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Bnf*ttst Mission^wtf Socirft/. I ft. Cfiurc/t a/'ScotUmU. I V. Frer €Thurc/t orScotltt^ut. iO . MotufinnMi-siiorutrySocimty t- AV//i^r[afu/s,tfissu>nfuj/Sfiicieiy f- . HhetUsh Missiontuy Society tt . BertinMCssioiutri/Socu^y. V . A eifisic £tnn^. I tUhet-un StH'ttfy W. . y^ruwtfidm Socimfy. - 1 ■ fe KS ^^MlsPMStt^ 'inr ^ xSTXIJilKr /VNT MISSIONS. iiLs,A .Britisti,B.GemiaiiC. ivian.MJYeiich,F.OftMir8,0. \JLfArGJfEldfi/OMS\ 1 II I .AUi/t(mtefit/t. ii' uidioeUedtM/A'tna// lefteiv. iBwu-diOvnff.) /eiO. £stablishef/n'r Prtsbyterutn. (ff3Z. Ilstf « 'ronflu^tU. fS^3. „ Presfiy&eriun * others. Uf77.U%ti « !/» Mi-rs(attttry Society f732. •• mtIs,^issumfuySoci«ty f7SfZ « ^i&fioncie6^ fdHS. ^ tjUtio/utri/JIVcte/y. fS33. •• ' ^mn^. f^iUhef«n Sot'iefk/ fif36. n inn Soflefy. f&^2. „ sbut^d'.% NTENT8. Homes. — Their Inflaence in Christian Lands Underestimated. — Missionaries' Children. — Position of the Unmamed Misaicaaiy Women. — Su^^estion of Protestant celibate Sisterhoods Unwise. — MissioDary Statistics of China. — Waiving sectarian Comparisons. — Presbyterian Model Press at Shanghai. — Baptists at SWatow on place of Schools and use of Bible Women. — Utility of Chinese Classics. — Important lesson from Methodist Mission at Fu-chow. — Walking by Sight and by Faith. — English and American Congre^a- lionalist Missions. — Talent appreciated abroad also. — Neglecting Vacations. — Wesleyans. — Church Missionary Society. — Danger of encouraging Converts under Discipline of other Missions. — Ameri- can Episcopalian Mission. — Bishop Schercschewsky's College. — 8. P. G. Society. — German Societies. — Reformed Misrion at Amoy. ^Various oUier Evangelical Missions • . 199 CHATTER XIV. mSSIONABT OUTLOOK IN CHINA. The " China Inland Mission."— Its Statistics and Principles of Supi>ort and Work. — Mistaken Exegesis. — Peculiarities. — Unfavorable im- pressions produced by the "Dress. — Results in part Disappointing. — Hasty Use of the Language. — Overdoing Itinerancy. — Mistaken view of Providential Leadership. — Their Faith Principle of Support not Consistently carried out. — The Principle a Travesty upon True Godly Faith. — Its Advertising Methods may be more Wise but not more Pious than ordinary Solicitations. — " Higher Life " peculiarly Censorious. — Wisdom from Above needed in oealing with the Phe- nomenon. — Missionary Physicians. — Their varied Usefulness. — Women as Physicians. — The Unoccupied Field in China. — The Mission Sunday Question. — Hiring Sunday School Attendance. Experiments with Phonetic Alphabets. — Drawing Distinctions. — Some Fruitage of Buddhism. — Missionarj' Temptations. — The Change Cure. — Wisdom of Clustering Missionary Families. — The Foot-binding. — Idolatrous Paper- Work. — Prevalent Domestic Slav- ery. — Some more of "the Light of Asia." — Martyrology. — Illus- trations of Chinese Christian Character. — Union Spirit <» the Mis- nous.— Yet danger of Paralysis of Faith 221 CHAPTER XV. DUTCH EAST INDIES AND OTHER ISLES. The Island World. — Protestant and Catholic Colonization. — Twenty- Five Millions. — Australia. — Religious Divisions. — Former Great Buddhistic Power in Java. — Present Civilization of Java. — Bata- via. — Railroads. — Scenery. — Productions. — Serfdom. — Marvel- lous Diffusion of the Polynesian I^anguage. — Melanesian Race. — Moravian Missions. — Culture not Required to Receive the GospeL — To most Degraded, Christianity Preceding Civilization. — Count von Zinzendorf. — Herrnhut. — " Unitas Fratrum." — Maori of New Zealand. — Martyrdom of Volkner. — Reasons why Missions Back- ward in Dutch East Indies. — Minahassa Exception in Celebes. — Missionary Fidelity Illustrated. — God's Leadership into Polynesia. — Tahiti. — French Toleration. — Native Consecration. — Eagerness to Purchase Bibles. — Emban-assed Fidelity to Missions. — Fiji. — The "Dogs" our Instructors. — New Hebrides. — Cannibal Feasts over SeveralMartyred Missionaries. — The Harvest 216 ■" i ,.IJ*W li BtatHLt-MAMMO sarr zii OONTBim. CHAPTER XVI. SIAM AND ANAM. French Cochin China. — Camboja. — Tonquin. — Hu^, the Anam Capital. — ''Light of Asia" Burnt Out. — Impoi-tant Mission Fields.— Glances at History, People and Government of Siam. — Natural Fea- tures. — Religious Condition. — Catholic and Protestant Missions.— Denominational Division of Work. — Re-considcration of its Wis- dom. — Advantage of Emulation. — Bang-kok "The Venice of the East." — 86me Characteristics of Siamese Buddhism. — A Mo- rality of Fear. — Specimen Objections of Natives to Christiftn- ity. — La Loubere Reviewed. — The Special Responsibility of Missions. — Christianity not to be Administered in AcceptaMe Quantities. — Missionary Optimism as well as Pessimism to bo Avoided. — Abandoning Stations a Serious Matte*. — Timely Re- inforcement of Stations. — Singapore.— Prison Mission Work.— Feuang DM CHAPTER XVn. BITBMAH AND ASSAM. The Countries. — Their Populations and Religious Condition. — Histoijr and Present Governments. — Noble Stand for Good Morals, of Com- missioner Atchison. — The Wars with Great Britain. — Rangoon and Shway-Dawon Pagoda. — Manners and Customs. — Establishment of Bui'mah Mission by Dr. Judson and wife. — The Legacy of their Lives and Character to Universal Church, — Their Co-laborers and Successors. — Heroic Age of Missions Not Passed. — More than Romantic Interest still Awaiting Discovery. — All Missionaries Should Retain some Pastoral Itinerating Work. — Some Spoiled by Too Much of the School-Room and of Book-Making. — Karens. — Ko Thah-byu. — Remarkable Bassein School. — How the Karen Chris- tians Built It. — World Lesson on Giving. — Judson's Grand Mistake in Burmah. — Not Wise to Educate Natives in America or Europe. — Nor to Adopt them into Mission Families. — More Self-Supeort Needed in Schools. — Overcrowding of Mission Schools. — N^ea of Missionary Reserves for Sudden Advance Moyements.- Ghuros of Assam.— Burmah and Assam Key to Asia 288 CHAPTER XVHL INDIA, THK COUNTRY, PEOPLE AND BBLIOIOKB. Leaving Buddhistic Counti-ies. — Parting glance in a Maulmain Temple. — The Jainas. — The Singhalese. — Divisions of the Empire. — Ita Natural Resources. — India History. — British Sway ProvidentiaL — Changed Government Attitude toward Missions. — Christian Mis- sions alone can render recurrence of Mutiny Impossible. — Lan- Biages. — The Task of a Christian Literature. — Architecture. — evelopment of Brahmanism. — The Rig- Veda. — Copernicus antici- pated. — Code of Menu. — Caste System. — Evangelization must not compromise. — Vileness of Hindu Worship. — Grotesqueness of Hindu Temple Symbolism. — Moslemism. — Has it been a benefit ? — Pavw sees. — Chunder Sen. — <' Christians of St. Thomas." — The Politidd Educational Problem of India. — False Neutrality 808 CONTENTS. xiil CHAPTER XIX. OHBISTIAN MISSIONS IK IITSIA. ne Field of their Largest modern Development. — Four Months' touring anioiifi; Akem. — Their two great Periods. — At Semmpore. — Consul- Gtanem' Litchfield. — The Missionary living question. —■ Demands of the smaller-salaried home Ministry. — Heroic Missionary Work. —Present Rapidity of India Evangelization. — The Quickening of Thought and Univeraal Unrest. — Approaching Conflict with Islam- ism. — Henry Martyn. — Church Missionary Society. — S. P. G. — America's Debt of Obligation. — London Mission. -^Wesleyans. — English Baptists. — Scotch Missions. — Lutheran societies. — The Famine. —American Baptists. — Lessons at Ongole and Ramapatam. —A Fundamental Principle in the Architecture of Missions. — Z«nana Work. — A. B.C. P.M. — Methodists. — Presbyterians. — Fosads. — Swedes. — Free Baptists. — Moravians. — U. P. C. Mis- . — Sikhs. — Naneka 321 CHAPTER XX. imnONABT OUTLOOK IN INDU. Limit UM!7 of Supply. — Demand of Missions Not Beyond Pres- eo^9esoiv«e8 of Churcn. — America's Proportion. — Benediction and Responsibility of Missionaries' Children. — Rule that they must be sent Home not exceptionless. — More Fraternization needed. — Lack of Spiritual Power. — Christian Character in India not sufficiently impressive.— High Caste Converts. — Evangelization or Failure. — Limit of Distinctively Missionary Interests. — Encouragement and Danger of Government Patronage of Missions. — Missionary Money a special Trust Fund. — British Religious Neutrality Impossible. — Demand for Ci^ristian Literature far beyond supply. — Industry on Christian Principles. — Permanency of Mission Buildings. — Native Self-reliance. — ^Mission School Architecture. — Native and Imported Services of Song. — In each Nation its own best Musical Vernacular, —ruting Glimpses of Thought and Memories of India 339 CHAPTER XXI. PEBSIA AND EASTWARD. Fast and Present of Persian Empire. — Natural Resources. — Political Situation and Prospects. — Population and its Religions. — Christian Missions. — Their Expense in Persia compared with Cost of sustain- ing Churches in America. — Statistical Quagmire. — The Strategic Science of Mission Locations. — Teheran and its Twilight of Modern Life. — Advantage of Persia's Heretical Moslemism.' — Liberalizing and Emancipating Tendencies of various Sects. — Increasing Direct Access of Christian Missions to the Mahometans. — Universal Les- son from attempted Reform of Nestorian Church. —Roman Catholics in Persia and Afghanistan. — Awakening among the Jews. — Obliga- tion of the Church to Children of Israel. — Perhaps this in part to be discharged among the Afghans. — Dilawur Khan. — Missionaiy In- Tplids. — Their continued Usefulness. — Dying on the Field . . . 367 CHAPTER XXn. BABTLON, NINEVEH AND JEBUSALEM. Lessons from Bible Lands for Christian Missions. — Next to the Bible itself Bible Lands the Book's best Commentary. — A Suggestion in the interest of Missionaries and their Work. — Baghdad, its Past and XIV CONTENTS. Present. — Tourinff Preparations. — Corresponclinjir Ontfits at Beirut and Cairo. — (iarclen of Eiicn. — At Bal)vlon. — Nel)uchadnezzar's Palace. — Fulfilment of Prophecy. — "Jlunfjinj^ (hardens." — Re- markable Statuary, — Daniel's Palace. — Ilillah and the Euphrates. Tower of Babel. — Tomb of Ezekiel. — At Nineveh. — Situation and Appearance of Proud Assyrian Capital. — Excavations. — Prophecy. — Oriental Farewell from'Mosiil Native Missionary. — A Meditation upon Olivet. — Not Tears Enough in World Evangelization To-day. A Symbol at Memphis 874 CHAPTER XXIII. ^HE TURKISH EMPIRE AND ARABIA. Othman and the Osmanlis. — Mohammed II. and St. Sophia. — Victonr of Sobieski. — Present Deplorable Condition of Empire. — Rich Nat- ural Resources. — Scantiness of Population and some of the Causes. — Arabia's Surprises for the World. — Arabs again the Coming Race. — Universal Disloyalty. — Contrasts at liijirek. — Days of the Otto- man Power Numbered. — Probable Solution of the Eastern Question. — Its Bearing upon Christian Missions in these lands. — The Koran and Religions Liberty. — The Coming Fair Contlict between Chris- tianity and Islamism. — Educational and Literary Preparations.— Greek Church. — Greek Catholics. — Syrian Catholics, — Armenian Catholics. — Bulgarian Church. — Armenian Church. — Mai'ouites. — Chaldean Catholics. — Jacobites. — Chaldean Nestorians. — Les- sons from Nestorian Uistoiy for To-day. — Fragments 392 CHAPTER XXIV. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN TURKEY. Pioneering the Levant. — Rising Moslem Fstimate of Protestantism — Name of " Christian " must be Redeemed. — Theorizing on Missions versus Missionaiy Experience. — Need in Mission Literature of the Resei"ved Talent. — Home Churches and Boards not to be limited to mere questions of support. — American Boai'd Missions. — Presby- terian and other Missions. — Encouraging Statistics. — Some ^Phases of the ** Mission School Question." — Adaptin^r Methods to Circum- stances. — Robert College at Constantinople. — Beirut Protestant College. — Scripture Translation. — Christian Literature. — The Ara- bic Bible and its Outlook. — Islam Evidently Doomed. — No Com- promise to be Entertained. — liate War and Famine Opportunities for. Evangelization. — Special Qualifications of American Mission- aiies. — ♦* The Home " at Scutari. — Grand Advance of " Woman's Work for Woman." — A Main Force for Overthrow of Islamism and Brahmanism. — Clustered Encouragements 412 CHAPTER XXV. AFRICA AND ITS EVANGELIZATION. Historical Reflections. — Revelation and Egyptology. —Influence of North Africa upon Christendom. — Geography of the Continent. — The Populations. — Explorations. — Dr. Livingstone. — Stanley and Mtesa. — Great Britain and the Slave-trade. — Formidable Difficul- ties. — Survey of the Mission Forces. — Copts. — Sierra Leone.— Liberia. — Gold and Slave Coasts. — Niger. — Congo. — Bih^. — South Africa a Protestant Christian Country. — Base and Sup- flies for Evangelization of Interior. — Canals and Railways.— nfluence of the Wars. — Berlin Missionary Economy. — God Re- vealing Long Hidden Purposes. — Industrisd Institutions. — Frepa- CONTENTS. rations for Advance on East Africa. — T^ocatinp on Nyansa, Tanfj^Q- yika and Victoria Nyajizu. — tiraudeur of the Outlook. — Madagascar and other Isles. — MiirvoUous TriuinpliH of the Cross. — Maps. — Evnngelizatiou Lending' Civiiizntion. — llclation of Missions to Secu- lar Power. — The Heart of Christeudom turning toward Africa . . 482 CHAPTER XXVI. GREEK AND CATHOLIC EUROPB. Temptations to Linger. — The Rclifrious Situation Largely Political. — Encouraging Sipns of Separation of Church and State. — Non-con- formity in Russia. — Catholic Adoption of Protestant Methods. — A Blessing in Disguise. — Sliould Evangelical Missions be limited to Pagan and Anti-Christian Nations? — The Answer of Mahometan- ism. — European and American Catholicism Contrasted. — Idolatrous Worship of Icons in Russia. — Ileuthenism of the Czar. — The Pagan- ism of Rome. — Dissent. — The Molokani and Stundisti. — Catholic Unity an Illusion. — The Infidel Movement. — Amazing Religious Ignorance of the Masses. — Dormant National Consciences. — Polit- ical Unrest. — Anxiety of the Masses for Something Abiding. — Un- masking of En'or. —Attacking Corrupted Christianity at its Sources. — Survey of Advance Guards of Evangelical Forces 468 CHAPTER XXVn. PROTESTANT EUROPB. Multiplied Diversions. — Re-entering the Lines Marshalled for Universal Conquest. — Stabilitv and Permanency of Great Britain and Ger- many. — The Guardians of Evangelical I>abor throughout Europe and the World. — Their Home Work. — London. — The Pauper Class and Charity. — Spheres of Established and Dissenting Churches. — Advantages of Disestablishment. — General Reawakening of Evan- gelical Life. — Occasioned Largely by Reflex Influence of Foreign [issions. — The Question of Critisn and American Missions in Pro- testant Europe. — A Great Community of Interest and Obligation. — The Christian Home of British and European Protestantism.— Plymouth Brotherhood, &c., the Antipode of High Churchism. — For Neither America a Congenial Soil. — Sublime Spectacle of Mis- sion Forces. — Evangelizing Jews. — Anglo-Saxon Colonization as Evangelistic Agency 478 CHAPTER XXVm. WBST INDIES, SOUTH AMERICA, AND OTHER MISSION LANDS. Countries, Rich in Natural Resources and History. — Northern and South- ern Continents Compared. — Tolters and Aztecs of Mexico. — Incas of Peru. — Conflict between Rome and Protestantism for the New World. — Spanish Colonization. — Trans- Atlantic Inquisition and Auto-da-fe. — The Heritage of Serfdom and Slaveiy. — British Emancipation. — The Righteous Act Nevertheless a Necessity. — Result only Partial Amelioration. -- Tyranny and Slavery Survive all Legislation. — Corresponding Situation in Chili, Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere. — Need of Evangelizing Agencies. — The Supply far behind the Demand. — Mission Results in West Indies. — Jamaica Christianized. — Moravians in Nicaragua and Guiana. — Chinese and East India Coolies. — S. P. G. — Wesleyans. — Other Missions. — American Episcopalians, Methodists and Presbvterians in Mexico. — Mission Fields of Canadian Dominion. — S. P. G.'s 225 Mission- aries. — Remarkable Work of Church Missionary Society in British Columbia. — Esquimaux 494 !#■ xvi ooMTmm. CHAPTER XXIX. AtLANTIO BiriiBOTIONa. ▲ Mamonndnm for other Tourists. — Why some CiercTmen are Ice- bergs on Missions. — Plain indeed the guiding Wisdom of modem Protestant Missions that from Above. — Time Clearing; up Difficulties. — Rapidity of Mission Success. — Future Preparine discouraged over the ultimate universal triumph of the Gospel in the use of the ordinary means of Grace, and then he may have fancied that he has successfully tortured Scripture into an encouragement of his despondency ; but the clear-headed and untrammelled reader of God's Word finds nothing there except assurance that this conflict, which the Church under Emmanuel is waging with the world, is to go on from victory to victory, until all mankind shall acknowledge their allegiance to Jesus Christ. Through the Sacred Oracle "the voice still crieth in the wilderness " — " Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every moun- tain and hill shall be made low : and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Plainer words could not be written than those of the prophet Habakkuk — " the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." That was a triumphant prediction of the psalmist — " All the ends of tlie world shall remem- ber and turn unto the Lord : and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee." The Lord declares through Isaiah — "I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain." And again — "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteous- ness, and shall not return. That unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear." If disposed I might fill a volume with description of only the great walled cities and the myriad giants, chil- ! u CHBI8TIAN MISSIONS. ' ' 1 cUren of Anak, that are to be met on almost every hiU and in nearly every valley and plain of this vast promise land. There is abundant material for intimidation and discouragement, if only the difficulties in the way of world-evangelization be considered, and the wings of faith be folded, and the thoughts be permitted to grovel among only earth-born plans and methods and instru- mentalities and efficiencies. From the standpoint of the world it is dispiriting to see the strong hold which materialism is taking upon the newly educated masses, in " the empire of the rising Sun." It is depressing to note the revival within Buddhism under the efforts of its most intelligent and liberal leaders to bring their followers more abreast with the spirit of the age. It is discouraging to become acquainted with the vast under- lying superstition of the Fung-shway, which makes the hostility of China's four hundred millions to all evangel- izing efforts of the Christian Church the more firm and abiding. So is it, when through Hindu and Moslem countries we go searching in the spirit of those false spies, who accompanied Caleb and Joshua, and see in the former the unutterable depths of the degradation of Brahminism, and in the latter the accumulating evidence that Mahometan bigotry and fanaticism are preparing, like Rome, for a new lease of aggressive power under a general change of political circumstances. Or if turn- ing from these great walled cities to the children of Anak, the giant personal difficulties to be still encoun- tered, even in our own day, by those who enter upon the work of Christian missions, we might write a book that would not be an unfit companion for " Fox's Book of Martyrs." It is still hard to sever the ties of home, to leave the native land, to reside in severe climates v^ithout constitutional fitness, and to be compelled to eat food without relish. It is still difficult to learn a foreign language so as to make it the medium of the most accurate thought, where- with is to be decided the destiny of immortal souls. It remains as painful as ever to live and labor among the wretched, the degraded, the big- A OJOJa BEF(»T. 15 otedly superstitious and the blindly fanatie^ No words can describe the depression of spirit that comes at times to nearly all missionaries, in their isolation from kindred sympathies, their remoteness from all cong^enidl associations, and their frequent evidence that the great work, to which they have given their lives, has not th I SO CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. by the home authorities, that :t was determined at the first practicable opportunity to abandon it. But in the providence of God a christian brother, well known and influential, yet without any delegated authority, came along upon a casual tourist's visit. He saw the situa- tion, if not with clearer eyes, certainly with far greater advantages for accuracy and reliable judgment, and he concluded that it was not an open question whether that station should be reinforced and the work pressed on with greater vigor. His representations were success- ful in correcting the misjudgment at home, and one of the largest and most encouraging fields in all Asia for missionary labor has been saved to gladden the heart of the Church of to-day. Moreover, such visitation does good not only by way of information and counsel, but the little taste of social life, right fresh from the native land, brought to the lonely missionary home, is un- speakably welcome and wonderfully helpful. Many of them have told me that such an occasional break in their life putb them on their feet again for u whole year of their plodding toil. Others have expressed it that a few hours of new faces from the fatherland are more useful than the gladly received boxes, that come occasionally freighted with food and clothing, and the luxuries which no missionary's salary can afford. Repeatedly has it been said to us : "All your expenditure of time and money in this around the world tour of christian missions has paid simply in our homes and in, our mission ; and we wish you would appreciate it, and im- press the fact upon other ministers and laymen, who may be induced to follow your example." We feel very glad that, before sailing from San Francisco, we had opportunity to see a great deal of the home missionary work in America. Indeed it was my privilege early in the ministry to engage for some years in this department of evangelization. It is a grand school, not only for those who would see more in- telligently, but also for those who would engage person- ally in foreign missionary work. Immigration and the neglect of God's people have brought a large variety of THE HOME WORK. 21 heathen to our very doors. What means are proving the most effective in the work of christianizing them? What phases of adaptability are they manifesting to religious impressions? How does it appear that they are best guarded from relapsing into their old bigotry or superstition or indifference? It would be well for any Christian tourist, before visiting Asia or Africa, to become acquainted with these and other elements of the missionary problem at home, in the great cities, among the negro population of the South, in the newly settled regions of the West, and among the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas. And it seems to me that one of the wisest things that could be done with all appli- cants for foreign missionary appointments would be to give them a preliminary trial of two or three years in home missionary labor. Let them try it in some ragged school, or freedman*s institute, or Chinese settlement. It would not be lost time to those who are really called of God to the far-off lands of heathendom. Their con- victions of duty would be strengthened. Their qualifi- cations would be evidenced and increased. And, if from the northern states they should go for their pro- bation to the extreme southern portions of our country, they will learn, at but little comparative cost to the mission treasury, and with little comparative risk to their own lives, whether they may reasonably indulge the expectation of becoming acclimated either in Asia or Africa. Doubtless some, who are now in those far- off lands, incapacitated by poor health, or dissatisfied with the work they have found to do, or known to all their associates as incompetent for their responsibilities, would have been kept back from so costly and risky an experiment, if they could have first been tried in home mission labors. We would not lower the standard of qualification for those who are to minister to the poor and degraded in America. Our Irish and German im- migrants and southern freedmen need as good mission- aries as the Japanese, or Hindus, or Malayans, but it is so much easier all around to deal with the question of qualification at home. 22 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 1 ^ I Nowhere in all the world can one travel to^y, And escape the missionary question. We have reached the period of universal missions. It is no longer as in the first centuries of the Christian era, when evangelization confined its labors mostly to the civilized shores of the Mediterranean. Nor is it as in medieeval times, when the advance was simply northward into Europe; nor yet again as in either the sixth or sixteenth centuries, when christianizing efforts were directed eastward into Asia. It is an age of world-wide mission activity, a time of universal evangelization. At the opening of the present century there were some feeble and discouraging efforts made by Americans and Moravians among the North American Indians, a few prosperous fields culti- vated by the Moravians and the Wesleyans in the West Indies and Surinam, a few stations far from flourishing planted by the Dutch in Ceylon and the Moluccas, by the Halle-Danish Society in East India, and a spiall number of others established by the Norwegio-Swedish Society in Lapland, by the Moravians, Norwegians and Danes in Greenland and Labrador, and also by the Moravians at the extreme south of Africa. Eighty-one years have passed, and what a bewil4er- ingly rapid march of events toward the christianization of all mankind ! The official opposition in India has been overcome, and a glorious host of missionaries &om all christian lands and from all divisions of the Chwch Universal have pressed forward, and to-day they ocM6Mi^Aiioii^, df missions. Christian Church in her obedience to the great commis- sion. No greater obstacle is met in all open ports by foreign missionaries at the present time, than the pre- vailing immorality and irreligion of the sailors from nominally christian lands. Let more prayers ascend and more earnest efforts b6 made to change the direction of this mighty influence. In this mine are jewels of the richest lustre, awaiting the Saviour's crown. We observe in passing along through the country many little villages \*^ith two or three, and even four and five church spires. It cannot be that there is an actual demand for so much seating capaicity in public religious services. The frequently adjoining sheds tell in- deed of many farmers and their families in the con- gi*egation fi'om surrounding districts. But even then on an average those many churches are not probably over* half full on the sabbath. It is a very difficult question ; sometimes one cannot hfelp thinking how beautiful it would be if all professors of religion be- longed to his branch of the Christian Church. Then for each of these many little Villages there would be one flock, and one under-shepherd, and one sancturtry fold. Only one bell would sound the invitation to come to the house of God. There would be no rivalries of interest, no jarrings of opinions and parties, no difficUl-J ties in raising ministers' salaries, and other necessary expenses for home or foreign work. In the ab^nce of sectarian controversy there wotild be only hanndny of religious views and general co-operation in christian work. Well, perhaps so, and perhaps not. CottstS-' tuted as men are, and imperfect still as is their religious development in this world, it may be that denominst^ tionalism is an evil that in the meitcy of God shields tw from a greater one. It may be, th^t ats things are there is the largest measure of the utlity of the Spirit dnd of the bond of peace, artd the fullest opportunity for the exercises of christian charities and misSlonltry enterprise. The other day we eitaiiiined the supp(0»t4hg piers of the NeW York elevated riillway. They aW ndt solid coluthnfe of ii^n. The plates of thfe thin btti tttong 32 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. metal are separated from ten to twenty inches, and then connected firmly by little rivets, or small strips of iron. This is the well-known principle of mechanical science, which civil engineers are constantly applying in the con- struction of bridges and the supporting of other heavy weights. The power of support of a given quantity of metal is thus vastly augm.ented. It is probably so with the present arrangements of the great Architect of the Christian Church. He is perfectly aware of the many denominations into which His Universal Church is separated. And it may be, yea, we think so, though it savors a little of denominational disloyalty, that, as at present constituted, and for the present period in the history of our world, the Christian Church supports with the greatest safety its enormous respon- sibilities. But what shall be done with the over-supply of church buildings in the small villages of the older settled portions of our country? The problem must work itself out. Some think it is very clear with re- gard to villages in the newly settled districts. First come, first served, is their motto. But we are not quite prepared to say, that, if a Dutch Reformed or an Evangelical Lutheran Church has the start in an organ- ization and building, christian courtesy should keep the Episcopalians, and Baptists, and Methodists, and others out from the exercise of their convictions, and the enjoyment of their cherished privileges for all time. It is an affair rather for compromise or arrangement than for pre-emption and exclusion. Meanwhile our heart responds most earnestly to that portion of Christ's inter- cessory prayer: — "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. That they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." Indeed, what a great country is this through which we are passing ! We have come a thousand miles from New York, and yet people do not take it kindly if we PERMANENT RESOURCES. 33 speak to them about their living out "West. They talk of the New England States, as in the New England States we speak of Cape Cod. Long since multitudes of Americans have settled the question that all East of the Mississippi river is East, and to find anything West the traveller must go beyond the Rocky Mountains. The great political trial of many is that Washington is not located in one of our new territories or latest ad- mitted States. Think of a population of over fifty millions gathered upon oujr section of this youthful con- tinent in such an incredibly short period of time ! One must travel long distances to appreciate the accuracy of such statistics, for after all we are so scattered a people. There are so many miles between cities and towns, and often between even farm-houses. With such a popula- tion, so largely given to agriculture, and with such im- mense area of virgin soil, what enonnous power we wield, and must long continue to wield, over the finan- cial and political and social and religious life of the world ! But Englishmen and other Europeans are saying that our enormous developments as a people, and many at present unquestional)ly decided advantages as Americans, are, in the nature of the case, to soon reach their limit. Inueed they predict a reaction, when our soil shall have spent its first productive powers, and it becomes neces- sary to use extensively the costly fertilizers. But the statesmen beyond the Atlantic are too hasty in their conclusions. Even old worn New England soil is made by intelligent, skilful farming to turn out better than the richest wheat and corn lands of the Mississippi valley. It can be said that what miy redeem the rural prosperity of our densely-populivted north-east comer could not save the country, as a whole, from the doleful future predicted by English and European states- men. But eastern farmers are beginning to learn how to make their land pay, even in wheat and corn and in ^all other articles of foreign export. The grandest suc- Icess I have ever seen in our country off of any kind of land, old or new, was last year on Long Island. 