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Cornell University Library
Sthaca, New York

CHARLES WILLIAM WASON

COLLECTION
CHINA AND THE CHINESE

THE GIFT OF
CHARLES WILLIAM WASON
CLASS OF 1876
1918
Cornell University
copy the} BV 550.A8N4 1901

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MISSIONARY ISSUES

OF THE

TWENTIETH CENTURY.

PAPERS AND ADDRESSES OF THE

General Missionary Conference

OF THE

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH, HELD IN NEW
ORLEANS APRIL 24-30, 1901; WITH A NUMBER OF
MAPS AND CHARTS IN ILLUSTRATION OF
THE WORK OF MISSIONS, THE LATEST
STATISTICAL TABLES, AND A
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY.

(ft é
2 kay by
NASHVILLE, Tenn,, U.S. A.:

PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
Gerorce W. Carn, SECRETARY.
Wa Siting

BV2 5504

A®@ NH:
IG al

W 1431

NAsHVILLE, TENN.; DaLxias, TEX.:
Press oF PustisHinc Houss M. E. Cuurcu, SouTH.
BaRBEE & SMITH, AGENTS.
CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY. PAGE
Pretatory NOTE. gece naae.ce deavmis aieen a gue geatngeal daha gealWie wlachas 2
Origin and Purpose of the Conference.........0.seeeees 3
The General Missionary Conference...............0.000 10

I. MISSIONS.

Section I. THe Founpation.

The Aim and Scope of Foreign Missions.....:........... 23
The Missidfiary [d@awaies: caccun di wemcioraw es wine easels eaniee 33
The Healing of the Nations....................0 eee 45
I MeCGESe Ti, (NE veriys tata en eran dae eep iar a eae 62
Obedience to the Great Commission: Christ’s Law of Life

tO? LIS CHULCHiis oe ative na Rais ag Ba eee Ae ee wee See 74
Prayer and: Missions: coewe S kaicninee geae ter atrunereee 80
The Adequacy of Christianity to Meet the World’s Need... 89
The Bible and Missions. ..........0 0c eeeeeeee ee eneee 100
The Duty of the Pastor as to Missionary Equipment and

bead ershipucauenootinemeghe woe reise Cane owe soune ere 110
Methodism and Modern Missions................0-0000- 117

Section II. EpucatronaL Work.

Christian Education and Foreign Mission Work.......... 126
Missions and Education ........ 0... cece cece eee nes 133
The Value of the Study of Missions to College Students... 145
Woman’s Educational Work.......... 0... ccc cece eee 154
Our Educational Work in China........... 0.0... 00000 169
Section III. Mepican Work.
The Physician as a Missionary......... 0.00. cece eee ee eee 179
Medical Work for Woman............ cc cece cece e eee 187

Section IV. Literary Work.

A Supreme Need of the Work in China................. Ig!
A General Survey.. bss eepie is Wi han RUN pele Green a Ya a ase 199
iv CONTENTS.

Section V. Woman’s Work. aie
Woman’s Work at Home and Abroad........seesee reese 208
Woman’s Work in Foreign Missions..........-+.++++++ 222
Bible Women...... ccc c eee ee cette een eee enn tnnees 231
Section VI. THE YounG PEOPLE.
The Young People and the Church of the Future......... 241
The Sunday School Superintendent : How He May Deepen
the Missionary Spirit in the Sunday School............ 257
The Highest Achievement ci the Epworth League........ 262
Organization for Missionary Work........-+++++eeeeeees 267
The Responsibility of the Young People for the Evangeli-
zation of the World........-. cece cece eee ence eens 271
How to Make the Epworth League Most Effective as a
Missiotaty FoRiRe.<acnsnswnedeavewravet arene eeee ere 284

Missionary Training and Literature for Young People.... 291

Section VII. From Various STANDPOINTS.

The Missionary Phase of Church Extension............+- 300
The Future of Missions in Asia from a Layman’s Standpoint. 310
Lessons from Master Missionaries...........00ee eee euee 317

II. FOREIGN FIELDS.
GENERAL REVIEW.
The History, Policy, and Outlook of the Foreign Mission-

ary Work of the M. E. Church, South................. 337
I. Cain.
The Missionary Outlook in the Far East................ 347
Map Ol hina ic niavinwie ne aulad aelaeat alate mises facing 347
The Forward Movement in Our China Mission........... 368
The Situation: Chita: «iG vies GaneiasGacnisieb ares 384
The Story of the Siege of Peking..................0004. 304
II. Mextco anp Cusa.
Map Gf MéxGGspa:cee2 0 sie mam we eee Bee facing 407
Our Western Fields—Mexico and Cuba..............4.. 407
Map or Cubas arisws ae eaeane rs Sima ated ieee facing 412
I1I. Braztt.

Evangelistic Work in the Foreign Mission Field.......... 414
Map of Eastern. Brazil. .c..w ics sncceavarneavaus facing 422

Brazil: A Survey of the Field... 0... .. cece cece eee 422
CONTENTS. Vv

III. Japan. PAGE
Map:-of Japanvcags scsuierausiascs act @aeuenisnenes facing 428
Christian Missions in Japan—a Sketch...............0005 428
V. Korea.
Map of Korea nn svciiis ia iene keene eueNels facing 440
The “KWOrea: IMiSsiOit onc acenanerce acon eee oy ee cadets 440

Ill. IN THE UNITED STATES.
I. THe Inpians.
Work among the North American Indians.............. 447

II. THE GERMANS.
Gerinany Missions .nuiiig 3h 28 esas eek hl oa SAS 456

III. THe NEGROEs.
Are We Meeting Our Responsibility to the Negroes of the

SOUT ELI war pace oentr yer us aun cau avg cheba iad sdeak eve ate 466
The Development, the Needs, and the Outlook of the Paine

TiS tb Es sa ai eos he See ee wow Bde ik a ee a 474
Wane GONE r eles: ck a seitie mes da heaheie aileron Vag anes) tienen ds 480
The Futureof the Nest0s<cscaceeies vue cee ee cues een ass 481
The Medical Education of the Negro.................05- 484

IV. Home Missrons.

Our Domestic Missions......... 00. e cece cece ee eee e eee 493
Problems of Self-Support and Administration............. 499

Growth and Character of City Population in the South.... 507
The Need of Trained Workers to Supplement Our Regular

Church Agencies in City Missions.............. 000000 519
Woman’s Home Mission Society, with Map.............. 524
Our Foreign and Factory Population.................05. 529
The Literature of Home Missions...............-0 0000s 539

ADDRESS.
Sacrifice for: Jestis’s Sak6.c.ce cine seen ec wteoraener aie 549
IV. APPENDIX,
The Missionary Exhibit.......... 6... e sees seen seen eee 557
CHA rE Ses eis scatters Mia ea eons Pca eae Soa ees 561
Statistical TableSic 5c: 0s Ge acwaewe eae aw cede ae ses 578
Bibliostaphy sauccomases ery Sheer as aes bee 585
Committees of the General Missionary Conference........ 5890

Missionary Directory, M. E. Church, South.............. 591
“CHRIST IS IN THE VAN”

In our day we hear much of “Back to Christ.” My brethren,
Christ is not back there. Why seek ye the living among the
dead? Let the cry of the Church be “Forward to Christ!”
Christ is in the van; Christ is on the firing line; Christ is
where the battle ts being waged and where the battle ts being
won, and the great cry on the firing line is: “Close up! close
upl! close upll!” ~

And there together, nearest our Lord, we are winning the
great battles of Christendom. And that is the motto of this
great Missionary Conference: “forward to Christ! Close
ranks there under him, with his scarred hand pointing to where
we are to take our places in the great battle line.” Let us do our
part on the firing line until the great victory is won and the
kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord
and of his Christ.—Bisnuor Henprix.
INTRODUCTORY.

PREFATORY NOTE.
THE ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE,

PROCEEDINGS.
PREFATORY NOTE.

For the rearrangement into their present order of the papers
and addresses contained in this book, the Executive Committee is
indebted to Rev. G. B. Winton, who as editor also wrote the
Proceedings and has exercised a general oversight in the publica-
tion of the volume. The maps and statistics were prepared under
the direction of Dr. W. R. Lambuth, the charts by Rev. P. L.
Cobb, and the index by Miss Kate Harlan. The Bibliography is
by Dr. O. E. Brown.

For the Committee, James Atkins, Chairman;

G. W. Cain, Secretary.
ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE.

REV. JAMES |ATKINS, D.D,

THE most eloquent souvenir of a civic kind that I have ever seen
is the key of the Bastile, as it hangs and rusts in the home of Wash-
ington at Mt. Vernon. The most eloquent souvenir of a religious
kind which I have ever seen is the old shoemaker’s hammer which
William Carey, “the sanctified cobbler,” laid down when he took
up the trumpet of the gospel in the Orient. The wooden handle of
that hammer is still unimpaired by age, and there are men still in
the flesh who were babes when William Carey began his great work.
That which has occurred in the progress of this great thought, from
the time in which William Carey glowed and burned as the morning
star of modern missions to this day in which we meet in such an
assembly, is the supreme miracle of the century.

Possibly the largest religious gathering of modern times was the
Ecumenical Conference on Foreign Missions held in New York
City one year ago in this month. It may be that when all the
streams of its influence have been measured in their results, it will
be pronounced the greatest meeting since the day of Pentecost. On
the first night of that meeting, when Carnegie Hall was taxed to
its utmost, even to the vestibules, and hundreds were going away in
disappointment, a resident of the city, himself in sympathy with the
purposes of the meeting, consoled one of the disappointed comers
with the assurance that the greatness of the crowd that night was
due to the fact that the meeting was being opened by the President
of the United States; and he kindly assured ‘the stranger that after
that evening there would be no mire trouble about room. Those
who saw Carnegie Hall similarly taxed by day and by night for ten
continuous days, and on the last night heard an Ex-President of the
United States, now recently laid to rest amid the honors of his people,
4 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

state that through ‘a lifetime of attendance upon great political and
civic conventions he had never known one equal to this in sustained
and ever-deepening enthusiasm, realized that the name of Jesus is
above every other name, and that he is already King of kings and
Lord of lords. The meeting was such that no one who was there
could dowbt that the vast and checkered metropolis of our na-
tion felt temporarily, and we may hope permanently, the thrill of
its mighty presence ‘and purpose.

The personnel and scope of that Conference were alike wonderful.
There were men there of the truly heroic mold, the Pauline type,
who had carried ‘their lives in their hands, not as a mere incident
now ‘and then, but as a habit of life, until they had grown white in
the bleachery of years and with the cares of the Churches. Peter
was there, stalwart and storm-beaten; and John, the spiritual; and
Titus and Timothy in the freshness and vigor of young life. There
were women like Phoebe, who ‘had performed the high ministry of
bringing Paul at Corinth to bear on the metropolitan peoples at
Rome; others like Lydia, who had thrown open the consolatory
gates of the Christian home to the apostles of God in foreign lands ;
there were others like Mary, the mother of Zebedee’s sons, and her
of the alabaster box. Among the laymen there were men like the
elders of the Church at Ephesus, and Dionysius the Areopagite,
with a number of elect ladies like Damaris. The Conference em-
braced representatives from all the lands of the globe, and dealt with
every practical question involved in the extension of Christ’s king-
dom among the heathen.

Every great movement has connected with it certain questions
which are subject to philosophic solution, others which aire subject
to mathematical solution, and still other residuary elements which
yield only to what may be called chemical solution. Perhaps in
this last respect, more than in any other, the economic effect of that
meeting will be felt in the future of missionary work.

While the Ecumenical Conference was in session, and after suffi-
cient progress ‘had been made for the delegates to grasp something
ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE. 5

of its meaning and to become imbued with its spirit, the representa-
tives of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, met to measure
impressions and compare views as to the great subject about which
the Conference was conversant. It was found to be the unanimous
desire of thiose present that a meeting of similar character, but of
denominational range, should be held at an early day. A commit-
tee was appointed to bring this suggestion before the Board of Mis-
sions at its annual session in May. The Board of Missions indorsed
the proposal unanimously and with enthusiasm, and appointed an
Executive ‘Committee to provide for the holding of the meeting in
which, by God’s good providence and grace, and by the generous
hospitality of the Church and citizens of New Orleans, we are gath-
ered on this auspicious day.

It was meet that the last year of the nineteenth century, the only
century of modern missions, should witness the coming together
of the missionaries from all the lands under the sky, like doves
flocking to their windows, to that Ecumenical Conference, to lay
at the feet of our Master and before the eyes of mankind the
achievements of 'a century of missionary toil. It is just as meet that
the twentieth century in its opening hours find the Methodists of
the South, whom I once heard an able and generous Presbyterian
minister pronounce the vanguard ‘of the Lord’s hosts, assembled
for the purpose of planning larger campaigns in the name of our
Lord. Ina work of this kind, if leadership should be expected on
doctrinal grounds, who should go before the Methodists ? and among
Methodists, who before us, in whose blood has been mingled for
generations all the warmth of Southern sunshine?

The justification of a ‘meeting of this order for a single de-
nomination is found in the fact that, however great may have been
the influence of the Ecumenical Conference and the volume of
knowledge which it furnished to the Church at large, they could
not otherwise than by such a meeting as this be brought within
reach of the general membership of each of the bodies composing
the larger gathering. The range of interests was too wide indeed,
6 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and the volume of knowledge too large, to be made available for
the practical purposes of denominational work until focalized, so
to speak, by the denominational lenses. Moreover, those whi at-
tended that Conference gained a conception, and enjoyed, indeed,
a consciousness of the majesty and power of the modern missionary
movement, such as they had never had before, and such as could not
be derived from an assembly of any other character. They earnestly
desired to transmit and reproduce this conception and conscious-
ness as far as possible, so that a much larger number of their breth-
ren might have the same gracious experience and empowering for
the larger work which lies before us.

But one of the most comprehensive and permanent purposes of
this meeting is one to which hitherto almost no attention has been
given by our Church. I refer to the creation of a literature on mis-
sions suited to the use of our own people. It was seen at the be-
ginning that we might through such a meeting as this produce
within one week a literature which otherwise we might not have for
many years, and possibly never in so definite and available a form.
The result, as already in the hands of the printers, vindicates our
largest hope ‘on this line, and gives assurance that within a. few
weeks we shall have a volume in which will be found not only a
comprehensive view of the great movement, but in which will be
found also a harmonious presentation of the various special themes
which are engaging the attention of our own Church. And this
survey, unlike that of the Ecumenical Conference, will include a
thorough treatment of our home mission work and problems, as
well as those of the foreign fields.

Perhaps not the least valuable feature of this work will be that
arrangements will be made whereby any separate paper within the
volume can be had in tractate form and.at a very small cost. This
provision is deemed especially valuable, because by reason of it
pastors, Sunday school superintendents and teachers, and parents
will be able to determine by reading the volume what paper or
papers will be of special service to their congregations, schools,
ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE. q

classes, or families, and can obtain the same in sufficient quantities
at so small a cost as not to deter them.

It is confidently expected that, as a secondary result of this vol-
ume, there will be a large stimulation of missionary interest and a
corresponding enlargement in the use of other missionary literature.
When we add to these things the fact that the treatment which our
‘own fields are to receive in this volume will bring our workers and
their work ‘home to the understanding and affections of our people
as nothing else can do, we dare not limit the spiritual results which
mlay come to our people from its proper use.

We have with us to-day not only a large number from our own
‘communion in our own and other lands, but we have also a number
from other communions and other lands, who are here in the spirit
of their Master, to serve us for our good to edification. These are
all heartily welcomed. The author of the letter to the Hebrews has
this social injunction: “Be not unmindful to entertain strangers, for
thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” We, on this oc-
casion, strike out the “unawares,” and entertain angels with knowl-
edge and forethought; and, I trust, also with knowledge and fore-
thought entertain angels.

Finally, brethren, there is another matter of supreme concern,
about which I would speak briefly and with the deepest and most
grateful reverence. Almost at the beginning of the work of the
Executive Committee in the organization of this meeting a prayer
circle was formed which rapidly grew until niow there are probably
thousands who have daily approached the throne of grace for the
resting of the Holy Ghost upon this assembly. We trust that God
has heard these prayers and that he will vouchsafe that gracious
guidance in all we do. We know, but possibly do not sufficiently
reflect upon the truth, that without him we can do nothing. We
know that even in our generous purpose to give a knowledge of the
Saviour to our benighted brethren we shall fail unless the Spirit
in the performance of his promised offices shall convince the world
of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and shall take of the
8 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

things of Jesus and show them unto us. It was in reference to the
coming and imminence of the Holy Spirit in this dispensation that
Jesus uttered those marvelous words of promise: “He that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works
than these shall ye do; because I go unto my Father.” And he
taxed the faith and tested the love of his own disciples when he
said: “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away,
the Comforter will not come.” Mly the presence of our great High
Priest, at the right-hand of the Father, be perpetually attested by
the presence of the Spirit in our hearts!

Jesus later said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel
to every creature;” but he also said: ““Tarry ye at Jerusalem till ye
be endued with power from on high.” If I should undertake to
express in one word the largest hope of this occasion and of this
cause which lies so near our hearts, I should say it is the fuller
enduement of our Church with that power which cometh from
above. May God grant us this, whatever else he may withhold!

And now we give thanks unto the Father, “which hath made us
meet to bepartakersof the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath
delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into
the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through
his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: whio is the image of the in-
invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by ‘him were all
things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and
invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities,
or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is
before all things, and by him all things consist: and he is the head
of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from
the dead; that in all things he might have the preéminence: for it
pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell; and, having
made peace through the ‘blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all
thing's unto himself; by ‘him, I say, whether they be things in earth
or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and
enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE. 9

in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and un-
blamable and unreprovable in his sight: . . . to whom God
would make known what lis the riches of the glory of this mystery
among the Gentiles ; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

And may he by his Spirit empower us to make “all men see what
is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the
world hath been hid in God, whio created ‘all things by Jesus Christ:
to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly
places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom ‘of God,
according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus
our Lord!” And may He “of whom the whole family in heaven and
earth is named” grant us, “according to the richness of his glory,
to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that
Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith; that we, being rooted and
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what
is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know
the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled
with all the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to do ex-
ceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the
power that worketh us. Unto him be glory in the Church by Christ
Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”
THE GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.
‘“Ye have not passed this way heretofore.” (Josh. iii. 4.)

A new century lies before us as the promised land spread under
the eyes of Israel. We have not passed this way before. We
shall not pass this way again. But we needs must pass. We can
neither remain where we are nor turn back. And not only is the
way untried and the land unexplored, but rivers “roll between,’
tests of our faith and valor. By the side of Jordan the timid
hesitate. A'gainst every advance the conservative protest. For
both Joshua has a soothing word. The way is new, but the Guide
is old.

Among all the conferences of Methodism there had not been
a General Missionary Conference. The way was as untrodden
as the path which crossed the uncovered stones of Jordan. But
the moment came when there must be a movement. The ark
had moved. For sin was moving, and the Captain of our sal-
vation will not be outgeneraled. His forces are now mobilized.
If we would remain true to him, we must get in motion. He is not
waiting but leading. As one speaker at New Orleans tersely
said: “Christ is in front, not behind.”

The feet that bear the ark had touched the Jordan. The sum-
mer flood of Boxer rage, Japanese scorn, and Catholic intoler-
ance was brimming above, stayed by an almighty Hand. The
word went down the line: “When ye see the ark of the covenant
of the Lord your God, . . . then shall ye remove from your
place, and go after it.” Such was the warrant for the Confer-
ence which gathered at New Orleans on April 24, 1901, and con-
tinued its meetings seven days. We were led along untried ways,.
but the ark went before. It will be well if all the tribes of our
Israel awake to the fact that God is in advance of his Church.
We have asked hhim for cpen doors, and the doors are off their
hinges. To our prayer for more laborers he has replied with the
hiost of student volunteers. We now are brought to the test. He
has done his part; are we ready for ours?

Interdenominational conventions in the interest of missions
had often been held. The last and greatest of these was in New
York in April of 1900. The meeting at New Orleans appears to
PROCEEDINGS. Il

be the first representing a single denomination—a whole denomi-
nation. Perhaps it will not be the last. It grew out of the New
York Conference, as is set forth in the preceding pages by Dx.
Atkins. As he explains how it came to be, we give a few pages
to the history of itas it was. The papers and addresses delivered
constitute the body of this volume. These have been re-
arranged from the programme into a few simple and natural
groups. Returning to the daily order, we offer here a brief minute
of the Conference itself. It met in Tulane Hall, which has space
for about two thousand people. Back of the platform was the
great map of the world which had hung in Carnegie Hall, the
generous loan of Mr. W. Henry Grant, Secretary of the Board of
“Missions of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Grant was present at
the Conference where his unaffected manners, wide information,
and deeply Christian spirit endeared him to all. The Hall had
been tastefully decorated by the local committee of arrangements
under the direction of Mr. W. W. Carré. The membership of the
Conference was one thousand and ninety. Of these, about nine
hundred were present, and perhaps a thousand visitors.

PROCEEDINGS.

First Day, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24.

The opening day was given 'to a consideration of the ‘“‘Spir-
itual Basis of Missions.” After the introductory paper by Dr.
James Atkins, Editor of Sunday School Literature of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Chairman of the Execu-
tive Committee of the Conference, one of its most distinguished
guests, Rev. Alexander Sutherland D.D., of Toronto, Canada,
opened its discussions with a weighty address on “Oneness in
Christ.” Dr. Sutherland has been Missionary Secretary of his
Church since 1874, and for eighteen years editor of the Missionary
Outlook. He was especially active in promoting the union of the
various bodies of Methodists in the Dominion of Canada, a result
happily consummated in 1883. He was in 1871 a fraternal del-
egate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, in 1881 a delegate to the Ecumenical Methodist Confer-.
ence, in 1886 a fraternal delegate to the British Wesleyan Con-
ference, and in 1894 fraternal delegate to the General Confer-
ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This wide ex-
perience gave horizon to his views and weight to his words.
I2 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

In the afternoon the Conference heard Bishop J. C. Gran-
bery, D.D., on the “Great Commission,’ and Dr. John
Fox on the “Bible and Missions.” Dr. Fox is one of the
Secretaries of the American Bible Society, and a Presbyterian.
The indebtedness of all mission workers in all lands to the great
Bible Societies, so universally recognized, gave him a very warm
welcome. His address was in part a vigorous vindication of mis-
sions in Roman Catholic lands, and was altogether worthy of the
fundamental theme with which it dealt. The night session
was given to the treatment of another great subject by one who
has an unquestioned right to be heard on it. Rev. James M.
Thoburn, D.D., Missionary Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal
Church for India and Malaysia, preached on the “Agency of the
Holy Spirit in Missions.” Bishop Thoburn has been an active mis-
sionary in India for more than forty years. His books have won
the hearts of thousands of readers in all the Churches. He is
characterized by the true missionary’s readiness to reduce all
theories to the test of practical results. He reports that he was
somewhat surprised and dismayed when the first lady mission-
aries—one of them his sister—came to work in India. But the
results of their work convinced him that it was of God, and wom-
an’s work has now no more hearty champion. A Methodist him-
self, he was easily at home in a Methodist Conference, to which
he contributed this opening sermon and later a paper on “Wom-
an’s Work.”

Seconp Day, THurspAay, APRIL 25.

Foreign Missions very properly held 'the place of honor and
engaged the Conference during the second day. By way of gen-
eral consideration Bishop E. R. Hendrix dealt with the “Ade-
quacy of Christianity to Meet the World’s Need”—a need most
graphically sketched the previous evening by Bishop Thoburn.
Dr. J. H. Pritchett, one of the Missionary Secretaries, traced the
relation between “Methodism and the Modern Missionary Move-
ment,” and Prof. O. E. Brown, of Vanderbilt University, defined
the “Aim and Scope of Foreign Missions.” Then four phases of
the work itself were presented in rapid succession by those who
are engaged in it. “Evangelistic Work” was the theme of Rev.
J. W. Tarboux, of Brazil, where he has had fourteen years’ ex-
perience; Rev. George B. Winton, connected with the mission in
Mexico since 1888, spoke on “Literary Work;” Dr. W. H. Park,
PROCEEDINGS. 13

of China, effectively set forth the advantages of “Medical Work ;”
and a vigorous paper on “Educational Work,” sent by Rev. S. H.
Wainright, M.D., from Japan, was read by his colleague, Rev.
W. A. Wilson. An interesting incident was the introduction to
the Conference of Mr. B. G. Tsang, a young Chinese gentleman
and friend of Dr. Park. He made a brief address and presented
to each of the delegates a brochure on the evils of the opium habit
compiled by Dr. Park.

After the reading of the papers on mission work, Rev. W. E.
Edwards, D.D., made an address on the “Duty of the Pastorate.”
With this day also began what proved to be a prominent feature
of the Conference proceedings, the daily devotional half hour.
The Committee on Programme had sought to honor God by
taking this half hour at the choicest moment of the day, from
half past eleven to twelve. Dr. F. Howard Taylor and his wife,
Mrs. Geraldine Guinness Taylor, were present as leaders. Both
are missionaries by birth, and also by voluntary choice. In their
work in the China Inland Mission—conducted by Dr. Taylor’s
honored father—they have known hardships and persecution and
danger, on more than one occasion flying for their lives. But
they have also known the joy of labors blessed and of walking
with their Master. Being in the United States on furlough, they
agreed to come to New Orleans to lead the daily devotions of the
Conference. So wisely did they select their scripture themes,
and so graciously were their prayers and those of five thousand
other Christians who had given their names in a prayer cycle,
honored by the Head of the Church, that these half hours were a
feast which grew richer day by day.

In the evening Dr. John Franklin Goucher spoke on “Missions
and Education.” Dr. Goucher is President of the Woman’s Col-
lege, Baltimore, and a man of catholic sympathies and broad
culture. He has traveled extensively, and found Christian mis-
sions in various parts of the world worth investing in. He and
his wife sustain a large number of village schools in India con-
nected with the mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Reliable estimates give as the direct result, of those schools fifty
thousand members added to the Church. The enterprise of a
great university with its center in the Soochow college appealed to
him to such a degree that he subscribed $1,000 during the Con-
ference to ‘help found it.

After him Rev. Young J. Allen, D.D., spoke on the situation
14 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

in China. He has been in China since 1859. Forced to sustain
himself during the disturbances incident to the civil war, he se-
cured employment from the Chinese government, and acquired
a skill in handling the language and in dealing with people of the
official classes that has since stood him in good stead. For many
years he has been a leading figure in the Society for the Diffusion
of Christian and General Knowledge, and the editor of its chief
periodical in Chinese. He wrote a widely circulated “History of
the War between China and Japan,” and is in close touch with
the progressive element of the Chinese people. His elucidation
of the situation in the Orient will be found clear and full.

Turrp Day, Fripay, APRIL 26.

This day was given up to the discussion of Domestic or Home
Missions, as was also the afternoon of the following day. The
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at present deals with the
problem of evangelizing sparsely settled rural populations and
crowded city “slums,” almost wholly through local or Conference
organizations. The Woman’s Home Mission Society is con-
nectional, but has nothing corresponding to it in the way of min-
isterial supply. The rapid development of urban population in
the South seems to demand a more connected and aggressive
policy.

The vexed “race problem” came in for its share of attention
during the afternoon. It may be safely said that if there were
only Christian negroes to be dealt with and Christian whites were
in control of affairs, social and political, there would be no race
problem. President Booker Washington was welcomed to the
platform where sat 'the bishops and other leaders of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, South, and sympathetically heard by an
audience which crowded the house. He delivered an impas-
sioned and effective address, of which the printed extracts give
no adequate conception. He was among friends and felt it, and
so spoke out of a full heart.

The feature of the evening hour was the address of the Hon.
John Barrett. Mr. Barrett was appointed Minister to Siam by
President Cleveland in 1894, when only twenty-seven years of
age. He was retained by Mr. McKinley for nearly two years,
resigning in 1898. He joined Admiral Dewey at Hongkong
about the beginning of the Spanish war, and was with him at
Manila Bay. He is a well-known writer and speaker, and bore
PROCEEDINGS. I5

unequivocal testimony to the value of the work of missionaries in
the East. After him Bishop E. R. Hendrix, D.D., gave a lumi-
nous and inspiring presentation of “The Missionary Idea.”

FourtH Day, Saturpay, APRIL 27.

This was Woman’s Day. Ladies occupied the chair and the
platform. Foreign work took up the morning hour, Mrs. M.
D. Wightman presiding, and work at home the afternoon with
Miss Mary Helm, editor of Our Homes, in the chair. Mrs. S. C.
Trueheart, the Secretary of the Woman’s F oreign Missionary So-
ciety, gave a review of its work and field; and Miss Bennett,
President of the Home Board, spoke for its work. Lady mis-
sionaries were heard on Medical Work and Bible women, and
Education and Literature were presented by Miss Gibson and
Mrs. Hammond. Mrs. Florence Kelley, Secretary of the Con-
sumers’ League of New York, made an address on “Our Foreign
and Factory Population,” and at night Miss Jane Addams, of the
Hull House, Chicago, spoke on “Social Settlements.” This lat-
ter address, much to our regret, we have been unable to secure
for publication. It made a profound impression when delivered.
No speaker present at the Conference was heard with more pleas-
ure than this gifted lady.

FirtH Day, Sunpay, APRIL 28.

Delegates and visitors to the Conference occupied many of the
leading pulpits of New Orleans at the morning hour, and in the
afternoon Mr. Mott conducted a devotional “Quiet Hour” at the
Carondelet Street Methodist Church, while a Sunday school rally
addressed by visiting missionaries was held at Tulane Hall. In
the evening there was a brief address on the proposed Soochow
University by Bishop A. W. Wilson, who had just arrived from
China. He was followed by Bishop C. B. Galloway in an elo-
quent setting forth of “Lessons from Master Missionaries.” A
spontaneous and unsolicited collection was actually thrust upon
the speaker for establishing the Soochow University. There
was one gift of $5,000, several of $1,000, and a number of $500,
among these the offering of a Chinese gentleman (not a Chris-
tian) who was present. The Chinese of the city of Soochow have
pledged $25,000. The whole collection at New Orleans, amount-
ing in one evening to $50,150, was the largest single collection
for missions known in the history of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South.
16 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

SixtH Day, Monpay, APRIL 29.

The relation of the young people of the Church to missions
occupied the Conference on Monday. Dr. James Atkins, the
leader of the Sunday school work, and Dr. H. M. Du Bose, the
Epworth League Secretary of the M. E. Church, South, were
ably seconded in the discussions by Dr. E. E. Hoss, editor of the
Christian Advocate (Nashville), Mr. John R. Pepper, a layman of
Memphis, member of the International Sunday School Lesson
Committee, and Dr. A. C. Millar, President of Hendrix College,
representing their own Church, while Mr. John R. Mott, Rev.
Earl Taylor, and Miss Belle Brain came with a gracious message
from without its bounds. Miss Brain is a Presbyterian, and her
home is in Ohio. She is well known through her bright books,
“The Transformation of Hawaii” and ‘Fuel for Missionary
Fires.” Rev. S. Earl Taylor, with Bishop Thoburn, Mr. Game-
well, and Dr. Goucher, were the representatives in the Conference
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Taylor is Field Secre-
tary of the Missionary Society of that ‘Church, and Secretary of
the Student Missionary Campaign. Mr. John R. Mott is one ot
the Secretaries of the International Committee of the Young
Men’s Christian Association, Secretary of the World’s Student
Christian Federation, Chairman of the Executive Committee of
the Student Volunteer Movement, and a welcome and helpfu!
speaker at any gathering of Christian workers. His two ad-
dresses at New Orleans are a worthy addition to his previously
published utterances on the important themes with which they
deal. The services of Mr. Gamewell as engineer in charge of the
defenses of the British Legation during the seige at Peking were
such as called out letters of commendation from the English
Government. Nothing during the Conference made a deeper
impression than his modest account of that awful five weeks.

SEVENTH Day, TuEspay, APRIL 30.

' The last day of the Conference narrowed its discussions again
to denominational lines, and the several fields in which the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, South, has work were passed in swift
review. And while the view point was that of the denomination,
the vision was world-wide. All Spanish-America especially ap-
peals to this Church. The Secretaries of the Mission Board cal-
culate, however, that in the fields already occupied by it this
PROCEEDINGS. 17

branch of Methodism is alone responsible for fifty million souls.
The notable paper of the closing day was that of Rev. W. R.
Lambuth, D.D., one of the Secretaries of the Board, on “Policy
and Outlook.” Dr. Lambuth is the son of a missionary, and was
born in China. He has been Secretary of the Board of Missions
for some ten years past, and is the recognized leader of this work
in his Church. His paper is the fruit of these years of study and
observation, and will carry much weight in determining the fu-
ture policy of his Board.

All the other papers of the closing day will be found in the fol-
lowing pages, including the addresses of Bishop A. W. Wilson
and Dr. C. F. Reid on the situation in China.

INCIDENTS.

The introduction of the venerable Dr. B. M. Palmer, so long
and universally loved as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church
in New Orleans, gave him occasion for a most brotherly and
devout utterance. After mentioning briefly the wonderful op-
portunities placed before the Church in the opening of Asia and
Africa, he said: “All this is for our joy and comfort; but, broth-
ers, does not the Church now require, in a degree far beyond
what we have ever yet enjoyed, the outpouring of the Holy
Ghost? I feel that if all branches of the Church of Christ could
only enjoy just now such an outpouring as we had on the day of
Pentecost, it would be ready almost for the millennium, and
might speedily expect the coming of our blessed Lord, when he
shall reign King of the nations as he is King of the saints, and
shall wear before the assembled universe his many crowns upon
his head. And the thought has been struggling in my mind ever
since you have been here, seeking for proper expression, whether
it would not be a meet and fit thing for this Conference on this
the last day of its session to prepare a brief paper in which it should
call upon the ecclesiastical courts of the Church of Jesus Christ
which are to assemble during this spring, to bring all the influ-
ence which these courts possess to bear upon the hearts of their
people, scattered all through this land, rallying them to this one
great purpose and this one single thought: that they will pray
and continue to pray for the Pentecost until it shall come; laying
it upon the hearts of our Christian families, in their family devo-
tions to embalm in their ordinary supplications, in the very heart
of their prayers, a prayer for the coming of the Holy Ghost upon

2
18 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the Church. I close with just a sentence. We have been praying,
all of us, long, and I trust fervently, for the conversion of the
world. Let us during the remaining months of this year pray for
the conversion of the Church, bringing her back to her former
bearings, to stand as she used to stand, upon the great principles
of Christian doctrine and of Christiam practice. Let us have
once more a genuine revival in the (Church of God, by whatever
instrumentality it shall be brought about; and I think we will
have introduced then the greatest factor that can be found in the
conversion of the world.”

Rev. J. C. Keener, D.D., LL.D., the venerated senior bishop of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, now retired, lives at New
Orleans, and was able to attend many of the sessions of the Con-
ference. On the last day, in response to some words of Bishop
Hendrix presenting him with a historic cane, he made a brief
address quite in his old-time vein for pith and force. After re-
ferring gently to having put off his armor and retired from the
firing line, he commented on some phases of the Church’s work
in words of fatherly counsel. There was a tearful hush in the
great assembly as he closed: “I rejoice in God for this wonderful
meeting. Nothing human is perfect, but this comes very near it.
Its fragrance will go out and on forever. I am happy to have
been here. In conclusion I must ask your prayers for my sup-
port, spiritually. I go to bed not knowing where I shall wake,
except that I believe it will be in the best of regions. I trust you
will pray for me, as I shall continue to pray for you.”

RESULTS.

The Conference was successful beyond all that its promoters
had dared to hope. A gracious spirit of unity pervaded all its
utterances. Its members felt a distinct and ever-present con-
sciousness of the anointing of God’s Holy Spirit. The personal
experience of every delegate was enriched, and a great impulse
given to individual work in soul-winning. The Conference bids
fair not only to promote a fresh interest in the work of missions,
but also a forward movement in the Church itself. While these
lines are penned letters are pouring into the office of the Mission-
ary Secretaries telling of vigorous campaigns in favor of prayer
and personal work and Christian giving that are in prosecution
throughout the whole Church.
PROCEEDINGS. 19

As a matter of course, however, foreign missions as such
will reap the largest harvest. The missionaries present earnestly
seized the opportunity to put the great gathering of representa-
tive brethren into touch with their fields. There was no posing
as heroes, nor any faint note of possible defeat. On the con-
trary, these “angels” of the Churches gave the glory to their
Lord, and jubilantly told of his past victories and of his assured
and early triumph. In addition to the utterances from the plat-
form, the Exhibit spoke an eloquent message, and the maps and
charts brought home most graphically our duty and our oppoz-
tunity.

Most significant of all, and in value far above the liberal contri-
bution of money, about fifty choice young men and women of
those present offered themselves as willing to go where needed.
This result of the Conference reacted powerfully on the spirit of
the meeting itself. Both offerings are no more than a begin-
ning—the first fruits of the ingathering yet to come.

The searching utterances of the speakers, the singular oneness
of the sentiments they expressed, the high tide of spiritual fervor,
the great offering, the choice group of candidates for work, and
the profound interest aroused throughout the Church by the
Conference, have caused wise and conservative leaders of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to describe this as the great-
est gathering in the history of that Church. All glory to Him
who is the Head! “For He is worthy.” And may He vouchsafe
still the gift of His truth-revealing Spirit, to make this published
record of the Conference and its utterances fruitful in the salva-
tion of souls!
THE STUDY OF MISSIONS.

“Almost every student has—I venture to think every student
ought to have—a rdpepyov, a side work in which he finds an altera-
tive that ts at once recreative and profitable. I submit to you that
in the study of missions you will find a rapepyov the most benefi-
cial and fruitful you can concetve. Let me just mention—and I
cannot do more than mention—some of the benefits. (1) A con-
tinual quickening of faith in the present personal reign of Jesus
at the right-hand of God. You are made to feel that you are liv-
ing once more in the days of the Acts of the Apostles. (2) A
calling forth and consequent deepening and broadening of the
best sympathies of a Christian heart. Lt really means being
brought more under the power of the Spirit of Christ. (3) A
ratifying of faith in the great evangelical truths held by the
Protestant catholic Church, They are vividly illustrated and
attested in the conversions from heathenism to Christ. (4) A
confirmation of faith in the Bible as the Word of God. We are
exposed at this time to the influences of a criticism which ts dilt-
gently eliminating the Holy Spirit from all connection with the
Scriptures; but foreign missions are perpetually and increas-
ingly demonstrating the spiritual power of the Bible as a divine
revelation of the Way, the Truth, and the Life for all mankind.
(5) Lncttation to prayer, and especially to the most precious serv-
ice that we can render in prayer, the service of intercession. For
the study of missions is like a watching from the mountain top
of the battle with Amalek, and constrains to the holding up of the
promises by praying hands under a sense of spiritual comrade-
ship. (6) Inspiration to personal service, Sor the fuller vision
of the great work kindles an intense desire to help in it, tf not

abroad, then at home.” —Rxv. GeorcE Rosson, D.D.
I.
MISSIONS.
Il.
III.
IV.
. Woman’s Work.

VI.
VII.

Tue FouNDATION.
EpucCATIONAL WorK.
MEDICAL WorK.

LITERARY WorK.

Tur YouNG PEOPLE.

From VARIOUS STANDPOINTS.
Section I.
THE FOUNDATION.

THE AIM AND SCOPE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.
O. E, BROWN, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY.

THE Book of Acts is our first great history of Christian mis-
sions. Its opening words furnish a profound suggestion toward
a philosophy of missions. When Luke says that in his former
treatise, his Gospel, he wrote of all that Jesus began both to do
and to teach until the day that he was taken up, he clearly implies
that in Acts he proposes to write of all that Jesus continued both to
do and to teach after that he was taken up. He thus regards the
work of primitive missions as in vital continuity with Christ’s in-
carnate ministry. The personal ministry of Jesus did not cease
with his ascension, but by his living Spirit he carries forward the
same work which, during thle days of his earthly sojourn, he in-
augurated. For Luke there is no break in the continuity of our
Lord’s life work. By his spiritual presence and activity he enters
more vitally and intensely into the life and history of mankind
than when under the limitations of the flesh. The work of Chris-
tian missions is thus none other than the earthly side of the pres-
ent ministry of our unseen and enthroned Lord. There can,
therefore, be no other infallible clew to the aim of missions than
that afforded by the ruling purpose of Christ’s own redemptive
ministry. The aim of missions cannot be lower than the best
blessing which Jesus has for the personal life, nor than the high-
est good which he seeks to realize in the social life of humanity.
This rule is of very decided importance, for the most vital step in
framing a science of missions consists in determining the aim of
missions.

It is well in beginning to apply this principle in excluding cer-
tain mistaken ideas as to the true aim of foreign missions. The
work of Christian missions, first of all, is not simply one of chiari-
tv. To class missions among the “official benevolences” of the
Church, rather suggests that their work is simply one of the many

Ministry of
Christ and
missions.

Missions: not
simply chari-
ty.
BROWN.

Nor merely an
ethical move-
ment.

24 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

rival claimants upon the humane sympathies of Christian people.
If this be true, then the clamant cries of want and distress at our
very doors will likely leave the far call for help from across the
seas to be but very faintly heard. Foreign mission work is by no
means on a level codrdinate with the work for the submerged and
pauper classes at home. Jesus did administer charities, but he
deliberately forfeited his large popularity by a stern refusal to be a
bread king. It is true that Jesus’s miracles were largely works
of mercy, and that the tests of the final judgment are chosen by
him from the realm of humane benevolences; but it is also true
that these things touch only the outer conditions and not the in-
ner spirit of the life, and the marked note of Jesus’s ministry was
its inwardness. He sought to concentrate the anxieties ofthe hu-
man heart, first of all, on getting possession of the kingdom of
God and his righteousness. So, while works of mercy and chari-
ty fall within the scope of missions, they do not constitute the de-
termining aim of missions. Missionary work has been placed
by Christ on a much more abiding and spiritual basis than that of
feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and housing the shel-
terless, There is a living bread of which if any man eat he shall
live forever; there is a lifeblood of which if any man partake he
shall have eternal life. Christ and Christian missions regard the
man as more than all of his circumstances, and they do not work
chiefly to make a new environment for the man, but to make the
man himself a new creature. Indifference to missions is a vastly
deeper crime than the withholding of bread from the starving, or
the denial of a cup of cold water to the famishing.

‘Again, the missionary movement is not simply an ethical move-
ment. Christ is vastly more than an ethical teacher or a moral
reformer. He does not merely enter the lists against Buddha
and Confucius in an effort toward framing an ideal code of per-
sonal ethics or a perfect programme of social order. His diagno-
sis of human disorder gave back the verdict that man’s primary
need is not so much a new system of moral doctrines as a new
supply of spiritual motive forces. Even though Confucius be
found to hhave had real genius in the realm of social ethics, or
Buddha to have discovered the great moral law of dying in order
to live, it does not follow that Confucian or Buddhist lands do not
need the blessings which it is the distinctive province of Christian
missions to bestow. It is not ethical formulas but moral and
spiritual fruitfulness after which Christ chiefly seeks. Even the
THE AIM AND SCOPE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 25

teaching of the ethical and historical contents of the. Bible cannot
satisfy the vital and cardinal aim of missions. Christ came to un-
veil the deepest secret of the heart of God to the deepest hunger of
the heart of man. He came to make the infinite love of God con-
sciously available for the all but infinite need of man. Christian
missions are primarily religious in their aim. Their aim is to put
morals on a religious basis ; to reunite morality andreligion, which
God ‘hath joined together but man has so shamelessly put asun-
der. The glory of Christian missions is not only that they lift the
moral standards of the nations to the highest level, but that they
also sanctify human duties as divine commands. Their aim is so
to enlighten and fill the hearts of men with the truth and love oi
God that the keeping of his holy commandments shall not be
found grievous.

While thus it is true that the aim of missions is religious, it re-
mains to be said that their primary aim is not denominational.
Weare learning in our day, and it is another of the glories of for-
eign missions to ‘have taught us the lesson, that denominations
exist for the kingdom of Christ, and by no means the kingdom of
Christ for any one denomination. There is a growing feeling
that the fundamental Christianity which the great evangelical de-
nominations hold in common is really more vital and essential
than the peculiarities of doctrine and the niceties of forms where-
by they are made to differ. The Christian world is coming to
feel the truth of Wesley’s sentiment: “The whole world will nev-
er be converted except by those of a truly catholic spirit.” The
spirit of Christian comity is the spirit of missions. The aim of
missions must primarily have to do with the spread of Christianity
in its simplest and most truly essential form. Our creeds have
grown up out of vital controversies and experiences, but to im-
pose them, full formed in the first instance, upon others is to
teach them to respect Christian formularies rather than to live
Christian lives. The only true creed is the creed of providential
growth and life. Our forms of Church government are the out-
growth of our racial and social characteristics, and to impose
these upon others as essential is to make of Christianity an ethical
faith and not a universal and spiritual religion. Our forms of
worship have in them both incidental and essential elements, and
to put the weight of emphasis on the incidentals will make of men
mere praying machines, and not worshipers of God in spirit and
in truth. Christ’s law of self-sacrifice and self-effacement applies
to denominations as well as to individuals. He that will lose his

BROWN.

Nor primarily
denomination-
al.
BROWN.

The aim the
creation of a
new humani-
ty.

Personal aim.

26 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

life for the Master’s sake shall save it, and he that seeks to save
his own life shall lose it. In the great work of world evangeliza-
tion, narrow sectarianism carries its own death sentence plainly
written in its very constitution. Yet denominational missionary
organizations have done the most abiding and thoroughgoing
missionary work. Independent missions are not necessarily freer
from peculiarities and eccentricities than those under denomina-
tional control. Indeed, the separate work often argues the pres-
ence rather than the absence of eccentric features. The point
needing emphasis is that our denominational machinery is to be
used to guide and to minister to our missionary Churches, and
not to mold them into artificial, lifeless images of ourselves. Our
forms are useful for suggestion and inspiration. They are help-
ful in so far, and only in so far, as they promote the highest and
freest spiritual life in our native Christians; they are only harm-
ful when they are allowed to repress and to conventionalize that
life. The true aim of missions must ever lie along the lines of
the simplicity, the sincerity, the liberty, the spontaneous life cf
the kingdom of Christ.

Speaking positively, then, the aim of missions is no less than
the creation of a renewed humanity out of the ruined humanity
of the Christless nations, the creation of a new humanity which
shall be not only redeemed but redemptive, which shall not only
share with Jesus his conscious Sonship to God, but shall also
share in his redemptive power, that of reproducing his sense of
Sonship in the souls of others. The single aim of missions thus
takes on a twofold aspect, one looking toward personal redemp-
tion, and the other toward social redemption.

This aim, as respects the personal religious life, is to give to
every man of the Christless nations the power to become a child
of God. It is so to present Christ to every man as the perfect
revelation of God and the perfect realization of manhood as that
each shall be made to know that it is his privilege as a man to live
the life of a child of God. It was the emphasis upon this divine
birthright of man as man that gave its missionary power and so-
cial meaning to the Methodist revival. It was this which caused
the Methodist revival to bear fruit in the modern missionary
movement. When Wesley was brought into full view of the glo-
rious liberty of the sons of God by Peter Bohler, he exclaimed:
“O what a work hath God begun since Peter Bohler’s coming to
England! Such a one as shall never come to an end till heaven
and earth shall pass away!” Here we have a more magnificent
THE AIM AND SCOPE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 27

missionary prophecy than Wesley knew. For Phillips Brooks,
the basis of all missionary effort lay in “the distinct and cordial
recognition that in no part of the world is there a child of the
Father to whom the Father is not manifesting himself to-day with
all the abundance of which that child is capable.” Our mission
is to make men know, as a message from Jesus Christ, that the
religious promptings of their natures are the drawings of the
Heavenly Father, seeking to bring them to himself. Prof. Har-
nack, in discussing the principles of Protestant missions, says:
“What the missionary would bring he must have lived; it shouid
not be a doctrine, but a life; not a burden, but a setting free. He
cannot forget that he is an evangelical Protestant Christian, but
it is not Protestantism which he has to set forth, nor either or-
thodox or liberal theology, but the adoption of the children of
God.” The vital charge committed to the Christian missionary
is the same as that committed to early Methodism, to bring it
home to the heart of every man that it is his privilege to have the
Spirit of God bear witness with his spirit that he is a child of God.

This personal, evangelical aspect of the aim of missions is
specially valuable for determining the true field of missions.
Tried by this test, those great civilized people of the Orient, with
their ancient forms of culture, their historic institutions and well-
established and complex religions, are as truly mission fields as are
the coarse, untutored peoples of the Southern isles, or of the
African jungles. Both grades of peoples are equally in need of
the simple, vital gospel of sonship to God. Tried by this same
test, those nominally Christian lands where “the Bible is a bale-
ful book,” where heaven is to be won only by ages of anguish or
swelling bags of gold, where the Heavenly Father is indifferent
to the prayers of all his creatures excepting those of a few unsa-
vory saints, where Jesus is still the submissive Child of a human
mother, and where “Mariolatry becomes lower than Chinese an-
cestral worship’’—such lands of degenerate Christian faith have
as strong and insistent claims on the Christian missionary as do
those lands where the name of Christ is as yet unknown. But the
design of missions is not only to convert individuals, but also to
regenerate society. This design calls for the organization of in-
dividual Christians for the preservation and spread of their faith,
while the spread of this faith looks toward the coming of the king-
dom of God, that ideal social order for which God has ever been
working in human history. Every missionary is a fellow-worker
with God for the Christianization of all the nations of the earth.

BROWN.

For every
man.

Social aim.
BROWN.

The native
Church.

The scope.

28 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

It is coming to be felt that the Christianization of a country can
be achieved only through native agencies. Codrdinate, there-
fore, with the winning of individual converts, must be the organi-
zation of self-supporting and self-expanding native Churches.
As Mr. Henry Venn, the great Secretary of the Church Mission-
ary Society, taught, the ideal goal of a foreign mission is its eu-
thanasia, its quiet, peaceful, painless death as a foreign mission,
its having done its missionary work so thoroughly, and laid its
foundations so deeply, as at length to have made itself to be no
longer needed. The ideal aim is to establish a native Church
which shall be so filled with the spirit of missions, and so infused
with the spirit of self-help and self-propagation, as that it shall
cease to be a mission field and take its place as a missionary force.
To be sure this goal lies at the end of a long, patient, and self-ef-
facing course of missionary endeavor, but nevertheless this ideal is
to be regulative of missionary effort and policy from the first. No-
ble as was the work of our missionary fathers, perhaps they en-
couraged too much in the native Christians the spirit of depend-
ence. The old policy of paternalism tended too much to pauper-
ize and enervate the native Church. The present trend is toward
a better state of things. It was Miss Haygood’s appreciation of
the value of a self-supporting and self-propagating Church which
gave her such great joy when she succeeded in organizing the
first missionary society of Christian Chinese women and recev-
ing their generous gifts for the spread of the gospel among the
women and children of their native land. If we have like appre-
ciation, we shall hail every missionary Church that gets upon a
basis of self-support as a most significant token of missionary
progress. It is thus that our missionary work is brought into ac-
cord with the ministry of Him who not only bound individuals to
him by a bond that was stronger than death, but also organized
his spirit and his truth so fully into the sacred circle of his disci-
ples that when his visible presence was withdrawn his work went
forward with unabating and ever enlarging spiritual power and
breadth.

In turning from the aim of missions to a very brief considera-
tion of the scope of missions we pass from the intensive to the ex-
tensive phase of missions. The aim must be as definite and ex-
alted as the ruling purpose of Christ’s ministry, while the scope
may be as varied and diverse as the needs of men. The first great
area that falls within the scope of foreign missions is that of friend-
THE AIM AND SCOPE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 29

ship. The basis of all effective missionary work must be laid in
personal friendship, and one vital qualification for missionary
service is just that comely gift of making friends by showing one’s
self friendly. One of the most characteristic features of Jesus’s
life was the number of genuine friendships which he formed. So
it must be in every successful missionary work. Unfeigned sym-
pathy for simple manhood in its homeliest joys and sorrows is a
ground principle of missions. Christian friendship holds the key
to every heart that is not insuperably difficult. It thus comes to
pass that missionary work cannot be very highly specialized, and
every true missionary will hold himself in readiness to do what-
ever kindly offices the need of the hour may require. Miss Hay-
good, in mending the torn garment of a child, was as truly doing
missionary work as when conducting a Bible class with her teach-
ers. Our Dr. Park, in ministering to the wounded officers or pre-
scribing for the numberless petty ailments of China’s teeming
populace, is doing missionary work. Livingstone, in taking the
“Dark Continent” upon his heart and finding a way through
Africa’s wilds to her benighted children, was doing missionary
work. Dr. Hume, in ministering to India’s famine-stricken
host, was doing missionary work. Dr. Stewart and his asso-
ciates, in teaching the boys of South Africa the various trades,
are doing missionary work. Dr. Verbeck, of Japan, when guid-
ing the Sunrise Kingdom out of stagnant isolation into the sis-
terhood of nations, was doing truly missionary work—viz.,
befriending a needy nation. Our own Dr. Allen, in writing the
history of the China-Japanese war and teaching China the true
principles of national progress, was certainly doing missionary
work. He who has shown himself a friend indeed to a needy in-
dividual or a helpless and bewildered nation has begun the creation
of an atmosphere in which alone large missionary progress is
possible. The Church too often impatiently calls for statistics of
converts without appreciating this gigantic but intangible work
of creating a friendly atmosphere in which missions may at last
come to thrive and supply tabulated results.

The second great work that falls within the scope of missions is
that of winning souls to Christ. The evangelistic work, as al-
ready intimated in the study of the aim of missions, must ever re-
main as the central missionary method. It supplies the nerve
tissue of our whole missionary system. All personal friendships
must be subordinated to bringing men into immediate, direct, and

BROWN.

Christian
friendship.

Evangelistic.
BROWN.

30 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

personal fellowship with the infinite Friend. The missionary is
in some real sense a saviour of men. He has the power of the
Holy Spirit upon him to “convict the world in respect of sin, and
of righteousness, and of judgment.” He is sent to declare, set
forth Christ as the absolute Lord of the conscience and the divine
Author and Perfecter of life. Every missionary is a royal priest to
mediate between God and men. Unless he succeeds in reconcil-
ing men to God, his ambassadorship is in so far a failure. He may
be a very efficient teacher, a very able writer, or a very proficient
doctor, but if he be ignorant of the art of winning men to Christ,
it must be insisted that he falls far shlort of being a missionary of
the cross. One of the ablest missionaries of our Church, in look-
ing back over his years of service in the far East, gave the verdict
that the chief defect in his own missionary career had been a lack
of strenuous personal effort to lead men to immediate, positive
decision for Christ. The missionary is charged with a gospel
which has infallible and innumerable credentials that it is the pow-
er of God unto salvation. It has converted South Sea cannibals,
African Hottentots, Indian pariahs, Chinese opium sots, Korean
demon worshipers, Confucian scholars, Mohammedan fanatics,
Brahman priests, Buddhist devotees, and Japanese statesmen.
The missionary must not do less thian bring the full power of this
gospel to bear upon the hearts and consciences of those to whom
he is sent, and that too with the confident faith that men will be
saved thereby. This caution is needed to provide against certain
shallow conceptions of evangelistic work which have come to pre-
vail in some quarters. The missionary is not an itinerant evan-
gelist hastening from place to place, making as rapid a proclama-
tion of the gospel as possible so that he may finish his work and
bring in the end of the world as soon as possible. The evangelistic
work does not mean a witnessing for Christ before men for the
purpose of relieving our own obligations and putting upon these
men the blame of their own final condemnation. It aims not at
bringing the world to an end, but at bringing the world to Christ ;
not at shifting obligations, but at sharing divine life and Christian
blessings. ‘Evangelization means patient preparation of the soil,
persistent sowing of the seeds of truth, and prayerful nurturing of
every germ of life, in order that eternal fruit may be borne to the
glory of our Lord. As Dr. Clarke ‘has said, it is not so much her-

alding a message as planting, permanently, the seed of life in the
hearts of men.
THE AIM AND SCOPE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. 31

The third great work that falls within the scope of missions is
that of Christian nurture and education. In all most progressive
missionary work something like the Methodist class meeting is
found invaluable. Christian nurture comes by way of Christian
fellowship. In well-established Christian lands the Christian
home, the Christian press, the Christian friendships and associa-
tions, the Church services may provide an atmosphere in which
the fullest and richest Christian character may grow. But under
heathen conditions it becomes quite essential to have fellowship
meeting's wherein the strength of each may reénforce the weak-
ness of each; and all, by spiritual profit-sharing, may be brought
to the unity of tthe faith and to the fullness of God in Christ. If ii
is important to convert men, it is likewise important to develop
them by fellowship in prayer, praise, witness-bearing, Bible study,
and the serving of others. Christian brotherhood is unexcelled
asameans of grace. But Christian nurture must not only be de-
votional but also educational, not only emotional but also mental.
‘The law of the unity of the mind is of decided value in our mission
work. It is the same mind in man that grapples with the com-
mon problems of daily life and the profound mysteries of divine
things. The more of mental capacity, the more of capacity for
God, once the whole mind is Christianized. The more power of
thinking one has, the more power of thinking God’s thoughts he
has should these thoughts engage his attention. The more power
and breadth of sympathy and feeling one has, the more fully he is
qualified to enter into the mind which is in Christ Jesus. The
more power and delicacy of moral discrimination one has, the
tnore capable he is of always choosing the better part and putting
the first things first. If, therefore, we must evangelize the Christ-
less nations, we must educate them as well. Evangelization and
education are reciprocal. To educate without Christianizing is
to put keen weapons into lawless hands. To evangelize without
educating is to put the most delicate instruments into bungling
hands. The Soochow University, Kwansei Gakuin, and Gran-
bery College have untold missionary possibilities wrapped up in
them should the Church only rally to them and adequately equip
them.

The fourth great work that falls within the scope of foreign mis-

BROWN.

Educational.

Social and eth-

sions may be called the work of social betterment. The work of tcal.

missions is not aggressively revolutionary, but quietly and gently
CROWN,

Summary.

32 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

as the day dawn itself it makes for the most wide-reaching trans-
formations. Only two things can here be mentioned: Christian
missions mean a socialized conscience and a purified home. To
put men of Christian spirit and education, men of public and pa-
triotic sentiment, men of self-respecting and noble personality
into all the avenues of life, as our mission schools and colleges are
doing, is to begin to make a new heaven and a new earth wherein
dwelleth righteousness. To put refined, self-respecting women,
women of character and consecration, such as come from the girls’
schools of our Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society—to put such
pure and forceful women as these into the homes of Christless
lands is to touch the social life with sanctifying power at its very
fountain head, and is a sight enough akin to the birth hour of
Jesus to evoke from the heavenly host high praise to God—yea,
their old-time Christmas anthem, “Glory to God in the highest,
on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Such are the aim and scope of the divine enterprise in whose be-
half we have assembled in this Conference. The vast Christless
world lies before us in darkness and in death, a field waiting to be
won for Christ, and its tremendous want and ruin find us either
criminally ignorant and indifferent or missionary, heart and con-
science. The great branch of the Christian Church to which we
belong is virtually the mother of the modern missionary move-
ment, and we shall be traitors to our family name and tradition
unless our hearts are strangely warmed with a great missionary
purpose. The religion which we profess is vitally and distinc-
tively the missionary religion; and if we are Christian people, we
must be missionary people. The Lord Christ, whose name we
bear, left heaven for earth, and for all the limitations and suffer-
ings and shame of earth, as the divine missionary to lost human-
ity; and if we have the mind and love in us which were in him,
the aim of our lives, too, will be missionary. Yea, the great God
and Father of us ali is a missionary God—a God who so loved the

‘world as to give his only-begotten Son for its salvation—and if we

are truly his loyal children, our lives and our all are upon his al-
tar for missionary sacrifice and service.
THE MISSIONARY IDEA. 33

THE MISSIONARY IDEA.

BISHOP E. R. HENDRIX.

A GREAT jurist was to have filled this place to-night, and not un-
til some two or three weeks ago did the Executive Committee in-
form me that, on account of his important legal engagements, his
name could not appear upon the programme, and asked that I
would consent to share this important occasion with the distin-
guished United States Minister whose address we have all fol-
lowed with so much interest. I confess, while I feel deeply my
responsibility, I have no small sense of gratification in being called
upon to take a layman’s place, and address an audience com-
posed so largely of members of the Chamber of Commerce of this
city, and of prominent merchants, business men, bankers, and pro-
fessional men from all parts of our common country.

This is a question, my brethren, that does not relate to the min-
istry alone; it is a question that does not relate to the Church
alone; it is a question that relates to our common humanity.
When Hon. John Barrett was speaking of his interview with the
President before he came here, I could not but recall the one
which, less than three years ago, I had with our honored Chief
Magistrate, when I congratulated him upon his pronounced poi-
icy of appointing only Christian men to represent us as Ministers
in heathen lands, and he said: “Yes, whoever may represent us in
European countries, he who represents us in a heathen land
should represent what makes us a Christian nation.” And I am
delighted to say that, again and again, as I have talked with our
ambassadors in these missionary fields where I have gone—and I
have always gene with an autographic letter of introduction from
the President of the United States to our representatives, so that
I have been received into their confidence and have talked face
to face with them on these matters—I have been impressed with
the fairness of view which has for the most part marked them in
regard to the responsibilities with which they were charged for
the protection of missionary and merchant alike, as citizens of our
common country. I have even invited the representatives of our
government to be present at our great missionary gatherings in
times of peril; and we had our Consul General to China, in the
midst of one of our great perils there, come before the honored
women of our Church, whose work we hold in such esteem, and
say to them: “Go to your field in confidence. You are as much

3

A policy.
HENDRIX.

Missions and
commerce.

34 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

entitled to be here as any merchant or any citizen of our country.
The missionaries, male and female, are here under treaty rights ;
and if you are in peril, I will come to you with the flag of your
country.”

Lord Curzon, now Viceroy of India, in his great work on, “The
Problems of the Far East,” showed the diplomat when he said that
it seems at times a misfortune that a single text of Scripture should
be emphasized so largely as to become a dominant idea, and that
the missionary idea should so far prevail as to thrust itself at times
somewhat unpleasantly into the path of the diplomat. But, as I
shall know you in the course of this address, so far from this
being a minor idea, based upon a single scriptural text, it is an
idea so inwrought into the whole structure of Christianity that, dis-
sect it therefrom, and you must call home your merchants as well
as your missionaries, your ambassador as well as your missionary.
Obliterate this missionary idea, and we cease to have any inter-
course with foreign nations. Commerce itself becomes impossi-
ble, and we build up our own Chinese wall of separation from other
nations and live wholly within ourselves. And to the merchant
and the business man here to-night, I want to say that this great
upheaval which is occurring in China is more of a commercial up-
heaval than anything else. Sir Robert Hart, in his home in the
city of Peking, told me in 1895 that it had been imposible up to
that time to build a railroad from Tien-tsin to Peking for fear of an
uprising of the mule drivers, the freighters that drove the mule
teams and carts between those two cities; a carters’ rebellion, as
he termed it, which would probably topple the Manchu dynasty.
The Emperor was terrorized by them. Now what has transpired
is the final building of that road almost to Peking; and the men
most active in the Boxer movement were these very carters out of
employment. They are the men who have been deprived of the
privilege of conducting the great freight business over the coun-
try; and they, in common with the boatmen who ply up and down
the Peiho river, are the men who have filled the armies and made
up the great mass of the Boxers. It was'a commercial as well as
a political disturbance ; and had it not been for the imprudence of
Germany at a critical moment, which made it inevitable almost,
that the German Minister should be assassinated, this movement
that has become antiforeign against Europeans and Americans,
would have been antiforeign against the Manchurian dynasty, an
THE MISSIONARY IDEA. 35

uprising of the people against their monarch, in the belief that the
throne was responsible for the changed conditions of commercial
and business life, due to the consent of the throne to the construc-
tion of that railroad. The Empress Dowager, usurping the throne,
turned the movement against all foreigners, with the most fright-
ful results.

So that all these questions are not religious questions, nor are
they purely political; but they are largely commercial and indus-
trial, relating to the discontented and unemployed classes—and
such questions, arising in heathen lands with a feeble government
and a low type of civilization, are beyond the power of regula-
tion as they are here, and especially when they are questions into
which does not enter the spirit of Christian charity and for-
bearance, and of arbitration, which makes possible wise and satis-
factory adjustments.

So, if we take this broad view of it, we will discover that it is
something that the business man has in common with the minis-
ter, that the nation has in common with the Church; and as these
mighty commercial movements are sending forth their great
steamships and cargoes to these distant lands, it is a question as
to the perpetuity of commerce, and the security of property and
protection of interests as well of the merchant as of the mission-
ary.

I remember dining with Dr. Young J. Allen in the home of a
wealthy English merchant in Shanghai—a second time his guest.
He seemed to take special delight in showing personal courtesy
to us, and I said to him: “I have thought of you so often while in
Korea and Japan since I was last at your table, and I want to say
that you are the missing link between missionary and merchant.”
Then he opened his heart to me and said, “I have sought thus to
be. Ihave found that the merchant and the missionary do not un-
derstand each other, and I have invited a number of missionaries
to my table and said to them, ‘I want the foreign merchants
here to know more of your work. Appoint times and places where
they can visit you; for I believe that if they knew the wonderful
work you are doing here they would feel far more interest in
you,’ ” and he said, “As a result of that movement, our merchants
have visited this mission and that one, have seen this school and
that congregation ; and we find that our very commerce in China
is based upon the missionary. He precedes us into the interior

HENDRIX,

An example.
HENDRIX,

The gospel and
commerce.

A supernatu-
Tal idea.

36 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and becomes the means of our communication with the natives.
He teaches them some of the valuable uses of those articles which
are the characteristics of our civilization, and the result is that our
merchandise can never go ahead of the gospel.” The gospel is the
pioneer in every instance ; and when you are finding new ports and
new fields of commerce, remember that you owe them to the mis-
sionary, and remember that in this wonderful movement which is
marking our day, when all Eastern Asia is looking so attentively
toward our shores, it is the missionary that is preparing the way
for your cotton, that is preparing the way for your lumber, that 1s
preparing the way for the output of your rolling mills, and all
those things that look to and await the development of Eastern
Asia. There is to be a sense of intercommunication between the
missionary and the merchant, in the coming months and years,
such as has never marked their former relations.

So much for the fact that these are so much intertwined as to
be absolutely inseparable; that “commerce” is really a Christian
word; that international intercourse is the offspring of Christian-
ity; that international law is born of the Sermon on the Mount;

‘that all these relations that bring humanity into one brotherhood

are possible because Christ, our divine Brother, came into the
midst of men.

But T come to speak to-night of what is fundamental to it all,
and that is the missionary idea. Back of every great movement
is an idea. Before the world was made, God formed the idea of
creation. And the missionary movement is as creative an idea as
the idea and work of creation itself. It is a swpernatural idea, it
is God’s great thought; and there never was a mind, other than a
Christian mind, that conceived of a God great enough to love all
the world, and to send his Son into the world to die for all the
world. It has taken the thought of God to expand the intellect of
man large enough to take in this great love of God, with all its pa-
tience, with all its forbearance and hopefulness, with all its love
and sympathy, that has led to the regeneration of man.

J don’t wonder that an irreligious man has doubts on the sub-
ject of missions. The missionary idea is such an idea as that of
the resurrection. It is distinctly a revelation. No unaided human
mind ever had it. Plato pronounced it impossible for a common
religion to obtain in all the world. The idea of universal mission-
ary work was never born in any human mind. There is no such
idea in the heathen creed. Buddhism and Mohammedanism are
THE MISSIONARY IDEA. 37

missionary in the sense that they follow the caravan routes; but "PPX:
there never was a false religion with vitality enough to dare an
ocean voyage, or to go beyond or outside of the great caravan
routes. This great idea of a world-wide religion, embracing our
common humanity, is born of the idea of the one God who made
all men of one blood, to dwell on all the face of the earth. It is dis-
tinctly a divine conception, a revealed idea; and where you find
men decrying or disparaging foreign missions, it is only a confes-
sion of their intellectual and spiritual limitations. They have never
had that largeness of view, intellectual and spiritual, which is born
of a revealed idea. It is a revelation that comes ‘to the mind of
man from the very mind of God; and nowhere in all the wonderful
Scriptures is a man ever sent on a mission to the heathen until he
has first had an audience with his God.

When an ambassador goes out, he goes out more than as a mes-
senger with a message. He goes out to represent the very person
of his sovereign; and when a missionary goes forth, he is always
sent forth from the very audience chamber of the Deity.

I don’t wonder that the proudest monument in the proudest city monument.
of the proudest nation of the earth, that great monument which
rises in the midst of the intelligence and the commerce and the
wealth of the great city of London, is a monument, not to Wel-
lington, not to Nelson, but to a missionary, the great missionary
to the Gentiles; and it is that great cathedral of St. Paul, under
whose dome sleep the ashes of Wellington, Nelson, and all the
great heroes of England. And this tells us that England’s great-
ness is due to one mighty brain that took in this revealed idea of
God; and the English nation, in the high honor that it thus pays,
consciously or unconsciously, to that missionary, pays honor to
the revealed idea, the great thought of God, put into the mind of
man so as to enlarge that mind, so that the proudest nation of
Europe delights, above all other men, to do him honor. A re-
vealed idea! Let that never be lost sight of, and always remem-
ber that it is as much of a revealed idea as is the idea of the resur-
rection itself, so that when men dispute it you may say as our
Lord said when men disputed the doctrine of the resurrection:
“Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.” Qistian

Again, it is preéminently a Christian idea. It relates not sim- idea.
ply to the revelation that comes to us from God the Father, but
the revelation that comes to us from the heart and from the very
AENDRIX.

Where is
Christ?

38 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

lips of Christ, his Son. Our religion is not the religion of a book;
Mohammedanism is that. Our religion is the religion of a person,
the Lord Jesus Christ; and it is from that loving heart, with its
great tides of love going out to the remotest sons of men, that the
message comes to us all to-night in all parts of the world. The re-
vealed idea, born in the heart of the Son of God, come to earth
for the salvation of man, to be recognized in his divine mission
ian of all by a semiheathen, when the Samaritan woman cried
out: “Is not this the Saviour of the world?’ Only the Christ
ai save a Samaritan.

A Christian idea ; remember it comes to us from the very heart
of the Son of God.

Some years ago, when the saintly Dr. Gordon died, the follow-
ing Sabbath was a sad and lonely day. Those who had been his
close helpers in this work gathered in his study and thought over
their pastor’s first Sabbath in heaven. And they asked: “What
would most gratify Dr. Gordon for us to do to-day?” For years
they had been sustaining their own missionaries, giving not less
than twenty thousand dollars annually for foreign missionary
work, Finally one wise man rose and said: “I know what would
best gratify Dr. Gordon, and that is, if his congregation, on this
the first Sabbath of his ascent into the presence of his glorified
Lord, would seek with all their hearts to carry out the Saviour’s
last words to men: ‘Go ye and preach the gospel to all the world.’
Let us give such a contribution to-day as the Church has never
given before.” And the hearts of those devout laymen responded
to the idea that they knew to be nearest to the heart of their de-
parted pastor, because it was nearest the heart of his risen Lord.

We need to go forward, not backward, to find Christ. Christ is
always at the head of the column. He said to his disciples: “Lo,
I go before you into Galilee.” And the last words he said were:
“Lo, Iam with you alway, even to the end of the world, when you
go preaching my gospel to every creature.”’ Would you have near-
ness to him? It is found in obedience to his divine command.
Would you enjoy the most of his presence? It is when you are
conscious of that presence at the head of your column as you ad-
vance into heathen lands. Never has my faith been more stead-
fast than in yonder Asia, where I have gone in my Master’s name
in sweet fellowship with other Christians, and there have realized
his presence even unto the end of the earth. This world has.
THE MISSIONARY IDEA. 39

around it for me a girdle of light; and as I have gone on and on,
in the name of the Lord, he has been with me every league of the
journey, and I ever seemed to hear the words: “Lo, I am with
you alway, even to the end of the earth, as you go forth to give
this gospel to every creature.”

But I am going deeper yet. It is not only a revealed idea, a
Christian idea ; it is the fundamental idea of our holy religion. It
is a great organizingidea ; absolutelyif you take out of our religion
this great missionaryidea it is no longer respectable. Christ came
as a Saviour for all the world, with a heart large enough to take in
all the world, with a message for all the world. As Dr. A. H.
Strong said in the great Ecumenical Conference, there are two
foci around which our religion revolves, simply two words:
“Come” and “Go.” “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest;” and then “Go ye into all the
‘world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” My brethren,
“Go” is the most frequent commandment that our Lord gave us.
He sought to impress upon the minds of his disciples that this
was the supreme mission and commission. It is absolutely his
perpetual command, It interprets all his parables. It has ex-
plained his marvelous prayer of which the old rabbis said that the
prayer that did not say “Thy kingdom come” is not a prayer at
all. Christ bade his disciples “go” after he had first bid them
“come ;” and if I address any layman here to-night to whom the
Master has ever said “Come, and I will give you rest,” I repeat
that he has said with greater urgency and authority, “Go with my
gospel. Go or send.”

It is the minister’s command, it is the layman’s command; it is
the believer's command everywhere. Our whole Christianity
gathers about this central fundamental idea. Why, my brethren,
it is the great driving wheel of all the machinery of the Church.
Have you ever gone into some manufactory and seen that driving
wheel start? And when it was started, every wheel and every cog
in all that wonderful establishment proceeded with its revolutions.
Stop that driving wheel and you stop all the others. This is the
driving wheel of our whole religion, of our entire ecclesiasticism.
“Go.” There is something wonderful about that word. Out of
that word, that fundamental command, has grown up the very or-
ganization of our Church. How did your colleges have their
start? It was in order to fit men to “go.” How did your Bible

HENDRIX,

A fundamental
idea.

The Church’s
driving
wheel.
HENDRIX,

Action and re-
action.

Source of re-
vival power.

40 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

societies have their start? It was in order to send the Word of
God out to all the world. How did your Church extension so-
cieties have their start? In order to obey that command, to
house and shelter these disciples of God. How did your tract so-
cieties get their start? It was in order to scatter those leaves
broadcast for the healing of the nations. All your great socie-
ties—nay, all your great revivals of religion—when you come to
their proper origin, have their origin just here.

The religion that is not worth exporting is not fit for home con-
sumption, We measure the vitality of any Church by whether it
appreciates its doctrine enough to believe it and to send it forth
to their neighbors and share it with the world. When the great
measure came before the Massachusetts Legislature of chartering
the American Board of Foreign Missions, some member got up
and said: “I am opposed to it; we haven’t enough religion for
home use, much less to give to the world, to export to foreign
lands.” But some wise man rose and replied: “Sir, I have this to
say: “When our religion is of this character, the more we export
of it the more we have left of it; and the more we believe in this
gospel to give it to all the world, the more do we believe in it as
the bread of life at home.”

You will remember the great Andrew Fuller, who was so close-
ly associated with William Carey in his religious operations. He
was fervently concernedabout the welfareof his own great Church.
His people seemed to have too slight an appreciation of the gos-
pel, too little concern for the salvation of their children and their
immediate community; and so one Sunday the wise pastor
preached a sermon on the duty of the Church to give the gospel
to the world; and there came a mental breadth, a spiritual en-
largement, a quickening of conscience to his congregation, and a
blessed reflex influence upon his own heart and mind. The next
Sabbath, inspired by what had been done, he spoke on that great
subject from another standpoint: the duty of the Church to give
the gospel to the world. It deepened the whole intellectual and
spiritual consciousness of his people. And the third Sabbath he
spoke from another standpoint on the duty of the Church to give
the gospel to the world. And when he got through men came
trembling to ‘him and said: “Is not this gospel that can save the
world able to save my son, my child, my business partner?” And
such a revival of religion broke out in that Church as it had never
THE MISSIONARY IDEA. 41

known before. The gospel that was fit for export was fit for home
consumption.

Why, my friends, this missionary idea is so fundamental that it
has even revolutionized our creeds; it has changed our theology.
It was born of the Son of God, through his coming ‘to earth and
his atonement. He was sufficient for all the world, and so Fuller
believed in it and wrote that wonderful book on the adaptation of
the gospel ; and from that time forth he paved the way for that new
view of the gospel of the Son of God born of unlimited love. That
is why our creeds have had to be reconstructed. The missionary
idea was like new wine in old bottles, it burst them asunder; and
the creed to-day that does not justify the giving of the gospel to
all the world does not satisfy Christians in America or England.
Charles Wesley was right when he said: “Take back my interest
in thy blood unless it flows for all the race.” We reject a Christ
who did not live for all men and die for all men.

So far from the missionary idea being a mere incident that has
been exaggerated out of all proportion, it is absolutely fundamen-
tal. It organizes the whole Church. It organizes its teachings ;
it organizes its plans; it organizes its activities and all its opera-
tions.

But more than that—and that is the last point I shall venture to
make to-night—the missionary idea is the most inspiring idea of
all our Christianity. The missionary idea—what is it but the in-
carnation? The missionary idea—what is it but the atonement?
The missionary idea—what is it but the ascension? The mission-
ary idea—what is it but the risen Lord, seated upon his throne,
expectant, till his enemies shall have become his footstool, waiting
until the kingdoms of this world all become the kingdoms of our
Lord Jesus Christ? So inspiring is it that it has made Christen-
dom what it is—until the brain of the world to-night is a Christian
brain, till the heart of the world to-night is a Christian heart, till
the purse of the world to-night is a Christian purse, till all the
great activities of the world to-night are Christian activities. You
have not had a new idea from the heathen world for a thousand
years, nor a new appliance, nor a new invention. You don’t look
to the heathen for anything. The mind of Christ is the mind of
his people, and all their great conceptions have been due to his
inspiration and awakening power. What we term human aspira-
tion is born of divine inspiration; man aspires because God in-
spires. John Bright said more than once to Gladstone: “TI am

HENDRIX.

Missions and
creeds.

An inspirinz
idea.
HENDRIX,

Man and God.

Some fruits.

42 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

willing to stake the whole question of the divinity of the Scrip-
tures on the book of Psalms; for no man could write such in-
spired songs unless God inspired him.”

Now permit me to make a remark right here. There are three
things belonging to man that belong to no other earthly creature.
One, his religious feeling ; another, his moral sense ; and the third,
his perception of the sublime. All great thinkers have discovered
that these belong to manalone. Man alone can think the unseen;
man alone can love the unseen; man alone can obey the unseen;
man alone can worship the unseen. Man alone has religious sen-
sibility; man alone has a moral sense. That which binds a man
to the throne of God; that which makes a man conscious of God’s
proprietorship in him; that which sways the human life as the
heavenly orbs sway the tides of the sea—is man’s moral responsi-
bility to God.

Man alone has a conception of the sublime. No animal can
look at a great landscape with a conception of its sublimity. No
other creature on the face of the earth can have a sense of the sub-
limity of a great task or a great achievement amid seemingly in-
vincible difficulties. God has given this to man as his crowning
characteristic. That which appeals to man more than all else;
that which is an inspiration to him; that which enlarges and sways
him—is the missionary idea. It is the appeal to his religious sen-
sibility that makes man conscious of a God of all the earth, of an
unseen Father that made of one blood all the races of mankind
and dwelt on all the nations of the world. It is that which stirs his
moral sense, which makes him feel that it is the command of his
God that he go forth and share his gospel with all the world.
Crowning all, inseparable from all, are these three great principles
of our spiritual life. I do not care at which point you start, you
will always find them interblended. I don’t wonder that Nelson
went to prayer when the great battle of Trafalgar was about to be
fought. And when the missionary idea is in its full force upon
man, he feels and knows that as God’s greatest gift to man was
Christ, so is Christ man’s greatest gift to his fellow-man.

Talk of great battles and campaigns of earth. How wonderful-
ly the greatest battlefield of history shrinks in comparison with
that great battlefield of the gospel in Asia, South America, and
Mexico! Why talk of great campaigns, with their marvelous
schemes, were men with the map of a single territory before them
study the great lines of approach? God puts the map of the world
THE MISSIONARY IDEA. 43

into the hands of his Church, and bids them triangulate all that
great field, scale all those mighty mountains, cross all those wide
seas in the name of his blessed Son who died for all, and proclaim
to all the matchless tidings of eternal life. It is the missionary
who has gone into the midst of these foreign and heathen people,
who has studied out their languages, who has given them gram-
mars and dictionaries, who has made possible the access of for-
eign ministers and merchants; it is the missionary who has bravely
and conscientiously met and overcome all the difficulties in his
way, and who has pioneered the way into those dark con-
tinents in the name of God. And the grandest victories of
earth have yet to be recorded. The greatest campaigns ever to
be seen in earth or in heaven are just now about to be projected.
I remember the eloquent compliment that Elder paid to
Adoniram Judson when he said that if all the work of missions had
produced only one such character as that it would be worth all the
expenditure; and so noble and unselfish and brave a man, a man of
such breadth of view and such wholesomeness of spirit, you never
find outside of the mission field. It takes a great battle to make
a great hero, and the greatest heroes of earth are to come from
this battlefield of missions. The men of the largest horizon to-day
are the men who are studying profoundly that map of the world,
with the commission of the Lord ringing in their ears; and the
greatest achievements are those that have been made in the mis-
sion fields.

We are entering upon the heroic age of Christianity. There is
no century since the first that so nearly approximates that cen-
tury in breadth of view, in holy purpose, in lofty ambition and de-
sire, as the century that has just ended. Nothing is comparable
to it in all those intervening years and centuries; nothing in point
of zeal, nothing in point of intelligent organization. That last
century of ours has approximated the first so marvelously as to
call the attention of profound thinkers to the fact that it seems to
join on to it as if the Spirit of God flowed directly from the first
to the nineteenth century. That nineteenth century ended with
the large opportunities given to the Church to-day, and the twen-
tieth century summons us on to acts of heroism and of devotion
and of self-sacrifice and, blessed be God! to triumphs such as we
have never known before.

My brethren, I usually weigh my words with great care, and I
do it to-night. I venture the honest conviction that before the

 

HENDRIX.

The heroic age.
HENDRIX.

Possibilities.

Two great
events.

44 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

close of this century the gospel of the Son of God will be the ac-
cepted religion in every nation of the earth. And, my brethren, if
the scenes of that great Missionary Conference of last year and of
this one shall be repeated for ten years at the beginning of this
century, I see no reason why that may not be accomplished by the
middle of the twentieth century. This movement is taking hold
of this great nation, business men and all, as no other movement
in the history of our country. I don’t wonder that Presidents and
ex-Presidents of the United States say that never, in all their ca-
reers as public men, have they seen anything comparable to that
great Missionary Conference of last year ; and in the history of our
great Church no General Conference has approached in point of
importance this Missionary Conference now being held. There
has never been such breadth of thought, such unselfish devotion
to duty, such sweet sense of comradeship; there has never been a
greater sense of the presence of the Son of God than in this Con-
ference. It is the missionary idea taking hold, the revival idea,
the Christian idea, the fundamental idea, the organizing idea, the
inspiring idea; and it is for ws to go out from this great occasion
filled with the Spirit of Christ, with him at the head of our advan-
cing column, to march forth to a blessed and glorious victory.

I believe I have already said that the greatest events of the last
century were in its last year: that desperate attempt by China, the
stronghold of heathenism, to drive out the Christian religion, fol-
lowing closely upon the great Ecumenical Conference of Mis-
sionaries and Christians held in the metropolis of our nation. [f
read nothing in our history that can compare with that wonderful
scene when the nations were with one accord watching the walls
of Peking,and with those others,cooped up in the British Lega-
tion, watching with prayer to Almighty God. And you know what
occurred. When those ministers representing the great nations of
Christendom were confined there, with a little handful of marines
to guard them, gathering in the native Christians for their pro-
tection, when prayer was going up without ceasing in all the Chris-
tian lands of the earth, and from those Ministers of state as well
as from the Christian missionaries and native Christians, but one
heart failed in all that beleagured group, and that was the heart of
the French Minister, an avowed and boastful atheist, All the rest

believed that they would be saved and that their prayers would

prevail—and they did. How they watched and waited, these Chris-
tians, for the advance of the rescuing columns into the populous
THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS. 45

heathen empire, believing and knowing that the God that was
with them was mightier than all the foes that were against them.
One rush of those cruel Boxers upon that Legation would have
crushed the life out of every person that was there; but our God,
in whose hands are the hearts of kings, which he turns as rivers
of water, put a spirit of fear upon them that made it impossible.
And the sound of the rapid-fire guns in the distance was more
thrilling than when, in the city of Lucknow, the music of the Scot-
tish bagpipes told of the coming of the rescuing column.

It was the Christian nations at prayer, and when heathenism
threw down the challenge, God answered us and wrought the res-
cue of our beleagured brethren. And through it all the courage
of the Church has been strengthened, and the love of the Church
has never failed; for it is only through love that the heathen heart
can be conquered. God grant that missionaries may never have
part or parcel with any of those land-grabbing and selfish schemes
that are so untrue to the spirit of the Lord; but may he possess
them with the spirit of love, to go forth with pure hearts fervidly
proclaiming that gospel which is 'the gospel of blessed triumph,
here and hereafter, the power of God unto the salvation of the
world!

THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS.
BISHOP J. M. THOBURN, D.D.

‘“‘And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
(Rev. xxii. 2.)

In giving a revelation of spiritual truth to the world God seems
to have employed in a large measure what in modern phrase is
called the kindergarten method. In other words, our Bible
abounds in object lessons. The prophets resorted to this method
constantly, and even ordinary Bible history is made to serve as
a series of such lessons. The opening chapters of Genesis in this
way reveal the great truths which form the basis of that vital pow-
er which we call Christianity, and in the closing chapters of the
book of Revelation the same method is employed in showing us
in outline the beauties and glories of the world to come. In fact,
no other method could have been employed in the far-off age of

HENDRIX.

The vision.
THOBURN.

Its meaning.

It is of our
own time.

The disease.

46 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the world’s childhood, and in our own time no other method can
be used in describing a state of existence in which spiritual law is
supreme. We have thus brought before us the great white throne,
the last scene in the history of the human race, and then a glow-
ing picture of the new heavens and the new earth, with Jerusalem
the Golden, robed in resplendent beauty, but no temple is seen
within its walls. The throne of God is no longer veiled. The
pure in heart now see God in very deed. ‘God the Father and
Christ the Eternal Son sit upon the joint throne of the universe,
while a pure river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeds from
the throne, and flows down the broad street, with trees of life
growing upon its banks and yielding perennial fruit. This river of
the water of life can be none other than the Holy Spirit, and the
whole scene brings before us the most remarkable of the theopha-
nies of the Bible. The Father and the Son, with the Spirit for-
ever “proceeding,” stand revealed before the glorified saints who
realize the full meaning of the promise that the pure in heart shall
see God.

But this heavenly scene, though placed in vision so far in the
future, is open to the eye of faith even now. Jesus even now sits
at God’s right hand, and has entered upon his reign. The Spirit
even now proceeds forth in his own person embodying the divine
energy, which is forever operative throughout the universe. The
vision is set before a suffering world, and nations blighted by sin
are pointed to the trees of life which line the banks of the crystal
stream, the leaves of which are potent to heal the world. The
mysterious tree of life in Eden and the mysterious trees in Eze-
kiel’s vision are now recalled to mind with new interest. The Di-
vine Antitype is now before us. The river represents the Holy
Spirit. The trees with healing leaves represent those agencies
employed by the Spirit in the great work of overthrowing Sattan’s
kingdom, neutralizing the power of sin, and establishing the king-
dom of God among men.

In examining this beautiful and comprehensive promise, two
thoughts challenge our attention. First, the afflictions which
have befallen the nations; and secondly, the healing power which
is promised.

I. It need hardly be said that ours is a sorely stricken world.
The blight of sin has left its dark trace upon it everywhere. Gross
moral darkness still envelops the nations. The mental powers
THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS. 47

of whole empires seem to be ina state of partial paralysis. War
spreads devastation abroad; famine and pestilence stalk forth
in many lands; grinding poverty is the lot of a large majority of
the race; cruelty and oppression are still enthroned in high places
through more than half the inhabited earth. In short, our worid
is full of disorders of many kinds, but all can be traced ultimately
to the blight of sin.

- Going over this world, as I have been doing for many years
past, I have been among people of many nations. They differ
in many things. I am now in charge of a mission where we are
preaching in twenty-five different languages. They differ in lan-
guage; they differ in complexion; they differ in many respects in
character; but in one respect they are all alike. Their sins are
the same; their inward tendencies are the same; the consequen-
ces of their sins are the same. There is a blight that comes upon
all, and it is exactly alike in all countries. There is no more strik-
ing example of the sameness of human nature than will be found
when you look into the moral conditions of the nations.

The results of these sins are multiform. I have not time to
particularize them, but, in the first place, there is something in
the nature of sin that obscures the moral vision, the spiritual per-
ceptions of men, so that they are led astray; and while it should
be the simplest thing in this wide world for any member of this
race to find God, the common Father of all humanity, yet you may
search up and down among the nations, and until you find some-
body who has found Jesus Christ through the agency of the
Holy Spirit, you cannot find any one who can tell you how to find
God. There has been a great deal of speculation, or what you
might call general moralizing; but in the space of more than forty
years I have never met a man or woman who had a personal
knowledge of God, unless it was some one who had found him
through the agency of the Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus
Christ. There is the fact.

Again, many of these people have a spiritual temperament, but
you will notice this : their view of immortality is very dim; practi-
cally, they have no idea of any such thing. For instance, you will
hear a great deal—in fact, I rea'd only the other day a magazine
article on the subject—of how, from the time of the ancient Greek
philosophers, there have been people who were familiar with the
great truth of man’s immortality. What the writer of that arti-

THOBURN.

The blight of
sin.

Moral blind-
ness.

No grasp on
Immortality.
TIIOBURNe

Poverty.

48 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

cle meant was that there had been through these ages persons
more or less familiar with speculation on the subject, and we may
talk to thousands of such men. I have met Mohammedans who
had a clear idea that when they died they would be introduced
into a celestial world; but the idea of immortality in the sense in
which we understand it is something they know nothing about.
Immortality, as Jesus taught it, is something we realize here; it
is something we can spiritually taste; it is a foretaste, an earnest
(if I may borrow a phrase of Paul’s), of a better world. No Mo-
hammedan knows anything of a future state of existence, except
in a material sense ; at least I have never met one who had such an
idea. I have put this question time and time again to intelligent
Hindoos, including some men who have adopted the skepticism
of England, America, and Germany: “Where do you expect to go
when you die?” Some of them will say: “I cannot know.”
That is considered a smart answer in these days. Others will say:
“Why, I really haven’t thought of it.” Some may say: “Why, at
a future time I expect to be merged back again into the infinite
spirit from which I came. Just as the raindrop that comes down
from the clouds rises again in mist and is sent back to the
clouds, forever up and down between the cloud above and the
ocean below, so I will be flitting between God and this world.”
But I would say to such a man: “If you were to die at twelve
o’clock to-night, where would you be to-morrow morning at six
o’clock?” If he had any idea at all, it will be that his conscious-
ness will have vanished for the time being ; but the more common
answer is: “How should I know? Howcan[ tell?” If among
all the members of the human race there is a man who can say
“T know,” and that man is not a Christian, I should like to see
him. The truth that comes to one who has had Christ revealed
within him as the hope of glory is something that is peculiar to
the Christian faith alone.

In the next place, the blight of poverty is upon this world.
You may ask, “Is that sin?” It is a consequence of sin. Jesus
said (and it is one of the most striking truths in his Sermon on
the Mount): “The meek shall inherit the earth.” I should advise
all the young preachers here to study that word “meek,” and see
the distinction between meekness and humility; for there is a
difference. It means a great deal; it is probably the highest
quality of the Christian character, next to that you may call a
THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS, 49

“saving faith in Christ.” The meek are the chosen people, who
as arule do not fight for their rights ; the people who seem to be
forever losing. They are the people who do not die of starvation,
whose children do not go naked, people who are cared for; and
in the long run the secret of the industrial prosperity of nations
is dependent upon quiet, humble, self-abnegating people who are
called the meek of the earth. There is an element of prosperity
that they impart to any community.

‘You have no idea how poor the nations are that know not God.
It is a common belief, much more common formerly than now,
that India is one of the richest countries in the world. The papers
have been telling for the past two years that China is perhaps
the very richest nation on the globe; and in many senses there
may be a gloss of truth in a statement of that kind. But in India
and China, and pagan Africa, there will be a hundred million
people who will lie down and sleep to-night without having eaten
more than one very frugal meal during the day, and without any
shelter over them except perhaps the branches of a hospitable
tree. More people than you have in all these United States will
sleep out of doors to-night, and go to bed more or less hungry.
There are two hundred millions of people in those countries who
are so accustomed to going to sleep without having eaten all that
hunger craved that the circumstance excites no surprise in their
minds.

But where do they sleep? I have known men by the tens of
thousands, I have been stumbling over them these forty years,
who lie down and sleep just where night finds them. They lie
down just as the dog lies down, in the nearest place where they
can get enough room. You will find them along the pavements of
Calcutta: vou will find them all through the streets of Bombay.
Then, when you come to think of their wives and children, the
idea of poverty is such that there is no person in this room, ex-
cept the half-dozen missionaries around me, who ever saw a poor
man. You think you have seen one, but you never did. The very
tramps that roam over the country in these United States, if out
yonder in India, would be recognized as “swells” by the people.

Much nonsense is talked about this world having an over-
population; but that is a doctrine that the Christian should give
no heed-to. The world can feed ten times the number of people
on it to-day, if they will but keep the laws of God; if they are

4

THOBURN.

A hungry
throng.

Their beds.

Real poverty.
“THOBURN.

Over popula-
tion.

India as it
was.

50 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

willing to work, and to go where they are needed; if they will
cease to crowd together in places where God never put them; if
they will keep the laws of God and dry up their saloons, abolish all
open sin, and put an end to gambling in high places as well as in
low. If you will take hold of sin in the forms in which your news-
papers are constantly publishing it, and deal with it as it deserves,
then God will be honored, his laws will be honored, and you will
begin to discover that there is more of what you might call “indus-
trial wisdom” in the Bible than this world knows anything about
at the present time.

Time will not permit us to speak of other afflictions that have
come upon the nations. But some one may say: “You have omit-
ted all mention of war, and the worst thing about it is that the
Christian nations are the ones that prosecute the most terrible
wars, and Christianity seems thus to be inconsistent with itself.”
Well, my friends, there is a difference, and it is here: I don’t pre-
tend to say that the Christian nations have quit fighting; I don’t
pretend to say that their wars are all just; but I do say that the
great wars of Christian nations, since at least the past fifty years
(and you may even go beyond that), have been overruled, in the
providence of God, in the interest of peace. We read in one of
Montgomery’s hymns: “By death I shall escape from death, and
life eternal gain.’ Now, in the strange providence of God, I
believe that our world is going to escape from war by war. Ail
the great wars that have taken place since I was a boy have been
in the outcome in the interest of peace. For instance, in the coun-
try where I have been living war was chronic. Every year in the
month of October there were three great armies that marched
out of the old Mahratta capital in Western India; one army
going north, one south, and the third east. They went out to
ravage and kill; they destroyed cities and overran provinces.
Annually for many years India had that scourge. There was
never a time when the great nations of India were at peace; for
India is as large as Europe west of Russia, and has a larger popu-
lation, forming a great many different nations, with a great many
different languages. They used to be at war all the time, but
there is a difference to-day, for everywhere the British flag is
recognized throughout that vast empire, and among three hun-
dred millions of people there are no wars, and I very much doubt
if we shall ever have one there. It has all been in the interest of
THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS. 51

peace. Boys in India do not carry firearms, concealed or other-
wise. We have no such riots as you have in another country cf
the Western Hemisphere; in fact, we are a model country, so far
as public order is concerned. You ask: “Is the hand of the
British Government so heavy on the people that they can be con-
trolled in that way?” Well, the fact is that they have all been
brought into a state of greater content than they have ever known
before. They like peace; the great mass of the people love peace.
There are turbulent people, of course; but disarm these turbulent
people, and you will have no more trouble. I believe in a good
time coming for all the nations; and I believe the time is coming
for the United States of America when it will be considered
ungentlemanly for any man to carry a revolver. It is a relic of
barbarism; and if you say that you cannot be safe without a re-
volver, think how you are reflecting upon the country to which
you belong! I would not say that of my countrymen in India.

Again, take China. People have been saying that the Euro-
pean nations have gone to China, and are there introducing
bloody wars, and all of that. But it is a mistake to say that China
has been at peace through all these centuries. We don’t know
anything about what has been going on in that vast kingdom dur-
ing all these ages. I dare say that there have been great wars
and rivers of blood in China; but now God is going to put that
great empire under such control—he is evidently going to do it
—that it will become as peaceable, and have the same chance of
progress, as India to-day. That will account for seven hundred
and fifty millions of the human race; and Africa will soon be in a
similar condition.

‘II. Now, about the healing leaves. I have said that the river of
the water of life is intended to represent the Holy Spirit of God,
forever proceeding from Father and Son. Upon the banks the
prophet saw, in his vision, the tree of life, bearing perennial fruit,
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. i
would interpret that by saying that it means that the Holy Spirit
-will vitalize such agencies as God sees proper to employ, and make
them effective in doing the great work of healing the nations.
What are those agencies? Some one will say: “You evidently
mean the gospel of Christ.” But that word “gospel,” on men’s
lips to-day, may mean anything or it may mean nothing—and
it often means nothing. I would rather make it more direct.

THOBURN.

The joys of
peace,

China.

The tree of
life.
THORBURN.

The Spirit re-
veais Christ.

The Lord is
risen indeed.

52 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

If you take the word “gospei” in its strictest sense, it is the proc-
lamation of Christ; and Christ is manifested by the Holy Spirit.
The first great work of the Spirit of God is to manifest Christ to
his own believers. Jesus Christ is alive to-day; he is in this
world. If you think Paul had a special miracle wrought in his
case when he says that it pleased the Father to reveal the Son in
him, you are mistaken. I am talking to men and women who
know Jesus Christ better than they know me, far better than they
know any person in this world. Some of you understand me per-
fectly. The great truth which the Christian Church needs to
learn to-day, and to thoroughly master, is that Christ is manifest-
ed to his own. And he is not only manifested to them, but he is
with them in the world. You can talk to him to-night. You
may ask: “Will he reply?” He will reply, sometimes through
his providence, sometimes through his Word, sometimes by a
whisper from his own loving lips, and oftentimes by a manifesta-
tion of the Spirit which only the believer can understand; but [
would fee! as if my gospel were gone if I did not know that therc
is One above all others in this world, whom I can seek and find,
and with whom I can hold converse before I sleep to-night. Here
is the great truth.

I meet a man now and then who wants to debate with me on
the resurrection. In these days we have so much controversy
and so many doubts. I heard a revivalist preaching with all his
might against evolution, and I ventured to say that evolution
had nothing to do with the commission that God had given him.
Some may say that it had; but the only thing that concerned that
revivalist was to preach Christ. If a man says, “I believe this,
that, or the other thing,” it is in some cases a mere matter of
speculation; in some cases it is a matter of study; in some cases
it is a matter of testimony. Some one will ask: “Do you believe
miracles possible?’ Well, I believe that Jesus Christ rose from
the dead; and if he did that was a miracle. “But do you really
believe that he did?” Well, I was not present at the time, but he
is living now, and I believe he died on Calvary. Now, do you be-
lieve that? “‘Well, I suppose he did,” you answer. Well, if you
can testify that he died on Calvary, I can testify that he is living
now, for I have talked with him to-day.

When you begin to talk this way there is one thing you will
find out. Men who wish to argue will lose their zest for argu-
THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS. 53

ment. Men who started out to contend that such things cannot
be true will drop you as if they had caught hold of a red-hot piece
of iron. They do not want testimony of that kind. Why? I
think it has something to do with a man’s spiritual state. If you
will allow me to refer to myself, I will tell you a bit of experience.
When I went out to India, like most young men I was fond of
controversy ; and when I had learned the language so that I could
talk to the natives, and ‘had read up in controversy, I began tc
think that I could meet any of them in argument; but later on it
dawned upon me that, if I were to live a thousand years, I would
never get anybody into the better world through controversy.
Then it became more and more impressed upon me, as I got near-
er and nearer to Christ, that I had never received a mission from
him to argue with anybody; and I remembered my commission,
received when I was but a boy of twenty-one. I had become ex-
tremely unhappy about my mission. No one seemed to get any
good from my preaching. So I went in prayer one day in the
woods and talked with God, and while praying Christ came to me
and said, I will not say in a whisper, but it was just as real as if
the words had been spoken, “Go preach my gospel.” And I felt
immediately as if there had been a rock of adamant slipped under
my feet, and I was standing upon it. And from that day I have
had no doubt on this question. I remember that I quit controver-
sy; and I have not preached against idolatry, so far as I know, for
twenty years. “What!” you say, “you have been in India, and
have not preached against idolatry?” Well, I have not the time
to doit. fam there to preach Christ; and if I can get these peo-
ple to hear my story of a risen Christ, their idolatry will take care
of itself, and they will soon let it go.

We must put Christ before the world in this way, and the Holy
Spirit will enable us to doit. But you say: “You simply give your
testimony that Christ is living.” O, Ido more than that. I say
that he is alive now, that he is here, that he is standing beside me,
just as I say to you that he is now nearer to me than any living
soul. And that is the great testimony which God calls upon his
Christian workers to bear to this world.

In another Conference somewhat similar to this I made a
statement which was misunderstood, and I wish (parentheticallv)
to restate what I said imperfectly then. I was understood to sav
that the Bible was not the real foundation of the Christian

THOBURN..

Value of expe-
rience.
THOBURN.

The Captain

and the chart.

We are his
witnesses.

54 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Church, that Christ was the foundation; and this was considered
by some to be a very grave error. I wish to tell you exactly how
I wish to put it now. Iwas going to Manila a year or two ago
from Singapore. There were some passengers on board who had
never been on those seas before, and they asked me if I could tell
them where we were. I replied that I would ask ‘the captain. I
went to him and asked if he could tell me the position of the ship.
He said: “Come to my room, and I will show you.”’ So I went up
to his room,and he spread out a chart, and he said, “Here are three
lines. That one goes direct to Hongkong; that one goes midway
between our line and the eastern line, which follows the shelter
of the islands. My owners make me take this middle line. Over
yonder is the coast of Siam, and farther up there is Annam. Up
yonder (putting his compass to a point on the map) is Hongkong,
back here is Borneo, and here is Manila; and the ship,” he said,
“is just here,” and he showed us the exact point. Now that was
a marvelous chart, but as I looked at it and knew exactly where
I was, it did not occur to me for a moment that the chart was.
greater than the captain, because the chart could not sail the ship.
The captain was greater than the chart, but he recognized the
chart, and sailed according to it.

Jesus is my captain, and the Bible is my chart. I am sailing
for the ever-green shore, and I shall get there. That is what I
mean when I say that Jesus, the living Christ, is the real founda-
tion of the Church. Instead of saying that I have no confidence in
the Bible, I exalt it; for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy, and the prophetic element is what makes the Bible
what it is.

Has it neve1 occurred to you that Jesus Christ has sent you into
this world in his name to represent him? This is a great truth
which the Church of Jesus Christ has never perfectly learned. Je-
sus said : “The works that I do shall ye do also; and greater works.
than these shall ye do; because I go unto my Father.” And then,
again, we are to show him to the world. All that this world
knows about God was taught by Christ, and in order to do it he
had to manifest God in himself. All that the people of New Or-
leans know about Jesus Christ is what they have learned from his
disciples in this city. All that the people of the United States
know concerning him is what they have learned, not from books,
but from his living disciples; and it is your mission and mine in
this world to manifest Christ.
THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS. 55

But you say : “We are poor, dull creatures ; we cannot represent
Jesus Christ.” Yes, my brethren, you can. You are more like
him than perhaps you are aware of. We have an idea of Christ
that I think is a very false one. We think of him as walking about
with the majesty of one of the angels of God; but, on the other
hand, he was one of the simplest men that ever lived. We have
no idea of how he looked; no painter can draw such a portrait;
but he was manifestly a very ordinary man in looks. John said
that when he was baptizing the multitude: “He was among us,
and we knew him not.” If he had gone there with the majesty
of an archangel, everybody would have noticed him and followed
him; but a man who can walk through a crowd for several days
and not attract notice is a very ordinary man in looks. And I
love to think that Jesus was much like myself in his humanity.
You will remember that he grew weary when he was walking
through the country to Samaria, and sat on the curb of the well
to rest himself. A thousand times over, when I have been tired,
I have remembered that, and it has made me strong.

He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh; he looked like you
and like me. But there was this difference : that while he was hu-
man in the strict sense of the word, yet in all the wide world there
was never anybody who would shrink from him, except those
who were evil. The children were not afraid of him; the poor
people were not afraid of him. In this respect he was exceptional.

Now we are to reproduce Christ, and in order to do that we
must lead not only holy lives, but pure and simple lives. Don’t
let me be misunderstood again. Very often gospel workers get
into this habit : we get a difference of tone, a difference of manner ;
we create an ideal of our own that is not correct. Let yourself be
yourself after you have taken up the work of Jesus Christ. Do
not adopt a special tone, do not have any mannerisms; but be sim-
ple, and although those of you who are preachers may lose your
popularity with a certain class of people who don’t know a sermon
when they hear it, yet at the same time you must be brave enough
to have it said that you can talk fairly well, but you can’t preach.

QOn the other hand, you cannot have a better exemplar than
Jesus Christ. J remember once, many years ago, when I was a
cripple, I came to this country and spoke in public. I had to
take my choice of either leaning on a crutch or sitting in a chair,
and I chose the latter. People often came up to me and sympa-

THOBURN.

‘‘There was no
beauty in
him.’’

How to repro-
duce Christ,
THOBURN,

Simplicity of
Christ.

Our miracles.

56 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

thized with me, and said: ‘We really enjoyed your talk just as
much as if you had been standing.” Well, why not?
The greatest sermon ever preached in this world was preached by
a Man sitting on the grass; and the second greatest sermon was
preached to an audience of one person with the Preacher sitting
on the curb of a well, and the one person composing his audience
was a person who would not be admitted to a good many Metho-
dist Churches in these United States to-day. And yet that ser-
mon revolutionized religious worship throughout the world for
all time. The greatest prophetic discourse that was ever deliv-
ered was preached by that same Man as he sat on the hillside and
looked down from the Mount of Olives at the city of Jerusalem.
And another of his greatest sermons was preached while he was
sitting in a boat and his audience were standing on the sands of
the shore. Why if you will be as true to yourself and to your sur-
roundings as your Master was, you will not be afraid of a simple
life; for Christianity has nothing about it that is pompous, noth-
ing that is stilted, nothing that is sensational. Oh, would to God
that every Methodist preacher would register a vow in his inward
soul nevermore to announce on Saturday that he would preach a
sensational sermon the next day!

We are Christ’s representatives, and we are to do his works.
You ask me if I really believe we can do Christ’s mighty works;
éan we work miracles? No. Then do I believe if we had more
faith we could work miracles? No. “Do you believe if we had
more faith we could relieve the sick?” Well, I have been too busy
with the work Christ has given me to do to speculate on such sub-
jects. I have prayed sometimes for those very dear to me, that
God would heal them; but I have never yet reached the point
where J contd lift my hand before God and say it must be. I believe
God has heard some prayers of mine in cases concerning those
very dear to me, but in other cases it has been borne into my
heart as directly as if Christ had spoken from the throne, “TI want
your child ;” and I have said, “Take her.” That is the spirit of
Jesus Christ; you can never go beyond it.

Then you ask: “What can we do?” I will tell you what you
can do. There was once a doctor, an English surgeon, in Cal-
cutta, who had a little girl six or seven years of age, and one day
he said to me: “If my daughter lives to grow up, I hope she may
take a fancy to the study of medicine; and if she does, I wish her
THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS. 57

to make a specialty of eye surgery.” I asked him: “What is your
notion in that?” “Well,” he said, “woman’s sense of touch is
more delicate than man’s’; and of all surgical operations, there
are none requiring more delicacy of touch than those connected
with the eye. I should feel that my highest wishes were gratified
if my little girl, when she grows up, becomes an eye surgeon, be-
cause I think she would be peculiarly qualified for it.” Now 1]
have thought that religion itself required delicacy of touch; and
there are some who are expected; not to heal an eye that is in a
critical condition; but to bind up broken heartstrings. That re-
quires a kind of surgery that the men of this world know nothing
about. After you have lived among the people and in touch with
them, you will find that you have to do that kind of work nearly
every day. More hearts are aching and breaking than you know
anything about, and as you get nearer to Christ you will find
them.

There was a time in my life when I became impressed with the
idea that there was more sickness about me than I had known be-
fore in Lucknow. I happened to meet one of the surgeons, and
I said to him: “There is a great deal of sickness here.”’ He said:
“No, I’ve never noticed it.” “But I have noticed it,’ I said; “i
seem to find more sickness now than at any time since I have
been in the station.” He said: “I can’t account for it, but you are
mistaken; there is mo more sickness now than before.” And so
I began to look into the case, and I found out that really there
was only about as much sickness as usual, but I hadn’t been in
touch with the sufferers. And I remembered that two or three
weeks before I had been drawn nearer to Christ, and had received
what I might call a revival of God’s work in my heart, which had
given me a kind of unconscious attraction to a sick bed, so that
I found them without knowing that I was seeking them. And it
taught mea lesson. You say: “I don’t stumble over many such
cases.” My dear brothers and sisters, as you come nearer to
Christ, and become more like him, you will find that there is a
divine attraction that will lead you to where the works of Christ
can be performed.

Coming down Long Island Sound a few years ago, a friend on
board asked me whether I wouldn’t like to go into the dynamo
room. I said I would, and he took me there, where the great
dynamos were revolving. He picked up a large steel hammer,

THOBURN.

Spiritual sur-
gery.

How to find
the meedy.

Christ’s
drawing.
THOBURN.

The work of
missions.

58 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and then he took in his hand a magnet, of the usual horseshoe
shape, and put it to the hammer, and asked me to see if it would
bear the weight. I caught the magnet and it dropped off. Then
he said, “Go a little nearer,” and I walked toward the dynamo.
slowly, till he said, “Now try it,” and I did, and the rhagnet bore
the weight of the big hammer. I went closer, and he said, “Try
to pullthem apart.” But I couldn't do it; they were just like one
metal. Then I began to walk backward. ‘Now try it,” he said;.
and I could take them apart. I went back still farther, and the
magnet dropped off. The power was in the dynamo.

I have found personally, and you will find the same thing, that
Jesus Christ is the Dynamo of this universe ; and as you go near-
er and nearer to him, the divine magnetism will flow into your
souls, and you will be drawn to objects that you should seek, and
away from those you should shun; and yet you will be just as
natural as you ever were, and more natural, and people will be
less afraid of you, and have more confidence in you. You will
find yourself drawn to places where your Master would be drawn ;
drawn there to represent him in the flesh. And what a delightful
thought it is that we walk in the hallowed footsteps of ‘the Son of
God!

Now, with that idea before us, we can talk about our great mis-
sionary work. We talk about the world being converted to God.
You say send the Bible to them. Why you might as well send
telegraph wires, throw them down here and there, and expect
them to transmit messages without intelligence at either end.
The Bible won’t convert anybody of itself. The Bible is the tele-
graph wire, but you must have the eternal God at the one end,
and a believing and intelligent person at the other. Then you
can use the Bible. So it is not what we call truth, it is not Chris-
tian mercy, or keeping the Sabbath day, or this, that, or the other
thing; or introducing ‘the customs of our country. Nothing of
the kind; it is Christ.

Take some young woman out of this audience to-night. She
says she is willing to go as a missionary to some country in the
Eastern world, if she could be sent. The funds are provided, and
she goes on to New York. Just as she goes down into the steamer
that is to carry her across the broad Atlantic, there will be seen the
unseen presence and heard the silent tread of the Man of Nazareth
by her side. She goes on that steamer, and there is a pillow spread
THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS. 59

by the Man of Nazareth. She reaches her destination, and goes
far down into the heathen continent, and there is still by her side
the silent tread of the Man of Nazareth. She enters the lowly
huts; she may be rejected a dozen times as her Master was before
her ; but somewhere, as she tells the story of the Word, she will be
welcomed and kindly received, and some one there will be made a
partaker of the world to come. Then, when the young disciple
goes out of that home, Jesus will remain. She goes to another,
and another, and all the time she is bringing Christ to the people.

Weare here to have Christ represented among all nations. Can
we do it? I say we can. It is a question of sending out those
who know Christ and who will carry him to the people. All over
the world they are doing that to-day. Within the past few weeks
I received a letter from the presiding elder in the Province oi
Gujarat, who says: ‘Two of our men baptized one thousand eight
hundred converts in three days, and there are six or eight thou-
sand more waiting.” Another writes: “Two brothers at such
and such a place have a thousand converts whom they are wait-
ing to have baptized, but we can’t do such a thing out there un-
til we can provide culture for the men who are to be baptized.”
Jesus said: “Go and disciple all nations, teaching them.” Teach-
ing is just as important as, and more so than, baptism.

Again a missionary down on the Straits of Malacca writes:
“We could double our membership in twelve months if we could
provide teachers for the people.” Another writes from China
that a whole colony of Christianized Chinamen are going over to
Borneo, and Bishop Warren is now in Borneo, organizing this
Ohinese colony. The island of Borneo is as large as France; and
as to China, there will be a greater opening there in twelve months
than ever before. God is calling, and what are we doing? We
are not equal to the emergency. The Church to which I belong
last year, for all her mission work in foreign lands and home fields,
gave the sum of forty-five cents per member! Forty-five cents!
I am ashamed to say it, and yet I am afraid that the three mil-
lions of our Church spend as much money for chewing gum as
they do for saving the heathen world. We are trifling with the
whole subject. We think things can be done simply because we
sing our hymns, because we offer our prayers, because we make
enthusiastic addresses to the public. God’s voice is summoning
us; and as yet it is the voice of love. I rejoice in this convention.

THOBURN,

*“Lo, I am
with you.

What Christ
is doing.

What we are
doing.
THOBURN.

The souxce of
power.

60 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Well, I have talked so long on these side issues that I fear |
have drifted away from the main point; but before I close IJ
wish to recall your minds to the objective point of my whole talk.
All success is through the Spirit of God, the river of the water
of life. Some one may say: “I have prayed for the Spirit again
and again, but somehow it is the one prayer that is unanswered.”
I know what you mean when you say that. I used to pray a good
deal for God to give me the fullness of the Holy Spirit, when I
did not fully understand what I was asking. You remind me
somewhat of the boy who sees that beautiful bright electric light.
He says to his mother: “That’s a pretty light; I want to take it
home with me.” The mother says: “You can’t do it.” The boy
says: “I don’t want much, but just enough to fill my hat;” and the
mother replies, “My son, you cannot take that light unless you
take the lamp. You will have to take the wire with you also, and
then you can have the light.” But the boy cannot understand
why he cannot get the light; he cannot understand that he must
take the source if he would have the light. Well, you have prayed
again and again that God would give you his Spirit, would fill
your poor heart with his Holy Spirit; but you have been thinking
all the time that you can get the Holy Spirit apart from Christ.
You can’t do it; you must receive the Spirit that makes Christ
manifest to you.

Now, you pray for the Spirit, and Christ comes. Who makes
him visible? The Holy Spirit; that is his mission; he “shall not
testify himself, but he shall take of the things of mine and show
them unto you.” Take Christ into your heart in his fullness, and
the Spirit will be a perpetual sunshine in your soul, manifesting
Christ. That is what we want. “But,” says some one, “we want
the mantle of power.” Well, here is the power. But you want
a mantle that the world will recognize. Elisha wanted the power
of Elijah, and when Elijah went up in the chariot of flame there
remained an old blanket lying there. He didn’t have much to
leave in this world. ‘Elisha went out and picked up the blanket.
There is a dispute among the writers on this subject. Some say
the garment was of camel’s hair, and some say that it was sheep-
skin ; but it was a robe of power on the shoulders of Elisha.

Now you say you want the mantle of Christ. If you get it, you
will not have anything that the world will account valuable. You
will shrink back into yourself more than ever before, you will be
THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS. 61

willing to be quiet and unknown, you will think yourself unwor-
thy; but somehow or other the works of Jesus Christ will begin
to show themselves forth in you; and while you may not be a pop-
ular man in the pulpit, you will be in the pew and in the home. The
thing that Methodism needs more than anything else to-day is to
have men and women take up the work of Christ who will go out
in his name and filled with his spirit.

Now Jesus says: “I am among you as he that serveth.” My
dear friends, this world would recognize the disciples of Christ
if it saw that we were eager for his service; and his service is
among the poor, the heartbroken, the downtrodden and forsaken
of men. There is plenty of work to do everywhere; and if we
would only go forth earnestly in that hallowed name, Methodism
would have a power in these United States that was never known
before. I take it that the six million Methodist communicants
of this world ought to add five million members to the Church ev-
ery year. You say the like was never heard of; why, it would not
be one apiece. We have been waiting through all these years,
without making a deliberate calculation of what God expected us
to do. As I look up, it seems to me as if I see yonder shining
throne. Oh, that vision comes to me so vividly! There is God
the Father and the Son, God the Father and the Lamb. There
is that crystal Stream forever proceeding; and all the power that
was ever given to Jesus is offered to us in the person of that Holy
Spirit. We are to do greater works than the Master wrought on
earth. Let us receive that hallowed river, and Pentecost will be
ours.

Long ages ago the wild Indian used to come and look at the
falls of Niagara. He would simply gaze, and pass on. To him it
was a mighty body of water, and nothing else. Then a European
came along and said, “This is the most wonderful waterfall on this
earth,” and he passed on. After a time, other Europeans came
and said: “If we could only utilize the power in that waterfall, we
would do great things.” There came a man one day who said,
“Well, I can at least have a flouring mill here,’ and he turned
aside enough of the torrent to use the power. Other men came
and said: “We will dig through the rock and open a tunnel by
which we will carry-the water off and have a system of flouring
mills.” And they did it. Then came a man of science, and he
said, “That great torrent is a source of electric power, and I will

THOBURN.

His mantle.

What we
might do,

Harnessing
our Niagara.
THOBURN.

62 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

use that power; and I will attach the wires from this place to But-
falo and Lockport, and will illuminate the streets of those cities.”
And he did it. Other men came and said, “We will use this
electric power in running the greatest manufacturing plants ia
the United States,” and they are building them. Then Tesla came
along, and said: “I have discovered a method by which I can
transmit the electricity without waste, to New York on the one
hand, and Chicago on the other.” And he looked at that water-
fall, and in substance laid one hand on New York and the other
on Chicago, and said: “Here is the power that will drive all the
manufacturing plants.of the two greatest cities on the continent.”
How marvelous it is! It was there when the wild Indian saw
the falls, but he didn’t know it. It was there when the first man
utilized the power of the water, but he did not comprehend. So
we have been gazing on the river of life. We are not like the wild
Indian ; we have known, but we have not proved the mighty power
of that river. There it lies before us; it is ours, with all its possi-
bilities of divine grace, and the Master is pointing us upward and
saying: “All the works I did on earth, ye shall do also, and great-
er works than these.” And what remains for us to do? Simply
to look up in the name of Jesus Christ, and call that water ours.
The mighty Spirit of God is mine to-night, and I seem to grasp
the promises. I look steadfastly upon the heavenly scene, for it
is heaven opened to the gaze of faith, and say:
River of God, I greet thee!
Not now afar, but near,
My soul to thy pure waters
Hastes in its thirstings here.
Holy River, let me ever
Drink of only thee.

ONENESS IN CHRIST.

REV. ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND, D.D.

Ir would be impossible to speak on such a theme as “Oneness in
Ohrist” without having in mind the words spoken by the Master
in the upper room on the night in which he was betrayed. But
ONENESS IN CHRIST. 63

the meaning does not lie upon the surface. The words belong to
the deep sayings of Christ, and their spiritual import can be ap-
prehended only by spiritual men. It may aid us, however, if we
take in the related circumstances. As one who studies a famous
picture let us stand back a little so as to get the right perspective
and put the picture in a proper light.

The troubled, sorrowful years of Christ’s earthly sojourn were
drawing toaclose. First there had been the years of inaction and
enforced silence—years in which he saw and felt the terrible mean-
ing of the world’s sorrow and sin, yet spoke no word and wrought
no mighty deed. Then came the three years of his public minis-
try; three years in which to teach a blind, sinning, suffering world
the way to the Father; three vears in which to give that world an
impulse Godward and turn it from darkness toward the light:
three years into which he must compress the truth that would suf-
fice to guide the human race through all the centuries of its his-
tory till the consummation would be reached,

In some far-off divine event
To which the whole creation moves.

Talk we of enthusiasm! Oh, if Jesus Christ be not in very deed
and truth the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, such an
undertaking must be regarded as the very insanity of enthusiasm !

Roughly divided, each year of the three has its own character-
istics. First, there was a year of preparatory work, teaching and
healing; then followed a year of popular favor, when vast crowds
listened to the Master’s words. “The common people heard him
gladly;” the wealthy entertained him; rulers and wise men
came to him for light, and many confessed that he was “a teacher
come from God.” His name was on every lip, and, for the most
part, in terms of commendation. To superficial observers it must
have seemed as if the triumph of his cause was assured. But the
tide quickly turned. The third year saw the crowds dwindling,
“and from that time many of his disciples went back and walked
no more with him.” Mutterings of discontent began to be heard,
which speedily swelled to a chorus of denunciation. “He hath a
devil and is mad,” said some. “He casteth out devils through
Beelzebub the prince of devils,” said others. “He deceiveth the
people,” was the contention of many. “He is a blasphemer and
deserves to die,” was the verdict of Pharisee and Sadducee alike.
The rulers opposed him, the people gave him up, and the best his

SUTHERLAND.

Christ’s
words.

His ministry.
SUTHERLAND.

The closing
hours.

Last
discourse.

64 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

own brethren could say was: “He is beside himself.” From the
human point of view the mission of Jesus seemed to be resulting
in disastrous failure.

And now the end had come. Of the multitudes who had fol-
lowed him in earlier days, it seemed as if only twelve were leit,
and one of these a traitor. A few hours later they all would for-
sake him, leaving him to die alone. All this, and much more, was
present to the mind of Jesus; but nothing disturbed the serenity
of his spirit, and the secret we find in his own words, “Behold, the
hour cometh, vea, is come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to
his own, and shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because
the Father is with me.” It is said that in the mightiest cyclones
that sweep over earth or sea there is a spot at the center—at the
very vortex—where all is calm and still, Thus amid the cyclones
of human passion—in the whirl and vortex of opposition and ha-
tred, human or satanic—there is one place of undisturbed seren-
ity, and that is beneath the shadow of the Almighty. There Jesus
dwelt, and nothing could disturb him.

But now only a few hours remained in which to finish his work.
Whatever he would say to his disciples he must say quickly. And
so the word goes forth to the Twelve to assemble in the upper
room which “the goodman of the house” had prepared at the
Master’s bidding. When the hour was come he sat down with the
Twelve. From this point onward every act, every word, deepens
the impression of all his former teaching. The announcement of
his own betrayal, the departure of Judas, the prediction of Peter’s
defection, the institution of the Holy Supper, the washing of the
disciples’ feet, follow in rapid succession. Then words of deep-
est wisdom and tenderness are spoken as he tells of the many
mansions, of the way to the Father, his oneness with the Father,
the coming of the Comforter, the peace he would leave with them,
and many things beside. All this is on the line which leads from
the outward and the visible to the inward and the spiritual, and as
we listen we feel that we stand on holy ground; but when Jesus
lifts up his eyes and opens his lips in his intercessory prayer—the
most wonderful prayer ever breathed from earth to heaven—then
do we stand at the very threshold of the holy place, listening to
the first words of that intercession which ever goes up before the
mercy seat from the lips of our great High Priest. What Jesus
prayed for then he prays for now, and his intercession cannot be
ONENESS IN CHRIST. 65

invain. To suppose that it has continued all these centuries with-
out answer is simply unthinkable; and yet there are those who
tell us they are waiting for the fulfillment of the Redeemer’s dying
prayer, and they blame the Churches in no measured terms be-
cause fulfillment has been so long delayed.

T.et us now turn to the prayer itself and try to grasp the mean-
ing of its wonderful words. Already we have been led far into
the spiritual realm, and in that same realm we must find our
exegesis. A mere surface interpretation will not meet the case;
we must penetrate, if possible, into spirit and truth. The record
is in the seventeenth chapter of John, verse eleven, and again in
verses twenty to twenty-three, and the words are these: “Holy
Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that
they may be one, evenas weare. . . . Neither for these only
do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their
word; that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me,
and IJ in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may be-
lieve that thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast
given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as
we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected
into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and
lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me.”

A common interpretation put upon these words is to refer them
to the organic union of all Christ’s disciples in one visible body,
and the inference is drawn that, until this is accomplished, Christ’s
intercessory prayer will remain unanswered. But such an inter-
pretation is singularly inadequate. It is mere play upon the sur-
face of the words instead of getting down into the heart of things.
Even a superficial study of the word and works of God should
convince us that the great purpose of redemption is to lead men
from the outward to the inward, from the visible to the invisible,
from the letter that killeth to the spirit that giveth life. The
whole movement of sacred ‘history lies along this line. Creation
began with the lowest forms of life; it culminated in the creation
of man in the image of God. Redemption in its historical aspect
begins with the Levitical ritual, with its sensuous worship, in
which the spiritual element is scarcely visible ; it ends with the in-
carnation of the Son of God, the descent of the Holy Ghost, and
the setting of an invisible kingdom in the souls of men. The
written word begins with picture and symbol from which we pass

5

SUTHERLAND.

The prayer.

Material
union
inadequate.
SUTHERLAND.

True oneness.

66 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

to spirit and truth. And even in the New Testament there is an
ascending scale from the mighty signs and wonders recorded in
the synoptical Gospel to the spirit and truth of the Gospel of John.

Keeping in mind this constant and uniform movement in
Christ’s teaching from that which is natural to that which is spir-
itual, remembering that we are now witnessing the closing hours
of his earthly life and listening to his last words in the hearing of
his disciples ; remembering that he has assumed, before our very
eyes, his High-priestly function as our advocate with God, and is
asking from the Father the divinest gift He has to bestow; is it
conceivable that at such a time, and under circumstances so inex-
pressibly solemn, the Saviour’s supreme desire for his disciples,
repeated again and again, should have concerned itself solely, or
even chiefly, with the mere externals of religion, and that the
best thing he could ask was a visible organic unity as the proof to
the world that he had been sent of God? To interpret the words
in this narrow and unspiritual sense would be a sudden reversal
of the whole trend of Christ’s teaching, and would land us in an
anticlimax of the most startling kind.

That which Jesus desired, first of ‘all, and above all, for his dis-
ciples was unity of spirit, an inward fellowship with one another
and with God like unto that existing between the Father and the
Son. This is indicated by the very language of the prayer: “That
they may be one even as we are.” “That they all may be one;
even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may
be in us.” And yet again, “That they may be one even as we are
one; I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfected into
one, that the world may know that thou didst send me.” How
far and under what conditions this may include outward and visi-
ble unity will be considered farther on; in the meantime, our con-
cern is with that oneness in Christ which he died to make possible,
and which is the crowning grace and glory of experimental reli-
gion. Knowing all that was comprehended in the extension and
consummation of his kingdom in the earth, Jesus knew the su-
preme importance oi absolute unity among his people, a unity
that could not be created and maintained by human machinery,
however well intended and devised, by majority votes of Confer-
ences and Synods, or compromises between opposing factions, but
only by the mighty working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of in-
dividual believers, bringing them into vital union with Christ and
ONENESS IN CHRIST. 67

the living Head, and through him with all God’s redeemed ones
on earth and in heaven. To men who have only a form of reli-
gion, and deny the power thereof, all this would be unintelligible ;
but to those who have passed from death unto life, to whom re-
ligion is an experience and not a mere creed or form, it will come
with the force of a divine demonstration, and commend itself as
oi the very essence of the gospel.

A spiritual unity, such as we are considering, comes within the
scope of individual experience. Each true believer not only may
be but assuredly is brought into vital union with God in Christ Je-
sus, and therefore into vital union with every other true believer
throughout the whole world. It is this union of true believers
that constitutes the oneness of the Church universal, and all claims
to that distinction based upon systems of doctrines or forms of
government, upon modes of administration or historic continuity,
are delusive and vain. The unity which Christ desired and for
which he prayed was to be the standing evidence to the world
that he had been sent of God, and how he understood it may be
inferred from ‘his words a little before: “By this shall all men
know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
But how shall the world see and know that we have love one to
another? Will it be because we subscribe to the same creed,
submit to the same Church order, pronounce the same Shibbo-
leth? History answers “No.’’ When Christians were few and
poor, and persecuted, with no bond of union save that of unswerv-
ing loyalty to Jesus Christ, although the heathen hated them and
pursued them even unto death, they could not withold the admir-
ing testimony, ‘Behold how these Christians love one another !”’
and the proof of the love was not outward organic unity, but the
willingness of each to serve and suffer for the sake of a fellow-be-
liever. Such a love the world has never known before, and it was
mighty to convince men that He who had inspired a love like that
must have been sent of God to be the Saviour of the world.

If the organic union of all Christians in one visible Church is the
all-important matter, if this is the crowning grace for which the
Saviour prayed, we are at once brought face to face with a very
grave responsibility. Ifthe Redeemer’s intercessory prayer can-
not be fully answered so long as outward divisions remain in the
Church, can any plea of doctrinal opinion, of conscientious scru-
ple, of religious usage, of established Church order, justify the

SUTHERLAND.

Son’s unity.
SUTHERLAND.

Organic union,
when?

All who are
Christ's,

68 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

continuance of our divisions for a single hour? It thas been said,
and I think with justice, that a man is most likely to be right in.
those things which he holds in common with the Church universal,
and most likely to ‘be wrong in those things which he holds as pe-

culiar opinions of his own; but it has been ‘observed that not a few

who emphasize as the great desideratum the reunion of Christen-
dom, who profess to believe that only in one visible universal

Church can the Redeemer’s prayer be fulfilled, are strangely tena-

cious of every jot and tittle of the systems in which they have been

trained, and seem to regard the wholesale acceptance of those sys-

tems as indispensable to the union they so much desire. But this

is only to relegate the whole question to a very distant future.

The organic union of diverse and even conflicting systems neces-

sarily involves mutual concessions and compromises, and until

we are prepared to submit to these all talk of organic union is like-

ly to prove but wasted breath.

Now if it be true that believers who are in vital union with
Christ, and these alone, constitute his mystical body, the ques-
tion of organic union assumes a new phase; for true believers.'are
scattered among Churches of every name the wide world over,
and to gather these alone into one organized body is, on the face
of it, a manifest impossibility. No human authority could decide
who are and who are not in vital union with Jesus Christ; and
even if they were known, who would have authority to summon
them out of the various communions where Providence has cast
their lot, to form a new communion under a new name? More
than once the experiment has been tried; but instead of bringing
about the organic union of true believers, the experiment has re-
sulted only in creating some additional sects, and these the most
sectarian of all. If, therefore, we regard organic union as the
chief thing to be desired, we must be content to take the Churches
as they are—the tares and the wheat together—and then see if we
can discover a centripetal force sufficiently strong to bind the
heterogeneous elements in one.

To guard against misapprehension, let me here say, once for all,
that none of these things are said to discourage the desire or hope
of a union of all Christ’s followers in one visible body, or to con-
vey the impression that I do not sympathize with a hope so high.
I do sympathize with it most profoundly, and am free to express
the belief that such a union will one day be an accomplished fact.
ONENESS IN CHRIST. 69

But if that union is to be real and lasting, it must come in God’s
order; it must be the result of that oneness with God in Christ for
which the Saviour prayed; it must be the outgrowth of an inte-
rior life organizing its own living body for the performance of its
own proper functions, and not the mechanical construction of an
automaton to be galvanized into imitating the movements of a
life which it does not possess. But laying aside for the present
all diversities of interpretation and assuming only that what Jesus
asked for was some real and lasting good for his Church—some-
thing which should be to us, as it was to him, an object of supreme
desire—is there anything which Christian men and women can do
‘to further the end in view, and so realize in fuller, grander measure
that oneness in God though Christ for which the Saviour prayed?
There are at least two objects to which our prayers and faith and
efforts might be directed with promise of fruitful results.

The first of these is a mighty deepening of spiritual life in the
Church. If there is a lack of unity among us, it is because the level
of spiritual life is so low. Our religion is too superficial. It dwells
too much in the region of opinion and dogma and too little in the
region of conviction and motive. It is too much a religion of the
head and too little of the heart. Its consecration is that of the in-
tellect rather than of the will, and love is more in word and tongue
than in deed and truth. Sucha religion may find an outlet in tith-
ing its “mint and anise and cummin,” but not so much in “judg-
ment, mercy, and the love of God,” and it is not the sign whereby
the world shall know that we are Christ’s disciples, and that the
Father sent him into the world. I would not assume a pessimis-
tic rdle, and complain that the whole Church had backslidden

‘from God. That would be a sinful exaggeration; but it is true,
nevertheless, that the tide of spirituality has ebbed farther than
most of us realize. The Church has splendid organization, elab-
orate machinery, but “the spirit of the living creature” is not in
the wheels. Family religion is sorely neglected; private devo-
tion languishes ; the Methodist testimony of full salvation is ig-
‘nored, or is relegated for the most part ‘to ignorant extremists
who bring it into disrepute by their censorious spirit or inconsis-
‘tent lives. Putting the case for the Church as favorably as truth
will allow, is she so “rich and increased in goods” as to “have
need of nothing?” Has she no sins to repent of; no unfaithful-
“ness to deplore? Is the level of her spiritual life near where it

SUTHERLAND,

Two objects of
prayer and
effort,

Deepening of
spiritual life
needed.
SUTHERLAND.

Spirituality
and union,

Spirituality
and missions.

4O GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

ought tobe? The most optimistic Christian will not affirm that
itis. A great deepening of spiritual life is the crying need of the
hour. May it be fulfilled in our experience “not many days
hence!”

A deepening of spiritual life, and that alone, will solve the prob-
lem of Christian unity. In proportion as the spiritual life is deep-
ened we get nearer to God, and we cannot get nearer to God with-
out getting nearer to one another. If this were kept steadily in
mind, it would save much random talk and wasted effort for the
organic union of Churches. The fact is, the Churches are kept
apart not so much by differences of opinion as by lack of the mind
that was in Christ. Christendom cannot be organically united un-
less it is first united in spirit, and it cannot be united in spirit
unless there is a great deepening of spiritual life. The remedy for
existing divisions will not be found in argument or in compromis-
es, but in that mighty working of the Holy Spirit whereby a creed
is changed into an experience and a profession is transformed
into a life. This is the true bond of union, and without it an ex-
ternal unity would be a rope of sand. ,

The bearing of all this on the missionary problem is manifest.
Whenever and wherever there has been a revival of true mission-
ary zeal it has been preceded by earnest and persistent prayer and
a deepening of spiritual life. Witness the sending forth of the
first foreign missionaries by the Church of Antioch: “As they
[that is, the prophets and teachers] ministered to the Lord, and
fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for
the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had
fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them, and sent them
away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, went down
to Seleucia.” The history of the Church is full of examples just
as striking, showing that the deepening of spiritual life always re-
sults in some new outgrowth of missionary zeal. All along the
centuries we find individuals or groups of men deeply concerned
for the well-being of the Church and the salvation of the world,
and while they were hated and despised by the formalists and the
ungodly of their age, the Holy Spirit used them to save the Church
from the paralysis of a dying orthodoxy and from thopeless moral
decay. Opprobrious names were heaped upon them, and Piet-
ism, Mysticism, Puritanism, Methodism, Herrnhutism, are some
of the terms by which they became known: but it is by these move-
ments, so despised of men, that God has conserved the spirit of true
ONENESS IN CHRIST. WI

religion and demonstrated the power of his truth from age to age.
Well did the late Dr. A. J. Gordon express the thought: ‘““When-
ever in any period of the Church’s history a little company has
sprung up so surrendered to the Spirit and so filled with his pres-
ence as to furnish the pliant instruments of his will, then a new
Pentecost has dawned on Christendom, and as a consequence the
great commission has been republished.”

It is in this presence and work of the Holy Spirit, choosing and
sending forth his own messengers, that we find the true apostolic
succession, and by the life which he imparts he maintains the unity
and continuity of his Church from age to age. From Pietism—
to go no farther back in the Church’s history—came Moravian-
ism; from Moravianism, Methodism ; from Methodism, the great
missionary revival of the nineteenth century. That is to say, the
deepening of spiritual life which resulted from the Methodist re-
vival found its outlet in missionary zeal and effort for the evan-
gelization of the world. And what we find in communities we
find also in the case of individuals—the Holy Spirit transmitting
himself, so to speak, from man to man and from generation to gen-
eration. John Newton, of Olney, though not a Methodist in
name, received the new baptism of the Spirit, which he was the
means of communicating in turn to Thomas Scott, whose preach-
ing stirred and quickened William Carey ; and he, through reading
the journal of David Brainerd, was powerfully moved to mission-
ary consecration. The same John Newton was the human instru-
ment in the conversion of Claudius Buchanan, the successful mis-
sionary to India. Buchanan published a tract, “The Star of In-
dia,” which fell into the hands of Adoniram Judson, and deter-
mined ‘his career as a missionary. In like manner Charles Sim-
eon carried the new evangel to Cambridge, and, although he was
hooted and jeered at as Pietist and Methodist, God gave him
Heriry Martyn, whose brief but luminous life has kindled the mis-
sionary fire in scores of hearts from that day to this. A most
significant thing in connection with all these men and others like
them is the fact that the Holy Spirit’s working not only led them
to consecrate their lives to the evangelization of the world, but so
lifted them above the region of sectarian strife and prejudice that
they were able to recognize as brethren beloved in the Lord all of
every name who were in vital union with Jesus Christ. From all
of which the lesson is plain: Let the spiritual life of the Church

SUTHERLAND.

The true apos-
tolic succes-
sion.
SUTHERLAND.

Cosperation.

Has Christ
been lifted up?

72 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

be so deepened that the Holy Spirit shall rule and guide in all her
plans and councils, and soon God’s purpose will be accomplished
—the gospel will be preached to the whole creation, and believ-
ets the wide world over will be one even as Christ and the Father
are one.

Assuming now that the Saviour’s prayer may have included the
thought of organic union, as well as the spiritual unity of believ-
ers, a second point that should be kept steadily in view is codper-
ation among the Churches for a common object, and no better ob-
ject could be chosen than the evangelization of the world in this
generation. Competition in missionary work among the heathen
results in many serious disadvantages. It is conceivable that a
number of distinct organizations, working side by side, might
sometimes stimulate zeal ‘and “provoke unto love and good
works,” but it is undeniable that it sometimes provokes to some-
thing that is not love and to works that are not good. It fosters
rivalry, wastes resources, reduces efficiency, retards universal
evangelization, perplexes native converts, perpetuates needless di-
visions, emphasizes nonessentials, and hinders the complete re-
alization of that oneness for which the Saviour prayed. Codp-
eration in the one aim of evangelizing the nations would go far to
correct all this, and coéperation might be possible even where or-
ganic union is impracticable. It would turn away attention from
minor things in which the Churches differ, and would fix it upon
the great essentials in which they agree; and this, in turn, might
teach the needed lesson that Christianity is broader than sects
and more catholic than creeds.

This steady pursuit of a common object, the evangelization of
the world, would have its effect upon the preaching of the mis-
sionaries. Remembering the words of the Master, “And I, if I be
lifted wp from the earth, will draw all men unto myself,” we some-
times wonder why all men have not been drawn to him long ago.
May not one reason be found in this, that Christ has not always
been lifted up? Some have lifted up the Church instead of the
Church’s Lord; some have lifted up the Creed instead of Him in
whom all creeds should center, and some have lifted up the cruci-
fix instead of the crucified One; and thus it has come to pass that,
instead of being drawn to the living Christ, men have been
drawn rather to the controversies that have raged round about
him. But neither Church, nor creed, nor ritual can satisfy the
world’s need ; only an uplifted Christ can do that. If this be so, is
ONENESS IN CHRIST. 73

it not our manifest duty always and everywhere to lift up Christ
as the world’s only hope? Let us lift him up in the great congre-
gation where the people gather, and at his table where still, as of
old, he is often revealed in the breaking of the bread. Let us
lift him up in the sight of the heathen, until the mighty meaning
of Christ crucified shall break in upon their darkness, and they cry
in rapture: “Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, and he
will save us; this is the Lord, we have waited for him, we will be
glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Let us lift him up among the
vile and the outcast until a new hope begins to dawn in their
hearts, and they cry in grateful wonder, as once others cried in
scorn: “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.” Yea,
let us lift him up at the bedsides of the dying, that the sinner’s last
look may be in the face of the crucified One before he goes to see
“the King in his beauty.” With this as our sole business, to cry,
“Behold the Lamb!” may we not ‘hope that Christians will soon
forget the things in which they have differed, and, being drawn
themselves into closer fellowship with Christ by the very gospel
they proclaim, become one in him even as he and the Father are
one?

