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A3 



\ 



AMISSIONS 

AT 

udliiE AND ABROAD. 



PAPERS AND ADDRESSES 



PRESENTED AT THE 



WORLD'S CONGRESS OF MISSIONS -^^-,..-, 

OCTOBER 2-4, 1893. 



COMPILED BY / ; 

REV. E. M. WHERRY,' tt«l^., 

CORRESPONDING SBCRBTARY WORLD'S CONGRESS OP MISSIONS. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

10 EAST 23d STREET, NEW YORK. 



COPYRIGHT, 1895, 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 



• • • 
•••• - • 

• • • • 



[ 



2-23-/53^ 



PREFACE. 



The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 was 
distinguished above all other similar Expositions not so 
much by its magnitude as by its Congress Auxiliary. 
Instead of merely calling the attention of the world to 
the many evidences of its vast material progress, the 
World's Congress Auxiliary gave emphasis to the in- 
tellectual, moral, and religious advancement of the 
human race. The Exposition was not merely a iking 
which could be seen, but a living organism speaking in 
all the languages of earth. In his opening address, C. 
C. Bonney, Esq., President of the World's Congresses, 
said: 

" The nineteenth century, richer in manifold won- 
ders than any which has preceded it in the august pro- 
cession of the ages, crowns its great achievements by 
establishing in the world the sublime idea of a Univer- 
sal Fraternity of Learning and Virtue. This idea, long 
cherished by the illuminati of every clime, descends at 
last from the luminous mountains of thought to the 
fertile fields of action, and enters upon the conquest of 
the world. The New Age has dawned. A new leader 
has taken command. The name of this leader is Peace. 
Henceforth, excepting only the names by which the 
Prince of Peace is invoked, the mightiest word in all 



4 PREFACE. 

the languages of the earth is peace. In the service of 
this new commander we proclaim a Universal Frater- 
nity of Learning and Virtue as the best means by which 
ignorance, misunderstanding, prejudice, and animosity 
can be removed, and intelligence, protective industry, 
and happiness be promoted. For these high purposes 
the World's Congress Auxiliary of the World's Colum- 
bian Exposition was organized, the leaders of progress 
invited, and arrangements made for the World's Con- 
gress of 1893." 

With the watchword, "Not things, but men," 
the World's Congress Auxiliary organized and suc- 
cessfully conducted more than one hundred and fifty 
congresses, canvassing almost every department of 
scientific, moral, and religious activity. Early in the 
development of this colossal organism the importance of 
a Congress of Missions was fully recognized. A Com- 
mittee was formed, and under the leadership of Rev. 
Walter Manning Barrows, D. D., as Chairman, a plan 
was formed for the organization of a Congress which 
should be world-wide in its representation. It proposed 
an Ecumenical Congress of Protestant Missions. This 
General Committee, as finally constituted, consisted of 
the following persons, representing the leading Protes- 
tant denominations of the world : Rev. Walter Man- 
ning Barrows, D.D., Chairman; Wm. E. Blackstone, 
Vice-Chairman ; Rev. Alvirus N. Hitchcock, Ph.D., 
Secretary ; Rev. E. M. Wherry, D.D., Corresponding 
Secretary; Rt. Rev. Samuel Fallows, D.D. ; Rev, 



PREFACE. 5 

Frank M. Bristol, D.D. ; Rev. Theodore N. Morrison, 
D.D.; Rev. O. P. Gifford. D.D.; Rev. J. J. Keller; 
Pres. Wm. R. Harper, LL.D. ; Rev. A, J. Canfield; 
Rev. Moses Smith ; Rev. George E. Youngdahl ; Rev. 
E. C. Ray, D.D. ; W. B. Jacobs, Esq. ; Peter Sinclair, 
Esq.; Rev. L. G. Abrahamson; Rev. R. Blomendal; 
Rev. John Schneider ; Rev. H. W. Roth, D.D. ; Rev. 
Wm. T. Meloy, D.D. ; and Rev. W. F. Black. 

Letters were addressed to the official representa- 
tives of all known Missionary Societies asking their 
cooperation in this movement A programme of a 
broad and comprehensive character was prepared and 
representative men were summoned from all parts of 
the mission field to discuss " vital principles of mission- 
ary policy ; burning questions of missionary relations, 
aims and methods : the whole field in the light of past 
successes and disappointments ; the limidess possibili- 
ties and responsibilities of to-day." 

For the first time in the history of Missionary 
Conferences, this Congress of Missions undertook to 
compass the entire field of evangelistic effort. City 
Missions, Home Missions, and Foreign Missions, with 
the many auxiliary agencies and societies, were all 
given a place upon the programme. Woman's work 
in missions, though provided for by a separate com- 
mittee, was presented in the same hall and during the 
same time allotted to the subject of missions. 

The papers presented to the public in this volume 
contain some of the best things heard by those who 



6 PREFACE. 

were so fortunate as to be present at the Congress. 
Several of the speakers, whose utterances were listened 
to with enthusiastic interest, were unable to furnish 
their addresses for publication, and the limits of the 
present volume preclude the presentation of many other 
papers of interest It is, however, confidently expected 
that the thoughts herewith given to the world will con- 
stitute an important addition to a missionary library 
and do something to promote the great cause of evan- 
gelizing the world. E. M. W 

Chicago, Dec. ii, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY ADDRESSES page ii 

Address of Welcome. By Charles C. Bonney, Esq., 
President World's Congress Auxiliary, Chicago, 

ni 13 

Opening Address. By Rev. Walter Manning Barrows, 
D. D., Chairman World's Congress of Missions, 
Rockford, 111. 17 

MISSIONARY SOCIETIES 27 

Missionary Societies: Their Place and Function in 
the Work of the Church. By Rev. A. N. Hitchcock, 
District Secretary A. B. C. F. M., Chicago, 111 29 

CITY MISSIONS 43 

The Lapsed Masses. By Rev. David J. Burrell, D. D., 

New York 45 

The City of To- Day: Its Place, its Perils and its Possi- 
bilities. By Rev. Alexander Mackay-Smith, D. D., 
Rector of xSt. John's Parish, Washington, D. C 52 

Lessons from Past Progress. By Prof. Graham Tay- 
lor, Chicago Theological Seminary 66 

HOME MISSIONS ^^ 

» 

The Problems of our Multifarious Population and 
their Probable Solution. By Rev. William C. Rob- 
erts, D. D. , Secretary Presbyterian Board of Home 
Missions, New York _ 79 



8 CONTENTS. 

Home Missions Applied. By Rev. S. E. Wishard, D. D., 

Ogden, Utah , 97 

The Peril of our Nation Through Illiteracy In 
Morals. By Rev. Newell D. HiUis, D. D., Evans- 
ton\ 111 — 1 117 

FOREIGN MISSIONS - 137 

\A Geographical Survey: Especially of Totally 
^^ Unreached Fields. By George Smith, LL. D., 

C. I. E., Edinburgh, Scotland 139 

fTHt True Aim of Missionary Wojik. By Rev. George 
37 Washburn, D. D., President of Robert College, 

Constantinople, Turkey 148 

The Jews and the Gospel. By Prof. H. M. Scott, 

D. D., Chicago Theological Seminary — _ 165 

The Jew and his Land. By Bishop William R. Nich- 
olson, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa 179 



( OBsi 



Obstacles in the Way of Christianizing the 
^^-*^ World. By Hiram C. Haydn, D. D., LL. D., 

Cleveland, Ohio 201 

South America as a Mission Field. By Rev. Thomas 

B. Wood, LL. D., Callao, Peru _ 214 

THE/' Inaccessible Fields of Islam and How to 
Reach Them. By Rev. James S. Dennis, D. D., 
22 Years a Missionary in Syria 228 

BEACON LIGHTS FROM THE WORLD'S MISSION 

FIELDS 245 

Modern Triumphs of the Gospel in the Ottoman 
Empire. By Rev. Henry H. Jessup, D. D., Beirut, 
Syria - 247 

Conspicuous Examples of Gospel Triumph in the 
Ottoman Empire. By Rev. J. L. Barton, Mission- 
ary at Harpoot, Turkey 263 



CONTENTS. 9 

Conspicuous Examples op the Gospel's Triumph 
Among Aboriginal Americans. By Rev. Eger- 
ton R. Young, Toronto, Canada 280 

Mission Work Among Lepers. By Wellesley C. Bailey, 

Esq., Edinburgh, Scotland 295 



AUXILIARY AGENCIES IN MISSIONS 305 

Tract and Book Societies. By Rev. Samuel H. Vir- 
gin, D. D., LL. D.,New Yoilc, N. Y. 307 

Christian Union in Tract Societies. By Rev. G. L. 

Shearer, D. D., New York 321 

Bible Societies. By Rev. Albert S. Hunt, D. D., New 

York 324 

Medical Missions and Relief Work. Rev. George E. 

Post, M. D., Beirut, Syria 335 

Science and Missions: Their Mutual Dependence. 

By Rev. Frederick Wright, D. D.. Oberlin, Ohio— 349 

Responsibility of Young People and their Socie- 
ties FOR Missions. By Rev. Francis E. Clark, 
D, D., Boston, Mass 370 



MONEY AND MISSIONS 381 

The Consecration of Property. By Thomas Kane, 

Esq., Chicago, 111. - 3I&S 

Christian Stewardship. By Peter Sinclair, Esq., Chi- 
cago, 111.- - - — 396 

COMITY AND COOPERATION. 405 

Cooperation in Foreign Missions. By Rev. George 

William Knox, D. D., Japan. 407 

Cooperation Applied: Practical Methods. By Rev. 

Edwin M. Bliss, New York 4^9 



10 CONTENTS. 

The Bearings op International Law on Religious 

Toleration. By Rev. Gilbert Reed, China 440 

The Responsibility op Christian Governments as 
TO the Citizen Rights op Missionaries. By 
Rev. William Elliott Griffis, D. D 453 

THE OUTLOOK -. 469 

The Victories and the Hopes op Missions ; With 
an Estimate of the World's Parliament of Reli- 
gions. By Joseph Cook, LL. D. 471 



INTRODUCTORY ADDRESSES. 



A I 



MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY PRESIDENT 
CHARLES C. BONNE Y. 

Officers, Members, and Friends of Chris- 
tian Missions : Believing in the divinity of the Lord, the 
Holiness of the Word, and the life that is called Charity ; 
believing that God was in Christ reconciling the world 
to himself, and that in his glorified and Divine Human- 
ity dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, 
we cannot otherwise than earnestly desire to extend 
the knowledge of him to every human creature through- 
out the world. 

It is peculiarly appropriate that a Congress on 
missions should follow the World's Parliament of Relig- 
ions just closed, and in which such wonderful events 
have been witnessed. 

The first of the Religious Congresses held under 
the auspices of the World's Congress Auxiliary was 
that of the Jews. At the solicitation of the Jewish 
leaders I presided at the opening session and made 
an address of welcome. I stood before them in the 
character of as ultra and ardent a Christian as the world 
contains. They received my words of welcome with 
a respect and kindness which I shall never forget, and 
during the session extolled the man Christ Jesus in 
terms which no Christian could hear without profound 
emotions of joy and exultation. Even now, it seems 



14 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

to me that, if the Jews of the world could be assembled, 
He whom Christians worship as the incarnate God 
would be chosen by them " The King of the Jews." 

The next day after this congress of the Jews I 
asked the eminent Jewish Rabbi, Dr. Hirsch, of this 
city, to make the opening invocation for the Congress 
on Labor and on Social and Economical Science. To 
the delight of the great assembly he closed his invoca- 
tion with a devout recital of the Lord's prayer, in which 
the audience joined. 

It is impossible to present the person and the 
character of Jesus Christ to any human being, in their 
truth and simplicity, without winning some responsive 
affection from that human being. All we need on the 
part of missions is the wisdom to make the proper 
presentation and then to let the light go undefiled into 
the hearts to which we would communicate it. The 
work which missions have done in the world is, I think, 
far from being adequately comprehended. There is one 
work which should be credited to the missions of the 
world which, if it stood alone, would of itself justify all 
the expenditure of life and of treasure which missions 
have involved ; it would answer and atone for all the 
mistakes and short-comings with which missionaries 
have ever been charged : and that is the translation of 
the sacred scriptures into the three hundred languages 
and dialects of the world. After all, this is the great 
work of missions ; for where the sacred scriptures of the 
Old and New Testaments go they speak their own divine 
message to the human heart, and the more purely and 
simply this message can be conveyed the more sure 
will be the results that will follow. Without a transla- 
tion of these scriptures into the other languages of the 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 1 5 

earth little progress could have been made towards that 
unity of mankind, social, moral, commercial and relig- 
ious, for which now the whole world longs and hopes. 

One thing in a Congress of Missions which needs 
to be borne in mind most explicidy is that, when we 
present Jesus Christ as the Saviour of men, we should 
present him as the Saviour of all men who will be saved ; 
for those who are saved beyond the reach of our own 
personal ministrations are as truly and effectually saved 
by him, whatever may be their forms of faith and 
service, as those who live in the very noontide light of 
the 19th century in Christendom. Salvation by him 
by whom alone mankind can be saved, under one form 
of faith or another, is the real unity of mankind, the 
real brotherhood of man ; and all mere differences of 
opinion in regard to him become, in this light, matters 
of secondary importance. 

The ultimate aim of the missionary societies of the 
world, of men and of women alike, is to extend through- 
out the whole earth a knowledge of this Divine Person 
and his teachings, in order that all men may be brought 
under the influence of him and his Holy Word. That 
is first, we are told, which is natural, and afterwards 
that which is spiritual, and hence the missionary must 
not be only a spiritual teacher, but he must also be 
wise in natural things. Many mistakes have been 
made from a lack of the last named wisdom. But to 
deal with the entire man, with the endre state of society, 
in order that the man and society may be conformed 
in things natural as well as in things spiritual to the 
divine ideal, is the true work of the missionary. 

With these reflections and this outline of what 
seems to me to be the spirit of the cause in the service 



1 6 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

of which you come, I bid you, members of the World's 
Missipnary Congress of 1893, the heartiest and the most 
sincere welcome. I bid you God speed in the work 
which you are about to do. I trust that all of these 
friends from other countries may go away to their own 
lands bearing messages of love and affection from you 
to their own people ; that they may go hence full of 
burning sentiments of love and faith, kindled by your 
gracious words, to be missionaries from you to their 
far-off kin. 



OPENING ADDRESS, 1 7 



OPENING ADDRESS. 



BY REV. WALTER MANNING BARROWS, D. D. 



My Friends, to-day the Congress of Missions 
takes its place in the succession of Congresses that 
have followed one another in majestic order since last 
May. 

It gives me great pleasure, in behalf of the com- 
mittee to which has been intrusted the work of prepara- 
tion for this Congress of Missions, to extend a hearty 
welcome to those who have accepted our invitation to 
prepare papers and addresses for this occasion, to those 
who may take part in the discussions that will follow 
the presentation of these papers, and to all who may at- ^ 
tend the sessions of the Congress. 

We are glad to welcome here the representatives 
of many of the great missionary societies of our land 
and of other lands ; societies whose ** lines have gone 
out through all the earth and their words to the end of 
the world,'' and whose histories have been radiant with 
tokens of God's favor. 

The of&cers of these societies have, as a rule, been 
selected, by the churches whose agents they are for 
carrying forward this most important branch of applied 
Christianity, because of their practical wisdom, because 
of their breadth of vision, because of their faith in the 
ultimate triumph of the Redeemer's kingdom. We 
shall, I feel sure, listen attentively to the words ad- 
dressed to us by these honored brethren. 
2 



1 8 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

I am aware that there are those who warn us 
against these missionary societies. They tell us that we 
are in danger of trusting too much to them and by so 
doing losing a sense of individual responsibility. There 
is doubtless need of such warning, for there are many 
professing Christians who are shirking individual duty 
and are trying to satisfy their consciences by saying, 
** We have a missionary society organized to do this 
sort of work." But while there should be no letting up 
of pressure upon the individual Christian and upon the 
local church to do their whole duty, there should be no 
abandonment of organized and concerted effort in mis- 
sionary operations. JVoi less organizaHoriy hit more en- 
lightened and comprehensive organization and coopera- 
tion, is the great need of the hour. 

But how, after all, do our missionary societies ac- 
complish their work? It is through the individuals 
whom they send out. But the persons sent must first 
offer to go. They are volunteers, not conscripts. They 
must have that spirit of consecration that leads them to 
say, one by one, " Here am I — send me." " I am will- 
ing to go on this difScult service for the Master." And 
so they go to the benighted in our own land and in 
other lands carrying with them a Christian atmosphere. 
They not only preach the gospel but live the gospel. 
In this way they establish relations with the individuals 
who need their help, and these in turn with others, 
until gradually the whole level of society is uplifted. 
Hence it gives me peculiar satisfaction to be able to 
welcome so many of our missionary brethren to this 
Congress. Who should occupy the prominent places 
in such a gathering as this if not those who have '' borne 
the heat and burden of the day " — if not those who 



OPENING ADDRESS. I9 

have been successful in prosecuting various branches of 
missionary work ? 

The world is only just beginning to appreciate the 
debt it owes to Christian missionaries. They have ever 
been the pioneers of civilization as well as heralds of 
the cross, and have done much " to widen the skirts of 
light and make the struggle with darkness narrower." 

I know Charles Dickens once referred to mission- 
aries as a class in a contemptuous way, affirming that 
they left the countries where they labored worse than 
they found them. Such sneers were quite common in 
society a quarter of a century ago, but you rarely hear 
them at the present time. A truer estimate of the char- 
acter and work of the Christian missionary now pre- 
vails. Even Dickens made an exception in favor of 
Livingstone. Why? Probably because he was the 
only missionary in reference to whom he had definite 
information. 

But men now appreciate the &ct that Livingstone 
was only a noble representative of a great company in- 
cluding hundreds and thousands of men and women of 
kindred spirit. Among them have been such as Xavier 
and Carey, Judson and Brainard, Martyn and Moffatt, 
and Morrison and Mackay, Paton and Patteson and 
Burns, Riggs and Bliss and SchaufHer, and many others 
of whom time would fail me to tell, " who through 
faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ob- 
tained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched 
the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out 
of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, 
turned to flight the armies of the aliens." 

Such men, with their equally heroic wives, deserve 
a place among ** the glorious company of aposdes. 



20 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

the goodly fdlowship of the prophets and the noble 
army of martyrs." 

But along with the missionaries we are glad to 
welcome to this Congress the beneficiaries of their labor : 
men and women who will esteem it a privilege to stand 
here and testify to the new light that has come into 
their minds and the new power that has come into their 
hearts from Him who is the Prince of Peace and the 
Light of the World. 

But in extending a welcome to the beneficiaries of 
missionary labor I am, I believe, extending a welcome 
to each one of you. Certainly every person who has 
given a dollar to the work in the right spirit has re- 
ceived a blessing. Indeed the reflex influence of mis- 
sionary labor in quickening and deepening the spiritual 
life of the home churches has been worth much more 
than it has cost. And even in a material point of view 
it has been a good investment. The millions that have 
been spent in sending missionaries to heathen lands to 
plant Christian churches and schools have come back, 
many times over, in the improved commercial relations 
that have resulted and in the larger demands for the 
products of our farms and our factories. 

But in still another way are we all the beneficiaries 
of Christian missions — for we have only to go back a 
little distance in time to find our Celtic and Teutonic 
and Slavic ancestors "sitting in darkness and the 
shadow of death." That we their descendants are now 
enjoying the blessings of a Christian civilization is due 
to the missionary spirit of such as St. Paul and those 
who followed him, who responded to the call from Ma- 
cedonia, from Russia, from Germany, from Scandinavia, 
firom Britain, and the other countries of Europe. 



OPENING ADDRESS. 21 

Thus it is evident that that presentation of the in- 
tellectual and moral and spiritual progress of the world 
that is contemplated by this series of Congresses will 
not be complete without a Congress of Missions. 

Christian missions have been the mothers of civili- 
zation. The work that was accomplished by them in 
early times in northern and western Europe is being 
repeated to - day among savage and semi - civilized 
peoples in all parts of the world. By means of them 
new life is also being infused into the old and un- 
progressive civilizations of Asia. Never before was this 
work carried forward on so large a scale, or with more 
rational methods, or with more encouraging results. 

As the missionary motive was one of the im(>elling 
forces that led to the discovery and settlement of the 
New World, the 400th anniversary of the discovery of 
America by Columbus is, certainly, a fitting occasion to 
set forth the results of modem missions. And this city 
of Chicago, whose first church was planted less than 
sixty years ago by a home missionary, is a fitting place 
in which to hold this Congress. 

The Committee that has prepared the programme 
for this Congress has labored under many embarrass- 
ments. With only eight days at our disposal, it was 
evident we could not invite missionary societies, as 
such, to come here and through their representatives set 
forth the work that they were doing, for there are over 
eighty foreign missionary societies in this country and 
in Eurof>e, and many times that number devoted to the 
home work. Then the plan of a geographical division 
was discussed. It was thought we might give a day to 
Japan, another to China, another to India, another to 
Turkey, another to Africa, another to North America, 



22 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

another to South America, another to Australasia, an- 
other to Polynesia, and so on. But, besides other ob- 
jections to this plan, it was soon found that there would 
not be days enough to go around, even with these large 
geographical divisions. So the Committee decided not 
to attempt to go over the whole field of missions, but to 
select for discussion here what seemed to be the most 
vital themes connected with the work of to-day. While 
not ignoring the past, we have endeavored, as far as 
possible, to face this Congress towards the future. 

You will notice that Home and Foreign Missions 
have been made the two main divisions of this subject. 
In some respects there is an impropriety in this, as 
nearly every land will be the home-land to some who 
have been invited to this Congress. But generally the 
term ''home missions'* is applied to the missionary 
work carried forward in what are called Christian lands, 
and " foreign missions '' to the missionary work carried 
forward in what are known as heathen or unevangel- 
ized lands. The problems that will confront the Chris- 
tian in the one case may be different from those which 
will confront him in the other. Not that this will always 
be true : our own country is an illustration to the con- 
trary. Living here under the Stars and Stripes are 
over 20,000,000 of people foreign bom or of foreign 
parentage. And these foreign citizens have been 
attracted here from every part of the world. Hence it 
is necessary to have the gospel translated into at least 
thirty languages to meet the wants of the people living 
right here in Chicago. 

There is scarcely a variety of work that our mis- 
sionaries are called upon to do in foreign lands that it 
is not necessary for them to do in our own land. We 



OPENING ADDRESS. 23 

send missionaries to the ignorant and priest-ridden 
people of Old Mexico, but we have the same classes in 
our own New Mexico and Arizona. We send mission- 
aries to the pagans of Asia, but we have pagan temples 
and worshippers in nearly all our large cities. We send 
missionaries to some of the nominally Christian coun- 
tries of Europe, but we are receiving millions of immi- 
grants from these very countries every decade. We 
send our missionaries to Darkest Africa, but we have 
as fellow-citizens over 7,000,000 of people of African 
descent, many of whom are as benighted as any to be 
found along the banks of the Congo or the Zambesi. 
In view of these conditions well might Carlyle say, 
" America, too, will have to strain its energies, crack its 
sinews, and all but break its heart in a thousand-fold 
wrestle with p3rthons and mud-demons before it be- 
comes a habitation for the gods." 

But notwithstanding the &ct that there is this for- 
eign aspect to much of our home work, your Commit- 
tee has, nevertheless, found it convenient to make the 
division already referred to, though it is not meant that 
it shall be pressed very far. 

You will notice one topic continually appearing in 
one form or another on our programme. It is Co- 
operatunu Believing this to be the great need of the 
hour in the Christian world, your Committee has given 
it this place of preeminence. 

There has certainly been a woeful lack of the spirit 
of coSperation in the past, and it has been the scandal 
of Christendom. Lucan said to the Romans, '' You 
have turned your arms against each other when you 
might have been sacking Babylon.'* So the professed 
disciples of Christ have often turned their arms against 



24 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

each other when» if united, they might have been storm- 
ing that Babylon of sin referred to by St John, which 
is ** the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul 
spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." 

It is certain that the world will never be Christian- 
ized by a church divided into a hundred sects. Each 
works independent of the other and often at cross-pur- 
poses, wasting on internal strifes energies that should 
be directed against a common foe. 

It will be only when " the whole body is fidy joined 
together and completed by that which every joint sup- 
plieth " that the church will do its God-appointed work. 
For the church is not an end in itself, but a means to an 
end. And that end is not merely fellowship, or the up- 
building of the membership in the Christian life, but the 
upbuilding of the kingdom of God in the world. And 
this can be done only by reaching out to those who are 
now without God, and hence without hope in the world. 
And this not only by the few, but by the many. 

"The church," said Phillips Brooks, "must put oft 
her look of selfishness. She must first deeply feel and 
then frankly say that she exists only as a picture of 
what the world ought to be ; not as an ark where a 
choice few may take a refuge from the flood, but as the 
promise and the potency of the new heavens and the 
new earth she must offer herself to men." 

There are indications that Christians are beginning 
to wake up to an appreciation of this fact and to act 
accordingly. The time may not yet have come for 
fusion on any large scale, but the time has certainly 
come for cooperation on a large scale. Believing this 
to be true, we hope to make cooperation the watchword 
of the Congress. It will not be in vain that we have 



OPENING ADDRESS. 2$ 

met here if, as the result of our gathering, this word co- 
operation, and all that it will mean in the rapid upbuild- 
ing of the kingdom of God, shall have been impressed 
more deeply upon the minds and hearts of Christians. 

We do not meet here to exalt unduly the human 
agents engaged in this work. They are fallible men. 
They doubdess make mistakes. Their methods of work 
may not always be the best. But one object of such a 
conference as this is to draw out suggestions that may 
be of value to those who are charged with the work of 
administration at home and to those who are entrusted 
with such mighty responsibilities abroad. 

Let us not exaggerate what has already been ac- 
complished, nor underestimate the difHculdes that are 
still in the way. Let us rather &ce these difficulties, 
and pray earnestly for the grace and strength that we 
need that we may overcome them. 

It may be thought that this noisy metropolis and 
these surging billows of humanity will make it difficult 
for men to hear the still small voice of God's Spirit. 
But let us remind you that it was on a festal occasion 
somewhat like this, when the streets of Jerusalem were 
thronged with strangers, that the Holy Spirit came 
down upon the disciples as with cloven tongues of fire, 
and '' Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and the dwell- 
ers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia, in 
Pontus and Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Eg3rpt 
and in the parts of Lybia about Cyrene, and strangers 
of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians," 
did all hear them speak in their own tongues the won- 
derful works of God. 

So this great gathering of the peoples here in Chi- 
cago is a great opportunity which the Christian should 



26 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

not let pass. One way in which we may improve it is 
by striving to impress upon the professed disciples of 
Jesus Christ their duty to show their loyalty to their 
Lord and Saviour by obeying his last command, " Go 
ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, bap- 
tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I 
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 



MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 



FUNCTION OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 29 



MISSIONARY SOCIETIES: THEIR PLACE 
AND FUNCTION IN THE WORK OF 

THE CHURCH. 

BY REV. A. N. HITCHCOCK, 

DISTRICT SECRETARY OP THE AMERICAN BOARD, AT CHICAGO. 

MR. PRESIDENT, FRIENDS, AND BRETHREN: 

It has been often repeated from the platform that 
the appointed function of the church is to evangelize 
the whole world. She cannot override personal freedom 
and therefore cannot be held responsible for the con- 
version of every individual; but she is accountable for 
obeying the Divine command to carry the gospel 
among all the nations of the earth. The accompani- 
ments of moral and mental and social culture are found 
to be closely related to the work of evangelizadon and 
are therefore pracdcally a part of it. For the wise and 
rapid prosecution of this work Missionary Societies 
have been formed. These are stricdy the creature of 
the church, since they have been organized by Chrisdan 
individuals, exist only for the purpose of doing Chrisdan 
work, and can exist only so long as Chrisdan people 
give them moral and financial support 

Two or three general observations may be made 
respecting their place in relation to the church. First 
of all, they represent the church at work upon the 
world. It is dear, then, that there ought to be entire 
harmony between the church and her missionary 
agencies. The tendency has sometimes appeared to 
set these agencies over against the church, as if a sort 



30 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

of rivalry or antagonism existed between them. Mis- 
sionary societies and secretaries, and even missionaries, 
have been known to be regarded somewhat in the light 
of religious mendicants, if not plunderers, who were to 
be judiciously watched and, if need be, restrained. But 
in fact their work is one and inseparable. There is no 
more antagonism between the church of Christ and 
her great home and foreign societies than there is be- 
tween the right arm and the brain that gives it direc- 
tion and force. We need only to guard against dis- 
proportionate or unbalanced action. The right arm 
must not be so nourished and exercised that the left 
shall become enfeebled. Under the one comprehensive 
commission the pastor teaches and shepherds his flock, 
the evangelist goes into the highways or the peopled 
cities, the home missionary toils upon the frontier, and 
the foreign missionary journeys to distant lands. The 
entire field must be worked, but no part of it must so 
press its claims that another part shall suffer neglect. 

I think we shall also agree that, while harmony is 
to be maintained between the church and the mis- 
sionary societies, it is the church, not the societies, that 
is to exercise primary control. The societies hold a 
subordinate place. All organizations, like individuals, 
have a certain self-protective instinct which may some- 
times so assert itself as to render them an obstruction 
rather than an aid. In a missionary society this self- 
conserving tendency should never become so dominant 
as to prevent its making pliant and facile response to 
the controlling interests of the church at large. The 
society is not an end, but an instrument which the 
church employs. This is no doubt true respecting all 
missionary organizations, whatever their form of con- 



FUNCTION OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 3 1 

stitution. Whether they have direct denominational 
connections, hke the Presbyterian and Methodist Epis- 
copal Boards, or only indirect, like the Church Mission- 
ary Society and the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel, which must be composed of members of the 
denomination which they represent, or whether, again, 
they be nominally independent, like the American 
Board and the American Bible Society, we must still 
hold that they are in an essential sense subordinate to 
the church upon whose supply of men and means 
they are constandy dependent. As simple evangeliz- 
iiig agencies, it is not their function to create a 
polity but only to illusb'ate it, not to formulate a 
theology but only to apply it. It is further obvious 
that the same conditions which have developed the 
different Christian denominations are also tending to 
make their relation to their benevolent societies more 
direct and vital. And the same instincts which in 
modem times have created a growing demand for 
popular representative governments have also been 
powerfully at work upon ecclesiastical bodies, tending 
more and more to emphasize the principle of representa- 
tion. It is of doubtful wisdom for any of the benevolent 
agencies of the church to fail of noting this tendency of 
the times, whatever may be its merit 

But what is the use of having any missionaiy 
societies? So far as we know there were none in 
apostolic times, and much of the work of the church 
in all ages has been done without them. It is signifi- 
cant, however, that the vast majority of Christians have 
come to consider them a practical necessity. Why 
they have done so will I think appear as we consider 
some of the functions of such societies. 



32 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

I. In the first place, it belongs to the missionary 
society to secure a continuity of missionary service. 
It is plain that, wherever the occasion for missionary 
labor exists at all, such labor should not be interrupted 
until its object is attained. Fitful and spasmodic effort 
is largely fruidess and always wasteful. It is like 
cultivating a field at intervals, alternately abandoning 
it to the undisputed possession of weeds. The harvest 
will be light. Now and then an independent mission- 
ary develops a promising enterprise in some destitute 
part of a great city. At first the flattering results may 
seem to show that the true method of city evangeliza- 
tion has at last been found. But what assurance is 
there that the work will be sustained ? The difficulty is 
perhaps even greater in the country and upon the 
foreign field. A man goes single-handed to Africa, 
feeling, it may be, that God has called him. Unex- 
pected hardships and dangers overtake him. No 
missionary society is back of him to relieve his need 
or come to his rescue in distress. It is difficult for 
him to reach the ears of Christians at home, to whom 
he must seem for the most part unauthorized and irre- 
sponsible. The result is likely to be that his work is 
abandoned unless it is assumed by some regularly con- 
stituted society. 

We have heard not a littie of late in favor of in- 
dividual churches sending out and supporting their 
own missionaries. Some are already doing so. This 
method is admirable provided it is operated, as is 
usually the case, through some recognized Board. But 
if done independendy grave difficulties are likely in 
time to appear, especially if the supporting church is of 
moderate strength. The missionary goes out on a 



FUNCTION OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 33 

high tide of enthusiasm on the part of the church 
which sends him. For the first year or more this 
enthusiasm is unabated and the needed fimds are easily 
raised. But suppose that the church's first flush of 
zeal sinks to a more moderate level ; or suppose^ as 
often happens, that the church is depleted by deaths 
and removab, or that a season of financial embarrass- 
ment overtakes it ; then what ? The support of the 
missionary becomes an increasing burden. The church 
would cut down his salary only that it is already ex- 
tremely small. Perhaps, however, this very fatal step 
is taken, so that the missionary is brought into distress 
and forced to abandon his field. Or, what is more 
likely, the church quietly recalls him or petitions some 
society to take him off its hands. A strong missionary 
organization, having a large constituency whose con- 
fidence it commands, maintains an obvious advantage. 
When it commissions a man it stands by him and 
fosters his work. If a period of retrenchment comes 
the reduction is spread over a wide field, so that all 
fare alike and the hardship is reduced to a minimum. 
Thus the work goes on from generation to generation. 
2. It belongs to a missionary society, in the second 
place, to exercise a wise economy both of men and means. 
It is a part of sound economy to select the right men to 
begin with. It is not a clear proof that one is qualified 
to be a missionary at home or abroad simply because 
he wants to be one, or his friends desire him to be, or 
even because his friends, or possibly a church, are will- 
ing to undertake his support. Considerations of health, 
age, education, adaptation, piety, and social relation all 
enter into the case. It is a cosdy experience to equip a 
missionary and his young wife for a distant field, send 
3 



34 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

them to their destination, support them while learning a 
difficult language, and then, by reason of the £aiiling 
health of one of them, to bring them home again before 
the really productive stage of a missionary's career has 
been reached. At best such cases will occur. But 
it is the function of a missionary society to guard 
against them; and it is dear that the experienced, 
thorough, and impartial wisdom of a missionary board 
or committee is more likely than are private friends or 
individual churches to secure the fittest selection of 
candidates. 

It is quite possible, also, to send a man where he 
is not needed, or, at best, where the need is less than at 
some other points. An ardent zeal, not tempered by 
sufficient knowledge, might lead one to plunge into the 
heart of some pagan city, or into some remote district, 
simply because many people are there. But a wiser 
mediod might be to seek by steady approaches to join 
the new work to one already existing. Both as to the 
number of men required and their distribution it is 
evident that the missionary society, through its long 
and varied experience, is able to exercise the wisest 
economy. 

Economy of men has likewise an important bear- 
ing upon the care which is taken of them afler they 
have been appointed. It belongs to the societies, both 
home and foreign, to guard the health and usefulness 
of their missionaries, to stand by them in difficulty, to 
relieve them in distress, to grant them seasons of rest at 
proper intervals, and to provide them with what is 
needful for their best service. The superficial and 
heardess observer may sometimes see what he is pleased 
to call extravagance, but long experience shows that, 



FUNCTION OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 3$ 

aside from its humane quality, such watch-care is the 
very essence of economy. Men and women who have 
mastered foreign tongues, who have become intimately 
acquainted with the local conditions of the field, and 
have proved their fitness by actual contact with the 
work, cannot be easily replaced. They are a precious 
trust And, besides, whence shall new recruits come if 
it be known that the policy of missionary societies is to 
seize upon the choicest youth of the church and after 
exhausting their energies at a merciless rate to leave 
them fiiendless and forsaken ? 

Litde needs to be said in this connection as to 
economy of means. It is never to be forgotten by mis- 
sionary societies and their representatives that all funds 
put into their hands are, scarcely less than the mission- 
aries themselves, a sacred trust The money is often 
the gift of the poor who have denied themselves that 
they may give to the treasury of the Lord. Only yes- 
terday I received by mail an offering of $45 from a 
godly woman who stayed at home from the World's 
Fair that she might by this gift support a catechist in 
India. The princely salaries often paid in the business 
world are always and everywhere out of the question in 
the work of missions. Although the officers and mis- 
sionaries of our various societies are sometimes the 
peers of the men who fill our most prominent pulpits 
yet they can hardly expect the pecuniary recognition 
often accorded to their eminent brethren in the pastor- 
ate. Regard being had to the varying cost of living in 
different countries, and in large cities as compared with 
smaller settiements, considering also that it is real econ- 
omy to leave both missionaries and ofiicials as free as 
possible to devote all their time and energies to their 



36 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

work, there is no reason why, in toil and self-denial, all 
of them should not share alike. It is to be the unceas- 
ing care of missionary societies to see that all adminis- 
trative and agency expenses, both at home and on the 
field, are kept at the lowest reasonable limit. Some- 
times it becomes a matter of personal conscience. Then 
the golden rule must be applied to the use of gold. 
One must not take more Uberties with the sacred gifts 
of others than he would have others take with his 
own. 

There is another sphere of economy which shows 
how useful missionary societies are. I refer to the dis- 
tribution of funds upon the field. Churches and indi- 
viduals sometimes ask to be put into direct connec- 
tion with certain missionaries to whom they may send 
their offerings without the aid of any general treasury 
or executive committee. Not long ago I received such 
a request fi'om some devout young people. They 
asked for the addresses of a few especially needy mis- 
sionaries, on the ground that other missionaries, more 
generally known among the churches, had doubdess 
already received their share I An interesting condition 
of things would soon come about if this method were 
generally adopted. Contribudons would be spread 
over the mission fields very much as snow falls when 
carried by swirling winds — wide spaces left bleak and 
bare, or with just enough snow to indicate a November 
frost, varied here and there by ten-foot drifts ! It is 
manifest that some equalizing agency is required hav- 
ing the whole field under its eye. This is essential to 
economy. After all that may be said in &vor of special 
gifb and special objects, it is of first importance to look 
well after the fund available for the regular appropria- 



FUNCTION OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 37 

tions. This &ct should be kq[)t constantly before all 
the churches. 

3. There is another work which sometimes £adls to 
the lot of missionary societies. I refer to the lawful 
protection of missionaries and of mission property in 
foreign lands. To some extent this applies to the home 
land also. Church property and mission schools, which 
would otherwise have been lost, have not unfrequendy 
been saved by the wise and prompt intervention of the 
societies. Now and then it becomes necessary to se- 
cure firom foreign governments the protection of mis- 
sionary interests abroad; and sometimes, indeed, the 
assistance of our own government is required. The 
independent missionary who fancies he has no use for 
any society finds himself embarrassed in such cases. 
Experience has shown that the representatives of an 
influential missionary society can best make appeal to 
our Department of State, and through it gain protection 
and redress. Much depends upon existing laws and 
treaties, and upon the moral tone of national congresses 
and ofiicials. There is at present existing in this coun- 
try a law known as the Geary Act. It is reported that 
Chinese officials are disposed to look upon this act with 
dignified but silent contempt, considering that we can- 
not be serious in making a law so beneath the honor 
and good name of the United States. I hope this is 
true. At any rate, this law is an infamous one. It 
was bom of ignorance and fostered by inhuman greed. 
May it be speedily buried in the oblivion which it de- 
serves 1 Its author is lately reported to have said that 
he was perfectiy willing to vote for a bill requiring 
every American missionary in China to return within a 
year, on pain of losing the protection of this Govern- 



38 MISSIONS AT hom£; and abroad. 

ment, and that missionaries should be kept out of China 
on exactly the same principle on which anarchists 
should be expelled from the United States. If this 
be true, it is the more a surprise that any one capable 
of a view so narrow and unstatesmanlike should have 
any part in the coundb of a great nation. The co- 
operation of all our missionary boards with the sober 
and Christian sentiment of the country would go &r 
towards putting an end to such iniquitous legislation. 

With respect to religious toleration in Turkey, it 
is not unlikely that there will need to be a combined 
movement among all our foreign boards such as shall 
command the attention of Christian governments and 
secure lawful but effectual interference. We have 
hoped for some telling utterances to come from this 
Congress of Missions. 

4. There is another large and important function 
of missionary societies whose details are too numerous 
to be here spoken of. They are to treasure up and 
apply the best wisdom attainable respecting methods 
of evangelization. This is mainly why such societies 
are a necessity and why they are to be trusted and 
encouraged. We prefer to cross the ocean with sailors 
long wonted to the sea, especially if storms prevail. It 
cannot be doubted that a missionary board with gener- 
ations of recorded experience in its possession, knows 
more about ways and means than a novice or an ad- 
venturer, however good his intentions may be. There 
b reason to believe that in past years serious blunders 
have been made, some mischief wrought, valuable 
lives lost, and a degree of folly disclosed to the public 
by some who have not thought it necessary to pay 
attention to what others had already learned by slow 



FUNCTION OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 39 

and often painful experience. Such questions as these 
are of great practical concern: climate as related 
to the location of missions, the bearing of industrial 
work upon evangelization, the true place of medical 
and hospital practice, concessions in dress and habits 
of life to surrounding customs, the education of native 
preachers and their relation to the mission. In all 
these matters speculative theories are practically good 
for nothing. It has been stoutly contended, for exam- 
ple, that a missionary would have most influence if he 
should dress and eat and sleep and dwell like the 
people around him. This looks very plausible upon 
the surface, but in practice quite the reverse is more 
generally found to be true. Many have supposed, 
too, that as fast as promising youths in pagan lands 
could be sufiiciendy trained, they should be encouraged 
to come to Europe and America for higher education 
and equipment. But the experience of a hundred 
years has shown that it is far better to plant permanent 
centres of Christian learning in the very lands to be 
evangelized and to encourage young men and women, 
as a rule, to find their training there. It sounds well in 
theory to say that Christians should be one in thought 
and faith and feeling the world over, and it is pardy 
true. Yet there will long be diversity in the great 
harmony. Forms of thought and rules of order will 
vary with the great national types of mind. Mission- 
ary societies have found out that it is not their business 
to denationalize a people, but to encourage local 
patriotism ; not to supplant native control but to pro- 
mote it as fast as safety allows ; not to be alarmed over 
the development of a national spirit even in the Chris- 
tian community, but to interpret it as an omen of 



40 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

hope. It is just this spirit which has made the Ang^lo- 
Saxon race dominant in modem civilization. The 
end sought in all cases is the development of a self- 
perpetuating native church to whose hands the further 
evangelization of the people may be wholly committed. 
To this end it has not been found wise to have native 
brethren, even though educated in this country, direct- 
ly commissioned by our American Societies. These 
beloved brethren cannot afford to come into the cate- 
gory of American missionaries, and thus allow a line 
of separation to be drawn between them and the masses 
of their own people. Their fullest influence is de- 
manded in the building up of the native church, and 
nothing should be allowed to break the bonds of sym- 
pathy or even in one degree to remove them from the 
close fellowship of their own nation, the vast majority 
of whom can never leave their native land. It is such 
questions as these, and many more, that are receiving 
the constant attention of the great missionary boards. 
It hardly needs to be repeated that long familiarity 
with the actual work has afforded some advantage in 
handling them. 

These, my friends, though imperfectly outlined, 
are some of the important functions of missionary 
societies. If I have spoken more fully of the work 
abroad than of the work at home, I may be pardoned 
on the ground that my official relations and study 
have been chiefly in that department And now in 
what clearer, holier light do all these vast home and 
foreign agencies rise before us when we consider that 
the rush of machinery and the hum of wheels and the 
material structures which stand in every clime as the 
monuments of their zeal are the smallest and unworthi- 



FUNCTION OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 4I 

est of their achievments. They are simply the incidents 
of a moral and spiritual revolution which is slowly 
going on among the nations. Although these societies 
may illustrate a most commendable style of business 
mechanics, they do not exist for that purpose. Though 
they may have much to do in disseminating among 
distant peoples a useful culture, this falls far below thdr 
true aim. Theirs is, primarily and finally, a work of 
redemption impossible without Divine energies. It is 
a work of saving souls from death, and, with the match- 
less mercy of Him who hung upon the cross, covering 
a multitude of sins. All the wheels must glow with the 
fire of God upon them, while officers and missionaries 
alike should bring to every hour's toil the zeal of re- 
ligion and the love of mankind. 



GvM 



ISSIO[^S. 



THE LAPSED MASSES* 45 



THE LAPSED MASSES. 

BY REV. DAVID J. BURRELL, D. P. 

We lament the fact that the multitudes are drifting 
towards the cities. " Go west, young man/' was excel- 
lent advice, but the man who gave it insisted on living 
in New York. It was centuries ago that Juvenal coun- 
selled the young men of Rome to " move out of the 
smoke into the clear country air f but he himself kept 
up his home in the Imperial city. This cityward drift 
will in all probability go on, because the vast majority 
will always wish to get close to the great throbbing 
heart of the world. The sorrow of it lies in this : that 
where the pulse of human affairs beats fastest the influ- 
ences that make for truth and righteousness are most 
likely to lose their sway. The voices of God in nature 
and providence are drowned amid the roar and confu- 
sion of worldly life. 

Thus it happens that religion ebbs so low in our 
metropolitan centres. In no great city of the world 
does the increase of churches keep pace with the growth 
of population. It is a proverb, moreover, that "down- 
town churches " live a most precarious life. The few 
come in to worship ; multitudes pass by on the other 
side. They are '' the lapsed masses." For some reason 
they have a quarrel with the church and have lost inter- 
est in the great verities which centre in God. 

This unchurched multitude may be roughly di^ 
vided into three classes. First, the tramps. It is esti- 



46 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

mated that 60,000 persons wander about the streets of 
New York city every night — friendless, penniless, and 
without a pillow on which to rest their weary heads. 
Few of these are ever found in the sanctuary. Second^ 
a vast number of artisans, thrifty and industrious. Six 
days of the week they weary themsdyes in keeping the 
wolf from the door; the seventh they tarry at home. 
They feel themselves unwelcome at the more respecta- 
ble houses of worship ; they are naturally little inclined 
to accept the hospitality of " missions *' set apart for 
their use. Thirds a considerable number of wdl-to-do 
families living in hotels and apartment houses, whom 
the customary methods of church work utterly fail to 
reach. These may be called the lapsed aristocracy. 
They afb the most neglected of all. 

In some particulars all these classes are alike : they 
have a common birth, a common experience of toil and 
sorrow, and a common destiny. There is not one 
among them who does not feel, deep down in his heart, 
a longing for everlasting life. The sense of sin and the 
desire of pardon are common to them all. 

The default of the church in relation to these is 
not deliberate or wiliiil. We would like to win them 
to a saving knowledge of Christ; but our present 
methods are inadequate. What more is needed ? what 
further shall we do ? 

I. We need a deeper sympathy. The church must 
somehow be brought into closer touch with the com- 
mon wants and sufferings of the people. 

We speak of "winning souls." The phrase is 
greatly to be deplored Christ never used it, never 
authorized its use. He went about in quest ol the 
whole man; healing bodies as well as enlightening 



L 



THE LAPSED MASSES. 47 

hearts and consciences. He felt for the people, de- 
plored their wrongs, sought to lighten their burdens 
and thus bring them back to God. 

The " soul '* is mentioned above five hundred times 
in Scripture, but not once in the sense in which we are 
accustomed to use it We think of the soul as a pre- 
cious something which a man carries about with him, 
concerning which he must be on constant guard lest he 
injure it ; or else as a sort of " double," or separate 
personality. This is distinctly a pagan conception. 
The Egyptians spoke thus of the ka ; the Persians of 
the fravashi ; and the ancient Scots of the wraith. 
But Christ spoke of the whole man, body, soul, and 
spirit ; and when he called his disciples it was not to 
win souls, but to " catch men.'' 

The church can scarcely hope to win the multi- 
tudes until it ceases chasing their souls and manifests a 
sincere interest in their welfare and prosperity every 
way. To the average man — however we may deplore 
it — bread-and-butter is more than the kingdom of 
heaven. Doctor Guthrie was once called to the bed- 
side of a woman dying in an attic. He read from the 
blessed Book and prayed with *her, but without effect 
In vain did he seek to impress her with the solemn 
truths of eternity. At length he exclaimed, "My 
good woman, do n't you know you are dying ? And 
don't you care that you must presently stand before 
the judgment bar of God ?" She drew the thin cover- 
let about her, shivered, and said, " You would n't care 
either, sir, if you were as cold as I am." The follow- 
ers of Christ are not likely to succeed in the great pro- 
paganda so long as they forget the lower wants of the 
people. Let the mind that was in Christ Jesus be also 



48 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

in us. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, comforted 
the sorrowing, and thus prepared the hearts of the 
multitude to receive the higher things of the kingdom 
of God. 

II. We need also a more generous spirit of hospi- 
tality. In very many of our city churches the class 
lines are stricdy drawn. The rich have sumptuous 
places of worship on our fashionable avenues while the 
poor have "missions" provided for them elsewhere. 
Rich churches and missions are alike abnormal. The 
church should be a place where the poor and rich can 
meet together in spiritual fellowship, confessing that the 
Lord is Maker of them all. 

The pew rental is largely responsible. There is 
much to be said in favor of " the fiimily pew," but in 
too many cases the rental is under such conditions that 
the sanctuary is the house of the pew holder, and in no 
proper sense the house of God. To keep a stranger 
waiting in the vestibule while there is an unoccupied 
pew in the church is a flagrant breach of Christian hos- 
pitality. It is litde wonder if the casual worshipper 
resents it. 

It is no hyperbole to say that there are many fash- 
ionable churches where if an ardsan in common apparel 
with a woman leaning on his arm were to enter and pass 
along the middle aisle not a pew door would be opened 
to receive him. Would the justice of the case be in 
any wise altered by the fact that those two might be 
the Carpenter of Nazareth and his mother ? Did he 
not say, *' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto ont of 
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me?" 

" Welcome " is the word that will win the people. 



THE LAPSED MASSES. 49 

Welcome to rich and poor, to lofty and lowly, to all 
sorts and conditions of men. 

III. It is not enough, however, to throw open our 
church doors ; we must return to the Master's plans : 
his word is " Ga'' " Go ye out into the highways and 
hedges, and compel them to come in." 

In a recent ministers* meeting in one of our lead- 
ing cities a paper was read on "The Secret of Winning 
the Masses." There is no secret about it We shall 
gather the multitudes to Christ whenever we are ready 
to go out after them. 

Our Lord himself was not content to sit upon his 
throne with outstretched hands. He heard from this 
sin-stricken world of ours a cry for help, and, girding 
himself with the mighty pufpose of redemption, he 
came forth to answer it. The Good Shepherd left the 
ninety and nine in the wilderness that he might go forth 
upon the dark mountains after the one sheep that was 
lost. And he sought until he found it. 

Paul won Macedonia when he went out after it. 
Adoniram Judson won the Karens when he went out 
after them. The Salvation Army is gathering in the 
abject multitudes because it marches down, with drum 
and fife, into the slums to capture them. The Master 
has left us no option in this matter. He marked out 
the plan of the campaign, saying, ** Go ye." 

IV. Still further: we need to present a simple, 
downright gospel in a sensible way. The pulpit essay 
has seen its best days. The people come to church, if 
they come at all, to hear a plain presentation of truths 
which affect our eternal destiny. 

The ideal preacher is Christ himself. He made 
the profundities and sublimities so simple that children 
4 



50 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

could understand them. He used no pulpit, read no 
manuscript, but uttered breathing thoughts in burning 
words. If the things which we ministers preach — God, 
immortality, sin, atonement, and salvation — are true at 
all they are awfully true. The people want to know 
whether we believe them and, if so, why. Failing to 
vindicate ourselves at this point, all the fine music and 
rhetorical pyrotechnics in the world cannot help us. 

The old gospel is adequate. There is sensation- 
alism enough in the story of the cross, if righdy told, to 
thrill the most apathetic congregation. But the 
preacher's soul must be thrilled to begin with. Christ 
himself is the great lodestone of the ages. '* I, if I be 
lifted up," he said, " will draw — ^will draw all men unto 
me. 

V. One thing more : zeal. We are none of us 
earnest enough ! The world is dyihg for want of the 
gospel. Oh, if we could but hear the footfalls of those 
who are all the while marching, lock-step, quick step, 
out into the endless night ! Let us catch the spirit of 
our Master, who said, " The zeal of thine house hath 
eaten me up." 

One of the most vivid pictures in Holy Writ is 
where the Bridegroom is represented as trying to 
awaken his bride, the church. She Has fallen asleep 
in the dty gate, fettered, and covered with dust. He 
bends over her and cries, " Awake, awake, O daughter 
ofZion! Shake thyself from the dust; loose thyself 
from the bands of thy neck ; put on thy beautiful gar- 
ments, O captive daughter of Jerusalem !" When the 
church hears the Bridegroom's voice and awakes to her 
duties and responsibilities the people will come flowing 
to Zion and the restitution of all things will be at hand. 



THE LAPSED MASSES. 5 1 

Meanwhile, let us apply ourselves to the work with 
all vigor. The harvest is yellow ; the laborers are few ; 
the time is short 

** Time worketh ; let me work too. 
Time imdoeth ; let me do. 
Busy as time my work I 'U ply 
Till 1 rest in the rest of eternity. 

" Sin worketh ; let me work too. 
Sin undoeth ; let me do. 
Busy as sin my work I '11 ply 
Till I rest in the rest of eternity. 



(( 



Death worketh ; let me work too. 
Death undoeth ; let me do. 
Busy as death my work I '11 ply 
Till I rest in the rest of eternity." 



$2 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



THE CITY OF TO-DAY. 

ITS PLACE, ITS PERILS, AND ITS POS- 

SIBILITIES. 

BY REV. ALEXANDER MACKAY-SMITH, D. D. 

KBCTOR OF ST. JOHN'S PARISH, WASHIMGTON, D. C. 

One great city in any country may be, and often 
is, the result of a great despotism : many great cities in 
any land are generally the result of great liberties. 
History teaches us that absolute rulers desire a splen- 
did and populous capital, and that, making it the centre 
of their power and the headquarters of their armies, 
they do not dread its outbursts of fiiry or its secret 
plots. But they do not desire many such. They dis- 
like people who put their heads together, nor can they 
always be at hand to control them. A scattered coun- 
try population is more easily governed. And thus in 
the past in all countries, and to-day in some, laws are 
so made, checks so arranged, the policy of the public 
weal so administered, as to discourage great centres of 
population. The £act, therefore, that our age is the age 
of large cities, and our country beyond all others their 
home, is significant, and fixes their place among pres- 
ent-day phenomena. They are the result of freedom, 
and the cause of freedom greater still. They both con- 
dition and are conditioned by it. But the end is not 
always freedom. You see in the story of their popula- 
tion, whether political or social, the strange paradox of 



THE CITY OF TO-DAY. 53 

liberty leading into many differing slaveries. The free- 
dom to get rich, e, g.y once so carefully reserved to the 
few, so absorbs many citizens that they willingly go in 
chains to another set who promise to release them from 
all anxiety and toil of governing themselves. Or, 
again, that fanaticism of freedom which makes the land 
and the dty open their arms to all comers and give to 
ignorance and intelligence, to native and to foreigner, 
an equal power and welcome, often results in worse 
than Oriental absurdities, crudities, and brutalities, im- 
posed with iron hand, to result only in barbarism, 
shame, and disgrace. Or, once again, in this freedom 
to rush whither one pleases and glut hb self-will of 
residence, multitudes are crushed as either deprived of 
work by competition, or even forbidden to work by 
being outside the labor unions, while in self-defence 
other multitudes, in raising walls by means of these 
unions to protect themselves from destruction (for 
which they are not to blame), bind their freedom with 
chains, or hem themselves in with barriers that kill all 
real liberty. It is a strange sight, these modem cities 
of America — for we are dealing here only with our own 
land. Resulting from the curious experiment of allow- 
ing almost the strongest human instinct, that of grega- 
riousness, to work in vacuo^ as it were, their metes 
and bounds and checks are those of human limitation 
only, producing new and grotesque phenomena, puz- 
zling and disturbing us gready at first, since the world 
has never been free to make such experiments before. 
These compUcations of free and yet enslaved humanity 
are as curious as the patterns in which sands arrange 
themselves on paper placed just over some musical in- 
strument in action. The pipe shrills *' Hail, Columbia !" 



54 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

and the quivering souls twist into curves and polygons. 
Yet, as in the case of these sands, give us time and we 
shall discover that they have laws of arrangement and 
can be indexed and influenced. The main question 
must always be borne in mind, namely, how can the 
innumerable slaveries of humanity, interlaced Uke a 
knot of earth-worms, be so altered, untwisted, ener- 
gized, that the freedom which entangled and enslaved 
them originally may make them ''free indeed"? 

The place of our cities, then, is the place where our 
greatest problems are to be worked out. They are our 
modern laboratories in which our experiments in polit- 
ical, social, religious chemistry are to be made and car- 
ried to some definite conclusion. If not here, then 
nowhere ; for not only here in American cities alone is 
the absence of precedent antiquity, class-reverence, and 
outside authority to hinder, clog, divert, but here, too, 
do we see men of wealth most willing to spend abun- 
dantly on experiment, freest from prejudice, most hope- 
ful (for optimism is a prime &ctor in all such intelligent 
and thorough work), and, above all, here are men most 
frequendy seen passing up and down ladders leading 
from poverty to wealth, and knowing something by 
personal insight of all fortunes, extremities, conditions, 
realizations. Moreover (and here we touch a quality of 
city life generally considered blameworthy, but one 
which, to use the French phrase, has the virtue of iis 
defect) in city life men work at high pressure. The 
quicker-running blood clears and inspires the brain to 
better work. Men see more distinctly, plan more clev- 
erly, seize the situation with a more decisive grasp, 
realize more earnestiy. The dty thinks for the coun- 
try. The country produces the boy, the dty uses him 



THE CITY OF TO-DAY. 55 

grown to a man. City boys, speaking comparatively, 
rarely become very distinguished men. But the great 
brain or hand procreated in the hills or valleys must 
be carried to the city to become conscious of and learn 
to use its power. The city, then, for some strange rea- 
son, b only the educator, not the producer. But as 
such it is supreme. Into it is gathered that stored-up 
capital of the ages which no wars can destroy, no prop- 
erty make null, no misgovemment paralyze: the clev- 
erness of our fathers, the discoveries of our race, the 
secrets wrung from nature, the stimulus which comes 
from continuity of thought on long parallel lines of in- 
vestigation pursued through centuries. In the city, too, 
skulls josde each other, each elbow feds the touch of 
each with the resultant courage so often seen in charg- 
ing lines of battle infantry, and hand is sustained by 
hand. From all this comes the result that the city, as 
the microcosm, the museum, the laboratory and the 
Joseph's granary of its territory, has an interest, an im- 
portance, beyond any other spot of ground in the 
world. No marvel of nature interests an educated man 
as does Athens or Rome or the London of the past ,* 
for he understands that they have gone not only to the 
making of the world at large, but to his making. He 
is because they were ; and he is thus and so because 
they were this and that. Not altogether fancifully 
might such a man call one of his veins the Via Appia, 
another Fleet Street, this angle of his framework the 
Acropolis, and that the Palatine Hill. Thus from almost 
every standpoint the city looms up as the focus, the 
determining-spot, the power-house of civilization. Here 
are the dynamos : shall they kill or make alive, bum 
out or irradiate, transmit betieficence or become purely 



56 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

destructive to the higher life of humanity ? The power 
of our great cities is increasing every day : they have 
come to stay ; the world of to-day belongs to them. 
Shall they serve God or defy him? We may not 
ignore them. And when one is endeavoring to dn^ 
down Belial from his altars, as we believe we are, the 
wise man will always try to get the attraction of gravi- 
tation on his side. Now the cities are, in the mental, 
spiritual history of men, that force. Whoever has them 
on his side will, in the end, conquer. 

This truth leads us naturaUy on to the thought of 
the dangers to the higher spiritual and moral Ufe inci- 
dent to such new and crowded dusters of life in a land 
like ours, where national convictions and principles are 
yet in the dough, and where the follower of the unseen 
hesitates, stumbles, and looks around a litde, stammering 
and bewildered. We must not forget that the attraction 
of gravitation may be harnessed to a rope that pulls down 
the altar of God, as well as to the throne of Belial. The 
great danger of the dty to the common man is that it 
sadsfies. For the first dme in aU history, inexhaustible 
regions of wealth have been thrown open to the world 
in America, with the invitation displayed, " This belongs 
to the first comers." For the first time in history the 
so-caUed common people are on top in places where 
merchandise is gathered, where stately shops line high- 
ways, where masts thicken, and spires dimb, and 
" domes bubble." For the first time the average man 
may hope for any or everything. Thus materialism, 
absorption, and self-inflation, become easy. These 
fight against the truth of God's revealed word with 
awfiil power. Look at each of these syrens separatdy. 
Materialism : the brute in men answering to the brute 



THE CITY OF TO-DAY. 57 

earth beneath them. Our American cities are full of 
souls no more naturally earth-lovers and thing-worship- 
pers than souls beyond the Adantic, but urged on by 
seeing bthers everywhere easily gaining, by virgin op- 
portunities, and by the feeling that in a land largely 
destitute of traditions the gambler's chance may give 
what abroad is denied. When a stone is balanced over 
a precipice its &te is determined not merely by what is 
urging from behind, but by what is removed in front. 
Now America is the land where obstacles in front are 
removed. The human soul, therefore, staggers here 
under heavy temptations to the love of acquisition in 
things seen, handled, tasted, especially at the centres of 
gain in cities. Our churches feel the strain. Pastors 
know it more especially when they turn from the secu- 
lar affairs of the parish (in which they often receive 
eager and admirable aid from their vestries, through a 
sympathetic business instinct), and urge them on to the 
only essential work of the church, the building up of 
righteousness in souls. Then the close, earthy smell of 
material interest, the garish splendor of things to be 
bought and enjoyed in a city, the corroding anxiety of 
rich and poor to keep pace with the caravan that, like 
Cortez' army, is struggling up from the Vera Cruz 
swamps of mud to the palace of Montezuma — these, in 
one form or another, degrade and corrupt. Camphor 
and tar-ball do not prevent our cities from being full of 
moth-eaten souls. " Your best God would be a $10 
bill," said a workingman to a poor girl I know, who 
stood shivering on the edge of sin. 

And treading hard on the steps of materialism 
comes that self-absorption which refuses to work for 
the community, and is cursed with the fool's vain optim- 



SS MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ism in all things that concern the public weal. Strange 
is it that the cities of Europe, with their thousand inher- 
ited evils and a past shadowed by every crime of war- 
ring men and peacock kings, should yet to-day be 
better governed than our own. And stranger still that 
such a result should be due to such opposite qualities 
in our own citizens as optimism and despair. Yet thus 
it is. The citizen in our land of hope has a very firm 
belief that somehow evetything will come out right in 
the end, together with the foolish conviction that noth- 
ing he can do at present will avail aught to remedy the 
evils of misgovernment. He publicly says, "I will 
build this city ; it is a sufficient task — my sons will have 
time to govern it'' And so he turns to his own little 
plans, and his own smaller and meaner life. But you 
cannot end the matter thus. You never can, with any 
form of evil, draw a line about it, and say, ** Stay there." 
The citizen who grows callous to misgovernment grows 
also cynical towards other aspects of evil. All aspects 
of city life are apt to be worm-eaten in the case of the 
average man by this spreading and pervading low tone. 
He grows callous to irreverence, to the frightful evil of 
prostitution, to a jocose attitude toward a high idea of 
honor, and to a conception of law, both human and di- 
vine, which is satisfied with half enforcements and slip- 
shod fulfillments. Religion in our towns suffers terri- 
bly from this fact,' that when the Cross is held up before 
the people, the glance that is cast upon it even by the 
better part of the audience is at times pardy absent- 
minded, pardy quizzical, pardy impatient If the people 
have no mind to work, unlike the Israelites at the re- 
building of their Temple, it is because they are cursed 
by a general skepticism towards good, due in the first 



THE CITY OF TO-DAY. 59 

place to their own selfishness. The man who believes 
alwa3rs first in his own interests soon comes to believe 
in nothing else heartily. General indifference towers 
up and becomes gigantic. This is what we have greater 
reason to fear in our cities than any heresy or schism, 
for when it comes it comes invisibly. One cannot say, 
" Lo, here,'* or " Lo, there." It is the true cholera of 
the soul, the '* black-death " of the higher humanity, 
and all the deadlier because it withers silendy by eating 
away the essential fibre of character. 

I have spoken of self-inflation as being still another 
danger of city life. At first glance it would seem as if 
the consciousness of being only one among swarming 
myriads would be sufficient to impress any man with a 
proper humility. In the country every man matches 
so many acres. In the city he has hardly square feet 
to breathe in. In New York, e, g,y but 13,000 families 
out of 243,000 lived, according to a recent calculation,' 
in their own homes. There is a frightful to-morrow 
feeing such a day as that, but the destitution it paints, 
the immorality, the struggle, the destruction of family 
life, the recklessness of results, all these do not teadi 
humility, reasonableness, the longing for spiritual and 
moral growth, which are the only trustworthy factors in 
human improvement. No; the danger of our young 
citizens who have wealth and education is that they be- 
come bUisiy of our workingmen that on a diet of news- 
papers they think lightiy of God and bitterly of men ; 
while the danger of the young woman of all classes 
is that of the confectioner's view of life. But all these 
views rest on one main defect : that superficial smartness 
which comes from elation of spirit from living at the 
centre of things, among continual movement, and in an 



6o MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

age oi steam and electric sparks, which brings the world 
to the man whose grand&ther had to toil terribly to 
know there was a world, and in the search gained wis- 
dom. Cheap papers, cheap books, cheap speech, cheap 
comforts, cheap demagoguery, cheap saloons, and all 
those other cheap messes which puff up little souls, and 
produce an arrogance of temper in a community least 
calculated to the growth of that sturdy virtue and 
cheerful humility which has faith and tenderness and 
reverence — all these corrupt our dty life, and make its 
future dangerous in a land where vast undigested 
masses of foreign immigration hold the balance of 
power in municipal doings, and where there is no pre- 
cedent, little subordination, and greater love of liberty 
than of law. 

In speaking thus of our dangers I have not dwelt 
at any length on certain well-worn problems which 
you might naturally expect to hear debated. The 
tenement question, that of drink, that of street vice, 
that of ** the boss " who misgoverns us, the hostility 
of masses and classes, and that bitter cry of the " sub- 
merged tenth," which rends our hearts—all these have 
been hardly alluded to. Others can .handle such ques- 
tions much more ably than I ; and I confess that I have 
no new word to say on them to-day. But I prefer to 
dwell generally on the perils of city life in producing 
certain attitudes, dispositions, points of view, vicious 
temperaments, all of which create or lead up to every 
problem of evil which threatens or actually torments 
us. 

It is a pleasanter task to turn from all this to the 
possibilUus far good inherent in the future of our muni- 
cipal life. There is but one thing I believe in more 



THE CITY OF TO-DAY. 6x 

heartily than in evil, and that is in good. We Ameri- 
cans are sometimes criticised by foreigners for being 
such invincible optimists. Our cities, more especially, 
are pointed at as having not only, in spite of their youth, 
all the curses which vex them of older nations, but cer- 
tain new ones from which those are free. This is true ; 
but has it ever occurred to these critics that there must 
be a reason for this optimism ? Since we are not also 
accused of lacking either intelligence or keenness, there 
must be something about even the worst aspect of our 
problems which inspires a reasonable belief that we 
shall eventually solve them. We find it so. It has 
been my own fortune to become familiar with much of 
the seamy side of our greatest city during several years' 
experience in the slums, prisons and public institutions, 
and yet I remain an optimist. It is because, first of all, 
I see how large a part of the poverty or crime with 
which I came in contact was imported, or had its roots 
not iar back in importation. The undue proportion, 
for example, of those, either foreign bom or of foreign 
parentage, who fill our almshouses and prisons is enor- 
mous : they form more than one-half, to less than one- 
third of our population. The hope conveyed in such 
figures is obvious. Again, the gradual improvement in 
methods of administration, the tendency to increase the 
part which conscience and a sense of accountability 
play, is well defined and reasonably encouraging. I 
found also the beauty of religion, the touching belief in 
God, the realization of the unseen and of divine truth 
coming out in all sorts of ways among the most evil 
surroundings. The uplifting power of the gospel has 
never had. more marvellous illustrations than in our 
slum Ufe, nor can one familiar with it doubt the enor- 



62 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

mous hold which religion possesses, however veiled or 
mixed with ignorance or passion. Those who are 
prejudiced against Christianity do not know, or often 
apparently care to know, the very great, pervasive, and 
invaluable work done among the poorer parts of our 
cities by the Christian churches. Every parish has its 
own fidd of work, and the aggregate is something 
colossal. It is a silent work. The world has its jest at 
it, the controversialist ignores it, since it destroys his 
argument; but it is real, far-reaching, abiding, and 
Christlike. Along with all this I feel convinced that 
there is a growing interest among our young men and 
women in the study of all questions that touch the rela- 
tions of men to men in masses. We all know how 
great an awakening is everywhere going on to the 
truth that, however important Creed is, it is overarched 
and undergirded by the vastly more important truth of 
Deed. It is this conviction which is destined to do an 
increasingly great labor and produce commensurate 
results in our city life If our cities have the worst 
young men they have the best also. Now the worst 
cannot be any more degraded or vicious than it became 
long ago. God be thanked, there is no deeper depth 
to be sounded in human depravity than every age has 
produced, from a Judas Iscariot to a Guiteau. But 
there are vasdy greater heights to be measured. There 
is room up above for us if not down below. There can 
be more conscience in citizenship, more work for re- 
form, more responsibility for money-spending, more 
desire for clean, decent lives, more hands to the plough, 
and the hands themselves quicker, stronger, more tena- 
cious. Slowly our young men and women are finding 
this out I have a sublime fidth in the doggedness of 



THE CITY OF TO-DAY. 63 

aroused effort for righteousness in the American man. 
And I fed that I have " hitched my wagon to a star " 
when I get behind the terrible conscience and moral 
sense of the American woman. 

These considerations indicate in what direction the 
better possibilities of our cities will lie. As immigra- 
tion diminbhes their populations will become more 
homogeneous, and that is the first condition of im- 
provement anywhere. As the idea of real civil service 
reform spreads, with its ideal of appointment and pro- 
motion based on merit, the day will come when the 
present barbarous, un-American, and unscientific meth- 
od of administration will appear as grotesque to our 
children as it now does to every European of educa- 
tion. Then our cities will begin to taJice on outward 
forms as beautiful as Paris or Vienna. But that is of 
least importance. However lovely Paris may be, I 
think there are many of us who are always glad to 
get away from it, not merely from the haunting sense 
of contrast between the fair body and the Godless 
soul, but fi'om a revolt against that sweet, alluring 
aspect which, like Circe of old, sings to us about the 
nothingness of the spiritual, while it slowly drags us 
into dull content with the world of sense about us. 
It will be the characteristic of our American cities, 
if they be honesdy and robusdy American and not 
pale, blast reproductions of something foreign, that in 
them a new, enkindling, forth-putting revival of Chris- 
tianity on the part of all religious bodies will be the 
animating force behind all public opinion and private 
life. I look to see the bands of sectarianism loosed and 
Christians uniting in a common work to get their grip 
fastened upon the churchless, the creedless, and the 



64 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

lapsed. I look to see, not merely in every church, but 
in every college and school, the higher duties of citi- 
zenship taught as commonly as the Ten Command- 
ments to-day. I look to that day when the one best 
relic of our fathers' time, the old-fashioned kindly feel- 
ing between all classes, shall return, through a new 
reading among Christians of the gospel of Him who 
was the first great Equalizer, not by pulling down, but 
by building up ; or, as Tolstoi has phrased it, '' not by 
saying, * Let me get down where you are,' but, * Let me 
help you up where I am.' ^' At such a not impossible 
era our children in their beautiful, well-governed, hon- 
estly administered cities will look back to our time with 
indulgent wonder. They probably will not rejoice in 
any system of socialism, communism, anarchism, or, in 
a word, despotism ; but ** Imagine," they will say to 
their children, " that your grandfather thought himself 
better than other men simply because he had more 
money. He went to church in a building where they 
rented so many square feet to worship God in, and sent 
those unable to pay to an annex called a mission. He 
thought himself a good Christian, but never entered the 
house of a mechanic in friendly intercourse. He hard- 
ly ever voted, and never for the best man simply, but 
always for one bearing a label pasted on him by another 
man, called a *^ boss," whom your grandfather would 
not have trusted with a dollar but thought quite good 
enough to govern him. There was a liquor saloon in 
his day on each side of his house, and habitual drink- 
ers were at liberty to ruin their families instead of being 
confined in asylums as they now are. Christians then 
thought that religion had nothing to do with public 
health or with sanitary affairs. They considered char- 



THE CITY OF TO-DAY. 65 

ity to mean not giving themselves, but giving a cheque 
They lived, if they could, in beautiful homes, but did 
not care very much, except in cholera times, how other 
people lived.*' 

By all the vast differences between such evils as 
those I have alluded to and their absence, by all the 
width of the great gulf lying between a torpid and an 
energetic moral sense, by the contrasted figures of the 
bestial politician snapping his whip, and cr3dng, " What 
will you do about it ?" and that of the great apostle 
imploring, '* Bear ye one another's burdens, and so ful- 
fil the law of Christ "—by all this I believe that the 
American city of the future will differ in &ct and spirit 
from that of to-day. I believe it because I believe in 
my own country, having lived among its worst and best. 
I believe it because, with all its human shortcomings, I 
have fidth in the substantially sound moral and spiritual 
life of the church of God in America, and in the con- 
tinually advancing ideal toward which it is climbing. I 
believe it, most of all, because I believe that Jesus Christ 
has such work for us to do in this land as was never 
done before, and that this work will centre in and de- 
pend upon our cities. 



66 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



LESSONS FROM PAST PROGRESS 

BY PROFESSOR GRAHAM TAYLOR. 

The past progress oi dty missions is only the 
premise of the theme assigned. To state it would 
transcend both the limits and the purpose of the assign- 
ment, for the heroism of its history is written more in 
life than in literature, and the chivalry of its self-sacrifice 
often equals, and sometimes exceeds, that of the foreign 
field. Its statistics are tabulated only in part, but in 
fax greater part are incalculable. The institutions, lowly 
and great, that mark the line of this progress are in 
many places the only green thing left of the garden of 
God in the desert wastes of dty life. In more places 
they stand as imposing monuments to the foresight of 
fidtb and the conquests of self-sacrifice. The personal 
memoriab to the continuity and achievements of the 
Christ-life among men enshrined in many of these mis- 
sions add latter-day chapters to the Book of the Acts 
of the risen and reigning Jesus, and furnish names, 
more unknown tlian known to fame, that are worthy 
tQ be added to those immortalized in the eleventh 
diapter of Hebrews — ^that splendid vestibule to the 
Westminster Abbey of the common faith. 

Yet resolutdy must we turn fi-om all this inspiring 
retrospect to the less tempting attitude iadng some 
of its present-day lessons for the future. But as we 
do so let us qualify in advance such unjust reflections 
upon the progress of the past as may inevitably, how- 
ever unfairly, be inferred from the condusions which 



PAST PROGRESS. 67 

nevertheless must be drawn therefrom. Once for all, 
then, be it gratefully acknowledged and insisted upon 
that the past progress of city missions is always unjustly 
disparaged and never intelligently appreciated unless 
it is weighed by the conditions under which it has 
been achieved. Whatever permanent foundations have 
been laid were laid beneath the rushing flood of a 
rapidly increasing and transient population. What- 
ever has been done to build up a corporate life in 
the mission churches has been accomplished by the 
assimilation of the most heterogeneous and alien ele- 
ments. Their very sanctuaries have been planted in 
the shifting soil of the changing topography of our 
cities. To have attained the present ratio of church 
accommodation to the inhabitants, and of membership 
to the population ; to have preoccupied the suburbs, 
enrolled the children in the Sunday-schools, rallied the 
youth, marshalled and organized the membership and 
maintained the Sunday-rest in the busiest marts of 
trade — of&ets what yet remains undone and begets 
confidence in the accomplishment of it 

It is, however, for what is unaccomplished that 
we should challenge the present for its facts, and should 
learn from the past as interpreted by tlie present how 
to undertake the great achievement The one lesson, 
greater than all others taught by the past progress of 
the church-work and the present situation of our cities, 
is to make our city missions fulfil the mission of our 
common Christianity in the city. City missions and our 
mission to the city are far from being interchangeable 
terms. To see how much of that mission is unfulfilled 
we have to view the body of Christ and the body-politic 
over against one another. The church as the body 



68 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

of Christ was as surely meant to transform the body- 
politic into the kingdom of God on earth as that Jesus 
came preaching the gospel of the kingdom. His tears 
were shed over the city which he would have gathered 
to himself as a hen her chickens under her wings. 
His cross overshadowed that city's gate. At his 
command the Gospel b^^an to be preached at the 
capital city of his country. The Pentecostal Spirit, 
who is to make all nations one people of God, de- 
scended upon a city's upper room and gathered from 
its thronging streets the first cosmopolitan hearing the 
Gospel had. The consummation of Christianity on 
this earth is the coming down of the city of God out of 
heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 
Yet how far from fulfilling, or even understanding, its 
mission to the dty as a whole, is the church as a whole. 
Great as is our work of church extension, how un- 
related it often is to the real interests of the kingdom 
as interpreted by the actual needs of the city. Faith- 
ful and effective as is our modern evangelism in its 
work for individuals, how rarely it transforms places 
even where it converts the most persons populating 
those dty-centers. Unspeakably glorious though our 
ministries be in saving souls out of the world, yet 
how pitifully do they iail to save the social conditions 
in which souls are bom into the world and through 
which none pass to eternity unconditioned. 

So here they stand, the city and the church, with 
essentially common interests, yet very generally ignor- 
ing each other's existence, if not in deadly antagonism 
to each other's efforts. The dty exists to serve and 
the church to save the same people, yet as dtizens we 
create or tolerate conditions of life which make im- 



PAST PROGRESS. 69 

possible or subvert the ideals of society and the prac- 
ticable standards of living which as church-members we 
have pledged ourselves to realize and practise. The 
church stands to make men what God made them to be, 
and what they may and do become by the redemptive 
power of the Cross of Christ and the regenerating life 
of the indwelling Spirit. And yet we stand helplessly 
and see many of the most powerful forms of the city's 
corporate life so perverted and misused that they 
actually unman the citizen and unmake the manhood 
which the school and the church have started to build. 
The church has nobly stood for the highest good of the 
individual man. The city has steadfasdy fashioned 
those moulds of common life which very largely make 
men what they are. The mould should bear the image 
of the stature in which the church desires, and the 
city needs, the man to stand. The ideals are held 
up before the youth in the schools of both. But, 
through the laxity of law at the hands of the city and 
the indifference towards its enforcement upon the part 
of the churches, the unsanitary tenement, the manifold 
forms of child-labor, the trade in the literature and 
pictures of vice, the obscene play-bills, and the schools 
of lust and crime thus advertised, become the moulds 
into which the lives of multitudes of growing boys and 
girls are poured, as molten lead into its casts. The 
church preaches its Gospel of brotherhood and un- 
selfishness, without some exemplification of which the 
city would cease to be, and without the larger realiza- 
tion of which it can never become the commonwealth 
it was intended to be, and yet the city protects and 
perpetuates, if it does not create, and the church pas- 
sivdy accepts as a necessary evil,, if not as a natural 



70 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

right, a system of municipal government that puts a 
premium on political corruption and injustice, and a 
system of industry and trade based upon selfishness and 
needing to be guarded against a perpetual tendency 
toward inhumanity and fratricidal strife. With heroic 
patience and unceasing toil the church stands in the 
midst of these and still lower city-moulds for the mak- 
ing of men, women, and children, to undo in the in- 
dividual the wholesale harm thus done to society. By 
its rescue-missions, its reformatory institutions, its house- 
holds of faith, it rescues, reforms and removes many 
from the manifold influences which unman men and 
unmake civilization. Yet here the moulds of sin and 
vice, crime and corruption, are allowed to remain, and 
to turn out other generations as bad, or worse than 
those from whose burnings the brands have just been 
plucked. There the old or the new plague-spots in 
the body-politic are left to breed their gangrene of in- 
dividual and social death. There the saloon-ridden, 
brothel-bound, misgoverned districts in the very heart 
of all our cities remain the same old sullen, sodden 
sources of personal wretchedness and public menace. 
The man of Macedon voices the cry of the modem 
city to the modern church, " Come over and help us." 
The question which modem civilization demands that 
the gospel shall answer is, "What shall the strong do 
to be saved ?" The problem of the Christianity of our. 
times is to make the church the soul of the dty and 
the dty the body of the church. The gospel has but 
one answer to tliat question, but one solvent for this 
problem : If the city repent not it shall likewise perish. 
The city must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in 
his cross of sodal and dvic self-denial, if it is to be 



PAST PROGRESS. 7 1 

saved. Except the dty be born again it cannot see 
the kingdom of God. .It is for the churches to be- 
lieve that the gospel b as applicable for society as for 
souls, for corporate as for individual life, and then as 
practically to apply its righteousness and redemption 
to the saving of the city as they have to the salvation 
of the soul. 

