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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichd, il est film6 d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 THE WORLD'S POPULATION ACCORDING TO RELIGIONS. ONE MILLION TO A SQUARE. JEWS ROMAN flIWMKH MgHA)«MEDANS N.B. — For Sfatixfics see Appendix CREEKS PROTEtTANTl THE MACEDONIAN CRY; A VOICE FROM THE LANDS OF BRAHMA AND BUDDHA, AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA, AND A PLEA FOE MISSIONS. By rev. JOHN LATHERN. / uJ^r.TuLZ"°' "•^™'»' """ '"•'"' "'".. «yin., a,„. over into TORONTO: r^l^l!!^!'''''' '' ^ «« K^NG ST., EAST. HAUFAX : S. F. HUESTI8 MONTREAL :C. W. COATES. ///^ Enteked, acoordiiiK to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, In the year one thouiand eight hundred and eighty-four, by Wm. Brigos, in the Office of the MinUter of Agriculture. DEDICATION. TO HONORED BRETHREN OF MISSIONARY DEPUTATIONS, AS INTERPRETERS OF THE MACEDONIAN CRY, THIS PLEA FOR MISSIONS IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR PREFACE. The duty, privilege, and encouragement of Christians to send the Gospel to the unenlightened nations of the earth, was the subject of Dr. John Harris' ** Great Commission," and of Dr. Richard Winter Hamilton's "Christian Missions." It is not proposed in the following pages, and indeed the attempt were superfluous, to traverse the ground taken by those gifted essayists. An effort has been made to write rather from the stand- point of 1883, to exhibit the character of Oriental religious systems, to delineate some features of an uncivilized hea- thenism, to summarize missionary facts and results, and to urge an earnest plea for Protestant missions — the glory of this nineteenth century. An experience of anniversaries has shewn the advantage of definite views in regard to the authority, demands, and possibilities of missions: central ideas, around which new facts and illustrative incidents may be readily grouped ; and should this essay be found at all helpful in the direction indicated, a main purpose of its publication will have been gained. J. L. CONTENTS. I. A Man of Mackdonia : Help for Hkatiirndom Q U. Civilized Heathenism: Hinduism and the Hindus 31 III. Civilized Heathenism: Buddhism and the Buddhists 59 IV. Uncivilized Heathenism: Africa and Isles of the Sea... 85 V. Modern Missions and Mission Stations 119 VI. Progress and Results of Missions 159 VII. Missionary Methods and Agencies 185 VIII. Go, or Send: the Commission 211 IX. Missions and Money [ 233 .X. The World for Christ 253 Appendix 277 \ •• Souls in heathen darkness lying, Where no light has broken through, Souls that Jesus bought by dying, Whom his soul in travail knew — Thousand voices Call us o'er the waters blue. ♦• Haste, O haste, and spread the tidings Wide to earth's remotest strand; Let no brother's bitter uhidings Rise against us when we stand In the judgment, From some far, forgotten land." —Mrs. C. F. Alexander. THE MACEDONIAN CM. A MAN OF MACEDONIA: HELP FOR HEATHENDOM. THE call from Macedonia was an important incident of St. Paul's second missionary tour. Through the gates of Syria and Cilicia, he and Silvanus passed up into a rough region formed by the central table-land ok' Asia Minor. For a time, they travelled by the signal posts of recently-formed missions. Timotheus joined them at Derbe. Churches were founded in Phrygia and Galatia. They passed into Mysia, and essayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not. Uncertain in regard to the imme- diate future, these heaven-guided niessengers of the cross then turned aside to Troas. Here they trod on. more than historic ground. Each legendary spot had been immortalized in the best strains of Greece. It was almost impossible for any one of the intellectual caste and culture of St. Paul to be insensible to the romantic associations that clustered so richly around 10 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. that classic coast. But, in the inspired narrative, there is no allusion to Homer's heroes, or to Ilion's towers. The mission of the cross had become an absorbing and consuming? passion. He was determined to know no- thing among men " save Jesus Christ and him cruci- fied." Across the straits to the north-west the eye would rest on an outline of distant Macedonian hills. There is the landmark of an unvisited Europe. That western continent is the home of the polished Greeks and powerful Romans. Deeper in the heart of its mighty forests are noble but still uncivilized races, destined to future greatness, and to grand and stirring action on the theatre of human history. Was not that unknown territory comprised in the commission ? Could the mystery and misery of Occidental heathen- ism be pierced and dispelled ? Ought not an attempt at once to be made to break ground on a new soil ? Such, as, from the harbor of Troas or musing along the shore,he glanced to distant and lofty isle and peak, must have been the direction of the Apostle's thought. It may have been one of those magnificent sunsets, such as modern travellers have described. In the far distance » reflecting the radiance of evening splendor, Mount Athos would be visible from the Asiatic shore. Its colossal peak, seen as "a mass of burnished gold," might well look like " some vast angel " beckoning him " to carry the good tidings to the west." Thus probably the great missionary lingered by tho.se iEgean waters until the shadows of night deepened over land and sea. There would, therefore, be a kind of mental THE MACEDONIAN (^Y 11 preparation for supernatural intimation. "And a vision appeared to Paul in the nif^ht ; there stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us," The voice that spake in that dream, mental impression, or visible manifesta- tion, could scarcely be any occasion of surprise. The man of the night vision was the representative of a European population, and of all western heathendom. A Divine call took the form of one of the people pro- videntially prepared to receive the messaij,e of salva- tion. An appeal was made for help. It was the utterance of a deep-felt sense of need, and of an unconscious preparation for the reception of a gospel message. There could be no doubt as to the kind of help that was needed. Response was immediate. There was no demur or delay on the ground of heathen at home, or of the yet unconverted thousands in Syria and Asia Minor. The Apostles of Jesus Christ understood their commission to mean that the glad tidings of salvation should be made known at the earliest possible time to all lands and peoples of the earth. What, if St. Paul had refused to be guided by the Spirit of Jesus, and had selected a Bithynian field of labor ? Had he, when summoned to Europe, refused a reponse to the Macedonian cry, how diH'erent would have been the early history of tiie Church ! But is there not still an imperative call to special work ? Ought not ministers of the gospel, as did the first great missionaries, without regard to personal preferences, freely and promptly to accept a home or 12 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. foreign field of effort ? Not a moment was lost at Troy. Memories of " human gods and godlike men " had no potent spell to bind them to that sta/ry shore. A Macedonian passage was at once secured, and soon they were bounding past the " sprinkled isles " and across the blue waves of the narrow sea. A beloved physician, St. Luke, the representative of medical missions, seems to have embarked with them, and hence the change of person from the third to the first: "And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore, loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis ; and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony." The Apostle Paul had a knowledge of the heathen- ism of Europe, that enabled him rightly to interpret the Macedonian cry. The iEgean sea was almost the sanctuary of ancient superstition. Ida's wooded heights were peopled with divinities. Fountain and stream, pine-clad gorge and rocky promontory, were haunted by shadowy legend, or associated with stirring and storied deeds. Sur- rounded by such symbols and memorials, about to enter proud and magnificent cities where heathenism sat enthroned, the mind of the Apostle must have been directed to the darker aspects of this subject. No one ever more acutely studied or stated the evils THE MACEDONIAN CRY. 13 of a prevalent idolatrous system. He came to compre- hend its most characteristic developments. Something of classic civilization we know from other sources. The researches of Leake and Wood and Schliemann in Asia Minor, Ephesus, the Troad and Greek penin- sula, and the extended excavations in Pompeii, indi- cate the resolve of modern explorers ; determined, from its own records and remains, to trace out the facts and features of paganism. But " he who would see but for a moment and afar off to what the Gentile world had sunk, at the very period when Christianity began to spread, may form some faint and shuddering concep- tion from the picture drawn of it in the Epistle to the Romans."* It is from the pen of St. Paul that we can learn the whole dark story : " Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful ; but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorrupt- ible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to unclean- ness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves : who chansred the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause God gave Farrar's Seekers ajler Ood, p. 36. 14 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. them Up to vile atfeetions ; for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the women, burned in lust one toward another ; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient ; being filled with all unrighteousness, for- nication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, with- out natural affection, implr cable, unmerciful ; who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them/' Such, according to inspired delineation, was the paganism of Europe and the East ; its atheism, licen- tiousness, cruelties, and nameless corruptions. The indictment is tremendous, and allegation is black and burning. Corruption is laid bare to its very heart. Not a gleam of fancy, or of poetic imaginativeness, relieves the relentless process. In the severe and searching light of God's infinite purity, unrighteous- ness reveals its most repulsive aspects. Is it any wonder, impelled by a feeling of holy indignation, that the Apostle put upon that foul system the stamp and stigma Qf loathing and of utter abhorrence ? THE MACEDONIAN CRY. 15 jmen did against e natural another ; mly, and leir error )t like to n over to are not mess, for- less ; full hisperers, boasters, its, with- ul ; who h commit the same, was the 3m, licen- ns. The )lack and ry heart, ativeness, jvere and ighteous- [s it any lignation, ihe stamp nee ? The period of Roman life and civilization, to which this awful passage has specific reference, has been frequently and glowingly panegyrized. It was the superb Augustan age. The eloquence and victories of Cicero and Cassar were yet a proud remembrance. Mantuan melodies still lingered in the air. It was in many respects a wonderful time. A complex civiliza- tion had brought its forces and appliances to bear upon some of the finest material the world has ever seen. Genius had scarcely more than passed the zenith of its splendor. Intellect was still proud and brilliant. Life was voluptuous. There was opulence to repletion, and everything to minister to the sensual nature. Beauty was deified. Even around the altars and idolatries of that time there was a marvellous and fascinating combination of majesty and grace, of science and taste. Whatever man could do without the living God was carried up to the point of perfec- tion. But that structure of polished paganism had darker and more repelling aspects. It was unspiritual and immoral. Faith that saves, like the luminous flame, diffuses splendor ; but, like mist and murk, superstition deepens the shadows of the night. Estab- lished religion had exhibited a constantly deteriorating and downward process. The Pantheon in Rome was worse even than the Parthenon of Greece. Pagan gods were the patrons and prompters of crime and pollution. Deities were such as lust demanded. Faith was lost, and purity and patriotism were gone. Oriental superstitions and pollutions steeped and IG THE MACEDONIAN CRY. saturated the Occident. "Orontes overflowed the Tiber." In rejjard to the character of that centurv, we have contemporary and competent witness. Seneca sor- rowed for the degeneracy of the times. Innocence, according to the testimony of this accomplished philo- sopher, had ceased to exist. " Discarding respect for all that is good and sacred, lust rushes on wherever it will."* From the capital a stream of pollution flowed out into provincial cities ; but with fresh and fouler accumulation it was rapidly poured back into the main reservoir. Humanity, morally and spirit- ually, was at its worst and sorest need. The world by wisdom knew not God. In mediaeval exploration, amongst the ruins of Pompeii, Lorenzo and Leo are said to have discovered altar lamps. Once these had contained sacred fire, but the oil was gone, and they could not now be reljnrhted. Such was the condition of classic science and philosophy, when Christianity first flashed its radiance across the dark expanse. Flame was extinct. Hope was dead. There was scarcely a solitary ray of •" Modern unbelief complains that St. Paul has characterized the social morality of the pagan world in terms of undue severity. Yet St. Paul does not exceed the specific charges of Tacitus, of Suetonius, of Juvenal, of Seneca, that is to say of writers that had no theological interest in misrepresenting or exaggerating the facts which they deplore. When Tacitus summarizes tlio moral condition of pxganiam by his exhaustive phrase, corrttm/Ji ft et corrumpi, he more than covers the sorrowing invective of the Apostle. " — Canon LiDDON, Bampton Lecturei^, 1866, p. 139. THE MACEDONIAN CRY. 17 even a heathen faith to relieve the dreariness and monotony of prevalent materialism. Moral miasma brooded over the scene. Every spiritual aspiration was chilled and checked. "On that hard pagan world, disgust And secret loathing fell ; Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell. " "No wonder," says Dr. Brown, in his exposition of Romans, "that, thus sick and dying as was this poor humanity of ours under the highest earthly culture, its many- voiced cry for the balm in Gilead and the Physician there — Come over and help us — pierced the hearts of the missionaries of the cross, and made them not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." The question of heathen accountability comes to the front in this connection. The biblical truth that all men must be judged by the deeds done in the body has been luminously represented as "the pillar of lire" which constitutes "the supernatural vanguard of Christian missions." Inspiration is clear and cleaving in its enunciation and enforcement of i^his solemn and profoundly awful subject.. Hence the appalling passage in which St. Paul depicts heathen- ism. Stronjj relief is sought. The main argument is designed to shut up a sinful and guilty world to the mercy of God, to demonstrate the necessity of a Divine and remedial scheme, and to enforce the sublime doctrine of salvation through grace. They who have not received a written law, the revelation of truth, are 18 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. under another and clearly-defined dispensation. "For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law : and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law (for when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things con- tained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves : which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their consciences, also bearing witness, and their thoughts in the meanwhile accus- ing, or else excusing, one another) ; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." A supreme faculty of conscience has been implanted in the human soul. There is also a "true Light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world." An inward law commends or condemns. Gracious illumination constitutes the measure of human respon- sibility ; and, at the future and final tribunal, when the judgment shall be set, and the books opened, it must determine acceptance or rejection, salvation or exclusion. "But we are sure," affirms the Apostle, „that the judgment of God is according to truth, agiinst them that do such things." Inspired reasoning lights up an abstruse and per- plexing question, and reveals also an underlying and essential principle of missionary impulse and action. It enables us, when carried into the region of heathen life and experience, to grasp the significance of many a testimony. " When I remember," says the evan- gelist Sing, of the China inland mission, "how I sinned THE MACEDONIAN CRY. 19 I. "For perish the law, jentiles, ngs con- re a law the law bearing ie accus- ly when LS Christ nplanted orht that 1 world." Gracious n respon- al, when pened, it nation or Apostle, luo truth, and per- y^ing and d action. heathen of many he evan- I sinned against the light which heaven gave to my nature, how I obeyed the seitish instincts of my soul, and was led astray by evil seductions, sinning against light, / feel how gitilfy I luas." The earlier part of the Epistle to the Romans was read by a Buddhist priest of Ceylon, in his own language. His main object at the outset was to obtain arguments for the refutation of Chris- tianity. The first cha])ter astonished him beyond measure. Secret things from dark chambers of imag- ery, of which he liad been cognizant, were brought to light. Sins that were sadly too common among his countrymen were comprised in the dark catalogue. There was a startling accuracy of delineation. Such is the unchanged character of heathenism, of its idola- tries and consequent immoralities, that missionaries have been actually charged with the forgery of this terrible passage. Adherents of Oriental systems find it difficult to believe that so full and forcible a descrip- tion could have been written at the commencement of the Christian era. The Singhalese student passed on to the second chapter, and there he encountered a new surprise. That account of the law written on the heart answered to actual and repeated experiences of life. Doinor of wrong had often been a cause of re- morseful feeling. Conscience must have been troubled. An unwelcome monitor had refused to be driven away, or silenced, at any moment. That witness of the heart could not be an evil thing; for it condemned the wrong, and approved the good. Against light and knowledge had sin been many times committed. There 20 THE MACEDONIAN CHY. I 1 must be consequent guilt and liability to punishment. This universal law became the subject of repeated conversation with a missionary, whose acquaintance had been formed. The sequence of thought was in exact adaptation to the tastes and mental habits of the controversialist. His interest for a time centred in the close texture of the rea.soning, and in the cogency and conclusiveness of the argument. But he began to find that a sharp arrow had pierced the joints of his tightened armour. Conviction of sin gradually deep- ened to genuine distress. " Is there any peace of con- science," he anxiously inquired, " any pardon of sin in the Christian religion ?" It would be sufficient, in reply to that question of supreme interest and import- ance, to read passages from the same evangelical and glorious Epistle : " I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." " Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus : whom God hath set forth to be a propituation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remis- sion of sins that are past." "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." " That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." The Macedonian cry has become the world's cry. Modern heathenism is fully as dark and debasing, as polluted and miserable, as was that of Apostolic THE MACEDONIAN CRY. SI ishment. repeated lintance was in labits of ntred in cogency began to bs of his ly deep- i of con- 3f sin in cient, in import- ical and t : for it one that s grace, whom fjh faith »e remis- justified )ur Lord ,0 death, ess, unto cry. lebasing, Ipostolic times. The man of Macedonia represents a perishing world. Night visions are renewed from age to age. Masses and millions of people are pleading for succour. In painful and piercing accents, they are ever saying, Coma over and help us. The Rev. Wm. 0. Simpson, during an evangelistic tour through Northern India, a few years ago, preached from the steps of an idol temple. The first proclamation of salvation through Jesus was thus made in a populous city. " Once," said a venerable-looking Brahman, putting his hand to his head, " this lock of hair was black as the raven's wing: now it is white as the snow on the summits of the Himalaya; and 1 have been waiting all these years to hear words like these." "Grown white with waiting ! brothers all ! Is there for you in these words no call ? Stirs there no pulse in your inmost soul, As by you these heart- waves of pleading roll ?" A thrilling appeal just now comes from the region of the Transvaal and the Molopo territory, in South Africa. In words of pathos and pain, an aged Baralong chief tells how he has looked and longed in vain, through many weary years, for the message and the ministry of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Missionary Society, in which he trusted, had failed him. "Why," he asks, " have we been so long left ? I have no hope now. When I am dead, and my nation is scattered, then, perhaps, when the opportunity is lost for ever, they will send a missionary."