ASIA V V 2. S'^'^ (QortteU IttiwcraitB Slihratg atljaca, SJtm lork CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE C3IFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 The date sWlwo wVien this Comell university Library "'^' BV 2550.F15 The open door a challenge to missionary 3 1924 023 188 166 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023188166 THE OPEN DOOR A CHALLENGE^ TO MISSIONARY ADVANCE THE OPEN DOOR A Challenge to Missionary Advance Addresses Delivered Before the First General Missionary Convention of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Held in Cleveland, Ohio, October 21 to 24, 1902 EDITORS CHARLES H. FAHS STEPHEN J. HERBEN STEPHEN O. BENTON New York : EATON & MAINS Cincinnati: JENNINGS & PYE 1903 Copyright by EATON & MAINS 1903 CONTENTS PAGE The Organization of the Convention 3-12 The Convention Program 13-20 The Convention Addresses 21-337 "The Purpose of the Convention " 21-28 Bishop Edward G. Andrews ' ' The Emergency " 29-34 Rev. A. B. Leonard, LL.D. "Methodist Missions of the Nineteenth Century " 35-54 Rev. J. M. Buckley, D.D. " Spiritual Preparation for Missionary Service " 55-63 Rev. A. H. Tuttle, D.D. ' ' Home Allies in Our Work of Evangelization " . . 64-70 H. K. Carroll, LL.D. " Our Opportunity " 7 1-94 Bishop C. H, Fowler " The Words are Spirit and Life ". 94-100 Rev. W. I. Haven, D.D. "The Negro a Missionary Investment, a Missionary Investor " loo-i 1 1 Rev. J. W. E. Bowen, D.D. "Our Foreign Populations and How to Reach Them " 11 2-1 20 Rev. G. B. Addicks, D.D. "Our City Problem "...,,.. . 121-134 Rev. F. M. North, D.D. VI CONTENTS PAGE "The Open Door in Hawaii and the Philippines " 135-144 Rev. H. C. Stuntz, D.D. "The Open Door in Latin Countries" i4S-i5S Bishop C. C. McCabe " The Open Door in Eastern Asia " 155-163 Bishop D. H. Moore "The Open Door in Africa " 163-181 Bishop J. C. Hartzell "The Open Door in Southern Asia" 181-189 Bishop J. M. Thoburn "Why the World Should be Speedily Evangelized".. 189-200 Rev. E. M. Taylor, D.D. "What 'Retrenchment ' Means " 201-213 Bishop Cyrus D. Foss " It Tendeth to Poverty " 213-223 Rev. J. W. Bashford, D.D. "What the Presiding Elder Can Do " 223-231 Rev. W. T. Perrin, D.D. " What the District Missionary Secretary Can Do ". . . 232-237 Rev. W. F. Oldham, D.D. ' ' What the Pastor Can Do " 238-243 Rev. J. O. Wilson, D.D. "What the Sunday School Superintendent Can Do". 244-249 Mr. W. W. Cooper " What a Local Church Has Done " 250-255 Rev. J. W. Magruder " The Place of Prayer in Missionary Work " 255-259 Bishop JI. W. Warren " Young People and Missions " 259-267 Mr. S. Earl Taylor CONTENTS vii PAGE " Reasons Why the Home Church Must Go Forward " 268-278 Mr. J. R. Mott Introduction to the Financial Session 278-280 Rev. John F. Goucher, LL.D. " Beloved, if God So Loved Us " 281-287 Rev. W. P. McDowell, D.D. "The Need of Missionary Information in the Home Church " 287-301 Rev. George B. Smyth, D.D. "The Education and Training of Young People in Scriptural Habits of Giving ". 301-31 1 Rev. C. E. Locke, D.D. ' ' "What Money Means for Educational Work in the Foreign Fields " 31 1-31S Rev. F. D. Gamewell, Ph.D. "An Appeal from China " 316 Mr. Chen Wei Cheng "The Responsibility Resting upon the Delegates to This Convention " 316-321 Mr. John R. Mott "Christ Our Living Leader" , . . , 321-334 Mr, Robert E. Speer The Closing Address 334-337 Bishop James M. Thobum The Section Conferences , 338-382 "The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society — Its Equip- ment and Outlook " 338-345 Mrs. J. T. Gracey " The Work of the Woman's Home Missionary Society " 346-348 Mrs. Delia Lathrop Williams vili CONTENTS PAGE "The Value of Industrial Training in Our Southern Schools " 348-353 Mrs. W, P. Thirkield "Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico". 354-35^ Mrs. May Leonard Woodruif "The Deaconess as a Missionary Worker " 357-359 Rev. W. F. Oldham, D.D. What the Presiding Elder and the District Missionary Secretary Can Do 359-362 Section Conference Discussion What the Pastor Can Do. 363-378 Section Conference Discussion What the Lay Worker Can Do 378-381 Section Conference Discussion What the Young People Can Do 382 Section Conference Policy Appendix ,... 383-391 Index » 393-404 THE FIRST GENERAL MISSIONARY CONVENTION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION At the Ecumenical Missionary Conference held in New York The city in 1900 the delegates of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Ecumenical South, met to discuss ways and means of taking back the message Conference of that Conference to their denomination. After much prayer and discussion it was decided that the most effective way of doing so would be to reproduce it as far as possible upon a denomina- tional basis — in other words, to arrange for a great denomina- tional missionary convention under the auspices of their Missionary Board. A committee was appointed and certain delegates from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, con- sulted with delegates from the Methodist Episcopal Church con- cerning ways in which the proposed convention of the Church South might be made a great success. In April, 1901, more than a thousand delegates from the The Southland assembled in New Orleans, and for seven days they convention"' sat under the spell of one of the most powerful missionary con- ventions which have been held on this continent. Five repre- sentatives from the Methodist Episcopal Church were privileged to attend the New Orleans Convention as representatives of the denomination. These visitors were: Bishop J. M. Thoburn, Drs. John F. Goucher and F. D. Gamewell, and Messrs. John R. Mott and S. Earl Taylor. At the conclusion of the convention the Methodist Episcopal representatives were unanimously of the opinion that their Church should profit by such a convention, when the opportune moment should arrive. In the fall of 1901 the General Missionary Committee met in Pittsburg. At that time it became necessary to cut the missionary appropriations about eight per cent. This, preceded by the cut of more than two per cent of the year previous, reduced our missions to a desperate condition and made it evident to all that something must be done, and done quickly. Upon recommenda- THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Open Door Emergency Commission Tlie Convention Planned tion of the General Missionary Committee the Board of Man- agers elected field secretaries and appointed an Open Door Emergency Comn\ission to do all within its power to bring to the Church a realization of the imperative needs of our mission fields throughout the world. The Open Door Emergency Commission had its first meeting on January 2, 1902, continuing for two days. It was a memor- able meeting, not only because of the plans which were devised at that time, but also because of the deep spirit of prayer which was manifest throughout. As is now generally known, plans were at that time devised which contributed largely during eight months of effort toward the increase of $112,000 in the regular collections of the Church for the fiscal year, this increase making possible an increase of appropriations to our foreign missions of fifteen and a half per cent and to our home missions of thirteen and a half per cent. The plans of the Commission, however, did not terminate in an endeavor simply to increase the regular collections of the Church, for it was felt that the Church must be awakened to the importance of doing larger things for the extension of the king- dom of Christ throughout the world than had ever yet been attempted, and it was soon seen that one of the most effective ways of stirring the Church would be by bringing together the leaders of the Church in a delegated convention. It was felt by the members of the Commission that the time for such a con- vention was ripe because of the emergency confronting the Church, and because of the fact that it would be possible to hold the convention midway between the sessions of the General Con- ference. It was decided, therefore, that the year's work shovild culminate in a great convention which should be held in October just preceding the General Missionary Committee meeting. Because of the important questions, financial and other, which were involved in planning for such a convention, the Commission determined to move with deliberation in the arranging of all details. Information was obtained concerning the plan of organization of the New York Ecumenical Missionary Confer- ence, of the New Orleans Convention, of the International Stu- dent Missionary Conference (held in London in January, 1900), and, in addition to this, a committee was appointed to visit the ORGANIZATION S Student Volunteer Convention held in Toronto, the last of February, 1902, to make a most thorough investigation, to meet during the closing days of the convention, and to formulate a report to the Commission as to whether or not, in view of the information secured, it seemed feasible to project a general mis- sionary convention for the Methodist Episcopal Church. The committee brought back a favorable report, and the Commission at once appointed the following Program Committee: Bishop Program E. G. Andrews, Drs. A. B. Leonard, H. K. Carroll, and John F. Appointed Goucher, and Mr. S. Earl Taylor, Bishop Andrews to be chairman and Mr. Taylor secretary. This committee was given full power to perfect all of the details concerning the program, and at a later date was made an Executive Committee for all purposes for which other specific provision was not made. The Program Committee proceeded to lay out its general plan of organization and to draw up the preliminary draft of a program, but before doing so it settled upon what it considered to be the purpose of the convention (inspiration, organization of the forces, prayer, and consultation). It also adopted the follow- ing basal principles: That no person should be put on the program as a compliment ; no one should be put on who had not been tried in convention work; and no one should be put on who would be apt to "miss fire." In Ihe preliminary plan of organization two clear lines were laid down : First, that the Program Committee would consider itself as having charge of every detail of the convention, including the preparation of the program, the organization of the convention, the music, the control of the hall during convention hours, the accrediting of all delegates and the issuing of all tickets, adver- tising the convention through the press and providing for all expenses outside of those incurred by the local committees. Second, that in the place where the convention should be held a local Executive Committee should be organized and that this local Executive Committee should be asked to assume charge of the following lines of work: Securing the convention hall; providing a place for the missionary exhibit; providing for the overflow meetings; selecting and securing places of entertain- ment for the delegates on a self-supporting basis ; the reception of delegates, and the raising of the necessary finances for the local expenses. THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION CleTeland Invites the Conveution Committees Organized Promotion of Prayer When these lines had been laid down the secretary of the Program Committee was sent to Cleveland, O., to confer with the Ministerial Association of that city, to know if Cleveland would be willing to entertain the convention in October of 1902. After careful consideration by the ministers and prominent lay- men of the city an invitation was extended, a local Executive Committee was appointed, and the secretary of the New York committee met with the local committee, explained to them the plan of organization which was proposed by the New York com- mittee, and left with them a typewritten outline of the detailed plan of organization of the convention. When the secretary reported to the New York committee that Cleveland was prepared to entertain the convention the following committees were appointed and instructed to begin their work : A committee on working up the delegations; a committee on transportation ; a committee on the missionary exhibit ; a press and general advertising committee ; and a committee on printed matter. As soon as these committees had been thoroughly organized they quietly proceeded about their work. The committee on working up the delegations conducted a personal correspondence with sixty-five hundred possible delegates ; the committee on transportation began negotiations with the passenger associations to secure the reduced rates ; the committee on missionary exhibit laid out a comprehensive outline for the missionary exhibit, and six months in advance of the convention began correspondence with prospective exhibitors ; the committee on press and general advertising arranged for preliminary announcements in the Church papers early in the spring, and for a complete write-up of the convention in all of the Church papers for the first issue in October; the committee on printed matter produced the adver- tising literature for the convention ; and the secretary of the Program Committee, under its direction, supervised the various departments and sought to unify the work. The special preparations for the convention included the pro- motion of definite prayer for all the interests represented by the gathering, and for those who should attend it. A prayer card was sent to every prospective delegate, to all Methodist Episcopal missionaries, and to hundreds of others. The correspondence which came to the central office showed that the response to this ORGANIZATION 7 prayer request was immediate, definite, and widespread. The missionaries on the field were especially earnest in this regard, in one instance all the missionaries at a given important station in China meeting daily for prayer immediately before and during the convention. The Cleveland local Executive Committee was organized in Preparations April. Some of the subcommittees were appointed and a finan- ** Cleveland cial canvass was started during the summer months. On August 15 the local executive secretary went to Cleveland to establish convention headquarters for aggressive work. The convention was to be self-entertaining, each delegate (with the exception of missionaries and some privileged classes) being expected to pay for his entertainment. In addition to all available hotel accom- modations it was necessary to provide entertainment for about two thousand delegates in homes. To secure hospitality in the desired class of homes repeated notice was called to the conven- tion through the Cleveland daily press, through weekly church bulletins, and by specially prepared circulars and letters. To enlist the members of the local churches in prayer for the con- vention, a specially prepared prayer card was distributed among the churches of the city two months previous to the convention. Other printed matter aiming to promote prayer and cooperation on the part of the local churches was distributed on successive Sundays through the pews. Nine committees were appointed and employed in the local work, two hundred and thirty-one workers from the several Epworth Leagues composing these committees. In addition twenty-two students from neighboring Methodist colleges were secured to assist in ushering. Two days in advance of the convention twenty-three energetic young pastors and laymen who had had experience in helping to organize previous conventions were assembled in Cleveland as a special working force. Every department of the convention work was placed under the immediate supervision of a depart- mental head and this departmental head was given three or four trusted lieutenants who assisted him in looking after the details. The following special convention committees were organized : Special A business committee ; a committee to supervise the seating and committees the ventilation of the hall ; a committee on ushers ; a committee on printing ; a committee on decorations ; a committee on an- nouncements ; a committee on speakers ; a committee to promote 8 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Convention Sessions Special Features prayer; a committee to prepare an address to the Church; a committee on section meetings; a committee on the financial session; a committee to circulate the hymnbooks and handbooks of the convention ; a committee on registration ; a committee on post office ; a committee on information bureau ; a committee on reception of delegates ; a committee on parcel stands. These sub- committees were under the direction of the departmental heads, who in turn reported to the General Executive Committee and the local executive secretary. The first session of the convention was held Tuesday afternoon, October 21, and the last session Friday evening, October 24. Nine main sessions and nine section conferences were held in all. The main sessions were held in the Armory of the Cleveland Grays, which had been decorated for the occasion by the flags of all nations, by appropriate Scripture texts, and by a great map of the world which hung back of the platform. This map was prepared originally for the Ecumenical Missionary Conference of 1900, and showed by colors the prevailing religions in all lands. Repeated references were made to the map by speakers, and its voiceless appeal must be counted one of the stirring mes- sages of the gathering. The section conferences met in the Armory, in the First Methodist Church, the Epworth Memorial Methodist Church, the Young Men's Christian Association building, and in other appointed places. It may be worthy of note that the convention differed in certain essential points from previous conventions which have been held in the Methodist Episcopal Church. There was a permanent presiding officer who had been asso- ciated with the Program Committee from the beginning, who knew the purposes of the committee and was therefore able to give unity to the convention. No detailed program of the convention sessions was printed, but instead a daily bulletin was issued, which gave in outline only the hours of the sessions and the places of ineeting. While some were inclined to criticise this at first, it was soon recognized that not only was the attendance of the convention more carefully regulated thereby, but the spirit of the convention was improved. Instead of coming out of curiosity to hear some particular speaker of note, the delegates came to each session of ORGANIZATION 9 the convention convinced that such session would be worthy of attention and that every speaker would have a message. The convention was but three days and a half in length. It was thought by many that this plan not only allowed many busy pastors and laymen to attend all the sessions who otherwise could not do so, but it avoided the serious difficulty of having overtaxed the nervous energy of the audience. The program had been planned with reference to three funda- mental purposes: the study of Methodism's world field with its needs and opportunities; the presentation of tried methods of developing a strong base of supplies at home; the deepening of the spiritual life through unitedly waiting upon God. More than the usual amount of time was given to the speakers. While the program was compactly built, it was not overcrowded. This was especially noticeable in the evening sessions, where but two speakers were announced and these were given ample time to make the strongest possible presentation of their themes. The time limit for each speaker was closely adhered to. An electric signal operated from the side of the platform by a time- keeper, but sounding from underneath the speaker's stand, gave a warning note three minutes before the expiration of the time limit for each address, and again at the close of the period. This expediting of the sessions through a careful sense of time limits was greatly appreciated by the delegates. One of the vital features was the convention printed matter Printed which was prepared with reference to helping the delegates to ™*"*' give the most to the convention in prayer, interest, and constant attendance on sessions, to get the most out of the convention in accurate information and inspiration, and to take back to their respective churches the convention message in the most effec- tive way. Among the most helpful pieces of printed matter was the handbook, a forty-page manual containing suggestions to delegates and many fundamental facts concerning Methodist missions. The music of the convention was dignified, helpful, and Music spiritually uplifting. A special edition of the missionary hymnal which had been used at the Jubilee Convention of Young Men's Christian Associations at Boston in 1901, and at the Student Volunteer Convention at Toronto in 1902, was printed for use at Cleveland. This hymnal included many of the noblest mis- 10 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Financial Session A Fraternal sionary hymns of Christendom. Perhaps the most stirring hymn used at Cleveland was "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name!" sung to the stately tune of Miles' Lane. A precentor, with pianist and cornetist as his seconds, led the congregational singing. Aside from the united service of song, the only musical feature of the sessions was the singing by the Association quartet. The quartet selections were exceedingly well chosen, and always carried a spiritual message. Applause was discouraged and no encores were responded to. When the convention was first proposed it was decided that there should be a financial session which would provide a whole- some outlet for the convention enthusiasm. Months in advance prayer was enlisted that an offering worthy of the Church should be made at Cleveland. That this prayer was answered is evi- denced by the noteworthy subscription taken at the Thursday evening session, when over three hundred thousand dollars was subscribed. The convention was a representative gathering, and not a mass convention. Of those present there were: Bishops, officers of the Missionary Society, assistant and field secretaries of the Mis- sionary Society, missionaries, General Conference officers, general officers of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, general officers of the Woman's Home Missionary Society, general officers of the City Evangelization Union, general officers of the Epworth League, editors, educators. Student Campaigners, members of the Missionary Board and General Missionary Committee, Conference Missionary Society officers, presiding elders, district missionary secretaries, pastors, laymen, Sunday school superintendents, Con- ference and district Epworth League officers. There was a total attendance of accredited delegates of about nineteen hundred. Neither of the two men who were invited to speak at the con- vention as fraternal representatives of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was able to appear. However, a telegram was received from one of these, Dr. Walter R. Lambuth, missionary secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as follows: "The world for Christ ! Victory is ours through Him who loves us. In behalf of the Board of Missions of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, South, I greet you." Moreover, one of the most deeply interested visitors at the convention was Dr. G. B. Winton, editor of the Christian Advocate, the chief organ of the Meth- ORGANIZATION II odist Episcopal Church, South. Dr. Wintoii before his election to his present post was a missionary for years in Mexico, and previous to his going to that country he did effective service as pastor on the Pacific coast. His editorial references to the con- vention have been exceedingly cordial. Aside from the platform addresses the most interesting feature of the convention was the Missionary Exhibit. This was placed in the chapel of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, and was a center of attraction. The exhibit was purely educational, and was arranged so that The Exhibit the delegates might become more familiar with the history, the organization, and the present rnovements of missionary work in the Methodist Episcopal Church. While there were exhibits of the Alissionary Societies of sister Churches, the one great aim of the exhibit was to set forth the work of our own Church both in the foreign and in the home field, and in the equally important operations required for the education of the home Church and the development of its missionary activities. Special attention was given to the work as outlined for the young people's societies. The missionary libraries, the mission study class books, helps from missionary committees, systematic giving, and practical missionary illustrations, maps, and charts were displayed so as best to show the present plans for work among young people. Another feature of the exhibit was the department of Meth- odist colleges as related to missions. There was shown in this department the statistics concerning the present status of mission- ary work as carried on by Methodist institutions. There was given the number of Student Volunteers, the number of students in mission study, the number of missionaries who had gone to the field from the several institutions, the number of students engaged in the summer campaign, the amount of money given to the support of missions, and the number of colleges wholly supporting a missionary. The convention gave to all those in attendance a large vision, convention and to many of the delegates there came an enduring life pur- ^esulta pose. The outcome of this vision and this purpose in larger gifts and nobler service may not be estimated. Certain note- worthy results of the gathering have already been seen. A great impetus has been given to the Church toward the fulfill- 12 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION ment of its missionary obligation and opportunity. The con- vention message, told from hundreds of pulpits and through the Methodist press, has brought inspiration and helpfulness to thousands. From all parts of the country the word comes that increased efforts are making toward a larger financial support of the Missionary Society. The General Missionary Committee meeting at Albany in November was characterized by the same spirit of hopefulness and promise which was so conspicuously evident at Cleveland. This spirit of optimism has reached the mission fields and has stimulated the workers to a joyous enthu- siasm. Methodism now knows of the emergency, the Church is face to face with the great open doors, and advance is the order of the day. THE CONVENTION PROGRAM Tuesday, October 2i AFTERNOON Presiding OfUcer, Bishop Edward G. Andrews Hymn, "Come, Thou Almighty King" . Congregation Scripture Reading (Isa. Ix) and Prayer Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, Philadelphia, Pa. Hymn, "Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun" Congregation "The Purpose of the Convention". ..Bishop Edward G. Andrews, New York Prayer The Rev. C. H. Daniels, D.D., Secre- tary American Board of Commis- sioners for Foreign Missions, Bos- ton, Mass. Hymn, "He Leadeth Me" Congregation "The Emergency" The Rev. A. B. Leonard, LL.D., Cor- responding Secretary Missionary Society, New York Solo, "Blessed Hope of the Coming of the Lord" The Rev. P. H. Metcalf, of the Asso- ciation Quartet "Methodist Missions of the Nine- teenth Century" The Rev. J. M. Buckley, D.D., Editor The Christian Advocate, New York Prayer The Rev. C. W. Smith, D.D., Editor Pittsburg Christian Advocate, Pitts- burg, Pa. "Spiritual Preparation for Mission- ary Service" The Rev. A. H. Tuttle, D.D., Pastor Methodist Episcopal Church, Sum- mit, N. J. Benediction The Rev. E. M. Taylor, D.D., Field Secretary Missionary Society EVENING Hymn, "The Son of God Goes Forth to War" Congregation Prayer The Rev. J. L. Humphrey, M.D., Veteran Missionary to India, Little Falls, N. Y. 14 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Music, "Come, Spirit, Come, with Light Divine" Association Quartet— Mr. Paul Oil- bert. Assistant Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association, Duluth, Minn. ; Rev. P. H. Metcalf, Assistant Pastor Park Congrega- tional Church, Grand Rapids, Mich. ; Mr. C. M. Keeler, Des Moines, la. ; Mr. E. W. Peck, State Secretary Minnesota Young Men's Christian Association "Home Allies in Our Work of Evan- gelization" H. K. Carroll, LL.D., Assistant Corresponding Secretary Mission- ary Society > Hymn, "The Morning Light is Break- ing" Congregation "Our Opportunity" Bishop C. H. Fowler, Buffalo, N. Y. Music, "The Treasures of Earth are Not Mine" Association Quartet Benediction Bishop J. M. Thoburn, Bishop for Southern Asia Wednesday, October 22 MORNING Hymn, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" i. Congregation Scripture Reading (Psa. Ixxii) and Prayer The Rev. C. W. Drees, D.D., Super- intendent Porto Rico Mission, San Juan, Porto Rico Hymn, "From Greenland's Icy Moun- tains" Congregation "The Words are Spirit and Life".... The Rev. W. I. Haven, D.D., Secre- tary American Bible Society, New York Music, "Blessed is He that Readeth, and They that Hear the Word". . .Association Quartet "The Negro a Missionary Investment, a Missionary Investor" The Rev. J. W. E. Bowen, D.D., Pro- fessor in Gammon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Ga. Prayer The Rev. H. A. Buttz, D.D., Presi- dent Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J. "Our Foreign Populations and How to Reach Them" The Rev. G. B. Addicks, D.D., Presi- dent Central Wesleyan University, Warrenton, Mo. Hymn, "How Firm a Foundation" .. Congregation "Our City Problem" The Rev. F. M. North, D.D., Secre- tary New York City Church Ex- tension and Missionary Society, New York THE CONVENTION PROGRAM 1 5 Prayer The Rev. Hugh Johnston, D.D., Pastor First Methodist Episcopal Church, Baltimore, Md. Hymn, "Onward, Christian Soldiers" . Congregation "The Open Door in Hawaii and the Philippines" The Rev. H. C. Stuntz, D.D., Field Secretary Missionary Society, Kan- sas City, Mo. Doxology Congregation Benediction The Rev. J. R. Day, D.D., Chancellor Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y. AFTERNOON Hymn, "The Morning Light is Break- ing" Congregation Prayer The Rev. H. A. Gobin, D.D., Presi- dent De Pauw University, Green- castle, Ind. Hymn, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" Congregation "The Open Door in Latin Countries". Bishop C. C. McCabe, Omaha, Neb. Hymn, "How Firm a Foundation" .. Congregation "The Open Door in Eastern Asia". .Bishop D. H. Moore, Shanghai, China Hymn, "When I Survey the Won- drous Cross" Congregation "The Open Door in Africa" Bishop J. C. Hartzell, Bishop for Africa, Funchal, Madeira Islands Hymn, "Awake, my Soul, Stretch Every Nerve" Congregation Music, "Hark, Hark, my Soul, An- gelic Songs are Swelling" Association Quartet "The Open Door in Southern Asia" .. Bishop J. M. Thoburn, Bishop for Southern Asia Prayer and Benediction Bishop H. W. Warren, Denver, Colo. EVENING Hymn, "Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun" Congregation Prayer Mr. Luther D. Wishard, Montclair, N. J. Music, "Peace, Peace, Wonderful Peace" Association Quartet Hymn, "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds" Congregation "Why the World Should be Speedily Evangelized" The Rev. E. M. Taylor, D.D., Field Secretary Missionary Society, Cam- bridge, Mass. Music, "I'm a Pilgrim and I'm a Stranger" Association Quartet "What Retrenchment Means" Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, Philadelphia, Pa. l6 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Doxology Congregation Benediction The Rev. J. F. Crouch, D.D., Pastor Mount Pleasant Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, Germantown, Philadelphia, Pa. Thofsday, October 23 MORNING Hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty" Congregation Scripture Reading (John xvii) and Prayer The Rev. George B. Winton, D.D., Editor Christian Advocate, Nash- ville, Tenn. Hymn, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" Congregation "It Tendeth to Poverty"— "See that ye abound in this grace also" The Rev. J. W. Bashford, D.D., Presi- dent Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, O. Hymn, "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" Congregation "What the Presiding Elder Can Do". The Rev. W. T. Perrin, D.D., Presid- ing Elder Boston District, New England Conference Prayer The Rev. C. W. Millard, D.D., Pre- siding Elder New York District, New York Conference "What the District Missionary Secre- tary Can Do" The Rev. W. F. Oldham, D.D., As- sistant Secretary Missionary Soci- ety, Chicago, 111. Music, "Come Unto Me, All Ye that Labor" Quartet "What the Pastor Can Do" ...The Rev.'j. O. Wilson, D.D., Pastor St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church, New York "What the Sunday School Superin- tendent Can Do" Mr. W. W. Cooper, Kenosha, Wis. "What a Local Church Has Done".. The Rev. J. W. Magruder, Pastor Chestnut Street Methodist Episco- pal Church, Portland, Me. "The Place of Prayer in Missionary Work" Bishop H. W. Warren, Denver Colo. ' Prayer Bishop H. W. Warren .Benediction Bishop John H. Vincent, Zurich Switzerland ' THE CONVENTION PROGRAM I7 AFTERNOON I. Grays' Armory SECTION CONFERENCE FOR PASTORS Presiding OMcer, The Rev. E. M. Taylor, D.D., Field Secretary Missionary Society 2. First Methodist Episcopal Church SECTION conference FOR PRESIDING ELDERS AND DISTRICT MISSIONARY secretaries Presiding OMcer, The Rev. F. D. Gamewell, Ph.D., Field Secretary Missionary Society 3. Young Men's Christian Association Building section conference FOR LAYMEN Presiding OMcer, Mr. Willis W. Cooper 4. Hollenden Hotel section conference for editors Presiding Officer, Mr. D. D. Thompson, Editor Northwestern Christian Advocate 5. First Methodist Episcopal Church — Pastor's Study section conference for college presidents Presiding OMcer, The Rev. J. W. Bashford, D.D., President Ohio Wesleyan University 6. Epworth Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church section conference for W^ORKERS in EPWfORTH LEAGUES, SUNDAY SCHOOLS, AND OTHER YOUNG PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS Presiding OMcer, Mr. Charles V. Vickrey, Member General Missionary Committee of the Epworth League EVENING Hymn, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" Congregation Prayer Bishop J. M. Thoburn Hymn, "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds" Congregation "Young People and Missions" Mr. S. Earl Taylor, Field Secretary for Young People's Work, Mission- ary Society Music, "Remember Now Thy Creator in the Days of Thy Youth" Association Quartet Hymn, "Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun" Congregation 3 l8 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION "Reasons Why the Home Church Must Go Forward" Mr. J. R. Mott, General Secretary World's Student Christian Federa- tion, New York Financial Session, under supervision _ of The Rev. John F. Goucher, D.U., President Woman's College ot Baltimore, Baltimore, Md. Benediction Bishop J. M. Thoburn Friday, Octobef 24 MORNING Hymn, "My Country, 'Tis of Thee'' . Congregation Scripture Reading (Psa. ii) and Prayer Mr. E. T. Colton, Student Secretary International Committee of Young Men's Christian Association Hymn, "When I Survey the Won- drous Cross" Congregation "Beloved, if God So Loved Us" The Rev. W. F. McDowell, D.D., Corresponding Secretary Board of Education, New York Music, "There's a Beautiful Land on a Far-away Strand" Association Quartet Report of the Committee on Resolu- tions The Rev. J. M. Buckley, Chairman "The Need of Missionary Informa- tion in the Home Church" The Rev. George B. Smyth, D.D., Assistant Secretary Missionary So- ciety, San Francisco, Cal. "The Education and Training of Young People in Scriptural Habits of Giving" The Rev. C. E. Locke, D.D., Pastor Delaware Avenue Methodist Epis- copal Church, Buffalo, N. Y. Hymn, "We Give Thee but Thine Own" Congregation "What Money Means for Educational Work in the Foreign Fields" The Rev. F. D. Gamewell, Ph.D., Field Secretary Missionary Society, New York "An Appeal from China" Mr. Chen Wei Cheng, Instructor of English, Peking University, Peking, China Hymn, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" Congregation "The Responsibility Resting Upon the Delegates to this Convention" Mr. John R. Mott Prayer The Rev. W. F. McDowell, D.D. Hymn, "Take My Life and Let it Be" Congregation Benediction The Rev. J. W. Bashford, D.D. THE CONVENTION PROGRAM I9 AFTERNOON . Grays' Armory SECTION CONFERENCE FOR THE WOMAN's FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY Presiding Officer, Mrs. Cyrus D. Fobs Hymn, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" Congregation Scripture Reading (i Pet. i) and Prayer Bishop Cyrus D. Foss Hymn, "Blest Be the Tie that Binds". Congregation "The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society — Its Equipment and Out- look" Mrs. J. T. Gracey, Rochester, N. Y. Hymn, "I am the Shepherd True". . .Association Quartet Address Bishop D. H. Moore 2. Grays' Armory SECTION CONFERENCE FOR THE WOMAn's HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY Presiding Officer, Mrs. Clinton B. Fisk Preliminary Statement Chairman Hymn, "My Faith Looks Up to Thee". Congregation Prayer Bishop Cyrus D. Foss Report of General Corresponding Secretary Mrs. Delia Lathrop Williams, Dela- ware, O. "Value of Industrial Training in Our Southern Schools" Mrs. W. P. Thirkield, Cincinnati, O. "Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico". . .Mrs. May Leonard Woodruff, Bloomfield, N. J. "The Deaconess iis a Missionary Worker" The Rev. W. F. Oldham, D.D. Hymn, "America" Congregation Benediction The Rev. J. W. Bashford, D.D. 3. First Methodist Episcopal Church CONFERENCE AND ANNUAL MEETING NATIONAL CITY EVANGELIZATION UNION Presiding Officers, Mr. James E. Ingram, Vice President of the National Union, Baltimore, Md., and Mr. George F. Washburn, President of the Boston City Missionary and Church Extension Society Devotional Exercises Preliminary Statement The Rev. Frank Mason North, D.D., Corresponding Secretary Addresses Mr. D. D. Thompson, Editor North- western Christian Advocate, Chi- cago, 111. The Rev. A. B. Leon- ard, D.D., Corresponding Secre- tary Missionary Society. Bishop J. W. Hamilton, San Francisco. 20 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Discussion Election of OflScers Benediction The Rev. Joseph P. Berry, D.D., Editor The Epworth Herald EVENING Hymn, "Jesus Shall Reign Where'er the Sun" Congregation Prayer The Rev. F. M. North, D.D. Hymn, "Coronation" Congregation Hymn, "The Church's One Founda- tion" Congregation Report of Committee on Address to the Church Bishop H. W. Warren, Chairman "Christ Our Living Leader" Mr. Robert E. Speer, Secretary Board of Foreign Missions, Presby- terian Church in the United States of America Closing Address Bishop J. M. Thoburn Music, "Speed Away, Speed Aviray, on Thine Errand of Light" Association Quartet Benediction Bishop E. G. Andrews THE CONVENTION ADDRESSES THE PURPOSE OF THE CONVENTION Bishop Edward G. Andrews In behalf of the missionary authorities of the Church, and, I may reverently add, in the name of Him who is the Saviour of the world and the Lord of missions, I bid you welcome to this First General Missionary Convention of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is convened because of great missionary successes; because The of wonderfully enlarged missiona;ry opportunities and obligations ; ^'^^"'"i^'"' because of urgent missionary necessities. It is not an official Legislative assembly; it has neither legislative nor administrative authority or powers. It is not the General Conference, composed of dele- gates from the ministry and the churches, which quadrennially enacts laws and regulations for missionary organization and missionary activity. It is not the General Missionary Committee, which, under the order of the General Conference, annually meets in order to distribute among multitudinous and very needy fields the gifts of the Church — very large gifts, but nevertheless so scanty that the week of its work is commonly overshadowed by unspeakable sadness. It is not the Board of Managers of the Missionary Society, which month by month assembles at the offices in New York to administer the appropriations made by the General Committee, and to meet other emergencies that arise in the course of our missionary work. All these great official bodies are of vital importance to the An Asgembiy missionary work of the Church ; but this Convention neither ?j Mission/ legislates nor administers. It is rather an assembly of men and women whom the Lord of missions has somewhat impressed with the grandeur of his purpose through Jesus Christ toward a lost world; who have already been inspired and used by the great Master of us all in his great missionary enterprise; who have already been blessed beyond expectation with his favor and sue- 22 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION cess ; but who feel, and deeply feel, that a larger vision, a richer and more energetic inspiration, a more plenteous enduement oi missionary liberality, sacrifice, and power are indispensable for the achievement of the world-wide tasks set before them. The tide rises ; but how far from full ! We have met, therefore, that we may together study more fully the great plan and love and work and resources of Him who died for all men, but who now reigns until the last enemy shall be put under his feet. We come to study our human world, its vastness and its variety; its sins and superstition and suffering; its immeasurable need and its great possibilities. We come to study our personal resources of every kind, temporal and spiritual, and the obligations thence resulting. We come to study the work which we have actually done, sure to find in the study much reason for thankfulness and joy; but also, it may be, many reasons for self-condemnation and humiliation. We have come for these purposes of consulta- tion, and, with these consultations, for common and earnest prayer to Him who calls us to this task. A Threefold The work of the Convention will therefore be threefold : First, ^°^^ thankfully to review the past; secondly, to study, honestly and faithfully, present missionary conditions, exigencies, perils, and hopes; thirdly, to find preparation for ourselves personally, and for the Church so far as we may influence it, for a future vastly transcending the present or the past. This is the scheme of our assembly. Let us be a little more specific: First. To use the words of a great statesman and orator, "The past at least is secure." We have closed a century marvelous in innumerable ways — a century of great increase in the world's population and wealth ; a century of astonishing advancement of science, even into realms not before dreamed of; a century of inventive genius and skill which have made all nature tributary to the welfare of man and have made possible larger accomplish- ments in every field, even in spiritual fields ; a century of great growth of the ideals of humanity, of liberty, and of justice, a growth expressing itself in new forms of government, in new legislation, and in humane endeavors such as have not been paralleled in all previous history. But a century which is mar- velous for these reasons is more marvelous for its missionary achievements. We must take note of this, both that we may THE PURPOSE OF THE CONVENTION 23 render due homage to Him who is true and faithful to his word, and that we may be encouraged in the more difficult work that lies before us. What, then, are the facts ? Contrast the beginning and the end A Century's of the last century. Use the elaborate and reliable tables pre- **'*°°« pared by Dr. Dennis. What do they declare? On the one hand, perhaps six or eight missionary societies; on the other, more than five hundred, half of them immediately working in foreign fields, and the others auxiliary to them. On the one hand, perhaps one hundred ordained ministers labor- ing in heathen lands ; on the other, six thousand ordained missionaries in those fields, assisted by perhaps twice that number of unordained missionaries, physicians, teachers, printers, helpers of every sort. On the one hand, a Church so small as scarcely to be counted ; on the other, a Church in heathen lands of one and a half million of communicants, with a Chris- tian population of three times that number. On the one hand, no single native helper of whom we know aught ; on the other, seventy thousand native helpers, of whom four thousand are ordained ministers. And these communicants and these helpers have shown the soundness of their faith and their devotion to Christ by abundant labors and by sufferings which parallel the martyrdoms in Waldensian valleys, on Scottish hills, and at the Smithfield fires. It is a native Church that is competent, doubt- less, even if our aid were withdrawn, still to live and grow until it fills the lands where it is planted. Yet more prophetic are the mission schools with more than a million pupils, one third of them in advanced studies preparing for wide influence in society and the Church. Consider also the one hundred and sixty mission presses, issuing a vast volume of Christian literature in many tongues. The century began with perhaps forty versions, some almost obsolete, of the Bible open for one fifth of the race ; it closed with four hundred and fifty — a gift of pentecostal tongues to four fifths of the race. Finally, contrast the income of perhaps $75,000 or $80,000 in all missionary treasuries at the beginning of the century, with the income of over $19,000,000 at the close of the century, with perhaps $2,000,000 contributed by the native churches themselves! Such is the progress of Chris- tian missions during the last century. And what besides does all this imply? It implies, first, in the 24 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION missionary body a courage, a faith, and a self-sacrifice that are matched only by these qualities as they existed in the early Church. We name Livingstone and Mackay and Melville Cox in Africa. We name Judson and Carey and our noble Parker in India. We name Morrison and his colaborers in the vast empire of China. We thank God that the spirit of the fathers and of the ancient Church survives in this later age, and in missionary saints and heroes innumerable. And more than this is the fact that the home Church, beginning the century with indifference or slight conviction touching its missionary duty and missionary possibilities, has been gradually rising to the high thought and spirit of its Lord. Every consid- erable body of Christian men thrills with the conviction that it is called to share the love and the labors of the world's Redeemer. In these churches our young people also are being trained to the love and service of missions, in the Sunday school, in the Epworth League, and in the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions — a movement full of presage for higher success in the future that lies immediately before us. Evidently we are not fighting a losing battle. A. Missionary Second. Such is the missionary history of the nineteenth cen- Present tury. But it introduces us to a missionary present of vastly greater moment. The new century opens with hopefulness, but also with very great solicitudes and anxieties. Some there are, indeed, who speak of a "Crisis in Missions," and some of a "Pause in Missions," as if retreat might follow — phrases which I cannot accept as setting forth the truth in the case. Neverthe- less, the wise men of Christendom are oppressed by the new conditions of missionary life and work which are upon us. I cannot stop to enumerate these conditions at lengfth, as they will be spoken of by others after me. Let me remind you, however, first, that our very successes trouble us. We touched heathenism, formerly, at a few points of a small circumference; to-day we touch it at every point of a vast circumference, and we need men and money and spiritual power vastly beyond our present resources in order to do the work imperatively called for by these successes. I remind you, in the second place, that God's provi- dence now calls us with a trumpet tongue. He opens the nations ; he brings them to our door. Some of us can remember when Japan was closed utterly to Western civilization, when Korea THE PURPOSE OF THE CONVENTION 25 was a hermit nation, and Ciiina opened only at the five treaty ports ; when in India the presence of the Gospel was resisted both by an almost unbroken Hinduism and also by British officialism ; when Africa was a dark and unexplored continent; when no Bible could be sold in Rome, and the Inquisition still lingered in Spain ; when Central and South America were forbidden ground for the evangelical faith. Such things we remember. But how changed I The open world for which we prayed has come. The Church may enter freely all continents and empires and fill them with the glad tidings of salvation through Jesus Christ ! Then, let it be remembered that, though the Church has done what great things for the kingdom, there confront it still enormous and ^g^*^"° *° ''* almost undiminished forces of evil in all heathen lands. Consoli- dated systems of superstition and idolatry, rooted deeply in the hereditary thoughts, affections, and habits of great people, cannot be overthrown save by labors, heroisms, and sacrifices such as the Church has never yet as a whole exhibited. Its victories, though real and prophetic, are but slight beginnings, We have had our Fort Donelsons and Fort Henrys, and our skirmishes in West Virginia; but there are before us New Orleans and Vicksburg and Gettysburg and Chickamauga and the battles of the Wilder- ness. The great things yet remain to be done. In addition to these gigantic systems of false religions con- fronting us, we must consider the godless actions of so-called Christian nations in the presence of heathenism, their indefensible wars, their injustice and cruelty, their territorial greed. We must consider the sins and vices of men who go from Christian lands, representatives of Christianity, as heathen people must of necessity hold them. Here are obstacles to our work which may well awaken apprehension and indignation. When we turn to study our home conditions we are oppressed The Church's by the weakness of the missionary spirit in the churches. Take '*'**° into account this: the wealth of the United States, it is said, doubled from 1800 to 1850; doubled again in 1875; doubled again in 1890; doubled again by the year 1900; and of all this vast increase of wealth a fair proportion must be in the hands of the Christian Church to-day. And yet, if we take the Methodist Church as a fair instance, we find that at the end of the first twenty years of our missionary work we gave an average of nineteen cents a member for missions; then for another twenty 26 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION years we gave twenty-six cents, then for similar periods, thirty- seven cents, and forty-six cents. We do not forget the gifts of the Church in other directions, but please to remember that when you multiply wealth largely you have easily provided com- fortable conditions of life, and that then a vast surplus is at your command for high and great purposes. And, alas for it! what have we been doing? I will not dwell upon it. Last fall the General Missionary Committee met, and, notwithstanding our marvelous prosperity, was obliged to strike off eight per cent from our appropriations to all fields — so insufficient were our gifts. Take yet another fact: I think that for fifteen years past we have not reared one considerable building in all India by any gifts through our Missionary Society; and throughout all the world the call for accommodations in which Christian work is to be done is scarcely begun to be met by the gifts of the Church. Such considerations as these fill us with grave anxieties. How, with such a defective Church, can the world be saved ? How can the Church itself be saved ? We are here to-day to confront these solemn questions, these tremendous obligations, and to prepare ourselves, and, so far as we may, to prepare the Church for conquests and consecrations more truly proportioned to our resources, to the world's need, to the purpose of our Lord. Third. This brings me now to a very brief statement of the things we here seek. A Vision In the first place, we and the whole Church need a clear appre- hension, an inspiring vision of Christ's unwavering purpose in behalf of this world. We need to understand, as we have not yet understood, that he has taken it upon his heart and in his hands to redeem all this race of which we are a part ; that he will not cease till he has set judgment in the earth ; that all the movements of his providence as well as all the inspirations of his grace are ordered that this world might be filled with the knowledge of him- self and of his gracious salvation; and that he summons every Christian man and Christian woman to take part with him in this vast enterprise. This divine plan we accept as part of our creed ; we affirm and reaffirm it ; but alas for the dullness and ineffective- ness of our apprehension! In the next place, we and our Church ought to attain a clearer Needed THE PURPOSE OF THE CONVENTION 27 and more impressive understanding of the actual condition of The World's this world and of its missionary needs. We ought to realize that ^*°* the only really valuable gift we can bestow upon our fellow-men who are sunk in the darkness of heathenism and in the barbarities of savage life, the one ennobling thing we can give them, is not our commerce, is not our modern science and culture, is not our ideal of civil liberty and free government. These are futile gifts unless some higher thing be given. What the world needs is that inward life of God in the soul which, transforming human nature, makes it fit for all achievements in every realm of thought and of action. We must feel that a great and suffering world stands at our door seeking help, and above all things Christian help. The modern missionary movement is, in part, the answer to this ap- peal. We ought to be thoroughly accordant with, and partners in, this new life of Christianity. My brethren, we have some little notion of what is going on throughout the heathen world under Christian missionary influences. But how narrow is the informa- tion of ourselves and of the Church at large concerning the fields, the workers, and the work ! How scanty the knowledge, even of intelligent men, touching the aggressions of Christianity upon heathenism ! Can you tell me how many of the influential mem- bers so use Church periodicals that they are even tolerably informed upon these great topics ? We are eager to learn political news, eager to study financial movements. Who are eager to enter into the divine movement for the redemption of humanity? This Convention, therefore, aims to bring ourselves into a clear understanding of the divine movement among men, and thereby to lead our people everywhere into such a study of Christianity and of Christian missions as shall result in their hearty coopera- tion therewith. But, in the next place, knowledge concerning Christ's pur- The Mind of poses, or the world's need and possibility, is not of itself sufificient. We need, and the Church needs, the mind of Christ. We must pass from the region of mere knowledge and thought into the experience of that divine love which opened the skies and brought our Lord Jesus Christ from the excellent glory of heaven down to the humiliations and labors and pain of his earthly career, that he might lift us up to God. My brother, do you believe it pos- sible for a divine grace so to move upon the profound depths of our nature that the selfishness natural to us shall be suppressed Christ 28 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION and banished, and that the mighty love of Christ toward men shall occupy and inspire us? Is it possible that you and I can pass into the spiritual condition which is represented by the great apostle to the Gentiles, who said : "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh"? Is it possible that this great missionary spirit may come to the Church, come to you and to me, and thus fit us for that great achievement to which the Master summons us ? Only by such love can we conquer. An Exalted Finally, shall we here find the exalted faith that ventures all Faitli things, that undertakes great tasks, that dares difficulty and danger and sacrifice and death itself? We have come not to deliberate concerning missionary policies at large, not to order the legislation of the Church for missionary ends. We have come primarily that we, and the Church through us, may become thoroughly imbued with the missionary spirit, and able to enter into these larger enterprises without which the Gospel will not be effectual in the world. And may the great Head of the Church, in this hour and hence- forth through the coming days of our meeting, be with us, en- abling us to live in continual prayerfulness ; enabling us to banish, as far as may be, all other considerations but those con- nected with this great enterprise ; enabling us to forget our own burdened and indebted churches at home that we may enter on the larger thought of a world needing Christ; enabling us to waive aside questions of national policy and of Church consti- tution and general work, that we may study a world needing the Gospel, a Christ commissioning us to it, and a grace that can make us equal to our Christlike task. And thus this Convention, so happily inaugurated, will result in an enlargement of spiritual life and power such as perhaps we have never expected. THE EMERGENCY 29 THE EMERGENCY The Rev. A. B. Leonard, LL.D. The word "emergency" is defined as "a sudden or unexpected what an occurrence or condition calling for immediate action ; a perplex- Emergency Is ing or pressing combination of circumstances." To me the emer- gency is not "unexpected;" indeed, we have seen the conditions out of which it has arisen slowly gathering for years, but the situation has suddenly become so serious as to demand "immediate action." That it is "perplexing" and "pressing" no one who is even partially informed will doubt for a moment. An emergency may arise either in defeat or in victory. A man may find himself so embarrassed as to be unable to carry on his business, and in order to save anything from the wreck be compelled to declare himself a bankrupt. Or, he may be so for- tunate as to be able to secure the money necessary to tide him over the crisis and land him not only beyond danger, but where great success is assured. In either case an important emergency is met and the best possible results achieved. When Moscow was set on fire in 1812 Napoleon's generals were not able to meet the emergency, and the result was that thousands of French soldiers, driven from the city, were wrapped in winding sheets of snow upon the steppes of Russia. Welling- ton was equal to the emergency at Waterloo, and won one of the most important victories of military annals, and for England a prestige among the nations of Europe which she has held to this day. General Lee was equal to the emergency which confronted him at Gettysburg in July, 1863, and succeeded in getting his broken and defeated army off the field of carnage and across the Potomac. General Meade was not equal to the emergency. A few thousand fresh troops would have enabled him to pursue Lee's army, capture it, and so to have ended the war that dragged on for two more bloody years. Our emergency is not the result of defeat, but of glorious vie- The tory. We have never abandoned a field where our banner has Embarrass- -' ment of been unfurled. No missionary society on the planet can show Success greater success in the same period than ours. In the United States this society has pioneered the way from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and the Rio 30 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Grande, making possible the splendid results that have been achieved, while in Mexico, South America, Europe, southern and eastern Asia, and Africa the Methodist Episcopal Church has been successfully founded. But notwithstanding our great suc- cess the emergency now upon us, at home and abroad, is fraught with imminent peril. If we fail to meet it far-reaching disaster will certainly ensue. Not that our missions will be destroyed utterly, but that important posts now held will of necessity be abandoned, and aggressiveness greatly paralyzed. I beg you not to suppose that a false alarm is being sounded to frighten our Church into a spasm of generous giving. The crisis is here. It must be met. And beyond this crisis there must be enlarged and sustained benevolent, self-sacrificing giving of life and money, to achieve that rapid evangelization of the world possible within the first half of the present century. Eesultsat Clearly to understand the present situation, a glance at what ""^ has already been accomplished seems to be necessary. In this survey the home field cannot be overlooked. We are now sustain- ing missionary work in sixty-six English-speaking Annual Conferences and nine Mission Conferences and Missions. There are sixteen foreign-speaking Annual Conferences. Our mis- sionaries are preaching the Gospel every week in fourteen languages, as follows : English, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, French, Spanish, Bohemian, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, and Japanese, besides several American Indian dialects. In our domestic field we have about 4,000 missionaries. While there is great need of more money for our missions in the rural districts, our greatest need is in our cities. They are storm centers now, and unless properly cared for may become centers of anarchy and revolution in the not distant future. Here the emergency is acute, and must be met if Protestant Christianity is to continue its supremacy. The Methodist Episcopal Church must do its full share in protecting America against infidelity, materialism, agnosticism, atheism, and Romanism. Let no one underestimate our peril from these sources. Here, however, our vantage ground is all that we can desire. With our more than 16,000 ministers, nearly 3,000,000 members, all in close touch with the evils to be combated, there ought to be no doubt of continued and triumphant success. But in order to make this success certain it is absolutely necessary THE EMERGENCY 3 1 that larger sums of money shall be at the disposal of the Mission- ary Society. Turning to our great foreign field, it may be said that few of Extent of Our our people have any conception of its vast extent. When Dr. Minions Durbin became corresponding secretary in 1852, just half a century ago, our foreign missions were Liberia, Buenos Ayres in South America, Foochow in China (where at the date named there was not a convert), and a beginning in Germany. The entire membership in our foreign work reported in the year named was 1,320. Now we are strongly intrenched in many countries, and our entire foreign membership is more than 208,000. To be more specific, we have in Annual Mission »,■ • nr \. ^.