To some people such'a day may seem far off, but it may be near-
er than we think. Is it only some ancient allegory or tradition,
or is it a vision of the Christian centuries that has been shaped
into words like these: There was a time when the majestic form of
truth embodied walked this earth, but somehow became dismem-
bered, and from that time until now the sundered parts are mov-
ing to and fro in ceaseless, weary search each for the other, be-
cause each is instinct with the memory of the old and loving union,
and it is the memory that impels the search, and the search itself
is a prophecy that all the sundered fragments shall be reunited in
one radiant form at last. Thus it may be one day with the mys-
tical body of Christ, which is his Church. Men think it is divided,
and that the sundered fragments have been driven far apart, be-
cause they cannot see the invisible bond which unites each true
believer to the living Head. We must wait a little longer for “the
manifestation of the sons of God,” but when that manifestation
comes it will be seen that the children of God are one even as
Christ and the Father are one, and then all men will see and know
that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

SUTHERLAND.

iC

The fruits of
unity.

One body.
The Commis-
sion.

Its foundation.

74 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

OBEDIENCE TO THE GREAT COMMISSION; CHRIST’S
LAW OF LIFE TO HIS CHURCH.

BISHOP J. C. GRANBERY, D.D.

Let me read the great commission as recorded by Matthew.
It is historical, as the English Magna Charta is historical, as the
Constitution of the United States is historical. The historical
setting is impressive: the place, a mountain of Galilee; the time,
immediately preceding Christ’s departure from the earth; the men
to whom it was spoken, the eleven faithful disciples. But the
great charter of England and the Constitution of the American
Union, are present, living facts and forces; so, and far more, the
great commission is true, valid, binding to-day and all days unto
the end of time, the supreme law of the Church and charter of
her rights. Servants, friends of our ascended Lord, hear what he
says to you at this opening of the twentieth century of his king-
dom: “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on
earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatso-
ever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto
the end of the world.”

I. Note the rock on which the commission rests: “All authori-
ty [the Authorized Version reads ‘power’] is given unto me in
heaven and on earth.” Authority and power go together as
source and stream. Christ has authority over the hosts (excheq-
uer) and all resources of heaven and earth; authority to legislate,
judge, execute, to quicken whom he will. Authority in heaven.
Angels wait or haste to do his bidding. He might have summoned
twelve legions for his own rescue, but would not. He did send an
angel to deliver Peter out of Herod’s hand. “Are they not all
ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be
heirs of salvation?’ But the greatest proof of his authority in
heaven was foreshown in this promise: “But when the Comfort-
er is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify
of me: and ye also shall bear witness.” The Holy Spirit and
the disciples are co-witnesses of Jesus. “But ye shall receive
power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be
my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
OBEDIENCE TO THE GREAT COMMISSION. 75

and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” The Spirit still wit-
nesses, believers still witness; may not America, this new world,
be included in this phrase as used by Jesus, “the uttermost part
of the earth?”

He has authority in earth. Why do the nations rage, the peo-
ple imagine a vain thing, the kings of earth set themselves, and
the rulers take counsel together against Jehovah and against his
anointed? John in Revelation styles Jesus the Prince of the
kings of the earth. Jesus called Satan the prince of this world:
usurper he is and tyrant. But whenthe seventy disciples whomour
Lord ‘thad sent forth to preach and to heal returned and reported,
he said: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” At that
same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and thanked God.
Each success of this evangelists is a new occasion of joy to the
Master.

Absolute, universal, ever-during sovereignty is the claim of
Christ. On his head are many crowns, and on his garments is
written King of kings and Lord of lords. Now that he is the
King, he does not drop the favorite title of his humiliation, the
Son of man. “The Father hath given him authority to execute
judgment also, because he is the Son of man.” “When the Son
of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then
shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.” The tie of a common
humanity between himself and his disciples shall never be broken.
The name of Jesus, given before his birth, setting forth his work

of saving his people from their sins, most precious name, shall:

not be substituted by any other title. At the name of Jesus every
knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess him Lord, to the
glory of God the Father. The hero whom the people freely and
fondly followed as their Leader, and hailed in the hour of victory
as their Liberator, may keep them at a distance when he wears
the purple and diadem. One who was a close friend of the per-
secuted prince may be rebuffed as presumptuous, if he speak fa-
miliarly to the king. But far different is the case between be-
lievers and their Lord. Adoration rises higher, praise more ecs-
tatic, the glory shines out full-orbed and cloudless; but what his
coronation and the unrolling progress of his reign show forth is
the exceeding riches of his grace, the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints, and the greatness of his power to us-ward
who believe. The Church of Rome delights to magnify the love

GRANBERY.

Authority on
earth,

Christ our
King.
GRANBERY.

Our duty to
him.

46 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE...

and honor which the enthroned Son shows to Mary, and her
consequent power. Surely she is very dear to his heart ; what will
he deny her? Let us accept the argument, and recall what hap-
pened in the days of his flesh. “One said, Behold thy mother and
thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.” But he
answered: “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?” And
he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples—I seem to see
his hand outstretched now and here to some, at least, of you who
listen—and said: “Behold my mother and brethren! For whoso-
ever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same
is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

What owe we to this King and Saviour, to him who not
only died for our redemption, but reigns to exalt and bless us
evermore? Worshiping, trustful, joyous, loving loyalty.

“Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown him Lord of all.”

In a double sense this loyalty is personal: First, it is the spirit
of Christians singly, as well as of the collective Church; secondly,
its object is a person, Christ Jesus. Americans profess loyalty, not
to the President, nor to any leader, but to the country, to a cause.
The British were loyal to Victoria, who reigned so long and so
wisely ‘and with such affection to her people; yet their deeper
loyalty was to the liberty, institution, power, and glory of the na-
tion, represented in part by the throne. “England expects every
man to do his duty to-day,” was Nelson’s appeal to the sailors;
England, not the king. Christ’s authority is not arbitrary, con-
ventional, nor limited. All perfections, unblemished and bound-
less, unite in him. He is before and above all things; by him and
for him they were created and do consist; he is the Sun of all
light, the Fount of all life. Not by a mere volition, not by the
mere outflow of his wisdom and might, but by humbling and
emptying himself, by the incarnation in which he became one of
us, by his revelation of the truth, by setting a perfect example of
righteousness under hard human conditions, by the suffering of
death to put away our sin, he redeemed us from bondage and sin.
He rose from the grave, ascended on high, sits on the right-hand
of the Father, continually interceding for us, is the Mediator
through whom we have access to God, and is ever present with
his Church. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive
OBEDIENCE TO THE GREAT COMMISSION. 77

power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and
glory, and blessing.” Such is the King.

Now consider his kingdom. His scepter is righteousness and
mercy. His reign means truth, freedom, purity, peace, joy, and
love. In him is the promise of all good, on earth and in heaven,
in fleeting time and changeless eternity. Glorious is his cause;
but it is not an abstraction of the reason, not an ideal of the imagi-
nation, much less a figure of speech; it is summed up in Christ
Jesus, who is the Fullness and Source of all excellence. Devotion
to our king, devotion to the world-wide extension of his kingdom,
does not exclude, but secures to each man personal reward ex-
ceeding abundantly above all he can ask or think. How easy,
free, and blissful is unquestioning, unlimited loyalty to this king!

II. Clothed with all authority, Jesus issues his commission.
“Go ye therefore.” Judaism stood on the defensive against all
nations. Now begins an active, aggressive, world-conquering
war. Mobilize the forces; break up the winter quarters; take up
the line of march.

Is this the voice of command? Yes, like the command at the
brink of the sea, ‘“Speak unto the children of Israel that they go
forward ;” like the command at the mouth of the tomb, “Lazarus,
come forth,” “Loose him and let him go.” It is the trumpet of
earth’s jubilee, clear, musical, stirring, waxing louder and louder.
Well may the eleven spring forward with holy eagerness and joy
to execute this commission. What was their equipment? Faith,
consecration, and power of the Holy Ghost. Will this suffice for
sO momentous a commission? Yes, if Christ has all authority in
heaven and in earth.

Study the terms of the commission. How broad, “all nations ;”
how long, “alway ;” how deep, “Disciple, baptize, teach them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Christt-
anity is the universal religion, the religion for man, for the whole
earth; the ultimate religion, not to be displaced by something
better, but the true religion to last until the end of the world era;
the complete, perfect religion, to be kept in its simplicity and in-
tegrity, subduing and sanctifying all thought, feeling, purpose,
institutions, and customs, until the law of Christ shall rule and
unify the race.

The commission determines the purpose, work, and worth of
the Church. It is essentially missionary. Christ, our Head, was

GRANBERY.

‘*Go ye there-
fore.’’

Terms of the
commission.
GRANBERY.

What the
commission
means.

Teach the
teachers.

The promise.

48 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

sent of the Father to save sinners. His disciples are sent on the
same business. “As thou didst send me into the world, even so
sent I them into the world.” Therefore go. You cannot sit still
and wait for men to seek you. You cannot hold the truth and
grace of God as a private treasure, proudly and selfishly thanking
God that you are not as other men. The manna from heaven will
corrupt and breed worms if you do not feed it to the starving
multitudes. In all humility, yet in the confidence that the grace
which saves you is God’s richest gift to the race, and with the in-
tensest yearning that every man shall share the blessing, you
should say as Paul to Agrippa, “Would that thou wert altogether
such a one as I am,” in this faith and experience! Go. seek the
lost sheep, and lead them to the one pasture and Shepherd.

Disciple, bring them to the school of the great Teacher, that
they may learn of him, and find rest. You are the light of the
world; hide it not under a bushel. Preach the gospel to every
creature. Translate into all tongues, publish, and circulate the
Word of God. Get hold of the young life everywhere, that the
truth may enlighten and sanctify mind and heart in all the stages
and processes of development. In the family, day school, Sun-
day school, Epworth League, and congregation, teach them the
saving knowledge of Christ.

Baptize. They belong to Christ. Register them as citizens of
his kingdom. Muster them into service as his soldiers. Let them
swear allegiance and fidelity. Baptize them with water into the
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in sign that the Spirit
baptizes them into the reality of union and communion with God.

Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. Pu-
pilage is a means of experience and practice. They shall become
adults and adepts, chosen examples, teachers. Creed and name
do not suffice; religion is life and power. Renewed in mind by
the Spirit, they must be transformed into the realization and mani-
festation of the perfect will of God. This is more than evangeliza-
tion; it is Christianization. Christian thoughts, morals, institu-
tions, above all and in all, the Spirit of Christ, must supplant hea-
thenism and false systems. There must be native Churches and
ministers, self-support, and missions to spread still further the
glorious gospel. This, this only, will fulfill the commission.

III. The commission, prefaced by the claim of all authority,
closes with a word of cheer: “Lo I am with you alway, even unto
the end of the world.” Straightway he rose; the disciples gazed
OBEDIENCE TO THE GREAT COMMISSION. 719

upward until he vanished out of sight; then, not in a horror o
darkness as when he died on the cross, but with great joy in
their hearts, they returned to Jerusalem, blessing God. Hallelu-
jah is the music to which we march.

You may say: “If Jesus were present, so that we could look on
his face, catch from his lips the inspiration of command and prom-
ise, if he sat with us in council, and moved at the head of the col-
umn, we should feel calm and confident.”

Do you forget how dull of understanding, weak of purpose,
wanting in sympathy with the spirit of Jesus, the disciples were
before his ascension; how clear of vision, firm of will, strong in
‘courage, elate with hope they became when he was absent from
‘sense, but present to faith and in the gift of the Spirit? He is not
so far away that we cannot tell him our thoughts and troubles,
that he does not see, hear, guard, comfort, strengthen us, and
give us the victory. His name is Immanuel, God with us.

Advance a step farther in the apprehension of our Lord’s au-
thority and power. We extol him as the king of glory, strong,
wise, all-sufficient; then our spirits mount. We contrast the
Church, weak, ignorant, poor, with a difficult mission and in the
midst of foes; then our spirits fall. But let us not lose sight of
the unity between Christ and his Church, and of the purpose for
which he is crowned with honor and power. “The glory which
thou gavest me, I have given them.” “For their sakes I sanctify
myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” “TI
in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one.”
“God hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the
Head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness
of him that filleth all in all.” Do not say that the king is rich, but
the kingdom is poor; that the king is mighty, but the kingdom is
feeble. “For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things
to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s, and Christ’s is God’s.”

There came a day after Pentecost, when a Conference was held
in Jerusalem, and Peter told how he had been sent to uncircum-
ised Cornelius and his house and friends, and as he preached the
gospel the Holy Ghost fell upon them “even as on us at the begin-
ning.” And when they heard these things ‘they held their
peace,” from disputing whether the barrier between Jews and
‘Gentiles should be swept away, and the kingdom opened to the

GRANBERY.

Christ and
the Church.
@RANBERY.

Our charter |

80 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

heathen flood; “and they glorified God saying, Then to the Gen-
tiles also hath God granted repentance unto life.” Who dares.
find fault with the breadth of this divine grant? Who does not
respond, Glory to God for his abounding grace? It was that
revelation which warranted—yea, commanded—the offer of salva-
tion to you and me. Not Palestine, but the world; not the seed
of Abraham, but the seed of Adam; not those on whom is the seal
of circumcision, but all on whom is the curse of sin—these Christ
claims as his own. As when Noah and his family stepped out of
the ark on the firm ground, breathed the free air, and looked forth
on the landscape whose only limit was the bending heaven, so
stepped the Church into liberty with a larger view, a stronger
faith, an intenser enthusiasm, a sublimer purpose.

Brothers, this is our law and charter. By it we live or die, we
fail or conquer. If we do not carry the good news, so far as in
us lies, to all countries, to all men, we lack the spirit of the Mas-
ter; disobey his command; frustrate the purpose of our high call-
ing; lose the inspiration of the grandest and most beneficent
cause which ever appealed to conscience and heart ; stifle spiritual
life by selfishness ; and stagnate through lack of the breadth and
movement of the Holy Ghost on the great deep of the soul.

The life of the Church depends on carrying out the great com-
mission in faith and love. So will she please her Lord. She will
cultivate magnanimity. The purest and most generous zeal will
fire her heart. She will know the richest joy possible to man, the
joy of loving service to Christ and to mankind for ‘his sake. In
the order of noble longings and in the abundance of glad activi-
ties, she will through the ages wax wiser, mightier, happier, more
Christlike. She will be the blessed mother of many children.

PRAYER AND MISSIONS.
JOHN R. MOTT.

PRAYER and missions are as inseparable as faith and works;
in fact, prayer and missions are faith and works. Jesus Christ,
by precept, by command, by example, has taught us that the deep-
est need in the great missionary enterprise is the need of prayer.
PRAYER AND MISSIONS. SI

Before “give” and before “go” comes “pray.”” This is the divine
order. Anything that reverses it or alters it inevitably leads to
loss or disaster. This is strikingly illustrated by the unexampled
achievements of the early Christians, which were made possible
by the constant use of the hidden and omnipotent force of prayer.
They ushered in Pentecost by prayer. When they wanted work-
ers they prayed. When the time came to send forth workers,
the Church was called together to pray. Their great foreign
missionary movement was inaugurated in prayer. One of the
two great objects in establishing the order of deacons was that
the apostles—that is, the leaders of the Church—might give
themselves unto prayer. When persecutions took place the
Christians met to pray. Every undertaking was begun, contin-
ued, and ended in prayer. In this we find the deep secret of
those marvelous achievements that still move the Church.

The missions which have had the largest and most enduring
results have been those in which prayer has had a prominent
place. Show me the missionaries, the missions, and the nations
for which the most real prayer has ‘been offered, and I will show
you the most striking missionary triumphs of the Church. It is
true beyond question. This explains why some missions progress
more than others, though they may be less favorably situated,
and may be confronted with much greater difficulties.

Moreover, prayer is the principal means in promoting any spir-
itual undertaking. Our hope and confidence in this missionary
movement must not be placed in the extent and perfection of our
missionary organization; not in the number and strength of the
missionary force; not in the fullness of the treasury and in well-
appointed material equipment; not in the achievements of the
past, even in spiritual things; not in any experience acquired
in a long century of missions, nor in the agencies and methods
which have been devised; not in the brilliancy and popularity of
the leadership of the work at home and abroad; nor yet in states-
manlike and far-sighted policies; nor in enthusiastic forward
movements and inspiring watchwords; “not by might, nor by
power, but by my Spirit.” In the last analysis, the source of
power in things spiritual is God, and the energies of God are
released in answer to prayer.

Everything vital to the missionary enterprise hinges upon
prayer. The doors of China swung open to the keys of prayer.
One of the most interesting hidden chapters of Japanese mis-

6

MOTT.

Prayer and
results,

Our hope and
confidence,

Prayer the
key.
MOTT,

‘* Before they
call,’’

82 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

sions relates to the opening of the country to. the preachers of
the gospel in response to prayer. The most difficult portions of
India yielded themselves to this pressure. Some of the most un-
likely parts of the Dark ‘Continent have been opened by prayer.
The Turkish Empire has been laid bare as a result of prayer.
The zenanas of India, which it was predicted could not be
opened, ‘had their doors also swung ajar in answer to prayer.
Moreover, to batter down the walls of opposition, persecution,
and peril, prayer is as essential as it is sufficient. To my mind
there has been no more heartening circumstance, in these days
when the rationalists of Germany and of other countries are ques-
tioning the achieving power of prayer, and maintaining that it is
nothing more than reflex influence, than that splendid combina-
tion of providential facts in connection with the raising of the
siege of Peking. It was an impressive demonstration before the
eyes of the whole world of the reality and power of intercessory
prayer.

Do we need hundreds of missionaries and tens of thousands
of native workers? Wecertainly do. Prayer is the method, then,
to obtain them. Christ has laid this down as the one and essen-
tial condition, that we pray the Lord of the harvest that he thrust
forth laborers into his harvest. It never fails to move me to
wonder that Almighty God has ordained that the supplying of
laborers is conditioned upon the faithfulness in prayer of his own
people. When the Church Missionary Society came to recognize
their need of workers, they adopted, in the year 1872, a day of
intercession. During the five years preceding that year they sent
out fifty-one new missionaries; during the five years after they
began to observe their day of intercession they sent out one hun-
dred and twelve missionaries. In 1884 they reached a point
where they wanted a large number of workers, and could see
none of them. They set apart a special day for intercession. The
day before this was to ‘be observed Secretary Wigram went to
Cambridge University in response to the call of the students. A
deep spiritual movement had been going on among them. In
answer to prayer one hundred university men offered themselves
for foreign service. He returned to the mission rooms on the
day appointed for special intercessions to remind the committee-
men gathered round the table that “Before they call, I will an-
swer.”

Dr. Schofield, after winning prizes in the British colleges to
PRAYER AND MISSIONS. 83

the amount of $7,500, and proving himself one of the most bril-
liant men that ever passed through those institutions, went as a
medical missionary to China in 1881. He died in 1884. The
great burden on his heart, during the three years of his foreign
service, had been that more university men might go as mis-
sionaries to China. He made it a matter of prayer day by day;
and his wife since his death has said that time and time again
she had overheard him praying in his study that God might thrust
forth university men. The year after his death the Cambridge
seven went out. One is now the bishop of West China, another
is the assistant general director of the China Inland Mission, a
third was a pioneer missionary to Tibet, and all the others have
been useful workers. The example of this band (I speak from
personal knowledge, having spent years visiting the universities
of the different countries) has influenced many of the strongest
students in the different Protestant lands to give themselves to
mission work.

In 1886 there were two hundred missionaries in connection
with the China Inland Mission. A number of them came to-
gether and spent eight days in prayer. They decided that they
would call upon God to send out one hundred more missionaries
within a year. Before they separated they held a praise meeting
to thank God for answering their prayer, because, as one of their
number said: “We shall not be able, all of us, to assemble a year
hence.” Within the year some six hundred candidates applied;
and of their number, one hundred were selected and sent out.

Yes, this is the deep secret of getting laborers. I was speaking
last night of the importance of parents facilitating the going of
their children to the mission fields. I read not long ago that
the father and mother of John G. Paton, from the day he was
born, prayed that if it were the will of God he might give himself
to missionary service. ‘What an answer to prayer was his vol-
unteering for the foreign field! And what a demonstration of the
reality of the achieving power of prayer his whole missionary
career has been!

Do we want larger funds of money with which to have prose-
cuted the missionary enterprise? In prayer, again, we find the
deep secret. Take, as an example, those one hundred new mis-
sionaries that were to be sent out by the China Inland Mission.
That society had been receiving no large gifts for their work.
Their office force was handicapped and overworked. Hudson

MOTT.

Three years.
of prayer.

Prayer and
workers.

Prayer and
funds.
MOTT.

A missionary

by proxy.

84 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Taylor and his friends were led to unite in prayer that, if it were
the will of God, the amount might come in large sums. Notice
what took place. The $50,000 required, and which, by the way,
meant an increase in the budget of fifty per cent, came in in eleven
gifts ranging from twenty-five hundred to over twelve thousand
dollars.

The Gossner Mission was literally prayed into existence, and
one hundred and forty-four missionaries were prayed out into the
field by that wonderful man of prayer, Pastor Gossner.

Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, told me a remarkable story about
his own Church. The congregation was made up of the middle
and poorer classes. As the result of years of cultivation, his
Church was giving about $5,000 to foreign missions; but Dr.
Gordon was not satisfied with this in view of the awful need of
the non-Christian world. After much prayer and reflection, he
said to his congregation: “I am going to change my method.
This year I am willing that we should use what machinery is
necessary, but I am going to call upon you, between now and
the day the missionary offering is to be received, to give your-
selves, in the Sunday school, in the young people’s, society, at
the family altars, to special prayer, that God may move us to
devise more liberal things for ‘this kingdom.’”’ When the day came
for receiving the gifts to foreign missions there was placed upon
the altar by his people over ten thousand dollars.

One of our young men, who was prevented from going to the
foreign field, entered the pastorate in one of the poorer States
west of the Missouri river. He was a man of not more than aver-
age ability, but the Spirit of God had hold of him. He said: “If
I cannot go to the foreign field, then, with God’s help, I will have
my Church send a substitute.’ He gave himself to prayer, and
at last called together his officers and presented a plan. They
objected, and he was so much grieved that he actually turned his
face to the wall and wept. But he kept praying to God. Later
the officers of the Church relented and said: “We will let you
try it.” He preached a missionary sermon in the power of the
Holy Ghost, and as a result, to the amazement of those officers,
the Church gave a sum more than sufficient to send ‘out a mis-
sionary. And to-day that Church is supporting three foreign
missionaries and thirty native workers, and, in the process of
this enlargement of its influence, has paid a debt of over twenty
thousand dollars. Indeed, “There is that scattereth, and yet in-
PRAYER AND MISSIONS. 85

creaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but
it tendeth to poverty.”

Dr. Gulick and his wife, missionaries in Japan, felt the need
of a building for the Christian Association in Kioto. They wrote
an appeal on the subject to the Evangelist, and day by day con-
tinued to pray that the $2,000 needed might be forthcoming.
One day a man in Buffalo, whom I knew very well, read the
article, and it angered him. He threw the paper down, but then,
acting under some impulse, he picked it up. He hid the paper
away, but could not banish that appeal from his mind. At last
he had his clerk write to the office of the Evangelist to find out
whether the $2,000 had been received. On finding out that it
had not been subscribed, he wrote a letter promising to give
$500 a year for four years.

Would we have the missionary agencies that are now at work,
at home and abroad, much more efficient? Then let there be
more prayer. Each year there is poured out on the non-Christian
world, through Bibles and tracts, and through preaching and
teaching, a sufficient amount of religious truth to surpass greatly
what was proclaimed through many long years in the early his-
tory of Christianity. The reason why this truth is not achieving
larger results to-day is not because of neglect on the part of the
missionaries, but because of lack of prayer on the part of the
Christians at home. If we were giving ourselves more faithfully
to prayer, we would have larger achievements even than
those that now inspire us in all the foreign fields, and which, I am
obliged to say in fairness, when we consider the difficulties, are
greater than those that attend the work on the home field.

And speaking of the efficiency of the work on the foreign fields
leads me to enter a plea for special prayer on behalf ‘of the mis-
sionaries. The missionaries whom I met as I went up and down
the world presented one unbroken appeal for more prayer.
Louder than the call “Come over and help us!” sounds the ap-
peal, ‘Brethren, pray for us.” If the missionaries in this Con-
ference were to stand here and speak to-night, they would say
that the deepest need is not so much that of more reénforcements
in men, or that of larger gifts of money (though certainly both
of these are needed), but that of more of the mighty force of
prayer on their behalf. We do not know what day the mission-
aries may need our prayers the most. “God forbid that I should
sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.” Let that pas-

MOTT.

Dr. Gulick.

Prayer for the
missionaries.
MOTT.

Amd the na-
sive Chris-
‘lans.

Ceylon.

86 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

sage of the Scriptures come in upon us with crushing force, show-
ing us that in not praying for the missionaries we are sinning
not simply against them, not simply against ourselves, but
against God himself.

Let us not forget to pray for the native Christians. Remember
that they have come up from sin and degradation, that they are
fiercely tempted, and that they are weak. Remember, also, that
far more for the ultimate evangelization of the great non-Chris-
tian fields depends upon them than upon the foreign workers.
Let us pray for them, therefore, that the power of God may come
upon them. There was a Wesleyan pastor in the heart of China
who in his lifetime was instrumental in bringing three thousand
people to Jesus Christ. I refer to Pastor 'Hsi. Why should there
not be more like him? If the prayers of the home Church would
converge upon the native Church, what mighty triumphs might
we not witness in every one of the great mission fields! Let us
pray also in order that there may be great spiritual awakenings
on the mission fields. One of the principal evangelists of North
America has said that a revival may be expected when there is a
spirit of definite prayer for a revival.

The Lone Star Mission among the Telugus gathered in about
ten thousand souls within six months as the result of long-con-
tinued prayer on the part of missionaries, native Christians, and
Christians at home.

The great work under the leadership of the Methodists in
Northern India, in connection with which literally tens of thou-
sands have flocked into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, is traceable,
as all its leaders persist in telling us, to intercessory prayer.

When I was in the Fukien Province of China, about four years
ago, I was told by the missionaries that in the year preceding
my visit there had ‘been in that province five thousand baptisms
and twenty thousand inquirers, and that one hundred villages,
of their own option, ‘had asked for Christian teachers. They told
me that these great results were due to the martyrdom of mis-
sionaries and native Christians, and to the spirit of prayer thus
called forth.

‘When I was in the island of Ceylon I was awakened one morn-
ing before daylight by singing. After I arose I was told that
the Christian students in the college had been praying that there
might be a revival in that college. I was not surprised to learn
PRAYER AND MISSIONS. 87

that before noon that day they led a number of their fellow-stu-
dents to Christ.

Speaking of Ceylon brings to memory the name of Miss Ag-
new. She has been well called “the mother of a thousand daugh-
ters.” In her long life at the head of that school fully one thou-
sand girls were influenced by her example and words to enter the
Christian life. It is said that she was in the habit, in addition to
all her administrative and teaching work, of setting apart certain
hours every week to pray for the girls by name.

The principal of a missionary school in Japan said to a friend of
mine one morning: “There is going to be a great revival in this
school. Some of the students spent all last night in pralyer.”
Sure enough, the spirit of revival fell upon the institution that
day.

Dr. Davis, in 1883, when the forces of skepticism were very
strong in the Doshisha, wrote to a number of colleges and the-
ological seminaries in the United States, asking them to unite in
special prayer for that institution on the Day of Prayer for Col-
leges. They did so in several colleges and seminaries. What
took place? On the night of that day the scholars of their own
accord fell into serious conversation on the subject of religion.
A revival broke out and spread until it had reached nearly all of
the students, and deputations were sent out to scores of neigh-
boring villages to proclaim Christ to the people.

We have been talking about forward movements, and I am
inspired by the one inaugurated here in this convention. If you
could know the hidden history of every great forward movement
in the kingdom of God, you would be able to trace it to a secret
place, where you would find some intercessor like Paul or Zin-
zendorf or William Carey or Jonathan Edwards or George Mit!-
ler. The ‘mill streams that move the great machinery of the world
rise in solitary places. From some of the hidden lives in this
very convention are to flow out streams of power and blessing
into the world to make glad the city of our God.

The last message I would give in this connection is that the
greatest force which we as Christians can wield is the force of

prayer. I do not know much about the power of prayer. I feel’

humiliated as ‘I have examined my own experience. But, believe
me, I know about failure to pray and the consequences thereof,
and with this knowledge I speak. I would reiterate the deep
conviction that prayer is the greatest force which we can wield.

MOTT,

The beginning
of a revival.

The power of
prayer.
88 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

MOTE: It is, moreover, the greatest talent which God has placed in our

hands, and he is going to hold every one of us to a strict account
as to the way in which we use this talent. What blessings we
have withheld from ourselves, from our own Churches, and from
those far-off fields, as a result of our failure to pray! The greatest
sin that we have ever committed is the sin of omitting to pray,
the sin of omitting adequate intercessory prayer. What right
have we to neglect or to leave unappropriated or unapplied this
greatest force which God has ordained for the salvation and
transformation of men, and for calling into being and energizing
great Christian movements? The greatest triumphs of the
Church are going to be witnessed when individual believers
eens everywhere come to recognize their priesthood unto God, and
hood of believ- give themselves with constancy and faithfulness to wielding the
ers. irresistible forces of the prayer kingdom. Our deepest wish to-
night is that of Spurgeon, that there might be five hundred Eli-
jahs, each one upon his Mount Carmel, making incessant men-
tion of the mission cause in prayer. Then that cloud, which after
all is no larger than a man’s hand, would spread and spread un-
til it darkened the heavens, and the showers would descend upon
the thirsty earth. God grant that among the results of this great
convention, greater than the magnificent offerings of money and
of life service, may be the fact that down deep in the lives of
the delegates there may be formed an undiscourageable resolu-
tion to be faithful in the ministry of intercession.
' When I traveled through Palestine I said: “If this hill back of
Nazareth could give forth its secret, if the Lake of Galilee could
The prayer tell what it witnessed, if these desert places round about Jeru-
fe of Christ. lem could relate their story, if the Mount of Olives could speak
out and tell us what transpired there—they would all tell us, more
than anything else, of the prayer life of our Lord. They would
reveal its intensity, its unselfishness, its constancy, its godly fear,
that made it irresistible.” And does there not take possession
of our hearts to-night a stronger passion than ever to obey
Christ’s command to pray and to imitate him as the Man of
Prayer?
THE ADEQUACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 89

THE ADEQUACY OF CHRISTIANITY TO MEET
THE WORLD'S NEED.

BISHOP E. R. HENDRIX, D.D., LL.D.

THE early Christians at least never stopped to debate the ade-
‘quacy of Christianity to meet the world’s need, but with profound
and aggressive faith they sought to make known its saving pow-
er among nations. They believed in the spiritual dynamics of the
gospel, a power that resided in the truth no less than an energy
that asserted itself through the zeal of those who received it. The
more formidable the difficulties, the graver the conditions, the
more eager the desire to test the power of the gospel. It was the
world’s need that even attracted the apostles and missionaries, for
they remembered the words of the Lord Jesus how he said: “They
that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are
sick.” Therefore the more desperate the case the more anxious
were they to apply the remedy. The world’s need was a perpet-
ual challenge to the gospel with its power of an endless life.
Great cities, then as now, the storm centers of the unemployed

and discontented, with their congested masses of the vicious and

the diseased, had a peculiar attraction for the greatest of the apos-
tles. Paul’s Waterloos were Antioch, Ephesus, and Corinth, the
most populous cities of Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, but he
longed to preach the gospel to them that were at Rome also. To
-do that he was willing to undergo shipwrecks and to go bound in
chains. It was not the prosperous journey that he prayed for, as
in the old version, but that if by any means he might be prospered
by the will of God to come to Rome. It was because he was con-
scious of having some spiritual gift to impart that he unceasingly
amade mention in his prayers of those to whom he felt impelled to
-go that he might have some fruit among them even as among the
rest of the Gentiles.

It was a mighty spirit that declared: “I am debtor both to
Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So,
as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also
that are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is
the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to
the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is revealed a
righteousness of God by faith unto faith: as it is written, But the
righteous shall live by faith.” It was doubtless the Roman world

The meed a
challenge.
WENDRIX,

Paul's view.

Cause of the
world’s need.

go GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

that Paul had in mind in his writings and preaching when he de-
clared that this gospel had been preached unto the Colossians “as
also in all the world.” That was the world of Paul’s time, embra-
cing the best of the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa,
with their diversities of tongue and nationalities, of religions and
literatures and philosophies. The best that Persia or Greece or
Egypt or Rome could offer or produce was all in that world with
its crying needs and unassauged sorrows and festering wounds.
So confident was he that he had the sole remedy entirely adequate
for the world’s need that he proclaimed himself a debtor to all per-
sons, of whatever speech or condition, in all that Roman world.
Nor was he ignorant of the worst that sin has wrought ; for nei-
ther Juvenal nor Tacitus pictures the uncleanness, the wretched-
ness, the malice, the self-complacency of wickedness as does the
inspired apostle who has the sole remedyin the Christian religion.

For what has occasioned the world’s need, with its ignorance,
its vice, its pollution, its squalor, and wretchedness? “It was
sin that brought death into the world and all our woe.” The
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
It is sin that has disturbed the world’s activity and harmony, and
the world’s travail is in hope of deliverance from this body of
death. The world’s need comes through its ignorance and con-
sequent helplessness. Because the whole head is sick the whole
heart is faint. The world’s need is born of its distrust of men, who
are covenant breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful. The
world’s need is the more appalling because of human selfishness,
with its grasping covetousness and cruel ambition, which delight
in dragging their helpless victims at their chariot wheels. The
need of the world is for light, pardon, comfort, strength, hope,
purity. That Babylonian sentiment is without patience and with-
out pity which says: “Let the fittest survive ; none other deserves
to.” As applied to men and women it is the motto of the savage
as he starts on the warpath, murdering his aged parents who
cannot keep up on the forced marches and who would be a bur-
den. The pagan philosophy that welcomes famine and pestilence
to lessen the world’s over-population finds its counterpart in the
unrelieved sadness of modern science which sees in all efforts to
better the state of the weak and helpless only the increase of the
aggregate of human suffering by augmenting the demand without
adequate means of supply. In both views the world is orphaned.
THE ADEQUACY OF CHRISTIANITY. gI

It was this wider view of the race that made Voltaire say: “Strike
out a few sages, and the crowd of human beings is nothing but a
horrible assemblage of unfortunate criminals, and the globe con-
tains nothing but corpses. . . . I wish I had never been
born.” That was but the European world that he described a
century and ahalfago. At that very time Christendom had for-
gotten the great heathen world where scarce a missionary held
aloft the torch of truth. Christianity at times needs to apologize
for Christendom, but heathendom is the perpetual condemnation
of heathenism. “The idea of man as a conscious, rational, moral
individual, of worth for ‘his own sake, of equal dignity before his
Maker, did not exist in antiquity till it came into being through
Israel.” .No wonder that Xerxes drove his soldiers into inclos-
ures in order to number them like so many cattle. It is not until
we see the individual that we can know the human heart and dis-
cover the world’s needs in the need of an immortal soul.

There can be no remedy without a correct diagnosis of the
world’s need. It is superficial treatment that sees only symptoms.
Philosophers and thinkers in all ages have had much to say of
evil and of suffering; but appalled, they have passed by on either
side without pouring in oil or wine into the gaping wounds of hu-
manity. The spirit of fatalism regarded highway robbery as one
of the necessary evils of the road on which the race was traveling.
Buddhism therefore sought to escape from existence, with its at-
tendant miseries, while Mohammedanism taught “Islam,” or sub-
mission without hope, since man was nothing. A world is bank-
rupt in morals when bankrupt in faith. Christianity is the relt-
gion of redemption. Redemption from sin is the world’s su-
preme need. But the confessed existence of sin is possible only
when there is a hloly God whose law has been violated. Without
the knowledge of God and of his law man has never had the
knowledge of sin. It is unknown in the heathen world as the
cause of its suffering and its woe. Centuries of wretchedness
have not awakened the consciousness of sin. Nothing can do that
but the sight of ahtoly God. The race is not simply unfortunate ;
it is sinful. It has not simply violated the laws of health, of agri-
culture, of commerce, or reciprocity, to which fact its misfor-
tunes are due. It has broken the laws of a holy God, and its
sins are the fruitful cause of its sufferings. It is sin which has
dulled the intellect, stupefied the sensibilities, and weakened the

ILENDRIX.,

Scientific pes-
simism,

The sense of
sin.
HENDRIX.

To know the
remedy we
must know
the disease.

God the source
of conscience.

92 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

will. The brutal selfishness of man is due not to the animal in him
so much as to the devil in him. It is to the narrowing influence
of sin that social relations have been so disordered, the caste spir-
it has been so powerful, and war and bloodshed have abounded.
To deny sin is to deny the existence of any law or code of ethics,
any source of divine authority. To deny sin is to prevent any
exalted conception of worship, is to leave the world’s need undi-
agnosed and without an adequate remedy. Hence what a beg-
garly salvation is promised by any other religion than that which
reveals the Son of God coming to seek and to save the lost. In
every land Christianity has done more since its introduction than
the native religion in all the past. Whatever fails to recognize
the moral needs of man is impotent to supply them. It is not
sanitation the world needs, but salvation; not “bread and games,”
but the Bread of Life. Art cannot gladden, as the Greeks learned,
unless inspired by hope. It was only when Christ was made
known that art found its true inspiration, its noblest theme, anda
Michael Angelo was born, “who never moved his hand until he had
steeped his inmost soul in prayer.”

Christianity not only diagnoses accurately the world’s need by
pointing out sin as at once the great disturber and corrupter, but
it alone of all religions reveals a righteous God who is alike the
Author of the moral law and its Exemplar. Morality and religion
were so far divorced in the heathen world that the very example
of the gods was pleaded in excuse for every sort of vice and crime.
The philosophers who taught morals grew sick at heart at their
little success because of the corrupting example of the gods, and
wished for a javelin with which they might destroy these enemies
of society like Jupiter and Venus. “There was not a gentleman
on Olympus,” not a false god fit to be invited into your home or
to converse with your wife and daughters. The vileness of the
Hindu gods is the great foe of family life in India now. The deity
taught by Mohammedanism is not only a cruel despot, but one
who panders to lust in furnishing “the black-eyed houris” of the
Moslem Paradise. In the gospel alone is revealed the righteous-
ness of God, a God who is both the author and exemplar of the
moral law, inspiring reverence by his own holy nature and impart-
ing of his strength and nature, enabling men, giving them power,
to become the sons of God. In his worship alone is found the
spirit of true devotion, for he alone can awaken devotion whether
THE ADEQUACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 93

in angels or men who is the high and ‘holy One who inhabiteth
eternity. The “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty” which
the angels sing ever becomes the devout song of men when the
righteous God is revealed. Righteousness, if it exists in the world,
is born of faith ina holy God. His nature is revealed to faith, and
the righteous live by faith. Without a righteous God there can
never be a righteous world.

Then again Christianity speaks with sufficient authority to
quicken and invigorate the conscience. Christianity may almost
be said to create a conscience as in the Dark Continent and other
parts of the heathen world. While consciousness is the knowl-
edge of ourselves, conscience is in the knowledge of God and our-
selves. Unless there be belief in God, there is no sense of respon-
sibility.

If there be no lawgiver, there is no law requiring obedience, and
man becomes as irresponsible a being as the brute, to whom no
revelation has ever come or can ever come, because he is incapable
of receiving it. The conscience of the Roman was awakened by
the civil law. His duties were those he owed the state. His re-
ligion was a lifeless ritualism, a punctilious repetition of liturgical
formulas, burning incense before every oath of office, to vali-
date every note or mortgage or last will and testament. It was
reverence for the state, not for any idol. Among the Greeks rail-
lery and jests were practiced in connection with the most solemn
religious processions. The mysteries awoke no sense of obliga-
tion, quickened no conscience. The Oriental worship was a sort
of orgy in which ecstasy exaggerated almost to frenzy took the
place of devotion. Excesses of all sorts preceded or followed the
so-called acts of worship where even the worship itself did not con-
sist of vile and sensual practices such as were supposed to be in-
dulged in by the gods themselves. In Paul’s fearful indictment of
the heathen world he says that they not only do such things, but
take pleasure in them that do them.

But Christianity does more than reveal a righteous God, at
once the Author and Exemplar of the moral law, and speak with
sufficient authority through the certainty of its teachings to quick-
en and invigorate the conscience. It can do what no other reli-
gion can do; it can make alive. “Christianity is a new command-
ment with power to obey.” Christ not only assumes the supreme
place as the Ruler of human society, “the most dramatic move-

HENDRIX.

Other religions

oe
wanting in
moral sanc-
tions.
94

HENDRIX.

Reviving pow-
er of Christi-
anity.

Drummond.

GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

ment in the experience of collective man,” but attached to every
precept isa promise ofhelp. Ifthe law was given by Moses, grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ. Christianity not only reveals a
righteous God, but declares that man too may be righteous. It is
a revelation to faith that the righteous may live by faith. By its
help the withered hand may be stretched out and the palsied limb
begin towalk,the very dead cancome forthfrom the grave, though
bound hand and foot. Every doctrine of Christianity passes
through the experience of Christian living and becomes real
through its power to help. God is a Father, Christ is a Saviour,
the Holy Spirit is a Comforter, there is fellowship with God’s peo-
ple who ‘have had like experiences of truth, and there is an in-
dwelling power to help overcome evil. This is the victory that
overcomes the world, even our faith. Christianity is not a mere
spirit, a spirit unclothed, but it enters into the individual that
he may be strengthened by God’s Spirit in the inner man, it enters
into the very institutions of mankind and molds or reforms them
for its own purposes, and thus changes human society into the
Church and the body of Christ. The Spirit of God does not enter
the human soul as something foreign or extraneous to it. He
enters it as the principle of its true life. The word “‘holy’ is
scarce applicable to a single person in the heathen world, but
there is hardly a town in Christendom that has not had some holy
person who showed what it meant to receive power to become a
son of God. Faith sees a righteous God and becomes like him.
He is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or
think according to this power that worketh in us. He causes the
Spirit-filled man to declare: “I can do all things through Christ
that strengtheneth me. It was such transforming power that
made men kings and priests unto God, so that when any great en-
terprise was undertaken in the Roman Empire men knew that it
was either the Emperor or a Christian who did it.

Henry Drummond somewhere says: “Next to love for the chief
of sinners the most touching thing about the religion of Christ is
its amazing trust in the least of saints. Here is the mightiest en-
terprise ever launched upon this earth, mightier than creation, be-
cause it is re-creation, and the carrying it out is left, so to speak, to
haphazard, to individual loyalty, to free enthusiasms, to uncoerced
activities, to an uncompelled response to the pressure of God’s
Spirit.” But in the presence and leadership of the Spirit, and in
THE ADEQUACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 95

what he has made of redeemed man and can do with redeemed
man, is found the glory of our religion. It is the Spirit that quick-
eneth and leadeth. “He opened the portals of grace to the Gen-
tile world, arranging every detail of the special service at which
the Roman centurion was converted.” It is this consciousness of
his divine presence that enables a devout Church to say: “It
seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.” Christianity is not
alone the religion of redemption for the individual, but it makes
him the instrument of redemption to his fellow-man. Other reli-
gions have regarded man from the standpoint of the state or as a
member of a religious brotherhood, but it remained for Christian-
ity to teach the great truth and fact of human brotherhood and to
awaken an interest in universal man. Only a universal religion
could do that, one having in it the very elements of universal pow-
er and conquest. “TI believe in the communion of saints’ is im-
possible to any pagan creed. Heathenism was without congre-
gational life. Public spirit developed itself simply on the polit-
ical side. Christianity taught men that their citizenship was in
heaven, and organized the brotherhood of humanity when it
taught the communion of saints and that the Church existed for
the edification of believers and the conversion of the world.
Among Buddhists the holier the man the less he had to do with his
fellow-men. He was so saintly as to be absolutely worthless. His
was the religion of selfishness, not helpfulness. Little did Rome
know when she was persecuting the early Christians that she was
destroying that which alone could save her. The weak side of the
empire, the very cause of her ruin, was the moral deterioration of
the lower classes. Her adoption of Christianity could have saved
her-by saving them and their rulers as well. The very social
meetings of Christians, such as the agapz or love-feasts, were for-
bidden through fear.

Christianity thus lays bare the world’s true need as a need of
redemption, and shows a righteous Father, against whom and all
whose ‘holy attributes man has sinned. But man’s case is not
hopeless, because God is a Father who is seeking ‘his prodigal
sons, trying to bring them to themselves that he may bring them
back to him. Christianity is the religion of hope despite the
hopeless condition of the race which has made all men despair of
it save those who have seen the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. Though sin has

HENDRIX,

Christianity a
universal re-
ligion.
HENDRIX.

Its revelation
of God.

Its finality,

96 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

bestialized man and made him a wolf to his fellow-man, the larger
view of God which Christianity gives awakens better expectations
of man. “No universal religion can hold to an imperfect con-
ception of God.” Only a God of infinite perfections can have
compassion enough and patience enough and love enough to:
save a race of prodigals who have wasted both substance and
life. Christ comes into the midst to undertake for us, and lays
down his life to show the possibility of forgiveness with God and:
the power of an endless life in man. He becomes our elder broth-
er to teach us the brotherhood of man, a doctrine that was a
stumbling-block to the Jews, and to the Greeks foolishness, but to.
us the wisdom of God and the power of God. This regeneration
of man, making mankind a new genus, or race, is possible because
at bottom man is a spirit, and God’s appeal to the deepest, most
central part of man, his spirituality. But Christianity does not
propose simply to save the spirit and cast away the body, but it
teaches that the body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which Christ
has come to redeem. It is a complete salvation which redeems
both body and soul. But it is more than all this: it is an enduring
salvation, for it saves forever.

Christianity is thus the final religion, because none can ever
arise to teach ordo more. There can never be any doctrine high-
er than the Fatherhood of God, broader than the brotherhood of
man, deeper than sin and spirituality, more complete than the
destiny of both soul and body, and more enduring than eternity.
Christianity is like the holy city, the new Jerusalem descending
out of heaven: the length and the breadth and the height of it are
equal. It is the very tabernacle of God with men. Its perfec-
tions exhaust at once the power of thought and speech, as we be-
hold the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowl-
edge of God.

Not only is Christianity adequate to the world’s need because
of its lofty and exhaustive teachings and elevated morals; there
is no religion comparable to it. The highest aim, whether of
nature as seen by the agnostic, or of Christianity as expressing the
mind and heart of God, is not the creation or production of any
other creation or production of any other creature, but the per-
fection of man, the masterpiece of creation. Man, too, is the
final product of religion. The professed aim of Buddhism is the
extinguishment of personality ; that of Christianity is the fullness
THE ADEQUACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 97

of personality. The controlling thought of Buddhism is that the
only good Chinaman is a dead Chinaman; the claim of Christian-
ity is that the best man is not the one who has the least but the
most manhood, whose personality is not diminished but complet-
ed, and that the truly good man, whether Chinaman or American,
is the regenerated one. Islam is an ethical and social system that
is a menace to the world. The despotisms where it prevails are
not accidents, but the legitimate results of the Koran; and so long
as the Koran exists as the authoritative book nothing better can
come in their stead, when the very God of the Koran is a willful
despot and men are simply his slaves. If England has a sub-
merged tenth, what shall we say of Turkey and Persia, with their
submerged nine-tenths? Christ alone is the “Light of Asia.”
Only under the influence of the Christ who brought immortality
and life to light by the gospel do the human faculties find their
largest scope and play. Because man is an immortal being he is
worthy of sympathy and help, and a new order of society is possi-
ble, the result of spiritual forces set in motion through Christ.
Christianity is Christ, and there is but one Christ. There have
been many prophets, but only one Christ. There have been many
leaders, but only one Christ. There have been many kings and
priests, but only one Christ. There can be no second Bethlehem,
no second Calvary, no second Olivet, no second Christ. And
Christ is King, because he is Saviour. He governs men because
he has redeemed men. Men live for him and in him because he
died for them. It is what Christ teaches, what Christ suffers,
what Christ does, what Christ is, that makes Christianity. When
any other religion can produce a Christ, a Saviour of his people,
then alone can it do anything adequate for the world’s need.
What Christianity can do for the world’s need may best be
known by what it once did for the world in which Paul preached
it, the proud Roman world coextensive with the power, the cul-
ture, the religions of the great nations of the three then known
continents which acknowledged the supremacy of the Roman
Empire, while the Mediterranean which washed the shores of
these continents was itself a Roman lake. Here was the Pan-
theon against Christ, all the gods of the ancient world with the
Roman emperor at their head deified as “lord and god” to repre-
sent the supremacy of the state against one whom a Roman gov-
ernor designated as “Jesus, that is called Christ.” That the re-
7

HENDRIX.

Christianity
unique.

What it has
done.
HENDRIX.

‘*The miracle
of history.’’

The secret of
ite success.

98 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

ligion of Christ, which was not even the religion of his own peo-
ple, a people subject to a Roman yoke, should overthrow every
religion represented in the Pantheon until the gods and temples
which seemed inseparable from the literature and life of the peo-
ple should be left without a single worshiper, and only broken
images and altars be left to satisfy the curiosity of the student of
the classics seemed utterly incredible. As Prof. Freeman says:
“That Christianity should become the religion of the Roman em-
pire is the miracle of history, but that it did so become is the lead-
ing fact of history from that day onward.” The converts of
Christianity were among the educated rather than the uneduca-
ted, in the cities rather than in the villages, which were last to yield
to new ideas and the new faith. Paul’s great Epistles, with their
deep thoughts, their closely knit reasoning, and their views of
truth reaching out into the eternities before and after, were on the
face of them not intended for illiterates or weaklings. It was then
that Christianity showed its power to stimulate, to inspire, and to
lead the world’s progress because of what it did to meet the world’s
need. Never was the moral disability of the world greater than
when Christianity began its triumphant career in the Roman Em-
pire, and that without temples, altars, images, and opposed less by
the priests or decaying religions, too far gone to offer violence
than by the strong arm of the state and the proud philosophy of
the schools. What was the secret of its triumph?

Next to its divine Lord and Founder, and because of him, its
success was due to what the new religion did in satisfying the
world’s need. Christ, who fitted for Paradise the dying thief
whose faith and love so quickly followed his penitential tears, was
before the close of the first century recognized even in ‘Czsar’s
household as greater than Caesar, and some two centuries later
was worshiped from the throne of the Roman Empire. It was
Christianity that stopped human sacrifices; ended the gladitorial
shows and licentious sports of the amphitheater; drove from the
continent of Europe the unnatural vices which Paul described in
his Epistle to the Romans, and which still abound in the Turkish
Empire and in India; put an end to the exposure of infants to
death by wild beasts or starvation ; checked the spirit of private re-
venge and of cruel and ceaseless warfare by proclaiming the
“Truce of God” from Thursday to Monday of each week as cover-
ing the time of the passion and resurrection of our Lord; abol-
THE ADEQUACY OF CHRISTIANITY. 99

ished slavery, which was coextensive with Europe; taught purity;
established charities of all kinds; transformed the morals of Eu-
rope and of the Roman Empire by sanctifying childhood, honor-
ing womanhood, and reverencing oldage. All this was done, too,
despite the relentless persecutions in Asia Minor, Africa, and Gaul,
which not only saturated the soil with blood and cast the ashes of
martyrs intothe rivers, while the mocking crowds looked on to see
what had become of the boasted doctrine of the resurrection, but
furnished such countless victims for the Romanamphitheater that
the very wild beasts tired of attacking them as if they themselves
had become men when the Romans had become beasts. But the
real triumph of Christianity was not when the Emperor Constan-
tine was baptized,or even when the Roman Senate formally adopt-
ed Christianity as the true and only religion of the empire ; it was
when the emperor Galerius, who was the real author of the most
cruel of all the persecutions under his predecessor Diocletian,
finally put an end to the burning of temples and sacred books and
the slaughter of Christians by his historic edict of toleration issued
in 311, which declared that the purpose of the persecutions had
failed, and not only gave permission to Christians to hold their
religious assemblies, but added this instruction, “that after this
manifestation of grace they should pray their God for the welfare
of the Emperor, of the State, and of themselves, that the state
might prosper in every respect and that they might live quietly
in their homes.” This was when the Galilean indeed conquered,
and Paul, who had fallen a martyr before one Roman emperor,
saw another one stand up for prayers. Then it was from the third
heavens that Paul saw things on earth that were lawful to utter
and they are lawful still. The hope of the whole race as that of
the proudest people of antiquity, a people having crucified the
Prince of Life, sought to destroy all his followers, reveling in
power that was rapidly passing away before a kingdom that
should endure forever, is the hope alike of the individual and of
the nation that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto sal-
vation to every one that believeth.

HENDRIX.

The need met,

Fiaral triumph
in Rome.
The Bible and
missions,

100 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

THE BIBLE AND MISSIONS.
JOHN FOX, D.D.

It is good to be here and to breathe the spiritual atmosphere of
this place of prayer and holy counsel. I rejoice in the fervent
glow and springtime warmth of Southern Methodism. Blessed
be God for the gracious diversities of his kingdom that makes its
true unity all the more delightful! It binds John Calvin and
John Knox and John Wesley into that fellowship which the
elder John said is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

The subject I am asked to treat should be considered pre-
cisely from the spiritual point of view, already so eloquently sug-
gested to you to-day. It is indeed partly a question of organiza-
tion and of the technique of missions. How can we best secure
the translation and distribution of the Scriptures in the universal
Church among all nations and peoples and kindreds and tongues?
But we must not consider such a question merely a technical one.
We need to look at it from the standpoint of that spiritual unity
which Christ announced as the base line of his kingdom, and in
obedience to his valedictory command.

The relation which the Bible sustains to missions is a central
and governing one. They are not the offspring of natural reli-
gions. Their charter and warrant is supernatural revelation.
Their historical appearance, the mode of their development, and
the principle of their continuance all go back to the impregnable
rock of Holy Scriptures. I am desired, however, not to discuss
the scriptural warrant for missions nor to trace the law of their
conduct, but simply the uses of the Bible itself as a weapon for
the evangelic conquest of the world and the organized provision
that is needed for supplying the Book itself. We do not need
to begin with theories or speculation,’ but with facts. Bible so-
cieties are facts, established institutions and powerful factors in
the religious life of mankind. They must be counted among the
most effective agencies for the spread of the gospel in heathen
lands. It is well for us to emphasize this. When the history of
the nineteenth century can be critically estimated—it is too early
to do that yet—we may be sure that the true perspective of events
will discern in the Bible Society movement one of the most pow-
erful forces by which our generation has been molded. It is a
thrice-told tale. I cannot rehearse it now. Like many other great
movements in history, it may adopt the words of Isaiah: “A little
THE BIBLE AND MISSIONS. IOI

child shall lead them.” The pious desire of a little Welsh girl
for a Bible provoked the zeal which has in Britain and then in
America led men to found these immense fraternities of Christian
labor. Where is their like to be found? They have girdled the
whole world with their beneficent ramifications. We hear much
of the Bible as literature. If it were only literature, there would
never have been such a thing as a Bible Society. There are in-
deed societies founded for the purpose of interpreting other litera-
ture—the Browning Society, for instance, or Shakespeare Socie-
ty—but they do not publish editions pf “Sordello,” or the “Ring
and the Book,” or “Hamlet,” or “Lear” at cost prices, and scatter
them by the million among the masses. Bible societies are gen-
uine exponents of the growing solidarity of mankind. They have
bound together ‘Churches in spite of their doctrinal differences in
harmonious cooperation. They have forged golden bonds, link-
ing nation with nation. There is no more powerful bond between
Britain and America than the English Bible, and the great Bible
Societies have done no little to rivet this link. But the English
Bible is but a small part of the work, priceless as it is.

The historical background of the modern Bible Society is nec-
essary to appreciate its significance and meaning. We have to
go much farther back before the present century in order to
paint this background in. The invention of printing has a mani-
fest relation to all our modern organizations and the Protestant
reformation and the revival of learning. But long before these
events there is one little fact which yet may be called the fountain
head from which all Bible translation and circulation may be said
to have dated. After Alexander the Great had founded Alexan-
dria to commemorate the glory of his conquest and his empire a
great library was established there, a collection of ancient litera-
ture probably unsurpassed. Among other things, tradition has
it that one of the Ptolomies desired to include the Jewish Scrip-
tures, and that he therefore brought Jewish scholars and rabbis
to Alexandria, and made what is now known as the Septuagint
translation. The name of the translation suggests that there may
be a basis of fact in the tradition, though we know it is not all
fact. He did not, as tradition has it, lock these scholars up sep-
arately, each to do his own translating, then when the transla-
tions were compared find them exactly agreeing. Yet it may
well be that there is more truth than legend in the story, for
from this time and from Alexandria this translation certainly

FOX.

Beginnings,

The historical
background.

Th> Septua-
gint.
FOX.

Early trans-
lations.

Your hundred
and twenty
languages,

102 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

dates. It has this distinction: that it is the first translation of the
Bible into a foreign language ever made. It was a new idea, a
new chapter in human history.

For be it remembered that Greek was becoming the general
language of communication among civilized nations, and that
centuries afterwards it continued increasingly to be so, so that
when Christ came he found multitudes able to read the ancient
oracles in the language which they understood, and the New
Testament is filled with quotations from the Old Testament Scrip-
tures made from this very Septuagint translation.

It would be interesting, if there were time, to trace the line of
translations beginning two or three centuries before Christ and
coming down in the language of every principal nation round the
Mediterranean basin to which the gospel was carried. I can
now only beg you to observe that this process of translation was
checked by the corruption of the Church in the Middle Ages,
and never has been resumed until this present age so filled
with wonders.

This age has been called the age of steel, the age of steam,
the age of electricity; it is emphatically the age of Bible trans-
lations. At the beginning of the last century there were between
fifty and sixty translations of the Bible in existence, begin-
ning with the Septuagint and coming down to modern times.
By 1860 there were two hundred and twenty translations; by
1890 the number had risen to three hundred and thirty-one. The
last ten years of the century carried us well over the four hundred
line. There are now upward of four hundred and twenty lan-
guages which contain the Bible wholly or in part, so that the in-
crease has continued in a geometrical ratio. These translations
have almost always been made by missionaries, or under their
supervision, but often they have been begun with the initiative
and the encouragement of the Bible Society, if not by their direct
agency, and the translators have been paid by funds provided by
them, and with rare exceptions they have always been published
wholly at the expense of the Society. Few persons have any
idea what this involves, what expense, what labor, what endless
patience and tact and perseverance. To take one striking illus-
tration, the American Bible Society has been concerned in nearly
or quite twenty different translations into the languages of the
Chinese Empire alone. Half a dozen languages and dialects are
proceeding now. At the present moment translations are going
THE BIBLE AND MISSIONS. 103

on into three or four of the forty or fifty languages of the Philip-
pines under the direction of the American Society, and into as
many more under the supervision of the British and Foreign Soci-
ety. The net result may be stated thus: The riches of God’s Word
have now been put into the principal languages of the world, but
there are from fifteen hundred to two thousand languages and dia-
lects, at a conservative estimate, which have not yet been touched.
In order to comprehend this, one would have to enter into a mi-
nute linguistic study. It is no light task to know the names of the
languages into which the Scriptures have already been translated,
and to weigh these dialects in the scales of accurate linguistic
judgment. To form any estimate of the necessity that there may
be in each case for new translations requires that a man should
give himself to this realm of sacred learning in which there are
at present but few men who are competent to speak. We have
here, therefore, a department of foreign missionary effort which
calls for the toil of scholars, for endless patience, consecration
and wisdom, and the success of the missionary on the field will
depend, in some measure at least, on the skill and efficiency and
thoroughness with which the work of the Bible Society is done
at home. The translations already made have been circulated at
cost prices or for far less, in round numbers aggregating two
hundred and thirty millions of copies, counting in only those
which have come from the presses of the two principal Bible
Societies. They have mustered for this purpose an army of col-
porteurs, those Cossacks of modern Protestantism. The larger
part of this work has gone out into heathen nations, “their line
has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end
of the world.” At present more than half of the total circulation
is foreign mission circulation.

These, I say, are the facts obvious and undeniable. Are they
not significant facts? Are they not in themselves added proof of
the divine power of the Book itself?

The use of the Bible as a missionary weapon is a Protestant
practice, not a Romish one. The Bible Society is the corollary
of the Protestant reformation, and it will stand or fall as that
great historical movement is justified or condemned. The con-
trast between Rome and Protestantism in this respect is very
marked and striking; never more striking than in the Philippine
Islands, where Rome has had her missionaries, who have made
grammars and lexicons in the languages of the Philippines, and

FOX.

Two hundred
and thirty
million copies.

A Protestant
weapon.
FOX,

Translations
before the
Council of
Trent.

104 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

done many things, but they have never translated a single Gospel
or a single chapter, so far as we know, and our missionaries and
colporteurs find a Roman Catholic population very eager and
hungry to read the Bible. “We want to read,” they say, “what the
ancient saints have said.” It is ours now to give them the op-
portunity. Nevertheless it ought to be remembered that the
policy of the Roman Church thas not been from the begin-
ning what it is now. It was a missionary Church at first, and
our far-off British and Teutonic ancestors owed the light to its
missionaries. Jerome translated the Latin Bible for the same
purpose that Tyndal translated the English, so that the common
people might better read it and understand it. At the Ecumen-
ical Conference in New York, Canon Edmonds showed that the
historic and ancient policy of the Christian Church for centuries
was Bible translation and circulation in the languages understand-
able by the people. Before Martin Luther there were twenty edi-
tions of the Latin Bible printed in Germany alone, and more than
a dozen of the Bible in German up to the time of his nailing up his
immortal theses. It was the Council of Trent which reversed this
wholesome ancient practice. Protestantism is, therefore, no de-
parture from the faith of the fathers, but a return to primitive
practice in the use of the Bible just as much in missions as in doc-
trines. The effect of the Bible Society movement has been, of
course, to stir the wrath of the papal curia, which has even de-
nounced the institution as pernicious. What we need is the grace
of perseverance in the path marked out. With this we may hope
in some cases even to compel a return to the historical practice
on the part of Rome herself. There are instances of this already.
In addition to the translation of the Portuguese, made by Al-
meida, a Spanish Protestant (who, however, began by being a Ro-
man Catholic missionary), there is another version by Figureido
who was a Catholic, though an opponent of the Jesuits, and ap-
parently not overfond of the pope. The effect of the Bible Soci-
ety movement has been most remarkable in France, where the
country has been so filled with the Bible that the Roman Catholic
clergy were forced to petition the pope to make their own trans-
lation, and a very good one it is, though latterly we hear that
there has been an estoppal put upon its use.

“In Italy, when the pope was driven out of Rome by the revolu-
tion in 1848, a version of the Scriptures in Italian was published.
As soon as he returned he burned the Scriptures. But what a
THE BIBLE AND MISSIONS. I05

marvelous change has come about. Not only in Rome itself, but
in other principal towns of Italy, the Scriptures are freely sold.
We sometimes get at the Bible House in New York a letter
addressed to the Signor Giovanni Diodati. Giovanni Diodati
translated the Scriptures three hundred years ago, and these poor
Italians who come to America see the name on the title-page,
and fancy that he is the author of the book, and so write, asking
him to send them a copy. It gives us no small pleasure to know
that we are at least continuing in spirit the work of Diodati, and
that they of Italy in this age, as in the apostolic age, can salute
us and desire to read St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, and learn
the way of salvation by faith alone. Dr. Cust, Vice President of
the British and Foreign Bible Society, relates how some years
ago Cardinal Manning visited the Bible House in London that
he might obtain a copy of the translation into a certain language.
He was taken to see the library of the Society, a wonderful ex-
hibition of what God hath wrought, and when he beheld it he
exclaimed: “Truly the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us. That
is the secret of it.” Let us not despair, for even among those
who have hitherto opposed, and opposed bitterly, this great work
there is a remnant, and to them shall come repentance and a
return to the most ancient practice of the Church of Rome it-
self, and of all Christian Churches.

There are two great general divisions of foreign mission work,
one of which is suggested by what has just been said. We must
carry the gospel into papal lands and into pagan lands. It is not
possible, indeed, to make this division an absolute and exact one,
for there are some lands which are partly papal and partly pagan,
as there are some where the papal theory of the Church and the
Bible still struggles with the Protestant view of it. This whole
Western continent has witnessed a mighty struggle between
these two forces, and our own land has been predominantly a
Bible land. Yet even in the United States we know what marked
exceptions there are to this, as I need not remind you in this
place where French Catholic influence ‘has been so strong. Not
long since, in visiting the Montreal branch of the British and For-
eign Bible Society, I listened to an eloquent address from a French
Canadian Protestant, who brought the fraternal greeting's, as he
said, of forty thousand like himself. Some of these forty thousand
are in the United States; some of them in Canada, the only coun-
try, I suppose, under the British flag which is predominantly Ro-

FOX.

The Bible in
Italy.

Pagan and
papal lands.
FOX,

New Orleans
and the open
Bible.

The Spanish-
speaking coun-
tries.

106 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

man Catholic, and where the old reformation battle about the
Bible still has to be fought out. He told the story of how the
copy of a single Bible in a log hut led to the foundation of a
Protestant institution which has already educated over four thou-
sand young French Canadians.

It is well that these facts should be signalized in this beautiful
city, so overflowing with gracious hospitality, so full of a certain
romantic attraction to those of us privileged to come here. We
desire to speak with appreciation of what we see. Nevertheless,
we cannot but remember many things that have happened in the
past, and that still continue. When Bienville and his associates
came from Canada and laid the foundation of this city and its
civilization, if they had brought with them the French Bible
and made it the common possession of the people, does any
One suppose it would not have made a mighty difference in the
character of the society which has grown up here? And if they
would still turn not away from the Church, but back to its nobler
past, its ancient precedents, and give the people the Scriptures so
that they could understand them, would it not at once elevate
the whole character of the Catholic population here?

But when we cast our eyes southward we seem to hear the
trumpet sounding us to the battle. Three hundred years ago,
under the very shadow of the Inquisition in Spain, old Master
De Reyna toiled over his translation of the Bible into Spanish.
How dark it must have seemed to him; how hopeless! The
Spanish monks were many of them exceptionally ignorant. You
may remember the old story of the Spanish monastery, where
it was claimed that they had in their possession the original man-
uscript of St. Luke’s Gospel. They declined to exhibit it for
some time, but were finally persuaded to do so, and lo, it was
seen to be in Spanish. I believe in prophetic inspiration, but it
would indeed have been a more marvelous inspiration if St. Luke
had been inspired to write in a language which had no existence
during his lifetime. But De Reyna put Luke’s Gospel and other
books into Spanish, and a little later on Valera completed the
task, and thus God had put into the hands of men the key to
open the South American continent. We have had a more mod-
ern version since, made by one of our own missionaries, and these
two are friendly rivals in the affection of our missionary Churches.
The Spanish conquerors of Peru and its neighboring provinces
brought no weapons so quick and powerful as that old Valera
THE BIBLE AND MISSIONS. 107

version destined to do its great work, thus far not in old but in
new Spain. Before the Spanish-American war forty thousand
copies were circulated in Cuba, where as yet Protestantism had
hardly begun to be. During the last year the circulation has been
nearly one thousand copies a month in the “Pearl of the Antilles.”
One of the Canons of the Havana cathedral visited the Bible
House not long ago, and, though still under the thraldom of the
Romish system, was manifestly impressed with what the saw.
Well he may have been. God speed the day when the cathedral
will no longer be a bushel to hide the light of the gospel!

In Ecuador sixty years ago a high official declared that no
Protestant Bible should enter that country as long as Chimborazo
stood. Chimborazo still stands, and our principal agent has been
received in due form and ceremony by the President of the Re-
public of Ecuador, and though the circulation is not yet im-
mense, still the Word has found entrance, and it will not return
void to Him that sent it. Perhaps there is no darker country
than Ecuador. I speak with hesitation, because I know I speak
in the presence of missionaries who have stood on the frontier
line all over South America, not only in Spanish-speaking coun-
tries but in Brazil, where the Portuguese Bible is our weapon.
Thestoriesthat reach us fromtheselands smack of the marvelous.
If they were not well vouched for, we could scarcely credit them.
Some of them reveal the darkness and others the marvelous
power of the light. This succinctly describes the struggle of
the Bible in the South American continent. Dr. Chamberlain,
of Brazil, told us at the Ecumenical Conference this astounding
fact. The editor of the principal newspaper published an article.
He was a friend of Dr. Chamberlain’s, and rather resented his
criticism of the general lack of religious intelligence in the com-
munity where he lived. One day, however, he said to him: “TI
have been obliged to acknowledge the justice of your criticism.”
During holy week, the day before Good Friday, he had published
the gospel narrative of the passion and crucifixion of our Lord
and Saviour, Jesus Christ. To his utter astonishment, the day
after, senators, judges, men of science, men of light and reading
in the community spoke to him, congratulating him on the ad-
mirable article he had written. If this be an index of the culti-
vated classes of South America, what can we hope for the down-
trodden and struggling masses. Yet it is precisely among them
that we hear from many sources of the wonders that God hath

FOX,

Opening of
Ecuador.

Conditions in
Brazil,
FOX.

The Bible in
an ash barrel.

A gospel for
the blind in
Portuguese.

108 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

wrought. One of your own ministers, Rev. Mr. Tucker, has writ-
ten us lately that once preaching in the summer time in the
mountains he noticed an old black man whose face shone as with
an inward light, and he seemed to respond intelligently to what
he said. On talking with him afterwards he found that years be-
fore this old man, a slave, had been set to clear up an outhouse,
and found amid the rubbish an old book. He knew the name of
our Saviour, and saw it'on the cover, so, carrying the book home,
at night he sat down by his little candle to read. He read with
streaming eyes far into the night, and again when night came,
astounded and amazed. For seventeen years he cherished the
book among the sacred things which he kept, allowing no one
to touch it, and making’a little ark in which to keep it. He
searched the Scriptures, but with no one to guide him until in
another village he met a black woman, who took him to a mis-
sion chapel where he could learn more perfectly the way of God,
and when at last Mr. Tucker found him he was wise unto sal-
vation. In the discussions that have surrounded the Gospel of
John, some one has said that the evidence of its divine character
is so clear that if we were to find it in an ash barrel without
any clew to its origin we would know that divine forces had been
concerned in the production of it. It is not a supposition, but
an actual fact, that the New Testament has been found thus amid
the rubbish, and that the light which shines from it is so bright
that the wayfaring man, poor and untaught though he be, is led
to Him whose glory it reveals. I doubt not that the missionaries
here present could supply innumerable illustrations of the same
thing, and the brightest hope that we have for the neglected con-
tinent is that in many places where yet the missionary has not
gone, and cannot go, the Word has gone, and when he comes
he will find the way prepared before him.

There has recently been published the Gospel of John in raised
letters for the blind in Portuguese, and it is surprising how the
Romish authorities have been perturbed because in blind schools
and elsewhere the people now could feel out the truth. What can
cure that blindness of the mind which will not let God’s poor
downtrodden people use their senses when they ‘have them, and
read for themselvs what things God hath prepared in his Word
for those who need him? What we need is a Bible for blind lead-
ers of the blind, that they may not both fall intoa ditch. All your
mission stations in South America bear eloquent testimony to
THE BIBLE AND MISSIONS. 10g

the indispensable necessity and the immeasurable power of the
living Word in Spanish and in Portuguese in that great neglected
Southland of Latin America. This is an obligation which rests
surely upon our Churches. There must be a Monroe doctrine in
things missionary ; not an unworthy jealousy, indeed, but a gen-
erous emulation. Let us be governed by the Pauline doctrine,
by which we stretch out into the regions beyond, and fill this
whole Western continent from the frozen north to the farthest
verge of the Southern continent with this world-transforming
Book. But if we are to do this, one thing must be remembered.
It is a startling fact that was stated at the Ecumenical Confer-
ence that at least one-half of the population of South America
cannot speak a word of Spanish, and has not a drop of Spanish
blood in its veins. There are three hundred, in round numbers,
of Indian tribes, many of them, probably most of them, illiterate,
their languages doomed to perish as civilization advances, if in-
deed they themselves survive. The degradation and ignorance
and pitiful darkness in which they live have stirred up the heroes
of the pioneer corps in missions to gotothem. There has been
a beginning, but probably only a beginning, made in Bible trans-
lations among these Southern tribesmen. We are grappling here
not with corrupt Christianity, but with utter paganism; in many
cases with a strange intermixture and infusion of a few of the
external marks of nominal Christianity and a deep-seated super-
stition, darkest heathendom, even cannibalism, if we may believe
some travelers. The heart and mind of Christendom has turned
to the East as the chief field for missionary activity. We must
certainly not forget our neighbors to whom we are intrusted in
a special sense with the gospel, and we must not rest contented
until in some form every tribe and tongue south of the Isthmus
has received some of the riches of the Word of 'God.

This but introduces us to the large problem which I have thus
far been able only to touch upon. The ‘Christian faith has met and
done battle with the hoary systems of heathendom in the darkness
of the Dark Continent, in the false glamour that shines over the
lands where Buddha reigns, in the dim twilight of far Cathay
and the islands of the South Seas. The vastness of the task op-
presses us. How can we organize our missions so as to be effect-
ive? How shall we avoid complications following, whether we
will or not, in the wake of the advancing missionary host? A
thousand difficult questions start up, some of them pressing for

FOX.

Indian popu-
lations of
South Ameri-
ca,

The Bible and
paganism.
Bible schools,

The, Bible the
life-blood of
the? Church.

IIo GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

settlement in Churches to-day, and we must not suppose that
others still more difficult will not arise. The great wave of
rationalism has rolled over some of the newborn Churches of
the East. It has touched Japan and shaken the Japanese
Church to its foundation, almost wrecking one great school
of learning founded by Western benevolence. There must be
developed immediately a biblical Christianity. The theological
seminaries in China and Japan must not be suffered to become
schools of skepticism. The schools of lesser grade, down to
the lowest, must be Bible schools, allof them. The general mass
of Church members in those countries must be Bible students
as we and our ancestors have been and as we wish our children
to be. Do you think this can be done unless there is effective
organization for Bible translation and circulation?

Let us give ourselves more earnestly to the circulation of this
Book. The circulation of the Bible is like the circulation of the
blood. The life is in the blood, so the Book says, but in order
that it may do its work there must be a circulatory system. Na-
ture has provided for the circulation of the blood through veins
and arteries, but for the Bible there is no natural provision. We
must construct a circulatory system. This is the function of the
Bible Societies with all their endless ramifications stretching out
over continents and girdling the world. It is for us to see that
this system is kept in thorough repair, heart joined to heart. It
must be adjusted and codrdinated with all the other functions of
the body of Christ, so that this Book, the vehicle of life and health
to men and nations, may be kept in continued living relation with
all mankind.

THE DUTY OF THE PASTOR AS TO MISSIONARY
EQUIPMENT AND LEADERSHIP.

DR. W. E. EDWARDS.

WE open the Gospels. The silence of centuries is broken by
the voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare ye the way of
the Lord, make his paths straight.” Immediately Christ comes
forth from the seclusion of Nazareth. He begins and completes
his ministry. A kingdom is established. Its first proclamation,
THE DUTY OF THE PASTOR. IIt

as a perfected scheme, is upon the streets of Jerusalem. Yet the
Holy City cannot confine the movement. The city is simply a
starting point—a divinely designated Palos in the world’s wide
arena, the sea destined in the providence of God to be whitened
with the sails of Christian enterprise. Nay, more. The design
of the kingdom is as minute as it is comprehensive. The indi-
vidual is worth. Every man is to hear the wonderful works
of God in his own tongue wherein the was born.

By what plan or method is this world-embracing kingdom to
accomplish its stupendous conquests? We answer: Primarily,
and chiefly through the instrumentality of the Church. This in
no wise ignores or undervalues the earnest effort of individual be-
lievers. Every converted man becomes, through the necessity of
the case, a center of missionary power. He is born again. He
comprehends in some measure, the gracious purpose of the
Father in the gift of his Son. He sympathizes with spiritual
wretchedness, and is ready to leave home and to cross seas and to
brave the perils of benighted lands for the brother he longs to
save. To know Christ lis to be identified with him in spirit and in
work. But as important as private zeal confessedly is, yet more
than this, and a readier and more available force than this, Christ
founds a Church and expects his disciples to connect themselves
with it, and to move together in a holy and blessed unity for the
spread of the truth from east to west and from pole to pole.

Headship in this society belongs, of right, to the ministry. The
kingdom is invisible. It is in the heart by the Spirit, and its en-
trance and continuance are noiseless and not with observation.
The Church, however, is visible—a veritable organization with its
laws and rites binding upon the conscience of its subjects. Such
an arrangement is not an accident. It is of reason; and is essen-
tial, at once, to the existence of the Church and to the prosecu-
tion of its work and to the healthful development of the life that
is in the kingdom itself. The organization, indeed, is worthless “if
the spiritual substance is wanting; but the spirit, on the other
hand, cannot live without taking on a worthy and adequate form.”
It is this fact that Christ emphasized when he outlined the Church
and committed the management of its affairs to the apostles and,
through the apostles, to the ministry of that age and to the min-
istry of succeeding time. In other words, the apostles company
with the Master; and no sooner does the Master complete his

EDWARDS.

The Church,

Its leaders.
EDWARDS

Place of mis-
sions,

112 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

work and return to the Father than the apostles step forward into
a larger prominence, and are recognized as authority upon all
matters of faith and practice. And these apostles, as the accred-
ited representatives of the new and perfected dispensation, trans-
mit the government of the Church to an ordained ministry. Thus
St. Peter commands the pastors of the Churches which he found-
ed: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the over-
sight,” or, more properly, “being the bishops or superintendents
thereof.” And Paul is no less clear and decided in utterance.
He entreats the elders at Ephesus: “Take heed, therefore, unto
yourselves, and to the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made
you overseers.” And then, in another place, he directs the
Church: “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit
yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give
account.”

There is no question, therefore, as to where authority in the
Church of God is lodged. It is with the ministry. They may,
indeed, call others to their assistance. ‘This ofttimes will be wise
and necessary. Yet they are never to forget the high position
which they occupy and the weighty responsibility that is imposed
upon them. They are the guardians of the flock. They are to
“reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.”
They are to plan and to take the lead in the mighty movements
which look to the conversion of the world to Christ.

Missions, in this arrangement of things, are manifestly not a
mere appendage to the Church, a side issue that may be accepted
or rejected with pleasure. They are woven into the very con-
ception of the kingdom and are to find expression through its di-
vinely sanctioned and appointed agency. They, therefore, come
under the special care and supervision of the minister.

The first thing demanded ‘in the successful prosecution of mis-
sionary work is the thorough equipment of the minister himself
for the part assigned him, under God, in the propagation of the
gospel. We here get down to a basal fact or a foundation truth.
We say nothing of the necessity of preparation for the ordinary
callings of everyday life. We conduct the argument upon a
higher plane. Every Christian should make the most of the edu-
cational advantages with which ‘he is favored. Religion means
consecration, and the consecration that leaves out of account the
noblest faculties of our being and the highest culture of those
THE DUTY OF THE PASTOR. II3

faculties is worthless and deceptive. And what is true of the hum-
blest Christian applies witle peculiar force to the minister. He is
to influence minds upon the largest scale, and needs the mental
discipline equal to the task. He is also to shape the activities
and the policy of the Church in her manifold development, and is
to see that none of her interests suffer because of his lack or of his
stpineness. Least of all can he be indifferent to the claims of
missions. He must understand their meaning. He must know
the times and the possibilities of good which they afford. He must
possess a conscience made responsive by the Holy Ghost to the
ignorance and sin of the regions beyond, and that impels to the
improvement of opportunities presented with every increase of
light and with every removal of obstacles. Until the minister, at
all of these points, is fully awake and alive, the hope of a redeemed
and enfranchised humanity, which so long has cheered the heart
of the Church, will be indefinitely delayed in realization.

Do we mean to advocate a special standard of literary excel-
lence and of useful information as an indispensable qualification
for entrance into the Christian ministry? The Methodist Church
has never taken so questionable a position. May she never take
it! Her glory is that she receives all whose “gifts and graces”
capacitate them for usefulness, and assigns them to those spheres
to which they are adapted, and conquers through their earnest
work and devotion to duty. Yet may she never by word or act dis-
parage learning or fail to supply those who seek admission to her
pulpits with the best scholastic advantages and the means for the
most thorough equipment in all departments of ministerial toil!
We repeat, then, that preparation is necessary for successful work,
a special preparation for special work, a knowledge of missions for
earnest, honest, fruitful missionary work.

The minister need not go far for a good measure of equipment
for leadership in the particular service to which attention is di-
rected in this paper. If he opens the Bible and studies it, he will
be at no loss to know what God’s thought is in reference to the
enlightenment and the evangelization of the world. It is written
upon every page of inspiration from Genesis to Revelation, and
is incorporated into the very structure of the Church. The hu-
man race is lost in the transgression of Adam. Its redemption is
anticipated in the promise that the seed of the woman shall bruise
the serpent’s head. The law is given upon Sinai, and in that law

8

EDWARDS,

Preparaticn of
the preacher.
EDWARDS.

Purpose of the
gospel,

II4 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

provision is made for the ingathering of proselytes. The proph-
ets gazing down the long vista of years see a night, and afterwards
a morning, brightening and broadening and filling with splendor,
as a myriad of suns, the whole heaven of the future. And then
Christ appears, and when his life work is done, and the agony of
Gethsemane is past, and the gloom of Calvary has burst into glo-
rious day, and the sepulcher has given back his sacred form be-
cause he could not be bound of death, pausing for a moment upon
the summit of Olivet, with his disciples around him and the open
spaces above crowded with “invisible but adoring angels,” he de-
clares in attestation of the completeness of ‘his triumph : “All pow-
er is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” And then he im-
mediately commands: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto
the end of the world.” Is still further testimony from the Book
necessary? See Peter laboring through Pontus, Galatia, Cap-
padocia, Asia, Bithynia. Turnto Paul. First, hear his words: “I
am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians ; both to the
wise, and to the unwise.” Secondly, witness his labors: “So that
from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully
preached the gospel of Christ. Yea, so I have strived to preach
the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon
another man’s foundation: but as it is written, To whom he was
not spoken of, they shall see; and they that have not heard shall
understand.”

Manifestly God’s thought is: “The world for Christ.’ The
minister is to make this same thought his own.

Again, if the minister would know the times and their weight of
responsibility, he is only to be observant and to familiarize him-
self with the secular and religious literature of the day. Never
was there an age like this in which we live. Science is forging
ahead with-irresistible momentum. New discoveries are made;
new principles are brought to light; new realms of thought, which
the boldest explorers have failed to reach,are open to investiga-
tion. Society throws off her grosser sins and puts on garments
of fairer decency and of greater respectability. Governments are
growing into a juster conception of the rights of men, and of the
mutual dependence of nations, and of the duty of a generous en-
THE DUTY OF THE PASTOR. II5

couragement to all that is strong and helpful in the ongoing of the
world. And beyond the impetuotts rush in temporal affairs, the
Church is girding herself for a more determined effort to drive
back the darkness and let in the light, the light of the glorious
gospel of the Son of God, upon the habitation of man. It is as
though some careering simoom or strange conjunction of stars
stirred the ocean of thought to its profoundest depths and threw
the world into the wildest uproar. Let the minister understand
these facts—especially what the Church is doing and can do for
her exalted and glorified Lord. This knowledge is equipment and
preparation for leadership. Let him know that the prayer, so
long offered, for the opening of effectual doors of usefulness in
foreign fields is already answered, that the doors are “lifted off
their hinges,” and that the world is everywhere accessible to the
missionary. Let him know that facilities for travel are multiplied
even in darkest paganism; that the press is publishing the Bible
in all languages, and is preparing wholesome religious reading
for men in the diversified conditions of human fortune ; that a mil-
lion and a half heathens bow, to-day, submissively to the cross,
and that more than four millions are brought under the restrain-
ing and corrective influence of Christian thought; and that with
the ever-increasing army of workers from abroad and of workers
raised up at-home the outlook for the future is in every way hope-
ful and inspiring.

The time was when ignorance of missions and of their work
might, in a measure, have been excused; the time is when this ig-
norance is not only excusable, but is criminal. The knowledge
of the missionary movement, scarcely a century old, yet with a his-
tory that reads like a romance, can be secured for the paltry out-
lay of a few dollars in religious papers and periodicals.

But the minister may know God’s thought of missions, and may
know the times and their splendid possibilities for good, and yet
not understand the subject under consideration as he ought to un-
derstand it. He may be out of sympathy with it. This want of
sympathy can be overcome only by the baptism of the Spirit,
which again is to say only through prayer and consecration. We
see God and God’s truth alone in God’s own light.

Another advance. The equipment for which we plead is not
only a preparation for leadership; it incites and impels to its as-
sumption. The minister, properly educated and informed, readily

EDWARDS,

The situation,

The Spirit’s
worn,
EDWARDS,

The minister
must lead.

116 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

perceives the things that ought to be done, knows how they ought
to be done, and takes hold of affairs with a steadier and stronger
hand. He is forward to talk about missions in pastoral visitation.
He is not slow or unwilling to urge their claims to the free and
liberal support of the Church. He goes into the Sabbath school
and awakens the interest of children in the conversion of the hea-
then. He recognizes the value of societies, and forms them and
utilizes them in the consummation of his purposes. Indeed,
wherever great issues are at stake, temporal or spiritual, the or-
ganization is demanded. It unitizes the forces. It brings the
people more immediately and directly under the control of the
leader. In addition, it is the best means for enlisting the fullest
strength of manhood and of womanhood, not simply, as already
intimated, because there is an increase of power with the increase
of the units of power, but upon the broader principle that individ-
ual life is quickened and intensified when brought into associa-
tion with other life. Wesee more, we feel more, we are prepared
to do more when in society than when alone. So individuals are
wrought up to the wildest enthusiasm when collected in masses
under the play of social instincts. So the orator is often indebted
to his audience for his success, “the brilliant and responsive
throng” imparting strength to feeling and vividness to concep-
tion. So the soldier, by the touch of an elbow or the voice of a
comrade, is nerved for the brave and heroic assault upon the em-
battled line. Patrick Henry, perchance, had lived and died un-
known but for the mighty throes of a revolution which shook the
continent from Massachusetts to Georgia. Waterloo had never
been won by England but for the intrepid courage of the Iron
Duke, inspiring his soldiery to valiant deeds. Rob the world of
this great mystery of our being, the interchange of feeling, and
you despoil it of how much of its splendor! The hand that now
marks out the hour of day in the upward ascent of the sun of civil-
ization will go back many degrees upon the dial plate of time. The
wise pastor will not overlook this element of power, but will em-
brace it, and make it tributary to the success of the missionary en-
terprise.

Once more. The pastor, equipped for his work, will not be in-
different to the reflex action of missionary work upon the Church
athome. The benefit conferred upon another is a benefit for our-
selves. The effort keeps religious life from stagnation and de-
METHODISM AND MODERN MISSIONS. II

cay. Nay, it not only preserves the life from decay, but augments
its power. The faith becomes stronger, the hope brighter, the
love more abundant. We need not fear that the constant tax
upon Christian principle will diminish its resources. The more we
do for others, the larger the outlay of our talents in the various
spheres of thought, the greater the amount of comfort and of
strength we receive in return. The increase of spiritual capital
through work for others, its decline through selfish indolence, is
one of the external paradoxes of God’s moral government.
Would that the Church were fully alive to this truth!

The evening of the world is upon us. The sun hastens to its
setting. We climb the hilltops to which we have been conducted,
and, gazing out into the future, are surprised at the facilities at our
command for the furtherance of the gospel and for the ushering
in of the latter-day glory of the Church when the boldest dreams
of the prophet shall be realized in spiritual awakenings and in the
brotherhood of men, and in all of the sweet ministrations of
Christian civilization.

It will not be long, under the guidance of faithful leaders, backed
by a zealous Church, before swords shall be beaten into plow-
shares, and the wolf shall lie down with the child, and tyranny and
oppression shall be banished from the family of nations. God
speed the day!

METHODISM AND MODERN MISSIONS.
REV. J. H. PRITCHETT, D.D.

THE coincidence in the rise of these two spiritual forces of the
nineteenth century is a marked matter of ‘history, and the con-
sideration of its providential significance is well worth a place in
the discussions of this Conference. Both are classed as revivals:
the first, Methodism, as a revival of the doctrines, the expe-
riences, the economies of primitive Christianity; the second,
modern missions, as a revival of the inspired purpose to make
these things world-wide by spreading the gospel. The fact that
seventeen hundred years after Pentecost, the attestation given by
the Holy Spirit to a resurrected and reigning Christ, it was neces-

EDWARDS.

Benefit to the
Church.

The outicok.
PRITCHETT.

Carist’s com-
img.

118 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

sary to reproduce its lessons in human consciousness, and to re-
new the commission to carry them everywhere, challenges earnest
thought along at least three lines : (2) Under what conditions were
these two forces, so vigorous and so interdependent in the early
Church, so nearly lost out of the world? (6) By what steps do we
trace their return to place and power? (c) What lessons for the
incoming century do these answers teach us?

Christianity in its most exhaustive sense is God’s revelation of
himself by the Holy Spirit, and contains that reconciliation of the
world to himself which he made in Christ. Its initial fact is a new
man; its culminating event is a new world. The one is a token
and prophecy of the other. Between them, as between points of
departure and destination, lie three things: (a) Christ’s media-
torial kingdom: “For he must reign until he hath put all ene-
mies under his feet.” (b) The dispensation of the Holy Spirit:
“He shall convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment.” (c) The mission of the Church: “On this rock will
I build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it.” This triple alliance puts sin’s destruction and the world’s
final restoration beyond a contingency, however indefinitely the
human element in the Church may postpone their accomplish-
ment. The divine expedients are exhaustless: If one man or
generation or race disappoints him, he raises up another. The
Christ of prophecy was doubtless long delayed in his coming by
the stubborn intractableness of those through whom the blessing
was to come to the world; nevertheless he came, not because the
Church or the world was ready for his coming, as we often hear
—from a human point of view it was never more unready—but he
came because the salvation of the Church and the hope of the
world demanded it. He came suddenly to his temple, and his
coming was like refining fire, and like fuller’s soap. So his sec-
ond coming has been delayed by the prayerlessness, the faith-
lessness, the covetousness of those in whom he has trusted. It
may still be long delayed, but he will surely come. It may be that
the nominal Church and the world will be no nearer prepared to
receive him than before. Nevertheless he shall come, and, will-
ingly or unwillingly, “every knee shall bowto him . . . and
every tongue shall confess that he is Lord to the glory of
God the Father.”

Men have not been slow to make and recognize a distinction
METHODISM AND MODERN MISSIONS. IIQ

between the real and the nominal in Christianity from the be-
ginning; but God only has always and everywhere marked the
difference. Before the worldly-wise thought its religion worth
counterfeiting, Christianity found her all-sufficient opportunity
in the command and promise of her Head, her inspiration in the
call of the Holy Spirit. There was no waiting for occasion, no
consulting of omens, no weighing of conditions. So Paul and
Barnabas went forth from Antioch. They were Christ’s ambas-
sadors; they were the Church’s messengers; and, despite the
bigoted pharisaism of the Jew, despite the cultured rationalism
of the Greek, despite the gross ignorance and superstition of the
barbarian, despite the cruel persecution and proscription of the
Roman, the standard of the cross was soon planted in every
province of the empire of the Czsars. Early in the second cen-
tury Justin Martyr wrote: “There is not a nation, Greek or bar-
barian, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered
to the Father and Creator in the name of the crucified Jesus.”
Tertullian, about the middle of the same century, wrote: “Though
of yesterday, we have filled every sphere of life—the exchange,
the camp, the populace, the palace, the forum.” Persecution,
dire and continuous, but lengthened her cords and strengthened
her stakes. Early in the fourth century, however, her persecu-
tor affected to become her patron. Patron? Ominous the
name, fatal the relationship, and dire the consequences that fol-
lowed its consummation.

Persecution the Church cannot only abide but flourish under ;
but the patronage of the world, in any of its forms, she can never
endure. It is the bane of her peace, the Delilah of her power.
Will the Church never learn this lesson, so often repeated by our
Lord, so often verified in his dealings with his people? “Blessed
are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and
shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake,” but
“woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you;” “the world
will love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you;”
“knioow ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with
God? whosoever therefore will be the friend of the world is the
enemy of God; “ye cannot serve God and mamimion.” The most
charitable thing that can be said of a patronized Church, whether
the patron be Cesar or mammonor“‘society,” is that it is a nominal

PRITCHETT.

Initiation of
the Church.
PRITCHETT.

The true and
false.

Value of per-
secution.

120 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Church ; to which it is only necessary to add the time element to
make it a corrupt, an apostate Church. From the consequences
of that unholy concubinage instituted by Constantine, Christian-
ity has not escaped even until now. From that day the Church
began her contest for supremacy with the potentates and powers
ofearth. There is scarcely a page of history for more than a thou-
sand years on which she does not figure conspicuously, not as a
representative of the lowly Nazerene, but of the haughty primate
of Rome; not as the exponent of the gospel of peace and good
will among men, but as the instigator of persecution, cruelty, and
bloodshed. Meantime the real Church witnessed for her Lord
chiefly with the blood of her martyrs, her voice being heard be-
yond the fastnesses of her mountain retreats only now and then
through such unconquerable spirits as Jerome of Prague, Huss
of Bohemia, and Wycliffe of England. She found her opportu-
nity in the high and holy privilege of dying for her Master’s sake,
and of proving to the generations that were to come after that
“the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Histo-
rians, philosophers, theologians, all have wrestled with the prob-
lem, but God only knows where and when, or how and by whom
the seed was sown that sprang up and grew and ripened into the
harvest of the sixteenth century. Call it what you will—reforma-
tion, revolution, restoration—one thing is certain about it—that is,
Luther and his compeers were just as surely reapers from the
centuries of prayers and tears and blood as we are gleaners
among the sheaves which they left in the field. In this mighty
upheaval, which shook the nations of Europe from center to cir-
cumference, two great laws peculiar to God’s government of the
world are elucidated :

1. God is never in haste to put out the fires of persecution
kindled against ‘his people, or to bring to judgment.the doer of
evil things. He can afford to allow the devil and bad men to do
their worst, his servants can afford it—for of their worst it is his
prerogative to conquer his own highest glory and his servants’
highest good. He gives heed to neither the skeptical nor the de-
spairing cry: “Where is the promise of his coming?’ “A thou-
sand years are in his sight as one day, and one day as a thousand
years,” yet he is not slack concerning his promises. Let his ene-
mies know that for every day of seeming triumph on their part he
will recompense his saints a thousand years.
METHODISM AND MODERN MISSIONS. I21I

2. That it is neither by might nor power—as men estimate
them—but by his Spirit that he brings things to pass. He makes
no entangling alliances with persons or powers, nor sanctions any
made by the people. He allows no instrument of his hand to re-
ply against him, saying: “I have done it.” He chooses weak
things to confound the mighty, “yea, and things which are not, to
bring to naught things that are.”

For a thousand years Rome had insulted heaven by her blas-
phemous pretensions, demoralized universal government by her
unauthorized interference, debauched the people by her false
teachings and foul practices; in short, had made herself the syno-
nym of all that is vile and abominable in the earth. She had come
to regard herself as invincible in sin. Human assailants, one
after another, in their efforts to cast her down, had been broken
at her feet. First, temporal princes, notably the powerful house
ot Hohenstaufen, tried to humble and reform her; with what re-
sult, let the humiliating conditions of pardon and restoration
granted by Hildebrand to the warlike Henry IV. testify. Next,
men of genius and learning entered their protest against the
papacy, and boldly called for the reéstablishment of the primitive
order of the Church ; Dante, the father of Italian poetry, Petrarch,
the genius of his age, Laurentius Valla, one of the most learned
men of his time, followed by a host of other poets and learned
men and philosophers, threw the whole force of their personal
and professional power against the common enemy, but in vain.
“Leo X. had but to enlist among the supporters and satellites of
his court, literature, poetry, science, and art; and all these came,
humbly kissing the feet of a power that in their boasted infancy
they hai tried to destroy.”

Last ofall, the Church herself essayed the task of her own refor-
mation. The council of Constance, one of the most imposing as-
semblages the world ever saw, was called; twenty-six princes,
one hundred and forty counts, more than a score of cardinals, sev-
en patriarchs, twenty archbishops, ninety-one bishops, six hun-
dred prelates and doctors, and four thousand priests helped to
constitute it. Sigismund, the emperor, with a retinue of one thou-
sand courtiers, presided. It protracted its session four years. It
did five things: (a) It asserted its own supremacy ; (0) it unmade
three warring popes: (c) it condemned both the books and the
bodies of John Huss and Jerome of Prague to be burned; (d) it

PRITCHETT.

Futile efforts
at reforma-
tion.
PRITCHETT,

God’s reform-}j
ef.

122 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

constituted a representative commission of sweeping reform; (¢}
it made Colonna pope after he had sworn that the council should
continue till the contemplated reform was consummated; but
scarcely had the last rite that made Colonna Martin V., pope of
Rome, been performed, when the newly made potentate, head of
the Church and ex officio king of kings, proclaimed: “The coun-
cilisatanend!” Protest was vain. It was again demonstrated
that, in order to humble Rome and correct her abuses, something
above and beyond the combined power of Church and school and
state was necessary. In God’s own time (7. ¢., when Rome’s cup
of iniquity was full), in God’s own way (i. ¢., in answer to the
prayers of his little ones, which had been accumulating for ages),
by God’s own means (7. ¢., a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost,
and reckless of all else except the maintenance of the truth), that
something came. Passing by a score of true and learned and
valiant men whom human wisdom would have chosen as leaders,
God laid his hand on the poor boy of Eisleben, the pious monk
of Erfurt, the bold preacher of Wittenberg, the unconquerable
prisoner of Worms, Martin Luther, and through him sent out a
voice that shattered the very foundations of Rome, penetrated
the strongholds of tyranny and superstition throughout Christen-
dom, and has come echoing and reéchoing down the centuries
until now. It proclaimed an open Bible, an unshackled con-
science, and a free and full salvation by grace through faith. Had
restored Christianity been shut up to the limits and conditions of
European civilization as it then was, the results would doubtless
have been far different. In Germany, besides the deadly though
broken opposition of Rome, reénforced by the relentless pro-
scription of the emperors, it became the victim of warring polliti-
cal factions, of strifes and divisions among its votaries. In Great
Britain, the most hopeful field for its success, it was handicapped
for more than two centuries by its unfortunate alliance with the
turbulent, tyrannical, and treacherous dynasties of Tudor and
Stuart; its hidden life being revealed only in the testimony of
its martyrs, and in such occasional events as the Prayer Book of
Edward VI., the English Bible of James I., and the interjected
rule of Oliver Cromwell.

He who had started his truth on its new career, however, knew
how to prepare for it an ampler field than that furnished by either
Germany or England, or by both. He knew how to wing it for
METHODISM AND MODERN MISSIONS. 123

its flight, and how to guide it to its destination. Almost simul-
taneous with the reformation came the general use of the print-
er’s art, the successful employment of the mariner’s compass, the
opening up of a new world. American Christianity, the grand-
child of the reformation, the child of providence, the heir of des-
tiny, began its career just one hundred years after the Diet of
Worms. Its elements (the Puritan, the Huguenot, the Presby-
terian, the Quaker—even the Episcopalian and the Catholic) were
forged in fires incident to the Reformation. One hundred
years later, when America herself, in her struggle to escape her
political toils, had taken to her bosom the viperous brood of
French infidelity, when heart and home, Church and school and
forum, were being vitiated by the grossest and foulest of its prog-
eny, God reénforced American Christianity with Methodism.
It brought just what was needed for the exigency: a free and full
gospel, a personal divine power in conversion, an experience veri-
fying both the truth of the one and the fact of the other, an apos-
tolic plan of evangelism, that proposed to go everywhere and to
reach everybody with its message. For fifty years it had been
leavening England, and just at this time was compelling recog-
nition as a mighty spiritual force, moving through three distinct
yet confluent streams—viz., Mr. Wesley’s Societies, the Calvin-
istic Methodists, the Evangelical Church party. Through the
first and last of these it has, during the century now just closed,
made England the most Christian nation in Christendom and
the most potent factor in evangelizing the world.

In America Methodism began its career as a Church organiiza-
tion sixteen years before the close of the eighteenth century, with
eighty-three preachers and fifteen thousand members. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century it had two hundred and
eighty-seven preachers and sixty-five thousand members. At
the close of the nineteenth century these had grown to more than
thirty thousand preachers and nearly six million members. The
percentage of increase had been nine thousand. The annual av-
erage gain in preachers had been four hundred; the annual aver-
age gain in members sixty thousand. On all material lines ex-
pansion had fully kept pace with the membership, and the more
than seventy-five thousand Churches and parsonages, valued at
more than $350,000,000, to say nothing of universities, colleges,
schools, orphanages, and hospitals, as compared with the little

PRITCHETTe

A field pre
pared.

Methodism
America.
PRITCHETT.

Methodism and
Missions,

124 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

log house in Maryland, or the sail loft in New York, whence de-
parture was taken in the beginning, seem as much a miracle as
the multiplication of the loaves and fishes under the blessing of
the Man of Galilee. Nor did these wonderful results come by im-
migration, nor by proselytism, nor by artful manipulation, nor by
prestige of any sort. Methodism sought the people where they
were to be found, identified itself with their interests without par-
tiality, preached the gospel in its fullness and power, watched
over the souls God gave into its keeping, and so grew and pros-
pered. Nor has the ecclesiastical growth indicated been the
only striking evidence of the providential origin and development
of Methodism. From its liberality of spirit and doctrine and
practice has gone forth an influence that has revolutionized the
animus, the creeds, the comity of the Churches. From its altars
has gone into other communions a constant stream of converts,
carrying new life and enlarged views of the plan of salvation ; from
its pulpits scores and hundreds have gone to replenish the scant
ministerial supply of other denominations; from its commanding
influence in Protestantism to-day largely comes the ability to say,
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell
together in unity.”

The mission revival which found its birth at the same time and
under the same conditions with that of Methodism kept even step
with its compeer throughout the nineteenth century. At the be-
ginning there were not more than half a dozen feeble societies of
any sort engaged in any way in the effort to send the gospel into
the regions beyond; at the close there were two hundred and
forty-nine societies engaged directly and wholly in the work of
foreign missions ; also ninety-eight other societies coOperating or
aiding in this work ; besides one hundred and two still other socie-
ties engaged in some special department of the same work ; aggre-
gating five hundred and thirty-seven societies, employing fifteen
thousand four hundred and sixty missionaries, with seventy-seven
thousandthree hundredand thirty-eight native helpers, and having
eleven thousand and thirty-nine organized Churches, one million
three hundred and seventeen thousand six hundred and eighty-
four communicants, and an annual income of nearly $20,000,000.

Finally, standing in the presence of this double array of facts,
gathered for the express purpose of studying them, what are some
of the lessons that we are to carry from this interview, from this
METHODISM AND MODERN MISSIONS. 125

Conference, back to our homes and into our future work for the
Master? In this materialistic, this utilitarian age we hear a
great deal about new opportunities and new responsibilities. May
we not in this presence relearn the old and oft-repeated lesson
that the one world-wide and ever recurring opportunity of the
Church of Christ is found in the proclamation of her Head, “All
power in heaven and in earth is given into my hands; as my Fa-
ther hath sent me, even so send I you;” that her one supreme re-
sponsibility, unlimited, and unredeemed while one soul still waits
for the message, is found in the command, “Go preach my gospel
to every creature.” Shall we not henceforth, always, everywhere
carry this double law of Christ’s kingdom in our minds: (a) Faith
in his promises and power, obedience to his call and command,
mean victory in every conflict with every foe; (¥) that doubt and
disobedience just as surely mean defeat? Shall we not go into
the twentieth century with a clearer conception of the meaning
and correlation of these utterances of our divine Lord: “The
field is the world; the seed is the word of God; the sower soweth
the word; the harvest is the end of the world,” and a profounder
realization of our duty as wrapped up in them?

Is it not time that Protestant Christian brotherhood be given
such a practical, appreciable form, at least in our mission fields,
that it may appear among the heathen that the prayer of our di-
vine Lord was not in vain: “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?” And is it
not time that our Methodism made a large contribution to this
answer?

Shall we not carry from this Conference a clearer conception,
a deeper conviction of the fact that our interest, as individuals and
as a Church in Christ’s kingdom now, and our final award in that
kingdom hereafter, is and will be measured by the amount and
kind of service rendered our fellow-men in Christ’s name? Sub-
sidiary to this shall not Christ’s proprietorship in our money, and
our stewardship in the use of it, become more than ever a living
and abiding presence with us?

“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in
us, unto him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout
all ages, world without end. Amen.”

PRITCHETT.

The outlook
Section II.
EDUCATIONAL WORK.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION AND FOREIGN MISSION
WORK.

REV. S. H. WAINRIGHT.

Tue place of education in foreign mission work needs to be
vindicated, for among believers some give only a half-hearted
support to the school, others decline to assist it at all, while others
still challenge its right to exist. That the school is too expen-
sive, that the immediate results in the conversion of the young
are too meager, and thlat education is not a suitable or scriptural
means by which to save the world are some of the objections
urged; and those who urge these objections and who assail in-
stitutions of learning as agencies of the Church may possibly
have the correct view. But as a matter of fact they have a great
and growing majority among Christians of the present against
them; they have the practice of the Church and the wisdom of its
leaders, through many centuries, against them; they have the
patent influence of the schools in great Christian enterprises, in
important religious movements, and in the Christianization of
many nations against them; and they have the fact of a deep
affinity between Christianity and learning, shown in the quick-
ened and expanded intellect, the great number of universities and
popular school systems of Christian origin in Europe and Amer-
ica, and shown in the vital connection maintained between Chris-
tianity and the mind of the civilized world, against the view taken
by them. To drop the school out of Church work would be a new
departure, an innovation on the age-long practice of the past;
and would imply that the world no longer needed Christian edu-
cation, or that the State, or some other secular power, was pre-
pared and willing to impart it.

‘What answer will this convention give to the educational ques-
tion as the members look out upon the circle of nations where
EDUCATION AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 127

the foundations of greater Methodism are being laid, and out into
the new century with its splendid prospects, its vast possibilities,
its formidable problems, and its momentous interests? Indeci-
sion or irresolution concerning a question so vital ought not to
exist. Our minds should be made up; and if we decide in favor
of the school, we should be ready to endow with our wealth, our
time, our brain energy and our heart devotion, the institutions
set up on ‘heathen soil in God’s name and bearing over them the
banner of Christ’s gospel, the ensign of progress and liberty, in-
tellectual, moral, and religious. It is important that the members
of the Conference carry away with them strengthened convic-
tions on all great mission problems as well as renewed or awak-
ened enthusiasm, for the latter cannot be sustained and pro-
longed without the former.

On what ground, then, may we find a resting place for our
conviction in favor of our mission schools? By reference (1) to
the doctrinal faith of our fathers; (2) to the injunctions of the
Master; and (3) to the conditions, needs, and opportunities in
the mission fields, we may find, it seems to me, a sufficient war-
rant, besides powerful motives, for the employment of education
in the evangelization of the world.

It appears to be out of fashion in America to allude to doc-
trine, but missionaries get woefully behind the times, and I may
be pardoned. The Methodist system affords a truly rational basis
for educational effort; and if we glory in the consciousness that
our doctrines are right, we should at the same time give high
regard to the desire to carry them out in action to their logical
consequences.

We present our infants for membership in the Church with
the conviction that it is not the Father’s will that a single one
of them should perish. In the exhortations, prayers, and vows
at their baptism we assume before God a sponsorship for them
during their minority—a sponsorship which involves for them a
Christian education. It is inconsistent, if not positively sinful,
to leave our children to grow up in ignorance or to commit them
to an education inimical to the faith to which we have conse-
crated them. If we help the Church on the mission field in other
things, we should help it fulfill this sacred obligation to the young.
It is our boast that we avoid on the one ‘hand the Pelagian type
of theology which seeks the rescue of man from sin by means of
persuasion, encouragement, culture, elevating influences, and in-

WAINRIGHT.

Fundamental
considera-
tious.
WAINRIGHT

Why we edu
cate.

128 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

citements, and by these alone; and on the other hand the Neopla-
tonic type which approaches perilously near the brink of panthe-
ism and reduces man to a mere nonentity and makes him passive
in salvation due to divine power and to divine power alone. We
see truth in both views. We believe that God indeed supplies
the impulse; that God enlivens, codperates, and sustains; that
God directs the efforts to final attainment. But we also believe
that man is morally free and responsible; that human probation
is not a name but a fact; that the tenure of covenant mercies is
humanly conditional ; that God invites us to cooperation with him-
self, and expects us to employ the faculties and resources given
to us by him, and in some sense holds us responsible for the
rescue of life, out of possibilities supplied by grace, actual, holy,
complete, and perseverant, unto the end. We believe, in a word,
that by God’s own ordination a relation exists between human

agency and human destiny. What an awful sense of responsi-

bility should grow out of this faith! If Methodists, possessing
intellects trained for teaching and wealth in their power to con-
tribute, view with minds imperturbed and hearts cold and indii-
ferent Asia’s millions groping for the light and our poorly
equipped mission schools struggling to lead them, their own
creed and profession will damn them in the day of judgment, as
they stand before God without excuse, confused, abashed, and
overwhelmed with sorrow and remorse.

If we are Methodists, we are also Protestants. The reforma-
tion principle involves the education of believers, which truth
Martin Luther saw, and governed himself accordingly. In our
mission fields, whether among Buddhists in Asia or Roman
Catholics in Mexico and South America, there is popular igno-
rance and abject dependence on the priesthood for religious
knowledge. We enter these fields and distribute the Scriptures
and hold our converts responsible for independent study, medita-
tion, and conviction, and for independent application of moral
principle, according to the dictates of conscience and judgment,
to all the varied conditions of life, and for intelligent codperation
in all Church affairs and Christian effort. We lay a difficult but
noble task upon the infant Church. Have we any right to do so,
without providing’ a training requisite for the performance of such
a duty? And if we are Protestants, we are also Christians. We
are willing to recognize the authority and obey the injunction of
the Holy Scriptures. But here we meet with the strongest ob-
EDUCATION AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 129

jection to Christian schools. Our Lord made no mention of
schools in his commission to the Church, nor did any of his apos-
tles speak of them. If we rule out the mission school, if we close
up the Anglo-Chinese College, the Kwansei Gakuin, Granbery
College, and other schools on this ground, some other things
must cease to exist with them. What mention is made in Scrip-
ture of Sunday schools, the Epworth League, the Board of Mis-
sions, the Board of Education, the Methodist Review, or the Pub-
lishing House? All these great institutions of the Church and
the Christian schools of the Church stand or fall together; they
rest on the same basis, and we believe that basis to be a scrip-
tural one, not expressly stated in so many words but involved in
the general commission of our Lord given without instruction
in detail to the Church to go forth and make disciples of the
nations, and implied in the whole drift and spirit of the New Tes-
tament teaching.

The actual conditions on mission fields strongly indicate the
importance of Christian education. The Christian school grew
out of the Christian movement. It came into existence to meet
exigencies of the early Church, and was not first deduced from
Scripture or creed and then established as a pious duty. Our
own Church schools have had their origin in the same way, and
Scripture was appealed to only to justify their existence. But
while the good fruits of Christian education are apparent, so com-
plex is the school and its relations to society that it is not easy
to show by an analysis of conditions its worth to the Church and
the way it serves the interests of the kingdom.

In the opportunity the school affords, through the daily per-
sonal contact it secures, it is of undoubted value and superior to
the station, as the station is to the circuit. The success of the
circuit is conditioned on and presupposes a generally diffused
knowlege of Christianity, and consequently a certain degree of
self-resource. But on mission fields where the only basis to work
upon is the natural religion in the human spirit, as a rule the
missionary can do the most good who covers the least ground.
No greater delusion concerning missionary work exists than the
notion that the first announcement of the gospel message to
heathen people is received’with brightened faces, glad hearts, and
intelligent appreciation. If any impression is made at all, it is
but a faint outline, vague and shadowy, to be filled up and bright-
ened by patient and reiterated explanation and instruction. The

9

WAINRIGHT.

Is there a
scriptural
warrant?

Special value
of the school.
WAINKIGHT,

A Christian
environment.

Formation of
character.

I3o GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

school gives opportunity for constant and living contact and sup-
plements instruction by articulate speech by complex presen-
tation and suggestion, reaching the consciousness of the learner
through the life and activity of Christian teachers, imaged forth
before him. The absence of Christian example in home and com-
munity is somewhat compensated for in the school; which, a
diminutive world in itself, predominantly Christian, supplies the
place at once of family, Church, and society, and brings the
young, at a period of life most susceptible of impression, most
keen in discernment, most vivid in association, and most plastic
under influence, into an environment which affords an object
lesson of thiat larger life, family, social, and national, which suc-
ceeding generations of Christians must shape into existence.
Thus the school is a means, and the most effective one, of bring-
ing Christianity into living touch with heathen life, and providing
the conditions necessary for the educative process, the patient in-
struction which is so prominent a feature in Christian propaga-
tion among the heathen.

Again, the school is of practical worth in the great constructive
work that the infant Church must do in the creation of outlets,
which do not exist in heathen lands, for the expression of the life
and emotions awakened by the gospel. Christian life, while in-
dependent of temporal limitations and circumstances, must be
expressed through them. Our citizenship in the spiritual sphere
does not warrant abstraction of self from the secular life or con-
tempt for the temporal order.. The Church has a mission in this
world. But while the young convert in Christian lands finds
social customs, usages, and institutions hardened into forms ap-
propriate for the expression of the Christian life, in heathen iands,
before the impulse to free and various action implanted by the
gospel can manifest itself, an immense work must first be done.
In the interpretation of religious experience, for example, and
the translation of religious emotion into intellectual forms, no
access can be had, without mastering a foreign tongue, to a lit-
erature treasuring the ideas and thoughts of generations of Chris-
tians ; nor is there a vocabulary by means of which to communi-
cate new feelings and experiences to others. Filled with joy, the
convert cannot sing, for he has no knowledge of note, meter, or
time, nor are there Christian hymns to sing or congregations
capable of singing. In home, market, and social sphere, estab-
lished usage must be clashed with and outward form brought into
EDUCATION AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. 131

accord with Christian principle. Reform is not only necessary in
social customs and practices ; but politics, art, literature, and phi-
losophy must feel the renovating touch of Christianity. No one
can possibly doubt the value of from five to eight years of mental
and moral training in a Christian school to those called upon to
effect this great constructive task in the transformation of na-
tional life. And to secure pure conceptions, spiritual ideals, and
refined outward forms, it is important that the young be trained
before the evil day comes, before pagan habits are formed, and
before pagan ideas become the intellectual furniture of the mind.
The Christianity of Teutonic Europe, for instance, is of a purer
type, where no other than Christian culture was ever known,
than that of the Latin races, where large numbers entered the
Church after having received on their natures the stamp and im-
press of a pagan civilization. Might not one great section of the
Christian Church have been freer of abased forms of worship ;
might Christian theology not have been less vitiated by pagan
ideas; might the stream of Christian history not have been purer
and clearer; and might the early Church not have escaped the
unhappy consequence of sending truth mixed with error, and
Spirituality tinged with superstition, down through the ages and
out through the nations, if the Christian school had been adopted
and not discussed for two or three centuries, and if the pioneers
of Christian history in the Roman Empire had been trained by
Christian instead of pagan school-teachers?

Profiting by the past, let us give every advantage to the infant
Church in heathen lands to-day, that the source may be kept pure,
for how far into the future the stream of history may reach we
are unable to know. The world may exist for ages yet, for aught
we know, before it melts with fervent heat and is destroyed.

The adoption of a new faith and the break with the established
order awakens opposition and requires self-defense. Thi apolo-
getic element becomes prominent, and colors preaching and writ-
ing and enters into the daily conversation of the people. Not
only has the Christian to contend with antecedents and environ-
ment adverse to Christian principles ; but against prejudice, big-
otry, and self-interest ; against the ascendency of matter over
mind in the unchecked sway of industrial over the higher inter-
ests of man; against widespread skepticism following the aban-
doment of the accumulated idolatries and superstitions of ages

WAINRIGHT.

Transforma~
of national
life.

Apologetics.
WAINRIGHT.

Scope of edu-
cation.

132 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and intrenched in secular schools of modern learning springing
up in all our mission fields.

No one on the outside, by the most strained effort of imagina-
tion, can picture to himself the quiet but mighty struggle going
on in heathen lands. Yet no Christian can afford to be uninter-
ested. The very nature of the gospel, touching as it does the
world’s hope and progress, is such as to inspire to devotion and
incite to activity every one who believes Christ’s gospel alone
is adequate to cleanse the polluted earth of its lusts, supersti-
tions, idolatries, naturalisms, pantheisms, atheisms, and every
passion, fancy, and conceit which exalts itself against the true
and living God and the Christ whom he has sent.

If the three great features of the Christian work—instruction,
construction, and defense—call for high mental qualities and ear-
nest intellectual processes, we would not make the impression
that education terminates on the intellect. The greatest triumphs
of the school come from its peculiar fitness to recover the emo-
tional life largely lost to heathenism, and to inculcate habits and
build up character. Of course the creation of religious or the
spiritualization of natural emotions is a work lying beyond the
range of the educative process, and is accomplished by the Holy
Spirit in the secret depths of the soul. But every expression of
an inner state intensifies it, and hearts warmed to devotion in the
daily prayer meeting, and solemnized and expanded in Chris-
tian worship, will more likely become established in holy dispo-
sition, 'and the will disciplined in Christian habit will be more
likely to stand against the evil tendencies of the age. In the
building of character, the formation of heart attachments for all
that is good and heart associations with all that is noble, and in
the cultivation of all spiritual tendencies, we reach the very heart
of the educational problem, and on this alone the cause of Church
schools might find a sufficient basis. But we have already trans-
cended the limits prescribed for us.

We commend to your earnest attention and sympathy our edu-
cational interests. We rejoice in the session of a Missionary
Conference in the Southland. A favoring Providence, like the
Southern sun, has called forth luxuriant growth, and covered
the land, once desolate and ruined, with the pleasing aspects of
blessing and prosperity. With returning peace and the full tide
of life at home must be reckoned blessings to us beyond our bor-
ders in the spiritual heritage acquired in China, Korea, Japan,
MISSIONS AND EDUCATION. 133

Mexico, Cuba, and Brazil. Such astonishing changes wrought
within the memory of many now living are an earnest of far more
glorious achievements under God’s guidance during the new cen-
tury. By obedience to impulses of divine love planted within us,
by wisdom and zeal and exertion and self-sacrifice, and by the
help of the Spirit, signal success may crown our endeavor to lead
the nations just named to make Christ, in the building up of
their commonwealths, the Head of the corner; to secure a hold for
Christianity upon all the foundations essential to progressive so-
cial constitutions; ‘and to so transform, under gospel influence,
the thought, sentiment, morality, the industrial, commercial, and
political efforts of the people, that the throbbing life of each na-
tion may aspire in all things toward God. For the hastening of
so glorious a consummation, such agencies as pulpit, press, and
school should be amply supported, should be kept ceaselessly
busy, ‘and should be sanctified to the service of our divine and
blessed Lord and the spiritual interests of his eternal kingdom.

MISSIONS AND EDUCATION.
JOHN FRANKLIN GOUCHER, D.D., LL.D.

Every activity of the Christian Church must be adjudged by
its relation to the prime objective of Christianity. Neither ordi-
nance nor activity has excellence in itself. Each is approved or
condemned as it contributes to or retards the purposes of divine
love. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

The objective of Christianity is fellowship between God and
man. “God is faithful, through whom ye were called unto the
fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” To make this
fellowship possible, God has provided for and is seeking to effect
human salvation. This is the work nearest the heart of the
Master. Neither the complete salvation of some nor the partial
salvation of all is adequate to his purpose. “He willeth that all
men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.”

This salvation is threefold:

1. It includes salvation from sin, or spiritual regeneration. God
considers moral delinquency as rooted in moral degeneracy. He

WAINRIGHT.

Our opportu-
nity.

Salvation is
fellowship
with God.
GOUCHER.

Regeneration.

Tomination.

134 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

goes beyond sin in the act to sin in motive, in the attitude of the
soul, in the nature, which cannot be cured by education, organiza-
tion, or legislation. He stops not at forgiveness, but conditions
forgiveness upon repentance toward God and the acceptance of
regeneration. He is not satisfied with curbing the desires, but
purposes to eradicate all enmity, rebellion, and dissonance to the
divine law by making the soul a partaker of the divine nature,
so re-creating it that the unrestricted expression of its renewed
nature will be to love, hate, seek, and resist in harmony with
the divine activities. Thus, and thus only, can man have oneness
with God in purpose, activity, and outcome, for “to be carnally
minded is death, and to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

2. The provisions and requirements of God include salvation
from ignorance, as well as salvation from sin. God regenerates
the mind as well as the spirit, and is honored in its fullest use.
“This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their
mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a
God, and they shall be to me a people.” Knowledge and obe-
dience are inseparable. Knowledge is fundamental to obedience,
for “how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard ?”
And obedience is the organ of spiritual perception, for “if any
man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.” Ignorance
of impending law may be as destructive as its defiance. In the
Mosaic economy atonement for sins of ignorance was as obli-
gatory as for sins of willfulness. Paul’s ideal of Christian per-
fection included the most comprehensive knowledge of Christ.
He counted all things else as refuse that he might know him,
that is hhistorical; and the power of his resurrection, that is ex-
perimentally; and the fellowship of his suffering, that is philo-
sophically. Spiritual life is inseparable from knowledge, “for
this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” The enlargement of
human intelligence and the increase of human knowledge are
emphasized by Christ as included in the purpose of his incarna-
tion. “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into
the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” While all
truth has a common origin, all truth is not equally necessary to
salvation from sin; but all truth is related, and the knowledge of
it is essential to fullness of power and fellowship. Without this
man cannot obey the first recorded command given the race “to
MISSIONS AND EDUCATION. 135

replenish the earth and subdue it.” Improvableness is man’s
chief characteristic. Progress is the law for the continuance of
the race. It must develop or deteriorate. The consummation
of grace is not in arrested development, for we are to “grow in
grace, aad in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ” till we “may be able to comprehend with all saints what
is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know
the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” The ability to
see and enjoy God in his works and his ways as well as in his
Word, to think his thoughts as well as to do his will, measures
the fullness and sweetness of fellowship with him.

3. Salvation includes in addition to salvation from sin and con-
sequent qualification for service, and salvation from ignorance
and consequent enlargement of personality, salvation from dis-
articulation and inutility, or economic reorganization and effi-
ciency. An aimless, disarticulated, or unproductive life is an
abomination unto the Lord. Purposeful activity is the concomi-
tant of intelligence. ‘My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,”
said Jesus, and every Christian is called to be a laborer together
with God. Occupancy is the law of possession. “Every place
that the sole of thy foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto
you.” The servant for failing to use his trust was stripped of
that which he seemed to have, and cast into outer darkness. The
tree which was unfruitful was cursed, for if unproductive it cum-
bered the ground. “God worketh in us to will and to do of his
good pleasure.” “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear
much fruit ; so shall ye be my disciples.”

It is not enough that we invest for God. It is not enough that
we invest our all for him. His care extends to the manner and
outcome as well as the matter of investment. “Thou oughtest
therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at
my coming I should have received mine own with usury.” It is
fruitage he seeks—‘much fruit.” He would have the posses-
sions he has intrusted to men so invested that they will realize
the largest possible return. There is a reflex relationship be-
tween productiveness and development. “There is a giving that
doth enrich.” ‘Bear much fruit; so be my disciples.” Only the
partakers of his toil shall be partakers of his glory. “Faithful
over the few things” is the earnest of being “ruler over many
things.” The joint heirs of Jesus Christ enter into the joy of
their Lord, which is the joy of achievement. ‘‘God hath not given

GOUCHER.

Preparation.
GOUCHER.

The fullness of
salvation.

136 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound
mind.”

These various phases of salvation are suggested by the great
Teacher in those inimitable parables recorded in the fifteenth
chapter of St. Luke. The prodigal son, lost by his own willful
effort, was saved by personal, purposeful, and deliberate return
to the father, whose love and bounty he had despised. There was
joy because he who was dead to his home is alive to the services
of love. The shepherd sought and carried back upon his shoulder,
to the protection and providence of the fold, the sheep lost
through ignorance and folly. There was joy because the shep-
herd had rescued the foolish, ignorant sheep from unsuspected
dangers. The piece of money was not changed per se. It was
lost when disarticulated from responsiveness to purpose. It was
sought till in hand again. There was joy because the woman
had gained control of the piece which had become useless.

The fullness of salvation is loving, intelligent, efficient serv-
ice with God. The objective of Christianity is fellowship between
God and man, in spirit, knowledge, and achievement.

The missions of a Church interpret its ideals and life, and
should embody the essentials of Christianity. They are its or-
ganized agencies for inaugurating in the regions beyond its world-
conquering purpose. The commission which God gave the
Church to be his legacy and the test of true discipleship neces-
sitates and limits the work of missions. “All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name ‘of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you
alway, even unto the end of the world.”

This makes the maintenance and prosecution of Christian mis-
sions obligatory upon the Christian Church and upon each indi-
vidual Christian. The neglect by either is a failure in duty, and
results in the loss of power; it defrauds the world and retards the
consummation of divine love. The Church, individually and col-
lectively, is required to go and teach; to teach those to whom
sent, and to teach the things commanded. Thus, and thus only,
can they have the enabling of the divine power and the indwelling
of the divine presence. Conformity to this law of the kingdom is

‘
MISSIONS AND EDUCATION. 137

a test of citizenship. “None of us liveth to himself, and no man
dieth to himself.”

‘* Thou hast on earth a Trinity,
Thyself, my fellow-man, and me;
When one with him, then one with thee,
Nor, save together, thine are we.”

The aim of all mission work is one—viz., to inaugurate the
kingdom of mutual love and fellowship between God and man.
But the extent and methods of mission work are variable. The
extent is limited by ability and opportunity, while the methods
are determined by the laws which govern the adaptation of
means to ends.

There are three extreme theories of mission activity :

(a) The ultra evangelical, which addresses itself solely to the
conversion of the individual soul, and thinks its work done when
a soul has repented, confessed, and accepted of the conditions of
salvation from sin.

(b) The ultra educational, which occupies itself with the in-
tellectual training of youth in all kinds of truth, except religious
truth. I met a bachelor priest, on my way to Southern Asia, who
represented this theory. He said that for seventeen years the so-
ciety which supported him had maintained the large and well-
equipped college of which he was President, without a known con-
vert, and they do not expect their students to be converted. A
missionary of another society in Southern India said that they had
been supporting a school for high-caste Telugus for fiity-seven
years, and three converts in as many weeks would, in his judg-
ment, close the school.

(c) The humanitarian theory, which starts with Christ and
Christian truth, but believes itself called upon to relieve every
need and to arrange for and supervise all sorts of technical and
industrial agencies.

These all fall short or go wide of the true goal of missionary
effort. The mission of the Church and Church missions are es-
sentially educational. Christianity is a revelation, and its minis-
try must be a teaching ministry. Christianity is a progressive
revelation. Its disciples must be learners, and its ministry must
be an educative ministry, “bringing forth out of its treasure
things new and old,” giving “the sincere milk of the word” to
babes, and the “strong meat to those who by reason of use have

GOUCHER.

Aim of mis-
sions.

Essentially
educational.
GOUCHER,

literacy.

True educa-
tion,

138 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.’ Christian-
ity is an experience, and its ministry must be a witnessing min-
istry.

Information is inspiration. Instruction is construction. The
teacher is the transformer. Conquered Greece reconstructed
Rome by her school-teachers. Christ lived the law and gathered
about him the school of the apostles, that in the atmosphere of
his presence he might teach by example and precept those whom
afterwards he commanded to goo teach.

Missionary activity, from the nature of the case, must be edu-
cational. In non-Christian lands ignorance is not a crime, though
an almost universal evil. It is estimated that in India only six
per cent of the male population and not more than one-third of
one per cent of the female population over ten years of age can
read or write, while in China not more than one per cent of the
males and one-tenth of one per cent of the females possess these
rudiments of education. Granting that these estimates may be
too low, yet the illiteracy is distressing. Ignorance in heathen
lands involves not only the want of a knowledge of letters, but
is accompanied by mental blindness and vacuity which can neither
entertain nor understand words and sentences which stand for
spiritual ideas. Whatever may be the success of preaching, it
must be supplemented by schools, for education is essential to
the reading and the understanding of the Bible. Enervation,
want of aggressiveness, and sterility characterize all missions
which ignore educational work and limit themselves solely to
evangelical activities.

Every true system of education must aim primarily at the
development of character. But we are not to discuss this broader
subject ; only the education legitimate to missionary effort. This
should always be subordinate to the work of salvation. That is
the motive for its establishment and the justification for its con-
tinuance. Therefore, whatever it includes or excludes, it should
always be functioned to its high Christian purpose. There is no
distinctively Christian arithmetic, geography, or spelling; but
these and kindred studies are worthily included in a mission
school only, and in proportion as they are accessory to the re-
generation of humanity. They should be accompanied with moral
and religious training, and given in an atmosphere thoroughly
Christian. It has been well said: “He would be a strange mis-
sionary teacher who could not make his pupils feel a dozen times
MISSIONS AND EDUCATION. 139

a day that geography is but the description of one of God’s es-
tates ; that it is God whose will makes the laws of physics, chem-
istry, or astronomy; that it is God who rules in the history of
nations ; and that the laws of number, order, and thought are ex-
pressions of his mind.”

Education divorced from Christianity is not a moral regen-
erator. The high priest officiating at the Kalighat in Calcutta
during one of my visits there had won his second degree in a
representative university, and spoke English beautifully, but he
catered to the grossest superstitions of the people, and gloated
over the offerings wrung from them by their fear of the hideous
goddess of cruelty, whose sacrifices he directed.

Secular education may destroy faith in the ancestral beliefs,
but it has nothing better to offer as a substitute. It is said that
less than five per cent of the Hindoos educated in the govern-
ment schools of India have any religion at all. It has loosened
their old moorings, but given them no new anchorage. Men high
in official position, who have had large opportunities for varied
and careful observation, seriously question if the morals of the
student class in India, China, and Japan have not steadily deteri-
orated under the influences of purely secular education. Some
positively affirm they have, and native statesmen, not a few, are
outspoken in their judgment that Christian ethics must be in-
cluded in government instruction if they would develop sturdy
characters and the best citizens. “The entrance of thy words
giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” It is the
quickening, enlightening, transforming force, divinely appointed
for the healing of the nations.

The education offered should not duplicate that which is al-
ready accessible, but should be in substantial advance of that
which can be had in similar grades elsewhere—fully equal to the
best, plus thorough and systematic, moral and religious instruc-
tion. It is not the quantity but the quality of the work which
determines efficiency and merits commendation. There are places
other than the divine audience where men are not heard because
of their much speaking.

There are three objects in particular, attainable through educa-
tion, for which Christian missions are under obligation to provide:

I. To train native helpers. In Christianizing a people the na-
tive agencies must come more and more to the fore. In order
that they may be qualified for these varied, multiplying, and en-

GOUCHER,

Evils of a
purely secular
education.
GOUCHER.

Need of na-
tive work-
ers,

140 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

larging demands, there must be provision for their special educa-
tion. In the ruder forms of barbaric life this is necessary, that
the most promising of the new converts may be brought to a fuller
understanding of the truth in its personal and broader relations, ac-
quire the power to simplify instruction, to illustrate the great doc-
trines, and so apply the Word as to appeal to and quicken the
sluggish, sensual lives about them. In more complex civilizations,
which have familiarized themselves with the subtler forms of argu-
ment and evasion, the mind is no less opaque to spiritual verities,
and there must be broader training for the skillful use of the sword
of the Spirit.

Those who have studied the mission problems most carefully
upon the field are not surprised that the results are no larger; the
wonder to them is that the inadequately prepared agents should
have realized so largely. Whatever the field, the natural require-
ment is that the leaders shall be in advance of the people they would
lead. While success is “not by might, nor by power,” but by the
Spirit of the Lord, yet God works through agencies, and in the past
he intrusted his great movements to the leading scholars of their
times, men schooled in the knowledge of his Word and in the knowl-
edge of their age, such as Moses, who was “learned in all the wis-
dom of the Egyptians,’ and Paul, who was as familiar with the
Greek poets and Roman law as with the Pentateuch, and Luther,
the philosopher, theologian, linguist, dialectician, and voluminous
author, and Wesley, the most versatile scholar and greatest eccle-
siastical statesman of his century.

The broadening and deepening of the work in mission fields will
be commensurate with the increase in numbers and efficiency of
the native agents. Hearts must be reached by heart power. The
mother tongue is the language of the heart. It is impossible for
other than natives to meet the subtler and increasing demands of
the sluggish, incoherent mass which needs individualizing, awaken-
ing, conversion, organizing, and development. They must carry on
and, in ever-increasing measure, do the work. They should be edu-
cated for service, and not away from sympathy and helpfulness.
Therefore, with perhaps the rarest exceptions, mission workers
should acquire their education in their own land, and not unneces-
sarily removed from their own people. When taken into another
civilization, and kept through some of the most impressible years
of their lives, they are more or less denationalized. Their sympa-
MISSIONS AND EDUCATION. 141

thies with their own people are almost always blunted, and ‘their
tastes, dress, manner of thought, modes of expression, and aims are
so changed as to discount or interfere with the success they might
have attained if in closer touch and in less offensive contrast with
those among whom they are to labor. The possession of spiritual
knowledge and power is humbling, increases sympathy, and is help-
ful, but education may be so advanced in other lines as to erect
barriers and destroy usefulness.

The educational institutions of a mission should be an evolution,
with standards suited to the needs of the particular mission, chan-
ging from time to time as these change, and not based upon the
ideals of some other land or different field. In most places the first
need will be primary schools of the simplest form. Later, sec-
ondary schools will be required, preparing for the theological, nor-
mal, or college training of such as will appreciate it. For there is
no going back; when the seed has been planted, development is
inevitable.

The missions of America and England, at least, should lay great
stress upon the mastery of English in all schools above the primary
grade, because of the inexhaustible and incomparable spiritual treas-
ures contained in its literature, and because it is less difficult, less
expensive, and far more satisfactory to teach English to a company
of students who speak a dozen or twenty different languages than
it would be to make translations into the native tongues which have
no adequate vocabulary, and find professors and time to instruct the
various classes.

The institutions supported by general mission funds are not for
professional studies nor for training in scientific pursuits. These
may be provided by the Church, when able, out of indigenous re-
sources or by special donations for the purpose, but they belong to
a stage beyond that of ordinary and most urgent mission require-
ments. The mission college should educate the student in the use
of his faculties, ground him in the first principles of knowledge, in
the various departments of thought and effort, and in the ethics
and great central truths of the gospel, that he may quadrate his
life by these, and become a constructive force in the moral and social
regeneration of the world.

II. A second object of the educational work of missions is to
bring the non-Christian youth of the community under systematic
religious influences with the hope of their conversion. If Christian

GOUCHER,

How to
educate
them.

The study
of English.
GOUCHER.

Education
for conver-
sion.

Lack of
teachers.

What
schools do,

142 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

doctrine is taught with as much clearness, patience, and enthu-
siasm as arithmetic, reading, and writing, or the more advanced
studies in a first-class secular school; if the Bible is honored, if
prayer is offered daily, if the teachers are consistent with the Chris-
tian standard ‘of deportment, and if the school, of whatever grade, is
thoroughly spiritual in its atmosphere, it will prove a mighty agency
for the extension of the kingdom.

If time permitted I might cite in detail the history of a system
of schools, including about one hundred, in which every school ses-
sion has been opened by reading the Bible, singing Christian hymns
and prayer, and the singing of Christian hymns and the catechism
of the Church have been taught as a part of every day’s instruction
for eighteen years. During that time these schools have resulted,
directly or indirectly, in more than forty thousand conversions.

The difficulty is not to get scholars but teachers. Wherever Chris-
tianity enters, there emerges a growing thirst for Western learning.
Missionary schools, if loyal to their high purpose, show increasing
efficiency, and frequently receive government encouragement. They
gradually command the patronage of the non-Christian people about
them, and come in time to be entirely or nearly self-supporting.
They should always collect in money, produce, or service such tui-
tion fees as may be possible; never pauperize or chill the spirit of
helpfulness in those whom they would elevate. In developing such
communities nothing is more important than self-help.

In such schools impulse is given to both the mental and spiritual
powers, and their development is guided with a view to usefulness.
They develop and conserve energy. Their influence is lasting and
helpful. They break down prejudice, eradicate superstitions, de
stroy fanaticism, nullify the force of heathen traditions, awaken a
better appreciation of the dignity of man, bring the student to realize
the common relationship of all men and of their vital relationship
to the Creator of all, secure a firmer reverence for individual life,
strengthen the sense of personal responsibility to God, and beget an
earnest desire for this personal favor. It is the most potent and least
expensive way to bring to them the truth which shall make them
free. The work of Christian education must be weighed as well as
counted, for all over India the leaders of the native Churches are
the educated men who learned of Christ in the class room.

III. The third object of the educational work of missions is to as-
sist in the development of self-supporting and self-propagating
MISSIONS AND EDUCATION. 143

Churches. The appreciation and support of an educated ministry
must be looked for in an educated laity. Christian education must
underlie and sustain the amenities, the efficiency, and the aggressive,
organizing enterprise of Christianity. The great doctrines of the
gospel inevitably inspire aspirations and activities which it is as
essential to provide for as to create. Christianity must be judged
by its ability to meet necessities as well as to develop desires. If it
should stop short of this, the last state of its converts would be worse
than the former. The enlargement of their personality and their
enrichment for service are as essential to the progress of the Church
as to the quickened aspirations of the converts. The mission schools
are perennial fountains of blessing. They are sending out contin-
ually “the Christian man, manufacturer and magistrate, whose life
will be broadened, whose productive power will be multiplied, whose
justice will be made unimpeachable by the knowledge and the in-
spiration of what he learned at the school.” These will covet similar
or increased opportunities for their children, and can be relied upon
as willing ‘supporters, wise counselors, and persuasive advocates for
mission work. Through the preaching of the Word and the edu-
cation of the schools the disciple is being prepared for an ever-
growing fellowship of love, knowledge, and service with his Lord.
But there are limitations to the character and extent of the edu-
cational work of missions. The danger is that, allured by success,
zeal, or sympathy, they may attempt forms of work which are extra
to their legitimate office. The purpose of missions is the inaugura-
tion of the kingdom; not simply the salvation of a soul, but the sal-
vation of souls for service. Abstractly, one soul is as dear to God
as another, but God selects his instruments with infinite exactness ;
and, as between two souls, he gives a larger opportunity for prepara-
tion to the one that may do more for the kingdom. There are
missions which invest largely of their limited funds in the most ex-
pensive and least promising kinds of work. An excessive amount
of orphanage work may be of this kind. Children in large numbers
are frequently gathered together and kept in an institution, under
training, the sole basis of their selection being that they were orphans
or had been abandoned by their parents. Frequently their strength,
vitality, and aptitudes are below the average, not infrequently far
below. They were disarticulated from society by the death or deser-
tion of their parents, and the breach has been broadened by the
atmosphere in which they have received their training, for institu-

GOUCHER.

The devel-
opment of
the native
Church.

Legitimate
forms.
GOUCHER.

Schools
better than
orphan-
ages.

Christiani-
ty is in-
spiration-
al.

An intel-
lectual
struggle.

144 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

tional life is inevitably more or less abnormal. Measured by their
adaptation to the conditions in which they must live after leaving
the orphanage, they do not prove the investment made in them to
be the most productive possible. If, instead of thus keeping one
child already disarticulated from society in the abnormal atmos-
phere of an institution from six to twelve years, a similar investment
of money, time, and effort had been made in two or three children,
each fully equal to, and perhaps much above, the average in ability,
aptitudes, and opportunities for service, having home and social
associations, communicating and illustrating at these centers of life
and influence the truths taught at the boarding or day school of the
mission—the probabilities are that the results would have been far-
ther-reaching and have contributed much more largely toward the
establishment of the kingdom.

Christianity is inspirational and not institutional. It works direct-
ly upon the individual and through the individual upon society,
directly upon the heart and indirectly upon the periphery. It has
to do with truth and character. It transforms the unit and holds
it to the highest and best in ideal, effort, and organization. It is the
duty of missions to aid in the planting of the Church by securing
personal piety, personal intelligence, personal efficiency in the serv-
ice and fellowship of God. If the units be right, the results are
assured.

