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SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE V The process of social change in the case of degraded races must necessarily advance slowly. Christianity must begin by making its own new environment. Long and patient preliminary work is required, In the present lecture it will be expedient to take a survey of the foundations which have been laid for the inauguration of a new era of development in backward nations. Turning, then, to the foundations rather than to the superstructure, and considering preliminary transformations rather than present activities (which will form the subject of the subsequent lecture), we shall note some achievements of missions which are of fundamental value, in anticipation of the final renovation of non-Christian society after the ideals of Christianity. I. The creation of a new type of individual character. A degenerate individuality is the first point of contact between Christian missions and heathenism, and the reconstruction of character is the earliest task of the missionary. Some illustrations of changed lives in various mission fields are cited. II. The creation of a new public opinion. A perverted social conscience is as much a reality in non-Christian lands as a perverted individual conscience, and in the form of public opinion it is a factor of amazing force and stability. The power of missions to dethrone many of the ruling ideas in heathen society is vindicated by examples. III. The establishment and promotion of education. The present educational plant of foreign missions throughout the world is a marvelous achievement, considered not only in itself, but as representing literally a free gift of Christianity to the nations. Its import as a stimulus to social progress is made evident. IV. The literary contribution of missions to the intellectual life of non-Christian races is a fundamental factor of social progress. The scope of the literary activities of missionaries is dwelt upon, and the value of their contributions illustrated. V. The influence of missions in awakening the philanthropic spirit. The Christian religion is still assuming the rôle of the Good Samaritan among the nations. VI. The influence of the personal example of missionaries and native converts. Illustrations from Christian history, and from mission fields at the present day, sufficiently justify the high estimate placed upon the power of the Christian life as exemplified in the presence of the heathen world. VII. The introduction of new national aspirations and higher conceptions of government. Missions have introduced a new ideal of patriotism, and work steadily in the direction of purer laws and larger freedom. VIII. The work of missions in laying the foundation of a new social order will inevitably excite much opposition. The Reformation was a period of conflicts; the Huguenots and Puritans were soldiers of conscience; the early struggles of Christianity with pagan Rome were sharp and terrible; the victories of religious history must be repeated in the experience of Christian missions. The moral value of missions as sponsors of true civilization is noted. IX. A symposium of missionary opinion as to the social value of missions. The judgment of missionaries in all parts of the world is quoted. X. The evidence of native witnesses is confirmatory of the views of missionaries, and is of value, especially where the source is non-Christian. XI. Additional testimony from prominent laymen and government officials as to the social value of missions is brought forward. LECTURE V
THE DAWN OF A SOCIOLOGICAL ERA IN MISSIONS
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" It is idle to talk of Christ as a social reformer, if by that is meant that His first concern was to improve the organization of society, or to provide the world with better laws. These were among His objects, but His first was to provide the world with better men. The one need of every cause and every community still is for better men. . . . External reforms—”education, civilization, public schemes, and public charities—”have each their part to play. Any experiment that can benefit by one hairbreadth any single human life is a thousand times worth trying. There is no effort in any single one of these directions but must, as Christianity advances, be pressed by Christian men to ever further and fuller issues. But those whose hands have tried the most, and whose eyes have seen the furthest, have come back to regard first the deeper evangel of individual lives, and the philanthropy of quiet ways, and the slow work of leavening men one by one with the spirit of Jesus Christ. " There is an almost awful freedom about Christ's religion. ' I do not call you servants,' He said; ' for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: I have called you friends." As Christ's friends, His followers are supposed to know what He wants done, and for the same reason they will try to do it—”this is the whole working basis of Christianity. Surely, next to its love for the chief of sinners the most touching thing about the religion of Christ is its amazing trust in the least of saints. Here is the mightiest enterprise ever launched upon this earth, mightier even than its creation, for it is its re-creation, and the carrying of it out is left, so to speak, to haphazard—”to individual loyalty, to free enthusiasms, to uncoerced activities, to an uncompelled response to the pressures of God's Spirit." PROFESSOR HENRY DRUMMOND, LL.D. "Christianity reverses, in this respect, the ancient tendency, and instead of working downward from the State to the person, it works upward and outward from the person to the State.' It first plants itself in the individual soul, and then works from the centre to the circumference. . . . The Christian spirit aims at making men saints first, and then patriots. The State cannot do this: there is no political alchemy,' as Herbert Spencer has said, ' by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts.' But the alchemy of Christ's religion regenerates individuals, and through them society at large. It makes the man truthful, honest, chaste, courageous, virtuous; and then sends him into the arena of public life, that he may exert an influence in all human relationships, and render a sanctified service to the State." REV. T. E. SLATER.
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LECTURE V
THE DAWN OF A SOCIOLOGICAL ERA IN MISSIONS IN previous lectures we have considered the larger scope of missions, studied the more prominent social evils of the non-Christian world, passed in review some supposed agencies of moral reform, which, however, for sufficient reasons, we have pronounced incapable in themselves of producing satisfactory results, and, furthermore, have carefully examined the adaptation of Christianity to uplift society and introduce the higher forces of permanent social regeneration and progress. We turn now to a survey of results, and inquire what proof there is that the positions we have taken are sustained by the evidence of practical achievement. This, in general, will be the theme of the present and of the concluding lecture. Is it expedient to ignore Christianity in any attempt to civilize barbarous races?
The fact has been perhaps sufficiently clear to us that non-Christian society, left to its own tendencies, uniformly and persistently goes the way of moral deterioration and sinks into decadence, with no hope of self-reformation. The fact is no less evident, as the history of mankind proves, that Christianity, since its founding, has been invariably the motive force in all noble and worthy moral development, and that this has resulted in proportion to the influence which the religion of Christ has obtained in national or social history. The truth of this statement was not only illustrated but confirmed at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1895. A paper was read upon Civilization—”not in the interest of missions or even of Christianity—”by Professor Flinders Petrie, in which the author took the position that it was of doubtful expediency, and even a demonstrated disadvantage, to press Western civilization upon barbarous or savage communities, since their incapacity to assume it
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was so manifest that it proved a demoralizing force and an overwhelming burden. His contention was that a low civilization could not, without injury to native races, be rapidly superseded by a higher one, which was itself the result of a long process of development among advanced races.1 We have in this statement a plain, though perhaps unintentional, argument for the moral forces of Christianity as the only adequate spiritual, intellectual, and social preparation for a higher culture among savage races, since it is a matter of historical demonstration that the spiritual and intellectual regeneration which Christianity effects will prepare any nation on earth for social changes and transformations in harmony with the noblest type of civilization. Christianity so extends the vision, so changes the focus, so develops latent capacities, so lifts the whole moral nature into harmony with the finer temper and trend of civilization, that even the lowest races are able to assimilate the best results of progress and reproduce them in actual experience. Without the quickening and fortifying vitality of those moral principles which Christianity imparts, civilization is nothing more than the veneering of primitive and unchanged barbarism.2 The old rottenness remains beneath the surface, the old savagery flows in the blood and burns in the untamed nature. The scandals of Christendom are, alas! only too clear indications of this. Duelling is not unknown even in the high places of modern civilization; in the United States brutal lynchings 1 The problem here referred to by Professor Petrie was considered recently in a
course of lectures upon Missions by M. Narbel, delivered at the University of Lausanne. M. Narbel remarked: " There is no disguising the fact that when Christianity and civilization are introduced together to inferior races of mankind, new wants are created, and a new world full of temptations and dangers is opened up before them. Nor can we overlook the fact that certain races seem to disappear when brought in contact with Christian civilization. The diminished numbers of North American Indians, and of the inhabitants of Polynesia and Australasia, are proofs of the fact. No doubt missions, as such, are not responsible for such a sad result; those to blame are for the most part Europeans devoid of conscientious scruples, who are generally sworn foes and calumniators of missionaries, and who supply these people with firearms and spirituous liquors. That this is so may be seen in the case of Greenland, where the Danish Government has absolutely prohibited the introduction of spirits, and where in consequence the population has not diminished in number. Since, however, it is not possible to prevent the spread of civilization, either side by side with missions or as following in their course, this difficult moral and social problem remains for solution, and in dealing with it not only ardent faith is needed, but also all the help that can be drawn from political and economical science." 2 Cf. Cust, " Linguistic and Oriental Essays " (Second Series, 1887), for some
valuable remarks as to the effect of unchristian civilization on the lower races of mankind (pp. 533-536).
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all too frequently disgrace and brand the moral nature of communities which one would naturally suppose quite incapable of such outbursts of savagery; lack of self-restraint, leading to violence, injustice, and crime, is far too prevalent in all civilized nations; iniquities, cruelties, and fiendish attempts at wholesale destruction of life and property are in too many instances the signs of a still unconquered and, without Christianity, unconquerable barbarism. The process of social renewal in the case of degenerate races must,
Christianity the pioneer of new national careershowever, necessarily advance slowly, and it is no discouragement that the progress is even painfully slow, and sometimes almost imperceptible, except as we are able to Christianity the pioneer compare one generation with another. The fact of new national careers, that we cannot at once begin to exclaim, " Lo, here!" and "Lo, there!" is no sign that the kingdom of God is not coming. Our Lord announced as one of the characteristic features of its advent that it was "not with observation."1 Christianity must begin by making its own new environment. It enters the precincts of heathenism alone, with no basis to work upon, and, entering, is at once surrounded by an unwelcome spirit and a hostile, and in many respects morally objectionable, social system. In the vast and tangled forest of heathenism, like a pioneer settler, it must first make for itself a clearing; it must provide itself with a breathing-place, where it can have light and air. It must build its own habitation to dwell in, which, however rough and humble, is sure to become a home of love and a nursery of fructifying moral principle. It is significant that just as missions are getting a grip upon Eastern nations there seems to open to so many of the Oriental peoples a vista of national progress and expansion. Japan, China, Formosa, Australasia, Polynesia, Siam, Burma, India, Persia, Turkey, and the African Continent with its tumult of political 1 " One reason why such results as you desire information upon do not appear in the reports in the same way that educational and medical facts are recorded, is that they are matters of opinion, comparison, and experience, rather than individual entities, which cannot be tabulated in any statistical form; and, moreover, they are, like the growth of a tree, quite evident to a person who can compare the condition of affairs in a district after a lapse of ten or twenty years. Again, in sociological movements there are different factors, such as the religious, educational, industrial, commercial, and political; each and all of which may play, and do play, important parts, and ought not to be overlooked, though the change of heart which Christianity seeks for the individual, and which is the fundamental part of the religious factor, is at the bottom of all change towards true righteousness and progress in civilisation."—” Rev. Robert Laws, M.D., D.D. (F. C. S.), Kondowi, Livingstonia, B. C. A.
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and national transformation, are all astir with rapid movement in the path of destiny. Our present age is an era of epochs. Nations ripen for change with amazing rapidity. It is this, in connection with the moral power of Christianity, which gives to Christian missions at the close of our century their immense significance. As we contemplated the evils of the non-Christian world,
A proposed classification of non-Christian raceswe were conscious, no doubt, of varying degrees of degradation and heinousness in the phases of its social disorder. An exceptional depth of depravity and cruelty was manifest in certain of them; others were less removed from the standards of civilization and humanitarian refinement. A classification which will accord with these characteristic distinctions is therefore desirable in our references to the higher or lower strata of the world's population. The division named by Professor Warneck as "culture-peoples" and "nature-peoples" is, as he himself recognizes, not satisfactory.1 The distinctions suggested are not sufficiently precise, nor are the words "nature" and "culture" accurate designations. We would suggest, therefore, a threefold division into semi-civilized, barbarous, and savage peoples; not forgetting, meanwhile, that these are relative terms, and not intending to imply that so-called civilized nations represent the final and highest possible form of social advancement. By " semi-civilized " we would designate races comparatively advanced in culture, and representing in varying degrees some of the characteristics of the higher civilization. Of this class Japanese, Chinese, and in many respects Indian society would be illustrative examples. By the term " barbarous " we would indicate a lower grade of social life, not entitled to be regarded as even semi-civilized, and yet not so degraded and brutalized as to be ranked among savages. The populations of Central Asia, Arabia, and the regions just off the coast-line of Northern Africa are fair specimens of this class. By the term " savage " the lowest grade of native society, removed from all touch with civilization, would be indicated, of which examples may be found throughout Africa, in the Pacific Islands, and among the Indians of the South American Continent. In view of these widely distinct gradations of non-Christian society, a corresponding difference must be noted in the environment of the missionary, in his function as a social teacher, and in his external method of influencing and transforming society. In the case of savage races his civilizing rôle is limited to the simplest tutelage in the arts of decent and orderly living. He has to teach the most elementary lessons in the industrial arts, in economic principles, in human relationships, and 1 Warneck, " Modern Missions and Culture," p. 39.
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in mutual obligations. He is a schoolmaster in the commonplaces of social refinement. Among barbarous races he touches life at a somewhat higher level, and yet the line which marks the boundary between savagery and barbarism is so vague that the ordinary missionary is still a teacher and exemplar of the simplest lessons of a higher code of living. Among the semi-civilized peoples his grade of instruction is superior, and he moulds society chiefly through educational and literary instrumentalities, having to do more directly with the mental development and moral culture of already partially cultivated natures. In each instance he is the teacher of Christian principles in their application to the mind, heart, and life of a more or less degenerate social system.1 He introduces an accelerating force and a refining temper into social evolution. His aim is the spiritual regeneration of the individual man and the moral renovation of his surroundings. He seeks to create a new atmosphere for the individual soul and for society collectively. The point to be insisted upon in this connection is that the same radical and sufficient remedy is needed in each environment. Semi-civilized peoples, although they may not be in such depths of barbarism and savagery as others, are still just as manifestly in need of spiritual and moral regeneration as the unmistakable representatives of savagery. Christianity cannot assimilate the existing social life of
Patience and tact essential in conducting reform movements in the Easteither the higher heathen civilization or of the lower savagery unless it first transforms its moral character and fashions it in the Christian mould. Changes so radical, and reaching so deeply into the life of society, cannot be hurried and rushed by artificial methods. Social reform in non-Christian communities must be evolved out of deeper and more spiritual changes in the individual character. It must be based upon new ideals and aspirations. Immemorial custom in Eastern society is the highest and final expression of the common will, so that not even the supreme ruler can defy or make light of it, except at his peril. It is public opinion in the form of a regnant social force, which it is revolutionary and dangerous rudely to disturb. It is massive in its inertia, and as irresistible by any power of individual will as the drift of a continent.2 It can be safely and wisely changed only 1 Warneck, " Modern Missions and Culture," p. 40. 2 There is much sober truth in the swinging and picturesque lines of Mr.
Rudyard Kipling:
" Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles, and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: ' A fool lies here, who tried to hustle the East.' "
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through educational transformation and illuminating insight, which become in themselves bases for other and better habits. Men must see the change of ancient customs to be desirable, or they will never be persuaded to alter them. They must be ready, with faith and courage, to accept the criticism and personal sacrifice which such change involves, or they will shrink from it as perilous foolhardiness. It is not enough, therefore, that an alien society should become Christian in name; it must be penetrated and possessed by the Christian spirit. If the nominal adhesion is unduly in advance of the moral and spiritual domination, there is danger that the regenerating forces of Christianity will be overwhelmed by the spirit of compromise, or that a dangerous infusion of heathen ideas and practices may check their moral effect, as was the case at the time of the conversion of the Roman Empire. There is undoubtedly a real menace to the healthy growth of Christianity in the sudden and rapid assimilation of heathenism en masse, with its ignorance unenlightened and its spiritual insensibility still unchanged. It is idle to expect that the ancient, narrow, petrified quasi-civilizations of the non-Christian world should accepted, in toto and at once, the liberal ideas of modern Christian society, without a rebound and possibility some confusion and demoralization ensuing. Christian freedom, with its self-restraint, would be mistaken for license, and necessary social barriers, based upon expediency and confirmed by experience, would be too suddenly thrown down. The semi-barbarous or savage instincts, if called upon to adjust themselves too quickly to radical changes, would be simply blinded and confused without adequate guidance and poise. Nor is there less reason for the exercise of a wise and prudent reserve in the attitude of missionaries towards social questions. Changes must not be too hastily and peremptorily insisted upon; reforms cannot be stampeded. New ethical standards must be judiciously advocated, new moral principles must be patiently taught and established, and the final, effective appeal must be made to an enlightened intelligence. Good sense and prudence should restrain any unnecessary invasion of society with demands for changes which are merely concessions to foreign tastes, uncalled for by the requirements of moral principle. As society is constituted in Eastern lands, there are canons of fashion and taste, regulations and customs, which although unknown in civilized communities, have their due and laudable place in the Orient. These must not be recklessly assailed. Much must be left to adjust itself gradually to a new moral environment. Christianity can claim no infallible wisdom in the regulation and supervision of social matters, except as it establishes the law of love and enforces the moral
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teachings of its divine Exemplar. The internal spirit and the controlling principles of Christian civilization are the essential things, while the outward forms of civilized society, as revealed in the social standards and customs of Western Christendom, are of secondary importance. Even the external religious methods, and especially the denominational divergencies, of Western Christianity should be minimized rather than emphasized. The spirit of worship, rather than the external form, is the essential thing. The essence of righteousness is the vital requirement, rather than those stereotyped customs and that peculiar coloring of life which the Christian spirit has generated among Western peoples. It is, therefore, to be expected, when we consider the immense substratum of preliminary
Social transformations must come gradually, and must have a moral basis.work which must be done in anticipation of social transformation after Christian ideals, that sociological changes in foreign lands will be gradual. This is, indeed, a most characteristic aspect of what has been already achieved. It is preparatory work. The past century of missions has been an era of pioneer effort. This is true, in a large sense, with reference to the evangelistic progress of missions. It is especially so in regard to social achievements. Christian missions found the society of the heathen world in varying stages of demoralization. This social status was the reflection of an all-round deterioration in individual character. Christianity has sought to reach with its remedial forces, first, the individual, and then, through the individual, to make its influence felt upon society. It is manifest that the religious and moral basis of social changes must be deeply and substantially laid, or it will never avail as a foundation for a superstructure. If the individual leverage is to be firm enough to move the mighty society, it must be rock-like solidity. It must be immovable and effective in the face of obstinate prejudice, tenacious conservatism, and national and social stolidity. It must be sufficiently loyal and courageous to overcome superstitious fears, to offset the impressive external glamour of existing religious ceremonialism, and to outlast, in sincerity of purpose, in persistency of patience, and in the force of its principle, the amazing vitality of the religious convictions of the followers of dominant systems. Here is foundation work in the depths of individual character, and in the heart of the social environment, which will tax to the utmost even the superb resources of Christian missions.
The spirit of modern missions differs from that of medieval in its emphasis on the conversion of the individual rather than on that of the
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community or the nation.1 The attempt to convert a nation as a collective body is attended with some grave perils. It is safer and surer to seek the result through the slower method of changed character. The regeneration of society is at its fountainhead simply the regeneration of the heart of the individual and the renewal of his will-power as a transformed unit in the social aggregate. When this process of reconstructing the units has extended sufficiently, the combined volume of re-created personality gives us a new social whole. The universal tendency of natural development in the world is to laxity and indifference in the sphere of morals. If any individual, therefore, is to contribute a quota of positive and helpful force to the elevation of social morals, he must invariably be somewhat in advance of existing sentiment, and must himself give some perceptible stimulus in the right direction. In the present lecture it will be expedient to take a survey of the foundations which have been laid,
Fundamental factors of social prgress in Eastern lands.preparatory to the inauguration of a new era of sociological development in the case of backward nations. Our first step should be to weigh the import and study the promise of these preliminary achievements, and to view them in their true significance, as the precursors of large and splendid advances in the social regeneration of the earth during the coming centuries. To be sure, we are dealing here with what may be called anticipatory factors, introductory in their relations to larger results, but there is, after all, a profound satisfaction in witnessing foundations deeply and solidly laid, outlining as they do the superstructure, and affording a basis for expectation to build upon. In this case we may discover the superstructure not only outlined, but clearly visible to faith and reason. Turning, then, to the foundations rather than the superstructure, and considering preliminary conditions rather than present activities (which will form the subject of a subsequent lecture), we shall proceed to designate, and endeavor to characterize, some achievements of missions which are philosophically and historically of fundamental value and necessity, in anticipation of the through and final reconstruction of non-Christian society after the ideals of Christianity.
1 Maclear, “A History of Christian Missions During the Middle Ages,” pp. 399, 400.
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I We name first among these the creation of a new type of individual character. In this connection we should gratefully recognize that there is inherent in humanity a more or less novel endowment of manhood and womanhood.
The significance of a new type of individual characterThere is in the natural heart of man, unless brutalized by depravity, a measure – in some instances a generous measure – of fairness, justice, honor, sympathy, kindness, considerateness, prudence, good-will, unselfishness, and readiness to make sacrifices for others. It is there because it is God-implanted, and because human experience has fostered and nourished it. This fact, apart from the vitalizing culture of true religion, is not always, however, so much in the interest of society as one would imagine. Natural qualities may suffer a sad eclipse in a degenerate environment. The inherent good in a man is likely also to meet with adverse currents, to fail at critical points, to lack motive energy, to be fitful, uncertain, willful, and to yield to stronger forces identified with self-interest, ignorance, superstition, and passion. The natural qualities cannot always be relied upon, and have no guarantee of wisdom, fidelity, and fortitude. They are sometimes at cross-purposes with the very interests which they might be expected to conserve and promote. They form a useful balance-wheel in the historic movement of mankind, and often are of great service in arresting the otherwise rapid disintegration of society. If their influence were absolutely withdrawn, and the regenerating power of Christianity were also lacking, we might well regard humanity as doomed. These natural endowments, therefore, afford no general and assured basis of hope. In some individual instances an exceptional development may be noted; but , as a rule, they yield to the forces which make for degeneracy. The world apart from Christian civilization is what it is to-day in spite of the best gifts of nature. Heathenism, in the sphere of the soul-life, has produced, and will continue to produce, fruit after its kind. If we have nothing better to rely upon, as we contemplate the future of the race, than the natural man under the culture of ethnic systems, then all is dim, uncertain, ominous, and, so far as past experience goes, well-nigh hopeless. There is in the world, however, a power which has an endowment of moral energy, a supply of inspiriting principle, a fund of impulse and spiritual vitality, that can re-create and give
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a new direction to every natural quality, and accomplish a renovation of personal character which makes a new type of manhood, such as the systems of human origin never can produce. This power is Christianity. Another thought, and an important one, is in place just here.
Social transformations must come gradually, and must have a moral basisWhile considering the natural endowments of man, and inquiring as to what reliance can be placed upon them in the development of civilization, we must be careful how we reason from the character and standing of ordinary manhood and of civilization as revealed in Christendom, quoting our conclusions as a vindication of the resources and tendencies which pertain to natural capacities in non-Christian lands. We must remember that the average quality of manhood and the general tone of civilization with us are largely a cultivated product of Christianity, and have gathered sweetness, charity, and moral movement from the workings of the law of spiritual heredity. The higher tendencies which may fairly be credited to civilization, after generations of contact with Christian sentiment, can never properly be considered to be identified with it as an outgrowth of heathenism. The Christian type of civilization is one thing, and the heathen type quite another, so that no argument based upon one aspect of it applies to the other without a full recognition of this distinction. In a non-Christian environment we meet with a characteristic type of individual character which, for the purposes of civilization, must be changed. A degenerate individuality is, therefore, the first point of contact between Christian missions and heathenism, and a reconstructed character is the earliest aim and product of missionary effort. In this way alone can a regenerate element be introduced into the social life of heathenism. Only through a God-possessed individuality can larger and more general influences be expected. The Gospel, like a seed, must be planted within in order to grow outward. It does not touch social life with any permanent and saving power except by way of secret fructification in the soil of the individual heart. A regenerate man becomes a new and living force in unregenerate society.1 A Christian community, even though small and obscure, is a renewed section or moiety of society. Both are as leaven in the mass, with a mysterious capacity for permeating the whole. This has been declared by an accomplished writer to be the distinctive mark and method of Christ's religion.2 1 For some suggestive remarks upon the law of geometrical progress through
example centres, cf. Giddings, " The Principles of Sociology," p. 400. 2 Slater, " The Influence of Christ's Religion in History," pp. 59, 60.
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Individual character, moreover, is the point where responsibility
The inspiration of the individual for the benefit of the mass is the genesis of the true social consciencesecures its hold, where public spirit may be effectively cultivated, where what may be called the social conscience can be awakened.1 The inspiration of the individual for the benefit of the mass is the first secret of social genesis of the social progress, just as, on the other hand, the demoralization and paralysis of the individual work in the end the ruin of society as a whole. The enlargement of the intellectual resources of any single member of society, and the cultivation of his mental powers, such as the development of the faculties of discrimination, judgment, intellectual perception, forethought, discretion, prudence, facility in adjusting means to an end, all add to his value as a factor in social life, and are equivalent to a substantial contribution to the well-being of society. The economic regeneration of an idle, shiftless, demoralized, unproductive, and especially of a destructive, individuality into an industrious, productive, and peaceable character, is equivalent to the addition of so much live capital to the working force of the community. Thus the awakening in a man of a new capacity for the recognition and appreciation of moral principles, the establishment within him of a new basis for fidelity, loyalty, firmness, stability, and singleness of purpose, in harmony with higher spiritual standards, become an increment accruing to the moral forces of society which has in it the promise and potency of a nobler domestic, social, and civic life. Herein is the making of better homes, purer domestic relations, a higher and finer social temper, a sounder and truer type of citizenship. The refinement wrought in rude or gross natures by Christianity, the moral stamina and the serious purpose imparted to timid, listless, stolid, or self-effacing characters, add an important contribution to social resources. " 'Tis in the advance of individual minds
That the slow crowd should ground their expectations
Eventually to follow." The character of a people is, after all, the only sure reliance upon which any substantial hope of improvement can be based. Religious character in the individual is the good soil out of which alone the higher social virtues can spring.2 It is the first and highest function of Christian 1 Nash, " Genesis of the Social Conscience," p. 232. 2 This new type of individual character is in reality the same conception which
is enforced so vigorously by Mr. W. H. Mallock, in some able articles in The Contemporary Review, on " Physics and Sociology." He advocates a modified form of "the great-man theory," which, in its turn, might be named " the superior-group theory," and contends with much cogency that social progress is due in large measure to the influence and activity of groups of men inspired by superior motives, and coöperating for the reformation and betterment of society. See The Contemporary Review, December, 1895, pp. 902-908. Cf. also ibid., January and February, 1896.
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missions to produce in the social environment of heathenism this new creation of individual Christian character. This is, in fact, their noblest and most effective contribution to heathen society, and in it is included a vital and expansive force to which the entire community will ultimately pay its tribute of respect and confidence, and welcome its alliance and coöperation as a new and potent factor in evolving social change.1 Every mission field will be found to furnish examples of these transformed characters,
Some illustrations of changed lives in Africafashioned after a pattern quite unknown before Christian teaching and morality were introduced. The well-known story of Africaner, the converted outlaw,2 comes to us out of the depths of South African savagery. Great Britain has come latterly into contact with Khama, the Bamangwato chief (called " the Toussaint L'Ouverture of the Bechuana"), whose recent visit to England has been a notable incident in missionary history. Khama is entitled to the distinction of being a royal prohibitionist, possibly the first and only one in the history of the Dark Continent. When his father purchased for him a second wife and ordered him to take her, he replied, " I refuse, on account of the Word of God. Lay the hardest task upon me with reference to hunting elephants for ivory, or any service you can 1 " In the Natal Missions, the Gospel in fifty years has taken a few dozen
young men, who were once naked and outcast, and made of them a community, worth at least $50,000 in movable property, besides owning many thousand acres of land. They work twelve months in the year, and support twelve native preachers, contributing.£200 annually for their support. Their sons go to Johannesburg, our greatest gold centre, and, of their own accord, hold regular services, raise enough money (£400) among themselves with which to build a church, start a night-school, and engage in street preaching, sending out a blessed influence over hundreds of the thousands of heathen who collect in that centre from all parts of South Africa, some of whom, being converted, go to preach the Gospel to their heathen friends. In one instance, a Christian community was formed where one of those converts had labored." —” Rev. George A. Wilder (A. B. C. F. M.), Gazaland, East Africa. 2 "He [Dr. Moffat] was soon cheered, however, by the most gratifying
alteration in the character of Africaner and his brothers. The chief began to give signs of an utter change in life. He became intensely interested in the Bible, as well as in all forms of Christian work. At nights he loved to sit up and talk with Moffat about the truths of the Bible. . . . Africaner would greatly mourn the evil and
murderous deeds of his former life. ' What have I now of all the battles I fought and the cattle I took but shame and remorse? ' he would say. During an illness of Moffat's, the once dreaded outlaw nursed him with all the tenderness of a woman. . . . " He died in 1823. When he felt his death approaching, he gathered his people together, and exhorted them to remember that they were no longer savages, but Christians and men of peace. He testified to his own love of God, and that He had done much for him of which he was totally unworthy."—”Home, " The Story of the London Missionary Society," pp. 73, 74. Cf. also Pierson, " The Miracles of Missions," Second Series, p. 172.