■ Conferences Conferences M's='°"s Membership Africa i 2 .. 4,000 South America 2 .. .. 5,000 China 221 25,000 Southern Asia, including the Philip- pine Islands 6 i , . 100,000 Bulgaria . . i . . 300 Italy I .. .. 2,354 Mexico I .. .. 5,549 Japan i i .. 6,000 Korea . . . . i 4,000 Germany and Switzerland 3 . . . . 28,000 Scandinavia 2 i .. 27,000 Finland, in the empire of Russia. ... . . . . i 1,000 Total 19 8 3 208,203 For about fifteen years we have had but little money to apply Need for to the acquisition of property, or to repair property already Eau^pment owned. The result is that our work is inadequately housed, and in many instances poorly equipped. If we are to continue aggressive movements we need and should have, for home and foreign work, for support of missionaries, needed repair, churches and chapels, parsonages, hospital buildings, orphanages, school- houses, and printmg establishments, estimated on a very conservative basis, $1,000,000, as follows: Christian and Nominally Christian Countries. Home Missions $60,000 South America $40,000 Western South America 30,000 Total for South America 70,000 Mexico 50,000 Bulgaria 10,000 Italy 75,000 Germany and Switzerland 60,000 32 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Scandinavia.... $50,000 Finland i°.°°° Total for Christian and nominally Christian countries $385iOOO Pagan Countries. Liberia $20,000 East Central Africa 22,000 West Central Africa 18,000 Total for Africa $60,000 Foochow $30,000 Hinghua 15,000 Central China 50,000 West China 20,000 North China 50,000 Total for China 165,000 North India $30,000 Northwest India 30,000 Bombay 50,000 South India 50,000 Bengal 25,000 Burma 25,000 Malaysia 30,000 Philippine Islands 50,000 Total for Southern Asia 290,000 Japan $40,000 South Japan 30,000 Total for Japan 70,000 Korea 30,000 Total for pagan countries $615,000 Total for Christian and nominally Christian countries 385,000 Grand total $1,000,000 Need for It now remains for me to call your attention to that feature of the emergency we must meet which imperatively demands the presence on the field of a largely increased force of missionaries. For many years we have been compelled to keep the missionary force at the minimum, sending out barely a sufficient number to make good losses sustained by recalls, health failures, and deaths. The result is that many of our missions are undermanned, and are approaching the time when by reason of age and infirmity the number will be greatly decreased. Unless reinforcements are sent out promptly there will soon be a break in our ranks that will be disastrous. New men should be now on the ground becoming acclimated and learning the languages of the people, that they may be prepared when the responsibility of leadership devolves upon them. While our policy is to depend largely upon native preachers for evangelistic work, we must have competent Beinforce ment THE EMERGENCY 33 missionaries to instruct and lead the natives, as also to properly provide for our schools of the higher grades. The men now at the front are overburdened, and unless rehef is quickly afforded some of them will be compelled to surrender and return home. Do you ask how many missionaries are imperatively needed? I answer, that on most of the fields the number should be at once doubled. This is true of southern Asia, including the Philippine Islands ; eastern Asia, including China, Japan, and Korea ; and Africa, while the needs of South America, Mexico, and Italy are scarcely less emergent. I am deeply impressed with the fact that neither our preachers a Real nor our people are at all aware of the magnitude of the emergency Emergency that is upon us, or of the consequences that will follow if that emergency is not promptly met. I am saying nothing for rhetorical effect. I am talking to you out of a full knowledge of the situation, and out of a heart oppressed and burdened beyond what mere words can express. That our Methodist Episcopal Church is able promptly to furnish the missionaries and the money, I have no doubt. And I am not without hope. The can- didates, men and women, are waiting. Only the money is want- ing. The $1,000,000 for which I plead could be secured in one day if our preachers and people were fully aroused. Only about thirty-three cents a member is needed. Will not this Convention appoint a committee that shall report a plan for adoption by which the money can be secured? A call by this great Convention, made up of ministers anc? laymen, will be heard throughout all our borders, and our people will respond. The question has often been asked. What is the Convention for? The answer is, to provide ways and means for the more rapid evangelization of the world. We cannot justify oar coming together without planning to solve the problem that confronts us. God in his providence has prepared the way, Isaiah's prophecy has been fulfilled: "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain : And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." The world is explored ; we know where its peoples dwell. The A World means for rapid transit by land and sea are provided. Steamships o^p^^^yg^ sail all the seas, while 600,000 miles of railroad thread the con- 34 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION tinents. A journey around the world can be made in fifty days, and soon the time will be reduced to thirty days. Even now, any uncivilized people on the face of the earth can be reached from some Christian country within the short space of thirty days. The press diffuses information more rapidly and widely than ever before. The Bible is now printed in the languages of 1,200,000,- 000 people. The hand press of a century ago that could turn off 1,000 impressions an hour is supplanted by the steam-power press that prints, binds, and folds 100,000 impressions an hour. A network of telegraph lines covers all countries, while 170,000 miles of submarine cable connects all the continents and many of the larger islands of the globe. In one thing the human race has practically attained perfection, namely, in the transmission of news, for we now transmit news around the world instanta- neously. It would seem that in the not distant future the prophetic vision may be realized : "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say. Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isa. ii, 2-4.) Our opportunity is great. Our ability is great. Our responsi- bility is great. And our success, under the blessing of God, will be correspondingly great, if we prove to be equal to the times in which we live. NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 35 Methodist Uissions and Christian Hissions METHODIST MISSIONS OF THE NINE- TEENTH CENTURY The Rev. J. M. Buckley, D.D. It has been decided by the highest court that what a man does by proxy he does himself. And as all the mighty works which have been described by the preceding speaker have been accomplished by the wise expenditure of the gifts of the Church, instead of saying, "Mr. President and Fellow Citizens," I prefer to say, "Mr. President and Fellow Missionaries." The topic excludes the century before the last, and this cen- tury; it is "Methodist Missions of the Nineteenth Century." It may reasonably be inferred that such a topic could be best treated by emphasizing the least known, if important, without scorning the familiar, if pertinent. It is the opinion of some that enthu- siasm — permanent, well-sustained enthusiasm — is most efficiently promoted by concentration of the mind upon one's own country, party, or ecclesiastical communion. But there are those who think that on the very threshold of the contemplation of one's responsibility and the enumeration of his achievements it might be prudent to pause and reflect for a moment that Methodism is not all of* Christianity ; that the salvation of the world does not depend exclusively upon what Methodists may do, nor is its damnation certain to follow if they neglect what they ought to do. While "Methodist Missions" is a noble theme, "Christian Mis- sions" is the more comprehensive phrase. Art is long, but it is not so long, so broad, so deep, or so high as the plans of God; and He who said of his Son, "He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied," certainly justifies us in the opinion that, while we are required to do all that we can do, glorious results are sure. The vital question for us is to consider whether we shall have a part in producing them. For if there be woe unto the man by whom offenses come there must be joy everlasting to those who antidote offenses and introduce spiritual graces. It is said by some that from the first Methodism was a mission- John Wesley ary society. Those who say this fail to discriminate between the missionary spirit and a missionary institution. An eloquent orator of our Church, now deceased, observed, "Long before the American Board was founded in 1810, a celebrated Methodist 36 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION missionary by the name of John Wesley sailed in General Ogle- thorpe's ship to Georgia on a mission to the Indians." But John Wesley then knew little more of Methodism than the most super- stitious ecclesiastic in the heart of the Roman Catholic Church. Because he had reduced asceticism to its most inhuman forms and had expanded sacerdotalism to its most arrogant claims, and also because he had adopted a legaHsm which required him to forge iron rules and methods which not only bounded his activity but bound him, John Wesley was called a Methodist in dis- paragement. Not until some years after he had failed in Georgia did he come to understand fully the Methodism with which his name is inseparably connected. Others take the ground that in the proper sense of the word our fathers were missionaries when they preached to the Indians, and when they went to and fro through this country, seeking to save all whom they met or found. This was the tremendous zeal of propagandism. Not received by other denominations, Meth- odists must make conversions or as a body die. They did what every evangelical Church always does when fervor rises to the boiling point. "Methodist missions" signify what Metho- dism did when it came to realize that its ordinary itinerant spread- ing of the Gospel was not enough; when it looked beyond the limits of anything that could possibly react upon it. Then it was that the genuine spirit of foreign missions appeared. There is much extraordinary information, well gathered and collated, in the handbook which has been prepared by this com- mittee. I have read it with care more than once; I see noth- ing to condemn and everything to praise, and think that the com- mittee deserves the thanks of the Convention and of the Church. You will find therein the exact order of development of all our foreign missions, their location, and approximately a tabulation of their results and condition. But we are not even all of Methodism; and therefore I have introduced into this handbook something which the committee was not obliged to include. The Wesleyan I wish you to see what our Wesleyan Methodists did on the other side. I wish to pay them a proper tribute before taking up our special work. In 1786 Thomas Coke published a pros- pectus for "A Mission in Asia," and in 1791 efforts were made in France. In 1796 he sent out a few mechanics and farmers to NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 37 Africa, but no missionary was sent with them. In 1811 the Wes- leyans sent a missionary to Sierra Leone. December 30, 18 13, Coke sailed on his wonderful enterprise to Asia, and in 1814 they sent another missionary to southern Africa, and in 1815 another to Australia; besides these they had flourishing missions in the West Indies, including some islands not belonging to Great Britain; so that when they formed their society in 1818 they had missions in all parts of the globe. Six years before this the Methodist Missionary Society for the Leeds District had been formed. Very soon after the Methodist New Connection seceded from the Wesleyan Methodist Church it established the Methodist New Connection Missionary Society; they founded it in 1824. First it was limited to work within the British dominions. In 1859 it was extended to the heathen in China. Soon there arose half a dozen small denominations of Methodists in England; these associated themselves under the name of the United Meth- odist Free Church, and in 1837 they formed their missionary society, and gave it a most excellent name : "The Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the United Methodist Free Church." Their work is in AustraHa, New Zealand, and East Africa, and also in China. The Primitive Methodist Church established its missionary other society in 1843, extended it to the heathen in Africa in 1869, and g^®^?^"^^^* also sent some missionaries to Australia. The Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was organized in 1844, immediately after the bisection of the Church. Their highly successful missions in China were be- gun in 1848 ; there they were not behind us, in any proper sense of the word. Also, as soon as the doors were open, they entered Japan. Their missions to the North American Indians and their missions in Mexico and Brazil are of the highest credit to them. The Board of Missions of the Methodist Protestant Church was not established until 1870; they have one foreign mission, and that is in China. We should not turn scornfully away from the Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Their missions are in Africa, in Hayti, in San Domingo, and in Indian Territory. The Missionary Society of the Methodist Church in Canada did not take up foreign mission work until 1872, because of the Formation of the Missionary Society 38 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION immense concentration of their powers upon most successful mis- sions to the Indians in their vast territory, as large as, and indeed much larger than, the habitable parts of the United States, ex- clusive of Alaska. They pay much attention to immigrant Chi- nese, and their foreign work includes Japan, China, Newfound- land, and Bermuda. Having cleared the way for an impartial survey of our own work, I desire to introduce you, if possible, into the formation of our society. There was a young merchant in the city of New York by the name of G. P. Disosway, who said to Dr. Bangs, "Why don't we form a missionary society like that of the Baptist Union and that of the American Board? Why don't we do it, and why don't we do it at once? I have some of the Lord's money for the society as soon as it is formed." Nathan Bangs had had the general thought, but it was not concentrated upon any date for initiation. He immediately considered this communi- cation to have been divinely suggested, and began to speak with others upon the subject. At this time New York city was a circuit, and once a week the superintendent met all the preachers of the circuit — which was the origin of the Preachers' Meeting. The editors and all the officers of the Church attended this meet- ing, also ministers who happened to visit the city. In 1819 Laban Clark, who afterward had so much to do with the foundation of Wesleyan University, arose in this meeting and moved the organi- zation of a society. On that occasion were present Freeborn Garrettson, Joshua Soule, and Nathan Bangs. Garrettson was growing old ; Clark was quite young. Soule was perhaps more influential then than any other Methodist in New York or vicinity, except Nathan Bangs. He supported Clark's motion, and a com- mittee was appointed of Clark, Bangs, and Soule; they were re- quested to report at a meeting of all the members of the Church in the city of New York. This meeting was held on the sth of April, 1819. Immediately there arose a discussion, first, upon the proposed title, which was this: "Missionary and Bible So- ciety of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America." The American Bible Society had been established, and its friends thought that the word "Bible" should be stricken out, and that Methodists should cooperate with that society — a proper view of the case. However, at that time they were overcome, and the name was adopted. NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 2)9 It was believed by some that in a little while there would be a How Miasion tendency to undertake foreign missions, and a large part of those ^""^^ started present, and many of our members not present, opposed this on the ground that it was enough for us to hope to evangelize the continent of North America, which, generally speaking, was at that time in a wild and uncivilized condition. But the society was formed. The exciting cause of the starting of regular mis- sionary work about that time rather than before or after was the notable success of Marcus Lindsay, between 1816 and 1819, in preaching to the American Indians. At this meeting a board of managers was elected, consisting of the most influential laymen of the city. The senior bishop, McKendree, was made president ; Bishops George and Roberts, respectively, first and second vice president; Nathan Bangs, third vice president; Thomas Mason, corresponding secretary; and Joshua Soule, treasurer. In the Methodist Library at New York the earlier reports are in manu- script. In consulting them on various occasions it has seemed quite easy to come into communion with the spirit of the founders. The first report is preceded by remarks respecting the circum- The First stances which led to the establishment of the society. "It had ^^""^ long been cause of regret that that ministry which had been so signally owned of God was not furnished with pecuniary means in proportion to the extensive field in which it seemed destined to move, as well as to enlarge the sphere of its usefulness in those places where it had commenced its operations." Frequent failure of efforts to extend the Gospel to remote and destitute parts of this country are recounted, and if such extension was accom- plished at all it was under great embarrassment. It is recorded that the society was formed to extend itself "by means of auxiliary and branch societies throughout the United States, and to em- brace in the field of its labors every place, especially on our own continent, where the light of divine truth had not yet penetrated." But the ultimate design was to add, if possible, energy and exten- sion, so as to carry the light of evangelical religion "to every corner of our inhabited continent, whether Christian or savage; and to do this by means of an itinerant ministry." An account is given of the New York Female Missionary Bible Society, estabUshed in 1819, of the Young Men's Mission- ary and Bible Society, formed in the same year, and of several other societies on the plan provided in the constitution. 40 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION A Young Lad's Interest Character of the Society The second annual report states that after making some neces- sary alterations in the constitution the General Conference gave the society its unqualified approbation, recommended it to each Annual Conference, and requested the general superintendents to use their influence to secure the forming of auxiliary and branch societies, the list of which showed rapid growth. They note that "a cry had come from the far-away country beyond the Alleghanies ;" they praised God for the peace and amity existing between the Indian tribes — "the tomahawk is buried, the hostile arrow has fallen neglected from the bow of destruction." An- other figure of speech requires a profounder knowledge than I possess of the capacities of the English language to explain. It is this : "The escutcheon has ceased to scatter terrors on the field of death. At our approach the red men rise up and call us brothers." One passage in the third report is of unusual revealing power. It is this : "Washington Cockle (a lad about twelve years of age) presented the president with a donation of $400, the proceeds of collections taken up in the course of the year past at the monthly sermons for the benefit of the Missionary Society preached to the children in the several Methodist churches in the city of New York. He also addressed the meeting in a very moving manner on missionary subjects." When this youth of twelve had made his well-prepared speech, who do you suppose it was that seconded the motion? A man whose name and fame, for the gift of the most felicitous elo- quence, will never die either in Europe or America — ^John Sum- merfield. He seconded the motion of Washington Cockle that the report should be printed, and urged that great efforts should be made to increase the funds. It is to be hoped that the extreme youth of Master Cockle will not justify hereafter any bringing forward of infants in missionary meetings. The youth was not inspired. He did not present a speech upon any and every subject, without previous study. It was all arranged, and the manuscript of his little speech is said to be preserved in New York up to this date. When the fourth annual report was prepared nineteen mission- aries were recognized, most of whom were directly under the patronage of the society. Among them were the Rev. James B. Finley and Charles Elliot, afterward so noted. The report em- Methodists NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 4I phasizes the universality of the character of the society. It knows no geographical lines, it gives no preference to color, to nation, or country. It is limited only by its means. Its primary inten- tion is expressed in these comprehensive words, "To assist the several Annual Conferences to extend their missionary labors throughout the United States and elsewhere." The receipts had reached nearly nine thousand dollars. At the fifth anniversary John Summerfield moved that this Wesleyan society heartily congratulate their European brethren on their success in spreading the Gospel by missionary exertions in Eu- rope, in the East and West Indies, in Africa, and in the isles of the South Seas. The report shows that the Wesleyan Methodists employed at that time no less than one hundred and fifty-nine missionaries, chiefly on foreign missions in Asia, Africa, West Indies, Nova Scotia, isles of the South Seas, and the States ; that they had planned a mission to the land of Palestine and sent two missionaries. In our Missionary Society work the missions to the Indians were most emphasized. The Rev. Thomas Mason was corresponding secretary in the fifth year. In the seventh year the Rev. John Emory, afterward bishop, became corresponding secretary, and held this position until he was elected bishop, when J. J. Matthias succeeded him, but only occupied the position for one year, when it was assumed by Beverly Waugh. He also was succeeded by the Rev. Samuel Luckey, who the next year was in turn succeeded by Beverly Waugh. In the ninth annual report work of the society was divided into (i) Missions among the aborigines; (2) Among the aborigines of Upper Canada; (3) Domestic Missions. At the eleventh anniversary the Rev. Professor Durbin, of Augusta College, Kentucky, moved that the report be adopted md printed, and the motion was seconded by Dr. Wilbur Fisk, of Wilbraham, Mass. Professor Durbin dwelt with much em- phasis and feeling on the spreading victories of the cross of Christ as exhibited in the success of missionary enterprise, and Dr. Fisk presented a series of calculations mathematically demonstrating the paucity of our means in comparison with what might be raised for the object if the missionary spirit were exhibited in the hearts of our Church members generally as it existed in the Sr, Bascom 42 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION vicinity of New York. Another man unequaled in power to draw congregations by either of these two wonderful orators, the peculiar, the mysterious, the somewhat equivocal Rev. John New- land Maffitt, spoke to the resolution, thanking the auxiliary socie- ties. The report represents that "under his tender, touching, and affectionate appeals the people were ready to give all they had to the cause of missions." The names of all subscribers and donors of amounts from twelve cents upward were printed in the report. A Speech by At the twelfth annual meeting the famous Bascom appeared. Dr. Bangs thus describes his speech : "For vigor of thought, for affluence of language, for richness of imagery, for beauty of illus- tration, for soundness of argument, for cogency of reasoning, for extensiveness of range, for depth of learning and impressiveness of delivery" — after this would not one expect him to say that it was superior to any uninspired address since the creation? He does not say this, but affirms that "it was superior to anything we have heard for a long time" — Dr. Bangs was preeminently a safe man. Foreign In 1833 an advanced step was taken by the passage of this Entered' Upon resolution : "That it is the duty of this society to extend its opera- tions more especially among the aborigines of our country, and also among foreign nations, particularly in the interior of Africa." At the next meeting a pall of sadness hung over the assembly on account of the death of the first foreign missionary in the proper sense of the word, the Rev. Melville B. Cox, who had sailed for Liberia November 6, 1832, and arrived there after four months. Some of his first communications to the board had given great reason to hope that he would meet with speedy and grati- fying success, but that hope was soon blasted by the mournful tidings of his death. Several other missionaries were sent out, Liberia and in less than a year they organized an Annual Conference CoiSerence consisting of thirteen members. The report represents the pros- pects as truly encouraging. Reports of domestic missions are minute. Seventy-three such missions are reported, and fourteen among the aborigines. In the list of domestic missions eighteen are to the blacks. South Carolina Conference alone having nine. At these missions there were two thousand six hundred and fifty- nine black members. Our brethren of Afro-American descent, and those of the Caucasian race as well, will find the words of the report on these missions to colored people unusually sug- NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 43 gesdve: "These missions have hitherto commanded the respect and insured the patronage of the planters on whose plantations they are established, the planters being satisfied 'that their in- struction in the principles and doctrines of Christianity renders them both more worthy of confidence and more happy and con- tented with their allotments.' " In one part of Christianity, that which teaches us to "honor all men," they could not at that time have been fully instructed. It was chiefly the consolations of religion to men of low degree, and the hope of heaven. But another doctrine had already begun to work, which was destined to leaven the whole lump. The sixteenth anniversary was presided over by Bishop Hed- A Large ding. It was a great occasion. President Fisk, of Wesleyan ^"l'***''"' University, offered some important resolutions, and added to them an extemporaneous one recommending a mission to China. This he advocated in a most impressive and eloquent speech, and closed it by a proposition that a subscription be opened for it. This, it appears, was a plain subscription for one mission as distinguished from the rest. Dr. Fisk in this respect was a precursor of Bishop McCabe. Dr. Nathan Bangs, long the treasurer of the society, arose and said that one gentleman had offered to be one of ten to raise one thousand dollars, and immediately fourteen hundred and fifty dollars was subscribed. Great enthusiasm characterized that anniversary. The most impressive scene of the occasion took place about midnight: On the missionary platform Bishop Hedding, assisted by the Rev. John Seys, the Rev. Dr. Fisk, the Rev. Beverly Waugh, and others, ordained Beverly Wilson, a colored man, a member of the Liberia District Conference, to the oiSce of elder. The report sent out by the corresponding secretary expresses Trans- doubt whether an "equal collection had been raised in any Church prospecu"' in this or any other country." While the sixteenth anniversary was beclouded by the death of Bishop McKendree, the seventeenth took note of the death of Bishop Emory. But the gloom was illuminated by rays of light of utmost brilliancy. The Oregon Mission was expanding and flourishing at every point, and the corresponding secretary informed the Church that he was in- spired with the pleasing hope of seeing a line of missionary sta- tions established from the upper Mississippi over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean; and he proposed another line 44 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Sontli American Missions Established of aboriginal missions along the Northwestern, Western, and Southwestern States, from Michigan to Alabama and Georgia. He informed the Church that Alfred Brunson was planting the standard of the cross among the Winnebagos, who mingled with the Chippewas in the prairies of the upper Mississippi. He said that a prophet of the latter had forewarned them that the time had come for them to exchange the religion and customs of their fathers for those of the white people. The accounts from Liberia ■were also encouraging, but the establishment of the South America Mission was the event which created the greatest amount of jubilation. In 1832 the General Conference recommended the bishops and Missionary Society to establish missions in South America. The Rev. Fountain E. Pitts was appointed a missionary, and he set forth on his tour in July, 1835, exploring many points, and on his return recommended the establishment of missions at Buenos Ayres and Montevideo. The General Conference of 1836 by resolution requested Mr. Pitts to visit Cincinnati and report to them in person, which he did. In 1836 Justin Spaulding was ap- pointed missionary to Brazil and John Dempster to Buenos Ayres. Justin Spaulding sailed from New York on the twenty-second of the preceding March, and on the fourteenth of October John Dempster sailed for Buenos Ayres. For the first time the name of the Rev. George G. Cookman appears on an anniversary occasion. Dr. Fisk, who had before proposed the mission to China, now delivered a very eloquent speech in favor of establishing a mission in France. He urged this with great force because he had just been making a tour in that country. His appeal was so powerful that when the proposi- tion was submitted to raise five hundred dollars on the spot to begin the work fourteen hundred and seventy-four dollars was pledged, which, together with the sum collected, amounted to eighteen hundred and ten dollars and upward. Recognition of the fact that the Rev. John Dempster had sailed as a missionary to Buenos Ayres was made. The Philadelphia Conference, which had a society of its own, is recognized as a fellow-laborer in the grand work. The appeals sent out by Dr. Bangs bore no uncer- tain sound. Here is one sentence: "Millions of immortal beings are at this moment enveloped in all the darkness of pagan super- stition or led astray by the delusions of Mohammedan imposture NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 45 or buried beneath the rubbish of Roman CathoHc mummeries and deceitful workings. Shall we — can we — be either idle or in- different while casting our eyes upon such a mass of moral corruption? No, indeed! Your full hearts respond 'No' with an emphasis which shall be heard and felt throughout all the ranks of our Israel — and the effects of which will yet be witnessed all along the line of our missionary operations, and even far be- yond, at no distant period, the places where the footsteps of the missionary have as yet marked the soil." In the nineteenth report some observations are made about the A Mission to mission in France, and it is stated that "the society was only proposed waiting for a suitable opening of Providence in the way of suit- able instruments to cooperate with those who were there." It is waiting yet ! At the twentieth anniversary Dr. John P. Durbin, then president of Dickinson College, addressed the assembly and moved that "the crowning glory of the nineteenth century is mis- sionary enterprise," which was unanimously carried by a rising vote. This meeting was made sad by the death of the famous Martin Ruter, who was in charge of the missions in Texas, also of the Rev. Samuel Merwin and Dr. Wilbur Fisk. "Nathan Bangs, Resident Corresponding Secretary," appears for the first time in the report of 1838. Prior to that time he had written every annual report of the society. He deserves to be considered the father of missionary work. The most important event in the history of the society took place April 9, 1839, which was the incorporation of the society by the State of New York. In the report of the twenty-first anniversary foreign missions had a chapter to themselves, but the German Mission in Cincin- nati is included among them, also the French Mission in the city of New York; and the report omits, what had characterized all preceding ones, the particular and detailed account of the domestic missions. By this time the Missionary Society had been so thoroughly established that its praise was in the mouths of all evangelical denominations. In the twenty-first year three corresponding secretaries were Three appointed : Nathan Bangs, who had been resident corresponding c^rrespond- secretary for several years ; William Capers, and Edward R. Secretaries Ames. The twenty-second anniversary was held in the Broadway 46 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Tabernacle, New York, Bishop Hedding presiding. An invita- tion had been sent to the Rev. Dr. Bunting, of London. The official document was sent by the Rev. George G. Cookman, in the steamship President, who was commissioned by the board to rep- resent the Missionary Society at the anniversary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society in London; and a letter was received from Dr. Bunting, who had been notified by the recording secretary, "I have delayed my answer for some time, hoping to receive the more official document. It is, however, on board of the President steamer, which has not yet been heard of and about which the most intense anxiety prevails in this country." It has never been heard of since, nor one trace of it found on sea or shore. It disappeared as though it had been a phantom ship upon a phantom ocean. When Dr. Bangs finally retired from the corresponding secre- taryship the New York Annual Conference had the power of filling vacancies. The subject was before that body and there seemed to be no unity of feeling. In this state of affairs the Rev. Charles Pitman, an eloquent and most effective preacher of the New Jersey Conference, entered the room, and as he did so there seemed to be an immediate concentration of all eyes upon him, and an almost universal sentiment in his favor at once spread through the body. He was elected to fill the vacancy until 1844, when he was elected by the General Conference, and reelected by the General Conference of 1848. The missions recognized by the twenty-third report are the Liberia, the Oregon, the South America, and the Texas. The German Missions occupy a very important place. The Indian Missions had been gradually declining. A defense is made of the situation : "While they were suffered to remain in the States and Territories our missionaries loved to labor among them, and thousands have been elevated, nor have they been deserted in their exile beyond the Western waters, and the board most confidently believe that the Methodist Episcopal Church will never desert them so long as there is a vestige of their wasting tribes remain- ing." Alas for the feebleness of the fulfillment of that prophecy ! The Mission Until the mission in China was established Methodism had not a representative in all Asia. In April and May of 1835 the Mis- sionary Lyceum of Wesleyan University discussed the question, "What country now presents the most promising field for mission- NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 47 ary exertions?" The Chinese empire was warmly advocated. B. F. Teflft, D. P. Kidder, and E. Wentworth were appointed to prepare an address on the subject to the Church. This paper appeared in The Christian Advocate and Journal May 15, 1835, occupying three columns. Money was raised, but ten years elapsed before the work was begun. Having brought the society historically down to the year 1848, and tried to bring you into sympathy with its early struggles, experiments, and achievements, I shall now endeavor to elucidate the philosophy of foreign missions as related to the genius of American Methodism. By the time that American Methodism organized its Missionary Society, Protestant missions had begun to take on the form of a world movement, enthusiasm had reached its highest point, and novelty, eloquence, fervor, and the charm of news from foreign regions united to command attention. The press had not then made all classes more or less acquainted with regions previously unknown, or in gorgeous colors portrayed the yet unknown as imagined from a few particulars. The American spirit was just developing. Huge forms of un- measured magnitude danced before the eyes of pioneers, ex- plorers, money-makers, and founders of institutions. Wesleyan Methodism had already in a brief period accom- plished such results that its achievements were used to excite the spirit of emulation. The explosive and ever-restless forces of religious zeal could not be wholly confined by the limits of home churches and familiar localities. The relation of the Dark Continent to slavery made that America's naturally the first region to which missionary enthusiasm was f^**'*"^^ directed. There was then a deep feeling that America owed much Africa to that continent. The germs of the colonization movement were in the air; the proposed republic of Liberia, from which was anticipated so much, intensified the interest. The death of Cox and other missionaries increased rather than diminished zeal and determination. For a while visions of extraordinary success, depicted with amazing eloquence, roused the people; afterward there came a depression, which was felt profoundly by those who endeavored to promote foreign missions. After the beginning of the mission in China it was morally 48 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION India Japan Missions in Latin Countries certain that it could not be long before a mission would be estab- lished in India, for the progress of the British government in that country was a means of furnishing information, and also of guaranteeing protection to missionaries. The unspiritual though philosophical religion of Confucius had not so many attractions for the American mind at the time when those missions were established as had the accounts of the refined speculations of the Buddhists, and even the Hindus of India. Since then a change has occurred, and while mysticism still has its votaries, and apparently in increasing number, the com- bination of the positive philosophy and stoicism of Confucius is more and more interesting to the practical and the hard-headed class, and often the hard-hearted class, developed by the peculiar characteristics and influences of recent American life. When the veil was lifted from Japan, and that wonderful people caught glimpses of European and American civilization, it was as certain that American Methodism would send missionaries to Japan as that that country existed. The charm of possible entry into the hermit nation, Korea, between China and Japan, both of which were open, was like a beckoning hand and voice to the Church. A few months after Korea was opened the time came when an appeal was made, and this received a prompt response. So by a kind of logical connection, beginning with Africa, prac- tically the whole pagan world — excluding, of course, the scattered islands of the sea — has come to some extent under the influence of American Methodism. The rise of our missions in Catholic countries was quite simple. It was in the minds of the founders of the society, and in the very name that they gave, "The Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America." They spoke of the whole Amer- ican continent. Roman Catholicism they regarded as but little better than baptized paganism, and all that they had heard of the condition of the South American peoples had been confirmed by increasing knowledge. The difference between Roman Catholicism, now at its best in the United States, and Methodism in its most primitive state, is so radical that it is not extravagant to affirm that Roman Catholi- cism places serious and often insurmountable impediments in the way of reaching a simple Christian spiritual faith and genuine self-witnessing conversion. InteUigent Catholics will hardly deny NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 49 this, for they often praise themselves because of those very impediments, and at the same time characterize, and more frequently caricature, what they call Methodist conversions. It is rather a compHment to Methodists than otherwise that Roman Catholics characterize all forms of evangelical religion as "Methodism." Having early established missions in Texas, it was not wonder- Mexico ful when religious freedom under the strong hand of Diaz was guaranteed that we should found missions in Mexico, and the only reason that could be urged when Italy was thrown open to the world why we should not enter there was the immensity and need of our operations elsewhere. But who could resist the con- tagious influence which spread itself over the Protestant world when the temporal power of the pope was a thing of the past, and theoretically men could preach in Italy as freely as they can preach in the hamlets, the towns, and the cities of the United States? That influence was so pervasive and powerful that so calm a man as Bishop Janes predicted that at no distant date a General Con- ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church might be held in Rome. Annual Conferences indeed have been, but in the flight of time other visions of Methodism have taken possession of the more sagacious, and a General Conference of the Methodist Epis- copal Church in Rome is hardly conceivable now. An Ecumenical Methodist Conference may yet be held there, and indeed should be within a few decades. It might marvelously increase the prestige of our yet struggling missions. Our entrance into the Greek Church in Bulgaria has been a Bulgaria sign of contention, but at the time when it was established the atmosphere was intoxicating. The "Sick Man" of Europe was supposed to be very near death ; it was fancied that entrance might be made into Russia by means of Bulgaria; that there might be a spreading of evangelical truth through all the sur- rounding countries. The origin and history of German Methodism and the relation of the German people to the United States are our only and a sufficient vindication of the introduction of Methodism into that part of the world. Lutheranism is a form of Christianity for which the highest Methodism in respect must be felt. When evangelical its spirit and forms are E"''<'P« almost beyond criticism. Yet at the time that Methodism entered 4 50 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Germany a large proportion of the churches were dead, and many of them under the influence of pastors who doubted or denied the divine origin of Christianity. The evangelical spirit had disap- peared from most of the universities. Germans migrated to this country, came under the influence of Methodism, were converted, wrote and returned home, and often were denounced as apostates or fanatics. These charges were often erroneously made by pious pastors, while by those not religiously inclined Methodists were treated with contempt. This naturally led them to associate. It also developed fervor and an intense desire to lead their friends into the light. So many Methodist converts from this country revisited the Fatherland and so many Germans were averted that the necessity for missionaries became as great as it was here when the early Methodists besought Wesley for aid. Soon a Mission Conference was formed, and later regular Conferences. Switzerland consists of cantons and half cantons, some exclusively French, some practically Italian, and many solidly German. Hence, and on the same principles, Methodism spread in that country. Scandinavia The rise and progress of Methodism in Scandinavia — first in Norway, then in Sweden, and finally in Denmark — was under similar influences. The State Churches of all these countries, as a whole, do not regard our entrance with favor. But many of their most distinguished representatives — as they have learned more of us — do not conceal their conviction that we reach many whom their churches do not reach, and that our presence and methods have led them to make some real improvements. At all events, wherever religious freedom is guaranteed, there we have the right to exist, and to use our own judgment when to enter any country. At the same time Christian comity and amity require us at home and abroad to abstain from trying to proselyte the living members of any living Church of Christ. Those who are dead in sin or groping in religious darkness are our lawful spoil. Also those who, after they have viewed us from afar, draw near, investigate, and of their own choice come to us should and will ever find an open door and an outstretched hand of welcome. The philosophy of our domestic missions rests on the same grounds as at the beginning. We distribute our offerings through the Conferences. Formerly all Conferences received what they needed ; but later the older Conferences relinquished their claims. NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 5 1 The Freedmen's Aid Society in its beginning was, and at the present time is, apart from its educational work, strictly mission- ary ; though its detailed exposition here, for obvious reasons, would not naturally be expected. Two days after the formation of the Missionary Society, in 'Woman's 1819, a resolution was passed that "the females attached to the SisBionary Methodist congregations be invited to form a society auxiliary Society to this." Much was done by women in the foreign missionary field, almost from the beginning. The Union Woman's Mission- ary Society was organized in i860, and in 1868 the Woman's Board of Missions auxiliary to the American Board. March 17, 1869, the late Missionary Bishop Parker addressed the corre- sponding secretaries at New York with regard to the formation of a Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. Approval being se- cured, on the 30th of March, 1869, the society was organized by Mrs. Parker and Mrs. William Butler. At the very moment of this organization Miss Isabella Thoburn, a sister of the bishop, was offering herself to the parent board. The marvelous success of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society is heard and read of all. At the close of the civil war the condition of the freed women of the Southern United States was seriously felt by many women, who urged the subject upon the attention of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, but after dehberation it was concluded that they would do better to restrict their work to foreign fields. In 1876 it was proposed to establish a society auxiliary to the Woman's Freedmen's Aid Society ; but this did not seem to be practicable, ^issionarv owing to the existing laws of the State of Ohio with respect to Society charters. It was therefore proposed to establish a Woman's Home Missionary Society, to do in this country work similar to that done abroad by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. The mother of Bishop Gilbert Haven gave the first contribution to the Woman's Home Missionary Society. The approval of the enterprise by the General Conference of 1880 led to the organiza- tion. The first meeting was called by Mrs. R. S. Rust, in June, 1880. Its organization was speedily perfected, and its zeal and service have been such as to occasion wonder that the Church existed so long without it. The deaconess movement has proved an adjunct of much im- portance to domestic missions, as carried on in the Annual Con- 52 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION ■William Taylor John P. Durbiu ferences and in many unclassified ways. It rests upon the prac- tice of the early Church, of the modem renewal of it in Europe, the analogies to it in the Roman Cathohc churches, and upon its own good works in Methodism, first in Germany, and now for fifteen or more years in this country. And what shall I say of William Taylor? All that there was of missionary spirit in him was born of Methodism. The career of this wonderful man from its beginning to its close belongs to the spirit of Methodist missions. Whether he sang and preached in the streets of San Francisco, evangelized in Australia, told "the old, old story" to the Kaffirs in Africa, carried out the Pauline method in India (from which grew the great South India Con- ference), or established schools and colleges in South America, he was first, last, and always a Methodist evangelist, a true, spiritual descendant, on the one side, of the indomitable Wesley, and on the other, of the unresting Asbury. When in 1884 he received the miter which had been unused since the death of Missionary Bishop Roberts, and administered the affairs of Liberia under the Missionary Society, his work be- came identified therewith. And when all his schools and societies in South America, by the free and magnanimous action of the Transit and Building Fund Society, were turned over to us (as were also Bishop Taylor's stations in Africa outside of Liberia), his salary being paid by the Missionary Society, and his last years made comfortable by its material and fraternal ministrations, William Taylor's name became imperishably connected not only with the missionary spirit of Methodism, but with Methodist Missions in the Nineteenth Century ! The work of the Missionary Society has been done by the bishops, ministers, and laymen constituting its Board of Mana- gers, by the pastors of the churches, by the secretaries and the treasurers of the society, by every man, woman, and child who has contributed to its funds, and by the missionaries supported by the gifts of the Church. To Nathan Bangs, if to any one man, belongs the honorable name of Founder of the Missionary Society ; and to Charles Pit- man belongs the special honor of having been the first to thrill the Church at large with eloquent appeals. But in John P. Dur- bin the society had a representative worthy of comparison with any public servant of the Church in modern times. Great gifts NINETEENTH CENTURY METHODIST MISSIONS 53 of oratory, learning, travel, an extraordinary aspect of simplicity, remarkable powers in the management of office business were all united in him. Such a combination of the oratorical temperament with a methodical mind has not been found elsewhere in Metho- dism since the death of John Wesley. The keynote of his administration was this : "The support of Secretaries missions is committed to the churches, congregations, and socie- Jjjggfojiary ties as such." When Dr. Durbin accepted the position he made a Society condition that assistance should be granted him in the oflke. The Rev. David Terry, a New York city missionary, was selected for the purpose. He entered the office as recording secretary, and was reelected annually until 1883, when he finished his useful service of thirty-three years. William L. Harris was elected as- sistant corresponding secretary in i860, to reside in the West, but to labor under the direction of the board ; but in 1864 it was the universal opinion that his services were greatly needed in New York. The General Conference accordingly elected two assistant corresponding secretaries, Dr. Harris for the office, and Dr. Joseph M. Trimble for the Western field. But the General Confer- ence of 1868 left Drs. Durbin and Harris at New York in charge of its entire work. In 1872 Dr. Durbin retired, and. Dr. Harris having been elected to the episcopacy, the General Conference elected three corresponding secretaries, Drs. Robert L. Dashiell, Thomas M. Eddy, and John M. Reid. On October 7, 1874, Dr. Eddy died. He had many of the elements of Durbin : method in the office, a high order of oratory on the platform, and ability to labor at the desk. Until 1876 Drs. Dashiell and Reid conducted the affairs of the society, and both were reelected, but before the sitting of the next General Conference Dr. Dashiell, under an agonizing disease which surgical operations failed to relieve or cure, had slowly sunk to the grave. At the General Conference of 1880 Dr. John M. Reid and Dr. Charles H. Fowler were elected. James N. FitzGerald was elected by the board recording secretary. In 1884, Dr. Fowler being elected bishop. Dr. John M. Reid and Dr. Charles C. McCabe were elected secretaries. In 1888, on the retirement of Dr. Reid, Dr. McCabe was reelected, and Drs. J. O. Peck and A. B. Leonard were chosen secretaries. Dr. FitzGerald being elected bishop, Stephen L. Baldwin, D.D., was elected recording secretary. These secretaries were all reelected in 1892. 