* Such a plaint is enough * Mimonary Notices, May, 1883. 22 THK MACEDONIAN CRY to make the very stones cry out, in rebuke of the apathy of the Christian Church. Is not the heart- stricken Montsioa an unconscious representative of Africa's benij^hted millions of people ? But there is also the voice of this western contin- ent, calling for help. A beam of light strikes the spiritual vision of a blind Inund, and it haste ! reprieve : '4 '0. 1 je of the 1 rightly its awful id of the Brahma- supersti- races and "The vast old structure of the Veda religion, venerable by the Bufi'rage of thirty centuries, upheld by tens of millions of the finest population in Asia, cherished by a pertinacity which has hitherto seemed immovable, adorned by temple after temple, celebrated in festivity after festivity, magnificent by processions and all public pomp, cemented by the indissoluble bonds of caste, and by a fixity of usage such as has never existed elsewhere." — William Arthur. ,1 1 HINDUISM AND THE HINDU& 81 able by the of the finest has hitherto elebrated in d all public i by a fixity Arthur. II. CIVILIZED HEATHENISM : HINDUISM AND THE HINDUS. HINDUISM is the central fortress of civilized hea- thenism. The world has no other such closely compacted system of error. It may be fairly regarded as the master-piece of the deceiver. Hoary with age, it challenges attention on the ground of its great antiquity. Its temples are magnificent, and its ritual adapted to the popular sense. Millions of priests avow their belief in countless millions of gods, and all are pledged to the perpetuation of this Brahinanical religion. Rising height above height, like the ranges and ridges of the Himalaya, the shadows of this stupendous and embattled structure seem to darken the day, and its proud spires to pierce the skies. Mysticisms and superstitions, penances and pilgrim- ages, transcendentalisms, adaptation to mental peculi- arities, and penetrating grasp of the institutions and usages of national and social life, contribute to its moulding force, and combine to constitute it the mightiest of earth's idolatries. Hinduism numbers one hundred and sixty million of adherents. One of the most eminent of modern missionaries, when first confronted by this towering and frowning citadel of error, realized keenly the sense of his own weakness 82 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. and the utter insufficiency of human resource. A feeling came over him, such as he might have had if he had undertaken to cut down the primeval forest, with the blade of a knife, to level the Himalayas with a pickaxe, or to empty the Ganges with a teacup. " What field on the surface of the globe can be compared to Hindustan, stretching from the Indus to the Ganges, and from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, in point of magnitude and accessibility com- bined, and peculiarity of claims on British Christians, the claims of not less than" two hundred millions "of fellow-subjects, sunk beneath the load of the most debasing superstitions, and the crudest idolatries that ever polluted the surface of the earth, or brutalized the nature of man ?"* Between the earlier philosophy and the later and popular forms of Hinduism, there are numerous and bewildering differences, complex and contradictory aspects. The original Vedic idea of God seems to be that of an essence, analogous to space, self-existent and eternal. But the simple sublimity of primal con- ception soon begins to merge into pantheism, and pa.sses on to the multiplied mythologies of polytheism. Unity diverges into numerous ramifications. The system is developed by the additions and accretions of ages. As the banyan of that land, its shoots are end- lessly multiplied. " Like the sacred tree of India which from a single stem sends out innumerable * Life of Dr. Duff, Vol. I, p. 197. HINDUISM AND THE HINDUS. 33 iource. A ive had if sval forest, Himalayas ;s with a globe can the Indus L to Cape bility com- Christians, jd millions jf the most latries that brutalized e later and nerous and ntradictory seems to be elf-existent primal con- tieism, and polytheism. ions. The ccretions of Dts are end- e of India Unumerable branches destined to descend to the ground and be- come trees themselves, till the parent stock is lost in the dense forest of its own offshoots, so has this pantheistic creed rooted itself firmly in the Hindu mind, and spread its ramifications so luxuriantly that the simplicity of its root-dogma is lost in an exuberant growth of monstrous mythologies." * A Hindu of the upper class believes that a self-ex- istent principle may subsist under two modes. An es- sential condition, the point and perfection of felicity, consummation of bliss, is that of profound and utter quiescence and insensibility. But there was a period, a passing moment, when Brahman roused up from the long deep stupor of ages, and exercised a potent and productive energy. Three gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the Hindu trinity, constitute the divine mani- festation of an eternal essence. Complexity of rela- tion finds expression in a passage of Kalidasa — regarded by Professor Williams as " the greatest of Indian poets." Evidently there is a perpetual inter- change of function : " In these three Persons the one God was shewn — Each first in place, each last — not one alone ; Of Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, each may be First, second, third, among the blessed Three." Brahma is regarded as creator. The material uni- verse, according to the Hindu conception, is an emana- tion rather than an exercise of creative energy. It is an outflowing, like the light from the sun. "As the * Hinduism, Prof. Monier Williams, p. 11. S4 THE MACEDONIAN CRT. threads from the spider, the tree from the seed, the fire from the coal, the stream from the fountain, the waves from the sea, so is the world produced out of Brahma." This deity of the Hindu temple and worship is usually represented as a figure of four faces. A philosophical formula, "I am Brahma, and he who knows that knows all," claims for him a reality of ex- istence, in comparison with which everything in the vi.sible universe must be looked upon as illusory and transient. Vishnu, the second member of the triad, supposed to pervade and conserve all worlds, obtains homage as the preserver. This popular god is fabled to have had ten incarnations. May not these come yet to form the groundwork of belief in the Incarnate One, the Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us ? The memory of Vishnu's actions, preserved and perpetuated in the sacred records, constitutes the most popular element in Hindu religious literature. In some temples the god may be seem in a form partly human, and in part resembling a fish ; for, according to the legend, based doubtless on some tradition of the historic flood, he w^as incarnated as a fish to save the progenitor of the human race from an overflowing flood. Another incarnation is that of Krishna, " the dark god," repre- sented in the form of a black idol ; an appearance as- sumed for the destruction of Kansa, the representative principle of evil. Krishna is the most popular of | Hindu deities; and, notwithstanding the distortion and exaggeration of this incarnation idea, as traced out in '4 HINDUISM AND THE HINDUS. 86 the seed, the fountain, the duced out of temple and of four faces. and he who reality of ex- thing in the illusory and ad, supposed ns homage as I to have had yet to form late One, the ng us ? The perpetuated nost popular some temples iman, and in the legend, istoric tlood, )ro2renitor of Another god," repre- pearance as- presentative popular of stortion and raced out is >d Brahmanical legends, may we not hope that it shall yet be the means of preparing the minds of swarthy mil- lions of eastern worshippers for the acceptance of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world? Siva, the third member of the sacred triad, held to be the dissolver and destroyer of the universe, is regarded as the principal agent in the various changes that sweep on in a constant succession. This character is often depicted and shaped forth in hideous and repulsive forms. It is said that some of the images of the god are too abominable to be described. But a still fouler and more revolting form is that of his consort, the black goddess Kali ; armed with sharp instruments, decorated by a necklace of skulls, clotted hair, and face and bosom smeared with blood. Kali is claimed as the presiding goddess of the infernal and terrible thugs ; for whose honor and glory they murder their victims, and by whose energy their feet are made swift to shed blood. These be thy gods, India ! To Hindu sacred literature an important place must be assigned. The immense treasures of the Sanskrit, that " lan- ujuage of the gods," are being rapidly unsealed. At the foundation lies the three-fold Veda ; mantra, brahmana, and upanishad : pure knowledge, imagined to have issued like breath from the Supreme. Vedic mantras, mainly metrical composition, are forms of prayer and praise. The rig-veda is the first and purest part of the mantra, and contains over a thousand hymns and rapturous ascriptions. It is regarded with profound J 36 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. reverence, said to shine in its own light, and to revea! | absolute perfection ; but, through rapt effusions, a| declension from simple and primitive truth to pan theistic doctrine can be readily traced. Elements art| personified. Powers of nature arc identified witlj various divinities. Objects of religious adoration arei multiplied. " God is everything, and everything isj God." The brahmanas, or second portion of the Veda, mostly of prose composition, expand and expound the merii of sacrifice, and develop and prescribe an elaborate and complicated system of priestly service. During the period of brahmana ascendency, every prominence was given to sacrificial oflfering. Numerous victim^ J were immolated in almost every religious service, and] the altars of the land perpetually streamed wittj blood. To the upanishads, the third and last portion of tht Veda, consisting of prose aphorisms and occasionaij verse, designed to unfold and illustrate the sacred! doctrine of the mantras, Hinduism is mainly indebte(i| for its mysticism and transcendentalism. Here may j be found the source of a principal philosophical dogmaj the transmigration of souls through a succession of bodies. And of all delusions, cunning inventions, or: vain and foolish imaginations, that ever tortured the | minds of poor, fallen humanity, the most dreary oppressive, and painfully elaborated, is that of trans- migration. Souls are regarded as an emanation from the eternal source, but doomed to a repeated succession M i HINDUISM AND THE HINDUS. 37 ^f bodies, nearer or more distant from the fountain ^iid fulness of perfection. They are held to be in )erpetual transition ; passing from body to body, from >lant to plant, from animal to animal, from divinity to livinity, in sad and weary seri<»s and succession, with- Hit repose, destitute of joy, unable to arrest the stern iionotony of change ; treading, according to demerit ^r merit, the god's slowly-grinding mill ; sinking into Lbysses of horror, or rising by gradual stages to an ^xalted felicity ; dreaming of an ultimate absorption ito the essential principle of the universe, the ideal of )erfection, of endless and infinite bliss. The real scriptures of the Hindu, however, as we are |issured, because better known and perused, are the mranas. These are legendary histories, a voluminous md conglomerate collection of traditions and mytho- logies, measuring and marking an immense and deep listance and deterioration from the Vedic age. The )riginal idea of the purana seems to have been an jlucidation of matters belonging to some holy place, or ^he instruction of the people at great national festivals. ?here is no basis of fact or reason. They launch a System of cosmogony that shrivels before the light of Science. Genealogies of the gods and unconnected traditions form a fabulous chronolgy. Time is of no iccount. Periods stretch back into the recesses of remote ajjes. Through a series of legfendarv narratives, Iresembling the coloring and Oriental extravagance of ^he Arabian Nights' Entertainments, these wonderful )oems are brought down to the history and associations )f the place to which they are dedicated. 38 THE MACEDONIAN CRT. It is affirmed that the history of mind in India corresponds to that of Europe. Every western system of thought, we are told, has had its counterpart in Asia. " Precisely the same topics which are brought to the front in religious discussions in the Occident, between Christianity and unbelief, are those which are at the front in the Orient."* As the product of rich and ripe Sanskrit scholarship, a superb series of Oxford translations, " The Sacred Books of the East," have been published for the benefit of English readers. The literature of that wonderful land, reaching back through a space of three thousand years, has been brought witliin the range of an ordinary student. The. seal of mystery has been broken. It is evident, as thus represented, that Eastern speculations contain subtle philosophy, suggest ethical truth, and inculcate moral precept and social virtue. There is, at some points, a striking coincidence with what has claimed or come to be distinctively known as "modern thought." Occasional Hashes indicate a rare intuition or insight into the profound necessities of the human soul. Under one guise or another, especially in the fabled incarna- tions, there are traces of traditional truth, and the idea of a needed Deliverer and Restorer. But thoughts that possess anything of religious or philosophic power and value are probably drift from some period of patri- archal revelation. With many acknowledged excel- lencies, and with great and abounding beauty and Joseph Cook, Monday Lecture, January 29th, 1883. HINDUISM AND THE HINDUS. 39 1 I luxuriance of metaphor and style, these sacred books teem with worthless legends, monstrous credulities, the veriest puerilities, and the sheerest absurdities of the human imagination. Taken as a whole, with all their magnificence of expression, they are the daikness and not the light of Asia. The literature of India, during thick mazes of the past, has been a source and secret of strength to Hin- duism. But the deep night of ignorance is passing away ; and in the future it may supply a potent in- strument for the overthrow of an ancient and organized system of error. It contains history that facts dis- I prove, and theories of the physical universe that science j completely explodes. The Hindu student, as he comes to comprehend the leading principles of elementary I knowledge, discovers the imposture and fabulous nature i. writings which he once venerated as of in- disputable authority. The spirit of inquiry thus awakened led to the conversion of Narayan Sheshadri, [a gifted Brahman, to whose fervent and fluent utter- ances many of us have listened with delight. As he stood one day upon the beach at Bombay, swept into [a foaming tempest by the fury of the monsoon, a sacred [legend recurred to his mind. One of the miglity sages Iwas said to have drunk up all the water of all ihe loceans of the earth. Was that story credible ? A chill )f doubt was experienced. Other extravagances of the shasters came under review. Faith was shaken. In- [uiry failed to satisfy the understanding. From Brah- nanism he turned to Christianity. The Bible was found and felt to be no cunningly devised fable. 40 THE MACEDONIAN CRT. Historic and scientific myths, when once disproved, cannot be re-established. Incongruous elements in the Hindu system of doctrine and ritual are strangely and strikingly analogous to the mixture of iron and clay in the colossal image of Oriental vision ; " Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them : and the stone that smote the image became a great moun- tain, and filled the whole earth." Temples are a prominent feature of Hinduism. Benares alone boasts ten thousand splendid fanes. India is a land of superb and stately structures. The peerless Taj Mahal, or crown of edifices — a magnificent mausoleum at Agra — is said to have been " designed by Titans and finished by jewellers." The Seringham pagoda, near Trichinopoly, "an awful and indescrib- ably vast fabric," was erected at a cost equal to that of St. Paul's. There are several groups of religious build- ings in the Tanjore district, each one of which involved an expenditure equal to that of an English cathedral. Hindu temples, however, have little resemblance to the ecclesiastical edifices of Christendom. In archi- tectural idea and outline, they seem to have more in common with the Hebrew temple at Jerusalem — court within court, terrace rising above terrace, and a dimin- HINDUISM AM) THt HLNDUS. 41 ished central site for the main sanctuary. The space occupied by a popular idol in India is usually flanked hy extensive enclosures, comprising several acres. " As if in unconscious mockery of Divine revealings, the city of priests and prostitutes, which forms the Vaish- nava or Savaite temples, lies four-square for a mile on each side, entered by imposing gateways, and domi- nated by towers of gigantic height. But as you pass through court after court to the hideous gloom of the contemptible sanctuary, and approach the obscene penetralia, the buildings diminish in size and elabora- tion."* In the vicinity of a famous idol, numerous and costly shrines are erected by wealtl^y natives, and such munificence is deemed to be exceedingly meri- torious in its character. But what .shall be said of the idols, in a land that is wholly given to idolatry ? In addition to m.ore exalted divinities, the minor gods and goddesses are all but innumerable. A divine es.sence is supposed to permeate the visible universe, and the catalogue is being constantly enlarged. Heavenly bodies, various productions of the earth, beneficent rivers, the myste- rious wind, the cloud-capped mountain, the spreading banyan, the sacred ox, the gamboling monkey, the noxious reptile, stocks and stones, mean and miscellan- eous things, fair or foul, angel or demon, through hope or through fear, find a place in the pantheon. The I Hindu makes to himself graven images, the likeness * Life of Dr. Duft', Vol. II., p. I4-). 42 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. of anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, and bows down to them and worships them. Walls, towers, and gateways of temples, especially in the south of India, are sculptured with mythologi- cal groups. They exhibit infamous acts such as are ascribed to the gods, in whose honor the shrine has been dedicated. It has been said that if in the midst i of their quarrels and treacheries, obscenities and atro- cities, "the gods of the Hindu heaven had been sud- denly overtaken by a statuary death," these abomin- able sculptures might be the agglomeration of them all. No man who has once seen the gates can ever forget them. It is a strange and hideous sight. " And then to see groups of children playing before this pile of sculptured temptation, looking at it, gazing on it, regarding it as the shrine and embodiment of religion. It brings a feeling of oppressive sickness. You feel as if Milton's Belial, the dissolute-'t spirit that fell were standing by and pointing to that as the audaciou5; monument of a victory he won over everything pure in man. * India is the land of pilgrimages. It has numerous cities and shrines and streams of reputed sanctity: and for the sake of penance, ablution, or some cere- monial observance, multitudes of people are perpetu- ally on the move. At the great annual festivals, in honor of popular idols, thousands of pilgrims throng '-I * Arthur's Misfiion to the MyAore, Methodixt Mafjaziiii', 184(5, p. iSSi Tj ai ofl HINDUISM AND THE HINDUS. 43 ziiir, 184(), p. 584j to the temple service. Many of these are weary- wanderers after rest. Waters of sacred rivers are regarded as efficacious for the cleansing of moral pol- lution ; and, as the most magniticent river, the Ganges is thought to be specially and signally potent for the purification of the soul. As a means of salvation, or for the accumulation of merit, a Hindu achieves immense feats of devotion. Think of a pilgrim starting from the source of the Ganges, traversing the river to its mouth, measuring the same distance on the opposite bank, and getting back to the starting-point at the end of six years ! But what can protracted penance avail ? " Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it." Sacrificial offerings are prescribed in the brahmanas, and amongst some tribes human sacrifices are still deemed efficacious and meritorious. An American missionary furnishes a vivid description of a sanguin- arv scene which he witnessed, and of its surround- ings. The ceremony was performed in the night. A hurried booth had been constructed for the idol. Solitary lights threw deeper shadows into the back- ground. The god was garlanded with flowers. Sacred ashes were supplied to the devotees, for the purpose of rubbing their heads and bodies. Strange noises, through the trilling of the tongue, were made by the women of the crowd. Fowls and sheep were slain. The offerers of the sacrifices, bearing their bleeding and quivering victims, hurried out into the darkness I of the night. No wonder there was a deepened desire 4Wi 44 THE MACEDONIAN CRY to make known to those dark idolaters the efficacy of the one great Sacrifice, and to point them to Him who is " the propitiation for our sins : and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." The spirit of Brahmanism is hard and cruel in the extreme. Until disallowed by Government, its dire precepts were remorselessh^ inculcated, and no act was considered more acceptable to the gods than that of voluntary suffering. Torture is deemed meritorious in proportion to its intensity. In former times, a \/oman that offered herself for the funeral pile, on the death of her husband, won a bright record. When Ch^istianitv commenced its beneficent mission in India, ten thousand widows were annually burnt to death. Tho eminent Serampore missionary, Dr. Carey, on attempting an organized movement for the abolition of the suttee, found that within a circle of thirty miles around Calcutta, during a period of three months there had been no less tha,n three hundred such im- molations. Mothers worshipped the goddess of mur- der, and, under the influence of dread superstition, laid their hapless infants on the bleeding altars of their superstition. Aged and helpless parents were carried to the banks of some sacred river, and left there to die. By wildly prostrating themselves be- neath the wheels of the ponderous car of Juggernaut, multitudes committed suicide. Mangled bodies were supposed to appease the dread divinities. We still re- member the missionary appeal : HINDUISM AND THE HINDUS. 