- 
portant and unfettered work of women. We know, or rather guess, 
and that only in part, what Islam and heathenism have done for our 
sisters. May God give us sympathetic instincts, by which alone 
we may realize their contrasting lives. 

I have been a storm or peril-bound guest in more than fifty 
women's houses, including the women's tents of the large nomadic 
population of Persia. In all, the arrangements, so far as means 
allow, are the same. The women's rooms are built around a yard 
and have no windows to the front; a room near the entrance is 
tenanted by eunuchs, or by an old woman who acts as custodian or 
spy in the husband's interests. Such secluded women can never 
stir outside except in rigidly closed chairs by day, or, in some cities, 
on foot at night properly attended, along streets from which men 
are excluded. In many countries it is a crime or a folly to teach a 
woman to read; in some a lady loses caste by employing her fingers 
even in embroidery. They know nothing. They have no icleals. 
Dress, personal adornment, and subjects connected with sex 
are their sole interests. They are regarded as possessing neither 
soul nor immortality ; except as mothers of sons they are abso- 
lutely despised, and are spoken of in China as " the mean ones with- 
in the gate." With dwarfed and childish intellect is combined a pre- 
cocity on a gigantic scale in the evil passions of adults — hatred, 

* Carnegie Hall, April 26, read by Mrs. J. Cook. 



388 ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

envy, jealousy, sensuality, greed, and malignity. The sy»tem of 
polygamy, the facility for divorce and the dread of it, the fiendish 
hate, the vacuity and apathy, and the tortures inflicted by the igno- 
rance of the native female doctors, specially at the time of " the 
great pain and peril of child-birth," produce a condition which 
makes a piteous appeal to every woman here. 

In a rich man's harem there are women of all ages and colors, girl 
children and very young boys. There are the favorite and other 
legitimate wives; concubines, who have recognized but very slender 
rights; discarded wives who have been favorites in their day and 
who have passed into practical slavery to their successors; numbers 
of domestic slaves and old women; daughters-in-law and child or 
girl widows whose lot is deplorable, and many others. I have seen 
as many as 200 in one house, a great crowd, privacy being un- 
known, grossly ignorant, with intolerable curiosity forcing on a 
stranger abominable or frivolous questions, then relapsing into 
apathy but rarely broken except by outbreaks of hate and the re- 
sults of successful intrigue. It may be said there are worse evils 
than apathy. There are worse evils and they prevail to a great 
extent in upper-class houses. On more than fifty occasions I have 
been asked by women for drugs which would kill the reigning 
favorite or her boy, or make her ugly or odious. In the house 
of the Turkish Governor of an important vilayet, where I was 
storm-bound for a week, the favorite wife was ill, and the husband 
besought me to stay in her room lest some of the other women 
should make way with her. My presence was no restraint on the 
scenes of fiendishncss which were enacted. Scandal, intrigue, fierce 
and cruel jealousies, counting jewels, painting the face, staining the 
hair, quarrels, eating to excess, getting rid of time by sleeping, listen- 
ing to impure stories by professional reciters, and watching small 
dramas played by slaves, occupy the unbounded leisure of Eastern 
upper-class women. Of these plays, one of which was produced 
for my entertainment, I can only say that nothing more diabolically 
vicious could enter the polluted imagination of man, and it was 
truly piteous to see the keen, precocious interest with which young 
girl-children, brought up amid the polluting talk of their elders, 
gloated over scenes from which I was compelled to avert my eyes. 

Yet those illiterate, ignorant women, steeped in superstition, de- 
spised as they are in theory wield an enormous influence, and that 
against Christianity. They bring up their children in the super- 
stitions and customs which enslave themselves. They make the mar- 
riages of their sons and rule their daughters-in-law. They have a 
genius for intrigue ; and many a man in the confidence of a ruler 
or another, loses his position, owing to their intrigues. They con- 
serve idolatries, and keep fetich and demon worship alive in their 
homes. They drag the men back to heathen customs, and their 
influence accounts, perhaps, for the larger number of lapses from 
Cliristianity. It is impossible to raise the men of the East imless 
the women are raised ; but real converts among Asiatic women, 
specially among the Chinese, make admirable Christians. 

But owing to social customs, mission work among Eastern 



IN CHINA AND JAPAN 389 

women can only be done by women. The medical woman finds 
ready access into their houses; for the non-medical woman the en- 
trance into such a mixed crowd as I have described is a matter of 
difhculty, and requires not only the love of our sisters for Christ's 
sake but for their own, and much, very much, of what has been well 
named " the enthusiasm of humanity." Everywhere I have seen 
that it is the woman richest in love who is the most successful mis- 
sionary, and that for the unloving, the half-hearted, and the in- 
dolent, there is no call and no room. 

The magnitude of the task, not only of conquest, but of re-con- 
quest, which lies before the Christian Church, is one that demands 
our most serious consideration. To bring five hundred millions 
of our fellow-women to a knowledge of a Saviour is the work espe- 
cially given to women. 

The Ethical and Philosophical Systems of China and Japan 

Rev. Geo. Wm. Knox, D.D., Union Theological Seminary, New 
York^ 

I bring to you the religious message of the great philosophical 
and ethical systems of the Far East. I know it is often denied that 
there is a religious element in Confucianism. And yet, in spite of 
all the facts which seem to support that opinion, I would maintain 
that Confucianism, as it is held to-day by the educated men of the 
Far East, is a religion deep and broad. 

It is true that Confucius only once in a passing notice refers to 
the Supreme Ruler ; that he never refers to a creator ; that he hesi- 
tated to speak of the Divinities, and that he declared that as he did 
not yet know life, still less could he know death. And Mencius 
also has as little to say of these things as Confucius himself. And 
down through all the ages to our own day, Confucianism, even in its 
developed form, has no place for a creator, brings no man into re- 
lationship with a supreme ruler but the Emperor himself. It has 
no space for prayers except as ceremonial of state. It knows no 
sacrifices, has no priest, and teaches — strange as that may seem in a 
system which teaches the v/orship of ancestors — teaches no per- 
sonal immortality. Take away from religion all this, and it is 
not surprising that men may say that the teaching- of the Far East 
lacks all religious elements. And yet, let me set before you the re- 
ligious element of that teaching as it appears to me. 

After the death of Confucius, for 1,500 years there was a long re- 
ligious development. Taouist philosophy and Taouist religion were 
mingled with the Confucian ethics. Never during that long period 
did the mere ethics of Confucius satisfy the educated men of the 
far East, nor did his ethics remain as their creed and confession of 
faith. At last, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our own 
era, the great scholastic philosophers of China took the ethics of 
Confucius, and combining those ethics with a philosophy derived 
through China from India itself, formed the great pantheistic sys- 
tem which has commanded the allegiance of China, Korea, and 
Japan for all these centuries since, which turned Buddhism from the 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 28. 



390 ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

halls of learning and declared that this religion, Buddhism, was fit 
only for the ignorant and the debased. And this pantheistic system 
of the scholastics of the twelfth century remains to-day the great 
bulwark around the educated thought of the far East. It remains 
a bulwark against Christianity and would repel the teaching of the 
missionaries in the name of a philosophy — of a philosophy that is 
more profound, and a morality, as it claims, that is more exalted. 

It thinks of a universe that is from everlasting to everlasting, 
without beginning and without end. Far, far in the past, long, 
long ago, before the countless ages ever were numbered, through 
a seemingly endless night, chaos reigned. There was neither 
light nor darkness. There was neither motion nor rest. There 
was neither form nor formlessness. And at last, out of that bosom 
of darkness and of chaos, the great principles of heaven and of earth 
began to work. And then, down through countless ages again 
from that time of chaos, slowly the universe evolved, until at last 
it stood complete, with man its crowning glory, and then through 
the ages it continues, until at last the universe again dissolves and 
the processes of disintegration go on again through countless ages, 
until the universe returns again to chaos and to night, only that it 
may rest until there comes the dawn of another day, and thus on, 
through all the ages, worlds without end, universes without end, 
eternities without beginning and without end, an everlasting scene 
of change. 

And yet, within this change is a principle, something that changes 
not, something that was hidden in chaos, and that from chaos con- 
tinued through all the evolutionary process ; something that in the 
midst of change, changes not; something that in the midst of the 
transient passes not away; something that though obscure, retains 
its own purity; something — a law, a principle, an idea, an everlast- 
ing reason. This is the soul of things. This is the very essence 
of the universe. This is the beam of beams, the spirit of spirits, 
the soul of souls, the heart of all the universe. What is it? Who 
can name it? Names name it not. It is beyond our knowledge 
and beyond our thought, but if we would describe this which is from 
everlasting to everlasting, and abides forever the same, then we 
shall name it from that which is deepest in the heart of man. Pure 
benevolence is it, and pure righteousness. What does it hate? It 
hates hatred. It hates malevolence. What does it love? It 
loves righteousness. It loves truth. It is the enemy of all un- 
truth, all unrighteousness, all hate. It abides forever, unchang- 
ing, the same, and its symbol is the overarching heaven, the heaven 
that follows whithersoever we go ; the heaven that remains pure, 
limpid, clear, no matter though the clouds obscure it, no matter 
though the darkness hide it. The clouds shall pass away and the 
heaven above shall shine forth, clear, unchanging, forever the same. 

So it is with the law, the principle, the eternal reason which we 
call Heaven itself. And Heaven is not an unfeeling thing. Heaven 
itself responds to man. It punishes the sinful. Who may escape 
from its law? And when Heaven punishes, there is no place for 



IN CHINA AND JAPAN 391 

prayer. Who sliall escape from the vengeance of Heaven when 
man has violated its law? 

And, on the other hand, Heaven protects. It guards us. It sur- 
rounds us. It is not distant. It is nigh at hand. Authority and 
riches are from it. It guards those who are pure in heart. It 
brings to them the knowledge of itself and it is not far from man. 
Indeed, it is within man as it is around him, and just as this, the 
eternal reason, the everlasting principle and law, constitutes the 
inner self of the true universe, so does it constitute the inner self 
of man. So is it his real good, his real nature. Just as the heaven is 
behind the clouds and vapors, and beyond the changing sky, so 
down in the soul of man, beneath this changing world of hope, de- 
sire and fear, of sorrow and of joy, always, forever unchanging, is 
the real self, the eternal reason, the everlasting law that unites man 
with the reason of the universe itself. 

Then let man know his own self. Let him understand his right 
heart, his true nature, deep within. Let him push aside hate; let 
him push aside selfishness; let him push aside passion; let him push 
aside this that obscures his soul, and, looking down into the depths 
of his own heart, see there, beneath it all, the reflection of the ever- 
lasting law. When thus he sees, deep in his own soul, the reflec- 
tion of the everlasting law, then his heart responds to the eternal 
reason without; and, as the moon in the heavens reflects its light 
in the lucid pool beneath, so does the eternal law reveal itself in the 
pure heart of the pure-minded man, for " the pure in heart shall see 
God," and the heart of man is the house of God. 

How shall man worship Heaven and the eternal law? By right- 
eousness and truth. Not by prayer, or outward sign, or ceremony, 
or sacrifice, or priest, but by bringing his own soul into harmony 
with it. Heaven hears that prayer and never turns from him who 
thus worships God. When man thus knows Heaven and under- 
stands Heaven, not only as without, but within his soul, when man 
thus perceives his true nature and gives himself to it, then alone shall 
he be at peace ; a peace that nought else can give to him enters with- 
in his soul. Lying down or standing up, sleeping, waking, all is 
well. In joy, in sorrow, all is well. In life, in death', all is well. 
Only let him submit. Only let him obey. For obedience and life 
are one. To live a day is to obey a day, and then to die. 
To live a year is to obey a year, and then to die. And 
life and obedience come to an end together. What else can a man 
desire? Every man, having his place in this law, if only he will 
submit and obey, the rest matters not at all. What is the differ- 
ence between the ascetic's garb and royal robes, between the im- 
perial throne and the beggar's place? It matters not at all, only 
so that man shall fulfill his destiny, and with an unshaken heart do 
the will of heaven as revealed within his soul. Nor does he seek 
for any other immortality. The stories of heaven told by Budd- 
hist priests are stories to wheedle men to obedience by the promise 
of joys beyond the grave. The tales of hell are stories to frighten 
men into virtue as the nurses frighten children by stories of spooks 
and beasts. But a man who knows the truth with unshaken heart. 



392 ANTI-CIIRISTIAN FORCES 

fears not and desires not. He knows that this conscious exist- 
ence of memory, and of hope, and of fear, and of desire shall pass 
away at death; but the real soul, the original soul, shall remain. 
It is forever one with the soul of the universe itself. It is forever 
one with the universal law, and whenever this bodily life decay, it 
sinks back whence it came as the vapor disappears in the sky be- 
fore the rising sun, as the drop mingles again with the ocean from 
which it came, as fire disappears in fire. The man who knows the 
law only hopes that the good he does may live after him, and only 
fears lest his memory be accursed. 

That is the religion that has stayed the hearts of men who have 
looked in the face the great questions of life and death; and count- 
less noble men, believe me, have tried to embody it in their lives. 
Think not that China has endured for 2,500 years without some 
truth to guide it near to God. 

And now, what shall I say of its defects? The religion of the 
Chinese system is for the philosopher and the learned man. Con- 
fucius himself says: "Heaven" (this eternal principle of which I 
have spoken) " is too high and heartless. Therefore," he says, 
" they " (the common people) " turn to the worship of demons and of 
spirits." A system which, with all its profundity, and all its truth, 
gives to us no personal immortality, gives to us no place for the 
forgiveness of our sins, leaves to us no place for prayer, that leads 
us at last only to this mighty power in ourselves which makes for 
righteousness, can never satisfy the souls of men. 

And so, recognizing that Truth of God which has lighted men in 
all the centuries past, we yet proclaim that the people of China, as 
the people of Korea and Japan, need that supreme revelation in 
Jesus Christ, not of an impersonal principle and force, but of the 
Son of the living God, that they may go not indeed to an unending 
reason, impersonal, though kind, but to Him who is God indeed, 
whom we, through Jesus Christ, name Father of us all. 

Rev. T. M. McNair, Missionary, Presbyterian Church, U. S. 
'A., Japan.* 

It has just been reported from Japan that Shintoism has been 
officially declared not a religion, but simply an agency for the cul- 
tivation of the nationalistic spirit in Parliament. This was prob- 
ably done at the instance of the Shinto leaders. This legalizes 
the continuation of the services at the shrines of the emperors and 
other great men, which amounts to the same thing as the tokens of 
respect paid to the memory of great men here, as they claim. But as 
to most frequenters of the shrines of the emperors, two things may 
be said of them — namely, that they regard th.ese places as the resi- 
dence, in a way, of deity, and that .Shintoism is a religion. Hence 
the recent step means to compel popular adherence to a dying 
cause. It was the primitive religion, and as such comprised two 
theories, nature-worship and the worship of ancestors and heroes. 
The heavenly bodies also, particularly the sun, and high mountains, 
and aged trees, were regarded as the residences of deity. The 



•Calvary Baptist Church, April 23. 



MOHAMMEDANISM 393 

crude literature of Shinto is confined to one or two volumes some- 
times called the Japanese Bible, but regarded by those who know it 
v/ell as a bundle of superstitions. It is characterized by the most 
puerile philosophy, and the grossest immorality and indecency, so 
much so that in a recent English translation many passages had 
to be printed in Latin. Now the order of evolution is, first, chaos 
and the spontaneous generation of heaven and earth. Then ap- 
pear a pair of deities, and multitudinous deities are produced by 
this pair, and one, the sun goddess, is now the great deity of Shinto, 
out of whom has come the Japanese race, including the emperor 
of the present time. And here we have the high and enduring 
tenet, the Emperor worship. The will of emperor and goddess are 
identical. Duty consists in the duty of obeying implicitly. The ob- 
jects of worship have been no less than 8,000,000, including men who 
have been deified by imperial decree, and Parliament has now and 
again, and very recently as well, seconded this imperial proposal. 
One of the generals who died in the late war with China was thus dei- 
fied. Now, the natural outcome of this law is the inability to recog- 
nize the sinfulness of sin. Nowhere is the natural man so self-right- 
eous as in Japan. The people say that as they are God-descended 
they can do no wrong; but so far as Japan is concerned it is be- 
cause the Japanese are truly moral in practice that they require 
no theory of morals ; they are endowed with the knowledge of 
what they ought to do and what they ought to refrain from. 
Shintoism was combined with Buddhism for awhile, but in this 
century occurred a revival of pure Sliintoism, and along with that 
a renewal and growth of a nationalistic spirit. But it has tended 
of late to be more and more secularized, merging into the idea of 
loyalty pure and simple, with som.e, and doubtless this is to be its 
destiny with the masses of the Japanese as well as with the educated 
few. The Emperor is to be regarded as worthy of obedience be- 
cause descended from the gods. Shintoism seeks to dominate the 
other religions, to make it obligatory to perform the rites and cere- 
monies of the Imperial shrines, 

Mohammedanism 

Rev. C. T. Wilson, Missionary, Church Missionary Society, 
Palestine."^ 

The difficulties of winning Mohammedans for Christ have become 
almost proverbial among students of Christian missions. Various 
causes have been suggested to account for this, and while, no doubt, 
there are many contributory reasons, there is one great fact under- 
lying them all, and that is that Islam is on a totally different plane 
spiritually to any other non-Christian creed. The special obstacle 
in Islam lies in the fact that the spirit of Islam is essentially the 
spirit of Antichrist. 

The heathen, as such, knows nothing of Jesus Christ, but the 
Mohammedan not only knows of Him, but it is of the essence of his 
religion to deny His divinity and to reject His atonement, Conse- 



* Central Presbyterian Church, A'ri! 2S 



394 ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

quently, the spirit of Islam is, in a sense and to a degree which 
is not true of any other false creed, the spirit of Antichrist. 

It has been seriously maintained that Islam is a preparation in 
some lands for Christianity, and might with advantage be intro- 
duced in some pagan countries as a stepping-stone to the latter. 
Never was greater error. To take one point only: I doubt if the 
ordinary uneducated Mohammedan's idea of God is really any 
higher than that of the average heathen. In Palestine the Deity 
is regarded as a weakly, indulgent Being who, on the Day of Judg- 
ment, is to be cheated into letting people into heaven. A lady mis- 
sionary in that land was once speaking to some Muslim women on 
Christ's atonement for them, when one replied with all seriousness: 
" Oh, yes! we all know that our Lord Jesus will tell lies for us on 
the Day of Judgment." 

Again the attitude of Islam toward Christians and Christianity 
is one of undisguised intolerance wherever it has the power. Ten 
years ago the Turks took possession of the city of Kerak, in Moab, 
it having, till then, been only nominally under their rule. Its Mus- 
lim inhabitants had been accustomed to use to Christians the ordi- 
nary Mohammedan salutation : " Peace be upon you " (Salaam 
aleikwn) ; but as soon as Ottoman rule was established an order 
was issued forbidding this practice, on the ground that there was 
no peace between Muslims and Christians. 

Where such a hostile feeling does not exist " supreme contempt " 
would best describe the mental attitude of many followers of the 
" prophet " toward our holy religion, and for this the Eastern 
Churches themselves are in no small degree responsible. Often is 
the picture and image worship of these churches, especially the 
representations of the blessed Trinity to be found in so many 
Greek places of worship, thrown in the teeth of the missionary as a 
proof of the falseness of his creed. In Palestine the animosity of 
the various churches and their unholy rivalries, too often only kept 
in bound by the bayonets of Turkish Mohammedan soldiers, are an 
awful stumbling-block to the non-Christian spectator. 

It will, therefore, be evident that in many lands the Church her- 
self is largely to blame for much of the strength of Islam's position 
there to-day. But the Church has practically regarded missions 
to Mohammedans as little less than hopeless. On this point we 
may note that Islam itself does not present a united front to its as- 
sailants. It is divided into a variety of sects and factions, many 
of which are bitterly hostile to each other. On this point a recent 
Persian Mohammedan writer states that " there are more than 
seventy Muslim sects, each of which is split into subdivisions." 

In some countries a variety of providential circumstances have 
caused a much more tolerant feeling on the part of the Muslim in- 
habitants toward Christians and Christianity than formerly. In 
Palestine, thirty or forty years ago, while the oflficials were disposed 
to wink at a good deal of what was being done in the way of mis- 
sionary effort, the people generally were bitterly hostile. Now, 
however, the official class is intensely antagonistic, but the rest of 
the people are usually very v/illing to listen. Again, General Gor- 



MOHAMMEDANISM 395 

don tells us how the people of Darfur, once so fanatical that they 
would admit no Christian into their land, actually asked him to 
place Christians as governors over them. 

Another point for note, is the widespread expectation of the near 
advent of some great prophet. This it was, I believe, which gave 
the main impetus to the revolt of the Sudan under the Mahdi. 
All orthodox Muslims expect this Mahdi or spiritual guide to ap- 
pear before the end of this dispensation. The Shiahs of Persia 
look for the return of the twelfth Imam (whom they hold to be still 
alive), and that he will unite Christians and Shiahs in one fold. 
Many Muslims, especially in Palestine, are expecting the near re- 
turn of Jesus Christ, and I have found, especially of late years, that 
nothing so strikes the mind of thoughtful Muslims as the fact that 
we Christians are looking for Him too. 

Yet again, there are men in Islam better than their creed. In 
Palestine, in two of the old noble Arab families, it is considered a 
disgrace for one of their members to have more than one wife or 
to divorce her; and this rule is chivalrously observed, even in cases 
where the wife is childless. 

The fact, moreover, that Christianity was once the creed of many 
Muslim lands, is not without its effect. Palgrave, the traveler, 
speaking of Arabia, says: " Literature, monuments, and oral tradi- 
tion concur to show that long before Mohammedanism took rise 
Christianity was pretty widely diffused throughout northern Arabia, 
not to mention Yemen and Hadramaut, and no less that this coun- 
try was then far more populous and enjoying a higher degree of 
prosperity and civilization than has since been its lot. The obvious 
inference that Christianity as such is somehow connected with na- 
tional well-being and advancement, has not escaped Arabian politi- 
cal economists, many of whom go so far as to draw from it a practi- 
cal conclusion whose expediency they readily acknowledge, though 
many and weighty obstacles might occur to its execution. 

In the Ottoman Empire the oppression of the Turk is doing much 
to alienate the people from the Mohammedan rule and belief. Just 
before the battle of Tel el Kebir, during the revolt in Egypt, under 
Arabi Pasha, notices in Arabic were posted on the doors of the 
mosques in Damascus, calling on the Muslims to rise and drive the 
Turks out of the country. But the loss of that battle made any 
such movement hopeless. 

What can we do then to take advantage of the way in which God 
has prepared the field? 

Chiefly we should press the circulation of God's Word, especially 
in the sacred Arabic tongue. The joint efforts of the British and 
American Bible Societies have provided the Christian missionary 
with a splendid translation of the entire Bible in that language. The 
rapid growth of education in many parts of the East is enabling 
many people to read it for themselves, while the efforts of the Turks 
to stop its circulation have been overruled to facilitate it. Here, 
however, I would say one word by way of criticism, viz.: That I 
much regret that the Bible Societies have not yet seen their way to 
give us an edition of the Bible in Eastern dress. 



396 ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

In the matter of controversial literature, there has been a great 
development of such works in the vernacular languages of the East, 
but they have to be used with caution, though where so used they 
are undoubtedly of ver}- great value. 

The same may be said of controversy generally. In India there 
have been one or two famous public discussions between Muslims 
and Christians, which have done much for the cause of Christ there. 
But such should, at present at least, be few and far between, while, 
certainly, in the Turkish Empire, and probably in Persia and Egypt, 
they would not be allowed by the Government. Our work is to tell 
the Mohammedan that good news which his own religion can not 
tell " that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Him- 
self." It is, however, of the greatest importance for a missionary 
to Muslims to know the Koran well ; not merely at second-hand, 
but so as to be able to quote accurately the more important pas- 
sages bearing on his work. Not only does it conciliate the Mo- 
hammedan by showing him that the missionary has at least done 
him the justice of studying his sacred book, but often a captious 
critic is silenced by an apt quotation. 

The development of missionary work in country districts is one 
of the noticeable features of the last decade of this century, and no- 
where more so than in Muslim lands. It is in the villages also that 
the bulk of the population is found in the East, and in many re- 
spects the work there is more hopeful than in the towns. There 
is more freedom usually, the people not being so immediately under 
the eye of the Government, greater simplicity and more readiness, 
as a rule, to listen to the foreign missionary, I am sure that at 
least in most Mohammedan countries, our wisdom will be to foster 
and develop this village work more and more. This can be done 
in various ways. In Palestine there are lady workers living in 
villages right among the people, visiting them, teaching them indi- 
vidually and in classes, helping them in sickness, comforting them 
in sorrow, and sympathizing with them in the trials and dil^culties 
of life, in short, preaching Christ and living Christ among them. 
Each village so occupied becomes in its turn a center from which 
other places can be reached. 

But greatest of all agencies for reaching Mohammedans is that 
of medical missions. But it must be first and foremost a mission- 
ary institution — i.e., the medical work must be subordinated to the 
spiritual, and not vice versa; nor must the medical man be a mere 
decoy to draw the people in for others to talk to, but must him- 
self be the chief evangelist, using the tremendous personal in- 
fluence his medical skill gives him to lead his patients to Christ. 
Where a medical mission is conducted in this way, it is, I believe, by 
far the most potent agency which the Church of Christ possesses 
for breaking down prejudice, opening closed doors, and winning 
men to listen to the message of a Saviour's love. 

We have a great task before us. There is amazing ignorance 
even on the part of many earnest students of missions as to the 
condition and position, the needs and claims, the power and weak- 
ness of Islam. We need a modern Peter the Hermit to go up and 



HINDUISM 397 

down Europe and America and preach a new and spiritual crusade; 
for without knowledge there can be no interest, without interest 
there can be no prayer, and without prayer there can be no vic- 
tory. There is, it is true, a growing interest in missions to Mus- 
lims. But while thanking God for this indication of growing inter- 
est, that interest is as yet in no way commensurate with the impor- 
tance of the subject. 

One word must here be said on the question of results. Thank 
God missions to Muslims have been far from barren of results. 
The number of converts enrolled by the churches has been but 
small, but the indirect and invisible results have been far greater 
than the direct and visible. I have heard a Muslim saying that, 
" at the Day of Judgment many a Christian will be found in a Mus- 
lim grave," and I believe this is true in a far higher sense than those 
mean who use the proverb. Nay, rather, the more one studies the 
history of Islam and the Church's neglect of it, the more one won- 
ders not that so few converts have been won from its ranks, but 
that there has been any result at all. There have been converts 
from Mohammedanism enough to make us thank God and take 
courage. Henry Martyn's only convert, who was also the first 
native clergyman in India, was once a Mohammedan. In South- 
ern India the late Jani AH, and in Northern India Imadud Din, 
Imam Shah, and Ihsan Ullah among clergy, and Abdullah Athum 
among laity are proof enough that Muslims of good position can 
and do become devoted servants of Jesus Christ. While even in 
Palestine and Syria, perhaps the hardest places in the world for a 
Mohammedan to come out and confess Christ by baptism, there are 
to-day those who have had grace to do so. 

God has, I believe, given a special work in connection with the 
Mohammedan religion to the Anglo-Saxon race, to England and 
America. Owing to various providential circumstances we Eng- 
lish and Americans have an influence over the Mohammedan world 
as a whole which no other race has or is ever likely to have. And 
wdiy has God given us that unique position and influence? Surely 
that we may use the power of faith and fuller light which we have 
to extend into Muslim lands the empire of His Son Jesus Christ. 

Hinduism 

Rev. W. S. Sutherland, M. A., Church of Scotland, formerly 
Missionary in India.^ 

The religious condition of India from the missionary standpoint 
presents a study of vast scope and very great complexity. 

India, occupying one-fifteenth of the habitable area of the globe, 
and affording a dwelling-place to one-fifth of the human race, is a 
continent rather than a country. There are many races differing in 
language and religion, in mental and physical characteristics. Pent 
up by the ocean and the barrier of the Himalayas, down through 
the passes of that great Himalayan wall on the northeast and the 
northwest have poured from Central Asia flood after flood of differ- 
ent peoples, every horde driving before them their forerunners. 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 28. 



39^ ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

Dravidians from the northwest, Kolarians from the northeast, they 
scattered the primitive tribes wherever they went. They were 
themselves pushed slowly south, or dispersed among the hills, when 
the Aryan invaders came. The Aryan invaders dominate the coun- 
try by their intellect, by their noble character, by their language. 
The Hinduism that we see is a modern religion, resulting from the 
struggle with Buddhism, and from the incorporation of the fetich- 
ism and the devil-worship of all the peoples among whom they 
settle. This Hinduism has been fettered upon the Hindus by the 
system of caste, the adoration of the Brahman, and the worship of 
the cow. The first four castes have become thousands. New 
castes arise. I have seen them arising round about me as new 
tribes have been brought in, as the Brahmans have gone out to 
proselytize tribes and have imposed upon them the Hindu religion. 
Day by day and month by month, Hinduism is growing and taking 
in tribe after tribe in the mountains of India. The Hindu com- 
munity is the gainer by this. Mr. William Hunter, who died last 
year, the greatest authority on statistics we had in India, said that 
there are fifty million people in India who will, in the next fifty 
years, become either Hindus, Mohammedans, or Christians. Some 
of them are becoming Christians, but day by day, while we meet 
here, thousands of them are becoming Hindus. Caste is being put 
upon them. The yoke of the Brahman is easy. He throws it 
lightly upon them. He calls them to take their fetich, he calls 
upon them to take up the worship of the cow; he calls them to rise 
in the social scale, and pride, the pride of life, tempts them. Caste 
represents the social league of Hinduism, for Hinduism is not only 
a religion, it is a social league, for caste observances enter into 
every detail of life. Among these peoples a man may be an atheist, 
he may be a polytheist, he may be a pantheist, he may be a theist, 
he may have any creed or no creed, he may be a devil-worshiper 
or a worshiper of God, he may break all the commands of the deca- 
logue, and all is well; he is a good Hindu. But if, by chance, he 
should drink water or eat food from the hand of one of a caste 
lower than his own, if, worst of all, by any chance, a piece of beef 
should come to his mouth, he is ipso facto excommunicated, dead, 
cut off from the system of Hinduism. 

The worship of the cow is another great stronghold, and the 
third great stronghold is the feeding and the worshiping of the 
Brahman. All these things they do and it is the pride of life 
for them. We find Hinduism, like a great wall, meeting us where- 
ever we go, opposing us wherever we go. Pantheism is common. 
Polytheism is everywhere. And yet, when I went forth after read- 
ing of Hinduism and other religions, I thought if ever I should 
have to argue about pantheism, and polytheism, and devil-worship, 
it would not be of any use. But wherever I went I found the people 
ready to hear of God, God the great creator of all, God the loving 
Father. Their hearts were hungry for truth. I found that when I 
spoke of sin, and every kind of vice, they did not say it was not sin. 
They agreed to, they acknowledged it. 

In Hinduism we have a high and most philosophical religion, the 



HINDUISM 399 

religion of a noble people. And yet we see the fruits of this re- 
ligion, sometimes lightening people around about us and some- 
times bringing clouds of darkness upon the people. Hinduism is a 
high reHgion, and yet in the name of religion widows were burned 
to death. One of my colleagues, of the same branch of the Church 
of Christ as I am, an ordained minister of my Presbytery, is an old 
man who brings us very close to one of the terrible fruits of Hindu- 
ism as a religion. He was a Brahman of the Brahmans, a Kuli?i 
Brahman, whose father died when he was a boy. His mother 
ascended the funeral pyre, and he, the little lad, had to take in his 
own hand the torch that set fire to the pile of wood upon which his 
own mother was burned to death in the name of this religion, this 
Hindu religion. She was the last suttee in India. But if to-mor- 
row British rule in its strength were relaxed, over the length and 
breadth of India, the flame of widow-burning would be rehghted. 

Rev. a. H. Ewing, D.D., Missionary, Presbyterian Church, 
U. S. A., Indian 

The earlier years of all Indian experience are likely to give one 
the impression that nothing changes there. But stagnation is 
passed, movement is begun. Some of the movements which illus- 
trate this activity are the strongest evidences of the value of mis- 
sion work. 

Of these movements, the Arya-Somaj is the chief one. The Pun- 
jab is its stronghold. It is extremely vital in its power. There 
are in it two momenta, the religious and the national. These two 
elements are interwoven in the battle-cry : " India for the Indians ! " 
which, being interpreted, means: " Let us stand by the religion of 
our fathers, because in the ancient Vedas all that is good in Chris- 
tianity is found, and he that accepts the religion of the West is a 
traitor to his country." 

You recognize the power of the appeal to patriotism, and you 
will, therefore, understand the power of this new movement. It 
is exceedingly aggressive in its spirit. It carries on its campaign 
against Christianity, against Mohammedanism, and against Puranic 
Hinduism. Its spirit is destructive and its chief attempt is against 
the Christian religion. The Arya-Somaj has organized schools; 
it has sent forth preachers as we have preachers; it has also adopted 
our methods in the matter of the printing-press, and our own meth- 
ods are used by it to hinder the work of the Gospel. 

Now, I would have you understand that these men who are work- 
ing against Christianity, must be met by Christianity. I would 
have you understand, however, that they are doing the work of 
Christianity to a large extent. They, too, are breaking down an- 
cient Hinduism. The fundamental basis of the Arya-Somaj is the 
four Vedas. It casts aside all other literature of Hinduism. It 
finds in the four Vedas only monotheism. It is also opposed to 
caste, as we are, and taking these two main elements from Chris- 
tianity and adding thereto the national spirit, it forms a strong 
movement against Christianity to-day. It becomes us, therefore. 

Central Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



400 ANTI-CHRISTIAN FORCES 

as a Christian Church, to understand that this is the movement 
which now faces us, and it is absokitely necessary that on the 
ground of the Vedas we should first meet them and show that 
monotheism is not taught there. The fact is that out of the mem- 
bership of this organization, perhaps not one in 300 knows the 
Vedas, But a few leaders say that all that is good in Christianity 
is there, and you know how it is that the greater the ignorance of- 
ten the more intense the devotion to a patriotic cause, and so their 
leaders work them up into a patriotic excitement and they stand 
against Christianity. If you were to pay attention to the utter- 
ances of the leaders of the Arya-Somaj you would be strongly im- 
pressed with the fact that they think that they are going to stop 
the progress of Christianity in India. Yes, indeed, but all that we 
need to do is to send forth men qualified to meet them on their own 
ground and to keep putting Christianity into the very life blood of 
the country by school and by the Press. Then the Arya-Somaj, and 
the Brahmo-Somaj, and all these other movements in India which 
utter the voices of this great unrest will be coadjutors with us in 
winning India for Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER XVI 

GENERAL SURVEY 

Review of the Century — German Missions — Missions of the Netherlands — Per- 
vasive Influence of Christianity — Moravian Missions — Australasian 
Missions — Statistical Summary — Lessons of the Century. 



Review of the Century 

Mr. Eugene Stock, Editorial Secretary Church Missionary So- 
ciety, London* 

Let us in imagination take our stand lOO years ago, and survey 
the world. It is the year of grace 1800: let us look round the world. 

Europe, but for the ruling race in Turkey, is Christian — that is, 
Christian by profession. Christian according to statistical tables; 
though with a Christianity corrupted in the South, frozen in the 
North, and officially abolished in France. Asia, which in the thir- 
teenth century was the scene of what seemed a not unequal struggle 
between the religion of the West and the religions of the East, is 
now, in 1800, wholly heathen or Mohammedan, save for the down- 
trodden churches of Asiatic Turkey. In the lands of the Bible 
Islam is dominant. In India the English conquerors have done al- 
most nothing to pass on the great message to the multitudes lately 
come under their sway; and now, in 1800, its doors are actually 
closed against any bearers of the message who may appear. In 
the South, indeed, the old Tamil Mission of Ziegenbalg and 
Schwartz has formed many small congregations; and in the North, 
the " consecrated cobbler," William Carey, has just settled in Ben- 
gal, under Danish protection; but that is all. In Ceylon, the late 
Dutch regime has compelled thousands to call themselves' Chris- 
tians, but under their new British rulers they are using their liberty 
to slip back into their natural Buddhism. China is closed, though 
within her gates there are scattered bands acknowledging " the 
Lord of Heaven," and owning allegiance to the Pope. Japan is 
hermetically sealed: the Jesuit tyranny of the sixteenth century is 
one of the most hateful of national memories, and no Christian 
has been allowed to land for nearly 200 years. Africa is only a 
coast-line; the interior is utterly unknown; and the principal' link 
between Christendom and the Dark Continent is the slave trade. 
Australia is scarcely even a coast-line as yet, in 1800, though at 
one point there is a British convict settlement. The countless 
islands of the Pacific have only just been thought of, and the ship 
Duff lately took a band of artisan missionaries to Tahiti; South 

* Carnegie Hall, April 23. 



402 GENERAL SURVEY 

America, for the most part nominally Christian, is sunk in super- 
stition; North America is Christian in a more enUghtened sense; 
but neither in the South nor in the North are there any serious 
efforts to evangelize the red men of the interior forests ; still less 
those toward the Arctic Circle or Cape Horn — though there are 
Moravians on " Greenland's Icy Mountains," and Methodists 
among the negro slaves of Jamaica. 

What of the missionary organizations of 1800? Two of them, 
both Anglican, are already a century old, viz. : the Society for Pro- 
moting Christian Knowledge, which is directing and financing the 
Tamil Mission in South India, though the missionaries are Ger- 
mans and Lutherans; and the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel in Foreign Parts, which at this date is almost wholly occu- 
pied in supplying ministers and schoolmasters for British settlers 
in Canada. The Church Missionary Society has just been founded, 
but has not as yet a single offer of service. The Baptist Society 
is seven years old, and has sent Carey and five others to India. 
The London Missionary Society is five years old, and has sent the 
artisan band to Tahiti, one man (Van der Kemp) to South Africa, 
and one to India. The Wesleyan Society is not yet organized, but 
Dr. Coke has planted evangelists among the West Indian negroes. 
Two small Scotch societies have been formed, and have just failed 
in their first attempt in West Africa. Germany and Denmark have 
supplied a few men, but have no organizations; and Continental 
Protestantism is represented in heathendom by the Moravians, the 
one Christian church that has realized Christ's purpose in planting 
a Church in the world at all. They have been already, though in 
small numbers, the pioneers among the Eskimos, the Hottentots, 
and the negro slaves of Central America. In the United States, 
Eliot and Brainerd have had no successors, and the great Ameri- 
can boards are yet in the future. 

Such is the world, such is the Church of Christ, nearly eighteen 
centuries after the Ascension. What must the angels think? What 
must Christ think? 

In rapidly surveying the missionary history of the nineteenth 
century, let us take it in four periods of twenty-five years each. 

The early years of the century saw the establishment of two of the 
greatest missionary organizations, viz.: (i) the British and Foreign 
Bible Society in 1804, which, with its Scottish and American sisters, 
has shown that the Word of God can be translated into all sorts of 
languages, ancient and modern, cultivated and barbarous, and can 
prove itself the word of life to all nations, and kindreds, and people, 
and tongues; and (2), in 181 1 the American Board of Commission- 
ers for Foreign Missions, the offspring of the never-to-be-forgot- 
ten prayer-meeting of Samuel Mills and his comrades under the 
haystack, and the fruitful parent of the many missionary organiza- 
tions which are the glory of American Christendom. The Domes- 
tic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church (1821), however, is a child of the English Church Mission- 
ary Society. 

Two great struggles in the British Parliament marked the early 



REVIEW OF THE CENTURY — FIRST QUARTER 403 

years of the century, both of which had an important influence upon 
the missionary enterprise. In both cases it was Wilham Wilber- 
force, the greatest Christian statesman England has produced, who, 
after long years of patience, and persistence, and prayer, led the 
Christian party to victory. In 1807 he carried the abolition of the 
British slave trade. In 1813, he compelled the East India Com- 
pany to open the doors of India to missions. England, from being 
the chief kidnapper of Africans, became their deliverer. Thou- 
sands of them, rescued from the slave ships, were received in the 
little colony of Sierra Leone, the very spot where Sir John Hawkins, 
Queen Elizabeth's great admiral, had shipped his first slave cargo; 
and hence Sierra Leone became the headquarters of West African 
missionary efifort, both of the Church Missionary Society and the 
Wesleyans, and the scene of the wonderful revivals under William 
Johnson and other evangelists. British India had been virtually 
closed against missions for twenty years; and in 1812, just a year 
before the opening, the American Board's first five missionaries to 
heathendom were forbidden to land at Calcutta — which led, happily, 
to Judson devoting his life to Burma. 

During that long, dark period in India, the light of the Gospel 
was mainly held up by godly chaplains of the East India Company, 
chief among them David Brown, Claudius Buchanan, Henry Mar- 
tyn, Thomas Thomason, and Daniel Corrie — five names to be had 
in everlasting remembrance. Henry Martyn, though not tech- 
nically a missionary, did noble missionary work, and, like David 
Brainerd and Bishop Hannington, the shortness of his career in hfe 
was more than balanced by the inspiration of his memory. These 
East Indian chaplains were mostly proteges of Charles Simeon of 
Cambridge, the greatest evangelical leader in the Anglican Church; 
and Simeon, in inducing them to go to India in such a capacity at 
the very time when the sleeping Church at home so sorely needed 
fervent men to stir her up, illustrated in the highest degree the 
policy of faith, that " there is that scattereth and yet increaseth." 
And great was the result. These chaplains proved the instruments 
of the conversion of numbers of civil and military ofificers; and 
those Christian officers and their successors have been the ardent 
friends and supporters of missions ever since. Most of the mis- 
sion stations in India have been established at their request and at 
their expense; and when they come home to England, they are the 
backbone of our missionary committees and of every sort of Chris- 
tian enterprise. 

China missions begin with the going forth of Robert Morrison 
in 1807 in an American ship, because England refused him leave 
to sail. Moreover, he could only live in the trading settlement at 
Canton, and labor at his Chinese dictionary and Chinese Bible. It 
was grand preparatory work; but the evangelization of the Celes- 
tial Empire did not commence in his lifetime. 

New Zealand owes the Gospel to Samuel Marsden, who, like 
Henry Martyn, was not a missionary, but a chaplain, having the 
English convicts in Australia as his flock. He visited the dreaded 
cannibal islands in 1814, and on Christmas Day preached the first 



404 GENERAL SURVEY 

sermon to the Maori chiefs on the Christmas text: " Behold I bring 
you good tidings of great joy," But the permanent work was 
done by two brothers WilHams, Henry and WiHiam, of the Church 
Missionary Society, who labored forty-five and fifty years, respect- 
ively, living to see the whole Maori race under Christian instruc- 
tion, thousands of true converts brought into the Church, hundreds 
dying in the faith of Christ; living also to see the land of the canni- 
bals one of the most flourishing of British colonies. These re- 
sults, however, came much later. The success of the London Mis- 
sionary Society in the South Seas was more speedy. After some 
years of failure and sorrow, Tahiti and other islands became Chris- 
tian; and the great John Williams, the Apostle of Polynesia, be- 
gan in 1817 the twenty-two years' evangelistic voyages which 
ended only with his murder at Erromanga. In that same year 
Robert Moffat began his great work in South Africa, and in the 
following, the London Missionary Society entered Madagascar. 

It is very evident, from the utterances of preachers and speak- 
ers in the early days of the century, that missionary triumphs were 
looked for of a much more brilliant kind than were actually 
achieved. But as we near the end of the first quarter of a cen- 
tury, the tone changes from sanguine to somber. The societies 
were finding out the strength and malice of the great enemy of 
God and men. The " strong man armed " was not to be dispos- 
sessed as readily as they had hoped. Converts were still few, and 
native Christianity proved to be no more free from inconsistencies 
and backslidings than Christianity at home. It was a wholesome 
lesson to learn. It led many to perceive that evangelization and 
conversion are not convertible terms; that while evangelization is 
man's work, conversion is God's work. It suggested to thought- 
ful Bible students that perhaps the present dispensation is not to 
witness the conversion of the world, even in an external sense, and 
that it is only evangelization which must of necessity be completed 
before the Lord comes again. Certainly it led to more exclusive 
reliance upon the Holy Ghost as the one Giver of Life; and prayer 
for His outpouring became more definite at this time. 

As the second quarter of a century opens, we see the Missions 
awaking to the importance of another great missionary principle, 
viz.: that even evangelization can not be done by white men only, 
and that the native Christians are the best evangelists to their 
heathen fellow-countrymen. In some missions the lesson was 
taught by the ravages of disease and death among the missionaries. 
For instance, in West Africa, at the beginning of 1826, only four- 
teen, agents and wives, remained out of seventy-nine who had been 
sent out by the Church Missionary Society alone; and this led to 
the opening of Fourah Bay College, one of the first institutions for 
training native teachers; upon the roll of which the first student- 
name is that of Samuel Crowther, afterward the first African 
bishop. In the same year appeared in India the first native clergy- 
man of the Church Missionary Society, Abdul Masih, formerly a 
Mohammedan official, brought to Christ by Henry Martyn, and 



REVIEW OF THE CENTURY — SECOND QUARTER 405 

ordained by Bishop Heber. In the South Seas, at the same time, 
John Wilhams was planting native teachers in island after island. 

This second quarter was a period of progress among the simpler 
races of the world. Missions spread rapidly in South Africa, 
among the Hottentots, and Kaffirs, and Bechuanas. Group after 
group of Polynesian islands was evangelized; Fiji especially, by 
the Wesleyans, and Hawaii by the American Board. Madagascar 
proved a fruitful field; and though the London Missionary Society 
missionaries were expelled in 1835, and the terrible era of persecu- 
tion began, the bush was not consumed, for the Lord was in it. 
The negroes of the West Indies received the Gospel with simple 
faith, and when, at last,Fowell Buxton won the battle in Parliament 
and domestic slavery in the British dominions was abolished, they 
falsified the predictions of the slaveholders by only using their 
liberty to crowd their churches. 

In India, too, the only missions that counted any considerable 
number of converts were among the simpler villagers of the- 
South. The Tamils especially, from Madras to Tinnevelly and 
South Travancore, joined the Christian churches in their thou- 
sands; the London Missionary Society, the Society for the Propa- 
gation of the Gospel (which took over the work of the Society for 
the Propagation of Christian Knowledge and developed it), the 
Wesleyans, and the American Board, sharing in the harvest. But 
in 1830, a great epoch in India missions, the mighty Scotchman, 
Alexander Duff, invented a new method to reach the higher classes 
and castes ; gaining access to them by the ofifer of a good Eng- 
lish education, and thus bringing them under the daily influence of 
Bible teaching and the personal touch of the missionary, God at 
once stam.ped the new agency with His blessing. Duff's first 
period of service in India was only four years; but in that time his 
new college brought several young Brahmans out of Hinduism 
into the Christian Church. From that day to this, educational mis- 
sions have been developed by almost all the larger societies; but the 
Scottish Presbyterian Churches have maintained their pre-emi- 
nence, sending the best scholars from their universities to win the 
proud young Hindus to Christ. The Free Church College, at 
Madras, now under Dr. Miller, is indisputably the first educational 
institution in India. Although the number of converts thus gath- 
ered can not be compared with those of the rural missions in vvhich 
whole families and even villages have frequently turned from idols 
and accepted Christian teachers, yet, if results are weighed as well 
as counted, missionary schools and colleges have a noble record. 
For it is a simple fact that all over India the leaders of the native 
churches are the educated men who learned of Christ in the class- 
room. The education of women was much slower. Begun in the 
first quarter of the century by Mrs. Marshman of the Serampore 
Baptist Mission, and Miss Cooke of the Church Missionary Society, 
it made little progress even in the second quarter. 

During this period, several German and American Societies be- 
gan work in India, notably the Basel, Berlin, and Leipsic Missions, 
and the American Presbyterians and Baptists. There was another 



4o6 GENERAL SURVEY 

field which American and German missionaries made their own — 
the Mohammedan lands of the East. European and Asiatic Turkey, 
Egypt, Syria, and Persia, became the scene of noble efforts by 
noble men. The work was twofold, to enlighten the an- 
cient Oriental churches, and, both through them and in- 
dependently, to assail the mighty fortress of Islam. The Germans 
Avere mostly men from the great Missionary Seminary at Basel, 
employed by the English Church Missionary Society; but, while 
their labors, after a promising beginning, flagged for many years, 
the American missions grew and prospered, and the Beirut Press, 
in particular, became a fountain pouring forth the Scriptures and 
Christian books in the great Arabic language. 

The failure of one mission to an old Eastern Church, that of the 
Church Missionary Society to Abyssinia, led, in the wonderful 
providence of God, to the opening of East Africa. Ludwig 
Krapf, one of the noblest of the Basel men, expelled from Abys- 
sinia went down the Zanzibar coast, settled at Mombasa, and pres- 
ently became the pioneer of all modern Central African enterprise. 
On that side of Africa the missionary preceded the explorer. On 
the other side the explorer preceded the missionary, in determin- 
ing the course of the Niger; but missions gradually extended along 
the Gulf of Guinea, mostly Church Missionary and Wesleyan, with 
American enterprise in Liberia. 

Before this second quarter had run its course, China's door had 
opened, or, at least, was ajar. In 1842 the Treaty of Nanking, 
which closed the Opium War, enabled foreigners to reside at five 
treaty ports; and these ports were quickly occupied by no less than 
twelve missionary societies, English, American, and German. 
Burns, of the English Presbyterian Mission, was the first to wear 
Chinese dress. But as our second quarter closes, China missions 
are still in their infancy. 

We have now reviewed half the century. Let us again look at 
the world. We are so accustomed to think of modern Protestant 
missions being a century old — or more — that we fail to realize how 
great a part of our progress has been achieved during the past 
fifty years. In 1850 there was in Africa no Niger Mission, no 
Congo Mission, no Zambesi Mission, no Nyassa Mission, no Tan- 
ganyika Mission, no Uganda Mission, no North Africa Mission, 
moreover, there was no Japan Mission, no Korea Mission, no New 
Guinea Mission, no Melanesian Mission, no South American Mis- 
sion, no missions in the far north of Northwest Canada. The 
China missions had only just begun. India was the most advanced 
field, but even in India there was no Punjab Mission, no Afghan 
Mission, no Kashmir Mission, no Oudh Mission, no Rajputana 
Mission, no Santal Mission, no Gond Mission, no Zenana Mission, 
no medical missions, no theological colleges, no native church or- 
ganization. 

The half century opens with one memorable move forward in 
India. The great province of the Punjab, stretching up to the 
Afghan frontier, had just been annexed by England. Henry and 
John Lawrence were at the head of the new Government, and they 



REVIEW OF THE CENTURY — THIRD QUARTER 407 

began their administration by inviting the American Presbyterian 
missionaries, Newton and Forman, who were on the south side of 
the Sutlej, to cross the river. Then they sent to the Church Mis- 
sionary Society to come Hkewise. A year or two later Herbert 
Edwardes, the most brilHant of Anglo-Indian soldiers, was Com- 
missioner of Peshawur, the frontier Afghan city, full of bigoted 
Mohammedans, and held by an army of 12,000 British troops. Ed- 
wardes sent for the missionaries, and at a public meeting in the 
fanatical city itself, he said: " India has been given to us for a mis- 
sion, not to the minds or bodies, but to the souls of men, and we 
are much safer if we do our duty than if we neglect it." Those 
Christian rulers made the Punjab, full of turbulent warriors as it 
was, the most peaceful and prosperous province in India; and when, 
after seven years, the terrible Sepoy Mutiny broke out, and Eng- 
land very nearly lost her great dependency, it was the Punjab and 
its Christian rulers that saved the British cause. " Them that 
honor me," says the Lord Jehovah, " I will honor." 

After the mutiny, missions and mission agencies were extended 
and developed all over India; and from that time the progress has 
been continuous. The principal new mission established was that 
of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, which has ever since 
set an example of energy to all the rest. In recent years no other 
mission has been developed so vigorously. And no wonder, with 
such a leader as Bishop Thoburn. 

The China missions did not extend rapidly in the third quarter 
of the centur)-. The second Opium War, in 1857-58, issued in Lord 
Elgin's Treaty, which opened the interior of China to the travelling 
foreigner, merchant, or missionary. But the Church was not ready 
to advance in force. Now treaty ports were occupied, and from 
one of them, Hankau, on the Yangtse River, Griffith John, of the 
London Missionary Society, made a wonderful journey of 3.000 
miles to and from the far west. Permanent residence beyond the 
treaty ports, however, was still difficult, but George Moule (now 
Anglican Bishop, and in his forty-fourth year of service), settled in 
Hangchau in 1865. In that same year a new mission was being 
organized in England, which was destined afterward to be the 
chief pioneer in the " onward and inward " movement. This was 
the China Inland Mission under Hudson Taylor. But it was not 
until ten years later, and in the fourth quarter of the century, that 
the great pioneer journeys of the China Inland men began. Mean- 
while, Gilmour went forth to Mongolia, Ross to Manchuria, and 
Mackay to Formosa. 

The long-barred gates of Japan were gently pushed open by 
Commodore Perry in 1854, and further treaties four years later en- 
abled American missionaries to enter the Land of the Rising Sun; 
the Protestant Episcopal Church leading the way with Liggins and 
Williams, and the Presbyterians with Hepburn and Verbeck. But 
little actual work could be done before the great Revolution of 
1868, which ushered in the extraordinary epoch of Japanese adop- 
tion of Western civilization. In 1873, the public proclamations 
against Christianity, which had graced all the notice-boards for 250 



4o8 GENERAL SURVEY 

years, at last came down, and all the missions were rapidly devel- 
oped. The American churches have done by far the largest part 
of the work, though the Anglican Church Missionary Society and 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel have taken their share, and 
have now four bishops in Japan and a vigorous native church. 

This third quarter of the century was notable for martyr deaths 
in the mission field. Besides many missionaries and native Chris- 
tians cruelly murdered in the Indian Mutiny, the southern hemi- 
sphere was "especially stained with the blood of Christ's servants. 
Captain Allen Gardiner and his party, indeed, were only starved to 
death in Patagonia, and Bishop Mackenzie struck down by fever in 
Africa; but Bishop Patteson and the brothers Gordon were killed 
in the South Seas, a second party in Patagonia, and Volkner in 
New Zealand. So, also, were noble native evangelists in the Lon- 
don Society's Island Missions; while the long years of sufifering 
and death in Madagascar can never be forgotten. But most truly 
may it be said that in every one of these cases the blood of the 
martyrs proved the seed of the Church. Emphatically was this the 
case in Madagascar. After six and twenty years of persecution 
the Church suddenly emerged into light and liberty, stronger than 
ever, and all Christendom wondered at the sight. 