To fulfil Christianity's mission to the dty the 
churches need to cultivate, first of all, a broader con- 
ception of the city missionary movement It must be 
conceived as the movement of our common Chris- 
tianity for the dty as a whole if it is ever to Chris- 
tianize the whole city. In so far as our dty missions 
fail to comprehend the dty as their fidd they fail to 
fulfil the mission of the church to the dty. If they do 
not aim to minister to all classes and every district 
they cannot serve any one dass or section acceptably 
or effectively. The poorer dass and districts will not 
accept them if they do not aim to reach tlie richer. 
Among the richer they will not be so efficient as if the 
same movement were also directed to reach the poorer. 
To save any the gospel must be ministered to all. ' If 
it is reserved for only some it fails to reach any, for all 
or none is its Master's mandate. It is not something 
for one dass to give to another, or to the masses. 
Whoever gives must take. Only what is for all man- 
kind will the masses take as meant for them. To save 
the poor from spiritual or physical starvation and leave 
the rich to die of plethora ; to prevent the " laboring 
classes " from exhaustion of overwork and allow the 
luxurious dasses to suffer the atrophy of ennuh to 
make toil a success and not save wealth from failure, to 
patronize the less privil^ed dass while equipping, 



72 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

training and enabling the selfishly educated classes to 
prey upon them, to uplift down-town from its destitu- 
tions and deprivations and let down up-town into 
Pharisaism or libertinism, to save the suburb and lose 
the center — can hardly be the fulfillment of Chris- 
tianity's mission to the city. So long as " City Mis- 
sions" stand only for that form of church privilege 
provided for the poorer and less favorably situated 
classes by their more fortunate fellow-sinners, and do 
not also include in their aim and fiinction church ex- 
tension among the more independent classes, they will 
come short of being missions to the city. So long as it 
is the policy of the church to plant city missions prin- 
cipally where they will soonest come to self-support 
and become tributary to the society's treasury it can 
hardly claim to be moved by the mbsionary motive in 
its work for the city. 

Let our dty missions, then, stand for the church's 
prayer and purpose and plan of work for the whole 
city. Let the city mi^ionary movement include the 
comity which needs to be shown in locating the new 
up-town or suburban church as well as the ** charity " 
which is exercised in providing the rescue station in 
the lowest slum. Let its administrators be capable and 
courageous enough to grapple with the soul-destro3ring 
forces in the community where they establish the soul- 
saving agencies of the gospel. Let the social econo- 
mies of the neighborhood and civic responsibilities of 
the municipaUty share with the spiritual economies 
the counsels of this higher court of common council 
which every city missionary board should aspire to 
be. This involves the appointment of the church's 
ablest counsellors to the city mission directory, and 



PAST PROGRESS. 73 

the commissioning of its best trained men and women 
to its city mission fields. It means more money, more 
mind, more heart and higher consecration for city mis- 
sions. It involves, too, a unity of administration in 
which ** church extension," and " city missions " the 
suburb and the center, up-town and down-town, denom- 
inationalism and the Kingdom, social salvation and the 
salvation of souls. Christian resources and the city's 
need shall each be related to the other, and all to each. 
Next to this broader conception and administrative 
unity the city missionary movement needs stronger 
centers, especially in its down-town fields. Both reason 
and experience recognize Dr. Chalmers' ''territorial" 
plan to be the most effective means known to the Protest- 
ant church of our times for the evangelization of the 
city centers. It included a territory small enough " to 
be pervaded by the week day attentions of the clergy- 
man," the colonization of a small membership to be 
the nucleus of a congregation, a Christian neighbor- 
hood Ufe and a working force to be recruited from the 
locality ; the districting of the entire territory and the 
assignment of a lay visitor to every twenty families for 
weekly visitation ; " attractive or centripetal " agencies 
to draw the people to the churches and " aggressive or 
centrifugal " agencies to reach out after those not thus 
drawn in ; a weekly meeting for training the workers 
and unifying the work, and financial support provided 
as far as possible fi'om within, but supplemented by 
contributions from witliout. This plan of campaign 
succeeded in thoroughly evangelizing one of the worst 
quarters of Edinburgh, not only Christianizing the 
people but redeeming the district from pauperism, 
drink and crime. To such work as this the average 



74 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

mission and the average church are alike inadequate. 
The mission is all "gate" and no "way," providing 
only for birth, not for life and growth. The church is 
too likely to be all " way " and no "gate,** making 
provision for spiritual culture without having access 
to or for the unevangelized. A church (bat is a mis- 
sion and a mission that is a church, well organized, 
thoroughly manned, supported as few such fields are 
able to support the kind of a church needed to save 
and hold it, is the only God-appointed, man-approved 
agency for the salvation of the city center. In the coun- 
try, as well as city, not more churches are needed, so 
much as stronger churches, whose organized working 
membership requires the ministry of more than one 
man to keep them effectively at work, and which can 
thereby become the radiating centre whence all the 
outlying neighborhoods may be served with the gospel 
and thereby made tributary to the central church. 

The establishment of such centers as alone are 
adequate to gain and hold the city are conditioned 
upon Christian occupation and co5peration. To pos- 
sess the promised land anyjyhere, most of all in the city 
centers, we must occupy it. So is the church taking 
possession of its foreign fields ; it must think as much 
of the people of our home cities whom we would save, 
and show it by being willing to live among them. The 
church cannot possess what she is unwilling to occupy. 
Foreign missionary consecration is essential to city 
evangelization. A people willing to live for Christ's 
sake where he needs them is the ultimate requisite to 
the saving of the city. Leading the way in which the 
church will surely follow, litde companies of self-sacri- 
ficing men and women have, during the past decade. 



PAST PROGRESS. 75 

gone forth from the brightest centers of English and 
American culture to live in the darkest sections of our 
great cities. Much have they given and gotten, in shar- 
ing not only all they have but all tliey are with those 
who need them the most and 'appreciate them the best. 
The suggestions of the Social Settlement movement to 
the administration and methods of our city missions 
are many and fundamental. If that movement in its 
present form proves to be only temporary it will be 
of the most inestimable permanent value to society in 
two particulars : it will emphasize the practicability 
and efficiency of a type of service imperatively de- 
manded by the conditions of modem life, and it will in- 
cite the churches both to establish this type of social 
ministry where it has not been attempted, and to rein- 
force its development where it has obtained a strug- 
gling but successful hold upon the church and the 
community. Christian families, groups of workers and 
churches will yet be moved more largely to settle the 
city centers for Christ's sake. When the churches be- 
come social settlements themselves in every quarter, 
doing week-day service for humanity, sanctifying the 
secularities of life, being of, by, and for the people, the 
city problem will be solved. For then " the salt " will 
be " of the earth," " the light " will be " of the world," 
the leaven and lump will be together and the whole 
will be leavened. 

Even then, much more now. Christian cooperation 
will be the condition of success. Until city missions 
learn to serve their church best by serving the city 
and the kingdom most the city will be more than a 
match for the mission. And more : until the churches 
are willing to coOperate, not only with each other in 



76 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

spiritual efibrts, but also with society as it works for the 
public weal through the established forms of civic 
power — through the public schools, through the institu- 
tional agencies for the relief, reformation, and restora- 
tion of the dependent, delinquent, and defective classes, 
and through the voluntary organization of industry, 
labor, and philanthropy — the divided forces that make 
for righteousness and peace cannot prevail. There is a 
painting at the Columbian Exposition which depicts 
the new crucifixion. It is the old conception of the 
descent firom the cross, only with modem surround- 
ings. Modem working-men and women are tenderly 
lowering the bmised and broken form of their tmest 
brother and best friend, the Son of man. But one of 
them stands with clinched fist raised over against the 
frowning walls and smoking chimneys of a great mod- 
ern manufacturing city, as if it had cmcified the Son of 
God afresh and put him to an open shame. When 
between the clinched fist of toil and the pride and 
power which employ it that cross of the Saviour and 
Brother of us all really mediates in righteousness and 
peace, then, and then only, will there be the New Re- 
demption and a City of God. 



[-|of^E p]lSSIO|slS 



PROBLEMS OF OUR POPULATION. 79 



THE PROBLEMS OF OUR MULTIFARIOUS 
POPULA TION AND THEIR PROBABLE 

SOLUTION. 

BY REV. WM. C ROBERTS, D.D., LL.D. 

Tms subject appears at first s^ht somewhat vague 
and indefinite, for the problems which have near or 
remote connection with our multifiuious population 
are both numerous and varied. The social ones have 
been exhaustively discussed by many of our well- 
known college Professors in the daily and weekly 
journals of the country. The political problems have 
assumed a sufficient importance to attract the attention 
of our ablest statesmen and best patriots. The prob- 
lems, however, that concern most immediately this 
Congress of Missions are those which have a special 
bearing on the progress of Christ's kingdom. Even 
these are too numerous to be considered in all their 
details in a paper not allowed to exceed twenty min- 
utes in length. Consequendy the speaker will only un- 
dertake to set forth those phases of the problems and 
their solutions which will call out the most thorough 
discussion of both. 

The first great problem that confi-onts the church 
and the state at the present time is that of immigration. 
The number of persons that land annually on our shores 
is beginning to create uneasiness in the minds of our 
best men. It rose m 1886 to the enormous figure of 
800,000 souls, and fell only a very litde below that 



8o MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

during the year ending with June of this year 1893. 1*he 
annual accessions to our population from this source 
alone would make a dty nearly as large as Brooklyn, 
or a state with a larger population than that of Nevada, 
Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Delaware, North or South 
Dakota, Vermont, Rhode Island, Washington, New 
Hampshire, Florida, Colorado, or Maine. If all the 
immigrants who have landed on our shores during 
the last ten years were located in the State of Pennsyl- 
vania they would make as large a population, lacking 
1 1,401, as that of the Key-stone State, which is, accord- 
ing to the last census, 5,258,014. 

This tide of immigration has not only been in- 
creasing in volume but growing worse in quality. If it 
were made up, as in former years, of people from the 
British Isles, Holland, Germany, France, and Northern 
Europe, the increase in number would probably excite 
no special alarm, for multitudes of them spoke our 
language, professed the Christian religion, admired our 
dvil and social institutions, revered our Bible and re- 
spected our Sabbath. They came to us in order to be 
of us. But those who flock hither in these days iare 
largely different in character and purpose. They are 
Jews from Russia, Italians from the Sicilies, Bohemians, 
many of whom are of the baser sort, Poles, long 
taught to dislike every kind of regularly constituted 
government, Hungarians, looked upon as revolution- 
ists, Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians who have 
had the best elements of their nature stamped out by 
the iron heel of Turkey, British trade-unionists, French 
socialists, Austrian nihilists, German anarchists, and 
idol worshippers from China, India and the Islands of 
the Sea. 



PROBLEMS OF OUR POPULATION. 8l 

It may be said that these general expressions con- 
vey no definite idea concerning the number or the 
true character of the Russian Jews, Italians, Poles, Bohe- 
mians, Hungarians or Austrians. According to the report 
of the United States Commissioners of Immigration, 
double the number of Hebrews that now dwell in the 
Holy Land arrived at the port of New York alone in the 
year 1891, fifty thousand of them having been recorded at 
Casde Garden with Russian passports. During the same 
year 70,776 Italians came to America without being 
subjected to a rigid examination either by the twelve 
consuls in Italy or by the officers of the United States 
at Casde Garden; 41,270 Bohemians of all kinds of 
character and 27,997 Poles passed through New York 
alone ; 25,201 Hungarians and 27,701 Austrians. It is 
stated also in the official reports of the United States 
Commissioners that multitudes of the pauper class, 
who will never earn their living, are included in the 
numbers given above. Upon a careful examination of 
the reports of emigration societies in Ireland it is found 
that, out of the 43,429 persons assisted since 1851 to 
emigrate, 39,520 paupers came to the United States. 
Even these figures do not include the thousands who 
were aided by such funds as "the James H. Tuke 
fimd," by the grants received indirecdy fi-om the govern- 
ment, and by the Irish Female Emigration Fund of 
Bd&st The same and similar means are resorted to 
in Great Britain and on the Continent to get rid of the 
heavy burdens imposed upon their treasury by the 
pauper classes. 

Even this is not the worst feature ol the immigra- 
tion problem. " There are," says a United States 

Commissioner, ''firom eighty to one hundred Pis- 
6 



82 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

charged Prisoners' Aid Societies in Great Britain and 
Ireland, to the care and custody of one of which every 
discharged prisoner is committed. When discharged 
the government pays to the society from £^2, to ;^6, 
the money which the prisoner is supposed to have 
earned during his confinement, and these sums are in- 
creased by the society, with which the prisoner on leave, 
if a felon, b generously assisted to the United States, if 
he can be persuaded to go ; and he is generally only 
too glad to go and leave behind him his troublesome 
record.*' "An officer who had the best fetdlities for 
knowing made an estimate for me," adds the same Uni- 
ted States Commissioner, "of the number of all the 
felonious criminals imprisoned in Scotland who were 
assisted to emigrate to the United States, and his esti- 
mate was that one-half of them went to the United 
States by the assistance of the Discharged Prisoners' 
Aid Societies. This is not confined to the United 
Kingdom, but evidences of the same practice have been 
discovered in Germany and other lands. The United 
States' consul at Bremen writes : " Criminals and pau- 
pers have, to my knowledge, been shipped to the Uni- 
ted States by the benevolent societies, whose leader in 
one case has been a government officer." Thus Europe 
is making our country a dumping-ground for its refiise. 
The political and religious views of multitudes of 
these immigrants remain the same after they have come 
to us. A few quotations from papers well known and 
extensively read by the different nationalities will suffice 
to show that we are standing at this moment on treach- 
erous ground. A blasphemous ;sheet, entitled the 
" Freiheit," declares that " authority and State are all 
carved out of the same piece of wood," and rel^;ates 



PROBLEMS OF OUR POPULATION. 83 

both to the tender mercies of the devil. The same 
paper says, "The revolutionist is the irreconcilable 
enemy of the world, and, if he continues to live in it, it 
is only that he may thereby more certainly destroy it 
He knows only one science : namely, destruction. For 
this purpose he studies day and night To him every- 
thing is moral which favors the triumph of the revolu- 
tion, everything is immoral and criminal which hinders 
it Day and night may he cherish only one thought, 
only one purpose; namely, inexorable destruction. 
Whilst he pursues this purpose without rest, and in 
cold blood, he must be ready to die and equally ready 
to kill every one who hinders him in the attainment of 
this purpose." Another paper, called " Truth," pub- 
lished on our Pacific coast, says, '' When the laboring- 
men understand that the heaven which they are prom- 
ised hereafter is but a mirage they will knock at the 
door of the wealthy robber with a musket in hand, and 
will demand now their share of the goods of this life." 
Another cries, " War to the palace, peace to the cot- 
tage, and death to luxurious idleness. We have no 
moment to waste. Arm, I say, to the teeth, for the 
revolution is upon usl" The papers in which these 
sentiments appear are read in thousands of our Ger- 
man, Bohemian, Polish, and Scandinavian homes. Is 
it strange, then, that we should begin to see already 
some of the fruits of such teaching in the revolutionary 
speeches, lawless outbreaks, and anarchical rebellions 
in Chicago and elsewhere ? Many of the men who seek 
to destroy society and overturn our most cherished 
institutions " come to us," says Dr. Hulbert, " not hav- 
ing money enough to pay their passage, nor learning 
enough to write their names, nor virtue enough to prize 



84 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

their liberties, nor manhood enough to use their oppor- 
tunities. These are the people who desecrate our Sab- 
baths, who corrupt our elections, who misrule our cities, 
who foment our strikes, who appeal to bludgeons, the 
torch, dynamite, social and political revolution." 

The solution of this problem must be the joint work 
of the Church and the State. The latter should restrict 
immigration to those only who promise to become law- 
abiding, industrious, and desirable citizens; compel 
their children to attend the public schools, where they 
may learn what the privileges and duties of American 
citizens are ; deny the elective franchise to all who have 
not a sufficient knowledge of our language and politi- 
cal issues to cast an intelligent vote, and suppress with 
a strong arm all dbloyal demonstrations as not only 
absurd, but supremely wicked, in a country governed 
by its own people. 

AU the branches of the Christian Church should 
devote their best energies to the solution of that part 
of the problem which belongs to them. It is most de- 
sirable, if not absolutely necessary, to have missiona- 
ries at our ports of entry who can render assistance, 
give counsel, and afford direction to the immigrants on 
landing, for the first impressions received of a new 
country by a stranger sink deep into his mind and last 
long in his memory. This should be followed by a 
systematic effort to reach all the children as soon as 
the parents have selected their permanent place of 
abode. The objection which is sometimes made, that 
these children are un&miliar with our language, should 
be removed by securing, if possible, teachers who may 
be able to instruct them from the first in their own 
tongue. From these pupils should be chosen young 



PROBLEMS OF OUR POPULATION. 85 

men of intelligence and piety, who should be encour- 
aged to study for the ministry, in order to be able to 
preach to their countrymen in their own language. 
Theological Seminaries, like those established by the 
Presbyterian Church at Bloomfield, New Jersey, and at 
Dubuque, Iowa, and departments similar to those al- 
ready existing in Theological Seminaries like the Con- 
gregational one in Chicago, should be more largely en- 
dowed and better equipped, in order to prepare men to 
preach not only in German, but also in the other lan- 
guages which are spoken by tens of thousands of our 
fellow-citizens. It is not intended by this to encourage 
the desire, much less to strengthen the tendency, to 
perpetuate the speaking of any foreign language in our 
land. It is to be regarded simply as a necessary expe- 
dient to be resorted to only as long as men and women 
of advanced years, and unacquainted with the English 
language, will come to our shores. 

Above all, the Home Missionary departments of our 
churches must be enlarged and better supported undl 
they have become able to meet the great demands 
of our growing country. They should undertake the 
work of reaching the people of every nation and tongue 
within our bounds with the self-abandonment of an 
army contending for its own firesides, and with a loyal- 
ty to the great Head of the Church equal to that of 
soldiers who fight for the honor of their king and the 
salvation of their country. Every lover of his country, 
east and west, north and south, as well as every Chris- 
tian man and woman, should be brought to realize it as 
his bounden duty, his sacred privilege, and even the 
greatest function of his life, to contribute his full modi- 
cum of prayer and fiuth, funds and encouragement, to 



86 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

the support of the agencies employed by our churches 
to bring our land to Christ. 

The second problem arising from our multifarious 
population is the evangelization of the Indians. Their 
number is not great, but their condition is peculiar. 
They have been reduced by war, deprivation, and con- 
tact with white settlers to a quarter of a million. Against 
their will, and in violation of their native instincts, they 
were some years ago placed by the Government on 
separate reservations. This, no doubt, was a wbe pre- 
cautionary measure against all possible union of the 
tribes for the purpose of war or plunder. But, on the 
othei' hand, the country west of the Mississippi has by 
this means been dotted in all directions with setdements 
of belligerent and degraded red men. Many of these 
have been robbed by the Government officials, thou- 
sands of their most capable, if not their most hopeful 
ones, have been killed by the army, and all of them 
have been more or less corrupted by unprincipled spec- 
ulators who have lived among them and intermarried 
with their families. In consequence of these, and many 
other influences that need not be mentioned, the Indian 
Reservations have in many cases become fetid pools 
that send up poisonous exhalations which destroy all 
that has been fair and good in their lives and native 
customs. Even those who are generally known as the 
five civilized tribes are only beginning to emerge from 
their state of barbarism. They hardly know what they 
have a right to call their own, and do not feel certain 
that they can keep what is known by all to be theirs. 
Their want of confidence in the Government and people 
of the United States forms almost an insuperable bar- 
rier in our way of doing them good. In dose connec- 



PROBLEMS OF OUR POPULATION. 87 

tion with this the Government has btdy concluded to 
pursue the policy of taking the Indian children out of the 
schools that have been carried on by the churches and 
placing them in schoob of its own. The result of this 
must be the elimination from their course of study oi 
the most important element in the civilization of any 
people This may not be the fault of the Government ; 
nevertheless the fact remains that mere secular educa- 
tion will make the rising generation of Indians only 
better able to earn a living, but more degraded in 
many respects as citizens. 

The solution of this problem also must be the joint 
work of the Church and the State. As &r as practica- 
ble the State should strive to restore the confidence of 
the Indians by treating them with strict justice, if not 
with kindness, carrying out to the letter every contract 
made by their representatives, and by showing that the 
primary and industrial schools established on, or near, 
their Reservations are intended for their elevation and 
highest good. 

Knowing that these children have not had the 
opportunity of learning from their birth, like those of 
civilized citizens, the principles of morality and religion, 
the Government should feel bound to introduce into 
the courses of study in all their schools a large amount 
of Christian ethics ,* for without this Indians cannot be 
taught their duty towards their Government or their 
fellow-citizens. 

The churches, notwithstanding the change men- 
tioned in the policy of the Government, should not 
abate one jot or tittle in their zeal or efforts to elevate 
these heathen natives of our soil If the State be 
unable or unwilling to furnish them with moral or 



88 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

spiritual instruction, let the religious teacher be sent 
them by the Church in order to make up the deficiency. 

No one will deny that the heathen of India, China 
and Africa, have strong claims upon us, even on the 
score of the brotherhood of man ; how much greater 
claims upon us then have these aborigines of our own 
country! Consequently, a mere sense of obligation 
and patriotism, not to mention love for Christ and the 
souls of men, should prompt the churches to increase 
their efforts to fit the American Indian to take his place 
as a citizen of the Republic and a member of the church 
of Christ. 

The third problem connected with our multi&rious' 
population is Mormonism. By its rank growth and 
great luxuriance it betrays its American origin. Though 
the number of Mormon adherents does not exceed 
perhaps 200,000, both in Utah and the regions adjacent 
thereto, yet they assume a greater importance as a part 
of our national life than a million or more in other sec- 
tions of the country. They form an imperium in impe- 
rio of the most despotic sort And this empire is based 
on Bible principles to an extent sufficient to control the 
consciences of its citizens. In spite of that, the whole 
system is a menace to society. For its doctrines and 
practices are aiming a deadly blow at the family, or the 
unit of society, by the establishment and encourage- 
ment of polygamy ; at the church, by substituting the 
vagaries of Joseph Smith for the oracles of God ; and at 
the State, by dishonoring its flag and defying its au- 
thority. The people have been persuaded by their 
leaders that they have been appointed of God to fulfil a 
great mission ; namely, to bring our land, and through 
it the nations of the esuth, into subjection to their theo- 



PROBLEMS OF OUR POPULATION. 89 

cratic government. This introduces into our popula- 
tion an element that b difficult to manage. They have 
sworn that they will fight their way into a political con- 
dition independent of the United States Government, 
that they will restore patriarchal customs condemned 
by our Lord and opposed to the laws of the land, and 
convert in a few years the whole nation to their faith. 

For the purpose of securing their independence 
they are fortifying themselves amid the fastnesses of 
four or five great States and Territories in the Rocky 
Mountains. They have defied, and more than once 
defeated, the United States forces in the dark and diffi- 
cult passes of Utah. But finding that they are unable 
to cope with our soldiers they have changed their tac- 
tics to cunning devices to corrupt our legislators. From 
what they have already accomplished they have grounds 
to hope that they will some day gain their end. One 
of their leading bishops says, " Our vote is solid and 
will remain so. It will be cast where the most good will 
be accomplished to the church. Then in some great 
political crisis the two political parties will bid for our 
support. Utah will then be admitted as a polygamous 
State and the other territories we have peacefully sub- 
jugated will be admitted also. We will then hold the 
balance of power and will dictate to the country. In 
time our principles, which are of sacred origin, will 
spread throughout the United States. We already 
possess the ability to turn the political scale in any par- 
ticular community we desire." This is not the dream 
of a Mormon enthusiast, for even a late Vice-President 
of the United States wrote, between ten and fifteen years 
ago, "With Utah overwhelmingly dominated by the 
Mormon Theocracy of their established church, and 



90 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

wielding also, as they claim, the balance of power in 
the adjoining Territories (now States), this Turkish 
barbarism may control the half dozen new States of the 
interior, and, by the power of their Senators and Rep- 
resentatives in both branches of our national legislature, 
may dictate in time to the nation itself." 

Their hopes of accomplishing this object are based 
on three things: first, on the righteousness of their 
cause. The great majority of them believe that God is 
on their side, ready to fight their batdes. Second, on 
their rapid growth by means of large accessions of con- 
verts from the States and foreign countries, and of un- 
precedented illegal and natural increase. They sup- 
port more than three hundred missionaries who labor in 
season and out of season, at home and abroad, to bring 
about the just mentioned result. Third, on what they 
regard as a well-founded expectation of being admitted 
soon into the sisterhood of States.* When the growing 
corruption of our political parties is considered, it is by 
no means certain that they will not accomplish this end. 
Though the nation may speak to-day of Mormonism as 
a hideous monster of the past, crushed by the last ad- 
ministration, yet to-morrow political necessities and 
constitutional limitations may be cited to excuse for 
years its toleration. Who, with a full knowledge of our 
politicians, would be willing to predict that Utah will 
not in the very near future be admitted into the Union, 
and thereby be empowered by Congress to manage its 
own polygamous affairs ? 

The solution of this problem, again, must be the 
joint work of the Christian and the statesman. Neither 

^ This statement was made in June, 1893. 



PROBLEMS OF OUR POPULATION. 9' 

the bill introduced in Congress by Judge Edmunds»nor 
its subsequent modification by that body, can wholly 
remove this cancerous malady from our body politic. 
Both have been of great service, and will continue to 
be so long as the federal courts and the executive 
officers of Utah will do their duty. With all this, the 
people have not yet been compelled to discontinue their 
illegal practices. Some of them undergo incarceration 
at the hand of the United States officials in preference 
to incurring the ill-will of their spiritual advisers. Thus 
the legal phase of the Mormon problem is not yet en- 
tirely solved. To supplement this the church must 
bring all her powers to bear on its moral and spiritual 
phase. As this problem is largely a religious one, it is 
natural to expect that the major part of the work will 
devolve upon the church. Much has already been 
done. The beautiful valleys of Utah are dotted with 
mission chapels and evangelical churches. Their 
preachers and teachers have already diffiised too much 
light for the continuance of many of the atrocities of 
MormonLsm. The rising generation is beginning to 
throw off the despotism of Brigham Young and to 
call for greater civil and religious liberty. Not a few 
are beginning to cherish respect for the Stars and 
Stripes and put faith in our republican institutions. 
Thousands have apostatized iirom the religion of their 
fathers, and not a few have become active and valuable 
members of our evangelical churches. Scores of their 
towns have caught gleams of gospel light and felt the 
transforming power of the Holy Spirit Such hymns 
as "Jesus, Lover of my soul," and "Just as I am, with- 
out one plea but that Thy blood was shed for me," are 
cheering the firesides of Mormon homes as well as the 



92 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

dwellings of Gentile sojourners. They are hummed 
over the infant's cradle by the busy mother, and frag- 
ments of the refrain are whisded by the gleesome 
schoolboy even through the streets of Salt Lake City. 

The last problem I shall mendon is the alarm- 
ing growth of our cities. For many years there has 
been a rush of people, both native and foreign, into 
our great centres of population. This is a serious 
menace of our best interests. The cities seem to pos- 
sess a peculiar attraction to our foreign fellow-citizens. 
** Our fifty principal cities contain," according[ to Dr. 
Strong, " 39.3 per cent of our entire German popula- 
tion and 45.8 per cent, of the entire population, but 23 
per cent, of foreign. While a littie less than one-third 
of the people of the United States are foreign by birth 
or parentage, sixty-two per cent of the citizens of Cin- 
cinnati are foreign, sixty-nine per cent of Cleveland, 
seventy per cent, of Boston, eighty-eight per cent of 
New York, and ninety-one per cent of Chicago." 

The effect of this is the introduction into our cen- 
tres of mental activity and civilization of a large infu- 
sion of customs which are exotics on American soil and 
destructive of our morals and simple habits : the open- 
ing on the comer of nearly every street and alley of 
the brilliandy lighted liquor-saloon, whose pauperizing 
power and demoralizing influence on the old and young 
cannot be computed; the planting in every ward of 
low theatres and gambling dens in which characters are 
ruined and fortunes lost ; the fitting up of garrets and 
cellars where murderers and assassins may meet and 
forge tiieir weapons of burglary and death ; the open- 
ing of halls in which treason is hatched and incubated 
until it brings forth anarchy and revolt ; the erection of 



PROBLEMS OF OUR POPULATION. 93 

dub-houses where the unprincipled politician makes 
up his slate for nominating conventions, his plans for 
the distribution of offices and his bargains for votes ; 
the building of palaces in which is crowded everything 
that dazzles the eye and tempts the appetite, and the 
springing up of numberless dens of poverty and wretch- 
edness. The wretchedness and poverty of European 
cities described in " The Bitter Cry of Outcast Lon- 
don '' will be ours at no distant day if the tendencies 
just described are left unchecked. " Few in America 
have any conception/' says the writer of that book, 
" of what these pestilential human rookeries are, where 
tens of thousands are crowded together amidst horrors 
which call to mind what we have heard of the middle 
passage of the slave-ship. To get into them you have 
to penetrate courts reeking with poisonous and mal- 
odorous gases arising from accumulations of sewage 
and refuse scattered in all directions, and often flowing 
beneath your feet ; courts, many of them, which the 
sun never penetrates, which are never visited by a 
breath of fresh air. You have to ascend rotten stair- 
cases, grope your way along dark and filthy passages 
swarming with vermin; Then, if you are not driven 
back by the intolerable stench, you gain admittance to 
the dens in which these thousands of beings herd to- 
gether — eight feet square ! That is about the average 
size of very many of these rooms. Walls and ceilings 
are black with the accretions of filth which have gath- 
ered upon them through long years of neglect" What 
a picture for contemplation ! 

Not only foreigners flock into our large cities, but 
the natives of our rural districts also. A process is 
going on that will, if not arrested, work untold injury 



94 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

to our pure and prosperous country districts. Farms 
are exchanged by the hundred in New England and 
elsewhere for homes in the cities. The process is go- 
ing on at an alarming rate. " Of the 1,502 townships 
in New England," according to a statement in the 
"New Era," " 932, or 62 per cent, were in 1890 more 
or less depleted. In New York 69.5 per cent lost pop- 
ulation ; in Ohio, 58 per cent. ; in Indiana, 49 per cent ; 
and in Illinois 4 per cent. This condition of things 
exists to a considerable extent even in the newer States 
beyond die Mississippi. 

If this is allowed to continue, we need no prophet 
to foretell some of its blighting effects upon the fairest 
and the most highly favored portions of our country. 
The withdrawal from the active business of the farming 
community and of the villages will make society less 
attractive and property less valuable. Mortgages will 
multiply, sheriff's sales will increase, and ever3rthing 
that has a market value will tumble. Business will go 
to the large places, to the detriment, if not to the des- 
truction, of the small towns and villages. This decrease 
in the population of the country will tend in the near 
future to isolate those that remain, so that they will 
deteriorate ph)rsically, morally and religiously. We 
have an example of this in the Mountain Whites of 
North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee. From the 
large number among them of such names as McDowell, 
McClean, McCurdy and McManus, it is believed that 
they were originally of Scotch and Scotch Irish origin, 
but, being widely scattered and living for many years 
beyond the great currents of travel, they have sunk al- 
most into barbarism. Their present condition is ac- 
knowledged not to be due to their antecedents, but to 



PROBLEMS OF OUR POPULATION. 95 

their isolation. " Like conditions/' says Dr. Strong, 
" have produced like results in many other parts of the 
world, and would prove as operative in Massachusetts 
and New York as in Eastern Tennessee and Northern 
Alabama. Indeed," he adds, " I know of a town in 
one of the older New England States where such con« 
ditions have obtained for several generations and pro- 
duced precisely the same results : the same large faimilies 
of twelve or fifteen members, the same illiteracy, the 
same ignorance of the Christian religion, the same 
vices, the same marriage and divorce without reference 
to the laws of God or man, which characterize the 
Mountain Whites of the South." Shall this be allowed 
to become the general condition of our rural districts ? 
The only other result of this rush of people 
from the country into the city is the exchange in many 
cases of the intelligent native population for ignorant 
immigrants from foreign lands. This has been going 
on for years. Within the memory of multitudes still 
living, the farmers of New England were reared in the 
good old ways of the Puritans. No spires save those 
of the churches of the Reformation could be seen any- 
where and no bells except those of the far-famed 
meeting-house invited them to worship God. But 
what do we find there to-day ? The great majority of 
people are foreign bom, many of whom do not believe 
in the religion of the Puritans. For, according to the 
census of 1890, the Romish church claims one million 
souls in those six States. If , this be true, they out- 
number those of all the Protestant churches combined. 
Hence the startling declaration sometimes heard that 
New England has become Roman-catholic. It is sad 
to think that the homes of the children of those who 



96 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

fled from the oppression of Romanists are gradually 
felling into tlie hands of the descendants of their oppres- 
sors. But is this to be wondered at? A few years 
ago made a translation of the charge delivered by the 
Archbishop of Quebec to a company of Catholics on 
departing for New England. He told them, in terms 
which they could not easily forget, that they must not 
become citizens of the United States, but remain 
propagandists of their faith. All the way from the 
Esplanade on the banks of the St. Lawrence to Port- 
land and Boston, the words of the prelate rai^ in their 
ears. They have faithfully obeyed the injunction, as 
results abundantly show. From that day to this the 
ignorance of Romanism has been gradually supplant- 
ing there the intelligence of Puritanism. 

I am unable to name the persons or the bodies 
tha:t are to solve this problem, for no practical solution 
of it occurs to me at the present time. I can only call 
the attention of my hearers to its importance, that efforts 
may soon be made to find the true solution. 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. 9; 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. 

BY REV. S. S. WISHARD, D. D. 

The representatives of the various phases of phi- 
losophy and religion who have given utterance on 
this platform to their best thought have magnified 
the importance of the themes discussed. They have 
done well. But surpassing them all in interest and 
importance to our own country is this theme of 
Home Missions, that touches and transforms the heart 
and conscience, and therefore the life, of our nation. 
You have listened to their addresses, it will now be 
in order to consider the subject of 

HOME MISSIONS APPLIED; Or, HOME MISSIONS 

ON THE FRONTIER. 

It will be difficult, however, to find the fi-onder 
of the United States. It is a geographical line which 
has practically vanished. It was once visible. It 
had a movable, if not a local, habitation. It crept 
westward from Connecticut through New York, Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, 
climbing the Rocky Mountains until it was met by 
the returning tide from the Pacific Coast. The gentie- 
man who affirmed that he " was born at Cape Cod, 
all along, up and down the shore," has helped us to 
the phrase which we need. The frontier of this coun- 
try, what remains of it, is lingering " all along " the 
Rockies, "up and down" their summits and slopes. 
Though rapidly vanishing, we may by accommodation 
speak of Home Missions on the Frontier. 
• 7 



98 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

I. MARK THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE FIELD. 

They are unlike those which confronted our fa- 
thers, who moved from the east westward in colonies, 
with their ox teams and a few catde and sheep follow- 
ing. They located in setdements where it was com- 
paratively easy to associate them in religious worship 
and service. They naturally congregated, but on our 
frontier the law is segregation. We discover our 
first embarrassment, 

I. In the scattered condiHon of the population. A 
fertile valley, thirty or forty miles long by two or 
three wide, contains enough people to form the nucleus 
of a vigorous and growing church if they were located 
within a compass of four or five miles. But they are 
threaded along the beautiful stream that gives life 
and fruitfulness to the valley, separated from each 
other by miles of inconvenient distance. To reach 
the people the minister must have half a dozen 
preaching places, and so lose the power of numbers 
and cooperation. The next setdement is forty miles 
away over the divide. It b a mining camp. The people 
are as unlike the tillers of the soil in the valley as if 
they dwelt on another continent They are miners 
from all the ends of the earth, speaking a dozen differ- 
ent languages and having as many dissimilar antece- 
dents. This missionary must cross the range. He 
does it summer and wmter, and not unfrequendy in the 
teeth of the storm and at the peril of his life. 

The isolation of the populations in their own set- 
dements, and of the setdements from each other, invol- 
ving distances of travel for the people and the mis- 
sionary, is such that our eastern friends cannot ap- 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. 99 

preciate. We are frequently called five hundred miles, 
the distance from Chicago to Pittsburg, to supply a 
small church for a single Sabbath. Of course we run 
the Sabbath service on through the mid-week, as a 
compensation for the long journey. 

There is on my desk to-day an invitation from a 
home missionary in upper Montana asking for a ser- 
vice in the baptism of his home-missionary baby re- 
quiring a journey of 976 miles. The interference of 
this missionary conference alone could prevent the 
acceptance of the invitation. 

You will understand that the time consumed in 
these long journeys is taken from the study, and from 
important pastoral work. And although the missionary 
obeys the injunction, "As ye go, preach," yet the 
separation of the people is found to be a serious diffi- 
culty in the way of the most rapid and successful work. 

2. The reasons thai have located these settlements 
add to the difficulty in the way of reaching them with 
the gospel. There are two reasons which determine 
the location of homes in a new country. One is that 
which actuated Abraham, who " by faith, when he was 
called to go into a place which he should after receive 
for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not know- 
ing whither he went'' The other reason is that which 
moved Abraham's kinsman in the choice of a home 
for himself and family. He followed in the shadow of 
Abraham's faith until his vision caught sight of the 
"well watered" plain; thenceforward Lot chose to 
walk by sight and not by faith. He instandy became 
a pioneer, a frontiersman, for revenue. Western New 
York, the best portion of Pennsylvania, and the Wes- 
tern Reserve in Ohio were early settled by men and 



■* •* ^ 



lOO MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

women who came out of their eastern homes, not only 
to better their financial condition, but also to plant the 
church of Christ, to found Christian schools and col- 
leges. They came to transform the moral wilderness 
into the garden of the Lord. 

The church was planted, firm and strong, on the 
first day of their arrival on the frontier; whatever else 
was done or not done, the gospel was preached, prac- 
tised, and firmly rooted among the people, bearing 
legitimate firuit in the fulfilment of the purpose which 
brought our fathers from their eastern homes. ** For 
God and our country '' was the motto. 

But the conditions have changed to-day. The 
pasture lands, the gold and silver magnets, the visions 
of wealth and luxury within easy grasp, have rushed 
in to obscure the higher motives. 

As a nile, with some noble exceptions however, 
men do not go to the fi'ontier now to carry the institu- 
tions of the old eastern homes — instead many have 
gone to get rid of the restraints of Christian society— 
but more especially to amass wealth. They are a 
part of that mighty host to whom Paul uttered the 
timely warning : " They that will be rich fall into temp- 
tation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful 
lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." 
Some, who stood well in the churches in the east, in 
their haste to be rich forgot to take their church letters 
with them, or even their Bibles ; instead, the pick and 
shovel and revolver — ^with plenty of ammunition — con- 
stitute the standard outfit, with exceptions. In the soil 
of these reasons for seeking a western home the mis- 
sionary does not find the most congenial lodgment 
for the seed of the kingdom. 






• ••• • 

• • • 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. Id 

3. The business occupcUians of large numbers of 
the people are equally antagonistic to successful mis- 
sionary work. Outside of the large commercial cities 
of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, the people in 
the mountains ^nd valleys are engaged in herding, 
mining, salooning, and gambling. There are the ordi- 
nary agricultural populations scattered through the 
fertile valleys that are accessible, only they are disad- 
vantageously separated ; but these are not the moneyed 
people. The men of means — and that implies influence, 
where wealth is regarded as the chief good — are in one 
of the other occupations. 

The herding business develops the Bedouin life. 
The average herdman is a sort of roaming free-booter 
of the American type, when he is not a foreigner. He 
has no Sabbath, no rest day, no evening or morning, 
no associations with men. He is a little more intelli- 
gent than bis flock, decidedly more savage. He is an 
out-door hermit, avoiding the habitations of men, wan- 
dering away with the brooks and streams into the 
grassy plains. He has none of the characteristics of 
the shepherd boy who sang, " The Lord is my Shep- 
herd," then laid down his shepherd's crook and re- 
ceived instead the sceptre of Israel's empire. He is a 
law unto himself— owns every place on which the sole 
of his foot can tread. Woe be to the man or men who 
assert antagonistic rights. When he gathered his clans 
last year and began the execution of his self-enacted 
laws he shook the very foundations of the common- 
wealth. Taking his occupation all in all, it is not con- 
ducive to the advancement of the gospel ; it is not in 
line with the shepherding to which God has called the 
Home Missionary. 



I02 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Mining, as we find it on the fi'ontier, though a le- 
gitimate business in itself, is attended with such sore 
temptations and abuses that it stands athwart the path 
of the Home Missionary in his spiritual work. There 
is in the occupation of mining enough of the element of 
chance to transmute the ordinary steady-going busi- 
ness man into a dreamer, a creature under the sway of 
the wildest fancies. That man on the mountain-side, 
with hb pack-horse, lariat, tent and skillet, pick and 
shovel, is playing a fearful game of chance with all the 
world about him. In his poverty he is on the verge of 
untold wealth ; he would not exchange the fascination 
of his dream for a large bank account. Through and 
beyond the sand and gravel which he is removing with 
almost infinite toil he sees wealth untold, an affluent 
home adorned with the treasures of culture and art, 
neither of which he has the capacity to enjoy if he 
possessed them. I have seen him at seventy years, in 
midwinter, sitting in thin apparel close to the hotel 
fire, without friends, without ordinary comforts, without 
money to pay for a night's lodging, but reading in the 
hope of to-morrow the golden promises of wealth and 
comfort. He had a far-away look in his eye, an air of 
unconsciousness about his person, absorbed with a 
dream that had fascinated him for fifty years. He was 
a miner, a typical miner, developed into a prospector. 
We meet them on every mountain-side, of all ages, in 
all stages. While corporations enrich themselves, the 
miner is a cork bobbing on the wave of a fortune which 
his own fancy has created. His occupation has demor- 
alized him, and rendered him as incapable of apprecia- 
ting the gospel as the fiivolous Esau was of his birth- 
right 




HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. 

Where the minmg plant is located, and is c< 
its hundreds and thousands for its stockholders, 
the saloon rises to oppose our gospel work. It sc 
the best location in the mining town, obtains the 
costly and attractive equipments, and adds to tl 
citements of the intoxicating cup the adjuncts i 
gambling-table. While this mill of the demons is 
bling the souls of men into the hopper and grii 
them to powder th^ missionary is kindling a lig 
the surrounding darkness ; but his toil is against 
odds so far as visible forces are concerned. 

4. The sweeping tide of secularism comes ii 
all these antagonisms to our work. In no pord 
the country do its currents rush on with such im 
oeity, or at least with so little resistance, as on 
new mission fields. Like some swollen river ths 
suddenly broken fi'om its old channel and is ct 
away the homes and hopes of the dwellers upc 
borders, so this wild and terrible flood of secul 
threatens to sweep away all resistance, human 
divine. To change the figure, it has chained 1 
wheels some of the most important industries o; 
country — ^industries which have led all others ii 
rapid development of our national resources, 
organized and incessant operation of railroad ( 
and travel is a most powerfiil manifestation oi 
sweeping secularism. While aiding in material d 
opments it grinds under its ponderous wheels the 1 
and in some places the possibility, of spiritual dev 
ment These mighty financial corporations that 
the continent and know no day but the secular da 
motive but the money motive, no rights of the lal 
but such as will enrich the corporation, no Goc 



104 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Mammon, no principle but that of self-emolument, are 
resisting our missionary work and trampling out the 
very conscience and life of the people. While the 
Home Missionary is preaching obedience to God diis 
corporation is preaching disobedience, and is enforcing 
its preaching by all the necessities of the laboring 
classes. While the missionary is preaching, ** Thou 
shalt not steal," God's choicest gift to our race and our 
country, and especially to the toiling millions, the Sab- 
bath of rest, is stolen, taken from those who can least 
spare it. Here is a railroad town in upper Montana 
with several hundred inhabitants. Secularism built the 
town, then chained it to the engine by the strong coup- 
ling of the necessities of every man and woman and 
child in the town. The call of the church-bell is 
drowned by the clang of the engine-bell and the shrill 
cry of the locomotive whistle. We organized a church 
of women, but the men were held to Sunday toil and 
were not permitted to respond to the call of the gospel. 
The grip of secularism is so relentless that we can 
scarcely find men enough whom we can use for officers 
of the churches. 

5. Mormonism and Us fruits confront us in our 
home mission work on the fi-ontier. It has taken pos- 
session of the beautifiil territory of Utah, and by a 
majority of fi'om ten to fifteen thousand dominates the 
political, social and moral life. It has moved into 
Southern Idaho, has sent strong colonies into Wyo- 
ming, New Mexico, and Nevada. Mormonism holds 
the balance of power in the two States of Idaho and 
Wyoming, and is able to make itself felt politically in 
Nevada and New Mexico. It is a polytheistic, idola- 
trous, political machine, adroitly organized and offi- 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. IO5 

cered and under the supreme control of one man, who 
dairos to be the prophet, seer, and revelator of Almighty 
God to all the people of the world. As a system, Mor- 
monism is an artful compound of Buddhism, Confucian- 
ism, Paganism, Old Judaism, Spiritism, Materialism, 
Roman-catholicism, Jesuitism, and Free Masonry, em- 
ploying the terminology of the Bible and masquerading 
before the world as the only true religion. Its assump- 
tions of infallibility and temporal power are not sur- 
passed by that of the Pope of Rome. The President of 
the Church speaks by divine revelation. He holds the 
keys of authority ; he can bind or loose. The standard 
statement on .this subject of temporal and spiritual 
power is given to the world in the following language, 
which has never been repealed or modified : 

''This priesthood, including the Aaronic, holds 
the keys of revelation of the oracles of God to man 
upon the earth, the power and right to give laws and 
commandments to individuals, churches, rulers, na- 
tions and the world ; to appoint, ordain and establish 
constitutions and kingdoms; to appoint presidents, 
governors and judges, and to ordain or anoint them to 
their several holy callings ; also to instruct, warn, or re- 
prove them by the word of the Lord." (See " Key to 
Theology," page 70.) I may not take time to present 
to you the horrible doctrines taught and rites practised 
by this sect. 

You should, however, know that the Mormon 
church has stoutly resisted all efforts to preach the 
gospel among the Mormon people, first by threats and 
violence, then by misrepresentations of our missionaries, 
by persecution or ostracism, and every possible way of 
obstruction to our work. The spirit of the system has 



I06 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

not changed, nor can it while its doctrines remain un- 
changed. There has been a modification of some of its 
methods. The dger claw has been slipped into the 
velvet glove : the profession of loyalty and toleration 
has gone forth to the world, but not a single doctrine has 
been changed or modified. But you ask me, '* Has not 
polygamy been prohibited by the first Presidency of the 
Mormon church ?" By no means ; the revelation pro- 
fessedly given to Joseph Smith on the subject of polyg- 
amy stands unrepealed. Two years ago the first Presi- 
dency of the church advised the people to conform to 
the laws of the land, and cease to practise polygamy for 
the present This was not a command, but advice; 
nothing more. The doctrine is held as tenaciously as 
in the days when the people had fiiU liberty to practise 
polygamy. It is a fimdamental doctrine of the system, 
the doctrine on which is built the Mormon scheme of 
exaltation and their whole system of pol3rtheism. Here, 
in polygamy, is the basis of their doctrine of God, which 
they state thus : " What I am God once was, what God 
now is I shall be." Give up the doctrine of polygamy ? 
Not until the system is abandoned. Not until every Mor- 
mon gives up the cherished doctrine that he is to be a 
god, ruling and reigning in some distant empire. Nor 
is the practice of polygamy abandoned. Said a Gov- 
ernment officer to me recendy, "Nine-tenths of the 
polygamists in the out-lying towns are still living in 
polygamy, in violation of the Edmunds-Tucker law." 

This mongrel system of all the false and effete re- 
ligions, the crowning piece of satanic ingenuity, pre- 
sents a more msuperable barrier to the progress of the 
gospel than the worst form of heathenism ; and for this 
reason : it uses the. phraseology, the very language, of 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. 107 

Scripture, but with perverted meaning, wrested from 
its connection, so artfully misconstrued that it has 
** changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped 
and served the creature more than the Creator." When 
you preach to an average audience concerning God, 
man, sin, repentance, faith and salvation, the man in- 
structed in the doctrine in the Mormon church has no 
conception of the true meaning of these terms. Hence 
the difficulty in the way of winning this deceived peo- 
ple to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. 

Thus, that you might the better conceive the mag- 
nitude of this home mission work as we attempt it on 
the frontier, I have briefly set before you the scattered 
condition of the frontier populations ^ the motives of gain 
which have led them to the front, the occupations in 
which they are engaged, the migkfy forces of secular- 
ism and the delusions of Mormonism which confront us 
on every hand. You will therefore be interested to 
know 

II. HOVr WE UNDERTAKE TO MEET THESE OPPO- 
SING INFLUENCES. 

I. We recognize them. Your missionaries do not 
shut their eyes to these opposing forces, but undertake 
to ascertain just what they are and how powerfully they 
antagonize the gospel. They recognize the importance 
of a correct diagnosis in order to the proper application 
of curative remedies. " What king, going to make war 
against another king, sitteth not down first, and con- 
sulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet 
him that cometh against him with twenty thousand ?" 
It is of the first importance to know both the strong 
points and the weak points of all these opposing forces. 



I08 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

2. We remember also that " there is nothing too hard 
for the Lord,*' When he called his servant to build 

the waste places he said, *'Who art thou, O great 
mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a 
plain." The resources of truth in the hands of the 
Holy Spirit turn and overturn all that opposes itself to 
God. This great home mission work would be a hope- 
less undertaking were it not God's work. The diffi- 
culties would have been insuperable had not God 
promised that '* Every valley shall be exalted and every 
mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked 
shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." 

3. The missionary believes in his equipment. He 
knows that *' the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, 
but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong- 
holds." 

" The exceeding greatness of his power to usward 
who believe," the power that wrought in Christ when 
God raised him from the dead, is still pledged to those 
"who endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus 
Christ." 

They sing with the grandest missionary of the 
ages, whose robustfaith, masterful courage, and unfail- 
ing joy in the Holy Ghost are a priceless legacy, *' None 
of these things move me.** God, who sent his servant 
Moses to break the power of Egypt's sceptred king, 
gave him the rod of promise and the hand of faith 
with which to wield it The outfit was very simple, but 
complete. Every home missionary has the same equip- 
ment — the unfailing promise of God, and the hand of 
faith to use it. He goes preaching Christ crucified — 
the power of God and the wisdom of God. 

4. We take men as we find them. On the plain, in 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. ICQ 

the mine,- in the hotel, on the stage-coach, in the cabin, 
or even the dance-hall. We do not wait for the people 
to come, but go for them. '* What man of you having 
a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave 
the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that 
which is lost, until he find it ?" We do not wait for men 
to dean up, mollify, or reform. The gospel is the 
fuller's soap, the refiner's fire. It reforms by regenera- 
ting, it cleans up by creating a clean heart. All out- 
ward medication is mere trifling. The word of the 
Lord is the fire and the hammer, more marvellous 
in its effects than the ponderous crusher in the mining 
mills. It is the divine separator, parting the gold fi-om 
the dross, and determining the true value. 

5. We push our work. We must. The ranch- 
man is pushing, the herder, the miner, the prospector, 
the saloonist, the gambler, even the tramp is pushing ; 
and the highwayman who suspects you of carrying 
concealed values, if the opportunity tempts, will push 
his gun into your face. Everything, even the frontier 
itself, is pushing on and out; the missionary must push 
his work with more than human energy. Downy pil- 
lows and easy chairs have not found him on the border, 
and if they had they would find their occupation gone. 
The traditional &mily horse and carriage have not 
reached us yet, and probably never will, jogging at 
their present pace. The nimble cayuse, with his end- 
less coil of muscle and nerve, is the only creature with 
the gift of gait adapted to the pushing of this mission- 
ary work. He is a dangerous adjunct to our work, 
but his supreme gift — his go-abilify — ^brings him into 
requisition. 

6. Our missionaries hold on to their work. They 



no MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

are men with the gospel grip. A gentleman of another 
denomination was bewailing the lack of achievement 
among his brethren; said he, ^'They average about 
eight months in a field." They have just time enough 
to settle and unsettle, which means perpetual unsetde- 
meht. The gendeman who transplanted his shade 
trees every spring failed to secure the shade ; rooting 
is essential to both shade and fruitage. Our mission- 
aries in Utah have grand staying qualities. That would 
be expected. Utah is the last place for any minister to 
go for the purpose of experimenting. Our transplant- 
ings come only when the exigencies of the work de- 
mand it. Our men have been in their fields three, five, 
seven, thirteen , fourteen and sixteen years. Two of 
our men are working their gospel batteries where they 
planted them thirteen and sixteen years ago. Another 
in twenty years' service has only removed his gun six 
miles away, to get a better range on the enemy's works. 
" With step firm and steady " we have pushed forward 
the work. You will be asking me — 

III. WHAT IS TO BE SAID OF RESULTS? 

I. I answer, They come^ and are coming fester if our 
brethren in the East will help us to the sinews of war. 
Our beginnings were small, and encumbered with dis- 
couragements. You have read the fiction of the church 
in Montana organized of one man and his wife and a 
traveller staying over night, who departed early next 
morning. To complete the embellishment of this m3rth 
it should have been added that that husband and wife 
were divorced next day. This piece of modern ro- 
mance has, however,. been pretty nearly realized. In 
Utah, where the missionary transformed the dance-hall 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. Ill 

into a place for preaching, making the seats with his 
own hands, gathering a few pupils as best he could — 
where he walked in the middle of the streets as a mat- 
ter of personal safety — we now have an academy worth 
six thousand dollars, a principal and three assistant 
teachers, with over a hundred pupils : one of the teach- 
ers, converted from Mormonism, now a capable and 
growing worker; we have a competent and coura- 
geous pastor working in harmony with our education- 
al forces in the academy, and the Home Mission Board 
is giving us over three thousand dollars a year to carry 
on this work. 

What is true of Mount Pleasant is true in kind of 
twenty-five other mission stations in Utah and Idaho. 
These twenty-six mission stations, four of them having 
in their midst well-equipped academies, have gathered 
for Christian education two thousand three hundred 
children, mostly from Mormon families. On this same 
field we have thirty-four churches with nearly twelve 
htmdred members. A little more than twenty years 
ago a young graduate of Auburn Theological Seminary, 
Rev. Josiah Welch, began in the loft of a livery stable 
in Salt Lake City the work which to-day employs twen- 
ty-eight ministers, more than sixty teachers, and by the 
grace of God is transforming the plague spot of the na- 
tion, the habitation of dragons, into a delectable land, 
where the tongue of the dumb shall sing, where waters 
shall break out in the wilderness and streams in the 
desert. 

2. A little wider review of results^ taking one de- 
nomination alone as an example, is worth our consider- 
ation. Twenty years ago, the whole Rocky Mountain 
region, embracing New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, 



112 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Utah, Idaho and Montana, had but a single Presbyte- 
rian synod. The synod of Colorado covered this vast 
territory, having four Presbyteries, 32 ministers, 37 
churches, and nine hundred and ten members. The 
Central Presbyterian Church of Denver, that had then 
37 members, now reports 1,045; more than the entire 
synod embracing that vast territory twenty years ago. 
The First Presbyterian church of Salt Lake city num- 
bered fourteen members at that time, it now has a mem- 
bership that exceeds all the Presbyterian hosts of New 
Mexico, Wyoming, Montana and Utah of twenty years 
ago. The one synod of that date has grown to four ; 
the lour Presbyteries have grown to thirteen ; the thirty- 
two ministers are now 179 ; the 910 communicants have 
increased to twelve thousand one hundred and eighty- 
seven. The contributions to home missions from all 
that vast field twenty years ago were $2,041, to foreign 
missions they were $116 ; making the sum of $2,157 for 
missions at home' and abroad. This sum has grown to 
$9,155 for home missions and $7,366 for foreign mis- 
sions, and aggregating $16,521 for home and foreign 
work during the last year. The progress in Christian 
education has kept wcJl up, and has been the right arm 
of power in home mission work. The old prophecy is 
fulfilled : " There shall be a handful of com in the 
earth in the top of the mountains ; and the fruit thereof 
shall shake like Lebanon." The few young people 
once gathered in our mission schools in New Mexico 
now number 1,500 ; in Utah they have grown to thou- 
sands, and are taking their place in the ranks of our 
teachers and ministers. Colorado has supplied herself 
with Christian academies and colleges; the same is 
true of Idaho and Montana ; and with our schoob and 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. II 3 

academies in Utah we are waiting, pra3dng and work- 
ing for the coming of the college. 

The future of this Home Missionary work rises be- 
fore us with great promise for our beloved land. It 
will soon wipe out the frontier entirely — or transfer it to 
Alaska. The region where the conflict is being waged 
to-day is destined to become the central empire of our 
country. Its material resources have scarcely been 
touched, are already entering the politics of the nation. 
The wisest statesmen are unable to forecast the effect of 
the changes that are rapidly taking place. 

I do not unduly magnify my office when I venture 
the affirmation that the Home Missionaries of all the 
Christian churches of this land are a mightier factor in 
securing the welfare of the nation than the Congress of 
the United States. While our representatives are en- 
gaged with the important questions of finance, of inter- 
national comity and of Statehood for our Territorial 
area, the missionaries are carving out the material 
which alone can make American Statehood possible. 
If we could be heard in the national Capitol we would 
say, " Give us a litde more time, gendemen. You can- 
not manufacture an American State from mud and 
boulders. We must have a certain quantity and qual- 
ity of manhood, a manhood endowed with intelligence 
and conscience. To mould such material for our newer 
commonwealths is the great and exalted mission of the 
churches of Christ, through their missionaries on the 
frontier." 

The achievement must be made. It is a struggle 
for life. The mighty forces of evil are tremendously in 
earnest. Said a gendeman recently, ** Eight out of ten 
of the young men coming here unregenerate break 



114 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

down in morals." They fall by the wayside, or, treading 
for a few days on the verge of perilous depths, go 
over. 

The Home Missionary has " come to the kingdom 
for such a time as this." After a survey of one of 
these western towns he plants the gospel guns in the 
only available position, in the only public hall — and 
that is over a saloon. Quiedy his work begins. There 
are almost always a few who have not bowed the knee 
to BaaL They welcome the missionary as they welcome 
the rain on those arid mountains. Face to lace the 
litde mission band and the saloon meet each other. 
The saloon has the money, the depraved appetites of 
men, the preempted ground and the crowd, but the 
missionary has the ear, the heart and the hand of the 
mighty God of Jacob. He has the sword of the Spirit 
and the hand and courage of faith to use it. He holds 
in his grasp the conscience of the vilest siimer, and the 
skill to awaken those blessed childhood memories that 
follow men as they wander from God. To sight, the 
contest is an unequal one, but to faith the results are 
assured unto righteousness. The financial resources of 
iniquity are large, while those of righteousness seem 
meagre. There is a bare support for the Home Mis- 
sionary, which would fail many a dme but for God's 
ravens, while thousands of dollars pour into the saloon. 

The litde flock that God is teaching to ** fear not " 
must skirmish around for boards and a few crippled 
cast-off chairs to accommodate their growing circle. 
The fat saloon, with its cosdy mirrors, blazing chande- 
liers, clinking glasses, blaring music and hilarious crew, 
challenges the home mission poverty and the upper 
room* The visible chaqpes 9re in favor of " the lower 



HOME MISSIONS APPLIED. 1 1 5 

regions/' To faith the battle wears a different hue. 
Believing prayer not only reaches upward, heaven- 
ward, but downward, perditionward. 

The report goes out that one of ** the stars that 
Christ holds in his right hand ** is shining in that upper 
room over the saloon. The rumor draws. The ranch- 
man who had long skulked for want of a leader creeps 
out of his place of concealment, miles away, and on a 
bright Sabbath morning is found in the small audience 
in the upper room. The singing and prayer awaken 
strong emotions, and while the sweet story is told a 
mighty ferment is going on inside the rancher's jacket 
He can scarcely follow the preacher for the crowd of 
memories that rush in upon him. For ten years he 
has heard nothing so sweet, so homelike, so refresh- 
ing. The message of life drops deep within and plays 
with the very fibers of his soul. The old memories of 
mother, home and God, begrimed by the dust and toil 
of years, are swept clean once more. 

There is a sweet breaking up in that rugged soul, 
and the tears of penitence rain down upon that bronzed 
face. He does not want to do it, nor refrain from 
doing it. The clay in the potter's hands is receiving 
the divine fashioning. One more recruit is enlisted for 
God and Christian civilization, and all the ranch goes 
with its owner into the growth and power of that little 
'flock. No cathedral, with its silver-tongued preacher, 
its thundering harmony of music, its stately ritual and 
responses, is more resplendent with glory, with mellow 
touches from the heavenly world, than that little upper 
room over the saloon. As the work goes on, faith ex- 
claims, '* We must have a shelter for the flock. God has 
done great things and can do greater. Let us give 



Il6 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

him a chance ;" and before the old year dies there is a 
home of worship. The bell is hung in the tower. It 
" rings out the old and rings in the new." The light- 
house of gospel civilization is flinging its rays across 
valley and mountain. The fight is pushed into the 
enemy's country. It is march and balde and vic- 
tory, slow but sure. Civilization has come in. The 
machinery of government is set up and is grinding the 
lawlessness out of anarchy. 

We want) and are now waiting for, a larger force to 
push the work of missions and Christian civilization. O 
for the young men who are willing to count in the ravens 
as God's almoners, who are willing to take standing 
room where there is only room to stand, who can not 
only discover but create opportunities ! God knows 
their names, where they are and what they are doing. 
He is waiting for them to volunteer. They would better 
make haste lest he be obliged to draft them. The battie 
is on. There is to be no retreat. Victory is before us, 
and is to be won on the ground where the forces of 
evil are encamped : on thefrantier. 

We say to our eastern 'brethren and friends, whose 
sons and daughters we are constandy meeting on the 
plains, in the camp and the mines, Do n't forget us. We 
are toiling for your children. Give us the resources 
that will enable us to do the best things for them. 
Send us your best young ministers. Lay your hands 
on them before they come. Consecrate them to the 
highest and best service for your own kindred, "for 
God and native land.** 



THE PERIL OF MORAL ILLITERACY. 1 17 



THE PERIL OF OUR NATION THROUGH 
ILLITERACY IN MORALS. 

BY REV. NEWELL D. HILLIS, D. D. 

Our study concerns twenty-five million children 
and youth, and the moral institutions used for shaping 
their conduct and character. Training of the young in 
the ethics of social and civic life is the imperative duty 
of the hour. Motives not alone of morality and religion, 
but of patriotism and prudence, demand that instru- 
ments be devised for teaching them the science of right 
living, and the art of just, smooth and charitable re- 
lations with their fellows. Ours is a land whose genius 
and institutions assume a high degree of intelligence 
and moral culture. Our fathers have achieved vast 
social treasure : treasure of things y fields, factories, ware- 
houses ; treasure of ideas^ schools, churches, libraries 
and fi'ee institutions. To give these riches of civiliza- 
tion over to an ignorant and weak generation for wast- 
ing would be a crime against our forefathers and 
pauperize future generations. Our first duty is to make 
our youth too wise to waste, too just to impair this 
treasure, and ambitious to hand it on enriched by their 
own contributions. Free institutions and moral illiter- 
acy cannot exist side by side. Illiteracy in morals 
must cease to be, or free institutions are doomed. 

OUR INSTITUTIONS ASSUME AGENCIES FOR 

MORAL CULTURE. 

No youth is fitted to inherit an institution whose 
forehead is not on a level with the inventor thereof. 



n8 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

To create wealth, social and material, requires great in- 
telligence ; wise administration quite as much. Watt's 
engine and Jacquard's loom incarnate their genius. No 
man can take charge of the loom whose intelligence is 
not equal to the automatic intelligence in the loom 
plus the brain power equal to all the crises of that 
loom. In like manner our social and political institu- 
tions incarnate the genius of an Adams, Washington or 
Lincoln. No youth is fitted to lay hands upon this 
social mechanism who has not carried his brain and 
conscience up to the level of Hamilton and Jefferson 
when they invented their instruments. To give a throb- 
bing engine into the hands of an inexpert child is a 
crime. Nor can it ever be right for the State to give its 
forceful tools over to youth stupid and unwise through 
the State's neglect Constitutions may make suffrage 
universal, but the State may as well legislate aside 
the nature of things as to give ignorance, weakness 
and vice the right to go up to the judgment seat and, 
through the ballot lever, determine destiny for mul- 
titudes. In founding these institutions our fathers as- 
smed that the people would see to it that there should 
never be a body of ignorant or untrained youth. But 
while much is being accomplished in moral training it 
must be confessed that, relative to the advance in the 
creation of wealth and the development of intellectual 
tools with press, public schools and academies, the in- 
vention of agencies for moral training is far and 
away behind all others. 

AGENCIES FOR MORAL INSTRUCTION. 

The agencies for the moral training of youth are 
two-fold. First are the common schools— jackscrews 



The t>ERlL O^ MORAL ILLITERACY. tlQ 

under the sills of the nation by which all the people 
are slowly being lifted. Our fathers founded these 
schools not alone in the interest of wisdom and leam- 
ing, but of ethics and morality. Their schools exercised 
a triple function ; to wit, trained the child's reason to 
perceive the truth, his taste to admire the beautifuli 
his moral sense to judge between acts right and acts 
wrong. Casting out theology they enthroned eiAus. 
They taught the youth how to read and write, and 
also how to carry himself in the home, the market- 
place, the forum and the polls. Daniel Webster be- 
lieved with them when he said, " The right of the State 
to punish crime involves the State's duty to teach 
morals." Ethics concern man as man. Moral prin- 
ciples are not denominational. They are no* more 
ecclesiastical than the principles of breathing, or walk- 
ing, or eating, or sound thinking. To render the youth's 
mind keen as a Damascus blade, without teaching him 
how to carry his instrument through the a'owded 
street, is to work injury toward the child and disaster 
toward his fellows. The three R's are not so vital to 
the child's welfare as the moral principles that teach 
the art of right living. Disobedience to law is always 
slavery. Obedience is liberty. Disobedience to the 
laws of fire, water, acid, is death. Obedience to the la\i 
of color gives the artist's skill : to the law of eloquence 
the orator's power : to the law of iron the inventor's en- 
gine. Disobedience to moral laws means waste, wretch- 
edness, want, turns cities into heaps, and renders society 
a herd. Thus the common schools become the real 
promoters of civilization — the bulwarks thereof. They 
teach patriotism. They destroy dannishness. They 
unify the races. " The State rests upon a tripod : a 



120 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



free school — a free church — a free state. When one 
leg faHs the whole structure will come crashing down." 

REVOLUTION OF COMMON SCHOOLS AND THEIR 

DETERIORATION. 

But since Webster's day our public schools have 
suffered a great revolution, of which many citizens 
seem ignorant. In many of the schools the laws of 
Moses and Christ may no longer be read. The name 
of God has been carefully expurgated from text-books. 
One of our western courts has decided that it is uncon- 
stitutional for teachers to repeat the Lord's prayer in 
the school-room. A leading educator has said that the 
common schools should teach secular truths, ignoring 
all reference to God and ethics. Recently the senior 
class of a Chicago high school voted to invite a clergy- 
man to offer prayer at their graduation, but the school 
authorities forbade. That body of ecclesiastics that 
has labored so successfully to cast the Bible and ethics 
out of our common schools has begun an attack from 
the other side. They now charge our common-schools 
with being atheistic. Therefore their children are 
placed in parochial schools. During the past twenty 
years an organized warfare has been carried on against 
our schools that has wrought their constant deteriora- 
tion. Consider what was involved in the statement of 
one who spoke from this platform: ''Our church is 
lowest in the scale of refinement, having produced no 
statesmen, reformers, poets, orators, educators or in- 
ventors." It was also claimed that this same church, 
charged by its delegate with being lowest in the scale 
of culture, included 75 per cent, of the teachers in the 
common schools of Chicago. This explains why so 



THE PERIL OF MORAL ILLITERACY. 121 

many of our citizens are withdrawing their children 
from the graded and high schools, and placing them in 
private schools and academies. Henry Ward Beecher 
once said, " It should be the aim of the city to make 
its common school so rich, so large, so ample, so re- 
fined and refining through its teachers, and therefore 
so fruitfiil in result, that the private schools will not 
be able to live under the drip of it.'' 

NO SEER, SAGE OR REFORMER EVER HAD TO 

MAKE "HIS MARK." 

The Other agency for the moral instruction of 
youth is the Church and Sunday-school, having an 
added function in that it teaches religion as well as 
ethics. Now the changed attitude of the common 
school has thrown the whole burden of moral instruc- 
tion upon this instrumentality. Of the heroic exertion 
of the churches on behalf of the nation's youth no one 
can worthily speak. The forcible ideas and the impe- 
rial truths they have taught have entered into our in- 
stitutions as iron and fibre into the rich blood of the 
physical system. But the churches have struggled in 
vain to keep pace with the constandy growing needs of 
the great West. Steadily the population has outmarched 
the advance of Sunday-schools and churches. To-day 
there are in our villages and country districts and great 
cities ten million children and youth who are without 
instruction as to the moral truths of life and duty. Now 
ignorance always breeds misery, vice and crime. Me- 
phistopheles was indeed a cultured devil. But he is the 
exception. There has never been an illiterate seer, 
sage or saint. History tells us of no Dante or Shake- 
speare, no Cromwell or Lincoln, who had to make 



t22 MISSIONS AT HOM£ AKD ABROAD. 

" his X mark." Every force-bearing and force-produ- 
cing man has been a trained man. Moreover these 
twelve millions of ignorant youth are mosdy the chil- 
dren of foreign parentage. They are chiefly found in 
the interior and great West, the region that will shortly, 
as Mr. Gladstone prophesies, be the dominant secdon 
of our land. Now, when we remember that these 
youth are without the ethical training of church or 
Sunday-school, and that the other agency of moral in- 
struction, the public school, has been secularized, we 
may well believe, with one of our great reviews, " There 
lurks here the most tremendous and imminent danger to 
which the interests of our people have ever been ex- 
posed, in comparison with which the issues of slavery 
and intemperance sink into utter insignificance." 

AN EMBRYONIC COMMUNITY IN THE WEST. 

Consider for a moment the condition of one of 
these typical western villages, or country districts. In a 
single school district you will find not alone the ignor- 
ant, but also families of great culture who have suffered 
reverses in the East and in the West hope to retrieve 
their fortunes. Here are English and Scotch, Irish 
and German, Dane and Swede, Bohemian and Poland- 
er, with representatives from every State — ^the Yankee 
and Buckeye, the Hoosier and Wolverine, families 
from orange-famed Florida and orange-famed Califor- 
nia. Littie wonder that no half-dozen families are of 
the same religious faith ; that no denomination can es- 
tablish a Sabbath-school or church in such a new com- 
munity. Everything is chaotic. The soil must be 
ripped up and subdued, the houses builded, the fences 
made, the vineyards planted, and fields seeded. These 



THE PERIL OF MORAL ILLITERACY. 1^3 

new-comers have little time or care for their children's 
moral instruction. Their week days are crowded with 
plowing, sowing, fiittening, selling stock, only to begin 
the circle again with the coming spring. On Sunday 
morning I have seen a company of their youth now go- 
ing off with fishing-rods, now with gun and dog, now 
gathered in an excited group around a bucking pony, 
now assembling for a horse race, now for an uproarious 
game of ball ; for Sunday is the gala day of all the week. 
These people are without the daily papers to inform 
them of events and their lessons. The common school 
has been secularized. Yet these first settlers will give 
permanent character to these communities. All is em- 
bryonic. Customs and habits are in the grisde. But 
the intense and impetuous forces of this eager western 
life will swiftly mould the community. Who now shall 
measure the calamity blighting these youth if we fail to 
shape their forming lives by those divine truths and 
ethical principles that make men great? 

WESTERN SETTLEMENT CONTRASTED WITH 

COLONY. 

Consider now the contrast between the typical em- 
bryonic community, with its Sabbath profanadon, want 
of interest in education, in short, its barbarism, and the 
typical New England community. Over against this 
man from Bohemia place the New England setder. He 
was a scholar, a Christian, and a moral hero. He came 
here for the sake of religious liberty. Setding in the 
forest, these new comers consecrated the soil to God; to 
liberty, opportunity and education. They clustered 
their rude cabins about a building which they used as 
church, school-house, public Ubrary and town hall. 



t24 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

These men counted suffrage a God-given right, to be 
exercised in the house dedicated to his service. Keep- 
ing in mind the typical western community, consider 
the influence which one of these forming setdements 
may exert upon the state and nation. Here is a sum- 
mary of the history of Northampton, Mass. During 
its history this town has sent out 114 lawyers, 112 min- 
isters, 95 physicians, 100 educators, 7 college presidents, 
30 professors, 24 editors, 6 historians, 14 authors, 
among whom are George Bancroft, John Lothrop Mot- 
ley, Prof. Whitney, the late Dolland, 38 officers of State, 
28 officers of the United States, including members of 
the senate and cabinet, and one president. 

FRUIT AFTER ITS KIND. 

Now how comes it that this litde colony has raised 
up this great company of orators and teachers, jurists 
and statesmen, reformers and philanthropists? No 
chance here. 

The relation between sunshine and harvest is not 
more essential than the relation between these folk and 
the long line of worthies of their renowned descendants. 
" Fruit after his kind " is the divine explanation of North- 
ampton's influence upon the nadon. No grapes from 
thorns, no figs from thistles, is a divine prophecy of the 
future of any godless, ignorant, untrained community. 
One hundred years of history have rendered it certain 
that the first settlers shape :the future of a community. 
Boston and Philadelphia differ from Quebec and the 
city of Mexico as did their first setders. The Spanish 
stock has after two centuries given us South American 
dvilizadon; Anglo Saxon stock and Protestant ideas 
gave republican institutions and Christian civilization. 



THE PERIL OF MORAL ILLITERACY. 125 
A man's VALUE TO THE NATION. 

First of all is ancestry. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
would have us think that a man's value is determined 
one hundred years before he is b6m. The ancestral 
ground slopes upward toward the mountain-minded 
man. The great never appear suddenly. Seven gen- 
erations make ready for Ralph Waldo Emerson. Each 
ancestor was a sign-board pointing toward the coming 
philosopher. The Mississippi has power to bear up 
fleets for war and peace because of the hundred sum- 
mer storms and winter snows that have lent it depth 
and mighty power. The measure of greatness in a man 
is determined by the intellectual streams and moral 
tides flowing down from the ancestral hills and empty- 
ing into the human soul. Out of nothing nothing 
comes. The Bach &mily included 120 musicians. The 
Paganini were bom with muscles in the wrists like whip- 
cords. What was unique in Socrates was first unique 
in Sophroniscus. John foretold Jesus, but Zacharias 
foretold John. No electricity along rope wires. No 
vital, living truths along ropy wires to spongy brain. 
Several millions in this land have been rendered pau- 
pers physically and morally by the sins of tlieir an- 
cestors. Generations ago they were doomed to be 
hewers of wood and drawers of water. A long time 
will pass before one of their children will crowd up and 
be strong enough to shape a tool, outline a code, create 
an industry, reform a wrong. Despotic governments 
have stunted men, made them thin-blooded and low- 
browed ; all back head and no forehead. Such people 
are a standing menace to our institutions. They form 
the inflanunable material into which the anarchist casta 



126 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

his explosive spark. They seek a Moses who shall de- 
liver them out of bondage, but they wbh a rock from 
which shall flow petroleum to bum us up. They desire 
to follow the incendiaries' pillar of fire by day, and the 
doud by night, leading them into the land promised by 
anarchy. They are the social dynamite waidng for the 
tramp delegate to explode them. Macaulay found the 
cause of the English labor riots in the moral illiteracy 
of the populace which had been suffered, in the neigh- 
borhood of palaces, theatres and temples, to grow up as 
rude and stupid as a tribe of tattooed cannibab or a 
drove of beasts in the stock market The labor riots in 
our own great cities have emphasized the fact that the one 
condition of the republic's success, and its sole safeguard, 
is the culture and moral worth of the individual dtizeii. 

CASH VALUE OF MORAL CULTURE. 

The second test of a man's value is an intellectual 
and moral one. The largest wastes of the nation are 
through ignorance and sin. Failure is stupidity. Success 
is always in knowing how. Engineers tell us that 80 
per cent of the coal goes through the chimney. Chem- 
ists tell us that 60 per cent, of food is wasted through 
improper cooking. Agricultural experts prove that 
the 3rield of fields and vineyards can be doubled by 
wiser methods of husbandry. Wealth is not in things 
of iron, wood and stone ; wealth is in the brain that 
organizes the iron. Pig iron Ls worth $20 a ton ; made 
into horseshoes, $90 ; into knife-blades $200 ; watch- 
springs, $1,000. Pig iron $20 — ^brain power $980. Millet 
bought a yard of canvas for one firanc ; paid two more 
bancs for colors; upon this canvas he spread his 
genius, giving us the " Angelus." Now his intelligence 



THE PERIL OF MORAL ILLITERACY. 1 27 

carried 60 cents' worth of raw material up to a value of 
$105,000. The first attempt to make watches by ma- 
chinery &iled because the workmen were ignorant. 
They broke the delicate machines, and wasted the 
valuable materials. Twenty years later a second at- 
tempt was made, and successfully because the average 
intelligence of the workman had increased. It is be- 
lieved by wise students that one-half of the models in 
the patent office are impracticable to-day because the 
mass of the people are not educated up to the point 
where they can economically manufacture these mech- 
anisms or properly use them. The average value of 
each man to the nation is $650. The illiterate man, 
who cannot read, digs ditches at $1 a day. Now teach 
him the first reader and he is worth $1.25 ; the second 
reader earns him $1.50; when he can read the foiuth 
reader he produces $2.00 a day. Of much higher 
value is moral knowledge. Conscience in the book- 
keeper has a cash value. Integrity is a commodity. 
Untaught workmen punish their employers by seeing 
to it that the machines break and the materials are 
wasted. A manufacturer recendy told me that mo- 
rality and justice in employds toward his machines 
would add 20 per cent to profits to be divided be- 
tween himself and his men. The average productive 
value of each citizen in 1890 was $650. That is, he 
represents a steam engine costing about $10,000, and 
yielding returns at 6 per. cent. One hundred and 
fifty thousand of these wealth-producing engines either 
burnt out or blew up through collision last year, or 
were laid aside because of moral ignorance touching 
intemperance. The nation's wealth is now sixty-five 
billions. Its chief wastes are through moral ignorance. 



128 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

The great tools to be invented in the future for increas- 
ing these billions are inUUeciual tools and moral in- 
struments. 

