MODERN MISSIONS.
MODERN MISSIONS
CHAPTERS ON THE MISSIONARY WORK
OF THE CHURCH.
SELECTED FROM THE BEST BOOKS ON MISSIONS, AND
P UBLISHED FOR THE EP WORTH LEA GUE
READING COURSE.
TORONTO:
WIIvLIAM BRIOGS,
Wesley Buildings,
Montreal: C. W. COAXES. Hal.fax: S. F. HUESTIS.
1896.
tTAOK
DEC 19 1949
INTRODUCTION.
Believing that a missionary book should have a
place in the Epworth League Reading Course, the
Committee appointed to arrange the Course examined
a number of excellent volumes, but could not find
any one that exactly met our needs. It was then
decided to publish a book of our own, the matter to
be selected from the best missionary material avail-
able. ^
We believe that we have here a book that will
provide much valuable information to the young
people of our Church, and that will stimulate them
to greater activity in the cause of missions.
Our thanks are due to authors and publishers
who have kindly permitted us the use of valuable
chapters.
CONTENTS.
Chapter I. page
The Christless Nations ^
Chapter II.
Missionary Possibilities - ^ " " ' " "
Chapter III.
The Voice of the Master 63
Chapter IV.
The Call to all Disciples 70
Chapter V.
Transformed Communities 93
Chapter VI.
Answers to Prayer 124
Chapter VII.
New Incentives to Giving - ^ - - - - 150
Chapter VIII.
Medical Missions 163
Chapter IX.
Pastor Harms and His Work 175
Vlll CONTENTS.
Chapter X.
PAOB
The First Hundred Years of Modern Missions - - 195
Chapter XI. ■:h\^: " ■-
Striking Facts, Contrasts and Sayings - - - .248
Chapter XII.
Canadian Methodist Missions 260
Chapter XIII.
The Stufient Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions 279
MODERN MISSIONS.
CHAPTEK I.
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS.*
OME years ago an elderly minister who wished to
^ devote his latest years to the advocacy of the
missionary enterprise, asked me what, in my opinion,
was the strongest plea for missions which could be
presented to intelligent persons in Christian lands.
He had just been surprised and almost startled by
hearing me say that it was a mistake to suppose that
a faithful portrayal of the moral state of heathen
nations was the surest way to enlist the sympathy
and aid of Christians in America, and he even seemed
a little per'^lexed by my willing testimony in favor of
some praic ^worthy virtues which I had found among
the people of India. It is too often assumed that
Paul's terrible arraignment of heathenism as it existed
in some parts of the Roman empire, and especially
in Rome itself during the first century, must serve as
* This chapter and the one following are from a recent missionary
book by Bishop Thoburn, entitled "The Christless Nations."
10 MODERN MISSIONS.
an accurate description of the moral state of all
non-Christian nations in all ages of the world. This,
however, is a great mistake ; and even if it were true
it would not constitute a healthy basis for an appeal
in behalf of an immediate and determined effort to
evangelize the world. Various motives might fairly
enough be appealed to in such a case and a multitude
of facts cited to show how much ail nations need the
blessings which only the Gospel can bestow; but if
asked to state in few words what it is which makes
the condition of the non-Christian nations most de-
plorable, and at the same tiuie places all Christian
nations under the strongest obligations to help them,
I should simply say that such nations are, as Paul
reminded the Ephesian Christians that they had
once been, " without Christ." It is not that they
have never heard of his name, that they have never
felt the influence of what we call Christianity, that
they have never been brought into contact with
Christian institutions or Christian civilization, but
that Christ is not personally known to them, is not
among them in the sense in which he promised to be
with his people for evermore, and that they are
deprived of all the unspeakable privileges which those
who enjoy personal fellowship with him so freely
receive.
CHRIST STILL ON EARTH.
The personal presence of Jesus Christ among his
living disciples is the greatest fact in the religious
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 11
world to-day. It is not so much a great truth as a
great fact, around which the leading truths of the
Ohristian system gather, and on which they must
always largely depend when prenented to an unbe-
lieving or doubting world. Nothing could have been
more explicit than our Saviour's farewell assurance to
his disciples that he would be with them always, or
than his earlier promise that he would be present in
every assembly of his people, even though the
number should not exceed two or three. This
promised presence was not to be visible, but it was to
be none the less personal and real. In his farewell
discourse our Saviour comforted his disciples with
the assurance that after a brief separation he would
return to them again, and, while invisible and un-
known to the world, would be manifested as a living
presence to his own, with whom he would establish
a fellowship never to be broken. In harmony with
these teachings we find the early Christians familiar
with the idea as well as with the experience of com-
panionship with the risen Son of God. They did not
merely believe on him — they knew him. When
Paul was defending his ministry among the Galatian
Christians he appealed to the time when it pleased
the Father to reveal his Son to his inner conscious-
ness, and when, in old age, he was about to depart he
was able to say in holy, confident triumph, " I know
whom I havj believed." He had been stopped in his
blind career by this same Jesus on the Damascus
highway ; he had seen him in vision in the temple ;
12 MODERN MISSIONS.
had been commissioned by him to go far hence to the
Gentiles ; and again, in the tower of Antonia, when
an infuriated multitude clamored for his blood, this
same Jesus had spoken to him and told him how he
must yet bear witness in imperial Rome.
The apostle Paul was an exceptional man, but in
knowing his risen Lord and walking in fellowship
with him his happy lot was only exceptional in some
of its peculiar phases. Millions of living Christians
are to-day able to bear witness to a personal know-
ledge of Jesus Christ. As in the case of Paul, this
knowledge is sometimes subjectivo and sometimes
objective. To most there seems to be a mystical, and
yet very clear and personal, manifestation of Christ
to the inner consciousness. The awakened sinner
seeks a Saviour, hears of Jesus, believes the testi-
mony, and emerges into light. His sins vanish, his
darkness flees away, and he discovers a newborn
love in his heart for the Saviour in whom he has
believed. He does not pauso to analyze his thoughts,
but he is conscious in his heart of hearts that he loves
Jesus Christ as a divine Saviour. Very soon, pos-
sibly at the same moment, he discovers that he loves
God as his heavenly Father. He knows nothing of
theology, has never given a thought to the subject of
the Trinity, but he opens John's gospel and reads, " If
a man love me, he will keep my words: and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and
make our abode with him." The new disciple finds
that the promise given at the beginning has been
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 13
verified in his own experience. He knows God as
his Father and Christ as his Saviour, both being
revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. This personal
Saviour is sometimes recognized as an inner mani-
festation, made, as it were, in the very holy of holies
of the believing heart ; but oftentimes it is more like
the outward presence of a companion or guide. The
experience of the two brethren walking out to
Emmaus at eventide is often repeated in our day.
The risen Lord may come as a loving friend, or he
may pass on before as a faithful guide, or he may
assume the form of a victorious leader ; but in every
case the distinctive fact which we need to note is that
he lives among his own, knows them and is known of
them, and through them carries forward his great
designs concerning the future of the human race.
FOUND ONLY AMONG HIS OWN.
Just here, however, we are confronted by a most
momentous question. If the world's Messiah is in
very deed alive and present in our world, is his pre-
sence confined to those regions where his disciples are
found? Is he not the rightful sovereign of all the
world, and did he not assure his followers that all
power in earth or heaven had been given into his
hands ? In what sense, then, can we say that whole
nations are without Christ ?
As heir to all things in earth and heaven, and as
the disposer of human affairs, our Saviour, Christ, is no
doubt in this world to-day ; and we do well to reflect
14 ■ MODERN MISSIONS.
that he who walked abocit the villages of Galilee is
to-day walking about among the nations, disposing of
crowns and thrones according to his sovereign will,
guiding in all the events, great and small, which take
place among men, and causing all things to work
together so as to hasten the consummation of his
great purpose to make all the kingdoms of this world
his own. But as the world's Saviour he is found
only with his own. We need not pause to ask why
this is so, but we cannot give too earnest heed to the
startling fact that since the day of Pentecost Jesus
Christ has been made known to the world only
through the medium of his own disciples. He may
go before them, may prepare the way for them, as in
the case of Cornelius, but the disciple and the Master
are inseparable in the ordinary administration of the
Master's work. He has chosen us as co-workers
with himself, made us his visible representatives
among men, and assured as that we shall do his work
if we are careful to do his will and work in his name.
The disciples of to-day differ from those who walked
in visible fellowship with Jesus in Galilee in that
they are more highly favored than the first disciples.
The latter walked and talked with the Master,
shared his power, and at times performed wonderful
works in his name ; but they labored under all the
limitations which time and place imposed. The
Saviour could only be present in one place at a given
time, could only minister to one group of disciples,
and could only engage in one particular undertaking
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 16
But under the present dispensation the Spirit reveals
his personal presence in a million hearts or a million
homes at the same moment. There is no limit to his
" wheresoever " save the condition that living disciples
must command his presence; but this condition*
bound up as it is in his first great commission, is
invariable in all climes and all ages.
We are thus brought face to face with the startling
fact that on the disciples of Jesus Christ rests the
responsibility of giving Christ to the nations which
as yet do not know him ; but before considering the
full measure of this responsibility it may be well to
take a glance at the condition of those most unfor.-
tunate multitudes who belong to what might be called
the Christless nations. In losing the knowledge and
personal presence of Christ, what else do these nations
lose ? What has this presence been worth to us or to
the nation to which we belong ?
WHAT IS THE LOSS OF NON-CHRISTIANS ?
Tn the first place, those who are without Christ lose
his personal ministrations. The Jesus who meets
his people invisibly to-day is the same Jesus who
journeyed with them in visible form in the days of
his humanity. There was only one Bethany in Judea,
but every vilJage in a Christian land becomes a
Betha y in our more favored day. There was only
one Nain in Israel, but the Man of Nazareth now
stands waiting to meet and comfort every funeral
procession which wends its mournful way to the
16 MODERN MISSIONS.
village cemetery. That which was exceptional in
Galilee has become universal in Christendom. The
risen Son of God waits to enter every abode of
poverty, to shed light upon every darkened home, to
comfort everyone that mourns, to walk serenely upon
the waves of every stormy sea, to rescue every
endangered soul, to lift up the fallen, to strengthen
the weak, to reclaim the erring, to turn despair into
hope, darkness into light, and out from the very
shadow of death itself to bring a life radiant with
immortal joy. We thus see that the nations have
more at stake than a mere question of fact concern-
ing the resurrection of Christ. If Jesus lives ut all
he lives to minister to the most needy of the human
race, and every community which has failed to receive
him is daily and hourly losing blessings compared
with which every other form of earthly good is but
worthless dross.
In the next place, we are to remember that Christ
lives and works among men in the person of his dis-
ciples. Every true believer bears the name of his
Master, and is solemnly reminded that he cannot gain
access to God's mercy-seat in any other name. He is
made a child of God, a member of the heavenly fam-
ily in which God is the Father and Jesus Christ the
Elder Brother. As such he becomes heir to all that
the Elder Brother inherits ; he bears his spiritual
image, and in an important sense shares his mission.
As it was a part of the Master's mission to manifest
God, so it became a most important part of the dis-
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 17
ciples' mission to manifest Christ to men ; and as the
Master lived to save the perishing, and to minister in
every possible way to the wants of those in need, so
the disciple, if true to his calling, will ever be found
absorbed in doing the same kind of work. For such
a life, or rather for such a mission, he receives a
special call and a special anointing ; and he goes forth
to bear his part on the busy stage of life upheld by
the promise that he shall not only do the works of his
Master, but even greater works than any which the
people of Galilee and Judea ever witnessed. We thus
see how it happens that an immense mukitude of
Christian men are blessing the world by their active
work and silent influence to-day. Their presence
and their usefulness are owing solely to the fact that
Christ is with them. The world does not know and
cannot understand how much it owes to these disciples.
Each one is a glowing light in the midst of dense
darkness. They are truly the salt of the earth, the
one conserving element in the midst of corrupting
agencies of a thousand kinds. They are the helpers
of universal humanity, and many of them show such
power in grappling with the powers of evil, such
courage in facing danger, such hope in battling
against despair, and such divine resources in saving
the sinning and the perishing, that even worldly
men often feel constrained to admit that they are
supported and directed by a power and wisdom which
must come from above.
18 MODERN MISSIONS.
THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.
The presence of Christ in a Christian nation is
still further attested by what is sometimes called the
" influence of Cliristianity," which is but another
name for the influence of a personal Christ. There
is nothing tangible about this influence, nothing that
can be formulated in either figures or words, and yet
it is felt everywhere. It is found embodied in the
spirit of every code of laws in Christendom; it is
exhibited in the constantly increasing eleemosynary
institutions of all kinds; it pervades the literature
of the day ; it animates every reform movement ;
it softens the rough hand of war ; it refines and
ennobles civilization, and, in short, seems to per-
meate the very atmosphere with a healthful spirit
of life and hope. Childhood becomes sacred wher-
ever the story of the Babe of Bethlehem is known.
Womanhood becomes ennobled wherever the history
of Mary of Bothany, or of Mary of Magdala or still
more of Mary of Bethlehem, has been told. The
poor are moved by new aspirations, and humanity
seems animated by new hopes. Wherever the name
of Jesus Christ has been carried man has learned
how to open the prison house of despair and to see
light beyond the darkness of the grave.
This invisible and yet wonderfully pervasive influx
ence has been strikingly illustrated in the astonishing
political transformation which Japan has experienced
during the past forty years, Ahm ftmQiig ali nou-
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 19
Christian peoples the Japanese have frequently
accepted Christian ideas, and, to a great extent,
Christian institutions, and have thus made a great
stride in the direction of Christian civilization,
although not yet formally accepting the Christian
religion. The result is marvellous beyond anything
yet witnessed in human history. Of all non-Christian
peoples it may be said that, since the, beginning of
our era, at least, none of them have, without external
aid, been able to make any advance in the arts of
civilization, none have been able to display the slight-
est inventive genius, and none, except a very small
minority, have been able to rise above the low level
of grinding poverty. Century after century passes
without a single invention, no matter how simple,
among one-half of the human race. Century after
century passes only to witness the gradual but steady
and relentless subsidence of the masses of people
into utter poverty and wretchedness. Christ among
men is not only the hope of immortality to mankind,
the eternal pledge of a better life than that of earth,
but he is the hope of the industrial world, of the
social world, and of the intellectual world. Without
him the nations have no better future than their
dismal past, and all hope of future progress may as
well be dismissed from the thought of the world.
In whatever direction we turn we are met with
ever-increasing proofs that our world has great and
urgent needs which only can be met in the presence
cf the Saviour of men.
20 MODERN MISSIONS.
TEN HUNDllED MILLIONS WITHOUT CHRIST.
These and other considerations of like character
will no doubt bring very vividly before the mind of a
Christian believer a sense of the unspeakable loss of
those who are born and grow up without Christ ; but,
after all, the strongest appeal of this kind is that
which is made to our own hearts as individual Chris-
tians, What is Christ to each of us to-day ? What
has he been to us since we have personally known
him ? What was his presence with our parents worth
to our childhood ? Where and what would we as
individuals have been to-day had we never found
him ? What would our lives be to-day if Christ were
taken out of them ? What would this world bo to
us, what would life be to us, what would our future
be, if we were suddenly and completely bereft of our
Saviour, Christ ? What would existence be to us if
thus bereft ? It would be day bereft of the sun, and
night disrobed of stars. To take Christ away from
a believer is to take life and joy out of the heart and
sweetness and peace out of the life. And yet this is
the lot of uncounted millions of our race. We may
say, it is true, that they are unconscious of their loss ;
but this does not change the facts as God reveals
them to us, or lessen our responsibility in the slightest
degree.
It has been estimated that there are ten hundred
million human beings in the world who, so far from
knowing Christ as a personal Saviour, have as yet
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 21
never even heard his name. Ten hundred millions of
human beings without Christ ! The very thought of
such a multitude of souls groping in darkness is over-
whelming; and yet the mind fails to grasp the full
import of the words. It has been said that no million-
aire ever comprehends the full extent of his wealth
aftei' it passes the million-dollar line. The figures ex-
presii a certain numerical statement, but to the mind
there is only an array of figures, an arithmetical expres-
sion instead of a clear perception of distributed values.
We (iannot take in at a glance this vast multitude of
Christless men and women ; but we may possibly gain
a clearer view of the almost endless throng by look-
ing at them in detail. Let us, for instance, take up a
position where all these millions can pass before us
with military precision. Let them be formed in
ranks with thirty abreast, and let them pass before
us with rapid step, so that thirty shall pass every
second. I take out my watch and note the ticking
away of sixty seconds; eighteen hundred persons
have passed by. I watch the minute hand till sixty
minutes are gone ; one hundred and eight thousand
now have passed. I stand at my post and watch the
ceaseless tread of the passing thousands till the sun
goes down, till midnight comes, till dawn and sunrise
come again, and there is never a second's pause.
Another day and another night go by; the days
lengthen into weeks ; the thousands have long since
become millions ; but there is still no pause. Summer
comes, with its sunny days, to find the long procession
22 MODERN MISSIONS.
marching still. The flowers of summer give place to
autumn's frosts, and a little later the snow of winter
is flying in the air ; but morning, noon and night we
hear the awful tread of the passing multitude.
Spring comes round again ; a year has passed, and yet
not for one moment has that procession ever paused.
" Will that awful footfrJl never cease ? " some one
asks. We take a glance out to see how many yet
remain, and find seventy-five millions patiently wait-
ing their turn ! That is a faint attempt to grasp the
meaning of our words when we speak of ten hundred
million human beings.
MERELY NOMINAL WORK WILL NOT DO.
We sometimes hear it said that the great commis-
sion to proclaim the Gospel to all nations has been
almost completed, and good men and women may be
seen even now gathering outside the closed gates of
Thibet, eager to enter at the earliest possible moment
and preach the Gospel to the last remaining nation
which has not yet heard its joyful sound. God forbid
that I should say a word to disparage either the
spirit or the work of these earnest men and women,
one of the most daring of whom is working under my
own superintendence ; but as Christians we must not
deceive ourselves. Thibet is by no means the only
nation to which the Gospel has not been preached.
A nation is not reached when one or more men preach
in a given place, nor does the mere proclamation of a
message of truth constitute the Gospel so long as
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 23
Christ is not made known to the people. A nation is
reached when the people of the nation are reached,
and not when a certain territorial line is crossed. I
have over and over again found villages within but a
few miles of prosperouf^ mission stations in which not
a single person could be found who knew anything of
Christ, or had even heard his name. The prophets in
old time were always most explicit in recording God's
precious words of promise, and the preaching which
they foretold had nothing of a perfunctory character
about it. They looked forward to a time when all
kingdoms, and nations, and peoples, and kindreds, and
tribes, and languages, should receive God's Word and
serve the coming King ; and we dare not limit pro-
mises so full of hope to the Church and the world.
We should remember, too, that the word " nation "
does not always mean a political division of the world.
We may often find nations within nations. India is
the oldest of modern mission fields, and yet its tribes
and peoples and castes, among whom Christ is still
unknown, are numbered by the hundred. It will not
do to reckon India as simply one of the nations of
the earth, and then calmly to assume that we have
done our full measure of duty to her in that the
Gospel is proclaimed in many places and in many
tongues throughout her extended borders. Only a
year ago I had my attention drawn to an extensive
region lying to th^ eastward of the Centi'al Provinces,
composed, for the most part, of a group of small
native States, and said to be wholly destitute of
24 Modern missions.
missionary labor. After careful inquiry 1 a-sked
three experienced missionaries to make a tour of
exploration through that part of the country, and
report the result of their observations. They did
their work carefully and thoroughly, and in due time
reported to me that they had found six millions of
people to whom no messenger of the risen Saviour
had ever gone. The whole region was as destitute of
Christian privileges as it had been when Jesus gave
the great commission to his apostles; and among
these neglected millions were petty kingdoms, differ-
ent tribes, separate castes, and diverse tongues, all
included in the old-time promises, and yet all desti-
tute of the Gospel, which must be carried to the
whole human race. A careful search in other lands
would no doubt lead to similar discoveries. There
can be no doubt that the sad fact confronts us that
the evangelization of our v/orld, so far from being
nearly complete, has hardly passed its initial stage.
The liiighty task can be done, must be done, and done
quickly ; but we must not try to persuade ourselves
that it is already nearly complete.
BEARING CHRIST TO THE NATIONS.
Having thus briefly considered the unspeakable
loss of the earth's teeming millions who are without
Christ, let us try for a moment to obtain a clear
view of our personal responsibility, or, perhaps it
would be better to say, of our transcendent privilege,
in being commissioned to convey God's great gift to
these destitute nations. It is not that we are to send
THE CiiRlSTLESS NATIONS. 25
Bibles across the sea, or that we are to send a certain
number of men to preach what is called " the Gospel,"
but rather that we are placed under a solemn obli-
gation to carry Christ himself to those who know
him not. When Jesus fed the multitude it would
have been as easy for him to have had the bread
conveyed by invisible hands to the hungry people as
it was to multiply the loaves ; but a lesson wf).s to be
taught to his disciples of all ages, the full significance
of which should never be overlooked. The bread had
to be distributed by human hands, and the incredu-
lous disciples were taught, in a manner never to be
forgotten, how the divine and the human are made to
co-operate in feeding a famished world with the
bread of life. The scene upon the grassy hillside was
to be re-enacted a million times as the ages passed by.
Other multitudes were to be found, worn and weary
and ready to perish, and other disciples were to go to
their help with, not the bread that perisheth, but the
living Son of God, the ever-blessed One typified by
the ancient manna.
Some of you still remember how, in the sad days of
our civil war, we used to sing Mrs. Howe's " Battle
Hynm of the Republic." As the hymn was printed
and re-printed all over the country it so happened
that one word became involved in doubt, and thus,
while some were singing,
*' In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,"
otliei*s would say,
' ' In the beauty of the lilies Christ was borne across the sea."
26 MODERN MISSIONS.
In a song so highly poetical it is possible to admit
either word ; but, whatever the true rendering of the
words may have been, we are able in our missionary
era, not only in poetic phrase, but in sober prose as
well, to conceive of our Saviour bein^^ borne on many
a bark to distant climes as the companion of devoted
messengers who go forth in his name. Every ship
which carries a band of riissionaries contains an
invisible pillow for the head of the unseen Master.
The timid maiden who leaves her village home in
obedience to the Spirit's prompting, and goes forth
to teach a few of the world's forsaken outcasts how
to find and serve their heavenly Father, bears with
her in holy companionship the Saviour of men, the
King of all nations, and the Sovereign of all realms.
This, and nothing less than this, is what every true
missionary is called upon to do, and this is what
sc "es upon scores are actually doing to-day.
As we think of the character which the mission-
ary's work thus assumes we cease to think of duty ;
we almost forget the word and become absorbed in
the thought of the transcendent privilege which is
thus set before us. As we would take a physician to
the sick or dying, a guide to the belated and wander-
ing, a comforter to the sorrowing, a teacher to the
ignorant, a friend to the friendless, or a lielper .to the
helpless, so are we conmiissioned as Christians to go
out to every needy tribe and nation, taking with us
One who is able and infinitely willing to receive
every member of the human race and supply every
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 27
human need. We cannot all go, it is true, but every
missionary who goes abroad does so in the name of
those who send him, and we all alike are thus per-
mitted to bear a part in the most glorious work which
God has ever put within the reach of human beings.
Perhaps nothing in all God's plans for the human
race is more mysterious than the fact that this un-
speakable power, this hallowed privilege, has been
intrusted to mortals. Angels celebrated the advent
of Jesus to earth, angels ministered to him when
among men, angels proclaimed his resurrection, and
angels hover around every scene of his active work
in our world still ; but not to angels, but to men, is i
given to introduce him to the sinning, suffering, and
sorrowing children of humanity, and thus achieve the
highest possible ministry in which men or angels can
engage in a world like ours.
OUR PRIVILEGE SLIGHTED.
With such a ministry set before us, a ministry
which angels might covet, with the doors of nearly
all nations thrown wide open to invite our entry,
with the Spirit, the word and the providence of God
alike urging us forward, it would be but reasonable
to expect to see a great missionary movement going
forward in all Christian lands. There surely ought
to be no room for doubt or hesitation here. From
the doors of every Christian nation the glad mes-
senge of Christ ought to be seen hastening forth,
bearing in their earthen vessels the precious treasure
28 MODERN MISSIONS.
of the divine presence. But when we look around us
what do we see ? Almost every possible form of
Christian work is put forward as a substitute for
that which takes precedence of all other t)bligations.
One stands forth to plead for the city " slums " (par-
don me for using the word, but it has become cUi.rent,
and has no present equivalent) ; another advocates
the claims of our foreign immigrants ; a third tells
of want and suffering on the frontier ; a fourth repre-
sents the wants of the illiterate colored population,
while a dozen of other voices are heard in behalf
of as many other blessed enterprises, all good and
deserving in their way and in their proper place ;
but no one of them, nor all of them put together,
can take precedence of the one great work which
our risen and ascended Lord intrusted to his disciples,
the supreme and paramount duty, binding upon all
Christians in all ages, to make him known to those
who have no knowledge of him. Christianity is
utterly inconsistent with its own claims so long as
it fails to comprehend the urgency of its own mission
on earth, or pauses in its onward march to complete
details which are hindered rather than helped by the
mistaken policy which their promoters adopt.
It often makes me feel sad and almost faint of heart
when I hear intelligent and devoted Christians calmly
excuse themselves from any obligation to support the
efforts of the Church to evangelize the heathen world.
" I think," says one, " that I can do more good in this,
that, or the other way. I am not very sure about
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 29
foreign missions. I think mv duty lies nearer home."
Now, substitute for the i rm " foreign missions "
Jesus Christ, and see how it will sound. Try to
realize, even for a moment, what it is to assume
that great nations, that hundreds of millions of our
fellow-men, can be left century after century without
Christ, without a knowledge of God, without a hope
of immortality, while we are making desultory efforts
to perfect the work which our Saviour in his infinite
mercy began in our own land in ^he days of our
fathers — try, I say, to realize what this really means,
and soon it will begin to seem as if a veiled spirit of
daring atheism were invading the Church of Christ.
No form of unbelief or error is so pernicious as that
which is elaborately illustrated in the practical life of
Christian men and women. Better teach and preach
the doctrine of a limited atonement than limit the
effects of Christ's universal atonement by our delib-
erate refusal to make him known to those for whom
he died. Better deny the mission of Christ to earth
than resolutely to adopt and defend a policy which
must, for many long centuries, shut off two-thirds of
the race from even a knowledge of his name. It
cannot be said too often or too emphatically that
as Christians we have little to fear from men of
Mr. Ingersoll's class. Such men do harm, no doubt ;
but they avow their purpose, they work openly,
and they use no concealed weapons. It is better to
deny Christ in express terms than solemnly to avow
our belief in him and yet practically deny him by
^0 MODERN MISSIONS.
discrediting his work, limiting his mission, putting
territorial limits to his love, and deliberately and
persistently ignoring the terms of his farewell com-
mandment to his apostles, and through them to his
disciples of all ages.
Let no one misunderstand me and suppose that I
depreciate Christian work in its many forms in our
own and other Christian lands. God forbid that I
should for one moment fall into the fatal error of
thinking that one good cause can be built up by
pulling down . nother. The work of God on earth
assumes a thousand forme, and yet it is one work.
To injure it at one point is to injure it at every
point ; and it is for this reason we need to give the
more earnest heed to God's missionary call upon his
people in all parts of the world. This call is in
universal terms, it requires immediate obedience, it
concerns the universal Church of God, and it cannot
be disobeyed without causing serious injury to all
forms of Christian work to-day. The surest and the
best way to promote all forms of Christian work in
Christian lands is to give effect to the great commis-
sion which takes precedence of every other obligation.
The best way to help the work at home is to obey
God by making Christ known to the nations which
sit in darkness. In pleading for the Christless nations
I am really pleading for this city, for this State, for
all the States of the Union.
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 31
WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN NATION ?
It will be said, no doubt, as it often is said, that
our country is by no means Christianized as yel; and
that we are in reality obeying our Saviour's com-
mission so long as we are engaged in bringing those
who know him not to a personal knowledge of him.
This raises the very practical question. What is a
Christian nation ? We have seen what is meant by a
Christless nation, that is, one in which our Saviour is
wholly unknown ; but it is not so easy to define in
exact terms what it is which entitles a nation to call
itself Christian. Time will not admit of a full dis-
cussion of this question ; but a few points of contrast
will at least enable us to appreciate our advantages.
Every man and woman in England and America who
wishes to be guided to the world's Saviour can find a
willing guide within a few minutes, or, at most, a few
hours. Living Christians are met everywhere, and
those who are willing and anxious to' be led can
always find some one who will be glad to lead them
to the Saviour, as Philip led Nathanael. It is very
different in non-Christian lands. Millions upon
millions might ask for such a guide in vain. At the
very worst here and there an individual may grope
in darkness on our side of the globe, but on the other
side we see the sad and startling spectacle of groping
nations.
A few years ago a question wap raised among
certain missionaries in India concerning the bound-
82 MODERN MISSIONS,
aries of their respective mission fields. It had been
tacitly assumed that when a given field was occupied
by one party of workers others should refrain from
entering it ; but in some cases misunderstandings
occurred, and it became necessary to define the word
"occupy." Some contended that if one or more
missionaries established a station in a district con-
taining a million inhabitants they occupied that field
and should be left to evangelize the people in their
own time and way ; but others took a very different
view and insisted that no occupancy should be
respected unless a practical effort was made to plant
out-stations at suitable points. In the course of the
discussion which followed, the most liberal proposal
that was made was that a field should be considered
(..pen so long as provision was not made for placing at
least one Christian within ten miles of every home in
the district ; or, in other words, the Christian workers
should be so distributed among the people that no one
need go more than ten miles from his home in order to
find one. This proposal, however, did not I'^eet with
favor, chiefly for the reason that it seemed impossible
to make such a provision for any known mis.sion
field. It seemed too much to hope that helpers and
guides could be placed within reach of the people
even if they were disposed to seek them.
But, unfortunately, they are not so disposed. The
order of the Gospel is that we must go to the lost and
perishing, not that we should wait for them to come
THE CHRISTLESS NATIONS. 33
to US. In times of famine hundreds of thousands of
the poor people in India remain in their village
homes and die of hunger, while camps for the free
distribution of food are established within ten miles
of them. Hunger and physical weakness seem to
render them incapable of effort and indifferent to
their fate, while in the case of many a journey of ten
miles from home seems like setting out for a distant
and utterly unknown country. If it is so hard to
induce those who are ready to die to go away from
home to obtain bread, what possible use is there in
expecting those who are perishing for want of the
bread of life to go ten miles from home to inquire
concerning it ? Now and then we meet with such
cases, and as time passes they may become more
frequent, but at best they will be exceptional.
America and England are but imperfectly Chris-
tianized, it is true, but they have all the elements
within them which are needed to complete the work,
and in at least a relative sense they are now Christian
nations ; but in contrast with them the condition of
the most favored of non-Christian lands is such as
should move the deepest sympathies of everyone who
bears the image of Jesus Christ upon his heart.
Now, as in the days of our Lord's ministry, it is
enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, for
the servant that he be as his Lord. The love of
Jesus Christ for the human race is world-embracing ;
let ours be the same, Let us mq^intajn the s«,me
34 MODERN MISSIONS,
attitude toward this momentous question that he
maintains, and the unbelieving world will v^uickly
begin to realize that Christianity is consistent with
itself, and thrt Christians no longer dishonor the
sacred name which they bear by refusing or neglect-
ing to make it possible for all nations to crown him
as both their Saviour and their King.
CHAPTER II.
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES.
THE present time is opportune for a careful and
candid discussion of the practical value of the
great missionary movement. The second century of
modern missions has recently opened, the sphere of
missionary work has been immensely enlarged, young
men and women are enlisting for service abroad in
constantly increasing numbers, and the friends of the
cause are becoming more and more importunate in
their demands upon the public for pecuniary support.
Under such circumstances it is certainly reasonable
that we should be asked to show that money given
for this cause is not spent for naught; that young
men and women who go to the foreign field do not, or
at least need not, toil in vain ; and that success, in
the highest and noblest sense of the word, may be
achieved as certainly, and in as large measure, in the
mission field as anywhere else in the wide domain of
Christian effort. The missionary enterprise occupies
very high ground, and after a century of heroic effort
it certainly ought to be well able to show by accom-
plished results not only that it has achieved success
36 MODERN MISSIONS.
in the past, but that it enters upon its second century
with greater possibilities within its reach than were
dreamed of a century ago.
#
CAREFUL INQUIRY NEEDED.
A statement of the missionary possibilities which
God is now setting before the Church is the more
needed in view of the doubts which not a few
avowed friends of Christianity have in recent years
expressed with reference to the ultimate success of
the enterprise. Canon Taylor, of England, may be
taken as a fair spokesman of this class, and it must
be admitted that he has many followers. His arith-
metic is faulty, no doubt ; and yet, when he compares
the results thus far achieved with the gigantic task
which has been taken in hand, it must be confessed
that he makes out a strong case, and there is too much
reason to fear that his presentation of the question
has created serious misgiving in the minds of many
sincere Christians. While admitting that some good
is done, that a few idols are thrown away and a few
heathen brought to Christ, thousands and hundreds
of thousands of intelligent Christians are unable to
see any promise of ultimate success in a work of such
magnitude. Others, again, with hazy notions of
Christianity and without any sympathy for the idea
of a common faith for our common humanity, regard
the missionary enterprise as chimerical, if not worse,
and do not dream of its ever making an impression of
any importance on the world. Another class of
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 37
doubters may be found among the supporters of mis-
sions themselves. Many who believe in the duty of
sending missionaries to the non- Christian nations
have yet but little hope or expectation of success in
the work. They practically believe that while in
this work all things are possible not many things are
probable. They do not expect success, a. d some even
think it wrong to look for it. " I have nothing to do
with results," is practically the motto of thousands
who find in these mistaken words a ready excuse for
their want of success. The Christian worker has
very much to do with the possible results of his labor,
and in the great missionary field it is most important
that the highest possibilities should be clearly set be-
fore him and kept constantly in view.
If it should seem to anyone that this is ignoring
the rule of faith, or putting sight in the place which
faith should occupy, I need only reply that faith
should not ignore the ordinary laws of human intelli-
gence. Unbelief is blind and works in the dark ; but
faith has a clear vision and loves the light. It is not
the work of faith to select a barren field, or to work
in a wrong way, or to persist in a fruitless task, or to
ignore the lessons of the past, or to refuse to see the
tokens of the present. It would not have been an
evidence' of faith, for instance, if the disciples had
refused to cast in the net on the right side of the ship,
and had persisted in fishing at the spot where they
had spent a long night of fruitless toil instead of obey-
ing their Master and thereby making success assured.
38 MODERN MISSIONS.
The Church of Christ, standing as she doos near
the threshold of the tv/entieth century, needs the
encouragement which an intelligent survey of her
opportunities and possibilities cannot fail to give her.
Faith is said to laugh at impossibilities, but this is
only when seeing the promise of God. If we would
stimulate the faith of the Christian world to-day, and
thus prepare the way for a great advance throughout
the world ; if, in short, we would make the twentieth
century the missionary century of the world's history,
we should keep constantly in view the Saviour's great
commission to make him known to all the nations,
and also constantly call attention to the tokens of his
presence in the world's great missionary fields of the
present day. There certainly seems to be grave reason
to fear that many of the best friends of missions, in-
cluding not a few leaders, are too easily satisfied
with any measure of success, so long as it falls short
of actual failure. For instance, one of the latest esti-
mates of the results of the past century of missionary
labor places the total number of communicants at
900,000, and adds the expression of a hope that the
increase will ere long reach 50,000 a year. Taken by
itself, this looks like success; but when we think
of all Christendom being represented in this effort
the result appears extremely meagre, and it is not
strange that many who are familiar with the glow-
ing promises of God feel almost disheartened by
such an outlook. But no one need feel disheart-
ened. The results are better than they seem, while
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 39
the possibilities of achieving greater results are
within easy reach.
THE HOME SITUATION.
In talking a survey of these possibilities it may be
best to begin at home. The initial step in the great
undertaking is that of selecting and sending forth
messengers of Christ to nations and peoples who do
not know him ; and it is just here that the enterprise
often seems the weakest. The volunteers for service
are increasing, but a large majority of those who
offer are, for various reasons, found disqualified. The
contributions of our Churches are at best extremely
moderate, and bear no proportion to the gigantic
work which has been taken m hand. The cost of the
work does not dimiijish with success, but, on the
other hand, increases materially, and to many careful
observers it begins to appear as if a deadlock had
been reached and further progress rendered impos-
sible. As a matter of fact, most of the great mis-
sionary societies of the world are able to do little
more than hold their own. A majority of them are
in debt, and but few signs of elasticity can be found
in their finances. Under these circumstances it may
seem untimely to try to show that greater things
should be attempted ; but it is for this very reason
that I venture to begin at this point. If we consent
to accept the present financial status of the leading
societies as normal, if we abandon the hope of
brighter days and of greatly enlarged resources, we
40 Modern missions.
may as well confess our failure and abandon all
further thought of making Christ known to all the
human race. But such a thought cannot be enter-
tained for a single moment. So far from the resources
of the Churches having been exhausted, they have
hardly been touched. The methods employed in the
past may have been found insufficient; the policy
pursued may have been unsound in some particulars ;
but the ability of the evangelical Churches not only
to maintain the work as it is, but to double it, or
even to increase it tenfold, can hardly be questioned.
In trying to form an estimate of the financial
possibilities of the missionary situation as it is at
the present day, it is useless to take into consideration
the mere ability of the present generation of Chris-
tians. If the question were one of ability only the
problem would be solved in a second. The Christians
of America alone are abundantly able to maintain
enough missionary agencies of various kinds to
complete the evangelization of the world before the
close of the next century ; but the practical question
before us is not one of ability merely, but of willing-
ness to give and of the best means to adopt in
gathering up the oflferings of God's people. It has
been demonstrated over and over again that a tax
so light as to be almost nominal laid upon all the
evangelical Christiana in the United States would
not only suffice to maintain all the missionary work
now in existence, but increase it two, ten, or even
twenty-fold. It would be easy to select ten profess-
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 41
ing Christians in the United States on whose produc-
tive property a tax of one per cent, would yield
enough revenue to double all the American missions
in the world and carry them forward in a state of
high efficiency. But statements of this kind, while
very suggestive, do not practically help us in the
present discussion. The missionary cause has never
become debtor to any serious extent to men of colosr,ai
fortunes. It has from the first been chiefly dependent
upon the masses, including the poor and persons of
very moderate means, and it is to the masses that we
must now turn.
A STARTLING ILLUSTRATION.
If we take the Methodist Episcopal Church, with
which we chance to be most familiar, as an illustration,
we find a people who profess to believe in the mission-
ary enterprise, whose missionary enthusiasm is easily
stirred, and yet whose average annual contributions
for each member do not exceed fifty cents per year.
Such a discovery is more than disheartening, it is
positively alarming. When we remember that many
give most liberally, and that at the public collections
but few doMors give so little as fifty cents, the infer-
ence is unavoidable that the majority give absolutely
nothing. It may be said, no doubt, that in many
families there is only one purse-holder; but this
ought not seriously to afiect the average. What,
then, is wrong ? Where is the blame to be placed ?
And when the actual is so humiliating, what can be
said for the possible ?
42 MODERN MISSIONS.
For one, I cannot for a moment believe that there
is no relief to the present strain. I have mingled
with c people from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and
have never found a congregation indifferent to the
missionary enterprise. No other appeal so readily
kindles the enthusiasm of the people, and no other
meets with a more liberal response in the shape of
freewill offerings. Perhaps more prayers ascend for
the missionaries than for any other body of Christians
in the world. The people are not indifferent. They
are abundantly able to give twice as much as is now
given, and a proposal to double the missionary work-
ing force of the Church would meet with an enthusi-
astic response. But enthusiasm alone can do very
little. It can neither devise nor execute. It may
even become a source of weakness if depended on too
implicitly. Fifty years ago the plan was adopted by
our missionary leaders of putting forth special 3fforts
on a special occasion, once a year, in each leading
church, and this plan is followed to the present day.
Some of the meetings are very notable, and ! retimes
the collections are princely, but in the long run this
policy must fail. It has all the defects of spasmodic
effort ; it often creates a hurtful reaction ; it accus-
toms the people to the notion that they cannot do
their duty unless acting under the spur of a special
stimulus ; and it fosters the idea that the missionary
cause is dependent on the leading churches and the
more wealthy classes. The right policy, the only
policy which can permanently succeed, must be one
that enlists all the people in support of the cause.
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 43
A PRACTICABLE PLAN.
For the sake of continuing an illustration with
which we chance to be familiar, let us look further at
the present missionary situation in the Methodist
Episcopal Church. The membership, including pro-
bationers, amounts to 2,680,000, but for the sake of
easy computation let us put it at 2,500,000. Next
let one-half of these be deducted as non-givers, such as
the very poor, young children, and those members of
families in which the bad practice prevails of having
one member give for all. We have still left a mighty
army, 1,250,000 strong. Let us now divide the per-
sons into eight classes, arranged as follows : First,
let us set apart 500,000 who can give, at the least, a
nickel every month. The aggregate gift of this class
will be $300,000. Next, let us take 500,000 more
who may be expected to gi^e ten cents each every
month, and we are surprised oo find their aggregate
contribution footing up no less than $600,000. In the
third class let us include those who can easily and
freely give twenty -five cents a month, or three dollars
a year, and let us include in this class 150.000 persons.
Their aggregate offering will amount to $450,000. In
the fourth class let us put 75,000 persons, and
estimate their contributions at fifty cents a month, or
six dollars a year. The total amounts to $450,000.
In the fifth class we put only 15,000 persims, and
assign them one dollar a month, or a total of $180,-
000. The next class is a very small one, only 5,000
** MODERN MISSIONS.
persons, giving two dollars and fifty cents each, but
making an aggregate of $150,000. The remaining
5,000 are divided into two classes of 2,500 each,
giving respectively five and ten dollars each, and
making an aggregate of $450 000. We have thus the
following result :
500,000 at 10.05 each monthly $300,000
500,000 at .10 each monthly 000,000
150,000 at .25 each monthly 450,000
75,000 at .50 each monthly 450 000
15,000 at 1.00 each monthly 180 000
6,000 at 2.50 each monthly 150,000
2,500 at 5.00 each monthly 150,000
2,500 at 10.00 each monthly 300,000
1'250,000 $2,580,000
These estimates are extremely low, and are only
made after one-half of the entire membership has
been set aside as non-givers ; but it becomes evident
at a glance that if such a scale of giving could be
adopted it would double the missionary income of the
Church at a stroke, and open the eyes of the Christian
world to possibilities of which very few persons have
ever dreamed. But can such an estimate ever be
realized ? Has it any practical value ? Is there any
reasonable prospect, for instance, that the small sum
of five cents a month can ever be collected from a
vast multitude of five hundred thousand persons scat-
tered all over the country ?