While scientific investigations, industrial organizations, social
clubs, and community experiments may be proper for and obligatory
upon members of the Church, they are outside of the legitimate use
of general missionary funds. The missionary conquest of the twen-
tieth century must be a great intellectual as well as a great spiritual
struggle. The demand is for larger educational and administrative
ability and greater care in selecting agents who are called and con-
secrated to and qualified for leadership. The necessity is for strong
personalities, in which comprehensive education is wedded to deep
piety. The desultory firing of an extended picket line has given
way to the well-defined and compact battle lines of the contending
armies, eager for the inevitable conflict. Personal valor is impor-
tant; skill, endurance, organization, generalship, conservation and
utilization of force, are essential. If Churches would codperate with
each other, combine and not dissipate their funds, supplement each
VALUE OF THE STUDY OF MISSIONS. 145

other’s activities, be as eager to obey the commission to “Go,
teach,” as they are to avoid difficulties or to devote their energies
to nonessentials, there are resources enough at command to se-
cure the establishment of the kingdom of Christ and cause every
knee to bow and every tongue to confess him Lord before this
dawning century shall have reached high noon.

THE VALUE OF THE STUDY OF MISSIONS TO COL-
LEGE STUDENTS.

REV. A. C. MILLAR, D.D.

Ir the inspired history had closed with John’s Gospel, the Son
of Mary had been considered a matchless man, a wonder worker,
a fervid philosopher, a thrilling teacher, a fearless reformer, but
a self-deceived seer, a dreamer of delusive dreams. Helped by
the Holy Spirit, Luke the physician, in his sequel to the Gospels,
portrays the divine man transforming men, his work marvelously
multiplied, his philosophy expounded, his teaching applied, his
reformation extended, his prophecies fulfilled, his dreams realized.
The feats of the apostolic age lend luster to the Gospels, create
confidence in their credibility, and furnish fuel for missionary
zeal. The valedictory of the ascension is found to be not the
desperate defiance of defeated fanaticism but the dynamic impera-
tive of triumphant purpose, broadening and deepening as it is
evermore fulfilled.

If the profane historian had discovered no footprints of the
Man of Sorrows on the path worn deep by the heavy-laden, the
thrilling “it is finished” might well mean merely the end of a per-
plexing tragedy rather than the exultant accent of a heroic pas-
sage in the epic of divinity; the acts of the apostles, the memiirs
of medizval martyrs, and the records of more recent reformers
authenticate the divine origin, validate the spiritual mission,
presage the perpetual progress, and vindicate the heavenward
hepe of Christianity.

The value of the study of these things to strengthen faith and
fced evangelical fire is beyond peradventure. Is only the remote

GOUCHER,
MILLAR.

Mythology vs.
missions.

146 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

past significant? Must men be seen through the fogs of centu-
ries to seem heroic? Surely the century of steel and steam, the
century of electricity and type, the century of progress and phi-
lanthropy, has saints and sacrifices as well as sinners and secular
success. Probably no reputable historian of any period of the
Christian era utterly ignores the facts of missionary history, but
too often they are treated as mere incidents, and their significance
is not appreciated. The worldly ecclesiastic or crafty priest,
rather than the consecrated ambassador of peace, is shown. The
deeds of kings and heroes, the intrigues of courts, the conflicts of
camps, the rise and fall of empires, all these (and they are not
unworthy of consideration) have been the engrossing themes of
the historian and subjects for the schools. If the mythology of
ancient Greece and Rome is fit to form the youthful mind, if the
erotic strains of Sappho, the choral odes of Pindar, the quips of
Plautus, the fantasies of Ovid, the stinging satire of Horace, and
the gibes of Juvenal are food convenient for the adolescent stu-
dent—surely the annals of militant saints and the victories of vir-
tue may safely be presented. If mathematics is used to secure
rigorous reasoning, if language is taught to cultivate felicitous
expression, if science is pursued to stimulate accurate investiga-
tion, if sociology is affected to liberalize thinking, if history is
mastered to increase interpretive power, and ethics to humanize
conduct-—verily there may be virtue in communing with the
choice spirits by whose mathematics the things that were gained
were counted loss for Christ, in whose language the tongues of
men and angels lacking love were sounding brass, whose knowl-
edge does not puff up, whose pure and undefiled religion was
exemplified in seeking the lost, who knowing to do good were
not slack in performance, and looking into the perfect law of
liberty continued steadfast therein.

The study of missions, whether of apostolic, medieval, or mod-
ern times, is far more worthy in subject matter than many studies
that have long held a place in the college curriculum. The value
for informing the mind and inspiring the heart can hardly be
questioned. The same class methods used for teaching purely
secular history and biography would serve in teaching missions.
The subject is admirably adapted to presentation by lecture, and
there are many excellent books that could be used in part at
least. Very soon others growing out of class lectures would be
VALUE OF THE STUDY OF MISSIONS. 1447

written. The literature of missions, already voluminous and
varied, is increasing rapidly. Missionary effort as connected with
commerce in India and China, with exploration in Africa, with
diplomacy in Japan, with education, medical work, and the trans-
lation of Holy Scripture in nearly all lands, and with the romantic
transformation of the islands of the sea, gives a variety and rich-
ness unsurpassed in any other field of human endeavor.

As a potent factor in the social and economic progress of the
world Christianity may not now be ignored even by the purely
secular institution; much less can the denominational college,
established to promote learning under the most wholesome influ-
ences and in the purest spiritual atmosphere, even‘if not directly
a propaganda of the faith, afford to neglect a subject so vitally
connected with its own history and so necessary to its perpetuity.

The summary of the whole law as given by our Lord is to love
God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves. These command-
ments, incarnated and exemplified in Christ, were intensified and
made personal in his thrilling imperative: “Go ye into all the
world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Directly or in-
directly to aid men to understand Christ’s mission and to obey
his orders is the prime purpose of the Christian college. Being
a radiating center of Christian influence, if the Christian college
fails first to grasp and then to enforce the full significance of the
great commission, there is little hope of having a missionary
Church. The following statements, requiring only a brief argu-
ment for support, are submitted:

1. The denominational college, founded and supported by mis-
sionary spirit, gathers from religious homes the choicest and
mest consecrated youth.

2. These young people, however high their hopes and holy their
ambitions at college, have clearer vision and more definite plans.
Before entering college they do not sufficiently understand them-
selves and life’s work to decide wisely. After graduation cares
and burdens rapidly accumulate and the day of opportunity
passes.

Until the Student Volunteer Movement began to present mis-
sionary obligations to students there was a scarcity of candidates
for foreign work. Under the influence of this mighty spiritual
movement, projected upon our best life at a critical period, a host

.of eager, consecrated youth in the brief space of fifteen years has

MILLAR.

A potent
factor in
progress.

Four
considera-
tions.
MILLAR,

Missionary
pastors.

Missions and
politics.

148 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

challenged the wealth of the Churches to do the Master’s bid-
ding. In order that these zealous youth may not be caught up
by a mere whirlwind of enthusiasm, they should have ample op-
portunity, calmly and critically and under the wisest leadership, to
study their own qualifications and the work to be accomplished.

3. A high degree of preparation is necessary for the prospec-
tive foreign missionary. While the special training must be
given in theological seminaries and mission training schools, the
general work may properly begin in college. Courses in com-
parative religion and philosophy, in sociology, in ethnology, in
the geography and history of the heathen countries, in the biog-
raphy of missionaries and explorers, in international law and di-
plomacy, may be offered as electives and made profitable to the
ordinary student as culture studies and invaluable to the future
missionary in suggesting and solving practical problems.

4. Not only are missionaries thus secured and practically pre-
pared, but others who will not go but who will be leaders at home
are warmly and intelligently enlisted. Thus through her most
influential men the whole Church will be connected with mission-
ary work and deadly apathy may be shaken off.

In a recent address Mr. F. P. Turner, one of the Secretaries of
the Volunteer Movement, said: “So far as human agencies are
concerned, the stability of the missionary enterprise depends on
having a missionary pastorate in the home Churches. Not only
should the future pastor study missions, but it is important that
those who are to become lay members of the Churches should be
enlisted. How much easier the task of the pastor if he be in-
telligently supported by the influential lawyers, doctors, editors,
and business men of his parisly! The force of missionaries could
be greatly increased if the men of wealth in the Churches were
giving proportionately of their great incomes for this work.
Would not some of the men of wealth in the universities be led
to support one or more missionaries if they were induced to study
missions while in the universities ?”

The missionary enterprise and international politics are close-
ly related. “Missionaries run the risk,” said a statesman recent-
ly, “of producing terrible events on a gigantic scale because their
position is closely mixed up with that of secular powers. No doubt
missionaries and their work are unpopular at many foreign offices.
It is of the greatest importance, therefore, that the future Ameri-
VALUE OF THE STUDY OF MISSIONS. 149

can ministers, ambassadors, consuls, officers of the armies and
navies, and other officials of Christian nations have a sympa-
thetic knowledge of missions. And when have our student
movements a better opportunity than while these men are stu-
dents?”

The suggestion of college courses in missions is the outgrowth
of interest awakened by the Student Volunteer Movement. The
volunteers early formed themselves into bands, which at first de-
vised their own programmes. In time regular courses were for-
mulated by the leaders, and these are now studied by nearly al!
volunteers in about five hundred institutions. For the current
scholastic year the studies have been based on Mott’s Evangeliza-
tion of the World in This Generation,” and “‘Protestant Missionsin
South America,” by H. P. Beachand others. All of this work has
been outside of the regular college studies and is carried on as a
distinctly religious endeavor. Some years agio efforts were made
to introduce courses in missions into the curriculum of the theo-
logical seminaries. At the third International Convention of the
Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, held at
Cleveland in 1898, Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall, President of
Union Theological Seminary, in discussing the subject offered
four propositions as follows :

1. That the hope of large extension of missions in the near
future chiefly rests upon the codperation of the student class.

2. That the period of academic life contains the influences that
are likely to give direction to the tastes and sympathies of later
years. :

3. That the predominant influences of the college and semi-
nary life are not those which would naturally direct the mind to-
ward the subject of world-wide evangelization.

4. That larger opportunity for the study of missions in col-
lege and seminary may reasonably be advocated.

In discussing the third proposition, Dr. Hall, speaking of the
development of higher education, forcibly says: “By the increas-
ing importance attached to the study of comparative religion,
by the marked attention paid to the philosophy of religion, and
by the thorough treatment of sociology the student who thinks
is encouraged to make a larger and larger induction in determin-
ing his doctrine of living and in electing his specific vocation.

-But when all this has been said it remains true that there is little

MILLAR.

Four proposi-
tions by
Dr. Hall.
MILLAR.

Comparative
religions,

I50 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

in his college curriculum, and more recently there has been com-
paratively little in his seminary curriculum, to direct his attention
upon missions and to give him such broad, accurate, and modern
information as would lead him to include the subject of world-
wide evangelization in that rational induction which should be
made before he decides what to do with his life. On the contrary,
this great department of knowledge, possessing a literature of
its own and connecting itself by the most important ties with
the life of nations, as well as with the life of Churches, has not yet
received in the college curriculum the place to which it is entitled,
and has not yet, even in the seminary curriculum, generally been
treated with the honor that is its due. And the mind of the
student, instead of being strongly attached to the subject, has
been systematically diverted from it. By this I do not mean that
our Christian colleges and seminaries have excluded the study
of missions; but they have in some degree omitted to make
provision for that study, in consequence of which omission the
predominant influences of the college and seminary life, how-
ever excellent in themselves, are not those that would naturally
direct the mind to the subject of world-wide evangelization. This
is true of the study of the physical sciences, of the classics, of po-
litical economy, of literature, of systematic theology, and even of
Church history. Through no one of those channels of discipline
is the mind of the student necessarily brought to see and to feel
the tremendous phenomena of heathenism; through no one of
them is his ear necessarily quickened to hear that exceedingly
bitter cry of Christless souls vainly seeking the consolation which
man’s nature requires, in faiths that cannot feed the deepest life.
The student may be the most earnest of persons, he may be the
most sincere of Christ’s disciples, he may honestly desire to do
God’s bidding and to consecrate his life for the most effective
service ; but if in the seats of learning whither he goes to prepare
for life he finds none to unfold before him the science of the
world’s evangelization, none to point out to him the condition
of the non-Christian world, none to inform him of what has been
done, of what is doing, of what needs to be done, to take Christ
to the world and to bring the world to Christ—if instead of burn-
ing speech and illuminating instruction upon this theme he finds
a heavy veil of silence let down before it as if there were no such
thing upon the heart of Christ as the world’s redemption, can any
VALUE OF THE STUDY OF MISSIONS. I51I

one say that the student has had full opportunity to make his own
induction and to determine what we shall do with his life ?”

At a conference of presidents, professors, and instructors in
colleges and theological seminaries held during this Cleveland
Convention like sentiments and opinions were freely expressed.

Prof. J. Ross Stevenson, of McCormick Theological Seminary,
Presbyterian, said: “After the forcible address given by Dr. Hal!
I need not dwell upon the thought that we as instructors occupy
positions of strategic importance, since from us largely the stu-
dents are to receive that impression which will either encourage
them to reach conclusions or dampen their enthusiasm for mis-
sions.”

Prof. W. F. Oldham, of Ohio Wesleyan University, Methodist,
said: “It is my great pleasure to be connected with an institu-
tion in which the department of missions and the comparative
study of religion has already been inaugurated. Its work is elec-
tive, but of the entire number of three hundred and twenty Fresh-
men two hundred and thirty-eight chose from two to eight hours
in this special department. With undergraduates the study of
comparative religion must be made elementary. In order to
have a basis for the comparison it is absolutely necessary to intro-
duce the careful study of the English Bible. I find myself more
and more forced out of my legitimate department into really
teaching Christianity, in order that I may through that teaching
get that with which to compare other things. But we give two
hours a week definitely to the study of the missionary enter-
prise. There are few available text-books, but with assigned
reading and oral lectures I can testify that the history of missions
can be made the most stimulating and the most interesting study
of the undergraduate course. Such courses may wisely be in-
troduced into any of our schools. Where it may not be possible
to introduce at once a chair of missions, we might have at least a
monthly lectureship. A living lecturer will accomplish for any
school a thousandfold more than any literature you can send.
There are two propositions which I would urge: First, to
suggest to the governing boards of our Christian colleges that
they establish a department of teaching that will afford an op-
portunity to master the history of our missionary enterprises.
Secondly, if they be not able to endow professorships—and many
of the schools are not able—that they give their attention to

MILLAR.

2xpert testi-
mony.
MILLAR.

Other wit-
messes.

152 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

creating lectureships, in which half a dozen men may be
consecutively employed in going from school to school, setting a
torch to the material that is there, and leaving a blaze behind.”’

Prof. E. C. Dargan, of the Southern Baptist Theological Semi-
nary, said: “I do not know whether we are quite prepared to estab-
lish a special chair in missions. To establish such a chair in a theo-
logical seminary, you must either suppplant something now in the
course or add something to it. If the courses as at present are
sufficient, then to add a separate chair will make the curriculum
too heavy and too long. If you are to supplant, what will you
supplant? It may be made elective, and that is the case with us.
We have a system of special classes which are a sort of upstairs
to all our other departments.”

Prof. W. D. McKenzie, of the Chicago Theological Seminary,
after speaking of the Duff missionary professorship of Edinburgh,
Scotland, said: “In our own seminary the professor of Church
history takes up this work. Last year he made an.elective course
in Warneck’s book. I think from a personal point of view mis-
sionary instruction is of enormous importance alike in the col-
lege and in the seminary.”

Prof. Chalmers Martin, of Princeton Theological Seminary,
Presbyterian, said: “We have had for several years a required
course in missions one hour a week. It is divided between mem-
bers of the faculty, and aims to be fundamental. It consists of
missionary biographies. It begins with the philosophy of mis-
sions exclusive of the claim of Christianity as the religion, and
proceeds to the biblical history of missions, the evangelistic idea
in the Old Testament and St. Paul in the new, and generally the
biblical doctrines of missions. Then the history of missions is
taken up; apostolic, medieval, and modern missions are studied,
and the course is closed by a professor of practical theology who
is a member of our Board of Foreign Missions, with a series of
lectures on the practical questions of missions, on the organiza-
tion of the Mission Board at home, on the conduct of missions
abroad, on the relation of the missionary to the Board at home
and the mission of which he is a member and to the Church pres-
bytery in the bounds of which he may be laboring, and all such
practical matters.”

In adopting resolutions indorsing the Student Volunteer
Movement, the representatives of fifty institutions declared:
VALUE OF THE STUDY OF MISSIONS. 153

“That we further recognize the great importance of introducing
in some definite way the study of the subject of missions, under
well-qualified instruction in the theological seminaries, and like-
wise the propriety of giving to its historical treatment a place in
our college curricula, either in the form of annual lectures or as
an elective.”

These copious extracts are given because recent correspond-
ence with representatives of many colleges has failed to elicit
fuller or more definite information. Practically all the colleges
have more or less of mission study by volunteer bands. Most of
the theological seminaries, in addition to the missionary study
involved in Church history, provide lectures and elective courses.
Few colleges give any kind of course in missions. Several great
universities offer electives in sociology, ethnology, history, and
comparative religion and philosophy, but the motive is to pro-
mote their own interests rather than to create missionary zeal.

In our Southern Methodist colleges, which as yet on account
of poverty are offering very meager courses in history and the
Bible, another course as new and untried as the study of mis-
sions may seem to be an impossibility. However, if the Church
lacks strong missionary enthusiasm and the colleges are the
originating and radiating centers of the holiest influences, the men
who have already been making brick without straw must rise a
little earlier, pray more fervently, and take up the new task not
reluctantly, but with the joy that the faithful follower of the di-
vine Burden Bearer feels when opportunity opens a better way to
point men to the Lamb of God.

What may reasonably be expected?

1. Even in the small unendowed colleges, in connection with
the department of history and philosophy, one hour a week may
be given to an elective course in missionary study.

2. In the stronger institutions more and broader courses may
be given and in time a chair of missions may be established.

3. Our Board of Missions and our General Board of Educa-
tion, codperating, may support a special missionary lecturer
whose duty it would be to visit each college once a year for the
purpose of delivering a series of missionary lectures. About a
week might be spent in each college.

“Knowledge is power.” Let us fill the choicest youth of our

MILLAR.

Duty of our
Church.
MILLAR.

154 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Church with the knowledge of the work of the Holy Spirit, so
that some, separated for the direct work, may be thrust forth by
the Spirit, while those who remain at home, having ‘the same
knowledge, may be filled with the same spirit and, uniting wisdom
and wealth and consecrated power, may form one united host in
preparing the world to crown Christ Lord of all.

WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL WORK.
MISS MARIA L. GIBSON.

THE message of the incarnation breathing into the souls of the’
world a knowledge of the depth and sweetness of redeeming
love is a revelation of the value of man in the sight of God. The
evangel of the resurrection, exalting the soul with a sense of
power imparted by our risen Lord, is a revelation of divine maj-
esty and a prefiguring of the time when love’s redemptive work
shall be complete and “at the name of Jesus every knee shall
bow.”

Quickened by this power, confident of victory in his name,
the messengers of Jesus have obeyed his command conveyed in
his last commission. Salvation through the atonement of Jesus,
the Christ, is their theme to a lost world. Seek we to know the
responsibility of woman in Christendom, free, happy, beloved,
toward her unhappy heathen sisters, enslaved, wretched, un-
loved? Let the Scotch poet give answer:

What live we for but this?

Into the soul to breathe the soul of sweetness;

The stunted growth to rear to fair completeness,
Drown sneers in smiles, kill hatred with a kiss,

And to the sandy waste bequeath the fame

That the flowers bloomed behind us where we came.

The heathen world is filled with stunted growths. Woman
from infancy to age is shackled by custom and caste, degraded
by ignorance and superstition, oppressed and crushed under the
curse of heathendom. There are stunted growths in other lands
—women illiterate and immoral, who worship images and saints,
WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 155

exalting them to the sphere where God alone should reign. ™ss o1son.
These women have no knowledge of a pitying God, our Father ;
of a living, loving Christ, who should be king of their lives; of a
gracious Comforter, the Holy Ghost. Who can, who will loose
the shackles, inspire the hopeless, free heathen and non-Christian
womanhood from the dominion of the curse? Who can, who will
develop the stunted growths into “the measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ?” Who can so well as Christian woman-
hood? It is eminently fitting that woman should thus honor her
Lord. “It is eminently fitting, it is blessed compensation, it is
divine retribution that she who brought sin into the world should
also bring the Saviour; and that she also who brought the Sav-
iour should in these last days further on the finished work of
salvation, should bring the top stone to the temple with shout-
ings of ‘Grace, grace unto it!”

Why stress the educational feature in this woman’s work for
women? Five reasons will suffice to show the answers which ope way of
might be given: education.

1. The two most potent agencies for propagating the gospel
and for educating the ignorant are the living voice and the printed
page. In the schools the two agencies are combined. The per-
sonality of the teacher and the power of the schoolbook together
are effective weapons in vanquishing ignorance and developing
the mind.

2. It is an admitted fact that the first work of the missionary
has to be the culture of some degree of moral sense, and that his
work for the moral culture of men and women is but begun when
they have believed. The moral sense has to be cultivated con-
tinuously. The Lord Jesus, when he said, “Of such is the king-
dom of heaven,” gave a hint as to the time of saving the next
generation—in its childhood. The Christian teacher may mold,
according to the wisdom God has given ‘her, open and pliable
minds.

3. Christian schools give to the pupils a Christian vocabulary,
which makes it possible for them all through their lives to receive
the instruction prepared for them in sermons and books. They
do still more: they plant in their susceptible hearts seeds of
heavenly truth that may bring forth rich fruitage in after years.
In day schools we find that girls going from day to day to their
homes with words of Christian truth upon their lips and stories
MISS GIBSON.

What it does
for the
women,

156 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

of Christ’s love and power in their hearts are preparing the way
as nothing else could do for the visits of the missionaries and the
Bible women. Mothers all the world over welcome those who
have brought good gifts unto their children.

4. It is estimated that one billion of the world’s inhabitants
cannot read. The heathen world must be Christianized and edu-
cated by the natives. In elementary schools heathen children are
trained and made ready for higher education, so that they may
become teachers. In papal lands “the Catholic hierarchy is op-
posed to freedom of thought, freedom of worship, free govern-
ment, a free press, ‘and free schools.” Mission schools teach the
truth that makes God’s children free indeed, place allegiance to
Christ higher than devotion to the Church, and dispel ignorance
and superstition by the Word of God. “The entrance of thy
word giveth light.”

5. Educational work is necessary to prepare girls for life and
its duties. As in all lands but those distinctly Christian a woman
is not allowed to remain unmarried, the pupils must be prepared
to make for themselves well-ordered Christian homes. Through-
out the course care should be taken not to unfit a girl for life
among her own people, but to teach her the duties that pertain
to the home most thoroughly and systematically, and at the same
time to cultivate habits of order and cleanliness quite foreign to
the home and life from which she has come. She must be so
drilled in all these things that fidelity to the principles involved
will be a necessary part of her life. This education cannot be
secured in a day school, hence girls’ boarding schools have be-
come a feature in woman’s work. It is here that pupils are won
for Christ, and after graduation a large part of them go out to
engage in active Christian work or to establish Christian homes
as centers of light in the midst of surrounding darkness.

An Eastern proverb says, “The ax handle is of wood; the tree
is not cut down save by a branch of itself; hence it is not sur-
prising that the work of Christians for heathen women in helping
to cut away the roots of idolatry has become a component part of
foreign missions. This important work was undertaken first by
the wives of missionaries, and in later years single women aug-
mented the working force. Shall not women’s boards and soci-
eties to-day offer a tribute of praise to God for the lives and labors
of these pioneers?
WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 157

Mrs. Marshman organized the first female school in India at
Serampore in 1807, and before 1825 thirty schools, numbering
four hundred pupils, had been opened. Miss Whately, daughter
of Archbishop Whately, of England, opened a school for girls in
Cairo, Egypt, in 1860. Nine years later her friends enabled her
to erect a spacious building, and the number of her pupils had
increased to six hundred. Miss Whately died in Egypt in 1889,
but her work will go on forever.

The opening of Presbyterian missions in Mexico, in 1864, is ac-
credited to Miss Melinda Rankin, who did pioneerwork there amid
many hardships and persecutions. Did time permit, women from
many lands might claim our meed of praise. In our beloved
Church we love to honor two women, with us yet, who, as wives
of missionaries, did great service in woman’s educational work
in China: Mrs. W. G. E, Cunnyngham and Mrs. J. W. Lambuth,
whose husbands, after lives of royal living and giving, have gone
into the presence of the King. Dr. and Mrs. Cunnyngham went
to China in 1852, and soon afterwards Mrs. Cunnyngham opened
a day school for little girls, paying the children four cash a day
to secure attendance. Her visible work in China ended in 1861,
but who shall estimate its results?

Mrs. Lambuth has spent her life in the Orient, thirty-two years
in China and the remainder in Japan. She is regarded as the
mother of our school work in China, having had, in God’s prov-
idence, the opening of our boarding school now known for many
years as Clopton School—so named in honor of the mother of
Mrs. McGavock, first Secretary of the Woman’s Foreign Mis-
sionary Society of our Church, who gave her diamonds as an
offering to build it. For twenty-eight years Mrs. Lambuth di-
rected Clopton School and laid strong foundations for schools
for girls in China. A doxology sounds throughout our Church
that God has so signally crowned the labors of these, his pioneer
servants in our missionary work.

As a sequence to this individual work, and answering to the
awakenings in heathen and Christian lands, Wioman’s Missionary
Societies began their work. It would be interesting to sketch
the educational work of the various Boards and Woman’s For-
eign Missionary Societies, but the limits of the hour forbid detail.

A comparison of reports of various societies shows that every
department from the kindergarten to the college is comprised in

MISS GIBSON.

Beginnings.
MISS GIBSON.

Aim of schools.

158 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

their educational work. An able paper by Mrs. John R. Mott on
“Higher Education for Girls in Mission Fields” reviews the
movement for higher education of women in all lands, discusses
the aim, scope, and advantages of higher education of girls in
mission fields, and shows that there are to-day in the mission field
forty-nine institutions for women, under sixteen Boards, giving
higher education—about three-fifths of the whole number being
found under three Boards: the Presbyterian, American,and Meth-
odist Episcopal. She sums up the results as follows: (1) Thou-
sands of women have been thoroughly educated. (2) The over-
whelming majority have gone out as professed Christians. (3):
These schools are training schools for Christian leadership. (4):
They are supplying Christian teachers and leaders. Industrial
schools are also included, and among the industries taught are
needlework, weaving, lace-making, carpet-making, domestic
work, cooking, gardening, grinding, vegetable and fowl raising,
and farming.

As the aim of all these schools, elementary or college, is to
develop Christian character and to train for Christian service
among the natives, we find, too, the same principles underlying
the instruction: (1) Thoroughness in work. Whatever is taught
must be taught thoroughly, not only for the result in knowledge
but for the effect on character. (2) Adaptability to the environ-
ments and needs of the pupils, and to the conditions in life for
which they are to be fitted. (3) The Bible is regarded as the
foundation ; Christianity as the motive power; Christian charac-
ter the end sought. (4) The schools, except what are known as
charity day schools, favor some payment, no matter how small,
for tuition. This is stressed, especially in schools of higher grade,
as a help to character-building.

The finest illustration of woman’s work for foreign missions
that has ever been given was presented on Woman’s Day at the
Ecumenical Conference, when, at the afternoon session, four hun-
dred women missionaries, representing forty-one boards and so-
cieties, passed in review before the thousands that crowded Car-
negie Hall to do them honor; and at the evening meeting, as a
natural sequence to the first assemblage, there was on the same
platform what might be termed the golden fruitage from the
seed dispersed by those women missionaries—women from vari-
ous lands who had been educated and brought to Christ in mis-
WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 159

sion schools for girls maintained by the Women’s Boards of For-
eign Missions.

Experience has taught that every great movement is the crys-
tallized thought of some earnest, enthusiastic pioneer, and in this
educational movement in foreign missions there are women who
will ever rank among master builders, for the work they have
wrought in imperishable material, resulting in an educated Chris-
tian womanhood, steadily growing, in non-Christian lands. A
few only may be mentioned : Eliza Agnew, of Ceylon, “the mother
of a thousand daughters,” who taught in the same school for for-
ty-one years, during which six hundred girls were graduated,
nearly all of whom had come to her from heathen homes and
every one of whom went out from her school professing Chris-
tians; Miss Isabella Thoburn, the first missionary sent out by
the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, in 1869, and who stands at the head of their
educational work as Principal of Lucknow College and two other
girls’ schools in India; Miss Adele Field, of the Baptist Board,
who has done such noble work in the Training School for Bible
Women in Swatow, China; Miss A. F. Safford, of Soochow,
China, who wielded a marvelous influence over the Chinese as
a representative of the Presbyterian Board; Miss Laura Hay-
good, of the Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions, Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, whose broad and catholic spirit com-
bined with mental and spiritual gifts to make her an ideal mis-
sionary; Mrs. J. W. Lambuth, of whose services in ‘China and
Japan mention has been made; Mrs. Alice Gordon Gulick, rep-
resenting the Congregational Church, Director of the Interna-
tional Institute for girls in Spain, who founded a school for girls
in San Sebastian in 1882, out of which the Institute has grown.
In a hired house in San Sebastian Mrs. Gulick has done a won-
derful work for women in Spain—a land where at the last census,
in 1887, sixty-eight and one-half per cent of the people were illit-
erate. The graduates of that school are now teaching three thou-
‘sand children in different places. Mrs. Gulick is now in the
United States in the interest of the school. It is proposed to
transfer the International Institute to Madrid, and an appeal is
made to the women and girls of America, especially to the stu-
dents in the colleges for women in the United States, to con-
tribute $50,000 to build College Hall in Madrid.

MISS GIBSON.

Pioneers.
MISS GIBSON.

Products.

160 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Women’s Boards have accepted the definition of education as
“a debt due from present to future generations,” and have already
received royal dividends on the funds invested to pay their debt.
Could the mother of the Gracchi equal in happiness the spiritual
mothers of the types of educated, Christian womanhood out of
heathen and non-Christian lands who are now teachers and evan-
gelists, and who are of exceeding value as prototypes of future
generations after their own image and likeness? A few of world
renown must suffice—for example, Layah Barakat, a Maronite
of Syria, educated by the Presbyterian Board. At mention of
her name a picture rises before me of her eloquent, Spirit-filled
personality pleading in the name of Jesus with the women of this
free land to give to her unhappy sisters in Syria the blessing they
had secured for her. Dr. Hu King Eng, of China, of Christian
parentage, educated under the influence of our sister society of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, is a gifted woman who has at-
tracted the attention of two continents, and who, while at col-
lege in Ohio, led many young women of this land to accept
Christ, among whom was the late Miss Maude Simons, who after-
wards became a missionary to Japan. When called of God to
offer herself as a missionary, Miss Simons met the remonstrances
of her friends by saying: “It took one from a heathen land to
win my stubborn heart; don’t you think that my heart ought to
be given to foreign missions?’ Miss Lilavati Singh, who was
educated by Miss Thoburn, graduated from Lucknow College,
and afterwards received a degree in the Calcutta University, is a
most attractive type of Christian womanhood. Her command of
English, her ability as a speaker, and her eloquence in pleading
for the women of India made her notable ‘at the Ecumenical Con-
ference in New York. Since her return to India Miss Singh has
entered the service of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society,
Methodist Episcopal Church, as a missionary. Pundita Rama-
bai, the learned Brahmin, a royal-hearted Christian, the God-
appointed rescuer and defender of child widows and famine
children, who thas won the respect of the world by her gifts
and grace, is another of India’s daughters—now a daughter of
our King. Does it seem possible that such women as these last
two are found in India, where, in 1830, Dr. Duff said, “You might
as well try to scale a wall five hundred yards high as to attempt
female education in India?” Do we need better evidence that the
WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 161

woman’s educational movement is of God? Has our own Church
—our own Board—no jewel to shine as its star? In Brazil, in
Mexico there are many cultured young women, graduates of our
schools, who are now engaged in teaching, and winning distinc-
tion. There is also in the United States now an earnest young
girl from McTyeire School, Shanghai, daughter of one of our
native preachers, himself a graduate of Vanderbilt University,
who is preparing to teach in China on her return. In the “Land of
the Morning Calm,’ as the wife of Mr. Yun, the Secretary of Edu-
cation in Korea, a lovely Chinese woman, educated in Clopton
School, and afterwards in McTyeire School, Shanghai, is a jewel
which we call ours, and for which we give praise. Her mother’s
history, so closely associated with the ministries of Mrs. Lam-
buth, is well known. Cultured, beautiful in person and in char-
acter, Mrs. Yun takes rank with the ladies of the nobility in
Korea, and in her official life as well as in her home is showing the
beauty of Christianity.

From its inception the Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions,
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has stressed educational
work. Its faith in the power of education as an evangelistic
agency is shown in its liberal investment in real estate, buildings,
and its supply of missionaries and teachers: Missionaries in serv-
ice of the Board in the field, 58; teachers, 59; native teachers, 43;
assistants, 71; boarding schools, 17; pupils, 2,256; day schools,
61, pupils, 1,957; Bible colleges, 2; Bible women, 33; woman’s
class, 165; kindergartens, 4; value of school buildings owned
by the Board, $251,829.

The problems encountered are varied. The fields occupied are
China, Brazil, Mexico, Korea, Cuba, and the wild tribes in the
Indian Territory. The hindrances met are ignorance, supersti-
tion, spiritual lethargy, corrupt morals; the one aim, to over-
come these hindrances through the power of our Lord Jesus
Christ.

Educational work in China antedated the organization of the
Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society two years, Mrs. Lambuth
having opened Clopton School in 1876. The present work of
our Board includes five boarding schools and thirty-five day
schools—total pupils, 1,001. Our first missionary, Miss Lochie
Rankin, has charge of Pleasant College and the Anglo-Chinese
School at Nantziang. These schools—the Mary Lambuth School

10

MISS GIBSON.

History.
MISS GIBSON.

China.

Korea.

162 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

in Soochow and McTyeire Home and School in Shanghai—are
conducted on the same general plan, and are achieving fine re-
sults. Clopton and McTyeire may be taken as types. Clopton
School remains as it began—a charity boarding school. The
instruction is given wholly in Chinese, and so thorough is the
course that the graduates and former students of Clopton School
form a large proportion of the teachers in the boarding and day
schools in our own Church, and are also employed in those of
other denominations.

McTyeire Home and School may be termed the sequence to
the great work inaugurated in Clopton School. Here English
as well as Chinese is taught, and the curriculum is equal to that
ofa high-grade young ladies’ seminary in the United States. The
pupils are girls from the higher classes of society who would not
patronize a charity school. McGavock Memorial—a fine three-
story building lately erected—is an annex to McTyeire, and has
doubled its capacity and usefulness.

The twentieth century thought of our Board for China is the
speedy erection of the Laura Haygood Home and School and
Cunnyngham Chapel at Soochow to meet the forward movement
of the General Board in planning Soochow University.

Our boarding school—Carolina Institute—has been opened in
Seoul, Korea, by Mrs. Campbell, who has charge of the work of
our Board, also two day schools. Besides regular instruction in
common branches, the children are taught cleanliness and sys-
tem in their daily life, also lessons in sewing and housework.
They are also taught to memorize Scripture daily, and to engage
in morning and evening services of prayer and song. Thus is the
good seed sown by Mrs. Campbell and her associates.

Our Woman’s Board has no schools in Japan, but rejoices in
the fine educational work of our General Board, especially that
under the direction of the women: the Lambuth Bible Training
and Industrial School, and the Palmore Institute at Kobé, of
which Mrs. Lambuth has been in charge for years, and the Hiro-
shima Girls’ School, an institute of high grade, Miss Nannie B.
Gaines, Principal. These schools are well known and much es-
teemed for thorough Christian and educational work.

Educational work in Brazil was begun in 1881 by Miss M. H.
Watts, first missionary of our Board to that field, who, taking
as a foundation a girls’ school at Piracicaba, begun by the Misses
WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 163

Newman, daughters of a missionary, began to build. So marked
was her success that the Colegio Piracicabano has won the re-
spect and admiration of men high in State, and prepared for the
hearty acceptance of other boarding schools established later.
One condition of admission is required: that pupils study the
Bible as part of the course. Instruction in Portuguese and Eng-
lish is given, and music and art have a place in the curriculum.
The method pursued in the other schools of the Board is similar
to that of the school in Piracicaba. The centers occupied as
boarding schools are Juiz de Fora and Petropolis. Day schools
have been opened recently at Ribeirao Preto and Porto Alegre.
A system of day schools established by Miss Glenn in Rio de
Janeiro promises fine results. This method is deemed best for
Rio, where yellow fever endangers the work of boarding schools.
The twentieth century thought for Brazil is the erection of the
Isabella Hendrix School at Juiz de Fora.

Who that has seen Laredo Seminary beside the Rio Grande,
with its ten buildings and fifteen acres of land, will doubt that
the blessing of God has rested upon the work begun in Mexico
in 1881 by our first missionary, Miss Rebecca Toland, who is
still doing work for our Board in that land? Laredo Seminary
is the largest boarding school under the Board, and the model
for the others established later. It includes all departments
from the kindergarten through the college course; also bar-
racks for the boys, and an industrial department tending to
elevate manual labor to its proper position in character-build-
ing. To the ability and faith of Miss Nannie Holding, in charge
of Laredo Seminary and superintendent of the work in Mexico,
much credit must be given for the success attained. Boarding
schools have been established at Saltillo, Chihuahua, San Luis
‘Potosi, Guadalajara, Durango, and City of Mexico. Instruction
is given in English and Spanish. In Colegio Ingles, Saltillo, in
addition to the usual course, a year of normal instruction is given
to supply the demand for Christian graduates capable of teaching
grades of Spanish. Students educated there are teaching not
only in mission schools but also in the public schools of Mexico.

A crown jewel in our cluster of Christian educational institu-
tions in Mexico is to be our twentieth century effort: Mary
Keener Institute and S. S. Park Chapel in the City of Mexico,

Since 1882 the Board has had a boarding school for the chil-

MISS GIBSONe

Brazil.

Mexico.
MISS GIBSON.

Indian Terri-
tory.

Cuba.

The object.

164 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

dren of the wild tribes in the Indian Territory. The purpose is
to fit Indian girls and boys for Christian civilization, hence Meth-
vin Institute combines literary with industrial pursuits, and the
results on character have been encouraging. This Indian work
is under the superintendence of Rev. J. J. Methvin, who reports
to the Board.

Cuba is the last field entered, and educational work is still in its
infancy. Santiago, Matanzas, and Havana are the centers occu-
pied. The Irene Toland School is a beautiful memorial of the
noble physician who died at Santiago while ministering to the
sick and wounded during the Spanish-American war. Our twen-
tieth century gift to Cuba will be the Eliza Bowman School,
in Havana, where work has already been established by Miss
Carson, who is in charge.

This is but a sketch in outline of the educational work of the
Board begun twenty-three years ago. The complete picture
would bring into view the teacher and the taught; the never
ceasing influence set in motion; the hard, everyday living that
could not be endured for education’s sake, but that is borne
cheerfully for Jesus’s sake.

Dr. S. H. Wainright, of Japan, well says: “The mission
school is a gateway through which the best culture of the West
finds entrance without being emasculated of every spiritual ele-
ment. It supplies the Christian interpretation in the study of
science, literature, history, and philosophy.” The great objective
points of education in all mission fields, says one of our thought-
ful missionaries, may be briefly comprehended under three heads:

1. The worship of God to displace the worship of ancestors or
of images.

2. Knowledge to displace superstition.

3. The elevation of woman to her proper sphere.

Without discussing these propositions, it follows that if we
would convince a people that we attach the same importance to
the education of woman as of man, the schools that we establish
for girls must be as good, as complete, as ample, as thoroughly
furnished as those for boys. More than that, the women we send
out as teachers must be as cultured and well-equipped as the
men who are sent to do like work.

Since the millions of children of the heathen Orient and the
neglected Southern continents who are now plastic, ready to be
WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 165

molded, are to be idolaters or Christians when grown to man- ™¥s 61son.

hood and womanhood, how important is the work of education in
our mission schools! how vital the character and equipment of
the teacher! One who speaks out of her own experience as a
missionary says: “She should not only be equipped in the sys-
tem which she proposes to propagate, but she should take pains
to be educated in all that the people among whom she is to labor
consider education, in order, first, to win the esteem of the peo-
ple; secondly, to be able promptly and intelligently to acknowl-
edge the good in their system and to refttte the errors; thirdly, to
discover the best means of replacing the inferior with the superior
system, which may be done most easily by finding the points com-
mon to both systems, accepting any glimpse of truth as an ema-
nation of the truth, and using that as a foundation to build upon.
The ideal teacher finds where a pupil is and presents to him the
next step, not the last step that awaits him.”

Our judgment must approve this sensible utterance. If we
send a missionary to China who knows nothing of Confucianism,
how can she converse intelligently with a Confucianist with the
view to gradually leading him along the lines of his own mental
processes, without cffense to what he holds dear, into broader
avenues of thought? We send missionaries to Mexico, Cuba,
and Brazil. Let one go who knows nothing of the tenets of
Romanism and the differences of faith, who has possibly never at-
tended a service ina Roman Catholic Church, and has never heard
a mass: how can she hope to show the errors of a perverted faith
in papal lands, where ignorance is indeed “the mother of devo-
tion?” How can she say, “This is not what your faith sets forth,”
or explain to a seeker after light where and on what point Protes-
tantism leaves Catholicism? If she is not familiar with the his-
tory of the Christian Church, how can she answer the question
so often asked, “What is a Protestant?” and asked by people who
never heard of the Reformation.

The initial years of all new movements present problems which
after years must solve. In the beginning of this era of mission-
ary effort the missionaries were ordained ministers who by reason
of their theological training were able to instruct inquirers; but
when, in the providence of God, entrance was given to woman
there followed a multitude of men and women not only unor-
dained but unprepared for the grace, duties, and high responsi-

Our missiona-
rles should be
educated,
MISS GIBSON.

The training
school.

166 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

bilities of missionary life. That kind of seed-sowing has borne
fruit after its kind. Now Boards have grown wiser and have
advanced the standard of scholarship. Now the merits of
the candidates are weighed, their health, mental and physical,
is considered, moral character investigated, personal hibits,
temper, adaptability to surroundings, capability for acquiring lan-
guages, ability to impart knowledge, and every other item that
would prove a factor in determining the usefulness of a mission-
ary, are carefully considered before a candidate is accepted. Ex-
perience has taught our Board two other truths: First, that the
call of God to a missionary candidate means a call to preparation;
secondly, that the period of testing would better be spent in this
country. This has led to the establishment of missionary train-
ing schools as a part of woman’s educational work for foreign
missions.

In September, 1892, the Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions,
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, established a training school
for this purpose, which has since expanded until it seeks to train
not only foreign missionaries, but all Christian women who seek
to fit themselves for the service of God anywhere, including nurs-
es, for which purpose a small hospital is one department of the
institution.

The Scarritt Bible and Training School for Missionaries and
Other Christian Workers, Kansas City, Mo., is the property of the
Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions, which controls it through
a Board of Managers of which Bishop E. R. Hendrix is Presi-
dent. Two officers of the Board are principal and Bible teach-
er. The school stands as a memorial of woman’s faith and man’s
deeds, as through the generous gift of herself for several years
Miss Belle H. Bennett, Richmond, Ky., won for the new enter-
prise a place in the heart of the Church, and for its foundation and
support nearly $100,000, while through the gift of the late Rev.
Nathan Scarritt, D.D., of a building site and $25,000, the project
was hastened and the building speedily assured.

As the aim, scope, and course of study of all missionary training
schools are practically identical, an outline of our educational
work will prove an index to the work of others, of which ours
isatype. There are in it seven departments:

1. The Department of Bible Study.
WOMAN’S EDUCATIONAL WORK. 167

2. The Department of Moral Philosophy, Christian Evidences ™5s otss0v.

and Doctrines.

3. The Department of Church History, including the history of
missions,

4. The Department of Nurse-Training, including instruction in
elementary medicine.

5. Industrial Department, including domestic economy and the
art of housekeeping.

6. Department of City Missions, including house-to-house
visitation, religious meetings, methods of work, and sewing
school.

7. General instruction, embracing music, bookkeeping, parlia-
mentary rules, and conduct of business meetings.

In general we speak of two departments, the Bible Depart-
ment and the Nurse-Training Department. The former includes
six of the departments mentioned above, while the latter is ex-
clusively for nurses.

The courses in these two departments are separate, and each
requires two years for graduation. In the Bible Department the
Bible is the central text-book, for we believe that, more than any
other equipment, the missionary needs knowledge of the English
Bible. That missionaries themselves feel the need of this knowl-
edge is evidenced in the recent establishment in New Jersey of
a Bible Teacher’s College, which, while open to others, has in
mind the special instruction of missionaries at home on furlough.

Our Training School has for its object to equip our students as
thoroughly as possible in knowledge and use of the English Bi-
ble. A graduate of our school in crossing the Pacific to her field
of labor was met by an agnostic who plied her with what he
deemed unanswerable questions concerning the Bible and eternal
verities; but out of the instruction she had received on these
points while in the Training School she was enabled to answer
them all, much to his surprise.

The doctrines taught in the Bible, Christian evidences and
Christian ethics, as well as the history of the Christian Church,
are all studied carefully.

A knowledge of elementary medicine and nursing is given be-
cause in the mission field the teacher must do the work in child-
training which usually falls within the province of the home;
must care for the bodies of the children; teach them proper hab-

Scarritt Bible
School.
MISS GIBSON.

The medical
department.

168 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

its, even of personal cleanliness. Students need to know the
laws of health that they may observe them and teach others the
value and beauty of a normal physical condition. They are also
instructed in systematic and orderly methods of domestic work,
that they may teach others.

Through city mission work knowledge of human nature, in-
crease of sympathy, tact, and ease of expression are gained.
Humanity’s longings and deeper needs are the same in civiliza-
tion as in barbarianism; the plan of salvation is the same wheth-
er told in English, Spanish, or Chinese, and personal work under
the supervision of the pastors and teachers while in training is
the best possible preparation for soul-winning in the ends of the
earth. The woman who shrinks with aversion from the filthy
and vermin-infested dwellers in the city slums must by the grace
of God gain the victory over that feeling through the infilling of
Christ’s love and sympathy for poor human nature before she is
prepared to go to Brazil or China or Africa, where worse con-
ditions await her. Her city mission work is a test which she
must meet, or she has no warrant to expect success in the region
beyond.

Life in the Training School dispels all visionary or romantic
views of mission life. It also seeks to encourage the timid and
to lessen self-conceit and self-seeking. Perfection cannot be at-
tained in two years; but “self-knowledge,” in a measure, is
gained, “self-reverence” counseled, “self-control” required, and
as the poet sings: ‘“These three lead life to sovereign power.”
Twenty-five former students have entered the service of this
Board, one is serving our Board in Japan, and ten are accepted
and recommended to the Board in annual session for appoint-
ment.

We have considered the question, Why stress educational work
in heathen and papal lands? we have endeavored to show what
women’s boards and societies are seeking to do through their
representatives in elementary schools and colleges. We have
taken as a type the work of the Woman’s Board of Foreign Mis-
sions in the great Church which has called this Missionary Con-
ference. Having shown the character and extent of the work to
be done, we have considered briefly the qualifications of the work-
er and the preparation already provided in the Training School be-
longing to our Board. Shall we stop here? Shall we not rather
OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CHINA. 169

for one moment, with a doxology in our hearts to Jesus the Christ ™755 st#s0N.
for the call to service, for the opportunities given and the bless-
ings granted to service, marred though it is by unskillfulness—
shall we not seek a vision of our educational and missionary work
as it shall be when it shall have come to pass that every woman re-
deemed from the curse shall realize that it is her royal privilege
to have the Christ incarnate in her, so that the weak and the ig-
norant, seeing her, may know Jesus through her likeness to him ;
when, out of the school founded by Christian women, men and
women shall be raised up in such numbers as witnesses to Christ
that China, India, Korea, and all the nations of the earth shall be
no longer heathen, but shall be Christian, saved through the min-
istry of their own sons and daughters ; when in no land the serv-
ices in the house of God shall be chanted in an unknown tongue,
when in no land the Bible shall be a sealed book?

Women of Methodism, women of the Church of Christ, “saved
to serve,” shall we not hold this vision in view until it can be said
in truth: “The King’s daughter within the palace is all glorious:
her clothing is inwrought with gold. She shall be led unto the
King in broidered work: the virgins her companions that follow
her shall be brought unto thee?”

With gladness and rejoicing shall they be led:

They shall enter into the King’s palace,

Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children,

Whom thou shalt make princes in all the earth.

I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations:
Therefore shall the peoples give thee thanks forever and ever.

OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CHINA.
REV. A. P. PARKER, D.D.

No more important subject will come before the General Mis-
sionary Conference at New Orleans than that of Christian educa-
tion in China. An opportunity to doa grand work for the Master
is now presented to our Southern Methodist Church in this coun-
try, such as has never been met with in the history of our Mission
here, and which, if it is neglected, will cause us infinite loss and
PARKER.

A new era.

Oneness.

170 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

relegate us permanently to the minor and comparatively insignifi-
cant agencies that are working for the salvation of this people.

I am glad, therefore, to have the privilege of saying a word on
the subject, in the hope that I may contribute something toward
helping forward the scheme which has been proposed for the de-
velopment of our educational work in this field, so as to meet the
urgent opportunities that now confront us here.

I. We have entered upon a new era in our educational work.
In the iall of 1899, when Dr. W. R. Lambuth was here, a sort of
spontaneous movement took place in our Mission meeting toward
a plan ior the unification of the school work of the Mission. The
need for such unification had long been felt, and more than one
effort had been made in past years to bring it about, but, owing to
circumstances, of which it is not necessary to speak now, these ef-
forts had failed. But when any considerable body of men want a
thing they are pretty certain to get it, sooner or later, and so what
we had been wanting to see accomplished, and had almost de-
spaired of ever securing, seemed to take shape as if by the direc-
tion of some unseen hand, and the preliminary steps were agreed
to almost at the first meeting which we held to consult about it.
The nomination of the Board of Trustees, and their appointment
by the Board of Missions, and their organization and adoption of
a constitution and by-laws, are already matters of history. Sev-
eral facts mark this movement as especially auspicious at this
time:

1. The unanimity of views among the members of the Mission
onthe subject. Hitherto it has seemed impossible to get the Mis-
sion to unite on a scheme for the correlation of the various grades
of school work in this field. The need for such correlation and
unification has long been manifest to all. It would result in a con-
siderable economy of workers as well as funds; it would make
each school more efficient, by virtue of being a part of a well-artic-
ulated system; it would place the primary and preparatory work
where they properly belong—that is, in the smaller primary
schocls—and thus release the teachers in the higher grades from
much of the drudgery of primary teaching. It would be of im-
mense advantage to the pupils coming under our instruction, as
work done in any school would count for promotion and conse-
quent advantage in the grade next above it, and would, in short,
make the final product of the central and highest institution
OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CHINA. IVI

something worthy of the name, and send forth really educated
young men to fill important positions in Church and State in an
efficient and creditable manner.

But while all have felt the need, none has been able to devise
a plan by which it could be met. The time had not, so far, ap-
peared to be ripe for a forward move. But at the annual meet-
ing in the fall of 1899, when a plan for correlating all our school
work was proposed, it met with the instantaneous approval of all.
There was not a dissenting voice raised against it, and all were,
and are now, ready to lend their aid, as far as may be, to make it
a success,

2. The readiness with which the leading men in the Church in
the home land have taken hold of the scheme. We have been
greatly encouraged at the ready response which our appeal for
help has received from the bishops, the Board of Missions, the
Board of Education, and from many of the leading men through-
out the Church. Such unity of purpose and action on the part of
the Mission here and the Church at home gives abundant promise
of success.

3. The readiness of the Chinese to codperate in the establish-
ment of a large and well-equipped institution in Soochow. (1)
The officials, from the governor of the province to the prefect and
district magistrate, when applied to for assistance in purchasing
the land for the proposed university, promptly responded, and
gave the official aid and sanction without which it would have
been impossible to secure the necessary amount of land for our
purpose. (2) Many of the leading men of wealth and position in
Soochow, Shanghai, Nanzing, Changshuh, and other places have
readily subscribed money when called on to do so in sums varying
from fifty dollars to five thousand dollars (Mexican currency) to
the proposed institution. Nearly twenty thousand dollars has
thus been subscribed by the Chinese alone, of which over six
thousand dollars has been paid in, and the balance is held subject
to call when wanted. Besides all this, we have the promise of fur-
ther help from many of the wealthy Chinese as soon as we get the
institution in running order and prove to them that we really
mean to do something. We have every reason to believe that we
shall be able to obtain large gifts from the Chinese for buildings,
apparatus, etc., when the university becomes an established fact,

PARKER.

Favor at home.

Good will of
Chinese.
PARKER,

Opportunities,

172 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and the Chinese become convinced that their donations will ac-
complish the object for which they may be given.

4. The wonderful opportunities for Christian education in
China. Evidence accumulates on every hand to show that as soon
as the present troubles are settled, which there is good reason to
believe will soon be done, the country will be open to the entrance
of Christian education in a way that we have never dreamed of be-
fore. The people want our education. The knowledge of the
English language is worth large money in the market. Steam-
boats, railways, mines, etc., need educated mentorunthem. The
youth of China, as well as multitudes of the middle-aged and
older men, are ready to break with the obsolete past, and they
want to learn from us what we have discovered that is valuable
about the science of government, sociology, physical science,
etc. They are ready, and indeed eager, to give up the old and fol-
low the new. This was abundantly proved by the manner in
which the Emperor’s reform edicts were received throughout the
country in 1898. General and eager acquiescence in the new or-
der of things was manifested everywhere. The daily Chinese
papers rang with the note of rejoicing that the new era had at last
dawned. Our schools were crowded with pupils eager to get
the new learning. There was universal joy that the old “eight-
legged essays’ in the government civil service examinations were
to give place to modern subjects, such as mathematics, science,
medicine, civil engineering, history, etc. And while the coup d’état
of the Empress Dowager and her reactionary advisers thwarted
for a time the Emperor’s efforts for the renovation of his empire,
the same desire for the new learning still exists among the people.
They want what we have to give them. The recent Boxer upris-
ing represents the attitude of only a comparatively small number
of the people. The leaders in it were Manchus, only one or two
prominent leaders being Chinese. The great bulk of the Chinese
were opposed to it. The masses of the people are ready for a
change. They know a good thing when they see it as well as any
people in the world. And so we must be prepared to teach them.
We must give them the education they want under Christian in-
fluences, so as to train and guide and develop their moral and
spiritual natures while they take on the new learning. This is
vital to the salvation of the country.

5. The location of the proposed university. Soochow is one of
OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CHINA. 173

the great literary centers of the country. Its fame extends
throughout the eighteen provinces, and a great university estab-
lished there and well equipped with men and money and all the ap-
purtenances of an institution of learning will command patron-
age from far and near and will influence the whole country along
the lines of progress. Soochow also has the advantage of placing
far less temptations to dissipation in the way of the youth than
Shanghai. Shanghai, with its licensed vice and its multitudinous
forms of dissipation, all under the legal sanction of the foreign
ratepayers who govern the place, is an exceedingly dangerous
place for young men. Many of them who come here from the
interior quickly go to ruin through the brothels, gambling hells,
opium dens, etc. Soochow is much quieter and freer from the
rampant enticements to evil that run riot in Shanghai. And, as
the site for the university already secured is off to one side of the
city, it will be far easier to control the students than it would be
in Shanghai. Parents will, on this account, be more ready to
send their sons to school there than in Shanghai.

II. But while we have undertaken such great and far-reaching
plans, and while there now opens up to us such a grand opportu-
nity for effectual service here, THE MEANS IN HAND TO ACCOM-
PLISH THE WORK ARE ALTOGETHER INADEQUATE FOR THE PUR-
POSE. We have secured about six acres of land inside the city of
Soochow, and built a wall around it. Three good men, Dr. D. L.
Anderson and Revs. W. B. Nance and J. Whiteside, have been
appointed to lead in the inauguration of the enterprise. A Board
of Trustees has been appointed, and a constitution and by-laws
have been drawn up, and considerable sums of money have been
subscribed by friends in the home land and by the Chinese here
for building the institution. But we have to begin at the very
foundation. We must have buildings for class rooms, dormi-
tories, chapel, professors’ residences, etc. It will require not less
than $20,000 (gold) to make even a bare beginning. And if the
work grows, as it is sure to do, other buildings will be needed in
the near future that will cost from $50,000 to $75,000 (gold), in
addition to the buildings, apparatus, and outfit of various kinds
that will have to be provided. It is true we have a lot of valuable
land in Shanghai which, when improved, will be a source of con-
siderable income to the university; but a large amount of money
will be necessary to improve this vacant land, and when it is im-

PARKER,

Location.

The_needs.
PARKER.

Lost opportu-
nities,

174 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

proved the income will be needed to meet the current expenses.
of the institution. Our immediate need is a sum sufficient to
erect suitable buildings and to provide the necessary outfit.

Our present resources, both in men and money, are wholly in-
sufficient, therefore, to meet the opportunity that now comes to
us, and we must appeal to the Church in the home land for the
help that is needed to establish the proposed university and place
it on a solid basis. Without adequate help from the home land,
it must, in a large measure, fail of its object, and another will take
our crown; for we may rest assured that this work of education
will certainly be done, if not by us, then by others. The Chinese
want the education that we can give them, and they are going to
get it. They look to the missionaries, largely, to give it to them.
If we do not do our part of the work, some other mission will do
if for us; and though we may be thus relieved of the expense and
trouble of it, we shall lose our reward. Fifteen years ago we had
the right of way in the educational work of Central China. We
were in the lead, and ought to have maintained that position.
But for various reasons, chiefly through failure to receive
adequate support from home, our prestige was lost. It has
been impossible to make bricks without straw. Without the
money with which to build the necessary dormitories, class
rooms, chapel, etc., and without the necessary number of com-
petent teachers, it has been found impossible to do the work
demanded by the great movements now in progress. Other
colleges, under wise leadership, with ample funds supplied from
the home land, and with a numerous corps of competent teachers,
have forged ahead and established flourishing institutions that
command unlimited patronage of the best class of students. The
Anglo-Chinese College in Shanghai is still doing a good work, it
is true, and will continue to do so, but its position as the leading
institution of learning in the Yang-tse valley has been lost, and
cannot be regained.

Let us not make a similar mistake in regard to this new en-
terprise in Soochow. The field is ours. Let us occupy it. Let
us not slip another opportunity that God thas placed before our
Southern Methodist Church to do a glorious work for him in
China.

III. One all-important reason why we should go forward with
OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CHINA. 175

this scheme is that we may thereby raise up qualified Christian
leaders for evangelistic and educational work.

Such leaders are a necessary factor in the great missionary
propaganda in this country. China’s greatest need is for men,
educated men,trained men, men of broad views and wide informa-
tion, men of clean hands and pure hearts, men with moral back-
bone, men that fear God and hate sin, that love their country and
care not for self. The government needs them; the Church is call-
ing for them; the Chinese daily papers are crying out for them.
Reading, as I do, the native daily papers in Shanghai, such as the
Shen-pao, the Sin-wan-pao, the Universal Gazette, the Supao, etc.,
Iam constantly impressed with the fact that the native writers see
so plainly that the greatest need of the country is for good men
and true. They say over and again that no amount of gunboats
can make a navy without the right kind of men to take charge of
them; no amount of the best arms and ammunition that can be
purchased in Europe or America can make an army without the

‘right kind of officers and men to use them; no mere reforms in
government methods can benefit the country much unless there
are good and true men to fill the places of trust and power. The
newspapers but echo the sentiments of the people at large, and
we might almost say that they have become in effect great adver-
tising sheets carrying the one advertisement: ‘“Wanted—A
man!”

1. The work of evangelization must necessarily be done chiefly
by native agents. We can never hope to obtain enough foreign
missionaries to preach the gospel to all the millions in this vast
empire. The native preacher can, by reason of greater familiarity
with the language and customs of the people, do the work
much more effectively than the foreign missionary. Pastors for
the organized Churches must also be largely native. The foreign
missionary cannot, as a rule, be a pastor to the native Christians.
There is a great and growing demand in all the missions for na-
tive preachers and pastors, and the supply does not nearly equal
the demand. There is not a mission here that I know of that is
not desirous of securing many more native workers than it now
has. But educated, trained men are wanted, for only this kind
can do the work. Of the inferior, untrained, “half-baked” kind
there is an abundant supply; too many, in fact, altogether. Such
as these are at a great disadvantage here as in the home land.

PARKER.

Need of leac-
ers,

Native evan-
gelists re-
quired.
PARKER,

Teachers also.

What has
been done.

176 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

They cannot do the best work. It is the educated, trained man
who, other things being equal, forges ahead, gets the best appoint-
ments, takes the lead, does things. The best men in our China
Mission Conference to-day are those who were educated in Buf-
fington College. One of the most important departments in the
proposed university will be the theological department, where the
future preachers for our Mission are to receive their training. We
must lay special stress on this department. It is here that we are
to do our best and most telling work. It is here that we are to
train our strong men for the conquest of China, and we must see
to it that this department is properly manned and equipped for
its all-important work.

2. But not only are men needed to preach the gospel to their
fellow-countrymen. Large numbers of teachers are called for to
teach in the mission schools and colleges, in government institu-
tions of various grades, in schools established by the people, and
as private tutors in wealthy families. Here again the demand far
exceeds the supply. A considerable number of students have
graduated from Buffington College and from the Anglo-Chinese
College in the past ten years; and they have all been in demand,
either in our mission or in some other mission, as teachers,
preachers, medical students, etc. The Presbyterian College at
Tengchow has turned out a large number of graduates in the
last twenty years, and these have, with few exceptions, found em-
ployment in various parts of the country in teaching, preaching,
and in other ways, and there, as with us, the call for helpers has
been far in excess of the supply of qualified men.

Teachers in government institutions and other secular schools
and as tutors in private families are in constant demand. The
following are instances of the openings held out to properly
qualified young men in this direction. A son of a native preach-
er in the Episcopal Mission in Shanghai has been employed as a
private tutor in the family of a brother of Li Hung Chang, at
Yang Chow, at a salary of $200 (Mexican) per month. A Chris-
tian pupil from the Anglo-Chinese College has recently been em-
ployed to go to a town near Ningpo to teach in a school estab-
lished by the people of the place, and he is to receive a salary of |
$400 perannum. This young man is from a poor, Christian fam-
ily, and without the education that we have given him could not
‘

OUR EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CHINA. 177

have hoped to secure a position that would pay him more than
sixty or seventy-five dollars a year.

The new education is taking hold of the country, and with it the
demand for teachers that can teach the new learning is growing
apace. Wemust supply them. To fail to do so would be to fail
at a vital point in our scheme for ‘the evangelization of China.
As missionaries of the cross we cannot afford to allow the train-
ing of the teachers of the new learning to be done by heathen and
infidels.

Christian leaders of thought among the Chinese must be raised
up to meet the infidelity and atheism that are being brought into
the country by means of the translation of infidel books. The
works of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, et id genus omne, are being
translated by Chinese who have been educated in England and
America, and who have come back to China to set themselves up
as opponents of that Christianity by whose help they have been
lifted out of the ignorance and superstitions of heathenism. There
is now appearing daily in some of the Chinese newspapers here in
Shanghai an advertisement of a translation of Spencer’s ‘First
Principles,” made by a Chinese who was educated in England, and
who is a fine scholar both in English and Chinese. The book is
having an extensive sale, and other works on evolution and kin-
dred subjects are being translated and published in the Chinese
language.

This is one of the devil’s most subtle ways of counteracting the
effects of Christianity in this empire. As a well-educated Chris-
tian teacher in the Anglo-Chinese College recently said to me:
“The devil has tried to break the force of Christianity among the
Chinese heretofore, first, by circulating all sorts of slanders about
the missionaries, as, that they gouge out the eyes of children and
dead people to use for making medicines ; that they are beasts of
licentiousness ; that they are spies of the foreign governments, etc.
But that method having been found ineffectual, a second has been
tried—viz., that of stirring up riots against the missionaries and
the native Christians, culminating in the Boxer uprising of last
summer and the slaughter of over two hundred missionaries and
thousands of native Christians. But this method also is found to
be unavailing, as no amount of persecution and violence can
frighten the missionaries out of the country. So he is now enter-
ing upon a third and far more dangerous line of attack—viz., by

PARKER.

The new edu-
cation.

The devil’s
schemes.
PARKER.

178 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

importing into China the infidelity of the West, under the spe-
cious garb of learning and science, as a substitute for all religion.”

The teacher is right. The attack on Christianity by means of
the translation of godless books under the plausible title of science
and the new learning will do more to hinder the spread of the gos-
pel among the people than any amount of slander or violent per-
secution. The missionaries must therefore educate and train the
Christian leaders of thought among the Chinese who shall be able
to combat these oppositions of science, falsely so-called, and save
the people from the disastrous results of getting nothing in ex-
change for their own heathen religion and superstitions except
the empty husks of the infidelity and the atheism of the West.

The university that we are now establishing is the place where
we are to raise up the men who are to be instrumental in saving
this people from the error of their ways and delivering them from
the thraldom of superstition and false belief.
Section ITI.
MEDICAL WORK.

THE PHYSICIAN AS A MISSIONARY.
W. ‘H. PARK, M.D.

OF the various missionary agencies, the medical is the only one
that reaches all classes. The preacher can preach only to those
who are willing to hear him, and in the beginning the number is
not large. Occasionally a man will come to him as Nicodemus
came, by night, but such cases are rare. Paul on his missionary
tours found a synagogue, or a religious family, or a company of
praying people on the riverside where he could proclaim the gos-
pel, and on one notable occasion he was invited by the elders of
a great city to speak in the public hall; but in heathen countries
at the time of the coming of the modern missionary there were no
public halls, public speaking was unknown, synagogues did not
exist, no family in the beginning would think of sending for a
preacher, and if any company met at the riverside, it was to ap-
pease the wrath of evil spirits and not to pray to the true God.

Paul in most places would be understood when he referred to
the patriarchs, and his listeners would recognize his Scripture
quotations, whether they agreed to his interpretation or not, but
in purely heathen countries you might as well talk Dutch as to
refer to Abraham, Isaac,and Jacob, and appeals to Scripture sound
only like so much nonsense. You in this country can scarcely
form an idea of the difficulties in the way in the beginning. Some
preach in tents, some in boats, some on the streets, and some in
chapels, the latter generally a rented building on a busy street,
so that a crowd can easily be collected by simply opening the
doors and singing a hymn. But such audiences are generally
made up of street urchins and the idle and curious, and some one
is going or coming all the time, so that there is scarcely a person
present at the end of the sermon who was there at the begin-
ning. No wonder cases have been known of preaching for forty
PARK,

Opportunity
of the physi-
cian,

180 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

years without a convert. It was not the gospel that had not the
power to save; the people simply had not heard it, that was all.

The editor and writer reaches primarily the literary class only.
It is true his influence may, and does, extend through and be-
yond, but of direct contact with the great mass of people, the
poor and uneducated, he has none.

The teacher of course has more to do with the young than with
any other class. In China his influence now is great, but in the
beginning children had to be paid to get them to come to the mis-
sionary school.

The colporteur can sell only to those who are willing to buy
his books, and so it is with Bible women, native assistants, and
agencies of every kind. Some reach one class and some anoth-
er, but the medical missionary has access to all. Nay, more; he
is invited and sought after by all. The reason is plain: all are liable
to be sick, and when sick they need a physician. This is the way
it was in the time of Christ, and so it will ever be. He ‘healed the
poor mostly, but did not hesitate to answer the call to the daugh-
ter of the rich ruler.

The poor flock to our missionary hospitals and dispensaries,
but the rich are not excluded, and the homes of the highest in
the land are as freely opened as the hovels of the poor. This fact
makes medical missionaries peculiarly valuable for pioneer work.
In many places they can open the way as no one else can. Dr.
Harford-Battersby tells how, in traveling through Africa, he un-
dertook to preach the gospel at the various villages on the route,
but the people were not disposed to listen, being too well satis-
fied with their own ways to want anything better; but when he
asked for the sick, and cleansed and treated some loathsome
sores, the people flocked around him and would listen to any-
thing he had to say.

Medical work is also a great factor in removing prejudice
against the missionary and correcting misunderstandings in re-
gard to his work.

For many years we had living near us in Soochow a man of
position and influence, the general manager of the Salt Gabelle,
who, feeling quite sure we were not to be trusted, would never
come near us to see what we were doing or to hear what we
taught. Finally a friend persuaded him to bring his brother,
who had been blind for seven years, to the hospital for treatment,
THE PHYSICIAN AS A MISSIONARY. 181

and on seeing him cured he became one of the best friends of our
mission in the city of Soochow, helped me no little in my col-
lections for the Anti-Opium League and the Soochow University,
made speeches at our commencement exercises, etc., and in one of
my last letters from China we were told that he had established at
his own expense a school for English in his native town of Nan
Zing and had appointed a Christian young man to teach it.

Not only do medical missionaries have access to all classes,
but in particular they reach a class, and that the most important
of all, that can scarcely be reached in any other way. I refer to
the women of heathen lands. Shut up at home and unable to
read, multitudes of them would never hear the gospel, or even the
truth about the gospel, but for the medical missionary. The
stories that they hear or invent of foreigners and Christians are
almost beyond belief, and we have to begin at the very beginning
with them. When called to a strange family I often take occa-
sion to speak of my father and mother and brothers and sisters.
They nearly always seem amazed to think that I, an outside
barbarian, should have human relationships such as they them-
selves have. One question leads to another, and after a few days
some of the ladies order their sedan chairs or a boat, and, accom-
panied by their servants, come to see my wife, and later on they
often become so interested that they ask to be taken to a prayer
meeting or Church service. For this work lady physicians are
peculiarly adapted, and the reports of their work, especially from
the zenanas of India, are most encouraging.

Trained nurses are also a factor for good in this connection.
The Chinese never make up a sick person’s bed or smooth out the
cover or tidy up the room, nor in many cases of sudden and dan-
gerous illness do they undress the patient or pay any attention to
the ordinary rules of personal cleanliness. Their one idea for the
room is to keep it close and dark soas to exclude drafts, and, inci-
dentally, all fresh air as well. The darkening of the room calls
for artificial light, and for this they generally use big sputtering
candles. If the patient has a foul-smelling wound or sore, they
occasionally fill the room with smoke by sprinkling resin on a
shovel full of live coals. J have been in rooms shut tightly and
lighted and smoked as described above and full of people, rela-
tives and friends, all breathing the same bad air, talking and ex-

PARK.

An example.

He has access
to families.
PARK.

Chinese nurs-
ing.

Native diag-
nosis.

182 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

pectorating and some of them smoking, and in ten minutes I
would have the worst kind of headache.

They think that in certain cases the patient must be propped up,
and for this they use human beings instead of pillows. The big
bed, with high posts and cross railings, with curtains above and on
all sides, is like a small house, and to have every window and door
in the room shut, and every curtain down around the bed and four
or five persons on the bed, one sitting at the head with the patient
propped up by her, and the head resting on her chest, and anoth-
er behind helping to hold up the first prop, and another pounding
the patient’s shoulders, and another chafing hands and limbs, and
all of them hot and perspiring, is enough to kill a well person, let
alone one who is sick. To have a trained nurse from one of our
mission hospitals come into such a place and introduce fresh air,
neatness, and order in the place of darkness, dirt, and death is
indeed like the coming of the angel of light.

Medical missionaries ‘have great opportunities for removing
superstition and counteracting the hold of the necromancers on
an enslaved people. The power of these gentry is due to the be-
lief on the part of the people that sickness is due to evil spirits
and other powers of darkness which they, the necromancers,
can counteract. In China, in addition to the regular geomancers,
called “foong shui professors,” most of the Buddhist and Taoist
priests, and even the doctors, operate on this same line.

Not long ago I questioned an intelligent Chinese gentleman,
who came to me for eye treatment, as to what the Chinese doctor
said was the matter with his eye, and he replied: “The first time
I went to him he pronounced the redness due to mounting fire
from the liver, but the second time he said it was caused by in-
numerable little devils that had come up through the ground in
my garden.” “Right then,” said he, “I knew that doctor did not
know what was wrong with my eye, else he would not have laid
the blame on the devils.”

The curing of a few intelligent men like this in a community
will do more to remove superstition and devil worship than almost
anything else in the world.

Medical missionary work is one of the easiest of all depart-
ments to make self-supporting. The poor should be charged
only a nominal fee, foregoing a fee altogether in cases of known
destitution, but the well to do can and will pay for all they get,
THE PHYSICIAN AS A MISSIONARY. 183

and the rich are ever ready to make donations if approached in
the proper way. The Soochow hospital has been practically self-
supporting for years, the small sum appropriated from the home
Church, and more too, being used every year in improvements.

As a direct evangelical agency and as an auxiliary to the pas-
torate medical missions stand in the first rank. Our morning
prayers in the hospital are well attended, and nothing affords me
more joy on Sunday mornings than to see two or three pews in
the Church full of patients from the hospital, and another pew or
two occupied by the medical students. Nearly all the latter are
Christians, and some of them have been most active in Christian
work. Not long ago we had the pleasure of seeing four persons
unite with the Church at one time, all of them patients and serv-
ants from the Soochow hospital.

The points, then, that I urge in favor of medical mission work
are:

1. It reaches all classes.

2. It is especially suitable for reaching women in countries
where they are uneducated and shut up in their homes.

3. It is peculiarly qualified for pioneer work. In many places
no one can open the way like the missionary physician.

4. It removes prejudice and corrects misunderstandings.

5. It is one of the most successful weapons against superstition.

6. It is one of the easiest departments made self-supporting.

7. Last, but by no means least, it is in no whit behind the other
departments as an evangelical agency.

As to the history of medical missions, it is coexistent with the
Church of God on earth. Many of the prophets healed in the
name of the Lord, and no one ever healed more than our Lord
himself.

The history of medical work in our own mission begins with
our first missionary to China, as Dr. Charles Taylor was a physi-
cian as well as preacher. Dr. D. C. Kelley came next for a
short while, and after a considerable interval he was succeeded
by Dr. W. R. Lambuth; and it was not until Dr. Lambuth took
hold of it with his accustomed zeal and enthusiasm that the
Church at large took much interest in this department. The
writer of this paper had the privilege of coming next as an asso-
ciate of Dr. Lambuth, and ever since his much-regretted with-
drawal has had charge except when at home on furloughs, thus

PARK,

In brief.

Some history
PARK,

Results.

184 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

giving him the honor of serving longer than any other medical
missionary in our Church.

In 1890 Dr. R. H. Campbell was associated with me for one
year, and during my last furlough home the work was in charge
of Dr. E. H. Hart, loaned to us from the M. E. Mission, and at
present it is in charge of Dr. J. B. Fearn and Dr. J. D. Trawick.
In the woman’s department of this work first came Dr. Mildred
Phillips, then Dr. Anne Walter (now Mrs. Fearn), and then Dr.
Margaret Polk, who is now in charge.

The hospital for men was built under the direction of Dr. Lam-
buth and myself, and the woman’s hospital under Dr. Phillips.
The two hospitals adjoin, and are practically one hospital with
two departments, one for men and the other for women and chil-
dren.

In connection with the hospital we have a medical school and
a training school for nurses. Sixteen young men and women
have been graduated from the medical school, and quite a large

’ class is now in attendance. Our pupils and graduates are wide-

ly distributed over the East, and nearly all are so far doing well.
One had charge of the hospital for Chinese during the memorable
siege of Peking, one (Miss Dr. Yu) is with Mrs. Campbell in Ko-
rea, one (Miss Dr. Zah) is Dr. Polk’s indispensable assistant in
the woman’s hospital, two are surgeons on Chinese men-of-war,
one is helping Brother Hendry open work in Huchow, one is in
America qualifying for more extended work, and most of the rest
are in good private practice. Nearly all are Christians, and at
our District and Annual Conferences a large proportion of the lay
delegates are doctors and medical students.

Counted as one, we stand high up in the list of the large hos-
pitals in China in the number of visits from patients per year
(being in round numbers 18,000), and in paid calls to private fam-
ilies we stand first of all. Fees from this source go a good way
toward making the hospital self-supporting, the collections in the
one month of August, 1899, being over two hundred dollars.
Not only do we stand first in the matter of calls to private fam-
ilies, but the $2,000 fee for curing the eyes of the two sons of Mr.
D. F. Tsang is, so far as I know, the largest ever received in
China, if not in any other mission field. To show further what
medical work can do, when the Anti-Opium League of China
wished a book on the opium question, and three of us, the other
THE PHYSICIAN AS A MISSIONARY. 185

two being laymen, were appointed, the laymen at once turned
the work all over to me, recognizing that a medical man alone
was in position to write it, and when the Anti-Opium League
wanted money I raised ten times more from the Chinese than all
the rest of the missionaries in China proper, Hongkong, and
Manchuria put together, this success leading to my appointment
as treasurer of the Anti-Opium League.

When during the recent visit of your honored Secretary to
China he and the presiding elder of the Soochow District were
consulting together as to how to reach the men of position in
Soochow in the interest of our Soochow University, a man of
power, who had come to consult me for sickness, showed them
the way, and thus through medical work was held a meeting
unique in the annals of missions, when the elders of one of the
greatest and proudest Confucian cities in China met at dinner at
the home of a medical missionary to consult about the founding
of a Christian university.

When the China Mission Conference joined in the glorious
Twentieth Century Movement your medical missionary -was
elected treasurer, and when we started out to raise the money for
the Soochow University he was able to collect in cash and sub-
scriptions more money from non-Christians than was ever col-
lected by any other missionary in China.

When land was wanted for the university, and Consul General
Goodnow helped by calling on the Governor and Viceroy, there
was one piece belonging to a guild that not even the Viceroy
himself could order sold, and it remained for your medical mis-
sionary to get it by calling on the head man of the guild in per-
son, thus securing Jand that our mission had been trying in vain
to buy for over twenty-five years.

When difficulty arose about removing a temple on another part
of the land, the grandfather of a little girl I had just cured of diph-
theria, being a trustee of the temple, came forward and advised
the priest to move his temple and gave a lot of land in a desirable
place across the street for a new temple location.

When Soochow was made an open port, after the war with
Japan, the foreign consuls and custom officials came to the med-
ical man about renting houses, etc., because he was acquainted
with so many leading Chinese; and the Chinese came to him, be-

PARK.

Medical werk
and the Soo-
chow Uxi-;
versity.
PARK.

Other resalte.;

186 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

cause he knew the foreigners and he was able to help all and gain
the good will of all.

When the custom service was established in Soochow your
medical missionary was made surgeon to it, and when thé cotton
mills and silk filatures were built he was appointed physician to
them, the fees from all these sources helping to make the hospital
self-supporting and adding still further to its influence.

In addition to all these duties, the hospital and dispensary pa-
tients increased, more medical students applied so that a new
class had to be formed ; out calls mostly to wealthy and influential
families increased until we could hardly attend to them, and more
people were becoming interested in the gospel, and joining the
Church from the hospital than ever before.

When Mrs. Archibald Little, President of the Anti-Foot-Bind-
ing Society of China, wished to hold a meeting in Soochow, she
appealed to me, and Mrs. Park and I, by sending invitations to
our friends, friends who had become so through the medical work,
got together such a crowd of small-footed women from the influ-
ential families of the city as was a surprise to all who saw it.
Our whole front yard and the street in front of the hospital were
full of sedan chairs, and after the occupants had called at our
house, where tea and cake were served, they were conducted in
parties, as they came, to the chapel of the woman’s hospital, where
a most enthusiastic meeting was held.

When last year the edicts came down from Peking to extermi-
nate all foreigners in Soochow, and all our other missionaries left
the city, your medical missionary and his family remained, as-
sured by the officials that they would be protected, and we only
left finally when the British Consul telegraphed for all women
and children to come in from the Yang-tse ports ; and when peace
negotiations began, Dr. and Mrs. Fearn were the first to go
back to Soochow. Moreover our medical work did not stop
during those trying times, for before I finally left I held a meet-
ing with Rev. C. K. Marshall (Dzan Tsz Zeh) and the medical
students, and they agreed to keep the dispensary open, and, true
to their word, they kept it going, and Dr. Fearn found everything
in good running shape when he reached the city after the trouble
was over.

In conclusion allow me to quote from an article by Miss Grace
M. Kimball, M.D., former missionary to Turkey, these words:
MEDICAL WORK FOR WOMAN. 187

“I urge those of you who are thinking of the career of a med- PA*

ical missionary to note that there is no career more honorable,
more necessary, more helpful to the kingdom of God, more fas-
cinating in its carrying out, and, I will say, more wearing to the
mind, body, and soul than that of a medical missionary. We at
home need to remember that if we are going to send medical mis-
sionaries at all we should send them something like ten times as
numerously and as well-equipped as we are now sending them.
Let us think earnestly on this problem.”

MEDICAL WORK FOR WOMAN.
MRS. ANNE WALTER FEARN, M.D., SOOCHOW, CHINA.

THE subject before us is so broad, so deep, so full of meaning,
so powerful, and so far-reaching in its effects that we are power-
less to present it to eyes that have not seen and ears that have not
heard. We attempt to give only a few simple facts in connection
with medical work. Itis the one branch of the work which brings
us in close personal contact with all, from the highest to the low-
est; that calls forth the outpouring of the surcharged heart, be
it filled with griefs or joy. It is the branch that calls for most of
patience and love and endurance, that most needs the power
divine to strengthen, to uphold, and to uplift.

A young girl from one of our wealthiest and most aristocratic
families, when admonished for opium-smoking, replied: “What
more can you expect of us? We are women like you. We have
but vague ideas of a better life. We have no way of escape from
the life that is death to us mentally and physically. We have
women’s diseases, and there are no physicians for us. When we
suffer we must take opium; then we become its slave. We would
read and find out for ourselves what the world is like, but we have
no education; we would study, but there are no teachers for us.
There is no help for us except through the foreigner ; in no other
way can we receive the education that will serve to lift us out of
the depths of degradation in which we live. In no other way
can we hope for teachers and physicians who will make us men-
tally and physically what nature intended us to be. Without

The Chinese
woman’s la-
ment,
M is, FEARN.

The power of
healing.

Need of
trained native
agents.

188 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

this help, there is nothing for us but opium and a life that is
worse than death.”

This is only one of thousands of such cases. Day after day
they come to us with the same pathetic story. They tell us of
the dreary monotony of their lives; they point with eloquent
silence to their tiny, tortured feet; they tell us with shame and
helpless misery of the dread disease that renders them unfit for
wifehood and motherhood; they tell of sorrows so deep that all
the world sems but a throbbing echo of the heart sobs that come
with their cry for help. Is there need for women physicians in
China? Ah! God knows the need, the appalling need.

As an opening wedge there is no power so quick and so sure
as medicine. When a dear one lies at the point of death, when
the native physicians have done their best (or their worst) and
all hope is gone, possibly a friend, or even a servant, will remem-
ber that strange stories have been told them of a foreign doctor,
and of his or her power to heal; and, as a last resort, we are called
in. Many and many have been the cases that have come to us
in just this way; many lives have been saved and friends made.
In more cases than we can tell have these calls come from
strongly antiforeign families, and in no case where success has
attended our efforts have we failed to win not only the gratitude
of the family but their lasting friendship. Let medicine, then,
be the key to unlock the doors of their fast-closed hearts and
homes. An entrance gained is like the dawn, to be followed in
His own good time by the glorious, flooding sunshine of the new
day.

Visitors, after lengthy journeys through this vast kingdom,
sometimes conclude that missions are futile, that China’s millions
cannot be touched by the tiny handful of workers in the Master’s
vineyard. But among the workers there are no doubters. We
know what has been done. We have the faith that can move
mountains, because we have the divine promise that “‘all nations
shall serve him.” Without faith in the power divine, no one
would attempt to Christianize China. Nor does the work rest
entirely upon the foreigner; native workers are so important a
factor that without them we should be helpless. The great mass
of the Chinese must be converted through the direct agency of
their own people. But these agents must be fitted for the work.
They must be educated and trained to live as befits the life of a
soldier of the cross. There must be schools and colleges; there
MEDICAL WORK FOR WOMAN. 189

must be medical schools and well-qualified men and women.
No one can doubt the marvelous potency of medicine as a pioneer
agency in opening work, in making and keeping friends ; but un-
less our physicians are thoroughly qualified to bear the respon-
sibility not only of lives but of missions—yea, even of the fate
of kingdoms and of empires, for from small mistakes great evils
have grown—they had far better never touch a drug or handle a
knife.

If we take patients into our hospitals and dispensaries, we
must be prepared for any emergency. We dare not hold our-
selves responsible for lives intrusted to our care, and then at a
critical moment find our equipment insufficient. No other
branch of the work calls for such an outlay, for such thorough-
ness as to the smallest detail. No other branch of the work
yields such great results as are often balanced in the scales held
in the physician’s hands. The quick use of the knife, a timely
drug promptly administered, may mean a life saved, and enmity
change in one short moment to lasting friendship.

Our Chinese physicians, men and women, must have every ad-
vantage that can be supplied them. They must be able to cope
with every disease; they must meet on an equal footing and
consult with physicians from all nations, and physicians who hold
diplomas from the highest schools in the land. Our physicians
must be so well fitted for the work that we may never feel
ashamed for them, that we may never fear for the results of their
work, that we may trust not only our own lives, but the lives of
those who are far dearer than ourselves, into their keeping. In
all the work there is no greater call for thoroughness, for your
sympathy, for your support. In all the work there is no respon-
sibility so great—when the fate of nations may hang balanced
on the point of a surgeon’s knife. Give us well-equipped, edu-
cated men and women as teachers, and we will send out over
China just such men and women—native men and women—who
will do what foreigners cannot do, but who must get their train-
ing at foreign hands.

Daily we preach the doctrine of love, but think you that we
should have known the height, the depth, and breadth of love if
our Saviour had not come down to live among us? He was our
great Physician. He healed the sick cleansed the leper; he
walked among the poor and lowly; he loved the outcast, and he
touched but to heal, to cleanse and purify. “Greater love hath

MRS, FEARN.

They must be
well equipped.
MRS, FEARNe

Love the
motive power.

The object of
medical work.

Igo GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Love must be the vis a tergo which sends the physician to plague-
stricken homes. Love makes him dress the foul-smelling ulcer.
Love sends him out from his home to spend night after night in
cheerless houses working with those who have found life’s burden
too heavy to bear. Without love our burdens would be too
heavy. Without love our courage would fail and the work be
left undone.

Occasionally a sweet reward is the doctor’s. After some re-
pulsive work a wondering mother cries: “How great is her
love!” Often we are asked: “Have you father, mother, sisters,
and brothers, and have you come across the deep sea to heal our
bodies?” Think you they can appreciate the Christ love that we
tell them about—the love that fills our hearts, that prompts us
to touch the leper, to help the fallen—unless we go down among
them and lift them by the hand? If we “speak with the tongue
of men and of angels, but have not love,” think you that we can
help them? It must be “the love that suffereth long and is kind,”
the love that “beareth all things,” “hopeth all things, endureth all
things ;” the love that never faileth. “But now abideth faith,
hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

In no other profession is one so often called upon to show this
love as a concrete expression of Christian sympathy as in the
medical. It is not often pleasant, often most repulsive, and yet
how else than by doing with our own hands can we show this
love? “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye
have love one to another.”

Let no one suppose that as physicians we advocate the preém-
inence of medicine simply as a life-saving agency as a factor in
the work. Without the Bible in one hand, the medicine case is
useless in the other. The objective point of our work must be
soul-winning ; and for this, personal work is necessary. Let medi-
cine be the means used to clear the darkened windows and open
wide the door to the blessed sunshine. Let Christian physicians
be but the advance guard of the army of the cross, and, as follow-
ers in the footsteps of Jesus, work but to win, endure but to re-
joice in the fullness and the richness of the joy that cometh in the
morning.
Section IV.
LITERARY WORK,

A SUPREME NEED OF THE WORK IN CHINA*
REV, YOUNG J. ALLEN, D.D.

To an audience like this, composed largely of experienced mis-
sionaries, it is hardly necessary that I should speak of the position
and relation, much less of the importance and value, of literary
work to the scheme of missions. For by this time, it is fair to
suppose, there can scarcely be one left who has any doubt for a
moment that the missionaries and missionary societies are fully
satisfied of its necessity and are accordingly committed to do all
they can for its promotion. And that such is the case is most sat-
isfactorily proven by the status and support so freely accorded to
existing institutions, as, for instance, the Bible Societies, the Reli-
gious Tract Societies, the Educational Association, the Society for
the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge, the mission
presses, etc.

It ought not to be otherwise. “Christianity had its roots in a
full and varied literature,” and on making its appearance in any
mission field it comes “as a force requiring suitable expression
and embodiment,” as a spirit seeking to inform everything with
which it comes in contact. What more natural, therefore, than
that it should identify itself by investment with the prospective art
and learning, the science and literature of our missions among this
great people?

I would note also another point of hardly less significance and
importance, doubtless a product of riper experience and deeper
insight—to wit, an improved harmony of opinion and expression
regarding the different branches or departments of missionary
work. This would seem to indicate a time coming, and perhaps
now not very remote, when we shall no longer hear these spoken

 

*A paper read before the Conference of Missionaries in Shanghai in
February, Igor.

Growing
unity.
ALLEN,

The whole
man to be
saved

All men,

Ig2 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

of as if there were disparity and conflict between them; as, for in-
stance, preaching versus teaching, or evangelization versus edu-
cation, and the like. A live Church in the home land expresses
itself abroad in missionary effort, which, to be aggressive and suc-
cessful, must be organized, the very idea of which implies variety
and relativity in unity, and no more suggests conflict than the
“many members” which compose the body or the five dig-
its which constitute the human hand.

Another point of diversity which is now fast disappearing is
the view sometimes taken of the gospel as related to man. It is
now pretty generally understood that man as a whole, soul, mind,
and body, and ‘his welfare for time as well as for eternity, embod-
ied as well as disembodied, before death as well as after death,
are equally held in contemplation and concern in the gospel,
whose salvation comprises not only spiritual regeneration, but
restoration of man’s long lost and forfeited relationships to God,
to his fellow-man, and to all created things—his primordial rela-
tion of sonship, brotherhood, and dominion.

Yet one more point I must mention in this connection. It is
this: We have now reached a vantage ground in our experience
and in the evolution of our work where we can contemplate with
unanimity the attempt to reach and provide for all classes, even
such as are styled and sometimes stigmatized as the higher classes,
though, properly speaking, there is no sex or caste or privileged
class known to Christianity. The terms of the commission are
“all nations,” “every creature.”

I cannot tell you, my brethren, how very profoundly the above
facts—for I believe them to be such—have affected my view of the
future of our work in China. This is an aspect and proof of unity
among God’s people in this greatest of all mission fields worthy
to be handed down from the century which has just closed, and
fraught with an augury most auspicious to the century whose
portals are now thrown open to our advancing enterprise.

By this token the Spirit of Christ is among us, and his people
are preparing for such a testimony as cannot fail to fulfill the
prayer of our great High Priest, and increase a thousandfold the
scope and effectiveness of his promulgated gospel, the truth and
power of which will in no small degree be beholden to such proofs
of our love and unity.

Fortified by these few preliminary considerations, indicative of
A SUPREME NEED OF THE WORK IN CHINA. 193

what is conceived to be a most gratifying attitude of the mis-
sionary mind toward the future expansion and development of
our work, I now venture to call attention to what may possibly
have impressed others as well as myself as being the supreme
need of the hour—to wit, the establishment of a literary depart-
ment of missions, or, if that name is preferred, a department of
literature. As literary work is a necessity, and from this time
forth ever-increasing demands will be made upon us in this re-
gard, the present time, both in its relation to the calendar and in
its relation to the new era which is about to be inaugurated in the
history of this ancient land, would seem eminently appropriate
and opportune for the establishment of such a department of
missions.

There is not time to discuss the matter at any length; nor in-
deed is it necessary, seeing, as I presume is the case, that we are
all pretty much of the same mind in regard to the general sub-
ject. It may not be out of place, however, to briefly indicate some
of the special reasons which are known to have a particular bear-
ing on the need for such work, and accordingly greatly emphasize
the demand for such a department.

In this category it will suffice, perhaps, if we name only two—to
wit: First, the mutually obligatory relations between China and
Christendom ; and secondly, the insufficiency of our present equip-
ment.

By treaties already existing, to say nothing of the capitulations
now in process of negotiation, China has been constituted a po-
litical and moral ward of Christendom; and by virtue of this re-
lationship, as well as the terms of their original calling and com-
mission, the missionaries, who are the immediate representatives
of the intellectual and moral forces of our Western civilization,
are called upon to assume the high and responsible position of
acting as the guide, the philosopher, and friend of China, in other
words as a teacher, a term which I use in its most comprehensive
sense, as embracing every phase of our contact, every impression
of our presence. Well might we stand appalled in this presence
and wonderingly question among ourselves, Who is sufficient for
these things?

For myself I most frankly confess that it was not until I had
been in this country many years that I attained to anything like
an adequate view of the actual condition and needs of China and

11

ALLEN,

The literary
work,

China a ward,
ALLEN.

She must
learn.

The new

China.

194 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

its people, nor was it till then that I began to comprehend the
actual gravity and demands of a situation which, one almost fal-
ters in saying, lays on us the burden of China’s enlightenment and
salvation.

Referring to China, hitherto so reluctant to accept the posi-
tion assigned to her and “learn,” as she has been exhorted to do,
by one of her most powerful Viceroys, it may now be confidently
asserted that, after the late disastrous experiences, more than du-
plicating those of half a dozen years previous, she will henceforth
accept the inevitable, and adjust herself to meet the issues and
learn the lessons not of the old but the new China. And judging
by the wonderful unanimity of sentiment throughout the country
in favor of reform and progress, it may be as confidently expected
that, with the suppression of the recent violent reaction, there will
forthwith be a renewed and strengthened expression of opinion
favorable to a permanent and cordial policy of amity and peace,
accompanied by the most unmistakable tokens that the country
is now ready to welcome at our hands the best it is in our power
to bestow, or in their capacity to receive.

What, therefore, we have now to contemplate and prepare to

> meet is no longer an inert, stolid, or recalitrant China, but a China

mobilized, awake, and ready for action—in a word, made willing.

What such a change in the attitude and sentiment of this coun-
try signifies to China herself, or means to us, fortunately is not
left to conjecture, for already, some two or three years ago, we
have received full intimation of what may now be expected under
the prospect of still favorable and permanent auspices.

Details here are abundant and might be interesting, but I for-
bear save to emphasize the fact that the present wheeling
into line of this ancient people brings us face to face with
China’s most urgent need—to wit, light and leading—and
without delaying to argue the point further, I hesitate not in say-
ing that, without some such provision as has already been indi-
cated—to wit, a literary department of missions—it will be almost
altogether out of our power to supply either on a scale at all com-
mensurate with the demand.

This conclusion is rendered all the more emphatic and the es-
tablishment of such a department all the more imperative by
reason of the limitations and insufficiency of our present insti-
tutions.
A SUPREME NEED OF THE WORK IN CHINA. 195

The Bible and Tract Societies are perhaps our very greatest
missionary institutions, and their services in the foreign mission
field have been simply invaluable and incalculable ; but they were
never intended, nor do thy pretend, to cover all the needs of a
field like this. Their limitations, both constitutional and oth-
erwise, make it quite impracticable and impossible for them to
do so.

The same also is the case with the Educational Association,
which, be it never so diligent and productive, can hardly hope
to more than keep pace with the demands which will inevitably
come up, shortly, in its own proper limits. For, as I take it,
the future educational advance both in the matter of suggestion
and the required literature for the schools, must be largely pro-
vided by the Association, which accordingly will find along that
line its most appropriate, congenial, and useful literary effort.

From these institutions we turn next to the Society for the
Diffusion of Ohristian and General Knowledge among the Chi-
nese, which was specially called into existence for a time like this,
and for a work such as is now about to be called for in over-
whelming measure.

But this Society also has its limitations and embarrassments.
It is set to produce a diffusible literature on all subjects, Chris-
tian and general, and has done enough already to pass success-
fully the experimental stage and establish its name and. capabili-
ties. It thus forms a satisfactory nucleus for such a department
of literature as has been advocated above. What is now wanted
to complete its organization and more fully assure its status and
possibilities is a larger addition to its working staff and recog-
nition by all missionary authorities, both in the home land and
in the foreign field, by which I mean their active support and
codperation.*

As to the unquestioned benefits of such a society or depart-
ment of missions, it would be almost superfluous to speak. There
is no branch or department of work which would not be a sharer
of its services and profit by its labors.

 

*The leading missionary societies of Great Britain, Germany, and Amer-
ica—e, g., the Church of England, English Baptist, English Wesleyan, Lon-
don Missionary Societies, German Evangelical, Canadian Presbyterian, and
the two great Methodist bodies (North and South) in the United States—are
already codperating

ALLEN,

Bible and
tract socie-
ties.

Christian lit-
erature socie-
ties.
ALLEN.

An example.

196 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Allow me, by way of illustrating the character and extent of
such usefulness, to refer briefly to the history of the Wan Kwoh
Kung Pao, or Review of the Times. I note the following points:

1. This periodical was established in the year 1868 to meet a
definite demand which the missionaries then felt to exist; and
was designed to circulate beyond the bounds of their personal
influence, and particularly among the official and literary classes,
whom otherwise it was apparently impossible to reach.

2. Its success has been phenomenal, surpassing the most san-
guine expectations, as it was welcomed alike cordially not only
in the capitals and provinces of China, but also in Japan and
Korea. Through the Japanese consulate at Shanghai the Mikado
(Emperor) and his cabinet ministers and also many of the high
officials in the provinces became subscribers for a number of years
before Japan was supplied by similar publications at home. It
was through the medium of the Kung Pao that Dr. Williamson’s
very able work on natural theology was introduced to the Japa-
nese, and reprinted there by special permission of the Emperor,
who had read the chapters as they appeared successively in that
periodical. In Korea it also finds acceptance and is regularly
supplied to the court and a number of high officials; while in
China, from the very first, it has found large access and been wel-
comed among all classes, both in the home land and also in all
lands wherever the Chinese sojourn.

3. It has served as a persuasive preacher and led not a few to
Christ and into the Church, many of whom are now preachers
and teachers of the gospel.

4. Its wide circulation among the literati and other reading
classes has led to large sales of our Christian books, and created
an ever-increasing demand for general literature.

5. In particular, it has been widely useful to the Bible So-
cieties, inducing many to buy and read our great and holy classic,
the Bible.

6. It has also published many articles which have been after-
wards reprinted in the form of tracts, booklets, etc. Also many
larger works first passed through its pages, as, for instance, “Nat-
ural Theology,” “China and Her Neighbors,” “Political Econo-
my,” “History of the China and Japan War,” “Philosophy of the
Plan of Salvation,” etc.

7. It has, of course, always been the ally and advocate of the
highest and best education, and it has the distinction of having
A SUPREME NEED OF THE WORK IN CHINA. 197

led in many important phases of reform; while to-day, after the
lapse of more than thirty years, all the time under one editor, it
enjoys a wider confidence and wields for good a more extended
and powerful influence than any time before. Thus has this pe-
riodical more than met the expectations of its founder and editor,
and gives assurance of still greater results.

As a further illustration of the value and diffusibility of similar
literature I might refer to other publications issued by the So-
ciety for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge
among the Chinese, but the above will perhaps suffice to indicate
the character and extent of the need which such a department of
missions would be required to meet and supply, while at the same
time it sufficiently evidences the accessibility of the people, high
and low, and their readiness to accept and benefit by our advances
on their behalf.

My time limit is now about reached. Further details are in-
possible. But before closing the subject I must emphasize the
opportunity which such a favorable state of things in China and
the other pagan kingdoms of the far East now presents to the
Churches at home and to their agents and representatives in these
foreign fields.

Nothing like it was ever seen in all the history of the Church
before—such unity of sentiment, such readiness to cooperate on
the part of the missionaries, and such a forward state of prepared-
ness on the part of the peoples of these ancient lands!

And wonderful, wonderful beyond all expression, is the fact
that through the medium of the Chinese written language it is
possible to address our message, directly and indirectly, to nearly
five hundred millions of people—the inhabitants of China and its
dependencies, and Japan and Korea being almost equally accessi-
ble.

Opportunity so favorable, so vast! What does it mean? What
but an obligation equally vast and comprehensive? Think of it!
The need—vast as heathendom! The opportunity—vast as the
need! The obligation—vast as the opportunity and the need
combined! How shall we meet them?

Is it too much to ask, and insist on it, that the Churches and
missionary boards of Christendom should at the beginning of
this the twentieth century add yet one more eloquent power to
their great missionary agencies, and establish without further de-

ALLEN,

Its publica-
tions.

The Orient
accessible
through the
Chinese lan-
guage.
ALLEN.

Opportunities
of the future,

198 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

lay this already urgently needed department of literature for mis-
sions?

To the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to the Boards of
Missions and their representatives in this field, at least, no ad-
vance should be more welcome or meet with more enthusiastic
support. There are many Churches and societies represented
here in the far East, and a great work is being accomplished
through their combined influence; but what mission, what so-
ciety, what Board—indeed, I might ask, what individual represent-
ative missionary—is satisfied with the present attainments? It is
the opinion of the leading men in this field that the work has but
just begun, and that the new openings and wider opportunities
invite a forward movement more nearly commensurate with the
obligations that come to us in the revelations of the new century
and the opening of a new era of missions in China.

In comparison with some other Churches and Boards our rep-
resentatives in this vast field are by no means so numerous, nor
do they occupy so many stations, but in point of comprehension
and insight of the situation and the strategical wisdom and value
of their system and methods of work, thiey yield to none. Our
scheme of missions comprehends China and all its peoples, and
while it gives first place to a wide, thorough, and persistent sys-
tem of evangelization viva voce—preaching—it as consistently
demands and establishes a great variety of schools, ranging from
the primary to the college and university, these being essentially
fundamental in a country like China. But that is not all, While
our numbers are necessarily limited, it is possible for them to mul-
tiply themselves a thousandfold by means of a department of lit-
erature assisted by the establishment of our contemplated print-
ing press and Publishing House for the production and distribu-
tion of Bibles, books, tracts, and periodicals; in other words, a
Christian and general literature for diffusion and use among the
accessible and even the otherwise inaccessible millions of this va'st
missionary field.

This is the scope, character, and culmination of the work now
projected by our representatives in China. And should the re-
sult of the first General Missionary Conference but be the re-
sanction and confirmation to them of their aspirations, accompa-
LITERARY WORK: A GENERAL SURVEY. I99

nied with the assurance of the Boards and the Church at large 42.

that the university at Soochow and the Publishing House at
Shanghai shall without doubt be sustained, then indeed may all
our people rejoice, in America and throughout our mission lands,
and all unite in acclaiming the Conference to be first not only in
the century, but first also in a double sense in our missionary his-
tory.

A GENERAL SURVEY.
REV. G. B. WINTON.

THE art of printing by means of movable types is more closely
bound up with modern human progress than any other. When,
after the lethargy of the Middle Ages, free thought was born
again, this invention was at hand as a nursing mother. Then
followed the mechanical application of steam, and with these, lib-
erty, books, power, the framework of nineteenth century civiliza-
tion was already wrought:

It is an axiom of psychology that the springs of action are in
thought. The emotions swell and the will determines only as
the intellect is aroused. Thus, in so far as it is potent to
awaken the minds of men the printed page is a factor in human
activity. In the realm of missions it may be made to stir the
heart of those who have the gospel, and to flash the truth into
minds that have not yet received it. It is not so potent, to be
sure, in the partially civilized communities of our foreign mis-
sion fields as among ourselves. Yet it is an instrument for
propagating the truth no missionary is willing to be without.
We must have the Book of books, especially, in languages un-
derstood by ‘the people.

This twofold field for missionary literature divides our sub-
ject for us. We consider, first, its uses among Christians ; second-
ly, books, tracts, and papers as a means of drawing men to Christ.
These two classes of literature are separated not only by their ob-
ject, but by a difference in language. The first is in English, a lan-
guage which is not only used by most of the aggressive mission-
ary Churches, but is also spreading through the world. As Greek

The springs of
action are in
thought.

A twofold
field.
WINTON,

In English.

The Church’s
duty.

200 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

gave the world its literature, and Latin its law, may not the Eng-
lish aspire to the still higher office of giving humanity the gospel?
The second class of missionary literature is necessarily in the
vernacular of the field where it is to be employed. Either de-
partment of this subject might well fill the whole space allotted
to my paper.

I. The creation and use of a genuine missionary literature in
English is a matter of profound importance. Our language is
rapidly becoming a world tongue. In China and the Orient
“pidgin English” is a monument to its prevalence in “business.”
In Spanish-speaking countries no young man considers that he
is ready for a successful career till he has studied English. There
are even signs that it is about to displace French in diplomatic
circles. Certainly it is the chief medium of communication
among those who are just now busiest about the world’s salva-
tion. Whatever is written in it is written for a constituency that
reaches the ends of the earth.

In his address before the Ecumenical Conference last year Dr.
Charles Cuthbert Hall set forth with great vigor and eloquence
that all students for the ministry should become missionaries—
in spirit if not in reality. They must gio or send. Within a brief
time it will be seen that no lower ground is possible for any
Christian. All are levied for this war. We must march to the
front ourselves or find a substitute.

That the Church may come to this high degree of military
efficiency, two things are required: first, the clear bringing home
to all that the command to disciple the nations is meant for us—
each of us; and secondly, a vivid statement of the real situation as
it exists upon our mission fields. Such is the convincing power
of concrete facts, and such the affinity between Christian zeal and
opportunity for service, that missionary fire is sure to flame up
when the Church’s life is fed with this fuel.

The first of these two needs—that is, the enforcement of Christ’s
great command upon the individual Christian—is an obligation
that must rest mainly upon the preacher rather than the writer.
Certainly in this day, when rapid travel, world-wide commerce,
the telegraph and telephone have bound all nations into a com-
mon family, when the brotherhood of man is proclaimed by a
thousand clamorous voices, when philanthropy and altruism. are
become a fashion, the prophet of the Son of Man ought not to
LITERARY WORK: A GENERAL SURVEY. 201

find missions an alien or uninteresting subject. On the contrary,
if he is wise, he will see that an unsympathetic attitude toward
this cause may make his whole ministry fruitless. Says Dr.
Henry Van Dyke in a recent book: “If the modern world is to
hear the message of the Cross, it must speak the language of
to-day, the language of universal atonement and foreign mis-
sions.’ We commend these weighty words to those pastors who
are haunted by the specter of an unfruitful ministry. Are they
putting the message of the cross in the language of to-day?
Human sympathies are very broad now. It is a superficial induc-
tion which concludes because of a few blatant objectors that the
sentiment of our times is hostile to foreign missions.

Given this clear statement of Christian duty under Christ’s
commission on the part of those who lead our Church at home,
then the needs of the unevangelized nations appeal to awakened
Christian consciences exactly in the measure in which those needs
are known. Here is the opportunity of the writer. Books, pa-
pers, leaflets, fugitive articles, maps even, and pictures, in illus-
tration of those nations as a field for work, will find a glad wel-
come. Such is the union between knowledge and sympathy that
any kind of information about a country helps the cause of mis-
sions in that country.

This opens an immense and enticing field for authors. Has a
nation a history which reaches into the dim twilight of the past,
and through which runs a golden thread of human interest? It
should be told. The greatness of China Christianized, for exam-
ple, is hinted at in her achievements by the dim light of Con-
fucius. Every nation has its romance. The life of its people in
the past, as well as their life to-day, is a theme of perennial charm.
And the countries themselves, their climate, scenery, products,
and possibilities; what life in them is like, and how it compares
with ours at home, their houses, their roads, their rivers, their
cities, their farms—all this, if clearly and brightly told, will find
thousands of hungry readers.

The preparation of such books, if prayerfully done, the writer
not forgetting also the value of literary finish, is as truly mis-
sionary work as evangelizing from village to village. Our own
Church has done too little of it. Where can our young people
find a book about Brazil which, while describing the country and
people, dwells also upon Christian work among them? Since we

WINTON.

The preacher,

The writer.
WINTON.

The beoks we
need.

A science of
missions.

202 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

can read about a “Naturalist on the Amazon,” why can we not
about a “Missionary on the Amazon?” The tropic valleys, the
green hills, the roaring streams, the vast forests, the flashing
birds, the liberty-loving people—in such a setting the story of
the gospel and its work is an apple of gold in a picture of silver.
Of Cuba, Mexico, and Japan we have had fleeting glimpses, but
the half has not been told. These countries are crammed with
the most enticing of literary material—antiquities, natural scen-
ery, national traits, striking political situations, engaging possi-
bilities for the future—what more could be asked? And what
shall we say of China, huge, hoary, awe-inspiring? She is as opu-
lent of matter for the pen of a ready writer as of puzzling situ-
ations and incalculable possibilities for the statesman.

And so swiftly flies the shuttle of progress, so rapidly is fate’s
webb unrolled, that exhaustion of any of these subjects is impos-
sible. What is written now will need to be replaced ten years
hence. May we not hope that some of this golden treasure of
missionary literature will soon be poured into the lap of an ex-
pectant Church?

Richer, too, than all the stories of the nations in its potency
upon the heart of the Church is the unvarnished story of the life
and work of missionaries themselves. Biography is history con-
densed. A personality ever lends a living interest. Our own
Church’s half century of labor in foreign lands has left us already
a heritage of priceless names. The lives of these men and women
ought to be written.

Still another department of literature is waiting to be devel-
oped. We lack a science of missions. Our candidates ought not
to be sent to the foreign field without special training. Several
books have appeared which contribute to the formation of such a
science, but they are only a beginning. And especially by our
own Church has little been done. The collation, examination,
and classification of facts to fix the true meaning and place of
self-support, evangelizing, day schools, boarding schools, med-
ical work, Church organizations, etc., ought to go on constantly,
so that at an early day we may be able to place in the hands of
young missionaries condensed manuals containing the ripened
judgment of their predecessors on all these vital topics. We are
burning too much unbeaten oil in the Lord’s sanctuary.

It need scarcely be said that the production of such books as
LITERARY WORK: A GENERAL SURVEY. 203

have been described should be followed by their circulation. We
lack a plan for this. Missionary libraries, somewhat after the pat-
tern of the Student Volunteer library, might be useful. A
carefully prepared descriptive catalogue and price list of books
now to be had would certainly be of value. Every missionary
society and Sunday school should have a constantly growing
library of the choicest books on missions, and every pastor would
do well to busy himself with the circulation of these bulletins of
the Christian warfare.

II. The second great department of my subject is that of liter-
ature in the vernacular. This means books, papers, and tracts
for use in propagating the gospel on the foreign fields themselves,

It should be observed, first, that in the majority of countries
where we are at work the people are just now awakening to in-
tellectual life. We may lay it down as a universal rule that, while
they may not wish the gospel as such, they are hungry for some-
thing to read. It is said that devout Mohammedans treasure
every scrap of printing, not willing that it should trampled upon
lest it contain the name of Allah. This exaggerated reverence
is a symbol of the power of the printed page. Illiterate people
hold the editor of a paper responsible even for the advertisements.
(That is not a bad scheme, by the way.) If it is printed, it must
be so. When so many of our own people yield to this feeling,
how much more will the “little ones” of a country where thought
has been stunted for centuries! Among them the very scarcity
of printed matter makes it precious. The high price of paper, the
rarity of presses, and the slight development of literary activity
cause this scarcity in all uncultured countries. In many of these
countries schools are just now beginning to make the ability to
read general. Anything printed is immediately seized upon. A
drunken, exiled Mexican major slept one night in the fodder of
a corral on the north bank of the Rio Grande. In the morning
he picked out of the thorny brush fence a bit of faded paper, and
to while away the time began to read. It was a leaf from the
Book of Life, and in his own language. That officer was after-
wards Rev. Alejandro de Leon, who went to his reward in 1899
while pastor of our Mexican Church at Del Rio, Tex., one of the
most honored and useful ministers in the Border Conference.
That scrap of paper from the hedge of the goat corral was the

WINTON.

In the
vernacular.

The beginnings
of intellectual
life.
WINTON,

The Bible so-
cieties.

Christian lit-
erature socie-
ties.

204 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

beginning of his interest in the gospel which he afterwards
preached so long and eloquently.

Such stories of the power of God’s Word could be multiplied
indefinitely. It is the choicest and most potent product of the
printing press. Without the Bible in the vernacular we should
be hampered beyond measure. But that Providence which has
watched over this priceless legacy for so many centuries gave us
at the proper time the great Bible societies. They are the pio-
neers of all mission work, as the Bible is its true foundation.
Their agents and colporteurs are in every field, and the Bibles.
Testaments, and portions with which they sow down the virgin
soil are the seed of the kingdom. Our indebtedness as Churches,
Boards, and missionaries to these great benevolences will never
be known, much less repaid. Every day of reflection and obser-
vation increases my regard for them. Their name is as ointment
poured forth. Generations yet unborn will call them blessed.

Their relations with missionaries, both in translation and dis-
tribution, are usually of the most cordial sort. A paper presented
at the Ecumenical Conference in New York suggested that, in
view of the increasing burdens of these societies, and the very
general distribution of missionaries, it would be only a fair divi-
sion of labor if they and the tract societies confined themselves
to the production, while the various boards and their mission-
aries took charge of the dissemination of Bibles and tracts. (Re-
port, Vol. II., page 80.) This is a reasonable suggestion.

Closely allied in their work and its importance with the Bible
societies are the great Christian literature societies, of which
the best known example in this hemisphere is the American
Tract Society. It has brought laborers in Spanish-speaking
countries under lasting obligation, as this speaker can testify,
and is sending out a flood of choice reading in a large number of
other modern languages.

On the fields themselves some societies auxiliary to these par-
ent bodies have been organized, whose work has been far-reach-
ing. Among the more successful of them are the Christian Lit-
erature Society of India and the Society for the Diffusion of
Knowledge in China, an important figure in the latter being our
own Dr. Allen.

These societies, as well as superintendents of mission presses
and other minor ‘agencies in producing a vernacular literature,
LITERARY WORK: A GENERAL SURVEY. 205

have wisely included in their list schoolbooks and others of a W!NTO
miscellaneous character. These are the “thin edge of the Chris-
tian wedge,” to use the phrase of an officer of the Christian Liter-
ature Society. They enforce the Christian standpoint; without
being specifically religious books, they create respect for the reli-
gious opinions of théir writers. Dr. Allen’s widely read “History
of the War between China and Japan” has given him to a strik-
ing degree the ear of thoughtful Chinese.
From these societies, concerned especially in the production
of tracts, we pass at once to the related field of periodicals, and
will revert later to books in the vernacular. The missionary peri-
odical serves in a large degree the same purpose as a Church
organ at home. It contains doctrine, news, miscellany, and, if
possible, pictures. It is aggressively evangelical, and sometimes,
though not wisely, aggressively hostile to indigenous religions. tye mission-
It is the vade mecum of the evangelist and pastor, his excuse for ary periodical.
introducing himself among the indifferent but well-to-do who are
able to subscribe for a paper, and his assistant in keeping con-
verts upon the highway of progress. Times without number it
has carried the gospel story to the ignorant and been a messenger
of life to those that sat in darkness. So universally valuable, not
to say essential, has it been found that, though it is a drain upon
mission funds and among the very last of all our enterprises to
become self-sustaining, no one thinks of dispensing with it. It
is manifest economy, however, for several Churches in the same
field to unite on one organ. Allied with the missionary periodical
are the Sunday school leaflets, of which space will not permit
me to speak.
Taking up, in conclusion, the far-reaching subject of a perma-
nent vernacular literature in the form of books, I find myself long-
ing to give a whole paper to so important atheme. Translation Rasta
will be first thought of, and many books have been translated, vernacular
some well, others badly. Mistakes have been made and much
labor wasted. But as experience accumulates, order is coming
out of this chaos. Certain well-defined principles of procedure
are emerging. It is agreed, for example, that the actual work
of translation should be done by those who translate into their
own tongue. No man of English speech, who attempts to turn
it into a foreign language, can ever rid himself or his work of
the Saxon flavor. Should his products be generally accepted,
WINTON,

Translations
not enough.

What we have
done.

206 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

they will only tend to vitiate the literary quality of the language
in which they appear. We must train natives to do this. Such
has been the rule of our Church in its Spanish translations, and
in, perhaps, no other language have we done so well, while in
Spanish we lead all others, both in the volume and quality of our
product. But translations are a temporary expedient. A liter-
ature native to the soil is demanded. The ferment of intellectual
life which the gospel causes is sure, sooner or later, to result in
this. Amd there is no country which may not well hail the fresh
literature which grows out of a wholesome religious awakening.

Christianity has, from the first, had to make its language. The
corrupt and earthy speech of heathen nations must be purged and
re-created to express heavenly things. New Testament Greek
is an ever-present object lesson of how this is to be done. Writers
should respect literary standards and preserve linguistic charm,
but the truth is first of all. Whatever of antique and classic
beauty any human speech may lose by the inroads of this uncom-
promising and iconoclastic faith will be more than atoned for
when the seeds of Christian truth burst into blossom and that
tongue is born again. Luther’s Bible made modern German,
and German made Goethe. The King James Version in Eng-
lish shares with Shakespeare the honor of molding what seems
destined soon to be the universal speech.

The growth of this native Christian literature, having the flavor
of the soil about it, should be stimulated. Boards must free the
hands of such missionaries as are fitted for this work. Mission
colleges must train apt and promising men of the native
Church for grappling with this demand. Private beneficence
should more and more be directed to meeting the necessary ex-
penses.

Our own Board of Missions is exhibiting a commendable lib-
erality in this department. A veteran missionary in China is
giving his whole time to literary labor, and, in the opinion of
competent observers, doing the most fruitful work of his life.
For thirteen years our Spanish-speaking missions have had,
through the generosity of the Board, the services of an official
translator. And in every one of our foreign fields a Church
organ and Sunday school periodicals are freely subsidized by the
Board, while the work of translation is constantly carried on.

It affords me the liveliest satisfaction to report here the gen-
LITERARY WORK: A GENERAL SURVEY. 207

erosity of two other departments in our Church toward an enter-
prise not strictly within their purview. I hail it'asan omen. One
of these is the Sunday School Board. For a number of years
past it has been appropriating money to aid in issuing literature
for 'the mission fields. These appropriations reach now the con-
siderable sum of $2,000 a year.

The other is the Publishing House. For twelve years it has
carried fonts of Spanish types and employed printers familiar with
that language. During this time the Agents have issued at-
tractive editions of the Spanish Discipline, Wesley’s “Sermons,”
Paley’s “Evidences,” Haygood’s “Man of Galilee,” McTyeire’s
“Catechism,” Hurst’s “Church History,” not to mention smaller
works, patiently carrying on their shelves the remnants of these
unproductive and slow-selling editions, issued not because there
was money to be made by them but because good could be done.
Perhaps sometime there may be a profit on these books. They
are gradually making their way to Mexico, to Cuba, Porto Rico,
South America, Spain, and the Philippines; but as yet the de-
mand is limited. Not content with this sufficiently liberal policy,
our Book Agents have also shared equally with the Board of
Missions, during all these years, the burden of the translator’s
support. The missionaries to Mexico and Cuba are not unmind-
ful of this generous service. Its record is in heaven.

We may, in closing, sum up our hasty survey in a word: We
need books—books at home about the missionaries ‘and their
fields, books abroad about Jesus Christ and his saving grace.
Papers also must be printed, tracts, leaflets, helps for the Sunday
school, texts, picture cards, everything that may serve to stir
cold hearts at home or abroad to lead darkened souls into the
light. Money and time expended in producing this Christian
literature will surely be good seed in good ground.

The angel that John saw flying through the midst of heaven
must have carried a book. He had the everlasting gospel in a
visible form. A book is permanent. It is a loan to the future.
It is an arsenal of war material. In it the writer speaks aiter
death has hushed his lips. Through it may be poured, during suc-
cessive generations, the saving efficacy of the Spirit of truth. Its
fruit will not cease to be garnered till the mighty angel, himself
the bearer of a book, standing on sea and land, declares that
time shall be no more.

WINTON.

Cooperation. 5°

Books in
Spanish.

The need.
Advance dur-
ing nineteenth
century.

Section V.
WOMAN’S WORK.

WOMAN’S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD.
BISHOP J. M. THOBURN, D.D.

THE most careless observer cannot have failed to notice that a
change, amounting to a revolution, has taken place in the privi-
leges granted to the womanhood of the English-speaking nations
since the middle of the century which has just closed. During
this period college and university privileges have been extended
to men and women on equal terms; law and medicine, especially
the latter, have been placed within the reach of women choosing a
professional career; the obscure schoolmistress has become the
accomplished college professor ; public offices are filled with capa-
ble women, while in the industrial world hundreds of thousands
of courageous women fill positions to which no woman dreamed
of aspiring fifty years ago. The era has been one of change, and
the change has been in the direction of progress. As might have
been expected, this progress has affected the Christian woman-
hood of the world very sensibly, by expanding the sphere both of
woman’s privilege and opportunity. In the home field it has en-
abled our anointed sisters not only to assist their brethren in the
Master’s work, but, in some cases, to lead them into it. In the
foreign field it has led to the introduction of a new contingent of
most valuable workers, and the extension of missionary labor to
a wide sphere from which it had before been rigidly excluded.
The famous temperance crusade, the organization of the Wom-
an’s Christian Temperance Union on a world-wide basis, the
formation of numerous missionary societies under the manage-
ment of women, the introduction of deaconess work into the
Church, the multiplication of hospitals and houses of refuge
under the care of Christian women—these and other like forms
f Christian labor indicate the rapid advance and wide expansion
of the work of our Christian women during recent years. If
WOMAN’S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD. 209

time permitted, it would be a pleasing task to speak at length of
these different kinds of work, but for the present I must confine
my remarks, for the most part, to two topics—namely, woman’s
work in the foreign mission field, and the deaconess movement in
the Church, both at home and abroad.

It seems very strange that in the early years of the missionary
enterprise the idea of employing Christian women in the work,
except incidentally as the wives of missionary husbands, seems
not to have entered the minds of any one, and that two genera-
tions of two missionary workers had passed off the stage before
the thought of enlisting unmarried women for the work was se-
riously entertained. The first generation of this class of workers
are still in the field, but the movement which they represent has
passed its experimental stage, and is no longer challenged by the
‘most conservative managers at home, or by missionaries abroad.
At the outset it was challenged, sometimes with much vigor, at
both ends of the line, but God has put his seal upon both the work-
ers and the work in such a way that all parties have become con-
vinced that the whole movement must be accepted as a token of
his divine leadership.

It was my privilege in January, 1870, to make a long journey
through Central India to meet the first two lady representatives
of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. One of these, Miss Clara A. Swain, M.D., of
Castile, N. Y., was the first lady physician ever sent into a non-
Christian land by any missionary society or other association of
any kind. The other, who chanced to be my sister, went out to
take up educational work. Both were cordially and even joy-
ously received; but among the missionaries generally a measure
of doubt was entertained as to their ultimate success, while among
medical men in the service of the Indian government the mission
of Miss Swain was regarded as a wild undertaking, bordering on
absolute fanaticism. An amazing number of lions in the way
‘were seen by the excited vision of some of these gentlemen. It
was said that the men of India would not permit Dr. Swain to treat
their wives and daughters when ill; that many of the women
themselves would fear poison 'and other unknown evil designs ;
that no lady could maintain an unsuspected character while go-
ing about among the people in the character of a doctor; and that
the failure to heal might be represented as tantamount to a proof
of deliberate murder. Not the slightest suggestion of any evil

TILOBURN.

First lady
missionaries.

Could a wem-
an practice
medicine?
THOBURN.

The teaching
of women by
a woman.

Forebodings
ill-founded.

210 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

intent was attributed to the lady herself, but these perils were sup-
posed to be inevitable as a result of the ignorance and prejudices
of the people.

The other lady missionary was permitted to go on her way in
peace; but when, on looking over the ground, she determined to
establish a school for girls of high grade, in which the English lan-
guage and the higher branches of a modern education should be
taught, some missionaries at once began to manifest not only dis-
approval, but even active hostility toward the enterprise. It was
affirmed that the Christian women of India would be utterly
spoiled if educated above their station. I recall one good Ger-
man brother who protested in the most vigorous terms against any
attempt to introduce “American notions” of education among the
simple-minded converts of India, and this feeling was shared very
largely by intelligent Europeans throughout India generally. So
strong was the hostility sometimes manifested toward ‘any instruc-
tion in the higher branches that in later years my sister once men-
tioned in a great decennial conference at Calcutta that she had
prudently reversed a blackboard when certain ladies in high po-
sition came to visit her school, so that they might not be made
unhappy by discovering algebraic characters in which the native
girls had been working out problems in higher mathematics.

I mention these two cases, in the first place, because they per-
tain to the two ladies who became pioneers in our own mission
field, and also because, in the final results of the experiment made
by them, the course of each was abundantly vindicated, and the
character of the work performed by missionary women in India
was strikingly illustrated. Dr. Swain, for instance, succeeded,
first, in proving that she could get ready access to women of all
classes without the slightest token of hostility on the part of hus-
bands and brothers. In the next place, she also succeeded in re-
moving the fear and prejudices of the Europeans, who were watch-
ing her course with much interest. She did not stop, however, at
this point, but proceeded to select a few intelligent Christian wom-
en, and began to teach them some elementary principles of med-
ical science. Step by step she advanced until a small class of In-
dian women were prepared to extend medical relief to the people
of their own class, and in this way the idea of training women of
India for medical practitioners was not only suggested, but prac-
tically demonstrated. At this point, after other lady missionaries.
WOMAN’S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD. 211

had come to the field, and one of their number had, in an audi-
ence with the late revered queen of England, suggested the idea
of medical relief on a broad scale for the womanhood of India, the
well-known Lady Dufferin movement was inaugurated, and ef-
fectively supported by the government of India. In other words,
a quiet and unostentatious missionary lady had gone to India and
inaugurated a blessed work of untold possibilities, which has since
expanded, under God’s blessing, into one of the greatest benevo-
lent movements of the age.

Now let us turn to the results of the work inaugurated by the
other pioneer to whom I have referred. She began a little school
in which English was taught in the city of Lucknow. For some
weeks only seven girls attended, but when the full meaning of her
experiment began to be understood among the native Christian
people the humble little school at once became popular, and it
was found necessary to make arrangements for the reception of
girls who wished to come as boarders from distant places. From
the very first the results of this experiment proved more than sat-
istactory. Parents living five hundred and, in some cases, a thou-
sand miles distant, and oftentimes at very great sacrifice to them-
selves, would bring or send their daughters to a school which
promised to give them a superior education. Year after year the
attendance increased, while the grade of scholarship steadily rose,
until before the close of the century the little school which began
with seven pupils had expanded into the Lucknow Woman’s Col-
lege, affiliated with a government university, and had thus won
the distinction of being the first Christian college for women ever
established on Asiatic soil. It was from this institution that Miss
Lilavati Singh came, the young lady who recently visited the Unit-
ed States, and of whom the late ex-President Harrison said, after
listening to a paper read by her at the great Ecumenical Confer-
ence in New York last April, that if he had invested a million dol-
lars in foreign missions, and had never received any other return
for his money than the education of that young woman, he would
have felt amply repaid for all his expenditure.

I have here indicated two lines along which two missionary pio-
neers moved in trying to do the work to which God had called
them, and in which they felt assured that he was leading them ;
but these were only two of many. While in the foreign field one
may found a college and give young women opportunities for se-

THOBURN.

The education
of girls.
THOBURN.

Manifold
forme of labor
for women.

The women of
India cannot
be evangelized
by men.

212 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

curing the highest culture, another may be found in charge of an
orphanage, and work out a career which perhaps in the coming
ages will prove to have been quite as successful, in every sense,
as that of her sister who is connected with a more pretentious en-
terprise. The forms of labor which are offered to Christian wom-
en in the foreign field are manifold. Medical women have now
become a numerous class. The recent great famines with which
the world has become so painfully familiar have placed many
thousands of bereaved children in the care of missionaries, and
here ts another door open for the missionary women of Christian
lands. Then, the general education of the women in all Oriental
countries must impose a severe, but most interestimg, task upon
thousands who go abroad, at least for generations to come. Still
another sphere of labor, and perhaps in its ultimate bearings most
important of all, will be the evangelistic work of Christian women
in the great empires of the East.

In India alone there are to-day one hundred and fifty million
women and girls, of whom about twenty-four million are widows.
Owing to the custom of early marriage, which often takes place in
infancy, the so-called bride is regarded as a widow if at any time
the child husband dies, and as widows are prohibited from remar-
riage, and are subjected to grievous disabilities, a great host of
women in this pitiful condition may be found throughout the em-
pire. For reasons which time will not permit me to state, the
great majority of these millions, whether married or widows, can
be reached only through messengers of Christ who represent their
own sex. Thus far the way does not seem to have been fully
opened for the inauguration of an evangelistic work in which
women will become evangelists to women. For reasons peculiar
to the country, men can get access to women to a very limited
extent only, and under very unfavorable conditions, such as, for
instance, speaking to an audience who are concealed behind a
curtain or shrinking into darkened corners of a room where a
meeting is in progress. It is possible, and I think probable, that
foreign missionaries, who naturally carryabroad with them most of
the prejudices or wrong motives received in the home land, have
been slow to perceive the absolute necessity of forming a great sis-
terhood of evangelists in their efforts to reach the women of Ori-
ental countries. One-half of the human race live in Eastern and
Southern Asia, and almost one-half of these uncounted millions
WOMAN’S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD. 213

are so shut off, owing to the prejudices of the people, that they
can be reached freely and effectively only by evangelists of their
own sex,

I hesitate before making the next remark, which, nevertheless,
I feel constrained to make because I have become persuaded that
a great wrong may yet be done to great multitudes of Oriental
women when they begin to apply in large numbers for member-
ship in our Christian Churches. Families in Oriental lands have
their interests so interwoven through marriage and other rela-
tionships that proper action is often made practically impossible,
and the parties concerned may feel constrained not to follow a
given course, even though they wish to do so. It will thus often
happen when, for instance, a woman evangelist carries the gospel
to women secluded from the world that her word will find ready
acceptance, and those to whom she goes may joyfully receive the
Christ in whose name the evangelist comes to them, but may, for
reasons imperative in Oriental countries, be unable to go to any
place of worship, to receive baptism, or to admit any men not re-
lated to the family to the seclusion of the women’s quarters. In
plainer words, circumstances may arise, and actually do arise, in
which it seems consistent with common sense and in harmony
with the spirit of the New Testament to permit the same person
who carries the gospel to these secluded creatures to have the lib-
erty of administering the sacraments of the Church to those who
receive the word at her mouth. To my mind, this seems perfectly
simple, plain, reasonable, and scriptural, and yet I know but too
well that to the mind of others, perhaps many others, the bare
suggestion of such a thing may be more than startling ; neverthe-
less, as I expect our world to become a Christian world, and as I
remember that our blessed Master would have mercy rather than
sacrifice, I believe that the time is coming, and is very near at
hand, when we in Christian lands will have to lay aside our
prejudices and our timidity, and concede to the pioneers of Jesus
Christ in the great Oriental world privileges which may not be in
place here, but which are perfectly reasonable and normal in
other lands. If India and China are ever to become Christian
empires, a time must come, at least for a generation or two,
when the New Testament custom of having a Church in a house
-—that is, composed of the inmates of one large Oriental house-
hold—shall be permitted and become a very familiar institution.

THOBURN,

Shall women
be ordained?
THOBURN.

Future of
weman’s
work.

The deaconess.

214 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

The organization in recent years of missionary societies under the
administration of women has been one of the most significant
signs of the missionary times.

While very little direct opposition to these societies has been
avowed at any time, yet the movement has become so general,
and those engaged in it so earnest and determined, that some have
been constrained to ask whereunto these new societies may be ex-
pected to grow. It is too soon to attempt to give a complete an-
swer to a question of this kind; but, after watching the general in-
fluence of these societies upon the thought and action of the mis-
sionary world, I incline to the opinion that God is distinctly lead-
ing in this movement, and that the near future is destined to wit-
ness the most amazing progress which has ever been witnessed in
the great missionary fields of the world. If such a movement
were to begin to-morrow, the men at the front would be wholly
unprepared for the crisis which would confront them. Without
the evangelization and enlightenment of the women, the nations,
as nations, cannot be christianized, and hence God seems to be
preparing the agencies which will be needed when the great day
of salvation arrives. If these societies were not of God, surely
this blessing would not so manifestly be vouchsafed to the socie-
ties and the work supported by them in foreign lands.

It may seem like a very abrupt transition to turn from these
thoughts to speak of deaconess work in the home land, but
to my mind the change of subject seems perfectly natural. It was
in the foreign field that the idea of associating a few Christian
women together as workers in the Master’s vineyard first suggest-
ed itself to my mind, and I have ever since looked forward to the
time when the value of this form of woman’s labor shall be as
highly appreciated in the great mission fields of the world as
among the most advanced nations of Christendom.

When asked to define in as few words as possible the phrase
“deaconess work,” it is by no means easy to give a reply in a few
words which will be clearly understood. The deaconess has long
been a historical character in the Christian Church, and does not
by any means belong exclusively to Christian lands or to the pres-
ent generation. From the time of Phoebe of Cenchrea down
through several centuries of early Christian history the deaconess
was a prominent character, and filled an office which was highly
prized in the early Church as late as the time of Chrysostom. The
WOMAN’S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD. 215

deaconesses of the Eastern Church were recognized as women of
great usefulness, who maintained an unchallenged character in
the midst of a corrupt and rapidly degenerating society. The ex-
act position filled by these excellent sisters in those remote days
cannot now be clearly ascertained, but it is evident that in the best
sense of the word the successors of Phoebe were servants of the
Church, ministers to those who needed the services of consecra-
ted womanhood, and in doing so supplied a want which sooner or
later must be experienced in every Christian community.

li we are asked how it came to pass that during so many long
years after the time of Luther the deaconess failed to put in an ap-
pearance in any Protestant community, the answer is very easy.
The shameful abuses of the convent system in the Roman Catho-
lic Church during those years of dense spiritual darkness caused
a reaction in the minds of the early Protestants, and generation
after generation the impression continued to prevail alike in Ger-
many, England, and America that the work and character of all
Roman Catholic sisterhoods was alike bad. Indeed, when it was
proposed at the General Conference of our own Church, in 1888,
to authorize the formal organization of this class of workers in our
Church,a cry was raised by a fewdoubtful delegates that the whole
movement might terminate in the creation of an order of “Metho-
dist nuns.” Happily, Protestants generally are learning to take
broader and more charitable views of such subjects than those
which have prevailed even in comparatively recent years.

So much has been said in recent years about “woman’s sphere,”
sometimes wisely and sometimes foolishly, that the mere mention
of the phrase may be received with impatience; but we must all
concede that while in many things the rights and privileges of
womanhood are not different from those of the other sex, yet in
some particulars a distinction must be drawn if we wish to ascer-
tain, in the first place, what are the just rights of Christian women,
and, in the second place, what is the full extent of their privileges.
Certain differences undoubtedly do present themselves to the un-
prejudiced mind of many Christians. It is well understood, for
instance, that there are many forms of Christian labor in which
women almost invariably excel. It may not always be easy to
define the sphere of action in which they excel, but the fact can
hardly be doubted. They can reach certain classes who are not
accessible to others; they can disarm hostility where the presence

THOBURN,

Early Church.

Reaction from
Romanism.

‘“ Woman's
sphere.’’
THOBUKN.

The call of
opportunity.

216 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

of a man would be irritating, and their very weakness becomes a
source of marvelous strength. Then, in the next place, every one
has observed that a comparatively large number of our best wom-
en pass through life without assuming the cares and responsibili-
ties of family life, and any careful student of modern society must
soon become convinced that this state of things will continue for
perhaps many generations to come. Christian womanhood is
largely represented among this class, and to a candid observer it
must at times appear as if God in his providence had reserved
many of these women for special ministrations, perhaps as ten-
der, and at the same time even more sacred than those assumed
by a mother or a wife.

Putting these two facts side by side (first, that Christian women
are endowed with peculiar gifts for certain kinds of work; and, in
the next place, that a large contingent of such women are, in the
providence of God, left without any special calling in life), the
thought naturally occurs that out of this potential reserve force
a great organization of Christian workers might be, and ought to
be, enlisted, trained, and employed in such parts of the Master’s
vineyard as require their help. The kinds of labor in which such
women could render such services are manifold. The poor, who
coristitute an immense majority of the human race, the weak, the
fallen and the falling, the childhood of the world, the widow and
the orphan, the prisoner and the outcast—these, and multitudes of
others, who might be classed under the general head of the needy,
are constantly within our reach, and seem to be waiting for the
ministration of just such a class of workers as can be raised up
from these women who are now comparatively unemployed. Nor
does the demand for such an agency stop here. Tens of thou-
sands of Christian pastors could be greatly strengthened in their
work by the assistance which women of this class would be able to
render. The possibilities of women evangelists have yet to be
tested in the home land as well as in foreign missions. If we could
only disabuse our minds of wrong notions concerning what we
have come to regard as perfunctory evangelism, and give a
broader and much simpler meaning to the term, it might be
found that thousands upon thousands of anointed women could
be employed successfully in taking Christ into darkened homes
and neglected communities, where this hallowed name is never
heard except in profane connections.
WOMAN’S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD. 247

It is very important that at this early stage of the deaconess TO¥vURY.
movement we do not place narrow limitations upon the service of
these new workers. From the first I have cherished a conviction,
which has been confirmed by experience, that a deaconess should ging of
be regarded as a Christian woman called of God to an exclusive service.
service in her Master’s name, and both ready and willing to en-
gage in any form of Christian labor in which she can glorify God
and introduce Christ among the people. Hence a lady physician
might make an excellent deaconess. Many are already doing
good work in the character of teachers, even though the teaching
may be in a school which is not distinctively religious. I have
known one to be usefully employed in editorial work; and when,
for instance, we get ready in the great Asiatic mission fields to cre-
ate a literature for our converts in twenty-five different languages,
we shall need a great working force of literary men and women
for this stupendous task. In short, to quote from the action of
our General Conference in 1888, the members of this sisterhood
should be not only ready for employment in certain specified forms
of labor, but also “to devote themselves, in a general way, to such
forms of Christian labor as may be suited to their abilities.”

One vital point in this new service should never be overlooked.
I refer to the call of the deaconess to her work. As Methodism
from the first has laid more stress upon the absolute necessity of a
preacher being called of God to his work, so the deaconess should
regard as a solemn vocation the service upon which she enters. ype can.
It is not, in any sense, an employment. If she serves the Church,
or serves any class of the community, she does so under a convic-
tion that she has received a divine call to employ herself in this
particular sphere of action. As with the preacher in the pulpit,
so with the deaconess among the people. Nothing but a supreme
assurance that God has called a man to preach Christ to the peo-
ple will enable a preacher to do his best work, and in like manner
nothing but a supreme conviction of the same kind will sustain
the more timid deaconess through the many trials and petty tasks
which will confront her in the course of an active life.

If it be said, as it often is said, that women of. this class might
easily be employed as many are at the present time, without at-
tempting a formal organization or giving them a peculiar status
in the Church or in the community, it is sufficient to reply that or-
ganization is always an element of power in Christian work, as in
THOBURN.