THE NEED OF AN AGREEMENT OF PROTESTANTS 

AND CATHOLICS AS TO FUNDAMENTAL 

PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS IN THE 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

The International Sunday School Association re- 
ports eleven million children and youth in Protestant 
Sunday-schools, while the Catholics have four millions 
under religious instruction. This leaves ten millions 
practically outside of aU church influence. This fact is 
big with peril. It represents dangers portentous. 
The need is urgent. The opportunity is strategic. 
The sole remedy is plain : Ethics and morals must 
be re-entkraned in the public schools. Protestants and 
Catholics have been at variance. The expulsion of 
the Bible from schools has led the Protestant to place 
his children in private schools and the Catholic to 
found parochial schools. Thus the common schools 
have suffered on two sides. The time is ripe for com- 
promise. Dr. John Henry Barrows, with representa- 
tives ot all the Protestant churches, and Cardinal Gib- 
bons, with his prelates, have found common standing 
ground for religious conference : surely they can also 
find common ground for the instruction of the youth 
of the land in good morals. If the Parliament of Re- 
ligions is not mist and moonshine, conference should be 
had, and agreement reached, as to certain common prin- 
ciples of ethics to be taught in our schools : as, for ex- 
ample, the Ten Commandments ; teaching the youth how 
to carry himself in the home, the market-place and the 



THE PERIL OF MORAL ILLITERACY. I2g 

forum ; the Sermon on the Mount, presenting the 
positive virtues bearing upon conduct and character, 
the supremacy of conscience, individual responsibility 
for influence ; and the Lord's Prayer, called " the Un- 
iversal Prayer." On these ethical principles hang all 
the law and the prophets. They contain moral leaven 
for raising and lightening the dead social lump. Obe- 
dience to these laws is liberty ; disobedience slavery. 
They concern all men as men. They are as binding 
upon every child as the law of food, air, exercise. Let 
President Barrows call a conference of these assembled 
delegates to confer, and agree, now and here, upon some 
common ethical principles to be taught in the common 
schools. The people of this nation through their 
school boards have been eager for such a conference 
and agreement for the last ten years. 

No church. Catholic or Protestant, will prove 
itself an enemy of the public schools by refusing co- 
operation. Having proclaimed our fratemalism from 
this national housetop, let us also proclaim our practi- 
cal plans for lessening the nation's want and misery 
through moral illiteracy. Doubtless there have been 
some mistakes upon both sides. If so, let the past 
perish, save as it guards us against future blunders. 
The crying need of the hour is agreement upon the 
part of Catholics and Protestants to re-enthrone ethics 
and morals in the public schools. 

UNION BIBLE SCHOOLS AND COUNTY SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL MISSIONARIES. 

A second practical plan for reaching these ten 
million youth is the devising new Sunday-school 
agencies. Most of these children are in rural districts 
9 



I30 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

and villages where a denominational church or Sunday- 
school is impossible. Plainly, some compromise mea- 
sure must be adopted. The simplest and most practi- 
cable plan would seem to be some kind of Union Bible 
School. Such an institution has been invented. Test- 
ed for many years it has become a great power in the 
land. I refer to the American Sunday School Union. 
It is placing missionaries in each county who establish 
and maintain these Union Bible Schools in all the rural 
school districts. It has as its controlling spirits leading 
men of every evangelical church in the nation— jurists, 
statesmen, merchant princes, railway managers, men 
whose interest insures success. Large experience has 
taught them wisdom. They know men and the needs 
of new communities. They know what plans are prac- 
ticable and what methods are moonshine. There are a 
score of the leading citizens of this nation in Chicago 
who support their own missionary. If the evangelical 
churches would unite upon this plan for Union Bible 
Schools every schoolhouse in the land would soon 
have a religious centre. When we remember what 
one Bible did for John Bunyan and Abraham Lincoln, 
and what through them it did for humanity, who shall 
estimate what an influence for good might be wrought 
for our people and institutions if the evangelical 
churches would unite upon the American Sunday 
School Union as their representative in the rural dis- 
tricts of the Northwest ? 

THE GREAT PROBLEM OF THE WEST— THE EVAN- 
GELIZATION OF THE COUNTRY DISTRICTS. 

Nine-tenths of the people of the Northwest are 
rural. The West has few large cities or towns. The 



THE PERIL OF MORAL ILLITERACY. I31 

people are br removed from the villages. The towns 
have churches, but beyond their limits lies the great 
rural district. In the dty are four means of instruc- 
tion : the church, the common school, the daily paper, 
and the teaching of events. In the great West there 
are millions who are without church, Sunday-school, 
or daily paper, and whose one intellectual and social 
centre is the common school. The great problem of 
the interior and West is, therefore, the evangelization 
of the country districts and smaller village 



THE LEADERS IN THE CITY ARE COUNTRY-BORN. 

A second fact should here be noted — that the 
country feeds the city. A recent canvass of one of our 
large Eastern cities showed that ninety-four per cent, of 
its leading citizens were brought up on the farm. An 
examination of one hundred of the commercial and 
professional representative men of Chicago showed that 
eighty-five per cent, were raised in the country and 
rural villages. Seventeen of our twenty-three presi- 
dents came from the farm. The census of the students 
of four colleges and seminaries showed that the rural 
district and village are furnishing eighty-five per cent, of 
our college students. The brain and nerve centres are 
not more dependent upon the soundness of the related 
tissues than the city upon the rural districts. A gen- 
eration in the dty is short. Life-forces burn out rap- 
idly. The leaders are quickly succeeded by men fi'om 
the country. They always have been, they always will 
be. For this there are two reasons. One is that the 
country air, food, exercise are essential to compacted 
and healthy brain. Ruddy cheeks, strong digestion, 
large veins in which blood may run, have free course, 



132 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

and be glorified in strong thinking, are closely related 
to the herds, fields, and forests. There is a mathemat- 
ical relation between a fine physique and a firm intel- 
lectual tread. Good thinking stands with one foot on 
fine fibre. Our factories, foundries, stores, railroad 
offices are being filled with boys fi-om the country. 
Health and endurance are theirs. The inheritance 
shall be theirs, for the fittest survive. 

NECESSITY OF RE-CHRISTIANIZING OLD COMMU- 
NITIES. 

Another alarming fact has been, and is, developing. 
I refer to the draining away fi-om the smaller towns of 
their American and Christian elements. The American 
stock is leaving the farm and moving into the village. 
Later on their youth remove from the village to the 
larger cities. While the Western States are increasing 
in population the population of the country districts and 
smaller villages is actually less than it was in 1880. 
The census of nine counties in Iowa shows forty de- 
serted churches. In the only county investigated in 
Illinois I found nine deserted churches, and in one 
county of Wisconsin five. If what is true of the nine 
counties in Iowa holds true of the State there would be 
four hundred churches closed in that one common- 
wealth, and nine hundred in the State of Illinois. The 
explanation is that the city has drained the country 
town of its best blood and Christian leaders. Sections 
which once had strong churches are now given over 
entirely to foreigners. The work of Americanizing 
and Christianizing which was done twenty years ago 
must now be done over again, otherwise these commu- 
nities will be given over to ignorance and barbarism. 



THE PERIL OF MORAL ILLITERACY. 133 
OUR FATHERS, CHRISTIAN STATESMEN. 

We are still near the recent Centennial events. 
Our study to-day has of necessity been somewhat col- 
ored by the thought that we are now repeating on a 
grand scale in the West what our Others were doing 
years ago on the Atlantic coast Perhaps no one truth 
has been more persistently urged by editors, orators, 
and clergymen than that the moral character of the 
New England settlers gave shape to our Christian in- 
stitutions. Being themselves intelligent, just, and free, 
their institutions took on these characteristics. Our 
forefathers were Christian statesmen. They came here 
not for gold, but for conscience' sake. They sought to 
form the civilization of each community on religion and 
learning, on liberty and law. Now how do these god- 
less communities compare with the institutions of our 
Others ? The customs of our present-day immigrants 
are to their ideas what the iron pyrites is to the pure 
and massive gold. 

It is well that our western mountains are exalted 
above the Alps, that our lakes contain half the fresh 
water of the planet, that our forests are unequaled, 
that our hills are crowded with waiting ore. But what 
matters it if the West has richer soil, larger fields, 
more luxuriant grass than the lands of the Puritans, 
if the West can only produce oxen and horses where 
New England produced great men and splendid women ? 
Colleges are more than cornfields. It ought to be of 
small moment to us as a nation that we have greater 
forests and fields than our fathers, if our youth are to 
lose our fathers' courage and moral worth — which they 
had from God's Word. 



134 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

In view of these 9,ax),ooo untaught youth, these 
thousands of godless villages and country districts, 
there are reasons for believing we are passing through 
a crisis in our history. Our forefathers met their crisis 
hour, and founded their institutions on God's Word. 
That was a grand and noble work. Our Others, 
during the late war, sought to lay anew the old founda- 
tions, broader and deeper and mightier for the world. 
That was a grander and nobler work. To preserve 
and strengthen the foundations our fathers laid, to 
bring our institutions to the point of highest efficiency, 
to solve the intricate and perplexing problems of this 
age — this, and nothing less than this, is the sublime 
task of our generation. 

The history of our country has largely been the 
history of men sustained by this sublime faith in God. 
From this belief in God has streamed invincible cour- 
age into the will, and from it have sprung those magnif- 
icent enthusiasms that have matched and mastered the 
giants of despotism and slavery ; and not only has this 
belief given our soldiers their heroic courage, our schol- 
ars their stainless lives : it has given our commanding 
American society its conquering courage, and been 
the spring of its noblest impulses, its most energetic 
forces. 

And so long as our children are trained in these 
truths and our youth hold to this surpassing belief in 
God's Word, so long as we continue to connect man 
with God, and holding £aist to his eternal Word main- 
tain the supremacy of man's soul above mere brain 
and nerve tissue, so long will our commerce extend ; 
so long will our literature and the arts advance; so 
long will our institutions continue firm as the moun- 



THE PERIL OF MORAL ILLITERACY. 1 35 

tains and stars. But whenever this belief in God and 
this knowledge of his Word shall depart from us, and 
we play false to our &thers' faith, an immense calam- 
ity will befall our commanding American society. 
Without it republican institutions will lose their efficien- 
cy. Generous liberties without it will lose their con- 
secration. Eloquence without it will lose its dignity. 
Universities without it will lose their glory from library 
and chapel. Its fall would be the most disastrous 
moral wreck the world has ever known. Its victory is 
to be the sublimest in the annals of time. 



p 



OREIG 



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ISSIONS. 



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A GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY. 1 39 



A GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY: ESPECIALLY 
OF TOTALLY UNREACHED FIELDS. 

BY GEORGE SMITH, LL. D., C. I, E., etc. 

Mr. President : I come to you with the greeting 
of Scotland, once so closely allied with America, 
through the two Brainerds, in the evangelization of 
the red men. In the name of the Christians of Scot- 
land I hail the descendants of John Eliot, of Adoniram, 
Ann and Sarah Judson, of John C. Lowrie, and John 
Scudder. 

The subject assigned to me is a Survey of the 
non-Christian Peoples — ^noting especially those not yet 
reached in any way. 

The foreign politics of the United States of Amer- 
ica are Foreign Missions. Starting into national life 
free alike from the ecclesiastical bonds, the feudal insti- 
tutions, and the political interests of Europe, but pos- 
sessing the full heritage of British history, literature, 
and character, the Americans were from the first pre- 
pared to become the chief messengers of Christ to the 
human race. In four hundred years they have, by 
Christian colonization and home missions, evangelized 
their own continent from the Adantic to the Pacific 
Ocean, bringing into the Church the remnant oi the 
Red Indian tribes, and giving to Christendom its '' rich- 
est acquisition " in sixty-five millions of Christian citi- 
zens, which every year increases in number and influ- 
ence. In the whole development of mankind during 
six thousand years there has been only one people and 



I40 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

one land ready made, as it were, to be itself free, and 
to become to all beside the apostle of liberty in its high- 
est form — the freedom which is in Christ Jesus. 

Summoning America and Britain alike to form the 
United States of the World — united for its evangeliza- 
tion — Dr. Duff said to the first Missionary Convention 
held at New York, in 1854, " Let us arise and march 
together as one mighty phalanx to the spiritual con- 
quest of the nations.'* 

At this time evangelical America, through forty-two 
Churches and Societies, is spending five millions of 
dollars a year on foreign missions of all kinds. Its 
contribution to the conversion of the non-Christian 
world is a missionary battalion of 3,500 men and wo- 
men directing 11,500 native helpers, of whom 1,250 are 
ordained, and supervising 26,000 churches in the mis- 
sion fields. Of its foreign representatives 1,250 are 
ordained missionaries, 250 are lay missionaries, and 
850 are women, besides missionaries' wives, making 
up the American force of 3,500. These are trained and 
sent forth by the evangelical majority of the Christians 
of the west The whole church membership of the 
United States numbers twenty-one millions, and the 
last census reveals the church property at a value of 
more than 646 millions of dollars. 

Geography is the most valuable oi the allies of 
Foreign Missions, which have done, in return, so much 
for the development and elevation of the most interest- 
ing and comprehensive of all the sciences. Missionary 
geography is, however, only beginning to win for itself 
that place in the education of the public and the Sunday- 
schools, in the curriculum of the universities and theo- 
logical colleges, and in the instruction of the church in 



A GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY. I4I 

prayer-meetings and preaching, which it must hold be- 
fore Christian people, " lifting up their eyes," share the 
Lord's infinite compassion and self-devoted service for 
the multitudes " scattered abroad as sheep having no 
shepherd." 

As the most cautious and reliable figures showing 
the area and population of the globe, I take those sub- 
mitted by Mr. E. Ravenstein, F.R.G.S., to the British 
Association at Leeds in September,, 1890. I bring them 
down to the month of September, 1893 : 

THE world's population IN 1 893. 

Population. ,, Average ,. '''''^er'^lS^^' 

Europe 381,200,000 101 87 

Asia. 854,000,000 57 6 

Africa 127,000,000 11 10 

Australasia.. 4,730,000 1*4 30 

North America... 95,250,000 14 30 

South America... 38,420,000 5 15 

1,500,600,000 31 8 

The Church will enter on the twentieth century in 
a few years, with the population increased to 1,587 mil- 
lions. At the same rate in the year 1950 there will be 
2,332 millions, and in the year 2000 there will be 3,326 
millions. In the year 2072, or only 180 years hence, 
there will be 5,977 millions. That seems far to look 
forward, but in the history of the Church, as of the hu- 
man race, it is a short period. The longer every Chris- 
tian delays to take a part in the evangelization of the 
dark races the greater becomes the difficulty of bring- 
ing in the increasing peoples. War, famine, and other 
checks to the growth of population may reduce the 
normal increase of eight per cent, every ten years, as 



¥42 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

the coming century goes on, but all the political and 
historical facts are against this probability up to the 
time we have mentioned, when economic law as to 
population occupying all the cultivable area must affect 
the result, unless checked by new discoveries of applied 
physics. 

How are these fifteen hundred millions of human 
beings divided as to religious belief and worship ? Here 
we have less scientific certainty, on the whole, though 
not for the peoples under Christian governments. Es- 
timates hitherto published have been repeated year 
after year, and so fail to take account of the extraordi- 
nary increase givem to the Reformed Churches by two 
causes : the superior spawning power of, and the rapid 
colonizing extension over waste lands by, the English 
and German-speaking peoples during the last century. 
Taking into account the latest figures of the census of 
the whole British Empire, of the United States of 
America, and of the principal countries of Europe, as 
made and published in the years 1890-92, and adding 
to them an estimate up to 1893, ^^ ^^ve this as the 
result, in round numbers : 

Christianity and World- Religions, 1893. 

Reformed Church 2oO|00o,ooo 

Roman-catholic , 195,600,000 

Greek and Eastern . 105,000,000 

Professing Christians.. 500,600,000 

Jews 8,000,000 

Mohammedans . 180,000,000 

Heathens 812,000,000 

Non-Christians 1,000,000,000 

The Human Race » 1,500,600,000. 



A GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY. I43 

What are the two hundred millions of the Re- 
formed Church, historically called Protestants and pro- 
fessedly evangelical, doing for the conversion of the 
thousand millions of non-Christians ? We do not take 
into account their efforts, vigorous and necessary, es- 
pecially in the lands of Asia and North Africa occupied 
by the Eastern Churches, for whom Americans do 
much, nor any labors for Christians by Christians of a 
purer faith and life. Leaving out of account also the 
many wives of missionaries who are represented statis- 
tically in their husbands, Rev. J. Vahl, President of the 
Danish Missionary Society, gives us these results. We 
accept them as the most accurately compiled, and as 
almost too cautiously estimated where estimate is una- 
voidable. In Turkey and Egypt only work among 
the Mussulmans is reckoned : 

1890. 1891. 

Income (English money) ;^2,4i3,938 /'3i749,34o 

Missionaries 4*652 5*094 

Do.| unmarried ladies 2,1x8 2,445 

Native ministers 3,424 3.730 

Other native helpers 36,405 40,438 

Communicants 936,856 1,168,560 

We should place these last now at 1,300,000, which 
gives a native Christian community of 5,200,000 gath- 
ered out of all non-Christian lands. 

Together the two great English-speaking peoples 
spent ;^2,446,822 on the evangelization of the non- 
Christian world. The balance, or ;^302,5i8, was con- 
tributed by Germany and Switzerland, Netherlands, 
Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and in 
Asia. 

But the comparative success of these fifty years 



144 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

only increases the responsibility and the reproach of 
the majority of the hereditary Christians of Great Brit- 
ain and America — two-thirds — who are still doing 
nothing to bring India and the non-Christian world to 
Christ At last each of the great Native States, even 
the fanatical capital of Haidarabad, Deccan, has been 
occupied by a missionary or two, with results which, 
from Travancore to the most ancient and caste-bound 
principalities of Rajpootana, encourage manifold effort. 
But there are many of the smaller States into which no 
preacher, teacher, or healer has yet entered, although 
in some cases the chief is known to be a student of 
Scripture, while in others he becomes a convert, to 
Islam. There are many British and American Chris- 
tians able enough, if they were in earnest, to take, each, 
one of these Native States — Mohammedan, Hindoo, or 
Buddhist — and provide for its evangelization within 
their own lifetime or that of their children. Nepal 
alone, attempted by the Jesuits nearly three centuries 
ago, is shut to the gospel, as Kashmir was till Elmslie, 
the Scots medical missionary, forced a free entrance to 
all. From Sikkim and Leh, though not yet from the 
borders of Assam and the Northwestern Provinces, 
attempts have long been made upon the sealed region 
of Thibet, now opening up. 

It is in direcdy British Provinces, however, like 
Bengal and that of the Ganges and Jumna valle3rs, 
that the Christians of America and Britain have most 
lamentably tailed in their duty. The Lieutenant- 
Governor of Bengal, Sir Charles Elliot, publicly re- 
joiced that the number of Christians in his jurisdiction 
had advanced from 122,000 to 180,000 in ten years. 
But Bengal has a non-Christian population greater than 



A GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY. I45 

• 

that of the whole United States of America at this hour. 
It is, in plain language, the scandal of British Chris- 
tians, at least, that the rich, fertile, and healthy division 
of the Province, Bahar, whence Buddhism overran the 
East from Ceylon north to Mongolia, and where the 
Hindoos kept the Mohammedan invaders in check, has 
only thirty missionaries, of whom one-half are women, 
for twenty-five millions of souls, including two hundred 
thousand in its fanatical capital, Patna. Judge Wylie's 
urgency is still justified after fifty years, for we have 
more knowledge, more resources, more liberty, and a 
hi larger population to whom the gospel must be 
preached for a witness and for their turning fi-om dark- 
ness to light : 

" The duty of the Church of Christ, indeed, is so 
plain that he who runs may read it. Who hath hindered 
that we should not obey ? Have we love for Christ ? 
That will constrain us. Do we honor Christ? His 
last commands will bind us. Do we desire to promote 
his glory? That will impel us. Do we mourn over 
all who know him not ? Then pity for them will com- 
pel us ; yes, all heavenly affections, all Scriptural con- 
victions, all obligations of duty, will force us to shake 
off the lethargy and selfishness of by-gone years, to 
awakeo all our powers in proclaiming 'the glorious 
gospel of the blessed God,* and to do this ?iow, for 
' now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.' 
Much more would I say for India, but words fail to 
express her woe or to expose the Christian's shame for 
past neglect of her. I fed that it is wise to cease from 
man and to look to Jesus. With his infinite power he 
can sway the hearts of those with whom all entreaties 

fail. He can raise up men of faith and holiness, con- 
ic 



146 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Straining tbem to labor for him, and at last he will give 
victory to truth. The cause of missions is his own pe- 
culiar cause, for he is the friend of sinners. He came 
not only to call them to repentance, but also to give his 
life for them, and he now pleads for them in glory. Oh 
that he would speedily send showers of blessings, give 
us thousands of laborers in this plenteous harvest, and 
cause his gospel to triumph in every place I To him 
be the praise and dominion for ever." 

On the 5th day of January, 1893, the Reformed 
misrionaries in India, assembled in Bombay in the 
third great Decennial Conference, sent this message to 
the churches of Christendom : 

" Overwhelmed by the vastness of the work con- 
trasted with the utterly inadequate supply of workers, 
we earnestly appeal to the Church of Christ in Europe, 
America, Australasia, and Asia, and re-echo to you the 
cry of the unsatisfied heart of India. With it we pass 
on the Master's word for the perishing multitude. Give 
ye ihem to eai. An opportunity and responsibility 
never known before confront us." 

If such is the case even in the British Empire of 
India, what shall we say of the five great regions of the 
world as yet totally unreached by the missionary of 
the cross of love, and peace, and hope ? These are : 
(i) Thibet and High Asia, into which the British 
Power has failed to penetrate ever since Warren Has- 
tings first made the attempt more than a hundred years 
aga (2) Arabia, with which is associated the spread 
of cholera from the foulness of its Mecca shrine and 
the dominating force of Islam. (3) The Soudan 
of Afiica, into which, since Gordon's destruction at 
Khartoum, no missionary has been able to pass to 



A GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY. I47 

enlighten the sixty millions oppressed by their Mussul- 
man masters. (4) Amazonia, the upper middle waters 
of the great Amazon and the tribes who roam its banks. 
(5) Russia in Asia, where the so-called Holy Ortho- 
dox Church of the Czar allows no convert to Christ to 
be made unless by the Greek priest, and into which, as 
into Thibet, Scottish, Moravian and American mission- 
aries have as yet failed to find entrance. 

The conclusion of experts is still that of Dr. Joseph 
Cook : that if we are Christians indeed we must be sat- 
isfied with nothing less than sending out one ordained 
missionary for every fifty thousand of the accessible 
population of the non-Christian world. With these, 
and one minister to one thousand on the home field, 
" the whole world might be brought to a knowledge of 
Christianity within fifty years.'' 

When our Lord selected and sent forth the Twelve, 
first of all, on a mission confined to their own Jewish 
countrymen, he "appointed other Seventy also, and 
sent them two and two before his &ce unto every city 
and place whither he himself would come." Luke 
10: 1. Representatives of the missionaries of the king- 
dom to all peoples in all ages, they returned again with 
joy, sa3ring, " Lord, even the devils are subject unto us 
through thy name." Let all true Christians of the 
yoimger branch of the Indo-European family, who hav- 
ing inherited their faith rejoice in their duty to their 
brethren of mankind, take heart fi'om the Lord's own 
experience while they, like the Seventy, are faithfiiUy 
toiling : " I was beholding Satan as lightning fall from 
heaven. . . . Blessed are the eyes which see the things 
that ye see." 



148 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



THE TRUE AIM OF MISSIONARY WORK. 

BY REV. GEORGE WASHBURN, D. D. 

The question, What is the true aim of missionary 
work? involves two questions which it is better to 
discuss separately : What kind of work ought a mis- 
sionary to do ? and, What ought he to expect to ac- 
complish ? 

At the close of this missionary century it ought to 
be possible to answer these questions without hesitation. 
With the experience of a hundred years to guide us 
we do not need to fall back upon a priori reason- 
ing or the authority of theorists. Answers to these 
questions should be a simple induction from the actual 
experience of the missionaries who have done the work. 

During this century a host of consecrated men 
and women have gone out from all Protestant countries, 
and their Christian instinct has guided them to such a 
service of Christ as their environment has demanded. 
They have often been hindered by the narrow and 
erroneous views of theorizing Mission Secretaries at 
home; they have sometimes been disheartened and 
led to abandon their work by false theories of their 
own; they have often made serious mistakes, and 
have done things which it would have been wise to 
leave undone ; but, on the whole, those who have been 
of a truly Christiike spirit have found their work and 
done it in spite of imperfect theories or of having no 
theory at all. Their love of Christ and sympathy for 



THE TRUE AIM OF MISSIONARY WORK. I49 

those about has inspired them, the Holy Spirit has 
guided them, and God has blessed their labors. 

It is in the experience of these men, and not in any 
speculative views of our own, that we must find the 
true theory of missions and an answer to our questions. 
In this light let us first consider what kind of work a 
missionary ought to do. 

At home, in spite of the multiplication of mission- 
ary biographies, there is still a tendency to associate 
the missionary exclusively with the clergyman, who, 
in our highly organized civilization, where the economic 
principle of division of labor is carried to its extreme 
limit, is essentially a preacher and nothing else ; and, 
curiously enough, a convention of Mission Secretaries 
not long ago practically indorsed this view. 

It is true that preaching is an important branch of 
missionary work, and more important in some fields 
than in others, but I can think of no honest trade or 
profession, and of no form of philanthropic work, which 
has not been undertaken by devoted missionaries ; and 
not simply by missionaries to savages, like Mackay or 
Paton, but by those in semi-civilized cotmtries like 
China and Turkey. 

I have known missionaries who did litde but 
preach. I have heard of one who had a fierce dog to 
keep the natives away from his house because they 
interfered with his preparation for preaching; but it 
would have been much better for them and the work if 
they had remained at home. 

The great majority of our Protestant missionaries 
have been educated as ministers and have gone out 
with the idea that preaching was to be their chief work, 
and most of them have done more or less in that way ; 



I Jo MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

but generally they have done far more in other ways. 
Some have translated the Scriptures, or given them- 
selves to the preparation, printing, and circulating of 
religious and educational literature, all have devoted 
more or less time to personal religious conversation 
and various forms of social intercourse, some have 
done the work of bishops ; but all this would account 
for only a fraction of the whole time of all Protestant 
missionaries, especially when we include the ladies. 
They have probably devoted more time to educational 
work, in one form or another, than to all these others 
combined. 

As a part of their work they have civilized savage 
tribes and awakened the slumbering intelligence of the 
semi-dvilized. They have improved agriculture, de- 
veloped industries, and encouraged commerce. They 
have even aided in the founding of states and directed 
political progress and national development. 

And, while doing all this, they have cared for the 
sick, founded hospitals, and &ced the pestilence. They 
have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the 
prisoner, defended the oppressed, comforted the afflic- 
ted, and lent a hand wherever it was in their power to 
help a fellow-man. 

Such has been the actual work of the best Chris- 
tian missionaries during this century. They have done 
it in the name of Christ, who said to his disciples, 
" Freely ye received, freely give," and have believed 
that they were doing it under the guidance of the 
Holy Spirit. They have not been theorists, and most 
of them left their homes with very little idea of exacdy 
what they were to do on missionary ground. They 
have done this great variety of work — often in spite of 



THE TRUE AIM OF MISSIONARY WORK. 151 

remonstrances from Missionary Boards at home— not 
because they preferred it, or because it was easy work, 
but for the same reason that the good Samaritan cared 
for the Jew who had fallen among thieves : they had 
become the neighbor of these people and loved them. 

Whether the missionaries have done wisely in un- 
dertaking all this work is a separate question. The 
point which I wish to make here is simply this : The 
church has sent out during this century the most godly 
men and women it could find ; it has recognized many 
of them as the most Christian men of the century ; and 
these men have actually done all this work, and are 
doing it to-day. What I claim is that, if we seek an 
answer to the question, What kind of work ought a 
missionary to do ? we find the experience of these men 
an answer which is certainly worth more than any 
speculative theory. 

If we could not see the wisdom of the course 
which they have pursued we should still be bound to 
accept it on the strength of their character and expe- 
rience ; but we may go beyond this, and assert that the 
most astute policy could not have devised a better 
way to make Christ known to the world. 

The kingdom of God is extended only by personal 
influence. Christ himself brought the light into the 
world, and from that day to this it has been passed on 
fi'om hand to hand ; but we are so constituted that we 
can be influenced only by those who have first won 
our sympathy and confidence. That which secures 
our confidence is not preaching, but practice. It is 
personal character as it is acted out in daily life ; and 
that which wins our sympathy is personal love man- 
ifested to us — practical interest in what interests us. 



I $2 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

If I am a Chinaman, and a missionary comes to 
my village to tell me that I am on the road to hell and 
that I can only be saved by accepting his religion, he 
attracts neither my confidence nor my sympathy. He 
is a ''foreign devil :'' and if an American, so much the 
worse. I believe he is a liar — for I am perfecdy satis- 
fied with my religion, as my fathers have been before 
me — and I know that he will be a disturber of the 
peace. He is an enemy, and not a friend. But if he 
has the courage to settle down there ; if I see, after a. 
time, that he leads a purer and more unselfish life than 
I do ; if he does not abuse us and accepts our abuse 
meekly; if he enters into all that concerns the in- 
terest of the village and lends a helping hand where- 
ever it is needed — cares for the sick, teaches us how to 
improve our farms, develop our trade, or better our 
schools — I must be a very hard-hearted man if I do 
not begin to see that he is to be trusted as a friend, and 
if my sympathy for him does not lead me to listen to 
what he thinks to be the greatest of all interests. He 
has taught me by his pure, loving, sympathetic life 
what Christianity really is, as he never could have 
taught it by argument or preaching. He has revealed 
Christ to me. He has, in some sense, become a Christ 
to me. 

We can see this even more plainly by recalling 
what we ourselves demand of every man and woman 
who comes to us professing to be a Christian, especially 
if he be a foreigner. We expect him to be a good neigh- 
bor, to sympathize with us and help us whenever he 
can do so. We expect him to practise the Christian 
virtues in his own family, and to lead a pure, honest 
and unselfish life. We expect him to contend actively 



THE TRUE AIM OF MISSIONARY WORK. 1 53 

against vice, ignorance, and evil of all sorts, and to 
interest himself in everything which interests the town ; 
as we praise our Others for planting the school-house 
beside the church, and consider our hospitals and other 
philanthropic institutions as the specially Christian side 
of our civilization, we expect every Christian man to 
support them, and give time and thought to them. 

These and many other things we demand, as the 
price of our confidence and sympathy, of every man 
who comes to us professing to be a Christian, because 
we believe that they are characteristic of the kingdom 
of God. 

Certainly nothing which is thus recognized as 
essential to the life of a Christian family at home can 
be foreign to the work of a missionary sent out for the 
special purpose of making Christ known to the world. 
His preaching would avail but litde if his life did not 
reveal and illustrate the character of Christ; if he did 
not do as much for the people about him as the ordinary 
Christian is expected to do in a New England village. 

Whether at home or abroad the Christian worker 
must speak as well as act ; but it b the life, the helping 
hand and the informal talk of the missionary, rather 
than his preaching, which opens men's hearts to receive 
the gospel. We know it to be so in our American 
cities, and human nature b the same the world over. 

The wisdom of this course is seen in another very 
important &ct : the missionary is a stranger in a strange 
land. That he does not know the language of the peo- 
ple is the least of his difficulties, for this it is possible to 
learn. Their minds, their habits of thought, their in- 
terests, are as different fi'om his as their language, and 
tar more difficult to learn. The graduate of an Amen- 



154 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

can theological seminary who goes out as a missionary 
to-day to the Mohammedans, for example, goes with his 
mind fully occupied with questions which have grown out 
of the course of religious thought and philosophical 
speculation in Europe and America during the last four 
centuries, which naturally seem to him of vital impor- 
tance ; but he will find that to the Mohammedan they 
are not only without interest but often without meaning. 
He can see no possible relation between them and the 
religious questions which have come down to him 
through forty generations of the followers of the proph- 
et of Mecca. To present Christianity to him in this 
dress of Occidental fashion can neither satisfy his intel- 
lect nor rouse his conscience. 

It is so difficult to divest ourselves of our inherited 
habits of thought that we can never perfectly under- 
stand the ideas, the beliefs, or the notions of an Oriental 
Moslem ; but we must make jconsiderable progress in 
this direction before we can begin to exercise any reli- 
gious influence over him, and this knowledge can never 
be obtained except by personal acquaintance and fiiend- 
ly intercourse. 

It is through the heart rather than the intellect, 
through those affections which are universal, and pecu- 
liar to no race, or religion, or civilization, that we must 
make our first advance. The Moslem must first find 
Christ in the missionary before he can find him in Jesus 
of Nazareth. He must recognize the missionary as a 
fiiend before he will try to comprehend him as a teach- 
er. Whatever work, then, will bring the missionary 
and the Moslem together, make them friends, and thus 
help them to understand each other, is not only a le- 
gitimate but an essential form of missionary work. It 



THE TRUE AIM OF MISSIONARY WORK. 1 55 

may be, at a given time and place, better missionary 
work to import plows than tracts, to help a fisherman 
mend his boat than to repeat to him the catechism, to 
dig a well than to preach a sermon, to found a college 
than to build a church, to study the Koran than to 
read the Bible, if these things open the way to win 
men's confidence and sympathy. 

The wisdom of this course is seen equally in quite 
a different stage of mi&sionary experience : where the 
missionary work has a foothold and is progressing. 
The gospel of Christ is a civilizing power. Along with 
regeneration there is bom into the darkened mind an 
aspiration after a higher life, one more worthy of the 
relation of sonship and that is the spring of worldly 
enterprise. It transforms society, and leads men to 
realize the kingdom of heaven in this world, to improve 
their condition in every way possible ; and the mission- 
ary must keep pace with this movement, and sympa- 
thize with it, or lose its influence altogether. The 
general progress is tlie fi'uit of his own work, and he 
would be false to his Master if he failed to encourage it. 
Most of the higher educational work in missionary 
lands has grown out of this necessity. 

I have no wish to magnify the importance of this 
work unduly. There are other things equally impor- 
tant. This is a great good in itself, and is character- 
istic of the kingdom of God, but no missionary sup- 
poses that mere intellectual development can save the 
soul or redeem the world. These colleges in mission- 
ary lands are first of all Christian colleges, and they 
have assumed their present relative importance simply 
because they have been found to be the most effective 
means of extending the knowledge of Christ 



156 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

They not only meet the wants and satisfy the aspi- 
rations of the people, and thus win their confidence and 
sympathy, but far more than this : they enable the mis- 
sionary to reach the young and hold them for years 
under his immediate influence in the most confidential 
relationship. He can gradually train their minds to 
comprehend truths which those who are old can assim- 
ilate only with the greatest difficulty and oflen not at 
all. He reaches a large class who would never in any 
other way come under his influence, collects the most 
promising congregations to preach to that can be found 
in the world, and holds them under his influence year 
after year, with every opportunity to remove their pre- 
judices, gain their affections, and win them to Christ. 

And, what is even more than this, he raises up 
a class of educated men to fill the places of pastors, 
teachers, and leaders in the new Christian community 
which he has founded ; the men who are to evangelize 
the nation, and save it from the corrupting influence of 
that atheistic form of European civilization which now 
threatens the Eastern world with utter ruin. He may 
labor long years before he finds a Paul or a Luther 
among his students, but until he is found the nation as a 
whole will not be evangelized. The attack made upon 
this form of work thirty-five years ago, although not 
altogether without excuse, was, undoubtedly, a mistake 
which put back the missionary work in the East a 
quarter of a century. 

We may consider our first question as answered : 
TTie true aim of the missionary work is to make Christ 
known to the worlds and nothing is foreign to this work 
which reveals his spirit or is characteristic of his king- 
dom. We may add that nothing is essential to it which 



THE TRUE AIM OF MISSIONARY WORK. 1 5/ 

is peculiar to any sect, nation, or civilization. When 
sectarian propaganda is the chief object, as unhappily 
it sometimes is, it is the devil's mission, and not Christ's. 

Our second question is of equal interest and im- 
portance : Whai should the missionary expect to accom- 
plish f The answer to it will determine whether we 
are to look upon the missionary work of this century 
as a success or a failure. 

There are two extreme views in regard to the 
object of missions which deserve notice. The one con- 
siders the missionary simply as a witness of the truth. 
He cannot hope to convert the world, but he can tes- 
tify of Christ to all nations ; and when he has done thb 
Christ himself will come and establish his kingdom in 
his own way. And in this view it is sometimes said 
that the missionary work might be finished in a few 
years if the Church did its duty. In my wide acquaint- 
ance with missionaries I have never chanced to meet 
one who had any sympathy with this view, and we may 
dismiss it as unworthy of attention. The opposite view, 
that the heathen world generally is to be converted 
to Christ by the direct work of foreign missionaries, 
was once a popular theory, and has still considerable 
influence. It is the theory assumed by those who ridi- 
cule missions and treat the work as a failure; but I 
know of no experienced missionary who holds it, and 
it is really as absurd and unfounded as the other. 

In the first place, it is no more possible to convert 
a nation once for all than it is to educate it once for all. 
The work has to be begun anew with each new gener- 
ation, and the law of all progress in the world is devel- 
opment through conflict. There is no reason to expect 
that this conflict with evil, or the missionary work of 



158 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

the Church, will ever come to an end until the end of 
the world. 

In the next place, it is a manifest impossibility for 
foreigners to evangelize a nation that has an established 
religion and civilization, although savage tribes have 
been thus converted and civilized. Even if it were 
possible, the Christian Church has never yet shown 
any inclination to furnish the men and the money to 
carry out such a plan as this, which, for example, would 
put a missionary family in every village in China. Th« 
Church has never even risen to a full consciousness of 
its responsibility for carrying out a rational theory of 
missions. 

The true and now generally accepted answer to 
the question what a missionary ought to expect to 
accomplish is the golden mean between these two ex- 
tremes. He is not simply a witness-bearer, nor does 
he expect personally to evangelize a nation. His mis- 
sion is based on that theory of Christian work which 
Edward Everett Hale has set forth so graphically in 
his "Ten Times One is Ten." The missionary goes 
out us a messenger of glad tidings, and his first work 
is to find the one man who will receive the message and 
start the progressive series. The missionary goes as a 
messenger and remains as a helper. Devoted men 
have worked, and waited, and prayed for many years 
for even this first convert, and very few missionaries in 
semi-dvilized countries have personally won as many 
souls to Christ as the average pastor of an American 
church. It is not in the nature of things that he should. 
The conversion of the nation is the work of the people 
themselves, not of a foreigner ; for the new faith must 
be assimilated^ and brought into relation with the char- 



THE TRUE AIM OF MISSIONARY WORK. 1 59 

acter, civilization, and habits of thought of the nation, 
before it can exert a general controlling influence over 
the people. 

The end J therefore^ which the missionary may hope 
to attain is the establishment of a livings native Chris- 
tian churchy strong enough to stand by itself and evan" 
gelize the noMon^ 

This I suppose to be the true and generally ac- 
cepted theory of Foreign Missions among Protestants. 

But the experience of a hundred years has shown 
that this is not so simple or expeditious a work as the- 
orists once imagined, or as most missionaries have anti- 
cipated when they entered upon it 

It would seem at first thought to be an ideal plan 
for the missionary, when he has gathered a church in any 
place, to leave it and go on to rcfgions beyond, trusting 
to letters and occasional visits to keep up for a time 
his connection with it. This was the plan of the apostle 
Paul. What better example could we follow ? 

But the circumstances and the responsibilities of 
the apostles were very different from those of the 
modern inissionary, and this plan has generally com- 
mended itself to the experience of the present century. 

The apostles were few in number. Their time 
was short and their mission was a special one — to bear 
witness of what they had seen, and heard, and known ; 
nor was it exactly a foreign mission in which they 
were engaged. Their work was confined to the 
Roman Empire, and they went first of all to their 
own people, to the Jews scattered abroad, to tell them 
that their promised Messiah had come and established 
his kingdom. Through them they made known the 
glad tidings to the Gentiles. 



l6o MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

The modern missionary goes as a stranger to a 
strange land, generally to people altogether unprepared 
to receive his message, to persuade them to accept a 
&ith already more than eighteen centuries old. 

This is in many ways a much more difficult and 
complicated work, and necessarily demands very dif- 
ferent methods. It is the same gospel which is 
preached, and it may speak to the individual soul as 
simply and directly as it did when it was first proclaimed, 
but Christianity has had a history from which it cannot 
possibly be divorced, and to make Christ known to- 
day is not simply to tell the story of his short life in 
Judea and Galilee, but of his work in the world for 
eighteen centuries. 

We cannot found a Christian church without bring- 
ing it into relation with the historical, the actual church 
as it exists in the world to-day, and there is no reason 
why we should desire to do sa These eighteen cen- 
turies of discipline are as much a part of the mission of 
Christ as his thirty -three years of earthly life, and a 
missionary church has as much right to this part of his 
work as the other. 

Nor is it possible to conceal fi'om a mission church 
for any length of time the thought and spirit of the 
age in which we live. Whether for good or evil it 
finds its way everywhere, and especially to those 
whose minds have been awakened by the reception of 
new truth and who have broken away fi'om their tradi- 
tional iaith. 

To win a single soul to the knowledge of Christ is 
no easy task, but it b a very simple thing in com- 
parison with the work of organizing a church of new 
converts to Christianity — of giving it a trained ministry 



THE TRUE AIM OF MISSIONARY WORK. l6l 

capable of defendinf^ and guiding it — of making it self- 
reliant and independent 

This is a work which requires endless patience, tact, 
and grace, and it is rendered more difficult by the fact 
that it can seldom, if ever, by completed by the men 
who have first won the love and confidence of the 
people, and to whom they look up as their spiritual 
fathers. The old, tried, trusted and experienced friend, 
from whom they are ready to accept anything, passes 
away, and the young missionary who comes in his place 
knows nothing of the people but has everything to 
learn, and he often forgets that he has come simply as 
a helper of the nadve church and not as a master. He 
is often inclined to rule the church rather than recognize 
and develop its independence. 

It must be confessed that there has been a general 
tendency of this kind in Protestant missions. The prin- 
ciple of independence has been recognized, but in 
practice it has not been attained. Protestant mission- 
aries, and more especially Mission Boards, have aknost 
all failed to treat their converts on terms of equality. 
They have not doubted their piety, but they have dis- 
trusted their judgment and good sense, especially in 
the use of money, and they have at least partially failed 
to train up a strong, independent native ministry to 
whom they could commit the responsibility of manag- 
ing their own affairs. There are great missions, upon 
which millions have been expended, in serious danger 
of breaking down for lack of such a ministry. 

The Roman Catholics in their missions, following 
an earlier precedent, have taken the opposite course. 
It is their first thought to make their missions self- 
supporting and self-governing. They not only train up 
II 



l62 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

native Christians for work of all kinds, and from the 
outset gather children to orphanages who may be 
utilized in the work as they grow up, but they put 
them in places of authority. They not only make their 
trained young men priests, but bishops and patriarchs, 
and they put upon them the responsibility of managing 
their own affairs, subject only to the direction of the 
Propaganda at Rome. 

We cannot exactly imitate the Catholics, because 
we have no universal church organization and no Pope 
to whom the missionary and converts are equally sub- 
ject — although Mission Boards are sometimes inclined 
to assume his in&llibility ; but if we really have faith 
in our own principles of church organization we are 
bound to trust the native churches to apply them for 
themselves in their own way, and not insist upon keep- 
ing them in leading-strings. 

It does not come within my province to discuss 
this question at length, but as the establishment of an 
active, independent, native church is the ultimate aim 
of the missionary work, as a great part of the time of 
the missionary is actually given to the work of educa- 
tion, organization, and superintendence designed to 
accomplish this purpose, it was impossible for me to 
pass over in silence what I conceive to be the chief 
weakness in Protestant missions ; vis.^ the fact that at 
the dose of this missionary century the relations of 
the missionary and the native churches are still unset- 
ded and unsatisfactory to both parties. 

There is no lack of desire on the part of the mis- 
sionaries to solve this question. It is no selfish love of 
domination on their part which makes it difficult. It 
is no lack of gratitude, no vain self-confidence on the 



THE TRUE AIM OF MISSIONARY WORK. 163 

part of the native churches, which makes them dissat- 
isfied. There is no lack of love on either side, and no 
real difference of opinion as to the end to be attained. 
Sectarian prejudices and habits of thought inherited 
from different races and civilizations may have some- 
thing to do with it, but it is largely a question of time 
and of manner or means. 

Some missions have come much nearer to a solu- 
tion of it than others, and we may hope that, when the 
churches at home and the Mission Boards come to a 
clearer conception of this as the great object which 
they have in view, they will better appreciate the ne- 
cessity of thorough instruction for native ministers, the 
wisdom of pushing them to the fi-ont as the true lead- 
ers of the people, the fallacy of muldpl3ring missions 
and missionaries all over the world so that there is no 
money left to help the native churches, and in general 
the necessity of trusting the churches which they have 
founded to manage their own afiairs. 

With such a disposition at home I believe that 
the missionaries, who are far in advance of the Boards 
in this matter, and the native churches would speedily 
find the means to hasten a solution of this question 
whenever the work has made substantial progress. 

With these explanations we may return now to 
our original question : What is the true aim of the 
missionary work f Although at the outset we divided 
this into two, for a clearer understanding of the subject, 
the answer is really but one. The organization and 
education of an independent native church is not a 
separate aim, but simply the divinely ordained means 
of extending and perpetuating the knowledge and 
work of Christ in the world. 



164 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

The answer to our question has already been 
given: 

The true aim of the missionary work is to make 

Christ known to the world. Nothing is foreign to this 

work which reveals his spirit or is characteristic of 

his kingdom^ and nothing is essential to it which is 

peculiar to any sect, any race, or any civilization. 

This view of the missionary work, which we have 
gathered from the consecrated experience of the cen- 
tury, should commend itself all the more to our confi- 
dence because it brings this work into unity and 
harmony with all true Christian work everywhere. 

To know Christ ourselves, to live his life and to 
make him known to others, is the sum of Christian 
duty — ^the means by which his kingdom is to triumph 
in the world 



THE JEWS AND THE GOSPEL. 165 



THE JEWS AND THE GOSPEL. 

BY PROF. H. M. SCOTT. 

The so-called Jewish question is as old as the 
determinate counsel and foreordination of God. Very 
early in human history it made its appearance. Abram 
the Hebrew led to dissention and wars in Canaan. 
Israel in Egypt prepared more than one knotty prob- 
lem for the Pharaohs. Under Assyria and Babylon, 
Persia and Macedonia, Syria and Rome, as well as 
in our day in Russia and Germany, the Anti-Semitic 
movement made itself felt This strange people with- 
out a country; this nation without a king; this gulf 
stream in the ocean of humanity, moving so often at 
variance with the surrounding waters, and always 
apart from them, has aroused opposition and inquiry 
in every age. And all too often the inquiry has been 
undertaken in a spirit of resentment and bitterness. 
The remark of Disraeli is partially true, that while the 
people of South Europe worship a Jewess, the Blessed 
Virgin, and the people of North Europe adore a Jew, 
even Jesus Christ, they all, both Catholics and Protest- 
ants, when their devotions are ended make common 
cause in the persecution of the first living Jew they 
meet This prejudice and bitterness are not, of course, 
confined to the Christian. The men of Israel return 
scorn for scorn and hate for hate. 

It is sad that such things have been, and appar- 
ently must be. This undying opposition and estrange- 
ment rest upon some deep, far-reaching principle of 









1 66 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

action. This lack of harmony, which has made discor- 
dant all the centuries, seems to lie in the direction of 
necessary divergence. It seems to illustrate in some 
sense the words of Jesus to his Jewish hearers, that he 
came not to send peace but a sword ; not to make 
every family a place of unbroken quiet, but " to set a 
man at variance against his father, and the daughter 
against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against 
her mother-in-law." Matt lo : 35. Law and gospel, 
synagogue and church, are so different, were so differ- 
ent in the time of Christ, that the friend of one cannot 
give his hearty cooperation and love to the other. 

My thoughts upon the Jews and their relation to 
the gospel run in some such direction as this : 
• I. The Jews have not the gospel. 

II. The Jews need the gospel, just as all men 
need it 

III. When the Jews accept the gospel most glo- 
rious things will happen for both Israel and the church. 

IV. Hence it is one of the first duties of all Chris- 
tians to work and pray in the most loving and earnest 
way for the conversion of the Jews to their Messiah, 
Jesus Christ the Lord. 

I. 

I would emphasize first of all the important fact 
that the Jews have not the gospel. To assert the 
contrary would be to upset the teaching of the New 
Testament and stultify all Christian history. Jesus 
said that Israel had not the gospel. He sent his disci- 
ples to the " lost sheep of the house of Israel" He 
told them to preach the gospel to every creature, Jew 
and Gentile, and to begin at Jerusalem. He said it 



w » • 



THE JEWS AND THE GOSPEL. 167 

would be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, for 
Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than 
for the chief cities of the Jews* He is said to have 
wept twice during his ministry: once over Lazarus 
dead in his grave, again over Jerusalem lying dead in 
her sins. The Greek word translated "wept" over 
Lazarus means the tears flowed quietly ; but the word 
referring to Jerusalem means that Jesus burst out cry- 
ing. Bodily death was as nothing compared with that 
of the soul. The text from the prophets which the 
Lord quoted oftenest, which came most naturally to 
mind, was that about Israel that had eyes but did not 
see, and ears but did not hear, and a heart but did not 
perceive, that would not be converted and saved. 

Paul taught the same things. He did not think 
that the Jews had the gospel. He declared to them 
that by the deeds of their law no flesh living could be 
justified before God. If they trusted in their system of 
law they had fallen from the saving system of grace. 
A rabbi of this city said not long ago that he did not 
want anybody to save him ; he would save himself. He 
would lead a virtuous life, do what was right, and enter 
heaven as the reward of his good deeds. Paul wrote 
two whole epistles, to the Romans and to the Galatians, 
to show that such a Jewish scheme of salvation is im- 
possible. He shows that all men, both Jews and Greeks, 
are " locked up " by the law under sin, and can be de- 
livered only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ The 
New Testament declares : " There is none other name 
under heaven given among men whereby we must be 
saved." Peter made that solemn statement to a con- 
gregation of Jews, nay, to the very rulers of the people, 
the chief rabbis and elders of Israel. " He that bdieveth 



1 68 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

not the Son shall not see life." John 3 : 36. Israel as 
a people and the Jews as a denomination still reject the 
Son, deny his Messiahship, and have no faith in him. 
Hence Paul's heart's desire and prayer to God for the 
Jews was ''that they might be saved." He did not 
dream that they had the gospel. He rather lamented 
the blindness of heart and the unbelief which had taken 
possession of Israel. He declared the gospel was " the 
power of God unto salvation ... to the Jew first" 
Rom. 1 : 16. 

It is plain, then, that the New Testament makes 
vital union to Jesus Christ the Messiah necessary to the 
gospel of salvation. It is also very plain that the Jews, 
both Orthodox and Reformed, reject Jesus as Messiah. 
The Reformed have given up all belief in any Messiah. 
They do not look for a Messianic kingdom. Their 
millennium is only a dream of a time when liberty, 
equality and fraternity of some sort shall cover the 
earth. The Orthodox Jews still hope for the Messiah 
and his kingdom, but never make faith in him a condi- 
tion of salvation. He will come to reward the &ithful 
Jews who have already saved themselves by their alms 
and other good works. 

Judaism regards Jesus as a &lse Messiah and Chris- 
tianity as a spurious religion. This outgrowth of the 
Old Testament teachings, this wondrous fulfilment of 
the law and the prophets, is considered a mere exotic, 
a wild vine, a false development of Messianic hopes. 
But here is a strange thing : Christianity certainly in a 
marvellous way realizes the wide hopes of the Jewish 
prophets. It is carrying the knowledge of the God of 
Abraham to the ends of the earth. In it, if anywhere, 
the promise to Abraham, ** in thee shall all families of 



THE JEWS AND THE GOSPEL. 169 

the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12:3), is being fulfilled. 
And if Christianity be not the intended, foretold fulfill- 
ment of Old Testament propheqr, it is the most mon- 
strous caricature and perversion of the hopes of Israel. 
Surely such an awfiil perversion of the teachings of the 
prophets would be foretold also. We are warned 
against Tyre and Sidon, Edom and Moab, Egypt and 
Babylon ; but if Christianity be a bastard product of 
Judaism, as the rabbis assert, it is certainly the most 
terrible danger in the path of Israel. And yet no 
prophet, no seer, no holy man of old uttered a word of 
warning about a sect that should arise preaching the 
Son of a virgin, declaring salvation by crucifixion and 
resurrection, and carrying its teachings over land and 
sea to the ends of the earth. Strange that all the pro- 
phetic warnings lie along the line of Judaism and all 
the prophetic benedictions move in the pathway trod- 
den by the messengers of the gospel. 

But not only in the light of the New Testament, 
but also in the light of history, do the Jews appear 
without a gospel. We hear many a rabbi in these lat- 
ter days speak about the Fatherhood of God and the 
Brotherhood of Man. But that is not the teaching of 
Judaism. That comes fi-om the song of the angels at 
the birth of Jesus ; that comes from the Sermon on the 
Mount. Even the Old Testament never rose to the 
height of love to God and love to man as the sum of 
religious life. In it we find " Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself" in one place, and " Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God " in another. But the neighbor referred 
to was the neighbor Jew, not the neighbor man ; and 
love to man was not joined in vital, organic relation to 
love to God, as was done by Jesus, making the human 



170 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

affection the test and measure of the divine. So &r 
were the most godly Jews in the time of Christ from the 
Christian conception of divine Fatherhood and human 
Brotherhood, that the attempt to carry out such teach- 
ings tore the Jewish Christians themselves apart. The 
first great struggle in the Church was to maintain the 
Brotherhood of Man. It was the gospel that first 
brought Jews and Gentiles together at a common meal, 
in loving, social, religious relations. At the table of the 
Lord the middle wall of partition was broken down. 
The Jews talk much about liberty and brotherhood ; 
but they are still a people of caste, exclusive, narrow, 
apart firom the Brotherhood taught by the gospel. 

When Paul went out to preach he found the three 
open sores of the pagan world to be, (i) national ha- 
tred, (2) slavery, and (3) the degradation of woman. 
But he declared that those who had " put on Christ ** 
had entered into a new brotherhood, in which " there is 
(i) neither Jew nor Greek, (2) there is neither bond 
nor fi'ee, (3) there is neither male nor female " (Gal. 
3 : 28). That was the new Humanity which he pre- 
sented. But so far has traditional Judaism been fi-om 
showing such a gospel that we find, among the first 
benedictions in the Jewish Prayer Book of our day, a 
threefold thanksgiving: ''I thank thee, O Lord, that 
thou hast made me a Jew, not a Gentile ; that thou hast . 
made me a free man, not a slave ; and that I am a man, 
and not a woman." 

The Jew is still narrow, intolerant, a man of caste 
and tradition. A distinguished rabbi at one of these 
Congresses admitted that the Reform Jews were essen- 
tially the same as the Christian Unitarians : he admitted 
further that he could give no good reason why they 



THE JEWS AND THE GOSPEL. I71 

might not unite to form one church. The reason is 
that the Jew has not yet grasped the gospel conception 
of human brotherhood. He will not marry one who is 
not a Jew. He will not believe that a Jew can become 
a Christian from genuine, intelligent conviction. He 
will treat in a more brotherly way a Jew who is an infi- 
del, or worshipper of the golden calf, than he will the 
most godly and self-sacrificing Jewish Christian. Until 
we see a Jewish employer grant religious liberty to his 
Jewish employes, and not discharge them from his ser- 
vice because they accept the gospel of Jesus Christ, we 
can find historic grounds for believing the teachings 
of Christ and the aposUes, that Israel is without the 
gospel. 

II. 

What we have already said makes evident the 
further consideration, that the Jews need the gospel. 
They need it just because all men need it Christianity 
alone o&rs redemption from the record oi sin, the pow- 
er of sin, and the love of sin. In our " Parliament of 
Religions " no text has been quoted so often as that 
saying of Paul : " Nevertheless he left not himself with- 
out a witness, in that he did good and gave us rain 
from heaven and fruitfiil seasons." That is the only 
witness of God which appeared in heathenism, " rain " 
and '' food," the voice of God in nature : natural theol- 
ogy is all that Paul says the heathen had. But rain 
and com do not bear witness to the way of salvation. 
Rain and food are no prophets preaching life amid the 
famine of the souL It has been said that the teachings 
of the Old Testament may be summed up in the three 
great doctrines of a holy God, sinfiil man, and a fiiture 



172 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

of hope — a promised Messiah. Judaism itself was saved 
by hope ; it looked and longed for a redeemer to come. 
Hence Paganism has been called the " seeking religion," 
and Judaism the '^ hoping religion." What the one 
sought after, and what the other hoped for, was the ideal 
man, the teacher sent from God , the Messiah who be- 
came the Son of man that he might make his followers 
sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. But hope 
cannot save men. The hope of the Messiah was but as 
the hope of the hungry man for food. Judaism and all 
its teachings involved the Messiah. The Jew without 
his Son of David, his Immanuel, his Redeemer, is as 
Noah without his ark, or Moses without his rod, or the 
priest without his altar and sacrifice. 

This need of the gospel is seen in the stationary, 
sphinx-like condition of Judaism. It makes no prog- 
ress. It marks time amid the hunying feet of the na- 
tions about it. For a few years, in New Testament 
times, when the Messianic hope burned brightly, the 
Pharisees were zealous in religious work. They com-, 
passed sea and land to make proselytes. But soon new 
bands of Jewish missionaries appeared. Saul, Barnabas, 
Silas, Peter, Mark, went forth preaching a wider Juda- 
ism, declaring a new conception of the Fatherhood of 
God, and illustrating a most radical theory of the broth- 
erhood of man. The Pharisees taught the Pleasures of 
Hope ; the Nazarenes taught the Pleasures of Memory. 
The men of the Synagogue preached a Messiah to 
come ; the followers of Jesus preached a Messiah who 
had come, who had brought redemption, and who was 
a light to lighten the Gentiles as well as the glory of his 
people Israel. This preaching of fact, of a present sal- 
vation, soon eclipsed that of hope and a far-off future. 



THE JEWS AND THE GOSPEL. 1 73 

The Jews withdrew from the race. They ceased to 
compete with the men of the gospel. A freezing, con- 
servative, legal reaction swept over Israel. The day on 
which the Old Testament was translated into Greek 
was compared to the day of the golden calf. The Jews 
became men of tradition more than ever ; they crept 
into the fortress of the Talmud ; they spun a cocoon of 
seclusion about themselves, and opened their lips only 
to ask to be let alone. They are about as numerous 
now as they were in the time of David or of Christ. 
They have made no growth, because they had nothing 
to offer humanity about them. A learned rabbi said at 
one of these Congresses that the mission of the Jew was 
twofold, that of separation and protest. But that is no 
mission. Separation for what ? Protest against what ? 
The Jew has separated and protested after his fashion 
for 1,800 years; but such a mission has taught the 
Gentiles nothing which they had not in their Bible 
already ; it has gained no followers to the Lord or his 
Christ. It is true the Jew has suffered : but what has 
he suffered for? What gospel have his sufferings 
preached in the light of martyr fires ? What churches 
has the blood of his sufferings caused to spring up? 
Pagan Rome persecuted the Christians ; then Christian 
Rome persecuted the Jews. What was the difference 
in the results ? The suffering Christians had a gospel 
of life, of hope, of redemption, of appeal to all sorts and 
conditions of men. When they died they declared to 
their persecutors that they died that others might live, 
and that the gospel through their sufferings might reach 
all men. The result was that, two centuries after the 
Apostolic Church, Csesar submitted to Christ, and Rome 
became Christian. The early church, with her heavenly 



174 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

mission for all men in mind, like the sea-bird faced the 
storm of persecution, and spreading her wings of faith 
and hope was carried, by the very violence of the op- 
posing gale, upward to the calm heights of victory and 
{>eace. But the Jew through all his long persecution 
simply bowed his head in dumb resignation. He had 
no reason to give for his sufferings. He had no gospel 
that could convert his tormentors into friends. He 
complained of cruelty and oppression and greed, but 
had no message for the oppressors and wrong-doers. 
He walked through all the Siges as he walked on the 
way from Jerusalem to Jericho. The wounded man lay 
wallowing in his blood, while the priest and the Levite 
passed by on the other side. 

Here was a strange inconsistency, which not only 
prevented the Jew from impressing humanity with any 
sense of his mission, but which actually awakened bit- 
ter resentment The Jews claimed to have the only 
true religion, the only revelation of God, the only sure 
hope of heaven. Yet the only word they had for man- 
kind was the plaintive request to be let alone. They 
had the bread of life in abundance ; their only petition 
was to be allowed to keep it and eat it in peace. They 
had the balm of Gilead, which could heal the nations ; 
all they wished was to store it up unmolested. They 
are teachers who wish no disciples; physicians who 
desire no patients ; men of the ideal life, who make it a 
rule of life to have nothing to do with the awful realities 
of moral evil all about them. So far as the religious 
needs of the Gentiles are concerned their creed is the 
creed of Cain : Am I my brother's keeper 7 

That the Jews need the gospel can be seen further 
in the fiict that they have given up so much of their 



THE JEWS AND THE GOSPEL. 1 75 

foimer teachings and have adopted so many of the 
fruits of Christianity. The whole sacrificial system and 
priesthood has fallen. The ceremonial law is observed 
only in a fragmentary and arbitrary way. The Sab- 
bath is not kept with the ancient care. The Bible is 
litde regarded by many. On the other hand, many of 
the results of Christian teachings have passed into Jew- 
ish life. The Jew has no slaves now. He marries only 
one wife. His philosophy, his art, his domestic system, 
his science, his literature, are all those of the Christian 
civilization round about him. Since the days of Moses 
Mendelssohn, German Jews are more like German 
Christians in their general culture and ideals than they 
are like Polish and Russian Jews. Especially the Re- 
form Jews seek to pluck the fruits of Christianity while 
rejecting the tree on which they grow. They speak 
noble words about Jesus. They quote the Sermon on 
the Mount They come in theory almost to the ground 
of Unitarian Christianity. But they cannot accept a 
Messiah, much less Jesus as the Messiah. Hence they 
stand much as did the Neoplatonists, who, under the 
name of Plato and other sages, borrowed the teachings 
of Christ, till finally the delusion ended in faith in 
Jesus as the power of God and the wisdom of God. 

Reformed Judaism is now litde more than ethical 
culture. Already its leading rabbis are complaining 
of lack of interest in religion, neglect of Bible study, 
and demoralization of Judaism. It is at the tiuning- 
place of more or less. 

III. 

But it is time to notice briefly our belief that great 
blessings will flow to both Jews and Christians when 



176 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Israel accepts Jesus as the Messiah. The men oi the 
synagogue are standing waiting for something. Like 
the sphinx of Egypt, they gaze out upon a desert as 
their domain ; while Christianity, like the Nile, with fer- 
tilizing stream has flowed on through the nations. Since 
the Old Testament canon was dosed and the New Tes- 
tament was written Jews have added nothing to the 
religious thought of the world. Israel never had any- 
thing to give humanity but religion — but the glorious 
hope of the nations realized in the Messiah. In art, in 
science, in legislation, in philosophy, the Jew, since the 
days of Jesus, has taught us nothing. Solomon went 
to Tyre for men to build the first temple. Herod sent 
to Greece for teachers to build the last temple. The 
one gift of Judea to mankind was Jesus Christ; and all 
the hope and glory of Judaism have been and will be 
associated with him. 

Without going into disputed details we may hold 
(^i) that all Israel will be saved. The Messianic hope, 
Uiough rejected by many Jews and ignored by many 
more, has not been a wild fancy, a stupendous bltmder, 
cheering Israel on for thousands of years to leave them 
at last in the valley of dry bones without the vision of 
a resurrection. The Jews will turn to the Lord and his 
Christ. They will mourn over their blindness of heart 
and rejection of their Messiah. They will come forth in 
latter-day glory, again dear, for their own sakes, to the 
Lord as they are now for the fathers' sakes. 

(2) The conversion of Israel will be closely con- 
nected with the conversion of all men. The blindness 
in part is happened to the Jews until the fiilness of 
the Gentiles is ready to come in. The Jew and the 
Greek are closely connected in the plan of God. The 



THE JEWS AND THE GOSPEL. . 177 

salvation of the Gentiles is finally to provoke Israel to 
jealousy for like salvation. The last work of foreign 
missions is vitally connected with the last work of Jew- 
ish missions. 

(3) It looks as if the scattered sons of Israel may 
form the great missionary army of the last times. They 
are everywhere. They speak all the tongues of earth. 
They need only the outpouring of the spirit of Pente- 
cost to declare unto all men in their own speech the 
wonderful works of God through Jesus Christ. The 
wealth of the nations, also, is largely in Jewish hands. 
Who knows but in the day of the Lord's visitation such 
men as Baron Hirsch, the Rothschilds, and other 
wealtliy Israelites, may be the treasurers of the glorified 
Jewish Church, which shall conquer the world for 
Christ? 

IV. 

Our duty towards Israel is plain. We must, first 
of all, love this estranged people of Jehovah — love 
them out of darkness into light, out of seclusion into 
activity, out of negation and protest into positive life for 
God and humanity. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Paul 
could wish himself accursed, if thereby blessing could 
come to his brethren according to the flesh. Love is 
the only weapon which we have not turned against the 
Jew, and it is the only one against which he has no de- 
fence. Lessing's story about the three rings covers a 
great truth. There are not three true religions, but 
one, and that one will prove itself by the wisest as well 
as by the deepest affection for mankind. 

Further, we must respect the national, historical 
position of the Jew. He has not stood apart so many 



I7& MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

centuries for nothing. God in history makes no such 
mistakes. It is not the fate of Israel to be gradually 
absorbed into the Christian Church. The Jews, as 
Christian Jews, as a Jewish-Christian Church, will have 
a second Pentecost, a second birthday of the Church of 
Christ, and will again receive a commission like that of 
old : " Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost." Matt 28 : 19. 

But our first duty is to give the Jew the gospel. 
Of course he resents such an offer. He is not a hea- 
then. The offence of the cross has not ceased, and the 
gospel is still to Israel a stumbling-block. Judaism 
can no more answer now than in the time of the apos- 
tles the cry, What must I do to be saved ? The rabbis, 
having no remedy for sin, explain it away. Hence the 
heart of the Jew hungers for the bread of life which 
Jesus brought to men. As many as 100,000 Jews have 
accepted Christ during this century. These with their 
descendants make about 250,000 Jewish Christians in 
the world. That is a larger proportion of converts than 
have been gathered from heathenism in the same time. 
Such results show that the gospel can still reach the 
Jew. As many Israelites have accepted Jesus in our 
own century as accepted him in the first century, when 
the Lord and his apostles besought the men of Israel to 
be saved. We should, therefore, be of good courage, 
knowing that in the end we shall reap a harvest as glo- 
rious as all the promises of God, if we faint not 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. 1 79 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. 

BY BISHOP WILLIAM R. NICHOLSON, D. D. 

The Jew! Magic name! An astonishment, a 
proverb, a byword among all nations, a hissing, an 
execration, a curse, and a reproach, Deut 28 : 37 ; 
Jer. 25 : 9 ; 42 : 18 ; nevertheless a name of joy, a praise, 
and an honor before all the nations, a crown of glory in 
the hand of the Lord, graven of God upon the palms 
of his hands. Jer. 33 : 9 ; Isa. 62 : 3 ; 49 : 16. Like the 
bush of Moses : through thousands of years ever bum- 
iiig> yet to this day never burned. Like Aladdin's 
lamp : rub it, and at once appears the most sumptuous 
intellectual feast of ancient things; rub it again, and 
grandest scenes yet to be enacted are dazzling the eye. 
We sometimes speak of men of destiny, as Napoleon 
Bonaparte, but there are no men of destiny like the Jew. 
*^ If Mordecai, before whom thou hast begun to iall, be 
of the seed of the Jews, thou shalt not prevail against 
him, but shalt suerly fall before him." Esth. 6 : 13. 
And as it was in the days of Ahasuerus, so it b to be 
in the days impending. The complex marvel of the 
Jew's history is proof of his predetermined irresisti- 
ble greatness. Himself a living synonym of the dim 
distant past and the long interval thence till now, 
he is withal the harbinger and earnest of a mightier 
future. 

The wonderiiilness of the Jew, the man of destiny — 
this is our thought. Let us get at the facts. 



l8o MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

And, first, the very presence of the Jew in this last 
decade of the nineteenth Christian century. Three thou- 
sand five hundred years agone they were a people ; as 
definitely apart fi-om all other peoples as were the ** lean " 
catde in Pharaoh's dream from those that were "fat- 
fleshed." The Persians go not so far back, nor, relia- 
bly, even the Chinese, much less any of the nations now 
so powerfiil in Christendom. The American, nay, the 
Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, the Russian, 
all are mere boys alongside this venerable greyhead. 
They were in contact with the Pharaohs of Egypt, had 
many a tilt with Nebuchadnezzar, were already old 
when Greece and Rome were founded, were at the 
height of their prosperity as a State when Homer was 
singing the wrath of Achilles, had even entered on their 
national decline when the &bled wolf suckled Romulus. 
In so long a stretch of ages countless peoples have ap- 
peared and disappeared ; in fact, not one of an antiquity 
so venerable, save only the sons of Ishmad, has ever 
survived that crushing weight of years ; and Ishmael's 
desert-rangers, cousins, we might say, of the Jews, are 
to-day as they were thousands of years ago by reason 
of the repellent geography of their country. But here 
is the Jew, now more than 3,000 years old, yet still in all 
his ancient Jewish explidtness ; meanwhile dwelling in 
every part of the world, but without any place exclusive- 
ly his own. That one racial face, the exuberant national 
self-consciousness, the peculiar customs and observan- 
ces, are as emergent and as signal as when " the stars 
in their courses fought against Sisera'' and Deborah 
and the son of Abinoam sang their anthem of triumph. 
Were there nothing eke, this racial everlastingness, this 
change-defying national indelibleness, must point out 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. iSt 

the Jew as being, like Saul, "from his shoulders and 
upwards " higher than any others. 

Secondly, the wonder grows ; for while they have 
been imperishable as a people at the same time they 
have perished as a State ; immortal as a race, but dead 
as a body politic ; organic in thought and feeling, but 
having no country for organization. They are an in- 
terminable chain of corporate life, but the chain would 
seem to hang in the air upon nothing. 

Unique has been their past For a litde more than 
700 years they were an independent State: but from 
the fall of their independence, on and on through all the 
succeeding centuries till the year 70 of the Christian era, 
excepting the brief but brilliant episode of the Asmo- 
nean dynasty, they were a conquered people, subjected 
to foreign rule in their own land. Then came their 
universal expatriation, the whole of them being driven 
out of their country, uprooted from their land, shattered, 
and scattered throughout the world. And now for 1800 
years they have felt none of the cementing charms of 
country, nor the brotherhood of civil government. So 
that not for as much as a quarter of their 3,500 years as 
a people have they been a free and prosperous State, 
while for the latter half of all those years they have 
been without a government and without a country, 
their residence everywhere, their home nowhere. Yet 
they live as a people, they are Jews for ever ; the seeds 
of a body politic are preserved in their blood. Other 
peoples when dispersed abroad are absorbed like rain- 
drops in the ocean ; but the Jew floats hither and thith- 
er, in all waters, to every shore, like timber from a 
shipwreck — never dissolving, always preserving its 
identity. This is phenomenal in human af&irs. 



1 82 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Thirdly, stiB the wonder grows ; for thus have they 
so exceptionally persisted as a people throughout the 
ages in defiance of sufferings the half of which no 
other people has ever endured. Their enemies have 
been " swifter than the eagles of the heaven/' evil has 
beset them '' as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret 
places." 

Jerusalem, their beautiful city, centre of their pol- 
ity, "joy of the whole earth," was twenty times be- 
^sieged in two thousand years, and again and again 
reduced by fire. Under Antiochus Epiphanes 40,000 
of its inhabitants were put to death in three days' time, 
and 40,000 more sold into slavery. He sacrificed a sow 
on the altar of burnt-offerings, pillaged the treasury of 
the temple, and collected a booty amounting to 1,800 
talents, or near 3,000,000 dollars. And again he caused 
the streets to run with blood; women were seized as 
captives, mothers were hung with their children round 
their necks, the city was dismanded, the walls were 
thrown down, the temple dedicated to Jupiter and his 
statue erected on the altar. At the siege by Titus the 
people raked the very dungheaps for food, mothers ate 
their own children, more than 100,000 died of hunger, 
the city stank like a charnel house. The starved 
wretches, stealing down the ravines by night to pick up 
whatever garbage for food, were captured by the Ro- 
mans, and repeatedly in the morning as many as 500 
of them were seen writhing on crosses before the walls ; 
and " this went on," we are told, " till room was want- 
ing for the crosses and crosses for the bodies." Amid 
** the bowlings of the insurgents " and " the shrieks of 
the people," and the roaring flames of the burning tem- 
ple, " the summit of the sacred hill blazing like a vol* 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. 1 83 

cano/' the city fell. 1,100,000 had been slain by the 
Romans and 97,000 taken prisoners ; and ** the value of 
the plunder obtained was so great that gold fell in Syria 
to half its former value." Alas ! ** Jerusalem," as Mil- 
man says, " has witnessed perhaps a greater portion of 
human misery than any other spot under the sun." 
By Vespasian and Titus near a million and a half of 
Jews were slain and over 100,000 reduced to cruelest 
slavery. Subsequently, under Hadrian, 580,000 were 
slain, the city was razed^ and " for 200 years every Jew 
was forbidden on pain of death, except on a single day 
in each year, to come within sight of it" 

And now demolished as a body polidc, no longer 
an organized power, Jiorribly cut down in number, 
festering with the memory of their appalling subversion, 
homeless, friendless, forlorn, the endre* people, by 
squads, and in various directions, began those world- 
wide wanderings that as yet have not ended. And as 
they began so have they continued ; for all along the 
way what calamities 1 Constantine outiawed them, cut 
off their ears, and dispersed them as vagabonds. Jus- 
tinian excluded them from the provisions of his Civil 
Code, abolished their S3magogues, made them incapable 
of bearing testimony, and deprived them of the right of 
bequeathing property. The earliest legislation in 
France was an ordinance against them. Even Magna 
Charta legalized an act of injustice against them. In 
the German States they were reckoned the slaves of 
the emperor, and were enormously taxed and plundered. 
In most countries they were prohibited from owning 
land, and were excluded from universities and schools. 
Seven times they were expelled from France. At one 
time every Jew in England, without distinction of age 



1 84 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

or sex, was imprisoned, and their wealth confiscated to 
the exchequer. Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, prohibited all Christians from selling to them 
the necessaries of life. At another time 15,000 were ex- 
pelled from that country, and were not allowed to re- 
turn for about 400 years. At York 1,500 perished by 
mutual slaughter, including women and children, be- 
cause they were denied their lives at any price. In 
Spain 170,000 families were driven forth at one time in 
circumstances of atrocious cruelty. And how they are 
dealt with in Russia our own eyes have seen. But 
enough: these specimens may suffice. A treatment 
they have received so cruel and disastrous that it was 
estimated, two hundred years Sigo, that at that time the 
whole number of Jews in the world was not more than 
three millions. 

Look back now and behold them — despised, slain, 
starved, enslaved, banished. They glutted the slave 
markets of Imperial Rome, the sword has devoured 
them by millions, famine has destroyed them by myri- 
ads, the contumely of sixty generations has deluged 
them, the whole world has been choking them with the 
** wormwood and the gall." Long, long have been the 
wanderings of the tribe of the weary foot ; and scattered 
from one end of the earth to the other, everjrwhere, 
" from Moscow to Lisbon, from Japan to Britain, from 
Borneo to Archangel, from Hindostan to Honduras," 
fleecing, violence, massacre, banishment, hunger, thirst 
and " want of all things " have dogged them as their 
shadow ; the desert breath of scandal has shrivelled 
them, the bloodhounds of hate have yelped at and torn 
them in pieces. They have had " a trembling heart 
and fear day and night, and no assurance of life" : the 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. 1 8$ 

infamy of mankind, ** the one proverb common to the 
whole world." 

AND YET, despite it all, a people ineffaceable 
they remain ; as much apart from all others as when, 
amid their prowess under Joshua, the sun stood still 
upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. A 
full end has been made of their ancient enemies. " The 
Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Ro- 
mans, have not a single representative on earth f but 
the commonwealth established by Moses has even now 
its patriot representatives overspreading the world, who, 
in spite of " the deep damnation " of their eighteen 
hundred years of earth-wide scattering and consump- 
tion and torture, are to-day as strong in the principle 
of political unity as was Samson in muscular grip 
when he rent the roaring lion before him as he would 
have rent a kid. The Jew is the miracle of mankind. 

Fourthly, wherefore wonderful is the vitality of the 
Jew. A tenacity of national life so amazing presup- 
poses a corresponding vigor of individual life, mental 
and physical. As to mental vigor of the individuals of 
the race, what unabated interest in affairs through the 
ages they have maintained, even while endlessly mad- 
dened at the spectacle of their own misery ; what in- 
domitable energy, power of thought, persistence of 
purpose, devotion to their national ideal ; and therefore 
how phenomenally endowed they personally are with 
courage and fortitude and vivacity and clearness of 
conception, and faith in destiny. And all this rich 
mental investment propagated from generation to gen- 
eration along the centuries — why, this supposes that it 
is somehow in the blood. Hence equally phenomenal, 
it would seem, must needs be their physical Ufe. Ac- 



1 86 MISSIONS AT HOM£ AND ABROAD. 

cordingly statisticians tell us that the birth rate among 
Jews is much greater and the death rate very much 
less than among Gentiles. Between 1816 and 1867, a 
period of .fifty years, the general population of Prussia 
increased 91 per cent; the Jewish population, 112 per 
cent. In Austrian Galida in fifty years (1820-1870) 
the ordinary population increased 25 per cent; the 
Jewish population, 150 per cent In Prussia, between 
1823 and 1841, among Gentiles, only 12 per cent- 
reached the age of 70; among Jews, 20 per cent In 
Whitechapel district, London, the medical officer in his 
report states that, on the north side of High street, oc- 
cupied by Jews, the average death rate is 27 per thou- 
sand, while on the south side, occupied by English and 
Irish, the average death rate is 43 per thousand. And 
learned French authority has declared that, while the 
average term of life among Gentiles is 26 years, among 
Jews it is 37 ; which leads a recent writer to say that 
the Jew has an average of eleven years longer to enjoy 
life, attend to business and acquire property, and adds, 
'' Is it any wonder that, as a rule, Jews excel Gentiles 
in whatever they undertake?'''*' 

Their vitality, mental and physical — splendidly they 
have asserted it Mentally : how sublime they stood as 
resisting the fascinations of Greek culture introduced 
into their kingdom by Alexander the Great, and which 
he enforced upon their attention by his kindnesses to 
them — a test of their racial religiousness more severe 
perhaps than their subsequent frightful persecutions; 
and notwithstanding that the literary seductiveness of 
Alexandria, the second centre of Judaism contempo- 
raneously with Jerusalem, which for a long period re- 
• See Alleged " Mistakes of Moses," by H. L. Hastings. 



THE JEW AND HIS lAKD. 187 

enforced this influence of the Greek conqueror, made 
its impress more or less upon them, they were on the 
whole as immovable as the everlasting hills. And phys- 
ically : for, whereas there were 200 years ago only about 
3,000,000 of Jews in the whole world, they have so 
increased during the 150 years of their progressive civil 
emancipation among the nations that to-day they num- 
ber from 8,000,000 to 10,000,000, some say 12,000,000; 
about as numerous as in the reign of Solomon. 

This, their mental and physical vigor, is what has 
continued and still continues. There is a certain ani- 
mal that has a remarkable power ol self-propagation. 
Cut its body into parts, and each part will reproduce 
an entire animal. So the Jews, broken up into count- 
less divisions throughout the world, do yet, however 
small a company, give birth to the one fixed complete 
set of Jewish characteristics. Wherever found they are 
Jews still, and only Jews. The distinctive stream of 
their vitality flows on as unbrokenly as the course of 
time. 

Fifthly, the wonder takes on enlarged proportions. 
This same people, so hated, antagonized, rent asunder, 
trampled down, countryless, homeless, has exerted a 
greater power upon the world than all other peoples 
combined. They are the fountain-head of all the mon- 
otheism of mankind; for Christianity is but the devel- 
opment and consummation of Scriptural Judaism, while 
Mahomet's doctrine of the Unity, the essence of his 
S3rstem, is purely a Jewish extract. Now apart from 
belief in the Oneness of God, especially in its Christian 
environment, what ennobling uplift has ever come to 
man? 

And the Jews have given us the prophets : Moses, 



igg MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

and David, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Daniel, and all 
the rest From them has come the Christ : Jesus, the 
Son of Mary, the Son of God, the Saviour of men, 
lights and perfections, moral beauty, spiritual glory, 
Divine Love incarnate, the generative principle of all 
excellence. And from them we have received Matthew 
and Mark and Luke and John, and Peter and Paul, and 
the whole galaxy of New Testament teachings and joys. 
Thus the richest fruits of moral culture, the golden 
harvest of our spiritual nature, the mellow vintage of 
human character — all this the world has by means of 
the Jews. 