34 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. American invention is at work upon the problem of fer- tilization, and we shall soon learn to utilize our natural resources. Even in the southern state of Georgia 82 per cent, of the cotton planting last year was fertilized at a cost abroad of six millions of dollars. Educatidh will make our husbandry much more productive. And so in this line we see ahead no prospect for our coun- try but accumulating wealth, permanent resources, and enlarging responsibilities. It is a surprise to the traveller to see so many manu- factories springing up all over America. Doubtless in this we rushed ahead a little too fast a few years ago, even as we did in the extension of our great railway system. But population and demand have caught up again with our supply, and fairly distanced our over- production. We shall soon feed half of Europe, and clothe half of Asia and South America and Africa. The battles of the world will be fought largely with our guns and ammunition. The carrying trade of the oceans is sure to come back to us as soon as the people .are brought to see that sufficient subsidies for great lines of steamship communication with the different nations are as wise as that statesmanship of govern- ment subsidies, which has bound together with iron our eastern and western coasts ; which all over the land has spread a network of railways that, for the time being at least, were too great for mere private enterprise ; and which will soon give us, for the development of our vast western territories, both a northern and a southern, as well as a central railroad communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. India cannot break our cotton monopoly. Canada can never offer equal at- tractions to immigration. The labor of the Orient is I waiting for employment outside our western gates. There is no other nation, nor has there ever been one, can-ying so heavy a burden of responsibility before j God. The empires of Alexander, and of the Ptolem- ies, and of the Caesars, failed in their allotted tasks, and have passed away ingloriously. Shall it be so| with us? AMERICA'S debt' TO GHBISTIANITY. 35 Christianity has done everything for America. We are pre-eminently the national miracle of the ages, be- cause God has especially favored us with the knowledge of His Word, with profoun dreligious convictions, with a goodly measure of enterprise in evangelization, and with that righteousness, in personal character, and in social, business and political relations, which exalteth nations. The southern continelat of this western hemi- sphere is as favorably situated, has as good a soil, has equal mineral resources, and has in the Amazon a far more capacious river for commerce than even our Mis- sissippi. Her harbors are unequalled in the world ; her natural scenery is varied and unsurpassed in grandeur and beauty ; and her populations are very generally penetrated and permeated with republican principles. But with us the Bible is not bound. With us there is true civil and religious liberty. With us the blessed influence of the Christian Sabbath has been permitted to demonstrate itself as not in Europe. Our nation was born amid prayers and groanings unto Heaven, which reached the ears and heart of the AlmigLty. Our life to maturity, though recording scenes of great trial and danger, has all along witnessed that God hath not dealt so wonderfully in bestowments and confidences with any people. No nation has so many really pious people. None has so numerous, intelligent and hard- working a gospel ministry. Nowhere are the burdens of churcl: support borne so freely, so generously, so re- liably. Nowhere is the christian press scattering more copiously and beneficently. America s great because Christ has been lifted up. Our might is in the support of those arms which were nailed to the cross on Calvary. Do we appreciate it? Are we mindful of our all-sur- passing obligation to Christianity? Then the world is not too wide for us to express everywhere our gratitude. A thousand million people, who know not Christ as Aaerican Christians should know him, are not too many for us to take upon our hearts, and by our evangelizing efforts among them all prove the sincerity of our gratitude. 86 cam^tAH'^jittluMKB. 'v i CHAPTER n. TO SAN FRANCISCO. MERICA is a Protestant country, and so overwhelming is its Protestantism that, if it loses this ascendancy, it will pass from hands which do not deserve to retain it. Our population is eight to one Protestant. This enonnous majority includes, indeed, a great variety of sects, and a multitude of uneVan- gelized and irreligious people, but the social and polit- ical influence of all is against Rome ; the fraternity and emulation of the sects may be elements of strength more than compensating for the seeming solidarity of the great hierarchy ; and, moreover, the Catholic church among us has its multitude also of those who have little or nothing I to do with the confessional or the celebration of the mass. A leading prelate remarked lately, in an assault upon our common school system, that, although the Roman Catholic church in America had a right to ten millions of our population on account of mmigration and natural increase, the ecclesiastical authorities were not able to account for more than one half of that number. The question of the attitude of Protestantism in our country toward Catholicism is one requiring serious consideration. It should not be that of indilfdrence. Too plain is it that this ecclesiastical organization, whose head is a foreigner and an Italian, is a body of vast strength and aggressive energy. It is too evident that it is to play a more important part in the social life and political history of our country than it has in thej past.] W3 have travelled in nearly all the states of the (JnioD, if ROHAN OATWOUCBm AMSfilOA. 37 and have everywhere been impressed with the strategic wisdom of the Roman Catholic leaders in their real estate investments, the selection of their sites for church buildings, and in their erection of sanctuaries, dwel- lings for the priesthood, and monastic und educational establishments. Their clergy and the various religious orders are displaying on all hands an enormous amount of activity. It is charged that they do not scruple as to their means for attaining their ends. But we should be careful as Protestants not to maintain toward our Catho-* lie fellow-citizens the attitude of misrepresentation. 'Falsehood always reacts the most seriously upon ita [authors or sponsors. There is much proof that Ameri- an Catholicism is chiefly conscientious, disposed to the election of proper means for the accomplishment of its bjects, and truly loyal to the country whose laws pro- ect its adherents, and whose land has furnished an isylum from European oppression to so large a propor- ;ion of them. Take, for example, the crisis of our late ar. It was in the interests of Rome that we should be roken into fragments, even as of England and France the judgment of their rulers. But American Cathol- ism showed that it had formed other convictions, and ras true to them. Had their loyalty been that unre- fable element that is widely claimed to represent their loral constitution, the difficulties of our situation would [ave been greatly increased, and the issue been made mch more doubtful. As to their alleged unscrupulous- less, surely that was the best time, which has ever oc- irred in our national history, for our Catholic party to ^rce their views upon the use of the Bible in the com- mon schools, or upon what is still more impoi-tant to lem, and really supersedes that question entirely, the pision of the common school public funds ; but no fch proposal , was made as the condition of Catholic )perdtion ill the suppression of the rebellion. Roman Catholicism in America is in some very im- ^rtant respects very different from what it is in other »ds. There is that in the genius of our free repub- in institutions, thatin the.general intelligence whiclv. \ 38 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. prevails throughout all our borders, and that in the fundamental moral convictions of our national life, whereby the American Roman Catholic comes inevi- tably to dmw distinctions between church and national loyalty, to think for himself upon religious and moral and political questions, and to have such an awakening of conscience and of the sense of personal accountability to God, as is little known in Italy or France, or in Austria or Spain. On an excursion a little out from Chicago we met two intelligent appearing, middle-aged Catholic priests, and were so fortunate as to stumble into a conversation with them. They were very free to explain into the doctrine of Papal infallibility American ideas, which would be pronounced very heretical by the court of the Vatican. They expressed themselves as strongly attached to our form of government, and as confident that their co-religionists would never engage upon this continent in other than conflicts of peaceful agitation and the lawful use of the ballot. They de- clared that the school question was a very vital "xe, and that their church would never rest till there a fair annual division of the educational funds raisea uy com- mon taxation. They expected the country in another century to be redeemed from Protestant heresies, but protested that their means and methods for such attain- ment were fair and above-board. They would cover the land with their own school buildings, and then trust to the honor of Americans not to force them to sustain two school systems. They felt that their church was such a benefit to society, that the funds granted them in New York city and elsewhere would, if multiplied many times, be but a suitable expression of gratitude, and an investment that would be returned a thousand-fold. They felt that there were common grounds where Catho- lics and Protestants could work together for the good of society. In the matter of persecution for religious be- lief, they read history diflerently from their opponents, were quite confident we could not charge them with the monopoly of this mode of zeal, and were sanguine that as a whole American Catholicism would never be THE PROTESTANT CONFLICT. 39 brought to use physical force for the suppression of heretical convictions. The future of Protestantism in this country depends upon itself, rather than upon the real and sui)p()scd weakness of those who are its principal ()p[)onents. We must show among our clergy !md laity tliat, under the motives which we allow, there is a larger iiicasure of self-sacrifice, more of the spirit of the Master, who came "not to be ministered unto but to niinisler." Our clergymen must show a greater readiness tlian Catholic priests to go anywhere at the call of duty, to villages, to mission stations, to country cross roads, anywhere, as well as to popular city pulpits and metro- politan brown stone front parsonages. We must be more zealous than they to visit the poor and the sick and the dying, and more open handed than they to lead in the benevolence of our parishes. Our efforts to sup- press vice and intemperance and inmiorality must be more manifold than theirs. Our political duties as citi- zens must be more faithfully discharged, even tliough we also have to associate with many whose tastes and manners of life are exceedingly disagreeable. The wel- come to Protestant houses of worship should be more free and cordial than to Catholic sanctuaries. Our laity must prove that their gratitude to Jesus Christ for a complete and free salvation is at all times a larger draft upon their financial resources, than the doctrine of pen- ance, which supplements the cross, perfecting the atone- ment by works of personal sacrifice and merit. We should dedicate fewer debts upon our houses of God. Our home and foreign missionary treasuries should have the less frequently to report deficits. Our laborers should be found the more frequently among the out- lying sections of our cities, among the cabins of the southern freedmen, among the wngwams of the western Indians, and in the van of civilization everywhere throughout the world. Our missionaries should swarm the most numerously among the hundreds of millions of Buddhists and Hindus and Moslems. They should be the most ready to suffer toil and persecution and death. wm 40 CHBISTIAN MISSIONS. Protestantism has such resources to-day that, in the judgment of the world, it must expect such comparirons. We cannot fight the battle with Catholicism solely upon principles. It is also a question of comparative fruitage. We are not afraid of the test. But there are lessons to be learned. There is improv*.ment to be made. Catho- lics are adopting many of our methods. In some thinga they are doing better than us. And we need to remind ourselves that the law of the future religious history of America will be, not only in principle but al«o in p^'acricc, " the survival of the fittest.'* In the streets o? Chicago, we met Chinese and Japanese and a Turk, and an Indian Parsee, as well as Germans and Irish, and Scandinavians in abundance, together with a sprinkling of Italians and French and Portuguese. And this is n(;t in this respect an exceptional city. Everywhere throi q-hout the northern part of our coun- try the traveller is imi)rossed with the cosmopolitan character of America. For some purpose the whole world is sendinjo: its renrescntatives to our shores. His- tory shows that all the mighty movements of the nations have been controlled by deep undercurrents of definite design. Why are all the peoples swarming hither? Why, with increasing numbers every year, are they settling among us a part of our permanent population, and also passing and repassing through our land, and then flitting back to their far-off homes be- yond the seas ? There are other lands as beautiful as ours. There are other climates more salubrious. There are other peoples more industrious and thrifty. There are other nations with larger accumulations of wealth. Is it not to see the most wonderful thing in America, its Christianity, in its character and development? Men may not so purpose, but is it not God's design? Here are lessons being taught for the world ; shall not the Master have his pupils right before him? Here, as no where else in Christendom, is instruction being given upon civil and religious liberty, upon the brotherhood of man, u{)on the sanctity of the Christian sabbath, upon the voluntary principle in religious support, upon Sun- UNEMPLOYED RESERVES. 41 day school enterprise, upon personal character as quali- fication for church membership, upon total abstinence as a christian principle, upon the repressive force of a christianized public opinion in place of large standing armies to keep down lawlessness and to avoid disorder, and upon the true position of woman as the companion and helpmeet of man. God means the world shall learn these lessons, which he is especially teaching by the object method in America. What a responsibility at least to keep out of the way of such purposes. That much, to say nothing of hearty efficient co-operation, means a vast deal more than American Christians are yet doing both in home and foreign mission work. Think of the ten millions of them, whose names are enrolled upon the lists of our nearly one hundred thou- sand evangelical churches. To thenr belongs one third at least of the enormous wealth of our country. With- out hardly feeling it, they have accumulated church property to the amount of over two hundred and fifty millions of dollars. And what are they doing now annually in the cause of evangelization among the neglected classes at home, and among the teeming millions of the unchristianized in other lan^ij ? I hesitate to answer. It is so much more agreeable to look upon the bright side of these statistics. A gi'ddt deal, indeed, is being done. Many churches are supporting their own local missions in destitute parts of their cities. Nearly all the states, and many counties within the states, are can'ying on separate missionary enterprises, which in the aggregate present a very grat- ifying amount of benevolence and evangelizing activity. Then nearly every branch of the Church has its national home missionary organization or t! apartment. Not far from two thousand ordained missionaries are thus sup- ported wholly or in part in those sections of the coun- try, mostly at the west, where there is the lack of ability or of willingness, or of both, to meet the cost of stated worship, or where, as is frequently the case, the religious ignorance is as dense, and the morals of society p^re as degraded as in heathendom. Then through 42 OHRISxiAN MISSIONS. various channels we go distribute a great many Bibles, and other christian literature ; and many schools of various grades under religious guidance are of so gratu- itous and evangelizing a character that they should largely be credited to the missionary side of our American Church inventory. Then about fourteen hun- dred missionaries (1395), including themamed women, are sent from our shores to foreign countries. These occupy nearly live hundred stations throughout the unevangelized world, from the great majority of which, largely through native agencies, flow steady streams of christian instruction and influence among many millions of our sin-darkened and sin-hardened race. But all this varied missionary enterprise, over which it is tempting to linger in congratulation and devout thanks- giving, is yet a shame to us, when we consider what a trifling proportion of our ability is thus exercised. The total annual cost is not over five millions of dollars ; fifty cents a year for each member of American Protest- ant churches ; hardly an average of one cent a week on the part of those who, beyond the christians of any other nation, or of uny other age in the history of the church, are under the greatest obligation to set forth in the most glowing light the self-emptying power of Christianity, its care for the destitute, and its solicitude for perishing souls wherever they may be found this side of the grave throughout the world. We know in addition that our evangelical churches spend upon them- selves, their own ministry and incidental expenses of worship, their own buildings and repairs, and their own educational institutions, somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty-five millions of dollars annually. But, though that is commendable, it does not relieve the shame of barely a cent a week each member for world- wide Christian Mission. On the north-western railway from Chicago to Omaha, we had a pleasant conversation with a New York gentle- man, who is deeply interested in the well-known Young Men^s Christian Association of that city. It is a largo and very efficient missionary organization, doing a re- YOUNG men's christian ASSOCIATIONS. 43 markable work in the metropolis. Representative young men from all the evangelical churches here en- gage in union effort to furnish, particularly to their own class in community who have not their own home and sanctuary privileges, a:> attractive refuge from the lone- some cheerless boarding-houses, from the streets and haunts of vice, and from the wretched companions who hang like vultures around the steps of all young men in our cities. Many generous gifts have been made by christian citizens, and leaders of special quali- fications have been found, with whom to entrust the various important and constantly increasing responsibil- ities. A magnificent building has been provided at the comer of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, with a spacious lecture-hall, reading-rooms, library, social parlors, committee-rooms and offices. I do not know any place in New York which will better pay a visit from a christian tourist. I believe in Young Men's Christian Associations — their use, not their abuse. All churches might fit up in connection with their sanctuaries parlors and reading- rooms, keeping them lighted every evening, and then be ever so free in their invitations and cordial in their welcomes ; but still a very large proportion of the young men, whom it is desi-d to reach, \.ill not come. They ought to, but they Wiii not. It savors too much of the church. It is too long a for their first one away from the world. They shimk from immediate contact with ministers and deacons and })ious women. If they are to be prevailed upon to go anywhere to r leet christians, they want the place to have som* what of a secular air. They would like to see a fev papers on the tables, and certain selections of books on the shelves, which would hardly be the thing under a chiir* roof, and which, while unobjectionable on the ;. nds of morals and literary merit, w^ould never be sekcted by a Sunday school committee engaged in replenishing its library. The fellowship that is exercised in these asso- ciations between the often otherwise quite isolated churches, is very beneficial to the christians themselves m ■f M ;; 1^ I lit 44 0H9I3TUK . MISSIONS. and impresses favorably the outside world. And thus*; . too, many christian young men doubtless find oppor- tunity and example and direction, which are denied them in delinquent churches. However, in regard to the working of Young Men's Christian Associations, both ready judgment and exr perience suggest cautions. Beyond the special work that centres in the reading, social and lecture rooms, it is best that missionary efforts should proceed directly from the churches. If young men become fired with evangfilizing zeal, and desire to go out among the neg- lected classes, they will generally do better to emphar size their church instead of their a^sociational relations. Wise men, selected by common consent anc? pppointr ment, can be an honor to union effort for a special class ; but christian young men, indiscriminately acting in be- half of these associations in mission work, cannot be expected to preserve the balance of judgment and ex- pression and action that is demanded. It was a bright moonlight evening that night of our ride between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi. At the moment we were passing through one of the little villages, a small group of perhaps a dozen people came moving down the long steps of one of the white- painted green-blinded churches. I wondered whether it had been a choir rehearsal or a regular weekly prayer meeting. If it was the latter, — and prob- ably so, for all were elderly, staid-looking people, — then why so small an attendance? Why everywhere are the stated social meetings of the church so thinly attended? It is one of the most im;,»crtant ques- tions for American christians to consider. Christ is the heart of the church, and the prayer meeting is the pulse-beat. Put your fingers on that beat, and you know the health of the church, the temper of its piety, the probable amount of its real prayer in secret, and its strength and vigor for both home and foreign mission work. The great difficulty in the way of world evangelization to-day is the lack among christians of earnest importunate united prayer to Qod yRAYfiR "PCtR'TCtWEB, 45 *fbr'the gift of His spiritual power. In a letter "we ' teceived the other day from a very intelligent mission- ary of large experience in Asia, the wish was ex- pressed, indeed, for more helpers to be sent to his station, and more money for building. , native preachers and school support, "but," he added, "what is of greater coiTsequence than all, give us more prayer at home. If you must withhold, withhold the missionaries and the money, but the prayers we must have, or spiritual power will be denied us, and all our missionary machinery can turn out little or nothing." Indeed prayer is the hand, that moves the arm, that moves the worlds. Prayer is the lever God has given us, with which to lift up our fallen race, and place it upon the pedestal of his glory. Money is useful as an accessory ; a full supply of the messengers of the gospel to all portions of our own country and to all the un evangel- ized districts of other lands is very desirable ; but one man, with not a dollar in his pocket, afire with the love of souls, and backed by the united importunate prayers of God's people, will do more in the destitute regions of America, or more in Asia, or more in Africa, than a thousand missionaries, with overflowing treasuries, but without power, divine power which God has ordained as answer to prayer. How, then, is the Christian Church praying? Look at her average prayer meetings in the ordinary churches^ where those who attend come from a measure of prin- ciple, come because they believe that this is God's appointed way for the reception of spiritual power, come because they beh'eve that, after all, the preaching in their church, the teaching in their Sunday school, and the efficiency of all home and foreign mission giving and labor depend upon importunity at the Mercy Seat, 'What a thinly-scattered attendance ! Can it be that this is the church in prayer ? The grand difficulty with our prayer meetings is that the church does not appreciate their importance, their necessity. Prayer is not esteemed at God's estimate. It is Hot considered to hold that position which it really 46 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. I. i| I- 1 does in the divine economy. It is, indeed, the thing to do for the christian — for the church. It is inconsistent for the professor to omit it in secret ; and it would be an unseemly thing for a church to have no stated gather- ing for united prayer. But it is not generally felt that earnest, thoughtful, intercessory prayer is an absolutely essential condition of vital personal relationship with God; nor that all efforts among men to build up the Redeemer's cause depend ultimately for their success upon the united prayers of the Christian constituency. Over and over again, in the history of evangelization, God has held back blessing from consecrated wealth and consecrated lives, until a corresponding volume of prayer has come up before him, showing that his people are trusting not in the instrumentalities, but in Him who evermore uses instrumentalities for his own gloiy. It would be a most serious disaster to our Redeemer's Kingdom in this world for a few million dollars and a few hundred missionaries to go forth fulfilling the glori- ous' promises which God has made to his Church. Better the car of Zion stand still a thousand years than that the Christian Church forget her absolute depend- ence upon her Lord, and feel that the world can be christianized by money and men. When the time shall come that a large proportion of christians are really praying, praying together that the Kingdom of God may come, that adequate spiritual power for world-wide evangelization may be poured down from above upon our ministry, and home missionaries, and foreign mission- aries, then will mountains of difficulty that are now in the way disappear, then will the weakest of our sta- tions seem stronger than the everlasting hills, and then will the unnumbered hosts of idolatry and superstition and formalism come, not by scores and hundreds, but by millions, and join with those who have prayed for them in crowning Jesus Christ Lord of all. The ques- tion of missions to-day is a prayer question. The grand duty of the Christian Church of the present is to get to praying, praying in secret, praying together. A deep sense of the obligation will fittingly "regulate all the formalism. UNPARALLELED CnT GROWTH. 47 CHAPTER in. WAITING FOR OUR STEAMSHIP. E have crossed the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas, rolled along since leav- ing the Missouri River at Omaha through Nebraska and Wyoming, and Utah, and Nevada, catching glimpses of Idaho and Colorado, and now, after crossing Cali- fornia, we find ourselves at the city of the Golden Gate, Sai Francisco. Only thirty-two years' growth, and yet with a population of two hundred and fifty thousand, the streetc beautifully laid out, , ornamented with many costly public and private build- ings, horse railways traversing in all directions, ex- cept up and down those steep hilb, where the endless wire-rope arrangement proves so excellent a substitute, upon the shore of a bay rivalling the Nari*agansett, and in a climate the most delightful, taking the whole year round, in all America. Its citizens appear as New Yorkers, intensified, many of them, however, with some- what of the added manners of the pioneer cabin and of the mining camp. The rough edges of 1849 are not quite yet worn off. An anomaly of San Francisco is its clerical mayor. He is pastor of a leading, or at least notorious, church, and at the same time the head of the Municipal Govern- ment. It is fearfully dangerous for any minister of the gospel or missionary of the cross to attempt to serve both God and Mammon. He who is set apart solemnly and publicly to the life-work of evangelization and church edification, cannot, with impunity, turn aside to make money or to gain poUtical ho^ors, except in cir- 48 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. cumstances over which he has no control. True chris- tian life is not inconsistent with wealth and government position, but it will no more mingle than oil and water with the deliberate and persistent violation of ordination vows, with the violent shock which such secularization of the ministry gives to the religious sentiment of so- ciety, and with the distrust that is created and fostered among multitudes in the reality of a religion whose pro- fessors, under the most advantageous circumstances, prove unable to resist the temptations of the world. At the Palace Hotel I fell in company with a number of southern gentlemen, whose conversations strength- ened the impressions I had formed during several visits to their part of the country. The majority of the hearts of those in the late con- federacy are not yet conquered. But they have ac- cepted the results of the war. Nearly all the enlight- ened and thoughtful leaders of public opinion have formed the conviction, and are acting upon it in good faith, that the union of the States is indissoluble ; that southern interests must henceforth rely upon legislation, and that the introduction of foreign capital must be encouraged. But few will acknowledge that secession was a crime, or that the confedei ^y had not just cause to set up a government for itself; and yet, there has been such a general reversal of judgment regarding the con- ditions of southern financial prosperity, and the inev- itable dependence upon northern resources, that to-day, on a free vote simply of the white population, the South would declare emphatically in favor of the Union. It is not in the nature of the citizens of the recon- structed states to be hypocritical. They are peculiarly open-handed and open-hearted. There is as high a sense of honor among them as among an equal popula- tion in any other part of the world. When they say they accept the Constitution with its amendments, they mean it. Because they sought bravely, with vast expen- diture of blood and treasure, to release themselves ttom the authority of that Constitution, they should not ndw be looked upon with suspicion. The circumstances SOUTHERN CO-OPERATION. 