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think of as a token of my obedience, but I cannot take the daughter of Pelutana to wife." In his new capital of Palapye he immediately built, in coöperation with his people, and aided by contributions supplied by themselves, a sanctuary that would seat five thousand. Concerning this noble specimen of an African Christian ruler there is the heartiest testimony, from those who know him well, that he is "a true Christian gentleman in word and deed."1 We find in dark Kaffraria that faithful Emgwali group of converts of the United Presbyterian Mission of Scotland,2 and listen also to the story of Botoman, the chief of the Gcalekas, who in his old age, after a life of savage warfare, gave his heart to the Prince of Peace, and now in his ninetieth year lingers in the light and calm of Gospel trust. In his present joy Botoman has " only one regret—”that his eyes had not been opened sooner, so that he might have given his better days to the service of God."3 1 Mrs. J. D. Hepburn writes of him as follows: " It is now nearly a quarter of a century since Khama and I became friends. We were with him—”my husband and I—”through these long years, in sorrow and in joy; through times of famine and of plenty; through the miseries of war, and in the quietude of peace and prosperity. We have tasted persecution together; and together have been permitted to see the
desert rejoicing and blossoming as the rose, under the good hand of our God upon us. But more than this; for months at a time, while my husband was visiting the Lake Ngami people, have I been left, with my children, under Khama's sole protection and guardianship; and no brother could have cared for us more thoughtfully and kindly. During these absences of his missionary, I have often had to assist the chief, interpreting and corresponding for him, and advising him in any difficulties which might arise. And in all our intercourse I can most gratefully say that he was to me always a true Christian gentleman in word and deed. No one now living knows ' Khama the Good' as I know him. Did they do so, they could but honour and trust him, as I do from my heart."—”Hepburn, " Twenty Years in Khama's Country," pp. 312, 313. Cf. also article by the Rev. Josiah Tyler, in The Missionary Review of the World, February, 1894, p. 106, and a " Character Sketch " of Khama in The Review of Reviews (English edition), October, 1895, p. 303. Mr. Home, in "The Story of the London Missionary Society," estimates highly his Christian character and services (pp. 255, 256). 2 Slowan, "The Story of Our Kaffrarian Mission," pp. 64-67; Cousins, "The
Life of the Rev. Tiyo Soga." 3 The Missionary Record, October, 1896, pp. 300-305.
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We pause for a moment to turn the leaves of a strange epistle in a recent mail from Uganda. It is a message of peace and love from the African king of Toro, to " the Elders of the Church in Europe." Was there ever such a greeting of simple, hearty Christian feeling from the central realms of savagery, which have resounded from primeval days with the shouts of tribal warfare and the cries of suffering victims of cruelty? What power but the Gospel could have drawn a letter so full of gentleness and kindly simplicity out of the heart of an African king?1 1 The letter referred to was dictated to Mr. A. B. Lloyd, of the Church Missionary Society in Uganda, and the translation is literal—”in the king's own words: " BETERIEMU, TORO, February 1, 1897. " TO MY DEAR FRIENDS THE ELDERS OF THE CHURCH IN EUROPE: " I greet you very much in our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us on the cross to make us children of God. How are you, sirs? " I am Daudi [David] Kasagama, King of Toro; the reason why I commence to tell you that is because I wish you to know me well. God our Father gave me the Kingdom of Toro to reign over for Him; therefore I write to you, my brethren, to beseech you to remember me and to pray for me every day—”all the days. " I praise my Lord very much indeed for the words of the Gospel He brought into my country, and you, my brothers, I thank you for sending teachers to come here to teach us such beautiful words. I therefore tell you that I want very much, God giving me strength, to arrange all the matters of this country for Him only, that all my people may understand that Christ Jesus He is the Saviour of all countries, and that He is the King of all kings. Therefore, sirs, I tell you that I have built a very large church in my capital, and we call it ' The Church of St. John.' "Also, that very many people come every day into the church to learn the ' Words of Life'—”perhaps 150. Also, on Sunday they are very many who come to worship God our Father in His holy church and to praise Him. I also tell you that in the gardens near here we have built six churches. The people of this place have very great hunger indeed for the ' Bread of Life '—”many die every day while still in their sins, because they do not hear the Gospel. The teachers are few, and those who wish to read many. Therefore, sirs, my dear friends, have pity on the people, in great darkness; they do not know where they are going. " Also, I want to tell you that there are very many heathen nations close to my country—”Abakonjo, Abamha, Abahoko, Abasagala, Abasongola, Abaega, and many others in darkness. We heard that now in Uganda there are English ladies; but, sirs, here is very great need for ladies to come and teach our ladies. I want very, very much that they come. " Also, my friends, help us every day in your prayers. I want my country to be a strong lantern that is not put out, in this land of darkness. " Also, I wish to make dear friends in Europe, because we are one in Christ Jesus our Saviour. Now good-bye, my dear friends. God be with you in all your decisions. " I am your friend who loves you in Jesus, " DAUDI KASAGAMA." Quoted from The Church Missionary Intelligencer, June, 1897, pp. 456, 457.
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Over on the West Coast, with its dark and bloody annals of slavery,
Can any good thing come out of " the blackest spot in darkest Africa?"cannibalism, human sacrifices, and every nameless atrocity, we find in mission records the story of strong and purified characters, such as the Rev. Thomas J. Marshall, Porto Novo, who was born in " one of the blackest spots in darkest Africa," became an honored minister of a native church, and has been instrumental in leading a whole people into the knowledge and practice of Christianity.1 There is the Rev. Jacob B. Anaman, a native minister of the Gold Coast, who has been made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.2 There is Sir Samuel Lewis, Mayor of Freetown, a native of Sierra Leone, who in 1893 was appointed a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, and whom the Queen of Great Britain has recently distinguished by the Order of Knighthood, who is " the first pure Negro in West Africa—”indeed, in the world—”on whom such honor has been conferred." He is a convert of the Wesleyan Methodist Mission, and an exemplary follower of Christ.3 The story of Bishop Crowther has become a household word in mission annals. On February 11, 1897, at Cline Town, Sierra Leone, was laid the foundation-stone of a memorial church which is to bear his name. The story of how the slave boy became the Bishop of the Niger is a romance of modern missions.4 Following in his footsteps we have at the present moment Bishops Phillips and Oluwole (see illustration facing p. 394 in Vol. I.), two excellent and worthy natives connected with the Church Missionary Society. In the Pacific Islands, long the home of bestiality and diabolical crime,
Pacific Islanders made over into the Christ-likenesswe have many gracious examples of men made over into the Christlikeness. Imperfect and in some respects inconsistent
they are nevertheless distinctively new types of likeness, character, absolutely unknown until Christian missions produced them. Read the chapter in Dr. Paton's "Autobiography " entitled "Pen-Portraits of Aniwans." In the records of the Melanesian Mission we meet with the Rev. George Sarawia, the first baptized convert from the Banks Group, a friend and protégé of Bishop Patteson, who " has always been the chief influence for good in Mota, an island which, largely through his personal influence, has now become 1 Work and Workers in the Mission Field, October, 1895, pp. 406-412. 2 Ibid., January, 1897, p. 28. 3 Ibid., March, 1896, pp. 108-114. 4 Page, " Samuel Crowther"; Creegan, "Great Missionaries of the Church," pp. 125-140; Pierson, "The Miracles of Missions," Second Series, pp. 107-126.
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entirely Christian."1 We read also of the Rev. Clement Marau, the devoted native missionary to Ulaua, in the Solomon Islands.2 In fact, almost every island which has come under the sway of Christianity seems to have had as its apostle and saviour some man of native birth, raised up under the culture of Christianity, to reveal the patience of Christian love, and discharge a new and transforming service for his fellow-men. Mota has its George Sarawia; Vanua Lava its Edwin Wogale; Motlav its Henry Tagalana; Merelava its Clement Marau and William Vaget; Cristoval its Stephen Taroniara, and Florida its Charles Sapibuana.3 The story of the conversion of the South Island of New Zealand, a half-century ago, brings to light the heroism of two native Christians from the North Island, Tamihana and Matina Te Whiwhi, who, in the face of many perils, gave themselves up to this arduous task.4 In his address at the ninety-fifth anniversary of the Church Missionary Society, Bishop Stuart, recently returned from New Zealand, spoke with admiration, and, to use his own word, with " reverence," of the work of the Holy Ghost as exemplified to a wonderful extent in the lives of Maori Christians, and testified that there were those who were giving themselves to missionary service among their fellow-countrymen with true devotion and loyalty to duty.5 An illustration of the way in which this service is gratefully honored by the natives themselves is revealed in the action of the people of Lifu, who, in 1893, purchased at Sydney an obelisk to be set up over the grave of their first evangelist, in commemoration of the jubilee anniversary of the introduction of the Gospel to that island. The evangelist referred to landed in Lifu from Rarotonga in 1842, and over his grave has been inscribed this legend: "A memorial of the jubilee of the religion of Jesus Christ in this land; this stone is erected over the grave of Pao, who first brought the Word of God to this country."6 In the savage island of New Guinea there is at the present day a large number of native missionaries, mostly from the Malua Training Institution in the distant Samoan Group, who will some day be worthy of the same tribute from grateful Christian communities. The Queen of Manua (a small group of islands in the Samoan Archipelago), shortly before her death, made an address at the dedica- 1 Montgomery, " The Light of Melanesia," pp. 47-52. 2 Ibid., pp. 68, 198. 3 Ibid., p. 208. 4 Mason, " Round the Round World on a Church Mission," p. 301. 5 The Church Missionary Intelligencer, June, 1894, pp. 422, 423. 6 King, " Ten Decades: The Australian Centenary Story of the London Missionary Society," p. 196. The Rev. George Cousins, in " The Story of the South Seas "(pp. 148-154), has given an account of Pao's work in Lifu.
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tion of a house of worship in her capital, in which we have surely a new and strange message from the royal lips of a South Sea potentate. After voicing on behalf of the people her gratitude for the gifts and blessings of Christianity, the queen remarked in closing: " My last word to you is to urge you to accept and obey Christ's new commandment which He gave to His disciples, and to us, each and all: ' Love one another.' How can a people be blessed if God's Word is not obeyed?"1 The history of missions in the Hawaiian Islands also reveals the power of Christianity to create strong and noble characters.2 "The best specimen of the Christian hero that I ever met was one of these native missionaries," writes the late Mr. R. L. Stevenson, after his visit to the Gilbert Islands.3 He referred to Maka, the Hawaiian missionary at Butaritari. In the same chapter he relates an interview with Kauwealoha, another pastor, who told him the story of the rescue of an American captive from the clutches of cannibals, by Kekela, a native colleague in missionary labor on the Island of Hiva-oa, who was subsequently rewarded for his heroism by the American Government, and also by President Lincoln. From the latter he received the personal gift of a watch. Mr. Stevenson gives in full the simple and touching letter of the native hero in acknowledgment of this gift, and remarks, " I do not envy the man who can read it without emotion."4 Before dismissing these savage races, we may note that there are illustrations among the American Indian tribes that fully sustain the claim advanced. In a recent Report of the Church Missionary Society, Archdeacon Phair writes of the Sioux Indians in Canada: " It should not be forgotten that work among these Indians has a special interest. First of all, they are refugees from the American side of the line, and have been engaged for a long time in unspeakable deeds of darkness. When I passed through them some thirty years ago, on my journey from St. Paul to Fort Garry, they were engaged in a massacre which for diabolical acts of cruelty has no equal. . . . To these men, hardened in crime and stained with blood, the message of peace and pardon through the blood of Christ was taken, and my readers should see those that received it, clothed and in their right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. I know of no better object-lesson on the meaning and value of missions than that to be learned by a visit to these people. . . . Sitting 1 For the full text of the address see The Spirit of Missions, May, 1896, p. 220. 2 Alexander, " The Islands of the Pacific," pp. 178-183. 3 Stevenson, " In the South Seas," p. 91. 4 Ibid., p. 94. See a similar instance recorded by Gill, in " From Darkness to Light in Polynesia," pp. 358, 359.
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in the little hut beside a man of fourscore years, one can easily see what missions have accomplished. The sanguinary warrior has exchanged his paint, and feathers, and thirst for blood for a European costume and a large Bible in his own tongue. Listen to his estimate of this newly found treasure: ' It gave me the light; it has true words, from one side to the other. It has strength in it, too, for what it says it is able to do. It has changed men that nothing else could change; I like it for this.'. . . These Indians value the House of God, and are pleased when they have anything to offer for the spread of the Gospel among the Indians. They live together in peace and harmony, and are an example to their white neighbors in honesty and industry."1 In India, a land where native talent has won for itself distinction and a commanding
Some personal fruits of missions in Indiaposition in professional and political life, we find a long roll of native Christians, men of eminence and ability, who have honored their faith, and exemplified a type of personal righteousness and moral strength which is recognized at once as the fruit of Christianity. We have read a most interesting account of many of these in a little volume, published in 1896, by Professor S. Satthianadhan, M.A., LL.M., of Madras. Among the forty-two brief biographies given therein, selected from the thousands of Indian Christians, are many names which would be an honor to Christianity in any age or in any land. Prominent among them, to mention only a few, we find the father of the author, the Rev. W. T. Satthianadhan, Mr. Ram Chandra Bose, the Rev. Lai Bihari Day, the Rev. Mathura Nath Bose, the Rev. Dr. Imad-ud-Din, the Rev. Dr. Narayan Sheshadri, the Rev. Dhanjibhai Naoroji, and the Rev. Krishna Mohun Banerjea, To this list we may add the Rev. K. C. Chatterjee, of Hoshyarpore. These are men of whom Indian Christianity may well be proud. We refer to them as representative of a class too numerous to mention here, except by examples. Dr. George Smith, under the title of " A Christian Brahman and His Converts," has given a sympathetic sketch of a remarkable Indian Christian, the Rev. Nilakanth Sastri Goreh,2 and also of Dr. Narayan Sheshadri, whom he designates as " The Brahman Apostle of the Outcaste Mangs."3 One of those mentioned above, the Rev. Dhanjibhai Naoroji, of Bombay, has just celebrated the jubilee of his missionary career, an account of which is given in a native paper of Madras. In an appreciative address presented to him by his fellow-Christians 1 " Report of Church Missionary Society, 1896-97," pp. 405, 406. 2 The Mission World, February, 1896, pp. 58-61. 3 The Missionary Review of the World, January, 1892, p. 45.
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of the Poona Marathi Presbyterian Church, some incidents of his career are given.1 " From first to last during my sojourn in India," writes Mr. Julian Hawthorne, " I saw many native Christians. Those that I saw are a remarkable and impressive body of men and women. I was always saying to myself,' They are like the people of the Bible.' Some wore European dress; others did not. Their aspect was gentle, sincere, and modest." 2 The Rev. Robert Clark (C. M. S.), in referring to the recent death of the Rev. John Williams, a native pastor and medical missionary at Tank, a station at the entrance of the Gomal Pass, among the wild Waziri tribes of the northwestern frontier, writes of him in terms which reveal the possibilities of Christian manhood and commanding influence on the part of native converts.3 Chinese Christianity presents also its quota of changed characters,
Christian character sketches from China and Japannot less notable than those who have been designated. A few typical personages will be briefly mentioned. Elder Loo Kiung-Dong served for twenty years as cashier of the mission press at Shanghai. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars passed through his hands, and it is not known that a single dollar was ever misappropriated. He died suddenly, with his accounts in order." " Old Wang," the first 1 The following sentences from the document presented testify to the estimate placed upon Mr. Naoroji's Christian character: " You were the first and foremost of all the Parsi converts to come out and join the Church of Christ, and though your path lay through many trials and persecutions, these did not daunt your courage. Through God's grace you stood firm to be a glorious witness for Him in this land. Your career since then has been like the path of the righteous man. . . . Your work in this country is well known. You are the recognized leader of the Indian Christian community in Western India, and you have exercised all your gifts and talents for the promotion of its well-being."—”The Christian Patriot, Madras, December 17, 1896. See also The Free Church of Scotland Monthly, November, 1897, p. 269, and December, 1897, p. 291. 2 The Cosmopolitan, September, 1897, pp. 517, 518. 3 Mr. Clark's words are as follows: " By his gentle and winning manners, his kindness to the people, and his medical skill, he won his way amongst the Waziri clans, and he was probably the only Christian man in India who could in those days travel unarmed, and without any escort, uninjured throughout the length and breadth of that mountainous country of wild Mohammedans. " The Government repeatedly bore witness to the influence which John Williams had gained over these wild tribes, and to the political advantages which they had received through his means. When the Waziris attacked and burnt Tank in 1879, they placed a sentry of their own over the Christian hospital, and over the house of their Christian friend and teacher, from whom they had often heard of the Gospel of Christ, and thus ensured his safety in perilous times."—”" Report of Church Missionary Society, 1897," p. 221.
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Chinese evangelist in Manchuria, who has been sketched by the Rev. John Ross, was a notable illustration of the power of the Gospel to glorify natural character, and to give to the whole of life an inflexible purpose in righteousness.1 Dr. Dugald Christie, in a volume relating his medical experience in Manchuria, cites the story of blind Chang, whose disreputable life was changed into that of a sincere Christian, and who upon his own responsibility engaged in a work of Gospel evangelism, and brought hundreds to Christ.2 The Rev. Hunter Corbett, D.D., has published a little pamphlet in which he gives an account of Elder Wang Pao-Kwei, of Chefoo, who died June 24, 1894, " after twenty-four years of stainless Christian living."3 In the records of the South Church, Peking, connected with the missions of the American Board, the first entry, dated March 6, 1865, is as follows: " Jung Lin, Embroidered Yellow Bannerman, age forty years, baptized second year of the Emperor Tung Chih, second moon, fourth day." This legend signalized the beginning of a life of Christian devotion which ended August, 1895, after thirty years of consistent living, in the midst of many temptations and much violent persecution. For a quarter of a century he officiated daily, except Saturdays, seldom failing to be in his usual place, in a chapel which was opened in a prominent street of Peking. He was a quaint and unusual character, but through his eccentricities there shone out the light of a new life, which was spent in truly apostolic service.4 In Hinghua lives Hung-Deh-Ging, who since his acceptance of the Gospel, some six years ago, has voluntarily preached Christ to his countrymen, and has been instrumental in opening many centres of Christian work in that vicinity. The Rev. S. L. Baldwin, D.D., in a volume of missionary biographies, has portrayed the earnest life and abounding labors of Sia Sek Ong, the exemplar and advocate of native liberality in the Foochow Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In concluding the sketch, Dr. Baldwin remarks of him: " His work abides in the hearts and lives of those whom he brought to Christ, and in the influences he set in motion for the awakening of a new life among his people."5 Mrs. Bishop writes that Joldan, the Tibetan postmaster in the British office at Leh, " is a Christian of spotless reputation," whose humble spirit and consistent character make him a living epistle in that dark land.6 1 Ross, " Old Wang, the First Chinese Evangelist in Manchuria." 2 Christie, " Ten Years in Manchuria," pp. 28-30. 3 The Church at Home and Abroad, March, 1895, p. 212. 4 The Missionary Herald, April, 1897, p. 137. 5 "The Picket Line of Missions," pp. 151-182. 6 Bishop, "Among the Tibetans," p. 101.
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In Japan the record is similar. God-fearing, devout, and truehearted Christians testify by their changed lives to that moral renewal which comes with intelligent loyalty to Christ. The story of Ansai Takeichi, who has been called a Christian statesman of Japan, is told in one of our recent magazines.1 Dr. De Forest's account of a Japanese lieutenant who was engaged in the Formosan campaign, condenses into a few sentences the striking record of what a Japanese Christian can do.2 A life that comes nearer home to American readers is that of Sanjuro Ishimoto, late professor in the Meiji Gakuin, Tokyo, who died at Princeton, New Jersey, November 2, 1895, where in connection with the College and Theological Seminary he was seeking a higher preparation for future service in his native land.3 The files of The Japan Evangelist, and the current records of Christian biography, yield numerous examples, such as the lamented Dr. Neesima, the late Mr. Sawayama of Osaka, Mr. Ishii of Okayama, Mr. Ibuka of Tokyo, Mr. Takahashi, Mr. Matsuyama, Mr.Tomeoka, and many others, which show that Christianity in Japan, as elsewhere, means a new and ennobled type of manhood. We must not forget to note in this connection that woman has also an honored place in the roll-call of character throughout mission fields. Such beautiful lives as those of Mrs. Anna Satthianadhan and her daughter-in-law, Krupabai, and Mrs. Tabitha Bauboo, all of Madras,4 Mrs. Ahok of Foochow,5 Mrs. lap of Amoy,6 and Mrs. Teng of Peking,7 and many also in the neighboring kingdom of Japan, such as the late Mrs. Ishii of Okayama,8 Mrs. Kashi Iwamoto9 and Mrs. Yajima, 1 The Church at Home and Abroad, September, 1895, p. 220; quoted from The Japan Evangelist, June, 1895, p. 275. 2 " This one Christian officer prevents his whole regiment from drinking saké, forms a temperance society among his soldiers, prohibits prostitution in a Chinese city of 70,000, establishes Christian service in the city, and raises $3500 from Chinese and Japanese with which to erect a monument to the memory of the soldiers who fell in battle, and then resigns to go back to Formosa as a Christian official, with seven other Christians under him."—”The Missionary Herald, September, 1896, p. 352. 3 Consult a sketch of Mr. Ishimoto's life, by the late Rev. Dr. James M.
McCauley, in The Japan Evangelist, April, 1896, pp. 205-209. 4 Satthianadhan, " Sketches of Indian Christians," pp. 25-53. Cf. also The Church Missionary Intelligencer, September, 1896, pp. 670-677. 5 Barnes, " Behind the Great Wall," pp. 60-90. 6 The Mission Field (Ref. C. A.), February, 1897, p. 326. 7 Woman's Work for Woman, February, 1895, p. 42. 8 The Asylum Record, December, 1896, p. 5. 9 The Japan Evangelist, April, 1896, pp. 229-237.
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both of Tokyo,1 are sufficient evidence that Christianity will give a pure and saintly charm to the character of womanhood the world over. Thus out of the humble annals of missions a fresh chapter in biography might be written, which would lose nothing in comparison with the story of victorious lives in other generations. " Saints of the early dawn of Christ, Saints of Imperial Rome,Saints of the cloistered Middle Age, Saints of the modern home,Saints of the soft and sunny East, Saints of the frozen seas,Saints of the isles that wave their palms in the far Antipodes."II A second achievement of missions, of strategic import and fundamental value,
The strategic import of a Christianized public opinionis the creation of a new public opinion. Changes in public opinion are usually so impalpable in character, and so imperceptible in progress, that it is sometimes difficult to discover them, and almost impossible to realize at once their significance. Prevailing public sentiment in heathen lands is usually the child of generations, even of centuries, of unchanging habits of thought and modes of living.2 It is almost invariably rigid, tenacious, uncompromising, and so entrenched in the personal, social, and religious life of the people that it generally eludes and often defies any attempt either to dislodge or change it. A perverted social conscience is as much a reality in non-Christian lands as a perverted individual conscience, and in the form of public opinion it is a factor of amazing force and stability. It has back of it the dominant spirit of national or tribal history, and is usually in line with those regnant forces which have always swayed the fallen nature of man. Christian missions are among the very few influences which can seriously or permanently disturb it. In fact, the spiritual energies of Christianity represent almost the only power which with any transforming results has ever grappled with it aggressively, under the inspiration of a positive purpose. Public opinion may be said to exist under varied aspects. It is found generally in the form of a sodden, stagnant incubus upon the social consciousness, saturated with evil traditions, characterized by an elusive, mirage-like expansiveness, inaccessible in its vastness, yet so 1 The Japan Evangelist, February, 1896, pp. 170-172. 2 On the genesis and importance of public opinion, cf. Giddings, " The
Principles of Sociology," p. 147.
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surely and insistently present that when you touch it you seem to come at one and the same time into contact with the whole mass, upon which, however, even the earnest, aggressive Christian reformer is unable apparently to make the slightest impression. If he seems to impinge upon it at any one point, then the whole immense body appears to rally its weight and influence against him at that very point of contact. Then there is the proud, alert, defiant, and determined phase of it, which meets one with militant energy and patriotic spirit, and offers a stout and unrelenting resistance to every attempt at modification. There is the sentimental and rhapsodical phase, the indifferent and contemptuous temper, the selfish, the conservative, the timid, the weak and nerveless species of it. It brings to its aid and protection, in opposition to all efforts to change it, the feeling of reverence for the past, so strong in Oriental countries, the commanding influence of custom, the force of habit, the love of things as they are, and have been, and shall be. It is a marvelous thing, this power of public opinion among those who have never been accustomed to independence of thought and life, and have always sat beneath the shadow of pervasive intellectual and moral traditions and persistent social trends which have dominated their lives for centuries. Moreover, in lands where personal despotism has full scope, the people have been accustomed to take refuge in the stability and protecting conservatism of ruling public opinion as a check upon irresponsible power, and this has added much to its controlling position in their esteem and to its immovable fixedness. It has done them at times a service similar to that rendered to the American political system by a federal constitution, in giving consistency and continuity to the form of government. It is hard for us to realize what a hindrance there is to mission progress in
Public sentiment a stronghold of heathenismthis force of public opinion, and what difficulties must be contended with in overcoming it. Christian missions attack it in detail by influencing individual conviction, which, in its cumulative volume, slowly crystallizes into changed public sentiment. Here, then, is a sphere of activity and indirect achievement which must be entered and effectively occupied before we can expect any permanent social transformation. It is manifest that Christian missions, under these circumstances, as a condition of success, must necessarily have a large scope of influence and a wide range of action, and that the accomplishment of any effective service for society in this sphere of transformation will tax fully their best energies and most ample resources. There is need of a powerful crusade in the interest of social progress in discrediting and overthrow-
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ing ruling ideas which can never be dislodged, and hardly even disturbed, by the ordinary factors of social development. Superstitions, traditions, prejudices, fears, customs, moods, fancies, tastes, modes of thought, and hereditary tendencies, backed by invincible habit, dominate and fashion social life to an extraordinary degree in the wide realms of the Orient. The results of social evolution, as they have crystallized in the ruling ideas and practices of society, must, to a certain extent, be undone or dissolved, or at least so modified by a process of Christian involution that a new current will be put in motion. The ideals of men must be changed. We should not forget to note here that this brings a distinct gain to the world in having the devotion, enthusiasm, and sincerity, which are in many instances undoubted characteristics of the religious life of non-Christian races, directed into Christian channels of aspiration, while the practical aim is so rectified as to bring an increment of moral energy into the service of philanthropy and virtuous living. The whole process of social development is thus born again to the possibility of better results; it is charged as by an electric current with a fresh and aggressive spirit. As human history needed the Incarnation to introduce into its moral current the principle of a new life, and to impart to its worn-out and devitalized powers the new spiritual energy which Christ brought into the world, so the social life of degenerate races needs to be seized from without by a revivifying moral power. Dr. Robertson Nicoll speaks pointedly and truly upon this urgent theme when he writes: " Christianity utterly refuses to be expressed as an earthly evolution. It claims to be a heavenly innovation. Jesus Christ was no product of Jewish heredity and environment. He came into this world from beyond it. He has made a new beginning in human history, because He was a new Person on the stage of time, whose entrance and whose exit were alike mysterious and appropriate to Himself. Christianity declares that the moral order, or disorder, of the world has been altered once for all by a moral impact from without—”an impact which Christians believe to have involved, naturally enough, physical correspondences. God hath visited and redeemed His people. The Incarnation and the Atonement are our human names for divine acts in which God Himself intervenes to cure the evil and misery of mankind. And henceforth all things are different, since that visitation and redemption."1 Christianity, then, and Christianity alone, brings the power of recovery to heathen society. The way in which it does this is often at first very indirect and obscure in its workings, but after a time, in the light of assured re- 1 Editorial in The British Weekly, July 15, 1897.