This exact plan may not be found the best in all its
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 45
details, but I am persuaded that we shall never see a
healthy state of missionary finance until a determined
and persistent effort is made to enlist the masses of
the people in support of the cause, and to collect their
offerings. It is a well-known maxim that taxes will
not collect themselves, and the same is true of
benevolent contributions. The average donor will
not take the trouble to walk round the corner with
his offering, but will pay it cheerfully enough if
called upon at home. Just at this point we discover
the great need of the hour. It is not givers so much
as collectors, men and women, and boys and girls,
who will undertake the simple task of gathering up
once a pionth the stated offerings of a given number
of donors. In every church let such a staff of col-
lectors be selected, and not only orju'anized but drilled
for the service, and the work will be done. The pre-
sent plan of assigning the duty to overworked or
possibly indifferent pastors, or to perfunctory commit-
tees appointed with the tacit understanding that no
work shall be exacted from them, can never prove
successful. It has been found a mistake to try to lay
this responsibility upon the pastors as a merely
incidental part of their many duties. The whole
machinery should be constructed anew, and the
responsibility placed in the hands of persons who
believe in the missionary enterprise and who feel per-
sonally called to support it. All this may require a
little time, but three or four years ought to suffice to
accomplish it,
46 MODERN MISSIONS.
DEMAND FOR WORKERS.
In the next place, let us consider the demand for
additional workers. It can no longer be said, at least
in an absolute sense, that the laborers are few ; but
comparatively, they are still very few indeed. In the
early days of the missionary movement it was thought
necessary to send out a man and wife for almost every
non-Christian neighborhood ; but that policy has been
in a large measure given up, and now, in most of our
great fields, the missionaries would be more than
thankful if they could get one foreign missionary
for each half million of the people. But to muster
even this slender force would require a very large
reinforcement from the home field, so large, indeed,
that to many it will seem almost useless to discuss the
question. But if the means can be found for a great
forward moment in the foreign field, it is certain that
men and women can be found for every vacant place.
They may not be found in a day, or, if found, may
not be prepared to go abroad on a day's notice ; but
they can be enlisted and placed under drill, and
can be sent to the front when fully prepared. The
difficulty which has usually been experienced in
finding young missionaries has been chiefly owing
to the haphazard policy which has been pursued of
picking up young men at short notice and hurrying
them to the front without sufficient preparation. A
systematic enlistment of young men and women, with
Q, course qf trQ,ining suited to tb^ wants of each
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 47
Ccandidate, would not only provide all the workers
needed, but would greatly reduce the probabilities
of failure after reaching the field.
THE world's gates OPENING.
Turning now to the foreign field, we reach the
point of chief interest in the minds of most peisons
who are studying the question of missionary possi-
bilities. First of all, let me call your attention to
the remarkable manner in which obstacles have been
removed out of the way during recent years. Com-
paratively few persons seem to be aware that, until
very recent years, by far the greater part of the
world was inaccessible to the Christian missionary.
A century and a half ago there was not a spot on
the great continent of Asia on which a Protestant
Christian could set his foot without the consent of
rulers, nearly every one of whom was hostilo to
missionary eflfort in every form. Fifty years ago
two-thirds of Europe was closed against the evan-
gelical missionary, while vast portions of the world
were so little known that no attempt had ever been
made to penetrate their depths in search of any
possible people who might be ready for the mis-
sionary. But during the present generation the
doors of the nations have been opening to us in a
wonderful way. During the comparatively short
period which has elapsed sincp I became a mission-
ary, obstacles of various kinds have been taken out
of. the way, untij now I can look q-broa-d s^nd see ^
48 MODERN MISSIONS.
way of easy access to seven hundred millions of the
human race, all of whom would have been beyond
my reach had I desired to go to them in the days of
my youtli. And this process is still going on. High
walls are falling into ruins at the quiet approach
of Christ's messengers ; remote regions are coming
nearer ; hostile people are becoming friendly ; preju-
dices are melting away, and thus the opportunities
set before us make it possible to accomplish things
which would have been considered wholly impos-
sible even as late as the middle of the present
century.
A still more important advantage is found in the
more ready access which the missionary has gained
to the hearts and minds of the people. For many
years after southern and eastern Asia had been
thrown open to the missionary, the people seemed
strangely inaccessible. In China able men toiled
for ten, fifteen, and in some cases twenty years
without gathering any tangible fruit or seeing any
tokens of future success. More than fifty years
after William Carey had landed in India the Protes-
tant converts were very few in number, and con-
version to Christianity was dreaded by all classes
(juite as much as the leprosy. The missionary was
among the people, and yet he seemed separated from
them by an impassable gulf. There seemed to be no
possibility of wide success under such conditions, and
these conditions seemed to be beyond the possibility
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 49
of change. But to-day we see a whole world of
new possibilities. Only a few years ago the favorite
' objection to Indian missions was that converts could
not be made; to-day the cry is that the converts
are coming in such numbers that in the very nature
of the case most of the alleged conversions must be
spurious. In both India and China the missionary
has won a position where he is in touch with multi-
tudes of the people. He may not be in touch with
all classes, but it can no longer be said that all
classes, high and low alike, hold aloof from him
in his character as a religious teacher. More men
and women in China can be reached and won in a
single day than were formerly secured in a decade.
More persons in India are asking for Christian
teachers and preachers to-day than were formerly
brought into the Christian fold in half a century.
Even in the depths of Africa the same religious
phenomenon may be observed. Whole tribes and
nations of what were rude savages a quarter of a
century ago have been brought under Christian in-
fluences and are eagerly entering upon the pathway
of Christian progress. These changes in the attitude
of non-Christian peoples are so many and so widely
extended that they can neither be overlooked nor
misunderstood. They indicate changed and changing
conditions, and, as far as missionary possibilities are
poncerned, amount almost to a complete revolution.
60 MODERN MISSIONS.
BETTER PLANS COMING INTO FAVOR.
Another feature of the present outlook which is
full of encouragemen£ is seen in the character of
the plans which many missionaries are learning to
adopt. In spiritual warfare, as in the strife of armies,
very much depends on the plan of campaign which is
adopted. If no plan is formed, if no systematic
method is pursued, if the efforts put forth are desul-
tory and disconnected, and if the field of operations
is contracted almost to the verge of absolute insignifi-
cance, no great result can be expected, and success on
a wide scale cannot be hoped for. In the past very
much of the missionary work of the world has been
weak in this respect. A band of missionaries settle
down at some point and begin to work on a very
contracted scale, hoping at the very utmost to win a
few hundred converts, organize a few churches, as
near as possible on the home model, and thank God
for whatever measure of success they meet. They
plan for little, expect little and receive little. Such
men are often the best of good men ; but it is not by
such plans that kirgdoms are to be subdued and em-
pires founded. The task to be accomplished is one of
gigantic proportions, and plans should be formed for
a campaign worthy of the enterprise in hand. This
fact is beginning to be realized. In various parts of
the world the spectacle can be witnessed of missionary
organizations which extend their operations over a
nation, a kingdom, or an empire. These organization^
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 51
may be only in outline now, but provision is made for
filling in all vacant places as the years go by, and
thus extending the line until every non-Christian
agency is confronted by an active Christian force,
working with all the advantages which careful
organization, experienced leadership and quenchless
zeal can give. Take India, for example, with its
nearly three hundred million people. It seems at firat
glance a hopeless task to attempt the conversion of
such a multitude ; but when we meet Christian young
men and women who expect to live till they form part
of a militant host of a hundred thousand Christian
soldiers all enlisted in India, and all eagerly pressing
forward with the instinct of victory in their hearts
to achieve the spiritual conquest of an empire, their
enterprise ceases to seem impracticable, and their
campaign at once attracts attention as one of the
grandest attempts ever made by a Christian people
to overthrow evil and establish good.
The mention of one hundred thousand possible
Christian workers, enlisted, organized and engaged
in actual service in India or China, calls our atten-
tion to the fact that God is teaching the present
generation of Christians some important lessons in
regard to work and workers in the Master's vine-
yard. The Church is rapidly outgrowing the old-time
notion that a few men constituting an order called
" the ministry " hold a virtual monopoly in the
Christian labor market. One of the most striking
developments of the present day is the extraordinary
52 MODERN MISSIONS.
manner in which men and women of all ages and all
ranks are coming forward to take up Christian work
in various forms, both old and new. In this respect
most mission fields are in advance of the home fields.
Women are frequently employed, and in large num-
bers. Men of half a dozen different grades are sent
out to preach, and scores of unclassified men, some
of them but recent converts who cannot read a line,
are successfully at work persuading their kinsmen
and neighbors to abandon dumb idols and turn to the
living God. If we attempt to limit the work in
India or China by the conventional notions which
prevail in America it may, no doubt, be very long
indeed before the spectacle of one hundred thousand
workers is witnessed in India ; but neither in India
nor America is the old notion going to prevail. The
Teacher who delivered the great sermon at Jacob's
well saw not only the Samaritans of Sychar around
him, but no doubt looked down the ages and saw the
times in which we live ; and to us as well as to his
first disciples was the exhortation addressed to pray
the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into
the whitening harvest fields. The prayers of milliv s
are ascending, and God is answering by raising up
men and women for the mighty task set before his
people. Only three months ago one of our Annual
Conferences in India resolved to put one hundred
and fifty young men into school, with a view to
training them for their work as Christian workers.
Their course of study will extend over only two years,
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 53
but this will suffice for the kind of work which they
will be expected to do. There seems to be no difficulty
in finding the men, and the wives of many of them
will study with their husbands. Here in the United
States you can hardly realize what this means.
You can hardly conceive, for instance, what it would
mean if an Annual Conference in the State of New
York were to determine to select one hundred and
fifty young men and set them apart for a course
of theological study extending over two years, with
the expectation of having the men collected and the
work in actual progress within two or three months.
But in the great mission fields of the world the con-
ditions are such that urgency becomes imperative. If
the millions are to be reached workers must literally
be thrust out among them. If not highly educated
they will yet be far in advance of those to whom
they go. They cannot learn very much in two years,
but the most of them can lay the foundation of an
education which will command respect in village
communities and fit them for lives of usefulness in
their Master's service.
POWER OF A CHRISTIAN MINORITY.
But the thought will probably occur to you that,
after all, one hundred thousand men and women, even
if gifted and devoted in the highest sense, will be
almost lost to the sight among the millions of such a
country as India, and thus the problem of ultimate
success will remain almost as far from solution as
54 MODERN MISSIONS.
ever. I trust, however, that no one will make sc
great a mistake as to forget that one true Christian
counts for as much as a hundred persons of any other
faith. A tiny little lamp is more than a match for a
room full of darkness. The Chri::tlans in nearly all
communities are in a minority, and yet in most
matters they give tone and character to the whole
community. Add to this the consideration that in
the problem before us the Christian .vorkers are
organized and possess all the advantages which
organization gives, and it will be seen that the
ultimate conversion of India is by no means so im-
probable or so remote an event as it is usually
assumed to be.
The wholly unexpected and extraordinary result
of the war between Japan and China affords a very
instructive illustration at this point. China was in
almost every respect the stronger of the two com-
batants at the outset. Her vast population, her
great armies, her exhaustless resources, and the pres-
tige which her position as the leading Asiatic power
gave her, all combined to make the world believe that
Japan was entering upon a conflict in which success
was impossible ; but events have demonstrated that
success was not only possible but comparatively easy.
How are we to account for the success of Japan and
the failure of China ? The Japanese were united,
had a single purpose in view, &nd above all were
organized for victory. The Chinese, on the other
hand, had a very imperfect organization, had no
missiojstarv possibilities. 55
delinite purpose, and, as a people, practically took no
part in the struggle. Under such conditions thirty-
five million Japanese were equal to four hundred
million Chinese. In the impending struggle between
Christianity and the non-Christian faiths in India,
and to some extent in all non-Christian lands, very
similar conditions prevail, and similar results may
be anticipated. A small Christian force may always
be estimated as fully equal to a very large non-
Christian body, especially if the former is truly
Christian. I have sometimes even ventured to ex-
press the opinion that when the Christians of India
amount to a total community of ten millions they
will exert more influence and wield more power than
the whole non-Christian mass of the population.
ESTIMATING RESULTS.
Many good Christians doubt the wisdom of all
attempts to estimate the results of Christian labor.
They are willing to sow and plant in springtime and
to estimate the amount to be gathered in harvest;
but in the spiritual world they shrink from the very
thought of calmly sitting down to calculate results in
this way. To some it seems too mechanical, to others
irreverent, while to others it probably appears as too
uncertain to be depended on. And yet God encour-
ages us to expect success, and has given us a whole
galaxy of promises to strengthen us while we toil.
Of all living men the missionary ought to feel most
assured of success. He may be mistaken as to
56 MODERN MISSIONS.
details, but his commission is given by One who shall
never fail nor be discouraged till judgment is set in
the earth ; and this One is his daily companion and
his victorious leader evermore. Night may cease to
distill its dews, but the rich dews of heavenly grace
will never cease to refresh the spirit of the Christian
toiler or fail to water the precious seed which he
scatters in human hearts. The wind may cease to
blow where it listeth, but the Spirit of God will
never cease to attend the steps of the humblest dis-
ciple who goes forth as a messenger of Jesus Christ.
Storm and tempest, hail and frost, blight and mildew
may defeat the plans and mar the hopes of other
toilers ; but all things in God's universe, from the
starry systems above us to the minute events of our
daily lives, move together in harmony with the best
possible interests of every work which we carry on in
the name of Jesus Christ. With these facts before
us, why should we shrink from the thought of using
our confidence as a basis for action ? Why should we
hesitate to make use of all the elements of certainty
which enter into the prosecution of such a work as
that which the missionary prosecutes ?
Many years ago a friend in a city in upper India
submitted for my inspection a plan for the erection
of a large manufacturing establishment. All the
details had been carefully elaborated, and the proba-
ble results of the enterprise were boldly tabulated.
In due time a company was formed, capital invested,
buildings erected, and work commenced ; and for
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 57
more than twenty years the plans elaborated on
paper have been successfully illustrated in action.
We are not surprised at this, and no one dreams that
the first promoter of the enterprise did an unwise
thing in planning for the future. About the same
time a Christian worker went to another city in
India to lay the foundations of a great Christian
enterprise. His working capital consisted almost
wholly in the promises of God. He confidently
expected success, and began his work as if it were
already assured. His enterprise also proved success-
ful, and goes on apace, gaining constant headway to
the present day. These two men worked on similar
principles, one in the commercial world and the other
in the spiritual. Did the Christian commit an error
in assuming that one of the children of light might
venture to be as wise in his generation as the chil-
dren of this world ?
OUR OPPORTUlNil'IES.
If now we turn to the great missionary world, look
at our possibilities, and form plans accordingly, we
can hardly fail to be impressed with the conviction
that no men and women since Pentecost have ever
enjoyed such opportunities as those which God is
setting before his people. Practically there is no
limit to the vast field which presents itself to our
vision. If we ask for a region in which people may
be found who ask for instruction, not in a general
sense, but definitely, for the purpose of becoming
58 MODERN MISSIONS.
Christians, we may find a score of such districts in
India, a number in China, and other equally hopeful
people in the interior of Africa. If the workers could
be found ready to receive them one hundred thousand
candidates for baptism could be enrolled in India
alone before the close of the present year. Intelligent
observers in China assure me that the outlook in
some parts of that empire is rapidly becoming almost
equally hopeful. Let it be conceded that these people
are very ignorant, very poor, and very weak in moral
character ; but the fact remains that they are inquir-
ing the way to Christianity, and that thousands of
other poor creatures of like character have become
genuine Christians. The one conspicuous fact which
confronts us is that tens of thousands of people whom
we call heathen wish to become Christians, and are
willing and ready to receive instruction at the hands
of the Christian missionary. Putting aside all other
more distant possibilities, and considering only those
regions where willing thousands await our coming,
I do not hesitate to say that a forward movement on
the part of all the <wangelical Churches of Christen-
dom might very easily be made to yield one hundred
thousand adult converts every year, or, in other
words, might be made to produce as much fruit in
nine years as all the missions of the world have done
in the past century.
But the possibilities of tlie situation do not stop
here; they only begin to unfold themselves to our
view. All experience has taught us that an ingather-
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 59
ing of converts may be expected to prepare the way
for a still larger number of inquirers. The presence
of one hundred thousand converts to-day means the
appearance of two hundred thousand inquirers in the
near future ; and in this way we may confidently
assume that before many years the great mission
fields of the world will present the spectacle of
millions of men and women waiting to be received
and guided into the way of life. The millions are
coming as surely as harvest follows springtime, and
we must prepare for thei." coming. Let no one be
startled at the thought or tempted to fear that I am
yielding to a flight of fancy or led away by an
extravagant enthusiasm. This world is to become a
Christian world ; the powers of hell are to be over-
thrown, and our Saviour, Christ, is to reign in
righteousness over all nations. But if such a day
ever comes, if kingdoms and nations are to be
wrested from the grasp of Satan and given to Christ
as his inheritance, there must come a day when
Christians shall learn to speak of millions as freely as
they now speak of i ' iousands. At the present rate of
missionary progress a millennium would not suflSce to
prepare the way for the great millennial reign to
which we all look forward with such ardent hope. It
is a striking comment on the feeble faith and limited
vision of present-day Christians, to note how most of
them start as if in alarm at the mere mention of an
early ingathering of millions of redeemed men and
women. Christianity must mean this, or else stand
60 MODERN MISSIONS.
before the world as a gigantic and confessed failure ;
and as Christians we owe it to the faith which we
profess to maintain a serene confidence in God and in
the great work which he is carrying on among the
nations.
A century hence there will be, possibly, seven
hundred million, and certainly five hundred million,
English-speaking people on the globe, all subject* to
Christian law, maintaining Christian civilization, and
exhibiting a much higher standard of moral <^ than is
seen in either England or America to-day. Thje spirit
of Christian law will pervade the statute books and
courts of justice of all nations. Religious liberty will
have become the unchallenged right of the whole
human race. Railways will have penetrated to the
most remote corners of the earth. The influence of
the Protestant nations will be paramount everywhere,
and every other public influence, whether religious or
political, will be on the wane. The English language,
already a potent factor in many mission fields, will
have become the lingua franca of the world, and will
assist wonderfully in perfecting the later stages of the
missionary enterprise. In such an age, with a world
so revolutionized, and with all the terms of the
problem so changed, the final conversion of all nations
will no longer seem a far-ofi^" vision of a few enthusi-
asts, and the mention of a million converts will no
longer startle timid or doubting Christian' We talk
in hesitating tones of the possibility of seeing a
million converts now; but those who will fill our
MISSIONARY POSSIBILITIES. 61
places a century hence will look out upon a scene
where not a million converts, but a million workers,
appear.
I am a firm believer in a good time coming, but do
not forget that many severe struggles lie between us
and the good time for which we hope and pray. But
in the meantime let us watch for open doors and
hasten to enter them whenever found. It is my
firm conviction that the mission fields of the world
afford the best opportunities to the average young
man or woman to be found anywhere at the present
time. The teacher who searches for months to find
employment here can find a thousand children wait-
ing for him on the other side of the globe. The
preacher who struggles to hold together a congrega-
tion of a few hundred here can find a hundred thou-
sand neglected souls in the mission field. The young
writer who strives in vain to gain recognition In the
periodical literature of America may go abroad and
join in an effort to provide a literature for unborn
nations. The hundreds upon hundreds of young
people who stand idle in the world's market place
might find employment for heart and hand if they
could only learn the secret of becoming helpers to
universal humanity.
Illustrations of various kinds suggest themselves,
but time forbids. Suffice it to say that the universal
Church of Jesus Christ needs to ponder well at the
present day the whole question of missionary possi-
bilities. In many cases a very wide gulf separates
62 MODERN MISSIONS.
the possible from the actual, and in few cases are the
startling possibilities of the hour appreciated. In
these waning years of the nineteenth century all
Christians should unite in a supreme effort to give an
impetus to the missionary enterprise which will be
felt for long years to come, and which will give a
distinctive character to the next century. There is
little or no fear of our attempting too much, while
there is a constant danger of our contracting the
spiritual paralysis which so often results from
attempting too little. Nowhere in the missionary
world do we see any interest suffering because too
much has been attempted, but at a hundred points we
see painful embarrassment because plans are too con-
tracted or support too spasmodic or insufficient. An
enterprise which aims at the conversion of a world
calls for broad statesmanship, farseeing views, com-
prehensive plans, -^nd invincible faith ; and all these
the God of all grace will bestow if his people will
obey the great missionary commission which he has
given them.
CHAPTEK III.
THE VOICE OF THE MASTER*
« A FTER this I looked, and, behold, a door was
l\ opened in heaven ; and I heard a voice, as
it were of a trumpet, talking with me." (Revelation
iv. 1.)
The apostolic age was both pictorial and vocal :
it was an age of visions and voices of God. A door
was opened in heaven. Such sights the eye beheld,
and such sounds the ear heard, as left no doubt with
saints, and sometimes with sinners, that God was in
close touch with man. As through a rent veil flashed
the hidden glory ; and, whether the sound was that
of a trumpet, or of the "still, small voice," it was
awe-inspiring and soul-subduing. The Gospel mes-
sage itself was the voice of God, and, as was fitting,
it was emphasized and accentuated by other utter-
ances clearly divine. Both by his p evidence and
by his Spirit he spake so often, so loudly, that the
whole age of the apostles echoed with these divine
* This chapter, and the three following chapters, are taken (by
permission) from "The New Acts of the Apostles," by Dr. A. T.
Pierson,
64 MODERN MISSIONS.
voices. In effect the visions were voices, for as
messengers of God they were vocal, only that their
language entered the city of Mansoul through eye-
gate rather than ear-gate.
Not even in the time of the ancient Theophanies
has God more manifestl}'' appeared and spoken to
men. Nor were these visions and voices vain. They
mark, in the history of missions, turning points, both
critical and pivotal ; hinges whereon the golden gates
of the kingdom hung and swung. Nor were they
meant for that age only. A mere glance at the
Acts of the Apostles shows that what God taught
the early Church was a lesson for all time : he was
giving signs and signals for all ages. To a devout
reader this book records and reproduces what primi-
tive disciples saw and heard, somewhat as the photo-
graph and phonograph may yet serve future gen-
erations.
One mark of the close analogy between the age
of modern missions and that of the apostolic is
found in the new visions and voices of God, which,
though less characterized by the purely miraculous
or supernatural element, are no less unmistakable
in their purpose and purport. Every page of these
new chapters is thus illustrated and explained by
the Divine Teacher ; and the fact is both curious
and significant that the main lessons, thus taught
the Church in our day, follow the same lines as
those of that first century. The Heavenly School-
master, like the earthly, finds it ueedful to use repe-
THE VOICE OF THE MASTER. 66
tition for the sake of impression ; and so, after the
long interval of centuries, we are still in God's
school, learning the same old lessons from the same
old text-book, only it is a new edition with notes
by the Author, illuminated by new illustrations, its
teaching enforced and vivified by new arguments
and appeals.
The first voice we hear in the Acts of the Apostles
is that of the Lord Jesus himself. His words have
a double value ; as his last words before he was
taken up, they form the sum and substance of all
his previous teaching ; and as his first words before
the new age of missions opens, they, like a table of
contents, give the sum and substance of the history
that is to follow. All other voices and visions found
in this book are meant to fix in the minds of believers
what they saw and heard when the Lord last ap-
peared unto them before his ascension — to echo,
explain, amplify, illustrate his great commission.
Because every word that he then spake is a little
world full of meaning, let us write his fareweU
message in large letters :
" DEPART NOT FROM JERUSALEM,
BUT WAIT FOR THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER
WHICH YE HAVE HEARD OF ME;
FOR JOHN TRULY BAPTIZED WITH WATER,
BUT YE SHALL BE BAPTIZED WITH THE HOLY GHOST,
NOT MANY DAYS HENCE.
5
66 MODERN MISSIONS.
YE SHALL RECEIVE THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST
COMING UPON YOU,
AND YE SHALL BE WITNESSES 'INTO ME
BOTH IN JERUSALEM AND IN ALL JUDEA,
AND IN SAMARIA,
AND UNTO THE UTTERMOST PART OF THE EARTH."
Here, then, is the loud and leading voice of the
apostolic age, and how majestic and commanding !
In this final word of our ascending Lord three things
stand out conspicuous like lofty peaks against the
horizon :
First, the work of witness is the duty of the
whole Church. Second, the field of witness is
the territory of the whole world Third, the force
of witness is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Again we affirm it, this farewell message is all-
comprehensive. From it was omitted nothing vital
to the Church's great mission ; to it nothing has
been, or can be, added. The keynote is struck, and
the divine melody is sung ; all that follows is but a
variation upon this theme, the harmony which only
makes more conspicuous the melody. The chapters
that succeed add only emphasis to this first chapter,
and so it will be of the unwritten records yet to
follow ; every failure or success in our mission work
only gives fresh force, heavier stress, to this great
message of the departing Master.
Immediately, with but ten days of interval, the
THE VOICE OF THE MASTER. 67
farewell word of the Lord and the promise of the
Father find fulfilment in the outpouring of the Spirit.
Pentecost was both a vision and a voice, emphasizing
and confirming what Jesus had said.
The work of witness now began. Hundreds of
tongues, like a chorus of silver trumpets of jubilee,
proclaimed in unison the acceptable year of the Lord ;
and, although at times this work has suflfered con-
traction through unbelief and world liness, it has
never entirely ceased, nor will it until the end of
the age.
The field of witness now began to be first seen
in its true length and breadth, Peter officially said,
" The promise is unto you and unto your children,
and to all tliat are afar oflf, even as many as the
Lord our God shall call." And this he spake not
of himself ; he had little conception of the meaning
of his own words, as subsequent events prove. It
was the voice of the Spirit, repeating and enlarging
the covenant promises of a former dispensation ;
repeating them for tlie sake of Jewish believers ;
enlarging them for the sake of the Gentiles, who
had hitherto been aliens from the commonwealth of
Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise.
Christ had made the field of witness to embrace the
uttermost part of the earth ; and so now the Spirit
leads Peter, still fettered with Jewish exclusiveness,
to add, "and to as many as are afar oft*!" The
golden links of prophecy connect the Hebrew race
with a larger grace, that is to touch the whole family
68 MODERN MISSIONS.
of man. And so this same Peter was led, a little
later, to say to the unbelieving Jews, "Repent ye,
therefore, and be converted, so that times of refresh-
ing may come from the presence of the Lord." The
reclamation and restoration of God's elect people is
a condition, preliminary and preparatory, to that
last great time of refreshing which is to come upon
all flesh. In Abraham's " seed shall all the kind. 3ds
of the earth be blessed!" but that promise made to
the father of the faithful will be fulfilled only when
Abraham's seed, receiving the Messiah they despised
and rejected, become witnesses to the nations. And
so Paul adds his testimony to Peter's : " Now, if
the fall of them be the enriching of the world, and
their diminishing the enriching of the Gentiles, how
much more their fulness ? For, if their rejection be
the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiv-
ing of them be, but life from the dead ? " (Romans
xi. 12-15.)
The field of witness was not only now first seen
to be the world, but in a peculiar way its occupation
began. From every quarter of the inhabited globe
had gathered those representatives who, on the day
of Pentecost, received the word and the blessing ; and
going back to their far-off* and widely separated
abodes they naturally became witnesses unto the
peoples among whom they dwelt. The sheaf of first-
fruits thus laid on that Pentecostal altar supplied
seed for the sower to scatter in regions beyond.
The power' of witness was now for the first time
THE VOICE OF THE MASTER. 69
revealed in its fulness. Pentecost emphasized our
Lord's words by bringing the promised baptism, the
chrism of power, the nameless charm and virtue
which make all witness effective. Then began the
great endowment and enduement, so indescribable
yet indispensable ; through human tongues the Holy
Spirit spake, with a demonstration of truth far be-
yond all the demonstration of logic, making simple
witness to Christ to accomplish what all the wisdom
of the schools has never been able to effect. And,
from that day onward the secret of power to testify
for God, to convince and persuade men, has been the
snine, namely, to be filled with the Holy Ghost.
We have thus seen that the first two chapters of
the Acts furnish the key, not only to this book, but
to all missionary history. Our Lord's last words
describe the work of witness, define the field of
witness, and reveal the force of witness; and the
third person of the Trinity adds his confirmation of
the word of the Lord Jesus, by leading disciples to
begin the work, to enter the field, and to use the
power. Where God thus teaches three lessons, and
stamps them as of such sup/eme importance, it must
be our duty to learn them thoroughly. We ther^jlore
tarry to study them with more care and closeness
of application.
CHAPTEE IV.
THE CALL TO ALL DLSCIPLES.
THIS first lesson taught in the Acts of the Apos-
tles, that the work of witness belongs to the
whole Church, dominates the book, so emphatically,
so repeatedly enforced, that it must constitute one, if
not the only, design of its records.
Those who believed were from the first sent forth
as witnesses. It is of the very genius of Christianity
that it implies and compels testimony ; " I believed
and therefore have I spoken ; we also believe and
therefore speak." This is not only the logic of
missions ; it is the logic of spiritual life. The Church
of God is an army, always to be mobilized in readi-
ness for action, — more than this, always in action.
Livingstone said, " The spirit of missions is the Spirit
of our Master ; the very genius of our religion. A
diffusive philanthropy is Christianity itself. It re-
quires perpetual propagation to attest its genuine-
ness."
How far this conception of a witnessing Church
is the controlling law in the structure of tlie Acts
of the Apostles, only careful search will show.
The introduction to this book refers to that " forty
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 71
clavs " of communion between the risen Lord and his
disciples, the object and result of which were four-
fold :
First, to leave in them no doubt of the fact of
his resurrection ; secondly, to give them instruction
touching the Kingdom of God; thirdly, to prepare
them for his unseen presence and guidance ; forthly,
to inspire them with the true Spirit of missions.
Then, as soon as the Spirit was outpoured, we find
the bold outlines of early Church history confronting
us, the record of active, aggressive testimony, pushing
its lines from Jerusalem into all Judea, then into
Samaria, and so farther and farther into the remo-
test regions beyond.
1. The witnessing Church at Jerusalem and Judea.
Chapter i. 13 to vii.
Ten days of prayer are followed by the Pentecostal
enduement for service, persecution by Pharisees and
Sadducees, Stephen's martyrdom, and the dispersion
of disciples; the voluntary community of goods,
division of work, and the institution of the diaconate.
2. The witnessing Church in Samaria. Chapter viii.
Under Philip, the evangelist-deacon, Samaria re-
ceives a blessing, essentially a repetition of the
Pentecost at Jerusalem.
3. The witnessing Church moving towards the
uttermost part of the earth. Chapter ix. to the close.
The conversion of the eunuch represents evangel-
ism begun in Ethiopia; and that of Saul of Tarsus,
the chosen apostle to the Gentiles, raises up the
72 MODERN MISSIONS.
greatest evangelist the world has ever seen, whose
especial passion it is to reach the regions beyond.
Among the Romans at Caesarea, then among the
Greeks at Antioch and Ephesus, Pentecostal blessings
descend with marvellous signs and wonders; and
the first Gentile Church formed at Antioch becomes
the starting point for foreign missions. Paul's three
mission tours, with their ever widening circles, are
outlined, and the book closes with the Cilician apostle
teaching and preaching at Rome, the third great
centre of Christianity.
In the latter part of the Acts, Paul comes to the
front, while Peter disappears entirely. The reason is
plain. The obvious object of the book is to trace the
beginnings of missions to the nations of the wide world.
To Peter it was given to unlock the door of faith,
first to Jews and then to Gentiles ; then he goes to
the dispersion or scattered tribes of Israel ; and Paul,
whose commission is to the nations at large, the
typical world-missionary, naturally becomes the main
actor in the scene.
Attention has already been called to the fact, that
Luke treats both the Gospel which he wrote and this
book of which he is the declared author, as parts of
one connected, continuous, complete narrative. A
careful study will show the links of unity. The
purpose of the Spirit, in these two sketches, is to
outline Gospel history from its infancy in its humble
Judean cradle to its mature growth as a world-wide
power ; to trace the seed of the kingdom, first sown
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 73
on Syrian soil, then scattered widely beside all waters
and borne upon the various streams of civilization to
the heart of the heathen world.
Thus, from first to last, this combined narrative is
the story of missions. In the Gospel our Lord offers
the good news to the Jews; and then seeing their
actual rejection of him and foreseeing their con-
tinued refusal of his message, he commands and
commissions his disciples to go everywhere and -
witness to every creature. In the Acts we see the
commission and command actually carried out; the
preaching of the Gospel to the Jews by both Peter
and Paul, and its repeated rejection by them ; with
its subsequent and consequent proclamation to man-
kind as such at the great centres of population.
The Gospel according to Luke opens with Christ's
incarnation, and closes with his resurrection and
ascension. The promise of enduement with power
" not many days hence," is the last link left to connect
with the after narrative. In the Pentecostal fires the
new links are forged for this chain of events, and so
the Acts of the Apostles joins on to the Gospel, begin-
ning with the natal day of the Church at Pentecost
and ending with Paul's work at Rome.
Now, confining our gaze to the Acts, as a whole, we
observe at least ten marked features, all indicating
the mission, committed to the whole Church, of a
world-wide witness.
I. The waiting for the Holy Spirit. The endue-
ment from on high was also an endowment, fitting
74 MODERN MISSIONS.
for the work of witness ; the type of other effusions
which followed md which indicated that not only
Jewish converts but Gentile believers also were to be
thus endued and endowed.
2. The substance of this witness was Christ cruci-
fied, risen, exalted and glorified, as the only Saviour ;
pointed prominence being given to the Old Testament
prophecies and the exact correspondence of New
Testament history ; and to that glorious second com-
ing of our Lord which is to put the capstone upon all
prophecy and history. The book is full of Christ,
Messiah foretold, Saviour revealed.
3. The resolute persistence of Christ's witnesses in
face of organized opposition. The Jews, led by
Sanhedric rulers; the Gentiles, led by such as the
Ephesian Demetrius, drive disciples to face, if not
to fight, that worst of all wild beasts, the mob.
Persecution bares her red right arm and whets her
cruel sword, warning disciples what price they must
pay for free speech. But they " cannot but speak
the things which they have seen and heard." And so
this story of the Acts becomes the first book of
Christ's martyrs. Stephen's angel smile shines amid
a hail of stones. James' head drops under the axe of
Herod Agrippa. Peter, kept for a like fate by the
same despot, is loosed from prison, at the beck of One
before whom even iron fetters fall and iron gates
open of their own accord. Yet neither can bribe nor
force stop the mouth of Christ's witnesses. God is
obeyed and man is defied.
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 75
4. Church life itself is moulded by this mission to
mankind. Believers so commonly accept this work
of witness that personal and private interests are
merged into this wider and nobler service. The com-
munity of privilege and responsibility is emphasized
b}'^ a more remarkable community of goods. With
an unselfishness that has no other example in history,
believers part wioh worldly possessions and pour the
proceeds into a common fund, to be distributed
according to the wants of each and all. Not only
duties but burdens are shared alike.
5. The witnesses disperse more and more widely.
Those who were sojourners in Jerusalem v/ent back
to their separate abodes with the new message of
life burned into their souls by the Spirit's fire, and
burning on their tongues ; and so light began to shine
in the darkness. If we may trust tradition, the
eunuch whom Philip guided to the blood of the Lamb
and the water of baptism, founded the Church of
Alexandria and baptized his own queen. The con-
verted blasphemer from Tarsus swept over a wide
and wider arc, until his mission tours touched not
only Ephesus, Athens, Corinth and Rome, but possibly
Spain and Britain.
6. The open secrets of apostolic success may be
read upon every page of this short 'story. Apostolic
activity moves toward its goal of world-wide missions
with so rapid strides that in one generation it reaches
the remotest parts; yet it treads no strange road.
All along the way God's lights are hung, that he who
76 MODERN MISSIONS.
will maj follow. How simple the methods of work !
Childlike faith in the promise of God ami the power
of his word and Spirit ; believing and united prayer
that laughs at the giant Anakim with their chariots
of iron, and cares not for high walls and strong gates,
and foes many and mighty ; a heroic obedience that
asks only for " marching orders," and then dares all
obstacles and opposers, moving on into the " valley
of death," to " do and die " — such are the simple clew
to the whole maze and mystery of apostolic missions.
7. The unseen divine presence pervades the whole
history. To Christ's last command was closely linked
a last promise, " Lo, I am with you all the days, even
to the end of the age." This book is the record of the
fulfilment of that promise. Wonder-working miracu-
lous signs, divine interpositions, so abound that the
uncommon becomes common, and the supernatural
seems no more unnatural. As we cross the threshold
of the story we meet the tongues of flame that tell
the power of God ; then each chapter is a new
chamber of marvels. The healing of the lame man,
of the divining damsel, of ^neas at Lydda ; the rais-
ing of dead Dorcas ; the healing virtue that invests
the body of Paul and the shadow of Peter ; the prison
doors thrice opened, twice by the angel, once by the
earthquake as God's angel ; miracles of judgment as
well as deliverance ; Elymas being blinded, and
Ananias, Sapphira and Herod struck dead — at every
step we tread on enchanted ground.
8. The power of the Gospel is everywhere con-
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 77
spicuous. Sinners are converted sometimes as in
masses ; saints are edified and educated, and the body
of Christ grows strong. Even those who are neither
converted nor convicted seem compelled to hear and
to make some decision ; they may not bow to Christ,
but they cannot maintain the stolid apathy of indif-
ference. Stephen's stoners are cut to the heart, for his
words are swords ; Felix says, " Go thy way," but he
" trembles ; " Agrippa will not yield, but is ** almost
persuaded." Those who " gnashed on him with their
teeth " " could not resist the wisdom and the spirit
with which " the first martyr spake ; and Saul, who
stood by consenting to their deed, never forgot that
shining face which prepared him for the glory that
smote him near Damascus !
9. This is the book of the Holy Spirit. Through-
out, there runs the stream of his subtle, unseen,
mysterious, resistless working. Omniscience, omnipo-
tence, omnipresence, find here the field for their
display, promising and prophesying similar results,
whenever and wherever like conditions obtain. Here
God shows that in grace as in nature he has chosen
channels for his power and energy, and if those
channels are not obstructed, he who is the same
yesterday and to-day and forever, will still work
wonders.
10. No undue emphasis is here laid on numerical
results or apparent success. In the story of primi-
tive missions the whole stress is upon obedience, not
consequence, not on succeeding but on serving. The
78 ^ MODERN MISSIONS.
work is God's, the instrumentality only is man's ; the
whole responsibility is therefore with the Master
Workman, and whether success or failure, defeat or
triumph, be the apparent outcome, all is well.
No lesson taught in these chapters is more sublime,
or more needful than this. In every age disciples
need to learn it anew. So long as our eyes are
dazzled by the glittering trophies of victory, and our
hearts depressed by seeming disaster, we shall be in a
state of chronic worry. Our joy and hope, our cour-
age and confidence, will be like the waves of the sea,
tossed up and down by every change of wind, and
driven to and fro by every turn of tide. The work
of missions is God's work. Man did not plan it, can-
not carry it on, cannot make it a success. As Dr.
McLaren says, " the results are so poor as to show
that the treasure is in an earthen vessel ; so rich as
to prove that in the earthen vessel is a heavenly
treasure." We are therefore simply to do our duty,
and with a holy abandonment, a sublime " careless-
ness," cast ourselves and thrust our work upon him
whose we are and whom we serve.
Some of these ten principal features of this book
will receive more attention further on ; but at this
point we have sought to look at them as at the feat-
ures of one face, striking for the unity and harmony
of their combination and impression. And they serve
to characterize the Acts of the Apostles as the typical
history of the witnessing Church during its first
generation, wherein God teaches the philosophy of
missions by a historical example.
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 79
This book of the Acts teaches that in this witness
every believer is to take part. A duty is involved
from whose obligation no disciple is excepted ; a
privilege from whose enjoyment and enrichment no
believer is excluded. The opening miracle of Pente-
cost writes this lesson in letters of fire upon the door-
way of this historic record, for it brought that two-
fold gift of converting and anointing grace, and the
anointing came upon all that little company, even
upon the women. The gift of tongues was both a
sign to the unbelievers and a signal to believers.
What is the tongue but the great instrument of
testimony ? The message was spoken with many
tongues to teach disciples that their witness was to
reach every nation, whatever its language ; and pos-
sibly that gift of tongues fitted them for such wit-
ness, without the tedious mastery of foreign speech.
And the tongues were of fire to remind them that
faithful testimony was to be attended by a new force,
an energy not of man but of God.
So plainly is the tongue of every disciple thus set
apart for testimony, that it is a fact beyond explana-
tion that the Church should ever have lost sight of
God's purpose, that witnessing shall be the preroga-
tive of all believers ; and it is one of the startling
proofs of a rapid decline from a primitive piety, that
so few modern disciples feel the burden of personal
responsibility for souls.
The study of words reveals ethics in language.
Error and truth find crystallization iu current forms
80 MODF.RN MISSIONS.
of speech, and so this habitual carelessness that shifts
the work of soul-saving upon other shoulders has
become coined into popular phrases, fixed forms of
expression.
For instance, let us look closely at that dangerous
term, " division of labor." It is often said that the
Acts of the Apostles encourages and enjoins this
principle ; and the institution of the diaconate is
cited to prove it, because the Church was bidden to
look out honest men to serve tables, leaving the
apostles free to give themselves to prayer and to the
' ministry of the word.
Let us beware of too broad an induction from so
r arrow a basis of particulars. There is a great gulf
of difference and distinction between division of
labor and distribution of labor. Division hints at
partition and separation ; distribution implies only a
special assignment or allotment of work. Expe-
diency and convenience may set apart some to a
particular service, in order to free them from all
entanglements, and to assure a more competent and
thorough attention to that branch of work ; but it
is quite another matter to build up a dividing wall,
or draw even a dividing line, which practically parts
disciples, and which they come to think it improper
to cross. Service is to be so distributed, that each
may have his own sphere and work, and no depart-
ment be overcrowdt.. or under-supplied. But never,
during apostolic days, was there found asserted in the
Churcli of Christ any law of monopoly, clerical caste,
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 81
or exclusive right. Whatever such notions or cus-
toms have since grown up, " from the beginning
it was not so." All believers had, and exercised, an
inalienable and undisputed right to proclaim Christ
to lost men. Experience of grace was the sufficient
warrant for witness to grace ; and the only limits to
such witness were those of ability, opportunity and
consecration.
The appointment of deacons was wise and needful.
Material and temporal wants demanded supply, and
such cares must not collidf^ and conflict with purely
spiritual offices and minist les ; and, because provision
for God's poor was a form of service to him, it must
be in charge of men, not only of honest report and
of wisdom, but full of the Holy Spirit.
The same need still exists. The ministers and mis-
sionaries to whom is committed as their one absorbing
trust, the curacy of souls, must not be hinde: jd p d
hampered by the stern necessity of ministering to ti^^
temporal needs of their own and of other families.
There is a " business side " of the Loid's work which
calls for men with a practical talent for finance and
business. Some who are not called to give them-
selves wholly to prayer and the ministry of the word,
may unshackle those who are, relieving them of need-
less tax on time and strength, by taking care of poor
saints, and by providing a sound financial basis and
botoom for evangelistic and spiritual work.
