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 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BV 2060 .F7 1906 
 
 Fowler, Charles Henry, 1837- 
 
 1908. 
 Missionary addresses 
 
Missionary Addresses 
 
 By 
 CHARLES HENRY FOWLER 
 
 Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
 NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY 
 JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
 
MY WIFE, 
 
 AND TO 
 
 MY SON, 
 
 Cad ^itthzixtk ^xcictii^ 
 
 who traveled with me 
 in all my journeyings to our 
 Foreign Mission Fields 
 and who have lovingly 
 encouraged this work, 
 
 I DEDICATE 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 I. Missions and World Movements, 13 
 
 II. Our Opportunity, - - - 92 
 
 III. The Reflex Influence of Missions, 144 
 
 IV. The Message, - - - - 187 
 
 V. Home and Heathen Missions Con- 
 trasted, 230 
 
 VI. The Field, 265 
 
 VII. The Supreme Need of the Hea- 
 then, 283 
 
 VIII. Divinity of the Missionary Idea, 309 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 Among the really great preachers of this 
 generation, whether in England or in Amer- 
 ica, it will be readily conceded that the Rev. 
 Bishop Charles H. Fowler stands in the fore- 
 most rank. His fame as a preacher of the 
 great themes of the Gospel, and on these only 
 does he preach, extends far beyond the limits 
 of his own Church. In Canada, in England, 
 in the lands of the Orient, wherever he has 
 journeyed performing the duties of his Epis- 
 copal office, thousands have waited on his 
 ministry and rejoiced mightily in the light 
 and inspiration that have come to them. The 
 Christ and the Cross of Christ, His Incarna- 
 tion, His Supernatural Work, Atonement for 
 Human Sin, and the Sure Triumph of His 
 Kingdom are the themes which, when pre- 
 sented with the fervor of conviction, have 
 an immortal interest for men everywhere, and 
 
 7 
 
Prefatory Note. 
 
 nowhere in all the wide realm of Christian 
 thought is Bishop Fowler more at home, or 
 more truly the preacher, than when discours- 
 ing with strength and vigor on these foun- 
 dation truths of our Holy Religion. 
 
 But it is not as a pulpit orator only that 
 Bishop Fowler is known. The Christian 
 world rejoices in the great orators of the sanc- 
 tuary, eloquent defenders of truth, Liddon, 
 Lacordaire, Beecher, Simpson, Storrs, Spur- 
 geon, Clifford, Punshon, and a brilliant gal- 
 axy of others in all Churches and lands, and 
 the Church of God might well despair when 
 the Head of the Church no longer confers 
 upon His people the gift of men endowed 
 with persuasive speech. But it is not in the 
 pulpit only, but in the assemblies of the peo- 
 ple, wherever and whenever great principles 
 of social or civic righteousness or momentous 
 interests vital to the progress of Christ's king- 
 dom are at stake that there also must the voice 
 of the Prophet be heard. As a platform 
 speaker Bishop Fowler's name is linked 
 throughout the United States with many of 
 
 8 
 
Prefatory Note. 
 
 the most important occasions, great popular 
 gatherings, when causes dear to the hearts of 
 men in Church and State demanded fitting 
 expression. In him, as in others of his col- 
 leagues, missions, education, philanthropy, 
 and patriotism have ever found an eloquent 
 tongue. 
 
 For some time Bishop Fowler was impor- 
 tuned to publish his sermons and addresses, 
 and also his lectures; but he steadily declined. 
 Yielding finaJly, however, to persistent solici- 
 tation, he turned over his manuscripts, and 
 within a short period four volumes, includ- 
 ing his Missionary Addresses, Miscellaneous 
 Addresses, Lectures and Select Sermons, will 
 be published. This first volume contains 
 those great missionary addresses which re- 
 cent missionary movements called forth, and 
 others which from time to time the author as 
 pastor, missionary secretary, or bishop has 
 given to the Church. Here, once again, is 
 the prophet of old, preacher and statesman 
 in modern dress, the needs of the nations, 
 the adequacy of the Gospel, and the future 
 
 9 
 
Prefatory Note. 
 
 of the kingdom of God in triumph are pre- 
 sented to us with illuminating power, and 
 with earnest pleading he calls us to see his 
 dream, which he only dreams who thinks it 
 is a dream. 
 
 To each address we have prefixed a short 
 note, stating time and place and occasion of 
 its delivery, with such incidental remark as 
 may be of interest now or in days to come. 
 
 R. J. Cooke, 
 
 Book Editor. 
 
MISSIONARY ADDRESSES 
 
I. 
 
 MISSIONS AND WORLD MOVE- 
 MENTS. 
 
 [This theme was assigned to Bishop Fowler by the Open Door 
 Emergency Commission. The address was prepared and deliv- 
 ered before the Missionary Convention held in the Academy of 
 Music in Philadelphia, October 13, 1903, just preceding the open- 
 ing of the Russo-Japanese War. 
 
 While the address was being delivered to that immense audi- 
 ence, the newsboys in the streets were crying for the first time 
 'The strained relations between Russia and Japan threaten im- 
 mediate rupture." This new alarm emphasized and shaped some 
 of the utterances. Subsequent events intensified the interest in 
 this address. The moral support given to Japan by England 
 and the United States made more pronounced interference unnec- 
 essary in order to keep Japan on the world's map. The address 
 created a profound impression, and contributed largely to the 
 moulding of public opinion.] 
 
 Missions and World Movements fully 
 stated would answer the whys of human his- 
 tory: why it runs thus and thus. Mount Cal- 
 vary is the key that unlocks the mystery. Re- 
 demption is God's objective point. Whatever 
 God says goes in a Missionary Convention; 
 goes finally in human history. I have seen 
 throngs of Hindus bathing at the junction of 
 the Ganges and the Jumna. They believed 
 that at the junction of these two sacred rivers 
 
 13 
 
'Missionary Addresses. 
 
 there was also a third, a holy and invisible 
 river coming down from the throne of God, 
 that, mingling with the two earthly rivers, 
 cleansed the bathers and made them fit for 
 the kingdom of God. So we hold that where 
 the great streams of secular events and of 
 Church movements mingle, there is also an- 
 other stream coming down from God's Al- 
 mighty Providence that transforms these 
 streams and orders their movements in the in- 
 terest of the kingdom of God. This stream 
 of Providence comes to the surface in the his- 
 tory of Israel, but it sweeps on under all his- 
 tory. Cyrus took Babylon from polytheists, 
 idolaters, and extended the domains of Mono- 
 theism. Mohammed trampled down idola- 
 trous altars. The bloody Eagles of Rome 
 quieted and compacted the clashing tribes and 
 lifted a wide shield that protected St. Paul 
 everywhere from the malice and bigotry of 
 his countrymen. German and English mon- 
 archs turned back the power of the Pope and 
 made room for religious freedom. Wesley 
 touched the dead corpse of formal Christian- 
 ity; it felt the throb of new life, and stood 
 upon its feet. These are world movements 
 for righteousness. 
 
 14 
 
Missions and JVorld Movements. 
 
 There is a drift toward righteousness. The 
 Latest evolutionists hold that natural selec- ■^r'"'' 
 
 of the 
 
 tion is under this law. There has always been Ages. 
 one end in view up through all animal incre- 
 ments to the perfected physical, up into the 
 intellectual, and up, by the same law of selec- 
 tion, to the spiritual. From the first speck of 
 mist in the universe, on through the incon- 
 ceivable lapses of duration, there has been a' 
 steady trend toward the perfect man. This 
 ideal of evolution Christianity has realized 
 in the Man of Nazareth. There is that in 
 things that makes for righteousness. My faith 
 does not faint or weary in this long ascent. 
 This only gives me a good start into an end- 
 less future. The Supreme Power who has 
 worked and watched so long will not now 
 sleep nor forget me. 
 
 On the way to the North Cape our steamer 
 brushed against the branches of trees on the 
 sides of the mountains that rose almost straight 
 up out of the sea. I wondered how it could 
 be safe to sail so close. But marine engineers 
 said to me: "It is safe. The shape and slant 
 of the land above water indicates the shape 
 and slant of the land below." So the unnum- 
 bered ages of God's thought in the past as- 
 
 15 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 sures me of care for endless ages to come. 
 When God tires out it will be so late that the 
 universe will have been rolled together like 
 a scroll and folded away like a vesture, and 
 we shall have grown so old and strong on the 
 wide fields of our eternal activity that we can 
 only dimly recall the little kindergarten patch 
 of this world's missions. With Jesus here in 
 our humanity, we see what is possible. We 
 can poorly realize what we shall be; but this 
 we know, we shall be transformed into His 
 likeness, our vile bodies shall be fashioned 
 like unto His glorious body, and we shall be 
 like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. God 
 seeks always, with all power and with all wis- 
 dom, with all unflagging, heartaching love, 
 to lift up and save all men. He is no re- 
 specter of persons; He willeth not the death 
 of him that dieth, but would that all men 
 would turn and live. God's Providence 
 sweeps round the world and through all time. 
 All available forces and agencies are mar- 
 shaled and marched, sent into the field to help 
 forward His redeeming purpose. So the 
 great world forces that seem so hard and hos- 
 tile are yet handled by Him. They are His 
 messengers, His missionaries. Even the wrath 
 
 i6 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 of men shall praise Him, and the remainder 
 of wrath He will restrain. All things shall 
 work together for good for His children and 
 for His cause. 
 
 True, many statesmen handling heathen Natural 
 countries for profit, many nominal Christians ^"^'"'^•^• 
 in mission-fields for trade, many travelers 
 wishing to make books for the market, and 
 many sea-going officers who barely reach open 
 ports, are the natural enemies of missionaries 
 and their work. The lives of many of these 
 men are rebuked, and their practices are inter- 
 fered with; therefore they are quick to criti- 
 cise what they never investigate. The East 
 India Company stood in the way of mission 
 work for years. Government officials fre- 
 quently are willing to find scapegoats, and 
 therefore criticise and complain. 
 
 But in spite of all these surface views, the Misshn- 
 facts remain that missionaries usually lead the '^'"'^^ 
 
 . Usually 
 
 way into these lands. They furnish much \n- pioneers. 
 formation for government administrators and 
 for scientists. The secretaries and interpre- 
 ters of the government embassies to unopened 
 heathen countries have nearly always been 
 missionaries. When the ministers of the civ- 
 ilized governments were besieged in Peking, 
 2 17 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 and the whole world stood aghast, hourly ex- 
 pecting the horrible massacre to be consum- 
 mated, it was a missionary, an honored mem- 
 ber of this body, Rev. F. D. Gamewell, D. D., 
 that conducted the defense, without which, 
 according to the written statement of the Brit- 
 ish Minister in Peking, deliverance would 
 have been impossible. When our American 
 troops made their way into Peking under the 
 wall through the bed of the river, as the Per- 
 sians made their way into Babylon and into 
 the feast of Belshazzar, it was a missionary of 
 our own missions, Rev. C. L. Conger, who 
 led the troops into the city. We feel that it 
 is high time for this irresponsible and unjust 
 criticism to stop. 
 
 Pardon me that I have turned aside a mo- 
 ment to repel these gorillas. To repel goril- 
 las, did I say? No, not to repel gorillas; only 
 to brush away these gnats. Let me address 
 myself to the great forces that fill this field. 
 Theme. OuT theme, like a cube in geometry, has 
 three dimensions — length, breadth, and thick- 
 ness. Its factors are nations and races; its 
 fields are seas and continents; its sweep is the 
 duration of mankind. It is ethnological, 
 touching all the families of men. It is polit- 
 
 l8 
 
Missions and JVorld Movements. 
 
 ical, reaching all the world governments. It 
 is ethical, handling the principles of the moral 
 government of God. It has chiefly to do 
 with the Mongol, the Slav, the Saxon, the 
 Latin and the African races. It involves 
 paganism, heathenism, and the Greek Church, 
 Romanism and Protestantism. As a map of 
 the world can show only the few very great 
 cities, so we can only touch a very few of the 
 principal world movements. The Latin races 
 in the Eastern Hemisphere have a great past, 
 and in the Western Hemisphere they promise 
 a great future. But we must pass these im- 
 portant fields with the prayer and hope that 
 our misionary work may rejuvenate the one 
 and emancipate the other. The African race 
 is a far more remote dominion; this also we 
 must pass. Let us fix our thought rather upon 
 the uncounted baptized and unbaptized 
 heathen, whose movements claim our atten- 
 tion. 
 
 The Pacific is the storm-center of the world. The 
 Low political barometers are traversing its ^^"^'^ 
 
 ^ ^ _ ° the Storm- 
 
 vast surface. Danger-signals are exhibited on center. 
 nearly every coast. All the great capitals are 
 watching their ventures. The storm-center 
 has left the Mediterranean and the British 
 
 19 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Channel and the North Atlantic, and now 
 draws all eyes to the Yellow Sea and the Pa- 
 cific. De Tocqueville said: "The United 
 States was a new factor in the world, the sig- 
 nificance of which even the imagination could 
 not grasp." Creasy, the English historian, in 
 185 1 predicted the forcible opening of Japan 
 by the United States and the vast changes in 
 the Orient. Thomas H. Benton, arguing in 
 the United States Senate for a Pacific Rail- 
 road, pointed to the setting sun and said, 
 "There, there, gentlemen, is the East!" Wil- 
 liam H. Seward, in Congress pleading in the 
 interest of commerce for more accurate sur- 
 veys of the North Pacific, gifted with the 
 vision of the Seer, said: "The Pacific Ocean, 
 its shores, its islands, and the vast regions be- 
 yond, will become the chief theater of events 
 in the world's great hereafter." And again, 
 this great statesman, in 1852, standing in the 
 United States Senate Chamber by the side of 
 the bier of Henry Clay, said: "Certainly, sir, 
 the great lights of the Senate have set. We 
 are rising to a more sublime stage of national 
 progress, that of expanding wealth and rapid 
 territorial aggrandizement. . . . Com- 
 merce has brought the ancient continents near 
 
 20 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 to us, and created necessities for new positions. 
 . . . Perhaps connections or colonies there. 
 . . . Even prudence will soon be required 
 to decide whether distant regions East or West 
 shall come under our protection, or be left 
 to aggrandize a rapidly spreading and hostile 
 domain of despotism. Sir, who among us is 
 equal to these mighty questions? I fear there 
 is no one." 
 
 Since these inspired words were uttered 
 more than fifty years have joined the silent 
 and endless procession of the past. That 
 statesman, like the one voiceless at his feet, 
 has passed from the stage of action into the 
 chiseled marble and molded bronze, and into 
 the page of history. But these "mighty ques- 
 tions" are standing here, like mailed warriors, 
 to dispute our march into the future. Whether 
 we wish to enter the lists or not, we must, 
 with the aid of the facts dropped at our feet 
 by this half-century, make to these "mighty 
 questions" answers with which we can humbly 
 and fearlessly face God. 
 
 The apocalyptic angel for this twentieth ^^jm. 
 century, calling the nations to judgment, 
 stands with one foot on the Pacific and the 
 other on the continent of Asia. The Pacific 
 
 21 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 washes five continents out of six. Asia con- 
 tains the three greatest empires on earth, — 
 British, Russian, Chinese. It cradles three- 
 fourths of mankind. It has the loftiest moun- 
 tains and the most important rivers. It has 
 the widest stretches of arable land, and the 
 most productive soil. It has an empire ex- 
 tending from the Arctic Sea to the Indian 
 Ocean, and from Germany to the Yellow Sea. 
 "It built the most wonderful of all cities, 
 Babylon, and the richest of all palaces, Per- 
 sepolis, and the most beautiful of all tombs, 
 the Taj Mahal." It has given us music and 
 the drama, gunpowder, and the compass, 
 guide on the earth; and the Bible, guide to 
 heaven. It has generated the most philos- 
 ophies, and is the birthplace of all the great 
 religions. It has produced "the five greatest 
 moral and religious teachers of the world, — 
 Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Mo- 
 hammed ;" the wisest of kings and the blood- 
 iest of conquerors. This is the land where 
 the Church was organized in Abraham, and 
 where the law was thundered from Mount 
 Sinai; where the race was blasted in Eden, 
 and where it was redeemed on Calvary. This 
 is great Asia, whose population to-day is on 
 
 22 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 the increase, and whose virility, with the aid 
 of Russian infusions, equals its palmiest days; 
 whose commerce is the magnet of every me- 
 tropolis, and whose markets are the inspira- 
 tion of every great nation and the necessity 
 of all the dense populations. With new blood 
 monopolizing her highways; with rival lead- 
 ers, the Saxon and the Slav, fighting with 
 their backs to the North Sea and the Arctic 
 Ocean, it is impossible for the imagination to 
 measure its importance. Not a harbor open 
 to the Pacific but feels the throbbing of its 
 swelling pulse, and not a nation with a Pa- 
 cific exposure that can safely sleep at the pres- 
 sent low-tide mark. 
 
 Turkey is the sick man in Europe, China china 
 is the sick man in Asia. I can not discuss her''^''^, 
 
 Problem 
 
 special mission work. I can only enter the for the 
 Yellow Ward in the World's Hospital, feel ^'""^^• 
 the patient's pulse, look at her tongue, ques- 
 tion the nurses, and sit down a few moments 
 with doctors and surgeons in the anteroom. 
 The patient seems to have creeping paralysis. 
 It may be locomotor ataxia. It may be only 
 a trick of the old serpent. The doctors are 
 timid about diagnosing the case. They all 
 agree that, whatever ails her body, the mal- 
 
 23 
 
Missiofiary Addresses. 
 
 ady has not reached her intellect. Her cun- 
 ning has never been surpassed. The Russian 
 surgeon has brought his chest of instruments, 
 yet he seems to hesitate to venture an opinion. 
 Once when the Roman Conclave was walled 
 in to elect a new Pope, and no one of the 
 Roman Catholic monarchs was certain of 
 electing his candidate, in order to gain time 
 they elected an aged cardinal who was too 
 sick and feeble to stand alone. As soon as 
 the ballot was announced the sick man arose, 
 dropped his crutches, and straightened up in 
 vigorous manhood, saying, "Now, gentlemen, 
 you have a ruler." A long and powerful 
 reign verified his statement. So it is diffi- 
 cult to treat this sick man of Asia, who has 
 the longevity of the forests, the rough endur- 
 ance of the rhinoceros, the stately dignity of 
 the lion, the cunning of the fox, and the wis- 
 dom of the serpent. 
 The Bulk The bulk of China is too vast to be handled 
 
 of China. •! • '1 
 
 '' easily m our mmds. 
 
 As it was lying on the map when some of 
 us were in school, it stretched through sixty 
 degrees of longitude and spread over forty 
 degrees of latitude. It measured four and 
 a half million square miles. But in the con- 
 
 24 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 vulsions of recent years it has shaken off 
 Tibet, Hi, Kashgaria, Mongolia, and Korea, 
 and now Manchuria is also being threatened 
 by the great Polar Bear. There remain one 
 million five hundred thousand square miles 
 of the best acreage, one-third the empire in 
 area, with eleven-twelfths in population. It 
 is over three hundred and fifty million strong. 
 It is not difficult to accept the recent state- 
 ment of J. W. Foster, the great authority on 
 American diplomacy, when he says: "It is 
 scarcely an exaggeration in presence of its 
 history and attainments to assert that no na- 
 tion or race of ancient or modern times has 
 stronger claim than the Chinese to be called 
 a great people." They were an ancient peo- 
 ple, with city and town organizations, with 
 commerce and trade, with arts and sciences, 
 with histories and heroes, three thousand years 
 before there was an Anglo-Saxon. They had 
 printing many centuries before Faust played 
 with his blocks, and gunpowder long before 
 the last great Mohammed shot down the gates 
 and walls of Constantinople. Their compass 
 directed their open sea voyages beyond the 
 sight of mountain or beacon long before Co- 
 lumbus picked up bits of strange wood on 
 
 25 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 the shores of Italy. They dug salt-wells five 
 thousand feet deep centuries before Solomon 
 was born, and they had civil service exami- 
 nations for office ages before Abraham 
 received the blessing from Melchizedek. 
 Surely they are a great people. 
 Sui When I stepped upon the shores of Asia I 
 enerts. ^^^ ^j^^^ j ^^^ -^^ another world. The ages 
 
 crumpled beneath my feet, and I instinctively 
 looked about me for the patriarchs and for 
 the leaders of the primitive races. Physically 
 everything was turned around. Men I met 
 turned out to the left; men I greeted shook 
 their own hands instead of mine. Scaffold- 
 ings were built first, then the houses were built 
 inside of them. The mechanic turned his 
 auger and gimlet and screws to the left to 
 make them enter. The carpenter pulled his 
 plane and his saw toward him, and pushed 
 his drawing-knife from him. Strangers mov- 
 ing into a new neighborhood called on the 
 people with whom they wanted social rela- 
 tions. Soon one learns that these externals are 
 only indices of deeper differences. The very 
 modes of thought seem reversed. Their archi- 
 tecture and art and very laws of language 
 are peculiar. Business methods, politics, lit- 
 
 26 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 erature, amusements, and worship, are all re- 
 versed. While the races of the Orient often 
 dififer widely from each other in personal ap- 
 pearance, in costume and speech, yet one feels 
 a common spirit among them all. Touch Asia 
 anywhere, and you have the same impressions. 
 It is like touching a tiger, soft and pleasant; 
 yet you are conscious that there are teeth and 
 claws concealed near by. There is the same 
 politeness and dignity in manner, the same 
 indifiference to truth, and attention to minute 
 social laws. It is always easier for them to 
 lie than to offend. ^Esthetics annihilates Eth- 
 ics. They respect successful falsehood, and 
 judges who are flagrantly corrupt. They 
 placidly accept any government with power. 
 They admire a governor who rides over them 
 and beheads them. Liberty would be scoffed 
 by them. They think that there is no use of 
 having power unless you use it. They do not 
 believe in power that they can not see. Hon- 
 esty is a myth, and a man who does not im- 
 prove his opportunities is an imbecile. They 
 are oblivious of the value of time, and hate 
 haste as much as if they had, like Methuselah, 
 eight or nine centuries to kill. There is a 
 gulf between the Orientals and Occidentals 
 
 27 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 as wide as the gulf fixed between Dives and 
 Lazarus; yet, as in that case, there are humans 
 on both sides. These are some of the char- 
 acteristics of the Asiatics, from the Arctic 
 Ocean to the Indian Ocean, and from the 
 Black Sea to the Yellow Sea. 
 
 These characteristics, bad as they are 
 throughout Asia, have their worst develop- 
 ment in China. Here their evil types are 
 confluent and malignant. The Chinaman has 
 no public spirit. The officers are paid to ad- 
 minister the government; so let them do it. 
 The officers, almost without exception, are un- 
 mitigated liars and thieves, and the mass of 
 the people match them in perfidy. There is 
 not the slightest shame about lying. But it 
 is a disgrace not to put on the best face. 
 Treachery is a virtue. Li Hung Chang gave 
 safe conduct and assurances to the seven lead- 
 ing captive generals of the Tai Ping Rebel- 
 lion to dine with him on his boat, and the 
 next morning their heads were knocking 
 about in the bay. Sir Robert Hart was so 
 outraged by this bloody perfidy that it is said 
 he hunted all day, revolver in hand, for 
 Prince Li, determined to kill him at sight. 
 There is no limit to their mendacity. The 
 
 28 
 
Missions and JVorld Movements. 
 
 higher the official, the more monumental the 
 treachery. In 1793 Lord Macartney was the 
 first English plenipotentiary to be admitted 
 to an audience with the emperor. He refused 
 to kowtow — /. e., pound his head on the 
 ground — for his king knew no superior. The 
 boat that carried him up the Peiho toward 
 Peking bore a flag saying, "Ambassador bear- 
 ing tribute from the country of England." 
 The high officials took advantage of his igno- 
 rance of Chinese to proclaim this falsehood. 
 It would take a supernatural chemistry to dis- 
 till one drop of honorable integrity out of a 
 nation like that. 
 
 It is not strange that such a people left to in<^rati- 
 themselves are incapable of gratitude. The '"'''''• 
 two men who had served China most faith- 
 fully for more than half a century in most 
 arduous and distinguished duties are Sir Rob- 
 ert Hart, head of the Customs service, whose 
 integrity and honesty and lofty character have 
 never been questioned, and Dr. Martin, head 
 of the Chinese College for training men for 
 the diplomatic service of China. 
 
 The greatness of these men is only surpassed 
 by the greatness and variety of their public 
 services. There are no men in all Asia who 
 
 29 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 deserve more from China than they do. 
 There ought not to be a man in the Empire 
 who would not gladly protect these two men 
 at all hazards. Yet w^hen the outbreak against 
 the foreigners culminated in Peking, no man 
 would lift a hand to help them, and they 
 barely escaped with their lives into the pro- 
 tection of the British barricades. 
 Dishonest. The Empire is honeycombed with secret so- 
 cieties. The slyness and mystery of these or- 
 ganizations are adapted to the superstition 
 and suspicion of the Chinese character. These 
 societies afiford runways from the officials and 
 from real and imaginary enemies. Their 
 thieves have a king, who sells immunity from 
 their ravages. Their beggars also have a king, 
 w^ho fixes the price of deliverance from their 
 importunities and ofTensiveness. It is an un- 
 classified social condition, where a beggar 
 travels his circuit on horseback. Famine- 
 relief money sent to Canton was used to pay 
 damages awarded on account of assaults made 
 upon the foreign concession. When the em- 
 peror orders that taxes be not collected in a 
 certain district on account of famine, the offi- 
 cials often carefully delay posting the decree 
 till after the taxes have been collected. Often, 
 
 30 
 
Missions and JVorld Movements. 
 
 when relief has been distributed, the tax- 
 gatherer follows close upon the heels of the 
 charity agent and gathers up the contribu- 
 tions. Possibly these two agents have a co- 
 partnership in the business and both thrive. 
 I saw up in the hills along the Yang-tse the 
 castle of a great viceroy who had cut ofif 
 within three scores of ten thousand heads, and 
 I saw some of the heads hung out over the 
 street in iron baskets like ancient torchlights. 
 This viceroy was praying to his gods to spare 
 him till he rounded up the full ten thousand. 
 Yet he would quote from Mencius and other 
 ancient classics beautiful sentiments about 
 "the sacredness of human life." Cooke, in 
 his "Life and State Papers of a Chinese States- 
 man," shows that this statesman "pockets the 
 money given to him to repair an embank- 
 ment, and thus inundates a province; and he 
 deplores the land lost to the cultivation of 
 the soil." Signing a treaty, he said it was 
 "only a deception for the moment," yet he 
 exclaims "against the crime of perjury." The 
 supreme irony known anywhere in the world, 
 in the united judgment of the foreign min- 
 isters, is in the inscription over the entrance 
 to the Yamen, where treaties are negotiated, 
 
 31 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 which reads, "The greatest happiness is in 
 doing good." Like the wrecker, who had 
 picked up the body of a drowned man, when 
 asked if he had tried to resuscitate him, said, 
 "Yes, sir; I picked his pockets." This bland, 
 two-faced perjury runs throughout the Empire 
 from top to bottom. Very rare exceptions, 
 one in a thousand, are found, hardly enough 
 to prove the law. 
 
 Li Hung Chang was sent to St. Petersburg 
 to protest against Russian encroachments upon 
 Manchuria, and he was at that very time in 
 the pay of the Russian Government as a di- 
 rector in the Russian Bank in Peking. China 
 is the supreme dissembler of all the races and 
 of all the ages. It is a compound of Judas 
 Iscariot and Ananias, perfected by the train- 
 ing and practice of four thousand years. It 
 has not the conscience of Judas, enabling it 
 to commit suicide. It barely has the smolder- 
 ing remnants of the moral sense of Ananias, 
 sufficient to make it susceptible to moral pun- 
 ishment. Its chief public virtue is fear of 
 power. The only binding force in its cove- 
 nants is in the mouth of a double-shotted 
 cannon. 
 
 32 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 This moral mummy is embalmed and Supersti 
 wrapped in superstitions four thousand years ''''"•'• 
 old, and more than ten thousand layers deep. 
 These superstitions touch every act of life, 
 and every word, and every secret thought. 
 They are victims of luck, fortune-tellers, and 
 necromancy. They live in a world packed to 
 the very stars with powerful spirits, which 
 must not be offended. All ranks and classes, 
 from the emperor down to the poorest coolie, 
 are steeped and boiled and parboiled in super- 
 stition. By these superstitions the university 
 men and the priests govern and rob and tor- 
 ment all classes. A priest in charge of a 
 temple in Canton pays many thousand dollars 
 ($40,000) for the control of the temple. He 
 robs the people by his monopolies to pay this 
 fee and enrich himself. Poor people pay to 
 him ten times as much for an incense stick 
 as it costs elsewhere. Only sticks purchased 
 in that temple can be burned there. Women 
 pay enormous extortions for the privilege of 
 sleeping on mats in the temple. This priv- 
 ilege is said to increase their chances for male 
 progeny. 
 
 All China is robbed and persecuted and tor- 
 
 3 ZZ 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 merited by these cruel superstitions. Behind 
 the viceroy's Yamen in Tientsin — that was Li 
 Hung Chang's Yamen or Court — there was 
 a temple to Ta Wang, the wind-and-water 
 dragon. A boat conveying a prefect was 
 nearly overturned by a sudden storm. Some 
 boatman with his pole must have carelessly 
 disturbed Ta Wang. Careful search was 
 made, and a small snake was discovered near 
 the railroad bridge. Profuse apologies and 
 prostrations were made to it, and it was care- 
 fully carried with the greatest pomp and cere- 
 mony to the Ta Wang temple. China is the 
 deepest pit of heathenism, where Satan brews 
 his most powerful charms and his most deadly 
 moral plagues. 
 
 No human plummet can fathom this sea of 
 corruption. Two hundred thousand natives 
 in Hong-Kong, many of them born there or 
 living there fifty years in close contact with 
 intelligent foreigners, glad to have the protec- 
 tion of the British flag and the high wages of 
 a British city, where silver is as abundant as 
 brass on the main land, and where no man- 
 darin can extort half or any part of their 
 wages ; glad to be taught English without cost, 
 so as to earn the high wages of European 
 
 34 
 
Missions and JVorld Movements. 
 
 clerks and have the free service of English 
 physicians; glad to be under incorruptible 
 magistrates and just policemen; glad to live 
 in a model foreign city, where they can live 
 as they please and follow their own customs 
 and worship their own gods, with everything 
 to help them, and nothing to disturb them, — 
 in spite of all this, they are in all ranks, with 
 very few exceptions, too few to count, as 
 deeply dyed with superstitions as any who 
 never even saw a civilized man. They are 
 bland and smiling and silent while nothing 
 unusual jars the public mind. But when the 
 plague came, all their old superstitions came 
 to the surface. They cursed and hated the for- 
 eigners, and hid their sick from the doctors, 
 and refused to go to the hospitals, and as- 
 saulted both doctors and nurses, and threat- 
 ened to burn the city and poison the wells. 
 They believed every old superstition, and 
 trusted their incantations and vile, filthy rem- 
 edies. The influences of the clean and help- 
 ful civilization in which they had lived for 
 half a century, but which did not concern 
 itself much about their religious enlighten- 
 ment, vanished in one hour. There remained 
 only hatred for the foreigners and the undis- 
 
 35 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 puted reign of Satan. No human power can 
 save this people. Only the almighty grace of 
 God, that can create anew the elements and 
 energies of a moral nature, can make them 
 moral and trustworthy for the uses of civil- 
 ization. 
 Family The onc virtuc in the Chinese character 
 '^" that has survived these long centuries of op- 
 pression and superstition that keeps society 
 from utter dissolution, and the State from an- 
 nihilation, is the family tie. 
 
 The family tie begins with the devotion of 
 children, strengthens with every year of natu- 
 ral life, and extends to the worlds out of sight, 
 in an absorbing worship of parents and ances- 
 tors. There is no limit to the thoroughness 
 and cruelty with which penalty is inflicted 
 upon a child that kills his father. In Foochow 
 I saw the traces of this penalty upon a young 
 man who had killed his father with a hoe as 
 they worked in the field. The officers chained 
 him to a post in the execution place, and com- 
 pelled his mother to cut out the first piece 
 from his breast. Then they hacked him 
 slowly into small pieces till there was only a 
 heap of refuse at the foot of the stake. Then 
 they executed the mother for having such a 
 
 36 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 son, and the neighbors living next on either 
 side for having such a neighborhood. Next 
 the officer, like a policeman, whose duty it 
 was to keep order in that beat, was executed. 
 The officer above him, like our sheriff, was 
 banished. The Tawtai, or governor, of the 
 district was removed from office. Then they 
 burned down the house in which the man had 
 lived, and dug up the ground under it to the 
 depth'of two feet, and carted the dirt off, and 
 dumped it into the river. They intended to 
 wipe out that wickedness so it could not 
 spread. 
 
 The family is the unit in the State. The en- Emphasis 
 tire family is responsible for the conduct oi^^"^""^. 
 
 ■^ ^ , upon the 
 
 each member. There is a mortgage of ancient Family. 
 and constant custom, an unwritten law, that 
 makes the family responsible for the debts of 
 the father. There is only one way to discharge 
 a debt in China, and that is to pay it. It fol- 
 lows the family like an avenging spirit, not 
 to the third or fourth generation, but forever 
 till it is paid. The family must take care of 
 its own poor. One man thrives, the indolent 
 and thriftless live on him. He must employ 
 them even to the exclusion of competent serv- 
 ice, and often even to the ruin of his business. 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 This family feeling widens a little, reach- 
 ing neighborhoods and clans, but fails to 
 strengthen the Empire. The family tie is the 
 chief virtue planted in the Garden of Eden 
 that has survived all the migrations, and all 
 the changes in dynasty, and all the centuries. 
 It absorbs all the natural vigor of patriotism 
 and all the supernatural inspiration of relig- 
 ion. Its roots entwine the earth, and its 
 branches embrace the heavens. 
 
 Another element of strength in the China- 
 
 Co/o«/z- man is his colonizing power. He crosses 
 
 '"^all seas and burrows into all continents. 
 
 Poiver. 
 
 He surpasses the Saxon in ability to toil 
 in all climates. He matches the Russian 
 in enduring Arctic storms, and surpasses the 
 Negro in working in the tropics. He is the 
 one cosmopolitan, at home everywhere, as if 
 he owned the world. Silent, gentle, submis- 
 sive, industrious, economical, temperate, all- 
 enduring, he thrives everywhere,— on the 
 mountains, in the deserts, on the plains, in the 
 islands. As the serpent, with his one ability 
 to crawl, competes in various fields, without 
 fins swims with the fish, without hands climbs 
 with the monkey, and without feet runs with 
 the horse, so the Chinaman, with his one abil- 
 
 ?8 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 ity of adaptation, competes successfully with 
 the sailor on the sea, and with the frontiers- 
 man in the wilderness, and with the miner 
 under the earth, and with the exile in wander- 
 ings. He does not ask for a fair chance. He 
 asks only for a chance, so does not try to 
 crowd anybody. Once landed, he abides. 
 The individual changes, but the kind con- 
 tinues. A human microbe, he multiplies. 
 Not being a politician, all governments that 
 let him alone suit him. He never breeds nor 
 joins revolutions abroad. Not being a spe- 
 cialist, all industries with a possible margin 
 attract him. He never boycotts any trade. 
 Not being ambitious, except for more cash, 
 all social orders that pay for services are 
 equally satisfactory to him. He is pleasing 
 to the greatest variety of women. He mar- 
 ries through the widest range of races. Like 
 a mongoose, he can run through any passage- 
 way. Though fond of a palace, he can live 
 in a closet, and make a home anywhere. As 
 gravity draws all rivers along the lines of least 
 resistance, so his instinct for gain draws him 
 along lines where there is the least waste of 
 energy. He is the supreme colonizer. 
 
 All countries are his, — Siberia, India, Bur- 
 
 39 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 mah, Australia, all the Americas, including 
 the Philippines. All the islands of the seas 
 are his homes. He has the largest colonies 
 here and there on the earth, even larger than 
 the English colony in Buenos Aires. In the 
 Malay Straits he far outnumbers the Malays. 
 In Siam he is nearly three millions strong, 
 one-third the entire population of that king- 
 dom. But for the fact that he could not vote 
 in America, and so left the politicians to op- 
 pose him in the interest of those who could 
 vote, he might have been to-day ten millions 
 strong under our flag. It took all the venom 
 of local prejudices and all the power of the 
 General Government to check this silent, 
 creeping, ever-pressing tide. 
 
 In his wide wanderings he is a factor wher- 
 ever he lives. He owns and manages great 
 steamship lines, banks, factories, mines, plan- 
 tations, mercantile establishments, great cor- 
 porations in the English colony of Hong- 
 Kong, in Japan, in Singapore, in India, in 
 Burmah, in Siam. He is a constant menace 
 to the laborer in every labor market of the 
 world. 
 
 You find over China statues of scholars, and 
 40 
 
Missions and JVorld Movements. 
 
 Statesmen, and philosophers, and literary men. The 
 but not often of soldiers. He has no military ^"'^' 
 
 ■' man not 
 
 spirit, yet he has courage when he is well a Soldier. 
 drilled, commanded, and paid. There are 
 rare instances of heroism. Some men have 
 volunteered as substitutes to be executed. He 
 believes in strategy, not arms. He fights be- 
 hind walls, like a cornered rat; but before an 
 assault he runs like an antelope. This spirit 
 has made it possible to live in the same world 
 with him. When he shall find a good drill- 
 master, and an able commander, and prompt 
 care when wounded, and certain pay for serv- 
 ice, he will be a splendid soldier. Russia can 
 furnish all these lacking requisites. England 
 sent a drill-sergeant up the Nile into the sands 
 of Egypt to the water-carrying fellahs, and 
 Europe and Asia were surprised to see these 
 recruits fight like ancient Greeks. Anything 
 the Egyptian can do, the Chinaman can do. 
 What England has done for Egypt, Russia 
 can do for China. 
 
 The greatest modern Chinese statesman, 
 Wensiang, often said to foreign diplomats: 
 "You are all too anxious to wake us and start 
 us on a new road, and you will do it; but you 
 
 41 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 will all regret it; for, once waking and started, 
 we shall go fast and far, farther than you 
 think, and much faster than you want." 
 
 Which Which way is China going? In recent 
 ff^ay yQ2ir% she has lost two-thirds of her terri- 
 
 Goiw^ftory, though only one-twelfth of her popu- 
 lation. Yet there remain fifteen hundred 
 thousand square miles of land, an immense 
 block of available land, and three hundred 
 and fifty millions of people. She may change 
 dynasties, she may come under the control of 
 some foreign power; but she will not cease to 
 be. She will not be wiped out. Like the king 
 in a chess-game, she may be checkmated, but 
 she can not be removed from the board. Some 
 pawn or knight, some Japanese or Muscovite, 
 will cover her exposure and continue the 
 game. Her very numbers is God's promise 
 of perpetuity. The Yellow Race will remain 
 the menace of the world. It lies on the shore 
 of Asia, a huge club, only waiting to be 
 picked up by some Hercules. China is the 
 world's problem for the twentieth century. 
 Who will seize this club? 
 
 Russia We are up against an inexorable propo- 
 
 ^ f^^sition. As we peer into the mists that veil the 
 
 Coming _ ^ 
 
 Poiver. future, coming events cast their shadows 
 
 42 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 toward us. There is a huge figure approach- 
 ing. It has a fur cloak over its shoulders and 
 a club in its hands. It may be the coming 
 Hercules. Looking more closely it is a Bear, 
 the Bear that walks like a man. After our 
 experiences during the Civil War, when the 
 Czar sent his fleet to New York and San Fran- 
 cisco to defend us against intervention, it is 
 difficult for us to fear the Bear or refuse him 
 anything. It was a crisis in our history. We 
 were struggling nearly up to the limit of our 
 abilities. Everything seemed to be going 
 against us. We had had a long series of de- 
 feats. The great States were going wrong at 
 the polls. France was setting up a monarchy 
 in Mexico on our very border. England was 
 buying Confederate bonds, and many of our 
 people were rejoicing that the 'Svorld was to 
 be rid of a dangerous Republic." The cour- 
 age of the soldier in the field was taxed to the 
 utmost, and the patriotism of the citizen at 
 home held on at the hardest in the gloom and 
 the darkness. It was the most critical hour in 
 the history of the Republic. The emperor of 
 the French sent a plenipotentiary to the Czar, 
 asking him to unite with France and England 
 to break the blockade, and recognize the Con- 
 
 43 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 federacy, and end the war. The Czar asked 
 him if that was all he wanted. The French 
 plenipotentiary, seeing that the Czar was not 
 attracted to the plan, said: "No, not all. If 
 Your Majesty is not willing to unite with us 
 in this expedition, we ask that you will agree 
 to keep your hands off." The Czar said: 
 "The United States is my friend, and has been 
 the friend of my fathers always. I can not 
 unite with you in your enterprise. Tell your 
 master Napoleon that if either France or 
 England, or both combined, shall undertake 
 that enterprise, then every warship and sol- 
 dier of Russia is at the disposal of the United 
 States;" and as the little Frenchman was bow- 
 ing himself out the Czar said: "Wait a mo- 
 ment; in order that there may be no misunder- 
 standing about the matter, tell your master 
 Napoleon that I issue my orders to-night, and 
 my warships start at once for the harbors of 
 New York and San Francisco." There is no 
 computing what this was worth to us, and it 
 does not become us to forget this or be dead 
 to gratitude. Yet we must recognize facts. 
 It is a Bear standing on the trail. His pos- 
 ture does not change his nature. If Russia 
 appropriates and assimilates China, we are 
 
 44 
 
Missions and JVorld Movements. 
 
 face to face with the most powerful Empire 
 ever known among men. The world problem 
 is this: Shall Russia be allowed to absorb 
 China? This problem is full of dragon's 
 teeth, teeth enough to seed down the world 
 with century-long strifes. 
 
 Russia is great. She has one hundred /?kjj/« 
 and sixty- five million people, and eight ^''^'^'^'^■^ 
 million, six hundred and seventy thousand 
 square miles of land. The mass of her 
 people are stout and solid, inured to hard- 
 ship, economical, able to live as cheaply as 
 Chinamen. They are ignorant and super- 
 stitious, zealous followers of the Czar, tak- 
 ing his word as final and almost divine. Such 
 is the Russian peasant in history. Such is 
 he to-day. It will take generations of com- 
 mon schools, or the rude shocks of bloody bat- 
 tles and humiliating defeats, to break the en- 
 chantment of the ''Little Father," the Czar. 
 One block of land, from the Polar Sea to 
 Persia, and from the Baltic to Korea, with no 
 intervening sections of hostile or even neutral 
 territory, — infantry could march over these 
 wide zones without touching foreign soil. 
 
 Russia can not be subjugated. She needs 
 only to retreat into certain of her climates 
 
 45 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 to destroy all pursuers. Even the genius 
 
 of Napoleon could not survive her neglect 
 
 Russia2L'i far south as Moscow. She can march 
 
 Incapable j^^ainst auv foe at her own sweet will. If she 
 
 ofSubju- b J _ 
 
 ^rt/7o«wins, she can absorb the conquered territory 
 by Her fg pay the expenses. If she fails, she has only 
 
 Climates. . , 
 
 to retreat, wait, recuperate, and try again. 
 
 The State, as distinguished from the coun- 
 try, means the Czar. He is the State. His 
 wealth surpasses that of any other man's 
 wealth. Money is more than ever before the 
 sinews of war. The ancient David might slay 
 Goliath, and scatter the Philistines with a 
 sling and a smooth pebble from a common 
 brook, not worth more than a Chinese cash, 
 one-eighteenth of a cent; but the -modern 
 David who could defend his country or ex- 
 tend her borders must have steel ships and 
 twenty-four-inch guns. It costs $800 or $1,000 
 now to hurl one pebble from some of our 
 modern slings. Money is the sinews of war. 
 It takes a key of gold to unlock the gate of 
 empire. The Czar is very rich; has money 
 almost without limit. His unmortgaged in- 
 come approaches $1,000,000,000 a year, and 
 would maintain perpetually a war as great as 
 the late English South African War. The 
 
 46 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 debt of Russia is $3,311,000,000. Great as it 
 seems, it is less than the debt of England or of 
 France. He has vast resources from mines 
 and coal and timber lands. While all other 
 nations, except some of the South American 
 Republic wildernesses, are hunting for and 
 planting and economizing their lumber sup- 
 ply, the Czar has over three hundred million 
 acres of heavy timber. He has income from 
 rents and railroads. He owns twenty-five 
 thousand miles of railroads, and some years 
 is adding to these at the rate of two thousand 
 six hundred miles a year. He has vast in- 
 come from the liquor trade, which he took 
 into his own hands to control its quality and 
 restrict its sale, and save the peasants from 
 utter destruction. No man can buy liquor on 
 credit. This stops three-fourths of the drink- 
 ing among the peasants. According to latest 
 reports, his income from all sources exceeded 
 all the expenses of the government by $200,- 
 000,000. Out of this he put $47,500,000 into 
 new warships, $21,575,000 into relief for the 
 crop failure, and other millions he poured 
 into increasing the army. In a time of finan- 
 cial depression he was not affected in the least. 
 He pushed his great Siberian Railroad seven 
 
 47 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 thousand six hundred miles, his Trans-Cas- 
 pian Railroad, his railroads in Central Asia, 
 in Southern Caucasus, and his railroads down 
 to the frontier of Austria and to the frontier 
 of Germ-any, just as if he owned all the mines 
 and mints in the world. 
 