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suits, the pathway of great and beneficent changes becomes luminous with the glow of Christian influences. The workings of Christian principles and the force of Christian character can be plainly seen.1 The introduction of new ideas is the positive side of the creation of a new public opinion,
Some ruling ideas which must be dethronedwhile the destruction of old notions is the negative. The difference is that the former is constructive, while the latter is destructive. The one points to the establishment and confirmation of new sentiments; the other to the discrediting and discarding of old traditions, which are an incubus to be removed in order to give play to new ideals. Let us endeavor to specialize some of these ruling ideas which must be deprived of their controlling 1 "That the new spirit now actively at work in India is the spirit of Christ and of His religion, is clearly shown by a study of the moral and social condition of the native Christian community. This community is now the most progressive body in the country, abundantly proving that Christianity is a vital principle, a motive power, a transforming force, far transcending any force of nature. Each step in its progress has been the natural outcome of the change that the religion of Christ accomplishes in individuals. The native Christian community has risen from a low degree of numerical and social importance to a recognized position of commanding influence and conscious strength. This progress is largely due to the immunity from the social drawbacks under which the Hindu community labours. They have ceased to be restrained by tyrannical social customs and caste prejudices. And it is the Gospel of Christ that has made them free. They are also better educated in youth, better treated in sickness, more promptly aided in times of scarcity, more continuously disciplined throughout life, than any other class in the country. The absence among them of that great social evil, the early marriage system, and the increasing number of intelligent wives and mothers, largely account for their present position. The simplicity of their religious and social life is one of their greatest privileges. Unlike Hindus, whose religious existence is one series of expensive ceremonies from birth to death, they have no burdensome rites to perform, and learn to practise economy in weddings and funerals. Hinduism drains the purse, and exhausts the time and strength, of its votaries. The moment a Hindu becomes a Christian he leaves the land of slavery and breathes the air of liberty. In moral tone and purity, and in many a social improvement, the native Christians take the lead. One has only to compare Christian with Hindu homes to be assured that it is the leaven of Christ's religion that can alone quicken the inert mass of Hindu society. Industry has been developed among them; they are beginning to learn the dignity of labour; and the industrial schools started by missions have proved a great boon to the community, many of whom have taken to honest trades, and are doing remarkably well. The moral, social, and intellectual progress of this community is the natural outcome of the life-giving power of Christianity. Here we have abundant evidence that the Christian faith is the most powerful lever for the uplifting of a people. Self-consciousness and independence are true indications of power; and this community is becoming conscious of its strength."—”Rev. T. E. Slater (L. M. S.), Bangalore, South India.
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influence in the interests of higher social progress. Among them may be named the provincial self-exaltation, usually associated with a withering estimate of the foreigner, prevailing so conspicuously in China, and of which other nations are able to present no insignificant illustration. The provincial conceit of Japan pales only in the presence of that of China. Japan, however, does not allow national pride to blind her to the excellencies and advantages of Christian civilization, a large share of which, with singular wisdom, she is ready to adopt, so far as there is no conflict with her exclusive predilections. China has always stood in the twilight of her own enormous shadow, rejecting everything that was not indigenous. Her chauvinism is colossal. Hatred and distrust of everything outside of China are ruling ideas of the " Middle Kingdom." A Chinese mandarin cannot even enter a foreigner's house without incurring suspicion and losing a measure of his official and social standing. The extent to which this contempt of outside nations will carry the Chinese intellect is revealed in an extract from a placard attached to the gates of the Examination Hall at Singan, at a time when thousands of students were gathered for literary examinations. It is not by any means an exaggerated specimen of its kind.1 It is the testimony of The Indian Messenger, a native periodical published in the interests of Brahmoism, that " there is probably at the present moment no more conceited race on the face of the earth, and with less cause for self-glorification, if we take into account only their present achievement and condition, than the people of India." A recent correspondent of the London Times, writing from Madagascar, speaks of the " unlimited conceit" which forms one of the principal traits of the Hova character. Instances need not be multiplied. It is one of the functions of missions to let in the light of comparison and teach the saving grace of humility. Many absurd errors in scientific knowledge and practical economy are prevalent. Antiquated and childish restrictions upon travel abroad are still enforced in India. There is everywhere a reluctance to substitute modern facilities for old and cumbersome methods. Violent race prejudices separate non-Christian communities into hostile camps, hinder that free intermingling of humanity which disarms suspicion, and 1 Its legend runs thus: " These few and insignificant nations that be on the outskirts of this illustrious land are thorny and wild and all barbarian. Before the European countries existed China was sage-educated. The teaching of Confucius at last reached unto their barbarity, and reaching them reformed them. Yet an Englishman ventures to come out and instruct us! Why, we are his teachers! (Signed) Master of the Club of Orthodoxy."—”Quoted in The Baptist Missionary Magazine, January, 1895, p. 27.
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retard that fusion of races which is so characteristic of the progress of Christian civilization. A false and narrow patriotism is apt to exalt and cling to features of national life which a larger and wiser knowledge would reject. Caste exclusiveness rules with despotic sway in Indian society, and in milder form among many other non-Christian peoples. Then there are degrading superstitions, demoralizing fears, misguided convictions, criminal abominations, defective standards of honor and integrity, heartless unconsciousness of responsibility and duty where the interests of others are concerned, heedless cruelty, filthiness of the imagination, and a lax estimate of the enormity of crime. There is a low opinion of the status of women and children, and no proper appreciation of the sacredness of either their persons or their rights. One of the best gifts of missions to heathen society is the educated woman. To instruct a girl was a scandal, until missions established a better sentiment, and now it is a thing to be desired. There are loose views of the marriage relation, and an ever-present readiness to judge leniently, if not condone altogether, the vices which an Oriental loves. In fact, there are few ruling ideas in the non-Christian world that are not a barrier to social progress, and there is no available and really effective instrument for dislodging and dispelling them, other than the Christianity which it is the transcendent aim of Christian missions to teach.1 1 "Nothing can be more certain," writes the Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D. D. (P. B. F. M. N.), of Landaur, India, "than that such movements here and there are directly due to the effect of Christianity as a visible power in provoking to good works." Dr. Kellogg has kindly forwarded the following items culled from Indian papers: " In a recent number of the Madras journal entitled Progress an account is given of the subjects discussed at the Eighth Annual Conference of the Kayastha community of Hindus, known as the ' writer' caste. They were as follows: (1) curtailment of marriage expenses; (2) prohibition of early (child) marriages; (3) sending youths to England for education; (4) technical education; (5) creation of a national fund for the maintenance of widows and orphans, and education of the children of the poorer members of the Kayastha community; (6) female education; (7) prohibition of members of the community from joining any associations, political or religious, which tend to engender ill feeling between the races. " The Gyan Patrika gives the following items, among others, of the programme of the Hindu Social Conference held at Madras, December 30, 1894: (1) the desirability of regulating the marriage age, that is, not allowing men over fifty to marry girls under fourteen; (2) question of facilitating registration of Social Reform Associations; (3) the advisability of discouraging nautch parties at religious festivals and social gatherings; (4) abolition of imprisonment of women in execution of decrees for restitution of conjugal rights; (5) removal of all social hindrances in the way of the reception of foreign travelled men, and also of men marrying widows; (6) the necessity of a more active coö peration with the Temperance Movement, not only as regards spirits, but also as regards opium, bhang, and other drugs; (7) the desirability of promoting interdining and intermarriage between the members of recognized subdivisions of the local caste; (8) the desirability of discouraging the disfigurement of widows, in accordance with the prevailing customs."
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There is need everywhere in non-Christian society of a new public opinion as to
Some important lessons to be learnedthe value of the individual as a factor in social progress and in national greatness. There must be a new some important lessons recognition of his rights, an appreciation of the to be learned. sacredness of his liberty, and of the import and value of his personal relations and character. There must be a new public sentiment as to the value of purity, truthfulness, righteousness, honor, fidelity to public trust, and responsibility for the public weal. There must be a new estimate of the moral obligations implied in public service, of the requirements of loyalty in the sphere of public duty, and a discovery of the status of law, justice, and common honesty in public life. There must be a new judgment as to the standards of integrity, honesty, and trustworthiness in business relations. Deceit, fraud, and unscrupulous misrepresentation, now to such an extent dominant in all the commercial intercourse of heathen society, must be dishonored and discredited. There must be a new appreciation of the nobility of virtue and a deeper perception of the loathsomeness of vice. The old degenerate code must give place to the Christian ideal of the sanctities of the home, the sacredness of family life, and the imperative obligations of sexual purity. There must be a higher recognition of the brotherhood of humanity, and all that it implies in the sphere of mutual helpfulness and philanthropic service. There must be a clearer apprehension of the dignity of law and the superiority of principle over personal favoritism or brute force in the exercise of executive authority or the administration of public trust. There must be new views of the dignity of labor, the shame of idleness as a badge of aristocracy, and the absurdity of regarding fancied nobility of lineage as a plea for sloth. There must be a new estimate of man as man, such as will shatter false standards and sunder the bonds of caste. There is a whole circle of twisted, gnarled, stunted, grotesque, vitiated, demoralized, and iniquitous aspects of public opinion in foreign lands, which must be slowly changed, purified, sweetened, and brought into harmony with Christian teaching. Here is an achievement, at once fundamental and vital in the interests of social transformation, which Christian missions alone are capable of accomplishing with any touch of mastery, or with any permanent efficiency and thoroughness.
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The process by which this change is accomplished is difficult to discover or illustrate,
Public opinion in China and India yielding to Christian influencebut the results are apparent to any thoughtful observer. Slowly but surely the whole public opinion of China is changing in its estimate of the outside world and its respect for Western science, literature, art, culture, and even religion. It is no slight achievement to convince a Chinese that any change in his conservative outlook or familiar environment will be an advantage; yet that conviction is now lodged in many minds, and the spirit of progress is beginning to breathe upon the dry bones of China. This is no doubt due to a variety of causes, but chief among them must be named the influence of Christian missions in stimulating thought, awakening aspiration, and enlarging the outlook of multitudes in the empire. The Hindu point of view is also changing—”quietly, almost imperceptibly, new philosophical principles are dominating Hindu thought. Christian ideas are being absorbed, appropriated, and even asserted, in some instances with only a faint recognition of their origin. Reform movements are gathering headway in India; old scandals are losing caste; and things that a generation or so ago were openly admired and practised are now decidedly—”in some instances pronouncedly—”under a ban. Some of the most brilliant appeals and thoroughgoing arguments in behalf of reform movements are advanced at the present day by Hindus themselves. The recent inaugural address of R. G. Bhan-darkar, Ph.D., C.I.E., Vice-Chancellor of the Bombay University, in taking the Chair as President of the Poona Social Conference, is a strong, dignified, and outspoken plea for radical and monumental changes in the social system of Hinduism.1 1 A few paragraphs from the address will reveal its tenor and spirit: " About sixty years ago, none among us had any idea of the reform of our society, and a conference such as this was out of the question. But since that time we have come in closer contact with Western civilization, chiefly through the means of English education; and that has led us to take interest in the concerns of Indian society in general, and consider its good to be our good, and has evoked in us feelings of justice and compassion for the various classes that compose our society. . . . And, first, a good many of the proposals have reference to the condition of the female portion of our society. Gentlemen, one half of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual resources of our country is being wasted. If our women were educated as they ought to be, they would be a powerful instrument for advancing the general condition of our country. . . . The other points concerning our daughters and our sisters have reference to the unjust and cruel sufferings to which our present social usages subject them, and which no man in whom the sentiments of justice and compassion are developed can find it in his heart to tolerate even for a moment. The misery of our widows has been the subject of frequent remark. . . . I will only make a general observation, that that society which allows men to marry any number of times, even up to the age of sixty, while it sternly forbids even girls of seven or eight to have another husband after one is dead, which gives liberty to a man of fifty or sixty to marry a girl of eleven or twelve, which has no word of condemnation for the man who marries another wife within fifteen days after the death of the first, is a society which sets very little value upon the life of a female human being, and places woman on the same level with cattle, and is thus in an unsound condition, disqualifying it for a successful competition with societies having a more healthy constitution. . . . I will next call your attention to those points in the resolution which concern the institution of castes. . . . And, generally, allow me to observe that the rigid system of caste which prevails among us will ever act as a heavy drag in our race towards a brighter future. . . . Then, there are other points in the resolution, the aim of which is to remove positive obstacles to our healthy development. The marriage of boys and girls is of this nature. . . . The prohibition of travel in foreign countries I would put under the same head, since it acts as an obstacle to the free expansion of our energies and capacities."—” The Statesman, January 7, 1896; quoted also in The Delhi Mission News, July, 1896.
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Dr. Bhandarkar is a Maratha Brahman, and is spoken of as "a profound scholar, a great antiquarian, and an earnest philanthropist and reformer." He is not alone in his views as to the need of extensive reforms in Indian society, and his advocacy of them is indicative of an eventful and aggressive change in the public opinion of the country, which is growing stronger and more militant every year. What is true of India to a marked degree is true, in a measure, of the entire Orient. There is throughout the East a growing restlessness and discontent with present social conditions, and a new spirit, progressive, alert, and aspiring, is asserting itself, indicative of far-reaching changes which are coming in public sentiment. To what extent these changes will be due to the influence of Christian missions may be open to discussion with some, but it is a noticeable fact that among experienced, competent, and candid observers on the spot there is a readiness to recognize the work of missions as the most pervasive and decisive agency in the introduction of new ideas and in the quickening of new aspirations in Eastern society. The opinion of missionaries in all lands, as we shall see, is practically unanimous in regarding the awakening of non-Christian peoples to a better and nobler social destiny as due to the vitalizing touch of Christianity. We would not say that it is the paramount duty or the primary service of a
A missionary should be wise and self-restrained in his attitude towards social reformsmissionary to take up the rôle of a social reformer. He must be very wise and guarded in this respect. His first business is with the Gospel as the message of God to man, and with the Bible as a book of religious inspiration and divine instruction, although he may do much by his personal influence and advice to encourage
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needed reforms. The religion which he teaches will eventually purify the minds of men, rectify their views, and reform their ways. He should be especially cautious about interfering with social customs and using the Gospel in the advocacy of a new order of things where there is no imperative call for change. He is a teacher of biblical truth, and an advocate and exemplar of Christian morality. If he is faithful in this sphere, he will in the end do a large and beneficent work throughout the entire realm of social welfare.1 It may be asked here, Are we not giving too wide and indefinite a scope to Christianity as a transforming and rectifying force in social development? It is a fair question, but we should pause before we answer it to consider whether we have fully realized the penetrating and pervasive power of Christianity in human society, the length and breadth as well as the height and depth of its influence over both the individual and the social man. Can we hope for, or need we desire, anything more directly purifying, ennobling, and thoroughly renovating to human society, in all its complex requirements and its desperate shortcomings, than that it should be wholly Christianized? III A third function of missions of fundamental import and touching the deep springs of
The fundamental character of education as a basis of social progresssocial progress is the establishment and promotion of education. This is one of the noblest sociological aspects of missionary effort. It illumines, vivifies and inspires the intellectual nature of man, and brings it into the arena of social struggle equipped for service. Before the modern era of missionary educational facilities, lamentable ignorance prevailed through all the non-Christian world. Half a century or more ago whole communities, tribes, and even nations were under the incubus of its depressing and paralyzing bondage. Even the deceitful semblance of true knowledge, derived from their 1 " Their customs and habits are so ancient and sacred to them that they will not abandon them simply because they are told to do so. Appeals to their reason or moral sense are fruitless, for in the majority of cases these people are unreasonable, and their moral sense needs first to be developed in order to be made productive of good. Neither has the missionary time to engage in secular matters, nor money enough to supply the demands that would be made upon him. Only he whom the Son of God makes free is free indeed. After Christ has entered the hearts of these people and they are made obedient to the Spirit, they will have faith in the missionary's message and the superiority of his social, moral, and religious ideas."—”Rev. J. Heinrichs (A. B. M. U.), Vinukonda, India.
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ancient but effete classical culture, was, in the case of the more advanced nations of the Orient, not the possession of the people, but the monopoly of a literary caste. The instruction of the young, except in very rare instances, was neglected. Pitiable ignorance reigned everywhere, and the masses of society were the victims of mental blindness and vacuity to an extent which is almost incredible in our enlightened environment. It is not necessary here to dwell at any length upon this aspect of our theme. It will be more gratifying to point out what a hopeful change has been brought about. The present educational plant of foreign missions throughout the world is a marvelous achievement, considered not only in itself, but as representing literally a free gift of Christianity to the nations. Its import as a stimulus to social progress is self-evident. It is sufficient to say that mission schools and colleges have awakened everywhere a new passion for education. " The entrance of Thy Word giveth light" is true of the mind as well as of the heart. " It is a common thing in China," writes a missionary, " for illiterate men and women, often far advanced in life, as soon as they embrace Christianity, to want to learn to read."1 A desire for knowledge, especially for acquaintance with the facts of science, seems to spring up in connection with the quickened life of Christian faith. " How this Christianity does open the eyes of the mind! " was the exclamation of a wondering Chinese, after a talk with a missionary about the elementary facts of science. A new wonderland of mental vision and intellectual attainment has been revealed to the young who are thronging educational institutions in every foreign field. Vast areas of the mental life of the world are thus being reclaimed by culture, and prepared through missionary instrumentalities to be productive of a harvest of social benefits to man.2 Not only is impulse given to the mental 1 Rev. William P. Chalfant (P. B. F. M. N.). Ichowfu, China. 2 The following statistics, which have been gathered with much care, will
indicate in a measure the extent and significance of the educational contribution of missions to social progress. These figures are good so far as they go, and, were it possible to secure absolute completeness, it is likely that in some items they might be increased from ten to fifteen per cent., when all returns were obtained and
tabulated. There are 112 universities and colleges, including preparatory departments, in foreign mission fields, attended by 28,523 students; there are 546 theological and training schools, with 12,178 students; there are 1087 boarding- and high-schools, with 54,376pupils; 17,773 day-schools, with 780,448 pupils; 324 industrial schools and departments, with 7390 pupils: making a total of 19,842—”in all probability it will be found to be nearly 22,000—”institutions and schools, with a total, so far as present returns indicate, of 882,915 pupils. The number is probably not far from a full million.
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powers, but their development is guided with a view to usefulness. The training imparted is broad in its scope and thorough in its drill, and is mingled with elevating Christian instruction. The elementary, academic, normal, professional, and industrial departments are pervaded by the moral impress and the Christian tone of the Gospel.1 The gain is far more notable than is realized by the great majority of the supporters of missions, and in such advanced fields as India and Japan has resulted in the formation of scientific, philosophical, and educational societies, the character and scope of which indicate a generous fruitage of culture, and promise noble contributions to the sum of human learning. The foundations of an intellectual development, in touch with the treasures of modern knowledge, have been laid among receptive peoples whose capabilities will perhaps prove a surprise to the world, and result in widespread advantage to the race. IV Next to the educational, we must rank the literary contribution of missions as a basal
Mission literature as a basis of social developmentfactor in the social progress of non-Christian peoples. This varies in its character and range, from the primer and text-book of the elementary school to goodly volumes dealing with the highest themes of modern culture. The extent and varied character of the literature given by missionaries to the awakened minds and hearts of multitudes, represent the ripest attainments of modern intellectual life. A chief place, very properly, has been assigned to religious literature, including theological treatises, biblical expositions, and manuals of doctrine and apologetics. The scope of these literary activities, however, goes far beyond this, and covers not only books of a scientific, philosophical, technical, and economic character, but a wide range of works in history, ethics, education, literature, and gives information of practical value, entertaining as well as instructive. The crown and glory of this is the Bible, around which all mission literature is grouped, and to which, at least in the consecrated aims of its authors, it is intended to bear a definite relation. In this service on behalf of a sanctified literature, the great Bible and Tract Societies of America and Britain have borne a noble and conspicuous part. The department of the arts, including æsthetics, has not been overlooked; 1 Cf. Mott, " Strategic Points in the World's Conquest," chaps, iv.-x., xiii.-xvii.
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religious poetry, especially Gospel hymns, has been everywhere introduced. Beautiful and inspiring words have been set to music, partly native and partly borrowed from the sacred harmonies of Christendom, so that the religious services, as well as the homes and hearts of Christians, are cheered and brightened with the delights of sacred song.1 Religious journals and periodicals are edited and published by missionaries, and through the stimulus of this example the journalistic enterprise of educated natives has inaugurated an extensive issue of newspaper and periodical literature, which is a growing power in the education of society and the shaping of public opinion. The entire or partial versions of the Bible prepared, chiefly during the present century, by missionaries, or by others for missionary purposes, exceed four hundred. This does not include revised versions; each one represents a distinct language or dialect. The new versions, that is, those still in the manuscript stage and at present in course of preparation, are 20. The publishing-houses and mission presses number, so far as has been ascertained, at least 148. The list of annual publications, as nearly as can be traced, is 6,926,163; the number of pages printed each year is about 250,000,000. There are in addition 34 tract societies on mission fields, printing annually, according to recent reports, 8,613,568 volumes and tracts, representing an estimated number of pages not far from 200,000,000. There are published in connection with the various missions 416 separate issues of periodical literature. Missionaries have reduced many spoken languages to writing, and made them available for literary uses. A careful estimate reveals the fact that not less than 120 languages have thus been made the medium of literary production through the stimulating agency of missions. They have introduced the art of writing, and provided reading primers, elementary grammars, educational text-books, philological treatises, and various grades of dictionaries, as intellectual tools to peoples who have thus been ushered into a new literary epoch.1 It is 1 See "The Hymnody of Foreign Missions," by the Rev. James H. Ross, in
The Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1894. 2 Commissioner Sir H. H. Johnston, in a recent report, has referred to the
literary services of missionaries in the British Central Africa Protectorate as follows: " High praise must be given to the missionaries of British Central Africa for the extent and value of their linguistic studies. The Universities' Mission has printed several works dealing with the form of Chinyanja which is spoken on the east coast of Nyassa. In the Church of Scotland Mission the Rev. Alexander Hetherwick has published a handbook of the Yao language, and the Rev. D. C. Scott has compiled a Mañanja dictionary, which is a veritable mine of information as to native habits and customs. In a way, the Livingstonia Mission stands first as regards the value of its contributions to our knowledge of African languages. Dr. Laws has published at different times vocabularies of the Chinyanja, Chikunda, and Chitonga tongues. Dr. Elmslie has written some really valuable works on the Tumbuka language, and on the dialect of Zulu spoken by the Angoni, besides numerous other contributions to African philology. The late Dr. Henry, of the same mission, has published the best grammar extant of Chinyanja, and the late Mr. Bain commenced a vocabulary of the language spoken at the north end of Lake Nyassa. The Rev. David Jones, of the London Missionary Society, has published vocabularies of the Kimambwe, and has compiled (I do not think it is published other than privately) a most valuable study of the interesting Kiguha language, spoken on the west coast of Lake Tanganyika."—”Blue Book, "Africa, No. 6 (1894)," p. 36. A further statement regarding the literary and other services of missionaries will be found in Sir H. H. Johnston's recent book, " British Central Africa," pp. 205, 206. He there remarks: " Huge is the debt which philologists owe to the labours of British missionaries in Africa! By evangelists of our own nationality nearly two hundred African languages and dialects have been illustrated by grammars, dictionaries, vocabularies, and translations of the Bible. Many of these tongues were on the point of extinction, and have since become extinct, and we owe our knowledge of them solely to the missionaries' intervention. Zoölogy, botany, and anthropology, and most of the other branches of scientific investigation, have been enriched by the researches of missionaries, who have enjoyed unequalled opportunities of collecting in new districts; while commerce and colonisation have been so notoriously guided in their extension by the information derived from patriotic emissaries of Christianity that the negro potentate was scarcely unjust when he complained that ' first came the missionary, then the merchant, then the consul, and then the man-of-war.' For missionary enterprise in the future I see a great sphere of usefulness—”work to be done in the service of civilisation which shall rise superior to the mere inculcation of dogma; work which shall have for its object the careful education and kindly guardianship of struggling, backward peoples; work which, in its lasting effects on men's minds, shall be gratefully remembered by the new races of Africa when the sectarian fervour which prompted it shall long have been forgotten."
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safe to say that an era of national literature has been in many instances inaugurated by missions, and in cases where such a literature already existed it has been profoundly stimulated and guided into enlarged and fructifying channels. The morning drum-beat of the British Army is said to accompany the sunrise; but even in more literal harmony with fact, may it not be said that the throb of the mission presses—”signal of a transcendent dawn—”pulsates round the world with the music of their unceasing activity? In Central Africa, as long ago as 1878, a printing-press was established at Blantyre, in connection with the Church of Scotland Mission. The importance of all this intellectual awakening cannot be exaggerated. The advantage of having the new
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era of literature established under the noble and helpful influences of missions is incalculable, and of hardly less significance is it to have the modern renaissance in the literary development of already lettered people occur under the auspices of Christian culture.1 The old literature is usually antiquated, effete, moribund, and useless for the purposes of modern progress. It is rather an incubus upon the intellect and the heart, and must be supplanted by a culture which is quickened and fed from later sources of supply. We should not fail to note, moreover, in this connection, that the awakening of literary desires and the cultivation of intellectual and aesthetic tastes have stimulated a large realm of economic enterprise, which will in time give employment to an army of workers engaged in literary production, and in the publishing, editing, printing, and distributing of books and periodicals, thus ministering to the growing intellectual and artistic wants of an educated community. This conclusion may safely be reached if foreign mission activities in journalistic and literary fields are to result in a general demand for literature which bears any comparison with the present output within the bounds of Christendom, where millions of money are in circulation and hundreds of thousands of workers are busy supplying the intellectual requirements of the age. The reflecting onlooker cannot fail to note in this connection the inestimable
God's Word the supreme gift to Eastern literaturevalue of the Bible as a part of national literature.2 Who can gauge the benefit which follows the introduction of God's thoughts into the intellectual, social, and religious experience of man? Who can weigh the import of placing such a mandatory and sanctioning phrase as " Thus saith the Lord " in the current of the heart-life of a nation? Who can measure the moulding power of divine instruction concerning the individual life as well as the mutual relationships of human intercourse? What terms of gratitude are sufficiently adequate to express the indebtedness of a people to those who bring them this grand heritage of our common humanity—”God's light upon human duty and destiny?3 It is true that the more enlightened nations of the Orient have sacred books of their own, but, in many instances, these very classics 1 Cf. Mabie, " Essays on Books and Culture," chap, x., " Liberation through
Ideas," pp. 121-131. 2 Pattison, " History of the English Bible." 3 Cf. Warren, "The Bible in the World's Education"; Northrup, "The Bible
as an Educator."
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of their religious faith are responsible for a large part of the default and moral scandal of their social condition. Professor Fairbairn quotes a distinguished scholar as saying: " If you want to prove the truth, the wisdom, the sober and honest history of the Bible, and the purity of its religion, place it among the sacred books of the East. In these books there are many grains of gold, but they are hid in mountains of the most extraordinary rubbish, and the astonishing thing is that it is the rubbish that calls forth the enthusiasm and admiration of the peoples that own them. The sobriety of the Bible, the purity of its spirit, the elevation and devotion of its tone, make it occupy an entirely unique place." 1 Among more backward and barbarous races little, if any, sacred literature which is worthy of the name exists. Mythological legends, puerile superstitions, fantastic tales of demons, rhapsodical mutterings, solemn gibberish, or the empty rodomontade of medicine-men and witch-doctors, make up the sum total of their sacred traditions. To introduce the light, the hope, the truth, the wholesome instruction, the guiding wisdom, the restraining commands, and the glowing assurances of a sanctified Christian literature into the intellectual life of nations so bereft, so demoralized, so enslaved by ignorance, is a service of incalculable import and immense beneficence to mankind. It is a persuasive summons to all that is best in men; it renews their mental forces; it brings them out of the darkness into the light, out of the shadow into the sunshine; and places them where all their spiritual gifts may ripen, their intellectual powers fructify, and their moral capabilities develop for the higher interests of themselves and their posterity. This is surely one of the most quickening services of Christian missions for the social as well as the mental and spiritual development of mankind. V The cultivation of the philanthropic spirit is another of the notable results of missions.
The influence of missions in laying the foundations of philanthropyUnder direct missionary auspices a large and impressive exemplification of the benevolent spirit of Christianity has been given. An impulse in this direction has been imparted not only to the native Christian community, but, in a measure, to non-Christian society wherever missions are conducted. Benevolence both as a grace and a duty has always been part of the historic outcome of 1 Fairbairn, "Religion in History and in Modern Life," p. 102.