45 jfficacy of Him who b for ours Id." uel in the t, its dire id no act I than that neritorious ir times, a pile, on the rd. When on in India, t to death. Carey, on le abolition ihirty miles ■ee months Id such im- ss of mur- uperstition, digioiUi, Huinb. Lib., p. 11. HINDUISM AND THK HINDUS. 47 pariah is permitted to reside in an inferior corner of the town or village. But think of the de^^jradation ! An outcast cannot come into contact with more favored mortals of his own race and kindred. There is a thought continually forced upon him, that his touch is pollution, and that his presence is intolerable. Some hateful thing makes him an object of loathing and contempt. This man, created of God, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, endowed with exalted moral and spiritual capabilities, and destined to immortality, is made to feel a sense of immeasurable humiliation. And even this baseness of condition does not exhaust the sum of his misery. Degradation must be trans- mitted to his children, and to his children's children. As far as he knows, there is no power in heaven or earth to release him from the curse, or to arrest the entail of sorrow and woe. Shall the Macedonian cry of the Hindu outcasts be unheeded ? Through untold miseries, " They call us to deliver Their land from error's chain. " The ramification of such an institution can be easily imagined. Masses are held together by a chain, the links of which it has taken ages to forge and rivet. Every man is bound by the law of universal cohesion. A Hindu, unless he wrench himself from all the ties of national and social life, can only move as Ins caste moves. In this fact may be found a serious obstruc- tion to the prosecution of Christian work in India. " What will become of mv caste ?" " Will not the pro- 48 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. posed step endanj^er my caste ? " " Are not the mis- sionaries resolved to break' up my caste?" These burning questions arc inevitably forced to the front. At every point the subject touches Hindu thought and probes it to its very heart. But this adhesive- ness of the social structure has an aspect of hopeful- ness. Even the severance of asincjle individual causes a jar through the complete fabric, and the impact of multiplied conversions must be productive of far- reaching results. If the pretensions of caste could be tolerated, the Brahman allowed to take supreme posi- tion, and inferior grades maintained, converts to Christianity would be rapidly increased, and the statis- tics of missions run into new and larjjer columns. But the Church of Christ cannot recognize any law of caste. " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ." There must be no compromi.se. Brahman and Sudra have to bow before the same altar, and to meet at the one communion. " The chain of caste is broken," exclaimed the first of Carey's converts, " and who shall mend it r Two years later a Brahman surrendered his sacred thread, and another link was severed. The scheme has been devised with subtle and inferital ingenuity ; but, through the touch of spiritual power, and the influence of a Christian civilization, fetters shall fall away, and the hardness of steel be dissolved. Indirect ajjencies have done a good work in India. Opportunities afforded by the last famine were signal- HINDUISM AND THE HINDUS. 49 ized bv noble deeds of kindness. Hinduism was placed in manifest and humiliating contrast to the Christian religion. Brahmans were consulted in the dire extremity. Wealth was lavished at the shrines of heathen gods. Ceremonial rites were scrupulously observed. Heathen help was fervently implored. But ritualistic service was all in vain. The heavens were as brass. Priests were impotent men. There was none to heed the suppliant's cry. In that hour of sore need, Christianity, as an angel of love and pity, moved through the land, and ministered to the sufferers. A movement for the education of the women of India tends to social revolution. It has long been the battle-ground of evangelistic enterprise. The avowal of such a purpose, in direct opposition to the beliefs and habits of ages, had to encounter an excited and indignant feeling. But missionary intrepidity was not to be shaken. A marked and manifest change has recently found expression in public and popular opinion and sentiment. Solid ramparts of superstition and prejudice have been fairly pierced. An immense impetus has been given to social progress. Bound up with this organized effort are the hopes and happiness of untold and unborn millions. One of the most thrilling of Oriental stories is that of Rama rescuing his beautiful bride from the clutches of Ravannah, the demon-king. Hanuman, the son of the wind, dis- covered her prison-hou.se, and gave assurance of deliver- ance. At the suggestion of Hanuman, Rama drew a bow, and sent it to the monster's heart. The power 'I 50 THt MACEDONIAN CRY. of darkness was (U'stroyed. Sita, the princess, was led forth from captivity to share her husband's throne. A warfare has been commenced for the rescue of the sorrowful zenana captive. Dungeon walls are thickly beleagurcd. Sharp are the arrows froi e polished (juiver of the mighty archer. Demons c superstition are surely doomed. India's beautiful daughter, rescued from a long and foul imprisonment, .shall be brought into the light and blessedness of a new and purer life. Redeemed by Christ Jesus, robed in righteousness, the ransomed one shall .share in coronation splendour and triumph : " She shall be brought to the king in raiment of needlework : the virgins, her companions that follow her, shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall she be brought: they sh^ 11 enter into the king's palace." An extraordinary intellectual movement also ranks among the signs of the times in India. Keshub Chunder Sen and other cultured and non-Christian Hindus are leaders of the new faith. A general sanction is given to revealed truth, and recognition is freely accorded to the labors of missionaries. Idolatry is renounced, and caste rejected. Hope has long been cherished that this uprising of mind would receive a spiritual baptism, and be brought under the influence of Christianity. " Our hearts are touched," said Chun- der Sen, a .splendid rhetorician, " conquered, overcome by a higher power ; and that power is Christ : Christ, not the Briti.sh Government, rules India ! None but Christ deserves the precious diadem of the Indian niNonsM ANh thk Hindus. 51 crown, a!i(l In* shall hav«» it." But, notwith.standin<]f sucli lirilliant and impassioned utterances, it is apparent tliat the reformation has run to the extreme of ration- alism. A hymn of the " new dispensation " crystallizes characteristic tenets : " Many a Yogi and Riisln, many a saint and devotee, have dispen.sed the true religion. Ancient teachers, the great leaders of mind and moulders of thought, Shiva and Shuka Chitanya, whose .soul was the storehouse of God's love, Muni antl Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, form one holy family of .saints. All the.se are honored, the objects of deepest reverence. But no one can stand in the place of God, as a mediator or incarnation." Brah- moism has been called a Christianity without (yhrist. As represented by the Somaj, or by the new dispensa- tion, it cannot be a regenerative power for India. One of the saddest th(* ^ 'le. The follower of Buddha is taught t ni a Ufeles.s. nameless, sinless, stirless res tl can know no change. To make sure o i he d( outl} -wished-for consummation, the process must 1 gin here, and the mind be elevated to the level of a law under whioh ^1 BUDDHISM AND THE BUDDHISTS. 66 impulae and desire shall be utterly repressed. Com- pleteness of renunciation leads to the desired goal. Everything of earthly passion and purpose is forever extinguished. The life of man, according to a favourite simile, resembles an Indian lamp. " As tlame cannot exist without oil, so individual existence depends on the cleaving to low and earthly things. If there is no oil in the lamp it will go out.'* * But what is the Nirvana of this philosophical sclieme ? What shall be the Jinale or ultimate condi- tion of the soul — trance or nihilism, absorption or extinction ? Shall life be exhaled like the dew from the lotus leaf at sunrise, or absorbed as the ruin-drop that "slips away into the shining sea?" Must con- sciousness fade out in the .same manner as the flicker- ing riame of a lamp that can never be re-lighted ? The word " nirvana," according to various exponents of the Buddhist doctrine, may be understood to mean " without blowing," an eternal quiescence, " a state of calm which no breath of wind disturbs ;" or it may mean " blowing out," as the extinguishing of a liglit, the complete extinction of being. Dr. Caird does not liesitate to pronounce that " this heaven of the Budd- liists contains in it, at least explicitly, no positive element such as we express by the words moral and spiritual perfection, but is neither more nor less than absolute annihilation." i* * Bwldhism, Rhys Davis, p. 114. t Orkntal lhHtjion.'<, Huuibolt Lib., p. 24. 06 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. Such is pure Buddhism 1 It recognizes no Divine Personality, and it leaves man without God and with- out hope in the world. Personality would be regpTded as a defect. Deity is an abstraction. Heart and flesh cry out in vain for the living God. Prayer is useless, and the idea of propitiation a delusion. Humanity is orphaned and desolate. There is no ear tu I. ear, no heart to sympathize, no arm to save. Weakness can- not take hold upon strength. Lips of supplication are sealed. The heavens are as brass. Gautama " chokes the cry" of the helpless human soul. The more thoroughly a disciple or devotee of this much-vaunted system accepts its teachings and theories, the farther does he drift away from the idea of a living, personal God, and from the consolation and strength of a Divine Fatherhood.* Sutras abound with generous phrases. The scheme of Sakya-muni extols brotherhood and charity, benefi- cence and alm.sgiving ; 1 it, in practical life, all these exhortations are neutralized. The .spirit of the system, not^vithstanding the glow of beautiful precept, tends to utter and intense selfishness. It isolates man from society. Abstraction is urged, and tender impulses are extinjT^uished. Transcendental idealism and the life of a monk or hermit are incompatible with the deeds and demands of an active and practical philanthropy. Buddhism, at its best, is not only atheistic and selfish * ' ' Buddha recognizes no .supreme deity ; in only God, he affirmed, is what man himself can become." — IJiiHluium, Monier Williams, p. 170. j;lories in the extinction of personality and of every capacity for eternal life. But, through the light and spiritual power of a nobler and purer revelation and i\'ligion, transcending the speculations of the Sakya- uumi, an eminent Oriental saint exulted in hope : " For I know that mj- Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth : ancl though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in mv riesh shall I see God : whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." The Buddhist reformation besjjan in the holy city of Benares, Northern India, about five centuries Ijefore the Christian era. Gautama was an enthusiastic and intrepid missionary, and his tenets were promulgated with a zeal and success that have never been exhibited or achieved by the emissaries of any other heathen religion. The new faith conquered the Himalayan countries, took possession of Ceylon, and penetrated to em 68 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. Thibet, the empire of China, and the islands of Japan. Through contact or amalgamation with other Asiatic and idolatrous systems and religions, Buddhism has been greatly modified. An attempt has been made to define the doctrines of the Eastern Sage ; but, in modern and prevalent Buddhism, there is very much that its philosophic founder would fail to recognize, and more that he would probably refuse to acknowledge. " Hav- ing been adopted by very savage and very civilized people — the wild hordes on the cold table-lands of Nepaul, Tartary and Thibet ; the cultured Chinese and .Japanese in their varying climes; and the quiet Sin- halese and Siamese, under the palm groves of the south — it has been so modified by the national char- acteristics of its converts, that it has developed into stranoelv inconsistent and even antafjonistic beliefs."* The purest type of Buddhism is now to be found in Ceylon. That island is regarded as the holy land of Asia. Thrice it was visited by Buddha in person. There his discourses were first committed to writing. The central mountain peak of that island, it is afiirmed, still b ars the impress of the Sage's foot. Nowhere else, in our time, has heathenism exhibited so nmch of vitality and of the spirit of aggressiveness. A keen controversy has for many years been carried on be- tween Buddhist priests and Christian missionaries. An early incident of the dispute, as narrated by Spence Hardy, shows the temper of Buddha's champions, and • Biddhisni, Rhys Davis, p. BUDDHISM AND THE BUDDHISTS. 69 the ease and effectiveness with which they wield their polished weapons. In connection with one of the tjfreat heathen festivals, a number of slips were printed at tlie mission press, and distributed among the pil- ifriiiis on their way to the chief temple. The first of these leaflets announced " Important information," and contained an emphatic passage : " We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one." An immediate reply was pro- duced. The rejoinder was affixed to a tree, near one of the main thoroughfares, where it was read by thou- sands. " We know," was the retort, " that there is no Ifod who is the giver of all good, and who lives for ever, existing in time ppst, present, and to come ; and that none but Buddha is the creator and the donor of all sorrow-destroying tranquility." A second publication in the missionary series was headed " Good news," and contained an epitome of the whole gospel : " For God so \o\vj\ the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, tliat whosoever believeth in him should not perish, hut have everlasting life." The counterpart of this announcement was to the effect that another glorious incarnation appealed to the faith and gratitude of the people : " The present Buddha .so much, so infinitely pitied Maraya, and all beings in every world, that resolving to become Buddha, he came down from ' heaven ; though, on approaching the seat of Buddha- ship, his design was oppose md, as it I in their trees are n in the Ion and ees have lan's axe ^ut more 3ed to be [id hoary of many be des- istead of id of the "At times, too, dark suspicions will cross the mind that such inferior races as those of Africa are not suited for so pure and elevated a religion as that of Christ, and that the best service they could render to the Christianization of the world would be to die out and become extinct. We must not, however, give heed to thoughts like these. We must believe, rather, that Cod has made of one blood all the nations of men that dwell upon the earth."— Misaionary liecord. who,s€ AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 85 IV. INCTVILIZED HEATHENISM: AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. IN lands of Brahmanical and Buddhistic superstition, and of idolatrous religions, we have been in contact with the structures of an ancient and splendid civilization. But there is also an uncivilized hea- thenism. Through its dark and deceptive shadows, multitudes of sinning and suffering people are groping their way to an endless future. The Macedonian cry of benighted millions appeals to and arouses the con- science and compassion of a long-slumbering and apathetic Church. Tribes at the lowest level of civilization are members of the one human family, and belong to a common brotherhood. " God hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth ; and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." Thoufrht turns to Africa : " an immense and homo- goneous continent, groaning under the curse of the slave-trade, the darkness of superstition, already half of it under the yoke of Islam ; before whose estuaries long sand-banks stretch beneath the heavy surf; whose interior is encircled by the broad, rainless belt ma 86 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. of the Sahara ; while the entrances are at all ])oints barred by the deadly fevers of a tropical climate."* A quarter of a century ago, the interior of Africa was an almost unexplored region, a blank space on the map of that continent. It was generally believed to consist largely of burning desert sands, and of im- mense and pathless wastes, unfit for human habitation. Even members of the African Association spoke of it as " unlike other continents " of the earth ; no large inland lakes, or broad roUinjx riveis tlowinij from the centre to the extremities. But,in the inter(^sts of Chris- tianity, science, and commerce, the enterprise of num- erous explorers has done much to dispel the mystery of the Dark Continent. Until recently unknown regions have been mapped out with scientific precision. The source of the Nile, for three thousand years the problem of African geography, through intrepidity of explorers, has been traced to equatorial lakes and mountains. A broad belt of low land, fraught with miasma and fever, skirts the coast; and as missions continued for a long period to be confined mainly to the unhealthy mart, in, they were prosecuted at a fearful sacrifice of life. But the configuration and climate of intertropical Africa are not what had been once supposed. Within the lines of the fever-belt, flanked on the east and west by longitudinal ridges, the country forms a vast table-land, depressed to the lake region at the centre. The explorer finds himself richly rewarded a.s ho * Christlieb's Foreign Missionn, p. 101. AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. S7 I il Africa aci' on elievcd of im- litation. <.c of it LO large rom the »f Chris- of num- y-stery of 1 regions m. ^ The problem xplorers, roaches that upland plateau. There are glimpses of undulating and magnificent stretches of country, covered with tall grass, dotted by clumps of superb foliage, threaded by silver streams, batlied in floods of pure and brilliant sunlight, and bounded by distant and dark mountain masses. Almost boundless capa- hilities of material w^ealth awaits an immediate de- velopment, and the enterprises of Christianity should at least keep pace with the advance and achievements of commerce and science. The mission field of Africa may be regarded as forming several distinct and very ditierent sections. A narrow northern strip, bordering on the Mediter- ranean, extending from Morocco to Egypt, was at one time the seat of empire, the source of flourishing com- merce, and the site of influential Christian churches. But the Vandal conquerors of Rome crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and laid the country waste from west to east. From the period of barbarian invasion, that border land never recovered the strength or splendor of an earlier civilization. Under the standard of the Saracen, by which the Barbary States were next swept and completely subjugated, the religion of the Koran was remorselessly promulgated. Mohammedanism is still the dominant creed. The mixed races of people, a fu'iion of Arabian and Libvan blood, with more than a trace of the ancient Phenician, are possessed of splendid natural capabilities ; and, in the day of Africa's redemption, they are sure to take a foremost place. .S8 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. Western Africa extends from Morocco and Sene- gambia to the south as far as the Bight of Benin. Back from the belt of western coast lies the great slave region of Soudan, where eighty million of people have sunk to the very lowest level of degradation and misery. Of the actual and pitiable condition of the populations distant from the sea, we have only faint and occasional glimpses. Thick mists of obscurity, especially in the direction of the river Niger, hang heavily and gloomily over the interior country. But even if the veil were lifted, density dispelled, and the barbarities of life fully understood, it is scarcely pro- bable that there would be anything to relieve the dark and dismal picture. Facts of Slave Coast atrocities, the story of which has been repeatedly