Then remarkable has been their influence during 
the Christian centuries, although shattered and scat- 
tered. Not only were they chiefly the introducers into 
Western Europe of the Aristotelian philosophy, but 
their own erudite abstractions and speculations did 
much towards moulding the Christian schoolmen. 
Their influence has been as well evil as good. Mai- 
monides, the greatest Jew perhaps of the Christian era, 
a very Napoleon in the learning that distinguished his 
age, was the forerunner, with other Jewish authors, of 
that fatally famous Jew, Baruch Spinoza, whose ac- 
cursed pantheism has so blighted a large proportion of 
the scholarship of Christendom. 'T was he (Spinoza) 
who gave rise to Schleiermacher, Fichte, Schelling, 
Hegel, and such like. 'Twas he who gave impuke to 
disbelief in the supernatural, furnished the principles ol 
Strauss' infidel Life of Jesus, set in modon the skepti- 
cism regarding the inspiration of Scripture, laid the 
foundation of the present school of destructive criticism 
which is so injuriously endeavoring to break down the 
genuineness and the authenticity of the books of the 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. 1 89 

Bible. To-day the hand of the Jew is pressing down 
heavily upon our universities and colleges and theo- 
logical seminaries. 

And whence have come socialism, communism, 
nihilism, anarchism? It is sufficient to mention the 
names Carl Marx, Bebel, Liebknecht, Lasalle — all 
Jews. I have time only for the most general allusions. 

But what are the Jews now doing in' the regular 
employments of society ? In politics they have risen, 
in Europe and in America, to the position of power. 
In the European daily press they have the larger part 
of the actual control. In commerce and finance they 
are kings. In the work of education they occupy sev- 
enty professors' chairs in the universities of Germany. 
In military prowess we have only to recall the name, 
among others, of Massena (altered firom Manasseh) : 
the most brilliant of Napoleon's marshals. In astron- 
omy, in mathematics, they have produced splendid 
names. In philosophy they are pre-eminent, in history 
masters. In jurisprudence, in statesmanship, they have 
achieved the highest honors. In literature they shine. 
In music we have only to think of Mendelssohn, Mey- 
erbeer, Rossini, Jules Benedict, Strakosch, Grisi, 
Strauss. 

This is the people whom Celsus scornfully ridi- 
culed as ** left with not so much as a patch of ground 
or a hearth." "What do these feeble Jews?" said 
Sanballat, and it was the Ammonite's sneer, "Even 
that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even 
break down their stone wall." But the scoff has passed, 
and wonder takes its place. 

Sixthly, and now the wonder culminates. All 
these astounding features of Jewish history wer^ writ* 



igO MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ten out beforehand, 1,500 years, and near 3,000 years, 
beforehand ; written in their own sacred literature, and 
with the accuracy of the historic pen. This can be 
said of no other people. Is not tAis Jewish wonder the 
greate3t ofall? 

The events of their history — ^their being without 
the bond of government and without a country, their 
dispersion from one end of the eahh to the other, their 
sufferings, the worst, the crudest, the most frightful 
ever known, and yet their unparalleled persistence as a 
people, dwelling alone among the nations — these events 
compare with what was written so long before : Lev. 
26 ; Deut 28 ; the prophets everywhere. The corres* 
pondence is exact, even in minutest particulars. Again, 
the dvil emancipation of the Jews among the nations, 
which has now been going on for about 150 years and 
is still progressing, their consequent increase in num- 
ber, and their rise in wealth and learning and influence, 
although still maintaining their racial identity and their 
great agency in the revolutionary movements of the 
nations — these events compare with what was written 
so long before: Jer. 30:8; Zeph. 3: 19, 20; Isa. 50:9, 
22; Micah 5:8, etc. Again the correspondence is 
exact even in minutest particulars. 

Now it matters not whether the Scriptures con- 
taining these predictions were written at the dates tra- 
ditionally fixed; the lowest possible dates which the 
morbid critics might assign would still leave between 
the writings and the events so vast an interval of cen- 
turies that no forecast oi man could have leaped the 
distance. There stand the predictions, and there stand 
the events, and there stands the long interval between 
them. This alone, as Dr. Kellogg has ably shown in 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. I9I 

his book on the Jews, should smite with paralysis that 
destructive school of criticism so much in vogue with 
some. 

Here, then, is the Jew's chief distinction: His 
history was written in advance. A miraculous element 
pervades his afiairs. In him the supernatural is before 
our eyes, within the hearing of our ears, underneath 
our touch. Science is wonderiid ; but in this miracle 
man the wonder excelleth. Yonder White City* is 
wonderful ; but all its'splendor is only a bauble in com- 
parison. Strange that we should be so insensible to 
this living wonder among us. 

The facts are before us. And now for the explan- 
ation. When you see water run up hill, you ask. 
Wherefore ? And science reveals the law. But more 
than water running up hill, more than the fidl of an 
apple, more than the asymptote ever approaching its 
curve and never reachmg it, does the uniqueness of the 
Jew — his indestructibility, his difiiision among mankind 
like yeast in a measure of meal, his forewritten hbto- 
ry — press for explanation. The raiionaU of these won- 
ders the Bible alone reveals : that Bible whose absolute 
trustworthiness is so triumphandy vindicated in the 
existence of the wonders themselves. 

First, then, the Jews are God's chosen people. 
" The Lord thy God," said Moses, '' hath chosen thee 
to be a special people unto Himself, above aU people 
that are upon the face of the earths One people He 
chose through whom should flow his grace to aU. For 
the sake of mankind God took this one people into 
special relationship with himself, and so constitute 
them that they should for ever be idendcal, always dis- 
^ The World'9 Columbian Ezpositioq. 



19^ MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

tinguishable from all others upon the face of the earth. 
His arrangements and his Spirit have made the Jews 
just what as a race they essentially are. The dietetic 
and hygienic laws which he gave them, and which they 
have continued to observe throughout their wander- 
ings ; his Abrahamic covenant, so grand, so far-reach- 
ing, so expressive of love; his various providences 
towards them ; his spreading before them in advance 
the record of their future ; above all, his mysteriously 
touching them with the electric energy of the Holy 
Spirit — the same Spirit who qualified Bezaleel for all 
manner of workmanship in the construction of the tab- 
ernacle — ^these were the plastic agencies set in motion 
by the divine hand. 

God has done it, and the Jew is the ever-during 
monument of Omniscient handiwork upon the souls 
and bodies bf men. 

Secondly, God's purpose in having a special peo- 
ple.'*' I quote His own explicit statements. In the ful- 
ness of time he " will gather them out of all countries 
whither for their sins he has scattered them, and will 
re-gather them in their own land.'' There they shall 
look upon him, at his glorious appearing, whom they 
pierced," and " whose atoning blood shall cleanse them 
from their guilt and iilthiness." There " they shall all 
know him, from the least of them to the greatest of 
them;" an entire people, every one of them bom of 
the Holy Spirit. Re-established as a State, their " offi- 
cers shall be peace, their exactors righteousness." 
"They shall inherit the land for ever." "Jerusalem 
shall not be plucked up nor thrown down any more for 

* The writer expresses here his own convictions without 
claiming the endorsement of the American Tract Society. 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. 1 93 

ever ;" " her walls salvation, her gates praise." God's 
breath of renewal shall pass over the land, and " that 
which was desolate shall be as the garden of Eden.'' 
He ** will call for the corn, and will multiply the fruit of 
the tree and the increase of the field." He " will make 
a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, with 
the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the 
ground ;" so that " the sucking child shall play on the 
hole of tlie asp, and the weaned child shall put hb hand 
on the adder's den." ** There shall be heard the voice 
of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bride* 
groom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them 
that shall say, Praise the Lord of hosts, for his mercy 
endureth for ever." 

And thence " firom Jerusalem shall go forth right- 
eousness into the earth as brightness, and salvation 
as a lamp that bumeth." ** The Gentiles shall come 
to her light, and kings to the brightness of her ris- 
ing." ** Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face 
of the world with fiiiit ;" and '' the earth shall be full 
of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover 
the sea." This, as briefly told, is God's magnificent 
purpose. 

Thirdly, his purpose is steadfast and infallible. 
This people, indeed, have grievously sinned against 
God and adjudged themselves unworthy of so peerless 
a distinction ; nevertheless, through the riches of gos- 
pel mercy, their unworthiness shall not operate a for- 
feiture. " I will not," saith the Lord, " make a full end 
of thee, but will correct thee in measure, and will not 
leave thee altogether unpunished." '* For a small mo- 
ment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will 

I gather thee ;" and "ye shall be as though I had not 
13 



194 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

cast you off." ** As ye were a curse among the Gen- 
tiles, so will I save you and ye shall be a blessing/' " I 
will build you as at the first, and will cleanse you from 
all your iniquity whereby ye have sinned against me." 
" If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I 
have NOT appointed the ordinances of heaven and 
earth, then will I cast away the seed of Jacob : for I 
WILL cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on 
them." 

Fourthly, and how dear to God is this, his great 
plan, is manifest in many ways. In an important sense 
the State position of the chosen people is God's calen- 
dar of time. As, by our law, Sunday, with respect to 
business transactions, is a dies natiy so all the years du- 
ring which Israel has not been a commonwealth are not 
accounted of in God's account of his kingdom. For 
instance, in Kings (i Kings 6 : i) it is written that from 
the Exodus to the beginning of the building of the tem- 
ple in the fourth year of King Solomon were 480 years ; 
whereas, as Scripture itself informs us (Acts 13 : 18-22), 
the actual time was 573 years — a difference of 93. 
Now if you sum up the five periods of Israel's enslave- 
ment, as given in the book of Judges, you have just 93 
years. Those years were not counted because during 
those several times Israel had ceased to be a State. 
The sacred historian made no mistake. Likewise, as 
might be shown, the 1,800 years of Israel's wanderings 
are not counted by Daniel (9:24-27). They are re- 
garded as lost years — portions of time holding back the 
fruitage of the great plan, and so not worthy of being 
reckoned. It indicates that God estimates all things as 
impertinences which are not in the line of Judah's great 
commission. 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. I95 

As another illustration of God's interest in his plan, 
" the better covenant," according to which every be- 
liever in Christ is saved (Heb. 8 : 8-22), is given in both 
Jeremiah and Hebrews as God's covenant with Israel 
and Judah ; by virtue of whose terms of grace, as is ex- 
pressly stated in Jeremiah (31 : 27-37), they shall again 
become a State and attain their destined glory. And 
so, in the words of Paul, every Gentile believer b 
" grafted into Israel's olive-tree," and becomes by adop- 
tion a child of Abraham. ** If ye be Christ's, then are 
ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the prom- 
ise." That is to say, in every case of conversion to 
God it is the covenant which is Judah's that the Holy 
Spirit administers ; wherefore God's &ithitilness to his 
church is at the same time his faithfulness to Judah. 
For the very reason that the covenant of grace is veri- 
fied in every believer the Jews shall regain their land, 
and in the power of redeeming grace shall reign there 
for ever. And for the same reason they shall grow to 
comprise the world. Where the Missouri joins its wa- 
ters to those of the Mississippi, and thence for many a 
mile, it flows on as a distinct body of water, a stream 
along with a stream ; but at length, having assimilated 
to its own waters those of the Mississippi, thenceforth, 
though not in name yet in fact, it is the Missouri alone 
all the way to the gulf. So Judah, whose identity for 
many a century they have conserved in the midst of 
other peoples, a stream along with a stream, shall yet 
bring all Gentiles, by virtue of the covenant, into re- 
semblance to themselves in grace, and thenceforth 
there shall be in all the world only the genuine children 
of Abraham ; all mankind, in their varied endowments 
and interests and development, flowing on for ever as 



196 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

the Israel of God in the one channel of *^ the sure mer- 
cies of David." 

And still another illustration of how God loves his 
great plan is this : that, while he has been keeping the 
Jews for their own land, the land he has also kept for 
them — 3l fertile land, and, at the time of the Jews' ex- 
pulsion, surrounded by the great nations of the world. 
Why, then, has not some other people kept it in culti- 
vation? Many masters have tyrannized over it, but, 
save in patches, it has been neither sown nor tilled. 
How strange! The truth is, God is keeping it for 
those whom he is keeping for it. The land, like its 
true owners, is in captivity ; has been so, as have they, 
for 1,800 years. It lies waste and desolate, overrun 
with briers and thorns. But, saith the Lord, ** I will 
cause to return the captivity of the land." Jer. 33 : 11. 
" Ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your 
branches, and yield your fruit to my people Israel, yi?r 
^Aey are at hand to come J** Ezek. 36 : 8. And so, like 
the bow in the cloud which remindeth God of his cove- 
nant with Noah, the still desolate land remindeth him 
of his covenant with Judah, that the land shall no more 
be termed Desolate, but shall be called Beulah, for the 
land shall be married to his people. Isa. 62 : 4. 

Such is the explanation of the Jew. That God 
means according to the literal sense of all these words 
is put beyond doubt by the literal fulfilment of all his 
words in respect of their sufferings. For a consumma- 
tion so glorious, for the world's so vast benefit, he has 
never tired in energizing them physically and mentally^ 
and in securing them, in spite of their dispersion, in the 
fixedness of race. Like a key turning in its own lock, 
the explanation fits the case, and the wonder is in- 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. I97 

creased. Reverendy we bow before God. With joy 
we exclaim, The wonderfulness of the Jew, the man of 
Destiny ! 

And now a word as to the obligations our subject 
lays upon us. This, for instance: that its own inherent 
interest demands our actual interest. A garden-bed, is 
it not, where light is sown for the righteous, and faith 
and hope are blossoming with everlasting splendors? 
Verily the Jew among us is the present grand distinc- 
tion of the world's condition. What in the world's 
busy thoughts can compare with it ? If you hold a sea- 
shell close to yoiu* ear you shall seem to hear the roar 
of the ocean ; as if that eviscerated relic of the deep 
were rehearsing its own reminiscences, or else the pos- 
sibilities of the ocean ; as if within the shell were the 
mighty waters, either bathing the beach with their foam 
or muttering of an impending storm. So in the Jew 
here close to us — himself nationally but an eviscerated 
relic, a shell — is resounding the far-away past, and at 
the same time stupendous events yet future are antici- 
pated in preamble of music that gladdens or of mur- 
murs that forewarn. 

For, as a second lesson, the interest of our sub- 
ject is admonitory. The re-establishing of the Jews in 
their land is associated in Scripture with " distress of 
nations " and with the shaking of the powers of heaven. 
Joel 3 : 9-17 ; Zeph. 3 : 8-10 ; Zech. 12:6; Luke 21 124- 
26. Before the glory come the stark irreverent human- 
ism of our civilization shall be blown to destruction, 
for " the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every 
one that is proud and lofty, and he shall be brought 
low, and upon every high tower and upon every fenced 
wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all 



198 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

pleasant imagery ; and the loftiness of man shall be 
bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made 
low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." 
Isa. 2 : 12-17. In those calamities as well the Jews as 
the Gentiles shall have their share. Now, surely, if 
forewarned, we should also be forearmed. And does it 
not seem that we have come close to the time of the 
" budding of the fig-tree " ? Matt 24 ; 32, 33. Are not 
things now moving fast towards that focus of the world's 
interests? For the civil emancipation of the Jews, now 
so far advanced, is, in Scripture, close by their repos- 
session of the land (Jer. 30 : 3, 8) ; and of that reposses- 
sion the preparatory stage would seem to have begun ; 
the phenomenon of this last decade of the nineteenth 
century being this — that there are to-day near 100,000 
Jews in Palestine. And with the repossessing of the 
land is connected the prophetic period of the " distress 
of nations." Meanwhile the land itself seems heaving 
with expectation ; for, as we are informed,* " the latter 
rains," hitherto partially suspended, are now, in accord- 
ance with the propet Joel, returning in copiousness, and 
Jerusalem is now being built on the prophetic line laid 
down by Jeremiah — "from the tower of Hananeel to 
the gate of the comer, from the hill Gareb to Goath." 
Joel 2 : 21, etc. ; Jer. 31 : 38-40. Oh, we are living at a 
time awfully sublime ! 

And, as a third lesson, how persuasive the reasons 
for prosecuting gospel work among the Jews. Love of 
Christ and of souls, indeed, must needs impel us to 
earnest work in evangelizing to any man. Gentile or 
Jew, the efficacy of the blood that atoneth for sin ; but 

* Letter of Rev. A. Ben Oliel, Jeniialem. "Episcopal Re- 
corder," July 13, 1893. 



THE JEW AND HIS LAND. 19$ 

the thought presses upon us that to neglect the Jew, 
even though at work for the Gentile, is to put one's self 
out of harmony with the mind of God. To Abraham 
God said, " I will bless them that bless thee, and will 
curse him that curseth thee ;'' and by Zechariah God 
says, *' He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of my 
eye." And how suggestive the fact that, '* of all the 
nations around Judea, the Persians alone, who restored 
them from the Babylonish captivity, yet remain a king- 
dom." Specially displeasing to God, therefore, as well 
as detrimental to ourselves, is lack of service in evan- 
gelizing the Jew. ^ 

In conclusion: two standing miracles of history 
challenge the world's confidence — the Jew and the 
transforming effects of Christianity. And these two are 
twin truths. For what is Christianity but the series of 
doctrines and the salvation flowing out of the incarna- 
tion of the Son of God ? And the Jew, is he not the 
ordained lineal antecedent of the incarnation, from 
whom, by supernatural conception, came the humanity 
of Jesus Christ, and who is destined, in the power of 
the incarnation, to " blossom and bud, and fill the world 
with gospel fruit " ? So that they both — the Jew and 
the transforming effects of Christianity — are births of 
the same parentage ; twins of God's revelation of him- 
self in Christ. They are each a special manifestation 
of Almightiness ; each is the shadow of the other, and 
both are solid realities. And as in the rainbow convex 
and concave answer to each other, so the transforming 
effects of Christianity insure the glory of the Jew, and 
the wonderfulness of the Jew is the precursor of the 
universal triumph of Christianity ; and the two together 
are the Almighty's signet-ring, the bow of peace, 



200 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Stamping with authority and arching over with blend- 
ing bands of beauty the prospect of the world's future. 
Wherefore, when I see the Star in the East marching 
on mile by mile, till, as though ablaze with divine intel- 
ligence, it stands over the cradle of the adorable Infant, 
pointing down with its finger of light to the King of 
the Jews, crowning him with a splendid destiny, I can- 
not but think of the Jew also, himself peculiarly a piece 
of God's splendor, walking with and shining through the 
world's progress, and pointing onward, as unerringly as 
light scatters darkness, to the final establishment of the 
kingdom of his King— the gracious Restorer of man- 
kind. 



OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. 20I 



OBSTACLES IN THE WA Y OF CHRISTIAN- 
IZING THE WORLD. 

BY HIRAM C. HAYDN, D. D., LL. D. 

Here are certain assumptions. 

1. That the world is to be Christianized. Chris- 
tianity is one day to be co-terminous with mankind. 
The gospel is to be preached to every creature, in the 
expectation that it will ultimately bring human society 
under the sway of its principles, shape its institutions, 
and give law to the social and political life of the world. 
The leaven is to leaven the lump. 

2. That in the prosecution of thb work serious 
hindrances are encountered, and to be disposed of 

This, surely, is no matter for surprise, nor, always, 
for regret. To contend with difficulties is usually a 
means of grace ; it lies in the way to the noblest style 
of manhood, the loftiest witnessing for the Master. 

This subject is not, on the face of it, an inspiring 
theme, but it need not be altogether depressing. Our 
Lord did not disguise from his disciples the fact of seri- 
ous obstacles in their way, though in giving them the 
great Commission he ignores them, covering all need 
in the assurance, " Lo ! I am with you alway." While 
there is nothing novel in the theme, and perhaps no 
new obstacle under the sun, there may be occasion, in 
our own minds, for a new emphasis ; there ought to be 
a great fund of encouragement after centuries of dealing 
with them. 

I. Some of these obstacles are indigenous to the 
lands and the climate where the gospel is to be pub- 



202 MISSIONS At HOM£ AND ABROAD. 

lished. Experience alone could teach the church how 
to meet and overcome them. This tuition has made 
evident that almost any environment of this sort, on the 
&ce of the whole earth, is capable of ^eat improve- 
ment ; and the missionary of to-day enters into an in- 
heritance of fiicts which puts him at great advantage 
over the pioneers in the world's great field. 

2. Another set of obstacles is indigenous to human 
nature, whether found in primitive barbarism or in more 
advanced stages of racial development Moral obli- 
quity, moral inertia, the sway of a false faith or an 
appalling superstition — something of this sort is ex- 
pected to confront every herald of the gospel. This is 
what makes the gospel necessary. But it is to be said 
that, firom apostolic days until now, the Spirit and the 
Word have proven more than a match for all these 
natural tendencies and acquired notions of a universally 
depraved humanity. They must be our reliance still. 

3. Again, the acquisition of strange tongues, the 
reduction to writing of the jargon of diverse forms of 
speech, the translation of the Scriptures, conversation, 
preaching, in short, the putting of one's self into a lan- 
guage other than one's own, so as to be at home in it, 
is, for most men, a laborious and difficult undertaking. 
But the past century has triumphed over these obsta- 
cles in lliousands of the sons and daughters oi the 
church, till hundreds of tongues, a century ago un- 
known to the world, are now the vehicle of the all- 
inspiring Word with its message of life and love to all 
men. A stubborn obstacle it was and is, but the way 
it has been met and triumphed over is a constant source 
of inspiration to beginners, who, for one, two or five 
yeaxB, must wrestle with the difficult problem for them- 



OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. ^3 

selves. Behold what has been accomplished by men of 
like infirmities and limitations, and gird ^u^urselves with 
courage for the task. Go to the shelves of the world's 
great Bible Societies and get the evidence of sight that 
the Bible which has enridbed our English, French and 
German speech, is doing the like precious work for 
three hundred tongues and dialects of earth ; and know 
that the facts and knowledge thus made the heritage of 
the church have leveled this mountain to an inconsid- 
erable hill. 

4. Here are strange customs and modes of life, and 
ways of thinking and living foreign to our own. They 
are a hindrance, not more to the people in receiving the 
gospel than to* the missionary in getting it to them. 
Many of these are harmless in themselves ; some of them 
contain a grain of truth — a good thing perverted. 
Some of them are doubdess abominable. Here, again, 
the wisdom of experience in dealing with these things 
for so long, and along almost the whole line of possible 
variation, is of immense value. Some men can &11 in 
with the ordinary life of foreign peoples and make it 
their own, and get some advantage by it. All, if pos- 
sessed of a sanctified common sense, while carrying 
their own customs and methods of life abroad with 
them, will avoid needlessly antagonizing the peculiar 
customs of foreign peoples, seeking rather points of 
contact, and patiendy waiting the entrance of the truth 
and the force of example to right many things evil in 
influence or obnoxious to a cultivated taste. 

A happy illustration of tact, courage, patience and 
consecration is found in the work of that intrepid mis- 
sionary, Egerton Young, among the Crees and other 
Indian tribes of British America ; and a no less instruc- 



204 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

tive lesson of how the entrance of the gospel and the 
example of the missionary family bring in the new 
order of cleanliness, decency, and industry. Happily 
this is not an exceptional, though an illustrative, case, 
worth the careful heed of every missionary going 
among savage tribes or people semi-dvilized. Dealing 
with this side of human life calls for consecration, not 
only, but for wisdom. 

It is of utmost moment to remember that our work 
is not primarily a civilizing work — though happily we 
cannot gospelize but we civilize ; at the same time we 
need to be rid of the idea that the particular type of 
civilization represented by the missionary is the only 
one fit for a Christian people, otherwise we may add 
another to the obstacles already in our way. We have, 
indeed, not lost sight of this, neither have we been as 
catholic in this respect as we might well be. We may 
freely say, for example, to orientals, ** We do not come 
to westernize your customs, your dress, your modes oi 
thought, or even to dictate the precise way in which 
your Christian life shall express itself in forms and cere- 
monies, in doctrine and polity." 

5. The influence of evil-minded men in foreign 
ports, be they tradesmen, sailors, or travellers, often a 
grievous obstacle, is to be met, first, by the missionary 
force seeing to it that no occasion on their part be 
offered for an evil report ; and next, by using all avail- 
able means for counteracting a malicious fabrication. 
Happily the press is a much more available weapon of 
defense than once it was, and much less ready to dis- 
credit in advance the missionary and his work. 

6. There are also grievous obstacles put in the way 
of the missionary by foreign powers in control of lands 



OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. 20$ 

where the gospel is being disseminated. As against 
these, diplomacy can do much, but its methods are 
ordinarily, slow, the results often unsatisiactory. There 
is no open and speedy way out of these difficulties. 
Much will have to be borne with patience, and conse- 
crated tact, atid courage born of faith in the great Head 
of the Church, whose is the kingdom and whose ser- 
vants they are. 

It will, at once, be seen and felt that these ever- 
recurring obstacles on the foreign field must be dealt 
witli on the spot ; and while missionaries themselves 
might, in conference, discuss them to profit, it is not 
worth our while here to dwell upon them at length. I 
am myself much more deeply impressed with the signifi- 
cance of the obstacles which are to be met within the 
evangelizing force, the church herself, inclusive of her 
missionaries. The. morale of the army, its chivalric 
loyalty to the Captain of salvation, its enthusiasm, its 
grasp of the situation, its sympathy with the heart and 
purpose of God towards all men — these things are of 
utmost consequence. Failing along these lines, the 
church hopelessly obstructs her own way. 

Not for one moment are we about to join the army 
of indiscriminate fault-finders who make it their business 
to carp at the blessed Church of Christ. In view of the 
splendid triumphs of the last hundred years, of the 
martyr-Uke heroism and truly apostolic careers of the 
missionary host, of the millions of money annually laid 
upon the altar of service, it is by no means fitting in 
this day to speak of " playing at missions," as though 
that were the present attitude of the church. But, on 
the other hand, it may well be that improved methods 
would give a freer course to the gospel, and, on the 



206 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Other, it is conceivable that the foremost and hinder- 
most may together catch a new inspiration by coming 
into a closer toiich with the Master. For it has to be 
admitted that at this moment not more than fifty per 
cent, of the professed disciples of our Lord do even play 
at missions. As for the rest, of the greater part it may 
be said, they do not care a fig for them. They neither 
give them thought nor prayer. They neither go nor 
send. They simply ignore the Great Commission. The 
wars of the Lord are not their wars. They do not re- 
cognize their own kindred at the front. The motives 
that actuate the true missionary are foreign to their 
breasts, if not to their thought. This constitutes a de- 
fective Christianity, painfully prevalent, and so far forth, 
if not absolutely, the greatest hindrance in the way of 
the extension of the kingdom. 

For a moment consider the possibility that defect* 
ive methods may be a hindrance for which the church 
is responsible. 

It is certainly quite possible that we have done 
scant justice to the messages of other faiths, and so 
have failed to utilize them as stepping stones to the 
larger, freer, complete faith of our Christianity. They 
are probably not wholly of the devil and instruments 
of imposture, as once we were too willing to believe, but 
they tell us how, in all ages, men have been feeling 
after God, if haply they might find him. They broaden 
our conception of the meaning of the Master's word, 
** This is the light that lighteth every man that com- 
eth into the world ;" and they emphasize the witness ot 
die Spirit that in every age and nation there have been 
true seekers after God. If this be true, its generous 
recognition will certainly work as well in modem as it 



OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. 207 

did in apostolic times. It is also quite possible that 
westerners, taking the gospel to orientals, have been too 
strenuous in insisting upon a western cast of thought 
and church life. If so, this is surely a hindrance. 

Is there any reason to suppose that an occidental 
people, even after so long a time, has found out the 
only mode of expression which the true life of the 
church may adopt ? Is it not fairly presumable that 
orientals may come at the faith of Christ and the sacred 
books, themselves of oriental origin, in a somewhat dif- 
ferent, and possibly even a better, apprehension than 
an occidental mind ? At any rate, may not the inform- 
ing Spirit and Word be wisely left to a larger liberty 
than has ever been thought wise in determining not 
only the inner life but the outward expression of that 
life ? And is it not more than possible, is it not highly 
probable, that thus a freer course would be given to 
the gospel among many intelligent peoples, say, of 
Asia ? May not a tenacity for our own form of wor- 
ship, church polity and creed statements be a serious 
obstacle put by the missionary himself, or by the church 
that sends him, in the way of the progress of the gos- 
pel? 

It may seem presumptuous to call in question the 
methods which ecclesiastical ambition has for so long 
sanctioned, and which have sometimes seemed to lay 
almost as much emphasis upon church polity as upon 
the gospel message itself But this method b not now 
called in question for the first time. It is, indeed, quite 
natural, as things go, for each Christian sect to desire 
to point to its specific achievement, and to so &r fence 
it in as that it can be traced from century to century ; 
but is it of supreme consequence so to do? The car« 



2o8 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

rying abroad of so many types of Presbyterianism, 
Methodism and what not, or of even a score of diverse 
sects, with their variations from a single norm, has been 
often recognized as a sorely perplexing and bewilder- 
ing thing for a people facing for the first time the 
claims of the simple gospel. It is a question whether 
we have the right to add to the inherent difficulties of 
evangelizing the world these artificial contrivances that 
the most robust Christian communities can scarcely 
endure, and for whose removal so many devoudy labor 
and pray. 

For a long time a newly evangelized community 
needs scarcely any show of church polity. It needs a 
wise guidance in elementary truth upon which all Chris- 
tians agree. Suppose all were intent upon giving them 
this : forming churches of Christ, to leave the shaping of 
polity to the people themselves, encouraging the union 
of all in some simple form of church organization as 
the Spirit of truth may suggest. For a time the bright 
hope hovered in the air that we might, in the virgin 
soil of Japan, see this triumph of gospel simplicity and 
purity in "the Church of Christ in Japan." It was a 
noble field for a noble experiment — but sectarianism 
blighted the hope and it vanished. The obstacle of a 
dismembered church is only the more firmly rooted in 
the sunrise kingdom. 

But, chiefly, and with emphasis, it is a lesson, ever 
thrust before our eyes, never fully learned, that defect- 
ive &ith, defective loyalty, defective apprehension of 
and sympathy with the divine plans and purposes, are 
the only really greai hindrances in the way of the 
world's conquest— the greatest embarrassments to the 
leaders of the Lord's hosts. It was so in Moses' time. 



OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. 209 

The great kings of Judah, the great prophets of Israel 
and Judah, the Christ, himself, found it so. 

"- O tliat my people would hearken unto me, 
That Israel would walk in my ways : 
I should subdue their enemies, 
And turn my hand against their adversaries/' 

Psa. 81 : 13, 14. 

The modem leaders in the world's conquest have 
been embarrassed by the same lack of responsive faith 
and enthusiasm in the ranks of their fellow-disciples. 
It is really difficult to account for the stubborn indLSfer- 
ence of very many to what seems to be the burden of 
prophets, and the express purpose of the Christ in 
coming to the world, and his explicit command to dis- 
ciple all nations. 

The glory of the gospel is its breadth of purpose. 
The appeal to a world-wide humanity commands our 
admiration. A kingdom all-embracing, in which all 
kindreds, tongues, and peoples, have a place, is an in- 
spiring vision. The mission of Christianity to the race 
is as grand as it can be. How it fires the heart and 
touches the pen of Isaiah to sketch those glowing pic- 
tures whose colors fade not though the centuries pass 
over them ; nor are they thrown into shadow by the 
brightness of the gospel day. One is often led to won- 
der to what intent the average Christian disciple reads 
his Bible from day to day, when, possibly afler years of 
this sort of thing, so much of prophecy, and even the 
commands of our Lord, have made no practical im- 
pression upon his mind and heart. For it is not the 
average disciple that is pushing forward this work of 
conquest We turn from enthusiastic gatherings some- 
times stirred to unwonted enthusiasm by inspiring elo- 



2IO MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

quence, from the record of a year's contributions of 
money that mounts up into millions of dollars, from 
Pentecostal ingatherings on some foreign field— from 
all this we turn to the study of the little segment of the 
world - field that we know most about : the litde groups 
of disciples that meet under our own eye, the giving 
that we are conversant with, the efforts put forth, of 
any and every sort, by some local church fully abreast 
of the average — and, on the one hand, the wonder is 
where the grand total comes from. Is the Master 
multiplying the loaves and the fishes, to make of our 
meagre supply a great abundance ? And, on the other, 
we are constrained to say, if only the zeal and consecra- 
tion of a part characterized the whole, to what a volume 
would the flooding stream of beneficence grow ! 

If a little handful, a half dozen or less, have made 
such an impression upon a foreign city or province — 
one in a thousand of the home force — what if some rea- 
sonable percentage of that force were enrolled in the 
aggressive army abroad ? For we have to admit, I re- 
peat, that it is true of the most favored churches that a 
very large element seems not to accept it as laid upon 
their conscience that they are in any vital way obligated 
to evangelize this world ; and a still larger element has 
yet to learn that the measure of responsibility is the 
measure of one's ability. 

We have unqualified admiration for the excep- 
tional heroism of such men as Mackay, Paton, Pinker- 
ton, at the front ; and for such exceptional sacrifice as 
is now and then recorded of some devoted seamstress 
stitching her love for Christ and men into the extraor- 
dinary gifts she makes to the Redeemer's cause, as well 
as for the consecrated giving of the wealthy that make9 



OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. 211 

an epoch on some mission field ; but these things seem 
to suggest to very few to go and do likewise, though it 
is clearly within their power to do so. What we see 
with open vision to be necessary, and all that is neces- 
sary, to a great onward movement, profiting by all the 
experience of the past, utilizing all the immense gains 
of knowledge and means to ends which a century of 
missions has made available, is to have every disciple 
do his obvious duty and take up the commission of the 
Lord, the prayer he taught us, the ideals of the New 
Testament and the consecration of the early Church as 
we find them in the Book we go by. Failure to do 
this is an obstacle to success, and may be characterized 
as proving a defective type of Christianity. 

For (i) there is no question but that the Christian- 
ity of the New Testament is an all-inclusive affair. The 
prophecies that led up to it, fi-om tliat made in Eden, to 
Abraham later, breathed in Psalm and foreshadowed 
firom Isaiah to the saints about the temple when Christ 
came, firom the angel-song on Advent night to the vis- 
ions of St. John in the Revelation, are all far-seeing, 
broadly comprehensive, hinting after more than they 
say outright, but clearly teaching that the message of 
God is to all peoples, that the glory of the latter day is 
the universality of its benefits ! All narrowness is 
whipped out of it, as it had to be out of Peter and all 
the early Jewish disciples. They, too, were slow to 
take in the meaning of their own Scriptures or of the 
Lord's great saying, " I, if I be lifted up fi-om the earth, 
will draw all men unto me ;'' or of the wondrous prayer, 
" Thy kingdom come ; thy will be done, as in heaven, 
so in earth ;" or of the command, " Go, preach ; disci- 
ple all natioiis," 



212 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Not to enter into the largeness of the Lord's thought 
and purpose is to put serious limitations upon one's 
experience, to contract one's horizon, to make a man 
provincial and narrow, and to quench his religious en- 
thusiasm. Peter would never have been more than 
half a man if he had continued to be held in the meshes 
of provincial Judaism. It was worth while to give him 
an extraordinary vision to lead him, with Paul after 
three years in Arabia, to see that God is no respecter 
of persons. 

Saul of Tarsus could never have been the apostle 
to the Gentile world without some such emancipating 
act full of the earth-encompassing breezes of the gos- 
pel. And there is not a disciple of the modem church, 
not one, that does not become a broader, more force- 
hil, enthusiastic man, by coming into contact with Isa- 
iah's rapt muse, with the angel-song on Advent night, 
with the prayer of Jesus, yearning that heaven's right- 
eous rule may compass the earth and reach the ''every 
creature " of the Great Commission. It is a defect of 
our Christianity that this cannot be said to be true of 
the Church of this latter day. The Christianity of our 
time is defective in perspective, in imaginaUon, in en- 
thusiasm, in the spirit of self-sacrifice and chivalrous 
devodon to our Lord. Not but that many come up to 
the full measure of privilege in these respects, and nota- 
ble believers of apostolic spirit are here and there found, 
and churches of exceptional devodon, the joy of Christ, 
the Master. 

But who would be content with a patriotism that 
kindled less than half a nadon's strength ? to see the 
army of the militant Church stripped of half its possi- 
ble efficiency ? Nor because we thus speak is it to be 



OBSTACLES IN tHE WAY. 21 3 

inferred that we are not keenly alive to all that can be 
said of great and good things done by the Church as 
it is, or are blind to the progress of the kingdom through 
a century studded with triumphs on every shore, in 
every tongue of men. 

Nor is that a pessimistic mood which, in the &ce 
of it all, affirms that the Church of Jesus Christ has 
never yet risen up in a masterful way to make the con- 
quest of the world the one great business of her life, 
into which all other activities of men play, as finding 
their true aim and noblest outcome. No discussion of 
ways and means, in any sphere of human thought or 
effort, is worthy of serious consideration that ignores the 
facts. Face the facts and mend the difficulties ; stop the 
waste, kindle the inert, work to the pattern left us, and 
prosecute the campaign as the Master said, and prosper. 
We must face the obstacles in the spirit of a true op- 
timism bom of faith which dares not ignore defects. 
Of old it was once charged against two men that 
they had, single-handed, turned the world upside 
down. They made light of obstacles, as well they 
might, for they had thrown overboard all such hindran- 
ces as were indigenous to themselves, and before their 
flaming zeal all outward hindrances became as stubble 
or were converted into weapons of aggressive warfare. 
Might not the Church of our day, thus consecrated, 
with all her immense resources and prodigious equip- 
ment, moving upon every continent and touching every 
island of the sea, make true that saying on a scale of 
grandeur never yet seen ? 



214 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD. 

BY REV. THOMAS B. WOOD, LL. D. 

CALLAO, PERU. 

I. SOUTH AMERICA'S PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT. 

South America surpasses all other continents in 
the following respects : 

1. Proportion of sur&ce available for dense popu- 
lation. It has no great tracts under perpetual snow, 
like North America, Europe and Asia, nor any great 
deserts, like those of Arabia, Africa and Australia. It 
must some day average denser in population than any 
other grand division of the globe. 

2. Extent of available surface, now sparsely popu- 
lated, and inviting immigration on a grand scale. 
South America has 7,000,000 square miles of surface. 
Over 6,000,000 square miles are good for immigration — 
double the territory of the United States. It has 
35,000,000 inhabitants — only half the present population 
of the United States. Thus it is one fourth as densely 
populated as this country — about what this country 
was two generations ago. No other tract of good 
land exists so large and so unoccupied as South 
America. 

3. Accessibility to immigration in all parts. Its 
coasts are all compassed by steam navigation, already 
well developed, second only to that of the most pop- 
ulous parts of Europe and the United States. Its 
interior is nearly all accessible through rivers, the 



SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD. 21$ 

mightiest on earth, with navigation established for 
thousands of miles, the beginnings of the mightiest 
river traffic in the world. Its railway systems are well 
commenced to connect the waterways with every part 
of the territory. The Andes have been scaled at two 
points, at heights of 14,500 and 15,500 feet, the highest 
railway passes in the world, and the highest points 
where steam is now at work. Railways will gradually 
pass the Andes at many points, opening up vast and 
rich territories lying near the sea but hitherto shut 
off from the sea by a mountain wall. With that 
barrier surmounted by modem railway progress, South 
America will become the most accessible of all conti- 
nents. 

4. Welcome accorded to European home seekers. 
The time was when the United States could boast of 
this above all other countries, and being nearer than 
South America to the sources of European emigration 
it absorbed the streams as fast as they could come, 

' and almost monopolized them. Now, however, its 
population has become so dense as to afford resistance 
to the incoming tide. That resistance tends to of&et 
the difference in distance and throw the balance oi 
advantages in favor of South America. There, ten 
young republics are absorbing the emigration as fast 
as it can come, and vying with each other to attract 
it. The United States never offered such inducements 
to foreign setders as those countries are now offering. 
No other part of the earth is bidding so high as South 
America for Europe's surplus millions. 

5. Kinship with the United States in physical 
conditions and resources. The Andes and the Rockies 
are parts of one grand chain. The All^henies and the 




2l6 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Brazilian ranges are detached portions of one system. 
The intervening table lands in the two continents 
correspond exactly. The two Americas are twin 
continents. Their mineral and agricultural resources — 
all their facilities for the development of human wel- 
fare — are practically identical South America has 
the advantage of a climate that makes all parts of it 
available and all its coasts accessible. Its low latitudes 
are ofiset by its great altitudes, giving it a temperate- 
zone character over the most of its area, wholesome 
and inviting for Europeans. 

Hence the following results : 

1. The streams of emigration from Europe are 
now turning from the United States to South America. 
The first drift in that direction dates from forty or fifty 
years ago, soon after the independence of those coun- 
tries from European rule. A steady flow dates from 
about thirty years ago, and for the last twenty years 
it has been an increasing tide, reaching every part of 
the continent in greater or less degree. 

2. That continent, in the near future, will be the 
home of teeming millions from all parts of Europe, as- 
similating with each other and with the elements al- 
ready there, and developing a new and mighty people, 
precisely as has happened in the United States. The 
process is already advancing in the southeastern coun- 
tries, where the immigration is most voluminous, in a 
way that demonstrates the certainty of bringing the 
whole continent under its sweep. 

3. This movement wiU progress more rapidly there 
than has ever occurred here, and on a scale unknown 
in history. The European influx into the United 
States never reached two per cent, of the population, 



SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD* 21/ 

in any year, and never averaged above one per cent, 
in any decade. In the Rio del Plata countries the 
increase by immigration from Europe has averaged 
two per cent per year for the last twenty years. Steam 
and electricity have shortened distances. Europe is 
more populous than ever. South America is twice as 
large as Europe, and invites the immigrants not only 
along its eastern shores, but everywhere. The twen- 
tieth century will witness there a movement of migrant 
humanity of which the nineteenth century has seen 
but the small beginning. 

4. It must stand in history as the youngest, the 
vastest, and the densest of all the transplantings of Eu- 
ropean humanity to virgin soil. After the two Americas 
and Australia are developed there will be no territory 
left in which to repeat the operation. The engrafting 
of European elements on other stocks may go on, in 
many lands, but to develop them from their own roots 
on new ground will never be possible again, unless an- 
other continent should arise. 

To evangelize this new development of the highest 
types of mankind is the work of missions in South 
America. 

II. SOUTH AMERICA'S MORAL DEVELOPMENT. 

South America surpasses every other grand divi- 
sion of the globe in the following respects. 

I. Moral homogeneity in all its parts. It has 
two dominant languages, but they are so closely allied 
that they seem merely dialects of one. It has ten na- 
tions, but currents of thought and feeling, as well as 
the movements of immigration, flow across their fron- 
tiers as freely as the rivers or the winds. The upris- 



U6 MISSIONS At HOME AND AtoOAf). 

ing for independence swept the entire length of the 
continent in the space of a few weeks. Important 
movements everywhere agitate the whole. It has 
everywhere dominant the Latin civilization and culture, 
and the Roman-catholic religion, with North American 
republican goverment and free institutions. No other 
territory so vast has such uniformity of moral con- 
ditions. 

2. Feeling of dose kinship among all its nations. 
They have all the same historic traditions, the same 
political and social aspirations, the same peculiar ten- 
dencies, and, withal, a consciousness that they form 
a family of nations whose interests are common and 
whose destiny is one. No other portion of earth pre- 
sents this peculiarity on so vast a scale. And it has 
come to pass, not as in the United States, with the aid 
of a dominant federal sovereignty, molding many new 
states upon the model of a few old ones and imposing 
dose kinship upon all in gradual succession, but rather 
despite segregation, disunion, and conflict among many 
sovereignties springing into existence all over the con- 
tment at the same time, with no bond to unite them. 
It is the result of a mysterious providential tendency, 
innate in those peoples, binding them together for 
good. 

5. An aspiration to imitate the great nation of 
North America. These ten nations have copied our 
constitutions, our laws and our political methods ; have 
introduced our school systems, and imported teachers 
from here to work them ; have made a study of our 
whole mode of existence, on purpose to seek to re- 
produce it among themsdves. This is unparallded in 
all the world. And, when we remember the barriers 



SOtfTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD ^1$ 

ol language, religion, and race prejudice that separate 
tfaem from us, this profound and all-pervading tendency 
in them to make themselves like us is unparalleled in 
history. 

Alas, that, unlike us, they have not the gospel, nor 
the moral power that goes with it! As a result of this, 
their efforts to imitate us in moral achievements have 
thus hr failed — everywhere and always &iled ; with not 
a single success in any nation or province to stand as 
a happy exception. But, despite the discouragement 
of such universal failure to reach our moral standards, 
their mysterious aspiration to do so continues undi- 
minished. It seems like a divine inspiration preparing 
those peoples to receive from us the one thing needfiil, 
and then through it enter into our inheritance of moral 
blessings. 

4. Freedom from Old World domination. North 
America still has Canada under European sovereignty. 
Australia is entirely so. But South America is almost 
completely free. Only the Guianas, three insignificant 
little colonies, still remain subject to foreign powers. 
Nowhere else has the New World aspiration for indepen- 
dence and self-government so widely prevailed. South 
America is the freest of all the grand divisions of the 
earth, and the grandest of all free countries. 

Alas, that her freedom is vitiated by the lack of 
moral power in the masses of the people, so that they 
find adequate self-government impracticable, and their 
independence often seems to be a curse rather than a 
blessing I But, despite this, the love of freedom is all- 
pervading, exacdy as in the United States. 

Hence: 

I. South America Is the vastest field on earth for 



220 MISSIONS AT HOME ANt> ABROAD. 

sweeping moral movements in the near future. Ex- 
amples in the past are the uprising for independence, 
the predominance of republicanism, the abolition of 
slavery, the spread of free schools, the growth of the 
power of the press, the extension of Masonry, Odd 
Fellow-ship, and the like. The multiplicity of free 
sovereignties fiicilitates the starting of a new movement, 
which may find the ground untenable at some points, 
but easy to hold at others. The homogeneity of the 
mass fadlitates extending a movement once starting 
on good vantage ground. The kinship of the several 
peoples makes a movement well advanced tend to be- 
come all-pervading. The vastness of the field uniting 
these conditions makes it stand without parallel. 

2. It is the grandest field on earth for expanding 
the moral development peculiar to the United States. 
The founding of the republic here was followed by an 
outburst of republicanism in Europe, but only in one 
country, France. It was followed in South America 
by the founding of ten republics, over thirty times 
larger than France. North American influence every- 
where else meets resistance in tendencies from which 
South America is fi-ee. And, in its freedom. South 
America is ea^er to accept those influences as conduc- 
ing to its highest aspirations. 

Alas, for the great moral drawbacks that interfere 
as yet, and will continue to interfere till they are over- 
come by the moral power that accompanies the gospel I 

3. It must one day form the largest half of God's 
New World of Human Welfare in the Western Hem- 
isphere. All humanity is now gazing with admiration 
on the development of this country and people, in ways 
and d^frees impossible for the Old World and peculiar 



SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD. 221 

to the New. They will one day admire yet more 
this same development^ grown wider and more glor- 
ious by its extension over all America. 

To hasten this result is the work of missions in 
South America. 

III. SOUTH AMERICA'S MORAL DRAWBACKS. 

South America suffers, beyond all other lands, 
from the following drawbacks to moral improvement 

I. Priestcraft. This was forced upon it at the 
point of die sword, and maintained by the fires of the 
Inquisition, with no Protestantism to protest against 
it nearer than the other side of the world. In recent 
years a woman was burned alive by a priest, in the 
republic of Peru, and two others have since b^n 
threatened with the same fate by another. Only a 
few months ago, Rev. Justice Nelson completed a 
term of imprisonment in Brazil for writing against 
sacerdotal abuses, and on the west coast the gospel 
workers have suffered many arrests, one of which kept 
Rev. Francis Penzotti in prison over eight months, 
while a false accusation against him was dragged 
through all grades of tribunals including the national 
Supreme Court. Priests, monks, and nuns sway an 
influence that is all-prevailing. The principles of 
Jesuitism dominate and vitiate every sphere of human 
activity. Abominations of every kind are sanctified 
in the name of Christ. The priesthood as a class is 
like the old Jewish priesthood, in holding the truth of 
God in unrighteousness, and making the Divine Word 
of none effect by human traditions. It deserves all 
the curses that Christ heaped upon the priestcraft 
of his time, with still more scathing chapters for the 



iM MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

new abommations of the confessional, enforced celibacy, 
and the prohibition of the Word of God. 

Were it not for this drawback, reformatory move- 
ments in Church and State and all society would be 
swift and sweeping, regenerating the South American 
peoples. 

2. Swordcraft Brazil and Argentina are, at tbe 
present time torn with iutemal wars. Armed revolu- 
tions have always been the bane of all those republics, 
and always will be till the masses are evangelized. 
They hinder every kind of progress, and foment every 
kind of eviL Priestcraft has its hand in them, and 
generally profits by them. Whatever weakens the 
civil sovereignty increases clerical predominancy. Mili- 
tary conspiracies and ecclesiastical conspiracies are 
inseparable from politics in all South America, and 
make the adequate development of free institutions 
impossible. 

3. Peculiar forms of demoralization inseparable 
from these two evils, forming a combination of moral 
drawbacks elsewhere unknown. Civil wars fill society 
with rancor and with aspirations for revenge. They 
foment violence and outrage even in times of peace, 
and make appeak to might, instead of right, normal in 
every sphere. Patriotism is perverted and enervated 
by them. Patriotism is further vitiated by Jesuitism, 
which puts virtue into falsehood, and blasts moral 
consistency even in noble characters. Peace without 
patriotism promotes corruption, and sooner or later 
lapses into anarchy. Anarchy has no remedy but 
usurpation. Usurpation provokes revolution and justi- 
fies violence and disorder. Thus the dreary circuits 
repeat themselves. Priestcraft lead9 to corruption in 



SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD. 223 

those who submit to it, and drives to unbelief those 
who revolt against it. Both these tend to moral weak- 
ness, and that helps to strengthen priestcraft, till unbe- 
lievers and believers bow down to it, and surrender 
up their children to it, alike. Thus another dreary 
circuit closes. 

4. Absence of adequate remedies for the moral 
drawbacks. The hopelessness of this moral situation 
is appalling. Every effort has been made to remedy it 
by the best minds and hearts of those countries, but in 
vain. Good constitutions have failed. Those of Brazil 
and Argentina are second to none in the world, being 
improvements on the federal constitution of the United 
States ; but they cannot stop waste of blood and treas- 
ure, much less demoralization and corruption, and the 
prostitution of patriotism. Good laws have failed. 
They cannot impart the moral power which is lacking 
for carrying them out. Good schools have Culed. 
They can make the scholars to know everything good, 
but cannot make them able to do as well as they know. 
Railroads, steamboats, telegraplis, telephones, electric 
lights, all have failed. Not a soul has been regen- 
erated by them. They happen to abound most where 
wars are raging at present Immigration has failed. 
The children of the immigrants grow up as natives, 
in the atmosphere that makes the natives what they 
are, and the case remains hopeless. 

Hence : 

I. The regeneration of South America cannot 
arise from within, but must be introduced from beyond 
the seas. If the priesthood could be reformed, then a 
mighty reformation would immediately follow. But 
that se^m9 out of the question. . Priest^ haye be^ 



224 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

converted in South America, and done their best to 
start movements that might permeate the Romish 
church, and failed in every case. An English priest 
went through all these countries, a decade and more 
ago, and got up great enthusiasm for the reform of 
the clergy, but it came to nothing, except to show 
how irreformable that system has become. Those 
countries, left to themselves, sink down instead oi 
rising. Barbarous tribes are found there that have 
lapsed from civilization. Regions full of ruined towns 
show a fearful decline in population and prosperity 
in many places. Decline in moral power, now going 
on, is equally certain and equally fearful in many 
places. 

2. South America stands to-day at the bottom 
of the moral scale of nominal Christendom, looking 
with wistful eyes towards the top of that scale as it 
looms up here, lamenting her vain attempts to reach 
these heights sublime, bleeding, bruised, and weary 
with her struggles to find the way of sure progress, 
and calling on all Christendom to give her a guiding 
and uplifting hand. 

3. With Catholic South America at the bottom of 
the moral scale of Christendom, and Protestant North 
America at the top, as seen to-day — the one incapable 
of rising even by imitation of the other, ever stumbling 
and slipping and falling back in the attempt, while the 
other is ever mounting higher by an uplifting and 
guiding power from within — the world beholds to-day 
in the two Americas an object-lesson, the grandest 
that ever was, showing the tendencies of Catholicism 
and Protestantism, and their effects on human well- 
being. 



SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD. 22$ 

4. The greatest of all battle fields between Roman- 
ism and the gospel will be in South America, and 
the great Reformation will achieve there its most &r- 
reaching triumphs. 

IV. NORTH AMERICA TO THE RESCUE. 

South America stands in the following peculiar 
relations to Protestant lands : 

1. It is situated nearest to North America of all 
great mission fields, but is more remote from Europe 
than are many others. The two Americas, isolated 
from the rest of the world and joined one to another, 
have a manifest destiny to be more to each other than 
either is to other lands. The people of the United 
States have not yet awaked to this great fact South 
America is less to them than almost any other land. 
This ought not so to be. Oh for another Columbus, 
to rediscover South America and reveal her to the 
North American people in her providential relations to 
them! 

2. It welcomes influences from the United States 
as no other field, while it is freer from European in- 
fluence than almost any other, especially those where 
European sovereignty is extended. This fact is won- 
derful to contemplate when it is remembered that 
Europeans abound in South America while North 
Americans are few and far between. It is one of the 
amazing proofs that superhuman power is working 
on those masses of humanity, preparing them for their 
moral regeneration. 

3. North American churches have commenced 
operations at strategic points tending to evangelize 
the whole continent. European churches are leaving 



226 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

that continent severely alone. The latter scarcely look 
after their own members that have emigrated thither, 
and do almost nothing for the vast unevangelized 
masses. They find enough to do in their own hemi- 
sphere, and are leaving America to Americans. 

4. The work of the North American churches in 
South America is a success beyond cavil, promising 
to do in the fiiture, for those ten republics, what pro- 
gressive evangelization has done and is doing for the 
great Republic. The Presbyterians are established 
in Brazil, Chili and Colombia, the Baptists in Brazil, 
and the Methodists in many parts. Chief among them 
all is the Methodist Episcopal Church, with an annual 
conference just organized embracing all South Ameri- 
ca, divided into six districts, with six chief centres and 
many minor ones located at the most advantageous 
points to influence the whole. The pioneering has 
been done mainly by the American Bible Society, 
whose work in the two Americas ranks it as the fiiBt 
and noblest of pan- American institutions. 

The operations include every form of activity 
usual in this country. The reports of the societies 
represented are full of facts going to show that North 
American results are sure to be attained all over South 
America, and the time is at hand. 
Hence: 

1. South America oflers the grandest opportunity 
on earth for North American evangelism to extend 
its domain without competition, and work out its results 
on the widest possible scale. 

2. South America calls on North American Chris- 
tians, as the most imperative of all Macedonian criers 
to them, " Come over and help us." 



SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD. 22/ 

3. To preempt this largest half of our own hemi- 
sphere in the name of God and human wdfiu^e, to 
reclaim this wQdemess of priestcraft and swordcraft, 
and bring it to the lofty possibilities of New World 
development, to give the saving truth to thirty-five 
millions already there and to untold millions that are 
coming — such is the mission now before the American 
churches in the great Southern Condnent 



228 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



THE INACCESSIBLE FIELDS OF ISLAM 
AND HOW TO REACH THEM. 

BY JAMES S. DENNIS, D. D. 

Islam is one of the surprises of history. Its ori- 
gin and development are full of dramatic incident, rapid 
movement and amazing achievement It has £diiy 
baffled the philosophical historian, and at present it 
presents an almost insoluble problem to the missionary. 
It is full of &scination to the student of religions, and is 
one of the most serious and impressive providential 
facts which the Church of Christ must fiice in her mod- 
em missionary campaign. Missions to Moslems have 
not received the attention they demand. It is high 
time they should be written in large characters upon 
the programme of world-wide missions. It is discredit- 
able to Christianity, with its superb resources and its 
wealth of divine promises, that its plans for the conver- 
sion of Islam are so meagre and inadequate and its 
grasp of the problem so feeble and ineffective. The 
genesis and growth of Mohammedanism is one of the 
deep things of Providence. Next to Judaism, although 
in entirely another sense and along different lines, it 
may be regarded as a religion with a purpose, and it 
presents several features of special interest to both the 
historian and student of missions. Among them may 
be mentioned its peculiar mission as a religious phe- 
nomenon, its vigorous movement and aggressive policy, 
its easy domination of corrupt and enervated forms of 
Christianity, its unyielding attitude towards Christian 
missionary effort, its prolonged and inflexible intoler- 



THE INACCESSIBLE FIELDS OF ISLAM. 229 

ance of all apostasy from its ranks, its marvellous adap- 
tation of itself to the religious instincts and the human 
weaknesses of Orientals. It is still, even at the pres- 
ent day, a Goliath among religions, a " fighter on the 
path of God," and although its military power and 
political supremacy have been so seriously restricted 
it is still a dauntless antagonist in the field of religious 
conflict. It is to meet its David in Christianity; its 
mighty weapons will yield, as of old, to ' the smooth 
stones fi'om the brook. It is a singular combination of 
strength and weakness ; it is a manifest compromise in 
the realm of religious doctrine and practical ethics. As 
against polytheism and idolatry it is a saving force in 
the world, and brings men back to essential truth, al- 
though the Koranic deity resembles rather some muti- 
lated fragment of a splendid classical statue dug out of 
the debris of an ancient ruin than the living God of 
Christian revelation. It is coldly grand, and within 
certain lines it is artistically beautifiil, but so sadly muti- 
lated that it is only a suggestion of the perfection and 
grace of the living original. The God of Christian 
revelation comes into touch with humanity and makes 
himself a part of the spiritual life of the believer in a 
sense which is utterly foreign to the Moslem ideal. 
When we have given to Islam the credit of its one great 
central truth and its correlative teachings of divine sov- 
ereignty and control, we have practically exhausted all 
that can be said in its favor as a religious force in the 
world. Its terrible weaknesses and failures appear in 
the realm of practical religion and ethics. Its views of 
personal righteousness are the very acme of Phariseeism, 
and its vain attempt to adjust the ethics of social and 
domestic life shows plainly that it moves in an earthly 



230 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

atmosphere and is colored by the local sentiment and 
coarse morality of heathen Arabia. Its suppression of 
individual liberty, its monumental intolerance, its alli- 
ance with mUitary power, its undistinguishable combi- 
nation of State and Church, all mark it as of the earth, 
earthy. It is cast in entirely another mould from 
Christianity. As a religion it is like the loose, flowing 
garment of the typical Oriental — ^it is slipped on over 
human nature as it is ; and while it gives a certain dig- 
nity to the appearance at the same time it serves a 
useful purpose in covering up much that is better hid 
from the light of truth and the sensibilities of moral 
refinement. 

Our subject, however, is not Islam as a religion, 
but rather. How shall we reach its hitherto inaccessible 
strongholds ? There are signs at present that Christian 
missions are making progress in certain sections of the 
Moslem world, so that the distinction which our subject 
suggests between its accessible and its inaccessible fields 
is in this case fairly justified. If we closely scrutinize, 
however, the reasons why missions have any access 
whatever to Moslems, we shall find that it is not so 
much because of any change in the spirit of Islam or 
any concessions in the interests of tolerance, as because 
of external restraints imposed by Christian governments 
holding in check the natural immemorial instincts of 
the old Islamic spirit. Where Islam is accessible it 
will be found that it is fettered, and compelled to ac- 
knowledge the military supremacy of Christian nations. 
Where it is still free to follow without restraint its own 
untrammelled tendencies it crushes out all freedom 
of thought and compels subjection to its own spiritual 
authority. 



THE INACCESSIBLE FIELDS OF ISLAM. 23 1 

Let us now make the effort to locate the inaccessi- 
ble fields of Islam. We shall find that as a religion it 
occupies a vast belt of the earth's surface, extending 
from west to east tlirough the northern half of Africa, 
over into Arabia, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, Ba- 
luchistan, India, and China. To the north of it and 
also to the south of it we find the accessibility 
shaded and graded by the relation which the Moham- 
medan populations hold to the ruling powers under 
which they live. Where the Christianity of Europe, 
along the northern coasts of Africa, in the Balkan pen- 
insula and in Turkey, impinges upon Islam we have a 
measure of accessibility. Where the political sway of 
Christian nations in the south, as in India and the East 
Indies, extends itself over Moslem populations there is 
also a manifest restriction upon intolerance and a corre- 
sponding accessibility. It is, however, a singular and 
striking fact that where Islam still hides itself in regions 
exclusively under its own political control there is no 
scope given to Christian missions. If left to carry out 
its own will, intolemnce is still the inflexible rule. It 
follows, therefore, that one of the first suggestions 
that arise in connection with our subject is that Islam 
must be put under external restraint, and must be 
brought into providential subjection to civilized Chi-is- 
tian governments, before its inaccessible fields will 
be fully opened to the, entrance of the Christian mis- 
sionary. God can do this, and he will do it in answer 
to prayer. As the Christian Church has unlocked vast 
regions of the earth, hitherto inaccessible, by the golden 
n key of prayer, let her solemnly purpose to accom- 
plish the same result in those vast regions of the Mos- 
lem world that are still practically inaccessible. 



232 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

The number of Moslems in the world can be esti- 
mated with tolerable accuracy from existing statistical 
data, chief among which we would name " The States- 
man's Year Book." 

Beginning in the extreme west and moving east- 
ward, the most reliable statistics are as follows : Moroc- 
co, 5,000,000; Algeria, 3,500,000; Tunis, 1,500,000; 
Tripoli, 1,300,000; Egypt, 6,000,000; the Sahara and 
kingdoms of the Western and Eastern Soudan, 44,500,- 
000; Zanzibar, 100,000. Total for Africa, 61,900,00a 
Servia, 16,764; Bosnia and Herzegovina, '482,710 ; 
Montenegro, 8,500 ; Greece, 24,165 ; Bulgaria, 668,173 * 
Roumania, 2,000 ; Turkey in Europe, 2,000,000 ; Rus- 
sia in Europe, 2,600,000: Total for Europe, 5,812,312. 
Russia in the Caucasus, 2,000,000 ; Turkey in Asia, 14,- 
000,000; Arabia, 6,000,000; Persia, 8,800,000; Bok- 
hara, 2,500,000; Khiva, 700,000; Russian Turkestan, 
3,000,000; Siberia, 61,000; Afghanistan, 4,000,000 ; Bal- 
uchistan, 500,000; India, 57,321,164; Ceylon, 197,775; 
China, 30,000,000; Malaysia and Australasia, 15,000,- 
000. Total for Asia, 144,079,939. Total for the world, 
211,792,251. 

It is possible that the estimate for the kingdoms 
of the Soudan and for China may be too high. The 
estimate for Africa, however, is made up from the best 
authorities and corresponds with the belief of the late 
Cardinal Lavigerie, who gave 60,000,000 ^s the number 
of African Mohammedans. The estimate for China, 
which is that of the " Statesman's Year Book," is larger 
by 10,000,000 than that of De Thiersant, given in his 
learned work on La MahomiHsme en Chine. With 
allowance for overstatements, it is safe to name 200,000^- 
000 as the present Moslem population of the world. 



THE INACCESSIBLE FIELDS OF ISLAM. ^33 

Scattered through this vast region of Islamic na- 
tions we can run a line from west to east which will in- 
dicate with sufficient accuracy the inaccessible strong- 
holds of Mohammedanism. It begins in Morocco and 
extends through the entire breadth of the Soudan in a 
belt sufficiently broad to include the Soudan on the 
south and the African states of Algeria, Tunis, and 
Tripoli on the north. It crosses the Red Sea into 
Arabia and extends northward through the desert 
haunts of the Bedawin, and curves around to the east- 
ward through the Russian contingent of Islam, and 
moves southward through Western and Central Persia 
east of the Persian Gulf, until it reaches Baluchistan, 
where it again turns sharply to the north and runs 
through Afghanistan and Bokhara into Turkestan, and 
thence into China, where it divides into a northern and 
southern fork, the northern section passes through the 
provinces of Kansuh, Shensi, Shansi, and Chihli, end- 
ing in Shantung. The southern section passes tlirough 
Yunnan, and Kwangsi, and ends at Canton, in the pro- 
vince of Kwangtung. This line is, of course, but a 
rude attempt to render definite something which is 
indefinite, but, as we trace the populations coming 
within the scope of this somewhat vague discrimination, 
we may safely say that the inaccessible fields of Islam 
contain to-day a population of not less than 100,000,000. 
As, however, there are gradations of difficulty in enter- 
ing these fields, it might perhaps be objected that such 
fields as Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, in 
Africa, could hardly be called inaccessible, for the rea- 
son that missions have already entered. This may be 
said also of Persia. Yet it remains true that enormous 
sections of those countries which are at present occupied 



234 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

by missions are still practically beyond the reach of the 
missionary, and in many cases where missions are es- 
tablished in Moslem lands they are more directly con- 
cerned with the non-Moslem populations of those coun- 
tries and reach only in a very indirect way the Moham- 
medan peoples. If, however, we strike out those regions 
about which a question could be raised as to whether 
they could be properly ranked as inaccessible, we still 
have a vast population of not less than 80,000,000 who 
may be considered as practically beyond the range of 
Christian missions. Their accessibility would be at 
least a matter of grave experiment involving long pa- 
tience and large sacrifices, white, if the point of our 
inquiry is changed from the inaccessible to the un- 
touched populations of Islam, the Christian heart should 
be awe-struck and saddened by the present state of 
missions to the Moslem world. 

Another &ct of starding interest must also be con- 
sidered in this connection. In the census of 1881 the 
number of Mohammedans reported in India was 50,- 
121,595, while in the census of 1891 the number is given 
as 57,321,164, showing an increase of 7,199,569. No 
doubt a large percentage of this increase is natural, but 
there must have been also considerable accessions to 
the Mohammedan ranks from the Hindus, or low-caste 
populations of India, and to what extent this same pro- 
cess is going on among the Afiican tribes of the Soudan 
it is impossible to ascertain ; but that there is a Moham- 
medan propaganda in Afiica seems assured. If not 
through instruction and conviction, it is still largely 
carried on through political and military agencies. It 
is time that Christianity should arouse itself from an 
almost fatalistic indi£ference to the spiritual interests of 



THE INACCESSIBLE FIELDS OF ISLAM. 235 

these vast populations that seem to be handed over to 
the sway of Islam. If the church is &int-hearted about 
missions to Moslems why should she be careless and 
negligent about prayer on their behalf? If Christianity 
is going to conquer Islam we must seek the help of 
God with ** strong crying and tears." The church will 
need divine help and support in this task as she has 
never needed it before. That God has opened the way 
within the past half century for such magnificent ad- 
vances into regions beset with almost equal difficulties 
and ^langers is a grand encouragement to plead with 
God to ** make bare his arm " and smite the barriers 
which at present render our access to Islam so difficult. 
We have much to encourage us in the way in 
which God has already brought large sections of the 
Mohammedan world under the orderly control of Chris- 
tian governments. Providence seems to have put 
Islam under mighty restraints. The era of Jehads has 
passed, and although there is still bitter and cruel per- 
secution under Mohammedan governments, yet these 
facts are coming more and more to the knowledge of 
Christendoni, and civilization is pouring the rays of its 
search-light into the dark places of the Islamic inquisi- 
tion. While it is true that we could have no confidence 
that tolerance of the apostate would be conceded freely 
anywhere in the Moslem world, yet we may hope that 
the demands of good order and the moral pressure of 
Christendom will continue to place the fanatical in- 
stincts of Moslem rulers more and more under restraint. 
It is a melancholy fact that, after all the efforts of Chris- 
tendom, liberty of conscience is still a name in the Turk- 
ish Empire. Whatever promises may have been given 
under the pressure of diplomacy, the principle of toler- 



236 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ation has never been conceded, and to-day the sword 
would be quickly drawn against apostasy with all the 
old Islamic fire were it possible to do so with safety. 
In Persia we have had an affecting instance, still fresh 
in our public prints, of the inevitable &te of those who 
openly embrace Christianity. 

Another encouraging fact, and at the same time an 
evidence of that restless and uncomfortable feeling 
which results when Christian civilization impinges too 
sharply upon Mohammedanism, is the movement, orig- 
inating in India, which has been named in our public 
journals the '* New Islam." It indicates that intelligent 
Moslems realize that if Islam is to enter the ranks of 
civilization it must be radically reformed and much of 
its immemorial barbarism must be sloughed off and con- 
signed to oblivion. The field of rationalistic criticism 
in the Moslem religion is a hopeful one. Much more 
so in the modem atmosphere of this nineteenth century 
than in the old daiys of the Mutazilah, those representa- 
tives of primitive rationalism in the second century of 
the Moslem era who strove to break the iron restrictions 
of Mohammedan orthodoxy. It is evident to the intel- 
ligent and discriminating leaders of this new movement 
that Islam has entirely overreached itself by the inexor- 
able rigidity of its traditionalism, leaving no opening 
for reform in precept or practice, so that even at the 
present hour the successor of the Khalif is bound to 
respect the decisions of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and his 
corps of ulema. The Sheikh-ul-Islam, and in a second- 
ary sense every Kadi, is to-day practically the final 
court of appeal, and the authoritative interpreter of 
inflexible law. He authoritatively interprets and ap- 
plies that worse than medieval shariat of the Moslems 



THE INACCESSIBLE FIELDS OF ISLAM. 237 

to existing conditions. A more helpless slavery to an 
effete and puerile system df petty precepts can hardly 
be conceived. If the leaders of the " New Islam " 
movement can rid their religion of its gross supersti- 
tions and ethical monstrosities, and bring it more into 
sympathy with the Christian code, the movement will so 
fsLT benefit the world, and at least help on the interests 
of morality and civilization. At the same time it will 
give to Moslems themselves a chance to keep step in 
the march of human progress. 

Our anxieties, however, must still be deeply stirred 
on behalf of those unknown multitudes who are far 
I within the shadows of the unrestricted power and intol- 

I erant instincts of unfettered and untamed Islam. What 

can b^ done for these children of darkness and sorrow ? 
Can the Christian Church leave them longer without at 
least a generous and heroic and Christlike effort to give 
them the gospel ? Ah I this is what they need; this is 
what all Moslems need — the simple gospel of Christ. 
They need a simple gospel, as free as possible from 
philosophical mysteries and hard doctrines and legal 
exactions. They need the gospel of grace and pardon 
and free redemption, the gospel of love and light and 
assured hope; they need it in an environment of hu- 
man sympathy and kindliness, of patience and tact and 
I generous consideration for their desperate weaknesses 

I and their spiritual darkness. As Christ was gende with 

him who ''saw men as trees walking,'' and led him 
kindly on to clearer vision, so we must be content to 
lead our Moslem converts perhaps through a long and 
painful struggle with doubts and fears, in the hope and 
prayer that God will lead them through the shadows 
into the dear light of his truth. It is folly to think of 



238 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

force as a weapon of the gospel ; it is equal folly to 
expect to gain anything by denunciation and scornful 
scoffings. What a Moslem holds true we can persuade 
him to give up only as we lead him to recognize that 
it is not worthy of his faith, and teach him of better 
things which he can accept instead. 

Missions to Moslems must not be considered as 
hopeless. They must be undertaken with personal 
courage and well-chosen methods. It may be a long 
campaign, but Christian faith and loyalty and tact will 
in the end carry the day. There is at the present hour 
no more impressive call for sacrifice and no more in- 
spiring incitement to heroism in the whole range of 
Christian missions than the inaccessible fields of Islam. 
In some cases they may be absolutely unapproachable, 
but in many instances they would yield to the courage 
and tact of a true-hearted missionary. Let the Church 
give Providence a chance to cooperate in an earnest 
and dauntless effort to enter the strongholds of the 
Moslem world. Let us have men who are ready to 
give themselves unreservedly to this realm of service 
and heroism — men who seek to be led of God and are 
eager to go where he will lead them ; and let us have a 
Christianity at home ready to send them, and support 
them, and inspire them with hearty sympathy and un- 
failing loyalty. A Christ-inspired crusade will never 
fail Already we have scattered illustrations of this 
spirit in the devotion of Christian missionaries in Mo- 
rocco, Arabia, and on the borders of the Soudan. In 
Morocco there are lady missionaries who are engaged 
in this pioneer work six days' journey from their near- 
est sympathizers, and they have won for themselves a 
measure of personal consideration and even admiration 



THE INACCESSIBLE FIELDS OF ISLAM. 239 

in the bigoted Mohammedan city of Fez. The whole 
field and work of the North African Mission may well 
command the sympathy and prayers of the Church. A 
bold push has been made into Arabia by the Keith- 
Falconer and Arabian Missions. Messrs. Cantine and 
Zwemer are typical men, who have raised the standard 
of personal missionary consecration and are devoting 
themselves to the one purpose of reaching hitherto 
inaccessible recesses of Islam. The Free Church of 
Scodand has assumed the mission at Aden, and will 
give to it its efficient and generous support. The 
names of Keith-Falconer and Bishop French are al- 
ready written in self-sacrificing devotion upon the open- 
ing pages of this new chapter of Christian missions in 
Arabia. The Church must not be content simply to 
drift into this business of reaching the Mohammedan 
world. She must arouse herself to careful study of the 
problem, and dedicate herself to a zealous effort to 
break the fatal spell of lethargy and indifierence which 
seems to make her faint-hearted and callous in the face 
of this great and bitter cry of neglected Islam. 

As regards the methods which promise at the pres- 
ent time the largest measure of success in penetrating 
to the inaccessible fields of Islam, let us note : 

I. The advantages of direct personal contact of 
the missionary upon the basis of his. own individual- 
ity, free from all entanglements with questions of State 
or diplomacy. Let us send missionaries to seek indi- 
vidual converts, to cultivate the friendship of men of 
influence and authority, and, if possible, to win over by 
their own personal persuasiveness the leaders and rulers 
of Mohammedan society. There b a wonderful charm 
and power about personality in the East. The Mo- 



240 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

hammedan world is on the alert for commanding char- 
acters who will act as leaders and guides in spiritual 
things. There is a wonderful state of expectation 
among Mohammedans everywhere that prophets and 
leaders are to appear under whose auspices mighty 
changes are to be brought about Moslems, the world 
over, are peculiarly susceptible to the magnetic power 
of a religious leader. We have illustrations of this fact 
in the expected Mahdi of the Soudan, who has been so 
recendy personated by an ignorant and cruel fimatic 
who nearly succeeded in putting the whole Mohamme- 
dan world into a foment of excitement. Another illus- 
tration is the Bab in Persia, whose career seems like an 
Eastern romance, and whose influence in Persia is still 
a religious force of unknown proportions. There are 
other minor illustrations, as the Shathiltyeh of Syria, 
who at the present hour are in certain respects enthusi- 
astic perverts from Mohammedanism in that country. 
The history of Islam affords many examples in connec- 
tion with its introduction into China, its Wahhaby ref- 
ormation, and the formation of numberless schools and 
sects under the leadership of some strong personal 
character. Mohammedanism itself derived much of its 
vitality from the extraordinary personality of Moham- 
med. There is, therefore, an inviting field of mission- 
ary service along the lines of personal influence. We 
cannot tell, for we have not tried, what God would be 
willing to do with consecrated men of strong, noble and 
devoted character who would wisely, patiendy and 
courageously enter these so-called inaccessible fields in 
the loneliness and faith and power of a Christ-sent mis- 
sion. They would need to be men of noble quahfica- 
tions, and also to be divinely guided and sustained in 



THE INACCESSIBLE FIELDS OF ISLAM. 24I 

this great undertaking. In some cases the measure of 
success might seem trivial, and yet here is a method 
which has in its favor a marked characteristic of Orien- 
tal life, and is full of the possibilities of Christ-like con- 
secration, which has never been fairly tried as a settled 
policy supported by the faith and prayer and liberality 
of the Christian Church. Raymond Lull is a name 
which stands for a type of consecration which is still 
rare in the annals of missions to Moslems. 

2. Another method which might be pursued in a 
£ir more S3rstematic and determined way than heretofore 
is the circulation of the Bible and of evangelical litera- 
ture among Moslems. We have a magnificent trans- 
lation of the Scriptures in the Arabic language, the 
sacred language of Islam. We have the Bible transla- 
ted into the vernacular of many of these inaccessible 
peoples. We have an increasing literature in Arabic 
and in other languages which is especially adapted to 
instruct the Moslem mind. The "M!zan-ul-Haq,*' the 
" Apology of Al-Kindy," and a remarkable book called 
" Al Baktlrat es Shahlyet," or " Sweet Firstfruits," are 
all to be found both in English and Arabic, and are all 
full of useful matter for Moslem inquirers. The latter 
especially is a sort of Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress " 
prepared especially for Moslem readers. It is an Ori- 
ental romance with a powerful and winsome apologetic 
purpose. The two latter of the above-mentioned books 
are published in English and Arabic by the Religious 
Tract Society of London. In the languages of India 
there are works of the same character, especially those 
prepared by Dr. Imad-ud-Din, himself a convert from 
Islam. There is a definite need at present for the prep- 
aration of a distinct literature for evangelistic and apol- 
16 



242 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ogedc purposes in the various languages of Moham- 
medan fields. We find in current missionary literature 
many statements which indicate that the Word of God 
is a mighty missionary power in thousands of Moslem 
homes. It is read and pondered in secret by many all 
through this belt of inaccessible Islam, and God only 
knows what a preparation of heart it is bringing about 
for the reception and profession of Christianity. 

3. Another method suggests itself, in connection 
with medical work. Suffering humanity is to be found 
everywhere in the East, and the cruelties and barbari- 
ties which superstition practises in the name of the 
healing art, beyond the reach of intelligent medical aid, 
make one of the most appalling chapters in human his- 
tory. The sphere of the medical missionary is a pecu- 
liarly inviting and open one. He wins his way and 
holds his own by the power of his professional skill. 
He can dwell in the tents of the Bedawln and in the 
wild mountain fastnesses of Kurdistan and Turkistan 
and Afghanistan, and even in China, and be sure of a 
hearty welcome and a charmed life ; and the same may 
be said to a notable extent of the interior regions of 
Africa. The alliance of medical skill with the evange- 
listic spirit is a peculiarly happy and wise one in those 
inaccessible realms of Islam. 

4. Still another method, which cannot fail to com- 
mend itself, is the employment of native evangelists 
wherever suitable persons can be found. The native 
evangelist has many advantages which no foreign mis- 
sionary can have, and if God would give to the Church 
the men, a mighty campaign might be carried on 
through this instrumentality. It seems to me that it 
would be a wide-awake policy for every missionary so- 



THE INACCESSIBLE FIELDS OF ISLAM. 243 

ciety having work in Mohammedan lands to authorize 
its missionaries to select suitable native evangelists, pre- 
sumably converts from Islam, and send them among 
their own people to do a quiet and unostentatious ser- 
vice as teachers and preachers of Christianity. Striking 
examples of this kind of service can be found to-day in 
many parts of the Moslem world. An effort of this 
character, which is full of promise, is reported from 
Persia, and work of this kind has been going on a long 
time in Northern India, on the borders of Afghanistan. 
A noble youth, whose brief career as an evangelist to 
Mohammedans was full of beautiful devotion and sin- 
gular winsomeness, has just died in the service of the 
Arabian Mission. Dr. Thomas P. Hughes has lately 
published, in his interesting reminiscences of work 
among the A%hans, a striking testimony to the fidelity 
and devotion of native evangelists. * In the interesting 
paper recently prepared for the Parliament of Religions 
by Dr. Imad-ud-Din of India, most suggestive statistics 
are given showing the useful services performed in In- 
dia by converts from among Mohammedans. Nine out 
of seventeen of the native ministers who at the present 
time are engaged under the auspices of the Church 
Missionary Society in the diocese of the Punjab are 
converts from Islam. In addition, there are twenty 
Mohammedan converts employed as catechists. 