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Christianity. The Christian religion is still assuming as part of its mission activities the rôle of the Good Samaritan among the nations.1 A social system without the presence and the active ministry of philanthropy is doomed to selfishness and sterility, since the most powerful and winsome incentive to mutual helpfulness, and so to the development of social virtues, is lacking. It is true that a theoretical, and after a fashion practical, benevolence is part of other religious systems. Almsgiving is popular in the East, but it is identified with a meritorious system of religious observance. The giving of alms is inculcated as an act of merit, especially for the benefit of religious devotees, who live in filth and idleness, and are an incubus on society rather than a help to it. In some instances the benevolent instinct seems to turn from living men and women to exhaust itself either upon animals or on an ancestral humanity dead and gone. It may safely be said that the systematic, universal, persistent practice of philanthropic and helpful ministry to living humanity in its hour of need, for God's sake and for charity's sake, is characteristic of the religion of Christ in a sense unknown in other systems.2 It alone teaches in a clear and emphatic way the sacredness of the living body in its earthly environment, and seeks to brighten and cheer human lives, to assuage pain and deliver the sufferer from its dread mastery, to stay 1 Pierce, " The Dominion of Christ," p. 183. 2 The following statistics include data which have been verified, and may stand as a fairly approximate—”not absolutely complete—”representation of the philanthropic agencies of missions. The total of medical missionaries at present is 680; of this number 470 are men, and 210 women. There are 45 medical schools and classes, with 382 male and 79 female students—”making a total of 461. There are 21 training-schools for nurses, with 146 pupils. Neither of these statements includes 240 female medical students now in training as physicians, nurses, and hospital assistants, under the care of the Lady Dufferin Association in India. There are 348 hospitals and 774 dispensaries. Exact statements as to the number of patients annually treated have been obtained from 293 hospitals and 661 dispensaries, the total patients recorded in these returns being 2,009,970, representing 5,087,169 treatments. If we make a proportionate estimate for the 55 hospitals and 113 dispensaries from which reports of the number of patients have not as yet been received, the sum total of those annually treated will be not far from 2,500,000. If we allow an average of three separate visits or treatments for each patient, the total of annual treatments will be 7,500,000. There are 97 leper asylums, homes, and settlements, with 5453 inmates, of whom 1987 are Christians. There are 227 orphan and foundling asylums, with 14,695 inmates. The statistics of temperance-reform and rescue societies have not been obtained with sufficient exactness to report at present. The same may be said of children's aid societies, prison-reform movements, and other less prominent charities. More detailed information will be found in the supplemental tables of statistics to be published in Volume III.
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the ravages of disease, to mitigate the agony of incurable maladies, to care for the weak and helpless, to put a stop to bloodshed and savage torture, and to inspire that fine and humane dread of inflicting pain which is characteristic of Christian feeling. Its programme, in the words of its Master, is " to heal all manner of disease and all manner of sickness." Its aim is to dispel the darkness, to brighten the shadows, to give a home to the homeless, an asylum to the orphan, a refuge to the hard-pressed, deliverance to the enslaved, and an uplift of hope and cheer to the despairing. It seeks to open up the path of honest occupation by placing the tools of industry in savage hands accustomed only to wield weapons of violence. Christianity has a whole round of expedients for the rescue of distressed humanity, the mitigation of its sorrows and sufferings and the saving of lives that otherwise would be doomed. The philanthropic spirit, with its complement of practice, which these expedients represent, is a signal contribution of missions to non-Christian society. Medical missionary service, hospitals for the suffering, and benevolent institutions of various kinds, have sprung up on every shore where Christian missions have planted the Red Cross flag of humanitarian ministry. Suffering nations are already reaping a harvest of beneficent results, and as yet only the first-fruits have been gathered. Stimulus has here and there been given to philanthropic movements under non-Christian auspices which have brought some benefits where hitherto only neglect had been the rule. In South China, for example, what are known as Sacred Edict Preaching Halls have been established to give instruction in Confucian ethics as an antidote to Gospel preaching. Native benevolent societies have also been formed to meet missionary philanthropy on its own ground.1 A 1 " It cannot be too emphatically told that this Sacred Edict Preaching Hall movement is due entirely to Christianity. Before missions from the West were established and maintained with ever-growing success, not a Sacred Edict Hall existed. There was no attempt to popularize the teachings of the sages or bring these teachings to the doors of the people. The Sacred Edict itself was read and expounded within the precincts of certain official buildings on the mornings of the 1st and 15th of each month. It was a procedure purely formal. The public, with the possible exception of two or three loiterers, did not attend the readings, nor was any endeavor made to induce the populace to hear the Edict. Christianity has evoked a movement, now widespread, to bring all that is best in Confucian teaching to bear on the life of the people, and in any account of what the Gospel is doing indirectly for their moral and social well-being this fact should have prominence. " Missionary hospitals have led to the founding of native societies in order that Christianity may be met on its own grounds and conquered with its own weapons. The Chinese Benevolent Society of Canton is a most noteworthy institution, possessing what the natives would regard as a magnificent building of lofty and imposing proportions, situated in Canton where its central offices could be most conveniently established. Its operations extend far beyond the bounds of the provincial city and immediate neighborhood. There are four native doctors in attendance daily at the central building. These men prescribe for all comers. Their diagnosis is, of course, from the Western point of view incomplete and often absurd. There is, however, the fact of an institution known throughout China, with a yearly expenditure amounting to many thousands of dollars, and with branches in different parts of the suburbs and in country districts. Here again is an indirect result of Christianity manifest in the alleviation of suffering through heathen benevolence brought into play by the opposing force of Christian missions. Before missions were established in the South of China private benevolence was no doubt exercised by many of the wealthy Chinese. Some of these may have combined to heal the sick, to help the destitute and famine-stricken, and to bestow coffins as gifts when deserving families among their neighbors were found without the means to bury their dead. But anything in the nature of a public society organized for the express purpose of systematic and regular benevolence, one may affirm, was an unheard-of project."—”Rev. T. W. Pearce (L. M. S.), Hong Kong, China.
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striking incident is just at hand which reveals what Christianity can do towards the development of philanthropy among races the most ignorant and degraded, and apparently the least likely to respond to humanizing influences. Many have no doubt noted the announcement in the English journals that among the contributions received by the Mansion House Indian Famine Fund was the sum of £844 from the people of Fiji. This is a Christian gift. "Let the fact be noted," remarks the editor of Work and Workers in the Mission Field," and its significance be taken to heart. Sixty years ago, at the time of Her Majesty's accession to the throne, the entire Fiji group was inhabited by pagan cannibals. Its heathen darkness was unbroken by any ray of Christian religion or civilisation."1 VI Another fundamental social force of manifest promise is the personal
Personal example as a contribution of missions to non-Christian society example of missionaries and native converts, whose daily lives are passed in full view of the non-Christian world. Native example in the past has been, and is still to non-Christian to an immensely preponderating extent, enlisted in the maintenance of existing customs. There is no source from which a counter-influence may be expected, unless Christianity, in the person of its missionaries and native converts, steps in with the silent power of personal example. At first this may seem to 1 Work and Workers in the Mission Field, May, 1897, p. 177.
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be of little value and efficacy as an offset to almost universal tendencies of an opposite character, but the winsome force of a noble and commendable example is often more powerful than the apparently formidable influence against which it contends.1 Example that is right in itself, and that represents sincerity of conviction, is one of those "little ones which shall chase a thousand." The personal equation is beginning to work in the influence of native Christian communities, and in the contribution here and there of capable leaders in the intellectual, social, and religious life of the Orient. Nor is it too much to expect that Christian missions will give birth in modern times to a St. Chrysostom or a St. Augustine, to a Luther, a Wilberforce, a Howard, and to others of like fame, who have accomplished a noble and transforming work in the realm of human progress.2 Missions are setting in motion in all lands that stream of consecrated personality which has always characterized Christian history. They are kindling a new enthusiasm for (human welfare in nations where, if it ever existed, it has been extinct for centuries. They are opening fountains of individual evangelism where a Gospel yearning for souls has never been known. The personal character of missionaries themselves is also a factor in the social changes taking place in non-Christian lands which it would 1 "Just take one phase of His [Christ's] historical action—”what He has
accomplished through great personalities. Were He dropped out of history, with all the historical personalities He has fashioned, it is hardly possible to conceive what to-day would be. The mightiest civilizing agencies are persons; the mightiest civilizing persons have been Christian men. . . . These were the men who made
the century [the sixteenth], but who made the men? In whose name, in whose strength, by obedience to whose will, as they understood and believed it, did they live and act? Did not their inspiration come straight from Christ? Abolish these men, and the sixteenth century loses its significance; abolish Christ, and you
abolish the men. Yet what is true of it is true of all the Christian centuries. Subtract the Christian personalities and the ideas that reigned in and lived through them, and you have but the struggle of brutal passions, of men savage through ambition and lust of power; subtract Christ, and you dry up the source of all Christian personalities and ideas, you leave man to go his old blind way, ungladdened by faith in heaven, uncheered by the ideal of a humanity to be made perfect through realizing the mind of its Maker."—”Fairbairn, " The City of God," pp. 284-286. 2 "Our times, which may now and then appear mechanical, commonplace, take deeper significance as we attentively consider the past, especially as we note the far reach of influence in those by whom its movements were chiefly affected. The tremendous force which belongs to any great personality, and the sovereign persistence of its influence among men, become apparent. We gain a profounder sense of the unity of history, as continuous and organic. We see more distinctly the interdependence of centuries on each other, with our indebtedness to many who have labored and struggled before us."—”Storrs, " Bernard of Clairvaux," pp. 6, 7. Cf. also Gordon, " The Christ of To-day," pp. 287-292.
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be difficult adequately to estimate.1 How many noble lives marked by a saintly piety, a kindly ministry, a blameless walk and conversation, tireless devotion, heroic fidelity to duty, and unflinching advocacy of the higher spirit and the nobler aims of Christianity, have been passed in the presence of non-Christian society!2 The story of medieval missions is redolent with the charm and sweetness of saintly example and the power of heroic living on the part of men and women who gave themselves to missionary service. St. Columba and his associates were bright illustrations. Of St. Augustine and his missionaries the Venerable Bede writes: " They soon began to make some converts, who were drawn to them by the admiration they felt for the holy innocence of their lives, and the sweetness of the heavenly doctrine which they taught."3 Mr. Adams, in his " Saints and Missionaries of the Anglo-Saxon Era " (p. 15), speaking of the first Archbishop of Canterbury, declares that " Bede certainly ascribes the success of Augustine's missionaries to the wonderful impression which their manner of life made on the English." Statements of the same tenor are to be found concerning the personal character and example of the great Continental missionaries 1 Cf. an article on "French of Lahore," in The Quarterly Review (London), January, 1896. 2 "Missionaries do not need the endorsement of governments or of those who may be termed men of the world. They are quite content to labor with the approval of their own consciences in the sight of God. But it may be well for some who know little of their work to read what The Japan Mail says of those who are laboring in the Japanese Empire. This is a purely secular paper, but very ably conducted by men whose theological opinions are by no means in accord with those of the missionaries, yet it says of them: ' They lead the most exemplary lives; devote themselves to deeds of charity; place their educational and medical skill at the free disposal of the people, and exhibit in the midst of sharp suffering and adversity a spirit of patience and benevolence such as ought to enlist universal sympathy and respect. It seems to us that the record is all in their favor. Watching the question closely for many years, we have failed to discover any want of discretion on the part of the missionaries, unless it be an occasional display of unwise confidence in sending unprotected women into the interior." "—”Quoted in The Missionary Herald, April, 1896, p. 142. 3 Adams, "The Saints and Missionaries of the Anglo-Saxon Era," p. 15. Of
St. Aidan it is stated in the same volume (p. 105): " St. Aidan's example had a wonderful effect upon the English, and not a few, both men and women, were stirred by it to devote themselves wholly to the service of Christ." Similar statements are made of St. Aldhelm (p. 163), St. Etheldrida (p. 193), St. Hilda (p. 288),
St. Cuthbert (p. 328), and of others of the early English missionaries. Cf. also for instructive reading on this point, Maclear, " A History of Christian Missions During the Middle Ages," and Mrs. Rundle Charles, " Early Christian Missions of Ireland, Scotland, and England."
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of the medieval period—”Columbanus, Willibrord, Boniface, Anskar, Adalbert, Otho, Francis of Assisi, Raymund Lull, and Francis Xavier.1 Later times in the history of missions reveal the influence of Eliot and Brainerd among the Indians, of Hans Egede in Greenland, of Schwartz in India, and many other saintly characters who served and walked with God before the eyes of degraded and ignorant races.2 Shall we venture to gauge the power of that object-lesson in brotherhood which, in more recent times, is given in the lives of men like Patteson, Selwyn, Duff, Livingstone, Mackenzie,Calhoun, Thomson,Van Dyck,Gilmour, Nevius, Hill, Verbeck, and Keith-Falconer? " What do modern missions signify? " asks Dr. Fairbairn. " That the most cultivated and high-blooded peoples on earth recognize their kinship and the obligations of their kinship to the most savage and debased. . . . It [the Christian religion] has made civilized man feel that he and the savage are of one blood, that the savage is as dear to God as he is, has as vast capabilities, as boundless a promise of being as his own nature can boast. The religion that has created this sense of kinship and duty is the true mother of man's faith in human fraternity."3 The import of example, both on the part of the missionary and the worthy
The Christian family: its power as an object-lessonnative convert, is not confined to the scope of their individual influence. There is an object-lesson, too, in Christian family life planted in communities as yet very defective in civilization or wholly dominated by savagery. Some have questioned the usefulness, or even the wisdom, of marriage on the part of missionaries. Now, while it is true that there may be some kinds of pioneer work, or special service attended with temporary hardship and peril, in which the celibate missionary has an advantage, yet, as a rule, marriage is a distinct gain as regards both efficiency and scope of influence. Native communities must have their homes, and they need the model presented in the domestic life of the missionary. There is also an aspect of stability, of social dignity and natural accessibility in family life, as well as a refining environment. A Christian home planted in a community which it seeks to mould after its own likeness is an immense gain to non-Christian society. 1 Maclear, " A History of Christian Missions During the Middle Ages," and
" Apostles of Mediæval Europe "; Smith, " Mediæval Missions "; Summers, " The Rise and Spread of Christianity in Europe." 2 Walsh, " Heroes of the Mission Field," and " Modern Heroes of the Mission
Field"; Creegan, "Great Missionaries of the Church"; Haydn, "American Heroes on Mission Fields "; Farrar, " Saintly Workers." 3 Fairbairn, " Religion in History and in Modern Life," pp. 234, 235.
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A word might be said here also as to the status and availability
The value of woman's service in foreign missionsof unmarried women in foreign mission fields. That there is an open door, a noble opportunity, and a sacred ministry for this class of mission workers is now matter which need not seriously be argued. The missionary societies of Great Britain and America have taken the lead in recognizing the possibilities of effective service in the foreign field by unmarried women. Continental societies have moved more slowly, and in some instances seem to be still open to conviction. At the Bremen Missionary Conference of 1880 the question of sending independent female missionaries was raised, and received with considerable coldness and reserve.1 The proposal, however, was earnestly advocated by Dr. Gustav Warneck, but with little success. In the notable report on foreign missions presented at the Lambeth Conference of 1897, there is a distinct recognition, based of course upon experience, of " the value of the work of women " in mission fields.2 " Women are needed for missionaries as well as men," writes Sir Harry Johnston concerning British Central Africa. " On the whole, I think women make better missionaries than men, and are always much more lovable in that aspect. Let them, therefore, continue to go out to Africa as celibates if they are over thirty-five, but otherwise as married women."3 There were 2500 unmarried women connected with all Protestant missionary societies in 1894, and women, married and unmarried, in the foreign fields exceeded the men in number by about a thousand.4 At the present time (1899) this number has increased to fully 3500 unmarried, and a total of 8000 married and unmarried women. The fact that there are social prejudices existing in foreign communities (notably in China) to be overcome, is not a sufficient reason for denying to Christian women their place of privilege and power in mission work.5 There are prejudices deep-seated and petrified 1 Warneck, " Outline of the History of Protestant Missions," p. 213. 2 "Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Communion, Holden at Lambeth
Palace in July, 1897," p. 71. 3 Johnston, " British Central Africa," pp. 190, 200. 4 Buckland, " Women in the Mission Field," p. 23. 5 Just here let us pause for a moment to note how a tactful missionary woman will, day after day, conduct a quiet crusade against those two social monstrosities of China—”the crushed and shortened feet, and the elongated finger-nails. Dr. Mary H. Fulton, of the American Presbyterian Mission at Canton, writes: "I am doing what little I can in my small sphere to show an applied Christianity. In the first place, I try always to be neat in dress. This invariably calls out complimentary remarks. They at once compare my pretty and fresh, though cheap, dress with their silken (and generally soiled) robes. Then they notice my clean, short nails, and contrast them with their long ones, —”often fully a finger in length, —” which indicate that they are ladies of leisure. They at once want to know why I dress so differently from them. It is an easy step to tell them that God, who made us, has put women into the world for use, and not merely to live to adorn our bodies, and that there are many poor suffering children and others who need our help. If we have such long nails and bound feet, we cannot go about to help them. They all assent to this, and generally there is an inquiry on the part of some one present if she cannot have her feet unbound. Then you should hear the clamor! A dozen will admonish the one who dared to be so bold as to propose such a thing. ' Had she lost all her modesty that she wanted to go about like a man?' Now you will laugh, but all my arguments are as nothing compared with showing them a well-fitting, pretty foreign boot or shoe. I have always thought, since feet are such a momentous question in this land, that we should be very careful to make our own as presentable as possible. To see us start off quickly and gracefully and go through the streets so independently often makes them desirous of imitating us, especially when they see women hobbling along painfully, or being carried on the backs of others. The same is true of our homes. I try to make mine attractive in its simplicity. I have a weekly prayer-meeting here just because I want to show my home to these women who have never seen cleanliness and order in their dark, damp, crowded quarters. I give them, after the meeting, tea and sponge-cake, served in pretty cups and plates. Simple as all this is, it lifts them up and out of their sordid surroundings, for the time being, at least, and, I hope, will lead them to make their own houses more homelike. I always urge those coming under my influence to try and be as clean as possible, and I am happy to say that I observe year by year an increasing tendency to the use of foreign soap and handkerchiefs."
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against almost everything connected with Christianity. Native public opinion is especially out of focus with Christian civilization in its views of woman and her social environment. It regards her in the light of that traditional distrust and detraction which has prevailed for unknown centuries in the East. It is the function of Christianity to teach nobler things concerning womankind, and to enforce its teaching by practice. It may require sacrifice and take time, but the result will be a permanent gain. The portraiture of womanly virtue without the humiliating exactions of the Orient, and the sweet example of womanly service pervaded and inspired by the Christian spirit, dignified and protected by innate purity and refinement, present a social parable which is sadly needed in the Oriental world, and which in many communities has not been given except under the auspices of Christian missions.1 Then, again, the good which single women can do in the service of their own sex far outweighs in significance and value the injury which may result from the shock to the perfunctory sensibilities of native society in China or elsewhere.2 1 Telford, " Women in the Mission Field." 2 The sphere of missionary women and the value of their services were recently discussed in a very intelligent and sensible paper presented by the Rev. Fung Chak, at the Baptist Association of 1896, representing the two Kwang provinces in Southern China, As the views of a native pastor, the following summary is worth recording: " Women from the West, as the embodiment of God's love for the world, have crossed the ocean, and, not dreading danger, have come to China to spread the truth, to teach Chinese women. Let me enumerate some of the benefits which come from women's work here. " 1. They teach the girls to read. Most of the Western women who come to China have schools, and employ competent teachers to teach Chinese girls, for the Chinese custom is to make much of boys, but little of girls. "2. Foreign women teach our women to know God's doctrine. Since divine truth is in the Bible, by teaching them to read it for themselves they also teach them propriety, justice, and modesty, and cause them to lead lives of virtue and refinement, to love God, and trust in the Saviour, and be self-restrained and benevolent. . . . " 3. They benefit the women of China by teaching them the proper way to train their daughters. It is hard to enumerate the bad customs that prevail. These are all due to ignorance and want of proper instruction of the women. . . . " 4. The benefit to national manners. Although China is great, it is still a land of darkness. Superstitions and errors fill the land. But now Chinese female teachers are teaching the Gospel, and opening the way that the women may put away their superstitions and follow the true doctrine. . . . " Moreover, these Western teachers teach the Chinese the virtue of self-denial in three respects: 1. By their faithfulness in the Lord's service. Last year the ladies in our Baptist Mission visited one hundred and sixteen villages. 2. By their earnestness in pressing forward. 3. In accommodating themselves to others. By their sympathy and wisdom, their love and gentleness, their peacefulness and patience, they become acceptable to all. Thus wherever they go they are welcomed; the doctrine is inscribed on their lips, and their manners are admired, and the homes of rich and poor are opened to their teaching; all admire their virtue, in that they uplift the women and pity the girls."—”The Chinese Recorder, August, 1896, pp. 392-394.
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The presence of missionaries in great emergencies, and in times of calamity
The heroic element in missions, and its social value and pestilence, has been both an example and a succor to distressed communities. Recent events in Armenia present an impressive illustration of this fact. Both missionaries and their native converts have exhibited a heroism and loyalty which have elicited the respect and admiration of the world. Amidst the horrible atrocities and sore calamities of the massacres in Armenia, American missionaries have exerted a moral influence, and accomplished a practical service, of the highest value. They have comforted and cheered native friends during the heartrending terrors of recent years. Where there has been opportunity for personal intervention, they have checked to some extent the awful cruelties of the Turkish soldiery and their brutal accessories. They have been the almoners of contributions which the Christians of other lands have sent, and have given trustworthy information to Christendom concerning the extent and unspeakable barbarity of one of the darkest and most inhuman incidents of modern history. It is no insignificant service to civilization and humanity which is rendered by Christian missionaries scattered throughout the earth on a kind of moral picket duty, when they give authentic and well-
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vouched-for reports of what is going on in lands where irresponsible power has supreme control. It keeps Christian nations in direct, although unofficial, touch with less civilized peoples, and serves also to exert a measure of restraint upon the otherwise unchecked passions of reckless men in places of authority. There is, on this account, a distinct contribution to the social welfare of non-Christian communities in the object-lesson of missionary and native Christian example. Are not Christian missions, moreover, the only channel through which a gift so precious and potent, so rare and noble, could be conveyed? Let it be noted also that the honors of martyrdom, its sacred inspiration, and the increment of moral power which it gives to the manhood and womanhood of the world, belong in our present century almost exclusively to missions.1 The roll-call of missionaries is far too long to allow of any attempt to enumerate more than a few scattered names; yet of all who have ever joined " the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence," none can be said more truly to realize the beautiful suggestiveness of the poetic
The music of "the choir invisible" in missionary historyconception than sainted missionaries who "live again" in souls purified amidst brooding degradation, renewed amidst moral decay, and beautified amidst the abounding ugliness of heathenism. There are hundreds, even thousands, of these missionary lives which would furnish ample illustration of this statement, although not a few of those whose examples have proved especially inspiring have lived in comparative obscurity. It is not easy to depict in literary form the secret influences incidental to personality, save as we are able to sketch them in biographical detail, dealing with the life as related to its environment. A few examples must suffice to give us an insight into the subtile and far-reaching effects of individual character.2 1 Harris, " A Century of Missionary Martyrs." 2 In addition to the illustrations given in the following pages, the reader may
consult the missionary biographies mentioned in the bibliography at the end of this lecture. He will find also much, to confirm the estimate placed upon the value of missionary character and example in the shorter biographical sketches scattered through the current missionary literature of recent years. Cf. also article by Julian Hawthorne, in The Cosmopolītan, September, 1897, p. 512.
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The Rev. F. E. Hoskins writes that during a mission tour he was seated with a group of Syrian friends in the little village of Alma, on the southern borders of the Syria Mission field, when the following incident was related. A native Protestant teacher had recently been called to Tyre on business, and as he was passing Alexander's Fountain, not far from the city, he was hailed by a Turkish soldier, who was doing guard duty. The soldier questioned him as to who he was, whence he came, whither he was going, and, finally, what his religion was. Upon his replying that he was a Protestant Christian (Injeely), the rough soldier responded promptly: "Were it not for the memory of Mr. Dale, I would smother your religion with curses." Surely here is a lesson concerning the power of a loyal Christian life. " Somewhere and somehow," writes Mr. Hoskins, " that man had been brought into contact with Mr. Dale.1 The influence of his consecrated life had pierced the rough exterior and softened the heart of the soldier, so that years after Mr. Dale's death he was constrained to dismiss that humble native brother from Alma, not with eursing, but with ' Go in peace.' " The late Rev. Charles W. Forman, D.D., of the American Presbyterian Mission in Lahore, has left as his legacy to Indian society the influence of fifty years of saintly living. How deeply the power of his personal example entered into the lives of those around him may be gathered from the tributes from native sources which were called forth by his death.2 1 The Rev. Gerald F. Dale, Jr., went to Syria as a missionary by appointment of the American Presbyterian Board in 1872, and died in Zahleh, Mount Lebanon, October 6, 1886. He was a man of ideal missionary enthusiasm, gifted with power to touch and influence others, and has left an impress which seems to be ineffaceable upon thousands of Syrian hearts. 2 "The Tribune of Lahore, a non-Christian journal, referred to him editorially as follows: " 'It will be long before Lahoris forget the sweet and benign face of the great. American missionary. We doubt whether any other man, European or Indian, has taken as great a part in the making of the Punjab of to-day as has Dr. Forman. A history of his educational work would be almost the educational history of the province. Though he is no longer working in the flesh in our midst, the spirit of his work will beacon us onward. His memory will long be a pillar of light to our people." " The Indian Standard writes: ' We do not hesitate to say that no man of this century has exerted a larger personal influence on the people of the Punjab.' " The Civil and Military Gazette remarks: ' It is, perhaps, not saying too much to state that amongst all the foreigners who have lived in Lahore no one has been more widely known or more universally respected and beloved by the people than he [Dr. Forman].' " The Punjab Patriot (non-Christian) thus expresses itself as to Dr. Forman's death: ' The occurrence has spread a gloom all over the Punjab, which is full of his old pupils. In the city of Lahore the people have mourned his loss as that of one of themselves. They feel that they have lost in him a real friend. A prince among missionaries, Dr. Forman will long be remembered in this province, not only as a believer and worker in Christ, but for the noble, unselfish life he led through his long career.' " Not less than three thousand persons of all classes and creeds followed the hearse, hundreds joining the procession as it passed through the city."—”Quoted in The New York Observer, April 25, 1895.
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Of the late Miss Eliza Agnew, a missionary of the American Board in Ceylon, the natives were accustomed to say that she was " the mother of a thousand daughters." She lived in Ceylon forty-three years without returning to her native land on furlough. For forty of these years she was the Principal of the Oodooville Girls' Boarding-School, a flourishing educational institution, where during her lifetime she had under her personal care more than a thousand pupils. Six hundred of these graduated after taking the full course, and every one of the six hundred left the school a professing Christian. Many of them engaged in mission work as Bible-women and teachers. It is said of her that through the influence and power of her blameless life " she made the position of an unmarried lady missionary honorable in Ceylon for all future time. The highest praise a native seems able to bestow upon an unmarried lady worker in Ceylon is to say that she was like Miss Agnew." 1 Another devoted missionary life, wonderful in the power of its personal influence, closed, after forty-two years of service, at Singapore, September 14, 1895. Miss Sophia Cooke entered upon missionary work in the Orient at a time when such service was not recognized or appreciated as it is now. She lived to see, in all the great centres of the East, Christian womanhood consecrated to the Master's business, commanding the respect and admiration of the world. Miss Cooke interested herself in various ways in Christian service for the women and girls of that great cosmopolitan city. Much of it was rescue work among Chinese girls, and many apparently hopeless waifs were saved by her. She was busy also in working for the army and navy, and for several years conducted Bible classes for soldiers at her own home, and was herself the founder of the Sailors' Rest at Singapore. Her influ- 1 For portrait and biographical sketch of Miss Agnew, see The Christian, London, May 14, 1896. Cf. also Life and Light, September, 1894, p. 409.
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ence was a large and important factor, and no one was reached by her efforts without coming in contact with her gracious Christian personality. At her death there was a tribute of respect for her memory from those for whom she had labored which was remarkable in its character. Nothing more representative, it is said, was ever seen in Singapore than her funeral, for this devoted woman was laid to rest with almost regal honors.1 The lamented Rev. David Hill, of the Wesleyan Mission, Hankow, who died April 18, 1896, was a man of rare qualities, and his life was one of exceptional heartiness in the Lord's service. To him the Industrial School for the Blind at Hankow is largely indebted for its prosperity and usefulness. The boys in its department of carpentry rendered as a last tribute a touching service by preparing his coffin.2 In the missionary annals of the Dark Continent we have lives in which we
New stars in the African firmamentalready see the initial fulfillment of the promise that they " shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." These lives have introduced into the spiritual history of African firmament. Africa a personal influence that will never die, but will continue to gather force and to work with ever-expanding energy as the conversion of the Continent progresses. Such names as Schmidt, Krapf, Vanderkemp, Livingstone, Moffat, Mackenzie, Hannington, Mackay, Goldie, Smythies, Maples, Hill, Walker, Bushnell, Grout, Tyler, Bridgman, Scott, Good, Pilkington, and others—” some of whom are still living, as the venerable M. François Coillard, of the French Evangelical Mission—”occur to us instantly. One of the native clergy, in an address at a great meeting in London, speaking of Bishop Smythies, remarked: " You call him my Lord, but I call him my Father." Of the late Bishop Maples, of Likoma, in Central Africa, one of his colleagues said: " I never knew one with a greater power of inspiring love. He was able to shake off all European insularities, and to be to Africans a real brother."3 The late Rev. Hugh Goldie, of the Scotch United Presbyterian Mission in Old Calabar, on the West Coast of Africa, is another striking illustration of what a missionary life means to heathen society. The Rev. William Dickie writes of him: " We cannot pretend to estimate the effect of a life like that of Mr. Goldie upon 1 The Missionary Review of the World, May, 1896, p. 370. 2 For biographical sketches, see Work and Workers in the Mission Field, June, 1896, pp. 232-238, and The Review of Missions (Nashville, Tennessee), July, 1897, PP- 1-4 3 For a biographical sketch of Bishop Maples, see Central Africa, December, 1895 P- 185. Cf. also his biography, recently issued.