Hovk' often a noble structure of missions has come
to wreck and ruin from dry rot in its timbers, because
6
82 MODERN MISSIONS.
there has been no one to look after suppHes ! The
war is God's, but it needs money and material. Brave
JJaptain Gardiner, at Tierra del Fuego, led a little
band of seven against Satan's seat in Patagonia, but
had to turn back, and died of starvation at the very
gates of his stronghold, and in the very crisis of the
assault, because of lack of the necessities of life. Had
some well-organized body of men and women at home
kept up the " line of communication " between the
base of operations and the source of supplies, Allen
Gardiner might not have fallen at Spaniards' Har-
bor in 1851, and the victory might not have been
postponed for half a century !
Let it be noted, however, that the appointment of
the seven deacons to serve tables did not shut them
out from preaching or even baptizing, as the records
of both Stephen and Philip clearly show. Distribu-
tion of labor did not divide disciples, nor debar any
from taking part in evangelizing. Over the doors of
the early Church the Master wrote in letters so large
that he who runneth may read at a cursory glance,
" Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature." The command was and is to all dis-
ciples. Those who cannot go in person, must go in
the person of others who can ; and with no less self-
denial, prayer, self-oftering, must they who tarry by
the stuft' support those who go to the battle, than if
the3 aemselves went to the field. Only so will they
share alike in the work and the reward. Let this one
law of service be framed iiito church life, and all will
be alike missionavies,
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 83
In the Samarian Pentecost, God laid new emphasis
upon the truth ah^eady taught, that the commission
of disciples was not limited by priestly lines nor con-
fined within narrow channels. The sharp distinction
between priests and people, found in the days of
Judaism, disappears in the Christian Church; the
barriers were down between the court of the Gentiles
and the court of Israel, and the middle walls of parti-
tion between the court of Israel and the court of the
priests perished with the old temple, and has no place
in the Church of Christ. Nay, the veil is rent be-
tween the Holy Place and the Holiest of all, and all
believers approach alike without hindrance or hesita-
tion to the mercy-seat. What means all this if not a
plain assertion of a certain equality of right, dignity
and privilege ? No assault is designed, in the calm
recording of these convictions, upon the views or
practices of fellow-disciples ; but candor and loyalty
to truth demand of us, that as honest students of this
great missionary charter of the Church, we shall
accept and defend its plain teachings. If we are in
earnest to perfect the missionary methods of our own
era, we must with open eyes see our present defects,
and own our departures fro^n the primiti' > standard.
The prime condition of all spiritual progress i a can-
did mind. That a custom exists is no warrant for its
right to exist ; it is at best but a presumption in its
favor. As Cyprian said, " Consuetudo vetustas
erroris," — Custom may be only the antiquity of
error, And if iu the Church any notions or practices
84 MODERN MISSIONS.
have found root and growth which are not of God's
planting, and whose fruit is not of goodly savor, how-
ever marked by old age, the sooner we cut them down
and extirpate them, root and branch, the better. And
surely whatever hampers or hinders all believers from
bearing witness for the Gospel, must find sanction
outside of the Acts.
God used persecution to reveal the true value and
need of what is somewhat invidiously called, " Lay-
agency," in the world-wide work. The Spirit records
with marked particularity how in this wide scattering
of disciples the apostles were excepted ; so that the
fact might be more emphatic that it was the common
body of believers who, being scattered abroad, went
everywhere preaching the word. God may yet use
persecution to repeat the same lesson, that, as there is
to be no distinction among those who need the Gospel,
so we are to deny to no believer the prerogative,
which is a sort of birthright, of telling the Gospel
story as best he can. It needs all believers to reach
all unbelievers. The silver trumpet which peals out
God's year of jubilee is wrought of the whole Church,
every believer adding material to the trumpet and
volume to the sound. The Church is God's golden
lampstand, and everyone who is taught of God is
part of ^h«,t framework, helping to lift the Light of
the world higher and give its rays more range and
power. Because we believe, therefore we speak, is
the reason for missions. Every one of us is needed in
the work : the Church, the world, God, have need of
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 85
US, and we ourselves need the m ork for our own
growth.
The Church, as primitive piety declined, built up
priestly barriers about the " clergy " and taught the
" laity " that it was impertinent intrusion for those
who are not " ordained," to preach the good tidings.
But in all great epochs of spiritual power, believers
have burst these bonds like cords of burnt tow, and
claimed the universal, inalienable right to tell lost
souls of Jesus. Such false restraints are cei^^'^ents of
the tomb ; they belong not to the living jut to the
dead ; they have the odor of decay, and, like other
grave-clothes, should be left behind in the sepulchre.
When Christ's voice calls the dead to life, and one
comes forth bound hand and foot with ceremonialism
and traditionalism, even his mouth bound about with
the napkin of enforced silence — the Lord of Glory
says, " Loose him and let him go ! " As well force
him back into the sepulchre and roll the stone to the
door as to leave a converted soul bound ! Let every
live man be a free man. Stand bark ! ye who would
fett'3r a disciple's utterance. He is one of God's wit-
nesses. Teacli his tongue, but do not bind it ! Train
him for service, but do '>ot hold him back ! Ye, who
are preachers and pastors, become ye teachers of
teachers, trainers of workers ! turn your churcliea
into recruiting offices, barracks, armouries, where dis-
ciples enlist for the war, and are put through the drill
and discipline of soldiers; where they put on the
whole armor of God, and then go forth, led by you, to
fight the good fight of faith !
86 MODERN MISSIONS.
Do we, with needless repetition, seek to emphasize
this lesson of the common duty and privilege of be-
lievers to preach the Gospel ? Mark how God repeats
it in this book. That Samarian Pentecost was a new
voice of God teaching this truth. All that great work
of grace revolved about Philip the deacon, a man set
apart indeed, but not for preaching or baptizing ; and
God set his own sign and seal in a wonderful way
upon the ministry of this lay evangelist. What a
divine rebuke to all unscriptural notions, whether
sacerdotal or sacramental ! The ai^e of missions holds
a blessing so large, that it cannot be confined within
priestly lines and limits. The vast host to be reached
defies us to overtake their destitution while we rely
upon a few thousand educated, ordained, highly
trained workmen. Millions sink, unsaved and un-
warned, while we are waiting for experts to come to
their rescue with all the most improved life-saving
apparatus of the schools. If for these souls in wreck
we cannnot command the rocket and gun, the swing-
ing-basket and life-boat, let us have the strong arm
of the swimmer, the plank — anything to save a sink-
ing man !
Let us thank God for the age of a Reformed
Church ! For fifteen centuries the vicious ecclesi-
asticism tliat found deep root in Constantine's rule,
overshadowed the Church, and some remnants of it
still survive. Too often, with the average Christian,
the practical conception of duty is fulfilled if he at-
tends Church worship, supports the preacher, gives to
THiE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 87
benevolent work, and lives an upright life, leaving to
the minister to do the preaching and to take care of
souls. Such notions find no native soil in the Acts of
the Apostles. There, from first to last, we find one
truth taught and one duty done; all who believed
were expected to take part in spreading the faith ;
many, not fitted to lead and teach, could, at least, tell
the good tidings. In every age, and above all in an
age of reviving missionary activity, this fact needs
anew to be wrought into the convictions of God's
people, that in this sort of " preaching " every believer
is to have part. No golden chalice, costly and rare,
polished and jewelled, is needed to bear water to those
who are dying of thirst ; a tin cup or a broken pot-
sherd will do — anything that will hold water.
In our day, new voices of God, loud and clear, are
calling disciples to share in this active, aggressive
cri.sade for Christ. God's providence is the new
" Peter, tlie Hermit," that goes through Christendom,
shouting, " Deus vult ! " — God wills it ! The one great
feature of our century has been the growth of conse-
crated individualism; and as a natural, necessary
sequence, has come the breaking down of all false
barriers that, in direct work for souls, fence in
ministers of Christ and fence out members of
churches. While the ministers are no less needed
and no less busy, in all churches where true life
throbs connnon believers have come to feel that every
man is his brother's keeper ; and that to shirk per-
sonal work for souls is not only culpable neglect of
8S MODERN MISSIONS.
the lost, but serious risk of spiritual loss to the
neglecting party !
It is just a century ago since, in 1793, France called
ail loyal citizens to rise and resist the flood of invad-
ing foes that threatened the destruction of the nation.
All were bidden to take part in the work. The older
men could forge arms and the younger bear them ;
the women could make tents and uniforms, and even
the children could scrape lint and prepare bandages.
The God of Battles calls all alike, old and young, men,
women, children, to a share in the work and war of
the ages. He tells us in unmistakable terms, that those
who think of nothing beyond their own salvation are
scarcely saved, if at all ; and in answer to his sum-
mons a new generation of disciples is coming forward
trained to an unselfish consecration of soul-saving.
1. If we seek some examples of this modern develop-
ment of personal activity in Christian service, let us
hear God's voice in the modern Sunday-school.
Robert Raikes had originally no aim beyond the
occupation of the idle, ignorant children, who made
the Lord's day noisy with their mischief. But God
was behind the movement that started in Gloucester,
and by it he was leading out believers into new fields
of worlc. And now in the Sunday-school, the hum-
blest disciple may find a little congregation for teach-
ing saving truth, a little parish for exercise of pastoral
oversight, a little field to sow and reap in the Master's
name. So universal has the Sunday-school become
that no church is complete without this nursery of
young plants for the Lord's garden.
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 89
2. The Young Mens Christian Association, now
completing its first half century, has a like provi-
dential mission. Its rapid growth and world-wide
extension reveal its place in the plan of God. Already
it has wrought three marked results : it has brought
believers together, encouraged Bible study, and trained
lay workers.
It belongs to the very basis of this great organiza-
tion, that it lifts into prominence only the grand
truths which evangelical disciples hold in common ;
and so, leaving out of sight those minor matters
of creed or polity which have often proved divisive
and destructive of unity, it unifies all believers by
magnifying their agreements and minimizing their
differences.
Then this association directly stimulates systematic
search into Holy Scripture, putting the word of God
into the hands of young men as their text-book in
holy living and serving, and teaching them that its
contents are to be mastered and utilized for growth
in grace and usefulness. The last half century is
the era of the Bagster and the Oxford Bible as the
habitual companion of Christian young men.
These two results contribute to a third, yet more
important — the raising up of a generation of young
men competent to take intelligent part in soul-
winning. Even the apostolic age may safely be
challenged to show any parallel development in this
direction. Within fifty years hundreds of thousands
of young men have been brought to "^hink, not of
90 MODERN MISSIONS.
denominational distinctions, but of fundamental,
saving Gospel truths ; led to give themselves to
personal study of the word of God, until they have
attained marvellous mastery of its contents and
facility in its use, and then have been drawn to feel
the duty and delight of direct work to save others,
and to engage directly in active personal service for
Christ.
It is a sublime sight to behold this vast army of
young men prayerfully searching the Scriptures,
and then going forth to use their knowledge of the
inspired word to guide others to Christ and train
them for similar service. To this lay-activity the
whole providential history of this world-embracing
organization has so rapidly and directly led that even
those who were once incredulous and suspicious are
constrained to see in it all the will and working of
God. Just now there is, perhaps, a risk that in the
new stress laid upon athletic skill, intellectual culture,
social standing, moral excellence, the ultimate end
which God obviously had in view may be sacrificed
or obscured. If the Young Men's Christian Associa-
tion should degenerate into a mere religious club ; if
spiritual development is made subordinate to any
other end ; if Bible study, training for service and
actual soul- saving are ever pushed to the rear to
make way for other practical objects, howe\^er laud-
able, the unique place which this association has filled
in history will be sacrificed, and it will be no lo.iger
the important factor and mighty force it has been in
THE CALL TO ALL DISCIPLES. 91
the purpose of God. As one who has been identified
with this organization for forty years, and who has
lovingly and thankfully watched its growth, the writer
of these pages thus leaves on record his M'^arning word
against those devices of the devil which endanger the
future of this wonderful outgrowth of this missionary
century.
3. It must not be forgotten that Young Women's
Chi'istian Associations are the natural result of the
other, seeking to do for the sisterhood what the
companion associations have done for the brother-
hood ; and there is coming to be, not the nnsexing,
but the unbinding of woman. In the kingdom of
God there is to be " neither male nor female."
Fetters of unscriptural restriction are fast falling
off from the gentler as from the sterner sex ; and
where man finds a closed door, woman's suasive
tenderness and delicacy touches the secret springs
of power.
4, Another example of God's call to general ac-
tivity in behalf of souls is found in the Young
Peoples Society of Christian Endeavor, Epivorth
Leagues, etc.
In the year 1881, somewhat more than thirteen
years ago, a young New England pastor felt that
something must be done among the younger mem-
bers of his congregation to educate them into habits
of witnessing and working for Christ. He must
unloose tongues spiritually dumb, and arrest the drift
toward the Dead Sea of idleness and stagnation. So
92 MODERN MISSIONS.
he formed in his own church the first society of
Christian Endeavor. Its simple secret was a pledge
regularly to attend its meetings and habitually to
take part in some way in their exercises. Around
this mutual covenant, as a nucleus, the society rap-
idly grew ; and so well did the new plan work that
neighboring pastors and churches followed the lead,
and formed societies of a like sort. And so it has
come to pass that live coals from the altar at Port-
land, Maine, have been borne from church to church,
until, as we write, the number of these organizations
is already legion, and the total membership reaches
over two millions.
Who can look at such developments of our own
day and not see God's way of working ? How plainly
do all these, and other similar voices of God, unite
in one loud testimony ! He is evoking all the latent
energies of his Church for the work of witnessing
to all men the gospel of his grace with a vapidity
and energy that remind us of the apostolic age ;
^he forces he had set in motion have swept away
artificial barviers between young and old, male and
female, and thrust all alike into the field of service.
He who watches the signs of the times nmst see God
in history, and will have no doubt which way his
march is moving. He is sununoning and leading all
willing followers to a combined assault on the strong-
holds of Satan and the powers of hell.
B
CHAPTEE V.
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES.
THE PITCAIRN ISLANDERS.
Y his book alone, God has wrought wonders of
transformation.
We have been wont to think the presence of per-
sonal agency an essential condition of the wor.c of
conversion; and perhaps, in view of the emphasis
laid by God himself upon the living voice and the
believer's witness, we are not likely to give any
undue importance to personal contact with souls.
But we must not forget that God's choice of human
channels for his grace does not leave him absolutely
dependent upon them. In more instances than one
he has set his peculiar seal and sanction upon his own
inspired word as the means of softening hard hearts
and changing foes to friends.
The story of the Pitcairn exiles is an illustration
of the power of the Bible alone, as the seed of God,
to raise up in the most sterile soil and amid most
hopeless conditions a harvest for the kingdom. For
he has two sorts of seed— one is the word of God ;
04 MODERN MISSIONS.
the other the children of the kingdom. (Mark iv.
14; Matt, xiii.38.)
In the mind and lieart of the mutineer, John Adams,
God's way may possibly have been prepared by early
parental training of which we have no record ; but,
so far as we know, no human hand wielded the subtle
moulding influence that turned that abandoned sailor
to God. In this case the solitary cause which wrought
such miraculous effects on Pitcairn Island was the
written word of God. And other facts are fast com-
ing to the surface and demanding thankful recogni-
tion, which prove that, quite apart from' the voice and
presence of the living and witnessing believer, the
Bible is doing its own peculiar work. Where the
feet of no other missionary have yet left their tracks,
this living word, which liveth and abideth forever,,
has sometimes proved the pioneer missionary and
evangelist.
Pitcairn Island lies solitar}^ in Pacific waters, and
is about seven miles in circuit. Carteret discovered
it over a century and a quarter since, and named it
after one of his officers who cauglit the first glimpse
of it. There for more than sixty years the mutineers
of the Bounty and their descendants found a habita-
tion. In 1790, nine of these mutineers landed there,
with six men and twice as many women from Tahiti.
At that time the island was found uninhabited,
though relics of previous occupancy were afterwards
discovered.
Among these settlers of a century past, quarrels
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 95
violent and bloody broke out, and the flames of pas-
sion, fed by strong drink, burned so hotly that when
the dawn of the new century came it looked down
on desolation : all the Tahitian men had perished, and
all but one of the Englishmen. John Adams was, of
the mutineers, the sole survivor. He had rescued
from the wreck a Bible and a prayer-book. Destitute
of all other reading, and left without former com-
panions, he turned to these two books for occupation,
comfort and counsel. As he read the word of God
he began to be conscious that he was looking in a
magic mirror — he saw himself in his hideousness,
and remorse for past sins and crimes began to sting
his conscience as with a whip of scorpions. And
from contrition he was led to conversion — from fear
to faith — and all this without any man to g.ade
him. He became not only a true believer in Christ,
but a witness to his grace and a missionary. With
the aid of these two books, he undertook to teach
those grossly ignorant women of Tahiti, and the
children that were left of this mixed parentage.
Mark the result ! Upon this lonely island grew up
a Christian connnunity so remarkable that all travel-
lers visiting those shores have borne common witness
to the gentleness of character and virtuous simplicity
of conduct which were there displayed.
This story of the Pitcairn Islanders tlius stands
quite unique in the history of missions. Here was
a bastard community — a progeny whose parentage
was mutiny and lust, from the beginning doubly
96 MODERN MISSIONS.
accursed. Of all the common institutions of the
Gospel, which we signiiieantly call " means of grace,"
there was complete destitution — no clergymen or
Christian laymen, no churches or Sunday-schools,
no restraints of law or religion. One stray copy of
the blessed book of God, and of that Book of Common
Prayer which is so largely permeated v/ith that word
of God — and even these in the hands of a reckless,
godless mutineer — first became means of blessing and
salvation to him, and then to that degraded class by
whom he was surrounded.
THE COLONISTS OF SIERRA LEONE.
When William A. B. Johnson went to this Mountain
of Lions, in 1816, he found the refuse of slave ships
there gathered. If the horrors of that "middle pass-
age," in which four hundred wretches were crammed
into a hold twelve yards long, seven wide and three
and a half high, had crushed their minds and moral
natures into as narrow a compass as their bodies, they
could not have been more hopeless subjects for labor.
They were manumitted slaves, but in all but name
were still in most abject bondage. These liberated
captives represented tribes so numerous that samples
of one hundred and fifty dialects might have been
found at Queens Yard in Sierra Leone. Johnson
found himself at Hogbrook, with fifteen hundred
half-starved, diseased, filthy Africans, dying at the
rate of two hundred a month, and already dead to
all response even to human kindness. He held a
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 9*1
Sunday service w'' . but nine attendants, and these
. nearly nude. The fact is that, like the victims of
Spanish treachery in Central America, they had so
suffered at white men's hands that even the Gospel
was unwelcome at white men's lips, and the idea of
heaven, if white men were to be there, was almost as
repulsive as hell would be without them.
This simple-minded German fed them daily with
their allowance of rice, and patiently showed them
loving sympathy, and so won their confidence for
himself. Then they thronged his cottage to hear
the Gospel, until he had to resort to the open "ir
as a meeting-place. His school was likewise full to
overflowing, and those pupils who had never seen a
book or known a letter, in less than a year were read-
ing the New Testament. With unceasing labor, and,
better still, unceasing prayer, fighting the deadly
climate and the enfeebling fever, seeing his fellow-
helpers falling beside him till the graveyard at Kissy
was full of bodies, he pei'severed, telling the simple
Gospel story ; and when, in 1819, his wife's illness
drove him to England, he left at Regents Town a
model state, like Eliot's Nonantum and Duncan's
Metlakahtla. The natives had laid out a settlement,
properly organized, with decent homes and all the
signs of a Christian community. They had built a
church which held thirteen hundred, and overflowed
with habitual attendants at three services each Lord's
day. He had two hundred and sir\/y-three communi-
cants, a daily service attended by from five hundred
7
98 MODERN MISSIONS.
to nine liundred, and Imndreds of cases of as deep
conviction of sin and as genuine conversion to God as
any field ever produced. At the very time when his
courageous faitli ahnost gave way before the gigantic
obstacles he had to surmount, and he had sought the
retirement of a forest to indulge in sorrowful thought,
he heard one of these poor slaves praying for the
liberty of a son of God, and he knew the hour of
victory was at hand. Even the secular authorities
were constrained, in their report to the British
Government, to confess, like Pharaoh's magicians,
" This is the finger of God." As they contrasted the
former state of the colony, " grovelling and malignant
superstitions, their greegrees, their red water, their
witchcraft, their devil houses," with the v^xisting
sincere Cliristian worship, they wrote, " The hand of
heaven is in this ! " It is " a miracle of good which
the immediate interposition of the Almighty alone
could have wrought." And they added, " What
greater blessing could man or nation desire or enjoy
than to have been made the instruments of conferring
such sublime benefits on the most abject of the human
race."
Johnson was so impressed with the simple child-
likeness of their faith and the obvious groaning of the
Spirit in their prayers, that his journals are full of
these records. Their devotion to him was pathetic
and romantic. Hundreds of them went on foot with
him to Freetown, five miles off, and when the sea pre-
vented their going with him further, they said, in
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 9©
their broken English : " Massa, suppose no water live
here — we go all the way with you— till feet no more."
And when he came back, and his arrival was an-
nounced in the church at night, some could not wait
to go out the door, but leaped out through the window.
Some went that night to Freetown to meet him, while
others could not sleep, but sang the night away.
Again, in 1823, he was compelled to seek rest in
England. And now over a thousand scholars were in
his school, seven hundred of whom could read. He
had four hundred and fifty communicants, and
they had their own missionary society. And when it
pleased God that seven years of work should close
with his burial at sea, Sara Bickersteth — the first of
her nation to taste the grace of God, his own child in
the faith — watched by his berth, read to him the
twenty-third Psalm and prayed beside him, heard his
dying words and closed his dying eyes. And so,
dying, like Mills and Hunt, at thirty-five, this man in
seven years, and amid a community as hopelessly
ignorant and unimpressionable as ever a missionary
confronted, actually laid the basis of a Christian state,
where, thirty years after his death, Bishop Vidal con-
firmed three thousand candidates, and where, in later
years, parishes with native pastors, a college and a
vigorous life of its own, pushed missions into the
interior and along the Niger.
Tyndall has called attention to the wonders of
crystallization. ** Looking into this solution of com-
mon sulphate of soda, mentally, we see the molecules,
100 MODERN MISSIONS.
like disciplined squadrons under a governing eye,
arranging themselves into battalions, gathering round
distinct centres and forming themselves into solid
masses which, after a time, assume the visible shape
of this cr3^stal." But there is something far tran-
scending this in wonders, when, out of a community
such as Johnson found at Sierra Leone, or Hunt at
Fiji Islands, a well-ordered Christian state is organ-
ized. A secret, unseen, mysterious power, which none
can define or describe, is at work. Around the name
of Jesus the disorderly and confused elements of a
moral chaos arrange themselves in symmetry and
beauty, and society becomes crystalline and reflects
the glory of God.
THE NEW ZEALAND CONVERTS.
The New Zealanders were alike objects of fear and
hate, when the devoted Marsden pleaded their cause
with the Church Missionary Society and laid the basis
of one of the most successful missions of the modern
era. They were perpetually at war, and with brutal
murders revenged the treac lery and violence of white
men who touched at their shores. But while Samuel
Marsden was yet at New South Wales, he met many
from these islands who visited Paramatta, and he de-
tected in them something which promised a nobler life.
When the mission was first projected, no clergyman
could be found ready for an enterprise so heroic ; and
two skilled mechanics undertook to win a way for the
Gospel by the arts of civilization. At the end of
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 101
thirty years' toil, Marsden declared that civilization
is not necessary before Christianity, but will be fonnd
to follow Christianity more easily than Christianity
to follow civilization ; and he added that with all its
cannibalism and idolatry, New Zealand would yet set
an example of Christianity to some nations then be-
fore her in point of civilization.
Certain outrages by a sea captain at Whangaroa
Harbor had provoked horrible retaliation on the part
of the natives, and this led to subsequent acts of
vengeance on the part of a whaling vessel. The ex-
citement ensuing postponed missionary effort ; but at
length two mechanics ventured to New Zealand and
were well received. Marsden now yearned to follow
in person, but could not find a ship captain to take
him at a less cost than six hundred pounds for the
risk; so he bought a brig and set sail, landin*^ on
those shores unarmed, and with but one companion.
As he lay awake that first night, excited by the
awful environment of paganism and cannibalism, he
saw above him those brilliant constellations, the
Southern Cross and the Southern Crown, which
served to remind him of One who bore the cross for
all men, and would yet wear the crown of universal
empire. And on the Christmas day which soon fol-
lowed he preached the first sermon in New Zealand,
using a native interpreter. His text was, "Behold I
bring you glad tidings of great joy ; " and around him
were gathered a motley group of men and women and
children and chiefs. For years no converts crowned
102 MODERN MISSIONS.
the work, though the natives seemed to desire the
Pakehas, or Englishmen, to settle among theni ; and
venture 1 to assure Marsden that they would not be
killed and eaten, as they were such salt eaters that
their flesh was less savory than that of the Maoris
— a statement which did not diminish the quantity of
salt eaten by the English. At length the spirit of
religious inquiry was awakened, and truth found
such root and room to grow that even chiefs began to
be baptized. And when Marsden made his sixth visit,
the east and west shores of the bay where he landed
presented one of thos9 strange and eloquent contrasts
often seen where the Gospel has won a partial victory.
On one side, naked savages, their hands red with blood,
yelling like demons, and the moans of the wounded
and dying ; on the other side, a peaceful community,
decently clad, assembled for worship, and using de-
voutly the Church service printed in their own tongue.
Here at one glance were the anticipations of heaven
and hell — the misery and wretchedness of paganism
confronting Christianity with its trees of righteous-
ness and plants of godliness. When, at seventy-two,
the patriarchal mis.«'onary paid his last visit, his
coming was the signal for ecstatic delight. In his
arm-chair before the mission house, he received the
thousands who from great distances thronged to do
him honor ; and on re-emba^king they bore him on
their shoulders six miles to the shore. Since then,
when, on the unconscious versfe of another sea on
whose unknown waters he was so soon to set sail, the
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIJES. 103
apostle of New Zealand lifted his hands in a farewell
benediction — since then, fifteen thousand native Chris-
tians bear witness that the introduction of Ciiristianity
into the cannibal islands on Christmas day, 1814, was
not in vain. Three years after Marsden's deatli, Bishop
Selwyn reported a whole nation of pagans converted
to the faith.
THE FEROCIOUS CANNIBALS OF FIJI.
We have before referred to the atrocious cannibals
of Fiji, the slaves of a religion of organized cruelty,
that fattens on blood, crushes conscience, and kills
sensibility as a red-hot iron burns out the very eye-
ball. For a hardened Fijian to be brought to tender-
ness of heart and sensitiveness of conscience is as
much a miracle as to replace a maimed limb or restore
a withered arm. Hunt saw two conversions wrought
at Viwa. One from paganism as an idolatrous
system, to the Christian faith; that was wonderful,
like opening a blind eye or straightening a crooked
form. But tht other was more marvellous : it was a
conversion from the love and guilt and power of sin
to God L i love of godliness. It was comparatively
easy to secure a profession of Christianity; but this
was like a resurrection from the dead.
When this Wesleyan farmer saw in these pagan
monsters penitence for sin as sin, deep conviction of
guilt and agonies of godly sorrow ; when for days
and nights together they were racked with wildest
grief until from sheer exhaustion they fainted, and
104 MODERN MISSIONS.
recovered only to swoon again after another agony of
prayer, he said, this is the work of God.
Jolni Hunt goes on his circuits of a hundred miles
a month, telling Christ's story, forming schools to
train converts for teachers, " turning care into
prayer," working hard on his Fiji New Testament.
Who can tell what that lonely servant of God had to
overcome in facing hostile, cruel chiefs without force
or threat, mastering a difficult tongue without gram-
mar or lexicon, teaching such savages when their
pagan tongue supplied no fit terms to convey divine
thoughts!
God had much people even there, and when his fit
and full time came he knew how to lead them out.
The priests predicted an awful drought as the judg-
ment of the gods on the sin of those who confessed
Jesus ; but the failure of the prophecy shook popular
faith in the pagan idols. The Queen of Viwa, and
the " Napoleon " of Fiji, Verani, became Christians, —
and Verani a preacher and winner of thousands of
souls.
This lesson of God's power has been taught us,,
repeatedly, in the new chapters of the Acts. The
story of John Hunt in the Fiji Group is the all-con-
vincing example and illustration. When he went
there in 1838, the moral aspect of those hundred
islands was as hideous as their material aspect was
lovely. If nature bad lavished her bounties and
beauties so that every prospect wag pleasing, how
vile and repulsive v;as man. Treachery and ferocity,
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 105
raging passion and devilish cruelty, were branded
on the very faces of the Fijians. One who had shud-
dered at the sight has sought to paint the awful
portrait: "The forehead filled with wrinkles; the
large nostrils distended and fairly smoking ; the
staring eyeballs red, and gleaming with terrible
flashings ; the mouth distended into a murderous and
disdainful grin; the whole body quivering with ex-
citement; every muscle strained, and the clenched
fist eager to bathe itself in the blood of him who has
roused this demon of fury."
If one could dip his pen in the molten brimstone
of hell's fiery lake, he could still write no just account
of the condition of the Fijians fifty years ago. Two
awful forms of crime stood like gates of hell to let in
flomons and shut out gospel heralds. Of all children
born at least two-thirds were killed at birth, and to
make sure of their death there was a systemi of organ-
ized destruction, and every village had ite authorized
executioner, to repeat the tragedy?" of Bethlehem's
babes. Of course, infanticide and parricide go
together; and so if the parents did not spare their
offspring, neither did the offspring spare the parents,
but despatched them when old or feeble.
Cannibalism, — the most atrocious form of pagan
ferocity, that breaks the whole decalogue at once, the
climax of theft, sensuality and murder, — was not
only a custom, but a sacre(i religious rite, and the
children that were allowed to live, were trained to
dishonor and devour the human form divine. Mothers
106 MODERN MISSIONS.
gave their babes a taste of the horrible feast, as a
beast her cubs, to excite a relish for the horrid meal ;
and not only dead bodies, but living captives, were
given over to young children as playthings on which
to practice for sport the art of mutilation and dis-
section. It became a pride to Fijian chiefs to boast
of the number of human bodies they had eaten ; and
Ra Undreundu's pile of stones, in which each stone
stood for one such victim, contained nine hundred !
The Fijian word for corpse, " vakalu," suggests also
the idea for a meal, as the Greek word for rejoicing
suggests a banquet {x^P^)- All the life of these
people, civil and religious, was inwrought with the
destroying and devouring of helpless victims. A
building of a hut, a launching of a canoe, a burying
of the dead, and events of far less moment, were the
signals for a banquet on human flesh. And if the
plump form of a favorite wife, or the tender flesh
of a little child promised an unusual delicacy, without
compunction or hesitation the husband and father
called his friends to a feast on the dainty morsel !
It was among such a people that the ploughboy
of Lincolnshire landed in 1838. He soon found that
the half of the inhuman cruelty and devilish butchery
of this people had never been told him ; and yet he
went to SomoHomo, whose people were the worst of
all. When the youngest son of the King Tuithakau
was lost at sea, sixteen women were strangled and
then burned in front of the mission-house, notwith-
standing Mr. Hunt's entreaties that they should be
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 107
Spared; and when, some months after, eleven men
were dragged by ropes to be roasted in the ovens,
these demons, who were preparing the feast, threri-t-
ened to burn down the missionary's house, because
liis wife closed and blinded the windows to shut out
the sickening sight and smell of burning bodies !
Not one Christian among a hundred would have
counselled Hunt to attempt work among such incar-
nate monsters, when the king himself forbade his
subjects, under pain of death, to " lotu " or profess
the new faith, and when even the readiness to confess
Christ seemed to be due to mere greed of gain in
cutlery and firearms. Captain Wilkes, of the Ameri-
can navy, in 1840, witnessed the trials of their seem-
ingly hopeless work, and besought them at least to
let him carry them to a more hopeful field ; but
John Hunt had heard a divine voice — *' Fear not, for
I have much people in these islands " — and he stayed.
Three years at Somosomo sufficed to so change the
horrid life about him that at least a bloodless war
was waged, a large canoe launched and a great feast
held for weeks without one human sacrifice ; and this
last with no direct interference of the missionary.
The last six years of John Hunt's short career of
ten, were spent at Viwa, near Mbau, the head centre
of Fiji power. King Thakombau, " the butcher of his
people," was a fierce foe, and his wars and hostility to
tlie missionary seemed to make all success hopeless —
yet here again the patience of God's saints was re-
warded. Even among this city of demons, God had
much people.
108 - ilODERN MISSIONS.
THE SLAVES OF JAMAICA.
Who can read the story of Jamaica, and doubt
the power of the Gospel over even the most degraded
negro slaves. When the island was formally ceded
to Great Britain by the treaty of Madrid in 1670, the
place of the native Indians was taken by Africans,
imported by Spaniards, and during the eighteenth
century over half a million were brought over to
suffer as the heirs of Canaan's curse. The history
of these slaves, their poverty, misery, degradation,
wretchedness, is among the blackest annals of the
race ; and when the facts became knowm in Great
Britain, the popular heart of English freemen de-
manded their liberation. On August 1st, 1834, the
emancipation began to take effect in the freedom of
the children of the slave families ; but the midnight
of July 31st, 1838, was to usher in the complete
liberation of the whole slave community ; and on
that night, led on by William Knibb and James
Philippo, fourteen thousand adult slaves and live
thousand children joined in prayer to God as they
waited and watched for the hour of twelve, mid-
night, which was to terminate the life of slavery in
Jamaica ; and as Rev. J. J. Fuller says, who was
himself a child of slavery and there present, every
colored man on the island was on his knees that
night.
A mahogany coffin had been made, polished and
fitted by the carpenters and cabinet-makers of this
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 109
slave population, and, as became the great occasion,
a grave was dug. Into that coffin they crowded all
the various relics and remnants of their previous
bondage and sorrow. The whips, the torture-irons,
tlie branding-irons, the coarse frocks and 3hirt3, and
great hat, fragments of the treadmill, the handcuffs
— whatever was the sign and badge of seventy-eight
years of thraldom — they placed in the coffin, and
screwed down the lid. As the bell began to toll for
midnight, the voice of Knibb was heard, " The mon-
ster is dying — is dying," until, when the last stroke
sounded from the belfry, Mr. Knibb cried, " The
monster is dead ! Let us bury him out of sight
forever ! " and the coffin was lowered into its grave ;
and then the whole of that throng of thousands cele-
brated their redemption from thraldom by singing
the doxology ! This was the way these black slaves
took vengeance on their former masters — not by deeds
of violence, lust, rapine, murder ; but by burying the
remnants of their long bondage and the remembrance
of their great wrongs in the grave of oblivion. Where
did those debased Africans learn such magnanimous
love, except of him whose greatest miracle was his
dying prayer, " Father, forgive them, for they know
not what thrv do !"
This is not the end of this story. To-day there
is not on the island among all the different bodies
one church dependent on outside help ; they all sup-
port themselves, and a large portion of them have
for pastors the sons of former slaves. They have
110 MODERN MISSIONS.
also their own independent missionary society, as well
as schools, high schools, grammar schools, etc.
On the island to-day there are more than two hun-
dred and seventy Baptist churches alone, seventy of
which are ministered to by young men trained in the
colleges of Jamaica, children of former slaves; and
the Presbyterians, Wesleyans and Episcopalians have
their congregations beside. Here, within a little more
than a half century, the Gospel has not only broken
slave bonds, but has developed former slaves into
a Christian community of freemen of the Lord, with
Christian institutions. Folly and vice, idolatry and
witchcraft, ignorance and superstition, were the thick
growths that covered the soil half a century since,
where now are the trees of righteousness, self-sustain-
ing and self-propagating churches of colored people,
ministered to in many cases by sons of those who
were formerly enthralled in slavery. These preachers,
developed from a former slave population, side by side
with their white brethren maintain the Gospel witli
equal success. To see the difference which the Gospel
can make, one needs only to contrast Jamaica with
Hayti. '
THE PENTECOST ON THE CONGO.
Few tales of missionary experience surpass for thrill-
ing interest that of the work of the past fifteen years
at Banza Manteke. In 1879, Rev. Henry Richards
went from England as missionary of the Livingstone
Inland Mission, and, at Banza Manteke, one hundred
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. Ill
and fifty miles from the mouth of the Con^o and ten
miles south of its stream, established a mission station,
afterward transferred to the American Baptist Mis-
sionary Union.
Mr. Richards came to the United States in 1890,
and told of the Lord's work on the Congo — a story
so full of interest that we present in these pages a
condensed account, as worthy both of preservation
and wider circulation.
When Stanley travelled from Zanzibar across the
Dark Con ti rent, for a thousand days, though he raet
many thousands of people each day, he did not find
one who knew the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1879, two
missionaries were sent out to penetrate this track-
less, desolate region. At length they reached Banza
Manteke, and, unable to go farther, decided there to
establish a station ; for many villages were near by,
and the people were friendly.
They had only one tent, and built a hut of the long
grass that grew about them. There, in September,
1879, Mr. Richards found himself alone, among people
entirely unknown to him, as were also their customs
and their language. He began at once to study them
and then their strange tongue. Some things, however,
he learned only too soon. He found that they all
seemed to be thieves, and would take everything on
which they could lay hands. They were ecjually
adepts at lying ; for Mdien he would look into their
faces and charge them with tlieir theft, they would
deny it with brazen-faced stolidity.
112 . MODERN MISSIONS.
He gives an interesting description of his experience
in learning their language. They had no dictionaries,
grammars, nor literature of any kind, and no white
man had ever learned their tongue. The language
was found to be no mere jargon, but really very
beautiful, euphonious and flowing, with numerous
inflections. When once acquired, it was easy to
preach in it and to translate the Scriptures into it.
He say&, " If some of our best linguists were to try
to form a perfect language, they could not do better
than to follow the Congo. It seems to be altogether
superior to the people ; and there must have been a
time when they were in a higher state of civilization,
from which in some way they have degenerated."
After learning in this patient way to use the lan-
guage a little, he began to study into the customs,
superstitions and religion of the people. He found
that they believed in a great Creator, who made all
things, but they did not worship this " Nzambi,"
because they did not think him a good God, or
worthy of praise and worship. He did not concern
himself about them ; he was too far away. They
had little images cut out of wood — some like them-
selves, only with birds' heads, beaks and claws ;
others like -animals — these are their gods. They
trust them to protect from sickness, death, disaster,
but expect no direct blessings from them. They
believe also in witchcraft, to which they attribute
all evils and misfortunes, and which they counteract
by charms. They send for witch-doctors, if anyone
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 113
is sick, who with many incantations drive out the
demon, or point out some person as the witch, who
has to undergo the test by poison, so common in
Africa.
Mr. Richards sought to show them that sickness,
death and other calamity are not due to witchcraft,
but to sin. He gave them the Bible account of the
creation and the fall, etc., and tried to show that
God is not only a great, all-powerful Creator, but a
kind and loving Father. For four years he pursued
this course, thinking it necessary to give them some
idea of the Old Testament before beginning with the
New. But they were just as rank heathen at the
end of this time as when he first went among them.
There was no evidence of any change. They did not
even feel themselves to be sinners.
Then Mr. Richards went home for a season of rest,
and, while there, spoke to some who had had much
experience in mission work, seeking a clew to his
maze of difficulty. He was advised to go back and
preach the law — for that convinces of sin. So on
reaching Banza Manteke again, the first thing he
did was to translate the Ten Commandments and
expound them to the people. The said the com-
mandments were very good, but claimed that they
had kept them ; and the plainest and most personal
applications of the decalogue made no apparent im-
pression. So two years more passed, and the people
were no better. He began to be hopeless of doing
them any good. He had gained their respect, and
the^ ere kind to him; but that was all.
8
114 MODERN MISSIONS.
At last, in liis discouragement, he began to study
the Scriptures anew for himself, feeling that there
must be some mistake in his preaching or lack in
his living. In the apostolic days souls were con-
verted ; why not now ? Surely the Gospel had not
lost its power. If, in the days of the Acts of the
Apostles, heathen turned from idols to serve the
living God, why sho'^kl not these heathen in Banza
Mantekc ? He studied the Gospel and the Acts of
the Apostles, and began to see that the commission
is not, " Go ye into all the world and preach the Law,"
but " preach the Gosjyei" This was the turning point
in the work of this lonely and disheartened mis-
sionary ! He determined simply to preach the Gospel.
Again, he noticed that disciples were bidden to wait
until they were endued with poiuer from on high.
He felt that he had not this power. He returned to
his work, determined not only to preach the Gospel,
but cry to God for the promised enduement.
It was needful to decide just what " preaching the
Gospel " means. If he preached Jesus crucified, the
people would want to know who Jesus was. He
decided to take Luke's Gospel as most complete and
suitable for Gentiles. He began translating ten or
twelve verses a day, and then read and expounded
them, asking God to bless his own word. At once
his dark hearers proved more interested than when
he had preached the law, and he was more and more
encouraged. When he came to the sixth chapter of
Luke, thirteenth verse, a new difficulty arose — " GivQ
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 115
to every man that asketh of thee." But these people
were notorious beggars ; they would ask for anything
that pleased their eye — his blanket, his knife, his
plate — and when he would say he could not give
these things to them, they would reply, " You can get
more." Henry Richards was greatly perplexed as to
what to do with that verse. He let his helper in trans-
lation go, and w^ent to his room to pray over the matter.
The time for the daily service was drawing near.
What should he do ? Why not pass over that verse ?
But conscience replied that this would not be honest
dealing with God's word. The preaching hour came ;
instead of advancing, he went back to the beginning
of the Gospel, reviewing the earlier part, to gain time
for fuller consideration of that perplexing text. Still,
on further study, he could not find that it meant any-
thing hut just what it said. The commentators said
Jesus was giving general principles, and we must use
common sense in interpreting his words. But this
did not satisfy him. If he interpreted one text in
this way, why not all others ? " Common sense "
seemed a very unsafe commentator.
A fortnight of prayer and consideration drove him
to the wall : the Lord meant just what he said. And
so he read to the people that verse, " Give to every
man that asketh of thee," and told them that this
was a very high standard, and would probably take
a lifetime to live up to it ; but he meant to live what
he preached. After the address the natives began to
ask him for this and iohat, and he gave them whatever
116 rf MODERN MISSIONS.
they asked for, wondering whereunto this thing would
grow ; but he told the Lord he could see no other
meaning in his words. Somehow the people were
evidently deeply impressed by his course. One day
he overheard one say : " I got this from the white
man." Then another said that he was going to ask
him for such a thing. But a third said. " No ; buy it
if you want it ; " and another said, " This must be
God's man ; we never saw any other man do so. Don't
you think if he is God's man we ought to stop rob-
bing him ? " Grace was working in their hearts.
After that they rarely asked him for anything, and
even brought back what they had taken !
This humble man went on translating and expound-
ing Luke's Gospel, and the interest continually grew.
The climax was reached as he came to the account of
the crucifixion of Christ. A large congregation con-
fronted him that day. He reminded the people of the
kindness and goodness of Jesus, and of his works of
mercy ; and, pointing to him as nailed upon the cross
between thieves, he said : " Jesus never would have
died if we had not been sinners; it was because of
your sins and mine that he died." The impression
was very deep. The Holy Ghost seemed to have
fallen upon the people !