Let us come again to Africa. David Livingstone, who had 
joined the London Society's Mission in the South in 1841, was en- 
gaged in his great journeys nearly all through our present period. 
But before he had entered the Lake District of Central Africa, the 
pioneer work of Krapf and his comrades on the East Coast inspired 
the explorations of Burton, and Speke, and Grant, who discov- 
ered Tanganyika, the Victoria Nyanza, and the kingdom of 
LTganda. These geographical triumphs drew Livingstone north- 
ward, and for years he was lost in the heart of the Dark Continent. 
It was a period of ebb tide in Africa. All the missions. West, and 
South, and East, met with reverses ; the East Coast slave trade 
was rampant; everywhere the prospects were dark. Almost the 
only hopeful enterprise at the time was Bishop Crowther's on the 
Niger. Then God showed, as He so often has shown, that a death 
can sometimes do what a life has failed to do. Livingstone died on 
his knees at Ilala; and all Christendom woke up to fresh zeal for the 
evangelization of Africa. Livingstone's own Scottish brethren 
took Lake Nyassa as their field; the London Society took Tangan- 
yika; the Universities' Mission be^an to extend from Zanzibar; the 
Church Missionary Society revived Krapfs old mission at Mom- 
basa. Then, just at the end of the third quarter, came Stanley's 
memora1:)le challenge to the churches from Uganda, and the 
Church Missionary Society decided to respond. And only two 
years later the Baptists adopted as their field the mighty Congo, 
just navigated for the first time by Stanley. 

One more vast field of missions was opened up during this 
period, a field which is always, to my surprise, omitted from Ameri- 
can missionary publications — the great Northwest of the Dominion 
of Canada. Yet no missions have yielded more striking ilhistra- 
tions of the nov/cr of Divine prace than the missions to the Red 



REVIEW OF THE CENTURY FOURTH QUARTER 409 

Indians. A beginning had been made in the second quarter of the 
century; but it was in the third quarter that the work was extended 
to the bleak coasts of Hudson's Bay, down the mighty Mackenzie 
River to the Polar Sea itself, and even to the shores of the North 
Pacific. The Church Missionary Society has for many years spent 
$100,000 a year upon these missions; the Canadian Methodists 
also have done good work; thousands of Red Indians have learned 
to sing the praise of Jesus Christ. Bishop Horden, and Bishop Bom- 
pas, and Bishop Ridley deserve to be honored, as well as the one 
name which my American friends do know — William Duncan. 

This rapid sketch gives an idea of progress in the third quarter 
greater than the reality. There was, indeed, progress in many 
lands; but in England, at least, the period of the sixties v/as a 
period of actual retrogression in missionary zeal, as was acknowl- 
edged by two such men as Henry Venn, Secretary of tlie Church 
Missionary Society, and Dr. Dale, perhaps the most eminent Non- 
conformist of the time. This is the more remarkable, because the 
year i860 was the year of the great revival, following on the Ameri- 
can revival of 1858 and the Irish revival of 1859. But it is the fact, 
strange as it may appear, that the revival, though it gave an im- 
mense impetus to home missions, did not, at the time, help foreign 
missions. Several causes of this can be traced out. I only here 
note the fact. 

Very different has been the experience of the fourth quarter. 
The immense advance of the missionary spirit in England in the 
past twenty-five years — I can not speak of America — is due, in the 
main, to the influence of evangelistic and spiritual movements in 
the churches at home. I refer to (i) Mr. Moody's great cam- 
paigns of 1874-75 and 1882-84; (2) what was called in the Anglican 
Church the Parochial Mission movement, in which Mr. Aitken and 
others have taken a leading part; (3) the Mildmay Conference, and 
the agencies of which it has been the center; (4) the Keswick Con- 
vention; (5) the Children's Special Service Mission. Not one of 
these had, in their inception, any connection with foreign mis- 
sions. Mr. Moody never referred to them. Keswick for a time, 
actually excluded them. But all the while a new sense of the 
claims of Christ upon His people to do as He bids them, and to go 
where He sends them, was being fostered. The most remarkable 
outcome of this new spirit was the going forth in 1885 of the fa- 
mous Cambridge Seven to China, in connection with the China In- 
land Mission. All England wondered at seven men of good fam- 
ily, and two of them idols of the athletic world, adopting the de- 
spised calling of a missionary. No other event of the century, in 
my judgment, has had so powerful an influence in quickening the 
missionary spirit. 

In more recent years, the most striking sign of the awakening 
has been the Student Volunteer Movement. This, like so many 
good things, we ov/e to America. Its most notable feature has 
been that in England, at least, everyone of the leaders, one after the 
other, has gone himself to the mission field. They have said to 
their brethren and sisters, not, " You ought to go," but, " Come, 



4IO GENERAL SURVEY 

follow US "; and year by year a new executive has had to take up 
the home work fearlessly left behind by the very men who seemed 
so indispensable to it. _ 

Simultaneously with this movement, and much helped by it, there 
have been two remarkable developments of missionary enterprise, 
viz.: the dedication to it (i) of medical men, (2) of women. Medi- 
cal missions were long looked upon with doubt by several of the 
great societies, certainly by the Church Missionary Society, which 
now heads all others with its sixty fully qualified doctors in the 
mission field. Scotland led the way, as we have seen it did with 
educational missions, and as we may also see it doing — remember- 
ing Lovedale, and Blantyre, and the work of Mackay in Uganda — 
with industrial missions. Now, in all the great London hospitals, 
the Christian students have their missionary associations, and 
young doctors are coming forward year by year to consecrate their 
acquirements and skill to the service of Christ abroad. The ad- 
vance of women's work is still more remarkable. In the past, 
noble service has been rendered by the wives of missionaries, but 
the going forth in any large numbers of unmarried women is com- 
paratively recent. In this America has set a brilliant example; but 
we are following close upon her heels now. Daniel Wilson, the 
ardent and missionary-hearted bishop, of Calcutta, half a century 
ago objected to young women going to India. " Tryphena and 
Tryphosa," he said, " and the beloved Persis stayed at home." I 
am not sure how he knew that; but certainly he forgot Phebe, who 
did go to a foreign country with a definite ministry. Now, in Eng- 
land, women are coming forward in larger numbers than men; and 
in the field, as I testify from personal visitation, they set a bright 
example of self-sacrifice and zeal. _ 

One outcome of the growing missionary spirit is the multiplica- 
tion of missions carried on by individual men and women, or by 
small bands under their direction. These " free-lance " missions 
attract the most fervent Christians, and many of their members 
have manifested quite exceptional devotion; but they might with 
advantage be more ready to profit by the experience of older 
agencies and older workers. The one really great, successful mis- 
sion of the kind is the China Inland Mission, upon which God has 
indeed set the stamp of His approval, making it a blessing in Eng- 
land as well as in China. Its admirable and businesslike manage- 
ment, however, is in great contrast to the utter irregularity of some 
smaller missions. Another tendency of the day is in quite a differ- 
ent direction. In the direction of intrusting missions not to in- 
dividual directors, not to societies, and committees, and boards, 
but to the Church itself in its corporate capacity. This is the tend- 
ency of High Churchmen in the Anglican Church; but the Presby- 
terian Churches of Scotland, Ireland, America, and Australia fur- 
nish the principal examples of the system. Meanwhile, the older 
societies are by no means distanced in the race. Whether their 
system is ideally the best, may be doubted; but they are, so to 
speak, " in being," they are doing the bulk of the work; and they 
are sharing in the general advance. Let me give one illustration: 



REVIEW OF THE CENTURY — FOURTH QUARTER 411 

In the first fifty years of its existence the Church Missionary So- 
ciety sent out an average of eight new missionaries per annum. 
In the next thirty-eight years it sent out an average of nineteen 
per annum. In the last twelve years of its century it sent out an 
average of seventy per annum. These twelve years, let me add, 
began with the adoption of what is called " the policy of faith " — 
that is, taking as the measure of what God intends the Society to 
do, not the supply of money, but the supply of men and women, 
in the assurance that if He raises up missionaries He will certainly 
incline the hearts of others to support them. 

We must now take one more hasty glance at the mission field. 
In India, four features of this fourth quarter of the century seem 
especially conspicuous, (i) The rapid advance of the Christian 
community in education and influence, as compared with other sec- 
tions of the population: for instance, at a recent higher examina- 
tion for women by the University of Madras, sixty-eight Christian 
native women passed and only five from all other sections. (2) The 
growing work among the aboriginal hill tribes, Santals, Gonds, 
Kols, who are furnishing good contingents to the Christian Church. 
(3) The large accessions in some years from the low-caste or out- 
caste peoples. Of this, the most conspicuous example was in the 
American Baptist Telugu Mission; but other Telugu missions have 
shared in the harvest, and so did the Tamil missions after the fam- 
ine of 1877, and so have the Methodist Episcopal Mission in Oudh, 
and several other missions in various parts. Mass movements 
like these, however, inevitably involve a large amount of stony- 
ground and thorny-ground Christianity. It always has 'been so, 
and in the present dispensation always will be so. All the more 
important is it to foster the spiritual life of the nucleus of truly con- 
verted souls in the midst of the professing Christian community; 
and this is the subject of a movement which is the fourth feature 
to be noticed, viz.: (4) the going forth of special missioners (as 
distinct from missionaries) to hold special services for native 
Christians; with which may be coupled the lectures of men like 
Dr. Pentecost. This movement has already proved fruitful. 

Passing to China, the period has been one of immense exten- 
sion. The pioneer journeys of the China Inland men began just 
as the fourth quarter commenced; and now all the eighteen prov- 
inces are occupied, most of them by several societies. Out- 
breaks and outrages have not been infrequent, and both men and 
women missionaries have died violent deaths; but the numbers 
have continually increased, and the appeal of the Shanghai Con- 
ference of 1890 for 1,000 new missionaries in five years, was more 
than responded to. While the statesmen of foreign nations have 
been pressing the policy of the " open door," the missionaries have 
found an " open door " for the Gospel in almost every part of 
China. Even the one hitherto inaccessible province of Hunan has 
now been successfully invaded in the name of the Lord. 

Japan has presented different aspects at different periods of the 
quarter. At one time there seemed every reason to expect an early 
and national acceptance of Christianity. This was feared rather 



412 GENERAL SURVEY 

than hoped for, by many of the missionaries, who knew that the 
cause of spiritual rchgion was more Hkely to lose than to gain by it. 
The danger, however, if it was a danger, has passed away. The 
jealous independence of the Japanese character is now more dis- 
posed to reject what is foreign. Nevertheless, the presence of 
several Christians in the Legislature, and the election and re- 
election of a Christian as President of the Lower House, are sig- 
nificant tokens of the success of the American missions, especially. 

In the Southern Hemisphere, the principal missionary event has 
been the occupation of New Gumea by the London Missionary So- 
ciety, and one or two other missions, and the new interest taken by 
Protestant Christendom, in what has been well called the Neglected 
Continent of South America, several missions in which have been 
started in recent years. 

Turning to Africa, we find most of the missions before referred 
to as inspired by the death of Livingstone, and whose history al- 
most entirely belongs to this fourth quarter of the century, prosper- 
ing under God's never-failing blessing. Livingstonia and Blan- 
tyre are monuments of Scottish energy; the East Coast Missions 
of the Universities' Mission and the Church Missionary Society 
have done good service, especially among the victims of the slave 
trade; the Congo, in the course of twenty years, has given the 
various Baptist missions hundreds of converts from among the 
most degraded tribes; and Uganda has fastened upon itself the 
eyes of Christendom, by the heroism of Mackay, and Hannington, 
and Pilkington, by the faithfulness unto death of native martyrs, 
and by the zeal of the native evangelists in the last few years in 
spreading the Gospel all over their own country, and in the re- 
gions beyond, north, south, east, and west. Meanwhile, the 
" scramble for Africa " has issued in its virtual partition among the 
European powers, and missionary enterprise is partly helped and 
partly hindered by the advance of a civilization in which good and 
bad elements are strangely mingled. 

The latest advances of the Gospel heralds in Africa are into the 
Sudan, or rather, the three Sudans, viz.: (i) the Western Sudan, 
or Hinterland of Sierra Leone; (2) the Central Sudan, or Haussa- 
iand, which that devoted young pioneer, Graham Wilmot Brooke, 
tried to enter ten years ago, and died in the attempt, and into which 
a small party of picked men, under Bishop Tugwell, is at this mo- 
ment marching; (3) the Eastern Sudan, linked forever with the 
name of Gordon, and now at last opened by the British occupation 
of Khartoum. In this threefold Sudan, Mohammedanism pre- 
vails; and thus we come once again, and lastly, to the Mohamme- 
dan lands of the East. Splendid work is being done by three 
great American societies in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Persia; in 
South Persia, where Henry Martyn suffered the blasphemies of 
the mollahs, the Church Missionary Society now occupies four 
chief cities ; while even Arabia, the largest of all still closed coun- 
tries, is just touched by the Scotch Mission at Aden, founded by^Ion 
Keith-Falconer, and the American Mission at Muscat. 

I make no attempt in this paper to tabulate missionary results. 



GERMAN MISSION WORK 413 

All Statistics are fatally defective in one respect, that they take no 
account of the best results of all. They never count the dead. 
Tens of thousands of saved souls have been gathered into the 
heavenly garner, and it is there, and not here, that we must look for 
the most assured triumphs of the Gospel. 

German Mission Work 

Rev. Dr. A. Schreiber, Inspector Rhenish Missionary Society, 
Barmen, Germany.'^ 

At the commencement of the nineteenth century the only Ger- 
man missions were the Moravian missions which, from the begin- 
ning, up to this day, have continued their work with ever-increas- 
ing zeal and success. During the first half of the century seven 
new societies sprang up in Germany; the Basel, the Berlin, the 
Rhenish, the Leipsic, the North German, the Gossner, and the 
Hermannsburg societies. Most of these societies belong to the 
same denomination and are only partially divided by any differ- 
ences of denominational character. According to our well-known 
German peculiarity, almost every part of the country wants to have 
its own society. As for the two last-named societies the faith of 
a single man, Gossner of Berlin, and Harms of Hermannsburg, 
called each into existence. 

Let me tell briefly where each of them has found its fields of 
work. 

The Moravians are at work in several parts of the American Con- 
tinent, in South and East Africa, in the Western Himalayas, and in 
Australia. Basel has its fields in the deadh' regions of West Africa, 
on the west coast of English India, and in South China. 

The Rhenish Mission has its fields in the west of South Africa, 
in Dutch India, and in the south of China. 

The North German Mission works only on the west coast of 
Africa. The Gossner Mission, which at first sent out its mission- 
aries in all directions, has centered nov/ on the richly blessed field 
among the Kols of Bengal, after it had become evident that Goss- 
ner's plan to make the missionaries earn their own bread by some 
trade besides their proper work, is quite impracticable. The Her- 
mannsburg Mission has sent its men to South Africa and to the 
east coast of English India; and the Leipsic Mission to Tranque- 
bar. 

Up to the middle of the century, however, these societies had 
not grown to any considerable size. All of them put together 
numbered only ninety-two missionaries and 7,350 converts, while 
the single Moravian Mission numbered at that time 150 mission- 
aries and 50,000 converts. During the second half of the century 
matters have changed and mission work has experienced an unex- 
pected growth. The number of missionaries has grown to 850, 
that of their native assistants to above 4,000. among whom 140 are 
ordained; the number of converts to 350,000; that of day scholars 
to 84,000. The joint income of all the German Missionary Socie- 
ties was in 1898, 4,400,000 marks, or more than a million dollars. 

* Union Methodist Church, April 25. 



414 GENERAL SURVEY 

Some of the German Mission fields have been most richly blessed; 
and the number of heathen baptized in 1898 was not less than 16,- 
000. 

There are, no doubt, several reasons for this marked growth of 
the German mission work. The principal cause, I would say, is 
the great increase of real Christian life, and especially of Christian 
charity and willingness to give. It is quite wonderful and very 
touching to observe, especially among the country people, how 
love and zeal for the mission work has taken possession of men's 
hearts, enabling them to make offerings that put to shame all that 
is done by wealthy Christians. Not less encouraging is the enor- 
mously increasing number of youths who ofifer themselves for the 
mission. During the last ten years a good many university men 
have come forth, too. With some of our societies the number of 
young men that apply for admission every year, exceeds tenfold 
the number that can be admitted. 

When the Moravians began their work they had no other aim 
but to win souls for Christ. Little by little we have learned that 
other aims are to be kept in view; to wit, the forming of self-sup- 
porting, self-governing, and self-propagating churches in heathen 
lands, the raising of a well-educated native clergy, and of school- 
masters, and other helpers. 

Recently we have made a commencement, too, with the employ- 
ment of single ladies. Even up to this day with us, the work of 
single ladies has not found the general appreciation and approval 
it deserves, and I think we shall never get so far in extending that 
branch of the mission work as England and America. Likewise, 
one might be astonished that Germany has been so backward in 
the work of medical missions, there being not more than fifteen 
medical missionaries sent out by German societies. This fact must 
be explained partly by our way of imparting a certain amount of 
medical knowledge to most of our missionaries, which enables 
many of them to become rather successful practitioners. But 
there are other more important reasons. As long as we have al- 
most no believing Christians among our medical professors, we 
need not wonder that so few of our students of medicine feel in- 
clined to enter the mission. 

We have not overlooked the new duties laid upon us by the ac- 
quisition of German colonies. Several new societies have been 
formed expressly for colonial work, and most of our old societies 
have also undertaken to help that all our colonies may be properly 
worked. 

And now let me give a short survey of the German mission fields. 
The Moravians have two large and important missions among the 
fields in America. In the West Indies, twenty-eight European 
missionaries and nearly 500 native assistants have a great work 
within the churches won from the colored population. Their 
churches num1)cr 40,000 Christians and 15,000 day scholars. In 
Surinam and in Demerara, they have forty-four missionaries and 
30,000 Christians, and on the Mosquito coast, 5,000. The Mora- 



GERMAN MISSION WORK 415 

vians in America have, altogether, 114 European missionaries and 
77,000 Christians. 

In Africa German missionaries are found almost everywhere, ex- 
cept in the north. Out of the 1,000 missionaries at work in Africa, 
about one-third, that is to say, 330, are Germans. Forty-eight 
missionaries of the Basel Mission are at work on the English GoTd 
Coast, where they have stood their ground notwithstanding dread- 
ful losses caused by the fearful climate. Their churches number 
16,800 Christians. Altogether we have in these parts 175 Euro- 
pean missionaries, 105,000 Christians, 15,000 day scholars, and in 
1898 were baptized of the heathen not less than 5,630 souls. 

In English India six German societies are at work. All put to- 
gether, we have in English India 180 German missionaries, living 
on ninety principal stations, with 1,300 native assistants; 73,000 
Christians and 30,000 day scholars. 

In Dutch India, the German missionaries take a very prominent 
part. In Sumatra, we find thirty-three missionaries of the Rhen- 
ish Missionary Society, who have won about 45,000 Christians 
among the cannibal Battaks. On the small but densely populated 
island of Nias, off the west coast of Sumatra, fifteen missionaries 
of the same society have won 4,300 Christians. In southeast 
Borneo they have had to fight a long, but still successful battle 
among the Dyaks. In Java, missionaries of the Neukirchen So- 
ciety have won about a thousand of the Mohammedan Javanese. 
It is very remarkable that in Java and Sumatra more Mohamme- 
dans have been won for Christ than in any other mission field. 

In China, the German missionaries form only a small part of the 
great force of missionaries, although six German societies are at 
work there. In the province of Kwangtung they take something 
like a prominent part of the work, forty-six missionaries of Basel, 
Berlin, and the Rhenish Society being at work there, together 
with 320 Chinese assistants. Their churches number 7,600 Chris- 
tians, and are growing very fast of late. I may mention here, 
that although small in number, the German missionaries in China 
have taken a prominent part in literary work, translations of the 
Bible, etc. The German missionaries in all fields have taken great 
pains to learn the native languages thoroughly, and they have been 
prominent for studying unknown heathen languages and preparing 
grammars and translations; a fact well known to the British and 
Foreign, as well as to the Dutch Bible Society, which have printed 
a great number of those translations. 

As for the German colonies, there are ten societies of Germany at 
work in them. The whole German mission work within German 
colonies is seventy-three principal stations, 127 European mission- 
aries, 14,300 Christians, and 6,340 day scholars. 

Especially in our own colonies, we consider it to be our duty to 
watch over the interests of the natives. Such help for the natives 
is very much needed during the first stages of the development of 
a newly founded colony. If the missionaries do not act as advo- 
cates of the natives by procuring for them, for instance, a reserva- 
tion of a proper portion of the land, all chance of a satisfactory de- 



41 6 GENERAL SURVEY 

velopment is lost forever. But by siding with the natives in this 
and many other similar questions, we are acting in the real in- 
terest of the whole colony, because all tropical regions are almost 
valueless without a prospering and active native population. We 
also consider it to be our duty to protect all the natives, without ex- 
ception, against pernicious influences from Europeans, such as the 
trade in opium and ardent spirits, and especially immorality. 

It remains to make some remarks about the position which mis- 
sion work now takes in Germany itself. About the middle of the 
century the public at large took little notice of foreign mission work. 
On all sides it was considered that this whole undertaking must 
needs come to naught, especially that of the Evangelical churches, 
for the work of the Roman Catholics was considered as of much 
more avail. But since we have got colonies, and the results of 
missions have become more evident and of greater dimensions, the 
public at large begins to understand that it will not do to overlook 
mission work altogether, and many voices even acknowledge its 
value for colonial interests. But for certain reasons which I need 
not explain just now, the work of the Roman Catholic missionaries 
is still more highly valued and more loudly praised in Germany 
than that of the Protestants. 

Much more notable is the change that has taken place in the 
judgment of Germxan believing Christians regarding missions. The 
conviction has become pretty general that mission work to the 
heathen is a common duty of all Christians. It has become evident 
not only in single churches, but in whole districts in Germany, that 
this work has power to engender Christian life where there was 
none, and to quicken it where it was in some degree already. Mis- 
sions to the heathen have opened the eyes of Christians to the dif- 
ferent wants of our own churches and our own people, and by do- 
ing so this enterprise has become with us, in Germany, the mother 
of the so-called " inner mission." More than anything else mis- 
sions have taught Christians the glorious art of giving. And 
furthermore, it is the work of foreign missions which has united 
the different denominations, so far that the whole body of German 
Christians has formed one regular conference on foreign missions, 
which meets every three or four years. Mission work has also 
shown the gospel to be the power of God to save every one that 
believes, to make new creatures out of wild cannibals, as well as 
proud Hindus or Chinamen, and we may bring these two facts, 
the self-forgetting faith and sacrifice of life for Christ's sake, and 
the grand results of the simple gospel preached among the heathen, 
to bear upon the minds of our atheistical antagonists with an al- 
most irresistible weight. 

We may, indeed, be very thankful for the mighty growth the 
mission work has made during the last twenty years, and for its 
present state; but at the same time we must not forget that evangel- 
ical Germany is still very far from what it ought to be in foreign 
missions, and, therefore, we must begin the new century with the 
firm resolution to do our utmost to come up to the mark, knowing 
that our Lord docs not ask less from each of us than v.^ can do. 



DUTCH MISSIONS 417 

Dutch Missions 

Rev. Dr. Y. R. Callenbach, The Netherlands Societies, Doom, 
Holland.^ 

The task of representing no less than fifteen Dutch missionary 
committees, though full of honor, puts me into a difficult position. 
I hope you will permit me not to trouble you with foreign names 
and many figures. 

Holland may claim the honor of having been the first Protestant 
nation which took up foreign mission work. As early as 1603 it 
sent preachers to the East Indies to bring the gospel to the 
heathens. The first Governor-Generars instructions, in 1609, con- 
tained the order to do everything possible to promote Christianity 
among the natives. Soon afterward, at Leyden, a seminary was 
founded where young men could be trained for missionary work. 

Several of these missionaries did a blessed work, but the princi- 
pal fault of this old mission work was in its absolute dependence 
on the East Indian Company. This company often lacked true re- 
ligious feeling, and so, more than once, it sent out missionaries 
who proved themselves unworthy and unfit for their work; and 
when, in the eighteenth century, rationalism reigned supreme in 
Holland, this missionary work died its natural death, and the East 
Indian Company's fall only destroyed a shadow of the former work. 

But after the restoration of the House of Orange, many Chris- 
tian communities were found to exist in the Indies. At present 
some forty-one European clergymen and evangelists, aided by 
355 ordained natives, native preachers and teachers, work among 
234,073 natives of the undenominational Protestant Church of the 
East Indies. In this church the clergymen of the parishes are 
chosen by a committee in Holland and afterward appointed by the 
Minister of Colonies. Their stipends are paid by the Government. 

Though it has seemed desirable that some connection should ex- 
ist between this Church of the East Indies and the missions, that 
never has been brought about, mainly because there were rational- 
istic clergymen in the Church, and because that church is cpite de- 
pendent on the Government. 

It has to be acknowledged, however, that whenever a mission 
field has been put under the management of that church, it has 
continued with the same laborers and in the same way, the Govern- 
ment paying the salaries of the missionaries and evangelists. 

Thus, the local church has done some mission work, not only in 
former times, but also in this century ; but the greatest part of the 
work has been done by missionary societies. 

In 1797, the first Dutch Missionary Society was founded. After 
having worked in different parts of the globe the East Indies re- 
mained its only mission field. Four years before this the Mora- 
vian Brethren had already sent their missionaries to the West In- 
dian colonies. In the last half of this century several other Dutch 
Mission Societies were founded; some ten or twelve of which ex- 
clusively work among the heathen. In some cases this increase 
of missionary committees, I am sorry to say, found its cause in 



♦Broadway Tabernacle, April 23. 



41 8 GENERAL SURVEY 

theological or other differences, but it also was a proof of height- 
ened interest in mission work. 

The greater part of our missionaries are trained in one of our 
three missionary seminaries, called mission homes. They have to 
study theology, history of missions and methods, one or more 
Eastern languages, medicine, and industrial work. Hebrew, Greek, 
and Latin are not taught there, and yet, it seems desirable that 
some missionaries at least should get a university education. Eight 
graduates have taken an active part in the work of translating the 
Bible in several East India languages. At the present time we may 
thankfully say that several university men are preparing for mis- 
sion work. Some of those trained at our mission homes also have 
been able, scientific men, as is proved by the nomination of two of 
them as professor or lecturer at one of our universities. 

Now and then missionary artisans have been sent out. Some of 
them have done good work, others have proved quite unfit. The 
results have shown that where missionary artisans were men with 
heroic faith and confidence in God, as well as quickness of per- 
ception and practical knowledge, though without much theological 
training, their work has been a success. But where those ap- 
pointed had more self-sufficiency than knowledge, the results have 
been disappointing. 

Native preachers and teachers work under surveillance of the 
missionaries; many of them have proved not only true Christians, 
but evangelists invaluable to the mission work. Such were at 
first trained by missionaries in their houses. Some societies have 
founded training schools, and since 1878 we have on the island of 
Java the Seminary of Depote, where capable natives from different 
])arts of the East Indies are trained as native preachers. The dif- 
ferent races represented in this seminary, though differing both in 
language and in race-feeling, quite as much and probably more 
than the different nationalities of Europe, do not present the diffi- 
culties that we feared at the beginning. On the contrary, mutual 
contact of the races has proved an excellent means to develop the 
character. All who desire to enter the seminary have to stay 
there some time. After their character is thus tested, they are re- 
quired to pass an examination which shows whether they are quali- 
fied to take the course. 

Of course, our missionaries have met the usual difficulties of cli- 
mate, language, and difference of race. In different parts of the 
Archipelago, the everlasting enmity of the Malay Muslims has 
proved an almost insurmountable barrier. Other difficulties have 
arisen from the peculiar method of ruling prevailing in the East 
Indies. 

In the first half of this century, and even later, the Dutch Gov- 
ernment feared that mission work would create irritation among 
the Mohammedans. So, now and again, missionaries have been re- 
fused permission to work in Java. But a happy change for the 
better has latterly taken place, and a great readiness to help has 
taken the place of the former hostility. Now direct and incfirect 
assistance is given to the mission work by Government. 



DUTCH MISSIONS 419 

Our W4y of ruling creates other difficulties, though it has to be 
acknowledged that Government is more disposed than formerly to 
surmount them. As our Government has to rule with a limited 
number of Europeans over some millions of natives, as much as 
possible it tries to maintain the local forms of government and 
jurisdiction. These are based on Mohammedan principles, with 
the result that native Christians meet many difficulties respecting 
property, marriage, inheritance, etc. 

Such difificulties led the Utrecht Mission Association to look out 
for a field of labor where Islam's influence v;as not yet felt, which 
was found in New Guinea, while three other societies laboring in 
Java were led to open up new ground and to found new villages 
where Mohammedan customs could not be introduced. 

A peculiar method of working has been followed in the isle of 
Sangir. The missionary took in some ninety young natives, with 
whom he planted gardens of nutmeg trees and did other field labor. 
During the season when field labor had to be discontinued, they 
got thorough instruction and were trained to be active and prac- 
tical Christians before returning to their families. As these na- 
tives were treated by the missionary as his own children, he had 
the privilege of educating in his house the sons of the native no- 
bility, who, under his influence, learned to work, a thing which, in 
other cases, they absolutely refused to do. 

While in some places agriculture, in others personal influence, 
and in others industrial mission work has been used to influence 
the natives, in nearly every case medical aid and education have 
proved the best means to lead hearts to Him who came to bind 
up that which was broken, and to teach us of His ways. 

In most cases, especially among the Malay Muslims of Java, th( 
first point of contact of the natives with the missionary was his 
medical aid. In one of our most flourishing stations, schools for 
boys and girls, a seminary for native teachers and helpers, an in- 
dustrial school, two kindergarten schools, and a savings bank are 
grouped around the beautiful hospital of Madjo Warno, of the 
Dutch Missionary Society.* 

If the medical mission is the kind hand stretched out to lead the 
natives to Christ, the mission school proves the solid cement that 
fastens together the whole structure of the mission work. Schools 
are found in every station, while in the principal places seminaries 
for teachers flourish. In the schools of the Java Committee are 
more than 2,000 Mohammedan-born children, of whom nearly half 
are girls. A thing to be thankful for is that nearly 40 per cent, 
of the pupils in our schools are girls; for the influence of Chris- 
tianity is first seen by amelioration of the condition of women. 

The Java Committee, that has its field of operations in Java and 



* I call attention to this work as well as to the blessed labor of five Dutch missionary socie- 
ties in Java ; for it is a little curious to read in an American missionary periodical, in an article 
on the conversion of Malay Muslims, that in Java a glorious work is carried on by "American 
Methodists, German and Rhenish Missionaries." I will say nothing but good of American 
Methodists ; with unspeakable thankfulness we acknowledge the splendid work done by the 
Rhenish Missionaries among the Battas in North Sumatra; but as far as I know there are in 
Java neither Rhenish nor American missionaries. Among the missionaries of the Baptist 
Association are two Russians, and though it is true that the Salatiga mission likes to have 
its missionaries trained in Neukirchen (Germany), it is in its origin also a Dutch Society. ' 



420 c;eneral survey 

Sumatra, works also among the 25,000 Chinese Hvmg at Batavia. 
A small Christian parish has been founded among them. 

Another peculiar way of labor, seemingly not in conjunction with 
the heathen mission, is of great importance to it, i.e., the work 
among the Colonial troops. At several places soldiers are nearly 
the only Christians seen by the natives. Christianity is judged af- 
ter their mode of living, so it is of the greatest importance that a 
true Christian conduct should be seen among them. The mission 
tries to stimulate and help them by sending out evangelists, found- 
ing soldiers' homes, and distributing short and inspiring tracts. 

The different societies that try to promote Christianity among the 
heathen are now on brotherly terms. Twice a year the boards of 
the different societies send their delegates to a brotherly confer- 
ence, where they speak about the mission work, and where difficul- 
ties that might arise between the societies are removed. The 
mission field has proved a salutary ground for mutual appreciation 
and good understanding. 

Nothing, perhaps, is so difficult as the true apprsciation of the 
results of mission work. We do not see as God sees, and can not 
count as God counts. 

Some parts, as the Alinahassa (N. E. of Celebes), have been com- 
pletely Christianized in this century. In seventy years 2^^ com- 
munities of native Christians have been founded there with 147,965 
native Christians, 35,000 of whom are communicants. When we 
look at the beautiful churches built there at their own expense and 
hear of what they do for the promotion of Christianity among oth- 
ers, we see that the Christianity of this people is a living thing. 
On other isles, as in Sangir heathenism has nearly vanished. 

In Java and other regions where Islam thrives, the work has been 
difficult, but now every traveler can see the difference between Chris- 
tian and Mohammedan villages, and a number of more than 22,300 
Mohammedans converted to Christ in less than fifty-seven years 
proves that it is not so impossible, as it first seemed, to bring the 
Gospel to them. And to this number must be added the converts 
in the mission of the Reformed Church of Holland. 

In all, we are thankful to be able to say that, without counting 
the converts of the Rhenish Mission Society in North Sumatra 
and in Borneo, there are 302,454 native Christians in the Dutch 
East Indies, among whom work no clergymen and missionaries, 
aided by 749 ordained natives, native preachers, and teachers. Al- 
though a great number of Christian children attend the public 
schools, more than 21,000 attend the mission schools. 

This century has been a period of probation. New ways were 
found, new tools tried, faults discovered. At the end of the cen- 
tury we feel ashamed that no more work has been done; but full 
of courage we go on. For the labor that has been achieved con- 
tains a beautiful promise for the future. It speaks of developing 
forces that promise well for the East Indies, and under the inspira- 
tion of faith cind prayer will do grand work for the glory of God. 



DUTCH MISSIONS 42 1 

Rev. Dr. A. Schreieer, Inspector Rhenish Missionary Society, 
Rarinen, Germany^' 

The mission work with the Mohammedans has hardly got its 
rights in this great Conference, and so you will allow me to add 
a few words. Having been a missionary among the Mohamme- 
dans for years, and having given about thirty years of my life to 
studying this line, it seems to me that the time has come when mis- 
sion work among the Mohammedans will become more and more 
considered as one of the greatest things that is laid upon us. But 
there is one thing that has not been alluded to which is of very 
great importance, and that is that during this last century the 
power of Islam has been diminished very much indeed. Two- 
thirds of the Mohammedans in the world are under Christian rul- 
ers; and according to my opinion we ought to go first to them, be- 
cause it is a very dif^cult work to convert Mohammedans as long 
as they are under a Mohammedan ruler. They are not permitted 
to change their faith. 

Millions and millions of Mohammedans in India are under 
Christian rulers, and there are no such obstacles in our way. In 
the Dutch East Indies our work is of great importance for this 
cause. There is no other part of the world where so many have 
been won to the Christian faith from Islam. Ten thousand in 
Java, and in Sumatra many have been converted among the people 
of the Battaks. There we are reaping now what Americans sowed 
seventy years ago. By 3^our sending out two men who became 
martyrs on that spot your people sowed seed for us. For a long time 
we German missionaries have been reaping what was sown then, 
for we are reaping the harvest among the Mohammedans, also among 
the heathen. Between 3,000 and 4,000 have come out of Islam, and 
we. have very great hope that we shall win other thousands. Our 
principal work there is to keep the heathen back and see that they 
do not become Mohammedans. It is quite a mistake to consider that 
Islam may be the first step from heathenism to Christianity. It is 
far easier to win people when heathen, than after they become Mo- 
hammedans. 

Unless I misunderstand the matter, Islam is not so much a re- 
ligion as a political system. Political power is mixed up with a 
little religious color, and I can not understand how Islam will 
stand after the last illusion of political control has gone. When 
political power and control are gone, that will be the time for the 
Mohammedan people to come out of bondage. Many of us have 
been wondering how the Lord can look at its works so long, but 
I found out the other day that the possession of empire by Mo- 
hammedans has not wholly done its work. What is its work? To 
ruin Islam. For it is quite my firm belief that the possession of 
sovereign power by Mohammedans is ruining Islam. The Wahabi 
reformation of Islam during the last century had life in it. Who 
has quenched this life? The Mohammedan power has done it. 
And wherever a Mohammedan empire is trying to introduce all 
kinds of European things into its realm, it is only destroying its 



* Central Presbyterin.n Church, April 28. 



42 2 GENERAL SURVEY 

own life. That is the part that Mohammedans are playing just 
now, all over the world, wherever they rule. And I am quite sure 
that after they have done their work, the Lord will do away with 
them. Then will be the great time for mission work among the 
Mohammedans ; but we shall do well to prepare men to enter that 
door as soon as it is open. 

General Pervasive Influence of Christianity, and Moravian Missions 

Rev. J. Taylor Hamilton, Secretary Board of Missions, Mora- 
vian Church, Bethlehem, Pa.^ 

Dull indifference or tolerant curiosity may form the first re- 
sponse to the pioneer missionary. Then, when his aims are appre- 
hended, the unscrupulous hostility of the modern Demetrius must 
be met. Baptism of converts brings to a head multiform oppo- 
sition. Heathenism learns that the issue is vital, and girds itself for 
a fierce struggle. 

Subsequent stages of experience will vary, according as the Gos- 
pel encounters the priesthood of a vigorous ethnic misbelief, or 
finds the way prepared through the decay of an unsatisfying cultus, 
or deals with a people out of whom all moral life has been sifted, 
or Vv'ould redeem the slaves of the fetich. Where paganism has 
constructed its philosophy, the conflict of the primitive Church with 
Gnosticism finds a counterpart. An amalgamation of Christian 
ethics with essential heathenism may be the refuge of those un- 
willing to own Jesus as Saviour and God. Where the type of 
thought is less intellectual, it is otherwise. But in no case is the 
influence of Christian missions ascertainable merely by a census 
of converts. 

The witness of the cleaner, happier life, and of the true family, 
and a conviction that here hearts' needs are met, are being used 
by God the Holy Spirit, who is brooding over the pagan world as 
once He brooded over chaos. Caste prejudice slowly succumbs, 
social customs that minister to sin fall into disrepute, dread of 
sorcerers dies away. 

In the unexplored morasses along the Marowyne, seventy-five 
or more miles from the coast of Dutch Guiana, dwell the Aukas, 
descendants of pagan Africans, who escaped from slavery a cen- 
tury and a half ago. White men can not breathe the miasma of 
their swamps. In 1891, influenced by the missions of our 
Church with which he had not come into personal contact, Assess!, 
the chief of these Aukas, ordered his subjects to destroy their idols 
and burn their charms. He made proclamation: "There is only 
one great God in heaven, and to Him must all the Auka people 
pray from now on." At the same time he issued a moral code: 

" The people must lead moral lives. 
The husband must not beat his wife. 
The separation of man and wife is forbidden." 

Positively Christian missions exemplify the parable of the leaven. 
It may be the secret heart's treasure of men, though they still 
" go up to the house of Rimmon." Muslims in our Hospital 

♦Carnegie Hnll, April 24. 



GENERAL PERVASIVE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 423 

for Lepers at Jerusalem, though unbaptized, have died trusting in 
Him who died for them at Calvary, near by. Gergan, ten years 
ago, was a well-to-do householder of Mt. Nubbra, among the West- 
ern Himalayas. His house had its temple on the roof with life- 
sized images of Buddha. Lamps burned before them, and prayer- 
wheels turned, and a brazen scepter, and lotus-blossom, and 
spouted flagon lay ready for the ceremonial from which Gergan had 
not broken. Born in Lhassa, he was a lama of prominence. Yet, 
in his heart of hearts he yielded homage to Jesus. To our mis- 
sionary, Heyde, whom he helped to translate the New Testament, 
weeping over the sufferings of our Lord, he said: " I am convinced 
that Christ is the true Helper; for the sake of my soul I wish to be- 
come a Christian." He encouraged his sons to identify them- 
selves with the Church, but he himself could not break with an- 
cestral custom. His case is not solitary among the Tibetan- 
speaking Buddhists of the Western Himalayas. Certain it is, they 
have come to trust and love our missionaries, though we yet yearn 
and pray for the day of large ingatherings. 

Where the printed Word of God may be put into the hands of a 
reading people, how often not micrely single persons, but groups 
of persons are found ripe for baptism, though no itinerant evange- 
list has reached them. In September, 1893, Chief Aspansa, of the 
Paramaceas in Dutch Guiana, an elderly man, came to Paramaribo, 
all the way from the forests inland on the border of Cayenne, and 
asked for baptism. He had long desired it, but hitherto distance 
and ill-health had prevented him from going to a missionary. 

Moreover, religion permeates life, and no artificial barrier can 
fence off the secular and the sacred. A higher standard of 
morals follows. About five years ago a British of^cial. Sir 
John Goldney, gave this testimony in the West Indian is- 
land of Trinidad : '" I was in Tobago the other day. Tobago, 
as you all know, is rather a Moravian stronghold ; a large portion 
of the people there are Moravians; the population, I believe, is 
about 20,000. There were no prisoners for trial when I got there. 
The magistrate's cases are astonishingly few. The whole police 
force of Tobago is eleven men. These facts so struck me t'hat I 
took upon myself to write to Lord Ripon, the Secretary of State for 
the Colonies at home, to say that one of the most remarkable in- 
stances of British rule was, that Tobago, with 20,000 people was 
entirely kept in order by eleven policemen, there being practically 
no crime." That was something to be very proud of. I certainly 
thought at the time that the Moravian Church, as the disseminator 
of Christianity, had a great deal to do with that wonderful state of 
Tobago. 

A Christianity that does not propagate itself pines. A church 
which sends no heralds sickens. The Church at home must have 
its missions for its own health. Our Moravian Church, in God's 
providence, sending its pioneers in 1732, and in less than sixty 
years, at its synod of 1789, reporting 32,000 adherents won from 
heathendom, was saved from the blight of rationalism in the eigh- 
teenth century by its missions. Again, as fire kindles lire, one mis- 



424 GENERAL SURVEY 

sion fosters the impulse to other missions. Though our Comen- 
ius in the preceding century made a plea for the non-Christian 
world, it was rather Ziegenbalg's example that re-enforced the God- 
implanted purpose in Zinzendorf. It was when they were t)n a mis- 
sionary voyage that John Wesley first met the Moravians, and for 
that meeting men still praise God and angels rejoice. When Carey 
met his hesitating brethren in that little parlor in Kettering, he 
backed his proposals by the experience of Moravians, and placed 
on the table early numbers of the printed Periodical Accounts of 
Moravian Missions. While at sea William Ward recorded the 
profound impression produced on his mind by the perusal of these 
"Accounts," and closed his testimony with the words: "Thank 
you, Moravians! Ye have done me good. If I am ever a mission- 
ary worth a straw, I shall owe it to you under our Saviour." And 
since then it is certain that the influence of these renowned men 
has in turn been mighty among the workers of the world. A very 
interesting connection might be traced between missions and the 
inception of the great agitation for emancipation. 

It is not easy to set limits to the influence of Christian missions. 
The rock of heathendom is being transmuted into fertile soil, and 
we plant seeds in it that germinate into a mighty multiform harvest. 
God has many ways of fulfilling His promise that His word shall 
not return unto Him void. 

Australasian Missions 

Rev. Joseph King, Organising Agent London Missionary So- 
ciety for Australasia.'^ 

For an Australasian to write about Australasia without an ap- 
pearance of boasting is not easy, Australasia's inheritance is a 
very large one. Her coast line of more than 12,000 miles, incloses 
considerably more than 3,000,000 square miles of territory ; an 
area nearly as large as the Dominion of Canada. W^ith a popula- 
tion of nearly five millions, our trade has reached an annual value 
of 112,000,000 pounds. One hundred million sheep feed on our 
pastures, 13,000,000 horned cattle and 2,000,000 horses. We have 
in use 14,000 miles of railway, nearly 50,000 miles of telegraph, and 
on our long seaboard are many ports with shipping, the tonnage of 
which is rapidly increasing. 

Bounded by the Indian Ocean to the west, the Pacific Ocean to 
the east, with the China Sea open beyond our northern horizon, 
the geographical position of Australasia is unique, conunanding 
as it does easy access to the most populous and varied mission 
fields. A semicircle drawn northward from west to east, incloses 
a part of Africa, Madagascar, India, Ceylon, Burma, the Malay 
Archipelago, China, Japan, and Polynesia, and shows a clear sea- 
way to all these lands. The easy connection is not imaginary. 
The Cantonese and Amoyese of China are to be found in large 
numbers in almost every part of our wild territory, and inmiigrants 
from Japan arc settling in our centers of mercantile activity. 
Papuans are cultivating our sugar crops, Indian hawkers are 

•Carnegie Hall, April 24. 



AUSTRALASIAN MISSIONS 4^5 

reaching our most rural districts, and in our arid deserts where 
camels are used, Asiatic drivers are employed. And it must not 
be forgotten that Australasia has within itself several aboriguial 
heathen races, demanding missionary help. There is the aboriginal 
of Australia proper, lowest type of human kind, with solitary speci- 
mens which, like the strangely preserved pillar of a demolished 
temple, point to a dead and better past. Pickering, the American 
ethnologist, tells us that he saw aboriginals whose cranial de- 
velopment suggested the antique bust of a Grecian philosopher. 
Skull measurement alone does not, however, determine the status 
of a race. 

The Maoris of New Zealand, in physical and mental capacity, 
forcefulness of character, and religious susceptibility, are as un- 
like the Australians as they could be; living in the heart of one of 
the most progressive of our colonies, they retain many of their 
primitive customs, and remain separated from the white population. 
Some of them, however, have broken away from the tribal life, 
and in city and country intermix with the Anglo-Saxon settlers. 

The tribes peopling the coast of British New Guinea form an- 
other group. New Guinea lies on the other side of Torres Straits, 
and is only eighty miles from the coast of Queensland. In the high 
valleys among the mountain ranges and along the reaches of the 
rivers which empty themselves into the Papuan Gulf, there are 
stalwart savages who are still following the degrading customs 
of a prehistoric barbarism. 

Not a small share of the vigor of the Australasian colonies is 
being given to Christian work. Every type of Christian organiza- 
tion is represented throughout the commonwealth. England is re- 
produced at the antipodes, and the daughter is giving proof of her 
good training by emulating the mother's Christian enterprise. We 
have not only found room in Australasia to help Britain in her 
great Christian responsibility, we have found a strategic base for a 
new advance against the intrenched positions of the Prince of 
r3arkness. 

The efforts made to evangelize the Australian aboriginals go 
back to the early years of the century. In 1820 a Wesleyan mis- 
sionary commenced work among them, and four years later the 
Rev. E. L. Threlkeld, who had been laboring at Tahiti, obtained 
from the New South Wales Government a grant of 10,000 acres of 
land, to be held in trust for mission purposes, and he carried on 
for several years a work which was, perhaps, more thorough than 
any subsequent undertaking. He became himself the paternal 
guardian of the tribe on the shores of Lake Macquarie; he learned 
their language, provided them with an educational primer, and 
translated for their use the Gospel of St. Luke. Beginning his work 
in the midst of a considerable population, he continued it until, true 
to their racial instinct, the whole tribe had migrated and he was left 
alone, a shepherd without a flock. In its main features this ex- 
perience has been repeated over and over again. There are 
aboriginal mission stations in many parts of Australia, but the race 
has not been evangelized. The governments of the different col- 



426 GENERAL SURVEY 

onies have recognized their obligation to care for the original 
owners of the soil, and settlements have been established, into 
wliich remnants of the tribes have been gathered, and at those set- 
tlements the churches, by voluntary service, have endeavored to 
minister to the spiritual needs of the natives, but the results have 
been very small. Individuals have been changed, but the great 
majority in all the tribes have simply added to their heathen prac- 
tices the lowest habits of the intruding race. It is one of the sad- 
dest mission fields in the world. 

Work among the Maoris of New Zealand has been more encour- 
aging, but not wholly satisfactory. Samuel Marsden, the Govern- 
ment chaplain in New South Wales, a man worthy of high honor 
in Australasian history, was the parent of the Maori Mission. 
Colonization came after missionary teaching, and the misgovern- 
ment of the Colony, in relation to the natives, had much to do with 
the period of declension which followed the first missionary suc- 
cesses among this capable and robust race, some of whom are 
showing sufficient ability to matriculate at our universities. Many 
earnest workers are still laboring, and now all friction in relation 
to governmental control has passed away, and we may look for 
better results. 

The work among the tribes of New Guinea is a more recent one. 
Less than thirty years ago the London Missionary Society entered 
this field, and its pioneers have been permitted to see an unpromis- 
ing people brought under the power of Christian truth. The men 
who have been the pioneers, and the results achieved, deserve spe- 
cial recognition at this Conference. A whole paper might well 
have been given to this interesting mission. Three societies are 
laboring in this field — two Australasian and one English. The 
Episcopalians are laboring on the northeast coast; the Wesleyans 
principally in the islands which lie to the northeast of the main- 
land, while the London Missionary Society has the whole of the 
southeast coast, stretching from East Cape to the Dutch boundary. 
I have traveled over this coast and have seen for myself the wonder- 
ful change which has passed over the people. 

Testimony from every reliable source will be welcomed at this 
Conference. After an administration extending over ten years, 
Sir William MacGregor has recently retired from the Lieutenant- 
Governorship. His last report contains an estimate of the results 
of mission work throughout the possessions. The following ex- 
tract will show the conclusions to which lengthened and careful 
observations have brought him: 

*' The London Missionary Society, as the pioneer, was exposed 
to special danger and hardship in obtaining a footing in different 
parts of the country, and, perhaps, much more so in maintaining 
it. It was more through it than by any other means that the way 
was prepared for the founding of the colony. Before annexation 
it had a checkered existence. Many teachers died of illness; sev- 
eral were killed by the people for whom they had come to work. 
In the history of the mission there loom out conspicuously the 
names of the two great missionaries, the Rev. Dr. W. S. Lawes 



AUSTRALASIAN MISSIONS 427 

and the Rev. James Chalmers; the former typically a man of 
thought, the latter typically a man of action. Each of them has 
worked for and among the Papuans for over a score of years, and 
they still carry on work of the greatest importance." 

Of more recent work by the Wesleyans and their noble pioneer, 
Mr. Bromilow, and of the Episcopalians, Sir William speaks also in 
terms of high appreciation. Anglo-Saxon settlement did not be- 
gin until the mission was well established. When the natives were 
skull-hunting cannibals, the missionaries were allowed to have them 
to themselves, and the only new influence which the New Guineans 
felt for some time was that power of kindness and charity which 
is the atmosphere of the Christian messenger, and Papuan savages 
coming under the spell of it, began to say, as more cultured in- 
quirers had said before, " We would see Jesus." To-day thou- 
sands of them, men and women, have a knowledge of the Cross and 
its sacrifice, and, if in a halting, stumbling fashion, they are try- 
ing with all sincerity to walk as followers of Christ. 

I have said nothing and can say very little about mission work 
among the immigrant heathen population in Australasia. Earnest 
work is being done among the heathen and Christian Chinamen 
under the direction of different denominations, and is meeting 
with not a little encouragement. On the sugar plantations of 
Queensland there are local organizations of an evangelistic and 
educational character, and not a few western Polynesians have 
learned to know Christ while serving as hired laborers. The brief- 
est reference can be made to the fact that missionary effort in Fiji, 
Tonga, the New Hebrides, Melanesia, New Britain, and New Ire- 
land, is mainly to-day an Australasian work and outside the nearer 
Australasian sphere. There are more distant missions wholly or 
in part dependent upon Australasian help. The Baptists have 
combined to support a mission in India; the Presbyterians are 
carrying on work in Korea; an undenominational organization is 
sending laborers to Poona in northern India; the Episcopalians 
and Congregationalists have their representatives in many of the 
fields of the Church and London Missionary Societies respectively, 
while the China Inland Mission is being very largely re-enforced by 
Australasian volunteers. 

Much more might be said to show that the modern missionary 
enterprise has found a new and not unimportant center in the 
southern commonwealth, A new base has been established which 
promises to be an energetic auxiliary to the missionary enterprise 
of the Christian Church. Australasia by what it has already done, 
was entitled to a place in this Ecumenical Conference, and in view 
of rapid changes which are taking place in the Southern Hemi- 
sphere and in the Pacific Ocean, the older European and American 
organizations may well join hands with their confreres in the 
South. What we need, as we stand to-day on the threshold of a 
new century, is an ecumenical or world-embracing covenant of 
service. Our common faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in His resur- 
rection to life, and dominion, and power, makes us all comrades in 
His service, and our comradeship pledges us to watch, ^nd pray. 



428 GENERAL SURVEY 

and work until the day breaks, and all sliadows flee before the 
spreading- light of the glory of God in the face of the world's glori- 
fied Redeemer. 

Abstract of Centennial Statistics 

Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D., Nezv York, Author of "Chris- 
tian Missions and Social Progress." * 

As regards agencies, agents, and evangelistic results, we are able 
to report that the forces of evangelical missions throughout the 
world, may be marshaled as follows: 

Societies actively engaged in direct missionary effort 249 

If Societies co-operating and supplementing by service in special 
forms and phases of work be added, the number would be in- 
creased by 200, making a total of 449 

If Women's Auxiliaries in primary and direct connection with the 
principal Societies be still added, the total would be augmented 
by 88, making a comprehensive total of all Missionary Socie- 
ties at work in the foreign field 537 

The annual income, not including" any duplicated returns, and rep- 
resenting in most cases that reported for 1898, amounts to the 

notable sum of $19,126,120 

Woman's share in these totals is represented by 120 Societies, con- 
tributing $2,500,1 17 

Total of foreign missionaries, ordained and lay, of both 

sexes 1 5,460 

Total of native agents, ordained and unordained 77>338 

Total of communicants 1,317,684 

Admitted to the Church during the last reported year 84,186 

(If all reports had been received covering this item, it 
would have been not less than 100,000.) 
Sunday-schools reported, 15,032, with an attendance of. . 771,928 
The total of the Christian Community, i.e., those confessedly 

evangelical in their religious allegiance, is 4,414,236 

Educational institutions, including schools of all grades, num- 
ber 20,407 

Pupils in these mission schools 1,049,378 

Translations of the Bible, entire or in part, made under missionary 
auspices for missionary uses, including some made earlier in 
the century, which have now been superseded by re- 
visions 427 

Total annual circulation of the Bible, either entire or in por- 
tion ._ 2,535,466 

Total annual circulation of books and tracts 14,494,098 

Mission publishing houses and printing-presses 148 

rp , 1 1 . . j Copies 10,561,177 

Total annual output ] p^^^^^ _ 364,904.399 

Periodicals published in the vernacular on various fields. . . . 366 

Total annual circulation 297,435 

Hospitals in operation under strictly missionary auspices. . . . 355 

*Carnefrie Hall, April 2-;. The detailed summary of these statistics will be found in the 
Appendix at the end of Vol. II. 