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the heathen people among whom he lived. He was one of the gentlest of men, with a quiet enthusiasm for souls. The impression which his exalted piety made upon those around him was very deep. Had he cared to speak of the secret of his life, it would have been in the words of the Psalmist, ' Thy gentleness hath made me great.' "1 In connection with work for the soldiers, especially in hospitals,
The Florence Nightingale of Japanduring the late war between China and Japan, we have seen frequent references to the faithful ministries of one who might be called the Florence Nightingale of Japan. Miss Eliza Talcott, a missionary of the American Board, gave herself to service in the hospitals, visiting the sick and wounded soldiers both of China and Japan. Many a suffering soldier has been cheered and solaced by her gentle presence and the kindly ministry of her Christian sympathy. An entirely new and beautiful aspect was given to Christianity in the eyes of Japanese and Chinese by Miss Talcott's influence over multitudes of the wounded whom she visited. Chinese officers of high rank have accorded her a hearty tribute of admiration for her goodness.2 In March, 1898, the Rev. Guido F. Verbeck, D.D., died at Tokyo, after a period of nearly thirty-nine years of memorable service in Japan. He went there in 1859, and with true devotion and almost incalculable influence identified himself with the modern development of Japanese civilization and culture. His work for Christianity was monumental, while in his personal influence and varied labors for the public and social welfare of the people, his missionary life was typical in its scope and usefulness. He was one of the translators of the Bible into Japanese, and at times a trusted adviser and guide of the Government in the difficult task of adjusting itself to the changes and responsibilities of this great formative era of the Meiji. Dr. H. N. Cobb, in an appreciative sketch of him, does not overrate his unique position in the following estimate of his services: " When the record of the planting of Christianity and the development of a new civilization in the ' Sunrise Kingdom' is fully and truthfully written, it is probable that no name will be found more indissolubly associated with all that is best and most lasting in it than his."3 1 For biographical sketch, see The Missionary Record, November, 1895, p. 310. 2 A sketch of Miss Talcott's experience is given in Our Sisters in Other Lands, the quarterly publication of the Woman's Missionary Association of the Presbyterian Church of England, for January, 1896, p. 63. 3 Sketches of Dr. Verbeck will be found in The Mission Field, April, 1898, and in The Christian Intelligencer, March 16, 1898.
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It is impossible, for lack of space, to give more than here and there an illustration of the
Some recent tributes to the personal character of missionaries and the social value of their livesimport of missionary example. There has been of late, as there seems to be periodically, rather an unusual outburst of criticism and disparagement in certain sections of the public press concerning the life and influence of missionaries; but over against these criticisms have recently appeared many spontaneous tributes, which present an evergrowing volume of testimony favorable to them, from those who have undoubted facilities of observation, and in whose judgment the world will have confidence. It may not be out of place to gather a few of the more recent of these tributes into our pages. The disturbances in Turkey have drawn the attention of the Christian world to the labors of resident American missionaries, The Hon. James Bryce, M.P., in the new edition of his work on " Transcaucasia and Ararat," has a cordial endorsement of their work.1 Sir Philip Currie, the British Ambassador to Turkey, has written: " I feel the most sincere respect and admiration for the courage and devotion shown by the American missionaries in Asia Minor, and it is a consolation for want of success in other directions if I have been able to assist them to continue their labors in the cause of religion and civilisation."2 Mr. Edward Wistar, who recently visited the interior of Armenia in the interests of the Red Cross expedition, and there met many of the missionaries, remarks concerning them: " They are very tactful, systematic, and efficient in their signally varied tasks, and as adherents to apprehended duty they stand as examples in courage and fidelity worthy to be known and upheld. . . . Having already written and said elsewhere that the American missionaries in Central Turkey are teachers 1 "I cannot mention the American missionaries without a tribute to the
admirable work they have done. They have been the only good influence that has worked from abroad upon the Turkish Empire. They have shown great judgment and tact in their relations with the ancient Churches of the land, Orthodox, Gregorian, Jacobite, Nestorian, and Catholic. They have lived cheerfully in the midst not only of hardships, but latterly of serious dangers also. They have been the first to bring the light of education and learning into these dark places, and have rightly judged that it was far better to diffuse that light through their schools than to aim at presenting a swollen roll of converts. From them alone, if we except the British consuls, has it been possible during the last thirty years to obtain trustworthy in formation regarding what passes in the interior. Their sympathies have, of course, been with the cause of reform. But they have most prudently done everything in their power to discourage any political agitation among the subject Christians, fore seeing, as the event has too terribly proved, that any such agitation would be made the pretext for massacre."—”Bryce, " Transcaucasia and Ararat," pp. 467, 468. 2 Quoted in The Congregationalist, October 15, 1896.
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of the Gospel of peace and of submission to the powers that be, I wish now to state, in controversion of statements recently made to the contrary effect, that they are not inciters of revolution or disquiet amongst the Armenians."1 Mr. Robert E. Speer, in the report of his visit to the Persia Mission of the Presbyterian Board, in 1896, speaks of the strong impress of the personality of missionaries upon their converts, and especially upon their students. He quotes the late Dr. Shedd as saying: " The reminiscences in which our older graduates indulge illustrate the truth that the main element in educational work is the personal. Inscribed indelibly in their hearts is the personality of Mr. Stoddard, and yet more deeply that of Miss Fiske. The strongest impression is the personal, and that is deepest and best in proportion as Christ lives in us. If this be true, one lesson is that we must have personal contact with the pupils, especially spiritual contact."2 In another section of the document Mr. Speer speaks in high terms of the personal character and standing of the American missionaries in Persia, quoting the testimony of distinguished foreign residents with whom while there he came in personal contact.3 Captain Younghusband, C. I. E., whose opinion cannot be said to be influenced by any blind admiration for the missionary idea, nevertheless speaks in strong terms of the missionaries themselves in his volume entitled "The Heart of a Continent." He closes his chapter on "The Missionary Question in China" with the following affirmation: " That some effect is being produced I can vouch for from personal ex- 1 The Congregationalist, November 19, 1896. 2 Report of Robert E. Speer on his visit to the Persia Mission, pp. 41, 42
(printed for the use of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 1897). 3 " In Persia the missionaries are held in unqualified respect. . . . General
Wagner, an Austrian Protestant, who is drill-master of the Persian Army, and close to the Shah, said to me: ' Say to the Americans, I have seen the missionaries and their work at Urumiah, Salmas, Tabriz, and Teheran, and I know them and their work—”it is an angel work!'. . . Sir Mortimer Durand, the British Minister,
and one of the most efficient men in the British Eastern service, said with equal earnestness that it was impossible for him to speak too warmly of the missionaries and the good they do. And this opinion of foreigners, expressed by General Wagner and Sir Mortimer Durand,could be duplicated from the lips of many native governors and officials, and verified by many incidents of our stay in Persia. Often even those who oppose the work, like the Amir-i-Nizam, one of the most picturesque, able, and unscrupulous men in Persia, of pro-Russian sympathies, hold the missionaries, to one of whom at least he is under great obligations, in high esteem."—”Ibid., pp. 63, 64.
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perience. I can testify to the fact that, living quietly and unostentatiously in the interior of China, there are men who, by their lives of noble self-sacrifice and sterling good, are slowly influencing those about them—” men who have so influenced not only a few but many thousands of these unenthusiastic Chinese as to cause them to risk life itself for their religion. And if this good work is going on, if Christians are willing to give up all they hold most dear in this life to help others forward, then is this not worthy of support?—”not the support of force, for even the missionaries do not desire that, but the support afforded by the encouragement of their fellow-Christians. The slothful, the ignorant, and the foolhardy may well be criticised, and the missionary cause will only be advanced if such criticism has the effect of stirring them to increased and more discreet activity. But the true missionary—”the man who devotes his life to the work of imparting to other races the religion from which his own has derived so much benefit; who carefully trains himself for this work; who sympathetically studies the religion, the character, and the peculiarities of the people he wishes to convert; and who practically lives a life which those about him can see to be good—”should be admired as the highest type of manhood, and it is he for whom I should wish to enlist the sympathies of my fellow-countrymen in this grave crisis of the missionary cause."1 Mr. T. R. Jernigan, United States Consul-General at Shanghai, in a recent article on " Missionaries and Missionary Work," writes as follows: " My experience as a United States official in Japan and China covers a period of six years, and during that time no case has come before me for advice or settlement, involving directly or indirectly the interest of the Christian Churches, when it has ever been made to appear that the missionaries were not influenced in their conduct by the highest principles of right and humanity. There ought to be no patience with the sentiment that goes out to the great outer world, which is separated by the seas from this ancient empire, depreciating missionaries and missionary work. It is a sentiment that does not commend those who indulge in it, and cannot be supported by evidence that would be admissible in any court of justice." "In every instance," wrote the late Colonel Cockerill, from Seoul, Korea, to The New York Herald," the Koreans who have come in contact with Christian teachers have been bettered. At least, they lead cleaner lives in the physical and spiritual sense. . . . Whatever may be said of missionaries in Japan, I will vouch 1 Quoted in The Church Missionary Intelligencer, August, 1896, pp. 635, 636. 2 See the entire article in The Chinese Recorder, February, 1897, pp. 51-54, and March, 1897, pp. 99-102.
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that no servant of the Church is leading a life of comfort here. When I think of well-educated, refined women consigning themselves to this doleful, dirty, bad-smelling, absolutely repulsive country, I am amazed. In Seoul the missionaries have clean, comfortable homes inside the walls, which usually shut out much that is disagreeable; but no compound, however well protected, can cut them off from the misery and wretchedness which everywhere abound."1 Sir Charles A. Elliott, late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, in an address at the Annual Meeting of the Church Missionary Society, in 1896, spoke as follows: " First, then, as to the testimony I have to give regarding the character and life and work of the missionaries in India. It is more than thirty-nine years ago that my acquaintance with them began. . . . I assert that their usefulness is second to none among the beneficial influences which have followed the introduction of British rule into India, and which, under God's Providence, are penetrating and breaking up the darkness and superstition that are still in the country. No one who is a candid observer, and especially no people who are such keen judges of character as the people of India, can fail to watch with admiration the nobility of spirit, the simplicity of life, and the single-minded devotion to a high aim which the missionaries really display."2 In The Cosmopolitan Mr. Julian Hawthorne gives his impression of the missionaries he met in India during his recent investigations into the ravages of the famine. His report is frankly appreciative, and leaves no doubt upon the minds of his readers that he discovered genuine worth in missionaries and a profound humanitarian value in their work.3 It is worthy of note that in the far-off Islands of the Pacific, where the work of
Words of appreciation from unbiassed observersmissionaries rarely falls under the observation of European travellers, testimony concerning the excellence of their lives and the value of their labors is not wanting, and that in some instances it comes from unlooked-for sources. The late Robert Louis Stevenson has spoken several times emphatically on this subject, and in his volume entitled " In the South Seas," has much to say about missions. The following extracts are typical of the spirit in which he writes. He says: "Those who have a taste for hearing missions, Protestant or Catholic, decried, must seek their pleasure elsewhere than in my pages."4 In one of his " Vailima Letters " he speaks of the 1 Quoted in The Gospel in all Lands, January, 1896, p. 39. 2 The Church Missionary Intelligencer, June, 1896, p. 443. 3 The Cosmopolitan, September, 1897, PP- 517, 518. 4 In the South Seas," p. 89.
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Rev. James Chalmers (L. M. S.), of New Guinea, as the "most attractive, simple, brave, and interesting man in the whole Pacific."1 Mr. Louis Becke has written also in appreciative terms, in one of his novels of South Sea life, concerning the influence and services of the Rev. Francis E. Lawes, a well-known missionary of the London Missionary Society on the Island of Niué.2 Dr. Lamberto Loria, of Florence, an Italian scientist, who has spent seven years in British New Guinea, has written a cordial letter to the London Missionary Society, expressing his high estimate of the services of its missionaries in that island. He confesses to have gone there with a prejudice against all mission work, but his letter shows conclusively that he has recognized with candor and sincere feeling the beneficent influence of that work as it fell under his observation during his stay. He acknowledges that his opinion upon the subject has entirely changed.3 " It was the missionaries chiefly," writes Mr. Burleigh in his recent volume, " who made Madagascar possible for foreigners to live in with safety. Within fifty years 1 "Vailima Letters," vol. i., p. 82. During his visit to Scotland, in 1895,
" the freedom of the royal burgh of Inverary " was presented to Mr. Chalmers in recognition of " his career as a missionary and his eminent services in the cause of civilisation and the spread of the Gospel among the heathen."—”The Missionary Record, October, 1895, p. 299. >2 "At Alofi (one of the principal towns in Niué) there also lives the one white missionary,—”the Rev. Frank Lawes, of the L. M. S.,—”the most loved and respected man in the South Seas. For nearly thirty years he and his wife have lived and toiled on Savage Island. I say ' toiled,' for his indeed has been a life of real, hard, unceasing toil, and his personal influence and example alone have reclaimed the Savage Islanders from their former savagery and debasing customs."—”Quoted in The Independent and Nonconformist, September 23, 1897. >3 His letter is published in full in The Chronicle, February, 1897, pp. 37-40. He thus expresses himself with reference to one of the missionaries of the London Missionary Society: " Before closing, I wish to say a few more words about Mrs. Abel. From what precedes, you may have a faint conception of her singularly happy influence at Kwato. It is impossible, however, that you can understand it fully. Only those who lived at Kwato for months can appreciate her and her work at its real worth. In a community where women are despised she is beloved, esteemed, respected as Mr. Abel, not to say more. Her wishes are commands, and even the natives are influenced by her sweet good nature. Her influence is not confined to Papuans, but extends even to the white population. I, for my part, have to acknowledge that I am going home a better man than when I left Europe, and I am indebted for this entirely and solely to her influence. Happy are the persons who possess enough nobleness in their hearts to appreciate her qualities. I cannot finish this paper in a better way than by hoping that the London Missionary Society may have the benefit of the services of Mr. and Mrs. Abel for many years to come, and that they may have health and strength to carry on their great work."
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they achieved wonders. Civilisation had followed their steps and was dawning into day. . . . They worked, and verily never had men so great a reward, for their success was abundant."1 Captain W. H. Manning, late in command of the British forces in Central Africa, thus writes of his contact with missionary service: " I have not touched on the work of the mission among the natives of the Shiré Highlands, and I feel I can very inadequately express my admiration. First you must see the negro boy in his savage state, and then see the finished article as turned out by the Blantyre Mission, and I think you will say that truly the thing is little short of marvellous—”from a wild, unkempt, savage urchin, with a rag for a wardrobe, to a pleasant, self-possessed lad, who dresses in spotless white garments, can read and write English, and conducts himself with quiet decorum. To obtain such results, of course, means days of patient teaching and example, in a climate at times trying in the extreme, but nevertheless carried on unostentatiously to the end. The benefit that the Scotch Mission has conferred on the Shiré Highlands is incalculable."2 Commissioner Sir Harry H. Johnston has written of missions in the same locality, as follows: " Is it of no account, do you think, is it productive of no good effect in the present state of Africa, that certain of our fellow-countrymen—”or women—”possessed of at least an elementary education, and impelled by no greed of gain or unworthy motive—”should voluntarily locate themselves in the wild parts of this undeveloped quarter of the globe, and, by the very fact that they live in a European manner, in a house of European style, surrounded by European implements, products, and adornments, should open the eyes of the brutish savages to the existence of a higher state of culture, and prepare them for the approach of civilisation? I am sure my readers will agree with me that it is as the preparer of the white man's advent, as the mediator between the barbarian native and the invading race of rulers, colonists, or traders, that the missionary earns his chief right to our consideration and support. He constitutes himself informally the tribune of the weaker race, and though he may sometimes be open to the charges of indiscretion, exaggeration, and partiality in his support of his dusky-skinned clients' claims, yet without doubt he has rendered real services to humanity in drawing extra-colonial attention to many a cruel abuse of power, and by checking the ruthless proceedings of the unscrupulous pioneers of the white 1 Quoted in a review of " Two Campaigns—”Madagascar and Ashantee," in The Spectator, London, September 19, 1896, p. 374. 2 The Church of Scotland Home and Foreign Mission Record, September, 1896, pp. 281, 282.
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invasion."1 Another remarkable testimony to the value of missions in Africa is from the pen of a German military officer, Lieutenant von François, in his recently published volume on " The Nama and Damara in German South-West Africa."2 A further reference to the work of missionaries in Africa will be found in Dr. R. N. Gust's recent volume, " The Gospel Message," in the form of an address entitled " Missionary Heroes in Africa," delivered at Steinway Hall, London.3 We need not confine our quotations, however, to the words of foreign visitors or residents.
Some testimonies to the value of missionary example from native sourcesThere are testimonies also from natives of distinction, who, in some instances, are not themselves converts to Christianity, but who have eyes to see the truth concerning the character and example of missionaries. A Japanese scholar, in an article on " The Ethical Life and Conceptions of the Japanese," has referred to the power of missionary example in terms which are well worth quoting. "The missionaries," he writes, "have lived good, honest lives, and been careful not to give occasion for scandal; the native Christians, as a rule, have in their lives been consistent with their profession. All this has been an object-lesson to the people around them. Besides, during this epoch of revolutionary change, when the old structures of society were crumbling on all sides, when many young men openly proclaimed that to free themselves from all restraints of morality was a mark of enlightenment, and when, moreover, the idea prevailed that 1 Johnston, " British Central Africa," p. 205. 2 "What merchants, artisans, and men of science have done for the opening up and civilising of this country is as nothing in the balance compared with the positive results of missionary work. And this work means so much the more, because all self-regarding motives, such as always inspire the trader or the discoverer, and are to be found even in the soldier, are absent in the missionary. It must be an exalted impulse which leads the missionary to give up comfort, opportunities of advancement, honour, and fame, for the sake of realising the idea of bringing humanity into the kingdom of God, into sonship to God, and to instil into the soul of a red or black man the mystery of the love of God. Self-interest is put aside, and the
Missionary becomes a Nama or a Herero. He gives continually from the inner treasure of his spiritual life and knowledge. In order to be able to do that, however, he must unweariedly play now the artisan, now the farmer, now the architect; he must always give presents, teaching, improvements, never take; he must not even
expect that his self-sacrifice will be understood. And to do this for years, decades even, that truly requires more than human power; and the average mind of the European adventurer, hardened in self-valuation and self-seeking, cannot understand it. I used not to be able to understand it; you must have seen it to be able
to understand and admire."—”Quoted from the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, in The Chronicle, August, 1896, p. 191. 3 Cust, "The Gospel Message," pp. 45-53.
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there existed no morality in Europe and America, and that those countries were powerful only because they had superior military equipments—”during this time of transition, I say, it was a very great and noteworthy thing that there should be these men and women from the Far West to represent to us the ethical and spiritual side of their civilization. By their very presence they reminded us of the importance of morality and religion in the life of a nation. In this respect their silent, uncon-scious influence was beyond all estimation. I have no doubt that with the further progress of Christianity in Japan, and the consequent more perfect adaptation of its teachings to the need of the people, it is destined to exercise a yet more thoroughgoing influence in the develop-ment of our ethical thought."1 The lamented death of Mrs. Calvin W. Mateer, of the American Pres-byterian Mission, at Tungchow, in February, 1898, after many years of missionary service, called forth a tribute of love and reverence from the native community, which was remarkable in its spontaneity and sincer-ity. In a tablet prepared in her honor and presented on her sixtieth birthday, she is described as a " venerable, nourishing mother of heroes."2 In a recent number of The Times of India was published an extract from a letter of Tahil Ram Gunja Ram, M. R. A. S., a zemindar of Dera Ismail Khan, in the Punjab, and a Fellow of the Imperial Institute, London. He refers to the beneficial influence of Christian mission-aries in terms of appreciation and gratitude.3 Still another remarkable tribute to missionaries is from the pen of a Brahman, Mr. V. Nagam Iyer, 1 Tokiwo Yokoi, of Tokyo, in International Journal of Ethics, January, 1896, pp. 200, 201. 2 Woman's Work for Woman, June, 1898, p. 143. 3 '' Whatever differences in some theological doctrines and dogmas may exist between Christianity and the Arya Somaj, the enlightened Hinduism, it would be the meanest ingratitude if I, in common with my countrymen, did not feel grateful in the fullest possible way to the Christian missionary societies for the good they have done to India. These Christian missionaries have been the pioneers of every
reform, whether it be religious, social, or moral. Without the aid of the Christian missionary societies the Indian Government would never have been able to do even a tenth part of what has been done for India. It was pious Christian missionaries like Drs. Duff, Wilson, and Forman, whom the Indians up to this time revere
most respectfully, who first established colleges for the education of Indians. It was the pious Christian missionaries who first opened female schools, medical hospitals, and shelters for the Hindu widows who are so much maltreated by Hindu society. Though myself a staunch Arya Somajist by religion, yet I say with double force that no agency has benefited India so much as the Christian missionary societies."—”Quoted in The Zenana, April, 1896, p. 90. The letter was originally published in The Morning Post, Allahabad, January 4, 1896.
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in his chapter on education, in the census report of Travancore.1 In The Baluchistan Gazette, the proprietor of which is a Parsi, appeared not long ago a striking article upon missionary work, which says: " The mission labor, both in the cause of education as well as physical relief, is eminently superior and more effective than that supplied by Government. The mission work, no matter where or among whom it is done, has a moral element which is both soothing and instructive. The missionaries are the bearers of that Great Truth which cannot fail to enter and enlighten the darkest mind and soften the hardest heart, and it is in this that the success of mission labor lies."2 VII Still another point at which missions impinge with moral power upon both the political and social
The influence of missions in introducing a basis for higher national idealslife of lands where they have been es-tablished, is exemplified by the stimulus they give in the direction of new national aspirations and higher ideals of government. The new patriotism of India, in contradistinction to the old, inspired as it is with Christian sentiments and ideals rather than with the degen-erate notions and fantastic conceits of Hinduism, is the fruit of missions. A truer conception of the spirit and purpose of legislation and of the supreme function of law is slowly but steadily securing recognition. The first principle of justice—”namely, the equality of all men before the law—”is beginning to emerge from the obscurity into which it has been consigned by the edict of caste. The era of social tyranny in India has been long and dark, but a new standard is now gradually evolving, and men are beginning to take their place in society on the basis of manhood, as heirs of that liberty which Christianity recognizes as theirs by right of birth in God's likeness. Happily, the evidence accumulates on all sides, attesting the influence of missions in over- 1 "By the unceasing efforts and self-denying earnestness of the learned body of Christian missionaries in the country, the large community of native Christians is rapidly advancing in its moral, intellectual, and material condition. . .. But for these missionaries the humble orders of Hindu society would forever remain unraised. . . . The heroism of raising the low from the slough of degradation and debasement was an aspect of civilization unknown to ancient India. . . . I do not think the Brahmans or even the high-caste non-Brahmans can claim this credit." —”Quoted in The Missionary Herald, October, 1895, p. 391. 2 Quoted in Regions Beyond, June, 1894, p. 224.
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throwing and making odious the long-prevalent reign of social despotism.1 The very idea of nationality has come to the educated and enlightened mind of India under the auspices of Christianity.2 It is the judgment of Professor Max Müller that " the Indian never knew the feeling of nationality." He is grasping it now in a large and comprehensive sense, which in time must result in the moulding of a great nation by the fusion of numerous tribes and races on the basis of human brother-hood, as well as in community of interest. In some instances a revived and progressive life has been given to tribes and peoples as a whole, through the entrance of missions. The Rev. J. M. Macphail, of the Free Church of Scotland Mission in Bengal, mentions the Santals as "a people owing their social salvation to Christian missions." He states that they were " entirely uneducated and illiterate forty years ago, and would probably soon have been merged into Hinduism, but under the influence of mission work they have maintained their independence, and have made very rapid strides in civilization." He mentions also the Khasis, in the hills of Assam, who " fifty years ago were among the wildest of warlike tribes, but are now one of the most prosperous and progressive." Similar statements are made concerning " the long down-trodden Pariahs in the south, who seem at last to be asserting their man-hood, and the Mangs, in the Deccan, who are also being rescued from a position of degradation." This is valuable testimony, as it shows that 1 The Rev. T. E. Slater, of the London Missionary Society, remarked in a lecture delivered before the Indian National Congress at Madras, in December, 1887: " And so Christ's new idea has brought about a marvellous revolution in social and political relations. Where it is allowed full play, partiality and class legislation are forever doomed; there will not be one law for the rich and another for the poor, but the interests of the entire community will be the object sought. Wherever Christianity is a living force, social wrongs must be redressed, despotic power and oppressive institutions abolished, and law administered and life protected with even-handed justice." 2 This is true in a measure of other countries than India. The educational results of Robert College have done much for Bulgarian national consciousness. Upon this point a missionary writes: " The graduates of Robert College are men of power in Bulgaria, and it has been said that the country owes its national existence to that institution. A striking proof of the results of the agencies referred to among the Bulgarians can be found by a comparison of that nation with adjacent nations among whom no mission work has been done. The Bulgarians will be seen to be far superior in intelligence and character. This may be partly due to differences in racial characteristics, but the fact remains that the history of Bulgaria during the last twenty-five years has been a marked contrast to that of the nations adjoining."—”Miss Mary M. Patrick (A. B. C. F. M.), Constantinople, Turkey.
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Christianity has a tendency to save and elevate barbarous tribes and peoples as a whole, while mere external civilization, when imposed by superior races, interested more in commerce than in evangelism, has rather the opposite effect.1 A striking illustration of the lesson Christianity teaches as to the relation of human
The late Queen of Manua, and her aspirations as a Christian ruler government to the divine sovereignty is supplied in the address, before referred to, of the late Queen of The late Queen of Ma-Manua, in the Samoan Islands. The occasion was the dedication of a church at the capital town. It is full of hearty ascriptions of praise to God, and dutifully acknowledges His mercies to her people. Continuing, she says: "We think much of our kingdom and government. We know we are respected and take our place among the peoples of the earth; yet our kingdom is as nothing before the kingdom of Christ. That is the one kingdom which shall never pass away, a kingdom of kingdoms. ' Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord' was the message given us by the missionary several days ago, and how true that is we know. It is not outward display that shows the real prosperity of a people, but it is those people who give to Christ their hearts, and live godly lives, who shall be truly blessed, and who shall know true prosperity."2 The testimony of the Rev. J. E. Newell (L. M. S.), of the Malua Institution, Samoa, as to the happy history of this isolated group is especially significant. He writes as follows: "What Christianity might have done for the whole of Samoa if political unity had been established, may be imagined from the condition of a portion of the islands. The small group of Manua—”the most easterly of the Samoan Archipelago—”has been able hitherto to maintain its political independence. Fortunately, its people have been for the past fifty years united under one chief; and since the introduction of Christianity their government has been Christian, and they have maintained religious unity. No sectarian divisions have been allowed to take root there. They are a prosperous, healthy, contented people, who have been able 1 Instances of this are given in Kidd's " Social Evolution," in his chapter on " The Conditions of Human Progress." 2 The Chronicle, September, 1895, p. 231; quoted also in The Missionary Herald, December, 1895, p. 513. The death of this good young Queen of Manua is reported in The Chronicle of February, 1896, p. 46. She was a sincere Christian, and had a singularly noble desire to govern as a Christian ruler and promote the higher spiritual welfare of her people. It seemed to her a cause of profound gratitude that Christianity had come to her realm, and she found much happiness in giving every facility to missionary work.