 This great Siberian Road, purely a polit- 
 ical and military enterprise, is destined to 
 change the map of Asia and mold the destiny 
 of China. A great Russian statesman has 
 said, ''We shall conquer China by railroads." 
 Now running along the border of China by 
 the thousand miles this road makes it easy to 
 put Russian pressure on China at any point. 
 The Czar has only to close a little these iron 
 fingers on the brain or on the heart or on the 
 throat of China, and his will will be supreme. 
 Knowing this, he has pushed the Siberian 
 Road on to its objective point with all the wis- 
 dom of a capitalist and all the energy of a 
 conqueror. 
 
 He still has had a large surplus which he 
 applies to the development of Russia's bound- 
 less resources. Mr. Ford says in an English 
 engineering magazine: "Mighty canals are 
 being cut, rivers and harbors deepened, arid 
 
 48 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 regions irrigated, forests cleared, and waste 
 lands reclaimed; cities, villages, and work- 
 shops are being built, and colonies are being 
 planted in new localities where modern sys- 
 tems of drainage and agriculture are being 
 introduced." 
 
 These improvements are of the highest 
 character; depots, government buildings, 
 opera-houses, public halls, cathedrals, are of 
 the most modern style, and most permanent 
 structures. The advances into new regions 
 and toward possible conquests have all the 
 appearance of permanent occupation. These 
 vast outlays are no spasmodic output. The 
 treasury is never exhausted. The national 
 debt is all the time being regularly reduced 
 fifteen or twenty million dollars a year. New 
 loans are floated, only to pay off old bonds 
 and carry the debt at lower rates. Not a dol- 
 lar of the recent loans has gone into the treas- 
 ury for current expenses. Russia has large 
 deposits in English banks. In recent years 
 (A. D. 1890) one of the London banks had to 
 have the support of the Bank of England to 
 help it over a close place. Russia's deposit 
 there was so great that the Bank of England 
 4 49 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 asked Russia "not to call for her deposit till 
 a certain date, as it would precipitate a finan- 
 cial crisis of the utmost gravity." 
 Vast Re- Add to all this the fact that the resources 
 sources. ^^ China are limitless. Coal, iron, copper 
 and oil are produced by the million tons, 
 and their resources are barely scratched. 
 Life-supporting products are created by the 
 hundred million tons. Improved agricul- 
 ture is pushed upon the farmers. Indus- 
 tries are planted in every direction. Public 
 works open new sources of knowledge and 
 support for large numbers of the peasantry. 
 These new industries are intended to give the 
 peasants higher and varied occupations. 
 They are practical schools to elevate their 
 grade of intelligence. The Empire covering 
 one-eighth of the earth's surface, and about 
 one-tenth of the world's population, is a vast 
 workshop. Russia is a beehive. The spirit 
 of the great Romanoff family, the greatest 
 family that ever sat on a human throne, in- 
 spires all ranks of the people and of the army. 
 They believe implicitly in the Czar. Tell 
 them that such or such is the wish or will of 
 the Czar, and they are quick to do it. Ask a 
 Russian anywhere what is the mission of Rus- 
 
 50 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 sia, and he will say, "To save the world." 
 Ask a Russian officer where Russia is going, 
 and he will point to China. Their faces are 
 set to the southeast. It is ingrained into the 
 Russian conviction that they are destined to 
 reach the warm sea. It is amazing to think 
 of the vastness of the Czar's power. All the 
 energies of that Empire centralize in him. 
 The strength and momentum of two conti- 
 nents are compressed into him. He is the 
 world's fist. 
 
 With such a Power rising in Europe and 
 Asia, what is impossible to it? That hJVhat 
 the vital question. He must be judged ^J ^^^^^^^ 
 his history and his environment. His n^it-want? 
 ural and national instinct has been forward 
 to open winter harbors to the warm sea. 
 He has desired the warm sea with a greed 
 many centuries old. This drift is a world 
 movement. It depends neither upon individ- 
 ual men nor upon particular ages. It is not 
 dependent upon any great military genius. It 
 requires only an average ruler, open to the 
 instincts of his people. 
 
 Opposition may retard this movement, but 
 it can not defeat it. It is a tide lifted by the 
 stars. It is a gulf-stream sweeping onward 
 
 51 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 by the century, unaffected by State funerals 
 or adverse wars or the flight of time. It is 
 silent, concentrated, perpetual. As the Muir 
 glacier comes out of the Alaskan gorge from 
 thirteen concentrated, converged gorges, spur- 
 ring and pushing each other forward till the 
 advance along the main axis of movement is 
 often visible to the careful observer, so this 
 Russian political glacier comes out of all the 
 converging convictions of the Empire, pushes 
 straight on by a resistless grind toward the 
 warm sea, and it must succeed. It is a world 
 grind, and only God can stop it. Russia will 
 ultimately reach warm water, but she must 
 not absorb China. 
 Can Can the drift of recent years answer 
 9''"'^ whether China can resist Russia. China 
 
 Resist 
 
 RussiafhdiS recently lost Siam, Burmah, Annam, 
 Tibet, Mongolia, Tongking, Formosa, and 
 Korea. These are China's tracks, toes in 
 toward Peking, away from the narrowing 
 frontier. It is not thinkable that she should 
 now arise and reverse her direction and her 
 history in a struggle against her overshadow- 
 ing master. Russia's advances are as marked 
 as China's losses. Russia has transformed the 
 map of Asia into a series of Russian plateaus, 
 
 52 
 
Missions and IVorld Movements. 
 
 marking the mighty strides of Russia's prog- 
 ress. Look at them: The Urals, Western Si- 
 beria, Eastern Siberia, Baikalia, Kamchatka, 
 the Amur, the Steppe, Khiva, Turkestan, the 
 Merr Oasis, Bokhara, Samarkand, — these are 
 Russia's footprints, heels toward St. Peters- 
 burg, toes toward the extending frontier, 
 marking her strides over Asia. Meantime her 
 naval base drifts south, tack by tack, Petro- 
 paulafsk, Nikolasefsk, Vladivostok, Port 
 Arthur. 
 
 She moves as if she had only to pick out To jvui 
 of everything whatever she wants. Is it Si- ^^/-^^^ 
 beria? She takes it. Is it Central Asia? She 
 takes it. Is it Persia? She runs her railroads 
 to the Persian Gulf and takes the Persian 
 commerce, knowing that where Persia's heart 
 is, there will she be also. Does she want Mon- 
 golia? She has only to say the word. The 
 iron net is fully spread. Does she want Tibet? 
 She already has her hand stretched under the 
 limb to catch it when she wishes to jar the 
 tree. Her railroad runs seven thousand six 
 hundred miles from the Baltic to the Yellow 
 Sea, and a branch is already creeping up to 
 the Great Wall almost within cannon-shot of 
 Peking. With her railroad stations skirting 
 
 SZ 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 the Chinese border for three thousand miles, 
 and thickly set with forts, and with her navy 
 nosing out to the Yellow Sea, she will become 
 the only friend of China whose advice must 
 ultimately be taken. 
 
 The northern half of China, all north of 
 the Yellow River, and possibly down to the 
 Yang-tse, will finally become her vassal. She 
 intends that her railroads shall not only thread 
 Manchuria, but all North China. The com- 
 merce of that great Empire will then become 
 exclusively Russian. Differential rates on her 
 railroads will neutralize the "most favored 
 nation" clause of the treaties. Without firing 
 a single shot, or taking a single step worthy 
 of international consideration, with only the 
 pressure Russia knows so well how to exer- 
 cise, China seems likely to be brought under 
 the absolute control of Russia. With a navy, 
 now only second in rank and rapidly increas- 
 ing, much larger than ours, a navy such as 
 Russia can easily put upon the Yellow Sea 
 and on the Pacific, and with vast armies, 
 within easy reach, there will be no Power able 
 to dispute her advance or countermand her 
 orders. 
 
 Russia attracts China. Russia is largely 
 
 54 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 Asiatic, all Asiatic except a little European china 
 lieht let in through St. Petersburg, the ^^'''^''■ 
 window which Peter the Great opened into To^ward 
 Europe. Russia is Asiatic. Napoleon said, ^"-f^'^- 
 "Scratch a Russian, and you have a Tar- 
 tar." She has the Asiatic ability to smile, 
 and lie, and wait. She has no value on 
 time. She hates haste. She has the soft, com- 
 placent, smiling, treacherous face of all 
 Asiatics. She understands and suits China. 
 She yields and presses, and waits and holds 
 on. She is only another arm of the same oc- 
 topus. So China, repelled by and hating the 
 Saxon straightforward integrity and haste, 
 naturally sinks back into the embrace of Rus- 
 sia. Her four hundred millions, drilled and 
 paid and commanded by Russian officers, can 
 furnish armies without number, and inferior 
 to none. 
 
 Russia has supreme organizing and absorb- 
 ing power; a hundred nations and tribes have 
 been dissolved in this sea, and never one has 
 ever been precipitated. The vast industrial 
 possibilities of China, reached by steam and 
 electricity over waterways and railways, pro- 
 jected and owned and managed by Russians, 
 will make her as dangerous in the labor mar- 
 
 55 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 kets of the world as on the battlefields. Rus- 
 sia does not want a military conquest if she 
 can avoid it. She will avoid all beyond the 
 near presence of her armies and threats. She 
 wants China for the sake of her incipient, 
 and possibly boundless, commerce. She wants 
 control of those markets now ready for use, 
 as soon as she can reach those thronging mil- 
 lions with proper communication and trans- 
 portation. It is not Siberia for her own sake 
 she wants, where she has to plant colonies 
 and slowly create trade; she wants Siberia for 
 what lies beyond. It is China, where the 
 /?ttjj/a population has been waiting by the thousand 
 /Tan/jyg^j-g fQj. |.j-jg development of commerce. It is 
 
 £m/)zwthis Chma Russia would use agamst the rest 
 
 ^•f^of Asia, and against Europe. In Russia's 
 
 ^^^fj^^hand China will be a deadly weapon, and 
 
 /«^/a. make Russia the greatest Empire, ancient or 
 
 modern. 
 
 Establish the Czar's authority in Peking, 
 with a continuous frontier along India, from 
 the Upper Oxus to the Yang-tse basin on 
 much of three sides of that populous Empire, 
 with a home fleet on the Pacific superior to 
 the English fleets projected into those waters, 
 making the transport of English armies im- 
 
 S6 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 possible, with five hundred millions of people 
 whose flesh and blood are cheap obeying his 
 orders, able to drop armies into India with- 
 out number, unexposed on transports, then the 
 absorption of India will be only a matter of 
 willing. The Russian Empire, then extend- 
 ing from the Polar Sea to the Indian Ocean, 
 and from Germany to the Yellow Sea, cover- 
 ing Asia and much of Europe, and controll- 
 ing half the human race, will put Europe in 
 greater peril than it ever >vas in the days of 
 the Mongol Empire in the palmy days of 
 Jenghiz Khan or Timurlane. 
 
 Russia is already running her railroads 
 down to the border of Austria, waiting till 
 the Slav and German elements of Austria shall 
 assert themselves upon the near death of Franz 
 Joseph, the present emperor. Then the Czar 
 will be ready to bargain with Germany and 
 take his Slavs in out of anarchy, while Wil- 
 liam III hovers his Germans. It looks as if 
 the old Bonaparte had the vision of a prophet, 
 when on St. Helena he said, "In a century 
 Europe will be all Republican or Slav;" and 
 again he said, "If a Czar, brave, hardy, gifted 
 with warlike qualities, mount the Russian 
 throne, he will be able to conquer all Europe." 
 
 57 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 This is not a dream. The Czar, as ruler of 
 Asia, can do much towards transforming the 
 Pacific Ocean into a Russian harbor or high- 
 way. In peace, by high duties and differential 
 rates over her railroads, he can close all the 
 vast markets of Asia against all non-Russian 
 products, as he is doing to-day wherever his 
 double-headed eagles float. He stops at no 
 half-way measures. He seeks the accomplish- 
 ment of his own will with the celerity of am- 
 bition, and with the merciless thoroughness 
 of fanaticism. The Czar is accumulating and 
 marshaling mighty forces, and is confident 
 that he can absorb China, and later India and 
 the rest of Asia. He means to reach the warm 
 Pacific. But he must not absorb China. The 
 Powers must resist him, and set limits and 
 bounds to his ambition and to his Empire. 
 To-night while I speak I hear newsboys cry- 
 ing: "The strained relations between China 
 and Japan are likely to break. Japan threat- 
 ens to take the initiative." If this strife comes, 
 and Japan needs help, she must have the moral 
 support of England and America. Ay, I had 
 rather see America make common cause with 
 Japan than see Japan wiped from the map 
 and China absorbed by Russia. Russia must 
 
 S8 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 not have China. If the unexpected, and ap- 
 parently impossible, should happen and Japan 
 should whip Russia and thus control China, 
 we shall face the same Pacific problem in an- 
 other form; viz., Japan and China, instead of 
 Russia and China. When this proximate 
 strife is over, whichever way it goes, I fear 
 most the combination of all Asia against the 
 English-speaking race, Saxon and Slav fight- 
 ing for the commerce of the Pacific and for 
 the balance of power on the whole earth. 
 
 An invisible and Almighty Hand is Ar2i\\- The Lines 
 in? the lines. The Great Powers are silently ^""^ -^""-^ 
 wheeling into place. Sooner or later the 
 contest will be joined. Let us catalogue 
 the forces on each side. On one side is 
 Russia, ambitious, seeking more territory, 
 not for a crowded population — for she 
 already has much room to spare — but for 
 strategical positions for future political and 
 military conquests. Rich beyond computa- 
 tion; compact in territory; one immense block, 
 buttressed on the north by the Arctic Ocean, 
 cushioned on the south by soft peoples; 
 stretching across two continents, with little 
 east of her to resist, and everything to allure 
 her, even on to the Pacific, and confronted on 
 
 59 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 the west only by Germany; with one hundred 
 and forty millions of devoted, warlike sub- 
 jects, fanatically certain that Russia is or- 
 dained of God to conquer both Asia and Eu- 
 rope for the salvation of the world; with a 
 greed for conquest fermented in the blood for 
 many centuries, and with an experience of 
 successful absorptions wide enough to turn 
 the head of the Sphinx, — with all this power 
 concentrated in one unquestioned will, can 
 there be any doubt as to which way Russia 
 will move? On the side of Russia will be 
 found her ally, France, the Don Quixote of 
 the nations, though within a few days France 
 seems to be making friends with England. 
 Turkey must yield to the old-time greed of 
 Russia. So much of Austria as is of Slav 
 origin will join the Slavs. The rest of Eu- 
 rope will not add much to these forces. Italy 
 is a name on the map, but not a fighting power. 
 Spain is a relic. These baptized and unbap- 
 tized heathen will soon be able to rally half 
 the human race to one standard. 
 
 Against these vast hosts may possibly be 
 gathered the Saxon and Protestant nations. 
 Germany, that old birthplace and cradle of 
 Protestantism; that camp in the heart of Eu- 
 
 60 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 rope ; that race of soldiers ; that land of colleges Germany. 
 and scholars, and statesmen, and fighters; that 
 nation that sung its way from Berlin to Paris, 
 tramping down all opposing armies as if they 
 were only knocking ofif the heads of toad- 
 stools; that bulwark of Europe against Rus- 
 sia, will give sympathy, and possibly aid. 
 Since the fall of Bismarck, who always 
 courted Russia at the expense of England, it 
 looks as if William III has come to his senses 
 and realizes the danger of the presence of so 
 great and ambitious a neighbor as Russia; as 
 if the faith of his fathers was asserting itself 
 in his convictions; as if the blood of his 
 mother and grandmother, God's most elect 
 lady, Victoria, was working in his veins, and 
 that he is turning the prow of his Ship of 
 State toward the English Channel. When 
 Napoleon was in Berlin he visited the resting- 
 place of Frederick the Great. He picked up 
 Frederick's sword that was lying on his coffin, 
 and carried it away with him. When Unser 
 Fritz went into Paris with Moltke at his back, 
 and met the French commissioners suing for 
 peace, the first thing he said was, "We have 
 come after Frederick's sword." That sword, 
 dropped into the scales in this strife, may tell 
 
 6i 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 which way the beam of Fate will sink. Let 
 us hope that Germany will be true to her his- 
 tory and her instincts. 
 Scandi- It is fairly safe to expect sympathy and 
 ^'^'^^'^" comfort from Scandinavia. Those sons of 
 the Vikings and of the old pirate chiefs; 
 those sons of the heroes of the Thirty 
 Years' War, who single-handed against all 
 Catholic Europe for a whole generation 
 defended and saved Protestantism and Lib- 
 erty; these Scandinavians who stood off, and 
 so defeated Peter the Great that after one of 
 his defeats he had the Te Deum sung in the 
 churches, saying, "The time has at last come 
 when three Russians can stand against one 
 Swede : the time will come when we can stand 
 two against one;" these Scandinavians who 
 have a larger per cent of people able to read 
 and write than any other nation anywhere; 
 who, living by their fjords and mountain 
 streams, sing the glad songs of liberty and are 
 as free as any people have ever been in any 
 land or age; these Scandinavians will be true 
 to their history, to their faith, and to their 
 God. They will be found on the right side. 
 Holland. It may not be too much to rely on help 
 from Holland, that pioneer of religious lib- 
 
 62 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 erty. Holland was the advance guard of 
 Freedom for two hundred years. She was 
 the discoverer of nearly every great truth 
 out of which republics are made. She dis- 
 covered, politically the individual man, free- 
 dom of conscience, free schools for boys 
 and girls, free press, free libraries, free 
 judges, secret ballot, written constitutional 
 limitations for the ruler, full subpoenas for 
 the witnesses of the accused, and counsel 
 for his defense. Holland endured the tor- 
 tures of the Duke of Alva without flinch- 
 ing, and resisted the combined forces of 
 the Bourbon family through the long Eighty 
 Years' War. She can never be wanting when 
 she is needed. Japan, suddenly rising into Japan. 
 importance, long a nation of sailors and 
 fighters, now in covenant with England, may 
 be counted against her great and ancient 
 enemy, Russia. Her fleets and her armies, 
 her commerce and her industries, her valor 
 and her new life, her geographical position 
 and her ambitions, make her a great factor 
 in the problems of the immediate future. 
 She so regards herself and her mission. 
 Her genius for peaceful achievements is 
 shown in her mounting so quickly to the sec- 
 
 63 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ond place in the commerce with China, and 
 in the rapidity with which she assumes con- 
 trol of her own new industries. Most of her 
 railroads, started and handled by foreigners, 
 are now exclusively Japanese; not one for- 
 eigner is retained with them. Her ancient 
 war power has survived the exchange of the 
 crossbow for the steel cruiser. This is demon- 
 strated by the ease with which she destroyed 
 the naval power of China. It is not strange 
 that she should now regard herself as one of 
 the great Powers, almost the great Power. 
 Count Okuma, ex-Minister for Foreign Af- 
 fairs, not long ago said in a set speech: "The 
 European Powers are already showing symp- 
 toms of decay, and the next century will see 
 their constitutions shattered and their empires 
 in ruins. . . . Who is fit to be their 
 proper successors if not ourselves? . . . 
 The Japanese mind is in every way equal to 
 the European mind. . . . We are be- 
 come one of the chief Powers of the world, 
 and no Power can engage in any movement 
 without first consulting us. Japan can enter 
 into competition with Europe as the repre- 
 sentative of the Oriental races." 
 
 64 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 In the struggle, England stands as the England. 
 bulwark of Liberty, and the defender of 
 Christianity, and the strength of Protestant- 
 ism. Her blood, her history, her faith, her 
 Divine commission, her commerce, and her 
 high leadership, and almost her existence, 
 compel her to meet this crisis before it be- 
 comes a destiny. England is born of all the 
 great Northern races. Her island has been 
 a fort for the control of the Continent. All 
 the pirates from the high seas, and all the free- 
 booters from the main land, all the ambitious 
 chiefs and all the most fearless adventurers, 
 patriots panting for freedom, and saints pray- 
 ing for ease of conscience, warriors and mar- 
 tyrs marching in the picket-line of the ad- 
 vance guard of human progress, generation 
 after generation, age after age, for many cen- 
 turies, have crowded into this island fortress, 
 and have contended for a footing and a future. 
 In the death-grapple with fagot and sword 
 they have staggered from shore to shore, bap- 
 tizing every blade of grass with the blood of 
 their martyrs, and paving every square yard 
 of their island with the bodies of their heroes. 
 They have mingled their blood in their 
 5 65 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Streams and in their veins, and out of all this 
 strife and agony has come the most virile race 
 known to history. 
 England She Calculates in marble counting-rooms 
 a Bank ^^ J \'iYt% in golden palaces. She does not pro- 
 Exchange, oucc SO much as shc causcs others to produce 
 and then divide. She stretches her arms over 
 all seas and into all continents. She sends her 
 sons into all the mines and forests and harvests 
 of many lands, and they come back with much 
 of the world's wealth. She lives and labors 
 at arm's-length. To be anything she must 
 open her markets and keep up her lines of 
 transportation. The heart of her wealth beats 
 inside her narrow shores, but she must keep 
 her arteries and veins that net the world in 
 safety and health. Let these clog, and heart- 
 failure will end her career. 
 
 Her Indian Empire fills many of her cofifers 
 and feeds many of her millions. Without it 
 she might still exist, but she would miss many 
 of her luxuries and lose much of her prestige. 
 There have been three great queens of the 
 sea, — Tyre, and Venice, and England. Tyre 
 is only a tradition; Venice is a remnant; Eng- 
 land, stripped of India, might be pushed from 
 her place of power. She is forced by her 
 
 66 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 commerce, and almost for her very existence, 
 to stand at all hazards against the shadow of 
 the returning Mongol Empire. She can not 
 allow Russia to rule Asia. 
 
 England's faith is her soul. This is the 
 power that gave her leadership and her des- 
 tiny. She stands for all that is dear in free- 
 dom and all that is sacred in religion. Her 
 Westminster Abbey gives her the stately pag- 
 eant of her history and the pride of her great 
 families. But her Smithfield, where her mar- 
 tyrs, for the sake of the truth, defied the stake 
 and the fagot, is the center of her power and 
 of her glory. The ashes from that sacred spot 
 have been carried by the waves and by the 
 winds to all shores and over all lands, where 
 they have sprung up in free institutions and 
 prosperous peace. Nearly all her great fam- 
 ilies know what Protestantism cost and what 
 made Smithfield resistless. While the mem- 
 ories of these historic sacrifices touch a chord 
 in the hearts of freemen, and England stands 
 for the open Bible, she can never innocently 
 or safely hand over Asia to baptized and un- 
 baptized heathenism. Wherever the power 
 of Russia reaches, there mission work in the 
 past has been perilous, and almost impossible. 
 
 67 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 But wherever the Union Jack is unfurled, 
 there the Bible is wide open and religious 
 teaching is protected and safe. If England 
 surrenders Asia to Russia, she gives a new 
 lease of life to heathenism, and postpones the 
 triumph of the Cross for from two to ten cen- 
 turies. She surrenders her scepter, and passes 
 into obscurity, uncrowned and unhonored. 
 We still hope that England can never retreat. 
 Like the Old Guard at Waterloo, England 
 can die, but she can never surrender. She 
 fought France for three hundred years with 
 varying fortunes, but these strifes gave her 
 Marlborough and Nelson and Wellington, 
 and created her Empire. Surely she can af- 
 ford to fight Russia twice that time, if neces- 
 sary, to maintain her supremacy and perpetu- 
 ate her Empire. 
 Another This argument, like John's locusts and scor- 
 ''^''"'' pions in the Book of Revelation, has its sting 
 in its tail. That other factor is the United 
 States, our ambitious, aggressive, confident, 
 powerful, dear, sweet selves. Nearly every 
 interest we have is involved in the solution of 
 this Chinese question. We are drifting in 
 this political gulf-stream. We are an Asiatic 
 Power. Russia ruling Asia may transform 
 
 68 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 the Pacific into a Russian harbor or highway, 
 a roadstead across which Saxon and Slav will 
 struggle. In peace the Czar can close half 
 the markets of the world against us, and we 
 shall find the cheap labor of all the world 
 competing in our markets. Our labor will be 
 depressed as never before. A small per cent 
 of our possible appliances can glut all the 
 markets then left open to us. 
 
 In war the Czar will be a colossal peril to 
 every nation having a Pacific exposure. This 
 is not a dream. It is a situation, already 
 within the field of vision. Napoleon saw it 
 a century ago; Lord Palmerston saw it half 
 a century ago; we ought to be able to see it 
 now. It does not menace us because we have 
 a Pacific Archipelago in Far Eastern waters. 
 It menaces us because we have a Pacific front- 
 age. When we bought the Northwest Terri- 
 tories from Napoleon, and shoved the prows 
 of our commerce into the Pacific, we gave 
 hostages to Asia. With our inheritance comes 
 our new peril. 
 
 As long ago as the time of Mr. Lincoln's 
 administration his voice was strong enough to 
 revolutionize the policy of Japan. An an- 
 cient edict against Christianity ordered the 
 
 69 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 suppression of the "evil sect." The revolu- 
 tions in the sixties encouraged native Chris- 
 tians to confess their faith. The Mikado 
 ordered their extirpation. Mr. Lincoln sent 
 v^^ord to the Mikado that his edict was offen- 
 sive to the United States; . . . that it con- 
 flicted with the Treaty of 1858; that it con- 
 flicted with toleration in the civilized world; 
 and that "the United States can not acquiesce 
 in or submit to the Mikado's proclamation." 
 The Minister was instructed to "proceed 
 with firmness and without practicing injuri- 
 ous hesitation, or accepting any abasing com- 
 promises." Japan accepted the doctrines, and 
 stopped the persecution. We are an Asiatic 
 Power. 
 
 The diplomacy of President McKinley in 
 Peking concerning the Boxer troubles was the 
 determining element in the adjustment. The 
 three points urged by McKinley were: First, 
 that it was not a war, but a riot, and therefore, 
 retaining the Chinese Minister, he thus kept 
 fifteen of the eighteen provinces out of the 
 strife; second, that the integrity of China 
 must be maintained, thus preserving the 
 "Open Door;" and, third, that damages 
 should be settled by a lump sum, thus pre- 
 
 70 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 venting the seizure of territory by any indi- 
 vidual Power. The Powers came finally to 
 these contentions. The United States sat at 
 the head of the table in fixing the afifairs of 
 Asia. We are an Asiatic Power. 
 
 We have more at stake than any other na- 
 tion. The Isthmian Canal will bring all our 
 cities into close trade relations with Asia. 
 The vast multitude of Asia must come our 
 way, either to trade with us or with Europe. 
 What a future rises before us! The great 
 cities of the Atlantic Coast from Portland to 
 New Orleans have all been built by the com- 
 merce from little Europe. What, then, shall 
 we say of the cities to be built on our Pacific 
 Coast? Ten times the people, soon to be 
 Christian and civilized, with the wants of civ- 
 ilization, will soon change the face of our 
 Continent. To-day we face Europe. To- 
 morrow we shall face Asia. To-day San 
 Francisco's harbor is our back door. To- 
 morrow the Golden Gate will be our front 
 door, and Europe will be behind us. Much 
 of the largest part of our wealth will soon be 
 west of the Mississippi. Our great cities and 
 forts will be on the Pacific. A thousand mil- 
 lion people crowding in will tramp the high- 
 
 71 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ways into pavements. By the side of their 
 trails vast cities must spring up. Cheap power 
 will soon lift and carry and distribute the 
 waters of the great mountain regions till all 
 those deserts shall blossom like gardens. The 
 most desirable climate, the richest and deep- 
 est soil, the accumulated nutrition of ages 
 heaped upon those sage-brush plains, easily 
 irrigated, there will be found a thousand mil- 
 lion people crowding these plains like the old 
 valley of the Nile. What a city San Fran- 
 cisco must be! With no port near her, with 
 a coast-range preventing any other natural en- 
 trance for hundreds of miles, with those long 
 granite arms reaching up and down the coast 
 to gather into that most capacious harbor the 
 countless ships freighted from populous Asia, 
 — with all these helps and stimulants, the 
 world's greatest metropolis will be built by 
 the Golden Gate. We have more interests ex- 
 posed to the Pacific storms than any other na- 
 tion. We ought not to sit idly by while our 
 destiny, like the Savior's seamless garment, is 
 being gambled for before our very eyes. If 
 necessary, we ought to join Japan rather than 
 give Japan and China to Russia. 
 The strife of all times will be to decide 
 72 
 
Missions and' World Movements. 
 
 whether the commerce of the Pacific, which fTe skaii 
 will be the bulk of the world's commerce, ^""f';""^ 
 
 ' Russia. 
 
 which will mean the dominating power of the 
 world, shall be Russian or American; whether 
 the Pacific with its interests shall be Slav or 
 Saxon, shall be for absolutism or liberty. 
 
 Almost in spite of ourselves, certainly by 
 no planning of our own, we are being put in 
 shape for this struggle. Our decks are being 
 cleared for action. 
 
 Hawaii is the one only and supreme str at- Haivaii. 
 egical point in all the wide Pacific for the 
 defense of our coast that has come to us at the 
 right time. It is the only point where a hostile 
 coaling station would be dangerous to us. 
 From Alaska to the Isthmus, from America 
 to Japan, this is the only spot where coal and 
 water could be obtained. Four times it has 
 been held by foreign Powers. Once we re- 
 jected it when offered to us. Some Power 
 wiser than our statesmen wanted us to have 
 it, so it floated back to us with its Pearl Har- 
 bor. Now we want it. Never again will it 
 be tumbled about the public market. 
 
 On the other side we have the Philippines, PA/7t>- 
 stretched along the coast of Asia. They are^"*^-^- 
 the very doorkeepers of Asia. A hand reach- 
 
 73 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ing out from Manila can put a finger or 
 thumb on the principal ports of China, Japan, 
 Korea, Siam, and Annam. If the nails on 
 those fingers are battle-ships, they can easily 
 throttle those thoroughfares of commerce. 
 We did not want the Philippines; but now 
 nobody else can have them. When Dewey 
 took Manila a great Chinaman said, "This is 
 the salvation of China; she will not be par- 
 titioned." 
 
 Russia sold us eighteen thousand miles of 
 North American coast-line. Secretary Sew- 
 ard asked the Russian Minister, "How much 
 do we owe you for sending your war-ships to 
 New York and San Francisco?" The Russian 
 answered: "We can not put in a bill. Our 
 relations with England are always strained. 
 It cost us $7,200,000. There is Alaska. We 
 do not count it worth anything. Give us 
 $7,200,000 for Alaska and we will call it 
 square." Seward accepted the ofler, and told 
 the senators, "This is a bill we must pay if we 
 have to sell our shirts to raise the money." 
 Thus Alaska dropped into our hands. We 
 did not want it; but now we mean to keep it. 
 No double-headed eagle must ever again light 
 on this Continent. 
 
 74 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 France sold us another stretch of Pacific 
 Coast for $15,000,000, and now there is not 
 enough money in France to buy it back, nor 
 Frenchmen enough in the world to take it 
 from us. We are being prepared for the com- 
 ing strife. Our decks are being cleared. 
 
 The struggle is between the Far East and 
 the Far West. It is a grapple of civiliza- 
 tions. Let us hope that all Protestant nations 
 and Japan — just protesting against nearly 
 everything — will stand together, and present 
 such a solid front that Russia, even though 
 hoping to rule all Asia, may hesitate to dis- 
 turb the peace, and be compelled to resort to 
 her lifelong policy of delay and diplomacy 
 and pressure, and thus make room for better 
 agencies than the sword, and time for better 
 principles to obtain the mastery. Sooner or 
 later Russia will reach the warm sea; but she 
 must not have all Asia. She must be checked 
 and held where she is by the Powers till China 
 is Christianized in principles and civilized in 
 fact. The great Protestant nations may use 
 diplomacy to gain time. The last forty years 
 civilized Japan and prepared her to join Eng- 
 land on the side of freedom in the combina- 
 tions against Russia. Seventy-five years more 
 
 75 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 may so transform China as to make her an ally 
 instead of an enemy. Sir Robert Hart regards 
 "China as a menace to the civilized world," 
 and suggests only two remedies, — First, the 
 partition of the Empire among the Powers, a 
 course embarrassed by many difficulties; sec- 
 ond, the miraculous spread of Christianity, a 
 not impossible but scarcely to be hoped-for 
 religious triumph, which would convert 
 China into the friendliest of friendly Powers." 
 We are confronting a crisis. Once in the 
 rapids, the current is swift and the cataract is 
 near and inevitable. When a falling man has 
 slid from a high roof we say, "He is a dead 
 man!" though he has not struck the pavement. 
 The forces are liberated that will kill him. 
 
 With Russia actually occupying Manchuria 
 and fortifying Vladivostok and Port Arthur, 
 with her Siberian railroad finished to warm 
 water, the crisis is actually upon us. There is 
 no time to waste. Our Isthmian Canal at sea- 
 level should be pushed as Russia has pushed 
 her railroads. Our navy, now third in rank, 
 must be brought up speedily to the first rank, 
 and we must hold ourselves ready to master 
 and hold the Pacific. Saxon and Slav are run- 
 ning to get in. The Pacific is the fort. Who- 
 
 76 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 ever gets in, masters the world and stamps the 
 world. It must be free, or despotic for cen- 
 turies. 
 
 If the storm breaks upon the world too sud- 
 denly, and all the other Powers stand back 
 and leave the contest to the English-speaking 
 peoples, we even then can defend our rights, 
 save the world from Russian absolutism, and 
 meet the high obligation thrust upon us by a 
 friendly Providence, provided that we under- 
 stand that the strife is like the old tolke-knife 
 strife of the Swedes, where the contestants are 
 bound together by a rope around their waists, 
 are armed with a stout knife, and fight to the 
 finish, a mortal strife ; provided that we under- 
 stand its decisive character, and have but one 
 argument, and that war to the bitter end; 
 that we have but one plan, and that victory 
 or death; that we have but one purpose, and 
 that the absolute control of the Pacific, cost 
 what it may. With such convictions and pur- 
 pose, we can help Liberty to her last and final 
 triumph, and secure civil and religious free- 
 dom for mankind forever. 
 
 A wise and sleepless Providence has cared 
 for us, even before our cradles were made, 
 and furnished defenses for our use. About 
 
 77 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 the great walled cities of China and Japan 
 I have seen the old deep moats to be 
 flooded for defense. So about the great 
 groups of English-speaking peoples and pos- 
 sessions God has dug and flooded His deep 
 and almost impassable moats. Look at them! 
 The United States, Canada, England, South 
 Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, are pro- 
 tected by God's moats. Some one who fixes 
 the bounds and habitations of the nations in- 
 spired and ordered these Colonies and States 
 and Empires. The channel and the tempest 
 did most to destroy the Spanish Armada. So 
 God has made ready His channels and can 
 easily cut the leashes of storm and tempest 
 about these centers of English-speaking peD- 
 ples, these homes of liberty and Christianity. 
 It is for us merely to use the defenses offered 
 us. This Isthmian Canal, that last possible 
 revolution in the geography of the world, 
 must be put through. We must have a great 
 navy that can offset any navy created by Rus- 
 sia, and so practically neutralize the tens of 
 millions of soldiers possible to Asia. 
 Another Ouv remaining duty is the enlistment 
 ^"'■^" and marshaling of forces that surpass all 
 other forces in the field, the spiritual forces 
 
 78 
 
Missions and Woj'ld Movements. 
 
 of God's Government and Providence. How 
 can I enter this field? Who can venture 
 into the war counsel of the Almighty? God's 
 heart is fixed and His mind is set. He 
 says: "O that there were such an heart in you 
 that you would hear My voice! How can I 
 give you up? The kingdoms of this world 
 shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of 
 His Christ." "Nevertheless I will be inquired 
 of by the house of Israel to do these things." 
 
 We must work and use the human agencies, God 
 but the victory comes only from God. When ^"^^'-^ ^'"' 
 we have come to our limit, God comes i^^- prayer 
 Our extremity is God's opportunity. FsluI of Israel. 
 may plant and Apollos water, but it is God 
 that giveth the increase. 
 
 It is borne in upon me to say to these Pr^^'^r. 
 workers that the time for prayer, agoniz- 
 ing prayer, sacrificing prayer has come. 
 We are only playing with this matter of sav- 
 ing the world. We, as a Church, have not 
 yet straightened our traces on this load. Dur- 
 ing the Civil War we gave in money and in 
 our credit as a nation, an average of one hun- 
 dred dollars a year for each man, woman and 
 child to re-establish this Government and give 
 freedom to three million slaves, whose bodies 
 
 79 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 only were in bondage. Surely virtue, econ- 
 omy, industry, temperance, honest}', must 
 count for something. We must be up to the 
 average. We gave our pro rata share. Surely 
 if this mission work were upon us with the 
 same burden and pressure and grip, we could 
 give as much in cash and credit for the re- 
 establishment of the blessed Government of 
 our God over a lost and revolted world, and 
 to give freedom to a thousand million helpless 
 ones in the direst bondage of both body and 
 soul. That is not impossible. That means 
 that our Methodist Episcopal Church alone, 
 instead of struggling to raise one million and 
 a half in a year, could raise more than three 
 hundred million dollars a year. I know you 
 stagger as I do at these figures; but we have 
 given this, and if we were near enough to the 
 Son of God to hear the broken-hearted sobs 
 and feel the anguish of Gethsemane; if we 
 were near enough to the chiseled rock of Cal- 
 vary to hear that agonizing, heart-breaking 
 cry that rent the veil of the temple, and rent 
 the trembling rocks of that bloody summit, 
 and rent the granite doors of death, and 
 echoed through the universe as if the wrath of 
 the Lamb were driving suns and stars from 
 
 80 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 His presence, that one only cry in all the 
 eternities breaking the infinite heart of God, 
 "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me!" — if we could really hear that cry, we 
 could easily repeat and surpass these old gifts 
 for the war. Even if we gave only one-third 
 of it, what could not be done with one hun- 
 dred million of consecrated and holy money? 
 The world's salvation is reduced to a question 
 of dollars and cents. We have the blood of 
 the atonement. We have the resurrected Son 
 of God. We have the Gospel. We have the 
 experience of saving grace. We have the the- 
 ology. We have hosts of scholarly believers. 
 We have the material agencies. Bibles, presses, 
 steamboats, railroads, translations, grammars, 
 and the open doors of the world,— all the ap- 
 pliances, ready and waiting. All we lack is 
 the money. We have not scratched the sur- 
 face of our possible giving. God pity us! 
 Jesus pleads. He says: "I emptied Myself of 
 the glory I had with the Father before the 
 worlds were made. I had all the wealth of 
 all the worlds, all the fullness of the Godhead 
 bodily; yet, for your sakes, to save you, to 
 save the world, I exchanged the scepter that 
 swayed over all intelligences for the spikes 
 6 8i 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 of a felon's cross, exchanged the songs of the 
 angels for the hooting of the mob, exchanged 
 the unspeakable glory of the Eternal Court 
 for the gloom of a human sepulcher; for your 
 sakes I became so poor that I had not where 
 to lay My head. Now I call upon you to 
 come after Me, to take up your cross and fol- 
 low Me, knowing that if any man have not 
 My Spirit he is none of Mine. Come up to 
 the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord 
 against the mighty!" What is our answer? 
 Our giving is only sixty cents a year. This 
 is no answer. O, Thou sorrowing and dying 
 Son of God, have mercy upon us! Pour Thy 
 Spirit upon us till we count it all joy to give 
 and sacrifice for Thee, till we understand the 
 fellowship of Thy suffering! 
 First Our need is mighty prayer, that our eyes 
 ^^^'^may be opened; that our hearts may be 
 opened; that our pockets may be opened. 
 Our day is passing swifter than a weaver's 
 shuttle. It is borne in upon me that the 
 Son of God is weeping over us as He 
 wept over Jerusalem, saying, "How oft 
 would I have gathered thy children together 
 as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
 wings, and ye would not!" May we awake 
 
 82 
 
Missions and JVorld Movements. 
 
 and pray lest we hear the rest of the sentence, 
 "Behold your house is left unto you desolate!" 
 
 We are within reach of Asia. We can 
 crowd our messengers into China and India. 
 God can yet reach those millions. God can 
 yet give us the liberality necessary to reach 
 and save the seven hundred millions of China 
 and India. These lands are still open. God 
 will hear and answer prayer. My faith looks 
 up to Thee, Thou Lamb of Calvary. 
 
 We must pray mightily for Russia. yV^ There is 
 ought to enter Russia with a great missionarv^^^'^^ 
 
 rr^i 1 11 Russia. 
 
 force. There she stands, blocking the door of 
 the future. As I look at her she seems the 
 greatest field, the most inviting field under 
 the stars. One hundred and forty millions 
 of people, not an effete race, the virile and 
 conquering race of all Asia; most of them free 
 from idolatry, with the open Bible in their 
 hands, and observing the forms of Christian 
 worship; most of them within the reach of 
 Christian altars, lacking the spirit of the gos- 
 pel, lacking the saving power of the gospel, 
 lacking the personal experience of the new 
 life received by faith only in Jesus Christ. 
 Just now, since we last met, the Lord has 
 touched the heart of the Czar, and the doors 
 
 83 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 of Russia have swung back. The hinges set in 
 bigotry for generations, clogged with the rust 
 of centuries, have moved back, pushed by the 
 hand of God. The Czar has ordered univer- 
 sal religious liberty throughout his wide Em- 
 pire. God can bring the spirit of the people 
 up to the liberal edict of the Czar. This field, 
 with the open Bible and with open gates, is 
 white and ready for the reapers. 
 Russia There never was such demand for prayer, 
 J'J^^^^^ prayer, mighty prayer for Russia, that God 
 Saved, will pour out His Spirit upon Russia and call 
 to the minds of that people the Word which 
 He has spoken to them. He can quicken this 
 Word, now lying dormant in their hearts, and 
 sweep over that Empire in miraculous power. 
 God can raise up some Wesley, who will call 
 the dead Greek Church from its sepulcher, 
 and make it stand on its feet. Our high duty 
 is prayer, prayer, prevailing prayer for Rus- 
 sia; prayer that God will arouse the Powers 
 to preserve the integrity of China; prayer that 
 God will put a bit in the teeth of Russia, say- 
 ing, "Thus far mayest thou go, and no 
 farther," till vital godliness shall burn in all 
 Russian hearts; prayer that God will show us 
 these fields and make us feel their greatness; 
 
 84 
 
Missions and World Movemenis. 
 
 prayer that God will inspire within us the 
 spirit of consecrated, abundant giving up to 
 the limit of our ability; prayer that God may 
 display resistless supernatural power in the 
 miraculous spread of the gospel over China; 
 prayer that the gospel may speedily reach and 
 conquer every caste and family of India; 
 prayer that the Holy Ghost may fall upon all 
 the cold altars and upon all the formal and 
 nominal Christians of all Churches, quicken- 
 ing them into spiritual life; prayer, agonizing 
 prayer, that the command of the Son of God 
 to go into all the world may so sink into every 
 professing Christian's heart, that he can find 
 no rest till he is willing to go or send. 
 
 Our God is the living God. He hears and 
 answers prayer. Daniel called upon Him, 
 and the mouths of the lions were closed. He 
 can close the mouth of the Bear. 
 
 Elijah, the Tishbite, stood against Ahab, 
 and said: "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, 
 before whom I stand, there shall not be dew 
 nor rain these years but according to my 
 word." These were heroic words of faith. 
 Such was his faith that the heavens were 
 turned to brass and the earth to drifting dust. 
 This same prophet went up to the top of 
 
 8s 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Carmel, and cast himself down upon the earth, 
 and put his face between his knees, and called 
 upon God for rain. Six times he sent his serv- 
 ant to look toward the sea; but the servant 
 returned, saying, "There is nothing." The 
 heavens were still as brass and the earth as 
 powder. But the old prophet's faith failed 
 not. He held on to God, and sent his servant 
 the seventh time. Then the servant returned 
 and said, "Behold, there ariseth a little cloud 
 out of the sea like a man's hand!" Thus 
 Elijah's prayer closed and opened the win- 
 dows of heaven. His prayer loosed the forces 
 of famine and death, or bound them at his 
 will. The God of Elijah still hears and an- 
 swers prayer. We must go up into the mount 
 of prayer. Already there is a little cloud over 
 Asia like a man's hand. It is possible to make 
 it a mighty flood. It shall be unto us accord- 
 ing to our faith. 
 