Advantages of
organization,

Compensation,

218 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

all other departments of ‘human activity. Ten trained soldiers
will render better service on a battlefield than one hundred raw
recruits who know nothing whatever of military drill. Why
should not our gifted sisters enjoy the advantage of organization
as well as their brethren who speak from their pulpits, and why
should they not be trained as carefully and conscientiously as the
men who are to preach or teach? We have to remember, too,
that there is something about organization which seems to draw
others into a movement of almost any kind. The young man
who will refuse to enlist in military service when sitting alone in
his room will be attracted at once when he stands at a street cor-
ner and sees a few drilled soldiers march by. The organization of
a band of deaconess workers powerfully attracts others, and sug-
gests to those who have a right spirit that they could serve the
Master to better purpose if working according to an approved
system and under wise direction. One condition which has usu-
ally been attached to deaconess work in recent years has caused
no little criticism in some circles, and needs to be thoroughly un-
derstood. Itis assumed at the outset that the young woman who
gives herself to this kind of service does so for life, and that she
does so with the distinct understanding that in the popular sense
of the word she is to receive no compensation for her service. I
use the word “compensation” in its strict sense, as something
given by way of payment tothe worker. For various reasons the
policy for the most part has been adopted of making this rule ab-
solute. No salary is named, but the deaconess is assured that if
she gives herself, her time, and her labor to the Church she will
be cared for not only while engaged in active service but in old
age as well. This latter condition has not yet been formally stat-
ed, so far as I know, by any of our modern Churches, but it is ob-
served to a slight extent, and as the work develops it must be
definitely stated. In the limited space allowed me in this paper
it will be impossible to discuss this feature of the subject at length,
but suffice it to say that a very limited experience in very many
cases has developed the fact that where a fair salary is offered by
way of compensation a class of fairly good women will come for-
ward for service; but these do not possess the conviction which a
divine call from the Holy Spirit implies, and will not be found
ready to assume whatever duties come to hand with the same
alacrity, and with the same spiritual power, which will be mani-
WOMAN’S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD. 219

fested by those whose conviction has been deliberately made, and
who have made up their minds to give up their lives to the calling,
not because it assures them an income but because it sets them
free to live and work for Jesus only. At the outset it may not be
easy, nor is it indeed necessary, to make formal provision of homes
for the invalided or superannuated deaconesses, but as time passes
no doubt provision of this kind can be readily made. Indeed, one
of the most striking results of deaconess work thus far has been a
tendency manifested by the movement to create forms of help for
the helpless, and places of shelter for the homeless, and that which
this movement has done for others it may certainly be trusted to
accomplish for its own sisterhood. Perhaps the most surprising
feature of the success achieved through the deaconess movement
in our Church has been its natural tendency to develop eleemosy-
nary institutions of various kinds. For instance, in 1888, when
our first deaconess home was established, our people could boast
of only one hospital throughout the entire Church, and probably
it would have seemed wildly improbable had it been suggested
that the organization of a few bands of Christian women, who had
expressly agreed to dispense with fixed salaries, and to lead simple
lives of Christian usefulness, should eventuate in the creation of
hospitals, orphanages, old people’s homes, and other institutions
of like character. The progress made in this direction during re-
cent years has been simply amazing. Both east and west one
hospital has followed another, and some of these have been made
the recipients of large sums of money. We now sometimes hear
people speaking of the “hospital movement in the Church.” The
orphanage follows close behind. With the exception of the good
work done by our German brethren, who are few in number, and
our missionaries in foreign lands, we had twelve years ago only
one orphanage in the entire Church, and this was limited to a
mere handful of children. Old people’s homes had hardly been
spoken of. Now all these institutions are springing into exist-
ence, and it is certain that the appearance of these benevolent in-
stitutions in close connection with deaconess work is a most ex-
traordinary coincidence, if it is not an illustration of the law of
cause and effect.

The success achieved by the deaconess movement in the Church
which I represent has been in many ways remarkable. It is not
yet quite thirteen years since the movement was recognized by

THOBURN,

Development
of hospitals.
THOBURN.

Demand for
deaconesses.

Regularly
appointed.

220 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the General Conference, but already. one thousand one hundred
and sixty ladies have become enrolled as stated deaconess work-
ers, while no less than $1,600,000 has been invested in real estate
connected with the work. Meanwhile more workers are called
for in all parts of the country. A lady superintendent told me very
recently that no less than ten applications for workers from as
many different towns were then pending in her hands. I regard it
as very important that a work of this kind should be freely author-
ized by the Church, and within moderate limits directed by Church
authorities. It is worth more than can be expressed in figures to
have a movement of this kind commended to the confidence of the
Christian public, and this cannot be accomplished in any way so
effectively as by making it a department of Church work, and
subject to inspection and direction by the same officials who direct
other kinds of Church work. I shall always feel thankful that it
chanced to fall to my lot to present this enterprise to the General
Conference of our Church, but in doing so I felt that the situation
was extremely critical. Some friends of the movement had great
misgivings lest the officials whose authority would thus be in-
voked might be wanting in sympathy and unprepared for a prac-
tical direction of the work. It was found, however, when the sub-
ject was fairly brought forward, that God had prepared the minds
of the delegates in the General Conference in a remarkable way
to view the project with favor, and it was greeted also by the
Church at large in a manner which forever put to flight misgiv-
ings concerning its status as a department of Church labor.

In our great mission fields of Southern Asia, including India
and Malaysia, we were allowed a greater liberty of action, in
some respects, than is given in the home land; hence from the first
we have adopted the policy of having all the deaconesses appoint-
ed by the bishop in charge of a given Conference. The deaconess
is regarded as occupying a definite position as a Churck worker,
and is amenable to the appointing power of the Church precise-
ly as a deacon would be. Transfers are made from one Confer-
ence to another precisely as is done in the case of preachers, and
no one has thus far challenged this policy; but on the other hand,
the deaconesses themselves regard it as a valuable privilege which
they would be extremely sorry to give up. I am inclined some-
what strongly to the opinion that in all Methodist organizations
it will ultimately be found best to give deaconess workers an
WOMAN’S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD. 221

assured position, with clearly defined rights and privileges. They
should be solemnly consecrated after due trial, and should receive
a certificate of consecration which will be recognized all over the
Methodist world, so that wherever they go they will feel as-
sured of recognition in their department of Church work.

At the outset many misgivings were expressed concerning the
support of these workers. The Church had no fund on which
they could draw, and so far were those who initiated the work
from asking for assured financial support that they expressly re-
quested that this obligation should be left wholly to local agen-
cies. After some trial, however, it was found necessary in the
foreign field to support such workers from the ordinary grant
made by the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Church.
In the United States, while the Woman’s Home Missionary So-
ciety has assumed the support, in whole or in part, of a large num-
ber of these workers, the majority—and I think a very
large majority—depend altogether upon local resources. Ifa sis-
ter is employed in connection with a Church as a pastor’s assist-
ant, she naturally looks to the Church for her support; but if she
engages in other forms of work, she must depend upon such provi-
dential aid as God may send her. Thus far very little trouble has
been experienced in this direction. It is thought by many who
have been close observers of the movement, or who have been per-
sonally connected with it, that it is alike better for the workers and
alsc for the Churches that their support should be thrown upon
the Christian people with whom they are most closely associated.
As said before, too much emphasis cannot be put upon the fact
that anything like an ordinary salary such as a lady teacher would
receive would soon reduce the whole movement to a somewhat
mechanical arrangement quite inconsistent with the earnest spirit
which should be cherished by such workers.

Our Saviour chided the people of his day for their want of
ability to discern the signs of the times, and I often think that
Christians of our era lay themselves open to a similar reproof.
We live in extraordinary times, but great multitudes seem not to
appreciate the fact. Very many Christians seem to be utterly
unaware that the present is a time of tremendous religious ac-
tivity. Many ‘have become accustomed to the cry that revivals
have lost their power, and take it for granted that a spirit of leth-
argy pervades the Church. It is quite otherwise. It is my delib-

THOBURN,

Support.

The outlook.
THOBURN,

The slow
awakening.

222 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

erate conviction that there has not for many years been a time
when so many far-seeing members of our Methodist Israel on both
sides of the globe were scanning the horizon hopeiully as at the
present hour. New movements are coming into view, and new
Opportunities are opening before us. Let us welcome every
movement which appears in the Master’s name, and give a double
welcome to everything upon which the Master has put his seal.
The deaconess sisterhood in spirit dates back to the days of his
earthly ministry, and follows as closely in his footsteps to-day as
any who bear the Christian name or strive to do the Master’s
work. May God bless these excellent sisters, and speedily in-
crease their number a thousandfold!

WOMAN’S WORK IN FOREIGN MISSIONS.

MRS. S. C. TRUEHEART.

THE woman’s missionary movement is one of the most sig-
nificant, as well as the most potential, agencies in the progress
of the world toward Christ. It is significant because it marks
woman’s emancipation from her own ignorant conceptions of her-
self, and ther high place in the mighty forces of evangelization.
It is potential since she brings with herself her possibilities and
endowments for uplifting the race of man, and, at the same time,
in her arms she brings the children, whose training and special
development, physically, intellectually, and spiritually, rests large-
ly with her. How marvelous that woman was so slow to recog-
nize her own worth! How many centuries passed, leaving her
unacquainted with God’s grandest purposes! Like the muck
rake man in Bunyan’s dream, she spent her time in raking to-
gether the straw and dirt and dust, never looking up to see the
glittering crown the angel held so near, ready to place upon her
in celestial beauty as soon as she raised her head. She has, ina
measure, ceased to rake together the “little straw and dirt and
dust ;” and, with enlarged vision, not only looks up but looks
beyond. God has touched her with power. The whole world is
now embraced in the faith that honors God—in the faith that,
WOMAN’S WORK IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. 223

having heard, believes God no “respecter of persons.” This
thought of God inspires her soul and nerves her hand to work
for the salvation of the race. She begins to see no distinctions,
_but labors for the African,the Mongolian, the wild tribes of Amer-
ica, as well as the Caucasians of the table-lands of Asia Minor,
and their descendants, who now cover Europe and America. This
wonderful thought of God, so clearly seen in revelation, was ig-
nored for centuries. Woman’s part in the command to disciple
the nations was not understood clearly until the dawn of the last
century. True, Susannah Wesley deserves admiration for her
approval of ‘her son John’s first missionary venture, when he
crossed the Atlantic to preach to the American Indians; and the
mother of Samuel J. Mills early set him apart for the work of
foreign missions; but these were isolated cases in the midst of
the general dearth of missionary zeal among the women of the
Church.

The year 1825 witnessed, perhaps, the earliest organized move-
ment for foreign missions by women, the object of which was to
promote education among the people of the West Indies. This
was not followed by very noteworthy results, though the influ-
ence was not lost. Slowly the heart of woman was touched, her
intellectual life broadened and deepened, until her conscience was
aroused on the subject of missions. When the true condition of
the women of the East was realized fully, their seclusion, their
degradation, their ‘helplessness, she was eager to rescue and set
them at liberty. She found that only the hand of woman could
open the doors of the zenanas, and she must herself go or send.
To open their prison doors and let in the light of the gospel was,
at first, her sole aim; later came the thought that these heathen
must have all the privileges of the gospel, their children be pro-
vided with Christian schools, and the mothers with Christian
homes. To be better able to educate others, she must have the
best equipment herself; to provide Christian homes, she must
make her own home among those she would elevate; she must
learn difficult foreign tongues and master the various dialects,
that she may enter their hearts as well as their homes. To alle-
viate bodily suffering as well as sorrow of the soul, she must
enter the dispensaries and hospitals, the medical and surgical col-
leges, and there pregare herself. A call from God to go to work

in his vineyard niet to go to work skillfully—go with the high-

MRS.
TRUEHEART.

Beginnings.
MRS.
TRUEREART.

Knowledge of
the Bible.

Organization.

224 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

est equipment, go with cultured brain and deft fingers, anointed
from on high.

The women who send as well as the women who go should be
able to handle well the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.
The power that applies the truth must be hers also. How won-
derful is this Word, working salvation in the midst of the earth!
Every page of the holy text from Genesis to Revelation is il-
luminated by divine love. Listen to the proclamation: “Glory
to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men ;”
“JT have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest
be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.” The glory and
crown of Christian giving is giving the divine Word. Wom-
an’s joy is more complete in such giving, because of the full
measure which flows back upon herself, her home, her country.

The subject of foreign missions having touched the heart of
Christian women and awakened their consciences, they discussed
it in social circles, at their own firesides, talked with God of it
at the family altar and in private devotions, until it found ex-
pression in organized form, and the woman’s foreign mission-
ary society became a valuable factor in all evangelical denom-
inations. The quickened life of the Church was the first visi-
ble result of the movement, and objections and objectors disap-
peared, unable to stand before the wonderful impetus it gave to
every other enterprise of the Church. Miss Frances Willard,
of blessed memory, said on one occasion: “The woman’s foreign
missionary movement opened the way for the Woman’s Chris-
tian Temperance Union. Women there learned to use their
powers of mind and heart for God, and were soon ready for every
other measure that would elevate the race.”

It was not until May, 1878, that the women of our own beloved
Church sought organization. Previous to memorializing the
General Conference for a Constitution, which was granted in
May, 1878, consecrated, intelligent women, such as Mrs. Lavinia
Kelley, of Nashville, Tenn., and Mrs. Davidson, of Baltimore,
had been working as well as praying for the cause of foreign mis-
sions. In their ministrations they powerfully impressed the
hearts of two noble women—Mrs. Juliana Hayes, of Baltimore,
the first President of the organization, and Mrs. D. H. McGavock,
of Nashville, Tenn., the first General Secretary. These two gifted
women brought the enterprise at once to the front, and com-
WOMAN’S WORK IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. 225

mended it to the intelligence and support of the Church. Mrs.
Hayes traveled throughout our borders, urging the formation of
auxiliaries, stressing the need of immediate action, and bringing
about happy results. She spared not time nor strength, nor con-
sidered her three score years. The angel of His presence was
with her, and touched her lips with a live coal from off the altar.
To the closing months of her life, in 1895, she never ceased her
efforts. In the quiet of her sick chamber, with pen in hand, Mrs.
D. H. McGavock planned and thought, bringing into play all
the materials at hand, and without the “stroke of a hammer” or
“the sound of the anvil” the organization was perfected, and met
in Louisville, Ky., May, 1879, in its first annual session, full of
vigorous life. Cautious, conservative, watching and caring for
every department of the Society, holding in check lavish expend-
itures, she guided the affairs of the young and growing treas-
ury, and safely piloted it over the pitfalls and rocks that threaten
every new enterprise. To her, fashioned for her work by her be-
loved friend, Mrs. Lavinia Kelley, we owe in large measure tthe
healthy financial policy that has marked our career. Across the
seas, standing by her husband’s side, was Mrs. J. W. Lambuth,
an inspiration to both our leaders; and as China was upon her
heart, it is not marvelous China should have been the first object
of our foreign missionary undertaking.

The second article of our Constitution reads as follows: “The
objects of this society shall be to enlist and to unite the efforts
of women and children in sending the gospel to women and
children in foreign lands, on our border, and among the Indian
tribes of our own country, through the agency of female mission-
aries, teachers, physicians, and Bible readers. The missionaries,
teachers, physicians, and Bible readers employed by the Woman’s
Board shall be subject to the appointing power of the bishop
having charge of the mission field in which they labor.”

These objects have been kept in view, and encouraging results
have followed. Very early in its operations plans were agreed
upon for training the children to love and work and pray for for-
eign missions. Consecrated, qualified managers were appointed
to organize these children into bands and societies for systematic
work. The good results have been felt in every department of
the Church; and the small fee, a condition of membership, sup-
plemented astonishingly the funds necessary to equip and sustain

12

MRS.
TRUEHEART,

First officers.

Objects.
MRS,
TRUEHEART.

Value of or-
ganization.

Incidental re-
sults.

226 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

our missions. Sunday school life felt its impulse, and more help-
ful and efficient measures were adopted by which it could become
a powerful arm of service. The Epworth League sprang into
life, and the child, previously little noticed as a factor in religious
progress, became most interesting and profitable. “A little child
was set in the midst” as did Jesus, and “‘A little child shall lead
them” has been demonstrated.

Organization was looked upon henceforth as the foundation
stone in woman’s work, and in a few years the Woman’s Board
of Home Missions took its place as a necessary force in the on-
ward march of evangelization. Throughout the Church was man-
ifest unusual activity. The operations of the General Board of
Missions became more vigorous, more far-reaching. The treas-
ury felt the effects, and a rapidly increasing number of men who
could not be spared at home said: “Send me; I will go.”

Statistics prove that the average amount contributed to the
General Board has been much greater since women, the reserve
force, took their proper places in moving forward the “Ark of the
Covenant.” It must not be inferred that the wheels of progress
felt no impediments, have had no obstacles. This was not possi-
ble; but these things have served well to stimulate activity, to
make willing hands stronger. Woman’s work has not been re-
garded as an intruder, but as a welcome helper to the General
Board in bringing the world to the feet of Jesus. With few ex-
ceptions the ordained ministry has been wise to recognize the
value of such organizations, and has readily taken away obstruc-
tions. In the foreign field the missionaries of the General Board
have, with remarkably few exceptions, greeted with gladness the
missionaries of the Woman’s Board. Our Constitution is a wise
instrument, with no disagreeable restrictions. The Woman’s
Board is not only permitted to collect its funds, but to disburse
the same, and send directly to the field. “The funds of this Board
shall be derived from private efforts,” so reads Article VIII. of
the Constitution, “from membership, life and honorary member-
ship fees, from devises and bequests, and from public collec-
tions only at meetings appointed in behalf of the Society.”
More than this, the Secretaries of the General Board are accessi-
ble at all times, and ready with helpful suggestions and able
counsel whenever called upon. This is as it should be. The
Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions forms a part of the magnifi-
WOMAN’S WORK IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. 227

cent machinery of the Church in its God-given power, and is 30
recognized by all the great minds of the mighty hosts. The Wom-
an’s Board of Foreign Missions is composed of six general officers,
six Managers, three of whom must reside in or near Nashville,
the headquarters of Church operations, where the General
Secretary and Treasurer must also reside. An annual meeting
of these officers, Managers, and Conference Secretaries that con-
stitute the Woman’s Board reviews each year’s work, plans for
the future, appropriates its funds, and extends the work. Few
changes have been found necessary in our Constitution, and in
twenty-three years few changes have been made in the officers
and managers of our Board. Our first honored President, Mrs.
Juliana Hayes, who died in 1895, was succeeded by Mrs. M. D.
Wightman, much beloved, and our first General Secretary, Mrs.
D. H. McGavock, whose guiding hand is still felt, though called
from earth a few months after Mrs. Hayes entered into rest, has
had but one successor, the present incumbent. Only one change
has been made in the General Treasurer in all these years, show-
ing in the selection of this important officer the wisdom that
guides the choice of the Board. Our Board has never borrowed
money, never incurred a debt, never failed in loyalty to the con-
stituted authorities of the Church. It has sent out since 1878
ninety-six missionaries, and put into the treasury nearly a mil-
lion and a‘half dollars. At this time we are supporting fifty-four
missionaries, one hundred and sixty-two teachers and native help-
ers, seventeen boarding schools, sixty-one day schools, six kin-
dergartens, two hospitals, two Bible colleges in China, sixty
Bible women, and one hundred and eighty-three scholarships,
our average annual collections since the end of 1880 being about
$65,000.

The year following the adoption of the Constitution fifteen
Conference Societies were organized, two hundred and seven
auxiliaries, with a membership of 5,890. Conference Societies
coincide with the boundaries of the Annual Conferences, and
auxiliaries, which constitute a Conference Society, are to be or-
ganized in the various stations, churches, and preaching places.
The Conference Societies were not at first divided into districts.
Only $2,690 resulted from this first year’s work, and this amount
was mostly membership fees of a dollar and twenty cents a mem-
ber a year, or ten cents a month. This small fee was made a

MRS.
TRUEHEART.

History.

Rapid develop=
ment.
MRS
TRUEHEART.

China.

Other: fields,

228 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

condition of membership that no one, not even the very poorest,
should be debarred the rights and privileges of the institution.
Various means were used to supplement this small fee: such as
life memberships, thank offerings, and a recommendation to
those who were able and willing to make the monthly fee twenty-
five cents instead of ten. It was decided early in the enterprise
to ask a small yearly sum to meet the cost of administration.
Many valuable women, quite competent to serve as officers and
leaders, have not the means to meet the expenses incurred in such
work; and as the Board was based upon correct business prin-
ciples, as well as upon religious, this contingent fund was rec-
ognized as indispensable, and, while not as carefully collected
now as in the earlier years, it has continued as a settled policy of
the Board. Upon the basis of 5,890 members, a small constit-
uency, and with the meager sum of $2,690, the Board, in 1878,
accepted Miss Lochie Rankin’s application, and sent her to China
as our first missionary, where she found a warm welcome from
Mrs. J. W. Lambuth, and immediately prepared to take part in
the woman’s work; which had already opened up under Mrs. Lam-
buth’s supervision. Having a special representative in the field
was a wonderful stimulus to more vigorous effort. At the second
annual meeting of the Board it shows the following table of sta-
tistics : 22 Conference Societies, 441 auxiliaries, and 12,272 mem-
bers; an increase in juvenile societies was also a most interesting
feature. Training the children was the hope of future success,
and received prayerful attention.

In 1879 a second missionary was sent out to China, the lament-
ed Dora Rankin, whose brilliant career continues still to lend a
radiance to the work in Nantziang. At this time, also, steps were
taken toward entering other fields. Brazil and Mexico were call-
ing, and eager hands were held out for their deliverance. In
Brazil Piracicaba became the center of operations, with Miss
Watts in charge. Soon Rio was entered, then Juiz de Fora and
Petropolis, until now schools have been planted and flourish not
only in these important stations but in Sao Paulo City, Ribeirao
Preto, and Porto Alegre, in the Province of Rio Grande do
Sul. Papal lands offer fiercer opposition to the entrance of the
pure gospel even than pagan countries, and the need of the truth
is as great, and to give the truth to these was gladly determined.

Mexico, entered in 1881, the same year that Brazil was opened,
WOMAN’S WORK IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. 229

became at once an object of interest. In the City of Mexico and
San Luis Potosi schools were opened, but in a short time were
closed, and operations stressed at Laredo, on the United States
side of the Rio Grande, which became the door of entrance into
the republic, and assumed immediate importance under Miss N.
E. Holding’s leadership. From Laredo the Board proceeded into
the republic along the lines of the National and Central rail-
roads. Passing over Monterey, where was the Virginia Rose-
buds’ mission, work was opened at Saltillo in 1886, in Durango,
on the International railroad, in 1889. The mission was re-
opened in San Luis Potosi in 1890; planted in Chihuahua, on
the Central, in the same year; and on another branch of the Cen-
tral, in Guadalajara, in 1895; until finally, at the apex of this tri-
angle of stations, work was reopened most auspiciously in the
capital city in 1898. From these well-equipped and well-located
centers the light and power of the gospel radiate throughout the
darkness of priest-ridden Mexico.

Operations among the wild tribes of the West found ready ac-
ceptance by the Board, and Methvin Institute, with its well-
selected faculty and curriculum, with its evangelical force for
camp work, has brought forth very gratifying results.

Turning again to the far East, where were being garnered rich
fruits in Shanghai, Nantziang, Soochow, and Sung-Kiang, in
China, the eyes of the Woman’s Board were directed to the her-
mit kingdom of Korea, with its twelve millions of souls. Women
of fine mental endowments, education, and spiritual power had
been placed in charge of the missions of China, Brazil, and Mex-
ico—women whose names will forever be known in the history
cf our Church; such women as Miss Laura A. Haygood, of
blessed memory, Miss Mattie H. Watts, and Miss Nannie E.
Holding.

When Korea was adopted the Board was fortunate in having
an equally well-equipped woman, Mrs. J. P. Campbell, to take
charge. Carolina Institute in Seoul, woman’s work in Song-do,
and successful evangelistic efforts at both stations give promise
of results that fill our hearts with thanksgiving. These countries,
with Cuba the latest, the youngest, call out much vigorous labor,
and extension in every field waits only upon the resources of the
Board. Beyond occupation by the General Board we are re-
stricted by our Constitution; yet, sad to say, our resources, up

MRS.
TRUEHEART.

Mexico.

Korea,
MRS,
TRUEHEART.

Periodicals of
the Society.

230 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

to the present, have not allowed our following the General Board
into all the places they now occupy. Gladly would we enter
every inviting open door, but borrowing to do God’s work is for-
bidden. In seeking to increase our resources and fill our treas-
ury, the Board has shown much wisdom. To spread broadcast
missionary literature, to keep before the societies the pressing
needs of the work, the God-given opportunities, the heavy re-
sponsibilities to be assumed, caused the Board to publish thou-
sands of leaflets, which have been gratuitously distributed; to es-
tablish (in 1880) an efficient organ, the Woman’s Missionary Ad-
vocate, and a few years later a juvenile paper, the Little Worker.
These periodicals have been issued at a very low subscription
price to place them within easy reach of all. Their mission is,
first of all, to give information, to awaken a missionary con-
science,to multiply societies and increase membership, rather than
become a source of revenue. They do more to keep in vigorous
life the whole organization, to inspire zeal, and bring in close
touch the far-away field's with the base of supplies, than any other
agency; and the funds paid out to supplement their cost are very
small when compared to the money they bring into the treasury
and the means of education they furnish the women and children.
In addition to the means named for enlisting a larger constitu-
ency and supplying the information that fires the heart with holy
enthusiasm, the Board encourages the adoption and support oi
specials by individuals or societies. These specials are selected
by the Board, but the funds for their support being outside of
dues, the necessary sums to send out missionaries, sustain
them, build and equip homes and schools and hospitals may be
appropriated by the benefactors, and sent directly to the ben-
eficiaries. These specials include Bible women, day schools and
scholarships. The reflex influence of these specials is too decided
to be discouraged, and, while they cost time and thought and
care, they form a powerful connecting link between the early
steps of progress, and final triumph from infantile days to vig-
orous womanhood, in the cause of foreign missions. Native Bible
women are as valuable in the evangelistic efforts of the mission-
aries as schools and colleges in the educational. Such women
have direct personal touch with their heathen sisters, very fruitful
in happy results, as all our missionaries testify ; but well-rounded,
finely equipped Bible women are not born; they must first be
BIBLE WOMEN. 231

instructed, soundly converted, and trained in our Bible schools.
In twenty-three years a number have been thus prepared, and
have done fine work.

The Woman’s Board has been fortunate and unfortunate in its
medical work—fortunate in having secured for its hospitals and
dispensaries such physicians as Dr. Mildred Phillips Leech, Dr.
Anne Walter Fearn, and Dr. Margaret Polk; but unfortunate
that a larger number of consecrated women called of God to the
foreign field are not willing to prepare as medical missionaries.

But the limits of this paper will not allow enlargement upon
any of these vital points. I will close with a few statistics of
operations at home. There are 35 Conference Societies, 2,290
auxiliaries, 72,644 members, the Scarritt Bible and Training
School, well equipped with teachers and appliances, and two
monthly papers with several thousand interested readers who
grow in intelligence as well as in the grace of God.

The Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions, M. E. Church,
South, owe more to God, through the reflex action of this glo-
rious missionary work, than can be reckoned in dollars and cents.
With joy we to-day thank God that he thas given us the gospel;
has given us educational facilities; given us strong, irresistible
desire to evangelize every tribe and tongue, and opportunities
as wide as the world and privileges as high as heaven.

BIBLE WOMEN.
MRS. M. I, LAMBUTH.

OF them it is said, “There was a time when they were not,”
and that “it has taken nineteen hundred years to make them ap-
preciated.” Even if this be true, the weed for them be-
gan nearly six thousand years ago, when the first shadow fell upon
Eden; and it may be that some Old Testament women were, in
their times and places, what Bible women are to us., If visits
could have been exchanged, there would have been many subjects
of mutual interest, and as they conversed of the “Angel of the
Lord,” tthe “Author of Salvation,” the “Corner Stone,” the

MRS,
TRUEHEART.

Medical work.
MRS. LAMBUTH.

Bible women
of the Bible,

232 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

“Man of Sorrows,” the “Wonderful One,” so long promised to the
children of God, much light and interest could have been given
by the Bible women, since they knew from the New Testament
their fuller meaning. They could have told that the “Author of
Salvation” had taken on humanity, that he had shown himself the
“Chief Corner Stone” of Christianity, and that he was indeed the
“Wonderful One,” for had not he been the healer to many incur-
ably diseased people? had he not miraculously fed the hungry
by his divine power? was there not testimony that the blind had
been given sight, and the dead had been brought to life? Yes,
“he had been despised and rejected of men;” he had been
“wounded for the world’s transgressions,” as was foretold long
years before he came. More than this, there was the dreadful
agony upon the cross, the death, the going down into the grave,
the coming forth from the dread place in life, and the resurrection
morn, when he gave to the women early at his sepulcher the com-
mand to ‘“‘go tell” the wonderful tidings, and bestowed upon them
the new, the grandest opportunity, with the most sublime theme,
that has ever been given upon earth. Is it any wonder that on
receiving their commission those honored women fell at his
feet in adoration and made haste to do his will? Is it strange that
from then until now women have loved to tell the story of redeem-
ing love to those who have not ‘heard or read it? Stranger by far
will it be if woman loses her enthusiasm and feels not the need,
the duty, and the privilege to help take and send the wonderful
tidings whenever and to whomsoever it is not yet given, until
Jesus shall come again and the need shall cease.

It is inspiring to think that women in Western Asia and South-
east Europe became coworkers with the apostles of early Church-
es, and that they have an honorable mention in the New Testa-
ment history as examples of consecration and zealous activity in
God’s service becoming the Bible women of their time. It is well
for us that Christianity went with women into Western Europe,
Great Britain, and on to America, and that the Spirit of God
ceased not to influence them to seek out and help the Christless
at home and abroad to appropriate gospel blessings so freely of-
fered to all.

We do well to cherish a high degree of gratitude, too, that the
privilege of knowing and feeling for the sorrows of India’s zena-
nas, the wail of China’s hopeless and bereaved mothers, and of
BIBLE WOMEN. 233

sympathizing with the degradation of Africa’s women, came to
Christian women and caused them to go out with Bible religion as
Bible women and seek to bring heathen mothers and daughters up
and out from their darkness into the saving light of the gospel;
to bring them from the worship of dumb idols, the belief of vain
stuiperstitions, and the observance of horrible customs that had
surrounded them for ages past.

Yes, it is a special blessing to our sex that some women felt
called to “go tell” of Jesus, and to break the silence, to lift the cur-
tain that shut millions of women in from Christian light, love, and
privilege.

It was well, too, that married women were willing to go and es-
tablish Christian homes and firesides, thereby proving that in them
there was joy and honor such as never came to those without
Christ Jesus. It was not the work of a week, a month, or a year
to bring heathen wives and mothers to them, but in God’s own time
they came, cautiously but surely, and enjoyed being guests in a
mission home. Their visits gave them opportunity to look
around, and to see that they were clean; and, if not very well fur-
nished, they were bright and comfortable as compared with the
dark and cheerless rooms in which they lived. Many a time did
a company of such visitors look around and exclaim, “How
clean!” “how beautiful!” and sometimes, as in China, say to one
another: “This is heaven.” Such appreciation of a humble Chris-
tian home made its mistress feel all the more anxious to under-
stand the language of her guests, nor was she long in becoming
able to say that her home was not beautiful as she used the word,
but there were beautiful homes in the mansions of God in heaven,
where the good from all countries dwelt after death. Such simple
words, with many precious promises and truths from the Bible,
told over and over to Eastern women began, by the blessing of
God, to wear away the barriers to long-closed homes and hearts,
and little by little the women understood something of what was
being given. At times there was little or no visible good result-
ing, and many methods were used to create lasting interest.
Books were shown, the Bible was put into women’s hhands by the
rnissionary women saying: “If you will read this book, you will
find many more wonderful and excellent things than I can tell
you.” “Read, did you say, lady? Why, we cannot read. No one
ever taught us. We do not know one word from another in books.

MRS, LAMBUTH.

The inspira-
tion.

Chinese im-
pressions of a
Christian
home.
MRS. LAMBUTH.

Beginnings.

The New York
society.

234 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

We do not know the name of a single character. How, then,
could we read? Have you never heard that reading is not for
women, and that a cow or a cat might as well be taught as we?”

In 1834 Rev. David Abeel, a returned missionary, while in Lon-
don, England, presented to some women there the deplorable con-
dition of their heathen sisters, and stimulated them to organize,
and a society for the promotion of female education was formed.
It continues its work even now, having for its first aim to point
all pupils to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the
world ; secondly, to enable each pupil to read the Bible for herself
in her own tongue; thirdly, to impart all other useful knowledge
that circumstances may render advisable; and fourthly, to train
native agents to carry on the work.

Mr. Abeel next visited New York City and made such an ap-
peal to ladies there that they organized for work, but, at the ur-
gent request of Church Boards, their society was abandoned until
1860, when Mrs. Frances B. Mason, from Burma, so effectually
told the sad story of heathen women’s woes and needs that there
was no resisting the duty of setting to work. The late Mrs. T. C.
Doremus was chosen President of the Woman’s Union Mission-
ary Society then organized, and no work ever had a truer friend
or a more faithful leader. This godly woman had been interested
in organized mission work from 1828. She had rejoiced in the
prospect for a living society in 1834; how much more ready, then,
was she to throw her whole soul into the leading of 1860’s society!
The first year of its existence four Bible women were supported
in India, China, Burma, and a lady in Japan was helped to make
a start there.

It was during the civil war in America that pupils and Bible
women in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, were aided by
this society to continue work in and around Shanghai, China, and
without such help there must have been a falling back to heathen
homes and a retreat from Bible efforts. Some of these pupils
have been called from earth, and one or two Bible women have
exchanged service for reward. How glorious must have been
the meeting with their benefactress in the glory land!

The appropriations of this society were both liberal and oppor-
tune in times and places owned and blessed of God. The Bible
women of this society in India, China, and Japan are known to be
BIBLE WOMEN. 235

consecrated, zealous, and skillful workers, and we praise God for
its organization and more than forty years of existence.

In 1869 the Methodist Episcopal Church began its Woman’s
Foreign Missionary Society. With strong faith in God, with but
little money, brave hearts determined to advance, and when it
seemed an impossibility to meet the expenses for sending out their
missionary one of the committee said : “Shall we lose our mission-
ary because we have not funds in hand to send her? No, we will
walk the streets of Boston in calico dresses, and save the expense
of costly apparel.” It was agreed that she should be sent, and
their first female worker to India was appointed. In a few
months a second one was accepted for the same field. Farewell
meetings were held both in Boston and New York City. In the
latter place Old Bedford Street Church, from which Ann Wilkins
went to Africa in 1836, was chosen as suitable for that occasion,
and in it a.large and enthusiastic audience gathered to give God-
speed to the missionaries of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary So-
ciety, “and at fifty cents a ticket, too.” In the chancel, in the
pulpit, on the pulpit steps, and wherever there was room, a host of
ministers sat to see the strange sight of two young women going
thousands of miles away into a foreign land to teach heathen wom-
en the Bible and its religion, with no other pledge of support than
that of a handful of women whose first year’s collections were $4,-
546.86 wherewith to meet the demands of the work. Those two
women went, they studied, they taught, they encouraged the wom-
en, they prayed for and with them, until now India’s Methodist
Bible women are numbered by the hundreds. In China also
(North, South, Central, and West) they are at work.

In 1877 there were no regularly employed Bible women in
Peking, but there was the “cloud as big as a man’s hand.” A
mother in Shantung Province, and she a widow of unusual ear-
nestness, living near to the birthplace of Confucius and Mencius,
and four hundred miles from Peking, wanted to know “the doc-
trine,” and made the sixteen days’ journey on a wheelbarrow
pushed by her own son. Two daughters went with their mother.
Everybody laughed and prophesied all sorts of evil. She was
called crazy, and was told that she never could learn to read. She
not only learned to read, but became one of the most efficient
helpers in the North China M. E. Mission, where she was em-
ployed as day school teacher, hospital assistant, Bible reader, and

MRS. LAMBUTH.

M. E Church.

In China.
236 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

MRS. LAMBUTH. traveling companion. Her son became a preacher, and her

Training
schools for
Bible women.

daughters exemplary Christian mothers.

If the work of Bible women is so important, how necessary it is
that through training schools their qualification should be pro-
vided for! Ten years from the starting out of this society a Bible
woman’s school in Soochow, Southern China, was opened. Elev-
en years after, there were forty different women in school during
one year. Thirteen years after its opening, twenty-five women
were taking the regular course of study. In 1893 the work of the
Bible women had become so important that a native preacher was
released from his Conference work to take charge of a training
school in which nine women passed such fine examinations that
the preachers were greatly surprised that women could do so well.
The Foochow school had the honor of being requested to send a
Bible woman to Nanking, the ancient Southern capital near the
Yang-tse river. <A timid little widow, but with a heart filled with
the love of God, and whose happiness was in helping to save souls,
responded and went to the distant province to lead women to
Jesus. In Northern China there are also Bible training schools,
the women in them chosen or selected from various districts and
stations. It is told of one Bible woman there of sixty-nine years,
who was faithful and gave great satisfaction, that when overtaken
by sickness, and being told how necessary she was to the work,
protested, saying: “I cannot help build the Master’s house. I’m
not a mason; I can only carry a little plaster for the masons,”
showing thus her meekness in those last years when her work was
almost done. She was gathered home, but her influence among
those who knew or heard of her led many to honor her for faith-
fulness in God’s work.

It would be a pleasure to follow this society’s Bible women in
Ching Kiang, King Kiang, Woohu, and into Western China,
where, far removed from the outside busy life of nations, women
are more accessible than in any other part of the great empire.
Time forbids, and we will add only that after thirty-two years’
work our sister Church has over one thousand Bible women and
other helpers, seeking to give light and salvation wherever it is
not, with an annual receipt of $360,000.

The very first Bible woman of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, in China became a Christian while living with Dr. and Mrs.
Cunnyngham at Shanghai, and was baptized by Dr. Cunnyngham
BIBLE WOMEN. 237

after a long probation and careful examination as to her change ™®s-LamsutH.
of faith and willingness to give up whatever of her former life was

opposed to Christianity. So considerable an amount of general | , church,
Bible knowledge had been digested by Mrs. Quay (for that was soutn.

the Bible woman’s name) that she could give the outlines of sev-
eral important portions of the Old and New Testaments. Other
books were not neglected, catechisms, hymns, promises, and some
biographies were familiar to her, and could be quoted with ease
when occasion made it desirable to do so. Having been a devout
Buddhist before conversion to Christianity, she felt it her duty to
make up for the years in which she worshiped idols and ancestors
and observed Buddhistic ceremcnies. No work was too difficult
to undertake for Jesus’s sake. No person was too humble for
her to approach in the interest of her soul, and her home,
though not large, was always sufficient to shelter the homeless and
the orphan. Several such persons went from this home to heaven,
leaving grateful memories of the Christian influences thrown
around them there.

In the department of Church work Mrs. Quay led the women
in prayer meetings and Bible classes, and sought out others to
bring into Sunday schools and mothers’ meetings. It was no
uncommon thing for her when living in the neighborhood of a
church or chapel to prepare on Saturdays food for such women as
could not go home and return for Sunday afternoon service. In-
deed, it became quite a usual custom for them to bring uncooked
rice tied up in a clean cloth, and by putting it into Mrs. Quay’s
rice box make some return for her generous provision for them.

In family visitations books were taken for distribution. The
Bible was a special book that she gave or sold as she could. The
present of a book to a father or son in a family often made friends
for the Bible woman, and left the door open to her on a return
visit. It was a point with her to know the contents of a new book
to be distributed, so that she could the more intelligently talk of
it with her people.

At out stations it was customary to hold special meetings for
women in a schoolroom, chapel, or such other home as was
available. Invitations to these meetings were given to any within
reach. If they failed to appear for the one asking, another invita- ce ot
tion was sent, and frequently a number of women would be pres-
ent. A cup of clear tea, and sometimes a cake, were served in

Quay.Ta-Ta.
MRS, LAMBUTH,

A convert.

238 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Oriental style, and helped to strengthen a kindly feeling among
them all.

There were not many of the high class women in those days to
come out, nor was it only the middle class women that attended
the meetings. The poor and the unlettered were sought out and
urged to come also, for they needed the brightness of Christianity
to cheer their lone hearts. Among them we will mention one, a
poor, aged, and feeble woman. She heard how Jesus hhealed the
sick and fed the hungry; that he was kind to the lonely and sor-
towing. She understood enough to feel that it would have been
good for her to have lived then, and she said: “I should like to
have known that teacher.” She was told that he could see her,
that he would send joy and comfort to her heart even then; but
she feared she was “too old,” “too stupid,” “too poor,” to be
noticed.

The Bible woman walked home with her that evening talking
of Jesus. She made various other visits, and hoped that the sown
seed would surely spring up and that a harvest for God’s glory
was not far away. Other work called her away for a short time,
but as soon as she could she returned, and went at once to renew
her visits to this desolate friend. The house was shut, and on in-
quiry a neighbor told her that the woman was dead, and that her
body lay in its coffin on the ground not far from the house. Mrs.
Quay, in telling me of it afterwards, said: “I was at first confused
to death, but I soon asked if there was no message left for me, and
if she said nothing before dying.” ‘Well, yes,” replied the neigh-
bor, “she was all the time saying, ‘Jesus, Jesus, save me; Jesus,
save me!’ until her body was nearly cold and her eyes fixed upon
something above her, when she smiled, and was gone.” To Mrs.
Quay these words were very precious, and she felt sure that the
gospel seed had taken root, and that at the eleventh hour there
had been saving faith, and that the angels came and took her
spirit home to the “house of many mansions.”

Much more could be told of this Bible woman, known as Quay
Ta-Ta, but we have given proof of her faithfulness, and of her be-
ing blessed of God. She lived to be more than seventy years old,
and passed away while at work in an out station, having no fears
of death. Her heart was full of joy at having been allowed to
help lead some of her people to the Saviour. It has been well
said of her that “her faithfulness won many to Christ.” Quay T4a-
BIBLE WOMEN. 239

Ta’s second daughter-in-law and two granddaughters are active
Christians, Bible workers, making three generations of Christian
workers, and four of baptized members. An incident connected
with one granddaughter during last year’s anti-Christian excite-
ment in China will be allowable here, showing that God’s Holy
Spirit helps to make converted heathen women strong, brave, and
true to their convictions. One day this woman and her friend
went shopping in the Shanghai native city, and just before leaving
a store a strange man rudely taunted them thus: “We know who
you are; you are some of those Christians. You are marked;
your dress, your hair arrangements are unlike true Chinese.
Your finger nails are cut short, your feet are large like foreigners.
It will not be long before the knife will pass thus across your
necks,” he making a gesture significant of decapitation. Tothose
words there was no reply until his speech was finished, when the
granddaughter spoke out fearlessly: “You can kill but once.
You may kill the body, but the soul is in the care of God, the liv-
ing, heavenly God; it never dies; it cannot be killed.” The cruel
man said no more, but slunk away in silence, and the women
went their way unmolested, sure that the Lord was their Strength
and Protector, and that he gave them words to speak for him.

Our Woman’s Board, with its consecrated workers, began in
China thirty years after the Parent Board opened work, and had
six Bible women as a nucleus for that department of work. Last
year’s report shows thirty-three such workers in China, and twen-
ty-seven more in Mexico, South America, Korea, and Cuba, mak-
ing a total of sixty Bible women employed by this one society.
These sixty women are reaching a vast number—figures cannot
tell the results of their visits, their conversations, their ministra-
tions, and their prayers. Not until all are gathered home to Jesus
will it be known how great the result of their work is.

Japan has Bible women. All denominations see their useful-
ness. There was a time when it was thought unnecessary to give
educational andreligious help to Japanesewomen. Those days are
past, and now the best is not too good, and their uplifting is help-
ing the nation to become a model one. A religion full of the
spirit of Christ Jesus can save both the men and women of Japan.
It is the desire of all who are engaged in Christian work that the
first year of the new century should be characterized by a great
forward movement.

MRS, LAMBUTH,

Courage.

The work to-
day.
MRS. LAMBUTH.

Outlook.

240 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

On every mission field the great work of qualifying for Chris-
tian leadership is going on. In the Bible schools trained and
consécrated women from the home land are giving much time to
the education and equipment of native women. Nor are these
alone in the work. Male missionaries and native preachers in
many places are teaching the Bible to classes of women, and are
guiding them in the pursuit of those studies which will discipline
and transform their natures, making them responsible agents in
their work for God. The need of Bible women, sympathetic and
loving, is the need of the heart and of the home in every heathen
land. As the cry for help rises from hopes that are wrecked and
hearts that are crushed in the habitations of cruelty, of suffering,
and of sin, let the whole Church of God awake and respond for the
sake of Him through whom the highest possibilities of woman-
hood have been the heritage of the world.
Section VI.
THE YOUNG PEOPLE.

THE YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH OF THE
FUTURE.

REV. JAMES ATKINS, D.D.

Jesus of Nazareth was the champion of youth. He threw the
light and warmth of a tender, divine regard upon its untrodden
paths. His view point in dealing with childhood was new and
revolutionary, as much so as was his annunciation of the princi-
ples of the kingdom of heaven. He rose as far above all other
masters of men in discerning and defining the value of childhood
in its relation to manhood as he did above the common doctors
of his day in expounding the laws of spiritual life. The effect of
his doctrine was a command to the world to about face and front
the cradle in the solution of its greatest problems.

Other great teachers had regarded childhood in the main as a
necessary evil—as a period of weakness and worthlessness—which
had to be passed over in order to reach the estate of manhood.
They saw that the tiger and the lion leaped into almost instant
dominion in the jungle, and that within three or four years the
horse and ox became the invaluable servants of men, but they
were never able to see with clearness the providential purpose
in the original weakness and long-continued helplessness of the
human offspring. It is not difficult to see, therefore, why it was
that they were unable to throw more than an occasional gleam of
light athwart the desolate darkness of unchristian childhood. If
Christianity had done nothing more for the world than to lift the
dark shadows of neglect and cruelty from off the cradlehood of
man, it would have been worth a thousandfold more than all its
earthly costs. But in lifting the shadows thence, it provided for
the lifting of them from off the fields of after life.

The rationale of the kingdom of God among men is wrapped
ATKINS,

The primacy of
childheod.

*¢ Suffer the
children.’?

242 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

up in the teaching of Christ concerning the absolute primacy of
childhood in the scheme of human destiny.

While the scope of this address does not allow a general dis-
cussion of this doctrine, a few fundamental statements are neces-
sary, since the success of the Church on every line of develop-
ment and endeavor depends on a right interpretation and use of
what Jesus has said about children.

On one occasion, as Christ was teaching the multitude, certain
mothers brought their babes to him that he might touch them
and bless them. The disciples, when they saw this, rebuked the
mothers. But Jesus was displeased, as the practical and candid
Mark tells us (x. 13, 14), and he took them up in his arms, put his

hands upon them, and blessed them. This was a marvelous scene,

The impulse of parental love sought for the little ones a contact
with the highest; the condescension and love of the Saviour in-
vited them, and so soon as the opposition of adult ecclesiastics
could be eliminated they came, and received the blessings and ca-
resses of the Son of Man. While the situation itself teaches a les-
son which cannot be evaded, Jesus did not leave so important a
doctrine to be inferred from his acts, but said to those parents and
those disciples and to the successors of both forever: “Suffer the
little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.”

“Suffer them.” This means permit, allow them to come.
Then the impulse is within them and the demand is that it shall
not be obstructed. And the corresponding truth is that all the
elements in Jesus are such as appeal supremely to the childlike
heart. His kindness, his gentleness, his candor, his simple
majesty, his profound sympathy, his self-immolating love, his
lot of suffering, his tragic death, his glorious resurrection are
qualities and conditions which awake all the generous love of
childish hearts and draw them toward him. What the children
need, therefore, most of all is a revelation of Christ through the
lives and teachings of those who have the right and place of au-
thoritative guidance. This done, and they will come to him.
His terms are “suffer them,” “forbid them not.”

On another occasion when the disciples, affected perhaps by
certain selfish visions, came to Jesus saying, “Who then is
greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus called to him a little
child and set him in the midst of them. This child was almost
certainly a boy, possibly a wide-eyed, gaping boy who stood on
THE YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH. 243

the inside of the circle of hearers, and with undisguised won-
der of childish faith gazed up into the face of the Saviour as he
taught the people. There is a tradition that this boy was after-
wards St. Ignatius ;* this is one of the few traditions of that day
which I am heartily disposed to believe. In this connection it
may not be out of place to say that the boy is the neglected and
most needy element in the Church of to-day. But Jesus then
said: “Except ye be converted [turn round] and become as little
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt.
xviii. 1-3.) The indubitable effect of this statement was to make
childhood, which men could understand, the analogue of condi-
tions which otherwise they could not understand, at least so well.
This statement brings up a comparison of two policies: the one 1s
to grow up and become habituated away from all that is child-
like—to grow into a hardened manhood and then turn round and
become a child again in order to find admittance into the king-
dom of heaven; the other is to possess and indulge the qualities of
childhood while yet a child. The simple question is whether it is
easier to be a child when one really is a child, or to quit being a
man and become a child. It is a question of acquiring by disci-
pline against many odds what children already have through
guilelessness.t In the one way or the other the feat must be ac-
complished. When Jesus came to answer fully the inquiry of the
disciples as to who is greatest he said: “Whosoever there-
fore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is great-
est in the kingdom of heaven.”

But Jesus further said in terms of generalization: “For of such
is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mark x.14.) Many people to this
day read it as though it had been said: “For such are of the king-
dom of heaven.”

The first interpretation given to this saying of our Lord was
that certain childlike qualities, such as faith, love, obedience, etc.,
were necessary in order to salvation; a position which is true,
but which had a full statement in another and entirely different
situation, as has already been shown. A second interpretation
was that some children, under certain conditions, might become
members of the visible Church, which was a real and valuable
advance, but which by no means measured up to the full mean-

 

*Nicephorus, II, 35.
+ Enthymius Zigabenus, as cited by Meyer on Matthew xviii. 3.

ATKINS.

The child in
the midst.

‘Of such is
the kingdom.’’
ATKINS.

Children and
the Church.

244 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

ing, which seems to be this: that when Christ’s ideal Church is
realized it will be a Church of children—thas is, a Church whose
membership shall consist in the main of those whose entrance
into it was under the natural and easy conditions furnished by
childhood, and whose spiritual growth has kept pace with the
physical and intellectual development until a well-rounded man-
hood has been attained under the laws of growth which belong
to all the kingdoms of life. The interpretation does not, on the
one hand, deny admittance to any individual, however aged, who
by neglect or willfulness may have missed the early path, nor does
it, on the other hand, squint at the doctrine of inherited holiness
or any view that would minimize the necessity of being born again
by the Spirit of God.

I am not unmindful that the Church began with a grown up
generation. There was no other way to beginit. Ifthe unbelief
and slowness of heart of the adults had not prevented Jesus from
having unprejudiced access to the children of his day, he would
have had a thousand believers to where he obtained one, and
they would all have been of a better quality. But that genera-
tion of grown up initiates was the last authorized edition of an
adult Church. We have had no end of experiments in the evan-
gelization of adults, and in the disciplining of them to the de-
mands of religious life. Until recently, and, alas! too much even
now, it has been an almost settled policy to allow men to grow
up and test their powers of sinning until the evil in them becamnie
functioned in the life before seriously seeking their recovery.
This policy must be reversed, and, as we shall presently notice, is
being reversed in a very hopeful degree. The Church is now
rapidly coming into the conviction which has had notable indi-
vidual acceptance all along the way of Christianity, that a gener-
ation of grown up people when evangelized, or saved, is at best
but half saved; first, because not half of them under the best con-
ditions are ever reached so as to be vitally saved at all; and sec-
ondly, because those who are really converted in middle life and
beyond are themselves not much more than half saved. They
are plucked as “brands from the burning,” but to pluck brands
from the burning by no means measures the full scope of Christ’s.
purpose in saving a soul. To be saved from a fire is a great thing
truly, but to be saved from a life of incendiarism is a vastly great-
THE YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH. 245

er thing. Whatever such men may be saved from, they are cer-
tainly not saved to all that to which Christ came to save them.

But perhaps the most far-reaching of the economic commands
which our Saviour gave to his disciples is this: “See that ye de-
spise not one of these little ones.” (Mark xviii. 10.) The harsh-
est meaning of the word “despise” is to “pour contempt upon,”
and its mildest meaning is “to undervalue.” Undervaluation
leads to contempt, so that undervaluation is the original sin, while
neglect, contempt, and distortion make up the category of actual
transgression.

This command does not declare an incidental guardianship of
the Church and the family over the childhood of the race. It is,
when taken in connection with other utterances of Christ on this
subject, the declaration of a policy. It is the announcement of a
policy which is buttressed on the natural side by analogies from
all the kingdoms which have life in them, whether vegetable, ani-
mal, or intellectual, in all which the process is ever from the po-
tential to the dynamic, from the embryonic to the fully developed,
from the small to the great. But this plan is also specially but-
tressed by that wonderful saying of Jesus: “For J say unto you,
That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my
Father which is in heaven.” This throwing open of the heaven-
ly world that men may see in what estimation childhood is held
there further strengthens two other declarations which correct
false views of the Church and restore her to the true plane. One
of these is, ““Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name
receiveth me ;” and the other is, “Butwhoso shall offend [cause to
stumble or fall] one of these little ones [these children and those
like them] which believe in me, it were better for him that a mill-
stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in
the depths of the sea.” (Matt. xviii..6.) The undervalued and neg-
lected child is itself 'the millstone about the neck of modern socie-
ty. There has been no age since Christ in which a new era might
not have been made by a literal interpretation of what Jesus said
about children instead of extracting from his words a mere sym-
bol by which to teach adults concerning themselves. The fre-
quency with which his command to despise not the little ones has
not only been infracted but ground to powder by the Church in
past ages is a heart-sickening reflection. But many tokens out of
the recent past and the present indicate that a new era is dawning,

‘

ATKINS.

“* Despise
not.’?

A policy.
ATKINS,

Beginning of
the Sunday
school.

Recent studies.

246 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

so that the atmosphere of our own times is full of hopefulness.
The century which has just closed witnessed a truly wonderful
revolution in this field of thought. Indeed, great as was its prog-
ress in the discoveries of steam and electricity and in the modes of
their application, and in the field of the physical sciences and the
libera! arts, its greatest achievement was the rediscovery of the
child. A moment’s survey of this process may be helpful.
Without discounting the desultory efforts which after the
Reformation were made in various lands to revive Christ’s view
of childhood and youth and the Church’s obligation to it, it is but
just to say that the true renaissance began with the Sunday school
of Mr. Raikes in Gloucester, in 1780. From that small begin-
ning of four paid teachers in charge of a handful of neglected and
ignorant children, the Sunday school has grown into a host of
more than twenty-four millions. More than two millions of these
are consecrated teachers giving freely and joyfully their services
to more than twenty-two miilions of the flower of the race. It
is scarcely to be questioned that out of this movement, more than
from any other single source, came that inpulse toward free
popular education which signalized the nineteenth century more
than all other civic movements combined. As a result of the
advance on these codrdinate lines of religious instruction and
general primary education, the latter half of the century was
characterized by a large amount of literature devoted to child
study in various forms, and withal not a few valuable books on
the religious life of childhood and youth. While much of this
literature has done little more than to give formal statement to
facts and principles which were already fairly well known, it has
tended to turn the attention of the home on the one hand, and the
State on the other, more fully upon the importance and possibili-
ties of the child. Dr. Starbuck,* for example, in his work on this
subject, has not brought forward much that is new. And he has
withal so spoken of religious experiences in ‘the terms of the ma-
terial sciences as to forbid some of his utterances from finding ac-
ceptance with a large class of religious teachers. But he has in
certain regards done a valuable service; chiefly in this, that he
has reénforced by scientific data some very important doctrines
which the Church has long held, but acted upon too little. The

 

* «Psychology of Religion.”
THE YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH. 247

chief value of his work is in the gathering and scientific presenta-
tion of a large amount of data to show that the period of childhood
and early youth is preéminently the period of becoming religious,
and the discovery of the physiological and psychological condi-
tions, which it is necessary to know in order to the most suc-
cessful work in securing that end. When parents and religious
teachers have been led to see by such scientific proofs that a cer-
tain and effective religious life depends as much upon an early
training for it as the highest skill in handicraft does upon a child-
hood apprenticeship and for the same reasons, they will not, they
cannot but be moved to a larger concern for the early and compe-
tent religious training of the children and youth committed to
them.

Following the Sunday school and its general effects already
alluded to came the Young Men’s Christian Association, the
Christian Endeavor Society, Young People’s Union, Epwortl
League, and the various special Church societies for the devel-
opment and expression of ‘the young life of the Church. This
progress in the latter half of the century just closed was truly
great not only in its breadth of range and its numerical exhibits,
but in the preparation of a host of gifted and cultivated young
leaders who stand in the dawn light of the twentieth century,
ready to enter the larger fields of opportunity which the new
times have brought.

But we must not at this point make the mistake of assuming
that we have attained. All that has been done hitherto in this
way amounts to little more than an enlistment of the hosts. The
larger work of training them for the strenuous campaigns which
this country shall see still lies before us. This conclusion wi'l
force itself upon us if we but glance at the magnitude and com-
plexity of the task which presents itself to the faith and resources
of the Church.

It will probably be granted without controversy that under the
orders of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the chief
impulse of the Church is the missionary impulse. It follows that
the normal condition of the Church is one of supreme missionarv
activity. Over against this ideal stands the fact that within our
own communion there exists a general state of apathy. and we
are not below the average of Protestant Christians. Our con-
tributions and other forms of activity are mere symptoms of a

ATKINS.

Young people’s
societies.

Missions.
ATKINS.

At home as
well as abroad.

Three prob-
Jems.

248 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

life which waits to be led forth into a robust and triumphant de2-
velopment. The accomplishment of this will require a prolonged
and painstaking process of education; a process which, while it
shall be addressed to all stages of life among us, must be chiefly
aimed at the childhood and youth of the Church, in whom it is
possible to produce an ideal in harmony with the demands of the
gospel of Christ. Thus the first work which claims our atten-
tion is one of inward transformation, the creation of a new ideal
as to our part in the evangelization of the world.

The magnitude of the work on the objective side is immense.
It contemplates nothing less than the regeneration of Christen-
dom and the evangelization of the pagan world.

Constant regeneration is the order of progress in the kingdom
of heaven. New ideals, new issues, and new methods are the nec-
essary outflow of new hearts. Whoever accepts Christ’s doc-
trine of individualism and dares to rest his own progress or that
of the Church on it makes a fatal mistake. The man is first, it
is true; but the family, the community, the nation, the world fol-
low in an order as natural in the spiritual world as that which ob-
tains in the physical. It follows, therefore, that the Church of
the future is to succeed or fail in proportion as it shall meet the
demands of human life in all these relations. A Church which
cannot or will not in the home field measure up to the sociological
problems born of the new life which the gospel has inspired in
man will have but little business abroad and but little power to
go. Our age is thronged with problems of that nature. The
field of what are called home missions is larger now than the
whole field was only a few years ago, and some of the problems
upon which the Church has hitherto merely looked askance and
“passed by on the other side” will hereafter have to be grappled
with with all the power and resources at command, and this in
no spasmodic way, however Herculean, but with the same spirit
of patience and long-suffering which has characterized our work
in the foreign fields.

Among these home problems are: (1) the race problem; (2) the
multi-race problem, and (3) the problem of the industrial classes.

1. The race problem has to do with the man among us whom
Bishop Havgood very truly and forcibly denominated “our
brother in black.” Until recently the negro has been separated
from us by chasms of tradition and politics which could not be
THE YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH. 249

bridged. But now these barriers are being so far removed that
the burden of the negro regeneration is coming to rest almost
wholly upon the white people of the South. It has providentially
come about that the Southern white man, who has ever been the
negro’s best friend, is now and henceforth his only friend in any
sense which embraces all his interests as a race. The coming to
the foefront just at this juncture of a few leaders of that race
whose views are thoroughly sane and whose methods are practi-
cal is a most fortunate circumstance for all concerned, one never
before presented, and which, if it should pass away unimproved,
may not come again. I refer especially to Booker T. Wash-
ington and his coadjutors and the industrio-educational plans
for which they stand; plans which look to the proper place-
ment of the negro in the civilization of the future. No race has
ever before occupied a place of as severe temptation to the most
destructive sins as that into which the American negroes have
been forced. And while I do not by far agree with the wholesale
indictment made against them by one of their own race in a re-
cent book, the situation is indeed deplorable,and extrication from
it is impossible without the organized, patient, persistent help of
the higher race. I venture to forecast that ere long the generous
Southern people will inaugurate some plan of work by which the
full strength of the Anglo-Saxon conscience and will shall be
placed under this mired wheel of our civilization. The spirit of
William Capers will rise again under new forms of organization
and command a following even larger and more efficient than that
which distinguished the records of our communion in the days
when this new man in our civic order was a slave.

2. The multi-race problem has to do with the evangelization of
the pagans who are settling on our shores from those lands to
which we are sending the gospel. It is easy to see that if these
are properly ministered to they will become the most available
of all allies in the Christianization of their own lands. But if al-
lowed to segregate themselves and flourish in their own pagan
order in the midst of our institutions, they will constitute one of
the most dangerous home elements and one of the most formi-
dable barriers to the conquest of the lands from which they come.
Already more than two millions of this element have established
permanent bases on our shores.

3. The ministry to the industrial classes is perhaps the most

ATKINS.

The negro.

The
immigrant.
ATKINS.

The industrial
population.

The field is
the world.

250 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

complex of all. The region in which our home work lies is des-
tined to a fabulous wealth. The consequent populations will be
enormous. The interoceanic canal belongs by the scheme of
nature to the inevitable, and when it comes it will bring to our
Southern coasts more than one Castle Garden to tax our pa-
tience and our powers of assimilation. The problems which have
burdened the statesmanship of other regions will soon be ours.
The management of the factory populations alone will call for vast
resources of wisdom and work. A man of high position in tech-
nological training recently gave forth an estimate showing that
the cotton crop of a single Southern State last year when put
through its factories for coarser fabrics brought into that State
$28,000,000, and that same yield, if transmuted into the finest
fabrics, would have brought in $800,000,000. These astounding
figures were made the basis of an argument in favor of a tech-
nological training necessary in order to a movement upward to-
ward the finer fabrics. With such figures to indicate the activity
called for in the realm of material development, how vastly lar-
ger than anything now known among us must be the activity of
the Church in ministering to the spiritual life of these coming
populations !

And beyond these home interests lies the work of evangelizing
the pagan world, now embracing half the population of the globe.

This very cursory statement of what is before the Church
indicates something of the magnitude and many-sidedness of the
work for which we are to equip the generation of young people
under our hand.

It would seem scarcely necessary to say that a work of such
delicacy, complexity, and extent cannot be accomplished by a
desultory movement, nor even by the best methods in the hands
of a horde of unskilled workmen. It will require all the forces of
the Church, under the best conditions of discipline, and animated
by the highest faith and enthusiasm. To obtain this holy con-
spiracy will require a long-continued training. It implies the
making of a generation to order, one with new ideals and new
habits. For doing this Providence furnishes the opportunity.
It is an awful but in some senses a glorious fact that in the order
of nature the world is swept clean of its population on an aver-
of three times in each century, so that every thirty-five years
there is a new race in the cradle to be evangelized and a mew race
THE YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH. 251

of evangelizers in the cradle. Herein lies the hope of the world in
both its hemispheres, that which lives in the light of the gospel,
and that which lies dead under the darkness of heathenism.

The first thing demanded by the situation then is that the
Church, having fully grasped the idea that the work committed
to it cannot be accomplished otherwise than by a generation of
thoroughly trained workmen, shall produce and operate a proper
system of religious education.

The chief thing to be taught, of course, is a thorough and vital
knowledge of the word of God. This is the sine qua non to a
golden age of Christian power and progress. The revival power
of Protestant Christianity, which is the hope of Christendom,
rests upon it; and the inspiration necessary for the conquest of
the pagan world can certainly come from no other source. This
knowledge must not be merely theoretic or theological, however
extensive it may be; nor merely literary, however brilliant and
critical it may be. The consensus of enlightened mankind is that
the Bible is the crown of the world’s literature, the source of its
law, the sea of its ethics, the field of its finest art, and the inspira-
tion of its noblest activities. And this judgment is correct. A
proper appreciation of the Book in any and all of these phases is
a source of ennobling joy to the devout student. But it might be
known and enjoyed in all these aspects without accomplishing
its divine intent. A man may be enraptured by the study of the
Bible as mere literature, and at the same time be so spiritually
deaf as to hear no calls of God to a life of devotion, and so blind
as not to see the spiritual needs of his neighbor who agonizes at
his side.

The Bible, whatever else it may be, is preéminently the science
of righteousness, which is in its last analysis the science of hu-
man salvation from sin and the ills which spring from it. To
teach it as such and by methods as truly scientific as those
applied to other forms of learning is the plain duty of the family
and the Church. This will require a greater outlay of labor than
the desultory method so long in vogue, but I rejoice to believe
that the Church is rapidly adjusting into a readiness to take the
pains in order to obtain the results. Systematized knowledge
from an infallible source on all the problems of human life is what
the world needs. This truth the Bible alone contains, and while
the work of systematizing and teaching this truth in an orderly

ATKINS,

Sxilled work-
men needed.

The Bible to be
taught first.

Not as litera-
ture ently.
ATKINS.

The preachers
and teachers of
theTfuture.

Implanting a
sentiment.

252 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

way is not an easy one, it is altogether possible to the home and
to the Church. All Scripture given by inspiration of God is profit-
able for instruction in righteousness, that God’s man may be
thoroughly furnished unto every good work in this world. This
view of the Bible prevents it from being in any sense a dead
book—a mere relic to be reverenced—and makes it a fountain of
living waters, a granary of limitless supplies, an armory of fault-
less equipments, and a storehouse of implements for the hus-
bandry of God.

In order to such a teaching of the word of God the Church
must furnish a higher order of teachers. First, the teaching
preacher, who shall be the head of an institute of sacred knowl-
edge. There are now many such men who are not only holding
communities from relapse, but leading a decided advance. But
there ought to be one in every charge. Secondly, teachers in the
Sunday school, who shall be thoroughly prepared for a great re-
ligious life work on this line. It is time for the haphazard Sunday
school teacher to pass away forever. And thirdly, teaching par-
ents, who will enshrine the truths of the Bible in all the best
memories of family life, by the constant use of it in the home, and
by at least superintending the study of it as prescribed by the
Church.

Along with this systematic general instruction in Bible truth
there should come the inculcation of the missionary idea as re-
vealed in the character and teachings of Christ. General infor-
mation is not sufficient ; there needs to be specific indoctrination
accompanied by such personal contributions as will fix the cause
of missions in the thought and affections of the growing child.
The conception of the duty must become ingrained so as never
to be lost. Men need to be taught that this great conception
rightly imparted has in it, apart from its direct products to the
cause of missions, an untold richness of influence on the personal
life. The economic value of this doctrine and habit is, indeed,
much larger than most people imagine. It is easy to implant in
the young heart a great and broad sentiment—much broader, in-
deed, than the childishintelligence is able to measure. Such a sen-
timent once planted in the heart gets in due time the progressive
reénforcement of the ever-enlarging intelligence. But the real
fort is the heart, and a great truth like that which underlies the
mission movement once lodged there, abides, and under proper
THE YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH. 253

culture grows with the growth of the mind. The very essence of ATKINS

this doctrine is unselfishness—the exact opposite of that sin from
which all the evils of a sociological kind spring. Ifthe true doc-
trine of missions be thoroughly planted in the heart of a child,
the child itself will soon discern that it includes all minor forms
of the unselfish life. A generation so furnished with the divine
conception of the brotherhood of man is the only kind which will
be found capable of practically solving the social problems within
our own civilization. The one class of problems is clearly em-
braced in the other, and both alike demand what may be called
the universal man. Whoever implants a broad, unselfish senti-
ment in the heart of a child achieves an immortal work, and
makes a direct contribution to all the ends of good citizenship in
this world. Whoever implants that broadest of all notions, Christ
for the world and the world for Christ, makes it next to impossi-
ble for the life of the one receiving it to ever become a dwarfed,
selfish, and sterile life. The highest work of each generation is
to saturate the life of its children and youth with the truth and
spirit of the Son of God, who came not to be ministered unto but
to minister. His ideal of greatness must become ours and be
imparted to our children. “Let him that is greatest among you
be the servant of all,” works a vast contradiction of the present
order, in which children are so largely a leisured class of depend-
ents, growing up into manhood with the notion that success is to
have money with which to buy the services of their fellow-men.
A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. A generation
reared with a selfish view of life and set in the habit of self-indul-
gence throughout the period of adolescence cannot at maturity
or later suddenly expand into those large views and heroic ex-
pressions of self-abnegation which are necessary to meet the de-
mands of the kingdom of God. The Master of this kingdom, who
in the days of his incarnation had not where to lay his head, whose
business was to go about doing good, who said, “The disciple is
not above his master, nor the servant above his lord,” and “Ye
are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you,” cannot be ap-
peased in his suffering for a lost world by the sumptuous sym-
pathy which the Church of to-day is offering him. Hitherto we
have not put-ourselves to serious inconvenience to save the
world.

In relation to all this work we need to stress the fact that the

The broadest
of all notions.
ATKINS,

The former
years and their
trials.

A new stand-
ard for the
new day.

=

254 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

present standards of missionary effort will not do for the Church
of the future. Our young people must be trained away from the
deadly prejudices which these standards have already engendered
in the public estimate of the cause of missions. We are not now
very much in advance of the per capita contributions which marked
the first few years after the close of the civil war. It is doubtful
whether we have at all advanced in liberality—that is, in the
amount given in proportion to numbers and resources. It must
be remembered that when the war closed our land was a vast
desolation. Hundreds of millions had been swept away by the
cost of the war; other hundreds of millions suddenly vanished in
the manumission of the slaves; and still more millions by the re-
moval of slavery as the commercial basis on which all our mate-
rial interests rested, and from which other things took their value.
The chief residuum when the struggle ended was a vast estate of
land overgrown with wild weeds and debts. The largest heroism
of the South was not revealed by the battles in the Wilderness
but in battles with the wilderness. Over against this desolation
there stood chiefly two things: an indomitable courage and the
discipline of long-continued want. The men of that generation
had learned what the men of this generation are so prone to for-
get, that not only does man live by bread alone, but that not
nearly so much bread is needed as men commonly think. Be-
ginning at that point, these men of mighty wills addressed them-
selves to the production of means for rehabilitation and for laying
the foundations of a new and enduring civilization. Their suc-
cess was so wonderful that at the end of thirty-five years, or the
average lifetime of a man, they had about doubled the wealth
which their section had when the war began, and they have turned
it as an honest heritage into the hands of the generation now com-
ing upon the stage. Through all the years of this struggle our
fathers sustained with liberality all forms of benevolent work. [f
those who receive into their hands this restored and enlarged es-
tate shall be content to do no larger things for the kingdom of
God in their prosperity than their fathers did out of toil and ad-
versity, they will prove themselves the ignoble offspring of most
noble sires. It belongs to the Church of this very hour to eradi-
cate from the minds of our young people and to erase from the
tables of our Mission Board the figures which, however honor-
able they may have been to a past generation, are unfit to measure
THE YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE CHURCH. 255

either our prosperity or our love for men. We cannot, we dare
not, we will not accept in this regard the standards of our fathers.
Ihave already ailuded to the general religious work among the
children and young people of our day. When we turn to the
survey of their work with institutions of learning and in behalf of
missions, the indications are of the most encouraging kind.
When the last century opened almost all the institutions of
learning within our nation were under the domination of a pat-
ronizing skepticism, and irreligion abounded almost universally
among the youth of the land. The whole subject of missions was
a terra incognita, and its very shores had to be discovered to even
the religious young people after half the century had gone, and
most of what has been achieved by them belongs to the last quar-
ter of the century. Now there is not a high-grade institution
within our national bounds where religion is not reverenced, and
in which may not be found, both among the professors and stu-
dents, many of the most devout and efficient followers of our Lord.
Not only so, but the spirit of missions has so far entered many of
these institutions as to have wrought a revolution in the trend of
religious thought. Nowhere has this spirit found a more normal
and effective expression than among this class. It has also taken
the most vital turn, the direction of personal consecration to the
work in foreign fields. The Student Volunteer Movement is a
miracle of religious progress. It was born of an organized na-
tional and international students’ movement which embraces
nearly 1,500 Christian Associations with a membership of 60,-
ooo. The Volunteer Movement itself has enrolled many thou-
sands of educated volunteers for service in foreign fields. At
least 2,000 have already gone. When this movement first began,
many thought that it was the mere expression of a youthful en-
thusiasm which would soon vanish, but there has been no health-
ier or more solid movement in the Church of modern times.
There are, moreover, in North America now 6,000,000 of organ-
ized young people who under right training and leadership are
capable of doing more in the next half century than has been done
by the whole Church in the last ten centuries. When we add to
these the 20,000,000 of Sunday school scholars who are in the
plastic stage, docile, generous, and willing to be led, we begin to
have a glimpse of what the Church of the future will be if only the

ATKINS.

Conditions in
1800.

Student volun-
teers.
ATKINS,

Go or send.

“¢ The earth
bringeth forth
of herself.’’

256 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

Church of the present will do its duty in the fear of God and in the
love of souls.

At the beginning of the modern missionary movement it re-
quired all the available sympathy and resources of the Church to
send forth and sustain one man; then a few; and at last many.
The second step was the sending and support of a missionary by
the single congregation. This new phase of the movement is
growing hopefully, but however general it may become it can
never meet either the demand for workers or the obligation which
the gospel lays on the believer who has large means. There are
now thousands of men upon each of whom rests the obligation to
send out of his own resources a representative into the whitened
harvest. In our education of the coming Church we need to hold
constantly before it the obligation of the individual to go or to
send another in his stead. A right discernment of this doctrine on
the part of wealthy believers would soon tax the best statesman-
ship of the Church in applying the means which would flowinto its
treasuries. We cannot but marvel perpetually at the foolhardi-
ness of the man who dares to die rich in this day of boundless need
and of opportunity for transmuting the perishable things of this
world into the enduring riches of the world to come. (Luke
xvi. 9.)

One of the most wonderful analogies used by our Lord is that
which makes the productive power of the earth to represent the
divine forces which insure the establishment of the kingdom of
heaven. It is also, in this day of organizations and varied ma-
chinery, one of the most neglected parables. We shall do well if,
in connection with this movement, we give it a new regard and
rest our faith upon its vast foundations. “And,” he said, “so is the
kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;
and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should
spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bring-
eth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that
the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth,
immediately he putteth in his sickle, because the harvest is come.”
(Mark iv. 26-29.)

The parable of the sower has to do chiefly with the varieties of
soil and the relative products, and that of the mustard seed with
the multiple power which belongs by the law of growth to the
truth of the kingdom. But this parable is the broadest of all, and
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT. 257

easily furnishes room for the other two; and yet, it is the most
specific in the exclusion of everything except the one point which
it is intended to set forth. It assumes the soil, the seed, the sow-
ing, and all those incidents of experience which belong to the life
of the husbandman between the time of sowing and the harvest ;
but its specific teaching is that the earth of itself bringeth forth the
seed from the sowing to the harvest. No rational treatment of
the analogy can, of course, omit the usual conditions of soil, seed,
and such cultivation as is due; but, these given, the harvest follows
by laws that are inevitable. The parable teaches, therefore, that
back of all these visible conditions and human contributions there
is the tireless push of an infinite power. As silently and as force-
fully as the spirit of nature sends forth the buds in springtime nor
rests until the wealth of autumn is poured into its destined grana-
ries, so noiselessly and irresistibly do the vital forces in the king-
dom of God, which have their rise in the nature of God, push the
truth sown in youthful hearts to its destined end, the perfection
of manhood in the image of Christ. In the scheme of nature not
only all changes of season in this world, but also the silent influ-
ences of all worlds, conspire to bring the harvest to perfection ;
and so it is in the spiritual realm. The usual incidents occur;
men sleep and wake, generations live and die, kingdoms emerge
and become submerged; but all things earthly, reénforced by the
powers of the world, invisible and eternal, stand in the order of
God’s purpose and process to save the world by the truth as it is
in Jesus.

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT: HOW
HE MAY DEEPEN THE MISSIONARY SPIR-
IT IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.

MR. JOHN R. PEPPER.

In the holy hush of these birth hours of the century thoughts
about our God and round globe, interpretations of the great com-
mission and how his truth shall girdle the globe, these birth
hours of missionaries because I verily believe missionaries have
been born since we have been in this place, I feel that during the

13

ATKINS,

The work of
God.
“PEPPER.

Definition.

258 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

remaining golden moments it would be more in consonance with
my own feelings to sit quietly before God and have him say what
he would have me do rather than say anything myself. This pro-
gramme is built like a pyramid, and we have been working from
the top downward. To-day’s section of it lays hold on the founda-
tion stones of the structure because it deals with youth, the very
substratum of the world’s hope. The key words at this Conference
are mobilizing and energizing. The whole resources of the world
are to be harnessed and energized for the world’s conquest. As
a plain merchant man much more given to the use of the world’s
arithmetic than figures of speech, as somewhat of a lay student
of the great movements of God’s Church, as superintendent of
one Sunday school for more than twenty years consecutively, I do
verily believe that the heathen nations can be converted to the re-
ligion of Jesus Christ in one generation if the Church will but rear
in faith a generation of missionaries to do the work under his
guidance. And I dare believe that the twentieth century Sunday
school is to become the recruiting station and drill ground of this
aggressive force of God’s Church of the future. Without the
shadow of seeming disparagement to the noble army now in the
field, I am profoundly impressed with the fact that we will perhaps
never have an irresistible, all-conquering line of royal givers of
gold, silver, or selves until we rear them, and the first lessons of
this culture in real honest heart-yearning for the salvation of the
whole world must be received in the springs and sweet fountains
of early childhood if we would see the largest yield therefrom.

In the precious moments allotted to me I desire to draw your
minds clearly to two fundamental thoughts touching this subject
in order to the accomplishment of the purpose contemplated by
this topic:

I. Deepening motives.

IT. Deepening methods.

The spiritual dictionary definition of a Sunday school is a soul-
winning, soul-building, soul-impelling and propelling agency.
Therefore the central figure and director, sometimes called super-
intendent, of an institution like this must, first of all, have deep
and deepening taproot convictions as to his functions as a soul-
winner and educator of soul-winners—what he has really come
to such a kingdom for—before he can have any right appreciation
of its responsibilities and possibilities. He must have his own
spiritual sense deepened and intensified, else he can never im-
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT. 259

press others. He cannot give out something that has not been
born within; hence I lay down, as antecedent to success in deep-
ening the missionary spirit of the school, the deepening, intensi-
fied superintendent. The entire genius of a Sunday school pre-
supposes well-directed power. An organization without power
is a dynamo detached and out of current line; a skeleton without
sinew, muscle, or flesh; a wheel without the spirit in it.
Without spiritual power the chief purpose of the institution is
misinterpreted and the working force of the school spends its
strength upon vague and intangible ends. Worse still, the schol-
ar becomes inured to lifeless form, and if not saved to serve dur-
ing the school life is ever afterwards more difficult to reach with
the claims of the gospel. Becoming familiar with holy things with-
out yielding to them produces a hardening process, and the lack
of a right understanding of this great spiritual law may in some
measure at least account for the barrenness of spiritual results
in many of our schools. Therefore the inquiry, “How the su-
perintendent may deepen the missionary spirit in the Sunday
school,” when translated into twentieth century gospel language,
means, “How can the same good news of the kingdom of Jesus
Christ that saves the heathen when earnestly lived and taught be
lodged in the hearts of the individual members of the home
school with such expulsive power that it will force itself beyond
its own bounds and comprehend in its grasp the unsaved every-
where in the world?” In answering the inquiry we would say first
he must be a genuine lover of souls. No art of speech or mere
observance of externals will reach the vital end in view. The
missionary spirit must be begotten by the Holy Ghost in a gen-
uine love for the souls of men, without respect to earthly station
or surroundings—a love that looks beneath rags or purple,
pauper or prince to the soul for which Jesus Christ yielded up his
life. Secondly, the superintendent must have a personal experi-
mental knowledge of salvation. He must be a witness who can
speak of that which he absolutely knows. “That which we have
seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fel-
lowship with us.” (1 John i. 3.) “We speak that we do know,
and testify that we haveseen.” (John iii.11.) Salvation must be
a glad, assured fact, like the experience of the blind man: “One
thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Such ex-

PEPPER.

Spiritual pow-
er essential,

Fundamentals.
PEPPER

Deepening
methods.

Geographical
study.

Letters frem
the field,

260 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

‘perience is positively necessary in impressing and leading others

into the grave work of saving souls at home and abroad.

This foundation of deepening motives well laid, he is now ready
for deepening methods. When the heart is aflame with real love for
souls, methods are begotten in it by the Holy Ghost. A stream
that deepens almost surely widens. We do not love people or
things we know nothing or little about. My deliberate convic-
tion is that one of the reasons why we have done so little as a
Church and school for missions heretofore is because we really
know so little about the work, notwithstanding the labors of an
army of workers who have been busy furnishing continuous in-
formation about this great work. We may just as well confess
to each other now a fact which the Saviour has known and grieved
over for centuries—viz.,the most of us have literally been playing
at the work, and have not had our deepest heart-throbs involved
in it. May a merciful God forgive us for our past indifference!

When the real love for the work is intensified and intelligence
enlarged the superintendent will then give special emphasis to
missions.

1. By setting apart through the action of officers and teachers
a regular time, one Sunday in the month or otherwise, together
with Rally Day, for the regular and hearty consideration of mis-
sion work, giving definite data and specific information touching
particular fields or all of the territory covered by our mission
work. This may be done by having some one give an informal
talk on the subject; again, by exhibiting diagrams or maps
showing how to reach the different fields; how many stations in
each country; how located, and the names of the missionaries
occupying each place; the history of our educational, medical,
and other collateral work in connection with each mission, with
a picture gallery showing each station and missionary, if possible
arranged in the order of establishment, developing thereby the
steady progress of our work; also distributing leaflets and other
literature on the special field or fields. This is the day of leaflets,
and we need them in our mission work as thick as the leaves in
Vallombrosa, that little by little we may drive home the truth to
remain forever, and these leaflets reach the home as no spoken
‘words can.

2. At another time read some of the thrilling letters of our
missionaries in the field, showing, as they so often do, the won-
derful workings of God’s providential and mighty hand. Also
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT. 261

have short school diills on all of the foregoing information from
time to time. Such information may be made very effective in
the deepening of the tnissionary spirit, if given briefly, clearly,
and with the earnestness that should charactérize such work.

3. By having regular native cortespondents in some one or
more fields from whom letters are received and read to the
school at intervals, and from whom special objects are received
and shown in connection with data concerning that particular
work, becoming a permanent addition to the missionary mu-
seum and picture gallery of the school.

4. By having the preacher once in a while at least present the
claims of our missions from his standpoint as pastor, during the
regular session of the school, either at the opening or close, and
especially press the claims of the gospel upon the unsaved, in or-
der that their lives may be devoted to the saving of the nations
of the earth who will probably not be saved except by such
agency.

5. By training the school to a large and liberal giving purely
for the propagation of the gospel in the whole world, giving that
will reach the home of the scholars. We must catch a world-
wide view of the sweep of God’s grace to every nation; we must
cultivate the exquisite luxury of enlarged giving under the tui-
tion of Him who gave all that he might make possible the sal-
vation of every creature under the heavens, and has leit us as his
representatives to finish the work by the direction of the Holy
Ghost, who shall guide us into all truth and methods.

6. By repeated, earnest, and special prayer of officers and
teachers that the Holy Ghost may separate from time to time
some of our own scholars, even from our own homes, to go as
missionaries. If we really believe that God hears and answers
right-conditioned prayer, we must believe that he will hear us.
How seldom have we heard heart-travailing prayer for the sepa-
rating Spirit of God to come upon us during the past several dec-
ades! Oh, we must have more of this kind of praying in our
Churches and schools!

7. By keeping the obligation to go constantly before the
young, in order that the thought may bed itself in their minds
and hearts ready for the operation of the Spirit of God when he
shall say, “Go, and lo, I am with you alway.”

TEPPER.

The pastor’s
help.

Christlike giv-
ing.

Intercessory
prayer.

Who will go?.
PEPPER.

262 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Finally, nothing would so quicken and deepen the missionary
spirit in the school as a definite call ever and anon to some mem-
ber of the school to go into the whitening missionary harvest field.
Nothing would more surely quicken the larger pulse of love of
the Church as the volunteer service of one immediately from the
ranks of the school. Could the Lord God more highly honor any
school than to make its work fruit in the self-sacrificing serv-
ice for life of some or many of its members? The failure to have
such calls may well cause us deep concern and examination as to
whose image and superscription is on the coin of our service.

My prayer: May the great God and Father who called Samuel
even before he knew the Lord’s voice begin at once to call large
numbers ‘of our boys and girls to the high vocation of ambassa-
dors for him even before they fully understand the entire terms of
the commission! For such blessed results may we never grow
weary praying, laboring, and looking! and may the great Master
Workman continually keep a band in training for himself in all
our schools !

THE HIGHEST ACHIEVEMENT OF THE EPWORTH
LEAGUE.

REV. H. M. DU BOSE.

THE most pleasant things in life may be also embarrassing, and
we have all had occasion to realize that that embarrassment in-
creases in proportion to the advance in pleasantness of the things
indulged. I have some sort of pleasure in introducing myself to
this audience, but the pleasure is accompanied by a degree of
embarrassment. The subject which I am permitted to discuss
for a few minutes relates to that particular department of our
young people’s work with which I, together with the rest of you,
am charged; and the particular form in which the subject appears
on the programme (I announce it for the benefit of those of you
who have not seen it) is “The Highest Achievement of the Ep-
worth League.”

An achievement is the complete and successful rounding of
an endeavor, a purpose, or plan. The Epworth League, as an
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE. 263

organization, is altogether too young, and its years of service
and active experience are altogether too few, to have afforded
an opportunity of successfully rounding and completing any of
its great plans and endeavors. But marvelous years these have
been, years resonant with the music of an ongoing host, and not
few have been the successful undertakings of the League, not
trifling the work which it has accomplished. So I believe, if I
mention some of the things that have been emphasized and well
wrought, and that we have sighted with a clear vision and ap-
prehended with a prophetic eye—if I name these as the highest
achievements of the Epworth League, I shall fulfill before you the
measure of my present duty.

I have, therefore, the privilege of calling attention to this, first,
that the League has challenged the attention of the Church re-
garding the rights of the young men and the young women to be
employed in service. That right was not always accorded them.
Not by any direct or pragmatic refusal was it kept from them,
but by a sort of tradition, a sort of default in the history of Church
life and Church plans. It was once thought that the lads might
sow their wild oats, and the lasses might have their days of trifling
and idleness ; and then, after so long a time, with tears and contri-
tion, and, alas! in some cases, with the mark of Cain on their
brows,they might return with much sorrow and much wailing and
much penance-doing through the door but slightly left ajar. This
movement, I say, has challenged the great mother eye and the
great mother heart of the Church regarding these her children,
who are waxing in strength and coming to years, and their right
to be employed and to be used, from the very nursery, from the
pleasant walks of childhood, and from youthhood, in those serv-
ices well adapted to their hands and to the affectionate outgoings
of their hearts, and altogether qualified to shape them more per-
fectly into the image of which the great Master has said: “Of
such is the kingdom of heaven.” This is the Church-wide chal-
lenge, which many of the princes have been slow to heed in this
form. But by degrees the boys and the girls and the young men
and the young women, who constitute the body of the League,
are having their opportunity, insomuch that one of our bishops
has affirmed that the Epworth League is now another name for
opportunity. But it is not only an opportunity to the lads and
the lasses and the young men and young women nearing the
estate of manhood and womanhood; it is not only an opportunity

DU BOSE.

The young
may work.
DU BOSE,

The League a
school of dis-
cipline.

It unites for
Bible study.

264 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

to them to serve, but it is an opportunity to the Church to get
services withal. She will have not only the love and the loyalty
of her children, but she will have their substance and their serv-
ices in those most fruitful years and hopeful years that have
hitherto gone to waste or grown up with the brambles of the
wilderness.

The Epworth League, in one of its highest achievements, real-
izes the possibility of bringing into unity this vast body of Meth-
odist youthhood, and disciplining and molding it for service.
There is no key or chord in the organ or the pianoforte that is
absolute music within itself, yet when you take the community
of the octavo you have all the possibilities of melody, so much so
that the scale, simple in itself, which may be counted on the fin-
gers of two hands and have somewhat to spare, is susceptible
of being blended into an infinite number of harmonies. The great
Mendelssohn said that he ‘had calculated the musical scale until
he had reached five hundred and fifty trillions of combinations,
and had then to stop for lack of arithmetic. So in a single life
of girlhood or boyhood, of young manhood or young woman-
hood, there will not be absolute music or completeness, it may
be, of the ideas of experience and service; but bringing the mul-
titudes of these together, the complexity and the diversity of all
may be made into the harmony of a grand song that is praise to
God and glory in a continuous service.

This, too, is an achievement of the Epworth League: It
has shown the possibility of uniting the young men and the
young women, not only of a great connection but of a sisterhood
of connections, bringing an international Methodism into har-
mony, and by degrees an international fellowship of Christian
young people, in the study of the Scriptures and in preparation
and discipline for work. That is a distinct achievement of the
Epworth League. Another fact which it has largely realized is
this: It raises the standard of Church membership, not only
in the matter of service and of ministry, but in the matter of ex-
perience. The prayer meeting stands at the threshold of the
Epworth League—it is nothing without its devotional service.
The heart that learns to pray, the life that is taught to pray, be-
come strong in the learning. No life can be strong or sweet or
find joy for itself or bring ministry to others that does not know
the value of prayer; and the first object of the League, and the
one which it continuously emphasizes, is the necessity of the
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE. 265

prayer meeting. These Epworth Leaguers are taught to pray.
It is the continuation of that inspiration ‘born in the nursery at
the mother’s knee, that breathes through those deathless words,
“Our Father which art in heaven,” or “Now I lay me down to
sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,” or in those others,
“Jesus, tender Shepherd, bless the little lamb to-night”—a con-
tinuation without break through the days of childhood and boy-
hood and girlhood and young manhood and young womanhood
and ‘on to a ripe and sanctified old age of the simple spirit of
the nursery faith. It is the meaning of the Epworth League thus
to bridge the dark desert ways with the span of strength and en-
ticement, over which the shining feet of the children of the king-
dom may pass.

We get genuine experience in the Epworth League. The tes-
timony meeting of the League is the survival of the much lament-
ed Methodist class meeting, of which many a time we have said
with wailing and tearfulness: ‘““We shall not see the like of it
again.” But we have seen the like of it; and there comes a suc-
cessor of that old-time meeting in the testimony meeting of
the younger generation that has inherited its pathos, its power,
its earnestness, and its directness; and one which is free from
those limitations that naturally belonged to the genesis days of
‘our spiritual work. That is an achievement of the Epworth
League. You will not forget that. Those of my brethren of
the pastorate who may have grown lukewarm in their support
of the League, who may have opposed it, who may have thought
it the fifth wheel, and all manner of things useless, will remember
that their opposition and lukewarmness concerning the Epworth
League grow out of their lack of knowledge of what it is as a
spiritual device. I say to my brother pastors: “If you want spir-
itual young men and young women in your congregation, take
our League plan, which is the plan of the apostolic Church, the
Church of the first century, that begins with the Church in the
household. Take this plan of the Epworth League and work it
out, and you will have spiritual young men and young women
to your help. Give them something to do. Teach them to pray
and to testify, and they will have the spirit of the Master, and will
develop genuine experiences, free from cant, free from cranki-
ness, free from those perverted and misconceived interpretations
of doctrine that constitute so great a peril to the Church in these
later days. Men who are converted and brought up from child-

DU BOSE,

It has revived
the experience
meeting.
DU BOSE.

It refines so-
cial life.

Development of
the missionary
idea.

266 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

hood never disturb the Church. It is the men who are con-
verted after they are forty years of age that are the sources of
dissension and trouble to Israel.”

The Epworth League introduces a sanctifying element into the
literary and social life of young Methodism—and how much that
is needed! God, who gives to our childhood a quick, perceiving
eye, who gives the nervous organism, who gives the retina be-
hind the eye, who gives the fine zsthetic sense, and who gives
that wondering spirit of our fancies and imaginations, fully in-
tended to meet and satisfy all these within legitimate bounds;
and if we seek to circumscribe or limit these native emotions and
social instincts of the young life, we dwarf it and estrange it
from us.

The new movement has emphasized the possibility of bringing
altogether pleasing and satisiying conditions to the literary cir-
cles of our religious youth. I had a letter from one of my fellow-
workers, saying: “The League has been a social blessing.
Before it came we had ‘Sister Phoebe,’ ‘Skip to My Lou,’ and all
sorts of things that fought against the spirit of piety, but now
the Epworth League takes the place of all these. It has brought
our young people into unity. We are able to keep up our prayer
meetings and literary circles, and we have all the literary and
social fellowship that we need.”

The Epworth League has emphasized the missionary idea in
the Church, and has precipitated upon it a powerful and ramifying
inspiration, so much so that for myself and my fellow-workers,
and for this great company of consecrated young men and women,
I am minded to claim, in large part, the credit for the spirit of
this great gathering, the spirit that pervades our great Meth-
odism. The young men and women in the hills of Holston, along
the wire grass reaches of Georgia, the vast prairies of Texas, the
great darkling woodlands of Arkansas, and the mesas of Mis-
souri, and all over this great country, have contributed an inspi-
ration to the missionary idea, and have put an inspiration into
the spirit of the Church, that largely accounts for the forward
movement represented in this gathering to-day.

I am officially authorized to say that more than thirty thou-
sand dollars of missionary money is to be credited to the active
and separate movement of the Epworth League for missions dur-
ing the last eighteen months or two years. During this time
this large sum of money has gone into the treasury of the Mis-
ORGANIZATION FOR MISSIONARY WORK. 267

sionary Board through the efforts of the Leagues; and I see a
procession, as long as a phalanx of German words, marching out
into the vistas of the future, contributions of Leaguers on golden
and silvern feet, with timbrels and music, advancing to fill the
coffers of the Church. And I suppose the virgin on the dollar
may be allowed to dance a little with a silver timbrel of this degree
for accompaniment.

Some of the brethren object because the Epworth League is
proving an expense to the Church. Well, this Conference has
cost the Church somewhat, but did you not turn last night upon
the platter a cake the dough of which was worth three times the
cost of the cooking? The Epworth League has cost something,
and it will yet cost something; and if I should be maintained in
my humble place, and am given the right, I will see that it may
yet cost something. But it will be money well invested; and we
want only the brave hearts and the courageous faith of young
Methodism (and that means from twelve years of age and up-
ward, to eighty and ninety, and as long as there is a youthful
heart in a Methodist bosom) to stay by us, and give us counte-
nance and indorsement, and this work will be completed.

These are the things that the Epworth League has achieved
and emphasized. Which is the greatest? I leave it to you to say.
Meantime, I say: God bless you, and make you, many times
more than you are, a great company to publish the tidings.

ORGANIZATION FOR MISSIONARY WORK.
REV. E. E. HOSS, D.D., LL.D.

Tue conversion of the world to Jesus Christ is the most stu-
pendous enterprise that was ever conceived by the mind of man.
To exaggerate the difficulties of it would be almost an impos-
sibility. Ten thousand obstacles of every character lie in the way
of its successful accomplishment. Satan and his confederates
and allies contest the ground inch by inch, and when they retire
from one position do so only with slow and sullen steps, and only
to take up another. Now as of old “we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the

DU BOSE.

Cost and value.
HOSS.

Are missions
quixotic?

A partnership.

268 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places.”

From a purely natural standpoint the whole business is a piece
of chimerical folly. But that is not the standpoint from which
we are to look at it. It is essentially God’s affair, and the pleni-
tude of his energy is behind it. The great commission runs thus:
“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” To read
this great utterance aright, we must put a due emphasis upon the
word “therefore.” The unlimited gift of power to the risen and
glorified Lord is the only and all-sufficient reason why the
Church should engage in the work of evangelization. The same
thought is expressed in different language by the apostle Paul
when he declares not merely that Jesus Christ is “head over all
things” but also that he is “head over all things to the Church,
which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” That
is to say, his supremacy in the spiritual universe is in the interest
of the Church.

The strength of any copartnership is to be measured by the
resources of the strongest partner. As we are “workers together
with Christ,” we have the privilege, under given conditions, of
drawing upon him for whatever supplies are needed in the pros-
ecution of our great task. What are these conditions? To be
brief, they are simply that we first make a complete surrender
of ourselves and our belongings to him who died for us and rose
again. Feeble as we are, and limited and scanty as our pos-
sessions, yet the Lord Jesus makes a requisition on us for the
full use of every faculty and the full consecration of every groat
that we own. As a few loaves and fishes, under his multiplying
touch, furnished an ample feast for the hungry thousands, so the
poor treasures of the Church, though seemingly inadequate for
any great purpose, receive a miraculous reénforcement when
they are willingly laid upon his altar and put absolutely and with-
out reserve at his disposal. In the broadest and highest possible
sense, we can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth us.

Consecration is an intelligent, and mot a blind, act. It carries.
with it the conception of the rational devotion of our offerings to
definite ends. We commit ourselves and our goods to God just
in proportion as we discern his high purposes concerning us and
enter into them. The true type of Christian piety is not that
ORGANIZATION FOR MISSIONARY WORK. 269:

which brings its.all and throws it down in careless abandon on:

the floor of the temple, but rather that which sees with clarified
vision some great achievement to be wrought, and wisely en-
deavors to transmute its material holdings and mental energies
into spiritual results. If this be true in the case of the individual
believer, it is still more true of the Church as a whole. Organ-
ized effort, which is the same thing as intelligent and well-directed
effort as opposed to thoughtless and spasmodic activity, is su-
premely important in the great and age-long conflict between
the hosts of light and those of darkness. The Church is not a
mob, each man shouting and fighting on his own account, but a
compact and disciplined army, that moves with a common step
toward a glorious goal.

There is a widespread notion, often implicitly entertained even
when it is not explicitly asserted, that organization is opposed to
life. But as a matter of fact true organization is always vital and
not mechanical. In the animal kingdom complexity of organi-
zation is the true measure of life. Down at the bottom of the
scale we find ameba princeps, a: mere minute mass of jelly, with-
out differentiated organs and functions, and! at the top of it we
see man, the most elaborate and curiously wrought of all God’s
creatures. Why should we not expect to witness a repetition of
‘these phenomena in the kingdom of God? An abounding full-
ness of the Spirit is sure to display itself in a corresponding rich-

ness and glory of external manifestations. Let us, then, not heed’

the protests of those who insist that there is too much organ-
ization in the Church. In very truth, there is as yet too little
of concerted action and uniform movement. What is needed is
a scheme that will bring everybody into line, and put everybody
to pulling in the same direction.

It is not wise nor right to belittle what has already been done
in regard to missions. The record of our denomination in the
days before the civil war was a particularly honorable one. Out
of that terrible bath of fire and blood we came with wasted energy
and broken spirit. For a few years we seemed to have lost in-
terest in the rest of the world. Scoffed at and derided even by
our fellow-Christians in America and Europe, we took up for the
time an attitude of isolation, and gave ourselves wholly to our
own affairs. But this did not last long. The old spirit soon be-
gan to stir, and to grow stronger with the effort. To say that for
the past twenty-five years we have simply been “playing at mis-

HOSS,

Organization
vs. life.

Our record.
HOSS,

The call of
the future.

Ways and
means for the
future.

270 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

sions” is to use reckless and indefensible words. In that time
we have largely increased our work in China, and gained a firm
foothold in Japan, Korea, Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba. The con-
templation of all that has been wrought ought to stir our hearts
with gratitude and with hopefulness. Last year the Church gave
for foreign and domestic missions nearly $600,000.

But the call of the future is for still greater liberality. Unless
we mean to be recreant to our duty, we must plan for larger
issues. Nobody among us has yet been hurt by what he has
given in time or money for the spread of the kingdom. Where
is the man that has worn an old coat or gone Hungry for a single
day in order that some poor soul might be blessed with the light
of gospel truth? The mere suggestion that we are likely to im-
poverish ourselves by our beneficence is an absurdity. The dan-
ger rather is that we shall incur the displeasure and wrath of God
by the narrowness of our views and the penuriousness of our
spirit. A million dollars a year for the work in foreign fields
would be but a poor expression of our gratitude for the blessings
that we have received from the hands of our crucified Saviour.

Can we raise such a sum as that? Yes, if we will go at it in
the right way. Only let there be wise planning and faithful labor,
and the consummation may be reached. Is there not a lesson for
us in the methods of the Salvation Army and, nearer home, in
the success that has followed the efforts of our good women?
The thing to do is to enroll a standing army of contributors, each
one pledged to give, as long as the blessing of God will enable
him, so much every year for missions. There ought to be some
among us to send in their checks for five or ten thousand dollars
annually, still more for one thousand, a great many for one hun-
dred, and a multitude for smaller sums.

The list of all these should ‘be kept in the office of the Mission-
ary Secretaries, and partial lists should also be kept by the Boards
in each Annual Conference. As some persons will drop out from
year to year, constant diligence will be necessary to supply their
places with new recruits. The work cannot be finished once for
all, but must be continued without pause or break from year to
year. That due justice may be done, every contribution, great
or small, should be credited on assessment to the particular
Church and Conference from which it comes. As a supplement,
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE, 2471

the regular collections should also be taken in every congrega-
tion, and everybody should be urged to exercise the glorious
privilege of giving something, if it be only one cent, for this
noblest of causes. That is the ideal to be aimed at. It will not
be reached at once, it may never be reached at all; but it may be
approximated in due time.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE
FOR THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD.

JOHN R. MOTT.

It is a most inspiring fact that the young people of this gener-
ation do not apologize for world-wide missions. It would seem
that that Christian who in these days would apologize for mis-
sions is either ignorant or thoughtless, because a man who apol-
ogizes for missions apologizes for all enduring religion; for, as
Max Miiller has said, “The non-Christian religions are either dy-
ing or are dead.” He apologizes manifestly for Christianity, be-
cause that is essentially a missionary enterprise. He apologizes
for civilization, because the highest civilization of the world is
found in the pathway of the missionary host. He apologizes for
the Bible, because missions constitute its central theme. He apol-
ogizes for the prayer of his Lord and for the Apostles’ Creed; and
he need only repeat their familiar phrases to be humiliated with
the thought. He apologizes for the fatherhood of God, and in
doing so also for the brotherhood of man. If he is a Christian,
he apologizes for every whit of spiritual life that is in himself;
and, worst of all, he apologizes for Jesus Christ, who is the Propi-
tiation not for our sins only but for the sins of the world. I re-
peat, he is either ignorant or thoughtless.

Not only do the students and other young people of our day,
however, not apologize for this world-wide enterprise, but they
believe in it as has no preceding generation of young people.
They are believing in it with a depth of conviction, and manifest-
ing their belief with a practical sympathy and purpose and action,
such as has never been witnessed in any preceding age in the
history of the Church. If you ask me to-night to give you the

HOSS,

No apology
required.
MOTT,

A needy world.

Depth of the
need.

272 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

grounds of their belief, and in this way to define their responsi-
bility for the world’s evangelization, I would place at the thres-
hold the fundamental reason that they feel their eva to
preach Christ because all people need Christ.

The need of the non-Christian world is an extensive need.
South of this country we have not less than fifty millions of peo-
ple in Mexico, the West Indies, Central America, and the South
American republics. In the Levant there are tens of millions
of others. In the Dark Continent, at the most conservative esti-
mate, there are over one hundred and fifty millions; in the East
Indies and the other islands of the Southern seas, fifty millions
more; in India, Burma, Ceylon, and Siam, not less than three
hundred millions; in the Sunrise Kingdom of Japan, over forty
millions; and not less than four hundred millions in China and
the states that fringe upon her, Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, and
Tibet.

Over one thousand millions! Can we grasp the number? No,
indeed! It is indeed an extensive need. It is not only an ex-
tensive need, but it is an intensive one; and the intensive need
of the non-Christian world is indescribably great. The Scriptures
maintain this much. They show us most vividly the condition of
men apart from Jesus Christ. They present to-day, as every
world traveler will tell you, an unexaggerated picture of the
moral and spiritual condition of over two-thirds of the human
race. Not only the Scriptures but scientific observation proves
to a demonstration that those peoples without Christ have a need
which is very deep. Think of them to-night, living in darkness
and ignorance, steeped in superstition and idolatry, in degrada-
tion and corruption; see them, under what a load of shame
and sorrow and sin and pain and suffering, as they live and move
on in silence to the tomb; notice the fearful inroads and on-
slaughts of the forces of evil. And remind yourselves that they do
not have those powers of resistance which we have as the result
of Christian heredity, Christian environment, and the domination
of Christian ideas and ideals. They fight a losing battle. If I
could take every one of you on a long journey of nearly two
years, through those great sections of the non-Christian world,
that you might see what I have seen, that you might hear what
I have heard, that. you might feel what I have felt, the last iota
of skepticism which may linger in the mind of any one here as
to the need of these people of knowing Christ would vanish.
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 273

Truly their need is indescribably great. It comes back to haunt
me in the watches of the night; and if God spares my life and
my plans can be properly shaped, I want in a few months hence
to put my life once more alongside those young men who are
fighting their losing fight.

We need not to be world travelers ; we need not to be mission-
aries ; no, we need not to be profound students of the Bible—to
be convinced that men need Christ. Look only into your own
heart. If you and I know that we need Jesus Christ, that he has
been and is essential to us, is it not presumptuous to suppose that
people living in less favored lands, without the ennobling and in-
spiring forces and associations with which we are familiar, can
get along without him? Moreover, it should be emphasized that
the non-Christian religions are inadequate to meet this need.
Over fifteen thousand four hundred Protestant missionaries, scat-
tered throughout the world, present a united front on this ques-
tion. There is no division of opinion among them. Standing
face to face with the need itself, and, therefore, in a position to
make a thorough study of the problem, they say with one voice
that, unless Christ is borne to these regions, these people are
without hope. I used to doubt that, Mr. Chairman, when I was
studying comparative religion, and when I went as a delegate to
the Parliament of Religions in Chicago several years ago. But
when I had opportunity to make a scientific study of the problem
(and a scientific study takes account of all the facts, and not sim-
ply of theories) all my skepticism vanished. As I went up and
down densely populated provinces and presidencies and native
states, as I conversed with over thirteen hundred missionaries,
representing some eighty missionary societies (and I know of no
university education that means more to a mam than to sit at
the feet of missionaries), as J talked with hundreds of civilians
and native students and priests, as I visited countless shrines and
temples and holy places, as I witnessed the superstitions, the
abominations, the cruelties, the injustices, within the immediate
confines of these sacred places, so called, the conviction became
ever deeper and stronger that these nations without Christ are
without hope. Yes, I believe to the core of my being that
Christ some day must have sway over this whole world. He is
not going to divide the world with Buddhism and Confucianism
and Hindooism and Mohammedanism; he is going to have com-
plete sway. ‘It takes no prophet in our time to see that that

MOTT.

' Eow to know
its

Only Christ.

He must reign.
MOTT.

Our responsi-
bility.

The motive.

274 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Church which conquered the Roman Empire, which cast the
spell of the matchless Christ over the nations of Western and
Northern Europe, which has moved with giant strides among the
nations and is shaking them to-day—that that Church will prevail.
He shall reign from sea to sea. When He girds on his conquer-
ing sword all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of
our God.

I would note also that this obligation which is felt so deeply
by the young people of our day is intensified by a further consid-
eration, not only that all men need Christ, but that we owe Christ
toallmen. To have a knowledge of Christ is to incur a tremendous
responsibility to those that have it not. You and I have received
this great heritage, not to appropriate it to our own exclusive
use, but to pass it on to others. It concerns all men. We are
trustees of the gospel, and in no sense sole proprietors. Every
Chinese, every East Indian, every inhabitant of the Southern seas,
has the right to know of the mission of Jesus Christ; and you
and I violate the eighth commandment if we keep this knowl-
edge from them. You may show me the very best disciple of any
one of these religions—and I have seen men living noble lives
who are devotees of those religions—I say he has a right to know
of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of his
mission to mankind. What a colossal crime against two-thirds of
the human race to withhold this surpassing knowledge!

The weight of responsibility ‘becomes still greater when we
stop to ask ourselves the question: If we do not take this knowl-
edge of Christ to these people, who will? What should move us,
fellow young men, and what should move the young women here,
and those whom we all represent, to fling ourselves into this en-
terprise and bear Christ to these people? It would seem that the
claims of our common ‘humanity and of universal brotherhood
would be sufficient to inspire us to go ourselves or to send sub-
stitutes. If that is not sufficient, the golden rule of Jesus Christ,
by which I take it every one of us desires to fashion conscien-
tiously his life, would lead us logically and irresistibly to do so.
If that does not move us, the example of our Lord in this prac-
tical age ought to stir us to action, because those who say they
abide in him ought themselves so to walk even as he walked. If
that does not move us, then every thoughtful and reflecting per-
son, it would seem, should be moved by the Great Commission
or the marching orders of the Church of God. The last com-
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 275

mandment of Christ is operative until it is repealed. We have
had no intimation that it has been repealed. It is not optional,
as some would assume, but obligatory. It awaits its fulfillment
by a generation which shall have the requisite faith and courage,
the audacity and the purpose of heart, to do their duty to the
whole world. It would seem to me that every Christian who is
a Christian of reality ought to be a missionary Christian; for, as
Archbishop Whately has said—mark his language, note it well:
“Tf my faith be false, I ought to change it; whereas if it be true,
I am bound to propagate it.” There is no middle ground; either
abandon my religion or be a missionary in spirit.

There is yet a third consideration; and that is, that the young
people of our day should seek to evangelize the world because
it is essential to their own best life. If all men need Christ, and
if we owe a knowledge of Christ to all men, manifestly it is our
duty to take that knowledge to them. To know our duty and
to do it not is sin. Continuance in the sin of neglect and dis-
obedience necessarily weakens the life and arrests the growth.
What loss of spiritual life, what loss of energy and of faith, the
Church of Christ has already suffered from a fractional obedience
to the last command of our Lord!

The young people’s movements of our day, like our own Ep-
worth League, the Baptist Young People’s Union, the Young
People’s Society of Christian Endeavor, the St. Andrew’s Broth-
erhood, the Young Men’s and the Young Women’s Christian
Associations, need nothing so much as some mighty objective
to call out the best energies of mind and heart. We find pre-
cisely such an objective in the sublime enterprise of filling the
earth with a knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the deep.
If we would save our Christian young people’s movements from
their perils of ease and luxury and selfishness and slothfulness
and unreality, we must necessarily take up some great and scrip-
tural object like this, and give ourselves to it with holy abandon.

This point comes to mean more when we remember that the
largest manifestation of the presence of Christ is to those that
are Obedient to his missionary command. Have you ever re-
flected upon it that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is invariably
associated with testimony and witness-bearing? Therefore we
can do nothing which will mean so much to the home Church as
to develop this foreign missionary spirit. If we would have the
Holy Spirit working with mighty power in all our communities—

MOTT.

Young people
need a field.
MOTT,

Our own gen-
eration.

276 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and is this not our greatest need?—we shall have this experience
as we walk in the pathway of our missionary Leader in obedience
to his command.

The obligation to evangelize the world, which presses in upon
the young people of our day, is also a most urgent obligation.
The Christians who are now living must preach Christ to the
non-Christians who are now alive, if they are ever to hear of
Christ. The Christians of a past generation cannot do it; they
are dead and gone. The Christians of the next generation cannot
do it; by that time the present non-Christians will be dead and
gone. Obviously, each generation of Christians must make
Christ known to its own generation of non-Christians, if they
are to have the knowledge of Christ. But we might just as well
get the Christians who come after us to love God for us, or get
them to love our neighbors for us, as to be obedient for us.
Moreover (and I am now speaking to those of my own genera-
tion), we are living in a time of unexampled crisis. It is also a
time of marvelous opportunity. The world is better known and
more accessible than in any other generation which has ever lived.
The need of the world is more articulate and intelligible than it
has ever been, and the resources of the Church are far greater
to-day, as well as her ability to enter these open doors, than has
been the case in any preceding generation. It would seem that
this would impose a great burden of responsibility upon our gen-
eration; greater than upon any other generation. You and I
cannot excuse ourselves by doing what our fathers did. The
world is smaller to-day to us than this country was to our fathers.
We have the opportunity to do larger things, and we are going to
be judged by our talents and the use of them. God forbid that
we should lack vision in these days to take advantage of the tide
that is rising to sweep multitudes into the all-embracing kingdom
of Jesus Christ.

The forces of evil are not putting off their work until next gen-
eration. When I was in Japan I found that militarism and ma-
terialism said: “Let us ingulf Japan in this generation, and we
shall not be so much concerned about subsequent generations.”
Commerce and avarice and international jealousies say: “Give
us China in this generation.” In India I discovered that ration-
alism said : “Let us have the right of way in the Indian universities
for this one generation, and we will hold that great continent
for several generations.” In the Turkish Empire lust and cruelty
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE, 277

said: “Let us go unchecked in this generation.” Why should not
the Church of God rise in her might, and give herself to this task
as no preceding generation ‘has done?

It would seem that the enterprises of a secular or non-Chris-
tian character might stir us from our lethargy and inspire us to
undertake larger things. The different governments of the world
have recently united to make a magnetic survey of the whole
world and complete their survey by the year 1910.

Stanley, before starting on his last trip to Africa, wanted some
thirty European helpers, and advertised for that number. They
were to go into the most deadly parts of Africa. Within two
weeks, how many responded? Over twelve hundred young men,
ready to face African fever and other perils known and unknown,
that they might extend the domain of knowledge. We have read
of the great rushes for gold in the Northwest in the last two or
three years. You remember that there went over the difficult
passes (and they were very difficult in the early days) within four-
teen months over one thousand young men to the Klondike. It
meant not only a great risk to them, but in a great number of
cases death—and all for the love of gold. Down in the Philip-
pines we have had at one time over sixty thousand troops. They
have gone, regiment after regiment, without any particular strain
upon the country. And when these regiments have returned they
have met with a constant ovation from the Golden Gate until
they passed to the different sections of the North, South, or East
to which they were journeying. In South Africa the British army
has grown steadily until now they have there not less than 250,-
ooo men, and they have blocked off that part of the world into
squares, and are sweeping over those squares every few days in
their work of cornering up the forces of the Boers. We have
been impressed with the way that great force was mobilized. We
have been impressed with the wonderul spectacle presented of
the unity and loyalty of the British Empire. Doubtless we were
even more impressed to see not only the young men, but also
the old men and the boys, go out from the two little mountain
republics to fight the battles of their country. In recent months
an international army has been assembled in China from Europe
and Asia and America. But the world takes it as a matter of
course. They say that these are precisely the things to do if cer-
tain purposes are to be accomplished. And yet when somebody
suggests that a few tens of thousands of young men and young

MOTT.

The world is
moving.

Volunteers.
MOTT.

The children
of this world.

A school of the
Koran.

What can we
do?

248 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

women living in this favored generation rise up and, in obedience
to the last command of Christ, go out into the places where
he has not been named, we are told that it would be too great
a strain on the resources of the Church, and that it would handi-
cap the activities of the Church at home. They forget the law
of God: “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; and there is
that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.”

The Mormon Church has 250,000 members, and they have over
1,700 missionaries—that is, men working outside of the Mor-
mon community proselyting. They also have a law by which they
can increase their number of workers to between seven and eight
thousand if they so desire, and their young men respond obe-
diently whenever the call comes for a larger reénforcement.

When I was in the little island of Ceylon I reviewed its his-
tory, and was deeply stirred as I thought that from that little
island there went forth, centuries ago, not hundreds but thou-
sands of Buddhist missionaries. They stormed the whole Asiatic
coast; and as the result, largely of their labors, there are to-day
hundreds of millions of adherents to that great incomplete and
false religion.

When I was in Cairo I visited the famous university of El Azar.
As I remember, there are some three hundred and seventy pillars,
and around many of them I found classes of Mohammedan stu-
dents seated on the pavement with a teacher in the center of
each group. One of the students said to me: “We have between
eight and nine thousand students here.” I asked him what books
they were studying, and he said that they were studying only
one and the commentaries on it—the Koran. I said, “What is
your object?” and he said, “We are all studying here to go out
as missionaries of Mohammed.” These men had come from re-
gions reaching all the way from the Pillars of Hercules down to
the islands of the East Indies to prepare themselves to be emis-
saries of the false prophet.

As we think of examples like these, are not our hearts moved
within us? I am looking day by day for young men and young
women of like heroism and of greater consecration, touched by
the spirit of the ascended Christ, who will show like loyalty in
carrying out his final wishes with reference to the world for which
he died.

How can the young men and young women of our day best
discharge their obligation to the world’s evangelization? Well,
~ RESPONSIBILITY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 279

manifestly we must keep ourselves informed concerning the great
enterprise of world-wide missions.

The words of Christ, in an entirely different connection, sug-
gest themselves to me now: “Ye do err, not knowing the Scrip-
tures, nor the power of God.” If there is any place where the
power of God is being manifested to-day more than elsewhere,
it is in the non-Christian world where the arm of God has been
made bare and where we are witnessing such marvelous tri-
umphs of the gospel of the Son of God.

We do ourselves an injustice if we do not keep in vivid touch
with this wonderful missionary movement. To do the will of
God, we must know the needs of man. I fail to see how any
young men or young women can be perfectly sure that they are
doing what God wants them to do, if they are not carrying on a
thorough study of this great world. Every young Christian in
the Church ought to have an ambition to know the kingdom of
Jesus Christ, its great fields, its marvelous triumphs, its prob-
lems, its inspiring opportunities, and its transcendent resources.
We can have no better creed than the creed of St. Augustine:
“A whole Christ for my salvation, a whole Bible for my staff, a
whole Church for my fellowship, and a whole world for my
parish.” Let us be satisfied with nothing less than the world-
wide horizon of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Each band of young people should also be a center for dis-
seminating information concerning the work of God in the world.
There is a shocking amount of ignorance and of flimsy excuses
and objections concerning world-wide missions, which will be
banished only by an educational campaign. Therefore, let me in-
dorse with strong conviction everything that has been said on this
platform from this morning until to-night, and which has been
so ably stated by the different advocates, on the inestimable im-
portance of educating on missions beginning even with the child
at the mother’s knee, reaching up through the Sunday school
and the Junior Department of the Epworth League, and the
Senior Department, up to the ministrations of the pastor, so that
we will have a generation who will have knowledge adequate to
meet the opportunity that confronts this generation.

There is no subject, unless it be the study of the Life of Christ,
the study of which is more broadening, more deepening, more
elevating, more inspiring than the subject of world-wide mis-
sions. No subject more broadening; it embraces all mankind.

MO?PY.

Study.

Teach,
MOTT.

Pray

Give.

280 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

No subject more deepening; it takes us down to the very depths:
of the designs of God. Surely no subject more elevating. I can
think of nothing that so lifts a man out of himself. And can any-
thing be more inspiring than that enterprise which commanded
the life and death and resurrection of our Lord? I repeat it,
therefore, that we do our fellow young men and young women
in the Epworth League, the Sunday school, and Churches a
grave injustice if we keep out of their lives this sublime enter-
prise as a special study.

Each one of our bands of young people, whether it be large or
small, should also be a band of intercession. There is an old
Jewish proverb that “He prays not at all in whose prayers there
is no mention of the kingdom of God.” Everything vital to
missions hinges upon prayer. This is one of my strongest con-
victions, but I pass it at this time, as I shall have an opportunity
to enlarge upon it fully to-morrow night.

Every one of our organizations of young people should be a
school of self-sacrifice. Believe me, there is need in our day of
more heroic and self-denying giving. We need to teach young
men and young women that they are the stewards, not simply of
a tenth, but of all they possess, and that we are responsible, not
alone for the good use of our money, whether it be little or great,
but for its best possible use. Let every one of us be guided by
that scriptural principle which governed the life of Livingstone,
that we will place no value upon anything we have or may pos-
sess, except in its relation to the kingdom of God. This would
revolutionize the habits of giving of the Christian Church.

Wesley at one time received a salary of sixty pounds ($300) a
year, and was able to live upon it and to give quite a little of it
to Christian work. As his salary and income increased, he still
lived on less than sixty pounds, and gave all the remainder to the
extension of Christ’s kingdom. Not many months ago a young
man in Canada (not a very wealthy young man, you would not
count him wealthy at all if I could give you the estimated figures
of his possessions, but a young man prosperous in his business)
came to me and said that he would like to support a representa-
tive on the foreign field, and he gave $1,200 toward the salary and
expenses of a foreign worker. A few weeks ago, when I was at
Princeton College, I received a message telling me that I should
go to New York City and see this young man. He was to take
the boat on the following day for Europe. When I met him in
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE. 281

New York he said: “I have been so much blessed by helping to
support that man in Japan that I should like to have a hand, if
you can find an equally good man, in supporting another.” I did
not find it very difficult to suggest a man equally good. I held
out before him two men. I said, “Here is one man that it will
take about $1,200 to send, and this one about $800;” and he de-
cided that he would improve the $1,200 opportunity. He took
his boat, and less than two days ago, since I have been at this
Conference, I received a letter from him, written in England, say-
ing that as he was praying about it on the ocean he decided that
he wanted to take the $800 man also. He said: “God has pros-
pered me in my business, and as I extend my business I want to
enlarge my cooperation in the propagation of the gospel of Jesus
Christ. I do not need any more for clothing than I now spend.
I do not need any more expensive house or furniture.’ That
man has the idea of Christ ; and if that idea can take possession of
a sufficient number of young men, we shall have money sufficient
to evangelize the world in a ‘generation, with ease so far as money
is concerned.

We need not only more money, but also more of our best young
men and young women for this work. ‘We were all impressed by
the magnificent offering of $50,000 by the delegates here last
night. But there is still needed, in order to make this convention
reach its highest climax, a great offering of the most consecrated
young men and women of this convention, and, through the
many pastors who shall go back from here, hundreds of equally
consecrated young men and young women in the different spir-
itual centers of the South. This is needed because of the great
opportunity before us. I was told by Dr. Lambuth to-night that
the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, have decided that with God’s blessing they will send out
in the next five years one hundred new missionaries. This is a
direct leading of the Spirit of God, who leads us to do large
things. Where are all these missionaries coming from? I can-
not conceive of any riper harvest field than the one right here,
prepared by many months of patient prayerfulness. Here we
have -hundreds of consecrated Christians from all over this favored
Church. Where have we the right to look with greater confi-
dence for reénforcements? May we not have many here who,
as the result of fighting to the end of self, shall say with glad
abandonment of self: “Here am I; send me?’ Remember the

MOTT.

Working
twenty-four
hours.

Messengers
needed.
MOTT.

What shall
the parents
say?

The pastors,

282 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

German proverb: “The good is the enemy of the best.” Let us
not be satisfied with a good thing; let us have the best. Let us
be content with nothing else than leaving the deepest mark on
our generation. And remember also that if it is a good thing to
go where we are needed, it is more Christlike to go where we
are needed the most. Is there anything which reason and con-
science can summon which would take issue with that position?
God grant that we may step into the footsteps of our Lord, to go
to the most destitute fields of our own country and the great
open places beyond! May God move the parents here to-night
not only not to interfere and hinder, but rather to facilitate the
favorable decision of our own sons and daughters to enter upon
this exalted service! O, it is a solemn responsibility for any
father or mother in these days to do anything by word, or other
expression or attitude, to keep a son or a daughter who is quali-
fied from entering upon this unutterably important work of
preaching Christ where he is not known. What a responsibility !
I misinterpret the spirit of this gathering if there is any father
or mother here who would do this. Rather, in the spirit of God,
who spared not his only Son, but delivered him up for us all, we
shall be willing to make this sacrifice for the sake of Christ, who
has done so much for us.

I have one word of appeal to the pastors here. You have a
unique opportunity to go back and influence the young men and
the young women in your Churches to devote their lives to for-
eign missionary service. When I was in England last year I
learned of a Church of three hundred members that within ten
years had furnished thirty-two missionary volunteers, and of that
number twenty had finished preparation and were already on
the mission field, while others were still preparing themselves.
I envied their pastor. Think how he has multiplied his life.
Think what we also may do to help support missionaries and to
influence individual members in our congregations to go to those
much burdened secretaries of our Mission Boards, our dearly be-
loved brothers, with gifts to the Lord of a thousand dollars, or
five hundred dollars, or any other amount they are able to give
to the cause to build up the fight on monetary lines as well as on
lines of offering for life service.

Let each pastor have the true conception of his Church as not
merely a field to be cultivated, but also as a force to be wielded on
behalf of the world’s evangelization. And my final word is to us
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE, 283

all. Whether God calls us to go or to stay, O my friends, let
each one of us resolve that he will act as if he were the only
Christian to act. That has never led the Christian into error.
Act in such a way that if a sufficient number of men and women
would do the same thing we could take the knowledge of Christ
with faithfulness and thoroughness to the hearing of every crea-
ture on this earth. Let each one act for himself. Forget the
others. If you feel the pressure of the facts and the impulse of
the spirit of the living God, be serious and be obedient. It is a
great thing to have dealings with the living God. Responsibility
is individual, untransferable, urgent. Some day every man of us
must pass before the judgment seat of Christ, and at that time
we shall be judged not by what some one else did, but by what we
did to serve our own generation by the will of God. Responsi-
bility is not only individual and untransferable ; it is urgent.

The work which centuries might have done

Must crowd the hour of setting sun.

“I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is
day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” Therefore,
friends, in view of the awful need of men who to-night are living
without Christ; in view of the infinite possibilities of the life re-
lated to Christ as mighty Saviour and risen Lord; in view of the
magnitude of the task which confronts the Church of this gen-
eration; in view of the impending crisis and the urgency of the
situation ; in view of the conditions which favor a great onward
movement within the Church of God; in view of the dangers of

anything less than a great onward movement; in view of the.

great cloud of witnesses who gathered around us last night, of
those who subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness—yes,
in view of the constraining memories of the Cross of Christ and
the love wherewith he hath loved us, let us rise and resolve, at
whatever cost of self-denial, that live or die, we shall live or die
for the evangelization of the world in our day.

MOTT.

The duty of
the hour,

Co-workers
with Hin.
TAYLOR.

Preparation of
the committe’.

284 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

HOW TO MAKE THE EPWORTH LEAGUE MOST
EFFECTIVE AS A MISSIONARY FORCE.

MR. S. EARL TAYLOR.

Ir the Epworth League is to be made most effective as a mis-
sionary force, there will be a chosen few in each Chapter who are
missionary enthusiasts; those who have met God face to face,
and who, not cumbered about much serving, are willing to take
time to sit at Jesus’s feet and to hear his word. These will con-
stitute the life germ of the society, and of these will be chosen
the members of the Local Missionary Committee.

There will be a live chairman for this committee; the best the
society affords. No mediocre man or woman can lead in a world
enterprise. Those who “ought to have a place somewhere” may
possibly with little harm work on some other committee, but
here human souls are in the balance. The committee will not be
too large. Four or five members will do more work than twice
that number. Each member should be made responsible for
some definite duty; for instance, let one of the strongest mem-
bers be responsible for the monthly missionary meeting, another
for advertising and circulating the library, another for the prayer
topic on the bulletin board, another for mission study, and an-
other for promoting scriptural habits of giving. The chairman
of the committee will supervise the whole work, and will see
that each member of the committee attends to the duties as-
signed him.

Next in importance to careful organization is the preparation
of the committee. The local missionary committee should by
all means endeavor to secure the visit of a student missionary
campaigner or a member of the district missionary committee
at the time when the work is first organized, and at least once a
year thereafter. Each member of the committee should read
“The Missionary Spoke of the Epworth Wheel” and, if possible,
“Fuel for Missionary Fires.” The members should also famil-
iarize themselves with the books of the Missionary Campaign
Library, and should by all means read the missionary periodicals
of the Church and use the helps furnished in the League organ.

The committee should meet monthly for prayer and to check up
the work that has been done, and also to plan for a further ex-
tension of the work. A prominent Christian Endeavor worker
recently said in this connection: “The missionary committee has
HOW TO MAKE THE LEAGUE EFFECTIVE. 285

business enough to make a monthly meeting of the committee
necessary ; if not, it should have a meeting to find something to
do.” The entire missionary work of the local Chapter will come
under discussion at this monthly meeting of the missionary com-
mittee. Among other phases of work, the following may be con-
sidered:

The Monthly Missionary Meeting —In making the Epworth
League a missionary force, the monthly missionary meet-
ing is a strategic point. At this time we are able to reach
practically the entire membership of the League. The mis-
sion study class will. attract the few. The missionary library
will not be read by all; but the monthly missionary meet-
ing, if properly advertised and prepared for, will enable the
members of the study class and those who have read the library
and the enthusiast on the missionary committee to mass the bat-
teries upon the indifferent members of the society, who must
be aroused if the League is to be made a missionary force. Three
years ago the young people were thrown upon their own re-
sources for topics and for helps; but now monthly topics are
printed upon the regular topic cards of the League, and there
are adequate references and helps furnished, so that there is no
excuse for a dry missionary meeting.

The missionary committee, by careful planning for the month-
ly missionary meeting, may avoid monotony in leadership and in
the arrangement of the programme. They may enlist, if they
desire, two-thirds of the membership of the society in prepara-
tion for each meeting by the appointment of a programme com-
mittee, a committee on decorations, ushers, collectors, etc. In
Montreal a Woman’s Society has for years conducted monthly
missionary meetings with an average attendance of between two
and three hundred. The secret of their success is that no meeting
is prepared with less than sixty helpers, carefully distributed on
the various committees, and each month the committees are re-
arranged so that at least three times during the year each mem-
ber of the Church is asked to do some service in connection with
the monthly missionary meeting.

By careful attention to the following details the committee
will help to make the monthly missionary meeting: one of. real
power: They will, see to it that the meeting is. prayerful, and
hence devotional in spirit ; that it exalts, Christ ; that the meeting
is carefully advertised; that suitable charts are occasionally used,

TAYLOR,

how to make
it succeed.
TAYLOR.

Heips for
study.

286 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and also a missionary map of the world; that the leadership is.
effective; and that the meetings begin and end on time.

The Mission Study Class is of prime importance. That man
is no patriot who refuses to inform himself about the vital is-
sues of his country; for when voting time comes he will either:
trample the birthright of freedom under his feet, or else, ig-
norantly using it, he becomes almost as a madman with a load-
ed rifle. Simple loyalty to Jesus Christ demands that the Chris-
tian know something about the forward movements of Christ’s.
kingdom. That follower of Christ who can glibly tell you all
about recent military movements in the far East, but who is so.
ignorant of missions that he will believe all the adverse criti-
cisms of our missionary work in China, is crucifying afresh the
Son of God. As with the monthly missionary meetings, so with
the study class: there is no excuse because of lack of helps.

Three years ago we were urging the young people to study
missions, but were suggesting no study courses, and many young
people who really desired to know more about the missionary
work of the Church were as helpless as a collegian would be if
told to obtain a college education without the help of text-books
or instructors. To-day, however, our leaders have grasped the-
situation, and are not only providing suitable books, but they
are also preparing all necessary helps for study class work. A
successful study class will not be large. The question of leader-
ship is a difficult one, but the experience of the last two years, .
where study class work has been attempted, is proving conclu-
sively that if a class is formed, and one of the number who is will-.
ing to lead in hard work be assigned to leadership, and if ade--
quate helps for the leader of the class are furnished, the class will
go on from strength to strength. It goes without saying that.
the pastor should never lead the mission study class, except in
extreme cases, for in so doing, while he may make the class work
interesting, he is dwarfing the young people themselves, and is
effectually preventing the development of leadership. A success-
ful study class will have a lay leader, an attractive place of meet-
ing, an informal and flexible programme, a sense of the im--
portance of mission study, and each member of the class will
be given something definite to do.

The Missionary Library—A good missionary library should
be in each Chapter room; and if the League is to be a missionary
force, this library must be widely circulated. Three years ago-
HOW TO MAKE THE LEAGUE EFFECTIVE. 287

no missionary library suitable for young people was obtainable
without much labor and expense on the part of the local mis-
sionary committee.

A prominent layman in the North went to various publishing
houses and asked them if they were willing to publish a mis-
-sionary library which would be reasonable in price and which
would contain the best missionary books for young people. In
each case the publishers replied that they were unwilling to pub-
lish such a library because the young people were not demanding
missionary books. This layman then decided to financially back
the enterprise, and he himself arranged for the publication of
a library of sixteen volumes in special uniform binding. This
was called the Student Missionary Campaign Library. For about
four months very few of these libraries were sold, but this lay-
man and his colaborers believed that if there is a need for an
-article a demand can be created. By judicious advertising
through the Student Missionary Campaigners, the first edition
of five hundred sets was sold within six months. Since that time
over three thousand sets have been sold, and they are scattered
over about thirty-five States of the Union. This means that over
forty-eight thousand volumes of choice missionary books have
been placed by this means alone in the hands of the young people
-of the Church in less than three years’ time. So phenomenal has
been the demand for this library that a number two library of
‘twenty volumes his been published.

It has been easier to sell the library than it has to get the
‘books widely circulated and read. This is not surprising when
we remember that the vast majority of the young people are
reading very little outside the lighter form of literature. By the
following means, however, the library is being circulated under
the supervision of energetic missionary committees. The pastor
sometimes preaches a biographical sermon, using, for instance,
““The Life of Livingstone” as his subject. He then recom-
mends that the young people read this book, telling them that
it is to be found in the Campaign Library. More frequently the
pastor will use striking illustrations from the missionary library,
and will tell the young people where he has found these illustra-
tions. Sometimes a book review meeting has been held, when
certain members of the society briefly review some of the more
interesting books. Pledges are now being circulated for vaca-
-tion reading. One pledge reads as follows: “I will endeavor to

TAYLOR.

Student Cam-
paign Library.

How to get
the books read.
TAYLOR.

An illustra-
tion.

Prayer and
missions.

288 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

read during the next three months the missionary books on the
following list that are marked with a cross. I request the mis-
sionary committee of the League to furnish me with these books
as soon they are available.” (A list of Campaign Library books
then follows.) By this means one society secured sixty pledges
for vacation reading.

One young lady has made it a practice for years to use her
personal influence by recommending interesting books and by
lending choice biographies, asking her friends to read marked
portions. One lady who had thus received a book kept it over-
time, but stated when she returned the book that sixteen persons
had read it in the meantime. In a few cases we have known of a
public dedication of the Missionary Library, followed by a sys-
tem of delivery whereby the books are delivered by the mission-
ary committee to the homes of the members at stated times. One
pastor, in making his pastoral calls, left a certain book in homes
he desired to reach. Whatever means is used, it is certain that a
special effort must be made to get those to read who have never
read a missionary book. It is better to get one such person to
read than to enlist ten who are already interested.

A young lady recently asked a bright young man to prepare
an address on Korea. The young man said he knew nothing
about Korea, and that he had no interest in missions whatever,
but he finally agreed to prepare. He read four books, including
“Korean Sketches” and “Everyday Life in Korea,” and then
asked that the meeting ‘be postponed two months in order that
he might make more thorough preparation. He then wrote to
the various boards for all the pamphlets on Korea obtainable,
and when the time of the meeting arrived he was bubbling over
with enthusiasm. In the language of one who was present, “every
one felt that that meeting was worth while.” Later, this young
man sent a copy of “Korean Sketches” to all the young men of
his Bible class.

In no respect will the Epworth League be a greater missionary
force than in the realm of prayer. “Not by might, nor by pow-
er, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” More than any other
one thing, not excepting money, do the missions of the Church
feel the need of an ever-increasing volume of prayer. Prayer,
definite, earnest, and availing, may be promoted by proper means.
Many young people’s societies have each week a special topic for
prayer placed on the regular topic card, and five minutes of each

’
HOW TO MAKE THE LEAGUE EFFECTIVE. 289

devotional meeting is given to prayer for missions and mis-
sionaries.

A young people’s society in Ohio has a large missionary map
of the world, and from the local center lines are drawn on the
map so as to radiate to the various mission lands where repre-
sentatives from that society are at work. In Chicago there is an
interesting map of the world placed on a board background, and
the various mission stations of the Church are indicated by little
flags with the names of the missionaries written thereupon. Such
maps give definiteness to prayer. In Cambridge, England, there
is a prayer book where the letters from missionaries are placed,
and where special requests from the field are written. Before
each meeting the leader reads briefly these special requests for
prayer. In one of the theological seminaries in Virginia there are
in a prayer room a series of glass cases containing the photo-
graphs of the missionaries who have gone out from the school.
One missionary committee used the following plan: Pictures of
missionaries were clipped from the various denominational peri-
odicals, and mounted on uniform cards. Brief histories of the
missionaries, together with scriptural quotations, were written
on the backs of the cards. These pictures were presented to each
of the forty-seven members of the society at the Christmas meet-
ing, and at that time each one was asked to remember his mis-
sionary each day during the quiet hour, and the society agreed to
remember them often in prayer at the public meetings. The
Missionary Committee kept the members informed about their
individual missionaries by cutting out from the denominational
publications articles from the missionaries, and by procuring let-
ters from the various representatives. In June there will be a
meeting with the subject “Our Missionary,” when each member
is expected to tell the name of his missionary and what he knows
of the work of that missionary.

The young people’s society should by all means bestir itself
to promote the scriptural habit of giving. It may well hold a
public meeting where the idea of Christian stewardship is to be
fully presented. This should be a meeting extraordinary, and
should be very carefully worked up. Preparations should be
made weeks beforehand. Members should be asked to engage
in daily prayer that the meeting may be especially honored of
God. A special card may be printed soliciting prayer and in-
viting attendance. Leaders should be carefully selected, and

14

TAYLOR,

Examples,

Scriptural
giving.
TAYLOR.

District or-
ganization.

290 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

should have placed in their hands literature bearing on the sub-
ject. In this meeting especially, let us “attempt great things for
God, and expect great things from God.”

At the close of the meeting pledges may be taken stating
clearly the amount, daily or weekly, each member proposes to
give. Dr. Gordon said: “Human nature cannot be trusted to
carry out its generous impulses. If I should succeed in winding
any one of you up to the determination to do generous things,
you would run down again before next Sunday, unless your reso-
lution were fastened by a ratchet. That is what a solemn pledge
to pay money to God amounts to, a ratchet to hold us up to the
pitch we have reached.”

The public meeting may be followed by a personal canvass by
a carefully appointed committee, that no one who was not at the
meeting may be overlooked, and that those who canvass may
find out and correct erroneous impressions that may have been
given. It goes without saying that collections of payments should
be made regularly and promptly. Whether the envelope plan is
adopted or the mite box, or whatever it may be, a great respon-
sibility is upon the committee to see that the payments ‘are reg-
ularly made. Those who are young and are in the formative
period of life will not acquire scriptural habits of giving without
much help.

The plans which have been suggested above in outline are
workable, and have been proven so, but they will not work them-
selves. To insure the success of the local committee, a district
missionary committee should be organized with one member re-
sponsible for each five or six Chapters. It will often be necessary
to supervise the district work by a Conference organization, and
the Missionary Society and the Epworth League headquarters
must be alert and ever ready to provide missionary topics and
outlines, mission study course and helps, missionary library and
literature, prayer topics and prayer cycles, plans for systematic
and proportionate giving, and a never-ending stream of helpful
literature. It will be no easy task to arouse our legions of young
people, but it can be done and it must be done, and he who
studies the signs of the times most will be convinced in his heart
that the day is not far distant when the Epworth League will be,
in truth, a real and adequate missionary force.
MISSIONARY TRAINING AND LITERATURE. 291

MISSIONARY TRAINING AND LITERATURE FOR
YOUNG PEOPLE.

MISS BELLE M. BRAIN.

Givine the gospel to every creature is the greatest work in
the world. The young people of every denomination should
have a share in it, not only to prepare them for the responsibili-
ties of the future, but also because the actual service they can ren-
der is great beyond computation. The fifteen million scholars
in the Sunday schools and six million members of Young Peo-
ple’s Societies are a mighty factor in the operations of the Church.

The value of missionary training for the young is clearly dem-
onstrated by the experience of the Unitas Fratrum, that foremost
of all missionary Churches. Moravian children are trained from
infancy in the belief that their Church exists chiefly for the pur-
pose of giving the gospel to a lost world, and that every disciple
must do his part, however humble. Note the result. They give
one member out of every ninety-two to the foreign work, while
we—the rest of Protestant Christendom—give one out of every
five thousand; they send five missionaries abroad to every min-
ister at home, while we send out one missionary to every seventy-
seven ministers. We “play at missions ;” they make it the domi-
nant purpose of their lives.

The missionary training of young people should begin first of
all in the home. Dr. Pierson says: “I believe there ought to be
education in missions from the cradle, and then, as the child’s
mind and heart are inspired with a desire for the uplifting of man-
kind, the fire to be fed with fuel appropriate to the measure of the
child’s intelligence.” Too little stress is laid upon this, yet a
study of missionary biography shows that many of the great mis-
sionary heroes and missionary givers of the world gained their first
love of missions while little children through the instruction of
their parents in their homes.

The history of missions furnishes no more beautiful picture of
early missionary training than that of Alexander Mackay. Both
parents were deeply interested in missions, especially in Africa,
where Livingstone was making his great explorations. The
“Proceedings” of the Royal Geographical Society came regularly
to the home, and works of Livingstone, Speke, and Grant were

The Mora-
vians.

Mackay of
Uganda.
MISS BRAIN.

Bible basis.

292 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

purchased as soon as published. Ona map in his study the father
traced for his boy the course of the newly discovered rivers, and
discussed with him the part missionaries were playing in the
opening up of the great continent.