54 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION In the spring of 1894 Dr. Peck, to the grief of the whole Church, was stricken unto death. In 1896 Dr. McCabe became bishop, and Drs. Leonard, Palmer, and Smith were elected corre- sponding secretaries. In 1900 the General Conference radically modified the constitution of the Missionary Society, providing for only one corresponding secretary and one assistant corre- sponding secretary. These offices were filled by Drs. A. B. Leonard and H. K. Carroll. The Laity It remains to say that all these conspicuous men — these secre- taries and bishops and editors — could have accomplished little for the cause of missions without the laity. The rich have given large sums, but the multitude of the poor have equaled them. Poor women have starved themselves, have done their own heavy domestic work, that they might give their sons to foreign missions and their daughters to the Woman's Foreign and Home Mission- ary Societies. I thank God that I sat under the spell of Dr. Durbin; I thank him also for his successors, each in his own order, who have furnished instruction and stimulus. The As for the missionaries, when I think of Maclay, practically the founder of our missions in China and Japan, and of William Butler, the founder of our missions in India and Mexico; when I recall where Bishop Wiley is buried, and how he came to be buried there ; and think of Kingsley, who made the first episcopal missionary journey around the world, and unwittingly was ap- proaching the Jerusalem which is above when turning aside to visit the Jerusalem which is beneath ; and when I remember the missionaries that have died far from their homes and the scenes of their youth, and especially those missionaries who in extreme age or infirmity have been brought back to this country, to linger among a generation that has come up since they departed — I say when I realize all these things and what they mean I seem to myself to behold a great company of men and women the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose ! Uissiouaries MISSIONS AND SPIRITUALITY 55 SPIRITUAL PREPARATION FOR MISSION- ARY SERVICE The Rev. A. H. Tuttle, D.D. The theme of this paper was given me with the understanding that I should discuss it in relation to the Church at home as well as to the missionary in the field. Otherwise I would hesitate to consider the subject at all ; because I believe that the spiritual qualifications of the missionary differ in no respect from those required for the kingdom of our God everywhere. There is undoubtedly a great variety of gifts and methods spiritual Gifts among the Lord's people, but they are all pervaded by the one spirit which gives them their distinctive character as spiritual. The missionary is not lone and peculiar in this respect. He should be a converted man ; so should we all. Like him, we all should be recipients of the quickening Spirit, should know God and be consecrated to his cause. Spirituality is confined to no clime or mode of service. Whether in heathenism or in Gospel lands, "This honor have all the saints." Nor do we believe that there is at this time any urgent need of our pressing upon the toilers in missionary fields the necessity of living close to God and partaking of the heavenly gift. The very character of their work is such as to force them either to a constant and conscious union with him, or to drive them from the field. In Christian lands it is possible for one to engage in a sacred A Suggestion calling without any measure of spiritual life. For its worldly ^^"^ emoluments we may perform our duty at the holy altar in a way perfunctory, hollow, double-minded, soulless, without any keen sense of the tremendous issues of our acts. An ecclesiastical office may be degraded into a secular calling, without demanding personal sacrifices or setting up any close tests of Christian char- acter. But we cannot conceive of one engaging in missionary work from any other motive than the love of Christ. We well remember how Dr. William Butler when about to start for India, leaving his little children in the fatherland, and being asked by an affectionate mother, "How can you do it?" responded with an emotion that suggested Calvary, "Only for Jesus." It was this spirit that carried Morrison to China, and Carey to 56 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Spirituality of India, and Judson to Burma ; and it is this that has set many of MiBsionaries q^j. choicest men and women in voluntary expatriation and the severing of the dearest domestic ties. Certainly the love of ad- venture, ambition for distinction, or greed could not hold them for any length of time to the immeasurable sacrifices required for their work. A passion for lost souls begotten of a conviction that Christ has called them to this mission alone will provide a sus- taining motive in their prolonged and unrequiting toil. The result is that our missionaries are remarkable for their genuine spirituality. We remember a description given by Bishop Foster of his first prayer meeting in a foreign missionary station. He said that he had never seen such a manifest presence of God in an ordinary midweek service in all his history as a minister in his native land. He supposed at first that this meeting must have been exceptional. But he found that it was the usual thing in every service in places most widely separated, and came to the conclusion that the unvarying fact was due to the vigorous spiritual life of missionaries everywhere. Corresponding with this testimony is our own observation of the influence of returned missionaries. In the domestic circle, in social life, and in the various services of the church their presence has been vitalizing and uplifting. From the personal character of our missionaries and their heroic work in the world we have reached the conclusion which we make the thesis of our paper. We will discuss it, however, not from the side already suggested, however fruitful it may be — missionary work compelling an increasing spirituality — but will consider it in the reverse order, which we believe is as philosoph- ical as it is practical, namely, spirituality compelling missionary work. It is not necessary for us to attempt an elaborate statement of the meaning of spirituality. The spiritual mind is a mind per- vaded by the Spirit of God; and the attributes of the divine Spirit give character to the human spirit which receives it. We will name a few of its most obvious features and note their rela- tion to missionary work. God'a I. The Holy Spirit is God himself; and when he fills the human soul there is a profound sense of God's presence. It is said of the wicked that "God is not in all his thoughts." In con- trast with this is the statement that "They that are after the Spirit MISSIONS AND SPIRITUALITY 57 A Sense of the Nearness of Christ do mind the things of the Spirit." "Mind" them— for thoughts, affections, motives do not hold ascendency in the mind by any lawless chance, but are determined by our wish ; and in their final settlement are more or less directly under the control of our will. It is the will that encourages, retains, rejects, and finally settles their spontaneous and habitual recurrence. And it is this fact that makes them decisive of character. So the mind that turns to God by conscious purpose, in holy desire, in diligent search for his will as revealed in his word and his providence, in communion with him in the secrecies of the closet and the worship of the sanctuary, comes into an abiding realization of God's presence, his authority, his guidance, his care. There is a vivid sense of the nearness of Christ, with all those personal elements of love and gratitude which make it an actual fellowship. "The world knoweth it not ;" but to us it is life itself, awakening and libera- ting the soul, enlarging our being, and bringing us into an experience compared with which a life of personal indulgence is dullness itself. When for any reason that sense of the divine presence is lost the spiritual mind pants for it as the hart for the water brooks : "O God, my soul thirsteth for thee," etc. It often reaches the ardor of a lofty and urgent enthusiasm: "For the love of Christ constraineth me;" and the vividness of a hallowed and transporting joy : "Whom having not seen, ye love ; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." This communion with God, which is a distinguishing feature of genuine spirituality, is some- times confounded with religious emotion ; and so mere feeling, which is only the bloom, is frequently cultivated as the root of spiritual life. But rehgious rhapsody is not fellowship; it may be a mischievous counterfeit. It has often misled holy men from the true purpose of active Hfe, which God's work in the world requires, into one of mystical contemplation. We have no disposition to sit in judgment on all contemplative Mysticism mystics. Some of them have so blessed our world as almost to persuade us that their system must be of God. Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas a Kempis, Madame Guyon, Fenelon, and others of similar seraphic piety we hold in veneration. But, not- withstanding the exceptional excellence of their characters, we dissent from their systems in two particulars. It relegates to the department of feeling and imagination that which should place 58 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION A.n Essential Feature of Spirituality rellowship with God itself in all appointed duties, in the most active, the most crowded, the most harassed and tempted life. A second fatal feature of the system is that it is apt to allow what it calls the intuitions of the spirit to overrule the word of God. Mysticism was beautiful even in its errors when it went hand in hand with God's word. But when it denied the supremacy of the Scriptures it became debased and was only a caricature of the true inner life. But the errors of the mystics should not divert us from the great fact that we have named as an essential feature of spirit- uality, namely, a deep and abiding sense of God's presence. 1. It is this that inspires missionary motive. Christ's "Go," with which all the four gospels close, is as though the voice of the Master addressed personally to us a word of supreme authority. It appeals to the conscience as no worldly argument for the need of missions could. 2. It is this fellowship that is the secret of the mission worker's power. "With God all things are possible" — which means not that God can do what we cannot do, which is a mere truism; much less that our faith or holiness gives us power over God, which it certainly never does ; but accord with God allies us to his omnipotence. Just as in the realm of the natural world to know its laws and accord with them turns all its powers into our service, so in the realm spiritual to know its laws and accord with them is for us to fellowship with God's almightiness. 3. It is this fellowship with God that sustains the missionary in his work. "Lo, I am with you alway" is his in actual expe- rience. In whatever peril he may be placed "the eternal God is his refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." The horses and chariots of God fill the air of every Dothan where the servants of Jehovah are in the path of duty. Should disaster come, as it often does, the missionary is sustained with the indescribable joy of consciously sharing with his Lord in the great principle of vicarious sacrifice by which the woe of this world is to be healed. "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church." 4. It is this fellowship that gives the missionary the assurance of the final success of his toil. How small is the stone cut out without hands ! But it breaks the image to pieces and is sure to become a great mountain and fill the whole earth. MISSIONS AND SPIRITUALITY 59 II. A second essential feature of spirituality is an active sym- ood's PuipoBe pathy with the supreme purpose of God in the world and his *" *^* YTotli methods of achieving it. God's purpose as he himself has revealed it in his Son is to get to himself a whole race of children, every one of whom, like the eternal Son, shall be witnesses of his truth and executors of his will and ultimately share with him in the fullness of his glory. For this the foundations of the world were laid, and this is the key to all history. The calamity of sin, which threatened the utter overthrow of this divine intent, is met by the Gospel of redemption in Christ, which is to be carried to the ends of the earth and oflfered to all mankind, when our Lord will return in the glory of his power. It is not needful for us to discuss the question which now divides the Church as to whether the entire world is to be converted before the day of Christ's coming; or whether the world is to continue its antagonism to the Gospel till the end of this dispensation, the good and evil maturing together like wheat and tares practically indistinguish- able. On one thing the spiritually minded are united, namely, that the Gospel, by which alone men are to be saved, is to be oflfered to every human creature. If all do not accept it many will, and thus "God visits the nations to take out of them a people for his name." I recently met with a new rendering of a familiar passage of No Frontier Scripture. It is taken from an old Syriac fragment : "And to his kingdom there shall be no frontier." God's reign is to be limitless not only as to time, but also as to territory. That individual or church which is not in sympathy with this commanding purpose of God may have many excellent qualities, but is certainly not spiritual. One office of the Spirit is to execute the divine will, and when there is no sympathetic movement toward the achieve- ment of Christ's supreme purpose in the world it is proof positive of a deadly absence of the Holy Ghost life. On the other hand, when this supreme purpose of God gets a vital hold on the heart it becomes an absorbing and controlling passion, which is dis- tinguished by two things, both of which are recognized features of genuine spirituality : First, a hearty consecration of self to missions. To some it comes with the force of divine command, "I must go ;" to others, "I must send;" to all, "I must sustain by prayer and sympathy those whom the Holy Ghost has set apart for this work." This 6o THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Self- indulgence Unfaltering Faith feature of spirituality stands out in marked contrast with the spirit of self-indulgence which characterizes the world, in which we are compelled to include a large portion of the Church, which has so far departed from the spirit of its Lord as to be perilously near to antichrist. One of our monthly magazines has been recently publishing a series of entertaining articles on "The Luxuries of Millionaires," which is provocative of serious reflection among those whose hearts have been touched with the sorrow of Christ, who came seeking to recover that which God had lost. Think of a single woman keeping stored away in a safe deposit vault jewels valued at more than one million dollars, the interest of which would keep fifty chosen men in India gathering precious jewels for the crown of our Christ. One man spent for a single picture a sum sufficient to put a hundred consecrated men in the heart of China's wretchedness, to purify and beautify imperishable souls. A private yacht which cost nearly a million for its construction and equipment consumes when on a deep-sea cruise eighty tons of coal a day. The coal bill for a season is twenty-five thousand dollars, and the wages paid thirteen thousand dollars. This is altogether aside from the cabin table and other expenses. There are now in the lists of the New York Yacht Club one hundred and sixty-four steam yachts which cost their owners from ten thousand dollars to twenty-five thousand dollars a month. A society woman last August gave an entertainment at Newport at a cost of little less than fifty thousand dollars. We are told of a woman's dress made of one-thousand-dollar bank notes, with sleeves made of still costlier certificates of stocks. The money thus wasted would cover Africa with evangels who would bring the unclad savages not alone to decent clothing for their bodies, but white robes, imperishable, for their spirits. This extravagance of the immensely wealthy appears shocking to us because of its enormous figures. But the character of sin is not to be measured by its bulk. The mites are as decisive of character as the gold coins. In homes of moderate comfort men and women are living in a style that exhausts the last dollar of their income, leaving no tithes for God. This is an extravagance that is sure to wither the spiritual faculty. The other feature of spirituality which an appreciation of God's purpose in the world creates is an unfaltering faith in its final MISSIONS AND SPIRITUALITY 6l accomplishment. The worldly mind lacks the elevation of thought and conviction necessary for a sustained and aggressive faith in missions. It is hampered by questions from the time viewpoint. Does it pay ? Are not the demands at home more urgent ? Is it best to make such immense sacrifices of men and treasure ? Are not the heathen better off as they are ? Do not commerce and war effect better results than the Gospel method ? But all this is swept away by a single breath of the Holy Ghost which lifts the recipient spirit into an assurance of the will of omnipotence. It is this that gives to the missionary in the field and the missionary Church at home a faith that dares the impossible, an audacity which to those who live on a lower level is reckless and perilous, but which proves to be the power of the very God, and leads into a career that is really miraculous and reads, as has been forcibly put, "like a chapter in the book of the Acts." III. One thing already implied in what we have said needs to iTnworldli- be separately emphasized as a feature of the spiritual mind ; "^^^ partly because it is popularly identified with spirituality, and partly because of the common misconception of its character and its practical bearing on the work of God in the world, namely, unworldHness. When this world dominates the individual and the Church, both cease to be spiritual ; and that means that the spirit of missions is gone. A worldly Church, that studies its interests mainly on its earthly side, has never been and never can be zealous for the salvation of men, especially for those far beyond its immediate locality. It lacks that keen insight and that far outlook which the inspiration of the Holy Spirit imparts. It is without conviction and motive for a work so essentially divine. We believe that right here is the secret of the exigency to The Present which the cause of missions is reduced at this time. It is not the ^'^ig^noy want of information, nor of consecrated and capable workers, nor of a sufficiently organized propaganda ; nor is it to be found in the poverty of the people. In all these particulars the Church was never so richly equipped, and never was so great a door and effectual open to us as at this very hour. But notwithstanding all this the various societies of Protestantism are brought to such a critical state as not only to call a halt to any farther advance, but to seriously consider where and how we can retrench. The secret, we beheve, is mainly right here in the general worldliness of the Church of God. Very generally the motive and purpose 62 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Citizens of Heaven. Supreme Keed of the Hour of the Church seem to begin and end in its material good. It is all of this world. When a church finds itself in an emergency, instead of falling down on its knees and inquiring of the Lord, with the acuteness of the market place it resolves to put a new front on its building or enlarge its organ, or strengthen its choir with new soprano or tenor chosen solely with a view to its art regardless of its spiritual character ; or to search for a pulpiteer who can "draw," with hardly a question as to whether the draw- ing power be that of the stage or the cross. To strengthen its waning life, it broadens its phylacteries and adds another wheel to its machinery. Of course, we know that the children of God are citizens of this world, and the spiritual faculty will find its proper exercise and employment along the line of its earthly conditions. The Holy Ghost does not ignore, but uses good business methods. It is not the use of earthly methods that constitutes worldliness, but the absence of the inner spirit and motive that finds its vital breath in the atmosphere of the unseen world. No wise business methods can take the place of personal devoutness. Work must wait on worship. I have said that we are citizens of this world in our activity ; but we are citizens of heaven in our life. This last must come first. There must be life before action. The moment we lose that life we have stepped down on the plane of this world. Then even sacred things become worldliness. Official earnestness will pass for holy ministries ; discussion of heavenly topics will be taken for spirituality ; warmth of manner will be mistaken for heavenly-mindedness ; artificial fervor in the declaration of God's truth will supply the place of an inward and growing experience of its power. All this means Sardis, which has a name to live and is dead. The supreme need of the hour felt by all those who long for the triumph of our Christ in the world is a more profound and healthful spiritual life among those who bear his name. At the recent general Missionary Conference held at New Orleans by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the venerable Dr. B. M. Palmer, of the Presbyterian Church, one of the greatest men of our age and one of its ripest Christian spirits, after speak- ing briefly of the unusual opportunities opening for the Church, said : "All this is our joy and comfort ; but, brothers, does nOt MISSIONS AND SPIRITUALITY 63 the Church now require, in a degree far beyond what we have ever enjoyed, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost? If all the branches of the Church of Christ could only enjoy just now such an outpouring as we had on Pentecost it would be ready almost for the millennium, and we might speedily expect the coming of the blessed Lord to reign King of the nations, as he now is the King of the saints, and see him wearing before the assembled universe his many crowns upon his head." Our own Bishop Moore closes an interview given to The Christian Advocate with these significant words : "I beg to add, as my most solemn judg- ment and most emphatic word, that the supreme need at home and in the foreign field is a mighty and overwhelming revival of religion." The chief thing, then, for us who have the cause of God Deeper throughout the world at heart is to seek to bring ourselves and j°^jj. the entire Church to a deeper and truer spiritual life. And we Spiritual Life can do it. God has set us here for that very purpose. We will do it, however, not chiefly by conventions, committees, discussions, and organizations. All these, however wisely wrought, may only add to the cumbrous materialism of an already overweighted Church. And that they certainly will do unless they are vitalized from the beginning with the breath from above. Let our con- ventions be pervaded with the spirit of worship; let our com- mitteemen first take counsel with God in the secret place where he makes known his covenant; let us enter upon our discussions only when we are conscious that God's presence enfolds us. Then our organism will not be a busy factory, but a watered garden. Then we will assuredly see that which the angel of the Apocalypse showed St. John : "A pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month : and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." 64 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Numerical lacrease of Heathen The Work that Bemains HOME ALLIES IN OUR WORK OF EVANGELIZATION H. K. Carroll, LL.D. The battle for righteousness was never so fierce since the fall of man as it is in our age. God's hosts were never so sorely beset both from within and without their own lines. The enemy was never so thoroughly organized, so numerous, so determined, and so well commanded as now, in the opening years of the twentieth century. The hordes of heathen peoples, Moslems, unbelievers, backsliders, Pharisees, hypocrites, are vast, indeed, compared with the true and valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ. The natural increase of the nine hundred or ten hundred millions of the earth's population who are not Christians is in itself a formidable factor of the enemy's strength. In the past ten years the population of India, now about 295,000,000, gained by natural increase, not- withstanding the ravages of the famine, over seven millions; while the increase of the Christian population was only 764,000, or a little over three fourths of a million. That is, for every Christian gained there was a net increase of ten Hindus and Moslems. The disparity in the relative increase of heathen and Christians in China, with its fourth or more of the world's population, must be even greater. We cannot, therefore, escape the conclusion that the absolute increase of the forces outside the kingdom of Christ is far greater than that of the forces within that kingdom. Think of the masses of sinners in the world — sin- ners in the black midnight of idolatry and fetichism ; sinners in the glimmer of a faint and far-off star, as the followers of Mohammed; sinners in the gloom of the faded light of slowly dying hope, as the Jews ; and sinners, daring, defiant, doubting sinners in the white light of the noonday sun. What a work remains for the hosts of God ! Surely we need the encouragement of prophecy that "one shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight ;" that a nation shall be born in a day, and that the time shall come when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ. Surely we need to strengthen our forces, and develop our resources and increase our efforts, and especially to welcome the cooperation of all who are "on our side." HOME ALLIES 65 We are not losing ground, we are steadily gaining; but our victories very conquests tend to increase the strenuousness of the campaign ^""ipiy we wage. Our problems are multiplied by our victories. Dewey won the Philippines in a single day, before breakfast; but the working out of a system of effective civil government for them is a matter of years. Sampson and Schley gave a new baptism of glory to our Independence Day by what they did at Santiago ; but the questions which free Cuba must settle multiply before the little republic. The work of evangelizing the world is the great work before us ; but it seems as though almost every good influence and agency needs to be associated with it. The word of life, spoken, written, practiced, wins the convert from heathenism; but the mind and heart, the purposes and aspirations, the habits and ac- tions of that convert must be molded anew. After he has passed from death unto life the activities of the new life must be made attractive and possible to him. A new society for himself and his family must be prepared, and a new education on a Christian basis provided. There is a place, therefore, in this campaign of preaching, A Work for printing, teaching, healing, for all the people of God. The Mis- sionary Society, according to its Manual, is simply the Methodist Episcopal Church "in a corporate form for the purpose of estab- lishing Christian missions in our own and in foreign lands." It has the command of Christ, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," as its authoritative commission; but it recognizes the priesthood of believers as also of divine ap- pointment, and therefore welcomes most heartily and without hesitation or reservation the cooperation of the women of our Church in the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's Home Mis- sionary Societies. By our Church law they are gleaners in our wheat field, not being allowed to take any of the bound sheaves ; but the harvesters leave the corners and many well-filled heads of grain to the patient and faithful gleaners, and when the thresh- ing is all done and the heaps compared, lo, it is found that the two belonging to the women are more than half as large as that of the parent society. Surely, this is very successful gleaning. Of these gleanings nearly $427,000 went last year to our foreign fields in support of the agencies established and directed by the women. Take away this sum from our foreign missions, and S 66 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Woman's Work The Home Field Places of Worship you would take away thirty-six per cent of the total expenditures. Very suggestive, this, of the might of the woman's mite. Nor are the women less successful as missionaries than as money raisers. There is no field so distant, difficult, or dan- gerous; no place so isolated; no people so savage or degraded; no work so hard or hazardous as to deter women from offering themselves for the Master's service. As Christian women among heathen women and children, whose doors are shut to men, they are heralds of light and life. Millions of the enslaved sex behind the purdah would be helpless and hopeless but for these teachers and preachers of the Gospel who count not their lives dear unto themselves so that they might finish their course with joy and testify to the Gospel of the grace of God. "I have seen," said a Chinese preacher, "the wounded side of Christ." He referred to a noble woman of Australia, Mrs. Saunders, who, her two daughters having been killed by a mob in China, came herself as a missionary to take up their work where they had laid it down for a martyr's crown. Women were not only first at the sepulcher, they were also last at the cross, and last at the burial. The Woman's Home Missionary Society is diligent in the prosecution of its excellent work in Utah, in the South, in the cities, among foreign-speaking populations and the aborigines, in the maintenance of children's homes, rest homes and training schools for missionaries and deaconesses, and other work for the advancement of the kingdom. The deaconess is often, at least in Utah, the pioneer to prepare the way for the preacher. We are glad to count the two woman's societies as our allies, our gracious, modest, brave, efficient allies. It is obvious that we need much help and strong help in the wide and diversified work of our immense home field. The Mis- sionary Society supports in whole, or in part, about 4,000 missionaries in the United States and its colonies, exclusive of the Philippines. This requires from the parent society alone more than $500,000 yearly. But converts at home as well as abroad must be cared for after they are secured, and the first need is a place of worship, where they can be instructed, exhorted, encouraged in Christian living, Christian duty, and Christian activity. For the newborn babe a cradle or crib is provided; not less necessary to the newborn soul is shelter in a nursery of faith. Paul could make tents for HOME ALLIES (fj his converts, if necessary, with his own hands; so can some of our own apostles. A httle minister who rode thirteen hundred miles in a buggy, from Nebraska to a Rocky Mountain appoint- ment, found a mere shanty serving for the house of God. He exhorted, urged, begged the trustees to build a new church, but utterly without avail. Their cry was, "We can't, we can't." Finally he said, "You can if you will ; but if you won't, I can and will." And, with saw and hammer and plane and trowel, he did ; and looking down upon a group of trustees from the cupola of the completed building he said, "Brethren, didn't I say it could be done?" But we have more pressing work for ministers than this. Their supreme calling is to plan and direct the building of Christian characters, leaving to the Board of Church Extension Church the high function of master church builder. By gifts and loans ^'*8"'"" the board has made possible the erection of more than 12,000 churches. It does not give churches entire and unconditional — that would tend to paralyze local effort ; but it aims so to aid as to encourage weak societies to put forth their best efforts to raise their own rooftree. Consider what a boon this system has been to the struggling negroes of the South whom it has assisted in erecting 2,600 churches ; to the poor whites of the same section, who have secured 1,700 churches in the same way; to the people of the wide West, beyond the Mississippi, who gratefully credit to it 5)8oo churches. These figures are eloquent of heroic en- deavor. Think of those 12,000 churches as so many centers of light, dissipating moral darkness, shining on the pathway of weak and weary wayfarers, and guiding straight to the gates of heaven. The saloon is Satan's seat ; the church is the house of God. God seems to be saying to the Church, as Bishop Simpson remarked : "Intrench yourselves ; build forts ; garrison them well ; a struggle is coming ; we must have our places of defense and concentration." The Missionary Society has done what it could to evangelize Work for the millions of negroes and poor whites in the South, the resources of that section not being sufficient for so great a work. But the Church saw at the beginning that a special effort must be made to remove the curse of ignorance. We must establish elementary schools, because the States of the South could not be expected to meet the educational needs of their people for a generation. We now see that another generation will be required to make their 68 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION public schools adequate to the work to be done. We must also plant institutions of higher education in the South to prepare young men and women of both races to discharge honorably and successfully their duties in social, civil, religious, business, and professional life. The Church devised for its instrument in ac- complishing this vast and important work of reformation the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society. We hail it as a noble ally of the Missionary Society, for it is molding the lives of our converts according to the high ideals of Christian intelli- gence, activity, and achievement. The founding of a university or college is surely no small or ordinary enterprise. The society of which we are speaking has founded and is maintaining eight universities and four colleges, besides twelve academies, a theo- logical seminary, and a medical school. Its work is eminently a Christian work, and the influence it exerts in the elevating and harmonizing of antagonistic races cannot fail of glorious results. City Missions Methodism began its life on this side of the sea in the city, but quickly followed the tide of population into the country. The early fathers went to the villages and farms and kept abreast of the pioneers as they moved the frontier farther and farther toward the setting sun. They were voices crying in the wilderness, which blossomed like the rose under their heroic labors. When factories divided interest with farms, and railroads quickened and increased the tides of migration, the flood turned toward the cities, and here is the problem of the Church and of the State and of civilization itself. Absorbed in diffusing itself over our con- stantly enlarging national domain, Methodism left to its churches in the cities the task of solving the problems thrust upon them. The time soon came when their task assumed such alarming pro- portions that city missionary societies sought association for consultation and mutual encouragement. So we have the National City Evangelization Union, with organizations in more than fifty cities, reporting an annual outlay of more than $175,000. This is missionary work, as real, as necessary, as important as any that the Missionary Society itself is doing. It is not com- petitive, it is complementary, and it is the policy of the Missionary Society to promote it in every practicable way and to make larger and larger appropriations to it, as its funds may warrant. Our great cities are epitomes of races and nations, babels of languages and pantheons of religion. Here one may see how perfectly home HOME ALLIES 69 missions and foreign missions become one, and how the same work is being wrought in New York and Chicago and San Fran- cisco as in the capitals of Europe and the cities of Asia. If one will listen long and very attentively he will hear the Sunday tramp, tramp, tramp of the mightiest army the earth has ever ^''^°°^^ known. It is invading every country and is sure to conquer. Men will step from its ranks and ascend thrones now occupied and rule as emperors, kings, princes, and presidents. Every place of power and influence will sooner or later fall into the hands of these invincible invaders. I borrow the figure. This advancing host are the children of to-day. As we pass off the stage of action they will take our places. What will they be when they come into their inheritance? Angels of light or demons of darkness. Such are the possible alternatives, and those who now wield the scepter of power in State and Church and society must dfecide which they shall be. The Christian family and the Church nursery, the Sunday school, must be chief factors in molding the characters of the future generation. Our Sunday School Union is a powerful ally of the Missionary Society in the work of evangelization, reporting last year an increase of 81 schools, of 100,000 in average attendance, and, best of all, of 127,540 con- versions. The work of the Union covers the entire territory of the Methodist Episcopal Church, not being limited to the United States, and I call attention to the significant fact that the two Annual Conferences reporting the largest number of Sunday schools are the North India and the Northwest India. I must not forget to mention in this connection the good work of the Tract Society, at home and abroad, in circulating sound Christian literature. Last, but not least, among our allies is the American Bible American Society. What would the Church do without the Scriptures ? It ^^^^^ ^"""^^ would be like a ship at sea without chart or compass or rudder. Our debt of obligation to the American Bible Society can never be paid. No matter where our missionaries go it is there to put the Scriptures into the hands of their converts ; no matter to what strange people or tribe they may be sent it has the word of God ready for their use, so that in all lands the miracle of Pentecost may be constantly witnessed, and every man hears the inspired writers of the blessed book "speaking in his own language." Last year more than 1,700,000 volumes of the Holy Scriptures were 70 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Other Agenciei Strength of the Church issued by that venerable society, upward of a million of which went to foreign lands, at a cost of $230,000. I regret that I cannot adequately represent, in the time allotted me, other societies and agencies contributary to the great work of evangelizing the world— the Board of Education, which has enabled thousands of young ministers to secure their preparation for home and foreign fields; the universities, colleges, and seminaries which have been as upper rooms for pentecostal bap- tism; that powerful lever of religious thought and activity, the periodical press; the Book Concern, with its choice books de- signed to help forward the kingdom of Christ; and the Young Men's Christian Association, whose work in foreign fields is of inestimable value. The agencies are, indeed, many and fruitful of result ; and there are still others which might not improperly find place here, if time allowed. Such are the allies which the stress of the world's need of the Gospel has brought into action. Our first thought is of the zeal and might of our Church. Four thousand eight hundred mis- sionaries in the forefront of the battle, with a corps of engineers and builders, sappers and miners to complete the equipment, requiring about $2,500,000 annually for the support of the varied operations ! Generous, indeed, are our members, and constant and willing in their sacrifices. Our second thought is one of intense longing for a deeper earnestness and zeal on the part of the Church in providing more men, more means for the campaign. They can be furnished and no other interest suffer, no other need remain unsatisfied. The resources of the Church have not been developed; indeed, they have hardly been explored. Our third thought is one of hope and cheer. As we view the splendid array, led by the great Captain of our salvation and terrible as an army with banners; as we hear the martial tread of the mighty hosts of God shaking the continents, and catch the strains in many tongues, of their songs of victory, we take courage. "If God be for us, who can be against us? If Christ direct the battle what matter who commands on the other side, or how many legions he leads? We must not falter before the foe, nor desert the cause of the Lord ; but trust and obey, trust and obey, and fight on till the end come and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. OUR OPPORTUNITY "Jl OUR OPPORTUNITY Bishop C. H. Fowler Opportunity is power. What we ought to do we can do. God's When God opens a door before a people that is his command to Leadership" them to enter, and his promise to back them to the extent of his resources. This law underlies leadership. History is full of the transfer of power from the theoretical leader to the actual leaden In the critical hour the multitude 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 advanced and buttressed, a new figure appears in history, and a new name is found on the scroll of honor. When- ever a people sees God's beckoning hand and hears his call and is obedient to the heavenly vision, then they rise to higher levels, take up heavier burdens, 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. Doors that God waited many centuries for a Gutenberg 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 in Jerusalem turned back toward Judaism, and God called another. He found him on the highway near Damascus, Saul of Tarsus, and sent him "far hence unto the Gentiles," and gave him the glory of widening out Judaism from being the religious cult of a subjugated province at the foot of the Mediter- ranean to become the religion of all races over all lands for all ages. 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 Protestantism almost reached the throne. St. Bartholomew's massacre shut the door in her face ; she staggered back through centuries of superstitions and ignorance and cruelty to the Reign of Terror. So great was the crime of St. Bartholomew's Day 'J2 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION that God has not 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 unfurled over Montevideo at the mouth of the La Plata. 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. "Once to every 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." An Answered God has opened the great doors of the world to Methodism and Prayer jg 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 remember 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 especially called upon to consider the fields recently opened to us, and new openings in old fields which constitute part of the emphasis put upon our atten- tion 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 accu- rately to interpret what is written. An Indian carried a chip upon which a Plymouth soldier had written a message to his family. It was to him a deep mystery that awed him. He held it in a split stick and 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 writing. Somewhat in this way we feel and read the OUR OPPORTUNITY 73 purposes of Providence. We cannot accurately interpret his writing upon the sky and in events, but we know that something is there recorded. Sometime 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 interpreta- open naturally at the seams. This is nature's order, to follow the ^^"^ ?? 1- r 1 -IT 1-1 , Providence Ime 01 least resistance. When events thrust a land up mto 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 the family to care for that child. When a country is 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, accessibility, 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 conjunction that constitutes a call from heaven. If God ever entered into our history from the holding of North Our New America for Protestant Christianity to the present hour it was when he dropped the Spanish colonies of Porto Rico and the Phihppines 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 and see." So we sat down again in our contentment and never expected to sail out of 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." On that awful 14th of February 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 74 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION 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 had but the faintest idea of what they were. When Dewey cast the devil out of Manila we could only say to the Philippines, "Spain we know and China we know, but who are you?" So far from coveting the Philippines we hardly knew them when we ran against them on the high seas. 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 the throne." So the Spaniard "strove to glut his rage," and sent us forth, "bound, naked, and alone, to pass the desert to the 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, namely, "Go ye into all the world." Two Gates of 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 worn-out 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 the responsibilities of being: I. Back by the way of inactivity and sluggishness, through the gate of imbecility. 2. Off to one side by the way of suicide, through the gate of crime. We have hold of the great wheel of being, we cannot 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 into the top of the world and these colonies were dropped into our lap, and we are told to make the most of them. There are but two ways in which we can escape our responsibilities: i. By putting on a fool's cap and going away back and sitting down among the fools, whom nature dislikes. They always have to take everybody else's dust. Under OUR OPPORTUNITY 75 the great law of nature only the fittest survive. 2. By committing hari-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 behind in the depot, helpless. We are not yet reduced to worn-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 opporttinity 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 conquer. The Philippines present a most inviting field. Yesterday it The was a crime to own a Bible or read it, for which heroic men were PiuuppinBa shot as traitors or banished as enemies of the established 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. Eleven thousand prisoners in Manila alone, condemned for offenses not known to freedom as crimes, have been taken out of the cells and chain gangs and restored to liberty. Yesterday, 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 perse- cution that reUgion 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 Philippines are the friars. No matter what comes the Filipinos will not accept the friars. The friars cannot return to their churches. Even Uncle Sam's bayo- nets could not make the people tolerate them. An officer asked a prominent man, a Roman Catholic, "How is it that you have so many churches and no priests ?" The man said, "We cannot bear them. They cannot come back. Ten priests came back — where are they? Ten from ten leaves nothing. It would take a standing army to keep them ahve 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. Multi- tudes of the people are asking for the simple Gospel. The services of a single Sabbath have, in more than one instance, secured a membership of over one hundred communicants, earnest seekers. There are a thousand islands, and millions of people accessible Forto Rico Great Heathen 76 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION and needy. Their need of the Gospel is down to the famine point. They are turning toward Methodism by the thousand. They cannot go back. Their past is full of the world's direst specters. Fortunes absorbed by a merciless hierarchy, necessities extorted by merciless confessors, families desolated by debauched hypo- crites — these are the specters 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 en- lightened faith. The world never before furnished a harvest so white for the reapers. The door is 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 language. 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 salvation and joyous personal experience should be within their reach at once. A million people in a tropical garden sure to overflow with wealth calls 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 treasury is a policy of dwarfs and a disgrace to a great people who could mul- tiply the two or three men we have there by a hundred, and make that island glad with the songs of salvation, if only we would open their eyes to the beckoning hands and our hearts to the call of God. Great and inviting and inspiring as are these new fields, vast enough to fire the ambition 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 evangelization. If the great heathen masses now upon OUR OPPORTUNITY "JJ the hands of the Church should sit down to an ordinary dinner, and all these new ungospeled peoples of Porto Rico and of the Philippines should undertake to wait upon them, there would be more than 75,000,000 people that these waiters could never reach. The table, unserved, thickly seated on both sides, would extend across all the continents and over all the seas of the earth. It would reach twice around the globe itself. These are accessible and inviting. These are open doors. Open doors, did I say? No, not doors ! not measni-ed openings marked on the edges by gaping hinges — not doors ! Here God has knocked off the very sides of the world, so that anybody coming from anywhere can come to the center. Here in these uncovered, exposed hundreds of millions, here are our opportunities. India is under a safe and stable government. India is pene- India trated in all directions by the modern modes of travel and com- munication, 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 3^ears 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 thousandfold, or ten thousandfold. This India, with her hundreds of millions, calls us, with thousands upon thousands asking for the Bible and wait- ing for the Christian sacraments. In the district of a single presiding elder ten thousand souls have made personal request for baptism, to whom the Church cannot respond, because she cannot 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 investments that will pay a hundred per cent. If only Good the Church would open her eyes ! This great opportunity, this ii'^^stments great whitening harvest, 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 China, the world's great field. God's Emphasis upon CMna An Ancient Nation 78 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION If God had undertaken to rivet the attention of the world upon China he could not have done more in this regard than he has 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 before our very eyes. Tell the story of this divine 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 was a collection of myths, as some skeptics characterize the books of Moses. Do you want hoary antiquity to awaken your veneration toward the actors? The principal figure 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 swarming 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 individual 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 lit- erary examinations for office for more than four thousand years, and that can to-day furnish from a single town more than ten thousand competitors for a literary prize. Do you want practical economies and tireless industries? 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 support 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 numbers of one genus or race under one govern- ment? Here you have hosts that far exceed the combined hosts of all the Americas, and all the English and Scotch and Irish, and and all the Germans of the great German empire,and all the Rus- sians of the vast Russian empire, and all the hosts of all the kingdoms of Europe, all put together. Do you want ancient and crowded altars, where immortals feel after God, if haply they OUR OPPORTUNITY 79 may find him? Here are faiths old as the traditions of the race, and single characters worshiped by more people than ever re- peated in prayer any other name ever known among men. Surely this Peking tragedy, on the very top of the world, in the very face of the sun, and before the very eyes of every civihzed 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 regarding the recent events in China. The deep needs of China constitute her strongest claim. As a China's Needs mother gives her closest 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 account of her fierce and threatening maladies, her extreme necessities. This man in his delirium dismisses his physician, drives away his nurses, and pitches his medicine into the sewer. This splash of energy does not demonstrate that he does not need medicine 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 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 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 de- sired. Their teachers declare their "moral code the best the 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 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. Her Self-content- ment 8o THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Bule of the Dragon Conceit It is taught to the people that foreigners come from a remote and barren and narrow corner of the earth, where they can produce neither tea leaves nor rhubarb; 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, and these are decorated with paint- ings representing the muzzles of cannon. One sees on the sides of their boats near the prows painted eyes. Sitting 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 these 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. It is active in the feng shui. This means the 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 feng shui ; it has a great secretary in government council like the Secretary 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 cooly ; 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 with- out the approval of these officers, which is secured by fees. On one of our buildings that once stood in the old compound in Peking I saw a short chimney, perhaps ten inches above the roof. It was cut off by the feng shui. One of the feng shui officers told a man whose door was just opposite this chimney, when it was the size of the other chimneys, that unless that chimney was shortened he would never have any male children. So our people cut down the chimney rather than have it taken down by a mob. This ignorance and superstition is equaled only by their conceit. They despise and dislike all who are not Chinese. They do not want contact with the foreign devils. It was a great triumph of diplomacy when an embassy 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 OUR OPPORTUNITY 8t 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 interest. In the war with Japan torpedoes were placed in the Min 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 furnished for powder. War vessels sent for the defense of Shanghai were useless, because the officers had sold off the new cannon and rapid-firing guns and had substituted wooden guns. 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 Dishonesty 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 gunboat on the Yang-tse Official accidentally knocked a hole in the wall of one of the cities along Corruptness the river. They were alarmed, and asked a mandarin, that is, an officer, who was on the gunboat 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 dol- lars, and sent the mandarin 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 principal 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 leveled with the ground. They raised the money and he returned happy. The deep want of such a people cannot be measured. The very foundations of moral government must be laid in them. 6 82 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Loitneii No Compromite Boman Catholicism The depravity and lostness of China are far beyond any civilized human conception. Unaided by the Lord no human faith and abihty 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 weakness. 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 him, then he meets us afar off, puts upon us the robe and the ring, and hugs us into patrimony and sonship. The most startling cry that ever rang through the universe since the agonizing wail on Mount Calvary is the concentrated cry going up out of the unmeasured need of China. It has the lungs of an almighty want. It pierces the ear of God, and it penetrates the deepest recesses of his aching heart. It drives the tides of his redeeming mercy over the shore- less ocean of his infinite love. It is this bottomless wretchedness of China that extorts the agonizing command from the purple lips of Christ, "Go ye into all the world." Christianity enters a country challenging every superstition and defying all the false gods. She has no compromise. She cannot 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 cannot accommodate herself to ancestral worship. While she says, "Honor thy father and thy mother," she cannot for one moment tolerate the worship of father and mother. She cannot help support tfie feasts and theatrical performances for the honor or support of idolatry. She can hardly take a step in any direction that she does not an- tagonize some superstition. It is not strange that her representa- tives should soon be marked as enemies to the convictions of the common people. It is only natural that persecution should mark the history of every advance of Christianity. It is to the glory of 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 carried by four bearers dressed like the bearers of high state officials. They OUR OPPORTUNITY 83 demand the same public consideration. Chinese justice is peculiar chines* and uncertain. An English resident of China gave me this inci- '"■*'«• dent : A Chinese friend of his came to him in great distress, say- ing, "The taotai (governor) demands the eight thousand taels he loaned me. Now, he never loaned me a single cash. I fear I am ruined." The Englishman meeting him a few weeks later asked him how he came out with the taotai. He replied, "I beat him. I went into court, admitted the debt, and proved that I had paid it." The Catholic Church has established in every principal mission center a court for hearing and determining all cases where its 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 near towns where shooting is prohibited and seek shelter within these lines, so the natives specially needing immunity from the execution of justice soon drift into these refuges and conform to the required cere- monies for the needed immunity. Thus this imperium in imperio soon becomes a center of irritation. Officers prevented from pun- ishing 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 settlement 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 characters. Slow to distinguish between foreigners, 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 pres- ent, a possible outburst was always a standing menace. In the face of all this prolonged irritation came a pressure from Greed of the the great Powers that 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 existence. 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 84 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION 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 our missionaries. The Boxer troubles were only the foam on the surface of a great undercurrent of mightier forces. Russia became possessed of Port Arthur, with a sphere The Bush for of influence embracing Manchuria and reaching well down toward em ory 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 Kuangsi, Yunnan, and Kueichou, with a greed that stretched far across the continent to Szchuen. England from Shanghai, where she widened her holdings, extended her sphere of influence up the Yang-tse valley. Japan from her footing on the island of Formosa counted upon the control of the Fukien Province, which fronted Formosa. Even Italy, with only a germ of possible commerce, wanted Sanmen port and the Chekiang Province. Only one real and suitable port was to be left to China herself. Twenty great railroads, backed by rich concessions and padded with Chinese capital, were projected throughout the Chinese empire, from the borders of Siberia to the borders of Tibet, and down to the tropical forests of Burma. Fifteen of the eighteen provincial capitals were thus made tributary to the foreigners. The public and world-wide discussion of "the parti- tion of China," "the breaking 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. Stirring of A vast literary antichristian propaganda 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 their doc- trines, giving deformed fragments of Brahmanism, Buddhism, 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 circulating them was OUR OPPORTUNITY 85 a work of merit. With these were sent lists and statements of the massacres of Christians, and wild appeals to the people to kill the foreign pig-goat devils and wipe out the devils' religion. The magazine was widely and deeply laid under the empire. It only awaited a spark. That spark came from headquarters. In 1898, three years after the Japanese war, the emperor en- a Career of tered upon a career of reform never surpassed in any country or ^^^"m government, and hardly equaled by the revolutions wrought by Peter the Great in Russia, or by the emperor of Japan in 1867. The disasters inflicted by little Japan compelled many advanced 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 meditated. 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 effete customs and useless appliances of the government. He forbade all extortion in raising money, asked for a loan to which no one should subscribe unless he wanted so to invest his money. He asked the viceroys to recommend men the best qualified for foreign ministers, regardless of rank. He started to reorganize 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 anyone think that in our present condition 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 the literary essay as the standard for literary examinations. He ordered the establish- ment of a national university, with colleges in the provinces, as feeders. He ordered that Western science should be counted in examination for literary degrees ; 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 learning. New All this meant the complete revolution of the empire from the old l-earmng obsolete customs to the new practical training, suited to modern times. The nation was surprised and almost breathless. But there was a large minority of the scholars that were ready to wel- come the new life. In almost every provincial capital and open port book depots were estabHshed for the supply of standard liter- 8^ THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Brtakin^ Down Prejudice Satan'i Aotivity Demoniacal FoHessioni ature ; tooks, educational, scientific, and religious magazines, and newspapers were published and circulated; lectures were de- livered 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, from the governor to the humblest scholar. The literati embraced the new learning. The aristocracy formed classes and invited the foreigner to give them "the light of his learning." Foreigners were invited to visit the Confucian colleges and publicly explain the secret of the success and the source of the energy of the Chris- tian 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 movement and hear the foreign teachers. Everything was moving forward toward the regeneration of China. Deliverance from the old order and from the old super- stitions was at the door. The long campaign of the missionaries 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 individual heart or in the field of the world. Every advance of the forces of righteousness awakens Satan's activity. The conquest of the world is the sub- jugation of a rebellious province 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. The powers of darkness have long had dominion in this world. The conflict of the ages has been to overthrow them. Whenever there has been any special movement among the forces of righteousness there have been special demonstrations among the evil forces. In New Testament times demoniacal possessions were common. Every- where 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 OUR OPPORTUNITY 87 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 seventy to preach his presence and power, the disciples returned, saying, "Even the devils are subject unto us in thy name." That was a great forward movement ; the powers of the spiritual king- dom could be handled by men. The kingdom of darkness could now be overthrown. Men, mortal men, had become so matured in spiritual warfare that even the devils must yield to them, must make way for them. Jesus counted that a great victory. He said, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Once when Jesus prayed, "Father, glorify thy name," 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.) When Christianity is introduced into a heathen country with Opposition to power, then the devil comes to the public attention, and men seem » » y to act as if possessed of the devil, act as they did in New Testa- ment times. When the Baptists went into Burma, and that remarkable work of grace was started, their missionaries encountered the same opposition ; men acted as they did of old, when possessed of the devil. In the Foochow Conference, when I held it sixteen years ago, there were demonstrations of evil possession similar to those recorded in the New Testament. It had been the greatest year the missions had ever had. I spent two days with interpreters, examining the native preachers concerning these strange phe- nomena. They agreed almost exactly with statements of the New Testament. When a case developed to disturb the society or its members the pastor would call the presiding elder and the official men together to pray over the victims. They would pray in the BoBponso to name of Jesus and order the evil spirit to depart, and the spirit '''*' would depart, and the victim would be quiet, clothed, and in his right mind. I will repeat 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 violent, 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 88 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Tbe Bozer Excitement The Empress Dowager 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 fence. 