ABSTRACT OF STATISTICS 429 

Dispensaries 753 

Total of patients treated annually 2,579,651 

Total of separate treatments of dispensary, or outside, pa- 
tients 6,647,840 

Orphanages 213 

Inmates in orphanages 13-039 

(If to these permanent institutions under Missionary 
Boards and Societies, we add many philanthropic ef- 
forts for orphans in Armenia and India, the number 
would be increased by several thousands.) 

Leper Homes and Hospitals 90 

Inmates 5.166 

(We have reason to believe that at least 2,000 of these are 
Christians.) 

Schools for t?he Blind and Deaf Mutes 30 

Inmates 500 

Details concerning the United Society of Christian Endeavor, the 
Epworth League, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, the Christian 
Associations for Young Men and Young Women, temperance and 
rescue efforts, guilds and societies for the promotion of purity, 
prison reform, abolishment of footbinding, work for sailors, sol- 
diers, and prisoners, university extension movements, free libraries, 
summer schools, conventions for intellectual and religious improve- 
ment, lecture courses, and societies for social and cultural develop- 
ment, will be found to a limited extent in the appendix, and more 
fully in the volume of statistics soon to be issued. 
Purely native organizations (traceable in most instances to the 
stimulus of missions), for extension of knowledge, and the 
furtherance of national, social, moral, and religious reform 54 
Missionary Training Institutions and Societies in Christian Lands 

(not including theological schools and seminaries) 87 

Mission steamers and ships used in evangelistic, medical, and other 

departments of mission service, in the foreign field 67 

From the data which have been collected as a basis for these sum- 
maries, several interesting deductions and comparisons may be 
made. I shall not undertake in an international assembly to com- 
pare nation with nation, nor in an interdenominational gathering to 
emphasize or contrast any denominational features of the mission- 
ary conspectus, but there is one aspect of the case which concerns 
us all, and in which we shall all alike rejoice. 

I refer to the steady, continuous, unflagging growth of mission- 
ary service as reflected in the regular increase of missionary agen- 
cies during each decade of the past century. 

From 1649 to 1800 (a period of over 150 vears) twelve mission- 
ary societies were formed. From 1800 to 1830 (a period of thirty 
years), twenty-two societies were formed. The subsequent record 
of decades is as follows: 

1830-1840 16 Societies organized. 

1840-1850 25 

1850-T860 34 

1860-1870 41 



43° GENERAL SURVEY 

1870-1880 57 Societies organized. 

1880-1890 92 

1890-1900 100 " " 

The banner year of the century as regards the number of mis- 
sionary societies formed, is 1890, during which twenty-two new 
societies were organized. The next is 1896, with a record of 
eleven. The distinction which attaches to the year 1890 is worthy 
of notice in connection with our present Ecumenical Conference. 
No satisfactory reason is apparent for the unusually large list of 
societies formed in that year, except that it seems to represent the 
crystalized results of the missionary impetus given by the Con- 
ference of 1888, in London. Probability is given to this expla- 
nation by the fact that these twenty-two societies were well dis- 
tributed throughout Christendom. 

It is worthy of comment also that the decade of greatest educa- 
tional development is 1890-1900, and that the year of greatest ad- 
vance in that decade is 1894, allowing just sufficient time for the in- 
fiuence of the gathering of 1888 to record itself in the founding of 
new educational institutions in mission fields. 

Still another fact of singular interest just here is that 1890-1900 
is moreover the decade of largest growth in the establishment of 
medical agencies, and the banner year in the decade was 1896, sug- 
gesting the further culmination of the effects of the London Con- 
ference. Let us realize then that our present Conference, with its 
cheering outlook, carries also a serious responsibility. We are 
touching springs of beneficent activity which will vibrate among 
all nations during the coming century. 

Lessons of the Century 

Rev. R. Wardlaw Thompson, Secretav;^ London Missionary 
Society, London.'^- 

I suppose every generation is inclined to say that its experience 
is the most remarkable ever known in the history of the world. 
But this has been a very remarkable century in many directions, 
and to me the most remarkable feature of this most remarkable 
century is the wonderful way in which all the processes of God's 
providence seem to have been focussed on the work of missions. 

Practically, the nineteenth century is the period during which the 
modern Protestant missionary enterprise has sprung up and has 
grown to its present splendid proportions. I do not forget — I can 
not forget — the wonderful story of the Moravian Church in the 
eighteenth century, or the work of the Danish Mission in Southern 
India; or the work of godly Dutch missionaries in Ceylon, Su- 
matra, and Java; or the labors of the first Wesleyan pioneers in 
St. Thomas; or that interesting little mission of the Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel on the west coast of Africa; or that 
small mission among the Indians on the great continent of Amer- 
ica; but the best friends of those missions will admit that they were 
very small compared to the remarkable extent to which the great 
missionary enterprise has developed during these wonderful years. 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



LESSONS OF THE CENTURY 431 

At the beginning- of the century the Church of Christ as a whole 
was actually opposed to missions. To-day every section of the 
Church of Christ feels it to be its duty to have its mission, its mis- 
sionary society, and, though there are still a large number of people 
who, at heart, are lukewarm — the best of them lukewarm — yet it 
is respectable even for them to subscribe to missions. Now that is 
a very remarkable change of feeling. 

I want you to notice how wonderfully the Church of Christ has 
taken up this work. First came missionary societies, little, earnest 
companies of people who, notwithstanding all the hostility of their 
friends and neighbors, were determined to carry on missionary 
work ; that little Baptist company who were determined, although 
their leading minister at that time advised the churches to be a 
little cautious how they entered into this thing, because no respect- 
able person seemed to be connected with it. There were little 
companies of men forming missionary societies, and God blessed 
their labors, and God opened the world to them, and God, through 
them, worked upon the heart and the life of the Church at home, 
and what do you see next? Why, the great Christian associ- 
ations we call denominations took the next step and said, Well, 
now, foreign missions are a part of the work of the Church; the 
foreign missions committee is just as much a part of the work of 
the Church as the home missions committee; and so missions were 
put in their true place; and now, finally, at the end of the century 
we have the home organizations reproduced abroad. Our great 
British colonies have their ovv'u missionary societies, and in almost 
every principal mission field there are now missionary societies 
formed by the converts for the purpose of maintaining preachers 
and evangelizing among their own heathen neighbors. So, won- 
derfully, throughout this century the missionary idea has sprung 
up, and grown, and blossomed, and borne fruit, and become a great 
tree in the earth. 

This century has been a century of remarkable provision for the 
prosecution of foreign missionary work. Coincident with the wak- 
ing and the growth of the missionary spirit in the Church have 
come two other lines of great movement outside direct church 
action at any rate. The first of these was the great industrial and 
commercial awakening, and the great industrial and commercial 
development of the nineteenth century. 

In 1764, the spinning jenny was invented by Hargreave. In 
1766, the spinning mule was invented by Crompton. In 1768, the 
spinning frame was invented by Arkwright. Those three things 
together revolutionized all textile manufacture, made the produc- 
tion of clothing and all soft goods cheap, easy, and rapid, and sug- 
gested new markets in a very short time. Almost simultaneously 
with this revolution in textile manufacture came the application of 
the artificial blast in the iron furnace. That revolutionized the 
manufacture of iron. Thirdly, in 1765, Watt discovered the prin- 
ciple of the condensing cylinder, by which the steam engine was 
transformed from an uncertain toy into one of the greatest powers 
man has in his hand. 



432 GENERAL SURVEY 

What has this to do with missions? Why just this: That during 
the next thirty or forty years, while God was moving the hearts 
of men under new spiritual influences, a new class was growing up 
in Great Britain, the industrial class, the manufacturing class, in- 
telligent, observant, thoughtful, active, always ready to make new 
moves, always looking out for new opportunities to sell their 
goods. And all through this century God has been giving into the 
hands of the nations which have His Word, the nations which have 
known free Christian institutions, the nations which have expe- 
rienced the great evangelical revival, this enormous power in the 
world, the power of production. This enormous stimulus to sell 
their goods and inventions went on from step to step until, in the 
year when our Queen came to her throne, in 1837, the first steam- 
ers crossed the Atlantic, and the Cunard Line, and the Peninsular 
and Oriental Line to India were established, revolutionizing the 
carrying power of the world, and becoming a preparation of the 
way of the Lord across the sea. 

The other line of influence of the present century which has af- 
fected missions is political. There have been some very remark- 
able changes in the political relations of the world, and these are 
of profound significance. First and foremost, the development 
of this country, if it had continued simply in a colonial relation to 
Great Britain, could not possibly have been what it has been; 
throwing its j)orts open as a free people to the world, and separated 
from all the mischievous and cramping influences of the great mon- 
archies, the great military powers and terrors of Europe. God has 
given you an opportunity not only of material expansion, but of 
educational expansion, and of the production of a great new amal- 
gam, by the amalgamating together of many races in these United 
States under the influence of a free Christianity and your wonder- 
ful system of education and liberty of government. God called 
these States into being just at the time when He was calling His 
Church to her greatest work, and He has given you already a splen- 
did share in that work. 

Then, in the middle of the century, came another great move- 
ment, by which the rule over a magnificent empire was taken from 
a dividend-wanting company and put into the hands of our Queen. 
The East Lidia Company was a wonderful corporation, and did in 
its way a wonderful work and raised some splendid men, but its 
first thought was its shareholders' dividends and profits, and that 
thought influenced all its relation to the natives. Tn the earlier days 
of the century it prevented missionaries from going to India. ^ It 
led men in their places in the House of Commons to talk about 
the missions to India. Said one of them: " Why, I had rather send 
a shipload of devils to India than a shipload of missionaries "; and 
they acted in that spirit. The Imperial rule of Britain came in and it 
opened the door to mission work in India. God opened that door 
sadly. He taught us our duty by one of the most terrible things 
we have had in our recent history, the great Indian Alutiny. God 
opened the door, and at once came woman's work in India, medical 



LESSONS OF THE CENTURY 



433 



work in India, the Christian Literature Society for India, and Chris- 
tian development of all kinds. 

Then, thirdly, came the opening of China. Well, now, the open- 
ing of China, like a great many other things in the history of man, 
has its human side and its Divine side. Man thrust the door open 
that he might get his own trade in. God said : Very well, my Gos- 
pel shall go in; and so to-day, by a succession of very remarkable 
providences, that great, closed empire is open from end to end, 
and the missionary is free, and the Word of God is free, and the 
Christian book is free, and the preacher is everywhere proclaiming 
the tidings of salvation. 

The opening of Japan and other openings have all been of this 
century, and have all been coincident with the opening of the lieart 
of the Church and the eyes of the Church, and the turning of the 
attention of the Church to the cry of the perishing in all parts of the 
world. Coincident — is that all? Coincident — was there not a Divine 
purpose in it all? Did it not all point to this? God saw this great 
Anglo-Saxon race which He had raised up, to which He had given 
opportunity, and power, and dominion, and wealth, was fitted 
to do a magnificent work for Him in the world ; and He said : 
Here is your chance. There is the world open. God could do no 
more. It is for us to consider now, at the end of the century, 
whether we shall respond. Of course, we may say. No. We may 
turn to selfish uses the great opportunity God gives. For great 
nations in this world have been before us who have had the same 
kind of opportunity; they have had their day and have gone. There 
was no nobler people in all the history of Europe in their day than 
those grand Spaniards, but God gave them the world at their feet 
and they abused their opportunity! 

Oh, my friends! you and I to-d'ay stand at the opening of a new 
century, with the finest equipment of appliances for great work 
men have ever had in this world's history, and the finest opportu- 
nity for great work men have ever had in this world's history, and 
the most solemn responsibility resting upon us; for with oppor- 
tunity comes responsibilitv. May God make this Conference a 
clarion call to the Churches to rise and be doing! 



CHAPTER XVII 

WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

Persia — Arabia — Egypt — Syria — The Hebrews — Turkey 



Persia 

Mr. Robert E. Speer, M.A., Secretary Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions, Presbyterian Church in U. S. A. 

I wonder if there is any other country in which so small a portion 
of the population, from the point of view of the kingdom of God, 
holds a position of such supreme importance. The population of 
Persia is about 8,000,000 in all, and is broken into two classes — the 
non-Mohammedan population, making up about one-fifth of the 
whole, and the Mohammedan population. I want to call attention 
to each of these two sections of the people. 

First, in reference to the non-Mohammedans ; the Armenians, 
Nestorians, Jews, and Fire-worshipers. This section of the popula- 
tion has done two things. It has made mission work easy, and 
also difificult. It has made it possible to do mission work in Persia 
among these little non-Mohammedan communities, where the mis- 
sionaries have been able to get a foothold. Missionaries were 
tolerated by the Mohammedan power in the beginning, because 
they were working for a class of people who had already won a 
position under the Muslim rule, although they were not Mussul- 
mans in their faith. While the presence of these people has made 
mission wOrk possible, it has also made it difficult. Those of you 
who have read the introduction to Sir William Muir's " Sweet First 
Fruits," can see the difficulties in the way of the success, in these 
lands, of evangelical work which is tied to the old Churches. They 
have given to Mohammedanism a depraved conception of Chris- 
tian faith and the Christian life. Among the Mohammedan peoples 
the Church Missionary Society has got its hold in the south of 
Persia, and our own Presbyterian missions in the north have 
planted themselves in Urumia, Tabriz, Teheran, and Hamaclan. 

I want you to notice two things as to the Mohammedan section 
of Persia. First — There exists among the Mohammedans of 
Persia a totally illogical condition, looking at it from the point of 
view of the Koran. Here is a Muslim state in which the Church 
is not the state ; in which there is both religious and civil law, ad- 
ministered by different agencies which have often been in conflict 
and are not seldom in antagonism now. It is not as it is with 
Turkey. Second — Mohammedanism in Persia is seamed with 
schism. Every now and then sonic ignoramus holds up Islam as 

•Madison Avenue Reformed Churcb, April 23. 



ARABIA 435 

a rebuke to divisions in the Cliristian Chiircli. He knows nothing 
of Persia. 

With reference to the missionary work in each of the two sec- 
tions of the Persian people: First of all, the non-Mohammedan 
peoples. In Urumia there are the Nestorians, among whom, but a 
few years ago, there were only three forces working — our own 
Presbyterian Mission, the Roman Catholic Mission (French), and 
the High Church Anglican Mission. About two years ago the 
Greek Church representatives came in. The whole Anglican work 
was absorbed by the Greek Church movement; the Nestorian peo- 
ple in the plains are divided now into three classes — a very small 
class of Roman Catholics, a larger class of evangelical Nestorians, 
and the others have been swept into the fold of the Greek Church. 
From the spiritual point of view, the Greek Church is meaningless. 
The influence of the Russian mission is ecclesiastical, not spiritual, 
and as yet, not political; but it makes it very hard for the evangel- 
ical influence of our own mission to make itself felt in the field. 

So far as the Armenian work is concerned — and the Armenians 
outnumber the Nestorians in Persia — their nationalist dreams are 
steeling their hearts to what is truest and most spiritual; and every 
now and then some faithful missionary, discouraged, feels that it is 
time almost to turn our backs on the Armenian people of Persia. 
Where the nationalistic impulses have not penetrated' so strongly, 
the work has been more fruitful. In Hamadan, we have fruitful 
work among the Jews. Another church is made up of Armenian 
converts. 

Two great things are happening in Persia to-day. In the first 
place, the missions are pressing out of their old boundaries. Our 
friends of the Church of England have long since ceased to con- 
fine themselves to the cities where they could find a non-Mohamme- 
dan basis from which to work. They have boldly gone out to other 
bases, where their only justification is that they are attempting to 
reach Islam. Our missions hope to carry the Gospel to the Moham- 
medans themselves. Apart from this extension of the mission work 
among the Mohammedans, there has been an immense extension of 
it in its influence on individuals far beyond the geographical bounds of 
our mission work. The Gospels and the Scriptures have eaten 
their way underneath Mohammedanism, until, at the present time, 
there must be hundreds — some say even thousands — of secret be- 
lievers, so far as intellectual conviction is concerned, among the 
professed Mohammedans in Persia. Then there is the great schis- 
matic movement of the Babis, half Mohammedan, half reaching 
over for something else, showing that the Persians are not rigor- 
ously bound by Islam, but are willing, when a faith comes to them, 
which, however imperfect, yet seems better to them than Islam, to 
sacrifice even life for its propagation. 

Arabia 

Rev. M. H. Hutton, D.D., President Arabian Mission, Re- 
formed Church in America, New Brunswick , N. /.* 

Look first at the country. No one knows exactly how large it 

♦Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 



436 WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

is. The government surveyor and the census-taker are unknown, 
of course. The borders of the land shift as in one of its own 
mirages. It is a great trapezoid, they guess, of not far from 
1,000,000 square miles; about four times the size of France. Vast 
tableland deserts go billowing across miles after dreary miles. 
Spots of fertility sleep green under its suns. In parts of Arabia it 
never rains from year's end to year's end. Hot is no word for it; 
often on the plains it is 100 in the shade. Yet, up on hills, only 
6,000 to 8,000 feet in height, the cold can be bitter. Parts of the 
territory have been dense with populations once; parts are not un- 
populous now; and there are parts where only nomads, and but 
few of them, can live. No one can guess, even frantically, at the 
population. But, taking its 1,600 miles of length and' 800 of 
breadth, one may reasonably hazard the conjecture that there are 
there about 6,000,000 souls for whom Christ died, who have heard 
of " Isa, ben Miriem,"* but who no more know Him than if He had 
never been nearer than the planet Mars. There is not a river worth 
calling a river in all Arabia. Its mountains are not high. 

Physically, that is the field. If countries and climates mold 
men, look at the stuff we have to work on! 

Second, to get the outlook on the field, look at its strange his- 
tory : 

For well-nigh a millennium Arabia has laid in a back eddy. The 
swift currents of modern progress have hardly even roared along 
its edge. Yet once, Bagdad was the thinking-shop of Europe. It 
was a magnificent center of cultivation, science, letters, and arts. 
It was Arabic letters which roused and ruled Europe. It was the 
Arabic masters of mathematics and of medicine who led the 
marches of learning in the West. 

And now, the Arabian is as ignorant as dirt! That is the second 
general outlook on the field. 

Third, look at the unique position of Arabia from the mission- 
ary side. 

Was there ever a country served as Arabia has been? It is true 
that Christianity early made its appearance there. When St. Paul 
went there from Damascus for the three years, there is no sign 
that he cither found a church already there, or that he planted one. 
Perhaps he went there to get away from people and rest. But in 
very early Christian centuries there were bishops of Arabia. Tra- 
dition holds that more than one of the Apostles preached there. 
But somehow it never seems to have been a very pure Christian- 
ity. Origen went over there once to preside at a council, and com- 
ing back to Europe, reported that " Arabia was full of heresies." 
If Origen thought so, they were. Monophysite and Mbnothehte 
heresies soon crept in. Arabia was handicapped from the begin- 
ning. When Mohammed arose, Christianity was so dead that it 
was putrid. Mohammedanism crushed it in its mailed hand as if 
it had been a Dead Sea apple. It was the middle of the seventh 
century. 

Then, as if Arabia had been poisoned, Christendom kept its 



* Jesus, Son of Mary. 



MEDICAL MISSIONS IN ARABIA 437 

hands off it. Mission effort toiled out into other quarters of the 
world; but no one set foot in Arabia to preach the Gospel until 
Raimund Lully, from the Balearic Isles, woke to the shameful neg- 
lect of Christians, and went as the first missionary to Mohamme- 
danism. Very likely he has been overpraised. Very likely his ab- 
surd " Great Art," with its crazy formula to convert men to Chris- 
tianity by diagrams, was irrational empiric, and lunatic beggary. 
But at least he laid down his life as a martyr to the Arabian Mis- 
sion, in June, 131 5. Then, O astounding, unchristian fact, for 875 
years not a Christian soul went to Arabia, so much as to try if any- 
thing could be done. Commerce spread her venturing wings and 
learned to creep in Christian ships around the Cape of Good Hope, 
past Arabia, but cast no anchor there to leave a Bible. The Suez 
Canal was opened, and Christian steamers blackened the sky over 
the Red Sea with their smoke, and touched at Arabian ports, but 
not a Christian foot left their decks to preach Christ to Christ's 
cousins after the flesh. It was not until 1890 that Keith-Falconer 
went to Aden — the first after Lully, 875 years before. What pos- 
sessed us to neglect Arabia so? 

That is the third outlook over the field. We have left Arabia 
ossified, undisturbed in Mohammedanism. It had been no wonder 
if God had said, " Too late ! " 

Now, all that we have got to contend against. A better day has 
dawned. Six strategic points are now held in Arabia: One at Aden, 
by the Free Church Scotch Mission; two on the north by the 
Church Missionary Society, and three on the east by our Arabian 
Mission. Details of actual work you will hear from representatives 
of those societies. It is the day of small things yet. But I see, 
still against the old sky of Palestine, the noble figure of the Father 
of the Faithful, with his hands extended toward heaven, with the 
cry on his lips : " O that Ishmael might live before thee ! " And 
I know it will be answered. 

Medical Missions in Arabia 

H. R. L. WoKRALL, M.D., Missionary, Reformed Church in 
America, Arabia.^ 

The only response Arabia can give is that, as in all mission 
fields of Asia, it is uphill work. Five years ago suspicion, dis- 
trust, and hatred were obstacles. Schools and preaching were 
forbidden, only the privilege of distributing the Word of God was 
ours. The way has been full of pits and stumbling-blocks; Chris- 
tian helpers with Bibles have often been made acquainted with 
prisons and their Bibles scattered. Missionaries on tours have fre- 
quently been annoyed by detentions, by forced return to their 
starting point, by threats of expulsion from the country because of 
discussions in the market-places. 

The means used thus far in our work have been first and fore- 
most an example of pure Christian living. Next comes distribu- 
tion of the Word of God, and, when opportunity presents itself, ex- 
planation of its teachings so as to reveal its beauty and power. 

* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 



438 WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

Medical work has also taken a prominent place. The doctor 
has a clinic each morning, at which from 100 to 200 patients ap- 
pear. These usually hear a portion of Scripture and a prayer be- 
fore treatment. Tours are made with a box of remedies and in- 
struments, and thus opportunities are presented of dropping by 
the wayside seeds of truth and righteousness. 

One incident: Through the recovery of an important personage 
who came to be treated, the doctor was invited to visit the sheikh 
or head of the tribe. Accompanied by a minister and colporteur, 
he visited the village. Being very warm and uncomfortable in the 
dwelling, they were shown to a mosque in a garden, and provided 
with food and drink. At the time of the Mohammedan afternoon 
prayer, might have been seen in this same place the minister con- 
versing with a number of men and e^-olaining to them the way of 
Christ, the doctor treating patients, the colporteur dispensing 
Bibles, and fifteen Mohammedans occupied with their service of 
worship. 

So missionaries drop the seed and water the plants, but the move- 
ments of the Spirit and the hearing of the still small voice must be 
left to Him whose we are. 

We leave all to Him who says: " My word shall not return unto 
me void, but shall accomplish." 

This is the word from Arabia. 

Egypt 

Rev. S. G. Hart, Missionary, United Presbyterian Church, N. 
A., Egypt^ 

To a great degree Egypt is intellectually the center of Moham- 
medanism, because, in Cairo, is located the great mosque of 
Al Azhar, with its 10,000 students who spend from six to twelve 
years studying the precepts of Mohammedanism. The language 
of Egypt is the language of the Koran — the language in which the 
great writings of the Mohammedans have been issued, so that 
everyone in Egypt, of any intelligence at all, can read the Moham- 
medan books at first hand. In other countries many of them have 
to be translated. While we have, therefore, in Egypt some of the 
most fanatical of Mohammedans, we have some who are tolerant. 
Mohammedan fanaticism is breaking down before education, it 
can not stand before Christian education, or before that which had 
its origin in Christianity. Our mission there began work some 
fifty years ago, when there were scarcely any schools worthy of 
note, and the Mohammedans, and Copts, and others pressed into 
our schools. One of the leading Mohammedans of his time said 
to his brethren: "We must organize schools for the education of 
our children, or they will all go to the Americans." And so they did, 
and that was the starting point of the native Egyptian school sys- 
tem, to which have been brought the best brains of Europe. Edu- 
cation is spreading throughout Egypt, and to a degree this is one 
of the reasons for the breaking down of fanaticism. 

Another thing that breaks away prejudice against Christianity 

•Central Presbyterian Church, April 28. 



EGYPT 439 

is the example of the evangelical Christians. A Mohammedan 
where I have been living once said: " If I were not a Mohamme- 
dan, I would be a Protestant." 

And the next thing which works against fanaticism is the in- 
fluence of Bible study, which comes directly from missionary work. 
I could tell you of places where, a few years ago, they were strong- 
ly fanatical against Christians, and where to-day there are young- 
men banded together for Bible study. In a town near where we 
live, the Christians had become so earnest in the advocating of 
Bible truths that the people were not able to stand against their 
arguments. So the Government officially organized two Moham- 
medan schools for the study of the Koran, that the people might 
become better acquainted with their own religion. 

Rev. John Giffen^ Missionary, United Presbyterian Church, N. 
A.,Egypt^ 

The American missionary premises in Cairo are very near the 
center of that city, where the Presbyterian Mission from America 
first established itself in the year 1854. 

According to the last census there are 10,000,000 people in 
Egypt; nine-tenths of whom are Mohammedans. The remnant of 
the old Christian Church is also there. We found that Church 
utterly corrupt in doctrine, and still more in practical life. And the 
people were ignorant, without schools, without books, without the 
Bible. 

As soon as the American missions went there, they took with 
them a translation of the Bible, which was afterward superseded 
by an excellent version, the work of the late Dr. Cornelius Van 
Dyck of Beirut. So we have in Arabic, perhaps the best transla- 
tion of the Word of God from the original languages which exists. 

The Bible is distributed year by year increasingly. Last year 
over 20,000 copies were distributed in Egypt alone. 

Over forty men have been trained by our theological seminary 
as preachers of the Gospel. Half way between Cairo and Assouan 
is located the American Missionary Training College, in which 
there ^are to-day over 500 young men and boys, for the most part 
being educated for service as preachers and teachers. After they 
are trained in the sciences and the English language, and in the 
French language to a minor extent, they go down to Cairo where 
is our theological seminary. There they are taught systematic 
theology according to the system of Dr. Hodge; they are taught 
pastoral theology ; they are taught Scripture interpretation from the 
book compiled in Arabic by Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D. 

The evangelical Church in Egypt is gradually coming up toward 
full self-support. There was contributed last year over $26,000 
by these native Christians for evangelical work, not including what 
they paid for rehgious books, Bibles, or educational books, nor 
what they paid for the support of their 180 congregational 
schools. 



* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 



44° WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

North Africa 

Mr. J. Hargrave Bridgeford, Missionary, North African Mis- 
sion* 

North Africa begins with Morocco. Next we come to Algeria, 
then to Tunis, then to TripoH, and then to Egypt; a stretch of 
coast of 2,500 miles. There is a population of 20,000,000, so far as 
we know, in that 2,500-mile belt along the coast. Then comes the 
Sahara belt, and then the Sudan. There are probably 20,000,000 
Mohanmiedans in those countries. 

The North African Mission is conducted like the China Inland 
Mission. It is dependent on God's servants generally, irrespect- 
ive of creed — ^and we accept workers irrespective of creed. Of 
these there are over 100 at present working. When medical mis- 
sions appeared in those regions, the people were glad ; the houses 
opened; the cafes opened; the towns opened, and then we found 
we were able to reach the masses of the people. Medical mission 
work seems to be of the highest importance, for the people will 
come for miles for medical relief. In Morocco there is no such 
thing as any native relief for sickness, and they will come any dis- 
tance, from one end of Morocco to the other, when they hear of a 
doctor ; and then they hear the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Sometimes they are fanatical; at other times they are quiet, and 
we have seen the power of the Gospel penetrating their hearts and 
leading them to the Saviour. 

To illustrate the wonderful intiuence of medical mission work: 
One of our doctors and his wife were traveling to Fez, and the 
road came to the seashore, and a huge mass of earth and rock, like 
a small mountain, had fallen down and blocked the way. When 
they got there they knelt down and asked God's protection, be- 
cause they knew the land was inhabited by a band of robbers. Then 
they went straight on toward a village. As they drew near to the 
village, a man met them and he came and kissed the doctor. It 
was a man who had gone to Morocco from that tribe to consult 
the doctor, and who had been restored to health. This man was 
glad to see them, he led them right into the center of the tribe, and 
gave them the best of everything. That shows you how medical mis- 
sion work touches the heart, and opens a way for the Gospel. 

Syria 

IvEv. WiLi.TAM Jessup, Missionary Presbyterian Church, U. S. 
A. Zahleh^ Syria.'-^ 

I am dividing the work which has been done in Syria into edu- 
cational, evangelistic, and medical work, beginning with the com- 
mon frontier school, with the a-b-c class, and classes in the Scrip- 
tures in the Arabic. The pupils are taught the sciences, but all 
subordinate to the evangelistic purpose. With that as a begin- 
ning, the children are promoted to the academy and' boarding 
school, or the Industrial School at Sidon, where young men are 
taught that work is honorable, and that it is not a shame to carry 
anything through the street. 

* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 



SYRIA 441 

If a student has ability, he goes on from there into the college, 
thus gaining a complete course of education. The theological 
seminary is one of the branches of the education which we give. 
In this branch we put students first upon the frontier and tell them 
to prove whether they are really capable of preaching the Gospel 
as lay workers. Then we give them six months' theological train- 
ing, and then send them back for another six months to put it in 
practice, and so on, until practice and learning have been com- 
bined, and until we feel them to be fully prepared for work. 

I need scarcely describe to you the college at Beirut, with over 
400 young men on its roll, and its corps of American and Syrian 
instructors. 

The evangelistic work is not only that done by the American 
missionaries, but that which is done by the lay workers, by or- 
dained preachers, or by licentiates. 

Then there is the work of the medical missionaries which often 
opens the door for the missionary as no other work can open it. 

And, finally, there is the work of publishing books and news- 
papers. The sales of religious books during the last year were 
greater than they have ever been before. And I am glad to say 
that the Bible is the best selling book in Syria. 

Miss M. C. Holmes, Missionary, Presbyterian Church, U. S. 
A., Tripoli, Syria* 

The light began to shine for women in Syria when the 
Christian missionaries went there. Schools were opened; the 
printing-press was set up; the girls of the so-called Christian sects 
began to read, and to look through the eyes of books and papers 
at what their sisters in other lands were doing. 

The Mohammedans were invited to send their girls to school. 
They said: " No! we can educate cats just as well as we can edu- 
cate our daughters!" And one man, who was asked to send his 
daughter to the new school which had just been established, re- 
plied: " Wouldn't you like to have the cow go along, too? " 

In a certain city in Syria is a large Mohammedan school for girls, 
operated and directed by the local Government. It is an endowed 
school, receiving funds from the Sultan himself. They teach the 
girls to read and to write; but if the girls learn to read the Koran, 
they can also read the Arabic Bible, which is being circulated 
everywhere. 

The village schools away out in the interior are entering wedges. 
There was one school started for boys which had an indirect in- 
fluence on the women. In it was a iDoy wdio learned to read the 
Bible, which was a daily textbook. He took it home and read to 
his mother at night, until she found that Jesus Christ was her 
Saviour; and one day, when one of the missionaries was visiting 
that village and examining the school, this mother came, leading 
her boy by the hand, and carrying a bunch of wheat on her head. 
"Sir," she said, to the missionary, " they tell me my boy is a 
bright boy; that he has learned to read rapidly. There is nothing 

* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 



442 WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

I can do for my Master, I have only just learned to love Him, but 
I have brought my boy to you, and I want you to teach him to 
speak for Jesus. If you will send him to school, I will furnish his 
clothing- and his bed." And then taking the wheat from her head, 
she said: " The enemy came to the threshing floor, and took away 
much of my grain; then the tithe-gatherer took a tithe of what was 
left; but I bring to you the tithe of what has been left to mb, and I 
want you to take it and educate my boy." That boy to-day is one 
of the professors in the Christian college at Beirut. No nation has 
ever risen above the condition of its women, and what we are try- 
ing to do is to Christianize the Syrian women. 

Work Among Nusariyeh 

Miss M. R. Wylie, Missionary, Reformed Presbyterian Church, 
Latakia, Syria."^ 

One of the branches of the work in the mission of the Reformed 
Presbyterian Church which I represent is among the Nusariyeh. 
They inhabit the mountains east of the coast of the Mediterranean 
Sea, from Tripoli, Syria, to Mersine, Asia Minor. They arc fire- 
worshipers and also a secret society. They are divided into clans, 
who keep up constant feuds with one another, always requiring 
blood for blood. 

I once heard of a most barbarous chief, who fell into the hands 
of an opposing clan. They told him that he must suffer for every 
woman whom he had made a widow, every child he had made 
fatherless, and for every parent he had made childless. His toes 
were cut off one by one, then his feet, then his fingers and hands, 
his legs and arms, and his tongue was cut out. Finally, his head 
was cut ofif. 

The Nusariyeh women are not admitted into their religion. 
Woman is thought to have no soul, and to have been created from 
one of the sins of Satan to serve man. I knew a woman, who, 
when her baby was two days old, was too weak to get up and find 
her husband's knife. He had her laid out in the hot sun, and for- 
bade anyone to move her, until in two days she died. She was a 
good woman, and had carried her children on foot, eighteen miles 
to have them baptized. 

There is much diflficulty in reaching these people, because, 
though heathen, they are called Mohammedans by the govern- 
ment ofScials. They are treated as if Mohammedans, and guarded 
closely against any Christian teaching. There are three ways of 
working among these people: First, by evangelists going from 
village to village. Second, by means of the hospital in Latakia, 
where they are taught every day, so that not a patient leaves the 
hospital who has not heard that he is a sinner and can be saved 
by the blood of Christ. Third, by means of the boarding schools. 
The girls have no choice whom they may marry, they are sold by 
their fathers. A girl often has no friends at all till she is of mar- 
riageable age, when suddenly a brother, uncle, or cousin appears, 
who claims the right to sell her. For this reason few are allowed 



* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 



THE HEBREWS 443 

to remain with us until they graduate. But everyone who has 
remained has pubHcly professed Christ and has been baptized. 

Pupils who were in the school fifteen or twenty years ago and 
who had not professed Christ, now bring their children to us, and 
we find that they have been taught by their mothers of the Saviour. 

I was once traveling, and we pitched our tents to spend the night. 
The women gathered around me and I told them a Bible story. 
One feeble, old woman listened attentively, and when I was 
through she said: " I know that story. My son was anxious to learn 
to read and I sent him to one of your village schools nine hours 
away. He brought home a Bible and reads to me every night. I 
believe in the Saviour, and that when I die I will go to heaven." 

When it seems so nearly impossible to reach these people, I 
think of this old woman and of what God said to Elijah: '* Yet have 
I left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees who have not 
bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." 

Palestine 

Rev. C. T. Wilson, Missionary Church Missionary Society, 
Jerusalem* 

We have various agencies for reaching the people, and one of 
the best of these is the medical missions. Our newest medical mis- 
sion in Moab, the back door of Arabia, is doing a splendid work. 

Of late years, woman's work has wonderfully developed in 
Palestine. We have in various villages ladies, missionaries, living 
among the people; going about among them; teaching them in 
classes and individually ; sympathizing with them in their sorrows ; 
caring for them in sickness ; preaching Christ and living Christ. 

We have again, in the city of Jerusalem itself, various agencies 
for reaching the people, not only of Palestine, but of many another 
land; for Jerusalem, as of old, draws to itself people from every 
part of the world. Not long ago I found there was a colony from 
the River Niger living in Palestine. A few years ago, returning 
home from one of our out-stations, I overtook a tall, thin, soldierly 
looking man, and in the course of conversation with him, I found 
that he was from Afghanistan. We have a Bible depot where we 
keep Christian literature in some thirty-six languages. Here we 
have services three times a week, at night. 

The work in Palestine is thus reaching not only the people in 
Palestine, but many others, east, west, north, and south, and I be- 
lieve that ere long we shall see a great ingathering. The seed has 
been sown, and there it lies, waiting for the rain that will make it 
«;pring forth in living green. 

The Hebrews 

Rev. J. Fairley Daly, M. A., B.D., Glasgozu.^ 

One thing about the Jews which must interest us all is their 

rapid growth. I have authority for saying that about fifty years 

ago they did not number more than 3,000,000 or 4,000,000; to-day 

their numbers are nearer 11,000,000 or 12,000,000. Seven or eight 

* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 
t Chapter Room, Carnegie Hall, April 23. 



444 WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

million of them are in European lands, about one-half million 
or more are to be found in Asia, a million will be found, it is 
said, in Africa, and more than a million in America. Now, it is a 
remarkable fact that during that short time these people should 
have grown so rapidly. Statisticians tell us to-day that they are 
growing at the rate of thirty-five per cent, more than anv other 
people. 

Another interesting fact in connection with this people is, I 
think, the anti-Semitic movement which has manifested itself dur- 
ing these past years in Europe. That movement is by no means 
creditable to our Christian nations, but it is largely due to the very 
fact that these people have grown so rapidly in influence. They 
are found to-day in the forefront of politicians, of lawyers, of 
bankers, and of editors. They hold the most influential positions 
in almost every land in Europe. 

Another interesting fact in connection with the Jews is the great 
national movement termed Zionism, largely a consequence of the 
anti-Semitic movement. This movement has compelled our Jew- 
ish brethren to feel that if their lives are to be made endurable 
they must find their way to other lands, where they will have kind- 
lier treatment. They have come in large numbers and are still 
coming to America. But among them has grown up a deep interest 
in their own land of Palestine, and an earnest longing to return 
to that land. About a million Jews are connected with this move- 
ment. They are starting a large fund for the purpose of buying 
Palestine from the Turk. Unfortunately, the movement is more 
political than religious, and some of the best people among the 
Jews are not favorably inclined toward it. 

Another matter of great interest in connection with the Jews 
to-day is their growing willingness to hear the Gospel. That 
could not have been said some years ago, and even to-day there is 
a strong feeling of antagonism toward Christianity; the wounds of 
the past are still open in many cases. Nevertheless, the influence 
of Christianity upon the Jews is growing. Lately, Dr. Moody, of 
our mission at Budapest, took a tour of several weeks away from 
that center, and found himself in the very heart of Jewish communi- 
ties. He met them in trade, spoke to them in the streets, and re- 
ceived them by night at his hotel, and they were not only willing 
to listen to him, but were anxious to question him. They were 
very ignorant, and they asked him again and again who Paul was, 
but they showed no antagonism to Christianity ; seeming, indeed, 
to be anxious to hear about Christ. They were very willing to be 
told about the way of pardon for sin, admitting that their own 
atonement service could bring the anxious soul no pardon. I be- 
lieve that the ITcbrow translation of the New Testament is doing 
a great work among the Jews. 

Rev. David W. TorrancI'., M.D., jMissioiiary Free Cliiiirli of 
Scotland, Tiberias, Syria^- 

Are the Jews not a factor in the world? Will you find any na- 

* Chapter Room, Carnegie Hall, April 23. 



THE HEBREWS 445 

tion of so small a number exercising so much influence in the 
world? There are twelve millions of them in the world, but in 
finance, in art, in literature, and in science, they are in the fore- 
ranks. Can we, as Christians, undertaking the evangelization of 
the world, put the Jew away in the background? No, they are 
all over the world, they speak every language, and if they were 
permeated with the love of Christ what missionary could you get 
that would keep pace with them? The spirit of Christianity 
evinced by Eastern Christians toward the Jew is : If I can catch 
you I will crucify you for having crucified my Saviour. So we 
have at Tiberias Jews influenced by the spirit of striving to get rid 
of Christendom, having in their breasts a secret desire for ven- 
geance toward all Christians ; for they remember all the tales of 
cruelty told them by their parents ; how century after century, and 
generation after generation, they have been trampled upon. Do you 
think a Jew would welcome a Christian missionary at Tiberias? 
No, it is not thought of; and it was with this knowledge and pre- 
paredness for persecution that I went there in 1884. 

I was a medical missionary; there was no skilled medical aid 
there, and people were dying around me. You had only to walk 
through the streets to see the misery and pain people were in, and 
naturally people came when they heard the English doctor was 
there, but the moment the Gospel was preached, bans of excom- 
munication were issued from the Synagogue against anyone who 
might have relations of any kind with the missionary. What was 
to be done? If there is anything beautiful in a Jewish home, it is 
love of the Jewish mother toward her child. The mothers, in de- 
fiance of the ban, brought their children to the doctor; the children 
won the mothers and the mothers won the fathers. 

So, by degrees we got our medical mission established. As the 
rabbis noticed the people were coming again, they would strive 
to stop them; but God has wonderful ways of overcoming opposi- 
tion. One of the chief rabbis, who scowled at me and at every- 
body who would speak a kind word to me, had a daughter who went 
out of her mind. The friends sent for the missionary doctor. 
Rational treatment brought her to her senses again, and this 
checked the opposition of the rabbi. 

It was not only the Jews that we had to fight against, so to 
speak, in order to gain a position at Tiberias. The Turkish Gov- 
ernment was against all foreigners coming into the place. But for- 
tunately, the Turks, as well as Jews, are human, and are heirs to 
sickness. The Jewish rabbi whom I have mentioned became ill. 
He got some trouble with his throat and was choking, and sent for 
me. A little medical aid relieved him; and from that day he never 
spoke one word against the missionary. Turkish Governors, too, 
have been dependent upon our aid, and so at last we felt strong 
enough to erect mission houses and a hospital. We had the 
aid oi the local authorities, and in a remarkably short time we got 
a -firman from the Sultan, simply through the testimony of those 
who had been our patients and seen the benefits of these missions. 

It is a difficult thing to get a Jew to listen to the Gospel. Jews 



446 WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

will not come to a church in Palestine, and perhaps, you would 
not come either if you were in the Jews' place, if you knew the 
persecution and pain that you would be subjected to, and so I think 
that there is no method like that of medical missions to give 
the Gospel to the people. At the dispensary, we have an address 
before we begin our work, and, let me say, I don't believe it is right 
to say to one that is sick: "We will not see you unless you attend 
this preliminary service." If you leave an open door and make 
anyone welcome who comes in, and let it be known that anyone 
who cares to go out, is welcome to go out, you will find very few 
will go out. They will come in sometimes, and we have an audi- 
ence there varying from 60 to 150 of a morning, listening to the 
plain Gospel. Of course, it is with many interruptions. And then 
one by one you see the sick ; not in crowds, for we see them now 
with the help of English and native nurses. Of eye cases, we 
sometimes have fifty or sixty in a day; we see them only once a 
week, and leave the nurses to care for them the rest of the time. 
We have tracts, and gospels, and leaflets ready, and when they get 
one of these they look about suspiciously, and put it inside of their 
clothing lest someone should see it, and then away they go out- 
side! If any are seriously ill we take them up to the hospital, 
which is a perfect heaven, compared with their own homes. We 
have everything of the very finest, not the worst, but everything of 
the very finest; spotless sheets, spotless floors, and spotless walls, 
and the nurses there are very angels in the sight of these rough 
Arabs and these conceited Jews. At the hospital we gather fhem 
in the morning at eight o'clock in one of the wards and have an 
address, and those who have been in hospital a month or two have 
got accustomed to the singing and join in it. Every patient has a 
Bible in his hand, for he likes to read it. I can not do very much 
because the needs of the body are always crying' loudest, but in the 
evening, about seven o'clock, when the day's work is done, some 
remark may lead me into conversation with some of these patients, 
and then all the ward will listen. Then one can get at the hearts of 
these people, and then one hears them giving witness: " Yes, that 
is true." They all recognize the Fatherhood of God and the one- 
ness of humanity, and I try to point out to them how man can find 
out God and God's justice and live in Christ, and they are not in 
hospital two or three weeks before they know the story of Jesus 
Christ. The result is that in the hospital you will see them confess- 
ing Christ, giving their hearts to Christ. But the moment they 
leave the hospital it is a different story. You will find the Jews 
leaving for America, for Australia, for South America. They dare 
not confess Christ among their brethren. But it is for us faithfully 
to preach the Gospel, leaving all issues with God. Pray, then, for 
the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love her. 

Mr. Mark Levy, Nczv York.^ 
Between the end of the eighth and the commencement of the 
twelfth chapter of Romans. Paul introduces a sublime api:)cal to the 

♦Chapter Room, Carnegie Hall, April 23. 



THE HEBREWS 447 

Gentile Christians for mercy on Israel. Herein we have a con- 
spicuous instance of the divine ordering of the Sriptures. As we 
review the treatment of the Jews throughout the centuries, not 
only in Cathohc but also in Protestant lands, will anyone dare say 
that the plea and warning of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters 
of Romans were unnecessarv? 

In the midst of this special plea of Paul for his brethren occur 
the remarkable words: " How then shall they call on him in whom 
they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him whom 
they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 
And how shall they preach except they be sent? " Yet, hardly one 
of the great missionary societies of the United States represented 
here gives serious thought to the evangelization of the Jews! Is 
this generous? Is it just to the people " whose are the fathers, and 
of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh ? " is not the Gospel to 
the Jew first? 

But there is a point whereat a far deeper spiritual wrong is done 
to the children of Israel than in either neglect or hatred. The 
Hebrew leaders of the early Church, in their misunderstanding of 
God's plan concerning the Gentiles, endeavored to place upon them 
the yoke of the law. After much contention the Court of Apostles 
at the Council of Jerusalem, as a result of the plea of Paul and 
Barnabas, removed every unnecessary burden. To-day the Gen- 
tile leaders of the Church, with the positions reversed, are making 
an identical mistake in compelling Hebrews who have accepted 
the Messiahship of Jesus to forsake entirely their ancient cere- 
monies. 

This unscriptural attitude has caused the light of the Gospel to 
be almost entirely withdrawn from Jewish circles; brought much 
confusion and scandal to the activities of the Church, and been the 
occasion of multiplied sorrows alike to the convert and his kins- 
men, who regard him as a traitor. 

The Hebrew leaders of the primitive Church were not in the will 
of God when they strove to Judaize the Gentile followers of our 
Lord. The Gentile leaders of the Church are darkening the bright 
revelation of God's most holy Word when they strive to Gentilize 
the Jewish followers of Jesus in this our day. Many years after 
becoming a follower of Jesus, Paul deliberately said : " I am a Jew."* 
In the same chapter he asserts his Roman citizenship, and in other 
Scriptures declares he has set his affections on things above, and 
that his citizenship is in heaven. In his loyalty to Christ he did not 
despise his Jewish birthright nor undervalue his position as a free- 
born Roman, but used them to the glory of God and in the interests 
of his fellowmen. Then, whv should Jews be compelled, when 
thev confess love for the Lord Jesus Christ, unnecessarily and un- 
scripturally to present an attitude the reverse of love toward na- 
tional and social institutions commanded by God and revered for 
centuries by our Israelistic forefathers! 

Great misunderstanding has arisen in the Church because the 
Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants are so often confounded one 

* Acts xxii:3. 



44^ WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

with another. Abraham " received the sign of circumcision, a seal 
of the righteousness of faith which he had while he was in uncircum- 
cision; that he might be the father of ah them that beheve, though 
they may be in uncircumcision; that righteousness might be reck- 
oned unto them." This covenant of the righteousness of faith, of 
wliich circumcision is the seal, " the law, which came 430 years af- 
ter, doth not disannul." 

One of the first acts of St. Paul after leaving the Council of 
Jerusalem, where he had pleaded so nobly for social freedom for 
the Gentiles, was to circumcise Timothy. Martin Luther, com- 
menting on this circumstance, says: " It is just as if I should go 
among the Jews in order to preach the Gospel and should find that 
they were weak. I might, in that case, be willing to submit to cir- 
cumcision and to eat or even abstain as they do, but I would do all 
this in no other case, and no longer than while I could be with them 
to labor for the Gospel." 

With equal truth we can say the Passover was instituted previous 
to the giving of the law, " This day shall be unto you for a me- 
morial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your 
generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever," are 
words which the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of 
Egypt, and not on Mount Sinai. Does not the remembrance of 
our national redemption from Egyptian bondage deepen our under- 
standing and love for our eternal redemption from the bondage 
of sin in the blood of Christ? 

Our American brethren observe Independence Day, our Cana- 
dian brethren Dominion Day, and our British brethren the Queen's 
birthday, in the homelands and elsewhere, without dishonoring 
their Christian faith. Why, then, forbid Hebrew Christians ob- 
serving their day of national redemption, even though they be far 
from the Promised Land, as our fathers were in the days when the 
feast was instituted? 

Then, again, is not the Feast of Tabernacles a memorial of our 
wanderings in the wilderness and a thanksgiving for the ingathered 
harvest, which will be antitypically fulfilled when Christ comes a 
second time to gather the children of Israel as a spiritual harvest 
after their rebellious wanderings of centuries? 

Again, when missionaries of the Cross go to the Orient and else- 
where, do they not become, in social and national customs, as 
heathen to the heathen, to gain the heathen; even going so far in 
China as to shave their heads, wear the queue, eat with chopsticks, 
and wear the national costume? Why, then, this unscriptural lack 
of wisdom concerning the customs of the Hebrews when you seek 
to win them for Christ? 

Very much is made of Paul's reproof of Peter at Antioch. On 
his last visit to Jerusalem "James and all the elders were present; 
and when he had saluted them, he rehearsed one by one the things 
v/hich God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry. And 
they, when they heard it, glorified God, and they said unto him: 
Thoti seest, brother, how many myriads Cmargin) there are among 
the Jews of tlu-ni whirli have believed; and they are all zealous for 



TURKEY 449 

the law; and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou 
teachest all the jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake 
Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, neither to 
walk after the customs." 

It is to be noted that the myriads of Jews herein referred to were 
pilgrims from all lands, who had come up to keep the feast of 
Pentecost. They were Jews, resident among the Gentile nations, 
believers in the Lord Jesus, and yet zealous of the law for their 
brethren's sake. Did Paul reprove them for their national loyalty, 
as he had reproved Peter at Antioch for his racial bigotry? Nay, 
verily, he gladly responded to their invitation to prove that he him- 
self was walking orderly and keeping the law, as he had at Cen- 
chrea and elsewhere, not in bondage, but in perfect liberty. 

The Epistle to the Hebrews was partly written against the un- 
scriptural position of the Judaizers, who were depending upon 
works of the law for salvation, as books are written to-day against 
the teachings of brethren who declare that certain forms of bap- 
tism, or belief of certain creeds, are necessary, if we would rest se- 
cure in our hope of eternal life. But because these extremists are 
wrong, the Church at large does not forbid baptism or the formula- 
tion of creeds. We ask you to be equally wise and just in respect 
to the legitimate ceremonies of the Hebrews, for Jews who have 
truly entered into the joys of salvation by faith are not likely to 
be again entangled in the yoke of the law. 

Turkey 

Rev. J. L. Barton, D.D., Secretary American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions* 

To understand the nature and extent of the mission problem in 
Turkey, we must take into consideration the fact that there are i6,- 
000,000 of people representing not less than a dozen separate na- 
tionalities, each one with its own peculiar language, religion, tradi- 
tions, and race characteristics. These races include the Turks, 
the Arabs, Circassians, and two classes of Kurds, all of whom are 
Mohammedans; numbering about three-fourths of the entire popu- 
lation or 12,000,000. The remaining 4,000,000 include Armenians. 
Greeks, Bulgarians, Syrians, Jacobites, Nestorians, and some oth- 
ers who are nominal Christians, but each having an entirely sepa- 
rate ecclesiastical svstem. 

The mission problem in Turkey was first to evangelize these an- 
cient nominal Christian churches which, in the absence of a Bible 
in the spoken language of the people, with little or no religious in- 
struction, and surrounded for ages with the deception, intrigue, and 
corruption of that land, had become simply forms of observance 
from which the spirit of Christianity had largely departed. 

The missionaries of the American Board entered this country in 
182T. The original and sole plan of the missionaries was to in- 
troduce the simple Gospel into the old churches in the spoken lan- 
guage of the people, and expect that to work a reform. 

After an auspicious beginning, the leading ecclesiastics, alarmed 

* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 



45© WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

at the influence gained by evangelical ideas, excommunicated those 
who were committed to the movement, and so, perforce, a Protes- 
tant body was reluctantly formed. This was specially true of the 
Gregorian Oi Armenian Church. From the period of separation 
until the present, Protestant churches have been organized from 
all of those ancient churches, until, in the field above mentioned, 
there are now 130 churches with a total membership of over 12,000, 
but with more than 50,000 adherents. 

There are what may be called " three strategic points occupied 
and held in the evangelization of Turkey." 

1. The first strategic and decisive victory is an intellectual vic- 
tory. When missionary work began there three-quarters of a cen- 
tury ago, the word " school," but little in use anywhere and in any 
language, carried nothing of the meaning which it bears 'to-day. 
The best educated professed only to know how to read. In the 
rural and interior sections the densest ignorance prevailed. The 
primer was introduced and around this sprang up the primary and 
the boarding school. After half a century of planting and growth, 
the high schools and primitive theological training schools could 
not meet the demands of the newly awakened intellectual life. The 
college and the full-course theological seminary were as natural a 
product of the new educational system of the land, as was the 
earnest, widespread, religious inquiry, the result of independent 
thought developed by personal investigation. Robert College, at 
Constantinople, under the prophetic impulse of Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, 
was the pioneer in bearing the college name. The name was 
caught up from the Bosphorus and echoed from the Black Sea to 
Mesopotamia, until Armenia's cry for help was answered by 
Euphrates College at Harpoot, Central Turkey College at Aintab, 
and Anatolia College at Marsovan. The voice of crushed woman- 
hood was heard pleading for equal privileges, and so at Marash 
and Plarpoot, and last of all in the American College for Girls at 
Constantinople, the response has been given. 

2. The second strategic victory is in the line of literature. As 
the corruption in the old churches was due mainly to the absence 
of the Bible in the spoken language of the people, so, it was con- 
ceived, will their regeneration be brought about by putting the 
Bible nito the hands of the reading common people, translated into 
a language which they can readily understand. With little delay 
the Bible, which from the first all the Christian churches, in pro- 
found ignorance of its contents, almost worshiped as divine, was 
translated and issued in the vernacular. These include complete 
translations into the Arabic, the Turkish, the Armenian, the Bulga- 
rian, and the Syriac languages, and the Kurdish and Albanian in 
part. They have been followed by commentaries, concordances, Bible 
dictionaries. The schools necessitated the manufacture of entire 
series of textbooks in many of these languages. To meet the daily 
need of the people, a periodical literature sprang up in several differ- 
ent languages, circulating in the strongholds of some of these ancient 
churches. 