told, have caused the civilized world to shudder ; and, in the name of a common humanity, such vile observances have been denounced and execrated. Dahomian annual " customs " are sig- nalized by processions, revelling and intoxication, th^ horrid sound of the fatal drum, an exhibition of skulls, and a parade of barbaric trophies. A national cere- monial, in which the immolation of eighty of the sanguinary monarch's subjects contributed to the eclat of the occasion, was witnessed and described bv Captain Burton. Grand customs are performed on the death of the king ; and, at such a time, hundreds of men and women fall victims to " revenge, ostenta- tion and pretended piety." The number of persons slaughtered in cold blood, when these abominable ri< es AFRirA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 89 sene- ^enin. great Deople »n and of the f faint curity, ', hang '. But md the jly pro- 3ve the I which civilized ommon ounced are sig- ion, the f skulls, al cere- of the he eclat bed by med on undreds ostenta- persons hie rit'^s were celebrated in 1860, was estimated at more than two thousand. Assuredly the dark places of the eaith are full of the habitations of cruelty. A vivid remembrance of early life is connected with the perusal of Freeman's famous missionary journal. It contained a glowing narrative of his first visit to Ashanti, and of the scenes which he witnessed in the Itlood-stained streets of Kumasi. An immense pro- cession paraded the prominent places of the capital. Jn that motley mass and array, the royal executioners found a conspicuous position. Instead of streaming banners and proud insignia and the kind of pomp and pageantry to which we are accu.stomed in the civil and military processions of Christian and civilized countries, instruments of torture and decapitation were ostentatiously displayed. There was the diabolical death-drum, literally covered with dried clots of blood, and decorated with human skulls. It was always beaten when |rhe cold and cruel steel had done its work, and the heads of unfortunate victims had been severed from their bodies. No less than forty lives were sacrificed during a space of two days. The ground was saturated with blood, and " putrefying bodies tainted the air." That darinjj and heroic visit had been undertaken for the purpose of effecting an entrance for the go.spel. No wonder that the solitary missionary, as he gazed upon the slaughtered victims of relentless and capricious ferocity, was filled with sorrow and indignation, and longed for the means of amelioration. The very stones of the blood-drenched 7 90 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. ^ I streets cried out for help. Could there be any response to that Macedonian wail ? From Kumasi, the dark and deluded capital of Ashanti, the thought of the missionary turned to the metropolis of Christian England. In contrast to immediate and sanguinary surroundings, another and far different scene burst upon his vision. Was it all a fancy, or did it breathe the promise of an assuring hope ? Exeter Hall is in a flame. Missions are eloquently advocated. Voices are raised in behalf of dark Africa. Emotion finds expression in "a hymn for the heathen," and the prayer of the great congregation ascends to God in heaven : " The servile progeny of Ham Seize as the purchase of thy blood." No, that is not all an illusion ! The missionary has faith to believe that the enthusiasm of such a meeting is genuine, the altar-fire pure, and that Christian people are in earnest. But the holy impulse largely passes away with the occasion. There has been too much of timidity and delay in spiritual enterprise. "0 righteous Father," the Saviour was impelled to exclaim, " the world hath not known thee." " compassionate Redeemer," might have been the sorrowful strain of the Kuma.si missionary, " thy Church is straitened in her sympathies, indifferent to her great commission, forgetful of thy claims and crown-rights, and too long heedless of the Macedonian cry from this perishing world." AFliICA AND ISLES OF THE SKA. 91 ary has meeting Ihristian largely •een too se. "0 txclaim, sionate ,rain of lened in [mission, ,00 long irishing The we«t coast of Africa, and especially Sierra Lfone, has been desif^nated " the missionary's grave." Thirty laborers of the Church Missionary Society, during the first twelve years, fell bravely at their post, and were laid to rest in the burial-ground of tlio mission church. A wasted remnant of the Basle Society's missionaries, in one fatal year, had to stand hv the fresh graves of ten of their stricken brethren. Forty Wesleyan pioneers fell in rapid succession in the same field : " For dangers uncounted are clustering there, The pestilence stalks uncontrolled, Strange poisons are borne on the soft languid air. And lurk in each leaf's fragrant fold." But the missionary succe.ssion has been nobly main- tained. As repeated gaps have been made in the ranks, new men have filled up the vacant spaces, and the consecrated banner has been seized from hands that lijid stiffened in death. The gifted and spiritual Melville B. Coxe, who went out in 1833, was not alone in his faith and fortitude. He spoke of going to "a land of sickness," and stipulated that if he should die a friend of his youth should come and write his epitaph. But " what shall I write ?" was the inf[uiry of the Christian brother. The impassioned missionary was prompt in reply : " Write, though a thousand tall, let Africa live!" In a few months this heroic and heavenly-minded messenger of the cross finished his brief course, and his body found a resting-place in the land of swamp and fever. Such losses have been IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) V ■^ ^ /. O V f^. :/. "• //// ^m W/jL 1.0 I.I *4£ 12.2 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" - ► V] (^ //, p^ ■>. o oy '■> 7 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716) 872-4503 •fi ' I 92 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. keenly felt. But the dust of the mission graveyards along the line of that baleful coast is precious and full of promise. For long centuries the sepulchre of patriarchs in Canaan was the only pledge to the covenant people, and the assurance that they should go up and possess the promised land. Burial-places in which the dust of missionaries and of members of their families has been rendered to the mould is the consecration of many a heathen land. The subject of mission effort and enterprise, on the western coast of Africa, has an aspect of encourage- ment and hope. Light has been shot into this "darkest dungeon of the planet." From the Gambia to the Gaboon, a distance of two thousand miles, an infamous traffic in human rlesh and blood has been brought to an end. Slave-pens have been transformed into marts of legitimate traffic. One of the earliest missionary erections, a spacious old sanctuary, that has long echoed the strains of praise to God, was framed and sheathed out of the beams and planks of a condemned slaver. Thousands of people along an extended line of coast have heard the glad tidings of salvation, and have been the subjects of a blessed spiritual emancipa- tion. There seemed to be a dark day for Africa in 1822, and signs ominous of a deeper bondage, as a slave-ship sped out full sail through the lagoon of Lagos ; a sinister-looking hulk, packed with human beings, destined for the Brazil market. But a cruiser crossed her path, and the boom of a British gun said to the slaver, " Yield up thy prey." Among the slaves w. AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 03 on the )urage- iarkest to the ifamous affht to ,0 marts jsionary ,s long ed and emned ed line lion, and ancipa- frica in e. as a of that crowded cargo was an entire family, father and mother, boys and girls, ruffianly torn from their homes. A bright boy from that group was sent to a school in Sierra Leone. He was early converted to God, became an explorer, a successful evangelist, and ultimately was entrusted with episcopal responsibilities. Noble in physique, eloquent in speech, and fervent in spirit, the venerable Crowther is one of the greatest and most apostolic of missionary bishops; and his flourishing diocese, containing the home of his childhood, extends far as the Niger and the Benone. The work along the line of the Gold and Slave Coasts, prosecuted at a great cost of men and means, has not been in vain in the Lord. Once it was affirmed that the whole regir was merely a vast moral savan- nah, a dense steamii'^' wamp, and that from such rank and reeking plains* ot atrocity, vileness, and superstition, no harvest of golden sheaves could ever be gathered. But, in looking upon such a scene of widespread and appalling misery and helpless woe, Christian people have been led to realize the need of a deeper dependence upon Divine aid, and of a supreme consecration to the service of God. Missionary faith has never failed or faltered. Sometimes the shadows hide the heaviest wheat of all. The grain is already ripe, and the reaper must thrust in his sickle and reap, or it will rot to the ground. " Say not ye, there are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest ? Behold I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look ou the fields ; for they are white already to harvest. \ J i 94 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal : that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together." The southern section of the African continent com- prises Bushmen, Kaffirs, Zulus, Matalabe, Namaquas, and other tribes to the north of the Orange River. South Africa was early selected as a field of missionary enterprise. Beginning from the Cape colony, the work of evangelization was rapidly pushed to the interior of the country. Through the agency and in- fluence, the patience and statesmanlike .sagacity, of such men as Robert Moflfat, William Shaw, and pio- neers of the Moravian and other societies, a bright and imperi.shable record has been secured. When these men, and others of like consecrated spirit and purpose, commenced their missionary course, there was a serious doubt even in the minds of some Chris- tian people as to the capacity of African tribes for the reception of the gospel, or for elevation in the scale of civilization. It was proposed by Mr. Moffat to a Dutch settler, in whose house he had obtained per- inisoion to preach, that some of the servants should be brought in to the service. " What," roared the burly Boer, who had a hundred of the despised out- casts of all the tribes at his command, " preach to the Hottentots ! You may as well go to the mountains and preach to the baboons ; or, if you like, I'll fetch my dogs, and you may preach to them." The mis- sionary had intended to announce the " great salva- tion " from the standpoint of an inspired and solemn m^^: AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 95 question. But, prompt to seize the incident of the occasion, the words of the Syrophenician suppliant were selected for a theme : " Truth, Lord ; yet the dog8 eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." The teaching of Christ was elucidated, and the subject was searchingly applied. " No more of that," pleaded the softened Boer, " I will bring in all the Hottentots in the place." Benighted bushmen have since then been brought to hear of Jesus and his love, and have been made the recipients of a common salvation. Some of the most treasured trophies of the South African Mis- sions have been won from the families of this scattered and politically insignificant race. Latent genius for song has found a remarkable development. At the dedication of a bushland place of worship, erected under missionary auspices, a choir of bush negroes, assisted by converted slaves from the colony, signalized the occasion by strains of music that would have enriched cathedral worship. They sang with fervor, fine sense of appreciation and good effect, a selection from Haydn's magnificent oratorio of the "Creation," "the Heavens are Telling." Thus a grand chorus which moves cultured and select audiences at home, and thrills to an indescribable emotion, broke the silence of an African wilderness, and filled with rapture the souls of converted Hottentot worshippers. Who could have supposed, even when touched and transformed by the power of Divine grace, that these servile wanderers had the ability to achieve success m 96 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. I f in a delicate and difficult sphere ? Shall not these ransomed sons and daughters of the bushland, taught to praise the Saviour's name on earth, one day form part of a heavenly choir, and there sincj unto him that hath loved them and washed them from their sins in his own blood ? Ten long and trying years, the apostolic Moffat spent among the barbarous and benighted Namaquas and his missiopary faith and purpose were sorely tested. But ultimately he was cheered by a success that revealed the glorious possibilities of mission work. " At length they listened, at last began to tremble, and finally wept; repenting of sin, they forsook it; and hearing of the gospel, they believed it." Bushmen and Namaquas, in their native degrada- tion, hold a low place in the average qualities of man- hood. But South Africa has races possessed of superb capabilities of which she may v/ell be proud. Kaffirs and Zulus have encountered the best and bravest of British troops, and have proved themselves to be no contemptible foes. Bechuanas maintain their inde- pendence, and give evidence of progressive ability. But over all this region, at the commencement of missionary enterprise, there rested the deep and settled gloom of an uncivilized heathenism. The people walked in darkness and dwelt in the land of the shadow of death. Fierce and warlike races delighted in blood and rapine. No traveller with safety could pass through the borders of any of these tribes, for the people were habitually cruel and treacherous. 1*^^; n.-n' AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 97 An ordinary occurrence may indicate the general condition of the country on the arrival of the earliest European missionaries. The kraal or cattle -fold of a South African village is surrounded by grass or leed- thatched huts, resembling the corn-stacks of a farm yard. In that enclosure the chief assembles his people : warriors in the centre, and the women and children on the outer circle. By a rude but stirring eloquence he moves the barbarian horde, fires the martial spirit of the men, and prepares them for any plundering excursion. The eye of the speaker dilates, and his voice becomes tremulous with passion and ex- citement. Distant hills visible upon the horizon are the home of a peaceful and prosperous people, with multitudes of flocks, and herds of sheep and oxen, but " their hearts are white as milk." In their sense of security they may be easily vanquished. Exultant response greets the fierce appeal. An attack is at once agreed upon, and, armed for murderous deed, troops march the same night. Beneath the streaming starlight, they move stealthily across the intervening plain, and reach the hills at early dawn. A savage shout startles the encampment. There is slender re- sistance, for the people have been taken by surprise. Men, women, and children are slaughtered without mercy. Houses are fired, and the village swept by a ffeneral conflagration. Cattle are driven ott', and the victors bearing their spoil are welcomed back with shout and triumph. The heart sickens at the thought of such atrocities, but this was the normal condition of I f 98 THE MACEDONIAN CRT. an immense extent of territory. Wliether the fittest always survived in the treacheries of warfare may be open to question. Whole tribes were exterminated. Human life was lightly regarded, and it is only a matter of surprise that such sanguinary struggles had not long ago depopulated the whole land. South African tribes in their savage state seem to have been literally without any knowledge of God. It is said that when pioneer missionaries first began to speak concerning the existence of a Supreme Being, of the fall and the entrance of sin into the world, of the incarnation and sacrificial work of the Redeemer, of the resurrection and the hope of immortality, their statements were regarded as fabulous and as little to be believed as were native exaggerations con- cerning lions and wild beasts of the jungle. But the most barbarous of savages have a conscience that may be reached by the light of truth. To a fierce chief Mr. Motiat spoke of resurrection and future judg- ment. The idea was new and tremendous even to a heathen mind. " What," he exclaimed', " are these words about ? Will my father arise ? Will all the dead slain in battle arise ? Hark, ye wise men, who- ever is wise among you, the wisest of past generations, did ever your ears hear such strange news ? " But as the light of revelation dawned upon his savage mind, and conscience spoke of deeds of rapine and murder, appalled by the thought of meeting the victims of many heartless cruelties, the barbarian sought to silence the missionaries. " The words of the resurrec- J AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 99 tion," he said, " are too great to be heard. 1 do not want to hear about the dead arising. The dead cannot arise ; they must not arise." For South Africa the day dawns ! Darkness of heathenism is being gradually dispersed by the ad- vancing light of Christianity. Manifold are the evidences of amelioration. Regions through which once white men dare not attempt to travel are now intersected by safe thoroughfares. Churches and cul- tivated lands furnish evidence of religion and of pros- perous industry. Unwritten sounds have been gath- ered up and formed into a grammatical language. The Bible has been given to Kaffir and Bechuana, and thousands of natives are able to read the Old and New Testaments. At Kurumen the sable compositors in the printing office are the very men who a few years Itefore would have been grasping the blood-stained spear, and revelling in deeds of slaughter. In the early (lays of mission effort a few enterprizing traders pene- trated to the heart of an uncivilized territory. But the very idea of traffic was turned to scorn, and not a single purchaser could be found. Now, European manufactures to the value of three or four hundred thousand pounds sterling annually pass through the mission stations into the interior, imported and ex- changed by the people who a few years ago had no conception of the utility of commerce.* To the men and women who led the van of evan- * 8ee Rev. Dr. Muffat's address at Mildmay Conference, 1878. 100 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. gelization, exhibited the power and purity of the religion of Jesus, set to the savages around them an example of the sweetness and attractiveness of a Christian home, inculcated and exemplified the spirit and precepts of peace and goodwill, translated the sacred Scriptures and laid the foundation of a native literature, secured the erection of commodious places of worship and the establishment of efficient schools, trained a native agency to such an extent that were every foreign missionary to retire from the field the work would still go on — to the founders of this great and glorious movement we accord the recog- nition that is due to saints and heroes. Their names shall be had in everlasting remembrance. The explorer of Eastern and Equatorial Africa enters a new and densely-populated region. A spacious and magnificent territory, abounding in material re- sources, can scarcely be surpassed in any other part of the world. Apparently it is a rich reserve for the African race, and seems designed by Providence for some future and marvellous development. But the deep shadows of heathen superstition rest upon this land, and upon its interesting races the blight and desolation and unmitigated curse of slavery have heavily fallen. Through means of an inhuman traffic in flesh and blood, with all its accompanying evils, scenes of almost Eden loveliness have been changed to pandemonium. This sum of all villanies is at its worst in the interior of Africa. Hunting parties, selected from the more warlike tribes, are furnished M ' AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 101 with firearms by Arabian slave dealers. As the ordi- nary weapons of the natives are bows and arrows, a murderous musketry fire produces an immediate panic. There is no alternative in the customary raid but to fiy and be shot down, or to stand and submit to a bondage worse than death. Many scenes of horror were witnessed by Dr. Livingstone. They were pathetically said to " harden all within and petrify the feelings ;" and, as he beheld the " tears of such as were oppressed and had no comforter," he could find no relief except 'in the remembrance that "He that is higher than the highest regardeth." An incident lifts the veil from fearful outrages upon common rights of humanity. One of the finest of the interior tribes has a home on the banks of the beautiful Lualaba river. The market-place is a wonted resort for amusement and social intercourse. One day an armed half-caste and sinister-looking Arab, and a band of ruffian followers, came suddenly into the midst of this peace- able and pleasant scene. Suspicion was at once excited, and the worst fears were speedily realized. Beneath the whole heavens a more villanous deed was not to be witnessed than that which was suddenly enacted on that sultry summer morning. Deadly fire was opened upon the helpless crowd, and volley succeeded volley with terrible effect. Gaps were rapidly made in the mass of two thousand human beings, and slaughter was indiscriminate. Through the murderous bullet of the assailant, or by plunging into the deep river, hundreds lost their lives. " Shot after shot ■■ ■ kr 102 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. II!: continued to be fired on the helpless and perishing. Some of the long line of heads disappeared quietly " beneath the water ; " whilst other poor creatures threw up their arms, as if appealing to the great Father above, and sank." Villages were set on fire. " As 1 write I hear the loud wails on the left bank over those who are slain, ignorant of their many friends now in the Lualaba. 