We have often spoken in this paper of inaccessible 
fields, and yet the question has often recurred as to 
whether we were right in designating them as such. 
Has God ever declared them so? Has Providence 
ever clearly indicated that they are so? Has the 
Christian Church faithfully tried and found them so ? 
Are we in this age of the world justified in acknowl- 



244 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

edging that it is beyond the power and resource of 
our Christianity to reach them ? Let this solemn and 
searching question ring in our ears and sink into our 
hearts. 

In the meanwhile, wherever Christian missions are 
planted in contact with Moslem populations, let us lose 
no opportunity to push on the work of Christian edu- 
cation, literary enlightenment, and personal evangelism. 
Evangelical missions represent the only form of Chris- 
tianity which will ever command the respect of Mos- 
lems. A mighty work of preparation has been going 
on, and Islam may be at the present hour far more 
under the influence of Christian truth than we realize. 

There are two great lessons which can &drly be 
drawn from the consideration of this important and 
difficult subject : 

First, the necessity of providential restraint to the 
intolerant spirit of Islam. Here is a call to the Church 
to seek in prayer the divine interposition in opening to 
her a path of access and giving her protection in teach- 
ing and preaching the gospel to Moslems. 

Second, the direct call to the Church to undertake 
the serious duty of entering with the gospel message 
the haunts of Islam in a resolute, quiet, heroic spirit of 
undaunted devotion to this great task. 

The Church must seek God's interposition in 
prayer, and cast herself upon God's support in action, 
if she is to enter and occupy the spiritual strongholds 
of Islam in the name of her Master. 



gEACOf^l [i 



EACON ItlGHTS FRO 



h|TS FROM TH( 



y^ORLo's P^ISSIO|sl pIELDS, 



THE GOSPEL IN tHE OTTOMAN EMPIkE. 2^^ 



MODERN TRIUMPHS OF THE GOSPEL IN 
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

BY REV. HENRY H. JESSUP, D. D. 

BBIRUT, SYRIA. 

To recount the triumphs of the gospel in the 
Ottoman Empire would be to write the history of its 
moral, intellectual, and social progress for the past 
seventy-five years. 

When Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons sailed for Je- 
rusalem, in 1818, the Ottoman Empire was virtually a 
terra incognita. Ruling over thirty-five millions of 
souls in Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and Nor- 
thern Africa, of whom twelve millions were Oriental 
Christians, this great Empire had not a school except- 
ing the Koranic medrisehs for boys in the mosques, and 
its vast populations were in a state of intellectual, 
moral, and religious stagnation. These young Ameri- 
cans were instructed to ascertain " What good could 
be done for Jews, Pagans, Mohammedans, and Chris- 
tians, in Egypt, Syria, Persia, Armenia, and other adja- 
cent countries." Fisk died in Beirut in 1826, and by 
his grave was planted a little cypress-tree. Parsons 
died in Alexandria, and his grave is unknown. They 
both " died without the sight " of fruit from their labors. 
Their lives seemed a failure. Other laborers came; 
Goodell entered the Turkish capital ; Syria, Palestine, 
Asia Minor, and Armenia were explored. 

Three-quarters of a century have passed, and to- 
day we are asked, What good has been done to Jews, 
Pagans, Mohammedans, and Christians in this great 



248 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Empire? What triumphs has the gospel wrought? 
What is the outcome and what the outlook for the 
future ? 

The work to be done in 1820 was formidable and 
the means seemingly contemptible. What could a 
handful of young men and women accomplish, coming 
from a distant land, whose very existence was discred- 
ited, to an Empire whose political and religious sys- 
tems had been fossilized for centuries, where schools, 
books, and Bibles were unknown ? For these inexpe- 
rienced youth from the land of the Pilgrims, reared in 
the air of civil and religious liberty, trained to hate all 
despotism, political or ecclesiastical, and to love a free 
press, free schools, and absolute freedom of conscience, 
to attempt to change public opinion and renovate soci- 
ety, to reform the Oriental churches and liberalize 
Islam, seemed a forlorn and desperate venture.' 

Seventy years have passed. Sultans have risen 
and fallen. Patriarchs and bishops remain, but Turkey 
is not what it was in 1820, and can never retrograde to 
those days of darkness. That litde evergreen tree 
planted by Pliny Fisk's grave in the suburbs of a town 
of 8,000 population has grown to be a stately cypress- 
tree in the very centre of a city of 90,000 people. 
Overlooking it is a female seminary, a large church 
edifice, a Sunday-school hall, a printing house which 
sends out more than 20,000,000 of pages annually. 
That little iron door to the east opens into a vault con- 
taining thirteen thousand electrotype plates of various 
editions of the Arabic Scriptures. Within a radius of 
two miles are four Christian colleges, seven female 
seminaries, sixty boys' day schools, thirty-one girls' 
schools, seventeen printing presses, and four large hos- 



THE GOSPEL IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 249 

pitals. The boys' and gfirls' schools belong to the 
Protestants, Catholics, Greeks, Moslems, and Jews, and 
sixteen thousand children are under instruction. Scores 
of Moslem girls are as £aimiliar with the Old Testament 
prophecies with regard to Christ as are our Sunday- 
school children at home. Bibles, hymn-books, and 
Christian literature, as well as scientific, historical, and 
educational works, are scattered over the city and 
throughout the land. Young Syrian women, formerly 
shut up in ignorance and illiteracy, now enjoy the in- 
struction of home libraries and useful periodicals, and 
even carry on discussions in the public press and write 
books of decided merit 

To make clear the work wrought in the Ottoman 
Empire by Protestant Missions, direcdy and indirecdy, 
we will consider the resultant good as : 

I. Religious. 

II. Social. 

III. Educational. 

IV. Literary and Biblical. 

V. The General Result 

I. The gospel has triumphed in securing in a great 
measure to the people of Turkey that most precious 
treasure, religious liberty and freedom of conscience 

In 1820, every Ottoman subject had a right to re- 
main in his own sect and to think as his fathers thought 
before him. Moslem could remain Moslem, Greek 
remain Greek, Armenian Armenian, and Maronite 
Maronite. Each sect was a walled enclosure with gates 
bolted and barred, and the only possible egress fi'om 
any was into the fold of Islam^. 

The appearance of an open Bible, the preaching of 



2S<> MtSSiOKS At HOME AND AfiROAt). 

the gospel, free schools, and open discussion of religious 
questions threw all things into confusion. Not a few 
received the gospel and claimed the right to think for 
themselves. The doctrine that men are saved not in 
masses through a chiu'ch or sect but as individuals, 
through personal faith, that justification is through 
fidth alone, and that each man is direcdy responsible to 
God, with no Mediator but Jesus Christ, inevitably 
tends to the enfranchisement of human thought When 
men began to read God's Word and think for them- 
selves, and to call upon God through Christ without 
human mediator, they became intolerant of priestly 
tyranny. The result was to rouse the wrath of patri- 
archs, bishops, priests, monks, sheikhs, and akkals, 
who agreed that the new departure should be stopped 
vi et armis. The old instruments of persecution were 
brought out and set to work. Anathemas, the major 
excommunication, stripes and imprisonment intimida- 
ted some but drove multitudes out of the Oriental 
churches, and, as the Imperial laws regarded every man 
outside the traditional sects as an oudaw, exile, death, or 
recantation seemed their only possible faite. 

But these storms of persecution developed some of 
the noblest types of Christian character. True heroic 
spirits, like Asaad esh Shidiak, in Lebanon, preferred 
death to submission to the doctrines of a priesdy hier- 
archy. The Maronite monastery of Connobln, near the 
cedars of Lebanon, where he was walled up in a cell 
under the overhanging cliff and starved to death, has 
become memorable in Syria as the scene of the first 
mart3rrdom for the evangelical &ith in Turkey in mod- 
em times. 

Scourging, imprisonment and exile have been the 



THK GOSfEL IN TH£ OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 2$! 

lot of multitudes who have stood steadfast amid thdr 
sufferings. Mr. Butrus Bistany, a young Maronite 
scholar^ who found the truth, as Luther found it, in a 
monastery, fled for his life to Beirut, and remained con- 
cealed for two years in the American Mission, fearing 
death at the hands of the spies of the Patriarch. But 
he was spared to be a pillar in the Protestant Church, a 
learned Arabic author, the assistant of Eli Smith in 
Bible translation, and the biographer of Asaad esh 
Shidiak. The character developed by the storms and 
tests of persecution is always strong and noble, and the 
example of such men will long be a stimulus to the 
faith of God's people in the East. 

Kamil Abd ul Messiah, a youthful Syrian convert 
to Christianity from Islam, who died in Bussorah in 
June, 1892, seemed baptized by the Holy Spirit and 
divinely instructed in the word of God. He grasped 
the vital truths of the gospel as by a heavenly instinct 
He was a youth of pure life and lips, of £adth and 
prayer, of courage and zeal, and he was mighty in the 
Scriptures. In Southern Arabia he preached in the 
streets of towns, in Arab camps, on the deck of coast- 
ing ships, and even in mosques. His journals read 
like chapters from the Acts. His early death was a loss 
to the Arab race, but his memory is fragrant with the 
aroma of a pure and godly life and example. 

Time would fail us to recount the history of the 
able writers, the liberal Christian merchants, the faith- 
fiil pastors and teachers, the godly physicians, the self- 
denying poor, the patient, loving, and exemplary wo- 
men who have been Christ's witnesses during these 
years of toil and prayer in Syria. 

The turning-point in the history of religious liberty 



252 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

in Turkey dates from November, 1847, when an Impe- 
rial decree of the Turkish Government recognized na- 
tive Protestants as an independent community with a 
dvil head* 

In 1850 the Sultan gave a firman granting to Prot- 
estants all the privileges given to other Christian com- 
munitiesy and in 1853 su^other, declaring Christians 
before the law equal in all respects to Mohammedans, 
and the death penalty for apostasy from Islam was 
abolished. This Magna Charta of Protestant rights is 
the charter of liberty of conscience to all men in Tur- 
key. 

The Ottoman Government became to a great 
extent tolerant, and to-day, as compared with its 
northern Muscovite neighbor, it is a model of tolera- 
tion. There is no open legal persecution for con- 
science' sake. 

The Bible in its various languages b distributed 
throughout the Empire with the Imperial permit print- 
ed on the tide-page. There is not yet liberty to print 
controversial books touching the religion of Islam, 
although Islamic works attacking Christianity are dis- 
tributed openly with official approbation. The cen- 
sorship of the press is rigid, but the existing Christian 
literature is rarely interfered with. 

The Sheikh ul Islam in Constantinople recendy 
replied officially to a European convert to Islam, who 
asked his aid in enterbg the Mohammedan religion, 
that " religion is a matter between man and God, and 
that no sheikh or priest or mediator is needed in man's 
approach to his Maker." This is one of the cardinal 
principles of Christianity, the difference consisting in 
this: that, while the Sheikh ul Islam probably meant to 



THE GOSPEL IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 253 

exclude even the mediation of Christ, the gospel claims 
Christ as the only Mediator. 

It is also true that if any Christian wishes to be- 
come a Mohammedan he must go before the Kadi, who 
summons the Christian's religious minister to labor with 
him and examine his case before he is admitted to Islam. 

That so much of religious liberty exists is cause for 
profound gratitude. The door into Islam is always 
open. To those inside, the injunction is Nulla vestigia 
reirarsum. We pray earnesdy for the dme when Mo- 
hammedans may become Christians with as much of 
facility and honor ^ are now given to Christians who 
become Mohammedans. 

II. The social triumphs of gospel work in Turkey 
appear in the transformation of the £aimily and the ele- 
vation of woman. 

The Mohammedan practice of the veiling and 
seclusion of woman, and her exclusion from all social 
dignity and responsibilities, rested like a blight on 
womankind among all the sects of the Empire. Even 
among the women of the non-Moslem sects the veil be- 
came a necessary shield from insult. 

An exploration of the Empire in 1829 &iled to 
discover a single school for girls. American women 
were the first to break the spell, and after long and 
patient efforts the first school building for the instruc- 
tion of girls in the Ottoman Empire was erected in 
Beirut, in 1834, at the expense of Mrs. Tod, an American 
lady in Alexandria, and the teacher was Mrs. Sarah 
L. H. Smith. To this humble beginning is traced the 
entire system of female education now spread over the 
Empire, so that to-day there is hardly a town of any 
importance in which girls may not learn to read. 



254 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

In 1877 the first Moslem school for girls was 
opened in Beirut They now have three girls' schools 
in the city, with five hundred pupils. Thus far their 
girls' schools are confined to the great cities, and they 
have shown commendable zeal in erecting neat and 
coipmodious buildings. 

In Syria and Palestine there are now 9,081 girls 
under Protestant instruction, and there are thousands 
in the Greek and Papal schools. The effect of female 
education prosecuted for so many years has been a 
palpable change in the status and dignity of woman. 
The light and comfort, the moral and intellectual eleva- 
tion which have resulted are plain even to the casual 
observer. The mother is becoming the primary in- 
structor of the children at home, and by precept and 
example their moral and religious guide. 

The indifference of the Oriental Christians and 
the opposition of the Mohammedans to female educa- 
tion has been largely overcome. A Mohammedan 
Turkish lady in Constantinople, Fatimeh Alia Khanum, 
daughter of Joudet Pasha, has just published a novelette 
in Turkish and Arabic to show the superiority of the 
home life of Turkish Moslem women to that of Euro- 
pean Christian women. A Protestant young lady of 
Northern Syria has taken a prize of $50 for the best 
original Arabic story illustrating the benefits of female 
education. Another Protestant young woman has re- 
cently published an Arabic book on "Society and 
Social Customs," and, on the eve of her departure for 
the Columbian Exposition, delivered a public lecture 
on the duty of Ottoman subjects to support their own 
domestic manufactures. It was largely attended by 
Moslem sheikhs, Turkish effendis, and the public gen- 



THE GOSPEL IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 2$$ 

erally, and at the dose a young Jewess, a fellow-gradu- 
uate with her from the American Female Seminary, 
arose and made an impromptu address in support of 
the speaker's views. 

Too much cannot be said in admiration of the 
self-denying and successful labors of the American, 
English, Scotch, and German women who have toiled 
patiently through long years, and many of whom have 
sacrificed their lives to the elevation of their sisters in 
this great Empire. Educated and cultivated wives, 
mothers, sisters and daughters, all over the land, rise 
up and call them blessed. These happy Oriental 
homes, neat and well ordered, their high character, 
their exemplary conduct, their intelligence and interest 
in the proper training of their own children and the 
best welfare of society, are among the noblest fruits of 
a revived Christianity in the East. 

What it wants to complete the symmetry of this 
picture of the intellectual progress of Oriental women 
is that a deputation of Mohammedan ladies should at- 
tend the great World's Congress of Women from all 
the Nations, and explain to their sisters from Christian 
and pagan empires wherein consists the excellency and 
glory of the veiling and seclusion of Mohammedan 
women in harems and zenanas, and the permission to 
their men to have four legal wives and as many con- 
cubines as their right hands may acquire by purchase or 
capture. They should have the opportunity to explain 
the superiority of this system to that of Christianity, 
under which woman is allowed the most complete 
liberty of action, is trusted and honored, and given 
the highest place in the great organized enterprises 
of benevolence, charity, religion, and social reform. 



256 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD, 

and in the relief of human suffering at home and 
abroad. 

It is a profoundly suggestive fact that, as far as 
we know, out of a total Mohammedan population of 
two hundred and three millions in the world, and not 
less than one hundred millions of women, not one 
Mohammedan woman appears this year to cooperate 
with the millions of enlightened and devoted women of 
Christendom in plans for the elevation, the legal, social 
and moral protection, of woman. 

III. To Protestant Missions is due the intellec- 
tual and educational awakening of the whole Empire. 
The American schools had been in operation forty 
years before the Turkish government officially promul- 
gated (in 1869) school laws, and instituted a scheme 
of governmental education. 

In 1864 there were twelve thousand five hundred 
elementary mosque schools for reading the Koran, in 
which there were said to be half a million of students. 
In 1890, according to the recently published Ottoman 
reports, there were in the Empire 41,659 schools of all 
kinds, of which 3,000 are probably Christian and Jew- 
ish. As there are 35,598 mosques in the Empire, and 
each mosque is supposed to have its " medriseh," or 
school, there would appear to be about 4,000 secular 
government schools not connected with the mosques, in- 
dependent of ecclesiastical control by mollahs and 
sheikhs, and belonging to the Imperial graded system of 
public instruction; yet many of the mosque schools 
have now been absorbed into the government system, 
so that there may be 20,000 of these so-called secular 
government schools. 

We have no reliable statistics ot the Greek, Papal| 



THE GOSPEL IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 257 

Armenian and Jewish schools, which are numerous, 
and n^any of them of a high grade. The Protestant 
statistics are nearly complete. 

There are now in the Empire 892 Protestant 
schools, with 43,027 pupils. 

Schools. Boys. Girls. pj^jjj* 

In Syria and Palestine — 328 9,756 9,081 18,837 

In Egypt— 100 3,271 3,029 6,300 

In Asia Minor, etc., 464 10,000 7,890 17,890 

Total, 892 23,027 20,000 43,027 

Of these pupils 20,000 are girls ; a fact most potent and 
eloquent with regard to the future of these interesting 
peoples. 

There are thirty -one colleges, seminaries, and 
boarding-schools for girls, of which eleven are taught 
by English and twenty by American ladies. In some 
of these schools young women are carried to the higher 
branches of science. In all of them the Bible is taught 
as a daily text-book. 

There are six American colleges for young men, 
the most of them well equipped and manned, taking 
the lead in academic and scientific training. The Med- 
ical College in Beirut has pupils from nearly all parts 
of the Empire. 

The standard of instruction is kept as high as the 
circumstances of the different provinces will admit, 
and the education given is thoroughly Biblical and 
Christian. And there are no more upright, intelligent, 
useful, loyal, and progressive subjects of the Sultan 
to-day than the graduates of these colleges. 

The American schools and missions have nothing 
to do with politics more than to teach their pupils " to 
fear God and honor the king." They teach obedience 

mulona. I J 



258 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

to the law, and the duty of every man to " render unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things 
that are God*s." 

It is not said in a spirit of boasting, but as a 
simple historical &ct, that the Protestant schools in 
Turkey for common and higher education preceded 
all others, and have opened the way and led the way 
to the present remarkable development of education 
in the Empire. This certainly is cause for thanks- 
giving. 

IV. Literary and Biblical. 

The fourth evidence of the gospel's triumph is the 
translation of the Bible into all the languages of the 
Empire, and the publication of a vast mass of religious, 
educational, historical, and scientific books. The Bible 
is now printed in eleven languages and made available 
to all the people of the Empire. About fifteen hundred 
difiierent books have been published in these various 
Is^guages, of which nearly seven hundred are fi'om the 
Arabic press in Beirut. The Arabic Bible is sent to 
the whole Arabic-reading Mohammedan world, from 
Sierra Leone and Mogador on the Adantic to Mo- 
rocco, Algiers, Tunis, Eg3rpt, Arabia, Zanzibar, Aden, 
India, the East Indies, Northern China, Persia, Syria, 
Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. The literary, 
scientific, historical, and religious books also have a 
wide circuladon. 

Seventy years ago there were neither books nor 
readers. Now the hundreds of thousands of readers can 
find books in their own tongue, and to suit every taste. 
There are children's illustrated books for the school and 
the fireside, stories and histories for the young, solid 
hbtorical, theological, and instructive works for the 



i 



THE GOSPEL IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 259 

old, and scientific books and periodicals for students. 
Bunyan, D'Aubign6, Edwards, Alexander, Moody 
and Spurgeon are speaking to the Orientals. Richard 
Newton instructs and delights the children. Eli Smith, 
Van Dyck, and Post, Meshaka and Bistany, Nofel and 
Wortabet instruct the scholarly and educated, while 
mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, chemistry, and 
medicine, geology and meteorology carry students 
on to the higher departments of learning. Tracts 
and Sunday-school lesson books abound, and peri- 
odical literature supplies the present daily wants of 
society. 

The American Arabic Press, founded in Malta 
in 1822 and in Beirut in 1854, ^^ ^^ motion the forces 
which have now filled all the great cities of the Em- 
pire with presses and newspapers, and awakened the 
people to a new intellectual life. The Beirut Press 
alone has printed five hundred millions of pages in 
Arabic. 

The Bible and the Koran are now the two religious 
books of the Empire. The Koran is in one language, 
for one sect, and cannot be translated, and any copy 
of the Koran found in the possession of a native 
Christian or a European ti'aveler is confiscated. The 
Bible is in eleven languages and is firedy offered for 
sale to all. Sixty thousand copies of the Scriptures 
are sold annually in the Turkish Empire. The word 
of God is having ** fi-ee course," and it shall ** be glori* 
fied." 

V. The General Results of Protestant Missions. 

They have given the entire population the Bible 
in their own tongue : have trained hundreds of thou- 
sands of readers ; published thousands of useful books ; 



26o MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

awakened a spirit of inquiry ; set in motion educational 
institutions among aU the sects in all parts of the Em- 
pire, compelling the enemies of education to become 
its friends, and the most conservative of Orientals to de- 
vote mosque and convent property to the founding of 
schools of learning. 

Protestantism has forced Oriental patriarchs, bish- 
ops and priests to modify, if not abandon, their arbitrary 
oppressions and exactions. One year since, twenty 
Maronite monks waylaid a missionary of the Society of 
Friends in Lebanon, and dragging him from his horse 
with curses and abuse said, ** You Protestants have re- 
duced the income of our clergy by one-half and you 
are ruining us." They no longer burn Bibles and im- 
prison men for conscience' sake. Greek, Maronite 
and Armenian bishops vie with each other in founding 
boarding-schools. A prominent Greek bishop recendy 
remarked to an educated Papal Greek physician, who 
expressed regret at the discord of the Christian sects 
and a hope of future Christian union, " My son, union 
is desirable, but when we come to seek a basis of union 
the Protestants are nearer to the Scriptural basis of 
truth than any of us." 

Protestantism has made ignorance unfashionable 
and persecution disgraceful. It has broken the fetters 
of womanhood, created direcdy and indirectly the system 
of female education now spreading over the Empire, and 
let the light into unnumbered homes where woman be- 
fore had been consigned to ignorance and inferiority. 
The work it has done for women and girls would of 
itself justify all the labor and expense of seventy years, 
and is a noble monument to the wisdom and loving 
sagacity of its policy. 



THE GOSPEL IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 26 1 

The founding of 15a evangelical churches, with 
i6yOOO communicants, which stand as a living and con- 
tinuous protest against ecclesiastical tyranny and un- 
scriptural doctrine and practice, has been a work of 
great difficulty but of lasting benefit. The old churches 
needed reformation. There being no reforming im- 
pulse fi-om within, God in his providence sent it from 
without. Every evangelical church is a provocation 
and stimulus to the old sects, a living epistle to the 
Mohammedans with regard to the true nature of orig- 
inal apostolic Christianity. 

The Protestant translation of the Bible into Arabic 
by Drs. Eli Smith and Cornelius Van Dyck forced the 
Jesuit Father Von Ham to make another translation 
based on the Vulgate. Encouraged by the spirit of 
reform and modem progress, even the Mohammedan 
doctors of Constantinople have issued orders that all 
editions of old Mohammedan author9 which re'count 
the fabulous stories of Moslem saints and Welys are to 
be expurgated or suppressed, and not to be reprinted. 

VI. The future of Protestantism is threatened by 
various influences. 

1. Russia is straining every nerve to destroy 
Protestant schools, as endangering the political solidar- 
ity of the Greek Church and her influence in Turkey. 

2. Republican France, having exiled the Jesuits 
as intolerable at home, finds them pliant tools of her 
political schemes abroad, and subsidizes them heavily 
with money and diplomatic support in thwarting Prot- 
estant missions. 

3. The civil policy of the Turkish government 
is " Turkey for the Turks." This means, virtually, fill- 
ing all the offices of the Empire with MohammedanSt 



262 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

thus gradually closing every avenue of public official 
employment and promotion to the six millions of the 
Christian population, who are far in advance of the 
Moslems in education and intelligence. This results 
in the emigration of thousands of the most ener- 
getic and enlightened young men to foreign lands. 
Protestant schools are endangered by losing their 
trained teachers, and the churches by losing their best 
members and the material for their future pastors, and 
the cause of self-support is gravely imperilled. But 
though thus threatened Protestantism is secured, 

1. By the wide distribution of the Scriptures. 
The hundreds of thousands of Bibles in the hands of 
the people will make the extinction of Protestantism 
impossible unless the people are exterminated. 

2. By the wide diffusion of education and the 
founding of so many Protestant colleges and seminaries. 

3. By the deep-rooted faith and personal convic- 
tions of tens of thousands who believe in the right of 
individual judgment in religion and in the supremacy 
of conscience enlightened by the word of God. Fifty 
thousand Protestants in the Empire can hold their own, 
even were all missionaries to be withdrawn. 

4. By the vast body of Christian literature and 
the power of the journalistic press, which are inconsis- 
tent with a recoil into the domain of priesdy tyranny 
and the stifling of the human conscience. 

Protestantism as a principle is steadily growing in 
every sect in the Empire. The Ark of God is safe in 
this land where it was first launched. Let us work 
on, then, in patience and good cheer, in gratitude and 
unquestioning faith. 



IN THE OTTOMAN BMPIRB. 263 



CONSPICUOUS EXAMPLES OF GOSPEL 
TRIUMPH IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 

BY REV. J. L. BARTON, 

MISSIONARY AT HARPOOT| TURKBY. 

Within the bounds of what to-day is the Ottoman 
Empire have been witnessed the greatest triumphs 
Christianity has ever experienced ; a record of whose 
marvellous victories would begin with the revelations 
to the patriarchs and prophets — ^including the angelic 
annunciation to the happy virgin, and the labors of the 
apostles, who preached the gospel of a risen Lord who 
lived and died upon what is now Turkish soil — and 
ending only when the land has all been redeemed. 
Because it triumphed in Turkey 1800 years ago we 
now have a gospel to offer to that same land, which lost 
its treasure because it kept it in earthen vessels. 

WHAT IS "the gospel"? 

We must first ask, " What is the gospel ?" that we 
may know what gospel triumph is. 

We are wont to regard the gospel as the po\yer of 
God unto salvation, and think of it only as that which 
promises salvation to the soul. 

For sixty years the missionaries in Turkey have 
understood that the gospel touches every phase of the 
life of man, and that he who preaches the gospel, the 
entire gospel and nothing but the gospel, comes into 
contact with every element in the nature of those to 



264 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

whom he preaches ; and if his preaching is accepted 
the recipient is changed at every contact The gospel 
touches all social questions, intellectual life, business 
relations, and in fact applies to universal man on every 
side of his many-sided life. We preach only the gos- 
pel that saves the soul, but not the gospel which saves 
only the soul. 

Hence the triumphs of the gospel in this land are 
seen in all of the relations in which the gospel has 
been brought into contact with human life there ; and 
frequendy in the Oriental world we are compelled to 
judge of the application of the gospel, to the soul by 
what we see in the external relations of life : and the 
reformed relations prepare the individual for the saving 
application of the gospel to the soul. Hence, when we 
see the life thoroughly reformed, we spend litde time 
debating whether the power of God has touched the 
soul ; there is no need of it. We know it has. 

In this land litde value can be given to verbal tes- 
timony regarding internal states, but we are forced to 
look for evidence of spiritual change in the external 
life. When a thorn-tree bears figs, and persists in do- 
ing so, we consider that it has ceased to be a thorn- 
tree. When a man becomes honest, refuses to lie, is 
kind in his home, industrious in his business, bridles 
his tongue, gives money for gospel work and loves to 
hear the truth, this is ample evidence that he has met 
with a change of heart. 

Then to-day, as we consider the triumphs of the 
gospel in this Oriental land, we must look for the fruits 
of the gospel as they appear in the life and in the land, 
and if we can trace movements along certain lines which 
are gospel lines we have a right to record this as an 



IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 265 

example of the triumph of that same gospel which saves 
for the present life as well as for eternity. 

The inspired revelator once said of some of the 
churches in Turkey that they left their first love, that 
their candlestick was to be removed out of its place 
unless they repented. The^e words might well be ap- 
plied to all of the original churches in Turkey, and it 
sometimes seems as if the curse pronounced then upon 
the few has rested upon the entire land/ and that the 
wrath of God has blasted the entire spiritual life of that 
country, because those who had an ear to hear did not 
hear what the Spirit said unto the churches. 

The people being in this condition, it will not be 
difficult to find examples of the triumphs of the gospel 
there, if such there be to find. 

The first example that we will mention is : 

I. . TRIUMPH OVER PREJUDICE. 

You who are at all familiar with the work in Tur- 
key know of the terrible persecutions of the faithful, 
instigated by the leaders in the old churches. The evan- 
gelicals were called infidels, sorcerers, corrupters of 
youth, political aspirants, enemies of Christ and the 
church, from the street corners, the altars of the 
churches, by the people, the priests and wartabeds, 
and even by the patriarchs and bishop, in the form of 
anathemas that were officially sent throughout the land. 
If hatred and prejudice could have stamped out the 
little spark of gospel fire that was beginning to bright- 
en, it would have been ciiished out for ever. 

But the work went on; the truth began to be 
known ; the masses that were in contact with the evan- 
gelicals in trade and business saw that they had been 



266 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

deceived by their church officials. Friendly relations 
sprang up, and, finally, the old churches by hundreds 
are as eager to welcome back the hated sectaries as 
they were then fierce to thrust them out All that fol- 
lows in this address proves that the old bitter prejudice 
is now largely broken down. It would be practically 
impossible to-day for the ecclesiastics to incite the 
masses to a persecution of the evangelicals, and the 
most of the Protestants would be received back into the 
old church now without recantation or pledge 

This is necessarily the first example of the tri- 
umphs we are seeking, but will be perfect only when 
the triumphs are complete. 

II. TRIUMPH OF THE BOOK. 

Thb means the word of God in the language of 
the people. While all of the Oriental churches accept 
impliddy the Bible as God's book, they as unitedly 
denied the power and right to put it into a language 
the people could understand ; and when it was so pre- 
sented they denied that the new was the Word of God. 

What battles have been fought I What mettle 
tried over this question ! It was the one decisive evan- 
gelical war in all the work in that land. It was the old 
Reformation act without a Luther, a battle of the Book 
against the ignorant decrees of the Church. Curses, 
anathemas, and burnings &iled to end the conflict 
while all the time the presses of the various Bible Soci- 
eties were sending out in the spoken languages of the 
country hundreds of thousands of copies of this one 
book. Need I say the book won the battie ? Did it 
ever fail? 

I have seen the same anathematized book l}ring in 



IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 267 

the old church upon the altar along with the ritualistic 
books of the service, to be read from and explained 
each Sabbath, provided one could be found who was 
able to do this. I have seen the places where the men 
are wont to congregate in winter to talk and while 
away the time, where it was read and discussed for 
hours daily, and not a so-called Protestant among 
them. I have seen their own teachers in their own 
schools giving lessons to large classes from this same 
book, explaining to their pupils the simple teachings of 
our Lord. I have seen it in many non-Protestant 
homes and heard of it in hundreds more where it is 
read by all who can read, and reverenced as the word 
of God to men. I have never heard the old name 
" Protestant Bible ** applied to it during the last eight 
years : many others also giving the same testimony. 

It is impossible to procure the accurate figures of 
the number of copies of the Bible and parts of the same 
that have been sold and distributed in Turkey in Arabo- 
Turkish, Armeno-Turkish, Greco- Turkish, Arabic, 
Armenian, Greek, Syriac, Koordish, Bulgarian, etc. ; it 
would be almost like the throngs about the great white 
throne that no man can number. 

The batde of the Bible has been fought and won. 
One of the greatest triumphs of the gospel in Turkey 
is the triumph of the Gospel Book, and thb, too, not 
alone among the nominal Christians. 

III. GENERAL EDUCATION. 

When mission work began in the Ottoman Empire 
in 1819, it was found that there was litde general edu- 
cation among the masses, and as litde desire for any- 
thing of the kind. The priests and many of the higher 



268 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

dergy were scarcely able to read Large villages and 
groups of villages had, apart from the priests, not a 
single reader ; and in the larger cities there were few 
schools worthy the name. In some of the monasteries 
a handful of young men were gathered to fit themselves 
for the church, but their education usually ceased with 
the ability to read the regular services of the church. 

The missionaries saw that permanent institutions 
must be founded upon an intelligent Christianity. Not 
that an ignorant man cannot be a Christian, but that an 
intelligent and educated Christian is worth far more in 
institutions destined to be self-sustaining and self-prop- 
agating. Mission work was not alone to gather in 
men, but to thereafter send them out for others. The 
main reason why there was so litde practical Christian- 
ity in Turkey was because education languished. The 
written language, which contained the sacred literature 
of the churches, ceased to be the spoken language of 
the people. There were none to read and understand 
the word of God, and thus spiritual death came to the 
mentally dead churches. 

The early missionaries preached much upon 
" Search the Scriptures," and one of the practical appli- 
cations was, "learn to read." Moreover, when a man 
seemed to be moved by the gospel, it was almost cer- 
tain he would desire to learn to read. Thus tha school 
and the reformed church, from the first, were only dif- 
ferent branches of the same institution. The schools 
were evangelical, and the teachers Christian workers so 
far as such could be raised up. In many places the fact 
that one could read was assumed as evidence that he 
was an evangelical Christian. This was not so far out 
of the way, for as one became able to read the word of 



IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 269 

God his old prejudices were broken in upon, and if he 
did not at once become a Protestant he became more 
favorably disposed toward those who were. 

The school called for a S3rstem of Christian text- 
books, which were prepared in the vernacular and had 
wide circulation. The non- Protestant communities 
began to open schools and put into them as teachers, 
as far as they were able, evangelical men and women 
educated in our own schools. 

Old schools in all communities were elevated and 
largely reformed. In all schools the course of study 
was raised until the college was demanded, and Robert, 
Beyrut, Aintab, Euphrates, and Anatolia Colleges 
sprang into existence, and their wide influence and 
great work fully justify the wisdom of their founders. 

There has been a great revival in the study and 
practice of medicine. Sixty years ago there were no 
physicians in Turkey ; now there are medical schools 
which are training physicians of a high order, and the 
people are rapidly learning to appreciate the doctor. 
Young men from Turkey are also studying medicine in 
many schools in Europe and in the United States. 

This revival of learning in Turkey is an example 
of gospel triumph because, ist, the reformed school is 
generally considered by all classes to be the fruit of the 
gospel work, the direct result of the preaching of the 
word; 2d, the school culminating in the theological 
seminary is the guarantee of the stability of the work 
already established, in which our hopes rest for the 
self-sustaining principle for the future ; and, 3d, general 
enlightenment is a triumph of the gospel of Christ in 
itself. Reformation in Christianity has always carried 
with it revival of learning. This has been true of all 



N. 



270 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

countries in all ages. The Christian lands to-day are 
those in which the schools for the education of the masses 
are best developed and most widely patronized. Not 
Christianity because of the schools, but schools because 
of the Christianity. This principle is true to-day in 
the Ottoman Empire, and the reformed schools with 
their tens of thousands of pupils are an index of the 
power of the gospel in that country. 

IV. FEMALE EDUCATION. 

As regards the position of woman, China, India 
and Turkey are practically the same. In those coun- 
tries a belief in woman's inferiority in creation and in 
nature, and the duty of servitude, even slavery, to her 
lord, for whom she was created and whom she is to 
obey, is the prevalent idea. 

All of the customs that degrade woman grow out 
of the belief in her inferiority. Because she is beneath 
man by nature she can never hope to rise into the 
superior sphere in which he moves. It b evident that 
the gospel of Christ must break down any such belief, 
and yet it was practically useless to attempt to prove in 
the abstract that woman was capable of elevation; for 
was not the land full of poor, degraded, enslaved and 
terribly abused women, with no proof in &ct of their in- 
nate ability ? 

The gospel fact ol equality must be plainly dem- 
onstrated, that lordly men and even d^raded women 
might believe still further — that the souls of both are 
equal before God. 

For this demonstration schools for girls were nec- 
essary. The proposition seemed highly ridiculous. 
Intelligent men said, " You will next be wanting us to 



IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 2/1 

send our donkeys to school, for they are as capable of 
learning to read as our daughters." 

In various places, by persuading and hiring, a few 
girls were gathered into schools. To the supreme as- 
tonishment of their friends, they began to learn to read. 
Girls' schools multiplied. The courses of study be- 
came enlarged. High-schools were called for. Fathers 
put their hands into their pockets to defray the expenses 
of the education of their daughters. The village- and 
the high-school failed to meet the demands of the land 
awakening to this new gospel truth, and the college for 
girls came into existence; and to-day these girls' schools 
in all grades are among the permanent and popular in- 
stitutions of that country, growing in favor with God 
and man. 

The girls' school was instituted to demonstrate the 
gospel idea of the equality of mankind. It is now the 
demonstration of the acceptance of that idea by the 
masses. The missionary urged the Others to send 
their daughters to school to see if they could not learn ; 
now the parents desire to send them because they can 
learn. At first men opposed the education of women, 
if such a thing were possible, because an educated 
woman would not obey her husband ; now the teach- 
ing force in the girls' schools in Turkey are constantly 
depleted by men who desire educated wives to grace 
their homes and be to them helpmeets in the true 
sense of the term. Even educated deformed girls have 
good offers of marriage. 

This example of gospel triumph is not only seen 
among the nominal Christians of the Empire, but the 
Mohammedans also have caught the idea that woman 
can rise above the level of her old life, and they, too. 



272 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

are opening schools for her who has no place in para- 
dise except as a slave. . The end is not yet. This 
movement is bringing the wife and mother to the front, 
and gives her the place in the home that is rightfully 
hers, in moulding the character of her ofi&pring. She 
is already a potent factor in the church and community 
for progress and Christianity. 

This example of triumph must be regarded as 
second to no other, for it is disclosing daily mighty 
potentialities for still greater things. 

V. TRIUMPH IN LIBERALITY. 

In theory the gospel of Christ is free, in practice it 
costs a large sum. It is certainly out of the question for 
missionary societies to undertake to establish and in- - 
definitely support Christian institutions in mission lands. 
It would be poor practice and worse policy. Hence it 
has always been necessary to urge upon the converts 
to give money for the support of the gospel among 
themselves and to aim at financial independence. 

Those who have had much to do with the Oriental 
know that a man will frequently seem to be converted, 
and his pocket-book be the same old tied-up Oriental 
purse it was before he heard of Christ. Upon the other 
hand, I have never heard of an Oriental who became 
liberal, giving according to his means for the support 
of gospel institutions, unless in a hundred other ways 
he exhibited the fruits of the Spirit. The purse is the 
last thing converted in this land of the Turk ; so when 
you have evidence ol a certain number of converted 
pockets it is safe to write a corresponding number of 
souls redeemed. 

In this Empire one of the marked evidences of the 



IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.' 273 

gospel's triumph is in the fact tliat the poor converts, 
the most of them in extreme poverty and subject to 
severe taxation and often oppression, have given, and 
continue to do so, out of all proportion to American 
Christians for the institutions of the gospel. Many 
individuals give tithes of their income, and many con- 
gregations early become independent pf financial aid 
from without. I have seen more sacrifices for the gos- 
pel in Turkey than I ever did in the United States, 
more giving in poverty, more deprivation of the neces- 
sities of life, that the Christian school and church be 
not impoverished. This alone would be a great triumph 

' in our gospel land ; it is a grand victory in a land of 

I penury and darkness. 

But, as if this triumph were not complete, the 
Protestant Armenian churches have undertaken a mis- 
sionary work among the Koordish-speaking peoples in 
Koordistan. A society is organized ; young men firom 
that region have been brought out, educated, and re- 
turned to preach and teach the gospel. The society 
has erected chapels, parsonages and schoolhouses, and 
has established a growing and seemingly permanent 
work. This is no spasmodic effort, but now flourishes 
as never before after more than twenty-five years of 

' labor. 

This is more of a test than giving for the work at 
home, for money given to the home church and school 
will, in a measure, revert to the giver in benefits and 
privileges received; but this is giving for work in a 
land the donor never expects to visit and for a people 

' he will never see. And yet the gifts have been ample 

for all needs. What greater example of the triumph 
of the gospel can be found than the Oriental coming 



274 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

to the altar loaded with sacrificial gifts for the service 
of his Master? 

VL GOSPEL POPULARITY. 

It is needless to say that at first the preaching of 
the gospel was not popular; the violent persecution 
that accompanied it is sufficient proof That early gen- 
eration of &ithful preachers could relate, were they here 
to-night, sad tales of stonings and strifes, of imprison- 
ments, banishments and bloodshed, for the crime of 
preaching the gospel of Christ The little evangelical 
communities often appeared wedded to defeat, for they 
were hemmed in and overwhelmed by vastly superior 
numbers of raging men who were bent upon crushing 
out the gospel with its preachers. 

Faithful were the men to whom was committed the 
message, and faithfully did they stand by the banner of 
the cross. At first those who heard derided, then 
threatened, then persecuted ; but soon the uplifted arm 
was stayed, the curses ceased to fall, and the preacher 
of the once despised gospel finds himself popular. It 
is a marvellous change when we turn from the fierce 
persecutions in the forties to the receptive state of die 
present time. Hundreds of churches are now open, 
and gladly open, to the gospel preacher, and many that 
are closed are kept so* by the prejudice or obstinacy of 
one or two influential individuals, while the majority 
would welcome the preacher to the altar of their church 
at every Sabbath service. During the last few years, 
in many parts of the Empire, missionaries and preach- 
ers have been warmly welcomed to these services, 
where an appreciative audience listened to the message. 

It b not true that the priests feel fiiendly toward9 



IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 2/5 

them, for as the preacher increases the old ignorant 
priesthood must decline. 

Some churches have demanded a preacher from 
their bishop, and some have threatened that if the de- 
mand was not complied with a Protestant preacher 
would be called. 

The Armenian national papers which are published 
at Constantinople within the last two years have print- 
ed several articles from some of the most enlightened 
and trusted men in the nation, deploring the decreasing 
attendance at the regular services of the old church, 
and attributing it to the condition and quality of the 
officiating clergy. These articles called loudly, first, 
for an educated clergy, *' who should be able to preach 
the gospel of Christ, and so instruct the church in the 
teachings of that gospel which it professes in ignorance 
to believe." Secondly, for a morally upright clergy, 
which, not by virtue of the office, but by a pure, up- 
right life, should command the confidence and respect 
of the entire church, and thus be able to influence the 
people for righteousness. The articles met with litde 
opposition and with much favor from all sides. 

Three young men, not Protestants, in preparation 
for service within the old church are now taking the 
regular theological course in an evangelical seininary. 

The office of priest is not a popular one in many 
places. The fees for performing certain superstitious 
rites are rapidly falling off and the poor priest is left to 
starve in idleness. Many churches that fifty years ago 
abundantiy supported several priests now keep only 
one or two, and these are often sore pressed for a living. 

The Armenian bishop of Smyrna has recently pub- 
lished a work upon homiletics, for the use of the clergy 



276 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

in the old church, which is in all essentials evangelical 
in its tone, as much so as an American treatise of the 
same kind. This work has already been used by the 
evangelicals in Turkey and will be much more widely 
employed. 

These examples might be indefinitely multiplied, 
but these will be sufficient to show that the salt of the 
gospel has entered the land and is in the old churches, 
and from this there arises a thirst for the truths of the 
gospel as they are presented in the sermon by one 
whom the hearers believe to be morally upright. When 
the fruits of this triumph are fully matured mission work 
among the Oriental churches in Turkey will be com- 
pleted, and the church will then be a reformed, evangeli- 
cal church. 

VII. NUMBERS OF THE EVANGELIZED. 

This is the most unsatisfactory example of all, for 
it is one we cannot grasp. There is no record of the 
evangelized except in the book of life before the great 
white throne. There is a registry of the " Protestants,*' 
which the peculiar organization of the Turkish Govern- 
ment demands but which is simply a political classifica- 
tion, not including all the members of the Protestant 
churches, while many who do not love our Lord Jesus 
Christ are written. In no place does it pretend to rep- 
resent the number of the evangelized. 

In all Turkey, outside of Egypt, there are about 
55,000 recorded as Protestants. But we must remem- 
ber that this separating and recording was not under- 
taken until persections forced it, two decades after the 
work had well begun in Turkey. This separation has 
never been pressed by the missionaries and in many 



IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 2/7 

places has been discouraged. So these figures cannot, 
in any sense, be accepted as an index of the work ac- 
complished. 

We are frequently told, by individuals who repre- 
sent large communities where no " Protestants " are 
registered, that they heartily and fiilly accept the gos- 
pel which the evangelicals present. In fact, it is difficult 
to find an intelligent community where there is not 
more or less mental acceptance of the correct principles 
of the gospel upon the part of the intelligent majority, 
although few know enough of it to make them feel the 
joys of its saving grace. 

One of Bulgaria's most intelligent officials upon 
whom the Government has delighted to bestow high 
honors this Columbian year, says : ** The records show 
that there are about '' 5,000 Protestants in Bulgaria ; 
better far to erase the ' 5,000 Protestants ' and write in 
its place * 500,000 evangelized,' for the gospel has pene- 
trated the entire land and even 500,000 does not tell 
the entire story of its conquests." 

Something the same might truthfully be said of 
many other regions in Turkey. It is likely that the 
multiplication of the Protestant number by 100 would 
be too large a figure to represent those who intellectual- 
ly accept the gospel as the bearer of the best and truest 
religion to the world, but we know that the number is a 
vast multitude that is constantly increasing. 

This is the triumph of the gospel in the minds of 
the people which is the preparation for the heart work 
to follow. 

Do not think from this that the work is practically 
done. This vast movement is the triumph well begun, 
but it is the turning of a great multitude in the right 



278 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

direction, and now it remains to march them and others 
up to the very gates of paradise. 

VIII. INDIVIDUAL CASES. 

Time will not suffice to mention the innumerable 

m 

cases of the great triumphs of the gospel in the hearts 
and lives of individuals, of how persecutors have become 
martyrs, robbers preachers, and men and women from 
all classes of society and from all nationalities in Turkey 
have been touched, and converted into humble, devout, 
and faithful Christians. This chapter once begun would 
have no end ; for it is history that is being made faster 
than the pen can record. Such a story would read like 
a romance of some other age. We would love to dwell 
here, but must forbear. 

IX. EXAMPLES IN THE LAND. 

Revivals in the arts and sciences of civilization in 
their best and highest form have always followed in the 
footsteps of the preacher of the gospel of our Lord. It 
may be difficult to explain why this is so, and some 
may even deny the connection between the two, yet 
the fact remains that where the gospel has once entered 
a heathen land the people begin to aspire after and 
work for those tilings which make for civilization. 

It is proper to estimate the influence the gospel 
has over every land by the marks of civilized life which 
we see within it 

When the missionary first entered Turkey it was 
almost an unknown country. They explored and 
brought to light entire nations. It was a land without 
a railroad or telegraph, with no system in its laws, its 
schools or its grammar. Having littie diplomatic rela- 



In the ottoman empire. 279 

tions with other nations and knowing almost nothing of 
the external world. 

The gospel came, and with it the broadening and 
civilizing influence of a Christian education ; the print- 
ing press necessarily accompanied both. The preach- 
er, the teacher, and the press were scattered throughout 
the Empire. Now where are the triumphs ? 

Methods of life are conforming to civilized methods ; 
domestic architecture is assuming a form more adapted 
to health and comfort ; roads are building, wheeled ve- 
hicles are coming in, machinery of various kinds cannot 
be kept out, all bringing much that educates and civil- 
izes : helping to belitde the beast in man and exalt him 
to something of the dignity of the image of his Maker 
which he bears. 

The railroad necessarily followed, and now there 
are nearly 2,000 miles in operation in the Empire. A 
missionary helped to set up and operate in the palace of 
the Sultan the first telegraph instrument in Turkey, and 
now there are over 20,000 miles of line wire there. The 
army, the navy, the government has been remodeled 
upon a western basis. Turkey is in the postal union, 
and commerce has sprung up fi'om a mere nominal fig- 
ure to two and a quarter billion piasters ($90,000,000) 
import and one and a quarter billions ($50,000,000) ex- 
port in 1890-91. 

Turkey is to-day a nation among nations in the 
world, and we have a right to claim that upon every 
page of the history of her advancement during the last 
half century, in the line of progressive civilization, be 
read the triumph of the gospel which civilizes as well as 
saves. 



28o MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



CONSPICUOUS EXAMPLES OF THE GOS- 
PEL'S TRIUMPH 

i 

AMONG ABORIGINAL AMERICANS 

BY EGERTON R. YOUNG. 

Of no races or peoples have there been more 
diverse views than those which have been associated 
with the red men of America. By some they have 
been painted in darkest colors, as possessing every 
characteristic of fiends without a redeeming feature, 
and so utterly sunken in crimes so revolting that the 
only thing to do with them was to civilize them off the 
&ce of the earth as soon as possible. 

Others, however, have written in strains exactly 
the reverse of these. To judge from their descriptions 
of the Indians one would imagine that in the abodes of 
these red men the land of Arcadian simplicity and 
innocence had been found, where inhabitants without 
a vice or defect existed, possessing all of those natural 
excellencies which make up the perfect primitive char- 
acter. 

As with many other subjects about which much has 
been written the truth is generally to be found some- 
where between the two extremes, so it is in this case 

Many years' experience with and intimate study of 
the red man in his own haunts and surrounded by his 
natural environments have only deepened the convic- 
tions formed long ago, that he is just one of the sinning 
race of Adam suffering from the Fall ; not much better 



ABORIGINAL AMERICANS. 28 1 

or worse than others, and needing, as all do, the bene- 
fits of the Divine Plan to lift him up from his iallen con- 
dition and thus fit him to take his place among the 
other subdivisions of the great human family. 

How in the four centuries now ending they have 
been treated by the aggressive races^ who in their greed 
for the possession of America's broad domains have 
cared so little, for the rights of the original possessors, I 
need not here relate. The centuries have been centu- 
ries of dishonor. May a merciful God not visit upon 
us the sins of our forefathers ! 

Yet it is of some comfort to remember that, amid 
the din of battle, while at least three great nations were 
not only ruthlessly destroying the natives but were 
themselves quarrelling over the prey, there were some 
good men and true who, with the love of Christ in their 
hearts and his command, " Go,'' in their memories, were 
searching out these " poor lost sheep in the wilderness," 
and not searching in vain. 

Two names in Missionary annals stand out bright 
and dear in connection with work among the Indians 
of America. The Church must not let them die. In 
letters of living light they deserve to be enrolled high 
up among the grandest names that have been given as 
heroic toilers in the Church of Christ Those names 
are £/wi and Brainerd^ 

And yet — sad fact — Eliot's Bible, the result of so 
many years of toil and study and hardship, is now a 
sealed volume; it is in a dead language. Brainerd's 
converts and their tribes perished in the wars long ago. 
And yet the good they did lives on, and the Modem 
Missionary Movement oi this century past owes much 
to the fiict that Eliot and Brainerd lived It was the 



2^2 MISSIONS AT HOMfi ANt) ABROAD. 

reading of the " Journals of Brainerd " that set Carey 
thinking about Missions while he still plied his trade as 
a cobbler, and in after years the story of that man toiling 
amid the dangerous forests of this continent still fired 
his heart and stimulated his zeal, and we still hear him 
saying to his fellows, amid the distrust and apathy and 
opposition which met him in the burning plains of In- 
dia, ** Let us often look at Brainerd in the woods of 
America pouring out his very soul before God for the 
perishing heathen, without whose salvation nothing 
could make him happy.'* 

In one of his early conferences John Wesley urged 
his ministers to read the *' Journals of Brainerd," as a 
work of marvellous helpfulness, to encourage and stim- 
ulate to renewed zeal in missionary toil. 

Time would &il me to tell of many others, notably 
among them Henry Mart3m, who, fired by the example 
of this Indian missionary's life, gave themselves to this 
glorious missionary cause. But interesting and sug- 
gestive as these thoughts are I must confine myself to 
the theme assigned me, and refer more particularly to 
some conspicuous examples of the gospel's triumphs 
among the Aboriginal Americans. 

I am like a soldier amid the turmoil and smoke of 
batde, who sees not over the whole field while the con- 
flict rages. Content that his trusted commander is at 
the head and that all will come out right, he toils away 
at his post as best he can. So over the whole field 
we will not try to look to-day for trophies won and 
victories achieved, but only in that part where God's 
providence assigned us and where we tried to do our 
duty. 

The Rev. William Case well deserves the title of 



AfiORlGtNAL AMERICANS. 26$ 

the Father of Canadian Indian Missions. Through his 
faithful ministrations among the once degraded Indian 
tribes of Canada very many of them were happily con- 
verted to Christianity. Among the first converts was 
Kah-ke-wa-quan-aby, better known in after years as 
the Rev. Peter Jones. A poor Indian lad, with others 
of his tribe he, out of curiosity, attended some religious 
services held in the forest, and there under the faithful 
preaching of the word he became conscious of his need 
of something which paganism could not give him. 
Following the advice of loving white friends who ex- 
plained to him the way of salvation, he was enabled to 
believe in the Lord Jesus and daim the Crucified as his 
all-sufficient Saviour. The blessed assurance of accept- 
ance was given, and his own language, which we 
quote, is : 

'' The love of God being now shed abroad in my 
heart, I loved intensely and praised him in the midst 
of the people. Everything now appeared in a new 
light, and all the works of God seemed to unite with 
me in uttering the praises of the Lord. The people, 
the trees of the woods, the gentle winds, the warbling 
notes of the birds, and the rising sun, all declared the 
power and goodness of the Great Spirit, and what 
was I, that I should not raise my voice in giving glory 
to God who had done such great things for me !" 

Kah-ke-wa-quon-a-by was at once filled with in- 
tense solicitude for the conversion and uplifting of his 
people. Aided by judicious friends, who assisted him 
in obtaining an education, he became a preacher of 
eloquence and power not only among his own country- 
men, hundreds of whom were converted through his 
instrumentality, but also to cultured audiences both in 



284 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Great Britain and America, who listened to his impres- 
sive scriptural addresses with great delight. 

In a personal audience with England's illustrious 
sovereign, Victoria, he not only delighted his queen, 
but charmed the members of the court by the vivacity 
of his conversation and his gentlemanly demeanor. A 
pure sweet Christian he lived and toiled ; triumphandy 
he finished his course and entered into rest. 

Another conspicuous example of gospel triumph 
was John Sunday, saved not only from the degradation 
of paganism but from the besotted life of an almost 
confirmed inebriate, into which he had been plunged 
by the white men's fire-water. Wondrously clear and 
scriptural was his conversion, and like a new creadon 
was the change wrought in this once poor Indian. He 
became a preacher of great popularity and power, with 
a style diat was both inimitable and irresistible. In 
addition to rare gifts of eloquence, he possessed, what is 
not very common among the Indians, a readiness of 
repartee that was sanctified to the work of confounding 
his adversaries and advancing the cause of Christ. 

Homely John Sunday ! at thy feet I used to sit 
when a litde child and weep for joy, as I heard thee 
read the fourteenth chapter of St John's Gospel, and in 
thy quaint broken English talk of the many mansions 
and the prospect of seeing thy risen Lord, who said, 
" I will come again and receive you unto myself, that 
where I am there ye may be also." 

Years ago, surrounded by a whole village of his 
converts, he heard the summons, and gladly and most 
gloriously passed into the immediate presence of Him 
he loved so well. 

Of Henry Steinhem, the sweet singer and most 



abork;inal Americans. 28$ 

studious of Indians, it is a joy to speak. So methodical 
were his habits and so studious his life that he became a 
scholar of no mean rank. The last time I heard him 
preach was before a vast audience in which were at 
least two hundred ministers. As was often his custom 
when preaching before white audiences, he read his text 
in Greek, English, and Ojibway. For over forty years 
he successfully toiled and labored for the spiritusd and 
temporal upbuilding of his red brethren, and then, worn 
out in body but triumphant in spirit, passed on to his 
reward. 

Two honored sons are faithfully following in his 
footsteps, both of them ordained missionaries of the 
cross. One of them is an honored graduate ol one of 
our universities, and the other is but little behind him 
in educational acquirements. In the great Saskatche- 
wan country of the northwest both of these two young 
Steinhems are preaching the blessed gospel to hundreds 
of their Indian countrymen. 

Passing for the present from these examples of In- 
dian converts who became ordained missionaries to 
their own people, we must refer, even if it is only in a 
few sentences, to some others whose marvellous con- 
versions and subsequent devoted lives are full of en- 
couragement. 

Maskepetoon was the mighty war chief of the 
Crees of the Plains. At first he spumed the pleadings 
and sermons of the missionary, and declared that he 
loved the war party and the horse-stealing excursion 
too well to ever become a Christian. Lovingly and 
perseveringly the missionary toiled on. At many a 
camp fire and in many a wigwam did he earnestly plead 
with these warlike Indians, who in those days loved to 



286 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

go on scalping excursions as pleasant diversions from 
the excitement of the buf&lo chase. 

One evening, at a great camp-fire built on the bank 
of the north Saskatchewan by a band of buffalo hunt- 
ers, for the night was chilly, the missionary, Rev. George 
McDougall, preached to the crowd there gathered. He 
read from the good Book the story of the crucifixion, 
and took as hb text the prayer of the Saviour for his 
murderers, " Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." Knowing well how the spirit of hatred 
and revenge dwelt in the savage Indian heart, he de- 
scribed the forgiving, loving spirit of the Son of God, 
and told them that if they would be Christians they must 
imitate his example and be like him. In impassioned 
tones he cried out, ''You must love your enemies 
instead of trying to kill and scalp them. You must 
even forgive the man who has done you the greatest 
harm." 

Maskepetoon was present and listened to this with 
intensest interest, for was he not sorrowing over the 
loss of his son, who had been foully murdered by one 
who had been appointed his companion but who had 
betrayed his trust and slain the lad? Burning with 
rage and indignation, the mighty chief was only wait- 
ing for the opportunity to tomahawk and then throw 
to the wolves the man who had killed his son. In 
amazement and with closest attention he listened to the 
missionary's words that evening. Strangely did they 
fall upon his ears and enter into his heart : " If you 
would be a Christian you must be Christ-like. He 
forgave and prayed for his murderers, and to be like 
him you must forgive even the man that has done you 
the greatest harm." 



ABORIGINAL AMERICANS. 28/ 

We cannot here describe the whole dramatic scene 
of the meeting of the great chief with that wretched 
murderer. Suffice to say that the man was forgiven by 
the chief, who in doing so said, " As I wish Christ to 
forgive me, so I forgive you. You have done me the 
greatest harm a man could do, for you have killed my 
son ; but as Christ forgave his murderers so do I for- 
give you." 

Genuine and abiding was the conversion of this 
mighty chief. Never did he go on the war-path again. 
He learned to read the Word of God, and for years 
was the right-hand man of the missionary in carrying 
on the blessed work among his people. Basely and 
suddenly was he shot down by Na-doos, the bloodthirs- 
ty chief of the Blackfeet tribe, to whom, unarmed and 
unattended, the now happy old chief had gone, with his 
open Bible in one hand and a white flag of truce in the 
other, to try and induce that most warlike tribe to ac- 
cept the blessed gospel which had done so much for 
him and his people. Suddenly was his heart pierced 
by the death- dealing bullet, and while his blood was 
crimsoning the prairie grasses and beautiful wild flow- 
ers his spirit was winging its joyous upward way to 
the paradise of God. 

Of Memotas it is a joy to speak. He was one of 
my Northern Cree Indians. He had the most beauti- 
ful Indian face it was ever my privilege to look upon ; 
and that wondrous &ce, so periect and attractive, ever 
seemed to mirror forth one of the purest and sweetest 
spirits I ever knew. 

From the day of Memotas' conversion no harsh 
expression or unkindly word was ever known to fall 
from hb lips. Enemies and foolish friends tried to 



288 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ruffle his sweet and gentle spirit and, ever failing, came 
away abashed and reproved by his loving words, 
which more than met all their sneers and attacks ; and 
some of them were so influenced by his words and life 
that they gave themselves no rest or peace until they at 
the mercy-seat sought for some measure of the spirit of 
thb saindy man. 

Once, when the writer was pleading with a very 
proiane and reckless fur-trader, and urging him to give 
up his wickedness and become a Chrisdan, the answer 
he received was, " Mr. Young, I am trying to be an 
infidel, but I cannot make it out while I see that Me- 
motas of yours. If I could be such a Christian as he 
is I would try and give up my wicked life !'* 

When sickness laid me low, and for months I was 
at death's door with t3rphoid fever, four hundred miles 
away in the wilderness from the nearest doctor, Memo- 
tas was my dreless companion and friend. In his quiet, 
skilful way he doctored me, humored me in my deliri- 
ums, and cared for me with all of a mother's love and a 
woman's tenderness. When in hours of depression the 
soul in the almost worn-out body longed for spiritual 
consolation, how very sweet and comforting sounded 
the words of the blessed Book as read by the Indian 
convert to his afflicted missionary ! And when in that 
sweet voice of his he sang of redeeming love and hea- 
ven's bliss, it seemed as if one of the angels from the 
heavenly choir had come into that far-off, lonely mission 
home to cheer us up in our weakness with a glimpse of 
the glory yet to be revealed. 

Triumphant Memotas ! we still feel as though we 
ought to put off the shoes from our feet as in memory's 
vision we try to tread the sacred ground of that little 



ABORIGINAL AMERICANS. 289 

Indian house in which the closing da3rs of thine earthly 
career were spent That heaven can begin on earth we 
have never doubted since we were privileged to be 
there. 

Last year it was my privilege to visit my old 
Northern Indian fields and to be refreshed in spirit by 
meeting with many whom in other years it was my joy 
to tead to Christ. A boat-load of them I met coming 
down into the regions of civilization, and of one of that 
boat-load I wish to speak. 

With my beloved friend, the Rev. Mr. Semmens, 
of Winnipeg, I was walking one evening on the banks 
of a northern river, when a young Indian came up to 
us and in an excited manner said, ** A boat-load of In- 
dians has come down from Norway House, and among 
them is Edward Paponekis." 

My heart gave a great jump of joy at these words, 
for if there was one Indian more than another I wished 
to see it was this beloved Paponekis. At once my 
friend and myself hurried down the bank of the river, 
and there away before us was the camp-fire of the In- 
dians for whom we were looking. As we drew near we 
found them at their evening devotions ; for all of our 
Christian Indians when travelling forget not their morn- 
ing and evening prayers. 

When they had finished their devotions we drew 

near them. My good brother with me said, " Let me 

go on ahead and speak to them first, and then we will 

see if any of them will recognize you." These wer^ 

Cree Indians, to whose land I went in the year 1868, 

and remained among them until 1873. I ^^^ them for 

the land of the Saulteaux; so many years had passed 

away since I had been their missionary. Mr. Sem- 
19 



290 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

mens, who had but lately left them, was cordially wel- 
comed by them as he entered into the circle of the light 
of their camp-fire. After their first greetings were over 
he said to Paponekis, as he pointed towards me, '' Ed- 
ward, do you know who that man is ?'' 

The stalwart Indian came close up to me, and after 
scanning my face for an instant, he shouted out as he 
seized me with both hands, " Oh, it is Mr. Young, my 
missionary, the man who converted me 1'' 

" No, Edward," I replied, " I did not convert you ; 
only the Lord Jesus could do that" 

" Oh," he replied, " you know what I mean. 
You found me a poor drunken Indian, deep down in 
sin, and you talked to me, and prayed for me, and 
never let me go until I came to the cross. And I love 
you more than I do any man living, and I praise God 
that my eyes see you once again." 

Thus talked the happy, excited man^ while his 
heart overflowed with joy at meeting the missionary 
who had led him to Christ. And it will be no surprise 
to say that the missionary was just about as much 
moved with glad emotions as his happy Indian convert. 
We sat down on the bank of the river, and until the 
small hours of the morning we talked of many things 
that filled our hearts. 

Long years ago I found this man, Edward Papo- 
nekis, or rather he found me, rather unceremoniously. 
One day the door of my little mission home was sud- 
denly dashed open and in rushed this man with an 
empty rum-bottle in his hand. He was in a great rage 
and threatened to smash my head, for he was mad- 
dened by the contents of the botde. However, I suc- 
ceeded in saving my head firom being smashed, and in 



ABORIGINAL AMERICANS. 29 1 

SO quieting the man that after a while he went away 
without doing any harm. 

From that time I took a great interest in the man 
and followed him up, and whenever I had a favorable 
opportunity, in wigwam or at the camp-fire, I tried to 
lead him to the Lord Jesus. It was not rapid work in 
his case, and I have not time to tell of all the steps that 
were taken ere he was enabled to rejoice in the blessed 
assurance of Christ's reconciling love. He held out 
strongly for a time. Indeed, while we were sitting that 
night on the bank of the river under the stars, he told 
me that more than once, when I with clasped hands 
and closed eyes was on my knees on the ground in his 
wigwam praying for his conversion, he was looking 
around fo^ the axe with which to split open my head ! 

But, wondrous change ! his proud heart yielded, 
and not very long ago in one of the largest churches in 
the city of Winnipeg he was ordained to the work and 
office of the Christian ministry. 

Glorious has been his record. Bravely and suc- 
cessfully is he toiling among his own countrymen, and 
hundreds of them have come to Christ already through 
his instrumentality. 

There is one more phase of the work the memory 
of which gives us greater joy than any other : that is 
the marvellous amelioration of the condition of the 
poor women of the Indian tribes. Among some of the 
pagan tribes with whom we have toiled the men thought 
it to be a sign of weakness to show any kindness or to 
speak any words of tenderness to women. Hence 
mother, wife, sister, and daughter were ever treated with 
contempt and used as mere beasts of burden and toil. 
We have seen the stalwart hunter march into the vil- 



292 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

lage from the forest hunt, proudly carrying the gun on 
his shoulder, and seeing his wife cutting wood, or en- 
gaged in some other toil, sternly order her to go out 
into the woods along his trail and bring in the deer' he 
had shot To hurry her up often a heavy sdck would 
be thrown at her, as she was quickly speeding away. 
Often that poor woman had to go for miles ere she 
reached the game. With one end of her carrying-strap 
tied around the haunches and the other end around 
the neck of the deer, the poor woman succeeded in get- 
ting the deer on her back, held up by the strap across 
her forehead. With this heavy burden she returned to 
the village. Although about exhausted with the heavy 
load no rest was allowed her, for her brutal husband 
quickly ordered her to prepare his dinner. When this 
was done she meekly took her place at a distance, with 
the girls and dogs, glad to receive the bones with what 
little meat tlie men chose to leave upon them, and often 
obliged to fight with the dogs even for them. 

Only last summer there sat in one of my Indian 
congregations among the Saulteaux a man who, with 
his two brothers, put their aged mother to death be- 
cause she was too old and feeble to work. 

Moo-koo-woo-soo, a chief, sneeringly told how he 
had first strangled his mother to death and then burned 
her body to ashes because she was too old to snare rab- 
bits and catch fish. 

These were but samples of the crimes which were 
being committed among these tribes when, long years 
ago, we went among them. Our house for the first 
year was a poplar log hut, twelve feet square, mudded 
outside and in. The roof was of logs covered with sods 
and mud and grass. But very happy were we in it, for 



ABORIGINAL AMERICANS. ^93 

marvellous were the transformations which were ours to 
see, as with the open Bible we went among the poor 
people and with loving words entreated them to give 
up Uieir old ways and accept of the gospel of the Son 
of God. Many were our hardships in that land of bliz-- 
zard storms and bitter cold. Often have I slept out in 
the dreary forest, in a bed in the snow, and the tem- 
perature an3n¥here from fifty to sixty below zero. But 
in " perils oft," even if in tears we sowed amidst many 
hardships, strength was given us to labor on, and in 
due time the blessed harvest came. In that land of the 
Saulteaux, on no other man's foundations, it was given 
us not only to have the honor and privilege of the 
sower, but the joy of the reaper. Transformations such 
as must have made the angels rejoice have been ours 
to witness. Only one scene can I now ask you to wit- 
ness. Come with me into our little Indian -church. 
Take your stand with me here at the desk. The people 
are gathering for the morning service. See, the double 
doors are both thrown open. ** Who is so large as to 
require both doors to be opened ?" you ask. But you 
soon see why they are both needed. Two stalwart 
Indian men have made a chair of their hands, and over 
their four hands and arms a blanket is thrown, and 
seated on the chair thus improvised, with one arm 
around each stalwart neck, is the poor old Indian moth- 
er, whom the great strong men, her sons, are carrying 
in this way to the house of God ! Lovingly they bring 
her up the single aisle, and on the front seat, made soft 
and comfortable with blankets, they put her down so 
gently, and one of them sitting beside her supports her 
with his strong arm. Her old wrinkled &ce smooths 
out a little, and her black expressive eyes seem to glis- 



^94 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ten with delight as she enters into* the worship of God 
in his sanctuary. With intense delight she listens to 
all that is said and her very presence seems to be help- 
ful to the missionary, who cannot but thank^God for the 
marvellous transformations among the people. 

The mother strangled to death and her body 
burned to ashes was paganism ; the mother carried to 
the house of God by her own sons is Chrbtianity. 

These trophies won, these transformations seen, 
were our glory and our joy. These Beacon Lights from 
Indian mission fields, like those from so many others, 
are proof of the gospel's power, and encouragements to 
continue in the blessed work. 

" Let us fight against the evil with our faces towards the light ; 

God is looking through the darkness, and he watches o*er the 
fight! 

And his joy will be our recompense, his triumph crown the right. 

For truth is marching on." 



WORK AMONG LEPERS. 295 



MISSION WORK AMONG LEPERS. 

BY WELLESLEY C. BAILEY, ESQ. 

The subject which I am to bring before you to- 
day is that of work among lepers. 

Perhaps some one may say, " Is it possible that 
there are so many lepers in the world that it needs a 
special agency to reach them ?" 

Few people have any idea of the extent to which 
leprosy exists to-day. The official statistics for Brit- 
ish India put them down, for that country alone, 
110,000, while some experts believe the number to 
be nothing short of half a million. China has pro- 
bably as .many, if not more than India, and Japan has 
200,000 known cases ; so that in these three countries 
alone there is probably a population of a million to 
work upon. 

I can imagine some one saying, " But surely the 
disease is not the same as that of which we read in 
the Bible?" Precisely the same, my friends. The 
disease was in the Holy Land in the days of Moses, 
in the days of Jesus Christ, in the time of the Crusa- 
ders, and it is in the Holy Land to-day ; and the dis- 
ease as it is to-day in the Holy Land is the same as 
that which we have in India, China and elsewhere. 

The descriptions of leprosy in the Bible — ^with one 
or two exceptions — are just such as one, adopting 
perhaps a little more modem phraseology, might use 
regarding what one sees almost every day in India 
and other lands. 



296 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

The conditions, too, under which the leper is found 
to-day are very little better than those under which 
he lived in Old Testament times. While it is quite 
true that in only a few places is the leper legally an 
outcast, yet, generally speaking, he is still one for 
whom " there is no more a portion forever in any- 
thing that is done under the sun ;" one from whose 
breast may be said to have died out the last spark of 
hope, and into whose life rarely, if ever, comes a ray 
of sympathy to brighten the great deep, dark sea of 
his sorrow. He is still something to be shunned, and 
dreaded, and fled from. In India the husband will 
drive out the young wife from himself and her children, 
the wife will flee in terror from the leprous husband, 
and the parents will turn adrift forever the helpless 
children when they have fallen victims to the awful 
malady. 

I have seen and known of these things myself or 
I would not speak of them. May I be permitted to 
give an illustrative case of each which occurred in my 
own experience ? 

Dayamony was a young wife. She became a 
leper. Her husband and friends (?) sent her away to 
lie on her face before an idol until she should be healed. 
Poor Dayamony went, and for three weeks she lay 
there — taking only what rest she could not possibly 
avoid, eating only a littie parched grain to keep body 
and soul together, and drinking only water now and 
then — ^in the hope that by torturing her already much 
tortured body she would accumulate the more merit, 
and so be the more likely to obtain a cure. At the 
end of three weeks she arose and retraced her steps, 
but only to be repulsed again. '*Well," said her 



WORK AMONG LEPERS. 297 

unnatural husband, ''the god has done nothing for you, 
you had better be off to Purulia." At Purulia, nine 
miles from her home, stands a leper asylum watched over 
by a good German missionary and his wife. Thither 
she went with her heart breaking and she herself the 
victim of the most consuming despair. On arrival she 
threw herself at the feet of the missionary and im- 
plored him to take her into the asylum. " Gladly/' 
said he ; and she was conducted there and then to a 
litde room for herself. She improved under kind care, 
and within two months she yielded her bleeding heart 
to her Saviour and was baptized in his name, taking 
for herself, instead of the heathen name, that of Daya- 
mony {a pearl of grace). The other was a young 
girl whom I saw in the Dharmsala at Bombay, a truly 
awful place. She had a sweet face and no mark of the 
disease upon her except two fatal spots on her back, 
just sufficient to tell her that her fate was sealed ; and 
this poor child had been driven from her home, and 
had wandered into this, the only refuge for lepers in the 
city of Bombay at that time. I believe this place has 
since been done away with. Five months afterwards 
I again saw the child, and was shocked at the ravages 
the disease had made upon her in that short time. 

Now a case to show the devotion of which I have 
spoken. Sonu was a poor boy, whom having once 
seen you could never forget. His face, notwithstanding 
it was so horribly distorted, had a gentle look in it, and 
although disease had made an old man of him yet 
you could see that he was only a boy. His father 
was with him and kept him in the house with himself. 
" This," he said to me, turning to his leprous boy, " is 
my all ; he is my very life ; for him I live and with him 



298 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

I die." "They tell me," he said to me at another 
time, ** that I ought to keep him separate from myself, 
and give him his food separate ; but I cannot do it, 
and never will," and then the old man took me round 
to where he had built an altar to an unknown god, and 
said, " I have given sheep and goats and spent many 
rupees in the hope that my poor child would be cured, 
but it has all been in vain." 

Lepers are still said to be put to death in Nepal, 
in the Himalayas. At an institution for the relief of 
lepers at Almora, in the North Western Himalayas, we 
sometimes have applications from Nepalese sufferers 
who have fled over the frontier into British territory 
to escape the death penalty. In China also lepers are 
sometimes put to death. 

The disease is incurable, at least so far as medical 
science has ascertained at present In all my experience 
among lepers, ranging over a period of nearly twenty- 
four years, I have never seen a case of cure — never one. 
But while we cannot cure we can do a great deal to 
relieve ; thank God for this. And this leads me to try 
and correct two popular mistakes regarding this dis- 
ease. One, that lepers are suffering, day in and out, 
the most horrible torture ; thank God, it is not so. They 
have, it is true, their times of suffering, but it is by no 
means constant, and may often be relieved. 

The other mistake is that the disease is very in- 
fectious, hence that those who work among lepers are 
running grave risk of becoming lepers themselves. 
Thank God, it is not so. The disease is certainly not 
infectious and only very slightly contagious. There- 
fore there is no need whatever to make heroes of the 
men and women who, with the love of Christ in their 



WORK AMONG LEPERS. 299 

hearts, seek to relieve the leper bodily and spiritually. 
I speak specially of India, where missionaries of all 
denominations visit the lepers and the leper asylums, 
and come into very close contact with the sufferers ; 
and where I have seen n^edical missionaries and others 
handling freely the poor distorted and maimed limbs. 
I have never known one of our workers, either native 
or European, suffer from his devotion to the lepers. 

Lepers are at all times very hopeless, but the man 
or woman "full of leprosy " and without Christ is the 
very embodiment of despair — nothing to hope for either 
here or hereafter. Now it is just here that the Gospel 
meets his need. 

It was in the year 1869 that I was first introduced 
to the lepers of India by a very devoted and well 
known missionary, the late Rev. J. H. Morrison, D. D., 
of the American Presbyterian Mission in the Panjab. 
I was not long visiting them before I found out that 
the gospel had a wonderful charm for them, and could 
prove itself to be, in their case especially, " the power 
of God unto salvation." 

Speaking especially for India, the lepers, as a 
class, receive the gospel readily, and very many of them 
become Christians. Some of the most precious mo- 
ments I have ever spent in Christian work have been 
spent among the lepers. Many and many a time it 
has been a perfect delight to me to read to them out 
of the word of God, and watch the dull, lisdess, hope- 
less look upon their poor marred faces change into 
one of interest and hope, aye, and even joy. 

In the year 1874 I returned to my home in Ire- 
land for a short while, and, without any intention of 
forming a mission, spoke of my work among lepers. 



300 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

I very soon found that the subject awakened a good 
deal of interest, and, unsolicitedi money began to come 
in. I scarcely knew at first what to do, but it became 
very evident before long that soffteihing had to done, 
and that the whole matter was of the Lord. The first 
man whom I took into confidence was the late Dr. 
John Newton, a medical missionary of the American 
Presb}rterian Mission, and one of the most devoted 
workers in the cause of the leper that India ever saw. 
He had already a few lepers under his care, but on 
hearing that I had funds in hand he increased the ac- 
commodation and took in many more of the sufiferers ; 
and so began our Mission to Lepers, for many years 
known as " The Mission to Lepers in India," but now 
known under the wider title of '* The Mission to Lepers 
in India and the East." Shortly afterwards a commit- 
tee was formed, which soon had to be enlarged. 

The object of this mission is to preach Christ to 
the lepers. Along with that it gives what medical and 
other relief it can. It is thoroughly undenominational 
and international, and is supported by the free-will of- 
ferings of God's people all over the world. 

It works at present in India, Burma, Ceylon and 
China, and has just sent its first grant towards the 
erection of an asylum in Japan. 

It works in co-operadon with the different evan- 
gelical Protestant Missionary Societies, and in such 
co-operation is now working with fourteen different 
missionary bodies. In fact it is a handmaid to the 
societies already at work in the difierent fields where 
its operations are being carried on. 

In has nine leper asylums of its own in India, one 
in Burma, and a leper hospital in China. It subsidizes 



WORK AMONG LEPERS. 3OI 

to a large extent sixteen different institutions for lepers 
in India, and to a lesser extent eight others. It has 
lately begun work in China, where the call is very 
urgent, and is now invited to Japan. 

It has, altogether, work at thirty-six different cen- 
ters ; thirty of which are in India and Burma, and six 
of which are China. Another leper hospital is just 
about to be erected at Ku Cheng, in Foochow. 

The work has from the first been gready owned 
of God. It has had the manifest seal of Him who 
had such tender pity and sympathy for the leper, -and 
many poor suffering outcasts have been brought into 
his kingdom. In one institution alone more than 400 
have been received into the Christian church, on pro- 
fession of their faith, by baptbm. In another, the 
foundation-stone of which was only laid in February, 
x888, considerably over 200 have been similarly received. 

I have myself had the privilege more than once 
of partaking of the communion of the Lord's Supper 
with lepers — on one occasion with as many as sixty- 
six at one time — and a more happy looking, reverent, 
company I have scarcely ever seen; one could not 
help been moved to the very depths, as one looked 
upon those up-turned, marred, and mutilated, yet 
happy faces, and as one saw the poor mutilated hand 
held out, sometimes covered up in a cloth, to receive 
the emblem of the Lord's broken body. 

" Ah, sir," said a poor leper to me once, " since I 
trusted Christ, nineteen years ago, I have known 
neither pain of body nor pain of mind." 

Another, whom I had met again after an absence 
of eight years, said to me, " Now sir, I can go in 
peace." " Go where ?" said I. " To die Lord," said 



302 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

he, with a look partly of surprise upon his face, as if 
wondering at my question. That poor fellow fell at 
my feet, when I was obliged to leave him, and with his 
leprous forehead pressed upon my feet told me that 
his fate was a cruel one because I was obliged to go 
away and leave him. Oh, friends, it was hard to part, 
even from a leper ! 

There are two others departments of our work 
which I must briefly touch upon. 

The children of lepers are of two classes : those 
tainted and those untainted. For the former we can do 
but litde, except to treat them as other lepers, but 
for the latter a great deal may be done. Medical opin- 
ion is divided as to whether leprosy is hereditary or not, 
but meanwhile we are attempting to solve the question 
in a very practical way by coaxing the parents to 
give us up their untainted children and bringing them 
up in separate Homes. We have now five such Homes 
for the untainted children of lepers, and have had en- 
couragement beyond all our expectation in this branch 
of the work, and proving beyond any manner of doubt 
that such children may be saved from falling victims 
to the disease of their parents. 