 This old record bristles with supernatural 
 power from end to end. It is one long demon- 
 stration that God hears and answers the cry 
 of His children. There is hardly a page that 
 does not display supernatural answer to prayer 
 clear enough to found and vindicate a super- 
 natural Church. We have not forgotten the 
 
 86 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 deliverance of the Hebrew children, Shad- 
 rach, Meshach, and Abednego. They said: 
 *'0 Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to 
 answer thee in this matter. If it be so, if you 
 do cast us into the burning fiery furnace, our 
 God whom we serve is able to deliver us from 
 the burning fiery furnace, and He will de- 
 liver us from out of thine hand, O king. But 
 if not, even if He does not deliver us, we are 
 worth more to burn than for any other pur- 
 pose. But if not, be it known unto thee, O 
 king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor wor- 
 ship the golden image which thou hast set 
 up." The king was wroth. The furnace was 
 heated seven times more than it was wont to 
 be heated. These men were bound in their 
 coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their 
 other garments, and were cast into the midst 
 of the burning fiery furnace. The strong men 
 that cast these men. into the furnace were 
 killed by the flames. But these three men fell 
 down bound into the midst of the burning 
 fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar was 
 astonished. He said: "Did we not cast these 
 three men bound into the midst of the fire? 
 . . . Lo, I see four men loose, walking in 
 the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, 
 
 87 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 and the form of the fourth is like the Son of 
 God." The king called out, "Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the 
 Most High God, come forth and come 
 hither." And the princes, governors, and cap- 
 tains and counselors, saw^ these men, upon 
 w^hose bodies the fire had no power, nor was 
 a hair of their head singed, neither were their 
 coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed 
 on them. (Dan. iii, 16-27.) '^he king said, 
 "There is no other god that can deliver after 
 this sort." But our God can deliver after this 
 sort. He can do it to-day as easily as in the 
 days of these three Hebrew children. He is 
 the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. If 
 we will call upon Him, and refuse to bow 
 down to the gods of Fear and Doubt, and 
 stand up straight for Him, willing to take 
 whatever comes, the form of the fourth, like 
 unto the Son of God, will walk with us 
 through the kindling fires of this world's em- 
 pires, and bring us out without our having 
 our garments changed, without having a hair 
 of our head singed, and without the smell of 
 fire upon us. He hears and answers prayer. 
 Peter was cast into prison and kept for the 
 day of execution. But the little, persecuted 
 
 88 
 
Missions and World Movements. 
 
 Church in the house of John Mark and his 
 mother, Mary, called upon God, and God 
 heard and said to one of His angels: "There 
 is My servant Peter; thrice He denied Me, 
 but now he is in prison for Me. And the 
 little Church there is praying day and night, 
 and asking Me to deliver him. Go and bring 
 him out of prison, and let him go to the Pray- 
 ing Society yonder in Mary's house." Then 
 the angel went down to the prison, and went 
 into the dungeon w^here Peter was chained. 
 He needed no key, for He who gave to the 
 iron its cohesion had sent him, and the bolts 
 recognized the authority of their Maker, and 
 slid back before His messenger. He needed 
 no torch, for his face illumined the dungeon 
 as if a sun had risen in it. He smote Peter 
 on the side, and Peter arose, and the chains, 
 manacles, and shackles fell off, and the dun- 
 geon door stood aside, and the great gate of 
 the outer wall recognized God's angel and 
 rolled back to let him pass. There is nothing 
 difficult for God when His believing children 
 need Him and ask for His help. He did hear 
 and answer the crying little society in Mary's 
 house, and did miraculously deliver Peter. 
 So He will hear this Methodist Church if 
 
 89 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 only we call upon Him, and He will deliver 
 His cause from peril. We are at the parting 
 of the ways. We are in the breach. It is for 
 us, by our works and prayer, to decide. 
 
 Look at Moses yonder on the mountain 
 pleading for Israel. There on the plains 
 stretches the camp of Israel. In the midst of 
 the camp is an altar and the golden calf. 
 Israel is on her face worshiping the calf, and 
 saying: "These be thy gods, O Israel, that took 
 thee by the hand and led thee out of the house 
 of bondage." God's anger is stirred, and he 
 says to Moses : "Go, get thee down to thy peo- 
 ple whom thou hast brought out of Egypt; 
 for, behold, they have corrupted themselves." 
 Moses, poor little Moses, who the other day 
 did not dare to speak even to poor little 
 Pharaoh, now in this hour of destiny stands 
 boldly before his angered God and asks, 
 "Why is Thine anger kindled against Thy 
 people whom Thou broughtest out of the land 
 of bondage?" God said, "Let Me alone that 
 Mine anger may wax hot against them." 
 Moses clung to the very vesture of God, and 
 cried, "Where are Thy promises to Abraham, 
 to Isaac, and to Jacob?" God said, as if to 
 buy him off, "I will make of thee a great 
 
 90 
 
Missions and World Movements, 
 
 people." Moses held fast, crying: "What will 
 the heathen say, that Thou broughtest out 
 Thy people into the wilderness to slay them? 
 If Thy promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and 
 to Jacob fail, blot me out of Thy Book, but 
 spare Israel." The honor of God was 
 touched, and He was held in the grip of heroic 
 sacrifice. He yielded, and Israel was spared. 
 Brothers, what vast responsibilities rest upon 
 us who have the promises of God! If we, as 
 a Church, will rise to the heroism of our crisis, 
 and by believing prayer cry, "O God, have 
 mercy upon us; take our substance according 
 to Thy will, take ourselves for any service, 
 and, if need be, take even our children, but 
 save great Asia, and bring this world into the 
 light and liberty of the gospel!" — if only we 
 will thus pray and give and believe, God will 
 hear us as certainly as he heard Moses. This 
 generation of believers will see the salvation 
 of this generation of sinners, and the king- 
 doms of this world will become the kingdom 
 of our God and of His Christ. 
 
 91 
 
II. 
 
 OUR OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 [This subject was assigned to Bishop Fowler by the Open 
 Door Emergency Commission as the keynote for the Cleveland 
 Missionary Convention, held October 21-24, 1902. This was the 
 first great convention held under the auspices of the Open Door 
 Emergency Commission, and was one of the agencies successfully 
 used for awakening the Church on the subject of missions. This 
 address bore its full share of responsibility in that Convention.] 
 
 Opportunity is power. What we ought 
 to do we caji do. When God opens a door 
 before a people, that is His command to them 
 to enter, and His promise to back them to 
 the extent of His resources. This law under- 
 lies leadership. History is full of the transfer 
 of power from the theoretical leader to the 
 actual leader. In the critical hour the multi- 
 tude stands back. Some man, able to see God 
 and read events, steps forward into the breach ; 
 other men catch his inspiration, gather about 
 him, obeying his order; the good cause is ad- 
 vanced and buttressed; a new figure appears 
 in history, and a new name is found on the 
 scroll of Honor. Whenever a people sees 
 
 92 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 God's beckoning hand, and hears His call, 
 and is obedient to the heavenly vision, then 
 they rise to higher levels, take up heavier bur- 
 dens, achieve greater results, and reap wider 
 harvests for God. But whenever, through 
 fear or selfishness or diversion, they hesitate 
 and doubt, then they see some braver people 
 step to the front and take the place which they 
 might have had. 
 
 The Great Doors of the World are not 
 often swung wide open. God waited many 
 centuries for a Gutenburg or a Columbus; 
 also many centuries for a Luther or a Wesley. 
 Moreover, the Great Doors do not stand open 
 before a man or people long unused. They 
 swing back again. A door opened in the 
 house of Cornelius for Peter to become the 
 Great Apostle to the Gentiles. But Peter 
 feared and turned back toward Judaism, and 
 God called another. He found him on the 
 highway near Damascus, Saul of Tarsus, and 
 sent him "far hence to the Gentiles," and gave 
 him the glory of transforming Christianity 
 from being the religion of a subjugated prov- 
 ince at the foot of the Mediterranean to be- 
 coming the religion of all races over all lands 
 for all ages. 
 
 93 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 It is a great thing to have a Great World 
 Door opened before a man or people. France 
 had a high day of opportunity when Protes- 
 tantism almost reached the throne. Saint Bar- 
 tholomew's massacre shut the door in her face. 
 She staggered back, through centuries of su- 
 perstition and ignorance and cruelty, to the 
 Reign of Terror. So great was the crime of 
 Saint Bartholomew's Day that God has not 
 yet forgiven it. Poor France, glorying in 
 Dreyfus trials, lies like an infected tatter on 
 the threshold of the Twentieth Century. It 
 is a fearful thing to have a Great World Door 
 shut against a people. South America saw 
 the Great Open Door when, in the beginning 
 of the last century, the English flag was un- 
 furled over Montevideo at the mouth of the 
 La Platte. She bid fair to be a great free 
 people, with a steady government and the 
 wealth of a Continent in her hands; but 
 treachery, bribery, and crime hauled down 
 that flag and turned that Continent back to 
 the superstition, and slavery, and cruelty, and 
 robbery of Spain. The hand of the inquisitor 
 sealed up the Continent again. It is a fearful 
 thing to have a Great World Door shut 
 against a people. 
 
 94 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 "Once to everj^ man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
 In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side. 
 
 Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record 
 One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt Old Systems and the 
 
 Word ; 
 Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne; 
 Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and behind the dim unknown 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His 
 
 own." 
 
 God has opened the Great Doors of the 
 World to Methodism, and is beckoning her to 
 enter in and possess the kingdom. These 
 Doors open on every side. We can hardly go 
 amiss. The only chance to miss everything 
 is to stand still in our old tracks. I can re- 
 member when we were praying God to open 
 the lands of heathenism. This prayer has 
 long since been answered. Now we must pray 
 God to send forth laborers into the field where 
 the harvest is already white. But we are es- 
 pecially called upon to consider the fields re- 
 cently opened to us, and new openings in old 
 fields which constitute part of the emphasis 
 put upon our attention in these last three or 
 four years. 
 
 It is difficult wisely to interpret Providence. 
 God writes in such large characters that few, 
 if any, are able to read and accurately inter 
 
 95 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 pret what is written. An Indian carried a 
 chip upon which a Plymouth soldier had writ- 
 ten a message to his family. It was to him a 
 deep mystery that awed him. He carried it 
 with reverence and holy fear. He could not 
 read and understand what was written. But 
 he saw the marks, and knew that the chip 
 would talk to those who could read the writ- 
 ing. Somewhat in this way we see the pur- 
 poses of Providence. We can not accurately 
 interpret his writing upon the sky and in 
 events, but we know that something is there 
 recorded. Some time some revelation of 
 Providence will come. It is for us to know 
 that His will is being written. We must study 
 it as carefully as possible, and do our best to 
 follow its indications. 
 
 In personal decisions it is a simple rule to 
 follow where things open naturally at the 
 seams. This is nature's order to follow the 
 line of least resistance. When events thrust 
 a land up into the center of the field of vision, 
 it is safe to conclude that we are called to look 
 upon it and inspect It. When a child is 
 dropped into the lap of a family, that is a 
 clear indication that God wants that family 
 to care for that child. When a country is 
 
 96 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 dropped into the lap of a people, it is safe to 
 conclude that God wants that people to care 
 for that country. The determining elements 
 are three in a righteous cause, — need, acessi- 
 bility, and ability. Need and accessibility on 
 the part of the people who are to be helped; 
 ability on the part of the people who are to 
 help. When these points are settled, the call 
 is clear; when these three planets are in con- 1 
 junction, that constitutes a call from HeavenJ 
 If God ever entered into our history from 
 the holding of North America for Protestant 
 Christianity to the present hour, it was when 
 He dropped the Spanish Colonies of Porto 
 Rico and the Philippines into our lap. We 
 were perfectly contented with our borders. 
 We were well trained in minding our own 
 business. We had not the slightest idea of 
 ever touching the neighboring islands. We 
 had a great ruler and statesman a generation 
 ago. President Grant, who advised us to buy 
 Cuba and avoid troubles. But we were so 
 bent on avoiding foreign complications that 
 we all cried out against it; all parties vied 
 with each other in abusing him for it. So 
 he said, "If you do not want to provide against 
 trouble, you need not. Only wait." So we 
 7 97 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 sat down again in our contentment, and never 
 expected to sail out of our home waters. We 
 went into Havana Harbor, and slept, and 
 dreamed of peace, when, all unexpectedly, 
 God shook us up. Just as He said to the old 
 prophet, "What do you here? Wake up! 
 Get up! Go!" so, on that awful 14th of Feb- 
 ruary in 1898, the Spanish touched off a mine 
 under the Maine, and we woke up, and got 
 up, and went up. God said, "Up! Go! 
 Everywhere! Stay!" We were blown from 
 Havana to Manila. We hardly knew where 
 we were. Not one in a hundred of our adults 
 even knew where Manila was. Some of us 
 knew that there was some little place where 
 some Manila matting was made. Instead of 
 wanting the Philippines, we hardly knew 
 them when we ran against them on the sea. 
 You remember Mazeppa was bound to a wild 
 horse and turned loose in the desert, and he 
 says: 
 
 "Thus the vain fool who strove to glut . 
 His rage, refining on my pain, 
 Sent me forth to the wilderness. 
 Bound, naked, bleeding and alone, 
 To pass the desert to a throne." 
 
 So the Spaniard "strove to glut his rage," and 
 sent us forth, "bound, naked, bleeding and 
 
 98 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 alone, to pass the desert to a throne." Thus, 
 as of old, Providence rules and overrules, and 
 makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and 
 restraineth the remainder of His wrath, so 
 that all things work together for good to them 
 that love the Lord; to us, if we love Him and 
 keep His commandment; viz., "Go ye into 
 all the world." If ever man or people had 
 greatness thrust upon them, we have been so 
 treated. The explosion under the Maine blew 
 us out of our wornout baby-clothes, blew us 
 up into the whole world, to take up a man's 
 burden and do a man's work. We were not 
 asked whether we wanted to be born or not. 
 We were simply projected into being and told 
 to make the most of it. There are but two 
 gates through which we can escape our re- 
 sponsibilities of being: First, back by the way 
 of inactivity and sluggishness, through the 
 gate of imbecility; second, off to one side by 
 the way of suicide, through the gate of crime. 
 We have hold of the great wheel of being; 
 we can not let go; we must go upward and 
 onward. So we were not asked whether we 
 wanted to take these Spanish Colonies or not; 
 we were simply blown up onto the top of the 
 world, and these Colonies were dropped into 
 
 99 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 our lap, and we are told to make the most of 
 them. 
 
 There are but two ways in which we can 
 escape our responsibilities: First, by putting 
 on a fool's cap and going away back and sit- 
 ting down among the fools, whom Nature dis- 
 likes. They always have to take everybody 
 else's dust. Under the great law of nature, 
 only the fittest survive. Second, by commit- 
 ting hara-kari to make room for somebody 
 else to grow strong, using us as a fertilizer. 
 We do not want the fool's cap, nor are we 
 ready to become mere fertilizer. We have 
 not yet exhausted our Divine initial impulse. 
 Our last train has not yet gone, leaving us be- 
 hind the depot helpless. We are not yet re- 
 duced to work out forms and formulas that 
 once embodied the experiences of living, ad- 
 vancing, heroic souls. We are in the early 
 morning of our workday. Our golden sun of 
 opportunity is just rising in the East, in the 
 Far East. Girding on our armor in the vigor 
 of early manhood, we must go forth to con- 
 quer. 
 
 The Philippines invite us. Yesterday it 
 was a crime to own a Bible or read it, 
 for which heroic men were shot as trait- 
 
 lOO 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 ors or banished as enemies of the Estab- T/ie 
 lished Church. To-day the Bible is free;^^"^'^' 
 there, under a free flag. The exiles, hearing 
 that there is a new flag over the Philippines, 
 are coming back and crowding our services. 
 In Manila alone eleven thousand prisoners, 
 condemned for offenses not known to Free- 
 dom as crimes, have been taken out of the cells 
 and chain-gangs and restored to liberty. Yes- 
 terday, under the union of Church and State 
 in the Spanish rule, neither property, nor 
 family, nor life was safe. So bad was the 
 administration, and so cruel the persecution, 
 that religion became fit to be rejected. It is 
 worse to make religion fit to be rejected than 
 it is afterward to reject it. Account for the 
 situation as we may, the fact remains that the 
 most thoroughly hated creatures in the Philip- 
 pines are the friars. No matter what comes, 
 the Filipinos will not accept the friars. The 
 friars can not return to their churches. Even 
 "Uncle Sam's" bayonets could not make the 
 people tolerate them. An ofiicer asked a 
 prominent man, a Roman Catholic, "How is 
 it that you have so many churches and no 
 priests?" The man said: "We can not bear 
 them; they can not come back. Ten priests 
 
 lOI 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 came back. Where are they? Ten from ten 
 leaves nothing. It would take a standing 
 army to keep them alive here." The Pope 
 and his advisers have made their supreme 
 blunder in the Philippines by keeping the 
 friars there. The islands are now wide open. 
 Multitudes of the people are asking for the 
 simple gospel. The services of a single Sab- 
 bath have, in more than one instance, secured 
 a membership of over one hundred communi- 
 cants, earnest seekers. There are a thousand 
 islands, and millions of people accessible and 
 needy. Their need of the gospel is down to 
 the famine point. They are turning toward 
 Methodism by the thousand. They can not 
 go back. Their past is full of the world's 
 direst spectres. Fortunes absorbed by a mi- 
 serly hierarchy, necessities extorted by merci- 
 less confessors, families desolated by de- 
 bauched hypocrites, — these are the spectres 
 that haunt the past of the Filipinos. The 
 return of the old shepherds, the friars, like 
 sending wolves among sheep, is only driving 
 the people to seek a pure and enlightened 
 faith. The world never before furnished a 
 harvest so white for the reapers. The door is 
 
 102 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 wide open. Our opportunity confronts us; 
 God says, "Give ye them to eat." 
 
 On the other hand, here beckons Porto Rico. 
 It is by our side. It is under our flag. It is 
 inhaling our spirit. It is learning our lan- 
 guage. It begins to think in English. It is 
 expanding under our freedom. It is growing 
 rich on our capital. It is being strengthened 
 by our youth. It has a past seared into their 
 very flesh by the same branding iron that 
 has marked the Filipinos. They are pushed 
 toward us by a tornado of cruelty. It is for 
 us to open before them the broad welcome of 
 a pure and peaceful gospel. Their six or 
 eight principal cities should be seized by us 
 without a month's delay. Our knowable sal- 
 vation and joyous personal experience should 
 be within their reach at once. A million 
 people, in a tropical garden sure to overflow 
 with wealth, call to us. Our own sons, who 
 are being carried there by the tides of trade, 
 demand of us churches and altars and Sunday- 
 schools, where they may be nourished and 
 kept in the faith of their fathers. The policy 
 forced upon us by the indifference of our 
 Church, and the emptiness of our missionary 
 
 103 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 treasury, is a policy of dwarfs and a disgrace 
 to a great people, who could multiply the two 
 or three men we have there by a hundred, and 
 make that island glad with the songs of salva- 
 tion, if only we would open our eyes to the 
 beckoning hands, and our hearts to the call 
 of God. 
 Only a Great and inviting and inspiring as are 
 Fringe, ^-j^ggg ^^^ fields ; vast enough to fire the am- 
 bition and inspire the zeal of every valiant 
 soul ; vast enough to arouse the energies of any 
 slumbering Church; vast as are these new 
 fields, they are only a narrow fringe on the 
 great unwashed heathenism now spread out 
 before the Church. In India and China more 
 than half the human race are ready for evan- 
 gelization. If the great heathen masses now 
 upon the hands of the Church should sit down 
 to an ordinary dinner, and all these new un- 
 gospeled peoples of Porto Rico and of the 
 Philippines should undertake to wait upon 
 them, there would be more than seven hun- 
 dred and fi'fty millions of people that these 
 waiters could never reach. The table, un- 
 served, thickly seated on both sides, would ex- 
 tend across all the continents and over all the 
 seas of the earth. It would reach twice 
 
 104 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 around the globe itself. These are accessible 
 and inviting. These are open doors. Open 
 doors, did I say? No! Not doors! Not 
 measured openings marked on the edges by 
 gaping hinges! Not doors! Here the very 
 sides of the world are taken ofif, so that any- 
 body, coming from anywhere, can come to the 
 center. Here, in these uncovered, exposed 
 hundreds of millions, here are our opportu- 
 nities. 
 
 India is under a safe and stable government. 
 India is penetrated in all directions by the 
 modern modes of travel and communication, 
 so that the available service of the missionary 
 is extended to fifteen hundred years in length. 
 He is able to reach in travel, in his thirty 
 years, as many as he could reach without these 
 appliances in fifteen hundred years. India, 
 by a new and ruling people, Is permeated with 
 the spirit of a new life and new race, and by 
 her presses and publications she multiplies 
 the power and Instruction of her missionaries 
 and teachers a thousand fold, or ten thousand 
 fold. This India, with her hundreds of mil- 
 lions, calls to us. Thousands upon thousands 
 are asking for the Bible, and waiting for the 
 Christian sacraments. In the district of a 
 
 105 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 single presiding elder fifty-five thousand souls 
 have made personal request for baptism, to 
 w^hom the Church can not respond, because 
 she can not find the four dollars a month to 
 feed the readers, "the holders up," to teach 
 these people the Word of God. Here is one 
 of our opportunities. Talk about chances to 
 work in the vineyard! Talk about invest- 
 ments that will pay a hundred per cent! If 
 only the Church would open her eyes! This 
 great opportunity, this great whitening har- 
 vest, has grown up from the long decades of 
 scattering the seed of the kingdom. She has 
 the right of the Divine call to this field; she 
 has the right of original investment. Her 
 duty is measured only by the measure of her 
 abilities. 
 
 These fields must be handled in detail by 
 men who have prayed and toiled over them 
 by the span of their lives, and have given to 
 them the glory of their manhood. I hasten to 
 call your attention to the world's great field — 
 China. 
 Our China is our great opportunity. If God 
 ^''f'^'had undertaken to rivet the attention of the 
 
 Field— . ' 
 
 China. 'World upou China, He could not have 
 done more in this vineyard than He has 
 
 io6 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 done. The uninspired human mind can 
 hardly conceive of a solitary additional mark 
 of emphasis. Every startling thing that we 
 can conceive as suited for such a purpose has 
 been substantially paralleled and set forth be- 
 fore our very eyes. Tell the story of this Di- 
 vine challenge to the world's attention to 
 China in the simplest and most matter-of-fact 
 way, in the plainest prose, and give it to 
 strangers as Homer's "Iliad" and the Old 
 Testament are given to us, and they would say 
 it is a collection of poetical inspirations and 
 ballads sung by wandering minstrels, as some 
 people characterize the epics of Homer; or 
 that it is a collection of myths, as some skep- 
 tics characterize the books of Moses. Do you 
 want hoary antiquity to awaken your vener- 
 ation toward the actors? The principal fig- 
 ure on the stage is the oldest nation of the 
 world, a people that was an ancient people 
 many centuries before there was any Saxon, 
 or Briton, or Gaul, or Goth, or Vandal, or 
 Roman, or Greek; a people that were swarm- 
 ing out of that old hive of the race, Mongolia, 
 and coming down through the Hankow Pass, 
 before Abraham was called, or the Pyramids 
 were built. Do you want long lines of indi- 
 
 107 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 vidual pedigrees to enrich and make the bluest 
 blood known among men? Here you have 
 individual pedigrees that rise in the ages in 
 unbroken line for more than forty centuries. 
 Do you want veneration for learning? Here 
 you have people that have had competitive 
 literary examinations for office for more than 
 four thousand years, and that can to-day fur- 
 nish from a single town more than ten thou- 
 sand competitors for a literary prize. Do you 
 want practical economies and tireless indus- 
 tries? Here you meet a people that can take 
 three crops a year from the same soil and 
 leave it as rich as they found it, and can sup- 
 port in comparative comfort twice as many 
 people to the square mile as are famishing in 
 the valley of the Ganges. Do you want the 
 cumulative interest that inheres in vast num- 
 bers of one genus or race under one govern- 
 ment? Here you have hosts that far exceed 
 the combined hosts of all the Americans, and 
 all the English, and Scotch, and Irish, and all 
 the Germans of the great German Empire, 
 and all the Russians of the vast Russian Em- 
 pire, and all the hosts of all the kindgoms of 
 Europe, all put together. Do you want an- 
 cient and crowded altars, where immortals 
 
 1 08 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 feel after God, if haply they may find Him? 
 Here are faiths old as the race, and single 
 characters worshiped by more people than 
 ever repeated in prayer any other name ever 
 known among men. Surely this Peking trag- 
 edy, on the very top of the world, in the very 
 face of the sun, and before the very eyes of 
 every civilized human being, calls the world's 
 attention to China. God Almighty has struck 
 the world with the hammer of His eternal 
 purpose, to awaken us from our lethargy. He 
 is saying, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and see 
 your task, your burden, your opportunity, and 
 your possible glory!" If any event or series 
 of events in known history may be regarded 
 as Providential, surely we are safe in so re- 
 garding the recent events in China. 
 
 The deep needs of China constitute her 
 strongest claim. As a mother gives her clos- 
 est attention to her sickest child, turns from 
 her prattling darlings to the one struggling 
 for life in the grip of the fever, feeling that 
 that one needs her most, so the great heart of 
 God yearns most tenderly over China on ac- 
 count of her fierce and threatening maladies, 
 her extreme necessities. 
 
 This man in his delirium dismisses his phy- 
 109 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 sicians, drives away his nurses, and pitches his 
 medicine into the sewer. This spasm of en- 
 ergy does not demonstrate that he does not 
 need medicines and nurses and physicians. It 
 rather demonstrates that he has the greatest 
 possible need of them. The worst type of sin, 
 the most perilous condition of the sinner, is 
 that described in the Scriptures as being 
 "seared as with a hot iron." When a man is 
 contented in his depravity, then he has gone 
 beyond the ordinary redemptive agencies. 
 Then God must hasten after him the strongest 
 angels of His afflicting Providence, and strike 
 him where he lives. So it is also with nations, 
 and peoples, and races. China has many signs 
 of this extreme lostness, this seared numbness. 
 Her conceit and vanity and ignorance shut 
 out the truth, eclipse the Sun of Knowledge, 
 and wall up the gates of Progress. She has 
 been so contented with herself that nothing 
 better could be desired. Her teachers declare 
 her "moral code the best human mind can 
 formulate;" all classes believe this as firmly 
 as we believe in the law of gravitation. It 
 is to them as certain as any law of nature. 
 One of their great emperors, a thousand years 
 ago, said, "The teaching of the Sages is 
 
 no 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 adapted to the Chinese as water is adapted to 
 fish." The relation of the Chinese to the 
 Sages is that of fish to water: when one dries 
 up, the other dies. It is taught to the people 
 that foreigners come from a remote and bar- 
 ren and narrow corner of the earth, where 
 they can produce neither tea-leaves nor rhu- 
 barb. Without tea-leaves they have nothing 
 to drink; without rhubarb they are absolutely 
 unable to digest their food. They spread 
 upon their fans maps of the world in which 
 China covers four-fifths of the fan, and the 
 other fifth is assigned to the English, French, 
 and Mohammedans. Their defenses are 
 strengthened by the wooden shutters in the 
 windows over their city gates, as these are 
 decorated with paintings representing the 
 muzzles of cannon. One sees on the sides of 
 their boats, near the prows, painted eyes. Sit- 
 ting on the deck of a house-boat, going up the 
 Peiho one day, I let my limbs hang over the 
 side of the boat. They hung over their 
 painted eyes. Soon the boatmen refused to 
 pull because the boat could not see where 
 to go. ^ 
 
 The ruling spirit over China is the dragon, fun^ 
 It is active in the Fung Schui; this means the*^'^*"'' 
 
 III 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 spirit of the earth, the sea, and the air. It is 
 the embodiment of all superstition. One of 
 the great departments of government is this 
 department of Fung Schui ; it has a great Sec- 
 retary in Government Council, like the Secre- 
 tary of State or of War. Its business is to fix 
 upon lucky days for all the movements and 
 actions of the emperor, and of all others down 
 to the poorest coolie; it fixes the places for 
 graves, for houses, for windows, for chimneys, 
 for everything, everywhere. It has a service 
 ramified throughout the Empire. Nothing 
 goes on without the approval of these officers, 
 which is secured by fees. On one of our 
 buildings that once stood in the old Com- 
 pound in Peking, I saw a short chimney, per- 
 haps ten inches above the roof. It was cut ofif 
 by the Fung Schui. One of the Fung Schui 
 officers told a man, whose door was just oppo- 
 site this chimney when it was the size of the 
 other chimneys, that unless that chimney was 
 shortened he would never have any male chil- 
 dren. So our people cut down the chimney 
 rather than have it taken down by a mob. 
 This ignorance and superstition is only 
 equaled by their conceit. They despise and 
 dislike all who arc not Chinese. They do not 
 
 112 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 want contact with the foreign devils. It was 
 a great triumph of diplomacy when an em- 
 bassy was received by China from the United 
 States. President Polk, in the late forties, 
 sent John W. Davis as our Minister to China, 
 and the President informs "his great and good 
 friend," the emperor, that Mr. Davis is to 
 bear good wishes to him and ''be near Your 
 Majesty." It is instructive to know that Mr. 
 Davis was received at Canton, and kept there 
 with all other diplomats, about a thousand 
 miles from Peking. No profane person must 
 ever approach the emperor. 
 
 This dislike of all foreigners is equaled by 
 their utter lack of patriotism, the religion of 
 the State, and their deadness to public inter- 
 est. In the war with Japan, torpedoes were 
 placed in the Minn River for the protection 
 of Foochow. When the war was over and 
 the torpedoes were removed, it was found that 
 some one had filled the torpedoes with coal 
 dirt and ashes, and had kept the money fur- 
 nished for powder. War vessels sent for the 
 defense of Shanghai were found to be useless 
 because the officers had sold off the new can- 
 non and rapid-firing guns, and had substituted 
 wooden guns. 
 
 8 113 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 There was pointed out to me a man who 
 had a contract to clean out a certain long 
 sewer in Foochow that had long been utterly 
 filled. The officers went to inspect the work. 
 The contractor was required to go through 
 the sewer, entering at one end and coming out 
 at the other. He entered the sewer, and 
 started through it. The officers walked 
 through the street over the sewer, and looked 
 for the man to come out at the other end of 
 the sewer. In a few moments the officers saw 
 him come out. They were satisfied, and paid 
 over the money. They did not observe that 
 it was the contractor's brother who came out 
 of the sewer. The government and officials 
 were beaten, and nobody cared. 
 
 Some English officers practicing on a gun- 
 boat on the Yang-tse, accidentally knocked a 
 hole in the wall of one of the cities along the 
 river. They were alarmed, and asked a man- 
 darin — i. e., an officer, who was on the gun- 
 boat with them — how they could settle the 
 matter. They did not care to be dismissed by 
 England. The mandarin said, "That is easy. 
 Settle anything in China with cash." The 
 officers chipped in eight hundred taels, about 
 a thousand dollars, and sent the mandarin 
 
 114 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 ashore to settle. At night he returned saying, 
 "It is all settled, all right." The officers were 
 pleased. Some time afterward the officers 
 learned that the mandarin called the princi- 
 pal men of the town together, and told them 
 that unless they gave him two thousand taels 
 by four o'clock, he would have their city lev- 
 eled with the ground. They raised the money, 
 and he returned happy. The deep want of 
 such a people can not be measured. The very 
 foundations of the moral government must be 
 laid in them. 
 
 The depravity and lostness of China SLrecodisthe 
 far beyond any civilized human conception. ^"^-^ 
 Unaided by the Lord, no human faith and 
 ability could handle such a problem. But 
 God's ways are not like our ways. He does 
 not look for our righteousness; He knows that 
 that is filthy rags. He does not feel for our 
 strength; He knows that that is perfect weak- 
 ness. God simply asks, Do we need Him? 
 Our utter helplessness is the prevailing cry 
 that pierces His ear. When we owe ten thou- 
 sand talents and have nothing to pay, then He 
 is drawn by the magnetism of our lostness, 
 and freely forgives us all. When we are 
 naked and famine-stricken, and look toward 
 
 IIS 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Him, then He meets us afar off, puts upon us 
 the robe and the ring, and hugs us into patri- 
 mony and sonship. The most startling cry 
 that ever rang through the universe since the 
 agonizing wail on Mount Calvary is the con- 
 centrated cry going up out of the unmeasured 
 need of China. It has the lungs of an al- 
 mighty want. It pierces the ear of God, and 
 it penetrates the deepest recesses of His ach- 
 ing heart. It drives the tides of His redeem- 
 ing mercy over the shoreless ocean of His in- 
 finite love. It is this bottomless wretchedness 
 of China that extorts the agonizing command 
 from the purple lips of God, "Go ye into all 
 the world." 
 China's China combines all difficulties. Chris- 
 .^^^f tianity enters a country, challenging every 
 ,Vj. superstition and defying all the false gods. 
 She has no compromise. She can not sit 
 down in any Pantheon. Everything must 
 yield to her. When the Ark of the Covenant 
 enters a temple all the idols must fall on their 
 faces and go into fragments. She can not ac- 
 commodate herself to ancestral worship. 
 While she says, "Honor thy father and thy 
 mother," she can not for one moment tolerate 
 the worship of father and mother. She can 
 
 Ii6 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 not help support the feasts and theatrical per- 
 formance for the honor or support of idolatry. 
 She can hardly take a step in any direction 
 that she does not antagonize some superstition. 
 It is not strange that her representatives 
 should soon be marked as enemies to the con- 
 victions of the common people. It is only 
 natural that persecution should mark the his- 
 tory of every advance of Christianity. It is 
 to the glory of our mission work in China 
 that China is no exception to this law. 
 
 This hostility has been greatly increased by 
 the assumptions and political ambitions of the 
 Roman Catholic officials. Their bishops have 
 assumed the rank of princes. They are car- 
 ried by four bearers dressed like the bearers 
 of high State officials. They demand the 
 same public consideration. They have estab- 
 lished in every principal mission center a 
 court for hearing and determining all cases 
 where their members are concerned. The 
 perversity and crookedness of Chinese justice 
 Is so marked and general that this extra-terri- 
 torial jurisdiction seems necessary. The 
 Church naturally secures the services of men 
 best versed In Chinese law to manage these 
 cases. As wild ducks will soon learn the line 
 
 117 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 near towns where shooting is prohibited, and 
 seek shelter within these lines, so the natives, 
 especially needing immunity from the execu- 
 tion of justice, soon drift into these refuges, 
 and conform to the required ceremonies for 
 the needed immunity. Thus this imperium 
 in imperio soon becomes a center of irritation. 
 Officers prevented from punishing criminals 
 come to regard these asylums for criminals as 
 dangerous bandits, menaces to the good order 
 of the State. Thus it happens that, in the set- 
 tlement of the most alarming extremities to 
 which the Boxer riots brought the Chinese 
 Government, one of the six items insisted upon 
 by the Chinese in the settlement was, that the 
 Christian Churches should not admit to, and 
 retain in their folds, notoriously bad char- 
 acters. Slow to distinguish between foreign- 
 ers, as we may be slow to distinguish between 
 the Chinese of different provinces, or between 
 different individual Chinese men, the people 
 looked upon all foreigners as under the same 
 condemnation. The causes of irritation being 
 always present, a possible outburst was always 
 a standing menace. 
 
 In the face of all this prolonged irritation 
 came a pressure from the Great Powers that 
 
 ii8 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 was too heavy not to produce wide results. 
 The greed and aggressiveness of the Powers 
 was urged by most imperative motives, the 
 struggles for supremacy and almost for exist- 
 ence. When your Ohio and Pennsylvania 
 men laid pig-iron and steel rails down in 
 Liverpool and Berlin and Paris at a profit, 
 you opened the eyes of the Powers. They 
 must have cheap coal or go to the rear and 
 yield commercial supremacy to the United 
 States. Hence the almost simultaneous rush 
 for the control of the great coal-fields of 
 China. Your furnaces made it hot for China 
 more than did our missionaries. The Boxer 
 troubles were only the foam on the surface of 
 a great undercurrent of mightiest forces. 
 Russia became possessed of Port Arthur, with 
 a sphere of influence embracing Manchuria 
 and reaching well down toward Peking, as 
 an objective point from which the practical 
 supremacy of Russia over China was to be 
 secured. Germany was reaching out over 
 Shantung. France was closing her hands over 
 the three provinces of Kwangsi, Yunnan, and 
 Kweichow, with a greed that stretched far 
 across the Continent to Szechuen. England 
 from Shanghai, where she widened her hold- 
 
 119 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ings, extended her sphere of influence up the 
 Yang-tse Valley. Japan, from her footing on 
 the Island of Formosa, counted upon the con- 
 trol of the Fukien Province, which fronted 
 Formosa. Even Italy, with only a germ of 
 possible commerce, wanted Sanmoon Port and 
 the Che-kiang Province. Only one real and 
 suitable port was to be left to China herself. 
 Twenty great railroads, backed by rich con- 
 cessions and padded with Chinese capital, 
 were projected throughout the Chinese Em- 
 pire; from the borders of Siberia to the bor- 
 ders of Tibet, and down to the tropical forests 
 of Burmah. Fifteen of the eighteen provin- 
 cial capitals were thus made tributary to the 
 foreigners. The public and world-wide dis- 
 cussion of "The Partition of China," "The 
 IBreaking Up of the Chinese Empire," and 
 such themes, quite extensively translated for 
 Chinese officials and filtered into the Chinese 
 convictions, made a nightmare too heavy and 
 alarming for the continued slumber of the 
 heathen giant. He groaned and rolled on his 
 hard bed, and started to his feet in alarm. He 
 looked about him for some way of escape or 
 defense, for something tangible to strike. 
 A vast literary anti-Christian propaganda 
 
 120 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 was put in motion, consisting of books, 
 pamphlets, placards, and illustrated sheets 
 called "The Picture Gallery," repeating and 
 multiplying the popular calumnies against the 
 Christians, parodying the doctrines, giving 
 deformed fragments of Brahmanism, Bud- 
 dhism, Mohammedanism, and the teachings 
 of the secret sects of China, with a profuseness 
 of vileness in illustration only possible to an 
 imagination steeped in the pollution of sixty 
 centuries of heathen licentiousness. These 
 were multiplied by the million, and given to 
 all who would take them. Printing and cir- 
 culating them was a work of merit. With 
 these were sent lists and statements of the mas- 
 sacres of Christians, and wild appeals to the 
 people to kill the foreign pig-goat devils, and 
 wipe out the devil's religion. The magazine 
 was widely and deeply laid under the Em- 
 pire. It only awaited a spark. That spark 
 came from headquarters. 
 
 In 1898, three years after the Japanese war, 
 the emperor entered upon a career of reform, 
 never surpassed in any country or government, 
 and hardly equaled by the revolutions 
 wrought by Peter the Great in Russia, or by 
 the Emperor of Japan in 1867. The disasters 
 
 121 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 inflicted by little Japan compelled many ad- 
 vanced men in China to reflect; among them 
 the emperor was awakened to the situation. 
 As the Czar said after the Crimean War, 
 "Russia does not sulk, she meditates;" so the 
 Emperor of China did not sulk, but he medi- 
 tated. He was profoundly impressed with 
 the antiquated and factitious condition of the 
 Empire. He began a most astonishing series 
 of Imperial Edicts to clear away the efifete 
 customs and useless appliances of the govern- 
 ment. He forbade all extortion in raising 
 money, and asked for a loan to which no one 
 should subscribe unless he wanted so to invest 
 his money. He asked the viceroy to recom- 
 mend men the best qualified for foreign min- 
 isters, regardless of rank. He started to re- 
 organize the army after the best Western 
 models, and arm them with modern arms. 
 He said: "Our scholars are now without solid 
 practical education; our artisans are without 
 scientific instructors. Does any one think, in 
 our present condition, that he can really say, 
 with any truth, that our men are as well- 
 drilled and as well-led as those of any of the 
 foreign armies, or that we can successfully 
 stand against any of them?" He abolished 
 
 122 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 the literary essay as the standard for literary 
 examinations. He ordered the establishment 
 of a National University, with colleges in the 
 provinces as feeders. He ordered that West- 
 ern science should be counted in examination 
 for literary degrees, and foreign teachers were 
 to be employed to teach the sciences. The 
 temples, except those built as memorials, 
 should be kept for schools for the new learn- 
 ing. All this, and the complete revolution 
 of the Empire from the old, obsolete customs 
 to the new practical training, suited to modern 
 times, and more, was promulgated. The na- 
 tion was surprised and almost breathless. But 
 there was a large minority of the scholars that 
 were ready to welcome the new life. In al- 
 most every provincial capital and open port 
 book depots were established for the supply 
 of standard literature; books, educational, sci- 
 entific and religious, magazines and news- 
 papers, were published and circulated, lec- 
 tures were delivered, and libraries started. 
 Prejudices were broken down, and hatred was 
 overcome. The movement was leavening the 
 thought and molding the minds of the upper 
 classes. Even in the remote capital of Hsi 
 An Fu books were purchased by all classes, 
 
 123 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 from the governor to the humblest scholar. 
 The literati embraced the new learning. The 
 aristocracy formed classes, and invited for- 
 eigners to give them '^the light of their learn- 
 ing." Foreigners were invited to visit the 
 Confucian colleges, and publicly explain the 
 secret of the success and the source of the en- 
 ergy of the Christian nations. The emperor 
 said he was seeking to bring China upon a 
 level with the great Western nations, and 
 asked his people to sympathize with the move- 
 ment and hear the foreign teachers. Every- 
 thing was moving forward toward the regen- 
 eration of China. Deliverance from the old 
 order and from the old superstitions was at 
 the door. The long campaign of the mission- 
 aries seemed about to reach glorious victory. 
 Suddenly we confront the fiercest opposition 
 and most bloody persecution of modern times. 
 The struggle for the regeneration of China 
 was a part of the Irrepressible Conflict. The 
 great enemy is not dead. He never willingly 
 abandons one inch of his territory. He must 
 be driven back at the hardest, either in the in- 
 dividual heart, or in the field of the world. 
 Every advance of the forces of righteousness 
 awakens Satan's activity. The conquest of the 
 
 124 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 world is the subjugati'on of a rebellious prov- 
 ince in the moral government. Whenever we 
 see the Church putting on her strength and 
 beauty we must expect to encounter the forces 
 of evil at their worst. 
 
 The Scriptures declare this strife against Z)^w;o«j- 
 the Powers of Darkness. The Powers of '^^''!^*'*" 
 
 . . . , . sessions. 
 
 Darkness have long had dommion m this 
 world. It was not all a pretense of the devil 
 when he offered all the glory and power of 
 the kingdoms of this world to the Savior if 
 He would bow down and worship him. The 
 conflict of the ages has been to overthrow him. 
 Whenever there has been any special move- 
 ment among the forces of righteousness, there 
 has been special demonstration among the evil 
 forces. 
 
 At the time of Moses, when Israel was to 
 be delivered from bondage and the law was 
 to be revealed to them, the priests of the 
 Egyptians wrought wonders in opposition to 
 the miracles of Moses and Aaron. Their rods 
 were changed into serpents like to the rod of 
 Aaron, and they were confounded only when 
 Aaron's serpent swallowed their serpents. 
 The priests of Baal were willing to test au- 
 thority with Elijah, and surrendered only 
 
 125 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 when fire came down from heaven m answer 
 to Elijah's prayer. Whenever there has been 
 a special advance in revelation, then the devil 
 has been ready with a counter movement. 
 
 In New Testament times demoniacal pos- 
 sessions were common. Everjrvvhere Jesus 
 went He encountered these enemies. They 
 recognized His character and mission. They 
 would cry out, "I know Thee; Thou art the 
 Son of the living God." 
 
 At the marked turns in the life of Jesus He 
 had special conflicts with the devil. When 
 He reached the turn in His earthly career, 
 when He went into His divine mission and 
 was entering upon His ministry, then He was 
 led away into the wilderness by the Spirit, to 
 be tempted of the devil. 
 
 When His work was well advanced, so He 
 could send out The Seventy to preach His 
 presence and power, the disciples returned 
 saying, "Even the devils are subject to us in 
 Thy name." That was a great forward move- 
 ment, — the powers of the spiritual kingdoms 
 could be handled by men. The Kingdom of 
 Darkness could now be overthrown. Men, 
 mortal men, had become so matured in spirit- 
 
 126 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 ual warfare that even the devils must yield 
 to them, must make way for them. Jesus 
 counted that a great victory. He said, "I be- 
 held Satan falling like lightning from 
 heaven." Once when Jesus prayed, "Father, 
 glorify Thy name," then there came a voice 
 from heaven saying: "I have both glorified it, 
 and will glorify it again. . . . Now is 
 the judgment of this world, now shall the 
 prince of this world be cast out." (John xii, 
 28-31.) 
 