0, let thy kingdom come ! " * The extent to which this infernal business is carried on, and the enormity of the evil, may be inferred from the fact that no less than fifteen thousand agents are employed by one flourishing Egyptian city, Khartoum. They are engaged solely for the purpose of ensnaring and enslaving human beings. Marching through the night, in some part of the Nile basin, they steal upon an unsuspecting village, and fire the grass huts. As the sleeping occupants seek to escape from their flam- ing habitations, the men are shot down, and the women and children are secured as slaves. The necks of mothers and maidens are thrust into a forked wooden pole and securely lashed, while the children are attached by ropes, and thus a living chain is formed. By secret paths the pitiable procession marches to the coast. There, like bales of merchandise, the almost heart-broken captives are crowded together into tlie hot and stifling air of the pestilential slave-dhow. There is a dreary uniformity in the main facts of African slavery. " The tale was almost invariably one * Dr. Livingstone's Last Journals, July 11th, 1871. AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 103 of surprise, kidnapping, and generally of murder — always of. indescribable suffering on the way down to the coast and on the dhow voyage."* Then, it has been affirmed that for each marketable slave that reaches the sea-board, at least ten lives are lost in the interior of the country. It is estimated that, through the terri- tory of the Zambesi and Shire rivers, the Lake Nyassa, the Rovuma, and other hunting grounds, during a long and uninterrupted period, this vile traffic involved annually the death of half a million of human beings- Details such as these are saddening and sickening to thought and feeling. But they belong to the sum of Africa's wrongs, and give meaning to the Macedonian cry, " Come over and help us." These facts enable us in some measure to realize the nature of missionary obligation : " to bind up the broken-hearted, to pro- claim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Eastern and Central African missions are compara- tively in their infancy. But the beneficent effects of evangelical agency and influence are already apparent. The slave market at Zanzibar, which received annually, and passed over to Arab traffickers, from twenty to twenty-five thousand persons, has been broken up, • Sir Bartle Frere. For the main facts connected with the " East African Slave-Trade," the deeds of Arab traffickers in human flesh and blood, the markets in which slaves are sold, and countries, chiefly Mohammedan, through which the captured Africans are dispersed, see "Report on Sir Bartle Frere 's Mission to Zanzibar," presented to both Houses of Parliament, 1873. l| '1 ; 104 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. ^ ) and selected as the site of Ihe Universities' mission premises. Cheering tidings reach us that the Living- stonia enterprise has succeeded in stopping the slave- trade around the seven hundred miles of the Lake Nyassa coast; from which, in fornier times, accom- panied by all the atrocities of the system, nineteen tliousand slaves were annually carried off. " All I can add in my loneliness," said Dr. Livingstone, as he sorrowed for the wrongs of the captive, " may heaven's rich blessing come down upon every one, American, English, or Turk, who will help to heal the open sore of the world ! " * These touching words of the great missionary explorer have been appropriately inscribed > on his tomb in Westminster Abbey ; and through these, as the best friend of Africa, " he being dead yet speaketh." The people of Central Africa give promise of capa- bility for improvement. Dr. Livingstone's judgment was rarely at fault, for sympathy with humanity in all its forms only quickened his perception, and his estimate of the interior tribes was almost always favorable. Nsama's people, resident in the lovely country to the west of Lake Tanganyika, are enthusi- astically described. Many of them are said to be handsome in form and feature, and to exhibit as per- fect a phrenological development as could be seen in an European assembly. An impression that the true type of negro was to be found in the ancient * Blaikie's Life of Dr. Livingstone, p. 464. 'iHIlt AFUICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 105 nission Living- 3 slave- e Lake accom- lineteen lU I can B, as be heaven's merican , )pen sore the great inscribed tbrousjb dead yet Ei^'vptian, rather than in the coarse ugliness of the West Coast, received abundant confirmation. " The African races are of a type ditferent from wliat Euro- peans are accustomed to associate with Ir.gli and polislied civilization, and undoubtedly some of their f'iist(Mns are barbarian ; but the African races are open to be toned down, moditied, and improved upon as were the primitive customs of Europe."' * Central Africa is all a surprise. Instead of a dreary waste of burning and unsheltered sand, as had been supposed, it has broad lakes and rolling rivers, healthy upland^;, and a rich tropical foliage. And it is quite as marvellous a thing, where the traveller iiad ex- pected to come into contact with inferior types of the Imiiian family, to meet the swarthy but comely chil- dren of the sun, dwellers by the great inland seas. To tlie African races a noble continent has been a.ssigned, and we cannot but believe that a i;reat future is in reserve for christianized Africa. In the earlier period of the world's history, physical force prevailed. Men of sinew and muscle commanded distinction. Then came the age of intellectual achieve- nient. Mental qualities and attributes still exercise a (loiiiinatin<; intluence. But are there no intimations of a purely moral and spiritual superiority ? Are we not possibly nearing a time when culture of the soul^ graces of character, and the beauty of holiness shall win the most trenuine admiration .'' Then shall Africa K f;v I Contemporary liirinc, Deceinher, ISS2. 8 lOG THE MACEDONIAN CRY. I i f have her turn ! In many attractive qualities, suscepti- bility of moral nature, exuberance of feel in<:^, fervor of passion, intensity of affection, glow of enthusiasm, love of music, ecstasy of song, instincts of religion, and rapture of devotion, the finer type of the negro race, as found in the populous lake region, can scarcely be surpassed. Surely the day of redemption draws nigh ! Relieved from slavery, purified through faith, ennobled by Christian culture, a long-despised people may come to furnish some of the best and most beautiful specimens of a sanctified humanity. Swarthj' tribes shall rise in the scale of an exaltetl civilization. Right and rank, in council and congress, will be recognized and awarded. Europa and other leading members of the great human family can then welcome the long exiled one, and say, "It was meet that we should be glad : for this our sister was dead, and is alive again : and was lost, and is found." Everywhere the light is breaking I A period of dreary monotony is passing away, never to return. Unexpected facilities are afforded to travel and IratHc. The Nile and the Ni^er, the Coni;o and the C'oanza, the Zambesi and the Shire, and other great rivers, form magnificent natural highways to the very heart of the continent. Nor is it easy for us to grasp the significance of such a fact. The mighty (.'ongo alone, with its tributaries, drains an enormous and den.sely populated region of eighty thousand s([uare miles. On central lakes, the Nyassa, the Tanganyika, and the Victoria Nyanza, steam and other foi-ees of civili- AFIUCA AND ISLKS OF THE SEA. 107 epti- or of , love , and race, sly be \\\^h '. lobled may tutiful tribes )Ci;nizecl bers of le long )uld be again : riod of return. iratHc. 'oan/a, rivers, ■y heart asp tlie lo alone, Idensely n\iles. Ik a, anil ,f civili- /,ation bejjin to be utilized in the interests of relisjion and coninierce. It is worthy of reniendirance and record that missionaries have been amonirst the fore- most and most heroic of African ])ioneers. They have mostly formed the vanguard of this great move- ment of the century ; and when the history of human progress shall have been written, many a page shall glow with the splendor of their names. But such achievements are all too great for the chronicles of earth, and doubtless thev are inscrilted before the eternal throne. The area of uncivilized heathenism is not Ixmnded exclusively by the limits of the Dark Continent. Deep shadows still rest upon adjacent territory, and lie thick beneath the ben itantly irriors roat oV V-Ht)\V- t'actioii- 1(1 N'.'NV e IivcmI V near, anc'u'nt n-ds hatl red into 1 of lu'V own tlu' , Steep le 1)1 ack still tkr 1 all the 1. Tims ii'e Nveve "eat'ed n'» iinniovtul aii'l ke led on tke ioinpelk''^l in .self-tlofcnce to put loaded iiiu.sket.s into tlie hands of 1 lis men. Nature was robed in almost peerless beauty. The sky was serene, and a sea of crystal clearness laved the coral strand. Islands were frini^ed with an ex(juisite tropical foliaj^c If there was an elv-sium on earth, it must siu'elv be liere ! But man was vile beyond description. The tall and ferocious savages, with painted bodies and bushy heads, a spear in one hand and a club in the other, that rushed down to the shore, were probaldy fresh from a cannibal feast, and read}' for any sliudderini,^ deed of inhumanity. At that time whole villai^'es were depopulated, to provide human ile.sh for the constantly recurring repast. The language of that group contains no word for corpse, Itut one that signifies " a body to be eaten." Fiji '^ islanders had a bad reputation over all other heathen people." Their abominations were unnamc- able. Tiie Rev. Robert Young, who went as a mission- ary deputation to "the Southern World " in 18.33, in reminiscences of his visit, depicts many a dark scene. After a reference to Lakeml)a and Viwa, he tells how he proceeded to Mbau, the capital of the countiy, and " doubtless the greatest hell upon earth." Six ovens were show'n to him in which eighteen human beinijs had been recently cooked, in order to provide a feast for some distinguished stranger. Remains of the horrid repast were still to be seen. A large stone at the door (jf one of the heathen temples, against which tlie head, of manv victims had been da.shed, still bore the marks of blood. No wonder that the pen faltered, fm 112 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. and that tliu writer was compelled to pause in his narrative. " Tliere are scenes of wickedne-^s, forms of cannibalism and depravity in that country which cannot l)e told." Dire were the doinjjs of heathen Fiji. But what an amazini:^ chanrre has been wrought ! That group of islands has been christianized, ceded to Great Britain, and constitutes the advanced post of her commerce in the Southern Pacific. A distinguished naval ollicer, during a visit to those islands, noted striking way-marks of progress. At a religious ser- vice, conducted with reverence and spiritual feeling, it was known that every man present had been a can- nibal up to fifteen years of that time. A venerable- looking chief, once the most sanguinary and ferocious in that terrible land, Bible in hand and spectacles on forehead, followed the subject with eager and devout interest. Tlieie was a fatal oven, not twenty yards away, in which human bodies had been baked for the savage feast. A tree, covered with notches, to mark the number of victims, still perpetuated a record of dark and evil deeds. And yet, according to the testi- mony of the late Governor, Sir Arthur Gordon, " the people of Fiji are now a Christian people." A missionar}' of the London Society, in contrast with a later scene, graphically describes a first night spent in New (Guinea. On this earlier occasion there were fires gleauiinn; throuixh the groves of cocoa-nut trees. The evening was soft, but the sultry air thrilled with the cries of helpless women. Heathenism, in its foulest and most repulsive forms of cannibalism and AFRICA AND ISLES OF THE SEA. 113 led to ost of lished noted IS ser- eeling, a can- erable- rocious Lcles on devout : yards iminlerous racjc, was all around, and thcro was none to help or restrain. Seven years later, in the course ot" which the softening and transform ing power of the gospel had been experienced, he noted the change. There was the gleam of tires in the same cocoa grove. But instead of shrieks there were sweet songs of praise to the Redeemer. Converted natives love their hymn hooks. They were now engaged in evening worship, and sweet melodies floated upon the evening air. Thus the promi-e finds fulfilment: "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them ; and the desert .shall rejoice and blossom as the ro.se. It .shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and smging. An attempt was made in 1875 to reach the debased and cannibal savages of New Britain and New Ireland. The principal agents in the enterprise, in addition to an intrepid English missionary and his noble wife, were earnest Fijian and Samoan converts. Natives of the South Sea have generally consi. oi" the /e the ,1 that iberiiii;- an in- popiila- vix aii'l lowest lUS !»•' vcness, )(1 ami 111, 11 "t oinc in suvpvisi' to tlu" inprovi'- into sal- rt-ork liiive vati(>Ti to cvcrv on«' tliat Ix-liovotli. Divint' uracc lias touched and roused even the lonix-dorniant faculties of the T'apuan. Under the influence of Christian teach - ill<^^ accompanied by the energy of the Holy (Ihost, hitent forces have been developed. When the Mora- vian Bi.shop De Schweinitz looked at the photograph of one of the earliest converts, an assistant at tlu; Khenezer Mission, and heard of the fervor of his prayer and the inipressiveness of his .sermons, he "could .scarcely believe that this man had been a naked .savage, squatting in the .sand and roasting lizards for his food, ioinini; his countrvmen in the vilest abominations, and livinji as near to the state of the irrational creation as it is po.ssible for a human bcinjj to reach." * The .signal triumphs of the gospel, in the lands of uncivilized, heathenism, demonstrate a continued elR- cacy and an ahiding adaptation to all the variations and conditions of the human race. Tt purifies and consecrates the highest culture, and it also elevates and ble.sscs the most deeply-.sunken tribes of earth. A characteristic sermon, on the general spread of the gospel, was preached by an eminent evangelist of the last century. An attempt was made to trace out the probable course of .spiritual effort and influence, and of the conver.sion of the world to Christ. It was sup- posed that the heathen bordering on the frontier lines of Christendom would be the flrst to be led to worship Evanijclica/ Allinvcf, 1873, p. 021. no THE MACEDONIAN CRY God in si)irit and in truth. Tlic Ood of love 'would then prepare a pathway for His messengers into the polar regions, the deepest recesses of America, the interior parts of Afnca, " yea, into the lieart of China and Japan, with the countries adjoining them." liut one " consiermon. The enthusiasm was contagious, and led to grand results. On the 2nd of October, in the parlor of Mrs. Wallis, at Kettering, Northamptonshire, a handful of Baptist ministers met to devise means for the world's conversion. It was a day of small and feeble things. The faith of the men was sublime. A IMissionary Society was formed that day, and the year following, I7!)'i, the first missionaries sailed for India. On his way out to the East, still fired with the expanding idea of missionary enterprise, Carey sent back an earnest appeal to the people at home. Aspirations were not bounded by the necessities of India, or even of all Asia. Africa was but a little way from England, and Madagascar a little further on. South America and the numerous and larixe islands in the India and China Seas would not, he hoped, be passed over. At a meeting of the Independent or Congregational ministers, held at Warwick, June SOth, 1703, a mis- sionary question was proposed for consideration : 124 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. " What is the duty of Christians with respect to the spread of the gospel ?" It was felt to be a solemn obligation " to employ every means in their power to spread the knowledge of the ^ pel botli at home and abroad." A resolution was adopted in favor of the organization of a Missionary Union, and it was decided that the first Monday evening of each month should be set apart for prayer for the success of all denomi- nations in their attem])ts to spread abroad the know- ledge of salvation. Two years later, 1795, in further- ance of the same views, the London Missionary Society was founded ; composed at first of members of several evaniielical communities, it was soon left to the management of the Independents. Under the leadership of Simeon of Cambridge, Venn, and others, the Church Missionary Society was established in 1799. In 1S04 a few Cliristian men came together in a London business ofKce to devise means for giving tlie Bible to destitute parts of Wales. But why not for tlie world ? Born of that sudden inspiration, the British and Foreign Bible Society was at once organized. The enterprise of the Church jias at ditt'erent times been directed towards God's ancient people. There has been the longing of many a he-irt, " that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion !" • This feeling has found practical expression in the organiza- t'ijii of several societies : the London Society for Pro- moting Christianity among the Jews in LSOH, the Church of Scotland Society in 1^40, the British 'fl MODERN MISSIONS. 125 Pro- \^, the liitish Society in 1842, the Mission of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843, and other societies, A measure of success has attended these laudal)le etibrts. One hundred thousand Jews have been baptized into the faith of Christ. But have Christians on the whole been sufficiently solicitous for the salvation of all Israel ? "To the Jew first" was the apostolic idea of spiritual enterprise. Are not many bright hopes and anticipations bound up with the fortunes and promised restoration of the covenant race ? " Now, if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminish- ing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness ? " A movement amonrj the students of a New Enjxland seminary led to the organization of the first missionary society on the American continent. The saintly mother of Samuel I. Mills had early dedicated him to Cod; and, when converted, his thoughts turned to missions. One day, as several of the students met to hold a prayer-meeting in a neighboring grove, a thunder- storm drove them to the shelter of a haystack. There the question of missions was discussed. The gospel ouiiht to be at once sent, throuLrh some of their own number, to the dark heathen of Asia. This matter became the subject of earnest prayer. A marble shaft crowns the historic spot. But the resolve of that band of five students found a more endurinfj memorial. It led to the formation, June, 1810, of the American Board of Foreign Missions — a society which has sent out well-nigh two thousand missionaries; whose agents Mil i 1 ■ 1 I i Wice eclioes voice, and onward fhjw The joyous shouts from every land." T/ir lUth (Hillary, by Robert Mackenzie, Frank. S(|. Ed., p. 'AS. MISSION STATIONS. 127 In ordtT to obtain an adecjimtc impression of mis- si(^nary enterprise, in its truly magnificent proportions, it is necessary to glance over the entire field of opera- tions. A visit to the pi-incipal stations takes us round tlie world. Ten years ago the missions of the Mi'tho- (iist Kpiscopal (Jhureh were "the travel posts" by whieli a inissionary statesman and liis companions made the circuit of the fdobe. Westward from New York, tliey crossed the continent, halting for a brief space at the ^longolian mission on the Pacific Coast. An ocean voyage brought them to Japan, atlbrding intercourse with the brethren at Yokohama and Jeddo ; thence to China, and the missions at Foo-Chow, Ivu- kiang and Peking ; thence westward to India, Turkey, and home; "still facing the setting sun, journeying by the signal iires of mission stations, and to the min- strelsy of mission songs," Taking Canada as a geographical centre and start- ing-point in our missionary outlook, a field of stern toil lies to the north; for men have braved and borno the snows of Labrador and the rigors of the frozen zone. Greenland's icy mountains have been celebrated in story and song as the scene of inevitable hardships and of indomitalile zeal. That enterprise was the morning star of the modern movement. It is nearly a century and a half since the brave Scandinavian, Egcde, accompanied by his not less heroic wife, left a little Fatherland pari.sh and sought the stormy and frost-bound regions of the Arctic. Faith and patience were long and sorely tested by the stupidity of the f V 128 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. natives. r>ut at last tliore camo a inenioraMe day, when torpid sensibilities were touclied, a fountain of feeling unsealed, and the succes.s of the mission assured. The work remains to this day. Greenland has seventy missionaries, and a Christian connnunity of twelve thousand ijeople. The missions of North America generally, through all their history and across the continent, have been siirnalized bv deeds of intrepidity and heroism. No work could be more arduous than that of reaching the roaming tribes of the Great Lone Land, in their pagan hardness. But, at an early period, wherever the Hud- son's Bay Comjmny established its "storm-beaten sta- tions," James Evans and other pioneers drove their dog sledires, and the trading posts became centres of religious iiiliuence. The work is still perpetuated by men of like consecrated character and purpose. John McDougall emulates the spirit and treads in the steps of his sainted and immortal father. The mission of Thomas Crosby to the Indians of British Columbia, like a pillar of tire suddenly kindled in a dark place, bri'ditens a long line of Pacific coast, and claims the attention of wandering heathen tribes. Dr. Sheldon Jackson is known beyond the limits of his vast charge as " the apostle of the Ilocky Mountains." The irreat southern field has had less of the romance of missions than some other sections of this American continent. But the present outlook is full of hopeful interest. Missionaries are making good their position in Mexico. That country was entered fourteen years MISSION STATIONS. 