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 conflict running through all the ages. The Boxer trouble seems like another manifestation of the same hostility that has been encountered everywhere. Groups of girls from twelve to twenty, the time when accord- ing to Chinese custom and all common sense girls need special seclusion and care, dressed in red throughout, going to the temple 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 and 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 powerfully upon all classes. Even the empress dowager, in the great council of her princes, maintained that these trained Boxers were invulnerable to bullet or sword or spear. Prince Yuan said: "Yesterday I saw the 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 out- laws." This infection, with such indorsement, spread rapidly. Crime became the instinct. The people, especially the lower classes, had a delirium of cruelty and slaughter. 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 by the emperor made him the center of a work of righteousness. He was calling about him advanced men. The old conservative men were being retired and dismissed. This OUR OPPORTUNITY 89 compacted them about the empress dowager. The emperor knew the opposition he had to overcome. He was aware of the machi- nations of the empress dowager. He rehed upon one of his Reliance generals, Yuan Shih Kai, at the head of twelve thousand five general hundred soldiers, who had been drilled by a German master, and were the most reliable of all soldiers, to keep the empress dowager in her palace. But his general betrayed him. The empress dow- ager assembled the powerful relatives, and demanded the abdica- tion 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 emperor. In the critical hour he was deserted. The conservatives came to the front. The empress dowager seized the emperor's signet ring, the emperor was imprisoned, the advanced men were chased out of China or killed, the edicts for reform were nullified, the enemies of the foreigners were placed in power, the Boxers were encour- aged 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 patriotic young companions, was seized and executed, he said, "We can easily be slain, but multitudes of others will arise to take our places." The day of their execution, Sep- tember 28, i8g8, will yet be celebrated by the patriots of redeemed China as the "Day of the Six Martyrs." The disturbances and Boxer persecutions furnish most encour- signs of Hope aging signs. As the demons, when ordered out of their victims by the Saviour, would sometimes tear and wound their victims before coming out, so this delirium of rage indicates the pressure of great spiritual power that precipitates and intensifies the con- flict. 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 Eastern sky. The strong hand of the Christian nations has been felt. 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 great- ness of the Powers has been felt. The conviction of the emperor has taken possession of the people; their feelings are greatly 90 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Coming of a Great Change Argument of Sacrifice changed. The experiences that followed the Sepoy mutiny have been repeated. There before the war the lowest servant 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 soldiers. Dr. Butler was in the great bazaar in Calcutta ; it was crowded with throngs of natives. Two British soldiers entered the bazaar, when the natives fled in utmost terror. In a moment they had all vanished. Half a century has failed to resuscitate the old insolent spirit. So it is now in China. Before the capture of Peking, the flight of the imperial 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 darkness. Before the fall of the Boxers the word "foreign" was so odious that it had to be taken off from every article of com- merce or trade that could not be dispensed with. Foreign drilling had to be called "fine cloth," foreign rifles "knobbed guns," foreign matches "quick fire," and foreign things that were indis- pensable had to be rechristened. After the capture the Chinese were eagerly and ostentatiously seeking and wearing foreign clothes ; all classes learned the military salute ; the smallest chil- dren performed the salute before everyone passing by. Even beggar women covered one eye, taking that for the proper salute. There is a still deeper and more abiding influence working among the people of all classes. The age-long argument of sacrifice that has never been unhitched from its legitimate con- clusion 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 Chris- tians were exhibited 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 inclosures 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 stayed by their friends. They took their turn by the loop- holes with the guns. They stood guard in dangerous places. OUR OPPORTUNITY 9 1 They toiled in all kinds 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 stayed within the legation de- fenses none had been saved. The fidelity of the native Christians is a world-wide wonder. FideUtyof Some servants sent away to places of safety returned on the eve ?w'^? 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 Bap- tist Christian in Shansi was taken to see the missionaries die ; as they approached the 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 Chris- tians endured torture and met death was a perpetual surprise to their persecutors. Converts gave the greatest testimony ; teacher Lieu, of Fenchou Fu, sat quietly fanning himself as he was ex- pecting the murderers, and he met them and death with a smile. When the Boxers visited a village they ordered the people to The Pathos point out the Christians, and this was promptly done to save them- »»rtyrdoin selves. The Christians, set ofif by themselves, their heathen neighbors being either afraid to befriend them or willing to share in the loot, would gather at their little chapels. The Boxers would surround them and press in upon them; the murderers would offer them life if they would deny Jesus, or bow to the idols. There they are. See them, the 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 the mother. She springs for her darling. The man asks, "Will you deny? will you deny?" She cries, "O Lord Jesus, help; I cannot deny." 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, say- 92 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION ing, "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 persecutors 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 that 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. Hear him say, "Lo, I am with you alway, 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 The Comfort- infinite comfort to the mother as she sees him soothing her ing rist darlings; and I see him steadying the courage of the father as he opens before him and his family heaven and eternal blessed- ness, 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 barracks yonder in Peking. I have thought Jesus was absent from court those 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 apostles sweep out as the great gates of the city swing wide open to bid them welcome. I hear St. John say, "Come, you children; 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." OUR OPPORTUNITX 93 The great argument from these martyrdoms has permeated the a New Chinese mind to its darkest recesses. The Spirit of God has ^"S^'^^ 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 wanting. The sentence of the Supreme Judge has doomed the idolatries to death. The conservative leaders have been superseded. The large minorities of progressive scholars and statesmen are asserting themselves. The empress dowager, avenged on her personal enemies, freed from the Boxer leaders, impressed with nearness and greatness of the Christian nations, surrounded by better ad- visers, is entering upon the work of reform. She is taking up the role of the dethroned emperor ; by edict she is promulgating the great reforms in education. Universities and colleges will be created. Christian men are being sought as teachers. Clubs of scholars are being organized to cultivate and spread Western knowledge. Multitudes are inquiring into the new religion. It Multitudes of is estimated that many thousand Chinese are now earnestly inquir- i"'?''"*" ing concerning Christianity. All classes are feeling the great argument that has been made in their presence. The spiritual lethargy of centuries is being disturbed. 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 persecutions 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 un- measured antiquity, by all the millions of her uncounted hosts, by all her cruel and bloody superstitions, by all the loathsome abominations of her unregenerated heathenism, by all the anguish of God's Son in yonder garden and all his agony on yonder cross, by all the tides 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 doors are 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 alway, and will bring you off more than conqueror. 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 94 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Say of Opportanity the highest seat in the world's great council. I have poured upon you the full light of wisdom 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 in- trusted you with my most secret wish. I have commissioned you to proclaim a knowable salvation. I have multiplied your num- bers beyond all precedent. I have crowded your borders with schools and colleges, and have filled your homes with 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 opportunity shut in your face. I will go with you. 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, and a nation shall be born in a day." O God, if thou canst forgive our unbelief and our stumbling at the exceeding greatness and preciousness of thy promises, our ease in Zion, our lack of sacrifices for the cause for which thou hast sacrificed thy Son — if thou wilt forgive all our sins we will do better; we will follow wherever thou wilt lead. A Wide. spread Message "THE WORDS ARE SPIRIT AND LIFE" The Rev. W. I. Haven, D.D. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Where are these wonderful words of our Lord and Saviour? Where are these words that he gave to the multitude that was hungry for bread ? Where are these words that he gave to a populace that was eager to make him a king? They passed out into the Syrian air, where are they? I know that John Ruskin says that it is not adequate to describe the Holy Scriptures as the word of God ; that the word of God is something mightier, living in the life of the universe, and revealing itself in all the life of the Church. But I make no mistake when I say Uissioua THE BIBLE AT THE HEART OF MISSIONS 95 that, guided by the Holy Spirit, those words that passed out on that Eastern atmosphere were gathered up by inspired men and placed within the covers of this volume that the centuries have, not without good reason, called the word of God. And what a theme it would be to speak to you this morning of The Bible and this word as spirit and life in all the activities of mankind. But I have a simple theme — "The Relation of the Bible to the Heart of Christian Missions." The Bible has been a mighty factor in. Christian missions, because the Bible is charged with a world- consciousness. I know there are those that pretend to love and read the Bible who never look outside the circle of their own home or their own parish, but I have to doubt at this mo- ment whether they are really lovers of the word of God. For the open Bible is an open window unto all the earth. There is no book like it. It says, "The earth is filled with the glory of God." It says, "The shields of the earth belong unto God." It says that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." And there is that upper room where the group of disciples is gathered around the Saviour, and at that hour Jestis, bowing down, prays these remarkable words, "Father, as thou has sent me into the world, evep so have I also sent them into the world." I have recently come across a statement that beauti- fully illustrates this world-consciousness of the Bible. They say that the paper out of which the choicest Bibles are made is manufactured from the sails of ships that have mellowed their sails in every clime; and so the book itself given to mankind on this paper is filled with the atmosphere of all seas and all lands. In this book there is, too, a description of the world-need. "The whole world lieth in wickedness." And in this book there is the world command, "Go ye out into all the world and disciple all nations." It therefore is not strange that the Bible has been the one Anlnspira- volume out of which the great missionaries of the Church have received their inspiration to service. I believe if you could look into the heart of every missionary that has vitally touched this world, you would find that there has been at the beginning of his consecration an intimate contact with the Scripture. Gilmour, of Mongolia, tells us that when he was graduated from college and when he came to the hour of decision as to where he should place tion to Service A Pastor's Purpose A Chinese Convert Direct Converting Power 96 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION his ministry, he thought that he could do more effective vi^ork in the foreign field simply from prudential reasons, because there was only one missionary there to many thousands, while there were many ministers at home to few thousands. But, he said, prudential reasons had little to do with it, "there rang in my soul the message, 'Go, preach,' and the same message that said 'Preach,' said 'Go.' " In Norway, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was a pastor in a little village church, with his household about him, whose mind was beginning to be touched with a larger out- look. One day, thinking of Greenland and the people over there, his eyes fell upon the Gospel passage, "He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." He turned to his Lord and said, "I am ready, I will leave it to the time when my wife is ready." Not many years after, she came to her hus- band and said, "I am ready. Whither thou goest I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." So it was the same with one of our earliest Christian converts in our Chinese mission in South China, Hu Yong Mi. He was troubled with doubts and fears. He went to Dr. Mackay, who told him that he often read his Bible upon his knees when he was troubled with perplexities. The Chinaman went upon his knees and read his Bible. He was a painter by trade, but he tells us that he painted with his right hand and kept the Scriptures at his left that he might study them while he worked. Finally he said, "It came to me that I must leave all other work and go and dedicate myself to the preaching of the Gospel, for the words were burned into my soul, 'Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters,' and only in that way could I fulfill that Scripture." For thirty years he lived and labored and rejoiced and went to glory, obedient to the impulse that came from the divine book. The Bible is at the heart of Christian missions, because the Bible is the great helper of the missionary in all his undertakings. It goes before him and prepares the way. I could exhaust every minute that is given me this morning, showing that the Scriptures themselves have direct converting power ; that scattered broad- cast among the peoples they turn men to righteousness and per- suade souls to the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord. The Rev. Dr. Brown, a Presbyterian missionary for many years in South America, has recently written a volume called Latin America, THE BIBLE AT THE HEART OF MISSIONS 97 and in it he gives this statement concerning the early work of our Dr. Kidder in Brazil. He says : "Dr. Kidder sent many Scriptures out into the country. One of these Bibles fell into the hands of a young man who became enough interested in it to travel sixty miles to a priest to try and compare it with what he called the official Scriptures, to see if it was like it. He got to the priest, and the priest said, 'If you can find the book in my house, you are entirely welcome to study it, but I do not know where it is.' He rummaged around a day or two, found the book and that his was sufficiently like it, and started on his journey home. Years after- Working of ward travelers went up into that region and found there a *^® l^eavea Christian church, with members, some of whom preached regu- larly, some of whom cared for the sick and the poor, with a rule of living and doctrine that was simple and pure ; and that church had become the mother of other churches also, and not a Protes- tant missionary had ever entered that region." Mr. Tucker, of Brazil, has recently published a volume called The Bible in Bradl, and in it he tells of a presiding elder's district in that mission land with seven preaching stations and with more than a thousand converts, the whole district created by the work of the Scriptures sown broadcast there by the colporteurs. The Bible has convert- ing power. As Phillips Brooks said, "It is vital from end to end." I have confined myself to one country, but the record is the same all over the world. Bishop Parker, when he stood upon the platform of the Ecumenical Missionary Conference in New York, told the story of a young Mohammedan teacher in one of the government schools, who was restless and nervous one evening and went to a friend and said, "What shall I do?" The friend says, "Here is the Christian's book, you may like to read it." He took his New Testament and read it way into the night. That night was a wakeful night. The reading of that Testament led to his conversion. He to-day is a preacher in the Northwest India Conference. As the good bishop said in his address, "The seed Corn of Bible is the seed corn of the kingdom in this land." So the Bible *^^ Kingdom goes out to open up the way for the missionary. It is the chief instrument in the missionary's hands. Brewster, out in Hinghua, as Martin in India, as Judson in Burma, did not dare to lay the foundations without getting the Scriptures into the language of the people as soon as possible. So the Bible goes with the missionary as his chief helper and aid. 7 98 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Only Adequate Sesource Ziegenbalg Livingstone But I want to press home another thought, namely, that the Scriptures lie at the heart of Christian missions, because the Scriptures give to the missionary his only adequate resource for his work and toil. We say the strength of missions is wealth, and we wish that the Church would pour out its wealth. But •what good would wealth have done to Melville Cox on the sands of Liberia? We say that the power of missions is a highly or- ganized ecclesiasticism, and we want a mighty society. But of what value would a mighty ecclesiasticism have been to Payton, when he stood with his wife alone in the Hebrides, and heard the cries of savages at their cannibalistic rites in the forest? Wealth is good, yes; may God grant that it be poured out upon the altars of the Church. Ecclesiasticism is a mighty power ; may God grant that it may be increased. But what the missionary wants, when he stands alone under the stars and faces the dark- ness of heathenism, is the word of God that opens up to him the resources of infinite strength, that comes to him and says, "I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not ; I will help thee;" "Underneath are the everlasting arms;" "Of the increase of my kingdom there shall be no end;" "Lo, I am with you alway." I do not wonder that the missionaries are lovers of the Bible. I don't wonder that Ziegenbalg, the first missionary to India, tells us that, on the ship, when it took from the middle of November to the middle of the following July to reach India, "When the days were calm, we spent them in reading the Bible, and we learned not only the letter of the Bible but its inner sweetness." I don't wonder that when Stanley went into the heart of Africa to find Livingstone, he found him carrying with him the little Testament that he had gotten when he was a youth for learning to recite perfectly the 119th Psalm. And Livingstone had fed upon this Testament and nourished his soul upon it, and received strength for his wonderful mission through the power of the infinite book. The Bible is at the heart of Christian missions. Jesus Christ, the great Missionary, the Captain of our salvation, wherever he may have gotten his original impulse for his divine coming into the world to save it, got his daily nourishment for his mission from the Scriptures. And when he stands before the people there in the synagogue at Nazareth and lays out his missionary propa- ganda that includes the Gentiles, he begins with quoting the THE BIBLE AT THE HEART OF MISSIONS 99 Scripture and says, "The Spirit hathr anointed me to preacli the Gospel." When the Church has been saturated with the Scriptures it Missionary has been fired with missionary zeal. The first missionaries that ^**^ went out to the East were from the Pietists, who restored the Bible to a place in their hearts. The Moravian missionaries, the most wonderful missionaries in many respects the world lias ever known, went from a Bible-loving people. Every act of this people was associated with the Scriptures. You remember that picture of Christian David, with his followers, when he came to the estate of Count Zinzendorf, where these exiles had been given a home, and struck his ax into the tree, and said, "Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God." More than two thousand missionaries went out from that Moravian Church. This story is a miracle almost of missionary enthusiasm. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries England was An Open getting hold of the Bible. The Bible was being translated into f^j'^e^ered the tongue of the people, was getting out among the people, and when our Wesleyan fathers had made the Bible an open book, in the mines of Cornwall, in the Welsh mountains, and on the sea- coast by Bristol, in the valleys of Ireland and when the English people through the ministry of the Wesleyan itinerants had learned to love the Bible, then there sprung up the mighty mis- sionary movements that have been increasing until this hour, nourished in the Scriptures, and fed thereon. And I come to you this morning to say that if our Church wants to take a mighty step forward, it needs, pastor and people, to bathe itself in the Scriptures. When we see the open Bible loved and revered in our homes as we saw it in our fathers' homes, then the mis- sionary fire will burn with increasing flame in the heart of the Church. The mother of the first missionary to India was a quiet, humble A Great woman, living in a little town of Saxony. When she came to die measure she gathered her children about her and said, "Children, I have laid up a great treasure for you." "A great treasure?" said the eldest daughter, with wonder. "Mother, where is it?" "It is in my Bible," said the mother, "seek and you will find it. I have wet every page with my tears." No wonder that her son went 100 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION forth to burn out his life at thirty-six, facing the darkness of that heathen land. When we as pastors, when the Church wets its Bible with its tears, it will be mightily stirred, it will move for- ward irresistibly to the conquest of this world for Him for whom the book claims it, the Lord of life and glory ! Ethics and Life A Scrutiny of Results THE NEGRO A MISSIONARY INVEST- MENT, A MISSIONARY INVESTOR The Rev. J. W. E. Bowen, D.D. In an age of commercialism, when monetary values are attached to almost every act and fact in life, and when the cry upon so many lips in this rush of life is, "Does it pay?" it is refreshing to turn aside and consider the spiritual power, content, and import of great movements. We may thank God that he has denied us the power of constructing scales that can weigh thought, heart, life, spirit. Ethics and life cannot be weighed in the scales of mathematics, for they live and move and have their being in an atmosphere that sense and sin cannot appreciate. While it is true that Christianity must never stop to count the cost of the redemption of a soul, it is equally true that she must stop to see whether she has redeemed that soul. Hers is not to reason why, but hers is to ask what? It is the part of common sense, therefore, as well as a religious duty to canvass the results of a course of action in order to ascertain whether these results measure up to the outlay of thought, life, and money. In this spirit, we may ask. Does it pay? It is a safe and worthy dictum to lay down at the opening of this inquiry to say, if the results in the redemption of the Amer- ican negro or any other race are not commensurate with the vast outlay ; if we are not working a divine miracle in the man himself and have not brought him into the ranks as a helper of his brethren, and if our methods are those usually employed in this kind of work, then it would be no surrender of principle to cease this outlay and inquire into the causes of this failure and adopt other methods, for outlay is not to be an incident but a means to salvation. With these preliminary thoughts to guide us, let us take up the first half of our subject : "The Negro as a Missionary Investment." THE NEGRO AND MISSIONS lOI The mightiest orator of the negro race was fond of saying that The standard the very best way to judge the negro was to look downward "f Judgment whence he came, and not upward whither he goeth. This is a safe canon for judging any people, and it finds a scientific support in the accepted theory that pedigree or history and environment are two of the three creative factors in the life of a people. History has a continuity that requires ages to break, and even under a highly civilized and beautifully cultured state we may dis- cover the earmarks of an ancient birth. The persistence of these earmarks is a visible argument of the hypnotic grip of the past upon the present. The observer of times and the student of history has no difficuUy in reading these odd hieroglyphics in the cuhured state of the most advanced of to-day. In the children of nature, as seen in the negro of to-day, the traditions and practices of their heathenish state may be read by a schoolboy. He has the fresh green odor of the forests of Africa, and the brogue of his native African jargon may be heard in almost every sentence he utters when he attempts to speak the king's language. Every people is the physical representation of their moral, social, and intellectual habitat, and no abiding change can come until new ideals and principles have become clearly apprehended in thought and spirit and discovered to be superior in meeting the wants of men, and until these have become dominant in their spirits. There must be a war between the old and the new for supremacy. Therefore the persistence of characteristics upon a people in the passage from one form of life to another is not an exclusive racial trait, but a universally human trait. These are but the graveclothes upon the man who is coming forth from a dead past into a living present. They are to be removed that the new life may clothe itself in the garments of a well-ordered living community. Discarding the emotional temper of a modern prophet who a look "sees visions and dreams dreams" and prophesies immense good Backward or overwhelming evil, and adopting the cold sense of a student of affairs, let us look backward over the shoulders of the past and see what has been accomplished for the American negro through the agency of the missionary work of the Church. The facts fully support the statement that American Christianity has achieved a work in the conversion and elevation of the negro such as cannot be surpassed in the history of missionary effort. We 102 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION are too near the achievement to appreciate its large significance, and in this case, as in others, distance would clarify our vision and lend enchantment to the view. The American negro pre- sented such a picture of dense ignorance and indescribable stupidity so recently as the beginning of the last century that those unfamiliar to-day with history would be likely to regard the facts as incredible. At that period, while the nation had discountenaced the slave trade with prohibitive and penal legisla- tion, there was not sufficient moral power in the land to enforce the legislation and prevent the landing of the unfledged heathen upon these shores. That law, framed by legal acumen and with lofty purposes, became inoperative because of the lack of a public sentiment to give it life. Certain sections of this land could present at that time a heterogeneous mass of heathenism that could be surpassed only by a like mass of Hottentots on their native heath. This statement is not a criticism; it is the bald statement of fact. The moral status of the nation could not do any more than was done at that time for that dense and stolid A Mass of mass of ignorance. In moral notions they were a blank ; in gnorance religious conceptions they were grossly superstitious, and they had as clear an idea of civil government and the requirements of the moral law as a baby has of Kant's "Categorical Imperative." It cannot be charged that the social condition into which the be- nighted pagan was thrust was responsible for his lack of civilized views. This state of mind and soul is the native atmosphere of the sleeping millions of heathens. This deplorable condition of the American negro is unmatched by anything in the nation during its century and a half of existence. Human reason hesitates to accept without convincing proof, in these days of light and intel- ligence, any statement that charges any considerable number of its present citizenship with recent paganism. But these statements can be well authenticated by unvarnished history. These views are not the fancies of verdant youth or the ravings and dis- colorations of unbalanced minds ; they are the simple facts known to contemporaries, read by the eye of history in unchanging type, and they are the statements of men of character and acumen in the study of events. A look downward into the pit whence the black man was digged will convince the greatest doubter of the tremendous work accomplished and of the divine daring involved in the undertaking. The poetic statement, "The Greeks are at THE NEGRO AND MISSIONS IO3 our doors," has had its stubborn prose written in the presence of the negro on this continent from its beginning as a moral con- tinent, and had not Christian men and women faced the issue and shouldered the obligation the nation might have heard the threat- ening and despondent warning of Delilah to the sleeping and recreant giant, "Samson, the Philistines are upon thee." Let us ask the question. What has been the investment of the Christian Church in the negro for his redemption? Here again we run upon the truth that the forces that bring about a result cannot be computed in numbers or enumerated in words. The best things of the Christian Church spurn the statistical columns. The very atmosphere is saturated with the divine power that works a transformation in men's minds. The best we can do is to tabulate a few figures that represent the financial contribution of the Church through her agencies for clothing that man in his right mind. The Missionary Society of our Church has put into the South- The Church's ern field during the last ten years, from 1893 to 1902, for the "'^'*™*"' negro, the princely amount of $465,160. This is but one item in the count of the large gifts of the Church for this particular phase of our work. Add to this amount the appropriations of the Board of Education of our Church for the education of needy students; of the Church Extension Society for church building among the people ; of the Sunday School Union and Tract Society for the planting of new Sunday schools and for the assistance to schools already in operation ; of the Woman's Home Missionary Society for the erection of Homes of domestic economy and the running of the same for the young women of the race; and of the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society for the erection and maintenance of institutions of high grade throughout the South, that the youth of that people may have an even chance ill getting an education, and also those contributions through the other channels of the Church not called benevolent, and you will have an amount that fairly amazes one. These vast numbers are an expression of an heroic faith in God Heroic Faith and of a splendid faith in the great outcome of the negro race. This disinterested giving for the conversion of the recently liberated slave is cut from the same piece of cloth that Lecky used in his History of European Morals when he discovered the trium- phant faith of the noble spirits who knocked the chains from the 104 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION limbs of the patient, dumb-driven slave. Were this the full measure of our Church's contribution of this general cause the negro would be placed under lasting gratitude. But as a repre- sentative of that people I would be untrue to the instincts of my nature and false to the facts did I not refer to the noble spirits of those dark days, "who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, cut of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aHens," and "of whom the world was not worthy." Eesuits What is the result? In investigating the result of spiritual endeavor we must not be content with the statistical summaries of our Conference and census reports. These reports are grati- fying in what they say, but they are totally inadequate to compress within figures the full result of our work. From these we learn that the entire Church communicants of the race are a trifle more than 4,000,000, while the whole race of 8,000,000 has been rescued from barbarism. Of this large number of Church members, our own Church people of color number 300,000, scattered in twenty home Conferences and one foreign Conference. These figures would mean only so many heads if there were no evidences of enlarged character among that constituency. A revival that results mostly in an increase of "heads" and a counting of "noses" has failed of the true power intended for this exercise of Christian power and faith. It not infrequently happens that the best revivals come and go with not a single new "head" added to those already in the church. Increase in church membership from a numerical point of view is desirable and not to be despised. It should be sought after; for there is great spiritual momentum in a large body. But it should be borne in mind that increase in church membership does not mean exclusively increase in "church numbership." It may mean, and it should mean, increase of power in the membership as well as increase of numbers. A revival should result first in an intensification of spiritual life as well as an extension in numbers. We must have both intensive and extensive life. It is within the limits of truth to say that the mere swelling of the numbers catches at the shadow and misses the power. God warned his people through the ancient prophet that their victories came "not by might, nor by power (numbers). THE NEGRO AND MISSIONS I05 but by my Spirit." It is a gratifying fact, however, to note that in this large number of negro Christians so many have received the power of the upper world into their hearts. We may safely say that the race has been practically redeemed or snatched from the burning. It has been converted and brought into the Chris- tian Church. Such result cannot be duplicated in missionary annals within the same length of time in any other section of the globe. No one will claim that all of the "brothers in black" whose Perfection names are enrolled on the church record are in life and spirit what ""^ "^^^ the Scriptures demand ; many of them are grossly imperfect. The failure of the negroes to embody in their life the ethical principles of the Scriptures has provoked occasional derision on the part of certain well-meaning persons. This failure is no new thing under the sun, and can be easily explained. It has been the burden of the Christian Church from its inauguration to bring her com- municants to recognize that faith without works is dead ; that culture was foreordained for service ; that practice and morals should go hand in hand, and that religion and life were never meant to be separated. These defects are the natural accompani- ments of a people's effort in passing from one state to another. They are in the gulf of transition from irresponsibility to respon- sibility, from ignorance to intelligence, from barabarism to civilization, from stupidity to culture, and from a life of sin to a life of righteousness among men and of holiness toward God. Not until the teachings or principles of an institution or cause are clearly apprehended in thought as to their meaning, purport, and superiority over former views and conceptions can those ideas or principles be fully interpreted in life, applied in morals, and practiced in faith. These recent recruits to the ranks of the King's army see men at first "as trees walking;" their eyes are but half open. Here comes the chance of the Christian Church to take these by the hand who are feeling their way after truth and, Philip-like, lead these sable Greeks to the Master of truth. Their minds are filled with childish notions, and they are not yet able to discover the bearing of abstract truth upon the concrete realities of life. The relation of piety to Christianity and the significance of virtue is a product of persistent individual-choice effort. These higher lines of life issue forth from the heart transformed from sinfulness and conformed to the pattern in the I06 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Time mount. It requires a long period to bring this result. The dis- Requirod ^^j^^.^ ^^.^^ ^ jj£g ^f jj^g g^^gg forms of barbarism or semi- civilized life to the beauty, power, and glory of a life transformed through and through cannot be counted with ease and alacrity. Spirit life, Holy-Spirit life, is the crown of the Gospel life; it is the final product of all the struggle and heartache of the soul. Does it Pay 1 To bring this to pass is the work of the Church. It has been pointed out by a very astute observer and careful thinker — the late Bishop of London — that "the proper order in the develop- ment of mankind is first to humanize, second, moralize, and lastly spiritualize." Thus it will appear that the conversion of the American negro to the Christianity of the Bible is the laurel wreath to crown the brow of modern missions. Ask the question again, Does it pay? and the answer is forthcoming: It pays to save a race from sin. The response of the race to these saving efforts has been spon- taneous and fruitful. A new people practically has been added to the family of civilized peoples in this work. They stand clothed in their right mind, singing the hymn of evangelical Christianity, and illustrating in a humble way through their weak efforts the power of the Christian religion. These results will be read in the history of our times in the succeeding generations with an interest that is akin to the interest manifested by the schoolboy in reading The Arabian Nights. To the question. What hast thou wrought? the negro race stands up as the best results of Christian work in these latter days and points to its redeemed millions as the crown and reward of these labors. The Negro's The second part of the theme must now be considered : "The Negro as a Missionary Investor." The actual cash surrender of negro redemption must of necessity be insignificantly small when compared with the great gifts of the more fortunate in the Church. We must bear in mind that the gifts of the Church are in consecrated personalities as well as in money. It is well to lift our eyes from the purely financial contribution of the race. It is no new or wild statement to make, that, left to ourselves, we could not carry on effectually the work of the race's redemption. The first movement toward the true development of a people is that of self-support. The aim of our system is to develop in the individual and race that spirit that makes them stand upon their feet. Babyhood must be supported and fostered. Manhood sup- THE NEGRO AND MISSIONS 107 ports and fosters. All effort for the man and race must aim at increasing his power and developing in him the true spirit of manhood. The real man has not awakened until he realizes his duty to undertake the burden of life. As soon as a man can bear his burden he ought to be called upon to bear it ; for the constant carrying of a people weakens their power and paralyzes their energy and unfits them for life. Apply these simple canons to the Christian negro and note the self-support result. It has been occasionally affirmed that the negro is not developing in the spirit of self-support. The reasonable demand of self -development and self-support is not that it should be in spasmodic efforts, be they never so large in results, but in a steady forward movement. If the movement is even and regular, the end is obtained. 'Twere better by far that the growth should be in small proportion but persistent in its movement than that it should be otherwise. The negro has made commendable progress in these lines. The best illustration of this movement is the con- tribution of our colored constituents last year. The missionary appropriation to our colored work last year was $40,000. But the colored people gave of that amount $20,000, making the actual gift of the Church a trifle over $20,000, or an average of $1,000 per Conference for twenty Annual Conferences among them. It must be admitted, even by the hypercritical who fears that we will spoil our colored membership by over-appropriation, that this appropriation to the evangelization of the thousands and hundreds of thousands within the bounds of each Conference cannot accomplish the direful result. It is admitted by many thoughtful colored men who are most anxious for self-support that the steps in that direction are not rapid enough and that some new method must be instituted to secure the desired end. They are ready to accept a feasible plan that will bring about this end and that will at the same time prevent evils in its working. Self-support is the ideal state to reach unto. However, we The Ideal must guard against that disintegrating element that sometimes creeps into it, called by the pleasing term "self-complacency." To look only at one side of these facts will warp our judgment. Our people of color in the Church have made and are still making an effort to place themselves upon a firm basis in Christian life. Twenty thousand dollars, to say the least, is a respectable begin- ning in that direction, especially when it is fifty per cent of their io8 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Self-depend- eace A Comparison general appropriation. Their own evangelization is a part of the problem of the general evangelization of the vi^orld, and hence they have contributed by so much to the general cause. But there is another phase of this question that should be presented before this body. It hath been said by those who are supposed to know the facts that the negro membership of our Church are less self-dependent than the membership of exclusively negro communions. It is further said that those exclusive communions raise more benevo- lent money in toto and per capita than we do ; that the missionary contributions of our own people are insignificant when compared with those of other denominations. In sum, it is averred that our missionary appropriations tend to weaken our people, pauperize their spirit, and deprive them of those vigorous essentials seen in others of their kith and kin ; and that because of these facts the missionary appropriation should be completely withdrawn and our black constituency taught violently and suddenly the supreme lesson of self-support. It should be said that these men who speak in this fashion are men of large wisdom, and that they would not do violence to the cause in which their hearts are buried, nor do they intend to check that spirit in the people they so much desire to see developed. But it is equally evident to us that all the facts have not been laid before their scrutinizing minds. Let us examine this subject. In the first place, we must exclude from this comparison the negroes of the small communions and those of the Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, for the manifest reason that these people are not required to make contributions to these general causes. Our eyes are invaribly fixed in such discussions upon the greatest negro Methodist bodies in the world, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the next largest of its kind, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Both of these Churches are doing heroic service for Christ in the elevation of the race. I shall confine myself to the strongest of them, using their short term "Bethel" to designate them. This Church has a member- ship, according to its own report, approaching three quarters of a million, a large body of which .is in the United States and a goodly number in the West Indies, some in Canada and also in Africa. This Church of negroes is great in many respects; it THE NEGRO AND MISSIONS I09 has illustrated as no other similar body what negroes are capable Gifts of of doing when left to themselves. They deserve more than a ^e^el Church passing notice in a review of the missionary forces of the world. Their quadrennial report under the missionary secretary, the Rev. H. B. Parks, D.D., contains these interesting summaries of their collections: 1897, total collection, $11,050.37; 1898, $11,967.35 ; 1899, $16,301.55; 1900, $i9,557-54- Grand total, $58,876.81. An analysis of these figures will disclose the following facts: They have included in the sum total three items that are out of place in this tabulation. The "Special Donations" of $2,473.27, the "Woman's Fund" of $444.39, and the "borrowed money" of $13,039.73 have no place whatever in this table as representing the collections from the people. Deducting these amounts of $15,957-39 from the $58,876.81 leaves a net total of $42,919.42, which represents the Easter collection of $33,705.40, and the missionary collection given by the preachers of the Conferences, $9,214.02. This amount is the net missionary contribution that passed through their general treasury. Allow the legitimacy of fifty per cent of the collection of the Woman's Home and Foreign Society, which is $444.39, and the "Special Donations" of $2,473.27, and you have a total of $45,837.08. Add to this amount the sixty per cent of the missionary money paid by the preachers that was retained by the Annual Conferences, a sum amounting to $13,821.03, and the fifty per cent of the Woman's Home and Foreign Society retained also by the Conferences, amounting to $444.39, and you have, as the grand total of missionary money collected by that Church of 700,000 members $60,102.50. This amount means that the 700,000 members of this great Church gave for the cause of missions, home and foreign, including the gifts of the Woman's Home and Foreign Society, a trifle over eight and one half cents per member for the quadrennium, or two cents, or two cents and one mill, per annum per member. But the negro membership of our Church, numbering less than 300,000, exclusive of their collections for the Woman's Home A Favorable Missionary Society and the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, collected and paid into the general inissionary treasury in the same period of time the splendid amount of $65,516.84, which is twenty- one cents and seven mills per member, or five cents and four mills each year. Small as this amount is, it exceeds the amount given by the Bethel Church for the quadrennium by $5,414.34, or it no THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION exceeds their per capita giving by three cents and three mills per year, or for the entire period by thirteen cents and two mills per member. It is also to be noted that we have three colored Con- ferences among us — Washington, Delaware, South Carolina — that raised for benevolences $25,000 a year. That amount indicates great activity among our brethren. I am safe in saying, according to the figures thus far given for the quadrennium that the close of the present quadrennium will show that our people of color have raised for missions $75,000, and with the other benevo- lences thrown in the aggregate will be very nearly $200,000. Leadership Another important fact must be borne in mind: the Bethel people had the inspiring presence and superior service of thirteen bishops, who were in almost every community and church, urging, pleading, directing, and helping their people to make this contri- bution for the redemption of the race and the world. Moreover, they have had the presence and help of a corresponding secretary in the person of the Rev. H. B. Parks, D.D., who travels inces- santly among the people and lays the cause upon their hearts with an eloquent plea that can scarcely be excelled, while the negro membership of our Church had only the presence of a bishop in an Annual Conference for five days and occasional visits of a secretary of a missionary society from three to eight years apart. This statement has not the breath of fault-finding in it. It is a simple announcement of a fact. A reason can be given for the absence of a missionary secretary that would satisfy the judgment of any well-thinking man. The South is poor, and the negroes are poorer, and it would not be wise policy on the part of the Church to have these general officers neglect the larger fields that are able to make large contributions for the Church and give their time to the weaker sections, but it is also true that the weaker sections will remain weaker until some better provision is made for them in the way of direct personal contact and inspiration. This splendid work, small as it is, is the fruit of the devotion of our hard-worked, poorly paid, and often discouraged pastors. I present these figures not to criticise or minimize, but merely to state our case in one point, and to show that we are not deserving of the severe criticism administered us by our friends, and also to show that even with no "straw" we are making respectable brick. What think you would be the result were we to have officials whose brains and heart are filled with the spirit of the THE NEGRO AND MISSIONS III Church, men of clear vision who appreciate what their offices mean to the Church, their race, and the world, and who, in the spirit of their Master would go and inspire the people to self-help and bring results? Aside from this simple response on the part of this people may Eesults in I ask, are we to expect great money returns for money invested Character in the redemption of a race? The Methodist Episcopal Church did not go into that Southern field to fill her coffers with money, or with an expectation that large financial returns would repay the consecration of her heroes and the gifts of philanthropic men and women. I bring you not silver and gold, but I bring you the confidence and love of three hundred thousand black faces, but with hearts washed clean in the blood of the Lamb. I bring you twenty Conferences in the South, with fifty per cent of the preach- ers therein respectably educated, and another twenty-five per cent thoroughly educated and consecrated, who are doing a royal service upon starvation pay that the kingdoms of this earth may become the kingdoms of Christ. I bring you a race loyal to our flag, true to our institutions, and ready to defend these with their hearts' best blood. Finally, I bring you not silver and gold, but human character An Advance that has been redeemed and that shall shine in the diadem of the ^'"i''*** kingdom. Retreat! Nay! Retrench! Nay! a thousand times nay! Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward. I have but one suggestion to make, and that comes up out of the heart yearnings of those sable sons of the Church, who are struggling under great difficulties, namely, give them well-ap- pointed, God-selected, thoroughly consecrated leaders, and the years will come on when the Church will see that for every tear shed and for every dollar invested the negro race will present divine characters, cleansed, purified, educated, fit for the Master's use. 112 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION OUR FOREIGN POPULATIONS AND HOW TO REACH THEM The Rev. G. B. Addicks, D.D. A Multitude TiiERE was a time when the word "mission" suggested to us of Foreigners the work of the Church in far-away heathen lands, where the inhabitants grope in darkness without the light of the Gospel and the knowledge of the living God. But since the millions of foreigners are within our very gates it is no longer so; for we are surrounded by vast mission fields at home, some of which we have entered with fair results. But the exigency of the case demands that we put forth organized effort in new directions and strengthen our forces where we have made a good beginning, ^he field is both important and promising. It is important be- cause the multitudes who come here are souls for whom our Saviour died, and who as strangers in a strange land need the help and sympathy of the Christian people even more than they did at home, which help if it be not given by the Church they will seek elsewhere. It is important also because of their influence in society and their power at the ballot box. They are here to stay, and will help to build or help to destroy this government according as they may be led. They come here (with the exception of a few thousand on the western coast) to make this country their home and to make an honest living. But they bring with them wrong Wrong Views views of our republican form of government, and some of the lower classes interpret civil liberty to mean personal liberty, and, blindly following the lead of an antichristian and anarchistic element in this country, antagonize our free institutions, desecrate our Sabbath, despise the Church, and violate the laws which secure life, liberty, and protection to them ; while the Christian and Americanized foreigner upholds the government, loves our institutions, keeps our laws, and feeling the pulsebeats of this nation in its nobler purposes in his own heart will stand by our flag even to sacrificing his life. Such is the difference if a Chris- tian or an antichristian influence is brought to bear upon them. The It is a promising field, because our foreigners are not heathen. not Heathen '^^^ better classes are acquainted with the Christian Church and know its doctrines ; they have the Bible and are well versed in it. But they know the Church as a dead Church and the Bible as a WORK AMONG FOREIGNERS IN AMERICA II3 book of history and doctrine only. They have not learned the meaning of the Christ-life in the soul ; they have not a personal religious experience. But when they are brought under the influence of the living Word, as it is preached by converted men, they are moved to repentance, and adjusting this living truth to their mechanically acquired religious knowledge they grasp Jesus in faith as their personal Saviour and with such a basic knowl- edge, as a rule, they hold fast to the end. Even the less favored Latin and Greek races that throng our shores are not heathen, for they are monotheists, which means they are several centuries in advance of the heathen in faith. I therefore feel free to emphasize this great home missionary field as a promising field, which is broken only in part, it may be, but in part also it is sown with good seed and in part it is ripe unto the harvest. The reaching of these foreigners, I take it, means more than HowtoEeacii simply to preach to them and promiscuously to distribute Chris- *™ tian literature among them, so that it can be said the Gospel has been offered them. It means that we shall bring them under the saving influence of the Gospel so that they may be born again into a new life in Christ Jesus. It is sometimes forgotten that although the Gospel is suited to the needs of all it is a delicate and discriminating task to dispense it in a way suited to the needs of the different classes. I can make only an attempt at answering the question of my subject, and what I say may be applicable in part to the whole Church. I. We must preach the Gospel to them. We might preach Preach the many other things for their enlightenment, but if we would reach "^P*^ them in order to save them we must preach the Gospel. We certainly can welcome every new light which may be thrown on the chronology, trustworthiness, composition, and authorship of the books of the Bible, for a better understanding and the estab- lishment of the genuineness of the text, bSt we should not preach higher criticism as such, to the foreigners, as it would remind them of men of the pantheistic, the rationalistic, and negative tendencies of thought, while the Gospel pure and simple reminds them of especially pious and no less scholarly men and of the admonitions and prayers of their parents and the songs of their childhood, all of which touch their hearts rather than their heads only, for religion is a thing of the heart and of faith. We must be entirely in sympathy with all scientific research, 114 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION What not to Preach The Gospel's £fScacy but we should not preach evolution as the modus operandi of creation, because it is only an hypothesis and uncertain theory, since the origin of plant and animal life lies in the field of specu- lation, outside and beyond the field of scientific experiments and observations. To preach evolution would undermine the faith of the common people in the Bible story of creation without giving them a satisfying substitute and would place in the hands of the better educated a weapon of much fruitless argument. Any un- settling of the faith of the people in the Bible will react upon the Church and weaken our missionary effort. We must preach the Gospel as the tried and tested truth, given us for our salvation, and the whole Bible as the sure word of God. Neither is it wise to preach reform to the foreigners in order to reach them, as much as we desire their reformation. We must follow the example of Wesley, in Litchfield, where he found the people reeling in drunkenness nightly, yet said little about temperance, but preached the Gospel, with the result of a great revival and an abandonment of the part of the people of their immoral habits. It is difficult, indeed almost impossible, to reform a foreigner before his conversion, but when he has been born to a new life he is a total abstainer and often a prohibitionist from conviction. The Gospel must be preached first, the heart must be changed first, the kingdom of God must first be built up as a governing power, and the reformation of character will follow as a natural and God-intended consequence, just as a good tree will bring forth good fruit. I am afraid we as a whole Church have been trying to reform men from their sins rather than to save them from their sins, and have reversed God's order — first salvation, then reformation. 