On the long Sabbath evenings, when the father was preaching
at some distant kirk, the boy’s training fell to the lot of the
mother. The lessons were from the Bible and catechism, but
after these were over, if they had been well learned, the mother’s
reward was some thrilling missionary story that stirred the heart
of the boy and fired him with missionary zeal. Small wonder
is it that he became, in after years, the hero of Uganda, a notable
light bearer to the Dark Continent beyond the sea.

In this matter of home training, English workers are in ad-
vance of us. Missionary alphabets and picture books are pro-
vided for the little children in the nursery, and missionary games
for the older ones, while parents are urged to provide at least the
nucleus of a missionary library for their sons and daughters going
out into the world.

From the home the child passes into the Sunday school, and
a little later into the Young People’s Society. It is, therefore,
of the utmost importance that these two great training schools
of the Church should be thoroughly imbued with the missionary
spirit and actively engaged in missionary work.

There are three great lines along which the young people in
these organizations should be trained—three great missionary
obligations which should be indelibly impressed upon them.
These are tersely outlined in the following brief Bible reading:
“Some can gio”—"Go ye.” (Mark xvi. 15.) “Most can give’—
“Give ye.” (Matt. xiv. 16.) “All can pray”—“Pray ye.” (Matt.
ix. 38.)

Some of the young people in your Church can go. You know not
what great embryo missionary is enrolled a member of your Sab-
bath school or Epworth League. Centuries ago a quaint old
man visiting a school in Germany took off his hat and bowed low
to the boys. The teacher asked in surprise why he did so. “Oh,”
he replied, “I do not know what mighty man may yet be devel-
oped from among them.” The old man was wise. One of those
lads became the great Martin Luther.

We need to realize more fully the tremendous possibilities
wrapped up in the young lives under our care. Nearly a century
MISSIONARY TRAINING AND LITERATURE. 293

ago at the communion season in an old Scotch kirk the only ad-
dition to the Church was a little lad. One old elder was greatly
disturbed over this, and sadly replied when asked about the serv-
ice: “No one came forward save wee Bobbie Moffat.” Little
did he guess what great things it meant for the kingdom of God
in Africa when Robert Moffat gave himself to Christ!

Perhaps among the scholars in your Sunday school there is a
‘wee Bobbie,” whose tender heart is open to receive the divine
impulse that by and by will send him forth a herald of the cross.
Perhaps, too, among the members of your Epworth League, there
are young men and women standing “where two ways meet,”
questioning what life work to choose, and unconsciously waiting
to hear the call of God to such service. Be faithful, then, in pre-
senting the claims of the mission field, and “pray ye the Lord of
the ‘harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest”
from your Church.

Most of the young people in your Church can give. The beautiful
custom of the Hawaiian mothers in the early days of Christianity
in the island shows that no child is too young to be taught to give.
Placing a bright coin in her baby’s hand, the mother held it over
the contribution box. If the tiny fingers held on to the shining
piece, she gently shook it until it fell, with a merry ring, into the
box below. No wonder the Hawaiian Christians became such
liberal and cheerful givers.

From their childhood young people should be trained to regard
money as a trust, and themselves as God’s stewards. It is said
that at the present time the one thing that hinders the progress
of Christ’s kingdom in the earth is the lack of money. Doors are
open and workers are ready to enter them, but the necessary
funds are not forthcoming. By inculcating the principles of pro-
portionate and systematic giving among the young people, and
adopting some wise system of collecting funds, not only would
the present need be met, but the foundations be laid for a larger
giving by and by. We must never forget that in the ranks of
the young people of to-day are not only the great missionaries
of the future, but also the great missionary givers—the men and
women who will have the control of the money power of the
Church. it faa

All of the young people in your Church can pray. In 1871 Mrs.

MISS BRAIN.

‘* Wee Bob-
bie.’’

*?' Give yeu’?
MISS BRAIN.

“Pray ye.”

The kind of
prayer need-
ed.

One more
command,

2904 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

John G. Paton wrote from Aniwa to the children of the Day-
spring: “You may not be able to come and teach the heathen,
or even give money to help them, but every one of you can pray
for them and for us.”

Here, then, is something that every one of God’s children, no
matter how humble, can do for the spread of the gospel. Dr. A.
C. Thompson says: “Is it too much for even young children to
plead in the fullest sense of the word ‘Thy kingdom come, thy
will be done in earth [in all the earth] as it is in heaven.’ ”

The Jews had a saying: “He prays not at all in whose prayers
there is no mention of the kingdom of heaven.” The truth of
this we may learn from a study of that model prayer our Lord
gave to his disciples when they asked him to teach them to pray.
There should be prayer for missions at every session of the Sun-
day school, at every meeting of the Epworth League. A native
Christian in Persia was once called upon to lead in prayer. When
he arose from his knees at the close he exclaimed: “God forgive
me! I forgot to pray for Miss Fiske’s school.” Kneeling down
again, he poured forth earnest petitions for the school. Every
Sunday school superintendent and Epworth League leader who
omits to pray for missions hhas need to cry out, “God forgive me!
I forgot to pray for the conversion of the world,” and at once
supply the omission.

To be effectual, prayer for missions should be both definite and
intelligent. For this reason young people should be urged to use
a prayer cycle, giving special topics for prayer and praise, and a
prayer calendar giving the names of specific workers in the field.
It is well, too, to have a stated time for daily prayer for missions.
For this purpose the noon hour observed by the Student Volun-
teers is probably the best. Would it not mean great things for
the kingdom of God if the ringing of the noontide bells and the
blowing ‘of the twelve-o’clock whistles should become a new An-
gelus, calling young people everywhere to pause, if only for a
moment, and lift their hearts to God in earnest petition for the
salvation of the world?

In addition to the three commands, “Go,” “Give,” “Pray,” there
is another that may be expressed by the word “Look.” One of
our Lord’s commands to his disciples was : “Lift up your eyes, and
look on the fields.” Herein is our scriptural warrant for mis-
sionary literature, that most important of all factors in the mis-
MISSIONARY TRAINING AND LITERATURE. 295

sionary training of the young. “Looking on the fields,” which ™tss sra.
for most of us must be done through the eyes of others, is es-
sential to an active interest in missions. None will go, few will
give, and fewer still will pray for a cause of which they know
nothing. If missionary fires are to be kindled among the young
people, there must be knowledge to supply the fuel, and knowl-
edge must be gained largely through the medium of the printed
page.
The remarkable growth of missionary literature during the
century has undoubtedly been one of the chief factors in the mar-
velous development of missionary interest. Speaking of the flonase
wealth of literature now accessible to the Church, Dr. Pierson titerature.
says: “When Christ gave his last command there was not one
Christian book; even the first gospel narrative was not yet writ-
ten. The Church for nearly a century had no literature, and had
to wait fifteen centuries for a printing press, and then centuries
more for any missionary literature outside the Acts of the Apos-
tles. To-day missionary ‘magazines and reviews throng our
mails; and about one-seventh of our religious publications deal
either directly or indirectly with missions; and even our secular
dailies devote columns and pages to the subject.”
The last decade of the century was especially rich in its contri-
butions of missionary books. Indeed it is safe to say that a ma-
jority of the brightest and best books on the subject have been is-
sued within the last ten years. This is clearly proved by a study
of the list of one hundred best books on missions for Young Peo-
ple’s Societies, recently prepared by Dr. Sailer, of Philadelphia,
and strongly indorsed by Harlan P. Beach. No less than eighty
of the books on this list—four-fiiths of the whole number—have
been issued since 1890.
Missionary literature in its broadest sense includes not only
periodicals, books, and tracts, but maps and charts as well. In
each of these forms God has set the seal of his divine approval
upon it by allowing it to accomplish great things for the cause.
Carey found inspiration in the crude map of his own construc-
tion that hung above his shoemaker’s bench, and Eliza Agnew,
when but eight years old, decided to become a missionary while
listening to a map talk given by her teacher in a day school in ape and
New York. No orator at the Ecumenical Conference spoke what they
more powerfully than the great map that hung above the platform ™¥* 9°
MISS BRAIN,

Charts

Tracts.

296 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

of Carnegie Hall, its great dark patches revealing how much
land remaineth yet to be possessed for God.

Every Church should have a large missionary map of the
world and use it at every missionary meeting. It is a good plan,
as the different fields are studied, to mark the mission stations in
some conspicuous manner—by a red cross, gilt letters, or silver
star—so that it is possible to see at a glance just where mission-
aries are at work throughout the world.

The map should be used, too, in connection with prayer for
missions. With a map of the world before them the study class
of a Young Men’s Christian Association in one of our larger cit-
ies recently spent an hour and a half in silent prayer for the con-
version of the world, taking up the fields one by one as they
were announced by the leader, until they girded the globe with
their petitions.

Too little use is made of charts in young people’s meetings, yet
they have often been the means of winning workers to the cause.
A student in a Western college declared that the black squares of
the “mute appeal” so familiar to us all ‘“‘had burned their way into
his heart.” And at a meeting of the first Student Volunteers
held at the home of Robert Wilder at Princeton, when one of them
said with great earnestness, ““Woe is me if I preach not the gospel
to the heathen!” John Forman exclaimed: “I know why Curtis
feels so. Over his bed hangs a chart with black squares repre-
senting 856,000,000 heathen. Any man sleeping with such a
chart at the head of his bed must decide to be a foreign mission-
ary, or have a nightmare every night.”

Distributing tracts is a form of missionary seed-sowing that
has yielded a most abundant harvest. The tract, “Shall I Go?”
and the booklet, “Do Not Say,’ have sent many a missionary to
the foreign field; “Money and the Kingdom,” “What We Owe,”
and “Thanksgiving Ann” have converted hundreds of pocket-
books and poured thousands of dollars into missionary treasur-
ies; “Prayer and Missions” has influenced many to pray regularly
for the coming of the kingdom; and “God’s Box,’ “The Box
from St. Mark’s,” and “Brothers in Christ” have sent many a
check to home mission treasuries and many a well-filled box to
overworked and underpaid missionaries in our home land.

Missionary periodicals are absolutely indispensable. Through
their medium alone can we watch the progress of the work and
MISSIONARY TRAINING AND LITERATURE. 207

keep in touch with the missionaries on the field. The greatest
problem is how to get them to read. A plan that has worked well
in some of our Northern societies is to assign a special missionary
toeach member. Then at the monthly meetings the roll is called,
the members responding by giving the names of the missionaries
and late items about their work. This necessitates a study of
the magazines.

Perhaps, however, the surest way to beget missionary interest
in the hearts of young people is to induce them to read mission-
ary books. Edward’s “Life of Brainerd” made Henry Martyn a
missionary ; together with Martyn’s own memoirs, it gave inspira-
tion to Robert Murray McCheyne’s saintly life. Toward the
close of the eighteenth century the stories of the South Sea is-
landers in Cook’s ‘““Voyages” not only fed Carey’s growing inter-
est in the salvation of the world, but inspired a great wave of mis-
sionary enthusiasm throughout Great Britain which found ex-
pression in the purchase of the Duff, and the sending forth of the
first band of twenty-five missionaries to the islands of the south-
ern seas. In our own day the “Autobiography of John G. Paton”
has not only sent many missionaries to the field, but inspired mis-
sionary interest in the hearts of thousands of indifferent Chris-
tians at home.

One of the most hopeful signs in connection with young peo-
ple’s work in the last few years has been the wide circulation of
missionary books. It was stated at the Ecumenical Conference
that “within eighteen months forty thousand volumes of the best
missionary literature obtainable had been placed in the hands of
the young people,” and the end is not yet.

As in the case of missionary periodicals, the great problem is
how to get these books read and studied. Wherever the interest
is sufficient the problem can be solved by the formation of read-
ing circles and study clubs. But where little or no interest is
manifested other methods must be used, and an appetite for mis-
sionary reading created. Here are 2 few practical plans that may
prove helpful :

1. Print lists of all the missionary books available (in the Sun-
day school library, public library, etc.). Distribute these among
the young people and ask them to read a given number in a given
time—two books during the summer vacation, or one every three

MISS BRAIN.

Periodicals.

Arousing
interest.
MISS BRAIN,

Suggestions.

Fire as well
as fuel.

298 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

months. Keep a record of all books read, either in a blank book
or on a list kept hanging on the wall.

2. Make short, bright reviews of interesting books a feature
of the missionary programme.

3. When new books are added to the library give “book
notices” of them at the meetings, calling attention to their most
attractive features.

4. Have selections from famous missionary books read at the
regular meetings, and at missionary socials. For the regular
meetings nothing could be more interesting than such stories as
“The Sinking of the Well,” from the ‘Autobiography of John G.
Paton ;” ‘God on the Rock,” from “On the Indian Trail,” by Eg-
erton R. Young; and “In the Tiger Jungle,” the first sketch in
Dr. Chamberlain’s well-known book. For the missionary social
nothing could be more entertaining than “The Korean Boy,” or
“The Korean Pony,” from Gale’s “Korean Sketches;’ “Nel-
wang’s Elopement,” from the “Autobiography” of Dr. Paton;
“The Spotted Tiger Foiled,” from “The Cobra’s Den;”’ and
“Mackay as Undertaker,” from “Mackay in Uganda,” by his sis-
ter.

5. Select three stirring missionary books, and ask three per-
sons each to read one of them and give at the meeting the most
thrilling incident recorded in it. For another meeting select
five missionary biographies and ask five persons to read them
and give the greatest lessons to be learned from the lives of the
missionaries. For still another meeting ten persons might be
asked to read ten books and give very briefly instances of an-
swered prayer found in them.

In considering the value of missionary literature in training
the young we have called it the fuel by which the missionary fires
are to be sustained. But we must not forget that fuel, necessary
as it is, will not kindle a fire; there must also be a spark. For
this we must depend upon the Word and the Spirit, with prayer
to fan the flame.

Helpful as is the campaign library of the Student Volunteers,
and the conquest library of the Christian Endeavorers, there is,
as I once heard a young pastor say, “a library far more valuable
than either of these—a library of sixty-six small books, usually
bound together as one great book, which has been the inspiration
MISSIONARY TRAINING AND LITERATURE. 299

of every missionary and missionary worker since the world be-
gan.”

Too little use has been made of the Bible in the missionary
training of the young. They should be taught the great scrip-
tural foundations upon which missionary operations rest; the re-
wards promised to those who engage in missionary work, and the
danger of neglecting it; and the great promises and prophecies
by which the ultimate triumph of world-wide missions is as-
sured. Then would they become strong workers, not shaken by
any temporary wind of adversity that threatens annihilation of
the mission cause, but standing firm in the belief that the day will
surely come whien the kingdoms of the earth shall have “become
the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ.”

MISS BRAIN.
Statistics.

Section VII.
FROM VARIOUS STANDPOINT S.

THE MISSIONARY PHASE OF CHURCH EXTENSION.
REV, P. H. WHISNER, D.D.

Tue Board of Church Extension of the M. E. Church, South,
was organized by the General Conference of 1882 in the city of
Nashville. Rev. Dr. David Morton was elected Corresponding
Secretary, and managed the affairs of the Board with marvelous
success for almost sixteen years. The plan adopted by the Gen-
eral Conference contemplated raising and administering sepa-
rately a general fund to be donated to the needy Churches, and
a fund to be loaned to such Churches as should apply and be
thought capable of returning the loan. The general fund contrib-
uted by the Church in eighteen years amounts to $884,789.84, to
which we must add $42,668.13 raised as specials. Of this, $811,-
242 has been donated to Churches. The loan fund, which has
been contributed by benevolent members of the Church for the
most part in unconditional gifts, but in some cases on an annuity
plan which was authorized by the General Conference of 1886 at
Richmond, Va., amounts now to $182,933.14, and from it loans
have been made to Churches amounting to $345,760.

The donations ($811,242) and the loans ($345,760) make a
sum total of $1,157,002 appropriated to Churches in eighteen
years. Of these amounts, $169,426 has been donated to Church-
es in Mission Conferences, and $50,135 has been loaned in Mis-
sion Conferences.

We have in these Mission Conferences, according to the Gen-
eral Minutes, 599 Churches and have aided by donations or loans
435, or nearly four-fifths of them. These Churches are valued at
$1,041,987, and these donations and loans to them amount to
$219,561, which is more than one-fifth of their value.

The arrangement made at the organization of this Board, by
which it was provided that one-half of the money raised in any
MISSIONARY PHASE OF CHURCH EXTENSION. 301

Annual Conference should be appropriated in the Conference
by the Conference Board of Church Extension, looks as if it were
intended that the half paid over to the General Board should be
appropriated in the weak places, or in'other words in the Mission
Conferences, and there is no doubt that the Board has aimed, as
far as is expedient, to carry out that intention; and yet it has
not ignored the applications that have come from the stronger
Conferences, but has done a very important service in many cases
in all of them. It will very likely more and more seem wise to
the Board to increase the proportion of donations in the Mission
Conferences and to reduce the proportion of loans to them, and
on the other hand to increase the proportion of loans in the
larger Conferences and reduce the proportion of donations,
so that the proportionate service of the Board to the Mission
Conferences is very likely to constantly increase. The motto of
this organization is and must ever be: “A Church for Every Con-
gregation.”

We have now, according to the minutes of 1899, 17,889 socie-
ties and 14,305 churches, which leaves 3,584 societies without
houses of worship, and 527 of these are in the Mission Conferences,
and this does not include Cuba and Korea. The necessity for a
house of worship for every congregation is imperative. There
is no possibility of success in our Church work anywhere without
a house of worship. We may begin, but we cannot successfully
continue. It cannot be done in our own land or in any foreign
field.

This statement has many illustrations in the history of the
Church. Our Methodist people have often contented themselves
without a house of worship till some other denomination has
come in and built the first church in the neighborhood and se-
cured an advantage which should have been ours. The state of
our Church in the city of Baltimore serves to show the inestimable
value of church buildings. At the close of the civil war the prop-
erty was all in the hands of the M. E. Church; and, while very
many of the people were in hearty sympathy with us, only the
very faithful few were willing to leave their church buildings and
come with us and build anew. There can scarcely be a question
but that the proportionate strength of the two Churches would
have been vastly changed if we had had even an equal advantage
with them in the matter of houses of worship. The history of

WHISNER,

Gifts to the
weak; loans
to the strong.

Value of a
house of, wor-
ship.
WHISNER.

Bishop.
Marvin.

302 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the relations of the two Methodisms in East Tennessee and the
conflict between them during the last thirty-five years, out of
which we are just now beginning to come with victory on our
banners, is also a forceful illustration inasmuch as it is perfectly
evident that that contest would have been of short duration and
our victory would long ago have been complete but for the fact
that the opposition had ‘secured possession of much of the prop-
erty. The following quotations from Bishop Marvin on church-
building serve further to illustrate this point. Of building
churches the says: “It is piety and Christian policy combined.
The spiritual family must be domiciled.” In regard to the state
of our Church in Kentucky in the early seventies, he said in an-
swer to the question, how is it after that magnificent country
has been evangelized by such preachers as lived and wrought in
those days, that in our day the battle has to be fought over again?
“They did not garrison the country as they conquered it. School-
house churches, courthouse churches, and especially union
churches ‘have been of untold disadvantage to our cause in Ken-
tucky. Everything that establishes itself and maintains its foot-
ing in the world must be domiciled, put between four walls and
under a roof; it must not lie around loose. If it is too feeble to
get itself to the fire, somewhere, nothing can save it; out in the
cold and in the tempest, it must perish, and a thing so feeble,
with so little vitality, will die readily ; there can be no great power
of resistance, no great tenacity of life. I have known healthy
Churches that had no better places than private houses or school-
houses to meet in. They were, however, in new regions of coun-
try, recently settled, and were young Churches that had not gath-
ered resources; but I never did know a Church that attempted
that fugitive sort of existence as a permanency that did not fall
into decay. I never knew a Church in the midst of a prosperous
community to thrive without providing a permanent and respect-
able house of worship. In a house either too small or too shab-
by to be respectable, it gives evidence of one of two facts: either
that it is feeble in numbers or that religion has a hold on the con-
sciences and hearts of its members altogether too slight for re-
productive power. It will soon do better or become extinct; its
lack of proper architectural expression is a sign of dissolution;
there is not life sufficient to maintain itself. There is a law prev-
alent in human society everywhere which dooms the Church to
MISSIONARY PHASE OF CHURCH EXTENSION. 303

comparative stagnation wherever it fails to provide itself with the
external conditions of prosperity. There is something powerfully
conservative in real estate title. Anchor a church in the soil, and
you add greatly to its fixity and tenacity; it will bear a much
heavier strain than it could otherwise do.”

A house of worship is important not simply for the reasons
thus given, but there is an inspiration for the worshiper which
our humanity very greatly needs. Whocan measure the influence
and the inspiration that come to one who takes his seat in a pew
once occupied by a now sainted father or mother, who looks
around upon walls that have echoed the songs of Zion from the
lips of loved ones gone before, who looks up into a pulpit from
which have come those warnings and invitations that have led to
repentance and salvation, and those consolations that have com-
forted in times of sorrow and encouraged in times of despondency
and have served as helps to faithfulness and dutifulness in any and
all the conditions of life? Reverence for a place of worship is a
very important element in human piety which must necessarily
be absent from those who have had to submit to the want of a
church. It is evidently not the will of God that any of his people
should be without the advantage which a place of worship can
give. The influence of Bethel and the use God made of it to bless
Jacob serve to enforce and illustrate the truth of this utterance.

If it could be assumed that the Lord was willing to leave any
congregation without a church building, it would seem that he
would have indicated it in the case of the Israelites when on their
way from Egypt to Canaan. Instead of this, however, he calls
one-twelfth, approximately, of the population away from every
other service which they might have rendered, and confines them
to the service of the tabernacle. He ‘holds the whole multitude
in one position, stopping the whole movement toward Canaan a
full year till the few skilled workmen, who are made skillful by
divine intervention, can build a tabernacle.

Surely no reader of the history of Israel can assign to any other
feature of their history an importance that will in any degree
compare with the history of the tabernacle and the ark and the
Levitical and priestly service. The pillar of cloud by day and of
fire by night rested on the tabernacle. And when these lifted, the
tabernacle must first follow. However fierce the battle, however
mighty the foe, one-twelfth (the whole tribe of Levi) of the men of

WHISNER.

Associations.

The
tabernacle,
WHISNER,

Renting
costly.

304 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Israel were at the service of the tabernacle, and not one of them
could bear sword in any event.

This furnishes us a lesson, too, as to the expensiveness of the
Church. Many of our people think the demands of the Church
upon their time and means are excessive, but there is no Chris-
tian Church of any denomination that makes as large demands as
did the Jewish. The most costly religions known to mankind
were the heathen. The Jewish was far less so, and the Christian
far less than the Jewish, and of the Christian denominations there
never has been one whose demands were more reasonable and
less excessive than the demands of the Methodist Church. We
ask nothing whatever as a contribution to superstition or vanity.
The demands of our Church are exclusively for what is absolutely
necessary to the progress of the kingdom of God among men.

In our Mission Conferences, as well as in those that are not mis-~
sions, there is and must be a constant increase in the number of
organized societies, and consequently a constant demand for new
churches. Rented places are always costly and always temporary
and always unsuitable. Ifthe wisest thing could always be done,
every mission would be provided with the means of securing a sub-
stantial church building at every point where a society has been
organized, and in some cases in advance of the organization and
as a means of effecting an organization.

It is and ‘has ever been an embarrassment in our mission fields
that we have not provided our Church Extension treasury with
the means with which to codperate with the Mission Board to the
full extent of their need. A missionary without a house of wor-
ship and without the means to procure one is at a disadvantage
which not only serves to embarrass him and retard his progress,
but gives occasion to those he seeks to influence to lose all proper
appreciation of his ability to bless them.

These statements are not intended to advance the material
work of the Church at the expense of the spiritual. It is not un-
usual to claim that spirituality is the one need of the Church, and
I not only admit but assert the necessity of spirituality in the
Church, and the more I have to do with the material interests of
the Church the more fully do I appreciate the spiritual side of
Christian life. It must not be forgotten, however, that spiritual
life does not depend exclusively on prayer and spiritual worship,
MISSIONARY PHASE OF CHURCH EXTENSION. 305

but along with these and of equal necessity is dutifulness at every WMSNFR-

point of personal obligation.

A religion that consists of singing psalms and making prayers,
and fails to recognize the moral obligation to bea blessing to the
world by serving the cause of God as we may have opportunity,
is of very little value for this life or the next. It is our privilege
to sing with joy when we are faithful, and to have access to the
mercy seat in prayer; but if we undertake to substitute song and
prayer for faithful service, we will soon find that the spirit of wor-
ship will not abide with us, and finally will find that no heavenly
rewards await us. ;

The need of the times is not simply a church for every congre-
gation, but a suitable church for every congregation. It is evi-
dent that very many of our churches do not meet the needs of the
congregations and ought to be substituted by better. There
should not only be a suitable audience room, but also suitable
and ample arrangements for Sunday school and Epworth League.
Nothing less than this can be regarded as satisfactory for our
people. The future success of the Church depends largely upon
the promptness with which we provide the need. It is a stand-
ing appeal to the liberality and enterprise of our people. It calls
loudly for the adoption of Mr. Wesley’s rule to make all you can,
and save all you can, and give all you can.

There are two very difficult practical problems before the
Church in this connection. First, the maintenance of our country
work, from which many of the most enterprising and thrifty mem-
bers are withdrawn by the present movement of the population to
the cities. Many strong country Churches are weakening from
this cause. The state of society in much of our territory demands
the concentration of residences for the purpose of protection.
Secondly, the demand created by the very rapid growth of city
population, which makes it very necessary to increase our facili-
ties for saving souls in these centers of vice as well as of virtue.

As to the first of these problems, it is evident that good, sub-
stantial church buildings are a necessity to its proper solution.
Communities for miles around can be made to concentrate on a
good church well located. A shabby church will not interest any
except possibly those who provided it, and these will have but lit-
tle influence with capable people. The shabby church will rap-
idly become more so, and the congregation will soon become as

A church for
every congre-
gation.

Twe
problems.
WHISNER,

The unit in

cittes.

Down-town
Churches.

306 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

shabby as the church. There is certainly no hope of Church suc-
cess among young Americans in a shabby church. A decent
church building is a religious necessity in every neighborhood in
our land or any other land where we may hope to serve the cause
of Christ with any good degree of success. The pious energies
of the good people of any community must have a rallying point,
a center of influence from which to radiate: a house of God wor-
thy of the name.

As to the second problem, proper provision for the protec-
tion of the cities, our people in every city must learn to regard
themselves as a unit. They must be members of different pas-
toral charges but of one Church. The whole body built the first
church in the city; why not the whole body build the second, and
the third, andsoon? The organization of City Boards of Church
Extension, as provided by the General Conference of 1886, looks
to the concentration of the whole force of the Church in a city
upon every new enterprise that may be undertaken. Too often
a few devoted members, seeing the necessity of a second church,
go to work to secure it, and find themselves embarrassed by a com-
bined effort on the part of the first Church to prevent a proper di-
vision of the congregation, and sometimes even to prevent those
from aiding the work who would otherwise do so. Such ought
not to be the case. Those who propose to constitute the first
Church, which has its house aiready built and paid for, should help
to build the second house, and not leave a feeble fraction of the
Church in the city to do what they may not be able to do, and
thereby make the second Church to lead a feeble existence to such
an extent as to fail in its purpose. Such a course accounts in
many of our cities for the fact that we have weak mission chapels
instead of strong city Churches.

The tendency, too, in our city Churches is to withdraw from all
but those portions of the city where the best residences are situ-
ated. This tendency must be checked. A good, large, substan-
tial church in the business portion of the city is of untold value to
the cause. The same is true of the poorer portions of the city.
The poorer the people, the larger is the number necessary for the
support of a Church, and usually that class of people are pecul-
iarly susceptible to the influence of numbers. Little mission
Churches in our large cities do not give promise of the success
MISSIONARY PHASE OF CHURCH EXTENSION. 307

which the cause demands. O for wisdom from above to man-
age the work of God in the cities!
The readjustments needed in our country work and the sup-
ply of the growing demands of our city mission work call for
large self-sacrifice on the part of all the good people of the
Church. The more promptly these readjustments are made and
these city demands are met, the more of success will await the
Church. Delay in these matters is both dangerous and costly.
To say that we are not able is to ignore the precedents to be
found in the Bible and even in the history of our own denomina-
tion. We are not in the embarrassing situation that confronted
Zerubbabel when Haggai and Zechariah were sent to warn and
encourage him and his people, and it will be well for us to heed
both the warnings and encouragements that God, who is the
same yesterday, to-day, and forever, sent to them and which
are equally applicable to us. JI quote a few passages. While
they wait and do not work they are addressed in these and other
equally weighty warnings: “Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came
to little ; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why?
saith the Lord of hosts. Becatise of mine house that is waste, and
ye run every man into his own house. Therefore the heaven over
you is stayed from the dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.
And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains,
and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and
upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and
upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands.” These warn-
ings produce the following results: “Then Zerubbabel
and Joshua, . . . with all the remnants of the people,
obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai
the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people
did fear before the Lord. Then spake Haggai the Lord’s messen-
ger in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying, I am with you,

saith the Lord.” “Be strong, O Zerubbabel, . . . and be
strong, O Joshua, . . . and be strong, all ye people of the
land, . . . saith the Lord of hosts. According to the word

that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my
Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not.” “And in this place
will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. Now, I pray you,
consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid
upon a stone in the temple of the Lord; . . . consider now

WHISNER,

Readjustments
in home mis-
sion work.
WHISNER.

Scripture
models.

308 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

from this day and upward, . . . even from the day that the
foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider it.
From this day will I bless you.”

At the same time the Lord by the mouth of Zechariah said to
Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith
the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? before
Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and the shall bring forth
the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
i The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this
house; his hands shall also finish it; . . . for who hath de-
spised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see
the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel.” The honor that God
attaches to the work of church-building, and the blessing that he
confers on those who are engaged in that work, are in these cases
thus set forth, and should serve to excite in all God’s people an all-
absorbing zeal to be participants in the work and sharers in the
promised blessing. Ifso, whio can doubt that soon we would have
every congregation in our Church at home and abroad suitably
housed, and the means at hand when needed to house every new
congregation as soon as formed?

In the days of Ezra King Artaxerxes said: ‘‘Whatsoever is
commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the
house of the God of heaven: for why should there be wrath against
the realm of the king and his sons?” If the inspiration of the Al-
mighty in the olden times made such an impression on a heathen
king, what should be the impression of the complete revelation of
God upon the Church of our time?

We offer you from the Scriptures a model for universal use in
taking Church Extension collections, whether by those who are
about to build or to help others to build. This model is found in
1 Chronicles xxix. It is the account there given of David taking
a collection for the building of the temple. The spirit of David
serves as a model for any pastor, whether in the mission field or
athome. It is givenin these words: “Lord, remember David and
all his afflictions: how he sware unto the Lord, and vowed unto
the mighty God of Jacob; Surely I will not come into the taber-
nacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to
mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for
the Lord, a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.”

Let it be remembered, too, that this is a model collection in the
MISSIONARY PHASE OF CHURCH EXTENSION. 309

fact that it is taken up before the work is begun and is not mere-
ly a subscription, but a donation. It is a model, too, in the willing-
ness with which it is done and the emphasis which is put upon this
willingness. It is a model, too, in the rejoicing that was indulged
in as the result not only of the amount given but of the willingness
with which it was given. I give you the words of the record : “Now
I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the
gold for things to be made of gold, and the silver for things of sil-
ver, and the brass for things of brass, and iron for things of iron,
and wood for things of wood; onyx stones, and stones to be set,
glistening stones, and of divers colors, and all manner of precious
stones, and marble stones in abundance. Moreover, because I
have set my affection to the house of my God, I have of mine own
proper good, of gold and silver, which I have given to the house
of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy
house, even three theusand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir,
and seven thousand talents of refined silver. . . . Who then
is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord? Then
the chief of the fathers and princes of the tribes of Israel, and the
captains of thousands and of hundreds, with the rulers of the king’s
work, offered willingly. . . . They with whom precious stones
were found gave them to the treasure of the house of the Lord.
é Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willing-
ly . . . tothe Lord: and David the king also rejoiced with
great joy. Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the con-
gregation: and David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel
our father, forever andever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and
the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for
all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine, . . . and
thou art exalted as head above all. Now therefore, our God, we
thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and
what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly
after this sort? . . . As for me, in the uprightness of mine
heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I
seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly
unto thee. . . . And David said to all the congregation, Now
bless the Lord your God. And all the congregation blessed the
Lord God of their fathers. . . . And they sacrificed sacrifices
untothe Lord, . . . and did eat and drink before the Lord on
that day with great gladness.”

WILISNER,
Two views of
mission work.

Attitude of
the Adminis-
tration.

310 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

THE FUTURE OF MISSIONS IN ASIA FROM A LAY-
MAN’S STANDPOINT.

THE HON. JOHN BARRETT.

Go1nc out to Asia seven years ago as a United States Minister,
I was, in a degree, prejudiced against missionaries. Returning
to America six years later, I was convinced of the practical value
and importance of their work. Four years’ official residence in
Siam, a year or more in China and Japan, and another in the Phil-
ippines, aroused me to an appreciation of America’s mighty re-
sponsibilities and opportunities, missionary and commercial, in
the far East. Just across the seas from our Pacific shores are
600,000,00c of human souls and $2,000,000,000 of commerce.

In other words, careful study of missionary work and thorough
investigation of commercial effort, during a period of six years
in China, Japan, Korea, Siam, Burma, Java, and the Philippines,
leave no doubt in my mind that our Churches and our chambers
of commerce should labor in coordinate, and possibly cooperative,
endeavor to advance their respective interests among Asia’s un-
counted millions. There may be faults—grave faults—in our
present missionary methods, but faults are to be found among
merchants and diplomatists as well as among missionaries. On
the whole, however, impartial critics must admit that the meas-
ure of praise and credit far outweighs the measure of censure
and criticism. The chief feature and failure of anti-missionary
comment is the tendency to select isolated or exaggerated cases
of mistakes and incompetency and describe them as character-
istic of all missionaries.

And right here I would pause in the discussion of this question
to make what, in my mind, is one of the most important sugges-
tions of my humble address. In the presence of you 2,000 lay
and clerical delegates from all parts of Dixie—men not only con-
cerned in the evangelization of a foreign China, but in the social
and material development of our own home Southland—I desire
to say an earnest word touching upon the personal side of the
Administration and the influence of its personal element on our
great national policies.

At this critical period of the Chinese negotiations the South
has as much at stake as any other section, and will, therefore,
directly appreciate what is said upon this phase of the subject.
THE FUTURE OF MISSIONS IN ASIA. 311

With the fate of your wide field for missionary labor and your
growing markets for cotton goods hanging in the balance, you
naturally are anxious to know the real or personal quality of the
concern which the Chief Executive feels in this serious situation.

Summed up in a word, the statement is justified that you men
of great Christian and commercial interests can have full and
complete confidence in the honest intentions and efforts of Pres-
ident McKinley to protect and advance what you have at stake
in China. There is no adequate measuring of the good to the
country, South and North, that comes through having a man of
his sturdiness of Christian character, his broad, nonsectional
statesmanship, and his firm grasp of international relations, guid-
ing our foreign and home affairs at this time. He is as unselfish-
ly devoted to the protection and well-being of your Southern in-
terests as he is to those of the North and West. He is as hope-
ful of maintaining the ‘open door” in China for Christian effort
as he is for commercial intercourse. Possessed of all the infor-
mation that is forthcoming on the Chinese crisis, while yours and
mine may he limited, and intent upon safeguarding the extended
variety of American interests in China, he is to be trusted and
supported in his policies by all your Southern Churches and com-
mercial organizations.

With no ax to grind myself, beyond that of telling the truth,
I believe that President McKinley’s administration of eight years,
during most momentous and trying times, will rank in history
with the administrations of Lincoln and Washington in the suc-
cessful meeting and mastering of mighty issues affecting the last-
ing weal of the nation, of South and North alike, and involving
difficult problems abroad and at home.

Another word in this connection. As we look through the
cabinet of strong men associated with the President as his ad-
visers, we find in Secretary Hay a man who is bending every
energy with a comprehensive knowledge of the situation to con-
serve the missionary and commercial interests of America in
China. He is fully in sympathy with what you men of the South
have at stake in the far East, and you can have complete confi-
dence in his direction of ‘our affairs in Cathay. And right here
it may be fitting to add a word about the agent of the state de-
partment now in Peking. Possibly you may attribute more
weight to what I say when I frankly admit that I was hopeful of
being sent on the mission which he is now carrying out. Mr.

BARRETT.

The President
and his Secre-
tary of State.
BARRETT.

4 layman’s
reneral view.

the\expansion|
if missions

312 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Rockhill, J am informed, has been attacked by some sincere, but,
I fear, wrongly informed, people. He has been described as hos-
tile to missionary work, and hence unsuited to his present respon-
sibilities. Permit me, in all fairness, to say that it is my honest
belief that you can have confidence in his ability, qualifications,
and in his intentions and instructions to guard faithfully mis-
sionary as well as commercial interests.

The layman, like myself, who has been in Asia and studied
the field takes a general view of the situation and notes that
such eminent statesmen as Marquis Ito, in Japan, and Chulalon-
korn, the king of Siam, have declared unreservedly in favor of
missionary work. Ito states that Japan’s marvelous progress
and development are largely due to the influence of missionaries
exerted in right directions when Japan was first studying the
outer world. Chulalonkorn, whom Li Hung Chang described
to me as one of the ablest statesmen in Asia, and who is at the
head of one of the most prosperous and progressive countries
of the far East, freely aids, in every way possible, missionary
effort. Such eminent Chinese as Li Hung Chang, Sheng, Chang
Chi Tung, Liu Kin Yi, all told me that they and their people
did not object to missionaries as a body, nor to Christianity as a
religion, but to a few imprudent and tactless men, working for
the promulgation of Christianity in such unfortunate ways as to
undo the good done by the majority, and to develop prejudice
against men and methods that were prudent and tactful.

Again, it is noted that missionaries, contrary to common as-
sumption, have accomplished a great work in conversions
throughout China. In 1877 there were only 13,033 Chinese
Christian communicants and an associated Christian element of
40,000 ; in 1890 there were 31,000 communicants and 100,000 ob-
serving Christian practices; in 1900 there were 80,682 communi-
cants enrolled in fifty-four separate Protestant Christian missiou
societies in China, a wonderful increase in ten years, while fully
200,000 Chinese were under Christian influence. There were also
in 1900 some 30,000 pupils in Christian day schools, and 5,000 iu
institutions of higher learning.

If we add to these totals the number of Roman Catholic Chris-
tians, it can be stated on tthe best authority that previous to the
recent outbreak and massacres there were 250,000 Christian
communicants and a Christian community approximating 500,-
000 souls in that vast empire. This number is small in compari-
THE FUTURE OF MISSIONS IN ASIA. 313

son to China’s total population, but it shows a healthy increase,
and is the beginning of limitless possibilities. The growth of
Christianity in China has, in fact, been no less than that of com-
merce, though the latter may be more tangible. We shall not
withdraw the messengers of Christianity in China until we with-
draw the agents of commerce. The ministers of our faith will
remain as long as the ministers of our government.

Summarizing in the briefest terms possible some points in favor
of missionary work from a layman’s point of view, we enumerate
the following :

1. In my experience as a United States Minister, one hundred
and fifty missionaries, scattered over a land as large as the Ger-
man empire, gave me less trouble than fifteen business or mer-
chants.

2. Everywhere they go, in Siam or Burma, in China or Japan,
they tend to raise the moral tone of the community where they
settle.

3. They are the pioneers in education, starting the first practical
schools and higher institutions of learning, teaching along lines
that develop the spirit of true citizenship as well as of Christianity.

4. They develop the idea of patriotism, of individual responsi-
bility in the welfare of the state.

5. They carry on extensive medical and surgical work, build
hospitals, encourage sanitary measures, and have been the chief
agency throughout Asia to check the spread of diseases like
smallpox, cholera, and the plague.

6. They do a great work of charity, and teach the idea of self-
help among masses otherwise doomed to starvation and cruel
slavery.

7. They are helpful in preparing the way for legitimate com-
mercial expansion, and almost invariably precede the merchant
in penetrating the interior.

8. They have done more than either commerce or diplomacy
to develop respect for American character and manhood among
the countless ignorant millions of Asia.

g. They are a necessity ‘to the Asiatic statesmen and people to
provide them with that instruction and information required to
undertake genuine progress and development.

These points, only a part that could be named, are the practical
ones noted by the layman, aside from the chief consideration that
inspires the whole missionary movement—the spread of Chris-

BARRETT.

Some advan-
tages.

What the mis
sionaries do.
‘ARRETT.

Taluable sug-
‘estions,

‘roper prep-
ration.

314 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

tianity and the consequent uplifting of the human race. That in
all its ramifications is not for me to discuss. Your missionaries
and other able exponents cover that argument.

Next we ask, what can the layman suggest for the betterment
of the work, or in frank criticism?

1. No man or woman should be sent to the great, difficult field
of Asia, with its strange religions, languages, customs, prece-
dents, racial tendencies and governments, who would not be
deemed a man of the highest competency in America and who
could not succeed in the home field.

2. While Christian zeal and devotion are of primary importance,
there should be invariably combined with them good judgment
and rare tact to meet and master the unparalleled complications
just mentioned.

3. No man or woman should think of going to Asia as a mis-
sionary just to secure a salary or have an ‘occupation, but rather
as undertaking a responsibility which the following of no pro-
fession or calling in America involves.

4. So important is the work and so difficult the field that, as far
as possible, a thorough training and education in languages, cus-
toms, and government of the foreign people should be required
of candidates before they enter the missionary life.

5. This leads to a suggestion that has often come to my mind,
that there should be established in the United States a great mis-
sionary preparatory institution or college, where all intending
missionaries could be properly trained, and where only the fittest
would be chosen.

6. Every effort should be made to increase the force of native
workers or missionaries to carry the work into the interior, and
not depend on foreigners, for only with stanch native clergy and
teachers can the advance of Christianity be permanent and wide-
reaching.

7. Missionaries on the field should avoid mixing in local politics,
although it is admitted that in so far as they teach the meaning
of justice, honesty, and good citizenship this cannot be avoided.

8. Many claim that no unmarried women or girls should be
sent into the foreign mission field, because of native prejudice
and misconception of their character, although there is a noble
record to the credit of this class of missionaries.

There is no greater mistake than to lay the blame for the Boxer
outbreak at the door of the missionaries. That was an anti-for-
THE FUTURE OF MISSIONS IN ASIA. 315

eign, not an anti-missionary, demonstration. The missionaries
were the chief sufferers because they were the only foreigners
in large numbers open to attack. Had there been colonies of
foreign merchants in the interior, they would have been attacked
and murdered without discrimination. ‘Railway engineers were
killed where missionaries were spared.

The Boxer outbreak finds its cause, in my opinion, more in the
material greed for territorial aggrandizement on the part of for-
eign powers than in the missionary zeal of evangelization. The
seizures of Chinese territory at Port Authur, Kaichow, and Wei-
Hai-Wei alone would be sufficient cause for this anti-foreign
feeling. Add to this influence the severe famine and drought
which prostrated North China, and which might be termed the
occasion of the outbreak, and we have two most important con-
siderations that lift the blame largely from the missionaries.

In this connection it should be remembered that missionaries
seldom meet with persecution where there are honest native offi-
cials ; that the native masses have naturally little anti-missionary
feeling, unless it is fostered by such officials or unscrupulous
leaders, and that honest viceroys, taotais, and mandarins welcome
rather than discourage the presence of missionaries in their cities
and provinces.

Why, it is often asked, is there so much opposition to and crit-
icism of missionaries? This question can be briefly answered as
follows: First, much criticism is superficial and not based on
actual information and knowledge; secondly, an instance of a
bigoted or narrow-minded missionary is too often described as
characteristic of all; thirdly, it seems to be the fad in the clubs and
society life of the treaty ports to criticise the missionary, so that
travelers and others hearing this unconsciously absorb a spirit
of criticism ; fourthly, often the most violent opponents of mission-
aries are young men living lives that could not bear the scrutiny
of the average man, not to speak of the missionary; fifthly, the
prejudice of the native is not against Christianity and Christ, but
against a certain limited class of men and methods employed in
missionary work; sixthly, a careful analysis of anti-missionary
feelings among the natives, moreover, discloses the fact that, in-
asmuch as the missionaies teach honesty of acts, dealings, and
judgment, they make themselves obnoxious to the corrupt ele-
ment, which uses every means to embarrass and cripple their
work; seventhly, the missionary logically teaches ideas that un-

BARRETT.

The Boxer
outbreak.

Nature of anti-
missionary
feeling,
BARRETT.

What makes
trouble,

America’s
new positiong

The, change.

316 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

avoidably clash with the ancient superstition of the natives, which,
however, must be eradicated if a new and powerful nation would
be evolved.

It now remains for missionary work to be continued through
the broad, liberal attitude of both foreign missionaries and native
officials. Mutual concessions must be made. Missionary and
mandarin must realize that the present system has its faults on
both sides, and that great good for the foreigner’s religion and
for the native’s government can be accomplished by mutual con-
fidence and codperation.

It may be well to remember what Sheng Taotai once said to
me: “Give me a tactless missionary and a dishonest official, and
I will show you trouble. On the other hand, give me a tactful
missionary and an honest official, and I will show you a condition
of mutual confidence and no trouble whatever between mission-
aries and natives.”

Unfortunately, it would seem that the dishonest officials far
outnumber the tactless missionaries, but let us even correct this
fault on the foreign side, and then the responsibility will rest upon
the Asiatic.

In conclusion I wish to say a word in regard to America’s new
position in the far East. In that way you may better understand
the great responsibilities that are upon us and the wider oppor-
tunities that there will be for extending missionary work. The
United States is an entirely different power in China and the
far East from what it was before Dewey’s great victory on the
first of May, 1898. Before that remarkable event which stirred
the world, America was considered among China’s uncounted
millions as a third or fourth rate power. Our Ministers and
Consuls had not the influence of their European colleagues. We
were standing far down the line, behind the British, the French,
the Russians, the Germans, and even the Belgians.

But with Dewey’s victory there came a mighty change. There
swept up and down the Asiatic coast a tidal wave of American
prestige which seemed to reach back even to the foothills of the
Himalayas and from Siam to Siberia. For the first time in the
history of our relations in the far East, America was recognized
as a first-class power. Our Ministers and our Consuls stood
shoulder to shoulder with the representatives of other countries,
and their influence at once became paramount at the different
courts where they were located. The American flag had a new
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 314

significance. The word “America” meant something which its
use never conveyed before.

We who had been a long time in Asia, and had lived and served
our country under former conditions, recognized at once the
new prestige and position that had come to our country and our
countrymen. If this revolution was accomplished by a great
incident or war, and if it is ushering in a new period of material
ascendency for the United States in the Pacific and in the Orient,
it means just as much for the moral advancement of China and
her Asiatic neighbors. A new field is open for missionary labor
as it is for diplomatic and commercial effort. There never was
a time in the past like that of the present in the responsibilities
devolving upon American missionaries throughout Asia. They
will be watched as never ‘before. Their influence will be far
greater than at any time in former years.

Let us hope that diplomats, consuls, missionaries, and mer-
chants, who are representing the United States and her mani-
fold interests in Asia, will work together for the achievement of
those results which will make America respected everywhere as
an ideal world power.

LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES.
BISHOP C. B. GALLOWAY.

I HAvE been appointed to discuss this evening not the gospel of
missions, but the gospel of the missionaries ; not the faith once de-
livered to the saints, but ihe faith illustrated by the saints. The
man rather than his message shall be our prayerful study. The
personal character of the apostle, and not his divine commission,
will be our object lesson, and a lesson, I trust, that will be both an
edification and inspiration. Important as is the Word of God, it is
scarcely of more value and virtue than the character of the man of
God who is to be its ordained exposition and illustration. The
messenger more or less affects, if he does not determine, the power
and influence of his message. The accredited ambassador of a
great government is the personal and moral as well as official ex-
pression of the character and genius of its people. And so the
kingdom of the Lord Christ is best known and most accurately

BARRETT,

Openings and
obligations for
the future.
GALLOWAY.

A persen.

318 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

measured by the character of its representatives in all the lands of
earth.

Dr. Fairbairn states a portentous truth when he says: “Every
good that enters the world enters through an individual—a con-
scious, reasonable, moral man; and it depends on the quality of
the man what measure of good he brings.” The character of the
messenger, I repeat, largely determines the power of his mes-
sage. ‘The world moves by personality.” Great as an idea may
be, yet to be potential it must be embodied. Truth is mighty and
will prevail, we are told, but it is never mighty and all-conquering
until it is incarnated. Doctrine must be transmuted into life before
it becomes a force in the world. Tennyson beautifully expresses
the idea in these exquisite lines:

And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds,

In loveliness of perfect deeds

More strong than all poetic thought.

An apostle’s life is the best commentary on the gospel he
preaches, because it is most easily understood. A child cannot
make doctrinal distinctions, is unable to grasp the metaphysics of
theology or define the terms in the “Shorter Catechism,” but ‘that
child can feel the weight and might of character as readily and
savingly as the profoundest philosopher. There is infinite wis-
dom, therefore, in the fact that Christianity is the religion of a
Person. Its doctrines are the teachings of a Person; its spirit is
the life of a Person; its history the story of a Person; its power
the inspiration of a Person ; its crowning triumph the resurrection
of a Person; and its apostles are simply the revealers of a Person.
And the more perfect their reincarnation of this divine Person,
the greater will be the redemptive and triumphant power of their
life and ministry.

This stupendous spiritual fact finds double emphasis in heathen
lands. The missionary sent to preach the gospel will be more
constantly and critically studied than the gospel he preaches.
He must, therefore, become in himself—in the consistency and
purity of his own unselfish, consecrated life—God’s unanswerable
argument with the heathen to forsake his discredited idols and
turn unto the Lord and Giver of life. And for such unveilers of our
Lord the heathen world pathetically pleads. A distinguished na-
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 319

tive of India once said in the agony of his inquiring soul: “What catroway.
we ask of you is not Christianity, but Christians.” Another said:
“What India requires for its regeneration is not so much Chris-
tian Bible passages, sermons, and addresses, but the presentation
of a truly Christian life.” An intelligent Japanese gentleman ut-
tered this sad lament: “The conduct of the foreigners, with the ex-
ception of the missionaries and a few laymen, is a scandal on the
name of Christianity and of civilization, and retards the progress
of both.” “Tf all the Englishmen lived such lives as Donald Mc-
Lecd,” said a Hindoo, “India would soon be a Christian country.”

Such declarations evidence the supreme value of character in a
missionary. His pure personal life is as potential a gospel as the
divine oracles he is ordained to declare. And, thank God! the men Patve-ke
and women sent out to the different and distant fields have abun- character.
dantly vindicated the choice of the Church and the guidance of the
Holy Spirit. Some of them have become the master spirits of the
centuries, the massive and majestic figures of the ages. Theodore
Parker was not extravagant when he said: “Had the whole mis-
sionary work resulted in nothing more than the building up of
such a character as Adoniram Judson, it would be worth all it has
cost.”

And the world is beginning to share in this generous appreci-
ation of missionaries. Their names have been so interwoven with
the histories of the countries to which their apostolic lives were de-
voted that they have become the most conspicuous figures there-
in. In the story of Africa what names are written in largest let-
ters? Not the governors of provinces and generals of armies who
have guided the affairs of government and carried the English
flag in triumph; but the names of Robert Moffat and David Liv-
ingstone.

In India, viceroys and generals may be forgotten—Hastings,
Lord Clive, and the rest—but Carey and Swartz and Martyn and
Marshman and Reginald Heber and William Butler and scores
of others shine resplendent as the stars in the blue vault of heaven.

Bishop Thoburn, our honored guest on this great occasion,
once made this eloquent statement: “During a residence of a
dozen years in Calcutta ] met many tourists from England and
America. Among them all I recall but one who wished to see the
house in which Macaulay had lived; one asked to see the house in
which Thackeray had been born ; and two or three inquired for the

Grave of
Carey.
GALLOWAY.

What mission-
aries have (4
been.

Redemption
and civiliza-
tion.

320 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

residence of Warren Hastings. But, literally, scores upon scores
have asked to be led to the grave of William Carey, and the little
burying ground in the old Danish settlement at Serampore has
become like a pilgrim’s shrine to which Christian men and women
come from all parts of the world.”

A scholarly and distinguished gentleman, in a letter addressed
to the American Board, paid this eloquent tribute to missionary
character and courage: “The missionary appears to me to be the
highest type of human excellence in the nineteenth century, and his
profession to be the noblest. He has the enterprise of the mer-
chant without the narrowing desire for gain; the dauntlessness of
the soldier without the shedding of blood; the zeal of the geogra-
pher but for a higher motive than science.” And like appreciative
tributes have been paid by eloquent tongues and pens in all
lands where the brave apostles of our Lord have borne the flag of
their faith. Lord Lawrence, when viceroy of India, made this
emphatic statement: “However many benefits the English people
have conferred on India, the missionaries have accomplished more
than all other influences together.” Mr. Darwin, the great scien-
tist, after his observations in the South Sea Islands, said: “The
lesson of the missionary is the enchanter’s wand.” At the feet
of these mighty apostles of our God let us reverently sit this even-
ing and “hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”

The statue erected to David Livingstone in Edinburgh repre-
sents the great missionary as standing upon a lofty pedestal, with
the calm confidence of a conqueror, his eager eyes turned toward
Africa, with a Bible in one hand and the other resting on an ax.
Those are the suggestive symbols of what all missionaries stand
for—the world’s redemption and civilization. They have made
the echoes of the woodman’s ax keep time with the story of the
gospel in preparing the nations for the coming of the King. In-
dustrial empire has followed the steps of their apostolic wander-
ings ; commerce has reaped the fruits of their faithful sowing ; civ-
ilization has been built upon the foundations of their wise planning
and planting; nations have been the beneficiaries of their splendid
and unawed daring. They have opened hospitals, established or-
phanages, founded schools and colleges, and introduced the great
doctrines of personal and civil liberty. They have taught the
tribes of earth the use of plow and plumb line, saw and hammer,
compass and trowel, steam and electricity, and all the triumphs of
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 321

immortal mind unfettered and inspired by the spirit of the living
Christ.

And all this they have done with an almost reckless disregard
of personal comfort or even life itself. The difficulties they have
mastered, the dangers they have encountered, the opposition they
have overcome, the friendships they have won, the martyrdoms
they have suffered,and the achievements they have wrought, make
a story that reads like a perpetual miracle. In some instances
they had to construct a language and then preach in it; they had
to create a moral sense and then appeal to it. Difficulties and dis-
couragements never dreamed of in the home lands they have had
to meet and master.

And many of their fiercest battles had to be fought alone and
in a dark room. No man, however masterful and resourceful,
ever becomes independent of personal sympathy and support.
Even the mighty and majestic St. Paul himself suffered most from
the loneliness of leadership and the loss of friends. These brave
souls have often to prosecute their Lord’s work without even the
cheering, sustaining presence of the loved ones in their own
homes.

I know of no picture more pathetic than that of Mrs. Judson,
standing in the doorway of her home by the sea in Burma watch-
ing the ship sail away that was bringing her children to America
for their education. The long-dreaded hour had come, the most
painful hour in the life of every missionary mother. She must be
separated for years, if not for life, from the dear ones of her heart
in order that they may have the advantages of collegiate training
in a Christian land and a Christian school. She had to make se-
lection between separation from her children at a time when they
needed her most, or leaving her husband alone in a heathen land
to prosecute his work and bear the awful burden of anxiety and
isolation. She chose to give up her children and serve the needy
children of her Lord in Burma. With many a long and warm
caress she had bidden them good-by and the great steamer had
turned her prow to the open sea. The almost broken-hearted
mother stood and watched the vessel until through the mist in
her eyes it had ceased to be even a speck on the distant horizon,
and then, turning into her room, sunk into a chair and exclaimed:
“All this I do for the sake of my Lord!’ Glorious spirit of mar-
tyrdom, the martyrdom of mother love! How it transfigures ev-

15

GALLOWAY,

What mission-
aries have
suffered.

A sacrifice.
GALLOWAY.

The promise of
leadership.

Nature of the
divine call.

322 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

ery service that fills the life of duty with a minstrelsy as sweet as
the angels sing in heaven!

Master missionaries have taught this encouraging lesson and
given this inspiring assurance—that the Church will never lack for
leaders to meet the emergencies of the Lord’s kingdom. They
haveillustrated the sublimereadinessand eagerness of God’s apos-
tles to codperate with the Holy Spirit in opening and redeeming
the regions beyond. When the ages call, the heroes come. The
man and the hour are made to meet. However perilous the enter-
prise or threatening the danger, when God calls, prophet and apos-
tle are ready to obey. While the fields are ripening the Holy Spirit
is preparing the husbandmen ; while the war clouds are gathering
the passionate firesof patriotismare kindling inmany a brave soul.
This is the divine statesmanship of the Holy Ghost. Eloquent
and suggestive are those words spoken by a great student of the
history of God’s kingdom: “You can point to no critical epoch
since the foundation of the Church—whether it was the downfall of
the Roman Empire, or the incoming of the new races, or their set-
tlement in the new homes, or the bursting upon Europe of the sea
rovers from the North, or the moving of the Slavic races to their
present localities, or the discovery of the new world, or the pres-
ent age during which science has given to the political organism
a new circulation, which is steam, and a new nervous system,
which is electricity—-when the spirit of missionary enthusiasm has
not been rekindled just at the juncture when it was most needed.”
There was never a port unlocked that a missionary boat was not
ready to cast anchor; there was never a gate flung open that one
of God’s intrepid apostles was not the first to enter.

And the passionate eagerness of these brave missionaries with
tongues of flame to go up and possess every opened land has given
a new interpretation to the great doctrine of a divine call to the
ministry. It is nolonger a providential compulsion or a reluctant
vielding to the stern demands of dreaded duty, but a grateful and
joyful readiness to hear the voice of God. Bishop Thoburn’s ex-
perience is becoming universal. “It was not so much,” said he, “a
call to India that I received as am acceptance for India.” Dr.
Alexander Duff, the great apostle of education in India, in giving
an account of his divine acceptance for missionary work, uttered
these thrilling words: “There was a time when I had no care or
concern for the heathen; that was the time when I had no care or
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 323

concern for my own soul. When by the grace of God I was led
to care for my own soul, then it was that I began to care for the
heathen abroad. In my closet on bended knees I then said to
God: ‘O Lord, thou knowest that silver and gold to give to this
cause I have none; what J have I give unto thee, I offer myself;
wilt thou accept the gift?’”” That heroic spirit, that inspired pa-
triotism, that sanctified loyaltyto the divinekingdomand its King,
are becoming the rapturous experience of the modern Church.

Master missionaries, by the successes they have achieved and
the wide fields they have opened, have enlarged the sense of divine
responsibility in the Church of God. The doctrine of our spiritual
obligation to the whole world has had to win its way in the Church
by conquest. National, racial, and geographical prejudices have
put limitations upon the divine scope and mission ofreligion. But
few faiths have aspired to become world-wide. In the early days
of the Church, God had to employ miraculous agencies to broaden
the conceptions and inspire the obligations of prophet and apos-
tle. That was the meaning of the vivid experience of Jonah and
the vision of Peter at Joppa. Jonah’s prejudice had first to be
conquered before he could preach the gospel of hope to Nineveh,
and only after three commands from heaven not to call anything
common or unclean that the Holy Ghost had sanctified would
Peter receive the Roman centurion Cornelius into the Church.
Dr. Ryland commanded William Carey to “sit down” and leave
God to take care of the pagan world. The Scotch Assembly
characterized the idea of world-wide missions as fanatical, danger-
ous, revolutionary. Why missions are modern is only answered
inthis way. But, thank God! the times of such ignorance are no
longer to be winked at.

The heroic and unfaltering labors of apostolic missionaries have
deepened the conviction and enriched the experience of the
Church with a more vivid apprehension of universal redemption
and universal obligation. With every demonstration of the gos-
pel’s perfect adaptation to the needs of another people there is a
corresponding enlargement of obligation to speedily provide them
with the means of salvation.

The sublime achievements of God’s master workmen in the dis-
tant fields have wrought another needed revolution in the thought
of the Church—they have abolished the arbitrary and unscriptural
distinction between the cause of religion at home and abroad.

GALLOWAY.

An enlarged
sense of re-
sponsibility.

Home and for-
eign.
‘GALLOWAY.

Consecration
to God is serv-
ice to man.

324 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

The work is one. There are not two commissions. Christ is not
divided. The principles are identical and the same Spirit inspires.
The particular field entered is determined only by present and im-
perative needs. Our mission is to God’s neediest children in their
greatest need. Wherever that need is most urgent, whether in
pagan China or priest-ridden Mexico, whether in the jungles of
Africa or in the slums of an American city, whether to the dreary
and desolate lands of Mahomet or to the supremely unconcerned
and skeptical of our own fair land, there the call is loudest, and in
response to its authoritative voice we should hasten with swiftest
foot.

They have taught the Church new lessons in personal consecre-
tion. Not the consecration of mere profession,.but of prodigious
and unselfish service. Not simply the claiming of ecstatic ex-
periences, but the joy of giving light to those in darkness, the
blessed luxury of seeking and saving the lost. This is the joy of
the Lord that giveth strength.

With the extension of Christ’s kingdom into the distant regions
and among the most degraded peoples increased emphasis is given
the great truths that consecration to God is service to man and that
the only way to serve God is to help man. God, who is self-exist-
ent and infinite in all his perfections, has no lack that we can sup-
ply, has no need that appeals to our sympathy. But the needs of
man are his needs; their sorrows are his burden. By ministering
to them we serve God.

And the grandest types of Christian character are developed
amid the activities of such a strenuous life. They are not the
noblest disciples with the purest faith and in most perfect harmony
with God who live under the shadow ofa cloister or the shelter of
a nunnery. You may raise flowers of gorgeous and glorious
tint in a conservatory, but they are of delicate fiber and
fade at the gentlest touch of the earliest frost. But trees that are
to become monarchs, strong and enduring, out of which cities and
navies are built, must be rocked by storms and toughened by the
changing seasons of the revolving years. So the grandest char-
acters—purest in faith, noblest in life, attempting and accomplish-
ing greatest things for God—are those who grapple with the
hardest problems of every day, and who dare, under divine guid-
ance, to walk steadily into the thick of any battle.

And these heroic men have been an inspiration to their fellow-
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 325

laborers in other mission fields. To the example of certain flam-
ing and fearless apostles of God the earlier missionaries looked for
encouragement in their self-denying and perilous labors. To his
coadjutors William Carey used to say: “Let us often look at
Brainerd in the woods of America pouring out ‘his very soul be-
fore God for the perishing heathen without whose salvation noth-
ing could make him happy.” Indeed it was the story of Brain-
erd’s toils in the forests of this new world that stirred the heart of
Carey on his shoemaker’s bench and caused him to ask: “If God
can do such things among the Indians of America, why not among
the pagans of India?” It touched the heart of Henry Martyn, the
young student at Cambridge, and helped to make him one of the
greatest missionaries in the world. Edward Payson, when twenty-
two years of age, wrote in his dairy: “In reading Mr. Brainerd’s
life I seemed to feel a most earnest desire after some portion of his
spirit.” This evening as I pronounce his precious name every
devout soul looks up and instinctively exclaims: “My father, my
father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!”

The achievements of master missionaries have quickened and
enlarged the expectations of the Church. That sublime exhorta-
tion of William Carey, “Expect great things from God,” has be-
come the experience of these later times. The skepticism of the
past is the faith of the present. Hope has become the habit of the
Church. There is less amazement at the report of mighty results.
Victories are our daily expectation. Indeed, it has come to pass
that the Church is disappointed if every day does not bring good
tidings of great joy from the distant and different fields. These
splendid successes are divine assurances for yet grander triumphs.
“History is also prophecy.” Current events predict if they do not
predestinate what will occur to-morrow.

Never in all the history of our planet have spiritual and secular
forces so conspired for the conquests of the gospel. Every inven-
tion and agency designed for the furtherance of commerce give
speed and wing to the apocalyptic angel carrying abroad the mes-
sage of salvation. International treaties and relationships make
possible and give encouragement to spiritual fellowship. The
electric cables that interchange daily, if not hourly, the market
reports of the world also flash across seas and continents the glad
tidings of gospel triumphs. Doors are open and fields are white
everywhere.

GALLOWAY.

They are an
inspiration,

They have
raised our ex-
pectations,
GALLOWAY,

Joyful tidings.

Many lessons.

326 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

What mighty displays of pentecostal power have been wit-
nessed! Every day brings joyful tidings from some field where a
great victory has been won. The Lord’s hosts are being recruited
with valiant forces ready and eager for service. The valley that
Ezekiel saw covered with bleaching bones now glitters with the
blades and trembles with the tread of an “exceeding great army.”
If, then, it be true that “each one counts two,” that each trophy is
prophecy and promise of another—that every Andrew will bring
his brother Simon Peter to Christ—how inspiring is the prospect
to-day!

Though progress has at times seemed to be very slow and often
discouraging, we remember that “each one counts two.” The
winning of one heathen from his idols is only securing a multiplier
whose multiplicand is the exhaustless grace of God. It is the en-
trance of light that will give abundant life.

But if expectation is bright, responsibility is correspondingly
great. The work is before us and necessity is upon us. A door is
never opened without a command to enter. Into every whitened
field our Lord calls both reaper and gleaner. “Go ye into all the
world” is the standing order of heaven, never to be repealed until
the last conquered banner has been furled and the last lost ‘sinner
redeemed.

Other helpful and inspiring lessons from master missionaries in
many fields I cannot even mention. If time allowed, I should like
to note how they have given us a larger interpretation of provi-
dence; how they gloriously illustrated the doctrine of answered
prayer ; how they have reénforced the divine origin of Christianity
by attesting its fitness to become the one universal religion; and
other lessons that are but successive unfoldings and unveilings of
God’s glory and power—a series of epiphanies of the risen and
reigning Lord.

And the men who wrought such wondrous things are worthy
to be kept in everlasting remembrance. Mighty leaders of the na-
tions and the generations, how tenderly we cherish their precious
memories ; how reverently we pronounce their noble names; how
ardently we ought to follow their apostolic examples and reincar-
nate their variant virtues! With such a heritage of faith and
achievement and answered prayer, and such examples to incite
us to holy endeavor, we ought to speed the triumphs ot our Lord’s
kingdom. Let me call the names of a few of the master mission-
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 327

aries of the past and invoke a double portion of their spirit to de-
scend upon the Church of to-day.

There is David Brainerd, the apostle to the North American
Indians, whose spirit was as saintly as a seraph, whose life was a
joyous martyrdom to duty, and whose early, triumphiant death
was the descent of another chariot of fire. Traveling through the
dense and trackless forests, destitute of all creature comforts, de-
nied the companionship of a single human being who could speak
a word of English, living on the coarsest fare, he moved among
the savages of the woods like an angel of light and taught many
of them the way of life. It is said that his prayers in the depths
of the forest were so intense that “his garments were saturated
with the sweat of his intercession.” “Fatigues and hardships,” said
he, “serve to wean me from the earth and, I trust, will make
heaven sweeter.” In the agony of his anxiety to be more useful
and successful he exclaimed: “O that I were a flame of fire in the
Lord’s service! O that I were spirit that I might be more active
for God!” In the thirtieth year of his age, and after only four
years of prodigious labor and suffering, the seraphic spirit went
home to rest. David Brainerd bequeathed to the Church the les-
son of sublime and entire consecration to the Master’s service.

There is William Carey, whose very name is the synonym of a
forward movement in the kingdom of God, and who will ever
stand as the most majestic figure in a generation of giants. He
awoke the slumber of the Church, and infused into its withered
veins the crimson tide of a new, triumphant life. His marvelous,
unawed faith was equaled only by his peerless purpose and untir-
ing labors. His love for the heathen became a consuming pas-
sion. For forty-one years he labored among the darkened mil-
lions of India, and was never so happy as when leading some dear
soul into the glorious light. The “consecrated cobbler,” by dint
of his devotion to God and his own unconquerable purpose, rose
from obscurity to world-wide and enduring fame. Lord Wellesley,
in acknowledging an address presented by William Carey, said:
“T esteem such a testimony from such a man a greater honor
than the applause of courts and parliaments.” He became the
“Wycliffe of the East.” With his own tireless hand he translated
the Scriptures into four different languages. Others he critically
supervised, until twenty-eight versions were issued from the press
at Serampore. His liberality was equaled only by his stipend.

GALLOWAY.

David
Brainerd.

A lesson of
consecration.

William Carey.
GALLOWAY.

Mis Work.

A lesson of
faith and
humility.

Thomas Coke.

328 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

When his income as professor in Williams College amounted to
£1,500 he reserved £50 for personal needs, and gave all the rest to
the cause of God. He sleeps in a thero’s grave at Serampore.
Standing there and recalling the wonderful incidents of a great
history, the scenes of an epochal life—scenes that changed the
map of the world—we are reminded of Thomas Carlyle’s reference
to the birthplace of Martin Luther. ‘‘There was born here,” said
he, “once more a mighty man, whose light was to flame as the
beacon over long centuries and epochs of the world; the whole
world and its history were waiting for this man. It is strange, it
is great. It leads us back to another birth-hour in a still meaner
environment eighteen hundred years ago; of which it is fit that we
say nothing; that we think only in silence; for what words are
there? The age of miracles past? the age of miracles is forever
here.” William Carey has left the Church the lesson of a daunt-
less faith united with the profoundest humility.

In this company of God’s great missionary worthies is a man of
short stature, well-knit frame, nervous movement, fiery nature,
open-handed and open-hearted, and with an energy that seemed
never to have had a suggestion of weariness. The father of Wes-
leyan foreign missions, his zeal for the world’s conquest has won
for him the title of “the foreign minister of Methodism.” That
man is Thomas Coke. No knightlier soul ever obeyed the trump-
et call of God or wielded with braver arm

‘*a two-edged sword
Of heavenly temper keen.”

His ardent desire for the world’s conquest was voiced in his own
loud exclamation: ‘‘I want the wings of an angel and the voice oi
a trumpet, that I may preach the gospel in the east and in the
west, in the north and in the south!”

His life has all the fascination of a tale of chivalry. He crossed
the Atlantic eighteen times at his own expense, and traveled up
and down this new world preaching the gospel with all the fiery
earnestness of a prophet of the olden time. He gave his large
patrimonial estate to the cause of Christian missions. A veteran
of more than sixty years, he stood before the Wesleyan Confer-
ence and begged that he might be sent as a missionary to India.
He overruled all objection, chartered a vessel at a cost of $30,000,
secured a few fellow-laborers, and sailed for India, but died on
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 329

board the vessel and was buried in the wide and boundless sea.
Before starting he remarked: “I am dead to all things but India.”
At Portsmouth he thus addressed the little group of brave spirits
who were to accompany him: “Here we all are before God, six
missionaries and two dear sisters, now embarked in the most im-
portant and glorious work in the world! Glory be to his blessed
name that he has given you to be my companions and assistants
in carrying the gospel to the poor Asiatics!’” Thomas Coke has
left the Church this lesson: a divine impatience for the salvation of
the world.

There was Henry Martyn, an honor graduate of Cambridge, as
frail as a flower but as heroic a soul as ever led the hosts of God
to battle. He went to India, preached like a seraph, translated
the Bible into three different languages, traveled over many lands,
and died when only thirty years of age. Christ crucified was his
ruling passion, and he seemed to have unbroken communion with
God.

‘« The thought of God
Filled him with infinite joy; his craving soul
Dwelt on him as a feast.”

The burden of Christless souls was ever on his great heart. He
cries out : ‘““Howdreadful the reflection that any should perish who
might have been saved by my exertions!” At Dinapore we find
this in his dairy of a single day: “Morning in Sanskrit ; afternoon
Bahar dialect; continued late at night writing on parables in Ben-
gali. The wickedness and cruelty of wasting a moment when so
many nations are waiting till I do my work.” His thirtieth birth-
day found him traveling on foot to Persia. He was pale, very
emaciated, and too weak to speak except ina whisper. He lived
only by force of his imperial soul. In his journal he says: “I am
now at the age when the Saviour of men began his ministry ; when
John the Baptist called a nation to repentance. Let me now
think for myself and act with energy. Hitherto I have made my
youth and insignificance an excuse for sloth and imbecility ; now
let me have a character and act for God.” Shortly thereafter the
exhausted saint sunk down and never rose again. In a far-away
missionary grave ‘he sleeps, while God’s good angels keep loving
and wakeful sentry. ‘The lesson of Henry Martyn’s life is perfect

. self-renunciation in a compassionate lowe for mankind.

GALLOWAY,

A lesson of di-
vine impa-
tience.

Heury Martyn.

A lesson of ©
love.
GALLOWAY.

His epitaph.

Mellville Cox.

Love is strong-
er than life.

330 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

How beautiful is the epitaph written by Lord Macaulay:

Here Martyn lies! In manhood’s early bloom

The Christian hero found a pagan tomb!

Religion, sorrowing o’er her favorite son,

Points to the glorious trophies which he won.

Eternal trophies, not with slaughter red,

Not stained with tears by hopeless captives shed,

But trophies of the Cross. For that dear name,
Through every form of danger, death, and shame,
Onward he journeyed to a happier shore,

Where danger, death, and shame are known no more.

At a Methodist Annual Conference in session at Norfolk, Va.,
with Bishop Hedding in the chair, a young man was sitting mod-
estly in his place eagerly watching the proceedings, pale, sad, and
evidently making a heroic fight against mortal disease. He had
recently buried his fair young wife, and his own failing health had
compelled him to leave his work and spend the harsh winter
months in the far South. But in his brilliant eye there was the
spirit of heroic daring, and in his great heart the quenchless fires
ol ‘a passionate love for souls. That young man was Mellville B.
Cox. He sought an interview with the Bishop, and said: “I desire
very much to be sent as a missionary to South America.” “Why
not to Liberia?” asked the Bishop, who had been trying to secure
a man for that far-away and dangerous field. After a prayerful
pause, he replied: “If the Lord will, I think I will yo.” Shortly
thereafter he said: “Liberia is swallowing up my thoughts.” A
few days later he exclaimed: “I thirst to be on the way. ‘
A grave in Africa will be sweet to me if He sustains me.” Writing
to an intimate friend, he said: “If it please God that my bones
shall lie in an African grave, I shall have established such a bond
between Africa and the Church at home as shall not be broken
until Africa be redeemed.” And that prophecy is being fulfilled.
The missionary’s heroic grave has bound the heart of the evan-
gelical Church to the Dark Continent. When the young hero lay
dying with the African fever, he repeated with pallid lips the elo-
quent words he had uttered before leaving America: “Though a
thousand fall, let not Africa be given up.” Mellville Cox has left
this lesson as a glorious legacy to the Church—that love for Christ-
less souls is stronger than love of life.

Among all the sons of the mighty there is no nobler figure than
David Livingstone. A native of Scotland, converted at twenty,
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 331

and for forty years a missionary in Africa, he worthily sleeps in
Westminster Abbey amid the “bonny dust” of the United King-
dom. He prepared for work in China, but was providentially di-
rected to Africa. When consulted by the London Missionary So-
ciety as to what field he preferred, he said: “I am ready to go any-
where, provided only it be forward.” His last public utterance
in his native Scotland was to a school, and these were his con-
cluding words: “Fear God and work hard.” That was the inspir-
ing motto of his laborious life. As either explorer, traveler,
geographer, astronomer, botanist, zodlogist, physician, or mis-
sionary, he would have been among the most distinguished of
men. He added to the known regions of the world a million
square miles. His labors knew no bounds. When entreated to
rest, he replied: “Death alone will put a stop to my efforts.” So
deep and pure was his piety that savages trusted him, the world
admired him, and his friends almost adored him. When we think
of this man, decorated by geographical and scientific societies, of-
fered the freedom of great cities, publicly thanked by Queen and
Parliament, sleeping on the coarse, damp grass, eating bird seed,
roots, and African maize, forty times scorched with fever, his arm
torn by the tooth of a lion, and all to serve and save the savage
tribes of the Dark Continent, he stands out transfigured like one
of the tall angels Isaiah saw next the throne of God. Three scenes
in his noble life are most prominent and pathetic. First, when he
turned away from his dear Mary’s grave at Shapanga in 1860 to
“find the only balm for his broken heart in seeking Africa’s re-
demption;” second, when in 1863 he expected recall from the
field and his great heart protested, crying out, “If 1 am to go on
the shelf, let that shelf be Africa;” and the third, when, though
feeble and nearing the grave, he resisted Stanley’s entreaties to
return with him to England, bade his dear friend good-by, and
turned back in the wilderness to labor for a while and die on his
knees in prayer. David Livingstone has left the Church the les-
son of am incarnated conscience.

But time would fail me to tell of Robert Morrison and James W.
Lambuth, of Adoniram Judson, of James Calvert, of Robert Mof-
fat, of J. W. Koger and R. W. MacDonell, of Dora Rankin and
Laura Haygood and scores of others who have wrought right-
eously, and whose immortal achievements are written in the

GALLOWAY.

David
Livingstone.

The lesson of
an incarnated
conscience.

Othcr heroes.
GALLOWAY.

A vision: who
shall have
China?

332 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

chronicles of the skies. Lord God of these ascended Elijahs, be
our God and answer us by fire!

My brethren, the conviction grows on me that momentous
issues are before the Church. We are facing a wonderful to-
morrow. Mighty changes are taking place in all Eastern coun-
tries and with marvelous rapidity. The sons of God, girded with
new power, must be up and doing. Ii this transition period is
slighted or unimproved, another century of sin and sorrow may be
our condemnation.

A letter written by one of the returned missionaries attending
this Conference, referring to a great work of grace in his charge
and to the rapidly changing conditions in China, uttered these
words, which have the quiver of power: “The kingdom is under
the hammer, and the devil is an active bidder.” What a figure—-
“under the hammer!” A mighty nation of four hundred million
immortal souls on the block! The spiritual and political destiny
of the oldest and largest empire of the world about to be knocked
off to the highest bidder! My brethren, when I read those words
from that warm-hearted and strong-souled missionary, I had a
vision. I saw the day of sale when a mighty nation with a long
history and almost infinite resources was about to change hands.
The scene was in Pekin, the capital of the vast empire. The
Genius of History, standing on the ruins of an old Buddhist tem-
ple, with the golden mace of authority in one hand and the blank
form of a title deed in the other, acted as auctioneer. Around him
gathered on one side the representatives of every false religion and
every form of skepticism, while just behind them stood the great
enemy, alert and eager, and full of fiendish suggestions lest the
kingdom over which he has long held sway should slip from his
grasp. On the other side were the representatives of the Christian
Church, men and women of many names but animated by the
same spirit; and behind them stood the Lord Christ with divine
anxiety, watching the result of the contest, waiting to see what
his children will do with his inheritance, the priceless purchase of
his blood. Over them hovered a great cloud of witnesses—
the spirits of those who had toiled and suffered and died for the
heathen of many lands. There were William Carey and Adoni-
ram Judson, Thomas Coke and Dr. Duff, Mellville Cox and David
Livingstone, Robert Morrison and James W. Lambuth, Mrs.
Judson and Dora Rankin, and a vast company I could not num-
LESSONS FROM MASTER MISSIONARIES. 333

ber, all bending low their cager ears to hear the final result. The
Genius of History stated the terms of sale. It required a vast out-
lay in order to secure this magnificent possession, adjust it to new
conditions, and garrison it against foreign invasion. It was a su-
preme hour, an hour on which eternal ages seem to hang. The
representatives of the Christian Church had it in their glowing
hearts to offer any terms, to call out the highest figures and claim
the inheritance, but were afraid the Church would not indorse the
purchase. Often they had appealed in vain for help in adding
another province to the Lord’s kingdom, and now in an agony of
anxiety knew not what to do. And just then, in that moment of
awful suspense, the vision mercifully vanished. But, my dear
brethren, the fact remains and the mighty responsibility abides.
I believe it is in the power of the Church to secure that uttermost
part of the earth for our Lord’s possession. Shall we redeem that
purchase of his blood or allow the devil to renew his lease for
another mournful century? If we cannot do more, let us make
the purchase and give bond for payment. Is there not another
Wilbur Fisk who will rise up in the majesty of a sublime faith and
say: “Pll be bondsman for the Church?” The security on such a
bond will never suffer; that paper will never go to protest. The
men and women are ready and eager to gio, and I believe the
means will not be withheld. Heaven grant that Zion may be
equal to her sublime opportunity !

That was a thrilling story brought to us yesterday by Mr.
Gamewell. During the recent siege in Pekin an old cannon,
afterwards called the “international gun,” was brought into use.
Everything available was utilized during those awful days of strain
and peril. Hands unused to labor were active in providing means
of defense. Missionaries became military engineers, and every
living soul was either a sentinel or a soldier. Weapons were
comparatively few, and some unfit for use. One old discarded
cannon, however, has become historic. It was brought out and
made ready for service. Mounted on an Austrian carriage, load-
ed with German powder and Russian shells, the old English six-
pounder was fired by the skilled hand and trained eye of an Ameri-
can gunner. So all the Powers united in the fire of that old gun
against a common enemy. O how I wish there could be such a
concert in the now desperate conflict with the enemies of our
Christian religion! I would have every projectile fly with the mo-

GALLOWAY.

The Church is
able to buy.

Value of unity.
334 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

mentum given by the united prayer and faith of the whole Church
of God. I would have every standard of our holy faith defended
in its place by the strength of all our hearts and all our hands. O,
brothers of our Elder Brother, brave spirits of the East and the
West, pastors and people, missionaries and members, men and
women, let ws join in one supreme effort to plant our flag in every
land and give the whole world the gospel during the opening years
of this new century.
Il.
FOREIGN FIELDS.
GENERAL REVIEW.

I. Cuina.
II. Mexico.
Ill. Braziv.
IV. JAPAN.

V. Korea.
General Review.

THE HISTORY, POLICY, AND OUTLOOK OF THE
FOREIGN MISSIONARY WORK OF THE
M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH.

W. 'R. LAMBUTH, D.D., SECRETARY.

THE growth and development of the foreign missionary work of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has been a remarkable
record of human effort and divine leadership. It is true that we
have been engaged a full half century in the great work of evan-
gelizing the world, but circumstances over which the Church had
little or no control left us, at the close of the first period of twenty-
five years, with one feeble mission and two married missionaries—
almost where we began. It was from the inception of the second
period that an era of expansion opened, leading to the establish-
ment of five additional foreign missions and the gathering of a great
host. May the good work go on, under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, whom we come to hionor this day, until our standards are
planted in every waste place and the gospel shall be preached to
«very creature !

On the 24th of April, 1848, just fifty-three years from the opening
day of this great Missionary Conference, our first missionaries to
foreign lands, Charles Taylor and Benjamin Jenkins, with their
wives, sailed from Boston to Shanghai, China. As the little ship
Cleon, of only 390 tons burden, swung from her moorings, the mis-
sionary hymn floated out over the harbor. It was sung by the
Northern Methodist friends on the wharf, who a few minutes be-
fore had commended them to God in prayer. Only four years had
elapsed since the Church had divided, but in this reunion of kindred
spirits we catch the prophecy of that fellowship in work and in suf-
fering which, on the foreign field, has ever demonstrated our one-
ness in Christ. On reaching Shanghai they were received and en-
tertained by the missionaries of the Southern Baptist Convention,
who assisted them in renting a house and in procuring a teacher—
another illustration of the spirit which animates the missionary
brotherhood.

Begin-
nings.
338 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

Peelers The South Carolina Conference may well be styled “The Mother
of Missions.” On the marble shaft which marks the resting place
of Bishop William Capers in the city of Columbia are the words:
“The Founder of Missions to the Slaves.” The zeal of the Meth-

Among the Odist preachers in that section for the salvation of the negroes was

slaves. an inspiration to all the Southern Conferences. “The annals of mis-
sionary toil,” writes Dr. I. G. John, “can furnish few nobler evi-
dences of heroic sacrifice than were found in the self-denying efforts
of those men who labored on the negro missions. On the rice
plantations of the Atlantic coast and the sugar and cotton planta-
tions of the Gulf States they bore the message of life to the cabins
of the slave, teaching the children and training their parents re-
specting the doctrines and duties that must govern a Christian life.
Every Christian master and mistress codperated gladly in the work.
, In 1860, when the war disturbed our labors among these
people, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, reported a colored
membership of 207,776, or nearly as many as the entire number of
communicants that, in that day, had been gathered into Church
relations by all the Protestant missionaries at work in the heathen
world. When the record of the evangelization of the sons of Ham
is written by the pen of an impartial historian, the work of the mis-
sionaries of the Southern Methodist Church will appear chief among
the agencies employed by our Master for the redemption of the
African race.”

Capers may also be regarded as “the pioneer of Methodist mis-
sions among the Indians of the Southern States.” In 1822, six
years before systematic effort was organized for the negroes, he
was appointed the first superintendent of Asbury Mission among the
Creek Indians, with Rev. Isaac Hill as missionary.

It was to this man, then a presiding elder, of catholic spirit and
world-wide vision, that Charles Taylor, who had joined the South
Carolina Conference, opened his heart, saying: “If the Church de-

Our first er - : "4°

missionary cides to establish a mission in Persia, India, or China, I am willing

to China. to go where I am needed most.” In William Capers the Lord had
provided a wonderful organizer of missionary movements; in
Charles Taylor we have a man providentially qualified for laying
foundations that will abide. Hewn from the granite rock of Mas-
sachusetts, it was his character, pure and crystalline, which won
the Chinese. An honor graduate of the University of New York,
where he assisted Professor Morse in his first experiments in telegra-
MISSIONARY WORK OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. 339

phy, a teacher in the Conference school at Cokesbury, S. C., and
junior preacher on the Darlington Circuit, he was, in scholarly and
scientific attainments, in medical training, and by personal piety,
singularly adapted to the work to which he was called.

Taylor and Jenkins were followed in 1852 by W. G. E. Cunnyng-
ham and wife, and in 1854 by J. S. Belton, D. C. Kelley, J. W.
Lambuth, and their wives; while in 1859 the mission was once
more reénforced by two married missionaries, Young J. Allen and
M. L. Wood. These last would have browght the number up to
sixteen, at the end of twelve years, had the others been able to hold
their ground; but four months of close confinement aboard ship,
during which time they twice passed through the tropics, the deadly
climate of Shanghai, then a malarial swamp, and constant exposure
to attacks by day and alarms by night from the Taiping rebels, led
to the complete breakdown of one after another until, at the opening
of the civil war, the mission had dwindled down to its original
number.

Few can realize the odds with which those early missionaries con-
tended. Mails from home came only three or four times a year,
and those brought inadequate funds; the written language was an
unknown quantity, and there were few helps to its exploration and
mastery; the Chinaman himself was even more difficult to under-
stand; malarial fever, cholera, and smallpox preyed upon the little
band; the Taiping rebellion paralyzed local effort ; and, as if to give
the coup de grace to the struggling mission, the civil war in the
United States cut off, at last, every avenue of support.

The curtain falls, and for ten long years there is an ominous
silence. Rarely, in the annals of missionary effort, has there been
a more tragic record. In the Western Hemisphere the Church is
turned into a soldiers’ camp, her homes despoiled, her altars broken
down, and her ministry busied with the dead and dying strewn over
the field of battle. In the Eastern Hemisphere, on the picket line,
two heroic men stand alone, not knowing how to sound a retreat.
Ten thousand miles away, and for a decade almost lost to view,
they seem to have been abandoned; but God was with them and
their wives through all that long night of toil. Up from the wres-
tling till the break of day has grown an unconquerable faith which
has “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises,
and stopped the mouths of lions.”

The first twenty-five years closed in 1873, when we occupied only

LAMBUTH.

His succes-
sors.

Early trials
and obsta-
cles.

An ominous
silence.
LAMBUTH.

End of first
period.

Record of
the second.

Mexico.

Braail.

340 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

one foreign field—China—and our missionary force consisted of
only two missionaries and their wives, three native preachers, four
Bible women, seventy-four native communicants, and a contribu-
tion of less than $100 for all purposes.

The second period of twenty-five years has just ended with our
occupation of six foreign fields—China, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Mex-
ico, and Cuba. In these fields we have 193 missionaries, 100 native
traveling preachers, or twenty-six more than our entire member-
ship twenty-five years ago; 10,959 menibers, an increase of 856 dur-
ing the past year; 65 Bible women; over 5,000 women and children
under instruction; 6 hospitals and dispensaries, in which more than
13,000 patients are treated annually; mission property valued at
$898,803, with $31,287.31 raised for all purposes last year, which in-
cludes $12,252 already paid on a Twentieth Century Thank Offering
of $30,000 (United States currency). Surely we can thank God and
take courage.

The opening of the fields, one by one, after the planting
of our work in China was a succession of wonderful providences.
Alejo Hernandez, a soldier and an avowed infidel, wandering on the
north bank of the Rio Grande, meets with a book containing quota-
tions from the Scripture, and is led to Christ. At Brownsville, Tex.,
upon heating a hymn sung by a devout congregation, he burst into
tears, and afterwards wrote: “‘I felt that God’s Spirit was there; and,
though I could not understand a word that was said, I felt my heart
strangely warmed.” One thousand miles to the south of the Rio
Grande, in the City of Mexico, Sostenes Juarez, who organized the
first Protestant Church in the republic, was at this time preaching
every Sunday in an upper room to a group of earnest believers, who,
like himself, had been brought to Christ through the prayerful study
of a “French Bible brought into the country by a Catholic priest”
who accompanied Maximilian’s army. Juarez and Hernandez met
later, after Bishop Keener, in 1873, had laid the foundation of our
mission in Mexico, where we now have three Annual Conferences,
60 Mexican preachers, and 5,788 members.

In 1874 a wide and open door presented itself in Brazil. Through
the labors of Rev. J. E. Newman, who, journeying thither at the
close of the civil war, had wrought so faithfully in the schoolrooin
and on the coffee plantations, an urgent plea came to the Church to
send out missionaries. Rev. J. J. Ransom volunteered, and ren-
dered heroic service in organizing and superintending a mission
MISSIONARY WORK OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. 341

which, in the early years of its history, he was largely obliged to ‘*™?U™™
support with his own hands. The Brazil Mission Conference num-

bers to-day 12 nattive preachers and 2,785 members, with a gain

during the past year of 429, or nearly half the increase on all our
mission fields.

Japan has fast become a determining force in shaping the future

of China and Korea. Bishop Keener offered the resolution which
led to an appropriation for opening a mission in the empire in 1886,
and Bishop McTyeire, then in charge of our work in Asia, appointed japan.
J. W. Lambuth, W. R. Lambuth, and O. A. Dukes to this promising
field. Within eight weeks of their landing in Kobé, July 26, 1886,
T. Sunamoto (“the converted pilot”) returned from San Francisco
in quest of his old Buddhist mother, praying earnestly that he might
lead her to Christ. His appeal to Dr. J. W. Lambuth in behalf of
his people in the great city of Hiroshima drew the attention of the
mission to the Inland Sea, where the work has gone on until a
cordon of stations has been thrown around that body of water, which
gives us access to a population of 15,000,000. Our 12 native preach-
ers and 688 members are pressing the battle to the very gates.

The conversion of T. H. Yun, in Shanghai, and his subsequent
appeal to enter the Hermit Kingdom, became to us a Macedonian
cry. Like Daniel of old, this man of plain living and high thinking
has for years held up before his people, and even in the court of the xorea.
king, the loftiest standards of personal character and official admin-
istration. While Minister of Education it was said of him by enemies
and friends alike: “He is the only Korean official who is too honest
to become rich.” Appointed superintendent by Bishop Hendrix in
1895, Dr. C. F. Reid, in company with the Bishop, established a
mission in Korea, which has been pronounced “the most promising
of all our fields.”

Our first work in Havana was organized in 1896, and in 1898
Cuba was taken under the control of the Board as a regular mission
field. Weare establishing ourselves firmly on the island, as is shown
by the erection of a substantial stone church in Matanzas, and the
purchase by Bishop Candler for $15,000 of a centrally located prop-
erty in Havana, well adapted for church and school purposes. The
work has grown steadily, there being a marked increase over last
year. We have now a membership of 499, with collections for all
purposes amounting to $3,777.92.

The missionary fires kindled by faithful women upon the altars

Cuba.
LAMBUTH,

Woman’s
werk.

Principles
of mission
work,

342 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

of our homes in Baltimore, Md., and in Nashville, Tenn., in the
years 1872 and 1874 were used of God to stimulate the whole
Church to renewed effort for the evangelization of the world. In
1873 the Mexico Mission was founded; in 1875 A. P. Parker reached
China—the first reénforcement in ten years; on February 2, 1876,
J. J. Ransom set foot in Brazil; and in 1878 the Woman’s Foreign
Missionary Society was organized.

Such was the influence of the intercessory prayers of women like
Mrs, Margaret Lavinia Kelley, Mrs. Juliana Hayes, and Mrs. D. H.
McGavock. The Woman’s Board at once sent Miss Lochie Rankin
to China as its first representative. With tireless effort, unselfish de-
votion, and great wisdom these women have carried forward their
work until their missionaries, to the number of 55, are laboring in
five of our foreign fields, sustained by 35 Conference Societies and
73,000 members at home, who contributed $82,718.96 during the
past year to the work in the schoolroom, in the hospital, and in the
field, where Bible women are carrying the story from house to
house.

In a recent volume on “Present Day Problems of Christian
Thought,” Rev. H. M. McKim, D.D., of Washington City, gives
his ideas of a policy in the development and administration of for-
eign missions, which Dr. Mudge has condensed for us. The state-
ment ts so admirable that I quote it: (1) A prominent place should
be given to the larger and braver use of native ‘Christian evangelists ;
apostolic precedent is certainly in favor of recruiting agents in the
country which we seek to conquer. (2) The substance of the teach-
ing needs to be carefully watched. We are not sent to teach a
moral system, an ecclesiastical system, a dogmatic system. Not
these, but the personal, living Christ, the Christ of the Gospels. In
too many cases we have unconsciously Europeanized the image of
Christ. . . . Heis the Son of Man; we must not represent him
as the son of a race or even of a civilization. (3) The right men
must be sent to preach Christ to these people—the best, the ablest,
and most broadly cultured men, specially trained for the work. (4)
The ultimate purpose of our missions must not be to establish a
new branch of this or that denomination, but to plant the seed of
the kingdom in the soil, and let it develop that form of Christianity
best suited to the genius of the country in which it is planted. The
great fundamentals, of course, must be safeguarded, but beyond
MISSIONARY WORK OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. 343

these limits the utmost freedom of development both in ritual and
ecclesiastical order should be allowed.”

These are broad statements, and should not be misinterpreted.
The author seeks the spirit and not the letter, the substance and
not the form. Our Board of Missions has a missionary policy. In
the foreign field it is that of intrenching its forces strongly in stra-
tegic centers, pressing the evangelistic work, developing a trained
native agency, and the encouragement of a spirit of seli-support as
a means to the building of character in the native Church and the
wider propagation of the gospel. This policy embraces, moreover,
the codrdination of the evangelistic, educational, literary, and med-
ical departments, making them interdependent in relationship and
a unit in action. It was not formulated in the beginning—it has
been a growth.

Some mistakes have been made in the administration of work
covering so much territory and involving so many problems. From
the inauguration of our first mission there has been an inadequate
equipment for work, entailing a loss of efficiency and power to the
worker. We find Dr. Taylor in Shanghai constantly sending his
patients to the London ‘Mission Hospital from lack of funds and
accommodations. Our missionaries in Korea and Cuba have been
on meager appropriations from the beginning, and in Brazil, Mex-
ico, and Japan we have been sorely handicapped from the same
cause in our educational and publishing enterprises.

In-some cases undue emphasis has been laid upon educational
work, and in advance of the growth of the native Church. In others
magnificent opportunity has passed unrecognized or been inade-
quately provided for. The power of the press and of medical work
as a pioneer agency has been underestimated, while much valuable
time has been wasted on unauthorized translation, and in efforts
which were purely experimental, whether on literary lines or in the
occupation of fields afterwards abandoned.

T am convinced, after long and careful study of the subject, that
the organization of missions into small Annual Conferences has in
several instances been premature, and resulted for years in arrested
development. The loss of efficient leadership in a young and vigo-
rous mission under a central administration is not sufficiently off-
set by the autonomy secured for a weak and struggling Conference
which continues to be subsidized ‘by the Board of Missions. A’gain,
where the native membership in a small Annual Conference out-

LAMBUTH.

Our policy.

Inadequate
support.

Doubtful
measures.
LAMBUTH.

Recommen-
dations.

The Board
itself.

Equipment,
of the Cen-
tral Office.

344 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

numbers the missionary force, who naturally constitute the teachers
and guides of the infant Church, the cause of Christ has suffered
more than once from zeal without knowledge and the ill-directed
efforts of irresponsible leaders.

A last mistake, and one which applies to several of our missions
to-day, is the transfer of the machinery of the full-grown Church
at home, with its almost numberless societies and collections, to the
native Church abroad in its immature and undeveloped state. The
result has been almost complete paralysis from over-stimulation.

After this brief review of the history and policy of our foreign
missionary work, it may not be inappropriate to make a few recom-
mendations suggested by the study of the situation:

1. Readjustment in the composition of the Board, providing for
a larger representation of laymen; a closer relation between the
Annual Conference Boards of Missions and the General Board; the
holding of midyear meetings in every Annual Conference, in which
the presiding elders, Epworth Leagues, and Sunday schools shall be
represented ; increased emphasis placed upon the preparation and
wide dissemination of literature adapted to meet the demands of a
new era in missions; and the organization of classes for the sys-
tematic study of missions in our colleges, Woman’s Missionary So-
cieties, Epworth Leagues, and Sunday schools.

2. That the Board of Missions extend its annual sessions to at
least three days, and meet from year to year in different sections of
the Church; that two or more carefully prepared papers be read
at each meeting, to be followed by a conference rather than by a dis-
cussion—leading to the adoption of definite and helpful action.

3. A more thorough organization of the office force, securing a
well-furnished bureau of information; a staff of assistant or depart-
mental secretaries who can be trained for the work; a larger clerical
force of skilled workers; and an equipment which would bring the
administrative department abreast of any business office in the
country. The Church must provide twentieth century equipment,
if she would grasp twentieth century opportunity.

The Illinois Central Railroad, with its central office in Chicago
and its division headquarters in New Orleans, controls 5,000 miles
of track; we work in six great mission fields, two of which are lar-
ger in area than the United States. They show a passenger list of
16,000,000, while we have a population of 50,000,000 within that por-
tion of the fields we occupy. In the Illinois Central the one item
MISSIONARY WORK OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. 345

of stationery amounts to $34,000 per annum, while we expend less
than $4,000. The salaries of the officials of this road aggregate the
sum of $157,000; ours amount to only $6,800. The sum total of the
salaries of the clerks and attendants of the railroad is $206,057 per
year, while that of the employees of the Board of Missions is $2,700.
Their office expense and supplies amount to $102,000; ours is less
than $20,000. In the New Orleans department or division office
there are forty employees, while our central office in Nashville is
supplied with but two clerks and one stenographer. The contrast
becomes too painful to be carried farther. Equipment for world-
wide evangelization in the light of such figures is reduced to an
absurdity. Let the Church look the facts squarely in the face, and
provide means commensurate with the enterprise before us. I trust
I may live to hear the click of fifty typewriters in our missionary
office.

4. The establishment of a system of city missions under the aus-
pices of the General Board: 'the administration of these missions
to be under the supervision of the central office through an assistant
secretary; the missionaries to be accepted for service by the Com-
mittee on Candidates, as in the case of foreign missions; their ap-
pointment to be made by the bishops in charge of the Annual Con-
ferences in which they are to be employed; their support to be as-
sumed by the Churches of the city or town in which, under suitable
conditions, the mission is to be established, and the relation of such
work upon the part of the General Board to the Woman’s Home
Mission Society to be thoroughly sympathetic and codperative at
every point. Is this a new departure? We face “a condition, not
a theory.” The expansion in the South of the last three years in
our commerce, foreign and domestic, in our iron and steel indus-
tries, in our manufacture and exportation of cotton goods, and re-
cently in the marvelous output of petroleum, is but a prophecy of
what is to be. The wealth of our soil, of our climate, of our water-
ways, and of intelligent enterprise will attract populations until the
cities of the Gulf, of the Mississippi Valley, and of the South Atlantic
coast will be among the greatest cities of the republic. Such a day
is not far off.. Let us grasp the situation, and, by masterful plans
growing out of broad and statesmenlike views, prepare to meet
the issue. The objection that this is not foreign missions is
both feeble and captious. The foreigners are at our doors. We

LAMBUTH.

A compari-
son.

City
missions: a
system
needed.
LAMBUTH.

Forward.

346 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

must give them the gospel or perish—both ourselves and our chil-
dren. God is no respecter of persons.

5. The inauguration by the Board of Missions of an Educational
Campaign or Forward Movement, to begin upon the adjournment
of this Conference, the threefold object of which shall be prayer—
unceasing prayer—to the Lord of the harvest, personal work in soul-
winning, and missionary collections in full. The Board, in this
campaign, is to enlist and secure the codperation of our presiding
elders, pastors, laymen, and the women of the Foreign and Home
Missionary Societies, together with our young people in Sunday
schools and Epworth Leagues, until every charge and every member
is reached. It ought to be done, and what ought to be done can
be done. Let us set about it. The Master calls. Let the response
from a million and a half of Southern Methodists be: “Speak, Lord,
for thy servant heareth.”

As for the outlook and the future, it is with the God of our
fathers, who has so wonderfully guided us in this Conference. This
is the day of his visitation and of his power. Our hearts have been
made willing. We leave the future with him who has “provided
some better thing for us”—ever “looking unto Jesus, the author and
finisher of our faith.”
 

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Ll. CHINA.

THE MISSIONARY OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST.*
REV. YOUNG J. ALLEN, D.D.

I APPROACH the discussion of this subject to-night with pro-
found embarrassment and awe; not because of the complexity
and difficulty of the subject, not because of the overwhelming
presence of this large congregation, but because I feel the over-
shadowing presence of Him whose arms are never unequal.
God is in the situation, and as face answers to face in a mirror,
so this Conference is a fitting counterpart and reflection of the
situation in the far East.

The details of the situation are numerous and complex, and it
is by no means an easy task to so present them as to render the
outlook perspicuous and intelligible. However, reference to a
few of the main facts may help us to an intelligent apprehension
of the actual condition of affairs in the far East.

One of the effects of the war between China and Japan
was the profound humiliation of the former, followed by a cor-
responding awakening of the government, and especially of the
Chinese people, who almost in a national sense were made will-
ing to throw overboard their long-time obstinate conservatism
and. opposition to modern progress. Reforms were forth-
with projected, and a new era for China was confidently pro-
claimed. But alas! this movement, so spontaneous and prom-
ising, was suddenly arrested by a counter movement or reaction,
which had for its object and purpose not only the suppression
of the reform movement among the Chinese, but at the same
time the total expulsion of foreigners from the country and the
extirpation of every vestige of their influence. It is this reaction
which has given rise to the situation as we are now called to
consider it. And just here it is necessary to carefully note that
the ruling authority in China is the Manchu Tartars, a usurping

 

* Stenographer’s report.

Results of the
war between
China and
Japan.
ALLEN,

Reform.

Chinese con-
servatism.

348 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

dynasty which has been on the throne since 1644, and that the
present complication involves, first, a repressive conflict between
the conservative Tartars and the more enlightened Chinese, who,
ever since the Japan war, have agitated for a relaxation of des-
potism and the substitution of a free constitutional government;
secondly,and fundamentally, it is a conflict between the respective
civilizations of the East and the West. Such a conflict was in-
evitable, was long ago foreseen, and is now welcomed as the
final arbitrament of the question whether Christ or Confucius
is to ultimately dominate the ancient East.

But in order to understand the situation and to be able to com-
prehend and interpret the outlook, there are certain points to
which your attention must be directed. First, its origin. China
is an old country; it is a civilized country; it is a cultured and
literary country; it has done great things during the days of its
long existence; and it still exists in one sense unimpaired. It
may be arrested in its development, but its potentialities are still
there. This great country is conscious of its long existence and
of its achievements. Its egotism, its conceit, its pride, are com-
mensurate with its achievements. It is called the Middle King-
dom, because it supposes itself to be the center of the world, and
all the kingdoms round about it are suburban, if you please. It
is also called Chung Hwa, or “the civilized people.” That also
refers to its surroundings, ‘because the Chinese consider them-
selves as civilized and enlightened, while all surrounding people
are in darkness. It is also represented as a universal dominion
under the title of Tien Sha, or “all under heaven’s concave.” It
claims that there is but one sun in the heavens, and that upon
earth there is but one ruler, and that ruler is the Emperor of
China. They have, therefore, expressed themselves in almost
every form possible magnifying their importance, their achieve-
ments, and their glory; and correspondingly they have belittled
and minified the world outside. They are the sun; from them or
from China radiates the light ; she claims to be the light of Asia.
As Japan is but little removed, therefore it approximates China,
and Korea approximates China, and other adjoining countries
approximate China; but when you come to foreign countries,
European countries, and countries of the New World, then they
are in the outer darkness. They are so far away that the Chinese
maps have no knowledge of them; and when they are mentioned
at all—I don’t speak of the maps of the present date, because
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. 349

they have recently adopted good maps and correct maps—but
consulting their ancient maps you will find that after they heard
of England and Spain and Portugal and other remote countries,
they simply represented them by small dots away out in the
northwest sea; and, therefore, we have always been known as
“sea monsters.”’ Some people translate it as “foreign devils,” but
the original meaning of yang kwei tsz is “demon” of some kind,
a kind of bogy connected with the ocean, an “ocean devil,” if
you like.

That is the idea they had of us, and in speaking of us they
gave us the name of “barbarians” in their literature; and that
name sticks to us yet.

With a situation like that, though China stand still, though it
has not budged for nearly two thousand years, it is impossible
that our Western civilization should not sometime overtake it.
Looking now at ourselves, we claim also to be somewhat, and
when we speak of ourselves in the light of our own apparent bib-
lical divine destiny, we claim no less than the whole earth. In
the first chapter of the Bible, I take it, we get our idea of what
we are to be. Man, when he was originally created, was created
to possess the earth; and the command was to be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have do-
minion over it.

Such, my dear friends, as I understand it, is one element of
this aggressive civilization ‘of ours. And here is another, the
great commission: “All power is given unto me in heaven and
on earth. Go ye therefore, and disciple all nations.”

And so these two great composite, complex forces are the rep-
resentative forces of Christendom; and taken together they mean
simply this: that we are to take the earth and subdue it, and re-
plenish it, and have dominion over it, and send forth over it, un-
der the great commission, the gospel of our Lord. And there
is not an island in the seas, not a mountain in the continents, that
we are not to seek if there is a soul there to be saved.

So you see our commission is the universal command, and
these are universal forces. And I have said to a Chinese more
than once in discussing the present situation: “You might as
well undertake to dam up the waters of your great river Yang-tse
(which is bigger at the mouth than the Mississippi) by plucking
the bulrushes on its banks, as to attempt to fetter the footsteps
of commerce or stay the progress of the gospel.”

ALLEN.

‘* Foreign
devils.’

Warrants for
our expansion.
ALLEN,

Pope and Em-
peror.

Chinese and
Tartars.

350 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Referring now to the situation, the Chinese received consid-
erable “startlement” when India was taken possession of by En-
gland. It brought the truth home to her very close. When the
Roman Catholics in China had friction among themselves, and
began to quarrel over certain terms in their theology and in the
terminology of the Chinese, the matter was referred to the Pope
on the one hand and on the other hand to Kang-Hi, who was
Emperor at the time, a very able man who reigned for some sixty
years. The Pope decided against the Emperor. The question
was as to what term should be used for “God.” The missionaries
preferred a certain term, but the Emperor was in favor of another.
The Pope decided with the missionaries. The Emperor resented
it, and wanted to know who knew Chinese better, the Pope or
himself. And when he found that his authority was being ques-
tioned in his own dominions, and a decision derived from the
Pope was to be accepted in preference to his own, he determined
to put a stop to any such proceedings. That was the beginning
of it, and you know they were able to put the Catholic mission-
aries out and to keep them out for nearly two hundred years.
The same thing happened in Japan, and so China and Japan were
in close fellowship in this matter.

Coming on down, we find other conflicts arising, which did not
originate with the missionaries, but out of the persistent inten-
tion of the Chinese government to keep everybody else out of
the empire—those who had been put out and those who wanted
to get in. You know, many years before they had raised the
great wall of China, fifteen hundred miles long. It was a very sub-
stantial structure, and it kept the Tartars out for many years, but
finally it gave way and China was conquered, first by the Mongo-
lians and subsequently by the Manchu Tartars, who now occupy
the throne. So that, therefore, the wall became obsolete.

They thought they were safe on the sea side; but, behold, from
afar came the great sea monsters in big ships. They thought at
first that these people were like fish, all right in the water, but
once on the land their capture would be easy, and so allowed
them to land. They thought they did not have any joints in
their knees, but they soon found out to the contrary.

After these first appearances of the foreigner from the sea, it is
true that the Chinese did keep them out of the empire a long
while, and confined them to one single port, Canton, for many
years. As already said, the question was not about any one in
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. 351

the country disturbing the peace, but it was their determination
that no one should get into the country; and they tried to erect
what I might call a marine prohibition, thinking by proclama-
tions and other dispositions toward the foreigners to keep them
at bay.

Time went on. When the foreigner first went there he went
on private business. He wanted to sell his goods and buy others
in return; but so many embarrassments, oppositions, and diffi-
culties were imposed that finally the English government had
to interfere. But the Chinese were not prepared to recognize the
authority of any one from beyond the sea of whom they had
never heard and did not know; and so they treated the envoy
of the King of England, sent at the time, simply as a supercargo,
a man who had charge of the merchandise on the ships, and re-
fused to recognize his authority or that of the King of England.
And so the condition of things was such that the conflict was on
and could not be avoided. It has been called the “opium war ;”
but while opium was incidentally mixed up in the matter, the
true question was that of access or non-access to China.

The conflict went on and on until finally war landed England
triumphant in Nankin, and there the first treaty was made, and
Chinese ports opened. The beginning of foreign intercourse with
China was in a sense now inaugurated with the opening of five
ports. When I first went to China there were only these five
ports open, and around them were limitations—thirty miles, or
as far as one could go out and back in a day; that was the limit
of our admission to the country.

Another matter is necessary in order to explain the situation ;
and that is that China at present, while we call it “China,” em-
braces eighteen provinces which are China proper, and the out-
lying territories of Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and some other
smaller places; and all of these together are called the Chinese
Empire. Sometimes people misunderstand or misinterpret the
title “China.” A most notable illustration is recorded in the re-
cent understanding of the treaty or agreement between England
and Germany. They entered into a treaty to the effect that
neither of them would attempt to profit by the present distresses
in China, and that they would resist or resent the attempt of any
other nation to do so, and that if any other nation so attempted
to profit itself they reserved to themselves what they should do,
either jointly or severally. Now the question came up for solu-

ALLEN,

Other foreign-
ers.

What is China?
ALLEN.

Opposition to
dynasty.

A prophet.

352 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

tion in Berlin, and the German Prime Minister, Von Buelow,
said he didn’t consider Manchuria a part of China. That treaty
was made on the basis of the empire, but in his interpretation
he restricts it to China Proper, which is the eighteen provinces.
Geographically, Manchuria is not a part of China, but politically,
and certainly in the sense in which England made the agree-
ment, it is part of China.

So I say, here we must make a distinction between the Chinese
and the Tartars. The present government and dynasty, the Em-
peror and Empress Dowager, are all Tartars; and it makes a big
difference in our situation. When the Tartars first came in, two
hundred and fifty-seven years ago, they got in surreptitiously, in
a sense, and they have no right there at all, except what they
have acquired by the consent of the people for these two hundred
and fifty-seven years. Some men say that the consent of the
governed is sufficient. Well, the Chinese have accepted the sit-
uation in large part; but there have always been secret societies
in great abundance everywhere in the country, and especially
among the Chinese out of China, as in San Francisco, Honolulu,
Singapore, the Straits Settlements, Australia, and New Zealand.
In all those places there are Chinese who reject the dynasty, and
would gladly see it relegated to its original ancestral hills in
Manchuria. I make this explanation here because I am now go-
ing to refer to the war between China and Japan. That was per-
haps one of the most prodigious events in all history. It was a
comparatively small thing from a military point of view, but it was
one of those things that determine the dominion or domination
of a civilization.

Japan, according to Chinese ideas, was a renegade. It had left
off the old Asiatic civilization, and gone after the Western. civili-
zation. It was, therefore, denounced by the Chinese and by the
Tartar dynasty. It was true Prince Kung pointed to Japan, and
said that China ought to learn, for there was a small country
which had sent its students to England and America, and which
is already cutting loose from the old civilization and taking on
the new; and he said that it was no shame to follow others and
keep pace with them if not before them, but it was a great shame
for a great nation to fall behind. He was a great man, but he
died before the war. When the war came on the Chinese saw
the fulfillment of his prophecy. Japan conquered China with
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. wes

hardly a show of force. Then they began to realize what for-
eign power meant and what a foreign civilization meant.

Now the effect of this was that the Chinese—not the Tartars,
but the Chinese—were awakened; and you will pardon me right
here for saying (many of you know it perhaps) that I carefully
compiled and wrote a history of the war between China and
Japan, because I saw it was an opportune time to awaken a great
people. Officials like Li Hung Chang and others contributed
details from their own offices, and gave me carte blanche to use
them. The history comprised sixteen volumes. They were re-
printed in Japan and in Korea and four or five places in China,
and circulated broadcast. They promoted reforms among the
Chinese, and exhibited to them such a spectacle of humiliation
as they had never seen before. And so the Chinese demanded
of the Tartar government that all these old and obsolete systems
should be done away with. Chinese government, you know, is
based on a civil service, on education, and their nobles are care-
fully trained in literature and classics, and examinations are held
all over the country, with a view of selecting the very highest
attainments and preserving them for the government’s use. The
Chinese said in their memorials: “What we study is not what
we use. We are studying obsolete books. We are learning
things that are fanciful, beautiful as to rhetoric, but non-conse-
quential and not pertinent.’”’ So they demanded a change in the
curriculum of their great institutions. Some of these men were
viceroys, some of them the ablest men in China, and they all
demanded these reforms. Chang Chi-tung, the great viceroy and
the ablest literary man in the empire, wrote a book on the sub-
ject. The point was “Learn.” The Emperor took this up and
had it reprinted, and circulated it by the million copies. Some of
these men got access to the Emperor. He received their mes-
sages and their suggestions with favor. They told him that they
had been reading our books—the books of the Society for the
Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge, etc.—and those
books had opened their eyes, and they would like to see some
of their suggestions carried into execution for the benefit of their
country. The Emperor approved, sent for some of the books,
and read them himself. He got our Bible and read it, and it is
said (though we have no proof of the fact, for they would keep
it from us if possible) that he is a reader of the Bible and that he
prays to the true God.

16

ALLEN.

History cf the
war.

“- Learn.’?
-ALLEN,

Introduction of
books.

Dethroning the
progressive
Emperor.

354 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Now, the Emperor is a Tartar, but the Chinese accept him.
They say he is more of a Chinaman than he is of a Tartar; and
some of these secret society men told me, when I was passing
through San Francisco and Honolulu on my previous visit, that
they were willing to cease all opposition to the dynasty and aban-
don their secret societies if the Emperor would only take up this
progressive movement and favor the development of China.

The Tartars are described by the Chinese as men who study
astronomy from the bottom of a well. They are obsolete; they
won't learn, and they are trying to keep the Chinese from learn-
ing. And so, while there are points of difference between the
Chinese and foreigners, there is just as much hostility between
the Chinese and the Tartars. These latter fear that the Chinese
want to abolish the Tartar dynasty and overthrow their power and
eradicate them altogether, and suspect that the foreigners are
their abettors, largely because of the influences of our books in
promoting the reform movement among the Chinese.

Further details here might be interesting, so I will add that our
books are being circulated in China, and are accepted by the mil-
lions and read everywhere. One of the results is that the hostil-
ity to foreigners and to missions has broken down in one of the
very worst provinces, the very hotbed of hostility, and they in-
vited us into Hoonan with our books and our schools. One of
the examiners in the province told me that at first there was not
one man in a thousand who had read our books, and they said
they would not read them. “But,” he said, “you must read them;
the government requires that you should take a wider curric-
ulum, and understand all these questions; and you must read
them.” And three years later I got a letter from this same ex-
aminer, and he said that now, in the third year, there was not a
man who came before him who had not read our books. That
accounts for the fact of their raiding our bookstores and stalls at
Shanghai, and buying every book they could find.

Now, then, here comes another element into the situation, and
avery serious one. The Tartars, being alarmed for their suprem-
acy, were willing to snatch at almost anything by which they
could raise some excitement to their advantage. There were
many things against them. For instance, there was a total eclipse ;
and they always interpret total eclipses as having some sinister
meaning. They said, “The sun is the Emperor, and the moon is
the Empress. This, therefore, pertains to the Emperor, and it sig-
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. 355

nifies that he is to be dethroned ;” and they set to work at once
to make it true. And why? Well, the Tartars wanted to get
rid of the Emperor because he had turned Chinaman, and was
in favor of reform, etc.

Well, we go on farther, and by and by another alarm takes
place. The Chinese, you know, reckon by the lunar months, and
every eight years, about, there is an extra month. They do
not add the odd month to the calendar and make it thirteen, but
they just stick it in wherever their calculations lodge it. Some-
times it is the third month, and they double the third month;
sometimes it is the sixth month, and they double the sixth. This
last year it happened to be the eighth month. The Chinese are
very careful chroniclers, and so they went back in their history to
see what portent there was in an eighth intercalary month. They
found it was sinister always; that something evil always hap-
pened in this intercalary eighth month. So they foresaw that
it portended distress and disorder and trouble to the dynasty;
and they at once set to work to make that true too. So, you see,
the Chinese and the Tartars together wrought confusion. Just
here in this connection the reformers and the Emperor were very
much in evidence, and great was the alarm of the Tartar clan.
The Empress Dowager was invoked to come back and take the
authority again. She had been Regent for two reigns. The Em-
peror had accepted the advice of the reformers, and begun to
promulgate decrees that looked toward the regeneration of the
country. The Tartar clan in Peking became alarmed, and they
therefore went to the Dowager and implored her to return to
Peking. She was then at her private palace outside of the city.
She came back and made the Emperor invite her, on the plea of
ill health, to take the power into her own hands; and as soon as
she got it into her hands she dethroned him and shut him up in
a little island in the palace grounds. You know those grounds
are very large, about a mile on every side, and in this inclosure
there are palaces and offices and pleasure grounds and lakes and
islets and the like. Well, they shut the Emperor up on one of
these isolated places in a palace, where he could have no inter-
course with: anybody; and then they turned upon the reformers,
and every one they could get hold of they at once executed with-
out trial. And one of these men, on being led out to the place
of execution, said to them: “You may cut my head off, but for

ALLEN.

Return of Em-
press Dowager.
ALLEN.

Conquered
territory.

Russia.

England’s

possessions.

356 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

every man that falls in this cause, a thousand will rise to vindi-
cate it.”

I must now refer to the foreign side of the question. I have
spoken of the Japanese war. That war resulted in the conquest -
by Japan of the lower part of Manchuria, or what is called the
Liao-tung peninsula. That didn’t suit Russia at all, so Russia
and France and Germany, by a sort of secret treaty, or, at any
rate, by an agreement, undertook to compel Japan to render back
to China the territory which had been signed away by the treaty
for a consideration of thirty millions of taels.

Russia had now, so to speak, a clear hand, and Germany and
France were in a position to claim some compensation for their
services. I have not the time to tell you all the details of these
things, but I have been over there long enough to get behind the
scenes.

Russia fishes in muddy waters; you don’t see her hand, but
she gets the fish all the same. She asked China, in view of the
services that she had rendered, to allow her to run her Siberian
railway across Manchuria in a direct line to Vladivostok, which
was the lowest port south that Russia had. That was granted.
Now here were France and Germany. They want something,
too. They are not’ acting disinterestedly, you see. Germany
wanted a naval station.

Now, just for a moment. These details are very exhausting,
I know, but you can’t understand this question without expla-
nations. Why is Germany out there fishing around in China?
Because Germany has large world-wide interests that she is try-
ing to cultivate, with a view to an extended commerce and colo-
nization; but when she is away from Germany she is absolutely
dependent upon England. England is the only country that can
go around the world and ask nobody’s leave. You start from
London and you go down through the Bay of Biscay, and you
run into Gibralter at the entrance of the Mediterranean; you go
on a little farther, and you stop at Malta; a little farther, and
you come to Cyprus. All these are in the Mediterranean Sea.
You come out from Port Said to Suez, and you enter the Red
Sea, and at its extremity is a little island called Perim that effec-
tually shuts up the door of the sea. You go on and'you come to
the southern part of Arabia, and there is Aden, and that belongs
to England; and she has a place there where she stores coal for
her navy. Then you go to India, to Bombay, to Ceylon, to Cal-
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. 357

cutta; and everything there belongs to England. You go on to 4™™™

Penang, and then you enter the straits at Singapore. It is a large
place of trade. You go from there to Hongkong, and from there
you go to her last possession, Wei-Hai-Wei, in North China.
So that I say that England can go all round the world without
saying “By your leave” to anybody. France? No. Germany?
No. It is everywhere: “Will you please let us have a little coal?”

And so Germany aspires to be a great commercial power, but
how can she be a great commercial power without a suitable
naval base and coaling station? It is impossible, and especially
so in turbulent times. And it is the same way with France. And
so Germany went fishing up and down the coast trying to catch
an island. Finally a little incident happened. Now you would
not understand these things by simply reading the newspaper
dispatches ; they don’t come that way. Germany found an occa-
sion to accomplish her purpose, and it was just to her taste. For-
merly the Roman Catholics in all heathen countries from Turkey
eastward fell under the hand of France, who was the eldest son
of the Church, and occupied the place of authority in all these
countries over Catholics and the Catholic Church, both converts
and priests. France had claimed that power in China. The Pope
wanted a nuncio, but France objected, and he wasn’t sent. But
after the war between Prussia and France and the establishment
of the German Empire, Germany said: “We will have no more
protectorates over German subjects by France.” And so in
China Germany announced that hereafter all the German priests
and religious people that were in the country were amenable to
the German government. (That question is not settled yet.
France still contends that she has the right over the Catholics in
China; and that is one of the questions that is the cause of con-
flict and collision.)

But to go on. Germany, after she had been fishing for this
island for some time, heard the news that two Catholic mission-
aries had been martyred or killed in Shantung. Now I don’t
mean to say that every missionary who is killed over there is a
martyr, by any means. These missionaries were killed by a band
of pirates and robbers known by the name of the Big Knife So-
ciety. They were originally the same society that had been op-
posed to the dynasty a hundred years ago, and which had been
supposed to have been exterminated. But here at this time they
revive again, and make a raid on the Catholic mission and kill

Germany.

Protection of
Catholics.

‘

A murder.
ALLEN,

Reprisal,

Two kinds of
fists.

358 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

these priests. I mention these men particularly now, because
they are the Boxers, though they were not called Boxers then,
but the Big Knife Society.

Well, the German Minister telegraphed the news home, and
Emperor William, who is wonderfully alert, instantly telegraphed
to his admiral: “Take five of your biggest men-of-war and go
to Kiao Chow Bay.” He had already ‘been fishing there, and
now he is ordered to take possession of the place. That was the
beginning of the reward which Germany claimed for her services.
At once Russia saw that she hadn’t done enough in simply taking
the privilege of a railroad across Manchuria, and so she responded
to that move by taking Port Arthur and the neighboring bay,
Ta-lien Wan. Now England comes into the question, and per-
manently occupies Wei-Hai-Wei. The beautiful bay called
Kwang Chow Bay, in South China, is next in order occupied
by France. And so these powers have fastened themselves on
the mainland.

These are facts that help to make up the situation, which is in
part Chinese and in part foreign. The Tartars, therefore, seeing
that the foreigners were aggressive, and that the Chinese were
always clamoring for reform, which means in some measure an
alliance with foreigners, found that they were in a bad case; and
so they were anxious to use any means possible to get out of
this trouble. And the means they adopt is this same Big Knife
Society that killed the priests down there in Shantung.

Emperor William, the Kaiser of Germany, sent his brother
Henry out there with the “mailed fist.” These poor peasants in
Shantung responded to the challenge of Germany by calling their
unarmed band the “Loyal Fists.” They were not armed with
anything foreign at all. They discarded everything foreign, and
they killed every Chinaman they could get hold of that had any-
thing foreign on his person, or had had any relations with the
foreigners. They armed themselves simply with pieces of iron
made into a sort of knife or sword in any roadside blacksmith
shop ; and these people, that were at one time put down as bandits
and robbers, now became loyal subjects, and their services were
accepted by the Empress Dowager.

Now I want to hold you to this point. The Chinese told the
Empress Dowager that these were bad people, that they were
vicious bandits and robbers, and not to put any trust in them.
The Empress was not content to receive the Chinese view of it,
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. 359

because she was afraid of the Chinese, and so she sent her hench-
men, Kang I and. Li Ping-heng, and others down to investigate
the matter and report to her. They came back and said to her:
“These are glorious loyal subjects; and, furthermore, they are
invulnerable.” (They went through a kind of hypnotic influence
that they said made them invulnerable.) But they hadn’t tested
it, you know; they had simply taken the words of these people
for it. They said that they were invulnerable, and that neither
bullet nor sword nor bayonet could penetrate them; and the Em-
press believed it. And further they said: “These men have ac-
cess to heaven, and they are promised thousands of heaven’s sol-
diers to help them.” So the Empress Dowager accepted these
statements, and all the assurances and warnings of Li Hung
Chang and Lieu Kwén I and other great viceroys and governors
in China Proper could not prevail upon or deter her. She in-
sisted on believing all these stories; and her minions told her:
“Now is the time to strike.”

They intended to strike in the eighth month, but this was only
June. Their eighth month, you know, would be our September.
But now it was only June, and they didn’t want to strike yet, but
these Boxers, breaking out from Shantung and going on to
Peking, precipitated the struggle, and the dynasty had to bow
before it. So they said: “Well, we must go to work now, but we
have the advantage in these invulnerable people. They will lead
the way, and our soldiers will follow behind and finish the work.”

So the orders went forth that all foreigners were to be exter-
minated. That order went unobstructed through Manchuria,
and they actually moved troops over there to attack the Russian
officials and to pull up the railroad and the telegraph and destroy
every vestige of foreign civilization. But when that decree came
down south, Li Hung Chang, who was at the time Viceroy at
Canton, denounced it at once as a very bad thing. He tele-
graphed to the respective viceroys at the north and in Middle
China to disregard the order, and not to attempt the extermina-
tion of the foreigners, because the result of such a movement
would be to hang the country higher than Haman.

So you see that the Chinese understand these things. They are
implicated in some cases, because some of these leading Chinese
were appointed by the present government. Some of them have
been heard to say: “I believe in reform, I believe in this, that,
and the other.” Some of the reformers want to go too far, and

ALLEN.

The Dowager
and the Box-
ers.

Courageous
Viceroys.
ALLEN,

Chinese and
Tartars,

A recencilia-
tion.

360 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

to precipitate a representative government, and all that sort of
thing. But these men say: “If you have your way, and reform
this government by a revolution of that kind, we can’t go with
you. We are now viceroys and governors, and have good fat
positions; but if you have your way, where shall we be? We are
old, and would be obsolete, according to your system; and, there-
fore, we cannot follow you.” The Chinese leaders are enlight-
ened men, who are guided largely by what they have read and
learned of foreign countries through the late history of the Jap-
anese war and by what they have read in our books. I make a
point of that, because it is in the situation; and it is very im-
portant always to remember that the Chinese are Chinese, and
the Tartars are Tartars, and that the former are with us, while
the latter are against us and jealous of our growing influence
among the Chinese.

Now I intended to say something about another point. I have
been speaking about the origin of this thing, but there are so
many details that I almost despair of getting them all in. How-
ever, I must say a word here before I stop in regard to the sig-
nificance of this movement; and on Tuesday I shall speak again,
and then I shall try to give you the real outlook, the real issue;
but I wish, when we get to that position, you will then under-
stand that all this that I have been relating to you is no child’s
play, but is the foundation of the most glorious revolution in the
history of the world.

It appears that the present movements may cause the Tartars
and the Chinese in some sense to be reconciled, because the great
viceroys are insisting already that the terms of peace shall be
such that the Tartars shall cease to dominate China after the
fashion in which they have so long done it. It is one of the inevi-
table consequences of this movement, and the Chinese are strong
enough to insist upon it. The viceroys at the south made an
agreement with our consuls at Shanghai: “If you will not invade
us, if you will not land your troops in our territory, we will hold
the whole south of China solid and peaceable.” And they did it.
We know now, as a matter of fact, that the Chinese can never
say again that they can’t do it, because they have done it, under
most distressing circumstances.’ These great viceroys have held
China in the south and in certain parts of the north in such peace
and restraint that they have had hardly any trouble at all. So
we know now what they can do.
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. 361

Another thing is the restoration of the Emperor. That means
the reform of that great country ; it means the development of its
resources; it means that it shall be put on a proper footing of
intercourse with foreign nations; it means that China, like Japan,
shall aspire to admission into the comity of nations; and I tell
you, when you once get that ambition stirred up, when you once
get them to feel the indignity of the extraterritorial jurisdiction
exercised in their country by all foreigners, when you once get
them to see the stigma and to feel the humiliation to which they
are subjected, they will be like Japan, and will want to throw it
all off. And how will they throw it off? Why, they will inau-
gurate the grandest reforms you ever saw; reforms involving
the entire country and all its relations, but of which time fails me
to speak at this time.

Well, we shall have something else, and that will be toleration.
We have never had tolerance over there. They are afraid of for-
eign governments, and therefore they have never done them-
selves justice; and all these troubles, I say, are because the Chi-
nese are cursed in their government. They don’t know their
treaties, they don’t know their own rights, they don’t exert them-
selves to administer justice, and so bring trouble upon them-
selves. But all that will be rooted out, and we shall see the
inauguration of a new era in the history of China and her inter-
course with the nations of the West. There are some other
points here that are so great and so important that I hardly know
how to drop them, but time fails me.

I want to say, however, in conclusion, that this country has
done more for China than nearly all the other countries put to-
gether, and that the larger part of the situation in China is here
in the United States of America. And I mean that just as much
for the commercial people as I do for the Church. We ought all,
commercial men and representatives of the Church, to work to-
gether for the regeneration of that empire, for it is your next-
door neighbor, and when you get your great isthmus opened,
and get a highway from the Atlantic into the Pacific, my proph-
ecy is that America on its eastern side, and this great city of
New Orleans, will double itself; and not only here, but through-
out Texas and throughout the inland States, you will feel the
impulse of the situation in China,

Now I have heard people talk about expansion. Well, if you
speak of the gospel I am an expansionist down to the whole

ALLEN.

The Emperor
should be re-
stored

Toleration.
ALLEN,

Opportunities
fer America.

362 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

world, down to every living creature; and when you speak of

commerce—well, my dear friends, what is America for but to
find its place and its work in this wide world everywhere? The
other day, when I was coming across the ocean, I found myself
thousands of miles away in sight of Uncle Sam’s territory. Look
at this map. Here, far out in the middle of the Pacific ocean, is
the 180°. Well, you would hardly expect to see Uncle Sam out
there, but as 1 came along I did see him. North, there are Alaska
and numerous islands called the Aleutian, which run out beyond
the 180°, while down ‘there at the south you see that string of
islands leading westward from the Sandwich Islands, and also
extending beyond the 180° meridian. There was a question at
one time as to whether Uncle Sam owned them or not, but Japan
was quickly informed that Uncle Sam claimed them, and accord-
ingly he has appropriated them. And when I passed there I saw
the flag of our country flying there. The first island nearest
Honolulu is called Bird Island, and then next Pearl Island and
the Midway Islands, which are a group that goes out beyond the
180°, more than a) thousand miles beyond Honolulu. And as I
looked upon all these possessions of ours, I thought of that old
hymn of Montgomery, or somebody else (I know it was an Eng-
lishman that wrote it, but I appropriate it) :
Breathes there a man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said:
‘This is my own, my native land?”

Behold, then, the possessions of Uncle Sam. The situation has
to be developed, and it depends upon whether America is pre-
pared to avail herself of the opening situation in China. O that
I could tell you what it means to you commercial men, who have
got to develop this country by helping to develop that! And, my
dear friends, you know what your Church demands of you. The
issue of the future in China is largely dependent on the attitude
and action of this country—in Church and State.

Supplementary Address, April 30.
Seeing that my time is limited to a narrow twenty minutes,
I have jotted down a few notes that I hope to get within that
space of time.
The meeting on Sunday night has put new courage in my
heart and new strength in my bones. The opportunity created
by the crisis in China has met with a fitting response, and I now
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. 363

shall return thither confident that the Church will not fail in this
her high duty toward China.

The persecution has massacred some one hundred and eighty-
three of ‘our Protestant fellow-workers—sixty men, seventy-five
women, and forty-eight children; and three others have been
added since my arrival here. It has destroyed much property,
but we cherish no desire to revenge ourselves, save by love ex-
hibited in more strenuous efforts for their salvation. And that
you may the more thoroughly join us in the work, there are a
few points of supreme importance to which I desire to call at-
tention in this brief survey of the work.

First, the Chinese people are with us politically as well as
socially, and are in favor of reform and liberal government. This
they have demonstrated by a wonderful unanimity of sentiment
and action. Now, mark it, friends, I want to lay this foundation
deep in your hearts: China is a different country from that of
the Tartars; we are dealing with the Chinese people, who have
been long’ dominated by a despotic Tartar dynasty, and I
wish you to note the gradual emergence, so to speak, of the
Chinese from beneath this long-dominant yoke, and their eman-
cipation into the liberty of the children of a great nation. First,
they resisted the attempts to dethrone the Emperor; secondly,
they resisted the idea of naming a successor. The fact of naming
a successor, according to Chinese custom, would indicate that the
Emperor was dead. They resisted, therefore, the inference that
the Emperor had been dethroned and was dead, and a successor
had to be appointed. Then they resisted the idea of declaring
Putsing Emperor. He is the son of Prince Tuan, who, with the
Empress Dowager, has raised this great trouble, because he
wanted to put his son in the place of the present Emperor. The
Chinese resisted that, and insisted that if he was named as a suc-
cessor it should not be as the successor of the previous Emperor,
but as the successor of the present Emperor, whom they wish
to dethrone. It was this attitude of the Chinese, together with
the strong hand of the viceroys and governments in the south
and middle of China, that preserved the country from a destruc-
tive war, and confined the disturbances almost exclusively to the
north and those places where the Tartar influence was predomi-
nant. There was war with the Tartars, but not with the Chinese.
There was a riot, and the allies said, “We come to help you put it
down;” but, unfortunately, the riot was headed by the Empress

ALLEN.

Chinese favor
reform.
ALLEN.

Opposed to par-
tition.

Favorable
symptoms.

364 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Dowager herself. And she fled away, and they haven’t got her
yet.

The Chinese, I repeat, are in sympathy with reform and prog-
ress; and there is but one thing that could now stir them to polit-
ical hostility—to wit, the attempt to partition their country. This
was exhibited as I was leaving China, when a public meeting was
called to protest against the government’s signing a treaty with
Russia, involving the disintegration of the empire. The Chinese
never have been conquered. They have been overrun by the mil-
itary power of the Mongols and the Manchus; but Chinese civ-
ilization has conquered the conquerors, even as Grecian civiliza-
tian, art, and literature conquered Rome; and in the present in-
stance China would seem to be recovering her political influence
from the Tartars, who are a vanishing dynasty from this time
henceforth. Mark it well. Liu Kwen I, who is the great viceroy
at Nankin, advises that the distinction of Tartar and Chinese be
henceforth abolished. Now the Tartars are about as twelve mil-
lions to four hundred millions; and if, according to this request,
you abolish the distinction between Tartar and Chinese, and place
the Tartar on the same level as regards education and as regards
industry, and make those people (who have been simply parasites
living upon China) earn their living, you will see the Chinese
dominant throughout.

We are now face to face with the great Chinese nation; and,
as I said before, the conflict is clearly defined between Confucius
and Christ for the domination of the East in religion and civiliza-
tion. For your encouragement I don’t hesitate to declare, in
advance of the.inevitable result, that the Chinese already see it
from afar. First, the leading viceroy, Chang Chi-tung, proclaims
Buddhism and Taoism hopelessly decadent. Secondly, he has
recommended the adoption and propagation of foreign education ;
and in this connection I will say that he invited me to come to
his viceroyalty and help him to establish a great press and trans-
late and publish the literature which he would disseminate every-
where. He is the man that published a great book, “Learn: The
Only Hope of China,” on reform; and the Emperor scattered a
million copies. Thirdly, this great viceroy at Nankin advises the
establishment of schools and colleges from the capital through-
out the provinces. He also recommends that the young nobles
and high-caste young men be sent abroad to travel and study in
foreign lands. There has always been a prohibition against their
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. 365

leaving the country, but now it is recommended. For instance,
the other day in Honolulu (I mention a recent experience)—in
Honolulu and San Francisco, as I came along I was called on to
address the Chinese. They had never seen me, and they had
never heard of me except through my books and periodicals ; but
as soon as they found that I was there they sent a deputation to
invite me to address them. I did so, and they insisted that I tell
them about their country. Invitations had been sent out to all
the leading Chinese, and the pastors of the Churches, the mer-
chants, and the leading men of the guilds came. They filled a
large hall, and I never met a more enthusiastic greeting than
from these strange Chinese, whom I had never seen before.

My address was on the situation and their relation to it; and
after making clear the status of affairs I recommended in my
conclusion that the Chinese establish a great college in San Fran-
cisco for their sons, and to be sure not to forget the daughters.
I told them that to educate a son was well, but to educate a
daughter was better; that the son was but an individual, while
the daughter was the foundation of the family and of society.
These suggestions were received with applause, and when I had
concluded more than a hundred leading Chinese came forward,
shook me by the hand, thanked me for the suggestion, and said
they would carry it out. And I believe it will be done.

Thus the Chinese in China and the Chinese out of China are
all moving in one direction and with one impulse in favor of
progress and reform, a liberal government, and political and reli-
gious liberty. That is the situation we are called on to survey.

Again (mark this, please, for it shows that we are getting the
thing narrowed down to a point), the Chinese having accepted
our systems of learning, with an enlarged and liberalized civil
service and curriculum, is tantamount to relegating the old clas-
sics to the category of our Greek and Roman classics in our col-
leges and universities, studying them only for the culture of their
literary style and finish ; and they are accepting instead our varied
learning, with its knowledge and power to develop and enrich
the nation; and with this change Confucianism will be de-
throned. The arrested progress of China yields to the new learn-
ing, and the gospel will have a free course throughout the em-.
pire.
You can understand why I have always been persistent to have
our schools and colleges put upon a permanent basis, and you

ALLEN,

The new ed--
ucation.
ALLEN.

Openings for
our schools,

_A new book.

Literature.

366 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

can understand how great was the uplift given me on Sunday
night. I was among the first to move in the matter of educa-
tional and literary work. The long-persistent inertia met in the
field and the seeming indifference at home have left their marks
on this great work; but, thank God! the day of deliverance is at
hand, and in Soochow University we hope to have more than a
mere school for the education of the pupils who come within its
walls. We hope to have a model, an example of schools, like
McTyeire School for girls in Shanghai. That is a model ‘of its
kind, and I believe is to be the progenitor of schools as well as
the mother of pupils.

And right here a word for the Laura Haygood Memorial
School, also to be located in Soochow. I believe in the educa-
tion of women. Just now I am writing the best book I have ever
given to China. Its title is “Woman in All Lands, Ancient and
Modern,” and it will be profusely illustrated. The two proposi-
tions that it discusses are as follows: First, that the status, treat-
ment, and condition of women, in any land, is the best single test
of the character and status of its people; secondly, that it is im-
possible to regenerate any people without first emancipating and
redeeming their womanhood. These propositions are eminently
true of China; and believing, as I earnestly do, that there is no
hope for that country unless her women are lifted up and re-
deemed pari passu with the men, I make here the strongest ap-
peal of which I am capable. These two institutions must go
together,and I cannot but regret that on Sunday night there were
not opened two columns of figures, one for the Soochow Univer-
sity and the other for the woman’s school, the Haygood Memo-
rial. However, there is time yet, and the inspiration of this
great Conference carried home will not fail to bring to pass a
“consummation so devoutly to be wished.”

