4 i \ p “a ‘is qi RR sy aD ay eX | LIN ALIN ay lee) eg PY ay i YJ a ) NLD ED) ‘Aa ( fy "4 fy voy ft “y -#) os ve 4 ‘4 Nid ORVC REO AGUIESSES LIBRARY OF THE College of Missions INDIANAPOLIS DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/africaneuropeanlo1unse The African, European, and Latin American Fields The African,‘ European and Latin American Fields Addresses delivered before the Eastern Missionary Con- vention of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, Philadelphia, Pa., October 13-15, 1903 NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE The Philadelphia Convention Addresses are pub- lished in a series of seven small volumes, of which this is one. The volumes are entitled: A CALL TO ADVANCE MISSIONS AND WORLD MOVEMENTS THE ASIATIC FIELDS THE AFRICAN, EUROPEAN, AND LATIN AMERICAN FIELDS GENERAL SURVEY AND HOME FIELDS YOUNG PEOPLE AND MISSIONS THE MISSIONARY WORKSHOP CopyRIGHT, 1904, BY Eaton & Mains ‘Ow, Sch. a6 6.7 63a NAads IQOU CONTENTS: PAGE PANGS ADIN rennet ioc tice eh a/anisiormeaeis i Rey. Erwin H. Richards, D.D. IU, LIGRO RS SAAR Ae eee 49 Rey. William H. Crawford, D.D. NENTes Se ACHUN MAIIIORICA Soc. c's She ca ose 76 Rev. Charles W. Drees, D.D. IV. DirricuLTiEs IN THE FOREIGN MISSION. EMDEIGD): 1012 ose) since 100 Rev. W. F. Oldham, D.D. fn Binh Ae ‘ . a ap. " y a om, ees ae aie! > ha hy in, att, ay. hs 4 , . F ‘ ' . The African, European, and Latin American Fields. ], AFRICA. By REV. ERWIN H. RICHARDS, D.D. AFRIca is at a long remove from you in her progress in Christian civilization; her schools are not yet, and her church spires have never been seen by the great masses of her one hundred and fifty millions of human beings. Yet her land is beautiful. The same creating Hand which wrought America wrought also Africa, and “He doeth all things well.” ” 4 Arrica, Europr, Latin AMERICA. He created the continents in so com- plete, so perfect a way that we cannot dis- cover which he made first nor which he made best. “Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.’ And we ought to note well in passing that this “man” is not so vile as many a Methodist in the homeland who does not believe very much in foreign missions and does not work much for the little in which he believes. As missionaries we prefer the original heathen to the sort of people who have manufactured them- selves into heathen regardless of Bibles and teachers and schools. There are quicker and far richer results with the original breed. A VAst CoNTINENT AND ITS PEOPLE. And people! Yes, we have them. You may count every one of your own citizens from ocean to ocean, and from Alaska to the Philippines, and if you do not count 8 — ll a a AFRICA, them twice we shall have as many as you— yes, two to your one and with same to spare —scattered over a country so great that, should you place all India, with all her millions, in Africa she would not cover the country south of the Zambesi. All of China, with all her millions, could easily be accom- modated in Africa’s West. All of Europe, with all her civilization, could be superim- posed upon Africa’s East. The Mikado’s empire and other large island areas could be placed over her northern borders. And then your whole glorious United States, with all their prodigious boasting, might easily be set down within her interior, where even then they would rattle about like dice in a box against their broad encircling boundaries. We are proud of our Congo, with its channel nine hundred feet deep. We are proud of our Nile, the longest and most historic river in the world. We are proud 9 Arrica, Eurore, Latin AMERICA. of our Zambesi, with its greatest falls on the face of the earth. And we are proud of our people, because, while naturally en- dowed with the least amount of human ad- vantages and long neglected, apparently by both Christendom and the Creator, it is pos- sible for them to become the most faithful followers of the “Man of Calvary” and in- heritors of the estate of the sons of God. It is manlike to save the fitting and the best. It is Christlike to save also the lowest and the least. And are not ours a people? Our men can talk as rapidly and oftentimes as emptily as can any of yours, and they will not use one syllable of your language. What is equally astonishing, our women can talk as fast as your women, and never repeat a single sylla- ble of any language, ancient or modern, save their own. It would be a most difficult problem to prove that our Africans are not a real people. The Boers held that notion 10 ‘AFRICA, for two hundred years, but Providence and Great Britain recently argued it out of them, and all over that vast area formerly known as the Transvaal and the Orange “Free” State the African has suddenly leaped all the way from being an animal to becoming a man. And the strangest of all strange things is this: that many of you Americans, so far as printers’ ink revealed the matter, lent your prayers—when you offered any— and your sympathy to the Boer, quite as if you had forgotten all the blood and tears of the early sixties, or that taxation without representation caused the war of ’76 and established American independence! We should like to speak whole bookfuls con- cerning the Briton in Africa, Rhodes in Rhodesia, and the late Boer and his war, but for the present we are to speak of the suc- cess of the evangelization of the African, © with some hints as to possibilities of work among black people who are at home. II AFRIcA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA, THE QUESTION STATED AND ANSWERED. The Bible manner of stating this question would be, “Watchman, what of the night?” The Yankee way of getting at the same thing would be “Do foreign missions pay?” —for of all created men on the face of the earth the Yankee is most eager to discover whether things pay or not. Concerning Africa, we have several observations to offer, each one of them pointing conclusively to the fact that foreign missions pay exceed- ingly heavy dividends both spiritually and financially. Spiritual dividends are usually “hoped for” in our faith, but financial div- idends on our missionary investments are never thought of. In fact, we are pleased for the most part to take a far more des- pondent view of foreign missions than our heavenly Father ever intended. But as his plans work out they invariably return to each of his coworkers the “good measure, 12 AFRICA. pressed down, shaken together, running over” both spiritual and temporal, according to his word. Fruit FROM ExtTENDED TILLAGE. Let us observe what has taken place in the older parts of civilized South Africa, where for one hundred years the Gospel has been preached to the once “raw heathen.” Leaving the city of Cape Town with its 40,000 white people, closely nestled within the foothills of the very tips of the Draken- berg, let us take a Pullman car for 800 miles across Cape Colony to the little country town of Healton. First, what State in the Union happens to have an area 800 miles one way by 600 miles the other? Rhode Island would hardly come up to it, nor Delaware—nor both these States tacked on to the largest State in the Union. Yet Cape Colony is small compared with other colo- nies of South Africa. 13 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. In this little town of Healton stands a fine Wesleyan Chapel with brick and stone walls, with modern windows, with a full house of worshipers, with a pastor all her own. This pastor is a graduate of Love- dale, college and seminary trained; for the Briton believes that in educating the native he will become a producer and a benefactor to the nation. One hundred years ago the ~ grandparents of these people were the Hot- tentots and Bushmen of the country, too ig- ~ norant to pile grass over their heads when it rained and burrowing for a home like porcupines and hares. To-day they sit, clad and in their own right minds, listening to the preaching of God’s word in the English language and singing the same hymns and spiritual songs which you sing. What a change there has been! What a sudden change! For your speaker has conversed with the son of the earliest missionary to the Hottentots. Is it nothing that these who 14 AFRICA, never heard of God now know him? Is it naught that hope and joy have thrilled the hearts of these worshipers, to whom so short a time since even to mention future exist- ence was a horror, and who believed that death ends all? Would you, if any there are, who attend church but little and prayer meeting less, care to exchange what little of hope you may have for all the joys of the Hottentot a century ago? Foreign mis- sions pay spiritually. As one glances over the congregation he can but wonder where all those ladies’ hats came from, whence came those very recent newest patterns for clothing for both gentle- men and ladies, as well as for even the children. And when one enters the homes of these thriving people he finds every latest American convenience there. In_ the house is a stove. None but the Yankee can make a “stove.” The Germans make a pile of mortar with a hole in the middle and call 15 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. it an oven. Others make a hole in the ground and bake in it. But it takes an American to make a stove. So with our furniture, our clothing, our labor-saving devices. Out on the farm we find Ameri- can farming implements; they are all there, even to the windmill. There is scarcely a manufacturer of the larger grade in Amer- ica who does not advertise his goods in South Africa as soon as he places them on the markets anywhere; oftentimes much sooner. Should a lady desire to know what she will be wearing next fortnight—something which will be strictly “new” and mark her as “the lady of the Avenue,” if she will turn her mimic lens on Cape Town she will observe her “sister in black” promenading with the very parasol which shall render her proud soul happy as soon as the tardy sea- son will permit. People in Africa read in their evening papers the identical news 16 AFRICA. which you cannot read till morning. When President McKinley was assassinated you could not let them know of it till some eight or nine hours had passed by, and when they informed you of the death of Mr. Rhodes as many hours before the event occurred they were astronomically correct in their time. You think yourselves “up” in the world, but when such things occur one cannot but inquire which is “up” anyway, and who it is that are there. We have more than one congregation of such tastefully clad, well-to-do native people. They are scattered all over Cape Colony and Natal, and when counted in the records we find a great army of them as large as the Union army at Gettysburg. The recent reports show that there are no less than 84,000 native Wesleyans alone, to say nothing of the great Church of England, the German, the Norwegian, the French, the Baptist, the Presbyterian, the Congre- 2 17 AFricA, Europe, LATIN AMERICA. gational, and a host of others, whose devout followers of the Lamb would doubtless swell this hopeful host to more than a quarter of a million in South Africa alone. PRAYER AND WANTS. We have often noticed while on the vir- gin soil that when a native-born heathen begins to pray the first thing that happens is he wants a shirt. Who makes that shirt —save the American? He prays farther and wants more. The more he prays the more he wants. And he wants, and wants, till he has secured for himself about every- thing the Gospel has to give to those who believe in it. It is astonishing that he never began to want till he began to pray! But the real and original native, who, with all his ancestors for generations has followed the devil, when he once begins to come to himself finds that “self” of his pretty much out of everything he ought to have. 18 ~—— AFRICA. Hence when he begins to become a Chris- tian he naturally wants everything which the Christ of the Christians has to give him. In all his days he never had a shirt, a spoon, a plate, a chair, a bed, nor the ten thousand other blessings which his Creator meant should all be his. These blessings are, every one of them, yours. Did you ever thank the Lord for a spoon, or a candle, or even a match with which to light your fire? The African wants them all. He will have them all, every one of them. But he will not have them for nothing. He will pay for them. He is rich, and his wealth is all for you. The wealth of Africa is not in her diamond mines—and no country has richer or deeper ones. It is not in her gold mines— and no nation has richer ones or more of them. The wealth of Africa lies in the strong right arm of the children of Africa, and that same right arm of 150,000,000 of her children will work for you, will most 19 AFrIcaA, Europe, LAtrn AMERICA. unceasingly work for you till you have given her the very last blessing which the Gospel has given you. Why is beef so dear in America to-day? Because a million of the dusky sons of Africa have learned its taste, and thousands of tons of your best beef go there every year. So it is with oil, so with machinery, so with railroad material, so with about all you have to sell, till vessels are scarcely able at the present time to carry over the enormous freightage of your trade. And yet you have only begun to sell goods in Africa. What will it become when the most of her millions have learned to pur- chase better things? And they are certain to learn. So, then, we affirm that foreign missions pay, and pay financially. Tur RETURNS FROM A NEWER SECTION. Let us observe what is now going on in the sections just emerging from heathenism, where so late as fifty years ago there was 20 a a ‘AFRICA. scarcely a native congregation of Christian worshipers in all the land. Twenty-two years ago we spent our first Sunday on a mission station in Natal. The church was rude; it had bare walls, most inconvenient benches, with slight rest for the back, but it was filled with worshipers. We have since that time been firmly convinced that a poor chapel with a host of people is more to be desired than a “modern” church full of nearly empty seats with a mere spattering of people. We shall never forget the “sing- ing” that morning. It was piercing, and rose above the shrieking of half a dozen lo- comotive whistles. It pierced us through, and the wounds are scarcely healed yet. But > they thought it “music,” and it was music to them. In the choir sat four young wom- en, each one of them as large as any three in this congregation all rolled into one, and they were clad in silk dresses. But the pat- tern was never intended for the wearer, nor 21 ArFrica, Europe, LATIN AMERICA, the wearer for the pattern. The trimming on the one side never made any connection with the other, nor had the buttons any spe- cial relation locally to their respective but- tonholes. The ladies were all bareheaded and barefooted, nor would it appear that they were clad in any additional apparel. How they did swell up and ring out those good old Church tunes!—but with such modifications that their writer would never have recognized them. Half of those in the house were raw heathen in their native dress, with hardly a stitch of anything Eu- ropean about them. They were clad in a palmful of palm-oil—mingled with a val- ley-full of sunshine—and little else. But they were there, and evidently as much at home in that congregation as those who were in the choir. At that time in that mission the native pastors were every one of them drawing their respective salaries from an American treasury. Their schools were 22 ‘AFRICA, largely assisted by American funds, and foreign aid was the order of the day. Three years ago we visited that same church and found almost the entire congre- gation clad, and in their right minds, with every pastor in that mission supported by funds raised on the mission field by the na- tives themselves, and the once ear-splitting choir. had now become so richly musical _ that they had rendered the Cantata of Esther in the Town Hall in Durban, with soine of the officials of the colony present, and had done it so well that they were in- vited to repeat their effort in several of the larger towns of the colony. Little out- stations, begun here and there by some untutored but energetic and Christian youth, had now become a hundred strong, and bade fair soon to outnumber their own mother church. Other outstations were multiplying indefinitely and thousands of natives, who formerly knew nothing of their 23 AFRICA, Europe, Latin AMERICA. Creator, now knew him and were eager to learn of him. All this great and sudden change has occurred within the brief span of our own mission life; and when we take note of the tremendous growth in things temporal and things eternal we cannot but affirm again that within this middle section, between the civilized old Cape and the to- tally uncivilized regions to the northward, where your present missions lie, foreign missions pay. They pay the government in cash returns hundreds of per cent profit. They pay the mission lands, whence come their mission teachers, hundreds of per cent profit. And they pay the Church of the Heavens, to which they belong, their Re- deemer and their King, immeasurably more. Foreign missions pay. ‘A Tract oF VirciIn Sort. Let us observe what is taking place on the virgin soil of your own little mission in 24 ; AFRICA, the Portuguese district of Inhambane. Your missionary landed there twenty-three years ago (December, 1880). These people had then never seen the letter “a” nor any ink in any shape. They had no alphabet, no dictionary, nor had anyone attempted to reduce their language to writing. There were people, people everywhere, but not a word of theirs was familiar to this new missionary. We did not know what bound- ed them on the north. We journeyed by day, and often by night, for two weeks, and never found anything but wild beasts and wild men. They were bounded on the east by the ocean. This much was definite. They were bounded on the south by the British flag—if one went about five hun- dred miles in that direction—and your mis- sionary went that far on foot, for, to this day, the go-a-foot express is the only avail- able vehicle for traveling in that locality. How were they bounded on the west? We 25 Arrica, Europe, Latin AMERICA. have been in that direction for three weeks at a time, and never found anything but wild beasts and wild people. We could discover on a map, made by some geogra- pher who never was there, who were our neighbors in these various directions, but one would never discover it if he were let loose to wander over the face of that region. He would discover thousands and tens of thousands of human beings, every one of whom was made in the image of God, swarming the river valleys, fringing the thousands of lakelets, and dotting thick the country wherever moisture could be found, and not one in a hundred of them had ever heard of the Creator or knew upon whose green earth he dwelt. They were as piteously ignorant of the life that now is and the conditions of the better life to come as the nonbeliever in Christian lands who persistently ignores the same glorious conditions. The only 26 reer, AFRICA. scriptural knowledge of the native is a per- verted knowledge, gained perchance at the diamond fields or at the Rand, where, hav- ing heard great swelling words from this same nonchurchgoer, he returns to his humble hut and proceeds to name his inno- cent little ones, “bloody-cuss,” “‘little devil,” and scores of other such terms, only he has not the faintest suspicion as to what these “big” terms mean. As nearly as can be estimated from tax collections, from ex- ports, and from personal observation, there are more than three millions of human be- ings in our own back yard who are waiting now and have waited long for the Bread of Life, and it has never come nigh to them. Amid this writhing mass of dying humanity the great Methodist Episcopal Church is supporting two missionaries at the present time, and for the past decade and more it has not kept any greater number in Portu- guese East Africa. 27 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. CoNnpDItIons IN Our FIELD. The district of Inhambane is under the Roman rule of the pope. It is a Catholic government, and as such it cannot recognize Protestant missionaries. It would be ille- gal if it should. It will treat with us as “traders,” as “planters,” as “artisans,” and grant us liberal favors, but cannot recognize us as religious teachers, because we are not only not of them, but are opposed to them in many ways. We have this to say of them, that during our long residence within their borders the government has treated us liberally and in no way different from their own regular citizens—save in the matter of religious privileges, which it is not theirs to give, according to the laws of the land. Our first mission station was purchased from a native chief who had power, under native law, to put us upon his ground but 28 AFRICA, could not put us off again against our will. He gave us a piece of land containing some three square miles, in exchange for which we gave him a cast-off overcoat and a use- less old musket. We were mutually de- lighted with our trade, and both values would have brought about the same price had they been placed on the market, for land and fresh air do not differ greatly in price in the land of Inhambane. The gov- ernment price is only some five acres for a penny. Sooner than wait half an eter- nity for ancestors to quit their possessions and give the hungry heirs.a chance, why do not the restless neglecters of our religion here at home go to a country where they can have large estates practically without cost, and on demand, in the midst of a de- lightful summerland, where dreary autumn and the storms of winter never come? The mission home was first erected, not a palatial affair at all, but considerably 29 Africa, Europe, LATIN AMERICA. finer than anything in the surrounding country, where a house was unknown, and a “hut” was its only representative. But how to move the materials for a house was the question. There were no roads, no horses, no mules, no donkeys. But there was something else quite as valuable, in itself considered, and also no mean substi- tute for carrying purposes, and that was the African woman. Women make a capi- tal freight-train when once they are prop- erly harnessed. In fact they will harness themselves, load themselves, and carry the freight, a hundred pounds at a time, with skill and care, and never once capsize or side-track their burden. The rate of wages in the beginning was five days’ service for two handkerchiefs—of not the value of a dime for the two—and we were roundly rated by the Arabs and others because we did not make them work fifteen days for the same amount. Their 30 ‘AFRICA. wages have not increased to any extent to ‘this day, and yet, while they are willing to labor at this heathenish rate, there is no one to employ them in all the land. One of the most difficult problems on our sta- tions to-day is how to exchange the toil of our Christian hands for sufficient to cover our nakedness, because there is none to em- ploy us, and markets are so unrequiting that it is well-nigh impossible. AN ORIGINAL LESSON CHART. While we were erecting our home, and before there was a roof over our heads, the missionary’s wife had smoothed over the ground with a bit of ceiling-board, and had made the letters of the alphabet upon the earth; and a hundred dusky children were pressing about on every side, thinking it the fun of their lives to make such crooked marks and call them such strange names, Out of that original number, who learned 31 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. their alphabet off mother earth, five are to-day ministers in our outstations or wives of such ministers. The very first effort ever made brought forth its hundredfold fruitage. HEATHEN “PRIZES” FOR WOMANHOOD. Our native chief—still living among us —having paid considerable attention to this “new” missionary sort of woman that had appeared in his dominions, came one morn- ing with great loads of cloth, upon the shoulders of many bearers, and issued an order for another wife as like as possible to the missionary’s wife, because he ob- served that her. sort was worth more than- his sort. He would not have her for noth- ing, but like to his far-distant father, Abraham, he would pay the “shekels” in so many loads of current cloth. He did not know of “lions in the way” of purchas- ing women in any land. He was honest, 33 = —- = AFRICA. and meant no insult to any woman. He took the only honorable method known in his land for obtaining a wife. In Natal these native women are sold to this day, legally too, for ten head of horned cattle. With us they used to be sold for a hundred pieces of cloth, but now they have risen -to something like $100 in gold, and they are fast becoming dearer. We fondly hope that the time will soon arrive when they will have become so dear that they cannot be sold at all. Just over our northern bor- ders, in the regions of the head waters of the Congo, we find that the market price of choice women—in carefully assorted lots— such as we see before us at the present time, is $168 per dozen! There is no evidence of their having been “marked down” from higher prices. This is the region where Solomon is supposed to have secured some of his goods, and judging from his reputed wealth, and from what we have heard of 3 33 AFRICA, EurRoPE, LATIN AMERICA. market rates for the women of these re- gions, we see no reason why the Bible statement concerning his abundant harem is not approximately correct. This state- ment may catise a smile, as you read it in your civilized and Christian home, where every right is secured by law and where your women are especially protected, but if it were you, if you were a woman being sold at the age of ten or younger to some octogenarian whose name and residence you had never known, with the instinctive repul- sion of a real and living human being, your soul would flame with indignation. It is with this polygamy and with the selling of women of every age and condition that the missionary finds he must wage immediate and unceasing war. RESOURCES OF LANGUAGE. And the language of these people! Is it possible that their own native dialect is 34 AFRICA. capable of conveying to their minds the sa- cred truths of the Bible and the modern and historic learning of other lands? Most surely it is. Many of their expressions are explosively emphatic. When an African is hungry he uses no such tame statement as do we, but with hands over his compressed stomach he says, “I feel a famine.” When he meets a long-absent old friend he does not exclaim in the tamest of words, “I am glad to see you.” But with apparent and ‘great joy he exclaims, “I am split to see you.” An electric streak of purest joy has actually passed through him and cleft him’ in twain, as the ax cleaves the block of wood. His language is so simple that a child of three years of age never stumbles on grammatical construction or on the idiom of speech. The vowel and the consonant never have but.one and the same sound. He learns to read in a tenth part of the time which would be required 35 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. were his spelling not absolutely phonetic. His vocabulary is full in every sort of ex- pression pertaining to his own region, but of course new thoughts require new words, and religious ideas are for the most part quite foreign to his understanding. We may put the words, “Our Father who art in heaven,” into his words, but we cannot put the same thought into them, since his thoughts are not our thoughts—nor are ours so rich by far as must be the thoughts of the angels above us. We are above him, but others are far above us. If our Father has done so much for us through this most faulty language of ours how is it not pos- sible for him to do great things for them, whereof they shall be glad and praise him forever! Thanks be to his name, he has done, and is still doing, and will continue to do great things for them. One may teach important truths with considerable force long before he has mas- 36 AFRICA, tered the language. Perhaps the ablest “sermon” we ever delivered was given one morning when we could not yet tell in their own tongue what we readily comprehended. - A man was beating a woman—presumably his wife, for having purchased her he could do what he pleased with her—whereupon the missionary in charge had the man ar- rested and brought before the officer of the district, who gave him a beating very similar to that which he had administered to his wife. That sermon was most effect- ive; for within miles of that mission station to this day they dare not beat a woman to any extent, lest she tell that very queer missionary about it all, and the beating re- turn to him who gave it. Murder and mis- deeds are often left uncommitted within a goodly radius of that mission station of yours, because it is known that the teach- ings of the Book and the practice of the missionary are all against it. It is marvel- 37 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. ous how great an amount of good the man with the Book will accomplish, even if he cannot express himself fluently in their speech. On many occasions helpless girls have fled to the mission station for refuge from cruel parents who were determined to sell them into horrible bondage, and they will even commit suicide, in many instances, rather than enter into it. First Pornts oF ConTAcT. The “heathen” appear to be so very like to other people who will not attend church, that they seldom wish to see a messenger of the Gospel unless they are in dire dis- tress and think they are about to die. Then they will rush to him or send for him if they may; so from among those women who were so desperate as to think of suicide, those girls who would rather die than live, and certain others in great distress who approached the mission station through the 38 AFRICA, medical dispensary, the first converts to the new religion were obtained. To be sure, when we preached heaven and eter- nal life to the many wayside groups some one would usually reply, “Yes, I am so glad there is a heaven. It is just what I should think would be prepared for me, and I am going into it.” But he wishes to go in with every sin clinging tightly to him, nor is he willing to be released from one of them. When we preach of the realm of the lost he replies, “Yes, I am ever so glad there is such a place prepared for the bad. There are Masengiti and Magaramana— who are so bad! It is just the sort of place for them. Won’t it be fine!” But there is nothing in it for him. But when these people come to face the ills of a heathen life then the missionary may approach, may draw very nigh to them, and can ofttimes persuade them to seek the help of Him who is mighty to save. Human nature is so 39 AFRICA, Europe, Latin AMERICA. much alike all over the earth that one may readily suppose the same Creator made us all. Only those in distress came to us in the beginning, and what they mistook for distress was their eternal salvation disguised only enough to secure their attention. When our early converts came to us they were cast out from the home circle of their friends and were counted as lost. They were often recalled, caused to suffer severe persecution, beset by the witch doctor, and given all sorts of medicine to see if their religion could not be gotten out of them by purging, by emetic, and by scourging. GosPEL LAMPS. But when all availed nothing the parents finally gave them up as dead, although they could not forget them. When _ these original lamps were first lighted by the Father’s love and began to give their little light to those about them 40 AFRICA. that light was so joyous, so full of hope that the friends, the very ones who first persecuted them, began to inquire, “Is it true that there is a God? Is it true that he cares for us? And is it possible for a black man to find him?” And these very nearest and dearest friends from the father down, the very ones who did the most of the per- secuting, are the very ones who become the earliest converts when once the first ‘convert has become established on a sta- tion of his own. And they are faithful. Their eyes have been opened by the touch of his hand, and now they see. What sort of Christians do they eventu- ally become? “By their fruits ye shall know them.” At Pakuli, where our first girl con- vert is now the pastor’s wife—and general mother of the whole community—we have a school. The mission pays for the food of five of the pupils, and the pastor and his wife heroically provide for a dozen others. 41 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. At Makodweni, where Tizore resides, the mission feeds some ten pupils, while the native pastor provides for a host of some seventy others. Where they feed and where they find shelter God and his ravens only know. At Doroti, where resides Ngum- bene, a fellow who appeared the least prom- ising of them all, there is a glorious work. Our last public gathering was there and while we were celebrating the Lord’s Sup- per a man not far away fell down dead from starvation. That day if you had looked into the little earthen pot in which the children’s breakfast, dinner, and supper were all cook- ing at once—for they ate but one meal a day—you could have hardly discovered a grain of the rice therein, it was so covered with grass and roots to eke it out, so that the fathers and mothers of the children present might taste thereof, for they, too, were on the verge of starvation. Should you visit some of our stations and spend the night 42 | ‘AFRICA, there, you would hear the voice of prayer the whole night long, till break of day. One of our pastors prayed the whole night through. When one really prays like that something is going to happen, and it is no marvel that he is the spiritual father of half the converts in our mission. We have nine of these stations where prayer is wont to be made. But quite in the way of growth is this fact: That on every station they are sending in requests that cannot be denied for help for the distressed, food for those hungry for salvation, and for a larger out- fit for carrying on the work of the blessed Gospel. In the beginning these same converted people of to-day fought us as a wild beast will fight for its young. They could not understand us, and there was no reason that they should. But to-day the very chil- dren of the mission, through the converting agency of the Holy Spirit, are a hundred 43 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. times more efficient in leading their parents to God than is your ablest foreign mission- ary with all his excellencies. Africa is to be converted by the children of Africa, and we not only mean the children of her soil, but real children in their youth and inno- ‘cency, in their hope, and in their everlasting hold on the very heartstrings of their elders. “And a little child shall lead them” is still the Gospel method of converting the world. GIVING THE WorD IN New TONGUES. Your mission has given them the word in the Tonga language, has translated every word of it into that tongue, and with the aid of native converts has printed it all at your own mission station and has used up the first edition. Then it was brought home, where the Bible Society reprinted it for us and sent us out again with five hundred new copies bound and ready for use. ‘Then, in our disappointment because we found the 44 AFRICA. Tonga could not avail for more than a frac- tion of our entire land, we translated the entire New Testament a second time, this time into the Sheetswa tongue, so that the hundreds of thousands and even millions of our people will be able to read it in the tongue wherein they were born. This translation has been a blessed work, but it is a very little thing comparatively; for while it is easy to make a book it is diffi- cult to teach an untaught nation to read it, and still far more difficult to enlighten their understanding concerning its precious truths. This we missionaries can scarcely hope to do, but the children of the mission, those whom so many of our large-hearted Christian people are now _ supporting through their brief school hours, these children will teach, and teach, and teach again, till the myriads of human beings now sitting in darkness shall have seen the Great Light. 45 Arrica, Europe, LATIn AMERICA. PRESENT AND FUTURE COMPENSATION. Our entire mission field has doubled its membership no less than six times within the past five years, but we count this as very little compared with what shall be if you and they and your missionaries will cling close to the Saviour and labor together with him. Life and light have begun to come into the dark valleys of the Limpopo and the Sabi, and over the plains of the In- hambane, but it has only begun to come. Had our birth and environment been cast in this desolate region, where the light of revelation never came and where all was of the earth, and very earthy, if we could have known what missions might mean for us is it possible we could not have believed in them? Foreign missions do pay, and they pay not only precious dividends to those for whom they are created, but they pay no less equally well in the joy and gladness 46 ‘AFRICA. which comes into the hearts of all who assist in creating them. Let us observe what that “faithful and true witness” saw when he stood at the end of time and beheld “a great multitude, which no man could number”—and men can number a great many—who had come up “out of great tribulation,” and had “washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” ‘They were of every tribe, and nation, and people, and tongue— not one of all the earth left out. And they hunger no more, they thirst no more, for their every want is fully satisfied. They shall weep no more, not even the mother for the - sound of the sweet-voiced babe, once left behind, for that dearest life is with her now, shining on in the shining life forever, and God has wiped away all tears from her eyes. God did not create Africa in vain. Her people are of the “nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues” of the earth, and 47 Arrica, Europr, LAtin AMERICA. they will assuredly be there in the fullness of their time. Christ died for Africa no less than for Galilee, and as assuredly as~he sent his apostles to the ends of the then known world he sends his own to the ends of the now known world. And the message, Eternal Salvation, is just the same. Noth- ing could be better. Foreign missions pay. 48 II. EUROPE. By REV. WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD, D.D. THREE years ago Bishop Goodsell, in re- porting our European work to the Mission- ary Committee, said, “I have no doubt there are more in our Church puzzled concerning our being in Europe and in Christian coun- tries there than over any other missionary problem in the Church.” There is a sentiment against Protestant missions for Europe; and it is not confined to a locality here and there. It is wide- spread; and in many instances determined. The argument is, “Send the Gospel to the heathen; to the millions who have never heard the name of Jesus. Europe is Chris- 4 49 AFRICA, EuRoPE, LATIN AMERICA. tian already and has been for fifteen cen- turies, most of it for eighteen centuries.” Why send Christian missionaries to Eu- rope? Behold her great nations! There is Italy. The most Christian of all of the Christian nations; the land of Ambrose, Augustine, the Gregories, and Savonarola. There is France. Her Christian bishops date back to Irenzus, the disciple of Poly- carp. Christian France boasts of the Ber- nards, Bossuet, and Fenelon. Her Made- leine and Notre Dame are among the won- ders of Christian church architecture. And there is Germany. Great, strong, heroic Germany. Her Luther and her Melanchthon will forever rank among the mightiest ex- ponents and defenders of Christian faith. I ask again, “Why send missionaries to these countries?’ To many it seems ab- surd. And it would be absurd if the teach- ings of Augustine, Irenzeus, and Luther still pervaded these countries. But alas! These 50 EUROPE. Christian lands have forgotten the source of Christian strength and the secret of abid- ing power. They have the forin of Chris- tianity ; they have the stateliness and cere- mony, but not the spirit. What these coun- tries need and what they must have, is Christianity in earnest. Europe A LAND OF LEGEND AND ROMANCE. Europe to-day, so far as religion is con- cerned, is a land of legend and romance. In Germany the opera is more popular than the Church. Martin Luther is a name to con- jure with, not the name of an apostle of righteousness to be imitated. In France the baneful sentiment which triumphed in the Revolution is still in the ascendency. The deluge prophesied by Louis XIV has left its wreckage, foul and unsightly, from the waters of the Mediterranean to the Eng- lish Channel. The teachings of Voltaire are forgotten, but his scornful spirit and 51 AFrica, Europe, Latin AMERICA. insincere life still taint and mar French society. In Italy stately churches, monas- teries, and convents abound. Priests and monks crowd the streets. Shrines and crosses are on every corner. Signs of re- ligion are everywhere. But fair and sunny Italy is dead to spiritual things. Switzer- land is little better. Bulgaria, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are in the same list. Devout Christians there are in all these countries; there are earnest and faithful pastors and true disciples. But there are so few of them. THe EurorpEAN ConvtTINENT NEEDS A Work Like WESLEY'S. The field of opportunity in Europe is the same field which John Wesley found in England in the eighteenth century. What that field was I need not describe. This bi- centennial year has flooded us with infor- mation on the subject. The reformation 52 Europe. which Wesley accomplished in England is known and recognized by the whole Anglo- Saxon race. We do not require the testi- mony of Methodists. Anglican ritualists, rigid Presbyterians, and devout Baptists have said more for our founder and the movement he inaugurated than we Meth- odists have ever dared to. Every intelligent student of Christian history now names the Wesley movement as one of the two great- est forward movements since Pentecost. Just such a movement is the supreme need of Europe to-day. I say the supreme need. What John Wesley did for Christian Eng- land is what John Vincent is attempting for Christian Europe. The Gospel preached in England was the same Gospel which is be- ing preached in Europe. Our missionaries there are vitalizing Christian truth. They are making the class meeting a power for good. The prayer meeting is quickening spiritual life. Revivals are taking place. 53 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. And Christianity tremendously in earnest is being preached. In the light of these facts I do not see how we can praise John Wesley for his work without doing our best to help John Vincent and the men who labor with him in the great work they are trying to do. Think what their success is going to mean. The glorious triumph of Chris- tianity in earnest in Europe will count for more in making for the peace and prosperity of nations than all the policies and all the alliances of all the diplomats and all the statesmen from Machiavelli to this hour. Not A New Gospet, BUT More GOosPEL. Dr. Arthur Pierson has recently described how out of Wesley the ritualist came Wesley the enthusiast and Wesley the evangelist. Europe to-day is filled with ritualists. The Church there has been almost ritualized to death. If out of these ritualists there might come in this our time Christian enthusiasts 54 EuROPE. and Christian evangelists, what a spiritual awakening would mark the early decades of our new century. What is needed for the continent of Europe is what Dr. Henry van Dyke has declared to be necessary for the whole Church: “Not a new Gospel, but more Gospel.” The Gospel which John Wesley preached in England, the Gospel of salvation full and free for the individual and for the race, the Gospel of personal experi- ence in Christ Jesus, the Gospel of the wit- ness of the Spirit, the Gospel of a holy life lived in unholy surroundings, the Gospel of the New Testament which teaches repent- ance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Gospel which is the dyna- mite of God unto salvation. Just as cer- tainly as the earnest and faithful preaching of such a Gospel brought about phenomenal moral and spiritual reformation in England, it will bring about moral and spiritual ref- ormation in Switzerland, Germany, and the 55 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. northern nations. Splendid Church organ- izations exist in all these countries. They have the true doctrine. Their catechisms are all right. What they need, I. say it again, what they need is “Not a new Gos- pel, but more Gospel’—that rich, full po- tent Gospel which has power to take hold of a vile heart and change it, a profligate life and reform it, an ill-built character and reconstruct it. It is this Gospel, the power of God for men, which is being preached by our Methodist missionaries on the continent of Europe at this very hour. A View oF Metnopist Eprscopar, WorK IN EUROPE. During the past year it was my privilege to see something of the work which is being done in four of our nine European Confer- ences—the two in Germany, the Conference in Switzerland, and the Conference in Italy. I confess with shame that I went there a 56 —_— Europe. skeptic and ready to find fault. But I came back an enthusiastic advocate of our work, and convinced with a conviction I cannot describe that we ought not to retreat or re- trench at any point, but with faith in God go wisely and steadily forward until the “more Gospel” idea be preached and lived and rejoiced in from the blue waters of the Mediterranean to the farthest northern cot- tage in Scandinavia, and from the remotest hut in the Ural Mountains to the eastern shore of the Atlantic. And may God speed the coming of that good day! It was in 1849 that the Methodist Epis- copal Church first set foot on European soil. We did not push ourselves in after rude fashion. We were invited. When we arrived we were given a cordial wel- come by the people who invited us. That - was more than fifty years ago. The ear- nest but somewhat impatient Methodist who wants to make every dollar count 57 7 AFRICA, EuropE, LATIN AMERICA, is saying, “Yes, and what have we to show for the half century of work?” Briefly as I can, let me tell you. Our work was small at first. Measured by some stand- ards it is not very large now; but it is a good deal larger than some people think. The seed sown by Brother Jacoby in Bre- men in 1849 has yielded such a harvest that we now have in Central Europe three Con- ferences—North Germany, South Germany, and Switzerland—with a total membership, counting the probationers, of 28,815 souls. In the Conferences of Sweden and Norway, the Missions in Denmark, Finland and St. Petersburg, we have a membership of more than 27,000. In our Conference in Italy and the Bulgarian Mission there are 3,000 who bear our name. The total membership in these three groups of Conferences and Missions is a little over 60,000. And in our Sunday schools we are 100,000 strong. Re- membering all the struggles, discourage- 58 EUROPE. ments, and disappointments, this showing is a hopeful one. We have reason to thank God and take courage. Mucsu Fruit Sent into State CHURCHES AND TO AMERICA. But this is not all. Statistics tell only part of the story, and in some instances a very small part. A presiding elder in Norway reports revivals and conversions, but says, “Only a few of all who are con- verted among us are received into full mem- bership in our Churches.”’ Another writes, “Most of our converts remain in the State Church or go to America.” In one case half an entire society left for America in a single year. The same thing is happening in Italy, and to some extent in Germany. It is no exaggeration to say that tens of thou- sands every year who are touched by the earnestness of Methodist preaching do not come into our membership, but remain in 59 AFRICA, EuRoPE, LATIN AMERICA. our congregations or go back to the State Church with a new zeal for Christ. Such work as this, while it does not show in fig- ures, does count in the building up of Christ’s kingdom. In all the essentials of Christian progress our work goes steadily forward. Under the guidance of our great Sunday school genius our Sunday schools are being better organized and promise much for the future of our work. Even in Bulgaria the Sunday school and the day school seem to be solving the problem of evangelization. We have made some mis- takes. We have had to try new methods, But the work goes on. / Our Work IN ITALY. I want to tell you something about what we are doing in Italy. I wish I could take you into our boys’ industrial school in Ven- ice, or show you what we are doing in Milan, in Genoa, in Bologna, in Florence, in Naples, 60 EUROPE. Our work is growing in all these great cen- ters. But I must confine myself to Rome, first, because I know it best ; and second, be- cause it has been misunderstood, and in some instances misrepresented. I shall never forget a beautiful morning in May twelve years ago. As I walked along the wide Via Cavour on my way to the temporary headquarters of our Metho- dist mission, I met the superintendent, Dr. William Burt. I need not describe Dr. Burt. All Methodism knows him. That morning his face was brighter than usual; brighter I thought than the Aldombrosa gardens I had seen shining above the Via Nazionale only a few minutes before. “Well, doctor,” said I, “what good news this morning?” ‘Come with me and I will tell you,’ was the answer. The doctor seemed to have the feet of Mercury. Al- most before I knew it we were over on the Quirinal and on the great street leading 61 Arrica, Europe, Latin AMERICA. from the king’s palace to the historic Porta Pia, through which marched the triumphant army of Victor Emmanuel. “There,” said the doctor, pointing to a large .open lot, “that corner belongs to Methodism, and we are going to put up a fine Methodist build- ing. Nobody here knows it yet. But it’s ours, thank God!’ I did not know how much it meant then. Of course I did catch something of Dr. Burt’s enthusiasm. No one could hear him as he talked that day without feeling that somehow the kingdom of God had suddenly moved forward a thousand years. We had in Rome at that time a church down in the business quarter by the Piazza Poli, some rented rooms over on Via Cavour, where Dr. Burt and his family lived and where Sunday services were held, and a girls’ school in Via Torino, at the top of a four-story building. Our membership numbered sixty-five, and two Sunday 62 EuRore. schools had on their register eighty-two names. That was all. Meruopist BuILDING IN ROME. I confess that up to that May morning I saw little in the condition of our work to encourage, much less inspire, a Methodist visitor in Rome. Let me tell you what we have now. On that corner where I heard the prophet’s voice stands our great Meth- odist building, harmonizing in architecture and stateliness with the proud government buildings on the same street. It is the Methodist headquarters for Rome. I wish all Methodists could see this building. In the basement is our publishing house. Print- ing presses are sending out the Evangelista —the Christian Advocate of Italian Meth- odism—Sunday school periodicals, tracts, hymn books and other books. On the first floor is the large auditorium of our Italian Church, with Epworth League rooms ad- 63 AFrica, Europr, LATIN AMERICA. joining. The pastor, Rev. Alfredo Tagliala- tela, is evangelical and popular. His min- istry is attracting large audiences. Nearly every Sunday night people are compelled to go away from the church unable to find standing room. On the same floor is the auditorium of our English-speaking church, of which Rev. A. W. Leonard, son of our corresponding secretary, has been for two years the successful pastor. A beautiful pipe organ was recently presented to the society by Dr. Leonard in memory of his noble Christian wife. On other floors are apartments occupied by Dr. Burt and his family, the pastors of the two churches, the editor of our publications, and one or two other officials connected with our work. The rooms of our theological seminary are in the same building, and also the boys’ school. Seidom have I seen so much to challenge admiration. A prominent Methodist said to me once, “We blundered into putting up 64 EUROPE. that great building in Rome.” If it was a blunder I wish we might have more blun- dering of the same sort. It seems to me about the best specimen of statesmanship I have seen recently. CRANDON INSTITUTE. The second center of our work is Cran- don Institute. It is over on Via Veneto, just opposite Queen Marguerita’s palace, and is by far the best woman’s college and girls’ school in the city of Rome. The loca- tion is superb. Both the surroundings and view are all that heart could desire. As one stands in the loggia at the top of the build- ing, the glories of Rome are before him. The school was founded seven years ago and has occupied the present building but three years. The attendance is nearly 300, and more could be enrolled if the building were larger. Among the students is a grand- daughter of the great Garibaldi—tittle 5 65 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. Josephine, pet of the school. A granddaugh- ter of Mazzini is there, seven daughters of Italian generals, and daughters of mem- bers of Parliament and other high officers of state. As we ascended the steps of the building to call on the principal and see the school, we met a fine-looking woman who, with an attendant, was just leaving. We learned later that she was the wife of the prime minister of Italy and had called for the purpose of placing her two daughters in the institution. No one can visit Crandon Institute without feeling that the old order is changing in Italy, yielding place to new. OTHER SCHOOLS. The third center of our activity is the Via Garibaldi girls’ school. This is on the other side of the Tiber and just under Janiculum. The building is an old convent. The nuns’ cells are now occupied by Methodist girls, and the beautiful gardens are their recrea- 66 Europe. tion ground. Our first visit to the school was to witness the entertainment on Christ- mas Eve. The second was on Christmas Day. We looked over the whole building, saw samples of industrial work, and walked in the garden. Sucha garden! Remember, it was Christmas. But there were orange trees, lemon, and mandarin, all heavy with ripe fruit; roses and carnations too. It was one of those ideal gardens we read about but seldom see. Weird stories were told us of great passageways, leading out under the wall to nobody knows where. But con- vent and garden now belong to Methodism. As I looked at the girls and then over in the direction of the Vatican I could not help saying, “Leo, children not thine now walk these garden paths.” I must not forget the kindergarten over to the northeast of the baths of Diocletian, a sort of day nursery. Sixty little ones are cared for there by Mrs. Burt and two Italian 67 AFRICA, EuRoPE, LATIN AMERICA. assistants. The parents of each child pay five centesimi (one cent) per day for the privilege. Who can measure the influence of such a work! Our membership in Rome shows an increase of four hundred per cent since 1891. The home Church hasn’t done better than that. SIGNIFICANT FActs, Three facts should greatly increase our interest in the work in Rome. First, it com- mands the respect and admiration of the leaders of the Italian government. This is witnessed by the favor of Italian news- papers and by the families represented in our schools. The king said not long ago to Dr. Burt, referring to our new building near his palace, “I watched your building going up with the greatest of interest. I am glad it is where it is, because by its very presence it says to the civilized world that there is liberty of conscience in the city of Rome.” 68 EuROopE. The second fact is that in our schools we are preparing leaders. There is nothing Italy needs so much to-day as good leadership, and she must have it if the dreams of Gari- baldi and Victor Emmanuel are ever to be realized. The third fact is that our work has assumed such proportions that it was openly recognized by Pope Leo. Not that he favored it. Quite the reverse. Under his influence a society was organized among Catholic women in Rome to counteract the influence of Crandon Institute. Another society was formed recently, four cardinals in it, with the avowed purpose of driving Protestantism, and particularly Methodism, out of Rome. It is to the glory of our Church that we are so strongly planted in the City of the Seven Hills. A large part of the population, and the more intelligent part, has altogether broken away from the Roman Catholic faith ; with these people it is either Protest- 69 AFRICA, Europe, LATIN AMERICA. ism or nothing. For most of them just now, it is nothing. We must win them to Christ. A. GENERAL Forwarp MovEMEN’T FOR THE CoNTINENT. I have said nothing about the European countries in which we have no representa- tion. In some of them a forward movement has already begun. The McAll Mission in Paris, and the evangelical churches through- out France, are doing much good. But we are only at the beginning. All Europe must be reached. “There are no arguments,” says Bishop Vincent, “against this aggres- sive work. There are abundant and unan- swerable arguments for it.” In 1812, in the Senate of Massachusetts, a man objected to the incorporation.of the American Board of Foreign Missions on the ground that “the country had no religion to spare.” Dr. van Dyke in commenting on the fact says, “If that objection had prevailed I believe by 70 Europe. this time the country would have no religion to keep.” We ought to understand-that in helping our brothers beyond the sea we are helping ourselves. Never was this truer than now. America has come to a new place among the nations. She is respected and honored by the nations as never before. Our opportunity is great, also our responsi- bility. Through our missionaries we are touching and ennobling the life which is to be a part of our life. Seldom does God give to a nation such a chance as we have now on the continent of Europe. When I speak for Europe I speak for what I believe to be one of the most impor- tant and promising of our mission fields. Does some one still cry out, “Insufficient re- sults.” I ask, “What do we expect as the reward of missionary labor?” You say first, “Conversions; second, increase of spiritual life; third, Christian activity manifesting itself in self-support and missionary spirit.” Fx AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA, All this is being realized. Not as many con- versions as we could wish. But that is true here at home. Our constant prayer is for greater ingathering. Our brethren in Eu- rope are praying the same prayer. And God is answering their prayer. Even while this Convention is going on, conversions are tak- ing place, there is quickening of spiritual life, the altar fires of Christian faith and Christian devotion are burning, and there are signs of Christian activity which prom- ise a new order of things—an order of things in which the nations of Europe shall unite heart and soul with Great Britain and America and under the banner of King Jesus with the purpose of bringing home to the Father’s house the last man for whom Christ died. With faith that what the signs of Christian activity promise may be fully realized, I would write in large letters on all four walls of this great building this sen- tence, “NOT A NEW GOSPEL FOR 72 Europe. EUROPE, BUT MORE GOSPEL.” Eu- rope evangelized, and the great nations of the earth will stand shoulder to shoulder for the speedy evangelization of the world. Tue Urcent CALL. I urge the cause of Europe this morning not because of any honor or glory which may come to the Methodist Church, but for the sake of aggressive Christianity, under high command to break chains and remove mountains until the whole wide world shall be brought to the feet of Jesus ; for the sake of our beloved America, whose ultimate future greatness will be measured by her un- flinching royalty to the King of kings; for the sake of our brothers and our sisters who in hard and uninviting fields, with courage and fortitude greater than the heroes of Ulysses, are meeting “the thunder and the sunshine” with more than frolic welcome; for the sake of the Bleeding Hands set to 73 AFRICA, EuRoPE, LATIN AMERICA. the heroic task of turning the stream of cen- : turies toward the everlasting Kingdom of - righteousness and true holiness ; for the sake . ’ of humanity and the love of Jesus. I plead 7 for a new order of the Sacred Heart for the — continent of Europe. I plead for more men, ~ more money, and more consecration. I plead © for a more careful study of the field. I plead for more sympathy for our workers, q more cooperation, more earnest and de- — termined effort. We Methodists owe a debt — to Europe which we ought to pay. It was — under the preaching of Count Zinzendorf — and Peter Boehler, Germans, that John Wes- ley’s heart became strangely warmed. More — than this. Your grandsires and mine, some a of them, lie sleeping in European grave- — yards. Their blood runs warm in our veins. — Sons and daughters of Wesley! Hear me! — If we shall do for the continent of Europe — in the next decade what we ought to do, — what responsibility and opportunity com- — 74 EUROPE. mand, I believe we shall see not many years hence a mighty spiritual awakening like unto that which blessed England under the leadership of our illustrious founder. The time is ripe. The Lord of the harvest is waiting. Our decision will affect the fate of millions and the spiritual prosperity of a continent. God help us to decide right! 75 ITE LATIN AMERICA. By REV. CHARLES W. DREES, D.D. THERE is a Latin America as there is an Anglo-Saxon America, and these two de- scriptive appellations will probably remain applicable to the lands of the western hemi- sphere to the end of time. The territorial extent of Latin America is more than equal in superficial area to Anglo-Saxon America. It offers the spectacle of a family of nations: Mexico at the north, Argentina and Chile at the south, the former equal to one fourth of the area of the United States, and Ar- gentina, together with Paraguay and Uru- guay, equaling the whole extent embraced 76 / > LATIN AMERICA. between the summits of the Alleghany Mountains and those of the Rockies. Brazil with its mighty Amazon, whose course coin- cides approximately with the equator, holds a region vaster than our United States apart from Alaska and our island possessions. Take the States of Minnesota, Iowa, Mis- souri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, divide them along the meridian drawn through their centers, join the two strips end to end, and you have a territory somewhat like that of Chile, twenty-eight hundred miles long, a distance equal to that from Puget Sound to Panama. Take the northwestern’ terri- tory, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, add to them Texas, vaster than all the five together, and you have a terri- tory equal to that of Colombia. Bolivia and Peru each one spread out over our territory would cover as large a space, while Venezuela is larger than any one of these. Add to all these the little group of nations 77 AFRICA, EuROPE, LATIN AMERICA. in Central America and the islands of the sea and you have an area of more than eight millions of square miles, the heritage of a people numbering more than fifty millions of souls. Such is Latin America, its extent and population. This population from Mexico to the Straits of Magellan is pratically of one race and of one speech. Whatever the mingling of aboriginal blood or the influx of Euro- pean population, Central and South Amer- ica are predominantly Spanish and Portu- guese—of Latin stock—as North America is predominantly Anglo-Saxon. It might be said that as the mingling of the nations in our own country is producing a composite type, new in the history of the world, so the mingling of the races in South America, especially in the vast plains of the Plata, is producing a composite type whose charac- teristics are determined by the currents of Latin blood. 78 eR ————— Ee ee ee LATIN AMERICA. Duay LINEs oF EXPANSION AND RELIGION. At about the same period the action be- gan of the forces which have determined this development. Southward and _ ever southward have flowed the tides of the Latin race in this new migration, while westward and ever westward the star of Anglo-Saxon empire has taken its way. It seems as though the God who metes out to the nations their habitation has so divided the heritage of this western world as that the future of each of these great races should here find its widest expansion and its largest development. And what is true of race and language is true of religious faith. Columbus land- ing upon the shores of Guanahani planted the standard of the cross, to be followed by tonsured priest and hooded monk represent- ing a theory of Christianity which exalts the priest and the sacrament in the hands of 79 ArFrica, Europe, LAtrn AMERICA. a priest, erecting thus in the Church as an institution an indispensable mediary for the communication of divine grace to human souls. The Pilgrim fathers, landing upon the “rock-bound shores of New England,” bearing in their hands the open Bible, and seeking the direct communication of the soul with God through the one Mediator and only High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, represented Protestant Christianity in its fullest power and with all its possibilities. In this last contrast appears the funda- mental principle that compels and inspires our mission work in Latin America. It is the old issue, never entirely lost sight of in the history of Christianity, between sacer- dotalism and the universal priesthood of believers. The conflict was renewed and became vital in the history of Christendom with the Protestant Reformation of the six- teenth century. It was then that the lines were drawn and two great interpretations 80 LATIN AMERICA. of the Christian system began the debate that was to issue in the determination as to which is the true expression of the faith as it is in Christ. The vast conflict was begun in Europe, but in Europe it could not be fought out on equal terms. Romanism, in- trenched for a thousand years, with untold wealth at its command and joining its claims with the assumptions and the greed of human world-powers, offered an impas- sable barrier for three centuries to the ad- vance of Protestantism. In the providence of God this conflict is to be fought out to its final issue in these Americas. At about the same period Roman and evangelical Christianity were transplanted to a region where upon the vastest arena con- ceivable, and each with freedom to develop according to its own genius and bear its ripest fruits, they are destined to work out the problem to its final solution. You seek Romanism in its influence upon peoples and 6 81 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. institutions where that influence is most completely shown, and you must seek it not where Romanism has been in direct contact with Protestantism, but where it has held exclusive sway. You seek a demonstration of the fruits of Protestantism, and you find them not where the Church has been in alli- ance with the State, but in free America. For three centuries Romanism and Prot- estantism developed, each according to its own genius, in this western world; and he who runs may read the lesson of these centuries. Tue Great Issue DRAWN. For three centuries the action of the Prot- estant religion upon the Latin race was wholly paralyzed. It was not until the vin- dication of the open Bible by the Lutheran Reformation of the sixteenth century was complemented by the vindication of the work of the Holy Spirit and the rights of 82 eal LATIN AMERICA, the Christian consciousness in the Wesleyan Reformation of the eighteenth century that Protestantism could go forth in vital power to accomplish in the new era of the Refor- mation the unity of Christendom in loyalty to God’s holy word and in the experience of salvation certified by the witness of the Holy Spirit. And it was not until the capstone of the Roman system was brought forth with shoutings, when the infallibility of the pope was proclaimed from the balcony of St. Peter’s in Rome, that the providence of God struck the hour for the renewal of the ad- vance movement of Protestantism both in Europe and in America. The dogma of the papal infallibility determines finally and irrevocably, so far as the Roman system is concerned, its irreconcilable conflict with the word of God. It claims the Bible, God’s gift to men as men, as the book of the priest, to be interpreted in no other way than as 83 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. authorized by an infallible pope. It makes Romanism as a system forever irreformable save by protest, by revolution. Since then God’s message to his children living under that system is, “ Come out from the midst of her, that ye be not partakers of her tor- ments.” At once after that proclamation the issue became plain to Christendom, and from that moment there was borne in upon the con- sciousness of Protestantism its mission to proclaim, with the open Bible in hand, the birthright of the sons of God. That birth- right is to possess, each man for himself, the word of God, and to experience, each man in himself, without the necessary me- diation of priest or sacrament, the assurance of his adoption into the divine family. Tue Divine VeErRpIct IN History. Let me recall to you the astonishing suc- cession of events in that epochal year of 84 ———— LATIN AMERICA, 1870. Papal Christendom was in convoca- tion at the Vatican Council. A question of policy affecting the destiny of the Spanish people, whose history has been so inter- woven with all European politics and with all American destiny, was agitating the courts of Europe. French arms supported in Rome the temporal power of the pope. Protestant Prussia aspired, in dispute with Catholic France, to designate an occupant for the vacant Spanish throne. The Council was debating the project for the definition as a dogma of papal infallibility. The courts were in dispute as to a question of temporal sovereignty. On the 18th of July the final vote having been taken in the Council, the papal infallibility was proclaimed from the balcony of St. Peter’s. Within twenty-four hours war was declared between Prussia and France. After a campaign of less than forty-five days French arms went down in defeat before the arms of united Germany, 85 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. a Germany united in the throes of conflict and under the leadership of a Protestant nation. Louis Napoleon dethroned and France standing upon the threshold of its new history as a republic, French troops could no longer maintain the pope upon his temporal throne. They were withdrawn from Rome, and on the 2oth of September through the entrance of the Porta Pia the army of united Italy entered the Eternal City and the temporal power of the popes came to an end forever. A divinely taught leader in modern mis- sions has said: “I do not hesitate to ex- press the conviction that, as affecting the work of evangelical missions, this fall of the temporal power of the pope was the most momentous event of modern history, for it made papal Christendom what it never had been and never could be before— an open and accessible field for preaching the Gospel of the Son of God.” 86 ea Latin AMERICA. Ture Vast Freip OPENED. From this period there has been the most astonishing awakening in the conviction of Protestant Christians as to the duty of bear- ing witness to the truth among the peoples of Roman faith. A marvelous development had prepared the way in many of the coun- tries of Spanish America for the free circu- lation of the word of God and the open proclamation of Gospel truth. Mexico, in the throes of a mighty internal conflict, had proclaimed religious liberty and decreed the separation between Church and State. Ar- gentina after long internal conflict had faced the issue, and under a liberal consti- tution, although not decreeing formal sepa- ration between Church and State, had nevertheless proclaimed freedom of speech, of the press, and of public worship. Chile by a legislative interpretation of the un- changed letter of her constitution had 87 AFRIcA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. opened the way for the public preaching of the Gospel. Brazil under its liberal and en- lightened emperor had taken its place among the progressive nations of America, guaranteeing the rights of conscience and of free public worship, a transformation soon to be followed by a formal separation of Church and State. In the other nations of Central and South America the conflict was in progress with varying fortune, and it only needed the resolute purpose and un- daunted faith of some messenger of the truth to pry open the doors and give en- trance to the light. Thus it has happened that while South- ern Europe, from Rome itself to the farth- est bounds of the lands long held under papal sway, became accessible to the Gospel, the whole of Latin America became an open mission field, so that if Rome could main- tain under its missionary organization, the “Propaganda Fide,” aggressive missionary 88 Latin AMERICA, operations in the United States, Protestant- ism might with equal right and, in response to the providential call, send its missionaries with the open Bible into every country of Latin America. Tur Work BEcuN. This missionary progress in Latin Amer- ica has a definite date for its beginning in the year 1870. At that date there were scarcely any Protestant missions in Latin America. For thirty years the men who represented our own Church in the Argen- tine Republic, under pressure of restrictive laws or executive control which forbade the circulation of the Bible and the preaching of the Gospel in the vulgar tongue, had con- fined their operations to little groups of English-speaking people. Small beginnings in Brazil and Colombia could all together number their congregations upon less than the ten fingers of one’s hands, while con- 89 AFrica, Europe, Latin AMERICA. verts from the native people were less than one hundred. Such progress as has been made is the fruit of scarce thirty years of effort. Lim- iting our view to our own Church, the Mexico Mission began in 1873; Spanish work in Argentina was inaugurated in 1867, but did not reach its period of rapid development until 1880; work in Chile began in 1878; in Peru in 1890; while that in Paraguay, Ecuador, and Bolivia is of still more recent date. Tue Marin LINES OF PROGRESS. 1. The issue has been defined. It is the issue between the open Bible, God’s message to every man, and the assumptions of a Church placing its interpretation of the word and its definitions as to dogma and duty above the word itself as received by a conscience illuminated by the direct light of the Spirit of God. It is the issue between go Latin AMERICA. the birthright of the sons of God, the direct access of the soul to the living Christ and through him to the heavenly Father, and the assumption of priestly prerogative as mediating between the individual soul and God. It is the issue between sacerdotalism and the universal priesthood of believers ; the issue between testimony of the Holy Spirit in Christian consciousness and the pretended right of a human institution to determine the relation of a soul to God, 2. The field has been entered and meas- urably occupied. Take the capitals of Spanish America, and in Mexico City, Quito, Lima, La Paz, Santiago, Buenos Ayres, Monte- video, Asuncion, and San Juan you have the centers of Methodist missionary work in as many nations, each the center of multi- plied congregations in actual existence or in early prospect. Our sister Methodism holds Rio de Janeiro and Havana, Brazil and Cuba. gl 7 ArFrica, Europe, LATIN AMERICA, 3. We have determined the agencies: the circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment ; the preaching of the Gos- pel in the power of the Spirit; the multipli- cation of the testimony to the truth by the printed page through our mission presses ; education through the Christian school, training up the youth of our own Church in knowledge and in piety, preparing the workers, sons of the people, who shall go forth to proclaim the message to their countrymen; the hospital, with its multiplication of the healing miracles ever associated with the action of the — living Christ. 4. We have developed a plant, not fully, but in many places, demonstrating the van- tage ground given to the work of evangeli- zation by the church edifice, varying from the simple chapel of pole and thatch, of wood and tile, to the stately edifice for church and press and school of which such 92 LATIN AMERICA, notable examples are afforded in Mexico City, Santiago, and Buenos Ayres. 5. We have discovered the men. In every land from Mexico to Argentina the spirit of God has called forth from the people those who are the messengers of the Gospel to their own fellow-countrymen. Valder- rama and his companions in Mexico, Pen- zotti in Peru, Venegas in Chile, Thomson, Tallon, Howard, Vasquez, and Abeledo in Argentina — these are typical’ names from the Conference rolls of these Latin-Ameri- can countries. As always in the history of evangelization, the Spirit of God exalts those “ born of the people” and the witness of him who can say, “ One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see,” makes most powerful appeal to the people. 6. We have reached, and are reaching, the people. It is no longer a question as to whether the Gospel is needed by the people or its preaching will be received. In Latin 93 AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA. America we have at this hour not less than 17,000 members and probationers in the Methodist churches of our own denomina- tion. Add to this the 11,000 gathered in by our sister Methodist Church of the South and there are not less than 28,000 Meth- odists of Latin race, of Spanish and Portu- guese speech, in this western world. Take into your thought the thousands who through the years have borne steadfast wit- ness to the truth, the martyrs who in Mex- ico have sealed that witness by their blood, the dying testimonies of those who have been able to say with John Wesley, “The best of all is, God is with us,” and we may surely rejoice in the fact that God has not left himself without witnesses among these people but has given many seals to the min- istry of his Church. If we may without making invidious comparison state the rel- ative results in this and some other fields dear to the Church, it will appear that re- 94 LATIN AMERICA. sults in Latin America have been propor- tionate not only with the effort expended but with the fruits elsewhere gathered. Our work in China, dating from 1848, a period twenty-two years longer than is em- braced in the history of our Spanish mis- sions, now numbers about 22,000 communi- cants. Japan and Korea stretch out their hands to God, and already have given us 13,000 communicants ; while Latin America, with its history of thirty years of mission- ary effort, gives to us 17,000 souls. By all comparisons the results are such as should fill with joy the heart of the Church. 7. Incidental results of far-reaching con- sequences enlarge our view of the scope of this work and of its future promise. Every- where the presence of Protestantism has stimulated progress, given vigor and sta- bility to reform movements, inspired new enthusiasm for education, created new ideals of living, increased the sum of human 95 AFRICA, EuRopE, LATIN AMERICA. happiness. There can be no doubt that in Mexico the presence of Protestant missions has assured the permanency of the freedom and progress guaranteed by the laws of re- form. Under the leadership of that mis- sionary hero, Thomas B. Wood, marriage laws in Peru and in Paraguay have been modified as the result of urgent argument, appeal, and example, until it is now possible in these countries for Protestant Christians to secure the sanction of the civil law for the constitution of their families without the sacrifice of their conscientious convictions by yielding to the demands of the Roman Church. To William Goodfellow and to Thomas B. Wood was given a large place in organizing the modern educational move- ments in Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru. It is not strange that as a result of the position taken by our Protestant movement in Latin- American countries, public esteem has been assured, confidence created, men in public 96 OO ——— a LATIN AMERICA. life have expressed the highest appreciation of the influence of the Protestant missions, willingly attending upon public services and furictions, and declaring in not a few in- stances their conviction that Protestantism offers clearest assurances for the future greatness of their country. Tue Fretp Is Open. From the Rio Grande to the Straits there is scarcely a region, a province, a district, a rural neighborhood where the Gospel may not be preached, freely in most places, act- ually, despite local restrictions in certain countries. Notwithstanding the fact that constitutions and laws in. Peru and in Bolivia still brand Protestants as heretics and put Protestant service under the ban of the law, it is still possible for the humble messenger of the truth to proclaim his mes- sage. There are still countries, as in Peru and Bolivia, where the position of our mis- 7 97 AFRICA, EuROPE, LATIN AMERICA. sionaries should be strengthened and the rights of Christian conscience be vindicated by bringing to bear the full force of Chris- tian sentiment and of enlightened public policy to secure the recognition of the right to freedom of conscience, of the press, and of public worship. Tue SpeciFic NEEDs. 1. Reinforcement in men, to enable us to enter open doors and more completely oc- cupy the fields already held. 2. The appropriation to these fields of the moneys necessary to carry to their comple- tion many church-building enterprises, in- augurated by the faith and consecration of the people, but held in suspense in conse- quence of their poverty, and for erecting additional churches as the need arises. 3. Provision for hospitals and institu- tions for industrial training in the important centers of our chief mission fields. 98 LATIN AMERICA. 4. The endowment of our educational in- stitutions in Puebla, Mexico; in Santiago, Chile; in Buenos Ayres and Mercedes, Ar- gentina; in Lima, Peru; and in San Juan, Porto Rico. 5. The enlargement of our mission presses and the provision by the Book Con- cerns for the production and distribution of the Discipline, Hymnal, and standard lit- erature of our Church and of Protestantism. 99 LV. DIFFICULTIES IN THE FOR- EIGN MISSION FIELD: By REV. W. F. OLDHAM, D.D. TuHat there are vast difficulties in the way of the success of the Gospel in pagan and Moslem lands may well be accepted without elaboration or dispute. That these difficulties are insurmountable, or, if sur- mountable, are so at an expense of life and money not warranted by the outcome, has always been the unbelieving cry of infidelity, too widely accepted by half-hearted Chris- tianity. It may be shown, however, that the difficulties, great and varied though they be, may be overcome. This is not the dic- tum of blind faith but the established fact of 100 Tue ForeiIcn Mission FIELD. history. Polished philosophies, intrenched pagan systems bolstered by all the pomp and power of the state, and rude brutal systems of pagan darkness have alike been met by ever young and gentle Christianity and be- fore the irresistible might of truth and ten- derness have disappeared, not slain, but transformed ; and some of the most enlight- ened and progressive peoples of our day are in themselves, in their daily contribution to civilization, the silent and abiding proof of the irresistible power of that leaven that Jesus introduced into the dead meal of human society. Some Missionary DIFFICULTIES. These necessarily vary with the fields. Paganism presents no level monotony of human thinking. Conditions vary widely, for example, between priest-ridden, caste- bound India and a great national democracy broken only by a corrupt aristocracy of let- IOI AFRICA, EUROPE, LATIN AMERICA, ters monopolizing official life, as in China; or between the bitterly scornful, intolerant, and rough-handed Mohammedans of any country and the alert, vivacious, religiously hospitable but heady Japanese. And yet, there is a certain large similarity in all un- Christed fields, so that, mutatis mutandis, the great oppositions in any one are to be found under some guise in every other. Of these difficulties, I note those that stand out in community of prominence. Toe CARNAL HEART. The first is the carnal heart, which is everywhere “enmity against God.” How- ever amiable one may be in his estimates of human nature when seated comfortably and complacently in his own study, or as he pro- claims his invertebrate theories to applaud- ing crowds at home, he will not long be in any heathen land without discovering that whatever “wavering image of Deity” there 102 Tue ForeicN Mission FI&Lp. may yet be in man, long centuries of igno- rance of the divine code and the divine re- quirements do not create in man the gentle temper and wistful soul often attributed to the heathen world by fanciful romancers. But behind surface mildness will be found hardened cruelty, and beneath polished so- cial modes, heartlessness and depths of de- ceit, while in ruder systems are degradation and inhumanities painful to consider. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans much more faithfully portrayed the moral condi- tion of heathenism than sentimental travel- ers whose “pagans” are the product of their own amiable thinking. LACK oF SprrITUAL APPREHENSION. This carnality of nature is accompanied by an utter lack of spiritual apprehension. The deadening of the human conscience when not continually disturbed by the thun- ders of Sinai or the more awful whispers 103. AFRICA, EuRopE, LATIN .AMERICA. of the Mount of Beatitudes is a painful and pathetic fact. No matter how elevated the sentiments to be found scattered through the literature of India, nor how precisely correct the cold and formal codes of China, the bitter disappointment and abiding pain of every sincere missionary worker in every heathen land is the deadness of the people’s hearts to spiritual truth. O! the courage needed by the truly Christian missionary when facing heathenism—somber, massive, dull, dead. He realizes that these before him are not simple-hearted children of nature, but are sinners sodden with centuries of ig- norance of the revealed will of God and by the social intrenchment of vices that must ever seek to hide in the clearer light of Jesus’s presence. OPPOSITIONS FROM DIFFERENCES OF RACE. I note next the very real and largely un- avoidable difficulty of the subtle oppositions 104 ete ini Tue Foreicn Mission FIeExp. that arise from differences in race. Even when the missionary is free from the vul- garity of exalting his own race and his civ- ilization as over against his hearers, be he ever so humble and discreet, some alienation of interest, some hostility of spirit must be expected from the fact that the missionary is not the only man of his race in any for- eign field. The vices, the hauteur, the arro- gance of his countrymen serve to raise a barrier against him and his message in the sympathies >f the people. SocIAL AND NATIONAL BARRIERS. Again, the religions of the people are in- trenched in their social and national life, and to invite a man to become a Christian is to ask him to court family ostracism and to be looked upon as a traitor against his own people and false to his nationality. For a Hindu to become a Christian is to be vio- lently thrust outside the pale of Hindu 105 AFricA, Europe, LATIN AMERICA. society, to be refused water from the village well, and, sometimes, food from the village bazaar, and to be held responsible for every misfortune of disease or famine with which the gods may afflict the locality. To a Chinaman, a profession of Christianity means dislocation from the life of his vil- lage, and the anger of his fellows that he has withdrawn from the support of the vil- lage shrines—a renegade to race and na- tion still living among them, while he re- fuses to support their time-honored insti- tutions. ATTITUDE OF Local GOVERNMENTS. The attitude of the local government to- ward Christian missions is sometimes a great hindrance. When, as in the case of Turkey, all Mohammedan subjects know that a profession of Christianity is equal to a sentence of death, to be promptly carried out, the hope of Christian advance is neces- 106 Tue Foreicn Mission FIetp sarily small. But even when nominal freedom of conscience obtains, governmental agents powerfully affect the course of missions. Sometimes it is a heathen government which, though forced outwardly to consent to the presence of Christians, multiplies against them a thousand petty persecutions ; sometimes, and worse, it is a nominally Christian government whose officials far from the mother country, feeling keenly the reproach of the pure life and the teachings of liberty that come from the Christian camp, throw the whole force of their pres- tige against the missionary and his follow- ers. But above all this, is the irritation of the peoples and the positive wrongs done them by the military violence and the com- mercial greed of political Christianity. _ Farninc To FotLow up VIcrory. And last, but perhaps most difficult of all, is the deep disappointment of the mission- 107 AFrIcA, Europe, LATIN AMERICA. ary forces, when, against all oppositions and with meager resources, they still achieve notable victory and turn to the home Church for added reinforcements to hold their ground, and are then met with apathy if not positive reproach that their wants are ever increasing. That, in the moment of vic- tory, a half-lethargic Church fails to give that measure of sympathetic approval and added help which enlarge the beginnings of victory into universal conquest, is the sorest of all disappointments and most diffi- cult of all obstacles to encounter. All the other difficulties are before the missionary, and facing them, he is prepared to endure and overcome. This is from behind, from among his own people. This half dead- | ness of feeling, however, is passing away, and with the new interest in the Church at home we may confidently look for larger cheer abroad and ever-increasing victory. 108 Tue Foreicn Mission FIeLp, Gop GREATER THAN ALL DIFFICULTIES. The array of difficulties is great and de- pressing. But thank God that against all of them we may prevail and do prevail. Lethargy, vicious opposition, the deadened soul, the benumbed conscience, hostile gov- ernmental and social forces, imperfect agen- cies, a half-awakened Church, all are swept aside by the mighty tides of divine power, which amid all our feebleness is yet our stay and our energy. I stood one day looking upon one of the most beautiful structures there is in all the world—that great, gold-shod spire that springs aloft from that building on the top of the hill near the city of Rangoon in Brit- ish Burma. There was the tall spire of that heathen pagoda, and there was an everlast- ing, continuous tinkling, the pouring down of music on the surrounding streets. On the top of that high hill stood this building. 109 ‘Africa, Europe, LATIN AMERICA. There are no priests and no monks in that pagoda, but still for all that it has a tongue with which the people are quite familiar. I stood talking with a man in the Hindustani tongue, and while speaking with him I drew his attention to the fact of the people making obeisance to the clanging of the bells. There were hundreds of pilgrims moving hither and thither and all taking in the sound of the bells; and when, as if it were from a stronger puff of wind, the bells clanged out a little more loudly, every pil- grim immediately bowed his head; even the man that I was talking with did the same. I stopped at once, for why should I interfere with a Buddhist or anyone else in the atti- tude of prayer? When he was through I said, “What is it?’ and he said, apolo- getically, because he knew I knew some- thing of the law, “It is a tradition which does not belong to Buddhism, which has overtaken us, and overwhelmed us, and we IIO - Tur Foreicn Mission FI. have been swept away with it.” “What is it?’ And he said: “Don’t you hear the sound of the bells? The common people think every time they hear the bells clang out in that way that they are the spirits calling on those who are left behind. That is not Buddhism, but that is Hinduism, and that is how Hinduism has crowded into Buddhism. And when they hear a particu- larly loud spell of sound they think it is the spirit of the Lord Buddha himself, and that he is thus manifesting his presence to those bowing humbly before him.” I did not dis- pute that assertion, but I took the parable to myself, and have thought of it ever since. There is a great temple: it is in the heart of the human family, and there are golden bells, there are bells of faith, and hope, and they are ringing out whenever any good in- fluence touches them, and above all they swell out to their uttermost when the Spirit of the Lord God himself passes by. Breth- Iif ArFrica, Europe, Latin AMERICA. ren, the golden bells are swinging and over- coming all obstacles. The obstacles are great, but the power of Jesus Christ is greater. 112 DEMCO 38-297 DATE DUE OO Ee