2. We must have faith in the efficacy of the Gospel. We have branded the infidelity which doubts or denies the existence of God with such names as agpnosticism, rationalism, skepticism, materialism, and made it almost harmless by taking a positive stand against it as a Church. But there is another kind of un- belief, which consists in practically denying the power of the Gospel to save every one that believeth, and consequently denying that it is the God-ordained medium through which humanity is to be saved. We too often preach and pray and sing without expecting any definite results, without faith that some sinner will repent and turn to God for salvation. This unbelief is excused WORK AMONG FOREIGNERS IN AMERICA II5 or justified by a persuasion that tiie sermon has pleased, or the service has entertained the audience, or that the word has been preached as a witness against them, so they will have no excuse. Preaching the Gospel is too serious business to be considered as a means of entertainment, and too full of hope and promise to be preached as a witness against the hearers, which is an incidental result, if they do not accept it. We should preach it as a witness to them, that is, we should be witnesses by word of mouth and power of spirit for the truth and efficacy of the Gospel, and thus carry out the great commission of Christ to preach the Gospel to all nations and to disciple them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. For it is this faith- less preaching that has alienated the masses from the churches in Europe and that will never attract them to the churches in America. 3. We must have faith in the Gospel as a power unto salvation A Power unto of all peoples. We often hear it said : "The Gospel has done much * "^ for the Anglo-Saxons, for it seems especially suited for their needs." But of certain classes we say, they are hard to reach, and of others, they cannot be reached at all. The Gospel has brought rich blessings to the Anglo-Saxon race, spiritual, intel- lectual, and material. But there are the great Teutonic peoples, the Frisians, the Germans, the Swedes, the Norwegians, and the Danish. And there are the Slavs, filling Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, and Bohemia with teeming millions. There are also the Latin races of Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, as well as the Greeks and Jews, who all throng our shores, not to speak of the Indian, the Chinese, the African, and the Arab, who dwell in foreign coun- tries. What authority have we for saying that the Gospel is not suited to the needs of all these people? Why should we halt this side of a possible, yes, a necessary salvation for all humanity? Was God made manifest in the flesh of one race only, of the Anglo-Saxon or the German? No, God was manifested in the flesh. Was he the son of David only? No, he was the Son of Man, of humanity. Was he a high priest for only one nation after the order of Aaron, who sacrificed for Israel only? No, he was a high priest for all peoples eternally after the order of Melchizedek. Then the fact that the Gospel has brought such rich blessings to the Anglo-Saxon race should serve as an incentive to preach it to all peoples. So far from discouraging ii6 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Mother Tongue The Level of Companion- ship Personal Work US, the people to whom it has brought salvation and civilization should be an earnest and sure first fruits of the approaching harvest of the myriads of unsaved in every land under the sun. 4. We must use the language of the people among whom we work. If the truth shall appeal to the reason of the hearer, if the hidden springs of emotion shall be touched, it must be done by the means of the mother tongue. I was once asked by an English- speaking Methodist minister why we Germans did not come over to the English-speaking church and worship in the language of our country and be patriotic. I asked him if he had had any experience with Germans. He answered that he had been among Germans twenty-five years and at times where they had no church. "How many of these Germans were converted and joined your church?" I asked. "Well," he answered, "come to think, not any." If you would count the number of Christians who are reached in their native tongue and also those who have been brought to Christ by means of a foreign language the proportion would be one to one hundred or five hundred in favor of the vernacular. 5. We must meet the foreigners on their level. I do not say go up or down to their level. In obedience to the command of Christ we must go out to them, as they are not expected to come to us first, and hold services among them in their homes, in schoolhouses, in tents, in churches of other denominations until we can gather them in churches of our own. We must gather their children into Sunday school and kindergarten and win these children and the parents through the children. We must not show an air of superiority. We must work on their level ; we must be familiar with their religious thinking and their intellec- tual habits. We must build on what faith they already possess, without denying any truth existing in their minds. We should identify ourselves with them, live with them, eat and drink with them, make their welfare our welfare, bear the reproaches that are heaped upon foreigners in this country, just as Christ ate and drank with the publicans and sinners and shared the stigma attached to their station, in order that he might reach them. 6. We must do personal work in our effort to save them. We can do personal work by kind words. We have done much general work in our services, and of late not enough personal work among the people. As a Church we depend too much on WORK AMONG FOREIGNERS IN AMERICA 11^ outside help; we have even come to depend somewhat on traveling evangelists, with their new books and photos, who come and go and whose influence, barring noble exceptions, goes with them. I would not, however, disparage revival efforts, but the pastor should be the leader. Though he may be assisted by some proper colaborers, he is the Church-appointed and God-ordained person to win souls in his parish. He is the only suitable person to build up his own congregation. But his revival effort should The Pastor's be followed up by personal effort on the part of himself and of jg^jT"'^ carefully selected members of his church. We sometimes have a certain false fear or shame in approaching the unconverted on the all-important question of their soul's salvation, which they, however, expect us to do, and which we certainly must do or share the responsibility of their being lost. A young professor in one of our schools won the confidence of a bright skeptical young student. Both attended the same revival meetings held at the college — one to worship, the other apparently to criticise. Be- tween meetings they talked on all subjects except religion, although the professor heard a voice ever prompting him to open that subject also. Finally in a room alone with the student he hesitatingly said, "Mr. Smith, I have been wanting to talk to you about being a Christian, but — " and to his surprise and delight the student answered : "I have been expecting it, professor, and I am glad you opened that subject. I am not satisfied with my- self." Then the way was open for heart-to-heart work. They talked and consulted the Bible on the subject of religion just as they conversed on other subjects, and on their knees prayed to God for light. And soon the student accepted Christ as his personal Saviour and became an enthusiastic worker among his fellow-students. This is the kind of work most needed in our Church to-day. What strides the Church would make if there were only a score of such valuable assistants to each pastor ! This personal contact may be opened through a tract gotten up Tract in an attractive form and presented in a proper spirit. I fear we have been neglecting the old-time systematic and conscientious distribution of the tract. In emphasizing the Gospel tract I would not reflect upon our Church papers, which cannot serve as a sub- stitute for a tract. The Church paper comes to our Christian homes, aiding the pastor in building up the kingdom of God within the Church, and if sent to non-Christian homes it must Il8 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION necessarily lack the definiteness and purposefulness of a tract carefully selected according to the needs of the receiver, as also the personality vifhich is felt in the presentation of such a tract by a Christian man or woman who can follow up the results with further helpfulness. A thousand suitable persons should be found in every average Conference to assist the pastors as conscientious and systematic tract bearers. Help in Need Again this helpful religious contact may be introduced by a good deed or any act of kindness. There is nothing that the stranger within our gates appreciates more than help in need, and comfort in distress, when poverty stares him in the face, when sickness enters his home, or when death takes away a dear one. Though he may never have attended a church in this country, he will become affectionately attached to the man or woman who brings him aid at this time and directs him to Jesus as his friend and will accept an invitation to attend church, especially if it be from a countryman. If the visitor be a minister he will be called again, perhaps to baptize a child or to perform a marriage cere- mony, when friends of the family will be present and a larger field of influence will open to him. This has ever been one of the many duties of the minister which he has found too little time to per- form. But, thank God, we are coming to his aid by our hospitals and deaconesses and nurses, which we hope may so multiply that we will have help in every congregation from these agencies which so strikingly exhibit the spirit of Christ. The Port Then let me draw attention also to our port mission, where the missionary meets the foreigner as he first steps upon our shores. This work has not prospered in the German mission of our Church of late, because the burden being too heavy for the East German Conference alone, the emigrant house was sold, and we now have only an office and a missionary, who, for lack of funds, can give only part of his time to this blessed work. It should be revived, however, and might be enlarged to a mission for all nationalities, which could work in harmony with a similar mission in Bremen and other foreign ports. There is no more hopeful mission than a port mission, where the foreigner receives his first impression in a new country before he has chosen his worldly associates, and where he can be directed to one of our ministers or other good men who can continue the good work begun here. I would suggest that the Missionary Board give this matter con- MiBSiOD WORK AMONG FOREIGNERS IN AMERICA II9 sideration and also give the whole question of missions among our foreigners special attention as a promising, important and, if I may so call it, patriotic mission field, which is constantly being replenished and overfilled with new material from abroad, now from Germany, then from Italy, and at present in great numbers from Norway and Sweden. This material must be Christianized and Americanized in the best sense of these words. It is impor- tant enough to receive special department supervision of the Church, so that its connectional interests may be better built up by organized harmonious effort, at least in each nationality. Both on the high ground of love and duty and from a prudential point of view it will pay the Church a hundredfold to turn more of its energies and moneys toward building up the eleemosynary and educational as well as the missionary departments of our work among the foreigners. We have come up from small beginnings to considerable The Day of numbers in spite of discouragements, and we have no reason to ®™*'' Things dispair. Our increase has generally been proportionate to the increase of the mother Church, and in no year have we had a decrease. Only about sixty-five years ago a lonely foreigner wandered about in this country, attending now one or another Mehodist meetings under deep conviction of sin. He accepts a position as professor of Hebrew and Greek, but at night he sits at the feet of a humble cobbler, a man of strong faith. Now he is at the mourners' bench with scores of others. And as he ob- serves how one after another is made glad in the Lord, he sobs, "O, is there not enough bread in my Father's house?" and sud- denly the light breaks in on his long night of repentance and the love of God fills his heart, and William Nast is William converted. He immediately feels the call to preach the Gos- ^°'°' pel to his countrymen in America and asks the Methodist Church to send him. It hesitates. But when it heard the earnest pleading of Nast it said, "Go, in the name of the Lord," and our work among the Germans has been the result. A young German physician enters one of his first mission meet- ings to criticise the preacher. The sermon touched his heart, and the young scoffer, Nicodemus-like, comes to the young missionary by night and asks concerning the way of salvation. He is con- verted to God. He soon founds missions in the West and then asks the board to send him to Germany to preach the good 120 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Jaooty, Petersen, and Larson Present Outlook tidings to his countrymen. The board refused from lack of funds, but when they saw the fire in Jacoby's eyes they said, "Go, in the name of the Lord," and our work in the Fatherland of only fifty years' standing has been the glorious result. Fifty years ago a young Norwegian, sailing hither and thither, lands at Boston. Attracted by the favor of the Methodists he seeks spiritual advice from them, and comes to the glad realiza- tion of saving grace. He returns to his home country to tell his dehghtful experience, with the result of a revival in which many were converted. He opens missions among his countrymen in America, and O. P. Petersen is called the father of Norwegian Methodism. John Larson, a young Swede, is soundly converted in our Bethel Ship Mission and tells the story of the cross to his country- men, and our work is begun among the Swedes, both in Sweden and America, and has gloriously flourished during the last forty years. Other missions spring up in close succession. If we were to ask to-day if it has paid to come up through past difficulties such as the persecutions and scoffings of unchristian foreigners, the prejudicial opinion of the Americans, the deficient connectionalism, the scattering population, and whether we should continue in face of present discouragements like the language problem, which we are trying to solve, the Germans and Swedes, and Norwegians and Danish, and Welsh and French, and Italians and Bohemians, and Finlanders, who are a direct or an indirect fruit of our work among the foreigners in this and European countries, would give the answer several hundred thousand strong. Yes ! for the sake of the thousands who have been influenced in our Sunday schools and are now in our reach, for the sake of the thousands whose prejudices have been removed by our successes, for the sake of the millions who have never been touched by the living Word, for the sake of our foreign fields which are de- pendent on our success. If such things were possible from so small a beginning in so short a time, we may expect far greater results with our stronger membership, our larger fields, and better equipment. The field is open, the laborers are at hand, the means will be forthcoming, God's promises are unfailing, and greater things are in store for us, if we will but move forward with a firm faith in God and a burning love for lost souls. God give us more of this faith and this love ! OUR CITY PROBLEM 121 OUR CITY PROBLEM The Rev. F. M. North, D.D. The problem of the city is the problem of the world. It is not it is the merely modern — there are Alexandria and Athens and Ephesus. ^"b^em It is not wholly occidental — there are Calcutta and Tokyo and Peking. It is not Anglo-Saxon alone — there are Madrid and St. Petersburg and Vienna. It is wider than America — there are Edinburgh and Manchester and Melbourne. The crudest con- vulsion of the Christian centuries centered in the city on the Seine. The most potent government of the world is in the city upon the Thames. The Enigma of the Faith, whose word to the rim of the world binds fast the consciences of men, has his seat in the city by the Tiber. The world's supreme tragedy took place just "outside a city's wall." One need but speak the names — Paris, London, Rome, Jerusalem — to be convinced that the prob- lem of the city is the problem of the world. But upon this background of continent and centuries it is Am-erica that rises before us. We must not by too wide a look risk the peril of what Dr. Watkinson calls "the malignance of the law of perspective." It is our city problem. First, then, it states itself. Its most obvious terms are those stated in of extension. Inevitably we count. Bigness stirs our interest, jttr\ion but is often the smallest element in a problem. Some questions cannot be answered in square miles. In the matter of bread and hunger a fertile acre measures more than the Sahara. All the marvels are not in the census tables. Yet it was one of the deepest notes of our Lord's nature that he was ever strangely moved in the presence of the multitude. And it is an inadequate if not a depraved heart that can look upon the cities of America — not the streets, the buildings, the art, the commerce, but the people — for the city is people — without the stir of emotion which opens new depths in the soul. For a moment let us measure and count. Begin with the metropolis and distribute it into well-known New York terms. Three great railroads radiate from New York city. One '*y leads eastward. Suppose New England swept clean of her popu- lation. Let the inhabitants of New York move out upon that railroad. From them every city, large and small, from Mount 122 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Foreign Forts and Capitals The Six Largest Cities The Oreat Northwest Vernon to Boston might be repeopled, then Maine, New Hamp- shire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut could be supplied and enough would remain to replace the population of every one of the seven great manufacturing cities of Massachusetts. Or, if the metropolis were to be left unpeopled, and drafts for a new era were to be made upon the cities through which many of us have come to this Convention, the levy would depopulate Yonkers, Poughkeepsie, Troy, Albany, Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo; it would need to add to these Cleveland, Toledo, and Chicago and nearly all of Minneapolis, Milwaukee, or St. Paul. Use other terms. Trace our commerce to foreign ports. You must mass together ten of them — Glasgow, Liverpool, Copen- hagen, Antwerp, Bremen, Hamburg, Havre, Marseilles, Lisbon, and Genoa^to reach the aggregate population now within the metropolitan limits. It would require the capitals of France and Russia — Paris and St. Petersburg — or those of the three allies, Austria, Germany, and Italy — Vienna, Berlin, and Rome — or the group of eleven smaller capitals from Sweden to Tripoli — Stock- holm, Christiania, Copenhagen, The Hague, Brussels, Berne, Madrid, Athens, Constantinople, Cairo, Fez — to replace the popu- lation now crowded within the limits of 326 square miles. Once more. The six largest cities of the United States — those of 500,000 inhabitants and over — Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, contain with their en- virons 11,125,009 people — one seventh of the entire population of the United States. These six cities themselves have within their corporate limits, upon an area of about 1,500 square miles, an average of over 5,250 persons to the square mile, 7,902,813 people- — a population as large as that of the entire country at the time of the war of 1812 — in density all the way from Chicago's sparsely settled prairie lots to the block in New York where last night slept 4,000 people on a ground space of less than four acres, or 1,200 persons to the acre. Express these figures in terms familiar to those assembled here from half a hundred States and Territories. North of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi are 109 cities of population between 25,000 and 400,000. It requires them all to match the number who dwell in these six largest cities. Westward of longitude 97° stretches a great domain of States and Territories, containing, with the omission of Texas and OUR CITY PROBLEM 1 23 Alaska, 1,566,000 square miles. It is not all habitable; some of it is desert, some is built on edge, and some is above the timber line. But here are seventeen States and Territories, held by the nation and by the Church to be one of the world's great mission fields for commerce and rehgion. In its 1,500,000 square miles are scattered, with the variation of perhaps 100,000, the same number of people that are concentrated upon the 1,500 square miles of our six largest cities. If smaller areas make the statement more concrete, mark the The Cities of facts in three great States. In Ohio are nine cities of over 25,000 gtatet inhabitants; for every 5,000 who live outside those cities 2,000 live within them. Pennsylvania has in similar cities 2,500,000 people, three eighths of her total population. Out of New York's population of 7,200,000, there are found in such cities 4,500,000, five eighths of the whole. These are but divisions and variations of the statements so familiar that their impressiveness is often lost — that the urban population is thirty-three per cent of the whole ; in a word, that our problem, whatever it means, however it may be solved, disregarding its far-reaching, indirect influences, is the direct concern of one soul out of every three in our land. Were this condition stationary it would be significant. But it The Flow of is not a quiet sea with gentle lift and fall — it is a current flowing ciyej'' ""^ steadily, ever deeper, ever wider. The speed at which this stream of population sets toward the cities slackened during the past decade. Yet the ratio of increase, twenty-one per cent for the entire population and thirty-seven per cent for the urban popula- tion, is ominous. On the Atlantic seaboard only three States out of nine are left with a majority of their population outside the city. Of every hundred persons added to the population during that decade fifty-eight are found in the cities. There are now 160 cities of 25,000 population and over — a net gain of 38 in ten The Eapid years. One out of every five of our people lives in such a city. ciUea* ^^^^ Of the twenty cities of the first rank in 1800 but one reached a population of over 60,000, while the total number of their inhab- itants was only 250,000. Fifty years later there were six cities with a population exceeding 100,000, with a total for the twenty principal cities of r, 800,000. At the beginning of the present century we have 38 cities of 100,000 population and over, of which the first twenty contain nearly 12,000,000 people. If cities of 100,000 as a minimum be classed as of the first rank, our country in Terms of Intension 124 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION waited until 1820 for its first one, and in it at that time 123,700 people dwelt, 1.28 per cent of the whole population. In eighty years this one has become thirty-eight, in which are now found over 14,000,000, or 18.62 per cent of the total population. New York city had at the beginning of the century a population of 60,000; it now has sixty times that number. There are now in Chicago and New York nearly as many people as there were in the whole land in 1800. Of the thirty-four assembly districts in New York there are eleven each of which contains a greater population than that of the entire city a hundred years ago. Stated thus in terms of extension, our city problem deals with vast numbers. The city is not a phrase; it is people. It shows these people in aggregates ever increasing in number and con- centration, both relatively to themselves and to the growing population. Not only is the gross total becoming greater, but the tendency is constantly toward the combination in larger numbers, that is, to great cities. The Problem But our city problem states itself also in terms of intension. It has depth as well as breadth. We must measure not alone by tape line, but by plummet. Problems of life belong to each man in himself. They would demand solution if there were but one man in the world. They are individual. Where there is another man problems of a new phase appear. To the individual is added the mutual. Let the third man come upon the scene and fresh occasions arise, a new order must be established, problems become communal. The cities are communities. Whatever inheres in the individual — physical and mental aptitudes, hereditary tendencies, capacity for life, personality — belongs as inalienably to the human unit in the mass as it does to the trapper in the pathless forest or the philosopher in the isolation of his mountain retreat. Were the city no more than the aggregation of these individual units, the problem of life by mere multiplication would become most intense and mysterious. But the city is not the aggregation, but the congregation, of people. The touch is not that of external contact alone, but of the interpenetration of lives. The environment is not natural, it is artificial ; the pressure is not that of the great inani- mate facts, but that of vital, insistent personality. The natural tendencies of men combined with the artificial conditions of a composite life make the city the supreme test both of the indi- OUR CITY PROBLEM 1 25 vidual character and of the social order. In the interaction of these units of personaHty is the very crisis of life. Here, then, our problem deals with every type of character and All Sorts and all the races of the world. Into these crucial communities have ^""^d'tio^s "^ 111 fin crowded all sorts and conditions of men. We may well adopt the prayer book's phrase. Africa, Asia, and Europe are around the corner from each other. Celt and Teuton, Czech and Slav, Latin and Semite, Negro and Mongolian, tread the same pavements and buy at the same counters. In a recent canvass of one assem- bly district we found thirty-five nationalities in an area of a dozen squares. There are fully 600,000 Hebrews — German, Russian, PoHsh, Roumanian — in the metropolis; out of every four per- sons in Manhattan Borough one is a Jew. Where Methodism centered in the strong churches which gave tone and vigor to the great movement in its earlier days, the Gentile population is now not more than one per cent. They of Italy salute us. The peasantry of the Campagna and of Sicily are finding new homes in the worst crowded sections of every city. In New York we have an ItaHan city as large as Venice, larger than Columbus, Ohio, by 10,000. There is a building in Chinatown which has a Methodist mission on the first floor and a Joss house on the third. The names on some of the Sunday school registers, on poll lists, in our city directories ; a catalogue of our newspapers and the merchandise signs of our streets ; the class lists of our public schools and the panels of our juries ; the commitment papers of our courts and the record books of our almshouses and hospitals, to say nothing of our prisons, offer a concrete demonstration of the presence of the foreigners in our cities with which the colder oid-World statements of the census fail to impress us. Racial characteristics ^^^ j^^ ^^''' survive. The prejudice of oppression dies slowly. The rebel Environment against one social order does not with cheerfulness accept another. The hater of a false religion does not at a moment become a lover of the true. The plotter against corrupt government suspects iniquity in all authority. American air, especially that of cities, does not at once change the deformed into the upright, or make the ignorant wise. Old- World thoughts but sluggishly fill New- World molds. Language expresses, but it also petrifies. Our problem is the city, intensified by the perplexities of every race and region of the whole world ; it is more than a city problem — it is the problem of the cosmopolis. 126 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The EconomicB of Hanger Questions that Burn Homeless- ness of the Great City But the Statement of the intension of the problem does not stop here. Every question which has ever vexed the world emerges and with new emphasis makes its demand. Here is the fight with hunger. The wolf at the door is a rural figure — it is a civic fact. In every great city a large percentage of the people — in New York, Jacob Riis says, it is one third — are at or beyond the line of helpless poverty. They are where the increase of a penny in the loaf means less bread ; where five cents more for a pail of coal is the beginning of disaster ; where cessa- tion of work or of help for two weeks would mean starvation or the poorhouse. These are not merely what Mr. H. G. Wells in his Anticipations declares we must always have in our large cities — "the submerged portion of the social body, a leaderless, aimless multitude, a multitude of people drifting down toward the abyss," whose presence and individual doom will be unavoid- able, at any rate for many generations of men — "an integral part of this physiological process of mechanical progress, as inevitable in the social body as are waste matter and disintegrating cells in the body of an active and healthy man" — not merely these, but the day laborer, the small mechanic, the casual, the seamstress, the hundreds of thousands of young men and women who earn no margin above the bare necessity, a multitude whose woes and anxieties haunt us like spectral thoughts in the darkness. Questions of property become acute where, for example, but six out of a hundred are property owners. The right of private ownership ceases to be academic where the measure of values is inches and not miles. Where the tenants are many and the owners are few, economics is more than theory ; rent, wages, interest, and taxes become questions that burn. And the home ! Alas ! the pity of it, the crowded, homeless city ! Cardinal Manning declared, "Domestic life creates a nation." America needs to remember it. Somewhere Frederick W. Robertson says : "A happy home is the single spot of rest which a man has upon the earth for the cultivation of his noblest sensibiHties." Write this fine sentiment large upon your banner and carry it about through the streets which you and I know. The multitudes thronging the sidewalks, panting upon the door- steps, peering forth from festering alleys, leaning from the one window of their dingy cubicles, will applaud the fair ideal and decry you for a fool and as prisoners stretch out their hands for OUR CITY PROBLEM 12/ liberty until their shackles bruise and silence them— will sink again into sullen, sodden hopelessness. Homelessness is the lot of the poor in our great cities. Here, too, center the age-long struggles of the social life. The The battle line of the conflict between employer and employed is in strag^e*' our great cities. Here capital compacts itself and labor combines. Power of organization depends upon ease of contact. Exposure promotes the quick contagion of ideas. The city asserts the limitations of individual privilege and opens to the. light the subtle relations between the man and the community in the control of the necessities of the social order. Here democracy is to find its Democracy on defeat or its triumph. Its final arena was not the little states of ''^"''^ Greece, the grim, gray streets of Paris, or the gleaming, skyward cantons of Switzerland, but it is the complex life of our American cities. In every form of life, for childhood, womanhood, manhood; for home, for industry, for education, for religion, for social order, for charity, for government, for art, for commerce, for Life, the city, the American city, has problems, more intense, more far-reaching than have ever taxed the mind or tested the heart of humanity in all its progress. Thus "our city problem" states itself in terms of extension and intension. But now we must go further. Our problem is our test. The Our FroUem city is a twentieth-century fact. As a problem it has escaped from the category of the curious and is found in that of the inevitable. It is still treated at times as a footnote in some chapter on pastoral theology, or as if it were like the question of the fourth dimension of space — interesting but somewhat distant. But when we turn to the practical world commerce has found the city, science and statesmanship reckon with it, literature exploits it, philanthropy centers upon it. Civilization has created it and civilization is now tested by it. At the heart of civilization is Christianity. Can the Gospel or the Church which gives it em- bodiment and expression escape the test? It is forbidden to-day that a man be a St. Simeon on his pillar, or a St. Anthony in his cave — with back toward the world's problems and face toward the skies. It is not the dream of escape, but the inspiration of conquest, which must control. Calvin in his city and Savonarola in his — men whose conception of the mastership of Christ shows is Our Test 128 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Ideals Is the Gospel for the Multitude t Has the Church a Social Is Our Master the Master of Lifel heroic and sublime even through their intolerance, their austerity, and the narrowness of their methods — reveal to us our test and our duty. Let us, then, admit and assert that the city which is our problem is also our test — ours, the test of our Christianity, the test of our Methodism. It puts upon trial our ideals. It forces us to determine whether we really conceive of the Gospel as a message for all men and for all life. We have been strong to combat election and reprobation and to assert free grace for all, but have we entirely escaped that subtlest temptation of sainthood, which practically accepts the Gospel as God's gracious gift to us and to a few — per- haps many — akin to us, but sees no salvation in this world or the next for the multitudes for whom we think we believe Christ died. Men and women of every type of character, familiar with every phase of vice, warped by every form of prejudice, repre- senting every race under the skies, pass our church doors by thousands and ten thousands daily. They are not half the globe away, divided from us by the seas. They are here within sight and touch. Do we hold that the Gospel is meant for them ? The city tests our ideals of the scope of the Gospel in saving not men but man. Have we a social message ? Does the kingdom of God reconstruct society, or does it exhaust itself in regenera- ting the individual? Does the gleam of the radiant city in the heavens where those choice spirits who have been rescued from this wrecked earth are forever with the Lord — a group of pilgrims to constitute a new commonwealth of the skies — alone hold our vision, or do we see a new Jerusalem coming down from above and a humanity redeemed, restored, glorified, risen with Christ and hid with Christ in God? Is the Church the finality — do God's love and care center and remain in her — or is the Church God's instrument, his channel, his expression, for the representa- tion of Christ to the perverted affection, the dim reason, the dull conscience of men, until the world seeing him as he is shall become a new world ? Do our ideals include Christ's mastery of life? Stand in some great civic center and look about you. Who is master here? Yonder is the noisy mart of commerce. Here is the quiet home of literature. The law asserts itself, in legislative hall and from judge's bench. Industry is awhirl in a thousand factories, and OUR CITY PROBLEM 1 29 the shipping from every sea is yonder at the wharves. Who is master here ? Is the Saviour of men the Lord of hfe ? Is He who died upon the cross alive in the heart of the world? The city tests our ideals. It tests our methods. We are coming to understand that Methods Wesley himself left in his pattern margins for growth. The machinery that strains and creaks in these modern days is not his invention. Had he not been wise enough to know that progress means change he could not have been powerful enough to win the word of the historian Lecky, who says that "Wesley had a wider constructive influence in the sphere of practical religion than any other man who has appeared since the sixteenth century." Surely heredity is on our side. We are not here concerned to discuss the variations of method which the new life of our cities demands. The principle underlying those changes is Paul's principle and Wesley's. Paul's statement of it was, "I am made all things to all men, that I may by all means save some." Wesley announced the same principle in his deeds ; having tamed to the gentleness of Christ the Kingswood miners, he straightway built a house and procured teachers that their destitute children might be taught. Given the outstretched hand of need and the out- stretched hand of help, the exalted task of the Church is to bring them together. The great point is the point of contact. Method The Point of means finding that. Our system, some say, is adapted to rural *'""**** districts and to the small towns. The question the city raises is. Cannot the spirit which hunts for lost souls in the country find ways to seek them in the crowd? We are evangelists. May the day never come when ardent evangelism ceases among us ! But is evangelism a thing of meetings, of altars, of fixed modes ? Methodism cannot be driven from pavement to fields. Can it not, aye, does it not push itself into a thousand forms of ministry and become incarnate in the lives of men bringing into the desolation the cheer of the Gospel and transforming even beneath the city's pall the hearts of sinners into the image of God? Yes, and it tests our resources. This is trite. Our ears are Kesouroes accustomed to it. But think of it. Let an example or two suffice. Here are our Italians. They are in all our cities. They are accessible. They are, for the most part, pitiably poor. They are used to fine churches. To them beauty and order are accompani- ments of worship. What do we offer them? Dingy halls in 9 I30 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Downtown Church Methodism Must Meet this City Test The Test Means Opportunity obscure streets. The service is robbed of attraction and appeal by our destitution. Our case is lost before we plead by our very insignificance. A few thousand dollars will cover all that Methodism is doing in the cities for the Italians — nor are we by any means outstripped by the other denominations. Consider the deserted church — the downtown church. In the economics of Providence it is centered where the people are, and its mission is to them. Whatever the history has been, the fact is patent that everywhere throughout our cities are these vantage points. For the most part they should be and could be transformed into glorious agencies for the salvation of men and the redemption of the community. Why rather do they stand idle, or serve only as monuments of the past ? No longer can it be said that the Church lacks courage and ideals. For throughout our cities, within a score of years, men have been raised up who understand in this matter the mind of the Master. But the test comes upon our re- sources. In our own city I can find you six Methodist churches, which were yielding to the desolation of migration and seemed to have no future but death or removal, which are now strong in ministry and warm with the Gospel life. Why? Because a half dozen men who were able and were willing have backed them -with fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a year to make them not "mission" but "missionary" churches in the greatest missionary field of the world. Other tests have come to the spirit of Methodism. The need of material equipment and of consecrated men in those early years, the demand that her sons and daughters should be educated in her own schools and colleges, the cry of the far lands that the Gospel should be sent even unto them, the claim of a great country, South and West, for preachers and for churches, the sudden appeal of an enslaved race awaking to find its day of freedom and peril dawning — these have come and the Church's ideals have found room, her methods have been adapted, her re- sources have been poured forth, and the successive tests have been met. The new test is the city— from it the Church will not shrink. But test is opportunity. They are two sides of the same divine thought. The same strain which tries the soul opens somewhere a door. Already the test has been seen upon its opportunity side. Vast changes, often unnoted, are taking place in the attitude and organization of our churches in the cities. They are finding for Cooperating Forces OUR CITY PROBLEM I3I themselves a new alignment and are aiming at larger conquests. Our grand Missionary Society has concentrated its gaze upon the cities, and among the multitude of its modes of service has found a definite place for city evangelization. The societies for city evangelization have come into harmonious relations with one another, and, fitted now into the machinery of the Church, become the warp upon which to work out the new and larger design. Beneficence, the organized kindness of the Gospel, builds its strongholds of mercy in our cities. Germany's only gifts to us are not population and rationahsm. Friedrich Froebel, when he The began to teach the world how to teach its children, did not foresee what now we know — that the kindergarten is to be a force for purity and for righteousness acting upon the plastic material of childhood in every great city of the land. Theodore Fliedner, with his humble school of service at Kaiserswerth, did not per- ceive that, in reviving the order of deaconesses and organizing Christian womanhood for service, he was blessing not Germany alone, but the world. Here are two names that the city's child- hood and poverty will never let die. Froebel and Fliedner planned and sacrificed and prayed for the American city of the twentieth century. Here are the Settlement — the Settlement with Christ in it — the Rescue Mission, erratic and potent, yet to be adjusted to the greater movements ; the popularization of knowl- edge by free lecture and educational classes ; the organization of charity ; the community control of the common necessities of all ; the scientific study of the causes and conditions of poverty and crime ; the new political economy which centers in the rights and privileges of the man and holds that whether trade shall be free may be a debatable question, but that whether man must be free admits of no discussion. Weigh the meaning of the training schools for Christian workers in our cities. Observe the move- Signs of ment of conviction in our colleges and seminaries. Chairs of sociology and applied Christianity are of recent date, and from, them now students are sent into our great cities to study the world to which they are some day to preach. It is at last seen that the training for the ministry involves not only theology that men may know about God, and anthropology that they may know about man, but sociology that they may know about men. The change in industrial conditions has brought the country to the town. The frontiers are now streets, not acres. The reflex action of civic Progress 132 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Reflex Action of Civic upon Sural and Foreign Life The Spirit of the Times upon rural life was never what it is to-day. The city is America's central home mission field. Nor is the reflex action true only of the home land. The testimony comes from Germany, from Scan- dinavia, from Italy, from China, from Japan, that the evangeliza- tion here of those whom we call foreigners means the radiation of a mighty influence throughout lands we shall never see. Who in this Convention can forget that our great work in Germany began in the city mission field of Cincinnati ; that under Nast and Miller, Jacoby and Schmucker it spread to the cities of the middle West and then by a reflex movement created the Methodism of the Fatherland? Who, remembering Sweden and Norway, can forget Pastor Hedstrom, the seaman's missionary of New York, or Petersen as he takes ship from the same port, "to raise up," as Bishop Waugh told him, "a people for God in Norway." Out of the heart of the city, at a great meeting in the old Mulberry Street Church, the impulse sprang which created our Mission in China, and to-day, though our work is in other provinces of the wonder- ful old empire, the interaction between Chinese work in San Francisco and the Atlantic coast cities and that in Canton is con- stant. To our cities have come the peasants of Italy: they go back with the Bible in their hands and a new allegiance in their hearts. From Japan the select few, clever and alert, gather in our parlor churches and Christian Homes and reflect back to the island home the truths of the Gospel. The first book published by that Pauline evangelist, William Taylor, was Street Preaching in San Francisco. Those who get near the heart of the foreign popula- tion in our cities believe not only that these people can be reached by the Gospel, but that through their redeemed lives God is build- ing a highway to the lands from which they come. But the crisis of a great opportunity is shown less by these con- crete forces among which the Church should retain its divinely ordained leadership than by the spirit that is abroad in human society — the Zeitgeist. The call to service echoes about the world. Creeds differ and will continue to differ. The hope of Christian unity is not in the realm of the intellect, in the high altitudes of philosophy and theology, but in the realm of the heart, upon the broad plains of human service. Words which, shouted from peak to peak, awaken only confused echoes, spoken in whispers in the common ways of weary men find the soul and reveal us brothers of the common life in loving obedience to Him who rules us all, OUR CITY PROBLEM 133 because he is the Son of Man. Everywhere humanity is expect- ant. What has been felt to be a growing indifference to reUgious Hfe, certainly to ecclesiastical forms, is rather a stronger em- phasis upon the essentials of the faith, and a wider diffusion of the ethical principles of the Gospel. The swing of the world's thought is again toward the Man of Nazareth. The instinct of humanity declares that help is laid upon One that is mighty — mighty to save. To this waiting world the Church must come with the larger conception of Christ, to teach in the cities — in the homes, in the market place, in forum, in hall of learning, in the lanes and streets — that the kingdom of God is among us, that the living Jesus is here. Our problem is our test — our test is our op- portunity. But opportunity is only Duty "writ large." "It is a vain thing Opportunity to go back upon human progress. The industrial revolution which *^ has made our great cities, and which through them supplies the needs of mankind, is part of God's providence ; and what we have to do, the real task of our generation, is to face the problems which the city life presents, applying to them the light which the Bible gives us and determining that, so far as in us lies, and by the power of God and of Christ, London and New York shall not be as Babylon, but as the New Jerusalem" (Fremantle). The gates are open, we must enter. The Master who wept over The City Calls a city calls : we dare not slight his tears. Let Methodism not *" Methodism falter. We have a theology that works, without apology or re- vision. We know the language of the common folk. We have the friendship of the foreigners, for our missionaries with schools and hospitals and preaching are in their lands. We have numbers. The prestige of a great movement embodying itself in a great organization with success the world over cannot be ignored. Ours is a flexible system. We have wealth. Soon men will endow the mission work in the cities as they have for the past twenty-five years been endowing colleges. We have leaders. What one of the bishops of our Church has not pleaded for the cities? There is not a general secretary in the field by whom this crisis is not felt. Every editor in the Church is convinced and ardent. No college president among us is not alive to the city's influence and the city's need. Laymen of force and resources consecrate them- selves to the betterment of our cities. The city is upon the Church's conscience. Let us not hesitate. Let us not wait. 134 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Kethodiim This Methodism of ours more than any other denomination and Progress j^^g j^^j ^^ j^^^j.^ (.j^g welfare of the common people. She rescued from deism and atheism that Anglo-Saxon life which to-day is the great conquering force in civilization. She has had a career of unparalleled progress and has become the greatest Protestant factor in the world's supreme republic, and has penetrated into the secret needs of both the old states of Europe and the decadent religions of the Orient. Shall she now neglect the supreme oppor- tunity of the Christian centuries? Is my language too strong? One of our bishops has said — a chevalier of missions — "The greatest cause in the world is missions, and the greatest depart- ment of missions is city evangelization." Chalmers and There is no chapter in ecclesiastical history more significant Carlyie ^j^^^^ ^^^^ which records Thomas Chalmers's discovery of the city. It is the classic of modern city evangelization. Said Carlyie of him : "What a wonderful old man Chalmers is ! or, rather, he has all the buoyancy of youth. When so many of us are wringing our hands in hopeless despair over the vileness and wretchedness of the large towns there goes the old man, shovel in hand, down into the dirtiest puddles of the worst part of Edinburgh, clears them out and fills the sewers with living water. It is a beautiful sight !" "The wonderful old man" had the city, not only on his heart, but on his conscience. Oliver Cromwell once, confronting a great problem, said that he knew that it could not be solved without religion. "I raised such men," said he, "as had the fear of God upon them ; as made some conscience of what they did, and from that day forward, I must say to you, they were never beaten and whenever they were engaged against the enemy they beat con- tinually." The city is our problem, our test, our opportunity, our obliga- tion. Let us be "men who make some conscience of what we do," and with duty done our problem will be solved. We shall never be beaten ! HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 135 THE OPEN DOOR IN HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES The Rev. H. C. Stuntz, D.D. Of the Hawaiian Islands I know but little, except what I saw during two brief pauses in a journey toward the Philippines and on my return. Our open doors there are chiefly among the Japanese laborers, imported for work upon the sugar plantations. We have opportunities also among our own American people there, and America cannot afford to neglect them. It is impossible to get anything like an adequate conception of our relation to the Philippine Islands as a nation and as a Church without a little preliminary attempt at least to reckon with the world forces which have thrust us in there. God has swung this great nation out on the highway of the On the seas between the two great continents upon which live the some- th?Seas'^° thing like one thousand millions of our fellow-beings who are yet unevangelized. It is not thinkable to a devout student of the progress of God's redemptive purposes in the earth that he should have so located a great nation such as we are without having in view the ultimate use of this nation in bringing these vast popu- lations — Africa to our east, and Asia to our west, and the semi- civilized to the south of us — to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Captain of our salvation is not so poor a tactician as to choose a location like ours without an ultimate purpose, particularly when one considers the class of people that he has brought up here in this choicest portion of the western continent. We are not unduly boastful when we say of ourselves that we are the consummate product, in physical, mental, and ethical breeding, of the six or eight best races that Europe has ever bred. We are the result of racial cross-fertilization. I would very greatly dis- like to attempt the task of disentangling the pedigree of any individual in this congregation. I would find English, Irish, Dutch, and Danish — everything practically is represented here. ABaciai We have the wit of the Irishman, we have the steady qualities of ""^ omerate the German, the administrative abilities of the Englishman, the canniness of the Scotchman — we have all that is best and highest that has been developed under the teaching of an open Bible and of free speech anywhere on the face of God's earth. And the man 136 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION People with a Destiny The Transformed Pacific The Buesian menace who does not appreciate that fact has always lived at home and has never lived among the degraded nations of the earth, who are inbred through countless generations. If there is anything that can be affirmed with regard to this American people, it is that we have just begun to come to our magnificent kingdom as a people in the earth. We are sprung up here with a destiny, with a future. We are the only modern nation with a seacoast fronting Asia, and Asia holds seven hun- dred and fifty millions who are still to be brought under the scepter of Jesus Christ the King. God works for the establishment of righteousness in the earth through three great agencies : the home, of which no one can speak with sufficient emphasis as a strategic center for the estab- lishment of the cause of Christ — the home, the Church, and the State, all divine institutions planted on the earth for the further- ance of this kingdom of righteousness. Now, while this nation was being bred through something like four centuries we have looked out upon the Pacific Ocean and have seen the marvelous things being done there. Within the last one hundred and fifty years the island continent of Australia has passed under the sway of the mightiest Protestant nation on the earth, and within the last two hundred years India has come under the same scepter, as well as South Africa and New Zealand. Now we have step- ping-stones in the Pacific : Hawaii, Guam, a part of Samoa, and the flag of a Protestant people floats from Mexico to the frozen north. And the man is blind who does not see the ultimate sig- nificance of handing over the key positions in the Pacific to such a people as God has raised us up to be. While that was coming to pass a great menace was creeping southward and eastward in Asia, so that those that lived under the shadow of it trembled in their hearts in their moments of doubt. Russia, pushing southward, eastward, trying to get into India, was fenced out of India by the brilliant frontier defense policy of Lord Dufferin. The Russian bear smelled along that fence, gave it up, and built the trans-Siberian railway that he might slice off of eastern Asia what he had failed to gain in west- ern Asia. She was reaching eastward, and at the close of the Japanese and Chinese war, when the mouse had whipped the ele- phant, and it looked as though all the diplomatic policies had been knocked into pi, Russia seized Manchuria, overawed Korea, and HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 137 was proceeding with a definite policy of Russianizing Japan, when suddenly a wonderful thing happened. An American admiral on the Eastern station received a cable message from Washington, remarkable for its definiteness and brevity, a fine example of telegraphic condensation: "You will proceed to the Philippine Islands, locate and destroy the Spanish fleet." In seven days' time that typical American had bought two new ships, had stripped his ships to fighting form, had steamed seven hundred miles, had sunk a fleet, and run the flag of this nation up in the face of the Russian menace. And for the second time the speak- ing voice of an American fleet had added an archipelago to the possible conquests of King Jesus in the Pacific Ocean. The significant thing is this, that since our flag was raised over that archipelago Russia has stopped her aggressions in southern Asia. If she had gone on with them the civilization and Chris- tianization of southeastern Asia would have been deferred for hun- dreds of years. She would have frozen the very fountains of the economic, social, and rehgious development of a vast people. This nation, thrust in there like that, broke the power of Spain "Hke a potter's vessel," and had not a scar left on the "rod of iron" with which she did it, either. You have heard broadcast over this land stories about the drunkenness and the cruelty of our American soldiers. They are not all true, but some of them are. Mission of the and more are true than you know about. I have heard things A"^."