Lasdy — European lepers : our own kith and kin. 
Yes, it is only too true that there are many such in 
India, and for them one's heart aches indeed. We have 
three such, one lady and two gentlemen, in connection 
with our asylums, and I know of one European who has 
two sons afflicted with the disease and does not know 
what do with them. A large central Home is urgendy 
needed for such cases, but as yet the Leper Mission 
has not received sufficient funds to enable it to embark 
on this new scheme. 



WORK AMONG LEPERS. 303 

In conclusion, let me say that this leper work is a 
constant object-lesson to the surrounding heathen, and 
shows them, as perhaps nothing else would do, the 
practical outcome of Christianity. It is thus strength- 
ening the hands of our missionaries, and has proved 
before now to be the key to an otherwise apparently 
unopenable door. 

Some of the poor lepers have turned out to be 
bright soul-winners, and have on more than one oc- 
casion been the means of starting Christian churches. 

At present nothing hinders the work but the lack 
of funds. There is practically no limit to the extent to 
which we may carry on this blessed work if only the 
heart of the Christian public is touched to respond to 
its needs. Thus far the committee has had, from lack 
of funds, to refuse at least seven appeals to start new 
work. 

I stand here to-day as, in a sense, the representa- 
tive of all these poor sufferers, and on their behalf and 
in their name I plead; ** Have pity upon me, have pity 
upon me, O ye my friends ; for the hand of God hath 
touched me." 



AJxiliarv Agencies. 



20 



TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETIES. 307 



TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETIES. 

BY REV. SAMUEL H. VIRGIN, D. D., LL. D. 

Oral address has never fully met the necessities 
of the world. Multitudes have been eager to know 
what men and women have thought and said who could 
in no way come in contact with them or be present to 
give them an attentive ear. In ancient days the book 
was a necessity even for the law of God, the history of 
the people, the psalm, and the prophecy. The table of 
stone, the monolith, and the temple soon became too 
cumbersome, and substitutes were provided till the 
elaborate and abundant provision of the closing days of 
the nineteenth century puts prodigious emphasis upon 
the early declaration, " of making many books there is 
no end." 

Moreover, the religious treasures of one land have, 
by the reduction of the world to a single neighborhood 
through the elimination of time and distance by mod- 
em appliances, become the desire of all, and translations 
of all important works have occupied the time of many, 
and added to the work of original publication in every 
land. 

The necessities of missionary toil have been met 
only by the most assiduous attention on the part of 
publishing societies, which have been quick to respond 
to requirements increased by every fresh success. 

Mental darkness, spiritual destitution, sickness and 
loneliness make their unending calls for " something to 
read/' and no work in the world to-day surpasses in 



308 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

importance nor outrivals in helpful influence that which 
is accomplished by Tract and Book Societies. 

The supply has been enormous, yet an unlimited 
demand exists. The water supply of a great dty is no 
more important than that which these societies furnish. 
A stranger to the innumerable demands might easOy 
count the vast provision a great waste. 

When the new aqueduct for New York city was 
opened 50,000,000 gallons of water hurried from Croton 
Lake towards the reservoir in Central Park, which b 
made to hold 1,000,000,000 gallons. When completed 
the watershed storage capacity will be 22,000,000,000 
gallons. The maximum daily need of the dty is esti- 
mated to be 200,000,000 gallons. 

These stupendous facts starde those who find all 
their water supply in a single litde well. But there is 
wisdom in these broad and generous plans. 

They suggest the equal need and supply for the 
mental and spiritual requirements of the world, and de- 
clare that the founders of the societies which pour their 
healthy currents of literature into the busy world are 
wise and noble bene&ctors of their race. 

The American Tract Sodety, now sixty-eight years 
old, yet fresh and youthful, is a noble pattern of these 
useful organizations. During all these years it has 
found ceaseless opportunity to test and prove the power 
and value of Scripture truth. In lonely wastes, in 
crowded apartments, in the midst of poverty, in abodes 
of wealth, in the dreary cell of the convicted prisoner 
and in the hushed silence of the hospital ward, where 
learning tests its utterances with sharp criticism and 
where ignorance is dense, when joys fill the soul with 
hilarity and when sorrows bend the spirit in dgection, 



TkACT AND BOOK SOClEtlES. 3O9 

when all is peace and prosperity abroad in the land and 
when the clouds of war send their lightnings and tem- 
pests abroad — into all these var3nng experiences has 
this great Society gone with its holy messages of. light 
and comfort and salvation, seeking ever the lost soul 
and never content till it has found it ; and now at the 
end of sixty-eight years it stands unwearied in its noble 
pursuits and only asks for larger equipment for a grand- 
er work. Its spirit is youthful, its energy unabated, its 
zeal for souls quickened by all the success which it has 
enjoyed at the hands of the Lord. It has built thou- 
sands of dollars into character and changed the contri- 
butions of churches into living epistles of God's love 
and mercy whose reading has been the delight of many 
soub in many lands. The hum of its presses has grown 
into a chorus of redeemed souls, and the murmur of its 
traffic into the anthem of exultant praise. It has taken 
the hard-earned dollar of the farmer, transformed it into 
seed and sown it where now waves a harvest of ripened 
Christian virtues which glorifies both God and man. It 
has taken the checks of the wealthy and reduced them 
to pulp and whitened them to receive the print of rare 
and gracious thoughts that have changed the current of 
countless lives and brought order out of chaos and 
beauty out of desolation. It has transmuted the work 
of one into the experience of another. 

There is no greater wizard in the world than this 
Society. No other can produce more marvellous re- 
sults. It has made the sweat of the brow glow with 
rainbow beauty, and the blows of the blacksmith's arm 
sing with the voice of a seraph. It has made self-denial 
produce spiritual fortunes and gold itself stand up in 
the form of a man, walk into the mines whence it was 



310 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

dug, speak with the accents of the Saviour's voiee, melt 
hearts to its own former liquid condition, and stamp 
them with the image and superscription of the Divine 
Owner. It has by its wonderful alchemy changed the 
work of the needle- woman into spiritual garments of 
unimaginable beauty and efRilgent glory, and made 
crowns of immortal brightness fall from the hands of 
the dying upon brows far remote in time and space. It 
has made money speak in divers tongues and with apos- 
tolic power. It has moved through the iron doors of 
prisons and silently unlocked the fountains of tears in 
the eyes of convicts as it has melted their hearts at the 
story of Him who said to the criminal, '* This day shalt 
thou be with me in paradise." It has been a more 
powerful anaesthetic than ether, for it has made the suf- 
ferer oblivious of his pain, and put words of ecstasy on 
the lips of the dying. It has with unflinching firmness 
stood in the saloon and warned the wretched owner of 
the woes that are spoken against him who giveth his 
neighbor drink, and pointed the miserable drunkard to 
the only place of rescue for his lost soul. It has stood 
its ground in the turbulent gathering of excited men 
clamoring wildly for their rights and ready to fire the 
dwellings of the rich and pillage the homes of the wor- 
thy only because of their better condition, and it has 
taught them the nobler way of adjusting the disordered 
relations of wealth and poverty, of capital and labor, ac- 
cording to the teaching and in the spirit of Christ. It 
has sailed out into the ocean and told the lonely sailor 
of Him who hushed the stormy sea, has filled the fore- 
castle and the cabin with the songs of angels and touched 
the dreams of the night into tender and glowing inspira- 
tions. It has climbed the mountains to the rugged cot- 



TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETIES. 3II 

tage, sat as a guest in the miner's cabin, brightened with 
its lustre the dug-out of the pioneer, and beguiled the 
weary hours of the lumberman in the forests. It has 
esteemed nobody beneath its notice, nobody too sinful 
for its messages, nobody too remote for its joume3rs, 
nobody too defiant for its courage, nobody too hostile 
for its greeting and its gospel call. The sterile places 
have been as inviting as the oases of life. Its leaflets of 
purity have fallen like snowflakes in the air to cover the 
wastes of misery, Uke the blossoms in spring to sweeten 
and beautify the social world. 

The existence of these societies to-day rests upon 
the living need of the day. They cannot yet be dis- 
charged as though their work was done. All other 
agencies combined do not and cannot supply the need. 
Even the words spoken here must be printed and scat- 
tered for the millions who do not look upon " the 
white city " nor sit in these stimulating assemblies. 

There is still 

A VITAL NECESSITY FOR RELIGIOUS LITERATURE. 

A noxious press provides abundant supplies for 
vicious tastes and corrupt desires. The vigilance of 
the good watchers is not equal to the prevention of a 
flood of demoralizing literature, and the enterprise of 
infidelity pours a steady current of infected thought into 
the homes, minds, and hearts of the people. It is the 
drainage from the areas of sin and misery, of wretched 
doubt and insolent skepticism. If the rookeries and 
pigsties and manure-heaps that defile the streams that 
furnish water for our cities need to be removed to se- 
cure the public health, much more is there necessity for 
the cleansing of those areas from which come the books 



312 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

and papers and leaflets that find their way into the 
hands of our youth and corrupt their thinking, and dis- 
tort their intuitive conceptions of the true, the beautiful, 
and the good. The golden tide that has flowed over 
the world, leaving its rich deposit of blessing, is not 
enough to meet the malignant stream with its defiling 
deposits. Millions of pages of saving truth have been 
fi-eely distributed in many tongues and lands, but they 
have been absorbed, and the need remains almost as 
though unmet at all. During the years that have passed 
away the single society alluded to above has circulated 
204,666,800 copies of its periodicals ; and yet millions 
of children cry for a paper that shall charm fheir lonely 
hours, and other children with more mature voice tong 
for some instructing word. Its colporters have found 
1,190,254 families, representing about 6,000,000 souls, 
in this favored country destitute of all religious books 
except the Bible, and over 700,000 Protestant families 
without even a Bible, and have sold or given away 
16,000,000 volumes ; but the lack, in millions of families 
of the varied nationalities now found within our borders, 
is simply appalling. If the production and circulation 
of religious books, tracts, papers and leaflets were to 
be suspended incalculable harm would quickly follow, 
and in due season a moral and spiritual desert would 
appear ; a sirocco would make all healthy spiritual life 
well-nigh impossible. New, living streams must con- 
standy refresh and purify the stagnant life of the peo- 
ple. Abundance of the best kind of reading matter 
must be provided, first, to meet 

I. The ignorance of spiritual truths. 

There is no more natural knowledge of spiritual 
things to-day than there ever was. Men are not bom 



TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETIES. 313 

in the closing years of the nineteenth century to swing 
easily and instantly into the Heavenly Father's arms 
and do his will, but sin loads them with its burdens and 
fastens upon them its clanking chains. Our own bright 
land, consecrated to liberty and learning, where the 
schoolhouse and the church have been companions 
from the days of colonial weakness and poverty to this 
very hour of might and opulence among the sisterhood 
of nations, shows densest ignorance in some sections, 
not only of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, not 
only of the beginning of letters, the simple feicts of pri- 
mary learning and republican government, but also of 
the foundation principles of morality and religion. 
Ideas of God, his worship and service, of sin, and the 
Spirit's relation to God and man, of Jesus and his 
atonement, in which all related problems appear as 
lesser hills disclose themselves from a mountain peak ; 
of the Bible as the source of revelation of God, unerr- 
ing in its instruction, inspired and inspiring in its his- 
tory, its poetry, its prophecy, its narrative, its theology ; 
of the church in its sublime mission and its advancing 
glory, rising through all opposition, shedding its efiiil- 
gence upon all nations, and shooting its rays, like pol- 
ished lances of light, into every darkened chamber, 
changing with its rare potency the character of human 
legislation and the quality of human life — ideas of the 
spiritual world and the sovereignty of God in and over 
it all — are as dim and vaporous as the unregulated 
thoughts of childhood or the dull conceptions which 
ages of superstition have bequeathed to posterity. 
Bishop's Hall's allusion to ''that gloomy and base 
opacity of conceit wherewith our earthly minds are 
wont to be overclouded" is fit description still of 



514 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

countless human intelligences. Secluded settlements 
have a capacity for ignorance that is appalling. The 
thousands of oppressed and degraded people from 
other lands that have found an asylum here have 
brought the heritage of ignorance that has fallen to 
them from the dark ages of mental bondage. A sim- 
ple, plain, religious literature is an absolute necessity to 
meet this bewildering ignorance. Where there is no 
knowledge of God and his salvation there can be no 
promise of useful and helpful citizenship. The country 
will mourn over its wretched population, and be unable 
to lift its besotted crowds, and fall at length under their 
weight. The entrance of God's word gives light, and 
the papers, leaflets, tracts, books that fly from the 
presses of these various societies are so many golden 
gleams that gladden the horizon and herald the ap- 
proaching day. 

II. Wrong teaching calls for religious literature. 

Error is broadcast by half-instructed teachers and 
by open enemies of the truth. Wrong views of God 
and his government, of sin and its consequences, of 
Jesus and his salvation, of judgment and its issues, are 
widely disseminated. The secular press often assumes 
the function of religious teacher and presents grotesque 
forms of thought that would be ludicrous if they were 
not tragic in their influence. Yet thousands receive 
them and accept them as the truth. Superstitions 
abound, and control the action of parents and children, 
and only as the Bible truth is presented in such forms 
as will command attention and secure perusal can these 
gross errors be eliminated. If cultivated people will 
accept the follies of refined teaching that rends the 
Bible into fragments, denies its accredited authorship, 



TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETIES. 315 

flings its historic characters into the realm of myth and 
fable, and makes Christ himself the instrument for pro- 
longing antiquated and exploded errors in history and 
science, what may not be expected of those who have 
no knowledge with which to meet the sophistries and 
crudities of human teaching? One might as well ex- 
pect to put out the light of the stars by flinging Bibles 
at them as to extinguish such baleful lights by any 
wholesale process of treatment. Carefully prepared 
religious literature must deal with these varied forms of 
error in efforts to correct and remove them. 

III. False doctrine demands religious literature. 

In this free land and in this generous age all sorts 
of doctrine And eager advocates, and the millions who 
have come to our shores have brought their own false 
doctrines for defence and promulgation. The teachers 
of numerous false faiths have the popular ear, and it is 
needful that the truth should chase the false doctrine 
into the darkness. Almost 700,000 people, from forty 
different nations, entered this country last year. At our 
portals they were greeted with tracts, printed in their 
own language, explaining the truths of our faith and 
presenting the salvation of the cross to their delighted 
and astonished minds. Multitudes perpetually absent 
themselves from the places of public instruction, and so 
find no corrective of their doctrines in the persons and 
labors of ministers and Christian teachers. Infidels 
with blatant speech, enemies of the truth as it is in 
Jesus, mock the sacred customs of the land and inflame 
the prejudices of the ignorant by their travesties of spir- 
itual doctrine. The so-called mistakes of Moses are 
made of more importance than the correct teaching of 
Jesus. The apparent inconsistencies of Christians re- 



3l6 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

oeive more attention than the devoted and consistent 
lives of the faithful. Error is presented in specious 
forms and in delusive colors to captivate the fimcy and 
win the unthinking. There are as many nostrums for 
the ills of the spirit as there are quack medicines for 
the diseases of the body, and they are advertised in 
equally startling fashion. All the isms that ingenious 
thought can devise to take the place of the revelation of 
God that proclaims man a lost sinner are in the marts 
where men " most do congregate.'* The ashes of a 
cremated woman are divided among the populations of 
the world and used to stimulate a theosophic faith ; the 
creed of Islam has now its advocate in this enlightened 
and Christianized country, and Joss Houses call the 
Chinese to their ancestral worship. Sin is declared a 
disease, divine forgiveness unnecessary, the Bible a vol- 
ume, like other sacred writings, of only such authority 
as the consciousness of each man shall declare to him, 
the atonement in blood a relic of coarse barbaric 
thought, judgment a figment of fancy, and hell a night- 
mare of diabolic theology. All these unsatisfying sup- 
plies for the sins and sorrows of the human heart, the 
questions and fears of the human intellect, must be 
buried under the flood of literature that contains the 
sweet, clear, heavenly instruction which the Son of God 
brought into the world. To stay the progress of this 
beneficent circulation is to abandon a sinking ship in 
mid-ocean. The generous sentiment of the world cries 
out against it The knowledge of the true God must 
remove the thought of idols and the dreamy impossibil- 
ities of philosophy, and give its positive faith for the 
negations of atheism and agnosticism. The gospel, 
with its rare blending of justice and mercy, with its un- 



TRACT ANP BOOK SOCIETIES. 317 

utterable compassion for a lost world, with its infinite 
supplies of grace and bounty, with its bleeding sacrifice 
and well-nigh resistless allurements, must crowd aside 
the philosophic maxims of life, which are neither pro- 
found enough to meet the dread necessity, high enough 
to fling any radiance upon the everlasting spiritual 
heaven, strong enough to open a pathway from strife 
and want to peace aiid plenty, nor tender enough to 
put a circling arm about the feeble and helpless and 
beai' them to the abodes of bliss. The false doctrine of 
the world needs the truth. Religious literature is still 
a human requisite. 

IV. The era of doubt calls for religious literature. 

It is a time of universal questioning. The world is 
a neighborhood, and the ethnic contacts have produced 
a specific mental and spiritual condition. The studies 
of Christian scholars have been made to minister to a 
kind of cosmic uncertainty. Religious debates have 
been wrongly construed into a loss of any definite faith 
on the part of the church. The unrest of the unfortu* 
nate multitudes that are now drifting across the world 
imparts its nervous tremulousness to other multitudes. 
The church of Jesus Christ is not everywhere aggres- 
sive in evangelism, nor does it undoubtingly daim its 
place as the one conspicuous force for reforming and 
perfecting the world for which its Lord and Master 
died. Investigation into every realm of life brings new 
wonders to light, opinions are held in reserve, and to 
doubt is considered in many circles evidence of a broad 
and inquiring mind. The settled facts of ages in psy- 
chology and theology are ignored for the dilettanteism 
of some fledgling in new pursuits. Everything pertain- 
ing to God and man is made a subject of modern doubt 



3l8 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

and question. Tet the truth is unchanged in its sweet- 
ness, richness, and power. It stands like the everlast- 
ing hills ; it shines like the stars, that do not change 
their places for the multiplied telescopes that are direct- 
ed towards them, like the immutable laws that proceed 
from the mind of the infinite God. This truth needs 
expression in innumerable forms for all conditions ol 
mental and spritual life, and never so much as now, to 
meet these ceaseless questions and hush this wide dis- 
quiet. Since the hero of doubt scorns the church and 
refuses the help of its services, the solution of his dilem- 
ma must be put into his hand in convenient form, in 
befitting phrase, in fascinating and convicting truths. 
The literature of this and kindred societies is as much 
needed to-day as the warm sunlight to melt the snows 
on the mountain slopes, as the spring showers to soften 
the rigid earth, as cargoes of food to save a starving 
nation. 

The masses of the poor must be suppUed with a 
neat, cheap literature containing the very best truths, of 
the very highest order, containing the very richest gems 
of gospel comfort and grace, that by them and through 
them fountains may spring up in the wilderness, the 
bread of God give nourishment and the &cts of God 
supply certainty in all the abodes of the world. The 
work of this Society will not be done till all are thus 
supplied. 

V. Devout Christians require religious Uterature. 

It has not pleased God to remove his children to 
heaven as fast as they return to him in loving loyalty, 
but he continues them here often in the midst of per- 
plexities, sorrows, and abundant labors. Many of 
them are separated from kindred, secluded in remote 



TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETIES. 319 

districts, debarred the privities of the sanctuary, 
crushed under the burdens of poverty, or broken in 
health, yet seeking ever the beauties of holiness and 
rejoicing in God their Saviour. For such the numerous 
books and tracts that have been written by the gifted 
children of the kingdom are essential to spiritual com- 
fort and growth. They carry the fragrance of the 
garden of the Lord, the sweet spices of its most aro- 
matic plants, into these homes. They steady the faith, 
quicken the courage, warm the affections, and increase 
the spiritual strength. The classification of the new 
publications in the Annual Reports of Tract Societies 
is suggestive of the value of this important branch of 
work. ^ 

The abundant supplies for child life which this age 
makes a necessity — ^luring the youthful thought in the 
right direction, associating pleasant emotions with reli- 
gious truth by pictures and bright and touching narra- 
tive, by cards of every kind for birthda3rs and holidays, 
enriching the Sunday-school libraries as well as the 
home shelves — make an additional bond of union be- 
tween these Societies and the wants of the world. 

Religious literature has still a most important 
place in subserving all these varied wants ; The Chris- 
tian Book and Tract Society is an absolute necessity, an 
unspeakable blessing. Its work has but just bc^n. 
Darkness broods over countiess minds. Sounds of 
savagery are in the air. The demon of brutality chains 
the sons and daughters of God. Squalid poverty and 
hellish crimes mark the great centres of population. 
Adepts in crime, with the smell of the prison in their 
garments, hold high office under official appointment 
and administer important trusts. Fiendish iniquity is 



320 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

found in remote districts. Purity blushes where sin 
riots> and the song of the godless steadily increases 
within the domain where God has planted these great 
Societies with their literature and their workers. 

But slowly the darkness is penetrated by the light 
Slowly the songs of redemption drive out the bacchan- 
als of the wicked. Slowly the ideas of righteousness 
displace the thoughts of evil. Slowly the noiseless 
structure rises on the unseen foundations. Slowly the 
kingdom of Christ is possessing the world. Its invisible 
agents are countless and resisdess. The decree has 
been written, the promise has been heralded, that this 
world shall be given to Christ The days of struggle 
hasten to the hour of victory. Truth printed, spoken, 
embodied, secures the alliance of Omnipotence. The 
patience of infinite forbearance will permit no hasty 
action, but at length the hour of Christ will come^ and 
order will come from confusion, the forces of righteous- 
ness will emerge (rom obscurity, the glory of Christ will 
illume the world, and the eternal celebration of his tri- 
umph over sin begin. 

In that day the workers and helpers of these great 
Societies shall not &il of their appropriate reward. 



CHRISTIAN UNION IN TRACT SOCIETIES. 32 1 



CHRISTIAN UNION IN TRACT SOCIE^ 

TIES. 

BY REV. G. L. SHEARER, D. D. 

Under the classification "Tract and Book Socie- 
ties " are included the publishing houses of the several 
denominations, but more especially such interdenomi- 
national and union societies as the Religious Tract So- 
ciety of London and the American Tract Society, and 
their affiliated or branch societies in Japan, China, In- 
dia, and other mission fields. 

These two great societies are in themselves forci- 
ble illustrations of the unity of the evangelical church 
and of that co-opercUian, not only in theory but in 
practice, which has been proclaimed as the key-note of 
this Congifess. 

I. There is a unity in doctrine. Here a substan- 
tial agreement has been reached not only upon the 
Bible as a basis, but also upon what the Bible teaches. 
The saving truths as held in common by the evangeli- 
cal churches are embodied in their publications, upon 
which is stamped an imprint which commends them as 
containing that which is to be received as Scriptural 
alwa3rs and everywhere. Generally, whatever may be 
the differences in polity or creed, in evangelical churches 
these issues so stamped pass current. 

II. Added to this unity of faith there is a unity of 
life. Hundreds of thousands of living, alert Christians 
co-operate as voluntary distributers in carrying this 

Mtofloiia. 21 



322 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

truth, in tract and other forms, to those who need it 
most, emphasizing its message by urgent, loving words. 
One society has employed more than 5,000 missionary 
colporters, men called of God to this work out of the 
several churches, who, keeping in abeyance divisive 
tenets, have gone forth a united army under the banner 
of the great Captain of our salvation. 

III. A notable example of this unity of faith and 
life is found in the mission field abroad, in which the 
language previously only spoken is reduced to writing, 
and the common gospel truth printed by the aid of 
these societies becomes the foundation of the Christian 
literature of the people and of the creed of the infant 
church, and the new life in Christ begins by especially 
emphasizing the central, vitalizing doctrines of the 
word of God. 

IV. Co'OperaHon is a fruit of the doctrine of CSm- 
Han Unity. When in this country, nearly seventy 
years ago, this attempt to promote it by agreeing upon, 
printing and circulating together these gospel truths 
was contemplated, certain leaders in the several de* 
nominations, such as Milnor, Spring, Edwards, Somers, 
and Summerfield, united in an address to the public 
asking a favorable consideration for this "novel and 
hopeful " enterprise. Who can estimate the influence 
of such an object-lesson, or of the continuous witness- 
bearing upon this point in the yearly distribution of 
millions of publications during all the intervening pe- 
riod ? Is it too much to claim, as in some part the 
fruitage under God of the seed thus sown, such organ- 
izations as the Evangelical Alliance, Christian Associa- 
tions for young men and young women. Endeavor So- 
cieties, and Missionary Conferences and Congresses? 



CHRISTIAN UNION IN TRACT SOCIETIES. 323 

If there were no other reasons for the founding and 
existence of such societies it were enough that they 
have hastened and are hastening the answer and fulfil- 
ment of the prayer and the promise of our divine Lord 
(John 17:21), ''That they all may be one; 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 hast 
sent me." 



324 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



BIBLE SOCIETIES. 

BV ALBERT S. HUNT, D.D. 

Long before the opening of the nineteenth century 
we find Societies which, in connection with their other 
lines of work, to a very limited extent published and 
circulated the Holy Scriptures. There were also Socie- 
ties which, though making Bible distribution their only 
work, confined their efforts to certain classes of the 
community, as soldiers and sailors, or to persons of a 
single nationality. But not until the seventh of March, 
1804, ^^s ^n organization formed which made the cir- 
culation of the Holy Scriptures its object and the entire 
world its field. The institution of the British and For- 
eign Bible Society eighty-nine years ago awakened the 
most profound interest in both hemispheres. Before 
twelve years had elapsed Bible Societies were in active 
operation in Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Den- 
mark, Holland, Switzerland, Saxony, Prussia, and 
Russia, as well as in India and North America. 

FORMATION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY. 

The American Bible Society was founded in New 
York in the year 18 16 by sixty delegates fi-om thirty-five 
local Bible Societies which had been formed in various 
parts of the United States during the eight years im- 
mediately preceding. Serious embarrassment was 
experienced in conducting the work of so many distinct 
organizations, and a wise economy of expenditure was 
found to be impossible without some general oversight 
Extensive interchange of views of the part of many 



BIBLE SOCIETIES. 325 

leading mexi, in church and State, resulted in the 
calling of a convention which, with great unanimity, 
decided to organize a national institution upon a 
foundation substantially the same as that of the British 
and Foreign. Bible Society, naming as its jfield not 
only the United States and their territories, but other 
countries also, whether Christian, Mohammedan, or 
Pagan. 

THE MOST STRIKING CHARACTERISTIC. 

The Constitution of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society declares that its " sole object shall be to encour- 
age a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures without 
note or comment^ The same words are embodied in the 
Constitution of the American Bible Society, and they set 
forth the most striking characteristic of all true Bible 
Societies. They are institutions which devote no time 
to formulating creeds, ordaining preachers, establishing 
schools, or founding churches, but they offer to men of 
every clime the one Inspired Book without whose re- 
velation creeds are void, preachers without a living 
message, schools without true wisdom, and churches 
without saving power. 

BIBLE SOCIETIES UNDENOMINATIONAL. 

It is well for us to note, still further that, while 
Missionary Societies are for the most part denomina- 
tional, Bible Societies were founded and are main- 
tained by the co-operation of Christians identified with 
various branches of the church. The Bible Society is 
not an Evangelical Alliance, using that term in the re- 
ceived sense, but it may well be questioned whether 
the Evangelical Alliance could have been formed in 



326 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

1846 if Bible Societies had not for forty years given im- 
pressive proof that it is quite practicable for Christians 
of different names to labor together on the most cordial 
terms with the most satisfactory results. The Rev. 
John Owen, one of the founders of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society and one of its first secretaries, 
sa3rs that *' Christians had been taught to regard each 
other with a kind of pious estrangement, or rather 
with consecrated hostility." The scene in the conven- 
tion which formed the British and Foreign Society 
seemed strange to him, and indicated the dawn of a 
new era in Christendom. The published accounts of 
Bible meetings for the first forty years of the century 
rarely fail to emphasize the fact that men of different 
denominations have met together upon the broad 
platform which the Bible Society afforded, and as 
Christian workers have actually rejoiced together with 
great joy. To our generation this seems so natural 
and proper that we wonder how our fathers could have 
regarded it as wonderful. 

THEN AND NOW. 

When the British and Foreign Bible Society was 
formed the Bible had been translated into less than 
forty languages. Several versions were obsolete and 
others demanded revision. Then, too, the Bible was 
so costiy that its possession was quite beyond the reach 
of the poor. No one dreamed that each person could 
ever acquire a copy of his own. The Bible Society 
began to multiply versions, to publish volumes of 
the Scriptures by tens of thousands, and supply them 
to the various peoples of the earth at nominal prices, 
or even without price. This work has expanded from 



BIBLE SOCIETIES. 32/ 

year ta year, and especially during the past twenty 
years until the Scriptures have been issued in nearly 
400 languages or dialects, and until the Bible, in all 
parts of the world, is the cheapest of all books. 

TOTAL ISSUES. 

The total issues of Bible Societies thus far exceed 
the most enthusiastic anticipations of their founders. 
The British and Foreign Bible Society has issued more 
than one hundred and thirty-five millions of volumes ; 
the American Bible Society nearly fifty-seven millions ; 
and the Bible Society of Scodand more than thirteen 
millions, making an aggregate for the three leading 
Bible Societies of the world of (206,201,404) two hun- 
dred and six millions, two hundred and one thousand, 
four hundred and four volumes. There are nine other 
societies which have issued each less than five million 
volumes but more than one million ; nine which have 
issued each less than one million volumes but more 
than half a million ; nine others which have issued each 
less than half a million but more than two hundred 
thousand volumes. Here, then, are thirty Bible Soci- 
eties whose aggregate circulation amounts to (240,955,- 
447) two hundred and forty millions nine hundred and 
fi%-five thousand, four hundred and forty-seven vol- 
umes. It should, however, be noted that more than 
four-fifths of this immense number have been issued by 
the British and Foreign and the American Societies. 
How impossible it is for the human mind to compass 
the stupendous results of such a work ! What multi- 
tudes t>f wanderers have been reclaimed and of mourners 
comforted in all parts of the habitable globe by these 
two hundred and forty millions of inspired volumes ! 



328 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

It would be pleasant for me to enlarge here, but I 
have no time to do so. I find satisfaction, however, in 
feeling that you are all well able to expand the thought 
for yourselves, since you know what it is to listen with 
responsive hearts to the Master's words, " Come unto 
me " and " Let not your heart be troubled." What 
these words are to us they are to sinful and burdened 
souls everywhere. 

TWO DEPARTMENTS — HOME AND FOREIGN. 

The practical operations of a great Bible Society 
are naturally divided into two departments — the home 
and foreign. It would be easy for me to use the entire 
time allotted to me in speaking of the magnificent work 
of the British and Foreign Society. I know of nothing 
in the form of organized Christian effort which equals 
the breadth of its plans or the moral grandeur of its 
achievements, but my duty to-day is chiefly to illustrate 
the principles which lie at the foundation of all Bible 
Society effort, and I may be permitted to do so by 
glancing at the operations of the Society with which I 
am most familiar. 

The home field of the American Bible Society em- 
braces every State and Territory of the Union. Nearly 
two thousand auxiliary societies give direction to the 
work in their respective fields, which generally cover a 
single county, though there are a few township and a 
still smaller number of State societies. It will be ob- 
served that in many portions of the country, especially 
on the frontier, the population is so sparse that it is 
impracticable to organize and conduct efficient auxil- 
iaries. The Parent Society has, therefore, found it 
necessary to adopt a system of colportage. Millions of 



BIBLE SOCIETIES. 329 

scattered families have thus been supplied with the 
Scriptures during the past ten years. The Society has 
during its history, through various agencies, distributed 
in the United States more than forty millions of volumes 
of the inspired word. A complete statement concerning 
the work of the Society in the home field would de- 
mand reference to translations of the Scriptures into 
many languages of the North American Indians, to the 
supply of mission Sabbath-schools, to distribution in 
the United States army and navy, especially during the 
civil war, to the supply of seamen visiting our ports, of 
humane and criminal institutions, of the freedmen, and, 
above all, of immigrants from many lands, upon whoni 
the Scriptures are bestowed as soon as they set foot 
upon our shores. 

CO-OPERATION WITH FOREIGN MISSIQNARY SOCIETIES. 

Turning to speak of the foreign work of the Soci- 
ety, it must first be stated that its setded policy is to co- 
operate, as far as may be, with the Foreign Missionary 
Societies of the various Christian denominations. Be- 
fore a Congress of Missions it may be well briefly to 
show how closely Missionary and Bible Societies are 
allied. The only publication of a Bible Society is the, 
Bible, or portions of the Bible, and translations must be 
made into many languages. The scholarship of Har- 
vard, or Yale, or Columbia, or any other University, 
is not equal to this service. It can be rendered only by 
the missionary who has labored among the people for 
whom the Bible is to be translated. In many cases he 
must construct a language. Listening with tireless pa- 
tience to rude speech he devises written characters, 
then produces a grammar, a dictionary, and at length 



330 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

a version of the Bible. By way of illustration let me 
refer to the translation of the Bible for the Gilbert Isl- 
anders, completed in April, last, after thirty-four years 
of labor, by the Rev. Hiram Bingham. This transla- 
tion was made from the original tongues into a lan- 
guage which he had himself reduced to writing, and 
for which he had constructed a grammar and collected 
a vocabulary. I have been the more ready to name 
this instance because it illustrates the vital relationship 
which exists between Missionary and Bible Societies. 
The Gilbert Islands are under the missionary oversight 
of Christians from the Sandwich Islands and Samoa, 
which only a few years ago were themselves in the 
depths of spiritual darkness. The story of the Sand- 
wich Islands is too familiar to require repetition. Of 
Samoa it may be simply stated that when John Wil- 
liams first visited it, in 1830, he found the people in the 
lowest state of degradation. They were without any 
knowledge of a written language, and the most debased 
and sanguinary rites characterized their system of pa- 
ganism. Like the Sandwich Islands Samoa received a 
written language and a translation of the Bible, and like 
them also it is now sending missionaries to other lands. 
Bible Societies, it is well known, are constantly making 
appropriations of funds to aid in defrapng the expenses 
of translations made by missionaries. 

The cooperation of Missionary and Bible Societies 
is also seen in the employment of mission presses for 
printing the Bible. Many editions of the Scriptures in 
Arabic and in Chinese, for instance, have been printed 
for the American Bible Society upon the mission presses 
at Beirut, Shanghai, Foochow, and Peking. 

Sdll further : The Scriptures, being translated and 



BIBLE SOCIETIES. 33 1 

« 

printed, must be distributed. The American Bible 
Society has a corps of more than three hundred col- 
porters in the foreign field, and these are members of 
the mission churches, nominated for this important ser- 
vice by those under whose ministry they have been 
converted. 

The American Bible Society conducted its work in 
foreign lands, for many years, through the Missionary 
Societies, but its enlargement called, at length, for the 
appointment of agents of its own. In 1875 it had one 
agent on the eastern continent and one on the western. 
Now,, so rapid has been the growth of its operations, 
there are six on each continent. The scope of my 
address forbids details. Omitting all reference to the 
interesting and fruitful fields of the Society in Europe, 
Asia, and Africa, it will not be regarded as inappropri- 
ate, before a Congress met under Columbian auspices, 
to turn for a moment to Latin America. 

WORK OF THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY IN LATIN 

AMERICA. 

As early as 181 8 the Society printed the New 
Testament in Spanish, and finding all existing versions 
unsatisfactory — that of Valera "being many years older 
than the authorized English version — the Society, in 
order to meet the wants of sixty millions of Spanish- 
speaking people, has recently produced, at great ex- 
pense, an entirely new version of the Bible from the 
original tongues. Tours of exploration have been 
made again and again by the Society's representatives, 
and its duly appointed agents are now to be found in 
the valley of the La Plata, in Brazil, Peril, Venezuela, 
Central America, Mexico, and Cuba. During die past 




332 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ten years 54o,ocx> volumes have been sent from the 
Bible House in New York to these fields. 

PIONEER SERVICE. 

Bible Societies are to be prized because of their 
fitness for pioneer service. They bear the message of 
salvation to places beyond the reach, or at least the 
easy reach, of the living missionary. There are por- 
tions of the world where the representatives of the Mis- 
sionary Society would not be received — might even be 
scornfully rejected — but where the voiceless ministry of a 
printed gospel finds a welcome. In the very heart of 
China, of Japan, of Turkey, of Mexico, of Brazil, indeed 
in every quarter of the globe, churches now flourish, as 
centres of light, which trace their origin to the silent 
but potent influence of single volumes, or even single 
pages, of the oracles of God. This statement is abun- 
dandy sustained by the correspondence of missionaries. 
To name a single instance : the Rev. W. D. Powell, a 
missionary of the Baptist denomination in Mexico, 
writes to the Agent of the American Bible Society : " I 
appreciate most heartily the work done by your noble 
Society in this republic. It has been the foundation 
and bulwark of all other evangelical effort I have 
often been where the people had never seen a mission- 
ary of any other denomination, but I have never been 
where the colporter of the American Bible Society was 
unknown." 

THE WORK OF BIBLE SOCIETIES WILL ALWAYS BE 

NEEDED. 

Once more : Bible Societies not only go before but 
follow after. They are charged with a specific commis- 



BIBLE SOCIETIES. 333 

sion, which calls for the most earnest service when the 
efforts of Missionary Societies are no longer required. 
Missionaries bear the message of life to heathen lands. 
They construct, it may be, a written language, and en- 
rich it by a translation of the Bible. The inspired book 
is widely circulated. Converts are multiplied, and in 
due time native Christians are fully able to conduct the 
enterprises of the church. The Missionary Society is 
then free to withdraw its representatives from a field 
where their very success renders them no longer useful. 
The retirement of the missibnary does not, however, 
diminish the demand for the Scriptures. On the con- 
trary, the larger the number of persons, in any country, 
who believe that the promises and precepts of the Bible 
are inspired of God, the more imperatfve will be the 
call for the specific efforts of the Bible Society. Wit- 
ness the immense circulation of the Scriptures in Great 
Britain and the United States. 

• 

CONCLUSION. 

But I must hasten. In concluding, permit me to 
emphasize the fact that the founders of Bible Societies 
were men who had tested the Bible for themselves and 
knew that it was what it claimed to be, a perfectly 
unique book, bearing a message of salvation to individ- 
ual sinners. In this faith their successors have con- 
tinued to labor until this day. The. history of Bible 
distribution in all lands is replete with evidence that 
the word of God is still, as it ever has been, a word of 
saving power. The passage, " God so loved the 
world that he gave his. only -begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth in him should not perish but have ever- 
lasting life,^ has proved to be a mighty spiritual force. 



334 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

The violence of a mob in a Brazilian town was recently 
quelled, we are told, under the influence of its strange 
power. To Neesima, of Japan, as he spelled out the 
meaning of the verse in a Chinese Testament for which 
he had exchanged his short sword, it opened a new 
and wonderful world of light. Bishop Corrie, of 
Madras, tell us of a Brahmin to whom the same words 
brought salvation, and another missionary in India 
tells of their power over an ignorant woman of the 
lowest caste,'so that we have the clearest proof of the 
adaptation of the Inspired Word to the wants of 
sinners with or without culture, with or without rank. 
The Bible is full of this power because it is full of 
Christ. Professor Monier Williams, of Oxford, in ad- 
dressing a company of young men about to enter the 
foreign missionary service, exalts the Bible because 
it affirms of the Founder of Christianity that " He, a 
sinless Man, was made sin; and that He, a dead 
and buried Man, was made life'' 

This distinguished scholar, so profoundly learned in 
the literature of the sacred books of the East, warns us 
against compromising the truth as it is in Christ. 
" They have taken away my Lord and I know not 
where they have laid him " was the bitter cry of Mary 
at the Saviour's sepulchre. Compromise may wring the 
same sad cry from us. Therefore we will exalt Jesus only, 
and so long as the Bible contains his message to us from 
the upper glory, *' I am the first and the last, and the 
Living one ; and I was dead, and behold I am alive 
for evermore," so long will Bible Societies continue to 
disseminate the blessed revelation among all the tribes 
and people and tongues of the wide world. 



MEDICAL MISSIONS AND RELIEF WORK. 335 



MEDICAL MISSIONS AND RELIEF WORK. 

BY REV. GEORGE E. POST, M. D. 

The primary function of the missionary physician 
in the earlier periods of mission work, and to a con- 
siderable extent in remote districts at present, is the 
care of the health of other missionaries and of mission 
institutions. A missionary is a valuable man, even from 
a pectmiary standpoint, and the longer he remains on 
mission ground the more precious are his life and 
health. Nestor was the most valuable man in the Gre- 
cian army. The missionary physician is the Nestor of 
the Church militant, on the most advanced Unes of 
battle. 

No missionary physician, however, has ever been 
wholly absorbed in the work of sanitation and treat- 
ment of his brother missionaries. All have been ear- 
nest, and usually most useful, workers among the people 
where they live, and many have been ardent evan- 
gelists and distinguished in all departments of mission 
labor. 

Like all mission work, medical missions have their 
root in the person and work of Christ. Let us ask 
how Christ's work struck the people of his age. 

Religion, as known to the Egyptians, Assyrians, 
Greeks, and Romans, was worn out. Men of thought 
had ceased to believe in it, and only retained it as a 
restraint on the consciences of the common people ; even 
Judaism had become a thing of dogma and rabbinical 



336 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

prescription, and its teachers and exponents a race of 
hypocrites. The brotherhood of man had been forgot- 
ten. The sonship of men to God was unknown.. 

Suddenly a poor Jew, thirty years old, known to 
few, and to them only as a carpenter with a deep insight 
into Scripture and a blameless life, began to heal lepers, 
give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and reason 
to the maniac. The news spread like wildfire, and 
from every side they brought the sick. They dug 
through the terraces to let down their beds into the 
area where he was when the doorway was blocked with 
the multitudes. Th^y laid the stricken ones in the 
pathway by which he must pass. They sent for him to 
come to their houses, or asked him to speak but a word 
at a distance and their sick should be healed. They 
touched him in faith and their blood was stanched. 
They took him to the bier and the tomb, and he raised 
their dead. 

Soon it became known that this wonderful healer 
had strange secrets to tell about the diseases of the 
soul and how to heal them. He told them in what 
the essence of these diseases consisted. He gave sight 
to the blind in spirit, purity to the unclean in heart, 
comfort to the forlorn and forsaken, and life to those 
who were dead in trespasses and sins. 

In a word, he appeared as a Saviour of the body 
and a Saviour of the soul. 

It is not strange, then, that the work of healing has 
become an integral part of foreign missions. All mis- 
sions are at one in this, and every year added experi- 
ence leads to an extension of this part of the work. 

To arrive at the principles which iinderlie medical 
missions, and the best methods of conducting them, we 



MEDICAL MISSIONS AND RELIEF WORK. 337 

must Study Christ's career as the Great Physician of 
the body and the soul. 

I. Christ's mission of healing rested on the essen^ 
Hal relation of the body and the said. It was the pay- 
ment of the debt due to the body, as spiritual salvation 
was the payment of the debt due to the soul. There is 
no more healthy sign in the church of our day than the 
recognition of this relation as a religious truth. Hu- 
man souls came into existence in bodies. They live in 
the body. We never know them except through the 
body. They sin in and through the body. They suffer 
in and through the body. The body as truly works on 
the soul as the soul works on the body, and when the 
body dies the soul is bereaved, and groans, being un- 
clothed, until it shall be clothed upon with its house in 
the heavens, its resurrection body. If the body be not 
raised and reunited to the spirit our faith is vain, we 
are yet in our sins, we are of all men most miserable. 
Religion deals with the body and soul as one. Any 
endeavor to deal with the soul alone leads to mysticism, 
and mysticism is the first step to superstition, and su- 
perstition is not religion. 

God has ever dealt with the soul in its relation to 
the body. He created the body, and then breathed 
into it the breath of life, and man became a living soul. 
The Arabic maxim says, " nm el-abdan gobl 'Urn el- 
adyan; that is, '' the science of bodies is before the sci- 
ence of souls." 

The Edenic system was one in which bodily sound- 
ness and physical culture held a prominent place. 

During the patriarchal period religion was closely 
linked with what concerned the temporal welfare and 
prosperity of the pious. 

2% 



338 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

The Mosaic civil law is penetrated with sound hy- 
giene and benevolent provision for the wel&re of the 
body. 

And after a life given to feeding the hungry, heal- 
ing the sick, and alleviating bodily misery, our Saviour 
conditioned the awards of the final judgment on the 
services rendered to the bodies of men by those who 
in serving men were serving God. 

2. Christ's mission of healing was a testimony of 
superior knowledge and power. In his case it was su- 
pernatural. In that it became a direct divine authen- 
tication of his message. But all healing work comes as 
the fruit of knowledge and power. Modem medicine 
and surgery are all but miracles even in Christian lands. 
In heathen and Mohammedan lands they are veritable 
works of God. They exhibit the wisest and best fruits 
of human science and art. The hakim (wise man) is 
with the Arabs a paragon of knowledge and skill. They 
constantly say, " Yed Allah ma ^yedak ** (" the hand of 
God is with your hand '*). In recovering from a surgi- 
cal operation they often say, "Hayati min AUah wa 
min yedak " Q* my life is fi'om God and from your 
hand "). Christian philosophy may not seem to them 
superior to their own hoary systems of thought ; re- 
demption, atonement, the Trinity, the incarnation, sin, 
and retribution they may not understand or care to 
accept; our material civilization may not strike them 
as any desirable addition to their own, to us imperfect 
but to them sufficient, social state, but they recog- 
nize by a common instinct the immeasurable superior- 
ity of our medicine and surgery, and we are able justly 
to say that it is an outgrowth of our Christianity with 
its free thought and high mental and physical culture. 



MEDICAL MISSIONS AND RELIEF WORK. 339 

It will not escape you in this connection how im- 
portant it is that the medical missionary should be 
the highest type of the Christian physician, perfecdy 
equipped and self-poised for his responsible work. We 
want no half-educated physicians on the mission field. 
Give us the best, where they may often be the only ones 
on whom, under God, rest the issues of life and death. 

3. Christ's work of healing was a striking testi- 
many of disinterested lave* "Medical missions/' said 
WiUard Parker, " are Clinical Christianity,^^ There is 
something spectacular in the care of the sick which 
makes a strong appeal to the heart of humanity. The 
mother bending over the cradle of her sick babe is a 
touching sight ; but a doctor plunging into a deadly, 
malarious jungle, wresding with an epidemic of cholera, 
exposing himself to the loathsome contact with leprosy, 
toiling in the heat and cold, plucking from the jaws of 
death strangers and aliens, enemies perhaps and perse- 
cutors, has an influence which no other man can ob- 
tain. 

4. Christ's work of healing was exercised without 
reference to the religious doctrine of those whom he 
healed. It is a common mistake to suppose that he 
only healed those who believed. He not infrequendy 
commended those whom he had healed, and sometimes 
said disdncdy that their faith had saved them. But note 
that it was faith in him as a person, not belief in his doc- 
trine. He rarely said anything about doctrine to them 
before healing. We have no instance in which he ex- 
acted belief in doctrine as a condition of healing. He 
often healed those who had no faith in his doctrine either 
before or after their healing. It was not his practice to 
receive to healing only those who had listened to his 



340 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

teachings, nor even to insist on those who were healed 
listening to his doctrine afterwards. In many cases it 
is not recorded that he said anything about doctrine to 
those he healed, either before or after. He healed them 
and let that act explain itself. We may learn from this 
what relation our offices of healing are to have to our 
doctrinal teaching. They are to be exerdsed in the 
name and spirit of Christ, from love to him and love to 
men. But it is not Chrisdike to decline to treat those 
who will not first listen to our doctrine, nor to insist 
that those who have been healed shall hear the word. 
Let us have faith in the act of healing as Christ had 
faith in it, and let the obvious lesson impress itself on 
those who receive the benefit, or on those who witness 
it To make commerce of it is to destroy its moral 
force. We are bound to heal the nine unthankful lep- 
ers as well as the thankful one. We are bound to 
heal all the ten before we know whether any of them 
will be thankful There is no need of tabulating con* 
versions resulting from gifts of healing. These results 
are sure to come, and enter into the sum total of mis- 
sionary influence and power all the more because the 
missionary exacts no doctrinal quid for his medical 
quo — does not compel a sick man to swallow a sermon 
to wash down a pill. 

5. Christ's healing work, more than anything else, 
gave him access to all classes of the people and influence 
as a religious teacher. He was at home in the lowly 
cabin of the poor. He was a welcome guest in the 
house of the Pharisee. He was invited to the centu- 
rion's home. Jew and Greek, Samaritan and Syro- 
phcenician were his hosts. He could say what he would 
to them all and be sure that no offence would be given. 



MEDICAL MISSIONS AND RELIEF WORK. 34I 

Many of the best lessons which we have came from his 
gifts of healing. So far as we can see, he would have 
had much more limited access to the people had he not 
been the Great Physician. 

The history of Christian Missions abundandy illus- 
trates this power of gifts of healing in softening preju- 
dice and giving access to those otherwise shut out from 
missionary influence. 

The medical missionary carries a charmed life. 
Wherever he goes he is welcome. He has influence 
over every dass of the population. A few incidents 
from my own experience and that of others whom I 
have known will illustrate my position. 

Among the many difliculties of missionary life are 
the custom-houses and the tax-gatherers. A littie over 
a year since I was returning from a botanical trip to 
the Dead Sea. I had a precious coUection of plants for 
the college herbarium. On reaching Jafla the eflendi 
in charge of the custom-house feiused to let them pass 
to the steamer to be taken to Beiriit. I might have 
taken them t)y land unchallenged, but by an oblique- 
ness characteristic of the administration they would not 
be allowed by sea. I pointed out the inconsistency to 
the oflicer, but in vain. He smoked placidly, but reit- 
erated between the pu£ of his narghileh^ " Forbidden." 
Finally he asked me what they were for. I replied, 
"Your excellency — may God prolong your health ! — is 
well. But great are the decrees of God. It may be in 
his sovereign pleasure — which may he forbid — that you 
should fall ill. It may be that among these plants 
some simple should be found that would suit your ex- 
cellency's case, and thus a life so precious to the Sultan 
be prolonged." He gave an emphatic wave of the 



342 MISSIONS AT HOM£ AND ABROAD. 

hand, and with a smile that overspread his whole per- 
son gave the order to pass the potent simples. 

Last year J was coming through Northern Syria, 
and passing by Pajas, near the battlefield of Issus, 
stopped a while at the Turkish fortifications there. 
Soon after leaving a Turkish horseman overtook our 
party, and with great violence ordered us back to see 
the governor. We declined to go, until another over- 
took us, and three more, stationed at a post in advance, 
blocked our way. Yielding to force majeure we pitched 
our camp, and I turned back to see what was the mat- 
ter. On arriving at the castle I was ushered into the 
presence of the governor, and he asked my name. As 
soon as I announced it he at once begged my pardon, 
said he knew me by reputation, as many of his friends 
had been under my care, and that, had he known who 
I was, he would never have disturbed me. He then 
ordered water to wash my hands and face, sherbet and 
coffee, offered me a pipe, and consulted me in regard to 
his own health and that of his staff. On leaving he ac- 
companied me, with many demonstrations of respect, 
to the door, ordered his servant to fill my saddle-bags 
with oranges, and sent me away with many benedic- 
tions. 

Many years ago, during one of the civil wars in 
Lebanon between the Druzes and the Christians, Dr. 
Van Wyck, who at that time wore the native dress and 
who was a perfect master of the Arabic language, was 
overtaken near his residence by a party of Druzes on 
the war-path. As they were from a distant village they 
did not recognize him, and were about to shoot him, 
when a Dinize from his own village came up and said, 
''This is the great Hakim Van Wyck; don't shoot 



MEDICAL MISSIONS ANb RELIEF WORK. 343 

him." His name had been for many years a talisman 
in all that land, and every musket was dropped and all 
conspired to do him honor. 

A few years ago a tumult was raised in Aintab on 
account of a case of dissection that had been carried on 
in the medical college in that town. A native was 
taken and threatened with the extreme of popular in- 
dignation or legal prosecution. Dr. Shepard, the skil- 
ful head of the hospital, came forward and assumed the 
whole responsibility, and called upon himself all the 
vengeance of the mob and the government. Such was 
the power of his long services and personal popularity 
that the mob dispersed and the government relin- 
quished the prosecution, and the good doctor still pur- 
sues his work of mercy. For a radius of a hundred 
miles in every direction from Aintab his name is a great 
power and his friendship a protection to all who claim 
it 

The medical missionary has access where the cler- 
ical evangelist may not enter. 

Time will not permit me to cite the innumerable 
instances which illustrate this statement. You all 
know how Dr. Kerr, of China, is a welcome guest in the 
houses of mandarins and governors, how he has had 
the aid of the wealthy natives of China in his hospital 
work, and how, he is held in regard as a public bene&c- 
tor where other missionaries are hated and persecuted. 

Dr. Cochran in Persia was admitted to the royal 
palace and made a welcome guest where no other mis- 
sionary would have found access; and there, in the 
very centre of Mohammedan fanaticism, he testified to 
the gospel of Christ. 

The pages of our missionary journals are full of 



344 MISSIONS AT HOMB AND ABROAD. 

incidents which show how physicians, male and female, 
have a welcome in the most exclusive homes, and to 
centers of heathenism else shut and sealed to the gos- 
pel. 

The medical missionary has, over and above his 
influence as a man and an evangelist, an important rela- 
tion to the well-being and health of the community in 
which he lives. In many cases he is the only scientific 
physician in the town or district where he labors. In 
others he is a leading man in his profession, and the 
counsellor and inspiration of the powers that be in 
matters of public hygiene and the averting and man- 
agement of epidemics. Less than two years ago the 
Governor-General of Syria chose Dr. Graham, one of 
the professors of the Syrian Protestant College, in pref- 
erence to all the medical employes and quarantine 
authorities of the Vilayat of Syria to examine into an 
outbreak of suspected cholera and determine the ques- 
tion of quarantine and the manner of establishing it 
Many a time the advice of the missionary physicians of 
Turkey has won the gratitude of all classes of the peo- 
ple, and in several instances they have received deco- 
rations from the Sultan in recognition of their services. 

In a number of the mission fields the influence of 
the medical missionary has been largely extended by 
the establishment of hospitals and medical schools. 

The hospital has many advantages over the dis- 
pensary as a means of permanent influence over the 
unevangelized. In the first place, the very existence 
of the stately building and the impression of perma- 
nence and power is an object-lesson of no little value 
as illustrating the spirit and power and aims of Christi- 
anity. The white cross wrought into the gateway of 



MEDICAL MISSIONS AND RELIEF WORK. 345 

the beautiful Johanniter Hospital at Beirut, and floating 
on the red banner from the roof, is a symbol of the 
redeeming love and mercy which is daily enacted there 
in the name and for the sake of Christ. Then the hos- 
pital enables the missionary physican to accomplish the 
signs and wonders of his profession in a way quite im- 
possible in the ill-ordered houses of the people. The 
missionary hospital is the constant scene of the mira- 
cles of modem science as well as the power of Christian 
love. Furthermore, in the hospital patients are kept' 
longer in contact with the person and teachings of the 
missionary. They hear again and again the gospel 
message. They read the Scriptures and discuss the 
doctrines of our faith. Many of the most signal instan- 
ces of conversion are traceable to a sojourn in the mis- 
sionary hospital and the impressions derived while 
under the care of its Christian physicians and nurses. 

By the medical school a vast extension is given to 
the influence and power of the medical missionary. 
He multiplies himself in the persons of his graduates. 
The Medical Department of the Syrian Protestant 
College has graduated already over one hundred and 
fifty men. These men, equipped with the science of 
the West, have attained the highest positions in private 
practice and the civil and military service of the Gov- 
ernment, as well as in missionary hospitals and dis- 
pensaries. Not less than a hundred thousand of the 
poor of the East are treated gratuitously by these men 
every year. A vastly greater number have the benefits 
of medical treatment brought to their doors, at rates 
within their means, when otherwise they would not be 
able to command any skilled medical aid in their hour 
of need. Besides this, the graduates of this school are 



34^ MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

engaged in medical missionary work on Lebanon, in 
Tiberias, Safed, Bethel, Ramallah, at Salt, Hebron, 
Bethlehem, Jaffa, and Cairo. Many thousands of the 
sick poor are treated in their hospitals and dispensaries, 
and all have the gospel preached them in the act of 
healing as well as by the persuasive voices of those who 
have a watch for their souls. 

Many years ago a Governor- General in Syria dis- 
missed his staff of native physicians for incompetency 
and corruption. He applied to the College at Beirut 
for a corps of its graduates. In doing so he said, " It 
is not merely because of their superior scientific attain- 
ments, but because I have confidence in their moral 
character^ that I choose my staff from them." 

What shall I say more? There is a language 
which none can misunderstand, and which carries a 
message which every man cares sooner or later to hear. 
From the moment the medical missionary sets foot on 
his chosen field he is master of this universal language, 
this unspoken tongue of the heart, and welcome to the 
homes of strangers. The simple Arab lifts for him the 
curtain of his goats' hair tent and bids him enter. The 
mandarin calls him to his palace, the peasant begs him 
to come to his lowly cabin, the Brahmin leads him to 
the recesses of his zenana. He stands before kings, 
and governors escort him with squadrons of cavalry, or 
take him to and fro in their gunboats or their barges of 
State. Kings build hospitals for him, and the rulers of 
the earth aid him with their treasures and their power. 
Many and many a time have the medical missionaries 
stood between the powers that be and the other mem- 
bers of their mission. They have negotiated treaties, 
arrested the march of armies, averted the wrath and 



MEDICAL MISSIONS AND RELIEF WORK. 347 

pillage of persecutors. They have opened doors closed 
and locked before. Some have gone to their rest with 
an aureole of fame and benediction around their brows, 
and others still live to prove diat, not only in the ear- 
lier, but in all stages of the mission work, the ministry 
of healing has the foremost place in winning the hearts 
and confidence of men — and why? Because it ex- 
presses in its most concentrated and graphic form the 
essential object of the gospel, ^^ peace and goodwill to 
men" No creed can express the doctrine of Christ so 
that it will be understood by all men. The best of 
creeds expresses to its firmest adherents only a part of 
what is to be believed concerning God, and what duty 
God requires of man. But an act of healing in the 
name of Christ expresses all. You take the Bible to 
the heathen, and he may spit upon it, or bum it, or 
throw it aside as worthless or harmful. You preach the 
gospel to him, and he may regard you as a hireling 
who makes preaching a trade. He may meet your ar- 
guments with sophistry, your appeals with a sneer. 
You educate him, and he may change from a heathen 
to an infidel. But heal his bodily ailment in the name 
of Christ and you are sure at least that he will love you 
and bless you, and that all that you say will have to 
him a meaning and power not conveyed by other lips. 

Think what your physician is to you. You come 
to him in the hour of anxiety, your anguish, perhaps 
your despair. You open up to him confidences which 
you dare not unfold to brother or sister, father or 
mother, husband or wife. You know that no coward's 
heart beats in his breast You call him in the night, 
sure that he will not deny your appeal. You know 
that for you he will forego recreation and society, food 



34^ MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

and sleep. He comes to you under the blazing sun of 
August, in the blinding sleet of December, through the 
snow-drifts of January. He comes in pestilence, recking 
nothing of his own safety. For you he undertakes offi- 
ces from which others shrink back in disgust or dismay. 
He bears with your unreasonableness, your follies, and 
your sins. There is none so poor, so friendless, so 
wicked that he is not ready to relieve hb sufferings and 
snatch him back to a life of hope and virtue. He knows 
you, stripped of all disguises ; he is the confidant of 
your inmost thoughts. He soothes your pain. He 
calms the delirium of your fever. He puts together 
your shattered bones, and binds up your wounds, 
pouring in oil and balm. He drives away the lurking 
germs of disease and death from your body or your 
home. He gives beauty for deformity, strength for 
weakness. He infuses his own magnetism into your 
fi-ame — ^virtue goes out of him and into you. He en- 
courages you when you are sinking down, he plucks 
you from the pit of despair. 

Do you wonder, then, that the medical missionary 
can enter freely every land, and every home ? Do you 
wonder that he can preach where no other can get a 
hearing? Is it strange that the heathen world antici- 
pates the judgment of Christ, and sa3rs " Enter in " — 
" for I was sick and ye visited me " ? 



SCIENCBAND MISSIONS. 349 



SCIENCE AND MISSIONS: THEIR 
MUTUAL DEPENDENCE. 

BY REV. G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, D. D. 

From every point of view the great development 
of modern Christian missions is among the most signifi- 
cant of the many marvellous events of the nineteenth 
century. The devout believer looks upon it as the pre- 
cursor of the downfall of heathenism and of the speedy 
conversion of the world to the saving truth of the 
gospel of Christ The sagacious merchant and man- 
ufacturer appreciates the movement, in view of the ex- 
tent to which it enlarges the range of commerce and 
creates a market for the products of inventive skill. 
Not less does the man of science look upon the spread 
of Christian missions as a most important agency in 
enlarging the world's store of valuable knowledge. 

It is true that the collection of scientific facts is 
but an incident of missionary labor; but this does 
not render it any the less important, but in many re- 
spects increases its value, and scarcely limits at all its 
amount. As the bye-products of some mines are of 
greater value than the direct products of others, so 
the incidental scientific work of thousands of mission- 
aries who spend their lives in unexplored portions 
of the earth have added more to the stock of the 
world's knowledge than all that has been done by 
professed travellers and scientific explorers. For three- 
quarters of a century the colleges and professional 



350 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD* 

schools of Christendom have been sending a constant 
stream of their best-educated and most trustworthy 
men and women to spend their lives amid the strange 
scenes of missionary labor which have been opening 
to them in all parts of the world. These men and 
women have gone forth in the best spirit of modem 
inquiry, and it is but natural to expect that the men 
of science at home who have had them as their 
pupils should keep in close correspondence with them, 
and should find them most efficient coadjutors. There 
is no other agency like it in the world for the collec- 
tion of scientific facts upon various subjects. Even 
yet the public is but partially aware of the enormous 
enlargement to our knowledge which has been made 
by their diligent and long-continued investigations, 
and by their scrupulous honesty in reporting results 
to the public. 

In the year 1881 a noble octavo volume of more 
than 500 pages was published, by Dr. Thomas Laurie, 
devoted to a summary of the contributions to science 
made by missionaries. From beginning to end this 
large volume is packed full of information. Still, it is 
but a summary. So great is the subject that the 
author was compelled to limit himself to a bird's-eye 
view of the field. What, therefore, can I expect to do 
within the limits of a single hour ? Surely, if I fail to 
make an adequate presentation of the subject, I may 
crave your pardon by reason of the narrow limits of time 
assigned to me. At the best I can touch with minute- 
ness upon but few points, and those will be selected 
pretty much at random — because of the necessity oi 
selecting something, rather than because of their relative 
importance. 



SCIBNCE AND MISSIONS. 35 1 

GEOGRAPHY. 

It goes almost without saying that our definite 
knowledge of the geography of tlie world is largely 
due to missionaries. By the very necessities of their 
calling missionaries are compelled to be pioneer ex- 
plorers, and they are able to do what few others can 
accomplish. In the first place, they are animated by 
motives adequate to sustain their courage while en- 
gaged in the arduous work of exploring new lands. 
In the second place, they, as a rule, are so manifestly 
free from the pursuit of selfish ends that they win the 
confidence of the heathen and are able to penetrate 
regions that are inaccessible to others. In this connec- 
tion it is sufficient illustration to mention the name of 
Livingstone, whose devotion to Africa and to the in- 
terests of its people enabled him literally to open to the 
world the secrets which had been buried so long in the 
interior of that dark continent. But Livingstone is 
merely a shining example among a host of lesser lights 
who have been penetrating the ends of the earth to 
find favorable places for the establishment of Christian 
missions. In this inspiring work their first duty has 
been to learn the geography of the lands which they 
were proposing to evangelize. The letters of these 
missionaries have been the main source of information 
by which our minute knowledge of geography has 
been expanded during the present century. Carl 
Ritter, the most painstaking and influential of modem 
geographers, fi'eely recognized the missionaries as in- 
dispensable coadjutors in his work. Of the Missionary 
Herald he says : " It is the repository to which the 
reader must look to find the inost valuable documents 



352 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

that have ever been sent over by any society, and 
where a rich store of scientific, historical, and antiqua- 
rian details may be seen/' 

While upon this subject, however, we may well 
pause to note the work for the geography of the North- 
west and the Pacific coast which has been accomplished 
by two missionaries as diverse in character as they 
were different in communion. I refer to Louis Hen- 
nepin and Dr. Marcus Whitman. 

The name of Hennepin is perpetuated in the 
county of Minnesota containing Minneapolis, and is to 
have a more striking monument, if the Hibemicism 
may be allowed, in the canal which is to connect 
Chicago with the Mississippi River. In 1678 this 
celebrated Flemish missionary, under command of 
La Salle, constructed a vessel at the foot of Lake Erie 
which successfully navigated the entire waters of the 
intervening lakes to the mouth of St Joseph's River, 
which he ascended with canoes to the portage between 
that and the Kankakee. Carrying their effects across the 
portage, the party floated down to the Illinois River 
in the vicinity of Peoria. From this point Hennepin, 
accompanied by two companions, proceeded in a canoe 
to the Mississippi River, which he ascended as &r as 
the Falls of St Anthony — which he was the first 
to see. As will be mentioned later, so accurate was 
his description of this cataract that it served as a basis 
of scientific calculation concerning its recession from 
then to the present time. Continuing his journey far 
to the north in the State of Minnesota, Hennepin 
visited the Sioux Indians, and returned by way of the 
Wisconsin and Fox rivers to Green Bay, Wisconsin ; 
thus opening to the knowledge of the world a region 



SCIENCE AND MISSIONS. 353 

of country that has since been of the greatest impor- 
tance. 

To Dr. Marcus Whitman and Rev. Henry H. 
Spaulding with their heroic wives we owe it that the 
Stars and Stripes float over the States of Oregon and 
Washington, and in fact that we have any hold upon 
the Pacific coast at all. These missionaries crossed 
the Rocky Mountains in 1836, and established stations 
in the valley of the Columbia River. The agents of 
the Hudson Bay Company soon began to develop a 
plot to secure the occupation of this whole region by 
the British. The opinion was widely disseminated 
throughout the United States that the Rocky Moun- 
tains presented an impassable barrier to emigrants, and 
that wagons could never cross them. As the plot of 
the Hudson Bay Company thickened Dr. Whitman saw 
that the only hope of saving the country to the United 
States was to demonstrate that emigrants could actual- 
ly cross this barrier. Accordinjgfly, leaving his family 
behind him, he came back alone on horseback, reach- 
ing Missouri in midwinter, and pressed on hastily to 
Washington to have an interview with Daniel Webster, 
who was then Secretary of State. Webster informed 
him that it was impossible for wagons, to cross the 
mountains ; that the country was worthless, and that 
he was about to exchange it for some concessions con- 
cerning the cod fisheries of Newfoundland. Leaving 
the Secretary of State, Whitman presented his case to 
President Tyler, who gave him his word that if he 
would actually take a party of emigrants to Oregon 
the treaty of which Webster spoke should not be rat- 
ified. Before the March snows had ceased to fly the 
indomitable Whitman was at the head of a band of 

2.^ 



354 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

a thousand emigrants, west of the Missouri, on his way 
to the Pacific coast On the fourth of September, 1S43, 
he with his .£adthful followers had accomplished their 
journey, and Oregon was saved to the Union by the 
geographical knowledge of this heroic missionary. 

PHILOLOGY. 

Next to geography, philology is naturally most in- 
debted directly to the work of missionaries, if, indeed, 
it be not more so than the other science. The first duty 
of the missionary is to learn the language of the people 
to whom he carries his joyful message, and, in the 
cases of the majority of people who have no literature, 
the first great labor of the missionary is to reduce the 
language to writing and then to translate the Bible 
into it, and literally to create a literature for the people. 
Without this work, so ably and carefully done by the 
missionaries, the science of comparative philology 
would at the present time be extremely limited in 
material with which it has to deal. John Eliot's 
Mohican Bible is now the only means we possess of 
studying the language of what was once one of the 
most important Indian tribes of New England. Ac- 
cording to the reckoning of the most competent 
authorities, new translations of the Bible by missionaries 
have been already made into considerably more than 
two hundred different languages. Less than a decade ago 
a colored student from the South came to one of our 
Northern theological seminaries. He was bom a slave 
upon a plantation belonging to a brother of Jefferson 
Davis. His facility for acquiring the Hebrew language 
was exceptional. Upon graduating, he went as a mis- 
sionary to one of the tribes of southeastern Africii 



SCIENCE AND MISSIONS. ' 355 

which had absolutely no literature. Already he has 
reduced the language to writing; and portions of the 
Bible translated into it from the original Hebrew and 
Greek have been published within the year by the 
American Bible Society — thus by one stroke making 
a most important addition to the means of philological 
study. 

Thirty or forty years ago there went out from one 
of the most cultivated families of Great Britain a young 
man who had devoted himself to missionary work 
among the South Sea Islanders. He was a graduate 
of Oxford, and a man of commanding abilities in every 
respect. With rare devotion he labored among the 
forlorn inhabitants of those lonely islands, until at 
length, on one of his errands of mercy, he was treach- 
erously put to death. But meanwhile he had been ap- 
pointed bishop of the English Church for that mission- 
ary diocese, and in the cathedrals of England one now 
finds more memorials erected to his memory than to 
almost any other person. This was Bishop Patterson. 
But his name was not simply associated with the phil- 
anthropic work of his immediate mission. Max Muller 
relied upon him for the information he sought concern- 
ing the languages of that area, and it need not be said 
that no other such correspondent could be found by 
this great student of comparative philology. In Bishop 
Patterson he had not only, a man possessed of the 
highest native gifts, perfected by the highest culture of 
the English universkies, but one who remained long 
enough with savage tribes, and who mingled with 
them upon terms of sufficient intimacy, to enable him 
to understand their language, customs, and forms of 
thought, as no chance traveller could ever do. 




356 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



ETHNOLOGY. 

The sdence of ethnology stands also in peculiar 
dependence upon the work of modern missions. There 
has been no greater source of error than that arising 
from the superficial knowledge of savage tribes, ob- 
tained and disseminated by transient tourists who have 
often imputed to savages ideas entirely different from 
those they have really entertained. This has arisen 
partly from the iaxX that the mere traveller does not 
stay long enough to understand either the language or 
the customs of heathen tribes. But the missionary is 
with the people for life, and is able to impart imforma- 
tion from a fulness of knowledge attained by no one 
else. 

Some years ago, Lewis H. Morgan, one of the 
most distinguished investigators of our country, was 
set to work by the Smithsonian Institution to collect 
facts from all over the world relating to the manner in 
which the degrees of family relationship were reckoned. 
In many respects this was the most important line of 
investigation relating to ethnology which has been 
made during the century. The results are published 
in one of the largest of the volumes of the Smithsonian 
Institution. The volume consists of little else than 
detailed enumerations of the methods by which rela- 
tions of consanguinity and social intercourse are ex- 
pressed. These details are collected from every tribe 
and kindred under the sun. It need not be said, for 
it almost goes without saying, that the missionaries 
were among his most important and trustworthy coad- 
jutors. The information collected in this way has, I 
believe, shed more true light upon the affinities among 



SCIENCE AND MISSIONS. 357 

the races of mankind than any other single investiga- 
tion. Especially do I think this to be the case with 
reference to the affinities of the American Indians, and 
the direction from which they came to this continent. 
The key to the solution of this much-mooted question 
seems at last to have been given by a missionary of 
fiimiliar name Scudder, who long had resided among 
the Tamils of India, and with a great degree of prob- 
ability the American Indians and the Tamils of India 
are assigned to a common origin, and traced to a cen- 
tre and period of dispersion which precede the rise of 
the Aryan type of social organization. 

NATURAL HISTORY. 

Questions of naturcU history come less directly 
within the range of missionary labor. Still the records 
show that the missionaries have comprised among their 
number a fair average of those specially fitted to carry 
on investigations in natural history, and if the world 
were deprived of their contributions the loss would be 
decidedly appreciable. 

In looking over Professor Dana's great work upon 
" The Characteristics of Volcanoes " one cannot but be 
struck with the dependence which he freely acknowl- 
edges upon missionaries for a large part of the facts 
upon which he bases his discussions. The volcanoes 
of the Hawaiian Islands furnish the object-lesson for 
his volume. The earliest information concerning these 
volcanoes, and which served as a basis for all subse- 
quent comparison, was contained in " The Journal of a 
Tour around Hawaii by a Deputation from the Mission 
of the Sandwich Islands." This tour was made in Au- 
gust, 1823, and the journal was published with illustra- 



358 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

tions in 1825, and subsequently passed through repeated 
editions. The next work upon the subject was by Rev. 
C. S. Stuart, giving an account of his observations from 
1823 to 1825. A continuous series of reports appeared 
subsequently to this time, furnished by the missionaries 
to the " American Journal of Science " and the " Mis- 
sionary Herald." Since 1849 Rev. Titus Coan has 
been, as Professor Dana states, " the chronicler of the 
Hawaiian volcanoes," the larger part of his commu- 
nications appearing in the ''American Journal of 
Science." 

A year or two ago various social and scientific 
circles of Great Britain and the United States were 
favored with the modest presence of Rev. J. T. Gulick, 
whose missionary experience has afforded exception- 
ally wide opportunities for the pursuit of his incidental 
scientific studies. He was not a man given to much 
public speaking, and probably is less widely known 
than almost any other missionary of long experience, 
but both in England and in the United States his pres- 
ence was eagerly sought by scientific men of the high- 
est eminence, and his scientific papers were eagerly 
published by the most exclusive scientific societies. 
While a missionary in the Sandwich Islands he con- 
ducted a most important series of observations upon 
the direct effects of the conditions of life in modifying 
the forms of certain animal species. His elaborate pa- 
pers upon the subject, after having been presented to 
the Linnaean Society in London by Alfired Russel Wal- 
lace and others, have been published by that Society, 
filling nearly two hundred pages of its journal. Among 
the expositors of Darwinism at the present time George 
F. Romanes is recognized as the prince and leader. 



SCIENCB AND MISSIONS. 359 

The appreciation which Mr. Gulick's work receives in 
England is shown by the_ following note, which Dr. 
Romanes wrote to accompany a communication of Mr. 
Gulick's to '' Nature/' the leading scientific journal of 
England : " I cannot allow the present communication 
to appear in these columns without again recording 
my conviction that the writer is the most profound of 
living thinkers upon Darwinian topics." 

It would be useless to attempt a full statement of 
Mr. Gulick's far-reaching discoveries, for his discus- 
sions involve such complicated formulae, and are car- 
ried out through such intricacies of detail, that there are 
very few persons in the world who have either the time 
or the capacity to follow them through and pass an 
independent judgment upon their value. It is enough 
to say that the highest authorities upon the subject are 
most profoundly impressed by the breadth and subtlety 
and thoroughness of his discussions upon the facts, 
while the ordinary student can with a very litde atten- 
tion discern the main points of his argument. 

Returning to less intricate problems, it is interest- 
ing to note that the gorilla, whose discovery awakened 
so much interest among naturalists a half-century ago, 
was first brought to the knowledge of the scientific 
world in 1846 by the Rev. J. H. Wilson, then a mis- 
sionary in Western Africa. One of the first skeletons 
of that animal, which bears such a striking similarity to 
the human frame, was sent by Mr. Wilson to the Bos- 
ton Society of Natural History. As late as 1863 a 
skeleton which was sent by the Rev. Mr. Walker of 
the Gaboon Mission to Amherst College was declared 
by Professor Hitchcock to be worth a thousand dollars, 
so infrequent were they and so difficult to obtain. 




360 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Time would fail tne to speak of the meteorological 
observations made by Rev. Mr. Stoddard while mis- 
sionary in Persia, and which drew forth warm expres- 
sions of gratitude from the great astronomer Herschel. 
Nor can I pause to speak of the important information 
concerning the botany, zoology, topography and geo- 
graphy of South Africa made by the missionaries Cham- 
pion and Burgess, or of the debt due to Rev. Justin 
Perkins for his contribution to the geology of Persia. 

I will close this branch of the subject with a simple 
reference to an important result due to the careful ob- 
servations of the Catholic missionary Hennepin, who 
in the year 1680 discovered the Falls of Sl Anthony, 
about which are now gathered the great interests of 
Minneapolis. Like so many others of the early Catho- 
lic missionaries, Hennepin was a skilled observer, a 
competent draughtsman, and a painstaking writer. 
Recent discussions concerning the date of the glacial 
period have turned largely upon the data at hand ena- 
bling us to estimate the rate at which various water- 
falls are receding. By reason of Hennepin's accurate 
descriptions the Falls of St Anthony have become one 
of the most important of glacial phenomena. The 
length of the post-glacial gorge is easily determined. 
The important thing, therefore, was to find some obser- 
vations enabling us to estimate the rate of the reces- 
sion. These were furnished by a musty volume un- 
earthed, about thirty years ago, from a library in 
Holland, containing a record of the explorations of 
Hennepin. In this volume was found such an accurate 
description and drawing of the Falls of St. Anthony at 
the time they were discovered that a very accurate 
and trustworthy datum is given for the calculation. 



SCIENCE AND MISSIONS. 36 1 

Professor Winchell is able to tell with a very dose 
approximation the entire amount of recession since 
1680, and therefore to estimate with a close degree of 
approximation the entire length of time (not over 10,- 
000 years) which has elapsed since the withdrawal of 
the ice of the glacial period from Northern Minnesota. 
Without these careful observations by a Catholic mis- 
sionary two hundred years ago the data for such an 
estimate as Professor Winchell has made could not 
have been obtained for two hundred years yet to 
come, and indeed not even then, for the growth of a 
great city about the falls has so disturbed the natural 
conditions as to destroy the value of further observa- 
tions. 

Turning to the other branch of the subject — the 
assistance rendered by science to the work of the mis- 
sionary — ^we are again troubled with an embarrassment 
of riclies, and the most of the facts are too familiar to 
need more than a passing word. The great Exposi- 
tion which is now attracting the gaze of the world in 
diis city is itself a most eloquent witness to the service 
rendered by science to missionary operations in the 
single matter of increased facilities of transportation. 
The missionary now reaches his field, in the most dis- 
tant parts of the earth, not by the slow and tedious 
merchant marine, dependent upon the caprices of the 
wind, but by the swift and majestic steamers which 
cross the ocean in less than a week, and by the limited 
express trains which reach the Golden Gate in five 
days from the Adantic, and cross Europe to the Gold- 
en Horn in a still shorter period. The telegraph, 
also, brings nearly all the missionaries within speaking 
distance of their friends and supporters at home. Not 



362 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

only can they thus interchange words of sympathy in 
times of personal distress, but the wants of their field 
can be instantaneously reported, and letters of credit to 
meet any emergency can be instantaneously transmit- 
ted, while the printing-press, with its magical power of 
reproduction, can supply a nation with literature almost 
in a day. 

It is true that these agents of modem civilization 
are simply material forces, and give power to the mes* 
sengers of evil as well as to the messengers of light 
The swift ships carry firearms and rum and degenerate 
representatives of trade and adventure as well as Bibles 
and missionaries. The printing-press abo teems with 
corrupt and infidel literature, and familiarizes the minds 
of the heathen with the doubts as soon as with the joy- 
ful hopes of modem civilization. Still, in the end the 
issue is not uncertain : they that be with us are more 
than they that be with them. The children of light 
have taken warning from the words of their Master, 
and no longer suffer the children of darkness to be 
wiser in their generation than they. It is a libel upon 
both the creature and the Creator to suppose that the 
inventive genius of mankind naturally and necessarily 
ministers to its degradation. Whatever the designs of 
men in seeking many inventions, the outcome is sure 
to be, and in the main is seen to be, for the improve- 
ment of mankind and for the promotion of the glory of 
God. 

But we may pause longer upon another aspect of 
this subject, and notice the direct benefits to missionary 
service afforded, first, by the facilities in possession of 
the missionary afforded by science for the alleviation of 
the diseases of humanity, and, secondly, by the degree 



SCIENCE AND MISSIONS. 363 

in which the science of the missionary is able to dispel 
the degrading superstitions of heathenism. 