49 are different. What they tried to do in secession , they felt they had a right lo do. Almost from the very be- ginning of our national history, they had leen free to claim this right on the stump, through the press, and in congressional debate. When secessioti came it was rebellion, and desei-ved to be put down as it w-as by the strong arm of the national go^jrnment. But nothing had happened to justify the prevailing suspicion at the North of the integrity of the southern conscienv?e. General Lee's word as a man was as good as that of General Grant. They say now frankly, " We do not yet love the United States Government, but, as the re- sult of the war, we accept its sovereign authority over the states, and may be relied upon as true American citizens." We should believe them, and trust them. The attitude of their representatives in Congress four years ago at the nation's crisis of the electoral count should strengthen such confidence. President Hayes was not mistaken in his policy of conciliation and fraterniz- ation. And the late canvas, — we judge of it from far beyond the noise and smoke of the conflict, — was unworthy of the manhood and christian spirit of our country, in so far as it proceeded on the suspicion that the South was acting hypocritically, and could not be trusted to fulfil her newly sworn and perfectly well understood obligations to the general government. As confidence is the key to the national situation, so is education the solution to the political condition of affairs in the southern states. It cannot be expected, even as President Garfield wisely remarked in response to an address from a deputation of colored men, it can- not be expected that a thoroughly peaceful and satisfac- tory state of society can exist, where a majority of the population is uneducated, and yet possess both the legal right and disposition to rule, if possible, over the minority. In applying the principle of justice in gov- ernments, brains have often to be counted as well as heads. It is not natural that one man of intelligence and culture shall submit quietly, while four ignorant men, with not half his range of information and judg- p" 50 GHRISTIAN MISSIONS. mont and moral conviction, put theirs all together, make the laws for himself and family, 'collect his taxes, and arrange for his comfort and protection. They are ; and yet jigain they are not the majority. History proves that always in the long run intelligence and force of character rule, and not mere numhers. American statesmanship has been too ready to attach importance to quantities rather than to qualities. It was a great mistake to have given the right of suffrage to the igno- rant mass of the freedmen. There was an occasion, perhaps once for all, to put to rights the whole suffrage question of our country. In the balance of liabilities to both the great national parties, it would have been possible to introduce a proper educational standard for all voters, north and south, white and black, Irish and negro. The Democratic leaders would have been in- duced, many of them would have sprung with alacrity to the chance of unloading the disagreeable responsi- bility of taking care of the ignorant immigration vote, if Republican statesmen had made it the indispensable condition of the withholding of the equally unqualified freedman's vote. At the same time, a good deal of the so-called "white trash," both south and north, would have been sent back to school before being intrusted again with the full responsibilities of citizenship. But mistaken ideas controlted. Some were influenced by vindictive motives ; the South was getting off too easily. She must be made to feel the lash still more vigorously applied. Others were carried away by their sympathies for the negro, who had been enslaved, and to so large an extent cruelly enslaved. Others had their heads turned by the discipline and heroism displayed by colored soldiers in many a camp and hospital, and on many a hard-fought battle-field. Now, the only thing our country can do is to brace up for the strain upon our republican institutions, involved in the suffrage rights conferred upon so vast a multitude of both intellectually and morally unqualified men, and in every possible way encourage their education. It is in evidence that the southern white leaders accept the FREEDimN'B TRADnNG SCHOOLS. 51 situation, of national authority over state authority, when they ask Congress to assist in providing schools for the colored citizens of their states. Especially should the Christian Church exeil itself to the utmost to foster throughout the southern states schools under religious influence. The moml atmosphere is terribly polluted among the lower stratas of both black and white populations. It is largely the lingering traces of slavery. Human creatures were accounted animals; and many of them and their descendants have scarcely arisen in their social intercourse above that degraded condition. Christian schools for the freedmen ; especial- ly training-schools, that shall [)repare in large numbers, as soon as possible, qualified preachers of the gospel and competent teachers of christian morals and true science to lead these millions out from their darkness into the light, up from their ignorance and degradation to intelligence and respectability, and to change them from political pests into political blessings ; these schools are a pressing demand which no words can exaggerate. In part the American Church is feeling and meeting the demand for freedmen's training-schools. Several of the denominations have established each from five to ten of these institutions under a variety of names at generally different and widely-separated points of our immense southern area. Many of the schools are pro- vided with good buildings, and nearly all of them with excellent teachers. But, with only one or two excep- tions, they are generally kept in such straitened finan- cial circumstances as to be almost paralyzed for the work that is on hand. Northern christians have no conception of the crushing pressure under which their missionaries in these training-schools are laboring. The time is exceptional. Nothing like it has ever happened in the history of the world, — scores of thousands out of a population of six millions, the picked young men and women of the degraded multitudes, nearly all of them professed believers in Christ, thronging to our christian training-schools and begging to be so in- structed, that they may become qusJified to be preachers at CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. and teachers to their people, both m America and Africa. But the vast majority of them have to be sent away disappointed, for there is no room to receive them for lodging or study, no food of even the coarsest, cheap- est character to keep them alive, no teachers to instruct them, no counselloi's to guide them. The social ban, which to an extent is put upon north- erners at the South, and especially upon those who are associated with the work for the negroes, is very liable to exaggeration. Multitudes, who had failed to accom- plish anything at the North in their various ill-advised and awkwardly conducted business and professional ex- periments, have been down South, tried again and failed, and returned to report that all social and financial doors were closed against them on account of their political sentiments and northern antecedents. When General Grant compared lately the " carpet-bagger " of the South with those men of vigor and enterprise and tact, who from the East have gone West and built up a vast empire of wealth and influence, he largely confounded people who are as unlike as possible. Many have gone South as mere political vultures to prey upon the carcasses ex- posed, their republicanism a mere make-shift with which to manipulate the freedmen's votes. Others, well dis- posed, but short-sighted, have advocated the negro in- temperately, utterly careless of the prejudices by which he is surrounded. Others, laboring conscientiously and faithfully for the elevation of the degraded race, have too much in their treatment and social intercourse and their own habits of life shocked the feelings and repelled the friendly intercourse of multitudes of the better class of the whites in the South. I had an esteemed friend, who went from Rochester, N. Y., to Atlanta, Ga., and there proved that christian manliness and tact were sufficient to secure a pleasant social position. On the eve of his return, at a large public meeting to his honor, the speaker said : " By his great prudence, his conciliatory temper, and his uni- formly christian bearing toward all, he has not only allayed the prepossessions growing out of the peculiar NORTH AND SOUTH UNITED. 58 circumstances, but he has won the regards of all chris- tian hearts.** Very few things in the world to-day are of more im- portance than that northern and southern christians in America should come to thoroughly understand each other, and enter into complete sympathy and prnctical co-operation for the evangelization and education of the freedmen. There must be this coming together of mind and heart and hand, or our negro opportunity for America, and through the" American negro for Africa, will probably not be improved. It does not seem to be God's will that our southern brethren should be so punished, for having long neglected their duty of lifting up the black man from his superstitions and ignorance, as that they shall be debarred from one of the grandest missionary enterprises of the next twenty-five years. Look at Africa with perhaps its two hundred millions of people. How magnificently it is opening for evan- gelization I All along its coast, north, south, east, west, the ^tes are unlocked and swinging free. Livingstone and Stanley have led the way into the vast interior. But how men are falling I Never in Asia have the missionary ranks been so terribly decimated. Never in Europe, nor in South America, nor in the isles of the sea has there been anything like such mortality among the messengers of the churches. White men evidently are not the mis- sionary material for at least the vast equatorial regions of Africa. Thicker skulls, and woolly hair, and tougher skin are needed to shelter the consecrated lives. The few experiments and imperfect results of Liberian colo- nization do not darken the hope that the evangelizing want of that great continent will yet be met by hun- dreds of qualified christian missionaries from among our southern freedmen. But meanwhile antedated sectional misunderstanding and estrangement must cease; particularly must christians north and south join together heart and hand ; the new blood of our churches must not have the virus of the old; watch- ful guards must stand on both sides to keep out misrep- resentations and all dishonest political intermeddling. Hi M CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. It is one work ; the workers must be owe. And for all this prayer should ascend continually. With a friend, who is one of the brokers of the Min- ing Stock Excliange, I went in of a morning to see how the " bulls " and the ** bears " carried on their business. In noise and gesticulation and general confusion they outrival both New York and Chicago. The only place, w^^ich I have ever seen, that equals the San Francisco Exchange is the Pari":: Boivse. As the presiding o£Scer, during the sales, told off the long list o^ companies en- gaged in California and Nevada mining, I thought of an equally long list of the various agencies of the Christian Church at work mining the gold and silver oiit of mil- lions of pockets, and distributing it throiigh manifold labors in evangelizing services throughout the world. The Congregationalists, with nearly four hundred thou- sand communicants, contribute annually, through their American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, nearly a half million of dollars. Lately their treasury received, what is not included in this average, a legacy from Asa Otis of Connecticut of about one million of dollars. Their rate of contributions, then, for foreign missions is a little over a dollar and twenty-five cents per member. The Presbyterians, with nearly seven hundred thousand communicants, raise almost six hun- dred thousand dollars nnnually for their foreign work, which is about eighty-five cents por member. The Methodist-Episcopal Church of the North, with a mil- lion seven hundred thousand communicants, contributes year!/ about three hundred thousand dollars, which is onb' a little over seventeen cents a member. The con- stituency of the American Baptist ^lissionary Union do not number over a million, which would give, at nearly three hundred thousand dollars a year, an average an- nual contribution of about thirty cents per member. It is to be said for both Methodists and Baptists that their special efforts are being directed to home evangelization throughout the West and South. Also that their churches generally include a larger portion of the working classes than Episcopalian, Presbyterian and EXPENDITURES. 65 Congregationalist churches; and, moreover, that near- ly one-third of their numerical strength in the country is in the still unreliable colored churches. The Protestant Episcopal Church in America, with its nearly three hundred thousand communicants in three thousand parishes, raises annually for foreign missions not far from a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, that i^, fifty cents apiece. Although half of the Episcopalian parishes do not as yet contribute any- thing, yet of late from year to year there has been a marked increase of interest and co-operation in foreign evangelizing work. The upwards of five hundred Kc- formed, late Dutch Reformed, churchc} of our country are not much behind the Congregation ^lists and Presby- terians. The Moravian Brethren, .vho are mostly in- deed in Europe, and yet who h^ve a branch of their church organization in America, surpass nearly all others, even as they have for many years, in the average of their foreign missionary contributions. They have only twenty-one thousand members, and yet they raise nearly twenty-three thousand dollars annually. The Evangelical Lutheran Church has missions in India, Africa and Japan, but has confidence to ask as yet from her large constituency only fifteen thousand dollars yearly contributions. The southern Baptists out of their poverty (though they cannot much longer be called poor with their enormous cotton crops and im- proved free labor) raise from thirty to fifty thousand dollars, and support efficient missions in Rome, China, and at other important points. The Methodists, south, the United Presbyterians and the Cumberland Presby- terians are also providing for a goodly number of inter- esting stations. The American Missionary Association, a union enter- prise, having for its ultimate object African missions, but its present labors mostly among the freedmen, receives and expends nearly two hundred thousand dollars annually. The Protestant Episcopal Church equals in its outlay for home missions its foreign quota, a hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars; likewise nearly with 56 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. the Methodists and Baptists, both of them making their home mission expenses, not including publication work, equal about three hundred thousand dollars. The Bible societies, the Sunday School Union, the tract societies, the various denominational publication houses, the church building, grant and loan funds, the Young Men's Christian Associations, and many other more or less obscure agencies, represent the American Church at work for the missionary evangelization of the world. For both our home and our foreign work there are many divisions of labor; but, as Dr. Mullens, — an eminent servant of God, who has since fallen in Africa, — said at the Mildmay Conference on foreign missions, in London in 1878, "The variety we exhibit in our churches, our societies, our modes of worship, is not an evil to be mourned over ; it is a positive blessing to our cause." And Professor Christlieb has well added, "The diversity in our methods of training for the for- eign field is, beyond question, more calculated to form a missionary of strongly individual character, than is Rome's principle of subjecting all alike to a uniform, compulsory system of blind obedience." A marked feature of late of the home agencies of the Church for evangelization, both in our own country and through other destitute regions of the world, is the organization of numerous women's societies, generally as adjuncts to the other and male-officered organizations of the various denominations. It is certain that the women of the Church especially should be zealous in missions. In their social position they owe much more to Christianity than do men. Ever since the Lord honored the virgin Mary above all human kind with the maternity of Himself, womanhood, wherever Chris- tianity has prevailed, has been a purer and a nobler estate. Last year the receipts of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church were over $127,000, to which should be added nearly $35,000 from auxiliary societies. The Women's Society of the Methodist Church has appropriated this year $71,000. The three Woman's Boards, acting as auxiliary to the women's societies. 57 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions, raised last year upwards of $126,000. The Baptist Woman's Foreign Societies contribute $65,000 annually. And there are many other movements along this line of christian activity, in the interest of both foreign and home evangelization. A few causes of anxiety, however, naturally suggest themselves ; and yet it is nothing more than right to frankly acknowl- edge that generally the theoretical difficulties have not appeared in practice. Perhaps, however, it is because largely they were so anticipated. Women have a very happy knack of avoiding difficulties which have been pointed out by men, and thus of illustrating to the men, that they are not after all such superior beings. But it is well to remember that it is not desirable for women's societies to occupy such a position with such resources, as that it shali come to be the men's society as the missionary agency for the male members of our churches, and the women's society as the mis- sionary agency for the female members. It was not the original intention to have any such division in the household of faith. It was distinctly proposed, — and therein is the charm and warrant of the whole move- ment, — that, without withdrawing contributions from the regular agencies, but the rather increasing them, chris- tian women, impressed with the special obligation of their sex to Christianity, and with the demand of degraded womanhood everywhere for the same uplifting power, band themselves together for special sacrifices to ensure more than all possible general efforts for the evangelization of women. Those,. who simply transfer their contributions to the treasuries of the women's movements, fall out of line of the beautiful and grand intention, that hat. received so many signal tokens of the divine approval. It is also desirable that the auxiliary character of these extra movements should be carefully retained. And the burden of this responsi- bility the sisters themselves should carry, for it places men in very embarrassed circumstances when they are obliged to be the monitors of any such suggestion. It 511 OBRISTIAN MISSIOKS. should not escape the minds of the women, that those many of their number, who are cominff to the front as custodians and counsellors of vast missionary interests, can hardly expect, with all their excellencies of judg- ment, to step at once into responsibilities for which many brethren have been in special training for many years. Then, too, when we consider the thorough cool judgment, that needs to be passed upon questions of qualification for appointment and of many details of the work upon the field ; and when we all remember, as we do with unspeakable gratitude to God who made our mothers and wives and sisters and daughters, with what lai^^er and more tender hearts he has endowed them, and how blessedly judgment and reason and experience are often swept away by the flood-tide of their affec- tions, we are convinced, that, while women can over- come difficulties better than men, men are better consti- tuted to avoid them, and that it will be wisdom for all woman's missionary Boards to act upon this principle in their relation to the Boards of the general agencies. Besides it is very desirable that this supplementary and adjunctive idea be impressed upon all the missionaries, who go out under the specially fostering care of the women's societies. These female missionaries find their largest sphere of usefulness by fitting right into the work of those sent out by the general societies. Inde- pendent antagonistic judgment will be most unfortunate and disastrous. The best guard against this evil is the prayerful and thoughtful maintenance at home on the part of all the women's societies of a heartily co-oper- ating, supplementary and. adjunctive relation to the general missionary societies or the Church. IMEBIOAN-OHmESE QUESTION. 58 CHAPTER IV. " A DAY AT THE CLIFFS." IHE CLIFFS " are the best place in the neighborhood of San Francisco both for those who want to get into the world, and for those who want to get out of it. Our latter suggestion has nothing to do with suicide, although for that purpose also there are lofty and precipitous rocks, quite con- veniently near to the immense shoals of sea-lions that flounder around and lazily sun themselves, and might be edified with such exhibition of human foolishness. It is the fashionable drive for San Francisco society, their Central Park, their Rotten Row, their Bois de Boulogne. But there are hours in the day when the drive and the beach are entirely deserted, and "The Cliffs" are the place in which to be left delightfully alone, with their weird aspect, their feet swept by the ceaseless rolling of the Pacific, their brows furrowed with the storms of centuries, and their arms holding open "the Golden Gate" to the commerce of the world. It is a better place for thought than ever the famous cliffs of Newport, or the Palisades of the Hudson. Here I invite my reader to sit down with me, for there are some other subjects of American and missionary in- terest we need to consider before embarking on our ocean voyage for the far-off empire of Japan. My mind is full of this American-Chinese question. We have found it the staple subject for conversation in both Nevada and California. I did not know that Americans could be so easily frightened, for certainly we have not met half as many Chinamen as we ex- eo OHBISTIAX MISSIONS. pected. There are no millions of them flooding this part of our hospitable country ; I doubt if there are many over a hundred thousand. They huddle together very thickly indeed in that p&xt of San Francisco called Chinatown, but elsewhere you only meet them here and there. They are very orderly and very m- dustrious. I called at the city prison, to see what proportion of law-breaking citizens were from the Flowery Kingdom, and found but two among seventy- five prisoners. Every Chinaman in the streets ap- peared decently dressed, even in his own exclusive quarter of the city. They pack together in that ward much too closely for their own health, or that of the sur- rounding population. But perhaps for this they are less to blame than the real estate holders and the voters of San Francisco. In their own country Chinamen are accustomed to crowd their dwelling accommodations very compactly, but then for only one or two stories, generally but for one, and that next to the ground, where nature can be so helpful in the disposal of filth. It is altogether American to make them go up so many flights of steps to find their pigeon-holes. If these fifteen to twenty thousand Mongolians were spread out in the suburbs in one-story cabins, they would be more at home and much more wholesome neighbors. Their habits are not cleanly. I heard of one who fell into water all over, accidentally, twelve years ago, and claims that because of the washing he has never been well since. Thv.^ say it gives them the "duza-tong." With their rough towels dipped in hot water they man- age, however, to keep their faces and hands in respect- able appearance, an accomplishment unknown to many others who reside in America. Still those towels are sometimes something dreadful. Entering an audience once of five hundred, one of them, according to custom, was handed me for use, but it probably had been all around the congregation before. Their meat-shops es- pecially are curiously uninviting. Strange arts are there practised with varieties of flesh and oils, but I have had delivered by first class American butchers fully as un- CHINESE IN AMERICA. 61 savory specimens in that line of eatables; the only difference was that I knew what it was that was spoiled. Their "demi-monde" are more modestly dressed, and behave themselves a great deal more decently than those of other nationalities in the streets of San Francisco. Their opium dens are dreadfully stupid, loathsome retreats for dissipation ; but I could stand them much better than some bar-roon^s in America. I know the low life of San Francisco very thoroughly. With a captain of the police force, who had been twenty years in service here, and with another officer of the law connected with the criminal court, as guides and pro- tectors, I searched this city's hells from bottom to top, and can bear some very positive and reliable testimony. Our Chinese immigrants do not know how to carry on wickedness so devilishly as Americans. There is an artlessness, a matter of course about their immoralities and gamblings and cruelties and dishonesties that places them several degrees above the shrewd, sneaking, hypo- critical manners of our con*esponding classes. It is sheer nonsense to talk so much of their corrupting our morals, or leading us into dissipation. Our de- graded and criminal classes will the rather corrupt them the more and plunge them into still lower dissipa- tions. Said an Asiatic to me with most emphatic bit- terness, " You have taught us crimes against ourselves and others we had never known, and perhaps might never have discovered." The special objection of Americans to Chinamen ap- pears to be that they work too cheaply. We are recon- ciled to their having been on hand to ensure construction of the great trans-continental railway. But now their direct competition with various American industries seems a cause for general dissatisfaction and alarm. I had a little experience of this largely advertised cheap labor. I tried Chinamen at washing, but I never paid such exorbitant prices outside of New York Broadway hotels. I had then mend me some steamer chairs, and the way they did manage to roll up the dollars on that bill of expense was a caution. It is evident they wi GHBISTIAN MISSIONS. know how to ayail themselves of the demands of the market. They are accustomed at home to ridiculously low wages, ten to twenty cents a day and board them- selves. When they first come to our country, thirty to forty cents a day seems worth the crossing of the Pacific. But the expenses of living soon exceed their expecta- tions, and they generally seem shrewd enough to cast about for more remunerative employment. I believe, if we give the Chinese a fair chance, assisting them with reasonable laws and public sentiment, they will adapt themselves quite sufficiently to our American institu- tions to make them a welcome factor in our varied population. The new treaty, giving to us the right to limit the number of immigrants, seems to me umieces- sary. The universal laws of labor and trade would have proved sufficient to keep the number within our borders at about the right proportion. There is too much of a tendency among our people to rush to legislation for the amelioration of all our own social, financial and political woes. Better fewer laws, and more faith in men, more confidence in the natural powers of assimilation and expulsion in society, more trust in the sovereignty of public opinion. The mightier currents of human life cannot be confined be- tween the banks of legislation. Like the vast gulf stream, they must have the boundless ocean for meir home. The Mississippi, the Yang-tsi and the Amazon are small rivulets to some of the enormous volumes of water that sweep directly onward, or move in be^vilder- ing circles within the Atlantic or the Pacific. And im- portant as are our laws for the repression of vice, and for the encouragement of temperance, and for both the intellectual and moral education of the people, and for the regulation of the currency of the country, and for the management of the enormous immigrations from many lands ; more important, and more to be trusted are the currents of public sentiment, of national con- science, of kinship feeling, of historical sympathy, of identified interest, and of religious conviction. Eight here Christian Missions have another cause for NEW TREATT WITH OHI^^A. ^ more congratulation, in the deciding influence they have been enabled to contribute toward the present solution of our Chinese question. It had become eminently desirable, that, if, in deference to the mistaken demands of that small section of our population living in California, Oregon and Nevada, the Burlingame treaty was to be supplemented by another, the work should be done as wisely as possible. To the experience and labors of our last legation were added the Scldt and impressive- ness of a new diplomatic delegation. In some respects the results aimed at by the former comported with the truest statesmanship, particularly in that they tinkered the least possible the old treaty, which was formed upon broad and lasting American principles, before the preju- dicing excitements and animosities of the present arose, and, preserving the restraints upon our easily tempted legislation, relegated the most possible of the elements of the problem to the solving influences of unwritten law. But more heroic treatment was decided upon by our government, aiid it became of incalculable moment that the patient should not sink under the experiment- ing operation. The negotiations, at first successful, commenced to drag, and then to prove thoroughly dis- couraging. The new minister and his associates b^«m to feel that their mission Was an utter f dlure. The grand point of difficulty was want of confidence on the part of the Chinese plenipotentiaries. It seemed to them that every American they consulted was an inter- ested party in pressing the treaty negotiations. They were not so unwilling to do what appeared to be asked, but they were suspicious of the men, as they are of all foreigners, and of their underlying motives. Distrust was settling back into characteristic Chinese inaction, when a little missionary incident changed the whole current of events, bringing about the execution of the treaty, and what, it is to be hoped, will prove the solu- tion of our Chinese problem. Two currents of missionary providence joined in the event, to which I .refer. A male medical missionary from the Independents or Congregationalists of £ng- 64 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. land had been stationed at Han Kow, six hundred miles up the Yang-Tsi-Kyang. A change seemed desirable ; and it was a question whether he should so to the north of China, or return home at once to England. Sundry providences decided him upon the former course, and he was located with his companion temporarily at Tientsin on the Peiho river. This great city is half of the year the official residence of the celebrated Li Hung Chang, the powerful viceroy of Chili. He is the leading Chinaman of the empire, the capital city of Peking bjeing within his province, his wealth being enormous, his arsenals turning out excellent weapons for war, the large China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company being under his presidency, and all his movements, since his conflict with the Taiping rebellion, having been apparently directed with great success toward the most perfect readiness for the succession to the throne, at the inevitable overthrow of the Tartar Manchu dynasty. Well, this viceroy's ivorite wife took sick, and was nigh to death. Every Chinese art was used for her recovery, but in vain. Li Hung Chang was strangely inconsolable. The thought came to him, — " Why not call in the foreign doctor ? It would be an awful innovation upon our aristocratic reserved cus- toms, but Lady Li's life might be saved." The mis- sionary was summoned in great state ; but after all he was not allowed to see her, and it was an impossibility to treat her successfully without a regular medical examination. So it was decided she had better die, than that the " fan qui tsu," the " foreign devil," be permitted to set his eyes on her. But the American Methodists had located a regularly educated woman missionary physician at Peking, a hundred miles away. Permission was given, that, if she should come, she might make a personal examination, and continue to act as intermediary and counsellor with the male mis- sionary physician. The long distance was traversed by the swiftest messengers, and our Methodist sister never went over a hundred miles on horseback at quicker pace. The efforts, which those medical missionaries MISSIONARIES IN DIPLOMAOT. 