Again, viewing China as a vast literary field, with hundreds
and thousands ‘of books and millions of readers, no argument
is needed to set forth the urgency and importance of our pro-
jected press and publishing house. The government of China in
every department is calling for men. These the schools must
provide. The schools must ‘have both teachers and books, and
the reading public must have literature. All these the mission-
aries are expected to supply in large part, for China is the ward
of Christendom and the pupil of the Church, taught by her rep-
resentatives, the missionaries.
OUTLOOK IN THE FAR EAST. 367

For years I have stood almost appalled and helpless in the
face of these stupendous problems, but the solution now seems
easy. China is made willing, the Church is waking up, and faith
lays hold afresh on the strong arm of hope. But one thing more
is needed, and now is the time to emphasize it. We need more
men and more women, with that culture and grasp so essential
to positions like these before us; men and women who can com-
prehend (that is, understand and compass) the true character and
wants of man; men and women, at home and abroad, who will
not confound two things so dissimilar as domestic and foreign
missions. There has been confusion here, so mark the differ-
ence: The former, the domestic mission, contemplates the desti-
tute of a people to be provided for by the native Church, and the
other contemplates a nation, with all its people, high and low,
rich and poor, to be provided for by the sending Church, the
Church that dispenses the gospel.

And just here it may be as well to say that, if the Church is
ever to have self-support, self-propagation, and self-government,
it is time we should begin to provide something for that class of
people from which such things come in our own Christian coun-
tries—that is, the intelligent and well-to-do. They need the help
to be had from our colleges and schools, and the printing press
and publishing house. These institutions, properly established
and manned with experts in their respective lines, will be more
widely useful and successful than any other ordinary missionary
agency. Considering that we cannot or will not greatly multiply
the number of our agents, let us have these amply and strongly
sustained and equipped. This institution, the press and pub-
lishing ‘house, has at its back as a constituency, as friends and
helpers, the whole missionary body in China of all denominations.
It is not limited to our few men, but will be amply sustained bv
the ready help of thousands of missionaries in the field. Hence
its influence and power cannot fail to be felt throughout the king-
doms of the far East.

Finally, everything is in our favor, whether in China or at
home. In China the persecution has sown the seed of the
Church. The triumphant death of forty thousand native Chris-
tians has not only vindicated the Church in the eyes of the un-
believing and incredulous, but it has given confidence, both in
China and at home, in the results of missions.

And now, that nothing be left unprovided for, let the merchants

ALLEN.

We must work
for the higher
classes.

The way to
self-support.
ALLEN.

Commerce.

Divine leader-
ship.

368 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and the business men, and professional men generally, unite with
us heartily and meet the suggestions of the great viceroy, who
recommended the young nobles and other high-caste young
men to travel and study. Our merchants, and particularly those
whose business connects them with China, should join in asking
these young men to visit our country and see for themselves our
resources and conditions; and thus, while the missionary and
the Church look out for the intellectual and religious welfare of
the people, the merchants can aid us by giving them other ideas,
useful along other lines, industrial and commercial.

THE FORWARD MOVEMENT IN OUR CHINA
MISSION.

REV. C. F. ‘REID, D.D.

THE necessity for a forward movement in our China Mission is
a legitimate outgrowth of the progress in developing our work
which, under divine leadership, we have already attained. It is
not claimed that the Southern Methodist Mission in China has a
monopoly of the providence of God. Nevertheless, it must ap-
pear to any careful student of our Asiatic missions that not only
in China, but in Japan and Korea as well, he has in a very special
manner verified to us his promise: “Lo, I am with you alway.”
As surely as with God’s chosen of old, the pillar of the cloud by
day and the pillar of fire by night hath gone before ws, and he
hath taken “not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar
of fire by night, irom before the people.” In China, ’'the evidence
of the divine leadership will appear manifest by a careful consid-
eration of the following four features of the work: (1) The field
selected; (2) the men selected for the field: (3) the character of
the work enterprised; (4) the degree of success that has attended
the use of these means.

1. When Dr. Charles Taylor arrived at Shanghai, in 1848, who
would have dreamed that in less than half a century the few hasti-
ly erected business hongs and residences scattered among the
grave mounds and stagnant pools just outside the walls of one
FORWARD MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 369

of the most insignificant and filthy cities along the coast would
grow into the chief trade entrepdot of a mighty empire and the
sixth in importance of all the great commercial cities of the world?
Human wisdom would ‘have shunned this spot, and fortified itself
in so doing by a dozen weighty arguments. In the first place, tt
was the most unattractive section of country along the coast. As
far as the eye could reach in every direction there was naught but
a dreary stretch of mud and paddy field—only a few feet above
tide water and unbroken by anything higher than a grave mound
‘or an occasional tree; a climate hot, humid, and malarious ; water
that offended the eye and nose before it reached the palate; ancl
people leprous to a degree, scourged in winter by smallpox and
in summer by cholera.

Moreover, at a very early date Shanghai acquired a most un-
enviable reputation for immorality. It became known as a sort
of Sodom of the Orient. Here the beach comber, the sandal
wooder, the opium smuggler, and all sorts of social outcasts from
foreign lands seemed to find congenial environments and drive a
thriving trade. A disreputable and unscrupulous native element
poured in from Canton and Ningpo. This element soon made
the dens of vice on the Yang-king-pang and in “Bamboo town” a
festering disgrace to that section of the city governed by the For-
eign Municipal Council.

It is not a matter of surprise that with such surroundings mis-
sionary effort should be comparatively fruitless, and that Shang-
hai soon came to be considered as one of the hardest and most
unpromising fields in the empire. Yet, with all these unpropi-
tious beginnings, Shanghai is to-day known as the model settle-
ment of the East, the best-drained, best-watered, and best-lighted
city in Asia. It is adorned with magnificent cathedrals, fine
churches and schools. Great banking houses and business hongs
‘ornament its bund. Miles of its water ways are lined with silk
filatures and cotton factories, where multiplied thousands of
wheels and spindles whirl day and night. Elegant public build-
ings, well-kept parks, broad macadamized streets thronged with
splendid equipages, and delightful suburban drives, along which
her merchant princes have reared their homes, are among the
attractive features of the city; while an evening spin along the
bund gives opportunity to compare the flags of all nations as they
fly from the shipping that ever crowds the river. About ten

REID.

The field se-
lected.

Shanghai’s
early reputa-
tion.

As it is to-
day.
REID.

Strategic
value.

Soochow.

370 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

thousand foreigners and a million natives throng the city and
wide-extending suburbs.

In easy reach of Hongkong, the Philippines, Formosa, Japan,
Korea, Manchuria, and North China, she sends her coastwise
steamers to all these parts in search of gain; and being the gate-
way of the mighty Yang-tse, she draws into her bosom the lion’s
share of the profits accruing from traffic with the one hundred
and fifty millions of people who throng this most populous val-
ley of the world.

Shanghai is not only China’s chief distributer of merchandise,
but it has also become its chief center of missionary activity.
Here the large majority of missionaries to the Chinese first touch
the soil of the Celestial Empire, and to this port they come from
distant interior stations for supplies. Here are the headquarters
of the China Inland Mission, the chief agencies of the great Bible
Societies, the headquarters of the Society for the Diffusion of
Christian and General Knowledge, and the largest mission press
in China, if not in the world.

Contrary to early expectation, it has proved a not unfruitful
field for evangelistic effort. The Presbyterians, Baptists, Church
Missionary Society, American Episcopalians, and the Disciples.
all have large and growing memberships. In 1896 our own meni-
bership at Central Church numbered more than four hundred
communicants, besides a large class of probationers and two
thriving Sunday schools. The three large mission hospitals are
crowded, and several of our schools find their capacity much too
small to accommodate all applicants.

Soochow, our second station, is in its way no less strategic than
Shanghai. Founded more than two thousand years ago, it was,
under the old feudal system, the capital of the kingdom of Woo.
Under the more recent division of the empire it is the capital of
the Province of Kiang-su. Situated nearly in the center of the
great rice and silk-producing regions of the Kiang-su and Che-
kiang Provinces, it is held in high esteem by the Chinese.

The large number of scholars, literary chancellors, viceroys,
and other high officials that have gone forth from its walls have
won it first rank as a great literary center, and the comparative-
ly easy conditions of life have made the popular aphorism, “Be-
low are Hangchow and Soochow, and above is heaven,” of wide-
ly extended use.

Its facilities as an evangelistic center are unsurpassed. Stand-
FORWARD MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 371

ing on the great pagoda at the North Gate, one may view in one
sweep of the eye the walled cities of Kwin-san, Woo-sih, and
Chang-suh and look upon the homes of five million people.
Could the vision be extended by a two days’ comfortable ride in
a house boat, it would embrace the additional cities of Yi-shing,
Li-yang, Changchow, Hoochow, Kading, Sung-kiang, Tsing-pu,
Ta-tsang, Kashing, Shanghai, Bao-san, Kang-ying, Tan-yang,
and a multitude of large towns and villages. More than twenty
million people find their homes within this region so easily ac-
cessible from Soochow. They are for the most part intelligent,
peace-loving, and friendly, and possess natural characteristics
which, under the influence of the gospel, will make them a loyal,
efficient Christian people. Already this section has furnished
some of the ablest and most devoted workers that adorn the na-
tive ministry of the Chinese Church.

That our little mission has been sent to occupy so important a
place in this unparalleled field, I am glad to believe, is a special!
token of the favor of God.

2. Our pioneer missionary, Dr. Charles Taylor, was a man sin-
gularly adapted to his work, loving and lovable, a ripe scholar,and
a courteous Christian gentleman. He easily fitted himself alike
to the lowly peasant or the critical member of the literati. He was
soon joined by such men as Dr. W. G. E. Cunnyngham and Dr.
D. C. Kelley, names known and loved throughout the bounds of
Southern Methodism.

The urgent need in these initial days was for large-hearted,
sympathetic, earnest preachers of the gospel; and if the entire
Church had been hunted over, no better man could have been
found to meet this need than Dr. J. W. Lambuth. A more single-
hearted, indefatigable servant of God never set foot on Chinese
soil. He had but one thought, one purpose, and that was to
bring the Chinese to Christ. His transparent character was eas-
ily understood by the objects of his devotion, and they repaid his
love in the same coin.

Ever extending the sphere of his labor, his boat became a fa-
miliar object throughout a radius of fifty miles around Shanghai.
On the streets, in the temples, or in the little rented chapels of
Tsing-pu, Nantziang, Kading, and many other places, he could be
seen, the center of a wondering crowd, as with earnest and often
tear-stained face he pleaded with them to receive Christ and his

REID.

An unsar-
passed evan~
gelistic cen-
ter.

The men se-
lected.

J. W. Lam-
pbuth, D.D.
REID.

Dr. Young J.:
Allen.

The Worid’s
Magazine.

372 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

salvation. His life was as powerful as his appeals. He was ‘a
living epistle, known and read of all men.”

When, after thirty-two years of faithful service in China, he was
transferred to pioneer our infant work in Japan, it was my fortune
to follow him in Shanghai as presiding elder of the district and
pastor of the Shanghai Station. I entered upon my work with
fear and trembling, and for a year was constantly oppressed with
the fear that the Church would suffer much by the change. It
doubtless did; but one day, after a specially happy effort, an old
and influential member of the congregation came to me with
tears :treaming down her face, and said: “Ah, to-day you re-
minded us of Lau Lan Sie-Sang” (the old teacher Lambuth).
After that I felt much more secure in my position.

Another early and urgent need of our Mission—and, in fact, of
the entire missionary movement in China—was men capable of
producing an effective and acceptable literature. China is a na-
tion of students, eager to read, but fastidious in the extreme. He
who seeks to catch and hold the attention of China’s literati must
conform to their high standard of style and clothe his arguments
with the skill of a past master in literature. Not only was the
man found, but without premeditated purpose of his own he was
put through the training for his delicate and important work.
Dr. Young J. Allen landed in China in 1859. Soon cut off from
home supplies, he was forced into the employ of the Chinese gov-
ernment; and, while maintaining himself and family by teaching
and translating in the Kiang-Nan Arsenal, he was constantly
thrown in contact with that bright and more advanced class of
Chinese officials which had been put forward to manage the dif-
ficult problem of intercourse with foreign nations. Finding in
him a man of wide and varied information, they sought his com-
pany and gave him their confidence. It will readily be seen how
easy it was for him, under these conditions, to become familiar
with the inner workings of the government, and come to a clear-
er understanding of its supreme need of that information without
which China must founder at the mercy of a greedy world.

Meditating on these things, he conceived the idea of a period-
ical that should give to the Chinese in their own language the
salient facts of Western religion, philosophy, and politics, and
such general information as should in a measure prepare them for
the constantly increasing contact with Western civilization. Out
of this seed thought has grown the Wan-Kwok-Kong-Pao (World's
FORWARD MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 373

Magazine). Becoming immediately popular, its circulation now
extends over the Straits Settlements, Japan, Korea, and the
western coast of America, and its influence would be hard to es-
timate.

This enterprise was soon followed by his “China and Her
Neighbors,” a publication that has gone through many editions
and is still widely read. Many other volumes have come from

REID.

his ready pen, the crowning work of all probably being his “His- _

tory of the Chino-Japanese War,” for which he has received the
grateful acknowledgments of three emperors.

On all his numerous publications he has put the broad mark of
allegiance to Christ, and through them ever proclaims the gospel
as the only true regenerating power and safe foundation upon
which private, social, or national life can be built. Who can
measure the influence of his work? Something of an idea may
be gathered from the words of Kang-Yu-Wei, chief adviser of the
Emperor in the reforms of 1898, and the leading Chinese patriot.
While a refugee from the Empress Dowager, in Hongkong, he
was interviewed by the editor of the China Mail. Among other
things, he said: “I owe conversion to reform, and my knowledge
of reform to two missionaries—Rev. Timothy Richards, Agent
of the English Baptist Society, and Dr. Young J. Allen, a mission-
ary of the Southern Methodist Episcopal Church of America.”

Such testimony from such a source should cause the heart of
every Southern Methodist to thrill with gratitude to Him who
called from among us, and has preserved in the field for more
than forty years, a life of such singular power.

Our educational work was no less providentially provided for.
After twenty-five years of heroic effort against stupendous odds,
our little band of workers had begun to enlarge their borders.
The pressing demand for trained native preachers and other as-
sistants was more and more making itself felt. Moreover, the
children of our converts were growing up around us, and we were
face to face with the imperative necessity of providing for them
the means of a Christian education. Just in the nick of time and
opportunity the right man for this important department of our
work appeared.

In the fall of 1875 Dr. A. P. Parker, now President of the An-
glo-Chinese College, joined our China Mission. He was at once
set apart for educational work, and the newly opened station of
Soochow was chosen as the field of his labors. Dr. J. W. Lam-

Other publica-
tions.

Educational
Work.

Dr A. P.
Parker.
REID.

Text-books.

Buffington
Institute.

Apparatus.

374 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

buth had already gathered the nucleus of a school around him at
Shanghai. These boys, mostly the sons of our converts, were
now removed to Soochow and put in charge of the new mission-
ary. Modest and unassuming, but possessed of more than com-
mon ability, indefatigable energy, and a warm, loving heart, Dr.
Parker set himself to his work with a faith that ignored difficul-
ties stupendous enough to have appalled a man of less resolved
purpose.

Teaching and studying, he made rapid strides in the acquisition
of the language, and in six months was so far advanced that he
could converse freely and preach effectively. Finding that there
was a paucity of text-books for the subjects he wished to teach,
he set himself to the work of translating them. In the course vf
time these text-books attracted wide attention, and he easily took
first rank among the acknowledged leaders in the work of Chris-
tian education in the empire.

Dr. Parker possesses in a large degree the power of repro-
ducing his habits and traits of character in his boys. Best of all,
he has the power of making them see Christ as he sees him, “the
one among ten thousand altogether lovely ;” and during the twen-
ty years that he was in charge of Buffington Institute few boys
passed through his hands without having felt the power of God
in salvation from sin. They usually came from his school de-
cided Christians.

In all his work he was ably assisted by his lovely and devoted
wife. Having no children, they lived frugally and turned all they
could save from their salary into apparatus for the school. It
was most interesting to visit his laboratory and workshop. Hav-
ing an inventive mind and a skillful hand, he manufactured a large
number of the instruments required in teaching natural philoso-
phy, chemistry, and mechanics. He connected himself with the
other mission compounds by telephone, and had his own electric
light. In all of this work he took his boys into close companion-
ship, and several of them came from his school skilled workmen
in wood and metal.

His usefulness extends far beyond our own mission. In the
great work of Bible translation ordered by the General Mission-
ary Conference in 1890 his well-known scholarship in the Chi-
nese classics won for ‘him a place on the Board of Translators.
He has several times been elected President of the Educational
Association of China, which office I believe he still holds. It is
FORWARD MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 375

not an overstatement to say that as a well-rounded missionary he
has few peers and perhaps no superiors.

Twenty-five years ago Soochow, while one of the most impor-
tant, was also one of the most difficult fields of the empire. It
had just been ravaged by the Taiping rebels and pillaged again
by the Imperial army that, under the ever-victorious Gordon and
Li Hung Chang, had recaptured the city. The suburbs were a
desolate heap of ruins, and even inside the city large sections of
ground were covered by nothing but a mass of débris. Order
had been somewhat restored, and the people who had fled to
Shanghai and other places were returning and rebuilding their
desolated homes. But the authority of the officials was still weak,
and the city was full of renegade Taipings and the human vul-
tures that prey upon a distressed community. The people
were proud, conservative, and, above all, superstitious. All
sorts of rumors were set afloat by evil-disposed persons, many of
which were started to make missionaries the scapegoats of out-
rages committed by bands of desperate ruffians.

For example, one of the outrages perpetrated was cutting off
the queue. Men would come off the streets, and to their con-
sternation find themselves without that appendage, so dear to
the heart of every Chinaman. To cover this bold robbery, it
was reported, and believed implicity, that the foreigner possessed
superhuman powers, among which was the ability to make him-
self invisible, and that in this way he went about plundering the
people of their hair, for use in foreign countries or to bewitch the
people. Many were found dead in houses and lonely places, and,
to prevent too close investigation, it was circulated about that the
foreigners were able to scatter little pieces of paper, and that these
papers, falling unnoticed upon a person, would within a few hours
crush his life out.

These are mere specimens of the numberless rumors that were
industriously circulated to arouse suspicion and hatred, and so
render it impossible for the missionary to make headway in his
work. It was evident that under these conditions something
more than mere preaching of the gospel was required. Its prin-
ciples must be incarnated in practical work and loving ministries
before the deep-seated prejudices excited by this crusade could
be expected to give way. Withthis in view, Dr. Walter Lambuth
began medical work in Soochow in 1882, assisted by Dr. W. H.
Park.

REID.

Early days in
Soochow.

Tales about
the foreigners.

A remedy
found.
REID.

Medical work.

Dr.2W..H.
Park.

Other physi-
cians.

376 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Under these two able physicians the medical department of our
mission was most successfully launched. The hospital planned
by Dr. Lambuth and erected under his supervision is, for simplic-
ity of construction, convenience, and suitability, the best I know
anywhere; and, after nearly twenty years, still remains a model
for mission uses. In China there is a very large class of ills in
the presence of which the so-called Chinese doctors are utterly
helpless, but which are immediately relieved under the knife or
treatment of a skillful Western practitioner.

Naturally, at first, the few applicants for treatment at our hos-
pital were poor people suffering from this class of ailments; but
facts are stronger than fancies, and as the news of what seemed
to be miraculous cures spread about, the calls for treatment be-
came more frequent and from a better class of people.

In 1886 China was deprived of the services of Dr. Walter Lam-
buth, and Japan gained him as the Superintendent of our young
mission in that empire. His work was taken up and has been
most successfully carried on by Dr. Park. Gradually but sure-
ly he has won his way into the confidence of all classes, and has
extended the influence of his work into the adjoining provinces
éi An-whei and Che-kiang, it being no unusual thing for men to
come hundreds of miles to put themselves under his treatment.

The large contributions from high officials and wealthy Chi-
nese that have recently come to us through his hands are a prac-
iical test of his influence with the upper classes, while the fact
that more than fifteen thousand annually seek relief at our hos-
pitals in Soochow gives some idea of ‘the volume of his work and
his popularity with the masses.

In his ministry of healing he has been nobly assisted by the
lady physicians sent out by the Woman’s Board. Dr. Philips,
Dr. Walter (now Mrs. Fearn), and later Dr. Margaret Polk, have
all won splendid laurels, and deserve no mean share of credit for
the wide influence our mission has acquired in Soochow and the
surrounding country, largely, I believe, through the agency ol
our medical work.

These four men (Drs. J. W. Lambuth, Y. J. Allen, A. P. Parker,
and W. H. Park) have not only been leaders of the departments
in which the efforts of our China Mission have been directed, but
have been acknowledged leaders of the entire movement through-
out the empire. They have made our little mission, one of the
smallest numerically in China, to take a foremost place among
FORWARD MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 377

the potent factors that are being employed for the regeneration
of a mighty nation.

That, in a climate so unfriendly that five years has been the es-
timated period of a missionary’s service, they and their noble
wives, without whom they could never have achieved this large
success, should have been spared to an aggregate of more than
two hundred and forty years, is to me a remarkable evidence of
the overshadowing providence of God.

In their arduous labors they have found able colleagues in Dr.
D. L. Anderson, Revs. G. R. Loehr, W. B. Burke, M. B. Hill, J.
L. Hendry, T. A. Hearn, Ed Pilley, W. B. Nance, and other men,
whose heroic lives and indefatigable labors have won for them the
grateful appreciation of the entire Church.

Onur Woman’s Board of Missions has been no less happy in the
selection of the work and workers which have supplemented and
strengthened the work of the Parent Board at every point. That
peerless mother of our mission, Mrs. J. W. Lambuth, laid the
foundation broad and sure. Upon her labors the Misses Ran-
kin, Miss Anna Muse, and a long list of devoted and effective
workers have entered. In the glorious record of woman’s work
for the women and children of China no names stand out clearer
than those of Laura Haygood, Mrs. J. P. Campbell, Mrs. Julia A.
Gaither, Jennie Atkinson, Elizabeth Hughes, Helen Richardson,
and others quite as worthy of mention.

Having been associated with most of these workers, I do not
remember a single misfit. How fragrant is the memory of those
quietly resting in the cemetery at Shanghai! and how precious
to us are the lives of the no less heroic living who cheerfully share
our toils and dangers and contribute so largely to our success!

3. So much has been said of the work in connection with re-
marks about the workers that this branch of our subject requires
only brief mention. We observe that the various departments
have been undertaken in the natural order of importance, and that
as each new step has become necessary both the men and the
means have been providentially provided.

In using the term “evangelistic” to name the first department,
it is not intended to imply that a single energy is expended on our
mission field that has not the salvation of the heathen as its chief
aim. It is merely used as a convenient word to distinguish that
part of the work incident to the direct preaching of the gospel.
This has ever been held in our China Mission as of the first impor-

REID.

A providence in
health.

Other mission-
aries.

Woman's
work.

The character
of the work.

Evangelistic.
REID.

Location of our
chapels.

Literary activ-
ities.

E2ucational
work.

378 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

tance. Several of our best men have given themselves to it ex-
clusively, and all have felt it a duty and a privilege to devote as
much time to the exercise of the high office of preaching the
word as could be spared from the more immediate interests com-
mitted to them.

In the selection of our chief preaching places we have been sin-
gularly fortunate. The chapels at Mo-long-ka and Kong-hong,
in Soochow, are excellent places to spread the gospel net, while
the more quiet situation of First Chapel at Tien-sz-tsong is
specially suitable for gathering our Christian congregation. Our
Central Church in Shanghai, which Bishop Wilson has recentiv
renamed Moore Memorial, is the best stand for evangelistic work
I know of anywhere. In easy reach of the choicest native ele-
ment of Shanghai, it is also well situated to catch the strangers
who for business or pleasure constantly throng the city. Our
handsome church here, the gift of a noble Missourian, will easily
seat four hundred, and I have often seen every foot of standing
room from door to altar packed with attentive listeners.

While Dr, Allen is perhaps more widely known in the field of
Christian literature for the Chinese than any other member of our
mission, he has been by no means our only contributor to this im-
portant department of work. Dr. J. W. Lambuth’s translations
of Binney’s “Compend of Theology,” Ralston’s “Elements of Di-
vinity,” and McTyeire’s ‘‘Catechism” have found large use out-
side our own mission, both in China and Japan. Dr. and Mrs.
Parker’s text-books have become standards in Christian schools
throughout the empire, while the elder Lambuth and others have
done excellent work in Bible and hymn book translation and re-
vision. We have borne our full share of this burden, and can
point with pardonable pride to the number and character of books
in the Chinese language that have been produced by members of

‘our mission.

In the work of education we have been specially ‘active and suc-
cessful. Clopton School, founded by Mrs. J. W. Lambuth in the
early days of our mission, because the mother and model of other
schools for girls at Nantziang and Soochow, and the McTyeire
High School is a legitimate outgrowth and development of work
in this line.

Out of the class of boys gathered by the elder Lambuth natu-
rally grew the Buffington Institute, which has been so fruitful in
supplying our mission with trained native workers. The con-
FORWARD MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 379

ception of the Anglo-Chinese College was an inspiration that has
opened for us a wide and effectual door to the higher classes and
extended our influence to all those departments of government
where a knowledge of English, Western literature, and science 1s
a sine qua non to official appointment, while the medical classes in
the hospitals at Soochow have grown out of the necessities of that
ever-enlarging work.

4. He who would measure the success of the missionary enter-
prise in its earlier stages by the number of converts that can be
counted show ignorance of missionary history and an immature
conception of the work to be done. Let it be remembered that
the entire missionary force in China could boast of only three
converts after thirty years of effort, and that after seventy years,
with greatly augmented forces, there were only thirteen thousand.

Our mission shared with others the immense labor of break-
ing down the apparently impregnable Gibraltars of difficulty that
barred progress. The foundations of Protestant Christianity in
China were laid out of the sight and sympathy of superficial ob-
servers, and in them many brave men and noble women put their
lives uncomplainingly, believing that in God’s good time he would
erect on them a temple of dazzling beauty, and fill it with the glory
of his presence. In later years, however, even measured by a
statistical standard, we have abundant evidence of God’s pres-
ence and blessing.

Since the organization of our Conference, in 1886, we have on
an average doubled our membership every four years, and now re-
ceive annually as many as we had accumulated in all the years pre-
vious to that event. The true measure of our work, however, is
the degree to which we have leavened the great mass of heathen-
ism around us, and made it possible to detach the individual
members therefrom.

It must be admitted that, for the large results achieved in this
direction, we are chiefly indebted to the educational and medical
departments of our work. It has been the gospel of patient and
loving ministry that has won the confidence and opened the ears
of those otherwise deaf to the preaching of the Word of God.

Take, for example, the city of Soochow. In the beginnings of
our work here, twenty-five years ago, the missionary was in con-
tact with danger and in constant peril of his life. The officials
hated us and used every possible method to prevent our getting a
foothold. The numerous and powerful literati, ignoring the tra-

REID,

The success
that has at-
tended the
work,

The true
measure.

Value of edu-
tional and
medical
work.
REID.

A change in
treatment.

The pillar that
has led us.

The awaken-
ing of China.

380 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

ditions of their class, were openly insolent, and incited the people
to violence by vile and slanderous placards which they had posted
everywhere. When we appeared on the streets, we were followed
by crowds of howling rowdies and half-grown boys, shouting after
us contemptuous epithets, among which “foreign devil” and “rob-
ber” were so comparatively mild as to almost seem respectful.
They feared us, believing that we possessed superhuman power
to harm; but they hated us so intensely that they could not re-
frain from insulting and injuring us whenever opportunity pre-
sented. We were constantly annoyed by petty thieving, hustled
in crowded streets, pulled against buckets of filth as if by acci-
dent, or greeted with a shower of dirt or brickbats in passing
places affording shelter for such attacks.

How marked the change! There are, of course, rowdies and
mischievous urchins still to be found in Soochow, and occasion-
ally one may hear a distant ““Yang-kwei-tsz” (foreign devil), which
is usually quickly suppressed; but for the most part we live in
peace. Even our ladies may safely pass through any part of the
city unattended and without disrespectful treatment. The peo-
ple, from the highest official to the humblest peasant, are not
only tolerant but in many cases most generously kind and ap-
preciative. Practical testimony of the change of sentiment to-
ward us is not wanting, and during the last two years it has accu-
mulated in a remarkable degree.

Thus far the pillar of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by
night has led us step by step, and step by step we have followed
on. It is not claimed that our workers have been faultless nor
that serious mistakes have been altogether avoided. No such
claim can be set up for the Israelites or the work of the apostles;
yet God fought the battles of the one, and the Holy Ghost di-
rected and inspired the other. To those most interested in our
China Mission, this pillar is seen to be lifting for another decided
move forward, and the direction is in the development of our edu-
cational work, and the first indication is the urgent need for such
a move.

By a succession of shocks, some of them exceedingly rude, the
giant empire has at last been fully aroused from the lethargic
slumber of ages to face a thousand new and unknown forces
which, with vehement and ever-increasing persistency, clamor at
her doors. She would fain shut them all out; but, finding this
impossible, she is beginning to realize thiat her very life depends
FORWARD MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 381

upon her ability to meet them with equal strength. Most nat-
urally, she first tried the ancient resources that had served her
so well in the past; but just as the ancient bow and spear utterly
failed her in the presence of the modern machine guns and steam
warships, so she finds that the obsolete classics and ancient folk-
lore of China provide her no defense against the more subtle
forces of advancing civilization. For years her most enlightened
statesmen, such as Li Hung Chang, Chang Chi Tung, Liu Kun
Ye, Kang Yu Wei, and even the young Emperor, have seen the
absolute necessity of mastering the secrets of Western power,
in order to provide themselves with the means of self-preserva-
tion.

The question was, Through what media shall this new knowl-
edge be introduced? Shall it be the missionary or the irreligious,
generally antireligious, instructor that can be had from France,
Germany, or the English-speaking nations? She tried a little of
both, and in trying learned some important lessons.

The result is that her most trusted men, in the Imperial Cus-
toms and other departments where foreigners are employed, are,
like Sir Robert Hart, stanch Christians. The President and sev-
eral of the teachers of the Imperial University, her most notable
effort at Western education, are missionaries. Additional evi-
dence that the best and most powerful statesmen in China prefer
the missionaries as teachers may be found in the appeal to Bishop
Hendrix made by Li Hung Chang in person: “Urge your people
tu send us more teachers and physicians.” £ or the last ten years
he has had a standing requisition for our boys at the Anglo-Chi-
ness College, and places before them offers of lucrative and hon-
orable employment so tempting that, in spite of all efforts, our
boys leave us long before we think them fit for the work. Wit-
ness also missionaries at the head of the great government schools
at Shanghai, and the persistent efforts of Liu Kun Ye, viceroy ot
the lower Yang-tse valley, to entice our own Dr. Parker away
from us to take the presidency of the university he wished to es-
tablish at Nanking. No, in spite of all the fuss that is made in
some quarters about the antipathy of the Chinese to missiona-
ries, let me say, with all the emphasis possible, that if the mission-
aries are not the men who shall lead China out into the light and
power of modern education, which in some way will surely come
to her, the fault—nay, the crime—will rest nowhere but on the
Church of Christ. We have it in our power to mold the

REID.

Wissionary vs.
exeptic.

The Christian
teacher in the
ascendamt,
REID.

Soochow Uni-
versity.

The Anglo-
Chinese Col-
lege.

The girls’
schoo).

382 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

leaders of anew China. Shall we grasp.the opportunity or shali
we weakly stand aside and let it pass to other hands?

Another indication is, that we are prepared for a forward move
by the work already so successfully accomplished. In fact, it is
the only legitimate and natural thing for us to do.

When we speak of establishing a university at Soochow, it is
not proposed to begin a great enterprise, but merely to complete
a work upon which we have been employed for twenty years, and
for which we have the material already in hand. Buffington In-
stitute, founded by the large-hearted Kentuckian whose name it
bears, has paved the way and will furnish candidates for the theo-
logical department.

The classes under Drs. Park, Fearn, Polk, and Trawick make
a splendid nucleus for the medical department, and the daily
clinics at our hospitals, where 15,900 patients are treated annually,
give opportunity for practical instruction not excelled by any of
the great medical schools of America or Great Britain.

The Anglo-Chinese College is doing the preparatory work for
the departments of literature and science. The only really new
feature that we shall have to add is that of practical engineering,
which the peculiar needs of China just at this time will make nec-
essary. For the most part, the work of the university will only
be the extension and enlargement of that which is already well
begun. All the schools of the mission will be correlated with it,
having curricula adjusted to and leading up to the higher work.

All the foregoing arguments in favor of enlarged educational
facilities for the Parent Board apply with equal force to the work
of the Woman’s Board. Side by side they have advanced with
us, beginning with the simpler day schools and gradually develop-
ing and enlarging the curricula of the boarding schools at Shang-
hai, Nantziang, and Soochow, until at last the way opened for
such work as is being done at the McTyeire School, founded by
Miss Haygood.

The time has now arrived when further development of work
in hand, and the constantly increasing demand for female educa-
tion on the part of the more enlightened Chinese, call for a more
comprehensive course and enlarged facilities. Our ladies have
decided to name this new enterprise the Laura Haygood Memo-
rial; and what more graceful tribute could a grateful Church pay
to the memory of her who so willingly and lovingly laid her peer-
less womanhood at the feet of her benighted Chinese sisters?
FORWARD MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 383

The last providential indication that I shall mention is the oppor-
tunity thrust upon us. That from a class of men which only a few
years ago regarded us with abhorrence and were ready to go to
any extreme to thwart and hinder our work should come the
proposition to establish for the benefit of their sons a great Chris-
tian school, and that they should back that proposal by pledging
$25,000 to inaugurate the enterprise, is one of the marvels of mis-
sionary triumph.

These men have trusted us. From avowed enemies they have
come to be not only friends but sympathetic and active colabor-
ers. All through the terrible troubles which have recently shaken
the empire to its foundations they have never wavered in their al-
legiance to us. On the contrary, they have, in the midst of these
unpropitious conditions, furnished all the money so far expended
in acquiring and inclosing our splendid campus of more than nine
acres. They now want to see what we are going todo. Prompt
and effective action on our part will stimulate their generosity,
and open the door for financial assistance from the gentry that
will go far toward solving the problem of self-support in our Chi-
na Mission; while a weak and hesitating policy will lose their con-
fidence and do irreparable injury to the prestige built by twenty-
five years of toil and sacrifice.

It is to me a cause for humble but glad thanksgiving that our
God has thrown wide open before our beloved Southern Metho-
dism the gate of this great opportunity. A failure on our part to
promptly enter in would be to slight the loud call of our Lord.
It would dishonor the noble dead who by lives of sacrifice have
paved the way to this work, and would dishearten the no less he.
roic living whom we have sent to do our work in a distant and dif-
ficult field, and who from their posts are now eagerly watching
to see what we will do with their appeal.

“No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looketh back, is
fit for the kingdom of God.”

REID.

The open door
great and
effectual.

Go forward.
Dr. Whisner.

384 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.
THE SITUATION IN CHINA.
BISHOP A. W. WILSON, D.D.

Nozopy regrets more deeply than I do the absence of our
brother, the Secretary of the Board of Church Extension, a man
of great capabilities, clear head, and sound judgment, and, with
all due respect to every one else in the Church, the best suited,
within my knowledge, for the work to which the Church has
called him.

I wish he were here, but a heavy stroke has fallen upon him.
His life has been darkened, and, like all true men and men of
strong faith, at such a time he feels that it becomes him to be
dumb with silence, because “Thou didst it.” And he sits in quiet-
ness, waiting until the weight of the heavy calamity shall have
been somewhat lightened by the stronger and fuller ministrations
of God’s grace.

His paper has been placed in my hands. Perhaps it would be
just to him to read it; but it will be printed, and I am going to let
you read it for yourselves,* and I shall take the opportunity to
dwell upon themes that are suggested in connection with the work.
It gives some statistics that are of value; and I shall cite one or
two of them, to let you see what the practical meaning of the
Church Extension organization is.

In eighteen years the general fund contributed by the Church
for Church Extension was $884,789.84; and to that amount you
may add $42,688.13 raised as “specials.” Of this amount, $811,-
242 has been donated to Churches. He tells the number of
Churches that have been helped, a very large number in all the
Conferences, and especially in the mission Conferences of the
West; and he makes an argument and an appeal to the Church
which I hope will be heeded. It is a work that belongs not simply
to the Church at home, largely as its objects and effects have been
confined to the field here; it has in occasional instances touched
the field abroad. We have one church in Japan that was built
through the Church Extension Board; and I may add that it is
the only church we have in Japan that was built by foreign funds.
They build their own churches over there; you don’t do it for
them, with this single exception.

 

* See page 300.
THE SITUATION IN CHINA. 385

In the Mexican and other fields the Church Extension Board
has contributed to the erection of churches. So it ought to be.
I wish we could get it thoroughly wrought into our thought and
feeling that the Conferences of Asia and Mexico and Brazil are
just as much a part of the great body of the Church as you that
are more centrally situated here, and ought to be represented and
cared for in all the plans of the Church.

It is rather a singular thing, to my mind, that whenever we
come before the Church Extension Board with an application on
behalf of a foreign Church, it is held to be somewhat exceptional,
and that the Board seems to be regarded as an institution for the
benefit of the home Church, which is amply able to take care of it-
self, and that it is a waste of its resources, or at least an unfair di-
version of its funds, to apply them to the foreign field. But it is
all one. “The world is my parish, and it is one parish,” Wesley
says; and that has been the watchword of Methodism from his
day untilnow. There is no limit, until we get beyond the atmos-
phere of the earth, to the operations of the Church; and not yet a
limit there, for unto the principalities and powers in heavenly
places is to be made known by the Church the manifold wisdom
of God.

We are striving to unite all the parts. They may be territori-
ally separated, but the ocean doesn’t amount to anything nowa-
days. We have steam and electricity. Men’s hearts beat along
the telegraph wires and through the cables, and the pulse is felt
on this side just as soon as it makes its stroke there. The sound
of the voice in Paris or London is heard, or will be shortly, at the
end of the new telephone cable on this side of the sea.

We don’t intend that there shall be a distinction. But there is
a distinction; just one; mark it. There are heathen nations and
there are Christian nations. That is the distinction. There are
heathen communities and there are Christian communities; but
that only puts the obligation on the Christian community the
more strongly to see to it that the heathen communities are put
in the right attitude toward God, and reclaimed from their deg-
radation. We cannot afford to let any spot of this earth of ours,
redeemed by the blood that stained the soil of Palestine, be held
under the dominion of demon or devil. It all belongs to Jesus
Christ, and we intend that he shall have it.

I simply want you to understand that. You are not commis-

17

WILSON.

Should the
Church Exten-
sion Board
help in the
foreign work?

The gospel for
every crea-
ture,
‘WILSON.

Twenty years
ago.

386 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

sioned to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to American people.
Go into all the world and preach it. Go where Christ wants you
to go. Go where Christ has sent you. Go where you are most
needed. If nobody will feed you, he will; if nobody will support
you, he will take care that you are supported, if you go where he
wants you to go.

The Church has been apathetic and neglectful. There is no
question about that. I have a great mind to indulge a little in
reminiscence. I was thinking of some things while Dr. Lam-
buth was reading from a paper summing up the present condi-
tions of office administration. When in 1878, greatly to my sur-
prise, the Church said, “You must go in and take hold of that
work,” I went into an office where there was not a clerk or a type-
writer. There wasn’t a thing there except a big debt and a mass
of correspondence that was strewn on the floor with brown paper
heaped over it and no classification of it. I didn’t know what lay
before me. It wasall chaos and confusion. They told me I must
do the missionary work of the Church. The Church apparently
didn’t care whether anything was done or not, and it was seriously
contemplating recalling all its missionaries and abandoning the
entire field. My wife and daughters were my clerks and letter
writers during the time I was there. If I could only have had an
assistant secretary, a clerk, and a typewriter, I might have done a
good deal more; but I had to do all the work in the field and let
my wife and daughter do the work in the office at home.

Well, that was the appointment and the furniture and every-
thing. Is it any wonder that I did not do any more? I had to
wake the conscience of the Church, too; and I went to work on
that. I did more: I dared to make a debt for the Church. We
had a debt already, and we had nobody in the field except the
veterans, Y. J. Allen and J. W. Lambuth, and one or two others.
The thing was simply dying of inanition, and so I told Bishop
Pierce at the Kentucky and Virginia Conferences that I was go-
ing to do something or quit—make a spoon or spoil a horn—and
that he must send some one out. He did so; and when I got to
Nashville the Board met and pounced down on me with all their
hands and feet because I had dared to ‘send additional men into the
field when they hadn’t any money and were in debt. I told them I
didn’t care if they were in debt, and I hoped they would get in
debt a good deal more; that if we were going to do any work we
THE SITUATION IN CHINA. 387

must do it at once; and if we weren’t going to do it, we might as
well disband the Church and quit; that we were not here to work
for ourselves. This stirred things up a little. We got some con-
tributions, and the eye of the Church began to be turned toward
the thing. So we made a start, and the impetus and momentum
have been increasing until we have men in the office to-day who
are capable of management, with wide knowledge and large expe-
rience, with their hearts in the work, and the Church has grown
so far as to give them clerks to do their writing.

Niow we have the outcome of twenty years of work in that office
and through all the field of the Church in this meeting to-day.
Sometimes I think it would be supreme joy, after our eyes are
opened on the light of that glorious world, just to sit down for a
few decades of centuries and talk with Paul and John, and go back
with Isaiah and Abraham, and learn just how it was and by what
spiritual processes they were led through the deserts of this world
and became the seed-sowers of life to ages after, planting the
truth upon foundations that could not be shaken. I should like
to hear them tell their experience. Yet I feel as if we have some-
thing close akin to it when we sit here with such people as Allen
and Lambuth, and Mrs. Lambuth and Carter and Tarboux.
When these Mexican and Chinese and Japanese and Brazilian
missionaries tell ws what they have done and the experiences they
have gone through, it brings us very near to the threshold of the
eternal city; and I don’t wonder that the gushing forth of the
fountain of life from these men has stirred this assembly to its
depths, to such an extent that the result poured forth in such con-
tributions as have been made to the great cause. You don’t know
what a marvelous load was lifted from my shoulders and my heart
when I found on last Sunday night the work of twenty years of
planning and thought andagonizing prayer consummated intoone
collection. We know this glorious work will be done now, if we
were in doubt before. I have said, from the time I entered upon
the work, when the Board determined it should be done, “It shall
be done.” An old friend of mine over in Maryland, a man of
wealth and profound interest in the Church, and a very good man,
said to me when I told him what was proposed: “You will never
be able to doit.” “It must be done,” I said; “and it shall be done,
if there is a God in heaven!” And we have got to the point now
where we know it will be done. You can’t stop it. You have

WILSON.

‘* Stirring
things up.’’

Value of this
Conference.
WILSONe

Soochow Uni-
versity.

Present status
ef education
in China.

388 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

sent out currents of life and electrical force that are going to touch
every sensitive spot in the Church’s heart and body, throughout
its whole extent ; and when the answer comes back, we shall know
that the Church is extending in every direction, in its spiritual
force and educational life, and in every movement that promises
to bring the world nearer to Christ and turn the eyes of men till
they are focused upon the face of the Son of God. We are going
to do it.

I have not done much; I wish I could have done more, but I
have been unequal to the demand made upon me and have not
been furnished up to the requirements of the situation; but it has
been the joy of my life that for more than twenty years I have
been identified, heart and soul and life and brain and hand, with
our missionary work, It has been the one chief thing with me.
I expect to die with “China” and “Japan” written upon my heart.
T don’t intend to give up. I can’t give up my interest in these
things until with my last lingering breath I pronounce his name,
and even then I will declare him Lord of all.

The special movement which was in- contemplation Sunday
night, and which has been on our minds for so long, has a sig-
nificance which I may say without hesitation cannot be appreci-
ated by any one who has not been on the spot and had a thorough
understanding of the conditions and life of the people. It is not
simply to give the people an education that shall lift them out of
ignorance and free themfrom superstition, but it is almost the only
hope we have of bringing Christ into the thought and life and
homes of Chinese people. Education is the one dominant idea
with them. It rules everywhere, and they don’t think that any-
thing can be done without it, and the stamp that is put upon edu-
cational process is the stamp that will be put upon their home life,
upon their social life, upon their civil life. If you will make the
education a Christian education, it will affect every man in the
empire, from the Emperor down to the lowest coolie. That is the
meaning of it. We can’t afford to let the question stand in abey-
ance. We want, and we intend to have in fullest measure, what
you call evangelical work. Our educational work is evangelical,
but we mean to have the preaching of the gospel direct, in all its
simplicity and force, and all the time; and every man that goes
there to help in the work of education goes to preach the gospel.
If he does not do that in his personal intercourse with the people,
THE SITUATION IN CHINA. 389

in the pulpits of the Church, on the platform, and in every way he
can, we don’t want him. We don’t want any man that will not
stand out as the living and vocal representative of Jesus Christ
before the people. We want that distinctly understood. We
want first-class laymen for our teachers. I wish we could get
laymen that would grow up to the measure and stature of such
men as Landon Garland and James Carlisle, to send out there
and let them devote their consecrated manhood and scholarship
and energy and spiritual life to this educational work, and along
with it the amelioration of the social conditions and,the teaching
of Jesus Christ among the people. A good body of laymen of that
sort among our schools in China would be worth more to us than
preachers. We can use the preachers outside of the school, and
we can use the laymen inside the school; we cannot use the
preachers entirely. It has been thought that we must have only
preachers for missionaries. Well, 1 sent a layman to Japan a
number of years ago as a missionary; sent him there to teach. I
won’t say he was the best of them, but there were none better than
he, anyhow. But (I was going to say, very unhappily) he would
not remain a layman, and after he had been teaching them and
preaching to them, setting forth Christ to them privately and in
such ways as he could, they pressed him into service in the minis-
try and had him licensed and ordained; and he is a full-fledged
member of the Conference now, and a first-rate one, too. Well, I
can’t regret that, but we want laymen still. Why is it that the
whole business of converting souls is thrown upon the preacher?
Who ever authotized such a thing? Who ever required such a
thing? It is not God’s ordinance. Does James mean only
preachers when he says : “Let him know, that he which converteth
the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death?”
Does he mean the preacher only, and nobody else, to do that sort
of work? Not by a great deal. And I want to say to you that
the work of the Church of God in the foreign and the home lands
never will be done until every layman and every laywoman in the
Church shall do just exactly what God wants him and her to do,
in a distinctly spiritual and evangelical direction.

But I don’t wish to be diverted from the real point at issue.
We have a field out there that is widening every day. I won’t
stop to talk of Japan, particularly interested as I am and great as
its needs are; but some day we shall have to take that up and deal

WILSON.

Laymen need-
ed too.
WILSON.

What the
Boxer out-
break will be
worth.

Fortitude and
zeal of the
Chinese
Christians.

390 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

with it as we are proposing now to deal with China, The pecul-
iar situation there demands attention, and immediate and urgent
attention. The outbreak there sometimes makes me think of a
little parable spoken by one of the parties, that I read in some lit-
tle book some time ago (I don’t remember the name of it now).
There was a young girl that was thrown from a horse and injured,
and, from being an immensely active and energetic girl all the day
at some sort of movement, she became absolutely helpless, pros-
trate. A young preacher of the gospel said to her : “Look out on
that prairie; how bleak and barren it is!” “Yes.” “Well, look
down yonder, where there was once an earthquake, which rent and
rove the surface of the plain, caused great cracks and ravines, and
threw up the rocks from beneath. If you will look down there,
you will see all sorts of things growing—trees and flowers such as
the prairie never saw! Well, God has smitten you in the same
way, but out of the caverns in your spiritual life will come up a
new growth of beauty and life such as you never dreamed of, just
as out of that storm-riven prairie have come flowers and trees.”
So, out there, the storm of war has broken up the even sur-
face of Chinese life, and we are already getting some experience
such as the world has never seen. You talk about the martyrs of
the early ages, and their constancy and devotion. They never
surpassed that which we have seen within the past year over in
China. You talk about the simplicity and purity and beauty of
the Christian character under such conditions. You should have
seen the easy and calm demeanor of those Christian Chinese dur-
ing that trying time. When all this storm was going on, shak-
ing the atmosphere about them, they were utterly placid and as un-
moved as though the perfect sun of God’s kingdom were shining
about them. They stand unappalled and unashamed, and all they
ask is that you just help them where they can’t help themselves.
That they are willing to do what they can among themselves you
have had evidence. There is a young man in this audience who
represents his father, who gave $1,500 to the cause and stands
ready to give a good deal more; he gave $500 himself, and when
he goes home and tells them what he did, there will be an eager
and glad response from others. The Chinese are going to help
build that school. If they are heathen, they have come to appre-
ciate our good will toward them, and something of the end we
THE SITUATION IN CHINA. 391

have in view. They have become entirely friendly to our oper- W™°-
ations.
I picked up a North China paper a day or two before I left, and
it contained an account written by a Presbyterian minister of a
new departure in school operations at Soochow. A young China-
man had undertaken to open a primary school upon the basis and
with the idea of our Western educational methods. All the hum-
bug and obsolete memorizing process of the Chinese school was
laid aside and a rational system introduced. The curriculum of The new eda-
the school was given, and when he started out they said: “You oo
can’t succeed; the Chinese can’t appreciate a thing of that sort,
and the children won’t learn under that system.” He said he
would try it anyhow. The school was crowded inside of a year,
and children learned more rapidly than they had ever learned un-
der 'the old system. The parents saw this, and were taken with it,
and since that time he has opened five schools of the same sort,
and radically reversed the whole system of Chinese education in
that community. He himself is a teacher in our school at Soo-
chow, and will be one of the teachers in the college when we build
it. The way is open for us, and they are asking for what we pro-
pose to give them.
That is how the situation stands. I told you the other night
that Soochow was a great city and a wealthy city. I had tosay a
good deal ina very short time. It is a wealthy city of ancient re-
pute. It has ancient traditions behind it and ancient memo-
ties, it was once as packed and as crowded as any part of this
city of yours; but in the Taiping Rebellion the armies came in
and swept it until one-half the surface was laid waste and inside
the walls are great blank spaces ; and if you will dig down, you will
come across the stones and the bricks of the old habitations that soochow.
used to be there. There is no soil there. And still there are
half a million of people there, and they still retain their pride and
culture and wealth, and they glory in the position they sustain in
relation to all the rest of China. They pride themselves as being
of the highest caste and the most exclusive set in the empire; and
these are the people who, of their own accord, have come to help
in the establishment and extension of the work that we have un-
dertaken among them. They are even asking us to make haste.
And there is another thing that I wish to say here, though it is
not directly in my line. I can’t leave it out, because nobody else
WILSON.

An effectual
door for the
women,

392 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

has said it, although there was a reference to it by Dr. Allen. It
is to you women of the Church. What do you mean by your de-
lay? You said a year ago that you were going to raise a Twenti-
eth Century Offering to build the Laura Haygood Memorial at
Soochow, but I understand that the Twentieth Century Offering
has not amounted to $40,000 altogether. What is the matter
with you? I thought that the women in our Church had some
zeal and energy and devotion; but if you are only going to stick
to this routine business of ten cents a month collected from your
organizations, and when an appeal is made to you like this you
have no response for us, then 1 am astonished. JI am surprised,
and I can only say: “Heaven help you!”” You won’t be worth as
much as Eve was when she offered the apple. She could stir her
husband, but you will lose the power to do that. I have said
before that that school must be built; and if you don’t do it, we
will. Dr. Allen is absolutely right in the position he takes in re-
gard to the women of China. He is absolutely right when he
says that that school must be developed. And he is more right
than he thinks. I witnessed what he did not: the appeal of the
Chinese parents to our educators in Soochow to do the same
thing for their daughters which they were trying to do for their
sons. They want it, and that itself is a revolution in China. It
breaks down the old Chinese prejudice. They didn’t care for the
girls. What did they amount to? they have no souls. I remem-
ber when Miss Rankin went to Nantsiang they sneered at the idea
of a woman teaching anybody, and especially girls, but they got
over that; and now they understand that when the American
woman, with her hand in the hand of the Son of God, comes into
a Chinese community she means business of the highest sort.
They have learned that, and to-day they earnestly seek for the
very thing that a score of years ago they would have repudiated.

O ye women of Southern Methodism, bring your money, bring.
your alabaster box of ointment and break it here. Let the per-
fume of it go throughout the Church, to move the heart of all
womanhood in our Southland until they shall gladly come and
minister to Jesus of Nazareth in the person of those whom he
wants to save, the women and the girls of China. Make haste
about it; we want it now.

I wish I had brought here a plan of the building we propose to
put up in Soochow to let you see on what a scale we doit. We
THE SITUATION IN CHINA. 393

want to get the Chinese impressed and make them understand
that we are going to do just as well for them as we would do for
our young men at home. It would be a mean thing to do less.
Christianity never does anything but offer its very best, every-
where and always. It never lowers its standard. The very best
thing that God has to give he has offered, not to you and me only,
but to all the world; and he holds us bound to do the same thing
when we come to our operations in his name and behalf. So we
propose to put up a building there that will represent fairly the
estimate we have of the value of this work, and which will afford
room and facilities for the process of education that we intend to
carry through. We intend to give them men—I mean men; I
don’t mean figures of men, pretenders; I mean men—we intend
to give them men to do the work; for after all, Gen. Garfield’s
notion of education is about right when he said it was represent-
ed by a slab board with a pupil on one end and Mark Hopkins at
the other.

The buildings are of no account without the men. I remember
when a certain dignitary of our Church, an admirable man whom
T hold in highest esteem, was looking through Heidelberg for the
great buildings of the university, he made inquiry of a certain gen-
tleman: “Where is your university?’ He seemed not to under-
stand at first, but by and by he got hold of the idea. “O,” he said,
“our university is here,’ tapping his head. That’s all the an-
swer he gave. .

We want men, and we have got to have all the appliances and
agencies that are requisite to let these people know just what
Christianity does, is doing, and has done. It is not only true that
the coal and iron of the earth belong to the Protestant Church;
but all the great advance in art, in science, in literature, in me-
chanics, and in everything else is due to Protestantism. It has
stirred the mind and heart.of the world. There is a point beyond
which the nations somehow seem to be unable to go, until they
get the freedom that Christ gives. China invented printing, but
never had anything in the way of a newspaper, except the Peking
Gazette, until the Christian powers came in and taught them how
to run it. The Chinese invented gunpowder, and the whole ex-
pression of its might was in firecrackers until the Christian na-
tions came in with their firearms. China has gold enough in her
bowels to supply the world, but she is just tapping the surface

WILSON,

The building
at Soochow.

Buildings use-
less without
men.

China’s ar-
rested devel-
opment,
394 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

WaESO: here and there, simply enough to supply a few ships. Some of
these days some of our great Americans will dig into the earth
and reveal its riches. China has gold and silver, and everything
else that a nation needs, but there is nobody there to get hold of
it. She has gone to a certain level beyond which she has never
been able to rise. Touch her with the life-giving power of the
Son of God, and you will see such a nation with such resources
as this world has never yet beheld. The Roman Empire will be a

small thing to it.

 

THE STORY OF THE SIEGE OF PEKING*
REV. FRANK D. GAMEWELL, PH.D.

I am to speak of the siege in Peking, and I wish, above all
things, to emphasize the providence of God. I cannot speak on
this subject without putting special emphasis upon our provi-
dential deliverance. I realize that I stand in the presence of
those whose prayers followed us all last summer, and I wish to
say that those prayers were not only instrumental in our final de-
liverance, but that in some strange way their influence reached
around the world and strengthened our hearts during all the
stress and strain of those days and weeks.

In the first place I would call your attention to the providen-
tial warnings of impending trouble. The so-called Boxer move-
ment may be traced to the autumn of 1898, when the Empress

Omens of Dowager practically deposed the Emperor. Through the fol-
eo lowing year there were frequent signs of trouble in the Province
of Shantung, more particularly at the London Mission Station
at Heng-Shui and at the American Board Mission Station at
Pang-Chia-Chuang, where Dr. Arthur H. Smith, author of the
well-known “Chinese Characteristics,” is stationed. The trou-
ble still spread northward, and first made itself felt in Peking
about the beginning of May. In our afternoon Sunday school
there was a large increase-in the attendance of men, and we were
informed that of those present many were connected with the
Boxers. Rumors had reached us of trouble at Pa-Chou, forty
miles from Peking, and near this point three preachers con-

 

* Reported by the New York Advecate.
THE SIEGE OF FEKING. 395

nected with the London Mission were killed, their bodies being
hacked to pieces and thrown into the river. Repeated repre-
sentations of these troubles were made to the foreign Ministers
in Peking, and these in turn represented the trouble to the Chi-
nese officials, who in turn assured the Ministers that there was
nothing to be feared. The Ministers hesitated to bring foreign
troops into Peking, knowing that their presence in the capital
would cause irritation.

On the morning of May 28 the station at Fengtai was de-
stroyed; also the adjoining buildings connected with the rail-
road. The imperial troops had been placed there to protect the
station and everything connected with it. It was really the Chi-
nese government destroying its own property. Our communi-
cation with the outside world was then cut off. It was restored
temporarily on the following day, and an emergency call was
sent to Tien-tsin for the troops of various nationalities, who were
at once hurried to Peking. The American troops came so rap~
idly that they did not provide a change of clothing, and during
the first days of the siege our American ladies were engaged
in making clothing for them from Chinese material.

In some respects the strain during May was heavier than that
of the days that followed. The suspense of those weeks of an-
ticipation was wearing in the extreme. One messenger would
come in and tell his tale of pillage, arson, and murder, and be-
fore he had finished his tale of woe another would arrive, and
it reminded one of the book of Job. One day an old man came
in from a point fifty miles south of Peking, and told us his home
had been destroyed and his family had been killed. He was
hardly through his story when another came in with his tale of
woe. All through the month of May these rumors, founded on
actual occurrences, increased, and we heard that the Boxers
were drilling in the temples which surrounded us. The Bud-
dhist temples were the headquarters of the movement. Then we
heard that they were drilling in the palace of Prince Tuan, and
finally in the imperial palace itself. Rumors continued to reach
us, and our anxiety increased. We considered what we could
do, but there was really nothing to do but to go steadily on with
our work, carry to our representatives the reports that came,
and await developments.

We finished our educational work on May 29, and held the
closing exercises in connection with Peking University. The

GAMEWELL,

First outbreak
against rail-
way, and ar-
rival ef ma-
rines,

Sufferings of
native Chris-
tians.
GAMEWELL,

Interruptien
of communica-
tion,

Semisiege in
the Methodist
mission.

396 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Girls’ High School fortunately had planned to continue a week
or two longer. North China Conference of our Church was ap-
pointed to convene on. May 31. We had our session, though
without a bishop, as it was the month of the General Confer-
ence, and on Monday, June 4, the appointments were read. Dur-
ing all these days we had been perplexed as to the right course
to pursue. Some thought it would be best to congregate in
Peking. We knew that Peking was either the safest or the
most dangerous place in the empire; and if anything happened
to the government, we realized that it would be the most dan-
gerous place. We told the native preachers that we could not
advise them; it might be better to scatter or it might be better
to remain in Peking. A number of them left on the train early
Monday morning, and that train on Monday morning was the
last that left Peking. Communication with Tien-tsin was finally
cut off that day, June 4. The marine guards had reached Peking
just four days before. Had there not been the warning of the
first temporary interruption of communication, and had not
those four hundred and fifty men reached Peking, every man,
woman, and child among the foreigners would have been mas-
sacred. For twelve days preceding June 20, when the actual
siege began, we were in a sort of semisiege.

This was in the Methodist Mission, which had been selected,
as.it was nearer the Legislature than any other mission, and also
because of its more ample accommodations in the way of build-
ings. The experiences of these days of semisiege stood us in
good stead for the more serious experiences we were to meet
later on in the British Legation, when there was to be added
difficulty of doing under fire whatever we did.

Various committees were organized for our protection—com-
mittees on fortification, food supply, fuel supply, and a fire pa-
trol. A fire patrol was necessary, for we had to contend against
the burning of our property. The streets leading to the mission
property were barricaded. The church windows were taken out
and the windows bricked up, being loopholed for rifle fire.
Various walls were heightened. The girls of the high school,
one hundred and seventeen in number, were gathered together
in the church as night came on, water was boiled and stored in
earthenware vessels, and a supply of rice was provided, and other
arrangements made for a siege. Within the church we felt that
we could hold out against the Boxers, but not against the im-
THE SIEGE OF PEKING. 397

perial troops. The church was about one hundred and fifty yards
from the city wall, and so we knew the position would be unsafe
if we were attacked by the troops. We had at last to give up
our position. We lost all our property, but we had held out a week
longer than any other mission in the city, and it was a decided
advantage to prevent the earlier crowding into the close quar-
ters of the British Legation, and to have acquired the experience
of these days of the semisiege. We were in constant commu-
nication with Maj. Conger, the United States Minister, who, in
connection with the Ministers of the various nations, was doing
his utmost to press the Tsung-li-Yamen to take active measures.
against the Boxers. On Tuesday, June 19, I received a letter
from Maj. Conger saying that the foreign office had sent him a
dispatch stating that all foreigners must leave Peking within
twenty-four hours. To leave meant two days of hard traveling
by cart over rough roads and through a hostile country. There
were over fifty women and children, and the thermometer was
ranging from 80 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The Ministers rep-
resented that they could not take the journey, and that they must
have adequate protection in Peking. On the following morn-
ing (June 20) Mr. Cordes, the Secretary and interpreter of the
German Legation, was brought, seriously wounded and in an al-
most fainting condition, into my house at about nine o’clock.
From him we learned that he had started with Baron Von Ket-
teler, the German Minister, to visit the foreign office, and that
when they reached Honorary Archway, on Hata Street, a white-
buttoned mandarin, with a peacock feather in his hat, rode up
to the chair of Baron Von Ketteler and fired, killing him in-
stantly. Mr. Cordes was also fired upon and seriously wounded,
but escaped and finally reached the Methodist Mission. We
then knew that the imperial troops had opened fire. I thold in
my hand a copy of the New York Swn of June 17, which contains
a cablegram sent as a special from Hongkong, under date of
Saturday, June 16, at 4:30 P.m., which cablegram contains the
announcement of the murder of Baron Von Ketteler. I leave
you to your own explanation as to how this event could have
been anticipated in the New York papers four days before its
actual occurrence.

It had been our plan, in connection with the preparation made
for holding the Methodist Mission, that in case of attack by the
government troops our position should be abandoned, as its

GAMEWELL,

Murder of
German Min-
ister.
GAMEWELL.

Concentration
in British Le-
gation,

The line of
march.

Native cor-
verts.

398 THE SIEGE OF PEKING.

proximity to the city wall made it untenable, and we were to
gather at the British Legation for our final stand. Shortly after
the murder of Baron Von Ketteler, Maj. Conger sent word to us
that we must abandon our place at once. I am sure you will be
glad to hear that previous to this we had taken the precaution
to carry all the deeds of our mission property to the United
States Legation, and in this way all our deeds have been saved.

I want to say a word about the remarkable fortitude of the
Chinese men and women, and particularly of the schoolgirls.
It was a pathetic sight to see the way the girls met the alarms.
There were one hundred and seventeen of these schoolgirls.
Several false alarms had been given, and they had been hurried
into the church, but it was noticeable that these Chinese girls
were never stampeded; they marched as quietly under these
most trying conditions as they did to an ordinary Sabbath serv-
ice. We had just an hour’s notice, and the procession that
formed on that hot June morning out in the Filial Piety Alley
would have impressed you. First, there were fifty odd foreign
women and children, guarded by the United States marines.
Following these were one hundred and seventeen schoolgirls,
accompanied by their ever-faithful teachers. These, in turn,
were followed ‘by the Chinese converts, women and children.
Then there were some four hundred or five hundred men and
boys, native Christians, laden down with whatever they could
carry. And finally the German marines carrying on a stretcher
the wounded interpreter, Mr. Cordes. Stretched along the line
were some twenty odd foreign missionaries. When the proces-
sion started out, the streets were lined with crowds of Chinese.

We wondered during the semisiege what to do with our native
converts. We felt that if they were shut wp in the church dis-
ease would destroy them, so great was the crowd. And again
we knew that if compelled to abandon our mission property
there would not be room for them within the Legations. But
God solved the problem for us. Prof. James and Dr. Morrison,
on the morning of June 20, had gone to Prince Su and obtained
permission from him for the Chinese converts to occupy a part
of his palace building. It was remarkable that he should con-
sent, but probably he thought in so doing his property would be
protected.

The procession passed slowly westward through Filial Piety
Lane, then southward along the great Hata Street, first to the
THE SIEGE OF PEKING. 399

American Legation and then retracing our steps a short distance
eastward, and turning abruptly northward along the canal, we
entered the British Legation.

We had heard from Capt. McCalla, only twenty-eight miles
away, and had daily expected the relief column. We went into
the Legation expecting at most to be there only a few days. How
well it was that on that Wednesday afternoon of June 20 we
could not know all the days and weeks that must pass before
the relief column should finally reach us on August 14! We
reached the British Legation about two o’clock on Wednesday
afternoon, June 20. I need hardly tell you that there was in-
describable confusion. The Ministers of eleven nations and cit-
izens and subjects of seventeen nationalities were crowded into
the British Legation, with only an hour’s warning. We began to
organize, and it was here that the organization formed at the
Methodist Mission in the days of the semisiege stood us in
good stead. We had committees on fortifications, food, fuel,
water supply, and a fire patrol.

Again I would call your attention to God’s protecting care.
In the march we were practically defenseless; and if the Chinese
had got in position and opened fire upon us from the roofs of
their houses, or from the city wall, our line would have been cut
to pieces. As it was, that long line of between six hundred and
seven hundred souls reached the Birtish Legation without the
loss of a single life.

About three o’clock in the afternoon I went with one of the
ladies connected with the Girls’ High School to Prince Su’s
palace to help her in the arrangements necessary for locating
the girls. There I met Prof. James, of the Imperial University.
It was he who, with Dr. Morrison, secured the right from Prince
Su to occupy the southern portion of the palace. I said to Prof.
James that I was afraid the government was in league with the
Boxers; but he said in reply he had assurance from Primce Su
that the Chinese troops would not fire upon the foreigners.
Shortly afterwards, Prof. James, when attempting to return to
the British Legation by the way of the North Bridge, was fired
upon by government troops and killed.

On the first night of the siege I was asked to stand guard at
one of the windows of the students’ quarters in the British Lega-
tion, and consented. The Chinese were firing at us from the
southern walls of Hanlin Academy, only a few yards away, and

GAMEWELL.

The first re-
lief column.

The imperiai
troops begin
firing.
GAMEWELL,

Fortifying,

Faithfulness
of Chinese
Christians,

400 "GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

as two of us were standing guard at the window we afforded an
excellent target, and I felt that I should like the window filled
up with something. As regards the matter of fortifications we
simply went on the common sense basis that, if a man is firing
at you and intends to keep on firing at you, and has facilities to
continue firing, and you are not able to dislodge him, the sooner
you get something between you and him the better, and up to
a certain extent the more you get between you and him the
better.

I would emphasize the fact that without the Chinese converts
we could not have held our position. Maj. Conger recognized
this fact in a letter to the missionaries at the close of the siege,
in which he says that “without your intelligent and successful
planning and the uncomplaining execution of the Chinese, I be-
lieve our salvation would have been impossible.” Let it clearly
be understood that our Chinese were faithful. They stood by
us. Again and again I asked men in this work of fortification
to go to most difficult posts, and they went.

While we were still in the Methodist mission a little, begrimed
Chinese boy,emaciated with disease, one day followed Dr. Ament,
who had ventured out, back to the gate, and begged to come in.
With some difficulty he was recognized as a poor apprentice who
had once or twice come to the Congregationalist Sunday school.
He had been driven out by his master, who feared to have one
around him who had even so much as touched the foreigners.
We took him in, and later he went with us to the British Legation.
During the siege, after we were in despair of getting a letter to
Tien-tsin, as many messengers had been lost, this boy, Liu Wu
Yuan, volunteered to go. When some one remarked, “Why,
you are half dead now,” he replied, “All right; so much less of
me'to get killed.” The note, wrapped in oiled paper, was put at
the bottom of a bowl of porridge, and he was let down over the
wall by night. Sleeping in cornfields by day, traveling by night,
hiding in ruined villages and muddy ditches, certain to be torn in
pieces if discovered by the enemy, he gradually made his way
over the eighty miles to Tien-tsin, where he delivered the only
message that went out from the prisoners to the world during the
siege. More than that, he received a reply, and, returning as he
had gone out, succeeded in entering the city of Peking, making
his way to the Legation and delivering his message. I think you
THE SIEGE OF PEKING. 401

will agree that this errand required not only courage and endur-
ance but intelligence and resourcefulness of a high order.

These Mauser bullets I hold in my hand were captured after
the siege. We thought the Chinese had exhausted their supply
after firing on us for fifty-six days, but we found large boxes of
them unopened; we also found rifles and both rapid-firing and
Krupp guns unused. These bullets we found penetrated only
about a quarter or half an inch into the bricks. We also found
out the force of the Krupp shells by watching their effects.
When the shells struck an eighteen-inch wall they went through
that, and again went on through another eighteen-inch wall, and
then exploded in the air. The shells that they fired were not
percussion shells, but time shells, and in many cases they were
ill-timed and went over us, exploding in the air.

In protecting life we made extensive use of sand bags. The
Legation furnishings, were torn down and carpets torn up. Silks
and satins and costly curtains were used for making sand bags.
When we first entered the Legation I found it necessary to urge
the men to protect themselves with sand bags. I told them that
sand bags were cheaper than human life. On the second day
of the siege something occurred that made them all want the
bags. One of the British marines exposed himself to the enemy,
and was instantly killed, being struck in the head by a Mauser
bullet. This startled the men, and after that the demand for
sand bags was more than we could supply. We kept on making
them right up to the day when the allied forces reached Peking.
In addition to the protection of sand bags we had to fortify our-
selves against artillery fire. As the shells used would go through
about forty-eight inches of masonry, we calculated that about
seven feet of wall and earth would give ample protection. A
sergeant told me that in one wall that protected us nine shells
struck within a comparatively small area, but none of them had
penetrated it. We continued this work of fortification until we
had on the north a triple line of defense, first for artillery fire,
within which were countermining defenses from twelve to four-
teen feet deep. Back of this some fifteen yards was a second line
of defense well loopholed for rifle fire. Back of this again
a third line of defense. To the west there was also a double line
of defense. But notwithstanding that our position became daily
stronger, if the Chinese had been willing to pay the inevitable

GAMEWELL,

Studies in
ballistics.
GAMEWELL.

Why the
Chinese did
not storm the
Legation.

Danger from
burning build-
ings.

402 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

price of life, they could certainly have taken our position, and
by force of mere numbers have overwhelmed us.

I feel that in some way God inspired their hearts with fear;
and if asked why they did not overwhelm us, I would answer:
God would not let them. During the siege they threw into the
British Legation twenty-eight hundred shells. Maj. Scott, of the
Royal Engineers, when going over the fortifications with me
after the siege, and witnessing the terrific work of shot and shell,
said to me that it was a marvel that a man survived to tell the
tale, and then, looking at me more directly, he said: “The rea-
son is in prayer. Probably there never has been a time in the
history of the world when such a volume of prayer has ascended
to God for any one as has ascended from all parts of the world
for you who have been besieged in Peking.” And I believe that
God answered the prayers not only in strengthening our hearts
but in restraining the Chinese. Again and again the only answer
I can give why they did not overwhelm us is that God would not
let them. I give that as the final explanation.

Now as regards some of the dangers. There was, of course,
in the first place, the danger from shot and shell. Had the con-
struction in Peking been of wood, the Mauser bullets would
have penetrated the walls, and we should have been cut to pieces
within the first twenty-four hours; but in Peking the houses are
of brick. The seven acres of space in the British Legation are
surrounded by high brick walls. Of course our first duty was to
reénforce and fortify the weakest points, such as the gateways
and the exposed parts of the higher buildings; and then, as time
allowed, to fortify ourselves against artillery fire and to extend
a line of countermines.

Again there was great and constant danger from incendiary
fires, and the ‘Chinese sought to destroy us by setting fire to the
highly inflammable buildings which surrounded the British Lega-
tion. Failing in their efforts to burn us out by destroying prop-
erty to the west, they afterwards fired the Hanlin Academy, with
its, from a Chinese standpoint, priceless literary treasures. A
strong wind was blowing from the north, and some one said,
“If the Chinese set fire to the Academy to-day, we are gone,” and
they did set fire to it that day. There was no fire department in
Peking, and we had to depend entirely upon wells, had only
hand fire engines. We formed a bucket line and fought it, and
the wind, which was blowing from the north, changed to the
THE SIEGE OF PEKING. 493

west, and we were saved. Then again there was danger from
disease. Peking is very unhealthy under the best conditions.
We were under heavy strain day and night for many weeks. We
lived on horse and mule flesh, brown bread, and brown rice, and
yet in some marvelous way God preserved our health. God won-
derfully preserved the lives of the workers in China, and I take
it as an earnest that the work there is not done.

The gathering of the North China Conference brought together
our own preachers, and at the same time the Congregational
Mission was holding its Annual Conference at Tingehou, twelve
miles away, and a large number of their preachers had gathered
together; and the warnings of the approaching storm caused
many of the helpers and preachers to come in from the country.
In this way the lives of many of those who have been trained
for the work of evangelization have been spared.

Two of our preachers were killed during the siege. One of
them, Wang Cheng Pei, you will remember as having wheeled
his mother to Peking on a wheelbarrow nearly thirty years ago
that she might learn to read the Bible. He was ordained by
Bishop Goodsell many years ago. During one of the attacks
at Fu he was called upon to lead in repelling the enemy, and was
mortally wounded. I went up to him where he lay dying, knelt,
and asked him if it was all right, and he said: “Yes, pray for me;
but it is all right.” Those who were with him at the last said
that he died in perfect peace, knowing whom he believed. The
other was Liu Chi Hsien, a graduate of Peking University. He
was struck in the head by a Mauser bullet and instantly killed.
They were both faithful to the end. With these exceptions, all
helpers with us in the siege were spared to the work. One of
our best men, Liu Chi Lun, was reported to have been killed at
Tsunhua, but I find that he escaped. I have always taken a deep
interest in him. Some eighteen years ago he was one of my
students in the Peking school. When dismissing the boys for
the summer vacation I urged them to go to their homes with
the determination to be helpful, and not to pose as scholars,
which, from a Chinese standpoint, means that they must do no
manual labor, but wear long garments and let their finger nails
grow. I told them that their fathers on the farms were working
hard, and they should be glad to help them. When school re-
assembled in the fall this boy, on returning to school, came to
me and, stretching out both hands, well hardened by his sum-

GAMEWELL.

Tceservation of
trained work-
ers.

Two heroes.
GAMEWELL,

The commissa-
ry.

The coming of
relief.

404 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

mer’s toil, said to me: “Mr. Gamewell, look at my hands. I went
home and did as you told us to do.” That little incident is in-
dicative of the man, and he has proved a most useful preacher.
God has spared the workers to carry on the work.

It was marvelous that we should be able to feed 3,500 people
during all those weeks; but God had made provision for our
needs. We were defending an area of the city the circuit of
which was about a mile and a half; within this area there were a
large number of Chinese and foreign stores; in these foreign
stores there was a considerable amount of food, and in the Chi-
nese stores a large supply of wheat, and it was owing to this
that we were enabled to feed ourselves during those weeks.
In the British Legation there were forty or fifty horses, and
many who crowded into the Legation on the first day of the
siege came in carts drawn by mules; so that we had seventy or
eighty horses and mules, which contributed to our food supply.

The allied forces came in on August 14, about two o’clock in
the afternoon. The British first reached the British Legation,
but they were not the English troops; they were the Indian
troops led by British officers. I cannot describe the emotions
that crowded upon me as I saw them press their way through
the Water Gate. Twelve hours before the relief column reached
us we heard the relief guns, and it was not until then that I
realized the terrible strain that we had been under. During all
these weeks there was no such thing as a truce.

We understood that the only thing to do was to hold out. To
surrender meant the death of every man, woman, and child; and
I do not know but that a good deal of our strength lay in our
knowledge of that fact. We toiled on day and night and on
through the Sabbath; we felt that the most worshipful thing to
do was to keep right on in our effort to protect the lives of the
women and children intrusted to us, and God blessed our efforts.
Now that we are saved we come back to life with a feeling of
responsibility for a work not yet finished. I think of those who
started out in the morning strong and vigorous, and before night
their newly formed graves were in our midst; and the thought
comes to me: Why was I saved? Saved for service. Oh, that
God would impress that fact upon us all, that in our salvation
from sin and our salvation from death we are saved for service!

The city was nearly deserted by the Chinese after the close
of the siege. Between the Chien-Men gate and the Shun-Chih-
THE SIEGE OF PEKING. 405

Men gate, a distance of one mile, are a large number of official
residences, which face the city wall. The Chien-Men gate is im-
mediately in front of a line passing north and south through the
center of the Imperial and of the Forbidden Cities. West from
the Chien-Men we found two large official residences, which for
the time being we appropriated by authority of the United States
Minister, Maj. Conger. These residences may be easily known
from the fact that there is an announcement outside of each,
stating that it is an official residence. Entering a large room
and approaching a table in the corner, on opening a drawer I
found a pile of circulars, and beside them the block from which
they were printed. Translated they read: “By Imperial Com-
mand. Let the Boxers of [then follow the names of eight towns
about Peking] rise up to a united victory.”

Now the Boxer motto from the beginning had been, ‘Protect
the Manchus; destroy the foreigners;” hence this was an im-
perial command to annihilate foreigners. The two characters
at the top of the circular, ch’n mimg, are never used except on
imperial documents. The circulars are on yellow (the imperial
color) paper, and the two characters at the top are not printed
from the block, but stamped separately in red, indicating the
“vermilion’’—that is, imperial—“pencil.”

Again, on the lower left-hand corner of the document are five
characters, which are also separately stamped, not being on the
original block. These five characters are: “J Ho Tu’an tu
chang,” meaning, “The seal of the Boxers.” The circulars were
issued from an official residence within the shadow of the palace
buildings.

It seems needless to multiply further the ever-accumulating
evidence that the government, as represented by the Empress
Dowager and her associates, was responsible for the recent up-
rising in China. On June 24 the Board of Revenue was ordered
to give Kang Yi two hundred bags of rice as provisions for gen-
eral distribution among the Boxers, and another decree of the
same date, June 24, says: “Our people included in the Boxer
organization are scattered all over the regions around the me-
tropolis and Tien-tsin. It is right and proper that they should
have a superintendent placed over them. We therefore appoint
Prince Chuang and the Grand Secretary, Kang Yi, to be in gen-
eral command of the said society. We also order Brigadier Gen-
erals Ying Nien and Tsai Lan to act in codperation with them.

GAMEWELL.

Did the gov-
ernment favor
the Boxers?

Imperial de-
crees.
GAMEWELL.

Dr. Martin
and Dr. Smith.

“The true source
of the cenflict.

406 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

All the members of the Boxers are exerting their utmost energy,
and the imperial family must not fall behind in its efforts to take
revenge upon our enemies.”

These translations are from copies of the Peking Gazette, pur-
chased during the siege from a venturesome Chinese, and the
translation of the Gazette, by a competent committee, was mime-
ographed and circulated among the people in the British Lega-
tion during the siege.

In his recently issued book, “The Siege in Peking,” Dr. W.
A. P. Martin, President of the Chinese Imperial University, at
some length discusses and shows conclusively the complicity of
the Chinese government in the recent outbreak. Arthur H.
Smith, D.D., author of “Chinese Characteristics” and of “Vil-
lage Life in China,” a recognized authority in all things Chinese,
says in the Outlook for December 29, 1900, after commenting on
the reception given by the Empress Dowager to the wives of
the foreign Ministers, and to her quoting that all within the four
seas are one family, says: “Five months later her majesty was is-
suing edicts which ordered her troops, in large numbers and con-
stantly recruited with fresh men, to throw Krupp shells and fire
Mauser and Mannlicher bullets into the dwelling places of these
same ladies from the West, with a view to their speedy extinc-
tion, thus leaving only the Chinese (and Manchu) contingent of
the ‘one family’ surviving.”

Again this same high authority, in the Outlook for January 12,
1901, in discussing the frequent riots in China and tracing their
causes, says: “This is the first time that the riots have been
directly instigated from the imperial palace itself. Upon the
treatment of China now will depend whether it shall be the last.”

We touch only the surface of things when we apologize for the
Chinese, when we seek to explain the occurrences of last sum-
mer by territorial aggression on the part of England, Germany,
or Russia, or when we seek to trace it to the disturbance of the
industrial equilibrium by the introduction of railways, or when
we seek to trace it to the indiscretion of any individual mission-
ary. These things may act as surface irritants, but the reason
of reasons is the opposition of darkness to the light. It is the
conflict of Christianity with heathenism. May God help us to
realize that the issue is on! There is no doubt as to the ultimate
outcome. The kingdoms of this world shall become the king-
doms of our Lord and of his Christ.
 

 

          
   
 

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Il, MEXICO AND CUBA.

OUR WESTERN FIELDS—MEXICO AND CUBA.
D. W. CARTER, D.D.

SoME years ago a humble native preacher in Mexico said to
me: “How different would have been our lot in language and re-
ligion had we been conquered by the English rather than by the
Spanish nation!”

The problem of the historic “if”? is usually more curious than
important, but in this case it suggests the whole question of geo-
graphic juxtaposition of races and the providential movements of
those world-forces which fix national delimitations and destiny.

A few rods from the shore line of Havana harbor, and in front
of the Governor General’s palace stands a diminutive chapel. It
marks the spot where Columbus landed and under a spreading
ceiba tree joined in the first religious service ever held on the site
of Hvana. From that date to January 1, 1899 (a period of 407
years), Spain owned the island of Cuba. What history lies be-
tween those widely separated dates! From the lofty table-lands
of Mexico, from its reedy lake shores and snow-clad mountain
slopes, down to its tierra caliente, Olmecs, Toltecs, and Aztecs
have departed or yielded over their lands and power to others.
From the coral-built and palm-plumed islands of those southern
seas, Arowacs, Lucayans, and Carib tribes have vanished, leav-
ing but their uncertain names on the islands and encircling waters
of the Caribbean Sea. These savage tribes held nothing for hu-
manity’s lasting good—neither art nor science, religion nor learn-
ing—and they gave place to a stronger race. That race made its
first appearance in the caravels of Columbus, and proudly took
possession of the new world in the name of Castile and Aragon.
Thus a new race, a new power, a new language, a new religion
overspread the new world. Everything favored it. The home
territory had been enlarged and unified; the Moors had been sub-
dued and expelled; a wise and sagacious ruler sat on the throne;
the people were inured to hardship and thirsting for adventure

Spain’s owner-
ship.
CARTER.

Two character-
istics.

Gold, gold.

408 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and riches. Fierce was the onset of the conquistadores upon the
weak tribes of the new world. Their ships, their horses, their fire-
arms, their pitiless cruelty struck terror to their feeble enemies,
and they swept everything before them. For Cortez and Alva-
rado, Pizarro and De Soto, it was easy to overwhelm all that op-
posed and take all that was found. The nation that then stood first
in riches, in military prowess and sea power, soon owned the
new world and impressed upon it its laws, language, and religion,
from Tierra del Fuego to the “Father of Waters,” upon whose
banks we assemble to-day.

The conquering race brought with it two dominant ideas, both
fundamentally wrong, but which have guided down to the pres-
ent the national and social life of that people. The one, as Cor-
tez expressed it to the Aztec Emperor, is a disease which only
gold can cure; the other, a fierce religious fanaticism which up to
date nothing ‘has cured.

By the side of the glorious name of Columbus and the new
world stands the dark and bloody name of Torquemada and the
inquisition. Both men and both deeds were indorsed by the
same throne. The nation just released from seven hundred years
of Moslem rule had become Moslem, not in faith but in heart. It
had kept its religion not for love of God but for hatred of the
Moor, and it learned to surpass him in rapacity and fanaticism.
A thirst for gold and a thirst for the blood of the heretic were the
seeds of death in that body politic. Never did nation more clear-
ly prove that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
Bloodthirsty soldier and bigoted priest vied with each other to do
their best—that is, their worst. Each helped the other to heal
himself with the gold cure, the only rivalry being which should
take the larger doses of the medicine.

From Cuba in 1519 sailed the expedition under Cortez that con-
quered Mexico; from Cuba in 1539 sailed the expedition under
De Soto that explored Florida, penetrated the Mississippi basin
to the site of St. Louis, and left the body of its intrepid leader
buried on the banks of the ‘great river he had discovered. Thus
by hardihood and daring it was that a nation with a paganized
form of Christianity and a Moslemized heart—a nation that
spurned the great Reformation and held on to and still holds on
to bigotry and rapacity—was the first to impress itself upon the
MEXICO AND CUBA. 409

Western world. Not until January 1, 1899, was its flag hauled.

down and withdrawn forever from these shores.

What did the departing nation leave as its legacy to the new
world? We would be just and fair, but we must say that, had it
done its duty, we should not to-day be surveying its late posses-
sions as destitute mission fields.

Spain has left us a language of great richness and sonorous
melody; wonderfully adapted to all the forms of polite compli-
ment, diplomatic indirection, and superficial noncommitment, but
poor and weak in the elevated speech of spiritual worship and the
plain words of truth-telling. It is a language in which all holy
names and things are dishonored and dragged down to the low
level of things common and profane. The beggar in the street is
Jesus, the criminal in the jail is Salvador (Saviour), a dirty street
in the city is Espiritu Santo (Holy Spirit), anything from a low
dive to a stately church is Santisima Trinidad (Holy Trinity). The
terminology of the pure things of heaven is put upon the unclean
things of earth. All high things are degraded, all pure things
are defiled. All moral ideas are confused, all moral values are
debased, and all moral standards are overturned.

She left a religion without morals, a religion of pageant, cere-
monial, and procession; of sensuous forms, of tinseled, tawdry
images, lying wonders and profane fables; she sealed up the foun-
tain of life and denied to the people the word of life—the Holy
Book of God. She left a priesthood that arrogantly claimed an
absolute monopoly of the grace of God, and to be the sole agents
of heaven to open the gates of salvation—a priesthood ignorant,
arrogant, tyrannical, that turned the sacraments into simony,
marriage into concubinage, and gave to the poor a bone pit for
a grave in a corner of the consecrated cemetery. What good
fruit could grow on such a corrupt tree? It was fitting that the
sun of the twentieth century should not shine upon the political
power that upheld it in the new world.

At Jamestown, Va., in 1607, on the site of a Spanish colony
planted and abandoned eighty years before, and at Plymouth,
Mass., in 1620, another nationality planted itself. This newcom-
er sought a home rather than glory and gold. Jamestown plant-
ed the seed of representative government and equality before the
law. Plymouth stood for the right to worship God according to
the dictates of the conscience. This new man brought not the

CARTER.

Spain’s lega-
cy.

Language.

Religion.

Another race.
CARTER.

‘For such a
time as this.’’

410 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

crucifix as the symbol of his faith, but the Word of God as the em-
bodiment ofit. He built churches, but not altars ; he bowed down
to Almighty God and confessed his sins, but crouched at no con-
fessional box and knew no priest. He planted in the new soil the
seed of civil and religious liberty. He guarded it with love and
watered it with his blood. He loved fair play, common honesty,
and a chance for every man. God has spread him abroad a mighty
people. From a bare foothold on the rocky coast he has passed
across mountain range, over wide prairie, along great rivers and
inland seas till he has dominion from ocean to ocean, and, paus-
ing not, God has led him out to the island of the sea. All his im-
portant acquired teritory he obtained from Roman Catholic coun-
tries. It has been given to our great Protestant Republic to dis-
miss two Roman Catholic powers from the Western world. The
futile attempt to set up an empire on our Southern border by the
blessing of the Pope and the arms of Napoleon III. proved abor-
tive because the United States entered its caveat. The events
that sent the last bigoted Old World papal power out of the West-
ern world are still fresh in our minds. Cuba yet quivers with the
reverberations of Santiago.

A people who has never bowed down to monarch nor pope and
that, please God, never will, comes into the ascendant and takes
the banner of leadership. What doesit mean? He taketh down
one and setteth up another. That which is old and ready to per-
ish vanisheth away. Jesus Christ said : “The truth shall make you
free.” A people with the truth moves to the front. We open the
Book of Truth, we proclaim liberty to the captive, the opening
of the doors to them that are bound, the acceptable year of the
Lord. We move forward to our work as they who are appoint-
ed to build up old wastes, to repair the desolations of many gen-
erations. The call of God comes not now by Urim and Thum-
mim, but by the unfolding of his providence before the eye of faith
and the heart of love, by the written word in the Book: “If ye love
me, keep my commandments ;” “Go ye into all the world.” If
God calls the nation and thrusts it out, much more he calls his
Church. What have we done in the Spanish-speaking world,
what are we doing, what are the prospects?

In the mind and heart of our beloved senior bishop, our Mexi-
can mission had its organic beginning as aggressive foreign mis-
sionary work. Once when reminded of this he modestly said that
MEXICO AND CUBA. 411

all that he had done was to hold the Church up to the support of
the mission. Far more than that he has done. He has held the
mission up to the support of heaven; he has carried the mission-
aries ever in his heart as he ever carried the mission accounts in
his private ledger. He ceased not for years to visit the field, and
day and night to plan and pray for the wise planting and sound
growth of the work. He secured in this city the first thousand
dollars given for that field, the first superintendent he appointed
from the Louisiana Conference; the first lady teacher went from
this city. The first Methodist property ever owned in Mexico
was bought by him. Our first Mexican preacher, Alejo Her-
nandez, a man strangely brought to God and Methodism in 1870,
was sent by him in 1873 to our first Mexican congregation in the
City of Mexico. The man who preached the first Protestant ser-
mon in the city, Sostenes Juarez, joined himself to Bishop Keen-
er and Methodism in 1873. Both Hernandez and Juarez began
to preach the gospel, led thereto by the Spirit, without ecclesias-
tical calling or help. Both became faithful Methodist itinerants
and died in active service. When such men, thus called of God
and at work, are found, it is wise to second the call and aid the
work. From small beginnings the mission has had a great
growth and has spread over the whole republic. But it was al-
most a forlorn hope that confronted the bishop on his first arrival
at the capital, as shown in his own graphic words, written on the
occasion of his second visit: “I could not but call to mind how
heavy my heart was three years ago just before the purchase of
this property, how impossible it seemed to do anything with these
manana people.” But when he saw the assembled congrega-
tion and caught the beaming face of Juarez in the pulpit as he
moved up the aisle he said: “I felt a thrill of prayer and grati-
tude shoot through my frame.” Twenty-eight years have passed
since that beginning, and evangelical missions have spread over
all the country and Protestantism claims thirty thousand members
and adherents. Southern Methodism has kept all the time in the
lead. The dedication of our beautiful new church a few weeks
ago was a great event. Lawyers, business men, and a member of
the Mexican Congress were in the audience, and a great throng
filled the beautiful new temple. We are sure a thrill of gratitude
and prayer shot through our venerable bishop’s heart as he read
the glowing account.

CARTER.

Mexice,

Bishop Keener,
Hernandez,
and Juarez.
CARTER.

Cuba.

No religion,

The need.

412 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Now a word for Cuba. “Cuba libre” is an accomplished fact, .
and the fact is due to the United States. Civil and religious lib-
erty, representative government, equality before the law, a speedy
trial for the accused, the right of habeas corpus, local self-govern-
ment, public free schools, and municipal sanitation are already
the first fruits of the new era. Politics, foreign relations, racial
differences may delay matters; but Cuba is free, and will take her
place, as she deserves to, with the nations of the earth.

Before the yellow flag of Spain was furled our youngest bishop
and the missionary were on her shores to enlarge, organize, and
push the gospel campaign. Protestantism, with the lowering of
that flag, came from behind closed doors and screened windows
where the Roman Catholic state religion had forced it to live.
It is no longer merely tolerated, but walks abroad and breathes
the free air of heaven, and may build its temples and unfurl its
banners anywhere from Cape Maysi to Cape San Antonio, with
none to molest or make it afraid. Weare greatly needed, and the
whole land lies open before us. There is not a city or town where
we cannot get a hearing and gather a congregation. Romanism’s
failure stands self-confessed and patent. A recent writer has re-
marked on the “vacuity of the religious sense” among the Cu-
bans. Indeed, it seems almost dead. A member of the present
Constitutional Convention said in debate in that body that “as
regards religion the Cubans are the most indifferent people in
the world.” There is an utter absence of fanaticism. Every er-
ror and ism finds its advocate and followers, a flood of corrupt
and vile literature flows through the public mind, the sense of
reverence is gone, the Sabbath never existed, no lofty standard of
pure morality embodied in literature or incarnate in man holds a
place in the public esteem. The foundations of truth and com-
mon honesty have been destroyed. In all the small affairs of
life the attitude is delay, suspicion, distrust. In larger matters it
is delay to study the ulterior motives and bearing of every propo-
sition, for no man is credited with being entirely ingenuous and
honest.

Into this amorphous body of drifting opinion, superstitions,
Roman paganism, and sin, what solvent shall be cast that the
precipitate of truth and honesty in national and private life may
be produced? God’s Word. That which has been hid from Cuba
from the beginning must be uncovered. She must learn that re-
 

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MEXICO AND CUBA. 413

ligion lies not in sacerdotalism and salvation is not in the hand of CA®T-
a priest. The wisdom that has been ‘hidden from the ages must

be made to shine forth, and in its light Cuba will walk, bringing

forth fruit unto righteousness. “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest,

that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.”
Place and
scope.

tlds BRAZIL:

EVANGELISTIC WORK IN THE FOREIGN MISSION
FIELD.

REV. J. W. TARBOUX, D.D.

A wise understanding of this subject is of unspeakable impor-
tance to the Christian Church. Much time and strength have
been wasted in useless discussions; and considerable want of har-
mony and some friction have resulted from the very different,
if not contradictory, opinions held by members of the home
Churches and of the missionary forces in the field.

Limiting the evangelistic work to a very narrow range, some
would discard every agency that does not clearly come within
the limits that they themselves have established. To these, all
work done outside of their narrow range is a useless and even
sinful waste of time and strength and money. If they do not
openly oppose, they at least look coldly and discouragingly upon
all efforts that do not agree with their definition of evangelistic
work. Thus the harmonious, symmetrical, and general move-
ment of the Church of Christ is rendered almost impossible. May
God give his divine illumination upon this very important occa-
sion, and enable the members and ministers of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, to see eye to eye upon this great sub-
ject of missionary work!

I. “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every
creature.” “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things what-
soever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world.” These words of our Lord define the
work his Church has to do. The great duty of the Church of
Jesus Christ is to evangelize the world. The evangelistic work
is not one of several or many departments of Church work, even
though placed in the front rank; it is the work of the Church. This
is the end of the Church; everything else must be considered as
means unto this end. But after this is said and accepted, it be-
EVANGELISTIC WORK. 415

comes necessary to define clearly what is meant by the evangeli-
zation of the world. Can it mean the rapid and superficial an-
nouncing of the gospel ‘through a country, whether the people
are converted or not? Can it mean the preaching of the gospel
to.one generation without providing for the holding of the ground
won and the conserving of the rising generation in the faith and
virtues of the parents ?

The evangelization of the world, it appears to ‘me, demands the
conversion of the individual and the holding and developing of
the individual for Christ, ‘the conversion of a people and the hold-
ing and developing of this people for Christ, the conversion of
one generation and the holding and developing of this generation
and the next for the Lord our Saviour.

If the great commission means less than this, then it provides
for its own defeat. The Church in this case would be as a small
army of invasion entering into a country without any idea of
taking permanent possession, but simply of passing rapidly
through, doing such deeds of heroism as might be possible on
its hasty march. In its rear would spring anew enemies that
were thought to be conquered, and the evangelistic forces would
have to return on their march, forever repeating work that would
never remain done.

On the contrary, has not God promised the world to his Son?
is not the Christian Church like the children of Israel entering
the land of Canaan, not to pass rapidly through it, but to take
possession in the name of the Lord, and dwell in the land, build-
ing homes and cities for themselves and their children’s children,
unto many generations ?

Does not the great commission, taken along with other teach-
ings of our Lord and the sure word of prophecy, indicate that
the Lord has committed to his Church the spiritual conquest of
the whole world?

“Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inher-
itance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
“And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to me.” “He shall
see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.” “The earth
is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that
dwell therein.” “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the
earth.” Is not the whole world the “promised land of Canaan”
to the spiritual Israel, the Church of Jesus Christ ?

If so, the duty of the Church of Christ toward China and Brazil

TARBOUX,

The great
commission.
TARBOUX.

Meaning of
the word.

Agencies.

416 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

is not only to try to so preach Christ to the Chinese and Bra-
zilians of to-day as to win their hearts to the Saviour, but also as
far as possible to help to provide all the means and agencies,
Christian pastors, schools, teachers, hospitals, physicians, states-
men, etc., that the future generations of Chinese and Brazilians
may be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

From these considerations we come to the following conclu-
sion: that whatever aids in winning and holding the world for
Christ is an evangelistic agency, and must be cheerfully, rever-
ently, and persistently employed.

If this, our conclusion, is correct, we can say dogmatically that
the only work the Church has to do is the evangelistic work, for in
it is included every agency, every influence, every power, every
means, every plan that can be used in conquering the world for
Christ.

We can say, farther, that every consecrated teacher, or colpor-
teur, or physician, or nurse, or even servant, who labors in his
sphere for the conversion of the world to Christ, is as truly an
evangelist as the pioneer preacher. ‘The apparent results of one
work may be different from those of another, but the Captain of
our salvation has. assured us that his favor and his rewards will
be not according to rank nor results, but according to faithful
service. There is great reason for these truths being emphasized
and remembered.

Some missionaries think that there is no true missionary work
but that of the active pioneer preacher; they become restless if
called to any other sphere of action ; some even speak of refusing
to do such and such work if placed upon them. Do they not
labor under a radical mistake? Are not all the soldiers and their
work equally necessary to the final result: those that watch be-
hind fortress walls, and those who drill the raw recruits in safe
retreats, and those who prepare and guard ammunition and com-
missary trains in the rear, as well as those who form the advance
guard on picket outposts or dangerous sallies ?

II. Treating of the agencies in evangelistic work according to
the above definition, we are led to divide them into aggressive and
conservative forces, remembering, however, that the aggressive
forces have always conservative tendencies, and the conservative
forces very-often large aggressive opportunities. For this reason
it is difficult to make a classification that will adapt itselfto every
EVANGELISTIC WORK. 417

mission field. An agency that is almost entirely conservative in
one field may be positively aggressive in another.

The chief agencies may be mentioned as follows: The pioneer
preacher, the press and Christian literature, the colporteur and
Bible woman, the organized Church and pastor, the school and
Christian teacher, the hospital and Christian physician.

Undoubtedly the pioneer preacher occupies the first rank
among the evangelistic forces. He is par excellence the aggres-
sive agency ‘of the Church. And yet to be successful he must
be accompanied by several of the other agencies, and at times
combine them in his own person. The herald of the cross has
at times to be not only preacher, but printer and colporteur, teach-
er and physician, in order to gain an entrance amiong the people
to whom he is sent. And we think he not only has the right
but is in duty bound to lay hold of any and all means necessary
to gain the attention of the people and enable him to successfully
deliver his divine message.

The press and Christian literature, and the colporteur and Bible
woman, we would place among the aggressive evangelistic agen-
cies in the order in which they are presented. The organized
Church and pastor, the school and teacher, the hospital and phy-
sician we would name as the conservative evangelistic forces,
recognizing, however, that they too, within their sphere of ac-
tion, are and must be active aggressive agencies. The evident
design of our subject, however, is to limit us to the work of the
pioneer evangelistic preacher.

ITI. We will, therefore, attempt to describe whiat would be an
ideal plan of pioneer evangelistic work in the foreign mission field.
We must have two ministers prepared in every way to preach
clearly, simply, but with divine power, the gospel message in the
language of the people.

We must have also four devoted men, laymen or ministers,
prepared to sing sweetly and touchingly in quartet the songs
of Zion.

There must be one or two colporteurs to accompany the pio-
neer band. These men must have from the Christian press Bibles,
hymn books, tracts, and Christian literature to sell and distribute
freely and abundantly among the people. They must be fur-
nished with the means and facilities for traveling from place to
place, and of stopping in any place as long as is judged necessary

18

TARBOUX.

The preacher
first.

Other forces.

Sweet singers.

An ideal plan.
TARBOUX.

What would
come of it?

Concentration
needed.

418 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

to fully and faithfully present the gospel message and test the
hearts of the people.

As they go from village to village, from town to town, from
city to city, and souls are converted to Jesus, the Church must be
prepared to establish churches and schools, and to send up from
the rear pastors and teachers and Bible women that the sons and
daughters born unto God may be nourished and brought up
wisely in the way of the Lord.

The pioneer band, however, must not be diverted from its work
nor its effective forces weakened to furnish pastors and teachers
to the small Churches that are organized along the line of march.

These eight pioneer workers must have their homes in the
same place, that, on their return from one campaign to rest, they
may together plan and prepare and pray for the next campaign.
They must be chosen men of God, without fear and full of the
Holy Ghost, each one with special gifts for his special work.

Put a few such devoted bands at work in Brazil or Mexico or
Cuba, or even in China or Japan, and the devil would be driven
to despair, for revival fires would soon be kindled in many parts
of the land, that neither men nor devils would be able to put out.

Two men working together have many times more influence
and power than one working alone. Eight men working to-
gether, of one mind and one heart, in the way indicated, would
exert an influence hundreds of times greater. than one man by
himself, who has almost to exhaust himself in his lonely effort to
keep up his own spiritual warmth and aggressiveness.

In the little land of Palestine and among their own people
Jesus thought it wise to send out his preachers two by two.
But the modern Church of the nineteenth century sends a man
alone to the backwoods of Brazil, or to the million-peopled cen-
ters of the East, and is surprised that great results are not
achieved.

The almost universal method of mission work has been to scat-
ter the mission ‘band as largely as possible over the territory to
be evangelized, placing one here and another there in the towns
and cities, many persons considering it to be a grave error to
put more than one man in the same place. Of course it would
be a grave error if they were placed in one town or city there
to remain and stagnate. But treating of the active, pioneer, evan-
gelistic work in the mission field, could not six or eight men do
more effective work in the way suggested than by the same men
EVANGELISTIC WORK. 419

widely separated, working according ‘to the old methods? This ™®#°U*

much we can say, that some efforts made on a ‘small scale and in
a very imperfect way in the Brazil Mission lead us to think that
very gracious results may be accomplished by such bands of
workers.

But whichever may be the mission field, and whatever may be
the method of work employed, the pioneer workers ought never
to allow the converts to be satisfied or deceived by a simple
change of ideas or beliefs: they must press ‘them on and guide
them to an intelligent comprehension of experimental religion
and the witness of the Holy Ghost, and work and pray with them
until, under a deep sense of their lost condition through sin, they
lay hold of Christ as their blessed friend and Saviour, and can rise
up and give glad testimony to what God has done in their-souls.
One such overjoyed convert can tell the glad story of salvation
better than any half dozen foreign preachers.

As to the proportion of workers to be engaged in the different
departments of evangelistic work, it is impossible to establish any
positive rule. We may advance the following general principle:
that in the departments of literature, the organizing and con-
ducting of Churches, schools, hospitals, etc., there should be
engaged a sufficient number of workers ‘to conserve all that is
gained by the pioneer bands, and also to prepare workers and
materials for the ever-enlarging evangelistic work of the future.

If small results accompany the pioneer movement, there will
be small demand for other workers ; if widespread revivals should
result, then the army of occupation would have to be correspond-
ingly large. And yet, let it be said here, there can be no iron-
bound rule or idea as to the pioneer evangelistic agency. In
one land it may be the quivering voice of the street preach-
er; in another the patience and kindness and thoroughness of the
Christian teacher, who works only within the four walls of his
schoolroom ; or, in still another, the skillful surgeon’s knife, that
is guided in its every movement by a prayer that the heart of
the patient may be opened to the Great Physician of souls. As
soon, however, as the entering wedge makes an opening, the need
of the evangelist is felt.

On the opening of any mission field, or at least in the first few
years of its existence, from the nature of the case, the outlay of
men and money on the side of the more conservative evangelistic
force may seem to be out of proportion to the outlay on the

Distribution of
workers.
TARBOUX.

Pioneering
work.

What has been
done?

420 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

side of the more aggressive forces, but the ratio ought to change
as the years go by. The same school that teaches ten children
from one county may teach hundreds in the future gathered
from several States. The same press that publishes a few thou-
sand humble pages in the beginning may publish hundreds of
thousands in the future.

From the very beginning of evangelistic work in a foreign
field arrangements should be made to provide well-qualified
native evangelists and pastors for the future. The need for
these native preachers is so clear that no argument is called for
here.

But how shall they be found and prepared? A few may be
found among adult converts, but they will be rather makeshifts
for the present emergency than men prepared for ‘the future de-
mands of the Church.

The Church is forced to look to the little ones, and she must
provide schools and teachers for them. If the native converts are
not able to establish and direct these schools for themselves,
then the Mother Church is in duty bound to take the matter in
hand. She must see that a sound Christian education is given
to the children, or else lose her hold on future generations. The
Christian school work of to-day is the evangelistic work pro-
jected into the future.

IV. Let us look in conclusion at the results of evangelistic
work in foreign mission fields.

What are the results? It is not our purpose to bring to your
attention om this occasion any special row of figures. Many
souls have been converted,. possibly more in the foreign field in
proportion to the men and money employed than in the home
lands. Many souls have been saved, precious souls, immortal
souls, souls for whom Jesus died; every one of whom, to the
eternal and infinite Father of Spirits, is worth more than all the
silver and gold that he has treasured up in the granite chambers
of this round world. In Brazil alone, as the result of twenty-five
years of work and expenditure, there were reported this year
some three thousand Church members..

Suppose that only one-half of them are true spiritual children
of the Lord God Almighty, and then what have we? One thou-
sand five hundred priceless gems that will shine forever in the
crown of our Saviour’s heavenly rejoicings, one thousand five
hundred living stones in the foundations of the moral and spir-
EVANGELISTIC WORK. 421

itual edifice that God is building in this world for the honor of
his name and the refuge of his people.

Whit may not infinite wisdom and power and grace do with
these immortal, redeemed, sanctified souls in the future history
of Brazil and the endless ages of the heavenly world? In every
soul saved there are infinite, because eternal, possibilities.

But is this all? Suppose as the result of all the labors and
expenditures and suffering in all the mission fields there was not
a single saved soul to rejoice over, would the Church have reason
to count her labors all lost? Would the blessed consciousness
of having tried to obey the Lord Jesus be nothing? Would the
voice of the Master saying to his faithful, though unsuccessful,
Church, though bringing no sheaves, “Well done, good and
faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord, for faithfully
hast thou wrought without the encouragement of success,”
would this voice of approval be nothing?

Would it be nothing that on this, the grandest arena for the
trying and developing of human souls, God had raised up and
perfected such heroic and royal sons as Livingstone and Morri-
son, Carey and Judson, Moffat and Brainerd, and a host of others
who, by the very difficulties and dangers, sacrifices and self-
denials of the foreign mission work, had the human eliminated
and the divine more and more fully grafted into their lives and
spirits even in this world, and were thus fitted for higher deeds
in the heavenly world?

The labors and sufferings of the Christian Church during the
last one hundred years have enriched the world forever, and even
increased the treasures of heaven.

May God only grant that the blessed opportunities of giving
and laboring and even suffering in this great and divine cause
may be continued to us and our children, until the royal house-
hold of heaven be complete, and the soul of our dear Redeemer
fully satisfied !

TARBOUX,

Benefits to the
missionaries.
Territory.

Products.

422 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

BRAZIL: A SURVEY OF THE FIELD.

REV. E. A. TILLY.

Or the American states or republics (whether north, central,
or south), Brazil is the largest in extent of territory, and is situ-
ated in the great eastern angle of South America, between lati-
tude 4° 30’ N. and 33° 40’ S., and longitude 34° 49’ and 72° W.
Its greatest length is 2,600 miles, its greatest breadth 2,500, with
a seaboard of about 4,000 miles, and an area of 3,288,110 square
miles.

This vast territory, larger than the United States and almost
as great in extent as all Europe, is bounded on the north by
Colombia, Venezuela, and the Guianas (British, French, and
Dutch); washed on the east by the Atlantic ocean; while the
Spanish republics of Uruguay and the Argentine, Paraguay,
Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador lie to the south and west.

The country takes its name from a kind of wood (native to the
West Indies and Brazil) used for dyeing purposes, and not the
wood from the country, as is often affirmed. Chaucer, before the
discovery of Brazil, May 3, 1500, by the Portuguese Admiral
Pedro de Cebral, wrote: “Him nedeth not his colour for to dien
with Brasil, ne with grain of Portingal.”

The surface of the country with respect 'to elevation is divided
into (1) the higher region (embracing plateaus, ridges, valleys,
etc.) south of the fifth parallel of latitude, and (2) the lowland
plain of the Amazon, extending inland to the base of the Andes.

The most prominent of the mountains are Mantiqueira, Ver-
tentes, Espinhaco, and Serra do Mar. Of rivers, we mention the
Amazon (“the Mediterranean of South America, the largest
stream of the globe, affording, with its tributaries, free navigation
over not less than 30,000 miles within Brazilian territory’),
Tocantine, Turyassu, Maranhoo, Paranahyba, Sao Francisco,
Paraguassu, Rio Doce, Parahyba do Sul, Parana, and Paraguay.

Brazil is possibly the richest country in the world in natural re-
sources. The following gems are to be found: Diamonds, emer-
alds, sapphire, rubies, topazes, beryls, tourmalines (black, blue,
and green), amethysts. Garnets are also found, but of inferior
quality. Of the more useful minerals to be had in abundance, we
mention coal, sulphur, saltpeter, salt, gold, silver, copper, mag-
nesia, galena (lead), and iron.

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extensive, with so diversified a surface. In the northern low-
lands the heat is the greatest, the year being divided into wet
and dry seasons. In the central and southern highlands a greater
variety in the seasons and climates is found, while to the south,
beyond the tropics, a zone is reached in which the four seasons are
marked. In the extreme north the temperature ranges from
85 degrees to 75 degrees, in the section of Rio de Janeiro, from
80 degrees to 65 degrees; while in the extreme southern States,
from 75 degrees to 50 degrees. The east, northeast, and south-
east trade winds prevail, according to the season, and contribute
much to making Brazil a delightful country in which to live.
The country is generally healthy. In many of the seacoast towns
and cities, and in some inland localities, yellow fever epidemics
have been experienced.

The vegetation is luxuriant beyond description. In the forest
of Brazil you find every species of useful and ornamental wood.
The ibiripitanga, or Brazil wood, is the most valuable of all,
yielding a fine red dye. It is both hard and heavy, and is sus-
ceptible of a very high and beautiful polish. The caouwtchouc
tree furnishes large quantities of gum. The export of this prod-
uce alone averages a value of at least $10,000,000 a year.

The fruits are numerous and excellent, such as the banana,
pineapple, mango, custard apple, guava, and various kinds of
melons and nuts.

While the agricultural products are great, the number of farm-
ers, compared with the extent of the soil, show that only one
acre in every one hundred and eighty is under cultivation. The
chief products ‘of the country are coffee, sugar, cotton, manioc
(cassava flour), tobacco, rice, maize, fruits, and spices.

The varieties of animal life are more numerous, perhaps, than
in any other region in the world. No less immense is the variety
of birds, and these are celebrated for the beauty of their plumage.

In the year 1499 Vicente Yafiez Pincon, a companion of Co-
lumbus, described land near Cape St. Augustine, and took pos-
session of the country in the name of the Spanish government.
The following year Pedro Alvarez Cabral, the Portuguese com-
mander, appointed by his monarch to follow the course of Vasco
de Gama in the East, was driven by adverse winds so far from
his track that he reached the Brazilian coast on the 24th of April,
and anchored in the Porto Seguro (16° S. latitude) on Good
Friday. On Easter Day an altar was erected, and mass was cele-

TILLY.

Climate and
vegetation.

Early history.
Settlement.

Population,

424 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

brated in the presence of the natives, the country was declared
an appanage of Portugal, and a stone cross erected in commem-
oration of the event.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries both the French
and Dutch attempted, time after time, to get a footing in Brazil,
but signally failed. But for the treacherous dealings of Nicolas
Durand de Villeganon toward the Huguenots, Brazil might have
become a Protestant power. From 1578 to 1640 the country was
an appanage of Spain. In 1640 Brazil was restored to the Portu-
guese crown. As early as 1789, because of the successful revolu-
tion of ithe English colonies in North America, the educated
youth of the state of Minas made an attempt to throw off the
Portuguese yoke—a cavalry officer, Silva Xavier, nicknamed
Tiradientes (tooth-drawer), being the chief conspirator. The
plot being discovered, the conspirators were banished to Africa,
and Tiradientes, the leader, was hanged. Just one hundred years
after his death the republic of the United States of Brazil was
born. Brazil is the only instance of a colony becoming the seat
of the government of its own mother country. Napoleon having
resolved on the invasion and conquest of Portugal, Don Joan
VI. decided to take refuge in Brazil, where he arrivéd on the 7th
of March, 1807. The independence of Brazil was declared on the
7th of September, 1822. Dom Pedro II. was proclaimed Em-
peror on the 23d of July, 1840. The 13th of May, 1887, registers
the freeing of the slaves, and the 15th of November, 1880, the
proclaiming of the republic. Dom Pedro II. was a great and
good ruler, a hard student, liberal in all his ideas, and a ‘true re-
publican at heart. But for his gracious reign of nearly a half
century the wonderful reforms of the past decade would have
been impossible. The Church of Rome has been the one bar-
rier to progress 'and development in Brazil.

The present population of the country is about 17,000,000, of
which number 2,500,000 are foreigners—principally Italians and
Germans. The language spoken is Portuguese. The Brazilian
is proud, but kind and courteous. In hospitality he measures up
to the proverbial “Southerner.” The great mass of the people
are ignorant, only twenty per cent being able to read or write.
Ignorance, superstition, and vice stalk abroad in the land. The
thinking ones attribute this sad state of affairs to Rome, and are
working great reforms in spite of the keenest opposition on the
part of the Church. The first great reform was the separation of
BRAZIL. 425

the Church and State, followed by the secularization of ceme-
teries and the adopting of the civil marriage. A't the present time
the cry on every hand is for ‘‘more light,” and the next legislative
reform will be toward educating the masses. In a few of the
States already a good public schook system has been adopted.
The priest still wields great influence, but his power is virtually
broken. But for him there would be little or no opposition to
the gospel as proclaimed by the evangelical Church. I no longer
regard Rome as our greatest enemy. A false philosophy, to-
gether with all the blighting “isms” of the day, and a lewd, lech-
erotus, and lascivious literature—these are the enemies against
which we have to contend, and they but add fuel to the fire
kindled by four hundred years of loose and erroneous teachings
on the part of Rome in regard to sin. The condition of affairs in
Brazil demands aggressive work by the home Church. First of
all, the gospel must be preached in its purity and simplicity, our
educational and publishing plants strengthened, and a whole-
some and religious literature created.

For nearly a century the Protestant Church almost entirely
neglected this great and inviting field. However, in 1835, Amer-
ican Methodism sent out Fountain E. Pitts to explore the coun-
ty. He made a most flattering report, and a mission was pro-
jected. In March of 1836 Justin Spaulding was appointed to this
field. The following year the mission was strengthened by the
appointment of D, P. Kidder. A few years later the work, be-
cause of the unfortunate state of affairs at home, was given up.
Bishop Galloway, in commenting on this bit of history, laconical-
ly says: “The field was unwisely abandoned.”

The work of Pitts, Spaulding, and Kidder was not in vain, nor
did it go unnoticed. “The Methodist and the Catholic” is the
title of a work written by a priest at that time to expose the sup-
posed errors and evil effects of the doctrine taught by the Meth-
odists.

In 1875 Rev. Julius E. Newman, a former member of the Ala-
bama Conference, and residing in Brazil, was recognized by the
Board of Missions of the M. E. Church, South, as a missionary
of said Church in Brazil, and in December, 1875, Rev. J. J. Ran-
som, of the Tennessee Conference, was sent to join him, arriving
in Rio de Janeiro February 2, 1876.

The Brazil Mission Conference was organized by Bishop J. C.
Granbery in 1886, with three preachers: Revs. James L. Ken-

VILLY.

Religion.

Protestantism.

Beginning of
our work.
TILLY.

Statistics
1900.

Present ten-
dencies.

426 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

nedy, J. W. Tarboux, and H. C. Tucker. For the first fourteen
years, up to August, 1889, the net average increase in member-
ship in the Church annually was nineteen. During the past
twelve years the average increase has been two hundred and
twenty-eight. Last year the net increase was four hundred and
twenty-nine.

That a more comprehensive idea may be formed of the present
condition of our work in Brazil, I give the following statistics:
Foreign workers—married missionaries, male, 10; single, 2; mar-
ried missionaries, female, 10; single missionaries (representative
of the W. B. F. M.), female, 12. Total, 34. Districts, 5; cir-
cuits, stations, and missions, 32. Native workers: Traveling
preachers, 14; local preachers, 9. Total, 23. Members, 2,785;
increase, 429; Sunday schools, 46; teachers, 155; scholars, 1,694;
Epworth Leagues, 3; members, 217. Boarding schools, 4; day
schools, 7. Self-supporting Churches, 7; collected last year for
the support of the ministry, $4,458.87; bishops’ fund, $19; mis-
sions, $668.66 ; Church Extension, $91.70; American Bible Soci-
ety, $79.53; Twentieth Century Fund, $4,839.76; other purposes,
$6,670.38. Total, $16,827.90. The per capita contribution of the
Brazil Conference is $6.04.

These facts delight the heart, and beget within us a larger
faith as to the future triumph of the gospel in “The Land of
the Southern Cross.” We are optimists and believe in the inher-
ent power of the gospel, not only to save the individual from
ignorance, superstition, and vice, but to enlighten and quicken
the entire nation and people with respect to their mission and-
destiny in the sisterhood of the States.

The problems that present themselves are simple and not dif-
ficult of solution. Eighty per cent of the people are unable to
read and write—the problem of ignorance.

On the part of the State there is a great movement in favor
of public instruction, so great that within the life of the republic,
twelve years, five per cent of the people have been led “from
darkness to light.” I attribute this marvelous work largely to
the evangelical influence brought to bear on the leaders of the
State and to the educational work of our several Protestant
schools and colleges. We should see to it that the Granbery
College, founded for the education of a native ministry, be ma-
terially strengthened—endowed, if possible; that the several
schools and colleges of the Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions
BRAZIL. 4247

be better equipped for the work now in hand; that our pub- ™™*
lishing plant in Rio be enlarged and placed ona firm financial
basis, and that a wholesome and clean literature be given to the
people. In this great work of enlightenment we have strong al-

lies in the American and the British and Foreign Bible Societies.

The problem of unbelief may be presented in three words,
superstition, Rome, sin; and for its solution we have but one
remedy to offer, the faithful preaching of the gospel. There is
a readiness on the part of the Brazilian people to hear the truth
as it is in Christ; and if this same spirit of readiness to send to
them the gospel be found in us, “a nation may be born unto God
in a day.”

I close this paper with the wise words of our presiding Bishop
Hendrix: “The brethren agree with me that the time has come
to fortify, and that to build colleges is to erect fortifications.
They see, too, that a Church is no stronger than its institutions
of learning. They are building for the future in the great repub-
lic of the United States of Brazil. With a field of labor in a
country larger than the United States of North America,
with a people comparatively friendly to the gospel, and with a
total population in twenty states of 17,000,000 souls, there is a
demand for large faith and widening plans.”
The opening.

First period

IV. JAPAN.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN JAPAN—A SKETCH.
REV. J. C. CALHOUN NEWTON, D.D.

TuE providence of God in missions is plainly seen in the course
of events leading to the opening of Japan in 1854. In 1549 the
Roman Catholics entered that country, and, but for the violent
checking of their work by the rulers, it would have doubtless
have become a Romanized Mexico or Spain. With a slight ex-
ception in favor of the Dutch, Japan closed her gates, became a
hermit nation, tolerating no trade or other intercourse with Eu-
rope from 1638 to 1854.

Before this latter year the Protestant Church had emerged
into the arena of world-wide missions, and was listening for the
steppings of her Lord among the Oriental nations. When, there-
fore, Japan made the first treaty (1854) of amity and trade with
foreign powers, the friends of missions in America and Europe
were glad, for now at last the country was to be opened to the
gospel. Since Christianity brought in once before by Roman
Catholics was so successful, and their converts so heroic under
fiery persecutions, what might not be hoped for from the bring-
ing in of the purer Protestant faith? :

First Period (1859-1872): A Period of Persecution and Imprison-
ment. Events were moving that overthrew the Tokugawa Sho-
guns, and restored the Mikados to the throne, and the country
was in a state of dangerous turmoil. Intercourse between the
missionaries and natives was watched by government spies. The
missionaries, like other foreigners, were believed to have come
to “seduce the people of the god-country (Japan) from their loy-
alty, and to corrupt their morals.” The man who killed a foreign
barbarian was a patriot, the more so if he put out of the way a
teacher of “the wicked sect.”

Nor was the danger abated upon the Mikado’s restoration, for
one of his first acts was the renewal of the ancient edict against
Christianity, making its profession a capital crime. Indeed, the
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CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN JAPAN. 429

remnant of Roman Catholics discovered in certain villages north-
ward from Nagasaki, a remnant that had strangely survived all
the persecutions and inquisitions of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.

Was ever a field so discouraging? When the profession of
the faith is proclaimed a death crime by the rulers ; when the low-
er classes fear, and the upper classes hate the missionaries; when
they themselves are practically shut up as prisoners within the
narrow concessions, what could they do? Two things they could
do: slowly win the confidence of the Japanese and learn their
difficult language. Yea, they did a third thing. Strangely
enough, several daimyos, or feudal lords, suspicious as they were,
yet eager to get the clew to the foreigner’s knowledge, requested
the missionaries to teach their sons. Even before the revolution
Drs. Verbeck, Brown, and Griffis laid the foundation of what
afterwards became a national system of education. This is un-
paraileled in missionary history, that from the very outset, while
persecution was raging and the cross hated, so many young men
destined to be the leaders in the new era should come under the
training of the missionaries.

Second Period (1872-1890): Rapid and Aggnessive Expansion.
How strong the opposition was during the first period let the
small number of converts answer—only ten converts in twelve
years! Not until 1872 was the first little Church organized. It
was in Yokohama’s foreign concession, under the American flag,
and consisted of only twelve members. It was a mustard seed;
but it began to grow, and will grow into a great tree, giving food
and shade to millions of souls.

The Church of Japan was bornin prayer. As the first apostol-
ic Church in Europe originated in a woman’s prayer meeting out-
side the walls of Philippi, so the Japanese Church took its immedi-
ate origin in a daily prayer meeting of two months’ standing.
For prayer book and text-book the Acts of the Apostles was used.

When Prince Iwakura’s embassy returned from Europe and
America (1872), they felt, if they did not say, “not the foreigners,
but we are the barbarians.” The public edict boards against
Christianity were at once taken down, and a change took place
among many leading spirits of the nation. Not all, but many, be-
gan to feel the old system of things must pass away, and a new
policy and system modeled, not after China, but after the Western
nations, must be adopted.

NEWTON.

What could the
missionaries
do?

Second period.
430 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

NEWTONS With a rapidity unknown before among the Asiatics, many
great things were accomplished during this second period. Feu-
dalism and daimyo rule over the clans were overthrown; the

Political refore ©/28S Privileges of the two-sworded Samurai were abolished; the

mation. common people were emancipated from feudal serfdom; the cen-
tral government, with its cabinet departments, was codrdinated
with the provinces, their respective governors appointed by the
crown; a modern system of education under foreign auspices was
organized ; a modern police system, modern banks and coinage,
post offices and telegraphs, steamship companies, railways, mines
and manufacturing, all according to foreign models and methods,
were started and subsidized by the new imperial government.
We doubt if changes so many. and so radical, in so short a time,
ever took place in any other nation.

For an adequate explanation of such a revolution, which cost
the nation a civil war of only one year, the presence and work of
the missionaries must be considered. The missionaries now go-
ing forth beyond the narrow limits of treaty ports, not without
danger, began to hold preaching meetings in the public inns and
theaters of interior towns and cities.

The people were curious to see the foreigners’ hairy faces, and
observe their strange manners, and, though still influenced by the
traditions heard from childhood concerning ‘the wicked sect”

Influence of (Roman Catholics) which once infested their sacred land, their

the missiona- ¥

ries. ears itched to hear for themselves about the hated cross of the
“Kristians.” And so regular preaching places were fixed upon.
Small classes of boys and young men eager for the Western
learning were started, which afterwards became regular mission
colleges; girls’ schools, knitting and sewing classes, night
schools, dispensaries and hospitals, probationers’ meetings, and
Sunday schools were opened. Though small at first, soon all
these began to grow rapidly.

This manifold mission work, along with the progressive move-
ments of the new government, made a widespread impression.
An almost revolutionary wave of sentiment set in in favor of all
new and foreign things, and against the things of old Japan. A
premature sentiment took possession of the nation, especially the
younger generation; as for the old men, they hung their heads,.
bewildered and grieved.

Foreign dress, ideas, manners, and institutions were hastily
adopted, in many cases in ill-fitting and ludicrous fashion. At
}

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN JAPAN. 431

court foreign costumes were prescribed for public functions.
Imagine those Japanese officials stepping out in swallow-tailed
coats, silk hats and trousers, their necks incased in stiff collars
and cravats. And how strangely uncomfortable to the high
ladies, for the first time squeezing their feet into narrow-toed,
high-heeled shoes, and wearing tight-fitting stays around their
waists. But it had to be endured, for it was the foreign way.

As for the missionaries, their schools were crowded to over-
flowing; chapels too sprang up everywhere, regular Churches
were organized, native preachers were ordained, doors were
opened on all sides, and calls from all directions, for all sorts ot
work, came thick and fast. What with preaching, itinerating,
teaching, writing, visiting, and receiving, interviewing, etc., the
missionaries and their poor wives were kept on the run day and
night.

In Osaka, in 1883, the General Conference of Protestant Mis-
sionaries was held for a week. That was an epoch-making as-
sembly, and the Holy Ghost presided over their spirits and melted
all hearts into one sweet cup of brotherly love and peace. Reviv-
als broke out; a great stir was made, and converts were multi-
plied by the hundreds. But as there was no adequate provision
for conserving these results, it was not an abiding change.

Third Period (1890-1900): Slower but Healthier Movements.
The rapid advance of missions and the admiration for everything
foreign reached their climax about the year 1890. There were
causes: (1) The conviction of thoughtful Japanese leaders that
Japan would soon be swept off her feet bodily, and into an untried
foreign sea; (2) the discovery that all foreign glitterings were not
gold; (3) the bringing in of Unitarian, rationalistic, and scientific
skepticism from Christian nations; (4) a strong rally of the con-
servatives, together with Buddhist priests, by appealing to Japa-
nese patriotism touching the foreign treaties.

The Japanese being patriotic and quick-spirited like ourselves,
their disappointment over the treaties kindled a fire from heart
to heart that soon leaped into a threatening flame. The attempt
of a policeman to kill the present Czar of Russia, then a guest of
the nation, and the expulsion of Mr. Tamura from the Presby-
terian ministry by his brethren because he had exposed certain
social evils, prove what we have said.

NEWTON.

Introduction
of foreign
dress and
ways.

Feverish ac-
tivities,

Third period.
NEWTON.

The sifting.

Inauguration
of our mis-
sion.

The founders.

432 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

But let no one suppose that during this period Christianity
made no substantial progress.

A sifting wa's needed in which the faith of some did collapse, but
that of many was the more confirmed. The converts were fewer,
but more intelligent and thoroughly grounded; revivals were not
so sweeping, but less sensational ; and while on one hand Unitari-
an and rationalistic heresies made doctrinal disaffection among a
few non-Methodist preachers, the pure gospel was preached by
many other Japanese with power sent down as never before.
Real fidelity and seli-denial were tested, the spirit of self-support
developed, and the moral influence of the Christians became more
potent in the nation. With missions as with nations, sometimes
the slower growth is the healthier.

Let us now turn our eyes to the work of our own Church in
Japan.

The alternative name of our mission, the Mission of the Inland
Sea, indicates its location. This sea, six hundred miles long
westward and eastward, lies in Southern Japan. Travelers say
no sea in the world surpasses this for picturesqueness and beauty.

The Lambuths, father and son, displayed great wisdom in
choosing this region for our Church. For one thing, there is no
overlapping of territory with other Methodisms. It is a fertile
section, capable of supporting a vast population, is now teeming
with people, having several large cities, many smaller towns, and
scores of villages. Osaka City has 600,000 people, and is the sec-
ond city in the empire in domestic trade and shipping. Kobé 1s
a large and growing metropolis of 150,000, where ships from many
countries trade. Both these cities are now manufacturing cen-
ters ona large scale. Kioto, the old capital, is a city of 250,000,
and is very important as a mission center. Hiroshima is a city of
90,000 lying farther west, and is another of our mission centers.

The Inland Sea is in itself the great highway of ocean trade and
travel from America and the Far East, and lies right in the midst
of our territory.

By no arbitrary choice was Abram to be the father of a new
nation unto the Lord, for by the law of heredity he has transmit-
ted his strength of character. Nor was there less wisdom in
calling Drs. James W. and W. R. Lambuth out of China into the
land of the new Japan to plant the Church under the auspices of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. With them came a
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN JAPAN. 433

third man, Rev. O. A. Dukes, then an enthusiastic, consecrated
missionary.

The senior Lambuth’s answer to Bishop McTyeire’s letter was
characteristic: “We thank you for the determination to open
work in Japan. We shall go, leaning on the omnipotent arm of
God, and seeking guidance of the Holy Spirit.” After thirty-two
years of hard service inChina,he and his equally devoted wife ar-
rived in Kobé, July, 1886, and, without a board, brick, or native
member, made a start. Bishop Wilson, having appointed Dr.
W.R.Lambuth superintendent, inaugurated the mission, consist-
ing of three missionaries and their wives, and started them upon
a remarkable career. The work of those founders may be char-
acterized briefly: (1) By flaming zeal. Never was a mission field
more rapidly occupied, its strategic points seized, its lines run out,
than by these missionaries, who, flying as it were upon wings, were
almost ubiquitous. (2) By bold faith; a faith that expects great
things from God, and attempts great things for God. (3) Far-
reaching plans. The whole field was quickly surveyed, and cir-
cuits and mission stations selected. (4) Manifoldness of the
work. Calls for all sorts of work were so promptly responded to
that it now seems almost miraculous that flesh and blood could do
so many different things—teaching in the government schools,
night schools, traveling by rail, riksha, and boat, by day and by
night, receiving and entertaining all sorts of eager, curious peo-
ple, starting little Sunday schools, Bible classes, instructing in-
quirers and probationers, teaching singing, woman’s sewing,
knitting, cooking, and tailoring classes, preaching in inns and
thealers, as well as in rented chapels, writing and appealing
through newspapers and friends to the Church in the home land.
All this, besides the daily study of the difficult Japanese lan-
guage. Asa result, the Southern Methodist Mission sprang to
the front so quickly as to astonish the missionaries of older mis-
sions. The same flaming zeal of those pioneer missionaries
seeined to inspire a like spirit in their first Japanese converts.

There was Sunamoto, the converted sailor, coming back from
San Francisco with his heart all ablaze, to bring his people to the
knowledge of the true God, and with fullest joy welcoming the
missionaries to Hiroshima City, and as a flaming evangelist com-
missioned by the Holy Ghost, going by boat from point to point
on the Inland Sea, where, as a heathen pilot, he had been before.
And there was Nakayama, the young teacher of a little school in

NEWTON.

Demands upon
the first
missionaries.

Japanese
laborers.
NEWTON.

The difficul-
ties which
were faced.

Sacrifices.

434 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Shobara, quietly but earnestly longing for the light, who wel-
comed Dr. Lambuth to his town, receiving him in his room with
his New Testament, from which, without teacher or preacher, he
had been trying to learn what the gospel is. One of our first
theological students, he was the first of our Japanese preachers to
die. Only forty-eight hours before his death he said in a feeble,
but distinct voice, with tears streaming: “I trust in the Lord.”

And there was our dear Yoshioka, of whom we hope to speak
later. The full story of the founding and upbuilding of our mis-
sion, its joys and successes, its trials and toils, cannot be told here.
Suffice it to say that by the year 1892 such had been its remarkable
progress that Bishop Key, with the approval of the Mission
Board, organized the Japan Mission Conference, with three pre-
siding elders’ districts. It is doubtful if any mission in Asia,
started with nothing, ever attained in so short a time such magni-
tude and maturity of growth.

But let no one suppose the rapid success of our Japan work
was achieved without difficulty and without arduous toil. With
all the attractions and advantages which Japan as a mission field
has, the difficulties have been greater and the strain on the work-
ers much severer than has generally been believed. On account
of the high tension there have been times when the head and
heart, nerves and all, were almost breaking. The high pressure of
speed naturally put double strain on the force so inadequate to
meet the demands.

Not now a member of the Japan Mission, I must say this, that
from the first the demands of,the work were so great and the
appropriations of the Mission Board so short on account of poor
collections in the Churches here in America, that the missionaries
had to carry a heavy financial burden in sustaining the work.
Nor is it known that most of the early missionaries sent out by
our Church supported themselves by teaching in government
schools, studying the language, and doing heavy missionary work
besides. This writer was not one of them, and therefore speaks
no word of self-praise.

Nor is it generally known again that three years ago, the breth-
ren no longer able to carry so heavy a burden, seventeen chapels
had to be closed from sheer lack of funds. But this painful exi-
gency was not due to any lack of zeal or liberality of the Japanese
Christians, for they have ever been forward to give, and some-
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN JAPAN. 435

times beyond their meager means. Self-support was from the
first emphasized.

I cannot restrain myself from speaking of the extreme difficul-
ties and long delays experienced in the upbuilding of our two
girls’ schools. There was the Hiroshima Girls’ School, and Miss
Gaines was the long and silent sufferer. But the heroine she is,
she has been abundantly rewarded for all those years of hard toil
and difficulty. The other was the Lambuth Bible and Training
School, in Kobé, which is a monument to Mrs. M. I. Lambuth’s
perseverance and suffering. Often have I felt that it was a
burning shame that she, after having toiled for forty years in the
Orient, and now in her declining years and failing strength,
should be allowed to make her bricks without straw, and furnish
much of the mortar, while hundreds of high ladies were here at
home living in luxury and wasting their Lord’s money. But I
am glad that at last her school has found a permanent place where
to rest the soles of its feet. Year before last new buildings were
finished and dedicated to the training of Japanese girls in Bibie
work and in industrial and dcmestic arts.

But what of the present hour and future outlook?

As indicated in the first of this paper, the reactionary wave of
the antiforeign feeling that passed over the nation affected our
own field as it did all others, though there has been steady prog-
ress. Indeed, in our own mission and Church there has been
less evil, not only from the rationalistic reaction, but also from
hurtful influences of liberalism and atheism imported from
America and Europe.

So ‘that there is much to encourage and little to discourage,
provided we do our duty. We have out there a well-organized
Mission Conference, several self-supporting Churches, a well-
seasoned body of missionaries, consecrated in spirit, soul, and
body to their Master; but they are too few for the work put upon
them. Itis poor economy. There is, too, a small body of Japa-
nese preachers who are, for the most part, well trained, and are
preaching a present conscious salvation. They need our sympa-
thy and support. They believe in the Holy Ghost.

There are two girls’ schools. The Hiroshima school was never
in finer condition. Every department is full to overflowing, mak-
ing a total actual attendance of over four hundred pupils. It
has a great future. The Lambuth Bible and Training School
is now in condition to go forward upon its mission of training

NEWTON.

The girls’
schools.

Present con-
dition and
outlook.
NEWTON.

The Kwansei
Gakuin.

Prominent
Christians.

436 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Japanese women for effective woman’s work in the Church, and
for intelligent, Christian home life.

Our Mission College and Biblical Seminary at Kobé, the
Kwansei Gakuin, is a child of faith and providence. The ground
was bought by Dr. W. R. Lambuth, then the superintendent,
when there was not a dollar in hand or in sight. This institution,
from its very foundation, both in the Collegiate and Biblical De-
partments, has had a very high ideal, both of religious and also of
intellectual culture, and is has filled a much-needed place. It is
one of the schools which Prof, Frank Muller, of the Naval Col-
lege of Japan, spoke of as an “out-and-out Christian school.” But
it needs more men in the teaching staff ; it needs endowment also.
This school has suffered. You need to send more men to that
institution like Wainright of the Collegiate, and Haden of the
Biblical Department—that is, if you can find them.

And what of the field in general and what of the future? Ja-
pan is not a Christian nation, but by the new treaties the mis-
sionaries and the gospel have the right of way throughout the
empire, and therefore the work should be pushed with all pos-
sible energy.

Japan is not a Christian nation, but Christian faith and disci-
pleship are respected by the people, and are no barrier to high of-
ficial position in the government. One of the Supreme Court
Judges is a professing Christian, and the presidents of two ses-
sions of the national parliament were Christians appointed by the
sovereign. Japan is not a Christian nation, but Bishop Wilson,
speaking of the great Missionary Conference recently held in
Tokyo, says: “There was quite as much freedom combined with
the utmost respect for ‘the powers that be,’ in the statement of
relations between the missions and the government as there
would have been in a similar assembly in the United States.”
Some of the government officials extended personal recognition
to the body. As for the populace, he says: “It was friendly, at
least not hostile; there were no threatening crowds, no epithets
for foreigners upon the streets of the great capital city.”

Hardly more than a generation ago Japan was at one with the
tumult, disorder, and murder of foreigners that have so lately pre-
vailed just across the narrow sea in China. But behold how far
away and in advance of all that is the new Japan of to-day!

Japan is yet a Christless nation, and lately the Minister of Edu-
cation has been intermeddling with our mission schools, but the
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN JAPAN. 437

answer we ought to give him is the planting of the out-and-out
Christian University in Tokyo. Let all the evangelical Churches
of America and Great Britain join together to establish a modern,
thoroughly equipped university in the Japanese capital. It can
be done; it ought to be done. Gospel truth, Christian princi-
ples at the top as well as at the bottom of society, is what Japan
needs. And her brightest students would crowd its halls.

The Japanese are Orientals, and yet have a national genius like
the Western races. They are patriotic, chivalric, and esthetic;
they are quick, lively, open-eyed, progressive. It seems to us
that Divine Providence has intended this nation to be the bridge
connecting the Occident and Orient.

By national genius, by geographical position, and by commer-
cial relations with the Continent, Japan when once made Chris-
tian will become, not only the political reformer, commer-
cial distributer, but also the evangelizer of Eastern Asia. It is
not generally known that at one period in their history the Japa-
nese came nigh being the great maritime and colonizing power of
all the Orient. The same spirit still lives.

Japan has the advantage of a singular affiliation with the Chris-
tian nations. She already commands recognition in the inter-
national affairs of the far East, and it may be we shall have to look
to her to confront the Russian bear in his ravenous invasions of
Eastern Asia. Not only is there this singular national affiliation,
but with America particularly there are the closest bonds. She
is, in a sense, our pupil; has sent at least six thousand of her best
students to study in our colleges and universities; has received
more from us than from any other nation, and her people respect
our people more. Japan’s future is at once our opportunity and
responsibility.

Sitting the other day in the Portsmouth ferry house, a young
Episcopal minister, who had been born in Shanghai, quoted these
words: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of man, he walketh
through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he
saith, I will return unto my house from whence I came out; and
when the is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then
goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked
than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state
of that man is worse than the first.” And Japan is now casting
out and emptying her house of her ancient superstitions and
heathen notions. It is for us to enter and occupy the house with

NEWTON.

A great uni-
versity
needed.

The future of
Japan,

The empty
house.
NEWTON.

Possibilities
in the Orient.

Capabilities of
the Japanese.

438 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

the gospel and faith of Christ ; but if we do not, all the seven spir-
its of modern unbeiief will surely enter in, and the last state of the
new Japan will be worse than the old. How momentous, then, is
the work of Christian missions to Japan. Delivered from hea-
thenism, will she become a nation of Christians or atheists? The
American Church must make the answer.

The Japanese nation occupies a place of strategic importance
for China and Korea. As it goes in Japan, it will go much the
same in China and Korea. If this nation be Christianized, it will
help immensely to Christianize them; but if Japan should crystal-
lize into scientific materialism and religious indifference, much of
our work in China will be turned to naught. Why so?

1. Japan is already far in advance of China. Forty years ago
a nonentity in international affairs, she has now won a recognized
place of power in all the international movements of the far
East. She is bound, therefore, to exert a powerful influence
upon China in the future.