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to maintain peace and unity without any foreign interference or aid. Their morality is not perfect, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ has much yet to teach them; but they are an essentially Christian people in morals and religion, and the most striking result is that obtained in their social life." Christianity has thus proved not simply an individual and social, but even a national, blessing where it has been received by a people and made the basis of common faith and the rule of communal life.1 VIII From what has been said, is it not obvious that a new significance has been given to missions,
The work of missions in laying the foundation of a new society as instrumental in laying the foundations of a new social order, touching as they do, both directly and indirectly, the deepest springs of the world's progress? We who speak the English language cherish in our hearts the inspiration of centuries of English culture and progress—”do we realize, as English-speaking people, the fontal relationship which the stimulus of early missions bears to our subsequent growth, progress, and world-wide achievement as a race? Columba, Augustine, Aidan, Paulinus, Cuthbert, and others like them, were among the first messengers of Christianity to our ancestors. They entered upon a long and serious conflict; yet how truly they worked for the making of the most superb forces of the modern world we can but faintly realize.2 In their influence upon non-Christian society modern missions are as yet perhaps quite as much destructive as constructive in their results. All through the Oriental as distinguished from the Occidental world, we see the signs of intellectual and moral awakening. An era of spiritual discovery has come,—”a period of religious questionings, of painful heart-searchings, of wistful longings, and desperate wrestlings with an overshadowing and dominant past. As 1 On the power of Christianity to weld into unity of spirit conflicting races, see article by the Rev. K. S. Macdonald, D.D., in The Indian Evangelical Review, July, 1887, pp. 5-27. 2 Mr. J. R. Green, in his " Short History of the English People," referring to the early missionary era in Northumbria, says: " By its missionaries and by its sword it had won England from heathendom to the Christian Church. It had given her a new poetic literature. Its monasteries were already the seat of whatever intellectual life the country possessed. Above all, it had been the first to gather together into a loose political unity the various tribes of the English people, and by standing at their head for nearly a century to accustom them to a national life, out of which England, as we have it now, was to spring " (pp. 69, 70).
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Dean Church has finely said concerning the passing of ancient Roman civilization: " When. . . it went to pieces, rotten within and battered by the storms without, it was a portent and calamity which the human imagination had almost refused to believe possible. It was indeed the foundering of a world."1 So we may say with reference to the upheavals produced by Christian missions in contemporary heathenism. An era of struggle is at hand. Christianity, true to its own Master, has come "not to bring peace, but a sword." It works by a process of slow intellectual, spiritual, and social martyrdom. It enters the inner heart-life through dazed sensibilities and torn affections. Its convictions are often revolutionary. Myths, superstitions, ceremonies, dreams, aspirations, and customs—”in fact, most of the cherished ideals of the past—”are doomed. This is natural, indeed inevitable, as an accompaniment of any serious effort to escape from those retrogressive forces which have held dominion in the past, and have so long retarded the moral development of society. Nothing can be more interesting and touching to a sympathetic student of human progress than the phenomena which accompany the awakening of races just emerging from barbarism to the consciousness of the larger knowledge, the nobler morality, and the higher destiny which Christian civilization offers. It is like God's voice saying after long ages of darkness, " Let there be light." It is the sign of a new creative era in social history, in contradistinction to the long, uneventful periods of primitive savagery. But enthusiasm must needs be on its guard against the expectation of accomplishing these reforms
Conflict the inevitable price of victorywithout meeting with checks, and occasionally seeming to fail. An era of such transformation can hardly be entered upon without a conscientious struggle with dominant religious, social, and political power. The Reformation was a period of conflicts. The early struggles of Christianity with pagan Rome were sharp and terrible. The Huguenots and Puritans were soldiers of conscience. The victories of religious history must be repeated in the experience of Christian missions. We may yet have exiles for conscience' sake from non-Christian lands to found new commonwealths for God and humanity. The one great reigning word in Oriental history, and throughout the realms of savagery, is despotism. All national, religious, and social experience is steeped in it. Even ancient republics were oligarchic in practice, and there is little hope that the spell of this monstrous usurpation will ever be broken, except as the 1 " The Gifts of Civilisation," p. 128.
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enlightened conscience, aroused and fortified by religious faith, bids defiance to it, and leads in the conflict for its overthrow. Liberty, and in a large sense true civilization, have been born not of philosophy, or of natural or ethnic religious systems, nor have they come with material progress. They have been the product of a religious faith instructed and inspired by God's Word, and filled with the courage and moral heroism which spiritual contact with Christ can give. "Freedom is re-created year by year,In hearts wide open on the Godward side,In souls calm-cadenced as the whirling sphere,In minds that sway the future like a tide.No broadest creeds can hold her, and no codes;She chooses men for her august abodes,Building them fair and fronting to the dawn."Let us not be alarmed if Christianity creates problems and stirs up conflicts in foreign society. This is no reason for abandoning missions. The cry that they should be given up if they make trouble in heathen society is about as absurd as to call upon us to give up the Christian religion because it antagonizes the evils of the world and refuses to tolerate sin. The achievements of missions in laying anew the foundations of a better social order have been
The moral value of missions as sponsors of true civilizationaccomplished, let it be noted, in spite of the counteracting influence and demoralizing example of degenerate and reckless foreign traders and adventurers, who stand side by side with the missionary all through the non-Christian world. Do we realize the immense service of missions as a defender of the spirit and an apologist for the moral integrity of true civilization as distinguished from false? If the typical foreign resident, in his usual Oriental environment of unrestrained license, had been the only representative of civilization and the only exemplification of supposed Christianity, the influence of his life would have been to the discredit of Christendom and a distinct check to the moral progress of the world. Commissioner Sir H. H. Johnston, in his recent volume, has characterized in a few burning sentences probably the worst type of the average European trader, pioneer, and adventurer in Central Africa. The description need not be localized; it is applicable throughout the length and breadth of the continent. "They are aggressively ungodly," he writes; "they put no check on their lusts; released from the restraints of civilisation and the terrors of 'what people may say,' they are capable of
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almost any degree of wickedness"1 "There is another benefit derived from mission work which ought not to be overlooked," writes a resident missionary in one of the cities of Burma. "It helps to correct the bad opinion of Europeans usually entertained in this country. English officials often lead lives here which are so immoral that the heathen idea of Christian England would be simply hideous, were there not some counteracting influence to modify it. A majority of the European officials who have been here during the last four years have openly lived with Burman mistresses, and their drinking capacity is something to excite wonder." While this is true of a large class of foreigners, yet there are many conspicuous and noble exceptions, to whom much credit and honor are due. It remains a fact, however, that Europeans, to a lamentable extent, have lived unworthy lives in the presence of heathen society, and that also in the larger sphere of colonial, political, and commercial intercourse a dark page has to be recorded concerning the treatment of inferior races by the representatives of civilized nations, which has been characterized by many unfair and shameful features.2 An elaborate historical sketch of the darker aspects of the dealings of civilized nations 1 Sir H. H. Johnston, "British Central Africa," p. 192. This dark picture may be brightened by a gleam of sunlight from the letter of a South African missionary. He writes: " Missionaries in Bechuanaland, lay and clerical, rejoice in many a woman's benediction, whose sons or other loved ones have found their way into the recesses of Africa, and whose wild career has, thank God, in many instances, been checked by unexpected contact with something like the simplicity and purity of the home life from which they had cut themselves adrift. The amount of good which missionaries in these far-off lands are often able to do in this way can scarcely be overestimated. Every one who has thus been able to regain possession of himself becomes a duplicate of the missionary in the influence of his life upon black and white among whom he moves."—”Rev. Roger Price (L. M. S.), Kuruman, British Bechuanaland. 2 " The pith and marrow of all the good in our national life is Christ, and it is the Anglo-Saxon stock, with its sturdy faith and evangelical tradition, which is the coloniser and civiliser of the world. Apart from Christianity, has not the West too often been guilty of the most horrible crimes against the 'childhood of the world'? From whence have come the man-stealers, the drink-sellers, the murderers and debauchers of weaker races? What would our boasted civilisation have wrought by this time, if the strong hand of Christian public opinion and law had not stepped in to deliver those drawn unto death? "—”Dr. H. Martyn Clark (C. M. S.), Amritsar, India. Dr. A. C. Thompson, in his "Moravian Missions," gives instances of shocking cruelties on the part of the Spaniards in Central and South America and the West Indies (pp. 166-169). No American of this generation needs to be reminded of the wrongs of Cuba as emphasizing the barbarous story of Spanish colonial policy.
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with inferior races has been given by Dr. Gustav Warneck, in his "Modern Missions and Culture" (pp. 239-306), where he treats of the relation of culture to missions.1 Nevertheless, noble progress has been made, and many kindly, humane relations have been established. Christian missions are fast reversing the verdict which might otherwise have been rendered had Christendom touched the non-Christian world only through the channels of unchristian lives and selfish political and commercial aims. In the meantime, an impressive exemplification of the fact has been afforded that Christianity, the substantial fabric,—”wholesome, historic, uncompromising Christianity,—”can alone adequately prepare a people for the transition from barbarism to refinement, and guide society as a whole to the hearty adoption of nobler principles and higher standards. Civilization can do much to change the outer aspects of communities and nations, but only the master touch of Christianity can mould the inner purpose and renew the secret springs of righteous living. This is true even in Christendom, for it is Christianity alone which in spirit or in very deed fights certain forms of evil and gives a temper of righteousness to life. It is of the essence of Christianity in its relation to human progress to be aggressive. It was born to fight evil. It was instituted and equipped with a view to its achieving by steady effort and inflexible pressure a great historic result, namely, the perfection of human society. Other agencies which give direction and impetus to social evolution work with more or less of haphazard, or with vague tendencies towards a predetermined end, or with only a drifting, undefined possibility, or at best a probability, that a certain, well-defined result 1 The treatment of aboriginal races by British colonists was made a subject of careful examination by a select committee of the House of Commons at the beginning of the Victorian reign. The report was presented to Parliament in June, 1837, and one of the results of the investigation was the formation of the Aborigines Protection Society, which is still actively engaged in its benevolent service. In that memorable report occurs the following paragraph: "It is not too much to say that the intercourse of Europeans in general, without any exception in favour of the subjects of Great Britain, has been, unless when attended by missionary exertions, a source of many calamities to uncivilised nations. Too often their territory has been usurped, their property seized, their numbers diminished, their character debased, the spread of civilisation impeded. European vices and diseases have been introduced amongst them, and they have been familiarised with the use of our most potent instruments for the subtle or the violent destruction of human life, namely, brandy and gunpowder. It will be only too easy to make out the proof of all these assertions."—”The Aborigines' Friend, July, 1896, p. 26. Cf. also, for further historical data, "Transactions of the Aborigines Protection Society," 4 vols., 1874-96.
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will be reached. Christianity, however, lays down its principles, states its methods, sets forth its programme, announces its aim, and proceeds to work aggressively for its accomplishment. It stands for an intelligent purpose in social evolution; it represents a divine factor in human progress. IX Among missionaries of long experience and observation there seems to be but one opinion as to
A symposium of missionary opinion as to the social value of missions.the social results of missions. The power of Christianity to change the tone and environment of society for the better, its inevitable trend in that direction, and in fact its necessity as a persuasive and invigorating force, if results of permanent value are to be secured, are regarded by them as axiomatic truths based upon experience. The judgment which they pass upon these points is practically unanimous, although the difficulty of tabulating and demonstrating these effects at the present stage of mission progress is fully recognized.1 This conviction, moreover, seems to be expressed with equal confidence by missionaries who live amidst the higher civilization of the Orient, and by those who labor surrounded by the degradation of savagery. The missionaries in Japan, as might be expected, express their views with a measure of reserve,
The judgment of missionaries from Japan as the evidence in the case of that progressive and alert people is not as manifest and indubitable as it is found to be in the case of other more conservative Oriental nations. The Japanese are naturally imitative, and have shown themselves to be responsive to Western thought, and to be receptive, in a remarkable degree, to Western civilization for its own sake. European ideas and methods have been welcomed with a measure of zest; modern culture has been unusually appreciated; and the facilities of material civilization have been adopted to a degree hitherto unknown in the conservative East. This fact leaves it, in the opinion of some, an open 1 A veteran missionary writes to the author upon this point as follows: "One difficulty that at once presents itself is in tabulating results of this kind. These indirect influences of mission work are often so silent and imperceptible that we might as well attempt to put into statistical tables the influence of the rays of the sun in fructifying the earth. These are not only felt by the growing crops which we can measure and weigh, but by every living animal and every tree of the forest. Earth, air, and water—”all animate and even inanimate creation—”respond to their touch."—”Rev. Daniel McGilvary, D.D. (P. B. F. M. N.), Chieng Mai, Laos.
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question, or at least one which may at present properly be left open, as to what extent Christianity as such has been directly influential in the production of social changes in Japan.1 No one doubts that where there is the will and the ambition, on the part of an intelligent nation, or even among its leaders, to absorb a new and higher civilization, astonishing external changes will be brought about with surprising rapidity; but the old, deep question as to the moral quality and the spiritual power inherent in these outer transformations still remains. Material civilization may be accepted with an appearance of highly beneficial results, but will this impart that moral stamina, those righteous aims, and the essential goodness, which alone can give a firm footing and right direction to social progress? In the case of the Japanese, especially in view of their intense national spirit, we can see that it is not easy for missionaries to speak with decision, however readily personal opinion might sanction it, as to just what 1 It is fair to say that not all the missionaries in Japan express their views with equal reserve. The following excerpts from letters are of interest, although it should be remembered that those who have been less pronounced in recording a positive opinion may not be on that account less decided in their personal convictions: "The Red Cross Society, now numbering 100,000, is an indirect fruit of Christianity. Asylums and schools for the blind, and hospitals under government or local patronage, are, I believe, fruits of mission work, though in some cases quite indirect. The Railway Mission, Policemen's Mission, Prison Work, and Scripture Union, though more distinctively mission work, are not reported, so far as I know, by any missionary, tract, or Bible society. The generous treatment of the Chinese by the Japanese in the recent war is probably an indirect fruit of Christian seed sowing. Certainly the extended and elevated education of women, and indeed the excellent educational system of the empire, though in itself by no means Christian, are the result of contact with the nations sending the missionaries, or with the missionaries themselves."—”Rev. A. A. Bennett (A. B. M. U.), Yokohama, Japan. "I need scarcely add, in reply to your inquiries as to the sociological influence of Christian work in Japan, that great moral reforms in the family, in the community, and in the nation have already resulted. In fact, the ethical side of Christianity has impressed the nation more than its supernatural side, the Sermon on the Mount more than the miracles of our Lord. Concubinage has been disgraced, forced into privacy, and lessened; family life has been ennobled and purified; intemperance and the great 'social evil' fiercely attacked; the liberty and right of the individual emphasized, and an unbending and uncompromising ethical standard set up by which the laws and conduct of the nation and the individual are alike judged. Public opinion is already being greatly influenced by this, so that the Christians exert an influence in the nation out of all proportion to their numbers."—”John C. Berry, M.D. (A. B. C. F. M.), formerly at Kyoto, Japan. "Among the Christians of Japan there is, of course, much improvement in home life, in temperance, truthfulness, brotherly kindness, morality, and in the elevation of women, and their influence all around is for good. Outside of the Christian Church in Japan, heathenism, superstition, and idolatry still reign in the hearts of the people, and nothing but the grace of God can cast them out."—”Rev. J. C. Hepburn, M.D. (P. B. F. M. N.), Yokohama, Japan. "Almost all of our philanthropic agencies in the United States are employed. The Young Men's Christian Association, orphanages, hospitals for lepers, schools for the poor, temperance societies, etc., are some of the instrumentalities now used. Public societies, public lectures and meetings, constantly call attention to the evils of society, and discuss remedies. Special efforts for special classes, railway men, jinrikisha-pullers, overworked laborers, etc., are made. For the past five or six years all these varieties of work have been energetically carried on."—”Rev. G. W. Knox, D.D. (P. B. F. M. N.), formerly a missionary in Tokyo, Japan. "We are under a certain restraint in Japan which makes it difficult to claim as the direct results of mission work all that we may think to be fairly its due. There is much on every hand which bespeaks the influence of Christian civilization, and, more or less directly, of the Christian Church itself."—”Rev. Theodore M. MacNair (P. B. F. M. N.), Tokyo, Japan.
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place should be assigned to Christian missions as an inspirer of social progress in Japan. Missionaries would naturally prefer, under such conditions, modestly to await the verdict of history as to this aspect of their service, and to avoid any expression of opinion which might be offensive to Japanese sensibilities. Upon the question, however, as to whether the social transformation of Japan can be accomplished with moral safety and ennobling results, apart from the controlling influence of Christianity, there is no room for reserve, and no hesitancy need be found in the full expression of conviction. The words of Dr. W. N. Whitney, of the United States Legation, Tokyo, represent a judgment, expressed with moderation, which reflects the prevalent opinion among the foreign missionaries of Japan.1 In China, while there is a frank recognition among the missionaries of the fact that the
Some expressions of opinion from Chinasocial results of missions develop slowly amidst an habitual conservatism of exceptional intensity, yet all are agreed that nothing has moved and influenced Chinese society so mightily as Christian missions. " Evidently only the new life which accompanies the Gospel of divine grace," writes the Rev. Jonathan Lees (L. M. S.), of Tientsin, " is a force strong enough to purify, elevate, and save this land; but, necessarily, the process must be a gradual one, which has not advanced very far as yet, and the desired result will come at length rather as the outcome of the permeation of the mind of the nation by Christian thought than by avowed effort on the part of missionaries." "I can give you no statistics on the social lines of mission 1 See Vol. I., p. 32, note.
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influence," writes the Rev. Dr. M. H. Houston (P. B. F. M. S.), of Hangchow, " but can only say that it is evident to me that the Gospel, when accepted in its fullness, will extirpate all the social evils which now exist in China, some of which are peculiar to an Oriental country."1 From Siam, the late Dr. James B. Thompson (P. B. F. M. N.), of Petchaburee, wrote: " It is
The testimony from Siam and Burma my firm conviction—”based on what I see about me daily—”that Christian missions are elevating and refining the people of this land, and bringing to them decided benefits, entirely aside from the evangelical results." "In my mind, it is an axiom," writes the venerable Dr. McGilvary, of Chieng Mai, " that the Gospel is fully applicable and equally essential to cure all the evils that afflict the race as such, in one land as well as another." "In the last seven years," testifies the Rev. W. C. Dodd (P. B. F. M. N.), of Lampoon, "I have seen many evidences of the adaptation of the Gospel to remedy the evils that afflict Laos society. We have a peculiarly fortunate field for the investigation of this point, for we are 1 Some further expressions of opinion by missionaries in China are as follows: "The elevation of China socially is utterly hopeless, except as it shall be effected by the power of the Gospel."—”Rev. C. W. Mateer, D.D. (P. B. F. M. N.), Tungchow. "Christianity, I boldly declare, has raised thousands in North Formosa to cleaner habits, purer thoughts, nobler aspirations, and more exalted ideas of earthly existence, while looking forward to eternal life."—”Rev. G. L. MacKay, D.D. (C. P. M.), Formosa. "Christianity is the only hope for China, or for any nation. When this is accepted, it will do for China just what it has done for other countries."—”Rev. Hunter Corbett, D.D. (P. B. F. M. N.), Chefoo. "My only hope for this country [China] is from the progress of Christianity. They will no doubt try to appropriate the advantages of civilisation without Christianity, but they will fail, or should they succeed, only ride to a greater fall."—” Rev. Alfred G. Jones (E. B. M. S.), Chefoo. "The longer I live in China, the less do I believe that civilization, so called, will help this people. Christianity, because it strikes at the root of all these evils,—”the heart,—”is the only power which really elevates man and improves his social surroundings."—”B. C. Atterbury, M.D. (P. B. F. M. N.), Peking. "Christianity is the only religion that has power to check great vices. Placards all over China exhort against the use of opium, but the vice spreads in spite of them; yet if those who are addicted to this evil indulgence become Christians, there is hope for them. Men who testify that the opium habit was to them 'ten thousand hells' now magnify the grace of God that gave them the victory over it."—”Rev. J. G. Fagg (Ref. C. A.), Amoy. "What is apparent in our new and small field may not be great as to its extent, but it is significant as pertaining to all the life and social condition of those influenced. An entire change is produced in the individual and in the community, large or small, which yields to the influence of the Gospel as introduced by the missionaries."—”Rev. Charles Leaman (P. B. F. M. N.), Nanking. "Public Christian worship, which is a necessary consequence of our work, and the order observed on such occasions, the large numbers in attendance, the character and ability of native pastors and teachers, and the effect of the whole on the community at large, are all in happy contradistinction to the idolatrous services held throughout the country."—”Rev. W. Muirhead, D.D. (L. M. S.), Shanghai.
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so shut in from the outer world that we have had hitherto but few of the adjuncts of civilization to follow and supplement our labors." In Burma, missionaries of the American Baptist Missionary Union give unequivocal testimony upon the point under consideration. The Rev. A. E. Seagrave, of Rangoon, declares that, in his opinion, "the Karens have been made what they are by their acceptance of Christianity; instead of a scattered, degraded, and despised people, they have become the possessors of influence and power." The Rev. W. I. Price, of Henzada, writes: " As to the sociological effects of Christian missions among the Karens of Burma, I unhesitatingly say that they are very marked and most salutary, touching and influencing for good every aspect of society." The Rev. W. F. Thomas, of Insein, asserts: "Of the indirect blessings of missions, to which you refer, nowhere is there more evidence than among the Chins, the Karens, and other hill-tribes of Burma, to whom most of my service for fifteen years has been given. Indeed, so conspicuous are these advantages that they are often overestimated." The Rev. Alonzo Bunker, D.D., of Toungoo, writes: "The Gospel of Jesus is the sovereign remedy for all the ills of barbarism, and the only force that can lift mankind from a lower to a higher level." This opinion is shared by his colleague, the Rev. H. P. Cochrane, who expresses his conviction that "Christianity is the only power that ever will or ever can cause light to shine into this thick darkness." A missionary of the same society, the Rev. P. H. Moore, of Nowgong, Assam, reinforces this opinion, when he writes: "I feel so sure that Christianity is the only effectual remedy for all these evils of society that the matter seems to me hardly to admit of discussion." The volume of testimony from India is alike instructive and valuable.
Representative views from IndiaAmong representative opinions are the following: "Nothing can be more certain," writes the Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D.D. (P. B. F. M. N.), of Landaur, "than that such [reform] movements here and there are directly due to the effect of Christianity as a visible power in provoking to good works." "A volume might be written," observes the Rev. T. E. Slater (L. M. S.), of Bangalore, "on this most
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fruitful subject, but I hope I have said enough to show that here in India we have overwhelming evidence that Christian missions have proved an earthly as well as a heavenly benefit to society. They have greatly relieved the wrongs, burdens, and miseries that afflict humanity, and they are an effective agency for stamping out ancient evils, as well as for creating a higher and healthier public sentiment in the country. The Gospel of Christ is eminently adapted to all this; and apart from it I know of no remedial and regenerating power." "The results are very apparent among the Christians," writes Dr. John Scudder (Ref. C. A.), of Vellore. "They have been elevated in every sense. Many of them were born among the lowest and most degraded, but now take their stand among the best, and are exerting a great moral power in the land." The Rev. James E. Tracy, D.D. (A. B. C. F. M.), of Periakulam, confirms this, when he observes: " In all matters of sociological progress our Christian converts stand confessedly far in advance of the community in general, and whatever testimony this fact may bear to the sociological value of our work is valid evidence." "The Christian community," asserts Dr. Pauline Root (A. B. C. F. M.), formerly of Madura, "takes a firm stand for temperance and social purity, and leads in all good works." Dr. Henry Martyn Clark (C. M. S.), of Amritsar, remarks: "Education, civilisation, the relief of pain, the freeing of the slave, the war against uncleanness, and other manifold forms of evil, social and political, which are rife, are all grand and good works. None of them is, per se, the missionary's work, but all, properly used, may be the stepping-stones to success. In pursuing his chief aim it is given him to have the joy of bringing many of these blessings, and of seeing them follow in the train of the Gospel."1 1 " I have seen enough of Christian evangelism to fill me with joyful hopes. I never met a missionary in India or Japan who was doubtful about the final result. And I have seen enough of the practical workings of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam to crystallize into adamantine firmness my previous conviction of their futility to give the soul peace with God, to remove the weight of guilt and grief, to lay the foundation of a vigorous individual and national morality, and to brighten earth with the light of a blessed immortality. The notion that Asia does not need the Gospel of Christ because of the refined and lofty moral sentiments in the sacred books of the East, or because Oriental speakers trained in Christian schools and shaped by Christian environments are able to make an agreeable impression when expounding their faith on Christian platforms, is born of ignorance. The world needs Christ, and to us more than to any other people belongs the fulfilment of the commission to evangelize the nations."—”Rev. John H. Barrows, D.D., in an address after visiting India.
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From the Turkish Empire we have a word from the Rev. Dr. J. K. Greene (A. B. C. F. M.), of
What is thought in Turkey and PersiaConstantinople, as follows: "A change has already been accomplished, sufficiently great and salutary to prove that evangelical Christianity, if allowed its legitimate influence, would speedily bring about the regeneration of Turkey." The Rev. Robert Thomson, of the same society, writes, also from Constantinople, in substantially the same strain. Dr. Grace N. Kimball, of the American Board, wrote from Van, in Asiatic Turkey: " Christianity is the only force that can be depended upon to renovate society as well as the individual, yet in order to do this we need not less of the policy of saving souls, but more of the broad activities of applied Christianity." Miss Anna Melton (P. B. F. M. N.), of Mosul, sends from the far eastern recesses of Turkey the following luminous testimony: "Although we have not worked primarily for sociological results, yet we have, in quite an encouraging degree, obtained them. The people can now form organizations and conduct meetings according to rules and regulations, which formerly they could not do. Both sexes take pride in keeping their persons and clothing clean, and try to make their houses more like homes. They look more to the health and welfare of the family, desire earnestly the development of their children, and delight themselves in pure, wholesome, and edifying social amusements, in contrast with the drunken carousals about them. They have more of the spirit of helping one another, and more sympathy for a brother in distress. I distinctly recall a case where a poor villager was robbed of all his money, and his neighbors the same day made up the amount." The author's associates and colleagues in Syria share with him the view that Christian missions have brought social changes of the highest promise to that land. The Rev. H. H. Jessup, D.D., records his opinion, as follows: "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."1 The Rev. W. W. Eddy, D.D., refers to the philanthropic services of missionaries in times of massacre and famine, and to their efforts to secure from Turkish authorities the common rights of non-Moslems, to awaken benevolent enterprise, to care for the dependent, the orphaned, and the enfeebled, to minister to the sick and suffering, to elevate the home, and to protest against intemperance, slavery, and injustice to woman. The Rev. 1 The Church at Home and Abroad, November, 1893, p. 363. Cf. also ibid., December, 1894, p. 485.
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George E. Post, M.D., who has ministered so skilfully to thousands of suffering Syrians, and for many years has given invaluable instruction to medical students at Beirut, is unhesitating in his judgment that much has been done by Christian missions to ameliorate the social evils of Western Asia. At the end of a long list of specifications he emphasizes the influence of the Gospel in liberating the mind from superstition and the rigors of sectarian animosity. The suspicion, prejudice, and hostility of the various religious elements of society are melting away, and in time will certainly vanish. Similar views, the author knows, are held by President Bliss, Dr. Porter, and Dr. Graham, of the Syrian Protestant College, and by the entire circle of resident missionaries. Dr. Porter writes of the quasi-feudal system and the ecclesiastical despotism which prevailed in Syria until quite late in the present century, but which have now been abolished, or exist only in a very modified form. In the neighboring Mohammedan realm of Persia, Dr. George W. Holmes (P. B. F. M. N.), of Hamadan, expresses his conviction that "nothing but Christianity can regenerate Persia." Dr. J. P. Cochran (P. B. F. M. N.), of Urumiah, writes: "An educational board is organized by the mission and people, and also a legal board, which is an agent of the people in government affairs. In addition to the services of the missionaries, the sick poor are treated by a number of physicians who have been educated by the mission. There is a Young Men's Christian Association, and also a Christian Endeavor Society. We have started gatherings for the women, where practical questions are considered. Then we have meetings of educated people to discuss questions of the day. An orphanage has been established. We have college alumni and female seminary alumnæ, and at meetings of these bodies, questions are debated and plans formed to help the nation." The Rev. Benjamin Labaree, D.D., for many years a Presbyterian missionary in Urumiah, in a valuable résumé of the social results of missions in Persia, emphasizes the stimulus given by Christianity to higher social aspirations among the people, the philanthropic impulses awakened, the practical influence and service of the missionaries in securing justice and abating outrage when attempts have been made to oppress the subject peoples. "The catalogue of wrongs to Christians redressed," he writes, " of illegal taxes abated, of unjust claims cancelled, of outrages atoned for, through the efforts of missionaries, is a long one." He quotes the perhaps somewhat highly colored language of an English newspaper correspondent as follows: "There is an American colony of Protestants established among the Nestorians.