One of the pioneers in creating a Christian literature for the mul- 



EASTERN TURKEY 451 

titudinoiis races of Turkey, is Rev. Elias Riggs, D.D., LL.D., who 
joined the mission in 1832. After sixty-eight years of unparalleled 
successful literary work, during which period he has but once vis- 
ited the homeland, he is to-day engaged in revising, for the second 
time, the Bulgarian Bible, which he originally translated, and in 
writing Greek and Bulgarian hymns for a new hymn book. 

3. I have purposely put the evangelistic victory last of the three, 
for it is the crown and end of all. 

In evangelization, the missionaries, and later the native workers, 
attempted, not to attack the old churches, their rituals or their meth- 
ods, not to condemn their leaders, but to so present the Word of 
God and the commands of our Lord, in all of which they blindly and 
ignorantly professed belief, that the simple gospel would be in- 
telligently accepted and reform all else. The success is not meas- 
ured by the nearly 50,000 evangelical Christians who are num- 
bered among the Protestants. The great results are found in the 
changed idea which is found in a large measure in nearly if not all 
of the old churches of Turkey, that to live the life of Christ, is bet- 
ter than formally to worship Him, and that intelligence, purity, 
and righteousness are essential qualifications for high and sacred 
office in the Church. The evangelical spirit of independence of 
judgment, of personal responsibility, and of the necessity of the 
life's comporting with professed beliefs, is producing mighty 
changes everywhere. The missionaries are working, not for sepa- 
ration, but that the gospel, with its light and power, may penetrate 
every department of the nominal Christian churches, making them 
again living temples in which our Lord may dwell. 

Eastern Turkey 

Grace Kimball, M.D., Resident Physician Vassar College, for- 
merly Missionary Van, Turkey* 

In Eastern Turkey we have to deal chiefly with the Armenians 
and with the Mohammedan races — namely, the Turks and the Kurds. 

The Turks are a strong people ; strong numerically, strong phys- 
ically, strong in character, and they are the people to be won for the 
Kingdom of God eventually. The Armenians present a good, an 
important, a necessary field of labor, but the Prince of Peace will 
rule ip Turkey only after the gifted, imperious, ruling Turk comes 
under His sway. The end may be far, but it will be reached. 
Therefore, when the Turk wants Christianity, let Christianity be 
ready to welcome him, with house set in order. How can we more 
efficiently set the house in order? 

1. By increasing the missionary force and holding it at the point 
of working efficiency. 

2. By constantly and greatly increasing the efficiency of our Pub- 
lication Department, and by raising the standard of the work done. 
A vast work has been accomplished in the past by this department, 
and the demand for its services was never so great nor its oppor- 
tunities so imperative as now. The printed page goes where the 
living voice can not reach. 

* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 



452 WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

3. By increasing missionary instrumentalities and improving 
those already used. What the missionary presents to the people 
among whom he labors should always be better of its kind than 
anything they themselves are capable of producing, whether it be 
spiritual truth or material equipment. Moreover, it should be 
skillfully and studiously adapted to the actual needs of the people. 

School equipment in most places is greatly inadequate, and mis- 
sion schools are beginning to feel the competition of non-evangel- 
ical native establishments. Medical missionaries have a boundless 
field. Orphanages offer a wonderful opportunity as the veritable 
nursery of the household of Christ. Industrial schools everywhere 
should relieve the congestion in the higher academic schools, now 
in danger of turning out too many brain-trained and too few hand- 
trained men and women. 

Finally: The opportunity for Christian work in Turkey was 
never so bright as it is now. The people of Turkey are coming to 
realize more and more that the evangelical Christian missionary 
is in Turkey with none other than a benevolent and non-political 
object, and to admit that if his work is of God, it will be crowned. 

Missionaries and Government 

Rev. George Washburn, D.D., LL.D., President Robert Col- 
lege, Constantino pie j^ 

There seems to be an impression among many people in this 
country, and especially among many of the newspaper writers, that 
the American missionaries in Turkey are engaged in some fierce 
conflict with the Turkish Government, and that they have called 
upon the Government of the United States to sustain and aid them 
in this conflict. The facts are totally different from that. 

American missionaries in Turkey have no political ends in view, 
of any kind or shape whatever. They have not gone to Turkey 
either to overthrow the Turkish Government, or to reform the 
Turkish Government, or to have anything to do with the ruling of 
the country. All that any American missionary asks of Turkey is 
that he should be protected in those rights which are guaranteed 
to all Americans by solemn treaty between the United States and 
Turkey. As a general rule, the relations in which missionaries 
stand to the Turkish Government are of the most friendly charac- 
ter; and the last thing that any missionary in Turkey desires is to 
have a conflict with the Turkish authorities. I am not connected 
directly with any missionary society. I have lived in Turkey for 
forty-two years, and I know pretty well what the American mis- 
sionaries in Turkey are doing, and I can testify that it is always 
their special effort to avoid doing anything which can give to the 
Turkish Government reason for making complaints against them.. 
They obey the laws, and respect the authorities of the country. As 
you know, certain circumstances have arisen in that country which 
have given rise to certain claims, but the position which the mis- 
sionaries take in regard to these things is exactly that which has 
been laid down bv the Government of the United States. This 



* Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 21 



MISSIONARIES AND NATIONALITY 453 

position has been stated over and over again by the most distin- 
guished Secretaries of State, who have had these questions in hand. 
It is this, to put it in the language of Mr. Blaine, when he was Sec- 
retary of State : 

" For us to ask from the Turkish Government for anything for 
missionaries which we would not ask for merchants would be 
unjust. To ask for them anything less than we ask for merchants 
would be still more unjust." 

That is the principle which has been laid down by our Govern- 
ment, and so far as I know, all the missionaries in the Turkish Em- 
pire are perfectly ready and content to leave their interests in the 
hands of those who have them in hand at Washington to-day. We 
believe that the United States Government will protect the treaty 
rights of all its citizens, whether they are called merchants or 
whether they are called missionaries. 

Missionaries and Nationality 

F. Perry Powers, Editor, Journal of Commerce and Commer- 
cial Bulletin, Nczv York* 

It is not the purpose of missionaries in Turkey, and it never was 
their intention, to weaken any national feeling. But there is no 
such conception of nationality among Asiatic peoples as there is 
among us. In the first place, nationality and religion go together ; 
you separate a man from his religion, and you have already 
separated him from his nation. But in the second place, the differ- 
ent races and religions living together do not mix. Here we are 
in the habit of seeing various religions and a score of nationalities 
coalescing into one nation. In Turkey, different races, each with 
its own religion, have lived side by side for a thousand or fifteen 
hundred years without mixing. 

What is the idea of nationality to an inhabitant of Turkey? If 
the man is a Turk, religion and the State are inseparable. If he is 
an Armenian, his nationality is not the nationality of the Ottoman 
Empire, but of the Armenian people, which has been a mere recol- 
lection for a thousand years. The missionaries would be forced 
out of the country in six months by the Government, and our Gov- 
ernment would not protect them, if they were to try to cultivate the 
Armenian nationality. 

Again, it has not been the desire of missionaries in Turkey to 
spread the English language. On the contrary, I know that in my 
childhood it was the purpose of missionaries to prevent the spread 
of the English language, to prevent the acquisition of European 
habits by the converts. The Armenians who became Protestants, 
were discouraged from coming to this country or going to Eng- 
land. Literature was translated into their language, they were 
educated in their own language. But in spite of all that has been 
done to put literature into the languages of the people among 
whom the missionaries labor, you will see that the amount of the 
literature must be small, and with the growth of an educated class 
there is a desire, which the missionaries can not control, for access 



* Union Methodist Church, April 25. 



454 WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

to a wider intellectual field. So the men will learn English and so 
will the girls, for the sake of access to English literature. 

It is no part of the work of missionaries to spread the English 
language. Instruction in English has been forced upon them. I 
think English is now the school language of the American College 
for Girls in Constantinople; but that is a cosmopolitan institution in 
which some common language has to be used. Probably not 25 
per cent, of the pupils belong to any one nationality, and English is 
the most convenient language to use for all. 

Native Women Workers 

Miss C. Shattuck, Missionary, American Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions, Urfa, Turkey.'^ 

Several years ago, while I was yet connected with the Marash 
College, a graduate of the Aintab Seminary came to us, hoping to 
take the advanced course. She was found too feeble physically to 
remain more than one year, and vmable to take the regular course 
of that year, but she failed not to impress upon the whole school a 
deep, consecrated state of heart. Afterward she was set to work 
as a Bible reader in Kessab. Soon we began to hear of a wonder- 
ful condition in that town. Although the church was large and 
self-supporting, it had been discouraging in many respects. In 
the thirty years of its existence more than twenty-five pastors and 
teachers had been there. No one could remain any length of time. 
A spirit of feud between two leading families was handed down 
from generation to generation. Therefore, we listened very in- 
tently to the reports that came from this quiet, unassuming girl. 
We heard that she called from house to house, gathered the most 
devout women she could find for prayer that God would visit them 
with His Spirit. A Httle after we heard that some were seeing 
visions and dreaming dreams. People began to shake their heads 
— " This is fanatical; this is nothing that will last." We heard, too, 
of the healing of quarrels among the women. After a time all the 
community was swept under the influence of that revival. The 
church membership numbered some 1,500. Those that were most 
skeptical, on visiting the place, said nothing like it had been seen 
in years in our mission. 

Since the massacre the opportunities in Urfa are peculiar. The 
people are hungry for the Bread of Life. Sometimes we have had 
twenty-two Bible women going from house to house. They have 
not only read the Bible, they have taught reading to those who 
longed to read for themselves. Just before I came away, when we 
met on the Sabbath for the Bible lesson, I asked them : " How 
many have learned to read the Bible from you?" "Over 1,000," 
was the reply. " But you must not think this is all," they said, " al- 
most everyone we have taught has turned about to teach someone 
else. At least you must estimate 2,000, and probably more." The 
wonderful power of these women in their evangelistic meetings, 
which they hold regularlv twicf^ a wr^k in six different parts of the 
city, has been sealed by the Spirit of God. 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 26. 



THE GREEKS OF TURKEY 455 

The American College for Girls, Constantinople 

Miss Mary Mills Patrick, Ph.D., President American Col- 
lege for Girls, Constantinople.'^ 

This college was founded as a high school in 1871. In 1890 
seventy-one graduates had been sent out, of nine different nation- 
alities. During that year a charter was obtained from the Legis- 
lature of Massachusetts, which incorporates the institution as an 
American college. The college is situated in Scutari, on the Asi- 
atic shore of the Bosphorus. 

The students come from Athens on the west; from Russia, Rou- 
mania, and Bulgaria on the north; and from the east as far as the 
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and from Egypt, Syria, and the 
Greek Islands on the south. 

The Dean of the College, who is in charge of Biblical literature, 
was the first woman to study divinity under Dr. Fairbairn, of 
Mansfield College in Oxford, and several of the professors have 
taken extended courses of study in German universities. We 
have graduated fifty-one young women from the college, who are 
filling positions of honor and influence in many different lands. 
One, an Albanian, returned to her country to establish there the 
first school for Albanian girls ever taught in the Albanian language. 
Another, a Bulgarian, is at the head of a large school at Salonica; 
another was married last year to a member of the Bulgarian Parlia- 
ment; another, a Dane, passed her examinations recently in Copen- 
hagen for the position of professional translator in English, 
French, German, Danish, and Italian. 

There are at present 160 students in the college. The academic 
language is English. Other languages taught are Latin, French, 
German, Ancient and Modern Greek, Ancient and Modern Ar- 
menian, Bulgarian, Slavic, and Turkish. 

There is a strong Alumnae Association, containing 120 graduates 
of the high school and college, which contributed last year $700, 
as the beginning of an endowment fund. The usual societies ex- 
ist and flourish in the college — Literary, Philanthropic, and Ath- 
letic. 

Many things show that the women of the East will not be far 
behind those of other lands in entering upon professional careers. 
There are at present in the college, a number of students who are 
looking forward to studying medicine. One of our graduates is 
already in the medical department of the Boston University. Sev- 
eral have translated books, and engaged in writing for the papers ; 
and we have at present in our junior class, a brilliant girl who has 
published one book, has a second in the hands of the puljlishers, and 
is now translating one of Shakespeare's plays into Turkish. 

The Greeks of Turkey 

Rev. Edv/ard Riggs, Missionary, American Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions, Marsovan, Tnrkey.'f 

For 2,000 years people have been studying the Greeks and prais- 
mg their heroic deeds. There are plenty of men here present who 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 26. t Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 13. 



456 WESTERN ASIA AND THE LEVANT 

are thoroughly conversant with classic Greek literature, but many 
of them are woefully ignorant as regards the condition of the 
Greeks to-day. 

The Greeks are the most important and the most interesting 
people of the Eastern Mediterranean. Besides occupying Greece 
itself, they are found in all the seacoast regions of Macedonia, 
and Asia Minor, and of Syria and Egypt ; and their language is the 
common medium of communication in all that seacoast region. 

The Greek people are profoundly attached to their Church; not 
that it provides for their spiritual needs, but because of its won- 
derful, continuous and rich record from the days of the Apostles 
down to the present time. But individuals here and there have for 
some time past realized the need of a deeper and more scriptural 
spirituality; and it has been the effort of American missionaries to 
bring such to a knowledge of evangelical truth. A weekly news- 
paper was started by a man who, himself, was a Greek, although 
sent out from America as a missionary, and for twenty-five years 
that standard of the truth was floating from Athens; but, alas, it 
had to be discontinued because of the failure of financial support. 

There are now churches and communities of individuals scat- 
tered all through Greece and Turkey, who hold to spiritual truth. 
In the region of Athens there is a group of churches united in a 
synod. Just across the gean, in the region of Smyrna, there is 
another group of churches, and they co-operate with each other 
under the name of the " Greek Evangelical Union." Connected 
with this union there is one church far out on the Black Sea coast, 
at Ordu, near Trebizond, a noble, strong, evangelical church, 
standing virtually alone. 

In Constantinople, at three or four different places, Gospel truth 
is proclaimed from Sabbath to Sabbath in the Greek language 
with fair attendance. All along the Black Sea coast the people 
are studying the Scriptures, and trying to worship God and live ac- 
cording to the requirements of the Scriptures. 

In Marsovan, we have a Theological Seminary. Of the last two 
classes the majority of the members were Greeks, who are to-day 
preaching the Gospel to their Greek brethren. 

The Greek clergy are ignorant, and opposed to every moral and 
spiritual uplift. But we see that the gospel has gone forth among 
the Greek laity, and there are promises of fruit, great in quantity 
and glorious in quality. 

Social Influence of Missions in Turkey 

Rev. Lewis T. Reed, Cummington, Mass.* 

What is the social influence of missions in Turkey? Reports 
say that in Turkey are 225 missionaries from the two greater 
societies. Congregational and Presbyterian; 155 organized churches, 
an annual expenditure of $225,000. a Protestant community of 
60,000 souls ; five colleges, six theological seminaries, over 600 other 
schools. What do these statistics mean for the life of the country? 

The home is the greatest specific gift of missions to Turkey. The 

♦ Madison Avenue Reformed Church, April 23. 



SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS IN TURKEY 457 

perfect flower of Anglo-Saxon civilization is the Christian home, 
wherein reign equality of love and service on the part of equally 
educated and equally responsible parents. The personal example 
of missionaries as well as education through our schools and pub- 
lications have made the American home real in Turkey. Villages 
that, before the advent of the missionary, knew only houses of mud 
and thatch, where human beings and cattle herded together indis- 
criminately, have been transformed. The home has been created 
where one man dwells with one woman in a house where light, and 
order, and cleanliness reign. 

By the side of the home as a social gift, I would place the school 
system. It has touched the thought of men and women. It has 
transformed the hfe. It has rendered impossible the revolting 
child marriages of years ago on the part of our scholars, for edu- 
cation must precede. It has opened a new profession to women: 
teaching; it has given in our students a new factor in the body 
politic; men intelligent, industrious, moral, self-respecting; men 
who think, feel, and live on a high plane. 

Protestant missions have also trained their adherents in the prac- 
tice of one virtue, which is not always noted: temperance. In a 
land where the Muslims are, as a rule, abstainers, but v/here Chris- 
tianity is often disgraced by its unworthy disciples, missions have 
impressed upon their disciples that intemperance and the service of 
God are exclusive of each other. 

Finally, we will note the hospital. Eighteen thousand treat- 
ments annually is the record of this ministry in Asiatic Turkey 
alone! Van, Harpoot, Marsovan, Cssarea, Aintab, Beirut, are the 
centers of medical work. Feet that would never cross the threshold 
of the Protestant Christian's church or school press eagerly into 
the door of the Protestant Christian's hospital. 

Time fails me to speak of other influences which missions have 
brought into the social field: of the trades taught to boys, and 
housewifery to girls; of the gathering of waifs from the streets to 
be nurtured; of the machinery and modern conveniences carried 
into the country by the missionaries, and of their work in awaken- 
ing a slumbering people with the literature of the Western world. 
The missionary station is a power house, and the current it gene- 
rates is rousing even remote villages with the whirr of a new life. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

AFRICA 

Education for Opening New Fields— Capacity of the People-^All Doors Open 
• — German Missions — Oppressed Natives— Future Missionaries for Africa. 

Education for Opening New Fields 

Rev. Robert Laws, M.D., F. R. G. S., Missionary, Free Church 
of Scotland, Africa.'^ 

I think the best way I can help you to understand some of the 
problems of education as it appears to us in Africa is to try to 
bring you in touch with that mission field as it was when we went 
there and as it is now. 

Let us go back twenty-five years. At that time you would find a 
little company setting sail from London to go away to begin what 
has since been known as the work of the Livingstone Mission in 
Central Africa. We had to take two years' provisions, and then, 
having gone by a steamer to the Cape, we had to get a sailing ves- 
sel to take us to the mouth of the Zambesi. There we had to get 
a little vessel, proceed up the Zambesi River until we got to the 
cataracts, take our vessel to pieces, carry it seventy miles, build it 
again, and then sail to Lake Nyassa to begin our work. 

So we got onto the lake. Now what was facing us there? I would 
like you to understand that. There was no Congo known at that 
time, except its mouth, for Stanley left London only a fortnight 
before I did. None of the missions along the Congo and on 
other great African lakes were in existence then. Sitting down 
on a rock one Sabbath afternoon near the south end of Lake 
Nyassa, I looked away across the hills to the west. I could start 
from those hills and walk westward, westward, westward, week 
after week, meeting thousands of villages, millions of people, and, 
until I came to the west coast of Africa itself, I would not meet 
with a single missionary of the cross of Christ, nor find one when 
I arrived there. Away to the northwest such a journey would take 
a month for every week that the other one did, before I could meet 
a missionary at Old Calabar. My nearest neighbors to the north 
were your American brethren at Assouan and Cairo. To the east, 
the nearest missionary friend was to be found at Zanzibar on the 
equator. Think of all that vast region with its millions of inhabit- 
ants, with the need of each individual to know Jesus Christ as a 
Saviour, and with no one seeming to care for their souls! 

Coming to the problem that faces us, what do we want to do 
as missionaries? To get the Gospel to every one of those people. 

♦Central Presbyterian Church, April 25. 



EDUCATION FOR NEW FIELDS 459 

And how is one man to do it? How are all the missionaries and 
missions there to do it ? I can tell you. Train the people. 

So we come to the educational question. In all that vast dis- 
trict to which I have referred there was not a literature such as 
you have in India and China. There wasn't a letter. The many 
tongues of the people were spoken languages which had to be re- 
duced to writing. 

Now, let us see the change that has taken place. In connectior 
\vith our own mission seven languages have been reduced to writ- 
ing. The whole of the New Testament and part of the Old has 
been translated into one language, the Gospel of Mark into three 
others, and the other Gospels into various other languages. In 
several of the languages school-books, hymn-books, and other 
books have been prepared. On the west side of Lake Nyassa, in 
1875, there were no schools, no teachers, no pupils, nobody who 
could read. During the last year we had in that district in con- 
nection with the Dutch and Scotch section of our mission, 123 
schools open for the whole or part of the year. In these schools 
we had 460 native teachers and monitors. The majority of them 
were not skilled teachers, I admit, but if a boy can read the New 
Testament in his own language, surely he can teach the alphabet 
and save my doing it. Carry this principle throughout our work — 
all departments of it — and you have the use of the natives in propa- 
gating the Gospel of Christ. 

In connection with these schools, we have an average attend- 
ance of 15,000 pupils, the highest attendance in a single day being 
22,228, and I am understating rather than overstating the numbers 
when I say, in connection with these schools, we have 30,000 pupils, 
old and young. There are some strange discrepancies in these 
figures. What do we mean by 15,000 in average attendance and 
30,000 connected with the schools? 

You say you will start school and the children will come and get 
a lesson. You get a class of boys before you, and you begin by 
showing them O and teaching them how to call it. You take an- 
other letter, and another, and another, but by the time you have 
got over four or five, your pupils are tired and it is time to stop 
that day. To-morrow you get your pupils again, and the next day, 
and the next day, but by that time they are very tired, and they 
go home to rest a week. After this week's rest, perhaps they will 
come back again. They remember O because it was round like 
the moon, but depend upon it, they have forgotten all the other 
letters, and you have to begin your work all over again. Per- 
haps you get to the end of the alphabet this time, but then your 
pupils will be very ti^ed indeed, and you will not see them for a 
fortnight. This is the beginning of work, not very promising, not 
very encouraging, but we have now come to recognize this as a sort 
of evolution, shall I rail it, of school life. 

But this is not all. Your pupils see that you pay for work, and 
they soon come to tell you that this counting of letters on a book 
is hard work and they need their pay. So the boys attending 
school each got a slip o^ paper, and it was marked each day. Then, 



460 AFRICA 

after a month, those who had been present all the time were ar- 
ranged in rows; those who learned most, at the top, and there was 
a distribution of prizes. The one at the top of the class got, per- 
haps, three needles; the next one got two needles; the next, one, 
and then, perhaps, another would get two pins, another, one pin, 
and so on; for pins were turned into fishhooks as soon as they 
got out of school. Then the teacher went around with a bowl full 
of something white, and a teaspoon, and each one got a teaspoon- 
ful or two of the contents of the bowl; and before he got around the 
class you would see the one at the top busily employed licking this 
white stuff. You may think it was sugar. No, it was salt. Salt 
was a very precious commodity in Central Africa. 

Now, then, what is the outcome of all this? It is good. It is 
a hard thing to raise a population the length of the alphabet. Per- 
haps you don't believe me. Take a picture in black and white, and 
the natives can not see it. You may tell the natives: "This is a 
picture of an ox and a dog," and the people will look at it and look 
at you, and that look says that they consider you a man whose 
character is to be represented by a word of four letters. Perhaps 
you say again: " Yes, that is a picture of an ox and a dog." Well, 
perhaps they will tell you what they think this time. If there are 
a few boys about, you say: " This is really a picture of an ox and a 
dog. Look at the horn of the ox, and there is his tail," and the 
boy will say: " Oh! yes, and there is the dog's nose, and eyes, and 
ears." Then the old people will look again, and then they will clap 
their hands, and say : " Oh ! yes, it is a dog." When a man has seen 
a picture for the first time, his book education has begun. 

But, dear friends, it is not. merely as an educational effort that 
we value this. We look upon our school work as one of the great- 
est, and most valuable, and most direct of our evangelistic agen- 
cies. If I could go out to Lake Nyassa to preach at a village, I 
might find an audience of fifteen, or fifty, or five hundred, but I am 
not able to get back to that village for a month, or six months, 
or a year, to preach again. There are villages where I have 
preached which I have never been able to visit again, and I have 
never heard of any other missionary being there. 

But in our schools, 16,000 pupils are each day receiving a lesson 
in the Scriptures. Most useful for this purpose have we found 
translations of a little book known as " Harry's Catechism." Ev- 
ery answer is a passage of Scripture, and our cflort is to saturate 
the minds of our people with God's Word, for we know that His 
Word must accomplish His purpose, and can not return unto Him 
void. So our pupils are taught to repeat those passages. You 
may say many of them do not understand what they learn. Quite 
true; but we find that when these pupils have gone away from 
school, in after days these passages of Scripture come back to their 
minds. God, the Holy Spirit, enables them to understand them, 
and we find the same people coming back to the missionary to 
enter a catechumen's class. 

That is one result, but here is anotlier. A boy has gof the 
length of being able to read the Gospel in his own tongue, and he 



CAPACITY OF THE PEOPLE 461 

goes to prepare his lesson after school is over. He sits down, per- 
haps, under a tree. At one side of him is his father, and with him 
a number of other men of the village, busily employed mending a 
net. Over here sits his mother and several women of the village 
pounding their corn, or sifting their flour for the evening meal. 
The boy begins to read. The father listens and the mother lis- 
tens. They are interested in their boy. He is the only one in the 
village who can make a book speak. Very soon they get to the 
end of the boy's knowledge, but, fortunately, not to the end of their 
own curiosity, and that sends them to the missionary to get an- 
swers to the questions which the boy could not answer. 

But I have another result. We arc face to face with the great 
question of the evangelization of Africa. We need to send the na- 
tives to evangelize their fellow-men, natives of the country and 
trained on the spot. Now, this is the outcome of our schoolwork. 
We seek Christian native pastors and Christian native teachers, and, 
just because of this vast extension of our work, we have had to 
proceed to the next step and form our institutions for the training 
of these natives for higher work. The native teacher must be in 
advance of the native class. There is no need that the native pas- 
tor should be equal to the European pastor. At all our stations we 
find the native Christians who are able to read going forth as evangel- 
ists. Every member joining the Christian church has to under- 
stand and promise that he will help to support that church, and will 
help to extend it. So at all the centers where there are European 
missionaries, you find a preachers' class with the male native mem- 
bers assembling Thursday or Friday, to study with the missionary 
the subject on which they are to preach the following Sabbath, and 
in this way every Sabbath there are several hundreds of services 
conducted by native Christians, with the result of the great ingath- 
ering that we have seen during the last four or five years. 

When I got home after nine years of work in Central Africa, I 
was able to tell of nine men and women believing in Jesus Christ, 
and baptized and admitted as members in His Church. Last May 
it was my privilege in one day to baptize exactly ten times as many, 
ninety adults. My three companions and myself baptized that day 
in all 309 adults, and the following day 148 children ; and 672 
people sat down at the Lord's table at that place, within sight of a 
hill, on the other side of which, only a few years before, these peo- 
ple had sought our lives when first we took the gospel to them. 
These are the changes that God has wrought, and hence we push 
forward this educational work that we may find and help these na- 
tives to become ambassadors of Christ to the regions beyond. 

Capacity of the People 

Rev. T. Wakefield, F.R.G.S., F.R.H.S., Missionary, United 
Methodist Free Churches, Africa* 

Sometimes when I hear statements made in reference to whole 
tribes of men being converted, somehow or other I feel a very 
great dif^ficulty in taking in the statement, and I think those who 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 25. 



462 AFRICA 

make the statement must have a limited idea in their minds of the 
word conversion, in comparison with the one that I entertain. 
When I say the regeneration of Africa, I mean the conversion of 
character or regeneration of Hfe. 

Now when I was going out to East Africa in the year 1861, a 
great number of friends who were skeptical in regard to the mis- 
sionary enterprise said to me: " It is no use at all your going to 
Africa to preach the gospel there. The Africans can not be con- 
verted. You can not regenerate them. In the first place, they 
haven't mind enough to understand the gospel you are taking ; 
and, in the second place," they said, " even supposing they had 
mind enough, they have no moral consciousness. The truth can 
not touch them, and so your work, all the enterprise, energy, 
and financial outlay touching your being sent out to Africa, will 
be a complete failure." I went, and I should have been back again 
to report to the Missionary Committee if the statements of these 
pessimists and skeptics had been true. Some told me, for instance, 
that the African was not a man; he was something between man- 
hood and brutehood, and, therefore, the gospel couldn't reach him. 
Now I returned to these men, and assured them that the African 
had intellect enough to understand the gospel. I said there was 
no lack of intellectual power in the African; that, with regard to 
mental capacity, he was quite equal to any of us. That I firmly 
believe to-day. The African can not well be compared, I know; 
but let the African stand upon his own feet, and he stands as high 
as Vv'e do. I never found an African yet, however low he might be 
in comparison with other African races, who could not as easily 
understand that two and two make four as we ourselves. Now, I 
was very pleased to find that. I found that the African children, 
for instance, were remarkably sharp, very clever, superior to some 
of our English children here in the power of acquiring knowledge. 
Whatever we attempted to teach them they were quite equal to 
learn, it didn't matter what it was ; and with regard to intellectual- 
ity, and even poetical feeling, I found sometimes that I had men 
about me with singularly pictorial minds, and men who could pro- 
nounce truth in forms which had a wonderful charm. 

Hopefulness of "Work 

Rev. Henry Richards, Missio)iary, American Baptist Mission- 
ary Union, Africa."^ 

Twenty-one years ago there was a tribe of Bantu people living 
about five degrees south of the equator, and 160 miles from the 
mouth of the great Congo River. The people were entirely un- 
known to the outside world, living in gross heathen darkness. They 
were full of superstitious fears that led them to commit acts of 
cruel barbarism. They had no literature, as their language, 
though rich in words and in inflection, had never been reduced to 
writing. Here, in 1879. a missionary began to work. After seven 
years of suffering and hardship one m.an named Lutete declared 
himself a Christian. This man was threatened with death by his 

* Carnegie Hall, April 24. 



HOPEFULNESS OF WORK 463 

people, and was obliged to leave his wife, children, and town, to 
come and live near the mission station. He won many souls to 
Christ and remained faithful until he received his reward. An- 
other man, Lazalo, one of the first converts, was the first to be 
recognized as pastor of his own people, and has now charge of loo 
Christians in his own town, and also of the village school. 

David, a chief's son, was the second man to declare himself on the 
Lord's side. It would be impossible ever to forget the anathemas 
poured on this young man by his father, brothers, and townspeople. 
Before he became a Christian he was honored, but now he was 
hated and rejected. They were ready to kill him. He was intelli- 
gent, and helped in the acquisition of the language and translation 
work. He was chosen as an evangelist by the church, which agreed 
to pay him a small salary per month. When the time came to re- 
ceive his pay, he refused it, saying that he saw so many poor who 
needed it more than himself. These young Christian men went 
with the missionary from town to town preaching, until there was 
quite an aveakening among the people, and they began to come in 
crowds to the mission station, many of them bringing their idols 
with them. 

The most remarkable thing about them was that they were near- 
ly all preachers, and willing to work and sufifer for their Master. 

Thomas was another earnest man, who became a good preacher; 
he also, as long as he was able, gave his pay back, and supported 
another preacher, and bought books for the school. He was the 
means of bringing in his father, mother, and his aged grandmother, 
who had grown old and gray in heathenism. One instance to show 
his devotion: The heathen hate the Christians, and there have 
been quite a number of real martyrs. A Christian man went to a 
town and asked for some water to drink. A man gave him some, 
but put poison in it before doing so. The Christian instantly 
drank the water, and became ill and died just as he arrived at home. 
The poison giver was arrested by the chief, appointed by the Com- 
missaire of the district. A forked stick was fastened on his neqk 
and he was thus tied up for the night in an empty house ; next day 
he was to have been brought before the Judge. Thomas knewf bf 
this and could not sleep, as he thought of the probable fate ofottoe 
prisoner. He got up and went for several miles through the long 
grass on that dark night, when panthers and other dangerous: ani- 
mals were abroad, and found the man. He spoke to him ,of) the 
love of Jesus and His willingness to save even such as he.-;; The 
man confessed his crime which he had previously denied, and.pri?- 
fessed faith in Jesus. Next morning the man was found dead>the 
stick was so tight that it choked him. Thomas believedbi>t;-;Wjas 
another case of the "dying thief." r; ^Jnfn-q 

There is now a railway connecting the Upper and Lower. OongD. 
The railway builders gave high wages to the people to induce 
them to work for them; there was a great rush to the railway^ We 
had at that time twenty-five preachers and teachers, who could 
earn as much in a few days on the railway, as their salary .as. mcijS- 
sion teachers amounted to in a month. To their credit beiibsaid 



464 AFRICA 

that, though it was a great temptation, not one of them left his 
work or even suggested doing so. 

In 1894 there was an influential man named Nloko, who made 
havoc of the church and did all he could to hinder the work of God. 
He became a Christian. In a very little while he could read and 
expound the Scriptures with wonderful power. He was baptized 
and received the name of Paul. He went away two days' journey 
and commenced work, and about twenty heathen souls were 
brought in, and there is now a church there of more than twenty 
members. He returned and commenced work in a large village 
about ten miles from the mission station. The missionary and 
preachers had visited and prayed for this town for many years with- 
out producing any apparent efifect, except to make the people hate 
the Gospel and preachers more bitterly than before. They refused 
to let Paul live in the town, and forbade anyone to receive him. 
He put up an old tent just outside of the town, and began to work 
as he found opportunity, in the gardens, or woods, or byways. He 
suffered much and labored many months without seeing any con- 
versions. Then one young man professed to be a Christian, and 
at once his wife, mother, and friends drove him away and would 
have no more to do with him. He went to live with Paul, and they 
shared the danger together. Then another and another were 
brought in, and a little town was springing up around Paul. They 
built themselves a good meeting-house, large enough to hold 300, 
and that is now too small for the congregation. They are prepar- 
ing a larger and more substantial structure. There are now 400 
church members in that town. Paul and his comrades have now 
gone across the Congo, and have many baptized Christians there: 
altogether, Paul has over 500 Christians under his charge, and a 
number of preachers and teachers at out-stations. 

A short time ago, one of the Christian villages in Paul's district, 
situated near the river, on the south side, decided to do something 
for the people across the Congo. The whole village of about fifty 
people crossed the river in canoes, not by any means an easy mat- 
ter, as the stream there is very rapid and about four miles wide. 
They stayed three days among the people, preaching and teaching 
the Word of God, and then returned. There is now a good work 
across the river and about forty have been baptized. The people 
build their own schools and meeting-houses. 

Giving is a good test when the people are naturally avaricious. 
In 1899 the Christians at Mbanza Manteke, poor as they are, gave 
ii6o toward the expenses connected with the work. 

There are 1,500 baptized church members in good standing, con- 
nected with the station, 2,000 have been baptized since 1886; 2,000 
pupils are taught in the station and village schools, none of whom 
are boarders. The gospel is spreading out further and further in 
all directions, and the people within the radius of thirty miles of 
the mission station have the gospel preached to them by their own 
countrymen. Fifty preachers and teachers are at regular work, 
preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus to the people. A training 
school for preachers and teachers is also connected with the station. 



HOPEFULNESS OF WORK 465 

The attractive force of the Cross, the quickening influence of the 
Holy Spirit, the ilkiminating power of the Word of God, are suffi- 
cient to bring the whole world to the feet of Jesus. 

Mr. W. J. Roth, Missionary, Christian and Missionary Alli- 
ance, Congo Free State.'^ 

I have been laboring in the Congo Free State four years. I be- 
lieve, in Congo especially, that the country is as open to receive the 
gospel as anywhere here in the United States. The Congo Free 
State contains about forty millions of people and is governed by 
the Belgian Government. The Society under which I have been 
laboring has four stations. Our first station is about sixty miles 
up the Congo at the capital, Bomba, and from there we have gone 
to the north of the mighty Congo for about no miles, and we are 
now near the borders of the French Congo and our work among 
them has been principally school work as well as evangelization. 
At Bomba we have a school, and are teaching the children of the 
coast people, as well as the natives of the State, English, but in the 
interior we learn the native language and teach the natives in their 
own language. We have at one of our stations about forty-five 
boys in training. And at another we have the same number, and 
at our last farthest inland station we have seventy-five. We 
send them out to deliver the gospel to their own people. There 
is no opposition among the natives, and for that reason we can 
get an audience at any time, and I say the country is open. 

Rev. Dr. A. Schreicer, Inspector, Rhenish Missionary Society, 
Barmen, Germany* 

There are a great number of German Missionary societies in dif- 
ferent parts of Africa, and I consider that Africa is our special field 
of work. Our own Society had been for more than fifty years at 
work in Southwest Africa before the Germans thought of a part of 
the country becoming their colony. Of all the evangelical mis- 
sionaries, European and American, that are at work in Africa, 
about a thousand, exactly one-third part, are German. There are 
two Societies of Basel and of Bremen working on the west coast 
of Africa, on the Gold Coast, and in Cameroon, and they have been 
doing a very noble work there, although a great number of them 
have succumbed to the very bad climate. That is the spot of which 
Zinzendorf said 250 years ago, that so many lives were thrown 
away, " but," he said, " that is the seed of the black man." Basel 
has forty-eight missionaries out there, and Bremen, of the North 
German Missionary Society, has about fifteen, and the number of 
Christians belonging to those two Societies on the Gold Coast, in 
Cameroon, and in Dogo. is about 25,000. Our own missionary So- 
ciety began its work near Cape Town, just among a population of 
mixed European and African blood of several colors. Now, we 
have founded ten churches within the borders of Cape Colony num- 
bering about 15,000 souls, and those churches are self-supporting. 
We do not pay a farthing for them. We only send out men to 

♦ Union Methodist Church, April 23. 



466 AFRICA 

teach tliem. In the so-called southwest German Africa, we have 
twenty-five missionaries. They have begun their work on this side 
and the other side of the Orange River, and they have gone north 
to the Canary River, and our missionaries have just built the first 
church. We have about 120 people in that country. There are 
175 German missionaries in Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and Natal, 
and I consider that quite good. Although we do not know what 
will be the end of the dreadful war going on now, one thing is cer- 
tain, that the hatred of all who speak Dutch against the English 
will be very much increased and deepened for a long time, I am 
afraid that the work of English-speaking missionaries will be 
hampered. All of our German missionaries are now among Eng- 
lish-speaking people, and I consider that their task will be even 
harder than it has been. Our own Society has had a very hard 
field among the Hottentots because they are nomadic. We have 
been laboring there for a long time with much success. We have 
won 10,000 people. Perhaps, you have read something about the 
dreadful disasters in South Africa during the last ten years: the 
rinderpest, and the dying of men, and the coming of locusts. They 
were ready to say: " It is too much." But now we feel that it has 
not been too much, and has not been in vain. In that country a 
new era has begun, and the people are coming in hundreds asking 
for baptism. I do not know if you have ever heard of a society 
in Hermannsburg, in Germany. The founder sent out men to South 
Africa. They have been at work in the west of the Transvaal, 
among the Basutos and the Zulus. These men have baptized more 
than 3,000. 

Of course, the aim of all missionary work is to Christianize a 
whole people, and as far as I can see that can be done in other parts 
of the globe, but I am not quite sure that it can be done in Africa. 
It seems to me that the Africans are a sort of people where their 
nationality is so interwoven with their life that in order to make 
them Christians they must first leave their nationality. So, at least, 
we have found it. For a long time in Southwest Africa we could 
not make the peojile Christians, but now the different European 
powers are taking possession of Africa, and the result is that the 
people will lose their nationality — not their language, but their na- 
tional customs — and after that they will become Christians, and I 
count it, as so many other things in our days, a means in God's 
hands. The European powers do not think of the expansion of 
, Christ's Kingdom, but nevertheless they are doing a thing that is, 
if God will, to be a means of bringing Africa under the gospel. 

Rev. Charles Phillips, Missionary, London Missionary So- 
ciety, Johannesburg, Africa.'^ 

There has been a great and a very glorious work accomplished 
in South Africa. We have, taking the whole of the different States, 
something like 817,000 white people, and we have about 3,176,000 
natives. Of these, we have some 345.000 that are baptized, and 
over half a milHon that are adherents of the different evangelical 

* Union Methodist Church, April 23. 



NATIVES AND FOREIGN OPPRESSORS 467 

Christian churches there. We have institutions on every side. I 
think it is a wise thing, it will be a great thing, when the colored 
brethren of America go up to Africa to pay back in the name of the 
United States the indebtedness of this continent to Africa. But it 
must not be forgotten that we have large institutions in Africa that 
are training up their own people ; that we have Lovedale, for ex- 
ample, with about 1,000 native students, and that we have many 
other institutions connected with thediiTerent branches of the Chris- 
tian Church that are training up the different members of the vari- 
ous tribes, and the Cape colored or half-breed class of South Africa. 
I have been permitted more especially to labor among what is 
called the half-caste population, numbering some 300,000 people, 
almost entirely the offspring of the Boers and their slaves in the 
olden days, and speaking the Dutch language. Some of these 
people have attained, more especially in Johannesburg, largely as 
a result of the discipline of suffering and oppression, to a very high 
ideal of Christian life and character. I labored also in the Cape 
Colony, but in Johannesburg itself I have found some of the finest 
specimens of Christian character that I have ever seen among 
natives in any part of the world. They are men who live for God 
and for His Church ; men who rejoice to consecrate their all, lay 
it upon the altar of God, and I am quite sure that as regards gener- 
osity or consecration to the work of the Master, the Johannesburg 
church could compare with any church in this city. 

In one section of the Christian Church in the Transvaal only a 
short time ago a resolution was passed threatening excommunica- 
lion to any of its officers or members who should do anything to 
evangelize the heathen. In the Constitution of the Transvaal Gov- 
ernment it says that there shall be no equality, either in Church or 
in State, between white and colored people in the Transvaal. No 
colored person is ever permitted to enter a Dutch church in that 
country. They are not permitted to walk upon the sidewalks of 
the streets. They are not permitted to trade in any way whatever, 
not even to the extent of purchasing a basket of oranges and go- 
ing from house to house to retail them. They are not permitted to 
own even a foot of land in the country that only two generations 
ago was entirely their own. For two generations there never was 
such a thing as a legal marriage permitted among the natives of 
the Transvaal. From 1834 up to two years ago, no such thing 
was possible as a legal marriage among blacks or half-castes. 

In regard to education, while the maximum is done for every 
Boer child and the minimum for every Uitlander child, the Gov- 
ernment says that nothing whatever shall be done for any native 
child. Yet, in spite of all, a great and a blessed work is being ac- 
complished there. 

Natives and Foreign Oppressors 

H. G. Guinness, M.D., Regions Beyond Missionary Union, 
London."^ 

The Arab slave trade in Africa has been bad, but I decline to 

* Carnegie Hall, April 25. 



468 AFRICA 

believe that any worse atrocities were ever perpetrated by the 
Arabs than have been perpetrated by the Belgian officials in con- 
nection with the india-rubber traffic in Africa. 

The facts are simply these: The Government of the Congo Free 
State was and is a large trading company. It was greatly to their 
advantage to get as much india rubber as possible and at as low 
a price as possible. They, therefore, under the pretext of taxation, 
demanded from the natives an enormous quantity of gratuitous 
labor. The rubber traffic was forced on the people at the point 
of the rifie. If the natives did not bring in a stated quantity, their 
villages were burned, and they themselves were shot down like 
dogs. I know personally what I am talking about perfectly well. 
When a Commissaire of a district did not wish personally to super- 
intend the work of destruction, he gave cartridges to some of 
his native soldiers and sent them out to kill the people, and said: 
" Now don't waste the cartridges, and to show me that you have 
not wasted them, I shall expect you to bring back a right hand for 
every cartridge that you use." At one of the stations on the Con- 
go I have known eighty hands to be brought back one day, and 
seventy hands to be brought back the next day. One day at one 
of our mission stations a poor woman was being driven with a 
little basket on her back, containing hands, and one of our lady mis- 
sionaries stopped her and said: " Put down that basket and let me 
see what you have there." The hands were counted on the 
ground. There were nineteen! In that basket there were the 
hands of women and of little children. The man who was driving 
the woman with a strip of hippopotamus hide was terribly angry 
because one hand had been lost on the way. I am thankful to say 
that, excepting very limited areas, that kind of thing to-day does 
not exist on the Congo River. It came to an end thus : Mr. 
Shelbron, a Swedish missionary, of the American Baptist Mission- 
ary Union, made complaints against this thing. He was threat- 
ened with five years' imprisonment. But he made complaint to the 
press, and writers published throughout the length and breadth of 
Europe the odious details of these outrages. These were, of 
course, frankly denied, but all the same, thank God, alterations 
came. I, myself, had the great privilege of conversation with Leo- 
pold II., the King of the Belgians. I introduced to his attention 
this whole question. He said: " But you know we must not be- 
lieve what these natives say." I replied: " Your Majesty, it is not 
a question of what the natives say, but of what the natives suffer, 
and what we have seen with our own eyes." I am thankful to tell 
you that His Majesty has taken earnest steps in a philanthropic 
way to put down that cruelty. The Congo State wants rubber. I was 
afraid that it would collect rubber anyhow ; I am now getting to think 
that it is going to have the rubber, but if Europe is listening, and if 
Europe is looking, and if the telegraphic wire that has commenced 
to go into the interior of Africa is kept open, and the railway com- 
munication is uninterrupted, and if the publicity of the presence of 
missionaries only keeps the topic in the air, I venture to believe that in 
the poor Congo land there will be times of respite and blessing. 



A WORK FOR AMERICAN NEGROES 469 

We owe Congo much. We have robbed her, killed her, de- 
stroyed thousands of her sons and daughters. All the reparation 
we can make is to carry back again the Word of Life. 

As director of the Congo Below Mission, I have personally been 
invited to send missionaries on to all the rivers where French com- 
panies are at work, and their director, a noble man called Colonel 
Tice, has said to me: "We shall be exceedingly glad if you will 
speak frankly to our directors on the Congo if our agents trans- 
gress, violating ahke the dictates of nature and the provisions of 
our Trading Company." Inside of the last few weeks, I am glad 
to say that further difificulties of this kind have been quelled, and 
from my own knowledge, both of the Government and of the offi- 
cials, I believe that the dark blot that has rested on the Congo ad- 
ministration is a matter of the past. 

A Work for American Negroes 

Rev. Charles S. Morris, Missionary, National Baptist Conven- 
tion, Africa.^' 

I should be doing a most serious injustice to the great mission- 
aries of other days if I did not say that almost every sign of civili- 
zation, every bit of red paint that has been washed off, and every 
blanket that has been cast away, and every man that has been 
lifted up from degradation in Zululand and South Africa shows the 
work of the magnificently heroic missionaries, like the Grouts and 
the Adamses, and Livingstone. But South Africa is rapidly filling 
up with a very ordinary class of European colonists, who have 
a very bitter and unrelenting prejudice toward the native. In 
other days the Boer used to have the brutal sign hung over the 
door of his church: " Dogs and Kaffirs not admitted." It does not 
hang over the door, but it frowns in the face of the native even 
yet in many of the English churches in South Africa to-day. I 
know of churches, where I have visited, where the pastor told me 
with regret that the members of his church were not willing to al- 
low a Kaffir to come within the doors and worship God. I know 
a man who is connected with the so-called Ethiopian Movement, 
who told me he was driven out of the Church of England because, 
when some European visitors came to visit that church, as the Eu- 
ropeans and the Kaffirs bowed around the altar, the rector whispered 
to this man, " Tell your people there is not enough bread to go 
around." So the Kaffirs had the humiliation of getting up from their 
own altar and going back to their seats, refused by their own pastor, 
and humiliated in the presence of strangers. When that young 
man got vitality enough, he v/ent out of the Episcopal Church and 
is now a pastor in this Ethiopian Church in South Africa. 

A pastor in one of the large Wesleyan churches told me that 
when he went to visit his superintendent, when they had prayers 
he was not even invited in. When the family had their food served in 
the dining-room he had his meals sent out to him in the kitchen. Now, 
what would be the result of native ministers and native church 
members seeing and smarting under these things? There is but 

* Union Methodist Church, April 25. 



470 AFRICA 

one thing they can do if they have any self-respect, and that is to 
leave the churches that insult them in that way. Ten thousand 
members of the Wesleyan Church in South Africa went out of that 
Church as a protest against the prejudice that was exhibited in it, 
and when they felt their own weakness and their lack of leadership 
they sent one of their number over to America and pleaded with 
the African Methodist Church to come over there and assume the 
leadership of them, and Bishop Turner, in response to that appeal, 
v/ent over there and received into the African Methodist Episcopal 
Church those 10,000 members. 

When I was in South Africa only a few weeks ago, I received 
into the Baptist Church some 1,200 members, representing some 
seventeen different congregations. These people had withdrawn 
from the Wesleyan Church about fifteen years ago. They told me 
that they had gone out simply because they were treated in such 
a way in that Church that they could not stay in it. 

I mention these things to show that there is reason for this 
Ethiopian Movement. It is not simply a blind rebellion on the 
part of the natives to get out from under European control, 
but the same spirit that actuated Grout, and Adams, and 
Lindley, that actuated Livingstone and MofTat, has not actuated 
the younger men who have gone out there and been contaminated 
by this prejudice and have shown their prejudice toward the people 
among whom they have gone to minister. And I want to say right 
here that unless that spirit is changed in South Africa thousands 
will be going out of all of those churches. The Congregational 
Church in Zululand has been split in twain in its center, and there 
are some ten independent Zulu Congregational churches there 
nov/. This separation is due, I verily believe, in a large sense to \ 
the injudicious manner in which the missionaries there have treated 
some of the natives. We might as well recognize these facts. We 
Tnight as well recognize another thing. I believe that God in His 
providence has been intending and preparing the American negro 
to assume a large place in the evangelization of Africa. 

Within twelve miles of Lovedale I saw an American negro, who, 
last year, baptized some 300 people in that country. And as I sat 
in his house the native men and women came and squatted on the 
floor and perched on the trunks and chairs, and there was such a 
freedom and a lack of formality as would be impossible in the house 
of any other missionary than a black man. Night came on. Two 
of those girls lived too far to go home at night. I had the only 
available bed in the house, and so they simply made a pallet on the 
floor, and this missionary's little daughter slept in the middle and 
those two heathen girls on either side. That would be impossible 
to any other missionary than a black man. 

T believe that the prejudice in South Africa is growing all the 
while. The same thing is true with reference to West Africa. 
The prejudice in South Africa will force our missionary societies 
to recognize that the American negro can do a work there that no 
other people can do; but when you come to the west coast of Africa 
vou will find that there God has an armed sentinel marching up 



A WORK FOR AMERICAN NEGROES 471 

and down, ready to beat into delirium and death any daring mis- 
sionary who goes there to offer the Word of God. Only one man 
is practicahy immune from the deadly African fever, and that is 
the black man. 

So, when I see the negroes of our Southern States ; people who 
came here naked savages, having no word of the language and having 
no idea of God, and who, to-day, are four millions in number, re- 
deemed, regenerated, disinthralled, I believe that God is going to put 
it into the hearts of these black boys and girls in the schools of the 
South to go with the message to South Africa and to West Africa, 
and vindicate American slavery as far as it can be vindicated by tak- 
ing across the ocean the stream of life. 

C. F. Harford-Battersby, M.A., M.D., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., 

Principal Livingstone College, Stratford, £.* 

One of the most striking instances I think I have ever known of 
an indigenous civilization was in the center of the Sudan, where I 
found a man who was able to translate the Gospel of St. John from 
Arabic into the Haussa language in ten days' time, and write it 
out. And yet that was done by an African in the heart of Africa, 
who had never, I suppose, seen an Englishman before, and the only 
white men he would have seen at all would have been some Arabs. 
That is just a sample of the intellig ence of soi ne of those people. 
As soon as we are able to give them the gospel in their own tongue 
we are able to reach them. 

I consider this is a great claim on t'he Christian Church. What 
is being done? The party of which I was a member was unfortu- 
nately broken up by sickness and death. The two brave young 
leaders of our party lie buried side by side on the banks of the 
Niger. I was invalided home after having gone out on the Niger 
three times, and now my work must be a work at home for the 
missionary cause. 

I believe that Africa is largely to be evangelized by the colored 
race. I believe there is an opportunity for the colored races of 
America who have had the blessings of the gospel, in a way that is 
unexampled in the world's history, to go and evangelize Africa. 
There is an opening for them that escapes us white-skmned people 
who find such difftculty in getting on with that climate. It will be 
at some cost, no doubt, but that is the only way that Africa is go- 
ing to be evangelized. 

Rev. H. B. Parks, D.D., Secretary, African Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, New York* 

I do not think that the evangelization of Africa was ever more 
hopeful than at present. I regard the movement in Africa to-day 
that we deplore so much from one standpoint, as being one of the 
most hopeful signs of the speedy evangelization of that people. It 
is the opening of the door. It has been remarked that the negro 
of America will have much to do with the evangelization of Africa. 
It is a fact that we need not hesitate to admit, brethren, that there 



* Union Methodist Church, A[ ril 23. 



472 AFRICA 

are no people that you can send to them that can get as near to 
them as these people. Eighteen years ago we began operations on 
the west coast of Africa with five men. From that number we 
have been able to bring to Christ upward of 3,000 souls, and 
wherever our men have gone they write the most encouraging let- 
ters from heathen kings. They say that they are welcomed with 
great joy and satisfaction. The same is true in South Africa. To- 
day, while we have been operating there for only a few years, our 
membership is numbered by the thousands. What we want to-day 
is to give educated missionaries of the negro race to that conti- 
nent, and put the work in their hands. 

God has reserved the black son of that continent upon whose 
shoulders He lays the responsibility and in whose heart He puts the 
will, the desire, and the determination to go forth, in the name of 
Him who died to make men free, and plead with his heathen brother 
on the dark continent. 

Madagascar 

Rev. W. E. Cousins, M.A., Missionary, London Missionary So- 
ciety, Madagascar.'^ 

The history of our work in Madagascar may be divided into four 
periods, thus: 

(i) The fifteen years from 1820 to 1835 ; during which the Welsh 
missionaries, Jones and Griffiths and their fellow-laborers, laid the 
foundations of Protestant missions. 

(2) The dark days of persecution, which lasted from 1835 to 
1861, when the persecuting queen, Ranavalona L, died. 

(3) The thirty-three years of growth and development under na- 
tive sovereigns, which date from 1862, when the work of the Lon- 
don Missionary Society was renewed at the close of the persecu- 
tion, till 1895, when Madagascar ceased to be an independent 
kingdom and became a French possession. 

(4) Lastly, we have had more than four years of work under new 
conditions, dating from 1895 to the present time. 

The gains of Protestantism up to the end of the third period may 
be summarized thus: At the outbreak of the persecution in 1835 
there were three or four churches with about 200 communicants. 
In 1862, at the reopening of the mission, there were some twenty- 
five congregations, with about 800 or 900 communicants, and the 
whole body of adherents numbered about 7,000. In the year 1894 
it is estimated that the Protestant churches were not less than 
2,000, with more than 300,000 persons attendmg Christian services, 
and about 96,000 communicants. There were about 1,600 Protes- 
tant schools and 120,000 scholars. Before the first missionaries 
were compelled to leave the island they had published (in 1835) the 
first translation of the Bible, and this translation had been sub- 
mitted to a very careful revision. This work took eleven years 
and was completed in 1887. The foundation of a Christian litera- 
ture had been laid. Medical mission work, begun by Dr. Andrew 
Davidson, in 1862, had been carried on with much energy and suc- 

* Broadway Tabernacle, Apni^. 