 It is the old law, whenever and wherever 
 a great spiritual work is being wrought, there 
 the devil marshals his forces. We have many 
 of us witnessed the same thing. When a thor- 
 ough work of grace breaks out in a commu- 
 nity, there the devil stirs up his emissaries. 
 Something is started to divert the public mind 
 and take the attention and time of people who 
 might otherwise be reached by remedial agen- 
 cies. When John Wesley's young preachers 
 reported their efforts, he would ask, "Any- 
 body converted?" "No." "Anybody seek- 
 ing?" "No." "Anybody mad?" "No." 
 "Then you need not go again." When the 
 Church moves in earnest, then Satan bestirs 
 
 127 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 himself. When you see the devil putting 
 forth great and unusual effort, then know that 
 God's forces are in motion. 
 
 When Christianity is introduced into a 
 heathen country with power, then the devil 
 comes to the public attention and m.en seem 
 to act as if possessed of the devil, act as they 
 did in New Testament times. 
 
 When the Baptists went into Burmah, and 
 that remarkable work of grace was started, 
 their missionaries encountered the same oppo- 
 sition; they acted as they did of old when 
 possessed of the devil. In the Foochow Con- 
 ference, when I held it sixteen years ago, 
 there were demonstrations of evil possession 
 similar to those recorded in the New Testa- 
 ment. It had been the greatest year the mis- 
 sion had ever had. I spent two days with in- 
 terpreters, examining the native preachers 
 concerning these strange phenomena. They 
 corresponded almost exactly with statements 
 of the New Testament. When a case developed 
 to disturb a society or its members, the pastor 
 would call the presiding elder and the official 
 men together to pray over the victim. They 
 would pray in the name of Jesus, and order 
 
 128 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 the evil spirit to depart, and the spirit would 
 depart, and the victim would be quiet, clothed 
 and in his right mind. I will give one of 
 many cases. A woman, whose husband was 
 an earnest Christian, came with him into the 
 church as a seeker. Her mother died. She 
 wanted a heathen funeral. The husband 
 wanted a Christian funeral. She became vio- 
 lent, smashed up the furniture, and could not 
 be restrained. The man sent for a cousin of 
 the woman. This cousin was a professional 
 wrestler, a man of enormous size and strength. 
 She said to her husband: "I know what you 
 have done; you have sent for my cousin; he 
 is coming, I see him over the mountain. He 
 will be here in about an hour. You see what 
 I will do to him." She was a small woman, 
 not weighing ninety pounds; the wrestler was 
 a giant and trained in rough-and-tumble 
 wrestling. When he came in, she seized him 
 and doubled him up, and threw him out of 
 the house and over the wall. The pastor and 
 official members came together and prayed 
 over her, and ordered the evil spirit out of 
 her, in the name of Jesus, and she was quiet 
 from that hour. It is the irrepressible con- 
 9 129 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 flict running through all the ages. The Boxer 
 troubles are only another manifestation of the 
 same old hostility. 
 
 Groups of girls from twelve to twenty, the 
 time when, according to Chinese customs and 
 all common sense, girls need especial seclu- 
 sion and care, dressed in red throughout, 
 going to the temples to exercise in the Boxers' 
 drill, with low men of the ruder sort, singing 
 their incantations till they are wild, crying 
 "Kill! kill!" and clutching swords and any 
 weapons, and trying to kill anybody within 
 reach, — these groups running from village to 
 village, among an ignorant or superstitious 
 people, are firebrands well calculated to 
 spread the excitement. It is not strange that 
 they proved good instruments for Satan's use. 
 When the Boxers under their excitement had 
 passed through the trance state, they believed 
 themselves invulnerable to sword, or spear, or 
 bullet. This superstitious acceptance of the 
 supposed supernatural spirit operated power- 
 fully upon all classes. Even the Empress 
 Dowager, in the great Council of her Princes, 
 maintained that these trained Boxers were in- 
 vulnerable to bullet, or sword, or spear. 
 Prince Yuan said: "Yesterday I saw the 
 
 130 
 
Our Opportunity, 
 
 ground before the Legation defenses thickly 
 strewn with dead bodies of their leaders. It 
 is impossible that they are invulnerable." She 
 interrupted him, saying, "The bodies you saw 
 must have been not Boxers, but outlaws." 
 This infection, with such indorsement, spread 
 rapidly. Crime became the instinct. The 
 people, especially the lower classes, had a de- 
 lirium of cruelty and slaughter. It might be 
 called a general demoniacal possession. Satan 
 reigned supreme. The objective point of his 
 campaign was the death of all Christians and 
 the utter wiping out of all Christianity. 
 
 The Reform Edicts made by the Emperor 
 made him the center of a work of righteous- 
 ness. He was calling about him advance men. 
 The old conservative men were being retired 
 and dismissed. This compacted them about 
 the Empress Dowager. The emperor knew 
 the opposition he had to overcome. He was 
 aware of the machinations of the Empress 
 Dowager. He relied upon one of his generals 
 (Yuan Shik Kai), at the head of twelve thou- 
 sand five hundred soldiers, who had been 
 drilled by a German master, and were the 
 most reliable of all the soldiers, to keep the 
 Empress Dowager in her palace. But his 
 
 131 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 general betrayed him. The Empress Dow- 
 ager assembled her powerful relatives, and 
 demanded the abdication of the emperor. 
 
 The aggressions of the powers trying to 
 partition China inspired the conservatives, 
 and gave them powerful arguments, and 
 alarmed the progressive friends of the em- 
 peror. In the critical hour he was deserted. 
 The conservatives came to the front. The 
 Empress Dowager seized the emperor's sig- 
 net ring, the emperor was imprisoned; the 
 advance men were chased out of China or 
 killed; the edicts for reform were neutralized, 
 the enemies of the foreigners were placed in 
 power; the Boxers were encouraged by the 
 Empress Dowager; the missionaries were 
 killed or driven to places of refuge, their 
 native converts were butchered, and the clock 
 of Chinese progress was stopped for a season. 
 But only for a season. As one of the advisers 
 of the emperor, with five noble, able, and pa- 
 triotic young companions, was seized and exe- 
 cuted, he said, "We can easily be slain, but 
 multitudes of others will arise to take our 
 places." The day of their execution, Septem- 
 ber 28, 1898, will yet be celebrated by the 
 
 132 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 patriots of redeemed China as the "Day of 
 the Six Martyrs." 
 
 The disturbances and Boxer persecutions 
 furnish some most encouraging signs. As the 
 demons, when ordered out of their victims by 
 the Savior, would sometimes tear and wound 
 their victims before coming out, so this de- 
 lirium of rage indicates the pressure of great 
 spiritual power, that precipitates and inten- 
 sifies the conflict. Satan, seeing that his reign 
 is short, rages. We can see that the forces of 
 righteousness are neither dead nor sleeping. 
 Already signs of hope are seen in the earth, 
 and streams of light are illumining the East- 
 ern sky. The strong hand of the Christian 
 nations has been felt. As the emperor in a 
 critical and decisive council^ of the Chinese 
 princes, protesting against the policy of the 
 Empress Dowager and the Conservatives, 
 cried out, "If China is to fight the world, will 
 it not put an end to China?" The greatness 
 of the Powers has been felt. The conviction 
 of the emperor has taken possession of the 
 people; their feelings are greatly changed. 
 
 The experiences that followed the Sepoy 
 mutiny may have been repeated. There, be- 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 fore the war, the lowest servants could insult 
 a foreigner; but after the victories of General 
 Havelock it was impossible to mass enough 
 natives to resist a single squad of British sol- 
 diers. Dr. Butler was in the Great Bazaar 
 in Calcutta; it was crowded with throngs of 
 natives. Two British soldiers entered the Ba- 
 zaar, when the natives fled in utmost terror. 
 In a moment they had all vanished. Half a 
 century has failed to resuscitate the old, inso- 
 lent spirit. So it is now in China. Before 
 the capture of Peking, the flight of the Im- 
 perial family and court, and the punishment 
 of the Boxer leaders, children or coolies were 
 bold to insult foreign pig-goat devils ; but now 
 a great change has come over them, a great 
 light has shone in upon those who sat in dark- 
 ness. Before the fall of the Boxers the word 
 "foreign" was so odious that it had to be taken 
 off from every article of commerce or trade 
 that could not be dispensed with. Foreign 
 drilling had to be called "fine cloth," foreign 
 Sacrifice, riflcs "knobbcd guns," foreign matches "quick 
 fire;" foreign things that were indispensable 
 had to be rechristened. After the capture the 
 Chinese were eagerly and ostentatiously seek- 
 ing and wearing foreign clothes; all classes 
 
 134 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 learned the military salute; the small children 
 performed it before every one passing by. 
 
 There is a still deeper and more abiding in- 
 fluence working among the people of all 
 classes. The age-long argument of sacrifice, 
 that has never been unhitched from its legit- 
 imate conclusion, results in lifting China to 
 higher levels. It is still true, as in the days 
 of Roman emperors, that the blood of the 
 martyrs is the seed of the Church. The lives 
 and deaths of the native Christians were ex- 
 hibited before men and angels. The native 
 Christians were not considered by the foreign 
 soldiers in Peking as any part of their charge. 
 No provision was made for their protection 
 or safety. True they were butchered at sight 
 everywhere, but the foreign officials did not 
 assume or feel any responsibility for them. 
 The missionaries threw over them their shield, 
 and made room for them in the sacred inclos- 
 ures of the Legation grounds. It was soon 
 found that they were not like other Chinese. 
 While heathen servants fled on the approach 
 of danger, these men and women staid by 
 their friends. They took their turn by the 
 loopholes with the guns. They stood guard 
 in dangerous places. They toiled in all kinds 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 of hard service without a murmur. They 
 made the continuance of the defense possible ; 
 even the Japanese heartily commended them, 
 and the common soldiers felt that some great 
 change had been wrought in them. It became 
 a general conviction that, unless these had 
 staid within the Legation defenses, none had 
 been saved. 
 
 The fidelity of the native Christians is a 
 world-wide wonder. Some servants sent away 
 to places of safety, returned on the eve of a 
 riot, saying simply, "I heard that you were to 
 be attacked to-night, and I thought I ought to 
 be here to help you." When missionaries had 
 been robbed and were destitute, in the midst 
 of murderous enemies, the native Christians 
 would hunt them up and give them what 
 money they had, one saying, "As long as I 
 have anything, of course I will share it with 
 you." A native Baptist Christian in Shansi 
 was taken to see the missionaries die. As they 
 approached their hiding-place, though certain 
 it would cost him his life, he cried out, giving 
 warning to his pastor, and was instantly struck 
 down. The manner in which the native 
 Christians endured torture and met death was 
 a perpetual surprise to their persecutors. 
 
 136 
 
Our Opportunity, 
 
 Converts gave the greatest testimony; teacher 
 Lieu, of Fenchou Fu, sat quietly fanning him- 
 self as he was expecting the murderers, and he 
 met them and death with a smile. 
 
 When the Boxers visited a village they or- 
 dered the people to point out the Christians, 
 and this was promptly done to save them- 
 selves. The Christians were set off by them- 
 selves by heathen neighbors who were either 
 afraid to befriend them or willing to share in 
 the loot. Then the Christians would gather 
 at their little chapels. The Boxers would sur- 
 round them and press in upon them, and the 
 murderers would offer them life if they would 
 deny Jesus or bow to the idols. There they 
 are, Christians, men, women and children, all 
 crowded together. Look at them. There they 
 stand; the little girls are clinging to their 
 mother; the Boxers bind the father and say, 
 "Deny Jesus or we will kill you." The father 
 shakes his head; the mother cries, "Spare my 
 children." A rough, bloody man, with a 
 knife in his hand, seizes a little girl twelve 
 years old, and tears her away from her mother. 
 She springs for her darling. The man asks, 
 "Will you deny? Will you deny?" She 
 cries, "O Lord Jesus, help; I can not deny." 
 
 137 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 The brute tramples the little thing under his 
 feet, rips open her body, tears out the still 
 beating heart, crowds it into the mother's 
 mouth, saying, "If you will not deny your 
 Jesus, take that!" The fiends cut and slash 
 the crying children while the parents say, 
 "Lord, help and save." The mother is 
 knocked down and dragged around by the 
 fiends before the helpless husband and father, 
 who prays, "Lord Jesus, receive us while we 
 witness for Thee, Thy humble servants." They 
 bind him to a post and hack away his flesh 
 little by little. He stands before his tortured 
 and murdered family and dies saying, "Lord 
 Jesus, have mercy on them, and help them to 
 see Thee and Thy truth." A single word 
 would have saved his children and his wife 
 and his own life, but he would not utter that 
 word. It was not strange that these perse- 
 cutors should, as was often done to others, cut 
 out this man's heart and examine it to find the 
 secret of his heroism and devotion. 
 
 Jesus Christ is preached in tJiat village, and 
 will be forever; He is there in person; it is 
 not possible for Him to be absent when His 
 heroic children are bearing such testimony 
 and are ascending to the martyr's throne. 
 
 138 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 Hear Him say, "Lo, I am with you ahvay, 
 even unto the end of the world." I can see 
 Him crowding past the murderers, soothing 
 into numbness the nerves of the little girl and 
 her mates, giving infinite comfort to the 
 mother as she sees Him soothing her darlings; 
 and I see Him steadying the courage of the 
 father as he opens before him and his family 
 heaven and eternal blessedness, and whispers 
 to him, "It is granted unto you and yours to 
 enter into My sufferings, and to make up 
 something of My sufferings that are behind 
 in the world's redemption." 
 
 This sacrifice was repeated in China two 
 thousand times during those weeks, while our 
 missionaries were manning the barricades 
 yonder in Peking. I have thought Jesus was 
 absent from Court those busy weeks, and His 
 tall and swift angels were busy those weeks, 
 bearing home those blood-washed saints. 
 Those were gala-days in the Home City. I 
 hear the sentinel angels shout, "Here they 
 come with another group ;" and the patriarchs, 
 and the prophets, and the apostles, and the 
 martyrs sweep out, as the great gates of the 
 city swing wide open to bid them welcome. 
 I hear Saint John say: "Come, you little chil- 
 
 139 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 dren; you did not know much of the great 
 studies of the Church on Earth, but you did 
 know that the Son of man hath power on earth 
 to forgive sins, and you have come up out of 
 great tribulation, and have washed your robes 
 and made them white in the blood of yonder 
 Lamb. Join the great company which no 
 man can number, and enter into the joy of 
 your Lord." 
 
 The great argument from these martyrdoms 
 has permeated the Chinese mind to its dark- 
 est recesses. The Spirit of God has burned 
 these great sermons into the convictions of all 
 classes. A judgment throne has been set up 
 in each man's conscience. The old systems 
 are weighed in the balance and found want- 
 ing. The sentence of the Supreme Judge has 
 doomed the idolatries to death. The conserv- 
 ative leaders have been superseded. The 
 large minorities of progressive scholars and 
 statesmen are asserting themselves. The Em- 
 press Dowager, avenged on her personal ene- 
 mies, relieved of the Boxer leaders, impressed 
 with the nearness and greatness of the Chris- 
 tian nations, surrounded by better advisers, is 
 entering upon the work of reform. She is 
 taking up the role of the dethroned emperor. 
 
 140 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 By edict she has again promulgated many of 
 the great reforms in education. Universities 
 and colleges will be created. Christian men 
 will be sought as teachers. Clubs of scholars 
 will be organized to cultivate and spread 
 Western knowledge. Multitudes are inquir- 
 ing into the new religion. It is estimated that 
 many, many thousands of Chinese are now 
 earnestly inquiring concerning Christianity. 
 All classes are feeling the great argument 
 that has been made in their presence. The 
 spiritual lethargy of centuries is being dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 These fierce upheavals, that seem to threaten 
 the very existence of society itself, are only 
 the crude displays of spiritual forces. It is 
 an old law asserting itself. The very perse- 
 cutions that have strengthened the Church in 
 all ages are bearing the richest fruit. China 
 is wide open. By all the breadth of her vast 
 territory; by all the length of her unmeasured 
 antiquity; by all the millions of her uncounted 
 hosts; by all her cruel and bloody supersti- 
 tions; by all the loathsome abominations of 
 her unregenerated heathenism; by all the an- 
 guish of God's Son in yonder Garden, and all 
 His agony on yonder Cross; by all the tides 
 
 141 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 that sweep across the shoreless sea of God's 
 infinite love, and by the surging sorrows in 
 His aching heart, He calls upon us, saying: 
 ''The door is wide open, enter in and possess 
 the land. Lo, I will go with you, and encamp 
 about you, and nothing shall by any means 
 harm you; I am with you always, and will 
 bring you off more than conquerors. O, My 
 America! what have I not done for you! I 
 have saved you from baptized heathenism; I 
 have kept you from the great superstitions; 
 I have lifted you to the very heavens in the 
 widest freedom; I have enriched you with 
 more than half the world's wealth; I have 
 exalted you to the highest seat in the world's 
 great council; I have poured upon you the 
 full light of wnsdom till your daughters are 
 the brides of princes, and your sons are the 
 counselors of kings. What more could I do 
 for you? O, My Methodism! I turn to you 
 in this day of opportunity; I have called you 
 out of darkness ; I have intrusted you with My 
 most secret wish; I have commissioned you to 
 proclaim a knowable salvation; I have mul- 
 tiplied your numbers beyond all precedent; 
 I have crowded your borders with schools 
 and colleges; I have filled your homes with 
 
 142 
 
Our Opportunity. 
 
 scholars and believers; I have thrust upon 
 you the blessings of both earth and heaven; 
 now I turn to you, I call upon you. Arise, put 
 on your strength; follow Me into these wide- 
 open fields. Do not let these doors of oppor- 
 tunity shut in your face. I will go with you, 
 and bring you off more than conquerors. 
 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that 
 there may be meat in Mine house, and prove 
 Me now if I will not open the windows of 
 heaven and pour you out a blessing that there 
 shall not be room enough to receive it. I will 
 pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and your 
 sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And 
 it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call 
 on the name of the Lord shall be saved." 
 
 O God, if only Thou canst forgive our 
 unbelief, our stumbling at the greatness and 
 preciousness of Thy promises, our self-indulg- 
 ence, taking our ease in Zion, our utter lack 
 of sacrifice for the cause for which Thou didst 
 sacrifice Thy Son, — if only Thou canst for- 
 give us all this and all our sins, we will do 
 better, we will gird on the full armor, and fol- 
 low Thee wherever Thou wilt lead. 
 
 H3 
 
III. 
 
 THE REFLEX INFLUENCE OF MIS- 
 SIONS 
 
 [A great central meeting of Protestant missionary societies 
 had been held from time to time. In i8 — it was determined to 
 have represented then the two great divisions of Protestantism, 
 the Calvinistic and the Arminian branches. Rev. Dr. R. S. 
 Storrs was chosen to represent the first, and Bishop Fowler to 
 represent the second. The meeting was held in Carnegie Hall. 
 Bishop Fowler spoke there on "The Reflex Influence of Missions." 
 The address still speaks for itself. ] 
 
 God is an infinite economist. Not a spar- 
 row falls to the ground without His notice. 
 Nature keeps double-entry books. The very 
 hairs of our heads are numbered. There is 
 no rubbish closet in the universe. Her dark- 
 room is a laboratory where evrything is util- 
 ized. Every flash of light or of lightning, 
 every puff of steam or of wind, every ounce 
 of gravity or of the magnets, every inch of the 
 falling brook or of the rising tide, every shoot- 
 ing meteor or blazing star, every most distant 
 orb or wildest wandering comet, every spasm 
 of force or throb of power, measures its full 
 
 144 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 size in results. There is no waste. Here an 
 ounce of coal is consumed in the furnace; but 
 a spark of lightning whispers the old, old 
 story, gladdening a waiting heart behind the 
 world. Nature never takes a penny out of 
 one pocket, without slipping it into another. 
 The universe is full of pockets, and value can 
 never slip away, even into the worn lining. 
 Power, like God, can never die. We may let 
 it slip by us unused; but it will enrich some 
 other worker, carrying his burden, widening 
 his domain in the universe. Here a horse may 
 fall down in the middle of his journey with 
 his pack on his back; but nature does not 
 charge him up to profit and loss. She simply 
 turns her forces upon him, and saves enough 
 material to produce a span of colts. A mis- 
 sionary drops out of the moral forces of this 
 Christian community; but he comes to the sur- 
 face a whole Christian household among the 
 remedial agencies in the heart of heathenism. 
 No waste. The widest hand that science has 
 yet spread out in the universe is the great law 
 of the Conservation of Energy. Let us have 
 the courage to spread it out palm upward 
 toward God. 
 
 The most critical tests of this law respond 
 10 145 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 positively to our careful observation. A 
 coiled spring, imprisoning certain energy, 
 does not waste that energy when the spring 
 is dissolved in acid. Even with our clumsy 
 apparatus we can trace it into results. This 
 soul under the inspiration of God, coiled up 
 in the grip of a great conviction, is dropped 
 into the sea of Paganism. There will come 
 some bubbling to the surface before our nat- 
 ural senses, indicating some hidden disturb- 
 ance. But more than this, there has been de- 
 veloped an opposite pole of God's great spir- 
 itual batteries in His kingdom, and soon the 
 depths of that sea of Paganism begin to throb 
 with light and new life. The power is not 
 wasted. The spiritual energies are conserved. 
 A problem in modern naval warfare is to 
 cushion the recoil. It is not desirable to kill 
 one's self first in trying to kill one's enemy. 
 This is another application of the great law of 
 the Conservation of Energy. In this cruder 
 form we call it action and reaction. God has 
 projected this law into the spiritual world, 
 and has so cushioned the recoil that every 
 projectile hurled at the enemy drives the ship 
 toward the haven. Thus it is forever more 
 blessed to give than to receive. This law of 
 
 146 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 the Conservation of Energy, of action and 
 reaction, of compensation, of reflex influence, 
 has its highest manifestation in mission work, 
 the highest work known among mortals. This 
 is the substance of the law; these outer put- 
 tings of it are only the shadow. This spiritual 
 substance of the law Is the reason, the final 
 cause, of its existence. The outer applications 
 in things, in science, are only the coarse illus- 
 trations of the law, invented and ordered 
 simply to reveal and emphasize the original 
 and eternal law, just as the relation of father- 
 hood among us is a type of the ancient and 
 original idea of the Fatherhood of God. 
 
 The reflex influence appears on the hal- The Re- 
 ance sheet of the races. All the rivers run J''^"' . 
 
 jiuence oj 
 
 into the sea. The sea exhales an almost Mm/o«j 
 imperceptible mist of infinitesimal atoms, " -^^^^ '" 
 which, wafted by the winds, float in the merce. 
 clouds, the argosies of the skies, over the 
 deserts, and unload their cargoes on the 
 wharves, the barren mountain-sides. There 
 the process of distribution is reversed. The 
 atoms of moisture are gathered in Nature's 
 close economy into repositories. Here a 
 little spring comes up to the surface, barely 
 large enough to be visible. It is so small that 
 
 H7 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 the hoof of the passing chamois might trample 
 it out, or a stray sunbeam drink it dry. But 
 there are back of it the everlasting tides of 
 the ocean. The hoof of the wild chamois 
 only gives it a curbing, and the hunting sun- 
 beam only sets a jewel in its bosom. It throbs 
 with the swells of the sea. It overflows its 
 narrow curbing. It creeps over the edge of 
 the summit. It drips past the crags where 
 the eagle has hung her nest. Singing and 
 shouting, it leaps down the mountain-side, 
 rushes out into the valley, crawls through the 
 plain, fructifying a green path beneath the 
 willows; deepening and widening it, it sweeps 
 across the continent, marking the boundaries 
 of empire; carrying on its broad bosom the 
 navies and commerce of the world, it sweeps 
 out into the ocean forever. All rivers run into 
 the sea. 
 
 This is a dim shadow of this deeper law 
 operating among the commercial interests of 
 the world. The Christian peoples exhale an 
 almost imperceptible mist of infinitesimal 
 atoms of benevolence, which are wafted by 
 God's Spirit over the moral deserts, and un- 
 loaded on the sides of the barren mountains 
 of Paganism. Here and there they touch a 
 
 148 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 darkened, aching heart, cooling its fever of 
 sin and quenching its fire of passion; gather- 
 ing a half-formed family, the divine fountain 
 of the Church; uniting these units, these 
 streamlets, into the babbling brook of a pray- 
 ing community. This rushes down the sides 
 of Paganism; joining with other brooks, it 
 sweeps out over the desert of heathenism; 
 leaving behind it the flowers and fruitage of 
 the garden, it carries on its bosom the health 
 and wealth and commerce of the Christian 
 world. 
 
 The movement of this divine saving truth 
 has all the certainty of God's everlasting pur- 
 pose of redeeming love. Its every step is a 
 blessing, its every word a treasure, its every 
 breath a benediction. Dropped into a Pagan 
 nation, at first it seems like a lamb among 
 hungry lions. But the lions' mouths are 
 stopped, and in the bottom of the den are 
 found the steps of the Throne. In the midst 
 of the Throne appears a Lamb, as it had been 
 slain. The end is a crown, a scepter, and an 
 everlasting kingdom. 
 
 First it is a perception, then a conception, 
 then an idea, then a conviction, then a pur- 
 pose, then an infection, then a contagion, then 
 
 149 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 a revolution, then a new civilization. The 
 desert, blooming and fruiting like a garden, 
 fills the ships and storehouses of the world 
 from its waving harvests. Thus the prayer 
 of the believing child and the tears of the 
 faithful missionary increase the commerce of 
 all seas, and appear on the balance sheet of 
 the world. 
 
 The greatest demand of capital is security. 
 The first requisite of commerce is peace. 
 England keeps her war-dogs muzzled, be- 
 cause her merchantmen vanish from the sea 
 when these rabies are turned loose. Missions 
 insure friendly coasts. In roaming the high 
 seas, one occasionally encounters "old salts" 
 who decry missionaries as useless, and assert 
 that they never do any good. This falsehood 
 is like the cat. You can trample the life out 
 of it, and kill it eight times ; still it will squall 
 and scratch. In crossing the Indian Ocean 
 I heard the objections of a sporting traveler 
 who had been tiger-hunting in the jungles 
 about the foothills of the Himalayas. He 
 said: "There are no converts to Christianity in 
 India, no native Christians. I have traveled 
 all over India, and I never saw one." Recall- 
 ing the question of another, I asked him, "Did 
 
 150 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 you find any tigers?" He said, "Yes, sir, 
 plenty of them." I said, "You hunted for 
 them, did you not?" He said, "That is what 
 I went for." I said, "I have traveled the 
 length and breadth of India, and I never saw 
 a wild tiger. I did find many native Chris- 
 tians. We find what we hunt for." 
 
 I have heard of a skeptical sea-captain who 
 never hesitated to insult missionaries sailing 
 with him. His vessel wrecked among the 
 Friendly Islands, the most unfriendly of can- 
 nibal coasts. He and two or three of his crew 
 drifted to the land. He said, "Perhaps it 
 would be better to be drowned than eaten." 
 Timidly they crawled up onto the top of the 
 coast range of bluffs, and looked cautiously 
 over into the valley beyond, when he shouted: 
 "Thank God, there is the spire of a church! 
 The missionaries are here. We will not be 
 eaten." 
 
 The celebrated scientist, Charles Darwin, 
 speaking of these objectors and of this work 
 ("Researches in Natural History and Geol- 
 ogy") among the Tahitians, says: "They will 
 not remember that human sacrifices or prof- 
 ligacy unparalleled elsewhere, infanticide, 
 bloody wars, have been abolished, and that 
 
 151 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness 
 have been greatly reduced by the introduction 
 of Christianity. In a voyager to forget these 
 things is base ingratitude. Should he be ship- 
 wrecked on an unknow^n coast he v^ill devoutly 
 pray that the missionary may have preceded 
 him." "But," he continues, "it is useless to 
 argue against such reasoners. I believe that, 
 disappointed in not finding the field of licen- 
 tiousness quite so open as formerly, they w^ill 
 not give credit to a morality which they do 
 not wish to practice." Professor Charles Dar- 
 win can hardly be discounted as a religious 
 bigot. I leave these objectors under the sacri- 
 ficial knife of their own high priest. 
 
 In the old Pagan days of the Marshall Is- 
 lands many a ship's crew was slaughtered, 
 leaving no one to tell the story of their deaths. 
 These barbarians, touched by the gospel, have 
 become as brave for the rescue of missionaries. 
 Places noted for piracy have become as noted 
 for Christian zeal. Hundreds of thousands 
 of pounds have been sent to Christian ports 
 saved from wrecks by Christian natives. 
 President Lincoln sent a reward to Kekela, a 
 native Christian of the Marquesas Islands, 
 for rescuing a condemned missionary by giv- 
 
 152 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 ing his new six-oared boat as a ransom to the 
 chief. 
 
 The ivory trade in Western Africa was 
 nearly exterminated by the perfidy of the na- 
 tives. After the missionaries had put in their 
 work the trade revived. It came up with 
 Christianity. Unconverted Pagans seldom 
 tolerate civilized habits and comforts. Eu- 
 ropean houses stood unoccupied in Tahiti for 
 years. No natives cared for them till they 
 were converted. Unconverted native women 
 live half nude among Christian women; con- 
 verted, they seek gowns, bonnets, and shawls. 
 
 A Hottentot boy dressed like an English 
 gentleman was educated in several languages 
 in India. Returning to his people he threw 
 aside everything but his sword and his neck- 
 tie, and resumed the habits of the Bush. "It 
 takes more than fine clothes and languages to 
 make a Christian." Natives converted dress 
 themselves ; unconverted, they relapse into 
 nudity. 
 
 Converted Zulus till level pieces of land 
 with plows and oxen ; unconverted Zulus 
 choose steep parts of the hills to be tilled by 
 their wives, while they eat their oxen. Chris- 
 tian nations have made more out of plows sent 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 to the converted Zulus than it cost to convert 
 them. Some natives in Western Africa have 
 built fine European houses, copying the col- 
 onists, but, leaving them unoccupied, continue 
 to live in their huts from depraved choice. 
 
 Take the familiar case of the Sandwich Isl- 
 ands. It cost less than $1,200,000 to Christian- 
 ize the Sandwich Islands. We now have from 
 $5,000,000 to $8,000,000 of commerce, mak- 
 ing in net profit annually about as much as the 
 entire cost of Christianizing them. From the 
 South Sea Islands England annually receives 
 ten pounds for every pound she expends there. 
 From Micronesia the United States receives 
 annually more than $40 for each dollar spent 
 on rriissions there. An immigrant is valued 
 in Washington at $800. Each missionary in 
 the South Sea Islands is worth to England 
 $10,000 each year. 
 
 It cost the United States to support the 
 heathen Dakotas an average of $120 each per 
 year, while it cost to care for the Christian 
 Dakotas less than $7.80 each per year. Com- 
 ment is unnecessary. I saw a Digger Indian 
 in the Yosemite Valley, under the civilizing 
 influence of that most sublime scenery, get his 
 breakfast out of an ant's nest with a sharp 
 
TJie Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 Stick. And he could clothe himself for twelve 
 months on ten cents worth of cotton. You can 
 not carry on a commerce with such a people. 
 When these barbarians are converted they 
 want something. Their wives want bonnets, 
 and shawls, and shoes, and gloves, and rib- 
 bons, and their children want books and pic- 
 tures. Then they will work, then they must 
 work. It is the Christian family with its mul- 
 tiplied wants that spurs up and keeps up the 
 average man. Then you can trade with him. 
 He wants something. This means commerce. 
 The annual business of England is $ioo for 
 each person, of France $50, of the United 
 States $50, of China less than $3, of Africa 
 $1.25. When we have Christianized the 
 heathen nations and brought their w^ants and 
 activities up to the level of Christian nations, 
 we will have added many billions to the com- 
 merce of the world. Missions have never 
 drawn from the world's pocket-book ten per 
 cent of what they have put into that pocket- 
 book. Their reflex influence appears on the 
 balance-sheet of the races. 
 
 This is the old law of gravity applied to 
 spiritual things. In the universe, worlds are 
 drawn toward the sun according to their 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 weight. The heavier the planet, the more 
 powerfully it is drawn toward the sun. So it 
 is in spiritual things. The man who spreads 
 his arms out under the race, trying to lift it 
 to higher levels, is by that very burden made 
 more weighty, and is therefore drawn up 
 more powerfully toward God. It is always 
 more blessed to give than to receive. He who 
 loses his life, finds it. Dying, the seed bears 
 an hundred-fold. 
 
 The figures on the wrong side of the world's 
 balance-sheet are greatly augmented by the 
 waste of the best wealth of a race that is al- 
 ways found in the life and character of the 
 people. The depravation and consequent 
 deprivations enforced by heathenism cuts 
 short the wealth-producing power of men by 
 shortening their lives. The average life in 
 heathen and Pagan lands is little more than 
 one-half what it is in Christian lands, and in 
 some fields it is but little more than one-third. 
 The introduction of Christianity would stop 
 this waste. Money put Into missions would 
 thus add vastly to the world's aggregate 
 wealth. It is the blindest and most ruinous 
 economy to withhold any of the needed treas- 
 ure from the treasury of missions. The econ- 
 
 iS6 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 omy of the merchant who allowed his most 
 costly wines to run to waste rather than invest 
 a penny in corks with which to cork the open 
 bungholes, was vastly wiser than that of the 
 Christian nations that refuse the money neces- 
 sary to stop the waste of heathenism. 
 
 It is impossible to measure the blunders that 
 mar our own balance-sheet without estimating 
 the rich investments we overlook in our habit 
 of mere local observation. The record of 
 each of the great evangelical Churches dem- 
 onstrates that it costs more than three times 
 as much to secure the conversion of a hundred 
 souls in Christendom as it does in the depths 
 of heathenism. We neglect our best oppor- 
 tunities. When will we cease to burn out our 
 candle at both ends? When will we learn 
 better than to wear out the bore of our guns 
 scaring the game? Facts are God's argu- 
 ments. Events are God's logic. Let us study 
 the stern logic of events. For the reflex influ- 
 ence of misions is found everywhere in com- 
 merce. 
 
 Science is deeply indebted to missions. The Re- 
 I can only catalogue a few of the rich re-^"^'"" ^ 
 suits in this department. The field is as o\^ Missions. 
 as Christian thought, and as wide as the out- 
 
 157 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 most circle of civilization. There is not a 
 department of science, from that touching the 
 wild water-lily as it nods and nods, keeping 
 time with the melody of the waves, and like 
 a vestal virgin pouring out her incense upon 
 the airy altar, to that calculating the unnum- 
 bered ages chiseled into the hoary foundations 
 of the earth, and "reading the unread manu- 
 scripts of God," or from that pursuing the 
 crude animal races down to their extinction, 
 to that tracking man from his fierce barbar- 
 isms up to his kingship with the Almighty; 
 or from that watching the meteor flashing a 
 moment athwart the gloom and going out in 
 darkness to that studying the suns that blaze 
 on in the firmament forever and forever, — 
 there is not a department of science that does 
 not feel the divine presence of the life-giving 
 spirit of missions. 
 
 That plain old science of Geography, that 
 plowboy among the sciences, so thoroughly of 
 the earth earthy, is almost, like Philology and 
 Ethnology, a missionary science. Much of its 
 ancient domain has been recovered, and nearly 
 all its modern domain has been secured by 
 missionaries. Dr. W. M. Thomson has re- 
 cast the map of Syria and unfolded the val- 
 
 158 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 leys and plains of Palestine. Mr. Colton, the 
 chart-maker, says, "There is scarcely an ex- 
 ploration in any land that does not acknowl- 
 edge its indebtedness to missionaries." Carl 
 Ritter, the celebrated geographer, says he 
 could not have written his great work but for 
 the material furnished by missionaries. Dr. 
 Kropf made the discoveries that led Speke 
 and Grant to the sources of the Nile, so vainly 
 sought ever since the days of Ptolemy, discov- 
 eries without which those sources might not 
 even yet have been found. 
 
 In the autumn of 1842 some British Qxm- Salving 
 grants from Red River went into Walla ^''^'^''"• 
 Walla and said to Dr. Whitman, a mission- 
 ary, "Now the Americans may whistle, the 
 country is ours." The governor-general, Sir 
 George Simpson, in his report, "defied Con- 
 gress to establish the Atlantic tariff in the 
 Pacific ports." Dr. Whitman started that 
 night, left his family with the Methodist mis- 
 sionary at the Dalles, and made his way across 
 the Continent in spite of hostile Indians and 
 an inclement winter. In the early spring he 
 reached Washington, and called on Daniel 
 Webster, Secretary of State, and urged the 
 holding of Oregon. Webster said, "Sir 
 
 159 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 George Simpson says wagons can not cross 
 the mountains, and I am about trading the 
 worthless territory for valuable concessions in 
 relation to the Newfoundland cod-fishermen." 
 Dr. Whitman urged his convictions upon 
 President Tyler. Tyler said: "Dr. Whitman, 
 since you are a missionary I will believe you. 
 The treaty will not be ratified." One mission- 
 ary did something in shaping the map of this 
 country, and secured for our Government 
 more than all we gained by the Mexican War, 
 without any of its crime and disgrace. 
 
 Missionary Vrooman made a map of Can- 
 ton and its suburbs that guided the British 
 fleet in the bombardment of the city in 1856. 
 Dr. Long, Methodist missionary to Bulgaria, 
 teaching in Robert College, has trained the 
 youth of Bulgaria and kindled in their brain 
 new thoughts of manhood, and has thus made 
 the magnificent struggle for freedom in that 
 land a fact and the autonomy and liberty of 
 Bulgaria possible. 
 
 Philology, the searchlight of antiquity that 
 throws its X-rays upon the body of a lan- 
 guage, and reveals the hidden secrets of its 
 remote past, is strictly a missionary science. 
 Comparative Philology had its origin in a 
 
 160 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 comparison of translations of the Lord's 
 Prayer in the fifteenth century. In 1784, 
 Hervas published his polyglot vocabulary in 
 one hundred and fifty languages and the 
 Lord's Prayer in more than three hundred. 
 Nearly all known languages have been mas- 
 tered by missionaries. They have reduced 
 many merely spoken languages to a written 
 form. They have compiled dictionaries, 
 braided grammars, translated literatures, and 
 uncovered whatever of wealth the languages 
 have contained. It is by this science, based 
 on their labors, that we can trace the migra- 
 tions and wanderings of the races and tribes 
 of men in prehistoric times. We sometimes 
 discover kinsmen among enemies, as we see 
 the Greeks and Persians, age-long enemies, 
 springing from the same stalk; we sometimes 
 find friends to be of widely separated fam- 
 ilies, as the Greeks and Egyptians. Thus we 
 find the Hawaiian and the New Zealander, 
 separated by five thousand miles of sea, able 
 to understand each other on first meeting. 
 Through this deep science we may yet unravel 
 the ancient history of our North American' 
 Indians. 
 
 Ethnology is a twin-sister to Philology, 
 II 161 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 born in a missionary parsonage. Mission- 
 aries, living with the people, studying their 
 habits and prejudices as well as their lan- 
 guage and histories, have every opportunity 
 to master all the characteristics that distin- 
 guish each race and tribe. With only ordi- 
 nary ability, surrounded with such extraor- 
 dinary advantages, they must become masters 
 in this science and repositories of its materials. 
 Arch(£ology, that mummy of the sciences, 
 holding in its bosom the secrets of the inter- 
 minable past, lays many of her treasures at 
 the feet of the missionaries. Dr. Lobdell's 
 notes on Anabasis, giving his experiences over 
 the regions traversed by Xenophon, describ- 
 ing the distances, modes of travel and of cross- 
 ing rivers, arms, dress and customs of the peo- 
 ple, roll back the tide of twenty-two hundred 
 years, and reproduce the times and trials of 
 the old Greek warriors. He discovers and 
 describes the quarries from which were taken 
 the limestone blocks for Nimrod's palace. 
 Dr. Allen, watching the erection of a temple 
 in the Marathi country, as they pack the walls 
 about with dirt inside and out as fast as the 
 walls rise, thus making an inclined plane up 
 which the blocks of stone are pulled by men, 
 
 162 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 finds the secret of how those huge stones in 
 Baalbec were brought to their places. From 
 the pens of missionaries we have descriptions 
 of the reservoir of Old Carthage and of the 
 ancient subterranean corn magazines of Trip- 
 oli. A modern missionary, Dr. Anderson, 
 takes us through Asia Minor to visit once 
 more the Seven Churches. A missionary sent 
 home some of the gold coins of Philip and 
 Alexander dug up at Sidon in 1853. Who 
 has given us the oldest and most reliable 
 knowledge of China during the last two cen- 
 turies? Missionaries. Whose history of Ice- 
 land h most ancient and reliable concerning 
 the people, the geology, history, literature, 
 and poetry? Dr. Henderson's, a missionary. 
 Whose pen do we follow through Greenland? 
 Hans Egede's, a missionary. Whence our early 
 and reliable knowledge of Australia and New 
 Zealand? From Marsden, a missionary. With 
 whom do we explore South Africa or South 
 America? Jesuits, missionaries. What his- 
 tory of China is authority to-day on people, 
 animals, plants, products and history? ''Mid- 
 dle Kingdom," by Williams, a missionary. 
 Time forbids my specifying the volumes of 
 history, and of natural science, and of geology, 
 
 163 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 and of botany, and of the learned articles In 
 the proceedings of the scientific associations 
 and scientific periodicals, and of current liter- 
 ature, and of the valuable boxes of rare archae- 
 ological specimens which enrich the illustra- 
 tive materials of our great colleges and uni- 
 versities. There is hardly a forest or a river 
 or a lake that has not been described by some 
 missionary. There is hardly an animal, from 
 the lion to the red ant, from the gorilla break- 
 ing a gun in his hands to the Amazons com- 
 posing the body-guard of the king whose term 
 of reproach for a coward is, "You are a man," 
 that has not been described by missionaries. 
 No wonder the Smithsonian "Contributions 
 to Knowledge" (Vol. XVII) says of mission- 
 aries : "There is no class of men, whether 
 viewed as scholars or philanthropists, who 
 have earned a higher reputation. Their con- 
 tributions to history, to ethnology, to philol- 
 ogy, to geography, and to religious literature, 
 form an enduring monument to their fame." 
 No wonder that Professor Agassiz said: *'We 
 owe missionaries much for their intelligent 
 observation of facts and for their collecting of 
 specimens. We must look to them not a little 
 for aid in our efforts to advance future sci- 
 
 164 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 ence." Professor Silliman says, "It would be 
 impossible to ignore their important contri- 
 butions to science." Dr. A. A. Gould and 
 Professor J. D. Dana give clear testimony to 
 the invaluable aid of missionaries. The great 
 astronomer, Herschel, proffered a vote of 
 thanks from the Royal Society to Dr. Stod- 
 dard, of Persia. Surely science can never pay 
 her debt to missions, and ought never to deny 
 the debt. 
 
 This mission work stirs the thoughtful man There- 
 to his very depths by its very vastness. flexm- 
 
 -^ -^ -^ . fluence oj 
 
 No man can plan a campaign as wide 2i% Mission: 
 the race for universal dominion without being '"^"' 
 
 , , , , -r . . tellectual. 
 
 enlarged by the very purpose, it is impos- ^^,^-^,/^ 
 sible to take in God's great thought concern- 
 ing the race, and not stretch up to greater 
 measurements. Once there was on this island 
 only rocks and sinkholes, and Indians and 
 wolves. But there came over from England, 
 and from Ireland, and from Scotland, and 
 from Germany, and from all the Continent, 
 a million and a half of people, and crowded in 
 onto this island. It could not be otherwise 
 that there should spring up these towering 
 castles of commerce and palaces of comfort. 
 The tramping of these millions of feet inevit- 
 
 165 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ably beat out these paved avenues and thor- 
 oughfares. The working of these restless 
 brains created these vast business establish- 
 ments. The beating of these anxious hearts 
 built these elegant homes. So you may 
 take a human mind familiar only with the 
 crude and tangible, confined to the things that 
 perish, pour into that mind the great ideas of 
 God, and of immortality, and of accountabil- 
 ity, and of sin, and of redemption, and of 
 mercy, and of pardon, and of eternal life, and 
 it can not be but that mind will feel a quick- 
 ening. It straightens up, looks up toward 
 God, stretches out toward Him and rises to 
 greater measurements and feels a mightier tide 
 of life. 
 