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They lead very heroic and useful lives, and have done more for the improvement of Persian morality and the stoppage of cruelty and persecution than all of the European diplomatic missions put together." In the West Indies, the Island of Jamaica is an instructive example of what can be
A word from the West Indies, Mexico, and South Americawrought by faithful missionary effort, in the interests of civilization among an ignorant and degraded Negro Population. Had the Gospel been allowed to enter Cuba, and religious liberty been granted to the people, the state of the island would no doubt have been similar to the conditions now so happily realized in Jamaica. The Rev. James Ballantine (U. P. C. S. M.), of Chapelton, writes: "I can but say that if Jamaica enjoys any measure of the blessings of civilisation, she owes it largely to the Gospel of Christ." "Jamaica is not now a heathen land," affirms the Rev. Adam Thomson (U. P. C. S. M.), of Montego Bay. "It was once so, but at the present time it is in many important respects as much entitled to be called a Christian country as is either Scotland or America. This benign and philanthropic result is mainly traceable to the civilizing and sanctifying influence of Christian missions." Other facts come to hand in a letter of the Rev. W. Y. Turner, M.D., of the same mission. He says: "There are throughout the island various societies having the intellectual and moral welfare of the people in view. These have in almost every case been initiated by the churches, and are connected with them. A system of Penny Savings Banks was introduced by the Government some fourteen years ago, and is worked chiefly in connection with the churches. There were one or two such banks in existence, in association with the churches, before the government system, now universal, was established. There can be no doubt that missions have exerted a great influence upon the lives and habits of the people, and are still doing so. The presence of a missionary has a distinct tendency to repress evil living, as it makes evil-doers more ashamed of sin, and leads to its being shunned. A great improvement has been noticed in this district during the three years we have lived here. There is less quarrelling and fighting, less immorality, and less drunkenness than formerly." The degraded Negroes of Guiana, Central America, and the West Indies were without one ray of hope until the Moravian missionaries began to labor so heroically for their instruction and elevation. The triumphs and glories of the Moravian missionary epic would alone fill volumes with testimony gathered from the darkest corners of the earth, showing the sanctifying and civilizing power of the Gospel
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among those who may be regarded as preëminently the lost races of the globe.1 From the adjacent mainland of Central America, the Rev. E. M. Haymaker (P. B. F. M. N.), of Guatemala City, contributes the following testimony: " That the Gospel is an effective remedy for these social evils in Guatemala is evidenced in the fact that we are bidden God-speed not only by people of Protestant sympathies, but by many Roman Catholics, as well as those representing the liberal body, who so far overcome their antipathy to all religion as to publicly and highly commend Protestantism solely because they recognize its immense and undeniable social value. They realize that it is just what society here needs." From the neighboring Republic of Colombia, the Rev. M. E. Caldwell (P. B. F. M. N.), formerly of Bogota, writes: "Many instances might be given of the power of Christianity to lift up the people of Colombia. It is a power that neither secular education, nor money, nor travel, nor refinement, can give. None of these things has been successful in curing the tendency to impurity or the proneness to untruthfulness, or in building up a stable and virtuous civilization in Colombia. Christianity, and Christianity alone, has been able to make any lasting impression for good." "Concerning our own people, as a whole," communicates the Rev. J. G. Hall (P. B. F. M. S.), of Mexico," the evidences are abundant that they are being improved in all their social relations, outsiders themselves being the judges. They live better and dress better, the interior of their houses is more attractive, and they have more material comforts around them; their family relations are happier, and the women and children receive more consideration." The Rev. Hubert W. Brown (P. B. F. M. N.), of Mexico City, writes of his strong conviction that "evangelical missions exert a powerful, pervasive influence upon the thought and life of Mexico." He refers especially to effects produced upon the lib- 1 Cf. Thompson, "Moravian Missions," Lectures III. and IV. "Formerly," writes a West Indian planter, in the early days of missions, " we could hardly procure ropes enough on Monday for punishing those slaves who had committed crimes on Sunday, twenty, thirty, and even more being hanged; but, since the Gospel has been preached to them, scarcely two are hanged in a whole year, and these, for the most part, are strange Negroes, who have not been long on the island." More than a hundred years ago, the governor of one of the West Indian islands, in reply to the question as to what security he had against the uprising of the slaves, took the questioner to his window, and, directing his attention to some Moravian mission stations, answered: "This is our security. Negroes who are converted will never rise in rebellion; and their number is so great that the others could never conspire without their knowledge, and they would inform us." (Ibid., pp. 169, 170, 171.)
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eral leaders of the State, from the Chief Executive, through governors of States, to the humblest official in many a quiet village or rural district. This influence he designates as "restraining and constraining in character," as "enlightening and beneficial, representing the best thought of foreign Protestant nations, and standing as a monitor or moral norm of right and wrong." He also regards their stimulating and corrective influence over the Roman Catholic Church, especially in arousing the priesthood to a better and worthier life, as already initiating "a moral transformation or counter-reformation." Protestant converts lead "changed lives," and are " a leaven for good in the community where they reside." Dr. H. M. Lane (P. B. F. M. N.), of Sao Pãulo, Brazil, sums up the net results of the social influence of missions during the past twenty years, as follows: "A marked decrease in the tolerance of open immorality; far less hesitation in classifying the greed and vice of immoral priests, as such; a decline of superstition, and fewer large legacies to the Roman Catholic Church. Women and womanly virtues are more respected; they have been elevated socially to a position unknown in either Spain or Portugal. In a vast circle the Bible is accepted as the only foundation for a code of morals; family life is purer; truthfulness is much more prevalent; African slavery has been abolished without bloodshed. In the new Republic, Protestant Christianity is recognized in many places as a social and political force not to be ignored. In the wake of Protestant missions in Brazil we find the Young Men's Christian Association, with a strong native following, also Christian Endeavor Societies, hospitals, and trained nurses, who are not nuns. Out of our missions have come a periodical literature and a cleaner permanent literature for the young, school-books with a Christian flavor, innocent games, outdoor amusements, ladies' sewing and other societies, co-education, and athletics." Not less striking is the testimony from those who have had special
What is said by missionaries among the savage races of Africa and Madagascaropportunities for observing the social results of missions among savage races. In fact, the changes that have been wrought among primitive nature-peoples are often more notable than those that may be traced in more civilized communities. From various sections of Africa comes substantially the same verdict as to what is wrought by the touch of Christianity upon native society. "Nothing but the Gospel," declares the late Rev. H. M. Bridgman (A. B. C. F. M.), of Natal, "will ever remedy the evils of society. Nothing else goes to the root of the matter." A missionary of the Universities' Mission at Zanzibar, the Rev.
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G. M. Lawson, says: "Our Christians have usually the greatest repugnance to the objectionable [heathen] practices I have mentioned. If they are ever led to take part in them it is nearly always the result of pressure put upon them by their relations, not because they personally have any taste left for heathenism. No doubt Christianity softens and humanizes all whom it reaches. Christians have a different appearance from heathen, who have generally a hopeless, stolid expression." " It has been my lot for the past ten years," states the Rev. John W. Stirling (U. P. C. S. M.), of Buchanan, Qumbu, Cape Colony, " to labor in a purely heathen district, among the Kaffirs, yet even that short period has been sufficient to indicate that the Gospel carries in its train the most beneficent of blessings for every department of human life and existence; not only regenerating the moral nature, but affecting the bodily well-being, and radiating brightness all around it. For all existing evils, widespread and dreadful though they be, the Gospel is already proving a panacea."1 A well-known missionary of the London Missionary Society in Madagascar, the Rev. James Sibree, asserts: "Wherever so-called civilisation has come into Madagascar without the Gospel, there has been, especially along the coast, degradation and drunkenness, and harm—”immense harm—”has been done to the people. Some coast tribes, indeed, are rapidly dying out and disappearing, through the vices introduced by wicked white men. There is a very great contrast to all this in the interior provinces, where civilisation came hand in hand with Christianity, and as its fellow helper and worker." 2 From the dark regions of the Upper Congo, the Rev. George Gren- 1 The testimony of the late Rev. Hugh Goldie (U. P. C. S. M.), of Creek Town, Old Calabar, is clear and pointed: "Only a small proportion of the people have been won to Christ, but the tribes which our work touches have been greatly benefited by the mission. Though they know not whence the blessing comes, yet wherever the mission has been able to enter, the whole population has been raised from its former state. The atrocities of human sacrifice for the dead, the destruction of infant life, and other deeds of cruelty which filled the land with blood, are abolished. Life is more secure; the dark superstitions which prevented faith in one another are beginning to disappear before trustful social intercourse, and as a consequence the comforts of the present life are more sought after. The 'reign of law' under the British protectorate has entered to do its part, the way having been prepared by the mission." 2 Mr. Sibree, in a little pamphlet entitled " A Quarter-Century of Change and Progress: Antananarivo and Madagascar Twenty-five Years Ago," has given a glowing account of social, intellectual, and spiritual changes, as well as material advances, among the Malagasy, which may stand as a representative brief of this whole argument for the social results of missions.
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fell (E. B. M. S.), of Bolobo, writes: " Those who have not realised the power of Christianity are not slow to say there is no hope for these poor people, but those who have lived longest among them, and have laboured most arduously for their uplifting, say there is hope, but that it is from one source alone. The only reformation that can possibly regenerate a people so degraded is that which has Christianity for its basis." "No moral system in the world," adds the Rev. Thomas Adams (A. B. M. U.), of Leopoldville, "can change their condition, except the Gospel, which gives them a new spiritual birth." In the deep recesses of Central Africa is the smiling missionary oasis of Uganda, of which Mr. Henry M. Stanley writes in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1897 (p. 475). He speaks of the story of the Uganda missionary enterprise as "an epic poem," and declares that he knows " of few secular enterprises, military or otherwise, deserving of greater praise." In his opinion, "Uganda is pre"ëminently the Japan of Africa." "Its unique geographical position, coupled with the remarkable intelligence of the people, will make it as brilliant commercially as it was renowned in pagan days for its martial prowess, and is to-day remarkable for its Christian zeal." "The number of converts," he states, "has become so formidable that it would task the powers of a hundred white missionaries to organize, develop, and supervise them properly. . . . The results from a moral and Christian point of view exceed those obtained from all the rest of Equatorial Africa" (pp. 476, 481).1 1 In another connection Mr. Stanley writes as follows upon the same theme: " I do not think Americans are fully aware of the marvelous change that has come over Uganda. Many a time have I been laughed at in the newspapers for my fervid faith in the people of that land. At first they welcomed the good tidings that Mtesa was entreating the white people to send him missionaries, and applauded the warmth with which the Church Missionary Society responded to the invitation; but after a while, as the first missionaries sent their doleful impressions home, the zeal for making converts in Uganda cooled down, and people here frequently insisted that it would be better to let the Waganda severely alone. The Society, however, persisted, though with slight hope of success; for Mtesa had sensibly deteriorated as he grew older, and when he died, his successor, the present king, being a mere youth and flushed with vanity and lust, emulated Nero. He ordered the murder of a devoted bishop, hunted the missionaries out of his kingdom, and clubbed, tortured, and burnt the young disciples of Mackay, until it seemed as if there could be no future for Uganda but a quick relapse into heathenism. Had the Society yielded to the almost universal desire that the missionaries should give up the effort, Uganda would by this time have been one of the darkest regions in Africa. Faith and perseverance, however, have made it one of the brightest, thereby more than fulfilling my most sanguine hopes. "There are now 200 churches in the State [later statistics, given in the Atlantic Monthly, October, 1897, name 372 as the number], and the number of professing Christians is close on 50,000 [the number is now not far from 65,000]. The islands of Lake Victoria have not been forgotten, for each has its church, with its deacons and elders, who are encouraged in their duties of propagandism by visiting missionaries. Reading and writing have become common acquirements, and the letter now before me from a Waganda chief would indicate the writer as sufficiently advanced to become an excellent clerk. The Gospels are sold by thousands each year; the offertories testify that the religion planted among the Waganda is something more than lip-service. Besides these indications of a rapid advance, the people are turning to with a will to produce food. They are spreading out to make provision for their families, leaving the court which they used to haunt for the sake of its excitement and display. The government steamer, conveyed at an immense cost from the sea to the lake, has just been launched, and the mission vessel is not far from completion. The railway is also advancing steadily into the interior, and is already stimulating the Waganda to put forth greater exertions to make their country worthy of receiving it. The Rev. Mr. Roscoe, who only the other day returned to England after an absence of twelve years, describes the progress as phenomenal."—”Illustrated Christian World, December, 1896, p. 10.
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In a recent report of Sir Claude Macdonald, on the administration of the Niger Coast Protectorate, he refers to missions as follows: " Very much yet remains to be done; religious missions have worked persistently and well, and pointed out to the people the evil of such cruelties and wrong-doings; but there comes a time when their efforts need backing up by the strong arm of the law of civilisation and right." Referring specially to the new training institution of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland in Old Calabar, he says: " A most important and useful departure has been made by the Presbyterian Missionary Society in starting industrial schools in Old Calabar. These schools are assisted by a yearly grant of £ 200 from the revenue." 1 The Islands of the South Seas bring also their quota of testimony. "All my
Strong testimony from the South Seasmissionary life of thirty-four years," observes the Rev. W. G. Lawes, D. D. (L. M. S.), of Vatorata, New Guinea, "I have been living among so-called barbarous peoples—”first on Savage Island, and then here in New Guinea. That Christianity is the only civiliser of such seems to me as unnecessary of proof as that the sea is salt or the fire warm. We find a people debased, ignorant, depraved—”in fact, their condition is such that the first chapter of Romans is as true as a photograph. Christianity, if it is anything but a name, must change and reform all this, and benefit the society which accepts and receives it." " When their hearts are touched by the story of the Gospel," writes a missionary from the New Hebrides, "they cast off heathen ornaments, seek clothing, cease from practices once dear to them, and 1, May, 1895, p. 131.
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live changed lives."1 "I am equally certain," writes a missionary of the London Missionary Society in Samoa, "that all allow these [Christian] ideals to be practicable, and that the only power to effect social reform and to prevent disintegration and ruin is the rule of Christ."2 Striking and detailed statements are given by a missionary in the Marshall Islands, as follows: "As to results—”about one tenth of the population are now church-members. In most of the islands the Church exercises a controlling influence over society. The Christian Sabbath is quite generally observed by all classes. Transgressions of the Seventh Commandment are always regarded as grounds for excommunication, and are no longer gloried in. Licentiousness continues as a besetting sin, and is encouraged by nearly all the foreigners residing in the islands, but it grows more and more disgraceful. Ample clothing is now worn by all. Thieving has mostly disappeared, and lying, though not yet abolished, is growing more and more into disrepute. We never hear of murders committed by a native. Divorces are more infrequent. The people are more wisely industrious, turning their labor to better account, though there is little opportunity to accumulate property. Homes, somewhat like American homes, are no longer unknown, though by no means numerous. The people mostly adhere to their temperate habits, though strongly tempted to use intoxicants introduced by the Germans. There are schools conducted by adherents of the mission on almost all of the islands, and a large proportion of the natives, especially the younger ones, can read and write. Foreigners, whether visitors or traders or shipwrecked mariners, are everywhere treated with hospitality and kindness. Life and property are more secure on all the islands than in any civilized country which I have ever visited or read about. Women are treated with more respect, and marriage is held in greater honor." 3 On the cheerless coast of Greenland the work of the Danish and Moravian missionaries has created a state of civilization "as Christian as we find in England."4 Where ferocious cannibals once made the whole coast-line a terror to mariners, there is now safety and hospitality to shipwrecked seamen. Dr. Kane states that "for the last hundred years Greenland has been safer for the wrecked mariner than many parts of our American coast; hospitality is the universal characteristic."5 1 The Rev. William Gunn, M.D. (F. C. S.), Futuna, New Hebrides. 2 The Rev. J. E. Newell, Malua Institution, Samoa. 3 The Rev. E. M. Pease, M.D. (A. B. C. F. M.), Marshall Islands. 4 La Trobe, "The Moravian Missions," p. 18. 5 Thompson, "Moravian Missions," p. 260. The record of their missions in South Africa and Australia presents similar triumphs. (Ibid., pp. 403, 404, 445-451.)
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X The testimony of missionaries to the social benefits of missions can be supplemented
The evidence of native witnesses in many notable instances confirms the views of missionaries.by that of thoughtful and observant natives of various lands, and by the opinion of resident merchants and officials, who have in many instances expressed their convictions as to the beneficent results of mission work among native races. "It is freely admitted by intelligent Japanese writers," states Professor John C. Ballagh (P. B. F. M. N.), of Tokyo, "that Christianity is the best regenerator of society." "It is scarcely necessary," writes the Rev. David S. Spencer (M. E. M. S.), of Nagoya, "for a missionary to say that our only hope for the removal of these evils of Japanese society lies in the religion of our Master. This the Japanese—”that is, the Christian Japanese—”believe, though the belief is not confined to them, for many who make no profession of Christianity boldly say that it is to the religion of Christ they must look for elevation, light, and peace for society." Dr. Martin, of Peking, states that "thirty years ago a distinguished native scholar published a paper on the question whether foreign missions or foreign trade had done the most good to China, giving preference to the former. How much have these three decades done to augment that preponderance!" Li Hung Chang, during his recent visit to the United States, in an address to the representatives of the different missionary societies established in China, spoke of the " arduous and much esteemed work " of the missionaries, and referred in terms of cordial comment to the educational and philanthropic services rendered by them, and especially to the help given in fighting the opium curse and in rescuing its victims.1 Mr. L. T. Ah Sou, a native Christian of Rangoon, Burma (whose opinion is forwarded with a hearty endorsement by Miss Emily H. Payne, of the American Baptist Missionary Union), who himself belongs to the second generation of a native Christian family, writes that while " heathenism does not elevate a man from his ignorance, filth, and superstition, Christianity does that and more. It changes the heart, resulting in a different mode of living and social intercourse. That the Burma of to-day owes much to Christian missions is a fact which cannot be ignored. A native Christian becomes more energetic in seeking his livelihood, more frugal and honest, and cleaner in his person and manner of living." The Rev. James E. Tracy, D.D. (A. B. C. F. M.), of Periakulam, 1 See The Evangelist (New York), September 3, 1896.
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India, in expressing his own strong conviction of the social benefits of Christianity in India, remarks also: "The witness of thousands in high positions among the native officials would sustain me in this view. It is not long since I saw a statement, credited to the most prominent Brahman in South India, advising the whole Pariah community, which numbers millions, to embrace Christianity as their only hope, since Hinduism had no place for them, and no relief to offer for the evils under which they suffer." The Rev. W. A. Wilson, of the Canadian Presbyterian Mission, forwards, from Rutlam, India, a communication from an educated Hindu gentleman, of orthodox standing, giving his opinion, even from a Hindu point of view, as to the value of missions in India, which, considering its source, has especial weight.1 The Rev. R. M. Paterson, of the Church of Scotland Mission, Gujrat, furnishes also some expressions of native opinion, transcribed from a recent issue of the Oudh Akhbar, which are significant in this connection.2 The Rev. C. F. Gates, D.D. (A. B. C. F. M.), of Harpoot, Turkey, 1 Without attempting to quote the entire communication, the following passage may be given as indicating its trend: "Permit me to say that it is in more than one way that I have been constantly brought into contact with missionaries and native Christians in certain places in Rajputana and Central India, and have seen their works and heard their preachings for many years. From what I could gather from this experience of mine, I may say that those who have received the light of Christian teachings have presented quite a different spectacle as regards their habits and social lives. The foundation of the old bigotries has been utterly shaken in their minds, which has proved in more than one way beneficial to society. Christianity has always denounced intemperance, immorality, cruelty, self-torture, slavery, neglect of the poor and sick, the subject position of Indian women, caste, superstitious customs, and insanitary conditions, which have come to be looked upon by people at large as so many pernicious evils. . . . In fact, there is a progress with rapid strides towards the amelioration of the conditions of the people." See also the excerpts from the address of Dr. Bhandarkar, quoted supra, p. 31. 2 The following extracts from this source indicate with sufficient plainness the writer's opinion of missionary instruction as a moral education: "Recently a Brahman lad, having embraced Christianity in Madras,—”which, by the way, is nothing new,—”has set our Indian brains going, and, as 'Satan always finds mischief for idle hands to do,' our countrymen have been unusually busy these few days declaring war with the missionaries. They have evidently forgotten that more than half of our educated brothers, who occupy seats in most of the public and private offices in India, are indebted to Christian missionaries for what little they know. We all acknowledge that it is absolutely necessary for our children to receive moral training in order that they may be helped to lead a good life in the future, but how this is to be accomplished no one knows. Beyond what the boy learns in the school, there does not appear to be any other source from which he could be taught morality."
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in a private letter to the author, relates an incident which indicates the estimate put by a prominent official upon the social results of Protestantism in a Turkish village. He states that the Governor of Mardin had occasion to make a tour among some of the villages where Protestant mission work had been conducted. As he was about leaving the village of Midyat to return to his home, "the officials and dignitaries of the various communities accompanied him out of the village to escort him a little way on his journey. When the time came for them to take leave of him, he beckoned the pastor of the evangelical community to come forward, and said to him before all the assembly: ' I want you to make the people of this mountain Protestants as fast as possible. I have visited the jails and I do not find Protestants in jail; I have examined the tax lists and I find very few of them in arrears. The Protestant villages are the most peaceful and the best ordered, and the members of that sect are the best citizens, and so I want you to make the people of this mountain Protestants.'" Another missionary in the Turkish Empire, referring to the early reluctance of the Armenian people, clergy and laity, to welcome Protestant missions, contrasts the prevalent sentiment of cordiality at the present time as indicating their appreciation of the benefits which missions have brought them. "To-day," he writes, "the leaders of the Armenian race deeply respect us, and are profoundly grateful for the service we have done. They recognize the fact that it is our work of instruction, in the wide sense of the word, which has awakened in their people a desire for intellectual, social, and spiritual progress, and has given them a clear and impressive idea of what is essential to such progress." Dr. J. P. Cochran, of the Presbyterian Mission in Urumiah, Persia, has forwarded to the author some opinions expressed to him by prominent natives upon this subject. We have not space to print them, but they indicate an intelligent and sympathetic appreciation of the power of Christianity as a remedy for social evils. "The Persians," writes Dr. George W. Holmes, of the Presbyterian Mission at Hamadan, "recognize their degeneracy, and realize that there is no hope of their redemption except through something outside of themselves. In conversation with a prominent mujtahad recently, in Kermanshah, he bewailed the fact that, while all these good teachings, as he put it, were to be found in his own land, it was left for the Christians to practise them, while the Moslems paid no heed to them." The Rev. J. Pearse (L. M. S.), of Madagascar, has forwarded the translation of a carefully written article by a native, on "The Blessings we receive from the Bible apart from Salvation." His intelligent treat-
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ment of the theme furnishes an interesting brief on the whole subject from the native standpoint.1 The Rev. George W. Chamberlain, of the Presbyterian Mission in Bahia, Brazil, relates the following incident. In conversing recently with the chief magistrate of a large district, he was interested to hear him remark that one of the most turbulent sections, which had formerly given him a great deal of worry, was now in charge of an inspector who had become a Protestant. The magistrate had recently paid a visit to the old inspector's home, and found him a devout student of the Bible, and soon discovered that through the influence of that book he had gathered the moral force to rule his constituency. The principles which he found in the Scriptures had been applied to the social questions which used to occasion so much trouble, and had secured a peaceable and happy solution. "If I could have in every quarter of this district," remarked the magistrate, "a man like that, my office would be a sinecure; I should have nothing to do." XI In addition to the sources from which we have gathered credible testimony as
Valuable testimony from laymen and governemt officials as to the social value of missionsto the actual influence of Christian missions upon heathen society, there is still some important evidence which might be collated from the writings of merchants, officials, and other laymen not personally identified with missions, but who nevertheless speak from observation. Sir Bartle Frere, formerly Governor of Bombay, in a lecture on "Christianity suited to all forms of Civilisation," delivered on behalf of the London Christian Evidence Society, in 1872, remarks: "Whatever you may be told to the contrary, the teaching of Christianity among 160,000,000 of civilised, industrious Hindus and Mohammedans in India is effecting changes moral, social, and political, which for extent and rapidity of effect are far more extraor- 1 The paper may be summarized as follows: (1) the influence of the Bible in changing evil customs, several of which, such as divination, divorce, polygamy, idolatry, slave-dealing, and infanticide, are specially referred to; (2) the power of the Bible in banishing immorality; (3) its influence in strengthening and developing character; (4) the inspiration derived from the Bible in calling out and developing every good quality. The writer refers also to the stimulus to education and to general progress in civilization. He enforces his points clearly, and from the standpoint of one who has observed the progress of these social changes.
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dinary than anything that you or your fathers have witnessed in modern Europe."1 Lord Napier, late Governor of Madras, said: "I have broken the missionary's bread, I have been present at his ministrations, I have witnessed his teaching, I have seen the beauty of his life. The benefits of missionary enterprise are felt in three directions—”in converting, civilising, and teaching the Indian people. It is not easy to overrate the value in this vast empire of a class of Englishmen of pious lives and disinterested labors, living and moving in the most forsaken places, walking between the Government and the people, with devotion to both, the friends of right, the adversaries of wrong, impartial spectators of good and evil." Sir Richard Temple, C.I.E., LL.D., late Governor of Bombay, and Finance Minister of India, in a speech delivered before the Baptist Missionary Society in London, in 1883, pays the following tribute to Indian missionaries: " The names of Carey, and Ward, and Marshman, which you read about, are to me living memories, and not only to me, but to thousands of my fellow-countrymen in the East, and, what is more, to many millions of natives. These are memories of men who were the pioneers of civilisation and of humane refinement, the earliest propagators of Christian literature amongst the heathen. The results, indeed, of their work are to be counted among the peaceful glories of England and a portion of that national heritage which is splendid in the highest sense of the term. . . . As an old Finance Minister of India, I ought to know, if anybody does, when the money's worth is got by any operation; and having myself also administered, from first to last, provinces which comprise nearly half British India, I say that, of all the departments I have ever administered, I never saw one more efficient than the missionary department, and of all the hundreds of officers I had under my command, European officers and gentlemen, I have never seen a better body of men than the Protestant missionaries. Of all the departments I have administered, I have never known one in which a more complete result was obtained than in the department—”the grand department—”which is represented by the Protestant missions."2 Lord Herschell, formerly Lord Chancellor of England, in an ad- 1 Consult for further testimonies, "Laymen's Opinions of the Value of Missions in India," published by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and "Are Foreign Missions Doing any Good?" (London, Elliot Stock, 1894). Cf. also quotations from Sir W. Macgregor, Administrator of British New Guinea, and Sir Charles A. Elliott, late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, found upon p. 374 of Vol. I. 2 Temple, "Oriental Experience," pp. 155, 164, 165.
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dress at the meeting of the London Missionary Society in May, 1895, stated with judicial fairness and discrimination his own view of missions: " Can it be doubted," said his lordship, " that owing to the work of this Society tens of thousands of men and women have been led to adopt an altogether different idea of life; that their ideal has been changed, that from being a brutal and degraded one it has become a lofty and noble one? And who can doubt that with the hope set before them, with the faith that inspired them, their lives have not become merely changed, but have been unspeakably happier as well as nobler? How are you going to estimate the value of the happiness conferred on one individual, to say nothing of tens of thousands? " In the English Blue Book containing the Report on the Moral and Material Progress of India for 1871-72, the Secretary of State for India has recorded his estimate of the social benefits of missions in the following language: " The Government of India cannot but acknowledge the great obligation under which it is laid by the benevolent exertions made by missionaries, whose blameless example and self-denying labours are infusing new vigour into the stereotyped life of the great populations placed under English rule, and are preparing them to be in every way better men and better citizens of the great empire in which they dwell."1 A still earlier testimony concerning the West Coast of Africa is found in the report of a Parliamentary Committee presented in 1842, which attributed the "considerable intellectual, moral, and religious improvement" of the people of Sierra Leone to "the valuable exertions of the Church Missionary Society."2 A correspondent from Madagascar, in a communication to The Times (London), writes on April 30, 1895, of his impressions of the civilizing results of missions in terms of surprise and admiration. " I was, indeed, amazed," he writes, "to find here so high a degree of civilisation—”and it does not appear to be a civilisation that lies merely on the surface. In no part of the world that I have visited can our missionaries show anything approaching to the admirable results apparent in the central highlands of Madagascar, and there is no reason why they should not in time bring the barbarous outer tribes similarly under their beneficial influence. Even those travellers who, coming from South Africa and elsewhere, have formed a poor opinion of missionary work, are compelled to testify to its marvellous success in Madagascar." Commissioner Sir H. H. Johnston, to quote again from his recent 1 Blue Book, No. 172, p. 129. Cf. for further extracts from the same Blue Book, "Are Foreign Missions Doing any Good?" pp. 57, 58. 2 " Report of Church Missionary Society, 1897," p. 68.