<=»'i that I am not going to tell you. But the same army that drank too much of the beer that made Milwaukee infamous, the same army that has practiced more or less cruelty here and there against a treacherous enemy, that same army has brought to an end an intolerable condition among over ten million people, and has set them free to be a state among the nations of the earth. That is a great fact that will go into history, though there have been flaws and faults in the instrument that did the work. I have no apology to ofifer for the cruelties ; we ought not to have committed them. Somebody asked me one day why there had been so many. I simply said it was because the American nation in carrying out a great policy could not get any better instrumentality than men, and they were not all of them entirely sanctified — no more than Dr. Cartwright was. That is the trouble. If we could have secured a type of man of the high ethical development of our chairman to-day and of the men on this platform we would 138 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION have had no cruelties. But we had to take men, just ordinary men. An Era of Let me mention three or four things that this mighty nation Justice jj^g begun to do in the PhiHppine Islands, as a great agency of the kingdom of God in establishing righteousness in the earth. We have given the people the germ of free government. We have established courts which from one end of the archipelago to the other are grinding out justice. A criminal was arrested. He offered the policeman a bribe of five thousand dollars to let him go. The policeman reached for the indictment and entered upon it, "For offering a bribe to an officer in the performance of duty, charge number two." He came up before an American judge, and had conveyed a bribe to that man, and another count was added to the indictment. When he received his sentence he got twenty-five years! That is what I mean by the government es- tablishing righteousness. That man upon the bench in that great circuit in North Luzon is a minister of God there as much as I am when trying to preach salvation by faith. I say this on the authority of St. Paul. A Shipload of \Ye have given these people a new police force. We have given them new schools. I saw five hundred and forty-two American school-teachers walk down the gangplank off one ship. We have exported steel rails, cotton yarn, and all sorts of things, but we never exported school-teachers by the shipload before. I pulled twenty-eight Methodist Church letters out of that crowd the first day, and half a dozen good Presbyterians and Episcopalians, and all sorts of people said, "Brother, we have come to help." When you think of the old friar, with his immorality, his intolerance, his Csesarism, and think of him as the only school-teacher they had ever had, and contrast him with the teachers we have sent there, it ought to fill your heart with very gladness to think they are there from one end of the archipelago to the other. Vulgar xhe day has dawned when the language that takes the earth is taught in all the schools of the Philippine Islands, and English becomes the official language of the Philippine Islands on the first day of January, 1907, by the grace of God. Some one has said to me, "Why isn't it possible for us to have immediately a great Filipino total there?" I said, "Because they are simply split up into thirty-four vulgar fractions, and the only way to add frac- tions is to reduce them to a common denominator." And you HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES I39 never can add the vulgar fractions of the Filipino total into one great unit until you reduce them to a common linguistic denominator, and that policy is entered upon aggressively, even prodigally. You will agree with me that the powers that be are ordained of God, and I believe that God has a mighty mission for America in carrying peace and justice and good sanitation and everything else to the people who have been fettered in bondage there ever since Spain found them three hundred years ago. And I pray God that the citizens of this country may carefully and prayer- fully exercise their duty toward that vast archipelago. If you ever allow the unspeakable infamy of the army canteen to be put on the army again you ought never to have forgiveness in this world, nor in the world to come. The Church finds her open door in the Philippine Islands in church and three or four directions. First, to speak generally, the oppor- g***® . tunity is before us as a Church to cooperate with the State in shedding the light of a Christian civilization over all of insular and continental Asia in the southeast. We are within two days' steam of China, within five days' steam of Japan, and the same from Korea. I can take ship Tuesday morning on the Pasig River, in Manila, and in three days sit down to a cannibal feast in South Borneo — which, by the way, I have never done. We are within easy access to over seven hundred millions of the most degraded and at the same time, many of them, the most promising people that are still unreached by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. My heart was thrilled one day last summer. I was walking a New Flag down the streets of Manila, when I saw several natives of India approaching. I knew by their attire where they were from. After I had seen them inquiring their way, I said to one of them in his own language, "What did you come here for?" And he replied, "Sir, in our land we heard that there was a new flag flying here under heaven back and forth, and we have come here to work and to live under it." Those people had come five thousand miles, roughly speaking. They are talking to-day in the little villages in the heart of India that there is a new factor in the equation of Asiatic life. The Church is to help the nation to put a new religious and civil leaven into all those vast masses of national meal that are about us in those eastern fields. The Church finds its next great chance in the readiness of the 140 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Filipinos as raw material which we find at hand. The Filipinos are a very Baw Material (jiffgi-gnt people from what many of us suppose them to be. While the contention of some that they are a child race may be in some degree justified, yet they have had four hundred years of European civilization, such as it is, and they are the only people in the Orient that ever had it. The flag of Spain and the cross of Christ were known in the Philippine Islands two hundred years before Australia was opened to civilization. While Spain and the Catholic Church had given them a low type of Christianity, yet the lowest type of Catholicism is better than the highest type of paganism. Even the few rays that shine from the veiled face of a Catholic Christ gives more illumination to the darkened hearts of men than the brightest rays from the face of Buddha or Mohammed. I never forget what Browning says, how splendidly he phrases it — you know he makes the old pope say : " For somehow No one ever yet plucked a rag even From the body of the Lord, to wear and mock with. But he looked the greater and he was the better." So the poor little fragments they have gotten of Christ are better than anything the peoples have ever gotten north and west of them from the teachings of those other faiths. The nuns have worn through all this tract of years the white flower of a blame- less life. They have taught the womanhood however much of error, but they have lived before them unblamably. When a hundred years ago the friars had lapsed into such immorality that the nuns could no longer live in the convents without insult the nuns withdrew from the convents and built their own places, and have lived their own lives clean from the pollution around them. He would be a sorry bigot who would deny the honest efifort of these women to do the Filipino people good. Eagerness to In the second place, we find among them a marvelous eagerness to hear and a strange readiness to accept the Protestant message. The like of it has not been seen in any Roman Catholic country. We find a people out of whose minds has been cleansed the poly- theistic notion, with its pantheistic base. They are a monotheistic people, ready to believe in one holy God, with a redemptive pur- pose in Jesus Christ. There are seated on the platform two of the men who have had HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES I4I to do with sending Methodism there. Bishop McCabe, in his usual happy fashion, and really with the eye of a statesman, sent there the first missionary, however irregularly it may have been done, according to "the little black book." But Bishop James Bishop M. Thoburn, the St. Paul of Methodism, was the man who was Js^fprophet ordered to go on behalf of the society and prospect the field and open the work. Our attention was called by him to the Philip- pines thirteen years ago. There was an article in the Methodist Rez'iezv in which he called attention to that country as a field for Methodism. He said to me once and to others that sat around, "God is going to thrust us out into Asia to do a mighty work in Borneo, and God will some time open our way into the Philip- pines, so suddenly that the world will hold its breath." That was more than six years before Dewey made that large and sub- stantial contribution to the growing submarine navy of Spain. It was very fitting that the bishop should go there officially for the society. He preached his first sermon in March, 1899. -^^ came back to America. While he was gone a young man returned to Manila who had been in banishment for a number of years for the crime of owning a Bible, for section 228 of the old penal code made it a crime to own a Bible ! He had been seven years in banishment. He crept back to the city timidly. He heard one of our preachers on the street. It charmed him. He said, "That is what I believe, that is what I found in the book, that Jesus can save me directly, so that I will know." He went up and made himself known. A few Sundays afterward the preacher for the meeting did not come, and this man, Nicholas Zamora, was asked Nicholas to tell what he had found in the book. The Spirit of God fell upon him and upon all that heard him that day. He preached on and on and on, glad that in his own city he could take that iden- tical copy of the word of God for the owning of which he had been hunted like a criminal from the city, and cry in the ears of his own people that the Jesus it teaches can save unto the utter- most everyone that cometh unto God by him. I wonder that he quit. It is so hard to quit when you have an eager audience and a weighty mission. When Bishop Thoburn went back there he looked him over, went to the cable office, and sent a cablegram to our Dr. Leonard asking that Nicholas Zamora be elected to A Cable deacon's orders and transferred to the Malaysia Conference for Transfer*" ordination. They transferred him, and Bishop Thoburn ordained 142 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION him. He has been preaching ever since with power, to ever- increasing audiences, able to hold vast audiences by the hour. He is a cultivated man, a fine Latin scholar — at least he knows more about Latin than I do; he can quote whole blocks from Cicero and Sallust. He had not been preaching more than a month until a young sacristan in the Catholic cathedral heard him and was stricken to the heart, and he bought a Bible furnished by the American Bible Society. If I could not be a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church I would like to be an agent of the Bible Society. He bought a Bible, went home and prayed, and finally one night he arose and went into a little room, clasped his hands around the bamboo slats that made the floor, and said, "I will lie here. Lord, until I have been made a child of God." In a few minutes he arose, happy in the Lord, and that young man has resigned a government position and has gone to preaching — resigned a government position that paid him forty dollars a month for a position in the Church that paid him only fifteen dol- lars. Just before I left we baptized eighty-seven adult converts that that man had led to Jesus Christ in three months' time. Multitudes of And then the eagerness of the people ! We had twelve thousand average attendance weekly in our forty-five services in Manila and suburbs during the last three months of last year. I have a letter in my pocket that tells of a young missionary that went from Ohio Wesleyan, who wrote me at the end of three months, "We are doing nothing but study the language, but one hundred and fifty-one people have been received into the Church, and we have built a chapel." I would like to know what that man is going to do when he gets the language and goes to work. I never saw such readiness to hear. I have gone into the provinces on the invitation of the people of the city and preached for two or three hours to as high as two thousand or twenty-five hundred people, who would come in the morning and stay until noon. Bishop Warne was in one town sixty-one hours, and during that time organized a Methodist church with sixty members, bought a lot, and had half the money raised to build a church. The gravity of the situation breaks me down as I face those multitudes. The thing that was done in that town could be done in a hundred other towns and cities. The nation must awake before Rome re-forms her lines. There is much loose talk about the withdrawal of the friars ; they have been withdrawn for six years from all Hearers HAWAII AND THE PHILIPPINES 143 active participation in the work of the Church of Rome in the islands, outside of the walled city of Manila, and, bless God, they will never go back. But while the people are destitute of that leadership is our opportunity, in the name of our King, to set up our banners and get our hearing. God help us to be stirred to the depths of us to pour out the money and send out the men ! The readiness of these people to hear arises very largely from The Friars the awful immorality of many of the Spanish friars, because of their overweaning severity, and because of their greed. I don't like to rake over that filth-heap. It is history, but it will never be repeated, excepted to say that I was conversant with a great number of children of friars. I was introduced in one afternoon to the six children of a friar, only two of whom were born of the same mother. Daughters have been wrenched from the family home, husbands sent into banishment, and yet there are people saying in this country that that is all talk. I wish it were all talk. But because the friars have alienated them these people come more readily to us. They have a wonderful readiness to read our literature. I found a man last summer reading aloud to fifty men a translation of an advertisement of Hood's Sarsaparilla ! From five to ten per cent of them can read Spanish ; twenty to thirty per cent can read their own vernacular. But in all their homes they have absolutely no reading matter, and they are as thirsty as a gravel pit. O, how they want the refreshing rain of religious literature, of good literature! We are now publishing Thirst for the Philippine Christian Advocate; it is the baby of the Advocate 5:®**'°^ family, but it is a self-supporting baby; we have got over four hundred and fifty Filipino paid subscriptions. A good man in Kansas City the other day gave us a one-thousand-dollar press, and a good Methodist minister who had made some money on a land deal gave us an electric motor. We are going to get out a series of booklets. We are going to scatter periodical literature and tract literature and fill their minds with the things that are honest and lovely and of good report. What kind of converts are we getting ? They are mostly poor ; The Kind of they are from the common people, who have felt the blight of ^"^^"^'^ Roman Catholic oppression most severely. Let me tell you just one instance. Here is a fisherman who was teaching a Bible class. A Filipino priest came to him and said, "You must quit teaching this class; you are a member of the Catholic Church." 144 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Imperative Needs Helping Together by Prayer The man argued a little, and the Filipino priest struck him down with a chair. While he was down he prayed unto God for the conversion of the priest. Now, I believe that is about as much religion as you have, brother. One of our young girls, very clearly saved, a sweet little girl of thirteen, was stricken with the cholera. A local priest came to her and said, "You must take the sacrament of extreme unction, for you are going to die." "No," she said, "last May I let Jesus into my heart, and he fills my soul with gladness. I will simply go to be with Jesus. If I die I don't want your sacraments." So she died, free of entanglements. But the eagerness of the people to hear and to come in is ex- tremely gratifying. What do we need in the Philippine Islands ? We need first the living messenger. We want a total of twenty-five of the best young and middle-aged men that can be found in the Methodist ministry. You can afford to come out there, my brethren, to do something to build the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. We want four new men this fall, and next year six men. Then we want women missionaries to train the women. We want two representative churches in the city of Manila to get at the Filipinos on one side of the river and the Americans on the other side of the river. The Filipino church will cost twenty thousand dollars at the lowest figure. We could fill it every day in the week. O, what a power it would be in that great city of three hundred thousand people, soon to be a million ! We need it. We need lastly, brethren, the upholding power of your prayers. How it sweeps over us as we stand amid those problems ! "It is not by might, nor by an army, but by my spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts," that we must bring those people to Christ. Pray for us, that our health may be preserved and our message borne home to the people by the deathless energies of the Holy Ghost, that the marvelous victories of early Methodism may be manifested all over that archipelago. So we shall contribute to those islands a Christian manhood, sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and made to stand foursquare to every wind that blows ! THE OPEN DOOR IN LATIN COUNTRIES I4S THE OPEN DOOR IN LATIN COUNTRIES Bishop C. C. McCabe I AM glad the theme recognizes the fact that the door in Latin a Door Long countries is open. It was not always open. There was a time Closed when it was closed, and it was closed for a long time. It was closed for fully three hundred and eighty years. Can you imagine what could be the condition of a people among whom it was illegal to read or own a Bible, or to have a Christian service in one's own home, according to the dictates of one's own con- science ; illegal for a child to learn by heart the 23d Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want" ? And yet that is what the closed door has meant to the Latin race. It was not always open. It was not open when the Spanish king, Philip II, sent the great Armada to England to destroy English liberty. He sent one hundred and twenty-six ships of war, and he sent thirty thousand soldiers. They failed, as we all know. Only two thousand of those soldiers ever saw their homes again, and only four or five of the ships ever got back to Spain. The ■ Spanish historians have always charged it upon the storm ; they said there was such a great storm that it destroyed their ships. It seems to me the storm would beat upon the little English ships as heavily as upon the great Spanish ships. The Spanish went back defeated and discomfited. The door was closed then. The door was closed when the Latin race under- took to take from the Valois and the Albigenses their religious liberty. It was closed when Philip of Spain undertook to chastise the Netherlands and compel the people to give up their Bible and their religion. But they didn't succeed, for a Dutchman is stubborn ; he is stubborn when he is born, and can't help it, but when he gets religion he is ten times as stubborn as he was before. And for eighty years those Dutchmen contended for the faith as it is in Jesus Christ. But all that time amid these Latin races the door was closed, closed for three hundred and eighty years, closed so long that the hinges grew rusty, and it did not seem as though the door could ever be opened. I once saw a cartoon in Mexico that interested me amazingly, a Significant It was the picture of a Spaniard carrying on his back a fat <'*''t<""i priest, with great labor walking along with him ; the priest, 10 146 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION however, was smiling and content. Underneath the feet of the Spaniard was the map of Spain and of Portugal and of France and of Italy. That was published broadcast in Mexico. I won- dered at it. I was glad to see it there, for it seemed to me there was a great sermon in it. I sent a copy of it to the Freeman's Journal, of New York, which is the greatest Roman Catholic journal of this country, and asked them to republish it, and they would not do it. I suggested that if they should republish it I would like to make an amendment to that map — I would like to add to that map Mexico, and all South America, and all Central America, and Cuba, and Porto Rico, and the south of Ireland, and a part of Canada. The editor paid no attention to my letter, because my letter was in response to something he did — he gave me a column and a half of solid abuse for something I had said about our work in Mexico. But that cartoon had a great lesson — the burden of the Spanish race — and for all these years that has been true. The door has been closed, but it is open now. Thank God, it is open ! Let us be glad that the door is open for the Latin races. And here we stand, confronting one hundred and seventeen millions of human beings who need the Gospel, who are waiting for it, who are glad that we are preaching it to them ; and many of them welcome us with open arms and glad hearts. Gleams of Through that open door there come gleams of light. We have Light in jj^ Mexico, which is a part of the Latin race, one hundred and twenty-five congregations, with five thousand two hundred and twenty-one members, including probationers. We have ten thousand besides under our influence. We have nearly five thou- sand children in our day schools, and three thousand in our Sab- bath schools. Our schools are turning out such good grades of teachers that the government is anxious to secure them to teach in the government schools. More than eight thousand dollars was raised last year for self-support. In addition to all this we have a printing press in Mexico which is turning out five million pages of Christian literature every year, and that literature is scattered all through the country. I had occasion to come across one man who was influenced by a little leaflet that came to him from that press. One day I was riding on a train, and a Mexican went through calling for Bishop McCabe. When I made myself known to him I had to speak through an interpreter. He said THE OPEN DOOR IN LATIN COUNTRIES 147 A Humble Offering that he lived five miles away, in the mountains, and that he had heard that his bishop was passing through, and he had come down to make him a little offering; and he gave me a little basket, containing nine eggs and two quarts of beans which he had brought all the way from the mountains. It was a very humble offering indeed, but it did me good to look into his face and realize that he was a converted man. I said to him, "How were you brought to Christ?" He said that the presiding elder gave him one of those little tracts, and he read it, and it brought conviction to his heart, and he was converted. And he said, "My wife and children have been converted, and I have started a prayer meeting in my house." There is now a little congregation there, and they are going to build a church after a while, all from one of those leaflets. These are some of the gleams that come to us from Mexico. Gifts that We have splendid schools there. We have a splendid church in ^""'P'y the city of Pachuca. After I got through preaching my morning sermon at the Conference I said to the congregation, "I will give you five hundred dollars if in the next half hour you will raise six thousand dollars to build a church here in this town." We raised five thousand dollars, and in the afternoon we raised the other thousand, so we had the six thousand dollars, and since then Bishop Hamilton has dedicated a church that cost over eighteen thousand dollars gold. It is the finest Protestant church in all Mexico, and it all came from the little gift of five hundred dollars that somebody had given me. It is always safe to give me money, for it will go right to the spot and do something like that all along the line. The finest Protestant church in Mexico out of a gift of five hundred dollars ! We have a splendid business school at Queretaro. One Sun- day evening the principal of it said to me: "I have letters from all over the country, asking me to take boys, but I cannot take any more. I wish I could finish this building. If I could I would say yes to all those applications." "Well," I said, "Brother Velasco, how much will it take to finish this building?" "It will take three thousand dollars in Mexican money." I said, "When would you like to begin?" "Monday morning." This \Vas Satur- day night. I said, "All right, send for your carpenter and go ahead." And he did it. When I got home I telegraphed a rich man, "I want you to meet me at the railroad station, because I A Business School 148 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Size of South America Soaools for Ecuador want to go home and spend the night with you." He was there. On the way I told him the story, and he leaned on my knee and looked me in the face, and said, "I will give you a thousand dol- lars on one condition — and that is that you will go back next year and do it again." So that school has been enlarged, those boys have been taken into the school, and there is a gleam of light coming through the open door there. The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society has splendid schools in Mexico. I wish you could see those children, with their eager faces sitting before you while you are talking about Christ. It seems to me the women are doing no better work anywhere in the world than in Mexico. I have just been in South America, and this is my second visit there. It is a great thing to go to South America. That name has a very different meaning to me now than it had before I went there. I knew nothing about it. If South America were one great nation, and all those republics were states, there would be one state of it, Brazil, which would come within one hundred thousand square miles of being as large as the whole United States put together. And then there would be another state in it that would make four states as big as Texas, our largest State. I was amazed at its vastness. We sailed day after day down the western coast, and it seemed to me that I never had the slightest conception of the magnitude of South America until then. We landed at Guayaquil. Dr. Wood has done a great work, and through the open door we can see many a gleam of light coming from Ecuador. He went up to Quito at the request of the president of that republic, and gave him a plan of public in- struction, which was adopted by the president and the cabinet, and the congress passed a bill adopting it and giving one hundred thousand dollars to carry it into active operation. What was his plan? To have three training schools for teachers, and con- nected with each school there should be a model school, so that the teachers in training could see just how a school ought to be conducted. A magnificent plan! Two of those schools have been formed and have been in successful operation for some time. It was feared that when the new president came into power he would not favor these schools. But he was more in earnest about them than his predecessor was, and the schools are going on. A tragedy occurred. The consul of the republic of Ecuador in the THE OPEN DOOR IN LATIN COUNTRIES 149 city of Valparaiso was very much in favor of these schools. It was through his advice that two of our best teachers in Santiago were taken from that school and sent to Ecuador to begin those schools there. He received a letter one night warning him that his life was in danger. He paid no attention to it, and one night he was assassinated in the streets of Valparaiso; he was found dead in the morning. What was the effect upon Ecuador ? They immediately passed a bill that no priest or bishop should ever again be a member of the house of representatives or of the senate of Ecuador — that was the effect of it. I wish you would preach a sermon on this text — "Ye can do nothing against truth but for truth," Ecuador has determined that civil and religious liberty shall prevail all through that coun- try. They stoned Dr. Wood. He is as brave as a Hon, but a riot was stirred up against him by a priest. While they were stoning him, one of the Methodist preachers stepped out and said, "Look out, that is a Yankee !" They stopped, but he had been hit once. What was the effect? The students that stoned him were de- prived of the privilege of graduating in the university, and the government sent for the archbishop and ordered that priest de- posed, and then they ordered that a sermon on religious liberty should be preached in that pulpit, and it was done ; and so, after all, though that man was a martyr to his zeal for the cause of Christian education, the great cause has gone on in Ecuador. We landed at Callao, Peru. There we have two good schools, and in Lima two good congregations. It is wonderful to see Dr. Wood, living on the street known as the Place of the Inquisition, where he can look out of his window and see the old inquisition over there across the street and know that out of its gloomy por- tals many processions of Protestant Christians have marched to be burned to death. In a Spanish book, by the aid of a translator, I read how the women spoke for front seats upon the balconies when those people were burned to death. There is no blinking it, there is no forgetting it; these are the things that transpired when the door was closed and we could not get into these Latin countries. In Peru there is a gleam of light which comes in this way. When Francisco Penzotti was in prison for selling Bibles a mem- ber of the house of representatives rose in his place one day, and moved that a greater measure of religious liberty be given to the Civil and Religious Liberty Place of the Inquisition ISO THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION & Perforated Tent Fowler and Grant Schools people. It was voted down immediately, and that man was burned in effigy in Arequipa, the largest town in Peru except Lima. But now eight of the leading members of that house have signed their names to a bill calling for the abrogation of section four of the constitution, which declares that the religion of the republic is Roman Catholic and no other will be tolerated. There is a gleam of light there. Religious liberty is coming, even in belated Peru, and if it comes in Peru, it will come in Portugal, and the door will be open in all the Latin races of the earth. Then to Iquique, Chile. A year ago I found our people wor- shiping under a large tent, given to them by a man from Chicago. One night I was preaching there, and I looked up and saw a big hole just above me. "What made that hole?" I asked. "O," said the preacher, "last night the boys threw stones and a stone came right down here on the platform through that hole." "Are they going to do that to-night?" I asked. "I don't know." "Where shall I sit to-night?" "Sit a little to the right of the hole," was the reply, and I moved my chair a little. I said, "You need a church here." He answered, "Yes, we do, but we haven't even the money to buy the lot." I gave them a thousand dollars to buy the lot. This year I dedicated that church, and we only need about six hundred dollars to seat it and to finish it, and that I pledged, and then we dedicated that church to the worship of Almighty God. I was amused at the Roman Catholic bishop. Saturday just before we dedicated the church he went to the mayor and asked him to stop the dedication, saying, "Those Methodists have got a tower on their church." The mayor said, "I don't care how many towers the Methodists have." "Well," said the bishop, "they will put a bell in next." The mayor said, "Wait until they get the bell in, and come to me when they get the bell." So our church was dedicated, and I had the privilege of preaching in it when we had five hundred people in the con- gregation. Now, that is a light that comes through the open door. At Iquique we have one of those splendid schools established by Messrs. Fowler and Grant. It cost them two hundred thou- sand dollars to build three schools, of which this is one. I wish we could find another Grant and another Fowler to establish just such a school in the city of Lima, for we need one there, and beyond all description we need a church there. THE OPEN DOOR IN LATIN COUNTRIES I5I Down at Valparaiso, where we have a congregation, there was a Growing a preacher by the name of E. E. Wilson, from Iowa. He said, Coneresa*"" "When Bishop Newman went through here, nine years ago, he called for the Methodists, and found we had four in the whole city." The bishop said to them, "Be faithful, and the Church will come to your aid some day." And I now saw that great congregation of five hundred souls before me in a rented hall. I couldn't help it ; I said to them, "I will pledge you two thousand dollars if you will build a church here." They have gone on with their contributions, but I don't know what they have. That church will surely be built. On to Santiago, and then to Concepcion, to see the other great Flocking of schools of Fowler and Grant, and then across the Andes range immigrants . ° to Argentina over mto Argentma. What a trip that was! I have had many trips in the service of the Church, but never one that impressed me so much as that trip over the Andes. Then down through that great country where there are two hundred and forty million acres of land that will yield wheat, at least twenty bushels to the acre. Four billion bushels of wheat will some day be raised in Argentina in one year. Don't you think we ought to be there to preach to those farmers and home builders that are coming? That whole plateau is going to be filled with the homes of the people. They are coming from all lands. One hundred thousand came from Italy last year. When I found how many were com- ing from Italy I sent a missionary after them to plant the Church of Jesus Christ among those Italian immigrants. That country is taking our agricultural implements. Don Nicholas Lowe told me he counted eighty cars of agricultural implements from the United States going to the interior of Argentina in one day. That means that a great population is coming there all the time. I wish we had a thousand Methodist preachers to send into Argentina at one time. There is a man of Buenos Ayres named Senor Perody, and he The is secretary of the senate of Argentina, and has been for twenty- ^^t"*'"* five years. When his twenty-five years were expired the senate offered him a pension equal to his salary, and offered to allow him to relinquish work and do nothing for the rest of his life except to draw his salary for his faithful services. He said, "I don't want to be idle, I would rather keep my position." Now think of that, a senate composed almost entirely of Roman 152 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Spirit of Persecution Passing Superstitions Catholics electing a Protestant to be their secretary. There is a gleam of light in that; it shows that the time for proscription and for intolerance is passing away in that country. There is one more thing that I wish to speak of to illustrate the fact that this spirit of intolerance is passing away. There was a man by the name of G. W. Morris, a minister in the Church of England, but he was converted in our church. It is wonderful how the fruit of Methodism hangs over the wall all over the world. Morris heard the congregation singing, and he went in, and they were singing, "In the cross of Christ I glory," and he told me that standing there, joining in that hymn, he gave his heart to God, and was converted in an instant. He became a missionary in the city, in the employ first of our Church, and afterward of the Church of England. They were rich and they gave him money, and he has collected eighteen hundred children together in his day schools. He needed money, and some of the statesmen of Argentina said, "That man must have help," for he had an industrial school on week days, and it was moved that he should have a certain amount of money — I think it was five hun- dred Argentina dollars every month — to help him in his work. One bishop made a great speech against it, but when they came to take the vote every man in the house of representatives voted to make that grant except that priest — and they were all Roman Catholics. You see that the spirit of persecution is passing away. There are some people in our Church that don't think much of our missions among the Roman Catholics ; they don't think they are needed. Come with me to a place called Juncal. There is a great church. They have put a million dollars in it, and they say it will cost another million. In that big church there is a little doll, about eighteen inches high, dressed in satin, crowned with diamonds, and bespangled with jewels ; and sometimes as many as twelve thousand people will come in one day to visit that shrine, and they fall down and worship that doll. Don't you think they need the Gospel? It was amazing to me to see that on the wall there was a stone of marble, and on that marble was carved the statement that Leo XIII had sent his blessing to that shrine. It was called the miracle-working image. Those people really imagine the image works miracles! They say that two hundred years ago, when a man was driving a yoke of bul- locks drawing an image of the Virgin, the oxen stopped at that THE OPEN DOOR IN LATIN COUNTRIES 1 53 place. They tried to goad them on, but they would not go any farther. The crowd shouted, "A miracle! A miracle! The Virgin wants a church here!" So they stopped there and built a church, and for two hundred years they have been kneeling around that doll. On the west coast there is a shrine which had fifty thousand Miracles worshipers this year, and three miracles were wrought. They g^^e ^' * say the Holy Ghost came down in the form of a butterfly, and one man with one leg went in and worshiped at the shrine a few minutes, and he came out with two legs. And a priest fell from a great height and got up and walked away. . They tell the people these things and the people believe them. But the worst of it was that for three or four days fifty thousand people were lying around on those hillsides, and all kinds of immorality was practiced among them. Don't they need the Gospel ? Never say again that they do not. The door is open in these Latin countries ; let us go into it with all our might and preach to them the Gospel of the Son of God. One of the most delightful events in my life happened in Expectations Montevideo. We had a church there for a long time, but it had ""^P"'^^^ grown too small, and I wanted to see another erected right away. One night, at a prayer meeting, without telling anyone what I was going to do, I started a collection, and we got eight thousand dollars. It was an astonishing collection ; I was amazed. I expected a thousand dollars that night, but we got eight thousand dollars. The archbishop had helped me wonderfully; he had written a book, and in that book he had done me the honor to mention me as coming down there as a minister plenipotentiary from a hostile Church, prepared to lead the people away from their ancestral faith. That excited curiosity, and two of his mem- bers came to hear me that night at the prayer meeting. One of them gave one thousand dollars in gold, and another five hundred dollars in gold, and I said, "O, that mine enemy would write a book ! — would write another book !" We raised eight thousand dollars, and we increased it on the Sabbath to twelve thousand dollars, and I just heard yesterday that they have laid the corner stone, that the money is collected, and a church worth forty thousand dollars is going up there in Montevideo. So everywhere throughout the country these great things are An Open Bible going on. The door is open, and the light is gleaming through it. 154 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION We have a great duty to these Latin races. There is a man in France by the name of M. Demolins who has written a book called The Superiority of the Anglo-Saxon Race and the Reasons for It. He gives all the reasons but one. He begins with child- hood and goes on through the schools and gives all the reasons but one, and that is the difference in their religion — there is no use blinking the matter. They have not had the Bible and we have. And now it is our duty to give them the word of God in rich abundance. I met one priest there that was giving them the Bible as he thought; his name was Padre Vaughan, a brother of Cardinal Vaughan, of England, and he told me he had dis- tributed one hundred thousand copies of the Scriptures in all South America. He gave me a copy of it, and I turned to the eleventh chapter of Hebrews and read as follows: "By faith Jacob blest his sons, worshiping the top of his staff. In our translation it reads, "Jacob blest his sons, leaning upon the top of his staff." Think of the grand old man of Peniel worshiping a cane in his dying hours ! That is what they taught in that copy of the Holy Scriptures. But let us have the Bible all through South America, and we will show you regenerated republics in a few years. A Methodist I sent one man up in Bolivia. He asked to go. Some Metho- in Bolivia ^ii^t ministers are like Fitz- James when Roderick Dhu asked him what right he had to be in those mountains, and he replied: " Brave Gael, my pass, in danger tried. Hangs in my belt, and by my side. And, if a path be dangerous known. The danger's self is lure alone." There are some Methodist ministers of which that might be said, "The danger's self is lure alone." That man went up alone into the mountains of Bolivia, with his wife, carrying his Bible with him. He is going all through the country. He did this very wise thing — he went to the president of the republic and got permis- sion to circulate the Holy Scriptures in the province of La Paz. Permission was granted, and that lifted him over the heads of the priests and bishops, and he is going yet from home to home, from hamlet to hamlet, circulating God's holy word. He is a German, though he speaks the Spanish language very well. THE OPEN DOOR IN EASTERN ASIA 155 These are some of the Hghts that gleam through the open Confident of door. I never feU more confident in my Hfe that we are going '^^iotory to have a glorious victory among the Latin race than I do to-day. I have just been in Italy; I have seen our great work there. I have just been in some of the nations of Europe, and I have seen how the glorious work is going on there ; and I say that I am a more confirmed optimist than ever. I believe that the day is coming when there will be no need for a man to say to his neighbor, "Know the Lord; for all shall know him, from the least unto the greatest !" THE OPEN DOOR IN EASTERN ASIA Bishop D. H. Moore The three great empires of Japan, Korea, and China constitute, in the division of our ecclesiastic territory, the division known as eastern Asia, whose open doors for the Gospel I am to bring to your thought. I have forty minutes to speak of one third of the human family, forty minutes to divide between three empires. My share is fair and right, for my brother who is to follow me has also a vast constituency; and, all together, the speakers this afternoon have the world divided among them. Originally these people must have been the same. There is the A Common fact of the common written language that stamps them with a "^" common origin, and there is the survival of customs and usages which mark them as kindred peoples. The dominion of China extended within our time over Korea, and there was dispute as to its extension over Japan itself, which in the remote past was proud to acknowledge China as her overlord. And so these three, for all practical purposes, may be considered as one. Their doors were never opened until comparatively recently. Ancient history tells nothing about China save the fact of her The impact of self-determined isolation; a supposedly magnificent empire, self- * ^° centered, abundant in all resources, satisfied with herself, and unwilling to enter into any contact and competition with the world beyond, apparently fearful lest her idyllic peace and plenty might be disturbed by the rude shock of outward commerce. Not until a comparatively recent period did the impact of Western com- merce and the great development of the intercommunication of 156 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION nations make a breach in the walls of Chinese exclusion. Then the merchants of Venice carried back to Europe two of the inven- tions of the Chinese, which, with the mariner's compass, revolu- tionized society, overturned governments, and laid the foundation for those mighty cosmic movements that are in process to-day, the result of which will be China's final and glorious emancipa- tion. For the mariner's compass, gunpowder, and the printing press are the mightiest agencies of human reform and reconstruc- tion that the world has known — all of them the gifts of China to the world. War between But it was reserved for the conflict between China and some Japan and ^f j^gj. provinces to give a complete opening, undisputed and in- disputable, of the gates of China to the commerce and the religion of the outlying civilizations. Perhaps you have recalled already that this was due to that war between China and Japan, which settled once and forever the question of Japan's dependence upon China, and the relations of Korea to China. Upon that war turned this great question, receiving its final solution in the over- whelming victories won by the Japanese over the Dragon Flags of the hoary empire of China. The guns of Japan battered down the walls of Chinese conservativism and exclusiveness, and from that day until the end of time those walls never can be rebuilt. They are dominated by the guns of Japan, that newest among the mighty nations of the earth. The VLagic of And you may as well now, as at a later period in what I have Fleet to say, pause long enough to understand that it was the United States of America that opened Japan to the civilization which made her splendid victory an easy possibility. You are to re- member that it was the guns, shotted but never discharged, the guns of the American navy, under Commodore Perry, that broke open the Land of the Morning Sun, and gave to all that Eastern world the vivifying and transforming touch of Western civiliza- tion. It was the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ that raised up this nation and girded it with this mighty and irresistible power. The Providence of God led the United States into such relations with Japan as opened Japan to the new civilization, and made her the controlling factor in the great questions of the East ; so that when Japan swept in victory over the borders of China, when she registered her superiority on the bloody plains of Pyeng Yang, when she stormed the almost impregnable fortresses THE OPEN DOOR IN EASTERN ASIA 157 of Port Arthur, and when she swept clown the coast and took the magnificent island of Formosa, when she was ready and able to lead her resistless hosts on to the capital of the very empire itself, so that other Christian nations had to interpose to preserve the integrity of China — that was the end of the old and the beginning of the new eastern Asia. Take these facts also into consideration: See how on every Commerce, side the growth of commerce and the eager spirit of scientific ^cie'ice, and inquiry and investigation — these two coordinate divisions of the grand army of human progress, trade and science — joined with that mightiest of the trinity of forces for the civilization and regeneration of mankind, our holy religion, have marched con- verging upon the great empire of China to solve the question of the East forever. The doors that were only ajar, and then pushed back a little farther so that a dim and imperfect view of what lay beyond was secured, now by the third great act in the unfoldings of God's Providence have been flung wide open, and our eyes are permitted to feast, in a very revel of wonder and amazement, upon the riches and possibilities of that great empire. For could anything but Divine Providence have made the wrath of men so to praise him as to lead the empress dowager into such a bewilderment of madness as to bring down upon herself and upon her empire at once the united power and wrath of the civilized nations of the world? That keen and subtle diplomacy which through all the past had been her mightiest weapon of defense and offense ; her ability to play one nation against an- other and so to neutralize the efforts of the peoples of the world to secure adequate treaty conventions and commercial privileges — all this she lost forever when at one blow she smote all the official A lost representatives of the mightiest nations of the earth, and sent hurrying to her citadel the strength and resources of the Christian world. The powers that marched into China were Christian powers, every one of them. They came from the east and from the west and from the north and from the south. They bore banners of different devices, but over every banner, flaming in the sky, was the sign of Constantine, made new for this last crusade for human liberty and for the triumph of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God has strange ways of introducing his truth. The Old Tes- tament is full of instances where by means that seem to us cruel, Position IS8 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION terrible in their devastation, God, who is the ruler of mankind, has so carried forward his cause that, while giving to all their just dues and extending to all a charity and love as infinite as his own immortality, he has set forward the standards of ultimate truth and brought mankind nearer together in the community of those interests and blessings in which their highest prosperity and noblest destiny shall be realized. So it was here. The last door The Upheaval of China was burst asunder by that union of the imperial power of China with the unauthorized acts of the Boxer bands of the empire. This heaved from its hinges the last door; and China, from Peking to the uttermost borders of her magnificent empire, is now by imperial edict free and safe for the advance of the Christian missionary. Recent outbreaks in Szchuen Province are only the guerrilla warfare that has been waged from the beginning, and doubtless will be waged until that happy time comes, hastened by your increased devotion and consecration, when China shall feel in every fiber the regenerating grace and matchless power of the living God. Sir Robert Hart says, truly : "If, in spite of official opposition and popular irritation, Chris- tianity were to make a mighty advance it might so spread as to convert China into the friendliest of the friendly powers and the foremost patron of all that makes for peace and good will ; and thus prick the Boxer balloon and disperse the noxious gas which threatens to swell the race-hatred program, and to poison and imperil the world's future." Yes, these outbreaks will occur, my hearers, until you and I and Christians everywhere realize that we are the gauge upon the great wheel of missionary progress. For our own sake, for the sake of the multitudes of the earth, let us see to it that, so far as in us lies, an ending shall be put once and forever to the possibility of such outbreaks, by bringing this great country to the foot of the cross. China Open So China is now open for evangelistic work everywhere. Even in the province of Szchuen, which seems to be the storm center, our ministers and native pastors are going up and down preaching Christ, and at times to those who have fled for refuge into the cities. They are compelled now and then, as lately in the city of Tsichou, to take up arms to reinforce inadequate garrisons, and to help drive off the Boxers hordes that lay siege to the defenses. But the power of the government is now on the side of religious toleration. It is no longer behind and supporting these Boxer THE OPEN DOOR IN EASTERN ASIA 159 movements. The Boxers are outlaws, and every magistrate in the empire who fails to the utmost of his ability to meet and resist all endeavors to reopen the lamentable troubles of the past is promptly removed from his office, and if his offense is glaring his head is removed from his shoulders. Do not for a moment believe that China has been converted Awakened, into a love for foreigners or for Christianity. I would have very Transformed little respect for her if such an immediate transformation could be wrought. If, with the recollection of the outrages she has suffered from Christian powers ; if, smarting under the retribu- tion that has recently been inflicted upon her by the allied armies ; if, after the atrocities that under Christian flags have been inflicted upon her and which can but leave scars and sores hard to heal and wounds that will continue to vex her for generations to come — if after all these things she had been so soon converted into love for foreigners or for Christianity, then human nature would contradict the principles of its own creation. But I believe that, through and through, China has come to realize that the past is forever past, and that she has entered upon a new era. She looks to the right and to the left, and asks what must be done to meet the emergency ; and, astonished at the unparalleled growth of Japan, seeks through her to attain the same power. Herein lies an immediate peril ; for Japanese leaders seek to adopt the material advantages of Christian civilization, withovtt the informing and sustaining spirit of Christianity itself. But let China secure the colossal power of Western civilization, un- tempered and uncontrolled by the vital principles of Christianity, and she becomes "The Yellow Peril" that has haunted the dream of Europe for a generation. Hence the supreme need of re- doubling our efforts to regenerate Japan, and to seize upon China's eager desire for Western learning as affording a wide- open door to plant and multiply positively Christian schools of the best quality; so that with the consciousness of power China will have also the consciousness of love and obligation, to bind her in friendly intercourse with the peoples of the world. So we have a wide-open door; not only to preach the Gospel clamor for everywhere, but also to establish Christian schools everywhere. g^J^jg^" The clamor for these schools is incessant. It rolls like the thunder of the surf upon the coast. It is more than a Macedonian cry. i6o THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Healing Touch Proclaiming lis repeated by the four hundred million people of that vast empire — "Come over and educate us." The hospital is another open door. Through the hospital, in- fluences are carried into the very center of the domestic and the political life of China. Opportunities are afforded by our hospi- tals and dispensaries, through our consecrated and skillful physicians and surgeons, to get a mighty hold upon the people. The almost miracles, wrought by Western science, sanctified by the Spirit of the living God, become so many living witnesses of the blessedness of the Gospel ; and thus prepare the way for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. Open doors. I have not time to enumerate the places, but all China is open. Look at the map, put your finger anywhere and if your Church is not represented there by its missionary forces some other Church equally good is there, represented by its mis- sionary forces. But what are these among so many? Let us see to it that they are reinforced by hundreds of thousands of men and women of the very highest culture, of the most undoubted piety, men and women who have a divine call to this foreign field, supported by the generous gifts and sustained by the unceas- ing prayers of the Church. So we have these three great doors opening into one common nation. They are so many different entrances to the same great center, so many different ways to the same great result. For our schools, if they are missionary schools, must be evangelistic agencies ; our hospitals, if they are missionary hospitals, must be evangelistic agencies ; and the preaching of the Gospel must be from hearts that know they have been redeemed, and that have the witness of the Spirit that they are born again, and that can preach with the demonstration of the Spirit and with power the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. Once put that kind of living power into China, and we have the great problem of the occupa- tion of the field practically solved. There are one or two encouraging facts that I must name be- fore yielding the floor to one so much more deserving of your hearing — that noble man who has given his life for India and who stands before us to-day a shadow of his former self, the substance having been laid upon the altar — to Bishop Thoburn, and to Bishop Hartzell, the worthy successor of our matchless Bishop Taylor. ' THE OPEN DOOR IN EASTERN ASIA l6l First, we are apt to forget that there is a vast force at work in The Wortli of China, in a way different from ours, and that sometimes seems B.omaniBm to us reprehensible and faulty; and yet a force that has been working for generations when we were asleep as to our duty. I condemn the faults and deplore the mistakes of the Roman Catholic Church; but I thank God with all my heart that the Roman Catholic Church exists to-day. If it were in my power by a touch of my hand I would not blot that Church out of existence. If the laying down of my life upon the altar were the only price by which that Church could be perpetuated in the world, my life would be a glad offering for its perpetuation ; because, my brethren, that Church has the doctrines of Jesus Christ. Buried it may be, under its superstitions, errors, and misconceptions ; but dig down deep enough and you uncover Christ, even in the Roman Catholic Church, in all his power and in all his splendor. That Church has labored and we have entered into its labors. When I reached Peking, I went over the works that had been Catholics built by our matchless Gamewell. (What a splendid name that is ^\ Jr IT OX 6 8 1 8i UliS for a military hero, and what a victorious contest he fought for the in Peking cause of Jesus Christ, right there in the heart of pagan China!) When I looked over the works our own matchless Gamewell had constructed, and saw the evidences of the awful carnage that had raged all about them, my heart swelled with admiration for the man and for the little garrison that fought the battle out until the victory came. Let us remember that the Roman Catholics and the Protestants were all there together. They came marching up from our compound, Roman Catholic and Protestant Chris- tians, side by side. I sometimes think that is a prophecy of a time when we shall forget all about St. Peter's and Rome and John Wesley and all that, and Roman Catholics and Protestants, arm in arm, shall go swinging along on the march to everlasting victory. God grant that it may come, and come speedily ! I went over to where the Roman Catholics made their own fight, in their own Peitang Cathedral, and saw there the evidences of a conflict more terrible than that which raged about our own fortifications ; saw where the great explosion had swept so many of their chil- dren into eternity; looked all through the ruins of that great structure, and my heart was made very tender. I had heard how the old Archbishop Favier had stood there alone, inspiring and 11 1 62 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION A Beformation Yet to Be The Chinese a Uighty Sace leading the little handful that defended that citadel of the faith. I asked to see him, and they took me into his room. There he was, with his legs swathed in bandages, suffering from rheuma- tism. He looked to me like an incarnation, not of the spirit of Mars and of battle, but of the spirit of Michael, the archangel. Before you, the representatives of the Methodist Church, before you the young Methodists, the Methodism of the future, I say there is a spirit in the bosom of the great Roman Catholic Church sublime and heroic, from the days of St. Francis Xavier down to our own; a spirit that has given to the cause of Christ martyrs by the hundreds and thousands, and that will yet bring it into line with the most advanced and blessed movements of the Gospel. As in the past there was a Luther and a Reformation that arose in that Church and swept out over the world and again making it new, and as in later times out of that Reformation there came a Wesley and an Oxford movement sweeping over the world and again making it new, so the time is possibly not far in the future when out of that Church will come another Luther and another Wesley, and the end will draw nigh. I love to think that that mighty Church needs only to be touched into life and vitalized into active and earnest piety to be such an organization as, joined with the organizations of Protestantism, shall assure the conquest of the world for the Lord Jesus Christ. Finally, this other fact, that down deep beneath the supersti- tions and errors of China, down below fetiches and fetich worship, and all the monstrous incrustation of errors that has overgrown the system of Confucian