CIHM Microfiche Series (l\/lonographs) ICMH Collection de microfiches (monographies) Canadian Instituta for Hiatorlcal MIcroraproductiona / InatKut Canadian da microraproduetiona lilatoriquaa 1995 Technical and Bibliographic Notes / Notes technique et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available (or filming Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming are checked below. D D D Coloured covers / Couveiture de couleur I I ravers c'^niaged / I — ' Couverturu endommagte I I Covers restored and/or laminated / ' — ' Couverture restaur^ et/ou pellicula I I Cover title missing / Le tHre de couverture manque I I Coloured maps / Cartes gtegraph'ques en couleur r~] Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) I I Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ ' — ' Ranches et/ou illustratk)ns en couleur I I Bound with other material / ' — ' Rell* avec d'autres documents Only editkHi available / Seule Mitk>n disponible Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin / La rellure serrie peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distorsion le long de la marge int^rieure. Blank leaves added during restoratkxis may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming / II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajout^es lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte. mais, kxsque cela itait possible, ces pages n'ont pas et6 filmies. L'lnstitut a microfilm* le meilleur examplaire qu'il iui a m possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exem- plaire qui sont peut-Stre uniques du point de vue bibli- ographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modifications dans ia m6th- ode normale de filmage sont indiqu6s ci-dessous. 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D Addttk>nal comments / Commentaires suppt^mentaires: Thjt inni ii f itanad at th< raduction rnio ehacfctd btlow/ C* document tst f iimt au taux de raduction indtqui ci-danous. lOX 14X 1«X 22X 12X 2ax 3:x Th* copy (ilmtd har* hu baan raproducad thanks to tria 9anaro«ltv of: National Library of Canada L'aHamplaira film* fut raproduit grica 1 la gintroiiti da: Blbllothiqua natlonala du Canada Tha imagas appaaring hara ara iha bast quality poMibIa conaidaring tha condition and lagibility of tha original copy and in kaaping with tha filming contract ipacificationa. Original copia* in printad papar cevara ara fllmad baginning with tha front covar and ending on tha laat paga with a printad or illuatraiad impraa- •ion. or tha back covar whan apprepriata. All othar original capiat ara filmad baginning on tha firtt paga with a printad or llluttratad Impras- ■ion, and anding on tha last paga with a printad or llluttratad imprattion. Tha laat racordad frama on aach microficha thall contain tha aymbol — ^ Imaaning "CON- TINUED"), or tha symbol ▼ Imaaning "END"), whiehavar appliat. Mapt. plataa. cham. ate, may ba filmad at diffarant raduction ratiot. Thota too larga to ba antiraly includad in ona axpotura ara filmad baginning in tha uppar laft hand cornar, laft to right and top to bonom. at many framat at raquirad. Tha following diagramt illuttrata tha mathod: Lat imagai luivantat ent ttt raproduitat avae la plut grand toin. eompta tanu da la condition at da la nattata da I'atampiaira film*, at an conformita avac laa conditiont du eontrat da fllmaga. Laa aaamplairaa eriginauii dont la eouvarturt an papiar aat Imprimaa tont filmat an cemmancant par la pramiar plat at an tarminant toit par la darni*ra paga qui eompona una amprainta d'imprattion ou d'illuttration. toit par la tacond plat, talon la cat. Tout lat autrat axamplairat originaux tont filmtt an commancant par la pramiara paga qui comporta una amprainta d'Impraation ou d'illuatration at an tarminant par la darnlAra paga qui comporta una talla amprainta. Un daa tymbolaa tuivantt tpparaitra tur la darniira imaga da chaqua microficha. talon la cat: la aymbola -«' tignifia "A SUIVRE". la tymbola Y tignifia "FIN". Lat cartat, planchat, tablaaux, ate. pauvant aira filmat i dat taux da raduction difftrantt. Lortqua la documant att trap grand pour itra raproduit an un taul clicha. il att filma t partir da I'angia tupAriaur guucha. da gaucha k droita. at da haut an bat. an pranani la nombra d'imagat nacaaaaira. Laa diagrammaa tuivantt illuttrant la mOthoda. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 MClOCOrv IBOtUTION TBT CHART ,ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 I.I 121 12.0 1.8 ^1^1 1.6 ^ /APPLIED IIVHDE Inc (716) *82 - 0300- ^/ '.l.