2. “Blood is thicker than water.” Their racial affinities as
Asiatics will cause the Japanese to make common cause finally
with the Chinese.

3. What God hath ordained man need not try to change or
undo. Now the God of nature and of history, who is, at the same
time, the God of revelation and redemption, hath ordained for
Japan a peculiar place of power in the destiny of Eastern Asia.
How do we know? Simply look at the map and call up your his-
tory.

This remarkable people with their remarkable career of the
past forty years God has placed on the fortieth degree of latitude
and has separated them from the continent, but left them close by.
That insular separation has already brought Japan into extraor-
dinary relationship with America, and yet it never has and never
will break down the living bridge that joins the Japanese to the
rest of Asia.

4. The Japanese have already proved two things: that they are
good organizers and good fighters. This is not theory; it is fact.
And a people who have good organizing capacity and who fight
well are bound to be strong either in peace or war. Such a peo-
ple cannot be thrown into the background of the world’s move-
ments. ,

5. The native Church in Japan, young as it is, has produced
many leaders whose character and strength of influence are of a
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN JAPAN. 439

high order. In no mission Church in the world has the native
ministry come so quickly to the front and won a position of such
influence and direction amongst the missionaries. Call the roll
of such men as Neesima, Paul Sawayama, Miagawa, Honda,
Ando, Ibuka, Uemura, and Yoshioka, and every one of these
men would be given a positive position anywhere. It guarantees
aggressive character to the native Japanese Church of the future.

6. The great leaders of the English Church see clearly that
Japan holds a place of strategic importance. That historic
Church, with its missionary work in all lands which challenges
admiration and generous rivalry, is pushing a fixed policy of ex-
pansion by heavy reénforcements of men and resources. The
whole country has been marked off into seven dioceses, with
seven bishops. The consequence is the Episcopal Church is
rapidly forging ahead. For years I have coveted for Episcopal
Methodism a large place in Japan, for undoubedly the Epicopal
polity is best suited to the genius of that nation, but we are push-
ing our work too slowly and supporting it too meagerly for the
great demands of that field.

7. Listening to the speeches at this Conference, we have all
been reminded that the situation in China has involved a conflict
ofarms. Brute force has been appealed to in ‘the conflict between
the civilization of the Western nations and that of Asia. But in
Japan it is not so; it is not a battle of deshly strife and blood with
guns and warships. Itis a conflict in the realm of spiritual forces
between the gospel of Jesus Christ and the powers of evil of Sa-
tan’s kingdom, a battle waged by the sword of the Spirit for the
setting up of Christ’s kingdom of light and love in the thoughts
and hearts of men. Western infidelity, taking refuge in Japan
and making common cause with the paganism of Asia against the
Son of God, throws down the gage of final battle. But we will
rout them all; and Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, will
make Japan in truth “The Sunrise Kingdom.”

8. The schools and the students of the new Japan have undis-
puted sway in the future attitude of the nation toward the truth.
As it goes in the school it will go much the same way with the
nation. How momentous, then, is the work of Christianizing the
educated classes. Not only so, but the thought and spirit of this
new generation of scholars will be reflected in the thought and
spirit of China and Korea.

NEWTON.

Leaders.

A policy’

A challenge.
History.

VY. KOREA:

THE KOREA MISSION.
REV. J. R. MOOSE.

A REVIEW of the progress of our work in Korea is indeed
enough to fill our hearts with gratitude to Him who has called us
to labor in his vineyard.

It was in August, 1894, that Dr. C. F. Reid came to Korea for
the purpose of beginning our work. It is true that he had been
here before and made some preliminary arrangements, but he
did not move here until the above-mentioned date, which marks
the beginning of a work in this land which from the very first has
had upon it the unmistakable marks of divine favor.

As with all missionaries entering a new field, Dr. Reid, not-
withstanding his long service in China, was compelled to take up
the study of a new language, and by no means an easy one. He
succeeded so well in laying the foundations of the mission that its
growth has been nothing short of marvelous. The most hope-
ful person would not have prophesied such rapid growth in so
short a time. The work was planned and started on a broad
scale, considering the smallness of the force in the field, and it
has since been conducted on the same lines.

In January, 1897, Rev. C. T. Collyer entered the mission, thus
giving the much-needed reénforcement, though he too had the
problem of the language to contend with. In May, 1898, Dr. R.
A. Hardie came to our mission, and, having been engaged in mis-
sion work in this country for a number of years, was well up in
the language, thus being qualified for effective work from the be-
ginning. In September, 1899, the writer came, and has been
engaged in the study of the language and doing such other work
as was possible under the circumstances. In the spring of 1899,
on account of his health, Dr. Reid was compelled to return to the
United States, thus bringing a great loss to the mission.

It has seemed well to give this bit of history, that one may the
better understand what the Lord has been and is now doing
through our mission in this land.
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THE KOREA MISSION. 441

The Korea District embraces all the central part of Korea, ex-
tending from sea to sea, and containing territory enough to make
a good-sized Annual Conference. There is a perfect understand-
ing between the mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church and
our mission, so that we are not setting altar against altar, but we
are working in harmony, trying to take the land for Methodism
and all that it stands for. We have not tried to make the city of
Seoul the center of our work, but rather a center from which to
work. We now have two classes in Seoul, but our greatest suc-
cess has been in the country towns and villages.

There are now three stations in the district: Seoul, Songdo,
and Wonsan. The circuits of which these stations are the cen-
ters are each large enough, if extended to their proper limits, for
a presiding elder’s district. The Seoul Circuit has nine societies,
with two hundred and forty-three communicants and one hundred
and ninety-seven probationers. The Songdo Circuit has fifty-four
communicants and one hundred and twenty-four probationers.
Total number of communicamts, two hundred and ninety-seven;
total number of probationers, three hundred and twenty-one;
total number of adherents, not including baptized children, six
hundred and twelve. When we look at these figures, well may
we exclaim: “What hath God wrought !”

The Wonsan Circuit has no organized classes, the field having
just been entered by Dr. Hardie, who moved there in December,
1g00. There is a large territory in easy reach of this station
which is now occupied by Methodism, and we ‘hope to see at no
distant day a very strong circuit on this coast. It is about two
hundred miles from Seoul to Wonsan, which is the principal sea-
port on the eastern coast of Korea. These two cities are con-
nected by perhaps what is the best road in the kingdom, but even
this is little better than a bridle path. Along the road there are a
number of villages where the people are interested, and the out-
look for some strong Churches is good.

Songdo is worthy of more than a passing notice. It is the sec-
ond largest city in the country, and one of the ancient capitals,
the population now being about sixty thousand. The city is en-
tirely open to us, there being no other denominations at work, ex-
cept the Romanists, who have recently entered. From the be-
ginning this work has been under the care of Rev. C. T. Collyer,
and the above-quoted figures show how well he is succeeding.
The most pressing need of this circuit is a new church building for

MOOSE.

Cooperation.

Theee circuits
and their
statistics.
MOOSE,

An industrial
school. Inter-
est of the
Koreans.

The open doors
and the hin-
drances.

442 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the city. The people are making an honest effort to help them-
selves, but they are not able to build such a church as the situation
demands. They are contributing to the building fund with a will-
ing hand, but the Board must come to their help before the work
can be accomplished. It is in this city that we hope in the near
future to open an industrial school, for the founding of which two
Korean gentlemen have given $1,000, United States currency.
This money is now in bank, and we are waiting for more to be
added to it. If some one of our brethren in the United States
wants to build for himself a monument that will last through all
time, and contribute much in lifting a people out of sin and dark-
ness, now is the time and this is the place—the Songdo Industrial
School. Five or ten thousand dollars invested in this school
would doubtless yield a most bountiful income in the way of en-
lightened minds and trained hands, and these in turn would prove
to be an untold blessing to their fellow-countrymen. There is
perhaps no other line of educational work that could be done in
this country that would be such a power for good as this indus-
trial training. Let it be thoroughly understood, however, that
the first and last object shall ever be to lead young men and boys
to Christ. If this one idea should be lost sight of, then the soon-
er we get out of the field the better for all concerned. Our first
object is to make Christians; after this has been accomplished,
then we desire to improve the conditions of everyday life. This,
we believe, can best be done by the training of both mind and
hand.

We have much to thank God for in the way of open doors. The
people are kind to us, and willing to hear the gospel, even if they
are not always ready to accept it on the first hearing. Nowis the
time to get in our best work while the tide is in our favor. No one
can tell what a few years may bring to this country. There may
be political reaction, and the good feeling now existing toward
the missionaries be turned into a spirit of hatred, as in some parts
of China. I feel sure that this would never come about, if none
but the missionaries were here; but this is not the case. The men
of the world are turning to Korea to find sale for their wares,
which are not always of the sort that will prove a blessing to those
that buy them.

There are groups of believers springing up all over our terri-
tory, even in places that have not been visited by a missionary,
but only by the native helpers. At some ofthese places the peo-
THE KOREA MISSION. 443

ple have bought chapels for ‘themselves without even the knowl-
edge of the missionary.

The Woman’s Board has a fine start here. They have been
very fortunate in the selection of workers for this field. Mrs. J.
P. Campbell, Miss Fannie Hinds, and Miss Arrena Carroll are
the workers under this Board, and they are doing a noble work
amongst the women and girls of Seoul and Songdo. It may be
said that the wives of the missionaries are also rendering assist-
ance in this work of lifting up their fallen sisters.

Mrs. Campbell is in charge of the Carolina Institute for girls
in the city of Seoul. This is a boarding school, and is now full of
girls who will soon go out to take their places in the work of
bringing about the emancipation of woman in this sin-cursed
land.

MOOSE,
Ill.
IN THE UNITED STATES.
I Tue InpIANs.
Il. Tue Germans.
III. THe NEGROEs.
IV. Home Missions.
ip TBE INDIANS.

 

WORK AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
REV. J. J. METHVIN.

No sickly sentiment have I to indulge concerning the Indian.
In nature he is but a duplicate of his “paleface brother.” Total
depravity is a fact, and he is no exception to the rule, and in-
stead of “the noble red man of the forest,’ of whom we read in
fiction, we have but an ignoble savage, till grace converts the
savage into a saint, which it often does. Be sickly sentiment
indulged where stern realities demand that wisdom give direction
to action, disappointment inevitably follows, and disgust causes
rebound to opposite extremes. That has been the history of
much of the work enterprised by the people of this country in
behalf of the Indian, and therefore spasmodic has been much
of the effort, with corresponding results.

Drake says: “Notwithstanding one of the ostensible objects of
nearly all the royal charters and grants issued for British North
America was the Christianizing of the Indian, few could be found
equal to the task on arriving here.”

McTyeire says in his “History of Methodism,’ “John and
Charles Wesley came to America to convert the Indian, but died
without the sight ;” and we are accustomed to hearing sounded
in our ears to this day “failure of the Indian work.” But, not-
withstanding this, the history of the Indian missions enterprised
by the Church, where faithful work has been done, forms one of
the brightest chapters in the history of missions. If from time to
time there has been decline and seeming failure, the cause may
be easily traced and brought to light. It will be necessary, there-
fore, in this paper to trace the rise and progress of the Indian
work, show its success, point out the cause of decline where it
has occurred, the hindrances that now exist, indicate our present
duty and a future policy.

About 1634, some forty-two years after the discovery of Amer-
ica, the Jesuits began missionary work among the Hurons and
Troquois around the Great Lakes. Theirs was a heroic spirit,

The Indian as
he is.

tome history.
METHVIN.

The Wesleys.

Brainerd.

Work of
Methodists.

448 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and had they sown the country down in Bibles and Bible truth,
instead of a superstitious devotion to Romanism and France, they
could have held every foot of ground they went over. But after
nearly twenty years of heroic and unparalleled effort, they saw
their hopes struck down, their faith wavered, and they abandoned
the field. In 1646, while yet the Jesuits lingered on the field,
John Eliot, called the Apostle of the Indians, in the fullness of
zeal and with an undaunted faith, began missionary work at
Natick, in Massachusetts. Such was his spirit and purpose that
great success accompanied his efforts and the efforts of those
who followed him, so that in spite of continuous tribal wars and
other hindrances there were, in 1696, in New England towns,
no less than thirty Indian Churches, with a large number of
converts. During that time Roger Williams wrote: “It cannot
be hid how all England and other nations ring with the glorious
conversion of the Indians of New England.” A wonderful revolu-
tion had come, to be stayed only by the future unfaithfulness
of the Church and aggressiveness of the border white man, who
regarded neither morals nor property rights of the Indian.

In 1736 John and Charles Wesley, with Ingham and Delamotte
as colaborers, came to America, landing at Savannah April 6,
for the purpose of converting the Indian. Ingham built a house
for a schlool at Cowpens, near Savannah, which he named
“Trene.” But these missionaries within two years returned to
England, and we hear no more of this enterprise.

Eight years later David Brainerd began work at the forks of
the Delaware. Such was the spirit and purpose of this frail man
that glorious results followed his efforts and many Indians were
converted. In 1754, after ten years of faithful work and corre-
sponding success, Brainerd died and his brother John succeeded
him. Thomas Rankin tells us that in 1774 he met John Brainerd,
who gave him a doleful account of the dissipation of his brother’s
work by reason of the influence of the border white man and his
liquor.

The Moravians, who are always abreast of the foremost in mis-
sion work, began during this period several Indian missions, and
pursued them with great success.

Irregular and spasmodic efforts were made by different organi-
zations among the various tribes, with results corresponding to
the efforts made; but not till 1819 was anything done by our
Church beyond an occasional visit by our circuit preachers to
WORK AMONG INDIANS. 449

Indian villages at irregular times. During that year the Ohio
Conference sent James Montgomery, under J. B. Findley, a
North Carolinian, as presiding elder, to follow up the work so
successfully begun in 1815 among thé Wyandottes by John
Stewart, a colored convert of Marietta, Ohio, who had come
from Powhatan County, Va. This negro was a drunken sot, and
in the craze of drink one day started to the river to drown him-
self. Passing by where Marcus Lindsey, a Methodist preacher,
was, under the presence of the Spirit, setting forth the power of
Jesus to save, his attention was arrested, and as he listened the
truth and power of God’s word took hold upon him and he was
converted. Soon after, he heard a voice saying to him: “You
must go in a northwesterly direction to the Indian nation, and
tell the savage tribes of Christ, your Saviour.” In obedience to
this call he went to the upper Sandusky, and found the Wyan-
dottes, to whom he proclaimed the glad news of salvation. The
results following his labors may be recorded as one of the miracles
of missions. This was the beginning of Methodist missions
among Indians, for it was this work that the Ohio Conference,
in 1819, took under its care, and of which, in 1821, J. B. Findley
was made superintendent.

About this time two more Indian missions were begun, one
among the Mohawks, which, ina little while, met with most glo-
rious success, and multitudes were converted. The Spirit’s power
was manifest among them, and the power of Jesus to save was
shown in the reformed habits of the people and in their con-
sistent lives. The other mission was among the Creeks, in
Georgia. Dr. Capers (afterwards bishop) was superintendent,
with Isaac Smith missionary. This was established under diffi-
culties, and such was the opposition from some of the obdurate
chiefs, encouraged by the United States agent, that after a few
years it was suspended, to be renewed later on.

During the spring of 1822, through the invitation of Richard
Riley, an intelligent Cherokee, a young preacher of the Tennes-
see Conference, Richard Neely, whose circuit embraced several
Indian villages, visited and preached to the Cherokee people.
During his first visit thirty-three were converted and joined the
Church. This was the beginning of great and prosperous work
among the Cherokees, which has continued to this day, together
with work among the Choctaws and Chickasaws.

But time and space would fail me in this brief paper to tell of

19

METHVIN.

Among the
Mohawks.
METHVIN,

In Illinois and
elsewhere.

Organization of
the Indian
Mission Con-
ference.

Some points.

450 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the Pottawatomie Mission, in Illinois, under Jesse Walker, in
1823; of the conversion of a fragment of the Wyandottes in Up-
per Canada, and of the wonderful conversion of the Mississaugas,
who were the most degraded and besotted of all the tribes; of the
Oneidas, the Shawnees, the Kickapoos, the Kansans, and other
tribes extending from Canada to the extreme South; and of the
great work among the Oregon Indians on the Pacific coast, in
1839, when, in a short while, not less than a thousand were most
gloriously .converted—‘“a reformation,” says Bangs, “so sudden,
deep, and wide, among such a people as had not been known in
modern days ;” and of all the work done and the conquests gained
down to 1844. A rich legacy was left as a common heritage to
both branches of our Methodism down to that date, and of equal
interest to both. During that year the Indian Mission Confer-
ence was organized, and in the division of the Church it re-
mained with the M. E. Church, South, and the responsibility of
the continued evangelization of the Indians included in its terri-
tory was placed upon us. How have we met the obligation, and
how are we meeting it now? are questions that concern us.

From the beginning God owned this work under our ministry,
and during the first year, although a year of agitation, there was
great increase, and in the course of a few years the membership
ran up to its thousands. It would be a profitable and thrilling
chapter to show in detail the results of missionary labors among
these tribes on down through the years of hardships and hin-
drances. Thousands have been brought into the fold of Christ,
lived consistent lives, died triumphantly, and, going home, have
left to the Church a rich and glorious legacy of faith and good
works—men and women of saintly character and seraphic ardor,
molded under the gospel’s power, a benediction to the race.
Aside from the thousands who have been brought to Christ,
many of whom have crossed the flood, many of whom linger on
the field of action, it is worth all that has ever been expended to
have produced such men as Monecue and Between the Logs
among the Wyandottes in the early history of Methodist mis-
sion, Boot and Sevier among the Cherokees, Checote among
the Creeks, Willis Fulsom and Nelson and others like them
among the Choctaws, and Andele among the wild tribes.

We were slow, too slow, about extending the work beyond the
civilized tribes; and it was not till 1887 that we began work
among the wild tribes farther west—the Kiowas, Comanches,
WORK AMONG INDIANS. 451

Apaches, and numerous other small and affiliated tribes. The
condition of these tribes was such that there was little to hope
for from ‘a human standpoint. There perhaps never was a people
in whom there was so little upon which to build. No homes nor
home life, no civilization, no written language, but wild, nomadic,
savage, conscience and moral instinct dead, degraded to even
a lower level by contact with the border white man, and stripped
of manhood and pauperized by the government ration sys-
tem. But the gospel faithfully preached triumphs wherever it
goes. The work was slow at first, but in the course of eighteen
months there were signs of awakening, and soon the Holy Spirit’s
power came upon the people, consciences were quickened, moral
sense revived, hearts were broken on account of sin,and a glorious
conquest began. This work went on, and from time to time there
were special manifestations of God’s power to save. I have seen
the rugged-faced Indian, proud and stubborn, break down under
conviction, and with quivering frame and streaming eyes come
to the altar and, humbly kneeling, ask the prayers of God’s peo-
ple. I have theard the heart-broken wail of conviction followed
by the exultant shout of conscious victory. I have seen whole
congregations swept and swayed by the tide of God’s grace till
none were left to oppose, and in the triumphs of that grace I have
seen the savage converted into a saint. This work has gone on,
and has kept pace with the faith and zeal of those interested in it.
Not least among the important factors in it is the Woman’s For-
eign Missionary Society. The ladies working under the auspices
of the Board have, with saintly lives and simple faith, gone forth
under the Spirit’s guidance in school and camp and tepee, and
all along God has blessed their efforts.

In proportion to the men and means there have not been
greater results in all the history of our missions than in Indian
work.

After the above historical statement it may be inquired what has
hindered, and hedged in, and crippled, and, in many instances,
destroyed entirely the missions referred to; and what are the
hindrances met with now in the Indian work. These are
numerous, but I shall mention only two that, in studying the
history of the Indian work, appear most prominent, and may
be the source of all others. First, spasmodic and irregular effort
upon the part of the Church; secondly, an unsettled policy by the
government.

METHVIN.

Wild tribes.

What has been
done.

Two hindran-
ces.
METHVIN,

The westward
migration.

452 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

1. In the beginning of all our Indian missions they have been
enterprised by strong men, such as Findley, Capers, Talley, and
others like them, and glorious success followed their efforts ; but
later on they have been manned with weak men, and supported
with meager means, and when difficulties have arisen, with some
exceptions, faith has weakened, interest waned, and, in many
instances, missions been abandoned. I dare not elaborate. It
would be humiliating.

2. There never was any fixed policy upon the part of the gov-
ernment in dealing with Indians. We have ever hadextemporized
systems of shifting expedients and doubtful experiments. Since
the Declaration of Independence the United States government
has made thhardly less than a thousand treaties with the various
tribes and bands of Indians in this country, and but few have
ever been kept. Through coaxing and force they have been
changed to suit the avarice and greed of the white man for more
land. This has all worked disastrously to Indian missions, and
in many instances destroyed them entirely. In verification of
this statement one item of history just here will be of interest.

Up to 1831 Indian missions were wondrously prosperous, there
being such an impetus given to the work that in one year about
2,000 were converted and added tothe Church. But there came
a disastrous check. In 1821, one Rev. Dr. Morse, under the
sanction of the government, made an extensive tour of observa-
tion among the western tribes. Upon his return he advised
that all Indian tribes be removed to territory west of the Mis-
sissippi. He had observed on this tour that Indians farthest re-
moved from the white border were best off, more easily taught,
more ready to receive the principles of Christianity and take on
its habits, and assume the habits of industry and economy. It
was best, therefore, to get them beyond the range of the white
man. So in 1831, the year in which Indian missions were most
prosperous and seemed to be gathering strength for complete
conquest, the government adopted this policy, and began by
coaxing and forced treaty to remove the Indians beyond the Mis-
sissippi. This policy operated most disastrously to the missions
and to the Indians’ best interest for time and eternity. It affected
the whole Indian work, both for his evangelization and his civili-
zation, when he took up his sad journey toward the setting sun.
In one year more than fifty per cent of our membership was
lost; the impulse given to civilized habits and industries under
WORK AMONG INDIANS. 453

the teaching of the missionaries was dissipated; the Indian
home, humble though it was, was broken up; fields abandoned;
and he, with a disappointed faith in the white man’s religion, sent
out a wanderer across the Mississippi. And down to this day he
has been made the victim of shifting expedients by the govern-
ment, and been pauperized by its uncertain policy. He has been
herded away from civilization on reservations, under such re-
strictions as have made possible to him only the worst elements
of our civilization, and, instead of being removed beyond the
range of the white man, he has been kept in constant and con-
tinued contact with that element of the white race whose inter-
course invariably tends to debase and corrupt. With rare excep-
tions no self-respecting white man would linger upon an Indian
reservation, under the restrictions that the government neces-
sarily imposed in carrying out the treaties made with the Indian.
The government has meant good to the Indian; but the reserva-
tion system, in its administration, has been almost invariably bad.
Said Secretary Stanton to Bishop Whipple: “If you have come
to Washington to tell us that our Indian service is a sink of
iniquity, we know that.” No law is self-operating, it must have
behind it the convictions and purposes of the people. But the
Indian has been kept out of contact with that element of the
people who would give force to law; and the border white, the
refugee from justice, the cowboy, the soldier, and the Indian
trader have had the molding of ‘his mind and the casting of his
character.

But conditions are changing. The government has resorted
to the last expedient, that of land in severalty and the citizenizing
of the Indian. So far as government is concerned, this is the
solution of the Indian problem. There can be no preservation
of the Indian as an Indian. He must be absorbed into the great
body of American citizenship, and take his stand side by side
with other men. If he is not prepared for it, he must begin un-
prepared, for it is at hand. There is no more territory to which
he can emigrate. And the task of unlearning what has been so
thoroughly impressed upon him by the government policy, of
uncertain homes and doubtful habitation, must begin. But this
last change means to him home, family life, permanency, a local
habitation and a name, and personal interests protected under the
same laws as those of other men. This is the last step in the tran-
sition period with most of the Indians of our country, and espe-

METHVIN.

The reserva-
tion system.

Plain words.
METHVIN,

A new day.

What the gos-!
pel can do?

454 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

cially those among whom we have mission work. The transition
period is always the dangerous one with any crude people passing
up by forced measures to a higher civilization. There is such a
strain in it that only the strong survive, the weak go under. So
fast are the movements made possible under Christian influ-
ences that he who fails to arise and move with them will be
crushed beneath their onward tread. Confronted with these
movements, the Indian cannot survive without our most earnest
aid.

But in the midst of it all there was never better opportu-
nity for doing something effective, permanent, lasting. The
duty of the Church, therefore, in this trying time to the Indian,
is plain, and her work urgent, both in giving cast and character
to his home life and in creating upon the part of whites for
him an elevating and healthful sympathy. All along a double
task has been set the Church, both of Christianizing and civilizing
the Indian, both of changing him and his condition. Primarily
our mission is not concerned with a man’s condition, but with
the man himself. Change him and he will change his own con-
dition. But the Indian’s relation to us as an occupant of the
same country, and to be a citizen of the same government, dou-
bles our obligation. The only remedy, the only panacea we have
is the gospel. That, faithfully preached, not only saves his soul,
but qualifies him for taking on the habits of civilization. That
adjusts him in relation to God and to man. Everywhere our
missions have been planned and faithfully pushed this has proved
true. Under the impulses of the Christian life the Indian has
become industrious, built homes, planted fields, settled in con-
tentment, till the white man’s greed for more land demanded that
he move on. The Wyandottes, Cherokees, and others were nota-
ble examples of the truth of this statement in their early homes
before disturbed by removal West. Aoute, a converted Kiowa,
said to the writer: “When you came here and began to preach,
I was a lazy, gambling, drunken Indian; but since this gospel
took hold upon me I have a home, fifty acres of land in cultiva-
tion, a good crop, some cattle, and all this I have done myself.
I find the Christian road is the working road, and I like it.” So
everywhere that we are faithful in teaching him the gospel, and
he receives it, the double task both of saving his soul and fitting
him for useful citizenship is fulfilled. This is the day of his vis-
itation and of our opportunity, fraught with responsibility and
WORK AMONG INDIANS. 455

danger to both. Shall we meet the responsibility and fulfill our
obligation? We shall see. Above all others, two things threaten
to hinder the Indian work: first, failure to create an elevating
sympathy for the Indians upon the part of the whites with whom
they may be intermingled; secondly, the absorption of the men
and means by the white work in their midst to the neglect of the
Indian. For years this has been the case, and even now there
are Indian tribes right in the midst of our white work, who
have been there for years, and have never been touched by our
ministry. This has been a prominent causeinthe decline and seem-
ing failure of our Indian work for the last decade. The whites
have poured into the Indian country in such numbers that our
ministry has been absorbed by them, to the neglect of the Indian.
This will be our chief danger for the future. Showing the danger
indicates the remedy, and I need not enlarge lest I make this
paper too long. In closing I wish to say that it is not to our
credit nor to the credit of the religion that we profess to say
that there are still Indian tribes within the territory of our Church
to whom no one has ever yet preached the gospel, and this in
the beginning of the twentieth century.

METTVIN.

Two dangers
which
threaten,
History.

Il, THE GERMANS.

GERMAN MISSIONS.
REV. J. A. G. RABE.

THE work of missions among the Germans in the South was
begun when, at the session of the Mississippi Conference in 1845,
Bishop Soule sent to Texas as a missionary Rev. H. P. Young,
a man of rare gifts as a preacher. In the city of Galveston, on
the last Sunday in January, 1846, he preached to about 1,500
Germans near the shores of the bay on Isaiah lv. 1-3. They re-
ceived the word with gladness, and came again and again to hear
him. On the second Sunday in April, 1846, Brother Young or-
ganized the first society of German Methodists in the State of
Texas, and by November of the same year a church had been
completed, and was dedicated to the service of God. Powerful
revivals followed, and the membership increased. Ulysses Salis
and C. Rottenstein in turn succeeded Brother Young, when, upon
the former’s return to his former home, Cincinnati, P. A. Moel-
ling was sent to this mission. Under his pastorate the Church
grew and prospered, and a parsonage was built. In 1854 H. P.
Young was returned to this charge, and P. A. Moelling became
editor of a German Church paper, Der Evangelische Apologete.
In 1856 the congregation became self-supporting, and was taken
from the list of missions. In the following year P. A. Moel
ling was appointed junior preacher, while H. P. Young was
preacher in charge. Irreconcilable differences arose between
these two men, and, not being able to work harmoniously, the
latter withdrew from the Methodist Church, joined the Presby-
terians, and, the majority of his former members following him,
this first mission of the German Methodists was rent in twain.
Repeated efforts were made to rebuild the walls of Zion at that
place, but without success. The field was finally abandoned, and
the property sold in 1879. Thus ends this first sad chapter in the
history of German Methodism in Texas.

In 1854 there were four missions: Galveston, served by P. A.
Moelling; Victoria, by Edward Schneider; Fredericksburg, es-
GERMAN MISSIONS. 457

tablished by that noble pioneer preacher, C. A. Grote; and New
Braunfels, where H. P. Young labored with much success. In
the fall of this year, at Chappell Hill, five German preachers were
received on trial into the Texas Conference: F. Vordenbaumen,
who was sent to Industry; August Engel, appointed to the Bell-
ville Mission; John G. Kopp, stationed at Fredericksburg, C. A.
Grote being sent to Llano Mission; Anthony Warns, who suc-
ceeded Edward Schneider at Victoria, while the latter was sent
to a new field, the Bastrop Mission; and Gustavus Elley, who has
sent as junior preacher to the New Braunfels Mission. At each
of these places, notably at Industry, New Braunfels, Fredericks-
burg, Llano, and Bastrop, the missionaries labored with much
zeal and success, laying broad and deep the foundations of Meth-
odism, building churches and parsonages, visiting from ‘house to
house, distributing tracts, teaching the children and youth at
every place, and organizing societies in the outlying settlements.
They ‘had to suffer much persecution from the enemies of the
cross. At Galveston the life of Brother Young was repeatedly
in peril. Evil-minded persons also stole the bell of the church,
and cast it into the waters of the bay. F. Vordenbaumen, at
Industry, likewise was threatened with death, and narrowly es-
caped the rage of his persecutors. At New Fountain, where, in
1856, J. A. Schaper began his missionary labors, much opposition
was encountered, and hardships and trials were endured by this
faithful and diligent worker; but the broad shield of God’s pro-
tection was over all these devoted men, and they came forth
from these fiery trials not only unharmed, but also wonder-
fully strengthened in their faith in the overruling providence of
God.

In Houston H. P. Young first began to preach to the Germans
in 1847. He was followed by C. Goldberg, a converted Israelite,
a man of some learning, and quite eloquent withal. He had
good success, and on the 6th of May, 1848, a society of about
eighty members was organized. In 1859, at a place which at that
time was little more than a swamp at the corner of what is now
Milam and McKinney Streets, a church was built, together with
a parsonage, which, during the pastorate of F. Vordenbaumen
(1877-81), gave place to the new and elegant structure in which
that congregation now worships. In 1869, J. A. Pauly, of cher-
ished memory, a truly apostolic man of God, who, for many years
had labored with much success in New Orleans, was transferred to

RABE,

First German
preachers in
the Texas
Conference,

In Houston.
RABE.

Organization
of various
societies.

Other fields.

458 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the Texas Conference, and appointed to Houston Station. Under
his pastorate the Church reached a high plane of spiritual life.
It has ever been rich in faith and good works, and an example in
liberal giving, especially to the cause of missions. This impor-
tant station, one of the strongholds of German Methodism, has
been served in turn by such able and faithful workers as F. Vor-
denbaumen, J. Prinzing, J. Bader, W. A. Knolle, J. A. Pauly, P.
H. Hensch, D. Schrimpf, and A. E. Rector. Its present pastor
is William A. Knolle. Two mission Churches have also been es-
tablished in Houston, which are measurably prosperous.

At Bastrop E. Schneider built a church and parsonage in
1857. He organized societies at Pin Oak and Rabb’s Creek, and
here was laid the foundation of that large and prosperous society
which to-day is known as the Grassyville Circuit, of which J.
Kern, another member of the faithful “Old Guard,” is pastor.
This Church might justly be called the “Mother of Preachers,”
for quite a number of men converted at her altars have gone forth
as itinerants in the German mission fields. From here went out
Rev. J. B. A. Ahrens, D.D., converted in a most remarkable man-
ner at a quarterly meeting held under an arbor in 1859; J. G.
Krauter and H. Ebers, both of whom were cut off in the prime of
their usefulness; H. W. Weise, at present presiding elder of the
Western District ; and the writer.

The limits of this paper forbid a detailed account of the dif-
ferent fields of labor successfully taken up, and of the men who
entered the ranks of the German ministry from time to time to
spread scriptural holiness among their countrymen. We will
briefly mention the name of the various missions begun and,
more or less, successfully carried on: Bellville, Cuero, Waldect,
Bartlett, Weimar, East Bernard, and Maxwell. Of the men who
held aloft the banner of Methodism amid toils and conflicts, per-
secutions and privations, we will here mention the names of J.
Kern, J. Bader, J. G. Mueller, P. H. Hensch, J. Bohmfalk, A.
Scheurich, E. A. Konken, J. Merkel, and E. Frenzel.

During the first decade of its history the German District was
presided over in turn by I. Cox, J. W. Whipple, and J. W. DeVil-
biss. The last named had mastered the German language suffi-
ciently to be able to preach in German, which he occasionally did.
Later, C. A. Grote, F. Vordenbaumen, J. A. Schaper, J. Pauly,
J. Prinzing, J. Bader, William A. Knolle, and J. Kern in Texas,
and J. B. A. Ahrens, D.D., J. G. Krauter, in Louisiana, were suc-
GERMAN MISSIONS. 459

cessively appointed to this office, which they magnified to the
glory of God and the upbuilding of his kingdom. Those holding
this office at present are P. H. Hensch and H. W. Weise.

As early as 1847 German missionaries began to preach to the
Germans of the Crescent City. Among the first workers on this
field we find the names of William Tostrick, F. Bremer, J. M.
Hofer, and P, A. Moelling, the latter being licensed to preach on
the roth of June, 1850. Peter Schmucker, from Cincinnati, also
visited this field, aiding and encouraging the workers. The first
mission was begun in Dryades Street, and shortly afterwards, in
1848, we find William Tostrick in charge of Piety Street Church.
In 1853 G. Busman began to labor in LaFayette, where, in 1855,
a church and parsonage was built. In 1855, in the month of
April, the corner stone of an elegant. brick church on Dryades
Street was laid by Dr. H. N. McTyeire, which was dedicated by
Bishop Paine in 1859.

In 1855 there were four missions, with an aggregate member-
ship of 162. The sum of $268.65 had been collected for missions.
In January, 1859, F. W. Traeger, preacher in charge of Dryades
Street Church, reports his membership to be 110, and the amount
raised in the congregation for all purposes $2,085.90. One of the
leading members of this Church for many years—ever open-
handed, generous, and true to its every interest—was Brother J.
H. Keller, whose praise for liberality is in all the Churches.
These Churches became important centers of religious influence,
one of the most important factors in their subsequent growth
and development being the zeal and unremitting labors of Dr.
J. B. A. Ahrens, who spent the best years of his life in this work,
until declining health forced him to retire from the active duties
of the ministry.

During the war between the States our German missions
shared the general distress, the missionaries and their families
suffering many privations. During these years the Churches
made little or no progress. After the war the work was taken
up with new hope and vigor; but a danger arose from an un-
expected quarter, which threatened to disrupt the entire German
work. Overtures were made by parties in the North, looking to
the uniting of the German work with that of the M. E. Church.
Slavery having been abolished, it was said, with some show of
plausibility, that there was no longer any bar to the union of
the two Churches, especially of their German branches. A num-

RABE.

In New Or-
” leans.

Statistics of
1835.
RABE,

Periodicals.

Books.

Education.

462 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

along all lines of Church activities, taught them to observe all
the usages of Methodism, and indoctrinated them upon all points
of Methodist theology. Such were the pioneers of German Meth-
odism in Texas and Louisiana. Only a few of the “Old Guard”
remain, some of whom are still in the active work, and three of
whom (J. B. A. Ahrens, D.D., J. A. Schaper, and J. Prinzing)
are on the “roll of honor,” loved and revered by their brethren.

In 1855 was begun the publication of a weekly German Church
paper, Der Evangelische Apologete, at Galveston, Tex., Rev. P. A.
Moelling, editor. It had an extensive circulation among the Ger-
man Methodists of Texas and Louisiana, and even in the North,
and served as an excellent means of disseminating religious truth
as held by the Methodist Church. Its publication was suspended
in 1861. It was resumed in 1868 by Dr, J. B. A. Ahrens, who
had been elected as its editor. It was at first a very small sheet,
issued semimonthly, but was enlarged somewhat on the Ist of
October, 1869, and again in January, 1872, when its title was
changed to Der Familienfreund. It was edited with much ability,
and exerted a wholesome and powerful influence throughout the
borders of our German Zion.

The Publishing House at Nashville generously published, for
the use of our German Churches, a translation of the book of
discipline, 'a catechism, a hymn book, and a hymn and tune book,
“Lob Gottes’—all of which were prepared by that indefatigable
worker and able scholar, J. B. A. Ahrens, D.D., of this city. A
new edition of the book of Discipline was brought out by the
House in 1899; also a new and revised edition of the German
hymn book, prepared by a committee appointed for that purpose,
of which P. H. Hensch was chairman. The books were well re-
ceived, and have been generally introduced.

In 1894 the brethren in Texas undertook the publication of a
weekly paper, Der Missionsfrewnd, which is, at present, the official
organ of the German Mission Conference. Scarcely a family of
German Southern Methodists can be found ‘where it is not read.
Its circulation is steadily increasing.

The importance of mental culture was early recognized by the
German missionaries. They fostered, and in many instances
taught, day schools in connection with their congregations. Sev-
eral attempts were made to establish schools of a higher grade,
with but partial success. At Fredericksburg quite a pretentious
college building was erected at a cost of about $20,000, and Prof.
GERMAN MISSIONS. 463

W. R. J. Thoenssen was elected to the presidency of the college.
After a few years, however, the school was discontinued for want
of support.

During the last decade the matter of higher Christian educa-
tion has been stressed, and, as a result, quite a number of young
men from our German congregations have attended the South-
western University. Five of their number have already entered
the ranks of the active ministry, and a number of others are pre-
paring for the work.

I cannot do better than to quote in this connection the words
of Rev. A. E. Rector in an article on German Missions, which
appeared in the columns of the Texas Christian Advocate of Jan-
uary 24, 1901. He says: “Only one year during the past decade
did the Germlan Conference report a loss in membership, and
that was very small. New territory is being added to the field,
and promising young men are offering themselves for the min-
istry. Along with a slowly but steadily increasing membership,
church and parsonage building has gone forward, until the value
of such property is now about $50,000, practically free from debt.
The Epworth League has gained a sure footing. In addition to
a Conference Loan Fund of $2,000 for the superannuates, we
have another fund, which, with the Twentieth Century Thank
Offering, will aggregate $6,000. The object of this fund is to as-
sist young preachers, and also those who expect to become Ger-
man Methodist teachers, in getting an education. The amount
raised on the Twentieth Century Thank Offering was $3,500,
a per capita of $2.50. The annual collections from all scources
average about $8 per member, while the combined foreign and
domestic missionary collection yields a per capita of about $1.25.
Taken altogether, it would seem that the Church has no ground
for doubt or despair about her German offspring. No more loyal
and reliable element is to be found in the entire connection. Out-
side of all figures, there is to be reported a growing hope and
courage, which are the best guaranty of larger future success.”
I wish I might quote the whole article, for it sheds a world of
light upon the problem of German missions.

The church at Llano has been enlarged and modernized. The
influence of Methodism permeates the entire German popula-
tion in that section of country. New preaching places have been
taken up, and this busy hive is upon the eve of “swarming.” This
Church alone raised for all purposes last year $3,662. Its pastor

RABE.

A review.
“RABE.

The situation
as it is te-day.

464 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

is Rev. E. A. Konken. At New Fountain similar hopeful con-
ditions are met with, extensive improvements of the Church prop-
erty are going on, and the pastor, Rev. C. A. Lehmberg, reports
ten new members received into the Church on March 24. At
Tehuacana, on this circuit, fifty acres of land have been secured
as a building site for a church and parsonage. Fredericksburg
Mission likewise is on the up grade, and the outlock for Elm
Creek and Cibolo Mission is exceedingly hopeful.

Of the Eastern District, Rev. P. A. Hensch writes: “The East-
ern District is rising again from the hard blows it received last
year from adverse seasons and the destructive visitations of in-
sects and storm. The damaged churches have all been repaired
and rebuilt. The finances are in a good condition and hopeful.
Two new Sunday schools are reported since Conference. One
new charge was taken up last Conference, which is promising,
and there are prospects of taking up another charge at an early
date. Good meetings are reported by the brethren, and some
ingathering of members, which we hope to increase during the
summer campaign. We are in need of two more men on the
district this year, but we hope to have this want filled by next
year.”

The conditions confronting the German missionaries of the
present day are totally different from those of fifty years ago.
At that time there were but few Germans in this country who
were not—outwardly at least—religious; very few houses could
be found where the Bible, the hymn book, and some volume of
sermons were not cherished treasures. That generation has
passed away, and with it has gone all reverence for things sacred
and divine. A godless, secular German press, innumerable clubs
and societies, dancing ‘halls, beer gardens, and other pleasure
resorts; schools from which is banished even the semblance of
religion—these and other conditions too numerous to mention
here militate most effectively against the efforts to evangelize
the Germans of this great State. Taking into consideration these
difficulties, obstacles, and disadvantages with which our brethren
have to contend, the wonder is that they are not only holding
their own, but slowly advancing at every point. We believe that
the next decade will witness an era of unprecedented growth in
the work of German missions in Texas.

During these many years of missionary labors among the Ger-
mans—years of toil and danger, of vigorous growth and retarded
GERMAN MISSIONS. 465

development, of joy and sorrow, victory and defeat—the M. E.
Church, South, has been a tender foster mother to the German
work. She has supplied the means of carrying on the work. She
has fed and clothed and helped to house the German mission-
aries, their wives and children, and still continues to do so. To
her we owe undying love and gratitude, a debt which we can
hope to repay—though but in part—only by unswerving loyalty
to her principles and unremitting toil in her service. May the
day speedily come in which she will see every outlay of money,
and every heart throb of tender solicitude lavished upon the work
of German missions fully justified and abundantly rewarded by
the gathering of multiplied thousands of Germans “into the
fold of the Church!”

RABE,

The Church a
foster mother.
The example
of our fathers.

William
Capers.

tii ZH NBEGCROES.,

2

ARE WE MEETING OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO
THE NEGROES OF THE SOUTH?

REV. R. J. BIGHAM, D.D.

No genuine friend of mankind can consider without pain and
pity the present estate of eight millions of our fellow-creatures.
Even eight million dogs would have, if under general ban, a kind-
ly court of equity and appeal in every gentle breast. Nor can it
matter to the kind heart that these fellow-citizens of ours are
black. The color of the men on a checker board does not affect
the rights of the struggle. ‘With regard to the hand which it will
be wise both on their account and on ours to extend them their
previous condition has nothing to do. Not what they ought to
be but what they are is of present concern, and while what they
might have been is grievous to think on, yet what they may be
is of present and infinite moment. “The lower they sink the more
they need us to lean upon.”

And we have in the splendid example of our fathers, who
counted it their highest privilege to minister to the slaves, a
stirring call to do our duty by the children of those slaves. “My
brethren,” said Bishop Andrew to an Annual Conference, “the
soul of the poorest slave, washed in redeeming blood, is dearer
to God than the unregenerated spirit of the greatest monarch.
For myself I would rather know that some poor slave would cast
a flower on my grave when I am gone, in grateful memory of
my agency in leading him to Jesus, than to have any honor this
poor world could bestow upon me.” Bishop Andrew, clothed
in this becoming sentiment, was the rule and not the exception
in this particular. It is graven in the marble of a plain shaft as
the last and best tribute to William Capers that he was “The
Founder of Missions to the Slaves.” There were at the close
of the civil war three hundred missionaries to the slaves, and
we had gathered into our different Churches nearly half a mil-
lion negroes by this time, and had spent over $2,000,000.in their
evangelization. Even during the year 1864 our Church raised
OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE NEGROES. 467

nearly $160,000 for this work, to which was contributed else-
where in the South $100,000 more. What the people at large
in the South thought on this question is significantly indicated
by the fact that one of our proudest States defeated for Congress
one of her most distinguished statesmen because he was not, as
Bishop Galloway has said, in sympathy with the compassionate
treatment and religious instruction of the blacks. I know noth-
ing more remarkable in the history of the world than this history,
and, standing on the face of its facts and figures, I am astonished
at the separation which has come about between us and the de-
scendants of our father’s servants.

There seems to me to be, in proportion to the magnitude of
the issue, less well-advised interest in the negro than with regard
to any other pending matter of like nature and approximately
equal public concern. I say well-advised interest, for in this very
particular have the best-intentioned efforts of the noblest friends
of the negro fallen short. No policy, fundamental and proceeding
upon the inherent nature of the case, has been decided upon and
pursued. Help has been chunked at him from one quarter, and
thrown over the fence to him from another, whereas we all know
that charity after this fashion comes short of the best efficiency.
They have, in some good degree, been fed, sheltered, clothed, and
educated; but intermittently and in spots. This course has bro-
ken this people up into bands and classes, which is the worst evil
that could have befallen them, for their solidarity ought to be
preserved. Their hope is in the preservation of their racial in-
tegrity.

Very much depends upon standpoints ; and if we could get rid
of the standpoint that the negro is any other sort of a question
than any other sort of a man is, we would sooner be able to state
him and solve him. We Southern Methodist people will never
meet our responsibilities to the negro until, in the sight of God,
we honestly acknowledge and assume responsibility for him ; and
while it is by no means true that we have been delinquent in
this matter, as some have declared, it is nevertheless certain that
we lack very much of doing our whole duty to him. And we
must begin by declaring that he is a man and that he is our
brother. Seen in any other perspective, he will not receive from
us what he needs from us and what we owe him. God would
doubtless have us treat him like we would any other man in his
place. This is almost the whole of it.

BIGHAM.

Intelligent in-
terest needed.

Place of the
negro.
BIGHAM,

Action of the
General Con-
ference.

Our record.

468 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

When we have helped him to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate
himself, and when we have given him work and paid him just
wages for it, we are not at the end of our duty. A man wants
more than this; for life is other and more than existence, and
the negro should have encouragement and recognition in all
those high and precious matters in which a human being counts
life dear unto himself. It is not hard to minister to his existence,
but it will take the whole Sermon on the Mount to minister to
his life. A man’s life is “more than meat and the body than
raiment.” Let us feed and clothe, shelter and educate him, but
let us also kindle within him the hope that one day he shall be
free to think and act among us, and shall be worthy of it; and
let us remember that so long as we deny ‘him anything which
Jesus would extend him if he were here, we do fall short of our
whole duty to him.

The General Conference of the M. E. Church, South, adopted,
in 1866, the following resolutions :

“Whereas the condition of the colored people of the South is
now essentially changed ; and whereas the interests of the whites
and colored people are materially dependent upon the intelli-
gence and virtue of this race that we have had and must continue
to have among us; and whereas the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, has always claimed to be the friend of that people, a
claim vindicated by the continuous and successful exertions made
in their behalf in instructing and evangelizing them, and it is im-
portant that we should continue to evince our interest for them
in this regard; and as our hearts prompt us to this philanthropy;
therefore be it

‘Resolved, That we recommend to our people the establishment
of day schools, under proper regulations and trustworthy teach-
ers, for the education of colored children.”

Our bishops, in their address to the General Conference of
1882, said: “The negro population in the South and Southwest,
upon which our Church in time past bestowed much labor, but
which for several years has been turned away from us, is again
becoming accessible to our influence. Opportunities to preach
to their congregations should be diligently improved. The Col-
ored Methodist Episcopal Church in America, organized by us.
a decade ago at the request of the remnant of our colored mem-
bership, has maintained its integrity and made some progress.
They are in great need of facilities for providing themselves with
OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE NEGROES. 469

‘suitable pastors and teachers of their own race. Whatever as-
sistance we can render them, in this respect especially, will be
well bestowed, and we invite to this subject your favorable con-
sideration.”

Since this time each succeeding General Conference has taken
pronounced ground on the subject of our duty in this connection;
but the execution of our resolutions has been characterized, I
fear, by much timidity and little enthusiasm.

We have charged, it is true, our General Board of Education
with the oversight of our work for him, and we have an institu-
tion, Paine Institute, Augusta, Ga., for the support of which an
assessment is levied upon our entire connection, and extra col-
lections have been taken from time to time for buildings and
equipment. We also pay the salary of the President of Lane
Institute, Jackson, Tenn., and give respectful attention and some
aid and succor to representatives of colored Churches; but if our
missionary enterprises, for instance, were as poorly organized
and administered as our enterprises for the negro, we would
merit and receive utter failure and pity, if not contempt. In our
District and Quarterly Conferences we inquire with regularity
with regard to the discharge of our duty in the matters of mis-
sions, education, Church extension, etc., but we do not ask, ex-
cept in spots, about the negro. We can never say even in the
particular of organization that we have done our best in this mat-
ter till the state of the negro is made in our Annual, District,
Quarterly, and Church Conferences one of the orders of the day.
It is probably true that a large number of the present generation
of our pastors have never preached to the negro. This is un-
fortunate, and it is our fault. I most earnestly hope to live to see
the day when every preacher of us shall gladly meet a constitu-
tional requirement to preach to the negroes once a quarter at
least, and when each presiding elder shall ask in each Quarterly
Conference if the pastor has performed this duty.

Our fathers gathered before and during the war a large num-
ber of negroes into our communion; and though it was perhaps
inevitable, by extraneous causes, I personally believe that it was
bad ecclesiastical statesmanship and a mistaken social and reli-
gious step to erect them, with such clear and rigid lines of
demarcation, into separate Churches. This was the wedge, more
than even the war, which split black and white into separate
camps, and set us socially and religiously over against one an-

BIGHAM,

Our relations
with Paine
and Lane In-
stitutes.
BIGHAM.

The need.

Discipline of
both hand and
heart.

470 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

other, as the war did politically. It is certain that neither black
nor white desires what we call organic union, but we have very
little faith in the declaration of Scripture that God hath made
of one blood all nations of men, if we are unable and unwilling to
establish and perpetuate a dignified compact and federation as
between men and men.

Perhaps the saddest fact about the negroes, and first to be re-
membered, is that millions of them are unconscious ‘of the world
in which they live, know no future, and have no high ideals. By
the hundred thousand they live a day at a time, from hand to
mouth, and are concerned about nothing better, for they know
nothing better. Pitiful beyond all picturing is this, their general
condition. Their faculties of thought and their religious instincts
need development, and the training of their head and heart is in-
finitely necessary to them. Except properly trained preachers
and teachers be provided for their pulpits and schools, they will
never reach an estate of dignity and usefulness among the peo-
ples of the earth. Above everything else, they lack and need the
quality of aspiration. In a recent issue of the Independent this
view is strongly confirmed; and, since this confirmation comes
from the North, I insert it the more gladly: “The negro is suf-
fering to-day from an excess of industrial training divorced from
logical thought and rational reflection. He has ceased to be a
clever machine directed by a white man, and is adrift without
directive power in himself. The consummate union of reason,
judgment, and knowledge, which makes a man the master of
matter and force, is the product of higher education in the time-
honored, intellectual sense of the term; and the race that does
not have, or cannot obtain, it is doomed to hopeless inferiority.
The Africo-American citizen will never be a reliable factor in
skilled industry until he has had actual personal experience of
mental discipline. It is but interesting to see what statistics re-
veal as to the educational tendencies of negro education in the
United States. There are about one hundred and sixty-six in-
stitutions for colored youth in the country above the elementary
grade. These enroll in secondary departments 13,175 students;
in collegiate, 1,161 students; and in professional schools, 1,067.
Here is presented a grand total of 15,405 students who have
passed beyond the stage of elementary study. The number may
seem large; in reality it is less than two-thirds per cent of the
colored population, or one in five hundred, whereas for the white
OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE NEGROES. 471

race one in every one hundred and sixteen of the population is
pursuing studies of advanced grade. The distance between the
two, leaving heredity out of the question, is widened by univer-
sity extension clubs, scientific associations, and the innumerable
appliances by which the white man is made heir of the best
thought of all ages and of every country.” Let us carefully ob-
serve in this connection that the Independent is not quoted as dis-
counting industrial education. On the other hand this journal,
and many other papers, are agreed with many of the foremost
thinkers and philanthropists of the land in hearty indorsement
of industrial education. The point, and one well worth making,
is that such education should be accompanied by careful mental
training, and that neither white nor black can reach high efficien-
cy, even in the industries, without proportionate “mental disci-
pline.”’

It will be permitted me, I hope, to pay in this connection a
sincere though inadequate tribute to those men and women of
the North and East who have worked among the negroes in the
South, and to the philanthropy of the men and women of those
sections who have, by their gifts, made it possible for them to
teach and preach among us. Their bread cast upon the waters
will come back to them. The unselfish character of the work
which they have wrought among us, the good fruits of it, and
the difficulties which have encumbered them are recognized by
thousands of good men and women in the Southland. The in-
direct ministry of their labors, by opening the way for a better
understanding between all sections of our country, is unques-
tionably a social as well as religious contribution of great im-
portance. If mistakes have been made, they were in the main
such as in the very nature of the case were unavoidable; and if
all the good which has been done by each foreign dollar were
known, these dollars would be doubled every year.

The negro question has been, and will remain, a national ques-
tion, and is not a burden which any one section of this country
can safely shift upon any other section. It knocks loudly and
ominously at every door in the United States. The enactment of
laws could not confine it within limits; for it would remain, in
spite of any and all manner of legislation, a national question.

But, while the question is national, it must needs be solved
principally in the South and by the South; because of the phys-
ical fact that in the South the negro has his local habitation

BIGHAM,

A tribute.

The negro
question na-
tional.
BIGHAM.

Our problem.

The South the
final adminis-
trator.

472 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and his home, so far as we can judge the question on its particular
merits and in the light of such approximately parallel history as
there is, is likely to remain in the South. History teaches us that
local questions are not to be solved by foreign powers or agencies.
England, for instance, has had many colonies, but she has never
had a prosperous colony which did not have, so far as its internal
concerns went, the right of self-government. Less and less is
this a question of domestics; more and more is it a domestic
question domiciled in the South. Most of all its aspects imme-
diately and particularly concern the South. The negro is at our
doors; we look into his face every day. But, though the im-
mediate administration must needs fall on the South, yet, because
of the connectionalism of the United States government, its
happy solution will be impossible except through the concurrent
assistance of all parts of the nation. And no part of the country
can afford to decline assistance in this matter, because, if it should
become a sore in the South, its contagion would most surely
extend to the entire commonwealth. If institutions and people
shall lie dead in the South on account of the negro question, in-
stitutions and people will lie dead all over the country. He is
an item in our national life, and his prosperity means the pros-
perity of us all—North, South, East, and West. All sections,
therefore, ought to help in the solution of this question. There
are some people, of course, who do not believe this; but there
were a great many people who did not believe Paul when he said,
“None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself ;” and
it is only in the latter part of the nineteenth century that the full-
ness of that utterance is being recognized, in the legislative
halls of the world, as involving as well the declaration of a great
social, civil, and political maxim as the announcement of a great
religious principle. Many men at the North have great respect
for the views of Bishop Haygood. This bishop had, among other
abilities, a happy use of the parenthesis. In a parenthesis in his
“Brother in Black,’ in a connection which conceded that the
oversight and development of the negro had been since the war,
and at the time he wrote was largely, in the hands of the
North, he said: “It is only for a while.”

That the South will be the final administrator in this matter,
and that the North must less and less adjudicate it, finally giving
back into the hands of the South the work they took out of her
hands when Lee surrendered this unstained sword into the mag-
OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THE NEGROES. 473

nanimous hands of Ulysses Grant, is coming to be generally
believed by the men who best know the conditions of the ques-
tion. Between the South and all other helpers of the negro, there
should be a fair valuation resulting in mutual respect and a kind
spirit. The gifts of the North to the negro will never do the most
good until they are administered by the South. This view of the
situation may be stated, but no self-respecting Southern man
would make an argument looking to the establishment of the
competency of the South to receive and to administer for the
negro. Our social, civil, and political forces and institutions have
suffered dreadful shock and pitiless challenge. But in the face
of unparalleled misfortunes we have sought these thirty-five years
to solve our unexampled problems. We still work away and
run, we trust with becoming measure of patience, the race which
is set before us. That we are willing and able to expedite the
improvement of the negro, and to multiply and give full effect
and free course to the assistance he may get beyond our borders,
will, we doubt not, in due time be conceded. We believe that we
will be chargeable and excuseless before mankind and in the
sight of God in that measure in which we are remiss in ‘the dis-
charge of our duty to our negro neighbor. We are as sure that
a day will come which shall decree for us and all what is just.
We shall finally be trusted, and the first fruits of that trust shall
be such a Christian codperation between us and all other friends
of the negro as shall bring him blessings, fundamental and abid-
ing, and a happy solution of what we call, far in advance of its
culmination, “The Negro Question.”

How unfitting it would be to close this paper without special
mention of Atticus G. Haygood, who was the high-water mark
of the South’s interest in her former slaves! He was ahead of
many, doubtless even of the great majority of his people, but in
no small degree were assembled in him the conscience and hearty
good will of the South for the negro. And yet no soldier ever
did a braver thing than did Dr. Haygood when he published
“Our Brother in Black,” and it is worth while to point out what
manner of spirit it was that measured him up to his fine deed.
When the manuscript was finished and the tired pen laid wearily
aside, the fear came upon him that if he published it he might
ostracize himself and his loved ones. Several years thereafter,
when one whiose soul was knit to his own asked him how he
brought himself to dare private and public opinion and publish

BIGHAM,

Are we alle?

A pioneer.
BIGHAM,

Organization.

474 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

that book, he modestly replied: “I spread its pages on the bed in
front of me and, kneeling down, I asked what would Jesus do,
and answered that question for the judgment day.” And a mil-
lion and a half of us, whether we think it or not, will, as between
us and the negro man, make history these passing years which
we shall meet at the judgment day.

THE DEVELOPMENT, THE NEEDS, AND THE OUT-
LOOK OF THE PAINE INSTITUTE.

REV. GEORGE W. WALKER.

I wish to speak briefly on the development, the needs, and
the outlook of the Paine Institute—the only definite work that
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is doing for the colored
man; the only definite work that any Southern people directly
are doing for the colored man; the only definite work that any
body of ex-slaveholders is doing for the children of their former
slaves.

Paine Institute, at the earnest solicitation of the Colored Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, was organized and put to work in 1884,
situated at Augusta, Ga. Dr. Morgan Callaway, Vice President
of Emory College, was its first President. We had no home in
which to locate this school. The citizens of Augusta said that
they did not want any such schools taught in their midst. My
own mother (I shall be permitted to say it in this presence), a
sister of Bishop Wightman, said that it was a noble work, but
she wished deep down in her heart that God had called some
other mother’s son to do the work. I state this to let you know
the prejudice and the lack of interest into the face of which, by
God’s grace and the assistance of the brethren of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, I went, confidently expecting success
in Jesus Christ.

We had our schools in some small rented rooms over a store
on Broad Street. Dr. Morgan Callaway said that he wanted the
citizens to see what we were trying to do. The second year of
the school, when we came to the close of the session, there was
only twenty-five dollars in the treasury, with the three teachers
PAINE INSTITUTE. 475

to pay, four months of holidays stretching out before us,
and no telling where the money would come from. Friends, not
knowing the condition of the institution, invited the lady teacher
to visit them in Norfolk, Va. Friends of the other teacher in-
vited him to visit them at Oxford, Ga. The President had an
invitation to preach at a Church in Lexington, Mo., while its
pastor went to Florida for his health. Before that appointment
was out, the President had a call to preach to an independent
Methodist Church in Baltimore; and it was in Baltimore that
I, a Methodist preacher, received my first call from an inde-
pendent Church, asking me to take charge of it as their pastor,
and offering me a little more salary than was being paid at Au-
gusta, which was a thousand dollars. While there I received the
gratifying intelligence that Rev. Moses U. Payne, a local preacher
of Missouri, and who had made his fortune largely here in New
Orleans, had given the school $25,000 as the commencement of
an endowment fund. And yet, so afraid was Moses U. Payne
that the Methodist Church, South, would let go the work too
early, he provided that the interest from this amount should go to
pay white teachers rather than colored, fearing only that we
would let it go too soon.

From that small beginning, with a fidelity that is interesting
to one who was in the midst of it, we have gone on until, during
the last session (a small amount compared to what our North-
ern brethren and brethren elsewhere are doing, but remarkably
large when you consider the source from which it comes and the
prejudice and lack of interest which, to-day, I thank God, are giv-
ing way) there was $6,541.43 contributed by the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, South, for this work. Besides, under the manage-
ment and direction of Dr. Bigham, who has just spoken, the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has put there three com-
fortable buildings: the Haygood Memorial Hall, a three-story
brick building with a mansard roof, covering a comfortable dor-
mitory for the boys; the President’s residence ; and a home fitted
up for the matron, and a girls’ dormitory, called, after the great
bishop, Holsey Hall. We have a tract of land of ten acres upon
which these three buildings stand.

So much for the development of the material side of this school.
When we opened the school the delicacy of the position was most
trying. To go too far in one direction crippled our financial side,
and we would have had the disapprobation of our white brethren ;

WALKER.

The first yeare

A gift.

Help from the
Church.
WALKER,

A Yankee
gentleman.

John Wesley
Gilbert.

476 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

not to go far enough in a certain direction would cripple our
patronage—Charybdis and Scylla, if ever poor mortal man had
to sail between them. .

We went a year without any curriculum, for the Church we
were working for didn’t know what was needed, and the colored
man we were working with didn’t know exactly what he wanted.
Yet, little by little, the school grew and developed. A lady said
to one of the girls, “Jane, where have you been all these days
that I haven’t seen you?” and Jane instantly replied, “O, ma’am,
I am going to school to'one of the finest Yankee gentlemen you
ever saw.” And the Yankee gentleman was a South Carolinian.
A young man, a promising boy, made his first trip up North.
He came back and said: “Professor, I have been to your home.”
I said: “Where is that?’ He said: “Washington, D.C.” I said:
“T don’t live there.” “Well, I have been to New York.” “But
I don’t live there.” “I have been to Boston.” “But I don’t live
there.” “Well, where do you live?” and I said, “Just across the
Savannah river.”

Little by little pupils commenced coming to us. The colored
man didn’t have confidence in the white brethren giving him any
more in the Paine Institute than a little catechism and a little
Sunday school work, and so their best children didn’t come.

I picked up a boy in the streets of Augusta who wanted an
education. I found him bright and studious, and I got him ready
for the junior class of Brown University, in the city of Provi-
dence, R. I. I sent him there, and he won a scholarship on his
Greek. On Saturday he posted books for a barber shop. He
cut down his expenses to seven dollars per month, which I was
happy to be able to pay in those days, not having a family of
my own. He graduated two years afterwards from Brown Uni-
versity, the fourth in the Greek class. There were forty-eight in
his class, and he stood an average of fourteenth in the whole
class—the only negro in the school. His standing in Greek con-
ferred upon him a scholarship in the American School at Athens,
Greece. I never expected to see Athens, but I gave to that boy
all my sainted father gave me—the best opportunities and ad-
vantages within my reach. He went to the American School in
Athens, Greece, and there he met prejudice, for in that school
they didn’t want a negro to board, so that they put the price so
high that my boy, John Wesley Gilbert (a good Methodist name,
you see) couldn’t go into the school and board. But he had been
PAINE INSTITUTE. 477

trained with the Southern Methodist people, and he knew what
was expected; and so he turned aside and, without breathing a
sigh or shedding a tear, went into a Greek home, got a modern
Greek Grammar, studied the language, and talked with that
family.

By and by some Boston ladies came out there who wanted to go
through the Peloponnesus, and desired a guide. It required fifty
dollars more before my boy could go through that school, and
Iam sorry to say that I didn’t have the fifty dollars then, and I
‘didn’t know anybody sufficiently interested in the work to con-
tribute the fiftv dollars. Well, these ladies wanted a guide, and
the local director in Athens gave them my boy, because he knew
the modern Greek language better than any other student in
the school. He went around the Peloponnesus, showing these
ladies its towns, and came out and received his paper, and when
presented to Brown University it gave him the degree of A.M.

That was one boy. There are a few girls that we have grad-
uated from cur collegiate department. One of them is just now
in London on her return from Paris, France, where she has been
spending a year perfecting herself in language, music, and dress-
making. This girl taught music in New York, and after getting
what she could in our schools, and saving three or four hundred
dollars, she spent it in Paris to improve herself.

A boy came to us from Arkansas (I am afraid I shall not have
time to talk about our needs). He was the poorest specimen of
a colored boy you could see anywhere, and I said: ‘““Why did they
send him to me?” He stayed four years, got a taste of it, and
concluded to stay four years longer. He was no sooner out of
school than the colored Conference of Arkansas put him at the
head of their Conference school.

Under the wise provision of Dr. Morgan Callaway, the Col-
ored Methodist Episcopal Church raises money and puts young
ministers there for us to educate. The colored Church with
which we are working contributes an average of $2,000 annually
for the support of these young preachers; and they have come
to us from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas. These
young men (few of them in number, I grant you) have gone back
and are teaching in those States; and one of them specially is do-
ing work in Missouri, for which I am so grateful. He sent me
a paper in which was his own schoolhouse and that of the white

WALKER,

One of the
girk.

A sustentation
fund,
WALKER,

Cther exam-
ples.

478 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

people. When he went there prejudice or disagreement among
the colored people had resulted in the burning down of their
schoolhouse, and when he went there and saw the children of his
race growing up without school facilities he opened a school in
his own church. The Board of Education saw this, and offered
him a public building for his school, and not long afterwards
$8,000 was granted by the county to build two schools—a $5,000
for the whites and a $3,000 for the colored; and my boy Brown
(O, Tlove him with a full heart, and he is the blackest fellow you
ever saw in your life) was put by these trustees at the head of
that educational movement among the colored people; and he
sent me back the paper with his picture in it and the statement
that he was graduated from the Paine Institute.

His wife is alsoa graduate from our school,and when she went
there 'she began to keep her home so neat that other colored la-
dies in that community said that they were not going to be out-
done by the preacher’s wife, and so they fixed up their homes.
And the preacher’s wife is doing just as much good in her sphere
as the preacher is in his.

Two of the delegates to the Ecumenical Conference that meets
in London next September go as graduates from our school—
R. A. Carter, Secretary of the Epworth League, and John Wesley
Gilbert, who is teaching with me in the Paine Institute. I forgot
to say that when he was working with me a school in Missouri
elected him a bona fide professor at $1,400 a year and a residence.
Gilbert declined, and they telegraphed back to him, “What is
your price?” and I was glad deep down in my heart to see that
here was a colored brother standing by me who could not be
bought. The ground of his declination was this: “I prefer to
be working with the white people in trying to educate my people
rather than go to any other field I cvould select.”

The other day we had a disturbance down there in Augusta.
A white man was shot down on the streets by a negro, and the
white boys took the poor colored fellow out and lynched him.
Something was said in a colored paper that sounded harsh, and
a white mob came to tear down the office. The chief of police
and other men were gathered to protect it. The chief of police
said to Gilbert: “You go there quietly and disperse that colored
crowd.” Gilbert said: “I am no policeman.” The chief said:
“I know you are not; but if I go there with my brass buttons
and my uniform, I will stir up resentment. You go there. You
PAINE INSTITUTE. 479

are a citizen whom both the white and the colored people re-
spect, and they will listen to you.” So Gilbert accepted the sit-
uation and went over to the crowd and quietly dispersed them,
on the assurance that the men who were there would protect
the house.

Now what do we need? We need a heating apparatus the
worst in the world in Haygood Hall. We utilize some stoves,
but when the wind blows down the chimneys we have to put out
the fire and fudge around on some other brother whose stove
does not smoke. ‘We need the painting of our houses. We need
an enlargement of our dormitory department; we were over-
crowded last year. We need an enlargement of our endowment.
It has never been increased since Mr. Payne gave it to us. We
need all this enlargement; and if our brethren in the various
Conferences would just respond and send up the little amount
that we ask of them annually, I believe it is the best investment
we could possibly make by letting the brethren codperate
with us.

A sheriff came up there one day from one of the lower coun-
ties to arrest one of the boys. I wasn’t present, but as soon as
I found out that he was arrested I went down immediately with
my lawyer and went on the boy’s bail. Next morning I went
down to meet the officer who had come from the adjoining coun-
ty, and I said: “You need not put any cuffs on that boy; he will
go with you just as if I were going along.” So the sheriff spoke
to the chief of police, and then he came back and said: “It’s all
right ; the chief says it’s all right.” And when they carried him
there the chief said: “Dr. Walker trusts his boys.” Well,
I knew that boy, and I knew that he hadn’t been doing anything
particularly wrong, and I knew he would come back, and he did.

Now the outlook is more hopeful, but this work is merely a
drop in the bucket, just a beginning; and the Colored Methodist
Church in America looks up to the Church, South. It has con-
fidence in the Paine Institute, and we ought not to let this op-
portunity slip.

One word more. In this day of the popularity of industrial ed-
ucation, the Church, South, must remember that the main need
of to-day is educated ministers ; and we must remember that the
intellectual world shall ever govern, rule, and control the indus-
trial world; and if we of the South who know the negro men and
come in contact with them, will take this opportuntiy which God

WALKER.

Our needs.

‘‘ He trusts
his beys.’’

Head as well
as hand.
WALKER.

Beginnings.

Results.

480 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

has given us, and educate and train in the Christian religion and
in Christian education to the very highest point possible the col-
ored man and the colored woman, we shall render ourselves most
acceptable in the eyes of our Master. Brethren, the outlook
that is before us is grand. May God give us grace to enter into
our heritage and become the instrument in his hands of accom-
plishing great good!

LANE COLLEGE.
REV. T. F. SAUNDERS, PRESIDENT.

Lane COLLEGE was founded by the Colored Methodist Episco-
pal Church in America, and is located at Jackson, Tenn. It was
organized in 1882, and was chartered under the laws of Tennes-
see in 1884.

In the fall of 1888, Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald, editor of the Christian
Advocate, Rev. W. C. Dunlap, and Bishop Isaac Lane came to
the Memphis Conference seeking a member of that body to take
charge of the school. The writer was selected, and Bishop J. C.
Keener appointed him to that work at that session of the Confer-
ence. Up tothat time but little more than a start had been made.
Bishop Lane was urged to undertake the task of providing more
suitable buildings. With much hesitation he entered upon the
work, and everywhere he presented the cause to his own Church
and to the M. E. Church, South, he met with liberal responses.

We have erected a three-story brick building with ten recita-
tion rooms, dormitories for girls and boys, industrial buildings,
with necessary tools and printing press and fixtures, doing our
own work. The total valuation of the property is about $35,-
ooo. Our necessities have multiplied tenfold as we have ad-
vanced. We had on the roll the last session two hundred and
seventy-three scholars. The present session has a roll of three
hundred. We have in the theological department a class of thir-
ty-four young preachers from the surrounding States. These
young ministers are preparing themselves for any field of labor to
which the providence of God may call or the Church send them.
We have sent out as graduates from the normal department one
hundred young men and women. They are law-abiding, self-
THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 481

governing, and God-fearing citizens. They are in demand as
school-teachers, Sunday school workers, and are helpful to pas-
tors. Our preachers are making efficient pastors, and are filling
responsible positions. Some are presiding elders, some are dele-
gates to the General Conference. One of our graduates will rep-
resent the Church in the Ecumenical Conference to be held in
London, England. We have twenty young men and women who
are willing to go as missionaries to Africa or Cuba. The College
Department has not been in operation a sufficient length of time
to send out any graduates.

Lane College is a distinctively Christian institution. It thas
not assumed the task of giving secular education to the colored
population of the South. The Southern States expended, ac-
cording to the report of the United States Commissioner of Ed-
ucation between 1869 and 1898 in schools for negroes, $101,-
860,661.

But our work is for those who are seeking the advantage of a
Christian education; for the preparation of ministers for their
calling, and laymen for their life work. Lane College stands for
true religion, a consecrated ministry, a holy Church, for all that
is good in our civilization, for peace and love and good will to ev-
ery member of the human family, and for a world-wide evangeliza-
tion. We ask the prayers and sympathy and help of our friends,

THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO.
PRESIDENT BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

No people should have more vital interest in the negro than
the Southern white man. No people have so much to gain from
his success; no people have so much to lose if he fails. A de-
graded womanhood of the negro race means in many cases a
degraded manhood in the white race. We go up together and
we remain down together. There are potential reasons why it
is a privilege for me to thank and congratulate most earnestly the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for its deep interest and
generous help to my race. In its name I thank you for the aid

20

SAUNDERS.
WASHINGTON,

What has
been done by
Methodism.

The proper
Kind of educa-
tion.

482 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and encouragement you have given for Church extension in hun-
dreds of local communities, and especially for what you have
done and are doing at Paine Institute, Augusta, Ga., as well as for
help in education at other points. Every dollar that your Church
puts into the education or evangelization of the negro will be an
interest-bearing dollar from which you and your children will
draw interest during the centuries that are to come. Every dol-
lar thus spent will add to the industrial, intellectual, and religious
value of each community in the South.

If a dollar spent in China adds to the value of a Chinaman, it
will add to the value of a negro in Louisiana. Ifa dollar spent in
India adds to the value of an Indian, it will help a negro in Ala-
bama. Ifa dollar spent in the Philippine Islands makes a better
citizen, it will also make a better citizen in your community. You
cannot by any process of reasoning escape the duty which every
white man owes to the negro in his own community. If for no
higher reason, the standard of negro life should be raised in the
interest of self-protection. In its wise, prudent, and broad effort
to assist in the education of the negro the Methodist Church,
South, should have the hearty and generous support of the white
South.

The right kind of education for the negro will make the whole
South more prosperous, more productive, more law-abiding, and
will cement that friendship between races which will forever set
at rest all fear of racial disturbances.

We want not only to educate the negro, but we must be sure
while doing so that we fit him to appreciate his present surround-
ings and the opportunities that are about his door.

The negro should be educated to believe that every Southern
white man is not his enemy, and that a friend in the South is as
valuable to him as one in the North. The negro should be taught
that he will get upon his feet and be respected in proportion as
he leads a simple, humble, pure life; that in proportion as he
makes himself useful to the community in which he lives; learns
to do a common thing in an uncommon manner, he will be rec-
ognized and appreciated. No man who learns to doa thing, how-
ever humble it may be, better than any one else is long left with-
out reward.

The negro will gain more by making himself worthy of priv-
ileges than by merely demanding them. No one can force him-
THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 483

self into recognition, but any one can make himself worthy of
recognition. With worth will come reward.

I think I am safe in saying that in every part of the country
the negro now recognizes as never before that in too many cases
he began at the top round of life instead of at the bottom ; that he
omitted to recognize that true citizenship and power has its foun-
dation in ownership of property, tax-paying' industries, intelli-
gence, and high Christian character.

Whereas a few years ago the negro looked with contempt and
derision upon industrial education, he now in most cases hails
this form of education with delight.

On two vital points I very much fear that the black man has
been and is now misunderstood. My own life is largely spent
among the rank and file of my people, and I feel that I know
the feelings and ambitions of my race pretty well.

The intelligent negro is not seeking what is termed social
equality, nor is the intelligent negro seeking to get to the point
where he can exercise political control over the white man. What
the intelligent negro is striving for is the opportunity to earn a
living, to be sure of protection of life and property, and to be
safe in those privileges which are guaranteed to all citizens by the
State and Federal constitutions.

A large part of the money in the South is invested in agricul-
tural lands. The negro is the one on whom the white man de-
pends in a very large degree for agricultural labor. It is most im-
portant for the negro’s own sake, as well as for the sake of the
white man, that he be encouraged to remain in the agricultural
districts. In agriculture the negro, asa rule, is at his best. In
city life, in too many cases, he yields to temptations, and is not
equal to the severe competition which city life demands. The
negro, however, will not remain in the rural districts unless he
is sure of protection of life and property. Neither will he remain
in the country districts unless the school facilities are made as
good as they are in the city. Every lynching, every act of law-
lessness in the country districts drives hundreds of negroes to
the city. Every withdrawal of school opportunities in the coun-
try districts tempts the negro to move his family to the city,
where the schools offer more inviting opportunities.

In nearly every part of the South where I have traveled I have
found the intelligent, law-abiding, industrious, property-holding,
tax-paying negro respected and honored by his white neighbors ;

WASHINGTON.

With worta,
reward,

What negroes
seek,

The negro and
agriculture.
WASHINGTON.

Industrial
training.

484 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

and, further, I have found them ready to protect such a man in
the exercise of his rights as a citizen.

I have sometimes heard it said by Southern men that the South
is too poor to educate the negro. I beg to reply that the South
is too poor not to educate him. In the education of my people,
however, we should remember that education of the head alone
increases one’s wants, and that the hand should be educated so
as to increase his ability to supply these increased wants along
lines at which he can find employment. The negro who has re-
ceived education of head, hand, and heart is not the criminal
negro. The criminal negro in nine cases out of ten is ignorant,
without a trade, and lacking in moral and religious training.

The negro who learns to make fifty bushels of corn grow where
only twenty grew before is the benefactor of every white and
colored man in that community, and is laying the foundation for
the highest civilization.

In saying what I have I cannot, I do not, forget the generous
manner in which my race has shared with you in the distribution
of State and local school funds. In addition to this, I believe
that you will agree with me that the time has come when the
highest and most cultured and Christian manhood and woman-
hood of the white South should take hold in each community
and give the negro such a helping hand as will make the peace,
the security, and prosperity of the South secure during all the
years that are to follow.

THE MEDICAL EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO.
G. W. HUBBARD, M.D., DEAN OF MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE.

At the close of the civil war, 1865, there was scarcely an edu-
cated negro physician practicing in the Southern States, and the
number in the North was very small.

The medical department of Howard University, Washington,
D. C., was organized in 1868, and in conformity with the spirit of
the organic law of the university, was “opened to all without re-
gard to sex or race, who were qualified by good moral character,
proper age, and suitable education.” Since it was first opened,
MEDICAL EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 485

238 white and 315 colored students have received the degree of
M.D. from this university.

Meharry Medical College was organized as the medical depart-
ment of Central Tennessee College, now Walden University,
Nashville, Tenn. It was opened in 1876, has had 783 students en-
rolled and 410 graduates, and is under the care of the Freedmen’s
Aid and Southern Education Society of the Methodist Episcopal
Church.

Leonard Medical School, of Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C.,
was established in 1882, and has had 106 graduates. The school is
supported by the Baptist Home Missionary Society.

The Louisville National Medical College, Louisville, Ky., was
opened in 1888, and has had 65 graduates.

The medical department of New Orleans University, New Or-
leans, La., was organized in 1889 ; number of graduates, 43. This
also is under the care of the Freedmen’s Aid and Southern Edu-
cation Society.

A medical department of Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tenn.,
was organized in 1895, and has had two graduates. This college
is supported by the United Presbyterian Church.

The total number of negro physicians who have been graduated
from the above-named institutions, not including the present year,
is 941. I have no means of estimating the number who have
graduated from Northern medical colleges. Possibly ten per cent
of the above number would be a liberal calculation, making a total
of 1,035.

As I am more familiar with the work done by Meharry Medical
College than with that of other similar institutions, I will speak
more particularly concerning it. :

The college takes its name from five Meharry brothers who
have contributed liberally toward its establishment and support.

The buildings and grounds are valued at $30,000. It has a
graded course of four years, of six months each, and is a member
of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Two hun-
dred and seventeen students were enrolled the last session. Of
this number, 27 had received literary or scientific degrees before
commencing the study of medicine. The faculty consists of
twenty members.

At the last commencement, which was held at the Gospel Tab-
ernacle, it was estimated that over 4,000 people were present to
witness the exercises, among whom were a considerable number

HUBBARD.

Beginnings.
HUBBARD.

Helpers.

Graduates.

486 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

of white citizens, including Mayor Head, of Nashville, who spoke
in complimentary terms of what he had witnessed on this occa-
sion.

It is only a matter of justice to the medical profession of Nash-
ville, to acknowledge the valuable services they have rendered Me-
harry Medical College, from its incipiency to the present time, and
the moral and professional support they have given it.

Two of the members of the faculty were formerly surgeons in
the Confederate army. Dr. N.G.Tucker, who was for more than
twenty years Professor of Practice of Medicine at Meharry, was a
faithful friend of the college and a safe adviser until the time of his
death. During the time he held this position he was elected a
member of the City Council and chosen President of that body.
He afterwards served as health officer of Nashville for six years.

Dr. W. H. Morgan, who was for many years dean of the dental
department of Vanderbilt University, and with whom many of the
present audience are personally acquainted, has served as trustee
of the college for twenty-three years. His sympathy with this
work and his intimate knowledge of its needs and requirements,
made him a wise counselor and trusted friend.

As it has often been charged that the colored graduates of high-
er institutions of learning do not profit by the educational advan-
tages they have enjoyed, and resort to menial occupations for ob-
taining a livelihood,it may be interesting to know what the gradu-
ates of Meharry are now doing. Ofthe 365 graduates now living,
one is 2 printer, one a pharmacist, one a medical missionary, one
an editor, one'a bishop in the A. M. E. Church, three are perma-
nently disabled on account of sickness, three are in the United
States service, three are preaching, ten are teachers, one a dentist,
the occupation of ten is unknown, while the remaining three
hundred and thirty-two are successfully practicing their profes-
sion.

During the early part of the present year a circular letter of in-
quiry was sent out to the Meharry medical alumni. Among the
questions asked were the following:

1. What was your professional income for 1900?

2. What is the value of real estate owned by you?

3. What is the value of your personal property?

4. How many volumes in your library?

One hundred and eighteen replies have been received from
MEDICAL EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 487

graduates who are now practicing medicine in the following
States : Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois,
Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi,
Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas,
Oklahoma, and the District of Columbia.

The total professional income received for 1900 from the above
mentioned 118 is $170,191. Average income, $1,441. Eighty-nine
reported that they owned real estate valued at $293,141 ; average,
counting the entire 118, $2,484. The greatest amount reported by
any one, $30,000. The value of personal property was $140,218.
Average, $1,188. Total value of real estate and personal proper-
ty, $433,359. Average, $3,673. Number of volumes in libraries,
16,173; average, 127.

Very few, if any, of these graduates had any considerable
amount of money when they finished their medical course, and
many of them were in debt. Few have received any financial as-
sistance from parents or friends, while many of them have been
compelled to lend a helping hand to their less fortunate relatives.

During the past few years an increasing number of the alumni
of Meharry, in order to enjoy the clinical advantages which can
be obtained only in large cities, have taken postgraduate courses
in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, and one during
the past summer visited Europe and attended the Royal “Infirm-
ary Hospital” of Edinburgh, Scotland.

A considerable number have recently been paying special atten-
tion to surgery, and have been quite successful in performing capi-
tal surgical operations. A few have become specialists. Dr. J.
F. McKinley, formerly of Austin, Tex., now of Chicago, has
achieved an enviable reputation in treating diseases of the eye,
nose, ear, and throat. During the past few months Dr. J. T. Wil-
son, of Nashville, class of 1894, and Dr. S. L. Mitcham, of Marked
Tree, Ark., class of 1900, each successfully performed an operation
ot Cesarean section. Dr. U. G. Mason has served with satisfac-
tion as an assistant health officer at Birmingham, Ala. Dr. H.M.
Cobb was recently appointed colored city physician at Valdosta,
Ga. Dr. A. H. Kenniebrew is resident physician at Tuskegee
Normal and industrial Institute, Tuskegee, Ala. Dr. B. A. Mc-
Lemore served as coroner for several years in the county in which
Fort Scott, Kans., is situated.

Graduates of Meharry have done good service on the United

HUBBARD,

Income of
physicians.

Negro sur-
geons.
HUBBARD,

A contrast.

Other examples
of success.

488 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

States Pension Examining Boards in Kentucky, Alabama, Mis-
sissippi, and Louisiana. Dr. B. E. Scruggs, of Huntsville, Ala., at
one time served on the same Board with his former master, and
the kindliest feeling prevailed between them.

During the last epidemic of yellow fever at Chattanooga, Dr. J.
S. Bass, of Murfreesboro, volunteered his services in treating the
sick in that afflicted city. A very large per cent of the cases he
treated recovered, and he remained at his post as long as his serv-
ices were required. On his return to his home he was tendered a
reception by the white citizens of Murfreesboro.

A graduate of the class of 1892, who was not considered by the
faculty as a student of any great promise, who was poor in health
and purse, had a wife and one child dependent upon him, went to
a small city on the Atlantic seaboard a short time after finishing
his course. He reached this city a stranger in a strange land with
only two dollars in his possession. The day following his arrival
was the Sabbath. He attended religious services, spoke to the
people and told them he had come to them as a physician and
asked for their patronage. On Monday he was called upon to per-
form a surgical operation, for which he received a fee of ten dol-
lars. As time passed he secured the confidence and esteem of the
people, both white and black, as a man of strict integrity, and soon
established a good practice. Eight years passed before I visited
the city where he resided and learned the following: He owned
a well-stocked drug store which was then in a rented building on
the main street of the city; he was then completing a building
which was to contain his drug store, with two offices in the rear,
and on the same lot was a comfortable dwelling house. Across
the street from the Episcopal Church he also owned a large va-
cant corner lot, and near the Baptist Church another lot. He has
a professional income of about $2,000.

In the city of Nashville, Dr. R. F. Boyd, class of 1882, has as
large a practice, probably, as any doctor in that city, either white
or colored. He owns a brick building on Cedar Street, between
the Duncan hotel and the Catholic cathedral. This building is
used for stores, offices, and halls for secret societies and public
meetings, and is valued at $18,000.

Five years ago a student completed his course at Meharry, who
was by no means a brilliant young man, but possessed a large fund
of common sense. Some white friends gave him $100 with which
MEDICAL EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 489

to make a start in professional life, and he decided to locate in a
city in Kentucky. He was an active member of the Methodist
Church, and did not allow his medical work to interfere with his
religious duties, and soon proved himself to be the pastor’s most
valuable assistant and adviser. He married a refined and educated
young lady. I recently visited their home. It is a two-story brick
house on a lot that fronts ninety feet on one of the best streets of
that city. I called unexpectedly early in the morning, found the
house in excellent order and finely furnished, and in fact a genu-
ine Christian home.

If dentistry and pharmacy cannot be regarded as special branch-
es of medicine, they certainly are closely related to it, so I will
briefly state what progress the colored race have made in these
professions.

Meharry dental department was opened in 1886, and since that
time forty-nine students have completed the required course and
received the degree of D.D.S. They have been welcomed by the
white dentists of the South, who have kindly assisted them in their
work, The patronage they have received in the cities where they
have located has been most encouraging, and in the present time
there is a promising field open in this direction.

This school is a member of the National Association of Den-
tai Faculties, and is perhaps the only one in the United States
which requires four sessions of six months each to complete a
course in dentistry.

The pharmaceutical department was organized in 1889,and since
that time forty-nine young men and nine women have finished
the prescribed course. The course of study consists of three ses-
sions of six months each. The graduates of this school either own
or manage about twenty-five drug stores in different parts of the
South. The present demand for qualified, educated negro drug-
gists far exceeds the supply.

It is generally admitted that the death rate among the slave
population of the South, before emancipation, was less than that
of the whites. The sudden and violent change in the social and
industrial conditions which followed the close of the civil war in-
creased to an alarming extent the death rate among the negro
population. While the mortality probably is not as great as it was
some years ago, it is still very large, especially among the urban
pepulation.

According to the last report of the health officer of Nashville,

HUBBARD.

Other depart-
ments of the
college.

Comparative]
mortality.
HUBBARD,

Death rate
from pulmona-
Ty consump-
tion.

The need.

490 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the death rate for the white population was 17.17 per cent, and for
the colored population 30.03 per cent; in Richmond, Va., it was 12
to 32; Baltimore, Md., 17 to 31; Charleston, S. C., 18 to 37; Mem-
phis, Tenn., 20 to 24; New Orleans, La., 22 to 32. These statis-
tics show that in all the above-mentioned cities the death rate
among the white population was much less than among the col-
ored, and in three of them only about one-half.

In ante-bellum days, according to the report of old physicians
who were familiar with the facts, pulmonary consumption was an
almost unknown disease among the slaves. At the present time
it is one of the most common and fatal diseases known to the col-
ored race.

In Memphis, Tenn., during 1898, the death rate from consump-
tion among the colored people was a little less than twice as great
as that of the white population. In New Orleans for 1897 it was
more than two and one-half times as great ; in Richmond, Va., dur-
ing 1898-99 it was about three times as large. In Nashville,
Tenn., for 1900 it was nearly four times as great, and nearly the
same rate ‘has prevailed for the past ten years. Charleston, S. C.,
reports for the year 1897 forty-five deaths from consumption
among the whites and 443 among the negroes, the relative popu-
lation being about 29,000 of the former to 36,000 of the latter.

We cannot attribute this enormous death rate to any single
cause; but among those contributing to it may be mentioned in-
sufficient, unwholesome, and badly prepared food, lack of suffi-
cient clothing,residing in damp, dark,and poorly ventilated apart-
ments, frequently an entire family occupying a single room, late
hours in crowded churches, large rooms, and other public places
of resort, often destitute of ventilation, and ignorance concerning
the most simple laws of health.

There can be but little doubt but that this alarming death rate
would be largely diminished if proper medical attention was fur-
nished. Frequently no physician is summoned, or when called it
is too late to render any efficient service.

That there is an urgent need of a largely increased number of
educated Christian negro physicians in the South at the present
time seems self-evident. With the exception of a portion of the
higher institutions of learning in the South, colored pupils are
taught wholly by teachers of their own race; negro preachers alone
fill their pulpits and minister to their spiritual needs.

According to the census of 1890, the colored population of the
MEDICAL EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO. 491

States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louis-
iana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ten-
nessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia was 8,578,537, which
comprised eighty-eight per cent of all the colored people in the
United States. As nearly as I can ascertain, the number of regu-
larly educated negro physicians practicing medicine in these
States at the beginning of the present year was about six hun-
dred, or less than one to ten thousand. In the Northern and
Western States the proportion of physicians to the population
is about one to four hundred and fifty or five hundred, twenty
times as great. In some of the Southern States there is still a
greater disproportion, it being in Louisiana one to fourteen
thousand; in Alabama one to twenty-three thousand, while in
Mississippi it is one to twenty-nine thousand.

Nearly all of these doctors are located in the large cities and
towns, and are rarely found in the country districts.

In addition to their work of ministering to the sick, their serv-
ices would be of incalculable value in giving their people instruc-
tion in observing the laws of health, providing for themselves
comfortable homes and by precept and example teaching them
to lead purer, noble, and upright Christian lives.

Not only must negro physicians be educated for service among
their own people in this country, but medical missionaries are
greatly needed for service in their fatherland.

The first graduate of Meharry who volunteered as a self-support-
ing medical missionary was Dr. Georgia Patton, who finished her
medical course in 1893, and sailed for Africa a few months after-
wards. She spent two years at Monrovia, Liberia, without re-
ceiving aid from any missionary organization. A portion of the
day she devoted to regular medical work; the remainder was
given to missionary labor. At the close of two years, on account
of failing health, she was obliged to return to this country; and
only a few weeks ago she passed from labor to her reward, es-
teemed by all who knew her.

Three of the members of the graduating class of the present
year propose to devote their lives to missionary work in Africa.
Mrs. Blanche Saunders, of Atlanta, Ga., expects to start for Afri-
ca next June, under the auspices of the Missionary Society of the
A. M. E. Church. Benjamin Payne, a native African, who has
spent eleven years in Nashville obtaining a literary and medical
education, is to return to his native land in October. J. A. Ding-

HUBBARD.

Missionaries
for Africa.
HUBBARD.

492 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

wall, of Jamaica, West Indies, has volunteered for missionary
work and is ready to go as soon as Bishop Hartzell can provide a
field of labor for thim.

The relations which have existed between the white and col-
ored physicians of the South have been most commendable. The
colored physicians have been treated with courtesy and respect by
the white medical profession, who have given them all needed as-
sistance in serious cases and difficult operations. There is less
friction between the two races in the practice of medicine than in
any other department of industrial or professional activity. It is
to be hoped that this kindly feeling which now prevails will, in the
years to come, prove to be a potent factor in establishing a better
understanding between the two races.
IV. HOME MISSIONS.

OUR DOMESTIC MISSIONS.
REV. D. C. KELLEY, D.D., LL.D.

To-pay, in the older Conferences at least, this is our mired
wheel. We have charges on the mountains and in other sparse-
ly settled regions which ‘have been treated as missions for sixty
years or more, and are in no better condition, so far as self-sup-
port goes, to-day than they were at the time when, through the
evolutions of our circuit system, they were severed from self-sup-
porting charges and made independent with the hope that they
might by special culture be brought to self-support. Thou-
sands of dollars have gone from our missionary treasury for their
support, with the most meager and discouraging results. Our
labor has not been invain ; manyindividuals haverisen from these
obscure places to bear effectively and triumphantly the standard
of the cross; here and there an elect and beautiful Christian
home is found—an oasis in the surrounding desert—but beyond
all question the masses of the people are not leavened.

It would weary you beyond the profit to be gained were the
attempt made to give in detail the history of our operations. All,
therefore, that may now be done with hoped-for ‘benefit is to
state broadly our ascertained hindrances, and offer one or two
suggestions for your consideration as to the best we may do for
the future.

Happily for us, the Ecumenical Missionary Conference has
thrown light from a hundred years of intense thought and heroic
effort upon the identical problems with which we have to deal.
With emphasis let us repeat, the problems in the one field are
identical with those in the other; in other words, missions abroad
and at home are one in every essential element.

There are two discoveries in the foreign field which have won
their way to almost universal acceptance—viz., that the physician
and teacher are equally essential with the preacher in missionary
work to-day; next, that seli-support is an essential ingredient
in the healthful growth of missions everywhere.

Hindrances
and sugges-
tions.

The work is
one.

Two discov-
eries,
KELLEY.

Preaching in
the early
Church,

Methodism in
America.

494 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

It might seem a work of supererogation to argue either of
these propositions, accepted after a wide observation by all the
leading missionary workers and Boards of Missions. We may
however, for the benefit of Methodist querists, attempt to an-
swer such questions as, “How did the first propagators of the
gospel find themselves able to carry forward successfully their
work by preaching alone?” or the question which comes nearer
home, “How did early Methodism win its successes with few
helps other than the preacher ?”’

In the first centuries of the Christian era oral discourse was to
a large measure the only means for the dissemination of thought.
Writing, it is true, was known; but, in the absence of the printing
ptess, narrow inits influence. The people of that day were ac-
customed to look to public speaking as the one uplifting agency.
The power of healing, which Jesus had so freely used to attract
the multitude and gain their good will after they had been brought
to his presence continued through the apostolic age and per-
haps through the following century; by that date the Church had
reénforced herself by schools of wide and far-reaching influence.

Early Methodism in America came to a people gospel-hungry,
a great majority of whom were stirred with the energetic move-
ments of a new century. The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians fur-
nished the early teachers everywhere west of the Alleghanies.
While the country was new and hope-inspiring and the preacher
a comparative novelty, the results of his preaching were often
marvelous. Now that we have grown older with a progressive
and a retrogressive class well marked both in city and country
life, preaching taken alone does not meet the demands of either
class. Happily, the progressive class are reaching more and more
the stage of development where the press controls thought, and
the world press is coming more and more to honor Christianity.

This leaves for our domestic missions the submerged class in
the cities and the retrogressive country population settled on
unproductive soil, neither of which can be lifted to a vigorous
and saving Christianity without a change of environment. It is
a subject for congratulation that at the opening of the twentieth
century the great leaders in missionary movement and the fore-
most ethnologists have reached similar conclusions—viz., that
environment is a mightier agent in the formation of character
than heredity; that to save a degenerate mass of people, there
is little hope without a change of environment.
OUR DOMESTIC MISSIONS. 495

This agreement thus happily reached has put on foot the move-
ment upon the part of wise philanthropists to remove the slum
populations of great cities into country places, and supplement
their efforts at self-support until they learn to hope and work.
This cure it is not possible to apply to impoverished country
populations ; the mass of them cannot change place; some one of
developed Christian character ought to live where they are living.
In default of change of place, environment must be changed by
another method. As was said in the beginning of this paper,
preaching taken alone has had little effect to bring about any
widespread movement. They must be brought into personal
contact with people of higher development—not for an hour
once a week or month, as is the case of the domestic missionary,
but persistently and continuously as far as may be. The best
possible uplift would be to plant here and there in their midst
Christian families refined and cultivated. The world has long
ago shut its ears stubbornly to our declaration that the residence
of barbarians from Africa in the home of our Southland in a few
generations did more to uplift the race than all the Christian and
philanthropic efforts made in Africa for two hundred years. Now,
however, that Booker T. Washington has declared the same fact
ina Northern magazine and the world has read it, we find a chorus
of responsive applause even from our Northern neighbors and
our British cousins,

Years ago, on a tour of inspection in the Indian Territory, I
became convinced that a single white Christian family, with neat
and well-ordered house and farm, living in the midst of the In-
dians, not bent on trade but on elevating our aborigines, would
be the greatest possible boon. It was bitterly to be lamented
that some of our Indian missionaries had little conception of the
help to come from well-kept houses.

Suppose, however, we can only in a very limited degree accom-
plish this commingling of the lost with those who are in proc-
ess of being saved. What next resource have we at hand? Pre-
cisely the same which has wrought so successfully since it has
been applied to our foreign missionary fields—viz., the entrance
into their midst of the Christian missionary in the form of the
Christian doctor and the Christian teacher, going to work with
as distinct a sense of God’s call to that work as the preacher
claims for his.

I will not stop to argue this question of the call of laymen to

KELLEY.

The question
of environ-
ment.

Leavening the
mass.
KELLEY.

Two matters
of importance.

Something
more than Con-
ference Boards
needed.

496 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

specific duties. Ruskin was mocked and laughed to scorn when
he first thundered it into the deaf ears of the generation now fad-
ing out; but when the question was asked at the close of the cen-
tury of the foremost men of our time what ten writers of books
of this century had most influenced thought, Ruskin was named
as one oftheten. This doctrine of a universal call to specific du-
ties was his most magnificent contribution to the century.

Much, however, needs to be said of methods, more than would
be proper here and now; these must be matters of detail and in-
telligent Christian experiment. To meet the demand for right
methods, our Church must have some one charged with this spe-
cific duty. Two practical and urgent facts lie at our very door:

1. Our domestic missions should have a single head, as do our
foreign. It will not do to waste energy and funds longer with
no better results than have come through the use of Conference
Boards whose time and thought are so occupied with various and
pressing duties as not to be able to give the necessary time to for-
mulate and carry out the specific experiments demanded. Since
the work of the foreign and domestic missions is one, why not
have one head? We tried with very limited success to carry on
our foreign work with Secretary and Board used only as collect-
ing and disbursing agents. Not until the selection of men for the
work and the plans of operation were relegated to the Secretaries
and Board did any consistent and successful movements go for-
ward in our foreign fields. I was eyewitness to the period of
transition and to the special struggles of Bishop McTyeire to
bring it about. In an Annual Conference session we have an
overtaxed bishop who at the close of the Conference is gone to
other imperative duties; a presiding elder who is compelled to
give his largest and best thought to a score of other things; a
Conference Board of Missions who have the problems imperfectly
laid before them for a few days only. What we must have, if we
are to rationally hope for success, is some competent leader
charged with this work, whose heart, soul, and time are absorbed
in it.

Since writing the above, the ever-industrious Secretaries of our
Connectional Board of Missions have placed in my hands a num-
ber of papers containing questions addressed by them to members
of our Conference Boards relating to our domestic missions. The
questions, seventeen in number, have been answered as Southern
gentlemen are accustomed to do, with punctilious courtesy. Ex-
OUR DOMESTIC MISSIONS. 497

cept, however, in three or four cases out of the forty, the answers *#U+E¥-

show upon their face that while they are from the pens of excellent
and earnest men, they are the answers of men who have never

made any adequate effort to reach a solution of the problems ly-,

ing at the foundation of our domestic missions. One of these
questions was: “What is your estimate of our system of Annual
Conference Boards as compared with the one-board system of
the Methodist Episcopal Church?’ The overwhelming majority
reply, indicating a want of knowledge of the Methodist Episcopal
Church plan; two, who claim some knowledge of it, prefer ours;
one only, who shows a thorough knowledge of both, gives pref-
erence to the Methodist Episcopal Church system.

Another question is: “What is your plan for determining and
continuing pastoral charges as missions?” Two only assert the
right of the Conference Board to establish and continue missions.
A very large proportion of the replies indicate that the Conference
Boards rely almost exclusively on the bishop and presiding elders,
and work by no line of well-thought-out principle on their part.

“What system of self-support have you tried with success?” was
asked. This is to-day the most vital question in the thought of
the leading workers in the mission field; yet, with the exception
of six replies, there is no evidence that any earnest effort has been
made to give it intelligent solution by our Conference Boards.
This does not, as it appears to this writer, indicate failure as lying
at the door of the men who have kindly responded, so much as
the fault of a system which has given into the hands of already
overtaxed men—whose time must be given during the Conference
year to the work of their own charges, and who in Conference
session are pressed with varied interests—a question which needs
for its solution immediate contact with the work, consecutive
study of results, and wide opportunity for comparison of meth-
ods.

Without in the least reflecting on the men who have generally
given fragmentary attention to our domestic missionary opera-
tions, we do not doubt that the whole system demands radical
change. The history of the causes which led to the original sepa-
ration of missionary work in our Church into foreign and do-
mestic, if properly told, might be a warning to all future Church
legislation. Without entering into these causes, now happily
forgotten by all save a few scattered survivors of 1866, it is per-
haps best to say only that the reasons for the division of the two

Further con-
siderations.

Causes of our
failure.
KELLEY.

Missionaries
and the time
limit.

The impera-
tive obligation
of giving.

498 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

were not founded on a well-reasoned principle, but on personal
grounds. Such grounds are usually fruitful of mistakes in the
long run.

If a suggestion to the next General Conference is in order, we
might dare to suggest that if to find the preacher and the
preacher’s family suited for this specific work is a matter so dif-
ficult, then, when he has been found, the domestic as well as the
fcreign missionary should be exempt from the time limit. This is
especially true of the city missionary.

2. We have left but little time for a discussion of our second
suggestion—self-support. The writer remembers with a special
thrill the first time, after long study of the Word and much medi-
tation, when, making a missionary address before an Annual
Conference over which the sainted Bishop Linus Parker was pre-
siding, he said: “A professed Christian to whom the duty of giv-
ing for the furtherance of the gospel has been rightly preached,
who yet persistently refuses to contribute of his means for its
support, is not a Christian, nor can he be saved without repent-
ance and amendment.” The Bishop arose and earnestly added:
“T have been waiting long to hear some one utter the great truth
which has just been given us. I wish to give it my full indorse-
ment as a truth from God’s Word.” On a practical application
of this truth the missionary world now agrees. This perfect
agreement is of recent origin. The gospel does not save where
it is simply received. Jesus’s law is unalterable: “It is more
blessed to give than to receive.”

Not only in our domestic missionary work, but in a large pro-
portion of what we denominate self-supporting charges, we have
no stewards of sufficient devotion and business tact to devise
plans whereby the salvation of the whole membership is being
worked out. Giving with us is confined to the few, and the
Church at large is immensely hindered, if not overweighted, by
the masses of Church membership merely mechanically attached
to the Church with names entered upon the roll and a more or less
frequent attendance at church. They hang as dead branches,
fruitless, deceived, and fit only to be cast into the fire that they
may be burned. Our want of some effective method for saving
these people who have voluntarily placed themselves under our
pastoral care is to our deep disgrace.

Will no man among us prove sufficient for the great task of
evolving a plan as fully suited to our needs as did Bunting in.
PROBLEMS OF SELF-SUPPORT. 499

English Methodism? His plan of a penny a week and a shilling
a quarter saved the Wesleyan Church, and has made of her the
most liberal large body of Christians in the world. Yet, it may
be questioned whether in the South, with our predominant ru-
ral population and in many places absence of weekly service,
the precise Wesleyan system could be successfully worked.
This, or some better devised plan in its adaptation to our environ-
ment, must be brought to a vital place in our Church soon, or we
shall occupy, to our shame, the hindmost place in the Metho-
disms of the world along lines of giving for gospel propagation,
and as a result come to be known as the least Christian of all
who bear the name of Methodists. The South is no longer poor:
shall the Methodism of the South do least for our Master?

PROBLEMS OF SELF-SUPPORT AND ADMINIS-
TRATION.

REV. HORACE BISHOP, D.D.

My appearance on this platform is doubtless due not to any
special qualifications for such work, but to the fact that for more
than a quarter of a century I have been connected with a Board
of Missions which has conducted the missionary enterprises of a
Conference that has grown from thirty-eight traveling preachers
to about two hundred and fifty, and seen an area of one hundred
and twenty-five thousand square miles striped and checked with
the trails of missionaries, until six thousand members have
been multiplied more than eleven times. These results are due
not altogether to the policies explained in this paper, but I have
reason to believe that these methods have helped. With my
limited ability and opportunities for observation I cannot hope
to be either thorough or profound.

A Board of Missions ought to be first of all financially solvent.
Its checks should rate as high in the commercial world as those
of a national bank. Two rules rigidly adhered to will secure this
result : First, the appropriations should never exceed the amount
of the last year’s collections; second, no draft should be drawn
until there is money in the treasury, raised by the regular collec-

KELLEY,

A plan needed
to secure self-
support,

Two rules for
Conference
Boards.
BISHOP.

Offices of a
domestic mis-
sion board,

500 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

tions, to pay it. If this last rule seems too drastic, there is the
more reason for emphasizing it. Without some such policy trou-
ble will, sooner or later, overtake any Board. The faith faculty
may be freely exercised in making assessments and apportion-
ments. But the Church should never permit a draft whose pay-
ment is in doubt to touch the marts of trade. Enlarged faith is
not the true guide in making appropriations. You must have a
visible and tangible basis of action. Better postpone a new mis-
sion, no matter how urgent the need. Better consolidate mis-
sions already existing, however painful the process, than that a
tentative draft pass through the banks of the world. The one
policy may be disheartening; the other is ruinous.

The functions of a board of domestic missions may be stated
as follows: First, to apportion the assessments made by the Gen-
eral Board for foreign ‘missions, and the amount necessary for the
support of domestic missions, among the several presiding elders’
districts ; secondly, to codperate with presiding elders and preach-
ers in charge in raising these collections ; thirdly, to plan and carry
on campaigns of education in the Annual Conference ; fourthly, to
investigate the condition of the several missions under their care;
fiithly, to appropriate equitably to these missions the amount on
hand for the purpose; sixthly, to inaugurate and establish with
the consent of the bishop new missions. In this work the Board
should take the initiative. The Discipline requires this; the
bishops cheerfully acquiesce. The consent of the bishop is a pru-
dential necessity. The council of presiding elders is a sine qua
non. Many questions occur to the Board while listening to the
requests of presiding elders. Before making’ an appropriation to
a mission the Board should know, first, the number of people
to'beserved ; secondly, the number of Methodists ; thirdly, the char-
acter of the population; fourthly, their intellectual and moral sta-
tus ; fifthly, whether they are rural or urban, landowners or rent-
ers, merchants or day laborers, educated or not, liberal or stingy.
They should know, also, whether their inability to support a pas-
tor is real or imaginary, moral or financial, how much they can be
induced to pay, and what amount is necessary to supplement their
own payments. It matters not whether it is a city mission, a
black land mission, a red hill, a mountain, a swamp, or a prairie
mission; these facts should be clearly brought before the Board
in order to intelligently and righteously do the work. To do all
PROBLEMS OF SELF-SUPPORT. 501

this, the meetings at odd intervals during the sessions of the
Annual Conference are insufficient.

There should be a meeting of the Board sometime during the
year. It is difficult to believe that any Board can wisely dispense
with this midyear meeting. The object of it is not spectacular
or sensational in any sense. It is a meeting primarily to discuss
and determine policies of administration. Reports from the field
must be heard patiently and attentively. Every missionary should
make a full report, answering all the questions mentioned above.
He should have free access to the Board for the discussion of
any question concerning ‘his own work. A consensus of the field
hands sometimes sheds light on problems impenetrable to a
bishop or even a presiding elder. If the monotony of their re-
ports is tiresome, it must be remembered that they represent an
investment of money, blood, and brain in the cause of Christ.
Then the dry details will become spirit and life. The Board
should learn from presiding elders and pastors, if possible, at
this meeting what new missions are probable; what is the out-
look for those now existing; and devise means to raise missions
to self-supporting charges at the Annual Conference. Messen-
gers may be sent from there to the District Conferences to assist
the presiding elders in the district anniversary and in stimulating
the mission to self-support. In case of a chronic mission, it is
sometimes wise to send a messenger to confer with the stewards,
and come to some agreement with them for a gradual with-
drawal of the appropriation, and a corresponding increase of their
payments for the support of the ministry. A member of the
Board can do much to supplement the presiding elders’ efforts.
When he preaches a money sermon or lectures the stewards, it
may be counted “shop talk” for personal purposes, while on these
missions the best of literature is not read. But when a repre-
sentative of the Board attends the Quarterly Conference he, with
the help of the presiding elder and pastor, can do something. I
said this meeting was not for sensational purposes. Although I
have never seen it tried, I doubt the wisdom of concurrent or
joint meetings with Epworth League and Women’s Boards.
Representatives of these can attend the midyear meetings with
profit to the cause; but the meeting is for the Board to study its
own problems, and should not be entangled with other matters.
Incidentally and at popular hours a programme may be ren-
dered, addresses made, or sermons preached. But these are un-

BISHOP,

Value of the
midyear meet-
ing,

Visitations.
BISHOP.

The way to
have a success-
ful annual
meeting.

Incompetent
preachers and
“* chronic mis-
sions.’’

502 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

important. Let the idea be stressed that the Board meets to study
its work by mastering all its details.

For the present I turn from this to the annual meeting of the
Board. If I understand the true policy, this meeting should be
called at least a day before the session of the Annual Conference.
The presiding elders should meet with them at their first session,
and inform them as to the status of the collections, make sugges-
tions as to new missions, and requests for appropriations. How
can they do this until they know who will be appointed to the
missions? The answer to this is the core to the problem of self-
support. The appropriations should not be to the man, but to
the mission. I invoke the rhetoric of repetition. The appropria-
tion should not be to the preacher, but to help the mission sup-
port a preacher. If this seems to be a distinction without a dif-
ference, be kind enough to put the distinction in italics; the ap-
propriation is not to take care of John Smith or even John Wesley.
It is to place the mission in a situation to support the most effi-
cient man for that place. The presiding elder knows how much
the mission can pay. When he adds the appropriations to that
amount the sum places the mission precisely where the other
charges are as to salary, and the bishop can make his appoint-
ments accordingly. This brings the mission in vital contact with
the Board.

After all, the real question is the preacher. If we have any
place in our Church for an inefficient man, it is not on a mission.
Presiding elders are occasionally tempted to nominate such to
serve on missions. The Board should have the nerve to prevent
this. Ifa Conference will not locate its “gum logs,” a Board of
missions should decline to handle them. Even the episcopal pre-
rogative, which we all revere, is not adequate to the task of know-
ingly making such an imprudent appointment. To send a man
with the prestige of forty annual failures to a mission as old as
himself is a twofold error.

In administration the preacher and the Board are a unit; in
the support of the preacher the Board and the mission are one.

Up to this moment at least I have not been speculating. I
speak what I do know, and testify to that I have seen. It has
been my privilege to see the working of these principles and plans
for a quarter of a century. The Board that adopted them then
has never been embarrassed by debt, and for the past twenty
years has been able to make whatever appropriations are abso-
PROBLEMS OF SELF-SUPPORT. 503

lutely necessary for the progress of the work. All drafts are
drawn when due, and all are promptly paid. I have seen more
than one hundred missions raised to self-supporting charges. The
best contributors to the collections now were but a few years ago
under the care of our Board.

One question confronts us all, the chronic mission. It has been
suggested that we adopt the method pursued in foreign fields,
using the schoolhouse and the hospital as a part of our plans.
The value of these auxiliaries is very great. But the question
invariably arises : “Where is the money?” In many of our cities
a hospital would greatly help our evangelism. The discussion of
that I will leave to wiser men. As to the school, it is just as well
to admit that we are having a hard time supporting the institu-
tions we now have. But this fact should be noted, the system of
public schools is universal among us. More and more these are
being placed in the hands of moral and religious teachers. They
are doing much to overcome the evils of ignorance. They offer
to us an opportunity which can be used with advantage. A
preacher who declines an invitation to visit the schools in the
bounds of his charge lets slip one of life’s grand opportunities.
With rare exceptions the teacher is delighted at well-timed visits
from the preacher. By cultivating the acquaintance of teacher
and pupil; by recognizing the schoolroom as an adjunct to the
sanctuary; by an appreciation of the teacher as a fellow-worker
for the intellectual and moral improvement of the race, the
preacher can gain a subtle power that will charge the atmos-
phere of the schoolroom with Christian influences. At the mid-
year meeting the Board should learn whether or not its represent-
atives are in touch with the teachers and pupils in their several
missions. While the present state of affairs continues, we can-
not have our own schools. Let us utilize those we have as far
as State laws and the courtesies of the teachers will permit. In
many places we have to preach in schoolhouses. Opportunities
for week-day preaching in them occur frequently. Parenthet-
ically, I deny that week-day preaching is impracticable. A mis-
sionary can have a much larger congregation in the week than
our Lord had at Jacob’s well, or when he preached on the new
birth.

A series of questions has been submitted to me by our Secre-
taries, which show that they are studying these problems closely.
I have seen the answers of a number of men to these same ques-

BISHOP,

Schools and
hospitals.
BISHOP.

Would con-
nectionalism
help?

Self-support
and its fruits.

504 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

tions, and am glad to note that, as far as they have adopted poli-
cies similar to those mentioned, other Boards have been similarly
successful. One of those questions, however, has made me a
little uneasy. It suggests the abandonment of our system of Do-
mestic Boards, and the adoption of the so-called one Board sys-
tem. An irenical paper has been handed me, written by a man
of an acute intellect and a lover of missions. I have long regarded
him as one of our most trustworthy leaders. In that paper he
advocates a return to policies abandoned in 1866.

It is a far cry from Shanghai to Nashville. It will be still farther
from the Panhandle of Texas, when the cry travels the Shanghai
route. It is said that prior to the present arrangement there was
some discord among the officials, and that the present policy is
the result. It is well to remember that a personal contention be-
tween Paul and Barnabas was so sharp that they parted asunder
the one from the other. But see how God overruled the wrath

of men. The consequence of that contention was the midnight

scene in the jail at Philippi, and the evangelization of Europe.
It may also have saved Mark to the Church, and secured for us
the second gospel. It is not unknown to some that even in
modern times personal differences have fallen out to the further-
ance of the gospel.

Paul states ‘his rule for foreign missions very briefly but cogent-
ly. He trained one Church to support him while he established
another. Notwithstanding he declined the support of the Church
in Corinth while he was with them, yet in writing to them he
expresses the hope that “when your faith is increased, we shall be
enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly, to preach the
gospel in the regions beyond you.” The edification of the home
Church is the basis of the foreign work, and we should always
look to that end. To discount in any way the home missions is
to paralyze the other. It is claimed that they are one in spirit,
and therefore should be under one Board. The question would
then indeed be: “Which is the One?” To show what this in-
volves, let us look once more at our Annual Conference Board.
It is composed of men chosen quadrennially by the Conference.
They ought to be representative men, who can command the
confidence of the Conference, the Church, and the people. They
are in touch with the missions of their Conference. They are in
association with the presiding elders and pastors of their missions.
To substitute for this Board a remote organization would be to
PROBLEMS OF SELF-SUPPORT. 505

devitalize the work. The General Board finds in these men its
best assistants. By visits and communications, at the midyear
meetings as well as at the Annual Conference, they familiarize
them with their plans. Through the Domestic Boards the Church
gains audience with the Annual Conference, and their recom-
mendations find a ready support. These Boards are auxiliary to
the General Board. They should not be discarded nor weakened,
but encouraged to greater things. It is claimed that they have not
time for their work at the Annual Conference. The fact is that
they have time for little else. They should be specialists. We
have men enough to do all our work. Scores of men have very
little to do at the annual gathering. Our blessed mother Church
is so eager to employ her latent talent that she sometimes ap-
points a committee on one of the ten commandments. They
bring in a report and a resolution to keep the Sabbath day holy.
The resolution, of course, is unanimously adopted, but any one
has the privilege of a negative vote. Put some of these men to
‘work on those all-engrossing problems, and let the members of
your Board confine themselves to missionary matters. Nothing
is more important, not even the Tuesday morning session of the
cabinet or the interview with the bishop after the Conference
adjourns. Any Annual Conference in our connection can fur-
nish men for this work, and still attend to all its other business.
It is said we have domestic missions sixty years old. We have
foreign missions almost as old and very small to their age. It
must be remembered that the history of these sixty-year-old mis-
sions antedates our present policy by twenty-four years. They
were weaklings then; they are the same now. Unless conditions
change, they will be weaklings sixty years hence. I am unable to
believe that the General Board, embarrassed as it has been by
debt and pressed for help by Macedonian cries, could have done
any better for them than has been done under our present policy.
Our success in the Western work is not so conspicuous as to
authorize us to throw all of our missions under one Board.

The proposition means either the abandonment of many of
our domestic missions or the multiplication of salaried officers
with less efficient service. Our Secretaries are overworked. At
every General Conference there is clamor for an increase of the
number, But in all our Annual Conferences there are men fully
competent to care for the domestic missions, and to them we
must look to solve these problems of administration.

BISHOP.

Need of special-
ists on our
boards,
BISHOP.

Are competent
men unwilling
to do mission
work?

506 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

No, what we need is not a retrogressive revolution, but a
new perspective. We need enterprising, wide-awake, aggressive
Boards. We need men chosen not to do the bidding of bishops
and presiding elders—the best men in the world for the work as-
signed them—but toprovide the means for the support of thehome
and the foreign fields, make equitable appropriations for the do-
mestic missions, work with presiding elders, pastors, and stewards
in bringing them to self-support; to see to it that the Church is
properly informed on all questions of vital import to the cause
they represent ; to see to it that each mission has support sufficient
to command the talent that it needs; and to correlate all the other
enterprises of the Church about her chief work, the evangeliza-
tion of the world.

It is claimed that our best talent is often unwilling to do mis-
sionary work. It is difficult to receive this statement without
modification. If the degree of A.M. unfits a man for the service
of the Lord where he is most needed, his culture is behind that
of Him who strove to preach the gospel where the name of Christ
had never been heard. If our best young men must have the
single station, the quiet study, and the quid pro quo salary, our
universities are educating them wrong.

But I cannot believe it. Now and then a preacher assigned to
hard duty may say, “To what purpose is this waste of precious
ointment which has been so many years in storing at the college?”
but he who is a man called of God to preach the gospel and con-
secrated to his work will catch the Pauline spirit, and, by be-
coming all things to all men, save some. Yes, the question after
all here as everywhere else is the man, the preacher. “The rank
is but the guinea stamp; the man’s the gold for a’ that.” Life-
long habit inclines me to exhort, but I spare you that ordeal.
CITY POPULATION IN THE SOUTH. 507

GROWTH AND CHARACTER OF CITY POPULATION
IN THE SOUTH.

G. W. DYER, M.A.

By cities here are meant towns and cities of 3,000 population
and over; by South, all the Southern States, with the ex-
ception of Maryland and Missouri. These two States are
excluded because their industrial development is not peculiarly
Southern. In 1870 there were in the South 63 towns and cities ;
in 1900, 263. In 1870 the total population of Southern towns
and cities was 913,527; in 1900, 3,265,072. In 1870 eight out of
every hundred lived in towns and cities; in 1900, more than
fourteen. The increase in population in these States in this pe-
riod was 96 per cent; the increase of urban population was 257
per cent.

What have been the causes of this remarkable growth of urban
population in the South? First, the rapid growth of towns and
cities in the last half century is not peculiar to the South or the
United States. Throughout the civilized world urban popula-
tion is rapidly gaining on rural population. European cities are
growing about as fast as American cities. In the United States
in 1800 there were less than four out of every hundred living in
towns of 8,000 and more; in 1900 there were about thirty-four out
of every hundred in towns of 8,000 and more; and if we count
those living in towns of 3,000 as urban, nearly one-half of the pop-
ulation in the United States to-day is urban. There are many
causes for this change. I cannot discuss them, but will mention
afew:

1. People are gregarious—they don’t like isolation if they can
live with the crowd.

2. Invention in agricultural machinery and the application of
new fertilizers to the soil, the introduction of new methods
in general made possible by the discoveries of science, and the
increased transportation facilities have decreased the demand
for agricultural laborers. The machine has displaced the man.

3. While the demand for laborers in the country has decreased,
the demand for workingmen in the city has increased.

4. The city gives opportunities for rapid accumulation of wealth,
while accumulation in the country is slow.

5. The supposed superior advantages of city life in general over

Reasons of
rapid growth.
DYER.

Why it was
delayed in the
South.

New England
compared with
the South.

508 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

country life are causing thousands every year of all classes to
leave the country and make their abode in the city.

The rapid growth of cities in the South did not begin until after
the war, whereas in the North the movement began as early as
1830. There are several reasons why this movement was slow in
the South:

1. The South was eminently adapted to agriculture.

2. Southern people had never done anything else.

3. They were fond of rural life, had thoroughly adapted them-
selves to it, and were loth to change.

4. While the leading men of the South had the negroes on
their hands and had to take care of them, they were forced to
remain in the country and give their attention to agriculture in
order to make a living. The negroes were better adapted to
agriculture than to manufacture.

5. Another important reason was that the young men who now
go to the city were attracted to the rich soil and the gold and
silver 'mines of the West before the war.

After the civil war conditions were changed. The negroes
were now free, and had to look out for themselves. Farming on
a large scale with free negroes was unprofitable. The West had
been settled up, and the gold fever had subsided, and hence em-
igration to that section stopped. Besides this, the opening of the
rich agricultural lands of the West and Northwest made agricul-
ture in the South less profitable. The Southern people found
themselves face to face with new conditions. They could see
no future in agriculture exclusively, but with prophet’s eyes,
through clouds as black then as midnight, they saw a great future
for the South in manufacturing and commerce. For here they
had illimitable material resources, and the record made by the
rank and file on the side of the Confederacy in the civil war taught
them that they had also the men capable of developing these re-
sources, capable of anything within the range of the possible to
human endeavor.

In 1860 the true valuation of real and personal property in the
six New England States, with New York, New Jersey, and Penn-
sylvania, in round numbers, was the same as that of the thirteen
Southern States—$5,500,000,000. In 1870 the total value of
property in the South had fallen to less than one-fifth of that of
these Northern States, these States having over $18,000,000,000,
while the South had only $3,500,000,000. In 1880 these States
CITY POPULATION IN THE SOUTH. 509

fell back to $17,500,000,000, while the South went up from $3,-
500,000,000 to $6,500,000,000. In 1890 these States went from
$17,500,000,000 to $21,500,000,000, while the South increased to
$9,750,000,000. In 1870 the valuation of property in Massachu-
setts alone was about two-thirds that of the whole Southern
States, while in 1890 the valuation of property in Texas alone was
almost equal to that of Massachusetts. In 1870 the South had
only 151 cotton mills; in 1900 we had 663. In 1870 we had 6,000
looms; in 1900 150,000. In 1870 327,000 spindles ; in 1900 6,267,-
000. In 1870 the South manufactured only about eight per cent
of the cotton manufactured in the United States ; in 1900 we man-
ufactured nearly one-half. In 1900 the South manufactured near-
ly three times as much cotton as was manufactured in Southern
mills in 1890. From 1890 to 1900 the amount of cotton con-
sumed by Southern mills increased 192 per cent, while the amount
consumed by Northern mills in the same time increased only 15
per cent. The increase in manufacturing does not mean a de-
crease in agriculture, for in 1894 the South produced 9,500,000
bales of cotton, while the largest production of cotton in any one
year before the war was only 4,352,317 bales. As vast as was
this production of cotton, it was exceeded by the grain crop in the
South in 1893, Texas leading in both wheat and corn. This in-
crease in industry is not confined to cotton and grain. The growth
has been general. A few years ago the grist mills at Richmond,
Va., were making the only brand of flour sure to cross the equa-
tor without spoiling. The production of pig iron increased from
397,301 tons in 1880 to 1,567,000 tons in 1893, an increase of 319
per cent. In 1880 her coal crop amiounted to 6,048,000 tons, in
1893 to 28,000,000 tons, an increase of 362 per cent in thirteen
years.

With such material resources and with a people who have al-
ready demonstrated to the world their eminent capability of
coping with and mastering nature’s forces, the South must be-
come a great manufacturing and commercial center. With the
added advantages which the opening of the Nicaragua Canal will
give, the growth of the South within the next few decades must
surely be very rapid. Whether we like it or not, whether we
think it for the best or the worst, the problems of the South in the
future will be the problems of the city. The industrial, political,
social, educational, and religious problems of our civilization must
be worked out in the city, and not in the country, as formerly.

DYER.

Manufactur-
ing
DYER.

Negroes.

Fereigners.

The Southern
people.

510 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Our institutions must be adapted to city life or die. Our leaders
in every sphere of life in the future must either be from the city
or in close and vital touch with city life.

The negroes constitute about the same per cent of the popu-
lation in Southern towns and cities as in the States in which the
towns and cities are located respectively. However, there are
many exceptions to this rule. In cotton factory towns the per
cent is likely to be smaller; also in cities and towns having a
large number of foreigners. Negroes and foreigners will not
mix.

The foreign-born element in Southern cities is a small factor,
and instead of growing larger, as is commonly thought, it is be-
coming less. Exclude Texas and Florida, and in the other re-
maining Southern States the actual number of foreign-born pop-
ulation was no larger in 1890 than in 1870.

In many of the cities in the twenty years from 1870 to 1890
there has been a large decrease in the actual number of the for-
eign-born population, notwithstanding the fact that the cities
have grown rapidly. In New Orleans there was a decrease of
about 8,000 in the foreign-born population from 1870 to 1890.
There was a similar decrease in the actual number during the
same perio:! in many Southern States.

Our Southern cities, then, are made up almost exclusively of
Southern people. These people, constituting the urban popula-
tion of the South for the most part, were born and reared in the
rural sections of the South. They represent no one class from
the country; they are made up of all classes. The educated and
the uneducated, the cultured and uncultured, the rich and the
poor, those who have seen better times and those who have not,
the industrious and the lazy, the wise and the foolish, the white
and the black, the good and the bad, have all come to town.

‘To understand the character of the city population of the South,
we must first understand the Southern people as Southerners.

1. The Southern people are, for the most part, of Anglo-Saxon
origin. Study the history of the Anglo-Saxon, and you will find
that this means much. The Anglo-Saxon has always been a
leader, never a follower.

2. The Southern people are American. Not like a very large
part of the population of the North and Northwest, who were
born under other flags or whose parents came from other lands,
and who consequently are bound to other countries and to other
CITY POPULATION IN THE SOUTH. 511

ideas of civilization by ties that cannot ‘be easily broken, the

Southerner knows no country but America, and does not care

to know any other; he knows no flag but that which waves over

American soil; there are no ties that bind him to any other clime.
3. The Southern white man believes in democracy.

‘*He is a Democrat bred
And a Democrat born;
And when he is dead
A Democrat gone.”

Democracy was born in the South in this country, and it has
always found there a genial sphere. From the earliest days of this
government the Southern whites, rich and poor, cultured and
uncultured, almost to a man, have stood for the principles of civ-
ilization as expounded by Thomas Jefferson.

4. The Southern people are industrious, and yet they have the
reputation everywhere, North and South, of being intensely lazy.
I cannot discuss this point as I should like. I will simply point
to the almost superhuman energy displayed by them in opening
up to civilization the West and Southwest before the war, and to
the almost miraculous development of the South since the war,
as a sufficient answer to this charge. The Southern people have
always honored honest toil. There have always been people in
the South, before the war and since, who have refused to do man-
ual labor, even when they were very poor. But you find such
people everywhere. There were a few people in the South—and
the number was very small—who really looked down on honest
toil. But they never constituted the representative class, and had
but little influence in the South.

5. The idea prevalent in some sections that the great body of
the poor white people of at least some of the Southern States
are the direct descendants of criminals and paupers sent over from
England in colonial days is without historical data to support it.
This gross misrepresentation will disappear as the facts of his-
tory are brought to light. Mr. Bruce, in his splendid work, “The
Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century,” and
John Fiske, in “Old Virginia and Her Neighbors,” have con-
clusively shown that very few criminals were sent to America by
England.

6. After what has gone before, it is hardly necessary to state
that the Southern people are conservative. They inherited this

DYER.

Are they lazy?
DYER.

Conservative
and Christian.

Changed by
new condi-
tions.

512 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

trait from their English ancestry, and they have never given it up,
we are glad tosay. They are conservative in politics, in religion,
and, in fact, in every relation of life. But it is not that conserva-
tism which is opposed to progress, as the facts of history will
show.

7. The Scuthern people believe in Christianity, and they believe
in the Christian Church. They are Protestant and thoroughly
orthodox. The masses believe in a real conversion and a real
heaven and a real hell. Universalism and Unitarianism, ethical
culture, and Christian science get but little sympathy and almost
no following in the South. According to the census of 1899,
nearly fifty per cent of the voters of the South were members
of Protestant Churches, whereas only about twenty-two per cent
of the voters of Northern States were members of Protestant
Churches, and only about one per cent of the voters of the West;
seventy per cent of the voters of South Carolina were members
ot Protestant Churches, as against eighteen per cent of the
voters in the State of Maine.

To understand the character of the urban population of the
Southern towns and cities we must next determine to what
extent these people have been influenced, changed by their new
environment. Every man is influenced by his environment. The
lives of the great majority are largely shaped and molded by it.
The changes which have taken place may best be brought out by
contrasting the life of these people in the country with their life
in the city.

Taking conditions as they are, and not as some think they
are, or think they ought to be or might be, life in the country
was democratic, whereas life in the city to-day is undemocratic.
This, to my mind, characterizes the great change, and this con-
stitutes the problem of the city. The problem of the city is
the problem of democracy.

All life may be brought under five heads; these have been
called the five great streams of life: The industrial, the political,
the religious, the educational, and the social. Corresponding to
these are the five great institutions of civilization: The organ-
ization of industry, the State, the Church, the school, and the
home. Follow these streams of life, and study the institutions
corresponding to them, and I think you will find that Southern
rural life was democratic, while Southern city life is growing
 

CITY POPULATION IN THE SOUTH. 513

more and more undemocratic. I cannot attempt any exhaustive
discussion of this thesis here; I can only hope to be suggestive.

There were no masses and classes in the country. The or-
ganization of industry was essentially democratic. There could
be no fixed classes of employers and employees. Every man,
if he so desired, could become his own master in industry. This
gave an independence to every individual which is unknown and
impossible in modern city life. The fact that an employee could
at any time withdraw and change his relation, and begin business
for himseli—and every one expected to do this sooner or later—
made the employer very considerate of the interests and life of
the employee, and in all the relations of life he was treated not as
an inferior, but as an equal.

Under such conditions, of course, government was by the peo-
ple, of the people, and for the people. The candidates for office
were all known to the people, for they were selected by the people.
The poor man knew the issues, and he appreciated the respon-
sibility of the ballot. He could not be bulldozed or intimidated
by men of wealth, nor driven as a dumb brute by a political boss.
He asked for no political favors, nor did he expect any. He was,
indeed, a sovereign, and his vote was his own.

Educational advantages were not so good in the country as
they are in the city. It was impossible in the very nature of the
case. But such schools as there were, were democratic. Espe-
cially was this true of primary education. Every educational
movement was a movement by all the people in the community,
and its advantages were shared by all. School trustees and school
directors were often inefficient, but they were honest and they
were the choice of the people. There was not one school for the
children of the well to do and another for the children of the
poor as we find in the city.

A Church made up of any one class or controlled by a class in
the country was impossible. No community could support more
than one Church of any one denomination, and into this were
gathered all whose denominational preferences agreed, of what-
ever station in life,and all were given recognition. There is awide
difference in the make-up of an official board in the country and
inthe city. The country Church was essentially a great school—
perhaps the greatest school of true democracy—a place where
men and women from all spheres of life gathered and united and

21

DYER.

Rural life.

Politics.

Education,

Religion.
DYER,

Social life.

The country
home.

514 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

governed and communed on the basis of social equality, on the
basis of common brotherhood.

The home and social intercourse in general were democratic.
There was no exclusiveness about the country home. Visitors,
neighbors, and strangers were always welcome; they were ex-
pected, and they were not expected in vain. They went in and
out constantly, especially in, and when they got in they stayed
along time. They knew nothing of the modern city, fashionable
call. When the men visited, they took a day off; when the women
visited, they took the children and the dog and the knitting, and
had their talk out.

In the country every man had a home, and a very large pro-
portion of the people owned their houses. The poor man
living on his own land in his own home built, perhaps, by his
own ‘hands, surrounded by his family, contented and happy,
was in striking contrast to the poor man of our cities to-day.
The home of the poor man was as real and sacred and hal-
lowed and attractive to him as even the homes of those in
better circumstances to their owners. We have all seen the
typical Southern country home of the poor: the little log house
on the side of the hill. The walls were kept whitewashed, and
the floors scoured; the yard was adorned with the green grass
and flowers and whitewashed stones. On the outside of the house,
near the door, sitting on a shelf was the water pail, by which
hung a real gourd that added fifty per cent to the refreshing
qualities of any drinking water. The yard was full of chickens
and ducks. Not far distant was the stable where was kept the
family horse, which was loved almost as a member of the family,
and on the hillside was the indispensable cow grazing in the tall
grass, the young calf hard by but with a tantalizing fence
between them. Near the house, in a grove of trees, was the
cool, sparkling spring whither typhoid germs were afraid to go,
and near this the spring-house, where milk and butter and other
things were kept cool. Apple trees and peach trees and cherry
trees were scattered here and there over the little farm, and veg-
etables were raised in abundance. In the summer season the
family lived in the yard for the most part under the big shade
trees, where often the meals were served. On long winter nights
they gathered around the big, cheerful log fire. The wife sat in
one corner with her knitting, and the husband in the other with
the almanac, and the children between. I think sometimes it
CITY POPULATION IN THE SOUTH. 515

must have been a home like this that John Howard Payne had in
mind when, far from his native land, in a strange country, home-
less and friendless, he sat down and penned those matchless lines:

Be it ever so humble,
There’s no place like home.

As every phase of life in the country was democratic, every
phase of life in the city is undemocratic. On account of the
great concentration of wealth in the city, industrial inde-
pendence is no longer possible. The employee under modern
conditions is almost hopelessly consigned to his sphere, for un-
less a man has a very large amount of money or possesses great
genius he can have but little hope of ever becoming his own mas-
ter in industry. There are now two separate and distinct classes,
an employer class and an employee class. Industry is growing
less democratic.

The same is true of political life in the city. The concentration
of wealth in the hands of the few, with the tremendous power
over the lives and destiny of the majority which goes with it, to-
gether with the rise of the political boss, has in large measure
taken government out of the hands of the many and placed it in
the hands of the few.

The educational interests in our large cities are in the hands
of the politicians. Thousands of the children of the poor are
kept in factories and workshops the year through, and are thus
deprived of an education. When the children of the poor attend
school in the city they rarely come in contact with the children
of the more cultured classes, as was the case in the country; for
in the city there is a school in the poor district for the poor, and
a school in the more attractive portion of the city for the cultured.

The Church, the great school of democracy in the country, in
the city is becoming a most undemocratic institution, for we are
building elegant churches for the rich and chapels for the poor.

In the city there are distinct social classes. The rich and the
poor, the cultured and the uncultured, the educated and unedu-
cated never meet. The poor crowd together in that unattractive
and unhealthy portion of the city set apart for them, and here
they live, cut off from social contact with the rest of the city.
Having to live as they do, home life is impossible with a very
large number.

There is no question but that the people of our cities are drift-
ing farther and farther apart every year. Democracy was

DYER.

Different in
the city.

In politics.

Education.

Church.

Heme.
DYER.

Meaning of
the slums.

Evils of social
separation.

516 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

an eminent success in rural America; it has been a stu-
pendous failure in our cities. The American cities are the worst-
governed civilized cities in the world to-day. Since the whole
problem of democracy is to be worked out in cities, and since a
failure of democracy in the city means a failure of democracy
in America, it is not difficult to realize the gravity of the situa-
tion.

This very sad condition of the poor in our cities is not an evi-
dence that people are growing more hard-hearted and un-
sympathetic and selfish; it does not mean, as the radicals claim,
that the Churches have lowered their standards,and that the min-
istry has surrendered to the rich. The men and women in the
better circumstances of life were never more altruistic than to-
day, never more eager to help their unfortunate fellow-men, and
the Churches and ministry were never more active in trying to
establish righteousness in the world than they are to-day. This
condition of things has been planned by no class; on the other
hand, it is sadly deplored by all. It is simply the effect of the
natural social forces at work in every city, which have always
led to such results, and which always will lead to such results
unless counteracted by other forces which we thus far, through
negligence and ignorance and thoughtlessness, have failed to put
in Operation. The great trouble with us is we have been trying
to meet new conditions with old methods; we have been holding
on to that extreme individualism which came down to us from
the period of the German reformation, and which though well
suited to rural conditions of life when there were no such prob-
lems as we have to-day, is in no way adapted to modern city life,
until we have allowed problems to be heaped upon us the solu-
tion of which is going to test the utmost strength of our institu-
tions.

Almost all of our trouble, social and industrial, has come from
the unfortunate separation of the classes. In the country the
conditions of life were such as to make this separation impossi-
ble; in the city the conditions of life are such as to make it al-
most inevitable. If we could bring the rich and the poor, the cul-
tured and the uncultured, the employer and the employee to
know each other again as they used to know each other in the
country, I make bold to say antagonism and strife would disap-
pear, and we should again be the fellow-citizens of a real democ-
racy; for people who have so much in common, whose ideals
CITY POPULATION IN THE SOUTH. 517

and sympathies have been so nearly the same, in whose veins
flows the same Anglo-Saxon blood, and whose lives have been
so powerfully influenced by the spirit of genuine Christianity,
cannot think evil of or deal harshly with or refuse to help each
other when brought into vital touch as friends and neighbors,
since with such association the spirit of our common humanity
asserts itself, and here arises, necessarily, that unanimity of feel-
ing which no social or industrial force can impede.

If the Church had realized the potency of this great truth when
we first began to change from rural to urban life, and had thrown
herself into the first narrow breach between the classes, putting
forth her best strength and wisdom to hold together the masses
and the classes, the rich and the poor, the cultured and the un-
cultured, the employer and the employee, as well as the chil-
dren, on the same Church roll, in the same pew, in the same Sun-
day school and prayer meeting and class meeting, around the
same communion table, we should know nothing, or at least but
little, of that strife and bitter feeling which now exists, and
which, we fear, is growing more intense as our cities become
larger. But this the Churches failed to do; thus far we have
drifted with the tide. Instead of boldly asserting our trans-
scendent prerogative, given us from above, to change and direct
and control the natural forces of the social organism, making
them to obey us and work together in the interest of a common
brotherhood, we have in a large measure allowed them to ruth-
lessly dominate, control, and drive us as the autumn leaves are
driven before the storm.

The poor, seeing the best preachers, the best churches, the
most influential members all leaving them to follow culture and
wealth and refinement, have grown very suspicious of the gen-
uineness of their Christianity and the sincerity of their motives,
and hence are gradually alienating themselves from the Churches.
They refuse to attend the missions which the rich have built for
them partly because the accommodations are poor, the music
bad, the services uninteresting, the preaching dry and dull, and
partly, as they will tell you, because they are too proud to be
side-tracked in this way, feeling that magnificent churches, fine
music, and eloquent preachers for the rich, with little chapels and
missions and assurances for the poor, are a travesty on the Chris-
tianity taught to them by their mothers, the simple Christianity
they found in the country. The poor white people of the South,

DYER.

The Church’s
duty.

Why missions
may fail,
DYER.

Feeling of the
poor.

518 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the honest, working people, are extremely proud, and for this I
am glad. Their real sentiment is well expressed by Burns. What
though they are homely? There is hope for such people, who
hold up their heads and guard jealously their rights, though they
are in many cases too sensitive. They will never go to your
Churches unless you will give to them that recognition and con-
sideration in every phase of Church life which is due to the very
best people in your community. The Church that reaches and
holds these people must be absolutely democratic. It must be
a Church of the people, by the people, and for the people, not,
as is too often the case, of the few, by the few, and for the few.