ethics, there is in China such a sub- stratum of moral teaching and faith as cannot be found elsewhere on the face of the earth — a foundation already prepared for the beautiful superstructure of the Christian religion. Not a stone of that foundation, so far as the morality of Confucius is con- cerned, needs to be changed ; all we have to do is to put into it the life and power of the religion of Jesus Christ, and the very stones will cry out in praise and adoration unto our Lord. Thus you see what preparation is made for the final victory. Can you doubt that the Lord Jesus Christ has come unto all? While other nations have filled the world with their glittering splendor, and have sunk and been forgotten, why has China been preserved ? Is the noblest form of Christianity to be wrought out in China ? I adore my own flag, my own people, made up of the THE OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA 163 best nations of the world, but I go down upon my knees in humble reverence before the majesty of the mighty Chinese race. The noblest people on the face of the earth are standing there man- acled, waiting for the power of the Gospel to strike off their fetters and let them go free. Yes, the wires are all strung in China, all strung; the poles are up, the wires are strung. It only needs the dynamo of the Gospel and connection with that great Source of spiritual electricity to have the Light of the World flash in splendor, from the rivers to the ends of the earth ! THE OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA Bishop J. C. Hartzell Africa is the last continent to be opened to the Gospel, and The Fullness her peoples are the last great section of the human family to be """"* reached by the truth as it is in Christ. The fullness of time has come, in the providence of God, to this continent and people, as certainly as it did in the coming of our Lord, in the supreme moment of the world's redemption. And how quickly it has all been done! Only yesterday that vast continent was under a veil of mystery. On the northeast corner in the distant past, that veil was lifted by the peoples of Asia and there developed the civilizations of Egypt. Later, along the Mediterranean Sea, the edge of that veil was lifted a little and cities and empires grew and passed away. In still later times along both coasts and in the far south the edges of the continent were explored; but until a few years ago that vast continent, the oldest of the earth, and one destined to have a very large place in the future of the world, was hidden in mystery. We know not for how many thousands of years her multitudes dwelling in barbaric heathenism had been babbling their many tongues. We only know that there was mystery and tragedy and uncertainty. Within a very few years that veil has been lifted and you and I now look upon the map of all Africa, trace her rivers, measure her mountains, estimate her wealth, count her peoples, and study their religions. On no other continent have so many wonderful things been Crowding of done in so brief a time. Only in our time was it possible to over- ^^^ ^*y' come the physical difficulties of subduing that continent. The great Sahara Desert and the Abyssinian Mountains confined the 164 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Journey of Iiivingstone European Wars in Africa Ended Roman empire, the early Christian Church, and Egyptian ambi- tions to the lower valleys of the Nile and a little strip along the Mediterranean. Many hundreds of thousands of lives Were lost as the centuries passed in attempts to penetrate the interior through the deadly malaria of the coasts. The modern railway alone could carry civilization to the heart of Africa. Medical science has now begun to grapple successfully with the fevers of Africa and other tropical climes. At no other period of modern times were the diplomatic relations of Europe such as to have permitted the parceling out of a continent and the organization of colonial governments over so vast an area, without tre- mendous wars. Africa to-day presents an era of nation building without a precedent in history, while exploration, commerce, diplomacy, science, missionary movements are centering upon the African continent in a most marvelous manner. It was only in 1841 that the immortal Livingstone began to thread his way northward from Cape Town through Bechuana- land two thousand miles to the Zambesi, then to St. Paul de Loanda, on the West Coast. From there he retraced his steps to the Zambesi, discovered Victoria Falls, and pushed eastward across the continent to the shores of the Indian Ocean. That jour- ney was inspired by God in the heart of that Christian missionary, and its story startled and aroused the Christian world. Other discoveries followed, and then came the organization of the Congo Free State by a congress of nations at Brussels. This great event also was providential, for King Leopold had a supreme desire to benefit Africa. A little later came the parti- tion of practically the whole continent among the chief nations of Europe. The close of the South African war marks the end of this brief but momentous period in the history of Africa, which was begun by the explorations of Livingstone. Pretoria, where the terms of peace between the Briton and the Boer were signed, will be another historic spot not only as relates to the English and Dutch peoples, but to the whole of the African continent. It means the end of European wars in Africa, and that from now on the dividing lines between the colonial possessions of different nations in Africa are practically adjusted, and that the adminis- trative and diplomatic forces of England and France and Germany and the other nations interested will be concentrated upon questions of practical government, the development of the THE OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA I65 continent, and the best interests of the multitude of natives. The end of this historic period also means that all Africa is now open to the forces of Christianity. Very soon there will be a continental system of railways with commercial enterprises and intercommunication everywhere ; there will be vast agricultural and mineral wealth ; growth of centers of power wherever Anglo- Saxon civilization will be possible, and the development of permanent government among the natives throughout the whole continent. It is difificult to realize how large an open door God has placed a Vast before the Church in Africa. There is room enough on the lower Continent end of the continent for the whole of the United States with her 85,000,000 of people ; Europe, with her many states and hundreds of millions, can be placed on one side of Central Africa; China, with her 400,000,000, could be accommodated on the other half of Central Africa, and there is plenty of room for all India, with her 300,000,000, and England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland in the lower valleys of the Nile and along the coasts of the Medi- terranean ; while there is plenty of room for Porto Rico and the Philippines on the islands of Zanzibar and Madagascar and other islands on the East and West Coasts. The 12,500,000 square miles of territory on the African continent equals that of all other countries in which our Church has foreign missions ! The population of Africa to-day is comparatively small, not more than 150,000,000. This means an average of not more Boom to than twelve people to the square mile. This, too, would seem to °P°'" be a providential fact. Instead of a continent crowded with peoples crushed under the weight of dying civilizations and false religions, intrenched in philosophies and customs hoary with age, Africa presents a section of the earth largely yet to be occupied, and her native peoples ready for the molding influences of the Gospel. It is important not only to understand the number of people in Africa, but their relation to each other. Of the 150,000,000, not more, perhaps, than 1,200,000 are white people, and among these are counted at least 300,000 of the mixed Caucasian peoples along the Mediterranean. In South Africa, where alone there can be a large center of Anglo-Saxon civilization, there are not more than 800,000 white people; while in the great heart of the continent, with its more than 125,000,000 black natives, there are 1 66 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Small White Fopulation Justice and Progress Sons of Ham andof Japhetli hardly ioo,ooo white people. Along the eastern coast there are possibly 300,000 people from India, and the number is rapidly increasing. It would seem that eastern Africa is to be to the overflowing populations of India what America has been and is to the people of Europe. These figures show how comparatively small is the white population of the whole continent. Now add to this the momentous fact that in the providence of God the govern- ing forces of all Africa are in the hands of white men, and -we are face to face with the vast significance of the open door in Africa to America and the Methodist Episcopal Church because of their greatness and their moral responsibility in the redemp- tion of the world. In a few years the whole Dark Continent has become a part of "the white man's burden." For centuries — we know not how many — the black races of Africa have lived on in the midst of barbaric heathenism without developing permanent or effective civilization, beyond some centers of fairly well or- ganized social order. The failure of the black races to utilize the natural resources of the African continent for the good of humanity has been manifested. Whether in the future there will be any great black nationalities we do not know. What is now evident is that when the civilized world needed Africa for her overflowing populations and expanding commerce it became necessary for governments controlled by white men to take pos- session of the continent. On man's side the motives have not always been good, but in all ages God's overruling providences have been and still are manifest. The black races of Africa, and, through them, of the world, are to have their chance in the twentieth century under the direction and government of the sons of Japheth. Civilizations are never indigenous, and the open door in Africa means that the civilization of the white races is to be established in all that continent, and the special problem of the great nations having this work in hand, led by Great Britain, whose flag is the missionary flag of the world, is to see to it that in doing this great work there is equal justice for all, black and white, and the largest opportunity for individual and racial progress. While the responsibility of redeeming Africa is placed upon the white man, it is also evident that upon that continent the black races of the world are to have their chief centers and to work out on the largest scale their future destinies. It has Man's Burden " THE OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA 167 already been proved that wherever there have been good govern- ments in Africa the native peoples increase rapidly in numbers. In Cape Colony, for example, with 400,000 white people, there are more than 2,000,000 blacks. In Natal Colony, with only 50,000 whites, there are more than 50,000 Indians and 600,000 blacks. South of the Zambesi River, with only 800,000 white people, there are more than 8,000,000 blacks ; while as I have said already, the whole vast continent of the north is practically one great mass of black humanity. The twentieth century will probably see five or six hundred millions of black people on the African continent, and with the limited territory where white civilization is possible, the number of white people will probably be but little beyond the same proportion as now. Another important fact touching the open door in Africa is that the responsibility of the sons of Japheth for the government " The White of the continent carries with it the momentous work of providing for the industrial, intellectual, and moral future of its native races. Compared with this vast work, providentially imposed as a part of "the white man's burden" upon the nations now devel- oping colonial governments in Africa, the negro problem in America is a national incident of small import. In America nine tenths of the negro population is in a single section; while in South Africa, where alone there is a large white population, there are eight times as many blacks as whites, and in the whole continent there are about one hundred and fifty black people to each white person. To-day the one overshadowing question in Africa is the native problem. It presents itself in acute forms on every hand. In The Native government the questions are. To what extent can the native be recognized as the citizen, and how soon, and, how best can the authority of law be extended and barbarism be displaced by civilization, so that there will be a minimum of hardship to the subject races ? In every form of industry the problem is to teach the native races the dignity and necessity of labor as a means to higher social and intellectual conditions. No one thing has im- pressed me more during conversations with many prominent and leading men representing England, Germany, France, and other nations who are face to face with these problems in Africa than the manifest seriousness with which these native questions are approached. Problem 1 68 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Home of the Sons of Ham The Blessing of English Bule The great mass of the black races are to have their home on the African continent, as certainly as the sons of Shem chiefly occupy Asia and the sons of Japheth Europe and America. The right treatment of the native African must therefore be a test of the character and efficiency of any government developing power on that continent. Herein was a radical defect in the constitution of the late South African Republic. Paul Krueger and his associates made it a part of the fundamental law of their little republic that there could be no equality between the whites and the natives in Church or State. During a conversation in 1897 with Mr. Krueger he defended to me the attitude of his people toward the negro. On the other hand, Great Britain, Ger- many, and France, especially the first named government, treats the native as a man amenable to law and encourages and cooperates in the work of his improvement in morals, industry, and social conditions. A few years ago the Kaiser annulled the decision of a court-martial which proposed a moderate punish- ment for a German military officer of high rank in Africa. The crime was the hanging of a native girl for some trivial offense, and by order of the Kaiser he was dismissed from the army and public service in disgrace. England extends the right of suffrage to natives on the same basis as to the whites, and makes provision for their education. In the late Transvaal Republic the native had no standing before the law, could not own land or go into business on his own account, and was flogged or imprisoned if found without his badge showing he had paid his annual license. Every friend of the native African ought to thank God that under the leading governments now dominating Africa, and especially under English rule, which is to be the greatest factor in the affairs of that continent, the black man is to have a fair chance. It has been said that in the eighteenth century the white man stole Africans from Africa, and that he is now engaged in stealing Africa from the Africans. The truth of the first state- ment cannot be questioned, and the horrors of the African slave trade, so long "the open sore of the world," must ever stand as the crime of crimes on the part of Christian nations against the black races. In one sense it is true that the white man is now stealing Africa from the African, but in a much higher sense. In God's providence, the white man in Africa is to open the way for the greatest possible good for the native multitudes of to-day THE OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA 169 and the multiplying millions of the future. Tribal wars which periodically devastated sections of the continent are now ended. It is said that a single great chief in South Africa, at the begin- ning of the last century, was the cause of the death of a million natives by war and consequent famine. There is to be permanent and well-ordered government; industry and home life will be encouraged, the right of property protected, and the way opened for the Christian school and church. God will see to it that the nations which have taken the responsibility of Africa from the Africans will do justice or lose their power and place on that continent, and their prestige before the world. If Africa is to be for the African in this wide and manifestly American providential sense it is easily seen that the relations and respon- ^fl^^nce in sibilities of the United States to the open door in that continent are direct and of imperative import. It is not a question of territorial possessions. The nearest approach to this is the little black republic of Liberia, on the West Coast, made up chiefly of American negroes and their descendants, and in this case it is only a matter of moral influence. President McKinley, with many others, held that the United States had a moral obligation to that little commonwealth which should be recognized, and practical sympathy and cooperation should be given when needed. As to commerce between the United States and Africa, it will grow to marvelous proportions, and the great republic will always be an umpire in influence, if not in actual word, between the nations governing Africa. But the open door in Africa means far more to the United States than the possession of territory or moral power with other nationalities. Within our own border are nearly ten million black people, the most moral, industrious group of negroes on the earth. The good which' this mass of black humanity inherits as the result of three hundred years of tutelage in slavery and freedom cannot be made an apology for the African slave trade, but only demonstrates again, as has been done many times in history, that God is saving this world in spite of men's wickedness. This Africa in America has a peculiarly providential relation American to Africa beyond the seas, and American negro leadership in leSership Africa is one of the divine calls of the hour. Here is a very im- portant part of the answer to the splendid results achieved since the war in the education of black men and women in our Southern 170 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION A Freedman's Heart Utterance A Uother's Yearning States. But just as the white man and governments are re- sponsible for the well-being of the black races in Africa, so the white man of America must go hand in hand with his brother black man at home in plans and faith and sacrifice for the re- demption of Africa beyond the seas. Years ago, just after the civil war, I spoke to an immense audience of freedmen in Galveston, Texas, and sought to inspire them with hopefulness as to their future and spoke of the mission of the great republic and of the Christian Church to give them and their children the Christian school, the church, and a fair chance in the race of life. After having taken my seat a tall black man arose in the rear part of the audience and slowly made his way through the crowd toward the front. An influence of profound expectancy pervaded the audience, and as the old man made his way there was perfect quiet. I learned afterward that he had been stolen from Africa when a boy and brought to America in one of the sailing slavers which occasionally found their way to the Gulf coast long after the general abolition of the slave trade. At last he reached the platform, and after hesitating a moment he stepped upon it and stood before me trembling with emotion. At last, as if not knowing what else to do, he fell on his knees before me and extending his arms looked into my face, while the tears flowed down his cheeks. He said, "O, where did you come from? I shall never forget you as long as I live, and every day the sun rises I shall pray for you while God gives me breath." His head fell into my lap, and he sobbed like a child. The blessed heart experiences and inspiration which came to my life during the twenty-six years I was permitted to give to God's poor in the Southern States I can never sufficiently thank God for. Now I find myself among a vastly greater black multitude on the continent of Africa, commissioned by the Church to take to them the same Gospel which I preached to the freedmen and their successors in the South, and I meet the same heart appeals and cries for the truth of God. One day in 1897, during my first episcopal tour in Angola, as the hammock carriers bore me along the narrow path at the head of my caravan, I heard the cry of a woman. At my request the carrier stopped, and getting out of my hammock I saw in a little opening of the grass beside the path a native woman with her arms outstretched toward the heavens, crying as if her heart would break. Through an inter- THE OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA 17I preter I asked what was the matter, and she told me this story : "My baby died last night. I don't know where it is, and I am afraid I shall never find it again." Ashes had been thrown upon her head and had fallen down upon her person, for among these natives there are some Jewish customs — among the rest, sack- cloth or ashes in time of sorrow. I told her about Jesus, who was born a baby and grew to be a man and who was God on earth, and who died to save her and her baby, and that her child was with him now, and that, if she would love Jesus and serve him, after a while she would go to her baby and never lose it again. She looked at me at first with amazement and fear, but seeing the kind expression of my face she fell upon her face before me and clasped my feet in her arms and wept as if her heart would break. I bade her arise. She had been selling some bananas and other native fruits to passers-by that she might make a few pennies to pay the funeral expenses of her baby. I bought all that she had, paying several times the value, and then she said, "I must go quickly and tell my people of the white man from afar and what he has said about Jesus and about my finding my baby again." We were journeying along the hillside, and in the distance on the plains I could see several native towns, and as the woman made her way I praised God that I was permitted to preach the Gospel to her and to give her a word of comfort in the hour of her heart sorrow. A gentleman said a day or two ago in my hearing : "Hartzell a Large ought to be an expert on the negro. He used to come to us in ^''^**" the North and plead for the freedman of the South, and now he comes and speaks with the same enthusiasm of the greater masses in Africa." I do not know whether that was intended as a com- pliment or not, and neither do I care, but after I heard the remark my thoughts ran back through the years I have given to our Southern land and there came rushing over me the pathos, the sympathy, and the ambitions and plans of those years during which it was my lot to help in laying the foundations of civil and religious institutions in the Southern States after the dreadful war. Whatever word I may have spoken or influence exerted in bringing to the heart of the Church and nation the needs of those people and their necessities I thank God for. To-day a larger burden rests upon me, and I somehow feel that my work in the South, especially on editorial and educational lines, was the \'j2 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Answer of the Church A Great Continent Scarcely Touched The Cost in Lives school in which I was being prepared for my work in greater Africa. I come now to the most important part of my address. What is to be the answer of the Christian Church to this wide-open door in Africa? Opportunities to the Christian Church mean responsibiHties which cannot be ignored without losing the bless- ing of God. The only thing that seems to lag in that vast field is the Christian Church. No matter how many millions of dollars are needed to build a railroad, open and equip a mine, organize a new colony, build docks or dredge harbors, float a score of steam- ships or explore new regions, the word has only to be spoken in London or Paris or Berlin or Hamburg or New York, and they are forthcoming. Something is being done by the Church in Africa. There are forty missionary societies at work, and at some centers, consider- ing the difficulties, good work has been accomplished among the natives. It must also be remembered that in the great European centers, like Cape Town and Johannesburg, there are churches and schools and philanthropic efforts among the white people. But the great continent has scarcely been touched by the Christian Church. In North Africa it has been estimated there is only one Protestant missionary to a hundred and twenty-fiye thousand Mohammedans ; in Sahara, one Protestant missionary to two million five hundred thousand Mohammedans and pagans; in Sudan, one Protestant missionary to forty-five million Moham- medans and pagans; in West Africa, one Protestant missionary to thirty thousand pagans; in Central Africa, eighty thousand pagans to one missionary ; and in South Africa, one mission- ary to fourteen thousand pagans. Think of it, in the great heart of the continent one lone Protestant missionary to forty-five millions of pagans and Mohammedans ! The Christian Church as a whole has not yet taken Africa seriously to heart. No land has had more heroic men and women. Six hundred have laid down their lives for the exploration of the continent, and the price already paid for Africa, in the lives of missionaries, has been great; but still the deaths of missionaries in Africa are only a small per cent of the number of deaths among the tens of thou- sands who flock to that continent to make money, study science, or for fame or wealth in government or commerce. The chief work of Methodism in Africa up to date has been that of the TUli OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA 173 A Plea for More than Sympathy Wesleyan Church in South Africa and on the West Coast. The work of the Methodist Episcopal Church has been in no way commensurate with her wealth in her workers and money and her responsibilities before God. Six years ago last May the Church, through the General Con- ference, sent me to Africa. At first the work was one of explora- tion and study, as related to the scattered work we had and the centers where our work should be made permanent. My last tour, just completed, has been in many respects the most thorough, having visited every center on both coasts and organ- ized two Mission Conferences, one in the east and one in the west, to include all of the work outside of the old Liberia Conference. Now we have our centers fixed, and I can speak from definite knowledge ; and through this great Convention my plea to the Church is that Africa and its redemption be taken seriously to heart. I have had and am having plenty of sympathy, but I must have something more. Our missionary workers in Africa have the sympathy of many thousands, but they must have something more. They must have buildings and church and school equip- ments, their personal necessities must be met, and we must have the means to send out reinforcements not only to strengthen the work we have, but to hearken to some of the pitiful calls which come to us from the regions beyond. Let us begin with Liberia, that little black republic born out Liberia of philanthropic plans of good Americans a hundred years ago. Their motives were different. Some thought to benefit slavery by the removal of free negroes from the South, and others had different views, but all felt that in the end Liberia would be a center where American negroes could better their condition and inaugurate a movement toward the evangelization of the conti- nent. All that was anticipated has not been realized, but the little nation lives and is recognized and protected by the great nations of the world. Its territory extends three hundred and fifty miles along the coast and two hundred and fifty miles into the interior, and is one of the richest sections of the West Coast. A new era seems to have dawned commercially upon the republic. A charter has been granted to a large English company to explore and develop its agricultural and mineral wealth and increase its general commerce. It was in Liberia that our first foreign mis- sion was established in 1833, when Melville B. Cox so quickly 174 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION An Encoviraging Outlook Self-support and joyfully laid down his life, having asked that on his tomb- stone should be written, "Though a thousand fall, let not Africa be given up." The history of our Liberia Mission is a checkered one of mingled victory and defeat, and some day must be written by a wise historian. The best news that I have to gfive you from Liberia is that a new spirit of helpfulness and aggressiveness is taking possession of that Conference. We have about one hun- dred workers, including ministers and laymen, who are appointed each year to districts, schools, churches, and missions. I held the last Conference at Grand Bassa a few months ago, in a new brick church that cost four thousand dollars and which was built by the people themselves except what I gave them for the win- dows and roof. When the trustees presented the church to me for dedication there was a debt of six hundred dollars due the Hon. J. C. Somerville, vice president of the republic and one of the trustees. He handed me a receipt in full, so there was no debt. It was a joyful day to us, and I scarcely ever have attended a more enthusiastic Conference session. The same town and neighborhood has subscribed two thousand dollars toward a high school building. In Monrovia, the capital, we have our strongest church. It is also the best one in the republic. It is self-support- ing, and besides giving two thousand dollars toward the enlarge- ment of our college building it is building a two-thousand-dollar parsonage. Other churches among the Americo-Liberians are becoming self-supporting, and my word to them is that my first mission in Liberia is to teach them how to help themselves. We have our College of West Africa located at the capital, and twenty-nine primary schools in different parts of the republic. We have our printing press and outfit, for which I have raised the money and which is worth six thousand dollars. Here we print The New Africa, a thirty-two-page monthly, Sunday school literature and tracts and songs in several native languages. A very important part of our Liberia work is included in the purely native stations. At one Conference I asked a native teacher to rise and sing "Come to Jesus," and then I asked another who taught in a different language to rise and sing the same, and so on until six diflferent teachers working among many different tribes and using as many different dialects had sung "Come to Jesus." Then I asked the whole Conference and all others who could speak English to sing the same blessed words. Then at THE OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA 175 my request everybody arose together and all sang "Come to Jesus," each using his own language. That mingling of races and languages in Christian song was to me a prophecy of the time when all races and all tongues in that vast continent shall come to Jesus with joyful hallelujahs ! This work in Liberia is in great need. Scarcely anything has property and been done for many years in building, and many of our mission ■^"''6" stations are unfit for habitation, and yet our brave workers patch up the roofs and prop up the sides and get through the rainy season as best they can. We are short of workers for the stations we have, and have been compelled to abandon many of them and center at the principal ones. And then what of the vast regions beyond? I sent one missionary a journey seven days into the interior, and the stories he brought of healthful valleys and plains and of fine types of negroes who had never seen a white man stirred my soul. But what could I do ? That missionary was com- pelled to come home, and I have not sufficient force to man even the station from which he started. Among the natives he found those who were making brass bells and rings and chains and who were workers in iron and had wealth in ivory and cattle, but they knew not the value of money, and the only way to trade with them was by exchange in goods. O, how long must the work in Liberia be practically confined to the most unhealthy coast region and the vast open doors beyond be neglected? If I had five thou- sand dollars to estabhsh an industrial mission a hundred miles from the coast it would soon support itself. Down the coast past the mouth of the great Congo River we Angola reach St. Paul de Loanda, the oldest city on the West Coast, with five thousand Portuguese and thirty-five thousand natives. The view from the harbor is beautiful. The city is divided into two portions, a part lying along the beach and the greater portion extending upon a high plateau in the rear. In plain view is the National Observatory, the Ocean Cable Station, a great hospital, the colonial and city buildings, the governor's residence, and the parks and shady avenues. On one of the most beautiful points of the high ground stand our two mission buildings, surrounded by the mission grounds. One of these was built by Bishop Taylor and affords good room for church and Sunday school services in the basement and provides for a school of one hundred and fifty in the upper story. The other building I have recently purchased 176 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION A Line of MiBSion Stations Uadeira Islands at an expense of five thousand dollars. The cost to build it was over twelve thousand dollars. This added a home for our mis- sionaries and a fine place for our girls' dormitory. This great center has been practically unoccupied for ten years for lack of workers and money, but I have taken the responsibility of buying the property and opening the work. It had to be done. It is the key to our West Central Africa Mission Conference, where we have a territory of nearly four hundred thousand square miles among a choice class of natives. Extending out three hundred miles to Malange, we have our other four central stations, and besides these we have smaller stations under the care of native preachers. This work had been thoroughly organized. We have a well-equipped mission press at Quiongua, and are publishing the Scriptures, tracts, a four-page paper, and will soon publish a series of text-books for our native schools. We have two in- dustrial schools which are self-supporting and which aid largely in building. One school built a good native church and made the furniture, and is now building a schoolhouse at Quiongua. The other school is helping to build at Quessua. The Kimbundu language of these people is one of the best in Africa. This Con- ference needs at least six new workers at once to maintain it with efficiency as it is, and there is need of a few thousand dollars to be put into inexpensive buildings at several points. And then •what of the regions beyond? Gradually a highway is being opened up for commerce in a vast section where there are no missionaries, and where the voice of God has been calling for thousands of years to the Christian Church. When can I have a single man with intellectual and moral grip sufficient to enter that open door? And then take the Madeira Islands, that beautiful spot where God has opened up the work to us so marvelously among the Portuguese. The city of Funchal and its suburbs have sixty thou- sand people, and on a single island there are as many more. Over them has been the rule of Roman Catholic Jesuitism for four hundred years. While no one shall go beyond me in the apprecia- tion of the good the Roman Catholic Church is doing, still it must be said that Roman Catholic Jesuitism is an organized conspiracy against the civil and rehgious liberty of the world. Sixty years ago a Scotch Presbyterian physician did a remarkable work among these Portuguese Roman Catholics. Besides his work as a THE OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA 177 physician, he had schools and taught the people to read the Bible in their own tongue. Twelve or fifteen hundred became Protes- tants in the course of a few years, and insisted on reading the Bible themselves and worshiping God according to the dictates of their own consciences. A great persecution arose, and the day was fixed when Dr. Kalley, the missionary, and all his followers were to be exterminated. On that very day, while the signal bell was being sounded in the tower of the cathedral, God sent an English ship into the harbor, and the leader, disguised in clothing as a sick woman, was carried in a hammock to the beach and ship by men who would have murdered him had they known who he was. All the Protestants, it was thought, were driven from the island. But a little precious seed remained, and only a short distance from where Dr. Kalley had his wonderful work in the mountains we have our Mount Faith Mission, with nearly fifty men and Mount Faith women recently converted and who testify to God's love, and as "°"'" many more youth in our Sunday and day schools. Down in the city, opposite a beautiful park, we have our church house. The Roman Catholic owner told me that he would rent it to us because he believed in religious toleration for all. In the basement we have our Sailors' Rest, and I have secured the cooperation of the sailors' societies in London and New York to help in that work- We have regular Portuguese services, and have published a hand- book of Methodist Episcopal doctrines and hymns in Portuguese. We have here a place where our sick missionaries can go and recuperate, and this is my home as far as I can have an episcopal residence. Nearly two thousand ships of various kinds anchor in that harbor every year in their passing from Europe to South America and Africa. In four years the results of this work have been most encouraging, and near by are other islands of large populations where Protestantism has open doors. I have had only five hundred dollars of mission money each year for this work. The remainder of the annual expense of three thousand dollars and over to maintain five missionaries, build and equip our build- ings at Mount Faith, has been raised among friends. On the southeast coast of the continent we have two centers, six Native One is at Inhambane, where five years ago we had one missionary, ?*?*' ""J^ ** one native station, and a few native members. Now we have six native stations with hundreds of members and calls from many directions for workers in a population of several million. Here 13 Beira Sliodeaia large Property Holdings 178 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION we have another press and outfit and are printing a series of text-books for the native schools, rehgious tracts, and a large amount of work is being done in the translation of the Scriptures. We must have at least four new missionaries for this center. Our schools for boys and girls must have buildings. At no other point of our work in Africa can so much be done for the same amount of money. Two hundred and fifty miles up the coast is Beira, the east ocean port for all Rhodesia. It is already a city of several thou- sand people. Here are European whites, Indians, Chinese, and great numbers of natives. For three years I have hoped that the way would be open to send a man to this point. We must occupy it. It is the ocean key to all our work in East Africa, but I have not had the money, although the work could be made self-sup- porting after the first or second year. Two hundred miles by rail brings us to the mountainous table-lands of eastern Rhodesia, with Umtali for the first center of European population, in the midst of a vast gold-bearing and agricultural section. In October of 1897 I rode into this town, drenched with rain and covered with mud, and as I looked upon its beautiful situation and sur- roundings I said, "Here is to be the chief center of American Methodist missions in East Africa." I cannot go into' details, but as the result of correspondence and many interviews with representatives of the British South Africa Company in Rhodesia and England and many a wearying journey relating to property titles and other necessary matters, and also representation to the Church at home, securing money and workers, I was permitted, with my heart overflowing with gratitude to God, November 16, 1901, to organize the East Central Africa Mission Conference at Umtali. It was a great event for that section of the continent. It was the founding of a new spiritual empire, another section of our world-wide Methodism. There were present eighteen picked white men and women from America. The acquisition of prop- erty had been remarkable. The chief single gift was thirteen thousand acres of land with buildings worth seventy thousand dollars in a beautiful valley ten miles from the town and rail- road, where we are developing a great industrial native station, and where already good progress has been made in the mastery of languages, in the development of a farm and mechanical shops, and gathering herds of stock, opening schools, and doing evan- THE OPEN DOOR IN AFRICA 179 gelical work among the neighboring native towns. In the village of Umtali our native work is having remarkable progress. We already have one self-supporting church where the people support their preacher and teacher, and lands have been secured in several towns in the vicinity where, in a few months, we will have other churches filled with interested and anxious worshipers. The present force on the field can organize these churches, but I must have one or two more good missionaries to take charge of this enlarging work and to teach native helpers and prepare them as quickly as possible for permanent service. In the Umtali native church over sixty have been converted within the past six months. In this center we have our first development among the Euro- Work among pean and African white people of the continent. These are made ^^^ Whites up of people connected with railroads, government officials, and those engaged in commerce, mining, and agriculture. Most of these have emigrated from Europe and other countries, but a good percentage are Africanders, born and reared in Cape Colony or other sections of Africa. Within a few miles are gold-mining centers, so that altogether in that section there are now, perhaps, fifteen hundred white people, and their number will increase rapidly now that the war is over, and great plans are being in- augurated for the development of South Africa. Among these people we have a self-supporting academy. We Trmtali secured a property that cost thirty-one thousand dollars for half A'!»d6"iy that sum. The government gave five thousand dollars and loaned us the balance at five per cent interest until we could raise it. We have a hundred pupils and five departments. Kindergarten, Music, Primary, Intermediate, and High School. We have four teach- ers. The government also pays one half the salaries of the teachers and one half the expenses of equipping the schools. The tuition pays the other half, so that we have this splendid property and this flourishing school without the use of a dollar of mission- ary money. Here, as the population increases, will be our future college and Christian training school. We have also organized the St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church, our first for st. Andrew's European and African white people on the continent. The corner Methodist stone of a ten-thousand-dollar church has been laid. The Masonic fraternity, with a large company of other citizens, participated in the ceremonies. Seventy-five hundred dollars of the expense will be provided for on the ground, and I have assumed the balance i8o THE CLElVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION A Forward Look Episcopal Touring of the Continent of twenty-five hundred dollars. On reaching the East Coast in a few months I will dedicate this church, together with three or four native churches. This new Conference includes all our work on the East Coast, and is certainly a phenomenal beginning in so brief a time, where five years ago we had nothing but the little start at Inhambane. Our property, not counting the thirteen thousand acres of land, the value of which is sure to be great in the near future, is worth over one hundred thousand dollars. Where has there been a more providential or remarkable develop- ment in a single mission field in our time? And now stand with me for a moment on the summit of a mountain five thousand feet above the sea in the midst of our large industrial mission estate, and contemplate the open doors north, south, east, and west where there are great centers of black populations as yet untouched with the Gospel of Christ. Concessions of land are offered, the native chiefs are calling for "book religion," and the governments are friendly. It is the op- portune moment. Especially as I look northward, and know that as the result of consultations with government officials, all of whom are friendly to Christian missions, a large concession of land can be secured near the very heart of the continent, near by or through which will pass the railway which, in a few years, will connect with the road from Cairo -at Khartoum, O, how my heart longs to secure that great central location ! I know that my years in Africa will be too few to develop it, but it will remain as a heritage of faith and possibilities to my successor and his associates ! Six years ago I started to Africa scarcely knowing whither I went. The first tour of exploration and study required over thirty-five thousand miles of travel, some of it under most difficult conditions as to climate, sickness, and modes of transportation. Subsequent tours have enabled me to organize the work, to un- derstand- its needs, to realize the heroism of our missionaries on the field, and to know how great the need for large reinforce- ments. More than this, the map of the continent of Africa, with its systems of rivers and lakes, its mountains, its plateaus, its developing cities, its great commercial enterprises, its mining and agricultural possibilities, its steamship lines belting its coasts over and over again, its governments facing vast responsibilities, and its multiplying millions of natives with the infinite pathos THE OPEN DOOR IN SOUTHERN 'ASIA l8l of their moral condition — all this has been burned into my very soul, and if I could have a thousand tongues and each of them could be inspired with the faith of the prophets of old, all should be dedicated to pleading for that continent. O Africa, for thee I pray, for thee I plead, and, if need be, for thee I die ! THE OPEN DOOR IN SOUTHERN ASIA Bishop J. M. Thoburn Southern Asia, when we use the term geographically, in- what eludes all that part of Asia south of the Himalaya Mountains. It I'^f^lg" *"* also includes all those countries that border upon the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, and I might include the Chinese Sea. I mean all those countries north of the equator bordering upon those bodies of water. It includes about one half of Arabia. In popular usage it includes southern Persia ; but we do not add to it any of that part of Asia that borders upon the Pacific Ocean. When we use the term according to our usage in the Missionary Society we take in nearly all of the territory which I have desig- nated. We once had a Methodist society with a local preacher in Arabia, at the port of Aden ; but as Aden, with all the coasts of the Persian Gulf up to its head, is now recognized as under the Indian government, that is included in our territory. Then all of India proper is in our field, including what we used to call in our geographies Beluchistan, nearly all of which is practically part of the British Indian empire. It includes Burma, it includes Siam, it includes the Malay Peninsula, all the great Malaysian Islands, and, as you heard to-day, the Philippines. In this great territory we have an immense population, aggre- India a gating something over three hundred and fifty million of people. Mother of Next to China it stands first among the great peoples of this world. We have witnessed a very wide extension of our mission field. It commenced at a very early period in our Methodist his- tory, and has advanced somewhat rapidly since. It now includes what might be called, from the religious point of view, a key position, so far as the rest of Asia is concerned. India has been to an important degree a mother of religions. A missionary peo- ple live there. She has borrowed very little from her neighbors, and she has given a great deal to them. The early Brahman I«2 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Why Go So Far Afield Work in Twenty-eight Languages leaders were missionaries, and Brahmanism, at least in its early days, was a missionary religion. It has ceased to be such now. And then the more corrupt bodies that now bear the name of Hinduism, they also were a missionary people in early days, and the ruins of their temples are found in the Malaysian Islands to- day. Next the Buddhists arose, and India, through her Buddhist missionaries, gave a religion to China and Japan, but never bor- rowed anything from those countries. Her Buddhist notions have penetrated not only into Persia and western Asia, but to a remark- able extent, I think, in some parts of these United States. India promises, as you might have gathered from what Bishop Hartzell said, to furnish an important missionary, agency in the evangeli- zation of Africa at a future day, for some of our Christians are moving over there now, and we have had a local preacher in the town of Zanzibar for a good many years. Some one will be prepared to ask why we have gone afield so far. "You have not," they will say, "overtaken the country, have you, that you first tried to occupy?" Well, that seems strange, I confess, but it was not according to human designing. I have often stated in this country that in 1859, when I was going with Dr. Butler, then superintendent of our Mission, from Calcutta to Lucknow, he explained to me one day that it was a great ad- vantage, for which I should be thankful, that our Mission was conducted among a people who spoke only one language. Our Presbyterian brethren, on the other side of the Ganges, he said, must learn three languages, but our compact field, with its seven- teen millions, was inhabited by those who spoke Hindustani ex- clusively. Yet I stand here to-night as one who superintends, in part, missionary work among people speaking twenty-eight different tongues in southern Asia. I thought it very striking when Dr. Leonard remarked the other day, "We have already missionary work conducted in fourteen different languages within these United States." We just exactly double that number, and we are not done with it, for I shall probably live to see the day when our twenty-eight languages will be fifty, as the work expands. "Why did you let the work expand? You confess that you can- not overtake it." We could not help its expansion. God has a hand in all these matters. But there is one thing I cannot make the people at home understand, which is that much of this THE OPEN DOOR IN SOUTHERN ASIA 1 83 expansion was in the teeth of our protest. In 1882 there came a bishop from the home land, and a senior missionary secretary. Bishop Foster, and Dr. Reid, and I remember how in the city of Calcutta they belabored us in the South India Conference, which then included nearly the whole of India, because we would not agree to a plan which would extend our responsibility as mission- ary workers over the entire empire. I stood up there one day and was strangely moved; I spoke with tears. I said, "If we assume the responsibility you are urging upon us, it will involve an annual expenditure of about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars." They received that statement with expressions of in- credulity. I knew pretty well what I meant. Now see what has happened. We are occupying a field to-day which, according to Extent of the the ordinary appropriations of any modern missionary society, ' would require just about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. And we have never had the half of it— hardly, indeed, the tenth of it — for that field. But there is the responsibility. But it was not according to our plan. Those good men did not believe that it would ever reach such a sum, but there is One who guides in all these matters, and we follow where God leads. He gives us, I think, still sometimes a glimpse of a star from heaven that we can follow to the exact point where it shines down, not upon the Babe of Bethlehem, but upon the work which that now glorified One directs from his eternal throne. We are guided still by the Spirit and the providence of God. You ask me again. How ? Well, it comes from the work itself. Providential Take one illustration. On the Upper Ganges we worked on the eastern side of the river for some years. Every now and then some man would be converted who had a relative on the other side of the river, and he would come over and learn something about the new teaching, and then ask that some one would go there. Pretty soon we had a call from the other side of the river that seemed to be providential. I remember one tour that Bishop Parker and I made on that side of the river, taking with us three volunteer preachers to do pioneer work. We just dropped them at a railroad station, and said, "You meet us eight days hence at Muzaffarnagar ; meet us then and tell us what you may have found." We came to these men, and they said, "We have found people who have Christian relatives on the other side of "the river, all through the country. We have preached the word and have 184 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION baptized a few converts." I sent to the nearest magistrate and asked for a copy of the last Indian census. I turned it over and found that between the Upper Ganges and the Upper Indus Rivers there were Hving one milHon one hundred thousand of these people, and their religious ideas came nearer to the standard of Christianity than those of any other people we had ever found. They believed in future rewards and punishments, and, of course, in a future existence ; in the separation of the good from the bad, and in one Supreme Being. Now, what are we to do in such a case? There was only one thing we could do. We planted our banner, and largely from the initial movement begun at that time the Northwest India Conference has grown up and has become a powerful body. Then we had gone preaching to the Europeans all through southern India. Step by step we have to follow on. A Summons God leads very strangely. I remember once when I landed at to ujarat Bombay — it was when I first went out as a missionary bishop — there was a strange impression^that is all I can call it — that God had a work for us to do up there in Gujarat, about three hundred miles north of Bombay. There are some ten million people there who speak the same language. I said to the brethren then, "We should have some work up there." But one year after another went past, and we never opened the work, until at last, when I returned from this country — I think it was in 1895 or 1896 — I found a telegram waiting, asking me to go up to Gujarat, to a certain place named, because there was a very important movement there that required attention. I replied by telegram that I would come next night. I went up and spent the day under a banyan tree. They had a number of inquirers, and we explained to them what all this meant, the whole day long. In the course of the afternoon I baptized forty-three persons. We sent to a village and bought some dried raisins, and we made some raisin wine as best we could, and, with some cakes baked on the ashes for bread, I administered the Lord's Supper for the first time to those new converts. I tried to teach them to conduct family prayer. I think, if I remember correctly, that it was only per- haps some two or three years after that Bishop Foss and Doctor Goucher, under the same tree, collected an immense assembly of Christian people, and baptized with their own hands two hundred and twenty-five persons. Bishop Warren had intended to go out THE OPEN DOOR IN SOUTHERN ASIA 185 this year, but has postponed the visit for good reasons for twelve months. He would have met under the same banyan tree, if he had gone, a thousand converts presented for baptism. So it goes. I give just a few illustrations. When I talk in this way I trust No Sounding there is no one here who will feel like rising and asking me why "' * Retreat we go so far afield. It is because the field is so wide, the people are so many, the harvest is so great. The tokens of God's pres- ence are unmistakable. The still small voice in one hundred thousand hearts prompts us to believe that God is speaking to us to go forward. There is no such thing as going back in the true missionary field. There is no turning of the back upon any foe. Our face is to the front, and we must maintain that attitude until all the millions of earth are converted to God. There is no going back. But still some will say that we need not have gone to these The Beckon- distant fields, they are so far away. But there is the beckoning ">P Hand of hand of God. I would ask you, as men who believe in the mis- sionary enterprise, Is it of men or is it of God ? It is one of the two, and there is no mistake. If it is of God we must obey, and if it is of God we must believe in his guiding hand. We read the story of the old pillar of fire and pillar of cloud, followed by the people of God across the wilderness. Some men tell us* nowa- days that that story is not to be taken literally. Others accept it as absolutely literal. I will tell you how it is with me: however it may have been in the days of Moses, it is real now. We are to follow God now, and I am a great deal more concerned with the practical theology of this new century than I am with those who are not perfectly certain about events that happened in former days. I know what that story means to me. Some one will ask, "Do you ever see a pillar of fire? Do you ever hear a voice that you cannot understand? Are these miraculous tokens ever given to us?" No, I can't say that I have seen them, or that I covet them. I will even say that I do not wish for them, for I think it would weaken my faith, and would make me careless, if I could only trust to outward tokens that every man could see and no man could misunderstand. But there is the still small voice, that The still something which makes Methodist people say "I feel," which ""■ """ enables you to feel the providential movings of God, something that was referred to by one of the speakers to-day, that once stole into my own heart, when for the first time, away down about the 1 86 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION A Prophetic Conviction The Malay Feninsnla Straits of Malacca, I began to feel a strange, inexplicable interest in the Philippine Islands. I thought — perhaps it was the rem- nants of my Irish nature — that because they told me that I could go into any of that vast group except the Philippine Islands, where the Spaniards would not let us go, that I must go. I not only felt a desire to go where they told me I could not, but there sprang up in my heart a strange impression that sometime I would go. At my next visit they told me about a man who had gone there to sell Bibles and Testaments, and that the Spaniards had him in prison within two days. Again I wished to go, and I talked with this man, and by this time T began to have a feeling that I was going. The story is too long, but / have been there; that part has been confirmed. Now, as it has been with me, in this case, I think there is no manner of doubt that we have been led on step by step elsewhere. We have seen this work expand- ing, until now, on the western borders, almost up to the borders of Persia, in sight of the city of Kandahar, the way is open. The Indian government has gone up there and established a military station, and just above it they have pierced the mountain with