120 day, in oi ,urecl. ^enty vvelve rongb J been 1. No ng the pagan Huu- :en sta- e their ntros of ated by John \-\c steps ission of )Uunbia, k place, linis the Isheldon It charge :omance tnierican hopeful I position len years a;-'(). Eiglit Protestant societies, with one liundred and fifty agents, now report ten tliousand converts, from a mass of ten million of spiritually degraded people. Trade luis recently received an immense impetus; and, side by side with the revival of com- merce, through beautiful Mexican valleys, "the streams of salvation are already flowing in deeper and swifter currents." The prevailing religion of Central America, with its several miniature republics, comprising an aggregate population of two million and seven hundred thousand, is that of Roman Catholicism. An English Wesleyan mission has been sustained for several years at Honduras. The Moravians have seven stations along the Musquito coast, and over a thousand members. A gracious revival of religion has been experienced during the past year and several hundred members added to the communion. There are few lands of sunnier or richer tropical beauty than those of the West India Isles. But at the commencement of the century the world had scarcely a fouler spot. Society was fetid with crime ; " a black amalgam of European and African vices, combinins: the crossness of the one with the fire of the other." Missions were an experiment. The men who led the van bore in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus. But as the facts of slavery and of social life came to be known, the heart and conscience of England were aroused. Voices were heard across the deep. A signal fiame was seen to VM) THE MACEDONIAN ('H\. $ Iturn l)(.'iH'atli a darkencMl sky. Kloiniciit incn dr. mauih'A tliat the shackles should be struck oil' from the slave, and that throuf^di relii^nous instruction some reparation should ])e made for loni^^-contiiiued and grievous wron*,'. Since then those islands have been brouj^dit under the inHuence of Christianity, and can scarcely be re^^arded now as nnssi(jns in the proper sense. A new history lias been be^^un. 'I'hree hundred ministers of several denominations re])ort " eiLrhty-five thousand communicants, and two hundred and iifty thousand regular attendants at the house of God." It is somewhat disappointing to notice, in a cruise through the archipelago, that pulpits are generally occupied by foreign preachers. Have the ranks of West India converts failed to furnish suitable material for a native ministry? As we touch the continent, an Indian mission of Britisli Guiana, begun forty years ago, sends a gleam of lifjht across the waves. A missionary of the Propagation Society, in the early part of 1 SSI, bap- tized fourteen hundred natives; and he believes that there are few cases, "where so many at a time, with so little to tempt them, have sought admission into the Christian Church." The Moravians began their work at Paramaribo over a century acjo. Thev have a strong station, thousands of adherents, and are responding to an earnest appeal from the Bush land. A magnificent territory almost as large as Europe, with a population of eleven million, forms the empire of Brazil. The hope has long been cherished, as the MISSION STATIONS. 131 i\t'n tl*'- [)tV from ,c)n some Lied au'l ivc been , and can le proper I hundred i.^dity-iive and lU'ty of God." L a cruise (foneraUy ranks ot ,1c material ronli, of elosei' contact witli Protestant civilization and connnerco, that a hri^jhter and 1 tetter era would lie inaiii^Mirated in tlie reli<,'ious life oF that land. But Romanism " Pray for South America!" Such was the re(|uest recently forwarded to the monthly jtrayer concert of one of the j^reat missionary ('hurches. The spiritual (k^titution of nine republics and ten nations were touehingly described; their hopeless moral condition culling to the keepers of God's oracles with tlie Mace- donian voic(! : Come over (ind help us. Missions on the Jjrazilian coast, at Montevideo and Buenos Ayre.s on the Plata .sliores, at Rosario in tlie interior, and at a few points on the West Coast, are still few and far lietween; and yet "from these centres the lines nuist 'JO out to evan<'elize the continent." The l^razilian work is carried on under the auspices of Presbyterians, Conr;re s MISSION STATIONS. I.S5 lon<^ be anniVjal arouiifl savai^c \ power s felt to d there," ittle-axe, 3rpetrate island of issionary Coleridge having been struck off from the roll of the American Board. The entire cost of turninfj this little nation from idols to serve the living God was " greatly less tlian half the cost of one iron-clad ship of war," less than half the annual value of the country's increasing commerce. Hawaii has the banner church of the Protestant world, numbering between four and five tlionsand communicants. A jubilee sermon, June IS70, in memorial of deliverance from heathenism and the introduction of Christianity, was preached by a native pastor. It would be pleasant to linger on thrse isles ci the ocean, where a nation has been born in our day. Jjut we have many stations to visit, and must embark for " the Land of the Risinrr Sun." The favored empire of Japan, in which we begin to meet and mingle with the forms of Oriental life, is the newest tield of modern missions. The first mis- sionaries to enter the country, after the unlo';king of treaty ports, were those of the Protestant Episcopal, Preslnterian and Reformed Churches of America, in is')!). An exceedingly effective and successful work was oi'ganized by the American Board in lISGO. Con- tingents were furnished by the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States in 1873, and also by the Methodist Church of Canada. "We entered Japan," says Dr. Cochi-an, "just as the time was ripe for Christian work.''* Twenty diti'erent societies are * Tlu' iiiiiiii facts connected with the opening of Japan are tersely sununarized. In Dr. George Cochran, in papers fmni.shiMl for the '-'((iiadia)! Mdhodist Marjazint', Decemlter, 1880, and Tlu Missioiinry Outlook, January, 188.'^. 136 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. laboring harmoniously tof^ether in this land of the morning, for the evangelization of thirty-five million of people. A public service was held in Tokio, April 18S0, at which fourteen societies were represented, to celebrate the consummation of a complete translation of the New Testament into the Japanese language. The aggregate statistics of missions, as published in the report of the Evangelical Alliance of Japan, for lScS2, comprise one liundred and forty-five missionaries, one hundred and forty-nine ordained and assistant preachers, seventy-one theological students, and nearly five thousand communicants. The week of prayer at v,he commencement of 1883, was followed by a very blessed outpouring of the Holy Spirit, resulting in a more rapid accession of converts than had been previously known. An open liible and a Pentecostal baptism arc Japan's best hope. Yes, the day breaketh! Corea, "the Land of Morning Calm," to the w'est of Japan, with a population of ten million, intense ad- herents of Confucius, is slow to open her gates to the messen<]:ers of salvation. There is no missionarv sta- tion to attract us to the shores of that peninsula, and we pass on to the vast and populous empire lying on the south-eastern slope of the Asiatic continent ; an immense territory, numbering over seventeen hundred walled cities, and an estimated population of nearly four hundred million. A great and fjrowinc: work is b^ing done for China. Four hundred missionaries, including physicians and ladies, are fulfilling a blessed ministry, and ai'e extend- MISSION STATIONS. 137 i the lilUon April [,ecl, to ilation (Tuaf^e. [ in the r 188*2, :)naries, ssistant [ nearly rayer at f a very ing in a ad been rvtecostal (veakethl 3 west oi ,ense ad- ^es to the nary sta- sula, and lying on nent ; an hundred of nearly lov China. Icians and re extend- ing their efforts to the interior of the provinces. It took ten years to increase the first ten converts to a force of two hundred and twenty. But during half a decade, from 1877, communicants have increased from thirteen to twenty thousand. Between three and four hundred schools have been established, and other agencies are employed for difTusing gospel light. Pro- fessor Legge, of Oxford, claims that in thirty-five years Chinese converts have been multiplied two thousand- fold, the rate of increase being greater year by year. " Suppose it to continue the same other thirty-five years, and in 1913 there will be thirty-six millions of couimunicants, and a professedly Christian population of one hundred millions." Such statistical studies and estimates have a certain value. They have a basis of asceitained fact. But the most essential laws and forces of spiritual dynamics are not to be measured or tabulated. The residue of the Spirit is with God. China shall be visited with a Divine glory. Glancing away to the adjacent island of Formosa, with its three or four million of people, the light of a noble and successful mission gladdens the vision. Twelve years ago, one Saturday afternoon, without any knowledge of the language, a missionary of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, Dr. McKay, landed on the Forrnosan coast. What a moving tale of toil, trial, and triumph he has now to recite ! After four months he began to preach in a new and difficult tongue, and five months later a native convert accom- panied him on a missionary tour. Other converts 10 138 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. were won. Fierce persecution had to be encountered. Martyrs died for the truth. Savages clamored for the blood of the intrepid mii,sionary, but he seemed to be shielded by an invisible power. The son of a chief and four others were shot and decapitated ; and over their graves Dr. McKay in.scribed a monumental stone, " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." Still the word of the Lord grew and prevailed. Twenty churches have been planted in the northern part of the island, and as many native preachers have been raised up to make known the ^ocprd to their countrymen. The Asiatic coast Hue brings us to an important peninsula lying between (Jlilna and India. It com- prises Siam and Burman, with their connected terri- tory, and a population of some fifteen million. Siam, " the Kingdom of the Free," receptive of Western ideas, has yet to know the truth which can really secure the hijrhest freedon\. Buddhism is there enthroned, and its splendid temples are sustained at an annual cost of twenty-five million of dollars. Missionaries of the Presbyterian Board bear the banner of evangelical enterprise in Siam. " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," is the prayer of a Laos missionary's devoted wife, " reveal Thyself to those poor benighted ones." The work of the Baptist missionaries in Burmah has won wide and well-deserved renown. The names of the sainted Judson and his gifted wiv^es " will be remem- bered in the churches of Burmah in future times, when the pagodas of Guatama shall have fallen, and the spires of Christian temples shall gleam along the waters of the Irawaddy and Salwen." MISSION STATIONS. 119 nen. portant It corn- el terri- Siam, n ideas, cure the led, and cost of of the ngeUcal uickly," ed wife, The has won s of the 3 reniem- les, when and the Aong the ;S From the peninsula we pass on to the islands of the Indian Archipelago, Sumatra, populous Java, spacious Borneo, and the deep bays of Celebes, with a popula- tion of nearly thirty million. The Mohammedan religion very largely obtains ; but there are exceptions, as in the Buddhism of the Philippine group. Propa- gation and Dutch societies have stations at Sumatra. Thirty Dutch missionaries seek to establish the Re- formed faith in Java. Rhenish societies have made a beGfinnincr in Borneo. Celebes is said to be the most prosperous mission of the Holland Churches, having important stations and thousands of converts among the Malays of the peninsula. But up to the present time the strength of evangelical forces is palpably and painfully inadequate to the great work of bringing those beautiful islands beneath the benign influence of the gospel of Christ. New Guinea, to the east of the archipelago, is inha- bited by a Papuan race of people. It is one of the largest islands on the globe, and probably one of the darkest spots of heathendom. Not much was really known of the place or the people until the missionaries of the London Society planned their campaign about ten years ago ; except that the climate was deadly, the tribes savage and degraded, and the coast one that seamen sousfht to avoid. But couraijeous mis- sionary exploration has won the high encomium and medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and has led to the discovery of a superior type of people — in the interior. Already strong stations have been planted ^!P 140 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. along the line of immense coast, and the gospel will doubtless follow rapidly in the direction of recent exploration. The great insular continent of Australia, to which in geographical order we next arrive, is the home of three million of enterprising people, destined at no distant period to the possession of a mighty population. At the commencement of this century, in common with Tasmania, New Zealand, and adjacent islands, it was engulfed in deepest night. The country was little noticed except as a penal colony. No one dreamed that in so short a period it was to become the scene of a prosperous commerce ; bound to the rest of the civilized world by rapid and continuous communication, lines of superb steamers, and fleets of sailing ships. The first record concerning the heroic pioneer of Wesleyan missions, Samuel Leigh, was to the eftect that he had sailed for Australia eighteen months before, and had not been heard from. Aus- tralian Christianity, as represented by the leading evangelical denominations, exhibits a commanding character, having thoroughly organized agencies and institutions, and numerous missions to surrounding groups of islands. There is said to be " a larger pro- portion of well-educated people in the Australian colonies than among the same number of people at home, and their religious feeling is fully equal."* A pleasant sail over an equatorial sea, fanned by Stafinticfi of Protestant Missionary Societies, 1872, p. 96; MISSION STATIONS. 141 will icent vhich home stined ligV^ty ntury, Ijacent The colony, was to ound to itinuous fleets of e heroic J was to [eighteen anned by 5,P- breezes from spicy isles, takes us to the coral strand of Ceylon, " the celebrated Taprobane of other ac,'es." Were it not for the exhibitions of human depravity, this sunny and voluptuous island might be regarded as a paradise ; but the exquisite beauty of scenery must not render us insensible to the vileness of man, and the need of regenerating energy. Ceylon was early selected as a missionary field. Episcopal and Wesleyan societies are doing a strong and successful work. Thought turns eagerly to India. That ^reat southern Asiatic peninsula may well be regarded as the Ther- mopylae of modern missions. "India won," said the late Bishop Thompson, "and Asia is saved." This magnificent territory extends from Burmah to the distant Indus, and from Ceylon to Cashmere, a distance of two thousand miles. There is very much land to be possessed. An immense population, one-sixth of the human race, chiefly owns tlie supremacy of Queen Victoria, and has a special claim upon the thought and sympathies of British Christians. Earlier contingents of the missionary army forced their way in the face of all but insuperable obstacles. But there has been a visible interposition of Providence in behalf of the cause of India's evangelization. Conditions have hopefully changed. The Churches have not been slow to acknowledge the hand of God as it was " seen over against them," or to take advantage of new and auspicious openings for the spread of the gospel. Twenty-eight societies, represented by over a thousand 142 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. It missionaries, are moving in the harmony and vigor of concerted and aggressive action. Up to the close of the first half of this century, 1851, there were only about ninety thousand Christians in Hindustan ; but an aggregate of nearly half a million is now reported, one-third of whom are communicants.* Each period exhibits an increasing momentum of missionary effort. Two facts challenge special attention. Returns for the decade ending December, 1S81, reveal the hopeful fact that in these ten years the number of converts and of native ministers has been doubled. "None of the European or American Churches can exhibit such an increase." The Anglican Mission at Tinnevelly continues to be signalized by its accessions of converts. During the year 1882, one thousand and eight hundred persons were baptized, upon the profession of their f j,ith, by the Rev. I. S. Clough, of the Baptist Telugu Mission. Five hundred natives, in a body, have lately applied for baptism at a Wesley an station in the Madras Presidency. The second Decennial Confer- ence, composed of missionaries from every part of * The Gospel in all Lands, February, 188.3. * Statistics, prepared for the Calcutta Decennial Conference, indicate the increase of the decade : NATIVE CHRISTIANS. 1871. 18S1. India . .224,2o8 417,372 Burniah 62,729 75,510 Ceylon 31,376 35,708 Total.... 318,363 528,590 COMMUNICANTS. 1871. India 52,816 Burmah 20,514 Ceylon 5,164 Total issi. 113,32:) 24,929 6,843 78,494 145,097 i! !( MISSION STATIONS. un nror of Dse of 5 only i; but ported, period J effort, rns for hopeful onverts None of Dit such inevelly converts, hundred of tVieir Telugu lately in the Confer- part of Conference. ve TS. 1. 116 )14 164 113,325 24,929 6,843 194 145,097 India, was held at Calcutta early in January, 1S83. Thanks were offered to God for the unparalleled succe.ss which had crowned the toilers in tliat land. "That which in popular phrase is calle«l evangelical Christianity," wrote an observer of the assembly gathered on the banks of the Hooghly, " is a mighty power in the Empire, full of vitality and energy, intensely aggressive, org.inized and equipped for vic- tory, and on the march to the goal of certain success." * From India the pioneer missionary has crossed the border line to Afghanistan. Four millions of Af- ghans, though claiming a descent from the ten tribes of Israel, are followers of the Arabian prophtt. The Church of England station at Peshawur has a mem- bership of ninety converted Mohammedan.s. A noble boon to the Afghan is the Pushtu translation of the New Testament ; forming, as in many other cases, the foundation of a Christian literature. The conversion of a notorious robber, Dilawar Khan, on whose head the British had set a price, furnished a striking illus- tration of the transforming power of the gospel, and of the influence of genuine Christian character. Two hundred of the Moslem population are said to have been " led by him, at least intellectually, to renounce the faith of Islam, and to accept the teachings of God's word." The light of the Persian sky has faded. No longer * India Witness, January 6th, 1883. r' if: 144 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. do the wise men from the East bring their offerings of gold and frankincense and myrrh to the slirine of the world's Redeemer. The cold Crescent, not the star of Bethlehem, " the bright and morning star," .shines over the land of the Sophi. The population of four and a half million, though mostly Moslem, includes a few Jews, and about 70,000 Armenians and Nestorians. Missionaries of the Church of England follow in the labours of the saintly Henry Martyn, whose name and memory are imperi.shably associated with missionary enterpri.se in that Eastern field. The strong missions of Persia are those of the American Presbyterian Church. They have recently been favored with a gracious revival, in which .some Jews and many Nes- torians have been brought to a knowledjje of the Saviour. Translations of the Word of God bring within the reach of all the people of Persia a treasure more precious than the pearls of Or muz. The great Arabian peninsula, with a population of some nine millions, extends from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, and from the Gulf of Aden to the borders of Syria, on the Mediterranean. The Arabian people, endowed with intellectual qualities of a high order, full of force and fire, were first to accept and to propagate the creed of the Koran. To them " Mo- hammed delivered the scymeter, as the instrument of his apostolate," and the rapid success of the new faith must have been in a great measure due to the splendid qualities of the Arab race. When shall the fiery children of the desert be won to the Redeemer's cross ( MISSION STATIONS. 