65 made with much prayer, were successful. Lady Li recovered, and the grand viceroy was delighted. His gratitude took immediate shape in the founding of the Tientsin hospital under the missionary's care and super- vision. His example, as expected, has proved wonder- fully contagious. It is proper, and even the fashion now among the upper classes, to confide in foreign medical skill. The women physicians especially have their hands full. This Peking doctress is of course at home in the viceroy's family. They are greatly at- tached to her, and she has their perfect confidence. " What do you think," said Li Hung Chang to her one day at the crisis of the .legotiations upon the treaty we have mentioned, — " What do you think of this new min- ister of your country to our court?" "He is one of the best men," slie replied, " in our country. I have his name upon my diploma. And he is one of my most highly esteemed friends." There is good reason to be- lieve that this providential conversation turned the tide in the distrust entertained toward our legation by the Chinese plenipotentiaries. To Christian Missions then must be given credit for very material assistance in the settlement of this great difficulty. I l)elieve that the missions of the church have paid, if we should simply cast up the aggregate of the help they have been to the statesmanship of civilization. Should India meet all the various evangelizing expenses among her vast popu- lations, she could not settle her obligation to the Ser- ampore missionaries. Should Burmah relieve entirely the burden upon the mission treasury, the political services of Adoniram Judson and of his heroic martyr- wife, Ann H. Judson, would not be requited. Political affairs are all at sea in South Africa because the counsel of the missionaries has been undervalued. At a meet- ing in London of the Geographical Society of Great Britain, I saw Sir Bartle Frere go to sleep while a mis- sionary was giving some of his convictions upon African commercial and political questions. It will not do for statesmen in our day to doze over the fact and secular utility of missions. None know the people as do the 66 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. missionaries. None are so thoroughly acquainted with their language, their modes of thought, and springs of action. None know how to treat with them on political questions so wisely, and with such likelihood of success. I have formed the acquaintance of a gentleman in San Francisco, who has greatly interested me on two ac- counts. He is a mining expert, and his wealth is an indication that he has been successful in his business. We were speaking of new territory to be developed in ^ gold and silver. " Did you ever visit such a part of the world?" he inquired. "Yes," I replied, "and it is the most dreary, uninviting country possible." "But," said he, " I have been there this year prospecting for some American and English capitalists, following out a few clews that are furnished in Bible hirtory, and I have rediscovered the richest gold mines of the world." He made me promise 1 would not reveal the secret. But is it not interesting to be possessed of it? Here it lies in my power beyond any question, of course, for a mining expert has spoken, to lead all my friends at once to untold wealth. All I would have to do would be to give them a hint as to the name of the stocks on which to put up their margins. Possibly I have it in my power to affect the California mining market more than Vanderbilt and Gould have to turn Wall street all topsy-turvy. Per- haps I could buy up all the three trans-continental rail- ways, and hold the biggest monopoly of the world. I might be able to distribute, not simply, like Asa Otis, one million, but lumps of five or ten millions around to all the missionary societies, home and foreign. Yet, there is this difficulty ; I am pledged to keep the secret. But, to come down out of cloud-land, where so many of these western speculators live, — their dupes ^are mostly in the East, — I really believe my secret is not worth five dollars. More money is lost than made in wild specu- lation, based upon just such unstable foundations. When will Americans, especially, learn wisdom? I be- lieve that one of the greatest loads, which our Chris- tianity has to carry at the present time, is this spirit DANOSRS OF SPECULATION. er , with re of litical d of n San ^o ac- ia an }ines8. led in of the is the ' But," ng for ^ out a and I Yorld." secret. Here it ?, for a at once to give 1 to put o affect ilt and Per- Ital rail- .rid. I itis, one id to all ft, there )t. But, lof these stly in .rth five specu- [dations. I? Ibe- Chris- lis spirit of speculation. Legitimate business, — legitimate both leffally and morally, — would not so deaden the spiritual life of our churches, nor so divert the attention from those great evangelizing opportunities which God has thrown wide open in our faces. Let any member of a christian churcn go into stock gambling, let the cards be marked gold, silver, iron, coal, cotton, real estate, or however else, and the chances are nine in ten that his religious light is extinguished, that the most of his influence henceforth is to be counted on the side of the world, and that the most difficult of all evangelizing tasks will be to check the momentum of his headlong career from God before it shall be too late. No news has grieved me more recently than that some of my most honored brethren in the ministry have allowed themselves to be drawn into a mining stock speculation, which has very plainly about it at the outset the fore- casting features of fivilurc. Much as I shall regret the loss to my clerical friends, I devoutly hope they will lose every dollar they have put up in this "wild cat" speculative gambling. If they should make, they would go on at other ventures, losing all the while their integ- rity of character and their spiritual power for the Lord's work. If they never get a dollar back, it will only l)e money that is gone, — a comparatively trifling consider- ation. In place, too, they will acquire some experience, that will help them to save others, and to unload our churches of their hindering weight of reckless specula- tion. I pray also that my friends may find their papet worthless very soon, for this strain of secular uncer- tainty and anxiety must be doing them and their >\prk incalculable harm. My new acquaintance proved interesting on account of another relation,' which he sustained in his earlier life. He was quite a military man among the local militia and irregular forces of pioneer California. At the time of the first serious troubles with the since notorious Modoc Indians of the Lava Beds, he held the office of colonel. His command was sent against these very savages. He surrounded them, and, after des- wmm ■m 68 CHRISTIAN mSSIONS. perate ngating, succeeded in slaughtering all their braves. His soldiers, he told me, were for " finishing the job," that is killing off all the women and children. "I did wrong," he said, "in restraining them, for all those wretches, who have since given our government so much trouble, were boys huddled up like frightened sheep in those wigwams." It did not occur to him that there was anything better than cold-blooded butchery, with which to prevent the Indian boys becoming fero- cious monsters as men. He was a tiiorough convert to General Sherman's principle, " that the only good In- dian is a dead one." But American Christianity is to be congratulated over the ascendancy which its princi- ples, as applicable to the Indian question, have secured. Justice, sympathy, beiiflficence are felt by the majority of cur countrymen to be equal to the task of restraining and elevating the natures of the few hundred thousand descendants of tiio aborigines of our country. These christian principles, w' en carried out consistently and perseveringly and with good judgment, have proved capable of corresponding achievements among very many other equally degraded and ferocious popula- tions ; why should they not here ? But to a large ex- tent they have here. It is that fact to which the people have begun to open their eyes. Long prose- cuted, arduous, sacrificing labors, on the part of many representatives from several of the branches of the Chris- tian Church, have begun to bear striking evidences of successful result, even as they did with Elliott at Rox- bury , the elder Edwards at Stockbridge, and Kirkland among the Oneidas. There are many thousands now of chrifitianized and thus civilized North American Indians, living in »'heir own permanent houses, cultivating their own ofter, very extensive faims, worshipping in their own sanctuarie3, supporting schools for their children, keep- ing the lavs of the land with great fidelity, restraining vice and crime in their several communities with exem- plary vigilance, and watching over their civil rights with ffreat intelligence and shrewdness. Of less than 300,- 000 of our Indian population 200,000 are now civilized. AMERICAN INDIANS. 69 and nearly 30,000 are members of christian churches. About 13,000 of their children are attending school, and nearly 44,000 Indians can now read. Their number of respectable dwellings has increased between 1868 and 1877 from 7,476 to 22,199. In the same period their 54,207 acres to 292,550; from 467,363 bushels to have multiplied in equal cultivation advanced from and their com products 4,656,952. Their cattle ratio. • People capable of such civilization do not deserve to be treated as wild animals. Up in Wyoming territory, as our trans-continental train stopped at one of those unpretending stations, I we.c out to hold conversation v/ith several frontiersmen upon the platform, who were dressed in buckskin from head to foot, and armed with the most approved rifles and revolvers. " Do you meet with any Indians around here?" "Oil, yes," they laughingly replied, as they patted their guns or their cartridge-boxes, " and we have frequent arguments with them." We need a sufficient army at the West to over- awe both the lawless frontiersmen and the lawless In- dians. Then if our home dci)ai"tment can keep faith with them all ; if it can deal with the Indians uniformly, in negotiation, treaty, and fulfilment, as if they had rights which white men are bound to respect ; and then if the Christian Churches, encouraged by results already so strikingly apparent, v/ill enter more vigorously into the evansrelization of our American Indians, I believe this part of our population would ere long prove a valuable element. Despite the savage cruelty to which they have often been driven by their own wicked natures and by the injustice and brutality of the white man, the red skins of our virgin plains and our primeval forests are a noble race. They possess elements of character, btauties of religious sentiment, features of language and possibilities for the future, that render it exceed- ingly undesirable that they should become extinct. And thby will not, if christian principles triumph in their behalf. We read in jmpers daily of horrible murders committed by Irish and Germans and PHPW" 111 ui.Jniifiiwii^npipiii^ <<«ip'VP^ipniinrniRippippnp^"^^ 70 CHBISTIAN MI8SION8. negroes ; but who proposes therefore the extermina- tion of these races ? Let every effort be made to re- deem our national record with the aboriginal tribes. Let us not forget Gnadenhutten and Shoenbrun, their Cawnpore, where we whites were the Sepoys. Let all possible support be given to the successful prosecution of the " peace policy." Let the churches reinforce their missions among them, remembering the example of Elliott, Brainerd, Kirkland, Worcester, Boudinot, Whitman, Spaulding, Byington, Gleason, Wright, Riggs and Williamson. Anid let many more and un- ceasing prayers ascend for all possible prosperity to Indian evangelization. It is very painful to reflect upon the general situation of the churches here in San Francisco and throughout California. They have had good opportunities, but have not improved them. Money here has been held in great abundance, and been distributed with lavish generosity. A large number of well-built sanctuaries, free of debt; various educational institutions under christian auspices, with all the material for the most effective work ; and different missionary organizations fully organized and thoroughly equipped ; these should be the inventory, but they are not. There is a five- million-dollars hotel, and a four-million-dollars city hall, and several re.sidences costing from one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand dollars, and there is lavish outlay everywhere ; but with rare exceptions the houses of God are dilapidated affairs, the ministry is meagrely supported, and the missionary treasunr is contracted to sadly insignificant proportions. If I am correct in my observations, the christians of California have been living too much for themselves, and therefore this blight from heaven has fallen upon them. They have gone upon the principle of having their churches and ministers and Sunday schools and societies all for themselves. They illustrate the Scripture, " There is that scattereth, and yot increaseth ; and there is that withholdoth more than is meet, and tendeth to poverty.** Tbrn Christianity of California has not been character- OALnrORNIA CHURCHES. 71 ized as missionary Christianity. Nowhere throughout our country, in the North at least, have such wide open doors for evangelizing activity among the neglected classes been left unentered. Churches in our day to be blessed must bless others. Would they be ministered unto with large congregations, with generous public support, and with all the indications of thrift and ag- gressive power, they must minister unto others. They must go out of themselves into the world to do work for Christ. For this, I know, some noble brethren here of both the ministry and laity are laboring. And it is to be prayerfully hoped that in thi^j direction also the wintei^s labors in co-operation with Messrs. Moody and Sankey may be greatly helped. fmmm 72 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. CHAPTER V. THE PACIFIC OCEAN. UR steamship is of the Oriental and Occi- ^ dental Line, an opposition to the Pacific Mail on the part of the Pacific Railway managers. Tliis powerful band of Ameri- can oa[)italists wanted more absolute control of the Japan and Cliina trade, and so, with " a dash of tlie pen, they contracted for three Atlantic steamships of the White Star Line, the "Oceanic," " Belgic," and " Gaelic." The latter, commanded by Captain Kidley, was the one in which we took passage for Yokohama, Japan. It was to l)e a five-thousand miles voyage, and yet the magnitude and apparent strength of the ship, together with the seemingly well- qualiHcd character of the oflicers and men, gave quite as much as the usual confidence at ocean embarkations. A large niuiibcr of friends gathered to give us our fare- well to our native land. We were pleased wuth the evidences that some of our efforts in Christ's name, even in San Francisco, were cordially received. The last paper was l)ouglit that would give us the news of the world fof nearly a mcmth. Bouquets of exquisite flow- ers were placed in our hands and in our state-room. All thai the kindest hearts could suggest of word and deed was furnished. A handful of postals, with last good-bvos, was handed ashore to be scattered over the eastern States. Just one step more beyond the gang- plank before it is drawn in, for, perhajis, never agam may my feet press their native land. The last word spoken with my highiy-esteemed friend, Rev. Dr. MEDLEY OF FASSENGEB8. 73 » A- , and we wore off. Soon the " Golden Gate ** closed upon us, and we were out on the Pacific. To the observant, pleasing and instructive incidents are occurring almost every day upon even the longest ocean voyages. A large steamship is quite a little world. Ours had a poi)uhition of about eight hundred souls. The government was a constitutional monarchy, as was quite proper under the British flag. We had a curious medley of passengers ; an Englishman, with caste enough to pass for a Brahmin ; a Londoner, who thought in his American bride he had skimmed off all the cream of our continent ; a Welshman, whose words were often as awkward in our mouths as forceps; a Scotchman, whose conversation wiis distilled metaphys- ics ; a British army officer, who was a perfect gentle- man and thoroughly cultured ; an American, who is making a fortune in New York by the sale of Japanese and Chinese curios ; a good-natured lady ; a young sprig, who smoked as much of Ixis father's money away as he could ; a Japanese nobleman returning to his home ; a Chinese mandarin, with the peculiar opium expression of countenance ; and iiicre were other chamcters of various stations and nationalities in our curious medley of passengers. But I was not so observant of them, nor had I the ability of my wife to pick up tho odds and ends of ocean bric-a-brac ; so for omissions here, as also at many other points of our two years' journey, I must refer the reader to ^Nlrs. Bainl)ridge's book, issued simultaneously with this, entitled : " Kound the World Letters." Two of the men, the princii)al a Shanghai steamship owner, frequently luiilod the most severe judgments at foreigii missionaries. They evidently felt like the Duke of Somerset, whom D'". Dull" 'juotcs as having said In Parliament that, " in the iiatun^ of the case, a mission- ary must be either a fool or ti knave, and })robably the latter." Their want of infonnati(m wjls plainly equalled by that of the captain of the Pacitic Mail steamship "Alaska," who inquinnl of Dr. Kllinwood, of the Amer- ican Presbyterian Board : " Tell me, honestly, do not m H OmtlSTIAK MISSIOHt. the missionaries in China all carry on some outside rculation in connection with their work ? " At times ir spirit seemed to be quite similar to that exhibited on one occasion by an American consul in Japan, who, having failed to persuade some missionaries to sell him a part of their compound, went to the troublo of posting up in several steamships such grossly libellous charges against the foreign mission work, that the American Minister felt called upon to publicly contradict the slanders of his subaltern. Occasionally we joined freely in the conversations, at first with the immediate purpose of correcting their errors and, at least, modify- ing their hostilities, but latterly with the hope only of counteractmg the bad influence they might have upon the other passengers at our table. Especially, I had a fatherly solicitude for my son. When they sneeringly described some of the beautiful dwellings of the mis- sionaries, which had been pointed out to them in their travels and residences abroad by envious merchants, I would assure them that the houses they had in mind were very exceptional, and that there were doubtless special explanations in every case, other than their pre- sumed missionary worldliness and hypocrisy. A few of our missionaries and their wives have been able to take with them of their own means enough to erect comfort- able and durable homes. Some of the missionaries of the Reformed Church in Japan were deprived of their meagre home support during the late war for the Union, and were compelled to take position in the Japanese government schools, and at the very time when extra^ ordinary salaries were being paid for English instruc- tion. With their savings under such enforced circum- stances, they were enabled to erect the best dwelling belonging to any missionaries, or any Mission Board m all the empire. It has been the wise ix)licy, whenever practicable, to build permanent structures. Often it has been necessary to combine, for want of funds, chapel and school and hospital and dwelling all in the same building, which would therefore be conspicuous for its Bise, and, to those ignorant of its uses, be liable to sug- OrOLONE IN CONVERSATION. 75 gest invidious comparisons. The average of salaries paid to the foreign laborers from all the denominations is scarcely a thousand dollars a year, and this when it* is found by them generally that many of the necessaries of life cost twofold and even threefold what they do at home. It is doubtless true that here and there during the years the cause proves to be misrepresented. The Boards, with all their prayerful care in examination of candidates for foreign work, occasionally make mistakes. I know of two well-authenticated cases of public scandal caused by the shameful conduct of regularly appointed ambassadors of the Gospel to heathen lands, — but only two can I recall among the thousand missionaries I have met abroad, and the multitudes of others seen at home, or whose names and laborious lives have been made to me more or less familiar through correspondence, his- tory and the religious press. But, after several conver- sations along the line of these and kindred thoughts, it was very plain that the old adage is true : " A man con- vinced against his will is of the same opinion still." It was also evident that the majonty at least of the others at the table had become somewhat fortified against the bitter prejudicing efforts of these two savage anti-mission phobiaists. For a few days nothing was said upon the well-worn subject, and I felt quite relieved and contented. But it was the calm preceding the storm, a storm of the most disastrous kind ever to be met on the waters, more or less profound, of social conversation. To the dinner-table one day my two antagonists came armed with a book. As their own testimony had been so often questioned, they would now have a more for- niidable weapon. Their spirits had evidently revived, and their eyes fairly flashed with eagerness for the an- ticipated feast of clerical discomfiture. "Have you ever seen this book by Rev. W. E. GriflSs, entitled 'The Mikado's Empire'?" " Oh, yes," I replied, "and read it some two years ago with great pleasure." "A capital book," interrupted the captain of our steamer; "it must be esteemed as by all odds thus far the best work 1 n iiipi mip* iipniji "^^PPiP? H CHRISTIAN lOSSIOKS. that has been written upon Japan. ** ** Permit me theD to ask you to read to us," continued the Shanghai mer- 'chant, '* ^he testimony you will find marked with pencil, and which bears so truthfully upon the subject we have been frequently discussing." With perfect confidence that he and his companion had fallen into their own trap, I at once complied, and began reading aloud the carefully pencilled testimony of authority, mat was to settle the whole question and overwhelm me with dis- comfiture. " Missionaries abound in Yokohama, engaged in the work of teachin*;^, and converting the natives to the various forms of the Christian religion. It is a little curious to note the difference in the sentiment concern- ing missionaries on different sides of the ocean. Coming from the atmosphere and influences of the Sunday- school, the church, and the various religious activi- ties, the missionary seems to most of us an exalted being, who deserves all honor, respect and sympathy. Arrived among the people in Asiatic ports, one learns, to his surprise, that the missionaries, as a class, are 'wife-beaters,' 'swearers,' * liars,' * cheats,' * hypocrites,* * defrauders,' 'speculators,' etc., etc. He is told that they occupy an abnormally low social plane, that they are held in contempt and open scorn by the 'mer- chants,' and by society generally." This was as far as was marked upon the page, and aa far as I had been requested to read. "There, sir," exclaimed the trium- phant Shanghai gentleman, "there, sir, is truthful tes- timony for you ; the statement of that author cannot be successfully contradicted." "Yes, indeed," echoed the other, " Mr. Griflas is right ; he has had his eyes opened ; he sees now how things really are." " Just a moment, gentlemen," I replied ; " you have in your eager haste neglected to read the immediate connec- tion ; and, if you will permit me, which English fair- ness to the author will ceilainly prompt you to do, I will complete the paragraph aloud." — " Certain news- papers even yet love nothing better than to catch any Strky slander or gossip concerning a man from whom ■IPWVIiRW mmm ^ kx^KDS FULL AT HOME." 77 there is no danger of gunpowder or cowhide. Old files of some of the newspapers remind mc of an entomo- logical collection, in which the specimens are impaled on pins, or the storehouse of that celebrated New Zea- land merchant who sold ^ canned missionaries.' Some of £he most lovely and lofty curves ever achieved by the nasal ornaments of pretty women arc seen when the threadbare topic of missionary scandal is introduced. The only act approaching to cannibalism is when the missionary is served up whole at the dinner-table, and his reputation devoured. The new-comer, thus sud- denly brought in contact with such new and startling opinions, usually either falls in with the fashion, ana adopts the opinions, — the foundation for which he has never examined, — or else sets to work to find out how much truth there is in the scandals. A fair and impar- tial investigation of facts usually results in the convic- tion that some people are very credulous and exces- sively gullible in believing falsehoods." A dead silence followed this reading of the unanticipated other naif of that paragraph. Never were two missionary-hating men more overwhelmingly confused. The book was requested around the table, that each might see for him- self if it really was so. Then, with my companion and son, there was a little prayer-meeting of thanksgiving in that corner starboard sttiteroom. No. 8. One of our passengers was enthusiastic upon home missions, but he did not know about sending so many missionaries and spending so nuicli money upon far-off heathen nations. In his own churcli he gave regularly, and to a considerable amount, for the running of the mission chapel, for the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion in his city, for local missions in his state, for the christian education of the freedmen, and for pioneer evangelization in the West; but there his sympathies and giving and doubtless his prayers also stopped. He was not in favor of undertaking other work, when our hands are already more than full at home. It was really painful to see a christian man of intelligence and generosity looking so selfishly upon all evangelizing mmm mmm^tmm ■ppi t8 GHBI8TIAN MISSIONS. enterprise. He wanted that mission chapel and that voung men's association to prosper, for they were in his own city, and he took great pride in anything, jmr- ticularly if it was christian, of local importance. He was greatly attached to his state ; had been born in one of its villages ; and would like to see a flourishing church in every town. He believed that the education of the negro was the only solution of our southern problem ; and, as he wanted his own country to live and become still greater and more glorious, he had eiven several hundred dollars to one of the frecdmcn's mstitutes. Crossing the Plains he often felt ashamed as an American, to see so many clusters of population without good church privileges. Beyond our shores there was nothing that was his ; no longer his city, his state, his country ; therefore Christianity had no special bearings that concerned him. Foreign missions ; what particular good could he or any of his ever derive from them? He did not say that much; nor was he fully conscious of enteilaining a principle so antagonistic to the whole spirit of Christianity. But to an observer it was very evident that there was a great deal of selfish- ness lurking in his religious thoughts and christian enterprises. He needs, as many others in America need, a larger measure of the spirit of the Master, •*who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.** It is the special benediction of foreign missions upon us, that they help us to get out of ourselves, to bi*eak away from always doing and praying about what shall directly or indirectly benefit us, and to come into closer fellowship with Him, Avho left his heaven and came to our earth, not to make heaven richer but to redeem a lost world. Missions to far-away lands pay, if only to render our home Christianity less selfish. There were two others of our passengers who seemed to have given a little sober thought to Christian missions. One of them had made up his mind that we had departed unwisely from the early church custom of sending forth self-supporting missionaries. He called my attention to ibe eighteenth chapter of The Acts of the Apostles, mmim mm mmmmm SBLFHBUFPORTINO LABOBEBfl. 79 where Paul's life of a year and six months at Corinth is described. Writing of his finding the home there of Aquila and PriscilTa, Luke adds — ''And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought : for by their occupation they were tentmaliers." Later on in the sacred record we learn that, to the elders of the Church of Ephesus, whom Paul had requested to meet him at Miletus, he was able to say — "I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears .... 1 kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house. Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Neverthe- less Paul could add to this testimony of a most exem- plary missionary life : "I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me." No doubt this earning of his own livelihood was a very interesting feature of the great apostle's ministry. A greater, however, than Paul, whose life was much more intended for our example, left the carpenter's bench, when he commenced his special evangelistic labors, and subsisted upon the hospitality and contributions of his friends. Paul was no ordinary man, but one of tremendous physical and mental energy. Those Englishmen, Carey, Marshman and Ward of the Serampore mission, were in these respects something like him. Very few could do as they did ; rely upon their own work for support, and yet at the same tuie engage in such vast and effective evangelizing Uibors. Paul was inspired to preach and write divine truth and to make his words an infallible standard for all time. But he was not empowered to be an infallible standard himself in all his examples and methods. His celibacy may Jmve been best for him under all his circumstances, but the lijstory of the Church has abundantly proved that at> an almost uniform rule ministers and male mis- sionaries should be married. Paul's work, as that also i -a IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) id. 1.0 I.I ■M |22 u lit >-25 IIU 1 1.6 ^ 6" ► v] vQ ^^ ^1 /A '^ 7 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. M580 (71(«) 873-4503 f 80 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. of his companion apostles and some others, was thorough, masterly and adapted to permanent results ; but we cannot study the subsequent history of those early churches, without feeling that there must have been some lack in their religious instruction. Forty years after Paul set the example of self-support at Corinth, we find that the Ephesian church had departed from its first love, that the church in Pergamos was countenancing amons: its members belief in the doctrines of Balaam and of the Nicolaitanes, that the church of Thyatira was encouraging social scandals among its members, that the church in Sardis had lost nearly all its spirituality and become a disgrace to the cause, and that the church of the Laodiceans was simply lukewarm. These no doubt were typical of the great majority of the Christian churches at the close of the first century. And, when we observe, notwithstanding the wonderful spread of Christianity during the subsequent two centuries, what lamentable weaknesses Averc manifested all along in the conflicts with heresies and with the world, and finally, that in the fourth century, the Church suffered almost an entire eclipse by the world, we are tempted to look for explanation somewhat in the Acry methods of that early Church. Would it not have been better for Paul and the other early founders to have arranged contributions from the churches suflScient, not only for the poor, but to enable their ministry and missionaries to give their undivided attention to the more thorough instruction and more potent leadership of their people? The history of the C^hurch and of its missions has shown abundantly that where ministers and missionaries have been so provided with support by others, that they could lay out all their strength upon the edification of the Church and the evangelizing of the world, the larg- est, the most permanent and the most effective results have followed. As society becomes more intelligent, its demands upon its ministry become more exacting. Their companion in the field or at the bench all through the week is not the one to be ready upon the Lord's day to give them their needed instruction. The papers and BRAIN AT ITS BEST. 81 books they read, mornings and evenings, are written by specialists, by those who have thrown all their intel- lectual strength into certain lines of inquiry ; and for such readers it would be a mental letting down to listen to preaching such as is usually produced by the method of non-support. And this demand, which is generally felt in oar home churches, is becoming to an extent potent ail over the world. Intellect everywhere is being quickened. The mental leaven is working, not only in our old settled communities, but even among western pioneers and southern freedmcn, even throughout Asia and Africa and South America and the furthermost islands of the sea. The demand is coming u[) rapidly to be everywhere for brain at its best. That must be furnished by the Christian Church through its ministers and missionaries, or the world Avill meet the demand with a godless supply. If it w^ould not be practicable in our day for the pastor of a church capa])le of his sup- port to meet the demands both of his own t ible and of his congregation, still more impracticable is it to send men to heathen or semi-christianized lands, where they have entirelv different languaires and social customs, and expect them to shift for themselves, and at the same time do their evangelizing work thoroughly and successfully. All this Christ appreciated and anticipated, and yet his directions were given mostly to those who sur- rounded him, and who were to work chiefly in the cir- cumstances amonj? which he left them. He commanded the twelve, and subsequently the seventy, "that they should provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in their purses," l)ut go, without undue solicitude about their support, into any city or town upon the line of their irlssion labors, inquire for some suitable i)Iace for hospitality and general religious conversation, and there, if welcomed, tarry unhesitatingly, " for the laborer is worthy of his hire." But Christ added : " Go not from house to house." He did not ask his servants to become beggars — travelling mendicants. His providence should go before them and ensure them places in which to live 82 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. anc^ labor. But there was a good deal that was excep- tional, in this mission, both of the twelve and of the seventy. They were all endowed with miracle-working power. They were enabled to heal the sick with a touch or a word, to tread on serpents and scorpions, to cast out devils, and the apostles, at least, to restore the dead to life. These gifts, adapted to the introductory work of Christianity, were evidently temporary. They were not granted, subsequently to the apostolic age, except possibly at widely separated periods of both space and time. If, then, the subsequent history of evangelization, particularly that of modern times, proves that where practicable, it is best not to send the messengers of the gospel unsupported, not to unduly tempt ministers and missionaries to over-anxiety con- cerning their livelihood, it is to be presumed that these specific directions of the Master were of a temporary character along with the miraculous gifts. Nothing in them is inconsistent with a fixed salary, provided with christian money, enabling a servant of God to hire and furnish his own house, and to live with a measure of independence. Before this better plan could be substi- tuted, from the resources of a large christian constit- uency, probably the faith of the early disciples proved inadequate to their mission. Like Peter upon the waters, desiring more to walk by sight, they generally sank, on the one hand, to a misuse of solicited hos- pitality, and on the other to a carrying on at the same time secular and religious employments. Certainly this is the result of niany, we believe of all, unnecessary experiments in the history of modern missions to apph' a method, which was the only one Christ could have adopted at first, with the purpose in his mind of com- missioning a mven number to devote all their time to evangelization. One of the greatest embarrassments to be met on both the home and foreign mission-fields to- day, is the often well-meant and pious, but headstrong and impracticable, eftbrt of christians to apply either Paul's exceptional example, or Christ's exceptional direc- tions to tlie twelve and seventy. It would be as great CHRIST GBUOIFIED THE POWER. 88 a calamity for evangelization to go back to either that partnership of secular and religious employment, or to that receiving only of support furnished on the field, as to return to the days of treading safely upon serpents and scorpions, of the healing of the sick, and of the raising of the dead. That other passenger was a Unitarian. The peculiar charm of his religious affiliations was, not that any special view was held about the person of Christ, but that re- ligious views generally were held so loosely. Chris- tianity with him was a matter of personal character, and no mere doctrinal opinions should stand in the way of bringing the world within the influence of the Lord's moral teachings and example. Indeed he could join hands with any ui)ward struggling soul, no matter w' it his creed, and say, "You are my brother." He believed that Christianity in America would never triumph until the prevailing orthodoxy was liberalized ; and that, as to the christianizing of the heathen world, it was altogether out of question, until we were ready to invite men to believe, not so much in formulated opinions, as in themselves, in their intellectual and moral powers, and in their capacity to assimilate all that is good and unique in the gospel of Jesus. To this Professor Christlieb has well replied, " If it be pro- posed to come to the assistance of our old faith with a modern science, which would seek to volatilize the facts of redemption, in order that, thus aided, it maybe able to cope with heathen culture, we must, without in any way undervaluing an intellectual christian training, take leave to maintain that, to give up the historical basis for the biblical doctrine of salvation, is to lessen and to weaken the ability of the gospel to i)roduce moral and spiritual results, and to dry up the inmost spring of its regenerating power. All belief in the omnipotence of education and culture is but the superstition and the glaring error of the present day. What pleases the spirit of the age will not^ on that account overcome the world; only that will which heals her dee[)est wound-, by imparting a new povfer of life and soul— no devi j of man, but the gift of God/* 84 CHRISTIAN HISSIOire. Yes, THE power of Christianity is what the world esteems to be its weakness. Our Unitarian fellow pas- senger belongs to a great multitude, which began at Jerusalem to surround the crucified Jesus, exclaiming, "Let Christ, the king of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see, and believe ! " But herein is the very power of God unto salvation. Here alone is found what, on both its Godward and its manward sides, meets the exigencies of the sinner's case. To be " liberal " with Christianity is to exercise the most qruel possible tyranny over the souls of men. It throws them bones without meat when they are starving. It invites them perishing with thirst to promised pools of refreshing water, that are only after all a deceptive mirage. But Christ crucified and risen again is win- ning multitudes all over the world. It would seem that the simple numerical successes of evangelization in our day would open the eyes of the "liberal" to the fair inference that no modification of the prevailing christian belief is needed for universal triumph. It does not in our time, even as it has not in former times, capture first the intellectual strongholds of a people. The plan is that of Paul, who received it from the spirit of God. "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called ; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise." The majority of mission converts are from the lower orders in society, "but," as the German author before quoted inquires, " has not the history of all mis- sions, ancient and modem, shown that the instinct of the people, in accepting the gospel, has ever anticipated the self-complacent ignorance of the wise and the learned?" The power of Christianity is not limited to the humbler classes, but for the greater glory of God it proceeds for its most practical working from them upward, not the reverse. The easiest thing in the world is intellectual pride, and God will not honor it. To the cross-uplifted Redeemer must the world look and live. Around the cross must the Church be rallied for universal conquest. And only beneath the THE LOBD's DAT. 85 shadow o^ the cross will be found those who have enough of the Master's self-denial and consecration to go to all the lowly and benighted throughout the world with the message of divine peace. But for the cross there would be no missionary enterprise to-day. Deny the cross and substitute a christianized culture, and before ten years all the thousands of missionary sta- tions would be abandoned in utter disappointment and despair. When our steamship crossed the 180th meridian of longitude, and it became necessary for the adjustment of the almanac to drop out a day, it was very painful to see the delight of many of the officers and passengers that the lost day proved to be a Sunday. On one of the other Lord's Days we were in such a heavy sea on account of the strong northwest gale, that it was impossible to have any religious services, at least in a manner befitting the stately ceremonialism of the Eng- lish Established Church. When the third Sunday came around many were the anxious glances at the weather for sufficient excuse again to omit the religious services. But the water would be calm, and the wind would hardly stir ; and so the bell had to be rung, the congre- gation assembled, the sei'vice read, and, as requested by the captain, I endeavored to preach of Him who is Lord of the Sabbath-day. The Christian Church can- not affijrd to lose its hold upon the sacredness of the Lord's Day. The laxity of Europe is a leading element in the weakness of its Christianity. And the growing secularization of the Sabbath in Great Britain and America is proving of incalculable harm to the spiritual life of the churches, and a tremendous drag upon their evangelizing efficiency throughout the world. It is hopeful that there is beginning to be a general awaken- ing upon this subject. The enemy has been sowing many tares while we have been asleep. The sentiment and habits at sea are borrowed from the home land. It is a cause for thanksgiving that, with very rare excep- tions, the missionary body entertains neither in theory nor practice secularized views of the Lord's day. They 86 CHRISTIAN BnSSIONS. believe in hallowing it themselves, and in teaching the converts to set its seventh time of the week apart for religious devotions and deeds of mercy. On both God's word and the showing of results the old Puri- tans were nearer right than Europe. •^ -t :.-WS MID-OCEAN. 87 CHAPTER VI. SANDWICH ISLANDS, ALASKA AND SIBERIA. WENTY-FIVE hiiiidred miles from cither shore. Almost Jin Atlantic ocean rolling between us, whether we look aft toward America, or forward toward Asia. Not a steamship has crossed our track ; not a sail of any kind has ho\'e in si_!j:ht. It is too far for the birds to fly. Our ship is nuicli lighter than when she steamed out of San Francisco harbor, for a thousand tons of coal arc gone. Yes, and seven lives also are gone from the steerage up to the final accoiuit. They were Chinamen, and their bodies are not l)uricd at sea. Forty dollars each settled the 1)111 with the ship doctor, and he embalmed them, so that they could resist putrefaction till the end of the voyage, and be buried in their own native soil. On account of this none of the common sailors showed any signs of superstition and uneasiness, to say nothing of rebellion against authority. I believe that in our day there is a great deal of deception practised by officials in charge of ocean transportation upon the friends of deceased pas- sengers and of those who die far away from home. The old superstitions of the connnon sailors, which have vanished mostly with the increase of intelligence, are used heartlessly, simply to avoid inconvenience or to ex- tort bribes. A few bottles of carbolic acid in every ship, and a little instruction from some undertaker to one or two of the officers, and there is no good reason why burial at sea should not be a thing of the past. Sometimes I think I would prefer the water and the fish to the ground and the worais. The Hindu prefers fire ; 88 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. the Parsee the talons and the stomach of the vulture. Perhaj)s the chief thing is to be free to exercise prefer- ences regarding the future disposal of one's own body, or of those of deceased friends. In this vast solitude, the Avater of unknown depths, the sky and its myriad lights seemingly farther off, each of the continental shores too remote for our life-boats ever to rejich should we be sliij)wrecked, it is a little comforting to think that to the soutliward only a thou- sand miles away are the Sandwich Islands, and that to the northward only another thousand miles away is that strange network of the archipelago which almost unites Alaska and 8il)cria. These, then, arc our nearest neigh- bors to-day, and our missionjiry thoughts may reach out toward them, their mission history, or their present op- portunities and profsi)(M'ts for evangelization. But the cai)tain interrupts me in these reflections, and our con- versation takes a religious turn, upon the suggestion that my mind had just l)een pondering over some of the problems of the mission work. "We, who are officers,'* he said, " are seldom led into religious con- vex ' ' IS designed for our benefit. Something, though far c little, is done by christians for the common sailors, but the many thousands of officers get very little real pious attention. Quite likely now through you God is answering part of the many prayers of my good christian wife over in Liverpool." It gave re- newed interest to a well-known story, to learn that his wife was the daughter of that captain who was " so near home, but lost ! " She well remembered it, for it was the event of her childhood. Her father had been absent some months upon a long voyage, but was reported at last close off the mouth of the Mersey. The mother and child hastened to provide a welcoming feast. All the best things in the house were placed upon the table. The great armchair was drawn up to papa's place. The study-gown and slippers were brought from the closet. All the lamps were lit to make the greeting bri"ht and cordial. A knock at the door. He is there. No ; a messenger to announce the ship has run aground, . OCEAN READING. 89 been wrecked, and all on board have perished. " So near home," exelainHHl the hearthrokcn wife in words which have eclioed around the world in christian warn- ings and exhortations : " So near home, but h)st ! " It was a surprise and a i)k'asure to tind some good missionary literature in tlie little library belonging on board. Tiiere was the full re})ort of the late Shanghai conference neatly bound. I devoured it all with eager- ness, and often left it down on the tables that others might be tempted to read. It would be a good thing for all our missionary societies to send regularly their annual reports and other publications to the care of captains of ocean steamships. Tlic^y would generally be placed innnediately in the ship's library along with the Bible and prayer-books and novels, and they would be read more frc(]ucntly and thoroughly than in any other place in the world. One hungry reader amon^ our passengers had been goinif over and over an old New York daily })ai)er, devouring advertisements and all, until 1 took pity on him and handed him an admir- able little book, written by Kev. Dr. Ellinwood of the American Presbyterian Board, and gathering up some of the missionary impressions he formed in oriental lands. The grateful man read every word of it, though under other circumstjuices it avouUI probably have been an im- possible task. Of such circumstances the Christian Church should avail itself. We open our reading-rooms with their religious books and papers, but almost en- tirely neglect the hundreds of thousands upon the sea, who have much more time juid readiness to read what we have Avritten about the salvation of Christ, and the work of making it known throughout the world. It occurs to me here to o1)serve also that Sunday school libraries everywhere should have a large department for well-selected missionary literature. An under oflficer accosted me, a few minutes after the above-mentioned conversation with the captain, and said: "You would not recognize me, but a few weeks ago I heard you preach in San Francisco. You gave me just the truth I needed. It has done me great good ; \' OHBISTIAN inSSIOI^S. and I want to thank you." Unlooked-for fruit. How much of it the Lord has growing and ripening for all who try to serve him faithfully. There is cheer in see- ing what we endeavor to do accomplished. But there comes to the soul a peculiar charm of satisfaction, when results to God's glory are achieved, through our poor, imperfect instrumentality indeed, and yet to our perfect surprise. The heavenly Father's surprises to his chil- dren, — how glad he is to give them ; how glad we are to receive them. And to both what a special relish is added because of their element of surprise. It was so in all our homes last Christmas. Those great bundles in heavy coarse wrapping-paper, and tied with ugly strings, up on the shelves, waiting the coming evening and the candle-lit tree and the completion of all our arrangements for Christmas eve ; it would have been most unkind both to parents and children for anyone to have come in and cut those strings and torn open those wrapping-papers, and disclosed beforehand those cherished secrets, that were to be the coming glad sur- prises to our sons and daughters. Who would deny to Heavenly Love like opportunities of giving? Who would deprive human hearts of the special charm of divine surprise? Indeed all our Father's ways are best, and we appreciate it the more we understand them. Six hundred Chinese on board returning from America to their homes. Many of them speak English, and I cannot resist the temptation to enter into religious con- versation with some of them. But it was the most discouraging missionary work I ever attempted. No favorable impression at all was apparent. They gave me to understand that they had been in America a long time, knew all about christians, and did not believe their religion as good as their own. "Christians all cheat and oppress Chinamen. They think Chinamen no better than pigs ; with no rights in society or busi- ness, or government. Our gods teach us better. In our classics we read good morals. Christians better go to our joss-houses.'* "Are you a christian joss-man, " SANDWICH ISLAinM. •i inquired one of them. Remembering that they derived this, quite modern word to them, through the Portu- guese corruption of the Latin deus, god, I replied, " Yes, I trust I am a * joss-nian,' a truly God-like man ; at least there are multitudes of them, who would give you a very different imnrcssion of Christianity." But it was painfully evident that they had neglected their opportunities with these Chinamen during the last few years. To me it is the most serious part of this Chinese question in America, that tens of thousands of these Mongolians are yearly going back to Asia's teeming millions, to tell them they icnow all nhoxii Christianity ; and that it teaches men to be more proud and selfish and tyrannical than Buddhism ov Taouism or Confu- cianism. If we could only keep tht m here, and inter- cept all their correspondence home, and finally bury them in our own soil, it would be far easier work for our missionaries in China. Little beginnings have been made to counteract such harmful impressions. Several small chapels and schools have been opened in San Francisco, and at other points. Quite a number of churches in the East also arrange for Chinese classes in their Sunday schools ; thus in the Beneficent Congrega- tionalist Church of Providence, and in the Trinity Bap- tist Church of New York city. Some disheartening experiences have been met, but the majority of the reports are encouraging. The chapel work I visited in California is being wisely conducted, and is receiving numerous tokens of God's signal favor. American christians should increase their labors in these directions many, many fold, and that immediately. Delay will result in one of our gftatest embarrassments to the evangelization of China. The Sandwich Islands sixty years ago became a mis- sion field under the direction of the American Board. Many besides Congregationalists and Presbyterians have read with grateful interest of that scene in Boston, when Messrs. Brigham, Thurston and others first set sail for this central Pacific work. Of the possibly one hundred thousand population of those islands, not all indeed, not ■ ! d$ CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. even one-half, are church communicants, and yet as we judge of our own and other so-called Christian nations, so far, almost a score of years now, this Pacific group has been entithd to the name of a Protestant Christian country. Several years ago the American Board sig- nalled this glorious fact by erasing the mission from their list, and transferring all responsibility to the Hawaiian I^vangelical Association. It has been found necessary since, however, to extend more counsel and assistance to the islanders in the prosecution of their home and foreign work than was hoped in the outset of this experiment. But it has been a very valuable one to the cause of missions everywhere. God was in it. It takes generations for a converted people to become strong enough, under the ordinary operations of divine grace, to stand independently. When a heathen com- munity is christianized, the care of the missionaries is not finished ; their work is hardly half done. The new- born church life has to develop, the bones to toughen, the sinews to harden, jind the stature and vigor to be gained of manhood in Christ Jesus. The churches must not be impatient with their missionaries. The Boards nmst not be pressed to unload the responsibilities of many years. Both to conserve the interests of evange- lization in the Sandwich Islands themselves, and also to make avail of their advantageous position as the head- quarters for the large proportion of all the mission work throughout Micronesia, the American Board, in co-op- eration with the Board of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, sustains the North Pacific Institute at Honolulu, under the charge of Rev. Dr. C. M. Hyde. It is furnishing an educate ' / .•.'. *«i^^ fi'V '^r^^ vA'^k ■ rx / ■'i . n ^^ B K 1— 'y.yijJnt^swtpMi CHINA AND JABUN^] AND JABUN^MSSn)^. PofudaJionA Ckina ^oaooaooo. JVb.ofMissioh uter 3Sj. LA Protestant Missions. BHHsh American, « A. Gernuuv G. TreaitfPoris • Marffartf€utdJlffOiuihi/ Tours ♦♦♦♦♦••>♦♦• Xnmlishf F^^^^^F^^"^^ Milea ^ 5o o Sa M*ise2ooU0 IXT 125' 130' it 135' :;-iWt^AA^^•rrwBr^^Tn7rl•^fi:^;;^i^;r^ Vsa^S X >t^-'^ \w » mai ' ^Gai * sr4 mmm m m »m iti» mw m ■ 4 *'"' i j j'^iftJ :;<>*.■ ..^»«^ .^e H p,.iA>A I ■•^'t =♦ e.rt^ ^ S ... '«» \KS| .a A .0- „.,- * ,■' ■ ■ ,.v ... ,^\T.\'VWV\'>\ •wiViV »iiT,,'J t»tV vj'W^ toU\ !,.?, tt f.?, •MMWaNWMllMiMMMH Iwfc-^.— i-^. ~i w WI» j '^' -^ -**■- ^ ■ ' ' '^ ^ * *» «i 5 TOKIO. 103 r'A.v, •- bitions, keeping up a constant interchange of neighborly hospitalities, impatient for the use of the telephone beneath the ocean's waves, and bringing to our very doors the evangelization of all mankind. If we include the Loochoo, Majico and Sima Islands, stretching down close to Formosa, as a part of the Mikado's empire, Japan is a long cluster of islands, mostly four, reaching from about 45" latitude North, in a southwesterly direction to the 24th parallel. The census taken in September, 1878, gives the popuhition of the country as 34,338,404, and of Tokio, the c'ai)ital, as 1,036,771. Yezo, the most northerly of the four principal islands, is somewhat larger than Ireland, but contains a very sparse population, not probably to ex- ceed 200,000. Of these there are about 30,000 Ainos, the representatives of the aboriginal race of Japan, sub- jugated by the first Mikados. They are a very distinct people, both in features and language, not only from the Japanese, but also from the Coreans, Chinese, Mongols, Manchus, and Tibetans. It is surmised that they are of Aryan stock, and somewhat closely related to the Sla- vonic family. Their language has some resemblance to the Esquimaux. Matsumai, with some 50,000 popula- tion is the metropolis of Yezo, but Hakodati, with (5,000, on the shore of a beautiful bay, is the only treaty port which has been opened to foreigners. Directly across the Tsugaru Strait from Matsumai is the principal island of the empire, generally known to foreigners as Nipp6n. This name, however, with or without the prefix Dai, CTeat, is used by the Japanese themselves generally to designate the whole empire, even as the English use Britain or Great Britain. The capital, Tokio, is sit- uated at the head of the Yedo bay, covers thirty-six square miles, is diversified and ornamented by a num- ber of grandly wooded and temple-covered hills, and contains in its heart a quarter, perhaps, of the city, walled off for the exclusive use of royalty, and called the Shiro, or "The Castle." The river Ogawa flows through the city, over which is the celebrated bridge of Japan, from which all distances throughout the empire j 104 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. are reckoned. The main street of Tokio crosses this bridge, and is twelve miles in length. Much ground is occupied in different parts of the city by the great houses, barrack-looking structures, where long dwelt the overthrown Daimiyos, surrounded by their multi- tudinous retainers, the two-s worded Samurai. The Mikado and his wife occupy a quite Europeanized palace of moderate pretensions toward the Western suburb. Almost due West from Tokio two hundred miles is Kiyoto, a city of 374,496 population, and which is to Japan what Moscow is to Russia, and what Rome is to Italy. It has one thousand Buddhist temples, and was the residence of the Mikados from A. D. 794 to 1868. Though according to the census of 1872 Kiyoto was the second city of the empire, I am quite confident that Osaka, thirty-tliree miles distant, and nearer the waters of the inland sea, has by this time far outstripped the sacred capital in population. It does not appear much behind Tokio, with its million and more. The river Ajikawa flows through Osaka, curiously divided at that point into a number of branches, which with the net- work of intersecting canals and the numerous pictu- resque bridges have suggested to many the appropriate title of the Venice of the East. Osaka is for inland native business the commercial capital of the empire. There is the Wall Street of Japan, with its crowds of bulls and bears. The best informed people have as- sured me that seven-tenths of the wealth of the nation is controlled in Osaka. There is the great mint, second only to the American at Philadelphia, and which has already coined, within a dozen years, nearly one hun- dred millions of dollars. Here, too, is a celebrated castle, in whose massive walls I saw great stones, sur- passed only in all the world by the mammoth blocks in the gigantic masonry at Baalbec, Syria. The districts in the vicinity, reaching up along both the eastern and western shores of Lake Biwa, are densely populated, making it very easy for the traveller at this point to believe the general census statistics. JAPAN HISTORY. 