MADAGASCAR 473 

cess. The queen was a Protestant, and services were regularly 
conducted by native pastors in the palace church. It seemed 
probable at that time that Protestantism would be the religion of 
the majority of the people. The nominal Christians were not less than 
one-tenth of the population of the island. Much aggressive work 
was being carried on, however, and even in distant parts of the 
country agents of the European societies, or of the native mission- 
ary society, were at work. 

In 1895 came that great political change that has affected power- 
fully, and will continue to alTect, the development of Christianity 
among the Malagasy people. 

On September 30, 1895, General Duchesne took possession of 
Antananarivo, and in the following year Madagascar was pro- 
claimed a French colony. The queen was banished, and the 
native flag was no more used. To-day the French tricolor may 
be seen flying in almost all parts of the land. The responsibility 
of governing the entire island, which is rather larger than France, 
now rests on the representatives of the French Republic. 

Under these French officials are employed a great number of 
native subordinates, and the one aim of all these functionaries is to 
make Madagascar French. The teaching of the French language 
is made compulsory in all schools. In the material development 
of the country the French have already, in their brief period, ac- 
complished wonders. Roads and bridges, telegraphs and tele- 
phones, good postal arrangements, and a well-organized police force 
have sprung into existence, as by the touch of a magic wand. 
French law courts command the respect and confidence of the peo- 
ple. I do not wish you to believe that French administration is 
perfect. No doubt, it brings with it consequences not agreeable 
to the conquered people. Taxes, for instance, are heavier than 
they were. 

But for us in this Conference, the all-important inquiry is, how 
the great change in the government of the country has afifected, 
and is likely to affect, the work of Protestant missionaries. 

Of course, a great political change, such as the French annexa- 
tion has brought a.bout, would cause disquiet and unsettlement, 
at least for a time. And, unfortunately, these inevitable conse- 
quences were greatly increased by the outbreak of a widespread 
rebellion the year after the conquest, and by the bitter opposition 
of French officers to the work of English Protestant missionaries, 
especially to that of the London Missionary Society. 

So strained had the relations become, that in the latter months of 
1896 and during part of 1897 it seemed unlikely that the work of the 
London Missionary Society could be continued with any hope of 
success. We saw that our presence brought down upon the 
churches under our care much thinly veiled persecution. It 
seemed unwise to continue our work. 

But I am happy to say that now British missionaries are al- 
lowed to work with a fair amount of freedom under the French 
flag in Madagascar. 

As an illustration of this, I may say that the new education laws 
recently published in Madagascar place all mission schools, Catho- 



474 AFRICA 

lie and Protestant, French, English, and Norwegian, on the same 
footing; and government grants in aid are offered to all who will 
comply with the conditions laid down. 

We now come to the topic: What has been the general effect of 
the French conquest on Protestant missions? 

1. So far from lessening the number of workers in the various 
Protestant missions, the troubles of recent years have brought new 
workers into the field. The Norwegian Mission is stronger than 
ever. And the Evangelical Society of Paris has been drawn to 
the work, and is now represented by about thirty workers. The 
trials of the native Protestant churches, and especially the murder 
of the two French missionaries, Escande and Mivault, deeply 
stirred the hearts of French Protestants, and seemed to them a 
very call from God to undertake for Him in their new colony. The 
London Missionary Society has recently sent out three young 
men possessing a knowledge of the French language, and has three 
or four others in course of preparation. There are eighty or 
ninety male Protestant missionaries, and about thirty lady mis- 
sionaries (not including the wives of missionaries); that is to say, 
we have from 120 to 150 European workers, a larger number than 
we have ever had in the past. 

2. All educational work in Madagascar, up to the time of the 
French conquest, had been in the hands of the various missions. 
The Protestant schools at that date contained about 120,000 schol- 
ars. For a time, however, after the conquest, the antipathy to all 
that told of English influence was so strong, that in order to save 
the schools of the London Missionary Society, they were all trans- 
ferred to the care of the Paris Society. The London Society is 
now resuming the care of all the schools in districts remaining 
under its care. 

3. The first result of the French conquest and the troubles that 
followed it, was a great falling away from the native churches, and 
many thousands left us. I think I may say, in general terms, that 
there are not at this time more than about one-third of the num- 
ber of attendants on public worship that there were before the war; 
that is to say, nearly 200,000 people have in the meantime ceased 
coming to our churches. Many of the 300,000 who called them- 
selves Protestants had simply yielded to the force of a national 
movement, and had followed the example of their queen and their 
rulers. All outward inducement to Protestants ceased. For a 
time, owing to the bitter and unscrupulous persecution of the 
Jesuits, a veritable reign of terror existed; and, notwithstanding 
the satisfactory proclamations of rehgious freedom issued by 
those in authority, the country people were so tyrannized over by 
the priests and their agents, that they were completely cowed. 

This reign of terror has now come to an end. One of my latest 
letters from Madagascar tells of crowds of country people coming 
back to the Protestant churches. 

4. But there are permanent difficulties caused by the French 
annexation that will still try the faith and patience of Christian 
workers. 



MADAGASCAR 475 

Sunday, for example, is no longer the quiet day of rest it once 
was. We have now what is known as the Continental Sunday. 

Then it may be easily understood that the presence in Madagas- 
car of many hundreds of French soldiers and officials has an in- 
jurious influence on the morals of the people. 

Again, the neglect of attendance upon religious services by many 
of the Frenchmen with whom the Malagasy now come into daily 
contact can not fail to exert an injurious influence upon them. 

Our churches, then, will have to encounter new forms of diffi- 
culty, and will experience much trial and testing from the changed 
conditions in which they are now placed. Many, as the results of 
recent testing, seem already to have gained a deeper and maturer 
religious life; and the tone of our churches is certainly more spirit- 
ual than it was. 

Believe me. Protestantism is not dead in Madagascar, nor is i; 
dying. It shows many unmistakable signs of life and activity, and 
we believe that, although it will possibly in future years, be the 
religion of a minority only, it still has an important function to 
discharge in the development of the life of the people. " In 
Antananarivo," said a French writer a year or two since, " Protes- 
tantism stands for uprightness and purity." God grant it may al- 
ways do so ! 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE AMERICAS 

State of Christianity in South America — Failure of Rome to Christianize- 
Pagans of the Interior — Ignorant Roman Catholics — Aborigines 
of North America 



South America 

Senor F. de Castells, Agent, British and Foreign Bible So- 
ciety, Costa Rica* 

I wish to correct two erroneous ideas which I find to be prevalent 
concerning the country south of the United States. The first, is 
that all of it is Spanish. This is not true. In Mexico, for in- 
stance, it is said that not more than fifteen per cent, are of Spanish 
origin. Some of its legislation and the official language were taken 
from Spain, but it can scarcely be called a Spanish country. Then, 
if you go out of the Gulf of Mexico, you will find all along the At- 
lantic coast, from Yucatan to Brazil, the English, and not the Span- 
ish language prevailing. In the Republic of Salvador, on the other 
hand, no less than one-fourth of the total population still speak 
their aboriginal dialects, and in Guatemala, out of 1,800,000, more 
than 1,000,000 are absolute strangers to the rich Castilian, speak- 
ing nothing but their own primitive tongues. Everybody knows 
that the 16,000,000 of Brazil speak Portuguese. The Guianai, 
are English, Dutch, and French. In the heart of South America 
the majority of the inhabitants are pure Indians, and a very large 
percentage still use Quichua, Guarani, and Aymara. In the ex- 
treme south, there are also large numbers of unreclaimed Indians 
without anything Spanish about them. Indeed, my estimate is that 
barely one-third of South Americans have Spanish blood in their 
veins, and that not more than one-half can be said to have Spanish 
for their mother tongue. These facts show the high importance 
of the Indian mission work. 

Secondly, there is the fallacy that the people of South America, 
whom the handbooks of geography classify as " Christian," have 
already the gospel and need not to be evangelized. South 
America is a priest-ridden continent, without family life, given up 
to domestic anarchy, to religious bacchanals, to the worship of 
grotesque images, to the practice of pagan or semi-pagan rites, 
and to the control of a most profligate priesthood whose main 
business seems to be that shameful traffic in souls for which they 
have attained world-wide notoriety, and by which the gospel of 
Christ has become a bv-word. 



* Madison Avenue Presbyterian Churcli, April 23. 



GENERAL VIEW OF SOUTH AMERICA 477 

Outside of the 750,000 Protestants which there may be, most of 
whom are foreigners, not only are the words of the Gospel not 
known, but, I venture to say without fear of contradiction, that for 
most of the people in those parts, the death of Christ is still a 
meaningless tragedy. We find there the very lowest and most 
degraded form of Romanism that can be conceived. Some 
European and American Roman Catholics who go there will 
not recognize it as their religion, but prefer to attend 
Protestant churches. Of the common people, only a very few 
have anything like a clear conception of the dogmas of Rome. 
You ask: How, then, do the priests retain their grasp on the con- 
tinent? It is entirely through dread of the unseen and of the 
world to come which is instinctive in man. Again, up to this day, 
nearly 7,000,000 people in South America still adhere, more 
or less openly, to the superstitions and the fetichisms of their an- 
cestors, having never submitted to any Christian ordinance; while 
perhaps double that number live altogether beyond the reach of 
Christian influence, even if we take the word " Christian " at its 
widest meaning. In all the seaports of the continent there are 
large and growing communities of foreign Protestants, and these 
are generally well provided with ministers and houses of worship. 
But the natives remain untaught, if not forgotten. In Uruguay, 
there seems to be one minister for every 200 foreign Protestants. 
But the missionaries working among the people of the land are 
about one to every 100,000. In Brazil, too, for the 140,000 foreign 
residents who are Protestant, there are 120 workers. This is 
twice as many as the missionaries working for the 16,000,000 
native Brazilians. In the Dominican Republic there are a dozen 
or more preachers rendering excellent service among the English- 
speaking negroes from the other islands, who are Protestants; but 
the natives are generally passed by. And in the little Republic of 
Costa Rica, for the 5,000 Protestants who have come from other 
lands, we have eight workers, while for sixty times that number of 
natives, we have but two. Brethren, ought these things to be 
so? By all means let the foreign settlers have their churches and 
ministers. But if our Christianity is not of the aggressive type, 
it must be a very mean thing indeed, for it implies that we are not 
in earnest. 

The story of the last seventy-five years and more, the period of 
independent political life enjoyed by the republics of South Amer- 
ica, has been one continuous struggle for supremacy between the 
civil government and the Church of Rome, the cause of the gov- 
ernment being championed by a radical party which is commonly 
termed "Liberal," and the cause of the Church by a clerical one, 
ordinarily described as " Conservative." In some of the republics, 
as Mexico, Guatemala, and Chile, the civil authority has already 
triumphed, and Protestant missionaries enjoy the protection of the 
law. But in others, the priest is still a power, and our position is 
very dififerent. We may be tolerated, the letter of the law may be 
more or less favorable; but the prevailing bigotry and the pressure 



47S THE AMERICAS 

put by the clergy upon the local authorities completely nullify the 
law, and the missionary has to suffer. 

In Mexico our Protestant missions have taken deep root, and 
already as many as 70,000 Mexicans have been brought under the 
power of Christ. 

In the five republics of Central America, with about 5,000,000 
souls, there are fifty workers belonging to five different missions. 
One district — the Mosquito Coast — has been thoroughly evangel- 
ized by the Moravian Brethren, who supply two-fifths of our mis- 
sionary force; but the rest of the field has barely been touched. 

The Lesser Antilles have been well evangelized, chiefly by mis- 
sionaries from England; while the larger islands are now being 
liberally provided for from this country. The French West Indian 
Islands, with 500,000 souls, are still a very needy field. 

In the whole of Venezuela, with 2,500,000, there are but seven 
missionaries. In Colombia, with over 4,000,000, there are but 
three mission stations. In Ecuador, the power of Rome is broken, 
and at present, not only is the Bible allowed to circulate, but mis- 
sions have already been established by American Christians. 

In Peru, with 5,000,000 souls, the venerable Dr. Wood 
was not long ago the only worker, but he has been re-entorced, and 
a new mission associated with the Regions Beyond Missionary 
Union has now been established, which promises to do much. 
When these new developments appeared, the priests opposed them 
and so slandered the workers that we feared their strategy would 
succeed. Now, however, the tendency is to remove former re- 
strictions rather than impose new ones. 

Brazil has a territory as vast as the United States. Its present 
population is nearly 18,000,000, and among them only fifty 
missionaries are at work, with about the same number of native 
helpers. The number of Brazilian converts exceeds 8,000. The 
2,000,000 of aborigines of the interior are yet unreached, but the 
South American Evangelization Society of Toronto is now seeking 
to provide for them. 

In Uruguay, which comes next, a good work is being done, 
but the staff, in both of the missions there, is insufficient for the 
1,000,000 of souls around them. 

T,he same might be said of Argentina, with its 5,000,000 
people. But, happily, that republic is obtaining more and more 
attention every day. The most remarkable of the Protestant mis- 
sions in South America is doubtless that of the South American 
Missionary Society in Tierra del Fuego, where a tribe of savages, 
among the lowest known in the scale of civilization, have been 
humanized and Christianized. 

The foremost of the republics is Chile. But the gospel is needed 
there no less than it was in ancient Athens and in Rome. The mis- 
sionaries now laboring among its 4,000,000 people are about 
sixty. In some places they have met with remarkable success. 

Then, in the heart of the continent, there are two more coun- 
tries: Paraguay, which has 750.000 souls; but hitherto only small 
beginnings of mission work; and poor Bolivia, with 2,500,000 



ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS 479 

souls, now brought within easy access from the Pacific 
by the railways of Peru. The only work done there has been 
effected by the agents of the Bible Societies and others, who have 
gone through that country, Bible in hand, to prepare the ground 
for more permanent work. 

It would be difficult to state the present strength of the mission- 
ary host in those countries, owing to the great variety of organiza- 
tions and the difficulty of obtaining full reports. But I do not 
think that we have more than 300 missionaries (exclusive of wives), 
or one to every 200,000 souls. And whether there be more or 
whether there be less, the fact is that as the missionaries are not 
and can not be equally distributed through the continent, the cal- 
culation of any such proportion is merely theoretical. The bulk 
of those multitudes remain far beyond the range of evangelical in- 
fluences. 

On the other hand, it is because of this great deficiency in 
preachers and evangelists that we should value the more the efforts 
that are put forth by the Bible Societies. During the last seven 
vears these Societies have made a great advance. The British and 
Foreign Bible Society alone has from thirty to forty workers per- 
manently employed in disseminating the Word of God in those 
vast South American fields. Most of our efforts, however, have 
hitherto been directed to the Spanish-speaking Mestizos and 
Creoles, and the poor aborigines have remained uninfluenced by 
our work. This will not be so in the future. Some portions of 
God's Word have already been translated for them in nine of the 
principal languages. Unfortunately, the readers among those 
people are not numerous. Some thousands of copies, however, 
are now in circulation. Wherever the colporteur has sold or given 
a portion of Holy Scripture, there is an opening for work. The 
purchase of that Book is evidence of a desire to know more on 
the part of the purchaser. 

Roman Catholic Missions in South America 

Rev. W. Hubert Brown, Missionary, Presbyterian Church, 
U. S. A., Mexico^ 

I am to speak of Roman Catholic Missions in South America and 
their failure to evangelize the people; and I can give you an idea 
of the chief reasons for the failure if I state briefly the methods 
of evangelization employed in the past. 

In the first place, at the time of the conquest, Spanish and Portu- 
guese colonists came into Mexico, Central and South America. 
With the invading bands were, as a rule, priests or monks, and one 
of the first efforts of the conquerors was to convert the native 
population. It was a recognized fact that if the natives were con- 
quered, they should accept the religion of the invader, along with 
his rule. Violence was employed in order to set up the new re- 
ligion, the troops rushing up the steps of the temple, destroying 
the idols, setting up the cross or an image of the Virgin, and then 
performing the ceremony of the mass. Later on the children were 

* Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



48o THE AMERICAS 

gathered into schools that they might be taught to read and write, 
and to repeat some of the necessary prayers and sayings of the 
Roman CathoHc Church, either in the Latin, Spanish, or Portu- 
guese language; and finally these same children were employed by 
their teachers to go out on expeditions of destruction to help break 
down native temples and idols. 

Another method used was compromise. Astute men saw that 
if they could find out some shrine or some sacred spot and link 
with it the new worship of the Roman Catholic Church, the crowds 
that formerly went to the pagan, would go to the papal shrine. 

These methods did not wholly eradicate the old superstition. 
Although the natives were employed to erect vast convents, monas- 
teries, and churches, they saved some of their idols, hid them from 
public view in caves or fastnesses of the mountains, and con- 
tinued to worship their heathen gods. As the years went on, a 
mixed population, Indian and Spanish, or Indian and Portuguese, 
grew up, which is the really characteristic population of all Latin 
America, except where the Indian element still predominates, or 
where immigration (as in Argentine Republic) has changed the 
problem, possibly, in some respects. But this mixed population 
naturally would be devoted to the Spanish religion. 

Now, why do we say that the Roman Catholic missions failed? 
Why do we claim it is necessary to send men and spend money 
to establish missions in those countries? In the first place, be- 
cause of the corrupting influence that entered into the priesthood 
and into the monasteries, owing to increase of wealth and power. 
The wealth amassed was not always employed for the conversion 
of the people. For many of the missionaries of the first centuries 
of Roman Catholicism; for their heroic sacrifices; for their won- 
derful efiforts, we have nothing but admiration. But they were repre- 
sentatives of a system radically defective. 

The other reason for their failure was the lack of spirituality in 
the teaching. Superstition was mingled with their teaching in 
spite of all their devotion, so that we have, then, a corrupt form 
of Christianity. Whatever may be said of individual cases — and 
I have no reason to doubt that there have been godly, consecrated 
lives among the workers in that Church — a corrupting influence 
has been at work in the lives of monk and priest in those regions, 
an influence which has tended to vitiate in many respects the moral 
life of the people. Examples might be abundantly given which 
prove this assertion. But it is not wise to go into details. We 
will only add that Protestant missions have an influence which 
will be seen as a restraining influence upon the Roman Catholic 
Church in those regions, and as an enlightening influence upon the 
country at large. 

Indians of South America. 

Rev. D. B. Grup.b, Siipcrinicndcnt, South American Missionary 
Society, Paraguay.* 

I have been laboring since 1S89 in the Republic of Pai'aguay. 

•Madison Avenue Presbyierian Church, April 23. 



INDIANS OF SOUTH AMERICA 4S1 

The western portion of the RepiibHc of Paraguay is called the 
Chaco. It is a region rather larger than the whole of France, 
and it is populated, as far as I can tell, by nearly a quarter of a 
million of heathen Indians. These Indians have maintained a 
virtual independence of the neighboring republics ever since the 
first Spanish conquerors landed in that country; and there are no 
civilized residents among them except the mission party. 

The people we are working among at present comprise three 
nations, among whom we find some tens of thousands of a very 
fine class of savage, men who are brave, v^^ho are skilled in 
pottery, and in weaving wool and cotton, and who have a certain 
knowledge of agriculture. These people have a most interesting 
religion. They believe in a creator, in the immortality of the soul, 
in ghosts, and devils. 

The country which they inhabit is a great, level plain, stretch- 
ing for hundreds of miles in two directions; in some places covered 
by dense forests, abounding in huge swamps, and jungle lands 
covered with tall grass. When we landed there in 1889, almost 
nothing was known about the country; we had to explore that 
whole region for ourselves. Not a single word was known of the 
language. We had no interpreter; we had to begin by going 
among the people, living with them, and learning their language 
by means of signs, step by step. In the Chaco you live, if pos- 
sible, in rough huts. The huts are infested day and night by in- 
sects of all kinds. At night goats and sheep continually prance 
about, and lucky you are if you do not have the wind knocked out 
of you two or three times during one night. The food is not 
choice! A very favorite dish in that country is a mashed up mess 
of beans. They mash the bean in a native mortar, and then put 
it in a gourd, and put in a little water and stir it around with their 
fingers. This thing you are supposed to take up in your hand 
and suck, and when you are done with it, it is passed on to an- 
other, a little more water put in, and the next man takes his turn. 

The people live in constant dread of devils. They are afraid to go 
at night to the swamp, because they say these swamps are the 
homes of devils. They live in constant dread of their lives, on ac- 
count of the witch doctors. Witch doctors might send cats or 
rats, or snakes, or beetles into the body, and only by the help of a 
friendly witch doctor can one get rid of them. Then they believe 
in dreams. The Indian believes that when he is dreaming, his 
spirit really leaves his body and wanders far away; and while his 
soul is away, another v/andering soul may enter in and take pos- 
session, and then his own soul can not get back. Another serious 
thing is that they hold you responsible for what they dream. If 
they dream of being killed by a certain man, they hold that man 
responsible, and think they are justified in killing him in return. 
They also bury people alive and practice infanticide. It is not done 
out of cruelty, but simply from a religious motive. 

But these savages are capable of improving. We have a good 
school among them. Some of them have learned to read and 
write, some are making progress in the Scriptures, and some of 



4S2 THE AMERICAS 

them are truly converted. Tlie natives themselves have l^uilt a 
Httle church, and we have native teachers there, men and women, 
who are doing good work among their countrymen. Through the 
instrumentahty of these native teachers we hope to reach 300 
heathen tribes in the interior of the land. 

Work in Buenos Ayrcs 

Rev. Charles W. Dreese, Missionary, Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Buenos Ayres* 

Let me trace briefly an outline of the work of the missions of 
my own Church in South America. The center of our South 
American work is at the city of Buenos Ayres, a city of 800,000 in- 
habitants. In that city we have six congregations, more than a 
thousand children in our Sunday-schools, about 500 children in 
day schools. At Montevideo, a city of 250,000 inhabitants, are four 
congregations. One hundred and eighty-six miles up the great 
River la Plata, you will find three Protestant congregations, and 
at the city of Asuncion, in the little Republic of Paraguay, is an- 
other center of light. 

At Bahia Blanca, a city which is going to be one of the great 
seaports of the east coast of South America, a Christian congre- 
gation has been established, and at five or six other points within 
the province, and also at San Luis, at Mendoza, and at San Juan. 

Now for all this region of eastern South America, there is one 
feature of immense encouragement to labor, and that is that the 
Gospel is at work on a population that is in movement. In a single 
year there came to the great seaport of Buenos Ayres more than 
200,000 Italians and Spaniards. These people, uprooted from the 
old home in Spain or Italy, removed from the surveillance of the 
priest, become wonderfully susceptible to the influence of the Gos- 
pel of Christ. Francis Penzoto was an Italian and went to prac- 
tice his trade in the city of Montevideo. One night Mr. Mill took 
the Gospel of St. John, and went through the crowded streets to 
distribute the book among people who were celebrating St. John's 
Day. He pushed his way into a little saloon just as a young 
Italian was stepping onto the floor to dance. Mr. Mill gave him 
the Gospel of St. John. Within a few days this Italian was led into 
our gospel services, and was converted to Christ. He has now be- 
come a colporteur of the American Bible Society; he has traversed 
that great continent, and he has suffered imprisonment for four 
long months in a common jail, when any day he might have gained 
his freedom by promising not to speak in the name of his Master. 
His case was heard by the Supreme Court in full bench; and when 
the decision was handed down it vindicated this courageous, lov- 
ing servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and sent him forth free to 
prosecute his calling. That man, now circulating the Scriptures in 
Central America, is an example of the kind of work in progress. 
The Gospel laid hold of him as it has laid hold of enough Italians 
in Buenos Ayres to make a large Protestant congregation in Rome, 
and of enough Spaniards to make a good native Spanish congre- 
gation in Madrid, if they could be taken back there. 

* Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



DUTCH GUIANA 483 

The South American Missionary Society 

Rev. a. Ewbank, South American Missionary Society, London/'- 
It is my privilege to represent the Church of England South 
American Missionary Society, the oldest missionary Society to 
South America. The Society has sent out its chaplains for the 
English, and by reaching the English-speaking races of South 
America, there has been a lifting up of Christianity there which 
has helped the cause of Christ in all the continent. It has sent its 
agents into the large ports and has reached the sailors of all na- 
tionalities. It has dealt also with the heathen. You have heard 
of their missionaries working in the Chaco, and among the 
heathen in Chile, and the mixed heathen and Latin races. I will 
only give you one illustration: A little over two years ago we 
rented in the city of Buenos Ayres the largest hall we could get 
at the time, and in a few weeks the hall was crowded by men 
and women, who absolutely did not know who Christ was, or that 
God was love, and who thought that the news was too good to be 
true. Then vv^e took a larger hall, and they crowded it, and at last 
we were driven to build a larger place still, and it is now crowded. 
We started day schools, and have these schools crowded; and we 
are only held back now from having more schools by the lack of 
men and women to teach in them and the means to support those 
men and women. In the same way, at Parana, a few miles out- 
side, at Rosario, and at Alberdi, we have started higher class 
schools in order that European children may have a Christian and 
Protestant education. And here, again, we are not able to cope 
with the numbers that are coming in. This work and its encour- 
agements call you of the United States to come south and work 
these South American fields. 

Dutch Guiana 

Rev. p. de Schweinitz, Secretary, Mission Board, Moravian 
Church, Bethlehem, Pa/^ 

The work in Guiana was begun in 1735 among the Indians, and it 
has extended to the Bush negroes. The Bush negroes are the de- 
scendants of runaway slaves. When they fled into the swamps 
there was no white man who could go after them, and they grew 
up to be a very fierce race. They were so fierce that they actually 
attacked the colonies, and the Government tried to conquer them 
without success. At the same time the Government was doing all 
in its power to oppose the Moravian missionaries who were at 
work among the slaves as well as among the Indians. When the 
Bush negroes had defeated the Government, appeal was made to 
the Moravian missionaries to defeat the Bush negroes. The Mo- 
ravians took them in hand, and being used as the agents of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, they concjuered them by the power of love, and 
there has been no insurrection since that day. We now have there 
a church membership, among the Bush negroes and the former 
slaves, of 29,000 souls. 

* Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



4^4 THE AMERICAS 

Mexico 

Rev. a. T. Graybill, D.D., Missionary, Presbyterian Church, 
U. S. (South), Mexico."^' 

Mexico herself, as a Catholic country and before receiving the 
gospel from Protestants, cast off the authority of Rome and the 
priests, separated the State from the Church, established religious 
liberty, public schools, and the freedom of the press, and banished 
the nuns and the Jesuits, as the cause of the poverty, ignorance, and 
superstition of the people. It did this in the face of all the 
anathemas that the Pope could hurl against that Catholic nation. 
This fact makes it entirely unnecessary for us to make any apolo- 
gies for the inefficacy of Romanized Christianity in Mexico. But 
I v^ant to mention one fact which will show the peculiar state of 
things in a part of Mexico where I have labored. 

Our field extends from Matamoras up to the top of the Sierra 
Madre Mountains. It is just about 350 miles long, and about 230 
miles wide; and we co-operate with the Society of Friends and 
also with our Baptist brethren. The principal object of worship 
in that extensive field is the Virgin of the Falls. She is called the 
Virgin of the Falls because her image is engraved on a stalagmite 
in a cave near a beautiful fall of water. The majority of the peo- 
ple, learned and unlearned, rich and poor, do not give their re- 
ligious allegiance either to priests or to Rome supremely, but they 
give it to that image. The proof of this is that about the year 
1880 the Bishop of Tamaulipas issued an official edict, with all the 
authority of Rome, saying to the people that this image has no 
virtue, and that they must bring their offerings to the images in 
the churches. It also hurled anathemas against them in case they 
continued to worship that image of the Virgin. But the edict did 
not make the slightest impression upon the thousands who went 
to that shrine every year. The great obstacle to the gospel in 
that section of Mexico is not the priests nor the Pope. It is the 
power of that image. Idolatry is the great obstacle to the spread 
of the gospel in that part of Mexico. 

The Aborigines of North America 

Rt. Ri:v. William Ridley, Church Missionary Society, Bishop 
of Calcdonia.-\ 

The Diocese of Caledonia is in the far west of Canada. It abuts 
on the north with your own Alaska, and there we have a popula- 
tion of some 35,000 Indians, and on the seacoast a number of 
tribes that are certainly more intellectual and progressive than any 
Indians this side of the Rocky Mountains. They have no such 
struggle to live. Food is abundant with them. They are not 
nomadic, but are settled in old villages which are being now re- 
placed by Christian homes. 

When I first knew the country, in the evening when we made 
our campfire, it was with caution, lest the smoke betray us to hos- 
tile people near. As soon as the cooking was done we put cm 



* Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 23. t Carnegie Hall, April 25. 



THE ABORIGINES OF NORTH AMERICA 485 

the fire and set a watch. But now — oh, the contrast! Then, 
there was not a Christian from tidal water to the river sources in 
the midst of the mountains. Now there is not a tribe or commu- 
nity without its church, and school, and band of Christians. Then 
it was perilous to ascend these rivers; now we are welcomed. Of- 
tentimes at night, after supper, when we have prayers, and my In- 
dian crew lift up their voices in song' — and sweet singers they are — 
we hear from the other shore, from some island in the river, simi- 
lar sweet sounds crossing the waters. 

Do you suppose the people wanted us there? Not at all. We 
went, not because we were wanted, but because we were needed. 
And we met with difficulties, thank God. Difficulties are the con- 
diments of life. We met with persecution; and there is nothing 
to brighten Christians like persecution. I have had a brute leave 
a crew of 150 men and come and deliberately spit in my face, and 
then knock me down and kick me with his foot. That very In- 
dian afterward clasped my feet and begged my pardon, and when 
he died, he died in the faith of Christ, a triumphant Christian. 

I shall not forget how the greatest chief on that coast told me 
that he and his followers, the boldest pirates on the coast, were 
overcome by the silent gaze of a small congregation of Christians, 
as once on a Saturday night the heathen came in arid bid them 
cease praying, tore up their Bibles, and because they would not 
promise to cease praying, pulled down the church with axes and 
crowbars; and because it was too heavy a task to pull down the 
tower they set fire to it. One young fellow, a Christian, said: "Shall 
we not fight for the house of God?" and a senior Christian said. 
" No, Jesus never fought, he died; we will die rather than fight." 
This was the beginning of the conversion of the strongest tribe on 
that coast; fine men and big fellows — bigger than we are. The chief 
one told me soon after he was baptized: " From that night onward 
I dreaded the Spirit of God. Out on the ocean or where the snow- 
peaks looked over the seas, there the Spirit of God followed me 
ind I was afraid, and when I hunted among those peaks the 
Spirit of God hunted me and I was afraid." Another man who 
one day was holding the end of a tape measure measuring out the 
best site in the town to begin a new church, said to me as I drew 
near: " Bishop, do you know that hand set fire to the church? " I 
said: "No." "It did, and until I heard the native preacher say 
that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. I never had 
peace in my heart, but when I heard that my fear went away." 

We have seen the testimony of the life of these people to the 
thoroughness of that conversion, and I am bound to testify that 
although I know life in England, and in India, and in this country, 
I don't know brighter Christian characters, nor more moral Chris- 
tian communities than among those people, the Indians of British 
Columbia on the coast. We have got a jail there, but it is the only 
decaying building, as there has been nobody in it for twelve years, 
and now we are going to turn it into a coalhouse. 

Some people say missions are the miracles of the age. I say 
the missionary is the miracle. Do you not find it hard to be good 



486 THE AMERICAS 

at home with all the help that you have? Go where there is not 
one in sympathy with you, and I tell you the tendency is to come 
down to the level of the ones that surround you. The solitary 
man feeling the force of Satan — sometimes the heart giVes way, 
especially a young heart. You know we are obliged to bring out 
young people; we can not have mature people to start missions, 
because they could not learn the language very well. But Babel 
is one of the greatest blessings to missions, for these young men 
and women, coming out so full of enthusiasm, would make endless 
blunders, if they could go straight ahead. But they have to be 
two years dumb (and that is very hard upon women, you know). 
That discipline of silence is one of the greatest helps, if one can 
only face it. It brings out the grit, and by the time the discipline 
has done its work, the missionary has learned someting of the na- 
tives, and the natives have learned more of him or her. I have seen 
young characters developed until they have become missionary 
geniuses, looking out in the face of difficulties with the eyes of 
Christ. With such tools in the Master's hand He perfects and 
completes His beautiful work. I will give you an instance. A 
man went to work among savages about twelve years ago. Now 
those savages have got their own sawmills, and they have built 
their own church and their own schools. When that church was 
opened eighteen months ago, there was a choir sweetly singing; 
there was a brass band in procession; the church was full; and 
when the ofifertory was made it amounted to $1,344 in cash. The 
people said they would not use God's house until it was paid for. 

The people have not only helped themselves, they have helped 
others. When I went out there twenty-one years ago, not one 
of those nine languages had been reduced to writing. We have 
now got five sanctified by the Word of God, and three presses are 
at work in the hands of Indians, who were savages, making their 
own books; both printing and binding them. That is progress! 

I count it the greatest privilege of my life that among the hun- 
dreds of languages into which the Word of God has been trans- 
lated, I can count two of them as my own handiwork. You have 
no idea what a joy it is to the Christian. One day a thoughtful 
man said to me: " Before you gave us the Book you threw links 
before us, and we picked them up, but it did not fasten us any- 
where. You have given us now the chain, and it is a golden chain, 
binding us all together and all to God." That was the power of 
the Book. Another said : " When you first began to teach us it 
was like a door ajar, and the stream of light that shone in showed 
up our foulness, and we felt it, but we were always looking in. Now 
the door is wide open and the house is full of light, and we look out 
and we see Jesus, and we hear Jesus, and we follow Him on from 
Bethlehem to Olivet, right up to the throne of God." 

This will show what the power of the gospel is, spoken b\- ln)ly 
and humble lives. I have seen tribe after tribe, and nation after 
nation of Indians brought into God's Church bv himdreds and ihon- 
sands through the j)ower of the Word of God. 



MORAVIAN MISSIONS 487 

Rev. J. Taylor Hamilton, Secretary, Mission Board, Moravian 
Church, Bethlehem, Pa* 

March the 3d, igoo, marked the formal close of missions proper 
on the western coast of Greenland. There professed pagans no 
longer exist. Holding that the founding of a native church is 
the end of a missionary enterprise; well assured that the Danisli 
State Church has adequately provided for this development in this 
colony; desiring to avoid sectarian rivalry, and persuaded that 
God in His providence has assigned to us a distinctively mission- 
ary calling, we Moravians have reached an amicable agreement 
with our Lutheran brethren, whereby, after 167 years of labor bv 
our missionaries, we turn over our share of this field to them, that 
we may be the more free to enter the regions beyond. 

We are withdrawing. But for us and for others the stimulus of 
this mission's history abides. The clear-visioned faith of our 
early missionaries is classic in missionary annals. Classic is John 
Beck's Simeon-like content, when his own son came to labor at 
his side; and classic is Sorensen's readiness to start for Greenland 
on one day's notice at Zinzendorf's call, to remain there more than 
forty years. Then there is the history of the translation of God's 
Word and the creation of a Christian literature — our Lord will still 
employ the record of all this, as in the past, to kindle zeal, to sus- 
tain patience, and to vivify service in many a land. In Greenland 
itself missionary heralding has given place to pastoral care and 
cure of souls, though ethnic traits render the complete provision 
of a native pastorate an affair of decades to come. 

Across Davis's Strait, Labrador is occupied onh^ along the east- 
ern coast, and by a sparse population of Eskimos. Akin to the 
Greenlanders, they formerly equaled them in indolence and filth, 
and excelled them in stupid pride, treacherous ferocity, and in- 
eradicable superstition. This reputation they lived up to when the 
first missionary, a Moravian brother, Christian Erhardt, landed in 
July, 1752. He and the sailors of his boat were all murdered. 

In the harbor of Okak there swings at anchor in summer a 
boat of different build from its companions, with the name " Kitty " 
painted on its stern. Some years ago, a whaler so named, was 
wrecked on the northern reaches of this inhospitable coast. The 
crew took to their boats. While yet in sight of each other, a fleet 
of kayaks darted out and overpowered some of the Europeans, al- 
ready half exhausted by their battle with the elements. One boat's 
company escaped and steered south. Their food gave out. In 
their helpless extremity, another swarm of kayaks struck terror 
by its approach. Too weak to resist, the sailors duly resigned 
themselves to their fate. The kayaks made fast to their bows and 
cowed them to shore. The prisoners were carried into the largest 
house, and then were tenderly laid on beds of moss and given food. 
At nightfall the natives assembled. One Eskimo opened a big 
book and read from it. Then he and his companions commenced 
to sing. The words sounded uncouth, but the tunes were those 
of Christian devotion. Here was the explanation of the happier 

* Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



488 THE AMERICAS 

fate of these shipwrecked men. They were at the Moravian mis- 
sion station, and later, on leaving, presented their boat as a testi- 
mony to the kindness of their rescuers. Notwithstanding Erhardt's 
murder, in 1771 Nain had been founded by Jens Haven, whose im- 
pulse thither, indeed, dated from the time he learned of Erhardt's 
death. " Our friend is come," shouted the Innuit in welcome, 
when tlie white man, dressed in furs and speaking their tongue, 
familiar to them from Greenland, braved possible treachery. He 
and his companions were fitted out by an auxiliary society in Lon- 
don, which, since then, has annually sent a missionary ship to this 
uncharted coast, the one sure bond linking the heralds with home. 
Never in all these years have the successive vessels failed to make 
at least one harbor, and never has the ship been utterly wrecked — an 
unparalleled record among voyagers in these fog-enveloped seas, 
beset with bergs and floes. 

But rewards of toil were very slow here. Not until 1804 did the 
gospel meet acceptance. Then patience was gladdened by a wide- 
spread awakening among the people. To-day, from six centers, 
thirty-five missionaries minister to all but about 200 of the scat- 
tered Eskimos, and in summer care for the spiritual needs of 
the fishermen who visit the coast. Only toward Cape Chud- 
leigh and Ungava Bay is there room for material extension of 
the mission among aborigines. 

I shall not recite the pathetic story of efforts among the Indians 
of our own land. What a mighty change this Conference marks 
in the public attitude. In 1745, David Zeisberger and Christian 
Frederick Post, Moravian missionaries, sat in jail here in this city 
of New York for seven weeks, because they had carried the gospel 
to the Iroquois at Onondaga. It needed the special interposition 
of Governor Thomas, of Pennsylvania, to set them free. But here 
in this very city, some five generations later, the President of these 
United States, and an honored ex-President, and the Governor of 
this great Empire State unite in unequivocal testimony to the value 
of Christian missions and their own appreciation thereof from 
personal eye-witness, missions to the Indians being singled out in 
particular. Yea, verily, " Our God is marching on." 

According to the last census of the vast Dominion of Canada — 
that huge tract reaching north from the line of the Great Lakes — 
the full-blooded Indians there were numbered as 99,364, of whom 
only 16,677 were still pagans. To what strenuous and wisely di- 
rected labors of self-abnegation do these figures testify, from the 
period of Briboeuf's self-immolation (let us give the Jesuits of New 
France the credit they deserve) down to the present time? And 
how the figures tell of the conquering power of the Word. Here 
evangelical missions — for our Moravian work in Ontario, founded 
in 1792, practically constituted part of the missions among those 
of Delaware stock — began in 1820, John West, a chaplain of the 
Hudson's Bay Company, giving the initiative. The work of the 
Church Missionary Society has enjoyed nobly deserved success 
and its employment of ordained Indians has attained splendid 
proportions. Eleven well-organized missionary dioceses exist. 



MORAVIAN MISSIONS 489 

Cockran, and Cowley, and Horden are names that each stand for 
more than forty years of glorious successful toil. The services of 
the Methodist missionary, Evans, and his invention of syllabic 
writing, have aided in the almost complete christianization of 
whole tribes like the Crees and Ojibways. Macdonald, and Bom- 
pas, and Edgerton Young have been mighty travelers for Christ. 
And who can forget Duncan of Metlakahtla? What a wonderful, 
self-organized and self-supporting, thrifty Tsimpsean community 
he has created upon Anette Island by his Christian generalship. 

Finally, let us glance at Alaska where, under Russian dominion, 
the Greek Catholic Church laid claim to 13,700 Aleuts and Eski- 
mos, many of them, however, remaining utterly unevangelized, 
even though the sign of the cross had been made on their foreheads in 
holy baptism. In 1877, Rev. Dr. Sheldon Jackson became the 
pioneer of the Presbyterian Mission, establishing the Fort Wrangel 
station, and ever since has applied his indefatigable energy to all 
sorts of plans for uplifting the natives of this territory. With its 
fine industrial school at Sitka, and its widely scattered stations, 
the Presbyterian Mission has brought a vision of life and hope to 
3,500 Indians. 

Beyond the Aleutian peninsula, Eskimos dwell along the coast. 
When, in 1883, Dr. Jackson applied to our church at Bethlehem to 
send men to these forlorn folk huddled in unspeakable degrada- 
tion in their filthy dug-outs, there was a quick response. The vet- 
eran missionary Hartmann, and every member of the graduating 
class in our seminary, signified a willingness to go. The explor- 
ers, Hartmann and Weinland, reported favorably in 1884. Bethel, 
on the Kuskokwim, was founded in 1885, and Carmel, on the 
Nushegak, in 1887. Other points have been occupied since. The 
story of this mission in turn saddens and thrills. At present it 
counts 600 Christians, and gives bright promise through the large 
proportion of native assistants who have been assigned to out- 
posts. Here, in Alaska, since these beginnings, an attempt has 
been made to assign distinct spheres of operation, that denomi- 
national comity may have fullest sway. The Presbyterians in the 
south have as neighbors the Friends at Douglas, and the Swedish 
missionaries at Yakutat; the Baptists have raised their standard on 
Kadiak Island; Unalaska's strategic harbor is held by the Metho- 
dists; we Moravians have the valleys of the Nushegak and Kuskok- 
wim; the valley of the mighty Yukon forms the extensive Episco- 
palian field with 2,400 Christians; the Swedes occupy Norton 
Sound; the Congregationalists almost touch Asia at Cape Prince 
of Wales; Point Plope rejoices iti an Episcopalian Mission; and 
at Point Barrow, where in August the ice may present an impene- 
trable barrier sixteen feet thick upon the ocean, if swept down by 
the Arctic currents, the Presbyterian Church has planted the most 
northerly mission on the earth, next to the Danish Lutheran at 
Upernavik in Greenland, on the other side of the continent. In 
all, these recent evangelical undertakings can count about 8,000 
converts as an evidence that labor has not been in vain, notwith- 
standing the dif^culties of the field. 



CHAPTER XX 

ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC 

Beginnings of Work — Evolution of Hawaii — Micronesia — Philippines — New 
Hebrides — Oceanic Converts. 



The Island World 

Rev. R. Wardlaw Thompson, Secretary, London Missionary 
Society, London.* 

I believe there are some innocent philanthropists who are dis- 
posed still to say that we are doing very wrong in taking the Gospel 
to those innocent children of nature who live in the South Sea 
Islands. They tell us we have brought the demands and tempta- 
tions of a new civilization to these people; that with larger knowl- 
edge we have added to their lives new and increased responsibili- 
ties, while v/e have not increased their happiness. If you want 
to know what those charming children of nature were before the 
missionary influence began to be felt among them, read the early 
stories of exploration and travel. You do not need to go be- 
yond those of the plain but picturesque pages of Captain Cook. 
He was a remarkably accurate observer, and a remarkably care- 
ful and not by any means exaggerating recorder of what he saw, 
and heard, and did, and if there is anything in English speech more 
plain, more horrible, than some of Captain Cook's descriptions of 
■he debauchery, the licentiousness, and the cruelty of those 
charming islanders, I do not know where it is to be found. 

Two races inhabit the South Sea Islands, though they do not, as 
a rule, both inhabit the same islands; one, the light-colored Maori 
race, which is found from Tahiti to New Zealand; a fine, handsome, 
lively people, not, as a rule, cannibals, though they have fallen into 
l)ad practices from the evil communications which corrupt good 
manners. The other, the dark-skinned Papuan race, is not so 
handsome as the Maori. In the past it was sickening In its love 
of cannibalism. Both races were in former days, the days when 
they were " innocent children of nature," appallingly licentious, 
vindictive, and cruel in all their dealings with each other. There 
is little doubt, I think, that at the beginning of the century the 
population in many of the principal groups of the islands in the 
Pacific was so rapidly decreasing from internecine wars, from li- 
centiousness, from infanticide, from cruelty of various kinds, that 
the actual extinction of some of those populations was within 
measurable distance. 

* Broadway Tabernacle, April 23. 



r.nnTNNINGS OF WORK 49 1 

Europe began to discover the existence of the South Sea Islands 
250 years before missions were commenced among them. Mean- 
while, if the missionaries did not go, the explorer went, the trader 
went, the pearl shell-lisher went, and, finally, the purveyor of black 
labor went, and all these influences of civilization, with the fre- 
quent visits of whalers from the United States and from Great 
Britain, on their way to the South Sea fisheries, have combined to 
produce some very startling results. When you hear stories such 
as those told by the early missionaries of the Europeans, it was 
time something else came in to make these people know that the 
white men who were so far superior to them in knowledge, and 
skill, and various arts, were not devils instead of men. 

The first mission to the South Sea Islands was really the result 
of Captain Cook's visit. It was commenced by the London Mis- 
sionary Society in 1796, when the " DufT " sailed from England with 
twenty-nine missionaries for the Island of Tahiti. This mission 
was continued for a number of years. The dawn broke in 1811, 
and with the swiftness of the tropical day, the sun rose and filled 
the whole region with a marvelous light! The first converts be- 
came pioneer missionaries. The force of their character, that 
martial spirit which had led them to be perpetually fighting their 
neighbors, was turned to good account, and the story of the hero- 
ism of those early pioneers, the native evangelists of the South 
Seas, is one of the most thrilling of modern missionary enterprise. 
This mission in Tahiti was carried on until the French invasion of 
the islands, in 1844, when it was given up to the Paris Evangelical 
Missionary Society, which is carrying on a most valuable work in 
Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, and other groups. In 1821, the 
London Missionary Society occupied Raratonga, of the Cook 
group. Thence, they went in 1830 to Samoa; in 1841, they went 
to the Loyalty group; in 1846, to Savage Island or Niue, and, 
after twenty years, to the Tokelan, Ellice, and Gilbert groups; 
finally, in 1871, the great mission in New Guinea was commenced. 

I have left out of the account purposely two other attempts at 
pioneering by the London Missionary Society. In 1841 a mis- 
sion was commenced in New Caledonia, but after valuable lives of 
native teachers had been sacrificed, it was necessary to abandon 
the attempt. In recent years an interesting work has been com- 
menced on the east coast by the native churches in the Loyalty 
Islands; apart from this, New Caledonia is still without a mission- 
ary. In 1839, John Williams visited the New Hebrides, landing 
with his young colleague, Harris, at Erromanga, where they were 
both at once murdered. The attempt was renewed by others in 
1 841, at Futuna and Aneiteum, by native teachers. The following- 
years were years of heroic endurance and sacrifice, with no ap- 
parent result. The permanent settlement of European mission- 
aries on any of these islands seemed apparently hopeless. In 1848 
the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia undertook the mission. 
Dr. Geddie being the first missionary. He found, on landing at 
Aneiteum, that the labors of the London Mission had not been 
wholly in vain, for forty-five people at once gathered about him for 



492 ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC 

instruction. When he died, in 1872, the inscription on his tomb- 
stone read: "When he came to this island in 1848 there were no 
Christians; when he died in 1872, there were no heathen." 

Meanwhile, in 1814, Samuel Marsden commenced an exceedingly 
difficult work among the Maoris of New Zealand, a people of fierce 
character and very hostile to the Europeans. This was the begin- 
ning of the remarkable mission of the Church Missionary Society, 
conspicuous for the splendid labor and devotion of two brothers, 
Henry and William Williams, who started work in 1822 and 1832, 
respectively; when they went to New Zealand there were no Chris- 
tians, and, like Geddie, they were permitted to labor on until the 
whole race had come under the influence of Christianity. 

Next in order of time the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions commenced its great work on the Sandwich 
Islands in 1819. That developed, as you know, into the great 
Hawaiian Evangelical Association, which, in 1852, began work in 
the Micronesian Islands. In 1821, the Wesleyans commenced their 
wonderfully successful mission in the Tonga group, and from there 
they spread to the Fiji Islands in 1835, and then to New Britain in 
1875. In the year 1848 Bishop Selwyn commenced work in the 
Melanesian Islands; having discovered them to be entirely un- 
evangelized, he procured a small vessel of twenty-nine tons, called 
the " Undine," and starting from New Zealand, with singular hero- 
ism and devotion, he traveled 20,000 miles among these islands in 
this little craft, trying to get hold of the people under singularly 
difficult conditions. That has become the great Melanesian Mis- 
sion of the Australian Board of Missions of the Episcopal Church. 

Thus, I have given a bird's-eye view of the beginning of work in the 
South Seas. The whole area of that vast ocean has now been tol- 
erably covered by missionary enterprise. There are still many 
small scattered islets which have no missionary, and in many cases 
know nothing of the Gospel. There are groups of islands in which 
the work of Christ is still in its most elementary stage, but in the 
great principal groups of the South Seas, civilization, growing 
knowledge, Christian enthusiasm, and the growing, strengthening, 
and purifying Christian principles, are remarkably at work. The 
church, the school, the theological seminary, the printing-press 
with its literature, are all to be found as freely and fully at work 
as in the lands of Christendom, and this earliest modern mission 
field has become the earliest proof of the power of Christ to win 
the world to Himself. It is an elementary Christianity. The 
temptations of the people are great; temptations of caste, and 
climate, and association, and all the heredity of many generations 
of past corruption and degradation, but with all that, there is a 
reality about this South Sea Island Christianity. 

The Evolution of Hawaii 

Rev. O. H. Gulick, Missionary, American Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions, Honolulu, II. /.* 

The missionaries went out to the Sandwich Islands forty-two 

♦ Broadway Tabernacle, April 23. 



THE EVOLUTION OF HAWAII 493 

years after Captain Cook had revealed their existence to the 
modern world. They found a savage people with all the vice and 
the superstitions of the heathen, and what the heathen are but few 
of you know. The people were slaves under their chiefs. The 
king owned every inch of the land. He gave the larger divisions to 
his fellow-chiefs as he chose, and everyone was subject to his dicta- 
tion. With his permission, the missionaries landed at Kelaua. 
They found there had been a revolution among the people, and 
they had thrown away their idols and broken their taboos. The 
missionaries entered and lived as they could in the coarse huts of 
these savages. They went to the houses of the people and of the 
rulers, and began at the foundation of things. They made an al- 
phabet and reduced the language to writing; speedily there arose 
a thirst to learn; chiefs and people bent themselves to learning 
what the missionary had to teach. After the death of the king 
the queen regent became a Christian, and soon Christian schools 
were opened throughout the islands. These earlier schools 
were, of course, in the vernacular, but within the last five years a 
change has been made. There is not a school left in which Ha- 
waiians are taught in their native tongue. English is to be the lan- 
guage of the country, and a large portion of the children speak 
English. 

The Hawaiian race is but a portion of the present population of 
the islands. At the last census there were 31,000 Hawaiians, 8,000 
half-castes, 110,000 Americans, British, and Germans, 16,000 Por- 
tuguese, 60,000 Japanese, and 21,000 Chinese. There is probably 
110 city in the world where the population is so mixed, with the 
exception of Constantinople, as Honolulu to-day. 

What is to be the future? This little people, who were savages 
but eighty years ago, helped to teach Japan that entrance into the 
fellowship of other nations of the world was to be obtained by treating 
well the Christian religion. It seems to me that this has been one 
of the great missions of Hawaii in the world in setting before the 
nations of the ocean, Japan and China, the fact and the evidence 
of the uplifting power of the Gospel. 

Micronesia 

Miss E. Theodora Crosby, New York. 
About 2,500 miles to the southeast of Havv^aii are the Gilbert, 
Marshall, Caroline, and Ladrone groups of islands, collectively 
known as Micronesia. With the exception of the Ladrones and five 
islands in the Caroline group which are of volcanic origin, these 
Micronesian islands are small, low, coral formations; it is notice- 
able that the low islands of the Caroline group are, as a rule, the 
most fertile of any in Micronesia, while this fertility decreases in 
the Marshall Islands, and the soil becomes sterile and unproductive 
in the Gilbert group. These islands were first visited by Spanish 
navigators about the middle of the sixteenth century, and since 
that time have either been nominally possessed by Spain, or left 



494 ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC 

undisturbed to the native chiefs. Within the last twenty years, 
however, the nations of the earth have stretched out their hands 
after these *' pinheads of creation," as they have been called, so 
that the flag of England floats over the Gilbert group, the Mar- 
shall and Caroline groups belong to Germany, while the Ladrone 
Islands — by far the most desirable — have come under the protec- 
tion of our own United States. It will be interesting to watch the 
<levelopment of these island folk under the kindly government of 
these three nations. 

The origin of the peoples who inhabit this portion of the island 
world has long been a matter of conjecture. At the present time, 
while differing widely in language and customs, they all have the 
same general characteristics; heathenism is seen in its lowest and 
most revolting forms, though there is little of that deliberate 
cruelty, and none of that religious sacrifice of life found in many 
groups of the Pacific. Their religious rites differ in no material 
respects from those in other groups ; stones, deemed the incarnation of 
deities, are found everywhere and are the recipients of prayers and 
of gifts. 

It was in 1852 that the American Board began work in Micro- 
nesia, in connection with the newly organized Hawaiian Board of 
Missions. Thirty years before, the first missionaries had gone 
from New England to the savage people of the Sandwich Islands, 
and now, as a Christian nation, Hawaii reaches out a helping hand 
to others in darkness. The Kamehameha was so interested in 
the undertaking that he sent a letter to the Micronesian chiefs, in- 
troducing the missionaries and bespeaking protection for them. 
But God had already prepared the way. One of this pioneer band 
wrote home, " Everywhere the providence of God anticipated our 
coming, removed obstacles, and has opened before us a wide and 
promising field." It is worthy of note that up to this time no for- 
eigner dared go among these people unless heavily armed, while 
the greatest precautions were taken by the ships that visited the 
islands in the interest of trade. The missionaries went fearlessly 
and without protection from island to island, and never once suf- 
fered violence at the hands of a native. No wonder one of them 
writes: " God has brought us hither, and has introduced us to the 
friendship and help of the people! " 

During the first few years the missionaries had no certain con- 
nection with the outside world. The building of the first mission- 
ary ship, the " Morning Star," in 1856, began a new era in the his- 
tory of this Micronesian Mission. Since then there have been four 
vessels of that name, so that the missionaries have been certain of 
at least one mail a year, and a renewal of their supplies of food and 
clothing. 