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volume on British Central Africa, has devoted a chapter to " Missionaries." He speaks of them in the main with great consideration, and pays repeated tributes to their services, which he regards as of high value. The few deprecating criticisms he makes are, in cases where they apply, not undeserved, and his views as to the desirability of banishing cant, censoriousness, and arrogance from the missionary vocabulary and demeanor are such as all true-hearted and sensible missionaries will cordially endorse. "No person," he writes, "who desires to make a truthful statement would deny the great good effected by missionary enterprise in Central Africa. . . . Any thoughtful, cultured man, no matter of what religion, who is alive to the interests of humanity in general, must after careful examination of mission work accord this meed of praise to the results which have followed the attempts to evangelise Central Africa. . . Missionary work in British Central Africa, believe me, has only to tell the plain truth and nothing but the truth to secure sympathy and support. . . . There is an undoubted tendency on the part of missionaries to hold and set forth the opinion that no one ever did any good in Africa but themselves. That they have done more good than armies, navies, conferences, and treaties have yet done, I am prepared to admit; that they have prepared the way for the direct and just rule of European Powers and for the extension of sound and honest commerce, I have frequently asserted; but they are themselves to some extent only a passing phase—”only the John-the-Baptists, the forerunners, of organized churches and settled social politics. . . . When the history of the great African States of the future comes to be written, the arrival of the first missionary will with many of these new nations be the first historical event in their annals. . . . Who can say, with these facts before him, with the present condition of the natives in South Africa to consider, with the gradual civilisation of Western Africa, that missionary work has been a failure or anything but a success in the Dark Continent? "1 1 Johnston, "British Central Africa," pp. 190, 192, 204, 205. Some further sentences from the same volume should be quoted: "It is they, too, who in many cases have first taught the natives carpentry, joinery, masonry, tailoring, cobbling, engineering, bookkeeping, printing, and European cookery; to say nothing of reading, writing, arithmetic, and a smattering of general knowledge. Almost invariably it has been to missionaries that the natives of Interior Africa have owed their first acquaintance with the printing-press, the turning-lathe, the mangle, the flat-iron, the sawmill, and the brick mould. Industrial teaching is coming more and more into favour, and its immediate results in British Central Africa have been most encouraging. Instead of importing printers, carpenters, store clerks, cooks, telegraphists, gardeners, natural-history collectors, from England or India, we are gradually becoming able to obtain them amongst the natives of the country, who are trained in the missionaries' schools, and who, having been given simple, wholesome local education, have not had their heads turned, and are not above their station in life" (p. 205).
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Commander Charles O'Neil, of the United States Navy, has recently written his impressions of American missionaries in Turkey.1 Professor W. M. Ramsay, in his recent book, entitled " Impressions of Turkey," thus records his conviction concerning the value of missions, based upon observations made during twelve years of personal sojourn and travel in Asia Minor: " I was driven by the force of facts and experience to the opinion that the mission has been the strongest, as well as most beneficent, influence in causing the movement toward civilisation, which has been perceptible in varying degrees among all the peoples of Turkey, but which has been zealously opposed and almost arrested by the present Sultan, with the support of the six European Powers." The Hon. Charles Denby, formerly United States Minister to China, in one of his official despatches expresses in the most cordial terms his sense of the value of missionary efforts in that empire.2 Mr. Valentine Chirol, a special correspondent of The Times(London), in his published volume, entitled "The Far Eastern Question," in the chapter on mis- 1 "My experience with the American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire was most favorable to them, and whenever the occasion presents itself I do not hesitate to commend them and their work. I can always be relied on and referred to as a warm friend and ally of our countrymen and women who are laboring in the cause of Christianity and education in Turkey; they have done and are doing noble work, the far-reaching influence and value of which cannot be overestimated,"—”Quoted in The Church at Home and Abroad, August, 1897, p. 123. 2 "As far as my knowledge extends, I can and do say that the missionaries in China are self-sacrificing; that their lives are pure; that they are devoted to their work; that their influence is beneficial to the natives; that the arts and sciences and civilization are greatly spread by their efforts; that many useful Western books are translated by them into Chinese; that they are the leaders in all charitable work, giving largely themselves, and personally disbursing the funds with which they are entrusted; that they do make converts, and such converts are mentally benefited by conversion. . . . Missionaries are the pioneers of trade and commerce. Civilization, learning, and instruction, breed new wants which commerce supplies. Look at the electric telegraph, now in every province in China but one. Look at the steamships which ply along the coast from Hong Kong to Newchwang, and on the Yangtse up to Ichang. Look at the cities which have sprung up, like Shanghai, Tientsin, Hankow—”handsome foreign cities, object-lessons to the Chinese. Look at the railroad now being built from the Yellow Sea to the Amur, of which about two hundred miles are completed. Will any one say that the fifteen hundred Protestant missionaries in China, and perhaps more of Catholics, have not contributed to these results?"—”Quoted in The Missionary Herald, August, 1895, p. 316.
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sionary outrages in China, refers to missionaries and their work with uniform courtesy and appreciation.1 "In comparing India at the beginning of the century with the India of to-day," writes the Hon. John W. Foster, "a great improvement is to be noted in the moral and social conditions. The prohibition of human sacrifice and of torture in the religious rites, of the burning of widows, of the killing of female children, and the efforts at reform in the practice of child marriage, are all direct results of the exposure and condemnation by the missionaries. The establishment of schools and colleges, which was inaugurated by the missions, has created a widespread zeal for education hitherto unknown in the land. The awakened interest of the Brahmans in the purification of their religion, and the efforts of reformers to establish a Hindu worship more in accord with the enlightened spirit of the age, are the direct outgrowth of the preaching of the Gospel of Christ. If not a single conversion to Christianity could be recorded in the past century, these reforms and blessings alone would be an abundant reward for all the labors of the missionaries, and the money contributed by the churches for their support."2 It would seem that the spontaneous testimonies to the social influence of missionary example and the favorable comments upon the benefits to society of missionary effort, quoted in the present lecture, should be sufficient, for a time at least, to vindicate missions from aspersions. We have little expectation, however, that this will be so, since it is not likely that the unfriendly critics of missions will read them, and, moreover, if it has been possible in the past for some to fail so completely to discover the good that has resulted from missions, it is probable that others in their turn will express the same hasty and misleading opinions concerning them. In the judgment of some of 1 ''Two points alone need be borne in mind. First of all, foreign missionaries, whatever we may think of them, are just as much entitled to protection in the lawful pursuit of their calling, under the treaties to which China has subscribed, as the foreign merchant or the foreign official. Secondly, even if, judged by a mundane standard, the material results have not been proportionate to the amount of blood and treasure expended, missionary work in China is not only a proselytising but also a humanising agency, and every missionary establishment is a centre from which civilising influences radiate over the whole area of its operations. . . . Missionary work is practically the only agency through which the influence of Western civilisation can at present reach the masses" (pp. 79, 80). 2 From an address by the Hon. John W. Foster, given at the Union Missionary Meeting of the Presbyterian Churches of New York City, at Carnegie Hall, November 15, 1895.
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our readers such an array of testimonia may seem unnecessary and perhaps unbecoming, but in view of the strange susceptibility of many minds to every wind of reckless comment upon missionaries and their work, from whatever source it blows, a reassuring word from witnesses whose opinion inspires confidence seems occasionally to be in place. In concluding this survey of the fundamental transformations wrought by missions in non-Christian society preparatory to coming changes in the higher life of the nations, we must return with emphasis to that consummate and crowning feature of their influence—”their capacity to produce Christianized manhood. This individual product is the essential and ultimate basis of an ideal social status. We need not insist that this ideal can never be attained apart from Christianity; it is enough to show that it never has been attained, and the irresistible inference is that it never will be. Christendom is a convincing testimony that Christianity at least works in the right direction, while the non-Christian world sufficiently indicates that everything else works in the wrong direction. We may leave it an open question how far Christendom has advanced towards perfection. It is a closed question that, where Christianity has not wrought for the social welfare of man, the tendency has been towards deterioration. Christian missions in the light of history are the social hope of the world. We see as yet but the breaking of the dawn, but the time will come when the soft glow of the morning shall brighten and expand into the full light of day, and there will be God's peace and God's righteousness in all the new earth.
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LITERATURE AND AUTHORITIES FOR LECTURE V The student should consult also the bibliographies of Lectures I. and IV., in Volume I. Many books of value are omitted in the following list, especially in the biographical section, because already included there. Biographies of missionaries and native Christians are specially noted here, as a luminous source of evidence confirmatory of the positions taken in the preceding lecture. Older biographical issues will be found in the bibliography at the end of Volume I. of the "Report of the Centenary Conference, London, 1888," and in the Appendix to Volume I. of "The Encyclopedia of Missions." I. RECENT STUDIES IN MISSION HISTORY ALLEN, W. O. B., and MCCLURE, EDMUND, , Two Hundred Years: The History of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1698-1898. L., S. P. C. K.; N. Y., E. & J. B. Young & Co., 1898. BARNES, IRENE H., Behind the Pardah: The Story of C. E. Z. M. S. Work in India. L., Marshall Bros., 1897. BARROWS, Rev. J. H., The Christian Conquest of Asia. N. Y., Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899. BARRY, Rev. A., The Ecclesiastical Expansion of England in the Growth of the Anglican Communion. L. and N. Y., The Macmillan Co., 1895. BEACH, Rev. HARLAN P., Dawn on the Hills of T'ang; or, Missions in China. N. Y., Student Volunteer Movement, 1898. BRAIN, BELLE M., The Transformation of Hawaii. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1899. CALDECOTT, Professor A., The Church in the West Indies. L., S. P. C. K.; N. Y., E. & J. B. Young & Co., 1898. CAVALIER, Rev. A. R., In Northern India: A Story of Mission Work in Zenanas, Hospitals, Schools, and Villages. L., S. W. Partridge & Co., 1899. Classified Digest of the Records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701-1892. L., Office of S. P. G., 1895. COILLARD, Rev. FRANçOIS, On the Threshold of Central Africa: A Record of Twenty Years' Pioneering among the Barotsi of the Upper Zambesi (Translated from the French by his niece, Catherine W. Mackintosh.). L., Hodder & Stoughton, 1897. ELMSLIE, Dr. W. A., Among the Wild Ngoni. E., Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1899; N. Y., Fleming H. Revell Co.. GALE, Rev. J. S., Korean Sketches. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1898. GALLOWAY, BISHOP C. B., Modern Missions: Their Evidential Value. Nashville, Tenn., Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South, 1897. GIFFORD, Rev. D. L., Every-day Life in Korea. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1898. GRAHAM, Rev. J. A., The Missionary Expansion of the Reformed Church. L., A. & C. Black, 1898; N. Y., published by Fleming H. Revell Co., under title of Missionary Expansion since the Reformation. GUINNESS, M. GERALDINE, The Story of the China Inland Mission. 2vols. L., Morgan & Scott, 1894. GUINNESS, LUCY E., Across India at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century. L., The Religious Tract Society; N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1899.
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HODDER, EDWIN, Conquests of the Cross. 3 vols. L., Cassell & Co., 1891. HOLE, Rev. CHARLES, History of the Church Missionary Society to A,D. 1814. L., Church Missionary Society, 1896. HOPKINS, Dr. S. ARMSTRONG, Within the Purdah. N. Y., Eaton & Mains, 1898. JOHNSTON, Rev. JAMES, China and Formosa. L., Hazell, Watson & Viney; N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1897. LANO, Rev. JOHN MARSHALL, The Expansion of the Christian Life. E. & L., William Blackwood & Sons, 1897. LEONARD, Rev. D. L., A Hundred Years of Missions; or, The Story of Progress since Carey's Beginning. N. Y. and L., Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1895. LOVETT, RICHARD, The History of the London Missionary Society, 1795—”1895. 2 vols. L., H. Frowde, 1899. MACKENZIE, Prof. W. DOUGLAS, Christianity and the Progress of Man. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1897. M'LAREN, Mrs. DUNCAN, The Story of Our Manchuria Mission. E., Offices of United Presb. Church, 1896. Make Jesus King. Report of S. V. M. U. Conference in Liverpool, 1896. (Order of Mr. L. B. Butcher, S. V. M. U. Office, 93 Aldersgate Street, London, E. C.) MARTIN, Rev. CHALMERS, Apostolic and Modern Missions. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1898. MORSHEAD, A. E. M. ANDERSON-, The History of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, 1859-1896. L., Office of the Universities' Mission, 1897. MUIRHEAD, Rev. W., and PARKER, Rev. A. P., Ninety Years of Missionary Work in China. Shanghai, Presbyterian Mission Press, 1897. NOHLE, FREDERIC PERRY, The Redemption of Africa: A Story of Civilization. 2 vols. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1899. ORR, Rev. JAMES, Neglected Factors in the Study of the Early Progress of Christianity. L., Hodder & Stoughton, 1899. REID, Rev. J. M., Missions and Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 3 vols. (Revised and extended by the Rev. J. T. Gracey, D.D.) N. Y., Eaton & Mains, 1896. RITTER, Rev. H., A History of Protestant Missions in Japan. Tokyo, The Methodist Publishing House, 1898. SPEER, ROBERT E., Missions and Politics in Asia
. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1898. STEWART, Rev. ROBERT, Life and Work in India. P., Pearl Publishing Co., 1896. STOCK, EUGENE, One Hundred Years: Being the Short History of the Church Missionary Society. L., Office of the Church Missionary Society, 1898. STOCK, EUGENE, The History of the Church Missionary Society: Its Environment, its Men, and its Work. 3 vols. L., Office of the Church Missionary Society, 1899. STONE, Rev. R. H., In Afric's Forest and Jungle. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1899. STORROW, Rev. E., Our Indian Sisters. L., The Religious Tract Society, 1898; N. Y., published by Fleming H. Revell Co., under the title, Our Sisters in India. STOTT, GRACE, Twenty-six Years of Missionary Work in China. L., Hodder & Stoughton; N. Y., American Tract Society, 1897. Student Missionary Appeal (The)Official Report of the Third International Convention (Cleveland, 1898) of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. (Address F. P. Turner, Bancroft Building, 3 West 2gth Street, New York.) 1899. TAYLOR, Bishop WILLIAM, The Flaming Torch in Darkest Africa. (Order from Rev. Ross Taylor, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York.) 1899. THORNTON, D. M., Africa Waiting; or. The Problem of Africa's Evangelisation. L. and N. Y., S. V. M. U., 1898. VAN DYKE, Rev. HENRY, The First Christmas Trie. N. Y., Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897. WARNECK, Dr. GUSTAV, Abriss einer Geschichte der Protestantischin Missionen, von der Reformation bis auf die Gegeniuart. Berlin, Martin Warneck, 1898. WARNECK, Dr. GUSTAV, Evangelische Missionslehre. Ite Abt., 1892. IIte Abt., 1894. IIIte Abt., 1897. Gotha, Perthes. WATSON, Rev. ANDREW, The American Mission in Egypt, 1854 to 1896. Pittsburgh, United Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1898. WOLF, Rev. L. B., After Fifty Years; or, An Historical Sketch of the Guntur Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the General Synod in the United States of America. P., Lutheran Publication Society, 1897.
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II. BIOGRAPHIES OF MISSIONARIES AND NATIVE CHRISTIANS (A selected list, mostly of recent issues.) BARBER, Rev. W. T. A., David Hill, Missionary and Saint. L., Charles H. Kelly, 1898. BATTERSBY, CHARLES F. HARFORD-, Pilkington of Uganda. L., Marshall Brothers, 1898. BENHAM, MARIAN S., Henry Callaway, M.D., D.D., First Bishop for Kaf-fraria. L. and N. Y., The MacmilIan Co., 1896. BERRY, Rev. P. M., The Sister Martyrs of Kucheng: Memoir and Letters of Eleanor and Elizabeth Saunders. L., fames Nisbet & Co.; N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1897. BIRKS, Rev. HERBERT, The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Valpy French, Scholar and Missionary, First Bishop of Lahore, 1835-1891. 2 vols. L., John Murray, 1895. BOVET, FELIX, Count Zinzendorf: A Pioneer of Social Christianity. (Translated and condensed by the Rev. T. A. Seed.) L., Charles H. Kelly, 1896. BROCK, WILLIAM, A Young Congo Missionary: Memorials of Sidney Roberts Webb,M.D.. L., H. R. Allenson, 1896. BRUCE, Mrs. WYNDHAM KNIGHT-, Kha-ma, the African Chief. L., Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1893. BRYSON, MARY F., Fred. C. Roberts of Tientsin; or, For Christ and China. L., H. R. Allenson, 1895. BRYSON, MARY F., Life of John Kenneth Mackenzie, Medical Missionary to China. L., Hodder & Stoughton; N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1895. BUCKLAND, Rev. A. R., John Harden, Missionary Bishop: A Life on the Shores of Hudson Bay. L., Sunday-school Union, 1895; N. Y., Thomas Whittaker, 1896. BUCKLAND, Rev. A. R., Women in the Mission Field, Pioneers and Martyrs. N. Y., Thomas Whittaker, 1895. CAREY, WILLIAM, and Others, Seram-port Letters: Being the Unpublished Correspondence of William Carey and Others with John Williams, 1800-1816. New edition, edited by Leigh-ton and Mornay Williams. N. Y. and C., Fleming II. Revell Co., 1898. COUSINS, Rev. H. T., Tiyo Soga, the Model Kafir Missionary. L., S. W. Partridge & Co., 1897. Cox, Rev. W. S., Early Promoted: A Memoir. (Compiled by His Father.) L., Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1897. CRAIGHEAD, J. G., The Story of Marcus Whitman: Early Protestant Missions in the North-west. P., Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1895. CREEGAN, Rev. CHARLES C., and GOOD-NOW, Mrs. JOSEPHINE A. B., Great Missionaries of the Church. N. Y. and B., Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1895. DENNIS, Mrs. JAMES S., Sketch of the Life of Rev. Simeon Howard Calhoun. N. Y., American Tract Society, 1898. DONCASTER, E. P., Faithful unto Death: A Story of the Missionary Lifi in Madagascar of William and Litcy S. Johnson. L., Headley Bros., 1897. FAULKNER, ROSE E., Joseph Sidney Hill, First Bishop in Equatorial Africa. L., H. R. Allenson, 1895. GILMOUR, JAMES, of Mongolia: fits Diaries, Letters, and Reports. (Edited by Richard Lovett, M.A.) N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1892. GOODWIN, HARVEY, Charles Frederick Mackenzie. L., Bell & Son, 1864. GRACEY, Mrs. J. T., Eminent Missionary Women. N. Y., Eaton & Mains, 1898. GREEN, Dr. SAMUEL FISK, Life and Letters of. (Compiled by Ebenezer Cutler, D.D.) Printed for family friends, 1891. HALL, ROSETTA SHERWOOD, The Life of the Rev. William James Hall, M.D.. N. Y., Eaton & Mains, 1897. HARRIS, S. F., A Centwry of Missionary Martyrs. L., James Nisbet & Co., 1897. HAYDN, Rev. H. C., American Heroes on Mission Fields. First series. N. Y., The American Tract Society, 1890. HEANLEY, Rev. R. M., A Memoir of Bishop Edward Steere. L., Bell & Son, 1888. HUGHES, THOMAS, David Livingstone. L. and N. Y., The Macmillan Co., 1889. Reprinted 1898. HUGHES, Rev. THOMAS P., Heroic Lives in Foreign Fields. N. Y., E. R. Her-rick & Co., 1899. HO YONG Mi, The Way of Faith trated: Autobiography of Hit Yong Mi, of the China Mission Conference. Cincinnati, Curts & Jennings, 1896; N. Y., Eaton & Mains, 1899.
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IWAMOTO, Mrs. KASHI, the First Grad-tiate of Ferris Seminary, Japan; with a Collection of Her English Writings. (Address R. Brinkerhoff, 25 East Twenty - second Street, New York City.)1896. JESSUP, Rev. H. H., The Setting of the Crescent and the Rising of the Cross; or, Kamil Abd^ll Messiah.' A Syrian Convert from Islam to Christianity. P., The Westminster Press, 1898. JEWETT, FRANCES GULICK, Liitherllal-sey Gttlick, Missionary in Hawaii, Micronesia, Japan, and China. B., Congregational Sunday - school and Publishing Society, 1895; L., Elliot Stock, 1897. JOHNSON, Rev. C. R., Bryan Roe: Soldier of the Cross, Missionary in West Central Africa. L., C. H. Kelly, 1896. KEELING, ANNA E., What He Did for Convicts and Cannibals: A Biography of the Rev. Samuel Leigh, the First Wesleyan Missionary to New Sottth Wales and New Zealand. L., Charles H. Kelly, 1896. LAMBERT, CHARLES WILLIAM, The Missionary Martyr of Thibaw: Brief Record of Life and Missionary Labours in Upper Biirmah. L., S. W. Partridge & Co., 1896. LAPSLEY, SAMUEL NORVELL, Missionary to the Congo Valley. By His Father. Richmond, Va., Whittet & Shepperson, 1893. LAURIE, Rev. THOMAS, Woman and the Gospel in Persia: Memoirs of Miss Fidelia Fiske. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1892. LEWIS, ARTHUR, George Maxwell Gordon: The Pilgrim Missionary of the Punjab. L., Seelye & Co., 1890. LLOYD, Rev. EDWIN, Three Great African Chiefs, Khdmd, Sebele, and Ba-thoeng. L., T. Fisher Unwin, 1895. MCDOWELL, W. F., PIERSON, Rev. A. T., BINGHAM, JENNIE M., and Others, The Picket Line of Missions: Sketches of the Advance Guard. N. Y., Eaton & Mains, 1897. McMASTER, Rev. A. A., The Life and Letters of the Rev. Arthur Fraser Sim, First Missionary at Kota-Kota. L.. Office of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, 1896. MAPLES, ELLEN, The Life of Chauncy Maples, D.D., Bishop of Likoma, British Central Africa. L. and N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co., 1897. MARAU, Rev. CLEMENT, Story of a Melanesian Deacon. (Translated by R. H. Codrington.) L., S. P. C. K., 1894. MARRAT, Rev. JABEZ, Missionary Veterans in South Africa. L., Charles H. Kelly, 1894. MARSHALL, ELSIE, For His Sake: A Record of a Life Consecrated to God and Devoted to China. L., The Religious Tract Society, 1896; N.Y., Revell Co.. MARWICK, Rev. WILLIAM, William and Louisa Anderson: A Record of Their Life and Work in Jamaica and in Old Calabar. E., Andrew Elliot, 1897. MOFFAT, JOHN S., The Lives of Robert and Mary Moffat. New edition. N. Y., A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1888. MYERS, Rev. J. B., Thomas J. Cornier, Missionary Pioneer to the Congo. L., S. W. Partridge & Co., 1888. NARUSE, JINZO, A Modern Paul in Japan: Life of Rev, Paul Sawayama. (Introduction by the Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D.D.) B., Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing Society, 1893-. NEETHING, W. J., Missionary to Africa, Made Exceeding Glad: A Brief Memoir. L., James Nisbet & Co., 1897. NEVIUS, HELEN S. C., Forty Years in Shantung: The Life of John Livingston Nevius. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1895. NIXON, OLIVER W., How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon. C.. Star Publishing Co., 1895. PAGE, JESSE, Captain Allen Gardiner, Sailor and Saint. L., S. W. Partridge & Co., 1897. PARSONS, ELLEN C., A Life for Africa: Rev. Adolphus Clemens Good, Ph.D., American Missionary in Equatorial West Africa. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1897; E.,O1iphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1898. PATON, Rev. JOHN G., Autobiography for years 1886-1897. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1898. PATON, MAGGIE WHITECROSS, Letters and Sketches from the New Hebrides. N. Y., A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1895. PHILLIPS, Mrs. J. L., Dr. J. L. Phillips, Missionary to the Children of India. L., Sunday-school Union, 1898. PIERPOINT, Rev. R. D., In Uganda for Christ: The Life Story of John Samuel Callis, B.A.. L., Hodder & Stoughton, 1898. PIERSON, Rev. ARTHUR T., Seven Years in Sierra Leone: The Story of the Missionary Work of William A. B. Johnson. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co,; L., James Nisbet & Co., 1897.
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PITMAN, Mrs. E. R., Missionary Heroines in Eastern Lands. L., S. W. Partridge & Co., 1895. RANKINE, W. HENRY, A Hero of the Dark Continent; Memoir of the Rev. William Affleck Scott, Church of Scotland Missionary at Blantyre, British Central Africa. E., William Black-wood & Sons, 1896. RANNEY, RUTH W., Lives and Missionary Labors of the Rev. and Mrs. Cephas Bennett. B., N. Y., and C., Silver, Burdett & Co., 1892. ROBSON, WILLIAM, Griffith John, Founder of the Hankow Mission, Central China. L., S. W. Partridge & Co., 1888; N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., n. d. Ross, Rev. JOHN, Old Wang: The First Chinese Evangelist in Manchuria. L., The Religious Tract Society, 1889. ROWE, Rev. G. STRINGER, James Calvert of Fiji. L., C. H. Kelly, 1893. RUTHERFORD, Rev. JOHN, Missionary Pioneers in India. E., A. Elliot, 1896. SABATIER, P., The Life of St. Francis of Assist. (Translated by Louise Seymour Houghton.) L., Hodder & Stoughton, 1896. SCHAUFFLER, Rev. W. G., Autobiography of. (Edited by His Son.) A. D. F. Randolph & Co., 1888. SCHOFIELD, A, T., Memorials of R. Harold A. Schofield, M.A., M.B. (late of the China Inland Mission). New edition. L., Hodder & Stoughton, 1898. SHARROCK, Rev. J. A., Bishop Caldwell: A Memoir. Madras, S. P. C. K., 1896. SINKER, Rev. ROBERT, Memorials of the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, M.A., Missionary to the Mohammedans of Southern Arabia. L., George Bell & Sons, 1890. Sketches of Indian Christians. (Collected from various sources; with an Introduction by Mr. S. Satthianadhan.) Madras, Christian Literature Society, 1896. SMITH, GEORGE, Bishop Heber, Second Bishop of Calcutta, 1783-1826. L., John Murray, 1895.(Biographies of Martyn, Carey, and Duff, by Dr. George Smith, will be found entered on p. 69 of Vol. I.) SMITH, GEORGE, Life of Dr. John Wilson. L., John Murray, 1878. SMITH, Mrs. JOHN JAMES, William Knibb, Missionary in Jamaica. L., Alexander & Shepheard, 1896. (Biographies of Knibb written by Hinton, 1847, and by Sargent, 1849.) STEVENS, Rev. GEORGE B., The Life, Letters, and Journals of the Rev. and Hon. Peter Parker, M.D., Missionary Physician and Diplomatist. B., Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing Society, 1896. STEVENS, Rev. SUMNER W., A Half-Century in Burma: Memoir of Edward Abiel Stevens, D.D. P.. American Baptist Publication Society, 1897. STOCK, SARAH G., Missionary Heroes of Africa. L., Office of the London Missionary Society, 1897. TAYLOR, CHARLES E., The Story of Yates the Missionary. Nashville, Tenn., Sunday-school Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1898. TAYLOR, Bishop WILLIAM, The Story of My Life. N. Y., Eaton & Mains, 1896; L., Hodder & Stoughton, 1897. TRESTRAIL, Mrs., Elizabeth Sale, the Zenana Missionary. L., The Baptist Tract and Book Society, 1898. TUCKER, Rev. H. W., Life of Bishop George Augustus Selwyn. 2 vols.L., Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1886. TURNER, H. F., His Witnesses. (A Record of Some of the Martyrs of the Fuhkien Mission.) L., Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1895. UCHIMURA, KANZO, Diary of a Japanese Convert. N. Y. and C., Fleming H. Revell Co., 1895. WALSH, Rt. Rev. W. P., Heroes of the Mission Field. Fourth edition. N. Y., Thomas Whittaker, 1898. WALSH, Rt. Rev. W. P., Modern Heroes of the Mission Field. Fourth edition. N. Y., Thomas Whittaker, 1898. WARD, GERTRUDE, The Life of Charles Alan Smythies, Bishop of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa. (Edited by the Rev. E. F. Russell.) L., Office of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, 1898. WATSON, MARY E., Robert and Louisa Stewart (of Kucheng). L., Marshall Brothers, 1895. WILLIAMS, F. WELLS, The Life and Letters of S. Wells Williams. N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1888. YONGE, C. M., Life and Letters of Bishop John Coleridge Patteson. New edition. 2 vols. L. and N. Y., The Macmillan Co., 1898. |