 Let a man become possessed of the Spirit 
 of the Son of God, and it will intensify 
 and enlarge his nature. When the evil 
 spirit possesses a man, it deforms and en- 
 slaves him and reduces his individuality. 
 It dwarfs him. In demoniacal possessions 
 he is the tool or instrument used by the 
 demons. They act and speak for him, say- 
 ing, "Our name is legion. Let us alone." 
 But when the Spirit of God possesses a man, 
 his individuality is enlarged, crowned with 
 
 i66 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 dominion. He is able to stand against all ad- 
 versaries. Weapons and fagots are powerless. 
 He cries with Paul, "I can do all things 
 through Christ which strengtheneth me." In 
 this field and work of saving the world let a 
 man have the Spirit of the Son of God, who 
 despised the shame and endured the cross for 
 our sakes; who, though He were rich, — rich 
 in all the gold of the Ophirs, and Australias, 
 and Californias, rich in the adoration of all 
 intelligences, rich in the unspeakable glory of 
 the Eternal Court, — yet for our sakes, on ac- 
 count of our poverty, became poor, entered 
 into our disabilities, drained the cup of our 
 want and pain and wretchedness, so that He 
 had not where to lay His head, with no hand 
 to help, no eye to pity; staggering and drip- 
 ping with great drops of agonizing blood, He 
 cried out His unspeakable anguish, in the 
 utter and outer darkness of desertion, "My 
 God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" 
 Let a man take a little of this spirit, brooding 
 over the needs of a dying world, and he will 
 inevitably rise into fellowship with the long- 
 ing sufferings of the Savior and into kinship 
 with the Infinite, greater and more vital in 
 every faculty and force. 
 
 167 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Char- The reflex influence of missions is seen 
 acter. jj^ ^.j^^ development of exalted character. 
 The greatest creation in the world is Man. 
 "What a piece of work is a man! How noble 
 in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form 
 and moving how express and admirable! In 
 action how like an angel, in apprehension how 
 like a god!" (Hamlet, ii, 2.) The arts that 
 touch and handle him must be the highest arts. 
 The forces that exalt his nature must be the 
 divinest forces. The inspirations that ennoble 
 him must be of infinite value. Manhood, ex- 
 alted manhood, is the most costly thing in the 
 universe. To produce man with noble char- 
 acter is the one problem at which God has 
 toiled all the ages. He can make a world with 
 the little tips of His fingers, with the un- 
 noticed breath of His nostrils. Wipe out all 
 the suns and systems that come into the field 
 of our most widely reaching telescopes, and 
 with one word God could speak their places 
 full. But not so with man. To make him at 
 once a crowned monarch and a subject, that 
 is the structure whose foundation-stones re- 
 quired cementing with the blood of the Son 
 of God on Mount Calvary; that required the 
 long ages of redeeming love; that yoked to- 
 
 168 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 gether the kingdom and patience of Jesus 
 Christ. Whatever helps man up to exalted 
 character is above price. Alexander of Rus- 
 sia ordered the best watch English workmen 
 could produce. He admired it. But when 
 he wanted it cleaned he found no workman 
 in his Empire able to handle its complicated 
 mechanism. He had to send for its maker to 
 come and clean and repair it. No wonder he 
 highly prized it. So we gather some idea of 
 the value and greatness of man with an ex- 
 alted character when we find no one on earth 
 able to handle his complicated nature, and it 
 is necessary for his Maker to come that He 
 may put him in order again. It emphasizes 
 man's greatness when only the Being that 
 made him is able to remake him. In a great 
 and earnest sense this mission work is one of 
 God's favorite ways of fitting up exalted char- 
 acter. These mission fields are God's repair 
 shops out along the line where characters may 
 be improved and kept in the service. 
 
 Characters are achieved, not received. 
 They grow out of the substance of the man's 
 soul. They are not put on as a beggar might 
 put on a stolen coat. They mature like fruit 
 from the vital fluids of the tree. This is a sign 
 
 169 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 of their genuineness; they grow with use. A 
 natural limb grows stronger and better with 
 use. 
 
 This man goes into the gymnasium, swings 
 dumb-bells, strikes sacks of sand, climbs ropes, 
 swings on crossbars, and thus he develops a 
 large chest and heavy muscle. Another man 
 goes into a machine-shop ; he pounds and lifts 
 and works away at an engine; he makes an 
 engine. That is what he is there for. But 
 that is not all he does. He also develops a 
 large, deep chest and heavy muscle. This 
 seems incidental, but is none the less real. 
 God uses both these ways in His spiritual 
 Kingdom, but chiefly the latter. We seem to 
 be doing some outside thing, something for 
 some one else, going or giving to the mission 
 fields, but we are really working for ourselves, 
 developing exalted characters. 
 
 This work, this mission w^ork, produces the 
 greatest crop of exalted character everywhere. 
 It is not a question of race, but of grace. It is 
 not a problem of good blood, but of the Di- 
 vine Blood. God is not hunting good clothes, 
 but great needs. Our lostness attracts Him, 
 and He hunts us, leaving the ninety and nine. 
 We become attractive to Him by our very 
 
 170 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 repulsiveness. All He asks is, "Do they need 
 Me?" Then He undertakes to make out of 
 them new creatures, saints, angels. I sent a 
 native preacher, a Chinaman, to his work in 
 the Foochow Conference, who had this in his 
 history: After he was converted, and had stud- 
 ied the New Testament not a little, he felt 
 called to preach, to tell his countrymen the 
 good news. When he had fully settled that 
 as his duty he went into the crowded street, 
 and got upon a little box, and began preach- 
 ing. Soon a mob gathered, knocked him 
 down from his box, beat him with a bundle 
 of bamboos, dragged him through the city, 
 and threw hirn over the wall for dead. He 
 came to, went down to a little brook and 
 washed off the blood and dirt. Then he 
 prayed, saying, "Lord Jesus, what wilt Thou 
 have me to do?" Then he went straight back 
 to the same street, got upon the same box and 
 preached again. Again the mob rallied, beat 
 him, dragged him out, and threw him over 
 the wall for dead. Again he revived, washed 
 away the dirt and blood, and said, "Lord 
 Jesus, what wilt Thou have me to do?" Back 
 he went to the same little box and preached as 
 before. Again the mob rallied and beat him 
 
 171 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 down. The magistrates, fearing to answer for 
 his death, sent the police and took him from 
 the mob and put him in a jail that faced on a 
 little open square, on which the mob gathered 
 howling and throwing up dust. He went to 
 the little window, put his hand out through 
 the gratings and beckoned for the mob to be 
 quiet. When they quieted a little he pressed 
 his bruised and bleeding face up against the 
 gratings and said, "None of these things move 
 me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, 
 so that I might finish my course with joy and 
 the ministry which I have received of the 
 Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace 
 of God." (Acts XX, 24.) The old martyrs 
 did no better than that. Even Anglo-Saxons 
 could do no better. This man wanted to be 
 sent to that people as his regular work. 
 
 This courage reaches whole societies and 
 churches. It is manifested either in suffering 
 persecution or in sacrifices out of their pov- 
 erty. In the Fukien Province you see, in the 
 fall, barren rocks on the mountain-sides cov- 
 ered with slices of sweet potatoes spread out 
 there to dry. These slices of dried sweet po- 
 tatoes become their currency. They arc worth 
 less than the one hundredth part of a cent. A 
 
 172 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 people's unit of exchange indicates the size of 
 their business transactions. I know a church 
 built by these poor people. The stewards kept 
 a box near the door, into which the members 
 dropped their donations of dried sweet-potato 
 chips as their contributions to the new church- 
 building. The contributions were exceed- 
 ingly small. But One stood by the door and 
 saw them cast in their chips, who stood by that 
 ancient treasury and saw the poor woman cast 
 in her two mites. He accepted, and blessed 
 the offering, and out of their poverty a church 
 was built. 
 
 I saw and appointed a certain preacher in 
 Peking, and also saw his mother, a faithful 
 Bible-reader. When a boy this man came to 
 the mission and was converted. Then he went 
 back into the country, and wheeled his mother 
 on a wheelbarrow four hundred miles to bring 
 her to the mission that she might hear about 
 the Savior. The history of civilization fur- 
 nishes no better spirits than these. The cour- 
 age of the old heroes is not a lost art. 
 
 I saw a converted lad in Korea, and sent 
 him as a Bible-reader. He came to a stream 
 and was nearly drowned in crossing it. A 
 native went in with a water-bufifalo, and 
 
 ^7Z 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 pulled him up onto the animal's back and 
 saved him. As they were going toward the 
 shore the lad said: "As you have fished me up 
 and saved me from death, Jesus Christ wants 
 to fish you up and save you from eternal death. 
 He has sent me out to be a fisher of men." 
 
 A native preacher in Mexico was sent to 
 his work. The priest had him arrested ana 
 put in jail. There, in the court or inner pateo, 
 he mingled during the days with the other 
 prisoners and preached the gospel to them. 
 Nearly a score were converted under his 
 prison ministry. When the priest came on his 
 monthly visit to celebrate mass, these refused 
 to join in the service. The priest was in a 
 strait, not knowing what to do, but finally had 
 the preacher turned out as his only chance to 
 protect his imprisoned members. Faithful 
 unto death and life! 
 
 It is a convenient method in Mexico to 
 remove a prisoner from one jail to another in 
 the night, shoot him on the way, and report 
 that he attempted to escape. One of our im- 
 prisoned native preachers learned that he was 
 to be moved that night. He knew what that 
 meant. He saw a boy, a son of one of his 
 members, by the jail. Like Paul at Caesarea 
 
 174 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 he called the boy, told him the order, and 
 directed him to tell the Church. That night 
 before dusk the entire congregation gathered 
 about the prison door and waited for their 
 pastor till he was brought out; then they all 
 walked with him to the other jail. It was not 
 safe to shoot the prisoner before so many wit- 
 nesses. Faithful unto death! 
 
 It was my privilege to found the first Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church in St. Petersburg, 
 Russia. I took a presiding elder from Fin- 
 land and a Russian converted in Finland. 
 With these, and with my wife and son, in a 
 little room in the Hotel d'Angleterre, I organ- 
 ized the Church and appointed this man pas- 
 tor under the provisions of the treaty between 
 Russia and Finland. As we went down to the 
 carriage to ride by the hall we w^anted to hire 
 the pastor said: "Don't talk of this in Eng- 
 lish. No doubt the driver understands Eng- 
 lish, and is sent by the police to report your 
 doings. I can go to Siberia if necessary, but 
 I prefer to work here under the treaty." A 
 year later one of my colleagues visited the 
 work. As he went down the gang-plank onto 
 the dock in St. Petersburg a splendid looking 
 man said, "Bishop Warren?" "Yes, sir," was 
 
 175 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 the reply. This was the pastor, who drove 
 him boldly to the hall, and introduced him 
 to the First Methodist Episcopal Church of 
 St. Petersburg, where he had a thriving soci- 
 ety, safe under the treaty when once organ- 
 ized. With the slightest slip under the letter 
 of the treaty this pastor would go to Siberia 
 to die in the mines, without trial or even accu- 
 sation. But he did not hesitate in his duty, 
 that the little flock might have the gospel. 
 St. Paul was not the only man who has con- 
 tended with wild beasts. The courage and 
 heroism of the martyrs thrive around the 
 campfires of the missionary picket-line all the 
 world around. 
 
 It is worth more than all it costs to have the 
 home Church feel a kinship to these heroic 
 souls. When a country can not produce 
 among her own sons men willing to die for 
 their liberties, but must do their fighting by 
 mercenaries, then that country has lost its lib- 
 erties, and has nothing left worth fighting for. 
 When a Church reaches the state where she 
 can not furnish missionaries and keep in sym- 
 pathy with them, she has reached a point 
 where she has nothing worth propagating. It 
 is the spirit of heroism and sacrifice that in- 
 
 176 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 sures spiritual triumph. No man is worth 
 much in the spiritual world who has not con- 
 victions which are more to him than all else, 
 who would not rather die than recant. No 
 Church can long remain a conquering force 
 who has not the missionary spirit and under- 
 stands the word of Jesus, "As the Father hath 
 sent Me, even so send I you." There run 
 through the ages great lines of spiritual 
 power, that lift and mold mankind. These 
 lines are as resistless as God. These lines can 
 be seized only by the writhing hands of sacri- 
 fice. Whenever a great soul seizes these eter- 
 nal cables, then the Church is shaken out of 
 her lethargy, and society takes a new start 
 for heaven. 
 
 It is not all loss to sacrifice for God. Often 
 all else is loss. We come to our best uses in 
 the furnace. The old refiner of gold had the 
 secret when he said he kept the gold in the 
 crucible, and turned on the heat till he could 
 see his own face in the metal. So God refines 
 the gold that shall decorate his temple yonder. 
 He keeps us in the crucible, and turns on the 
 heat, taking our money or our children for 
 this work, till He can see His own image 
 in us. 
 
 12 177 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Sometimes He goes beyond taking the dross 
 out of us, and ventures to improve our quality 
 and exalt our uses. The steel-workers under- 
 stand this deep law in the heart of things. 
 They know that the higher the temperature 
 to which steel is raised in its preparation, the 
 better the quality and the more exalted its 
 uses. To make lancets, instruments meeting 
 little resistance, the temperature must not go 
 above 430° Fht. To make razors and surgical 
 instruments, it must go up to 450° Fht. For 
 axes and plane irons, it must go up to 510° 
 Fht.; and for swords and watch-springs it 
 must go up to 550° Fht. Something like this 
 is true in our lives. The hotter the furnace, 
 the better our possible uses. For moral lan- 
 cets, to treat the coarser distempers, only a low 
 temperature is required. For the more diffi- 
 cult feats of the skilled surgeon, separating 
 between the joints and marrow, higher tem- 
 perature must be endured. If we are to be 
 fit for swords and watch-springs, to be trusted 
 in the mortal combat, where everything de- 
 pends upon a Damascus blade able to sever 
 a common sword without turning its edge, and 
 go into a spiral scabbard without afifecting 
 its perfection, or be springs to keep time with 
 
 178 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 the great clocks of eternity, then we must en- 
 dure a higher temperature. It is an unmeas- 
 ured blessing to a Church to have the sacri- 
 fices of this mission work bring up the tem- 
 perature in God's furnace. I have seen, in 
 these days of electrical forces, a new heat gen- 
 erated by the powers so long wasted at Ni- 
 agara Falls. Salt, sand, and coke, the com- 
 monest materials, put into a retort and held in 
 a temperature of 8,000° Fht. for twenty-four 
 hours, are forced into what is called carbor- 
 undum, a kind of black diamond. This will 
 cut everything brought against it except the 
 white diamond. It may be that higher tem- 
 peratures and better combinations will pro- 
 duce the costly jewels. When I have thought 
 of missionary mothers, taking their little chil- 
 dren that must have the change of years of a 
 temperate climate free from malaria to save 
 them from imbecility, down to a steamer 
 about to sail for the far-away home-land, and 
 looking over the strange faces of the passen- 
 gers to find some woman to whom she can 
 intrust them during the long voyage; some 
 woman to care for them if they sicken on the 
 sea, and thus send them to strangers to train 
 and educate them, and at night listen to their 
 
 179 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 prayers which the mother has taught them, 
 perhaps not to notice when the mother's name 
 is dropped out of those prayers, — when I have 
 thought of these sacrifices, bravely made for 
 the sake of the Master, I have felt that the 
 temperature is at last up to the point where 
 the white diamonds are made for the diadem 
 of the King. This mission work is worth 
 more than it costs for the heroic martyr spirit 
 with which it inspires the Church. 
 
 There is woven into all the cordage of the 
 British navy, in every hawser, rope, or cord, 
 no matter how large or how small, a crimson 
 thread. It is so woven in that it can not be 
 taken out without unbraiding the rope or cord 
 itself. Thus any little piece, no matter how 
 short, found anywhere, can be instantly recog- 
 nized as a part of the Royal cordage. So, in 
 a way, this mission work stamps all the work 
 of the spiritual Church, the Body of Christ. 
 There is so much of sacrifice about it, the 
 making up of that which is behind of the suf- 
 ferings of Christ, that it runs a crimson thread 
 through every consecrated life, however great 
 or humble, or obscure or small, and identifies 
 it as a part of the sacrificial work offered for 
 the world's salvation. 
 
 1 80 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 The reflex influence of missions inspires//o/>^. 
 the hope of speedy triumph. The ages 
 have passed slowly in the darkness, but 
 the Church is now kindling her beacon- 
 fires on the mountain-tops everywhere. In 
 Constantinople once, on the sultan's birth- 
 day, I saw that great old cathedral, St. Sofia, 
 illumined. Everywhere, along the aisles, and 
 around the chancel, and along the gallery 
 fronts, and around the columns, and in the 
 alcoves and niches, and in and about all the 
 windows, — everywhere, were placed candles 
 and tapers, by the hundred and by the thou- 
 sand. As the shades of evening gathered in 
 and settled in the gloomy recesses of the build- 
 ing, a multitude of men attached to the 
 Church, and their assistants, were seen every- 
 where with their torches lighting the candles 
 and tapers. The smoke from their torches 
 and from the candles seemed almost to add 
 to the gloom. Now and then a gust from an 
 open window extinguished the flickering 
 tapers. It took much time; but we could see, 
 b}'' the glimmering lights and lines of tapers 
 in the distance, that the great building w^as il- 
 lumined; seen from the outside the lines of 
 burning tapers gave a dim outline to the great 
 
 i8i 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 structure, up against a dark sky. As I 
 watched the tedious process, I thought. This 
 is not altogether unlike the work of the 
 Church in the early centuries lighting the 
 world. The messengers and torch-bearers 
 stumbled along through the great masses of 
 heathenism and Pagan superstition, here and 
 there kindling a taper and awakening a better 
 hope; many of the tapers and torches extin- 
 guished by the migrations of the tribes and 
 nations; many quenched in blood by the red 
 hand of war, yet slowly gaining on the dark- 
 ness and spreading the circles of the light. 
 
 I have since seen another illumination that 
 suits me better. It was yonder in the "White 
 City" by the Lake. It was the Manufactur- 
 ers' and Liberal Arts Building of the Colum- 
 bian Exposition. It had as much acreage as 
 three or four New England farms. I saw one 
 hundred and twenty thousand people seated 
 in one side of it. Away at one end, stuck in 
 a little gallery, were six thousand singers and 
 three groups of bands. Standing in the center 
 of the building, we could frequently hear the 
 higher notes, but as often we could not catch 
 a sound. We knew the music was being ren- 
 dered by watching through our glasses the 
 
 182 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 motions of the players. It is to-day difficult 
 to comprehend the vast proportions of that 
 strucj:ure. Beneath its ample roof were gath- 
 ered all the nations of the earth. Here the 
 English, and there the Russians, exhibited 
 their merchandise. The Germans, French, 
 Spanish, Italians, Scandinavians, all the fam- 
 ilies of Europe, had their departments; 
 Turks, Arabs, Japanese, Chinese, Hindoos, 
 Africans, representatives from the teeming 
 families of Asia and Africa, presented their 
 curious products; Mexico, the South Amer- 
 ican Republics, and those from the Islands 
 of the Sea, were busy with their merchandise 
 and exhibits. All the families of men were 
 gathered within those four walls. The light- 
 ing of it was a modern problem. Modern 
 genius ran wires and electric apparatus every- 
 where over the building, along the rafters, 
 up the bents, along the girders, about the gal- 
 leries, over the booths, through the aisles, 
 everywhere. It took work, and time, and 
 money, and genius, and thought, to run all the 
 wires, place all the switches, hang all the arcs, 
 swing all the tubes, plant all the batteries, and 
 make all the complicated machinery converge 
 upon one point under one button. But when 
 
 183 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 this wire-running and light-placing was done, 
 the work of illumining the building was about 
 accomplished. At the appointed time, in the 
 gathering darkness, one hand turned on the 
 current, and in an instant the whole scene was 
 changed. Quick as thought light flashed 
 from roof and gallery, from brace and girder, 
 from booth and tower, along the aisles and 
 through the passages, in the tents and pa- 
 vilions, everywhere; over the quarter of the 
 Briton and the camp of the Russian, over the 
 resting-place of the Turk and of the Hindoo, 
 over the palaces of the German and of the 
 French, everywhere; over the quarters of the 
 Chinese and of the Japanese flashed this light, 
 like the light of a new sun risen in the even- 
 ing, — and the whole vast building was one 
 blaze of light. So it seems to me that the 
 Christian Church, through her missionary 
 operations, has been patiently preparing the 
 way for illumining the world. The stations 
 have been planted, churches built, schools 
 opened, presses started, dictionaries compiled, 
 grammars braided, literatures created, great 
 lines of communications secured; railroads, 
 steamships, telegraphs, printing presses, Bible 
 societies, — everything seems to be in readi- 
 
 184 
 
The Reflex Influence of Missions. 
 
 ness. Millions of believers have a rich e?:- 
 perience and good theology and increasing 
 zeal. Our high schools and universities are 
 making ready a great army competent to 
 teach the Word; fortunes beyond the neces- 
 sities of the owners are being accumulated by 
 the hundred millions; all things now seem 
 ready. My faith is humbly and hopefully 
 looking to see the Holy Spirit come upon the 
 Churches, and flash along all these lines, 
 lighting all lands. Already I see the light 
 shining on the summits of the Himalayas, and 
 streaking over the plains of China, and stream- 
 ing over the islands of Japan. The time is 
 not far distant when a nation shall be born in 
 a day, and the whole earth shall be covered 
 with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters 
 cover the sea. 
 
 In yonder Southern Hemisphere on the 
 South Atlantic I have stood on the deck, and 
 gazed up at the most attractive constellation, 
 the Southern Cross. Once to see it is always 
 to look for it when the night comes down. 
 On that southern sea the sailors watch it with 
 unflagging interest. In the lone hours of the 
 night you can sometimes hear the watch on 
 deck calling out to the watch in the lookout, 
 
 ,85 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 "Ho, watch, what of the night?" Then the 
 answer, "The morning is coming, for the 
 Cross begins to bend." So to-night, standing 
 in the lookout, looking over the dark lands, 
 am I asked, "What of the night?" I can an- 
 swer, "The morning is coming, for the Cross 
 begins to bend." 
 
 1 86 
 
IV. 
 
 THE MESSAGE. 
 
 [This Message was written by Dr. Fowler when he was 
 Missionary Secretary. Dr. Dorchester kindly allowed the use of 
 the statistics which were taken from the manuscript of his book 
 on "The Problem of Religious Progress." The Message was 
 simultaaeuosly published in full in each of the great Methodist 
 Church Ad'vocates.] 
 
 ^'Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken!" 
 With your hand on your headstone, your 
 eye on the judgment throne, and your heart 
 naked and open to the Allseeing Eye, answer 
 this question: What would you take as a re- 
 ward or compensation for which you would 
 be willing to have the Bible annihilated or 
 demonstrated to be false? The Christian, who 
 does not fear its punishments, can not conceive 
 of any gift or treasure that could form even a 
 motive for such a loss. Solid globes of gold, 
 vast as our sun and countless as the stars of 
 night, with all earthly dominion and honor, 
 would be as nothing. They are gone in a 
 
 187 
 
Missionary Addresses, 
 
 moment. A desirable exchange is unthink- 
 able. 
 
 Our message, then, is to you. You have re- 
 ceived something worth having and worth 
 giving. "Freely ye have received, freely 
 give." You have a Divine Redeemer — "a 
 full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation 
 and satisfaction" for your sins. You have a 
 perfect salvation through faith. You know 
 that "the Son of man hath power on earth to 
 forgive sins." You have "tasted" of the good 
 word of life. You know the power of an end- 
 less life. To you the Word of God is of ab- 
 solute authority. To you, in the name of God, 
 by the price of your soul, on the authority of 
 this Word, comes the message, 
 spirit You must have this mission spirit. You 
 ojthe^^Q not your own. You are purchased 
 
 Gospel. , 1 • 1 1 • 1 • 
 
 With a price, and with such a price that its 
 repetition would bankrupt the eternal treas- 
 ury. You belong to Christ. You are Christ's. 
 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all 
 spiritual blessings in heavenly places in 
 Christ: according as He hath chosen us in 
 Him before the foundation of the world, that 
 we should be holy and without blame before 
 
 1 88 
 
The Message. 
 
 Him in love." Redeemed from sin, you are 
 brought into fellowship with Him who came 
 "to seek and to save that which was lost." 
 
 Christ is in the world on a soul-hunt. He 
 is here in a world full of sinners as the sin- 
 ner's Friend as well as the saint's King. The 
 very purpose of His coming is mercy. "He 
 is abundant in goodness and truth, keeping 
 mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and 
 transgression and sin." He is here to save. 
 "For God so loved the world that He gave 
 His only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
 lieveth in Him might not perish, but have 
 everlasting life. For God sent not His Son 
 into the world to condemn the world; but that 
 the world through Him might be saved." 
 
 He is here to save the world; for, "by the 
 grace of God, Jesus Christ tasted death for" — 
 the Anglo-Saxon only? No, not that way. 
 Such an utterance would shock the moral uni- 
 verse. Every moral intelligence would utter 
 its agonizing protest, and be forced into he- 
 roic resistance. ''Tasted death for every 
 many is the authoritative word that measures 
 the wideness there is in God's love. "He is 
 the propitiation for our sins." That has a 
 definiteness and personal application that 
 
 189 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 gives us the feeling of sonship. But the in- 
 stant we feel this throb of filial love, and the 
 ineffable word Father rises to our lips, we are 
 borne out on the rest of the same breath, — 
 ^'and not for our sins only, but for the sins 
 of the ivhole world." We have come to Him 
 who is "the Savior of all men, especially of 
 those that believe," "who gave Himself a ran- 
 som for all;^ "for God was in Christ recon- 
 ciling the world unto Himself." Surely this 
 strange Being from the worlds out of sight, 
 who is called "Wonderful, Counselor, The 
 Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The 
 Prince of Peace," and "Jesus, because He 
 shall save His people from their sins," is in 
 the world on a mission of mercy. His pres- 
 ence brings hope. "Light breaks in. The 
 prison walls give way." He calls to the ends 
 of the earth to come and live. 
 
 It is impossible to breathe any spirit in the 
 presence of such a Savior, except in the widest 
 and most zealous spirit of missions. In His 
 presence we are not surprised that Chris- 
 tianity seeks the lost, but we are compelled to 
 believe that the religion of Jesus must have 
 the missionary spirit. With the Bible in your 
 hands, and its unbreakable promises enkin- 
 
 190 
 
The Message. 
 
 dUng in your bosoms the hopes of eternal life, 
 you must feel the great rule, "As ye would 
 that men should do to you, do ye also to them 
 likewise." "As we have opportunity" we 
 must "do good unto all men." There is no 
 escape from the supreme law, "Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
 with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And 
 thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." May 
 the Holy Spirit bear in upon every conscience 
 the abiding conviction that there can be no in- 
 telligent New Testament Christianity ivithout 
 missions/ 
 
 Soldiers of the Cross, hear the final com- 
 mand from the Captain of your salvation: 
 ^^All power is given unto Me in heaven and 
 in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all na- 
 tions, 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." These are omnipotent words : "Go," 
 "preach," "teach," "baptize." And "the field 
 is the world," "all nations," "every creature." 
 
 This work has all the intensity of a death 
 struggle. Every force within the reach of 
 
 191 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Omnipotence is marshaled and marched to 
 the front. Every motive which Infinite Wis- 
 dom could mold or fashion is poured red-hot 
 upon the conscience. Every argument that 
 Infinite Skill could draw from three worlds 
 is laid upon the judgment. Every term that 
 could threaten or intimidate is set on men- 
 acing. Every figure of speech that could per- 
 suade or allure is exhausted in beckoning and 
 persuading. Every cavern in the regions of 
 the lost sighs and moans in the very face of 
 refusal. Heaven herself throws open her 
 gates of pearl, and exhibits to mortal gaze her 
 streets of gold, her palaces of fire, and her 
 thrones of light. Last of all, the Master Him- 
 self breaks out of the unspeakable glory into 
 our very presence, and before our very eyes 
 embraces our cross, that He may persuade us. 
 In the very intensity of this dying. He cries: 
 Go preach, teach, everywhere. In such a 
 presence we are not surprised to hear Him say 
 to the Father, "As Thou hast sent Me into the 
 world, even so have I also sent them into the 
 world;" nor to hear His command to us, "As 
 the Father hath sent Me, even so I send you." 
 "Go." 
 
 With your churches and schools, with your 
 192 
 
The Message. 
 
 Bibles and homes, what can you think of the 
 great lands, brimful of immortals bowed 
 down under a load of sins and superstitions, 
 worshiping stones and sticks that give no com- 
 fort; strangers to pardon and purity and 
 peace? Do not the words, "As ye would," 
 ring the alarm-bell in the camp of your fears? 
 Does not the Divine "Go" strike down upon 
 your conscience like a trip-hammer? 
 
 In the midst of this agonizing haste of sav- 
 ing mercy, it is the one commission of most 
 exalted honor and of most grave responsibility 
 that the ministry of reconciliation is commit- 
 ted unto us. "All things are of God, who 
 hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, 
 and hath given to us the ministry of recon- 
 ciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, 
 reconciling the world unto Himself, not im- 
 puting their trespasses unto them; and hath 
 committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 
 Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as 
 though God did beseech you by us; we pray 
 you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to 
 God." 
 
 Under the weight of such a work it is no 
 mar\^el that Dr. Fuller, less than a century 
 ago, when repulsed in his begging from door 
 
 13 193 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 to door for the money with which to send 
 Carey to the heathen, should retire to weep 
 and pray; as he says, "I frequently retired 
 from the more public streets to the back lanes, 
 that I might not be seen to weep over my dis- 
 appointments." The only marvel is that so 
 few of Christ's followers have the same zeal. 
 Dr. Durbin tells us of a Moravian mother 
 who understood Christ's call for workers in 
 the world's harvest: "A friend in much sad- 
 ness said to her, 'Your son is gone.' 'Is 
 Thomas gone to heaven through the mission- 
 ary life? Would to God that he would call 
 my son John!' John went, and died. The 
 committee were sad, but the old lady antici- 
 pated them, and exclaimed, 'Would that He 
 would call my last son, William!' William 
 went, and fell. Then she exclaimed, 'Would 
 that I had a thousand sons to give to God!' " 
 How much are you giving for this work of 
 reconciling the world to God? 
 Christ All need Christ. God gave Him for the 
 Necessary. ^^^Ij^ He "tastcd death for every man/' 
 He is the supreme need of every mortal. This 
 is a field where human knowledge and specu- 
 lations are of little value and of no authority. 
 What God declares we can trust. Beyond 
 
 194 
 
The Message. 
 
 that, nothing is certain. It Is not necessary for 
 us to judge the heathen. It is safe for us to 
 expect that the Judge of all the earth will do 
 right; for "God is no respecter of persons; 
 but in every nation, he that feareth Him and 
 worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." 
 A few general principles are evidently in- 
 volved in the word: i. The heathen will not 
 be judged by our light. 2. They will be 
 judged by their own light. 3. Those who live 
 as nearly up to the light they have, as a saved 
 Christian lives up to the light he has, will be 
 saved. 4. No two mortals have the same 
 amount of light. 5. Exposure to being lost 
 is not a question of the amount of light, but of 
 the fact of light. In the presence of these 
 simple and generally accepted truths the con- 
 dition of the heathen becomes alarming when 
 it is remembered that there is a "Light which 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the 
 world." And "the invisible things of Him 
 from the creation of the world are clearly 
 seen, being understood by the things that are 
 made, even His eternal power and Godhead;" 
 so that they are without excuse. They "are 
 a law unto themselves: Which show the work 
 of the law written in their hearts, their con- 
 
 195 
 
Missionary Addresses 
 
 science also bearing witness, and their 
 thoughts, the meanwhile accusing, or else ex- 
 cusing one another." This prepares us to ac- 
 cept the statement which these declarations 
 are made to support; namely, "As many as 
 have sinned without law, shall also perish 
 without law." 
 
 The actual question. It ceases to be a ques- 
 tion whether any of the heathen will be saved, 
 or whether any of them will be lost. It now 
 stands as a calculation of chances as to what 
 means shall be used for saving the greatest 
 number. A man might cross the Atlantic in 
 a skifif. Doubtless a few did in past ages thus 
 drift to these shores. But it is immeasurably 
 better to take passage on a Cunard steamer. 
 For our own children we choose moral and 
 religious surroundings. We keep about them 
 a religious atmosphere. We reduce the evil 
 influences as much as possible. Thus we in- 
 crease the probabilities of their maturing into 
 Christian men and women. This law holds 
 over all the sons and daughters of Adam: 
 The proportion of the saved will keep quite 
 even step with the amount of light shed forth. 
 In the presence of this great law read Paul's 
 description in the first chapter of Romans, 
 
 196 
 
The Message. 
 
 and see how the odds are multiplied against 
 these that sit in darkness: "Being filled with 
 all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, 
 covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, mur- 
 der, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 
 backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, 
 boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient 
 to parents, without understanding, covenant- 
 breakers, without natural affection, implac- 
 able, unmerciful; who, knowing the judgment 
 of God, that they which commit such things 
 are worthy of death, not only do the same, 
 but have pleasure in them that do them." It 
 is hard to conceive how the odds could be 
 more against them. You would not throw 
 your prattling baby boy into such a gang of 
 hungry wolves and say, "He is as safe there 
 as he would be in my arms, or kneeling at my 
 family altar." 
 
 No thoughtful man argues that it is better 
 not to give the heathen the gospel because it 
 would increase their responsibility; for that 
 argument is equally against any gospel for 
 any body. Nor does he say, with Dr. Ryland, 
 in the meeting of Baptist ministers in North- 
 ampton, England, in 1788, when the mission- 
 ary spirit of modern times burst forth in the 
 
 197 
 
Missionary Addresses 
 
 soul of William Carey: "Young man, sit 
 down. When God pleases to convert the 
 heathen He will do it without your aid or 
 mine;" for such a statement would apply 
 equally to His saving our children and our 
 neighbors. No, the per cent of the saved 
 keeps quite even step with the amount of light 
 shed forth. 
 
 No wonder our crucified, risen, and ascend- 
 ing Lord cried out: "Go, preach, teach every 
 creature, and I will be with you, with all 
 power, even unto the end of the world." 
 
 The state of the heathen shows their need 
 of the gospel. Their languages are rich in 
 words and terms of crime. Some languages 
 contain as many as twelve words expressing 
 the way in which one may kill his father, 
 while there is no word for mercy. They are 
 living in "the habitations of cruelty." 
 
 Dr. Cunnyngham gives the following inci- 
 dents: "A few years ago the British consul 
 in Ashantee wrote : 'The king's mother is dead, 
 and three thousand victims were sacrified at 
 her burial. Two thousand of these were pris- 
 oners of war, and one thousand were natives. 
 They were sacrificed with most revolting 
 rites.' The King of Dahomey 'slaughtered 
 
 198 
 
The Message. 
 
 six thousand captives in order to ornament the 
 wall around his palace with their heads.' A 
 missionary relates the following as an example 
 of caprice common in certain districts in Af- 
 rica: 'At a feast, a little son of the king asked 
 that a certain fleshy man, whom he pointed 
 out, should be cut into a hundred pieces. The 
 man was seized, by order of the king, and his 
 body cut up to amuse the child.' Again: 'The 
 son of a king died in a drunken debauch; at 
 his funeral thirty young women, fifty men, 
 and twenty slaves were buried alive, that their 
 spirits might attend him in another world.' " 
 ("Thoughts on Missions," p. 129.) 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Whitehead, for ten years a 
 missionary in South China, in an address at the 
 May anniversary of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society, said : "In China you find heath- 
 enism of the most ancient, the most gigantic, 
 and the most impious type." 
 
 Again he said: "It would almost seem as if 
 God had isolated the Chinese Empire from 
 the rest of the race just to see whether human 
 nature has in it any recuperative power; 
 whether man left to himself apart from God 
 can devise any system — social, political, or 
 moral — that shall be sufficient to depose vice, 
 
 199 
 
Missionary Addresses 
 
 to exalt virtue, and to promote happiness; and, 
 certainly, they have not been wanting in ex- 
 pedients. They have had their great national 
 systems in full operation, two of them for 
 twenty-five centuries, and the other for twenty, 
 — Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. 
 These three systems form the three angles of 
 a triangle, — the moral, the metaphysical, and 
 the immortal. They appeal to the three great 
 functions of the human soul, — the will, the 
 sensibility, and the intellect; and they unite 
 in ignoring God. They have had ample fa- 
 cility for development of any possible poten- 
 tiality they may possess for alleviating the 
 people. They have had a wide field, length 
 of days, freedom from outside interference. 
 They have basked in the smiles of government, 
 and have enjoyed wealth and patronage; and 
 what is the result? It is an Empire more 
 corrupt and degraded than has ever been 
 found. Notwithstanding any elements for 
 good they may have in them, and any influ- 
 ence for good they may have exerted, the 
 nation has gone down under their aegis into 
 deeper darkness and fouler immorality. This, 
 surely, should be considered one of the most 
 convincing proofs that man-made systems, 
 
 200 
 
The Message. 
 
 however plausible, will never succeed in re- 
 generating human nature and raising the 
 race." 
 
 Surely what we need, they must also need. 
 If it is necessary for us to be born again, 
 surely they must be born again. We are 
 afraid to look at this mighty procession 
 marching by in solid columns, centuries long, 
 filled with more than half the human race, 
 steeped in corruption, knowing nothing of 
 peace and purity, plunging on in the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 There are those who still remember the 
 burdened and burning words of Dr. Olin, as 
 he gazed on this procession: "They perish, 
 sir, they perish." Turn and read his ever- 
 memorable words in his great address deliv- 
 ered at the Greene Street Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, New York, on the twenty-fourth an- 
 niversary of the Missionary Society: 
 
 "But, sir, strongly disposed as I am, in ad- 
 dressing an audience of Christian men, to 
 make my sole appeal to great first principles, 
 I should yet hesitate, but for my solemn con- 
 viction that the sentiment is only half believed 
 by the Church. I should hesitate, sir, to as- 
 sign as my chief argument this stale theolog- 
 
 201 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ical truism, that it is the duty of the Church 
 to evangelize the world, because that is the 
 only way of saving the world. I say, sir, it 
 is my profoundest conviction that the Church 
 does not really believe this tremendous truth. 
 It believes that the gospel is an unspeakable 
 blessing; that it is an excellent remedy for 
 sin; that it is God's chosen and cherished way 
 of lifting up our fallen race, and bringing 
 many sons and daughters into glory; but that 
 Christ's is Uhe only name given under heaven 
 whereby men can be saved/ that ^whosoever 
 believeth not, shall be damned/ that *idol- 
 aters shall not inherit the kingdom of God,' — 
 these are declarations which, as it seems to 
 me, the Church is wont to receive with many 
 grains of allowance, and with a most critical 
 and imploring look to the context in quest 
 of whatever alleviations may be found in the 
 shape of figurative language or restraining 
 clause. ... In their convulsive attempts 
 to get away from the torturing conclusion to 
 which the plain testimonies of God's Word 
 must clearly shut them up, men forget that 
 the most grievous sin of idolatry is idolatry 
 itself; that this is the prolific, polluted source 
 of the abominations and defilements which the 
 
 202 
 
The Message. 
 
 blood of Christ was shed to wash away, and 
 that heaven is not shut against the unregener- 
 ate so much because they are guilty as because 
 they are unholy. 
 
 "Sir, did the Church really believe the gos- 
 pel to be as necessary to the heathen as it is 
 to us, there would be, at once and forever, an 
 end to her guilty repose. 
 
 "They who give full credit to such truths 
 do not sleep over them. It would be easier 
 to find rest in our beds above the throes of an 
 earthquake. The agonies of Laocoon and his 
 children, dying in the coils of the serpent, 
 were but pastime compared with those of the 
 Church, until she had either unlocked herself 
 from the grapple of this tremendous convic- 
 tion, or disburdened her conscience by a faith- 
 ful consecration of her energies to the work 
 of rescuing the world from its doom. 
 
 "And yet it is true, if the Bible is true, that 
 while we dwell in peace, under our own vine 
 and fig-tree, lifting up our songs of praise in 
 the full city, and making vocal the green hills 
 and valleys of our Christian land with the 
 echoes of joyous thanksgivings to Him who 
 hath redeemed us, bidding away the sorrows 
 of life, and defying the terrors of death by a 
 
 203 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 sure trust in Christ, and bright, full-hearted 
 anticipations of heaven, — it is true, sir, that 
 the myriads of unevangelized men are passing 
 into eternity without a ray of saving light. 
 They perish, sir, they perish. They live with- 
 out hope, and die without a Savior; and we, 
 who are, for the good of the world, intrusted 
 by Christ with the deposit and monopoly of 
 His grace, withhold the only antidote for sin, 
 and thus become, in no figurative sense, acces- 
 sories to their guilt and woe." 
 
 Is it any wonder that Jesus commands us 
 to go? Is it strange that Paul ran over every 
 known continent, and was willing to be 
 scourged through every known metropolis, 
 saying, 'T am made all things to all men, that 
 I might by all means save some!" 
 
 The salvation of this world now awaits our 
 action. What plans God might have chosen 
 it is neither possible nor important for us to 
 know. It is enough for us that He has com- 
 pleted His part of the work. On the cross 
 He cried, ''It is finished;" on the Mount of 
 Ascension He gave the supreme command, 
 and on Pentecost He gave the induement of 
 power. 
 
 The work is committed to us. We are taken 
 204 
 
The Message. 
 
 into co-partnership with Him. We are la- 
 borers together with God. He has done all 
 He can in His vineyard. Christ has died and 
 is risen, and has poured forth the Spirit. The 
 Bible is complete; the Church has the doc- 
 trines and experience of the New Testament. 
 Now God says: ''Go, and I will bring you off 
 more than conquerors. Nothing shall by any 
 means harm you." The universal reign of the 
 Prince of Peace awaits our action. In nature 
 He gives us possibilities, and requires us to 
 work them up into actualities. He gives us 
 germs, and expects us to secure the harvests. 
 So in grace He has given us a Savior who died 
 once for all, and He commands us to tell the 
 good news to every creature. 
 
 Our business is TO TELL the good news our 
 to every creature. That is our part of the ^"^'''"•'' 
 
 ., .. and 
 
 work; Gods Spirit will see to the conviction .<//j,,.^^ 
 of men by the truth, by the word of our tQ%t\- Heathen'' 
 mony, and the heathen must take the respon- 
 sibility of accepting or rejecting it. It is not 
 for us to wait till each one to whom we tell 
 the story repents and believes before we tell 
 it to another. It is not a reaping-machine 
 that must cut every stalk as it comes before it 
 reaches another. It is like the blessed sunlight, 
 
 205 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 that drops upon all germs, giving all a chance 
 to quicken. It is a government over agents. 
 It only furnishes opportunities, opens doors. 
 The agents themselves determine whether or 
 not to enter in and be saved. 
 
 The disciples did not sit in Jerusalem till 
 every inhabitant had been converted and 
 joined the Church before they went elsewhere. 
 Paul did not stay in Asia till all her millions 
 had been saved before he went into Europe. 
 He preached in the chief cities till, in a very 
 general way, it could be said that all Asia 
 had heard the truth; then God called him into 
 Europe, to help the heathen there. 
 
 Some men are to-day misled by the idea of 
 saving everybody at home before they teach 
 those in the outer darkness. They think they 
 must save the heathen around them. They 
 forget that there are no heathen in this coun- 
 try, nor in Christian lands, except the few 
 who are imported from heathen lands. It is 
 not a question of piety, or of virtue, or of 
 faith. It is only a question of knowledge, a 
 question of light. These unsaved ones about 
 us are bad enough. They are going to death, 
 but they know better. They go to death be- 
 cause they will. They grow up with our Sun- 
 
 206 
 
The Message 
 
 day-school children. They constantly see our 
 churches. They suspend their labor one day 
 in seven in honor of the Christian Sabbath. 
 They are not heathen. They know better. 
 
 Comparative cost at home and abroad. YtCost. 
 costs less for given results abroad in heathen 
 lands than in the home Churches. It costs 
 more than three times as much to secure a 
 given number of conversions in the home 
 fields as it does in the foreign. Study the logic 
 of events. The Baptist Mission Union, in 
 1873, expended $239,417. The same year the 
 Baptist Association of Long Island expended 
 $236,000 — almost the same sum. But the 
 number of converts in the foreign field was 
 eight times as great as in the home field. Con- 
 verts in the Baptist Association of Southern 
 New York that same year cost ten times as 
 much as in the foreign field. In the Baptist 
 Association of Black River, with no great 
 cities and no great salaries, converts cost five 
 times as much as in their foreign fields. 
 