He continued preaching the Gospel and seeking
Holy Ghost power. One day as they were returning
from the service, Lutale, who helped him in translat-
ing, began to sing one of the Congo hymns. His face
shone with joy, and he said : " I do believe these
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. . 117
words ; I do believe Jesus has taken away my sins ;
I do believe he has saved me." Seven years of toil,
weary waiting and suffering had passed, and now the
first convert was found at Banza Manteke ! At once,
Lutale began testifying what the Lord had done for
him. But the people became his enemies and tried to
poison him ; so that he had to leave his town and live
with Mr. Richards for safety. For a time there were
no more converts, but the people were stirred. By and
by the king's son became a Christian. Shortly after,
another man came with his idols, and placing them on
a table, said, with savage determination, " I want to
become a Christian," and he soon began to preach.
The work went on until ten were converted, but all
had to leave their own homes, as they were threatened
with death. The missionary now shut up his house,
and taking these men with him, went from town to
town preaching the Gospel. The whole community
was greatly moved ; one after another came over to
Christ's side. Two daily meetings were held, and in-
quirers were numerous. The work continued and
was blessed, until all the people irnmediately around
Banza Manteke had abandoned their heathenism!
More than one thousand names were enrolled in a
book of those who gave evidence of real conversion.
After years had passed, Mr. Richards found the
converts holding on their way. About three hundred
had been baptized, and the native Church w^as earnest
and spiritual. There had been much persecution, but
it had failed to intimidate these new converts.
118 MODERN MISSIONS.
Materials for a chapel, provided through the liberality
of Dr. A. J. Gordon's church in Boston, were brought
to a point fifty or sixty miles distant, and carried
by the people all the way to Banza Manteke, c^er
rough roads. Some of the carriers went four or five
times, each trip requiring a week. In all there were
about seven hundred loads, of sixty pounds each, and
the whole of these loads were borne without charge.
Those who had been thieves and liars before, now
became honest, truthful, industrious and cleanly.
Witchcraft, poison-giving, and all such heathen prac-
tices have been put away. They brought their idols,
and at the first baptism had a bonfire of images, de-
stroying every vestige of idolatry ! Lans Deo !
THE PENTECOST AT HILO.
We have reserved for the last of these sketches of
transfoiixied communities, one which deserves a sepa-
rate setting, as a peculiarly lustrous gem.*
Titus Coan, nearly sixty years ago, in 1835, began
his memorable mission on the shore belt of Hawaii.
He soon began to use the native tongue, and within
the year made his first tour of the island. He was a
relative of Nettleton, and had been a co-laborer with
Finney ; and had learned what arrows are best for a
preacher's quiver, and how to use his bow. His whole
being was full of spiritual energy and unction, and, on
his first tour, multitudes flocked to hear, and many
seemed pricked in their hearts. The multitudes
•Eschol. By S. J. Humphrey, D.D.
'^RA^fSFORMED COMMUNrtlES. ' 119
thronged him and followed him, and like his Master,
he had no leisure, so much as to eat ; and once he
preaclied three times before he had a chance to break-
fast. He was wont to make four or five tours a year,
and saw tokens of interest, that impressed him with
^-^ «trange a sense of the presence of God that he said
little about them and scarcely understood, himself.
He could only say, " It was wonderful ! " He went
about, like Jeremiah, with the fire of the Lord in his
bones ; weary with forbearing, he could not stay.
In 1837, the slumbering fires broke out. Nearly
the whole population became an audience, and those
who could not come to the services were brought on
their beds or on the backs of others. Mr. Coan found
himself ministering to fifteen thousand people, scat-
tered along the hundred miles of coast. He longed
to be able to fly, that he might get over the ground,
or to be able to multiply himself twentyfold, to reach
the multitudes who fainted for spiritual food.
Necessity devises new methods. He bade those to
whom he could not go, come to him, and, for a mile
around, the people settled down — Hilo's little popula-
tion of a thousand swelled tenfold, and here was held,
on a huge scale, a two years' unique " camp meeting."
There was not an hour, day or night, when an audi-
ence of from two thousand to six thousand would not
rally at the signal of the bell.
There was nc disorder, and the camp became a sort
of industrial school, where gardening, mat-braiding,
and bonnet making were taught as well as purely
religious truth.
120 Modern MISSIONS.
Titus Coan was made for the work God had made
for him, and he controlled these great masses. He
preached with great simplicity, illustrating and
applying the grand old truths, made no effort to
excite but rather to allay excitement, and asked for
no external manifestation of interest. He depended
on the word, borne home by the Spirit. And the
Spirit wrought. Some would cry out, "The two-
edged sword is cutting me to pieces." The wicked
scoffer who came to make sport dropped like a log,
and said, " God has struck me." Once while preach-
ing in the open field to two thousand people, a man
cried out, " What shall I do to be saved ? and prayed
the publican's prayer; and the entire congregation
took up the cry for mercy. For a half hour Mr. Coan
could get no chance to speak, but had to stand still
and see God work.
There were greater signs of the Spirit than mere
words of agony or confession. Godly repentance was
at work — quarrels were reconciled, drunkards aban-
doned drink, thieves restored stolen property, and
nmrders were confessed. The high priest of Fele and
custodian of her crater shrine, who by his glance
could doom a native io strantrulation, on whose
shadow no Hawaiian dared tread, who ruthlessly
struck men dead for their food or garments' sake and
robbed and outraged human beings for a pastime —
this gigantic criminal came into the meetings with
his sister, the priestess — and even such as they found
an irresistible power there — and with bitter tears and
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 121
penitent confession, the crimes of this monster were
miearthed. He acknowledged that what he had wor-
shipped was no God at all, and publicly renounced his
idolatry and bowed before Jesus. These two had
spent about seventy years in sin, but till death main-
tained their Christian confession.
In 1838, the converts continued to multiply.
Though but two missionaries, a lay preacher, and
their wives, constituted the force, and the field was a
hundred miles long, the word and work was with
power, because God was in it all. Mr. Coan's trips
were first of all for preaching; and he spoke on the
average from three to four times a day ; but these
public appeals were interlaced with visits of a past-
oral nature at the homes of the people, and with the
searching inquiry into their state. This marvellous
man kept track of his immense parish, and knew a
membership of five thousand as thoroughly as when
it numbered one hundred.
He set his people to work, and above forty of them
visited from house to house within five miles of the
central station. The results were simply incredible
were they not attested abundantly.
After great care in examining and testing candi-
dates, during the twelve months, ending in June,
1839, 5,244 persons had been received into the
Church. On one Sabbath, 1,705 were baptized, and
2,400 sat ^.«. wn together at the Lord's Table. It was
a gathering of villages, and the head of each village
came forward with his selected converts. With the
122 MODERN MISSlO^^S.
exception of one such scene at Ongole, just forty years
later, probably no such a sight has been witnessed
since the day of Pentecost. What a scene was that
when nearly two thousand five hundred sat down
together to eat the Lord's Supper ! And what a
gathering ! " the old, the decrepit, the lame, the blind,
the mained, the withered, the paralytic, and those
afflicted with divers diseases and torments." These
all met before the cross of Christ with their enmity
slain and themselves " washed and sanctified and
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of . ir God."
During the five years, ending June, 1841, 7,557
persons were received to the Church at Hilo, — three-
fourths of the whole adult population of the parish.
When Titus Coan left Hilo in 1870, he had himself
received and baptized 11,960 persons.
These people held fast the faith, only one in sixty
becoming amenable to discipline. Not even a grog-
shop was to be found in that parish, and the Sabbath
was better kept than in New England. In 1867, the
old mother Church divided into seven, and there have
been built fifteen houses for worship, mainly with the
money and labor of the people themselves; who
have also planted and sustained their own missions,
having given in the aggregate one hundred thousand
dollars for holy uses, and having sent twelve of their
number to the regions beyond.
Christian history presents no record of divine
power more thrilling than this of the Great Revival
TRANSFORMED COMMUNITIES. 123
at the Hawaiian Islands from 18 3 to 1842. iVlien
in 1870 the American Board withdrew from this field,
there were nearly sixty self-supporting churches,
more t'lan two-thirds having a native pastorate, with
a membership of about fifteen thousand. That year
their contributions reached $30,000. Thirty per cent,
of their ministers became missionaries on other
islands. That same year, Kanwealoha, the old native
missionary, in presence of a vast throng, where
the royal family and dignitaries of the islands were
assembled, held up the word of God in the Hawaiian
tongue, and in these few words gave the most com-
prehensive tribute to the fruits of Gospel labor :
"Not with powder and ball and swords and can-
non, but with this living word of God and his Spirit,
do we go forth to conquer the Islands for Christ ! "
CHAPTEE VI.
ANSWERS TO PRAYER.
AS might be anticipated, this century of missions
bears no mark of the wonder-work of God
more conspicuous than the multiplied and marvellous
answers to prayer.
Every conspicuous «tep and stage of progress is
directly traceable to prevailing, believing, expectant
supplication. When Jonathan Edwards blew his
trumpet blast, calling all believers to united prayer
for a new and world-wide Pentecost, Northampton
in England echoed the clarion peal of the New Eng-
land Northampton, and the monthly concert of prayer,
established thirty-seven years later, was the beginning
of a stated monthly season of such united, organized
pleading with God for a lost world.
Carey was the Moses and Joshua of the new move-
ment, both in one ; and nothing marked him so
conspicuously as the rod of God in his hand — the
power of humble, believing supplication. Had Carey
not known how to pray, the missionary century had
not yet dawned, or had waited for some other pray-
ing soul to roll back the curtain of the long night.
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 125
God has compelled his saints to seek him at the
throne of grace, so that every new advance might
be so plainly due to his power that even the un-
believer might be constrained to confess, " Surely
this is the finger of God !"
He meant that the century of missions should be
to the Church at home as important as to the distant
fields of missions abroad ; and, in fact, the heart must
have a strong pulse if the life-currents of blood are
to be driven to the fingers' ends. And so no age, since
the apostolic, has been so peculiar for the revival of
prayer. Every new Pentecost has had its preparatory
period of supplication, of waiting for enduement ; and
sometimes the time of tarrying has been lengthened
from " ten days " to as many weeks, months, or even
years ; but never has there been an outpouring of the
Divine Spirit from God without a previous outpouring
of the human spirit toward God. To vindicate this
statement would require us to trace the whole his-
tory of missions, for the field of such display of
divine power covers the ages. Yet every missionary
biography, from those of Eliot and Edwards, Brainerd
and Carey, down to Livingstone and Burns, Hudson
Taylor and John E. Clough, tells the same story :
prayer has been the preparation for every new
triumph and the secret of all success ; and so, if
greater triumphs and successes lie before us, more
fervent and faithful praying must be their fore-
runner and herald !
If this be so, we must fix this fact in mind by
126 MODERN MISSIONS.
repetition, sound it out as with God's own trump,
write it as in letters of li^ht, on the very firmament
of missions — that the New Acts of the Apostles opened
with prevailing prayer, and in each new chapter re-
cords its new triumphs.
About the middle of the eighteenth century the
fallow soil began to be sown with those seeds of
missionary enterprise which came to the surface a
half century later. We repeat what has been said,
that Carey's movements were only the germinating
of what Edwards, and others like him, had planted.
When in 1874, at that Northamptonshire Baptist
Association, John SutclifF, of Olney, reported, recom-
1 ending a stated monthly meeting to bewail the low
state of missions and to implore God for a general
revival of pure piety, and a world-wide outpouring of
power from on high, the first Monday of each month
was the time designated, and John Ryland, jr., drew
up the plan. Soon after, SutclifF republished Edwards'
appeal, thus acknowledging that this new advance
was the result of seed sown as early as 1747, and
wholly due to prayer, which was now formally re-
cognized as the one hope alike of the Church and
the world. »
Three years later, Carey was ordained at Moulton,
and five years after that came the compact at Ket-
tering, which was the Magna Charta of modern
missions ; and the Baptist Missionary Society was
born, now mother of so large a family of societies.
That small but famous " fund " of thirteen pounds
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 127
and one half-crown, laid by that little band of twelve
on the altar that so sanctified and magnified the
gift, was, by God's decree, the small offering it was,
and from his poor, because he meant to show that
it was not by might or by power, not by numbers
or by wealth, but by his Spirit, that this work is
to be carried on.
Those - who, like Sydney Smith, sneered at the
" consecrated cobblers " and " apostates " from the
humV)lest callings of life, who with a hundred lialf-
crowns would attempt world-wide missions — were
blind to the open mystery of God's dealings, who
always chooses the base and weak and despised
nothings to bring to naught the great and strong
and mighty somethings ; and who delibera,tely chooses
and uses the few and the poor, the lowly and the
obscure, that the excellency of the power may be
of God and not of man, and that no flesh should
glory in his presence. Had that first roll of sub-
scribers held twelve hundred distinguished names,
with some prince of royal blood as patron, and had
that sum been thirteen thousand pounds to start
with, missions might have waited another century
for their real beginning.
Those who knew, and at first opposed, Carey, came
to feel that he was a man of prayer, and that the
God of Prayer was back of him. It was prayer
that found expression in the monthly concert, that
baptized with pow;er Carey's "Inquiry," that made
that map at Moultbn luminous with divine light and
128 MODERN MISSIONS.
vocal with a world's mute appeal ; it was praye^* that
led to that sermon in Nottingham and that gathering
in Widow Wnll's' parlor at Kettering, and to Carey's
offer of himself in 1793.
God saw that the Church would never take up,
or be ^^ to take up, this apostolic work without a
revival of apostolic faith in divine power and in the
prayer that alone commands that power. Reliance
on human patronage, and the kindred confidence in
numbers and riches, are fatal hindrances to missions.
When Carey preached his now immortal sermon,
whose divine quality was found in its unction, he
said : " Saviour, thy greatest things have had smallest
beginnings." It was to him a great encouragement
that when God called Abraham he was alone. (Isaiah
1. i.) And this same truth of insignificant beginning
was illustrated in Widow Wallis' house on October
2nd, 1792.
Upon this one form of signs and wonders our minds
have need, therefoi e, to linger, as bees upon a bloom,
for the nectaries of our Christian life are here to be
found : we refer to these Answers to Prayer.
God has taken infinite care to fasten in the minds
of believers the power of supplication in the name of
Christ to work supernatural results. In the word
of God there are at least ten very marked lessons
on prayer; and these lessons are progressive — they
advance fn i the simplest rudiments, in a distinct
order or series, in which each step must be taken
on the way to the next — each lesson learned, if the
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 129
succeeding one is to be understood. For instance,
if we combine the Gospel narratives and observe the
development of the doctrine, we shall find that we
are successively taught the nature of prayer as asking
of God ; then the negative and positive conditions of
acceptable, prevailing prayer, such as a frame of for-
giveness, of faith in God's promise, of importunate
earnestness, of devout expectancy, of mutual agree-
ment in the Spirit, of accordance with the will of
God, etc. The climax of all these lessons is reached in
that expressly new Jesson taught by our Lord, as to
asking in his naliie ; that is, by virtue of our identity
with him. When prayer is offered in another's name,
that other becomes the real suppliant, whoever pre-
sents the request. And so our Lord teaches us that
from the time when our oneness with him is recog-
nized and realized as based upon our membership in
his body, we may ask in his name, by his power, in
his stead ; so that the petition becomes the petition of
him in whose name it is offered, as Esther's, writing,
when signed and sealed in the name of King Ahasu-
erus, became his decree.*
Behold these lessons gathered up and woven into
the fabric of one superb metaphorical representation
in the Apocalypse. In the eighth chapter, the visions
of the seer of Patmos open with a solemn and mys-
terious half-hour of silence in heaven. Before the
first of the seven trumpets sounds, the seven angels
* Compare John xvi. 23-27 ; Esther viii. 8.
9
130 MODERN MISSIONS.
stand silent before God, as though waiting a signal.
And the half-hour of silence seems wholly given to
this revelation of the powder of prayer.
The Angel of Intercession comes and stands at the
altar, holding in his hands a golden censer. Unto
him is given much incense, that he should add it
unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden
altar, before the throne ; and the mingled smoke of
the incense and prayers of saints ascend like a sweet
savor before God out of the censer. Then the angel
takes the censer, fills it with the fire of the altar, and
casts it upon the earth ; and astounding results follow
— thunderpeals, lightning flashes, voices, and earth-
quake convulsions.
This parable in action might still have remained an
inscrutable mystery but for a divine key that is in
the lock, which opens to us its meaning. We are
here twice told that it concerns the " 'prayers of
saints." And with this key we may open the doors
of this great truth. Laying aside the figurative forms
of expression, which are like bronze gates, sculptured
with allegorical figures — what readest thou ?
Prayers of saints, offered in holy agreement, ascend
like vapors, which blend and mingle in pure white
clouds. The great Intercessor at the Throne presents
them before God, made acceptable by his own infinite
merit, and thus they prevail. The power of God is
put at the disposal of praying souls ; and upon the
earth wonderful changes, convulsions, upheavings,
revolutions take place. Prayer has gone to heaven,
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 131
found acceptance, and returned in answers of al-
mighty power, as moisture goes up in vapor and
returns in rain. Supplication, when it is according
to Scriptural cotidition«. commands divine interposi-
tion.
Here, then, we have a vision of Prayer as a power
in the universe of God. There is a half-hour . ilence ;
no word is spoken. But the silence has a voice. It
tells an unbelieving Church that whenever great
moral and spiritual reformations and transformations,
evolutions and revolutions, are witnessed, somebody
has been praying, though only God may trace the
links between the prayers and the answers.
The whole story of missions is the historic inter-
pretation of that Apocalyptic vision : it is the story
of answered prayer. If we would trace organized
mission effort back not to its birth but to its concep-
tion, we must go farther than Widow Wallis' parlor
at Kettering, or even the cobbler's shop at Hackleton,
or Edwards' appeal in 1747. Nearly twenty years
before that trumpet-call to prayer, another great
movement had started at Oxford, w^here John and
Charles Wesley, and Morgan and Kirkham, Ingham,
Broughton, Hervey and George Whitefield were
studying and praying to promote holiness and use-
fulness. At the end of six years this little company
numbered but sixteen. But such were some of the
preparations God was making for the birth-hour of
modern missions. Upon these few men at Oxford
there came suddenly a blessing from on high, which
132 MODERN MISSIONS.
not only changed the whole tenor of their lives, but
became the mould of a revived Church and the matrix
of modern missions.
If the history of all that prayer *h as wrought, in
the century now closing, could be written and read, it
would be as startling as the opening of the books in
the last great day. The number is legion, of the
movements for human weal whose secret source,
unknown to the people, has been in prevailing
prayer.
Those who in England and America have watched
the slow steps by which the way was prepared for
the abolition of slavery well know that in that great
contest between human rights and the might of
organized selfishness and sordidness. Prayer turned
the scale. There were some godly women, for ex-
ample, who met at stated times in Boston to claim
from God the freedom of the slave ; and, when the
wild waves of riot surged against the very doors of
their little place of prayer, they remained on their
knees and were heard to say : " Lord, the foes of God
and of the slave molest us indeed, but they cannot
make us afraid." And so the praying saints kept
praying, until the fires of God came down and
burned the fetters from four millions of manacled
hands.
That famous cartoon of the death of St. Genevieve
depicts the triumph of Roman valor with its pomp
and pageantry of arms, side b}^ ^ide with a humble
deathbed around which praying saints are gathered.
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 133
But it suggests how much mightier is the power that
goes with a few supplicating believers than all the
boasted might of armies.
Read the New Acts of the Apostles; linger over
the scenes at Hilo and Tahiti, New Zealand and the
Fiji isles ; pierce to the church of the cavern in the
Vaudois vales ; follow the Huguenots in exile ; study
the personal life of Edwards and Brainerd and Mills
and Carey and Judson and Johnson ; track to their
closets and retreats in the forests and caves, God's
praying ones, and you shall know how God's Pente-
costs are but the rewarding " openly " of those who
have learned how to get hold on him " in secret."
The Church, when it is once more a praying
Church, will boldly claim of God that he shall stretch
forth his hand as th-^ only way to give boldness in
preaching liis word. When it is God's " work " we
are doing it is our right and privilege not only to ask,
but to "command" him. (Isaiah xlv. 11.) Faith
not only offers a quest, but issues a fiat— and says,
it shall be so. Prayer, says Coleridge, is
*• An affirmation and an act,
That bids eternal truth be fact ! "
The promise makes prayer bold, for God's word
cannot fail. Fulfilment is as certain as past events
are fixed, and the future becomes a present to such
faith. There is a new era of missions yet to be
usliered in when the disciples of Christ learn to ask
in Jesus' name, by tba power of the Holy Spirit, for
134 MODERN MISSIONS.
the glory of God, and with a confidence that counts
things that are not as though they are,
Missionary history has exemplified that superbly
grand lesson, that prayer, when it prevails, has about
it a boldness, a holy audacity, which renii^ids us of
the prophet whose plea was — " Do not disgrace the
throve of thy glory!" When a saint understands
that prayer iias three intercessors — the interceding
Spirit within, the interceding suppliant, and the in-
terceding Christ before the throne — he feels liimself
bi t the channel through whom a current passes,
whose source ie the Holy Spirit in his heart, whose
final outpour is through our great High Pi iest into
the bosom of the father ; and he loses sight of him-
self in the thought of the divine stream, and its spring
and its ocean. How can he but be bold ? Prayei
becomes ro more mere lame and timid asking — it is
claiming and laying hold of blessing. Nay, it is wait-
ing for and welcoming the blessing, as a returning
stream from the heart of God, pouring back into and
through the heart of the supplicant. While he calls,
God answers — there is converse, intercourse, inter-
communication : prayer is not only speaking to God,
but hearing him speak m return. As a Japanese
convert said, it is like the old-fashioned well, where
one bucket comes down while another goes up — only
in this case it is the full bucket that descends ! Such
prayer a true missionfti*^ has to learn, and it is such
prayer that brings hira the conscious presence
promised by his imister, with its outcome of rUvine
ANSWERS TO l^RAY^R. 135
wisdom and stren.L'th. It is such prayer that brings
to our aid that consummate preacher, the Holy Spirit,
whose divine oratory convinces and persuades — who
has the power of revelation, demonstration, illumina-
tion — who can flash instant light into the darkest
mind and command life to the dead.
What gracious blessings have come to heathen souls
in answer to prayer ! The Rev. Griffith John, of
Hankow, records a whole Saturday spent in prayer
for a baptism of the Spirit of God. The following
morning he preached on the subject, and at the close
of the service proposed a meeting for an hour a
day, during the ensuing week, for special anointing
from above. F'xOm fifty to seventy of his convert-j
met day by day, and mingled a confession of their
sins with supplication for the holy outpouring. The
impulse which t)ie native Church +ii 3n r^xeived has
never yet spent its force. The mission in. China,
begun in 1847 by William Burns, has now increased
until it has five separate centres, with thousands of
converts, with native preachers and pastors and
schools and medical missions. Its converts have
stood firm against persecution, and the abundant
blessing has been reverently traced to the monthly
prayer-meeting for China held in the room at Edin-
burgh.
For some years the writer has been gathering and
putting on record authentic and Hlriking answers to
prayer. A few of them, which have carried unspeak-
able blessing to his own heart, he now places on
record in these pages :
136 MODERN MISSIONS.
Charier '^ Finney, in his " Revival Lectures " (page
112), tells Ox , pious man in Western New York sick
with consumption. He was poor, and had been sick
for years. An unconverted merchant was very kind
to him, and the only return he could make was to
pray for his salvation. By-and-by, to the astonish-
ment of everybody, that merchant was converted, and
a great revival followed. This poor man lingered
several years. After his death his widow put his
diary into Mr. Finney's hands. From this it appeared
that, being acquainted with about thirty ministers
and churches, he set apart certain hours in the day
and week to pray for each of them, and also for dif-
ferent missionary stations. His diary contained
entries like the following : " To-day I have been
e .bled to offer what I call the prayer of faith for the
outpouring of the Spirit on Church." T'lus
he had gone over a great number of churches. Of
the missionary stations he mentions particularly the
mission at Ceylon. Not long after the date., men-
tioned, mighty revivals had commenced and swept
over that reg* :i, nearly in the exact or del' of his
fraying; and in due time news came even from
Ceylon of a revival there ! Thus this man, too feeble
in body to leave his house, was yet useful to the
world and the Church. Standing between God and
the desolations of the Church, and pouring out his
heart in believing prayer, as a prince he had power
with God and prevailed.
The following incident was related at Northfield
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 137
by the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor: A station in the
China Inland Mission was peculiarly blessed of God.
Inquirers were more numerous and more easily
turned from dumb idols to serve the living God than
at other stations. This difference was a theme of
conversation and wonder. After a time Mr. Taylor
returned to England, and at a certain place was
warmly greeted by a stranger, who showed great
interest in his mission work. This stranger was so
particular and intelligent in his questions concerning
one missionary and the locality in which he labored,
seemed so well acquainted with his li^lpers, in-
quirers, and the difficulties of that particular station,
that Mr. Taylor's curiosity was aroused to find out
the reason cf this intimate knowledge. To his great
satisfaction, he now learned that this stranger and
the successful missionary had covenanted together as
co-workers. The missionary kept his home brother
informed of all the phases of his labor. He gave
him the names of inquirers, stations, hopeful char-
acters and difficulties, and all these the home worker
was wont to spread out before God in prevailing
prayer.
In the recently published memoir of Adolph Saphir,*
there is put on record one of the countless instances
of divine administration of missions, which we cite
because of the many-sided lesson taught.
It is the story of how the mission for the Jews was
* Memoir Adolph Saphir, D.I)., by Rev, G. Carlyle, M.A., p. 37
et aeq.
138 MODERN MISSIONS.
established in Pesth, Hungary. Prayer is the key to
every new mystery in this series of marvels. First,
the father of this movement was Mr. R. Wodrow, of
Glasgow, whose private diary shews whole days of
fasting and prayer on behalf of Israel. The next
step was the appointment of a deputation, in 1838,
consisting of those four remarkable men. Doctors
Keith and Black, with Andrew Bonar and McCheyne,
to visit lands where the Jews dwelt, and select fields
for missions to this neglected people. The intolerance
of the Austrian Government seemed to shut the door
to any work within its dominions, and so, notwith-
standing the large Jewish population there resident,
Hungary was not embraced in the plan of visitation.
But God did not propose that this land should be
longer passed by ; and he, by mysterious links, joined
the plan of the deputation to his own purposes for
Hungary.
Dr. Black slipped from his camel's back as they
were crossing from Egypt to Palestine, and the seem-
ingly trifling accident proved sufficiently serious to
change the homeward route of Dr. Black and Dr.
Keith, by way of the Danube. As they passed through
Pesth, they made some inquiries as to the Jews there
to be found, little knowing what unseen hand was
leading " the blind by a way that they knew not."
The Archduchess Maria Dorothea, then residing in
the Prince Palatine's palace, had some years previously
been led, by a death in her family, to seek solace in
the Bible, where " she met Jesus." She was, by the
ANSWEKS TO PRAYER. 139
imperial law, forced to bring up her children in the
Roman Catholic Church ; but as she had found the
truth, the taught them, with much prayer, the way
of faith, and, in her solitude, yearned and besought of
God that a Christian friend and counsellor might be
sent to her. In a window of her boudoir, which over-
looked the city with its hundred thousand people, day
by day, for seven years, she had poured out her soul
in prayer to God for some one to carry the true
Gospel to those around her ; at times, in agony,
stretching out imploring hands to God for at least one
messenger of the Cross to come to Hungary.
The year of 1840 came, with Drs. Keith's and
Black's providential visit to Pesth, and Dr. Keith's
almost fatal illness there — and just at this time the
archduchess was strongly and strangely impressed
that a stranger was about to arHve who would bring
a peculiar blessing on the Hungarians she loved.
There was one fortnight particularly, when, night
after night, she awoke at the same hour, with a vivid
sense that something was about to take place which
was to bring her relief. And when at last she heard
that Dr. Keith was in town dangerously ill of cholera,
she said to herself, " This is what was to happen to
me." And from that hour her sleep was no longer
broken. She went to the bedside of the prostrate
stranger, and with her own hands ministered to his
wants; and, as he became better, told him of her
longings and prayers, acquainted him with the state
of the Hungarian Jews, and assured him that if the
140 MODERN MISSIONS.
Church of Scotland would plant a mission in Pesth,
she would throw about it all possible guards. And
so it came to pass that in the very field which the
deputation purposely left out of all their scheme,
God brought about, by link upon link of his inscru-
table providence, the famous mission associated with
the name of " Rabbi Duncan," and which was the
means of giving, to the Church of Christ, Adolph
Saphir.*
Thus came the Protestant Gospel into Buda-Pesth :
and by what a series of divine leadings ! A man's
prayer in Glasgow, a woman's prayer in Hungary,
a seeming accident on desert sand, a change of route,
an almost fatal illness, a visit of an archduchess —
who shall dare tp doubt that the Hungarian mission
was a tree of God's planting ! who can wonder that
as the first missionaries went to this new field they
" felt wafted along by the breath of prayer, and had,
from the very beginning, a mysterious expectation of
success ! "
No recent development of missionary zeal is more
startling than the sudden and rapid uprising of the
educited young men on both sides of the Atlantic, to
which has been given the title of the " Modern
Crusade."
From the inception of this movement, as having
been strangely interlinked with it, the writer can
testify that, from first to last, its sole secret is prayer.
More than twenty-five years ago, a missionary, after
* Bonar's " Mission of Inquiry to the Jews."
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 141
seventeen years of work on the foreign field, lay on
his deathbed. Suddenly arousing himself, with
great emphasis, he said, " I have a testimony to give,
and would best give it now. Tell the Christian
young men in America that the responsibility of
saving the world rests on them ; not on the old men,
but on the young. It is past time for holding back
and waiting for providences. I used to think that a
missionary ought to husband his strength ; but this is
a crisis in the world's history, and one man by keep-
ing back may keep back others. Reason is profitable
to direct, but the man that rushes to duty is faithful.
There are times when rashness is the rule and cau-
tion the exception. I look upon the Church as a
military company : an army of conquest, not of occu-
pation."
Whatever may be thought of this advice, one thing
is plain : the heart of a dying missionary is singularly
on fire with a passionate zeal for souls ; and the dying
eyes become gifted with the vision of a seer, who be-
holds the greatness of the crisis, and would trumpet
forth a blast, calling young men to the duty of the
hour.
While that dying missionary was leaving behind
his last legacy in a message to young men, there was
at Princeton, New Jersey, another missionary, re-
turned after thirty years' service in India, who was
gathering in his own house, from time to time, a few
younger brethren, to urge on them the same deep
conviction — that on them God had laid the burden of
142 MODERN MISSIONS.
beginning a new missionary crusade. He put before
them the map of the world, pressed the need of an
organized movement among young men to enter the
regions beyond ; and, while he left them to consider
and confer, he withdrew into a neighboring room to
pray. To those prayers we may trace a movement
so mighty that already it enrolls on its missionary
covenant more than eight thousand young men and
women and twice as many in the mighty current of
its influence.
In 1886, at Mt. Hermon, Massachusetts, a few
hundred students met, at Mr. Mjoody's invitation, for
a few w^eeks of Bible study and prayer. While there
the young men, whose hearts had begun to burn at
Princeton, sought to kindle fires on other altars ; and
the number who chose the foreign field rose from
twenty-three to a hundred. Then, after much prayer,
a tour of the colleges was undertaken, that two of
their number n ight bring the facts of the world's
need to the minds of fellow -students not represented
at the gathering. And now, both in Britain and
America, the universities and colleges and theological
schools are becoming fountains of missions. And the
end is not yet — the movement grows rather than
loses in volume and momentum, and it looks like one
of the great developments of the latter days.*
* The second "Student Volunteers' Convention," held in Detroit,
Michigan, in February, 1894, had the largest body of accredited
delegates ever gathered in any missionary conference,
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 143
FRAYER— COINCIDENCES.
There are remarkable coincidences in missionary
history which sliow a divine hand, as surely as the
release of Peter at the very hour when disciples were
met at the house of Mary, mother of Mark, praying
for him. Let one or two examples suffice to prove
and to illustrate this.
At the precise time in missions to Tahiti, when the
labors of fourteen years seemed wholly in vain —
when the tireless toil, faithful witness and unsparing
self-denial of the early missionaries seemed like blows
of a feather against a wall of adamant — when as yet
not a single convert had rewarded all this long labor,
and abominable idolatry and desolating warfare
seemed to reign — one of the clearest signs and
greatest wonders of God's power was seen in the
South Seas. The directors of the London Missionary
Society seriously proposed abandoning this fruitless
field. But there were a few^ who felt that this was
the very hour when God was about to rebuke unbe-
lief and reward faith in his promise and fidelity to
duty. Dr. Haweis backed up his solemn remon-
strance a^j-ainst the withdrawal of missionaries from
the field by another donation of two hundred pounds ;
and Matthew Wilks, the pastor of John Williams,
said : " I will sell my clothes from my back rather
than give up this work." And, instead of abandoning
the mission, it was urged that a special season of
united prayer be appointed that the Lord of the
144 MODERN MISSIONS.
Harvest would give fruit from this long seed-sowing.
The proposal prevailed; letters of hope and encour-
agement were sent to the disheartened toilers at
Tahiti; and the friends of missions, confessing the
unbelief that liad made God's mighty works impos-
sible, implored God to make bare his arm.
Now, mark the coincidence. Two vessels started,
unknown to each other, from opposite ports — one
from Tahiti bound for London, the other from the
Thames bound for Tahiti, and crossed each other's
track in mid -ocean. That from the South Seas bore
the letters from the missionaries, announcing a work
of God so mighty that idolatry was entirely over-
thrown ; and the same ship bore also the very idols
which a converted people had surrendered to the
missionaries. That other vessel from London carried
to the missionaries the letters of encouragement that
bade them hold on to God, and gave pledges of in-
creased prayerfulness and more earnest support.
Here was not only an answer to prayer, of the
most wonderful sort, but the promise was literally
fulfilled : " Before they call I will answer ; and while
they are yet speaking I will hear."
The great outpouring at Ongole is another proof
of a prayer-answering God. In 1853, at Albany,
New York, the American Baptist Missionary Union
was considering whether the fruitless field among
the Telugus should not be given up. Here, again,
a few of God's prophets foresaw that if faith could
but triumph in this dark hour, a great harvest might
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 145
yet come even to this desert of Southern India. And
the " Lone Star " mission was not abandoned, but
reinforced ; and Dr. S. F. Smith ventured, in a singu-
larly prophetic poem, to predict that the time would
come when that Lone Star would outshine all other
missions. A bolder prophecy was never uttered by
any uninspired seer. Twenty-five years passed by
and then God sent a famine among that people, and
the promised blessing seemed farther oft' than ever.
In fact, that famine was, like John the Baptist, a
forerunner that prepared the way of the Lord. Dr.
Clough had in the interval joined the faithful Jewett
— and, being a civil engineer by training, he under-
took to complete the Buckingham canal, in order to
get work and wages for starving thousands. These
great gatherings of gangs of workmen gave oppor-
tunity for the simple telling of the Gospel story.
The great text, John iii. 16, was again, as at Tahiti,
sixty-three years before, the " Little Gospel " from
which God's love was made known ; and, in that
very field which had been so nearly abandoned as
both fruitless and hopeless, God gave the largest and
longest succession of harvests ever yet known to
the missions of the Christian Church. These two
examples are enough to prove to any candid mind
that God is still working signs in answer to prayer.
And let it be added that, twelve years before this
grand effusion of the Spirit, and when the prospect
was darkest, a humble missionary, with his wife and
three converted natives, on the first day of the year,
XO
146 MODERN MISSIONS.
climbed the high hill overlooking Ongole, and there,
looking down on that large town and fifty surround-
ing villages sunk in idol worship, knelt, and each in
turn asked of God that he would send a missionary
there, and make that centre of heathenism a centre
of Gospel light. For twelve years God delayed the
answer, and then the blessing came, just where it
had be'en besought, only far more abundantly than
it had been expected, and it has not yet ceased. In
1869, when there were as yet but 143 members,
special prayer was made for an addition that year of
500 converts, and 573 were baptized ; and in some
twelve years more the Church numbered 2,000. Now
it is the largest in the world !
In 1872, in December, the Church Missionary
Society appointed a day for intercession, with special
reference to the increase of missionary force — and
that day was spent in prayer offered distinctly and
definitely for more men. It was immediately fol-
lowed by offers of service beyond any other period
of the Society's history. In the five years following
it sent out one hundred and twelve men, whereas, in
the preceding five it had sent but fifty-one.
In 1880, this same noble society called for very
special intercession for more money — as eight years
before, for more men. Witliin a few months,
£135,000 were oftered to wipe off all deficit, and
£150,000 more, specially contributed for extension,
;is well as other special gifts whereby substantial
advance was made upon the ordinary income. Again^
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 147
in 1884, men were sorely needed, and it was asked
of God that the very flowers of society might be
transplanted to heathen climes. A day was appointed
to pray for this result. The previous evening Secre-
tary Wigram was summoned to Cambridge to "see
a number of graduates and undergraduates who
desired to dedicate themselves to the Lord's work
abroad." More than one hundred university men
met him, and the next day he went back to the
prayer-meeting to illustrate to his colleagues the
old promise : " Before they caP. I will answer ; and
while they are yet speaking I will hear."
THE TWO LEGIONS.
Ancient tradition has handed down two most in-
teresting relics about the devout soldiers of the
Roman army. The story of the Theban Legion, in
the third century, may be colored by fancy, but
has, doubtless, a foundation of fact. Twice, it is
said, they were decimated by the Emperor Maximian
because they would not obey when ordered to march
against their fellow-Christians in Gaul. But no
threats nor executions could turn the fixed hearts
of the legion. The survivors still held their ground
after their fellows had been slain ; and Maurice, their
leader, respectfully but firmly declared to the Em-
peror, in behalf of his fellow-soldiers, that, whilst
ready to yield implicit obedience in all matters con-
sistent with conscience, death was preferable to the
violation of duty to God. And when the Emperor
148 MODERN MISSIONS.
ordered bis soldiers to destroy the whole band, they
quietly laid down their arms and accepted martyr-
dom.
The other story is that of the Thundering Legion
under Marcus Aurelius. When the Roman hosts were
surrounded by barbarian hordes, p.nd the peril was
great, these Christian soldiers, mighty in prayer, knelt
on the very battle-field, and sought from God and
obtained deliverance by his liand from the dangers
that threatened the forces of the empire.
Whether there ever was a Theban Legion and a
Thundering Legion m the days of the Silver Eagle
matters little ; but the Missionary Army has had both
from the beginning. Men and women who would
not be drawn or driven from their duty to Christ
and lost souls, though the fever, the famine, the sword
decimated theii ranks, have dared the prison cell,
starvation, persecution and death itself rather than
abandon their witness to Christ. And the strength
of missions has ever been that the Captain of our
salvation has ahvays had his Praying Legion ; who
in the crises of the conflict took no account of the
number or might of foes, but prevailed with God in
prayer. It is the central glory of missionary history
that it has produced more intrepid and self-sacrificing
soldiers of the Cross, and more great intoicessors like
Moses, Samuel, Daniel and Elijah, than any other
form even of Church life. Surely between these
facts there must be some divine link of connection.
A work that develops such courage and constancy
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 149
on the one side, and such faith and prayer on the
other, must, in this very fact, bear the peculiar
stamp and seal of the King himself.
Thus, by " many infallible proofs," missionary his-
tory vindicates its rightful claim as a continuation of
the Acts of the Apostles, in the signs and wonders
God has wrought. And what shall I more say ? for
the time would fail me to tell of all the marvels of
Providence and Grace which make the whole growth
of modern missions a Burning Bush aflame with the
glory of the presence of God !
On the long guns of the African Moors these words
are often found engraven : " For the Holy War if
God will." When will disciples learn that they are
God's soldiers, and that every power and faculty is
to be devoted as a weapon to his holy warfare ?
What new signs and wonders would be wrought if,
in response to the bugle blast of our great Captain,
the whole Church would march to the battle-field !
All that God has yet shown of his mighty power
would be but a small part of his ways. Men would
begin to see Omnipotence baring its resistless arm,
and the thunder of his power would shake earth
and heaven !
CHAPTEE VII.
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING.
THE modern notions of giving are not only far
below the Scripture level ; they contradict
Bible standards. An article in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury told men how to live on seven hundred and
fifty pounds a year : allowance was made for all
needful outlay on food and clothing, house rent and
house service, and a generous provision for culture
and amusements. But not one penny was set aside
for charity, which was not reckoned among necessities
or even luxuries. An advertisement appears, offering
a very large reward for a poodle, whose diamond-set
collar was worth two hundred and fifty pounds ster-
ling, and the silver chain seven pounds more ; but
that is to be accounted among the reasonable indul-
gences, whether any provision is made for perishing
millions or not !
The old doctrine will be unpopular in this degen-
erate day of a secularized Church, but it is still to
be proclaimed, for the offence of the Cross is not
ceased. No setting apart of a tithe, or Lord's por-
tion, will, in these days, suffice. It never did. The
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 151
tithe was the Jews' minimum, not maximum ; it
represents what the poorest must give, not what the
righest might use to buy off the right to keep the
other nine-tenths ! Instead of asking, " How little
can I spare for God and satisfy his claim and my
conscience ?" we should invert the terms, and ask,
" How little can I expend upon myself and yet
satisfy my actual needs, and how much can I thus
spare for God ?"
The missionary age affords new opportunity and
incentive for the culture of this supreme grace.
Giving will bring its true blessing, its greater bless-
ing, only when systematic and self-denying.
" Mammon " is simply another name for money,
when, instead of a servant, it becomes a master,
practically served — an idol worshipped. There is
no difficulty in understanding how what is so grossly
material as wealth came to be associated with divine
attributes ; for, as we have seen, its power to achieve
great results suggests omnipotence ; its power to
represent the giver, wherever his gifts are bestowed
and their blessings scattered, suggests omnipresence ;
and its power to perpetuate his influence when he is
dead, suggests eternity. What a pity, what a crime,
when such power is put in the fetters of selfishness
and locked up in the narrow cell of personal indul-
gence ! when it achieves no result but to fatten and
satiate the lust of greed, finds no sphere outside of a
luxurious home, and perpetuates no influence but the
example of the miser !
152 MODERN MISSIONS.
One of the foremost incentives to missions is found
in the blessedness of giving. Christ spake a new-
beatitude, recorded and preserved by Paul, who said
to the Ephesian elders : " Remember the words of the
Lord Jesus, how he said. It is more blessed to give
than to receive !" The full meaning and truth of that
last beatitude is yet to be known, and can be known
only as this work of missions is done as he meant it
should be done.
This may be called a new motive, for its power is
as yet unfeit. Our giving is not only imperfect and
inadequate, it is radically defective; for its basis is,
in a measure, wrong and unsound. The ministry of
money is not understood, and stewardship is practi-
cally denied. This is a virtually effete notion, that
all I have belongs to God ; that it is not mine to
do as I will with it, to hoard, or spend, to use in
selfish indulgence or bestow in unselfish ministries ;
but that it is held in trust for God, and to be put
to holy uses, so that even what I eat and drink
and wear is to glorify him. This may be treated
with contemptuous scorn as an antiquated doctrine,
but it will never be longer binding while the word
of God is our guide and a world waits to be saved.
This beatitude represents the crown of all beati-
tudes. There are three stages of experience : first,
where joy is found only in getting ; second, where
joy is found in both getting and giving ; third, where
giving is the only real joy, and getting is valued only
in order to giving. The first shows the purely worldly
spirit ; the next indexes the average disciple ; the last
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 153
marks the closest identity with the Lord. To this
last only the few attain or even aspire. But to such
it is the foretaste of heaven on earth. The curse
even of our Churches is that getting is recognized
as the one thing to be desired and sought ; giving
is at best recognized as a duty, not a privilege to be
sought but an obligation to be accepted, and a thou-
sand expedients are adopted to avade and avoid that
self-denial which represents the very enrichment of
giving. If money is to be raised, instead of counting
it a blessing to give, and to give what costs self-
sacrifice, the constant effort is to give what costs
nothing ; and resort is had to secular entertainments,
concerts and exhibitions, tea-drinkings and picnics,
bazaars and raffles, charades and tableaux, lantern
shows and comic recitations — the whole alphabet of
the world's aniusements supplies the Church with
easy expedients to gather a little money and escape
self-denial ; and modes, not only secular but unhal-
lowed, are often adopted to secure funds for the -lost
sacred cause of missions. The mistake is the more
serious because it not only secularizes the Church, but
it makes even, our giving selfish ; the cause of God
must buy our support by some price paid to the eye,
in the spectacular ; to the ear, in the musical or the
anmsing ; to the palate, in the delicate or the delicious.
Let us stop and once more ask why and when it is
naore blessed to give than to receive. Getting withou^,
giving is absolutely disastrous; even getting with
giving is dangerous. And the only way to prevent
154 MODERN MISSIONS.
the disaster and avert the danger is to give, constantly,
systematically, abundantly, cheerfully, self-denyingly.
Fire that has no vent, has soon no flame ; it the flame
cannot get out the fire goes out. A spring with-
out outlet cannot have inlet; the water must give
forth a stream, or it seeks a new channel underground.
The Christian life is the fire of which giving is the
vent ; it is the spring of which active benevolence is
the stream. He who hoards and withholds, cramps
and crushes and cripples his own better nature.
But, as Lowell makes Christ to say, in the " Vision
of Sir Launfal,"
«' He who gives himself with his ahas, feeds three :
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me."
The miser is an idolater and worships the golden
calf. The law of all idolatry, twice thundered from
the Psalms, is universal :
♦• They that make them are like unto them.
So is every one that trusteth them.''
All idols make the maker and worshipper like
themselves. If man worships a bea"st he becomes
beastly and brutal ; if it be a god of wood and stone,
dumb and senseless like the image ; if it be a clod of
earth, earthy like the clod. He who worships gold—
to whom the " almighty dollar," the " sovere'^n," the
"Napoleon," is, as the names suggest, his practical
monarch and master, becomes, as we have before
hinted, a kind of coin himself. He gets to have a sort
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 155
of metallic hardness and insensibility to impression,
and a kind of metallic ring. His utterances, his pre-
ferences, his tastes, his actions have the sound of the
brass trumpet, the silver cymbal, the gold-piece. And
when he falls in death, it is not a man who has dis-
appeared from among men — not some bright star
suddenly fading into darkness, or some musical
melody sinking into silence, or some fruitful tree torn
up by the roots — only a sack of hoarded treasure
falling upon the stony pavement of fate, and, as Death
cuts the knot that has held its mouth closed, scatter-
ing its coins to be picked up by lawful heirs, or, more
likely, by greedy lawyers ! One who worships fashion
becomes nothing but a tailor's dummy, a walking
advertisement, a suit of clothes on legs, miscalled a
man ; or a wax-doll, trimmed with furs and feathers,
and miscalled a woman. The worshippers of fast
horses come to have the savor and flavor of the stall
and the turf ; they smell of the horse ; life is to them
a race for stakes, and their back is a saddle for
jockeys.
The objection commonly raised against giving to
foreign missions — that we shall never see the money
again — the gold is too far off to make returns — is
itself an example of how a Scripture motive may bo
turned into a hindrance. Christ bids us do good,
hoping for nothing again — give to those from whom
we can expect no returns. That alone is giving. If
I invite to my supper those whom I expect to invite me
again ; or bestow a favor where I look for reciprocal
156 MODERN MISSIONS.
favors, it is all selfish and breeds only selfishness.
It is lending, not giving, for the loan is to be returned,
perhaps with interest. To carry this principle into
our benevolence makes benevolence impossible. If I
put money into a savings bank, I have certainly given
nothing to the bank. And if I put money into a
Christian church or school, expecting returns in any
form of self -gain, it may be a good investment, but is
it true giving ?
Our whole Christian life is in danger of being
mammonized. The little boy who dipped his penny
into the contribution box, and asked his mother what
sort of sweets would drop out, whether caramels or
lozenges, was a good representative of older people,
who look on all so-called benevolent schemes as auto-
matic sweetmeat machines, into which you drop your
penny, or your shilling, your dollar or your pound, to
get sooner or later some adequate -return.
Once more let it be learned by us that God's poorest
ones need our gifts far less than lue need the discipline
of giving. To say "no" to my selfish greed and
appetite, to curb my carnal self and give reins to my
spiritual nature, to learn to give without thought of
any returns — simply to confer good and impart bless-
ing—ah I that is to be like unto God ! The devil
delights in returning evil for good ; man is quite will-
ing to return good for good ; but God's joy is to give
the best where is returned only the worst ! Giving is
God's corrective and antidote to selfishness, and, be-
cause the remotest field brings the slowest returns,
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 157
and the most destitute objects leave the least hope of
personal gains to tempt cupidity, missions to the
heathen furnish the grandest opportunity we can
enjoy for cultivating self-oblivion — pure, disinterested,
unselfish, Christ-like ministry to want and woe.
In one sense, this is a new incentive, for there is a
new appeal in the changed conditions of Church life.
The primitive Church of the Acts was a poor Church,
so poor that the few who had possessions felt con-
strained to dispose of their houses and lands and turn
the proceeds into the common treasury. That was
a simple, frugal age, in which there were no great
monopolies and colossal fortunes as now. It was not,
as this is, a materialistic age — when the very atmos-
phere was laden with the miasma of miserliness and
incited to greed. We are living in a time when the
rich are very rich and the poor very poor, and the
gulf between them is becoming unbridgeable and
hopeless alienation is the outcome. These are days
when there is far greater risk of Christians becoming
electro-plated with fashionable avarice and hardened
into a respectable insensibility to human sorrow and
suffering; when it shall be easy to feed and fatten
upon dainties, while Lazarus is left to the aogs ; when
it shall be common to be comfortable in luxury while
a world is dying of poverty and in sin — than in any
previous age. And hence the power of the new
appeal. Because the very social life tends to dull our
ears to human need, God permits the voice of the
heathen's want and woe to be the louder and more
158 MODERN MISSIONS.
clamorous and the more ceaseless. Intelligence is now
so widespread that ignorance of the world's need is
well nigh impossible, and at least culpable ; and, to
know that a thousand millions of souls are starving
for the bread of life, and that we can give it to them,
and yet not to do it, implies an indifference, an apathy,
whose crime and curse are proportioned to our greater
information, ability and opportunity. In the days of
the apostles there were neither such chances of good
nor such risks of harm to the Church.
So important is this element of unselfishness in
giving, that to avoid or evade it is to take away its
vital principle. It is, then, the flower without the
color or odor — the gem without its radiance. As
Mr. J. A. Froude says : " Sacrifice is the first element
in religion, and resolves itself into the love of God.
Let the thought of self intrude, let the painter but
pause to consider how much reward his work will
bring to him, and the cunning will forsake his hand
and the power of genius will be gone. Excellence
is proportioned to the oblivion of self." No doubt
money may be raised for missions in ways that obvi-
ate self-sacrifice, but in proportion to our success
is our failure — and the greater the success the worse
the disaster. For this means that we have found a
way to make the sacred ointment and leave out
the perfume that, to God, gives it all its sweet savor.
And hence also it is that the more we succeed in
making large gifts from the few supply the place
of the many small offerings of the self-denying poor,
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 159
the less practical power is there in our very gifts
themselves. It is one of the mysteries of chemical
galvanism that an increase of its power cannot be
got by increasing the dimensions of the cells of the
battery, but can be secured only by increasing the
number of those cells. This peculiarity illustrates'
Christian service in giving. The cumulative energy
of our gifts depends not on their amount, but on
the sacrifice they involve, and so, the more the givers
in whom this sacrifice :s developed, the grander the
spiritual force and impetus given by the aggregate
of gifts. Hence, the highest Church power hangs
on all sharing in the giving.
As Jeanie Deans said to the Queen : " It is not
when we sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves that
we think on other people's sufferings. Our hearts are
waxed light within us then, and we are for righting
our ain wrangs, and fighting our ain battles. But
when the hour of trouble comes to the mind or to the
body, and when the hour of death comes, that comes
to high and low — long and late may it be yours O uiy
leddy ! — then it is na what we hae dune for oursells,
but what we hae dune for others, that we think on
maist pleasantly." •
God has shown us, by nearly two millenniums of
Church history, that missions have a vital relation to
Christian life, and that their reflex action is so
unspeakably precious that all the cost of money and
men is far more than repaid in this returning tide of
blessing. The vigorous pulsation which drives the
160 MODERN MISSIONS.
blood to the ends of the body, invigorates the heart
itsf'lf and strengthens its muscular walls. To nourish
a missionary spirit is to enlarge, expand, ennoble
our whole spiritual life. Take one example. Noth-
ing is a greater perplexity and anxiety to true
disciples than this— how to ensure a sanctified family
life. It is lamentable that children of Christian
parents so often grow up, not only strangers to God
but open enemies and infidels. There seems to be
some influence at work to annul and neutralize all the
power of holy example. The fact is that nothing is
so subtly fatal to all true symmetry of character as
simple selfishness. There is a curious fact in botany.
If you take out a scion from a tree, cut off the branch
and set the scion downward, all others that grow out
of that branch afterward, will grow downward— and
hence, the ornamental gardener gets his drooping
trees. The scions in our family tree get early set
downward, and all future growths are earthward.
There is as truly peril in a self-indulgent home as in
a positively vicious one— let a child begin by being
pampered, petted, indulged, taught to gratify whims
and selfish impulses, and you have given a carnal
tendency to the whole life. Now there is this
precious fruit of very early training in the missionary
spirit, that your boy or girl gets another centre of
revolution outside of self Others' wants and woes
are thought of, and the penny that would be wasted
on sweets, is saved for the missionary box. It seems
a very small matter, but the scion gets an upward
NEW INCENTIVES TO GIVING. 161
growth and all the future life, a tendency upward.
Where missionary hymns are the lullaby sung at the
cradle, and prayer for the heathen is taught to lisping
lips at the mother's knee ; where simple facts about
the awful needs of pagan homes and hearts are fed to
the child as food for the thought and tonic for self-
denial, and the habit is thus early imparted of look-
ing beyond personal comfort and pleasure, and feel-
ing sympathy for lost souls — a new and strange
quality is given to character. It is no strange thing,
therefore, that in th^ homes where a true missionary
atmosphere is habitually breathed we find children
insensibly growing up to devote themselves and their
substance to God.
And so in that larger family, the Church. Noth-
ing so cripples even home work as neglect of the
wider field. To withhold from the farthest is to
cramp sympathy for the nearest. And so it comes to
pass that what is often assigned as a reason or cause
for a lack of missionary zeal and efi'ort, is rather the
effect of it. The Church that apologizes for doing
nothing for missions abroad, because of its weakness
and poverty, owes its feebleness and sickliness to
turning all attention upon itself. If we but knew it,
it is because we have such burdens to be borne in the
home work, that we need the stimulus and strength
imparted by active missionary effort for the most
distant and destitute. As Bishop Brooks used to say,
such excuses resemble the plea of a parricide who first
kills his own father, and then pleads for the pity of
11
162 MODERN MISSIONS.
the court, in remitting the penalty in view of his
orphanhood !
No vice is more destructive of Christian character
than greed. Avarice turns a man into a miser who
has no thought of beyond his hoarded gold, like that
respectable manufacturer in Britain who spent every
day for twenty years in counting his sovereigns th^fc
he might gloat over his treasures. And it works
harm as much to the poor in his penury as to the
rich in his affluence ; as it led a wretched victim of
avarice, in one of our American cities, to split luci/er
matches so as to make one into four. On the other
hand, he who learns the true uses of sanctified money
understands how it can wield a power next to divine,
spread the influence of a single life over a wide
sphere, and perpetuate divine omnipotence in the
power it may wield ; omnipresence, in the wide sphere
over which it spreads the influence of one life ; and
eternity, in the perpetuation of such influence long
after death.
CHAPTEE VIII.
MEDICAL MISSIONS.*
MEDICAL MISSIONS aie a comparatively
modern development of missionary enter-
prise. The first medical missionary society was
formed in the city of Edinburgh, in the year 1841,
with the celebrated Dr. Abercrombie as president,
and Rev. Dr. Chalmers as vice-president. Dr. Aber-
crombie first became interested in this work through
the influence of Rev. Peter Parker, M.D., a medical
missionary from America, who had labored with
much success in China for a number of years. During
a short visit to Edinburgh, he was the guest of Dr.
Abercrombie, who listened with great attention to the
accounts given by Dr. Parker of his experiences as a
missionary physician among the Chinese. As a
result, a few friends were invited in to hear Dr.
Parker's story, and to consider the advisability of
forming an association in Edinburgh for the purpose
of promoting medical missionn.
* The information contained in this chapter has been gleaned
from Dr. Lowe's l)<)()k on *' The History and Progress of Medical
Missions,"
164 MODERN MISSIONS.
The society was organized, and has ever since con-
tinued to be an influential agent in promoting and
extending this department of Christian work m
various parts of the world. At first, considerable pre-
judice existed in the minds of many Christian people
in .ogard to the aims and methods of the society.
One mission board, in answer to the application ot a
promising medical missionary student, for an appoint-
ment, sent the following official reply : " It is not
our province to send out and support medical men in
charge of dispensaries and hospitals, in our mission
fields. Our agents are sent forth to preach the
Gospel to the heathen."
Such a reply indicates a complete misconception ot
the nature and objects of medical missions. They
were organized, and continue to exist for the purpose
of evangelizing the heathen ; this is the first and
foremost object that is never lost sight of. The mam
business of the medical missionary is to do the work
of an evangelist, and he claims to be as much a
missionary as the ordained preacher.
This medical missionary work has steadily grown,
until now almost every missionary society m the
world looks upon the medical department as one ot
the most important branches of evangelistic ettort
Medical missions are founded upon the example ot
Christ and his apostles. Our Lord not only preached
the Sermon on the Mount, but he mingled with the
people, sympathized with Ihe suffering, fed the
hungry, healed the sick, and continually went about
MEDICAL MISSIONS. 165
doing good. In the ninth chapter of Matthew we are
told that " Jesus went about all the cities, and vil-
lages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the
gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness
and every disease among the people." This is exactly
the work of the medical missionary ; he aims at
combining care for the body with the healing of the
soul.
It seems strange that the example of our Lord, and
that of his apostles, should not have suggested to the
promoters of modern missions a similar plan of work-
ing from the very com.mencement. The first mission-
ary efforts were, however, confined to the preaching
of the Gospel, and perhaps wisely so, as even this met
with strong opposition.
The value of medical missions as a pioneer agency
in preparing the way for the preaching of the Gospel
cannot be overestimated. As a means of overcomincj
prejudice, and gaining access to the heathen, these
missions have done wonders.
As everybody knows, the ordinary missionary
meets with almost insuperable obstacles. Ignorance,
superstition, fanaticism, caste, social habits, either
singly or combined, oppose his work, and sometimes
render all his efforts futile ; while to the missionary-
physician all doors are open, suspicion is allayed, and
prejudice is disarmed. Many have listened to the
Gospel for the first time, from the lips of the doctor
to whom they have gone for the cure of the body,
whose prejudice and enmity would liave prevented
166 MODERN MISSIONS.
them from accepting instruction from any other
source.
Many interesting instances of this are related in
Dr. Lowe's book. The Rev. Mr. Knapp, who labored
successfully for many years in Central Africa, with
Dr. Haskell as his medical colleague, says :
"The greatest solicitude the missionary has is to
get a hearing. Men will not come to him, nor will
they receive him if he goes to l.hera. Now the physi-
cian draws the people to himself., Men naturally care
more for their bodies than for their souls, and in this
country they have almost a superstitious regard for
an educated physician. Many will come to him who
would not think of visiting a simple missionary. So
far as our observation goes, we can safely affirm that
here the medical missionary has ten times more
access to the people than the ordinary missionary."
The immense advantage of thus reaching the people
can be seen.
Dr. Grant, who established a mission in Persia,
writes to the secretary of the society whose agent he
was:
" As I have witnessed the relief of hitherto hope-
less suffering, and seen their grateful attempts to kiss
my feet, and my very shoes at the door, both of which
they would literally bathe with tears,— especially as I
have seen the haughty Moolah stoop to kiss the gar-
ment of the despised Christian, thanking God that I
would not refuse medicine to a Moslem, and others
saying that in each prayer they thanked God for my
MEDICAL MISSIONS. 1G7
coming, I have felt that even before I could teach our
religion I was doing something to recommend it, and
break down prejudices, and wished that more of my
professional brethren might share the luxury of doing
such work for Christ."
A truly wonderful work has been carried on by
Dr. Varten in the hospital and dispensary at
Nazareth. Out of one hundred and seventy-five
indoor patients treated during one year, there w^i'e
one hundred and sixteen Moslems, twenty-nine
Greeks, twenty Roman Catholics, and one Druse.
During the same time, more than six thousand
patients came to the dispensary for advice. Abdil
Bazak, a Moslem from Genin, was admitted for
cataract in both eyes. The operation was successful,
and he left the hospital at the end of seventeen days
with excellent sight. His gratitude knew no bounds.
During his stay in the hospital he heard the story of
Paul's journey to Damascus. At last the truth found
an entrance into his heart, and his inner eye was
opened to see his need of a Saviour. The last day he
was in the hospital he said : " I did not come to
Nazareth with a purpose like that of Paul when he
went to Damascus, nor can I be the means of promot-
ing as he did the fame of Jesus of Nazareth, but this
I can say, I will love him and speak well of his
name all my life."
M.. Lowe's book is full ot similar instances, show-
ing the great good accomplished by medical missions
in various parts of the world.
168 MODERN MISSIONS.
Methods of work are very similar in different
missions. The usual plan, where there is a hospital
or dispensary, is for the physician to work with
the ordained evangelist. Patients who come to be
treated, assemble every morning in the waiting-room,
-where a short service is held. The word of God is
read and expounded, and prayer offered. Then, while
the patients are being examined one by one by the
doctor, the evangelist, or native helper, goes among
the people, distributes tracts to those who can read,
or reads and explains them to those who cannot read.
Those people are afterward sought out at their
homes, and every effort made for their spiritual good.
The Tollowing account is given by Dr. Neve, of the
method pursued by himself and his helpers in his
medical mission in India :
" When the patients are gathered together, a hymn
is sung, and afterward a short address is given.
Avoiding any approach to controversy, they are told
of the love of God, and of redemption, of him who as
man experienced the trials p,nd toils of manhood,
sounded the depths of poverty, and bore the strokes
of persecution; of him who comforted the sorrow-
stricken, healed the sick, loved all men, and died for
all men, and rose again. To all this, whether Hindu,
Buddhist, or Mohammedan, they listen with interest,
and in the petitions of the closing prayer many
audibly join. Now begins the consulting and dis-
pensing. The doctor registers the name, examines
the patient, and writes the prescription, while two
MEDICAL MISSIONS. 169
compounders are at work dispensing, and two more
at work in dressing. So the patients are passed
through, receiving their medicines as they go — the
serious cases receive an admission ticket into the
hospital. At last after several hours' work, and after
a glance through the wards the day's work is over.
Two days a week are reserved for operations, and for
a closer inspection of the wards."
Patients are given to understand that the chief
desire of the missionary is to benefit their souls as
well as their bodies. In the mission dispensary all
are free to come and go, and the Gospel is not forced
upon them. It is, however, the testimony of nearly
all medical missionaries that the reading and exposi-
tion of the word have been listened to with attention,
and gained an entrance to the hearts of many. It is
impossible to accurately measure the good accom-
plished by these missions, as many of the patients are
lost sight of, returning to their distant homes. It
has been found, however, that many who have heard
the Gospel in the hospital have taken away with
them portions of the word of God, and religious
tracts, and thus the message of salvation has found its
way into remote regions where the missionary could
not personally visit.
Many cases of conversion have taken place within
the walls of the hospital, and great numbers of others
have received their first spiritual impressions from
the preaching heard at the dispensary, but the sum
total of good accomplished can never be known until
the great day of final account.
170 MODERN MISSIONS.
In many ff the missions native medical evangelists
are employed and trained. They have been found to
be very useful and skilful in the treatment of disease,
and also faithful and zealous as evangelists. Their
salary is very small, often not more than six or seven
dollars a month, but several of them have, again and
again, refused salaries double or treble what they
were receiving as agents of the mission, rather than
give up mission work.
One very strong reason why medical missions
should be established is found in the lamentable
ignorance on the part of the heathen as to the cause,
treatment, and prevention of disease. It is usual
among them to look upon all sickness as the work of
evil spirits, and their methods of exorcising these
spirits are cruel and painful beyond description. The
system of medicine, such as it is, is usually associated
with the religion of the people, and the treatment of
disease is monopolized by the priests, or others under
their control. As a consequence, many converts to
Christianity have gone back to heathenish practices
in time of sickness, and this is not to be wondered at,
when we remember that the only person in the com-
munity who professes any knowledge of medicine is
the unprincipled heathen doctor with his charms.
Can the missionary blame them for availing them-
selves of the only help within their reach, particularly
when the missionary authorities have failed to pro-
vide thom with medical aid ?
Medical science in India, China, and other heathen
MEDICAL MISSIONS. 171
countries is in a deplorable condition, and the ignor-
ance of the people is almost beyond belief. The usual
way for a Chinaman to enter the profession of medi-
cine is to procure a pair of spectacles with large bone
rims, some grasses and herbs, an assortment of spiders,
and a few venomous snakes, which he places in bottles
in his shop w indow. Here is one of his prescriptions :
" Powdered snakes 2 parts.
Wasps, and their nbsts 1 part.
Centipedes 6 parts.
Scorpions 4 parts.
Toads 20 parts.
Grind thoroughly, mix with honey, and make into small
pills. Two to be taken four vinies a day."
In cases of debility, the bones of the tiger reduced
to powder and made into pills are administered as a
tonic. They reason thus : the tiger is very strong, the
bone is the strongest part of the animal, therefore a
pill of this must be eminently strengthening.
Their medical books are leased upon the theories of
two thousand years ago, and of modern medical dis-
coveries they are totally ignorant. They have no
correct knowledge of the circulation of the blood, or
of the action of the heart, lungs, or other organs.
Almost every symptom is looked upon as a distinct
disease. Under these circumstances it is not surpris-
ing that the mortality is tremendous. When an
epidemic breaks out the people die by hundreds.
The natives of the Friendly Isles are accustomed,
172 • MODERN MISSIONS.
in order to check a spreading ulceration or disease, to
hack off the limb at a joint, working a sharp shell
to and fro, and making a horribly jagged wound.
In case of delirium the patient is invariably buried
alive. Among the natives of the South Pacific Isles,
cutting is the universal remedy for every ailment. If
pain is felt in any part of the body, an incision is
made over the part " to let the pain out." The terrible
condition of these people, in the face of disease or
physical suffering, is a strong call for the Christian
nations to send, along with the blessings of the Gospel,
some of the benefits of medical and surgical science.
Much has been written about the degraded con-
dition of women in heathen countries, and the disad-
vantages and hardships of their lot, shut up in harems
and zenanas. For many years these women could
not be reached by the Gospel. Dr. Duff, the celebrated
missionary to India, before his death, thus pleaded for
something to be done in the direction of zenana medi-
cal missions:
" Every educated person knows the peculiar position
of Hindu women of the upper class, and how entirely
they are secluded, and how, in their case, a male mis-
sionary might find no access to them. But if a female
missionary knew something of medical science and
practice, readily would she find access, and while
applying her medical skill to the healing of the body,
would have precious opportunities of applying the
balm of spiritual healing to the worst diseases of the
soul. Would tc God we had such an agency ready
for work ! "
MEDICAL MISSIONS. 173
The veteran missionary's prophecy has been ful-
filled. In recent years much interest has been aroused
on behalf of the women and children in the mission
field, especially in Japan and India. Societies have
been formed for the promotion of this special depart-
ment of service in connection with many churches.
It is a gratifying sign that requests are coming in in
large numbers for lady medical missionaries, and
many young ladies are preparing themselves for such
service. To the consecrated woman with a thorough
medical training a great and effectual door of useful-
ness is opened.
Dr. Elmslie makes the following earnest plea for
zenana missions :
'* If Florence Nightingale, a thorough English lady,
— being all that term implies — left home and friends,
and went to Scutari, out of philanthropy, to nurse
England's wounded and dying soldiers, surely other
ladies who have it in their power fihould see no
insuperable objections or difficulties in giving up home
and going to India, to nurse and care for their needy
and suffering sisters, for Christ's sake. At any rate
India needs female medical missionaries ; India will
welcome them ; India will bless them for their work ;
and many homes now dark will be lighted up through
their labors with the knowledge of him who is the
light of the world."
The Countess of Ava, better known in Canada
as the wife of our former distinguished Governor-
General, Lord Dufferin, has accomplished untold good
174 MODERN MISSIONS.
by promoting medical mission work in the zenanas of
Britain's great Indian empire.
Medical missions have certainly passed the experi-
mental stage ; they have been tested and tried, and
found to be successful in almost every case. God has
greatly owned and blessed this means of spreading his
truth. While much has been accomplished; the work
is only in its infancy. In comparison with the need
the supply of workers is meagre, as from every land
is coming the Macedonian cry, " Come over and help
us." A hundred or two of Christian physicians are
able to touch only the fringe of the ignorance and
suffering to be found to-day in heathen lands. Their
ranks need to be greatly reinforced. Men who are
willing to go with healing in one hand and the Gospel
in the other, will find an extensive field of usefulness
opening up before them*^
CHAPTEE IX.
PASTOR HARMS AND HIS WORK.*
A BOUT two houi , from Hanover, there is a wide
-Ta, range of country known as Luneburger Heath,
with a peculiar wild beauty of its own, and proverb-
ial for the strong home-love of its peasantry. One of
the villages, called Hermannsburg, may be taken for
a picture of the rest. The cottages lie far apart, with
their gardens between, little by-paths ruanir from
one to the other. Every house has the galiuping
horse of the old Saxons, or at least his head, perched
upon the gable ; within there is roominess and com-
fort, and that indefinable homeliness which is so rare
out of Great Britain. There are no beggars, no
rougli or vagrant loungers abor.t the streets, nor any
ragged children.
Many years ago a new clergyman came to the
parish, a Hermannsburger liimself, and the son of its
former pastor. Bred upon the Heath, it seems to
have exerted the same influence over him as over the
rest, and his character has all the freedom, sturdiness,
* Abridged from William Fleming Stevenson's " Praving and
Working." -y- -
176 MODERN MISSIONS.
and power of self-reliance of the district, as well as
other traits as marked. Before his father died, he
came to assist him iti his cure. It was only a year
or two, when, in 1848, he was left alone. From this
time he entered with all his heart on the singular
labors which have occupied him incessantly ever
since. He has become a power in the world by
giving himself up to the power of God ; for in pro-
portion as Christ is in the believer, so is the power
of God in him.
He found the village and the neighborhood very
different from what they are now. Mr. Harms
recognized that his first duty lay within his own
parish, and it was there he sought for Christian
reform. But 1848 was a time of storm and con-
fusion, when men's minds were disturbed, and when
outward circumstances might be supposed to take
the place of everything else. He did not delay for
that. In prayer, in preaching, in visiting, in ex-
ample, he labored for this end ; and the end he has
reached is that Hermannsburg is now a Christian
parish, the like of which is probably not to be found
the world over. There is not a house in the village
where there is not regular family worship morning
and evening ; there is no one absent from church
unless by sickness. The population is small, and
yet there .e eleven thousand communicants in the
year ; bO that, with very rare exceptions, every adult
must be a communicant, and every communicant be
a frequent participator. The laborers have prayer
PASTOR HARMS AND HIS WORK. 177
in the fields ; instead of country ballads, the plough-
boy or the weeding-girl is singing one of the grand
old hymns ; the people are like one Christian family,
their influence and conversation have already acted
on the surrounding districts. Their houses are
neater; drunkenness is unknown, so is poverty.
They are found to be kind-hearted, with few quarrels;
good farmers, and good peasants.
While the people were rejoicing in their spiritual
life, a mission to the heathen was suggested. It
was a time of strong faith and self-sacrifice, and
the suggestion was adopted. They would go out
themselves as missionaries, wherever it might please
God to show them the greatest need. This was in
1849. Twelve persons offered ; a house was set apart
for their residence and training, and a brother of
Mr. Harms, also a clergyman, took charge of it.
The course of instruction extended over four years,
and embraced : Introduction to both Testaments,
Exegesis, Dogmatics, History of the Church, History
of Missions, Homiletics, and Catechetics— a suffi-
ciently formidable course, us will ' e admitted, to
simple peasant men ; and yet it includf 1 more, for
there was a daily course of work through which
they went.
There was one point to be settled further, and
that was their destination. The east coast of Africa
was fixed on, and then the tribes of the Gallas, lying
north-west of the Zanzibar. The choice seems to
have been more enthusiastic than prudent. These
12
178 MODERN MISSIONS.
Gallas were only known as the terror of the whole
east coast ; a strong, hardy, savage race. They were
robbers and murderers by profession ; they were
difficult of access ; a missionary with them was
completely isolated ; but no one had ever tried them
before, and this somewhat Quixotic reason out-
weighed everything. And here, before following
out the story, it is well to have a distinct impres-
sion of the circumstances. A poor country clergy-
man, in a remote district, with a congregation almost
entirely composed of peasants, proposes that as a
congregation it shall send out missionaries to the
heathen. The missionaries, as is natural, must be
of their own body, peasants like the rest. As many
as twelve come forward, and the clergyman, in the
name of the congregation, and without means, accepts
the entire burden of training, sending and supporting
these men. Has anything like that been seen since
the days when the Church of Antioch sent out her
Barnabas and Saul ?
A year or two had slipped past in preparation
and in regular parish work, when some young sailora
of the German fleet sought admif^sion to the Her-
mannsburg emigration. They were recent converts,
and in their zeal proposed to found a colony near
Boney, in Wb ri Africa, and by Christian influ-
ences assist in putting down the slave-trade. Chris-
tian missionaries could superintend them, but what
society would furnish these ? They sought for guid-
ance in this matter, and were directed to Harms, and
PASTOR HARMS AND HIS WORK. 179
" ♦ ■ ■
laid their plans before him. They declared it was all
one on which coast they settled ; and that they were
ready, as he wished, to stay for some months under
his eye. An entirely new element was thus intro-
ducad, and has since determined the character of *;he
mission — colonization. Peasants who had no mis-
sionary gifts pleaded to be taken out as settlers.
Out of sixty who offered, eight were chosen. The
sailors settled down to their work, ^-^.1 the scheme
at once assumed a magnitude tha* had not been
contemplated.
And now came a new trouble. How were all these
persons to be sent out ? Where would the money
come from ? Then one of the sailors said, " Why not
build a ship, and you can send out as many and as
often as you will ?" The proposal was good ; but,
the money ! That was a time of great conflict and
wrestling with God.
Arrangements were at once made for the building
of a brig at Harburg ; it wfi,H well and quickly done,
and there was only one mishap, which in the end
proved harmless — it cost more than two thousand
crowds above tb ^ estimate. With a landsman's
ignorance, Harms had not recognized the difference
between copper- fastened and copper-sheathed until
the little item in the bill brought it prominently
before him. But all passed off well ; and one bright
autumn day a special train carried the clergyman
and some hundreds of his parishioners to Harburg,
where they found that the shipping was dressed with
180 MODERN MISSIONS.
flaf^s in honor of the new vessel ; and having held a
simple service on boa,rd, they dedicated the Candace
to its work of carrying the Gospel to the Ethiopians.
At Hermannsburg there was a ceaseless industry.
Smiths, tailors, carpenters, shoemakers, coopers, were
preparing for their ship. The women and girls
knitted with a rapidity that was marvellous to look
upon. The farmers came in with loads of buckwheat
and rye. The orchards were stripped. Pigs and hens
accumulated to the proportions of an agricultural
show. Nor did a Christmas-tree fail, but one was
carefully planted in a huge tub to be in readiness
against crossing the line.
Then the mission pupils had to pass their examina-
tion before being ordained by the Consistory. The
colonists had to be got ready. They all knew some-
thing of agriculture, but by more definite profession
they were : two smiths, a tailor, a butcher, a dyer
and three laborers. The captain was chosen and
the crew ; the cargo was on board ; and at last the
leaving-time came. The younger Harms preached a
farewell sermon, and then the sixteen stood up to-
gether and sang as their parting hymn, " Ein feste
ist unser Gott." There is no music so rousing and
sublime as that masterpiece of Luther ; it is a very
hero-psalm ; and there is something noble in those
humble men setting their faces towards the savages
in Africa and flinging back their lofty music out of
brave, composed hearts. The next day they went
to Hamburg, and, on the 28th October, 1853, the
PASTOR HARMS AND HIS WORK. 181
anchor was lifted, and the Candace floated down to
Cuxhaven.
At Hamburg, there is the service on board. The
deck is crowded, the rigging and bulwarks of the
neighboring vessels are well filled ; the quay porters
and other lounge^ " look on in wonder ; the captain
and sailors are gathered round a table on the quarter-
deck, and a regular open-air service is held. Through
the voyage regular services are maintained, and every
morning and evening they meet together for a simple
worship as the members of one household. The chil-
dren are taught, and the school is opened before they
have left the river ; study is diligently continued ;
the tradesmen ply their crafts ; and the inner life
of that trim brig, the Cavdace, is pleasant to look
upon. After eighty days they reached Cape Town,
and presently sailed round to Natal, and went in
search of their long-looked-for Gallas.
When the hurry of departure w^as over, and the
parish life returned into its old channel, it felt som<'
what dull. The first brood had gone, and the nests
were empty, as Harms says. This did not last long.
Three weeks were spent in putting thiftgs to rights,
iind by that time twelve new candidates were wait-
ing to enter the house. There were two tailors, four
carpenters, and six yeomen or peasants.
About this time '■ihe Hermannsburg Mission Maga-
zine was begun, as a means of communicating mis-
sionary intelligence from the African colonists to the
people, to the surrounding districts and to some more
182 MODERN MISSIONS.
distant friends of the undertaking. Its circulation
soon reached fourteen thousand, equal to that of the
Kolnische Zeitung, the Times of North Germany. It
suggested the necessity of a Hermannsburg printing-
press. It was desirable that the missionaries should
learn type-setting and other mysteries of the printing
art, so that they might be able to supply books after-
wards to the heathen in their own tongues. Many
Bibles, catechisms and hymn-books were needed. So
now the village prints its own history to all hhe world,
and the printing-press never rests.
In the second year, also, the Candace returned.
Sinister reports had been spread by the Hamburg
papers. It was said that the mission ship was lost;
that it was worthless and worm-eaten ; that it would
never sail back into the Elbe. These reports, from
the highest commercial authorities, were not hidden
from the people ; but they were bid to wait in faith
for more certain intelligence. When the ship returned,
not even the average repairs, after so long a voyage,
were necessary. The next year the preparations for
a new African voyage were completed. Four brides
were sent out to as many of the missionaries, nor
were bridal wreaths forgotten in the great chests.
Wheik the ship that carried out the brides reached
the hurbor the brethren had been waitino- with a
natural anxiety, and, to their dismay, contrary winds
and low ^ides prevented her entrance. Six days they
waited, making telescopic observations, until an Eng-
lish merchant, whose wife was a passenger on board,
PASTOR HARMS ANt) HlS WORK. 183
proposed sailing out to the Candace. As the wind
blew from shore, the boat reached safely, and the
brides and bridegrooms immediately set off in hope
of a speedy landing ; but, instead of returning, they
disappeared in the offing. The wind had caught their
boat and carried them out its own way. " Had not
the Candace made sail and captured these involuntary
fugitives, who knows where they would have drifted ?
I said before that brides and bridegrooms are strange
people ; is it not true ?" A tailor, a shoemaker, a
smith, a tanner and a wheelwright w^ent out as
colonists. The ordination of the twelve brave mis-
sionaries by the Consistory of Hanover quickly
followed. The king and queen, with their children,
were present ; the ministers of the town all took part ;
the next day they were sent for to the palace, where
the king entered freely into conversation with each
of them, and assured them that they would be remem-
bered by himself and his family in prayer.
In the autumn of this year the Candace was ready
for another mission-journey, and was so crowded that
the captain and the shipping agent were in despair.
No less than forty-four persons left the old Her-
mannsburg for the new, twelve of them missionaries,
fourteen colonists, and again four brides, the rest
women and children. The old mission house that
they had left was filled in every corner by one-and-
twenty young men, who had taken possession of it
for the next training.
There was another burden pressing on Harms
IS^ MODERN MISSIONS.
which is pressing on very many. We catch the thief
and put him in prison. On the whole, our machinery,
so far, is admirable. But when the prison door lets
him out again into the world, our machinery ceases.
It is simply the opening and closing of a trap. And
as the burden of the ex-converts pressed sore upon
Harms, he determined to join in connection with the
mission a refuge for discharged convicts. A farm
was purchased, of sufficient extent to afford the men
constant employment. The farm house was fitted up
for their reception ; a pious yeoman of the parish was
appointed superintendent— is not the German word
housefather better ?— and they waited in stillness for
any who would voluntarily come.
Pastor Harms was chained to his desk for twelve
hours a day, and did his parish duty as before. When
the stress was over he could work no more, but lay
sick for months. He was never very strong, rather
feeble, and latterly delicate and suffering ; so much,
that he sometimes writes as if he were soon to die. It
was two years before he was recovered, and arranged
what was needful for a voyage to the Cape. In the
autumn of 1860, the ship went on a fifth voyage, was
laden as before ; and in 1801 returned for twenty-two
missionaries.
Every year the Hermannsburg Missionary Festival
is held for two days in the leafy month of June. It
is a middle point for the Mission interest ; the point
of attraction for strangers ; the ecclesiastical date of
the country round. The children divide their affec-
PASTOR HARMS AND HIS WORK. 185
tions between it and Christmas. It represents the
picturesque side of Heath life, and the joyousness of
Christian feeling ; and it is peculiar, without a
counterpart in this country, like a picture from the
out-of-door life of England two centuries ago, or a
covenanters' meeting among the hills of Scotland.
The day before is marked by a not unnatural com-
motion in the village, for along every road and bridle-
path, and over the moor where there is no path at all,
the strangers are dropping in, in waggons or carts,
or on horseback, or most of them on foot. What
becomes of them you can scarcely say, for as soon as
they drop into the street they disappear. But Use
hospitality is a precept which admits here of a sur-
prising elasticity, and when seventy or one hundred
people are found in cue house, and in the vicarage
still more, the wonder ceases. Every corner is full,
the hay-lofts are crowded with uests ; a barn, an
out-house, a lobby ; anywhere that there is shelter,
there is room and content. The majority are peas-
ants, of clergymen a few, of schoolmasters several, of
the people an incredible multitude. Students drop
in from Gottingen ; perhaps there is a famous
preacher from Berlin ; a hot Lutheran finds his next
bed-fellow in the hay-loft is a leader of the Reformed ;
a genial pietist from Wurtemberg is sitting beside a
dry orthodox divine from Pomerania. They cannot
help it. Harms attracts them all ; and they have
literally no room to display their differences.
The next morning all is hushed till the bell rings
186 MODERN MISSIONS.
for prayer. Then from every house there bursts
forth a peal of morning psalms, and up on the hill
before their doors the Mission students blow chorals
on their long trumpets. And when the householder
has assembled his friends for morning worship and
they have breakfasted, the streets is crowded and
lively with greetings of neighbors and friends unex-
pectedly met, until the bell rings out again for service
at ten. The church is soon filled, the men on one
side, the women on the other, as the old-fashioned
way is; the rest gather outside about the open
windows, for there are more than six thousand people.
The singing is in somewhat quicker time than usual,
firm and strong and full, so exquisite for harmony
and expression that, as a visitor once said, he must be
a daring preacher who will venture into the pulpit
after that. It would be impossible, without tran-
scribing the whole, to give a right conception of
what is preached and how ; it would be impossible
thus to convey a sense of the fervor, and (there is no
better v/ord for it) holiness of the speaker, his utter
simpleness, the directness of his country phrases, his
fire, and that love and perfect faith which color all
his words.
The afternoon service follows; hymns are sung
again, sometimes by the congregation, and then by
the men, or the women, or the children — a mode of
church music much cultivated among the Moravians.
The inspector preaches, and reports upon the mission,
so tar «i,a under his control ; Harms comes after, with
PASTOR HARMS AND HIS WORK. 187
the report of the entire work for the year, and it is
far on in the evening before the people separate.
The next day is known by the march of the pil-
grims. Some spot in the neighborhood, a fcsw miles
distant, and in another parish, is selected ; practical
reasons, of course, guide the choice, but beauty of
situation does not seem unconsidered. About nine,
the people assemble in front of his house, the students
blow a chorale, there is a prayer, and the procession
sets oft* over the Heath ; the aged and delicate in
waggons, the rest on foot. There is a gay and pretty
sight. It is holiday with every one, holiday dress
and holiday talk. Little family groups wind over the
Heath ; its great silence is broken by the murmur of
a thousand voices ; its level sombre shades are
brightened by an endless variety of color ; it seems
all in motion, for other groups are advancing from
other directions to the place of rendezvous ; and
occasionally the pilgrims lift up a mighty psalm that
goes echoing over the moor, and is caught up by the
distant stragglers, and sent joyously back from band
to band.
Arrived at their destination, they settle themselves
for the day. Turning down into a valley, they
spread up the side, over the mingled meadow and
heath, or climb the trees, while some rock below serves
as pulpit, and the blue sunnner sky is roof sufficient.
Nothing can be more picturesque than the grouping,
or more cheerful than the universal feeling. And
when the service is begun with the singing of so
188 MODERN MISSIONS.
many thousand blended voices, it is no wonder to see
aged eyes that fill with tears of joy.
Twenty years ago no one could have prophesied
that the population of a district would assemble at a
missionary meeting. At that time the churches were
closed against the Mission ; a hall might be hired in
some town, but the few who did that were said by
everybody to be out of their right mind ; and if a
meeting where held, those who came were followed
through the street, and pointed at as a nine days'
marvel, and if an association was established, it was
happy to receive two hundred crowns.