The work in all these groups is carried on by means of train- 
ing schools, which, for reasons of health, are situated on the higli 
islands. To these schools the young men and women arc brought 
from their island homes on the yearly tour of the " Morning Star." 
and remain for a longer or shorter period, till they are thorough- 
ly prepared to carry the gospel to their own people. At Kusaic 



MICRONESIA 495 

(Caroline group) there are two trainiij^ schools for young men. 
one for the Gilbert Islands and one for the Marshall Islands, and 
a boarding school for the girls of both groups. At Ponape, in the 
Central Carolines, there were similar schools, but in the temporary 
occupation of the group by Spain, this island was made the Gov- 
ernment headquarters, and the result proved disastrous to tlie 
work. All the buildings were burned and the missionaries driven 
out. This station is, however, to be reopened the present year. 
At Ruk, in the Western Carolines, is a training school for the 
young men of Ruk and the Mortlock group, and a similar school 
for girls. Under the Spanish rule the missionaries were excluded 
from the Ladrone group; now, however, under the protection of 
the Stars and Stripes, the American Board is sending missionaries 
to Guam. 

Besides these training schools in the care of the American mis- 
sionaries, there are in Micronesia — exclusive of the Ladrone group 
— over 1 20 schools taught by the natives, with more than 6,000 
pupils ; fifty-one churches, every one of which is self-supporting, and 
in every one of which contributions are regularly made to the work 
of the Board. The membership is nearly 6,000. Last year the gifts 
from these coral island folk amounted to nearly $3,000. 

Rev. F. M. Price, Missionary, American Board of Commission- 
ers for Foreign Missions, Micronesia.'^ 

I wish that this Ecumenical Conference could open the eyes of 
Christians so that they could see what heathenism is and what 
the Gospel does in heathen lands. Why is it, do you suppose, that 
our honorable brother, who has come to us from the New Hebrides, 
is permanently and intensely interested in those poor, ignorant 
people in the South Pacific Ocean? Why, do you suppose, that 
every missionary that returns to this land and enjoys the fruits of 
our civilization, is so eager to leave all these and return to his 
missionary life? I think it is because of the Holy Spirit. I think 
it is because the hearts of the missionaries have been opened 
where they have come in contact with heathenism, and they 
see what heathenism is and realize what the Gospel 
can do for heathen people. We have seen heathenism as 
it was and heathenism as it is in some parts of those islands to-day. 

When I first went to the Islands of the Sea and looked into the 
faces of the heathen people my heart sank within me, and it did 
not seem possible there was any power in this whole universe that 
could lift those people up to a life of purity and sv/eetness. I had 
to go home and kneel down before my God and pray that the Holy 
Spirit might come into my heart and enable me to believe that this 
Gospel would be a power unto salvation to these people, lift them 
up and cause them to live in families and enjoy life, and have a 
hope of the future, as we do. At the present time, if we open our 
eyes, we shall see in Micronesia that they have Christian churches 
and Christian schools. The Christians love to express their re- 
ligion in acts of worship. Not only that, but you will see that 

* Broadway Tabernacle, April 23. 



496 ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC 

heathen customs have disappeared. It is just delightful to go to 
one of those communions. On some islands you will see a little 
group of people gathered about the teacher and his wife; perhaps 
two or three, then a dozen, then two dozen, then you will see chil- 
dren in their Christian dress taking their places in front, and the 
heathen people coming in at the back part of the room. That little 
group around the preacher grows and grows, and the group at 
the back grows, and the group in front grows larger until the whole 
house is filled with people who are clothed in their right minds, 
worshiping the God Vv^e love, rejoicing in the salvation that brought 
such joy and blessing to their hearts, and living as Christian people 
should live, the life which we so much rejoice in here in our civ- 
ilized land. 

We have training schools that take the advanced scholars from 
the native schools and train them as preachers for the various 
churches. These are in time to be married and sent forth as mes- 
sengers of God to their own people. You haven't any idea, you 
who sit here in this land to-day, who call your ministers to your 
pulpits and surround them with all the comforts of your pure home- 
life and of civilization — you have no idea of the temptations that 
meet a young man and his wife when they go out from our schools 
to spread the gospel. The marvel is to me, when I see what they 
have to endure, that only one has fallen during the six years I have 
been connected with mission work there — temptations that would 
destroy half the young men in this city have to be endured by those 
young men and women. Yet they are teaching the blessed Gospel of 
Jesus, and presenting in their own lives the example set by Him. 

Open Door in the Pliilippines 

Bishop John F. Hurst, D.D., LLD., Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Washington, D. C* 

War's providential uses lie far beyond the ken of those who 
mingle in the fray. Beyond the fierce play of human passion and 
the strife and noise of the battlefield are the larger results flow- 
ing from the issues of the contest and from the contact of the con- 
testants when active campaigns have ceased. Those are the re- 
lationships established in commerce, education, political discus- 
sion and interchange, and most of all in the religious life. Thus 
has it been on the mottled map of Europe, thus has it been in 
America, and thus will it be in Greater America. 

The Philippines are now ours — ours to influence, ours to edu- 
cate, ours to help, if not to hold, in perpetual union. Opportunity 
with ability makes duty. We are responsible for the best and 
highest use of the light and truth committed to our keeping. 

There is practical unity of view among all the Christian denomi- 
nations as to the duty of the hour. Even those who for a time 
held aloof and seriously doubted whether there should be any 
American foothold on these Thousand Lslands of the East, are 
now wholly convinced that every effort should be made to extend 



* Broadway Tabernacle, April zt.. 



THE NEW HEBRIDES 497 

to these millions the benefits of our Christian civilization. Bishop 
Potter has, since his visit to the Philippines, recently said: 

" It is nonsense to talk of the native Filipinos having the ability 
to organize a government of their own. It is only in rare cases 
that any of them show a real governing power. I was much 
pleased with the conditions in the islands. The war is practically 
over, the only insurgent activity now being of a guerrilla charac- 
ter that resembles the adventurous freebooter wars of southern 
Italy. The majority of the Filipinos are friendly to us, have every 
confidence in our soldiers, and are ready to come under our Gov- 
ernment. This friendly feeling is shown everywhere by the chil- 
dren, who are devoted to the soldiers. The better class of Fili- 
pinos are satisfied that American occupation means increased 
prosperity. 

" On the whole, I think I have considerably changed my views as 
to the right and duty of a superior nation to govern a weaker. I 
think that is inevitable. Everywhere throughout the East the 
problem is the same — to bring these peoples to see and recognize 
the superiority of what we know is civilization, and give them the 
opportunity to adopt it." 

The problem before us is a threefold one: 

(i) To reach those natives who have received the stamp of Rome 
and are intrenched in the imperfect and formal religion of that 
Church. This will be a slow and difficult task. (2) To dissipate 
the wrong impression in the minds of those natives who have be- 
come acquainted with Romanism, but who have fought against and 
rejected it, but who still judge all forms of Christianity by that type. 
This will be a more hopeful class with which to labor, and will 
probably yield earliest fruit. (3) To carry the gospel in its primi- 
tive power and simplicity to those who live beyond the point of 
even Roman Catholic endeavor. The 10,000,000 of population 
must all be reached, and upon their lives must shine the light of 
God's Word — interpreted by loving hearts and consistent lives. 

The need is now for men and women of large intelligence, pa- 
tience, discretion, courage, and faith, who will, in very deed, intro- 
duce to the islands the New Testament standard and example of 
Christian living, and for a strong and liberal support for their work. 

The New Hebrides 

Rev. John G. Paton, D.D., Missionary, Presbyterian Church of 
Queensland, Australia, Nezv Hebrides. "^ 

I have to tell you of the work of God in the New Hebrides, 
Many people think that those South Sea Islanders are better with- 
out the Gospel; that they ought not to be troubled with our Chris- 
tianity and with our civilization, but those that talk in that way 
have not been to the South Sea Islands; they have never seen the 
crimes that have been described, the cannibalism, the polygamy, 
the infanticide, nor all or any of the cruelties to which woman is 
subjected. When we went to the South Sea Islands we went to a 
people without civilization, without clothing, without a written lan- 

*Broadway Tabernacle, April 23. 



498 ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC 

giiage, sunken so low that one almost despaired of their ever being 
able to receive the Gospel. Indeed, the aborigines of Australia were 
considered so low that they couldn't receive the Gospel; our island- 
ers were considered the same. Now that Gospel has been given to 
them, and by God's grace it has proved even there, among the be- 
nighted cannibals, the power of God unto salvation to every one 
that believes. 

We have now on that group nearly 3,000 converts; these people 
have family worship in their houses, with God's blessing asked at 
every meal. They built two great churches 100 feet in length and 
40 feet in width. I have been in those churches again and again, 
full to overflowing, and have seen the triumphs of the Gospel 
manifested by those savages. Not only on one island, but 
throughout the whole group wherever we have been able to place 
teachers, is this state of affairs to be seen. We have the Word of 
God translated and printed in twenty-two new languages that were 
unknown to the world when I entered that field forty-two years 
ago. Last year there was a revised edition of the New Testament 
in the language turned out. Those who were interested in the be- 
ginning of the work have paid for the printing each in their own 
tongue; and for ever}^ leaf of the Bible that we have printed in the 
past we have had to pay $5, $2.50 for every page; but what is 
money compared with the redeeming love that the precious Word 
reveals to the poor savage! 

I labored until at last I was the only one left. Five mission- 
aries were murdered in one island before the people began to re- 
ceive the Gospel. But, adored be God, that island is now a Chris- 
tian island. Very often I would seize a rifle that was presented 
and hold it ofif. I have had two rifle barrels, one in each hand, 
praying to God and holding on; and it is wonderful how, if the 
heart rises to Him, God hears, answers, and protects, and we have 
been spared to this day. 

This work is still extending, but we have 40,000 or 60,000 canni- 
bals in that group yet. Now, some people think the cannibals 
have all passed away. Would to God that they were! But we arc 
trying to get the Gospel carried to those 40,000. We have 300 na- 
tive assistants at the present time, native preachers and teachers, 
from those very cannibals that we have trained up to the work of 
God; many of these men and women have sealed their testimony 
with their blood, and rather than give up the work and escape from 
the danger, they have stood at the post of duty until they died and 
passed into eternity, rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

One word in regard to the rum and brandy taken down there by 
the traders. We give the people the Gospel, we try to teach them 
to be examples of how Christians ought to live, we bring them to 
fear God, and try to do what God requires of them by His grace 
and help; but our countrymen increase our burden by bringing in 
firearms. Firearms are dangerous weapons in the hands of the 
savages, more so when reason is dethroned by the white man's 
" fire-water." Missionaries have been killed by drunken savages. 
One missionary's life has been three times attempted. He is now 



THE OCEANIC CONVERTS 499 

among a thousand cannibals, none of whom would kill him when 
sober. For they are listening to the preaching of the Gospel and 
beginning to attend school. My son had two rities leveled at his 
head recently, when he was with a chief who had been converted 
two years ago, who was a constant helper. While the savage 
stood with the rifle leveled at my son's head, with his finger on the 
trigger, this chief protested, pleaded, but seeing no sign of relent- 
ing, he sprang in front of the missionary just as the rifle was dis- 
charged. The ball went through the chief and he fell. Another 
shot was discharged, so near the missionary, that it almost blinded 
him, and yet another shot, but there he stood unharmed, protected 
by the Everlasting Arms. He and another missionary went to the 
chief, and found him bleeding and weak and expecting to be over- 
taken by the savages and devoured at one of their feasts. When 
the missionary saw him he wept over him. The chief said: " Mis- 
sionary, don't weep over me, I am happy." " But you are suffer- 
ing," said the missionary. The chief said: "I am suffering pain, 
missionary, but I am suffering no pain compared with what our 
dear Lord Jesus suffered for me when He died on Calvary." 
When death finally came he went into glory to be forever with the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

Try to stop such murders, and wash your hands as i\mericans 
of further responsibility for them. 

Our Oceanic Converts 

Rev. Joseph King, Organhing Agent, London Missionary So- 
ciety in Australia.* 

When the final story of the Christian Church is written, Oceanica 
will supply a most interesting chapter. Never resting, the one 
ocean breaks upon the strand of many islands, and the league long- 
waves are not checked until they spend themselves in the Gulf of 
Papua. Some years ago an earthquake in South America started 
a tidal wave which, three days later, smote the great Barrier Reef 
of Australia, 7,000 miles away. The progress of Christianity has 
not been so rapid as this, but the spiritual movement begun at 
Tahiti a century ago has shown an equally certain progression, and 
to-day in many a bay and river delta on the coast of New Guinea, 
Papuan savages are receiving the blessings of the new life. 

The benefactions of Christianity throughout this island area have 
been conferred by British and American missionaries. London 
sent forth the first messengers in 1796, Boston followed in 1819, 
and the fraternal oneness of the ambassadors has been demon- 
strated over and over again; in mission work America and Britain 
have never been separated. The modern missionary movement, 
indeed, like this remarkable Conference, has been ecumenical, not 
only in the sphere of its operation, but in the nationality of its 
workers. In calling attention to the nationality of Polynesian mis- 
sionaries, I do not forget that Germany, France, Switzerland, and 
Scandinavia have in other fields so largely shared in the common 
and ecumenical service ; much less do I forget the pre-eminently 



* Broadway Tabernacle, April 23. 



500 ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC 

valuable help of the native pioneers who have been, especially in 
Polynesia, among the first fruits of our mission churches. 

The island communities of the Pacific were in their original con- 
dition self-contained nations, numerically, in most cases, insignifi- 
cant, but strong in communistic loyalty and patriotism. Far back 
in prehistoric times they evolved their unwritten codes of honor or 
dishonor, and adopted their revolting customs. There were among 
them degrees of ethical obliquity, but the best types were grossly 
immoral. But when they heard the story of the Cross, island after 
island received the tidings which brought deliverance from sin and 
from the attendant fetters and fears of savage life. 

Some writers have said that Christianity, as introduced by the 
missionaries, has robbed the native of his primitive hilarity, and 
made him dull and unhappy. Could these writers have seen canni- 
bal Fiji as it was when the lurid glare of oven fires spread dismay 
through a district, and the exacting demand for human victims sat 
like a perpetual nightmare upon the community, they would never 
have formed such an opinion. In material comfort, personal 
safety, and freedom; in knowledge and intellectual interest; and in 
sustained joyousness, the present-day life of the Polynesian is im- 
measurably superior to what it was in pre-missionary times. But 
the tests demanded by this Conference go deeper than this. A 
demonstration of the fact that in Occanica the average number of 
church members to the population is the highest in the world, 
would still leave you asking for fuller light. 

In order to ascertain the value of profession among such a peo- 
ple, we must humbly recognize our insufficiency to determine that 
which God alone can accurately know. We must avoid both sever- 
ity and an excess of easy excuse, and be quite sure that our stand- 
ards are the standards of Christ Himself. He who spared the 
bruised reed and smoking flax would not forget, as we sometimes 
do, the pit and miry clay out of which Polynesian converts have 
been so recently rescued. Missionary conferences must pray for 
the grace of discernment. We must be quite sure that we do not 
by thought or unguarded word reject or treat with unwarrantable 
suspicion those over whom the Master rejoices as found treasure. 

Christianity in Oceanica is as real as it has been in the early 
days of any Christian country, and we may sing paeans of praise to 
God for the conversion of South Sea Islanders with as much rea- 
son as Te Deums were justified when ancient Britons first felt 
the power of the Cross. 

There is one feature of the Christian life of Oceanica which calls 
for special mention. From the first, the churches of this mission 
field accepted the responsibility of the local pastorate, and were 
mindful at the same time of their missionary obligation to provide 
pioneers for service abroad. The missionary Societies, and I 
name them in their historical order, the London Missionary Sr- 
ciety, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 
the'Wesleyan Missionary Society, the Presbyterians in the New 
Hebrides, and the Episcopalians in Melanesia, have all succeeded 
in training native ministers and missionaries who have rendered 



THE OCEANIC CONVERTS 501 

more or less efficient service. And the Christian communities of 
Polynesia are not only giving men and women, they are with mar- 
velous liberality giving of their means. If all the churches of 
Christendom were providing men and money in the same propor- 
tion, the evangelization of the world in one generation would be 
much more than an aim; it would be an achievement not difficult 
of accomplishment. 

After the testimony I have given, one word of warning may be 
necessary. Experience in Polynesia has shown that we must be 
prepared to foster the churches we have gathered until their power 
to stand alone is fully proved. Much more is demanded of us than 
the evangelization of the heathen. Those whom we gather into 
the fold must be shepherded. " Feed my lambs." The churches 
gathered must be nurtured with the tenderest and wisest care. 
The apostles were not evangelists; they were shepherds. The care 
of the churches received their unwearying attention and was made 
the subject of their unceasing prayer. The apostolic epistles arose 
out of the need which existed for teaching, correcting, and building 
up mission churches, and in this, as in other respects, the apostolic 
plan must be ours. 



CHAPTER XXI 

INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

India — General Outlook — Education and Its Fruits— Character of Native 
Christians — Social Status of Christians in Ceylon — Burma and Its Re- 
ligions — The Laos — Wild Men of Assam — Siam and Missions. 



General Outlook in India 

Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, M.D., D.D., Missionary, Reformed 
Church in America, India.^ 

I speak to you to-night for India; my India, to which I have 
given more than forty years of my Hfe, to which I am hastening 
back to give the remainder of my days. My India? Nay, Christ's 
India, for which He gave His hfe's blood. 

India is not a httle province, but a vast and varied country. It 
stretches from the burning sands of Cape Comorin, within eight 
degrees of the equator, up through nearly 2,000 miles to the for- 
ever frozen peaks of the Himalaya Mountains on the north, and 
from Afghanistan on the west, through 1,800 miles to Indo-China 
on the east, a country as large as all the United States to the east 
of a line drawn through Bismarck, N. D., and Galveston, Tex., 
as large as all the continent of Europe, excluding that portion of 
the Russian Empire which falls in Europe, and with a population 
four times as large as that of the whole United States. Arrange 
all mankind in a line and call the roll and every fifth or sixth man, 
woman, or child will answer in one of the languages of India. 

India is not inhabited by a homogeneous people of one race and 
language. It is in these respects like Europe. Its people are 
cthnologically as distinct from one another as are the Spaniards 
and Germans, the Scandinavians and Italians, Turks and English. 
It has more distinct and divergent languages than are found in all 
of Europe. 

As it was in Europe in the time of Martin Luther, when the 
Roman Catholic religion extended over all Europe, with the ex- 
ception of the Turks who were Mohammedans, so it is in the India 
of to-day, all of the people hold to Hinduism or Brahmanism. ex- 
cepting the descendants of the Mohammedan conquerors and their 
camp followers, who to-day number somewhat over 50.000,000. 
True, Buddhism was born in India 500 years before Christ ; and 
v;ith kings and princes as its missionaries soon gained control of 
all India and held it for centuries. But Brahmanism. which seemed 
to have been exterminated, was onJv burned under as the grass by 



♦ Carnegie Hall, April 24. 



GENERAL OUTLOOK IN INDIA 503 

a prairie fire, and as tliat grass, after the prairie fire has passed, 
springs up with the first copious rains in rank luxuriance, so did 
Brahnianisni again spring up and. driving Buddhism from the land 
of its birth, reassert its power, only in ranker, grosser form. Bud- 
dhism is found only in the native States of Nepal, Sikkim, and 
Bhutan of the Indian Himalayas, and in Tibet, Burma, Siam, China, 
Korea, and Japan. 

Time fails me adequately to depict modern Hinduism; with its 
absolute divorce between religion and morality, so that a man 
may be at once a most devout worshiper of the gods, a priest 
reverenced as such and bowled down to by the people, and yet be 
guilty of every vice and immorality of life. 

The flood of light let in during the last sixty years by Western 
education, in thousands of mission high schools and colleges; the 
light diffused by the oral proclamation of the gospel far and wide 
through the land in the languages of the people ; the light let into the 
barred zenanas of the Hindu homes by the lady missionary; the 
light entering the softened hearts of our patients in the mission 
hospitals; the light scattered by the printed page of Scripture and 
tract ; the light shining from the pure and holy lives of the converts, 
who try to pattern forth their Master, has aroused intelligent 
Hindus to the true nature of their nineteenth century Hinduism.. 

The Brahman editor of The Daily Hindu, of Madras, one of the 
strongest native papers in India, said not very long ago: "The 
glory has departed out of our religious institutions, and what once 
contributed to purify the minds of millions of men and women is 
now the groveling-ground of some of the most ignorant and 
wretched of human beings. The vast majority of the pious en- 
dowments are corrupt to the core. They are a festering mass of 
crime, and vice, and gigantic swindling." Of the Brahman priest- 
hood of to-day the same editor says: " It is the mainstay of every 
unholy, immoral, and cruel custom and superstition in our midst, 
from the wretched dancing-girl who insults the Deity by her ex- 
istence, to the pining child-widow whose every tear and every hair 
of whose head shall stand up against us on the Day of Judgment." 

The Reis and Ruyyet, an influential Calcutta orthodox Hindu 
paper, thus sneers at Mrs. Besant's ecstasies over the beauties of 
Hinduism: " When an English lady of decent culture professes to 
be an admirer of Tantric mysticisms and Krishna worship, it be- 
hooves every well-wisher of the country to tell her plainly that 
sensible men do not want her eloquence for gilding what is rotten. 
... In fact, abomination worship is the chief ingredient of mod- 
ern Hinduism." The Indian Nation., a Hindu journal, in speaking 
of Swami Vivekananda's utterances at the Chicago Parliament of 
Religions, says: "The pure, undefiled Hinduism which Swami 
Vivekananda preached, has no existence to-day: has had no exist- 
ence for centuries." 

But while intelligent Hindus have opened their eyes to the 
enormities of modern Hinduism, they love their system still and, 
startled at the inroads Christianity is making, they wildly clamor 
for united effort to prevent its spread. 



504 INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

A Tamil tract has been circulated up to our very church doors. 
Among other things it said: 

"Hindus! Awake, or you are lost! How many thousands of 
thousands have these missionaries turned to Christianity! On 
how many more have they cast their nets! If we sleep as hereto- 
fore, in a short time they will turn all to Christianity and our 
temples will be changed into churches. Is there no learned Pundit 
to be secured for money who will crush the Christians? . . . 
How long will water remain in a reservoir which continually lets 
out, but receives none in? Let all the people join as one man to 
banish Christianity from our land." 

While all agree that Hinduism must go, they do not agree on 
what shall take its place. Four trends of thought are distinctly 
visible in India to-day. One party seeks to resuscitate ancient 
Vedic Hinduism ; to purge Hinduism of modern accretions. 

The second trend is toward the acceptance of a Christianity 
without Christ; that is, the acceptance of Christ's teachings as a 
system of morality, without becoming Christians, or admitting 
Christ to be Divine. 

A Hindu judge urging his fellow-townsmen to put an Anglo- 
vernacular school, which they had established, under the care of a 
neighboring missionary, and to have it organized as a mission 
school, has said: 

" My friends, I was not educated in a mission school, but I have 
many friends who were, and who studied the Bible daily in those 
schools. I have witnessed its effect upon their lives: I have read 
the Bible myself privately a great deal. I have come to know the 
pure and beautiful systems of morality it inculcates. There is 
nothing in our Vedas that can compare with it, as I well know 
from careful examination. 

" Let your sons study the Bible, they need not become Christians ; 
there is no compulsion about it, the missionaries never force any- 
one. But if you want your sons to become noble, upright men, 
put this school under the charge of the missionary and have the 
Bible taught in it daily ; it will make your sons better men and you 
will be the happier parents." 

Sir Charles Elliott, while Governor of Bengal, said in a public ad- 
dress: 

" I congratulate you that the last census and the signs of the 
times all point to a very positive and somewhat rapid progress of 
the missionary work in India. There is unquestionably an under- 
current working among the higher classes in India toward Chris- 
tianity, in spite of all the open manifestations against it; and we 
may look forward with confident expectation to the day when all 
India shall bow at the feet of Christ, Who alone can uplift, purify, 
and save." 

The faith of all India in its ancient system is shaken, and noth- 
ing has taken its place. Shall India be won for Christ? We, your 
missionaries, of all the Churches, of all Christendom, locking arms, are 
longing to press the decisive assault; but we are too weak to make 
it; we send an appealing voice to our home churches in all the lands 



THE MASSES IN INDIA 505 

that support us, and beg of them to send on the needed re-enforce- 
ment. We Hsten for the reply. What is it that comes to our 
eager ears? Is it not in effect just this? " Hold on! you are going 
too fast, the home churches can not keep up with you, they can 
not afford to let you advance any further! " 

Oh, Church of the living God, awake! Fill up the mission 
treasuries to the overflow. Let a shout go forth that shall say: 
" March onward! in the name of the King of kings! Supplies to 
the full are coming; march on, and conquer that land for Christ! " 

Let that word come, and within the lives of some sitting here 
will we show you all India bowing low at the feet of our Jesus. 

The Masses 

Rev. Lewis R. Scudder, M.D., Missionary, Reformed Church 
in America, India* 

From the missionary standpoint, work among the heathen masses 
is one of the most important subjects to be considered. For it is from 
these out-caste and low-caste masses that the great majority of Chris- 
tian recruits come. The rank and file of the Christian Church come 
from the masses ; ignorant, degraded, superstitious ; looked down on 
by all above them. Their condition may be imagined when we re- 
member that their women by an ancient law were not allowed to wear 
any covering above the waist. And when Christianized Shanar 
women attempted to wear the cloth over their shoulders, terrible riots 
resulted. Of these are the Pariahs and workmen in leather whose 
touch is pollution, and whom the lordly Brahman would prevent from 
even walking the streets where his houses are built. 

That the religion of Christ can lay hold of those classes of the 
people of India who have been degraded by Hinduism to almost the 
level of beasts, and by loving sympathy can lift them up to a position 
where it is really hard to distinguish betv^^een them and the proud 
Brahmans themselves, is certainly the most convincing proof of 
its divine power. 

There is and must be in all who become Christian adherents a 
religious motive. In most cases it is not so much a conviction of sin 
as a dissatisfaction with their own religion and a conviction that 
Christianity is the true religion. With this is often a desire to have 
a school and to have for themselves and their children the advantages 
of an education. There is also the desire to rise in the social scale 
and to free themselves from the fearful disabilities with which Hin- 
duism has loaded them down. Then again with many there is a 
desire for temporal advancement. They hope to have their debts 
paid off ; to have land secured for them ; to have aid given to them 
in their litigation against the oppression of their caste neighbors. 

The reception of such material as this into the Christian commu- 
nity is fraught with danger. It throws a burden on the Church and 
heavy responsibility on the missionaries. The first thing in one of 
these movements of the masses is the religious instruction of the 
people ; and this must be done by a resident Christian helper, whose 
duty will be by example, as well as precept, to teach these poor, 

* Central Presbjterian Church. April 2-?. 



5o6 INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

ignorant people what Christianity is. In the evening prayer-meetinq- 
and in the Sabbath services he must carefully instruct them in the 
fundamentals of the Christian religion. For this we need men of 
deep piety more than men of profound education. 

Even more important than this is the care of the children. A 
village primary school and most careful catechetical instruction of 
the young are essential. A selected number of the brightest boys and 
girls, too, must be educated as teachers and preachers to their own 
people. It is hard to over-estimate the importance of the boarding- 
schools. 

Finally, a most essential thing is to throw the burden of the sup- 
port of their institutions on the people themselves. Much harm has 
been done by not pressing this from the very beginning. Nothing 
will so develop these communities as self-help. 

Woman^s Vork in India 

Mrs. B. H. Badley, Missionary, Methodist Episcopal Church, 
India.* 

The first Protestant mission to India was founded in 1705 in Tan- 
jore ; the mission included girls and women. The Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel established schools for both girls and boys 
in 1806. In 1 82 1 the London Missionary Society organized girls' 
schools. In 1823 the first boarding-schools of the Church Missionary 
Society were established. The first society for women's work in 
foreign fields, the " Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes," 
was organized in 1800, and in 1819 the " Female Missionary Society 
of the American Methodist Episcopal Church." The '' Society for 
Promoting Female Education in the East " was founded in 1834. 
In 1824 a " Ladies' Society for Native Female Education " was 
formed in Calcutta. 

Miss Cooke, the first single lady missionary to arrive in India, 
was received with scorn and derision, with coldness and contempt. 
Intelligent people thought her insane and spoke of her " fools" 
errand." 

Let us see what this errand has accomplished : Woman has left 
home and friends, been isolated for months and years in hostile cities, 
villages, and mountain jungles; she has been ahungered, athirst, sick, 
in prison, in dungeon ; she has toiled up mountain steeps, has wasted 
away in malarious swamps, has sunk exhausted on burning sand, 
has braved famine, cholera, smallpox, and plague, has faced the beat- 
ing storm, has slept upon mother earth, in order that she might teach 
the women of strange lands. 

She has caused the rusted locks of zenana doors to uriscal before 
her. She has taken inmiortal life and hope to thousands of down- 
trodden sisters, has dried the scalding tear on woman's cheek, has 
touched to soothe the aching brow. She has trained the fingers skill- 
fully to weave beautiful fabrics, to sketch visions denied to eyes shut 
in by the dull zenana walls. vShe has snatched girlhood from the 
depths of hell, preserved maidenhood from the pit of destruction, and 

♦Central Presbyterian ;jhurch, April 23. 



RESULTS OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 507 

has prevented infant girls from being thrust from their mother's 
arms. 

She has brushed the cobwebs of ignorance and superstition from 
the minds of secluded women, teaching the brain to think and the 
heart to love, until emancipated, educated, Hindu widows stand 
erect, free from the curse of gods and men. Her part has been to 
walk in noisome streets, to sit upon earthen floors, that she may pour 
out upon the crushed and the unloved the perfume of her alabaster 
box of precious ointment as upon the feet of Jesus. 

Results of Christian Education 

David G. Barkley, Esq., LL.D., Late Judge Supreme Court, 
Punjab, India* 

I have seen much of mission work in India during a residence of 
over twenty-eight years, not as a missionary, but as a Government 
servant, and from the point of view of an administrator and of a judi- 
cial officer. It is nov>? fourteen years since I left India, but I have 
continued to keep in touch with mission work in that country, es- 
pecially with the mission of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland 
in the Gujarati-speaking districts of Western India. 

When I went to India in 1857 I was furnished with an introduc- 
tion to the Rev. Alexander Duft', of Calcutta, and in 1858 I had the 
opportunity of visiting his missionary institution. In 1859 I was 
transferred to the Punjab, and came into contact with the work of 
the American Presbyterian, the United Presbyterian, the Church Mis- 
sionary Society, and other missions, from Delhi to Peshawur, and 
from Multan to Kashmir, and with the Moravian Mission in the 
mountain valley of Lahoul, over 10,000 feet above sea level, estab- 
lished more than fifty years ago as a basis of operations among the 
Tibetans : the first Protestant mission to the Tibetans which has given 
them the Scriptures in their own tongue. 

As illustrating the results of Christian education in India, I may tell 
you of one of the princes of the Kapurthalla family, who, as a boy, was 
educated by the Rev. Mr. Woodside, of the Presbyterian Mission, and 
whose baptism, when he was a young man, I witnessed at Jalandhar, 
when I was the district officer in charge of that district. This prince, 
whose brother was at this time the Rajah of the neighboring State 
of Kapurthalla, afterward informed me that one of his uncles, who 
resided in Jalandhar, and was much respected there, had tried to 
dissuade him from being baptized, assuring him that he could be 
a Christian without baptism, and that he himself was a believer in 
Christ, but was unwilling to break family ties by receiving baptism. 
In 1887 this prince represented the State at the celebration of Her 
Majesty's Jubilee in London, and at the present time he is a member 
of the Legislative Council of Lord Curzon, the Governor-General. 
His sons have been educated at English public schools, and a few 
years since I met one of them, who was studying for the English 
bar, and who came to Ireland as one of a party of Cambridge stu- 
dents holding special services for children on the seashore. 

In Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, many of the leading citizens 

* Carnegie Hall, April 27. 



5o8 INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

received their education at the school of the American Mission, which 
has now developed into the Forman Christian College. This and 
other mission schools have borne fruit in converts, some of whom 
have become ministers of the gospel, while others have risen to im- 
portant positions in the judicial administration, and have borne a 
high character, as well as showing great judicial capacity. Such 
men show that there are some cases where Christian teaching given 
to boys of the higher classes bears fruit in their conversion. 

There are no doubt many cases in which the most distinguished 
pupils of mission schools never make a Christian profession, but, 
as a rule, in these cases prejudice against Christianity is largely re- 
moved, and the moral character has evidently benefited from Chris- 
tian influences. Indeed, there are cases where parents who are not 
Christians themselves prefer to send their children to Christian 
schools, not only for the sake of a good English education, but on 
account of their confidence in the superior moral influences of these 
sch®ols. Thus where conversion does not result, there is still a 
leavening process at work which only requires the vivifying influence 
of the Spirit of God to bring about new birth. 

Rev. Maurice Phillips, Missionary, London Missionary So- 
ciety, India * 

Up to the beginning of the last century the Government of India, 
as represented by the East India Company, was bitterly opposed to 
missions. Hence the venerable Dr. Carey had to seek shelter under 
a foreign flag. It was in the year 1813 that Wilberforce and others 
prevailed upon the British Parliament to insert a clause in the re- 
newed charter of the East India Company to the effect that mission- 
aries might live and labor in India. With the insertion of that 
clause the period of antagonism ceased, and the period of indifference 
to missions commenced. The period of indifference continued until 
fhe great mutiny in 1857. Then people were aroused from their 
spiritual lethargy to the necessity of sending forth men and women 
to teach and Christianize the Hindus. Ever since that time rela- 
tions between missionaries and the Government of India have been 
friendly. The Government gives us every possible facility to carry 
on our work. It gives us grants for our schools. It consults us as to 
the best books to be introduced into the schools and colleges, and it 
places a large number of us on the governing bodies of the univer- 
sities. The Government of India now regards missionaries as mighty 
factors in the education and regeneration of that land. One of India's 
greatest statesman, a man of the greatest experience, made this dec- 
laration some time ago : " In my judgment Christian missions have 
done more real, lasting good to the peoples of India than all other 
agencies combined." 

Now, you are not to suppose that we have gained this position 
by any cringing servility to the Government. Our missionaries criti- 
cise the actions of the Government when we see that they arc not 
right, and we agitate to get abuses redressed. Not long ago tlie 
burning of a widow on the funeral pyre of her husbajid was the 

♦Carnegie Hall, April 25. 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTENDOM 509 

custom. Missionaries agitated, and that custom was abolished. Not 
long ago infanticide was the custom. Missionaries agitated, and that 
was abolished. Not long ago thousands of people cast themselves 
under the wheels of Juggernaut's car to be crushed to death. Mis- 
sionaries agitated, and that custom was put an end to. Not many 
years ago civil service and military officers of Government attended 
heathen festivals, not in order to protect them, but in order to add 
dignity to them. Missionaries agitated and put an end to that. Not 
long ago the Government managed all the temples, it collected the 
revenues, it paid the priests, it paid the dancing girls, the prostitutes 
of India. Missionaries agitated, and that was abolished. Not long 
ago converts to Christianity lost their civil rights. Missionaries 
agitated, and a law was passed that a change of faith did not involve 
the loss of any civil liberty. Not long ago the Government pro- 
hibited the women who had embraced Christianity from wearing 
clothes above their waists. Missionaries agitated, and an order was 
given that the Christian women should be allowed to dress decently. 
In this way missionaries watch the proceedings of the Government 
in India. We criticise, we agitate, we petition, and when mission- 
aries petition in a body they are generally listened to favorably. 

Bonds Uniting India with Qii-istendom 

Rev. J. E. Abbott, D.D., Missionary^ American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions, Bombay, India."^' 

The present century in India has been that of Christian influence ; 
an influence which hardly represented the best of Christianity in the 
early decades of this century, but one wdiich has become purer, more 
sympathetic, more helpful, and more ideal as the century draws to its 
close. 

India's position is unique. A non-Christian nation is in a Christian 
environment. She would resent being called a Christian nation, 
but she does not refuse the sympathetic fellowship of Christian na- 
tions. She is bound politically with England ; her commercial life 
is bound up with the commercial life of the Christian world ; the 
cable and the steamboat are becoming as essential to her new life as 
they are to the life of Christian nations. 

In the higher plane of ideas, and here I speak of educated India, 
the fountains of knowledge are the same for her as for us. India's 
new intellectual life has not its inspiring source in the conceptions 
of science and methods of investigation of the ancient sages, but 
in that common property of knowledge that belongs to the whole 
world to-day. The millions of students who are crowding govern- 
ment, missionary, and private schools and colleges are but one with 
the whole student world of Christian lands. Our language and our 
literature are becoming as much hers as ours. The intellectual bond 
is therefore most pronounced and significant. The ever-increasing 
contributions to science by Indian scholars of the new type, prove 
their intellectual power, and the hearty recognition of that fact has 
broken down every barrier between scholars of India and of the 
West. 



♦Central Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



5IO INDT.\ AND FARTHER INDIA 

When we pass to the social Hfe of India we first meet conditions 
which are the outgrowth of a civiHzation disconnected with that of 
the Christian West. I'Vom a Christian point of view they are a 
mixture of good and evil, and no great bond of sympathy can exist 
between us and them where ideals are so different, where woman's 
true place is not recognized. But in that sphere of Indian society 
where social revolutions are taking place, a bond of common interest 
immediately unites us, for the moving power beneath those changes 
is the same that has moved us : the higher conception of the relation 
of man to man. The state of woman in Christian lands and our 
home-life have supplied them with illustrations and contrasts, but 
the struggle between Orthodox and Reformer goes on, inspired by 
the same forces that have revolutionized society in Christian lands. 

At first thought there is little to unite us in the religious sphere 
to a people whose philosophy is pantheistic, and whose every-day 
religion is polytheistic and idolatrous, but here again the moment we 
turn to the new religious life resulting from contact with Christian 
thought, we find bonds of increasing strength uniting us. It is 
not difficult to put the finger m the power that is gradually working 
a revolution in their religious thought. It is the better knowledge 
of the moral character of God revealed alike to them and to us 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. I doubt whether they realize the 
true significance of their almost universal admission that Christ stands 
as the most perfect moral teacher the world has ever seen ; but the 
religious chain that is binding us together has its middle link in 
Christ Jesus and Him crucified. It is possible perhaps to fail to 
recognize the Christward tendency of much of India's new religious 
thought, because of its groping character; turning now backward to 
old philosophies as to some eclectic system ; now afraid of Christ, 
for His service means too tremendous a revolution in religious and 
social life. But from the very nature of the Indian mind the re- 
molding of her religious philosophy, in view of present religious 
thought, can not be long delayed. It needs no prophet to say that 
the emphasis of the new philosophy will be on the personality of God, 
His moral character, and the relation of man to God and man to man, 
which this new conception of a Christ-revealed God necessitates. The 
standard of man's moral life will be Christ, for India's religious in- 
stinct already recognizes in Him the ideal of all moral excellence. 

The political, commercial, intellectual, social, and religious tics of 
which I have spoken have providentially brought India into the com- 
munity of Christian nations in whose interests lies her welfare, in 
whose progress, her progress. She would rightly resent being called 
a Christian nation, but she does not resent the fellowship of Christian 
nations ; nor does she resent the influences which are revolutionizing 
her life. 

Educated Natives of India and Christianity 

Ri:v. L. B. Woi.F, M.A., Principal American Lutheran College, 
Gnntiir, India.^ 

There are two classes of educated Indians — those who have re- 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



EDUCATRD NATIVES AND CHRISTIANITY 5 II 

ceivcd training in the thoughts and ideas of the old cults in their 
old dress of language and form, and those who have followed the 
new awakening and have come under Western science and thought 
through the medium of the English tongue. As a rule those of the 
former class have not a very clear and comprehensive view of Chris- 
tianity, and their attitude is one of indifference, so long as their sphere 
of influence is not invaded. When it is, they become most hostile. 
Whether educated in Islam or Hinduism, whether of the priest class 
or not, they are ever ready to defend the old faith against every 
attack. 

P""or the second class of educated Indians, Western science and 
thought have revolutionized the whole mental horizon. In many re- 
spects they are as well informed as the educated classes in England 
or America. Five universities, with their affiliated colleges, are edu- 
cating a considerable section of the Indian nation. In Madras from 
five to six hundred young men are graduated annually. Thousands 
are reading in the 124 colleges and high schools of the south Pres- 
idency. The same is true of Calcutta, and Bombay, and Allahabad, 
and Lahore universities. 

Educated Indians are largely made what they are by : i. The Gov- 
ernment school system of non-interference in religion. 2. The Hindu 
school and college, either indififerent in matters religious, or else 
hostile to Christianity. 3. The Christian school and college. If a 
young man has received his education in a Government school or 
college, where religion is a tabooed subject, it is a matter of little 
wonder if he comes out of the college with all his faith in the old 
gods and religion gone, and with a materialistic or agnostic residuum 
only remaining to influence his life. But many a professor, while 
unable to say a word in the classroom in favor of the faith, by his 
noble life and character has produced an impression for Christianity 
upon his students which a missionary would deem himself happy 
to make. 

If, again, the educated native has been trained in a Hindu or 
Mohammedan school or college, it is certain his attitude will be in 
the main that of the school which he attends. Hindu and Moham- 
medan masters do all in their power to break down their Christian 
neighbor, on the sole ground that he is Christian. 

If, however, the youth has read for years under the direction of a 
Christian master, who has taken pains to point him to Christian truth, 
his thought and character, both while reading in the college and when 
leaving it, are largely molded by such influence. 

In general, then, we may say that the educated Indian's attitude 
toward Christianity varies from open hostility, through indifference, 
to an open avowal and belief in Jesus as a great moral teacher and the 
founder of a great faith. 

Rev. J. WiLKiE, Missionary, Presbyterian Church, Canada, 
Indore, India^' 

In describing the attitude of natives of India to Christianity, they 
may be divided into several classes. 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



£12 INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

1. Those who have been taught to sneer at Christianity, who regard 
it as an antiquated system not beheved in by the scientific or cultured 
people of even Christian lands. These do not trouble to inquire 
about it, are for the most part extremely ignorant of what it teaches, 
and treat with contempt any efforts to bring home to them its claims. 
This is a large, sad, and dangerous class. They are the natural re- 
sult of education in the Government institutions, too often under in- 
fidel professors, in which the mind only is trained ; they form a dan- 
gerous element both in the social and political world. 

2. The second class may be represented by the Arya-Somaj, who, 
whilst bitterly hostile to Christianity, are indebted to it for much of 
their belief. Ashamed of modern Hinduism, with more national 
pride than spiritual longings, more zeal than honesty, they profess 
to unearth from the old and largely unknown Vedas ideas which 
they have largely derived from Christianity. They believe in one 
God ; in transmigration of souls ; in the eternity of soul, of matter, 
and of the Vedas, and reject sacrifices and the caste system. Much 
of their teaching is opposed to that of the Vedas, and the more these 
are studied the more surely will this system be overthrown. 

3. The third movement is that of the Brahmo-Somaj and kindred 
movements, whose leaders are fond of using Christian terms. So 
much more so that the hearer is tempted to believe that they are 
Christians in all but the name. Christ is spoken of in the most ex- 
travagant terms of praise ; His divinity recognized, and, in a sense, 
even His atoning sacrifice. The language of the New Testament 
is freely drawn upon, and the Bible itself so prominently brought 
forward that many young men under its influence are led to read it, 
that at first hand they may learn what Christ said and did. The 
attempt to read into Christian words the pantheistic conception ; the 
efforts on the part of the leaders to magnify themselves and their work 
by claiming for themselves an inspiration the sar^e as that given to 
the prophets of old ; the inconsistencies and contradictions of the 
various would-be leaders, and, above all, the lack of all real spiritual 
power even amidst much fervid religious zeal, not only hinders the 
cause of Christ, but robs the movement of much power among its 
own people. Their opposition to the caste system and the immoral 
tendencies of modern Hinduism, and even their patronizing attitude 
tovv^ard Christianity, makes them one of the powerful disintegrating 
forces in Hinduism itself. 

4. Many are to-day convinced of the truths of Christianity, pray 
to Christ, read the I'ible, exercise an influence on behalf of Chris- 
tianity and against Hinduism ; these are largely the fruit of the mis- 
sion schools and colleges. They are a powerful leavening influence 
in the community, who will, with the courage of numbers, under a 
leader raised up among themselves, come out and sweep Hinduism 
out of existence.* 



* Many are not Brahmoists and are certainly not Hindus, and yet it would be hard to place 
them. H. H. Maharajah Holkar, who speaks English like one from Enpland, who seventeen 
years ago in his father's reign was bitterly o[)posed to all mission work in the State, gave us the 
land on which our Mission Hospital and College now stand and also a money grant. A re- 
nowned Minister of Indore State, has presided at our school prize distribution, and in giving 
the Bible prizes, urged the boys most earnestly to attend the Bible lesson, as it was the most 
important given in the school. 



NATIVE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER 513 

5. A large numlier of the leaders in India to-day are pronounced 
Christians. A large number of these are from the better class, but 
the low-castes of yesterday are in many cases becoming the high-caste 
leaders to-day through their entering the Christian Chiu'ch and re- 
ceiving the advantages of a good education there. The great low- 
caste movement is through Christianity sure to produce a large army 
of those who will be, and already are, in some cases leaders in the 
community. 

India is to-day being leavened with Christian thought and senti- 
ment, so that many of the truths of Christianity that a few years ago 
were denounced, are now regarded as truisms. Old prejudices and 
philosophical beliefs are slowly being undermined. The fight is more 
and more becoming one between infidelity or agnosticism against 
Christianity. The central truths of Christianity — the divinity and 
atonement of Jesus Christ — are recognized as the central point of 
attack, and every day the fight becomes more intense regarding and 
around these great central truths. 

Native Christian Character 

Rev. E. C. B. Hallam, D.D., Missionary, General Conference 
of Free Baptists, India.'^' 

During my furloughs at home the question has been often asked : 
" Are those natives in India ever truly converted?" Sometimes the 
question is put in this form : " What kind of Christians do those 
natives in India make ? " What kind of Christians had Peter and 
others in the churches just emerging from heathenism in their day? 
They were weak Christians, very weak, and needed to be solemnly 
warned against grievous sins. Listen : " But let none of you suffer 
as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in 
other men's matters." Some of these sins mentioned in Peter's warn- 
ing, and other and very grievous sins, our people in India are prone 
to; but in the past forty odd years of my acquaintance with them 
I never had occasion to warn them against the sin of " murder." 
They are very prone to the sins of lying and fornication, perhaps to 
none more than these. That they should often fall into these, should 
occasion no surprise. Up to the time of their conversion they have 
lived in a religion that practically teaches them sin. Their gods and 
incarnations are all liars and fornicators, and the man is yet to be 
found who is better than the god he worships. 

In judging of the character of our native brethren and sisters in 
India, v»'e must remember their antecedents, the pit whence they 
were digged ; and we shall then bear in mind their consequent 
weakness ; and we must not forget, at the same time, their present 
terrible surroundings. These three things kept in mind will enable 
us to form a just estimate of their Christian character. They are 
not only " babes in Christ," but very weak babes. Taking the above 
three items into the accoimt, T most unhesitatingly give it as my 
opinion that they have attained to as high a place in piety as have 
Christians at home. They do, alas, fall betimes into sin, grievous 
sin ; but do professed Christians at home never do this? 

♦Central Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



514 INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

Let me say that their moral sensibihties are being gradually but 
surely quickened. I have noticed repeatedly that those among the 
truly converted who fall into sin, when reclaimed seem to have a 
keener perception of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and conse- 
quently a deeper hatred of it. I can not now recall a single case of 
a second fall into the same sin. 

Of course, there are professed Christians there as here whose lives 
are a reproach to Christianity, but the heathen are rapidly learning 
to distinguish between the true and the false. 

Again : I have found them a teachable people. Present any truth 
tO' them, Bible in hand, and, as a rule, they will accept it. Some may 
imagine that this may be attributed to their great ignorance ; that 
they may naturally be expected to receive without questioning the 
teaching of the missionary. This is a mistake. They demand Scrip- 
ture evidence for all you teach. 

Then, again, we have the best evidence of their faithfulness in 
trial and suffering. In the terrible mutiny of 1857 not a few of them 
sealed their testimony for Christ with their blood. 

In 1883 the writer was in Delhi, and there met the widow and 
family of one of these martyrs, Walayat Ali by name. The story 
as then given to me was this : When the city of Delhi fell into the 
hands of the mutineers, Walayat All's first thought was for the safety 
of his missionary brother, McKay, of the Baptist Mission. He 
called his family about him and said, " I am going to the mission 
house to do what I can to save our missionary." He prayed with 
his family and then proceeded to the mission house. His poor wife 
could not bear the thought of his going, but determined to follow 
him to see what would follow. As he passed through a bazaar in 
the city he was surrounded by four Mohammedan Sepoys. The sol- 
diers said to him, for they knew him by name, " Ah, Walayat, we 
have you now just where we want you." Then, with drawn swords, 
they said, " Now, deny Jesus or die." Walayat did not hesitate one 
moment, but lifting his hand to heaven, he replied. " Deny Jesus, I 
never will. Strike ! " and they hacked him to pieces right there. 

Native Christians and non-Christians in Ceylon 

Rev. T. S. Smith, Alissioiiary, Aiucrican Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions, India.^ 

Relations between Christians and non-Christians are very different 
in India to what they are in Ceylon. Indian Christians are pre- 
vailingly out-castcs by birth, and even high-caste people become out- 
castes in the very act of becoming Christians. The Christian com- 
munity is therefore without the pale of Hindu society, and though 
their non-Christian or Hindu neighbors may respect them, they, 
as a rule, have nothing to do with them socially. At the present 
time in Southern India caste hostility is in an acute stage, and the 
out-caste and low-caste community, from which the bulk of the Chris- 
tians come, are suffering cruel and violent persecution l)y their high- 
caste neighbors. 

In Ceylon the situation is very different. Jaffna is a peninsula 

♦ Central Presbyterian Church, April 2-5. 



RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION OF THE BURMANS 515 

at the northern extremity of the island, with a population of 300,000 
Hindus, who are almost exclusively farmers or fishermen, belonging 
to the Sudra caste, the lowest of the four respectable castes of Hin- 
duism. However low this caste may be deemed in India, they are 
the proudest of high-class people in Jaffna. From the first our con- 
verts have come chiefly from this one caste, with only one or tw^o 
Brahmans and a few artisans, pariahs, ex-slaves, household servants, 
etc. The missionaries' servants even (excepting the washermen, 
horsekeepers, and water-women) usually belong to the farmer caste. 

Moreover, caste itself as a religious institution has long since 
practically ceased to exist, owing to four centuries of attrition be- 
tween Hinduism and some form of Christianity. Four centuries 
ago, St. Francis Xavier first preached Christianity to the people of 
Jaffna. Soon after, the Portuguese conquered the peninsula, divided 
it into forty parishes, and compelled the people to build in each a 
large church of brick or coral stone, and a priory for the home of 
the foreign priests, monks, and nuns. They also forced the whole 
population to receive Christian baptism. Then the Dutch, wresting 
the possession from the Portuguese, gave the people a scarcely less 
formal Christianity, offering employment to those only who would 
profess Protestant Christianity, and compelling them to support for- 
eign and native preachers and teachers. About lOO years ago the 
province passed into the hands of the English, who proclaimed reli- 
gious toleration and freedom, and in a few years the whole fabric 
of formal Christianity vanished from view. 

Very wrong ideas of Christianity were, of course, ground into the 
people, but a great incidental good was accomplished in the breaking 
down of caste. The result is that Christianity has achieved a posi- 
tion of practical social equality with Hinduism. Indeed, the lilDcral 
professions are almost exclusively in the possession of the native 
Christians ; and they are the leaders of the community. Though only 
about one per cent, of the population are adult members of the 
churches, the children of the bulk of the whole population are in 
the Christian schools. The Christians are organized in self-support- 
ing, self-governing churches, with educated native pastors of their 
own. In the endowed or self-supporting female seminaries, the nor- 
mal and industrial schools, and the English colleges, the sons and 
daughters of farmers, fishers, artisans, and ex-slaves live and eat to- 
gether, and in over 250 day schools we have the children of the 
castes and out-castes sharing together the free primary education 
offered therein. 

The whole community is so permeated with Christian influence 
that coming to Jaffna from India seems almost like coming into a 
Christian land. 

Religious Evolution of the Burmans 

Rev. F. H. Eveletii, D.D., Missionary, American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union, Burma* 

Among all the wild tribes bordering on Burma there is a belief 
in invisible beings which they call Nats. These Nats, or spirits, are 

* Church of the Strangers, April 23. 



5l6 INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

supposed to possess superhuman powers. There are good Nats and 
bad Nats, and there seems to be a hazy notion of a Supreme Ruler 
over all, but as the evil spirits are the only beings who impress the 
people religiously, they may be said to be demon-worshipers. A Nat 
is sometimes supposed to take permanent possession of a man so as 
to deprive him of his reason, or produce some serious physical defect. 
All sickness is the work of evil spirits brought upon the sufferer 
as a punishment for his sins, or for lack of reverence for the spirits 
of the air. When a member of the family falls ill, a chicken, or dog, 
or pig is sacrificed to propitiate the Nats. 

The Burmans had the belief indigenous to all these tribes. But 
above the mists of. their ignorance and superstition rise three moun- 
tain peaks which have caught the light of the coming dawn. i. The 
doctrine of spirit. 2. The doctrine of accountability. 3. The. doc- 
trine of propitiation of the higher powers, through sacrifice of animal 
life. Their object of worship was evil spirits. Their motive of 
worship was fear. 

In the year 397 A.D., a very holy man came from the Island of 
Ceylon toi Burma, bearing with him the sacred scriptures of the 
Buddhists. The king of Burma became a convert to the new faith, 
built a stately pagoda and commanded all his subjects to worship it, 
and, when they stubbornly refused to obey, he issued an edict that 
every one who refused to worship the great pagoda which he had 
built should be instantly beheaded ; but when this extreme measure 
failed, he requested his subjects to build a Nat cin, or building sacred 
to the Nats, by the side of the pagoda. In this way the people coming 
to the Nat cin to make their offerings were led to worship the gilded 
structure which overshadowed it. To this day a shrine corresponding 
to the Nat zin is built against the great pagodas in Burma. 

The transition from spirit-worship to Buddhism was in one par- 
ticular an easy one, inasmuch as it added a more complete system 
of Nats to that which the people already possessed. The transition 
was difficult, however, in this particular, that, as Buddhism forbade 
the taking of animal life, the practice of propitiating evil spirits by 
the shedding of blood had to be given up. 