 The Congregational Churches of Massa- 
 chusetts, from 1840 to 1866, had an average 
 annual net increase of five to each Church and 
 five and a half to each pastor. Their foreign 
 work in the same twenty-six years had an aver- 
 
 207 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 age annual net increase of twenty to each 
 Church and of fourteen and a half to each 
 pastor. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church, from 1825 to 
 1875, kept the advance in the number of her 
 missionaries about even with the advance in 
 the number of her ministers at home. But 
 the net increase of members was, in the for- 
 eign field compared with the home, as three 
 and a half to one. 
 
 Relatively missions do not cost much. Eng- 
 land is the great missionary nation. She gives 
 about $6,000,000 per year to foreign missions. 
 She wastes on rum $750,000,000; and her an- 
 nual income, as the Lord Mayor told us re- 
 cently in the great Exeter Hall Missionary 
 anniversary, is from $50,000,000,000 to $60,- 
 000,000,000. Foreign missions cost her only 
 one thousandth of one per cent of her income. 
 The United States waste on liquor $600,000,- 
 000 a year. We all give to foreign missions 
 less than $3,000,000 a year, — one-half of one 
 per cent. 
 
 Cost of maintaining the Missionary Society. 
 It is sometimes said that it takes a dollar to 
 carry ten cents to the heathen. But the facts 
 are, that in the Missionary Society of the 
 
 208 
 
The Message. 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, of every dollar 
 given for missions, a little more than ninety- 
 nine cents goes to the mission-fields. 
 
 The cost of collecting and disbursing all her 
 funds draws upon the collections less than one 
 per cent. This is made possible by two facts: 
 
 1. We have from eight to ten thousand Meth- 
 odist preachers who collect this money for 
 nothing, and for this privilege give, as a rule, 
 in proportion to their ability, five times as 
 much as the principal laymen in their charges. 
 
 2. The whole expense is about two and a half 
 per cent; but two-thirds of this is paid by the 
 rent of the building on the corner of Eleventh 
 Street and Broadway, which was not given as 
 a missionary donation, nor for the support of 
 missions. 
 
 // pays in dollars and cents. The Sandwich 
 Islands still illustrate this statement. It cost 
 $1,220,000 to Christianize the Sandwich Isl- 
 ands. But now we receive back every year 
 about $5,000,000 in commerce. 
 
 An immigrant is worth to this country the 
 same as the introduction of $800 in capital. 
 A single missionary in the South Sea Islands 
 is worth to the commerce of England about 
 $10,000 per year. God is urging us by every 
 14 209 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 encouragement and inducement to do our ut- 
 most in this cause to which He gave His Son. 
 Under this pressure of Divine command be- 
 hind us, and of the providential inducement 
 before us, with every field open and calling, 
 we can not but ask. Are we doing our best, 
 or as nearly our best as can be reasonably ex- 
 pected of us? 
 Our Field The Call of the General Committee has 
 , ^'"^^'' heretofore exceeded the response of the 
 
 than Our ^ 
 
 Avail- Church. It has given us a deficiency in our 
 ability, treasury. We are alarmed at the widening 
 discrepancy between what the General Com- 
 mittee have asked and what they have re- 
 ceived. This gulf must not become impass- 
 able. 
 
 It is not all bad to encounter a deficiency. 
 It is worth something to have the Church 
 richer in faith than in money. It would argue 
 great lack of confidence for the Church to 
 confine her plans to money actually in hand. 
 She would be more like a pawnbroker, who 
 will advance only a small per cent of actual 
 value, than like a confident child who has the 
 paternal assurance that it shall be unto him 
 according to his faith. Thus, while the Gen- 
 eral Committee faced this deficiency, they also 
 
 210 
 
The Message. 
 
 heard the call from every field for advance 
 movements. 
 
 The General Committee, at its last session, 
 spent days in prayerful and anxious study, 
 seeking to determine which of the pressing 
 needs of our missionary fields to postpone, and 
 how to make the limited available means do 
 the most possible. 
 
 In every heathen field many unentered 
 doors are open, and from every one comes the 
 cry for help. Populous cities, where the gos- 
 pel is never preached, are inviting our mis- 
 sionaries to send them some one to teach them 
 the way of life. 
 
 The nations of Europe, whose immigrants 
 are coming to fill our Western States and Ter- 
 ritories, are crowding the places of worship 
 which we open in those old lands with their 
 poor and soul-hungry multitudes, and our 
 superintendents are begging for a little more 
 money with which to push their work. 
 
 The South is now open. Methodism, with 
 a gospel for the poor man, white or black, can 
 go anywhere with her Northern ideas and 
 New Testament experience. The West, fill- 
 ing up with youth and enterprise from the 
 East, is annually building towns by the hun- 
 
 21 I 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 dred, while hundreds of thousands of settlers 
 are seeking homes and planting the great 
 States of the near future. 
 
 In these vast and open fields our brethren 
 are working on the merest pittance, and per- 
 petuating the heroic age of Methodism. 
 From information gathered in our office from 
 these home fields, we believe that a thousand 
 additional workers, preachers, teachers, and 
 Bible-readers could be advantageously used in 
 these fields, in places where they are greatly 
 needed, where the people would now do some- 
 thing for themselves, and where we might 
 soon have self-supporting societies, if we only 
 had $150,000 more to expend in this part of 
 our work. 
 
 Looking at the work, even the most timid 
 would give the order to advance. And look- 
 ing the other way, at our contributions, one is 
 constrained to repeat the order. We have 
 room before us. We have not yet exhausted 
 our resources. In view of the great demand, 
 it gives us hope that we have not yet exhausted 
 our resources. We have vast reserve power. 
 
 The following table, condensed from the 
 most valuable work of Dr. Dorchester, "The 
 Problem of Religious Progress," the advanced 
 
 212 
 
The Message. 
 
 sheets of which we have been permitted to 
 study, is suggestive. We still have room for 
 improvement. Much as we are doing, these 
 figures demonstrate that we may safely press 
 toward the front. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the showing 
 of benevolence per member for each year is 
 above the fact. The average yearly contribu- 
 tion is divided, not by the average member- 
 ship of the decade, but by the membership of 
 the first year of the decade ; so that the average 
 is more than it ought to be. But this work is 
 no injustice to any denomination in compari- 
 son with others, as all are treated alike. Thus 
 we are credited with fifty cents per member, 
 when our actual average for 1880 is less than 
 thirty- two cents. 
 
 We are not as wealthy as some of the older 
 denominations. But we are far wealthier 
 than our Methodist Episcopal brethren in 
 Canada or the English Wesleyans, who give 
 twelve times as much for foreign missions as 
 we do, and nearly five times as much for for- 
 eign missions as we give for every benevo- 
 lence. 
 
 Our Hindu brethren, recently converted 
 from heathenism, receive from $2 to $4 per 
 
 213 
 
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The Message. 
 
 month. Out of this they board themselves 
 and support their families. Yet from their 
 hungry poverty they give, not including what 
 the ministers give, to missions, to carry the 
 gospel to other heathen, an average of thirty 
 cents apiece. We give from our great sal- 
 aries and our great fortunes and great farms, 
 from our great rich Church, thirty-one cents 
 each. Surely w^e have not reached the limit 
 of our ability. There is great hope in our 
 reserve power. All we need is the breath of 
 God to make this Church of*ours march into 
 the darkness of Paganism, and, like the angels, 
 illumine the darkness with its very presence. 
 Let us pray for this breath. Hitherto we 
 have asked nothing. Let us ask according to 
 the demands of the work, and according to 
 the power of our God. Let our Methodism 
 give a million dollars a year. 
 
 The success of modern missions is the mar- Success, 
 vel of history. We occasionally hear com- 
 plaints about the vast outlay and small re- 
 turns, just as we hear men talking about the 
 decline of Christianity. These complaints are 
 born either of ignorance or of an evil desire. 
 The growth of the missions of this century 
 surpasses all other ages of the Christian 
 
 215 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Church. Indeed this century is pre-eminently 
 the missionary century. It rises out of gross 
 darkness. The generation preceding the re- 
 vival of this spirit was noted for skepticism, 
 formalism, and immorality. Protestantism 
 had apparently passed into a rapid decline. 
 Hume, Gibbon, Paine, and Voltaire were 
 more sought and read than Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, and John. In a short period, scarcely 
 more than a decade long, five million seven 
 hundred and sixty-eight thousand nine hun- 
 dred volumes of the works of Voltaire and of 
 other infidels were sold on the Continent, 
 while less than five million copies of the Bible 
 had been produced in all languages for all the 
 centuries. But as soon as the Church began 
 to do the saving work, and thus demonstrated 
 the Savior's presence in the world, a new 
 spirit gave her new life, and she has gone 
 straight on from conquering to conquest, till 
 the present is the brightest hour in the world's 
 history. 
 
 In 1800 there were only seven Protestant 
 Foreign Missionary Societies; in 1880 there 
 are seventy, besides sixteen Woman's Foreign 
 Missionary Societies. Then there were only 
 one hundred and seventy ordained mission- 
 
 216 
 
The Message. 
 
 aries; now there are abQut seven thousand 
 ordained ministers in mission-fields, who are 
 directing the labors of forty-five thousand 
 helpers, lay and clerical, in twenty thousand 
 stations and sub-stations. In 1800 there were 
 about fifty thousand converts and adherents; 
 now there are over one million converts, with 
 about three million five hundred thousand 
 adherents. In 1878 there came into the Prot- 
 estant Mission Churches, in that single year, 
 sixty thousand converts. In 1800 there were 
 seventy schools ; now there are twelve thou- 
 sand, with seven hundred and fifty thousand 
 pupils. In 1800 all Protestantism gave for 
 foreign missions less than $250,000; in 1879 
 she gave over $8,000,000. 
 
 In 1878 Dr. Legge, long a missionary in 
 China, said: "Suppose the number of converts 
 in China to increase for the next thirty-five 
 years as it has in the last thirty-five years, — 
 then, in 1913, we shall have in China alone 
 twenty-six million communicants and one 
 hundred million professedly Christian peo- 
 ple." 
 
 Take down the map of the world, and trace 
 in light the regions that have been captured 
 for Christ since 1850, and you will find these 
 
 217 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 modern additions more than had been gained 
 in the five hundred years preceding. 
 
 Follow the path of the Bible, and you will 
 find a path that grows brighter and brighter, 
 and is rapidly approaching the perfect day. 
 In the beginning of this century there were 
 but fifty languages into which the Bible had 
 made its way in three thousand three hundred 
 years. Since 1800 it has created seventy lan- 
 guages to carry its inspiration, and has en- 
 riched, in all, nearly three hundred, with one 
 hundred and fifty million copies. 
 
 Launch your timid craft in the stream of 
 modern missionary benevolence. It is like 
 the stream which the prophet saw flowing 
 out from under the altar. It is not yet up to 
 a man's loins, but it is much more than ankle 
 deep. And it sweeps on with such a mighty 
 current that nothing can resist it. The aggre- 
 gate of moneys raised in the United States for 
 foreign and home missions, told in decades, 
 shows the stately presence of the King: 
 
 From 1810-20 $206,210 
 
 From 1820-30 979,544 
 
 From 1830-40 5,133,855 
 
 From 1840-50 7,925,370 
 
 From 1850-60 16,167,822 
 
 From 1860-70 33,509,494 
 
 From 1870-80 48,661,681 
 
 218 
 
The Message. 
 
 One can hardly study these figures and be- 
 lieve that the spirit of missions is dying out. 
 From 1840 to i860 the contributions were two 
 and a half times greater than all that preceded 
 them from the Mayflower down to 1840. 
 Again, from i860 to 1880, the contributions 
 are more than two and a half times all that 
 preceded i860. At this rate the mission cause 
 will die only when all shall know the Lord, 
 from the least even to the greatest. 
 
 This great growth is rapidly illumining the 
 earth. In the Fiji Islands, fifty years ago, 
 the inhabitants feasted on human flesh. To- 
 day there are twenty-five thousand communi- 
 cants, and out of one hundred and twenty 
 thousand inhabitants one hundred and two 
 thousand are regular attendants upon Church. 
 In 1810, in the Friendly Islands, there was 
 not a Christian. To-day there are eight thou- 
 sand communicants and twenty thousand wor- 
 shipers. In i860, in Madagascar, there were 
 only a few hundred fugitive Christians. To- 
 day the queen and her prime minister and 
 over two hundred and fifty-three thousand of 
 her subjects are adherents, with more than 
 seventy thousand communicants. A century 
 ago Captain Cook brought to light Polynesia, 
 
 219 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 with its twelve thousand islands, heathen to 
 the last degree. To-day it is nearly all Chris- 
 tianized. 
 The The Prophet of Nazareth is setting up His 
 ^""'""'P^' kingdom. It has been a long and hard con- 
 '"nay.t^^t. And the end is not yet; but the bright- 
 ness of His universal kingdom gilds the near 
 future. It is not too much for us to hope for 
 it in our day. See the growth of Christianity. 
 We give the numbers of people under nom- 
 inal Christian governments as distinguished 
 from Pagan governments. The first three 
 centuries represent more nearly the Church 
 adherents : 
 
 First century 500,000 
 
 Second century 2,000,000 
 
 Third century 5,000,000 
 
 Fourth century 10,000,000 
 
 Fifth century 1 5,000,000 
 
 Sixth century 20,000,000 
 
 Seventh century 25,000,000 
 
 Eighth century 30,000,000 
 
 Ninth century 40,000,000 
 
 Tenth century 50,000,000 
 
 Eleventh century 70,000,000 
 
 Twelfth century 80,000,000 
 
 Thirteenth century 75,000,000 
 
 Fourteenth century 80,000,000 
 
 Fifteenth century 100,000,000 
 
 Sixteenth century 125,000,000 
 
 Seventeenth century 155,000,000 
 
 Eighteenth century 200,000,000 
 
 220 
 
The Message. 
 
 It took fifteen hundred years to secure one 
 hundred million nominal Christians. And it 
 required three hundred years more to double 
 the number, making two hundred million in 
 1800. But three-quarters of a century more, 
 — namely, in 1876 — the number had gone up 
 to six hundred and eighty-seven million. It 
 is easy to see that a quarter of a century more 
 will give us all millions. It is not too much 
 to hope for it in our day. 
 
 There is great inspiration in the fact i\\2i\. Protest- 
 this great advancement is made by Protestant- ''"'^^'" 
 ism rather than by Romanism. The total re- Roman- 
 ceipts of the Lyons Propaganda, from its ori-"'"- 
 gin (1822) to 1879, collected from all parts 
 of the world, is $36,943,935. Total receipts 
 of Protestant Foreign Missionary Societies, 
 $270,000,000. Of this $200,000,000 is the gift 
 of the last thirty years. The Roman Cath- 
 olics of the British Isles gave to foreign mis- 
 sions in 1879, $40,560. Protestants of the 
 same land and year, and for the same purpose, 
 $5,392,830. Roman Catholics in the United 
 States gave for foreign missions in 1879, 
 $15,000. Protestants of the United States, for 
 the same year, gave to foreign missions $2,- 
 
 221 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 623,618. These figures tell who is doing the 
 saving work, and who ought to grow. 
 
 The following table, showing the popula- 
 tion under Roman Catholic, Greek, and Prot- 
 estant governments, shows which is actually 
 growing: 
 
 Year. 
 
 Roman Cath- 
 olic. 
 
 Greek. 
 
 Protestant. 
 
 Total. 
 
 1500, . . 
 1700, . . 
 1830, . . 
 1876, . . 
 
 80,000,000 
 
 90,000,000 
 
 134,164,000 
 
 180,787,905 
 
 20,000,000 
 33,000,000 
 60,000,000 
 96,101,894 
 
 32,000,000 
 193,624,000 
 408,569,612 
 
 100,000,000 
 155,000,000 
 387.788,000 
 685,459,411 
 
 Surely these columns are moving in the 
 right direction. 
 
 It is sometimes claimed that this rush 
 toward Protestantism is a rush too far, and 
 that we lose in conviction more than we gain 
 in freedom. But a careful study of the faiths 
 of the English-speaking peoples answers all 
 doubts. 
 
 In 1800 there were twenty- four million 
 English-speaking people, of whom fourteen 
 million were Protestant, five million five hun- 
 dred thousand were Roman Catholic, and four 
 million five hundred thousand were of no 
 faith. In 1880 there were eighty-one million 
 English-speaking people, of whom fifty-nine 
 million were Protestant, thirteen million five 
 
 222 
 
The Message. 
 
 hundred thousand were Roman Catholic, and 
 but eight million five hundred thousand were 
 of no faith. The English-speaking popula- 
 tion increased in eighty years three hundred 
 and thirty-seven per cent, the Roman Catholic 
 only one hundred and forty-five per cent, 
 while the Protestant increased four hundred 
 and twenty-one per cent, and those of no faith 
 less than one hundred per cent. These figures 
 are not alarming. This is particularly so 
 when we see the leading skeptics "hearkening 
 back," saying, "We were steadied by what 
 our mothers taught us from the rejected 
 Bible; but what will steady our children?" 
 
 The Church figures in this country are 
 cheering. In 1800 there was one communi- 
 cant for every 14.50 inhabitants; in 1850, one 
 for 6.57; in 1870, one for 5.74; in 1879, one 
 for every 5.15. Surely we can g\\t thanks to 
 God, and go boldly for the conquest for all 
 heathenism. 
 
 In 1760, in a little room in Geneva, Vol- 
 taire boastingly said, "Before the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century Christianity will 
 have disappeared from the earth." Could the 
 poor man stand in that little room to-day he 
 would take up one of the Bibles there offered 
 
 223 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 for sale, and turning to Isaiah's inspired page, 
 he would say, "By the end of the nineteenth 
 century Christianity shall fill the whole earth, 
 for 'the earth shall be full of the knowledge 
 of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.' " 
 
 A century ago France rejected God, and 
 Captain Cook found the Sandwich Islanders, 
 who did not know God. In 1872 the children 
 of those heathen, touched by the gospel, sent 
 $2,000 to relieve the sufferings that had come 
 upon the children of those infidels in France. 
 
 "There 's a wideness in God's mercy, 
 Like the wideness of the sea." 
 
 The gospel is building up characters in the 
 midst of heathenism that do honor to any age 
 of martyrs. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Whitehead, in the address al- 
 ready referred to on page 199, gave the fol- 
 lowing incident, showing what heroic men 
 the converted heathens are: 
 
 "Another man, the keeper of the Confucian 
 temple at Potlan, an ancient town on the Can- 
 ton East River, received the Scripture from 
 a colporteur of the London Missionary Soci- 
 ety; he was baptized by Dr. Legge; he at 
 once gave up his employment, and among his 
 
 224 
 
The Message. 
 
 acquaintances and friends appointed himself 
 as a Scripture reader; he was a sort of mov- 
 ing conscience among the Chinese. He went 
 about the streets of the city, and into the in- 
 terior, with boards upon his back bearing 
 texts of the Holy Scripture; and so abun- 
 dantly were that man's labors honored that in 
 about three years a hundred persons were 
 ready to receive Christian baptism. So 
 mightily grew the Word of God, and pre- 
 vailed, that in a short time excitement began 
 to appear, and then hostility, and then perse- 
 cution broke out; Christians were driven from 
 their villages, and their property plundered. 
 This man was taken, and twice within forty- 
 eight hours was had up before the mandarins 
 to account for his conduct, and he was called 
 upon to recant. This he steadfastly refused 
 to do. They, therefore, tried what torture 
 would do, and suspended him by the arms 
 through the night. The next morning he was 
 brought forth, pale, wan, feeble, almost ready 
 to drop, for a second trial, still resolved to 
 cleave to the Bible and to Christ, and he ven- 
 tured to express the hope that his persecutors 
 and judges might some day accept the new 
 IS 225 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 doctrine. This was too much for them ; they 
 rushed upon him, like the judges of Stephen, 
 Vith one accord,' and killed him on the spot 
 by repeated blows with their side-arms, and 
 threw him into the river. Thus perished one 
 of China's first Protestant martyrs." 
 
 The mission work is a great work. It is 
 rising rapidly toward completion. Jesus is 
 claiming His own. Soon all kingdoms shall 
 be His. The Christian Churches are out in 
 force. Nothing shall long withstand them. 
 Brother, turn back to the table of mission- 
 ary benevolence of the different Protestant 
 Churches, and study our record in compari- 
 son with the records of the other denomina- 
 tions. Are you satisfied with it? Are we 
 doing our even share of this great work? 
 When the Master comes, can we meet Him 
 with the conviction that we have done what 
 we could? Let us pray God that our great 
 Methodism may stand in her lot and place in 
 such a noble way that the King will be as- 
 sured that He can ask anything of her in this 
 mighty conquest. 
 
 Brother, with your hand on your headstone, 
 your eye on the judgment throne, and your 
 
 226 
 
The Message. 
 
 heart naked and open to the AUseeing Eye, 
 answer this question : Will you not do for this 
 cause what God requires of you? 
 
 It is not enough to say that "the way to hoiv 
 raise missionary money is to raise it." It is^°^^"^ 
 necessary to be more specific. It is trite to Money. 
 say, "Apply the Plan laid down in the Disci- 
 pline," but it is good advice. 
 
 In advancing this great cause you must dis- 
 tribute the sum to be raised over a greater 
 number of contributors. The Plan does this. 
 If you have never applied it, you will find 
 its application much more simple and easy 
 than you expect. Select a few persons, men 
 or women ; give to each a collector's book, 
 and distribute the names of the members of 
 the Church and congregation among these 
 collectors, and ask them to secure a contribu- 
 tion either weekly, monthly, or quarterly, 
 from each person on their lists. The old 
 givers will not fall back, but many new ones 
 will be added, and the total result will be 
 much in advance of any previous year, while 
 no one will be hurt. 
 
 A brother in one of the seaboard Confer- 
 ences was sent to a poor charge in a city. It 
 agreed to pay him $1,200. Many doubted 
 
 227 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 their ability to carry such a load. The 
 brother adopted the Plan of the Discipline. 
 Everybody gave a little all the time. At the 
 end of the year he had received his $1,200, 
 and he took to Conference $1,700 for mis- 
 sions, and no one was harmed. 
 
 A brother in the New^ England Conference 
 had a church almost swallowed by a great 
 debt. By almost superhuman exertions he 
 raised the money and pledges to pay the debt. 
 But to do it he was obliged to "give the 
 heathen the go-by." This did not seem right, 
 so he appointed six women to apply the Plan 
 in the Discipline. Among these women he 
 distributed the names of the members. They 
 went about with much fear and trembling to 
 glean a little, and give those who wanted to 
 give a chance. At the end of the year he had 
 raised in this way more than twice as much 
 as the year before, and nobody was hurt. 
 
 Bishop Harris tells of a case he met when 
 he was Missionary Secretary. The pastor of 
 a certain Church had two hobbies which he 
 rode alternately; sometimes one in the morn- 
 ing, and the other at night; sometimes one, 
 one Sabbath, and the other the next. One 
 hobby was Missions, and the other was Sanc- 
 
 228 
 
The Message. 
 
 tification. Good steeds to drive together. 
 Neither works well in single harness. One 
 becomes Pharisaism and the other fanaticism 
 when driven alone. The first Sabbath the 
 pastor was at the charge he preached his first 
 sermon on missions. And at night he 
 preached again on missions. Before dismiss- 
 ing the evening congregation he asked the 
 membership to tarry for a few moments after 
 the benediction, for he wished to make a few 
 remarks on missions. The Church tarried, 
 and he announced that on a certain evening 
 there would be a concert of prayer for mis- 
 sions, and that Dr. A. and Rev. Mr. B. would 
 speak on certain fields. At the end of the 
 year the collection for missions was much 
 more than doubled, and every other interest 
 had advanced with it. 
 
 Apply the Discipline to that last man, and 
 Methodism will give more than a million 
 dollars a year. God hasten the day! 
 
 229 
 
V. 
 
 HOME AND HEATHEN MISSIONS 
 CONTRASTED. 
 
 [At Rock River Conference in 1869 Dr. Fowler was ap- 
 pointed to preach the Conference Missionary Sermon the follow- 
 ing year. At the session in 1870 he preached this sermon. It 
 was published in full in the Northwestern Christian Advocate. 
 The careful study of the subject and the preparation of this 
 sermon made Dr. Fowler forever afterward an enthusiast for 
 foreign as well as home missions.] 
 
 "Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was 
 necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken 
 to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves un- 
 worthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles; for so 
 hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a 
 light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto 
 the ends of the earth." — Acts xiii, 46, 47. 
 
 Let Paul and Barnabas stand for the 
 Christian Church; let the Jews to whom they 
 spoke stand for the called or civilized peo- 
 ples of the world; let the Gentiles represent 
 the heathen; let the actual exaltation of 
 Christian people be fairly stated in saying 
 that they "are set to be a light to the nations;" 
 
 230 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 and let our obligation be measured by God's 
 requirement that we should "be for salvation 
 unto the ends of the earth." Thus we are, 
 without introduction, in the midst of our 
 theme, "Turning to the Gentiles." 
 
 The uork to ivhich we thus turn deserves 
 our support on account of its very vastness. 
 It gratifies ambition by the breadth of its 
 field, by the skill needed for its achievement, 
 by the power developed in its prosecution, 
 and by the immortality secured in its triumph. 
 It excites the cupidity of calculation by the 
 harvests that shall wave on its deserts, by the 
 mines that shall be opened in its recesses, by 
 the gems that shall glisten in its gloom, by 
 the crafts that shall carry its commerce, by 
 the anvils that shall ring out its industry, by 
 the spindles that shall sing of its activity'", by 
 the constitutions that shall control its count- 
 less communities, and by the governments that 
 shall guard its garnered gains. It fires the 
 zeal of sacrifice by the darkness it shall dis- 
 pel, by the superstitions it shall strangle, by 
 the cruelty it shall crush, by the ignorance it 
 shall inhibit, by the crime it shall correct, 
 and by the despotisms it shall doom. It fans 
 the flame of devotion by the anguish it shall 
 
 231 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 assuage, by the sorrow it shall comfort, by 
 the blessings it shall bestow, by the light it 
 shall disseminate, by the hope it shall inspire, 
 by the purity it shall beget, by the heaven it 
 shall bequeath. In 1534, Ignatius Loyola, the 
 wounded soldier of Pampeluna, consecrated 
 himself to the work of staying the German 
 Reformation, and of evangelizing the world 
 in the interests of the Roman See. The very 
 magnitude of the enterprise lifted the soldier 
 into the saint, and -attracted about him the 
 forces that to-day in the order of the Jesuits 
 control all the millions of Romanists. In 
 1540, Francis Xavier set himself apart to the 
 work of saving the Indies. He measured 
 himself against all obstacles, and found noth- 
 ing impossible to his purpose. He became 
 as great as his work, and by it was lifted into 
 victory. In twelve years he preached in the 
 Indies, in Japan, and in China, planted Ro- 
 manism in forty-two kingdoms, and baptized 
 a million subjects. The secret of his power 
 was the transforming power of the greatness 
 of his enterprise. By this same law our mis- 
 sion work, taking ''the world for the field," 
 exalts us into conquerors, and contains in its 
 vastness the prophecy of victory. 
 
 232 • 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 Mission work is demanded by the very 
 spirit of our age. 
 
 Does this mission work need a defense? It 
 is at hand in the very spirit of our age. This 
 is an aggressive time. Thought leaps out of 
 all restraints and runs with the burning 
 torches of its inquiry into the unexplored 
 regions beyond each science. Books publish 
 from the housetops all secrets. Art has a new 
 robe and a new life with every new moon. 
 New peoples rise into the problems of polit- 
 ical economy with every season. New churches 
 appear above the horizon of faith with every 
 Sabbath. New engines revolutionize mili- 
 tary tactics with every war. Everything is 
 pushing toward the outer verge of things. 
 Christianity can not stand still, can not be 
 other than aggressive, can not be other than 
 missionary. An old mummy Paganism, wear- 
 ing the turban and sandals of Abraham's day, 
 may be shut in by its native hills or rivers; 
 but the living gospel of this living age, having 
 in It the Divine and imperative "Go" of the 
 Prophet of Nazareth, must overleap all 
 streams and all seas, and take the world in the 
 embrace of its purpose, or it must cease to be 
 the religion of this living time. 
 
 233 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Mission work is the very spirit of Chris- 
 tianity itself. 
 
 Does the mission work still need defense? 
 Its defense is the defense of Christianity it- 
 self. Originally and of necessity to be any- 
 thing, Christianity must needs be purely mis- 
 sionary. It is Divine truth breaking into a 
 heathen world. Christ comes as a missionary. 
 Christ is one sent. He comes needed but un- 
 invited. He crowds Himself upon the race 
 when nothing awaits Him but a manger and 
 a cross. He patiently intrenches in a hostile 
 world, and undertakes its subjugation. He is 
 seeking the lost, calling not the righteous but 
 sinners to repentance. We are to have His 
 spirit. Thus the New Testament Church is 
 the mightiest missionary society ever launched 
 upon the sea of the centuries. If your heart 
 is too narrow and local to take in this mission 
 work, look well to it. CHRIST ALWAYS STAYS 
 
 OUT WITH His cause. 
 
 Mission work is necessary to Christian life. 
 
 Does this mission work still need defense? 
 It is ready in the fact that it is necessary to 
 Christian life. "Freely ye have received" is 
 followed in the same Divine breath by "freely 
 give." The gift and the duty are inseparable. 
 
 234 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 God's government of souls, like His govern- 
 ment of worlds, is through agencies. When 
 He conquers a people He mans the fortresses 
 and conscripts the forces, not by outside com- 
 pulsion, but by inside impulsion. When a 
 soul touches Him it is healed. When healed 
 it straightens up. When it straightens up it 
 proclaims His glory. The moment a soul 
 touches the Rock, it can not but call to the 
 struggling swimmers in the surf. In the old 
 days, when courageous and desperate men 
 went with their teams across the plains to 
 California, one poor man made the journey 
 on foot. A gentleman who went with teams 
 and abundance told me that this man skirted 
 their train for weeks. At last they struck the 
 Alkali Desert, where so many found disaster 
 and death. By dint of hard driving they 
 crossed and camped, and were leisurely eat- 
 ing a good supper on the bank of a stream 
 when this footman walked by to the river. 
 He drank and returned to the wagon. They 
 invited him to eat. He declined, but asked 
 to borrow a rubber bucket. He was covered 
 with the Alkali dust, and his hair was matted. 
 His hat was gone. His shoes were gone. His 
 bare feet were sore and bleeding. His tongue 
 
 235 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 was still swollen. His lips were parched and 
 cracked. His bare teeth were still begrimed 
 with the sand. They asked him where he 
 was going. He pointed to the awful desert 
 of death, and said, "There are men dying 
 there, and I must go to them." So when a 
 poor soul, wandering on the desert of sin, 
 footsore and bruised and famishing, reaches 
 ■ and drinks of the fountain of Eternal Life, 
 the first and imperative impulse is, "There are 
 dying men yonder, and I must go to them." 
 This inheres in Christian life. Resist the Di- 
 vine impulse, and you die. This makes the 
 missionary work a necessit}^ 
 Our Does this mission work still need a defense? 
 Ai arching 'j'Y^Q final appeal is to our Great Commander. 
 
 Urders. 
 
 A missionary once asked the Duke of Wel- 
 lington concerning a certain mission-field, 
 what he thought of the chances of success. 
 The Iron Duke took down his Bible, and, 
 turning to the words of Jesus on Mount 
 Olivet, read: "All power is given unto Me 
 in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, 
 and teach all nations;" and then said, "Here 
 are your marching orders." So we must lis- 
 ten to our Great Commander. Listen to His 
 order. His word is above appeal. In the 
 
 236 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 hour of holy communion with the Church, 
 He says, "My Father hath sent Me; even so 
 send I you." Yonder, above Olivet, overlook- 
 ing the Holy City, in the presence of His be- 
 lieving followers, with His hands outspread in 
 benediction, as the summit of Olivet sinks be- 
 neath His feet, and the disciples gaze in ador- 
 ing awe, and chariots of light await His bid- 
 ding, and unnumbered angels watch His as- 
 cent, in just this supreme moment of all his- 
 tory. His last word, His richest, life-giving 
 blessing falls upon the Church. "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 com- 
 manded you ; and lo, I am with you alway, 
 even to the end of the world." This is the end 
 of controversy. This work must be done. 
 
 Startled by this ever-pleading and imper- Domestic 
 ative voice, crying "Go," we spring to our^^"^"'"-'- 
 feet, and look about us asking, Where? The 
 first thing we see is that the wall over against 
 our own doors is down. This brings us face 
 to face with the Domestic Missions. This is 
 the popular work of the Church. This needs 
 
 237 
 
Missiofiary Addresses. 
 
 no defense. It is so enthroned and enshrined 
 that it can not be defamed. The old weakness 
 that would stumble along by sight rather than 
 soar by faith, cries out for the home work and 
 visible results. The infidel scoff about 
 "woolen shirts for South Sea Islanders" finds 
 such response that we feel like apologizing 
 when we attempt anything beyond the home 
 work. This field is important. 
 Argument Its argument is compact and available. As 
 ^"^ '''a business transaction it does not seem so ex- 
 
 mestic 
 
 Missions, pensive as the foreign work. The money is 
 exchanged for direct endeavors. It is said 
 that one dollar here will go farther than ten 
 dollars over the sea. Here the missionaries 
 preach in their mother-tongue. They are fa- 
 miliar with every accent. They are molded 
 into the very customs of the people whom 
 they would serve. They are fairly steeped 
 in the modes of thinking which they need to 
 use. They are free from all the prejudices 
 that hedge up the way of the foreigner. 
 They can measure their full strength in their 
 special work. They can take all the advan- 
 tages of position. They can launch their 
 crafts in any stream of social feeling, and run 
 them into the very heart of the peoole. Here 
 
 238 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 the ivhole spirit of society is on their side. 
 The public institutions, the Sabbath, the 
 churches and schools, the entire atmosphere 
 of the country, the deep and universal moral 
 sentiment, — all these are allies. All these pre- 
 pare conviction. They lay the moral maga- 
 zine that waits the fire of the Word to lift 
 men out of their sins. If, with all these aids, 
 we fail here, we need not go abroad. If thou 
 hast run with footmen, and they have wearied 
 thee, how canst thou contend with horses? 
 
 Besides all this, the ivork is at our very 
 doors. We can not go to our meals without 
 passing through this whitened harvest. There 
 is no shrinkage of time consumed in long sea- 
 voyages, nor of life wasted in contending 
 against foreign malaria, nor of money ex- 
 torted for foreign exchange. But the work 
 is here, is open, is among our children and 
 neighbors, builds up our Churches, shows im- 
 mediate fruits. 
 
 More than this, all our national interests 
 are involved. We are at the confluence of 
 nearly all the great races. Into the basin of 
 the New World all the streams of life are 
 flowing. They come with every variety of 
 prejudice and ignorance. They must be evan- 
 
 239 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 gelized and digested, or we must sink. We 
 seem to be providentially a home mission 
 people. What we do here goes to strengthen 
 our own country. What we do in India 
 builds up England. What we do in China 
 will build up all the nations entering the open 
 door. What we do in Africa strengthens 
 France. What we do in Germany strength- 
 ens Prussia. What we do in Turkey will ul- 
 timately fortify Russia, or France, or Eng- 
 land. Thus all our foreign work strengthens 
 only foreign nations, except what we do in 
 China, where we reap a part of the advan- 
 tage; and these foreign nations tolerate our 
 Government because they fear our power. 
 Other nations may go into the foreign work 
 as we go into the home, and secure the results. 
 Argument Thcsc positivc argumcuts for the domestic 
 .J^^J missions are re-enforced by the difficulties in 
 the way of the foreign work. Each mission- 
 ary is bottled up in an unknown tongue. He 
 can look upon his subjects in their need, but 
 can not speak to them. It takes months to get 
 the cork out. Then the work usually lays its 
 corner-stones in the coffins of its messengers. 
 It has to learn the secret of the enemy's tac- 
 tics and weapons by studying the wounds of 
 
 24.0 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 the fallen. Remedies for the strange plagues 
 have to be discovered by experiment upon 
 dying victims. Greed of gain outruns zeal 
 for souls. Commerce precedes Christianity, 
 sin crowds in before righteousness. Thus the 
 bad lives of nominal Christians prejudice the 
 heathen against us. We appear as a race of 
 slave-stealers, or empire-founders. We are 
 know^n as desolators, or as conquerors. The 
 heathen take their religion with their birth- 
 place, and it is hard for them to distinguish 
 between mere citizens and actual saints. 
 Then, in much of the foreign field, in India, 
 we are confronted by the walls of caste. 
 These are as old as their religion. They are 
 in the ancient codes. These social walls are 
 older than the covenant with Abraham prom- 
 ising blessings to all nations in his seed. 
 They have defied the spear of the Mussul- 
 man and the cannon of the Briton. They 
 make martyrdom or exile the conditions of 
 accepting Christianity. In the hands of the 
 Brahmins, the educated priests, caste is made 
 the foundation of government. Though op- 
 posed to natural justice, this system holds its 
 sway by giving dignity to the higher orders, 
 and immunity to the lower. Thus it has fed 
 i6 241 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 on the national blood and brain for forty cen- 
 turies. This confronts us as we enter India. 
 And many a poor, filthy, besmeared, naked, 
 ignorant, starving fakir, with a circle drawn 
 around him in the dust, and with a lump of 
 filth for an idol in his hands, would rather 
 die than be touched by the fairest hand of 
 Christendom, or of any other lower caste. In 
 China we do not meet caste, but we meet a 
 corresponding bigotry. China is the Celes- 
 tial Empire. Her pedigree runs back to the 
 divinities. The mighty dead had neither 
 railroads nor Christianity. So the reverential 
 living do not ask for either. These difficul- 
 ties add to the argument in favor of the do- 
 mestic missions. 
 
 We turn to the Gentiles. I have endeav- 
 ored fairly to put the entire case, as far as 
 time will permit. I accept all that can be 
 said for the home work. I give it a place in 
 my prayers. In the presence of all this argu- 
 ment for the home work, I say with Paul and 
 Barnabas, "It was necessary that the Word 
 of God should first have been spoken to you." 
 This has been done. The Word of God has 
 been spoken in these civilized nations. They 
 have been called. These whom we pursue 
 
 242 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 by this home work have been invited, and I 
 add with the apostles, "Seeing ye put it from 
 you, and judge yourselves unworthy of ever- 
 lasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." As 
 the call of the Gentiles did not exclude the 
 Jews, nor forsake them, but left the door open 
 for all who would come, so our turning to 
 the heathen does not abandon the home work, 
 but continues the everlasting invitation. Let 
 us now weigh the domestic and foreign mis- 
 sions in the scales together. It may be that 
 the home work has been overestimated by us 
 on account of our prejudices, or of its prox- 
 imity, or of its building up our own 
 Churches, or of its national value. I am not 
 surprised when good men assail the foreign 
 work in the interest of the home. Prejudice 
 is strong with the best of us. Then, we can 
 see a settlement on our circuits more clearly 
 than a settlement in the valley of the Ganges, 
 or on the banks of the Minn. 
 
 The argument of cost needs qualifying. Coj/. 
 We have been doing a preparatory work. 
 We have been buying seed and labor for the 
 springtime; the harvest is coming. But in 
 actual results the figures are not discourag- 
 ing. We spend in the home work $75,000,000 
 
 243 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 a year. All Churches spend in the foreign 
 $5,000,000 a year. We have already six hun- 
 dred and eighty-seven thousand converts in 
 Africa, and seven hundred and thirteen thou- 
 sand in Asia. Can the home work show as 
 much in proportion to the investment? 
 Remote- The argument of remoteness has lost its 
 "^^'- power. When men say that the heathen are 
 too far away, that we had better look after 
 the work at home, I have simply to say that 
 that objection belonged to the age of ox-teams 
 and foot-postmen. This is an age of railroads 
 and steamships and lightning. China has 
 been moved into our State, into our county, 
 into our neighborhood. I can visit our mis- 
 sion in Peking in about the same number of 
 days it took you to come from Buffalo to this 
 State, when some of you came. You can give 
 me your subscriptions this morning, in this 
 city, and I can put it into the missionary's 
 hand in his station, fifteen hundred miles back 
 from the coast of India, in twelve hours less 
 than no time. So he will get it yesterday. 
 I can take your money, and give you his re- 
 ceipt in less than forty minutes. Your draft 
 given to-day can be cashed yesterday, before 
 the bank closes. Distance is no longer an ele- 
 
 244 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 ment in the calculation. I agree with you, 
 God is bringing the peoples to our shores, not 
 by the thousand, by the shipload, as you 
 think, but by the millions, by the continent- 
 ful. China and India, nearer than the back 
 end of your farm in damp weather, must be 
 taken into the home and domestic work. 
 
 The element of language is not so startling z.a«^aa^/?. 
 as at first it seems. Any man, to carry on his 
 work successfully, must soon study enough 
 to master a foreign tongue. Commerce never 
 stumbles at this stone. Shall the gospel? 
 Pleasure often learns two or three tongues 
 that it may sport in the saloons of Paris, or 
 look upon the moonlit waves of Venice, or 
 walk through the art galleries of Berlin. 
 May not the apostle, under the Divine com- 
 mission, seeking blood-bought souls, do as 
 much? Often the exile learns the language 
 of the stranger that he may have a home. 
 May not the believer who has learned the 
 language of Canaan, learn another that others 
 may have an eternal home? Surely we seek 
 an excuse when wt would defend inactivity 
 by this plea. Already the Bible is translated 
 into the principal languages. It is read in 
 over two hundred tongues and dialects. See 
 
 245 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 what multitudes read the principal lan- 
 guages. The Chinese is read by five hundred 
 millions of people; the Arabic by one hun- 
 dred and fifty millions; the Sanscrit, back of 
 twenty-four of the twenty-nine languages of 
 India and containing the classics of India, by 
 one hundred and eighty millions; the Eng- 
 lish by about one hundred millions. There 
 are in the world three hundred and sixty- 
 three languages. More people read the Chi- 
 nese than read any other language. Think 
 of Simpson and Beecher preaching to half 
 mankind! China has seventy thousand char- 
 acters in her language. But only ten thou- 
 sand are necessary in reading her classics or 
 in translating the New Testament, and only 
 two thousand are required for common busi- 
 ness. This leaves a large margin of possi- 
 bility. The Sanscrit possesses variety and 
 pliability suiting it to the accurate expression 
 of every shade of thought. It far surpasses 
 the Hebrew for strength or the Greek for 
 beauty. To pass over such a threshold into 
 a literature that was classical long before 
 Herodotus wrote the first history of Greece, 
 or Homer sang the first song, or before Moses 
 wrote the Pentateuch; a literature that had 
 
 246 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 astronomies and philosophies, and sacred 
 books and classics, twenty-five hundred years 
 old when the fathers of the English were run- 
 ning barefooted in the forests, with skins for 
 clothes and clubs for weapons, — surely to pass 
 over such a threshold into such a work, to 
 such multitudes, is rather a stimulus than a 
 discouragement. The languages of China 
 and India only tempt the all-conquering en- 
 ergies of the powers renewed by the gospel. 
 
 Take another point thought to be against Prf7«^/«. 
 the foreign work, — prejudice. This is melt- 
 ing in the light of better knowledge. In 
 India native gentlemen send their sons to 
 England and Europe to have them educated. 
 They crowd them into every vacancy in the 
 government service. They resort to all means 
 to learn the English, the language of the con- 
 querors. An Indian rajah of Calcutta has 
 hired in his house, as an instructor, a Negro 
 who was once a slave in Alabama. His quali- 
 fication is his knowledge of the English Ian-, 
 guage. When that language was emphasized 
 upon his bare back in the rice-swamps by the 
 driver's lash, little did he understand to what 
 dignity it should exalt him. The sons of 
 India crowd the halls of seventeen thousand 
 
 247 
 
Missionary Addresses, 
 
 government schools, that they may learn the 
 English and modern science, China is slow, 
 but she is rising out of this prejudice. To- 
 day she leans on the United States for defense. 
 She looks to us for treaties and instruction. 
 She has borrowed our statesmanship, and will 
 borrow our religion. How is it in Turkey? 
 The three great powers of Europe are en- 
 gaged in a triangular struggle for this land. 
 Populous, colonial, and naval England, reach- 
 ing from the frontiers of China towards the 
 Mediterranean, wants Turkey, thus to secure 
 the short passage to her Oriental Empires. 
 France, heroic, historically military, pushing 
 her way into all Continents, desires Turkey, 
 thus to gain the means of crippling her great 
 rival of the Island. And boundless Russia, 
 with one-seventh of the land of the earth under 
 her flag, covets Turkey by a desire of nine 
 centuries' growth. These powers keep each 
 other in equipoise. England is Protestant, 
 France is Catholic, Russia is Greek; neither 
 can allow the missions of the other in Turkey. 
 But all welcome us. So the prejudice of 
 Turkey is for us. Thus prejudice that arrests 
 the foreigner is everywhere in our favor. To 
 say, "I am an American," secures respect and 
 
 248 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 protection in the streets of Peking, or on the 
 banks of the Ganges, or in the mosques of 
 Constantinople. 
 