When Harms has preached, the clergyman of the
parish bids the assembly welcome. Other addresses
are made imtil one, and an hour is then left for pic-
nicking, which proceeds with the same disregard of
conventional rule and the same intense satisfaction
that belong to it elsewhere. Further addresses, and
much singing of hymns and prayer succeed ; extracts
are read from recent letters of the missionaries, and
information is given of the various labors of mission
societies. It is not till the s\Tmmer twiliofht has
stolen down that the pilgrims catch sight of the
scattered houses and church spire of Hermannsburg.
As they enter, the bell rings for evening prayer.
There is a sudden silence along the straggling line,
broken only by the audible murmur of some more
urgent petition. In a few minutes, the train moves
again, and the divided households unite, each under its
own roof, with thanksgiving to the Lord, for he is
good ; for his mercy endureth forever.
PASTOR HARMS AND HIS WORK. 189
Where did they get the money ? A ship is costly,
and a farm is not bought for nothing, and the daily
maintenance of two hundred people is no trifle, nor
can buildings be put up at eight different settlements
without expense, although it be among the Kaffirs.
And yet this parish is a plain peasant parish, and
Mr. Harms is only a clergyman's son, and his income
is scanty enough. The ship cost 15,000 crowns, and
4,000 more to fit it out ; Africa needed in one year
7,000, in another 21,000; the annual home expenses
are about 6,000. Or let it be put in another form.
The expenditure for six years wan 115,676 crowns.
The income for the same period was 118,694 crowns.
Where did he get these 118,000 crowns ? His
doctrine is that no Christian dare be a beggar, nor
ask from any but God. Beyond the barest outline of
accounts, he excludes money matters and money diffi-
culties from his paper ; he will neither mention the
sums that have been given, nor the names of any who
give. He never speaks of his wants, nor asks a dona-
tion ; when he is in urgent diflSculty about money, he
persists in silence. This may look singular and
absurd. But is it not more singular that he has
never found this course of conduct to mislead or dis-
appoint him ; that he has found his straightforward
asking of God abundantly sufficient ? When a man
makes that discovery, who can blame him for using
it ?
He lias one or two pretty certain sources of income
Each of the eleven thousand annual communicants
190 MODERN MISSIONS.
lays a gift on the communion-table, as the custom is.
The congregation is liberal. There are plain yeomen
who have handed him 500 crowns. There are persons
who have stripped themselves of all to give. But he
has no control over these people. If there are persons
who give so largely in that particular community, it
is but reasonable to say that it is God who moves
their hearts to this liberality.
Before Ids own paper was established, Harms put a
brief report of his proceedings in two of the country
newspapers. The unlikelihood of that report reach-
ing far is self-evident, but almost simultaneously
contributions came from New Oiieans, Antwerp,
Amsterdam, Odessa, and Narva. Harms has no
doubt how they came. God put it into men's hearts.
We give in conclusion a brief account of the new
Hermannsburg in Africa. The truculent Gallas were
the special pagans Pastor Harms sought to evangelize,
but the Sultan of Zanzibar refused permission to land,
and so thwarted the missionaries that they were
obliged to go to Port Natal. This disappointment
weighed like an Alp upon the heart of Harms day
and night. At Port Natal three courses were open —
either to place themselves under the Bishop of Natal,
to which they had sound objections ; or to settle on
Government land ; or to purchase ground for a colony.
The second, as the less expensive, was adopted ; and
their difficulties began again. The fitot time they
touched at Port Natal a report had preceded them
that it was a ship full of Jesuita, and the people must
PASTOR HARMS AND HIS WORK. . 191
beware. But as in the early morning they blew a
German chorale on their long trumpets— as their
fashion is— a German, who stood on the shore, cried
out that these were no Jesuits, but Lutherans, and
the suspicion was dissipated. And now when they
went to the Governor for permission to settle, he
declared that he would never allow them an inch of
the royal domains, and that the sooner they left the
country the better. This blow fell on them sadly and
incomprehensibly, for they had brought letters of
recommendation from the English Government. It
was explained later. The captain, who turned out
badly, had informed the Governor that they were
revolutionary demagogues; and he, it seems, was
nothing loath to believe it. No squatting being per-
mitted, they were driven to the third course, of a
regular purchase. They secured a property of 6,018
acres for £630.
The position of the settlement as a mission fortress
and centre was good. It was under English protec-
tion ; it was not inconveniently distant from the sea ;
it touched on the most important tribes of Southern
Africa ; and by penetrating northward from tribe to
tribe, ifc was still possible to reach the Gallas. And
the religious state of the population, white and black,
was pitiful. Isolated among the heathen, and removed
from every Christian influence, the heathenism of the
so-called Christian is the result.
Hp ing secured their purpose, the next step of the
colonists was to build. Then the learning of the
192 MODERN MISSIONS.
language became the most formidable work of all.
For they did not spend their energy in mere outward
arrangements. They kept steadily before them the
purpose of their colony, and every spare moment
practised the native tongue. If a man got knocked
up in the woods, he recruited himself with a month's
study of Kafnr with Posselt. " I have seen them," says
Posselt, writing to Harms, "struggling with these
clicks and clacks till their eyes turned round in their
head. It is a hard nut for them to crack ; but they
are indefatigable, and they never flinch ; real martyrs
to the cause."
The language is a lamentation in their letters for
years — they were only simple peasants of the Heath ;
elderly men, some of them, more used to a spade than
a grammar ; and it is to their credit that they man-
fully overcame the difficulties in their way, instead of
falling back upon pastoral duty among the scattered
Germans. Meanwhile their hearts were burning with-
in them for some speech with the natives, and until
able directly, they spoke as they could through inter-
preters. Nor were they slow to practice with any
natives who might be at hand, though they sometimes
fell into odd blunders.
Harms, careful and thoughtful at home, warned
them of the African laziness, of a " lady-and-gentle-
man existence." They wrote him in reply—" A bell
rings us up at half-past five ; we have worship at six ;
after coffee everyone hurries off to his work ; for
breakfast we have bread and milk ; the bell rings
PASTOR HARMS AND HIS WORK. 193
from work to dinner at twelve, at half-past one there is
coffee, and then to work again as long as our dear God
lets the sun shine." The work embraced everything
— mission teaching and handicraft, the household and
the church. At last a despatch arrived from Lord
Clarendon, recognizing the admirable character of the
mission, and recommending it to special care, while
three thousand acres additional, out of the Govern-
ment land, were allocated to the settlement. With
the arrival of Sir G. Grey came still brighter pros-
pects. He is reported to have said, that if he were
not a Governor he would be a missionary. Whatever
truth may be in this, his interest in missions is well
known. His familiarity with their working, and his
experience of the relations between European and
savage races, led him to a higher estimate of their
value than is at all common to colonial rulers. He
made grants to any new mission station of six thou-
sand acres, grants of which the Hermannsburgers
soon availed themselves. They were rapidly increas-
ing. The old parish at home sent out a continuous
stream of emigrants. Their organization w^as firmly
established; and while Hermannsburg remained as
the centre, and as a school of preparation for mission
life, the emigrants founded new stations. The white
families near them showed a wonderful change.
Drunkards became sober and diligent; gamblers
threw away their cards ; where the Bible had never
been opened, there was a daily confession of Christ ;
there were entire families that blessed God for what
13
194 MODERN MISSIONS.
had been wrought in their houseliolds ; and these per-
sons had before been incredibly degraded, and almost
without a sense of rehgion.
The horror of the missionaries at the pagan rites of
the natives can scarce find expression ; they write of
every ceremony as the work of the devil ; they fight
airainst it as such ; if they are invited to a feast, they
soon rush out to wrestle in prayer against the kmg-
dom of Satan; tlieir soul is moved within them.
" We are often filled with such nausea and loathing,
that we could run away if it were not that love and
pity withhold us." But these men have gentle and
winning ways, and their good faith and simplicity
give point to their words ; the heathen Kaffirs like to
live near them, the children are diligent and affection-
ate in the school.
Seven years after the first missionaries sailed for
Africa, there were one hundred settlers spread over
the Eastern provinces at eight stations ; there were
dwelling-houses, and workshops at every station;
there were about forty thousand acres of land ; fifty
heathens had been baptized ; their influence reached
from the Zulus on the coast, to the Bechuanas in the
centre, and from the Orange River to Lake Ngami.
At home, they liad a mission liouse and farm, with
forty-five persons living in them ; the Refuge Farm,
with twenty persons ; they hrd their own ship, and
printed their own books ; and tliey continue with one
accord in breaking of bread anci in prayer.
. CHAPTEE X.
THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN
MISSIONS.
BY REV. J. S. ROSS, D.D.
" Ride on, triumphant Lord, >
A hundred years record
Thy victories won ;
Hasten the glorious day
When all shall own thy sway,
And earth and heaven shall say
The w rk is done."
A CENTURY OF MODERN MISSION CHRONOLOGY.
1792. The first British Foreign Missionary Society organized
through the efforts of Carey.
179.3. Carey landed in India.
1795. London Missionary Society organized.
1796. First mission of London Missionary Society opened at
Tahiti, Society Islands.
1799. Dr. Vanderkemp (London Missionary Society) opened
mission to Kaffirs in South Africa.
1804. British and Foreign Bible Society organized.
Mission to Sierra Leone opened.
1807. Morrison (London Missionary Society) first missionary
to China.
Slave-trade in British dominions abolished bv Parliament.
196 MODERN MISSIONS.
1810. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
organized.
1812. Church Missionary Society organized ; (in 1799 organized
under another name).
Wesleyan mission to South Africa opened.
1813. East Inlia Co. compelled by Parliament to tolerate
missionaries.
Judson arrived at Rangoon, Burmah.
1814. Ameiican Baptist Missionary Society organized.
Mission to New Zealand opened by Church Missionary
Society.
Death of Dr. Coke, on Indian Ocean, aged sixty-seven.
1816. American Bible Society organized.
Moffat sailed for Africa.
1817. Wesleyan Missionary Society organized.
1818. Conversion under Moffat of Africaner, " the terror of
South Africa."
1819. Missionary Society of Methodist Episcopal Church, U.S.,
organized.
First Christian book printed in Siamese.
Whole of Bib'e translated into Chinese by Morrison,
assisted by Milne.
1824. Missionary Society of Methodist Church of Canr.da
organized.
1829. Widow-burning abolished b;' the British Grovernment in
India.
1830. Duff arrived in India.
1833. Slavery abolished in the British Empire (went into
operation August 1st, 1834).
1834. Death of Carey, " the pioneer of modern missions."
Death of Morrison, " the pioneer missionary to China."
1835. Mission to the Fiji Islands, opened by the Wesleyan
missionaries. Cross and Cargill.
1840. Livingstone sails for Africa.
1846 Death of James Evans, Canadian Methodist missionary,
and inventor of the syllabic characters.
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 197
1850. Missionary Society organized by the New Zealanders.
Death of Judson, " the apostle of Biirmah."
1853. Missionary Society organized by Sandwich Ishmders.
Com. Perry (U.S.) sails into Yeddo Bay, Japan.
1858. Japan opened by Townsend Harris Treaty to the
Western world after being closed 219 years (treaty
went into full operation following year).
Christianity tolerated in China by the Treaty of Tientsin
(carried into effect in 1860).
1859. First missionary in Japan. *
18G4. First convert in Japan.
1865. China Inland Mission commenced.
1870. Missionaries to Hawaiian Islands made last report to
their society, these islands having ceased to be
missionary ground.
1872. First Protestant Church organized in Japan.
1873. First foreign mission of Methodist Church of Canada,
commenced in Japan.
Edict against Christianity in Japan taken down.
1878. Missions to the Congo opened.
Death of Dr. DufF, aged seventy-two.
1881. Woman's Methodist Missionary Society of Canada
organized.
1882. Corea, "the hermit nation," the latest optned to the
Gospel.
1883. Death of Moffat.
1885. Congo Free State erected.
Bishop Hannington murdered at Uganda by orders of
Mwango.
1888. First railroad built in China with sanction of the
Government.
Whole Bible translated into Japanese.
1890. Memorable Missionary Conference at Shanghai, China.
Death of McKay, of Uganda.
198 MODERN MISSIONS,
1891. Edict of Chinese Emperor proclaiming toleration of
Christianity.
Death of Samuel Crowther. "Born a slave, died a
bishop."
1892. Death of James Calvert, noted missionary to Fiji.
Mission opened in a populous but unevant;elized province
of China, by the Methodist Church, Canada.
MISSIONS UNDERTAKEN.
By common consent the year 1792 marks the
beginning of the modern missionary movement — a
distinct epoch in the development of Protestant
Christianity. Yet this does not imply that there
were no missions before that date. The names of
Egede, Stach, Ziegenbalg and Schwartz are well
known in this period.
The Moravian brotherliood rose to notice when the
zeal of all Churches was at the coldest. Driven from
Moravia, Count Zinzendorf (author of the hynni,
" Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness,") bought an
estate for the refugees, near the foot of a hill. This
they called Herrnhut — (The Lord's Shelter) — a name
which has since gone round the world. The society
was composed of about six hundred laborers and
artizans, yet in the short space of eight or nine years,
commencing in 1732, they had sent missionaries to
Greenland, the West Indies, the Indians of North
America, the negroes of South Carolina, to Lapland,
Tartary, Guinea, South Africa and Ceylon. They
now report 392 ordained ministers, preaching at 1 33
stations, to 23,901 coimnunicants. Their missionaries
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 199
frequently started without knowing how to reacli
their destination, and often had to procure supDort by
working with their own hands. As showin^^ their
spirit, Count Zinzendorf went to a brother and said :
" Can you go as a missionary to Greenland ? Can
you go to-morrow ? " And the reply waf^ : " I will
start to-morrow if the shoemaker has finished my
shoes which I ordered." So long as mankind can
appreciate purity of intention, self-sacrifice, and hero-
ism, the name of the Moravian brotherhood will never
die.
Missions to the heathen were not undertaken by
the Wesleyans until 1786, when Dr. Coke, destined
for Nova Scotia, was providentially driven by a
storm to the British West Indies, v/liere a mission to
the slaves was immediately begun at Antigua. " Dur-
ing his (Dr. Coke's) life it was not deemed necessary
to organize a missionary society among the Wesley-
ans, for he embodied that great interest in his own
person." He crossed the Atlantic eighteen times ih
prosecution of the work of God.
" The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts " was formed in 1701, rather for
colonial than foreign missionary objects. This society
became distinctly missionary in 1821. Thus, with
the exception of the Danish missions represented by
Ziegenbalg and Schwartz, and the work of the Mora-
vians and Wesleyans, the whole heathen world, previ-
ous to the opening of the missionary epoch, was left in
spiritual destitution, not " a solitary representative of
200 MODERN MISSIONS.
the Churches of Great Britain being found on earth
preaching Christ to those who had never heard his
name."
CONDITION OF THE CHURCHES.
It has been truly said, " Never has there been a
century in England so void of faith as that which
began with Queen Anne and ended with George II.,
when tlie Puritans were buried and the Methodists
not born." Blackstone, about this period, said he had
heard every clergyman of note in London, but not
one discourse that had more Christianity in it than
the orations of Cicero, or showed whether the
preacher was a disciple of Confucius, Mohammed or
Christ.
What missionary activity could there be in
Churches of this description ? To diffuse such a
Christianity would be a calamity ; but happily it has
no inherent diffusiveness, The only hope of the
Churches themselves, and of the world, lay in a
revival of religion. This occurred under the labors
of Wesley and Whitfield, and one year after Wesley
was dead, William Carey, clarum et venerahile
nomen, succeeded, despite many discouragements, in
organizing the first British Foreign Missionary
Society, under the auspices of the Baptist Church.
To understand his difficulties it may be necessary
to recall the prevailing sentiments of the people at
that time, both in and out of the Church. When
Carey proposed in the Baptist Association to discuss
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MOI^ERN MISSIONS. 201
the advisability of sending missionaries to the
heathen, Rev. Dr. Ryland is reported to have said:
•' Young man, sit down ; when God pleases to convert
the heathen he will do it without your aid or mine."
Dr. Ryland simply expressed the prevailing sentiment
of the majority of Christian people at that time. The
East India Company refused to take Carey to India
in one of their vessels. When they found he intended
to be a missionary, they ordered him off the vessel,
but he reached Calcutta by a Danish ship. Even
after his arrival, but for the firm conduct of the
Governor of the little Danish settlement at Seram-
pore, to which he was invited, Carey and his family
would have been seized and sent back to Europe by
the first vessel. Charles Grant, who ultimately rose
to be the head of the East India Company, wrote to
the Rev. Charles Simeon to send out missionaries to
the East, and promised to support them. Simeon
failed to find one. Grant afterwards wrote : " I had
formed the design of a mission to Bengal ; Providence
reserved that honor for the Baptists."
A bishop of the Church of England said he had in
his diocese a very good clergyman, but one who was
very eccentric, and gave as proof of it the fact that the
said clergyman actually belijved the red Indians of
North America could be converted ! Fuller, who was
collecting for the new Baptist society, went aside
into the by-ways of London city, to weep over the
callousness of wealthy Christians. Three years after
Carey had arrived in India, the Assembly of the
202 MODERN MISSIONS.
Church of Scotland denounced the scheme of foreign
missions as " illusive," " visionary," " dangerous to the
good order of society," and as " improper and absurd
to propagate the Gospel abroad, so long as there re-
mained a single individual at home without tlie
means of religious knowledge."
But the above was mild compared with the diatribe
of the Rev. Sydney Smith, who pronounced the
scheme of foreign missions as " absurdity in hy-
sterics," " preposterousness run mad," " illusion danc-
ing in maddest frenzy," " the unsubstantial dream
and vision of a dreamer who dreams that he has been
dreaming."
In the United States, Mills, Judson, Newell and
Nott held the now famous " haystack " meeting, to
start a foreign missionary society ; and because public
opinion was opposed to them, by article 4, the
existence of their society was made secret. When a
few years afterwards it was proposed to charter the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis-
sions, by the Massachusetts Legislature, Mr. B. W.
Croninshield objected on the ground that " it would
export religion, whereas there was none to spare away
from ourselves," to which the proper rejoinder was
made that " religion is a commodity, the more of
which is exported the more we have remaining." At
first the Senate rejected the Bill, but of five Boston
papers, not one gave a report of the debate, or even
an abstract of it ! What surprise and comment would
such a legislative act excite to-day !
FIRST HUNDRED \EARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 203
AMERICA.
*' Lo, the poor Indian I whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind."
MISSIONS TO THE INDIANS.
The first missionary to the Indians was Rev. John
Eliot. He preached the first sermon ever delivered
in North America to the Indians in their native
tongue. He took a language which had no literature
and had never been reduced to writing, and in eight
years had the whole Bible translated. It was abso-
lutely the first case in history of the translation and
printing of the whole Bible for evangelizing purposes.
It was issued in 1663, being the first Bible printed in
America. " Prayers and pains," he said, " through
faith in Jesus Christ, will do anything." Respecting
his preaching to the Indians, both in Old and New
England it was declared the whole scheme was to
make money, and that the conversion of Indians was
a fable. He lived, however, to see six Indian churches
and a thousand members. Southey pronounced him
" one of the most extraordinary men of any country."
He was followed by Brainerd in the same work.
Another name in connection with Indian missions
which deserves to be perpetuated in history, is that
of Rev. James Evans, a Canadian Methodist mission-
ary and the inventor of syllabic characters for the
Cree Indians, and by which they are enabled to read
with surprising facility. Lord Duflferin said to Rev.
204 MODERN MISSIONS.
E. R. Young : " Why, what a blessing to humanity
that man was who invented this alphabet. I profess
to be a kind of literary man myself, and try to keep
up my reading of what is going on, but I never heard
of this before. The fact is," he added, " the nation
has given many a man a title and a pension, then a
resting-place and monument in Westminster Abbey,
who never did half so much for his fellow-creatures."
MISSIONS TO GREENLAND.
For thirteen years in northern Norway, Hans
Egede heard the Macedonian cry to go to Greenland.
His proposal to set out for that inhospitable region
raised a storm of opposition, but after a voyage of
eight weeks he landed there in 1721. Thus began
the Danish mission. He w^as three years in learning
the language, and remained there fifteen years.
The Moravian mission began in 1733 (twelve years
after Egede), under the Messrs. Stach and Christian
David. Before they departed, Count Von Pless
recounted the difficulties. " How will you live ? " he
asked. " We will cultivate the soil." " But there is
no soil — only ice and snow." " Then we must try and
live as the natives do." " But in what will you live ? "
" We will build ourselves a house." " But there is no
wood in the country." " Then we Vvull dig holes in
the ground and live there." " No," said the Count,
" here are fifty dollars, and take wood with you."
Their voyage lasted six weeks. The natives were very
indifferent to their teachings and mimicked them.
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 205
They labored five years before they had one convert.
Though zealous and self-sacrificing, Egede the Danish
missionary had little success, from the fact he did not
give due prominence to the direct preaching of redemp-
tion through the blood of Christ. The truth v^^as
preached as part of a creed. The Moravians, on the
other hand, addressed the heart rather than the reason
and had greater success.
THE PACIFIC ISLANDS.
" The ii.mense Pacific smiles,
Round a thousand liitle isles,
Haunts of violence and wiles,
But the powers of darkness yield.
For the Cross is in the field,
And the Light of Life revealed."
There are about twelve thousand of these islands,
and by many they were long supposed to be the
homes of happy savage innocence. Stern facts, how-
ever, in missionary life have dispelled the illusion.
Dr. Geddie. of the New Hebrides mission, says, " The
spectacle of a father and mother with their children,
as one happy social band, is what I have never yet
beheld here." Of the three hundred islands inhabited
by the Papuan race, not one lias been tound where
cannibalism did not exist.
DIVISIONS.
The islands of the Pacific are separated into four
main divisions. Take 180° longtitude. The islands
east of that are called Polynesia. The islands west of
206 MODERN MISSIONS.
180° longfcitude are separated into two divisions. Those
south of the equator are called Melanesia, and those
north of the equator Micronesia. The Hawaiian (or
Sandwich) Islands make the fourth division ; they are
situated north of Polynesia, and about half way be-
tween Australia and Vancouver. These are not mere
geographical divisions, but the names given indicate
differences also in race, color and language.
" . POLYNESIA.
Polynesia consists of the following principal groups:
The Society, Austral, Hervey (or Cook's), Taumota,
Marquesas, Samoan, and the Tonga (or Friendly)
Islands.
The publication of the narrative of Captain Cook's
voyages caused the early selection of these islands as
missionary ground. It is an interesting fact that the
reading of this same book first stirred the soul of
Carey, and led him to decide upon this field, but God
willed India instead. The good ship Duff, sent out
by the London Missionary Society, set sail in 1796,
bearing thirty missionaries — the first purely mission-
ary expedition Protestantism had sent forth to con-
quer heathenism. Curious, in the light of the present
day, is the fact that these pioneer missionaries were
advised, among other things, to procure four pipes of
of the best wine at Rio, to be put into hogsheads, and
paid for by draft on the London Missionary Society !
After a tedious six months' voyage they reached
Tahiti, one of the Society Islands, having a population
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 207
of about sixteen thousand. The Duff returned to
England, and sailed again with a band as large as
before, but was captured by a French privateer. A
third expedition sailed in 1800, but discouraging news
came from the South Seas. Instead of conquering
heathenism, it seemed Christianity was likely to be
conquered by heathenism. In twelve years the mis-
sion seemed decidedly to have failed, though on the
other side it is to be said the missionaries had only
received supplies and had heard tidings from home
twice. A change came over the Christian public of
England. Missions were scouted and laughed at. A
proposition was made to abandon the mission. This
was stoutly opposed by Messrs. Haweis and Wilkes.
It was concluded to send letters of encouragement to
the missionaries instead. The very ship bearing these
letters was crossed in mid-ocean by another conveying
the glad tidings that idols had been rejected by
the people, and not only the account of the rejec-
tion, but bearing the idols themselves ! " Before they
call I will answer." Thus broke the dawn after a
sixteen years' night of toil.
Of Tahiti, Captain Cook said, "This island can
neither serve public interests nor private ambition, and
will probably never be much known." He little
dreamed that its name would go round the world. It
was in reference to Tahiti that Darwin said, "The
lesson of the missionary is the enclianter's wand."
The establishment of Christianity in the islands was
precipitated by an attack of idolaters, in 1815, upon
208 MODERN MISSIONS.
the king, afterwards known as Pomare II. They
were defeated in what was intended, and proved to
be, the crisis battle between tlie two systems. Chris-
tianity was thus established, human sacrifices abol-
ished, concubinage prohibited, the Sabbath observed
as a day of rest and worship, a printing press set up,
and a missionary society organized. The king became
the first president, and its first year's contribution
amounted to $2,500. From this society one hundred
and sixty missionaries have gone forth to neighbor-
ing islands. The king also gave a code of laws and a
constitution in 1819. He died in 1821. In conse-
quence of the intrigues of Roman Catholic mission-
aries, Tahiti was taken possession of by the French in
1843.
The Tongan Islands were visited by the Wesleyans
in 1822. The king was converted, and baptized under
the name of King George. The people, intellectually,
are far in advance of most of the Polynesian race.
Christianity spread to the Austral group in 1816; to
the Hervey Islands in 1821 ; to Karatonga, one of the
Hervey group, in 1823 ; and to the Samoan Islands in
1830. This latter group has a Christian population
of thirty thousand souls, and in 1890 sent a thank-
offering to the parent Missionary Society in London
of $9,000.
MELANESIA.
Melanesia consists of New Guinea, New Ireland,
Salomon, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Fiji, and the
Ellice Islands, with many other small groups. It is
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 209
called Melanesia because the inhabitants have more of
the negro characteristics than the typical Malay races
to the north of the equator, in Micronesia.
THE STORY OF JOHN WILLIAMS AND ERROMANGA.
The principal agent in spreading the gospel in all
these islands, irrespective of geographical lines, was
John Williams, " the apostle of Polynesia," the narra-
tive of whose life and death is very thrilling. He dis-
covered Raratonga Island, which had eluded the search
of Captain Cook. The record of his successes produced
profound interest in England. In 1839, he landed at
Erromanga, one of the New Hebrides group, noted for
its enormous wealth in sandal wood. With his helper,
Harris, he was suddenly attacked and murdered by
the natives. Rev. G. N. Gordon and his wife, from
Nova Scotia, landed on this same island in 1857,
and after laboring four years were both likewise
murdered by the natives. Nothing daunted, Gordon's
brother stepped into the breach in 1864. After eight
years the natives murdered him also in similar cir-
cumstances. Then followed Rev. H. A. Robertson of
the Presbyterian Church in Canada ; he now has over
two hundred communicants, one thousand church
adherents, ten churches, and thirty-three schools. In
forty years Nova Scotia has sent ten missionaries to
the South Seas.
In 1889, on the fiftieth anniversary of John
Williams' martyrdom, a monument was erected at
Erromanga to his memory. A descendant of the
14
210 MODERN MISSIONS.
same man who dealt Williams his death-blow laid the
corner stone, and the youngest son of the murderer is
now preaching the Gospel in Australia.
NEW HEBRIDES.
Aneityum is the most southern island of the New
Hebrides. The Rev. John Geddie, from Nova Scotia,
arrived in 1848. The story of his success is told on a
tablet in the little church on that island, and reads :
, WHEN HE LANDBD
IN 1848
THERE WERE NO CHRISTIANS HERE,
AND WHEN HE LEFT
IN 1872
THERE WERE NO HEATHEN.
NEW GUINEA.
Don George, a Portuguese navigator, discovered by
accident New Guinea, which (omitting Australia)
proved to be the largest island in the world. It is
only ninety miles north from Australia, and has a
population of one hundred and fifty thousand. When
the mission was begun in 1871, the natives did not
know what money was, but when Dr. McFarlane
left for London in 1887, they gave him a collection
of £64 10s. A copy of the Ne\T Testament, in the
Motu language of New Guinea, was recently pre-
sented to the Queen. A converted Chinaman on
the Pacific Coast, hearing that many of his owi^
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 211
countrymen were residing in New Guinea, sold
himself to work there as a coolie slave in order to
teach them salvation, and was the means of leading
two hundred of them to Christ before he died.
AFRICA.
" There is a morning star, my soul,
There is a mornin? star.
'Twill soon be near and bright, my soul,
Though now it seems so dim and far.
And when time's stars have come and gone.
And every mist of earth has flown,
That better star shall rise
On this world's clouded skies
To shine forever ! "
POPULATION AND "SPHERES OF INFLUENCE."
The population of Africa has been estimat(»d vari-
ously from one hundred and sixty-two to throo
hundred millions of souls. Stanley's estimate is
two hundred and fifty millions.
The work of partitioning Africa among the various
European nations has been industriously pursued for
several years past, with the result that only about
2,500,000 square miles remain unappropriated. France
leading the list. The " spheres of influence " (as they
are technically called) extend over the following
areas : France 2,300,248 square miles ; Great Britain,
1,909,445; Congo Free State, 1,508,000; Germany^
1,035,720, with many smaller divisions held by other
countries.
212 MOPERN MISSIONS.
RACES AND CLIMATE.
It is a mistake to suppose that the people of Africa
are all negroes. The^ are only one race out of six.
The African races are as folio ws . 1 Berber — color,
black to dark bronze ur copper; home, iVorth Africa.
2. Coptic — color, brownish yellow; home, Northern
Egypt. 3. Nilotic — color, between black and brown;
home, Nubia, Abyssinia, and that part of East Africa
south of Abyssinia. 4. Negro — color, black, general
physical characteristics well known ; home, the Sou-
dan. 5. Bantu — color, warm chocolate, a fine, tall,
handsome race. One sub-division of this race (the
Kaffirs proper) will never be made slaves. Home,
southern half of Africa. 6. Goriepine — color, dull
yellow tint ; small size, slightly resembling Malays ;
the Hottentots and Bushmen of South Africa. The
great majority of the African tribes are devil-
worshippers.
Africa has been called the " martyr land," and also
the " white man's grave," from the astounding mor-
tality of the missionaries sent out. In forty years,
of eighty -seven men sent by the Church Missionary
Society, thirty died in the first twelve years. The
Wesleyan Missionary Society up to 1864 had in their
burial-ground on the west coast of Africa, graves of
more than forty missionaries and their wives. The
Moravians sent nine missionaries to Guinea, and in
two years they were all dead, and the mission had to
be abandoned. Fifty -five missionaries, nearly all of
FIRST HUIDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 213
•
whom labored on the lower Congo, died within
ten years. Professor Drummond, a few years ago,
visited the Livingstonia mission on Lake Nyassa.
He found houses, but they were all empty. One by
one the missionaries had sickened and died of fever.
Four or live mounds under the shadow of a huge
granite mountain told the sad tale of Africa's deadly
climate. This continent cannot be evangelized by
Europeans alone.
With the exception of the Soudan, where, it is
said, from sixty to eighty millionfx of pe 3ple reside,
and where no missionary has yet penetrated, though
an attempt is being made at the present time, Africa
is no longer " the dark continent." In our school-boy
days, the centre of Africa was marked over with
pictures of lions and camelopards to show that these
only inhabited this region, or that it was entirely
unknown. How surprising to find by the journeys
of explorers (not the least of whom were mission-
aries) that the country is densely populated by mil-
lions of people. In consequence missionary societies
are eagerly seizing the magnificent opportunit* s
presented.
WEST AFRICA.
Sierra Leone was founded by the British, and
Liberia by the Americans, each for the purpose of
putting down the slave-trade — for rescuing, liberat-
ing and educating those who had been slaves. The
Wesley an Methodists of Sierra Leone have just
celebrated their centenary anniversary. During th
214 MODERN MISSIONS.
War of Independence, 1,131 slaves fled to Nova
Scotia. They succeeded in 1792 in gaining a home
in Sierra Leone, 223 of them uniting with the Wes-
leyan Churcii. This mission, at its centennial, reports
40 churches and 38 other preaching places, 16 native
missionaries, 6,387 communicants and 20,676 adher-
ents, with an annual income of $21,757.
The Church Missionary Society opened a mission
in Sierra Leone in 1804. The Yorubu and Niger mis-
sions were opened by Bishop Crowther, who had been
carried ofT as a sUve-boy, rescued by the British,
educated at Sierra Leone, and was subsequently
ordained Bishop of the Niger. Years afterwards
he had the satisfaction of finding his mother in
the interior, from which part he had been carried
off as a slave. He died a few months ago, " full of
years and honors." The old Calabar mission origin-
ated with the Presbytery of Jamaica ; the Cameroons
with the Baptists ; the Gold Coast and Gambia mis-
sions with the Wesleyans ; and the mission to Liberia
with the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United
States.
SOUTH AFRICA.
The first mission to the Hottentots was commenced
by the Moravians, under George Schmidt, from Hol-
land, in 1737. The Dutch farmers compelled him to
return to Europe in 1744. With the history of mis-
sions in South Africa is imperishably bound u^^ the
name of Dr. Vanderkemp, physician, cavalry officer,
scholar, and sceptic — the son of a Dutch clergyman
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. ^15
Through the drowning of his wife and daughter in
Holland he was led to Christ, and by a series of
strange providences, became, in 1799, the London
Missionary Society's agent in South Africa. He
preached among the Kaffirs and Hottentots, though
over the church doors in Cape Colony he read,
"Dogs and Hottentots not admitted." He was the
first missionary to the Kaffirs. Whcr converted
they walked arm in arm with their wives to church.
On seeing this their heathen neighbors rushed to the
doors of their huts, exclaiming in indignation, "There's
a man yonder who has ade himself into a woman's
walking-stick."
Among the chief names in this part of the continent
is that of Robert Moffat, especially in connection with
the conversion of Africaner, "the terror of South
Africa" the most cruel and bloodthirsty chief of
modern days. A price was set on his head many
times over. That Moffat should risk himself in his
company, whatever professions he made, was con-
sidered foolishly reckless. But Africaner, by the
consistency of his life, convinced the most incredulous
at last. On one occasion, after the efforts of rain-
maker had been in vain, the natives blamed the
missionary for the drought. The chief came with his
followers and told him he must leave the country,
brandishing at the same time his weapons in a
threatening manner. Mrs. Moffat, with the babe in
her arms, was watching the crisis at the cottage door.
Moffat told them he was resolved to abide by his post,
216 MODERN MISSIONS.
and throwing open his waistcoat, said : " Now then, if
you will, drive your spears to my heart." At these
words the chief said: "These men must have ten
lives when they are so fearless of death," and slunk
away. Moffat translated the Bible into the Sechwana
language. The narrative of his work at Kuruman is
most interesting. Mrs. Moffat was a true heroine,
and rightly shares the honors of hei husband. Dr.
Livingstone married one of their daughters.
A striking providence was manifested in the life of
Barnabas Shaw, the Wesleyan missionary to South
Africa. He was forbidden by the Government to
preach, or build a chapel in Cape Town; and the
Dutch farmers even forbade him preaching to slaves.
He then determined to push into the interior, being
seconded by his noble wife, who said : " If expense be
a difficulty, we have each a little property in York-
shire ; let it go for this." After journeying three
hundred miles he camped on the twenty-seventh day
near a party of Hottentots, who, with a chief, were
going to Cape Town after a missionary to teach them
the great word of which they had heard. Had either
party started on its journey half an hour earlier they
would have missed each other.
CENTRAL AFRICA.
Tlie Story of Livingstone.
With Central Africa the name of Dr. Livingstone
is imperishably associated. " Traveller, explorer,
geographer, astronoeier, zoologist, botanist, physician,
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 217
missionary, what a many-sided man ! " At starting
out he told the directors of the London Missionary
Society that he was at their disposal " to go any-
where, provided only it be forward," and plunged into
the very heart of "darkest Africa." As exhibiting
his cheerfulness, on setting out for Loando on the
west coast, on one occasion, he remarked that he was
glad the Boers had taken possession of his goods,
" for it saved him the trouble of making a will."
How Stanley Found Him.
For a long time no word of him had been heard by
the outside public, save a rumor which had come to
the east coast that he was dead. There was so much
uncertainty about the matter that Mr. Bennett, of the
New York Herald, commissioned Henry M. Stanley
to find Livingstone, which he did after a journey of
nearly two years. He was discovered at a most criti-
cal juncture. In 1871, when Livingstone was near
the sources of the Nile, his men absolutely refused to
proceed one step farther. All usual and unusual
appeals were in vain. There was nothing therefore
for him but to tramp back to Ujiji, where his supplies
were stored. But sorrows never come singly. He
found his supplies had been stolen aivl sold, and the
thieves, to save themselves, had started the story that
he was dead. To add to his distress there were no
letters from home, and Livingstone found himself
sick, forsaken, and almost at death's door. But,
sixteen days after, a strange party arrived in his
^18 Modern missions.
camp. It was Stanley's. Who can describe the joy
and gratitude of that moment ? If Stanley had not
been delayed by the war with Mirambo, he should
have gone on to Manyema, and very likely lost him.
They remained together four months, and Stanley
admits that the greatest impulses of his life, especially
his attitude towards Christianity (for he had previ-
ously been somewhat sceptical), were due to the
influence of Livingstone.
His Last Hours and Honors.
After Stanley left him he continued to prosecute
his journeys, but the strong iron constitution was
beginn'ng to give way at last. In 1873, at Ilala,
Lake Bangweolo, the great Livingstone died, aged
sixty years. He was found by his ever-faithful
Susi at four o'clock in the morning in his grass hut,
on his knees by his bedside, dead ! How symbolic
that his heart should be buried beneath a moula tree
in Africa, while his body should be borne to the
resting-place of England's greatest dead. The expedi-
tion led by his devoted blacks, Susi and Chuma, bear-
ing Livingstone's body from Ilala to Zanzibar, is one
of the most remarkable on record. This dangerous
journey of nearly a thousand miles, and which
occupied nearly a year, was successfully accomplished,
and not one paper of all the last seven years of
Livingstone's life was lost. The body was ultimately
conveyed to England, identified by Moffat, his father-
in-law, and buried in Westminster Abbey amid the
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 2l9
profoundest respect and sympathy of the nation.
Livingstone was attacked with fever forty times,
travelled twenty-nine thousand miles, and added to
the known part of the globe about one million square
miles.
THE SOUDAN.
For forty years missionaries have looked toward
the interior and sought to find a way into the Soudan
country. Krapf, with great modesty and bated
breath, revealed his thoughts of establishing a chain
of stations from the east coast ; the Presbyterians
tried to enter from the west coast by the Calabar and
Gaboon Rivers ; and the Baptists sought an entrance
by way of the Cameroons, but all in vain. Stanley,
however, has proved that after the cataracts are
passed, the Congo is the best way to the Soudan. By
it three routes are offered to this, the greatest unevan-
gelized territory on the face of the earth. The
Soudan may be said to be bounded on the north by a
line joining Cape Verde to Khartoum, and on the
south by the eighth paraPel of north latitude, a vast
region three thousand five hundred miles across the
continent, by five hundred miles broad. It has an
area of four millions of square miles — greater than
that of all Europe — and a population of from sixty
to eighty millions — as many as the whole of the
United States. And this vast territory is not
occupied by a single missionary of the cross ! But
we are now at the back door of this great dark land.
A company from Kansas, U.S., started out about two
220 MODERN MISSIONS.
years .1^0, but they all died before reaching their
destination. Another attempt is n(jw being made,
however, the party intending to reach Lake Tchad at
the earliest opportunity.
UGANDA.
In East Africa lies the kingdom of Uganda, with a
population of about five millions, and directly south
lies Lake Tanganyika, discovered by Speke in 1867 —
the largest and longest lake in the world, having a
coast-line of over two thousand miles.
Mtesa, King of Uganda, expressed to Stanley his
desire to have missionaries sent to him. Stanley
wrote a letter to the Daily Telegraph urging that it
be done. That letter had a strange history. Stanley
gave it to Linant de Balfonds, one of the officers of
Gordon Pasha. When the former was killed by the
Baris, the letter was found in his boot, and forwarded
by Gordon to England. The Church Missionary
Society responded to the call. Mwanga succeeded
Mtesa, and persecution soon began. The martyrdom
of three boys took puice, followed by the murder of
Bishop Hannington, McKay in the meantime holding
bravely on. Mwanga was driven out of his kingdom ;
professed conversion ; was then restored ; and joined
the Koman Catholic Church. Encounters between*
the Roman Catholics and Protestants are reported
from time to time in the daily press, and may yet
cause trouble between France and England.
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 221
MADAGASCAR.
Geographical and Historical.
Omitting Australia, Madagascar is the third largest
island in the world. It has an area four times
the size of England and Wales, and is divided into
twenty-eight provinces. The population is about
five millions, and the capital, Antananarivo, contains
one hundred thousand inhabitants. The Hovas are
the principal tribe.
The Opening of the Mission.
The French Governor of the Island of Bourbon told
the first Protestant missionaries that they might as
well try to convert cattle as to make Christians of
the Malagasy. Now Madagascar is one of the mira-
cles of modern missions, and the crown of the London
Missionary Society.
The mission began in 1818, and by 1828 there were
one hundred schools, and ten thousand scholars con-
nected with them. The king, Radama, issued a
proclamation giving liberty to his subjects to re-
ceive baptism and to profess Christianity. Soon
afterwards he died at the early age of thirty-six,
his untimely end being brought on by his vices,
•especially the habit of intemperance, which he had
learned from the Europeans at Tamatave.
The Era of Persecution.
His successor. Queen Ranavalona I. (the "Bloody
Mary" of Madagascar), alarmed at the progress of
222 MODERN MISSIONS.
Christianity, orc'ered a general and horrible persecu-
tion of the Christians, which has been unequalled
in modern times. Four hundred officers were re-
duced in rank, and two thousand were fined. The
missionaries were ordered to leave the island, except
a few to teach the natives soap-making. This
opportunity they 'employed to press forward the
translation and printing of the Bible in Malagasy.
By the time they had taught the natives the useful
art above referred to, they had the whole of the
New Testament and the greater part of the Old
printed and in circulation.
Now all human teachers were gone, and for a
quarter of a century the poor hunted Christians
had only this Bible. In one district they kept the
only copy they had during all this time in a cave
which was used for a small-pox hospital, and where
the Government officers would not go.
When the last missionary was expelled, in 1836,
there were three hundred Christians in full com-
munion ; while they were absent, upwards of six-
teen hundred had been murdered for Christ's sake ;
and ytt when the missionaries returned, in 1861,
there were found to welcome them back seven
hundred and forty members and seven thousand
adherents — fivefold more than when the work of
extermination began. ** The blood of the martyrs
is the seed of the Church."
There were four special places of martyrdom :
One where the victims were speared and thrown to
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 223
the dogs ; one where they were hung over a preci-
pice one hundred and seventy feet high by a rope
around the waist ; being asked if they would re-
nounce Christ, on refusal the rope was cut and they
were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Another
was where they were stoned to death ; and the fourth
where they were burned, straw being stuffed into
their mouths to prevent their praising God.
These four places, after the persecution ceased,
were made over to the missionary of the London
Society, and on their sites, four memorial churches
were built at an expense of £12,000, subscribed in
England.
The French Jesuits found their way to Madagascar
in 1862, and by their intrigues have managed to keep
up a constant irritation between the Government and
France, which has now a protectorate over the island.
To the disgrace, however, of the English Government,
be it said, it is responsible for the prevailing intem-
perance, as it forced the vile rum of Mauritius on
the island in spite of the strict prohibition of the
Government.