Buddhism gave the Burmans a moral code. It forbids men to He, 
to steal, to commit adultery, to kill, and to drink intoxicating liquors, 
and many other valuable precepts. It also gave them a religious litera- 
ture in the Pali language, which was gradually translated into the 
Burmese. A religious nomenclature, to aid in the expression of reli- 
gious thought, and a monastic system in which the monks became 
instructors of boys and young men, teaching them to read and write 
and to commit to memory long passages from the Pali scriptures, 
were thus introduced. 

Again, Buddhism furnished the people with an example to imitate, 
and an end to attain. Gautama Buddha was the example, and Nirvana 
the end. By imitating the first the second could be achieved. Gautama 
Buddha was also a central figure around which Burmans could rally 
and become a part of the great lUiddliistic world ; a religious hero 
whom all couUl magnify, and in wlioin all could claim a sacred pos-' 
session. 



RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION OF THE BURMANS 517 

A later development is that of a flourishing' sect of Buddhists, 
who disavow the worship of all material objects and worship only 
Buddha — pure intelligence. It would seem to be but a short step 
from the worship of the divine intelligence to the worship of an 
omniscient Divine Spirit. Buddhism also presents an example of sub- 
lime compassion and introduces the idea of a sacred trinity, viz. : 
Buddha, the law, and the clergy. 

In the early part of the nineteenth century there came white for- 
eigners to the city of Rangoon, who preached to the natives religious 
doctrines too wonderful to be credited. They declared to this peo- 
ple a living God in the place of a dead Buddha ; a Saviour of others 
in the place of a saviour of self. 

When Gautama Buddha was about to leave the world for the last 
time, men pressed upon him to save them also, but he replied, 
" Though you embrace my knees I can not save you." He saved him- 
self, others he could not save. These foreigners proclaimed a Divine 
Guide, who came from heaven to pilot erring men, through the 
perilous voyage of life, to a haven of unceasing- delights. They 
preached the immortality of the soul. In Buddhism there is no soul. 
The thing which passes on from one existence to another, called 
by the Burmans Kan, when reduced to its last analysis is simply an 
account of debt and credit, which continues its wanderings through 
the mazy labyrinths of existence, until the purifying fires of many 
hells and the marvelous achievements of an incipient Buddha, through 
many ages, have satisfied the debt and won the Buddha-ship. Says 
Gautama Buddha, " Do as I have done and thou shalt never live." 
But Jesus Christ says, " Whoever believes on me shall never die." 

When Dr. Judson came to Burma with the Word of God, an im- 
perial mandate was issued, declaring that whoever should forsake the 
religion of his fathers and accept the white foreigner's religion, would 
thereby jeopardize his life. But as the edict of a former king could 
not transform demon-worshipers into Buddhists, so the fiat of the 
King of the Rising Sun could not prevent his subjects from becoming 
" Jesus Christ men." But it is a significant fact, that the tribes who 
were never won over to Buddhism, were tenfold better prepared to 
receive the teachings of Christianity than were the Burmans steeped 
in Buddhistic philosophy. 

But correct religious ideas are developing in the mind of the Bur- 
man Buddhists, and while for every hundred Burman Christians 
there are a thousand from other tribes in Burma, in the grand total 
of about a hundred thousand nominal Christians throughout Burma, 
the Burman element is assuming a larger proportion, and the oily 
philosophies of a self-saving Buddhism are being burned out by the 
fires of divine truth. 

Rev. W. W. Cochrane, Missionary, American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union, Biirma^' 

Advance work in North and East Burma among Shans, Kachins, 
and other tribes is a natural and necessary development of the Burman 

* Church of the Strangers, April 23. 



5l8 INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

Mission, of which it forms a part. These Shans, Kachins, and other 
mountain tribes occupy, besides a wide mountain strip in eastern 
and northern Burma, a section of western Yunan in China ; a district, 
roughly speaking, five hundred miles wide by fifteen hundred miles 
long. The Shans, with their early home in northwestern China, 
where, three thousand years ago, they had a flourishing kingdom, are 
related in blood and language to the Chinese. The Kachins, with 
their early home in the mountain regions to the north of Burma, 
are of Tartar origin, and are related in blood and language to the 
Burmans. The Shans are Buddhists, having been converted to this 
faith from spirit-worship by Buddhist missionaries some eight cen- 
turies ago. The Kachins (the most numerous and important of the 
" Hill tribes," so called,) are Shamanists, spirit-worshipers pure and 
simple, with " Nats " as multiform and multiplex as the gods and 
goddesses, nymphs and naiads of ancient Greece. To these they offer 
the bloody sacrifice of propitiation, and fruits and flowers of good- 
will. 

Advance work among the Shans corresponds in method and results 
to the mission to the Burmans. Advance work among the Kachins 
corresponds in method and results to the mission to the Karens. For 
these are bookless races, whose religious teachers arc but witch doc- 
tors and spiritualistic mediums, who interpret divine secrets by the 
lay of the fibers along the rift of a parched bamboo, or by impres- 
sions received in a trance. 

We have among the Shans, of the Shan country proper, three sta- 
tions : one at Mongnai, in the southern Shan States ; one at Hsipaw, 
eastward from Mandalay ; and one at Nam-Kham, in tlie Man Valley, 
farther north, where the Shans have been in continuous occupation 
for more than two thousand years. All three of these stations have 
been opened within ten years*. Each of them began on absolutely 
virgin soil, and yet each can boast to-day a Christian native church 
supporting its own pastor, a growing mission school for the training 
of helpers, and a wide range of evangelistic work. These fine results 
are largely due, under God, to years of preparatory work among the 
Shans of lower Burma, with Toungoo as a center of ojicrati^ns. 
Here the Bible and choice Christian hymns were translated, tracts 
compiled, and native helpers trained. These became effective in- 
struments and agencies when we were permitted to enter the Shan 
states after the downfall of the last Burman king and removal of 
official opposition. 

Among the Kachins we have two stations : one at Bhamo, where 
stands the Lyon Memorial Chapel, where there is a strong church of 
baptized believers, and a somewhat larger nominal Christian follow- 
ing. These are gathered largely in villages on the plains. 

Mrs. J. N. Cushing, Missionary, American Baf^lisl Missionary 
Union, Burma.* 

The first Karen I saw in Burma was coming up the compound 
where lived Rev. Dr. Cross, then a veteran, now a patriarch in serv- 
ice. Suspended from a yoke from the forehead, hanging down the 

♦Church of the Strappers, April 2-,. 



CONDITIONS AMONG THE LAOS 519 

back of this Karen, was a large pig suspended in bamboo strips to 
keep him quiet, and this pig had been brought by the man from the 
mountains. The man liimself was very untidy, his single garment 
was after the shape of a pillow-case; his hair, if it ever had been 
combed, had not been for many a day, and I said to Dr. Cross, " It 
hardly seems possible there is more soul in the burden-bearer than 
in the burden." He looked at me in astonishment, and he said, " Why, 
that is the dearest old deacon on the mountains." And I said, " If 
that can be the dearest old deacon on the mountains, then there is 
hope for everybody." So it proved. In traveling among the Karens 
they are hospitality itself. Everything they have is at your disposal. 
They were not idolaters, they worshiped spirits, good and evil, 
mostly worshiping bad spirits, because the good spirits didn't need it ; 
they were good already. They always made an offering to the 
spirits when they ate themselves ; they had no system of idolatry, 
and hence could easily take in the doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

This particular man very speedily became an evangelist, and others 
were rapidly raised up. They went through the mountains and into 
the villages as white people could not do. The Karens had no written 
language. The earlier missionaries reduced the language to writing, 
so that the people could read books prepared by the mission. It 
was in 1827 that Dr. Judson first mentioned the Karens. Up to the 
present time there are about 35,000 church members. Doubtless as 
many more have died in church communion. Connected with these 
nearly 35,000 there is a large population who are nominally Chris- 
tians. The Karens are very clannish, and if the head of a village 
receives the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ, the poor villagers want 
to be baptized almost by whole villages. 

The Karens speak at least twenty dialects, some of them quite 
similar. The Bible and school literature have been translated into 
two of those dialects, and portions of the Scripture into other dialects. 
All these tribes must learn one or the other language, that they may 
read the Bible, have an education, take the Bible to the villages and 
teach it. The gospel is being carried to tribe after tribe, until Dr. 
Bunker is now on the very border, reaching almost the last tribe in 
that direction. They are a lovable people, prepared by the Lord to 
do great things, for as they become educated they obtain self-respect 
and self-reliance. The converts in turn preach the gospel to other 
tribes. It was our privilege to take two Karen preachers to the far 
North. They are very timid, but very tenacious. They went with 
us to a region which was for them as much a foreign field as for us. 
But they have learned the language — it was a foreign language to 
them — have gone to v/ork and have held on most faithfully. 

Conditions Among the Laos 

Prof. Chalmers Martin, Former Missionary, Presbyterian 
Church, U. S. A., Siam* 

What we wish to do is to show wherein the mission enterprise, 
as carried on in our several fields, differs from that in other 
fields. It has seemed to me that I could not do this more briefly 



* Church of the Strangers, April 23. 



520 INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

or sharply than by outHning on the one hand difficulties encountered 
by the missionary amont^ the Laos, and on the other some special 
encouragements. Of difhcultics I would name three: First, the 
power of custom. This is hard for Americans, Englishmen, or 
Europeans to realize. The spirit of the Laos people is different from 
ours. Though of different race from the Chinese, they have a civili- 
zation of the Chinese type and many qualities in common with the 
Chinese. With them the thing that hath been is not only the thing 
that shall be, it is also the thing that ought to be. It is not hard to 
find an audience, nor to attract and hold their attention. Eager faces 
and more or less pertinent interruptions in the form of questions will 
show that those to whom you speak listen to what you are saying, 
and think abcmt it. Ihit when you have presented your strongest 
arguments, and your most moving pleas, it will often come like a 
dash of cold water in the face to hear some leader in the assemblage 
say, with the air of one who utters an absolute finality, " What you 
say is excellent, it warms our hearts to hear it, but it is not the custom 
of this land." 

A second difficulty is Buddhism. This is a religion which lays 
stress, not on holiness or righteousness, but upon happiness ; which 
has much to say about suffering, but little about sin. It is a religion 
of self-righteousness, it teaches that for such salvation as it has to 
offer each man must depend on himself alone; the possibility of sub- 
stitution or mediation it laughs at. It cuts the nerve of moral agency 
by what amounts to a doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. It 
has its temples by the thousand, many of them truly splendid, and 
all of them imposing and costly in comparison with the bamboo cot- 
tages of the people. Almost every family has furnished one or more 
recruits to its great army of yellow-robed, tonsured, nominally celi- 
bate, mendicant priests. Buddhism in Siam and among the Laos, 
whatever it may be elsewhere, is in no sense an outwork of the king- 
dom of God, but on the contrary it is a hostile and defiant stronghold 
which must be thrown down before the kingdom of God can triumph. 

A third difficulty which missions among the Laos must contend 
with is the worship of evil spirits. In contrast with Buddhism, so 
visil)lc to the eye in its temples and priesthood, this is a force which 
casual travelers might easily fail to recognize. It has no temples, 
except so far as every house is its temple ; no priesthood, save that 
every man is a priest and every woman a priestess, and every child 
a novice in training for priesthood. It is an all-pervading super- 
stition, influencing the whole of life. Such a superstition has a mul- 
tiplex influence in resisting the entrance of the truth. It preoccupies 
the mind ; it asserts itself with the power of habit ingrained from 
earliest childhood ; it debases and imbrutes the understanding ; 't 
blots out from the minds of its followers the line of demarcation be- 
tween fact and fancy ; it urges them under the whip of fear, to cruel- 
ties of which they would not otherwise be capable, and leads them to 
deny even the claim of natural affection. 

Over against these difficulties I would set several encouragements 
for missionary work among the Laos : 

The first of these is the favor of the Government. While mission- 



WILD MEN OF ASSAM 521 

aries must not put their trust in princes, they can not help but rejoice 
when God inclines the hearts of rulers in any degree to favor their 
cause. When the father of the present king was a youth, his throne 
was usurped by another, and he himself entered the Buddhist priest- 
hood. While living in the temple he made the acquaintance of the 
Rev. Jesse Caswell, a missionary of the American Board, who became 
his teacher in English and Western science. The influence of this 
teaching was never lost, and the debt thus incurred was never for- 
gotten. When the missionary's pupil came to the throne he showed 
himself friendly to missionaries, and especially to educational and 
medical missionary work. He secured an English governess for his 
children. Among those thus taught was the heir apparent, the pres- 
ent enlightened monarch, who has followed his father's example in 
honoring and assisting the missionaries. The fashion set thus by the 
throne is imitated to some extent at least by all the ruling classes. 

Another encouragement to the missionary is the position of woman. 
vSiam, and particularly the Laos country, like Japan, stands in strong 
contrast with China, Korea, and India, in the place accorded to 
women in the social system. It is true that Buddhism puts a stigma 
upon womanhood by teaching that no woman, as such, can attain 
Nirvana, but must first be reincarnated as a man. But apart from 
this, woman has a place which in many respects is equal to that held 
by man. Boys and girls receive the same names. Women are not 
secluded in harems or zenanas. They are free to appear in public 
imveiled, to keep stalls in the market, to travel the highways, to go 
to the temples and to hold property. Missionaries, men or women, 
Wherever they go, have free access to women and children as well as 
to men. If the men in the village are absent, the gospel message can 
be addressed to the women and children, and this has contributed 
much to the growth of the Church. 

One other help to missions among the Laos, I fear, will seem to 
be inconsistent with some things already said. And this is in con- 
nection with the worship of demons. The shade of fear cast over 
ordinary life by this superstition is so terrible that its adherents are 
glad to give what credence they can to the glad tidings of One who 
conquers demons. And especially does the belief in witches and 
witchcraft, in which this cult reaches its climax of cruelty, operate 
in many cases to the furtherance of the gospel. For those who are 
convicted of being witches are driven from their homes, their houses 
torn down, their gardens uprooted, and themselves tagged with an 
evil reputation. In hundreds of cases such persons have been driven 
to seek protection at the hands of the missionaries, and so have come 
under Christian instruction and been brought in due time to saving 
faith in Christ. 

Wild Men of Assam 

Rev. S. a. Perrine, Missionary, Aiucrican Baj^tist Missionary 
Union, Assam* 
Assam lies just below the great, cold heart of Asia, and in this 

* Church of the Strangers, April 2^ 



522 INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 

country are some of the wildest, most uncivilized and savage tribes 
the sun has ever looked upon. They have a legend that when God 
created the earth He finished the plains and made them smooth, but a 
cockroach came and told Him that an enemy was going to invade 
His country, so He left His creative work and went to defend His 
land and never completed the hills. In these wild jungly hills the 
wild men live. 'There are in Assam about a million of these wild 
people, divided into a great many tribes and having innumerable 
dialects and languages. Sometimes in my wrath I have been almost 
ready to say that if the Babel of Tongues did not stand there, it 
ought to do so. 

These people are ready to accept the gospel. In a number of these 
tribes we have converts. In one tribe we have more than 300 church 
members, with village schools and a training school. In the Khasia 
tribes are a large munber of converts. In the Garos are more than 
3,000 church members, with day schools and a training school. A mis- 
sionary said to me, and he is one of the most noted missionaries in 
China, " I would not go to such a people." I believe that is a wrong 
sentiment. If you are to build a temple of God, you must lay a foun- 
dation, and I believe that the out-castes of India, and the wild people 
of India, form the foundation of Asiatic society. The Chinese may be 
the chief corner-stone, but these are the foundation upon which the 
temple of God, as I believe, must be reared. 

Amissions in Assam were originally opened x\p as a means to enter 
China. And I believe that the back door of China will be swung 
open by these people. In my opinion, they have some of the best 
qualities of the people of Assam ; they are the best blood of Assam ; 
they come, as I believe, from the Chinese, the best blood of Asia. 
They arc worth saving. 

Assam Plains 

Rev. W. E. Witter, D.D., Formerly Missionary, American 
Baf^tist Missionary Union, Assam.''- 

The very first glimmer of the light Divine that came to Assam was 
through the first convert from Hinduism, Chris Laka, who went 
to the Sirma Valley under the power of his new love for the Master 
and preached Christ, and wrote back, " The favor of God has fallen 
upon this country, and seven have been baptized." We had in Burma 
a man who was perfectly passionate to get the gospel to every crea- 
ture, and was willing to sufl^er any sacrifice that it might be taken 
everywhere — the heroic Kincaid — and in 1835 '^^ took a trip to the 
north cf Burma with the hope of reaching Assam. In 1836 the 
English Government official, Mr. Jenkins, wtote to Calcutta and 
asked the English Baptists if mission work coidd not be opened in 
Assam. We had missionaries in I'urma, the Rev. Dr. Brown and 
Mr. Cutter. They responded to the call, and in 1835 started for 
Assam, were four or five months being towed up the l:')rahma])ootra 
River, and at last reached their station, where they had h()i)ed to 
teach the gospel to two tribes of Shans. 

I have not time to tell of the trials, beyond words, of those early 

♦Church of the Str.Tngers, April 2). 



INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS IN SIAM 523 

missionaries. Dr. Brown at one time buried a little daughter. He 
went to the grave to find it open. He buried the child again. Again 
he found that the grave had been opened, and at last the little body 
was taken to the house and kept there for a time, and so at last was 
buried. Of the second party of missionaries who came to rc-enforce 
this field, Mr. Thomas had come in sight of the station, when a fall- 
ing tree took his life. These missionaries had planned to preach the 
gospel, but God had another plan. One night a wild tribe came down 
and killed about one hundred of the people ; and the missionaries 
were driven to another station. Later they established themselves and 
began work for the Assamese people. 

Years of labor have been spent in this valley with very little results. 
But through all these years the Brahmapootra Valley has been a 
recruiting ground for the people of the mountains. Almost all the 
work that has extended into the mountains among the different tribes 
has resulted from conversion of the people by the missionaries labor- 
ing in the plains. Assam is under the care of three different Societies. 
The American Baptist Missionary Union has six stations in the 
plains. A single missionary of the Society for the Propagation of 
the Gospel labors mostly for the Europeans, but he has gone out 
to the people of this district, and he has won perhaps a thousand 
people among the natives. The other missionary society there is 
the Society of the Welsh Methodists, which now has seven stations 
in the hills, where the work has been most wonderfully developed, 
and where the results have been simply marvelous. 

In the Brahmapootra Valley about forty different languages are 
spoken by the people. One of the aboriginal tribes numbers 222.000, 
with a single missionary. But the most prosperous work of our 
American Baptist Missionary Union in the plains of Assam has been 
among the coolies, who come up by the hundreds of thousands to 
labor in the tea gardens. Between four and five hundred thousand 
of these people are now open to the gospel. We opened a station in 
1893 and already 246 have been gathered to self-supporting churches 
in that region. Two years ago a missionary opened another station, 
and in a single year he had 163 baptized. Another station, opened 
in 1896, has 400 baptized believers, and 169 gathered into the king- 
dom last year. 

Influence of Missions in Siam 

Hon. John Barrett, Formerly United States Minister to Siam* 
Siam has an area just equal to Germany, and a population of 
10,000,000, and an annual foreign trade of $25,000,000. In that coun- 
try there is a king who stands forward perhaps as the ablest statesman 
of all Asia. It is interesting to note that this king is to-day the 
great head of the Buddhist faith, and yet the man of all Asiatics 
who is helping the American missionaries ; the man who told me 
the first time I met him that he wished me to understand that he ap- 
proved of the American missionaries ; that their work had been greatly 
for the benefit of his people, and I could tell the people in America 

* Church of the Strangers, April 2-;. 



524 



INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA 



they were welcome there, and that he wished to do all in his power, 
by law and by contributions of money, to help the important work 
to go on. 

The Presbyterian missionaries in Siam are a body of men and 
women for whom I have profound respect. Before I went out there, 
hearing criticisms of them, I had a little prejudice against them. But 
I want to tell you that in the five years I was there they gave me 
less trouble, and at the same time more help and co-operation, than 
all the business men put together. They are a class of men and 
women of whom I was thoroughly proud, and my long relations with 
them convinced me they were men and women to be loved and re- 
spected. 

Tht most interesting part of the mission field is in the northern 
States. The missionaries are meeting with difificultics, but the further 
they go away from the great foreign centers the more is accom- 
plished. In Bangkok there is a boys' high school, and a girls' high 
school at the head of which is Miss Cole, of whom the king said, 
" Are all women in America as good as she is ? " I said, " Certainly." 
" Well," he said, " it is an ideal country, then ! " She has under her 
control three or four hundred girls, and she is making splendid 
women of them. The king often spoke of it to me; and the young 
Siamese princes who are being educated are coming back and seeking 
those girls as their wives, and as their only wives, instead of follow- 
ing the old usage. 

The king told me, after I had been there six months, that he un- 
derstood that the boys' high school wished to have a new ground. 
" Now," he said, " when they are all ready — don't you tell them any- 
thing about it, because I want them to raise just as much money in 
America as they possibly can — but when they are all ready, I will 
give them the ground." Since I left there the king has given them 
the ground, and the boys' high school is to be established in a better 
location than before, just before I left, when they wished to build 
a new fence around the girls' high school, the king contributed a 
large amount of money for it. 

So you see that America's opportunities in this kingdom are 
unlimited. And as to-day we are going out there possibly as a great 
factor in Asia's future, it is interesting to note that we began right 
in Bangkok and Siam. In conclusion I have simply to say this : 
As a layman and practical man who has studied the situation from 
beginning to end. I believe thoroughly in the work of the mission- 
aries in Siam. 



CHAPTER XXII 

JAPAN AND KOREA 

Progress in Japan— Religious and Educational Problems — Work for Women — 

Formosa — Opening of Korea. 
Progress in Japan 

Rev. J. L. Bearing, D.D., Missionary, American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union.^ 

To the foreign resident in Japan, no less than to those who have 
never visited the Island Empire, its progress is a subject of wonder 
and admiration. Not the least remarkable thing about it is the 
ease with which those astounding changes have been brought about. 
This is but one of many evidences that in the Japanese we have be- 
fore us a unique people. The advancement of the state, without 
regard to the individual, has been long a principle rigorously upheld 
in Japan ; the individual is swallowed up in the state. How beau- 
tifully was this illustrated in the passing of the Feudal Lords at 
the beginning of the present era! They are brought to realize that 
it is the best thing for the state that the old form of government 
should end ; that they should no longer retain control over their 
petty states, but should retire into private life. T.hey call around 
them, each in his own province, their faithful bands of retainers, 
men still ready to fight for their lords as they had often done before ; 
they thank them for their past fidelity and valor, and as the tears of 
lord and vassal are mingled in those last farewells, they resolutely 
separate. Thus, for the sake of the state, the words Daimyo and 
Samurai become things of the past ; thus is removed one of the 
marked features of the old civilization. 

The emperor, no longer a mere figurehead, has become dc facto 
the head of the empire. The Constitution was proclaimed in 1889, 
and almost immediately the Diet was organized. Since then the 
principles of self-government have been constantly encouraged. To- 
day, with party cabinets and a gradual extension of the privileges of 
the ballot, the results are most satisfactory. At the present time this 
privilege is limited to about 2,000,000 of Japan's 43,000,000, but 
as the intelligence of the people increases, and the understanding of 
political organizations becomes enlarged, the ballot will gradually 
Idc extended to others. 

Japan presents a no less striking illustration of commercial prog- 
ress. The fact that during the last twelve years her foreign trade 
has increased from $66,000,000 to $192,000,000, is suggestive. 
Natural limits of resources and territory are likely to prevent any 
greatly increased supply of coal, rice, silk, and copper, but Japan gives 

* Calvary Baptist Church, April 23. 



526 JAPAN AND KOREA 

strong evidence of rapidly developing manufactures and becoming 
the manufacturing nation of the Orient. The commercial future 
of the Pacific is a subject which taxes the imagination. One-third 
of the population of the globe are massed upon the western shore 
of this great ocean. With commerce but just begun, one-tenth of 
the globe's trade is carried on with these new peoples. What limits 
can be imagined to this trade, when its growth is vmder the fostering 
care of an advancing civilization ? Given Christian nations border- 
ing the Pacific Ocean, with its fine physical advantages, and the future 
shall see an age of commercial prosperity compared with which the 
commerce of the past century shall be as nothing. 

In considering progress in Japan we should not be unmindful of 
her educational progress. When the country was opened a few years 
ago, there was nothing worthy the name of a school. It has taken 
only these few years to establish a complete school system, from the 
kindergarten to the Imperial University. Now we find compulsory 
attendance in the lower grades of schools, while the technical schools 
of the great university open to the eager youth of the land the latest 
investigations of philosophy and discoveries of science, to which 
Japan is herself contributing her share for the benefit of the western 
world. A system of such rapid growth could not be other than 
defective in some respects. The Japanese are eager for practical 
results ; the discipline that comes from education is little valued or 
sought for. The acquisition of facts is what education means to-day ; 
but this mistake, together with a tendency to general superficiality, 
we may expect will be corrected as the system is developed. The 
feature of the educational system most to be deplored is the almost 
universal agnosticism which exists among the teachers and students. 
Statistics gathered from several schools go to prove that the turning 
away from the old religions, which is so universal among the higher 
classes, is a trend toward agnosticism and not toward Christianity. 
It is here that we find one of the most discouraging features of Japan's 
advancement. With the youth of the land under the training of 
teachers who are strongly opposed to all religions, what have we to 
hope for the future? The situation is, however, somewhat relieved 
by the encouragement which we find in the work of the Inter-Col- 
Icgiate Young Men's Christian Association. The influence of this 
band of Christian young men is a ])ervasive one, even in tlie large 
colleges where they are met by opposition from both students and 
teachers. It is making a real impression upon the stuflent body of 
Japan, and its Bible classes and morning-watch, and the consistent 
lives of the individual members, arc not only evidence of the faith 
and zeal of some of these men, but an inspiration to many and an 
example to all. 

As a natural outgrowth of the widespread educational a<lvantages 
enjoyed by Japan, there is a general intelligence among the masses 
not known in other Oriental lands. The press has been a powerful 
factor in bringing about this change. It seems remarkable that a 
people until recently isolated from the rest of the world should, in 
so short a time, come to feel a deep concern in the afifairs of outside 
nations. One needs but to compare the dense ignorance which marks 



RELIC;iOUS AND EDUCATIONAL PROJiLEMS 527 

the Chinese mind in regard to outside affairs with the alert spirit 
of inquiry everywhere present in Japan, to see the great difference 
which exists between these two nations. Association with other 
peoples has also served to develop a new and more correct view of 
the relation of the Japanese to other countries. Her former isola- 
tion gave the nation an overweening confidence in her great power 
and importance. Contact with the rest of the world has served 
slowly to remove, or, at least, to correct this spirit. Perhaps no result 
of the war with China was more helpful to Japan than its culture 
of clearer conceptions of her place among the nations of the world. 
Since that war the brotherhood of the race has been better under- 
stood, the international relation and the mutual responsibility which 
exist among nations have been appreciated. Japan is destined to 
hold a potent sway over the future of the East. If, in her advance, 
the moral forces of the country can be made what Christianity is 
capable of making them, the wildest dreams of the nation may be 
realized. But Japan, without the gospel, is destined to go out in 
utter darkness. A people who can change their whole manner of life 
for the sake of a great principle and for the good of the state, must 
be able to change their religion as well for a greater principle and 
for a greater kingdom. A people able to adapt themselves to a new 
government with such ease, must possess the power of changing the 
government of their spiritual natures. Japan seems to exemplify 
all the elements which make it safe to predict large things of her 
religious future. 

Religious and Educational Problems 

Rev. a. Pieters, Missionayy, Reformed Church in Ameriea.'^' 
A careful examination of the religious condition of Japan to-day 
leads one to results that at first sight appear contradictory, but that 
are capable of an important and significant harmony. 

On the one hand, many things combine to show that the Japanese 
people have naturally a large share of that primeval impulse im])lanted 
in every human breast to worship something mysterious, powerful, un- 
seen — God — although not known as such. There are 12 Shinto and 41 
Buddhist sects, 82,000 Shinto and 81,000 Buddhist priests, 193,000 
Shinto shrines and 108,000 Buddhist temples. In round numbers 
this means one priest to every 280, and one place of worship to 
every 150 of the population. Nor are these all structures erected 
by an earlier generation. In numerous places new and magnificent 
temples are arising. New sects, even, have sprung into existence, 
some of which, like Tenrikyo or Remmonkyo, have revived the 
worship of ancient gods, and have spread to an amazing extent. 
With the religious spirit thus expressing itself in the old and even 
in new forms of idolatry, it is impossible, without qualification, to 
accept the statement that the Japanese of the present day are an irre- 
ligious people. 

And yet that statement rests upon excellent grounds. It is con- 
firmed by the almost unanimous declarations of the press that Bud- 
dhism is in a state of decay ; by the observations of men like Professor 

Calvary Baptist Church, April 23. 



528 JAPAN AND KOREA 

Chamberlain, who declares that the educated Japanese knows noth- 
ing about Buddhism, and glories in his nescience ; by the investiga- 
tions of a Buddhist magazine in regard to the religious convictions 
of 400 students, among whom were found but fifteen Buddhists and 
one Shintoist ; by the testimony of Japanese converts, who almost 
invariably declare that previous to hearing Christian preaching they 
had no religious convictions at all ; by the experience of the mission- 
aries, with whom it is a rare thing to meet an earnest Buddhist or 
Shintoist, and whose preaching is almost never opposed with argu- 
ments drawn from these faiths; and by observation of the life" of 
most Japanese, in whose hearts there seems no thought of an unseen 
being or a future world. It is confirmed most of all by the strange 
action of the chief representatives of Shintoism, in requesting the 
Government to grant them a new charter, whereby they are organized 
as a secular instead of a religious body, thus declaring that Shintoism, 
as understood and represented by them, is not a religion at all, but 
merely a patriotic movement to preserve respect for the imperial 
ancestors. 

Without professing to understand fully so intricate a situation as 
that presented by Japan to-day, we venture tlie opinion that these 
apparently conilicting phenomena may be explained by recognizing 
on the one hand the strength of the original religious instinct among 
the Japanese wherever it still remains undisturbed, and on the other 
hand the fact that two powerful forces are at work destroying this 
impulse and rendering the Japanese totally indifferent to any and 
all forms of worship. 

The two forces engaged in this process are the material civiliza- 
tion with which Japan is now coming into such intimate contact, and 
the system of education in its higher and lower departments. Of 
these two, education is the more powerful in the destruction of reli- 
gious thought. With 81 per cent, of the boys and ^^ per cent, of 
the girls in the common schools, the younger generation of Japan is 
growing up with a good degree of intelligence. Intelligence is not 
inconsistent with Christianity, possibly not with the higher develop- 
ments of Buddhism, but it is inconsistent with Buddhism and Shin- 
toism as they are familiar to the people of Japan. The consecjuence 
is that, knowing no other religion, they identify religion with idolatry 
and superstition, and having become too intelligent to believe in these, 
they become dead to all religious feeling or conviction. The prospect 
is, therefore, that in one or two generations we shall have in Japan 
a people from whom the devil of an ignorant and superstitious idol- 
atry has indeed been cast out, but into which have entered the devils 
of a godless and immoral materialistic civilization. And the last 
state of that nation will be worse than the first. 

The problems of missions in Japan result naturally from the state 
of the country. The first and greatest of them all is the evangelistic 
problem, which is this : How can we, while this process is going on, 
and, if possible, l^efore it is completed, carry the gospel message, 
by the preached word and printed page, into every village and hamlet 
of Japan? How can we saturate this generation with the cardinal 
truths of religion? If we can find a solution to this problem it 



RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS 529 

means that we shall present to a generation, whose original beliefs 
are destroyed, a creed worthy of their intelligent acceptance, and that 
the great forces of the day will be our allies and not our foes. 

Some of the elements required in the solution of this problem are 
to be sought on the field. Among them are : A new baptism of power 
on the native church and the missionary body, greater economy of 
forces, an increased numljer of Japanese evangelists, more intimate 
and hearty co-operation between foreigners and natives, and a more 
thorough and systematic canvass of the rural population. 

The lamentable error, once prevalent even among the missionaries 
in Japan, that no considerable increase of forces was required, has 
disappeared on the field, but seems still to exist in influential quarters 
here. It is a deplorable mistake to consider the work in Japan almost 
completed. Large re-enforcements are called for by almost every 
missionary organization in the Empire, and are a pressing necessity. 
The present is emphatically the time to push the evangelistic work. 

Secondary to this evangelistic problem, but essential to its solution, 
looms up another great question^the educational — which may be 
stated thus : How can we turn to account the forces of education, 
so that they will be our allies instead of our foes, and that it will 
be clear to the rising intelligence of Japan that faith and scholarship 
are not incompatible. From what has been said of the agency of 
education in destroying the religious systems that have satisfied 
earlier generations of Japanese, it will be clear that this problem 
must be solved. Unless a demonstration to the contrary is furnished, 
the people of Japan are justified in coming to the conclusion that 
religion is for the ignorant and foolish, but wholly unworthy of the 
acceptance of an intelligent man. For us, now, as Christian mis- 
sionaries, to fail to solve this problem, would be to belie the educated 
Christian civilization we represent, to commit an act of stupendous 
and criminal folly, and effectually to cripple the evangelistic work. 

This problem is too intricate and difficult to be discussed in detail 
within the limits of this paper. We can only point out what appear 
to us aids toward its solution: i. Much may be hoped from the 
Young Men's Christian Association in Government schools and col- 
leges. 2. Christian boarding homes and dormitories should be opened 
in the vicinity of each large Government school, with a missionary in 
charge or closely associated with it. Work similar to that of the 
Rev. J. B. Brandram (C. M. S.), in Kumamoto, should be done 
everywhere. 3. So far as possible Christian young men should be 
trained and encouraged to become teachers in the Government 
schools, where their personal influence may tell upon the students. 
4. The work of the mission schools for children in kindergarten and 
primary school effort should be v>^idely extended. 5. The education 
of young women is still largely in the hands of the missionaries. 
This advantage will not last indefinitely, for Government schools for 
girls are springing up, but so far as possible it should be maintained 
and pressed. No grander or ultimately more efficient form of mis- 
sionary work exists than this. 6. The higher schools for young men 
are the keys to the situation. Allow them to go to the wall, as there 
is great danger that they may, under the influence of the instructions 



530 JAPAN AND KOREA 

of the Minister of Education, which deny important privileges to 
religious schools, and we shall soon find that the Young Men's 
Christian Association movement will break down, that the Govern- 
ment and girls' schools will be devoid of Christian teachers, and 
that even the youth of the Church can not be preserved to the faith. 
It can not be too emphatically stated that the situation in Japan is 
serious. 

Rev. George William Knox, D.D., Union Theological Sem- 
inary, Nezv York.'-^'- 

In the briefest period Christian missions in Japan have illustrated 
the various phases of the foreign work : Opposition, success, hesita- 
tion, and even reaction. Ten years ago it seemed as if the nation 
would turn to the living God at once, but now such glorious success 
seems afar off. And yet surely God's blessing is with all true-hearted 
work, and in Japan none may say that the gospel has not brought 
forth a fruitage rich and full. 

Were I to characterize the Japanese in a sentence, I should say. 
They are of quick perception and keen intelligence. They have 
learned the lessons they have been taught. Where missionaries, filled 
with Christ's Spirit, have revealed His sympathy and love, there 
men have been led to Him. They have been born again. To the 
full measure of the revelation of our Lord in word and in life, there 
have been precious results. What missionary could say that the 
Lord has been unfaithful, or that any service rendered has failed of 
full reward? Tens of thousands have been converted and hundreds 
of churches have been established. Yet the nation is not Christian, 
but is pagan still. 

Nor is the reason far to seek. The nations of the West — of Amer- 
ica and Europe — are not Christian, and have taught lessons antagonis- 
tic to the faith they profess, lessons learned all too well. Before Japan 
was opened to our modern learning and civilization, its educated 
men, in the name of the Confucian philoso])hy, had rejected Bud- 
dhism and had learned that religion is for the unlearned, the debased, 
the weak. And from university chairs American professors pro- 
claimed the same teaching. Christianity, too, is for the ignorant, 
the debased, the weak. It has served its purpose and it passes away. 
As is fktddhism in Japan, so is Christianity in the West. Reject it 
in the name of philosophy and science, they said. Is it wonderful that 
the lesson was well learned ? 

The Church sent its missionaries to teach the glad tidings of re- 
deeming love, and to proclaim the reign of the Prince of Peace. The 
nations sent regiments and fleets to proclaim the law of force, the 
reign of brute strength. Well was the lesson learned; how well, let 
'he magnificent army and navy of Japan proclaim. Not the God of 
Love, but the Lord of Force, these keen-sighted men perceived to 
be the living deity of the nations of the earth. The Church sent its 
missionaries to proclaim the glad tidings of life and immortality, 
and to teach the message, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth. The nations sent forth men by thousands, backed with gun- 

* Calvary Baptist Church, April 33. 



WORK FOR WOMEN THE KEY TO SUCCESS 53 1 

boats, preceded by threats, eager to seize the wealth of the world 
and to force commerce upon all lands, even at the cannon's mouth. 
The Japanese traveled through Christian lands and brought home 
reports of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and of a consuming 
thirst for more, and more, and more. Not Christ, but Mammon, 
seemed enthroned within the hearts of men. 

Military force, commercial supremacy — for these the Christian 
nations strive. Is it strange that the Japanese, quick of perception, 
keen of intelligence, should take the testimony of the facts in pref- 
erence to the profession of the lips? None doubts now that the 
nation is converted to this faith. 

Still does the incarnation of God's love win souls to Him. Still 
has all true labor in His name full reward. But if the nation is to 
turn to Him, it must be because those who bear His name, the Chris- 
tian nations of the West are His in truth, rendering to Him not 
only the adoration of their lips but of their lives. 

Rev. Julius Soper, D.D., Missionary, Mctliodist Episcopal 
Church.'^' 

We are in the midst of a great conflict in Japan. It is the greatest 
conflict that Christians have had to engage in since Constantine. It 
is the conflict of life or death, not only in Japan, but in all the 
world. To-day Buddhists and Shintoists, the ultra-nationalists and 
agnostics, rise up and say. We do not want Christianity, we want 
Western civilization and its blessings, but do not want Christianity, 
and they have decided in their minds to do everything possible to 
defeat the labors of the Christian missionaries. To-day they have 
thrown down the gauntlet, and they have told us, " We can be civil- 
ized and prosperous without Christianity." Is this true? What, 
friends, if Christianity fails in Japan, on account of the position she 
has taken among the nations of the earth, it will fail in Korea, and 
China, and India, and sooner or later it will fail in all Christendom ! 
We are engaged in a conflict which few know or appreciate, and we 
need your prayers and sympathies. Japan is the young man, the 
boy of the nations ; if you can win Japan, you win the means of 
spreading Christianity and salvation to the nations of the earth. 

Miss M. B. Griffiths, Missionary, Methodist Episcopal 
Church."^ 

It is said that the key to the situation in Japan is high schools for 
young men. What about the women? We excuse the speakers be- 
cause at the moment they did not think of the women. The key is the 
work among women. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the 
world. Things are not always what they seem. In our own land, 
too, that same quiet influence becomes the controlling influence over 
the husbands and the nation. We want in woman's work women 
strong in piety and in intellect, and of the very best that the Church at 
home can send, to train women who are coming into the place for 
training the next generation in Japan. We want them to train the 
women for Christian service and evangelization, and to train the 

* Calvary Baptist Church, April 23. 



532 JAPAN AND KOREA 

girls intellectually and morally, and every way fitting them to fill 
the high position which shall be theirs in the near future. We plead 
that you will give us such. 

A short time ago our own mission sent in a plea for twenty evan- 
gelistic workers. The Church at home thought that was a tremendous 
number. But what can twenty workers mean among 40,000,000 
people ? Had we asked for fifty or one hundred workers, could not 
almost any one church in any of our larger cities have sent us that 
number ? We want your best ; we want women to take kindergarten 
schools, to train up the little ones. A strong prejudice against the 
Christian religion and a strong influence against the forces of 
Protestantism exist in that land. We want to train the little ones, 
and when the seed is thus planted in the children, they will grow up 
and become the bulwark of the nation. Japan says it has no need 
of religion ; but we believe that it must have religion in order to 
maintain its high status among nations. May I give you a message 
from one of the women of that land : " I know not yet what God is 
going to do with me. He has given me such intense desire to study 
the Bible; may God help me in some way to help the women in 
my land. The need is so great. May God hasten the day when all 
these reforms shall appear." That woman has gone home to the 
heavenly land. Perhaps she now sees this meeting and says, " It 
may be that there is some one here to go." The Lord grant you In 
this land a true idea of the need of Japan to-day. 

Rev. E. R. Woodman, Missionary, Protestant Episcopal Church, 
Tokyo, Japan.'^ 

The Christian worker has more or less to discourage him, but one 
of the most encouraging features of the work in Japan is that of 
theological training, which will influence the future of that empire. 
The Japanese are an intellectual people, and they have intellectual 
acumen. Intellect may be a blessing or a curse. Agnosticism in 
Japan has been referred to. I may say that it is intellect which is 
leading the people into this agnosticism. A Japanese does not mean 
to accept a thing because some one says it ; he nnist investigate for 
himself. We go to the Japanese, take them our Thirty-nine Articles 
and the Westminster Confession of Faith, but they do not take them 
as they are, for they are imaginative. We take these truths which 
have been handed down from the apostolic teachings, and we teach 
them to the Japanese students as living truths. There is, in some 
places, much of liberalism. In some places it has gone too far ; but 
there is now a reaction, and Japanese are preaching the Christian 
gospel. We have to teach them and they must do the work, but in a 
few years the foreigner, as school teacher, will go away from Jai)an. 
and the time will come when the foreigner, as a theological teacher, 
will go away also. Who will train up the theological teachers of the 
future? It will be the Japanese themselves. A great change has 
taken place in a few years. Some years ago the foreigner did all 
the teaching and preaching, but Japanese teachers are increasing 
rapidly, and more and more every year the foreigner is being re- 

* Calvary Baptist Church, April 23. 



FORMOSA 533 

placed by Japanese workers, who are taking the work on themselves. 
It gives me pleasure to assure you that those workers are being 
taught the cardinal doctrines of the faith, and to assure you that as 
you look forward to the time when the Japanese Church stands by 
itself, there will be nothing preached but the pure and unadulterated 
gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

Rev. Thomas Barclay^ Presbyterian Church of England, 
Tainanfii, Formosa."^ 

The island of Formosa lies to the southeast of China, south by 
west of Japan proper. It is about 250 miles long, from north to 
south, with an average breadth of about sixty miles. According to 
a census taken lately by the Japanese authorities, the population 
amounts to about 2,750,000, mostly Chinese. 

During the seventeenth century the island was for a time under 
the power of the Dutch. At that time all the inhabitants were of a 
Malayan type. Those living on the plains were more civilized, and 
came under the influence of Christian teaching. Those in the moun- 
tains were, and remain to this day, wild savages. No mission work 
has ever been attempted among them. In 1662 the Dutch were 
driven out by the Chinese, who took possession of the island. Since 
that time the Chinese have been coming over from the mainland in 
large numbers, taking possession of the fertile lands and driving 
the natives before them to the base of the mountains, where they 
now dwell. 

About five years ago, at the close of the war between China and 
Japan, the island of Formosa was given over by treaty to the victors. 
The people of the island bitterly resented this action ; and when, by 
order of the emperor, all the mandarins left, they set up a republic 
of their own, and prepared to resist by force the coming of the 
Japanese. These latter sent at once a military force to the north 
end of the island, of which they took immediate possession. They 
then marched southward, fighting the people step by step, till at last 
their armies converged on Tainanfu. A day was already fixed for the 
bombardment of the city, which would certainly have resulted in 
great loss of life. But just at this moment the leaders of the move- 
ment fled, leaving the people helpless. There were then three mem- 
bers of our mission in Tainanfu, and we were able so to mediate be- 
tween the two parties that the city was peaceably occupied without 
loss of life on either side. It was fortunate for our mission that we 
were able so to act, as it gained us the gratitude of both sides. 

The chief point of interest to us here is as to how the changed 
state of affairs affects Formosa as a mission field. And on this point 
I am glad to be able to speak. Both as regards the people and as 
regards the rulers, we stand in a better position than in the old 
Chinese days. 

When I went to Formosa twenty-five years ago a common taunt 
against the missionaries was that we were there to take possession of 
the island. Now this has all changed. The people have no feeling 
of loyalty to their present rulers, they have no desire to maintain the 

* Calvary Baptist Church, April 23. 



534 JAPAN AND KOREA 

present state of affairs. On the contrary, the objection they make is 
that our country would not take possession of Formosa when the 
people all wished that we should. And not only are these prejudices 
removed, but, in contrast to the behavior of the Japanese, the people 
have come to appreciate the kind disposition of the missionaries. 
In many cases they are disposed to welcome rather than to resent 
the entrance of Christianity into their villages. 

So also in connection with our new rulers. They are a great im- 
provement on the Chinese mandarins. The latter were, no doubt, 
required by law to tolerate Christianity, but they were ready to use 
underhand methods to hinder its successful propagation. The Japa- 
nese officials, on the other hand, even when not themselves Christians, 
know quite well that Christianity, as compared especially with Chinese 
heathenism, tends in the direction of civilization, good order, and 
enlightenment; the very objects which they are there to promote. 
Nor is this to them only a matter of theory. They have seen it ex- 
emplified in what they found in Formosa. When they took over the 
island there were in all between 3,000 and 4,000 communicants in it, 
beside a much larger number of adherents. And the Japanese offi- 
cials, Christian and non-Christian, bear testimony to the fact that 
wherever they found Christianity established and a Christian com- 
munity existing, there the people were more honest, truthful, and law- 
abiding than their heathen neighbors. Some of these officials are 
themselves Christian, and have become our good friends and helpers. 
And those who are not themselves Christians, and might possibly 
regret to see Christianity making much progress among their fellow- 
countrymen in Japan proper, feel less jealousy as to its spread 
amongst their Chinese subjects. Especially, perhaps, have the re- 
sults of the work carried on among the civilized al:)origines of the 
island impressed them ; it has been, even from a worldly point of view, 
the salvation of those tribes, giving to them a greater manliness and 
independence. 

Of course, there are other elements in the situation less favorable 
to our work, which would require to be taken into account in a com- 
plete, detailed view of the state of the case. But that the hopeful 
view taken above is on the whole a correct one, seems to be proved by 
the recent history of our mission. Before the Japanese occupation 
the number of adult baptisms was about one hundred or more annu- 
ally. Three years ago the numljer amounted to 156. Two years 
ago the number rose to 241. Last year the number was over 360. 
During these years the number of places for worship and of hearers 
and adherents also greatly increased. So that in South Formosa 
the field for missionary labor is at present very hopeful ; the chief 
difficulty lies in the want of laborers, and the slowness of the Chris- 
tian Church to enter in and take possession. 

The Opening of Korea 

C. C. Vinton, M.D., Missionary^ Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 
Korea.'^'- 

Korea is a peninsula less in area than the British Isles. Its moun- 

* Calvary Baptist Church, April 23. 



OPENING OF KOREA 535 

tains are rugged. Its valleys are fertile. Its mineral wealth over- 
flows. Its coasts are the fishing ground of Japanese and Chinese, 
and lately of Russians. Its inland scenery entrances foreigner and 
native alike. The picturesqueness of its surrounding archipelago, 
whether in the clear atmosphere of the autumn sun or in the purpling 
haze of expected spring, has thrilled many a breast since men first 
traversed these waters. It is one of earth's garden spots. The lot 
of its dwellers and sojourners is cast indeed in pleasant places. It is 
the land of morning calm, " the land of dawn beauty." 

Medical missions first opened Korea to the gospel message, and for 
nearly a decade the physician's skill was the justification of evange- 
listic effort. In that day the preaching of the gospel was forbidden, 
gatherings for religious worship could be held only on the com- 
pounds of foreigners and very quietly, and men received the ordi- 
nance of baptism in secret. All this is completely changed now. 
The Church of Christ is the one most vital thing among all that 
awakening people. Its influence may be traced in all their national 
life. It has spurred them to seek the benefits of Western civilization. 
It has brought among them a public press and its enlightening forces. 
It has set before even the most corrupt a higher moral standard in 
public and private life. 

Where, four years ago, less than 800 baptized Christians were 
reported, in the present year the number reaches nearly 5,000. In 
300 villages and cities of the land the Christian Church has gathered 
her members. In perhaps as many more the seed has been securely 
planted. The door of Korea is open to the divine proclamation as 
the door of no nation was ever opened since the apostolic age. It 
is not as the command of a sovereign that his people should change 
their faith. It is not as the coming of multitudes who think they 
scent personal advancement in the quest. It is the silent moving of 
the Spirit on individuals and single communities who seek a better 
way. Men of faith have prayed for a Pentecost in Korea, and the 
Pentecost has come. In Pyeng Yang station during three months of 
this winter just past 300 were baptized and 700 were received as 
catechumens or probationers. And meanwhile village after village 
is sending its delegations, imploring that the pure things of the gospel 
may be made plain to them, who have caught a gleam from afar and 
would have one clear ray to guide their uncertain steps. 

And these are not " rice Christians " who swell the statistics. Per- 
secution and worldly loss are often their subsequent portion. Power 
and place, such as they may have, and ill-gotten gain and the possi- 
bility of resenting the rapine of the extortioner, all these they re- 
nounce. They build their own churches. They support in all re- 
spects their own worship. They institute and maintain for them- 
selves Christian schools. Not a few churches send out members of 
their own body to preach in the regions beyond. What, then, are 
the missionaries doing, the forty clergymen, the hundred individuals, 
men and women, married and single, physicians, educators, workers 
among women, whom God has placed to instruct these people? With 
baptizing, and examining, and visiting districts where work is or- 
ganized, and sometimes in new territory ; with instruction of ever- 



536 JAPAN AND KOREA 

growing classes of leaders in fundamental topics at frequent intervals ; 
with treatment of multitudes of patients in hospitals and dispen- 
saries ; with spiritual care of the churches, and much genuine pastoral 
work ; with translation of Scripture, and preparation of literature, 
periodical and other ; and with the thousand and one other tasks the 
missionary hand finds to do, even so many toilers find that they have 
more than they can do. A door has been opened and the call is 
urgent from village after village, and from larger and ever larger 
numbers that the gospel be sent. The missionaries' hands are tied. 
The Church has not realized the situation, and has been sending out 
the missionaries by ones and twos and threes, and the work calls for 
dozens and scores, for only so can Korea be evangelized and saved 
by the Holy Spirit. 

Rev. W. B. Harrison, Missionary, Presbyterian Cliureli, U. S., 
(Soiit/i) Korea.^' 

I come from Chung Ju, in the southern part of Korea. There we 
have somewhat difi:erent conditions from those of which you have just 
heard. We in the south rejoice in the triumphs of the Cross that 
have been wrought in the north. They are an inspiration to us, and 
they furnish a pattern for our imitation ; but thus far they seem to 
be considerably in advance of what we have seen. God has written 
His law on the hearts of the people, but the hearts of these people 
are hard. They love sin and hate righteousness, and thus far wc 
have noticed little effect of preaching upon the public life. Roman 
Catholicism is intrenched and has raised up a wall of prejudice. The 
people ask us if we are of the Roman Catholic Church, and after 
understanding that we arc not, they will come and hear us. But 
we have signs of the coming day. Many of the people are not in- 
fluenced by the Romanists, and the Sj^irit of God is reaching a few- 
hearts, giving courage to us and inspiration to the multitudes. Often 
we go out into the higliways because the men are so prejudiced they 
will not come to us ; we talk as the stream passes by, and thus the 
seed is being sown broadcast in the country. Nothing that we can 
do produces any conviction of sin, nothing we say moves them. The 
miracles of Christ have no weight with them. They have greater 
stories of their gods than the work of our Lord, and the internal 
evidence of the Scriptures has no weight with them. T know the 
story of material advance moves them, but nothing but the S])irit of 
God can convict them of sin and riglUeousness. and of the august 
Judge, and of the things of the hereafter. 1 beg tiiat you will re- 
member southern Korea in your prayers. 

Educational Work 

Rev. W. M. Baird. Missionary, Prcshylerian Chnrch, U. S. A., 
Korea* 

There are probably twelve million people in Korea. Until quite 
recently they were without gospel privileges. Within the past sixteen 
years the pure gospel of Jesus has entered Korea anri wrought many 
changes. With the coming of Christianity has come a desire for 

♦Calvary Rapiist Chiir<ii, April 23. 



INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL WORK 537 

an education in Christian knowledge. With the enthusiasm of their 
first love many of them are eagerly studying the Bible and other 
Christian books. Large numbers of books on science, history, geog- 
raphy, etc., besides religious books, have been sold. The evangelistic 
has run ahead of the educational work, but the time has now come 
when educational mission work for the Koreans must be undertaken 
in real earnest. 

Christian boys have shown their willingness to subdue their natural 
prejudices against labor by engaging in manual labor in order to 
support themselves while securing an education. This is a victory 
of Christian principle over inherited prejudice. It shows the eager- 
ness of their desire for an education. In one station (Pyeng Yang) 
eight boys and young men secured a year's teaching by manual labor 
half of each day. Sixty had applied for these privileges, and were 
not received because of the lack of a sufficiently large industrial plant. 
Some of these applied repeatedly for educational advantages. The 
progress made by those accepted was most encouraging. In several 
cases they are already leaders of groups of Christians. Educational 
mission work in Korea needs and deserves your help and prayers. 

Medical "Work 

O. R. AvisoN, M.D., Missionary, Presbyterian Church, U. S. 
A., Korea* 

Medical work opened Korea in 1884 when Dr. H. N. Allen suc- 
cessfully treated the wounded prince, Min Yong Ik. This secured 
for him personally that royal favor which has ever since been ex- 
tended to his colleagues and successors. 

The opportunity thus gained to meet with the people on terms 
so favorable has not been neglected, and there is in Korea a feeling 
of confidence in the missionaries that makes it peculiarly easy for 
them to deliver their message. 

The wisdom shown by that first medical missionary in securing 
a hospital under royal patronage when the opportunity presented itself, 
and the added wisdom he displayed in pledging his board to keep 
the Royal Korean Hospital supplied v/ith physicians, kept the coun- 
try open to the gospel in the after years when reaction had set in, 
and many officials would fain have closed the doors again had this 
little wedge not been firm in its place. 