 Cost, distance, language, and prejudice, felt 
 to embarrass our foreign field, have, in the 
 improvements and light of this decade, lost 
 their power, and we are allowed to approach 
 the comparison in its material and substantial 
 elements. Our liberties, our institutions, our 
 treaties, our commerce, our science, our good 
 name, and our religion make us a light unto 
 the Gentiles. 
 
 In touching these comparisons we must rise 
 above the prejudices of nationality, above the 
 attractions of local civilizations, and look 
 upon the work from the standpoint of the 
 great mind that is planning the salvation of 
 all men, and is no respecter of persons. Let 
 us see it as Christ's work, and as if we were 
 even He, and had the world on our hearts, 
 then we can better judge. Seen from this 
 view the national argument is lost in the 
 Christly love. As a citizen I am for Amer- 
 ica, as a Christian I am for Christ's kingdom. 
 My character as Christian is, and must be, 
 all dominating. All things second to Christ's 
 cause. Earthly governments may rise or fall; 
 
 249 
 
MissioJiary Addresses. 
 
 my first and constant care must be for the 
 Church, the Lamb's Bride. From this stand- 
 point we can compare the home and foreign 
 work. 
 Areas Supposc wc put ouv domestic field down 
 pared ^y ^^^^ foreign, and TAKE THEIR GIRTH. 
 China is the third Empire of the world in 
 size, and has actually twice the productive 
 power of either Russia or Great Britain. It 
 is about one-tenth of the earth's surface, is 
 nearly one-third larger than the United States 
 and Territories, and is nearly three times as 
 large as the inhabited portion of our country. 
 It is the finest belt of the world; has every 
 variety of climate, soil, scenery, and products. 
 Its ports and rivers rival any in the world. 
 Its great river, Yang-tse, surpasses the Mis- 
 sissippi in size, length, and scenery. Two 
 hundred miles above its mouth it is five miles 
 wide and forty feet deep. 
 
 India is nearly as large as the United States 
 proper. All the heathen territory is more 
 then ten times the area of the United States. 
 Taken as they come from the Almighty, the 
 odds is still more against us. We can not for- 
 get that Asia, with the largest rivers, the high- 
 est mountains, the grandest scenery, the richest 
 
 250 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 valleys, the most numerous cities, and most 
 populous kingdoms; the seat of vast empires, 
 and of ancient literature; "the land where the 
 first Adam sinned, and the second suffered; 
 where Abraham received the covenant, and 
 Moses the law," — we can not forget that this 
 Asia is one of the prizes for which we con- 
 tend. In extent the argument is for the for- 
 eign work ten to one. 
 
 In population the answer is more astound- Po/>«/a- 
 ing. The argument is short. Drop the''""' 
 United States with her forty millions into 
 China, and she would hardly feel the addition 
 of numbers. China, with the peoples reached 
 through her, has five hundred millions; India, 
 one hundred and eighty millions; Turkey, 
 thirty-two millions; Arabia, eight millions; 
 Africa, seventy-one millions. The result is 
 for the foreign work about twenty to one. I 
 wish we could grasp these awful figures, and 
 get it upon our thought. Suppose all the 
 people of New York City, Boston, Philadel- 
 phia, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. 
 Louis, New Orleans, and San Francisco, with 
 all the people of all the New England States, 
 and of all the Middle States, and of all the 
 Southern States, of the States of Ohio, Illinois, 
 
 251 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Missouri, and California, — suppose all the 
 peoples of these twenty-five Commonwealths, 
 with all their great cities, were crowded into 
 the single State of Illinois: as we elbowed our 
 way through we would be in population less 
 dense than in the Chinese Province of Kiu- 
 kiang, with its thirty-five cities, many of them 
 larger than New York City. The entire pop- 
 ulation of the home field could be struck from 
 the ranks of heathenism and not be missed. 
 Let the heathen join hands, and they could 
 belt the entire world thirty-two times. If you 
 were introduced to each one, giving each forty 
 seconds, it would take more than one thou- 
 sand years to speak to them all. These figures 
 are overwhelming. The argument is twenty 
 to one for the foreign work. These figures 
 only present the skirmish line of the argu- 
 ment. 
 fTant. The main body of the argument is in the 
 law of demand, in the defnand based upon 
 actual want. The greater the suffering, the 
 greater the demand for relief. This, in 
 morals, is an axiom. A mother leaves the 
 child who may be only restless, that she may 
 watch over the one that is at the crisis of a 
 fever. A father leaves a child that merely 
 
 252 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 shivers in the rain, that he may rescue the one 
 that is drowning in the surf. This is an im- 
 perative law. The greater the need, the 
 greater the demand for help. Seen from the 
 standpoint of the Savior, who is no respecter 
 of persons, but who came to call, not the right- 
 eous, but sinners to repentance, there is no 
 room left for argument. I am bold to say that 
 the heathen w^ork is to the home work, as one 
 million to one. 
 
 Take the case on a mere humanitarian basis, p/o^/Va/ 
 with no thought of eternity. Contrast the ^'"■'^^- 
 
 . . . . tinns. 
 
 physical conditions. Read Bishop Kingsley's 
 account of heathen cities and countries. 
 There is not a railroad or telegraph or spring- 
 wagon in all China. Her roads have not been 
 repaired in two thousand years. Her streets 
 are six feet wide, the avenues twelve. In the 
 middle of the broad streets is the sewer, 
 heaped up with filth six or ten feet high. In 
 the narrow streets it is piled up to the eaves 
 of their one-story houses; they have no other, 
 save the government buildings. They have 
 no pavements. At night they water the filthy 
 streets with the filthy water of their filthy 
 houses. A glue factory would be a deoderizer 
 in any heathen city. China has vast stores of 
 
 253 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 coal, and wealthy mines, but she will not al- 
 low them to be worked, lest the evil spirit be 
 insulted. She has territory, large enough for 
 whole empires, open, productive, healthful, 
 but sparsely inhabited, because she will not 
 leave the graves of her ancestors. She swarms 
 in about the old centers till she fairly rots. 
 The old prisons, even before the days of 
 Howard, were Edens compared to Chinese 
 cities. There is no forward movement. 
 Bishop Thomson sums up Chinese improve- 
 ment, saying: 
 
 "You find windows without glass; farrrs 
 without fences; wells without buckets; houses 
 without chimneys; printing without types; 
 streets without sidewalks ; business without 
 newspapers; exchange without banks; banks 
 without charters ; money paid by weight, as 
 Abraham estimated his shekels ; criminals 
 punished by torture, as apostles were punished 
 by the Sanhedrim; marriages effected by go- 
 betweens, as Isaac obtained Rebecca; coolies 
 standing idle in the market-places ; the beggar 
 on his knees; the poor man carrying his bed; 
 living men occupying tombs; the most impor- 
 tant events regulated by fortune-tellers; evil 
 spirits warded off by charms; diseases attrib- 
 
 254 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 uted to devils, and cured by incantations; and 
 eclipses ascribed to a giant." 
 
 Surely nothing can exceed their need of re- 
 lief. They must have some power able to lift 
 them out of their corruption and ancient dis- 
 abilities, and thus open to them a better life. 
 They have soil enough, but they do not use it. 
 England has machinery equal to one million 
 of men. France and the United States as 
 much more. China could use five times as 
 much, and thus multiply her resources and 
 her relative supply. India is in the same con- 
 demnation, except as it is being modified by 
 English enterprise. Is there a prison where 
 a poor victim pines in pain over whom you 
 weep? Here is a prison where six hundred 
 millions at the extremity of physical and social 
 deprivations barely exist, tortured by super- 
 stitions, robbed by priests, murdered by magis- 
 trates, enslaved by monsters, starved by pro- 
 hibitions, and fairly decomposing by the dis- 
 eases begotten of the filth and vileness, and 
 God has brought them within a few days' 
 journey of your very door, saying, "Look on 
 My image and the purchase of My blood." 
 
 Brothers, give me your thought, and let us Religions. 
 compare these fields in their religions. The 
 
 255 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 religions of the world may be summed up in 
 four great families, radically distinguished by 
 their conceptions of the fundamental idea of 
 God, — Buddhism, Brahmanism, Mohammed- 
 anism, and Christianity. I state, on the au- 
 thority of Bishop Thomson, that Buddhism 
 is accepted by three hundred millions of peo- 
 ple; Brahmanism by one hundred and fifty 
 millions; Mohammedanism by one hundred 
 and eighty millions; Christianity by three 
 hundred and sixty-nine millions. Buddhism 
 is atheistic,— practically that there is no God: 
 saying, "The Infinite can not be revealed to 
 the finite." Brahmanism is pantheistic, — that 
 everything is God. Mohammedanism is De- 
 istic, — that there is but one God and no Sav- 
 ior. Christianity accepts God as revealed in 
 His Word and Son. Buddhism ramified into 
 eighty-four thousand sects, and Brahmanism 
 divided into two hundred and seventy castes, 
 are found chiefly in China and India, with 
 three hundred and thirty millions of gods. 
 Mohammedanism is found in Turkey, Arabia, 
 Africa, and India. Christianity controls 
 North America, South America, Europe, 
 Northern Asia, British India, Oceanica, and 
 other territory in Asia and Africa amounting 
 
 256 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 to as many square miles as that occupied by 
 the United States. These systems are not mere 
 names thrown by chance upon these millions. 
 But they are systems with a pedigree and a 
 posterity. The true God and His revelation 
 to the infant race as recorded in the Bible, is 
 the stalk on which all these systems grow. 
 Buddhism and Brahmanism come out in the 
 mythology of India. This degenerates into 
 the mythologies of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. 
 Mohammedanism is grafted on to the Bible, 
 placing Mohammed above Christ, power 
 above righteousness, and lust for heaven. 
 Their posterity are among us. Buddhism is 
 repeated in positivism, that rejects the facts 
 of the supernatural and accepts only the facts 
 of science. Brahmanism is New England 
 pantheism. Carlyle and Emerson, asking us 
 to worship great men, are only miniature 
 Chinese with teachings more crude than that 
 of the mandarins even long before the age 
 when Balaam tried to prophesy against Israel. 
 Mohammedanism is seen again in Mormon- 
 ism and the vile impostor of the American 
 Desert, as Bishop Thomson savs: "Both ad- 
 
 7 1 -- 
 
 mit the inspiration of the Scriptures; both 
 superadd a false scripture, to which they give 
 17 257 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 precedence; both have a carnal prophet and 
 polygamous people; both have a sanguinary 
 and aggressive spirit." These are the systems. 
 Morals. The morals of these systems are exactly 
 what we might expect. There is no literature 
 in India fit for a lady to read. Travelers say 
 it is to their credit that the women go to their 
 temples at night, their service is so vile and 
 revolting; and fortunate that they go veiled 
 by day through their cities. Slavery is incor- 
 porated into their religion and government, 
 and even yet defies the mandate of the 
 British rulers. Prostitution is the almost 
 general practice. There are said to be 
 more prostitutes in India than there are 
 women in the United States. Thuggee, con- 
 secrated and religious assassination to please 
 a malignant goddess, is organized through- 
 out India. Infanticide is commended in both 
 China and India. The natural charities 
 of the human heart are turned aside from 
 legitimate objects. "They will stop an army 
 to save an insect, wear out men in building 
 hospitals for sick animals," hire beggars to 
 lie quiet that vermin may feast upon them. 
 Yet they trample their sisters and wives to 
 death, burn their own mothers alive, strangle 
 
 258 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 their own daughters, assassinate their own 
 fathers, and pray to devils. Mohammedan- 
 ism is no better, but rather worse. They teach 
 that God punishes the good and bad alike at 
 His will. A believer's vilest sin is better than 
 the prayers of an alien. They build magnifi- 
 cent tombs to harlots, as at Bijnour. They 
 accept mosques built by the price of virtue, 
 as at Seetapoor. These lands are full to the 
 very brim with crimes for which we have 
 no name, and seething with corruption of 
 which we have no conception. True, there 
 are great crimes in Christendom, but they 
 shock and amaze mankind. The public senti- 
 ment is outraged and the public conscience 
 demands public punishment. Our religion is 
 against all these crimes. But the religion of 
 heathenism incorporates these crimes into its 
 creed, and commends and canonizes the crim- 
 inals. Surely, on the mere basis of philan- 
 thropy, even without reference to the interests 
 of eternity, the question is forever settled in 
 favor of the foreign work. We are compelled 
 with Paul and Barnabas to turn unto the Gen- 
 tiles, that we may cast some light into their 
 darkness and some hope into their despair. 
 The ratio of the saved keeps fairly equal 
 
 259 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 step with the amount of light disbursed. Let 
 us glance at the chances of salvation for these 
 Thepeople. Here the question becomes over- 
 ^'?"'''"'" whelming. Heathenism offers its final wail 
 'vaiion.on the brink of perdition! We start at the 
 thought that these millions are going to death. 
 We are not willing to measure our duty by 
 such a standard. We think of Socrates, and 
 of Plato, and of Plutarch, and of Confucius, 
 and expect to meet them in heaven ; and thus 
 we console ourselves, and forget that we count 
 these Pagan saints on our fingers, while the 
 uncounted millions are living in corruption 
 and dying in despair. We repeat the passage 
 from St. Paul, that the heathen are a law unto 
 themselves, to be judged without law; but 
 we do not recall his accompanying statements 
 in the first chapter of Romans of how fear- 
 fully they have failed. This to me is the 
 amazing motive, the lostness of these millions. 
 I do not say that all are inevitably lost. I 
 know that "the Judge of all the earth will do 
 right." I doubt not that a heathen obeying 
 the dictates of the inner law would be saved. 
 But they do not seem to obey that law. The 
 heathen must have more light to increase their 
 chances. We need to feel this as a fact. We 
 
 260 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 hold the Bible with a too nerveless grasp. I 
 would to God that you would ground your 
 convictions on the Word of God! Then on 
 the law of demand we must turn to the Gen- 
 tiles. 
 
 These people at home have the gospel; 
 enough to save them, if they will improve it. 
 The churches are not sparse nor overcrowded. 
 The kingdom is not full. These people have 
 the truth. They know God, and the plan of 
 salvation. That vagrant in the alley knows 
 more about God and His way of salvation 
 than the mightiest philosophers of India or 
 China. These men of the border, where we 
 are trying to plant the Church, are out of our 
 homes and Sunday-schools, and if they never 
 saw a minister, if they would they could or- 
 ganize and set on foot saving forces equal to 
 their necessities. As under God's eye let us 
 honestly ask ourselves. Are we not planning 
 in our work too much for mere propagand- 
 ism? Let us plan unselfishly for the salvation 
 of the race. Those whom we pursue with the 
 home work have had the Word of God spoken 
 unto them. Before God I believe it is our 
 duty to turn to the Gentiles, not shutting the 
 door against our neighbors, but opening it to 
 
 261 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 all. On the great law of demand, there re- 
 mains no room for doubt. Our home field, 
 with its eight thousand ministers, two hundred 
 thousand teachers for forty millions of people, 
 is far in advance of our foreign work, as in 
 China with less than one hundred ministers 
 and teachers for five hundred millions of 
 people. 
 Ponuer The strength of our Missionary Society is 
 "^in the Christly spirit that consecrates its treas- 
 
 Missiotis. 7 • 7 7 7- 
 
 ures to the L,ord, rather than tn the calculation 
 that would make everything gravitate around 
 local and personal interests. I believe that a 
 candid putting of the exact case of our work 
 among the heathens before the mind, and upon 
 the heart of the whole Church, will bring 
 such a response as we have never yet had. 
 The great fact on which I rely is, that these 
 hundreds of millions are actually living in the 
 vilest practices, and dying in all that corrup- 
 tion, and that we have the gospel, which is 
 able to save them even to the uttermost. We 
 have seen Him who came by the way of the 
 world saving just such sinners, and we know 
 He can save them. 
 
 And He is saving them. There are already 
 signs of victory. Heathenism is dying out. 
 
 262 
 
Home and Heathen Missions Contrasted. 
 
 Ages ago their systems inspired art. But now 
 they only drag the people down. All the 
 noble works are hoary with centuries. China 
 looks at her twenty-five thousand miles of wall 
 and thinks only of her departed greatness. 
 India steps into the cars of the conqueror, and 
 sickens of the castes that could not save her 
 even though she trusted them before there 
 was any Briton, or any Gaul, or any Roman, 
 or any Greek, or even any Egyptian. The 
 iron horse of the Island Queen will startle the 
 Indies from the slumber of ages. Awakened, 
 they will see Christ and live. The soul of 
 Burlingame will go from the palace of the 
 Celestial Empire down among the crowded 
 millions. They will open their eyes to see in 
 his countrymen the missionaries of Christ. 
 The work is firmly rooted in the rich soils of 
 the East. Already six hundred and eighty- 
 seven thousand converts are praying in Africa, 
 and more yet in Asia. The progress of the 
 last fifty years exceeds the progress of the first 
 fifty of Christianity. Look at the advance of 
 Christ's kingdom. At the end of the first cen- 
 tury there were five hundred thousand be- 
 lievers; at the end of the third, five millions; 
 of the tenth, fifty millions; of the fifteenth, 
 
 263 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 one hundred millions; in the middle of the 
 nineteenth, three hundred and sixty-nine mil- 
 lions. We prophesy, "at the end of the twen- 
 tieth, all millions." 
 
 Open your eyes. The temporal power of 
 the Pope gone; France, his last support, strug- 
 gling for liberty; Rome, his very seat, about 
 to be the capital of a constitutional monarchy; 
 Spain almost free; Protestant Prussia domi- 
 nant; free America uncursed by a single slave; 
 England moving in great reforms; China 
 reading the Bible in her native tongue; 
 Turkey open to missionaries; India listening 
 to the glad. news, and echoing the blessed foot- 
 steps of the apostle. The way is being pre- 
 pared for His coming. The East is already 
 brightening into the full morning. I look in 
 trembling expectation toward the future. I 
 can hear His coming footsteps. I am awed 
 by His divine nearness. I bow as in His 
 sacred presence. Come, Lord Jesus, come 
 quickly. Amen and Amen, 
 
 264 
 
VI. 
 
 THE FIELD. 
 
 [This address was delivered by Dr. Fowler as pastor of 
 Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church, Chicago, in 1872, the 
 year following the great Chicago fire.] 
 
 This is an enterprise worthy of its Divine 
 origin. It was always God's plan concerning 
 us to give us the kingship of the world. He 
 started us with dominion over all animals, and 
 sent us forth into the world to dress and keep 
 it. True, it is a poor keeping we have given 
 it. God's garden has faded into our wilder- 
 ness. The peaceful olive has fled before the 
 threatening thorn; the delicate lily has given 
 way for the coarse thistle; and the modest 
 violet has ceased her smiling in the meadow 
 to make room for the ambushing of the 
 treacherous nettle. These are dim types of 
 a mightier desolation that has been accom- 
 plished within, in the dimming of the intel- 
 lectual faculties and the deranging of the 
 moral perceptions. In the field as it now 
 
 265 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 presents itself the odds are vastly increased 
 against us, so that every acre redeemed rep- 
 resents vastly more outlay of purpose and 
 power than it could have done when the Gar- 
 den was first committed to our great ancestor. 
 Dimmed and enfeebled faculties, in a body 
 waging a losing and fatal war against Death, 
 struggling to subdue, not a garden of fruits 
 and flowers, but a rock waste and a jungle, 
 must make head slowly in this heavy tillage. 
 It need not be so ivonderful that the field 
 is not yet all seeded down to righteousness. 
 There are yet vast regions unscratched by the 
 gospel plowshare. Look over the world. On 
 this Continent, where we think we see the 
 richest harvest, away to the north natives sit 
 in their ice-caves, wrapped in furs and feed- 
 ing on oil, into whose hearts not one ray from 
 the Sun of Righteousness has penetrated. A 
 few villages have been turned into mission 
 posts, but the great tribes are uncalled. Swing 
 down through the northwestern belt, and 
 through the great valley, and by the coast. 
 The mass of the people are in deep Paganism. 
 Drop down through the vast regions to the 
 Gulf, cross the Isthmus, plunge on into the 
 kingdoms and republics of South America. 
 
 266 
 
The Field. 
 
 You find a Christianity so paganized that it 
 becomes an enemy of civilization and a hin- 
 drance to Christ's kingdom. What do we find 
 in Africa? Here and there a mission house, 
 now and then a weary evangel, but tens of 
 millions who sit in darkness, not knowing that 
 there is any^ light anywhere. Pass over into 
 Asia. Make your way through the millions 
 that follow the false prophet; ascend the Ural 
 Mountains, look down upon half the human 
 race in idolatry and lust. The field is not all 
 occupied. The work is not all done. While 
 an Esquimau watches for his seal without 
 watching for the Lord; while a Sioux meas- 
 ures his glory by his scalps; while a devotee 
 takes a wafer as the end of all revelation; 
 while a Bushman bows to his toad, and a 
 Hottentot to his viper; while a Mussulman 
 expects a heaven of lust, and sees the arms of 
 most beautiful women outstretched from the 
 heavens for the embrace of the most beastly 
 and bloody butchers on fields of carnage; 
 while the walls of caste make oppressors of 
 the few and outcasts of the rest; while Hindoo 
 love keeps the wife from the table of her hus- 
 band, and Hindoo faith keeps her from the 
 temple of God; while Mandarin superstition 
 
 267 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 crushes the Chinese women either into crip- 
 ples or into harlots; while there remains a 
 heathen temple uncleansed, or a heathen idol 
 undemolished, — there will still be work to be 
 done. 
 A This work still seems vast. But we have 
 Landing. ^ gQQ^ start and vast resources. The Cause 
 has made a landing. In the Russian war of 
 the Crimea it became necessarv for the allies 
 to land on a barren sand beach under the con- 
 verging fire of five forts. The men were to 
 land, and in that shower of death construct 
 defenses. The English troops were felt to be 
 the most resolute, and were sent on the forlorn 
 mission. They shipped and steamed up into 
 the dreadful gap. Partially protected by the 
 vessels, they got down into the small boats, 
 and pulled round into the iron gale. Many a 
 gallant little crew was crushed before it went 
 a boat's length. But all pulled for the shore; 
 some in the little boats, some on fragments, 
 and some by swimming, reached the beach. 
 There, lying on their faces on the sand, with 
 their broken canteens they scooped out holes 
 for their bodies. Though hundreds fell, yet 
 these holes grew into an intrenchment, and 
 the allies had a landing at the weak point of 
 
 268 
 
The Field. 
 
 the fortifications. Victory was only a ques- 
 tion of time. We have a landing. Though 
 prophets and evangelists have fallen in win- 
 row^s, yet the Cause is planted, and the blood 
 of the martyrs proves to be the seed of the 
 Church. 
 
 The great dominant races are Q\\r\%X.\2in. Resources. 
 The growing languages are Christian. The 
 growing Continents are Christian. Numbers 
 are against us. But power is for us. The de- 
 mand is great, but our resources are greater. 
 V/e do not ever need Scriptural progression 
 of power, where one chases a thousand, and 
 two ten thousand, and four chase a hundred 
 thousand. We have now the resources for the 
 conquest of the world on a human arithmetic. 
 We shall need prepared men, and called. But 
 we have them, vast lines of our reserves, un- 
 counted home-guards. You can hardly find 
 a lad or a little girl in all the Sunday-schools 
 of the Republic that does not know more 
 about God and His way of salvation than all 
 the fakirs and mandarins of Asia combined. 
 Proud old Asia, — the land of high mountains, 
 and beautiful scenery, and broad rivers; of 
 the most populous empires and ancient liter- 
 ature and hoary arts; the land that had mathe- 
 
 269 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 matics, and astronomies, and belles lettres, 
 and philosophies, and sacred books more than 
 two thousand years before the ancient Gaels 
 were dragged at Caesar's conquering chariot- 
 wheels from Briton into the marts of Pagan 
 Rome; where Elijah found his chariot of fire, 
 and Paul the light above the brightness of the 
 noonday sun for the far-ofif Gentiles, — proud 
 old Asia, in her scholars with a pedigree of 
 forty centuries, can be led and taught true 
 knowledge by children from our infant 
 classes. 
 
 Talk about men! We have them in sur- 
 plus. If Germany can keep one million men 
 idle in peace, and two million more ready 
 for call; if prostrate France can nearly repeat 
 the waste; if bankrupt Austria can hold an- 
 other million, and insolvent Italy nearly as 
 many more; and Russia a million five hun- 
 dred thousand more in idleness, — what may 
 not the Church do? If these five nations can 
 keep six or seven millions of men in time of 
 peace marching and countermarching and 
 drawing their rations and pay, what shall we 
 say of the power of the Church in the great 
 emergency for the world's salvation? I tell 
 
 270 
 
The Field. 
 
 you the truth, I speak the words of truth and 
 soberness: the Church has advanced to such 
 proportions that the world's conquest is the 
 imperative duty of each succeeding gener-> 
 ation. All she lacks is zeal. She has the 
 men. She has the money. 
 
 See the treasure wasted in war by Christian Treas- 
 nations. Christianized England expends an-"''^-^- 
 nually, for army and navy and interest on war 
 debt, $250,000,000. The war debts of Europe 
 are $15,000,000,000, bearing an annual inter- 
 est of $600,000,000. Her annual loss of labor 
 nearly $1,000,000,000 more. There is money 
 enough in the Christian nations. Nearly all 
 the money of the world is in their cofifers. 
 They have the great harvests, and the great 
 commerce, and the great manufactories, and 
 the great and exhaustless mines. There is 
 money enough for this work, and tenfold to 
 spare, if only such a conviction could take 
 hold upon these people as is justified by the 
 facts in the case. I verily believe that the 
 Protestant Christians of the English tongue 
 could hurl a million missionaries into the 
 heathen field in a single twelvemonth if only 
 they were pressed with the zeal that pushed 
 
 271 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Paul into every metropolis of his time. We 
 could furnish a preacher for every eight hun- 
 dred souls. This is not all fancy. 
 Advan- Look at our advantages. When the Church 
 '^^^^' sent out her first missionaries they made their 
 way on foot. They measured the Continents 
 staff in hand. Paul was longer in going from 
 Caesarea to Rome than it now takes to go 
 twice around the world. Then the Church 
 raised her contributions of heavy coin, and 
 sent a special embassy to carry it on their 
 backs, over deserts, through mountain passes, 
 along dangerous defiles, pursued by enemies, 
 waylaid by marauders, and exhausted by 
 trackless leagues. Now the contribution is 
 dropped into the treasury here, the amount 
 telegraphed to India or the distant mission 
 field in forty seconds, drawn from a bank 
 there, and sent about its work in an hour from 
 the time it is contributed here. This only 
 averages our advantages. Then seas pre- 
 sented impassable barriers. To-day they are 
 only highways over which the missionary 
 rides easily in his library or with his friends. 
 Then mountain ranges were passed only at 
 advantage in certain summer months and by 
 a few of the most sturdy souls. Now their 
 
 272 
 
The Field. 
 
 tunnels only furnish safe and refreshing vari- 
 ety to the swift journey. Then the apostles 
 went forth from a despised and subjugated 
 province, to be treated as the filth and off- 
 scourings of the whole earth. To-day they 
 are the honored sons of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 A few English cannon broke down the wall 
 of Tartary, and thirty thousand English bay- 
 onets keep many millions of Pagans in 
 awe. There is not a field where we are not 
 at advantage. Paul as a Roman citizen was 
 often rescued from the perils into which his 
 Jewish blood and Christian faith cast him. 
 His citizenship was a shield as wide as the 
 Roman Empire. The eagles of Rome were 
 his defense against the bigotry at Jerusalem, 
 against treachery at Cssarea, against avarice 
 in Ephesus, and against jealousy in Philippi. 
 This was for a single disciple. But now the 
 flag of Christian America secures respect for 
 the missionary in every field. China looks to 
 us for treaties and statesmen and statesman- 
 ship; Japan sends her embassies to this land 
 for schools, for inventions, for arts, for treat- 
 ies, for statecraft, and for ideas. Soon these 
 peoples must take our faith with our civil- 
 ization. In India the Brahman and the Bud- 
 i8 273 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 dhist are sickening of the faith that can not 
 save them though it has been rooted in the 
 soil so many centuries. In Turkey the prom- 
 ise of our faith is a sort of protection against 
 the ambition of France, and the greed of Rus- 
 sia, and the history of Germany, and the need 
 of England. So the blood and tongues of our 
 missionaries are passports securing protection 
 on the banks of the Congo, by the waters of 
 the Yang-tse-Kiang, in the valley of the 
 Ganges, and in the streets of Constantinople. 
 Absolutely nothing is impossible to us. I do 
 not mean that we could thus flood all heathen- 
 ism and do everything else at the same time, — 
 buy all the land next to us, improve all the 
 vacant property in America, purchase all lux- 
 uries and extravagances of the time, outvie 
 Croesus in temporalities, Hannibal in war, 
 Henry VHI in self-indulgence, and William 
 of Germany in power. But I mean this: if 
 we took hold of heathendom, Buddha and 
 Brahma, and Thor and Woden, as we took 
 hold of Jefif Davis and his fellow conspirators 
 in '6i, as we took hold of this fallen city in 
 '71, to lift it out of the ashes, and every man 
 said, "No matter what it costs, it must be 
 
 274 
 
The Field. 
 
 done," there would not be a heathen hamlet 
 without the gospel in twenty-four months. 
 
 We do not know how much there is in us 
 till we try. We have no adequate measure of 
 our possibilities in our past history. The 
 great law is this, power is limited by oppor- 
 tunity. We can do anything we dare under- 
 take. A crisis comes ; some unknown man 
 steps out and says, "It is in me; I can do the 
 work; I can make this defense; I can drive 
 out the invader; I can crush the rebellion;" 
 and he does it. Who ever dreamed that the 
 lad on the island of Corsica making love with 
 his stockings about his heels, could overturn 
 nearly all the thrones of Europe and capture 
 nearly all the rulers, including even the Pope? 
 Who would have dreamed that there was a 
 first-class dictator and England's kingliest 
 ruler in that Puritan Esquire, Oliver Crom- 
 well? Did any man see in that captain of a 
 flatboat the liberator of one race and the de- 
 liverer of another, and the tallest man of sixty 
 centuries? Who ever dreamed that that 
 peaceable immigrant from the Western Re- 
 serve into Kansas, with his cuts of fine fruit 
 and his improved stock, was to be the thunder- 
 
 275 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 bolt of the border, the terror of all the Slave 
 States, the resurrection trump for a dead na- 
 tion, and the deathless, onmarching soul of 
 liberty for a thousand years? We can tell 
 nothing of what we can do till the crisis comes 
 and we throw ourselves into the gap, anxious 
 only for the imperiled cause, and knowing of 
 nothing impossible but defeat. This is an age 
 of impossible achievements. History is more 
 miraculous than prophecy. This is the age 
 in which a railroad was shoved over the con- 
 tinent at four miles a day, and cities planted 
 in the wilderness by the thousand. This is 
 the age in which we have seen nearly a hun- 
 dred miles of palaces built in a single year. 
 Yonder in the cars, leaping the chasms of the 
 Sierra Nevadas and rushing down to the 
 Golden Gate, or here amid the rising walls 
 of a new city, we have a right to say that 
 absolutely nothing is impossible. Six hun- 
 dred poor Moravians were exiled from their 
 home because their faith disturbed a retired 
 country town. But God's Spirit was in them, 
 and they resolved on the capture of the world. 
 They had no friends, no money, and no hope 
 of either. They divided into little companies, 
 and took upon themselves the whole earth. 
 
 276 
 
The Field. 
 
 They had to work their way as best they could. 
 But they seized upon this Continent along its 
 eastern border. They penetrated its wilds. 
 They mastered its wild dialects. They scat- 
 tered the good seed in all soils. They seized 
 Africa at both ends and in the middle. They 
 burrowed in the ice-fields of the Arctic re- 
 gions, and planted the rose of Sharon in beds 
 of eternal snow. They laid hold upon Eu- 
 rope. And their labor was not in vain. Im- 
 bue the whole Church with such a spirit, and 
 God's day will come. With such zeal noth- 
 ing is impossible. 
 
 An ancient king, on the eve of a great battle 
 against overwhelming odds, went out in dis- 
 guise to watch his lines and catch the temper 
 of his troops. He found one group discon- 
 tented and alarmed, counting up the odds. 
 Impatient with their fears, he threw off his 
 cloak, exposing his royal insignia, saying, 
 "Count me for thirty thousand." In this great 
 war against sin we must count our Captain as 
 certain of victory, for He always brings us 
 off more than conquerors. Nothing is impos- 
 sible to us. 
 
 There is another great truth under this mis- 
 sion work, this sowing the world, that insures 
 
 277 
 
Missionary Addresses 
 
 TAf Z-aw success. This puts the Church under the Law 
 "i of Growth. It is one condition of life that 
 
 Groivth. . ' , • , / 
 
 It must grow, must shove itself out some- 
 where, must manifest itself, or die. You can 
 not shut it in. No tree will live over the sum- 
 mer if you do not let it spread out its leaves, 
 and pump up its sap, and push out its buds, 
 and take on new proportions. It is so with 
 all life. Nations die as soon as they have fin- 
 ished their task. Make the last road, settle 
 the last wilderness, finish the last village, and 
 death is inevitable. Finish up this Continent, 
 pack it with two thousand millions of people, 
 work all its mines, plow all its acres, and not 
 let its armies or its diplomats break over into 
 any other territory, and you seal the fate of 
 this civilization. This is why nations always 
 grow by colonization, not chiefly by conquest, 
 never by conquest unless it be of territory for 
 colonies. Freebooters are always poor and 
 weak, be they Arabs or pirates. 
 
 This law holds of individuals. It is the 
 worst and most melancholy thing a ship can 
 do to go into port, and take ofl the sails, to rot 
 down and be only a hulk for rats. While a 
 man works he grows. He must reach for 
 larger results, more work; not more wear, but 
 
 278 
 
The Field. 
 
 larger plans, more push, and he will not die. 
 His hair may drop off or die, but the head, 
 like a bald mountain peak fringed and 
 crowned with snow, will be full of power. 
 Humboldt did not die. Vanderbilt does not 
 superannuate. Drew does not hand over his 
 affairs. He counts himself strong enough to 
 hold the English stockholders in one hand 
 and Erie in the other. Retiring is consenting 
 to die and be tormented before your time. I 
 know some men who have lost in the last year 
 in money, but have made in years. October 
 7, 1 871, knocked them from the shelf where 
 they were snoozing. They were alarmed a 
 little ; but, like Samson, they shook themselves 
 and went forth in the strength of the old 
 years, and they are young and happy again. 
 This great law holds over all Churches. 
 Come to your limit, and you begin to die. 
 Hear me. It is easier to push this Church 
 into new work than to hold merely the old. 
 The life of this Church is the vigor with 
 which all enterprises are pushed. It costs. 
 Of course it does; but it is the cheapest in 
 the end. This ongoing and outgoing is what 
 fills up the ranks with veterans. This is the 
 law of Christian life. It inheres in God's 
 
 279 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 plan and In the nature of the case that we are 
 to be everlastingly doing something. This is 
 our life, and so our strength. 
 
 Look a moment at how this missionary work 
 brings back its stre?igth and advantages. It 
 matures as a muscle is matured, by use. It 
 develops strength from within us. God does 
 not put strength upon us like a garment any 
 more than He puts character upon us. It 
 must be acquired. It is a purchase. En- 
 deavor, activity, is the cost. God works in 
 us to do. We do, and so we grow. It is the 
 only highway to strength. All souls must 
 travel it if they would reach the end. This 
 mission work gives activity. 
 
 It sets new energies loose. Send the New 
 Testament into a country, and it is sure to 
 start the loom, and the sawmill, and the print- 
 ing-press, and the steam-engine. There is a 
 new patent or invention in every letter of the 
 Bible, an engine in every verse. You give 
 better food and better remedies, and so more 
 years. You turn all thinkers loose. Sooner 
 or later, scholars and conquerors are sure to 
 follow in the steps of Paul. Grammars and 
 lexicons grow on this gospel vine. Thus you 
 lift up the language, and so the whole grade 
 
 280 
 
The Field. 
 
 of thought. You can not pour into a man's 
 skull ideas of God, and eternity, and immor- 
 tality, and heaven, and a universal spiritual 
 kingdom, and universal brotherhood, and a 
 common Fatherhood, without expanding his 
 skull. You will soon add an inch to the girth 
 of his cranium, and that last inch soon makes 
 either himself or his son a king. 
 
 Missions become great teachers, great edu- 
 cators. Let a community, or a family, or a 
 Church send a favorite child into a strange 
 land, and immediately they will begin to study 
 up all that can be learned about that land; 
 its history, habits, religions, climate, soil, 
 products, geography, — all these must be stud- 
 ied. This opens the door to all knowledge. 
 One taste at this fountain may lead to largest 
 scholarship. Then the language must be mas- 
 tered so as to put the Scriptures into them. 
 How every word of the Book is turned over 
 and over! Let a man become interested in 
 missions, and he must grow in intelligence. 
 I know a good man who spent his life in sin, 
 and late came to Christ. One day he com- 
 plained of the teaching of his pastor as heter- 
 odox. But he himself thought the Jews and 
 the Catholics were the same. A hundred dol- 
 
 281 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 lars invested in missions would cure that in 
 time. 
 
 Missions enrich us in the field of Heroism. 
 This is a people's true wealth. Cities are 
 nothing, commerce is nothing, armies are 
 nothing, palaces are nothing, wealth is noth- 
 ing. These do not make a country. They 
 may make a body. But it must have a spirit 
 of life in it. This is patriotism. The great 
 war made a people of us. It inspired us, gave 
 us a martyr age, made us heroes. Missions 
 make real saints of us; not dead saints, to be 
 misrepresented in church windows, but real 
 working saints. 
 
 282 
 
VII. 
 
 THE SUPREME NEED OF THE 
 HEATHEN. 
 
 [This address was written by Dr. Fowler as pastor of Wa- 
 bash Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, Chicago, in Septem- 
 ber, 1869, snd delivered there September 23d.] 
 
 I APPROACH the subject of our mission work 
 with some pleasure and much anxiety. The 
 theme awakens thought, and opens the most 
 alluring fields for our investigation. I am 
 aware that most of you feel the subject to be 
 threadbare. And some of you settle down in 
 your pews like a patient in the dentist's chair, 
 saying: "It is his duty. He must take the col- 
 lection, and so we must submit. If he would 
 only preach some short gospel sermon, and 
 then take the collection, we could stand it; 
 but we do n't want to be begged to death." 
 I have felt that way sometimes myself. But 
 I have been studying and praying over this 
 subject, and I can't let you ofif so easy. I 
 think you must hear a little about this cause, 
 
 283 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 and then do your own begging. In the lan- 
 guage of one of the early martyrs I say, 
 "Strike, but hear." 
 
 Its very magnitude gives it importance. 
 There is weight in numbers. A single nation, 
 standing shoulder to shoulder, dreaming of 
 liberty and wading through streams of blood 
 in the streets of burning cities, with a despot- 
 ism of iron disputing every inch of their ad- 
 vance, and a holy heroism resolved on victory, 
 awakens, arouses, nerves up the mind. They 
 may be only a few colonies on the rim where 
 the wilderness of an unknown continent meets 
 the wilderness of an unexplored sea, few in 
 numbers, weak in resources, young in experi- 
 ence, poor in munitions, — yet by their possi- 
 bilities they command our respect, and by 
 their purpose our admiration. Poland, 
 caught by the tumbling-rod of the nations 
 known as the balance ot power, cries for help, 
 and every patriot groans with the dying Kos- 
 ciuszko. Hungary asks for liberty, and her 
 asking thrills the heart of humanity. But 
 Poland is only a little country, and hardly 
 able to purchase even one of our infant cities. 
 And Hungary, with all her history and hero- 
 ism, with all her royal tombs and mountain 
 
 284 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 fastnesses, would make poor head against the 
 single State of New York in a fair encounter. 
 Surely when these boroughs have broken the 
 peace of the world for whole generations it 
 may be no little thing to contemplate eight 
 hundred millions of people, two-thirds of all 
 the race, occupying more than two-thirds of 
 all the earth. 
 
 Some one is saying: "Bouribouligha! I 
 could endure home missions, but 1 do not 
 want to take a trip through all heathendom 
 this morning." Yet the theme of these same 
 far-away people is rich in interest, rich in 
 their buried past. Sublime in their possible 
 future, imploring in their infinite need, touch- 
 ing in their absolute kinship to us, eloquent 
 in their very sufferings, and commanding our 
 attention in holding the key to our destiny, 
 we may not put them off with a plea of dis- 
 tance and a pretext of hope in the mercy 
 of God. 
 
 This mission work is the one all-important, 
 all-absorbing theme of the ages. Its true idea 
 is Messengers of Good sent forth to the needy 
 and dying. It is Heaven's prayer for the 
 dying earth. It is the sun plunging into 
 chaos, scattering his days and his summers, 
 
 28s 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 his brightness and his order, with imperial 
 hand. It is God's eternal purpose of redeem- 
 ing love flowing into the history of humanity. 
 All there is in antiquity to interest is in this 
 theme. All there is, — in purity to attract the 
 saint, in heavenly birth to clothe with beauty, 
 in breadth of plan to command respect, in 
 patient endurance to win admiration, in self- 
 sacrifice to enthrone in dominion, — -all there 
 is in God's first and holiest and most abiding 
 purpose toward man, is contained in this 
 theme. 
 
 One needs only to get one truthful concep- 
 tion of the mission work to pronounce it for- 
 ever fraught with profoundest interest. To 
 send the gospel is to send every good thing. 
 In our work here among the poor there are 
 whole volumes of theology in a loaf of bread. 
 We come to the heart over the hearth. But 
 this is only an incidental relation. Giving the 
 gospel is better than giving a loaf. For it is 
 giving not only the loaf, but also the harvest, 
 and the ability to make one's own loaf, and, 
 better still, the consciousness of independent 
 manhood. Send a New Testament into a 
 land, and it will soon be followed by the 
 grammar, the plowshare, the reaper, and the 
 
 286 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 compass. Soon will start up the college, the 
 waving harvest, the foreign commerce, the 
 productive arts. The scholar, with his brain 
 full of cunning machinery; the statespian, 
 with wise politics ; the judge, with poised 
 scales supplanting the wrong of mere force; 
 the mart, opened where weeds and bulrushes 
 had been supreme; the railroad, running 
 across the bloody trail ; the telegraph, with its 
 mystery of wisdom, stretching over the crag 
 where the eagle built her nest, — all these are 
 in the New Testament. God, having given 
 us His Son, will also, with Him, freely give 
 us all things. Giving the New Testament to 
 a land, we give also every good thing,— light 
 on the mind illumining the path for the flight 
 of thought, till philosophy and science and 
 song appear as the inheritance of the obedi- 
 ent; light on society, till the monsters that 
 threatened in the gloom are routed, and the 
 slaveries that trampled and ruined are abol- 
 ished ; light on the heart, till the avenger is 
 disarmed, and love demonstrates the Divine 
 fraternity. To send the New Testament is to 
 send all that comprises civilization, from the 
 cunning that turns a pinhead to the skill that 
 plants a Pacific Railroad; from the mystery 
 
 287 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 of an alphabet to the appliances of salvation. 
 Send more New Testaments to Hindustan, 
 and she will not need to import from Eng- 
 land, via the Isthmus of Suez, her elephant 
 plows. Surely whoever is interested in hu- 
 manity must be interested in this mission 
 work. 
 