Though three missionary societies are working,
scarcely one-half of the population has yet been
reached by the Gospel. In February, 1869, the
Queen Ranavalona II., with her husband, was pub-
licly baptized, and on the following September she
publicly burned the national idols. The present
queen, Ranavalona III., has reigned since 1883, and
is a noble, patriotic, Christian woman.
224 MODERN MISSIONS.
ASIA.
" The night is well-nigh spent, my soul,
The night -S well-nigh spent ;
And soon above our heads shall rise
A glorious firmament,
A sky all clear and glad and bright,
The Lamb once slain, its perfect light,
A star without a cloud,
Whose light no mists enshroud.
Descending never ! "
EURMAH AND SIAM.
Adoniram Judson and his wife, with other mis-
sionaries, were sent out from America to India. On
their arrival at Calcutta they were ordered to be put
on board a ship and sent to England. Judson and
his wife, however, escaped to the Isle of France. An
order was sent to the Governor, Sir Evan Nepean, to
expel them, but, being a man of deep religious feel-
ing, he secured instead their residence in the country
till the next year (1813), when ohe arbitrary power
of the East India Company was broken. They ulti-
mately arrived in Rangoon, Burmah. The first bap-
tism took place in 1819— six years after Judson's
arrival.
In 1823 war l)roke out with England. The Bur-
mese entered upon it with great spirit. Being
ignorant and very conceited, they anticipated speedy
victory and great glory. On gaily capa isoned boats
they went dancing and singing to meet the enemy —
/
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 225
their only anxiety being lest " the cock-feather chief"
should get away before there was time to catch any
of his army for slaves. One Burmese lady sent an
order for four English soldiers to manage her house-
hold, as she had heard they were "trustworthy,"
while a courtier sent an order for six " to row his
boat." Froir this it is evident that during the
intervening centuries the reputation of Britons for
making efficient slaves had considerably advanced
since the time when Cicero advised a Roman general
to make slaves of all his prisoners except the Britons,
who, he said, were too lazy and illiterate for any
good ! It is well to look betimes at " the hole of the
pit whence we were digged."
The Burmese were everywhere defeated. " Seize
the missionaries," cried the people in revenge. Jud-
son was thrown into the death-prison at Ava, Mrs.
Judson, however, being left free. The record of her
devotion during these trying nine months makes one
of the most thrilling chapters in all the history of
female heroism. " The annals of the East present us
with no parallel." Burmah was finally annexed to
British India in 1886.
THE KARENS.
Scattered throughout Burmah and parts of Siam
and China, is a race inhabiting jungles and mountain-
ous districts. These are the Karens, or "wild men
of Burmah." The Burmese virtaally made slaves of
them.
15
226 MODERN MISSIONS.
About 1826, Judson purchased the freedom of the
first Karen convert, Ko-thah-byu. He became a
preacher, and had wonderful success. His name will
never be forgotten so long as the annals of Chris-
tianity are written. Boardman was also a success-
ful missionary amongst them. Though the people
offered sacrifices to propitiate demons, they had no
idols. They welcomed the Bible in their own tongue,
as they had a tradition that books once existed in
their language, although they had no literature of
any kind. No people were ever discovered who
were so prepared to receive the Gospel.
The fiftieth anniversary of the first convert was
celebrated in 1878 — fourteen years ago. To com-
memorate this event they built a Jubilee Memorial
Hall, at a coat of $15,000, for school and mission
purposes. It represented twenty thousand then
living disciples. At the present time there are about
thirty thousand baptized members and one hundred
thousand adherents. They have a missionary society
of their own, sending agents to people of other
tongues. In 1880, Burmah ranked third on the list
of donors to the Baptist Missionary Union — only
Massachusetts and New York outranking her ; and
of $31,616 from Burmah, the Karen churches con-
tributed over $30,000.
SIAM,
Si'\m is called "the land of the white elephant."
It has a population of six millions. Its capital is
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 227
Bangkok, " the Venice of the Orient," with a popu-
lation of about four hundred thousand. The only
mission in the kingdom is carried on by the Ameri-
can Baptists. The present king is about thirty-eight
years of age, and is the first King of Siam who ever
travelled abroad. Next to the Mikado of Japan, he
is pronounced to be " the most progressive sovereign
of Asia." For many years the missionaries enjoyed
high favor at the court. In one of their reports, as
tar back as 1885, the missionaries of the American
Baptist Society express grave doubts whether tliey
can justify making themselves useful to the king
by translating official documents, instead of giving
their whole time to preaching the Gospel. Fancy
Jesuits in the same circumstances burdened with
such scruples !
INDIA.*
Population and Religions.
The official census for India for 1891 has just been
published. The population numbers 288,159,672 —
more than four times the inhabitants of the United
States. Of every six infants born into the world,
one has its natal home in India. Of the above popu-
lation the Hindus number 207,654,407 ; the Mussul-
mans, 57,365,204; the forest tribes (fnimal wor-
shippers), 9,402,083 ; Buddhists, 7,101,057 ; and the
Christians, 2,284,191. The balance is composed of
Jains, Sikhs, Parsees, Jews, Atheists and Agnostics
228 MODERN MISSIONS.
(the two latter classes together numbering 289).
This enormous population is kept quiet only by sixty
thousand English troops, assisted by native auxiliaries.
The population in the Province of Bengal numbers
500 to the square mile ; in British India, 233 ; in the
whole of India, 179. In India there are 150 spoken
languages and dialects, seven of which may be con-
sidered chief languages. The capital is Calcutta.
Opposition to Missiotiaries.
The policy of the East India Company was decid-
edly antagonistic to the admission of missionaries
into India. In 1793 (the year Carey arrived), Mr.
Lu!*hington, a director, said, " if there were only a
hundred thousand nat'ves coi. verted to Christianity,
he should hold it as the greatest calamity thau could
befall India." Another of the directors said he "would
rather see a band of devils than a band of missionaries
in India." In 1813, Wilberforce, in the House of
Commons, in spite of most determined opposition,
led a movement against the Company to compel the
toleration of missionaries, and won. He said : " I
heard afterwards that many good men were praying
for us all night." In writing to his wife he said :
" Blessed be God, we carried our question trium-
phantly about three or later this morning." But
even as late as 1852, over three and three-quarter
millions of dollars were paid from the public funds
to repair temples, support a pagan priesthood, and
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 229
provide new idols and idol-cars ! When the first
tidings of the mutiny reached the India House, one
of the directors threw up his hat and shouted,
" Hurrah, now we shall get rid of the saints." Vain
prediction. The saints got rid of them. Their power
was abolished by the British Parliament in the fol-
lowing year.
First Missionaries.
The great names connected with Protestant mis-
sions in India are Schwartz, Carey and Duff. The
pioneer mission was undertaken by the King of
Denmark, who sent out missionaries in 1706. The
ti: st converts were five slaves baptized in 1707 ; the
first Protestant church was opened in the same yar,
and by 1711 Missionary Ziegenbalg had completed
the t^^anslation of the New Testament into the Tamil
langiage, which is spoken by fifteen millions of
people.
Schwartz, of the same mission, arrived in 1750.
His personal influence was so great that both the
English and rajahs alike desired to use it. Sultan
Hyder Ali, the bitter foe of the English, positively
refused to trust any ambassador save Schwartz.
" Send me the Christian," he cried, " he will not
deceive me." At his death in 1 798, both the Rajah of
Tanjore and the East India Company erected memo-
rial churches in his honor.
Carey, the founder of the first British missionary
society, who had been refused a passage on any Eng-
lish ship, arrived at Calcuttii by a Danish vessel in
230 MODERN Missions.
1793. The East India Company endeavored to have
him expelled, but the Danish Governor invited him to
the little settlement at Serampore, and protected him
there. He was soon joined by Marshman and Ward,
and in course of time was appointed professor of
Sanskrit in Fort William College, being the best
scholar of that language in India, or perhaps in
the world. Thus the humble cobbler developed into
the learned " Dr." Carey. He had a peculiar gift in
learning languages, and before he died translated the
Bible into thirty-six of the spoken dialects of India.
Duff arrived in 1830. He made a distinct departure
by making a specialty of education in connection
with mission work.
The Wesley ans began a mission as early as 1814 in
Ceylon, and now have extensive missions in Madras,
Mysore, Calcutta a d Lucknow. The Method] st Epis-
copal Church of the United States has prosperous
missions in Oudh and the North-west Provinces.
Even in cons, /ative India, quiet but important
changes are being constantly inaugurated. The
agitation for increasing by law the marriageable
age, is likely to be successful. Medical and zenana
missions are also increasing at a remarkable rate.
The scheme which Lady DufFerin began seven years
ago, for the amelioration of the physical condition of
the women of India, is already producing striking
results. Last year 466,000 women received medical
treatment. A wide field is hereby opened for lady
medical missionaries.
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OP MODERN MISSIONS. 231
TJie Tthujn Mission.
The great revival among the Telugus in the south
of India, deserves special mention. Their language
is spoken by sixteen millions of people. For many
years the American Baptists had a mission there,
marked on their map by a red star, their only mis-
sion on that side of the Bay of Bengal. For thirty
years they labored with scarcely any success, till at
last at their annual meeting in Albany, N.Y., in 1853,
it was seriously proposed to abandon what came to be
called their " lone star mission." The proposal was
opposed, and the discussion led Dr. S. F. Smith, the
author of " America," to write what proved to be a
prophetic hymn, commencing with :
" Shine on, Lone Star ! thy radiance bright
Shall yet illumine the western sky," etc.
In IS 77 the revival began. The people came to
the missionaries in thousands, piling up their idols in
the missionaries' back yard, and asking for baptism.
The missionaries had no leisure even to eat, and were
staggered by success. Had they come one at a time
they would have known what to do, but when they
came in thousands, the task of examining and deciding
who were fit for baptism was very trying indeed. In
1866 the converts only numbered 38 ; in 1877, 4,517 ;
in 1878, 10,000 ; in 1890, 32,838. Within six months
in 1878, 10,000 converts were baptized near the town
of Ongole. Thirty thousand have become converted
in twelve years. In one day 2,222 converts were
232 MODERN MISSIONS.
baptized—" the nearest parallel to Pentecost since the
Book of Acts closed." It is doubted whether in all
missionary history there is a better illustration of the
passage — " a nation born in a day."
Increase of GJiristianity.
In 1851 there were 21 native ordained pastors in
India ; in 1891, 912, a growth of forty- threefold in
forty years. The increase of native Protestant
Christians the first fifty years was twenty-five-
fold; between 1851 and 1891 (forty years) the
increase has been eightyfold. During the last
decade (1881-1891), the Hindu population increased
ten per cent. ; the Mussulman, fourteen, and the
Christian population, twenty-two per cent.
JAPAN.
Japan consists of several large islands to the north-
east of China, containing a population of 40,072,020,
and is the most progressive of all the Asiatic nations.'
Edict Against Christianity.
Roman Catholic missionaries early entered the
country, but by their political intrigues were ulti-
mately driven out, and Japan became hermetically
sealed against foreigners for 219 years. The fol-
lowing eaict was posted up at all th© leading cross-
ways in the empire :
•' So long as the sun shall warm the earth, let no
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 233
Christian be so bold as to come to Japan ; and let
all know that the King of Spain himself, or the
Christians' God, or the great God of- all, if he violate
this command shall pay for it with his head."
This edict was not taken down till 1873 — fifteen
years after the country was opened to foreigners.
Even after the restoration of the Mikado in 1868,
penal laws against the " evil sect " were re-enacted,
and as late as 1871 the teacher employed by a mis-
sionary, who had asked to be baptized, was thrown
into prison, where he died, November, 1872.
The Opening of the Country.
In consequence of the complaints of American sea-
men who had been wrecked off the coast of Japan,
the United States Government sent Commodore Perry
to arrange matters with the Japanese Government.
He dropped anchor in Yeddo Bay in 1853. After
five years' deliberations, certain ports, by the Towns-
end- Harris Treaty were thrown open to the Western
world, which treaty went into effect the following
year. Three missionary societies were ready to enter
at once. Drs. Cochran and Macdonald, the first Cana-
dian Methodist missionaries, went out in 1873.
Progress of the Empire.
Since the treaty above referred to, the progress of
the country has been without parallel. Thirty-one
years ago Japan had no newspaper, but by 1886 she
was publishing over two thousand — more than in
Italy, or Austria, or Spain, or Russia, or in all Asia.
234 MODERN MISSIONS.
In 1881 the total of literary publications was above
five thousand. The Roman characters are displacing
the signs of their own alphabet. In 1873, the calen-
dar of Christian nations displaced the pagan. In
1876, the national " fifth day " gave way to the " one
day in seven." The establishment of schools and
universities, along with the construction of ships,
railways and telegraphs, is progressing at a most
amazing rate. Their postal system is one of the best
in the world. In 1890 they elected a Parliament
under a written constitution.
Progress of Christianity.
One evening in 1860, Murata picked up a book
floating in the water. The writing to him seemed to
be curious, running from side to side like " the crawl-
ing of crabs." It was the Christian Bible. He took
it to Dr. Verbeck, of the Dutch settlement at Naga-
saki, for interpretation. In consequence Murata's
name now stands first on the roll of Protestant Chris-
tians in Japan.
The Christians number about one in two thousand
of the population ; in no province do they even
approach a majority, yet one in twenty-eight of the
new Parliament is a church member. In the House
of Peers there are three professed Christians. Eleven
Christians were elected as members of the first House
of Representatives, one of whom has had the high
honor of being chosen as its first president.
In 1865, the first convert was enrolled ; in 1872, the
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 235
first Christian congregation was formed at Yokohama
with eleven members. The converts have doubled
every three years since. If the same ratio should
continue, by 1900 there will be 256,000 members.
CHINA.
Population.
Various estimates have been made of the population
of China. The Chinese ambassador at Paris stated it
to be four hundred millions. Dr. Legge, forty years a
missionary in China and now professor of Chinese in
the University of Oxford, thinks no one can say any-
thing more definite than this.
Several expedients have been adopted by various
writers on China, to enable the mind to take this
" great idea " in, such as the following : If one should
count two thousand an hour, day and night without
stopping, it would take him twenty days to count
one million — and yet China contains four hundred
millions. The population is more than six times as
large as the Ignited States. The population of Great
Britain, the Jnited States, Germany, France, and
Russia combined only make sixty-one per cent, of the
population of China. Should all come over to the
Dominion at once, the Canadians would be out-voted
eighty to one. If all the world were placed in a row,
every fourth man, woman, or child would be a China-
man, a Chinese woman, or a Chinese child ; in other
words, to evangelize China means to evangelize one-
quarter of the population of the globe. Thirty -three
236 MODERN MISSIONS,
thousand (more than in the city of London, Ont.) die
every day ; and as many as the population of the
whole Dominion are buried every five months.
Extent and Resources.
China can be dissected into one hundred and four
Englands, or one hundred and seventy-six Scotlands ;
it is seven times the size of France, and has one plain
greater by half than the German empire. One river
is larger than even the Mississippi. Lay China on
the United States and it will overrun into the Gulf of
Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. It is divided into
eighteen provinces, each one on an average nearly as
large as Great Britain.
Its coal-fields are twenty times greater than those
of all Europe. The conditions of its climate and soil
have made intercourse with the rest of the world
needless, teeming millions having been sustained there
since the patriarchal age.
History.
When Abraham was leaving Ur of Chaldea, Chinese
astronomers made observations which ha /e since been
verified. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece,
and Rome have all risen and fallen since its history
began. With the mariner's compass, porcelain and
gunpowder, the Chinese were familiar hundreds of
years in advance of other nations. They were dressed
in silk when the inhabitants of Britain wore coats
of blue paint. They manufactured paper twelve
hundred years before it was known in Europe, and
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 237
invented printing five hundred years before Caxton
was born. Their laws were codified two thousand
years ago, and have been revised every five years
since. They had a lexicon of their language seven-
teen hundred years ago — still a standard. China was
seven hundred years old when the Israelites crossed
the Red Sea. She had already existed fifteen hun-
dred years when Isaiah (Isaiah xlix. 12) prophesied
of her future conversion. Her civilization is founded
upon Confucius, who was born 550 B.C., and whose
death preceded the birth of Socrates.
The Chinese text-books are the same as they were
two thousand years ago. Their geography gives
nine- tenths of the globe to China, a square inch to
England, and the United States and Canada are left
out altogether. They still think China celestial as
compared with other nations. Their isolation is
founded upon inordinate conceit arising from ignor-
ance. Consequently, when Westerners attempt to
preach to them salvation through Christ, they scorn-
fully ask : What can these people teach us, who them-
selves only yesterday emerged from l^'^barism ?
The Opening of China.
The taking of Canton, China, by the English in
1840, followed by the ceding of Hong Kong, and the
opening of five cities, paved the way for the Treaty
of Tientsin in 1858 by which Christianity was toler-
ated. On the authority of Hon. W. B. Reed, Ameri-
can ambassador, toleration was introduced at the
suggestion of the Chinese officials themselves.
238 MODERN MISSIONS.
The Roman Catholics have had missionaries in
China for nearly six hundred years. In 1870 they
claimed 404,530 adherents, and yet in all that time
they have not given the Bible to the Jhinese, nor any
portion of it. Morrison was the first Protestant
missionary, arriving there in 1807. By 1819, he had,
with the assistance of Milne, the whole Bible trans-
lated into the language. Durng his whole career in
China, he could only work for Christ in secret.
Opening of Methodist Missions.
The Wesleyan mission to China commenced
strangely. George Piercy, son of a Yorkshire farmer,
applied to the Conference to be sent there. They
were not prepared to open a mission then, and it is
not very clear he would have been sent even if they
had been. He solemnly believed, however, that it
was his duty to go, and go he would, and go he did.
He returned written answers to the usual disciplinary
questions for the reception of candidates (having, of
course, no chairman or district meeting to examine
him), with the result that he was duly received.
The circumstances attending the opening of the
Methodist Episcopal United States mission were some-
what similar. J. D. Collins wrote to Bishop Janes to
place his application before the Board once more, and
should they decline, asked that a passage might be
engaged for him before the mast, on the first vessel
sailing for China, adding, " my own strong arm can
pull me to China, and support me after I get there."
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 239
The Emperor and Empreae.
On December Ist, 1891, the Emperor of China,
under two tutors, commenced the study of English.
His text-book is " The Model First Reader," an
American school book, handsomely illustrated. It is
to be feared that the reading in English of the latest
Chinese Exclusion Bill, passed by the Congress at
Washington, would not be promotive of his usual
good nature !
A few years ago, a pious lady at Pekin called on a
Manchu lady of high rank, and read some portions of
the Scriptures. A young lady present listened to the
old Gospel story with interest. When the Christian
visitor had concluded, she said : " I am glad you have
come to tell me this. Some day I will have a place
built where people can meet to worship this God, and
hear this Gospel preached." That young lady is now
the Empress of China. She recently permitted a
student of the Mission College to explain Christianity
to her, remarking at the close, " I understand the
Christian doctrine much better now."
Progress of Christianity.
The progress of Christianity in China has been
discouragingly slow — more so than in any other por-
tion of the globe. At the end of seven years,
Morrison had one convert ; at his death in 1884, there
were only four. Fifteen years after the translation
of the Bible (a work which occupied twelve years of
time), there were only four native Christians in th^
240 MODERN MISSIONS.
whole empire to read it. In 1843 there were six con-
verts reported ; in 1855, 361 ; in 1863, 2,000 ; in 1873,
6,000 ; in 1882, 20,000 ; in 1885, 25,000. In 1890 the
Shanghai Conference reported 3 1 ,000 communicants,
and 100,000 native nominal Christians ; in 1891 the
communicants returned number 40,350. This repre-
sents the gain during forty-nine years, as wo^k only
fairly began in 1842, when China first became open
for resident missionaries at the treaty ports. Taking
simply the ratio of increase. Dr. Legge, at the London
Conference, said : " The converts have multiplied
during thirty-five years at least two-thousand-fold,
the rate of increase being greater year after year.
Suppose it should continue the same for another
thirty-five years, then in 1913 there will be in China
twenty-six millions of communicants, and a pro-
fessed Christian community of one hundred millions."
A memorable missionary conference was held at
Shanghai in 1890. More than four hundred dele-
gates, representing over forty separate organizations,
were present. One 'decision arrived at will have a
far-reaching influence namely, to undertake the pro-
duction of a Standard Version of the Bible, which in
various editions may suit alike the scholar and the
peasant. The difficulty in making such a version
may be learned from the fact that the language has a
singular incapacity for expressing sacred ideas, so
much so that for half a century translators have
doubted what name to use for God — "the Chinese
tongue seeming to be Satan's master-device to ex-
clude the Gospel."
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS, 241
STATISTICS, ESTIMATES AND PROSPECTS.
" 'Tis coming up the steep of time,
And this old wor^l is growing brighter ;
We may not live to see the dawn sublime,
Yet high hopes make our hearts throb lighter.
We may be sleeping in the ground
When it wakes the world \vith wonder,
But we have felt it gathering round
And heard its voice of living thunder —
'Tis coming ! yes, 'tis coming ! "
HEATHENISM VERSUS CHRISTIANITY.
The population of the globe is reckoned at four-
teen hundred millions; of this number four hun-
dred millions are nominal Christians, leaving one
thousand millions heathens. Of the nominal Chris-
tians, fifty millions are supposed to be real Christians.
The problem then to be faced is : Can fifty millions
of Christians evangelize one thousand millions of
heathen ?
One encouraging fact is, that of this world's popu-
lation, eight hundred millions live under the govern-
ment of Christian States. Of one hundred and
seventy-five millions of Mohammedans, one hundred
millions are already subject to Christian powers. But
Mohammedanism is nothing without political power.
The political downfall of the system is therefore
assured. With be exception of savages, no nation on
earth is under the independent rule of an idolatrous
government.
16
242 MODV^RN MISSIONS.
The converts to Christianity in heathen lands one
hundred years ago did not exceed three hundred;
now at the close of the century they number 885,116.
Counting adherents, the number of the Christian
community in heathen lands rises to three millions.
PROPORTION OF MISSIONARIES TO POPULATION.
In Central Africa there is one ordained missionary
to 5,000,000 people ; in Arabia, one to 1,500,000 ; in
China, one to 783,000 ; in Siam, one to 600,000 ; in
Corea, one to 500,000 ; in India, one to 350,000 ; in
Africa (as a whole), one to 300,000 ; in Persia, one to
300,000; in Japan, one to 215,000; in Burmah, one
to 200,000; in Madagascar, one to 100,000; in
Turkey, one to 45,000 ; in Syria, one to 30,000.
In the United States, the average proportion of
ministers is one to 800 of the population; in non-
Christian countries, the average is one minister to
400,000.
MISSIONS AND WEALTH.
Among the working classes of the United Kingdom,
the earnings have increased in fifty years (1836-1886)
from $95 per head to $210. One hundred years ago
(1786) the total yearly income of the United King-
dom was $1,000,000,000; in fifty years it had
increased to $2,500,000,000, and at the end of a
hundred years (1886) it had further increased to
$6,350,000,000. In 1801, the total values of all pro-
perty in the United Kingdom were $10,150^000,000;
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 243
in 1882 (eighty-one years) it had risen to $43,600,-
000,000.
The wealth of the United States is $62,500,000,000.
There is added yearly to the capital of the country,
$1,400,000,000. A great share of this belongs to
Christian men. In 1850, the communicants of evan-
gelical churches in America were worth $1,000,000,-
000 ; in 1880 (thirty years) they were worth $9,000,-
000,000. A recent article shows $720,000,000 in the
possession of nine men. Seventy per cent, of the
business men of the United States are members or
adherents of Protestant churches. Of the sixty-eight
richest men in the United States, only four are
Roman Catholics. In 1886 the wealth of Canada
amounted to $3,250,000,000, with a yearly income of
$590,000,000.
MISSIONS VERSUS OTHER EXPENDITURES.
"Whiskey is the stand-pipe in our comparative
expenditures " (Dr. Ashmore). The whiskey level for
Canada stands at $37,885,258 annually. The whole
of Christendom contributed fcr missions in 1891
$11,250,000. This would only pay Canada's Hquor
bill for three months and a half — a country young
and comparatively poor. The leading societies of
Canada contributed for home and foreign missions in
1891, $350,632. This would not pay Canada's liquor
bill for four days.
The United States spends on intoxicating liquor
$821,000,000 annually. The contributions of all the
244
MODERN MISSIONS.
missionary societies in the world last year would not
pay its drink bill for five days. They raised last
year less than five millions of dollars for missions —
about the same amount as its own liquor bill for two
days.
Great Britain spends on intoxicating liquors, $660,-
000,000 annually. What the whole world raised
for missions last year would not pay its drink
bill for seven days. Its own missionary contribution
would not pay its liquor bill for four days.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO MISSIONS BY CHURCHES.
(Compiled from ** Encyclopaedia of Missions " Funk <b Wagnalls^
1891.)
Church or Society.
Moravian Brethren
Friends' Association
Seventh Day Adventists
Covenanter Presbyterians
Baptist Missionary Society
Wesleyan Methodist
Presbyterian Church
Reformed Dutch Church
American Board
Wesleyan Methodist Connexion. . .
Free Church
U. P. Church
General Baptist Missionary Society
Un. or Secession Church
IVesbyterian Church (North)
Methodist Church
Congregational Church
Presbyterian Church
Baptist Church
Country.
Germany
Kngland
United States
(I
England
<(
United States .
(t
<(
Scotland
England
Scotland
United States .
Canada
((
(<
<(
Per
Head.
$6 67
2 15
1 73
1 71
1 69
1 51
1 32
1 31
1 26
1 17
1 17
1 09
1 06
1 05
1 02
93
90
63
43
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 245
MISSIONS AS A BUSINESS INVESTMENT.
Sir Bartle Frere, who was very familiar with
heathenism, says : " Civilization cannot precede Chris-
tianity." Dr. Seelye says : " The savage does not
labor for the gratifications of civilized life, since these
he does not desire." Rev. H. Harden writes (and the
same is true of all non-Christian lands) : " The Ori-
ental, left to himself, is entirely satisfied with the
customs of his fathers ; no contact with western
civilization has ever roused him from his apathy, but
when his heart is warmed into life by the Gospel, his
mind wakes up, and he wants a clock, a book, a glass
window, and a flour-mill. Almost every steamer
from New York brings sewing machines, watches,
tools, cabinet organs, or other appliances of Christian
civilization, in response to native orders that, but for
an open Bible, would never have been sent."
The Fijians were formerly ferocious cannibals. In
1889, their imports amounted to $945,000. At twelve
and one-half per cent, profit, this trade would realize
a profit of $118,125 in that year alone. It has only
cost the Missionary Society three dollars per head for
each convert. Land there is $70 per acre. Before
missionaries were established it had no market value
whatever.
The trade of the United States with Micronesia in
1879 amounted to $5,534,307. At the same per cent,
of profit as above, this would realize a profit of $691,-
796. During that year, the mission to Micronesia
246 MODERN MISSIONS.
cost only $16,975 ; so that for every dollar spent on
the mission, trade reaped $40.75.
During the year ending June 30th, 1879, the trade
of the United States with the Hawaiian Islands
amounted to $5,546,116, with profits at $693,264.
The entire cost of evangelizing these islands was
$1,220,000; the whole amount therefore spent in
Christianizing these islands during twenty years
(1850-1870), would be repaid by such profits in two
years.
LATEST MISSION STATISTICS OF THE WORLD.
A few months ago the New York Independent
published carefully compiled statistics of seventy-
three leading societies of the world. Dean Vahl,
President of the Danish Missionary Society, and
author of the well-known " Vahl's Mission Atlas,"
has prepared similar tables for 1890. The distinctive
characteristic of this latter summary is that it is
confined as closely as possible to missions to the
heathen, and embraces the reports of 265 societies.
These two tables are the latest published statistics
which attempt to cover the whole ground. To all
who have ever attempted the work, the task of com-
piling correct statistics in this department is known
to be very difficult.
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF MODERN MISSIONS. 24?
m
a
o
10,311
TaWe hy "Independent" (73 leading societies).
3,775
• ■-H CO
S.2
O c»
2,539
(D
52i
11,979
01
0) &i
52;
CO
a>
o
u
2,419
o
o
«
11,960
pi
£
575,829
-*-> o o
CO
d
a
s
o
819,282 605,807
Dean VahVs table (265 societies).
4,495
2,062 3,374 42,870
885,116
CHAPTEE XI.
STRIKING FACTS, CONTRASTS AND
SAYINGS.
AMKRICA.
THE first subscription ever jriven by any English-
man for missionary purposes was one of £100,
made by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1589, for the State of
Virginia, " in special regard and zeal of planting the
Christian religion in those barbarous places."
In connection with the American Board, in the
years from 1810 to 1860, 704 voyages were success-
fully completed by 496 of their misaionaries ; and of
these, 467 voyages were from fifteen to eighteen
thousand miles in length. In all that time, no indi-
vidual connected with the Board was ever ship-
wrecked, or lost his life by drowning.
In 118 years (1770-1888), the missionary vessel of
the Moravian Brethren, which left London (not the
same vessel, but a succession of them) never failed to
cross the Atlaniic in safety, and to reach Labrador
with provisions and reinforcements for the mission-
aries. There has never been a wreck during that
STRIKING FACTS, CONTRASTS AND SAYINGS. 249
long history. At the present writing the time now
reaches to 122 years.
Mexico is called a Christian country, but Bishop
Hurst, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, says there
are eight million people in Mexico who never saw a
copy of the Holy Scriptures.
Charles Darwin, while on a tour as a naturalist,
visited the Island of Tierra del Fuego in 1831, and
declared the people in many respects worse than
brutes, and incapable of elevation. The British
Admiralty forbade all ships in future to touch at that
port. Before he visited that island again, the Rev.
Thomas Bridges had brought the Word of God to the
people, and Mr. Darwin was so satisfied of the power
of the Gospel to redeem even the vilest savage tribes
that he became a subscriber to South American mis-
sions.
THE PACIFIC ISLANDS.
When John Williams visited Raratonga in 1823, he
found the people all heathens ; when he left in 1834,
they were all professed Christians. He left six
thousand attendants upon Christian worship; the
Word of God in their own tongue, where formerly
they had no written language ; and he left them with
family prayer morning and evening in every house
on the island. A young man, a few years ago, visit-
ing the British Museum, saw among the many
wonders there the first Raratonga idol his eyes had
ever beheld, though he was born and had lived nine-
teen years in Raratonga. Yet there had been once
one hundred thousand idol-gods in that island.
250 MODERN MISSIONS.
Rev. John Geddie, after eighteen years in Anei-
tyum, wished to bring away some relics, and none
could be found.
The largest church membership in the world, num-
bering four thousand five hundred comnmnicants, is
on the island of Hawaii.
afhica.
Mtesa, King of Uganda, after inquiring of Stan-
ley respecting the health of Queen Victoria and the
Emperor of Germany, asked, " What tidings can you
bring me from above?" Unfortunately the great
explorer was not versed in these matters, but gave
the king a copy of the New Testament, which, he
declared, contained the only answer man would ever
receive to that momentous question.
In Stanley's journey of seven thousand miles, from
Zanzibar to the mouth of the Congo, he neither saw a
Christian nor one man who had ever heard the Gospel
message !
" Every tusk, piece, and scrap of ivory in possession
of an Arab trader has been steeped and dyed in blood.
Every pound weight has cost the life of a man,
woman, or child ; for every five pounds a hut has been
burned ; for every two tusks a whole village has been
destroyed ; every twenty tusks have been obtained at
the price of a district, with all its people, villages,
and plantations. It is simply incredible that because
ivory is required for ornaments or billiard-games, the
rich heart of Africa should be laid waste at this late
year of the nineteenth century." — Stanley.
STRIKING FACTS, CONTRASTS AND SAYINGS. 251
ASIA.
Corea, "the hermit nation," the latest country-
opened to the Gospel, was entered in 1882 through a
medical missionary.
" We now receive more converts in a month than we
used to receive in a decade. When 1 return to my
field I shall expect to greet ten thousand new con-
verts — men and women who were worshipping idols
four months ago." — Bishop Thoburn, of India, be-
fore the Methodist Episcopal General Conference at
Omaha, May, 1892.
More than nineteen thousand heathen in India
broke their idols last year, and united with the
Methodist Church.
SOME SHARP CONTRASTS.
A Latin author once wrote, "Brittanos hospitihua
feros " (The British are cruel to their visitors). To-
day, through the mollifying influences of the Gospel
they are defenders of the persecuted, sympathizers
with the oppressed, and the protectors of the weak in
all lands.
In 156f a slave ship named The Jesus sailed into
an American port. Her commander, Sir John Haw-
kins, wrote in his diary that God had been very
merciful unto them in giving a safe passage, because
he would be kind to his elect— and that vessel carried
four hundred slaves stolen from the coast of Africa.
Just three hundred years after (1565-1865) Abraham
252 MODERN MISSIONS.
Lincoln with a stroke of his pen emancipated the
four millions of slaves then inhabiting the American
Republic.
In 1760, in a little room in Geneva (since turned
into a Bible House), Voltaire said, " Before the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century Christianity will
have disappeared from the face of the earth." On
the contrary, since that time Christianity has won her
greatest triumphs.
Rev, Sydney Smith ridiculed the piety of Carey,
saying, " if a tinker is a devout man he infallibly sets
off for the East ; " lie declared the " missionaries
would expose the whole Eastern Empire to destruc-
tion, to convert half a dozen Brahmins who, after
stuffing themselves with rice and rum, would run
away. If the missionaries were not watched the
throat of every European in India would be cut." He
calls the missionaries " a nest of cobblers," and finally
surpasses himself by classing them with " vermin
which ought to be caught, cracked and extirpated."
In a memorial to the British Parliament, the direc-
tors of the East India Company placed on record
" their decided conviction (after consideration and
examination) that the sending of Christian mission-
aries into our eastern possessions is the maddest, most
extravagant, most expensive and most unwarranted
project that was ever proposed by a lunatic en-
thusiast."
Over against this place the testimony of Sir Rivers
I hompson, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal : " In my
STRIKING FACTS, CONTRASTS AND SAYINGS. 253
judgment Christian missionaries have done more real
good to the people of India than all other agencies
combined. They have been the salt of the country,
and the true saviours of the Empire."
Eighty years ago the East India Company acted
as above described; now the British East African
Company has invited the Church Missionary Society
to place missionaries at all their stations as fast as
they are opened. The world really moves !
NOTES.
In his travels round the world, Rev. Mr. Parkhurst
saw not one new heathen temple.
Five thousand students of colleges have volunteered
for the foreign mission work. This fact and the rapid
increase of medical missions are the two most hopeful
developments characterizing the close of this the first
century of modern missions.
TIME BETWEEN THE FIRST PREACHING AND THE
FIRST CONVERT.
*' Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear."
Burmah — six years (1813-19) ; name, Moung Nau,
under Judson.
India— seven years (1793-1800) ; name, Krishnu
Pal, under Carey.
China— seven years (1807-14); name, Tsae-Ako,
under Mdrrison.
254 MODERN MISSIONS.
Polynesia— Hixteen years (1796-1812) ; name, King
Pcmare II.
Micronesia — five years (1852-57).
Greenland— five years (1733-88).
Uganda — six years (1876-82).
Kuruman, South Africa— eight years (1821-29);
under Moffat.
Madagascar — thirteen years (1818-31).
STRIKING MOTTOES AND SAYINGS.
" Out of the shadows of night
The world rolls into light,
It is daybreak everywhere."
— Longfellow^ s last words.
MOTTOES.
" Vicit Agnus noster : eum sequimur " : Our Lamb
has conquerod : let us follow Him. — Seal of Moravian
Brethren.
The representation of an Indian standing erect,
with an arrow in his hand, and the motto, " Come
over and help us," is the seal of the State of Mas-
sachusetts, adopted 1629.
PACIFIC ISLANDS.
" Where a trader will go for gain, there the mis-
sionary ought to go for the merchandise of souls. In
these islands something must be risked if anj^thing
is to be done." — Bishop Selwyn.
" It isn't High, or Low, or Broad Church, or any
STRIKING FACTS, CONTRASTS AND SAYINGS. 255
other special name, but the longing desire to forget
all distinctions that seems naturally to result from
the very sight of these heathen people." — Bishop
Patteson.
" A man who takes the sentimental view of coral
islands and cocoanuts is worse than useless ; a man
possessed with the idea that he is making a sacrifice
will never do ; and a man who thinks any kind of
work " beneath a gentleman " will simply be in the
way." — Bishop Pa^ eson.
" I have now been reading the twenty-ninth chap-
ter of the Acts of the Apostles." — Exclamation of the
Bishop of Ripon as he laid down the wonderful story
of John Williams' missionary career.
AFRICA.
"Africa — the last stronghold of paganism." — Dr.
Sims.
" An African is the image of God carved in ebony."
— Dr. Fuller.
" An African slave-dealer is the image of the devil
carved in ivory." — Dr. Johnston.
" Let a thousand fall before Africa be given up." —
Dying words of Melville B. Cox, first foreign mission-
ary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, U.S., who
died of African fever less than four months after
his arrival.
" The end of the geographical feat is the begiiniing
of the missionary enterprise." — Livingstone.
" I have been in Africa for seventeen years, and I
256 MODERN MISSIONS.
have never met a man who would kill me if I folded
my hands." — Stanley.
" If I am to go ' on the shelf,' let that shelf be
Africa." — Livingstone, in 1867.
" To exaggerate the enormities of the slave trade is
simply impossible." — Livingstone.
" All I can add in my loneliness is : May heaven's
rich blessing come down on everyone, American, Eng-
lishman, or Turk, who will help to heal this open sore
of the world." — Livingstone's last message to the
outer world in reference to the slave trade. This
sentence is carved on his memorial sJab in West-
minster Abbey.
INDIA.
" I make Christ my heir." — Schwartz, who willed
all his property for missions to the heathen.
"T am now dead to Europe and alive to India."
—Dr. Coke, 1813.
" If ever I see a Hindu converted to Jesus Christ,
I shall see something more nearly approaching the
resurrection of a dead body than anything I have
yet seen." — Henry Martyn. To-day there are two
hundred and twenty-two thousand native communi-
cants in India.
Judson labored for six years in Burmah without
a single convert. When it was hinted to him that
the mission was a total failure, a seraphic glory
lighted up his countenance as he exclaimed, " The
conversion of Burmah is as bright as the promises
STRIKING FACTS, CONTRASTS AND SAYINGS. 257
of God !" There are now over twenty-nine thousand
communicants.
" You are the only people arriving here who do
not come to squeeze my people." — King of Siam,
to the missionaries.
" We are indebted more to William Carey and the
£13 2s. 6d., which was the first sum subscribed for
him, than we are to all the heroism and cunning
of Clive, and to all the genius and rapacity of War-
ren Hastings." — Canon Farrar.
" Christ, not the British Government, rules India.
Our hearts have been conquered not by your armies,
gleaming bayonets and fiery cannon, but by a higher
and a different power. No one but Christ has deserve 1
the precious diadem of the Indian crown, and he will
have it." — Keshuh Ghunder Sen.
CHINA.
** rock ! rock ! when wilt thou open ?" — Xavier,
1552. Opened, 1842.
" It is a great step towards the Christianization of
our planet if Christianity gain entrance into China."
— Neander, in 1850, a week before his death. Chris-
tianity tolerated in China by the Treaty of Tientsin,
1858.
" When China is moved, it will change the face of
the globe." — Napoleon.
" The devil invented the Chinese language to keep
the Gospel out of China." — Reported saying of Rev.
John Wesley.
17
258 MODERN MISSIONS.
" In China the sense of truth is not only almost
unknown, but is not even admired."— i^m F. Horton.
" The only real interpreter of the thought and pro-
gress of the West to the millions of China is the mis-
sionary." — London Times.
GENERAL.
" If you want most to serve your race, go where
no one else will go, and do what no one else will do."
— Mary Lyon.
" Had the whole missionary work resulted in no-
thing more than the building up of such a character
it would be worth all it has cost."— Theodore Parker,
on Judson of Burmah.
" I make bold to say that if missions did not exist
it would be our duty to invent them."— ^ir Ghas. A.
Elliott, Lieut-Governor of Bengal.
" There is nothing in all human history which can
be placed alongside the story of the evangelical con-
quest of the world, for rapidity of progress, overthrow^
of obstacles, and real and effective work for the bet-
tering and ennobling of meinkind."— Llewellyn Bevan.
THE FERVENT MISSIONARY.
" Then shall I not at God and duty's call
Fly to tho utmost limits of the ball ?
Cross the wide sea, along the desert toil,
Or circumnavigate each Indian isle ?
To torrid regions fly to save the lost,
Or brave the rigors of eternal frost ?
STRIKING FACTS, CONTRASTS AND SAYINGS. 259
I may, like Brainerd, perish in my bloom,
A group of Indians weeping round my tomb ;
I may, like Martyn, lay my burning head
In some lone Persian hut, or Turkish shed ;
I may, like Coke, be buried in the wave ;
I may, like Howard, find a Tartar's grave,
Or perish, like a Xavier, on the beach
In some lone cottage, out of friendship's reach ;
I may — but never let my soul repine,
' Lo, I am with you ' — heaven is in that line ;
Tropic or pole, or mild or burning zone
Is but a step from my celestial throne."
I
CHAPTEK XII.
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS.
BY REV. ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND, D.D.
T is often said that the Church of Christ is essen-
tially missionary. The saying is trite, but true.
The great purpose for which the Church is organized
is to " preach the Gospel to every creature," and its
mission is f ultilled only in so far as this is done. But,
as commonly used, the saying is the recognition of a
principle rather than the statement of a fact. It is
clearly perceived that the Church ought to be in-
tensely missionary in spirit and practice, and this
view is often pressed as an argument to quicken
flagging zeal and to revive, if possible, the apostolic
spirit in the Church of to-day. Compared with
apostolic times, missionary zeal and enterprise is
yet below high water-mark ; but compared with the
state of affairs one hundred years ago, it cannot be
said that the former times were better than Uese.
Within the century— indeed, within the last two or
three decades— there has been a marvellous revival
of the missionary spirit. The sleep of the Church
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS. 261
has been broken. Her dormant energies have been
aroused. An aggressive policy has been declared.
Responsibility, even to the measure of a world-wide
evangelism, is freely acknowledged, and the disposicion
to consecrate men and money on the altar of mission-
ary sacrifice grows apace. All tli gives token of a
coming day in the not distant future when it may
be affirmed without qualification that the Church —
in fact as well as in profession — is essentially mis-
sionary.
It may be claimed, without boasting or exaggera-
tion, that Methodism has not only contributed some-
what to the revival of the missionary spirit, but has
been, under God, a chief factor in promoting it. The
place of her nativity was hard by the missionary
altar, and a spirit of intense evangelism gave the
first impulse to her work. Born anew amid the
fervors of a second Pentecost, her first preachers
were men baptized with the tongues of iiame, symbol
of a comprehensive evangelism that found expression
in the motto of her human leader, " The world is my
parish." In the spirit of that motto Methodism has
lived and labo*red, and after the lapse of more than
a hundred years the primitive impulse is still unspent.
Wherever the banner of the Cross is unfurled, Meth-
odist missionaries are found in the van of the advanc-
hig hosts, and the battle cry of the legions is " The
World for Christ."