145 i^s of )f the itar of IS over and a a few orians. in the ne and iionary lissions yterian with a fiy Nes- of the 1 bring treasure ation of Gulf to to the Arabian a high ,t and to in "Mo- jnent of lew faith splendid |he tiery [•'s cross ( The Bible has been rendered into the flexible Arabic, the sacred language of Islam, "an accurate and elegant version." Otherwise little is being done to promote a purer faith : "Sec where o'er desert wastes they err, And iieitlier food nor feeder have, Nor fold, nor phice of refuge near, For no man cares their souls to save." In Asiatic Turkey, where there is much to detain us, and where a great work has been begun, a very different state of things obtains. The dominant re- ligion is Mohammedanism. But the population of sixteen million incl,ude3 numerous communities of Christians. Turkey in Asia comprises lands of sacred interest : Mesopotamia and Armenia, Bashan and Pa- le le, Syria and Asia Minor; the sites of Nineveh p Jabylon, the mountains of Ararat and I^'banon, and the ancient cities of Dama.scus and Jtiijsalem. The Holy Land is still defiled and degraded by the tyrannies of the Moslem. The lioof of the Turk is said to wither every green thing, and nowhere else has the invad»^r left a more desolate track than in the Lord's land. Missionary work has at different times been prosecuted with a good deal of enthusiasm among the Jews of Palestine. Many faithful laborers have gone forth weeping, bearing precious seed. The Church of England has a bishop resident on Mount Zion, and mission stations at Jerusalem, Jaffa, Nablous, Nazareth, Gaza, and ancient Ramoth Gilead. But the promised day of Israel does not seem yet to have come. The 146 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. i lli H|j 1 I 11 ii 1 I 1 1 « Jews are still a scattered people, and in some lands the bitterness of exile knows but little abatement. The pathetic lament of the Hebrew prophet, calling for pity and help at the time of the captivity, is still the Macedonian cry of the daughter of Judah, as she weeps beneath the palm tree: "Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by ? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow ?" Amidst scenes and surroundings of Bible interest, the missionaries of the American Board have made for themselves f noble record, and have challenged the admiration ot every section of the Christian Church. For several years the work, which has now expanded into proportions of magnitude and importance, has been prosecuted at an annual expenditure of $150,000. The mission has a force of fift}-four ministers sent out from home, fifty-seven native ordained preachers, nearly one hundred lady missionaries, and some five hundred other helpers in various departments of evan- gelistic and educational enterprise. A line of stations stretches from the boundaries of Persia to the banks of the Bosphorus, on to Bulgaria south of the Balkans, and from O routes and Aleppo to the borders of the Black Sea. Through translation of the Bible, a great •work has been done for Western Asia. An eminent living missionary has taken part in the preparation of Armenian, Armeno-Turkish, and Bulgarian versions. The Word of God has been given to a large portion of the Ottoman empire. On the banks of the Nile, throughout the deserts of Arabia, by the rivers of MISSION STATIONS. 147 lands ment. ailing IS still as she ,0 you be any \terest, ade for red the bhurch. :panded ice, has 150,000. [sent out eachers, Dme five of e van- stations banks Balkans, of the a great eminent ^ration of versions. )ortion of he Nile, rivers of •s Babylon, at Ur of the Chaldees, in the land of Genne- saret, amongst the ruins of the Seven Churches of Asia, the sacred Scriptures have been unsealed, and can be read by the people in their own tongue. Oriental Churches scattered over a wide region must always excite a deep interest. Christian sects exist in the very heart of great Moslem communities. Arme- nian, Nestorian, Copt, and especially Greek, Churches are found in Persia, Turkey, Egypt, and Syria; in such citiea and centres as Aleppo and Damascus, Cairo and (Constantinople. In spite of Mohammedan hate and determined attempts at proselytism, numerous communities have maintained for centuries a strug- gling life and organization. Although exhibiting an inferior type of Christianity, such sects bear a sacred name, maintain some forms of spiritual worship, and are the depositaries of revealed truth. To Mussulmans they represent the religion of the New Testament. Hence it was thouijht at the outset of mission work that, for the conversion of the Mohammedans, an at- tempt must be made to reform the Oriental Churches. Could the golden candlesticks be relighted, and Arme- nian and Greek worshippers become true witnesses for Jesus, the reflection of gospel truth would shine over vast spaces of As'a, and an eflfective agency might be extensively ' utilized. But there has not been any great quickening of Oriental Christianity, and the later policy has been that of independent organization. It is no longer a capital offence, as it was a few years ago, for a Moslem to change his religion. Re- ••MiJNHiWHM 148 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. cently, at Beirut, a prominent follower of the Prophet became a disciple of Jesus. Appeal was made to civil authority, and an injunction obtained. Arraigned be- fore a legal tribunal, and threatened with the conse- quences of turning renegade, he was permitted to bear a striking testimony to the truth. Taking a copy of the New Testament from beneath his robe, amid the breathless silence of the court the convert read the first chapter of St. John's Gospel ; and with intense earnestness he spoke of the true Light, of the Word made flesh, and of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. But, while a certain amount of tolerance has been granted by law, drawbacks and dis- abilities of conversion are such as to prevent any except the most decided inquirers from making a public renunciation of Islam, or a profession of the Christian faith. There are siji^ns, however, of a waning Crescent- The march of Moslem armies has been described as a thunderbolt of war; but the cloud that bears the burning bolt must move on or be dissolved. Political unity, the result of conquest., has long formed the citadel of Mohammedan strength. Religion and poli- tics are fused. Threatened disintegration of Turkish power must therefore be regarded as a hopeful feature in the problem of access to Moslem populations. Should Mohammedan? cease to be a political power, buttressed by great European empires, the Koran may come fairly into competition with the Bible, and detected impos- tures of the false Prophet lead to an examination and MISSION STATIONS. 149 rophet o civil led be- conse- to bear [^opy of aid the jad the intense le Word th away nount of and dis- ent any aaking a »n of the Crescent- bed as a bears the Political rmed the and poli- )f Turkish ul feature Should buttressed ome fairly ted impos- nation and LS acceptance of the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ. The unity of the Godhead appeals to Islam sentiment, forms an initial base of accordance, and may lead to common ground in regard to other fundamental truths. Only let pure Christianity and the Arabian imposture be brought into candid comparison, and prejudice must melt away. The Moslem worshipper of the One God shall be led to believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. The Crescent must surely fall before the Cross. A venerable mosque at Damascus, once a Christian church, and in par^an times a heathen temple, psr- petuates a record of prophetic hope and anticipation. An inscription on its portal, carved in Greek charac- ter, proclaims the permanence of the Saviour's spiritual empire. Centuries of Mohammedan fanaticism and deep hatred to Christianity seemed to contradict the silent prediction. No follower of the Nazarene was permitted, during a long dark period, to tread the courts of that sanctuary. But when missionaries of the Presbyterian Church entered upon their enterprise in that ancient city of Syria, they deciphered the i * scription, and had faith to believe it true : " Thy king- dom, Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth tliroughout all jjenerations." There is said to be a Moslem belief that the latter days shall witness a universal apostacy f rom the Islam faith, and that the Koran shall cease to exist. Are not the evanfjelical Churches summoned at once to the occupancy of new fields, and to the achievement of 150 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. ill i I greater spiritual conquest? Obstacles are all but innumerable. The work is great. Missions to Mo- hammedans ought to possess a distinctive character. Responsibility is not to be left to a section of the sacramental host. No single denomination should bear the brunt of assault on the faith of Islam. Let the whole line advance ! Christianity has vested rights in Mohammedan lands, many a claim which she cannot forego. An old traveller, Von Schubert, musing at the mosque of St, Sophia, experienced an emotion of sadness. The thought of a long desecration produced a feeling somewhat resembling that of a Northman, whose son, at Algiers, was found wearing the garb and leading the life of a Turkish renegade. The followers of Jesus had not dared since its surrender to enter that once renowned sanctuary of the Christian faith — through which the magniticent Te Deum had been wont to resound, — and only when passing had ven- tured to glance into its courts. How long; must the minstrel wait outside the prison walls, like Caeur de Leon, till they from within should strike up the well- known hymns of praise and thanksgiving ? " The minstrel of thy Saviour tarries long. And thou, old belfry, thou art but small beside the minarets and golden crescents ; but when thy voice returns to thee, it shall sound over sea and land like the call of the muezzin." There is a strong temptation, as we near the iEgean MISSION STATIONS. 151 i hut ) Mo- •acter. )f the dhear ]et the medan An old B of St. The feeling 5se son, leading jvers of ,er that faith— ,d been ,d ven- lust the 'ijnur de e well- "The |iou, old ts and |to thee, of the iEgean or the Bosphorus, following in the track of the first great missionary, crossing the Straits from Asia into Europe, to pursue a still westward course. Philip- popolis and Salonika, where St. Paul preached the gospel, are occupied as mission stations. But tho unspeakable Turk still rules, and the Christian hears the voice as of old : " Come over into Macedonia and help us." A Mediterranean voyage takes us to the African continent. The Barbary States, extending from Mo- rocco to Egypt, are said to comprise over fifteen million people, of whom four hundred thousand are reported " Christians " of some sort, three hundred thousand Jews, and the rest Mohammedans. Except in the case of missions to the Jews in Algiers and Tunis, very little is being done to lead those erring ones into the way of life. Once along the northern border line of the African continent, as we have seen, there were flourishing Christian Churches. But that " green strip " was long ago desolated by the sands of Moslem invasion. Was the cause of failure to be found in the fact, as some believe, that the early Churches were satisfied to be lights only along the shore, and that no attempt was made to carry the lamp of salvation to the benighted ones of the interior ? Missionary churches do not die. Only through unfaithfulness to her responsibilities could African Christianity be con- quered by fierce invaders. For purposes of spiritual conquest Egypt must be 152 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. regarded as one of the strategic points of Africa. It is the stronghold of Arabian slavery. The river Nile forms a connection with the interior of the continent. Here, too, may be found the Tel el Kehir of Mohammedanism. The great university of Cairo, with its three hundred attaches, enrols an attendance of ten thousand students ; and from El Azrah, as emissaries of the Islam faith, educated bands find their way to the centre of Africa, to the eastern part of Asia, and to the Isles of the Sea. With the excep- tion of six hundred thousand Copts, the five and a half million of people in Egypt proper, and the nearly eleven and a half million of annexed territory, are Mohammedans. The United Presbyterian Church prosecutes an influential Copt mission on the Nile, and the Church of England is reorganizing a mission to the Moslem population. The victorious banner of a British host should be succeeded by the sacred standard of the Cross. Wonders shall God work again in the land of Zoan. " The Lord shall be known in Egypt, and Egypt shall know the Lord." Ethiopia, in which the London Society has a mission, has frequent association with Egypt in the language of prophecy. An Abyssinian Church claims a Chris- tian name and character. But the light that once was in her has become darkness. No part of the world has more need of the gospel than the regions of the Upper Nile. Zanquebar and Mozambique, along the eastern coast MISSION STATIONS. 153 irica. river ,f the Kehir Cairo, ndance ;rab, as tds find rn part e exccp- e and a le nearly tory, are Church the ISile, la mission manner of sacred ork again known in a mission, language lis a Chris- that once the world Ions istern of Africa, have yet to be occupied by the advanced posts of Christianity. But the little island of Zanzi- bar, adjoining the continent, forming a convenient base for interior enterprise, is held as the headquarters of the Universities' Mi.ssion. The old slave market, where in recent years there was an annual sale of thirty thousand slaves, has been turned into a scene of beneficent influence, forming the site of a church, mission-house, and schools. Thirty-four European missionaries, and a number of native evangelists, con- stitute an effective corps for the prosecution of aggres- sive enterprise. From the sea coast a line of stations has been carried towards the central lakes. The grave of Bishop Mackenzie, a missionai-y hero, is three hundred miles inland. But that way-mark is only on the threshold of new and accessible territory. " Be- yond and beyond," said his successor, Bishop Steere, another brave leader whose brief course has been tinislied. " lie nations after nations, until the mind is overwhelmed by the vastness of the work before us." To Madagascar, the magnificent island on the east of the Mozambique Channel, must be awarded the crown of modern missions. Facts in regard to the rapid abandonment of idolatry, especially in the central provinces, are well known. Equally extra- ordinary have been the accessions of converts to the Christian ranks. The London Society reports an aggregate of twelve hundred churches, five thousand native preachers, eighty thousand communicants, and 11 mmm 154 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. I not less than half a million of adherents. A million of dollars has been contributed, during a single decade, for the spread of the gospel. Malagasy Christians realize a sense of responsibility in regard to the pro- motion of the Saviour's work; and, at the Mildmay Conference, the belief was expressed by a Madagascar missionary that these churches would rise to the level of yet greater things, and take their share in the hope and hazard of winning the continent for Christ. From the eastern coast, missionaries have penetrated to the interior of Africa ; and, in a marvellous manner, central regions and races have become accessible to Christianity. The Church of England has reinforced her oft-shattered and depleted ranks, and extended her mission posts to Victoria Nyanza. A promising Blantyre Mission of the Church of Scotland has been planted on the healthful heights of the Shire region. In memory of Africa's best friend., a noble and fitting monument, the Free Church of Scotland has started successfully her Livingstonia enterprise. Eight years after its discovery, in October 1875, the sparkling waters of the Nyassa burst upon the view of the Scotch pioneer missionaries. The Hundreth Psalm, "All people that on earth do dwell Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice," seemed to have a new beauty and depth of meaning as its notes floated over the blue waves of the spacious lake. Two steamers, the Lady' Nyassa on the Zambesi MISSION STATIONS. 155 iUion Bcade, stians e pro- ^Idmay Lgascar le level tie hope t. netrated manner , ssiblc to einforced extended promising has been te region, nd fitting as started ght years Sparkling w of the psalm. ){ meaning Ihe spacious ke Zambesi and Shire rivers and the Itala on Lake Nyassa, form an easy route from the coast. Beyond the northern shore of the Nyassa, deeper into the interior, an explorer pushes on to the Tanganyika ; a great inland sea, on the eastern and western shores of which, amidst a dense population, the London Society is planting its vigorous missions. Does not the day (lawn for Africa ? Fron the east and the west pioneer forces are pressing to the heart of the conti- nent. The watchword has been sounded: "Foriuard to the ccntrn !" South Africa was early a storied land of missions. The Moravian brethren sent their first missionary to the Hottentots in 1737, and they have now thirtj-- ninc laborers in the field ; while one of their stations, Mamre, has a roll of one thousand and three hundred communicants. The London Society, with headquar- ters at Kuruman in Bechuanaland, has twentv-two missionaries, a strong staff" of native helpers, and a large membership. United Presbyterian and Free Churches of Scotland carry on an influential work in KafiVaria. Wesleyan missionaries, entering the field at an early period, starting from the Cape, have extended colonial and native stations to little Nama- qualand on the one hand, and to the Zulu country on the other. One hundred stations of the Church of England Propagation Society comprise colonial and native missions. The American Board has an en- courajjinjr Zulu cause. Dutch and other missionaries 156 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. IJ I '11 ! i I :■ a labor in the Transvaal. Several Continental societies have agents in South African territory. Western Africa, following the coast line from the south, completes the circuit of mission stations. Mis- sionaries of the American Board have inaugurated a new enterprise at Benguela. English Baptists are steaming up the Congo to a thickly-populated central region, and the Livingstone Inland Mission forwards evangelists by the same route. What an immense field opens up for the diffusion of the gospel in the vast Congo valley! It is computed that in order to furnish a single missionary to the thickly-peopled towns and villages, scattered over each hundred square miles, no less than nine thousand men would be needed. The reflection of missionary watch-fires can be seen over a dark region at the mouth of the Niger. Wesleyan and Church of England societies maintain their stations along the line of the Gold Coast and at Sierra Leone. More than one hundred and twenty messen- gers of the gospel, during a period of forty years, have succumbed to the effects of deadly climate, "And their low pillow has been tiie strange soil Of that distant and grave-dotted strand." But the work has not been in vain in the Lord. Com- municants of the several stations now number thirty thousand. As from the shores of Africa we embark for this Western continent — such is the magnitude of the work MISSION STATIONS. 157 )m the Mis- cated a sts are central orwards nse field the vast > furnish wns and miles, no ed. The en over a W^esleyan un their at Sierra messen- [ears, have soil yet to be accomplished — the Macedonian cry, heard from many lands, still sounds along our course, and mingles with the murmur of the mighty main. Souls benighted plead for light and help. "ChristiauH, hearken: none has taught them Of the Saviour's love so dear ; Of the precious price that bought them ; Of the«iail, the thorn, the spear. Ye who know Him, Guide them from the darkness drear." When shall " the wail of the billows of humanity," from the lands of idolatry, from .scenes of Mo.slem superstition, from Asia and Africa, and from the Isles of the sunny South, be turned into a shout of rejoicing i J)rd. Com- Iber thirty Ik for this If the work rr^ "There is yet no more than time to open an enterprise so vast. IJiit already there are materials from whicli it is possible to estimate the prospects of the missionary enterprise, and tlie gi-andeur of tho results which its success must yield," — Robert Mackrnzif. \uil PROGRESS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 159 VI. Hi ise so vast. to estiinatL' uleuv of tlie PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. THE missions of this century, as far as can be ascer- tained from available and reliable data, began with a membership of not more than fifty thousand. But now missionary communicants are estimated at over half a million, and nearly three and a half million of adherents have been won from heathenism. Such an exhibit is full of encouragement. Ratio constantly increases. Reduplication is marvellous. The acces- sions of a single year are larger than was the aggregate of converts at the commencement of the century. A brief statistical summary is all that can be at- tempted on this page. Central and South America, including the West Indies, with a population of over thirty-tive million, where four hundred and thirty commissioned messengers of the cross are seeking to respond to the Macedonian cry, began the present decade with a return of twenty-five thousand com- '^ •"' bs, forty-three thousand scholars, and eighty id attendants on public worship. Asia, an im- en territory, stretching from the Sea of Sinim to aie Hellespont, and from the sands of Arabia to the snows of Siberia, with a population of eight hundred million, in wh" h two thousand five hundred mission- lili 160 THE MACEDONIAN GUY. aries are sounding forth the word of life, seeking to turn men "from idols to serve the living and true God," is credited with nearly two hundred and forty- six thousand communicants, two hundred and eighteen thousand scholars, and three hundred and forty-three thousand adherents. Oceanica missions, comprising several groups of islands, where a brave band of conse- crated men, inclusive of a proportionately large native element, are seeking to win bright trophies for Jesus, aggregates one hundred and twenty thousand com- municants, seventy-five thousand scholars, and iive hundred and thirty thousand nominal Christians. Africa, with two hundred million of people, where, includinfj Madagascar and Mauritius, nine hundred missionaries proclaim the gospel of peace and good- will, presents a roll of nearly one hundred and sixty- five thousand communicants, over ninety-eight thou- sand scholars, and five hundred and eighteen thousand worshippers reclaimed from the baseness and bai uari- ties of heathenism. European missions, comprisinjr stations in Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Bul- garia, and some other places that sorely need a second Reformation, where seven hundred evangelists are seeking to propagate a purer faith, return ninety-six thousand communicants. But even these summaries are far from being exhaustive of the whole field of missions.