It is a most winning characteristic of our Saviour 
that he is correctly described as one who " bore our 
diseases and carried our sorrows." It was thus that he 
won the affection and confidence of those who were 
burdened with the far heavier loads of sin and guilt By 
this exercise of his gracious power in healing the bodi- 
ly diseases of suffering humanity the Saviour justified 
his right to say, '* Come unto me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," for he was 
thus seen to possess the power necessary to enable him 
to fulfil this promise. The exercise of this power in 
bodily heaUng also won their confidence, so that they 
need not hesitate to commit themselves to him for the 
healing of their souls. Thus it is to-day that the mis- 
sionary's knowledge of surgery and medicine enables 
him to approach the heathen from a side of their nature 
which at once disarms their prejudice and demonstrates 
the superior knowledge of the Christian world. All 
the brilliant discoveries of the age in this department 
are at the service of the medical missionary. And the 
missionaries are not slow in availing themselves of the 
opportunity thus afforded. Every prominent mission 
now has its hospital and its trained corps of highly 
educated medical advisers. Here that relief to bodily 
suffering which only the science of Christian nations 
can give is afforded to tens of thousands every year, 
and trained nurses are multiplied by the score to carry 
the blessings to others in distress in distant places. It 
is impossible to estimate the vantage power which mod- 
ern science is thus placing in the hands of the mission- 
aries of the Christian faith in heathen lands. The 



364 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

missionary physician knows the best means to alleviate, 
prevent, or heal all manner of diseases, and has the 
heart of kindness to bring to the relief of sufferers all 
the knowledge of this preeminently Christian art. It is 
a most impressive study to look over the reports of the 
various medical missionary stations to see how wide is 
the range of diseases for which prescriptions are given, 
and how various the bodily wounds and dbtortions 
which are healed and corrected. 

Among the most powerful aids given by medical 
science to missionaries appears the access which medi- 
cal skill gives to those mission women who have a 
medical education. The seclusion of women, especially 
in China and India, has rendered it almost impossible 
to reach them by ordinary means. But even these can 
be approached by their sisters, and when they come 
with all the knowledge of the human bodily S3rstem 
which a thorough medical training gives they are able 
to bring its healing power into the utmost seclusion of 
the heathen home. 

I was greatly impressed a few years a^o with the 
influence obtained by the medical missionary by what I 
learned through personal contact with a faithful guide 
in Alaska, who had come in contact with this phase of 
Christianity, and who had by this means been won to 
Christ. On learning, after several weeks' service, how 
much he knew of Christianity, I asked in astonishment 
how he had learned all these things, not having been 
taught. His story was short and to the point. Said 
he : ** Five years ago I was sick and near to death. Dr. 
Corleiss and his wife had been spending two or three 
years with my tribe, staying with us through all the 
long and lonely winters to do us good. He came to 



SCIENCE AND MISSIONS. 365 

me and gave me medicine and I was cured. He then 
said to me, ' Jake, I want you to promise me that you 
will never drink any whiskey* (a supreme test with an 
Alaskan). I promised him and my God that I would 
never do it, and I have kept my promise." I found 
that though this poor man had but touched the hem of 
the missionary's garment he had' learned more of Chris- 
tianity by that brief contact than many who are brought 
up in Christian lands learn in a whole lifetime. And it 
was not strange ; for in the person of the medical mis- 
sionary he had seen Christianity at its best, while the 
average member of a civilized community often sees 
but the most imperfect representatives of the religion 
which has really made the nation great. 

In respect to the power of science in dispelling the 
degrading superstitions of heathenism there is time but 
for a word. And even this might have been said for 
the most part in connection with the preceding topic. 
For the most degrading superstitions of heathenism are 
connected with their medical practice, if so it may be 
called. 

The Chinese are so superstitious about the mutila- 
tion of the dead that it has been impossible for them to 
obtain that knowledge of the human frame which is re- 
vealed in the dissecting room. Therefore there could 
be no progress in medicine in China until this supersti- 
tious regard for the lifeless body had been broken. A 
supreme opportunity is now open to medical mission- 
aries in China. 

But it is in the less civilized regions that the gross- 
est forms of superstitions respecting bodily diseases 
reign. In most of the heathen nations the medicine- 
man is one who is believed to have power over those 



366 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

evil spirits which are supposed to be the agents through 
which diseases are inflicted. When a disease is to be 
cured the medicine-man comes, not with any knowl- 
edge of the human S3rstem or with any skill to relieve 
its pains, but with incantadons with which he professes 
to drive away the evil spirits supposed to have posses- 
sion of the diseased person. He puts on a mask, and 
dances and leaps about, and cuts himself, and goes 
through every manner of contortion, in order to drive 
the evil spirit away. Sometimes, doubdess, the very 
hubbub he makes throws the patient into a perspira- 
tion and so relieves the disease. But in general the 
work of the medicine-man and his influence are dele- 
terious and degrading in the highest degree. In the 
tribe just referred to in connection with the conversion 
of my guide Jake, the first effect of Dr. Corleiss* work 
in converting them to Christianity was to lead them to 
drive away their medicine-men. When the supersti- 
tions fostered by these blind guides were broken their 
eyes were opened to see the true light 

In India the science of astronomy comes at once 
into conflict with their reUgious system, as it does also 
in Mohammedanism when once it attempts to pass into 
the higher latitudes of the temperate zones. The cos- 
mogonies of the Brahmins cannot be adjusted to mod- 
ern science as the rhetorical language of the Bible admits 
of our doing with its references to the form of the world 
and the time and manner of its origin. The Bible and 
modem science have no conflict when both are properly 
interpreted. But the sacred books of the East and 
modem science are in such irreconcilable conflict that 
no student of the latter can retain his respect for the 
former. The effect, therefore, of scientific studies io 



SCIENCE AND MISSIONS. 367 

India is to make the natives first discard their own 
religion. What an opportunity this gives to the Chris- 
tian missionary does not need to be told. Science does 
there for the missionary what the ploughman does to 
the fallow ground : it prepares it for him who sows the 
seed. Nor need I speak of the responsibility which is 
thereby thrown upon Christian nations to hasten into 
the ^field and scatter the seed when this providential 
preparation through the spread of correct scientific ideas 
has been even begun. The spread of science in the 
East is the seed-time of the Christian missionary. 
Woul^ that there were a hundred fold more engaged 
in the inviting work. 

But I must not pass by the feasts of the Moham- 
medans. These are arranged with minute prescrip- 
tions as to the manner of dress and observance. But 
their calendar was prepared before the exact time of 
the revolution of the earth about the sun was known, 
so that after a period the feast which was prepared with 
arrangements for summer weather fidls in midwinter. 
This is indeed of small account in a region where the 
contrast between the seasons is not great, but becomes 
a matter of great moment in the higher latitudes. If 
any such mistake as that had been made by the Found- 
er of Christianity it never could have hoped for univer- 
sal dominion. Christianity, however, is burdened by 
no such short-sighted and absurd provisions. 

In summing up, we notice that it is the crowning 
excellence of the Christian system that it courts the 
light from every quarter from which it can come with 
its searching rays. Indeed, its very essence is the 
light. '' I am the Light of the world," said its Founder. 
The light of science is but the twilight of the Lord of 



368 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

glory. Wherever its beams penetrate it prepares the 
vision for the full effulgence of the central Sun from 
which they emanate. It is not an effect without a cause 
that science and Christianity have advanced in the 
world hand in hand, and kept so nearly in equal space 
together. The darkest ages of church life were the 
dark ages of science. In these latter days science and 
the religion of Jesus Christ have advanced together. 
In no century since the beginning of the Christian era 
has the growth of the church, both in numbers and in 
effective power, been more marked than it is in this to 
the close of which we are now drawing so near. In no 
other century since the world began has science so 
effectually unveiled the glories of the natural creation 
and unfolded from them the infinite perfection and pow- 
er of its Creator. The unity of God, his all-pervading 
presence and his deep-laid plans shine forth from the 
discoveries of modem science in letters which cannot 
be easily misunderstood. The revelation of nature 
confirms and supplements tliat of the Bible. The dis- 
coveries of modern science supply the missionary with 
more powerful instruments of warfare with which to 
batter down the strongholds of sin than the world has 
ever before had. Well may the servant of God wel- 
come science as the handmaid of Christianity and the 
precursor of the long-looked-for better day when we 
shall no longer need the light of the sun or the moon, 
but when we shall walk in the light of Him that sitteth 
on the throne. With new meaning may we sing in 
these latter days, 

" The morning light is breaking ; 
The darkness disappears.'' 

We are not called upon to choose between science and 



SCIENCE AND MISSIONS. 369 

Christianity. It is not science or Christianity which 
the heathen nations are to receive, but it is science and 
Christianity, now and for ever one and inseparable, 
which they are to receive from the combined influence 
of modem civilization and the Christian missionary. 
May the influence of the missionary not be suffered to 
lag behind in the race^ but may the church be prompt 
to eiiter every open door, and occupy every inviting 
field, till the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord 
in all his varied manifestations as the waters cover the 
sea. 



MlMUmt. 



24 



370 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG PEOPLE 

AND THEIR SOCIETIES FOR 

MISSIONS. 

BY REV. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D. D. 

One of the most hopeful signs of the present day 
is the wonderful quickening of interest on the part of 
young people in the work of foreign missions. Mis- 
sionary work is no longer a novelty. The rosy light 
of romance has been largely stripped from the squalid 
wretchedness of heathenism. It is understood that 
missionary life involves not so much of adventurous 
incident as of prosaic hardship. The days when Sab- 
bath-school children dreamed of the missionary as 
sitting under a fruitful cocoanut-tree while the eager 
natives pressed around him to hear the Word of Life, 
while his own existence was a kind of happy combina- 
tion of the life of Robinson Crusoe and the exemplary 
parent in the " Swiss Family Robinson/' have largely 
passed by. Even the boys and girls have come to 
know that missionary work in foreign lands is very 
much like Christian work in any land, so far as the 
spirit and purpose and determination and grinding at- 
tention to details is concerned. It is frequendy a life- 
work in the slums plus the deprivation of friends and 
pleasant neighbors and the joys of patriotic citizenship, 
fiius isolation and loneliness. 

While the idea of physical hardships and romantic 
sufferings which used to inhere in the thought of 
mission life has largely passed away there has taken 



YOUNG PEOPLE S SOCIETIES. 37I 

the place of these romantic hardships the &r more 
true idea of steady, constant, monotonous work among 
degraded classes, with the awful and appalling inertia 
of heathenism as a constant and discouraging back- 
ground to all efforts. 

Yet, in spite of all this, the tide of enthusiasm 
among young people for mission work has been 
steadily growing. This is indicated by the remarkable 
Students' Volunteer Movement, .which has spread into 
England as well as over America, and which enrolls 
upon its lists six thousand of those who are desirous, 
God willing, to carry the gospel to other lands. 

Moreover this rising tide of enthusiasm is very 
plainly indicated at the conventions of young people 
which have been such a remarkable feature of the re- 
ligious life of the past decade. It has been noted over 
and over again that, at the huge international conven- 
tions of the Society of Christian Endeavor, the most 
interesting sessions are those which are devoted to 
mission work; that the stirring missionary addresses 
called forth the largest enthusiasm, and that the eyes 
of the young disciples who represent this army, which is 
now nearly a million and three quarters strong, are fixed 
not only upon their own prayer-meeting, on their own 
consecration service, their own committee work, but 
look out with an intense longing upon the uttermost 
parts of the earth, with the hope and prayer that He 
whose right it is may reign. 

But this most gratifying enthusiasm should not 
surprise us if we study the trend of the times. It is 
the natural and normal expression of the religious life. 
We ought to be surprised if we find any other spirit 
manifested by these devoted young hearts who, in the 




372 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

freshness of their youthful zeal, by the hundred thou- 
sand every month renew their dedication to Christ. 

The responsibility for missions of these young 
people and their societies rests upon several natural 
reasons. First, they, in common with all the world, 
have received the great commission; they too are under 
marching orders ; to them as well as to the oldest be- 
liever were the words written, " Go ye into all the 
world." They cannot escape if they would from Christ's 
command, "disciple all the nations." But a peculiar 
responsibility rests upon them because they are young. 
This is pre-eminendy die mission century. More than 
all the sixty that have gone before it is it the age in 
which Christ's command has been heard by all the world. 
Uttered though it was eighteen hundred years ago, by 
some modem spiritual audiphone the command has 
been repeated and emphasized and broadened and 
thundered out, and is now heard and heeded as never 
before by all the world. The young people who have 
been born in the latter half of this nineteenth century 
could not help hearing this command as their fathers 
never heard it. They have been enveloped in the 
sound waves of this mighty audiphone. Their respon- 
sibility is greater than the responsibility of their fethers 
on the principle that to him that " knoweth to do good, 
and doeth it not, to him it is sin." 

" We are," says Dr. Josiah Strong, " even more 
favored than those who are to follow us. Some one 
has said that he would rather be his own grandson 
than his own grandfather, and so would I ; but I would 
rather be myself than my latest descendant, because I 
would rather have part in the glorious work of creating 
the Christian civilization of the people than to bask in 



YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETIES. 373 

the full radiance of its glory." The millionaire has 
more responsibilities than the pauper. Every dollar 
is an added means of doing good, and for every dollar 
he must give account All the light which has broken 
in upon this wonderful century adds to the responsibility 
of every man and woman whose birthday falls within 
it, and the responsibilitity is an increasing one as these 
birthdays draw near to the closing decade. 

Again the responsibility of these young people's 
societies is indicated by the very nature of these modern 
organizations. The Society of Christian Endeavor, I 
suppose, may without presumption be taken as the 
type of the modern young people's religious organiza- 
tion. Bom but litde more than twelve years ago, it has 
now spread throughout the world, has nearly 28,000 
branches and an actual membership of not far from i,- 
700,00a Formed with no wisdom of man, but by the 
purpose of God, its scope and real mission are becom- 
ing more and more plain every day. Its fundamental 
principles are consecration, loyalty, fellowship. Its 
consecration is expressed in the weekly pledged prayer- 
meeting, and in the monthly consecration service. Its 
loyalty is indicated by the fact that the societies are 
always under the control of their own churches and 
denominations and that the purpose of every committee 
is to do just what its own church and pastor desire to 
h^ve done. Its interdenominational fellowship is ex- 
emplified by the vast union gatherings which bring 
so many of them together in loving accord upon the 
broad platform of service for the one Lord. *'The 
Young Peoples' Societies of Christian Endeavor," says 
Dr. Strong in his " New Era," " are peculiarly adapted 
to this kind of work. They emphasize the two great 



374 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

principles of co-operation and personal effort Un- 
like many others, they are within the churches and at 
the same time m/^r-denominational. The new meth- 
ods demanded by changed conditions are far more 
readily accepted by young Christians than by their 
elders; and youthful zeal easily kindles into enthu- 
siasm. Surely this movement is the divine method of 
preparing the churches for the new era that is dawn- 
ing." 

But all this consecration, loyalty and fellowship 
must mean, and does mean, missionary zeal, unless 
the very purpose and spirit of the movement are 
strangely perverted. The consecration of these young 
disciples means that they wiU go where Christ would 
have them go, that they will do what he would have 
them do, that they will be only and altogether what 
he would have them be. The true missionary spirit 
cannot be divorced from the true spirit of devotion. 
Their loyalty to Christ means the same thing. It is a 
mere empty profession if they do not hear His com- 
mand to '' disciple the nations.'' But their loyalty also 
includes their own churches and denominations, and 
part of the work of every church is the mission work. 
All worthy denominational activity is expended at 
home and abroad in furthering the kingdom. Loyalty 
to these interests inheres in the very nature and con- 
stitution of a modern young people's movement. 

Loyalty to the church involves loyalty to the 
denominational missionary treasuries. Not merely a 
passive wish that they may be full, but an active effort 
to fill these coffers. It is hoped and expected that 
during the coming year the Christian Endeavor So- 
ciety will make a thank-offering of not less than a 



YOUNG people's SOCIETIES. 375 

quarter of a million of dollars for missionary pur- 
poses. This money will all go through the reg- 
ular church channels into the denominational treasu- 
ries, to be used as their own boards see fit. It will be 
a tangible expression of the genuine zeal which fires 
these youthful hearts. 

Moreover, their world-wide fellowship promotes 
this same spirit. They are not confined to the narrow 
limits of one denomination or hemmed in by the boun- 
daries of a single nation, but their line has gone out 
into all the earth. Eleven evangelical denominations 
in America have adopted or endorsed the Christian 
Endeavor Society. Four in England have done the 
same thing and as many more in Australia and in 
Canada, and the society is largely found in all the 
evangelical denominations in all the countries which 
have not formally adopted it. A United Society of 
Christian Endeavor with many branches exists in 
China, still another in Japan, with its monthly periodical 
and its useful literature. In India the work is pro- 
gressing with equal rapidity, and into Tamil and Telegu, 
Hindi and Bengali, Marathi and Hindustani the con- 
stitution has been translated and the society is making 
its way. Into the Sandwich Islands and Samoa, 
Madagascar and South Afiica, Burma and Siam, 
Persia and Syria, has the society spread. The cruel 
tyranny of the Sultan is not sufficient to crush it out of 
the Ottoman Empire, while in France and Spain and 
the nations of modem Europe it has been found to be, 
so far as it has extended, help and inspiration for young 
people. In England and Australia the society is 
moving on with the same rapid increase as in the land 
of its birth. This broad and ever-broadening fellow- 




37^ MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ship must have its effect upon the hearts of the mem- 
bers of this organization, in increasing their brotherly 
love not only for their fellow members whom they 
have seen but for those of different climes and different 
complexions whom they never will see. 

In the blessed interdenominational and interna- 
tional fellowship of this movement is found one of its 
chief incentives to missionary enthusiasm, y^r its mem- 
bers feel their peculiar kinship with Endeavorers every- 
where. The motto which is engraved not only on the 
banners and the badges of this youthful host but upon 
their hearts as well, " For Christ and the church," really 
means " For Christ and the church and the world ;" 
for the church is for the world, and the world is des- 
tined to be for the church. 

It is worth nothing in this connection that the 
origin of the first society of Christian Endeavor was 
closely linked with mission work. The organization 
which preceded the first society, and which was to an 
extent merged into it, was a mission circle, and the 
mission idea has never been foreign to the Endeavor 
idea. 

Another point of contact between the young 
people and missionary work is found in the innate 
heroism of their youthful natures! Every generous 
boy is an incipient hero. Every pure young girl is a 
heroine in embryo. The sordid world often makes sad 
havoc with these early aspirations, but with rare ex- 
ceptions among those who are rightly trained they are 
sure to be present The ideal heroes and heroines 
for which their minds blindly grope, as the morning- 
glory turns towards the rising sun, are found to-day 
very largely upon the mission field. The Mofiats and 



YOUNG people's SOCIETIES. 377 

Livingstones, the McKays and the Patons, the Han- 
ningtons and the Morrisons are the real knights of the 
nineteeth century. If, in these piping times of peace, 
stories of valor in a righteous cause can any where be 
found, they will be found in these lands to which our 
brave missionaries have gone. All this is felt by the young 
disciples whose lives are dedicated so completely to 
the Master's service. As the camel's foot is fitted to 
the desert's sand, as the bird's wing is adapted to cut 
the air, so the hearts of the young people of the pres- 
ent day, stimulated and stirred as they have never 
been before, are adapted to the heroic service for Christ 
which in its highest manifestations is found to-day in 
mission lands. 

Again, their responsibility for missions is indicated 
by the fact that their own spiritual life can flourish 
alone in the atmosphere which is created by the 
enthusiasm for the salvation of the world. It has been 
truly said, " An enthusiasn for humanity is what we 
most need, not only that the world may be saved but 
that we ourselves may not miss our salvation. Civil- 
ization is compelling an interest in others for our own 
sakes ; Christ inculcated an interest in others for their 
sakes. Christian brotherhood springs from some- 
thing higher than common interest. In an ocean 
steamship the steerage and the cabin passengers have 
a vast deal in common during the voyage : if the steer- 
age goes to the bottom so does the cabin ; if a deadly 
pestilence breaks out in the former the latter is im- 
mensely concerned; but all this may be without one 
brotherly heart-beat between the two. Modem civiliza- 
tion is fast getting us all into one boat and we are be- 
ginning to learn how much we are concerned with the 



378 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

concerns of others. But the higher social oiganization 
of the future must have some higher and nobler bond 
than an enlightened selfishness : even such a love for 
one's neighbor as will fidfill the second great law of 
Christ" 

This "enthusiasm for humanity," of which Dr. 
Strong so eloquendy speaks, and which is but an- 
other and broader name for enthusiasm for mission- 
ary work, is necessary to the continual life and growth 
of these disciples who are banded together in these 
young people's societies. The spiritual law of self- 
preservation must compel their interest in these large 
concerns of the kingdom. 

A few years ago the Christian people of Australia 
felt that their religious life as a nation was at a low ebb. 
The af&irs of the kingdom languished within their 
borders ; the demands made upon diem to subdue 
and civilize and people a vast island continent occupied 
all their energies, and spiritual matters seemed destined 
to drop out of sight. Leaders of religious life were 
alarmed, I am told ; but just then came the thought, not 
** We must spend all our energies upon ourselves " not 
" We must evangelize our own broad domain first," but, 
** We must do something for the nations beyond, for 
these vast heathen islands which lie around us, which 
are sunk to the lowest depths of superstition and canni- 
bal ferocity. We owe something to them as well as to 
ourselves." So the island of New Guinea was parti- 
tioned between three or four of the evangelical denom- 
inations, and recruits were called for to carry the gospel 
thither. It was known that going meant hardship and 
privation and, very likely, death ; that the missionaries 
would find no honored graves, but in all likelihood 



YOUNG people's SOCIETIES. 379 

would be served up at cannibal feasts. It was known 
that a shipload of Chinese who had been wrecked on 
the coast for which this mission was bound, only a year 
before, had all been killed and eaten ; and yet, when 
the call came for volunteers, not only the four white 
men who were first asked for came to the front, but five 
times as many ; not only the forty natives of the South 
Seas who were immediately desired heard the call, but 
four times forty. Those who were chosen were es- 
teemed the fortunate ones, and the tears and the sorrow 
were all expended upon those who could not go, but 
were obliged to stay in their comfortable homes. 

From that time I have been assured more than 
once the work of many churches of Australia revived, 
the spiritual life of the people was quickened, and those 
who were willing to lose their own lives not only found 
them, but a great people renewed their spiritual zeal 
and lighted once more their torches at the altar where 
this missionary fire of devoted consecration had been 
kindled. 

So it will ever be, in America as well as in Austra- 
lia, among the young and old. Those who would have 
life must give life. Those who would gain inspiration 
for larger service must be wiUing to expend all they 
have on present duties. Those who would fit them- 
selves for larger things, yes, those who would escape 
spiritual atrophy and death, must continually kindle 
anew their enthusiasm for humanity, their love for the 
world for which Christ died. It is becoming more and 
more evident, I believe, to all these young people in So- 
cieties of Christian Endeavor that they must "go or 
send," that there is no compromising with Christ, that 
his command cannot be trifled with, and that, if for good 



38o MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

and sufficient reasons tbey cannot dedicate themselves 
to this service, they must remember their responsibility 
for sending some one who can go. They have all been 
drafted into this war, and if .they cannot personally fight 
the battle in other lands they must fight at home and 
send their substitutes across the sea. 

This sense of responsibility direcdy affects their 
pocket-books, and makes the matter of proportionate 
and systematic giving a very real and vital thing. 
Oh, when this sense of responsibility touches the pocket- 
books of all men, when every dollar that a Christian 
earns he feels is mortgaged for the advancement of the 
Kingdom, then will come the glad day when " holiness 
to the Lord shall be written on the bells of the horses," 
and when the smallest things will be dedicated to Jeho- 
vah. 

That glad day is coming, I believe. We can al- 
ready see its early dawn in the east One of these days 
there will be a vast revival in giving. The purse-strings 
of the world will be unloosed. God grant that the 
young people who are banded together in common 
forms of service may feel this quickening touch, may 
realize their responsibility more and more, and may 
know that upon them depends the fulfilment of Christ's 
prayer, " Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done." 



P^O[^Ey A[vlD P^IS5I0[vlS. 



THE CONSECRATION OF PROPERTY. 383 



THE CONSECRATION OF PROPERTY. 

BY THOMAS KANE, ESQ. 

Nearly all missionary addresses are alike in at 
least three particulars : they all emphasize the impor- 
tance of the work, the success of past eflort, the hopes for 
the future ; and, without exception, all dose with an ap* 
peal for more workers and more money. As a rule, they 
are made either by missionaries or ministers ; very rarely 
by a layman and still more rarely by a business man, a 
manufacturer, a fanner, or a wage-worker in any secu- 
lar or professional line. Yet these four classes outnum- 
ber the ministers and missionaries many hundreds to 
one. 

What I offer to-day will be as a representative of 
one of these classes, and in a large measure as repre- 
senting them all. I take it for granted that a large 
proportion of my audience are either ministers, mission- 
aries, or religious teachers of the public in some form, 
and what I have to say is addressed specially to them. 

The standpoint from which you view life's duties is 
a very different one from ours. You are teachers, we 
the taught ; you are leaders, we the led. Yet you make 
a living for yourselves and feimilies by teaching and 
preaching, while we must provide for our dear ones by 
a variety of other methods. You righdy estimate your 
usefulness and success by the attendance and interest at 
your churches and prayer-meetings, the number of 
those you can induce to become Christians, and the 
amount of labor and money you can persuade us to 




384 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

give for good causes. For these objects you work, and 
work hard. After Christ, the great model held up to 
yourselves doubtless, certainly to us, is. Paul, the preach- 
er and missionary. One of your favorite texts is the 
last command of our Saviour to his disciples, ''Go, 
preach my gospel ;" and, as a rule, you emphasize the 
"Go." Like you, those twelve men were teachers, 
preachers and missionaries. From Pentecost until the 
final laying down of the armor, each obeyed that last 
command, " Go, preach." Nearly the whole of the New 
Testament is made up of the acts and letters of the 
aposdes, all of whom were teachers, preachers and mis- 
sionaries. For you they are excellent models, your 
vocations being similar. Ours are very different, and 
the standard used in measuring their life work will not 
answer for us. 

Of course I know that very much of the applica- 
tion of this misfit measurement to us is unconscious, 
and it will hardly surprise you to be told that we are 
not averse to it It never makes us angry, indeed we 
rather like it. We constantly console ourselves with 
the thought that the 3rardstick you use was meant to 
measure another class of work, your own for instance. 
We may have a twinge of conscience now and then that 
at the proper age we did not decide to become preach- 
ers or missionaries, but it is too late now. Besides, the 
present supply seems to equal the demand, that is, if we 
may judge of the demand by our willingness to pay the 
expenses. 

Again, dmes have changed since the days of the 
aposdes. Then man's best work was done by hand, now 
by machinery ; then personally, now by proxy. Only 
fifty years ago it took only two men to make a wagon : 



THE CONSECRATION OF PROPERTY. 385 

one furnished the wood work, another the iron work ; 
and when put together either could do the painting. 
To-day, it probably takes fifty men to make a wagon, 
but each man does just one thing — from hauling the 
lumber from the dry-kiln, or the pig iron from the fiir- 
nace, to putting on the last touch of varnish. The man 
who stands at the lathe day after day for years, apply- 
ing one end of a spoke to a mortising machine for a 
second or two and then passing it on to the next work- 
man, does all the rest of his wagon-making by proxy, 
and even then he may be more of a practical wagon- 
maker than his employer. As an illustration, I am 
called a merchant and manufacturer, and yet I have not 
sold a bill of goods for ten years, and could not manu- 
facture a clothes-pin. The same rules, and especially 
the same conditions, apply in the work of converting 
men to Christ that apply to any other kind of progressive 
and modern business : our best work is done by proxy, 
and this is just as true of preaching and missionary work 
as of any other line of nineteenth-century achievement. 
Unless you have mistaken your vocation, you are bet- 
ter teachers, better preachers and better missionaries 
than we would be : but if we sustain you, support you, 
and pay for additional workers as they are needed, we 
are teachers, preachers and missionaries in the same 
sense that I am a merchant — that is, we hire the practi- 
cal and direct work done by others who have the spe- 
cial fitness and training. 

In the same line of kindly suggestion, I wish to say 
that some of your teaching and preaching on the sub- 
ject of love for and work for our common Master seems 
to us chimerical. As stated before, bringing men, wo- 
men and children to Christ is your life work, just as 

Mlnlont. 25 



386 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

some other form of professional or business life is ours. 
To do your work well you must think about it; in &ct, 
it must practically absorb your mind and thought. The 
same is just as true of us and our work. In one thing 
only shbuld we be alike, and that is in being every-day 
livers of the Christ life. And, after all, the daily life is 
by far the most important and effective sermon any of 
us ever preach. 

Ask the average minister to give his ideal of a lay 
Christian and his active work for t!ie Master, and a 
large part of his reply would consist of prompt and 
regular attendance at church and prayer-meeting (his 
specialty, you see) ; teaching in Sunday-school (again 
measuring by the clerical or teacher's yardstick); 
speaking to the unconverted about their spiritual inter- 
ests (his special work again), and so on through the 
list. I appeal to you if this is not the common mental 
test of the majority among those engaged in religious 
teaching, as well as preaching or missionary life. If it 
is not, then we have mistaken the tenor of your exhor- 
tations. The question is, is it a fair test ? Attendance 
at church services is not primarily work for the Mas- 
ter. We go there for spiritual food, just as we go to our 
tables at home for physical food. Such a test might be 
fair, is fair indeed, as to our spiritual health, but 
not as any large part of our life work in doing good. 
Of course, teaching Sunday-school is work of the best 
class, but that only takes a few of the i68 hours in a 
week. You cannot expect that this will satisfy our con- 
sciences when we remember our vows, when we made 
public confession of our faith in Christ, " to consecrate 
our time, our property and our talents to his service.'' 

The great question with us is how to keep those 



THE CONSECRATION OF PROPERTY. 387 

VOWS in a practical way. Our work beinj^ so different^ 
it is self-evident that your measure is not adapted to 
us. Our mutual business is to live Christian lives; 
your special business is to teach and preach. You 
often urge us to speak for Christ, but where ? In the 
prayer-meeting? Some of us have helped to kill 
prayer-meetings by talking too much and praying too 
long. I admit that this is work for the most of us, and 
often harder work for those who listen ; but much the 
largest and best portion of us, and I might add, the 
best talkers, are debarred from this service, for we do 
not forget the injunction, " Let the women keep silence 
in the churches.'' But, after all, the measure of our 
talk about anyone is not always a &ir measure of our 
love. To illustrate : we Christian laymen are supposed 
to love our own wives and families better than those of 
anyone else, yet when we take up our daily work we 
may forget for hours that we have families; and yet 
we certainly show our love for them by pegging away 
at our work, to make a living for them, a great deal 
more than if we spent our time at home assuring them 
by the hour of our unfailing affection. 

The same test, in a large degree, fidy applies to 
every Chrisdan man and woman not engaged in your 
particular occupation. We more practically, and to the 
world much more convincingly, honor and show our 
love for God by the lives we lead and the good we do 
with the money and property with which he entrusts 
us as stewards, than by any other form of service. 

As might be expected, a layman's text comes in 
near the middle of his discourse, and right here the 
text assigned me, "The Consecration of Property," 
fitly appUes. A still better text would be the " Con- 



388 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

secration of Capital and Income." A great many people 
do not .possess property, as that word is popularly 
understood, but all have capital and nearly all income. 
But God furnishes to every man all the capital he has, 
or can have, with which to procure an income — his 
hands and brains. Originally He was, and is, the author 
and owner of all the property and money in existence. 
Others had it before we came into so-called possession, 
others will have it when we go hence. We are, and 
can be, only stewards for its use while we are in 
control. 

I do not believe much in drawing inferences from 
God's Word, certainly none that are far-fetched and 
obscure in the least, but if Paul had written that epistle 
to us nineteenth-century Christians instead of to those 
at Rome, in which occur the words, " How shall they 
hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach 
except they be sent? " I think he would have added, 
How shall they be sent except somebody sends them 
and pays the expenses ? Surely being " sent " implies 
a sender, and just as surely implies the sender's share 
of the responsibility as well as of the success of the 
agent. 

Nearly all the teaching, preaching and missionary 
work we laymen and laywomen do is, and must be, 
done through you and others with whom it is a life 
work. You are our agents, our employes; and in 
precisely the same sense we are your agents, and your 
employes, to furnish the money needed to carry on the 
work, and also to provide, equip, and pay the expenses 
of more reapers in the Master's harvest field. The 
difference is that you are our teachers as well as the 
teachers of the heathen, while we are not yours, at least 



THE CONSECRATION OF PROPERTY. 389 

not often-^possibly this paper may be called an excep- 
tion. When we pay you your wages and all the ex- 
penses of furnishing suitable equipment for your work, 
and offer our earnest prayers for your success, our duty 
is done ; but it is no less your duty to pray for us that 
we may be wise and faithful stewards, and also to teach 
us how to become so. 

Speaking for both you and ourselves, I have no 
faith whatever in any prayers for any object that are 
not preceded, accompanied or followed by all that you 
or we ought to do and give for the object prayed for. 
If at monthly concert I spend an hour praying for your 
success and the success of other missionaries, and then 
give ten cents when I ought to give a dollar, Iget 
credit on my prayer account for ten cents only; the 
other ninety cents I still owe. If I give nothing when 
I ought to give, my prayers do not reach the ceiling, 
in fact, are not prayers at all, and their utterance has 
done both myself and others real harm ; as the unfailing 
effect of such so-called prayers is to harden the heart 
and encourage selfishness, not to say hypocrisy. Notice, 
I say above " when I ought to give." Gifts large or 
small may have preceded the prayers, or may follow 
them, but a recognition of my duty to give for missions 
must accompany my prayers, else the latter are abso- 
lutely worthless. 

But now turning to you, and remembering that 
you are our teachers and preachers, as well as the 
teachers, preachers and missionaries to the unconverted 
and heathen, I want to ask if you think you have dis- 
charged your duty to us in the matter of showing us 
how to consecrate our property and income. Right 
here I want to admit, and very heartily and cheerfully 



390 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

do admit, that in the matter of example you have done, 
and as a rule always do, your full duty. If we laymen 
gave of our money to the Lord's work in its various 
channels as cheerfully and liberally as do you teachers, 
preachers and missionaries, such a paper as this would 
be out of place ; this being at least one instance where 
you practice better than you preach. * 

Yes, I know you think you preach and teach the 
consecration of property, but what kind of teaching is 
it ? Is it practical ? Is it definite ? Does not much of 
it appeal to our emotions rather than to our business 
judgment? Will it fit into our daily lives? 

For instance, do you not often exhort us to " give 
until we feel it ?" when, as you know, some of us were 
born — well, stingy — you may use a milder word, if you 
prefer — ^and we "feel" the giving of a nickel or a dime, 
when one dollar or five dollars would be no more than 
our share, and no more than right, while others, more 
liberal, under your appeals are liable to give more than 
is proper or right to the particular cause for which you 
are pleading. Realizing this later on we sour on the 
whole business. 

You- often hold up to us the example of the widow 
with the two mites, who gave " all she had," when you 
know you do not mean that we should all follow her 
example. If she was a working-woman, as she un- 
doubtedly was, she perhaps gave the proceeds of her 
work for an hour or two, and then earned enough be- 
fore night to supply herself with needed food. 

Do not understand that I am belitding small gifts. 
I would rather be the giver of a dime or a dollar, if that 
was all I ought to give, than of $5, $100, yes, of $1,000, 
if that is not all I ought to give. Many of the most 



THE CONSECRATION OF PROPERTY. 39 1 

liberal of us, as the world judges, could well afford to 
change places, in the matter of giving and Chrisdike 
service in doing good, with many a poor wage-worker 
who often laments the smallness of his gifts. 

Another of your favorite passages is the account of 
the rich young man to whom Christ said, " Go^ sell all 
that thou hast and give to the poor,*' when, as you 
know, plainly written between the lines is the fact that 
the Saviour was testing him, just as God tested Abra- 
ham by ordering him to offer up Isaac as a burnt- 
offering. If the young man had followed the example 
of Abraham, and in good faith started to obey, I have 
no doubt the Saviour would have called him back and 
told him that his " great possessions ** were God-given 
talents to be used in His service and for the good of 
his fellow-men ; not to be used selfishly, not to be bur- 
ied, and not to be given away all at once, and be rid of 
all responsibility for their use. 

The very essence of Christianity is stewardship. 
You are stewards for the use of your special talents — 
education, experience and fitness for your special work 
of teaching and preaching ; and also for the use of the 
money you receive from us and others for performing 
your life work. Our talents are also education, expe- 
perience and income, however derived, and in addition 
to these our capital and property, no matter of what 
kind or quantity. We shall not be called to account 
as missionaries or preachers, but we must account for 
the use of whatever money or property God allows to 
come into our possession. We as Christians need, and 
should have, plain, practical A-B-C instruction on this 
more-than-ever-before vital subject of the consecration 
of property. I fancy I hear many of you saying men- 



J 



392 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

tally, " Well, my conscience is clear on that score. I 
have been teaching and preaching systematic benefi- 
cence for years." 

Well, the term "systematic beneficence" never 
did mean much; it may be made to mean little or 
nothing. The man who faithftiUy gives a dollar a year 
or a penny a week for missions may give just as regu- 
larly and just as systematically as another who gives a 
dollar a month, a dollar a week, or a dollar a day. 
Proportionate giving is the right, and the only right, 
rule for giving. It includes systematic giving, as the 
greater alwa3rs includes the less. No man can give 
proportionately and not give systematically. No man 
can do it without a practical recognition of the conse- 
cration of property. 

But, you ask, what proportion should we give? 
God says one-tenth. Surely he ought to know. He 
claims the tenth of income in just the same special 
sense that he claims the seventh of time. We may 
deny his claims upon both, but all experience proves 
that we lose thereby both spiritually and temporarily. 
It is probable that some persons present would deny 
the binding obligation of the tithe. Speaking for my- 
self, and, as I know I do, voicing the opinion of a large 
proportion of the younger class of clergymen, I believe 
it to be as binding as it ever was. I believe the giving 
of a tenth of our income to be a debt, and giving does 
not properly commence until the tenth has been paid. , 
I believe it to be binding upon rich and poor alike; 
and I believe that every man, rich or poor, with an in- 
come large or small, can better afford to pay a tenth to 
the Lord's work in some form than not to pay it — I 
mean in dollars and cents. This opinion is not based 



THE CONSECRATION OF PROPERTY. 393 

on theory, but on a very extensive collection of facts 
and statistics running through the last fifteen or sixteen 
years. But I have no quarrel with those who believe 
otherwise. You will certainly agree that proportionate 
giving is better than such hap-hazard, emotional and 
spasmodic giving as is practised by the majority of 
Christians. So believing, is it not your duty to teach 
it, and teach it in an every-day, practical way that will 
fit into the daily lives of your hearers ? Now I appeal 
to you if your preaching and teaching on this subject 
in the past has been such as could be put into satis&c- 
tory practice by those who look to you for instruction. 
For instance, you tell us to " bring all the tithes into 
the storehouse," but do you instruct us how to tithe ? 
What is tithing, any way ? Should it apply to capital 
or only to income ? If to income only, should the in- 
come be gross or net ? Do you set us an example by 
tithing your own income ? Answering this last ques- 
tion, I believe that at least ten times as many ministers, 
and especially young ministers, tithe their income now 
as did ten or twelve years ago. 

You often quote to us the passage, " On the first 
day of the week, let every one of you lay by in store as 
God has prospered him," when, as you know, large 
classes of us — farmers, for instance — ^have no income 
often for months at a time. You also know that the 
expenses of such of us as are merchants and manufac- 
turers are often more than our profits for a great por- 
tion of the year. How can these classes lay by weekly 
in proportion to their prosperity? You tell us that 
we owe every thing to the Lord. This we know to be 
true, but do you intelligendy instruct us as to the times, 
amounts and methods of payment ? In short, is not 



394 MISSIONS At HOME AND ABROAD. 

your teaching on this, of all subjects to us most practi- 
cal, made up largely of glittering generalities ? 

Now, without extending these suggestions, which I 
am sure you will take kindly, will you permit me to 
indicate the kind of preaching and teaching on this 
subject that we, as Christians, need ? First, it should 
be of the A-B-C style. Not many of us have ever 
gone further than the alphabet in the matter of a practi- 
cal understanding of the consecration of property. 
Teach us, first, to lay aside a definite proportion of 
our income to be sacredly devoted to doing good ; and 
if you or your hearers do not believe in the obligation 
of the tenth do not argue about it, but adopt some 
other proportion. Then instruct us to lay by as 
God has prospered us when he prospers us ; i, e,^ that 
no matter when our income is received — ^whether 
weekly, monthly, or yearly — that is the time to lay 
aside His proportion for His service. Teach those of us 
who are merchants or manufactiu-ers to give as we 
think God is prospering us, by the year, taking the 
last one or two years as a basis on which to commence, 
charging our gifts to benevolence account, and balanc- 
ing the account along with others at the close of the 
year. Teach those of us who are salaried or wage- 
workers to lay aside of our income when it is received. 
Teach those of us who are lawyers or physicians, and 
those in similar classes, to lay aside when our bills 
are paid. In short, teach us all to lay aside propor- 
tionately when and where we know what the measure of 
our prosperity is, and then to give from that store 
weekly, or daily, as God sends the calls. Teach us 
that from the day we devote a definite proportion of 
our income to the Master's service we take hun into 



THE CONSECRATION OF PROPERTY. 395 

practical partnership in our business or profession, what 
soever it may be ; that from that time on, if one-tenth 
be the proportion, one hour of every ten is devoted as 
much to his service, as fully, and probably much more 
profitably than if we were to leave our business and 
spend the hour in doing your special work — ^preaching 
and religious teaching. As stated before, our heavenly 
Father furnishes all the capital any of us possess. 
There are no errors or omissions in his book-keeping 
and we will get credit for all the good we do, whether 
we do it directly or indirectly by proxy. 

Proportionate giving (or, a much better term, 
proportionate payment from our income) is a practical 
recognition of our stewardship, and the only practical 
recognition we laymen can give. If we adopt it as a 
rule of life you can assure us that we are practical 
partners with you in your life work : you doing our 
preaching and teaching for us, and we doing our share 
towards your support You can assure us that we just 
as surely help build churches in destitute places, if in 
this way we help to pay for the buildings, as if we 
personally laid the bricks and drove the nails. You 
can also assure us that, if we do this, we can have, and 
do have, a personal interest in the salvation of every 
soul brought to Christ through your efforts — or the 
preaching and teaching of missionaries in any and 
every land where we contribute to their support 



396 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP. 

BY P. SINCLAIR, ESQ. 

Intelligent Christian stewardship, discriminating 
in its proportions and worid-wide in its sympathies, is 
one of the most important questions before the Christian 
church at the present time. To assist in the solution of 
this great problem the accompanying table on system- 
atic beneficence has been prepared. This table is en- 
tirely practical in its nature, and adapted alike to all 
classes of church-going people. In determining its 
proportions we liave consulted the judgment of repre* 
sentative men on the subject, and we believe it will be 
found readily adaptable to all evangelical bodies having 
the same Boards or Societies although under some- 
what different headings. 

The plan of assessing conferences, presb3rteries or 
congregations in the lump has been found to be too 
general. Assessing churches on the value of church 
property for the general work of the church, however 
valuable in bringing non-contributing churches into 
line, is open to the same objection. It is very impor- 
tant to have all our churches contribute to the general as 
well as local work of the church ; but much more im- 
portant to reach the giving ability of each member. 
We need to reach the individual conscience. The 
relative importance of all the schemes of the church 
should be kept in view, not only by our secretaries and 
pastors but by our membership as well. Each member 
should know approximately how much he is expected 



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398 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

to give to each t>f the schemes of his church, with the 
usual elbow-room for individual preference. 

THE MIDDLE CLASS. 

If the great middle class, which constitutes so large 
a proportion of the Christian church, could be brought 
to devote a tenth of its income religiously to charitable 
and religious work the church would be under the ne- 
cessity of looking up investments for the Lord's money, 
instead of racking its brains to make ends meet and 
keep from retrenching instead of advancing in the work. 
We would have no neglected city districts or lapsed 
masses at home, and no unevangeUzed millions abroad. 

THE WEALTHY CLASS. 

If our wealthy members would but give in propor- 
tion to their means it would revolutionize the work of 
the church, and the greatest blessing of all would be to 
the givers themselves. We think the time has come 
when this craze for mere accumulation of substance at 
the expense of the life and work of the church, to say 
nothing of the spiritual peril of the individual, should 
receive more attention from the pulpit and the Christian 
press. Unfaithfulness in Christian stewardship should 
have more of the search-light of God's truth thrown 
upon it. 

Men of large means and meager gifts, in good and 
regular standing in the church, often church officers at 
that, should be kindly informed of their privileges and 
duties and, if need be, faithfully dealt with. If a brother 
has been systematically robbing God of tithes and of- 
ferings for years, and diverting the Lord's money into 
other channels, there is something radically wrong with 



CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP. 399 

his relationship to Christ. The &ct is many of our 
church members are graduaUy drifting into what is 
known as 



"THE AMERICAN CIRCLE." 

We want money to buy land, to raise com, to 
feed hogs ; to make more money to buy mare land to 
raise more corn to feed more hogs, etc. And thus the 
life is spent with no higher aim than mere bulk in ma- 
terial substance instead of rising td the honor, joy and 
privilege of being associated with Christ in the extension 
of his kingdom, and turning gold into precious souls, 
jewels that will shine for ever in our Redeemer's crown, 
thus bringing the highest glory to God, and the great- 
est possible good to our fellow-men. Can there be any 
higher object in life than this ? 

The following from Philip D. Armour is suggestive 
and to the point: 

" A man should do good while he lives. Wills are 
easily broken and set aside. The Armour Flats were 
built to yield a yearly revenue to the mission. There 
is an endowed work that cannot be altered by death or 
by misunderstandings among trustees, or by bickerings 
of any kind. Besides, a man can do something to carry 
out his ideas while he lives, but he cannot do so after 
he is in his grave." 

OUR VAST RESOURCES. 

Chambers' Journal compares the fortunes of Eng- 
land and America in an article of recent date. We 
quote a few of the larger American fortunes. 




400 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

One valued at . . . • $i 50,000,000 

Five " 100,000,000 

One " . . . . 70,000,000 

Two " 60,000,000 

Six " .... 50,000,000 

Six " 40,000,000 

Four " .... 35,000,000 

Thirteen" 30,000,000 

Ten " . . , , 25,000,000 

Four " 22,000,000 

Fifty " .... 10,000,000 

A GRAND RESPONSE. 

Now and then a great occasipn calls forth the re- 
sponsive beneficence of the Church. Such was the 
union of the Old and New School branches of the Pres- 
byterian Church in 1 87 1. It was then proposed to 
raise a memorial thank-offering of $5,000,000. We 
present the official figures of this thank-offering : 

New Church Buildings . . $3,236,475 61 

Manses .... 683,884 05 

Repair and Enlargement . . 733,707 60 

Payment of Debts . . 1,083,47872 
Permanent Institutions in Foreign 

Lands 93.509 96 

Institutions of Learning . 1,405,548 66 

Special Gifts to Boards . . 60,340 40 

Hospitals .... 48,665 35 

Relief and Sustentation . . 41,150 46 

Presbyterian House . . 46,882 37 
Amounts not specified by Churches 

reporting them . . . 162,681 10 

Expenses of Committee . 11,17563 



Total .... $7,607,499 91 



CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP. 40I 

It was found that during the same year two million 
dollars additional had been contributed to the same 
objects, making a total in round numbers of ten million 
dollars. Truly the liberality of our fathers puts us to 
shame. 

A proportionate offering from the same body this 
year, based on increased membership alone, without 
any reference to increase of wealth, would amount to 
about thirty million of dollars. A similar offering from 
the whole Evangelical Church in the United States 
would approximate fifty million dollars. 

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SOLUTION. 

Let us now briefly consider this problem of church 
finance with a view.to its practical solution. 

In doing so we select one of our leading denom- 
inations — what is true of one is relatively true of all. 

We select the Presbyterian Church North, as it is 
believed that body has given considerable attention to 
this subject ; and its liberality may be considered fiiUy 
up to the average in the denominational sisterhood. 

THE CHURCH TITHE. 

The Rev. Dr. D. S. Gregory is quoted as placing 
the tithe of the Protestant Church of America at five 
himdred million dollars. Other estimates place it at a 
somewhat higher figure. We shall assume Dr. Gregory's 
estimate to be sufficiently correct for our present pur- 
pose. We shall also assume the Presbyterian share oi 
this tithe to be one hundred million dollars, or one-fifth 
of the whole, and proceed to compare the amount with 
the gifts of that body last year, as reported in the 
minutes of its General Assembly. There are doubtless 

26 



402 



MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



many other unreported gifts of benevolence made by 
individuals the amount of which cannot well be esti- 
mated, but we believe the Presbyterian share of the tithe 
SIS quoted above is underestimated enough to of&et this. 



GIFTS AND TITHE COMPARED. 



Total Receipts of the Presby- 
terian Churcli as reported 
in the Assembly's Minutes. 
X894. 


The iioo,ooo,ooo Tithe 
divided in the prxv 
portions of the table 
on giving. 


Local Work, includ- 






ing City Missions 


$10,300,761 


$50,000,000 


Foreign Missions . 


745794 


13.200,000 


Home Missions . 


977.823, 


12400,000 


Ministerial Relief . 


94,446 


3,600,000 


Church Erection . 


172,752 


3,200,000 


Aid to Colleges 


185,676 


2400,000 


Freedmen 


105,743 


2,000,000 


Education . 


107.134 


2,000,000 


S. S. Work . . 


131.325 


1,200,000 


Miscellaneous . 


1.025,695 


10,000,000 


'Sustentation 


80,258 




General Assembly . 


84,740 






$14,012,127 


$100,000,000 



Chicago Presbytery contributed last year a total of 
$493,610. This was $i per cent, of the total contribu- 
tions of the whole church. We therefore approximaie 
its share of the tithe at $3,500,000, or 3 J per cent, of the 
$100,000,000. The same rule may be applied to other 
presbyteries, especially our wealthier presbyteries. 

Let us now compare this tithe of $3,500,000 with 
the gifts of Chicago Presbytery, 1893-4: 



CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP. 403 





Gifts to all 


Tithe (or zH per cent. 




purposes. 


of $100,000,000). 


Home Missions 


$48,259 


$434,000 


Foreign " , 


3M97 


462,000 


Education 


4,610 


70,000 


Sunday-school Work 


7.047 


42,000 


Church Erection 


13.684 


112,000 


Ministerial Relief 


3.277 


126,000 


Freedmen 


3.992 


70,000 


Colleges 


13.910 


84,000 


Congregational 


313.250 


1,750,000 


Miscellaneous 


54.384 


350,000 



$493,610 $3,500,000 

In determining the tithe-share of each church or 
congregation we follow the ratio of its contributions to 
the total contributions of its Presbytery. One of the 
leading congregations in this Presbytery contributed 
last year a total of lot per cent, of the whole Presby- 
tery. We therefore approximate its share of the tithe 
at $358,750, that amount being lol per cent, of $3,500,- 
000. The figures are as follows : 

Total Gifts of a lead- T!i^^ru!f,Hk*o5 



i 


in Chicago. 


xu^ per cc 

Presb. tithe, 


Home Missions . 


$10,281 


•44.485 


Foreign " 


4.284 


47.355 


Education . 


875 


7,175 


Sunday-school Work 


2451 


4.305 


Church Erection 


3.796 


1 1 480 


Ministerial Relief 


437 


12,915 


Freedmen . 


303 


7.175 


Colleges . 


320 


8,614 


Sustentation 


200 




Congregational 


19,008 


179.371 


Miscellaneous 


. 8.750 


35.875 



$50,705 $358,750 



404 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

When we come to other city presbyteries we find 
them very similar. 

New York Presbytery last year contributed $912,- 
639. This was 6} per cent, of the total contributions 
of the whole church. Its tithe-share would, therefore, 
be $6,500,000. CangregaHans : In selecting a leading 
church in that Presbytery we find its -gifts amount to 
$234,276. This is 25.68 per cent, of the total gifts of 
its Presbytery. We therefore approximate its tithe- 
share at $1,669,200, that being 25.68 per cent, of $6,- 
500,000. 

If these estimates are approximately correct they 
show that this denomination, which is considered above 
the average of Christian beneficence, gives only the 
seventh of its tithe, or less than 1} per cent of its 
income, to charitable and Christian work. 

Just think of it. It takes an average of seven of 
the best of us, in this missionary age of unparalleled 
opportunity and consequent responsibility, to equal the 
giving of one consistent Jew living under the light and 
limitations of the Old Testament dispensation. 



Co 



MlTy A[^ 



oC 



OdpERATION 



N P'lISSIOlNlS. 



COOPERATION. 407 



COOPERA TION IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. 

BY REV. GEORGE WM. KNOX, D. D. 

The Congress of Missions naturally follows the 
Parliament of Religions in Chicago's miniature re- 
production of the nations of the earth and the glory of 
them. On the world's wide platform Parliament and 
Congress are ever in session and the foreign missionary 
is an active participant in both. 

To some ardent Christians the Parliament has 
seemed a mistake, threatening to the cause of missions 
and to Christianity itself. To them our religion is so 
sacred, so divine, so exclusive, that its followers may 
not meet the representatives of other faiths in friendly 
and equal discussion. The temple must not be trod- 
den by gentile feet. But the foreign missionary dis- 
sents, for by the necessity of his calling he must say, 
" Come, let us reason together ;" and must rejoice to 
leave the S3magogue's enclosure and meet the philoso- 
phers of the Epicureans and Stoics in the market-place 
and on Mars' Hill. Without any special privilege we 
encounter claims to traditional authority, peculiar 
sanctity, priesdy arrogance and divine exdusiveness. 
In the Spirit and the inherent power of truth must we 
trust for victory. 

Doubdess the non-Christian faiths have been 
represented at their best. The good has been em- 
phasized and the evil minimized, and the net impres- 
sion has differed from that produced by a diligent 



408 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

reading of ordinary missionary literature. And so the 
question comes : If this eastern philosophy is so pro- 
found, if its ethic is so exalted and its provision for 
the religious nature so satisfying, why should we con- 
tinue to send our missionaries at such great expense 
of life and money ? But again the missionary dissents. 
No doubt he has seen these foreign faiths at their worst, 
but he must meet them at their best Not by a dis- 
tructive criticism will he win his cause, not by an 
insistance upon excrescences and blemishes. He re- 
joices in every proof that God hath not left himself 
without witness, but that the Light of the World has 
shone forth to every man. It is to this light that the 
missionary appeals as he would lead men to Him who 
is incarnate truth. It is an inexperienced view of mis- 
sions that sees their need chiefly in the external deg- 
radation of heathenism; and it is a doubting and 
unreal view of Christianity that can see its truth only 
on the background of complete and hopeless error. 
Grant the advocates of other faiths all the excellences 
they can fairly claim and yet we know them as dimly 
groping after God, if haply they may find him, while 
in Christ God comes to us in the brightness of his glory 
and the express image of himself 

The Parliament of Religions shows something of the 
depth of this great work. We have been too much 
engrossed by its depth perhaps, the thought of the mul- 
titude of the nations, and the tumult of their strange 
voices and tongues. The dense masses of eastern cities, 
the vast populations that fill Asia and Africa, the 
few who break the bread of life and seek to feed so 
many, the stupendous exertions needed if the gospel is 
to be preached in our generation, all this overwhelms 



co5peration. 409 

the im^nation and seems to indicate the true measure 
of our task. But geography and arithmetic, however 
accurate, however enlivened by oratorical imagination, 
can never indicate aright the greatness of the work. 
That greatness is to be measured not only in its 
extent but by its intensity. It is not the proclama- 
tion of a verbal command nor of a set formula, it is not 
the repetition of any creed, however excellent, but it is 
the setting forth of the excellency of Jesus Christ so that 
it shall be not a murmur of an unknown tongue in the 
ear, but the power of God and the wisdom of God 
unto salvation. 

Understanding its task, that the church shall faith- 
fully perform it will be the final demonstration that it is 
of God. Only by such victory can the church prove 
that its Head and Lord is the divine Saviour of the 
World. This is the " apology " that will convince. 
Even the present effort is among the clearest evidences 
of the grace and power of the indwelling Christ. It is 
easy, I know, to belitde the effort that the church now 
makes ; to show how small a proportion of its ministry 
goes to the foreign field and how insignificant are the 
gifb of Christendom compared with its expenditure for 
useless luxuries, and how fiir short we all come of the 
divine standard given by our Lord. But is there not 
something on the other side? May we not wonder, 
righdy, that tJie church is as faithful as it is to its 
great commission ; that it gives its sons and daughters 
by thousands and its treasures by millions for a work 
so ideal, so remote, so of the unseen, so wholly of faith, 
and that it perseveres in its attempt in the face of all 
obstacles, discouragements, and the lapse of years and 
generations ? In nothing else does the church so clearly 



4IO MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

show that it is not of this world, and in nothing ebe is 
its faithfidness so tried. 

If we thus view the greatness of the work and the 
greatness of the Church's effort we further wonder that 
the Church still so merits its Lord's rebuke ; that the 
children of light are still less wise than the children of 
the world. In no other department of Christian en- 
deavor is there greater need for the highest practical 
wisdom, and, in some respects, in none other is so litde 
displayed. Here most strikingly is shown how in- 
adequate is our ecclesiastical polity, of other ages and 
for other aims, for the work that we attempt to do. 

THE NEED FOR COOPERATION. 

Surely the need for cooperation is too apparent 
for argument. The two-fold greatness of the task, its 
wide extent and its inherent difficulty, demand that 
every resource be husbanded and every effort wisely 
directed and of utmost efficiency. Mistakes and waste 
are as costiy as in the movements of armies on the 
battie-field. 

The field's wide extent demands that every man be 
so stationed that he support his fellow laborers and that 
he may be sustained and not impeded by his brethren. 
The difficulty of the task demands that every man be 
chosen for his special place and that no man shall be 
given double work, nor perform the functions of differ- 
ing and inharmonious professions. When the place 
has been chosen with all care the man must be chosen 
for the place. Unless the highest Christian statesman- 
ship is given to this problem the very increase in the 
missionary forces will add to the general inefficiency. 
It is due to the church which gives so liberally, it is due 



COOPERATION. 4I I 

to the men whom we seek to reach, it is due to Him 
who died for the salvation of the world, that there be 
no waste. 

THE PRESENT DISORGANIZATION AND CONFUSION. 

As the differing divisions of the Church militant 
engage in this warfare so does the disorganization be- 
come apparent and the confusion increase. A genera- 
tion ago cooperation was not so necessary. The 
Church was only engaged in examining the ground. 
It was laying its plans and studying the situation. It 
was not even a reConnoissance in force. Here and there 
were tiny groups of men making tentative beginnings. 
But already the situation has changed as the Church's 
enthusiasm rises year by year. Already each denomina- 
tion sends out its detachment, and a want of missionary 
zeal comes to be felt a want of love to Christ. 

Some of the denominations have large representa- 
tions and some are yet content with here and there a 
man. Some manifest a good measure of practical wis- 
dom in planning their campaigns, others carry on a 
guerilla warfare with little dear or setded aim, but all 
suffer from the want of a general and effective organ- 
ization of the whole. 

The denominations have been likened to the differ- 
ent divisions of an army, but in the foreign field they 
are like men in the enemy's country with each division 
under its own and separate command : with particular 
regiments, companies and even squads doing every one 
what is right in its own eyes, or in the eyes of civilians 
commanding it from the rear, thousands of miles away. 
Of course the parts interfere, get in the way, get tangled 
up and fire back and forth among themsdves. 



412 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

AN ILLUSTRATION FROM JAPAN. 

Japan affords peculiar advantages for the study of 
the philosophy of missions, so much has been crowded 
into such limited time and space. It is a striking illus- 
tration of the prevailing disorganization. 

When a few years ago Japan suddenly underwent 
a change, and from the most discouraging of mission 
fields became at a bound the most promising, every 
denomination seized the opportunity for itsel£ It was 
soon confusion worse confounded. It was a triumphant 
display of the forces ordisintegration and the confiision 
of Protestantism. The world looked on in amused dis- 
gust. Is this an overstatement? I would it were an 
overstatement. But in Japan we have Presbyterians, 
North, South, United and Cumberland; Reformed 
(Dutch), and Reformed (German); Methodist Epis- 
copal North, South, Methodist Canadian; Baptists 
American North, South, and English; Christians of 
two distinctions and pronunciations; Congreg^tion- 
alists ; Plymouth Brethren ; Friends ; Lutherans ; Ger- 
man Evangelicals; Universalists ; Unitarians; and I 
know not what other names and fragments. It is vain to 
call this an army advancing to the attack. It is a mob. 

Doubtless every earnest man of godly life and sin- 
cere purpose accomplishes a certain work wherever 
placed ; but b there no need for missionary labor else- 
where that we must have iii Tokyo four schools for 
boys, the faculty of any one ample for the students of 
them all ? and five or more theological schools, though 
none is crowded? Are we wise as serpents as we 
thus seek to win the world for Christ? Do not otu: 
enemies well think us as harmless as doves ? 



COOPERATION. 4^3 

UNION AND COCpERATION ON THE FIELD. 

The evil effects of the disorganization of Protes- 
tantism have been overcome to some extent by union 
on the field. In Japan in the beginning an effort was 
made to unite all Protestants in one organization. 
The creed proposed was elementary and the polity 
simple ; but the project was not successful and came 
to naught. Indeed, the problem was not solved, and 
the difficulties being evaded instead of conquered, the 
immediate result was still greater disintegration. 

A litde later, 1876-7, a second and less ambitious 
attempt was made ; this time with success. The di£fer- 
ent Presbyterian and Reformed bodies came together, 
and now six denominations unite in aiding the " Church 
of Christ in Japan." At a later date the Episcopal 
bodies followed the example and organized the " Holy 
Church of Japan." These churches show that union 
on the field, of bodies of like faith and polity, is feasible 
when the denominational authorities at home are ready 
to sustain their missionaries, and when the organiza- 
tion of the native church forms a natural centre for dif- 
fering societies. Even some divergence in doctrine 
and minor differences in polity form no serious obsta- 
cle, and the result is at once beneficial to the nadve 
church and to the missionary boards. It is beneficial 
to the church because the united force gives more ex- 
tended and more efficient aid than a single board can 
usually afford ; and it is beneficial to the boards, since 
organizations that can employ few men may still effec- 
tively participate in an exhilarating and successful 
work. 

But such union effort finds its limit Sometimes 



414 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

the limit is the veto by the societies at home, as when 
Methodist union was forbidden though the missiona- 
ries had agreed and plans were complete. 

Sometimes difficulties arise upon the field, as when 
the union of Presbyterians and Congregationalists was 
defeated by the adverse action of a party in the native 
church. In any case wide differences of doctrine and 
polity cannot be overcome readily, nor can missionaries 
go far in advance of sentiment at home. At the very 
best there are natural boundaries that cannot be passed, 
and complete uniformity must remain a dream. 

Something can be done by cooperation without 
union organization in some fields. Where there are 
natural differences of geography or race missionaries 
can agree to respect each other's territories, but as the 
native church grows strong its operations cannot be 
confined within artificial limits. Reasons that compel 
separate organizations will inevitably compel extension 
throughout homogeneous peoples and territories. At 
best such co5peration will be tentative and temporary. 

MISSIONARY FEDERATION. 

For a true solution we must turn from the foreign 
field to the church at home ; and, while denominational 
distinctions are there maintained, from unity of polity 
and creed to federation. 

The basis of federation is in four facts : i. The 
greatness of the work. 2. That almost any form of 
Christianity is better than heathenism. 3. That no 
society is competent to do all the work. 4. That our 
present methods entail inconveniences and difficulties 
which may be avoided by a better way. We need not 
wait until we are convinced that other denominations 



COOPERATION. 4 IS 

are our equals in excellence of doctrine, in organiza- 
tion, or even in divine authority. 

I shall not dwell further on the greatness of the 
work, and for the second point h^ve only two remarks 
to make ; namely, doubtless some line must be drawn, 
since coSperation is impossible between bodies that 
call themselves Christian but which deny to each other, 
or one denies to the other, the right to the name. Pres- 
byterians and Unitarians could not enter a common 
council for the advancement of the church, nor could 
Plymouth Brethren unite with any one. But, second, 
the great evangelical bodies which acknowledge each 
other's worthiness need not wait until the day when all 
can join, but may secure at once a missionary unity in 
diversity. 

No society, however great, is equal to the whole 
task. We may fairly say, no society is equal to the 
task it has already begun. The great societies have as 
much to gain from federation as the small. How many 
mission stations are adequately equipped ? How many 
societies really work efficiendy the fields they occupy ? 
There are great societies whose enterprise would be 
vasdy furthered could they disband half or more of 
their missions, and concentrate their energies upon the 
rest. They would render a greater advantage to the 
cause of Christ and hasten the Christianizing of the 
world should they attempt less. A great society that 
half equips a multitude of stations puts itself, as &r as 
any one is concerned, on a par with the weak boards 
that are unable, alone, to work a single field. Missions 
in five or six lands at most is all that the resources of 
the strongest society can sustain. It is the want of a 
dear perception of the greatness of the work, joined to 



4l6 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

an out-lived theory that a denomination is the true and 
only church, that leads to an effort so disproportioned 
to the task, to the attempt to do so much in so many 
places, and the consequent failure to do anything suffi- 
ciendy and well. 

The pressure of the work, its growth, its increasing 
demands for men and money, must teach us that every 
weight should be cast aside and the method adopted 
that shall entail a minimum of inconvenience and diffi- 
culty. 

Federation leaves each denomination free to follow 
the lines of its own development, for there is no inter- 
ference with polity, creed, or form of worship. Feder- 
ation leaves each denomination free to propagate itself 
on foreign soil, for it does not propose hybrid organi- 
zations on foreign soil, sinking all differences in a con- 
fused and motley unity. Federation not only respects 
the rights of the denomination as the Federal Union 
respects the rights of the States, but it aids each de- 
nomination in its foreign work as it adds to the effi- 
ciency of all. It only checks interference, wasteful 
duplication of agencies, and the too great extension of 
particular societies into fields they have not power to 

work. 

A MISSIONARY SENATE. 

Missionary Federation must have an organ, a 
Missionary Senate, with definite but limited powers. 
It should study the world-wide field and learn the 
needs of every part. It should study the forces of the 
church and seek to adjust them to the need. It should 
find fields wide enough and diverse enough to tax the 
energies of the strongest societies, and other fields 
adapted to the strength of the smaller and feebler bod- 



COOPERATION. 417 

ies. It should partition the world, and use the wisest 
economy, that "nothing be wasted and that no field be 
overlooked. It will be the fiiendly critic of all, and 
will suggest improvements to each from the experience 
of all. It will be a missionary exchange and club, the 
means of mutual information, and the organ of common 
plans. It will break down the walls of separation that 
now isolate the societies, and will make each debtor to 
the whole. It will be prompt to prevent intrusion into 
occupied fields, and prompt to show that an occupied 
field is a cultivated field, and that no society may pre- 
empt land in the Lord's vineyard for speculation or a 
vain show. 

OBSTACLES TO FEDERATION. 

The chief obstacle to federation is not of doctrine. 
Even we who differ at home magnify our agreement 
abroad; and righdy, for in the new environment we 
face the same opponents and preach the same gospel. 
When the one, personal, Creator God is not known; 
when pantheism is the philosophy of the schools and 
fatalism the practical philosophy of life ; when the doc- 
trine of a future life has been distorted into a material- 
istic and baseless dream of phjrsical pain or bliss, or. 
has been dismissed as an obstacle to virtue and un- 
worthy thinking men ; when the Bible has as its rivals 
the Sacred Books of the East, strong in their traditional 
position; when our Lord appears as one of the group 
of sages, of like nature with Gautama and Confucius — 
the Christian missionary has no time or heart for the 
niceties of our theological schools of thought, and nei- 
ther time nor strength to antagonize men who are 
agreed on the great essentials of the faith. Missiona- 
ry 



418 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ries of widely difTering ecclesiastical name and lineage 
use the same arguments, teach the same doctrines, 
and proclaim the same Saviour- Lord. 

The obstacles to federation are not things essential 
They are in the inertia of societies and denominations ; 
in the press of details that give secretaries litde time for 
aught beyond the work of every day ; in the press of 
. affairs, forcing Christians to give foreign missions only 
the time used in listening to an annual sermon or an 
occasional address ; in the natural limitations of knowl- 
edge and interest to the work of one's own society; in 
a failure to comprehend the greatness of the work, the 
disadvantages of our present methods, and the impera- 
tive need for reorganization. A narrow sectarianism 
may, perhaps, in some cases still forbid alliance in the 
name of Christ ; but this obstacle cannot be strong, if 
we credit the reports of congresses and conventions and 
the testimony of the increasing number of church lead- 
ers who demand the better way. 

Has not the time to act fully come ? Is there not 
some branch of Christ's church or some great society 
devoted to the extension of the Kingdom that will lead, 
asking its fellow-workers to unite with it in confedera- 
ted effort for the speedy evangelization of the world ? 
All things are ready, and the movement waits for its 
leader. Our differences, we say, are superficial, and 
our underlying unity strong. Let us believe our own 
words and act upon them. Let us show men that we 
are not enemies, but friends. May we fulfil our Lord's 
high-priestly prayer and be one— one with each other, 
one with him — ^for the salvation of the world. 



COdPERATION APPLIED. 4 19 



COOPERA TION APPLIED ; PRA CTICAL 

METHODS. 

BY REV. EDWIN M. BLISS. 

Cooperation is working together to one end, 
combining for a certain purpose. 

Co5peration in mission work is, distinctively, the 
working together of the different branches of the Chris- 
tian Church, first, to supply the preaching of the gospel 
to those who are without it, and second, to build up 
weak churches and communities into strong ones. 

The immediate subject before us is the practical 
application of this principle to the work we are con- 
sidering. As to the need or advantage of it there is 
general agreement. The meetings that have been held 
during this month bear eloquent testimony to the im- 
mensity of the work before the churches, and to the fact 
that if that work is to be accomplished every available 
means must be utilized to the fullest possible degree. 

Notice also that the subject \spracHcal methods, 
not ideal methods. In a very true sense no methods 
are thoroughly practical, certainly in Christian work, 
that do not conform to the ideal at least in some meas- 
ure. Yet it is not less true here than elsewhere, if we 
cannot do as we would we must do what we can. If we 
cannot attain to the completest codperation we still 
can attain to a good degree of it 

In this connection it b interesting to note the ad- 
vance that is indicated by the use of the term. A few 



420 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

years ago the great word in speaking of the relations 
of the missionary societies to each other was comity. 

Comity is but ]a form of courtesy : I will not in- 
terfere with you and shall expect that you will not in- 
terfere with me. It almost necessitated separate fields, 
separate developments, separate results. Cooperation 
is something far more than this. It recognizes that 
each different body has a place, and can do a work, 
which is an essential part of the best success of all. 

It is well that this topic furnishes the connecting 
link between the home and the foreign fields, for the 
two are more and more inseparably interwined, and 
any principle that belongs to the one inevitably oper- 
ates upon the others. 

In the first place, then, let us look for a moment 
at what is already being done. This is no new subject 
In one form or another it has drawn the attention of 
the most eminent workers in every church for many 
years. We should have the benefit of their experience, 
confident that practical results will be best secured 
along the lines which have already been found to give 
at least a measure of success. 

In the field of home missions two events stand out 
very prominently : first, the action of the Home Mis- 
sionary Societies of the Congregational, Presbyterian 
and Reformed Churches, and, second, the Interdenom- 
inational Commission of the State of Maine. 

The action of tlie Home Missionary Societies was 
taken immediately as the result of action by the Gen- 
eral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church calling for 
conference between the officers of the Boards, and in- 
cluding three recommendations, the chief of which was 
that the rules of each Board already formulated, for- 



COOPERATION APPLIED. 42 1 

bidding improper interference with existing organiza- 
tions, multiplying churches from sectarian considera- 
tions, or planting churches in fields already fully oc- 
cupied or properly cared for by other denominations, 
should be emphasized as of universal application. The 
others arranged for reference of disputed cases to com- 
mittees. 

The Interdenominational Commission on church 
work in the State of Maine owed its existence to the in- 
tensity of belief of some individuals, notably President 
Hyde of Bowdoin College, that only in some such way 
could the appalling &cts of destitution and weakness 
in the remoter sections be met. 

The constitution of this Commission states that its 
object is to promote cooperation in the organization 
and maintenance of the churches in Maine ; to prevent 
waste of resources and effort in the smaller towns ; and 
to stimulate missionary work in destitute regions. 

Its membership consists of three delegates each 
from the Baptist, Christian, Congregational and Free 
Baptist denominations, and of two members each from 
the Maine and East Maine Conferences of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, elected by their respective 
bodies. 

There is an executive committee, consisting of one 
member from each denomination, together with the 
president and secretary, whose duty it is to consider 
questions of comity which may be referred to them 
and to make recommendations in behalf of the com- 
mittee. 

There are also arrangements for annual and spe- 
cial meetings and a committee to gather statistics con- 
cerning the needs of rural districts in the State. 



422 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

The Commission at a meeting held in December, 
1892, took the following action : 

" Recognizing the evident desire of the evangdt- 
cal denominations of Maine to do more efficient work 
for our common Lord, and believing that the Holy 
Spirit is moving Christians toward practical coopera- 
tion, we rejoice in the progress already made in thts 
direction, and d^ire to re-affirm our conviction as 
follows : 

" That church extension into destitute communities 
should be conducted, as far as practicable, according 
to the following considerations : 

" I. No community in which any denomination 
has legitimate claims should be entered by another 
denomination, through its official agencies, without con- 
ference with the denomination or denominations having 
claims. 

" 2. A feeble church should be revived, if possible, 
rather than a new one established to become a rival. 

** 3. The preferences of a community should always 
be regarded by the denomination committees, mission- 
ary agents and individual workers. 

" 4. Those denominations having churches nearest 
at hand should, other things being equal, be recognized 
as in the most advantageous position to encourage and 
aid a new enterprise in their vicinity. 

'* 5. In case one denomination begins gospel work 
in a destitute community it should be left to develop 
that work without other denominational interference. 

" 6. Temporary suspension of church work by any 
denomination occupying a field should not be deemed 
sufficient warrant in itself for entrance into that field by 
another denomination. Temporary suspension shotdd 



COOPERATION APPLIED. 423 

be defined permanent abandonment when a church has 
had no preaching and held no meetings for an entire 
year or more. 

" 7. All questions of interpretation of the foregoing 
statements and all cases of friction between denomina- 
tions or churches of different denominations should be 
referred to the commission through its'executive com- 
mittee.'* 

It is too soon to chronicle great results from] this 
agreement. That it will work without friction or en- 
tirely satisfactorily, at any rate for some time to come, is 
probably not to be expected. That it has accomplished 
much is, however, unquestioned, and for our purpose it 
is invaluable as indicating the way in which this great 
principal of cooperation is to be applied to the work 
facing the churches in our own land. 

If we turn now to the foreign work, two events at- 
tract particular notice : the great Conference in London 
in 1888, following on several others, and especially the 
interdenominational Conference of foreign missionary 
Boards and Sodedes in the United States and Canada 
held in New York city in January, 1893. The former 
was called for the general discussion of similar topics 
by officers of the different Boards, that they might, " if 
possible, draw near to each other in real cooperation in 
their common work." 

The London Conference included representatives 
from almost every evangelical missionary society of this 
country, Great Britain and Continental Europe.. In 
New York were gathered the officers of twenty-three 
societies, representing eighteen different denominations 
and five interdenominational societies. . 

No special plan was formulated by either, and any- 



424 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

thing like a summary of the topics even is beyond our 
limits to-night. They will, however, well repay any 
one who can look them over and study them carefully. 
In general they correspond with the suggestion in 
regard to the home work, enlarging upon that, however, 
inasmuch as foreign work includes many departments 
which in this Country are hardly a part of home mis- 
sions. 

Looking now at the net result of these different 
discussions, we shall find that they may be classed 
under four heads : 

1. Fields unoccupied. 

2. Fields already occupied. 

3. Lines of work common to the different denom- 
nations. 

4. Lines of work belonging to each society yet 
which can hardly be called common. 

I. UNOCCUPIED FIELDS. 

How may the principle of codperation be applied 
to them ? By having regard, first, to the nature of the 
community itself, second, to the ability of the societies 
interested to care for it. Other things being equal, it is 
evident that in this country a community predominant- 
ly Baptist should be cared for by the Baptists ; Presby- 
terian by the Presbyterians, and so on. In accordance 
with this principle a Presbyterian superintendent, find- 
ing a village where there were a number of Baptists and 
only a few of his own denomination, refused to take 
them under his own care, even though they unanimous- 
ly requested it — ^saying that they had applied to the 
Baptist Home Missionary Society and been refused — 
but used all his influence, and successfully, to get them 



COOPERATION APPLIED. 425 

a Baptist preacher. So, too, a church has been advised 
to connect itself with another denomination because 
such change would secure for it the support and help of 
neighboring sister churches, while those of its own form 
of creed or worship were too far distant effectually 
to fellowship it. On the foreign field the race and lan- 
guage of the community itself are the prime considera- 
tions. New work among the Nestorians has been 
properly taken up by the Presbyterian Board, even 
though within the geographical limits claimed by the 
American Board. Those who have already shown 
marked success among the Karens of Burma or the 
Sweepers of India are naturally the best qualified to 
extend work among them, even if other denominations 
be somewhat nearer. 

On the other hand, this should not be an unvary- 
ing rule. No society has any right to undertake work 
that it has not a fair prospect of being able to carry 
on ; and simply because it happens to be better fitted in 
some respects for occuppng a certain field it should not 
occupy it to the exclusion of others, provided those 
others are able to occupy it more thoroughly. One of 
the most successful missionaries in Japan, thoroughly 
loyal to his own board and its work, has said that in his 
judgment it was of doubtful wisdom for the Presbyte- 
rian and Methodist Boards to enter Korea at a time 
when several new societies representing smaller de- 
nominations were rushing into Japan. The true prin- 
ciple of cooperation would have suggested that the new 
brethren be urged to take up the new work, especially 
as the older societies were already overburdened. 



426 MISSIONS AT HOlifB AND ABROAD. 

2. FIELDS ALREADY OCCUPIED. 

With regard to such the law of comity is very 
plain : no denominational sodety has any right to enter 
into any field already occupied by another, to the det- 
riment of its work. If the question be raised as to 
what constitutes such detriment, the answer in general 
is, anything that divides or weakens existing churches 
or deprives them of the means for a natural growth. 
When a home missionary society has entered a village, 
gathered a community, and is building up a self- 
supporting church, it is a breach of comity for another 
society to come in, because it has a few supporters, and 
making them a nucleus build up another church, which 
not only draws from the one already established but 
draws also from the outside community the element on 
which its predecessor must rely to develop its own 
strength. So, too, on the foreign field. When a soci- 
ety has, perhaps after years of labor and heavy expen- 
diture, it may be of life as well as money, built up a 
native church before which there is the prospect of 
success, it is a breach of comity for another society to 
come in and either filch from its fruits or hamper 
its growth. This is so plain that the statement is all 
that is needed. 

The case is not alwa3rs, however, so clear. There 
are fields too large for any one sodety to fill entirely 
without an unwise concentration of its effort, and not 
infrequendy it is the case that a field to aM appearance 
well supplied contains elements to which the existing 
means are not well adapted. Thus large cities, both at 
home and abroad, are generally acknowledged to be 
common ground, and the movements of immigration 



COOPERATION APPLIED. 427 

bring about new conditions which necessitate readjust-, 
ments. In such cases there is opportunity for the exer- 
cise of a cordial cooperation in the fullest sense of the 
term. One instance will suffice both to illustrate and 
enforce the method. 

New England has been predominantly Congrega- 
tional, and the Connecticut valley especially so. In the 
city of Holyoke, Mass., the Congregational churches 
found themselves called upon to meet the spiritual 
needs of a number of Scotch Presbyterians gathered in 
the mills, who did not readily assimilate with the exist- 
ing community. Believing that others could work 
among these people to better advantage than they, 
they united in sending a cordial invitation to the Pres- 
b3rterian Board of Home Missions to send a West- 
minster divine up the Connecticut, and subscribed 
seven thousand dollars to build a Presbyterian church. 