The beginnings of Methodism in Canada reveal
the same providential features that marked its rise
262 MODERN MISSIONS.
in other lands. Here, as elsewhere, it was the child
of Providence. No elaborate plans were formulated
in advance ; no forecastings of human wisdom marked
out the lines of development. But men who had felt
the constraining power of the love of Christ, and to
whom the injunction to disciple all nations came with
the force of a divine mandate, went forth at the call
of God, exhorting men everywhere to repent and
believe the Gospel. Out of that flame of missionary
zeal sprang the Methodist Church of this country ;
and if the missionary cause to-day is dear to the
hearts of her people, it is but the legitimate cut-
come of the circumstances in which she had her
birth. Methodism is a missionary Church, or she
is nothing. To lose her missionary spirit is to be
recreant to the great purpose for which God raised
her up. Nor can she give to missions a secondary
place in her system of operations without being false
to her traditions and to her heaven-appointed work.
While Methodism in Canada was, from the very
first, missionary in spirit and aims, what may be
called organized missionary effort did not begin till
1824. In that year a Missionary Society was formed.
It was a bold movement, such as could have been
inaugurated only by heaven-inspired men. Upper
Canada (at that time ecclesiastically distinct from
Lower Canada) was just beginning to emerge from
its wilderness condition. Settlements were few and,
for the most part, wide asunder. Population was
sparse, and the people were poor. Moreover, Meth-
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS. 263
odism had not yet emerged from the position of a
despised sect, and prejudice was increased by tlie
fact that it was under foreign jurisdiction. Such
a combination of unfavorable circumstances might
well have daunted ordinary men and led to a post-
ponement of any effort to organize for aggressive
missionary work. But "there were giants in the
earth in those days," whose faith and courage were
equal to every emergency ; men who could read
history in the germ, and forecast results when "the
wilderness and the solitary place" should become
" glad," and " the desert " should " rejoice, and blos-
som as the rose." As yet it was early springtime,
and sowing had only just begun ; but from freshly-
opened furrows and scattered seed those men were
able to foretell both the kind and the measure of
the harvest when falling showers and shining suns
should ripen and ma,ture the grain. In that faith
they planned and labored. They did not despise
the day of small things, but with faith in the " in-
corruptible seed," they planted and watered, leaving
it to God to give the increase. In this, as in other
cases, wisdom was justified of her children. When
the Missionary Society was organized, in 1824, two
or three men were trying to reach some of the scat-
tered bands of Indians ; the income of tlie Society
the first year was only about $140, and the field of
operation was confined to what was then knov '^ as
Upper Canada. To-day the missionary force rc^
sents a little army of more than twelve hundred
264 MODERN MISSIONS.
persons (including the wives of missionaries). The
income exceeds $230,000, while the field covers half a
continent and extends into " the regions beyond."
The development of the missionary idea in the
Methodist Church in Canada has been influenced
by epochs in her history, marking changes in her
ecclesiastical polity. In 1828 the Canadian Societies
were severed from the jurisdiction of the Church in
the United States, and formed into an independent
branch of Methodism, with its own conference and
government. In 1832 a union was formed with the
English Wesleyan Conference, whereby the field of
operation was extended ; but, unfortunately, this
movement was followed by a division in the Church
itself, which continued until the great union move-
ment of 1883 obliterated all lines of separation and
reunited the divided family. Again, in 1840, the
union with the English Wesleyans was broken, and
for seven years the two societies waged a rival war-
fare, which was by no means favorable to the growth
of a true missionary spirit. This breach was healed
in 1847, and from that time onward the missionary
work of the Church steadily developed, embracing
the Wesleyan Indian missions in the far north,
establishing a new mission in British Columbia,
and extending the home work in all directions
throughout the old provinces of Upper and Lower
Canada.
The year 1873 marks a distinct epoch in the history
of missions in connection with Canadian Methodism.
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS. 265
In that year the bold step, as some considered it, was
taken of founding a distinctively foreign mission, and
many indications pointed to Japan as a promising
field. The wisdom of the step was doubted by many,
who thought the home work sufficiently extensive to
absorb the energies and liberality of the entire Church.
Viewed from th? standpoint of mere human prudence,
the objectors were right. The home missionaries
were struggling along, with very inadequate stipends ;
many Indian tribes were still unreached ; the calls
from new settlements in our own country were loud
and frequent, and the vast French population of the
Province of Quebec was scarcely touched by Meth-
odist agencies. Under such circumstances, it is not
to be wondered at that some were inclined to say :
" We have here only five barley loaves and two small
fishes, but what are they among so many ? " But
there were others who remembered the lesson of the
" twelve baskets of fragments " taken up after five
thousand men, besides women and children, had been
fed ; and these said : " Let us have faith in God ; let
us bring our little at his command, and with Christ's
consecrating blessing our little will multiply until
there will be enough to feed the hungry multitude,
and the Church shall be recompensed far beyond the
measure of what it gives away." And so in faith
and prayer the forward movement was inaugurated,
and a mission planted in Japan which, from the very
beginning, has sliared largely in blessings from on
high. Nor did the home missions sufter because of
266 MODERN MISSIONS.
this new departure, for the missionary spirit thus
revived in the Church was followed by a correspond-
ing liberality, and the increased contributions more
than sufficed to meet the increased expenditure.
The next development affecting the polity and
work of the Church occurred in 1874, when the
Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Methodist New
Connexion Church, and the Wesleyan Church of
Eastern British America united in one body under
the name of the Methodist Church in Canada. This
union extended the home missions of the Church by
consolidating the forces east and west, thus covering
the whole extent of the Canadian Dominion, and
embracing, in addition, Newfoundland and the Ber-
mudas. This arrangement involved the peaceful
separation of the three Churches named from the
jurisdiction of the parent bodies in England, and the
relinquishment, after a few years, of certain mis-
sionary subsidies which they had been m the habit
of receiving from the parent treasuries. The loss of
these subsidies, and the increased expenditure in con-
sequence of unavoidable readjustments of the work,
caused temporary embarrassment, and the accumu-
lation of a somewhat serious debt ; but an appeal to
the Church met with so liberal a response that the
debt was extinguished without reducing the regular
income, and the work went on as before. It was felt,
however, that, for a time at least, the duty of the
Church would lie in the direction of consolidation
rather than expansion, and hence for several years no
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS. 267
new movement was made beyond the prudent enlarge-
ment of fields already occupied.
The missionary spirit which for years had been
growing in the Methodist Church, found a new outlet
in 1880 in the organization of the Woman's Mission-
ary Society. In June of that year a number of ladies
met in the parlors of the Centenary Church, Hamilton,
at the invitation of the General Missionary Secretary,
when the project was carefully considered, and the
conclusion reached to organize forthwith. That after-
noon meeting marks the beginning of what promises
to become one of the most potent forces in connection
with the mission work of the Methodist Church.
Nor can a thoughtful observer fail to see how Divine
Providence controlled the time as well as the circum-
stances. The Union movement, which culminated in
1883, was just beginning to be discussed. Four dis-
tinct Churches were proposing to unite, but whether
it would be possible so to amalgamate their varied
interests as to make of the four one new Church, was
a problem that remained to be solved. In the accom-
plishment of this difficult task the mission work of
the Church was a prime factor, for it served by its
magnitude and importance to turn the attention of
ministers and people from old differences and even
antagonisms, and to fix it upon a common object.
What the work of the Parent Society did for one
part of the Church, the woman's movement did for
another. Just at the right moment Providence gave
the signal, and the godly and devoted women of
268 MODERN MISSIONS.
Methodism, in all the uniting Churches, joined hands
in an earnest effort to carry the Gospel to the women
and children of heathendom, and in that effort they
mightily aided to consolidate the work at home. The
constitution for a Connexional Society was not
adopted till ] 88 1 , but in the fifteen years following,
the income has risen from $2,916.78 in 1881-82, to
over $40,000 in 1894-95. At the present time thirty-
four lady missionaries and teachers are in the employ
of the Society, and decision has been reached to in-
crease the force in China and Japan in connection
with the onward movement of the parent society.
It was thought at one time that the union of 1874
would have included all the Mefcho'iist bodies in
Canada, as all were represented at a preliminary
meeting iield in Toronto. This expectation was not
realized, owing to the retirement of several of the
bodies from subsequent negotiations ; but the discus-
sions which took place, no less than the beneficial
results of the union it jelf, created a desire for union
on a more extended scale. This desire was greatly
strengthened by the famous Ecumenical Conference,
which met in London in 1881, and at the next Gen-
eral Conference of the Methodist Church in Canada
distinct proposals were presented, and negotiations
initiated with other Methodist bodies. It is not
necessary in this paper to present a detailed history
of the movement. Suffice it to say that, in 1888, a
union embracing tlu; Methodist, Methodist Episcopal,
Primitive Methodist and Bible Christian Churches in
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS. 269
Canada, was consummated, and the impressive spec-
tacle was presented of a consolidated Methodism —
one in faith, in discipline and usages — with a field of
home operations extending from^ Newfoundland to
Vancouver, and from the international boundary to
the Arctic circle. The union did not actually extend
the area formerly embraced by the uniting Churches,
but it involved v^-xtensive readjustments of the work,
increased greatly the number of workers, and, for a
time, necessitated increased expenditure. The income,
however, showed corresponding growth, and although
stipends remained at low-water mark, no retrograde
step was taken.
As at present organized, the mission work of the
Methodist Church embraces five departments, namely :
Domestic, Indian, Fi »cb, Chinese and Foieigu. All
these are under the supervision of one Board, and
are supported by one fund. Each department, in
view of its im^^ortance, claims a separate reference.
I. THE DOMESTIC OR HOME WORK.
Under this head is included all Metliodist Missions
to English-speaking pooph chroughout the Dominion,
and in Newfoundland and the Bermudas. From the
very inception of missionary operations, the duty of
carrying the Gospel and its orrlinances to the settlers
in every part of the country has been fully recognized
and faithfully performed. Indeed, this was the work
to which the Church set herself at the beginning of
the century, before missionary work, in the more
270 MODERN MISSIONS.
extended sense, had been thought of. At that time
the population was sparse and scattered. Of home
comforts there was little, and of wealth there was
none, but the tireless itinerant, unmoved by any
thought of gain or temporal reward, traversed the
wildernesses of Ontario and of the Maritime Pro-
vinces, often guided only by a " blaze " on the trees or
by the sound of the woodman's axe, and in rough log
school-houses, in the cabins of frontier settlers, or
beneath shady trees on some improvised camp-ground,
proclaimed the message of reconciling mercy to
guilty men. No wonder that their message was listened
to with eagerness, and often embraced with rapture.
Many of the settlers had, in 3arly life, enjoyed re-
ligious privileges in lands far away, and these wel-
comed again the glad sound when heard in their new
homes ; while others who, under more favorable cir-
cumstances, had turned a deaf 2ar to the Gospel mes-
sage, were touched with unwonted tenderness as they
listened to the fervid appeals of some itinerant
preacher amid the forest solitudes. Thus, by night
and day, was the seed scattered which since then has
ripened into a golden harvest. And if a time shall ever
come when a truthful history of the English-speaking
Provinces of the Canadian Dominion shall be written,
the historian, as he recounts and analyzes the various
forces that have contributed to make the inhabitants
of these Provinces the most intelligent, moral, pros-
perous and happy people beneath the sun, will give
foremost place to the work of the old saddle-bag
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS. 271
itinerants who traversed the country when it was com-
paratively a wilderness, educating the people in that
reverence for the Word and worship of God which is
alike the foundation of a pure morality and the safe-
guard of human freedom.
When the Missionary Society was organized, and its
income began to grow, the Church was in a position
to carry on its home work more systematically, and
to extend that work far beyond its original limits.
The constant changes taking place in the status of
these Home Fields, as they rise from the condition of
dependent missions to that of independent circuits,
renders any comprehensive numerical statement impos-
sible. Suffice it to say, that at the present time there
are 425 Home Missions, with 365 missionaries, and an
aggregate membersiiip of 40,121, and on these is ex-
pended about 42^ per cent, of the Society's income.
The outlook for this department is hopeful and in-
spiring. The opening up of our magnificent North-
West, with a teeming population in prospect, presents
a g: and field for renmnerative mission work which
the Church will do well to improve, and she needs
no higher aim tm to repeat in the New Territories
the salient features of the religious history of Ontario.
II. THE INDIAN WORK.
This department of mission work has always shared
largely in the sympathy of the Church and of the
Mission Board ; and although it has made but little
retui'n in kind for the large sums expended, yet in
272 MODERN MISSIONS.
spiritual results the Church has been amply repaid.
In British Columbia, as the direct result of mission-
ary effort, tribal wars have entirely ceased, heathen
villages have been transformed into Christian com-
munities, and the gross immoralities of the dance and
the " potlatch " has given place to assemblies for
Christian instruction and sacred song. In the North-
West similar results have been* achieved, and it has
been demonstrated that the advancement of the native
tribes in intelligence, in morality, in loyalty, in the
arts and refinements of civilized life, keeps even step
with the progress of Christian missions. Very signi-
ficant is the fact that during the revolt among certain
Indians and Half-breeds in the North-West, not one
member or adherent of the Methodist Church among
the Indians was implicated in the disturbances ; and
it is now generally acknowledged that the unswerving
loyalty of the Christian Indians — notably of Chief
Pakan and his people at Whitefish Lake — contributed
more than any other circumstance to prevent a general
uprising of the Cree nation. In Ontario results in
recent years have not been so marked as in British
Columbia and the North-West, owing to the fact
that most of the bands are now in a fairlj?- civilized
state, and there is but little in outward circumstances
to distinguish the work from that among the whites.
An important feature of the Indian work at the
present time is the establishment of Industrial Insti-
tutes, where Indian youth are instructed in various
forms of industry suited to their age and sex. The
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS. 273
Institute at Miincey, Ont., has eighty-five pupils, and
a new building has been erected that will accommo-
date over one hundred. At Brandon, Manitoba, and at
Reed Deer, Alberta, Institutes have been erected ; an
Orphanage and Training-school has been in opera-
tion for some time at Morley ; an Institute at Chilli-
whack, B.C., is in successful operation, with nearly one
hundred pupil « A Girls' Home at Port Simpson is
under the coii rol of the Woman's Missionary Society.
Statistics of the Indian work for 1895-96 give the fol-
lowing results: — Missions, 47; missionaries, 85 ; native
assistants, 17; teachers, 26; interpreters, 13; members,
4,264. The expenditure for the same year amounted to
about 23 per cent, of the Society's income.
III. THE FRENCH WORK.
•
In the Province of Quebec there is a French-speak-
ing population of a million and a quarter, and these,
with the exception of a few thousands, are adherents
of the most solid, thoroughly-organized and aggressive
type of Romanism to be found in all the world. The
Church is virtually endowed, can collect its tithes and
levy its church- building rates by law. Education is
controlled by the Bishops, and the whole machinery
is used to maintain the use of the French language
and inculcate a French national spirit. Evangelical
truth is a thing almost unknown. Such a population
in the heart of the Dominion, under such control, is a
standing menace to representative government and
free institutions, and this consideration, no less than a
^1
274 MODERN MISSIONS.
sincere desire for the spiritual enlightenment of the
people, has led the various Protestant Churches to
make some effort to spread the Gospel among them.
So far as Methodist Missions are concerned, numerical
results have been small, and the missions do not pre-
sent features as encouraging as are to be found in
other departments. But it should be borne in mind
that the difficulties to be surmounted are greater than
in any other field, and that there are causes for the
comparatively small numerical increase which do not
exist elsewhere. Neither in the Domestic, the Indian,
or even the Foreign work, do civil or social disabilities
follow a profession of faith in Christ ; but in the Pro-
vince of Quebec a renunciation of Romanism is the
signal for a series of petty persecutions, and a degree
of civil and social ostiacism which many he^ve not the
nerve to endure, and which usually results in their
emigration from the Province, The difficulty of reach-
ing the people, by direct evangelistic eftbrt, led the
Missionary Board to adopt the policy of extending its
educational work. In pursuance of this policy a site
was secured in a western suburb of Montreal, and a
building erected capable of accommodating one hun-
dred resident pupils. About seventy pupils are
already in attendance, and the future is bright with
promise. The amount expended on the French work,
including the Institute, is only about three per cent,
of the Society's income,
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS. 275
IV. THE CHINESE WORK.
During the past quarter of a century vast numbers
of Chinese have landed on the Pacific Coast of the
American continent ; of these not a few have found
temporary homes in British Columbia. At the time
when the Rev. William Pollard had charge of the
British Columbia District some attempt was made to
reach the Chinese by establishing a school among
them in Victoria, but after a few years the enterprise
was abandoned. In 1884, Mr. John Dillon, a mer-
chant of Montreal, visited British Columbia on busi-
ness. His heart was stirred by the spiritually
destitute condition of the Chinese, especially in Vic-
toria, and he at once wrote to a member of the Board
of Missions inquiring if something could not be done.
The matter was considered at the next Board meeting,
and it was decided to open a mission in Victoria as
soon as a suitable agent could be found. In the
following spring, 1885, uy a remarkable chain of
providences, the way was fully opened, and a mis-
sion begun which has since extended to other places
in the Province, and has been fruitful of good results.
Commodious mission buildings have been erected in
Victoria, Vancouver, New Westminster and Nanaimo,
and schools established in all these cities ; many con-
wts have been received by baptism, and the foun-
dation of a spiritual Church laid among these
strangers " from the land of Sinim," which gives
promise of permanence and growth. A valuable
276 MODERN MISSIONS.
adjunct is found in the Chinese Girls' Rescue Home
established in Victoria, and now managed by the
Woman's Missionary Society. At the present writ-
ing the statistics of the Chinese are : Missions, 4 ;
missionaries, 4 ; teachers, 6 ; members, 239.
V. THE FOREIGN WORK.
The most conspicuous and decided onward move-
ment of the Methodist Church on missionary lines
took place when it was decided to open a mission in
Japan. But the faith and courage of those who
urged the venture have been fully vindicated by the
results. Since the inception of the work in 1873, its
growth has been steady and permanent, while the
reflex influence upon the Church at home has been
of the most beneficial kind. The missionary spirit
has been greatly intensified, liberality has increased,
and the Church is looking for new fields and wider
conquests. In 1889 it was found that the growth of
the work in Japan had been such as to necessitate
reorganization, with an increased measure of auton-
omy. Accordingly an Annual Conference was formed,
which now embraces five districts, with twenty
distinct fields, besides numerous outposts. In Tokyo
there is an academy for young men, with a theological
department for the training of native candidates for
the ministry ; whilst the Woman's Missionary Soci^j|r
maintains flourishing schools for girls in Tokyo,
Shizuoka and Kofu. General statistics of the Japan
work are as f.ilows: Missions, 20; missionaries, 28;
CANADIAN METHODIST MISSIONS. 277
native evangelists, 32 ; teachers, 10 ; members, 2,137.
The Woman's Missionary Society has a number of
agents in Japan, and they are doing excellent work.
For several years previous to 1890, leading men in
the Church had been asking if the time had not
arrived when the Church should survey the vast
field of heathendom with a view of extending the
work " into the regions beyond." The suggestion took
practical shape at the General Conference of 1890,
when the project of a new foreign mission was favor-
ably commended to the General Board of Missions,
with power to take such action as might seem
advisable. When the question came up in the
General Board; it became evident that the sugges-
tion was not premature. With practical unanimity
the Board affirmed the desirableness of at once
occupying new ground, and as a remarkable series of
providences seemed to point toward China, the Com-
mittee of Finance was authorized to take all necessary
steps to give effect to the decision of the Board.
After careful consideration in the light of all the
information that could be gathered, the Province of
Sz-Chuan, in West China, was selected. The Rev. V.
C. Hart, D.D., who for twenty years had superin-
tended the missions of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in Central China, was secured as leader
of the new enterprise, and with him were appointed
the Rev George E. Hartwell, B.A., B.D., and 0. L.
Kilborn, M.A., M.D., and D. W. Stevenson, M.D.,
as medical missionaries. The Woman's Missionary
Society also resolved to enter the field, and two
278 MODERN MISSIONS.
lady missionaries (Dr. Retta Gifford and Miss Brack-
bill) were appointed. In the spring of 1892 the
missionaries reached their distant field, and for
three years pursued their work with faith and
patience, chiefly in the cities of Chentu and Kiating.
Then came the riots, during which all the mission
property was destroyed, and the missionaries barely
escaped with their lives. For a time the work was
entirely broken up, but subsequently there was an
investigation, the guilty officials were punished, an
indemnity was paid for the property destroyed, the
missionaries returned to the scene of their former
labors, and at the time of the present writing (August,
1896) it is probable all the buildings have been
restored. The work may be said to consist of three
parts : evangelistic, educational and medical, the latter
two, however, being most helpful to the former.
At the time of this writing reinforcements are on
the way. Rev. W. E. Smith, M.D., and wife, of the
Bay of Quinte Conference, have sailed, accompanied
by Miss Foster, who is sent by the Woman's Mis-
sionary Society.
Enough has now been said to show that the Meth-
odist Church of Canada, in its origin, history and
traditions, is " essentially missionary ; " that its provi-
dential mission, in co-operation with other branches
of Methodism, is to " spread scriptural holiness over
the world." If the spirit of this mission is main-
tained, her career will be one of ever-widening
conquest. If it is suffered to decline, Ichabod will
be written upon her ruined walls.
CHAPTEK XIIT.
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT
FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS.
I. ORIGIN.
A MEMORABLE conference of college men was
held from July 6tli to August 1st, 1886, at Mt.
Hermon, overlooking the Connecticut River, in the
State of Massachusetts. Two hundred and fifty-one
students, from eighty-seven colleges, representing all
parts of Hie United States and Canada, had come
together at the invitation of Mr. Moody to spend
several weeks in Bible study. Ten days passed before
the subject of missions was ever mentioned m the
sessions of the Conference. A few young men, how-
ever, like Wilder of Princeton, Tewkesbury of Har-
vard and Clark of Oberhn, had come with the deep
conviction that God would call from that large
gathering of college men a number who would conse-
crate themselves to foreign missions. At an early day
they called together all who were thinking seriously
of spending their lives on the foreign field. Twenty-
one students answered this call, although several of
them had not definitely decided the question. This
280 MODERN MISSIONS.
little band of consecrated men began to pray that the
spirit of missions might pervade the Conference, and
that the Lord would separate many of the delegates
unto this great work. In a few days they were to
see their faith rewarded far beyond what they had
dared to claim.
•On the evening of July 16th, Dr. Arthur T.
Pierson gave a thrilling address on missions. He sup-
ported by the most convincing arguments the pro-
position that " All should go, and go to all." He
pressed upon the consciences of his hearers that their
relation to missions was after all " only a matter of
supreme loyalty to Jesus Christ." He sounded the
key-note which set many men to thinking and
praying.
A week passed. On Friday night, July 23rd, a
meeting was held, known as the meeting of the t u
nations. It was addressed by sons of missionaries in
China, India, and Persia, and by seven other young
men of different nationalities — -an American, a Japa-
nese, a Siamese, a German, a Dane, a Norwegian, and
an American Indian. These men in pithy, burning,
three-minute speeches, each made one dominant point,
viz., the need in his country of more workers from the
body of students assembled in that Conference. After
the appeals were given, each speaker, during a most
impressive silence, repeated in the language of the
countrjT^ which he represented the words, "God is
love." Dr. Ashmore, after a few sentences, left with
the students the seaiching challenge, "Show, if you
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 281
can, why you should not obey the last command of
Jesus Christ." The meeting closed with a season of
silent and then audible prayer, which will never be
forgotten by those who were present. The people
left tho hall in silence. That night was preemi-
nently a night of prayer. • -
By this time the number of volunteers had
increased from twenty-one to nearly fifty. During
the remaining five days of the Conference the interest
became more and more intense. Meetings of the
volunteers and those specially interested were held
each day.
At the final meeting there was a unanimous expres-
sion that the missionary spirit, which had manifested
itself with such power at Mt. Hermon, should be
communicated, in some degree at least, to the thou-
sands of students in the colleges and seminaries who
had not been privileged to come in contact with it at
its source. It was the conviction of the volunteers
that the reasons which had led them to decide would
influence hundreds of other students, if those reasons
were once presented to them in a practical, intelligent,
faithful and prayerful manner. Two days before this
the suggestion had come to a iew of the volunteers
and leaders of the Conference, while on a tramp over
the hills near the Vermont border, that a deputation,
something like the " Cambridge Band," be sent among
the colleges. This famous band was composed of
seven Cambridge students, noted for their scholarship,
their prominence in athletics, and, above all, their
282 MODERN MISSIONS.
consecration and spirituality. Before going out to
China they made a memorable tour among the British
universities, creating p> great missionary revival
among the students — felt also more or less by the
entire Church. When this plan was mentioned to the
volunteers it was heartily and prayerfully adopted ;
and a deputation of four students v/as selected to
represent the Mt. Hermon C'^T?*erence, and to visit
during the year as many institutions as jjossible.
II. DEVELOPMENT.
Of the four men selected for this important mission
among the colleges, only one, Mr. Robert P. Wilder,
was able to go. After much prayer Mr. John N.
Forman, also of Princeton, was induced to become a
member of the deputation. A prominent layman of
one of the Eastern cities, who was at Mt, Hermon
during the impressive closing days, generously offered
to bear the expenses involved in the tour, and ever
since he has sustained a most helpful relation to the
Movement. It would be impossible to estimate the
many-fold fruitage which has been gathered by the
Church as a result of this one man's consecrated giv-
ing. Messrs. Wishard and Ober, at that time the
International College Secretaries of the Young Men's
Christian Association, who had selected the members
of the deputation, also assumed the responsible duty
of facilitating their tour. The first year (1886-87)
may properly be characterized as the year of rapid
and wide extension. Messrs. Wilder and Forman
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 283
visited 176 institutions, including nearly all of the
leading colleges and divinity schools of Canada and
the United States. As a rule they travelled together,
but now and then separated in order that they might
touch more institutions. Their speeches, packed with
fresh and telling facts, their arguments firmly
anchored in the Scriptures, their unwavering faith in
the possibility of evangelizing the world in their
generation if the students would but rally around the
idea, above all the prayerfulness of their lives, made
a lasting impression wherever they went. As a
result of their labors the number of volunteers passed
from 100 to 2,200 during the year. Even Dr. Pierson,
in his most sanguine moments, had not dared to pre-
dict that the Movement would, in so short a time,
reach beyond a thousand.
During the second year (1887-88) the Movement
was left to itself. It was unorganized, and had no
leadership or oversight whatever. Notwithstanding
this as a result of its inherent life and acquired
momentum, it continued to expand. The volunteers
themselves, by personal work, swelled their number to
nearly three thousand.
The third year of the history of the Movement
(1888-89) may be called the year of organization.
The committee appointed to take this matter hi charge
decided that the Movement should be confined to
students. It was therefore named the Student
Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions.
The Movement with its principles, purposes and
284* MODERN MISSIONS.
possibilities, was first brought before the Church in a
public and an official manner in the year 1890-91.
That was the year of its First International Conven-
tion, held from February 26tli to March 1st, 1891, at
Cleveland, Ohio. It constituted the largest student
convention ever held, there being about six hundred
volunteers present from one hundred and fifty-nine
institutions, representing all parts of the United
States and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains. In
addition to the students there were thirty- three
representatives of the leading missionary societies of
the United States and Canada, over thirty returned
missionaries representing every quarter of the globe,
and over fifty other Christian workers. This Con-
vention gave the Movement standing in the eyes of
leaders of the missionary work of the Church. The
most conservative among them, as they came to under-
stand its methods and spirit, gave it the vreight of
their unqualified approval.
III. ACHIEVEMENTS.
1. Several thousands of students have been led by
the Volunteer Movement to take the advanced step of
consecration involved in forming the purpose to be-
come foreign missionaries. In the large majority of
cases this decision has been formed in the spirit of
prayer, and solely as unto God. The Biblical
argument has influenced far more men than even
the vivid presentation of the needs of the fields.
The most powerful consideration has been the thought
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 285
of loyalty to Jesus Christ by obeying his last com-
mand. Well might Dr. McCosh ask, before the Move-
ment was two years old : " Has any such offering of
living young men and women been presented in our
age, in our country, in any age, or in any country,
since the day of Pentecost ? "
2. Over six hundred volunteers have already gone
to the foreign field under the various missionary
agencies, and fully one hundred more are under ap-
pointment. A noted foreign missionary, while at a
conference in this country three years ago, said that
not more than two per cent, of those who volunteered
in a misgionary revival ever sailed. But already,
seven per cent, of the members of this Movement
have sailed, and fully ten per cent, of the Canadian
contingent. Moreover, a large majority of the volun-
teers are still in the various stages of preparation.
The following list of countries in which volunteers
are already working indicates their wide distribu-
tion: North, East, West and South Africa; Arabia,
Burma, China, Corea, India, Japan, Persia, Siam and
Laos ; Syria and Turkey ; Bulgaria and Italy ; Central
America and Mexico; Brazil, Chili and the United
States of Colombia ; and the South Sea Islands.
3. By means of this Movement, missionary intel-
ligence, methods, enthusiasm and consecration have
been carried into three hundred colleges on this con-
tinent. In 1885, there was comparatively no interest
in missions, save in a few of these institutions. Now
the missionary department of the College Young
286 MODERN MISSIONS.
Men's and Young "Women's Christian Associations is
probably the best developed, and certainly one of the
most influential departments in their entire scheme of
work. To-day there aie nearly six times as many
students ^n these colleges who expect to be foreign
missionaries as there were at the inception of the
Movement. At least one-fifth of the officers of the
Christian associations are volunteers ; although the
volunteers constitute but one -fifteenth of the active
membership. Another important fact should not be
lost sight of, and that is that every volunteer who
sails means irore than one missionary. He stands
for a large constituency who are interested in the
work because he goes. Who can measure the import-
ance of thus enlisting the intelligent sympathy and
CO operation of thousands who are to remain at home,
in the great missionary undertakings of the Church ?
4. When this Movement began its work in the in-
stitutions of higher learning, it found less than a
dozen collections of missionary books which were
abreast of the times. Extended search now and then
revealed a few of the old class of missionary bio-
graphies and broken files of missionary society
reports. In very iew cases could there have been found
in the reading-room a missionary periodical. For
seven years the representatives of the Movement
have been emphasizing in season and out of season
the importance of continued study of the best and
latest missionary books and papers. Through their
influence carefully selected missionary libraries have
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 287
been introduced into fully seventy-five institutions ;
and, in the aggregate, several thousands of dollars'
worth of the most helpful and stimulating books
have been scattered throughout the student field. It
would be difficult now to find an institution where
there are not two or more missionary periodicals
on file. Some of the best missionary works of Great
Britain have, through the influence of the Movement,
been introduced into wide and general circulation.
5. Another thing achieved by the Movement, while
not as tangible as some of the other points named,
has been nevertheless just as real and important ; and
that is the emphasis which it has constantly given to
the idea of the evangelization of the world in this
generation. In over four hundred centers of learning
this key-note has been sounded year after year in the
ears of those who are soon to be the leaders of the
different evaT^-elical church agencies. At hundreds
of conventions, in all parts of Canada and the United
States, it has been proclaimed with convincing power.
In thousands of churches it has appealed to the
loyalty of Christians, and evoked a sympathetic
response. It has differentiated the Volunteer Move-
ment from every other missionary movement under-
taken by students. It constitutes at once its ultimate
purpose and its inspiration. More and more as the
volu^teers prayerfully look through the doors of
faith opening to-day unto every nation, ponder the
last command of Jesus Christ, and consider the re-
pources of his Church, they are convinced of the
288 MODERN MISSIONS.
necessity, duty, possibility and probability of realiz-
ing their watch-cry.
IV. PURPOSE.
1. The Student Volunteer Movement seeks to en-
roll volunteers in the colleges and theological semin-
aries in numbers sufficient to meet all the demands
made upon it by the foreign missionary agencies on
this continent. .
2. This movement aims to carry the missionary
spirit into every institution of higher learning in the
United States and Canada, and to co-operate with
similar movements in other lands. The power which
will thus come from uniting the Christian students of
the world to carry out the last command of Jesus
Christ will be irresistible.
3. Not only does the Movement plan to enlist
volunteers, but also to guard and develop them until
they pass beyond its proper sphere of influence. This
involves the organizing of the volunteers into bands ;
outlining courses of study for them ; enlisting them
in active work for missions on educational, financial,
and spiritual lines ; making the bands praying and
self -perpetuating centers; and, finally, helping to
bring the volunteers into touch with the various mis-
sionary societies or boards.
4. As the financial problem is 'one of the most
serious which to-day confronts every missionary
agency, the volunteers propose to do all within their
power to hasten its solution, An effort is being made
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 989
to have each volunteer, before sailing, secure a financial
constituency, and to so cultivate it as to ensure his
support on the field. Recognizing the wonderful
possibilities of the various young people's societies of
the day, the Volunteer Movement is making a special
effort to secure their active co-operation. These two
great movements, called into being during the same
decade, are destined to supplement each other in their
service to world-wide evangelization.
5. By far the greatest need of modern missions is
that of united, definite, importunate prayer. This
alone will lead the Church in this time of times to
lift up her eyes and behold the fields. Moreover, the
Christians of the two wealthiest nations on the face
of the earth will never give as they should until self-
ishness and practical unbelief in the great designs of
God are swept away by the prayers of men who be-
lieve in God. And beyond all this, the thousands of
consecrated students who have given themselves to
this work v/ill never reach the great harvest fields of
the world until there is absolute compliance witu the
human condition laid down by the Lord in his com-
mand : " Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest
that he send forth laborers into his harvest." Each
volunteer band, therefore, is urged to become a
" school of prayer," and each volunteer, wherever Le
goes, should have as his greatest burden the deepening
of the prayer-life of the Church.
There are men and women enough to spare for this
grandest mission of the ages. There is money enough
19
290 MODERN MISSIONS.
to spare lo send them. May the Spirit of Christ lead
his Church to pray the prayer of faith, and to conse-
crate her men and money to the carrying out of his
last command !
students' missionary campaign.
The Students' Missionary Campaign is not a new
missionary society, but is a movement inaugurated
by Christian Methodist students to promote, under
the direction of the ministry and the General Secre-
tary of Missions, a young people's forward move-
ment for missions.
What the Students' Volunteer Movement for Foreign
Missions has done and is doing to create and maintain
an intelligent, active interest in missions in our col-
leges and universities, the Students' Missionary Cam-
paign seeks to do in our young people's Christian
societies. The Students' Volunteer Movement for
Foreign Missions, by organizing for daily prayer and
systematic study of the missionary cause, has enlisted
thousands of consecrated students as volunteers for
the foreign field. These volunteers ^ 3 not sent out
by the Movement, but await the call of the Church to
active service. It is a well-known fi*ob that, while the
Church members are in possession of an abundance of
means, the missionary societies of the Church are
financially unable to send out but. a small percentage
of the educated men and women who have volunteered
for missionary work. Missionarj^ authorities are
agreed that the cause of this financial embarrassment
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 291
is lack of knowledge on the part of the membership.
If Christians only knew their privilege and the
heathen need, and understood our heavenly Father's
will concerning the extension of his kingdom on
the earth, they would respond heartily and liberally.
To meet the need of the Church in this crisis of her
history, the Students' Missionary Campaign has been
instituted to assist the ministry in calling the Church,
the young people especially, to daily prayer for, care-
ful study of, and systematic proportionate giving to,
the missionary cause.
The methods adopted are simple and direct. All
operations are carried on through and by existing
organizations; all monies flow through the proper
channels to the Missionary Society. Space will
permit of but the briefest outline of the plan of work :
Christian Methodist students, volunteers for mission
work and probationers for the Methodist ministry,
while attending college, where they have special
advantages for obtaining missionary information,
organize classes for prayer for, and study of, missions.
During, vacation, and from time to time as opportunity
offers, they seek to make known to all whom they can
reach, what they have learned regarding missions.
Our young people's Christian societies offer a wide
and accessible field for work. Each member of the
Students' Missionary Campaign reaches as many
societies as he can wherever he happens to be situated.
Some, by the co-operation of the district and local
Epworth League officers, are able to plan a tour
292 MODERN MISSIONS.
throughout one or more districts. In order to make his
work permanent and self -propagating, he not only gives
a stirring, up-to-date missionaiy address, but asks for
an after meeting of all interested in the extension of
our Lord's kingdom on earth, requesting especially
that the superintendent of the missionary department
and the missionary committee confer with hira. He
then suggests the forming of a band in the Society
for daily prayer for, careful study of, and weekly
giving to, missions. The developing of this band is
left in charge of the missionary committee of the
Society. As helps to the members of these bands, he
introduces :
1. The "Cycle of Prayer" published by our Church,
which is a guide to those who wish to lift up their
eyes and look upon the fields. This booklet divides
the world into thirty-one parts, so that in one month,
by praying for a portion each day, the one using it
makes intercession for all men everywhere. The
Missionary Campaigner is a paper published monthly
as a commentary on the Cycle of Prayer, in which
information regarding the subjects suggested for
prayer is furnished.
2. He recommends each Epworth League to begin
to form a missionary library, he sells and takes
orders for all the missionary literature he can, and
leaves printed price lists, so that they may purchase
more.
3. He also introduces the pledge and collectors'
books for weekly giving furnished by our Mis-
sionary Society.
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 293
It, is needless to say that the above plan of work
meets with the hearty approval ot he officers of our
Church. Dr. Alexander Sutherland, Secretary of the
General Board of the Methodist Church, says in the
Missionary Campaigner for September, 1896: "Our
young people will do well to study carefully the
' Young People's Forward Movement for Missions,'
which is being promoted by the Students' Missionary
Campaign. The work has been carefully planned
with a two-fold object :
" 1. To enlist all our young people in united work
for missions, under the direction of our Church.
" 2. To establish and make that work permanent and
self -propagating — bringing each member of our young
people's Christian societies into such close touch with
the extension of our Lord's kingdom and the salvation
of the world, that daily prayer and systematic, pro-
portionate giving will be recognized as a personal
privilege and responsibility.
"A well-organized district could raise enough to send
out and support at least one missionary. Several dis-
tricts are already at work, and the plan meets with
great favor. When enough is raised to send out a man
and support him for one year, the General Board of Mis-
sions will be glad to appoint one. The discussions
this work will call for at the annual District Conven-
tions, and the definite interest of the individual
Epworth Leagues, will tend to develop an earnest
interest on the part of every member."
Books for League Workers.
Epworth League Workers. By Jacob Kmbury
Price $0 75
Work and Workers. Practical Suggestions for the
Junior Epwortli League. By Frederick S. Park-
hurst, D.D. With Introduction by Rev. Dr. Schell 50
Practical Hints on Junior League Work. By
Wilbert P. Ferguson, B.l). With Introduction
by Rev. Dr. Berry 35
Four Wonderful Years. A Sketch of the Origin,
Growth and Working Phins of the Epworth League.
By Rev. Jos. F. Berry, Editor of Epworth Herald 75
Epworth League : Its Place in Methodism. By
Rev. J. B. Robinson, D.D., Ph.D 35
Young Knights of the Cross. A hand-book of
principles, facts and illustrations for young people
who are seeking to win the golden crown of pure
and noble character. By Daniel Wise, D.D. Cloth 90
Epworth League and Christian Endeavor Pledge.
By Rev. A. M. Phillips, M.A. Each 5c.; per doz. 50
What Can We Do? A Hand-Book for Epworth
Leagues. Each 6c. ; per doz 60
Young People's Prayer Meetings in Theory
and Practice. By Rev. F. E. Clark 35
The Parliamentarian. By Rev. T. B, Neely o 40
Robert's Rules of Order. A standard guide to the
conduct of meetings 90
WILLIAH BRIGQ5,
29-33 Richmond Street West. Toronto, Ont.
C. W. COATES, Montreal, Que. B. F. HUESTI8, Halifax, N.S.
We Prepay Postage.
L
Per dozen, lac; Per hundred, 8oc.
HINTS ON SOUL WINNIl.G. By Rev. R. N. Bums, B.A.
LIBERALITY A GRACE. By Miss Be-saie McGuffin.
JUNIOR WORK AND MISSIONS.
By Mrs. A. M. Phillips.
RECEPTION OF MEMBERS.
THE MINISTRY OF FLOWERS.
By Rev. R. N. Burns, B.A,
THE LEAGUE BEFORE A REVIVAL.
By Rev. James Elliott, B.A.
THE LEAGUE IN A REVIVAL. By Rev. John Henderson.
MISSIONARY WORK. "What cax ocb Socicty do fob
Missions ? " By Miss Joness.
SOCIAL WORK. "A Model Social."
"Lf Miss E. Pomeroy.
QUALIFICATIONS AND DLTIES OF A JUNIOR
SUPERINTENDENT. By Miss A. Harris.
JUNIORS AND THEIR BIBLES. By Rev. F. G. Lett.
VISITING AND RELIEF. By Miss A. Breckon.
DO NOT ! Hints; to Yocng Comerts. By M. A. Shaver.
HOW TO ORGANIZE AN EPWORTH LEAGUE.
By Rev. A. C. Crews.
THE DISTRICT LEAGUE. By Rev. A. C. Crews.
WILLIAM BRIGGS,
29-33 Richmond Street West, Toronto. Oxt.
C W. COATES, Montreal, Que. S. F HTTESTIS, Halifax. NS.
W« Prepay Posta^o.
M en of the Bible.
THEIR LIVES AND TIMES.
Each 75 oentg.
" We commend the volumes of this series as useful contributions to
the popularization of the results of Biblical scholarship— a tendency and
movement of our time of the utmost interest and promise." — Nbw-
Enolandbr.
ABRAHAM: HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By the Rev. W. J.
Deane, M.A.
MOSES: HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By the Rer. Canon G.
Rawlinson, M.A.
SOLOMON: HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By the Ven. Archdeacon
Farrar, D.D.
ISAIAH : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By the Rev. Canon S. R.
Driver, M.A.
SAMUEL AND SAUL: THEIR LIVES AND TIMES. By
Rev. William J. Deane, M.A.
JEREMIAH : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By the Rev. Canon
T. K. Cheyne, M.A.
JESUS THE CHRIST : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By the Rev.
F. J. Vallings, M.A.
ELIJAH : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By the Rev. W. Milligan.
D.D.
DANIEL : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By H. Deane, B.D.
DAVID: HIS LIFE AND TIMES. ByRev.Wm. J. Deane, M.A.
KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH. By tiie Rev. Canon G.
Rawlinson, M.A.
JOSHUA : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By Rev. William J. Deane.
ST. PAUL : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. By James Iverach, M.A.
THE MINOR PROPHETS. By the Ven. Archdeacon Farrar,
D.D.
ISAAC AND JACOB: THEIR LIVES AND TIMES. By
George Rawlinson, M.A.
GIDEON AND THE JUDGES : A Study, Historical and Prac-
tical. By Rev. John Marshall Lang, D.D.
EZRA AND NEHEMIAH : THEIR LIVES ANl TIMES. By
George Rawlinson, M.A., F.R.G.S.
WILLIAM BRIGQS,
29-33 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ont.
(;. W. COATES, Montreal, Que. S. F. HUESTIS, Halifax, N S.
We Prepay Poet«ipe,
V^