During the cholera epidemic of 1885 the lay missionaries, led by 
the physicians and nurses, worked day and night for weeks in the 
fight with that filthy disease — to the great wonderment of the Korean 
people; and, greater wonder still, the Korean Christians, moved by 
the example of their foreign leaders and touched by the love of Christ 
himself, worked as hard and as faithfully to save the lives of their 
fellows, irrespective of the rank, or wealth, or poverty of their patients, 
not refusing, but willingly performing the most menial duties, such 
as washing away the filth and handling dead bodies ; duties which 
they would previously have scorned to do. " What is this our eyes 
see?" inquired the amazed Koreans; "if this is Christianity in 
practice it is not a bad thing." 

* Calvary Baptist Church, April 23. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

CHINA 

The Missionary Force — Stability of the Chinese Character — Chinese Women as 
Christian Workers — The Reform Movement — The Future of China. 



The Missionary Force 

J. Hudson Taylor, Director China Inland Mission, China."" 

When I went out in '53 to China, there were only 300 native 
Christians to be found in the Empire of China itself, and also in 
the Straits Settlements, in Batavia, and Singapore, and Malacca, and 
Penang, and elsewhere, only 380 Christians all told. Now, thank 
God, there are about 100,000 communicants in connection with Prot- 
estant Christian churches. 

Within the last 200 years there has been a change in the common 
language of China, and the Mandarin dialect, which is the language 
of all the law courts in the empire, is spreading and pushing the 
old and difficult dialects out of the way and preparing the way more 
easily for the diffusion of the gospel of the grace of God. 

When I first reached China in '53, liberties for travel were not 
very great. We were at liberty to travel for twelve hours, but we 
were bound to report ourselves back again in the free port within 
twenty-four ; and, consequently, one had to take that into account. 
If you stayed away a longer time than that, you were practically an 
outlaw, and had no guaranty of protection; you were liable to arrest. 

After a number of years' service in China, God blessed my col- 
league and myself to the gathering of a little church in the east 
part of Ning-po, and then I was invalided home. I thought it 
was a great misfortune, just as our work was extending and be- 
coming intensely interesting. God makes no mistakes. While on 
the coast of China, traveling at most a few days' journey inland, one 
had not time to think of the great needs of the vast empire beyond 
ovtr reach in the interior of China ; but when invalided home and 
confined to one's study, one could not help looking at the whole area 
and feeling while we were feasting on this precious Word of God, 
millions in the interior of China have not got one crumb of that life, 
never have had one crumb of that life; there is no one in the interior 
of China carrying this gracious gospel to the people who are dying 
for lack of knowledge. We asked God to thrust out workers into 
these provinces; and we would have been so very glad indeed if 
some missionary society would have taken up this work. My col- 
league and I took the opporttmity of seeing the committees of some 
of the great evangelistic agencies in London, or the secretaries of 



* Central Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



THE MISSIONARY FORCE 539 

Other missionary societies. And what did we find? TJiese noble 
societies were doing all that they could, and they could do no more. 

It was very apparent that no effort would be made for definitely 
reaching inland China perhaps for many years to come ; and, finally, 
I was constrained to form the China Inland Mission definitely for 
the purpose of carrying the gospel into the interior of China. 

God had been working during the years that I was invalided 
home, and new treaties with China had been formed, perhaps not 
from satisfactory motives or in a satisfactory way, as already 
suggested, but there were increased facilities. Nominally, China 
was open, at any rate, to travelers, and Christian travelers could 
travel as well as any other travelers ; and in that way we had the 
right, with passport in hand, to go into every part of the interior. 
The trouble would come, doubtless, when the attempt to settle and to 
live among those people was made. 

I felt constrained of God to pray for laborers who would go out 
with me into the provinces of inland China. I did not do this will- 
ingly at all ; I was constrained by the Spirit of God. 

I was led to pray God to raise up, in the first instance, compara- 
tively a small number of workers. There were eleven provinces 
without a single missionary in them. I felt in my heart that if we 
had two men led by the Lord Jesus into each of those provinces, 
to the Christian Church there would be a practical demonstration 
that it was possible to obey the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
that it is possible to go under the auspices of Him who possesses 
all power on earth, all power in each one of these provinces as truly 
as in heaven above ; and I thought when this was demonstrated that 
all the societies would be stirred up and would pour in men into all 
the inland provinces of China. 

Well, it was a very long time before other missionaries came in- 
land. We did not find it the easiest thing to get in. Sometimes we 
were knocking at the door of a province for many years. But perse- 
verance has succeeded, and there are, praise God, to-day, in inland 
China thousands of souls — I can say tens of thousands of souls — 
who knovvT that Jesus Christ is Lord, and trust and serve your Master 
and mine. Blessed be His holy name ! 

God graciously gave us men and women prepared to go out, and 
after some testnig and praying a party of us were ready to go to 
China, and were met together and spent an hour every day asking 
God to provide what was necessary to send us out. I wrote a little 
pamphlet which I proposed to circulate among a good number of 
friends, whom I had gained during my stay in England, and in that 
little paper I said that we thought probably fifteen to eighteen hundred 
pounds, possibly two thousand pounds, might be needed for the 
preliminary expenses, outfit, and passage money and launching our 
enterprise, and that when that was sent in to us by the personally 
unsolicited contributions of God's children, we were prepared to sail 
for China. That pamphlet was printed, but it was not God's will 
that it should be circulated then, and the printing press was burned 
down and the pamphlets were burned with it. It had to be set 
up and printed again, and during that time we were still going on 



54° CHINA 

asking God for whatever sum of money He thought necessary — 
fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, or two thousand pounds — and 
when at last the bales of pamphlets reached my house and I opened 
them, I didn't know what to do with them, for God had been in- 
clining people to send money in, and it had come to me through the 
post, and that day at our noontide prayer-meeting I added up our 
missionary money. It showed that nineteen hundred and sixty- 
four pounds, fifteen shillings, and eleven pence was already in 
hand, and two thousand pounds was the total that we estimated 
would be needed. Now, what was I to do with these pamphlets? 1 
couldn't circulate them and say this money was needed before we 
commenced the enterprise. And, more than that, the money had 
not stopped at that point — it kept on coming in. Finally, I thought 
of a plan. I was reading how Moses had too much material to work 
upon and sent a proclamation through the camp, and I thought, it 
is mighty seldom such proclamations as those are sent through the 
camp nowadays, and I shall have to adopt this at once ; and I wrote 
a little leaflet asking friends not to send any more for this purpose, 
as we had sufficient in hand to go forward, and so I was able with 
this insertion to use my little papers. 

We went out to China. 

We soon found that our twenty-four men were nowhere. Places 
that were comparatively near the coast were opened before us, and the 
gospel began to spread, and missionary churches were gathered in, 
and these missionaries were not at liberty to go to more remote 
places if they had been opened. We were learning our business. 
But we had to pray for more workers, and that involved the 
need of more money, and we prayed for more money and the 
Lord sent it in, and he has gone on in this way hearing prayer 
until at the present time in that China Inland Mission we have 
over eight hundred missionaries from Europe, and America, and 
Australia, and New Zealand. God has given us, I believe, men 
who are business men, able to manage the finances of the mission. 
He has given us others that were qualified as teachers to take up 
educational work. He has given us medical men of considerable 
ability and skill to carry on medical work, and in various ways He 
has supplied our need and is supplying it still. He has given us 
about six hundred native missionaries, who are also co-operating and 
working with us, and about a third of them are supported by native 
churches, and the remainder by God's bounty — which never fails. 
God never fails. 

God has opened about twenty-five thousand hearts to receive the 
Lord Jesus through the labors of those connected with the China 
Inland Mission. About twenty-five thousand souls have accepted and 
professed their faith in Christ, and not a few of them have gone 
before us to the gloryland. It is quite common for old people to 
accept Christ in China. Men of 50, 60, 70, 80, or 90 years of age 
have been known to accept Christ the first time He was offered to 
them. They are not gospel-hardened ; they never had the offer 
before. The living God has been with our brethren and our sisters, 
our native brethren and native sisters, and there are at this time in 



THE MISSIONARY FORCE 541 

every province in China little bands of men and women who are 
working as volunteers in the mission field, not for pay, but over- 
flowing with joy because their hearts are too full to keep the mes- 
sage to themselves. 

Rev. George Owen, Missionary, London Missionary Society, 
China* 

There are at the present time fifty-three different societies working 
for China, with a staff of about one thousand male workers and about 
eight hundred lady workers, not including missionaries' wives. The 
number of societies is more than enough. The number of mission- 
aries is appallingly small. The spectacle of 400,000,000 of men, 
women, and children without God and without hope in this world, 
scarcely seems to touch hearts in the Christian Church. The cry of 
those Christless millions is barely heard. 

Happily the small band of workers is making the best of itself, 
and has seized important points and planted the cross there. If 
you were to visit China to-day you would see two long lines of 
mission stations, one reaching from North to South along the eastern 
provinces, another line crossing and cutting China in two from 
East to West. Altogether there are about three hundred and thirty- 
five mission centers in China, around which are grouped about two 
thousand out-stations. Earth, dear friends, contains no more sacred 
spots than those mission centers scattered over China. Some of 
them have been consecrated with martyrs' blood, most of them have 
graves in which holy men and saintly women, who have given their 
lives for Christian China, sleep till their Lord shall come ; all these 
spots have been hallowed by much prayer. 

The fewness of those stations is our grief. You may travel five, 
ten, fifteen, nay, twenty days, as we travel in China, and never pass 
a mission station. Every day you would pass some great city, 
numerous towns, and innumerable villages, teeming with people, 
and not a man or woman there to tell the great story of God's re- 
deeming love. Yet Christian missions are the one conspicuously suc- 
cessful thing in China to-day. Compared with the merchant, com- 
pared with the official, the missionary comes out an easy first. Through 
the preaching of the gospel in chapel, street, and market-place ; 
through the teaching and the healing in our hospitals ; through the 
distribution of the Bible and Christian literature, large masses of 
the Chinese people and large areas of China are being lighted up 
with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. The Church 
in China is still small, but it is doubling its number every few years. 
When I went to China thirty-five years ago, there were only about 
4,000 baptized Protestant Christians in that empire. When I came 
home on my first furlough, after ten years of toil, there were about 
8,000. When, after twelve further years of labor, I returned for my 
second furlough, I could report 30,000 men and women in full church 
fellowship ; and now, when another ten years have passed, I can 
report at least 100,000 men and women in full church fellowship 
in China. And if God spares me to go out and labor another ten 

♦Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



542 CHINA 

years, and come home to tell the story, I doubt not but that 100,000 
will be multiplied by a goodly figure. 

Christianity, the gospel, born in Asia, is proving its adaptation to 
the Asiatic people. People talk of the stolid Chinaman. I have seen 
the stolid Chinaman, under the preaching of the gospel, moved to 
the center of his being. I have seen him under the preaching of the 
gospel weep like a child ; and I have seen in Peking what I have 
never seen in the West — I have seen, under the preaching of the 
gospel, a whole congregation of 350 men and women fall on their 
knees and sob out their confessions of sin as one man, and cry for 
pardon. And, oh ! I have seen the gospel take the Chinaman, in all 
the filth of heathenism, wash him and make him clean. I have seen 
men, deep in trespasses and sin, quickened into newness of life. There 
are men in Peking to-day that are living evidences of the redeeming, 
the sanctifying, the quickening power of the gospel of God. 

The Populace and the Missionary 

Rev. J. W. Davis, D.D., Missionary, Presbyterian Church, U. 
S., (South) China.'^ 

Instead of making broad and general statements, I will try to 
give you a picture of the state of mind of those millions. They 
look upon us missionaries with suspicion, and their minds are filled 
with great errors. They believe that we go to China to take out 
the eyes of the people in order to make medicine out of them. That 
is a widespread belief. I have seen little children frantic with fear 
because they saw the foreign missionary coming along the street, 
and I have seen them rush to their mothers and hide their faces in 
the folds of the mother's dress in order to preserve their eyes. I 
have heard the mothers calling the children to them, to run to a place 
of safety, lest the " foreign devil " should take their eyes out. Not 
long ago a Chinaman went and dug up a little Chinese corpse and 
hid it in the premises of the missionaries on the south bank of the 
Yangtse River, and then went out and told the people that they had 
a case before them there; and he excited the mob, and they went 
to see what the true state of affairs was. The missionaries knew not 
of this plot, and this wretch, all too successful, went into the premises 
and brought out this corpse that he himself had hidden there; and, 
in that way, excited the mob to furious madness, and they tore the 
premises to pieces, every book, every piece of furniture, every plank, 
every piece of clothing, doors, windows, everything was swept out 
as by the besom of destruction. 

So the Chinese are continually, in many ways, filled with the 
deepest and the most absurd misconceptions with regard lo us and 
with regard to our teaching. They do not know that we come to 
them with the love of Christ to teach them the way of salvation. With 
this great need of China before us, these hundreds of cities, and 
towns, and villages, where there is not one preacher, not one mis- 
sionary, not one native convert, not one man, not one woman, to 
speak for Christ ; and with these millions, having their minds so filled 
with great mistakes with regard to us, and with endless super- 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Cliurch, April 23. 



THE POPULACE AND THE MISSIONARY 543 

stitions with regard to all of their gods, and the affairs that are in 
China itself, oh, what a call there is from God for us to go and 
preach the gospel to them ! 

J. H. McCartney, M.D., Missionary, Methodist Episcopal 
Church, China.'^' 

The medical missionary work in China has been wonderfully 
owned of God in breaking down superstition and opening doors that 
have been closed for ages against the preaching of the Word of 
God. The benefits that medical science can bring to the people are 
greater than in any other country. We know that in China the native 
medical profession to-day prescribes such things as tigers' bones as 
a tonic to those who are debilitated, and if the persons are too poor 
to purchase those tigers' bones, that sell at several dollars an ounce, 
they are permitted to buy the tigers' whiskers and pay as high as 
one dollar per hair for those whiskers, that are supposed to possess 
great virtue to strengthen those who are weakened through disease. 

The hygienic conditions of these cities is such that tongue is not 
able to describe. The people are permitted to throw out the rubbish 
and refuse of all descriptions into the street, and, as a consequence, 
you might suppose disease is rife on every hand ; and to Western 
medical science China to-day is looking for the correction of their 
hygienic surroundings and the educating of their youth in the 
science of medicine. 

I understand that the first medical missionary was sent out to 
China in 1851. But the churches through the land did not take a 
very great interest in medical missionary work until many years 
after that ; and, in fact, at the present time among 250 or more 
medical missionaries, by far the greater number were sent out to 
China within the last ten years. 

Ten years ago, when I went to the city of Chungking, there was 
one medical missionary in that great province, with a population of 
50,000,000 people, with no hospital, with only a native dispen- 
sary, and he treated annually about 3,000 people. When I left Chung- 
king eight months ago, there were seventeen medical missionaries 
in the province ; there were eleven hospitals ; and the last seventeen 
months the medical missionaries attended in the dispensary nearly 
100,000 patients. In our own medical work in Chungking, during 
the last seventeen months that I was there, we saw over 4,000 out- 
patients and treated as in-patients nearly 1,100. The medical work 
has been wonderfully owned of God, not only in bringing souls into 
the church, but it has also reached, to a certain extent, a high degree 
of self-support in all parts of the empire. In fact, it has become more 
rapidly self-supporting than any other work in which the mission- 
aries engage. The work which I have just referred to, of the 4,000 
out-patients and nearly 1,100 in-patients, was done without a single 
cent of expense to the missionary society which we represent. 

This result has been reached in Chungking, and is rapidly Hearing 
that point in all other parts of the great empire. 

♦ Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



544 CHINA 

Mrs. Wellington White. Formerly Missionary Presbyterian 
Church, U. S. A., China.'* 

Twenty years ago when I went into that great province of Canton, 
where there are 40,000,000 of people — 20,000,000 of women — there 
was not one woman physician in the whole province; and the men 
would rather let their wives die than let a man enter inside of the 
doors. Once, when I was in the country, I was called on to treat 
a poor sick woman, and I begged the man to let the poor sick 
woman have the good room in the house and give the poor room to 
the big buffalo ; and he said, " If I put my wife in that room and 
my buffalo in the inner-room, the buffalo may get as sick as my 
wife has gotten sick." I said, " Yes, and your wife will die if she 
stays there. Give her a good room." But he said, " If I give the 
water-cow, this great buffalo, the poor room, and he gets sick, he 
will die, and it costs more to buy a water-cow than it does a woman." 
You smile, my sisters, but your hearts would break if you thought 
there were 20,000,000 of women whose husbands regarded them in 
that light. 

Do these women not need the Gospel ? Do these women not need 
women physicians? What could five women physicians do for 
20,000,000 of women ? We sit at home here at our ease and in luxury, 
and we have far more physicians in the city of New York than there 
are in all of China. 

The Stability of the Chinese 

Rev. Carl F. Kupfer, Ph.D., Missionary, Methodist Episcopal 
Church, China.'^ 

Remembering that China has accomplished more than any other 
nation in history, and not at the expense of other people, having 
through all her inner revolutions and outward wars maintained the 
same unchanged form of government, as well as her national char- 
acteristics and various institutions, and amid all this has so increased 
in population that numerically she is the greatest nation that has ever 
been united in one form of government under one scepter, remem- 
bering this, we can not but feel deeply interested in her past struggles 
and solicitous for her future integrity. 

The Chinese may at present stand low in the scale of civilization, but 
their uncqualed stability in history compels us to accept the general 
principle that they must have possessed the necessary moral, intel- 
lectual, and social qualities which are essential for the maintenance 
of a race as a nation. 

Although China has waged war with all her neighboring Slates, 
yet she lias always maintained such a high degree of intelligence 
and exerted such a supremacy over her neighl)ors that these have 
willingly accorded to her superiority. Even in the instances where 
alien tribes succeeded in wresting to themselves the Dragon Throne, 
the Government was not changed, b'lt its people were governed ac- 
cording to its existing laws. Nor w.'is their religion changed. The 
moment the Manchus entered China they fnund it advisable to gain 
the good will of the people who were now subject to them, by adopt- 

* Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



THE STABILITY OF THE CHINESE 545 

ing their religion. The emperor was made High Priest of the State 
rehgion, and the other systems, Buddhism and Taoism, were tolerated. 

If there is any one feature that shows a lack of tenacity in Chinese 
character, it is in their indifference to all outward form of religion. 
And the result of the effort to unite these opposing systems of 
religion is showing itself in the general decline in their influence upon 
the people. 

That Confucianism has passed its zenith and is rapidly approach- 
ing its end, can be safely said. It has stood the test of more than 
two thousand years, and as an ethical code has done more than any 
other factor in educating the character of the people and in binding 
the hearts of the officials in loyalty and fidelity to the emperor and 
the empire ; so that during the great revolution none of the officials 
have been known to join the rebels, while thousands have sacrificed 
their lives for ruler and country. 

The same tenacity of character is found among the common people 
in their daily toil for existence. With no prospect of a better day, 
they toil on ; doing work the Creator never intended man to do, but 
beasts of burden ; with no day of rest from the beginning to end 
of the year, and amid it all contented with their rice, garlic, and pep- 
pered vegetables. In southern climes where aboriginal tribes lie lazily 
in the shade, subsisting upon natural products, it is the sons of the 
" Middle Kingdom " who are sought to work the plantations and 
carry the burdens. In wide-awake, modern, civilized Japan, the man 
with the cue and flowing gown has become indispensable to bankers 
and salesmen, because of his willingness to work, his honesty and 
fidelity, and his stability of character. 

And no less do these prominent characteristics come into evidence 
in their Christian lives. They are indifferent to outward forms of 
religion, but loyal and true when once brought into touch with the 
living Christ. That eighty-year-old woman toiling up the moun- 
tain side upon crippled feet, with staff in one hand and a little incense 
in the other, that she may once more worship at the shrine of her 
favored idol, when she is converted will with even greater effort 
find her way to the little chapel where she can commune with Christ 
her Lord. 

Character of Cfiinese Converts 

Rev. H. H. Lowry, President Peking University, Methodist 
Episcopal Church, China* 

We have been graduating students from the Peking University for 
ten years, and have graduated twenty-eight students. Out of this 
twenty-eight all of them studied English and all of them have been 
disciplined to another business — have been prepared to enter business, 
and at a salary of about 15 ounces of silver a month for the first year, 
20 ounces of silver a month for the second year, and 25 ounces a 
month for the third year. A dollar in gold is worth one and a half 
ounces in silver. Out of those twenty-eight students who have had 
these opportunities — and some of them have had much better, being 
offered $40 a month — twenty out of the twenty-eight have entered 

* Fifth Avenne Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



546 CHINA 

the Church to preach the gospel or to teach the gospel, some of 
them on a salary of three ounces of silver a month, which is $2 in 
gold. With the opportunity of making $20 or $30 besides, they have 
entered the Church on from three to five ounces of silver per month 
to preach or teach the gospel, where many of them would be per- 
secuted. 

Now, may I call attention to one or two of these? One of them, 
by the name of Chung, when he graduated was offered $40 a month 
in Shanghai. He accepted a position in the church, and was sent 
outside the great wall and began preaching on three ounces of silver 
a month — $2 in gold. Another one of them by the name of Mark 
was my assistant pastor in the southern city of Peking for five years. 
When he graduated he wanted to enter the Imperial Customs service 
at the salary I have just named ; for several days he could not 
decide what to do, but his wife assisted him. She was not one of those 
women who is not appreciated, but one of the graduated girls from 
the high school in Peking, an educated woman, and she influenced 
him, or, rather, assisted him to decide in favor of doing work for 
the Lord, and he entered the Church. He preached two or three 
years on a salary of five or six ounces of silver a month, and after 
that he requested us to allow him to teach English (which he was 
perfectly competent to do) to the families of the officials, where 
he could earn his own living, as Paul made tents for his living, and 
he would preach for nothing. We allowed him to do so, and he 
taught English, making a much larger amount of money than we 
could have given him, and almost as much as he could have gotten 
in the customs service. He preached for nothing. The first year 
that he began preaching and teaching he subscribed ten ounces of 
silver toward the building of our church, twenty ounces toward the 
building of our dispensary, and collected from his official friends 
enough to complete the building of the dispensary. 

A brother of Mark, whom I have just mentioned, when graduated 
was offered the same that Mark was offered. He began teaching 
for five ounces of silver per month. After a short time he requested 
one hour a day to teach English. Then he brought thirty ounces of 
silver, which had been given him for his extra hour a day work, and 
turned it into the treasury. 

Another of our graduates came to the United States, went to the 
DePauw University, and after three years' of study was offered 
here a position as interpreter, which would have brought him in 
about $1,000 a year, but he refused the offer and began teaching for 
$7 in gold a month, and out of that $7 gold turned into the treas- 
ury of the university enough to educate a boy as he had been edu- 
cated. Twenty out of the twenty-eight graduates from our univer- 
sities, and who had opportunities to go into business, entered the 
mission service at these low salaries. There are persons who say that 
the Chinese are " rice Christians," but it seems to me that what I 
have said will prove they are not. 

I could tell you of whole families who have, from one generation to 
another, some of them for three or four generations from the be- 
ginning to the present time, continually made sacrifices for the sake 



WOMAN S OUTLOOK 547 

of Christ among people who were persecuting them. If I had a 
thousand years to work for God, I would work for God in China. 

Voman's Outlook 

Mrs, F. Howard Taylor, Missionary, China Inland Missiott.*- 

1. In China we can go freely and settle in most of those cities and 
towns. There are several countries in Europe that are nothing like 
as open to the gospel as China is at the present time. This is one 
element of great encouragement. 

2. We have proved that the gospel is suited to the needs of this 
great race. Some time ago there were those who told us that the 
gospel would never lay hold upon the Chinaman, that it was not 
suited to that race. We have seen numbers and numbers of Chinese 
men and women converted and saved the very first time they ever 
heard the gospel. That is now no uncommon experience. When I 
went to the Province of Hunan, about eleven years ago, there were 
scarcely twenty Christians in the province; and there was not one 
Christian woman in it. Now, thank God, there are hundreds of 
Christians there. The same change is going on almost all over the 
country. The Protestant churches in China are now baptizing adult 
men and women and receiving them into the Church at the rate of 
ten thousand every year. 

3. We have proved that the Christian men and women among the 
Chinese form splendid preachers of the gospel. Especially I would 
like to emphasize that as regards the women. It perhaps is no 
wonder that the men develop into good evangelists and teachers, but 
it is not so generally recognized that the women do so. 

When I went to Hunan there were 10,000,000 of women, at least, 
and not a single Christian woman, and never had been one. The 
women of Hunan have a fine physical development. We meet plenty 
of women up there five feet six inches, five feet seven inches in 
height, women of intelligence and fine moral character, but, of course, 
with no education and no spiritual life. 

When we settled in that station, our first hope was to get hold of 
some women of the place, who would come to us as helpers. We 
could never go out of doors without a Chinese woman. It is not 
respectable for a woman under fifty years of age to go on the streets 
alone. The woman who came to be with me impressed me very much. 
She was tall, handsome, intelligent — a woman of about fifty, but her 
hair was perfectly white, and there was a hardness about her, as if 
she had no heart. But I felt there was fine material there, fine native 
power. She had been married when about eighteen years of age. 
She had had eight little girls in succession. She had only been 
allowed to keep alive two out of the eight. No wonder her hair 
turned white and her heart seemed cold ! She had not been with 
us very long when a wonderful tenderness came over that woman. 

She had observed that two or three times in the month our letters 
came from home. She noticed I never ventured to open them until 
1 could get by myself in the evening. After the first few weeks, 



Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, April 23. 



548 CHINA 

whenever she saw the letters come, she would go into her room, 
opposite mine on the courtyard. . . . 

And then she used to come and sit down outside the door of my 
room. And sometimes I had to open the door, and she would come 
in and put her arms around me, " Don't cry ; I know what a lonely 
heart is. I know you got a letter from your mother, and I under- 
stand all about it." After she had been with me four months, we 
started out on an evangelistic journey. One night we were sitting 
on the floor in a room surrounded by sixty or eighty women. I was 
trying to tell them of the love of Christ. My woman was sitting 
beside me, and presently she put her hand on me and stopped me. 
" Don't try to tell them any more." " Why not? I want to tell them 
about the Lord Jesus." She said, " I know ; but you are so tired you 
can hardly speak. Just lean up against me. Put your head on my 
shoulder and rest, and I will tell them all that you want to say." 
Well, I looked at her surprised. I said, " Do you know what I wani 
to say?" "Oh, yes, I know all about it." And she put her arm 
around me — for I was tired out — and she leaned forward and took 
up that story, and a sudden silence fell upon the room. I looked 
at her. Her face was full of a wonderful love, and a wonderful 
light. I never, never shall forget it. She told those women of 
Gethsemane, and of the Cross ; and as she told it the story of the 
Cross never seemed to me so real before. The tears were rolling- 
down her face, and those women were so moved that they were 
weeping all over that room. It was a marvelous hour to me. That 
woman went right on after that, preaching in the power of the Holy 
Spirit ; and now she has gone to be with the Lord. 

And here is another case : A woman had been brought to Christ 
at a little cottage meeting. A short time after that she went with 
me to a newly opened city in North China. On the way I said to my 
companion, " Mrs. Wing, I have asked you to come with me, not 
only to be my servant, but to help me in winning souls." She told me, 
long after that, that if she had had large feet, so that she could walk, 
she would have got down off the cart and walked all the way back. 
She was frightened out of her wits at the thought of having to preach 
as we did, and she did not attempt it at all. Then, a time came when 
hundreds of women came in from the country, and the great house 
was crowded from morning to night. One afternoon we were sitting 
on the floor as usual, with twenty or thirty women listening to the 
gospel, and my voice suddenly gave way. I could not speak any 
more. I turned to Mrs. Wing and said, " Will you tell them about 
the Lord Jesus? " She said, " I could not possibly." " Well," I said, 
" are these women to go away without hearing of the death of Christ 
upon the Cross for them?" And she buried her face in her hands, 
and sat perfectly still for two minutes ; and when she looked up I 
knew that that woman was filled with the Holy Ghost. She began 
to speak then. She has gone straight on from that time for five years, 
and scores and scores of women have been brought to Christ through 
her preaching. 

4. Not long ago there were very serious riots in Western China. 
Those riots were restrained, by the providence of God, and no life 



THE RECENT REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA 549 

was lost. On the other hand, they were the occasion of interesting 
a great number of people in the gospel who might never otherwise 
have been drawn in contact with the missionaries. I will give you one 
instance. There was a woman, a fine, intelligent woman, who lived 
some distance from our station, and she heard of these riots. She 
was a woman of independence and courage and a good deal of moral 
character, and she made up her mind to see what it really meant. 
" I must go and see how those lady missionaries are getting on, and 
whether they are being looked after." So those riots brought that 
woman twenty miles over mountains to that mission station. She 
might never have come at all but for those circumstances. She heard 
the gospel, she was brought to Christ. She has ever since been a 
most earnest preacher of the truth in that neighborhood, so that now 
almost all the persons in that village are Christians, 

The Recent Reform Movement in China 

Rev. George Owen, Missionary, London Missionary Society, 
China."^ 

What I have to tell you, I can tell you at first hand, from my own 
observation and experience. The year 1898 will, I think, be one 
of the most memorable in the long history of China. A great reform 
party arose, with the emperor at its head, and took in hand the 
reconstruction of China after foreign models and under Christian 
influences. Among the leaders of that movement were some of 
China's most brilliant scholars, and a few of her ablest and highest 
officials. The bulk of the party consisted of the younger literati, 
officials, merchants, and gentry. Young China rallied to the cry 
of reform. Early in January, 1898, we were startled in Peking by 
the report that the emperor had sent to the American Bible and Tract 
Depot and ordered a copy of the Bible and a copy of every tract 
and book that the depot could supply him for his own reading. These 
books were passed into the palace, and early and late you might have 
seen the emperor of China, the master of 400,000,000 of men, bend- 
ing eagerly over these books and absorbing their contents. The 
report that the emperor had become a student of Christian literature 
scon spread through Peking ; and from Peking was carried to every 
part of the empire. The news gave great joy to all Christian workers ; 
and from all parts of China, wherever there was a Christian man or 
woman, there went up earnest prayer on the behalf of the emperor, 
that as he pored over the sacred page, or read some of the books ex- 
plaining it, light from God should shine upon it. As we prayed, an 
answer in part fell, for at the end of January an edict was issued 
sanctioning the establishment of a great national university in Peking 
based on foreign models, and equipped with a staff of foreign profes- 
sors. Many edicts followed, all breathing a liberal spirit, and creating 
an atmosphere new in China. Then, on the nth of June, the 
emperor began that long and splendid series of reform edicts of 
which you have all heard — about forty in number. Those edicts were 
not all of equal importance, but all were greatly needed in China, 
and if carried out would have revolutionized China as Japan was 

* Central Presbyterian Church, April 30. 



55° CHINA 

revolutionized — in twenty or thirty years. The great aim of those 
edicts was to bring China in line with Western powers. Among those 
edicts there was one in which the emperor lamented the frequency 
of attacks on Christian missions, and the officials were instructed 
to see that those attacks cease, and, moreover, to see that his Chris- 
tian subjects should not suffer for their faith in Christ. Some of 
the leading reformers would fain have gone further, giving full 
toleration to Christianity on a level with Confucianism, Buddhism, 
and Taoism; and some of the stalwarts went so far as to urge the 
adoption of Christianity as the national religion. 

These reform edicts of the emperor were well received by the 
people generally, and hailed with enthusiasm by all the younger 
officials, scholars, merchants, and gentry. Their effect upon all 
classes of people was very marked. First and foremost, we observed 
that Chinese gentlemen and officials began to treat Americans and 
Europeans as equals ; to court our society and to speak appreciatively 
of Western things and Western institutions. And China became a 
possible and even pleasant country to live in. 

This reform movement, and the example of the emperor, was 
widely followed among the literary men, and there sprang up a 
demand for Christian literature. Men were eager to get books on 
the religion, the history, the science, the politics, and the institutions 
of the West. There arose a new cry out there, " Light ! More light!" 
And that cry came from the hitherto self-satisfied and haughty schol- 
ars of China. Among the young men there was almost a mania 
in some quarters to learn English. Mission schools were soon 
crowded, and wealthy men in Peking and other great centers of pop- 
ulation subscribed large sums of money to establish schools where 
their sons might get a Western education. There also arose a great 
desire to know what was going on in the rest of the world outside of 
China — a thing perfectly new there. Why, when I went to China, 
thirty-five years ago, I think I am right in saying that there was not a 
newspaper in the whole of that great empire, except the old Peking 
Ga::ctte, which is not a newspaper, but simply a record of imperial 
edicts. 

Ten years ago there were only five or six, and those I think were en- 
tirely owned by foreigners ; but since the Japanese war there has 
sprung up a desire to know something outside of the country. And, 
in response to this demand, newspapers came into existence, and the 
year before last there were no fewer than about seventy newspapers 
and magazines written, published, printed, by Chinese for Chinese, 
and some of them had an enormous circulation. The effect of the 
edicts and of the reform movement was seen also in the opening up 
of such anti-foreign, anti-Christian parts of the empire as the Prov- 
ince of Hunan. The people of that great province, some 20,000,000 
in number, had bound themselves together by a kind of league or 
covenant to keep out the foreigner ; and the unfortunate merchant, 
or official, or missionary who stepped across the Hunan border was 
immediately pelted back again. But the year before last some of the 
leaders of the Province of Hunan banded themselves together in 
reading clubs, and sent to the Shanghai Christian Literature Society, 



THE RECENT REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA 55 1 

of which Mr. Richard is the head, for a large supply of all its books. 
When these books arrived, they were distributed over the province, 
the result being that some of the leaders of Hunan became leaders of 
reform, and Hunan was opened to Christianity and to commerce. 

Another very marked result of this reform movement, and of the 
emperor's edicts, was the great change that came over the attitude 
of the scholars of China toward Christianity. 

They not only ceased to slander, but they began to praise, and ac- 
knowledged that Christianity was one of the great civilizing and 
elevating powers in this world. 

Another effect of this movement was seen in the trend of large 
portions of the population in some parts toward the Christian Church, 
markedly in Fukien and in Manchuria. The United Presbyterian 
Mission in Manchuria alone during that year baptized 3,100 converts, 
and received as candidates for baptism 7,500 more ; and if that great 
reform movement had gone on, we should have witnessed one of 
the greatest influxes to the Christian Church this world has seen 
since the time of Constantine the Great. " But," you will say, " this 
movement was surely a very sudden one." To us who were looking 
on it did not seem quite so sudden as it might to you here in the 
West. Since the Japanese war, things had been changing, and it 
was evident that there was some great movement coming to the 
front. But you will find that Eastern people always act suddenly 
and move in masses. Yesterday, as you looked at some Eastern 
people, they seemed to you dead, hopeless ; but to-day something oc- 
curs ; there is a stirring among the dry bones, and the people, moved 
by a common impulse, rise, and a nation is born in a day. It was 
thus that Japan arose and reformed herself; and it is thus that China 
will reform herself. 

You say, " What were the causes of this great movement? " They 
were very apparent to us on the spot, and will, I think, be clear to 
you as I mention them. 

First and foremost I must place the Japanese war. 

There was another cause. When the Chinese opened their eyes, 
and looked out upon the world, they were amazed at the wealth, in- 
telligence, and power of the great Christian peoples, and they con- 
trasted Christian Europe, Christian America, with heathen Asia. 

The Chinaman is a very practical man. He is not much influenced 
by theory, and not at all, so far as I know, by philosophy or by 
theology. If you were to send your most eloquent theologian to 
China, and call some of China's most learned men together, and were 
to demonstrate to them that Christianity was far superior to any 
other religion, one would speak in reply, saying something like this : 
" Sir, we are deeply indebted to you for your valuable instructions, 
but we want to ask you what that religion has done for you. Has it 
made you a nobler, a better, a wiser man ? What has it done for your 
family ; has it made parents more loving and children more dutiful ? 
And what has it done for your people ; has it made them wealthier, 
wiser, stronger, better ? " The Chinaman does not ask : *' Is a thing 
true? " but " Is it good? " not " What are its roots? " but " What are 
its fruits ? " 



552 CHINA 

But there was another and potent cause at work out there in 
China — the spread of useful and Christian knowledge among the 
Chinese people during recent years. Preaching has been going on in 
China for a great many years, but, unfortunately, among our hearers 
there are very few of the upper classes. We have to reach them 
through tracts and books. Since the Japanese war, particularly, 
these books have been read by large numbers of the literati, and it is 
from these books that the Chinese emperor and his reform advisers 
drew their information. Kang-yu-wei, the leading reformer, when a 
refugee in Hongkong, was interviewed by the editor of the China 
Alail, and, among other statements, he made this one : '* I owe my 
conversion to reform and my knowledge of reform, chiefly to the 
writings of two missionaries — Rev. Timothy Richard, agent of the 
English Baptist Society, and the Rev. Dr. Allen, a missionary of the 
Southern Methodist Episcopal Church of America." What a splendid 
testimony this is to the value of Christian literature ! 

But you know that the reform movement came to a sudden close. 
The Empress Dowager interposed and called a halt. It was not that 
she had any great objection to reform in itself, or to reform in others ; 
what she objected to was reform in herself. When she gave up to 
the present emperor the reins of government, she kept in her hands 
two of the imperial prerogatives : first, the Great Seal of state, and, 
second, the appointment of all the higher civil and military officials. 
The emperor begged her to give up this power of appointment; she 
indignantly refused. This led to a fierce struggle between the 
empress and the emperor, which continued from the i6th to the 226. 
of September, and resulted, as you know, in the complete triumph 
of the Empress Dowager. Since then the empress has been doing 
everything possible to set on foot again the old ignorance, bigotry, 
and hostility. And it may seem as if she had completely triumphed. 
I do not think she herself thinks so. She feels very much, I think, 
like Canute, when he put his throne in front of the rising tide and 
bade it roll back, but you know it did not go back. And that reform 
movement in China will not go back, for it is the rising tide of a 
nation's larger life and wider liberty. One of the reformers, just 
before his execution, said : " I know that no great reform movement 
has ever been carried out without its martyrs, and I am willing to 
die for China. But be sure of this : that for every head which falls 
to-day, a thousand will rise to take its place and carry on this great 
work of reform." 

China, Past, Present, and Future 

Rev. Wflltam Ash more, D.D., Missionary, American Baptist 
Missionary Union, Chi}ia.* 

I wish to speak upon three Chinas : The China that has been, that 
is passing away, and that is to be. 

I. The China that has been. 

The China that has been covers the ground from its earliest his- 
tory down to the early years of the present century, and before it felt 
the transforming influence of the West. The average Chinese char- 

* Carnegie Hall, April 24. 



PASTj PRESENT, AND FUTURE 553 

acter is a product of the formative pressure, first of all, of three 
thousand years of unbroken national history, of a hundred genera- 
tions of ancestors, and of a myriad millions of dead ; and, second, 
of five hundred millions of the living. In this great line are sages, 
and heroes, and lawyers, statesmen, and other men of renown. Every 
individual Chinaman feels himself to be a member of this aggrega- 
tion ; and the backwater pressure of the multitudinous dead and mul- 
titudinous living has made its impression upon him as mountain 
heights solidify the forming granite beneath. To these things are 
added the undisputed ancient primacy of China among all the tribes 
and nations surrounding her. She was the Middle Kingdom, while 
Japan, and Siam, and Burma, and the Tartar tribes were tribute- 
bearers and suppliants at her feet. 

Religiously speaking, Chinese doctrine had a monotheistic sub- 
structure with a polytheistic superstructure. To this was added a 
rationalistic development ; and, later, a Buddhistic annex. And so the 
Chinaman has developed. He is a hardworking, industrious, money- 
making, patient, plodding, doggedly persistent being, with his full 
share of human vices, but with the race material in him of as sturdy 
a manhood and enduring nationhood as can be found in the most 
forward nations of the West. 

This tremendous mass of humanity had stood for all the ages as 
solid, apparently, as the everlasting hills. There had been rebellions 
and there had been disruptions so great that it seemed impossible for 
the empire to recover herself. But somehow the Government admin- 
istration always fell back into the old ruts, and it seemed as if her 
history were to be summed up in the words of the Prayer-book, 
" As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world with- 
out end." 

II. The China that is passing away. 

The passing century is filled in with stupendous events. Not in 
Europe and America alone, but in dormant, torpid Asia. Among all 
the events that challenge attention in either hemisphere, none loom 
up into more startling prominence than does the threatened collapse 
of the greatest empire on the face of the earth. We ask for the 
cause of this. It is not found in the decrepitude of old age, though 
China is old as a nation. The individual constituents of her nativity 
are not old. The individual Chinaman is remarkable for virile traits. 
He is an emigrant of ubiquitous adaptation. He is a business man, 
he is a mechanic, he is a trader, he is a sailor, he is a diplomat, and 
by and by he will be a soldier. Then let the world look out! His 
most wonderful characteristic is his capability of being built into 
a new structure, when his predilection happens to be that way. 
Neither is the reason to be found in the enervation produced by luxu- 
rious and riotous living, such as sapped the energies of the Greeks 
and the Romans. The Chinamen are poor ; they have not the means 
for luxurious living. Their grinding poverty and the hard toil it 
entails have given them hardy constitutions and have made them 
wakeful, and watchful, and ready to push with adventurous desper- 
ation, as you know from their endeavors to secure entrance into lands 
from which they are excluded. 



554 CHINA 

Some causes of the impending collapse of China are from within. 
Leading off in these internal causes are the accumulated corruptions 
of a dozen dynasties and of many generations of evil doers. China- 
men say their earlier generations were more virtuous than the later 
ones. The official classes of China have gradually come to consider 
peculation and extortion as legitimate rights. Their sale of justice, 
or rather of injustice, passes without rchuke. The wickedness of 
one generation becomes the capitalized wickedness of another. With- 
out money in hand, nothing can be done ; with money in hand, any- 
thing can be accomplished. Public offices are bought and sold. 
Robbers, and pirates, and rebels are bought off and taken into public 
service. Even the Empress Dowager offers to assassins a reward, 
either of money or office, as the successful assassin may elect. Next 
in order, and to consummate the curse of the situation, China has 
lost all power of recuperation. She has exhausted all her moral 
resources. She has had no expedients for self-deliverance. The 
ethics of her sages are a spent force ; her nomenclature of morality 
is a list of names without significance. 

Other causes of the impending collapse are from without. Fore- 
most of these is the impact of modern civilization. A hundred years 
ago the intercourse between East and West was not enough to dis- 
turb the isolation. Each went its own way without a word to the 
other. The commotion of the West was not felt in the East, nor 
the commotion of the East felt in the West. A vast chasm separated 
us ; an ocean rolled between. But now so quick is the intercommuni- 
cation that we are within eyeshot and earshot of each other. We 
touch elbows. Practically there is no more sea. We are mutually 
cognizant and mutually sensitive. As a consequence the interchange 
of influence is positive and immediate. The two civilizations have 
come into collision. It is a case of the survival of the fittest : Western 
ideas. Western methods, Western education, and Western politics 
are invading the East, and one of the two systems must go under. 
There is no hesitation in saying which it will be. 

Closely related to the above are the wars which China has had 
with outside nations. These have exposed the inherent weakness of 
the whole Chinese administration ; the Chinese people themselves 
have found out how powerless their rulers are. The reverence once 
felt for them has changed to contempt. The soil is already prepared 
for insurrections and rebellions. Feebleness and incapacity are so 
conspicuous that hope and confidence are paralyzed. Without orders, 
without leadership, without a definite policy, without unity of pur- 
pose, without anybody in whom they can confide, the whole Chinese 
mind is bewildered and the whole Chinese attitude is like that of a 
flock of sheep upon which a drove of wolves are deterred from 
rushing only through fear of bites from each other. 

It is taught in the Word of God that there is a method in the 
divine supervision of human governments. Nations, fully as much 
as individuals, are allowed to fill up a certain measure of conduct 
and development. God makes upon them call upon call to repentance. 
When at last blindness of mind and hardness of heart are matured, 
then their doom is sealed. The amount of worn out garniture of this 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 555 

great heathen nation, which, until quite recently, has refused to listen 
to the messengers of the Most High, and which is now to be stripped 
like Nebuchadnezzar's tree, will be known only when the work is 
completed. Judicial systems, financial systems, educational systems, 
ancient usages, administrative methods, and social customs, must 
go by the board as this process goes on. Reformation, after ordinary 
precedents, seems impossible. " We would have healed Babylon, but 
she is not healed " ; we could have healed China, but she is not healed 
and the time of her visitation may be at hand. Dowager Empress 
and dynasty may go down together. If so it should be decreed, 
the earth will shake at the sound of her fall, and the Lord alone shall 
be exalted in that day. 

III. The China that is to be. 

She will be a reconstructed China. All her material conditions 
will be changed for the better. She will rise in the scale of nation- 
hood ; her foreign relation, her financial system, her judicial admin- 
istration will be lifted immensely above the level where they now are. 
She will also be a regenerated China. A purely materialistic China, 
well equipped with ironclads and Mauser rifles, and without ascend- 
ency of moral force, would be a curse to herself and a menace to 
mankind. God has something better in store for humanity. By a 
regenerate China is not meant that all China will be converted ; far 
from it as yet, but it is meant that Christianity will soon move with 
gigantic strides. Already is it beginning to make itself felt. Each 
succeeding decade will witness an increase in the rate of progres- 
sion. Drawbacks and checks there will be, but, allowing for them 
all, after taking into account the nature of the Chinese people once 
emancipated from their slavish allegiance to their literary class, con- 
sidering that they have no Indian caste to keep them back, and count- 
ing, as we do, on the mighty power of God, we are safe in assum- 
ing that there will be such ingatherings as the world has never seen. 
It takes only a small minority of a population, provided that minority 
is assertive, to create ascendency in religious matters. 

Of the forces that will aid in this result, one part has its source in 
Western civilization. This class includes the results of trade and 
commerce and certain other Western business enterprises. Western 
business enterprise has done something for China in the past and it 
will do more for it in the future. It will construct its roads, furnish its 
poor with work, advance the wages of labor, relieve its famines, and 
keep its Yellow River within its banks, thus putting an end to that 
awful devastation known as " China's Sorrow." 

Another part of these forces belongs to Western Protestant Chris- 
tendom. In Western lands, through many generations, not without 
fire and flood and sometimes tears and blood, God has been elaborat- 
ing in human consciousness through human ministers such a 
conception of the everlasting gospel and such purification of faith, as 
must tend to uplift the submerged millions of the heathen world. 

The churches of Christendom are the custodians of these truths. 
And, now, with this outfit of saving doctrine, this maturity of ex- 
perience, this solidity of fiber, this accumulation of resources, material, 
mental, moral, and spiritual, with the riches of the world at their 



556 CHINA 

feet and with their hands on the throttle-valve of all power in heaven 
and on earth, by means of prayer and promise, the churches are 
called upon to begin this spiritual conquest of that great empire. 

A part of these forces is found in the missionary body. In China 
there has been the spying out of the land ; then the exploitation, 
then the opening of the five ports, then the dozen ports, then treaty 
recognition of religious liberty, then traveling by passport, then in- 
land right of residence, and now the whole empire is open. At first 
a single pioneer, Robert Morrison, then two and three, then a score, 
then a hundred, then a thousand, and now God's army of conquest 
numbers two thousand eight hundred missionaries, and " more to 
follow." Among them, men and women, are scholars, thinkers, lin- 
guists, literary celebrities, physicians, surgeons, diplomats, senior 
wranglers, and college valedictorians, representing the best brain and 
training of Western universities and the ripest grace of Western 
Christendom, all there with a purpose, all swayed with a common 
aim, and all submissive to one invisible head — the Captain of the 
Lord's host, the Lord of lords and the King of kings. 

They are not massed in camps, all these men and women ; they 
are all over the empire — in the cities, in the towns, up the valleys, 
along the rivers, over the plains, on the mountains, on the borders 
of Tibet, in malarial marshes fighting epidemics, and, what is some- 
times worse, the fury of devilish mobs. 

The weapons of this warfare are not carnal, there is no roll of the 
stirring drum, no " confused noise of the warriors," nor " garments 
rolled in blood," there are Bibles, there are preaching-places, there are 
hospitals, there are sermons preached by the twenty thousand a week, 
there are hymns of praise, there are leaves of the tree of life flying 
abroad by the million, and there is the continual lifting up of " holy 
hands without wrath and doubting." It is not all fair weather ; there 
are afflictions; there are distresses ; there are tumults ; there are watch- 
ings and fastings ; fightings without and fears within. The mission- 
aries conquer by their lives ; by the word of truth ; by the armor of 
righteousness ; by honor and dishonor ; by evil report and by good 
report. There they stand, messengers of God. They are a mere 
drop in the bucket, yet no class of men and women in human society 
are exerting an influence so tremendous. They interfere, as a Shang- 
hai secular paper puts it, as a buffer-state between what are considered 
to be the dangerous literary and official classes of China, and the 
dangerous and diplomatic classes of the West. They act, as another 
Shanghai paper says, as the generators of a new moral energy — 
the supreme need of China at the present hour. 

Another part of these forces proceed from the Chinese themselves. 
The recent reform movement shows the promptitude with which 
Chinese can act. They will respond to guidance that is wisely given. 
Reform has been checked, but it is not dead. The Cliinese are a mar- 
velously capable people in all matters of organization. When the 
obstructive portion of the mandarin class is once out of the way, the 
people will pull for themselves. In promoting rejuvenation they can 
be relied upon to a degree surpassed by no other nation. 

It is unsafe to prophesy, but with some knowledge of forces at 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 557 

work, and some discernment of lines of movement aided by Scripture 
intimations, we may not be amiss in indulging in some forecast of 
the future : The China that is to be will be a homogeneous, self- 
governed China. It is true that just now indications are not favorable 
to that view, but the Dowager and her policy will not rule forever. 
The ice-pack will be broken and the current will move on and carry 
all before it. At present China seems at the mercy of ambitious 
nations. Broken up for a time, she may be, into a Russian sphere 
of influence and a French sphere of influence. But it will not con- 
tinue ; the Chinese will consolidate — " blood is thicker than water." 
These troubles will diminish the provincial spirit and multiply the 
national spirit. It is not the Gaul nor the Slav that will rule the 
Chinese. They are not quiet under vassalage to the Manchus. They 
would be less so under the Frenchman. Too enterprising eflFort to 
control in the south of China would be heaping up wrath against 
the day of slaughter. China once uplifted and fairly on her feet, 
as she will some day be, will repudiate French suzerainty and sweep 
its agents into the sea. 

Russia has a better prospect, but then neither will she dominate a 
reconstructed China. China, as an anvil, has chipped the edges of 
many a hammer already. China, as a hamimer, will yet pound the 
Cossack anvil as no European hammer ever yet has pounded it. The 
land that produced a medieval Genghis-khan may yet produce a 
twentieth-century Genghis-khan, up in the mastery of modern war- 
fare ; then even Russia may have to take the defensive. So far from 
being dominated, China will herself dominate the tribes and kin- 
dreds on her border. Let not the nations of Europe be blinded. The 
dynasty may go, and go out like the flame of a candle, but the 
Chinese people are not dead, and theirs is not an emasculated man- 
hood. It is to the interest of the Anglo-Saxon and the Germanic 
peoples to act the part of the Good Samaritan and help China get 
on her feet ; she will pay them for it in time. She will interpose a 
greater hindrance to Muscovite aggressiveness than the navies of 
the West can do combined, and such a check will be in the interests 
of our common hum.anity. 

The China that is to be will ally herself with the most truly repre- 
sentative governments of the West. 

It may be thought strange that an absolute government like China 
should sympathize with the representative governments of the West, 
but the cause is not hard to find. The central government of China 
is indeed absolute in theory — but, in all the towns and villages of 
China, there is a recognized popular element. The people of China 
are familiarized in all their homes with a certain right of self-gov- 
ernment vested in their own gentry and village elders. This initial 
training will develop into something potent. It is not hazarding 
much to predict that a characteristic of the coming China, as far as 
circumstances will permit, will be a strong, practical, representative 
government with the ever- recurring problems, the centralization, and 
the diffusing of authority, as well-balanced in practical administra- 
tion as they are among any of ourselves. We shall, therefore, find 
sympathizers in them and not adversaries. It may seem a visionary 



558 CHINA 

thing to say, but say it we do: The Chinese coolie may be a voter 
before the Russian serf; the Chinese upUft of the coming fifty years 
will exceed the Russian uplift of the past hundred years. 

And finally a regenerated China will be mighty in the world's reli- 
gious future. The conversion of China has been slow, but the past is 
no standard for the future. The Chinese think in bulk. It is hard 
to get them to flake ofif. The terrific shaking up they had in the 
Japan war has had an effect upon them akin to that produced by 
shooting an oil well. So now they are rousing themselves, and many 
of them are striking their tents for the morning march. Twenty 
thousand applicants for baptism in one province alone is a sign of the 
times. Expectations may be optimistic, but the optimistic carries 
the sanction of the Word of God and has the right of way. 

We do not assume that the victory is won ; the thorny gauntlet 
is not yet run; race prejudice will rise, hundred handed; unwhole- 
some foreign influences will be against us. Japhet has come to 
dwell in the tents of Shem, but Japhet is not always a saint. Mori- 
bund heathenism is to be galvanized into a final effort by Western 
agnosticism. 

But although men do not take God's word, wanting to find out 
things for themselves, in the end they come out where others started 
in, and are compelled to postulate a God and to accept the Bible as 
the Word of God. This last is the argument from the concrete ex- 
perience of the human race, referred to by the prophet Jeremiah : 
" The Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth and 
shall say, ' Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things 
wherein there is no profit.' " Though we know not the details, yet 
certain we are that China will at last come in with a vast contri- 
bution to the resources of Christendom. 

We have yet many unsolved nebulse of religious, as well as of 
philosophical inquiry ; each nation of the West has set its thinkers 
at work, and yet a conclusion is not reached. The practical mind of 
China may work out something different from what we have yet, 
and which will enter into the final make-up. There will also be 
pecuniary contribution from China. Poor as the Chinese people 
are, their expenditures in idolatrous worship mount up each year 
to near $150,000,000. We shall see much of that turned into Chris- 
tian channels of benevolence. We shall also look for thinkers, and 
authors, and investigators, and specialists to be added to the great 
force we already have of men of intellectual supremacy at work on 
the multitudinous problems of existence God has set before man- 
kind. And, towering above everything else, we contemplate the 
revenue of praise and thanksgiving that will come to our blessed 
Master — the outpouring of millions and millions of loving hearts, 
millions and millions of prayers, millions and millions of songs of 
rejoicing, and millions and millions of shouts of triumph ascending 
from the uncounted hosts of China ransomed ; all as the result of 
this missionary movement we are carrving on to-day. 



Theological Seminary-Sp«. [-''jj?'.'. 



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