105 The fourth city of the empire is Nagoya, upon a large central eastern bay, as also upon the celebrated To- kaido, or imperial highway, joining the political and ecclesiastical capitals. Niigata is the only open port upon the west coast of the main island. It is the capital of the rich province of Echigo, and is the port for the populous island of Sado, a few miles off the shore. The missionary of the English Church Mission Society has here a parish of fifteen hundred thousand souls. The island of Kiushiu, on which is situated the well-known treaty port of Nagasaki, ranks next to NippSn. Here is the province of Satsuma, at whose capital Kagoshima, then Cangoxima, the famous Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier landed in 1549. This prov- ince was the centre of the late rebellion, which required for its overthrow the lives of sixty thousand of the Mikado's troops and an immense addition to the national debt. Nearer to Nagasaki is Shimabara, where thirty thousand of the Roman Catholic converts were mas- sacred in 1637, and had over their common grave inscribed by their revengeful fellow-countrymen, — " So long as the sun shall warm the earth, let no Chris- tian be so bold as to come to Japan." The fourth prin- cipal island is Shikoku. The natural division of Japan history is into three periods. The first period is from the earliest times to the middle of our own twelfth century. The date is given as 660 B. C, when the first Mikado, or emperor, named Jimmu, like his cotemporary, the great Assyrij'n king Assurbanipal, claiming to be the son of a goddess, came down in a boat from the skies, and with his re- tainers conquered the country from the Ainos. Among the mythical there is probably here a substance for history. The Japanese claim that their royal succession was unbroken during all these eighteen centuries, amid the ambitions of regents, the jealousies of the Dai- miyos, and the warlike spirit of the Samurai. A great change in the government, however, occurred about A. D. 1143, when one of the Daimiyos of the royal family, having been crushing for his master some of the 1 ! loe CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. other nobles, turned upon the imperial power with his victorious troops, making himself the political king, and leaving to the Mikado only ecclesiastical authority. This Yoritomo assumed the title of Shogun, which his successors carried for more than seven centuries. The Shogun at first resided at Kamakura, near by where is at present the remarkable statue of Dai Butsu or Great Buddha ; afterwards he removed to Yedo, the present Tokio, while all the time the Mikados continued to re- side in Tokio, invisible to mortal eyes and revered as a god. It was during this period that Taiko Sama, who matured the system of the Shogunate, and his successor Gongen Sama, by the most dreadful persecutions and butcheries extinguished Roman Catholicism from the land. It was practically so for political purposes, but the Catholic Bishop of Osaka told me that he had dis- covered nearly two thousand professed christians, mostly in the vicinity of Nagasaki, who date back their ancestry and religion to the remnant of converts of Francis Xavier, saved from the banishment edict of June, 1587, and the massacre of 1637. Roman Catholic political intrigue is to blame for the exclusive policy which Japan maintained for more than two centuries. Previously the Japanese had shown themselves quite willing that foreigners should not only trade with them, but even take up their residence per- manently within their borders. They had sent an embassy of three princes to Pope Gregory XIII. con- veying letters and costly gifts. But, when they learned that Rome meant more than spiritual influence, and was interfering with their political affairs, they resolved to strangle the giant revolution in its infancy, and they did. Their cruelties were horrible. The butchered thousands no doubt largely deserve a place in the glo- rious martjn'ology of the Christian Universal Church, yet there was much to justify the Japanese government then and in their subsequent policy. Their exclusion was maintained without any exception, save in the case of a few Dutch merchants strictly confined to the small island of Deshima in the harbor of Nagasaki, until 1854, THE LATE REVOLUTION. 107 which marks the beginning of the third period of Japan history, when Commodore Perry of the United States navy forced a treaty with the Japanese, breaking for the first time these national barriers of absolute exclusion. European nations followed up the advan- tage, and in 1858 Lord Elgin of Great Britain secured the opening of six ports for trade with consular facili- ties, as also the right of legation at the capital. The Shogun was represented by the negotiating Dai- miyos to the Ameiicans and Europeans as the Tycoon, or more correctly Taikun. It was a coined word, with which the Japanese were not at .nil familiar, from two Chinese words, meaning gi^eat and lord. The game was double. The nobles had two purposes in view. For a long time there had been much dissatisfaction with the Shogunate, and many of the Daimiyos desired to use the foreigners to compromise the Shogun, to weaken his power, and ultimately overthrow him in the interest of temporal power to the Mikado. On the other hand they were strongly opposed to the treaties, thoroughly believed in a strictly excluding policy, and fondly hoped that avoiding the Shogiin's name would secure an available flaw in the treaties whenever they should be in a situation to successfully contest them. The Shogun was murdered, nnd his successor pressed to abdication. The assassination of several foreigners, including the secretary of the United States legation, brought stern military influence to bear from without, and the Japanese were compelled to recognize that, in this commercial age of universal intercourse, foreigners had rights upon their coasts and within their ports at least, and that the foreigners were bound to enforce them. The pressure showed them their weakness, and the necessity of consolidated national power. Therefore in 1868 the Shogun abdicated ; the Daimiyos surren- dered their feudal rights ; .and the Mikado became again the real Emperor. Perhaps half of the probably two hundred million dollars' debt, accumulated against the Japanese treasury during the last twelve years, has been in settlement by way of necessarily liberal pensions 108 OHBISTIAN BfISSIONfi« with many of these Daimiyos, but particularly with ^be eighty thousand at least of the Samurai who were com- pelled to lay aside their swords and give place to a regularly disciplined army, modelled after European patterns. Both the literature and the religion of the Japanese are complicated. They have borrowed an immense number of the Chinese symbolic signs to represent the words of their own language ; and then they have in- vented their own alphabet of phonetic symbols, com- prising forty-seven letters. So they have two written languages ; the one hieroglyphic, for the educated classes, and the other made up of very simple letters and simple spelling, which only the very common people will condescend to notice. The patriotic relig- ion of the people is Shintooism. It is the oldest religion of Japan, Buddhism not having been introduced into the country until the fifth century of the Christian era, or more than a thousand years after the Mikado's religio-political dynasty began. The entrance of the new religion was probably from China by way of Corea. Shintooism has no idols of stone or wood, but deifies the ruling dynasty with its military and civil heroes, and proffers adoration to the sun as the goddess from whom their Mikado descended. As has been said, — " Shintooism, indeed, like the corrupt worship of other ancient Oriental nations, may probably be traced back, in its ultimate analysis, to two roots or principles — the deification of ancestors or national leaders, and ven- eration of the powers of nature." I was very forcibly impressed, subsequently, upon a visit to the imperial altar of heaven at Peking, China, with the similarity of the principles involved to those of Shintooism. The Mikado himself worships also in Buddhist temples. The hold of Buddhism upon so large a population of the Japanese is more difficult to account for than the similar phenomenon in countries previously afilicted »vith Hinduism. But the multitudes probably feel that even its dreary light upon the future is better than nothing. When the Japanese are patriotically or poli1>- TINSETTLrNG OP THE OLD FAITHS. 109 ically religious they go to the Shintoo temples. Their Scholasticism expends itself in devout contemplation of the Confucian classics as the foreign oracles of the pro- foundest wisdom. And their longings to know some- thing of the beyond induces all, I am persuaded, more or less to pay their devotions at the shrines of Buddha. There are many signs of the thorough unsettling of the popular faith in Japan in all these old ancestral creeds. I have been in many Shintoo temples, some of them very neat and ekborate establishments, but generally I was almost alone, and never met a crowd except upon a special festival occasion. Confucian temples are very rare. And, though there is undoubt- edly in progress a strong effort at Buddhistic revival on the part of the leaders in the priesthood at least, it has been very evident to me that, with the exception of a few popular temples, possessing reputation for ex- traordinary sanctity, the masses of the people are not flocking to them as in the years gone by. Those, whom I have seen at Buddhistic temples are generally of the poorer, more ignorant classes, those least affected by the important political and social changes since 1868. The views being freely set forth in the widely circulated Japanese press ; the instruction which is being encour- aged particularly in the higher schools ; and the com- parative freedom allowed to evangelizing efforts and to the public profession of conversion, all indicate that the hold of the old faiths is very weak upon the popula- tions, and that the time is specially opportune for evan- gelizing work among the Japanese. The greatly alarm- ing fact is that infidelity and free religion are making vast inroads among the educated classes. The out- side world is far from being awake yet to a realiza- tion of the extent of these educated classes. There are twenty-five thousand well-taught common schools throughout the empire, with an average daily attendance of 1,500,000. Then there are multitudes of high schools and special schools with over 20,000 pupils, and there are two universities of very advanced and thorough training. The oldest is in Tokio, with eight ■P 110 CHEI8TIAN MISSIONS. hundred students, and the other, v/i'th half as many, is at Osaka. One day at the Kai-Sai-Gaku, or Tokio Imperial University, I was examining the mineralogical cabinet, when, in the presence of several of the native pro- fessors and students, a foreign professor of the insti- tution sprung upon me the strongest possible assertions of materialism and atheism. Among tlie most inter- ested listeners was the assistant director, a Japanese gentleman of thorough classical culture, who has since been appointed president of the Osaka Imperial Uni- versity. The American professor, with most courteous manner and language, yet with spirit most bitter against Christianity and i)ainful to the heart of belief, declared that science denies the existence of God, resolves every- thing to matter and its necessary laws, and that Chris- tianity was a vast humbug. — he knew all about it; he had tried it ; been a christian himself, and could affirm upon his honor that there was nothing in it after all but ignorance, superstition, self-dece[)tion, and the decep- tion of others to the unha})piness of the individual, and to the serious interference with the progress of society. I told him that if President Lincoln had heard him make such a statement, he would quite probably have been reminded of some little story, similar to one I had heard a few years ago in the state of Missouri. There was a backwoodsman in Arkansas, who had always slept upon the floor of his cal)in, a block of wood with his coat or some other garment wrapt around it for his only pillow. Neighbors and visitors often urged him to get a feather pillow, assuring him that it would give him a vast deal more of comfort and of rest. Finally he yielded to their solicitations, and sent an order, accom- panied with a postage-stamp, to St. Louis, to a largely advertised furnishing house, requesting by return of mail a single feather. He put it without anything else on his stick of wood, and down went his head on it with a bump for a night's repose. But he saw no advantage in it at all. Over and over he rolled his uneasy head upon that single feather, but no comfort, INFroELITY AND MATERIALISM. Ill no rest, no satisfaction. Finally about midnight he gave up his " experience," took the insignificant feather and threw it out of the window, and ever afterwards de- clared that feather pillows were a humbug; he knew all about them ; he had tried them. The professor of materialism invited me to his house to dine that evening. Two other foreign professors of the university also received invitations. They were alike materialists and atheists. The whole entertain- ment was delightfully hospitable. The manners of the hostess were charming. The tact and good nature of the host were remarkable through various lines of earnest conversation upon the leading assumptions of materialism and the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. This personal contact with three leading instructors of the university, who are largely moulding the minds of thousands of the choicest young men of Japan, led me to realize that the grand difficulty, which Christian Mis- sions are in the future to encounter among the Japanese, is not in the old heathen faiths, but the unsettlement of all religious faith ; not such persecution as culminated in the cruelties and horrible tortures of Shimabara, but the intolerance of false science ; not the unwillingness of the people to be taught by our missionaries, but the greater number and often the greater activity and tact of the teach- ers of error to prejudice the mind of Japan against Chris- tianity. Throughout the Empire of the Rising Sun, Satan is rapidly throwing off the black garb of gross idolatries and heathen superstitions, and arraying him- self as an angel of light. To the Japanese he presents a microscope as the solution of the universe. He sets at ease their consciences T)y obliterating moral distinc- tions. He allays the anxieties for the future life by demonstrating its absurdit3^ This is the roaring lion, going about Japan to-day, seeking whom he may devour. And he is devouring^ multitudes. I noticed in the Tokio public library no department so well supplied as that with infidel and materialistic literature. The daily and weekly press indicates a strong popular tide in this direc- tion. Among the high official and educated classes it ' I 112 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. is quite the fashion to speak disparagingly of Christian institutions. A trip of a week to Nikko, nearly a hundred miles to the north of Tokio, is quite necessary to the tourist, if he would become personally acquainted with Japan. We found a tolerable stage three-fourths of the distance, while the remaining miles were gone over very easily in a jin-riki-sha, or large ba])}-carriage, drawn by one man, and pushed by another. This mode of conveyance is very common in Japan, one coolie, however, generally sufficing. The expense is only from four to seven cents a mile. All the distance is on a magnificently shaded avenue. There is a row on either side of ancient pines and cryptomerias. Near Nikko a late typhoon had destroyed many of these monuments of the glorious Tokogawa dynasty of Shoguns. Just above this small city are the most sacred shrines of Japan. No temples are so gorgeous in all the empire. The display of carving in wood, of gilding and of lacquer-work is very grand and beautiful. Here are the resting-places of those great kings lyeyusu and lyemitsu, who prepared their tombs and adjoining temples to be fit monuments to their glorious reigns. Buddhist priests have them in charge, for even a Shintoo god wants the light of Buddhism into the darkness of the future. Most of the distance from Tokio is over a level plain, thoroughly cultivated, and wonderfully productive of rice, barley, and various other grains and vegetables. But the neigh- borhood of Nikko is mountainous, and the scenery grandly sublime. Alone I wandered over the summits for the views and exhilarations, and along through the valleys among the quaint interesting people, studying them at their work in their fields and shops, their tem- ples and homes, in their peculiarly cultivated gardens or fishing along their streams. There seemed to be quite perfect safety in travelling everywhere. I would rather go overland from Awo- mori, at the extreme north of Nipon, to Shimonoseki at the extreme south, than to brave the Seven Dials at midnight between the Museum and Charing Cross, in PASSPORT AND SUBSTITUTE. 113 London, or at the siinic hour to be out of sight of a policeman in some of the districts of New York city. Now and then I fancied one or more of the disarmed and disaffected Sanuirai looked at me as if they wished they had a chance at my neck with one of their old sharp swords. But one can get along very well in this world, if he encounters nothing more serious than hate- ful looks and spiteful words. Of course I had my special passport from the Japanese Foreign Office, procured through our American Legation. Otherwise I could not pass the limit of twenty miles around each treaty port. Frequently the police would stop me, or call at my hotel and demand to see my official permit, or authority for trespassing upon the privacy of nine- tenths of these queer people. I was surprised to find afterwards that I had been made to tell an untruth to all these polite, uniformed pigmies of men, for my pass- port contained the information that I was a very sick man in search of health, whereas I was in the enjoyment of perfect health and vigor, and did not start upon a two years' round tour of the world to escape doctor's bills. I wonder what those Japanese often thought of the coincidence between the unmistakable passport, and my appetite and endurance. It was very evident, how- ever, that the people are not inclined to persevere in their exclusive policy. But for one thing, they are quite willing that decent, orderly foreigners should travel and reside among them anywhere in the country. They do not like the extra-territorial clauses in their treaties with the great powers, which have been forced upon them. They want all who come to their country to place themselves under their laws, as is required by America and ICuropean nations. Until that is allowed they propose to keep up the inconvenience of the pass- port regulation. However, we found that something more than even this travelling permit from the Japanese Foreign Office was necessary for lengthened residence at any place out- side of the treaty concessions. We wished to spend three weeks at Tokio, and to be in the heart of the city 114 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. away from the delightful society of the foreign mission- aries and diplomatic agents in the suburban concession of Tskiji. But on the seco id day the question came around from tlio [)olico oflSce of that v ard, " Who stands for you ? " Was it possible that I was in a situation to require a substitute? Could not the consideration of personal character suffice to allow my residence ? We were abundantly provided with introductor}' letters, some of them to leading officials close to the person of the Mikado. Would they not show who we were, and let us pass? No. It was primarily with us now a question of substitution, not of personal character at- tested to ever so voluminously. Japan asked of me, not who are you? but what right have you to be here? That right could rest only upon the free substitution of some well-known Japanese citizen in my place before the court of justice. The man was found and accepted in my j)lace. Now, did I l)reak the laws, he could be punished. Did I deserve death, he would die for me. So, indeed, is it with any who would reside within the limits of the kingdom of God. With American, Japan- ese, whoever he may be, the question of Almighty Jus- tice is primarily not a question of character, but of sub- stitution ; not who are you ? but what right have you to be here? And, oh I blessed that soul, whether upon the banks of the Ogawa or the Potomac, whether around the base of Fujiyama or Mount Washington, who can point to the Great Intercessor between God and man, and declare, he is my accepted substitute. Have I transgressed ? " He was wounded for my transgres- sions. He was bruised tor my iniquities. The chas- tisement of ray peace is uf-on him. And with his stripes I am healed 1 " I was delighted to meet this clearly defined custom of substitution among the Japanese. It is good working-ground among the thoughts of the peo- ple for evangelical doctrine. Unitarianism can make no headway with them. Their alternative is evangeli- calism or materialism. There can no sentiment be awakened among them hostile to primary legal aspects m salvation. !J TBS TOKAIDO. 115 Assured of the safety and practicability by this northern experience, we arranged, wife, son nnd self, to take now a much longer journey through the inte- rior of Japan. It was to bo nearly three hundred miles, from the vicinity of Tokio to Kiyoto. Prelim- inary journeys were made between Yokohama and Tokio by steam railway, and from the former place to Kamakura and Dai Butsu by jin-riki-shas. Then, turning from the quite Europcanized port city of Yoko- hama, we commenced two weeks of exceedingly inter- esting experience, chiefly upon the celebrated Tokaido, or imperial highway, between the eastern and western capitals. This avenue is a continuation of the one from Nikko to Tokio. It also is shaded almost the entire length with grand old cryptomeria japonica cedars that loom up on both sides, and, uniting overhead, form a cathedral-like nave all the way to the Holy City of the Japanese. We take no guide. We hire no interpreter. Desiring an experience, we will suffer no intrusion. The question of safety having been settled, we welcome all the perplexities, and misunderstandings, and queer experiences involved in life among a strange people, of whose language we do not understand over a hundred words, and all whose habits of life are as different as possible from those to which we have been accus- tomed. Every day we rehired jin-riki-shas and men, one each for us three, and an extra for the baggage, having sent all the heavy trunks around by sea to await our arrival at Kobe. Sometimes our human horses would get a corner on us, and then it would be close bargaining. But at the utmost their prices were ridi- culously low, not averaging out in the country over live cents a mile. In the native hotels we had rich experi- ences enough to fill a volume. The principal room, always assigned us, was invariably clean and comfort- able. The floors were so polished, and the matting woven of so fine a material, that no one would think of entering without conforming to the Japanese custom of taking off the shoes. We carried with us a full ■Ml 116 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. supply of canned meats and vegetables and fruits, yet trusted to the native hotels for rice and eggs. Imagine putting up for the night, receiving every possible atten- tion from perhaps a dozen servants, being furnished with all the nicely cooked rice and fresh eggs wanted both for dinner and breakfast, having choice of cold or hot water baths, being provided with fire and lights, and then having the formidable bill presented on de- parture, to bailee account for the whole party, of forty-five cents t That was just it — no more ; pre- cisely fifteen cents each — no half price for children. And it was the same all through the country — the regular rate. Had I told those simple-hoarted people of the three and four and five dollars a ddy hotels, they would have held up their hands in horror at the fabu- lous extortion, and alike at the insaiiity of those who submit to it. There was so much snow on Fujiyama, we could not climb that sacred mountain, but we skirted its base, and the more we became acquainted with it from different points of observation, the less we won- dered at the high veneration in which it is held through- out Japan. It seemed some days as if we were all the while riding into and out of villages. The houses are small cottages, mostly covered with thatched roofs. The people are mostly dressed in dark-colored cotton goods, the wealthier using silk largely. The style is loose-flowing, belted at the waist. The men shave their heads in front, and ih up what remains in a bent forward top-knot. The female hair is done up in too elaborate a fashion for masculine description. They all have to employ barbers, but a cent h a sufficient outlay for every third day. All along the country aj^- pears under the most thorough cultivation. KIce is the great staple. Along the hill-sides a large quantity of tea is raised, mostly for home consumption, for the Japanese are great tea-drinkers. The sail across Lake Biwa was charming. The crossing of the three moun- tain ranges, especially the Hakoni Pass, was thrillingly interesting, jin-riki-slias being there exchanged for MODES OF TRAVEL. 117 congos, or baskets carried upon the shoulders of men. We had them "for style," but by no means cared for riding all the way. From Kiyoto to Osaka and thence to Kobe there is steam-railway, and the extension is almost completed to Otsu, the large city at which we landed from Lake Biwa. 118 GHBISTIAN mSSlOKS. CHAPTER Vra. MISSIONARY WORK IN JAPAN. IHOUGH many glowing descriptior? have been written of Japan, its natural features, its climate, and the affability and enterprise of its population, it must not be thought that the missionary mine here has nothing of th3 depth and dampness and foulness which Carey found in India. It is to be feared that mar ,^ christians in the home lands have hastily concluded that there is little if any use of holding on to this rope, since the missionaries move over only into a charming valley, where life has every physical enjoyment, and where the evangelizing work musf be fully as congenial as in the vast majority of tlio parishes in America and Britain. But there are other things, which can especially try God's servants, and make them the subjects of the liveliest sympathy everywhere, besides the wilting sun of the tropics and the icel)ergs of Greenland ; other ^^liiuses besides Burmah fever and African malaria ; other influences than native persecution and difficulty of securing the necessaries of life. Thus there is a volatile superficial element in the Japanese character, which continually requires a very large dJscount to be made in reaching the substantial results of missionary labor. The remarkably sudden political and social revolutions have assisted to break up the faiths of the ^ iople too suddenly. Even Shintooism or Buddhism or even Fetishism is better than no religion. Ministers and other christian laborers at home find their hardest material among those who are entirely adrift from any strong religious convictions, and profess to believe in j SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES. 110 nothing special. In Japan to-day the widely spread dearth of any religious faith and of any faith in religion is worse than the sirocco of the desert to discouraoc the arduous missionary toilers. Then the strong hold \\hich materialism has already gained among the multitude of the educated classes, and the ability and persistency with which these anti-christian i)rinciplos are being propagated through the class-room and the press, are a counteracting power of which we can form but little conception in the home lands, where the spiritual verities of Christianity stand out so prominently everywhere, and the dark shadows of materialism are compelled to meet the sun at midday. Moreover the heathen priest- hood of Japan are not content to see their influence so rapidly slipping out of hand, and never were more ear- nest efforts being made to recover lost ground, and to refasten upon the people the chains of bigotry and super- stition. The new temple at Tokio, costing a hundred thousand dollars, the magnificent theological school of the Buddhists at Kiyoto, the extensive repairs and new building at Nikko, the enterprise shown around Asa- kasa to popularize that tem})le, the new and ela))ornte care being ttiken of the great Buddha's statue at Kama- kura, and many other indications I noted along, prove that our missionaries in Japan are encountering a mighty effort at Buddhistic revival. Then, too, the government is doing everything it can to re-establish Shintooism in the interest of national patriotism. Many new temples are being built and surrounded with beautifully orna- mented parks. And perhaps the chief discouraging feature in Japanese evangelization to-day is the prevail- ing impression that Christianity is something that can be put on like other elements of the foreign civilization. They come to our chapels, as they would go to stores to look at new goods for clothing. It is not to be won- dered at ; the last dozen years have been crowded so full of the adopting of the political and social ways of foreigners. Taking all things into account, missionary labor in Japan is fully as arduous and trying as almost anyw'here on the foreign fieU. In some respects it pre- 120 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. sents elements of peculiar embarrassment, well calcu- lated to put the faith of our laborers to the severest test, and to make occasion for our warmest sympathies and most earnest [)rayers. The cordial fraternal spirit among the missionaries of the various societies is very conspicuous in Japan. It is perfectly plain to the people that, while those chris- tians go under different names, they belong to one family of religious faith. " l>ehold how they love one another ! " was a frequent exclamation in my own mind, as I met them in union conferences, in associated work ui)on the study of the language, in general committee- labor over Bible translation, in the organic co-operation of three of the prominent denominations in the theo- logical semin. ; ' struction at Tokio, in the support given by the lu jnarios generally to the weekly re- ligious paper published at Kobe under the superintend- ence of the Congregationalist mission, in the promis- cuous character of the social gatherings, and in the thorough familiarity which the missionaries of the different societies showed in each other's work as well as their lively sympathies and remarlvable charities of judgment. One cannot wander nmch over the great household of faith, without findinir some variations of temperature in the different rooms. Why it is so, is not always easy to toll. Certain it is, that in none of the mission lands of the world have we seen the true unity of the christian spirit more beautifully and prac- tically illustrated than anionii' our evangelizing laborei*s in Japan. Their criticisms liave fewer l)arbs, their dif- ferences of judgment are held more pleasantly, and generally when compelled to take divergent paths they prove nearly i)arnllel, not at right angles. The excep- tions to all this are so rare as not to spoil the exemplary character of the christian uni(m of heart and hand amonff all the evano'elizinir laborers from abroad in Japan. Their correspondence home, and their conver- sations about the home churches and ministry and boards and committees and secretaries have repeatedly im- pressed us as specially free from bitterness, and hasty CLIMATE ON TEMPER. 