-ifJ.L^. <•• THE SKCULAR PRESS AND FOREIGN MISSIONS THK SKCULAR PRKSS AND FOREIGN MISSIONS ■r J. A. MAtDONAl.n M A N A R I N G E D I T U R () K T H f. - that I am the managing editor of a daily newspaper. And so the opportunity comes again for some one to ask, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" As a man's point of view is a factor in his opinions and judgments, it is right that I should not conceal the standpoint from which I am to view this ques- tion. I am a newspaper man, with the bias, the limitations, the instincts and the traditions of my craft. For the moment I am not specially concerned with the religious interests at home or the missionary activities abroad. My perspective, my ambitions, my ideals are those of the newspaper office. Now for our question. Here we have the secular Press, sending its line into all the earth, making its «« THE SECULAR PRESS voice heard from Florida to the Yulton, the teacher of the public mind, the organ of public opinion, the university of the common people. Now, what is the relation of that institution to the foreign missionary movement ? I answer that question, as is a Scotsman's right, by asking another, and, being a Canadian Scot, I ask two; First, What is the function of the Press? and, second. What is the newspaper value of missionary incidents and missionary movements ? I. The function of the newspaper is, in a word, to be what it professes to be — a news paper. Its pri- mary function is the collecting, the organizing, the interpreting and the disseminating of news. The daily newspaper presents a report of the world's do- ings for one day. It holds the mirror up to life, and reflects the facts of life with more or less definiteness of outline and truth of proportion. All sorts of facts are reflected because all sorts of facts are there. Quarrel with the facts of life — with its murder, and theft, and bribery, and divorce, and graft, and per- jury, and multiform immorality — quarrel with the facts before you quarrel with their reflection. Change those facts into things of beauty and their reflection in the daily newspaper will b„ a joy forever. The proportion and the perspective of the news- paper, the space given to this class of news and to that, the sweep of its survey and the interpretation of its facts, will depend on the resources of its count- ( AND FOREIGN MISSIONS ii ing-room, the needs of its constituency and the qual- ity of its ideal. The typical up-to-date newspaper has its eyes on the ends of the earth. Not only the social function in the next street, but to-night's happenings in poli- tics, in trade, in international affairs, whether they be in Britain, or continental Europe, or Africa, or the Orient, will be told in the morning to the people of the United States and Canada. The Press has its finger-tips on the pulse of the world, and the heart- beats of civilization are counted and the health of the world bulletined in the office of the daily newspaper. II. Now, in that world-survey should a place be made for news and views of the world's evangeliza- tion? A place is made for world-wide politics, and trade, and social scandal, and industrial revolutions, and wars and rumors of wars. Of all these the Asso- ciated Press tells the story, and special cables supply the "scoops." A "scoop," or a "beat," in diplomacy, or in foreign politics, or in international intrigue is a front-page feature for a wide-awake newspaper. Of what value is a "scoop" in foreign missions? I answer that question, not as a missionary or a missionary advocate, but solely as the editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper, and I say that in my judgment the work of Christian missions in non-Christian lands contains, and could be made to supply, as important news, and often as sensational a story, as is ever car- ried by the cables or told by the Press. 12 THE SECULAR PRESS What gives public interest and sensation to any news item from a foreign land f It is its broadly hu- man features, its intimacy of touch with thought and life at home, and its bearing on the fortunes of civili- zation abroad. And those characteristics belong to incidents and movements in foreign missions just as truly and quite as largely as to news that originates in the secret places of the diplomats, or at the Lega- tions, or in the Foreign Office, or among the traders or capitalists or social nabobs. (1)1 have said that a foreign news item to be inter- esting must have broadly human features. Every ed- itor knows the newspaper value of the human element in a story. A thing might happen in Nashville to- night, the parties involved might be obscure and hitherto unheard-of, but in the incident there might be condensed and concentrated some of the master passions, some of the universal elements of human na- ture, and that story would be flashed to New York, to Chicago, to San Francisco, to Toronto, and would be read with intensest interest to-morrow morning by a million people who never saw Nashville or heard of those involved in the story. The human element makes appeal to the human heart and furnishes the essentials of a newspaper story. So, too, with incidents and movements in China, in India, in Japan, in Africa, and in all the fields of foreign mission enterprise. In every one of those fields new illustrations are supplied of the great forces AND FOREIGN MISSIONS >3 and features in human life — the high courage, the he- roic endurance, the significant triumph, the spiritual tragedy. What is needed is the reporter with the true newspaper instinct, and the happenings of the mission field would be woven into a newspaper story. And the day is coming when the genius of the fiction writer will discover and utilize the wealth of material provided in the