a tunnel, and at the mouth of the tunnel they have rails enough to construct a railway to the city of Kandahar. And when we go up there we can go through that tunnel, and from the other side we can look out over Central Asia, and see the distant city of Kan- dahar. Away up at that mountain outpost is a Methodist church, and one of the last letters I had from Bishop Warne tells me of his visit there, and of the membership and of the outlook. Then you turn and go away down again until you have crossed the Indian empire, and go about two thousand miles from Cal- cutta until you come to the equatorial city of Singapore. We were led there, I think, in a providential way. Once we had taken our station at Singapore we began to work back up the peninsula. On the map the Malay Peninsula, which you attach very little importance to, looks like a little narrow strip of land. It is about the size of New York and Pennsylvania together. It is not densely populated. It is a rich country — the tin of the world nearly all comes from there. The Chinese immigrants are coming in very rapidly. We have occupied three or four stations on that peninsula — the great city of Penang and the amazing city of Singapore. The people who come to Singapore are from all those islands; from Borneo, which is larger than THE OPEN DOOR IN SOUTHERN ASIA 187 France; from New Guinea, as large as the Austrian empire, and Java, equal to about the area of Cuba — from all that vast region people are coming to the central point. As a matter of course you may expect that some of them will be converted. We had a young man converted and baptized in Singapore, a grad- uate, first of Ohio Wesleyan University, and then of Yale, who is now conducting an independent school in the city of Batavia at his own expense. He sent me a hundred dollars about a year ago from that point. That is what you might call spontaneous work. Then there is the great island of Borneo ; you know something a Missionary about it. It has a sparse population. Has it ever occurred to *° Borneo you, the reason why? It is because of a peculiar custom which they have throughout all that region, the people being called head- hunters. A man is said not to be in a position to ask any maiden to become his bride until he has killed somebody and poHshed his skull and attached it as an ornament to the ridgepole of his house. They have a belief that when they have done this all the virtues of the murdered man will become the possession of the man who kills him. If the murdered man is brave this man will have his courage; and if he is strong this man will have his strength. We sent a missionary there some few years ago, and he remained ten months — I mean Dr. Luering, the wonderful linguist we have there, one of the most marvelous German mis- sionaries in the world. This man had been there ten months, when a death occurred in our upper mission, and we had to recall him. He went down to the village to say that the steamer which brought him the letter would go out in the morning, and he must return at once, and he had come to say good-bye. The headman of the village begged him not to go, but he said that the going was imperative. They urged and he finally said, "If you will give me a satisfactory assurance that you will be Christians I will come back or send some one to take my place." The headman said, "O, I will be a Christian." "Yes," replied the missionary, "you have told me that a good many times, but you don't keep your word. Give me a pledge." "What pledge do you want ?" Look- ing up to the ridgepole of the house, where there were ninety skulls, every one of them belonging to some one killed by this man, "Give me," said the missionary, "one of those skulls, and I a Cranial will give you my promise that we will come back sometime." ^l**B* l88 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The man sprang to his feet and laid his hand upon his creese, for it is a glaring insult to ask a man for one of those precious skulls. Dr. Luering looked him quietly in the face. "You said you were going to be a Christian, and Christians never kill. Now, if "you are sincere, you won't do it." The man put up his knife, and said, "Take one." Grasping one of those knives. Dr. Luering climbed up and cut the string and brought away with him a skull of one of these murdered inhabitants of Borneo. Shortly afterward he was called to Germany, and he took the skull with him. The skull of that unfortunate man is traveling about through the cities of Germany to the present day, for Dr. Luering could never get it back again. Some one now and then would ask us, "Are you going to establish a mission in Borneo ?" Not long ago we heard a wonderful story. Since the Boxer movement the people of China are allowed to take their wives and daughters with them when they leave the empire. Formerly they were not, and that was a great hindrance to emigration from that empire. Bishop Warne, when on his way to Manila, heard that six or seven hundred people were actually on their way from the Foochow country to plant a colony in Borneo. When he heard this, at the last moment, he canceled the ticket which he had taken on the steamer, jumped on another steamer, and made for a point where he could intercept these men, went with them on the same vessel, landed with them, saw them build their huts, found among them one or two local preachers, got them together, put one man in charge, and thus Methodism was planted in the The Planting great island of Borneo. The next thing I heard of that colony in Borneo was that they were all dying. It was a sickly place. I was re- minded then of what Bishop Warne had written: "I do not know but this ship may be the Mayflower of a future empire. It may be that this first colony shall be the leader of others that are to follow, and we shall build a great Christian empire in the island of Borneo." I remembered how there was great sickness and death among the first settlers from the Mayflower. It has turned out as it did in the other case ; some died, perhaps a hun- dred or more returned to China, but the colony is flourishing, and we have now a membership there of between seven and eight hundred adult Christians. In closing, I would say that I was asked here if it is true that we have one hundred thousand people in India asking for. bap- THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD 189 tism. I have been assured that this number is not an exaggera- a Multitude tion. I wrote for the figures, and my correspondent replied, "We Waiting for could report a much larger number than this ; we could baptize *^ "™ the whole one hundred thousand within the next twelve months if we had the means to employ native teachers to go among them and teach them just the rudiments of Christian doctrine and Christian life." My own impression is that we might mul- tiply that number if we had the means, and there is hardly any limit to it at all. Bishop Moore, in the very kind remarks that he made, referred One Million to the fact that I am not as strong as I used to be. I have reason Converts to believe that he is perhaps correct, that I am not as strong as I was in earlier years. But as he made the remark I remembered what I had said publicly, that I trusted that God would spare my life until I should see one million converts in India alone within the bounds of our own work. I believe I shall see it. I believe — and I have used this expression before — that if the Protestant Churches of these United States would unite together, would look that problem in the face, if they would take the lesson to heart that God is teaching them, that within ten years we might have ten millions in India, who are worshiping idols to-day, either within the pale of the Christian Church or inquiring the way thither. But if my own poor life is spared until I shall see that million gathered within our native churches in India, then I shall thank God, and these poor feet, which shrink and falter now, witTi unutterable joy shall walk through the gates of day ! WHY THE WORLD SHOULD BE SPEEDILY EVANGELIZED The Rev. E. M. Taylor, D.D. Let us catch, if possible, the divine idea wrapped up in the mis- God's sionary propaganda of the world. What is God's thought in the °"^ gift of Christianity to the children of men ? Tersely defined, it may be stated in the following simple words. It is God's chosen way of getting the best things of the kingdom of heaven into human life through the loving, willing cooperation of man. The highest expression and realization of that method he has given us in the character and teachings of Jesus Christ. Hence our first duty I go THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION' The Mind of Christ Feeding the Five Thousand The Parables The lord's Prayer in unfolding the subject of this address is to discover the thought of Christ in relation to the extension of his kingdom in the world. Here the Church finds its supreme authority for Christian missions. First, the bedrock of our obligation as a Christian Church is in the delegated power and authority of the Son of God. Let any- one follow the prevailing attitude of the mind of Christ in the New Testament and he cannot fail to catch his view of world- wide dominion. We are commissioned to win the world as his followers. The Christian Church stands for Christian im- perialism. Christ's solicitude for the entire race is the broadest and deepest thought in the wonderful story of his life, and a great part of that wonderful intercessory prayer for his disciples is that they might be one with him in his intense longing and sacrificial efforts to enthrone himself in the heart of every human being. Recall that day when our Lord preached to the great multitude until the late hours of the afternoon, and his disciples requested him to send the people away. Turning to them, he said, "They need not depart. Give ye them to eat." And then, taking the five loaves and two fishes, he fed, by the aid of his disciples, the five thousand people. This is the great missionary miracle of the New Testament, and the only one that is recorded four times by the writers of the Gospels. Study the Master's method of teaching by parable, and the same broad, comprehensive view of his kingdom is there enunciated. The grain of mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, expands till it becomes a great tree so that the birds of the air find shelter in its branches. Looking at the housewife as she kneads her dough, he says, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." Was there ever a more impressive altruism given to this world than Christ's reply to his loquacious inquisitor in the parable of the Good Samaritan ? A literary and spiritual analysis of the Lord's Prayer emphasizes this same broad and comprehensive view of the Christ dominion in the world. Before we can claim one personal petition men- tioned in that prayer we must be filled with the desire to aid by our efforts that continuous progress, under the power of God, which is to eflfectuate the renovation of the world by the estab- THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD IQI lishtnent of the kingdom of heaven on earth. "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven" — that is the great missionary overture of the Lord's Prayer. Furthermore, note the tone of those postresurrection speeches The Last of our Lord to his disciples. During those days no other com- Command mand of such sweeping force is recorded. Note well the words of the great commission given to his followers in their last earthly interview. Christ stands with an open grave behind him and the open heaven before him. At his girdle hang the keys of universal dominion. At that solemn moment there passes from his lips into the ears of his disciples the most audacious and imperative command ever given to men: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, bap- tizing 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." Brothers! there is only one message in all Scripture on this subject. The command is to conquer the world. The message of the glorified Christ to all his followers is, "The uttermost parts of the earth." The Duke of Wellington was once greeted by a subordinate Marching officer in these words : "Sire, do you not think that it is a waste Orders of time and a squandering of precious lives to send our English boys and girls to these pagan countries to endure the suffering of foreign mission work?" "Sir," replied the Iron Duke, "the Christian is called Christ's soldier. Look well to your marching orders — 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.' " Second, the home Church must speedily respond to the present Eeflex missionary emergency in order to retain the presence of the living, ^^^^^j^g conquering Christ in her own experience. The reflex action of the foreign missionary work upon the home Church is worthy of the profoundest consideration. There is a disposition to be found in many individuals and churches that regards the message of Jesus Christ as intended to alleviate personal pains, to modify personal difficulties, to give a spirit of assurance against personal inconvenience, disaster, and trouble in this world ; to regard the Gospel as a kind of building and loan association in which we may make safe investments and secure a comfortable income. Here is need of a warning note in our present emergency. The t92 THE CLEVELAND MISSIOiSTARY CONVfi^ffIO^r Christianity Neceasarily Militant A Stimulus Needed Church that allows itself to be nursed in a spirit of sybaritic ease, that furnishes first-class entertainment in the form of fine preach- ing, enchanting music, and all that simply pertains to the success of a local place of worship, without realizing the broader and more comprehensive view of Christ's Gospel, may be a very respectable club of men and women, but it is discredited by Jesus Christ and is doomed. It is not in good standing with Almighty God as it is related to the evangelization of this world. Woe be to the Church that follows in that train ! Our success in the home Church rests, therefore, on our zeal and service for those in the "uttermost parts of the earth." The Church has come to such an emergency and opportunity that she must give in order to live. She must bend to the influence of Christ's world-wide love or break under the authority of his law. Napoleon once said, "It is a maxim in the military art that the army which remains in its intrenchments is beaten." A stay-at- home Christianity is not Christianity in any sense of the word. A nonmissionary Church disobeys the greatest commandment of her Lord and sins against her own normal life. "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is that which withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." It is the Church that is on the imperial march of extending Christ's kingdom in the world that has the promise of his abiding presence. "Go ye to all nations" is the condition of his promised presence. "Lo, I am with you." The missionary propaganda to-day rests more heavily on the Church than ever before in her history, and she stands in pressing need of a tonic to brace her for the emergency of the hour. O that she could see with her Lord's eyes, and feel with her Lord's heart, and rise to the vigor of the game that is to take the world for Christ ! The fields are now white for the harvest as never before. The diplomacy of nations has brought the various peoples of the world together in a federation of commercial in- terests. The efiforts on the part of modern civilization to place the entire world under the dominion of Christian law ; the com- parative study of the world's great religions; the losing game that pagan nations find they are playing against the commercial and social developments of Christian nations; the world-wide openings and world-wide facilities of national intercourse — these are God's modern methods of saying to his modern Calebs and THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD I93 Joshuas, "Go ye up and possess the land." "Where the word of a king is, there is power." If the Church has any appreciation of the mind of Christ, if Loyalty to she has any desire to obey her Lord in anything, she must give *'*""* heed to his imperial command. Her loving loyalty to the cause of missions is the measure of her appreciation of the Son of God, who loved her and gave himself for her. It may be safely affirmed that the Church has never yet met in a commensurate way the challenge of the world and the command of her Lord to use her time, her talent, and her resources for the evangelization of the world. If we fail to take advantage of the present emer- gency and opportunity the day is not far distant when we shall have no Christian Church from which to send the loving Gospel of the Son of God. There is no demoralization to spiritual life more subtle, dense. Neglect of and malignant in its attack upon the soul than a conscience alive Opportunity to high ideals and conscious of great opportunities and yet ever shading away from those ideals and neglecting those opportuni- ties in the general practical work of life. Such action is an opiate to obligation, a chill to enthusiasm. This is the condition of much of our Church life to-day in connection with our mis- sionary emergency and opportunity. Here is the breeding pen of all those phantoms of ignorance, timidity, indifference, and distaste that are hovering vampirelike over our beloved Zion. We are playing with eternal verities. We need a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit to enable us to grasp the opportunity of bring- ing a lost world to the fold of the Good Shepherd. There are some terrific examples of the manner in which this Eadesh- indifference has been treated by God in the history of his people. *^"** Do we recall that day when the Almighty brought the children of Israel to the open-door emergency at Kadesh-barnea ? There the chosen people stood upon the verge of the promised land. Twelve commissioners were sent over to view the country. It was an open door, a great opportunity. They went over and looked at the land, and came back with their report. Ten twelfths of them did just what a large number of the Church is doing to-day in relation to the Open-door Emergency in foreign lands. They said, "The inhabitants were giants, and we were like grasshoppers in their presence. They have walled cities, and we are unable to take them." Majorities ruled in that day as they 13 of Meroz 194 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION do at the present time. Caleb and Joshua were optimists and made their minority report, with faith in God back of it; they were stoned into silence. What was the result? Jehovah closed the door of opportunity and turned his people back into the wilderness for forty years. A generation sunk into oblivion, and the express trains of divine progress are forty years behind schedule time to this hour. Look, if you please, at this crime of indifference as it lies in the mind of God illustrated on another page of the sacred story. Sisera with his wild warriors had by forced marches crossed into the kingdom of Israel. How Israel cringed before that army with its nine hundred chariots of iron ! Then Deborah and Barak sounded the war bugles, gath- ering the hosts of Israel to the combat, and utterly destroyed the army of the alien. In the song that Deborah sang after the victory there was a plaintive note; a funeral strain was woven The Curse into the psean of praise. "Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." What was the cause of that bitter malediction against that little town among the hills of Palestine? Simply ease-loving indifference to a great emergency. "We are safe. Our vineyards are ripening their grapes in the sunshine. Our flocks are grazing undisturbed. No enemy is likely to come our way. The other tribes of the nation can take care of the battle, and we will help sing the songs of victory." But the curse of Jehovah obliterated her from the face of the earth. There is not an antiquarian geographer that has been able to locate the site of Meroz unto this day. Bear with me while I try to press this thought home by another illustration taken from the field of Christian history. The land where the cross of our Lord was lifted, with all the spots which the Saviour had consecrated with his presence, is to-day and has been since the seventh century of our era in the possession of the brutal and infidel Turk. That dire calamity was made possible through the indifference and inactivity of the Christian Church at a supreme moment of missionary opportunity, recalling the words of divine warning : "Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked : . . . then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation." Brothers, pardon the intensity and earnestness of my plea. As THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD I95 I listened to the speeches from this platform by the representa- Workers tives from our foreign field reveahng the terrible need of the ^one*"*' pagan world, telling the story of barriers removed and hearts Needed prepared by the providence of God for the reception of the Gospel ; as I hear the views declaring that from the efforts of the Student Volunteer Movement there are hundreds of cultured and trained young men and women ready at this hour to enter upon the work of taking the Gospel of the Great Physician to heal the heart-sore of the pagan world, then I am faced with the shameful fact that this help cannot connect with the need because the Church counts and uses her dollars for selfish purposes and refuses to count their value in the high spiritual exchanges of the world. Such considerations cause me to tremble and to fear that the day of vengeance of our God may be near at hand. I pray God to with- hold the thunderbolt, and give her a proper conception of stewardship as related to advancing the kingdom of heaven among men. Third, the Church should stir herself to aggressive work in A Sense of world evangelization through her sense of gratitude and apprecia- **''*''*''*^ tion of the heroic services rendered by the noble men and women who have opened the way in foreign fields. The last one hundred years have witnessed some of the sublimest achievements ever recorded in the story of the race, simply as the result of foreign missionary work. These were the choice and fiery spirits who went in advance of the masses of the Christian Church, inspiring them and leading them onward to the present emergency. Such men as Carey, Cox, Livingstone, Judson, Butler, Taylor, and Thoburn caught the secret of holy zeal and Christian love for humanity that led them to encounter enormous difficulties — diffi- culties of language, customs, and prejudices; plunging into pestiferous wildernesses ; wading through malarious swamps ; scorched by tropical heat and bitten by winter's cold ; encounter- ing the savagery of barbarous tribes ; standing undaunted amid the wild storms of rage and hatred that burst upon them in the Sepoy rebellion and fierce Boxer uprisings. Through such toil, danger, and sacrifice these men and women Face to Face have placed our holy Christianity face to face with the great pagan ^'*'' . religions of the world. So thorough has been their work and so indefatigable their toil that there exists no considerable people on the face of the globe to-day among whom the Gospel is not 196 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION A Significant Testimony The Primitive Anglo-Saxon being preached. The skirmish line of missionaries has opened the battle. The contest is on, and we must stand by the result, accept the challenge, and go forward to conquer. To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.'' If the Church accepts the present open door of opportunity and responds to it in a way commensurate with her resources there is little doubt but that another half century will bring a majority of the human race under the direct power of Christianity. God has put the unmistakable seal of his approbation upon the work. This is recognized by the world's material forces as they come in con- tact with our foreign missionary work. Sir Bartle Frere, while governor of Bombay, wrote regarding the work of Christian missions as follows : "I speak simply as to matters of experience and observation, just as a Roman prefect might have reported to Trajan, and I assure you that, whatever may be told to the contrary, the teachings of Christianity among six hundred and sixty milHons of civilized, industrious Hindus and Mohammedans in India are effecting changes, moral, social, and political, which for extent and rapidity of efifect are far more extraordinary than anything you or your fathers have witnessed in modern Europe." Let me bring still nearer to the fair-skinned, blue-eyed men and women of the Anglo-Saxon race their obligation of gratitude for the service rendered them by Christian missionaries. "Re- member that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm.'' You cannot get around it. "Love ye the stranger, for ye were strangers also in the land of Egypt." Suffer just a rough sketch of the primitive Anglo- Saxon and his tribe. Had we been living fourteen hundred years ago, and our eyes cast toward the Scandinavian peninsula in northern Europe, we would have been forced to behold one of the most terrific human beings, so far as coarseness and barbaric cruelty was concerned, that ever lived — our Anglo-Saxon an- cestor. He was the irrepressible pirate of the North Sea. War was regarded by him as the only occupation for men. Gambling and drunkenness were his pastimes. These cruel warriors re- garded it a shame for a man to die in bed. If they could not fall- THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD I97 in battle they cut "runes" into their own necks and breasts, and expired singing war songs while the blood streamed down their bodies. They were genuine barbarian pirates. Their gods were the deified forms of passions, power, and cruelty. ' As their gods were, so their laws were — Thor the strong could rove and steal ; So through many a peaceful inlet Tore the Norseman's pirate keel." When they desired to know what their gods were thinking about or what the turn of a battle was to be they took fair young girls, shut them up in a large wicker cage, and shot arrows into their trembling flesh to see which way the blood would run. They brought devastation and cruelty wherever they went. This man, BevaBtation and his tribe wearied of that work on the shores of Europe and *°* Cruelty then struck the prow of his vessel into the ocean westward and landed on the coast of Britain. It was fourteen hundred years ago when he made that voyage. Take an inventory of his character and his goods as he lands. He puts ashore some materials he has brought over in his pirate craft, constructs a vehicle of some form, hitches a diminutive ox or ass on one side and his wife on the other. If the load is too heavy he harnesses his sixteen-year-old girl at the end of the pole. And if wife or daughter fail to draw her portion of the load he lifts his rawhide whip and flays her side with as little feeling as he does the beast on the other side of the pole. If you want to trade with him you must do it by barter; he has no money as a medium of ex- change. He has no written language. Not a syllable of his speech can be represented in written form. There are some points of interest connected with that girl at the end of the pole. Last night her lover came to see her and requested her hand in marriage. She looked him over for a moment and then with haughty scorn replied: "You come to ask my hand in marriage. You have not given the birds of the air a taste of human flesh for three months. The forest wolves have been thirsty for human blood for six months. Go wet your hands in the blood of your human foe and bring me the testimony of your courage, and I will listen to your wooing." There is a strain of that blood in our veins to-night — good old pagan, barbarous ancestry have we all. Early in the progress of their devastating march over England 198 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Work of Hissionaries Evolution of a Race A Contrast in Womanhood these barbarians were met by zealous missionaries of the cross. They halted that marauding host in the name of Jesus Christ, and told them the story of God's redemptive love ; and this wild man of the north forest was broken into submission, and gave his heart to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. He kept on his way up the country, not to kill and destroy, but to lay the foundation stones of the great British empire and of the United States of America. What is the result? The most romantic and thrilling story of the evolution of a race of which the world makes record. That man who had no money as a medium of exchange has founded and conducted the Gibraltar of a world's finances — the Bank of England. That man who had no written language has evolved a language in which the great proclamations of human brother- hood and freedom have been written — the compact of the May- flower cabin and our Declaration of Independence. He who was so brutal and cruel has born to him sons bearing the great names of John Bright, William E. Gladstone, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and William McKinley. The man who had no word to represent refinement or culture, and who could not appreciate a song above the howl of a wolf, his language has caught the music of Shakespeare, Browning, Tennyson, Long- fellow, and Whittier, and the great hymn authors that have made glad the heart of the Christian world. The contrast in the life of that cruel-hearted Saxon girl is still more wonderful. Ah! when we tell the story of Saxon civilization in this world we must not forget the Christian char- acter and tender heart of the woman who kept step by the side of her husband in the mighty march. From that Anglo-Saxon girl has come a line of queenly daughters. She became the mother of Lady Huntingdon, Lady Henry Somerset (the daughter of a hundred earls), our own Frances Willard, Mary A. Liver- more, Julia Ward Howe, and all that magnificent galaxy of Saxon womanhood whose radiance is blessing the world to-day. It was a daughter of that cruel Saxon girl who in queenly beauty sat upon the throne of England and held the scepter of Christian dominion for sixty years. What is the cause of this wonderful transformation scene? Simply the story of God's redemptive love given to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and taken to our ancestors by the zeal and sacrifice of foreign missionaries. THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD I99 Fourth, the besotted, degraded, hopeless condition of the pagan The Plea of world to-day pleads for immediate rescue in the name of Christ. ^*8*" '^ The horrible story of the corrupting influence of paganism upon the lives of the people is too familiar to require description here. Suffice it to say they are the children of our common heavenly Father, and their cry in the wilderness should be heard by the Christian Church. The condition of the pagan world to-day is the same as it was in the nations that challenged the zeal of the Church in the apostolic age. " On that hard pagan world disgust and secret loathing fell, Deep weariness and sated lust made human life a hell." A despairing, hopeless world cries from the stygian darkness of heathenism, "Come over and help us." Try to imagine what our own civilization would be with the idea of God as a loving Father and Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord eliminated from our thought. It would mean the destruction of all we hold dear and precious in our modern life. That is the condition of eight hundred millions of our brothers and sisters in the pagan world at this hour. Let the keen observation and dramatic expression of Mr. Kipling serve us here : "The foimdations of their life are rotten — utterly, bestially rotten." Hear this awful indict- The ment of Asiatic womanhood from the pen of Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop: "Of the Christless population of the world over five hundred millions are women. Throughout Asia the natural result of the universal distrust of women by men, and of the degrading views held concerning woman, is seclusion behind high walls, in separate houses, known to us as the harem, the zenana, and the anderun. I have seen much of the inmates of all . . . Such contact has banished from my mind, so far as Asiatic countries are concerned, all belief in purity in woman and innocence in childhood. They know nothing. They have no ideals. Dress, personal adornment, and subjects connected with sex are their sole interests. They are regarded as possessing neither soul nor immortality. Except as mothers of sons, they are absolutely despised, and are spoken of in China as the mean ones within the gates." I appeal to you Christian men and women, is the hell described by Milton or Dante comparable with that picture and its impli- cations ? Indictment by ObseryerB 200 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Sixteen Acres for Image Worship " The restless millions wait The light whose dawning Maketh all things new : Christ also waits, But men are slow and late. Have we done what we could ? Have I ? Have you ? " Not long since I heard a secretary of the American Board, who had made a six-months' missionary inspection tour of missions through India, use words like these : "I went into a pagan temple and saw sixteen acres of ground dedicated to the worship of pagan gods. In the center of this inclosure was a small pool called the Fountain of Life. Its contents were made up of the votive offerings given by the pilgrims and poured upon the images representing the pagan deities. After the Hbations of water, oil, and honey had been poured on the god image remnants ran down upon the ground, trampled under foot of the thousands of pil- grims, and thence through gravity found their way into the pool, or Fountain of Life. The deluded suppliants for peace with their god came to this fountain and dipped their fingers in it, then touching in turn their hearts, their tongues, and their foreheads, hoping thus to find peace of soul through the favor of the gods. I saw hundreds go through this performance, but not one face showed by any expression that the blessing of peace had been bestowed ; the blank hopeless look of paganism was still there. Later in the day we were driven to a community where native Christians were holding a camp meeting. We arrived at the closing moments of the afternoon service. The congregation ATriumphant were standing and singing heartily the familiar hymn : Christian Hymn ' There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel's veins.' There was the expression of joy and gladness in every coun- tenance. The invisible realities of heaven had found a place in their souls." Beloved in the Lord, it is ours to help make the last verse of that grand hymn a reality in all the heathen darkness of our world : " Thou dying Lamb ! thy precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till all the ransomed world of God Are saved, to sin no more." WHAT RETRENCHMENT MEANS 201 WHAT "RETRENCHMENT" MEANS Bishop Cyrus D. Fobs We are accustomed to think of retrenchment as a very re- spectable word. It is suggestive of thrift, economy, careful expenditure, the cutting off of all unnecessary expense. But in the sense in which this topic has been given to me, and under the circumstances in which we are called to consider it, it has a very different meaning. It refers to the cutting down of our missionary appropriations in recent years, and especially last year; and so, I am almost disposed to say, to drifting astern. I ask you to consider it first in its relation to the Church at large; secondly, in relation to the work of the General Mission- ary Committee ; lastly, in relation to the missionary fields. I. In respect to the Church at large, in this sense of it, retrench- Meaning ment leads to a most injurious and disastrous interpretation of commisskiii the great commission of the Saviour, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." It causes misappre- hension and a dulling of the conscience and heart of the Church as to the meaning of that great commission. It is a very interest- ing and a very surprising fact that great truths, standing to our apprehension now as plainly revealed on the very surface of the inspired book, made plain by distinct utterances of the great Head of the Church himself, have sunk very slowly into the heart and conscience of the Church. Indeed, God's usual method of making operative and influential any great truth, vital to the life of the world, has been not simply by putting it into the Holy Scriptures, but by planting it newly from time to time in some capacious mind and glowing heart which obey his voice. As, for example, the truth of salvation by faith alone, taught in the Truth Newly Holy Scriptures with great distinctness, was very poorly appre- Incarnate bended for many a century, until God vitalized it in the soul of Martin Luther. And so also the truth of the witness of the Holy Spirit to personal salvation, taught in the Holy Scriptures dis- tinctly and in unmistakable terms, was not a living truth in the Church of England one hundred and seventy-five years ago, when God put it into the soul of John Wesley. I suppose when Wesley arose you could not have found one hundred and fifty men in all England who would dare say they knew their sins forgiven; 202 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The BTOtherhood of Man Proclamation Inadequately Proclaimed and God took John Wesley in hand and, through fifteen years of most wonderful training, brought him from the condition of a servant of God, a very bondslave of Jesus Christ, into the living apprehension of his relation to God as a son; and the world learned the lesson, and now milhons tell the same glad story. So it has been also with this great vitalizing truth which under- lies all missionary activity and all sociological uplift, and which finds expression in the great commission, the truth of the brother- hood of men through the Fatherhood of God. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," said Jesus. It would seem that when that utterance had been given, and especially that when the day of Pentecost had come, every apostle should have gone forth with a profound conviction of the brotherhood of the race. But Simon Peter was there ; he heard the commission, he was present on the day of Pentecost, and preached that wonderful sermon which led to three thousand conversions ; yet he did not take in this lesson ; and six years afterward we hear him saying, as though through the teaching of an angel he had just got a patent on a new truth, "Verily I perceive that God is no respecter of persons." This same truth has been hidden in the hearts of some men all down through the ages ; and we have reason to hope that this truth of the brother- hood of man, which lies at the basis of all missionary endeavor, is to be made vital in the world, again and again and again, not by new revelations from on high, but in consonance with John Robinson's grand old aphorism, "More truth is yet to break out of God's most holy word." Now, I say that retrenchment, in the sense in which we are obliged to use the word to-night, utterly misinterprets this fun- damental postulate of the missionary movement. We are told that once several British soldiers were accosted by a Christian minister with this question, "Suppose your queen were to make a proclamation to be sent to all parts of the habitable globe, how long would it take her army and her navy to carry it?" and that those brave fellows, after thinking the whole matter over a few minutes, made answer, "We think, sir, it could be done in eighteen months." But the greatest proclamation ever given, uttered by the Saviour himself for the whole race of humankind, has been in the world for nineteen hundred years almost, and yet to this WHAT RETRENCHMENT MEANS 2O3 hour more than one half of the people now living on the globe, to whom that proclamation was sent, have never yet heard it. No wonder that Dr. Duflf should say, "Up to this time the Church has been merely playing at missions." At our General Missionary Committee last year a sharp cut A Cut in was made in the appropriations all along the line. What can the ^ons"^"*" Church think except that we regard missions as a mere byplay, to be attended to when convenient and sc far as convenient ; for in this very same time I would have you remember that there has been no alarming depression in the business of the country, and other Christian operations except missions have had no serious setback. In these very years in which this cut in missions has been made I have not heard that there have been ten churches closed here in Cleveland, or thirty in Chicago ; I do not read that in every Conference in the connection Sunday schools are being disbanded and ministers dismissed. I do not learn that the country has been on the verge of ruin by some awful depression and panic. So far from this, our wealth has rolled up until within the recent decade it has been doubled and doubled again. In my boyhood we were astounded by the word "millionaire." Within twenty years we have been accustomed to "multimillion- aire," and presently we shall be accustomed to "billionaire." That "beastly prosperity" which Matthew Arnold flung as a sarcasm at the great metropolis of the West — we had better find out how much truth there may be in it for the whole land; and yet in such times as this we have been obliged to malce an eight per cent cut in our missionary appropriations. 2. Then, as to the General Missionary Committee, a few words, The General and only a very few. I well recall my first impressions concerning conmiitteJ that committee, received from a speech of that greatest of mission- ary secretaries, Dr. John P. Durbin. For half an hour, by his marvelous eloquence, he enthralled a vast congregation with an account of the place of meeting, the personnel, and the methods of operation of the General Missionary Committee. In my own pres- ent office and before I entered it, altogether I have been a member of the General Missionary Committee about thirty times in suc- cessive years. The methods of its work are known to many here ; I cannot describe them to others who are not familiar with them, but this much is very clear: The appropriations made by such a body ought to be fixed under circumstances which make possible 204 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION A Week of Painful Business Effect of Betrench- ment Three Great methods the careful consideration of every Mission under the care of the Church; ought to be made under circumstances such that the committee can say concerning this missionary field, where the need is most urgent, and the opportunity magnificent, "There must be this year a large increase;" and concerning this, "Is it not possible in this older Mission, which has had such good suc- cess and which is coming so rapidly toward self-support, that something may be taken off and be bestowed upon some newer and more needy field?" But this "retrenchment" has compelled the committee to make appropriations in a manner totally illog- ical, and we were obliged to scale down everywhere eight per cent ; until every man there felt almost guilty of a cruel wrong. The meeting last year and one or two other meetings of the com- mittee in recent years have made us feel it the most painful week's business in the whole year. We have been obliged to make the appropriations very much as the officers of a starving crew on a dismasted hulk in mid-ocean distribute totally inade- quate rations, so as to cause the least complaint. My brethren on the General Missionary Committee understand what I am talking about. We feel that we must come, in some near to- morrow, to a time when we can graduate these appropriations in a better way. 3. But all this simply leads up to the next topic — the effect of retrenchment, as I have defined it, upon the mission fields. We went forth in the order of God's providence into distant lands to preach the Gospel. I cannot glance over the fields in this country at all. I cannot ask you to survey the fields which have been laid before you in countries partly or wholly civilized and under the dominion of a false Church. Let us glance at the heathen world, and as we do so I wish you to understand how painfully, how almost disastrously, this retrenchment has affected some of those fields and must still do so unless it gives place to larger contribu- tions from the Church. We went abroad; we undertook work in those heathen lands. God blessed the work ; we very soon had some success. Initial successes led to larger ones, and these to larger; and failures in some fields called for increased appro- priations, no less than successes. We have demonstrated these things already, that the three great methods of missionary opera- tion in heathen lands, set before us by the three forms of the great commission of the Saviour, are definitely operative and WHAT "retrenchment" MEANS 20$ successful. What are they? One form of the great commission is this : "As ye go, heal the sick, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come unto you ;" that is philanthropy. Another is, "Go ye, teach all nations;" that is education. Another, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature;" that is evangelism. Philanthropy, education, evangelism — these are the methods by which at Christ's command the Church has gone forth to attempt to save the world, and these methods have been grandly successful wherever faithfully applied. Now, what does initial success call for? Larger appropriations. Results of We go forth as an army of conquest, and what nation has ever g"!lg*j sent forth an army without a perfect understanding before the army starts that successes and partial failures alike call for rein- forcements and larger operations? When we began our civil war and had the disaster of Bull Run, did that stop our opera- tions? Bull Run multiplied the Union army and toned up the muscle of the North. Great Britain undertook war in South Africa and had disaster after disaster, to what effect? Every disaster led immediately to the sending out of more forces and more appliances. We undertook war with Spain, under hard pressure, with great reluctance, to deliver Cuba. Suppose now that Dewey's fleet had been sunk in the harbor of Manila ; sup- pose that Shaffer's army had been ground into powder, would we have stopped? No, every man of you knows that soldiers and ships of war would have been multiplied until a just contention should end in success and triumph. So it must be in this mission- ary endeavor. We initiate great undertakings; we get the be- gkinings of great successes, and then have here and there some failures. The lesson of the whole of them is not retrenchment, but progress, progress until this world is redeemed and saved. I fully understand, and so do you, that America can never save Office of the India, nor China, nor Japan, nor Korea. I perfectly understand ^^^^^^ that every country must, under God, save itself, in the last event. But what is the office of the Christian Church in regard to the heathen world? It is to make a fair beginning; it is to plant the institutions of Christianity ; it is to build hospitals and orphanages and schools and colleges, and to begin the great work of evan- gelism, and to train up a native army for conquest, and to furnish the brain and the heart and the supervision and the example and the experience needful until the dead bones have come to life 206 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION and begun to march, and until the native Church has grown strong enough to carry the Gospel to other lands, and take its place among the forces for the conquest of the world. And that work is only fairly begun in any of our heathen Missions to this hour. Let me show you how this necessity for retrenchment has worked in one land of the heathen world of which I know the most, because I have visited it and have within a few years given careful inspection and supervision to the Missions and Con- ferences there. The same principles would be reached by a similar statement from any one of my colleagues who has similarly inves- tigated China or Japan or Korea; but I happen to know most about India. Heathenism And now come with me, and for a little while forget that you at Benares ^j.g j^^ Christian America. I wish I could lay a magic carpet that would transport this audience for a few minutes to the very heart of the heathen world, and show you a little of what I saw and heard and felt. In India lies a vast territory, the peninsula of Hindustan, as large as the whole of the United States east of the Mississippi, with a population of two hundred and eighty-seven millions of human souls. Come with me to Benares and look at heathenism as you may see it there. Watch that bathing for religious purposes which goes on every day through all the morn- ing, for two miles along this sacred river, the Ganges, the most sacred stream in all India. On the second story of a house boat I rode up and down and witnessed the bathing of more than ten thousand persons, men and women promiscuously but decently, for religious purposes. It is the vilest stream I ever saw, vile b.e- yond description, dead bodies of animals floating down its waters, bamboo rafts with burned bodies upon them ; and yet they dip con- secrated brazen bowls into it and drink it by the pint for internal cleansing, and take it home as a precious gift to their friends. After observing this bathing I came ashore. There are thousands of shrines and hundreds of temples in Benares. I went into a great many, and in every one the symbols and implements of the idola- try of those people are so obscene that no photograph dare lay them on your table, and no words dare describe them. And this is Benares — the sacred city. As I came away from it I thought of Bishop Thomson's words on the same spot. He writes in one of his books, "It seemed to me that if I had taken another step down- WHAT RETRENCHMENT MEANS 207 ward I should have come to the open mouth of hell." After that visit, as I was riding on the cars at night and their jolting would waken me, it often seemed to me as if I myself was sub- merged in those filthy waters, and yet reaching after pearls. Come with me to Allahabad, another sacred city at the junc- tion of the Ganges and the Jumna. Annual bathing takes place there. People are going to and fro. Fifteen thousand the day that I was there were bathing in those sacred waters. Beggars on every hand, the most blatant and impertinent you have ever met, with every simulation of deformity, which the sight of a policeman would quickly cause to disappear; and devotees in all forms of self-torture — some lying in the dust, covered all but their nostrils ; some with one foot planted above the other knee, firmly fixed there. I saw such a man and his left foot had never been down from his right knee in ten years. Others were on sharp spikes, sitting on them, standing on them, reclining on them, six or seven hundred little spikes driven into a plank eighteen inches wide. •. Seven years one poor fellow had been on one of these spike beds, and my friend bought from him two of these spikes, and gave me one which I carry with me always, as my own reminder of what it is to be a heathen and of the joy and blessedness of being a Christian. But I will not multiply such scenes. You will quickly take in a vivid sense of the unutterable intellectual twist and moral degradation and spiritual ruin which heathenism has brought to these two hundred and eighty-seven millions of your brothers and sisters. But there is a brighter side to it. Christianity has done its work there, magnificent — imperfect, so far, but with successes which greatly cheer all hearts. I wish that these missionaries, of whom I am glad to see so many on this platform, could tell you, little by Httle and day after day, the story of what has been familiar to some of them for forty years. But the Gospel went there and took hold with wondrous power. It was my pleasure while there to go far north, to the very foothills of the Himalayas, and from those hills to look upon that magnificent range of mountains, snow-clad, twenty-five thousand feet in height, equal to Mount Washington on top of Pike's Peak, and several thou- sand feet beside. Out of the side of one of these great peaks bursts the Ganges, from a magnificent glacier. I saw them at sunset retiring into .the grayness of the night, and in the morning At Allahabad The Glory of Nature 208 THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION The Glory of the Faith Eleven Years of Marvelous Progress Beal Conversions saw them come out under the light of the golden sun in magnifi- cent state — a sight I can never have equaled unless I go there again. But when I came down from those mountains to Naini Tal, lake of the Goddess Naini, and found on one end of it our Hindustani church and on the other our English-speaking church, on one side of it our boys' school and on the other our girls' school, I said to myself, "The lake of the goddess no longer — it should be Wesley Lake." And for four days I witnessed a sub- limer sight than those peaks of the Himalayas. It was a District Conference and Epworth League and camp meeting and every- thing else you could pack into four days. And all this on the spot where about forty years before William Butler reached forth the rod of faith and smote the rock of heathenism, saying in God's name, "Thou shalt break," and lo, the rill, and presently the stream, and now the river of American Methodism in India, which has been flowing for forty years. From that small begin- ning has come a most marvelous progress. The little one has become a thousand. Let me tell you in just two or three bits of figures this : When I was there five years ago I had been preceded eleven years before by Bishop Ninde. Let figures tell the story. I give you the figures at the beginning of the eleven years, and then at the end : At the beginning 7,000 communicants, when I was there 77,000; at the beginning of those eleven years 96 churches, when I was there 233 churches; at the beginning 313 Sunday schools, when I was there 2,400 Sunday schools ; at the beginning 14,000 Sunday school scholars, when I was there 83,000 Sunday school scholars. Such were the magnificent successes which in the space of eleven years our Church had wrought in India, multiplying fortyfold on one line, elevenfold on another, six on another — an average of about ninefold. Is there any Church that can show greater Church and missionary progress in the same time ? But it has not been simply figures. Were these people con- verted ? Does the Gospel save them ? I was led to search into that question with great care and a little anxiety ; for on the ship, as I was going over from Italy to India, I met a noble laird. Lord Kinnaird, who talked religion as familiarly as most men talk politics. He had been greatly blessed under the ministry of Dwight L. Moody and Henry Drummond, and was going out to India with his wife to inspect zenana work. _He said to me one .WHAT "retrenchment"' MEANS 2O9 day, "I hear that Bishop Thoburn has been baptizing a great many thousands of converts, he and his assistants ; are not they raw heathen?" "Yes, my lord." "But are not they very raw heathen?" I think they are, my lord." I was not going to own anything to him about my anxiety, but his inquiry set me to searching. I determined to find out, and this is a thing which an old class leader, as I am, can find out; there is something that tells the story whether the converts are converted or not. When I got out to the camp meeting at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains I think I found out. I was there four days, during all the incidents of a crowded and most delightful camp meeting, a Native a District Conference, love feasts, Epworth League meeting, anti- ^^"'P. tobacco meeting, and experience meetings of all kinds ; and never in my life, in any period of the old-time camp meeting fervor, have I heard more sermons and exhortations and prayers and experiences on the subject of the gift of the Holy Spirit as a witnessing Spirit to present salvation, and for enduement of power for the work of God, than I heard under those banyan trees in northern India in the four days of that camp meeting, at which there were present more than two thousand Hindustani converts. In the testimonies at the love feast there was no word of cant or sanctimoniousness ; but among the one hundred and eighteen persons who spoke there were twelve in succession who would have done honor to any love feast in this country ; and I believe that those twelve men are better men than the twelve apostles were until after the day of Pentecost. So I became con- vinced that the converts were converted. Now, take into consideration the thought that there are more a Bishop's than one hundred thousand of such converts. You may think ^°P^^ I have wandered a little, but this applies directly to the fact I have in hand in this way : What has been the result of this retrenchment on this rapid evangelization going on in India? I think Bishop Thoburn is not here to-night, and I will say a word about him which I would not care to say in his presence. When he was elected missionary bishop he said in many a congregation, once or twice when I was present, that he soberly hoped to live to see the time when there would be ten thousand baptisms of native heathen in northern India in a single year. The Church listened in amazement and wondered — you wondered, whether these were the extravagant utterances of a half-crazed fanatic, 14 2IO THE CLEVELAND MISSIONARY CONVENTION Hasan Basa Kahn A Field Bipe to Harvest or the inspired words of a veritable prophet of God in this genera- tion. I am happy to say that from the start I took the latter al- ternative, and I have thought from then to now of this wonderful little bunch of sanctified common sense and prophetic optimism called James M. Thoburn as one of the great gifts of God to this generation. He hoped to live to see the time when there would be ten thousand baptized in a single year. When I was in India five years ago there had been in the two years immediately pre- ceding thirty-two thousand baptisms. But what has that to do with the question? You will see in just another moment. When I was at that camp meeting in north- ern India I became acquainted with a splendid man, named Hasan Rasa Kahn, a tall, typical native of Hindustan, himself a Mohammedan, dark skinned, not like a negro, but as though darkness had been sifted down upon his classical features out of the night, a brilliant black eye, gleaming almost, a man of high culture and of great gifts, a man who, if he could have spoken the English tongue, would have been an acceptable and popular pastor in any church in America. That man, converted from Mohammedanism, became a zealous missionary at once, be- came a local preacher, then a circuit preacher, then a district preacher. There were hundreds of heathen, even thousands, con- verted under his ministry. He was made a presiding elder, and then they tried to get him away into the service of the English government, as secretary of a great commission, at a salary four times as great as he could ever get in our Church as a missionary. He promptly answered, "Gentlemen, I am a secretary for Jesus Christ, and cannot leave this higher calling." When I met him at this camp meeting he soberly said to me, "Bishop Foss, in my district, which contains about six hundred mud-hut villages, I can bring to baptism in twenty-four months fifty thousand per- sons with fair intelligence, if only the Church will provide 'hold- ers-up,' " as he called them ; that is to say, plain, simple pastor- teachers, who know how to read the New Testament and have the fire of God in their hearts. You can get them for thirty dol- lars a year. "Provide me a few hundred 'holders-up,' and I will bring fifty thousand people in my district to baptism in twenty- four months." The white missionaries from America smiled and said he was very enthusiastic, and our paper, the Indian Witness, doubted and thus put him on his mettle. Two months later he WHAT RETRENCHMENT MEANS 211 came again and said to the Annual Conference, "The doubts expressed about my work two months ago have led me to tal