121 judgment, and lack of sympathy. I believe the reason is in the climate. Not that the missionaries to Japan have more solidity of character, more intelligence, more piety ; but that they are not so subject to those depress- ing and harassing climatic influences which prevail al- most all over the continents of Asia and Africa. I know I felt a great deal more irritable in China and Siam and Burmah and India than in Japan. Those dreary monotonous plains and lilthy habits of the Chinese ; those long-continued rains and rank malarial swamps of Siam and Burmah ; and those famines and terrible heats and dreadful abominations of Hinduism ; they make Asia more trying for residence than Japan with its prevailing cleanliness and })oliteness, its beauti- ful landscapes, and its salul)rious climate. It is well known what differences climatic influence makes be- tween the temperaments of residents in our southern and northern states, as also between the people in the south and north of Europe. This consideration should be borne in mind in forming comparative judgments upon missionaries and their work, and sometimes and upon some subjects in giving fair and equitable consid- eration to their varied testimonies. We have met a few missionaries in Japan- who would claim that our impressions of the physical conditions of residence in that country are too pleasant, and there- fore misleading. They have felt a few shocks of earthquake, have seen a few cyclones, have experienced in their neighborhoods a few epidemics ; and forth- with, they are very positive that the phj'sical trials of their missionary lives arc extraordinary. A short vaca- tion of travel upon the continent would materially modify such impressions. Quite generally missionaries feel that their localities arc those of peculiar hardship. I met a returned missionary, who went out years ago directly to her work, never saw ])ut two or three other central stations, and came Ijack directly upon her vaca- tion. , I mentioned certain of th^ physical discomforts of the missionaries at certain other jjlaces, and she very confidently replied, that though I had seen more thaa 122 OHRISTIAN MISStOlfS. a thousand foreign missionaries at their work, and had become personally familiar with their conditions of life, yet, as I had never visited her station, I could not appreciate the utter extremities of self-denial and physical discomfort to which the • missionary may he subjected. It would be a good thing to give all missionaries a little travelling. Perhaps better to allow them permission as they go out, and occasionally return for home-rest, to stop off for two or three months on the way for detours of inspection among the lives and labors of missionaries in other countries. This would help them a little, even as it helps the minister at home so much to air his opinions outside of his own parish among the circumstances of other ministers' lives and labors. The best of men and women get into ruts. It is not the fault of the wheel, but of the mud in which the wheel has to nin. I desire very much to put my shoulder underneath, and lift some of them out. I want to give you bird's-eye glances into the situation of more missionary toilers than you will probably ever visit. It will help you in your own feelings and in your work to know that the majority are suffering as much self-denial and discomfort as yourself, and many of them a great deal more. It will guard you from dis- couraging recruits for your special region and station. And an evidently comprehensive view of missions is sure to arrest more general attention, and to secure the judgment of the more thoughtful. There are those engaged in mission-work in Japan, as well as in most all other lands, who are independent of any home society. These go out either on their own responsibility, or, more generally, they separate upon the field from their fellow-laborers and the home super- vision. A few of them are doing a great deal of good, as at Yokohama, Ching-Kiang, Bombay. But, on the other hand, there is the large measure of harm done by the spirit of insubordination manifested, by the temper of egotism presented, and by the quantity of friction almost uniformly produced in the evangelizing work of the given locality. Undoubtedly mistakes in direction INDEPENDENT MISSIONARIES. 123 have been, and will yet be, made by bishops, boards, and executive committees, but the cause can better en- dure their mistakes, than that undue self-assertion of the missionary which consents to no restraints but his own, which falls in with no opinions except those which he himself has formed, and which will consent to use the home-agencies of the Christian Church only for the purpose of collecting and paying ov^er his salary. Sometimes the very best of people confound their con- scientiousness with their wilfulness, and then they mak^ a very unfortunate exhibition of themselves. The ma- jority of these brethren and sisters say they cannot con- scientiously work under the restrictions of any of the missionary societies. Rarely did I fail to find, before the end of an hour's conversation with them, that in the matter of their disregard of the home church authorities a good deal more of wilfulness than of conscientious- ness was controlling their conduct. There is a measure of liberty, and indeed a large measure, that must be allowed the far-away missionary on his field. There are problems he is best qualified to solve. There are questions he must settle there and then. But generally this freedom of action will be gladly accorded by the home authorities. If they are not prompt to comply with reasonable suggestions from their far-off fellow- laborers in the cause, a spirit of forbearance and con- ciliation, a ready and patient interchange of views, and the avoidance of any threats of secession,^ or the use of any other kind of a whip, will bring them in time to see the matter in its true light. It is very doubtful whether seceders should remain upon the foreign field, especially if they have consented to go out under the authority of any of the missionary societies of the Church. They go under the Lord, indeed, and under his great commis- sion, but also under freely-assumed and distinctly- understood obligations to those who consent to their being associated with certain important work for whose protection and supi)ort God has seemed to make them specially responsible, to those who send them out across seas and lands at great cost and then provide for them 124 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. . during the years required for learning the language when their services are comparatively of small account ; yes, the missionary is also under obligation to the home churches and their authorized representatives, which obligation he cannot discharge simply by a polite bow and a word of acknowledgment when stepping out into his " conscientious " liberty. The least it would seem he could do in all honor and christian spirit, would be to accept immediately his home tickets, and if, after personal conferences at " the rooms " and time, the dif- ferences of judgment prove irreconcilable, remain away from that field, or go to such a part of it as shall be too remote for interference and friction. Generally the call is a decisive one to stay at home, and let foreign mis- sions almost alone. I am i)ersuaded that many good christians in the home churches could not do the foreign mission cause more good than to resolve henceforth not to encourage missionaries independently of, and there- fore presumably antagonistic to, the regularly constituted agencies, not to give sympathy and support to those whose letters or conversations show them under the mastery of a spirit of insubordination and of criticism toward the home administration, and who assume that, because they have had, or supposed they had, the gift of missionary consecration, therefore they possess a monopoly of all other gifts of conscience and judgment and reason regarding the evangelization of the whole world. It is easy for a disaffected missionary to tell his little touching stories, and, by his one-sided state-- ments, enlist christian sympathy against the general management and best interests of the mission work of the various branches of the Church of Christ. Against such often well-meant, but most injudicious, efforts, those christians, especially of limited missionary infor- mation, and of generous impulses, need to be on their constant guard. • The Congregationalists are doing a grand work, especially in the education of a native ministry at Kiyoto. They have here about a hundred students in their training-school. It is, indeed, the height of wis- \ KITOTO TRAINING-SCHOOL. 125 dom to recognize the fact, — as notably also the Metho- dists are doing in Yokohama, the Presbyterians and others in Tokio, and the English P^piscopalians in Naga- saki, — that the great heathen countries must be evan- gelized chiefly through the agency of a native ministry. Home christians at the utmost can only plant christian institutions at centres of [)opulation, which under God's blessing shall equip the mighty host that is to go forth among the thousand millions to sow the seed and reap the harvest of the kingdom. A native ministry is better qualified, not only ))y its sufficiency of numbers, but by its comparative inexpensivcness, its freedom from the prejudices felt against foreigners, its more accurate and practical knowledge of the people, and its reliabil- ity in the examination attendant upon the reception of church members. This Kiyoto training-school is well supplied, not only with scholars, but also with teachers and buildings. Superintendent Rev. J. D. Davis, was a colonel of the American Union army in the late war, and shows here also the qualities of heroism and leader- ship. It was a pleasure, never to be forgotten, to dine and spend an evening at the home of the native presi- dent, Rev. J. A. Neesimji, a home provided by the gen- erosity of a Boston christian, and filled with love to God and consuming desire for the evangelization of Japan. As much as possible of the principle of self- support is introduced into this training-school. Not only ie the utmost use made of vacations and of the manual work required upon the premises, ])ut also as much as possible of the routine of i'l -^ruction is placed in the hands of the advanced classes. Upon introduction to this training-school for a native ministry, I was asked to address them. " AVlio will be my interpreter?" "You will need no interpreter," was the astonishing reply. And true enough, half of them understood English quite i)erroctly, and the other half could make out most of the lines of the speaker's thought. A little while after the close, a connnittee of three of the young men waited on me with a request that I address them aa hour daily during my stay in Kiyoto. asBS 126 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. It was impossible not to comply, especially after be- coming acquainted with them, and through them with twenty-two others of their school-mates. Their story is one full of encouragement to all missionary toilers aiid to all their supportei's in the home lands. Some years ago a christian layman from America engaged through a Japanese consul to go to the empire of the rising sun in the capacity of a teacher. He was assigned to a po- sition far to the south, with the strictest injunctions not to teach the religion of Jesus, nor to say anything cal- culated in the presence of the boys of his school to bring the religion of their fathers into disrepute. They did not know there are other ways besides the tongue to speak forth in witness of Jesus Christ. A living christian may have his mouth closed, and his every action watched more closely than was Daniel at Babylon, but he will testify, in inaudible yet comprehensible lan- guage, of the glorious hope he has within him as an anchor to his soul. He cannot help letting it be known that he is the possessor of a peace the world cannot give, and the world cannot take away. Said these young men to me, " Our teacher's whole bearing, his con- stant spirit and his unspoken words so impressed us that we had to believe as he believed." His soul was expanded and tilled with such great thoughts of God and heavenly things, that as he moved along through life's waters, as it were, a current was created that drew irresistibly all the little craft about him. Unknown to the teacher, forty of the boys and young mer? of the school gathered in an adjacent grove, and signed a solemn covenant to give up idolatry, to believe in the religion in which their teacher believed, and to worship hence- forth only the God whom he worshipped. Immediately their light also, if it be genuine, must shine out. Their parents and the whole community were soon necessa^- rily informed. The teacher was dismissed ; the school broKen up : and many of these forty young disciples of Christ imprisoned. But twenty-five of them at least held on so faithfully, that ultimately they were gathered into this Kiyoto training-school ; and fifteen of god's unseen work. 127 them were in a few weeks to graduate and go forth as preachers of the gospel to as many cities and populous towns throughout Japan. Little does the faithful christian laborer know how God is working by his side. He thinks he sees all that is being accomplished ; and the poverty of the results, as well as the limitations both of ability and of oppor- tunity, are very discouraging to him. "If only I had been assigned to such another field of labor ! " the mis- sionary is tempted to say. If only I had the faculties and fav()ra!)le chances which such others have I every christian toiler is sometimes tempted to reflect. But with all, God's way is very much as the way of rice- planting in Southern China. There when the first crop, which is not the best one, has nearly reached its growth, the Chinamen go along in between the rows and plant the little tender shoots of the rice for the second crop, all their work being covered over immediately by the nearly ripening stalks. The best crop is now all plant- ed and growing, but it is not seen, until the harvest of the first and advanced rows is gathered. Then the land is discovered clothed with the most beautiful velvety green, and the prospect is the brightest of the year. So is God's spirit planting between all our rows. So is he working by our side ; his perfect work incident to our imperfect toiling. But we do not see it : none see it. But by-and-by, oh ! — how beautiful it will look when we are gathe?'ed home ; how promising of greater fi'uitfulness and gi*eater glory to God ! The Presbyterian and Refonned Missions in Japan have given a great deal of time and talent to Bible translation. Others have efficiently cooperated with them. But in the New Testament work the Baptist member of the translation committee has worked apart from the rest, not, it is understood, on mere denomina- tional grounds, for herein the christian fraternity and deference of feeling would have prevailed. But there was a variation of judgment with regard to the best form of the written language into which to translate the Bible. The separating brother, Rev, N. Brown, D. D., 128 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. who by general consent has made an admirable transla- tion of the New Testament, felt that the common pho- netic characters, separate; entirely from all the C-hinese arbitrary symbols, should be used. Thus the Japanese Scriptures would be intellio largely multiply their years and productiveness. Christian civilization has learned also that the sesthetic has much to do with the preservation of life and the securing of the most health and effectiveness. The beautiful in our "lomes and schools and sanctuaries is also the useful. It is the smile upon the face of the hard rugged experiences of this world. It is the music that comes floating on the air from heaven amid the discords of human life. Flowers are sometimes as good as a dinner to give new courage to the soul ; and a room ornamented with pretty furniture, ready to receive the missionary back from his toils through the day among the hovels of squalor and vice, is often as much of a rest and rcMispiration as the pillow of his night's repose. But how far may the missionary in his house and its furniture indulge in the beautiful, if he can? It is hardly worth while to ask those many foreign mer- chants and clerks and sea-faring men, who will fiercely criticise missionaries and all they do anyhow, because chiefly their lives of purity, their hallowed family ties, and their constant instructions are a vivid standing pro- test against their own moral laxities and dissipations. Their fangs are full of poison to dart at any servant of God, whether he lives in a palace or a hut, and whether he luxuriates amid aesthetic beauties, or adopts all the discomforts and squalor of the natives. The limit to outlay, next to abili'jy, should be consideration for the impre.ssion produced upon the native populations, as I ESTHETICS; THEIB USE AND ABUSE. 131 to he as also for the reflex influence upon the great mass of the foreign mission constituency at home. If some rich people should present a missionary and his wife with elaborate gold watch-chains, diamond finger-ri 'gs, and solitaire ear-rings, it is plain the fortunate or unfortunate recipients had better not let them be seen I.y the multi- tudes at home who regularly support foreign missions, or by the thronging heathen along their paths and by- paths of foreign toil. It would check benevolences, it would encourage wrong motives, it would enkindle en- vious feelings ; at sea the prevailing criticisms would be made more bitter ; and among the teeminsr millions of heathendom it would encourage the native vanity for personal adornment, divert attention from the spiritual aims of the missionary, and compromise character in the general estimation. The same is very much the case in the matter of mission buildings and their fur- nishings A self-denial here also is required. It is not simply what our missionaries deserve. Ah ! multi- tades of them deserve palaces, and showers of wealth could not pay our o))ligations to them. But it is chiefly a question of influence abroad and at home. It is a part of the broad field of the consecration, where also graces may be cultivated and rich fruits gathered. There exists a variety of opinions in Japan, as else- where, concerning the important question of the use of English in mission schools. Some make a great deal of its instrumentality ; others refuse to allow its intro- duction at all. There are those who seem to lean to- ward the opinion which his Excellency Arinori Mori, then assistant minister of foreign affairs, and now min- ister to England, expressed to me : " The Japanese can never l)ecome christianized except through the English." His idea and theirs is that the native words are not fit- ted to convey the accurate and full meanings of the divinely inspired thoughts of Christianity. As in the providence of God the Greek was needed to communi- cate the new truths which Christ brought into the world, and to make them intelligible to the various populations along the shores of the Mediten*anean, sj 132 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. English is required to-day among the many millions of Japan. On the oti\er hand there are missionaries who would prefer the hen-lbreaking alternative of giving up their work and going home, rather than do the harm, especially to the girls, of opening wide in their faces the doors of opportunity to them of almost irresistible and inevitable immoralities. The native girl who can speak English in Japan, they say, is almost certain of meeting unprincipled foreigners, whose superior wiles and facil- ity through the language are quite sure of effecting her ruin of body and soul. There are mission schools, where one or two hours of English instruction a day is necessary for the Japanese government's permission for the location of the school beyond either the foreign concession or the treaty limits. For advanced classes there is a great lack of text-books in the vernacular, and in those already provided there is often vagueness and uncertainty of meaning. The chief hold in some of the mission schools upon the boys and young men is the instruction they receive in the English language, but for which the government schools would draw them off to education not simply secular, but surcharged with heathenism or materialism and atheism. As state uni- versity education in America does not usually content itself, nor might it be possible, with mere neutrality upon religious subjects, but in its spirit and personnel and methods strongly antagonizes evangelical doctrine ; so Japanese government instruction, especially in the higher schools, is generally inspired with the most effective hostility to the christian teachings of our mis- sionaries. Moreover, some of the branches of the Church Universal adopt English instruction as their general policy, and denominational solicitude is on the alert. This may be, and sometimes is unduly exer- cised, but it is all right for the different under-shepherds to try and keep their own flocks at home. Yet it will not do to always stand at the bars and let the fences go to ruins. Many churches and a few mission stations have suffered most seriously from over anxiety lest some of the Lord's sheep should escape into some other denominational or church fold. I SNOLISH IX HISaiON SCHOOLS. 133 I The solution of this difficult problem of the use of English in mission schools seems to be in this rule with varying exceptions : — Always incline strongly to the use of the vernacular, and introduce English instruction only when and for the tiiDe that it is absolutely neces- sary, or, on the whole, it is very clearly of greater benefit than harm. Results have abundantly shown that in all, even the most poverty-stricken languages of the world, a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ has been communi- cated to the people. I have attended religious exami- nations of peoplfe, who had never heard a word of English or German or French spoken, until their inter- preter explained to me the delightful christian evangel- ical meaning of their gibberish. The rapidity with which the Gospel is winning converts in all lands, and the fact that the largest and most permanent results seem to attend upon vernacular labors, should strengthen against the temptations to Anglicize our mission schools. Gen- erally, where I have noted in different mission stations a migration toward the schools of other religious socie- ties, or toward the government schools, it has seemed to me that there were other reasons than the English language one, why the one missionary was losing his hold, and the other niissioimry or the secular teacher strengthening his up« ; lie scholars. Personal qualities cf nameless magnetism and of skill in man- agement have appeared to me the nioie frequently to decide the question. It is so easy to one's own self- consciousness, as well as in giving testimony to others, to lay the blame of failure upon some abstract ) )rinciple or variation of method, instead of upon lack of per- sonal qualifications. Then, I think many missionaries really over-estimate the desire of the people for the English language. At least that desire does nr>< eem to me to be generally up to the measure of the neces- sary application and study required for a thorough- speaking acquaintance with the foreign tongue. Almost all boys in our home-schools would " like to know sur- veying." Nine out of ten of them, after looking at a surveying book, with its pictures of angles, and base 134 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. I* nn lines, and field operations, would say : " I should like to know surveying." And, perhaps, nine out of ten of the fond parents would echo the superficial, inconse- quential desire. But any school-book publisher would be very foolish, who should therefore print enough books upon surveying to supply nine out of ten of all the boys throughout our country. I am persuaded that a very little English, not enough to command very much of the missionary's time, 'vill suffice to supply two- thirds of the popular demand. The missionary, also, needs to guard himself against the temptation, which is increasing around him in our day, to relax upon his efforts to master the vernacular ui)der the half impres- sion that it may not be necessary. Many (ir^.es it has been impressed upon me, and i cannot resist the duty of bearing witness that, with a few exceptions, they, who are the most strenuous in their advocacy of the use of English in mission schools, have not been those who have become thoroughly acquainted with the native language. It is a question somewhat allied, how far in mission schools the pupils siiould be directed and encouraged to drop their own manners and customs, and adopt those from christian lands? Here, again, extreme views are taken by some missionaries in Japan, and by many in other lands. Some say christian manners and customs go with the christian religion, and cannot be neglected without detriment to the spiritual truths sought to be inculcated. Along with the Bible, they consider ne;ces- sary chairs or benches in the school-room, high tables and knives and forks in the lining-hall, T'jserved bow- ings instead of prostrations on the floor, certain refine- ments in the culinary art, some alterations in attire, different styles of music for song, a changed standard of taste for personal and house adornments, and so on, until the scholar is not only hopefully converted, but also as Americanized or Europeanized as possible. An effort was made in Yokohama some yf ars ago to estab- lish a mission school for the "better classes" of Japa- nese girls. But, ere long, the parents began to make H i OHAXGINO NATIVE MANNERS AND CUSTOxMS. 1B5 complaints that their daughters were losing their refine- ments of manner. They could no longer make becom- ing prostrations. They had lost their gracefulness in sitting down upon their floors at home. They were dis- satisfied with such food and clothing and household arrangements as were customary in Japanese families, and as were generally within the limit of their means to provide. It became necessary to materially modify the influence of that school in these directions, and to hire immediately an accomplished Japanese gentleman as in- structor in manners, so a:< to get the American and Eng- lish awkwardness out of them, and re-qualify them for agreeable home-associates and pleasant social compan- ions in good Japan life. It is the other extreme to study in every way to conform to Japanese manners and customs. The teacher, also, will squat on the floor, and is sure to do it awkwardly and 'idiculously. No change is made in the diet from that at home, no diflfer- ence in dress, no alteration in management. No cheer- ful school-rooms are desired, but only such apartments as can be rented in native houses, covered with native mats and ornamented with native pictures. New {es- thetic tastes may be awakened, but must not be satisfied. New ideas of means and methods and adaptabilities must come from daily contact with the christian teacher, but those ideas must be extinguished as far as possible. This extreme is cei*tainly better than the other. I have seen few sights in heathen lands more pitiable than native young man and women educated out of their sphere. They cannot endure their own homes, nor are they welcome to those of foreigners. They can neithei* command salary, nor marry so as to support the manne f of life to which they have become accustomed in the mission schools. What can they do? I fear almost a majority of them go to the bad. I have heard sad reci- tals of many of them who have. And yet there are in- novations upon the native manners and customs which will add to the happiness and usefulness of the scholar, and yet not unfit for the Japanese home and social life. The horrible blackening of the teeth by the women, mm 136 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 1 ! ever after marriage, may be strongly discouraged, as other and better safeguards for virtue are introduced. The betrothments, without deference to the wishes of the parties, and the absurdly early marriages, may be emphatically discountenanced. A greater care than be- longs to the native manners in the eiqjosure of person should be taught. Some violations of the laws of health, some new methods of the treatment of disease, and some new ideas of simple beauty and adaptation should be pointed out by the teacher. But ever it should be borne in mind by the missionary instructor that nine-tenths of the schohirs are to live and die in their simple native homes, with incomes averaging for whole families not over fifty cents a day, and that their happiness and christian character and usefulness will depend very much upon their contentment with their lot in life. Part of the mission work at Osaloi is being conducted more thoroughly upon the self-supporting plan than at any other point in the foreign field. The theory is, not a dollar of money from home for other than the missionary's own personal or family support. Counsel and guidance are to be given to the native christians, but they must build or hire their own chapels and schools, support their own pastors and teachers, and pay themselves all their own incidental expenses. What they cannot aflford themselves, they must wait for ; no help will be asked or furnished from foreign sources. Indeed the leading' missionary in this experi- ment, Rev. H. H. Leavitt, feels that his personal super- vision and counsel over the native christians should be temporary ; that before many years his best service for them would be to leave them alone with God and their own responsibilities ; and so his distinct understanding with the home society is that he has gone out for only a few years' service, at least in that locality. It is all a very interesting experiment. Yet it does seem as if there was such a thing as overdoing self-support. No doubt, in many cases too much help has been given for the good of the native converts. But thus far, a general VETERAN LABORERS AND THEIR SUCCESSORS. 