On account of the seeming absence in the city Church of this
spirit of democracy, which was so prominent in the country
Church, the poor are leaving the Churches, and are gradually iden-
tifying themselves with other organizations, such as labor unions,
benevolent orders, brotherhoods, etc., because in them they get
real recognition, and from them help and sympathy in times of
trouble. They will tell you, as a prominent labor leader told me
sometime ago, that the preachers and churches are in the hands
of the rich; and as another said, “Those who pray for us in the
churches on Sunday prey on us all the week;” and as another
told one of my students, the preachers don’t talk about the
things that are interesting to us. I don’t justify these state-
ments, or in any sense indorse them. There is in them an ele-
ment of truth, however, as all will agree. I give them that we
may get their standpoint ; for this we must have before we are in
a position to reach them or in way help them.
NEED OF TRAINED WORKERS. 519

THE NEED OF TRAINED WORKERS TO SUPPLE-
MENT OUR REGULAR OHURCH AGENCIES
IN CITY MISSIONS.

REV. W. H. LAPRADE, D.D.

Ir is assumed properly that our regular Church agencies have
accomplished something in city mission work. In many instances
this something has been much. Some impression has been made,
some points of importance in outlying districts have been seized
and held; but results have in the main fallen far short not only
of the desire of the Church, but of any due proportion to the
labor and money expended. This failure has been at two points:
the nature of the results and the permanency of them. Impres-
sions made have been largely superficial, and consequently tran-
sient, passing away with the occasion. The trend of life is not
turned, nor its aspirations heightened. Or if the old views and
habits are done away for a time, if the evil spirit is really “gone
out,” it is for a while only. Back he comes with sevenfold in-
crease, and the history of unanticipated failure is added to the
burden of an already wretched and well-nigh hopeless life. This
is true in a measure of all evangelical work, and of all attempts
to raise men above their old low-graded existence; but it is sadly
and far too frequently true of city mission work as heretofore
conducted in many of our large centers of population.

There is reason for this partial failure. The problems which
confront the Church in large and growing cities are numerous,
are intricate, and press for solution. Many elements are involved.
Mission work in cities is related closely to the saloon problem
with all its myriad social and political complications ; to the ques-
tion of sanitation ; to tenement life; to the intricate and difficult
problems growing out of the relations of labor to capital; and
to the increasing influx of foreign elements of population. The
successful worker must grasp, intelligently and to a good degree,
all these questions in their varied relations to the ethical and
religious interest of his field. The forces that antagonize the gos-
pel are not, as in rural districts, detached and occasional; they
are well organized, constant, and alert. Greed of gold and love of
power combine to keep them active and strong. Nor is their
opposition simply incidental and secondary; it is of set purpose
with reference to many of its elements, and self-protective with

Problems of
city missions.
LAPRADE,

Specialists re-
quired.

520 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

reference to all. Their very existence is put in jeopardy by the
effort of the Church to reach the non-Christian masses. A large
measure of intelligence or a high moral tone would prove destruc-
tive to them. Therefore they must be reckoned with, as well as
those forces that are constant quantities in depraved human
nature and Satanic influences, in any effort to teach and establish
the truth.

It follows that exact and thorough comprehension of these
antagonizing forces, and of the conditions of character and sur-
roundings produced by them, is absolutely necessary if we would
accomplish anything worthy and permanent. Zeal must be “‘ac-
cording to knowledge.” Neither the average volunteer, who de-
votes to this field a few hours weekly, snatched from an already
busy and crowded life; nor some man or woman chosen at ran-
dom from those unprepared or ill-prepared ones who can devote
all their time to the work, can grasp the situation sufficiently well
to master it. So intricate a problem—evidenced in so many and
so varied forms—demands study by specialists. To comprehend
and change such conditions is the task of a thoroughly equipped
and thoroughly drilled man or woman. Special preparation, spe-
cial adaptation, and constant concentration and application of
thought and energy are demanded here. The untrained worker
may thoroughly understand the truth he would teach, but he
may not thoroughly understand its relation to the life of his
pupil, or, if he does, he may be utterly unable to bring the truth
into contact with the life. It is not enough that truth shall not
be misstated ; it must not be misapplied. It must come to a man
on the plane of his life and in terms which he can comprehend.
The untrained worker may know the “mystery of the iniquity” of
the human heart and of the great adversary, but he does not
know the “mystery of the iniquity” of the hunger and dirt and
disease and necessitated shamelessness of crowded city tene-
ments nor of the hard hopelessness of oft-defeated spirits who
have vainly striven without competent guides, and, as it seemed
to them, without sympathy, human or divine, to escape from their
congenital doom. He is assured of the divine vitality of the
seed he would sow, but is often largely ignorant of the state of
the soil or climate.

He who shall succeed must not only have gone with the Master
through vineyard or cornfield burdened with purple or golden
harvest, and yielding as well garners of precious truth; he must
NEED OF TRAINED WORKERS. 521

also, and chiefly, have sat with him at Matthew’s board, and in
the house of Simon the Pharisee, and learned from him how to
win and to hold the outcast. He must be trained to intimate
acquaintance with the people to be reached.

I say trained to acquaintance. It must be close, exact, inten-
tional, purposeful. Some facts may be assumed, such as the de-
pravity of the human heart; the sense, however latent, of respon-
sibility to God; the hunger of heart for real heart-food, often
scarcely recognized. The fullness and sufficiency of provision for
salvation in Christ, and the ever-active influence of the Holy
Spirit, are here, as elsewhere, always to be counted on.

But races and localities have their types, and individuals their
peculiarities, and different types respond to different methods of
approach and modes of instruction. Often energy and money
are wasted and effort dissipated because of lack of well-tested
methods.

To sum up what has so far been suggested, our regular Church
agencies should be supplemented by workers who have trained
habits of observation, trained power of comprehending relations,
trained skill in discovering motives of action, trained ability in
matching remedy to need and method to man. Such a worker, if
fired by enthusiasm for Christ and “constrained by the love of
Christ,” will do his work for him as thoroughly and as exactly
as the astute ward politician now does it for himself or his party.

Doubtless a measure of inspiration will more than compensate
for lack of training. John the Baptist was wise enough to reach
the Roman soldier through his admitted brutality and the pub-
lican through his conscious and unprincipled greed—bué not all
men are mspired.

The non-churchgoing population of our large cities are not dull
and stupid on the one hand, nor plastic and tractable on the
other. Constant struggle for subsistence has made them quick-
witted and alert, while a long-sustained attitude of suspicion, if
not of antagonism, toward the Church has made them difficult
to approach and still more difficult to influence. Within certain
limits, determined by their experience, they are close and accu-
rate students of men, and are quick to discern ability or incom-
petency. This fact emphasizes the need of master workmen.

It goes without saying that a successful worker must place him-
self in sympathetic touch with the people whom he would influ-

ence for good. Not only must there be sympathy, but the er-’

LAPRADE.

What is train-
ing?

Character of
population.
LAPRADE,.

The Salvation
Army.

The defense-
less convert.

522 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

pression of it must be on the man’s own plane—intelligible to him
and acceptable to him. Sympathy is born of love, and cannot be
simulated, but the expression of it is a matter for careful training
and wise forethought.

The “slum workers” of the Salvation Army furnish a case in
point. Going amongst the poor, degraded, half-fed, vicious oc-
cupants of crowded districts, they do not irritate them by reproof
or untimely exhortation, but with disciplined eye they find at
once the way of successful approach. Perhaps it is to cook a
meal for a sick mother, furnishing the “wherewith ;” perhaps to
nurse a sick child while the tired mother snatches a little needed
rest; perhaps to find work for some poor fellow “out of a job.”
Whatever it may be, the trained eye sees its necessity, the trained
powers accomplish it. In the school of experience they have
learned both what to do and how to do it. To this sort of work
their whole time is given. They are experts, and they are men
and women of one work. Their success has been marvelous.

I have dwelt thus long on what may be termed the elee-
mosynary feature of city mission work because it is a neces-
sary feature of it, and because it is usually, in some iorm, the
introductory feature of it. Men must be approached on the plane
of their conscious needs. Through the ministrations of kindness
the sense of higher needs is stirred, the spirit becomes accessible,
confidence is secured, and the man may be won for Christ. But
when the problem of reaching the “submerged tenth” has been
solved successfully, and the man, individual or in numbers, has
been won for Christ, the work has just begun. The man mav
have changed ; his environments remain unchanged. He has been,
so to speak, captured, sworn to allegiance, and then turned loose
in an enemy’s country. He must be enlisted, he must be gar-
risoned. He must have that restless, shrewd, acquisitive nature
of his, hitherto trained to achievements in vice, thrown into a:
ceaseless activity in virtue and for the right. An enthusiasm tor
Christ must be stirred and sustained. In power of resistance
this man, who never said “No” to his impulses or his passions,
is as a child; in power of accomplishment, if properly encouraged
and directed, he may be as a giant. He is by habit of life un-
easy, suspicious, easily mastered by sin. Let him alone and he
will, alas! how frequently, become restless, then skeptical of the
genuineness of his religious experience, then turn again, for re-
lief, to his old associates and his old life.
NEED OF TRAINED WORKERS. 523

This man needs protection as well as wisely directed activity.
fle will not be let alone as he tries to build around himself a
defense from his enemies. He will be approached with guile and
subtlety. He will be assaulted. Siege will be laid against him.
Sanballat and Gashmu will not be wanting with their jeerings
and mockings and lies. What will the poor untried man do if
no Ezra is near, versed in the law of his God; no Nehemiah, with
watchful solicitude and wise leadership and inspiring exhortation
and example? How shall he renew his wasting courage? how
answer his doubting heart and his crafty enemies? The Arabians
and Ammonites and Ashdodites of the saloon and the street will
be upon him, his feeble defenses will be overthrown, and he will
be led away captive.

Ability to organize successfully is of scarcely less importance
in large operations than ability to reach men. This includes two
things: power of initiative and skill in combining separate ele-
ments of influence. While these are largely gifts, they are gifts
discovered often, and developed always by wise training. When
the work to be accomplished is, as in the case before us, diffi-
cult and peculiar, power of initiative, if untrained, is sometimes
exercised disastrously. Movements are enterprised and furthered
which prove to be without profit and even wasteful, and which
hinder wiser ones; or, if wise themselves, fail because of incom-
plete organization. Here the prepared man, the student of meth-
ods and means, has an immense advantage. He initiates a move-
ment with no more care, perhaps, but with much more wisdom;
he combines his forces no less readily and with surer forecast of
results. His organization, therefore, abides and is successful,
while that of his untrained fellow-worker is apt to be temporary
if complete, or an obstruction if permanent.

In our mission work all other agencies are intended to open
the way for preaching or teaching “the truth as it is in Christ
Jesus.” Here, surely, more than at any other point, the worker
must be trained to his task. Not only is this true of him who is
to be ordained to the ministry of the word and the administration
of the sacraments, but equally so of him who would labor in the
Sunday school, in the prayer meeting, in the family circle, by
the bedside of the sick, or at the crowded corner of the street.
Here and there, perhaps, one may be found with almost inspired
aptness; here and there one whose intuitive recognition of rela-
tions and genius for adjusting truth to need stand him in stead

LAPRADE.

The organizing
faculty need-
ed also.

Teaching as a
calling,
LAPRADE.

The question
of scheols.

524 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

of training in the science of applied Christianity; but we are not
now considering such a rare worker. He is “a law unto himself”
in such matters, and stands apart as an almost divinely gifted
man. Happy the pastor who has such a helper, and rare as
happy.

Even in our best-organized Sunday schools a thoroughly com-
petent teacher of the Bible is seldom found. To teach at all is
usually to add an additional task to an already overcrowded life.
It is an avocation, not a vocation. He is chosen often, not because
his fitness is obvious, but because the need is great. The work
is done as well as he is capable of doing it with no special training,
and it is not without results. Supplemented as it is by many and
varied influences for good, it is really valuable work. But the
teacher at the mission school usually has placed in his hands for
instructing and molding far other material. It is raw. It is dif-
ficult to work. It is not brought under other helpful conditions.
To accomplish much, he must be a master workman, a skilled
laborer, an artist indeed. He must have special and tested fit-
ness. He must have been trained for the work.

Our Church is to be congratulated that we have at least one
school where such training—in eleemosynary work, in methods of
organization, in house-to-house visitation, in the art of observing
and mastering conditions, and in Bible study and teaching—is
given to young women. The Scarritt Bible and Training School
has already proved itself to be a blessing beyond calculation, and
its influence is daily growing. We need a companion school,
where consecrated young men may prepare not for the pulpit but
for just such work as is indicated by this paper.

THE WOMAN’S HOME MISSION SOCIETY.
MISS BELLE H, BENNETT.

THE Woman's Home Mission Society of the M. E. Church,
South, known first as the Woman’s Department of Church Ex-
tension, and four years later as the Parsonage and Home Mission
Society, became an organized force of the Church under the Gen-
eral Conference of 1886.

Miss Lucinda B. Helm, of Elizabethtown, Ky., was the instru-
 

 

 

 

 

 

KAN WS %

  

 

4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UNITED STATES
Showing the Work of the Woman’s
llome Mission Society.

    

           

  

souTH~. of the M. E. Church South.
GEORGIA~7 *  Parsonages built and aided
. . by the W.H. M.S.
= * : * Location of Schocls, Kescue’
. 12 llumes, and City Missions.
= A
MAP OF THE Pea

 

 
THE WOMAN’S HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 525

ment used of God to call the organization into existence ; and for
twelve years, until the close of her life, she labored with unflagging
zeal to guide and develop the growing work and to arouse the
Church to its importance. Although the institution was born of
the necessities and opportunities of the times, the work for the
first decade was largely local and educative, and the period was
peculiarly a formative one.

There was no home mission literature. Fields must be stud-
ied; the condition and needs of the helpless and the neglected,
the destitute and the outcast, brought before the Church; a litera-
ture made, and a favorable, intelligent public sentiment created.

The local work of the Church had been done in the past by
local “aid societies,’ composed for the most part of the best wom-
en in each individual charge. This must be continued, and by the
same women ; but the inspiration of an enlarged outlook must be
given; broader and more sympathetic plans formed; a connec-
tional policy adopted; and, above all, a systematic Bible study
inaugurated, that the individual life must be purified and the mis-
sionary spirit cultivated and developed. From the beginning
one urgent need of general interest was manifest—namely, homes
for the preachers and their families, and the purpose of the society
was declared to be: “To enlist and organize Christian women
and children in securing homes for itinerant preachers; in
providing religious instruction for the neglected and destitute ;
and in otherwise aiding the cause of Christ.” It was easy to see
that the pioneer preacher on the frontier battling against adverse
and constantly changing forces, with limited finances and heavy
expenses, needed a home secured to him by the Church which he
served; that the poorly equipped man, or the young man, serving
a hard circuit with meager salary and dependent family, should
have a home, a place for study and prayer, or his work would be
done with a divided heart,and mental and spiritual dwarfing would
be the result. The old man, who has fought the Church’s hard
battle and whose waning physical strength makes lighter work
imperative, should find the Church home ready. The presiding
elder, to give his best efforts to the district which he serves, should
know that his wife and children are comfortably housed.

This evident need became a strong connecting link between
the scattered auxiliaries, and at the end of the first six years of the
organization the General Secretary of the Board of Church Ex-

MISS BENNETT.

Origin and
MISS BENNETT.

First fruits.

The supply
department.

526 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

tension announced that more parsonages had been built than in
the first fifty years of American Methodism. Eight years later,
the annual report of the Society showed that during the thirteen
years of its history one thousand and thirty-four parsonages, or
more than one-half of the whole number built by the entire
Church, had been aided by the Woman’s Home Mission Society ;
and the information gathered and disseminated concerning the
preachers’ homes, the hardships and sufferings endured by their
wives and children, had produced a marked effect in the impetus
thus given to better parsonage-building throughout the bounds
of the Church.

“As long as the itinerancy exists and the Church work contin-
ues to grow,” parsonage-building will be a work of vital impor-
tance. There are now one thousand and ninety-two men in the
Church serving charges which pay salaries ranging from one
hundred to three hundred dollars. There are one hundred and
eighty-two men on circuits which pay salaries of less than one
hundred dollars. Very many of these men have families, and
many of these charges have no parsonages. These must be pro-
vided.

A systematic supply department was a spontaneous response
to the knowledge of facts given concerning these families.
Through the wisely directed efforts of a superintendent, assisted
by the presiding elders, the name of every man in each Confer-
ence needing help can be secured. A blank asking for specific
information concerning the family, the number of children, their
sex and age, the most urgent needs of the household and so forth,
is sent to the mother. When this is returned the Superintendent
sends to some willing auxiliary, and under the supervision of
one or two wise-hearted women, the box is carefully and quietly
made up and sent out. The recorded value of supplies and cash
sent out since the creation of this department is something more
than thirty-six thousand dollars, and as much more has perhaps
been done of which we have no record. Hundreds of those dear
to the Church would have suffered and endured in silence but for
this ministry of immediate relief.

As the study of the field and the work progressed leaflets, books,
and the many and varied means of giving and receiving informa-
tion multiplied. The field broadened and the outlook revealed
THE WOMAN’S HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 527

such conditions and needs that the demand for other than purely “SS PENN®7".

missionary work became imperative.

The seaboard cities on the southeast and the larger cities of
the great Middle West were beginning to struggle under the
problem of a large irreligious and foreign-born citizenship. The
Chinese and Japanese, with all the degrading vices of an idol-wor-
shiping people, were pouring into the cities on the Pacific Slope.
The rapidly changing industrial conditions in the South, as else-
where, were driving the rural white population into the towns
and citics for employment, and the already large negro element
was growing larger. The factory population, with its difficult
problems, was enormously on the increase; and the mining camps,
with their mixed and migratory multitudes of every nationality
and no religion, were a growing evil. The churchgoing classes
were undoubtedly growing stronger and perhaps more aggress-
ive, but the nonchurchgoing classes were certainly growing larger
and more discontented. City mission work was already inaugu-
rated in the center before the department was created, and how
best to supplement the efforts of the local city Churches codper-
ating with the agencies already in existence, was the question re-
quiring earnest and prayerful study.

In line with the general policy of the Church, the women were
authorized 'to organize city mission boards wherever there were
two or more auxiliaries, three women from each auxiliary, with
the pastor and presiding elder as advisory members, forming the
board. No large work was to be projected without the consent
of the Executive Board in annual session. The plan has grown
in favor, and eleven cities have carried on successful missions.
Most of them have employed a trained city missionary, who vis-
its from house to house, getting into the home life and close to
the hearts of the people; giving Bible readings and holding cot-
tage prayer meetings; bringing the needs of the destitute and the
sick to the notice of the Church people, and urging on parents
and children the importance of attending the services of the
Church and the Sunday school.

Free kindergartens, industrial and night schools have been
opened, ‘and in one city a day nursery provided where the chil-
dren of working women can be cared for.

Doors of Hope as a probationary refuge for outcast women
have been opened, and in Dallas, Tex., one large Home and

City missions.

Organization
of city boards.
“MISS BENNETT.

‘Doors of Hope.

Schools.

528 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Training School, on the plan of State reformatories, has been es-
tablished, where these poor, social lepers, surrounded by the
healthful and purifying influences of a Christian home, can be
trained to self-support. Regeneration, not reformation, is the
only hope for these, and to this end the Woman’s Home Mission
Society labors.

Successful mission work is being done in many of the towns
and villages by the “visiting committees,” which are a special and
practical feature of each auxiliary.

With the growth and development of the organization it be-
came apparent that other than primary forms of educational work
must be done to accomplish the greatest good and to reach the
greatest number. An education department was created.

For the Chinese and Japanese on the Pacific Slope night
schools have been opened, and from three hundred and fifty to
four hundred students are thus brought under the supervision of
earnest Christian women who study their needs and meet them
as best they can. In Los Angeles a permanent mission house is
being erected, where both men and women can be brought un-
der Christian influences and instruction.

For the Cuban population of Florida two schools are main-
tained at Tampa and one large and growing boarding school at
Key West. From four to five hundred students are annually
enrolled in these.

For the destitute and orphaned children in the mountainous
section of East Tennessee the Home Mission women of the Hol-
ston Conference, under the leadership of Mrs. E. E. Wiley, have
established at Greeneville, Tenn., an industrial school and or-
phanage.

In London, one of the mountain towns of Southeastern Ken-
tucky, a high-grade training school for teachers and the best
youth of that section has been in successful operation for five
years. From two hundred and fifty to three hundred students
annually attend this school; and of these, from fifty to seventy-
five are normal students—district school teachers who, in their
day schools and the Sunday schools which they organize and con-
duct, reach and instruct a student body of something more than
three thousand. The majority of this student body are children
from the cabin homes and the social mines that are reached by the
Church in no other way.
OUR FOREIGN AND FACTORY POPULATION. 529

To hold up Christ as a personal Saviour, to teach the Bible as
the revealed word and will of God, and to develop men and women
of strong Christian character who will glorify God serving and
saving others is the mission of those who teach and control in
these schools.

To Mrs. R. K. Hargrove, for nearly seven years the untiring,
self-sacrificing General Secretary of the organization, much of
the success of the work of the Woman’s Home Mission Society
is due. Her ability to study, to plan, and to guide marked her as
a providential leader.

The work of the Society is yet in its beginnings, but the foun-
dations have been laid strong and sure, Christ Jesus himself being
the chief Corner Stone. To the womanhood of the Church he
continues to say: “Behold, I set before you an open door.” His
light shines with increasing brightness upon the dark places of
the earth, and all who will may lift up their eyes and see. He still
looks with compassion on the great multitudes that are like sheep
without a shepherd, and says to his Church: “Feed my lambs.”

Number of members, 24,2343 receipts for connectional work,
$223,761 ; receipts for local work, $358,880; total receipts, $582,-
641. number of parsonages built and aided, 1,147; money do-
nated to parsonages, $107,385.23; money loaned to parsonages,
$31,625; value of supplies distributed (outside of receipts above
stated), $36,793.52; number of boarding and day schools support-
ed, 4; number of night schools supported, 4; number of pupils
enrolled, 1,000; number of teachers employed, 32; number of city
mission boards, 11; number of rescue homes and doors of hope,
3; number of missionaries employed, 14.

OUR FOREIGN AND FACTORY POPULATION.
MRS. FLORENCE KELLEY.

Every day of the year there flow into the ports on the Eastern
coast of this country a certain number of thousands of poor peo-
ple. In the week in which I left New York three of the great
foreign steamship companies landed in that one port ten thou-
sand working people. These people have come to this country,
if from Russia, in search of a free country and to escape from the

MISS BENNETT.

Statistics
1886-1901.
MRS, KELLEY.

Why they
come.

What welcome?

Catholicism.

530 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

forms of Christianity as they have known Christianity in Russia,
where it has never taught to them, in their experience of the
national life, that Christianity means to love thy neighbor
as thyself. Jews who pour week after week and month after
month into the port of New York from Russia, come to us to es-
cape from the Christians they have left behind them, because they
believe that in this country there is freedom and a different spirit
and manifestation of Christianity.

If working people come to us from Italy, they come because
they have suffered, under the oppression of ithe Roman Catholic
Church and under the taxation of the modern Protestant govern-
ment of that country, to a point beyond which they can suffer no
more; and they come here believing that they come to a country
not only of wealth and of promise of material prosperity for them
and their children, but to a Christian land, different in spirit from.
the land they have left behind them.

Wherever the immigrants come from, they come driven by suf-
fering at home and impelled by hope within.

And what is the welcome that meets them when they come to
our Northern ports? The worst homes on Manhattan Island
are the homes of the more recent immigrants. The welcome
that we prepare for them is manifest in the pestiferous quarters
of the worst tenement houses on the lower east side of Manhat-
tan, and thither they drift, and there they settle, and there a large
proportion of them stay.

What welcome do they find? That is the welcome that the
landlords have prepared for them, the welcome of the worst
homes, in which, in certain streets, and certain tenement houses
the deaths of children under one year of age have in recent years
averaged fifty per cent during the months of July and August and
the first half of September.

There are three bodies organized in New York to welcome the
immigrants, and they welcome them very cordially. One is the
Catholic Church. If you go into the quarters of the city that
are populated by the immigrants, you find the finest churches of
the Catholic faith, and there you find, waiting to give them re-
ligious instruction in the language which the immigrants have
left at home—not young candidates from theological schools,
earning a better field. O, no; far from it! There you find the
ablest, the most learned, the most polished, and the most tactful
OUR FOREIGN AND FACTORY POPULATION. 531

men that the Catholic Church can place at the disposal of the im-
migrants. And this is true not only in New York,, it is just as
true in Philadelphia, in Pittsburg, in Chicago, as it is on Manhat-
tan Island.

In one ward in Chicago live fifty thousand working people,
chiefly recent immigrants. They go there just as they go to the
lower east side of Manhattan Island, and there to receive them
are the worst homes possible, homes for which, with the pittance
they have brought with them, they can pay rent for the first
months while they are seeking work, or working up from worse
occupations to better ones. In that ward of fifty thousand work-
ing people, what religious welcome awaits religious immigrants?
There you find the finest Jesuit Church in all the West, not with
one priest, but with a number varying from twelve to twenty-four;
priests of the very highest degree of fitness for dealing with their
charges. There you will find coming to confession five thousand
men in preparation for the great Church holidays; and these five
thousand men represent twelve thousand people in the parish.
A little parish paper is printed in editions of twelve thousand,
suited to the men, women, and children who read it. Among
these priests, varying in number from twelve to twenty-four, ac-
cording to the season of the year, you will find sons, perhaps, of
the old Irish settlers in that immediate neighborhood, boys who
have grown up in school there, and in the college attached to
the great Jesuit Church, knowing by name every one of the faith
who has lived in that ward for the past twenty-five years, ready
to gossip and to talk over old times with all the young men who
present themseives. You will find the most gracious of Irish-
men, ready to talk of Ireland with the immigrants who come
freshly from that country, homesick and eager to talk of home.
You will find the wisest possible selection for the purposes of the
Church in the twelve or twenty-four priests in that fine church.
The Catholic Church is very wise, from her own point of view, in
the welcome she gives to the incoming people. In this ward is
a large and well-equipped Bohemian Catholic Church, in which
the preaching is all in the Bohemian tongue, and the genial Bo-
hemian priest is as ready as the genial Irish priest to talk over
old times in their own language with the immigrants.

Six blocks away from the great Jesuit Church is St. Patrick’s
Ckurch, with another genial Irishman, as polished and cultivated

MRS. KELLEY.

The situation
in Chicago.

How the immi-
grants are re-
ceived.
MRS, KELLEY.

Pretestantism.

532 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

a gentleman as can be found in all the West, with a following of
all the rising young Irishmen from all parts of the city, coming
to worship in this church, in the most unattractive district of the
city, because of the man who officiates there. In the same ward
is the French Cathedral, a church built after the model of the
best of the modern French churches, and with services, of course,
carried on in the language of the parishioners. There is a Ger-
man Catholic Church, with priests as fit for their duties as the
priests of the other churches.

The services in every one of these churches are beautiful and
noble, and the most is made of each of the holidays, national and
religious, that may be dear to the incoming people.

Not only do the immigrants come to these Catholic Churches,
but there come back to them the younger people of families who
have grown prosperous and have moved away, but who keep,
for the sake of old associations, the strong ties with those Catho-
lic churches which they knew in the first bitter days of their com-
ing to our country. And besides that, for the sake of the beauti-
ful music and of the eloquent preaching that are often of great in-
terest to them, the Protestant people in the neighborhood go
often with their Catholic friends on great Church and national
holidays to hear the music and listen to the sermons.

That is the religious welcome that awaits incoming immigrants
from the Catholic Church in every one of our great industrial cen-
ters, in greater or less proportion. I know no other ward so well
equipped as this ward of Chicago, but I do not know any other
ward so intimately as I know that one. I know that on Man-
hattan Island to-day much of the most vital work being done on
behalf of the working people, from their own point of view, the
most vital work for the protection of the homes of the people in
their purity, is done by the Paulist Fathers of the congregation
planted in the heart of the great Irish district of the West Side.
It is there just as itis in Chicago. Abler men are nowhere to be
found in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church than are found in
this colony, living among the working people, teaching them from
the point of view of the Catholic Church, and representing their
interests in the municipal and industrial life of New York.

That is the welcome offered by the Catholic Church. Now, in
that same ward of Chicago there are two small mission churches
representing two different Protestant denominations. One of
OUR FOREIGN AND FACTORY POPULATION. 533

them has had its pulpit filled, ever since I have known it, by a
man whose chief hold, so far as I have ever been able to ascertain,
upon any body of the people of Chicago is the Grand Army but-
ton that he wears on his coat. He has no other qualification that
I have been able to discover for filling a Christian pulpit.

The other is a little church of bad acoustic properties, entirely
unattractive inside and out, with a bell calculated to drive away all
but the deaf and an organ that ought to drive away even the deaf.
The pulpit has been filled, for a series of years, by candidates for
the ministry, youngsters not yet out of the theological schools,
whose qualifications for a church pulpit are not well shown in
this pulpit, which they fill experimentally—and it is needless to
say that callow boys fresh from farms do not attract the immigrant
population. That typifies the welcome that the immigrants re-
ceive from the Protestant Churches.

In New York there are two other organizations waiting to
welcome the immigrants. No other organization on that island
holds together so powerfully and makes itself felt so uniformly
as the organization of Tammany Hall. Ifa man wants to find
work, he must stand well with the leader of his district. No
great corporation dare employ, in any district in which it has
any material interests, a man who does not stand well with his
district leader ; because as soon as the corporation ventures to do
that a process of blackmail sets in with such vigor that the cor-
poration cannot afford it. There is no device of organization
that is not used with the utmost skill to welcome the immigrants.
If a child wants ‘to get into the overcrowded schools, the district
leader’s word is all-powerful, and the child whose father has no
standing with Tammany Hall makes rcom for the child whose
father is in good standing. Whatever the unfortunate immigrant
wants to set his hand to, outtside of the sweat shops, he must
have the recommendation of his political chief.

Interlocked with the power of the political chief is the power
of the saloon. Ifa man can’t pay his rent, the landlords may or
may not make him really welcome to this country. The wel-
come is tnost doubttful,but almost at every corner in every great
working class district is the saloon keeper, who knows how grate-
ful the immigrant is for a loan without interest ; and it is to the
publican’s consideration that the incoming workingman can turn,
with certainty that if the money is refused him it will be done in

MRS. KELLEY.

Tammany.

The saloon.
MRS, KELLEY.

Syrians in
Chicago.

534 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

the kindliest and most courteous way, and he will go out of that
saloon without the loan, maybe, but with the assurance that he
will always be cordially welcomed there. There he gets the most
demonstrative welcome that he ever receives in the early months
of his residence in this our Christian country.

I knew a missionary once who went to Syria, a most faithful
and hard-working woman. She was not a Methodist missionary,
though she was as faithful and as full of zeal as if she had been
one. The longer she stayed in Syria the more the vision of her
native country rose glorified before her eyes, and the more fer-
vently she told the converts of the freedom and the beauty and
the warm Christianity of life in America. She stayed a number
of years in Syria, until the World’s Fair was coming on in Chi-
cago in 1893; and then the tidings came to Syria that there were
opportunities for ‘the Syrian to reach great and sudden prosper-
ity. Then her teachings bore fruit in the wild tide of enthusiasm
among all her parish to go to Chicago and share the good things
of which this faithful missionary had been talking. So a large
body of Syrians came to Chicago. Unfortunately their mission-
ary friend did not come with them, and they received the welcome
I have been describing. Finally, through bad health, she was
obliged to come home herself. One day she met one of her old
Syrian friends peddling in the streets of Chicago, and she asked
permission to visit the immigrant. The Syrian, very much per-
plexed by the offer, courteously tried to waive it ; but the mission-
ary was persistent to the point of relentlessness, and insisted upon
visiting him. When she finally received the address, it was in
one of the most wretched tenement houses, in the most wretched
street, in the poorest ward of the city. The missionary went
to see her former charges. She found that they had suffered
hideously in the process of becoming acclimated industrially, as
well as physically, in the brutal winter that followed the World’s
Fair in that city when fifty thousand people were out of work.
They did not reproach her (for the Syrians are most courteous,
and would hesitate much to contrast their actual experience with
the things they had been taught to expect in this land of Chris-
tianity), yet that missionary told me afterwards she had never
spent so bitter a half hour as during that visit to the first of her
former charges whom she had met in America.

The missionary tried earnestly to interest in the Syrians of
OUR FOREIGN AND FACTORY POPULATION. 535

Chicago the people who had maintained the foreign missions
among the Syrians in Syria. But the Syrians in Chicago live in
very dirty houses; and some are dishonest when they sell laces;
and they lose all the charm and poetry that attaches to them liv-
ing thousands of miles away in their romantic homes in Syria.
So no one could be induced to care to look after them, and they
are still peddling and begging their way, living in the most
wretched tenements, in the most wretched streets, of the most
wretched ward of that great city of the West. That is the wel-
come we have given to some of those who have been prepared
with such care and cost to come to our Christian country.

Nor is this the whole of the experience of the working people. .

The three great organizations that welcome them—the Catholic
Church, the saloons, and the political society—touch their indus-
trial life only negatively. A man must stand well politically to
be able to get work, but he may stand well politically and still not
get any work. Negatively, the organization is very powerful;
positively, it is by no means so powerful. So thousands of the
immigrants drift into the most unsatisfactory occupations that
are open to people in this country. In the single city of New
York we have over twenty thousand groups of working people
licensed to make clothing in the tenement houses. Now a New
York tenement house is not a fit place for people to live in. It
is dirty, it is overcrowded, it is unwholesome and usually dark;
and we have been assured by the most expert testimony that
could be obtained, during the past winter, by the physicians of
the Board of Health and the physicians connected with the great
hospitals for consumption, that more than one-half of all the peo-
ple who live in tenement houses are afflicted with tuberculosis
in some form or other (not necessarily with consumption of the
lungs, but tuberculosis in some form or other); and the experts
who gave this testimony before the Tenement House Commis-
sion added the further testimony that tuberculosis is now recog-
nized as one of the most communicable of infectious and con-
tagious diseases. Now, when we have twenty thousand licensed
groups of workers in the garment trades in the tenement: houses,
that means that the homes of twenty thousand families are being
ruined by being turned into workshops. Only the most wretch-
ed among the immigrant population are willing to ruin their
homes in this way. It means further that the product of these

MRS. KELLEY.

Distance lends
enchantment.

Where they
land.
MRS. KELLEY,

Sweat shops.

Where our
clothes are
made.

536 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE,

homes is sold not only on Manhattan Island, not altogether in
the city of New York and in the Middle States, but that it is sent
out all over the country with its burdens of disease, and its bur-
den of conscience (that it should carry with it but seems not to
carry), with its threat to the welfare of the people to whom it
goes, and its confession of welfare destroyed in the homes of
people who made it.

The Dry Goods Economist is the great organ of the retail dry
goods trade. It is the authority to which every merchant turns.
The Dry Goods Econonust has recently published some statis-
tics so brief that they can be safely quoted. Ii states that, of all
the garments that are made in the United States to be worn by
our own people and exported to foreign countries, the manufac-
ture is carried on in about this proportion: In Massachusetts,
under the rigorous and righteous factory laws of that State, there
are made about twenty million dollars’ worth of clothing annu-
ally. In Pennsylvania, under less rigorous legislation, there are
made about thirty millions. In Illinois there are made about
forty millions; and in New York City alone about one hundred
and twenty-six mililons’ worth, or about thirty millions more
than in those three States put together.

I wonder how many of the men and women who are in this hall
this afternoon know whether or not they are wearing clothing
made by the unhappy immigrants in the tenement houses of New
York City. We have a trick for taking it for granted that if we
will spend our money and pay high prices for what we buy we
sacrifice enough, and we may rest content with the assurance
that out of the high prices we pay there will go a fair share of re-
ward to the working people. But nothing could be more snob-
bish or more untrue than that assumption. J have myself seen a
most expensive suit of clothing, of the finest sort of evening wear
for men, being made in a room in which children were ill with
smallpox, because the father, a highly skilled tailor, was so ill
paid, year in and year out, for his work, that when his chil-
dren fell sick he dared not make known their illness, even by
calling in a physician, lest he lose the few dollars due him for
making the clothing the had on hand at the time; lest he should
be as he said, “without money for medicine if the children lived,
and without money for coffins if they died.” I have seen clothing
of the most expensive grades made in the homes of the most
OUR FOREIGN AND FACTORY POPULATION. 537

wretched Italian immigrants in Chicago. While one garment
was on the mother’s knee covering a sick child, the twin gar-
ment was used to cover another sick child in the bed, both chil-
dren ill with malignant scarlet fever, and the reason given by the
mother was the same: that she was so ill paid when her children
were well that she could not stop to take care of them when they
were sick.

None of us can know, unless we take trouble to inform our-
selves as to our sources of supply, whether or not we have clean
hands. Directly, of course, the manufacturer is responsible, or
the contractor is responsible; but indirectly all those men
are serving us. No manufacturer can stay in the field if men
and women do not buy his wares. No merchant can pay his ex-
penses if men and women are not satisfied with his way of con-
ducting his trade. The indirect employers of all the immigrants
are we who buy their products. Every merchant will tell you,
if he cuts wages, that it is because people are not willing to pay
full value for the things which he has to sell. Every contractor
will tell you that the reason the working hours are so long and
wages so low, and that he has to work with the help of little
children or close his factory, is not that he wants to work his peo-
ple twelve, or sixteen, or twenty hours a day, not that he wants,
out of gross inhumanity, to have little children work in his es-
tablishment. Far from it! The manufacturers are like the rest
of us. They want to live, to carry on their occupation; they do
not want to be driven to the wall by competition and forced out
of business by the dissatisfaction of their customers. I do not
believe that, when we go to a bargain counter and buy cheap
goods, we are necessarily contributing to the degradation of our
immigrant workers, but when we go to that counter ignorantly,
and buy goods as to the history of which we have no underlying
concern and no pang of conscience, we are helping to hold down
in the poverty that they are trying to lift these people who have
come to us in all confidence that this is the land of freedom and
of fair dealing.

The tragic point is that we receive these people as we do, with
a feeling that because they have been alien to us they remain
alien to us after they come here. Of course this is very greatly
strengthened by the fact that the immigrants settle in foreign
colonies: that the Poles live with the Poles, the Italians with the

MRS, KELLEY,

Who is respon-
sible?

Always aliens.
MRS. KELLEY,

‘What can be
done?

The beginning
of slums.

538 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

Italians, and that they are very slow to learn the English language
and make known their need of sympathy and help. It is, of
course, to that extent their own fault that we go on thinking of
them as aliens who have no claims on us. But this does not ex-
empt us from the duty of giving them an entirely different wel-
come from that which they get to-day.

Surely this great body of missionaries can help! They can
help by making public opinion as to our errors in the North, and
they can take good care that those errors are not duplicated here
in the South as manufacturing interests grow up here. Some
of us have gone on there through a long series of years, trying
to improve the condition of the immigrants; but the progress we
have been able to make is greatly hampered by the fact that the
purchasers at a distance have not helped us. I have said to my
friends in Colorado that that seems to be the great Pharisee State.
It has no garment manufactory. The people of Colorado buy
the products of the worst industrial conditions in the East, with
light hearts, thinking ill of the people of the East because of our
evil industrial conditions; while those very Colorado purchasers
by their careless buying are helping to fasten our evil industrial
conditions upon us and make it impossible for us to improve
them. And more and more the same thing will obtain with the
brothers and sisters in the South, if they do not also take pains
to ascertain how far they themselves by careless purchasing are
contributing to the degradation of the working classes.

Every slum in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York
has its own typical industry. Out of every one of them there
goes forth some great product of degraded conditions of labor.
These goods are not sold altogether in the communities in which
they are made. They are sold to the people all over the United
States wherever purchasers choose to buy them; and unless we
can enlist the purchasers all over the country to help us to help
the immigrants of the great cities of the North, they will never be
effectively helped.

But that is not all. One of the speakers this afternoon has
pointed out that the South itself is becoming a great manufac-
turing district. As I came to New Orleans from New York I
stopped in Knoxville and found in that beautiful city in Tennes-
see, in the iron districts, the beginning of slums. From there I
OUR FOREIGN AND FACTORY POPULATION. 539

went to Harriman, and there, in the neighborhood of the found-
ries, were the beginnings of typical slums. Again in Chatta-
nooga, around the great foundries, in all directions, were the
perfect typical beginnings of slums. And the question that
now confronts the South is whether, as the great industries
come in, the South will profit by the bitter experience of the
North and will avoid the conditions that we have developed there.
If you can plant the kindergarten and well-conducted schools,
and if you maintain adequate public schools, if you can put in
them means of suitable recreation for the young people as
they grow up, and, most of all, if you can find men and women
who are willing to go and live with the incoming factory popula-
tion in the Southland, you need never have these probleris in ag-
gravated forms. If we in the North had had a sufficient body of
people willing to go and live in a neighborly and brotherly way
in the immigrant colonies, we need never have had the slums.
But our Christianity has never been adequate to the demand that
the incoming foreigner has made. If he would stay at a distance
and live in his tenement house, not coming near Fifth Avenue,
but letting us send him the doctor and the missionary, or any one
who would stand between the great body of the native American
people and the newcomers, well and good; but as for going to
live among the incoming brothers in a neighborly way, we have
not recognized that as a general and imperative duty. It
remains to be seen whether the South will profit by the bitter les-
sons we have had to learn at the North, and will use and increase
the enginery that has been described to you by my predecessor
this afternoon. If that can be used on a large enough scale, the
North will not have suffered in vain.

THE LITERATURE OF HOME MISSIONS.
MRS. J. D. HAMMOND.

To illustrate the difference between the old and the new view
of home mission fields, take the common case of a family found
in distress by some charitable visitor. The father is out of work,
drifting, perhaps, toward the saloon; the mother, sick and dis-
couraged, is overborne in the unequal struggle against dirt and

MRS KELLEY.

Will the South
profit?
MRS.
HAMMOND.

Unsuccess-
ful philan-
thropy.

The ques-
tion.

540 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

rags; while both parents and the younger children depend for their
ill-cooked, scanty food on the poor wages of the older children,
from seven years old upward. Time was when the discoverer of
this situation would have seen her way clearly; she would send the
family a Joad of wood, a generous supply of eatables, and some of
her children’s outgrown clothing; she would also find or make a
few odd jobs for the man. Having done this, her conscience would
be clear, and it would find the same family, a few months later, a
little deeper in dirt and discouragement, a little farther on toward
pauperism and the loss of self-respect.

Why should this Christian deed have such an unchristian result?
Why will not this family come to church and accept the consola-
tions of rqligion? Why will the man drink, and the woman persist
in being a slattern? Why do the boys take to cigarettes, and the
girls drift into the street? Has the power of Christ to transform
human lives failed?

These questions have been asked in amazement, in doubt, some-
times in the darkness of despair; and those who have tried to work
out the answers have come upon strange things. The man has
taken to drink because the saloon offers him, as the Church does
not, a clean, bright, comfortable place in which to gratify his natural
social instincts; or because insufficient food and poor nutrition have
created a physical demand for a stimulant, which whisky furnishes
for the man, as do cigarettes and the excitements of the street for
the children. There is little to spend on food and clothing, because
rent is high even for poor shelter. Though food were both well
cooked and sufficient in quantity, bad sewerage, decaying refuse, and
foul water are quite sufficient to depress the physical and often the

moral nature below the danger point. The vicious example of the

father’s idleness is often an enforced one, because it is cheaper to
run machinery by childish hands, though childish bodies and minds
be stunted, and the natural rebellion against overwork makes the
path toward crime attractive. From whatever point the problem
is approached, it is found imbedded in a tangle of causes and effects
that reach out to the farthest bounds of society. Economic laws,
municipal corruption, social conditions, the very constitution of the
human body, seem grinding to powder this helpless family mass.
What can the Christian do? When the full force of it all first bursts
upon the mind one feels that there is nothing to do but to stand
beside them and be ground to death with them in the dust. If the
load may not be lifted, that is the best life can offer to any one;
THE LITERATURE OF HOME MISSIONS. 541

and to feel that passionate sense of brotherhood it is worth while
to pass through that country of despair.

Here in the South the new and rapidly changing industrial con-
ditions are forcing us for the first time to face these puzzling facts.
It is only in recent years that we have felt what has long been
true elsewhere: that the Churches have slight hold on a large part
of our population. It is since the farms began to lie idle and the
inflow to the cities began—the cities where factories and foundries
have sprung up; where rents and living are too high for factory
wages; where municipal indifference and corruption rob the poorest
and most needy citizens of their birthright to pure air and whole-
some water; where the salt of the earth is heaped up afar from what
it must touch to save, stored in comfortable homes and handsome
churches at the other end of town.

We have tried to do our duty. We have built some mission
chapels. Ministers of the gospel are spending blameless and de-
voted lives among these people, preaching, visiting, and praying
among them, and yet confessing in sorrow that the people slip
through their fingers. Even those who are swept into the Church
on the wave of some great revival drift out again with the undertow
into the sea of hopeless humanity. In the doubt and discourage-
ment of a growing sense of failure we are awaking to a more poign-
ant sense of brotherhood; and that is a step forward, though it be
taken in the dark.

But is that the end of life—to suffer and to fail? Did Christ mean
for the world to stop at Calvary? Or did he rivet there the con-
nection between human lives and the almighty power of love that
would bring success out of failure, and transform this very worky-
day world into a real kingdom of heaven?

We have had too narrow thoughts of him. We have glorified
want and suffering as things good in themselves, and taken too pa-
tiently our brethren’s lack of all things decent in this life, provided
their souls could be saved for the life beyond. We have gone with
offers of heavenly mercy to people who need human justice. We
have thought of our church worship and the giving of alms as our
Christian duty; but some of us have forgotten our Christian duty
as the makers of money and the spenders of it; as employers, as
housekeepers, as citizens.

What right have we to pure air and water and decent sewerage
when down yonder our brothers are being poisoned with the de-

MRS.
HAMMOND.

Changes in
the South.

‘*Practical
Christiani-
ty.”
MRS.
HAMMOND.

An experi-
ment,

Examples.

542 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

caying garbage in their filthy streets, and drinking water from wells.
that are filled with the seepage from soil rotten with human refuse ?
Why do we offer homes in heaven to people whom our laws rob of
earthly homes—to men whom we force into idleness by thrusting
their wives and children, the home-makers and those for whom
the home is made, into the factories? Why do we talk about heav-
enly rest to fagged-out, half-starved sewing women, and then buy
ready-made clothing from the bargain counters at the bare cost of
the material, and go home reckoning ourselves free from our sisters’
blood?

O, we have been playing at home missions! We do not know the
need. We do not know what can be done, what is being done else-
where, to meet the need.

First, know the need. Find somebody—he is not far from
your home—caught in the whirl of modern life, and being dragged
under the wheels that bring prosperity to so many. See what you
can do to drag him out. Measure your own aching muscles against
the forces that pull against you. Feel your own bones crunch and
your tendons wrench with his. Realize in the depths of your soul
how little God means to him and why.

But do not despair. If, as we realize the need, we realize the force
which is moving through the lives of men to meet that need, our
hearts will be lifted up indeed. There is so much being done, our
own opportunities so loom up on one side, while our responsibilities
so fearfully balance them on the other, that it is hard to speak in
clear and measured terms.

I wish every man who can vote, and every woman who has voters
to train, could read Dr. Shaw’s books on European municipal gov-
ernments. We are so used to corruption and inefficiency in our
cities that we will hardly believe in the possibility of such noble
service to God and our fellows on the level of mere citizenship until
we know that it is, and for years has been, rendered elsewhere. Let
us learn by the experience of older and wiser communities the con-
nection between ill-lighted streets and crime ; how public baths, gym-
nasiums, playgrounds, and kindergartens can largely take the place
of juvenile reformatories; what you can do as Christian citizens to
strengthen and guard the sacredness of the home and the lives of
helpless children. Read Gould’s “Housing of the Working People,”
the Report of the New York Tenement House Committee of 1894,
and Miss Hill’s “Homes of the London Poor,” and see in how
THE LITERATURE OF HOME MISSIONS. 543

many ways love may work for the homes of the poor, through just
laws and through wise methods in business, as well as through the
personal contact which is at once love’s supreme power and the
pledge of love’s eternal triumph.

And do not comfort yourself with the threadbare statement that
there is no need for these things in the South. Our evils are of
more recent growth, less gigantic than in older countries, and may
more easily be controlled if attacked in time; but leaving out alto-
gether the needs of the whites, great as they often are, do not “our
brothers in black” people slums, even in our villages, which are at
once a disgrace and a menace to our civilization? We do not lift
a hand to make homes possible to them. What wonder is it that
out of these hovels, bare of the very decencies of life, some beasts
of prey should come? The miracle is that there should be any moral-
ity at all; that so many should keep up the unequal fight, battling
for their children and for something that they can call a home.

Here on this same plane of service through citizenship, Lloyd’s
“Newest England” leads us into a region of actual hard facts which
might seem to some of us more like romance. The book is not at
all religious, in the general understanding of that term; but it tells
of that almost unknown country which, beyond all others, is, con-
sciously or unconsciously, weaving the spirit of Christ into the very
fabric of its constitution and customs; and the result is already
‘something for Christian men to ponder over.

Hodder’s “Life of the Earl of Shaftesbury” is a revelation of what
may be done for Christ in legislation; and Willoughby and De
Graffenried’s book on “Child Labor,” as well as Erickson’s Report
on the same subject, should open our eyes to one form of legislation
needed here and now. Shuey’s little book on ‘Factory People and
‘Their Employers” is full of beautiful things that the spirit of Christ
can and does do, working through sound business methods in lines
of industry which, more than any others perhaps, are to develop
the commercial greatness of the South.

Josiah Flynt’s books tell us in popular style things we ought to
know about our brethren of the underworld of crime; while Dr.
Wines’s book, “Punishment and Reformation,” ought to be read
by every one who feels the deficiencies of our Southern prison sys-
tems, and more especially by every one who does not know that
such deficiencies exist. But if we study the best ways in which to
deal with criminals already manufactured—manufactured largely

MRS,
HAMMOND

A need in
the South

Making
and un-
making
criminals
MRS.

HAMMOND,

Books for
practical
work.

544 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

through the indifference and ignorance of Christian people—let us
learn something from those who have not neglected, as we have in
the South, the preventive work among criminals yet in the making.
The Annual Reports of the American Association of Charities and
Correction will throw a flood of light on the subject of juvenile re-
formatories, as well as on many other practical questions; and the
Reports of the George Junior Republic at Freeville, N. Y., show in
still another direction the power of life that may be imparted to
children morally neglected or deficient through loving personal
service.

Peabody’s ‘‘Jesus Christ and the Social Question” is a noble
discussion of the principles underlying Christian living; while Hen-
derson’s little book on “Social Settlements,’ Brown’s “Develop-
ment of Thrift,” Richmond’s ‘‘Friendly Visiting among the Poor,”
Field’s “How to Help the Poor,” and a number of others which
you will find in the Home Mission Department of the book cata-
logue and in the book exhibit, are helpful in practical work. Books
like these can be recommended to that large class of Christians who
feel the claims of their less fortunate brothers, and who long to
translate their sympathy into service, but who hesitate where and
how to begin.

The literature of rescue work is mostly conspicuous by its ab-
sence; but if any one doubts the results of work among those women
whom the standards of men rather than the judgment of God have
placed in the lowest depth of degradation, “The True Story of
Delia,” by Mrs. Whittemore, ought to give them more faith in the
redeeming power of love.

So far as I have been able to find, there is an utter dearth of books
in regard to the needs of the mountaineers, except as they may be
found by inference in some of the stories of John Fox, Jr., and
Charles Egbert Craddock.

Of making many books on the theory and practice of the kinder-
garten there is no end. To those who do not know the wonderful
formative and redemptive power brought to bear through this
agency on the children who will furnish the criminals and paupers
of the next generation, can be recommended Fletcher’s “That Last
Waii; or, Social Quarantine ;” the Reports of the Golden Gate
Kindergarten Association, in San Francisco, and several of the pa-
pers in the Annual Reports of the American Association of Charities
and Correction.
THE LITERATURE OF HOME MISSIONS. 545

Beneath all the many forms of service, the protean shapes of love,
at some of which we have glanced, there is one great underlying
principle—the power of consecrated personality. ‘Give to him
that asketh of thee’—give what? Money? We have thought so,
yet more and more the breach widens between the Church and
those she seeks to help. Money alone is powerless; justice alone
falls short. After we have given money, after we have used our
influence, our social ‘or political power, our business or our home-
making methods, to give our brethren justice, for what does their
need cry to heaven? One of our best and wisest has told us: “This
is the largest and richest education of a human nature—not an in-
struction, not a commandment, but a friend. It is not God’s law,
it is not God’s truth, it is God that is the salvation of the world.”
How shall they meet God, how shall they be introduced to his
friendship, except through the friendship of his representatives?
“A friend is he who makes us do what we can.”’ That is it. Love’s
highest office is to bring one’s brother to the best fulfillment of his
possibilities. The life is more than meat, and the body than
raiment. To fight ignorance, neglect, and injustice, to give our
brethren their rights, that must ‘be done, in loyalty to the Christ we
serve ; but that is a first step in an ever-ascending path; it is clearing
the way for love’s noblest work—the building up in our weaker
brethren of true manhood and womanhood through personal con-
tact with the spirit of Christ in our own lives.

We all know something of the contagion of death. In this city,
so often plague-smitten, the very thought is living and real. But
have we thought enough of the contagion of life? As fire is kindled
by fire, so life spreads by contact. All throwgh the ages life has
worked, touching and transforming dead matter, shaping and vivify-
ing the seeds of new worlds. From the dawn of vegetable life two
laws hold sway: only life can give life; life can give life only by
contact. Would God spread this great object lesson before us and
enforce it in endless beauties and marvels to leave us groping in the
dark after the spread of spiritual life? First we must have life,
through personal contact with Him who came that we might have
it abundantly ; and having it, we must follow our Master’s rule and
give alms of those things that are within. What life touches it will
lift into living ways. You may check the contagion of death; some
day it will cease to exist at all; but life cannot be conquered—life
will spread. me

22

MRS,
HAMMOND,

What shall
we give?

The centa-
gion of
life.
MRS.
HAMMOND.

Waste en-
ergy.

546 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

The trouble is that life is hindered in us. One of the greatest
problems of the age, in business, in science, in religion, is the util-
ization of waste energy. For countless ages the waters of Niag-
ara have sent up their hymn of praise; but it was only yesterday
that men saw beneath the outer glory of beauty the inner glory of
service, and made a way for the wasted power to doits work. Think
of the rush of joy with which it entered the longed-for outlet, lifting
the burdens of the lowliest, lighting the pathway of small and great,
driving the wheels of commerce, serving in the kitchens of the poor!

The power of Christ goes to waste for lack of connection through
us with the world’s everyday life. We are so afraid of adulterating
what we call the pure gospel that we keep it locked up in our
churches for Sunday use. There is nothing foreign to the pure gos-
pel but sin, and sin it must touch to destroy. If we lack power, it
is because we waste power. We need to turn it in the right direc-
tion. We want the power of Christ in the business world, between
employer and employed, in social life, in home life, in the making
and administering of our laws. When life touches these things, not
spasmiodically, but seven days in the week, life will transform these
things, and we shall hear no more of the separation between rich
and poor, for we shill all be one in Christ Jesus.
ADDRESS

‘DELIVERED AT THE DEVOTIONAL SERVICE OF
THE LAST Day OF THE CONFERENCE
BY Mrs. F. Howarp TAYLOR.
SACRIFICE FOR JESUS’S SAKE.
MRS. HOWARD TAYLOR.

“Look not every man on his own things, but every man also
on the things of others.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

[Notice the sevenfold descent. ]

Who being in the form of God, thought not equality with God
a thing io be grasped,

But emptied Himself,

And took upon Him the form of a servant,

And was made in the likeness of men; eens

And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, — curist.

And became obedient unto death,

Even the death of the cross.” (Phil. ii. 4-8.)

The mind of Christ, in view of the need of a perishing world.

“He emptied Himself; kept back nothing.

Let this mind be in you. It is not in us by nature. Naturally,
we look only at our own things. It isa mind that we may have.
Ji is a mind that we are commanded to possess.

See this mind in the apostle Paul: Phil. iii. 7-10.

The cross is the only way. So for God himself; so for us. ff
we would have fellowship with Christ in his redeeming work, we
must have fellowship with him also in his self-emptying and suf-
ferings.

Notice: “He emptied himself” a voluntary act.

We have reaclied a high-water mark in our Conference. God
grant there may be no ebb tide. We have entered into deeper
joy and fuller blessing because we have begun to sacrifice a little.
The collection last Sunday night (fifty thousand dollars) repre-
sents, I know it, not a little real devotion and sacrifice for Jesus’s
sake.

It has been a great thing, and we are filled with thankfulness
and wonder; but O, beloved friends, “God is able to give you
much more than this.” Bear with me a moment if I say a great delet -
danger lies ahead of us just here. If we rest on our oars, if we
glory in our achievement, all power and blessing will be lost;
there will come, must come, a reaction which will leave us worse
MRS, TAYLOR.

The joy of
suffering.

**All’s clear,??

550 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

off than if we had never gathered together in this Conference at

all.
Humbly and prayerfully, let the language of our hearts be not,

“See what we have accomplished ;” but “Lord, what more is

there that we cando?” Having done all, we are still unprofitable
servants, so far behind our Master’s great example. He emptied
himself, kept nothing back; we have scarcely yet begun to learn
the meaning of sacrifice.

From this solemn and sacred season we go back to our homes
and our Churches to carry the inspiration, not to glorify the
great Southern Methodist denomination, but to spread the con-
tagious joy of sacrifice, the enthusiasm to do, to suffer anything,
to go anywhere, everywhere, for Jesus’s sake.

I. Giving One’s Self —More than thirteen years ago, when I
first left home for China, there came to me the joy of suffering for
Jesus’s sake as never before. It was in the Bay of Naples, as the
great steamer was moving out to sea and the shores of Europe
were fading from one’s sight. I had never left home before; had
never before beeri parted from my mother, not even to go to
school; so the experience was overwhelming. The first home
letters had reached us in Naples, and as I stood alone upon the
deck of the great ship I held them to my heart; letters from
father and mother, and each one unspeakably precious. As the
ship glided out of the harbor and the blue water widened between
us and the shore, I felt as if all the ties to the old home life were
breaking one by one. Suddenly a sailor’s voice rang out across
the steamer from the prow: “All’s clear now, sir; all’s clear!”
The captain on the bridge responded: “Full steam ahead!” Look-
ing away into that far blue sky, my heart took up the sailor’s
words, and said: ‘“‘All’s clear now, Lord; all’s clear!’ And in that
moment it seemed to me almost as if heaven itself were opened;
there came such a sense of the personal presence of Christ, who
was accepting that sacrifice, and of the personal love of Christ
flowing into my heart, that I can never forget it. One only be-
gins to learn what he can be when all others are given up for His
sake.

II. Giving One’s Possessions —What a wonderful thing it is that
we can give to Jesus. The joy of sacrifice for his sake is not con-
fined to those of us in Christian lands who have long known
and loved him. Far away among the heathen there are hearts
that throb in response to his precious name. Let me illustrate
SACRIFICE FOR JESUS’S SAKE. 551

by an instance that comes to my mind in connection with dear MBS TAYLOR.
pastor Hsi, whose life I am now writing.
He was a native of Northern China who did a wonderful work
for God in the province of Shan-si. He opened numbers of sta-
tions where he preached the gospel and was instrumental in
winning hundreds of souls to Christ. At one time his mind was
deeply exercised about the city of Hoh-chau. It was an impor- , Ji, on.
tant place, where there had never been a missionary, and he  swers her hus-
greatly wished to open an opium refuge there as a center for >#24’s Prayers
gospel preaching. Day by day at family worship in his own
home he prayed about the matter, asking that God in some way
would open Hoh-chau tothe gospel. After a time, his wife, who
was also an earnest Christian, said to him: “Don’t you think you
have prayed long enough? Would it not be well now to do some-
thing in the matter?”
“Tf I only could,” he responded ; “but it would take a consider-
able sum of money to send a man to Hoh-chau, and I have not a
cashin hand. We are already doing as much as we are able.”
Mrs. Hsi, being a sensible little woman, said no more, but went
away to consider the matter.
The next morning at family worship her husband prayed as
usual for Hoh-chau, asking more earnestly than ever that the
Lord would in some way send workers there. After the service,
Mrs. Hsi came up, and laid on the table beside which her husband
was standing a little package wrapped in a colored handkerchief.
“This,” she said, “is in answer to your prayers.”
Surprised and interested, the good pastor untied the. handker-
chief and opened the parcel. It contained all Mrs. Hsi’s jewelry,
her gold and silver earrings, hair ornaments, bracelets, and other
trinkets which she had gathered up and brought as an offering to
the Lord. When he saw it, and realized how much the sacrifice
meant to a woman in her position, tears came into the husband's
eyes, and he said : “But surely you cannot mean to give them all?”
“Yes,” she said, “take them and sell them. I can do without
these; let Hoh-chau have the gospel.”
To a Chinese woman her jewelry is most precious. The gold
earrings and hair ornaments which form her dowry take the ;

. . . A Ghinese
place of engagement and wedding rings with us. But dear Mrs. woman's jews
Hsi meant it when she said: “I can do without these; let Hoh- etry.
chau have the gospel.” That city was opened as a mission sta-
tion, and a Christian Church exists there to-day. Of how many
MRS. TAYLOR.

Susie Parker.

‘“WNothing too
precious for
Jesus.’’

552 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

cities that have never had a missioanry this might be true, if
only we would gather up the things that we could do without,
and let these needy places have the gospel.

III. Giving One's Children.—But there is something harder than
giving one’s self or one’s possessions. The most difficult of all
is to give one’s children; dearer than life itself, or anything else
that life contains. A beautiful instance comes to my mind to-day
of the joy that springs from this supreme sacrifice.

In the State of New York, a few years ago, a dear girl named
Susie Parker heard the call of God to give herself to missionary
workin China. She was the specially beloved child of her father’s
heart, and it was only after a tremendous struggle that he could
bring himself to consent to her becoming a missionary. She
went to China with my dear father-in-law, Mr. Hudson Taylor,
who was then on his way through this country; and at a farewell
meeting held in the church of which Mr. Parker was a member,
a touching incident occurred. Mr. Parker, having been asked to
come on the platform and say a few words in connection with his
daughter’s leaving for China, reminded the people of what Susie
had always been to him. He said that from her earliest years
she had never brought her parents anything but joy and satis-
faction, and told them how in everything she had been his right
hand and his heart’s delight.

“And now,” he added very simply, “Susie is going to China;
and all I can say is that I have nothing too precious for my Jesus.”

With such a father’s benediction the dear girl went out, and
her life was singularly bright and useful during the little while
that she was spared in China. Her teacher, a Confucianist gen-
tleman, was led to Christ through her prayers and efforts; and
many others first heard of Jesus from her lips. But one summer,
typhoid fever laid her low, and in a very little while she was
called into the Master’s presence. The news went home across
the sea to the loved ones she had left behind. In reply to a letter
of deepest sympathy from Mr. Iludson Taylor, that dear father
wrote: “In the midst of my desolation, all I can say is still the
same—I have nothing too precious for my Jesus.”

He touched in his sorrow a joy too deep for words, too deep
for comprehension, a joy that to all eternity will grow only more
.wonderful and precious: the joy of having something so precious
to give to Jesus.
SACRIFICE FOR JESUS’S SAKE. 553

See Phil. ii. 5-8: Jesus had nothing too precious to sacrifice for
our sakes.

See Phil. iii. 7-10: We have nothing too precious for Jesus.

O, beloved friends, we talk sometimes about sacrifice and suf-
fering in the service of Christ as if it were a heavy cross, rather
than the highest privilege. How is it we are so blind and slow of
heart? Do you not see it? How can I put it into words? O,
do you not see that life has no higher honor, eternity itself can
bring no greater privilege, than the honor, the privilege of suf-
fering for Jesus’s sake? To all eternity we shall be able to serve
him far better than we can down here, with sinless hearts and
perfect powers; but shall we ever again have the opportu-
nity of suffering for his sake? When God has wiped all tears
away, and sin and death are no more, shall we ever be able to be
lonely again for Jesus; to endure hardship, to face perils, to toil,
to weep, to lay down life itself, as he did for us? This little life
alone can bring us that high privilege. Forever and forever he
offers us the fellowship of his joy, a share in his glory, a place
upon ‘his throne; but there is something deeper in the heart of
Christ than that. Iam so glad that he does not withhold from us
that which must ever be the deepest thing in his heart—the fellow-
ship of his cross, of his tears, of his death for the life of the world.

And so we come to the end of our Conference, and scatter to
our homes again; not feeling that we have in any measure at-
tained; but more than ever eager to press forward; ambitious
fully to “apprehend that for which we also have been apprehended
of Christ.” (Phil. iii. 12.)

MRS. TAYLOR,

Only on earth
can we know
the joy of
suffering
IV.
APPENDIX.
I. THe Exuisirt.

II. Cuarts.
III. Statisticat TaBLes.
IV. BristrioGRapuy.

V. Lists of CoMMITTEES AND MIs-
SIONARY DIRECTORY.

VI. INDEx. :
THE MISSIONARY EXHIBIT.
MRS. P. L. COBB.

THE fact that concrete illustrations help to deepen known truths
was shown by the constantly growing interest of the crowds of
people who daily visited the Exhibit at the General Missionary
Conference. From day to day there was never lacking an appre-
ciative group of listeners or observers of all that the Exhibit
afforded.

This had been expected and systematically planned for. One
who is a connoisseur of such exhibits said that this one excelled
in two particulars: the just proportion given to the different de-
partments, and the ready corps of helpers at each table. Around
the wall of one of the large rooms, behind a railing, were tables
covered with curios, costumes, and implements from each of our
foreign fields, and draped with beautiful ancient embroideries or
fantastic scrolls. China occupied three tables, which were gra-
ciously presided over by Dr. and Mrs. W. H. Park, Rev. B. A.
Lucas, and Mr. Chow, who were always ready to explain any
article or answer all questions. Japan had three tables of ob-
jects of worship, musical instruments, and curios, at which Mrs.
M. I. Lambuth, Mr. K. Ashida, and Rev. W. A. Wilson held in-
terested conversations with visitors; Korean curiosities and cos-
tumes were shown from the tables by Miss Annie Lee Dicks, of
New Orleans ; Brazil’s table held beautiful laces, crucifixes, beads,
etc., which were displayed by Miss Willie Bowman and Mrs. P.
L. Cobb; Mexico had a rare collection of antiquities and objects
of worship, which Rev. N. E. Joyner, Rev. B. G. Marsh, and Mrs.
G. B. Winton explained; Cuba attracted many to listen to Rev.
D. W. Carter and Rev. H. W. Baker. The work among the
North American Indians was represented by Rev. and Mrs. J. J.
Methvin, who have so faithfully labored there. To Miss Julia
Butler is due much of the artistic arrangement of the tables and
the readiness to explain them with which visitors were greeted.

The exhibitors sought not only to satisfy the curiosity of the
visitors, but to impress some truth or some great need growing
out of the customs they were illustrating. Many saw heathen-

China,

Japan.

Brazil, Cuba
and Mexico.
MRS. COLB.

Book Exhibit.

Pictures.

Maps.

558 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

dom for the first time in its hopeless darkness and its inability to
satisfy the longings of the human heart.

In the second large room was the literature exhibit, directed
by Mr. W. C. Everett and Mr. Mathis, of the Dallas Branch Pub-
lishing House. For months men and women of ability in the
Church had been collecting and studying books on all phases of
missionary. work to form a catalogue of missionary books. Mr.
Everett had been able to secure copies of these for the Exhibit,
and with these and his own material presented a magnificent
showing of the literature of missions. It was a real pleasure,
in answer to the oft-expressed desire, “I wish I knew just what
book to get on this subject,” to be able 'to show the inquirer the
topical catalogue, or, better still, put into his hand a copy of the
book, that he might examine and order accordingly. Large
numbers of orders are now being filled by the Publishing House
for books for which there had formerly been little demand. If
the Exhibit or the whole Conference should do no more than
make people desire and read good literature on the subject of
missions, it will have done untold good.

On one side of this room was a large table containing speci-
mens of the publications of the leading Mission Boards of the
world. To the student of comparative methods and fields this
collection afforded a rare opportunity for study and for obtain-
ing many suggestions for further development in his own lines.
This room also held a large exhibit of the American Bible Socie-
ty’s work in various translations and editions; a fine set of pic-
tures of the Meharry Medical College, by Dr. G. W. Hubbard, of
Nashville; pictures of all our foreign churches built by the Board
of Church Extension; the display from the Scarritt Bible and
Training School, under Miss Mary D. Jones; of the Era and
Review of Missions, by Mr. O. W. Patton; the Student Volunteer
Movement, by Rev. Fennell P. Turner ; publications of the Wom-
an’s Home Mission Society and the Woman’s Foreign Mission-
ary Society, directed by Miss Mary Werlein, of our Church.

A third feature of the Exhibit was the collection of maps and
charts on the walls of the two rooms. There were samples of
maps published by the leading Boards of the country; detail maps
of portions of countries, showing our Church’s stations; a map
showing the geographical boundaries of the Annual Conferences,
with those Conferences and districts that paid the missionary
THE MISSIONARY EXHIBIT. 559

assessments in full last year indicated by a star; a map showing
the work of the Woman’s Home Mission Society, dotted with
stars showing the bright spots where parsonages had been helped
or built; a map of the world showing where the Y. M. C. A. for-
eign secretaries are located; and, most striking of all, a world
map showing by yellow and black ribbons, extending from Nash-
ville to all parts of the world, where the missionaries that have
gone out'from Wesley Hall are now at work under God’s guid-
ance and the inspiration of their Alma Mater. One of the stu-
‘dents, Rev. W. O. Sadler, was always present to show this and
the pictures of the missionaries.

On the wall hung a large collection of missionary charts, pre-
pared expressly for this Conference. They were accurately exe-
cuted by a skilled draughtsman—Mr. John S. Butler, son of Mrs.
F. A. Butler—on thick paper, size 29x44 inches, tinted in bright
colors to bring out the distinction and comparisons. One
group showed a comparison of needs in the home and for-
eign lands; one—“a monument to our indifference’—showed
the number of members in different Churches required to sup-
port one missionary; one gave a comparison of the M. E.
Church, South, with the Moravians; another, the amount we
should pay if all our members gave attenth. The amounts given
by our membership by decades since 1846; the growth of the for-
eign membership ; growth of our Sunday schools; the work of the
American Bible Society, of the Scarritt Bible and Training
School, Meharry Medical College, World’s Student Christian
Federation, Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, Woman’s
Home Mission Society; the area controlled by Christian govern-
ments ; progress of the world’s evangelization, etc., were graphic-
ally displayed. Those who studied these figures and diagrams
received a clearer idea than ever before of the necessity for great-
er zeal.

These charts are to be reproduced and sold to Leagues, Sun-
day schools, missionary societies, and Churches at a very low
price. Their reproduction will be of the same size as the origi-
nal, on blue print paper or on white paper with blue lines. No
more forceful way can be found to impress the facts they exhibit
than to. keep these charts before the eyes of the people.

MRS, COBB.

Charts.
 

 

These charts have been reproduced by the blue print process and can
be had at the following prices, the uniform size being 44x29 inches:

Single chart, blue and white, 75 cents.

Set of ten, blue and white, $5.

Single chart, tinted, $1.

Set of ten, tinted, $7.50.

The set of ten charts contains numbers I.-X.
Send all orders to G. W. Cain, Nashville, Tenn.

 

 
 

PROGRESS OF THE WORLDS

EVANGELIZATION,

  

1800. 1900,

WHEN ?

The white in circles shows proportion

of professing Christians.

 

 

 

 

During the past century, which was the beginning of modern mis-
sions, Christianity increased according to the size of the white segments.
If Christians would do their utmost, the third circle, ‘‘All the World for
Christ,” could be true of the next century.

23
IT

 

WHITE WEDGE SHOWS

Proportion of Native Communicants to

Unconverted Heathendom.

 

Commainicantsis secs. ecees 1,317,000
AANESTCNES scheilaua sreiiaaws 4,414,C00
Heat netic. ss sensed see ward 1,053,C00,CO0.

 

 

The small, white wedge shows the proportion of native communi-
cants on the foreign field to unconverted heathendom. As a result of
a century’s efforts there are now 1,317,000 native communieants and

4,414,000 adherents among  1,053,000,000 Jews, Mohammedans, and
heathen.

 
ITI.

 

 

INCREASE

OF

CHRISTIANITY

IN

CHINA

 

 

    

Li Yy

1842 1865 1877 1890 1900
6 2,000 13,515 37,287 100,000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although the small wedge in Chart II. might seem to discourage, when
we look at the increase in any one country, we can take courage. The
different blocks represent the number and increase of Christians in
China since 1842. The beginning of the rapid growth was in 1877; and
from 1890 to 1900 the number of Christians was almost trebled. And
yet there remain many millions to be won to Christ.
LV.

 

RELATIVE SIZE OF HOME AND
FOREIGN PARISHES.

The large cirtle represents 200,000 people

to each ordained missionary. The small

white center represents one-fifteen hun-
dredth converted (133 persons).

 

oO

The small circle represents 740 persons
to each ordained home minister, and its

white center the one-fifth converted.

 

 

 

This chart’ may help to meet the objection offered to foreign mission
work that there is need enough for workers at home. A minister
at home touches an average of 740 civilized people; a minister abroad
is responsible for an average of 200,000 heathen. We could send in the

next fifty years enough men to cultivate the foreign field and not suffer
any loss at home.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A MONUMENT TO OUR INDIFFERENCE
No. of Church members to
Bap- support one Missionary.
tist.
South
oH
=
4 cs
M.E = e ;
oO 5 Z
Chur- a 5 5
im 2 te ‘
ch. SI = 20 ws
w : <
: »  s
South a 9 a
o 64
\ °
=
7326 3048 =
1385 rs
865 66.
FRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cause for the large number of heathen dependent on one man’s
preaching. abroad is the indifference of the home Church, especially: in
the matter of giving. The average Church member in the denomina-
tions represented in this chart gives so little for foreign missions that
it takes 19,614 Southern Baptists to support one missionary; 7,326
Southern Methodists, and so on down to the Moravian Church, which
has one from every 66 members as a foreign missionary. What one

Church has done, others can do.
 

VI.

 

OUR GIVING OF MONEY.

Comparison of Expenditures in U. S.

$5,000,000, FOR

FOREIGN MISSIONS.

 

100,000,000,
CHURCH WORK.

 

 

 

400,000,000, | AMUSEMENTS.

 

 

 

709,000,000,

JEWELRY & PLATE.

 

 

 

 
   
     

$00,000,006,

FOR TOBACCO.

$1,400,000,000 FOR LIQUOR.

 

 

The proof that meager offerings for foreign missions are due to in-
difference, not lack of money in the United States, is shown in this
chart. If our habits of life and means were offered freely to God, this
showing would be different. We are not too poor to send the gospel.
Vit.

 

 

JUST THE TITHE.

Tusome of membership M. E. Ch. S.,

(at 55 cts. a day)

.$295,000,000.

S$
S$
>
Ss
}
=
iQ
#

 

Tithe $29,500,000.

 

 

a

pted the scriptu

citize

9

ad

é done if Christians

ing. The inc

ao

This shows what could
“tenth” as a minimum offe

States is officially reported a
Southern Methodists have

ed
te
n

»

ns of the Uni

a

ome of

ew

a

Brom

If we give bu
ld be $29,500,000 in-

Os

55 cents a day, or $200 a year. At this r

n income of $295,000,000.

o God, the offering wo

stead of $5,000,000 for all Church purposes.

rar

tithe, a tenth of our income
VELL.

 

OUR INCREASING INTEREST.

Church Membership and Receipts for Home and

Foreign Missions in M. E. Church, South.

1846.

270,307.
1ss0,| 1 270,807

~~
aoh.os6.

 

. Total for Decade, '1,859,502.

1880.} _

1890.

   

1900.

 

 

1,481,898 Church Members. _

 

 

 

To reach this total of over $5,000,000 for Church work the M. E.
Church, South, has shown a great increase. The blocks in the chart
show the total receipts for each decade from 1850 for home and foreign
' missions, of both the Parent and Woman’s Boards. This increase is
from $270,307 given in four years, 1846-50, to $5,337,844 given for foreign
missions for 1890-1900. The broken line shows the growth of Church
members during the same time, and can be estimated at each decade by
the number of white and black horizontal spaces, each space indicating
100,000 members. The decrease of receipts and members during the
civil war, and the great increase since, is awanteresting feature of this
chart.
EX:

 

ARE FOREIGN MISSIONS A SUCCESS ?
28 Years Growth in the Foreign

Missions of the M. E. Church South.

 

 

 

 

 

3711 NATIVE
74 NATIVE
COMMUNICANES.
COMMUNICANTS \

IN 1887.
IN 1873.

 

 

 

10959

NATIVE COMMUNICANTS IN 1901.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illustrating twenty-eight years’ growth in foreign missions of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The increase of receipts as given in
Chart VITI. has made possible a large corps of workers on the field, and
the growth of the foreign members is one gratifying result. In 1873 there
were only 74 communicarts in all our_mission fields: in 1887, 3,711; and
in 1901 they have increased to 10,959. From the standpoint of our Church,
the work is a success.

 
 

M. E. CHURCH SOUTH
COMPARED WITH MORAVIANS
ON FOREIGN MISSIONS IN 1900.

Moravians.

 

MVE. Gas. $2.10
24 cts. per member. per

 

 

 

 

member,

 

 

 

Amts MZ EV

 

Amt. M. E. C. S. pays WOME CA At

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

$384,000. Yj ty J
$2.10 per7/ Mein.
$3,097,500.
NovifVl in’ 66
members was
Missionaries a Anissionary,
Ot MES EalG.S: as in
190. Morayians,
2273487
eA ZZ

 

 

 

 

Taking the missionary spirit of the Moravian Church as a criterion.
we can measure the possibilities of our own Church, were we to show the
same zeal. Our offerings to foreign missions average 24 cents per
member a year, a postage stamp a month. The Moravians give $2.10
per member a year. Our offerings amount to $384,000. If we gave at
the same rate as the Moravians, we should have $3,097,500 for foreign
missions. (Even this is far beneath the tithe.) The Moravian Church
has one out of every 66 of its members on the foreign field. If we of-
fered our lives in the same proportion, we should have, instead of 190
missionaries, 23,348 at work.

 
XI.

 

GROWTH IN SUNDAY SCHOOLS

M. E. Ch. South.

Growth in Schools

 

1870 1880

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growth in' Members.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By comparative areas, the growth in the Sunday schools and schol-
ars is shown. This has been almost uniform, not spasmodic, showing
that the efforts are well-directed and lasting. The upper row of blocks
shows the increase of schools to be from 3,585 in 1866 to 13,904 in 1900.
The lower row gives a growth in membership from 182,947 in 1866 to

955,150 in 1900.

 
XII.

 

OCCUPATION OF THE 2000

COLLEGE BRED NEGROES.

TEACHERS. 53 PER CENT.
a

CLERGYMEN. 17 PER CENT.
Eile ae

PHYSICIANS. 6 PER CENT.
ez

STUDENTS. 6 PER CENT.
ana

GOV'T. SERVICE. 4 PER CENT.
aa

BUSINESS. 4 PER CENT.
cE

FARMERS & ARTISANS. 8 PER CENT.
=a

EDITORS, CLERKS, ETC. 2 PER CENT.
ta

MISCELLANEOUS. 5 PER CENT.
Ey

 

 

 

Although but a very few negroes have received a college education,
it is interesting to see for what occupations they have fitted themselves.
The largest number, 53 per cent, become teachers of their own people;
17 per cent are clergymen; 6 per cent physicians; 4 per cent business men,
etc.
XIII.

 

From
To

From
To

 

VOLUMES ISSUED.

THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY.

ORGANIZED 1816,

TRANSLATIONS IN 100 TONGUES.

   

 

 

3 a

=k —

Fa) .

ai 6

I~

en

1816 1825 1850 1875
182 1850 1875 1900
RECEIPTS.

 

 

850 1875

1816 1825 1
1825 1850 1875 1900

 

This is one of the great agencics in spreading the Word. Through
offerings and donations from the Christians of America it has been abl:
to greatly increase the circulation of the Bible, as shown by the chart.
From 1816 to 1825 there were 372,446 volumes issued, and $395,892 re-
ceived for the work; from 1825 to 1850, 6,608,089 volumes, $2,216,765 re-
ceipts; from 1850 to 1875, 25,204,761 volumes, $13,088,285 receipts; froin
1875 to 1900, 35,124,010 volumes, $13,059,986 receipts.
the last period do not equal those of the former, but the volumes issued

are greater by 10,000,000.

 

The receipts for
XIV.

 

RELATIVE NEEDS
MEDICAL MISSIONS
To Every 2,500,000 People in Héafhen

Lands, One Medical Missionary. To Same

Number in United States, 4000 Physicians.

 

 

 

 

 

Each dot represents 10 Physicians.

 

 

That there is need for all talents and abilities on the foreign field is
illustrated by the need for physicians and medical missionaries there.
While there are 4,000 physicians to minister to 2,500,000 people in the
United States, there is but one available to the same number of heathen
whose needs are greater in proportion to their ignorance of the right
principles of living and caring for themselves. There are openings for
all God-given talents on the field.

 
XV.

 

INCREASE OF RECEIPTS OF THE
FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETIES
OF THE WU. S.

 
  
 

$20,621. The Yearly Average.

1820.f
$74,571
1830.
$288,583
1840.
$508,792

1850.

\ $842,728.

4 $1,307,412.

 

 

 

\ AKG \
1870. AW.
’
\\
$2,220,465 \
1880. XX ill ll TT 8
AK
$3,170,742. — AH
1890. \ \ AQ KA a

 

 

$4,893,333. Yearly Average. “*,

\\ 17,784,000, Church Member:
1900, A \\ AQUA NU AQ

The broken line shows growth

 
 

 

 

 

 

of Church Members.

 

The increase throughout the country of offerings for foreign work
from all the Churches is illustrated by the blocks which show the aver-
age for each year of the decade. This average has grown from $20,621
in 1810-20 to $4,893,333 in 1890 to 1900. The broken line shows the in-
crease of Protestant Church members for the same time. The increase
of receipts exceeds the increase of membership.
AVI.

 

GROWTH OF POPULATION
AND PROTESTANTISM IN U. S.

   
   

1850.
7 1850.
Protestants 3,529,988
Pop. in U. S. 23,191,000.
Adherents 8,824,970.
1860. |__|
1870
%
1880. e

 

1890.

A 17,784,470 Protestants.
1900.

* 74,000,000 Population in U. S.
44,461,192 Adherents.

 

 

 

 

While the population has increased 219 per cent since 1850, the Prot-
estant membership has increased 404 per cent. In 1850 Protestant adher-
ents and members were 53 per cent of the population. In 1900 they were
84 per cent of the population.

 
XVII.

 

 

AREAS GOVERNED BY DIFFERENT

RELIGIONS.

                   
    

                                

SY

i NN \\ AN DW \

\ \

A C™OR—OC

                  

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8752700, 8782300.

   
   

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SS

       
 

  
                  

14147100.

    

OE
= SE ——
=e 7ZZZ A

MSS EE EE
SZ OE

    

 

 

y Christianized, it

, and an opening into many lands for the
It also means a great improvement in helping to
rbaric customs and in spreading a civilized intel-
y be used as a handmaid of the gospel.

While in 1600 only 7 per cent of the world’s area was under the control
of Christian powers, in 1893 82 per cent was so governed. While this does

not mean that the populations of these areas are thereb

does signify a great advance

spreading of the gospel.
overcome heathen and ba

ligence, that can graduall

24
GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

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tele cen eee cere lee eer ee eee ele eee e ence elew eee eeaee 09 trtttseeeeeeseeee sees egridnd ueysyy
Pee was Maal ea anle Reis aa miRaee # 8a eee ee PPL PPG isieed ail ca ‘+++++s-+srooyos &ep ur spidng
eee I I OL 9 : 62 . ritressestessesssgroogas LEcq
wo eee iaceniet eomtel|aete ie a apie dea. | be ehorgaene ohe eee: |e sear eer aie Gee Ig 99 oe ‘+srdnd uvysiiyo
eet feet tees 0g p BLEUE GS Cg 6ST Bye s[ooyos Sutprvoq ut siidng

I T L e G e treeseeeess sTootas Surprvog

ot 9 steer eens 6¢ Le Bg e “tts grodpoqy VATJVU PUB SLOYOVOT,
sgeresstuwabednatcaeaza| 7 reeetteeeeleee eee! g  iteeseeeee eset sggrTBUOISSIUT JO SOATAL
feesezeenae| g : eS a it bette Cee esas eesersberee!+ BOLIBTOISSERE
; : A : ‘ Whee e eee eee eee renee eens STOIRIG

      
  
 
 

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“lay, "pul “equg “BOLO “OOIXo TL “[Izelg “Bult

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘MUOM NOIMUOL
‘HILOOS ‘HOUNHO “AW AHL AO SNOISSIN NOIGUOA JO GUVOT S.NVWOM
TOTAL STATISTICS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE
M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH.

MUSSIOMATICS) 0 ct tein anes Qonanawarla de dadea§ a naiceatearginedes 194
Teachers and helpers. iccitavscaen iyai cds ceeniverweeu ea vaees 188
Bible women oss sa sis aiacdancteune ates savas aad giadeoeae-s etwas 71
Day schools wvscosak staaenabg yoann veegee SelNdeteaea cee eee wE 16
Pupils cavievecennis ss eatiabadesedies sais 4 aatreaweeeereenescs 2,099
Boarding Sehoel 8: ccs s sghiedain corns Sk Ge Remade ees Stan 24
PUPS wigtiaace ooraeat Riateiamainindal net Sean eae ana a imuntas seers 1,196
Hospitals and dispensaries...............eeeeee iaela aka bens 6
Patients treated vcs sgi ev victencamaie ese ee cle wa aie Ralgreraien Gus Sere 18,182

Total value of mission property ............0 cee eee eee eee eee $897,807.82
581

STATISTICS.

WOMAN’S BOARD OF HOME MISSIONS OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH.

 

Cuban Work. | Mountain Work.| Pacific Coast. Total.

 

Schools: cae6 24 i554 asa 3 1 8

                 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Missionaries and teachers .. 12 8 32
Pupils in schools.,.......... 430 258 1,000
Scholarships............-+ 5 3 8
Buildings owned... Leslee . eos sdanae 2 1* 8
Value of buildings...........-. ee ah cara $8 i $25,000 $44,000
Rescue Work and Doors of Hope............... a ytigeaalanuepess Soa enienee PRESSS HRW RES soho a sermenemien ys So's By
Missionaries in this work...... wna eis ‘ beached apepammatentn tes ee eee 4
Buildings owned.............eceeee ence reece eens ise daisies ain slants Sraeeahenis : 5 anaes £5805 lt
Walle: ooceaycieauaicwiince es aes iyhipuanromsinacick 23 ge Sarena seannetey 2 ps bv a uuMisedate se ceeeeeenceseces 815,000
Number of City Mission Boards...... sige ape aeaR4 : beta De elaictel cesiaks 11
Number of missionaries employed by City Boards.. i a4. whaper enw ieieislgnd aoa a colereusiass 11

Number of auxiliaries............ bein sildtaneiatt HORNA AA aids
Number of members ................ iciiididhade: ¥ Su a uoie RE ERA SONOS Pa es 4SarRES . 24,712
Subscribers to Our Homes..........ccccece cence eeeecees naaa'd Moke akb+ v Ss de ummmucGes een awasineee rete meee: Deh

STATISTICS FROM ORGANIZATION TO 1901.

Receipts for connectional work............ sd min einlsidiansio a's slecba Wa Hasiownnd ee a we ORG EE bas semeaeude Coys saw mae S8OO8 EL 00
Receipts for local Work. ......-.-.605 cess eee ence nena boy Peat a gshs AeSOa Tw WES ES Leeda BOB 880.00
Total receipts ..........ceeeeeeee reece eeeeee i vessvesccecse 082,641 00
Number of parsonages built and aided......... ts Sa wlngamsgal 1,147

isowa s ve ack SeReR y $107,885 20
Money loaned to parsonages............ 2 (Passe AGiaiod se as cancmeaeess 81,625 00
Value of supplies distributed (outside of receipts above stated)............... Siniginite une Sateargenee a aaeme: 80,184 02,

     

 

* Industrial Home and School, at Greeneville, Tenn., $7,000. + Buildings of San Antonio Mission Home, San Antonio, Tex., $12,000. These become
the property of the Society as soon as the debts are paid by their respective Conferences.
582 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

EVANGELISTIC,

Statistics of the Income, Staff, and Evangelistic Returns of Missionary Societies,

 

 

 

 

 
 

  
   
   
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

é FOREIGN MISSIONARIES. NATIVE WORKERS.
3 Ss >. 2 Z 9 so
: g 3 Physi- |# 4 |a 3 bs a ae
3 2. % cians. |» @ 8 s . (8 3 hy, |S 3
NATIONAL OR CONTINENTAL | E ke 3 : 3 g 5 2 3 ge 3 Z|
Divisions. 8 3 2 saleasle ual & 2 -2 B/E y
a a2 g 23/2 a a1/%- 12 lg zesleg
s 23 a a8] oe B14 Iso sia s
. Sa Z 23/_ 3/23) 52] 5 122 led é
ke si o a al|s alive a Plage s/°E B
2 ES 2) ./2) 222/22) 42/4 |e222l,33
g 83 a] 2] 2 |pe|ER/8a) 22 | = |Seaec/son
4 4 é6/a2/2 |4 j2 [5 a 6 |p a
CLASS I.
Societies directly engaged
in conducting foreign
missions.
United States ... 49) $ 5,403,048)1352) 160} 114) 109)1274)1006) 4,110/1575] 15,013] 16,605
Canada .... 8 352,743 7 9 231 39 677 716
42) 6,843,031 5,136|1666] 25,980] 27,795
7 1,280,684 653] 52/ 2,909] 3,026
4 101,930 112) 5 397 419
1 40,729 36) 7 493] 500
3 42,770 32 1 35 36
1 28,860 20 | steeletetoctcncg 8
2 268,191 123] 42 300 342
Germany. 1E] 1,430,151 1,515] 160] 6,284] 6,464
Netherlands’. 10 124,126 81] 30 220| 250
Norway.... 4 158,328 113] 78 1,806) 1,884
Sweden. 7 166,03: 187| 5 217| = 222
Switzerland 2) 34,337 MWe secee 31 31
Australasia and Oceania, 26 309, 234) 313} 152 4,771] 4,923
Asia... 29 97,569} 282) 15 298) 313
Africa. 28] 216,705 347) 98 4,400) 4,507
West Indies. 11 262,620 270) 105 5,469} 5,574
Total for Class I... 249) —$17,161,092/4953] 421] 203]124413450131191 13,607]}4029| 60,300] 73,615
P CONTRI- | NATIVE
STATIONS. CHURCHES. SUNDAY 8CHOOLS.) barons. |CHRISTIANS.
8 a 3S é Sagan
a 8 = °° s ET Sod
eee |p REE = & esc
NATIONAL on ContineN-| 2 | 3 3 % 4 z n 4 casas
TAL Divisions. 3 = 2 5. ao 2 b> 2 3 ae.
aie} |) 22 |"e| 2 | 2] 2 (Feeds
3 8 2 ag D be n 5 wows
a! 8 3 aa Bo be me Sa So seas
3 }° 8 3 8 2 2 3 ae as z a Bs58
4 = fo 28 gr g ga 2s SScRa<
; a 4 3 & 4 n & & a
CLASS I,
Societies directly en-
gaged in conducting
foreign missions.
United States... 421,597] 31,970) 7,231] 344,385] $ 628,717) 1,257,425
Canada..... 9,987 985) 402} 1,3 32,9)
England.. 278,548] 20,093
Scotland 40,247} 4,179
Ireland .. 4,588] 652
Wales... 3,596] 365
Denmark 361 54
Finland. 240 18)
France.. 14,788) 388}.
Germany. 164,356] 7,064
Netherlands 6,041] 110
35,289) 4,545
3,447] 1,027
749 151
71,637| 1,904
i 9,993} 183}
| 689 132,280) 3,881 a
291) 693) 558] 102,654] 6,326 744] 65,138] 182,912 1,205,960
6233] 25,586! 10,993] 1,289,298] 83,895! 14,940] 766,684! $1,833,981! 4,327,283

 
STATISTICS.

583

Combined Totals of Class I, (Regular Societies), Class II, (Societies Indirectly Co- op-
erating), and Class III. (Societies Engaged in Specialized Forms of Work.)

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 FOREIGN MISSIONARIES. NATIVE WORKERS.
3 23 3 3 2 23 3
sil a| wea (2 (2 fe [2 bee ae
3 2 6 cians. a g ~le2. Iva
Narronat or Conrinentan | = z a Ze\g E & g fed alex
Divisions. 3 ag 3 ied are ee = A334
n g2 z Sagleel g(a, | gES|6 8
5 £2 a Bal” alas gl A zeke fy
= aR g . |SS/| 8/288! si [se lee Cl88
3 g s a |*ZISBIES| 92] 2 [sees (°es
2 2@ a Q B)2 mle ml 2 a iloesaliss
5 ‘a ; |g ElES|2s) go] 3 |EES a
g 33 e| a] 2 leh[Eelea) 32] 3 |3aa5/25q
Z a o/#)]EF |A Ja js a 3 [5 &
CLASS I... 249| $17,161,092/4953) 421} 203/1244/3450/3119] 13,607)4029] 69,300] 73,615
CLASS II. 98) 1,227,731] 74} 11}......] 69] 54] 85! 1,255 9 3,207] 3,216
CLASS IIL. .| 102) 737,297} 36] 52) 16) 157) 63) 199 598] 15 492 507
Total for the world..........]1448] 2$19,126,120]5063| 484] 218] 1470]3567|34¢3] 15,460|4"53] 72,999 77,338
5
CONTRI- NATIVE
STATIONS. CHURCHES, SUNDAY SCHOOLS.| ONS. (CHRISTIANS.
g g 3 52 2ages
gle |e a z e (|p .oas
< 3 to 5 &
NaTIONAL OR CONTINEN-| 4 3 3 3 a F 6 et say
TAL DIVISIONS 2] 8 3 5 a 2 Ba e B23
a 3 3 2 a oe es 3 oe 3 aad.
3 a 5 a2 8 a Ea S Zar es
a 2 3 gg ene 3 52 Can 8 sH8
2/3 g 22 ae | mB aa? |S pio a)
ei S| a se sea |, Sh ee ai geeag
a) & Za |3a| @ ga $2 |Z2caa<
a aq ° a <4 n a eB i=
CLASS L.. y 25,586) 10,993} 1,289,298) 83,895) 14,940} 764,684) $1,833,981 4,327,283
CLASS IL. 145 541 17 5,561 37 14 1,150 1,225 76,328
CLASS III. 193 120 29 2,825 254 78 6,094 6,551 10,625
Total for the world..15571] 26,247| 11,039] 1,317,684] 84,186! 15,032} 771,928! $1,841,757 4,414,236

 

 

 

 

 

 

WOMEN’S SOCIETIES.

(Special summaries representing woman’s share in the world totals given above.)

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

é FOREIGN MISSIONARIES. NATIVE WORKERS.
g 5 2 | 2 aoe 3 oO
5 a a Physi- 4 ; 2 2 a be 8 ae
g 3 = cians. |m @ q g {Is 3 - |e
NATIONAL OR CONTINENTAL | 3 o g egig |8 2 8 ee 3 3/84
Divistoxs. | aa ie gc lgulee/ |2| celts
e ge |e Sale elu g| “2 | 2 lysF slog .
3 és 2 23] 8/238) s2 | 0 laa a SE
b 2 3 |aa mle @] OF © |e¢oaok(SB
5 a a aloale 2 @| $8 jag2sjete
4 ag 4 2 Pl2blag| 2 | 2 lessali ss
a 83 s|¢]8 pe | Ba) BM 3 3B (Shao gp
a a Sj/a]/F lA je |p [a ° |p a
CLASS L.. 95} $2,361,181] 48) 6) 138} 9) 3855/1490) 2,092) 25) 4,736] 4,761
CLASS II 5) 12,289) 00...) eseves|esceee|eeees| arene 9 osetia 7 7
CLASS IIL. 20) 126,647 2) 130) 150 35 36
Total... 120| $2,500,117; 49} 14] 143] 10] 357/1629] 2,251] 26 4,778] 4,804

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11f the number of women’s auxiliary societies (88) not included in the total (440) of societies given above under Classes
I., IL, and IIT. be added to that number, the grand total of all the missionary societies of the world, both independent and
auxiliary, will reach 537, but all other data in the ‘‘ Combined Totals of Classes I., II., and III." remain as given above.

21m reducing the income of European societies to United States currency, the English pound sterling has been estimated
at $4.90, the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish crown at 26 cents, the Dutch florin at 40 cents, the German mark at 24

cents, the Finnish mark at 19 cents, and the French franc at 20 cents.

dollar.

Indian rupees have been reckoned at three to the
MEDICAL,

STATISTICS OF HOSPITALS, DISPENSARIES, AND PATIENTS
TREATED ANNUALLY,

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

    
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 |2 & 3 S
m JA e 3 S38
s lsd}? | 3s | 28
Location. weletles| ae | 24
B2/28| 28 a2 2
BAER) FS] Be | Be
z |z | a &
Africa ad guduaoucuaieucsbincass(ucessct sa catousbacaaasteestonecdie 40] 103] 4,909] 177,794] 441,239
3 4 191)......-.006 eerdaseark
T] Al.) 8,558) 25,676
7 840) 21,018] 52,296
9 8 246 1,817 3,245
Ceylon.. 4) 10) 393 9,324) 15,636
China... 124| 240] 33,529] 745,322/1,700,452
Formosa 2 632 4,94: i
India . 106] 250} 22,902] 877,704|2,356,731
DAPBD ves ssesea cescsseas svesavsitsswaesasauamonsssaiss oseessesanid ip cose sesanees asaaasesesiexeess 7 7 8 6,
Korea fi 9 ;
Madagascar.. auaaeitiecvsdsssaies 3
Malaysia. 2
Mexico. 1
Oceania 1
Palestine. 10
Persia...... 5) 13 997) 42,280) 101,017
Siam and Laos 5) 9) 231) 14,654) 26,975
South America 3) Ble easeee 2,794 4,041
Syria .... 6| 16] 1,167) 32,932] 91,812
urkey. 7; 10) 1,033) 36,804) 80,903
: indi taneecte even econ watson . 355] 753] 73,741|2,158,349|5,383,934
roportionate estimate for ospitals an ispensaries
NOC FOPOLTING.. eseccsrdesveacersseczesseoessssicesaeasesis Binsin SEE THESSSSE 19,964) 421,302/1,263,906
Ota... essssnsesosssnenesssenseseisseseeennneeriesses cesses ster snesesutserssssessse 355] 753] 93,708] 2,579,651 6,647,840

 

 
BIBLIOGRAPHY.

GENERAL.

Enclycopedia of Missions. By Edwin Munsell Bliss. $12.

Short History of Christian Missions. By George Smith, LL.D., F.R.G.S.
75 cents.

Moravian Missions. By Augustus C. Thompson, D.D. $2.

Foreign Missions. By Augustus C. Thompson, D.D. $1.75.

Christian Missions and Social Progress. By Rev. James S. Dennis,
D.D. 3 vols. $7.50.

Report of the Centenary Conference on the Protestant Missions of the
World, London, 1888. By Rev. James Johnston. $2.

Students’ Missionary Appeal. Official report of the Third Interna-
tional Convention of the Students’ Volunteer Movement for Foreign
Missions. $1.50.

Report of the Ecumenical Conference at New York, 1900. $1.50.

Students and the Missionary Problem. Report of the London Con-
ference. $2. ;

A Hundred Years of Missions. By Rev. D. L. Leonard. $1.50.

A Study of Christian Missions. By W. Newton Clarke. $1.25.

Foreign Missions of the Protestant Churches. By Stephen L. Bald-
win, D.D. $1.

Heroes of the Mission Field. By Rev. W. P. Walsh, D.D. $1.

Modern Heroes of the Mission Field. By W. P. Walsh, D.D. $1.

Twelve Pioneer Missionaries. By Smith. $2.50.

Hand Book of Methodist Missions. By Rev. I. G. John, D.D. 12mo.
$1.50.

Child Life in Our Mission Fields. By Daisy Lambuth and Kate Har-
lan. $1.

Missionary Expansion Since the Reformation. By Rev. J. A. Gra-
ham, M.A. $1.25. ;

Missionary Addresses. By Bishop James M. Thoburn, D.D. 60 cents.

Women of the Orient. By Rev. Ross C. Houghton, D.D. $1.20.

Modern Missions in the East. By Rev. Edward A. Lawrence, D.D.
$1.25.

The Students’ Challenge to the Churches. By Luther D. Wishard.
Cloth. 35 cents.

Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions. By H. P. Beach. $2.

The Evangelization of the World in This Generation. By John R.
Mott. $1.

Strategic Points in the World’s Conquest. By John R. Mott. $1.

A New Program of Missions. By Luther B. Wishard. Cloth. 50
cents.

Missionary Methods, or the Missionary Pastor. By Rev. J. E.
Adams. 75 cents.
586 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

The Foreign Missionary and His Work. By W. G. E. Cunnyngham,

D.D. 50 cents.
The Growth of the Kingdom of God. By Rev. Sidney L. Gulick.
$1.50.

The Expansion of Christian Life. Long. $1.75.

Addresses on Foreign Missions. Storrs. $1.

Two Thousand Years of Missions before Carey. Barnes. $1.50.

The Missionary Manual. By Amos R. Wells. 16mo. Cloth,
35 cents.

Missionary Spoke of the Epworth Wheel. By W. W. Cooper and F. S.
Brockman. 28 cents.

Mepicat Missions.

The Healing of the Nations. By J. Rutter Williamson. 40 cents.

John Kenneth Mackenzie, M.D. By Mrs. Mary I. Bryson. $1.50.

Medical Missions: Their Place and Power. By John Lowe, F.R.C.S.E.
$1.50.

NortH AMERICA.

By Canoe and Dog Train among the Cree and Salteaux Indians. By
Rev. Egerton R. Young. $1.25.

Vikings of To-Day: Life and Medical Work among the Fishermen of
Labrador. By Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. $1.25.

SPANISH AMERICA.

Latin America. By H. W. Brown. $1.20.
Mexico in Transition. By William Butler. $2.
Face to Face with the Mexicans. By Mrs. Gooch. $2.50.
Protestant Missions in South America. By H. P. Beach. 50 cents.
The Capitals of Spanish America. By William Ellroy Curtis. $3.50.
Brazil; Its Conditions aad Prospects. By C. C. Andrews. $1.50.
South America. By Hezekiah Butterworth. $2.
E. C. Millard. 75 cents.
South America. By Hezekiah Butterworth. $2.
Our Island Empire. By Charles Morris. $1.50.
To-Morrow in Cuba. By C. M. Peppers. $2.

South Sra IsLanps.

The Transformation of Hawaii. By Belle M. Brain. $1.

Hawaiian America. By Caspar Whitney. $2.50.

John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides. $1.50.

John Williams, the Martyr Missionary of Polynesia. By Rev. James J.
Ellis. 75 cents.

James Chalmers, Missionary and Explorer of Raratonga and New
Guinea. By William Robson. 75 cents.

WESTERN ASIA.
Arabia, the Cradle of Islam. By Rev. S. M. Zuemer, F.R.G.S. $2.
The Conversion of Armenia to the Christian Faith. By W. St. Clair-
Tisdell, M.A. $1.40.
Medical Missions: Their Place and Power. By John Lowe, F. R. C. S.
E. $1.50.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 587

Through Armenia on Horseback. George H. Hepworth. $2.
My Life and Times. By Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, D.D. $1.50.

Inpia.

William Carey. Smith. $3.

Adoniram Judson. By Smith.

Within the Purda. By Hopkins.

Irene Petrie. By Mrs. Carus-Wilson. $1.50.

The Cross in the Land of the Trident. By Rev. Harlan P. Beach. 50
cents.

In the Tiger Jungle and Other Stories of Missionary Work Among
Telugus. By Jacob Chamberlain, M.D., D.D. $1.

Across India at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century. By Lucy E.
Guinness. $1.50.

Mary Reed, Missionary to the Lepers. By John Jackson. 75 cents.

Indai and Malaysia. By Bishop James M. Thoburn. $1.20.

My Missionary Apprenticeship. By Bishop James M. Thoburn, D.D.
$1.20.

THE ORIENT.

Village Life in China: A Study in Sociology. By Rev. Arthur H.
A. P. Martin, D.D., LL.D. $1.25.

The Chinese: Their Education, Philosophy, and Letters. By Rev. W.
A. P. Martin, D.D., LL.D. $1.25.

Dawn on the Hills of T‘ang. By H. P. Beach. 50 cents.

Chinese Characteristics. By Rev. Arthur H. Smith, D.D. $2.

A Cycle of Cathay. By Rev. W. A. P. Martin, D.D., LL.D. $2.

The Siege of Peking. By Rev. W. A. P. Martin, D.D., LL.D. $2.

Robert Morrison, the Pioneer of Chinese Missions. By William J.
Townsend. 75 cents.

China’s Only Hope. By Chang Chih Tung. $1.25.

The Real Chinese Question. By Chester Holcombe. $1.50.

The Real Chinaman. By Chester Holcombe. $2.

Christian Progress in China. By Arnold Foster, B.A. $1.

The Story of the China Inland Mission. By Geraldine Guinness. $3.

A Young Folks’ History of the Chinese. By Rev. W. G. E. Cunnyng-
ham, D.D. $1.

The Break-Up of China. By Lord Charles Beresford. $3.

The Outbreak in China. By Rev. F. L. H. Pott, D.D. 75 cents.

Mission Problems in South China. By Rev. J. C. Gibson, D.D. $1.50.

Among the Thibetans. By Isabella B. Bishop, F.R.G.S. $1.

History of Protestant Missions in Japan. By Ritter. $2.

Life of Joseph Neesima. By Hardy. $2.

An American Missionary in Japan. By Gordon. $1.25.

Japanese Girls and Women. By Bacon. $1.25.

Japan and Its Regeneration. By Rev. Otis Cary. 75 cents.

Japan: Its People and Missions. By Jesse Page. 75 cents.

Japan: The Country, Court, and People. By J. C. Calhoun Newton,
M.A., D.D. $1.25.
588 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

The Gist of Japan: The Islands, Their People and Missions. By Rev.
R. B, Peery, A.M., Ph.D. $1.25.

The Mikado’s Empire. By William Elliott Griffis. $4.

Verbeck of Japan, a Citizen of No Country. By Guido Fridolin Verbeck.
$1.50.

From Far Formosa: The Island, Its People and Missions. By Rev.
_ George Leslie Mackay, D.D. $1.25.

Korea and Her Neighbors. By Isabella B. Bishop, F.R.G.S. $2.

Korean Sketches: A Missionary’s Observations in the Hermit Nation.
By Rev. James S. Gale. $1.

Siam, the Heart of Farther India. By Mary Lovena Cort. $1.

AFRICA.

Islam in Africa. By A. P. Atterbury. $1.25.

New World of Cental Africa. By Guinness. $1.50.

Pilkington of Uganda. By Charles F. Harford-Battersby, M.A., M.D.
$1.50.

The Story of Uganda and the Victoria Nyanza Mission. By Sarah G.
Stock. $1.25.

The Story of Mackay of Uganda. Told by his sister. $1.

Life of David Livingstone. By W. Gorden Blaikie. $1.25.

Daybreak in Livingstonia. By James W. Jack. $1.50.

Samuel Crowther, the Slave Boy Who Became Bishop of the Niger.
By Jesse Page. 75 cents.

Robert and Mary Moffat: Their Lives and Labors in South Africa.
By J. S. Moffat. $1.75.

Home Missions.

Jesus Christ and the Social Question. By Peabody. $1.50.

English Social Movements. By R. A. Woods. $1.50.

Factory People and Their Employers. By C. L. Shuey. 60 cents.

Punishment and Reformation. By F. H. Wines. $1.75.

Child Labor. By Willoughby and De Graffenreid. 75 cents.

Deaconesses in Europe, and Their Lessons for America. By J. M.
Bancroft. $1.50.

Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. By E. Hodder. $1.

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. By Booker T. Washington. $1.50.

A Ten Years’ War. By J. A. Riis. $1.50.

Housing of the Working People. By Gould. (Eighth Special Report
of the Commissioner of Labor, Labor Bureau, Washington.) Free.

Friendly Visiting among the Poor. By M: E. Richmond. $1.

How to Help the Poor. By Mrs. J. T. Fields. 25 cents.

A Study of Child Nature. By Harrison. $1.

Philanthropy and Social Progress. By Addams, et al. $1.50.

Social Aspects of Christianity. By R. T. Ely. $1.

The Boy Problem. By W. B. Forbush. 75 cents.
COMMITTEES OF THE GENERAL MISSIONARY
CONFERENCE.

 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
James ATKINS, Chairman.

BisHor A. W. WILSON, Bisnop E. R. HENpRIX,
Bisnop J. S. Key, Bisuop W. A. CANDLER,
J. D. Hammonp, H. M. Du Boss,
P. H. WHISNER, Mrs. S. C. TRUEHEART,
Mrs. R. W. MacDone1t, W. R. Lamsura,
J. H. PritcHert, G. W. Carn, Secretary.

BUSINESS COMMITTEE.

W. R. Lamsutu, Chairman.
J. H._PritcHert, J. D. Hamitton, Treasurer,
P. L. Coss, G. W. Carn, Secretary.

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE.

O. E. Brown, Chairman.
J. R. Pepper, Mrs. R. W. MacDoneELt,
E. H. Raw tncs, W. R. LAMBUTH.

EXHIBIT COMMITTEE.

P. L. Coss, Chairman.
Mrs. P. L. Coss, W. C. EveReETrT,
Miss Jutia BuTLer, C. D. ATKINSON.

PRESS COMMITTEE.
G. B. Winton, Chairman.
DIRECTOR OF MUSIC.
W. A. HEMPHILL.
CONFERENCE QUARTET.
A. A. Bass, G. B. Frick,
W. A. Hempai.t, H. L. Muncer.

NEW ORLEANS. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
S. S. Keener, Chairman.

F. A. Dicks, W. H. LaPrape, Secretary,
W. B. THoMSON, F, N. Parker,
E. L. McGeues. W. W. Carre,

GENERAL COMMITTEE ON ENTERTAINMENT.
E. L. McGeuez, Chairman.
590 GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

COMMITTEE ON HOTELS AND BOARDING HOUSES.
Georce D. Parker, Chairman.

COMMITTEE ON HOMES.
J. F. Foster, Chairman.

COMMITTEE ON TRAINS.
T. B. Ciirrorp, Chairman,

LADIES’ COMMITTEE.
Mrs. W. W. Carre, Chairman.
Mrs. W. W. Carre, Chairman.
MISSIONARY DIRECTORY.

Names and Addresses of Missionaries Employed by the Board of
Missions, M. E. Church, South,

 

 

NAME OF MISSIONARY.

PRESENT ADDRESS.

HOME CONFERENCE.

 

China,
Rev. Y. J. Allen, D.D., LL.D...
Rey. A. P. Parker, D).D
Rev. George R. Loehr.
Rey. D. L. Anderson.
W. 4H. Park, M.D
Rey. W. B. Burk

  
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
 

Rev. J. B. Fearn, M.
Rey. E. Pilley........
Rev. W. B. Nance..
Rey. J. W. Cline.
Rev. H. T. Reed....
Rey. J. A. G. Shipley...
Rey. Joseph Whiteside
John D. Trawick, M.D...

Japan.—Mrs, M. I. Lambuth ..
Rev. W. E. Tows0n......cceee
Rev. S. H. Wainright, M.D.
Rey. T. W. B. Demaree..
Rev. B. W. Waters.
Miss N, B. Gaines..
Miss A. D. Bryan...
Rev. C. B. Moseley
Bey. W. A. Wilson
Rev. J. T. Meyers.
Rey. C. A. Tague.
Rey. S. H. Hager.
Rev. W. P. Turner
Rev. W. J. Callahan
W.R. Weakley.
. T. H. Haden.,.

Miss Lizzie O. Tho
Migs Anna Lanius
Miss Maud Bonnel
Miss Emma Poteet...
Mrs. F.C. Macaulay

 

 

  
 
 
 
   
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
  

 

Brazil.—ev. J. L. Kennedy.....
Rev. H.C. Tucker.
Rey. J. W. Wolling..
Rev. J. W. Tarboux.
Rev. E, A. Tilley...
Rev. Michael Dickie.
Rev. John M, Lance
Rey. J. L. Bruce...
Rev. E. BE. Joiner,
Rev. W. B. Lee...
Rev. J. M. Hamiltoa..
Rev. J. M. Terrell.
Rev. J. W. Price...

 

 

 

Mexico.—Rev. W. D. King...
Rev. George B. Wivicn...
Rev. J. R. Moa ...
Rev. J. B. Cox...
Rev. J. W. Grimes...
Rey. K. J. Yearwood...
Rev. J. F. Corbin
Rey. R. C. Elliot
Rev. N. E. Joyne
Rev. F. S. Onder
Rev. J. H. Fitzgerald.
Rey. Lawrence Reyno
Rev. B. G. Marsh.......
Rev. H. L. Gray...
Rey. W. F, Oglesby...

Korea.—Rev. © ¥F. Reid, D.D...
Rey. C. T. Collver... eee

R. A. Hardie, M.D.
Rev. J. R. Moose...
C. B. Hanson, M.D...

Cuba.—Rev. 11. W. Bake
Rey. G. N. MacDoneil...
Rev. D. W. Carter. D.D
Rev. W. E. Sewell...
Rev. T. BE. Lelanc
Rey. H. W. Penny
Rev. J. D. Lewis...
Rev. E. E. { lements...

 

 

 

 
    

 

 

   

 

..|(Soochow, China...

... |Osaka, Japan
...| Kobé, Japan...
..|Matsuyama, Japan
...|Hiroshima, Japan.
...| Hiroshima, Japan..
...|Hillsboro, Texas.
..|Kobé, Japan....
...|Sutherland, N.C.
...{Baltimore, Md.
..|/Sulphur,

..|Hiroshima, J
..|Uwajima, a

 

..|Hiroshima, Jay

  
 
   
 
  
 
 
  
   
  

..|Porto Alegre, Brazil...

  
  
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
  
 

.|San Luis Potosi, Mexico
.|Mazatlan, Mexico.

.|Nogales, Arizona..
.|Songdo, Korea...

ey Songdo, Korea

...|Matanzas, Cuba...

.|Havana, Cuba
.|Havana, Cuba...
.JSanta Clara, Cuba
.pHavana, Cuba...
.|Santiago, Cuba..
.|Cienfuegos, Cuba...
(Havana, Cuba...

Atlanta, Ga...
Shanghai,
Elberton, Ga.
Soochow, Chin
Nastiville, Tenn
Shanghai, China.
Shanghai, China.
‘Arkadelphia, Ark.
Soochow, China...
Soochow, China..
Nashville, Tenn..
Soochow, China...
Shanghai, China.
Shanghai, China.
Soochow, China...
Soochow, China..

 
 
  
   
   
   
 
  
   
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 

Q

 

Nashville, Tenn..

reais

apan
Nakatsu, Japan.
Oita, Japan...
Kobé, Japan.
St. Louis, Mo..
Hiroshima, Japa
Hiroshima, Japan
Kobé, Japan.
Kobé, Japan.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil..........
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Sao Panlo, Brazil...
Nashville, Tenn. ..
Petropolis, Brazil.
Nashville, Tenn....
Juiz de Fora, Brazil
Piracicaba, Brazil...
Ribeirao Preto, Brazi
Juiz de Fora, Brazil

Ribeir4o Preto, Brazi
Petropolis, Brazil...

  
  
   
   

 

Monterey, Mexico....
San Antonio, Tex..
Monterey, Mexico...
Guadalajara, Mexico.
Puebla, Mexico.. .......:
San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
Hl Paso, Tex
Durango, Mexico...
City of ‘Mexico, Mexico..

 

   
  
   
      
    
    
  
  
 
  
 
 
 
 

Nogales, Ariz...
Monterey, Mex
Guadalajara, Mex

Winchester, Ky..

Wonsan, Korea.
Seoul, Korea...

 

  
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

North Georgia.
Missouri.
North Georgia.
North Georgia.
North Georgia.
South Georgia.
Texas.

Little Rock.
Western.
Mississippi.
Northwest Texas,

..|Pennessee.

Little Rock.
Louisville.
Pacific.

..|North Alabama.
..|Tennessee.

Mississippi.
Pacific.
Missouri.
Kentucky.

...| Baltimore.
...| Florida.

Tennessee.

..., ArEansas.
.. | Western North Caroling.
..|Baitimore,

Kentucky.
Kentucky.
North Georgia.
North Georgia.

..| Missouri.

Virginia.

St. Lowés,
Florida.
Missouri.
Indian Mission.
North Texas.
Louisville.

Holston.

..|Tennessee.
.../(South Carolina.

South Carolina.
Holston.

Virginia.

South Carolina.
Virginia.

Louisville.

North Carolina.

Brazil.

Western North Carolina.

..| Brazil.

..../Los Angeles.
.| Pacific.

Northwest Texas.
West Texas.
Memphis.
Mexican Border,
West Texas.

.|West Texas.

.|Louisiana.

.|West Texas.

.| Western North Carolina.
.|North Texas.

Virginia,
North Georgia.

.,|Los Angeles.

.|Kentucky.
.|Vennessee.
.;Canada.

Western North Caroling.

«|Southwest Missouri.

..|Florida.
.|South Georgia.

.|Tfolston.

.|Arkansas.

.|St. Louis.

.|Florida.

.|North Georgia.

 

| Florida.
Names and Addresses of Missionaries Employed by the Woman’s
Foreign Missionary Society.

 

 

MIssIoNaRY.

Post OFFICE.

ForMER RESIDENCE,

 

Miss Lochie Rankin....
Miss Bettie Hughes.....
Miss Helen L. Richardson
Miss Minnie Bomar...... o
Miss Mary M. Tarrant ..
Miss Ella R. Coffey..
Miss Ella D. Leveritt ..
Miss Johnnie Sanders...
Miss Alice G. Waters...
Miss Lizzie Martin
Miss Emma Gary
Miss Clara Steger.
Miss Martha Pyle
Miss Susie E, Williams..
Miss Margaret Polk....
Miss Jennie M. Atkinson...
Mrs. Julia Gaither........cc000
Miss Alice Griffith.
Mrs. J. P. Campbell...
Miss Fannie Hinds
Miss Arrena Carroll..
Miss Sadie Harbaue th
Miss Nannie E. Holding
Miss Delia Holding..
Mrs, A. E. McClen
Miss Edith Park..
Miss Hardynia N ae
Miss Annie Churchill..
Miss Fannie B. Moling..
Miss Rebecca Toland..
Miss Viola Blackburn..
Miss Lelia Roberts....
Miss Lela McNemar.
Miss Lizzie Wilson...
Miss Lucy C. Harper,
Miss Esther Case......
Miss Laura V. Wright.
Miss Kate C. McFarren..
Miss Ellie B. Tydings..
Miss May Umberger.
Miss M. H. Watts..
Miss Layona Glenn...
Miss Willie Bowman
Miss Amelia Elerding..
Miss Eliza Perkinson
Miss Ida Shaffer.........4
Miss Clara B. Fullerton....
Miss Mary T. Pescud.
Miss Lily Stradley...
Miss Leonora D. Sinith
Miss E. Davis......ce00
Miss Hattie G. Carson.,
Miss Sue Ford..........
Miss M. E. Cessna...

 

  
 
  
   
   
  
 
   
   
   
 
  
 
   
 
  
  
 
   
  
  
  

 

 

 

 

     
  

 

 

v| At homers...
.| Shanghai, China.

|] At Homesees server

.| Seoul, Korea...

.| Laredo, Texas.

.| Mexico City, Mexico.
.| Laredo, i
.| San Luis Potosi, Mexico...
.| San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
.| Saltillo, Mexico.

.| Guadalajara, Mexico.
.| Durango, Mexico.

.| Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.....

+.| Sao Paulo, Brazil.

At Home... seeeseee
.| Juiz de Fora, Brazil
.| Juiz de Fora, Brazil.
.| Porto Alegre, Brazil.
.| Piracicaba, State of Sio Paulo, Brazil.
.| Ribeirio Preto, Brazil.
.] Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
.| Havana, Cuba...
.| Havana, Cuba.
.| Ilavana, Cuba...

Shanghai, China, Box 143
t hOMe......eessevee
Shanghai, China.,

Shanghai, Chin
Shanghai, Chin
Shanghai, China
Shanghai, Chin

Shanghai, China..
At home
At home.
At home...
Soochow,

Soochow, China..
Soochow, China.....

Mexico.

Seoul, Korea..
Seoul, Korea..
Seoul, Korea...

 

Laredo, Texas.
Laredo, Texas
Laredo, Texas.
Mexico City, M

OXeererene cee

Saltillo, Mexico.
Chihuahua, Mexico.
Chihuahua, Mexico.
Guadalajara, Mexico,

 

Durango, Mexico.
Petropolis, Brazil
At home.

At home.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

 

 

  
  
  
  
 
  
  
   
  
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
 
 
 
  
 
  
 

Caixa 166,

 

Livingston,
Georgetown, Tex,

Tf.
Salisbury, Mo.

Milan, Tenn.
Meridian, Miss.
Springfield, Mo.
arshall, Tex.
Galveston, Tex.
Lynchburg, Va.
High Shoals, Ga.
Union, S. C.
Murray, By
Chapel Hill, N. C.
Elberton, Ga,
Mountain Grove, Mo.
Roscoe, Mo.
Los Angeles, Cal,
Perryville, Ky.
Rock Mills, Ala.

..|Oxford, Ga.

Marion, Ky.
San Francisco, Cal.

.|Mt. Sterling, Ky.
..|Mt. Crawford, Va.
..| Washington, D. C,
..|/ Somerset, Ky,
Somerset, Ky.
West Point, Ga.

Galveston, Tex.
Ala.

McFall, Mo.

Chapel Hill, Tex.
Holly Springs, Miss.
.|Palo Alto,
.|Edwards, Miss.

..| New port, Ky.
Georgetown, Tex.
..|Batesville, Ark,
..|Baltimore, Md,
..|Durango, Mexico.

ex.

Anthony, Fla.
Wytheville, Va.
Louisville, Ky.
Con ers, Ga.

..|St. Louis, M

 

  

Warren Plains, N. C.

I Savannah, Ga,

..|Paris, Ky.
e Utica, Mi

Iss,

 
INDEX.

Abeel, David, 234.

Addams, Miss Jane, “Social Settle-
ments,” 15.

“Adequacy of Christianity to Meet
the World’s Need,” 80.

Agnew, Miss, 87, 159.

“Aim and Scope of Foreign Mis-
sions,” 23.

Allen, Y. J., 13, 29, 339, 372; ‘“Mis-
sionary Outlook,” 347; “Supreme
Need of the Work in China,” ror.

America, Position in the Orient, 316.

American Board of Foreign Mis-
sions, 40.

Angelo, Michael, g2.

Anglo-Chinese College, 379, 382.

Apostolic Succession, 71.

Atkins, James, “Origin and Purpose
of Conference,”’ 3; “Young People
and the Church,” 241; 11, 16.

Barrett, John, Future of Missions in
Asia,” 310; 14, 33.

Bennett, Miss Belle H., “Woman’s
Home Mission Society,” 524.

Bible and Missions, 100; And Pagan-
ism, 109; In Italy, 105; Object Les-
sons in, 45; Societies, 100, 2043
Schools, 110; Translations, 103.

Bible Women, 231; Schools for, 236;
Value of, 238.

Bigham, R. J., “Our Responsibility
to the Negro,” 466.

Bishop, Horace, “Problems of Self-
Support,” 499.

Board of Missions, M. E. Church,
South, Policy of, 343; Changes
Suggested, 344; Early History, 386.

Boxers, Cause of the Outbreak, 315;
34, 45, 358, 390, 304, 405.

Brain, Miss Belle M., “Missionary
Training and Literature,” 291; 16.

Brainerd, David, 71, 325, 327, 448.

25

 

Brazil, Evangelistic Work in, 414;
Geography and Products of, 422;
History of, 424; Map of, 422;
Opening of Work in, 340, 425;
Schools in, 163; Survey of, 422.

Bright, John, 41.

Brooks, Phillips, 27.

Brown, O. E., ‘Aim and Scope of
Foreign Missions,” 23.

Buchanan, Claudius, 71.

Buddhism, 91, 96.

Cambridge Seven, 83.

Campaign, The Missionary, 346.

Campbell, Mrs. J. P., 162, 443.

Canada, Roman Catholicism in, 105.

Capers, Bishop, 338, 449.

Carey, William, 3, 71, 325, 327.

Carter, D. W., “Mexico and Cuba,”
407.

Ceylon, 87.

Charts, Value of, 296; 561.
Childhood, Primacy of, 242; Relation
to the Church, 244; Study of, 246.
China, A Ward, 193; Consul General
to, 34; Geography of, 351; Greater
Opening in, 59; Map of, 347; ‘‘Mis-
sionary Outlook in,” 347; Open-
ing of Work in, 337; Partition of,
356; Possibilities of, 393; Poverty
of, 49; Reform Movement in, 353,
303, 380; Situation in, 384; Tartars
in, 354, 360, 364; Urider the Ham-

mer, 332; Women of, 392.

China Inland Mission, 83.

Chinese, Education for, 177, 391 ; Lib-
erality of, 171, 175; Literature for,
366.

Chinese, Christians, 312, 390, 308;
Devotion to the Gospel, 551; Di-
agnosis, 182; Geography, 348; Im-
pressions of a Christian Home,
233; Mode of Nursing, 181; Pride
of Race, 348.
594

Christ, Alive To-Day, 52; And the
Church, 79; His Coming, 118; the
Captain, 54; Lift Up, 72; Man’s
Greatest Gift, 42; Prayer Life of,
88; Preach Christ, not Controver-
sy, 52; Simplicity of, 56; Sover-
eignty of, 75; The Divine Mission-
ary, 32; The Dynamo, 58.

Christianity, Final Religion, 96; Uni-
versal Religion, 77, 95; Transform-
ing Power of, 94; Triumph of, go.

Church Extension, Missionary Phase
of, 300; Board of, M. E. Church,
South, 300; Statistics of, 301;
Work in Foreign Fields, 385.

Church Missionary Society, 82.

Church, The, and Its Leaders, 111;
Corrupted by Patronage, 119; Ini-
tiation of, 119.

Churches, Value of, 301, 305.

City Missions 345, 517, 510, 527.

“City Population in the South,
Growth and Character of,” 507,
510, 541.

Coke, Thomas, 328.

Commerce and Missions, 34, 36.

Conference, General Missionary, 10;
“Origin and Purpose of,” 3; Com-
mittees of, 589; Creation of a Lit-
erature, 6; Enduement of the
Spirit, 8; Incidents, 17; Member-
ship, 11; Methodists in the Lead,
5; Missionary Interests, 7; Prayer
Circle, 7; Proceedings, 11; Re-
sults, 18.

Cobb, Mrs. P. L., “The Missionary
Exhibit,” 557.

Conger, Minister, 397.

Conscience, 92.

Constantine, Emperor, 99, 120.

Coédperation in Evangelization, 72.

Cox, Melville, 330.

Cuba, Circulation of Bible in, 107;
Map of, 412; Opening of Work in,
341, 412.

Cunnyngham, W. G. E., 339, 371.

Curzon, Lord, 34.

Cust, Dr., 105.

 

INDEX.

Davis, Dr., 87.

Deaconess, The, 214; Work of, 218,
219; Support of, 221.

De Reyna, Spanish Translation, 106.

Diocletian, 99.

Doremus, Mrs., 234.

Doshisha University, 87.

Drummond, Henry, 94.

Du Bose, H. M., “Highest Achieve~
ment of the Epworth League,” 262.

Duff, Alexander, 322.

‘Duty of the Pastor,” 110; Must:
Know, 113; Must Lead, 116.

Dyer, G. W., “Growth of City Popu-
lation in the South,” 507.

Ecumenical Conference, on Foreign:
Missions, 3; Effect on Future of
Missionary Work, 4; Personnel
and Scope, 4.

Edmonds, Canon, 104.

Education and Evangelization Recip--
rocal, 31, 59.

Education and Foreign Mission
Work, 126.

Educational Work, In China, 161;
In India, 210; Of Woman’s Board,
161; The Why of, 155, 164.

Edwards, W. E., “Duty of the Pas
tor,” Io.

Emperor. of China, 353, 361, 373.

Empress Dowager, 35, 355, 304.

English, Study of, 141; Growth of,
199.

Epworth League, “Highest Achieve-
ment of,” 262; And Missions, 266;
And the Experience Meeting, 265 ;
A School, 264; How to Make It
Most Effective, 284; Missionary
Meeting of, 285; Mission Study
Class, 286.

Evangelistic Work, 29; By ‘Women,
212; In China, 377; “In the For-
eign Mission Field,” 415; Meaning
of, 416; Plan for, 417; Power of,
30.

Evangelization of This Generation,
276,
INDEX.

Factory Life, 515, 527, 536, 538,
$43.

‘Fearn, Mrs. Anne Walter, “Medical
Work for Woman,” 187.

“Foreign and Factory Population,”
520.

“Forward Movement in China,” 368.

Fox, John, “Bible and Missions,”
100; 12,

Freeman, Prof., 98.

‘Fukien Province, China, 86.

Fuller, Andrew, 4o.

“Gaines, Miss Nannie B., 162, 435.

Galerius, 99.

‘Galloway, Bishop C. B., “Lessons
from Master Missionaries,” 317;
15.

Gamewell, F. D., Fortifies British
Legation, 4o1; “Siege of Pekin,”
304; 16, 333.

“German Missions, 456; History of,
456; In New Orleans, 459; In
Texas, 457; Literature of, 462;
Personnel, 461; Present Status,
463.

‘Gibson, Miss M. L., ““Woman’s Edu-
cational Work,” 154.

Gordon, A. J., 38, 71, 84.

“Goucher, John F., “Missions and
Education,” 133; II.

-Granbery, Bishop J. C., “Obedience
to the Great Commission,” 74.

“Granbery College, 31.

Grant, W. Henry, 11.

-Gulick, Dr., 85.

Gulick, Mrs. Alice Gordon, 159.

Hall, Charles Cuthbert, 149, 200.
‘Hammond, Mrs. J. D., “Literature
of Home Missions,” 539.
‘Harford-Battersby, Dr., 180.
‘Harnack, Prof., 27.
Hart, Sir Robert, 34.
‘Hayes, Mrs. Juliana, 342.
‘Haygood, Bishop A. G., 473.
‘Haygood, Miss Laura, 28, 29.
‘Healing of the Nations, 45.
Heathen Nations, Poverty of, 49.

 

595

Helm, Miss Mary, 15.

Hendrix, Bishop E. R., “Missionary
Idea,” 33; “Adequacy of Chris-
tianity,” 89.

Hernandez, Alejo, 340.

Holding, Miss, 163.

Holy Spirit, Reveals Christ, 52;
Source of Power, 60; Witness, 74.

“Home Mission Society, Woman’s,”
14; Map of Work, 524; History of,
524; Schools of, 528.

Home Missions, 493; Boards of,
500; Correlation Needed, 406;
Same as Foreign, 403; Self-Sup-
port in, 498, 499, 504; Trained
Workers Needed, 502.

Hoss, E. E., “Organization for Mis-
sionary Work,” 267.

Hubbard, G. W., ‘Medical Education
of the Negro,” 484.

Illiteracy, 138.

Immigrants, 530.

Immortality, Mohammedan Idea of,
48.

India, 92.

Indian Mission Conference, 450.

Indians, Changing Condition of, 453;
Gospel among, 454; In South
America, 109; Methodist Missions
among, 449; North American, 447;
Wild Tribes, 451.

Industrial Problem, The, 250.

Japan, Map of, 428; Mission Confer-
ence Organized, 434; Missions in,
428; Opening of Work in, 341;
Possibilities of, 438; Reform Move-
ment in, 430; Work of M. E.
Church, South, in, 432.

Jenkins, Benjamin, 338.

Jerome, 104.

Juarez, Sostenes, 340.

Judson, Adoniram, 43, 71.

Judson, Mrs., 320.

Keener, Bishop J. C., 18.
Kelley, D. C., “Our Domestic Mis-
sions,” 493; 371.
596

Kelley, Mrs. Florence. “Our Foreign
and Factory Population,” 529; 15.

Kelley, Mrs. Lavinia, 225.

Koran, The, 97.

Korea, Map of, 440; “Mission,” 440;
Opening of Work in, 341; Wom-
an’s Work in, 229.

Kwansei Gakuin, The, 31, 436.

Lambuth, J. W., 371, 432.

Lambuth, Mrs. M. I., “Bible Wom-
en,” 231; 159, 161, 225.

Lambuth, W. R., “Missionary Work
of the M. E. Church, South,” 337;
17, 376, 432.

Lane College, 480.

LaPrade, W. H., “Need of Trained
Workers,” 519.

Laredo Seminary, 163.

Library, Missionary, 287.

Literary Work, 191, 199.

Literature of Home Missions, 539.

Livingstone, David, 29, 330.

Lone Star Mission, Telugus, 86.

Luther, Martin, 104, 120, 328.

Mackay of Uganda, 291.

Manchu Dynasty, 34.

Martyn, Henry, 71, 329.

Martyr, Justin, 119.

McGavock, Mrs. D. H., 225, 342.

McKim, H. M., 342.

McKinley, President, 33, 311.

McTyeire Home and School, 162.

Medical Work, Advantages of, 179,
190; “For Women,” 187; In China,
375; Merchant and Missionary, 35.

M. E. Church, South, Missionary
Work of, 337.

“Methodism and Modern Missions,”

117, 124.

Methodists in Northern India, 86.

Methvin, J. J., ‘““Work among the
Indians,” 447.

Mexico, General Survey of, 407;
Map of, 407; Opening of Work in,
340, 411; Schools in, 163, 229.

Millar, A. C., “Study of Missions,”
145.

 

INDEX.

Missions, Aim of, 26, 137; and
Creeds, 41; In Asia, Future of,
310; Place of, 112; ‘Prayer and,”
80; Reflex Action of, 117; Science:
of, 202; Study of, 19, 146, 153, 279.

Missionaries, ‘Lessons from Mas--
ter,” 317; Needed, 281; Should Be
Educated, 165; Tributes to, 320;
For the Home Work, 520.

Missionary Exhibit, 557.

“Missionary Idea,” 33.

Missionary Literature, In English,.
200, 205; In the Vernacular, 203.

Mohammedanism, 91, 92.

Moose, J. R., “The Korea Mission,”
440.

Moravians, The, 291.

Mott, John R., “Prayer and Mis-
sions,” 80; “Responsibility of
Young People,” 271; 15, 16.

Native Church, 28; Development of,
143.

Native Workers, In Medicine, 188;
Need of, 175, 420; Training of, 140.

Negro, The, Attitude of M. E.
Church, South, to, 468; Education~
al Work for, 469, 482; Future of,
481; “Medical Education of,” 484;
Missionaries, 491; Missions to,
406; Mortality of, 489; “Our Re-
sponsibility to,’ 466; Physicians,
487; What He Wishes and What.
He Needs, 483.

Newman, J. E., 340.

Newton, John, 71.

Newton, J. C. C., “Christian Missions.
in Japan,” 428.

“Obedience to the Great Commis-
sion,” 74.

Oldham, W. F., 151.

“Oneness in Christ,” 62.

“Organization for Missionary:
Work,” 267.

Outlook Hopeful, 115.

Pagan and Papal Lands, 105.
Paine Institute, Graduates of, 476,
469, 474.
INDEX.

Palmer, B. M., 17.

Park, W. H., “Physician As a Mis-
sionary,” 179; 13, 20.

Parker, A. P., “Educational Work in
China,” 169, 373.

Parker, Susie, 552.

Pastor and Missions, 148.

Paton, John G., 83.

Paul, 89, 114. :

Payne, Moses U., 475.

Peking, “Siege of,” 3043 34, 45, 82.

Pepper, John R., “Sunday School
Superintendent,” 257; 16.

Persecution, 120.

Philippine Islands, 103.

Piracicaba, 162,

Population of the World, 272.

Prayer, “And Missions,” 80; For
Missionaries, 85 ; For Native Chris-
tians, 85; Force of, 87; Jesus’s In-
tercessory, 64; Open Doors, Result
of, 82.

Preparation of Preacher, 113.

Pritchett, J. H., “Methodism and
Modern Missions,” 117.

Rabe, J. A. G.,
456.

Ramabai, Pundita, 160.

Rankin, Miss Dora, 228.

Rankin, Miss Lochie, 228.

Rankin, Miss Melinda, 157.

Ransom, J. J., 340.

Reformation, Efforts at,
True, 122.

Reid, C. F., “Forward Movement in
China,” 368; 440.

Rescue Homes, 528.

Review of the Times, 196.

Roman Church, 104.

Roman World, 97.

Rural Life in the South, 513.

“German Missions,”

121; The

Salvation Army, 522.

Salvation, Scope of, 133, 192.
Saunders, T. F., “Lane College,” 480.
Scarritt Bible School, 166,

Schofield, Dr., 83.

 

597

Schools, Better than Orphanages,
144; For Bible Women, 236; Girls’,
History of, 157; Mission, Basis of,
127; Need of, 128.

Scott, Thomas, 71.

Self-Support, “Problems of,” 499; 28.

Shanghai, 369.

Siam, King of, 312; Miadiounsiess in,
313.

Singh, Miss Lilavati, 160.

Social Question, The, Books on, 544.

Societies, Christian Literature, 204.

Society for Diffusion of Knowledge,
195, 197.

Soochow, 379, 391; Hospital, 184;
University, 15, 31, 171, 366, 387.

Spain, In America, 407.

Spanish, Literature, 207; Language,
409.

Spiritual Life,
69, 545.

Spiritual Surgery, 57.

St. Paul’s Cathedral, 37.

Student Volunteers, 255.

Suffering, Joy of, 553.

Sunday School, 246, 260; Superin-
tendent, 257.

Sutherland, Alexander, “Oneness in
Christ,” 62, 11.

Swain, Dr. Clara A., 209

Syrians, 534.

Systematic Giving, 270, 280, 280.

Deepening Needed,

Tarboux, J. W.,
Work,” 414.

Taylor, Dr. Charles, 183, 338, 371.

Taylor, F. Howard, 13.

Taylor, Mrs. F. Howard, “Sacrifice
for Jesus’s Sake,” 540; 13.

Taylor, Hudson, 84, 552.

Taylor, S. Earl, “How to Make the
Epworth League Most Effective,”
284; 16.

Tertullian, 119.

Thoburn, Miss Isabella, 159, 210.

Thoburn, Bishop J. M., “Healing of
the Nations,” 45; ‘“Woman’s Work
at Home and Abroad,” 208; 12, 319,
322.

“ Evangelistic

t
598

Tilly, E. A., “Survey of Brazil,” 422.

Toland, Miss, 163.

Translations, 205; Spanish, 207.

Trueheart, Mrs. S. C., “Woman’s
Work in Foreign Missions,” 222;
15.

Tsang, B. G., 13.

Tucker, H. C., 108.

Tulane Hall, 11.

Twentieth Century, Possibilities of,
13.

Tyndal, 104.

Venn, Henry, 28.

Wainright, S. H., “Christian Educa-
tion and Foreign Mission Work,”
126; 164.

Walker, George W., “Paine Insti-
tute,” 474.

War, In China, 51; Chino-Japanese,
347, 356.

Washington, Booker T., “Future of
the Negro,” 481; 14, 249.

Watts, Miss M. H., 162.

Wesley, John, 26; Charles, 41.

 

INDEX.

Whisner, P. H., “Missionary Phase
of Church Extension,” 300, 384.

Wightman, Mrs. M. D., 15.

Wigram, Secretary, 82.

Wilson, Bishop A. W., “Situation in
China,” 384; 13.

Winton, G.- B., “General Missionary
Conference,” 10; “Literary Work:
A General Survey,” 199; 2.

Witnesses for Christ, 54.

Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions,
M. E. Church, 235.

Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions,
M. E. Church, South, 161, 224, 3423
Medical Work of, 231.

Woman’s Work, 208.

World’s Need, 90.

Young People and Missions, 260,
266; “Missionary Training and
Literature for,” 291; ‘““Responsibil-
ity of the,” 271; Societies of, 247,
275; Training of, 252, 254.

“Young People and the Church,”
241.

Yun, T. H., 341.

Yun, Mrs. T. H., 161.