* Some of the most important features of * "Probably," says Dr. Dorchester, in his valuable and suggestive statistical exhibit of missions for 1880, "more than 20,000 stations are occupied. More than 40,000 laborers, lay and clerical, are in PROGRESS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 161 ng to [ true forty- rhteen -three prising conse- native r Jesus, ,d com- nd iive ristians. ;^ where, hundred ad good- id sixty- rht thou- thousand buL oari- )mprisinjT key, Bul- a second lists are inety-six ummaries e field of atures oi >d suggestive ,000 stations lerieal, are in missionary progress, and many great and glorious spiritual results, do not admit of tabular exhibit. SeverrJ years ago a writer in the Tmies complained that the reports of the several foreign missionary societies were not made up in a satisfactory manner. There was said to be an " absence of those facts, those details, that account of results," which generous con- tributors " require in ever}'' matter they take in hand." But no longer can there be any cause for dissatisfac- tion on that ground. Statistics are abundantly tabu- lated. Leading principles and details are so grasped and grouped as to become mutually illustrative and explanatory ; and, in marked contrast, with most impressive effect, they are projected against the dark and discouraging background of a preceding era. The most exhaustive summaries, however, in this period of expansion, must soon be out of date, and can only be valuable as way-marks of progress. The vast impetus of advancing evangelical movement necessi- tates constant revision of numerical statement. But there are some special results of modern missions that can never lose their significance, and to which the the foreign fields, '31 missions not reporting the former and 51 not reporting the latter item — probably 45,000 at least of these laborers. From 356 of the 504 missions we have 857,332 communicants reported. Returns from the remaining 148 would doubtless swell the aggregate to over 1,000,000. These figures do not include nominal converts from heathenism, but enrolled Church members. The nominal adherents or hearers, reported in about two-fifths of the missions, are 1,813,596 — probably about three and a half millions in all." — Problem of ReligiotLii Proyv^ss, pp. 487, 488. 162 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. publication of annual and decennial returns only chal- lenjjes renewed attention : — The area of enterprise has been immensely enlarged. There was a contraction of Christian work, in even the comparatively recent past, which is not easy for us to understand. A most chilling subject, at any time between the decline of the Puritan and the rise of the Wesleyan movement, was that of the world's evangelization. Two centuries ago a number of gifted and godly ministers were silenced in England, ex- cluded from the pulpits of the Established Church. Saintly Richard Baxter grieved greatly for the loss of such a ministry. But the chief sorrow was in the fact that these men could not be utilized as mission- aries to the heathen. He was led in this way to ponder the question of obligation in relation to the great commission. England had been wont to absorb his thoughts ; or if the rest of the world was con- sidered, a prayer for the conversion of the Jews was almost all. But when he came to understand the con- dition of the heathen nations, ^heir need of the gospel, and "the method of the Lord's Prayer," there was noth- ing so heavy upon his heart as the thought of the miseries of unenlightened lands of the earth. Even the calamities of his friends or of his country could not affect him so much as the case of heathen, Mohamme- dan, and ignorant people of dark and distant regions, ' Could we but go among Tartars, Turks, and hea- then, I should be but little troubled for the silencing of eighteen hundred ministers at once in England; PROGRESS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 163 chal- irged. even sy for t any le rise vorld's gifted nd, ex- ;;;hurch. > loss oi in t\ie mission- way to ^ to the o absorb vas con- ews was the con- he gospel, |a\t,s notli- t of the Even the ;ould not obamme- t regions, and bea- silencing England ; which maketh nie greatly honor Mr. John Eliot, the apostle of the Indians in New England." It is diffi- cult to realize that, as late as the seventeenth cen- tury, with the exception of a little strip along the eastern seaboard, this continent of America, the whole of Africa, the teeming millions of China and India, the greatest part of Asia, the lands of the Bible, and the numerous Isles of the Sea, were utterly inac- cessible to the missionary of the cross or any evange- listic agency. Even at the commencement of this mission century the doors of lieathendom were almost everywhere closed. It is well known that when William Carey set his face towards the East no English ship would tolerate a missionary passenger, and he had to sail under the Danish tlaof. " If I ever see a Hindoo con- verted to Jesus Christ," said Henry Martyn, in his day, " I shall see something more nearly approaching the resurrection of a dead body than anything I have ever yet seen." Dr. Morrison landed at Macao in 1807. The attempt to make Christians out of Chinese Buddhists was generally regarded as a Uto- pian and utterly hopeless scheme. It was stigmatized as an "absurdity in hysterics, preposterousness run mad, illusion dancing in the maddening frenzy, the unsubstantial dream and vision of a dreamer who dreams that he has been dreaming." The West India slave continued to clank the chain of a bitter and re- lentless bondage. Dwellers in the Southern Archi- pelago were still enveloped in the impenetrable gloom lis 164 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. of heathen night. Deeper than Egyptian darkness brooded over the continent of Africa. It was claimed to be yet an open question as to the capability of sable races for elevation in the scale of civilization ; and, in reference to the negro, James Montgomery met the doubt by a pathetic plea : " Since his wrongs began, His follies and his crimes have stampt him Man. " It was affirmed by politicians and officials of the East India Company that were an attempt made to inter- fere with the religion of Hindustan, insult would be quickly resented, the people of India would sweep away the Anglo-Saxon race and rule, with as much ease as the sand of the desert is driven by an east wind ; and down to the mutiny, 18o7, as tidings of disaster reached the India House, a director exultingly exclaimed, " Now we shall get rid of the saints!" The thick wall of Chinese exclusiveness had l<^en scarcely pierced. Oriental tongues were but little un- derstood, and but few uncivilized lanfjuae East ) inter- would I sweep s much an east lings of altingly iaints 1 " d l^^n ittle un- lad been of ages axed or South is being Comorin (T a vast western mes the heralds of salvation. In lands where, within the memory of living missionaries, through the prevalence of repulsive and sanguinary rites and superstitions, the people were oppressed, the earth polluted, and heaven insulted, Christian consjreixations now jrather for prayer and praise. There is also a prodigious growth of intercommunication. Steam speeds the missionary to his distant post, and electricity flashes back the tidings of progress. " To me," says the venerable Bishop Simpson, " all this portends the coming of an era of universal light and glory." Missions have added stirriwj and storied pages to the history of spiritual achievement. What literature of this world, in thrilling and ro- mantic interest, can surpass that of modern missions ? It was once said that the narrative of John Williams' mission to the South Sea Islands might be regarded as the twenty-ninth chapter in the Acts of the Apostles. A writer in a current number of " The Gospel in all Lands " says, " The achievements of the missionary enterprises of to-day are only the Book of Acts con- tinued on into the nineteenth century." The tours of St. Paul and his companions, their intrepidity and successes, form a fascinating part of the inspired his- tory. But the writer of that narrative could not chronicle all the acts of the Christian Church. There is no sign or seal of completeness, no finish or fornmla, at the close of the book. T'le record runs on from Antioch to Galatia, and from the mission scenes of Asia to the populous cities of Europe. Not for a 166 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. moment, to the very last verse, is there any abatement of missionary spirit and interest: "preaching the kinoTfJom of God, and teach ingf the thinjjs which con- eern the Lord Jesus Christ." The history of magnifi- cent enterprise, and of the spread of early Christianity, thus closes with an apparent abruptness. As you stroll amongst partially hewn blocks, scattered about the quarries of the Nile, retaining in that salubrious clime their freshness for long centuries, you almost look for the workman to return with mallet and chisel, and to complete the partially wrought column or slab. Some such feeling one may have after an eager per- usal of the Acts of the Apostles. We wait for more. The cross has been victorious in voluptuous Antioch, gorgeous Corinth, idolatrous Ephesus, and in imperial Rome. But what of the spread of the gospel through the provinces of Gaul and Spain ? Were not the vic- tories of imperial legions surpassed by those of the armies of the cross ? By what agency were fierce and uncivilized hordes of " those northern and inclement Scandinavian shores, which made the lordlv Roman shiver when he named them," subjugated to the faith of Christ ? We almost expect the inspired writer to resume his pen, to chronicle new facts of apostolic achievement, and to complete the marvellous narrative. Is it not evidently the Divine idea that the sacred record, acts of men who hazarded their lives for the Lord Jesus, should be supplemented by reports of evangelistic enterprise, and of soul-saving work, until the great consummation shall have been won ? RESULTS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 167 ment T the 1 con- ifi- ,crni anity, .s you about ibrious almost I chisel, or slab, er per- )r more. \.ntioch, imperial through the vic- of the erce and clement Roman [the faith writer to apostolic arrative. e sacred Is for the sports of ^cr work , en won ? The history of spiritual achievement repeats itself. Acts of the Apostles furnish an admirable model for the reports of modern missions. Missionary movements in the nineteenth century are simply a reproduction of early Christianity. The first messen- ^ers of the cro.ss, as they left Antioch for the foreign work, were " recommended to the grace of God," and followed by the prayers of all the disciples. In like manner, a consecrated band of men and women, re- cently leaving American shores for China and the eastern parts of Asia, were fervently commended to Divine care and protection, and accompanied by the prayers and hopes of many Christian people of the United States. The incident of Barnabas and Paul sailing away to Cyprus, and across the Pamphylian Gulf, always retains its freshness and power. Later pages glow with the grand enthusiasm of such mis- sionaries as Carey and Coke, rocking on the mighty ocean, and planning the conquest of new continents for Christ. Opening chapters of the Book of Acts in the New Testament tell of the martyrdom of St. Stephen and of St. James, beaten with stones or slain with the sword. Modern annals immortalize the martyrs of Erromanga and Madagascar, and the names of the heroic men who are falling at their post in Central Africa. An indescribable charm is associated with the first days of the gospel in Corinth and in Philippi ; but the facts of Serampore and Kuruman, and a hundred other places, furnish evidence of a gloriously perpetuated apostolic succession. Through w 168 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. H ' ill the zeal of mission Churches planted by St. Paul and his fellow-laborers, the word of the Lord was sounded out, " not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place." A spirit of propagandisrn is beinj^ devel- oped in the native Churches of India and South Africa, of Hawaii and Tonga, that gives a noble im- pulse to the onward movement of modern Christianity. Yes, there is abundant material for suiiplementary chapters to " the Acts of the Apostles." It is sometimes complained that ihe statistical por- tions of missionary reports arc not attractive. Would any one complain that a page of a Parliamentary Blue- book was duller than the latest work of fiction, or that bulletins of battle were wantinjj: in "imaginative and literary power and expression ? To the political econor mist, statistical exhibits furnish information in the most compact and available form; and, to hearts strained by palpitating and protracted anxiety and suspense, eager for the details of national conflict, rhetorical flourish would seem sadly out of place. Reports of mi.ssion work are put into business form, so far as statistics and summaries are concerned. But, between the lines, thoughtful men and women find a world of meaning. Beneath the tabulated statements, there are exhibitions of patience and intrepidity of spirit, of unselfish and successful work for Christ, that move the soul alternatel}^ to exultation and to tears. Apart from purely business reports, the Church has a great missionary literature, which, for magnificence U RESULTS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 169 il and underl blso in devel- South ble im- iianity. lentary jal por- Woukl ry Blue- i, or that tive and al econOf n in the hearts ty and conflict, place. ss form. 3d. But, jn tind a itements, idity of r Christ, and to lurch has .niticence le )t' of range, variety, romance of fact and incident, touching; and thrillinnr detail and power, surpasses all other publications of the age.* Dr. Jaboz Bunting once said that he read the leading newspapers of the day in order to understand the manner in which his heavenly Father governed the world. Those who would keep abreast of the marvellous changes that aie being wrought in the earth, and who would mark the victories that signalize the march of spiritual empire, must ransack the records of evangelical enter- prise, and saturate their minds with the memorials of missionary heroes. Modern Missions have greatly enriched the hiogra- l>hies of tlie Christian Church. The Epistle to the Hebrews has a chapter of unri- valled interest, which has been characterized as " the Westminster Abbey of the New Testament." The names of heroes of the Hebrew faith are there em- balmed. Where shall we now find a succession to that inspired bead-roll of immortal fame ? To what sphere must we look for the noblest manifestations of human life and heroism ? The men and women who, far away from scenes of show and ostentation, have consecrated themscilves to the missionary cause, * Two new book-lists happen to be at hand, as these lines are written, and they announce or notice such volumes as those of Dr. Christlieb's " F )reign Missions," the magnificent " Ely Volame " of Dr. Laurie, Bambridge's "Around the World of Christian Mis- sions,'" Thompson's " Moravian Missions," " The Sunrise King- dom,'' "Life in Greece and Palestine," and a " History of Indian Missions on the Pacific Coast. " 12 ■ I "I" 170 THE MACKDONIAN rilV i to spend and to bo spent for Christ, constitute a j^oodly fellowship. In spiritual resolv(! and intrepid deed, tlie line of missionary succession streams and bla/es with holy and heaveidy li^ht. Names of peerless renown, Xavier and Schwartz, Kliot and Ef^ede, Carey and Coke, Morrison and iMilis, Judson and Marshman, Henry Martyn an^t forcvn' shine in a galaxy of splendor. " Read only the life of Patteson," says Max Muller, " the Bishop of Melanesia. It has been my privilege to have known some of the finest and noblest spirits which England has produced dur- ing this century, but there is none to whose memory I look up with greater reverence, none by whose friendship I feel more deeply humbled, than that of that true saint, true martyr, and truly parental mis- sionary." * The dust of another honored missionary has been rendered to the mould in trophied tomb and temple. A magnificent sepulchre was prepared for the mortal remains of the great pioneer of African missions. It was a fitting recognition which the world freely ac- corded to daring and intrepidity, unswerving goodness and patient achievement. On Missions, Eel. Review, 1874, p. 263. l?KSiri/rs OK KOllKIfiN MISSIONS. 171 tr('piii('lieil for liy a corrcspundDiit nl tin; Mniflii Mvr <1 uardiiiii. 176 THE MACEDONIAN CRY. and at the burning tropics, it has V)een found effica- cious, " the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." As light to the eye, or melody to the ear, exquisite in its adaptation, the gospel of Christ finds its way to the human soul, and satisfies the heart as nothing else can do. There was a time when Moravian missionaries thought that the Esquimaux were too dark and degraded to receive the sublime teachings of Christianity. They must first aim at an improved civilization. Moral precepts, and the first principles of natural religion were earnestly inculcated. But the experiment of years proved to be an utter failure. No progress was made on that line of effort. It was like ploughing and sowing on rocks or fields of ice. But patiently they toiled in the laborious work of preparing a version of the Gospels for Greenland. One memorable day, natives lingered round John Beck and questioned him about the writing. The Mis- sionary read a few sentences, and for the first time in that land announced the " faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the w^orld to save sinners." As he spoke of the .sufferings of Christ, his own soul was filled with emotion. Then he read to the wondering listeners, in their own lan- guage, the account of the Redeemer's agony in Geth- semane. " How was that," asked one of the men, a wild savage from the mountains, " tell us that again, for we too would be saved ;*" Again, with softened lieart and streaming eyes, they listened to the won- drous stoiy of Jesus and His love; and, after their RESULTS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 177 effica- ry one to the Christ e heart e when ainiaux sublime u at an he first ;ulcated. m utter )f effort, tiekls of >us work eenland. AVontcd nianner, when struck «hnul) with aniuzenient, they put their hands upon their mouths. One anxious inquirer was savingly converted to God. This first convert, Kajarnak, became a teacher to his country- men, and to the end of his life adorned his profession. The Moravian pioneers obtained a clearer idea of the Divine method of savimj: men, savai^e and civilized, and from that time resolved to preach nothing " .save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." In the mission of the brave and brotherly George McDougal, there was an incident illustrative of the power of the gospel and its adaptation to all classes and conditions of men. The Missionary has gathered a considerable congregation of Indians, many of whom have been brought under the influence of Christianity and civilization. But yonder on the outskirts of the prairie audience is a fierce pagan chief who scorns to accept a new religion, or to depart from the traditions of his tribe. Paint and feathers, tomahawk or rifle, still bespeak the savage. But the preacher believes that his quiver contains a sharp arrow that may cleave its way to the heart and con- science of that rude barbarian. A telling sentence rouses his indignant interest. " And what is it," he demands, dismounting from his horse, and stalking proudly up to the front of the missionary, " that you have to tell nie that will make my heart glad ?" The preacher understa».ds the Indian character and pas- sionateness of purpose, but he lias faith in his message, and believes it to be " good ti