137 comparison of methods and results seems to indorse the principle of careful helping with money as well as with sympathy and counsel and prayer. And as to leaving native converts alone after ten or fifteen years of mis- sionary supervision, that does not yet appear best from the teaching of the history of missions. For this it takes several generations to develop sufficient strength of faith and character. Personal conversion is a great thing, but to have had a christian ancestry is another great thing. Churches, strong enough to stand alone, to bear their own responsibilities and to resist all worldly influences, are not the creatures of a day. Like the human frame before its manhood, they must put oflT several bodies. Generations must come and go, ere there is sufficient stalwart vigor to release the mis- sionary. At Yokohama there is a very efficient union church for English-speaking christians. Its late pastor. Rev. Dr. Gulick, who had charge of the Bible work in Japan and China, now resides in Shanghai in care of American Bi))le work in China. Of American Epis- copalians, Bishop Williams and his six clergy and assistants are at Tokio and Osaka, laying well the foun- dations for future church growth. A large proportion of the missionaries are young men and women, lacking yet the experience of their elders, and still evidently of such piety, intelligence and culture, as to qualify them soon to be w orthy successors of those who shall have gone before them. Indeed, without any dispar- agement to the missionary veterans, or to those who have rested from their lal)ors, but with glad and grate- ful recognition here as elsewhere that the law of Christ's cause is advancement, I testify unreservedly that the young among the thousand missionaries I have met in many lands are, on the average, possessors of more native ability and larger intellectual acquirements than those who belong to the generation of their fathers. Their piety has not yet reached the mellow ripeness of their elders, nor have they learned many of the lessons which come only of years. But it is very encouraging ■■■ mmmmmmm 138 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. i I of more thorough work and larger results, as we study the material God has been gathering into the mission- ary force during the last decade. The Wesley ans, we observe, have commenced the establishment of a mis- sion. Single women missionaries are proving very useful in Japan. It is reliably said of one Qf them, that she saved a mission during the two years bet y^een the death of the male missionary in charge and the arrival of his successor. The openings for native preachers throughout Japan are remarkable, in that many citizens, without any immediate intention of changing religion, but only for serious information, are promising adequate support to those whom the mission- aries may qualify and send to them. Neither the Cath- olic nor the Greek Churches are doing very much yet in the country. The latter is about to erect a missionary college at Tokio. The former has made nothing like its outlay of men and money in China. Perhaps here also its customary shrewdness is manifested. At Kobe we met the aged sister Gulick, for nearly fifty years with her husband missionaries at the Sandwich Islands, and whose family of seven missionary children, all reared amid heathen influences, show what can be done through faith and prayer and taot. But for other studies of comparative missions, their principles, meth- ods and visible results, we must hasten on past all this beautiful land and its inland sea, bidding farewell at Nagasaki. nVE MONTHS* GLIMPSE OF FOUB HUNDRED MIU^ONS. 139 CHAPTER IX. ^»^' CHINA, GEOGRAPHICALLY AND HISTORICALLY. AN it he we are approaching a country containing a population of four hundred millions of souls? These are the figures with which readers about China arp most familiar. Many, indeed, staggered by the thought of such an immense number, forth- with pronounce it incredible and go to reducing the estimates even down to a hundred and fifty millions, or three times the population of the United States of America. No complete census has been taken by the Chinese government during the present century. Their last returns were above these lowest figures, and during the past three generations, though twenty millions of lives were lost by the Taiping rebellion, and twenty millions more by the late northern famine, the known rate of increase of population has at least doubled those official estimates. Probably then as now it would be impossible for the Chinese government to secure correct census returns from more than half or two-thirds of its people, on account of the unwillingness of under-officials to have their tax assessments increased, as they surely would be, with an almost unlimited demand for arrears also, if it should appear that their districts had been under-estimated at Peking as regards population and re- sources. After a five months tour of thousands of miles through the country, I incline to the highest and most familiar estimate. Notwithstanding the numerous great cities, the people are evidently agricultural in much larger proportion than in any other country of the world. The statistics of the opium tmde are calcu- ■IP 140 CHRISTIAN mSSIONS. lated to thus magnify the estimate. So also the rapidity with which whole provinces fill up from immigration from other parts after being nearly depopulated by sword and famine. The enormous emigration to other lands, as to Siam, Japan and America, indicate an over- flowing population. From well-known characteristics of the Chinese, the country must be full, or the people would not migrate. And it has an immense territory to fill. There arc 1,300,000 square miles, which is eleven times the size of Great Britain. If there are 36,000,- 000 of people in England, Scotland and Ireland, and China's average population to the square mile is equal, then we have for the population of this colossal " Celestial Empire " almost the given " four hundred mil- lions." The late Chinese ambassador to Paris told Dr. Logge, that, in his judgment, this was the correct esti- mate of the population of his country. When visiting the province of Kwang-tung, which lies to the southwest of Formosa and has the well- known Cantoi> for its capital city, I took an inland tour first from Swatow, the actual port of the legal treaty port of Chau-chau-fu. When nearly fifty miles from the sea-coast, we had our boat drawn up to the bank of the river, and climl)ed a neighboring hill for a good out- look upon the surrounding country. It was a fair sample of the better parts of agricultural China. Within a radius of three miles we counted eighty- three villages. Many of them were not over from a half a mile to a mile apart. The accompanying mis- sionary, from personal acquaintance with not a few of those villages, estimated their average population at 600. That would make 50,000 people nearly, for a country population within a circle whose diameter is six, certain- ly not to exceed eight, miles. Now let us carry this impression, from a country where all is conjecture, for comparison to India, where, at least in that part under immediate British control, the census reports are very full and accurate. There are in the three Presidencies, ac- cording to the last returns, 238,830,958. This does not include Ceylon, Burmah, Nepaul and Bhotan, but only TEEMING MILLIONS. 141 the Bengal, Madras and Bombay Presidencies. The mosrt densely populated portion of India is the valley of the Ganges ; and of that valley, outside the cities, in the neighborhood of Patna, the centre of tlie opium-poppy culture. But we did not even lierc receive such impres- sion of overflowing population as upon that Chinese hill in Eastern Kwang-tung. Travellers often are deceived by the sparsely settled appearance along the sea-coasts and river-banks. The vast majority of the people have little if any use for exporting and importing facilities, lieing engaged with their small plats of ground simply in the struggle for bare existence. The bewilderingly ex- tended mterior must be explored, far away from all the ordinary avenues of travel and conmierce, before the enormous population of China can be appreciated. It is difficult to realize such a vast aggregation of human beings, nearly all of one race, having almost the same manners and customs everywhere, and, though speaking a variety of dialects, having but one written language and literature. Here are a third more people than in all the countries of Eurojie together; twice as many as in the four continents of North and South America, Africa and Oceanica. Only one-tenth of them are reached by the Gospel, and thirty-three thousand of the Chinese are passing away from time (into eternity every day. If the population of this im- mense empire should join hands singly in an unbroken line, they would reach ten times around our world. Let them march before us as an army at the rate of thirty miles a day, and the days will become weeks, and the weeks months, and the months years, yes, twenty-three long years must pass, before the tramp, tramp, of the martial host is ended. One-third nearly of all the human race is Chinese ; a third of all for whom Christ died, and for whom the Gospel is to be pro- claimed ; a third of all in whose keeping is wrapt up the future of our world ; a third of all of our fallen race, who are to appear at the last great day before the judgment seat of Almighty God. Most of the population of China inhabit the eighteen V 142 CHBI8TIAN MISSIONS. provinces, which correspond to the states of the American Union. Indeed there is much more similarity between the geography of the great empire and that of the great republic. Outside the provinces or states China has its sparsely populated territories of Manchu and Mongol Tartary, Thil)et, Corea, Cochin China, and other regions of Central Asia, all sustaining feudal relations of more or less strength with the head of imperial power at Peking. The Pacific sea-coast of China presents in contour striking resemblances to the Atlantic sea-coast of America. In l)oth alike the most robust of the pop- ulations are from the north. In that section where cot- ton is king in the one, rice is king in the other. What the Mississippi is to the American Union, the Yang- tse is to the union of the Chinese empire. Both have their capitals awkwardly located. Both are noted for their extremes of temperatiue. China's coast line, however, exceeds that of the Republic on its eastern shores by several hundred miles. There are many ex- cellent harbors below the mouth of the Yang-tse, and no large country in the world is so well furnished with an interior system of natural and artificial water com- munication. The greatest canal ever constructed con- nects Hang-chow, a hundred and fifty miles south-west from Shanghai, with Peking seven hundred miles dis- tant. There are parts of it much more costly and artis- tic in constiniction than any I have seen upon either the Erie canal of New York, or the Buckingham canal of the Madras Presidency, India. China is as remarkable for its antiquity as for the extent of its country and the vastness cf its population. Native historians claim to go back to twelve centuries before Christ, within two hundred and fifty years of the death of Moses and the entrance of Israel into Canaan, and one hundred and fifty years before David reigned and extended his kingdom from Egypt to the Euphrates. But the documentary history of China hardly reaches beyond the eighth century before Christ ; yet that carries us back of Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, back of Sennacherib and Nineveh, back of HOARY ANTIQUITT. US Josiah and Mnnasseh, close up to the period of the founding of Syracuse and Rome, and of the first Olympiad. At some time then, when perhaps Shal- maneser was besie^^ing Samaria, or Sarsuits. But circum- Btances are rapidly changing. The production is be- coming a vital part of the economy of the nation, not capable of heroic treatment. Probably Chinese legis- ■■.•riWSBS3»3"» A DECEPTION OF MODERATION. 161 lation, when it has opportunity, will find itself con- fronted with too great a difficulty. Christianity must be preparing to step forward to the rescue of the mul- titudinous people. Its principles and resources of power will be needed to restore self-mastery, to eradi- cate appetite, and to teach the way to nobler rest of body and of mind. The task is not too great for Christianity. The Almighty arm, which supports the cause of evangelization everywhere, is equal, through the ordinary means and methods of grace, to the over- throw of both intemperance in America, aiui opiura in China. Much as we could wish it, the English Parlia- ment is not probably to relieve Christian Missions of this vast responsibility. It v»^ill renviin for us to fight with spiritual weapons. The hope is that christians will remain united for the great camp.'.ign. It would indeed be an unspeakable calamity, if there should be anything like the disintegration of power that is witnessed at home in regard to the temperance reform. And we earnestly pray God, that no leading missionary may adopt and advocate the position, that total abstinence from the use of opium is not the most noble principle for manhood. It is moderation that is the curse, for it is moderation that accomj)lishes the ruin. It is by the deception of moderation tliat the deadly habit is formed, the power of the will l)roken, and the manhood lost. Intemperance is the deadly effect of moderation. When the earnest, desperate effort at moderation gives way to the flood-tide of intemperance in the use of opium, the Chinaman tinds the deed is already done. The dagger has already entered the heart. The man is a brute, and as a man his record has closed. lie has scarcely any other hope now than to become a new creature in Christ Jesus. The plains of Che-kiang have but very little tim- ber, yet the mountains furnish a supply of pine, fir, larch and cypress, chestnut and chestnut-leaved oak. That most useful of all plants in the world, the bamboo, is raised everywhere, furnishing masts and rigging for ships ; fish-nets ; scaffolding and roofs for buildings^ mmmum ii 162 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. as well as eaves and water pipes ; half of all kinds of furniture for the houses; paper and food; pans and tobacco pipes ; poles for the shoulders in carrying all burdens ; agricultural implements ; shafts for the animals ; bridges for the creeks ; drinking-cups, fans, flutes and looms ; and other things — almost an endless variety. We have found the young shoots quite a palatable article of diet ; still our Irish potatoes are very much to be preferred. In the southern half of China, as throughout Che-kiang, the chief article of food is rice, together with such vegetables as sweet potatoes, yams, taro, onions and garlic, peas and beans, turnips and carrots, various greens, cucumbers, bamboo-shoots, egg- plant, capsicums, and rush. Of these, which are enumerated by IMr. Milne, in his interesting "Life in China," I have tasted nearly all. Some were very palatable ; others needed the sauce of extreme hunger ; while still others recalled so distinctly experiences in the taking of medicine, that I could scarcely conceive of their ever possessing any relish in the mouths of foreigners. Fish is used extensively with rice, as also sheep, swine and goat flesh. It is not according to the Chinese moral code to eat cow or buflalo meat, but some do ; and the poorest of the natives, especially in the extreme south, will devour dogs, cats and rats. We have seen these latter articles exposed for sale in the butcher shops of Canton, with the fur of the tails left on to indicate the exact character of the article. The Chinese have a good deal of fruit, but they gather it for the market too quickly. There are peaches and plums, large pumelos and little lemons, oranges and cherries, loqu.at, arbutus and persimmons, chestnut and walnut. In the north of China the several varieties of the millet take the place of rice as the standard substance for all food. I think that it possesses more nourishment but less relish. However, when driven by stress of weather one night upon the Gulf of Peh-chi-li, off the Yellow Sea, to seek shelter in a native village, where no foreigner had ever been seen before, that pot of gray millet, which my cousin. Dr. Nevius of the Presby- WBITTBN AND SPOKEN LANGUAGE. 163 terian mission, succeeded in negotiating, tasted good indeed. The language of the Chinese may be said to be one in that they have only a single written language, and yet this as spoken is divided into many dialects. Their written language is hieroglyphic, not phonetic. There is an arbitrary sign for every word, many of them an effort at picturing the word, until there are over forty thou- sand. It is the strain of mind required on the part of the youth of China to learn a working number of these hieroglyphics, that develops such i)reeocious memories. We have seen Chinese children able to repeat the whole of the New Testament and large parts of the Old Testa- ment. Multitudes of them are perfect concordances in the Confucian and Mencian classics. I had occasion once, in addressing a mission school through an inter- preter, to refer to that remark of our Lord to his dis- ciples, "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" and I added, "Will those of you who know where that passage of Scripture can be found, pleflse niise your hands." Instantly six went up, and a little bright-eyed girl of perhaps thirteen years of age, before I could recover from my astonish- ment and make a selection, spoke right out, "Please, sir, Matthew xx. 28." But this characteristic precocity of memory doubtless affects the mind in other frculties unfavorably. There is an overl)alancingof the iuiellect. Judgment is not so good ; the reasoning faculties are en- feebled, so that at least they work slug. /A ''^i '/ Photographic Sdences Corporation \ ^ [v •^ \\ ^■^o o^ 33 ^EST MAIN STRECT WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 {y}6) «75.4Ht3 C/, ^ 170 CHRISTtAX MISSIONS. [ been so impressed by this " altar of heaven " and its im- posing ritualism, that, when they have visited it, they have mounted its marble steps with unfeigned reverence, and have stood most devoutly with uncovered heads.. But we had no other feeling than that we were in the presence of a great heathen altar, heathen temples, and numerous heathen surroundings. It is unquestionable that all men have aspirations after the true God. Man was made for God, in his likeness and for his use. Even in its ruin, within every human breast there is a constant sigh after him, from whom sin has effected a thorough moral alienation. All the restlessness of men's souls points in the direc- tion of the known or the unknown, heard or unheard of One, who has said : " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This has doubtless something to do with this Chinese " altar to heaven," and with the beautiful and religious cere- mony, which is here performed by the Emperor in the name of his people. From the myriad idols which crowd the Buddhist and Taouist temples of the land, the Chinese intelligence and sincerity and longing for repose of soul turn to this simple prostration and sacrifice and praj er and praise beneath the open vault of heaven ; and unquestionably there is found a measure of relief, a satisfaction never experienced before the carvud idols of wood and of stone. But the idol is still there in nature deified ; the worship is nature worship. The religious place and its ceremony represent, it may be, the most noble possible aspirations of the unaided human soul, but the outstretched hands take hold of none from above. It is man's work, not God's work ; human, not divine aspiration ; heathenism not Christianity. The form of worship here rendered is probably the most venerable among all the false religions of the world, and takes us back to the period immediately following the deluge. There are many points of resem- . blance between the Chinese and Jewiph rituals, which I lead us back into a common origin in religious cere- l monies adopted by Noah, and transmitted to his de- 8HANG-T1, TIEN-CHU, AND SHIN. 171 scendants. Dr. Harper of Canton, who with his family contributed much to the pleasure of our visit to that part of China, has directed attention to the resem- • blances to be found in the sacrilicial burnt offerings, in the oflferings of diflerent kinds of fish, in the libations of wine, in the gorgeous ro))es and ceremonials for those who oficiate at the sacrifice, in the burning of incense, in the musical interludes during the service, and in the use of full bands of instruments and singers. He has /also noted a remarkable coincidence, in that one of the / cups of wine is called " the cup of blessing." It is quite ^ probable that the original of some of these ideas, appro- priated by Moses and definitely located in the Jewish ritual by David and Solomon, were first adopted and transmitted by Noah, and then at the Babel dispersion the scattered heathen nations carried these resemblances of form in worship even to the most distant regions, re- taining them, while gradually losing all trace of their original significance, even if they had not rione so before the dispersion. There has never appeared in Chinese sacrifice any idea of /propitiatory substitution) such as formed the golden Imks to all the history of Jewish ritualism. The author of the article upon Idolatry in Smith's. Dictionary of the Bible observes that "The old religion of the Shemitic races consisted in the deification of the powers and laws of nature. The sun and moon were early selected as the outward symbols of this all- prevailing power, and the worship of the heavenly bodies was not only the most ancient, but the most prev- alent system of idolatry. Taking its rise in the plains of Chaldea, it s[)rcad through Egypt, Greece, Scythia, and even ^Mexico and Ceylon." Probably the early Hindus and the innnediate ancestors of the Chinese people likewise came to their lands worshipping a deified earth, and a deified sky or heaven. Their religion was of nature ; they had lost trace of the revelation of the supernatural. The ohr Hindu Dyu or Dyaus, the pre- vedic deified heaven or heavenly father, corresponds to the Chinese "Shang-ti," the object of nature or deified heaven, which is here believed to " overshadow and rule Il2 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. ! II all things." If this worship of the heaven-god deserves, as some think, to be reckoned as of kin with Chris- tianity, we must be equally accommodating with the Hindu Dyaus, the Assyrian Merodach, the Greek Zeus, the Latin Jupiter, and the German Jezio. No, Chris- tian Missions are making no mistake in preaching an en- tirely now religion here, instead of reforming that of " Shang-ti." Moreover, after listening to a great deal of the dis- cussion that is going on among the missionaries of China, as to the right term for christians to use here for God, we are fully persuaded that it should not be " Shang-ti." This was the position taken by the Homan Catholic Dominicans as against the Jesuits, nearly two hundred ;years ago. The controversy was very heated and long continued, until a Papal bull decided the ques- tion against the " Shang-ti party," and ordered the use of the new Dominican term " Tien-chu " for God. Some of the victorious party wore very learned and competent men, and there were those among the leaders of the Jesuit order who thoroughly sympathized with them. Protestants afe again divided between the use of this Roman Catholic term and the word "Shin" for God. The former quite accurately describes him as "Lord of Heaven," yet it is comparatively a new term, and in its proper significance is not generally understood among the Chinese people. Besides it has come to be taken largely as indicating the Roman Catholic faith. In various Chinese treatises the term "Tien- chu-kau," or the religion of " Tien-chu " means the Roman Jatholic religion. But the principal consider- ation with the " Shin " party now is to have a word that can be used as the Hebrew Elohim, the Greek Theos, and the Latin Deus. It must be suitable to mean a god, or gods, or the God. The Chinese lan- guage has no plural, except as indicated by context. But confessedly this is rather a weak term, and often means Spirit — even human spirit. Which is to be the word for God in the future of the Christian Church in China, perhaps it would be rash for any one to predict FUNG-SHWAY. 173 amid the strongly held opposing views of to-day. While we do not believe it will be " 8hang-ti," able and honored men here are still urging it. Those who adont "Tien- chu '* have many considerations to urge in its favor. We incline to the term " Shin," and yet it is very ob- jectionable. Perhaps they had better transfer the Greek word Theos. All might agree to that, as the different denominations agree to " baptidzo." I have thus lingered around this philological discussion, for the pur- pose in part of improving my best opportunity to im- press upon the reader the missionary difficulty with heathen languages, both in preaching and in the prepa- ration of a christian literature, and especially in the effort to accurately reproduce in translation the inspired words of the Holy Scripture. / / Tue Fung-shway superstition has appeared to me to ' be the popular echo or amen of the masses throughout China to the principles of the Imi)erial worship offered at the altar of heaven in Pekini?. What the ceremonial at St. Peter's at Rome is to Catholic service in all parts of the world ; what Jewish reverence at the wailing place in Jerusalem beside those great stones of the an- cient temple is to the synagogue ritual everywhere ; what Moslemism at Mecca and Medina is to the venera- tion of the false prophet in many lands ; or what Hindu- ism at Benares is to the whole system of Brahmanism throughout India, the Shang-tiism at Peking seems to /me to be to the doctrine and practice of Fung-shwayism / /among almost all of the four hundred millions of ( /China. There is certainly the connection of identity lof principle — the chief one of nature worship. At some period in the remote past there was probably more organic connection than at the present. The people cannot all go to the capital, to join in that solemn procession, which accompanies the imperial high priest at stated occasions to the altar of heaven, there to lift up their voices with him to Shang-ti, or deified nature ; so all over the land the Fung-shway priests, or magicians and astrologers lead the multitudes in their own local nature worship, applying its prin- 174 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. ..Ilffll ! ciples to every event of their lives, to every occupation, I to every industry, to all their concerns of both the here /I and the hereafter. This vast superstition is really the j' religion of China. People may be Taouists or Con- fucianists or Buddhists, but they all believe more or less thoroughly in the Fung-shway ; and they always believe in this superstition more than they believe in the special tenets of either of those religious systems. To-day a Chinese may go to a Confucian temple ; to-morrow he may make his offering to a Taouist idol ; and on the fol- lowing day he may offer his devotions to a siirine dedi- cated to Buddha, or to Fo, the name of Buddha known in China ; but lie is not so inconsistent with regard to his Fung-shway worship. He keeps that up all the time. 'it moulds his life every hour of every day. It is the atmosphere he breathes while he lives, and in its faith he dies and is buried, and under its laws he expects to exists in the I)eyond. Fung-shway means literally ivind-toater. These words are very well selected to stand for the sum total objects and powers of nature. The Persian Zoroastrians and their successors, the Parsees of India, selected fire and the sun in particular for their materialistic idolatry. The ancient Egyptians worshipped nature in the visible object of the Nile. Hindus use the Ganges for the same purpose. The Chinese made choice of wind and water. They symbolized vastly superhuman power and activity. In the beginning of their religious genesis, they believed that their "middle kingdom" was sur- f/Tounded by water, that water defended it from barba- rians, and by water they realized that their national life was able to circulate. The wind filled their sails, blew mpon them with either the chill of winter or the balmy breath of summer, and brought to them misery or com- /fort, sickness or health. And so probably came about / their selection of these two objects and forces of nature I to represent their nature god. The idolatry, however, is ^mostly if not quite lost in the superstition. The Fung and the Shway are not so much worshipped, as is the whole occult science, that has grown up out of this THE SUPERSTITION EXPLAINED. 175 ■I idolatry, believed, studied and practised by almost the entire population of China. It is the most thorough and complicated 'system of materialism which the hu- man mind has ever invented. It is curious enough to excite the most intense interest, and must be under- stood to form any connect idea of the religious condition of China at the present time. As, when it begins to l)e winter, the cold winds blow from the north, and vegetation dies, discomfort ensues, and diseases multiply ; so this is taken as an index to nature's laws in regard to all the evils that can come upon human life. Every harmful influence is from a northerly direction , whether to business, or to social or political prospects, to health or to strength, to the con- struction of a house or to the digging of a grave. One half of the great task of life is to make such arrange- ments as shall avoid these blighting blasts from the north. Or if they must be faced, then counteracting influences must be secured. Extra clothing is put on in winter, and fires are built, and windows and doors are closed, and more hearty food, if procurable, is eaten, to withstand the cutting northern winds; and, so, a great variety of things must be done to resist the north evil upon childhood, middle age, old age, upon friend- ships and marriages, upon tJiplo3Tnents, contracts, voyages, education, manners, improvements, upon every thing incident to human experience. On the other hand, as, when it begins to be summer, or the spring takes the place of winter, the genial atmospheric influences gradually work their way upward fro mjLhe south , and vegetation revives, comfort returns to^ those areary, dingy, unventilated dwellings, and health and happi- ness are restored to the masses, whose scanty clothinff and limited fiiel have been sure to be the occasion oi much sickness and death during the winter months ; so this is taken as the other index to nature's uniform ]aws in respect to every benign influence that can be ex- vhich tells us how by angles and bearings, by brooms fastened on house-roofs toward the sky, by holes in the ground and mounds in the air, both to ward ofl* all evil and to encourage all good ! Selection of a place for one's grave is about tho most difficult thing to accompl'sh in China, and the difficulty increases in pro- pQ^fVr..- l^y ii^Q wealth of the person to be buried, or of any ^is relatives, who may be supposed to take a practical interest in securing an eligible location for the corpse and immunity from the annoyance of the de- parted spirit in his ugly and revengeful moods. When we visited the How-qua family of Canton, whose wall encloses thirt}^ acres of the city, with many buildings, parks, and gardens, and whose wealth is estimated at twenty millions of dollars, we were permitted to see the great vault, where the bodies of deceased members of the family are kept till burial. It was very plain that the Fung-shway priests do a thriving business for the How-quas. We counted seven coffins there, all sealed and ready for the ground, whenever the cunning magi- cians have decided upon a favorable locality. One of / the coffins had been waiting upon their flnancial con- I venience fourteen years. All this time the jugglers had \been scouring the neighborhood for many miles; but Wways, on account of some building, or hill, or tree, or /other grave bearing upon the proposed site, the Fung- ' shway was decidedly bad. VAST LABYRINTH OF DIFFICULTIES. 179 Until this superstition can be more shaken, the diflS- culty in the way of raih'oads and telegraphs is insur- mountable. Graves, indeed, would be disturbed, for the whole country is one vast ('emetery, and thus the entire Fung-shvvay balance of arrangements among the departed be broken up — a calamity of inconceivable magnitude — for it would ])ring the whole spirit-world tearing mad down u[)on the present generation ; but, then, don't you see? — ah ! no ; base, grovelling foreign- ers cannot see, they have not the necessary faculties and culture. Raih-oads and telcgra[)hs are in straight lines,