On the foreign field the opportunities for the exer- 
cise of this method of co5peration are exceedingly 
numerous, more so as yet than the illustrations of its 
adoption. More than one field well known to the 
churches at home could be cited where the occupying 
Board does not, and cannot, nearly meet the wants 
of the field, and yet takes no steps to secure assistance. 
Others perhaps hold aloof, either unwilling to come 
in apparent conflict with a sister society, or judging 
that ii the field is not filled it is because the work does 
not give promise for results. 

Although it seems at times as if every branch of 
the church is fiiUy enlisted, in truth it is not so. There 
are many societies as yet doing by no means all that 
they might do. Sometimes they hesitate about enter- 
ing a new or untried field. A larger, older society 



428 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

might well invite such a one to join with it in develop- 
ing a work greater than it can well carry alone. 

So the London Missionary Society welcomed the 
Society of Friends to Madagascar. The resulting ad- 
vantage can scarcely be estimated to the church in 
stimulating its missionary activity, to the field itself — 
bringing opportunities to those who otherwise would 
scarcely receive them — and perhaps not least to the in- 
viting society. A junior partner often brings to an old 
establbhed house an element which it sorely needs. 

This method is capable of very varied application 
which we can only suggest. 

3. The third method to which I wish to call atten- 
tion is that offered by the various lines of work which 
the denominations have in common and in which the 
denominational differences are either absent or less 
strongly marked. The chief of these are education, 
publication, and, especially on the foreign fields, the 
translation and distribution of the Scriptures. Into the 
vexed question as to the relation of education to mis- 
sionary work it is not necessary to enter here. It is 
sufficient to say that none even of those who oppose 
what they consider ultra-educational methods &il to 
recognize the absolute necessity in every mission field 
of a system of education which shall, first, enable the 
children of Christian communities to read and under- 
stand the Scriptures and religious books and hold an 
even pace in general knowledge with the students in 
non-Christian schools ; second, to fit a select number 
for the position of teachers and preachers. 

With the former we have not so much concern as 
with the latter, inasmuch as in this country primary 
education is supplied by the public schools, and in the 



COOPERATION APPLIED. 429 

foreign field to an increasing extent by the native com- 
munities, while the means for higher education must 
chiefly be furnished by the churches. Under existing 
methods each denomination furnishes its own, with the 
result that we have Congregational, Baptist, Presbyte- 
rian and Methodist colleges throughout the West and 
in all the great mission fields of the East. Wherever 
the different societies come into close contact it is inev- 
itable that there should be either waste from the multi- 
plication of institutions or friction from the demand by 
one society for persons educated by another. In Japan 
this is in a degree avoided by the union of the different 
Presbyterian and Reformed bodies, but it still holds 
true in regard to others ; and in China and India the 
difficulty is most marked. Surely there is here an op- 
portunity for cooperation of the fullest type. Making 
due allowance for distance and varying dialects, one 
college or academy should be some way provided for 
by a proportionate sharing of the expense. It is not 
right that, as not infrequently happens, men educated at 
considerable expense by one Board should be appro- 
priated by another at no cost of labor or money to it- 
self. Not only might this difficulty be avoided by 
co5perative education, but it would be possible to se- 
cure a higher grade of instruction for the pupils. 

Perhaps in some such way the vexed question as 
to the receipt of government grants by the mission 
schools in India might be met. 

Similar to the question of education is that of pub- 
lication. The furnishing of a Christian literature is one 
of the greatest problems of the day. As a matter of fact, 
the supply does not begin to equal the demand in any 
mission country in the world. The reason is partly the 



430 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

lack of persons qualified to prepare the needed books 
who can be spared from what seem to be more press- 
ing duties, pardy the great cost of publication. It is 
true that independent sociedes, especially in India and 
China, are to a great degree meeting the demand in 
these fields, yet much more might be accomplished, 
there as well as elsewhere, by a system by which the 
different societies should have common Boards or Com- 
mittees of Publication. 

The translation and distribution of the Scriptures 
is perhaps the most marked instance of the successful 
carrying out of the principle of co5peration. Such 
versions as the Japanese, Chinese and Turkish could 
never have been made had not the great Bible Societies 
joined hands with the missionary societies in gathering 
the results of the ripest scholarship of Europe and 
America for the production of versions which are the 
wonder and admiration of the Christian world. So, 
too, the general distribution of the Scriptures would 
have been impossible but for these great cooperative 
societies. 

4. Let us now look for a few moments at those 
lines of work which, although belonging to each soci- 
ety, can scarcely be said to be common ground. Such 
are the relations between societies and the native 
churches, pastors, students, etc. In one sense coopera- 
tion in these is impracticable, any more than two 
households can cooperate in the control of their inter- 
nal affairs. In another, it is not only practicable but 
essential, in order to the avoidance of friction and the 
best success of all alike. The greatest practical prob- 
lem before missions is not how to reach the unevangel- 
ized, but how to develop strong, self-supporting and 



COdPERATION APPLIED. 43 1 

self-propagating native churches. Now if one mission 
follows one plan, and another close by follows another 
and a radically different one, it is inevitable that confu- 
sion and discord will result. If one society makes a 
rule that no church or distinct congregation shall be 
formed until a pastor is available and the people are 
ready not merely to pay a certain (proportion of the 
salary but to agree to increase that proportion every 
year, while another society makes no such stipulation, 
but organizes any number of communicants and leaves 
the question of the pastor's support to take care of 
itself, it is evident that there will be dissatis&ction if not 
revolt. So, too, if two or more societies differ in regard 
to the grade of salaries paid to their pastors or other 
native agents, the one that pays the highest salaries 
will inevitably make trouble for its neighbors. 

Another difficulty results from the coming to this 
country of persons pardy educated at mission institu- 
tions on the field with a view to their employment 
there in mission work. It is the custom in every mis- 
sion to select bright young men for special training for 
the position of preachers or teachers. Not infrequendy 
these men, getting thus a taste of the higher education, 
imagine that they could be more useful if they could 
only learn a little more by coming to this country. 
Moreover, feeling the pressure of restricted circumstan- 
ces and opportunities in their own land, they manage 
to secure a passage, and on arriving here apply at once 
to the Board with which the mission in which they 
have been educated is connected. These Boards man- 
ifestiy cannot undertake to support them here or guar- 
antee their return to their home. Finding America to 
be not all they had imagined, disappointed, discour- 



432 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

aged, instead of setting to work to meet the situation as 
best they can, they are very apt to make overtures to 
other denominations, and very likely be taken up, their 
education carried further, and then the pressure is very 
strong for them to be sent back as full-fledged mission- 
aries. 

Into the full discussion of these three questions it 
is of course impossible to enter here. It is sufficient to 
say that all these as well as many other similar ones 
furnish excellent opportunities for the exercise of the 
principles not only of comity but of co5peration. 

Comity would suggest to a mission, establishing 
itself in near proximity to another mission, carefully to 
examine its methods of work in regard to the native 
churches to see if they are such as may injure work 
already begun. Cooperation will suggest that, if the two 
can work along similar even if not uniform lines, it will 
not only avoid harm but gain positive advantage. 
With regard to native employes and students, whether 
on the field or in this country, comity would suggest 
the greatest care in the acceptance of refugees from an- 
other denomination, and codperation will secure a solu- 
tion of the problem involved which would be impossi- 
ble for any one alone. 

This enumeration is by no means complete. It 
serves merely as an indication of the lines along which 
this much-needed cooperation may be extended and the 
methods of its application. 

The question now comes, What methods may be 
adopted to secure this application ? 

The first and most obvious is a better mutual 
acquaintance, on the part of missionaries and the Boards 
and the general public, as to the work of different soci- 



COOPERATION APPLIED. 433 

eties ; this to be secured by increased consultation and 
wider diffusion of missionary intelligence. I cannot co- 
operate with a man of whom I know nothing. It is 
essential that I have some clear understanding of him 
and his work, and there is no way by which that can be 
secured equal to sitting down and talking with him. I 
may read volumes about him, and feel as if I knew him, 
but when I sit down by his side, feel the touch of his 
hand, hear the tones of his voice, catch the gleam of 
his eye, I understand him as I never could otherwise. 
It is marvelous how, when Christian people get together 
and, actuated by a common influence, really seek to un- 
derstand each other, the occasions for misunderstanding 
or separation disappear. When these three Boards of 
Home Missiohs met they found that all they had to do 
was to agree to do together what each was already do- 
ing separately. They had to frame no new plan or 
code of rules, simply to emphasize as of universal appli- 
cation the rules they already had. If the circle were to 
be enlarged, and include with the Presbyterian, Congre- 
gational and Reformed, the Baptist, Methodist, Episco- 
pal and other Boards, would not the same thing hold 
true? It is worth trying. But, if faint or incredulous 
hearts shrink from so big an experience, let those near- 
est of kin come together, each in their sphere. Let the 
Presbyterian invite their brethren of the Southern, Uni- 
ted Reformed, the Associate Reformed and other 
Boards, the Congregationalist the Free Baptists, the 
Reformed their German Brethren; let Baptists, Nor- 
thern and Southern, Disciple and Christian connection, 
join hands ; let Methodists, North and South, Wesley- 
an, Protestant, etc., form their conference, and so on. 
When these have gotten near to each other, found oqt 

MlMlOlM. 28 



434 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

what their fellows are doing, they may discover that 
the chasms between the groups are not so wide but^that 
they can at least talk across. 

So, too, with regard to the foreign work. Let that 
interdenominational Conference of last winter be a 
regular thing, as regular as the ordinary meeting of the 
individual Boards. Perhaps it would bring too much 
of a tax upon the officers to have them annually : bien- 
nial and certainly triennial conferences are not too fre- 
quent. Here the Boards may well learn lessons from 
their missions. Conferences on the field itself have been 
numerous for many years and, as a result, with more 
difficult problems than any that &ce us at home, men 
of every form of Christian creed and worship have 
found in many fields at least a measure of codperation, 
and would have found more had it not been for the 
pressure brought to be^r^on them by the churches at 
home. 

Next to mutual consultation by the Boards them- 
selves is a wider information on the part of the churches 
at large. There has been a marvelous advance in this 
respect. The stunted periodicals made up of a patch- 
work of missionary letters by men of no editorial ex- 
perience have developed into magazines that vie with 
the secular monthlies in their efibrt to give the news of 
missions in attractive form. The weekly and daily 
press are recognizing the value of missionary news and 
giving a constandy increasing amount of space to it, 
and the list of missionary books grows so fast that it is 
almost impossible to keep pace with it There re- 
mains, however, not a litde to be done. The mission- 
ary monthlies, while jusdy giving greatest prominence 
tp their own field and work, may well give more of at- 



COOPERATION APPLIED. 435 

tendon to those of other societies, and the same thing 
may be recommended to the denominational religious 
press. It is not necessary that this wider news be given 
in detail, a slight reference is often all that is needed 
to remind the readers that there are many branches of 
the church and that no one can claim any exclusive 
right in the great work. 

Not less important, perhaps more so, than the 
knowledge of what is being done is the knowledge of 
what must be done. Probably few who have not given 
special attention to it have any conception of the gen- 
eral vagueness of idea, even absolute ignorance, on the 
the part of the great mass of the people as to the real 
object of mission work. Especially is this true in re- 
gard to the foreign work. Societies are formed, funds 
are collected, missionaries sent to other lands, for 
what? 

Two missionaries were once discussing their work. 
They seemed to have not a litde difficulty in agreeing 
on methods, etc. At last one asked the other, " What 
are you here on the foreign field for ? " " To preach 
the gospel" was the somewhat surprised answer. 
" What do you preach the gospel for ? *' " To con- 
vert men." "What do you convert men for ? " "To 
save their souls." "What do you save their souls 
for?" The blank look not less than the silence in- 
dicated that the other had come to the end of his 
catechism, and the questioner had to give his own 
answer : " To develop in them the life of Christ, and 
thus to build up the kingdom of God on earth." Many 
seem to have but a very faint conception of what it 
means to convert a nation. 

In few places do sadder thoughts come to the 



43^ MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Christian traveller and missionary than in those regions 
consecrated by the labors of the aposdes and the early 
church fathers. Do you know one principal cause of 
the stagnation in spiritual life of those Oriental churches 
through so many centuries ? They were swamped by 
converts. And that is just what some of our best and 
noblest missionaries in India are fearing to-day. As we 
have already said, let me repeat it, the greatest problem 
before the missionaries to-day is not how to reach the 
unevangelized, but how to develop a self-supporting, 
self-propagating native church. That means education, 
not merely spiritual and intellectual, but social and 
civil. The solution oi this problem needs the best that 
all churches and classes can give ; and just in propor- 
tion as this is realized will the demand for the practice 
of co5peration come. There is a certain advantage as 
well as disadvantage in the presence on a missionary 
field of different societies. It is easy for missions as 
well' as churches to get into ruts and imagine that they 
are doing all they can and in the best way. Coopera- 
tive rivalry, ''provoking one another unto love and 
good works '* is helpful rather than harmful, but it re- 
quires the moving power of a realizing sense of the 
magnitude of the task and of the absolute need of mu- 
tual counsel and help. 

Another method of securing cooperation beto^een 
the different denominations engaged in missionary 
work is that of sinking their differences, or, perhaps 
better, of emphasizing their points of agreement Mu- 
tual consultation or conference will amount to very litde 
if the purpose or the practical outcome be to accentuate 
the points of dissimilarity. Men can never work to- 
gether whose chief aim is to convert one another to 



COOPERATION APPLIED. 437 

their own ways of thinking. If any man and any 
church daim a sole dispensation for the work of build- 
ing up the kingdom of God .they thereby put them- 
selves outside of the possibility of co5peration with 
other men or churches. Instances of this are not want- 
ing. It is probable, however, that such are not rep- 
resented in this gathering. The churches of evangel- 
ical Christendom in the main accept, in principle, the 
rule of the aposde to do " nothing through faction or 
vain glory, but in lowliness of mind to count each bet- 
ter than himself," and are ready cordially to admit 
that their fellow churches have equal claim to honor 
and success in this great work with themselves. This 
being true they can well afford to make that admission 
practical by working together with them along such 
lines as they have in common. 

Observe that this sinking of differences does not 
mean denial of one's own individuality or require the 
endorsement of opinions which one does not share. 
Probably the best instances of co5perative action in 
mission work are those with which this century of mis- 
sions opened in this land, when Congregationalists, 
Presbyterians and Reformed joined hands in the Amer- 
ican Board and the American Home Missionary Soci- 
ety, and at the present day the United Church of Japan, 
the Synod of Brazil, and the proposed union in Korea. 
In no one of these cases did or do Congregationalists 
cease to be Congregational or Presbyterians Presbyte- 
rian. When the Cumberland Presbyterians were invi- 
ted to join in Japan with the churches from which they 
had separated in this country, there was no thought of 
asking them to deny in any degree the principles to 
which they had borne witness in the rich valley of 



438 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Tennessee. They simply were asked to cast in their 
lot in form with those with whom they were already 
one in spirit Have they regretted that union? By 
no means. It must be remembered that the American 
Board and Home Missionary Society became practi- 
cally denominational, instead of undenominational or 
interdenominational, not by reason of dissatisfaction on 
the part of those who withdrew to form their own 
Boards, but because it was felt that in that way the full 
energies of each different branch might be best devel- 
oped. The same thing undoubtedly holds true to-day. 
Let each body of Christian workers do its best to bring 
out its full strength in whatever way it seems best, but 
on the field, in face of the great mass of unbelief, let 
there be no divided front. Just as each army corps has 
its own drill, as cavalry, infantry, artillery have each 
their own practice, yet in the battle move together as 
one, so let the hosts of the Church, actuated by one 
impulse, under one leadership, move forward together. 
One leadership. Here, after all, is the secret We 
may consult together day in and year out, may know 
each other and each other's plans and work to the full, 
be perfecdy willing to waive our own peculiar ideas, 
but there can be no true co5peration which implies ad- 
vance without the sense of one leadership. We some- 
times wonder at the achievements of modem times, 
forgetful that the principles exemplified in these later 
halls of magic are the same as those taught in the hard- 
benched recitation-rooms of half a century ago. One 
of those principles was, that things that are equal to the 
same thing are equal to each other. Applied Xoper- 
soTis, the same law might read : persons who work to- 
gether with a third will work together with each other. 



COOPERATION APPLIEt). 439 

The apostle, deploring the same divisions in Corinth 
that we have to-day, applied it in this way : ** Paul 
may plant, ApoUos may water, but God giveth the in- 
crease. So, dien, neither is he that planteth anything, 
neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the in- 
crease." " For we are workers together with God." 

If every church, every missionary society, every 
mission, would, in all humility and self-abasement, 
make sure that it is working together with God, there 
would be no longer any need of effort to work together 
with each other. No eye should then say to the hand, 
I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the 
feet, I have no need of you, but the whole body, fidy 
framed and knit together through that which every 
joint supplieth, according to the working in due mea- 
sure of each several part, shall attain unto the perfect 
man, the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ. 

Thus we come back to the definition with which 
we started, with an addition : 

Cooperation in mission work is the working to- 
gether of the different branches of the Christian Church 
with God, to evangelize the world and build up the 
kingdom of God. 

It is applicable to every department of Christian 
e£fort. It is applicable in exact proportion to the con- 
secration of individual Christian men and women on the 
field and at home. 



440 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



THE BEARINGS OF INTERNATIONAL 
LA W ON RELIGIOUS TOLERA TION. 

BY REV. GILBERT REED, CHINA. 

This modem age is emphasizing more and more 
the principles of imiversality, and universality is Chris- 
tianity in its intent, scope, and final certainty. It is 
always well to link the great universal truths, in the 
multiplicity of their application, to the cause of missions, 
and not rest content with the narrowness of selfishness 
or the drudgery of commonplace. The world-endr- 
cling rays of the light of a divine revelation can lighten 
up all forms and classes of society, all races, every in- 
ternational problem, all social difficulties, and the right- 
fill attitude which one religious system should hold to 
another, until all is merged in the complete, compre- 
hensive, redeeming, absolute religion of the one God as 
manifested and personified in the one and only Saviour. 

It is therefore fitting that the sessions of one whole 
day in this Congress of Missions should be devoted to 
the consideration of problems which concern the wel- 
fare of nations and the life of the whole human race. 

For one to attempt to unfold the bearings of Inter- 
national Law on Religious Toleration it would be for- 
tunate if he could come to the study from an experience 
both in the Orient and the Occident, in a civilization 
termed Christian and one spoken of as heathen ; and 
what two nations can better be chosen for giving an 
experience and shaping opinion on this vital topic than 



INTERNATIONAL LAW AND TOLERATION. 44I 

this young republic of the United States and the old 
absolute monarchy of China ? 

No other two countries can be found with so many 
subjects or citizens of the one living in the other as 
these two» China and the United States: over 4»ooo 
Americans in China and still citizens of the United 
States, and over 100,000 Chinese in the United States 
and still subjects of China. The one nation young, 
active, rich, enlightened, and prosperous, the other an 
ancient empire before R,ome ruled in Gaul and Britain, 
intensely conservative and proudly exclusive, largely 
ignorant of the world but ever content with herself: 
the one nation known as Christian an^ defending the 
right of religious liberty, and the other tolerant in her 
attitude towards all religions — Confucianism, Buddhism, 
Taoism and Mohammedanism, Nestorianism, Roman- 
ism and Protestantism; the one looking towards the 
future and forgetting too much her own past, with the 
glorious heritage of the God-fearing founders of the 
nation, and the other living still in the past and veiling 
too much the demands and possibilities of the future — 
such are the two countries facing each other to-day 
across the blue waves of the Pacific and demanding the 
soundest, broadest diplomacy, the truest, bravest con- 
victions, the guidance of safe international principles, 
and the calm of a conscience true to itself and yet just 
to others, radiant ever with unflinching religious toler- 
ation. 

International law means right in its application by 
one nation to another. Religious toleration means 
respect for the individual conscience in its application 
by one religion to another. These ideas are essentially 
Christian, and when Christianity shall have swept 



442 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

throuj^hout the world then there will be perfect inter- 
national law and perfect religious toleration. 

The expression, "international law/' puts us in 
mind of dry codes and rigid enactments, but it was 
made a song at the dawn of the Christian era, when the 
angels made the heavens melodious with the glad re- 
frain of "peace on earth, good-will to men;" and let 
us never forget, as we exalt the brotherhood of man 
and the peace of the family of nations, that the basis is 
" glory to God in the highest." A worshipful religion 
is the seed ; a loving morality is the harvest. 

International law is first a recognition of certain 
principles, such as mutual peace, amity, respect, and 
equality. It is next a collection of rules eitundating 
these principles which civilized states by common con- 
sent have adopted for their mutual intercourse. And, 
finally, by the conclusion of treaties, these rules are 
developed into the supreme law of the land, coequal 
with municipal law and the acts of each national legisla- 
tive body. International law is primarily a feature oi 
peace, while secondarily, and only so, it may relate to 
nations at war. The latter is merely the imperfect con- 
dition in which perfect principles are trying to live. 

If international law aims first of all for peace 
among the nations of the earth, it must likewise seek 
for peace among the religions of these nations; for 
every nation has some religion. This, then, is religious 
toleration, an essential part of international law. 

But what do we mean by religious toleration ? It 
is intermediate between religious persecution, on the 
one side, and religious liberty and equality on the 
other. Toleration is a concession, and implies some- 
thing of disapproval ; but liberty is a right which con- 



INTERNATIONAL LAW AND TOLERATION. 443 

science and God demand for every individual will. 
Ancient Europe had religious persecution, modem 
Europe has religious toleration, but the United States 
has religious liberty. 

To attain to the temper of toleration is by no 
means easy. To hold on to it the mind must reason 
with itself thus: "Having a conscience, I must do 
whatever my conscience requires. Others have con- 
sciences also, and they must do whatever their con- 
sciences require. A great many do things and have 
opinions which my conscience disapproves, and yet I 
must respect the consciences oi others till we all agree, 
seeing eye to eye. If I cannot tolerate others they 
probably will not tolerate me. Hence there must be 
mutual toleration of religious convictions, or, in other 
words, religious toleration." 

It is Thomas Carlyle who, in his " Heroes and 
Hero Worship," has said, ** Well, surely it is good that 
each of us be as tolerant as possible. Yet at bottom, 
after all the talk there is and has been about it, what is 
tolerance? Tolerance has to tolerate the ^inessential, 
and to see well what that is. Tolerance has to be no- 
ble, measured, just in its very wrath when it can toler- 
ate no longer. But, on the whole, we are not altogether 
here to tolerate ! We are here to resist, to control, and 
vanquish withal. We do not 'tolerate ' falsehoods, ini- 
quities, when they fasten on us ; we say. Thou art false 
and unjust We are here to extinguish &lsehoods, and 
put an end to them, in some wise way." 

Such words as these need to be weighed in these 
days of boasted liberality and toleration. All that is 
evil in the world must be resisted with a resistless an- 
tagonism. All that is good needs not only to be tbler- 



444 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ated but to be aided, until victory for the good shall 
be finally achieved. But the trouble is, there is such a 
strange mixture of evil and good that we &il to be dis- 
criminating in our judgments and fair in our conclu- 
sions. In the meantime there is a call for toleration 
till the harvest-time will come, when the chaff shall be 
separated from the wheat 

The magnificent spectacle of the Parliament of 
Religions has been the greatest exhibition in a Chris- 
tian land of religious toleration : but to the missionary 
in the Orient such parliaments are an every-day occur- 
rence. To study comparative religions China is a 
superior country to the United States, and well may we 
say, with good Isaac Watts, 

" Seize upon truth where'er 't is found, 
Among your friends, among your foes, 
On Christian or on heathen ground ; 
The flower *8 divine where'er it grows: 
Neglect the prickles and assume the rose." 

To recognize the presence of God and truth in 
other religions and to rejoice in it will never cut the 
spinal cord of my missionary zeal or my loyalty to the 
Christian faith. Goodness or truth, wherever found, 
has, all of it and in every part of it, come from God, the 
one source, and to God be all the praise ; but in China 
at least, with many sages and teachers, no one has ever 
declared that there was a Saviour till Jesus was an- 
nounced ; and if he be not the Saviour then no Saviour 
has yet appeared. For these men, feeling after God if 
haply they may find him, let us hasten to tell the glad- 
some message of God's plan of saving the world in the 
manifestation of himself and the revelation of his plan 
in Christ Jesus our Lord. The resdessness of human 



INTERNATIONAL LAW AND TOLERATION. 445 

souls can only be satisfied by the lofty teachings of 
Christ, who ever aimed, as we should aim, to give 
grander glimpses of truth, when all may see 



** One God, one law, one element, 
And one far oflf divine intent, 
To which the whole creation moves." 

Christianity was meant for man, as man was meant 
for God. Christianity as it works is sometimes imper- 
ceptible, like those quiet changes of atmosphere pro- 
duced by winds blowing in distant places ; and again it 
comes with conspicuous power, like the mighty commo- 
tions of winds and clouds rushing around and over us. 
Whether early or late, all thought and all souls are 
touched by the mysterious influences of the Divine, and 
it remains for the Christian disciple to marshal the 
forces of Truth together, and by their mighty combina- 
tion to reveal the length and breadth, the depth and 
height, of God's wisdom, power and love. 

In harmony with this spirit of Christ are the spirit 
of religious toleration and the principles of internation- 
al law. Christ was no bigot. Judaism was exclusive in 
its policy ; but Christ flung open the gates not only of 
Paradise but of the nations of the earth. But, also, it 
took a long time for these broader ideas to loom up in 
the councils of the nations, and even now we come &r 
short of the glory of God. The failure is due to hered- 
itary evil and not to imputed or implanted righteous- 
ness. 

International law did not properly arise till after 
the peace of Westphalia, over 300 years ago. Religious 
toleration was even longer in its delay. In Italy it was 
not till 1870 that Romanism tolerated Protestantism 



446 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

within the precincts of the Holy City, and that was the 
time when united Italy took her place in the peaceful 
circle of the family of nations. Even Russia to-day is 
but slightly tolerant to any other creed than that 
of the Greek Church, and in her international inter- 
course she is more a nation to be feared for some unex- 
pected barbaric love of conquest than to be trusted for 
her positive allegiance to international peace, comity 
and good-wiU. 

For further example let us content ourselves with 
the two countries named at tHe outset: the United 
States and China. 

As to religious toleration, the early setders of this 
country were a litde slow in granting to others what 
they claimed for themselves ; but, by the time the Re- 
public was established and the Constitution made, fiill 
liberty of thought, speech, conscience and worship was 
irrevocably guaranteed. By the separation of Church 
and State the State did not declare itself irreligious, but 
re-affirmed the clear statement of Christ, " Render to 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the 
things that are God's." 

As to the principles of international law the United 
States has always held a commanding position, and for 
the most part as commendable as it was commanding. 
Over fifty cases of international complication have been 
setded by international arbitration, while the Pan- 
American Congress has decided that arbitration shall 
rule hereafter on this American continent. So much, 
so good. 

With the good and with the glory I see a littie 
shadow cast across our record, and that in our inter- 
national relations with China. We erect a pedestal 



INTERNATIONAL LAW AND TOLERATION. 447 

much like the tower of Babel, and on it inscribe " the 
liberty of man, woman and child/' and then we knock 
down half of the underpinning, and leave the pedestal 
all aslant and ready to tumble, by our drastic measures 
of Chinese exclusion. Both the job of building the 
tower and the process of knocking it down seem to me 
to be extreme measures and not exacdy what we needed 
for the safe guidance of a popular government At one 
moment we cry till we are hoarse, '' Free entrance to 
all the world," and the next we hear the door groan on 
its hinges and ready to slam in the face of the Orient. 
The novel legislation as exhibited in the Geary bill of 
May 5, 1892, is a profound specimen of doing harm by 
means of the law, seeking to expel the Chinese but 
working disaster to our own interests, and the best 
illustration of the answer given by a college classmate, 
who when asked, '* What is legitimate homicide ?" said, 
"When a man kills himself in self-defence.'' 

But let us not talk at random, and, more than all, 
let us in the Congress of Missions be perfecdy fair. 
Having been in Washington for nearly a month in the 
interests of better legislation for the Chinese, I have en- 
deavored to know and appreciate the view of even an 
opponent. Having conversed with nearly all the mem- 
bers of the two committees on Foreign Relations, I 
gladly recognize their courtesy and their regard for 
juster measures. To hit the mark we need to see 
clearly. Even a good principle needs limitation ; even 
love needs to be guided. For our young republic to 
make liberty one of its batde-cries — the pole-star of 
the nation — was a .sound policy, full of inspiration; 
but liberty unchecked is license, while liberty regu- 
late involves restrictions; even the pole-star must 



448 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

find its place in the universe of revolving planets and 
shining stars. 

Tliere is a story told that a certain senator discuss- 
ing the immigration of the Chinese quoted the words, 
" God hath made of one blood all the nations of men 
for to dwell on all the face of the earth," and another 
senator added, ** Yes, and hath determined the times 
before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." 

Thus it is according to Scripture and international 
law every sovereign nation possesses independence, 
and, as Chancellor Kent has clearly said, " If any gov- 
ernment deems the introduction of foreigners or their 
merchandise injurious to those interests of their own 
people which they are bound to protect and promote, 
they are at liberty to withhold the indulgence." When 
our fellow-citizens in San Francisco, having more than 
60,000 Chinese in that one city, or nearly three times 
as many as all the foreigners in all of China, daim the 
necessity of the further restriction of Chinese immigra- 
tion, that opinion of course is bound to be respected and 
is in perfect harmony with international law. The treaty 
of 1880 also established this right, and by the magnan- 
imity of the Chinese Government it was stated in Arti- 
cle I that " Whenever in the opinion of the government 
of the United States the coming of Chinese laborers to 
the United States or their residence therein affects, or 
threatens to affect, the interests of that country, or to 
endanger the good order of said country or of any lo- 
cality within the territory thereof, the government of 
China agrees that the government of the United States 
may regulate, limit, or suspend such coming or resi- 
dence." 

The mere matter of registration is likewise perfect- 



INTERNATIONAL LAW AND TOLERATION. 449 

ly legitimate, and, as Justice Field acknowledged, "To 
procure such a certificate was not a hardship to the 
laborers, but a means to secure full protection to them, 
and at the same time prevent an evasion of the law." 

Where international law has been slighted is in the 
acknowledged violation of certain stipulations in our 
treaties with China. And right here it should be noted 
that the Scott Bill of 1888 violated the treaties more 
than the Geary Bill of 1892, and yet many of our Chris- 
tian people have failed to note this fact, but have been 
hurling their wrath at wrong objects. The Geary Bill 
has weakened the obligations of treaties because, for 
failure to register, the Chinese were denied full process 
of law and were punishable with deportadon, and so it 
was contrary to the treaty of 1880, which declared that 
the Chinese " shall be accorded all the rights, privileges, 
immunities and exemptions which are accorded to the 
citizens and subjects of the most favored nation." 
Whatever is done, let the sacred contract between one 
nadon and another be preserved inviolate, either by 
harmonizing our legislative law with the law of existing 
treaties or by making a new treaty in harmony with 
the law of the land. The Supreme Court has decided 
that the act oi Congress must prevail over a prior treaty, 
but at the same time a violation of treaty is a hostile 
measure rather than a friendly one, and lays the coun- 
try open to the liabilities of war. More in harmony 
with international law is the careful observance of every 
demand of an international treaty, and so an honor and 
credit to our boasted civilization. 

Now let us turn to the application of these prin- 
ciples to the history and conduct of the Chinese 

Empire. 

29 



4S0 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

International law first became a factor in the life of 
that people in 1840, when treaties were made between 
China and Great Britain. From that time to the pres- 
ent, whether willingly or not, treaty- rights, treaty-priv- 
ileges, treaty-observances, have been the one thing 
drummed into the Chinese ears. Every question, great 
or small, has been pushed in China by all the might 
and authority of the treaty. Three treatises on In- 
ternational Law have been translated into the Chinese 
language, and more and more do the leading manda- 
rins of that country and the young Emperor who sits 
upon the throne see the necessity of these international 
principles, if the vast Empire shall remain intact during 
the years to come. 

By the sovereignty of her own right and by the 
agreement of treaties limitations have also existed. 
Foreigners, as such, are limited in residence to certain 
territory called " foreign concessions," or treaty-ports, 
twenty -two in all. Travel elsewhere is allowed to all 
who hold a passport identifying the man and duly 
signed and sealed by the representatives of the two 
Governments. By the extended favor of the Chinese 
throne missionaries have been allowed to reside and 
purchase property in the interior of China, but not so 
much as foreigners as because they are teachers of a 
religion which, as defined in the treaties, exhorts men to 
do good and observe the Golden Rule. 

This, then, leads us to the consideration of China's 
attitude on religious toleration. 

At first sight, so far as religions are concerned, 
China certainly seems to bear the palm for religious 
toleration. Before the Christian era, notwithstanding 
the presence of Confiicianism, expeditions were des- 



INTERNATIONAL LAW AND TOLERATION. 45 1 

patched to find the islands of the immortals^ an idea 
which developed with the hopes of the Taoists for 
immortality. Then came the journeys of messengers 
of the Chinese emperor to find in the West some great 
sage or Saviour, resulting in the cordial invitation to 
Buddhist priests to preach their doctrines to the Chi- 
nese people. Afterwards, about the year 600 of the 
Christian era, came the invitation of another emperor 
to the teachers of Mohammedanism ; while about the 
same time was £aivor extended by the highest classes 
and by imperial patronage to the Nestorian branch of 
the Christian ctiurch. Then later on, in the Mongol 
Dynasty, Mongol rulers, and especially the celebrated 
conqueror Kubla-Khan, broadened the scope of their 
toleration, until Christianity as represented by the en- 
voys of the Pope of Rome received a cordial welcome 
and full protection. The later agents of Rome like- 
wise secured favor and influence with the very highest 
of the Empire, and built their churches on imperial 
ground by imperial aid. But it is equally evident, as 
a matter of history, that not many years passed in the 
present dynasty before Romanism was prohibited, and 
this exclusive policy continued to prevail till foreign 
powers compelled the adoption again, but by treaty- 
law, of religious toleration, to be applied equally to 
Romanism and Protestantism. 

Right along with this display of religious toleration 
there has existed a spirit of proud exclusiveness and 
contemptuous assumption. If nothing should arise to 
thwart this assumption no exclusiveness would appear ; 
but once let another religion propose to dim or surpass 
the teachings of China's ancient sages, or some outside 
nation affirm or display a stronger civilization or great- 



452 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

er power, then China, in her hereditary pride, united 
with a new -bom sense of fear, would dose her doors 
and ask to be left alone. 

China supposed herself the Middle Kingdom, while 
all other peoples were vassal thereto. She was known 
as "under heaven,'' while others should be termed 
''barbarians." Let some nation or religion refuse to 
accept this creed, then exclusiveness would assert itself 
on China's part, and if this should be tampered with 
reaction would set in under the form of riot. That 
such a spirit is capable of being removed and peace 
reign is the inevitable result of a bold, catholic, com- 
prehensive enlightenment ; but till this takes place with 
all classes and in all the Empire confusion and collision 
will continue to ensue. 

One sows and another reaps, but we all rejoice 
together. The course is ever forward ; the era is that 
of progress. The one true church of the living God, 
undivided by time and unbroken by death, moves for- 
ward with a radiant faith, as with the swing and stride 
of a giant's strength it transforms nations, overpowers 
thrones, magnifies peace, amity, and good-will, defends 
the fraternity of man, relieves the distressed and the 
sorrowing, saves the erring child who has strayed from 
our Father's love, and with hidden voices speaking to 
all vindicates the sovereignty of the Divine, who with 
illimitable sway shall reign over all and gladden the 
hearts of men. 



MISSIONARIES AS CITIZENS. 453 



THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CHRISTIAN 

GOVERNMENTS AS TO THE CITIZEN 

RIGHTS OF MISSIONARIES. 

BY WM. ELLIOTT GRIFFIS, D. D. 

An American in discussing this theme must be 
careful to define and discriminate. This is all the more 
necessary because the theme touches national and 
international politics, and because the language of 
diplomacy and treaties is technical and not sentimental. 
We must note carefully not only as to truth) which is 
one thing, but also as to fact, which may be something 
quite different from truth, even as the spirit may differ 
wholly from the letter. There are governments, repre- 
senting the will of peoples overwhelmingly Christian in 
sentiment and procedure, which yet make no profes- 
sion of the religion of Jesus or advertisement of the 
name Christian. Other governments, on the conti-ary, 
call themselves by such terms as " Holy," *' Orthodox," 
" Christian," etc., which are yet far behind the spirit of 
this Christian age. Their chief magistrates quite outdo 
the Asiatic " Sons of Heaven " and other alleged vicars 
of Deity by naming themselves " Most Christian " and 
" Most Catholic " Majesties, and their treaties are usu- 
ally made in the name of " the Holy and Indivisible 
Trinity," or in some other form of words supposed to 
be doing God service or honor. 

The Government of the United States of America, 
however, b not, either by the terms of its constitution, 



4S4 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

by the diplomatic language which it uses, by the suc- 
cessive utterances of its agents, high or subordi- 
nate, or by the letter of its missives, a Christian gov- 
ernment It is founded on the fundamental princi- 
ple of the separation of Church and State. It knows 
nothing of the religious opinions of its citizens abroad. 
In its first and last treaty, and in all its utterances to 
foreign nations, the Government of the United States 
has nothing to do with the doctrinal forms of religion. 
In the three references to God or Divine Providence in 
the Declaration of Independence no hint of the differ- 
ence between the various religions among men is 
given. In the first treaty with France, in 1778, our Con- 
tinental Congress was content to let the term " The 
Most Christian King " stand as the name of one con- 
tracting party over against that of the other, which was 
" the thirteen United States of North America," with- 
out desire of imitation. In the constitution made in 
1787 no reference of any sort is made to Deity. In the 
treaty with Tripoli in 1796 — a treaty drawn up by 
a Calvinistic Congregational clergyman and signed by 
men like Washington, Humphreys and Barlow, who 
were devout members of Christian churches — the atti- 
tude and character of our political system is thus 
stated : 

" The Government of the United States of America 
is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion ; 
as it has in itself no character of enmity against the 
laws, religion or tranquillity of Mussulmans ... no pre- 
text arising from religious opinions shall ever produce 
an interruption of the harmony existing between the 
two countries." 

Substantially the same expressions and declara- 



MISSIONARIES AS CITIZENS. 455 

tions of the purely political character of the Govern- 
ment of the United States, in its foreign policy, are re- 
iterated in the treaty with Algiers in 1805. The 
absolute freedom from any acceptance of a special 
system of tenets of religion is also shown in all suc- 
ceeding treaties, made with other nations down to the 
present time. The other high contracting powers might 
profess and proclaim and advertise the particular forms 
of religion championed by them, but the United States, 
as a government, in its foreign relations, neither patron- 
izes nor seeks the aid of the formularies of any religion. 
Our fathers, who in their private convictions knew well 
the spirit of the Prince of Peace, and His words, " My 
Kingdom is not of this world," were familiar with his- 
tory. They knew of the misery and bloodshed caused 
by wars waged in the name of religion. They, there- 
fore, following the example of the Anabaptists, and of 
the tolerant federal republics of Switzerland and the 
Netherlands, voluntarily and deliberately refused all 
political championship, patronage, or propaganda of 
the formularies of religion. 

On the other hand, as our government is not in 
any way founded on the Christian religion, so neither 
has it any hostility to tlie Christian or any other relig- 
ion. In both its foundation and procedure the Govern- 
ment of the United States of America is founded for 
justice and righteousness on the laws of nature. The 
absence of the name of God or of any appeal to the 
Holy Trinity in our national documents no more proves 
doubt, denial or lack of reverence for Deity than does 
the omission, of Jehovah's name in the unrevised Eng- 
lish versions of Esther and the Song of Songs prove the 
atheism of their authors. In spirit and substance the 



456 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Constitution of the United States, and, in general, Ameri- 
can diplomacy, from Franklin and Adams, Decatur and 
Barlow, to Matthew Perry and S. Wells Williams, and 
the Geneva and Paris Arbitration Conferences, is in- 
trinsically and profoundly Christian. In thus discard- 
ing the political formularies of debased or medieval 
Christianity and incorporating more of the spirit of 
Christ in the substance of their diplomacy, the United 
States followed, as Madison, " the father of the Consti- 
tution," declared, the example of the Dutch republic ; 
the first Protestant government that tolerated Jews, 
Roman -catholics and Anabaptists. To- day most of 
the governments of Christendom — the British and the 
German empires, the French Republic, etc. — ^are sub- 
stantially alike. This is an era not of less faith but of 
faith and works. The law of Christ, made void by the 
letter, is more than ever regnant in spirit. 

Under the various governments of Christendom, in 
Europe, North and South America, Australia and por- 
tions of Asia and Africa, there are citizens and subjects. 
In theory, the subject obeys and is governed, while the 
citizen governs as well as obeys. For the present pur- 
pose, however, we may consider both citizen and sub- 
ject as practically the same; and this, first, because 
under some governments monarchical in form the 
subject enjoys more real liberty and has more rights 
and also responsibilities than the citizen under alleged 
or real republics, and, second, because, in the eye of 
the foreign government, citizen and subject, freeman 
and slave are practically the same — that is, alien. 

The citizen or subject of a Christian State does not 
lose or abridge his political rights by travelling or re- 
siding in another country, unless this be expressly 



MISSIONARIES AS CITIZENS. 457 

known or stated in the statutes or constitution of the 
government to which he gives allegiance. Indeed, this 
may be one of the clearly legible marks puttii^ difikr- 
ence between a Christian and non-Christian govern- 
ment. Diplomacy in its highest form and international 
law in its noblest developments are, like the science of 
comparative religion, the distinctive creation of Chris- 
tianity. Grotius, called " the father of modem interna- 
tional jurisprudence/' was a devout Christian, and 
simply applied Christianity to the laws of nations. 
Islam may, for centuries, oudaw or condemn with the 
sword the disciple of Mohammed who changes his 
£uth or naturalizes himself in a Christian nation. China 
may, during ages, refuse to own her children, and may 
disavow their rights, who leave the confines of the 
Middle Kingdom. The hermit nations, like Japan of 
old, may not only diso wn all responsibility but may 
repel with powder and ball the relief ships of Christen- 
dom that bring back the shipwrecked waife of humanity 
to their home lands. When, on the contrary, Christian 
governments, growing in the humanity and fraternity 
taught by Jesus, belt the globe with their legations and 
consulates, make charts of all seas, locate rocks and 
shoals, and kindle the beacons on every shore that give 
light and save life, erect the sailors' hospital, and plot 
out the hallowed burial-ground for the dead, then, and 
not till then, the non-Christian governments tread the 
same footsteps, even to reciprocation and arbitration. 
It is those governments least Christian, it may be, in 
formal profession, most Christ-like in spirit and act, 
which lay most expressive emphasis upon the rights of 
their citizens, and do most to maintain them. 

The dtizen abroad loses none of his rights nor is 



458 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

relieved of any of his responsibilities as citizen because 
he is a missionary. His rights are no less, no more, 
than those of any other non-official citizen abroad 
whose rights and privileges are defined by treaty. In 
so far, no more and no less, the teacher of religion 
should be protected as other citizens are protected. In 
countries and among nations where the missionary 
penetrates his life should be as safe, his comfort as sure, 
his hurt or death avenged to the last demand of justice 
as fully as in the case of any other citizen. The mis- 
sionary must ask no favors beyond the most &vored 
citizen, nor should he or his supporters be content 
witii anything less. Whether by diplomatic personal 
pressure, or by other resources of civilization, the citi- 
zen rights of missionaries, as of all other loyal subjects 
or citizens, should be maintained. Unfair discrimination 
between peaceable and well-behaved citizens under the 
same government is both a vice and a crime. 

Let us glance at the political status of an American 
citizen abroad. He goes beyond the frontiers of the 
United States not as a citizen of New York, Illinois, 
or any one of the States, but only of the United States, 
which abroad knows nothing of an American dtizen's 
religion. In a word, it makes no discrimination be- 
tween the missionary and other citizens, guaranteeing 
to both full protection. All being entided to the same 
rights, all possible immunity from danger, and redress 
when wronged, are promised to all alike. Hence the 
missionary, as a citizen, has the fullest claim to redress, 
and can demand that the responsibility of the United 
States be declared and exhibited. Whether the ques- 
tion at issue be the breaking up of a mission at Pona- 
p6, where the property at stake is a very few thousand 



MISSIONARIES AS CITIZENS. 459 

dollars in value, or in Turkey, where it approaches 
millions, the principle is one and the same. If for 
the sake of enforcing treaty rights it be necessary to 
make war and shed blood, the responsibility is wholly 
with the Government and not with the missionary soci- 
ety or its supporters. No just criticism on the particu- 
lar form of religion held by the missionary or his society 
can be made, for the simple reason that the whole sub- 
ject of formal religion is ignored by the United States 
Government — which knows neither Jew nor Christian, 
atheist nor deist, among its citizens abroad. 

Let us look to the authorities and see if our posi- 
tion is sound. In a communication addressed to Mr. 
George W. Marsh, Minister to Turkey, Mr. Edward 
Everett, Secretary of State, February 5, 1853, wrote: 
" Missionaries sent out by religious communities in the 
United States to Mohammedan or pagan lands are en- 
tided to all the protection which the laws of nations 
allow the Government to extend to citizens who reside 
in foreign countries in the pursuit of their lawful avoca- ' 
tions." 

Again, Mr. Evarts, Secretary of State, writing to 
Mr. Foster, Minister to Russia, in regard to American 
Hebrews — whose faith was proscribed, as a military 
offence against Russian law — March 3, 1881, says, 
" This Government does not know or inquire the reli- 
gion of the American citizen. We are indisposed to 
regard it as a maintainable point that a religious belief 
is, or can be, a military offence, to be dealt with under 
the arbitrary methods incident to the existence of a 
* state of siege.' " 

Again, Mr. Blaine, writing to Mr. Foster in i88i, 
says, " The Government ol the United States concludes 



460 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

its treaties with foreign States for the equal protection 
of all classes of American citizens. It can make abso- 
lutely no discrimination between them whatever by 
their origin or creed. So that they abide by the laws, 
at home or abroad, it must give them due protection 
and expect like protection for them. Any unfriendly 
or discriminatory act against them on the part of a for- 
eign power with which we are at peace would call for 
our earnest remonstrance, whether a treaty existed or 
not" 

These extracts might be multiplied to show that a 
missionary loses none of his rights as a citizen because 
of his work and calling. They also show that the Uni- 
ted States will not allow its citizens to be outlawed 
for their religious belief, or have any of their rights 
abridged because of their faith. When, therefore, a 
missionary's life or property is in danger the Govern- 
ment is as fully bound to protect it as in the case of 
merchant or traveller, and, in the case of loss or destruc- 
tion of either, to seek and obtain redress. As the Gov- 
ernment knows not nor inquires the religion of its 
citizens, so it knows not nor inquires into his commerr 
cial or non-commercial character. The Government 
knows only citizens, not traders or missionaries. To 
abate by one jot the demand for justice in the case of a 
penniless missionary, while a fleet is sent to vindicate 
the majesty of the flag when money is to be collected, 
is to debase authority to the level of barbarism. If 
American missionaries at Ponap6 are imprisoned and 
their property confiscated and litde or no notice taken 
of it at Washington, when a whole squadron was sent 
to Naples to collect money for Baltimore insurance 
companies, then something is wrong in the policy of 



MISSIONARIES AS CITIZENS. 46 1 

the United States Government or we as a nation have 
fallen away from a high standard. If a war be begun 
with Corea, and four hundred natives are slaughtered 
by Dahlgren howitzers and Bridesburg rifles because 
certain American marauders in the schooner "Gen- 
eral Sherman ^' have been attacked, while the Turks are 
allowed to burn mission premises and assault American 
women, then we cannot help thinking there is either 
inconsistency or weakness at Washington. Does the 
Government say that it ** can make absolutely no dis- 
crimination between its citizens *' abroad ? Then let us 
have interpretations and manifestations showing that it 
makes no discriminations between great countries like 
Spain and the Ottoman Empire, and litde ones like 
Siam or Corea, and that its pleasure is equal whether 
in acting as the dun or as the protector. To regard 
property more than life or money more than character 
does not show that the American statesmen of to-day 
are closely imitating those founders of the republic who 
cried, " Millions for defence, but not one cent for trib- 
ute." It is as true to-day as in the time of Madison 
and Decatur that "as peace is better than war, war 
is better than tribute." To refuse adequate protec- 
tion or vindication, to be lax in enforcing treaty rights 
on the soil of powerful nations, is cowardice; to be 
too forward with force in puny States is injustice. 
To submit tamely to infracdons of treaties is to pay 
tribute. 

It is also equally true now as it was a century ago 
that certain rulers claim to reign Jure divinOy and by 
titles and pretensions that insult the intelligence of the 
civilized world profess to be at the head of sovereign- 
ties that incorporate in themselves the whole of a re- 



462 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

ligion — the Christian, the Mohammedan, the Confucian, 
the Buddhist, the Shinto, or what not. Such pretenses 
make the profession, by a subject, of any other than the 
state religion a misdemeanor, an offense, or a crime, 
punishable in various degrees, even to the loss of life. 
When a country like Russia or Turkey attempts to 
enforce its religious dogmas, even to the maltreatment 
and imprisonment of American citizens, it should at 
once be made to know that the Government of the 
United States cannot be trifled with. To be lax, dila- 
tory or inert in insisting on the rights of our citizens in 
states whose governments are professed theocracies is 
to depart from American traditions and setded policy. 
A crime committed in the name of God or religion 
against an American citizen should be redressed with 
the same vigor and promptness as spoliations upon 
American commerce or crimes committed with a secu- 
lar motive. 

The missionary from Christendom goes into these 
Asiatic, African and European theocracies, so-called, in 
which are Vicars of God, Caliphs, Czars, Sons of 
Heaven, sovereigns exalted as the planet Saturn, Most 
Christian Majesties, etc., etc., and teaches doctrines 
which contravene claims which seem to him ridiculous, 
but which as an alien he must respect. What are his 
rights in the field of propagation? What privileges 
has he as a teacher? Though an alien he assembles 
public audiences, holds meetings, influences the minds 
of men who are not his fellow citizens. Though under 
the very shadow of laws denouncing death to the pros- 
elyte, he is proselyting. What are his rights ? How 
far can he claim protection from his government in this 
his work ? 



MISSIONARIES AS CITIZENS. 463 

The answers we shall attempt to make will be un- 
der three heads : 

I. He has the rights granted ab anHquo by the 
laws or policy of the alien country itself to all foreign- 
ers resident, even when no treaty exists. 

II. He has the rights expressly stipulated and 
guaranteed, or iairly deducible by a fair interpretation 
of the treaties made. 

III. He has those rights, in like manner and pro- 
portion with all other fellow-citizens, which came from 
tacit extension of the treaties and which are secured by 
mutually allowed precedents. 

The first point is of vital interest because in a 
number of instances missionaries have not waited for 
treaties, but taking their lives in their hands have 
jeoparded them for Christ's sake among barbarous 
and savage peoples. In Islam, notably in the Ottoman 
Empire, American missionaries entered and began 
acdve work as early as 18 19, five years before a treaty 
with the United States was made. Under extensions 
of the Edict of Toleration of 1453 they obtained the 
privileges of extra- territoriality, and exercised their 
calling as teachers of religion among the Sultan's sub- 
jects. Their benevolent, publicadonal and educational 
enterprises were fully initiated and in course of exten- 
sion before the treaty of 1824. Had no treaty been 
made, these American missionaries would have pros- 
ecuted their work so long as peace between Islam and 
Christendom continued. Hence, when, as at present, 
the policy of the Turkish government is apparendy not 
only to curtail but to deny and abolish the rights 
of Christian missionaries, it is the duty of the Govern- 
ment at Washington to protest in a manner which can- 



464 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

not be mistaken at Stamboul. The whole of Western 
Christendom should be a unit in preventing that arbi- 
trary action which, under the guise of regulation, 
evidendy aims to destroy. The spirit of Islam seems 
again rampant. 

With the laws of the Ottoman empire and the 
decisions of its tribunals, in so far as they touch no 
rights of foreign citizens, Christian governments have 
nothing to do ; but when a policy is deliberately adopt- 
ed in time of peace, by the Ottoman or any other gov- 
ernment, which infringes rights enjoyed for over four 
centuries, it is the duty of Christian Powers to protect, 
re-affirm, and confirm those rights. Against the rufHan, 
the murderer, and the incendiary not only, but against 
the officer or underling who makes use of the law to 
molest the peaceable foreigner, protest should be made 
as strongly as if the interests involved were on Ameri- 
can or British soil. We consider it the instant duty of 
Christian governments to inquire into the pre-treaty 
rights of missionaries and so far to maintain them as to 
refuse to allow barbarism to reassert itself on the soil of 
Europe. It would be well if the popular mind were 
enlightened as to the particular fact that there are dti- 
zen rights of missionaries antedating formal treaties. 
These are no more, no less, than those of other citizens, 
and they should be demanded and the demand en- 
forced by argument which eve n the most fatuous can 
understand. 

II. The missionary as a citizen has rights especially 
guaranteed by formal treaty. While he stands on the 
same footing as his other countrymen, it is to be noted 
that he waives other privileges, especially those com- 
mercial, for which the treaty was made. All the more 



MISSIONARIES AS CITIZENS.. 46$ 

is the responsibility of the Government to guard, vindi- 
cate and with equal liberality interpret his specified 
rights. The Government of the United States cannot, 
as Mr. Cass wrote to Mr. Williams, attempt to establish 
a protectorship over Christian communions in Turkey; 
nor, as Mr. Everett wrote to Mr. Marsh, " reverse the 
decision of regular tribunals, when missionaries are 
condemned for teaching doctrines not tolerated by the 
secular power, in cases where there is no treaty guar- 
antee for their toleration." In such cases missionaries 
must, like the commercial citizens who deplore the 
secret, antiquated and semi-barbarous restrictions on 
£iir trade practised, wait for enlightenment and a better 
day. Such a better day has already come in lands like 
China, Siam and Japan to a degree that shames some 
so-called Christian governments that trumpet forth 
their orthodoxy even while most rampant in bigotry. 
Yet, on the other hand, the governments of Christen- 
dom must not for one moment forget that some gov- 
ernments still claiming the honorable status of heads of 
political states are in reality religious establishments, 
whose first and last aim is the destruction of human 
fi'eedom and the propagation of dogmas alleged to be 
true and holy. Such politico-religious establishments 
are, by the laws of their being, incessandy active in 
practical perjury, and solemn treaties are but slight 
obstacles in the way of their fanaticism. An example 
of a pseudo-divine government was that of Japan pre- 
vious to 1874. Such an example is Turkey since 1883 
and until this day. Now that it seems to be reason- 
ably certain that the Ottoman Empire seeks not merely 
the regulation, but the extinction, of the treaty rights of 

American missionaries and educators, we earnestly 
iiiMioiiiL 30 



466 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

trust that the Government at Washington will not 
remit for one moment its sleepless vigilance. All 
governments which professing to be political are really 
propagandists are also unscrupulous and fanatical, and 
need constant watching by the civilized governments of 
Christendom which care for freedom and the progress 
of humanity. To allow men to break treaties in the 
name of heaven, God, the Prophet, or under any other 
pretense, is a crime against international law. We ear- 
nestly trust that the national ships of the United States 
may be ever in readiness to support the ink-and-paper 
arguments in all cases where these latter canAot be un- 
derstood. They seem to be continually misunderstood 
in Turkey. As the United States knows nothing of the 
forms of religion of their citizens, so should it refuse to 
recognize any violations of treaty under pretexts nom- 
inally political, but really in the interest of religion so- 
called. The outrages and insults recendy suffered by 
American travellers and missionaries in Turkey and the 
destruction of their property call for prompt and 
thorough action on the part of the American govern- 
ment. 

III. All treaties and conventions of every sort be- 
tween governments are at the time of their signature 
but tentative in their nature, and must be, and are, 
modified by the logic of events. Increased intercourse 
between the countries contracting leads to extensions 
of the original articles of agreement Growing friend- 
ship a'eates stronger ties of feeling, relaxes bounds, 
and removes barriers. As matter of fact, reciprocity is 
already established between many countries, while in 
those where extra- territoriality still prevails privileges 
iiever anticipated by the treaty-makers have multiplied. 



MISSIONARIES AS CITIZENS. 467 

until, by the flow of time, they became in effect estab- 
lished rights, not to be withheld or abrogated except by 
new treaties. Now as the Government of the United 
States knows nothing of the forms of religion professed 
by its citizens, as all are alike in the eyes of the law, the 
missionaries* rights based on precedent, even tliough 
not on treaty stipulations, are as justly founded as are 
those of the sailor, merchant, trader, or traveller. The 
missionary's rights, of residence, domicile and liberty 
to pursue his calling, recognized as lawful in the Uni- 
ted States, gained by precedent or mutually allowed 
by unstipulated. concession, are just as inherendy well 
founded as those of any other citizens. New treaties 
may indeed curtail or abrogate those rights, but any 
attempt of a foreign government to select one class of 
American citizens as objects of annoyance, insult, per- 
secution, should at once be resented by the govern- 
ments of Christendom. 

In a word, the very simplicity of the relations be- 
tween a citizen of the United States and his government 
forms the surest guarantee of his rights in an alien 
country. On the very fact that neither the Constitu- 
tion nor the government knows nor inquires the reli- 
gion of American citizens rest the sure principles on 
which a policy for their protection and vindication 
throughout the whole world has been and can be 
built. This fact is also the missionary's safest passport 
abroad. It enables our Government to make just trea- 
ties with jealous nations, whether deemed hermit 01 
fanatic. It prompts to quick demands for redress and 
certain vindication of wrongs. Though at times in its 
history the United States may have been either slow or 
derelict in its duty, though American missionaries and 



468 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Other citizens have too often been obliged to seek shel- 
ter and protection under the British flag — always nobly 
offered — yet there is no valid excuse for a Secretary of 
State to ignore the citizen rights of missionaries. The 
path of the present and future statesman is plain. It 
has been made plain by our fathers. It may be that 
while possibly failing in the duty of enforcing treaties 
our Govemn>ent has also avoided displa3rs of force 
such as have tarnished the good name of so-called 
Christian governments. 

God forbid that, for the sake of personal ends or 
in deference to sectional clamor, any American states- 
man or party should violate in spirit or act the Consti- 
tution of our country or the treaties which, like the 
laws made under it, form the supreme law of the land. 
Yet so long as the outrages against American citizens 
and missionaries, such as have been suffered at Ponap6 
and are suffered in Turkey, go unredressed, we must 
consider that the United States is either unwilling or 
unable to protect its citizens abroad, or is making un- 
fair discriminations. 



j hjE QjjLOOl^- 



VICTORIES AKD HOPES. 47 1 



THE VICTORIES AND THE HOPES OF 

MISSIONS; WITH AN ESTIMATE OF 

THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT 

OF RELIGIONS. 

BY JOSEPH COOK, LL. D- 

There are now no foreign lands. The antipodes 
are neighbors. There can be no more hermit nations. 
The sky is the roof of but one family. The chief 
promise and the chief peril of our time arise from 
the world-wide contagion of both good and evil. 
Speed of intercommunication among nations has made 
the whole earth one neighborhood and ought to make 
it one brotherhood. Caesar could not drive around the 
Roman empire in less than one hundred days. We 
now send a letter, a bale of goods or a man around 
the whole globe in less than seventy circuits of the sun. 
If Caesar had a right to call neighbors all who dwelt on 
the shores of the Mediterranean, we have the same right 
to call neighbors all who dwell on the rim of the whole 
wheeling world. As Whittier has said : 

** Behold the fall of ocean's wall, 
Space mocked and time outrun ; 
And round the world the thought of all 
Is as the thought of one." 

What bearing have these notorious characteristics 
of our new age upon the victories and the hopes of 
missions ? 

I. Speed of intercommunication and the growing 
unity of international thought are now such that the 



472 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

world hereafter will be healed or poisoned very much 
as a whole. 

2. With the educated and upper classes in Asia 
and other non-Christian lands, hereditary misbelief, 
when given up, is more readily replaced by imported 
unbelief than by Christianity. 

3. If sound opinions as to religious faith and prac- 
tice do not fill the world speedily, unsound ones will. 

4. There is likely to be a precipitation of half- 
truths and distorted truths upon all nations. 

5. The supreme peril of the hour is that unsound 
opinions may fill the self-reforming non-Christian na- 
tions more rapidly than sound opinions, and subject 
Christian nations to the necessity of laboring at a great 
disadvantage. 

6. The geographical opportunity of Christianity is 
broadening far faster than its effort to occupy the new 
fields. 

7. In this set of circumstances it is not too much 
to claim that for every five dollars expended by the 
churches for work at home they ought to expend at 
least one dollar for work abroad. 

8. The accessible non-Christian portions of the 
world ought to be supplied with at least one ordained 
missionary for every fifty thousand people. 

Dr. George Smith, the distinguished Missionary 
Secretary of the Free Church of Scotland and the 
biographer of Duff and Wilson, read before this Con- 
gress an elaborate paper on unexplored fields in mis- 
sions, and fully endorsed, as many other expert author- 
ities have done, the proposition that every fifty thousand 
of the population of non-Christian lands ought to have 
at least one ordained missionary. 



'victories and hopes. 473 

What has the science of comparative religion to 
say as to the victories and hopes of Christian mis- 
sions? 

1. All ethnic religions have been explored in out- 
line, and many of them in great detail. 

That is a new posture of affairs. Until within 
twenty-five years as much as this could not be affirmed. 
Until within the last century it was hardly possible to 
procure in the Occident any adequate information 
concerning Brahminism, Buddhism, or the religions of 
Confucius, Zoroaster, and Mohammed. By &r the 
larger part of the Vedas had not been translated into 
any European language. (Clarke : " Ten Great Re- 
ligions/' vol. i. p. 4.) 

2. No other religion known to man can now be 
called a rival to Christianity. 

That proposition could not be uttered twenty-five 
years ago with as much emphasis as now, and fifty 
years ago it would hardly have been volunteered, so 
little did we know of the interior economy of the great 
p^gaLn faiths. 

" No other religion,** says Mr. Gladstone, " ap- 
proaches the numerical strength of Christianity ; it is 
now doubtful indeed whether there be any that reaches 
one-half of it The art, the literature, the systematized 
industry, invention and commerce — in one word, the 
power of the world — ^are almost wholly Christian. The 
nations of Christendom are everywhere arbiters of the 
fate of non-Christian nations.*' 

3. Not one of the great ethnic faiths has a hope of 
conquering the world. 

This also is a new oudook in history. It is, I 
suppose, within the last quarter of a century that Mo- 



474 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

hammedanism has given up hope of conquering Africa, 
and within the same time Buddhism, Brahminism, Con- 
fucianism, have giving up hope of conquering Asia. 

Keshub Chunder Sen's career is the best lesson 
modem history contains in comparative theology. He 
was intimately acquainted with Brahminism, Hindoo- 
bm, Buddhism, and the other ethnic faiths of Asia. 
Although not nominally a Christian, he turned away 
from them all to find in Christianity the supreme satis- 
fiiction of the wants of the human soul. 

4. We are to use the principles of a Christian 
philosophy to judge what is worth saving, and what 
must be cast away in the chaos of decay brought to us 
by the advancing science of comparative religion. 

Max MuUer himself has published the opinion that 
it is sheer futility to assume that the Bible is ever to be 
outshone by any other sacred book. (Introduction to 
" Translations of the Sacred Books of the East.") 

You say we do not know what will be discovered 
in the convents of Thibet. It is true we do not know 
in detail, but we do know in principle. Until within 
twenty-five years there has been some expectation, on 
the part of rationalism, that ethnic religions might re- 
cover credit for their sacred books, and that we might 
be enabled at least to put on a shelf very near to the 
Bible the Vedas or the Bagvat Geeta. But the more 
the study has progressed the more the brilliancy of 
the Word of God has come forth without haze, until 
the foremost scholars in comparative religion admit 
that nothing is to be put on the shelf next to the Scrip- 
tures. There is nothing to be put on any shelf except 
one &Lr below that on which the Bible lies. The uneasi- 
ness of young men hoping for some sacred books that 



VICTORIES AND HOPES. 475 

might be rivals to the Scriptures ought to pass away ; 
for the last secret places in which such books might be 
found are being rummaged, and such books are not 
forthcoming. 

5. The human mind is so constituted that it is not 
possible for it to doubt self-evident truth ; and so the 
religion of self-surrender to such truth, and to the God 
whose mode of action it reveals, is demonstrably in- 
tended to be a religion for all mankind and for aU 
time. 

6. History has now given such victory to the reli- 
gion which consists in the imitation of the mind that 
was in Christ that we must infer, not only from its har- 
mony with self-evident truth, but also from its prolonged 
and varied successes, that Christianity is providentially 
intended to be a religion for all mankind and for all 
time. 

There is an Absolute Gospel, which consists in the 
duty and joy of coSperation with God by self-surrender 
to the self-evident truths of conscience. There is an 
Historical Gospel, which consists in tlie imitation of 
Christ. These two are one. Whatever in any ethnic 
religion agrees with these gospels we may accept 
Whatever is opposed to self-evident truth, or to the 
mind that was in Christ, I venture to predict that 
science as well as theology and religion will ultimately 
reject We must sift aU thought, oriental and occi- 
dental, by the use of this sieve of self-evident truth 
combined with the imitation of Christ. We must accept 
nothing that does not come to us on the authority of 
self-evident truth and also from Christ's pierced right 
hand. 

What bearing has the recent Parliament of the 



476 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

World's Religions on the topic of Christian missions f 
Since the Congress do missions appear more or less 
necessary than before ? What has been the result of 
this Parliament in the field of Comparative Religion? 

Chief among the salient features of the Parliament 
of Religions were these memorable &cts : 

1. It would not listen to a defence of polygamy. 

2. It denounced every form of international injustice. 

3. It abhorred the spirit of Caste. 

4. It called for the thorough Christianization of 
Christendom. 

5. It gave a friendly hearing to every sound scheme 
of philanthropy and practical reform. 

6. It listened eagerly to the fi'eshest inculcations of 
advanced philosophy and science. 

7. It assumed man's freedom and responsibility^ 
and exalted the religion of conscience. 

8. It relied upon the £aicts of personal immortality 
and of a judgment to come beyond death. 

9. It exhibited Catholic, Protestant and Greek 
Church in agreement as to the conditions of the peace 
of the soul. 

ID. It received with the greatest favor the most 
orthodox and fervid Christian evangelists. 

11. It was willing to hear the best that any Chris- 
tian or non-Christian faith could say for itself. 

12. It concealed in part the seamy side of the non- 
Christian faiths. 

13. It exhibited the seamy side of nominal Chris- 
tianity. 

14. It heard criticisms on Christian missions and 
brought out effective replies to these strictures. 

15. It showed that the rivab and opponents of 



VICTORIES AND HOPES. 477 

Christianity have judged it chiefly by its caricatures 
and counterfeits. 

16. It honored occidental literature, religious, his- 
torical, philosophical, and scientific. 

17. It heard papers and addresses from women 
and emphasized the indispensableness of woman's work 
for woman in all nations. 

18. It asserted with the most marked conviction 
and reiteration the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood 
of men and the solidarity of the race. 

19. It united often in the Lord's prayer, and by 
implication committed itself to the Universal Religion 
which that ui^iversal prayer expresses. 

20. It ended at Calvary with devout assertion of 
the necessity of man's deliverance from the love of sin 
and the guilt of it 

21. In contrasts and contacts of Christian and 
non-Christian faiths it showed that some of the best of 
the latter may be more or less efficient, but that only 
the former is sufficient to meet the temporal and eter- 
nal necessities of men. 

There is one thing more important to the success 
of missions than either money or men, and that is 
motive. " For twenty centuries," says Prof. Shedd, 
" the church has gone on the supposition that oppor- 
tunity for the salvation of the soul is confined to this 
life." Undoubtedly the desire to prevent the ruin of 
souls has been the chief motive of missions. The church 
has held and taught, and usually acted, as if she believed 
that it is never safe for any man to die in his sins. 

The successes of missions have been not only 
largely but chiefly due to tlie supreme urgency of this 
motive* 



478 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

The hopes of missions depend on the continuance 
of the force of this motive. 

Will the motive maintain its strength ? 
What will tend to maintain it ? 

1. The Scriptures will not change. 

2. Human nature will not change. 

3. The self-evident truths of ethics will not change. 

4. The scholarly authority of great theologians in 
agreement will not change. 

What will tend to weaken it ? 

1. Luxury invents soft doctrines. 

2. Weak heads like easy pillows. 

3. Infidelity will trouble the Occident. 

4. Compromise easily corrupts the world. 

5. Counterfeits and caricatures of Christianity will 
be numerous. 

The victories of missions are the proper basis for 
their hopes. Among the victories of the last century are : 

1. The diffusion of the Holy Scriptures in more 
than 300 languages. 

2. Missionary preaching, teaching and example in 
non- Christian lands. 

3. Organization of native churches in such lands. 

4. Education of a native ministry. 

5. Founding of Christian educational institutions. 

6. Spreading of Christian literature. 

7. Modification of non-Christian faiths. 

8. Maintenance of proper religious standards at 
home. 

The hopes of missions jusdy anticipate : 

1. The cumulative progress of these victories. 

2. Self-supporting churches in all non-Christiaa 
lands. 



VICTORIES AND HOPES. 479 

3. The fulfilment of prophecy. 

4. The second coming of our Lord. 
Non-Christian lands need missionaries : 

1. To diffuse and explain the Holy Scriptures with 
their Decalogue and Sermon on the Mount, and 
doctrines of the new birth, the atonement, immortal- 
ity, and eternal judgment for the deeds done in the 
body. 

2. To give sanction to morals : honesty, chastity, 
industry, monogamy, fraternity, elevation of woman, 
anti-caste. Sabbath rest. 

3. But, beyond all this, they need missionaries to 
teach the necessity of immediate repentance, and that it 
is never safe for any man to die in his sins. 

What is safe advice to the individual who is un- 
saved? 

What is the safe advice to the nation that is unac- 
quainted with Christianity ? 

Our fathers, and among them Jonathan Edwards 
and President Finney, great and venerable names, have 
been accustomed to tell us that we ought never to ad- 
vise a religiously irresolute person to do anything he 
might die doing and die unsaved. Never advise an 
unconverted man to do anything he might die doing 
and die unsaved. That has been the watchword of the 
greatest evangelists for eighteen hundred years. Now 
I might advise a religiously irresolute person to read 
the Bible and he might die doing that and die unsaved. 
I might advise him to attend devotional meetings, and 
to associate with people of religious character ; he might 
die doing all that, and die unsaved. I might say to 
him that he should attend church regularly, and be- 
come a member of sojpe circle of professing Christians ; 



480 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

he might die doing all that and die unsaved. What, 
therefore, shall you advise the unsaved man to do, if 
you are to advise him to do nothing that he might die 
doing and not die unsaved ? The advice I, for one, 
always give to the unsaved is, Choose this instant God, 
or God in Christ, as both Saviour and Lord, This 
instant yield to God, gladly, affectionately and irrevo- 
cably, as both Saviour and Lord. Nobody can do that 
and die unsaved. Saving faith must mean something 
that delivers us from both the love of sin and the guilt 
of it. Saving faith I should define as the conviction of 
the intellect that God, or God in Christ, is, and the affec- 
tionate choice of the heart that he shall be, both our 
Saviour and our Lord. Have faith in that sense and 
you are saved. 

Some of you think you are affectionately glad to 
take God as Saviour. But you must take him as Lord 
also, and this you must do gladly. Of course it is 
divine grace that inclines you to surrender, but there is 
no possibility of peace between you and God if you do 
not come to the double deliverance from the love and 
the guilt of sin through the new birth and atonement. 
You are to look away from yourself and behold God as 
your Redeemer and see the provisions that are made 
for your deliverance from guilt. The sight of the cross 
brings the new birth. Look at the cross and it becomes 
no cross to bear the cross. This is the glorious cer- 
tainty of Christianity : that when in faith you behold 
God as Saviour you are made glad to take him as 
Lord, and when you have taken him as both Saviour 
and Lord you are harmonized with him in life and 
death, and beyond death. 

Nations are only collections of individuals. The 



VICTORIES AND HOPES. 48 1 

missionary has no safe method if he does not tell the 
nation to which he goes what he would tell the indi- 
vidual to whom he may be sent It is wrong to carry 
to a nation as an adequate religious message any direc- 
tions that can be obeyed and leave the souls that obey 
unsaved. I might say to an unevangelized nation: 
Introduce improved methods of agriculture, railways, 
telegraphs, telephones, telautographs; improve your 
methods of transportation and commerce. The nation 
might do all that and die without deliverance from the 
love of sin and the guilt of it. The missionary may 
exhort to tlie enlargement of educational facilities, the 
improvement of architecture, and the advancement of 
science, or general enlightenment of the whole popula- 
tion, or aspiration to political liberty, but these exhor- 
tations must be followed by influences that will deliver 
from the love of sin and the guilt of it, or the nation is 
not made a part of the kingdom of God. Let him 
teach the nation the necessity of immediate repentance ; 
let him emphasize the truth of Scripture, that it is never 
safe for any man to die in his sins. 

Sometimes I think Shakespeare must have studied 
the cans and cannots of the Bible, for great passages in 
this book of almost universal wisdom seem to echo the 
Bible text. I read in Hamlet : 

" Try what repentance can, what can it not ? 
Yet what can it, if one cannot repent?" 

Shakespeare seems to have recognized the fact that if 
one will not repent, and postpones repentance long 
enough, the time will come when he cannot repent. 
The prodigious fear in my heart concerning the pres- 
ent condition of American churches is that we do not 

Miuloni. 31 



482 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

recognize with, sufficient clearness the necessity of 
immediate repentance to salvation. Character does 
tend to final permanence by fixed natural law. A man 
goes on hating what God loves and loving what God 
hates. If he goes on long enough he will enter into 
final permanence of dissimilarity of feeling with God, 
and that means perdition. If you fall into eternal sin 
you will fall into eternal punishment, in a universe 
managed as it ought to be, as I believe this one is. 
God would not be God if he gave blessedness to souls 
that live in rebellion to moral law. It is impossible for 
God to give blessedness to unholiness and be God. 
Characters all over the world are falling into a final 
permanence of unholiness. We are told by a few eccen- 
trics that without a knowledge of the historic gospel 
no man can be lost, and that if he does not have this 
knowledge in this world it i& to be presumed it will 
be given to him in the next But we know that all 
around the world, under natural law, men are crystal- 
izing into final permanence of character. They do 
this with a knowledge of the Bible ; they do it under 
the light of heaven given to men through conscience. 
Men tend to free fixity of unholiness, and such free 
fixity is perdition. It is self-evident that a final 
permanence can come but once, for otherwise it is not 
final. 

In a recently revised creed approved by many 
great theologians I find this passage, which correctly 
represents the teaching of Holy Scripture and is the 
central motive of missions : 

"We believe that, in His adorable wisdom, our 
moral Ruler has attached an inestimable importance 
to our life on earth; that all men who in this life 



VICTORIES AND HOPES, 483 

repent of sin will, at their death, enter on a course of 
perfect and unending holiness ; that alt who throughout 
the present life remain impenitent sinners will remain 
so for ever ; that both the just ^nd the unjust will be 
raised from death at the last day, will stand before the 
judgment-seat of Christ, and will receive from him their 
awards according to the deeds done in the body; so 
that the wicked will go away into endless punishment, 
but the righteous into endless life." 

On the east three gates, on the west three gates, 
on the north three gates, on the south three gates. 
But we are directed to enter in at the strait gate. The 
Celestial City has gates opening into it from every 
point of the compass, but every gate is strait. 

The omnipresent axioms of conscience are the 
same in all souls. Great inferences of the most vital 
practical value flow from theistic realism in philosophy. 
It is perfectly useless to teach a soft religion. God in 
natural law teaches nothing of the kind. It is perfectly 
useless to refuse mental hospitality to severe truth, on 
the one hand, or to tender truth on the other. God is 
hospitable to both kinds of truth. It is perfectly futile 
to affirm or to dream that without a knowledge of the 
historic Christ there is no decisive probation. The 
Eternal Reason, the still small Voice, fill human souls 
by virtue of the human constitution itself. They are that 
constitution, and they are He. Whoever yields to all 
the light he has obtains more, and whoever refuses light 
loses light. According to the double action of this most 
terrific and most alluring law, all character tends to 
final permanence. Every human beings as existing in 
Gody is of necessity put under probation by his environ^ 
wient* 



484 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Self-surrender to the self-evident cannot be made 
perfect in our experience without bringing us, even if 
we are wholly without knowledge of historical revela- 
tion, to a doctrine of a Holy Spirit, and a doctrine of a 
new birth, and a doctrine of an atonement, or of some 
method of peace between God and man. But, on the 
other hand, in that highest revelation which God has 
made of himself in human history, and which we be- 
lieve to be divine, we find truths to which we cannot 
yield ourselves utterly without coming to the doctrine 
of the Holy Spirit, and the new birth, and the doctrine 
of the atonement My contention is, that, since the 
Eternal Reason and the Logos are the same, a doctrine 
and the doctrine here harmonize. The £atct that some 
atonement has been made I might dimly perceive, from 
the peace and sense of pardon which follow total self- 
surrender to God. A Holy Spirit I know without go- 
ing beyond the philosophy of Socrates and Plato, and, 
indeed, without advancing beyond the vestibule of that 
of Kant and Lotze. But a doctrine and the doctrine in 
regard to all these points coalesce. Self-evident truth 
and revelation both proclaim the necessity of the deliv- 
erance of the soul from the love and the guilt of sin. 
What I wish to make emphatic is the great peril of not 
allowing them to coalesce in modern thought as they do 
in the cans and cannots of Scripture itself ; the great 
peril of a fragmentary outlook in modem ethical sci- 
ence ; the great peril of allowing Bombay, Calcutta, and 
Yokohama, or Berlin, London, and Boston, to be filled 
with a superficial agnosticism, or with the materialistic 
misconceptions which lead to both mental and moral 
bewilderment and ruin. 

It is time that the Occident should rise and light 



VICTORIES AND HOPES. 485 

the wood that has been placed by the advance of 
science and philosophy upon the altar of the unknown 
God. There is an abundance of this fuel to be lighted, 
and the flame ought to blaze to the heavens, in sight of 
the entire family of men. The time has come when, in 
the name of axiomatic theology, or theistic realism in 
philosophy and ethical science, this flame should be 
made to usher in a better age. Self-evident truths are 
self-revelations of God. The most perfect of the self- 
revelations of God to man are God in conscience and 
God in Christ. But God is one. Self-surrender to the 
Self-evident, co5peration with God, fellowship with 
Christ — these three are one. This sacred sandal-wood 
should be lighted on the Alps and the Himalayas, 
lighted on the Rocky Mountains and the Andes, lighted 
in the centres of civilization and in the depths of pagan- 
ism and in the isles of the sea. The light of the eternal 
truths should flame up from all quarters of the earth, 
and, indeed, from all worlds, for the fuel from which 
that light springs lies on all their altars ; and so all 
worlds, as these flames rise not voiceless to the heaven 
of heavens, should once more sing together, like the 
morning stars, for joy. 



One field the wheeling world, 

Vast furrows open lie ; 
Broadcast let seed be hurled 
By us before we die. 
Winds, east or west, 
Let no tare3 fall ; 
Wide waft the best ; 
God winnow all. 



486 MISSIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

Heaven hath a single sun, 

All gates swing open wide ; 
All lands at last are one, 
And seas no more divide. 
In every zone, 

Arise and shine ; 
Earth's only throne, 
Our God, be Thine. 

Let types ideal grow, 

Shine Thou through all the race ; 
All features beauty show 
If God flames through the face. 
Let all aspire ; 

Our sins consume ; 
Send tongues of (ire. 
And all illume. 

In loyal bliss let earth 

In God's face find its sun ; 
Sole sovereignty in worth. 
Delight in duty done ; 
God's pulses beat, 

Vast, loud, and long, 
Constrain our feet. 
As marching song. 

On every desert rain. 

Make green earth's flintiest sands; 
Above the land and main 
Reveal Thy Pierced Hands. 
Thy Cross heaven wins ; 

Lift it on high; 
And in his sins 
Let no man die. 



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