 Let us take a look at some of our mission 
 fields. We can do no better thing than ac- 
 quaint ourselves with what we are doing and 
 to do. Get into a palace car. Five turns of 
 the sun will put you on a steamer puffing out 
 through the Golden Gate. Eighteen evenings 
 more will land you within the sacred pre- 
 cincts of the Celestial Empire. This field 
 comes first in its new relations to us. It is 
 one of the most productive, beautiful, and 
 healthful countries of the earth. Its compass, 
 including the peoples that read her sacred 
 books, is three times as large as our own vast 
 domain. It has great variety of climate and 
 soil. It is adorned with mountain-peak and 
 fruitful valley. Fields of grain gladden the 
 husbandmen. Three crops a year from the 
 same soil support the crowded population. 
 She has arts that rival the skill of the Cau- 
 casian. In many improvements she has out- 
 
 288 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 stripped European thought. Her government 
 has withstood the successive shocks of the old 
 Persian hosts, the Macedonian legions, and 
 the Roman eagles. Her wall, a work without 
 a rival, defended her against the Tartars. 
 Her national life has blossomed in useful and 
 ornamental arts. She has a school system 
 older than the apostles. She never had a 
 slave, or a caste, or a dramshop. She ac- 
 knowledges only scholarship as the ground of 
 political preferment. This spurs her millions 
 to incessant study. A single town will fur- 
 nish ten thousand competitors for a literary 
 prize. The four books of Confucius are her 
 highest classics. Upon these are written more 
 comment than Adam Clarke wrote upon our 
 New Testament. Yet such is the zeal for 
 knowledge that the government always has 
 scholars able to repeat from memory all her 
 classics and all the commentaries upon them. 
 The Chinese are to the Mongolians what the 
 Anglo-Saxons are to the Caucasians. Though 
 they have shut themselves away from the 
 world till within a very few years, still they 
 have manifested much energy and enterprise. 
 The Indian Archipelago is a common field 
 where they match their strength against all 
 19 289 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 other races. They dig for the precious metals 
 of Australia, and their picks and pans are 
 straining the gold-dust of California. They 
 are the most courageous and venturesome of 
 the Asiatics. They are not deficient in the 
 quality that makes pirates, pugilists, and 
 rebels. Though they speak many dialects, 
 they sit beneath the shade of the camphor- 
 tree, and, breathing perfumes of the peach 
 and orange, read the language that is common 
 to four hundred and fifty millions of people, 
 nearly one-third the human race. No other 
 tongue ever reached a quarter as many as the 
 classics of China. The United States is a vast 
 Empire, whose evangelization is of moment; 
 but all our tongues reach less than forty mil- 
 lions here. A promise or a precept painted 
 into the hieroglyphics of China would com- 
 fort ten Continents like this. Who can meas- 
 ure such a host? Marching in single file, 
 three feet apart, the line would reach ten 
 times around the world. They could join 
 hands and form a belt that would compass the 
 earth and moon at her mean distance from us. 
 Posted on a bridge to the sun, they would be 
 within speaking distance of each other. All 
 this host, with vigorous brain, is now rapping 
 
 290 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 at our door and coming with their idolatry. 
 We think of the three million idols and five 
 hundred thousand temples of China, and im- 
 agine that the nation is a vast continent of 
 intellectual sand that w^e have only to breathe 
 upon with the breath of our civilization and 
 see it all dissipated. We are looking to the 
 time when John, with his long hair and small 
 feet, will be our servant, coming to this land 
 of free institutions and active thought, to carry 
 our water and hew our wood. But in all this 
 we may be mistaken. While Buddhism is 
 full of idols and superstition, Confucianism 
 is based upon reason, and does not suffer much 
 in comparison with some of the isms that re- 
 ject Jesus and seek to reverse the tide of his- 
 tory. We shall find these men competing with 
 us for the commerce and wealth of the world. 
 The child now lives who may see this people 
 contending for equality on this soil. When 
 we look at the people and their culture and 
 possible future, it ceases to be a Bouribouligha 
 enterprise and becomes a question of personal 
 safety with us. The evangelization of China 
 is necessary to secure our own altars from the 
 pollutions of idolatry. 
 
 Have you any definite idea how much we 
 291 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 are acutally doing for China? We never sent 
 her a man till 1847, and now, A. D. 1869, we 
 have only twenty missionaries there. These 
 are in the Fukien Province, along the southern 
 shore. Twenty missionaries for four hundred 
 and fifty millions, one for every twenty-two 
 million five hundred thousand. Imagine one 
 missionary sent to the whole United States in 
 1850, and you see what we are doing. 
 
 Now take ship, sail out through the Chinese 
 Sea, westward in the Indian Ocean, then 
 through to the Bay of Bengal, up the Ganges 
 into Hindustan, and you are in the heart of 
 our India Mission. Here we meet two hun- 
 dred and eighty millions of idolaters under 
 the government of Great Britain. This peo- 
 ple are divided into castes the most absolute. 
 The distinction between an old master and his 
 slave is as nothing compared with the distinc- 
 tions of caste. Overrun by the Mohammedan, 
 and again by the English, the Brahman di- 
 vides his soil with his conqueror; but neither 
 the spear of the Mussulman nor the cannon 
 of the Briton has been able to pierce the 
 castes of this land. Many of their arts would 
 do credit to the Anglo-Saxon. Away in the 
 jungles, toiling by his secluded forge, the 
 
 292 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 India blacksmith will take a bar of rough 
 iron, put it through a process, which he has 
 inherited from his fathers who stood at the 
 same forge ever since long before Moses went 
 out of Egypt or Abraham ascended Mount 
 Moriah, and bring it out a sword that will 
 sever, as Wendell Phillips says, "Sheffield's 
 best blade without turning the edge." The 
 philosophy of India is not the work of chil- 
 dren. There are thinkers in that dark land 
 that court discussion and fearlessly run a tilt 
 with Christian evidences. While China is sa- 
 lubrious in climate, — at points not unlike Vir- 
 ginia or Kentucky, — and has the bond of one 
 language, India wars upon the Northern Con- 
 stitution, and her ancient tongue is now broken 
 into twenty fragments and more than a hun- 
 dred scraps. But here are two hundred and 
 eighty millions, seven times as many as in the 
 United States. Yet we did not enter this field 
 till 1857, then to fall into the treacherous em- 
 brace of the Sepoy Rebellion. But the storm 
 passed, and our Mission did not die out. It 
 did shake in the nostrils of the blast, but that 
 only rooted it more deeply into the very soil. 
 For ten years this has been the favorite mis- 
 sion of our Church. Now we have only 
 
 293 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 twenty-four missionaries in that field, — one to 
 every ten millions. Think of one missionary 
 for all New England and the Empire State 
 and Pennsylvania thrown in! 
 
 Africa has about twelve million square 
 miles and sixty-one millions of people. We 
 have there fifteen missionaries, including a 
 bishop ; that is, one to every four million, with 
 nearly one million square miles, or about one- 
 quarter as much as all our dominion for a dis- 
 trict. All our missions may be summed up as 
 follows: Africa, fifteen; South America, 
 eight; China, twenty; Germany, forty-one; 
 Scandinavia, nineteen; India, twenty- four; 
 Bulgaria, three; total foreign, one hundred 
 and thirty. Then we have two thousand one 
 hundred and fifty-one missionaries in the 
 home work, paid in part or entirely by the 
 Society. 
 
 My conviction has always been in favor of 
 the home work rather than the foreign. It 
 has seemed to me that God purposed that we 
 should be a Home Mission nation, to whom 
 He is sending all the families of men. But 
 I am persuaded that this home work has rela- 
 tively its full share of attention. The home 
 field, with less than forty millions, is supplied 
 
 294 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 with two thousand one hundred and fifty-one 
 missionaries, while the foreign fields, with 
 nearly eight hundred millions, has only one 
 hundred and thirty missionaries. The most 
 strenuous advocate for home work can not 
 criticise our Board for our zeal for the 
 heathen. Look abroad, see the demand every- 
 where. Northward, by the Polar Sea, is a sea 
 of moral ice. The Esquimaux, save at some 
 few mission points, are wrapped in moral 
 night that has never known the light. Large 
 districts of America, large enough for em- 
 pires, are traversed only by the bloody savage 
 on the war-path. South America has a Chris- 
 tianity that lacks almost everything but heath- 
 enism. Europe is sandwiched between mil- 
 lions of Pagans and millions of Mohammed- 
 ans, and spiced with other millions of the 
 seed of Abraham. Africa is enveloped in a 
 darkness before which her complexion fairly 
 pales, and which is surpassed only by the 
 degradation of the Mohammedans in her in- 
 terior. We have already looked down upon 
 the plains of Asia. Let us not forget that this 
 is the site of Eden and of Bethlehem, the 
 cradle of Adam and Christ; that here the 
 patriarchs fell asleep, and the followers of 
 
 295 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 Jesus were wakened into life; that on Asia's 
 soil was built the first altar and raised the first 
 tabernacle. From her heavens descended the 
 law, beneath her sky shone the pillar of fire, 
 in her firmament appeared Judea's star, and 
 from her hills flow forth the streams for the 
 healing of the nations. Let us also remember 
 that the land of Moses is still under the 
 plague of darkness ; the rocks that echoed the 
 songs of Miriam echo now the war-cry of 
 the Mohammedan ; and the same fields trav- 
 ersed by the weary feet of the apostles and 
 consecrated by the blood of the martyrs are 
 covered with heathen altars and desolated 
 with countless idols. Look where we may, 
 we are met with beckoning hands and plead- 
 ing faces, asking for the Bread of Life. I am 
 sometimes alarmed lest we underrate the dan- 
 ger to which all these millions are exposed. 
 We think of their social deprivations, their 
 use of elephants instead of locomotives, their 
 tents for homes, their general wretchedness 
 and want, their despotisms, and wars, and 
 famines, and massacres; we think of all this 
 and their moral darkness, and think they are 
 having it bad enough now, so they must fare 
 better hereafter; we take them in on the 
 
 296 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen, 
 
 statute of limitations, and, shrinking from the 
 burden of our own responsibility, we think 
 them about as well off as we are, and so do 
 not enter into their needs. 
 
 We sometimes class them with infants, and 
 thus make wide entrance for them into the 
 kingdom of heaven, and so excuse ourselves. 
 I know they are a law unto themselves, they 
 have a law written in their hearts, and that 
 their thoughts accuse or excuse them accord- 
 ing as they live up to the light they have, the 
 light that lighteth every man that cometh into 
 the world. And I have no doubt that every 
 one that improves his talent of opportunity 
 will be rewarded and saved. Possibly we 
 shall meet Socrates and Confucius in the 
 goodly company, singing a Savior of whom 
 they never heard till they saw Him in the 
 brightness of the excellent glory. I read with 
 joyous heart the story of the old negro woman 
 captured in Africa and sold on an Alabama 
 plantation. Her mistress told her of Jesus 
 and His dying love, when she exclaimed: "O 
 yes, I know Him. He is the One that came 
 to me on the bank of the river in my own 
 country. The white man had taken my chil- 
 dren, and I felt that I could not live, and He 
 
 297 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 came and comforted me." I doubt not that 
 honest and sorrowing hearts everywhere find 
 Him in some form, and by His grace gain the 
 golden shore; for He is no respecter of per- 
 sons, and all that fear Him and work right- 
 eousness have His favor. Just as we get the 
 light of the sun on cloudy days, when we can 
 not see the sun itself, so the Sun of Righteous- 
 ness reaches many heathen hearts, though He 
 has not risen into the field of vision or is ob- 
 scured by the clouds of superstition. But with 
 all this hope, and with supreme confidence in 
 the mercy of God, I still fear that we under- 
 rate the dangers of the heathen. There are 
 some facts which we must not overlook. 
 
 There is the fact of their seething corrup- 
 tion. This is to be accepted as a state. What- 
 ever be its cause or occasion, it is still an 
 actual state. They are actually abandoned to 
 every conceivable vice and lust and passion. 
 While some of them have in their dialects no 
 word for God, they have several words to ex- 
 press the act of killing a parent. The next 
 world must find them as they leave this. How 
 may we hope for a heaven in the continuance 
 of the revolting crimes and corruption of 
 heathenism? While one living up to his light 
 
 298 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 could be saved, we must accept the testimony 
 of their conscience speaking in their sacrifices, 
 that they do not thus live. 
 
 Another fact. They are in the condition 
 we were without Christ, and God so under- 
 stood our need as to send Him for our salva- 
 tion. It was necessary that Christ should suf- 
 fer and rise again. The same condition that 
 demanded any Christ at all demands Him for 
 the heathen. 
 
 Another fact. God has commanded us to 
 preach the gospel to every creature. He put 
 His omnipotent "Go" behind the infant 
 Church to whom He spoke, and they ran 
 through all lands, crying in all tongues: "The 
 kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus Christ 
 is come in the flesh." Looking at these facts, 
 I fear that there is some dire necessity which 
 we do not feel. This I do know, that God 
 wastes no effort. He never moves to save 
 unless it is necessary. 
 
 The same law holds over all the race. In- 
 creasing the light, we increase the chances of 
 heaven. It might be possible to make a trip 
 across the Sahara Desert on foot and alone, 
 but it is immeasurably more certain in the 
 care of an experienced caravan. A heathen 
 
 299 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 might reach heaven without the gospel, for 
 all I know; but life and immortality are 
 brought to light in the gospel. This we may 
 boldly assert and hold: if the heathen are to 
 have the gospel, the Church must send it to 
 them. And we are the Church. Therefore 
 the duty is upon us. 
 
 This duty is enforced by the fact that the 
 mode of action is in perfect harmony with 
 the Divine procedure in all life. It is every- 
 where a union of the human and Divine. In 
 our very birth God is our Creator, yet our 
 very existence turns on conditions outside the 
 Divine action. We come to maturity by the 
 same law. We use the means. We take the 
 nourishment. But God by His law and ac- 
 tion secures the increase. All the productive 
 trades make us co-workers together with God. 
 The husbandman scatters the seed, and God 
 scatters the dews and the sunbeams. One ma- 
 tures, the other secures the harvest. This law 
 controls our salvation. Every promise in the 
 Word is conditioned on our doing somewhat. 
 It is ''hearken," heed, accept, believe, repent, 
 pray, work, agonize, enter in. There is an 
 eternal copartnership in toil figured in the 
 eternally Divine humanity of Jesus. Thus 
 
 300 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 we are to "work out our salvation with fear 
 and trembling, for it is God that worketh in 
 us both to will and to do of His good pleas- 
 ure." On the point in hand the whole Book 
 was written. This evangelization was the 
 very and sole purpose of the Church in the 
 world. The infant Church accepted this as 
 her work and went about it. It was not done 
 in a moment. They were strong men, those 
 first missionaries. They had been with Jesus. 
 They had His spirit. They felt His power. 
 They wrought His miracles. And they were 
 single in their work to plant His kingdom in 
 all lands. Yet how slowly the work went on! 
 After three years, eleven were under commis- 
 sion, and one hundred and twenty were all 
 that could be gathered to the great prayer- 
 meeting. Fifty years later, when all save John 
 had put on the martyr's crown, and two gen- 
 erations had seeded down the earth with their 
 blood, not more than one in ten thousand of 
 those who had heard and seen were actual be- 
 lievers; and three hundred years after Christ, 
 when a Pagan emperor enthroned the faith, 
 less than one per cent of the Empire accepted 
 Jesus. It was a slow work, giving largest 
 room for human co-operation. 
 
 301 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 The Church sows. The Church is not con- 
 sulted concerning the time of harvesting. She 
 is commanded to sow by all waters. Propa- 
 gandism is her organic law. This makes her 
 a Missionary Society. She can not be a 
 Church and not be a Missionary Society. Let 
 your light shine. She must do this if she has 
 any light. It is in the nature of light to shine. 
 That is what it is for. The whole body of 
 truth is called a gospel; that is, good news, 
 something communicated. Kept, it would 
 cease to be a gospel, cease to be news. It must 
 be both whispered in the ear and told upon 
 the house-top. It must be on the move, and 
 the very fact that it is good, good news, keeps 
 it spreading. Nature is a communication, a 
 revealment, an uttered word of God. When 
 He said, "Let there be light," He unbolted 
 and threw open the doors, crying to all the 
 Universe, Behold! So we must communicate 
 good news. A man gets an idea. He button- 
 holes his first neighbor till he has told it. It 
 is too good to keep. It laughs its way out 
 into the air, and floats around the world. 
 Thus the gospel, the good news, the wonder- 
 ful secret of redeeming love, could not be 
 locked in. Archimedes could not but leap 
 
 302 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 from the bath at his discovery of relative 
 weights and run through the streets crying, 
 *'I have found it!" Luther could not shut up 
 the great Reformation in his deep German 
 chest. It v^as too good a thing. If he had 
 tried, it would have shone out through him. 
 It is in our natures to communicate. The feet 
 of sorrow are heavy, and her face is veiled, 
 and her voice is hushed; but joy is swift, and 
 she seeks the open day and the highway, and 
 she laughs as she runs. 
 
 Do n't you remember the symbol of the 
 gospel power was a tongue, a fiery tongue, 
 lighting on the disciples' heads? Speak, speak 
 burning words, speak winged words. This is 
 the organic law. A Church, to be a Church, 
 must be a Missionary Society, and we rise 
 into Christian life only as we rise into the 
 missionary spirit. The first sight of Jesus 
 lifted up draws us to Him. The first contact 
 with Him heals us, and His first breath upon 
 us fills us with His spirit, and sets us to proph- 
 esying. Twenty missionaries for four hun- 
 dred and fifty millions, looks discouraging. 
 But when I think of the nature of the gospel, 
 and of the authority and power of Him who 
 says, "Go," I am not discouraged. Eighteen 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 hundred years ago there were only eleven 
 clinging to the Master; to-day three hundred 
 and sixty millions have heard the good news, 
 and only six hundred and forty millions more 
 are to be reached. We have more than one- 
 third, and in that one-third we have the brain 
 of the race. That is what actually weighs. 
 Chicago alone will outweigh all Asia. See 
 how we take the earth at advantage! The 
 apostles did not know much about geography. 
 There was not much to know. A pond that 
 would not be seen by the side of Lake Mich- 
 igan they called a sea. A thousand miles of 
 coast and country about the Mediterranean 
 made up the world. But now we have 
 weighed and measured all the seas, and are on 
 the point of emptying the Mediterranean into 
 the great desert. We have passed the Pillars 
 of Hercules, and have traversed every rod of 
 ground and every rood of sea. It took Paul 
 months to go from Jerusalem to Rome. We 
 can go around the world in as many weeks. 
 It required a special commission, with brawny 
 shoulders and brave hearts, to carry the liber- 
 ality of Corinth to Jerusalem, and one season 
 was exhausted in the journey. We can take 
 your pledge at your door, and in four hours 
 
 304 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 pay off a missionary on any continent and in 
 almost any district. The apostles went forth 
 as the filth and offscourings of the whole cre- 
 ation. The Greeks thought them fools. The 
 Romans despised them as insignificant. All 
 the dignity they had was borrowed from their 
 accidental relation to some heathen nation. 
 But not so to-day. The missionaries from the 
 two great missionary nations go forth as kings. 
 To say, "I am an American," or "I am a 
 Briton," is to command respect no less than 
 the old cry of "I am a Roman." It took a 
 scribe weary years to produce a single copy 
 of the Bible, and only princes in fortunes 
 could possess it. We can furnish Bibles a 
 thousand a minute if need be, and no pauper 
 so poor that he may not own the Word of 
 Life. On the day of Pentecost it was the in- 
 augural miracle of the New System that the 
 gospel was heard in different languages, 
 though the number was less than a score. But 
 to-day it is proclaimed in three hundred 
 tongues. All the advantages and appliances 
 are ready. The great age of preparation is 
 passed, and the Church is actually moving for 
 the conquest of the world. 
 
 The other day the Church was compara- 
 20 305 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 tively indifferent to this work. But now she 
 moves as for life. She has the means and is 
 developing the spirit. The United States 
 spent $3,000,000,000 in five years for war. 
 The interest on that at the old rate of ten per 
 cent would give a missionary to every twelve 
 hundred heathen forever. Surely the money 
 is not wanting, and we are gaining in spirit. 
 When we come to the point where we feel 
 that the cause must go forward whatever else 
 fails, then we shall see nations born into the 
 kingdom in a day. It will cost some sacrifice. 
 
 How many of us have felt any inconven- 
 ience on account of our donations to God's 
 cause? Let us be thoughtful. Some of you 
 have thousands to spend for comfort and 
 pleasure, and your offerings to this cause are 
 never felt. When God gives a man health 
 and business ability and prosperity, He ex- 
 pects a liberal return. And it is a solemn fact 
 that His cause waits for our support. Multi- 
 tudes whom He is seeking are dying. God 
 waits for us to help them. He does not keep 
 us waiting for His mercies. We are the de- 
 positories of His truth. May we innocently 
 keep it from the needy? 
 
 I knew a sick mother once who was com- 
 306 
 
The Supreme Need of the Heathen. 
 
 pelled to hand over her child to the care of a 
 nurse. After a few weeks the nurse took of- 
 fense and left. Neither money nor love nor 
 pity could induce her to return. And that 
 helpless mother was compelled to see her child 
 waste away to a skeleton and actually starve 
 to death. She said: ''When I heard my babe 
 moan, and saw it die, I could hardly keep 
 from murdering that nurse. I hope God will 
 forgive me, for it was so cruel." More than 
 mother ever loved her child, God loves sin- 
 ners. We have the Bread of Life. They are 
 actually starving within our reach. God help 
 us to do our full duty! Every man for him- 
 self. It may cost some sacrifice. I feel we 
 are called to make sacrifices. Only by these 
 is His work carried on. 
 
 Shortly after the close of the war, Brother 
 Clark, in the South Carolina Conference, was 
 sent to a large and dangerous circuit. He 
 worked for a mere pittance. His wife worked 
 and took care of the family, and he cared for 
 his work. Sometimes he had to hide in the 
 swamps from the guerillas. One day he came 
 home from a tour round the circuit. He had 
 had an unusually hard time. He had been 
 compelled to sleep in the swamp and eat the 
 
 307 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ears of corn he had taken for his horse. The 
 next morning he said to his wife, "Brother 
 Griffith is going round the circuit for me this 
 time." She said, "Where are you going?" 
 "Over to see your father." His father-in-law- 
 was well ofif, and wanted them to quit the 
 Northern Church and the work, and he would 
 help them. She understood the case and said: 
 "No, John, you can eat the raw corn from the 
 cob, and sleep in the swamp, and I can care 
 for myself and the children. But God's work 
 must be done, and this people must have the 
 gospel." Brothers, these are the workers you 
 are supporting. I lay this hungry and weep- 
 ing cause at your door, that you may not go 
 out without relieving it. 
 
 308 
 
VIII. 
 
 DIVINITY OF THE MISSIONARY 
 IDEA. 
 
 [This address was written by Dr. Fowler as pastor of Jef- 
 ferson Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Chicago, his first 
 charge, in March, 1863. This was the first missionary address he 
 ever delivered.] 
 
 I PURPOSE to present the "Divinity of the 
 Missionary Idea," and leave you to gather 
 therefrom the measure of your obligation. 
 "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in 
 earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all na- 
 tions ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world." To this idea I ask 
 your most prayerful and thoughtful attention. 
 
 I postulate: First, that the missionary idea 
 is Divine in its conception. It came into the 
 world from the worlds above us with Jesus of 
 Nazareth. It was cradled in the manger of 
 Bethlehem. Its infant feet walked up and 
 down Galilee. It was strengthened in the 
 wilderness of temptation. It was sanctified 
 in the garden of anguish. It was armed with 
 
 309 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 the cross of sacrifice. It was plumed and pin- 
 ioned on the Mount of Ascension, and its soul 
 was fixed with a deathless, uncompromising, 
 all-conquering purpose by the prayer and in- 
 spiration of Pentecost. Its radical idea was 
 the Brotherhood of Man, from which it as- 
 cended to the Fatherhood of God. And in 
 this we see its divinity. Philosophy, through 
 the lips of one of her wisest children, said, 
 ^'I am thankful that I was born a man and 
 not a brute, a Greek and not a Barbarian;" 
 denying all fellowship between the different 
 races. The Jew, unto whom was committed 
 the promises, and to whom was given the holy 
 inspiration, looked upon the Gentile as upon 
 a dog, and not until the Divine Man had ut- 
 tered His deep teachings and pronounced His 
 wonderful words could the word "Brother" 
 cross the narrow rivers that bounded the 
 tribes. But when Jesus, who was not the son 
 of the Jew, but the "Son of Man," in whom 
 was a whole humanity, a Teacher sent from 
 God, a living Truth from out eternity, then 
 these narrow boundaries were broken down. 
 The geographies of kingdoms and races were 
 manifested as the falsehoods of power, and 
 the spiritual chart wrapping the earth about 
 
 310 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 appeared as God's geography, God's truth; 
 and to-day the African and the Arab, the 
 Scandinavian and the Celt, the Teuton, the 
 Norman, and the Anglo-Saxon join their 
 hands in one circle that belts the world and 
 reaches around the Eternal Throne. 
 
 Another element in the missionary idea 
 showing the divinity of its conception is this: 
 a spiritual kingdom in the world, a kingdom 
 permeating all forms of government and all 
 types of society, to which men are eligible in 
 virtue of their humanity, and into which they 
 are naturalized by faith in the cleansing blood 
 of Jesus. Science tells us that there exists a 
 subtle ether in which all bodies float, an ether 
 so subtle that it permeates alike all substances, 
 from the thinnest gas to the most compact dia- 
 mond.. Through this, electricity flashes and 
 light scintillates, and o'er its highways voices 
 come and go. We do not see it nor handle 
 it, yet it wraps us all about, and pierces us 
 through and through. So with this spiritual 
 kingdom. In it all outer kingdoms are to 
 move, and all hearts beat. In it man is meas- 
 ured, not by his bales or his blocks or his 
 acres, but by his manhood, by his humanity. 
 We can not see it, for it comes not by obser- 
 
 311 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 vation. We can not handle it, for it is not of 
 this world. Yet only in it do we find our true 
 citizenship. We are aliens and strangers till 
 we move into this spiritual kingdom, into this 
 commonwealth of Israel. Surely the mission- 
 ary idea, with its heavenly children. Brother- 
 hood and Spirituality, is Divine in its concep- 
 tion, and if this missionary idea is not more 
 than human, then surely no other idea was 
 ever even human. 
 
 I postulate : Secondly, that the missionary 
 idea is Divine in its purposes. Looking upon 
 all men as equally related to the great Father, 
 it purposes to do for all hearts alike, as much 
 for the struggling soul of the Esquimau or 
 the Hottentot as for the New England scholar 
 or the English peer. It presents right solu- 
 tions of all the deep problems of life and 
 death and eternity, problems which men must 
 solve in one way or another. I know we have 
 a way of denouncing the heathen as insane or 
 silly because they bow their souls to stocks and 
 sticks, to gods made with their own hands. 
 But I must count that as a shallow and un- 
 charitable solution of their systems of wor- 
 ship ; for, rightly understood, there is under- 
 neath all their errors a deep core of radical 
 
 312 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 truth, if we can but have the patience to find 
 it. Their system somehow seemed to meet a 
 felt want, and therefore they accepted it. It 
 was unto them deep, desperate, awfully sol- 
 emn truth; for it is with them as with us, an 
 infinite thing to live. They are just as anxious 
 about that shapeless, immense, overshadowing, 
 fathomless something which we call the fu- 
 ture, as you and I are; just as restless under 
 the chidings and goadings, the warnings and 
 pleadings, the promises and prophecies, of 
 that sleepless, vigilant, arbitrary, uncompro- 
 mising, fiery, all-stinging something which we 
 call conscience, as you and I are; just as 
 trembling and fearful, just as desperate and 
 cowering before that all-pervading idea of a 
 great, unseen, all-seeing, unknown, all-know- 
 ing God, as you and I are. And they put their 
 soul's eternity at hazard with no lighter heart 
 than we do jeopardize ours. So I have no 
 patience with that narrow stupidity that 
 throws everything out of the field of sympathy 
 that is not written in the creeds, by calling 
 them superstitions. Superstitions they are to 
 us; but to them they are the solemn, mysteri- 
 ous realities of the unseen yet felt life of the 
 eternal, unchangeable hereafter. Wrong and 
 
 313 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 untrue and ruinous as they seem to us, yet I 
 think there is always at heart a great truth 
 there. When I turn to history, and see men, — 
 men just as we are, full of social laws, and 
 human sympathies, and divine aspirations, — 
 shutting themselves up in caves, wandering 
 over deserts, posted on pillars in the lonely 
 wilderness, casting themselves under the 
 wheels of Juggernaut, I dare not say that they 
 are not in earnest, and that, too, about the 
 divine idea woven through all natures. Nor 
 dare I call them irrational. For on the bare 
 rational balancing between time and eternity 
 there is no sacrifice of the first for the second 
 that is not justified — yea, commanded — by the 
 reason of the case. So that he who strives 
 most earnestly, though he strives right away 
 into deeper darkness, is the most rational. He 
 only is insane who believes that his eternal 
 peace depends upon certain conditions, and 
 still madly neglects to meet those conditions. 
 In the weak, uncertain, infant wail of the 
 heathen I find nature's answer to God's reve- 
 lation. Mumbled and muttered indeed it is, 
 yet it comes from the heart of things. It em- 
 bodies their best solutions of questions with 
 which we must struggle. For flung into being 
 
 314 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 as we are, with the eternal past behind us, 
 and the eternal future before us, with the in- 
 finity of want within us, the infinity of pain 
 beneath us, and the infinity of peace above us, 
 we can not fail to ask, Is there a great Cause 
 of Causes? Has He a moral government? 
 Are we under that government? Can He look 
 down through all the maze of worlds that float 
 above us and see our little world? Can He 
 look through all the countless, struggling mil- 
 lions that sprout into life like the plants of 
 a day and fall out again like the leaves of a 
 summer, and see us? Whence came we, and 
 whither are we going? On what strange dis- 
 tant shore will these caged spirits of ours find 
 their ultimate rest? With these problems we 
 must grapple. Business may crowd them 
 aside for a season, yet the ever-fleeting years 
 call them up again. Our falling friends press 
 them upon our attention, and the judgments 
 that now and then flash out upon us, as the 
 wheels of Providence sweep round, bid us 
 pause and take our bearings. The blind, cold, 
 dead idols of the heathen are the best solutions 
 which nature can furnish of these questions. 
 And now the missionary idea proposes to take 
 these problems and flash into their dark cen- 
 
 315 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 ters the heavenly light of its divine inspiration, 
 and along their illumined highways lead hu- 
 manity up to God. 
 
 Go away with me over the sea to the banks 
 of the Ganges. See that heathen mother, worn 
 and weary, staggering to the river's side with 
 her helpless infant; watch her, as with a frenzy 
 more resistless than a mother's holy love, she 
 tears its toothless gums from her aching breast, 
 and casts it into the reptile's jaws, or tramples 
 it beneath her own feet. Art thou a mother, 
 with a little one prattling on the altar of thy 
 knee, and dost thou say, "Monster!" Be not 
 so fast. She is a mother as thou art a mother, 
 and thou thyself wouldst do it if the grave 
 were yawning before you and hell boiling up 
 to receive you. Yea, my own mother might 
 have trampled me in the dust had not God 
 told her that "Christ is the end of the law for 
 righteousness to every one that believeth." 
 Thus the missionary idea is Divine in its solu- 
 tion of the great questions of life, and death, 
 and destiny. 
 
 I postulate: Thirdly, that the missionary 
 idea is Divine in its agencies. It everywhere 
 acts by a union of the human and the Divine: 
 "Go ye/' and "Lo, I am with you alway." It 
 
 316 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 introduces into the world a force from above 
 the world. It breaks in upon the lines of 
 nature, and then acts along those lines. It 
 sends its divine inspiration into human hearts, 
 and takes possession of human affections; 
 makes these its motive power. It aims to con- 
 quer hearts, and for this it uses heart power. 
 In this the idea works in a manner all its 
 own. Nowhere else is this made the central 
 force or fact of any system. It is emphatically 
 a family where heart speaks to heart, and all 
 beat responsive to the mighty throbbings of 
 the Infinite Heart of Christ. 
 
 Walk out into nature, and see what is the 
 central idea in her gigantic system. It is the 
 law of relation. Things come to their appro- 
 priate places according to this standard. Sub- 
 servient to this, or rather working with this as 
 the ultimate end, are all gravities, attractions, 
 cohesions, repulsions, and the like, Nature 
 with her thousand forces, — forces of growth 
 and decomposition, of fire and frost, of light 
 and electricity, — tugs away at every atom of 
 matter and germ of life till she pulls them 
 into their true relations. Her perpetual strug- 
 gle is to keep things in their places. If a gas 
 gets crowded down below its true relation, 
 
 317 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 she works away at it till the crowding bands 
 are broken asunder and the lighter substance 
 finds its true equilibrium. In maintaining 
 this law, nature sometimes thunders forth her 
 authority from the mumbling jaws of the 
 earthquake and the volcano's burning throat: 
 but maintain this law she must, even at all 
 hazards; for this is her organic law. 
 
 Going up one step into mere animal life, 
 the ruling idea is the law of physical force, 
 the power of claw, and of coil, and of beak, 
 and of tusk. The animal with greatest avail- 
 able power, whether it be of speed or of ac- 
 tivity, or of muscle, or of endurance, is master. 
 This force is the principle of government. It 
 decides the question of kingship, of dominion. 
 
 Going up another step into the ruder types 
 of human society, the law at the core is 
 changed a little. Still it is force, — force of 
 muscles, force of blow, force of endurance, 
 force of numbers, force of courage. Only a 
 slight advance, yet some advance, because 
 these forces are husbanded and multiplied by 
 the advantages of weapons and fortifications. 
 
 Advancing another step into civilized gov- 
 ernment, we find another central idea, — power 
 
 3i8 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 of brain. Obedience is to law. Appeal is to 
 reason and motive. These are centered in 
 courts and cabinets, systems of intrigue, poli- 
 cies of home and foreign action. And now 
 and then, once or twice in a century, the ap- 
 peal is to bayonets and cannon; yet these are 
 only instruments, only materialized ideas. 
 Thus the highest type of human government 
 works by laws, and enactments, and com- 
 mands. At this point the highest human con- 
 ceptions of government are wedded onto the 
 divine revelations of government. To this the 
 divine stoops, yet only stoops to breathe into 
 them a new spirit and motive, which, so far 
 as it is received, annuls the injunction, annuls 
 them in superannuating them, in removing 
 their demand. The power is placed, not in 
 the law, but in the affections. So the subject 
 is no longer governed; for government im- 
 plies restraint; and where the affections are 
 all in perfect unity with the requirements of 
 the higher divine life, there is no restraint; 
 for every wish of the heart is in perfect keep- 
 ing with the law. Thus love becomes the ful- 
 filling of the law. This motive power in the 
 affections, this corner-stone of authority in the 
 
 319 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 heart, is original in the Christian system, and 
 is the main force on the human side of the mis- 
 sion work. 
 
 God's Spirit is everywhere, brooding over 
 all people, and He is only waiting for the 
 Church to furnish heart-power and He will 
 reconquer all heathendom. Our mission- 
 aries go over the sea, not with armies and 
 navies, but with living, loving, holy hearts. 
 They are not messengers of death, but mes- 
 sengers of life. They put their souls up 
 against heathen societies, and throb their new 
 life into them. O, there is a shoreless, infinite 
 ocean of power ever surging to and fro in the 
 human heart! I am thankful for a religion 
 that can stand on demonstration, — demonstra- 
 tion to which my judgment is compelled to 
 give assent; but I am more thankful that the 
 religion of Jesus Christ is a power known and 
 felt m the heart. For this is the center of 
 power. A religion that never gets beyond 
 the brain bears'no relation to the religion of 
 the loving, compassionate Savior. It has no 
 more power in it than a mummy. It is as far 
 from being a new life as a skeleton without 
 flesh, or blood, or soul is from being a man. 
 You may blow through its nostrils, but that 
 
 320 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 does not make a man of it. So you may blow 
 prayers through a heartless creed, but that 
 does not make a religion of it. It must have 
 a living, working, loving soul, that looks upon 
 its fellow-man, saying "Brother," and up to 
 the Infinite, saying "Father." What we want 
 more than anything else is heart-power; then 
 men will be thankful for the privilege of com- 
 ing to the house of God, and will no longer 
 think they are conferring a great favor upon 
 the minister to listen to his words of eternal 
 life, and upon the Almighty in visiting His 
 house occasionally. Then we will have money 
 power enough too. 
 
 William Penn armed himself with this idea, 
 and set up his colony among the savages. "We 
 meet," said Penn, "on the broad pathway of 
 good faith and good will ; no advantage shall 
 be taken on either side, but all shall be open- 
 ness and love. I will not call you children, 
 for parents sometimes chide theii children too 
 severely; nor brothers only, for brothers dif- 
 fer. The friendship between me and you I 
 will not compare to a chain, for that the rains 
 might rust or the falling tree might break. 
 We are the same as if one man's body were 
 to be divided into two parts; we are all one 
 21 321 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 flesh and blood." The children of the forest 
 were touched by the sacred doctrine, and re- 
 nounced their guile and their revenge. "We 
 will live," said they, "in love with William 
 Penn and his children as long as the moon 
 and the sun shall endure." And not a drop 
 of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian. 
 This is the agency used by Christianity. This 
 is its missionary force, as manifested in its self- 
 sacrifice. Men have denied the present good 
 for some ultimate good that terminates in self. 
 They have endured for conquest and power; 
 but nowhere outside of the religion of Christ 
 have they freely sacrificed all for others. The 
 model was perfected on the cross, and its 
 agencies are under the same law, "And I, if 
 I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." 
 Surely its systems of agencies are Divine. If 
 they are only human, no other system was ever 
 even human. 
 
 I postulate: Fourthly, that the missionary 
 idea is Divine in its rewards. One thing 
 pointing to this is its miraculous use of money. 
 It takes up one dollar, turns it over, and brings 
 it back ten. It so works the tides of trade and 
 commerce that the wealth of the world flows 
 into the coffers of the missionary nations. 
 
 322 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 Take down your atlases; study the geography 
 of heathendom. Can you find one valid nat- 
 ural or physical reason why those broad, deep 
 rivers may not float an immense navy as well 
 as our streams; a rich and productive com- 
 merce as well as the rivers of Christendom? 
 You can not convince yourself that those vast, 
 fertile plains can not be studded with peace- 
 ful cities and refined homes. Because we do 
 not see in our harbors the flags and pennants 
 of Africa, do not meet at our seaports the ves- 
 sels and fleets of the heathen, we conclude that 
 heathendom does not amount to much; but in 
 productive soil, in genial climate, in square 
 miles, they far outreach us, and in the natural 
 advantages of navigation and harborage they 
 are not much behind us. All they lack is 
 moral ideas and moral purposes. And God 
 stands ready to multiply our wealth and com- 
 merce a hundred-fold, so soon as we can trust 
 Him far enough to Christianize and civilize 
 His unfortunate, benighted children. They 
 stand along their sacred rivers and under their 
 deep, clear skies, with their haggard faces 
 turned up toward the cold, distant stars, look- 
 ing for the Infinite, and the starving souls cry 
 out, "Father, pity Thy suffering children, and 
 
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Missionary Addresses. 
 
 give us the Bread of Life," and God says to 
 us : "Feed ye them, and I will pay you an hun- 
 dred-fold cash down in this present life, and 
 give you a title to an eternal homestead in the 
 gold-paved city. If you like the security in- 
 vest your capital." Mere commerce without 
 Christianity does not yield this increase, and 
 for this reason : The heathen have but few 
 wants, consequently but small demands. They 
 must be Christianized before they can become 
 largely productive, before they become exten- 
 sive producers and consumers. So that the 
 real multiplication of money is purely a mis- 
 sionary result. 
 
 Another and more vital consideration from 
 this idea is this: It furnishes here to our hand 
 exchange on the bank of heaven. By it we 
 are enabled to deposit here our worthless 
 ''shin-plasters" and have them redeemed with 
 the pure gold of that country out of sight, to 
 which we are all hastening with the speed of 
 the winged moments. 
 
 We find, here and there, scattered through 
 the North, men whom the unholy Rebellion 
 chased out of the South. And they are almost 
 always poor, and for this reason: they could 
 get no exchange for their worthless Confed- 
 
 324 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 erate scrip. And in the pure atmosphere ot 
 these Northern latitudes their scrip is only a 
 curse to them, because it recalls what they 
 once possessed, and then creates a suspicion 
 of fellowship with rebels. You and I are run- 
 ning through a rebellious world, and unless 
 we get exchange here for our scrip we will 
 be poor over yonder to all eternity, — doomed 
 to the eternal poorhouse. For in a day surely 
 coming, and much nearer than we think, death 
 will chase us out of this world, and the Al- 
 mighty will throw out our scrip and protest 
 our drafts. As a mere business calculation 
 it will pay you to invest in this exchange. 
 
 A man goes to Australia. He only sojourns 
 there. He expects to return to the States. 
 His sojourn is for gain. Now, if he simply 
 quarries stone, he can soon cord up an im- 
 mense weight of stone; but when he wishes to 
 come back he can not bring it with him. It 
 may be worth something to him there, but it 
 is valueless to him as a citizen of America. 
 Had he simply stored up gold he could have 
 brought his fortune with him. You and I 
 are only sojourners here. If we simply invest 
 in farms and merchandise, they will be worth- 
 less to us over yonder. We can not carry them 
 
 325 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 over with us. Only our investment in the spir- 
 itual gold of God's kingdom is worth the 
 saving. 
 
 When I remember that this life is transient 
 as an evening cloud and fleeting as a morning 
 mist, that in a very few hours this frail body 
 of mine will tumble down, and that this death- 
 less something within which remembers and 
 forgets, feels and thinks, loves and hates, 
 which acts and is, which I call I, myself, will 
 leap from the crumbling dust and the melting 
 world and mount to God, then I feel that my 
 true higher life is not of this world, but be- 
 longs to the worlds above me. Then I count 
 as secure only what I have sent before me, 
 and really possess only what I have given 
 away. For I know on the authority of my 
 God that by and by the world, hoary with 
 age, white with the years which eternity hath 
 snowed upon her, shall uncover her grave- 
 scarred bosom, hand over to God her buried 
 and living millions, and walk mournfully 
 away to the funeral of Nature. And in that 
 day when the earth shall be wrapped in her 
 winding-sheet of flame and laid away in the 
 tomb of chaos, I want my investments in my 
 brain, in my heart, and in my character, so 
 
 326 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 that I can say to the Great Father, "Here am 
 I and all that Thou hast given me." 
 
 I postulate: Fifthly, that the missionary 
 idea is Divine in its resources. It is exhaust- 
 less because it has its end out of self. I find 
 that in nature nothing lives for itself. Every- 
 thing exists for something else. The rose does 
 not smell its own fragrance. The brooklet 
 does not hear its own melody. The sun does 
 not fold up his beams within himself, and 
 walk sullenly up and down the heavens. 
 Everywhere the purpose of a thing is in some- 
 thing out of itself. The palm, the tallest of 
 trees, is endogenous; it develops from within. 
 So men, as they are endogenous, — that is, as 
 they develop from within, — reach nearer to 
 heaven, nearer to God. A man is not meas- 
 ured about his body, about his possessions, 
 but by his girth about his soul, about his hu- 
 manity. You can not shut up his manhood 
 in his narrow frame. If he has a single spark 
 of real manhood about him, it will burn its 
 way to the surface, and you can see him in 
 the darkness. The German Reformation was 
 only Luther's humanity, inspired and strength- 
 ened a little by the Almighty, chafing against 
 a wicked, cold dead age. We call him brave; 
 
 327 
 
Missionary Addresses. 
 
 but I think the real danger was not in acting, 
 but in not acting. If he had attempted to shut 
 up the Reformation in his great, deep, Ger- 
 man chest, it would have burned up through 
 him, leaving him like an old dead volcano, 
 a charred and blackened monument of God's 
 displeasure. It is this outgoing and outburn- 
 ing power of the missionary idea that makes 
 its resources exhaustless, and its success cer- 
 tain. 
 
 I remember of having read somewhere of 
 a discovered wreck in the Southern sea. The 
 helpless hull lay slowly rocking on the ocean 
 ripples. The crew of the vessel which dis- 
 covered the hull wondered if any one was still 
 on board. So a party of daring sailors volun- 
 teered to go and see, willing to brave the dan- 
 gers of plague and pestilence for the bare 
 possibility of saving some one. They pulled 
 up to the wreck, and went up over her side 
 to the deck. Silence walked noiselessly back 
 and to, and death patiently held the helm. 
 But down in the cabin, on the floor, wrapped 
 in the garments that had once covered a stal- 
 wart frame, they found the shrunken, shriv- 
 eled remnant of a man still alive. They put 
 their strong arms about him and carried him 
 away to their own vessel, gave him some stim- 
 
 328 
 
Divinity of the Missionary Idea. 
 
 ulant, and as they stood around him they saw 
 his hard, shrunken lips trying to move, and 
 stooping they caught the words that came hiss- 
 ing through his bare teeth, "There is another 
 man there." Away they went again to the 
 wreck, and rescued his companion. It is this 
 spirit which the missionary idea always begets, 
 speaking first and last and all the while that 
 *'there is another man there," which makes its 
 resources exhaustless and its success certain. 
 Sometimes when I think of the eight hun- 
 dred million heathen to be saved, my faith 
 gives out, and I think that it is no use to try. 
 But when I listen, a voice comes to me from 
 Judea's holy memories, saying: "All power is 
 given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go 
 ye therefore and teach all nations; and lo, I, 
 the Power older than all histories, deeper than 
 all experience, the Power under all societies, 
 behind all governments, back of all causes, — 
 lo, I, the Infinite God, am with you alway, 
 even unto the end of the world; and I swear 
 by My Eternal Throne that, though you tread 
 with your unsandaled feet upon the 'scorpion 
 and adder,' and press your way through the 
 lions' den and the fiery furnace, nothing shall 
 by any means harm you," — then I believe and 
 know that success is only a question of time. 
 
 329 
 
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