conflict of Christianity with heathen- ism. What Ralph Connor has done for the lumber camps of the Ottawa, the ranches of the Foothills and the mining towns of the Rocki' 3 some one will yet do for the mission fields of Africa and the Orient. And if meanwhile we newspaper editors in America, in the rush and strain of our crowded lives, are slow to recognize the newspaper value of foreign mission in- cidents, we can comfort ourselves with the reflection that the great publishing houses of the United States declined Ralph Connor's first book because of its re- ligious and missionary qualities ; and you friends of missions may be encouraged to hope for our enlight- enment and conversion when you reflect that "Black Rock," although refused at first, has been published by nearly every respectable pirate house in the United States in successive editions ranging from 50,000 to half a million each. Book publishers as well as news- paper editors come to learn that the great human heart is incurably interested in the agelong and world-wide human struggle. (2) I have also said that the news of foreign mis- 14 THE SECULAR PRESS sioM it in intimate touch with life at home, and, therefore, hat real journalistic value. Foreign af- fairs — trade, politics, sports — are of newspaper value in proportion to the local interest. The recent general elections in Britain were of interest to hun- dreds of thousands in the United States and Canada who came 'rom Britain, or who, for commercial rea- sons, were concerned in matters of tariff and trade. For that reason the cables were kept hot with reports of the speeches and of the voting. Is there not in- terest as widespread and as keen throughout this country in the incidents and progress of worldwide evangelization ? Are there not hundreds of thousands throughout the south and the north and the west and the Dominion of Canada who have children or rela- tives engaged in the schools and hospitals and evan- gelistic work of foreign missions? And are there not literally millions who give of their means and who intercede in their prayers for the sake of that missionary work ? Those facts are indisputable evi- dence of a widespread and enduring interest which the secular Press cannot aSord to minimize or neg- lect. (3) Once more, I have said that the newspaper in- terest of a foreign news item is in part dependent on its bearing on the progress of civilization abroad. The newspaper is an institution of civilization. It owes to civilization its existence, its freedom, and its power. And it is under obligation to promote civilization, to AND FOREIGN MISSIONS ■5 strengthen iti aggreuive agencies and to defend its world-wide interests. That obligation to civilization involves an obliga- tion to missions. The civiliiation which we U- w and approve, under which we live, and to which *e owe what is most worth while in our life, is a Chris- tian civiliiation, awakened, organized, developed, vi- talized and kept from corruption and collapse, not by Congress or Parliament, not by trade and industry, not by great corporations and financial institutions, but, more than by all other influences, by the rejuve- nating, inspiring, cleansing forces and agencies of the Christian faith. And until we have seen somewhere in actual life a civilization that can live, and that de- serves to live, apart from and independent of a vital Christian faith we are bound, whtn we send acmss the seas our trade and our scii .itific knowledge and our political influence, to send also those spiritual and Christian elements which have safeguarded and vital- ized our civilization at home. III. What can the secular Press do, what can rea- sonably be expected of it, in relation to the world- wide missionary movement i (i) It can master the missionary problem as thor- oughly as it masters the political problem, or the so- cial problem, or the industrial problem, or any other problem that touches the life and progress of a for- eign people. On the staff of every newspaper that can afford an expert in finance and trade and econom- l6 THE SECULAR PRESS ici and iporti there ihould be an expert in mattera o( religioua and miaiionary intereit, who would aave the paper from the miataket and miarepreienlationa and nterpretatlona which would not be tolerated in any other department. (i) It should report the facta of the miaiionary movement, it> organizations at home and ita enter- prises abroad, with the same intelligence and fairness as is done in the esse of other matters end move- ments. A newspaper that would confuse the termin- ology of sports or misuse the nomenclature of the law courts or of politics would betray ignorance and suf- fer disgrace. Its ignorance is as real and its dis- grace should be as certain when its reports and com- ments on rcligons affairs are confused and misleading. (3) It should stand for that type of civilization at home which can justly claim the right to extend it- self abroad and project itself over the world. Only that civilization which is superior and living is worth transplanting and has the right to endure. There are features in our life, types in our civilization — po- litical, commercial, indust'ial, social — which are lo- cal, selfish, blameworthy, and which would be a bur- den and a curse to any nation that adopted them. By standing against those types and features, by resist- ing them, by having them repudiated as being alien and antagonistic to the civilization of America, the Press of this country would not only check the forces that make for corruption and decay at home, but AND FOREIGN MISSIONS 17 would prcient to natlona abroad a type of civilitation that de»erve> to be tupreme, that hai in it the ele- menta that endure, and that it deitined to touch to finer iiiuei the life of the world. (4) The secular Preu can aid the miiiionary cause by itanding for honor and truth and a square deal in the relations of Christian nations with the nations and peoples and tribes of the non-Christian world. The British nation is the greatest secular power mak- ing for righteousness and civilitation which a thou- sand years of history knows, but the records of Brit- ish diplomacy, of British trade, uf Itritish expansion, In India, in China, in Africa, are not unstained, else we had no mutiny, no enforced opium tradi., and no Jameson raids, with the horror and shame and un- speakable dishonor that followed in their train. Look you to your affairs, you men of the American Repub- lic, and see if there be in your diplomacy and foreign trade and new-born, far-flying imperialism anything of which your citizens, did they but know it, ought to be ashamed. By standing against those wrongs the Press of this country would give Christian nations prestige abroad, would promote the civilization and elevate the life of non-Christian peoples, and would give the missionary an undishonored standing and a fair chance. (5) The Press can still further and more definitely serve the missionary movement by being intelligent and fair in its treatment of the missionary problem. I< THE SECULAR PRESS informed in its discussion of missionary methods, accurate in its estimate of missionary results, and just in its criticisms of missionary workers. No immun- ity is asked, no exemption from criticism, but only intelligence, fairness, and a just appreciation of the services to the world's knowledge and progress which the missionaries have rendered. There is demanded, too, an honest and reasonable sense of the civil rights of missionaries under the same treaties which secure the rights of traders and travellers. And it is within the scope of the Press not only to criticize mission- aries, but also to criticize the uninformed and preju- diced critics of missionaries, the vagabond globe-trot- ters whose lust has cursed the natives and whose per- fidy the missionaries condemn. (6) Once more, the Press can serve the causes of civilization and evangelization by reading the move- ments of history and interpreting the developments of human society so as to allow for those spiritual forces without which civilization had not been, and apart from which there could even now be no endur- ing progress. The men who report and record the doings of the day must co-ordinate those incidents and events into movements, and must relate those movements to the increasing purpose that runs through the ages and gives meaning and worth to the history of the world. Sending cotton from the American south and wheat from the Canadian west, and bringing back rice and tea and silk from the Ori- AND FOREIGN MISSIONS 19 ent, is not all there is in the relations of the East and the West. It is not by accident that at the very time when the East is awakening to a new and deep sense of need there is going on in the West a reconceiving and reforming of Christian truth for universal ends, and a reorganizing of Christian forces for world-wide service. These coincidences do not come by chance. The men who stand alert and aware upon the watch- towers and scan the far horizon line, noting the day's happenings in the world's trade and politics and social life, are not blind to the deep significance of the situation in China, and India, and Africa, and the islands of the sea, where the doors of oppor- tunity stand open wide, and a million tongues cry aloud and a million hands are stretched out for the help of a larger, fuller life; nor are they blind to the equally deep significance of the missionary movement which has gathered such force in the churches, and colleges, and universities of tnis con- tinent and of Christendom, of which this Conven- tion of Student Volunteers is such emphatic expres- sion; nor are they, the best men on the secular Press, unbelieving as to the mighty, all-embracing purpose that runs through the currents and confusions of both East and West, making slowly and by wide circuits, but steadily and surely, for the day-dawn of universal peace and truth and good-will. The missionary motive is the dynamic of civiliza- tion. The Cross of Christ is the philosophy of the 20 THE PRESS AND MISSIONS world's history. The Christian evangel is the soul of the world's hope. And the impulse of the world's progress is in the redemptive purpose of God — That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves.