fet fie : ‘ Ata dass at ; ae Ma ¥7 hs, Stel ts or ex ae hl ! ite ‘ hy: 4 trese if 4 My cho is s Uw hes 5 ' fia ed f PRE PE | ger £) as : ia oak medi TES) oeeE EEE Oe alee tiem tote Te ehh eee brass , , :39 ae toil ; R, ! na Sa EA mit ; Voice 7 6) t Nh H A’ NS Mteitay amines: | i } ae Aj Mit ; MY t oe f eh) oP ee TAI Leh aot Ny ena att ty | bey iH -s —<— - s : ji ’ r \, Bes ell: Ui }4\ fa ' . ree a td ° cle s! efett \ LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. PURCHASED BY THE HAMILL MISSIONARY FUND. BV 2540 .D/7 Drach, George, Db. 1873. ie Forces in foreign missio | Ge 4 * VA 9} Oe RN ' Deritiie eS WN ie G Me pe OH DG ieee (4 ae i (é i a AP ¥ mt ie ne # re v La ya * eae ari i" wi te Se 4 hich Ma aka. Hadi re A be 3 oy pyres iy Uh Me Wile ae Veet ny) i FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE UNITED LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA BY GEORGE DRACH, D.D. GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE UNITED LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA rf The second of a series of “Key Books,” prepared under the general editorship of the Rev. F. H. Knubel, D.D., LL.D., and the Rev. M. G. G. Sherer, D.D. THE UNITED LUTHERAN PUBLICATION HOUSE PHILADELPHIA, PA, 1925 Copyricut, 1925; By Tue BoarpD OF PUBLICATION OF THe Unitep LutHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA MaprE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA INTRODUCTION The Board of Foreign Missions heartily welcomes the publication of “Forces in Foreign Missions” so ably presented by Secretary Drach. As a survey of our mission fields and the forces at work both at home and abroad, this volume is timely and must prove of exceptional value. Great statesmen who have to do with the mighty problems of world peace and national safety are now saying that the gospel alone can heal the world’s hurt, bind up the wounds of war and make it safe to go forward. Aggressive steps are opportune. The readiness of the non-Christian world and the welcome that the gospel is receiving encourages the Church to press on. The word that comes from the great mission fields never was more encouraging to the Church at home nor to the missionaries on the field. The study of the Forces of Foreign Missions as presented in the following pages will awaken deeper interest and inspire larger confidence in both method and program of the great work that is being done in non-Christian lands. The plenteous harvest calls for more laborers and the vast needs and opportunities call for more prayer and sacrificial giving. EZRA K. BELL. ‘ ry Ca i ey Mee 18. rt F hed ear #. : mw) 4 f eg ; Ags ,; ‘a i d ll y FOREWORD After Rev. C. Theodore Benze, D.D., Professor of Old Testament and Missions in the Lutheran Theo- logical Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had left America to serve as European Commissioner of the National Lutheran Council, the faculty filled the gap in regard to Missions during the second semester of 1928, by a course of lectures on “Forces in Foreign Missions.”” 'The manuscript of these lectures was sub- mitted to the United Lutheran Publication House, which advised that they be rearranged and rewritten so as to make a mission study book. This was done - by the author. The revised manuscript received the following endorsement of the Board of Foreign Missions: | “It was voted that Dr. Drach’s manuscript on “Forces In Foreign Missions,” as revised, be recommended to the United Lutheran Publication House as the official foreign mission study book in the contemplated series of study books to be published in the near future on the United Luth- eran Church in America and its major activities.” In the preparation of the manuscript the author acknowledges indebtedness to mission study books of the Student Volunteer Movement and of the Mission- ary Education Movement, pamphlets of the Commit- tee on Missionary Preparation, Dr. Gustav Warneck’s 5 6 FOREWORD ‘“Missionslehre,” and Dr. Julius Richter’s ‘‘Missions- kunde.”’ Although written with the foreign mission enter- prise of the United Lutheran Church in mind, the thought of the author has been to make this book helpful to students of foreign missions in other Churches. For the statements of fact and opinion in this book the author alone is responsible, but in the main he states the position of the Board of Foreign Missions which he serves as one of its general secretaries. May the publication of this book help to strengthen and increase the foreign mission forces of the Luth- eran Church in the world. G. D. CONTENTS FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS EN TRODUCTION. crnireccccceasatecsdccsbsoovecssassspevaddelvsactaserpuandsesats ones PORE WORD 0 vicccrsvntscwneshsoonmescteserstucessansancaphsocasnanersisntqeain ances qesssen BPS UY TIN Bh OC HG BIS arkscescseitiea Wecctasnesedcrnendstel nasceveue shades vanes Old Testament Foundation Stones..............cseescscseeeeees Olds Testament Covenants se. liccsiscatecsesecvssedeasqbicasenienss The Teaching of Jesus Christ Concerning Foreign WU SST a rence Gs ssc Ra sey cute n eos eycatacs daeeatosacescdcathantinencoed can PEG CTT ETE NOLS COU serena Cait rcer toa tteatneotcnciatcnclsaseaiae PRE CBO OL TN eo rere cert va lacse teen Wece Bore ee keeaay ENE Ze ates CTR ATOStIC Needed BLE host tas RRA ONb agit) ge nate aie eaesantandaptens atea Christ’s Missionary Sermons and Sayin@s............c06 Tea AI ORG Wa icc cctacectcy scvetct sesendes i hypeaekp teh Cian te: The? Mission any. .ceecctiscraeconscess Paul’s Missionary Career.............. Pa Wsy MI ISSIONATY) LOCLTGT Si ccliceccetavengerccadedsveonercbdeesesseaes Paula Missionary « Wx amplens, a.cccohu cave meccebasaseecas cs The Foreign Missionary Today............... tbs Saba Pe MIBSIONE TY) CUALINCALIONS) p.ccssqiccrsseess Jonscescaccscasvabareruneseas Ill. FORCES IN OPPOSITION........0.....060 The Religions of India.................... PPE S HOLSTON OTe el BD AT ioe lssossesssieosvagocetsavonseactauanteretinees The, Religion .of ‘Interior “Liberia.....csccscsssessissecesecances Un-Christian Lives and Principles in Opposition...... PV ORC MeL ie Et tal OL Petal Pees. koa, assy cial heads sane ctsuetcacat A General Survey of our Foreign Fields.................... ATOR EDS lp tabindhlalles deri ahs e ce LTE AL St ae Sei Re ae A ac a 8 CONTENTS FT ADAM eee arse etea cttet hacer te Cece acadsn es Ceautaveabonttesshenente Ltberis eA Price tore cetres-cicedits carsccceceeyssvevesece che eacepeacuaneoh ones Sorte AMmerieg 7 iicccierecscksttsivocticachaiabssvintastansetetenerectcostery STINE) emer er ese nse atl LIN ade ac cade supe thvanced coepubeoneateae’ Cavehehs Vv ORGA NIZHDP FORCES A DROAD iiuvccecsccpeenncearvetetcee The | MASSTOR eerie vec alerccor ies coeihe tackcadoceds geste secs chee pememte reeme The (NACE E 7 GN PCN Wei tbceses utters sate tend idactictasectiaadiewens VI. ORGANIZED FORCES AT HOME.................. Roteoee Board (OL Wore er wi WesiOn Bi ctrccesttaseseedustes cect cceevisinnintaeee The Board of Foreign Missions of the United Lutheran Church in AM6€rica................ccccccccsssseess Phe: Homan Church rarsscaiiieiss/ tis taepenvanscstatcuses cena MIT VINTERNATIONAGL PORCHES is. tiusterstestierecesscosteccttts SUGGESTED BOOKS FOR AUXILIARY READING...... SUGGESTIONS TO LEADERS OF STUDY CLASSES USING “FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS”... Forces in Foreign Missions CHAPTER I DIVINE FORCES Christianity is a missionary religion because the Bible is a missionary book. The Bible is a missionary book, first, because it is the record of the missionary preaching of the authors of the Sacred Scriptures or their contemporaries. This statement is true of the New Testament, but it also applies to many parts of the Old Testament, specifically to the Psalms and cer- tain books of the prophets. In the second place the Bible is a missionary book because it inculcates missionary effort as an essential activity of true religion. It has been said that there is a missionary thought on every page of the Bible. That is hardly the case, and yet there is much more about missions in the Old as well as the New Testa- ment, than superficial readers and students of the Bible surmise. The foundation stones of Christian missions were laid by God in the Old Testament. In order to find them we must first remove the accumulated mass of Jewish ceremonialism, legalism and nationalism, un- der which they lie buried. Our task, then, is a peculiar kind of oriental excavation. 9 10 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS OLD TESTAMENT FOUNDATION STONES The Fatherhood of God.—The first Old Testament foundation stone of foreign missions is the doctrine of the fatherhood of God, with its corollary the brotherhood of man. This doctrine is taught on the first page of the Bible. When God created the heavens and the earth, He made man, the crown of creation, “in His own image.” This phrase has been variously interpreted. The simplest and original explanation of its meaning is that human beings are the sons of God and that God, their almighty Creator, is the Heavenly Father of them all. This conception of sonship was dimmed or destroyed by the Fall, but restored by the Incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God in the person of Jesus Christ. The Brotherhood of Man.—The brotherhood of man is the necessary corollary of the fatherhood of God. God crowned His creation by making one man and one woman. ‘Male and female created He them.” All men, therefore, as offspring of Adam and Eve, father and mother of all the living, are bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. This bodily relation- ship established for all time the universal brother- hood of man, despite the physical differences which developed in the course of human history. How these differences arose and why some races are black in their complexion, others white and others tinted, is another story. Physical brotherhood demands brotherly love and brotherly love, even as pure humanitarianism, re- quires the sharing of possessions. The best possession 1Genesis 1: 27. DIVINE FORCES 11 of man from the beginning is the knowledge and service of the true God. Adam and Eve had this precious possession and shared it with their children. If any child of man at any time anywhere falls away from the true God and fails to worship and serve Him, those who know it and can reach the erring brother or sister are bound to seek to restore to the sinner this best possession of the human race. This is the missionary obligation of human brotherhood. One True God.—The first pages of the Bible record the relationship of God to man as the Preserver, Ruler and Lord of all men and things. To Him as such and to Him alone belong divine worship and service. There are no other gods besides Him. The first com- mandment: “I am the Lord, thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before me,’ and the opening address of the great universal prayer: “Our Father Who art in heaven,’” are written between the lines of the first pages of the Bible. The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man demand one religion and only one religion on the earth; and so long as there are more than one, the true religion must be a missionary religion. Sin Universal.—The second Old Testament founda- tion stone of foreign missions is the conception of the necessity of redemption on account of the universality of human sin. All men must join the solemn dirge of Milton in the first lines of his great poem, “Paradise Lost,” and sing: “Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe.” 1 Exodus 20: 3. 2 Matthew 6: 9. 12 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS “There is none that doeth good, no not one.’ “As by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.’” That one man was Adam. He, with Eve as his partner in disobedience, was driven from Paradise; and Cherubim still guard the closed en- trance of Eden. The tradition of that garden is found everywhere on earth. Go where you will, and you find men longing for Paradise restored, in which there is perfect peace, righteousness and blessedness. The desire for better things, better days and better ways is a universal desire. In essence it is a desire for deliverance from sin and its evil consequences. Redemption Promised.—_The second page of the Bible contains the promise of the Redeemer of the sinful human race, who as the seed of the woman crushes the serpent’s head with his bruised heel. The first gospel message fixes the missionary ideal of universal redemption, involving the restoration of the gracious and blessed presence of God among men, de- scribed in the account of the state of Paradise as “God walking in the garden.’” ) Divided Humanity. — Another Old Testament foundation stone of foreign missions is the conception of the kingdom of God on earth as a Spiritual king- dom.’ The numerous kingdoms of this world, as they were and are, and their linguistic differences, with all that these involve, are not only great obstacles to be overcome by the Kingdom of God, but they are definitely the result of human sin. It was not God’s original intention that the human race should be 1Pgalm 14:8. *Genesis 3: 8. 2 Romans 5: 12. 5 Daniel 2:44 and 7:14. 3 Genesis 3:15. DIVINE FORCES 13 linguistically and, therefore, nationally divided as it is. In the beginning the whole earth was “of one language and one speech.’" The diversities of lan- guage and of nations date from the building of the tower of Babel, which was the first organized effort of heathenism, the first union of human labor at- tempting to rise by its own efforts to the heights of deity. After that arrogant and disastrous uprising the barriers of national and class distinctions in the spirit of divided heathenism were multiplied, making the unity of the human race more and more difficult and, as it now appears, practically impossible. One Spiritual Kingdom.—Nevertheless the ideal of one spiritual kingdom on earth prevailed. It was em- bodied in the conception of the Hebrew theocracy, which the intense nationalism and materialism of the Jews buried under the debris of false hopes concern- ing an earthly kingdom of Israel. The spiritual Israel, which the great prophets of the Old Testament described and demanded but could not create, a king- dom of true religion to which all nations on earth were to come to worship and serve the true God, was a prophetic conception which prepared the way for the realization of the New Testament kingdom of God in Christ Jesus through the effort of Christian mis- sions. OLD TESTAMENT COVENANTS Another Old Testament foundation stone of foreigrt missions was laid by God in the universality of all the covenants of the Old Testament. Covenant of Dominion.—The first covenant which God made with man, the covenant with Adam, was Genesis 11:1. 14 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS the covenant of creation. The gift of this covenant was the divine image in man. Its promise was dominion over all the earth. This original purpose of God concerning the whole human race was spoiled by the sinful disobedience of Adam and Eve. But the covenant of dominion stands; and it has been restored by the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, through whom the sinful world is overcome and the dominion of redeemed man is assured. Covenant of Preservation.—The second Old Testa- ment covenant, made with Noah, was the covenant of preservation. It included all the descendants of Noah and his family, “while the earth remaineth.’” The promise of the preservation of the present world with its natural laws implies universal mercy from on high and a universal obligation of childhood re- lationship to God, as it is written: “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.’* The sign of this covenant, the rainbow, is everywhere visible on earth as a token:to all men that God is good and His mercy endureth forever. This sign should be a reminder to those who see it in the sky, that it is the will of God and their obligation to make His name and His rule supreme throughout the whole earth. The rainbow is a missionary emblem. Covenant of Selection——The third Old Testament covenant, the covenant with Abraham, was a covenant of selection. It involved the choice of the children of Israel as God’s peculiar people, who were to be the 1Genesis 2: 1-20. 3 Matthew 5: 45. *Genesis 8:22 and 9: 1-17. DIVINE FORCES 15 recipients of his revelations and the mediators of His blessings to all nations. The promise of this covenant is, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’” The conditon of blessing is faith in the word of God. The redemptive idea of justification by faith originated with Abraham.’ In the fourth chapter of Romans and in the third chapter of Galatians Paul clearly and convincingly explains the universality of the covenant with Abraham, which on God’s part promised redemption and blessing for all men and on man’s part required faith in the promise of God. Cir- cumcision also, though it be not practiced outwardly, is the sign of an everlasting covenant, for “circumci- sion is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not of the letter.’* The thought of foreign missions, therefore, is deeply imbedded in the Abrahamitic covenant of selec- tion, for “the Scriptures, forseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the na- tions be blessed.” Abraham’s journeys were mission- ary journeys in the interest of true religion. He not only worshiped the true God in the midst of an idolatrous generation, but also was a preacher of righteousness wherever he went. Moreover his rela- tion to Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, as explained in the seventh chapter of Hebrews, has intense missionary significance. Covenant of Law.—The fourth Old Testament covenant, the Mosaic covenant, was a covenant of law. It was the most particularistic and nationalistic of all the Old Testament covenants, confined ex- 1Genesis 12: 3. 3 Romans 2: 29. 2 Romans 4: 16. 16 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS clusively to Israel as Jehovah’s people. Yet it was clearly revealed that through Israel the moral law, given on Mt. Sinai, was to become universal in its ap- plication and observance. So the prophets inter- preted the meaning and purpose of the command- ments of God. Jeremiah admonishes: “If thou wilt return, O Israel..... the nations shall bless them- selves in Jehovah and in Him shall they glory.” Other prophets said the same thing. They conceived their missionary task to be the moral regeneration of Israel in order that the Gentiles might come to the light of Israel and kings to the brightness of the ris- ing of true religion. The sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, which begins: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come,” is a missionary sermon to Israelites. Moreover, the prophets interpreted the historical events which forced the Israelites into closer relations with foreign lands and nations as indications from God that the religion of Israel should spread to these nations. The punishments of the Gentile nations are explained as acts of Jehovah’s power and justice to demonstrate His sovereignty over all the earth, and to lead the Gentiles to acknowledge and serve Him. Missionary Prophets.——While the usual missionary conception of the prophets was not that of going to all nations but rather of all nations coming to Israel, attracted by the truth and purity of its religion, nevertheless they sometimes did rise to an apprecia- tion of the task of a world-wide proclamation of revealed truth. Thus Jonah became a foreign mis- sionary when he went to Nineveh, and his call and mission are to be interpreted as an exhortation to all 1Jeremiah 4: 1-2. DIVINE FORCES 17 Israel to fulfill its missionary obligation to the Gentile nations. Some people are so much concerned about the story of the whale that they cannot understand the story of missions in the book of Jonah. The Psalmist also exhorts the Israelites to “declare among the people His doings,” and to “declare His glory among the heathen, His wonders among all peo- ple.’”* Several of the psalms are fine Old Testament missionary hymns. 3 The Servant of Jehovah.—isaiah uses an expression which has intense significance from ‘a missionary point of view. It is the designation of Israel as “the servant of Jehovah.” Almost invariably, the prophet uses this designation for the purpose of inspiring missionary effort. The servant of Jehovah is to bring forth judgment to the Gentiles, to save all the ends of the earth, to be a light to the Gentiles. Nations that did not know Jehovah are to run to Him, and are to fear His Name from the west and His glory from the rising of the sun. The forty-second chapter of Isaiah, which begins: “Behold, my servant, whom 1 uphold,” is an Old Testament appeal to Israel to be the messenger of true religion to all other nations on the earth. The Dispersion.—The dispersion of the Jews during and after the Babylonian captivity served to awaken the minds of the prophets of that period to a truer conception of the religious mission of Israel in the world, and gave the dispersed Jews many and wide opportunities to make effective the missionary teach- ing of the prophets. To a certain degree, therefore, the dispersion fulfilled the purpose of God concern- 1Psalm 96. Psalm 46:10. 18 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS ing the world-wide mission of His chosen people. They not only preserved and practiced their religion in foreign lands but also attracted earnest Gentile seekers of the truth, who became proselytes of righteousness or proselytes of the gate. It is esti- mated that 350,000 Jews were carried into captivity to the Euphrates river and beyond. Only about 50,000 returned to Palestine. The other 300,000 and their descendants were scattered abroad, some going as far as India and China. In the time of Philo about a million Jews lived in Egypt and the religious influence of those who resided in Alexandria is known to have been strong in certain circles of Greek and Roman culture. The Jewish dispersion, therefore, must be regarded as one of God’s measures in the Old Testa- ment for the preparation of the missionary task of the Christian Church. The Synagogue.—This becomes all the more evident when we understand the significance of the Jewish synagogue as the forerunner of the Christian congre- gation, and the use of the Septuagint as the first translation of the Old Testament into a foreign vernacular. The Jewish synagogues in Gentile countries, as places of public worship for the reading of the Sacred Scriptures, preaching and teaching, not only attracted non-Jews and thus served as gateways for them into the Christian Church, but they also became models in their appointment, government and liturgical ser- vices for the first Christian congregations. The Septuagint.—The Septuagint is a Greek trans- lation of the Old Testament, made by Jews in Egypt during the period 280 to 150 B. C. This translation DIVINE FORCES 19 was intended not only for Greek-speaking Jews of the dispersion, but also for the purpose of extending the influence of Judaism among Gentiles who used the Greek language, the language of culture in the time of Christ. The Septuagint admirably served the first Christian disciples in their efforts to spread the Gos- pel of Christ. The numerous quotations that occur in the New Testament from the Old, with rare excep- tions, are cited from the Septuagint. To this day this original Greek translation is the accepted version of the Old Testament in the Greek Church. Thus the foundation stones of foreign missions, both small and great, which were laid by God in the Old Testament Church, prepared the ground for the New Testament building of Christian missions. The great commission of Jesus Christ is the last logical conclusion of the thought and purpose of God con- cerning the redemption of sinful men, revealed from the beginning in all His acts and works, all His covenants and promises, all His ways and words. The apostle Paul saw this very clearly after his eyes had been opened by the heavenly vision and holy baptism at Damascus, and to him, above all other Christian teachers, we are indebted for the conception of the Christian Church as the true Israel, of Christ as the true Messiah, and of the world-wide mission of Chris- tianity, in the fulfillment of prophecy, as the true religion. THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST CONCERNING FOREIGN MISSIONS On the foundation stone of Old Testament revela- tion and history Jesus Christ built His world-wide 20 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS kingdom of the New Testament. What the Old Testament prepared and predicted, what the cov- enants with Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses fore- shadowed concerning the universality of human re- demption from sin and its consequences, Jesus Christ fulfilled in His person, His gospel, His work and His church. To the other titles of Jesus Christ now must be added the title: The Missionary. The coming of the Son of God to the earth to redeem mankind is the matchless missionary enterprise. From heaven’s point of view the earth, filled with sin and, therefore, with enmity against God, needs redemption and trans- formation. To say that Jesus was not a missionary because He confined His life and labors to the land and people of the Jews, is to misconceive the purpose and plan of His mission on earth. It is true that He did not go and preach the gospel to other nations, except when He went with His disciples into Samaria and into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon; yet what He said and did, made it possible to offer salvation in His name to all people without exception, to establish a universal religion, to Christianize the world. That which Jesus Christ accomplished for all nations within the con- fines of one nation, is made accessible to all through the means He supplied. To Jews First.—It was natural and necessary that the Jews, as the Old Testament people of God, to whom He gave His revelation and promises, should have had the first opportunity to secure the benefits of Christ’s life and work. “To the Jew first,” said DIVINE FORCES 21 the apostle to the Gentiles, “but also to the Greek,” thus restating the words of Christ, “Salvation is of the Jews; but the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.’” It is not true that because the Jews rejected Christ as their Messiah, the other nations secured the opportunity of salvation through Him. They would have been given this opportunity in any event, for the plan of salvation embraces the whole earth. For All Men.—Jesus made it clear from the begin- ning of His public career and clearer as He ap- proached the end of His life on earth, and clear beyond all question after His resurrection and before His ascension, that, though His life on earth was confined to Palestine, the benefits of His work are for all men. That He did not issue His missionary command at the outstart reveals His supreme wisdom as the great “master teacher, especially in view of the misconcep- tions and prejudices of contemporary Israelites and the weakness and immaturity of His disciples. Three expressions used by Jesus repeatedly, whose meaning He explained more and more fully to His disciples, are especially significant from a missionary point of view. They are: The Kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, which are synonymous terms; the Son of Man, which is the title Christ preferred for himself; and apostle, the title He gave His disciples. THE KINGDOM OF GOD The Kingdom of God, as taught by Christ, is a central conception of Christianity. Whatever else it 1 Romans 1: 16. 2 John 4: 22-23. 22 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS may mean, one of its distinguishing features certainly is universality. Everyone and everything redeemed and reunited with God through Christ belongs to this kingdom. In reality, because of sin, the reign of God on earth is not yet complete and absolute. The King- dom of God, therefore, is still in the process of de- velopment, a growing kingdom, a coming kingdom. For this reason Christ taught His disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come;” and this petition was intended by Him to express in prayer His disciples’ zeal for the constant extension of the Kingdom of God on earth with universality in view. A Kingdom of the Spirit—The Kingdom of God is the only kingdom on earth which can claim the right of world-wide dominion, because it claims this right not by might, nor by power, but by the spirit, the spirit of Christ, the spirit of redeeming and loving service to those who need redemption, “sinners and publicans,” poor and needy, weary and heavily laden, the downcast, the outcast, the poor in spirit and the persecuted for righteousness’ sake, whose is the king- dom of heaven. To these the Redeemer says, “Come unto me,” and they come to Him from every place and plane of life on earth. Because sin and sorrow, want and weariness, poverty and pain, distress and disease and death are universal, the Kingdom of God with its saving and sanctifying power is to be universal. A Kingdom of the Heart.—“The Kingdom of God is within you,’” said Christ. It is the reign of God in the heart. It affects the inner man. It is not af- 1Matthew 11: 28. 4Luke 17: 21. DIVINE FORCES 23 fected by different external conditions or by changing external circumstances. It may exist in every human heart. It may come into every human life through the means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments of the New Testament. At this point it may be noted that the Bible has been translated into practically all human languages and that the earthly elements of the sacraments, water, bread and wine, are obtainable everywhere on earth. A Kingdom of Truth.—When Christ explained to Pontius Pilate that the Kingdom of God is the reign of truth, that ruler exclaimed, “What is truth?” Other potentates, whose idea of dominion has been the rule of might, have been as perplexed as that Roman governor over the claim of the truth to Supreme and universal dominion. Those who belong to the Kingdom of God, however, know what Christ means when He says, “Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.’? His voice is heard in the gospel, and everyone who hears and believes the gospel is a member of the kingdom. Nationality, local culture, geographical boundaries, social distinctions, therefore, play no part in admis- sion to the Kingdom of God. No one is barred be- cause he is a Hottentot or Hungarian, a heathen Chinaman or a black Barbarian, a Hindu outcast or a Hebrew refugee. The conditions of entrance may be met by anyone anywhere. They are repentance for sins and faith in Christ. The sacrament of admis- sion is Holy Baptism. The distinguishing char- acteristic of citizenship in the kingdom is spiritual- mindedness, that is, having the mind which was in 1John 18: 88. 4John 18: 87. 24 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS Christ and minding what he said. Not as though the Christianization of those who belong to the king- dom were ever complete and perfect in this sinful world, but in and through them the process of Christianization is always moving onward to com- pletion; and to the extent to which they are Chris- tianized and are Christianizing others the Kingdom of God is coming on earth. True Worship.—The universality of the Kingdom of God is implied, also, in Christ’s definition of true wor- ship as prayer in truth and spirit, anywhere and everywhere.’ The fact that Christ so described prayer in a conversation with a Samaritan woman makes it the more significant. In the eyes of the Hebrews Samaritans were outcasts, forbidden to enter the tem- ple at Jerusalem. Neither caste distinctions nor national differences prevent the worshiper of the true God from saying, “Our Father, Who art in heaven.” No place is holier than any other, when the Christian desires to pray. But Christian prayer is possible every- where only if Christians are present everywhere. The Christianization of the world, therefore, is demanded by the very conception of New Testament prayer. Sayings of Jesus—Many sayings of Jesus em- phasize the universality of his redemption. He said, “IT am come into the world,” “I am the light of the world.’” To his disciples He said, “Ye are the light of the world,” and “Ye are the salt of the earth.” The field of Christ’s saving effort is the world. The net is cast into the sea and the apostles are fishers of men. The fire which Christ kindles is not a local 1 John 4: 24. 3 Matthew 5: 14. 2John 8:12. DIVINE FORCES 25 conflagration, but is sent on the earth. The Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. The Saviour came to seek and to save the lost without distinction. He is the Good Shepherd of other sheep besides those in the fold of Judaism. Parables of Christ.—In the choice of characters in His parables Christ avoided nationalistic and provin- cial terms and chose illustrations which are univer- sally applicable. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man traveling into a far country, a man who has two sons. One does not need to know the habits and customs of the Jews in order to understand His parables and apply them. Thus in His matchless parable of the Good Samaritan, in which He strik- ingly teaches the universal obligation of brotherly love, He makes the object of this love a man with- out any distinguishing marks. All the other char- acters in the parable are national or social types— Samaritan, Levite, Priest, but the one whom love serves is simply a man, a man in need, any man in need. The lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” is skillfully changed by the parable to read, To whom am I neighbor? And now every good neighbor is known as a good Samaritan, though many people do not know what kind of person a Samaritan of old was. The Good Samaritan par excellence is Christ himself, the good neighbor of every needy, helpless, mortal man on earth. THE SON OF MAN The Ideal Man.—Jesus Christ is the Son of Man. This title definitely refers to His humanity. He was 1 Luke 10: 36. 26 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS a human being, “found in fashion as a man.” But that is not all. This title identifies Jesus Christ as the ideal man, the only man who can claim to be what a man ought to be. In him are no imperfections of class or caste, of nationality or nature, of culture or custom, of heart or habit, of sex or sentiment, of temper or temperament. He is neither an oriental nor occidental man, though he was a Jew of Pales- tine by birth and environment. He is every man’s big brother and ideal. Even though this title meant nothing more than human perfection, it would de- serve mention and merit among all men to the ends of the earth, and so call for the spread of His teach- ings and the portrayal of His faultless example to every human being in the world. The True Messiah.—Jesus used this title as a synonym for the Messiah, a substitute for “The son of David,” which He never employed in speaking of Himself. The only time He used the title, “The son of David,’’ was in a conversation with Pharisees, when He tried to show them the error of their false messianic hopes. He did not wish to be the king of the Jews as the successor of David and Solomon, though He was “of the house of David.” He did not wish to rule as an earthly king over Israel. He wanted a title which should distinguish Him as the king in the kingdom of heaven on earth, and so He chose the title: The Son of Man. The Second Adam.—This title undoubtedly refers to the prediction of the prophet Daniel, who saw ‘“‘one like the son of man,” to whom was given dominion 1Mark 12: 36. DIVINE FORCES 27 and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages should serve him, his dominion being an everlasting dominion... The prophet beheld, as it were, the man who, as Adam’s descendant, should be the second Adam, the second man, with all other de- scendants of Adam eliminated as unworthy and dis- inherited. To this son, as to Adam’s sole heir, all the perfections of man are imparted, to him all power over nature and dominion over the whole earth are given. He is the representative man, the chief of men, the supreme man, the superman. The same thought with the same implication is expressed by the Psalmist in the 45th Psalm, in which the represen- tative of the human race is called the king, who is “fairer than the children of men.’” The Substitute-—The Son of Man received the in- heritance of all that God intended for man in the creation, however, not for Himself but for those whom He represented and who had lost their inheritance— the race of sinful men. His mission on earth was to restore to them the good gifts and powers of the inheritance ordained for the children of Adam from the foundation of the world. He, therefore, became the substitute for all men in the sufferings and death demanded by divine justice for the redemption of the human race. Christ used this title most frequently in direct relation to His sacrificial, propitiatory work of suffering and obedience. The Son of Man is the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. He is the High Priest of the New Covenant. He is the Mediator, the King, the Judge. So comprehen- sive in its meaning is this title, that its use by Christ 1Daniel 7: 13-14. 2Psalm 45:2. 28 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS makes absolutely consistent and necessary His final command to make all men His disciples, all nations His kingdom. APOSTLE That Jesus fully understood the purpose of His mis- sion on the earth is evident from the official title He gave His first disciples. ‘He chose twelve, whom he also named apostles.’* By the use of this title at the very beginning of His public career He called them to be missionaries to the whole world. The Greek word apostle and the Latin word missionary are synonymous. Both mean, one who is sent out or away on a mission. The twelve must have understood, also, when they accepted this title, that they were to propagate the religion He taught them. They knew that they were to be His witnesses, to teach all men His gospel, to extend His kingdom to the ends of the earth. It is true that when Christ sent out the twelve on their first missionary journey he sent them to the Jews only and expressly forbade them to go “into the way of the Gentiles” or “into any city of the Samar- itans.’” This first apostolic activity was a practice tour intended to train the disciples for their future work as teachers of all nations. When the time came for them to do world-wide missionary work He in- structed them to preach “in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” CHRIST’S MISSIONARY SERMONS AND SAYINGS Jesus preached His first sermon at Nazareth.’ It 1QLuke 6:18. 3 Luke 4: 16. 7Matthew 10: 5. DIVINE FORCES 29 provoked His fellow townsmen to wrath, when they heard Him say that non-Israelites were to share in the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. He offended their narrow Jewish prejudices when He asserted that above all widows in Israel the Sidonian widow of Sarepta was chosen to receive the special favor of Elias, and above all lepers in Israel the Syrian Naaman enjoyed the blessing of a cure. His words, “‘No prophet is accepted in his own country,’” implied that he would be accepted in other countries as a teacher sent from God. That first sermon leaves no room for doubt concerning Christ’s purpose to in- clude the Gentiles in His plan of salvation. The same purpose prompted the telling of the story of Jonah to another audience, the holding up of the men of Nineveh as examples of repenting sinners, and the reference to the queen of Sheba.” Again the offence given to the Jews was not that Jesus claimed to be greater than Jonah and Solomon, but that He expressed the purpose of including the nations (goyim) in His messianic kingdom. Twice He said that many would come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. When He cleansed the temple in Jerusalem He cried, ‘““My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer.’” When He was in Samaria, where the despised Jewish half-breeds lived, and called His disciples’ attention to the ripening grain fields, He said, with undoubted reference to Samaria and other non-Jewish countries, “The fields are white already 1ZLuke 4: 24. 3 Mark 11:17. ®Luke 11: 31. 30 ‘ FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS to harvest . . . I send you to reap.’* Once when the Jews were especially hostile He cried: ‘“‘The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.’” Christ clearly indicated His purpose to include the Gentiles in the plan of salvation in His parable of the marriage feast, in which the servants are commanded to go into the “highways,” and in the parable of the Good Shepherd, in the words, “Other sheep I have .... them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice.’ The parables of the leaven and of the mustard seed may legitimately be interpreted as implying the inclusion of the whole human race and the whole life of man in the plan of salvation. When Mary anointed His feet at Bethany, He exclaimed, “Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done, shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.’* This is a definite prediction of world-wide Christian missions. Christ’s predictions concerning the end of the world, also, are intensely significant in their relation to Christian missions. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.’* In the parable of the sheep and the goats He included all nations, separating goats from sheep in all of them. Christ Received Gentiles—Not only did Christ say that Gentiles would be received into His kingdom, but He also accepted non-Israelites as His disciples and blessed them. He praised the great faith of 1John 4:85. 3 Mark 14:9. 2Matthew 21: 43. 4Matthew 24:14. Dr. DAvip Ai DAY A MISSIONARY ANNIVERSARY PROCESSION IN GUNTUR, INDIA Dr. L. L. Uhl on the right elephant. Dr. and Mrs. J. Aberly on the left elephant. Dr. Anna S. Kugler, M.D., stands in the foreground. THE NUMBERS ON THE ARCH 80 Years of Lutheran Mission History in India. 50 Years of Service, Dr. L. L. Uhl. 38 Years of Service, Dr. and Mrs, Aberly, DIVINE FORCES 31 the Canaanitish woman. His words, “Let the children first be filled,’* imply that afterwards the Gentiles also should have something to eat, partake of the children’s bread, and be recognized as members of the household of God. The hour for their inclusion as a whole had not yet come; but as a guarantee of their inclusion He blessed the home of the Syro- Phoenician woman. 7 Another non-Israelite whom He admitted into His discipleship was the centurion of Capernaum, whose Servant He healed. In this case He did not hesitate to perform the miracle, probably because the cen- turion was a proselyte and was highly recommended by the Jews who knew him; but that Jesus regarded this Roman officer as one of the first-fruits from the Gentile world, is clear from His words to those who heard His conversation with the centurion. During the last days of His earthly life certain Greek proselytes, who had come to Jerusalem to the feast, wished to see Jesus. Their coming to Him led Him to deliver a remarkable missionary sermon, in which He welcomed all men everywhere to come to Him. This is His missionary invitation: “If any man Serve me, let him follow me.” And this is His mis- sionary promise: “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.’” The Great Commission.—All of the four Evan- gelists record the great commission or its equivalent. Matthew’s version of Christ’s parting injunction is the most familiar. Mark’s is shorter. Luke, both at the close of his gospel narrative and in the opening 1Mark 7: 27. 3 John 12:20, 32. 2 Matthew 8: 10-11. 32 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS chapter of the Acts, quotes words of Christ, which indicate that He gave His apostles detailed instruc- tions concerning their missionary task. John records words of the risen Christ in connection with one of His appearances, which have the same meaning as the great commission: ‘‘As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.’” What a world of meaning lies in the few words of the great commission! It fixes the power and authority of Him who gave the command: “All power in heaven and on earth.” It defines the character and the sphere of the missionary work to be done by His church: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” It describes the mode and means of missionary opera- tion: “Baptize and teach.” It furnishes a creed to be confessed by converts: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” It assures uninterrupted divine guidance and blessing: “Lo, I am with you always.” It sets the goal for missionary effort: ‘The end of the world.” Every Disciple a Witness.—The apostles obeyed the great commission; but they did not make its fulfill- ment their exclusive obligation. They laid upon every disciple of Christ the duty of bearing witness and of helping to carry the gospel into all the world. The first to preach the gospel beyond the borders of Judea were not apostles in the strict sense of that term, but evangelists. Philip, the evangelist, won the first convert in Samaria and baptized the eunuch of Ethiopia. The first missionaries among the Gentiles in Antioch were men of Cyprus and Cyrene. The 1 John 20: 21. 2Matthew 28: 19-20. DIVINE FORCES 33 apostles not only knew of these developments but en- couraged them. The first controversy which arose among them did not turn on the question of the ad- mission of Gentiles into the Christian Church, but on their admission only after certain Old Testament requirements, notably circumcision, had been ob- served by them. Similar ceremonial questions have vexed and hindered missionary operations among non- Christians ever since, but the universality of the plan of redemption has never been a matter of Christian controversy. That all the apostles did not at once leave Jerusalem and travel into all parts of the world to preach the gospel, must not be construed as a misunderstanding of the great commission. They were simply comply- ing with Christ’s express injunction to begin their missionary work in Jerusalem and Judea. They may have been inclined unduly to prolong this geographical beginning, just as some Christians to this day have over-emphasized the need of the gospel in the home- land to the disparagement of foreign missions; but persecutions and the destruction of Jerusalem forced the apostles to go elsewhere and preach the gospel. Tradition sends them into various countries of Africa, Asia and Europe; but it is evident that the apostles could not literally and fully complete the obligation of the great commission. It has remained for the Christian Church to do that in the progressive expan- sion of Christianity. As long as the great commission stands at the close of the gospel records, Christianity must be a missionary religion, and foreign missions 1 Acts 1:8. Luke 24:47, 34 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS must remain one of the supreme tasks of the Chris- tian Church, until at the end of the ages the ends of the earth actually have been reached. 8. QUESTIONS Old Testament Foundation Stones of Foreign Missions . Why is the Bible a missionary book? What fundamental doctrines of true religion, taught in the Old Testament, have peculiar missionary significance? _ Wherein lies the thought of universality in each ot the Old Testament covenants? . Give the missionary interpretation of the Old Testament designation “The Servant of Jehovah,” as applied to Israel. . Explain the missionary significance of the synagogue. . How did the Septuagint serve the missionary effort of the Apostolic Church? The Teaching of Jesus Christ Concerning Foreign Missions 7 Why is the Kingdom of God necessarily a world-wide kingdom? Quote a number of sayings of Jesus, which refer to the world-wide influence of His life and teachings or to that of His disciples. . Mention a number of Jabapiel which require a missionary interpretation. . Why is the title “The Son of Man” peculiarly significant from a missionary point of view? . What is the meaning of the title Apostle? . Quote the great commission. . Why is the obligation of the great commission not exclu- sively an apostolic obligation? a CHAPTER II HUMAN FORCES THE MISSIONARY Paul was the first and foremost foreign missionary of the Christian Church, and, as such, the greatest individual human force in foreign missions. Thirty-three years elapsed between the birth of Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Thirty-three years elapsed between the crucifixion of the Saviour of the world and the martyrdom of His great apostle Paul. During the first thirty-three years of the new era Christianity was established by its Founder as - the true and universal religion. During the next thirty-three years the universality of Christianity was demonstrated in the missionary success and teaching of Paul. More than thirty-seven times thirty-three years of Christian history have passed, and still its universality remains unrealized, because the Chris- tian Church has failed to complete Christ’s missionary program in the spirit inaugurated by the great apostle to the Gentiles. Paul’s Apostleship.—Not John, the beloved disciple, not Peter, the impetuous, assertive spokesman of the Twelve, not any one of those who enjoyed Christ’s intimate companionship for three and one-half years and who heard Him deliver His great missionary com- mand on the mount of Ascension, was chosen by the Master to be the chief advocate of His plan of world- 35 36 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS wide redemption. An outsider, a Jew of the disper- sion, a man of Tarsus in Cilicia, a converted enemy and persecutor of Christians, whom the other apostles reluctantly admitted to their inner circle, a man who probably never saw Jesus in the flesh, never heard a single one of His sermons, never saw a single one of His miracles, became Christ’s choice instrument for the discipling of the nations. To compensate for his disadvantage and to give him the stamp and standing of an apostle, the glorified God-man vouchsafed to Paul a marvelous vision of Himself and gave him a special apostolic commission. Author, Theologian, Organizer.—The importance of the life and work of Paul as a Christian missionary cannot be overestimated. He not only spread the gospel throughout the most important and influential regions of the then known world but also laid the foundation of the Church Universal in its theology and in its polity. Except, possibly, for the epistle of James, Paul wrote the first New Testament Scripture —his letter to the Thessalonians. His other letters constitute a large portion of the New Testament. He also influenced the composition of another large por- tion, including the Acts, in which his missionary activity is reported, and the gospel narrative written by Luke, one of Paul’s traveling companions and mis- sion helpers. Paul’s religious statements and sys- tem, which became normative for all future the- ologians, were produced by the exigencies of his varied missionary contacts and controversies, concerning which he wrote to his converts and congregations. In consequence of his missionary work and exper- iences, moreover, he became the pioneer organizer of HUMAN FORCES 37 H the life, activity and government of the Christian Church. He was undoubtedly, next to Christ, the greatest benefactor of the human race. PAUL’S MISSIONARY CAREER The missionary careers of the other apostles are nebulous, veiled in unreliable tradition. That of the apostle Paul is reported in detail. Step by step we follow him from country to country, from place to place on his missionary journeys, observing what he did, hearing what he said, knowing what he suffered, learning how he worked and understanding why he succeeded. We see the life and activity of the con- gregations he established, unfolding under his care- ful attention. We know their difficulties, their sins, their contentions, their problems, their virtues, their triumphs in the new faith and in the pursuit of the new ideals of holiness, which he taught them. We may look even into the inner recesses of the great heart of this missionary and see his unwavering faith, his loyal love, his grievous anxieties, his keen disappointments, his triumphant hope, his wonderful plans, his unparalleled success. The record of his missionary activity in the Acts and the reports which he wrote in his letters, furnish a veritable mine of information concerning the times in which he lived, the people whom he influenced, the conditions under which he labored. They reveal a heathen world grown old and decadent, hastening to its ruin, called by this disciple of Christ to halt on its downward course, and then by him, one man against a world-empire, turned - around and led into a new path of thought, faith and 38 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS life. They show how he did this marvelous thing simply by preaching and teaching a new religion which, despite terrible persecutions, gained an im- petus during the sixteen years of this man’s mission- ary activity, which was irresistible, swept aside all opposition and established its claim of universality. Siateen Years a Foreign Missionary.—We possess reliable and detailed information concerning only a third of Paul’s life. That which is recorded in the Acts and in Paul’s letters covers a period of only six- teen years, from the time of his first missionary jour- ney in 46 A. D., to his imprisonment in Rome from 58 to 62. The two periods concerning which we know little or nothing are those which precede and follow his missionary activity. In the first two chapters of Galatians Paul lifts the veil to some extent and reveals what he did during the fourteen or fifteen years in- tervening between his conversion and simultaneous inner missionary call at Damascus, and his official commissioning by the congregation at Antioch in the year 46. This was the period of his missionary pre- paration, during which he studied Christianity and to some extent preached it. In the twelfth chapter of II Corinthians he refers to certain revelations which he received during this period. Otherwise we know very little concerning those years which were of the greatest importance for his theological development and missionary prepara- tion. Concerning his childhood and early manhood he tells us that he was born in Tarsus and that, as a student in Jerusalem, he sat at the feet of Gamaliel. Again, after the abrupt conclusion of the Acts the veil is only slightly lifted by Paul himself in the let- . ee HUMAN FORCES 39 ters he wrote in or after that imprisonment. Chris- tian tradition is strangely meagre and unreliable con- cerning the closing years of the great apostle’s life. Some authorities conclude that he died in prison, others that he was released and undertook a fourth missionary journey in the regions of his former activity, or in Italy and Spain. PAUL’S MISSIONARY LETTERS All of Paul’s letters were written by him to mis- sion congregations, helpers or converts, with definite mission problems and purposes in mind. Not one of them was composed as a technical theological treatise, despite the fact that the Christian Church has valued them almost solely from a theological point of view. Their Missionary Purpose.—Paul wrote his first let- ter to the Thessalonians in order to strengthen the new faith of the recent converts there, who were en- during persecutions like those which he and Silas had endured during their comparatively brief stay in that city from which they barely escaped with their lives. He also wished to encourage them to lead consistent Christian lives, despite the temptations of surround- ing heathenism. His references in his first letter to the nearness of the return of Christ to this earth was misunderstood and he wrote again to remove this mis- understanding, urging his converts to fortitude, calm- ness and industry, while they looked for the second Advent. Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians to prevent his converts in the congregations of the province in Asia Minor, called Galatia, from being misled by teachers from Jerusalem, who impugned his apostolic 40 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS authority and his personal character, and insisted that all Christians should observe the Jewish law and be circumcised. In this letter Paul laid the the- ological foundation for the doctrine of Christianity as the one, true and universal religion. It, therefore, has exceptional value as a missionary document. In his first letter to the Corinthians he wrote in answer to a letter from that church asking guidance from him in several important matters touching dis- sensions and disorders among his converts. In his second letter the apostle expressed his gratitude for the kindness and obedience of the majority of the con- gregation and defended himself against attacks from the minority, who had been influenced by other teach- ers. Converts and congregations in foreign mission fields may learn many valuable lessons from these letters. In his letter to the Romans he wrote to introduce himself as a Christian missionary, who wished to in- clude the capital city of the empire in his missionary program, and explained to those who had never heard him preach, the gospel message which he wished to bring also to them. This letter is the only one which approaches the character of a theological treatise. His letter to the Ephesians was a circular letter addressed to mission congregations in Roman Asia, some of which he probably had established and all of which had to face the danger of being misled by Judaizing separatists. He, therefore, emphasized the unity of all Christians in Christ, the invisible divine Head, and the character of Christianity as the religion for all nations. ‘The contents of the letter are closely related to those of his epistle to the Colos- HUMAN FORCES 41 sians, who were converts of his disciple and colaborer Epaphras. The epistle to the Colossians was written at the solicitation of Epaphras to combat dangerous phil- osophical speculations concerning the relation of God to man through the mediation of spirits and concern- ing all matter as being inherently evil and, therefore, in opposition to God. The Colossians were being mis- led by teachers of these errors to worship angels, on the one hand, and on the other to adopt an ascetic life. Against these errors Paul sets the life, work and person of the historical Christ as the one, all- sufficient Mediator, the Head of all creation, in whose fellowship and service all evil is overcome. All mis- sionaries have learned the need of just such corrective literature for new converts, and some have produced it to combat other non-Christian philosophies. - Paul’s letter to the Philippians, with its warm ex- pression of personal affection, reveals a congregation, whose progress in Christian faith and life gave the missionary great joy, but which still needed from him counsel, warning and encouragement. His letters to Timothy and Titus were letters of admonition and instruction to mission helpers, who were to be his successors as leaders of the Church. His letter to Philemon was, as it were, a postal card to a friend concerning a certain family difficulty. The importance of Paul’s letters as New Testament Scripture lies in the fact that they were written with- in twenty years after the death of Christ, record the content of his missionary preaching, express his re- ligious convictions and reflect the faith and teaching of apostolic Christianity. 42 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS PAUL’S MISSIONARY EXAMPLE Paul is the example of all Christian missionaries in his flaming zeal for the spread of the gospel in all the world. He employed all his gifts and talents in winning souls for Christ. He was indefatigable as a propagandist of Christianity. He never dissipated his energy or wasted his time in unrelated enterprises. He was in every sense a whole time missionary. With unbounded enthusiasm, however, he combined sanity of judgment, patient effort and steadfastness of pur- pose. His mission in life was to preach and teach the gospel to those who had not yet heard it. He did not need to devote any time or attention to the establish- ment or conduct of schools, to medical practice, to institutions of mercy or to building operations. This does not mean that the subordinate agencies of mod- ern missionary work are to be condemned and dis- continued because Paul did not employ them; but it does mean that their use is justifiable only when they are really subordinated to the main purpose of Christianization. . Paul is exemplary in his missionary adaptability. The well-known passage in the ninth chapter of I Corinthians, which he concludes with the statement that he was made all things to all men that he might by all means save some, does not sanction compro- mises with non-Christian doctrines and practices. Paul was not a Greek to the Greeks and a Jew to the Jews in the spheres of religious faith or morals; but he adapted his one message of salvation through Jesus Christ to the mental capacity of his audiences and avoided the mistake of overemphasizing matters of indifference. HUMAN FORCES 43 A Missionary Statesman.—Paul is exemplary in his missionary leadership. He was more than an evan- gelist; he was the organizer of the life, activity and government of the Christian Church. Coupled with his message of salvation by faith in Christ was his constant exhortation to holiness of life as the fruit of Christian faith and not as a work of the law. In his insistence on sanctification he was explicit in his re- quirements concerning Christian conduct in matri- mony, in the home, in business, in social and civil life. He sought not only to convert individuals but also in every place established an organized congregation with common Christian life and activity. He made the congregation the unit of Christian society, but not so as to make each congregation an isolated and un- related unit. He provided for church order, discipline and government. He instituted the office of the Chris- tian ministry and arranged the orderly conduct of public Christian services. He made the Christian Church a permanent and living organization. He was a missionary statesman of the right sort and of the highest order. Missionary Methods.—The principles of Christian missions, which Paul taught and practiced, are nor- mative for all times and places; but his missionary methods need not be followed by all missionaries in every detail. Each missionary must work with the material and the tools he has. Paul’s quickest and best approach to the Gentiles whom he wished to reach, was through the Jewish synagogue, where he found proselytes who had been attracted by the monotheism and moral ideals of Judaism. They gave him a sympathetic hearing. They read the Sep- 44 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS tuagint, which Paul used in his sermons and quoted in his letters. Not many missionaries to foreign countries find such advantageous starting points. Unlike most foreign missionaries Paul did not need to learn a foreign language. He was master of two widely diffused languages, the Aramaic-Hebrew and the Greek language, which fully served his missionary purposes wherever he went. The field in which Paul labored, the Roman empire of his day, was a powerful political entity, in which law and order prevailed. All parts of the empire were controlled from Rome as its center. Good roads on land and many ships at sea made travel comparatively easy over the routes which Paul chose for his mis- sionary journeys. His choice of cities or larger towns as strategic starting points for his missionary work, was a wise policy under the circumstances. It is not necessarily the only policy of missionary strategy. Indeed, Paul also did rural evangelistic work, as for instance in Galatia, and he always encouraged the spread of the gospel in all regions round about the central station. Church and Missionary Finance.—Paul’s manual labor as a tent maker has been cited as exemplary; but there is no reason to believe that he always and in every place supported himself. In Thessalonica and Corinth he worked at his trade for a living so as not to create the impression that he was dependent upon his converts in the same manner as the priests of the non-Christian religions. In other cities he accepted gifts and remuneration from his converts and con- gregations, as for instance from the Philippians. He also encouraged them to help one another financially. HUMAN FORCES 45 He arranged extensive collections of funds for the needy congregation in Jerusalem. To solve the ditf- ficult financial problem of the support of the local con- gregations and of their missionary and benevolent activity he inaugurated a system of church finance, to which the Church is returning after centuries of experimenting along other lines. It is that of weekly, proportionate, systematic giving as a part of the reg- ular public worship on the Lord’s Day. There is a wide difference between the external cir- cumstances of apostolic missions and those of our modern times in non-Christian lands. Consequently our present day missionary methods may not always be similar to those which Paul used. Nevertheless the purpose of Christian missions remains the same for all times. The foreign missionary today, like Paul, the first missionary, is a maker of Christian dis- ciples, a builder of the Christian Church, a promoter of the Kingdom of God on earth. THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY TODAY To this day the personal, living, active and produc- tive forces in foreign missions are the foreign mis- sionary and the native worker. The foreign missionary, like the minister in the home church, is the officially called and appointed messenger of God to bear the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ to sinful men. His preaching and teaching is to work repentance, faith and godly living in and through his converts. He is sent by the Church to the foreign field with the commission to open the Book, as Jesus did in Nazareth, and say: 46 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliver- ance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” The missionary’s whole life, all he says and does, is to testify that this scripture is fulfilled through Christ in the ears of all Christians and non-Christians who hear and see him. The foreign missionary is the living link between the home Church, which sends him, and the Church in the mission field, for whose existence and growth he lives and labors. Twofold Aspect of Missionary’s Work.—After the new missionary reaches the mission field he finds that his work assumes a twofold aspect: one towards non- Christians who are still to be reached by the gospel and who constitute the overwhelming proportion of the inhabitants of the mission field, and the other towards converts to Christianity already baptized and added to the Church by former missionaries and their native helpers. In larger and’ well-organized missions like our mission in India, the missionary is called upon to devote much of his time and attention to the native Christians; and he functions as a missionary largely through the native Christian workers, who look to him for advice and guidance. In our India mission each district missionary has from 100 to 200 native workers under his supervision. In our other missions the missionary is associated with fewer native work- ers and it is one of his chief missionary problems to help to produce a larger number of efficient workers. In the educational, medical and other departments of HUMAN FORCES 47 mission work, also, the missionary must rely to a large degree on native Christian teachers for evangelistic influence among the students in school, patients in hospitals and dispensaries, and among non-Chris- tians employed or attracted. Nevertheless, in any field or department of mission work the zealous mis- sionary always finds opportunity to try his own hand at the great and difficult task of direct evangelization through preaching, teaching and conversation. MISSIONARY QUALIFICATIONS The chief responsibility of the Board of Foreign Missions in regard to missionaries lies in the selection of qualified men and women. The call and public com- missioning by the Board are the official certification of the Church that the person chosen is qualified for the appointed task. The commissioning, following ordination, may be regarded as an act of installation. To the people to whom the missionary is sent the call and commissioning are a guarantee that he is a faith- ful and true witness of the doctrines and life of the sending church. Selection of Missionaries.—Not only because he is to be the accredited agent of the home Church and the guide and counsellor of the native Church in the mission field, but also for his own sake, because the missionary must be sure that he has chosen his ap- pointed life-work, the candidate for foreign service has a personal right to the most inquiring, compre- hensive and thorough consideration of himself, his aptitudes, his acquirements, and his preparation for missionary service. The process of selection, which 48 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS may last a number of years, invariably includes a careful physical examination by a medical adviser of the Board or a physician appointed by the Board, be- cause no one should undertake foreign service who suffers from an organic disease or chronic weakness. Good health is required for effective work, especially in the tropics. Wives of missionaries, also, must pass this examination. As a rule, on account of social conditions in non-Christian countries and because the Christian home is a powerful factor in the mission- ary enterprise, men are advised to marry before they leave for the foreign field. Theological students are always called subject to their ordination. For them and for all other it is re- quired that written recommendations of character and qualifications be furnished by their pastors and others, who know them intimately. Conferences and interviews with board secretaries, in particular the candidate secretary, and correspondence covering the life, relations, studies and preparation of the can- didate are intended to lead to conviction on the part of the candidate and of the Board that the choice has been made in accordance with the will of God, and that the right line of preparation is being pursued. Some of the other qualifications for missionary service, besides a sound mind in a sound body, are the spiritual qualifications of Christian faith, love and hope, a thorough knowledge of the Bible and Chris- tian doctrine, which are primary qualifications, familiarity which church life and activity, linguistic ability, ability to teach, adaptability to new sur- roundings and strange people, sympathy with sinful and suffering fellow-beings, common sense and good HUMAN FORCES 49 judgment, willingness to work harmoniously with others, patience blended with courage and steadiness of purpose despite difficulties and discouragements. Student Volunteers. — Many candidates are in- fluenced more or less by the Student Volunteer Move- ment. This movement has been criticized for urging upon young men and women the decision for service abroad before the Church through the Board of for- eign missions has extended a call. The Student Volunteer decision, however, is not a decision to serve but a decision to willingness and readiness to serve when the external call comes. This should be the at- titude of every sincere disciple of Christ in obedience to the great command. Moreover, the movement has diligently and successfully cultivated among students in many institutions the study of missions in all phases and fields, and has impressed upon many young men and women the missionary obligation as related to their own lives. The Student Volunteer pledge is so qualified that if one who takes it does not go to the foreign field, he or she may still keep it by devotion to the cause of foreign missions in the home Church. It is the justifiable boast of the movement that its detained volunteers are zealous mission workers in their home congregations. Inner Call.—In any event the foreign missionary must first have an inner call before the external call of the Church reaches him or her through the Board of foreign missions. St. Paul, the first and greatest Christian missionary, received his inner ¢all in a miraculous manner at the gate of Damascus. Then he had to wait patiently and prepare diligently for years in the face of the opposition of the other 50 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS apostles, while the church at Jerusalem withheld its sanction, until he got his external call from the con- gregation in Antioch. The inner call to missionary service may be conveyed by the Holy Spirit in various ways. He usually employs some earnest friend to convey it. This inner call may be defined as a spirit- ual influence producing willingness and readiness to grasp the opportunity personally to respond to the obligation of the great commission of the Lord Jesus Christ. Missionary Preparation.—For the theological stu- dent there is no better advice concerning preparation for foreign service than to say: “Make the most of your opportunities at the theological seminary.” This is said with the understanding that the theological seminary not only provides a course of study in mis- sions, but also encourages each professor to manifest a missionary spirit and give the missionary interpre- tation of his subject which the Bible itself and the history of the Church demand. It is taken for granted, moreover, that courses are offered on the theory and practice of missions, the history of mis- sions, Biblical pedagogy and comparative religions. Some subjects, which are desirable and which a the- ological seminary is not expected to provide but which may be taken in a school of missions, in side courses or summer courses, are: ethnology, anthropology, political and economic science and geography, mis- sions and world movements, sociology, business meth- ods, elementary medicine, hygiene, sanitary science and phonetics. For women candidates the best preparation is a regular college course. In some cases a normal course HUMAN FORCES 51 may suffice. The woman missionary in any sphere except medicine and nursing, and even in those to some extent, is primarily a teacher, and unless she has learned the art of teaching, she will be severely handicapped in her mission work. The desirable age for a man to begin his service as a foreign missionary is from the twenty-fourth to the thirty-fifth year of age, for a women before her thirtieth year. It has been suggested that missionary candidates might well make a thorough study of the fields to which they are about to go. This is desirable but not essential. Most Boards prefer to have men say that they will go where the need is the greatest, leaving the study of the field as a part of the life-work of the missionary to be carried out in the field itself. The same general principle holds in regard to lan- guage study. Language Study.—tThe first task of the missionary after he reaches the foreign field is the study of the vernacular of his field, the people who inhabit it and their habits of thought, life and religion. It is his primary duty as a missionary to learn to know them well. His efficiency in mission work depends upon it. In India the new missionary must spend his entire first year in the study of the vernacular, and most of his second year in the same study, while he assists an older missionary. He is required to pass a first language examination at the end of his first year of residence and a second examination at the end of the second year. A third year is optional. In con- junction with this language study there is now pro- vided a course on Hinduism. The language study is 52 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS under the general direction of a committee of the organized mission, and the examinations are con- ducted by a selected group of missionaries from va- rious missions in the same language area. Each mis- sionary student of the language has a munshi or lan- guage teacher, employed by the mission. This ar- rangement has not been entirely satisfactory and an inter-mission language school for the Telugu area is under discussion. Other language areas have such schools. After the missionary has resided in the country two years and has passed his examination he is placed in independent charge of work and receives his first increase of salary. Only in exceptional cases is a missionary assigned work before he has passed his second examination. In Japan all new missionaries spend a year in a language school in Tokio. Some take a second year, but the consensus of opinion inclines to the desir- ability of continuing language study during the sec- ond and succeeding years in personal contact with native life, while the missionary is engaged in assist- ing some older missionary or, when there is a lack of missionaries, after he assumes charge of a station. In Liberia only the English language is used along the coast and the missionaries at the main station need to know no other language. Those, however, who go into the interior must learn Kpele, which is now being studied by new missionaries under the direction of a missionary teacher at Kpolopele. Mis- sionary Leonard is the first man who has reduced this language to writing. He has translated the gospel according to St. Mark into Kpele, published by the American Bible Society. HUMAN FORCES 53 In British Guiana only English is required at pres- ent, though fine opportunities await the man who will learn Hindi, the language of the east Indian im- migrants, and Arawak, the language of the inland aborigines. In Argentine the missionary needs to have a good command of Spanish. The study of this language may be advantageously begun in America. The assignment of the work of the missionary is made by the mission organization on the field. Those who have specialized training, such as doctors, nurses, educationalists, agriculturalists, engineers, business men and women, are assigned to their special de- partments. Salary.—The principle which guides the Board of Foreign Missions in its financial relations with the missionary is that sufficient support shall be provided . to enable the missionary to live and work in good health and spirits, without financial anxiety or phy- sical discomfort and with maximum efficiency. It is very desirable that all debts be paid or arrangements be made for their payment by the missionary through the Board before leaving America. In each mission the missionary, married or unmarried, receives salary, paid monthly as a rule, according to the living conditions of the country in which the missionary labors. In Japan and in Buenos Aires, therefore, the salaries are somewhat higher than in India or Liberia. Allowances.—Before sailing each missionary re- ceives a fixed amount as an outfit allowance, with which needful things for the journey may be pur- chased. His traveling expenses by direct journey to the field are paid. His salary begins when he reaches 54 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS the field. The following allowances under the rules of the mission are granted in addition to salary: Children’s allowance according to scale, a dwelling for the missionary and his family, heavy furniture, re- pairs to buildings and furniture, language study al- lowance, medical allowance, vacation allowance, official postage, taxes, widow’s and disabled mission- ary’s allowance, pension after the age of seventy. These allowances provide for variety of income ac- cording to need. The terms of service in India are uniformly seven years for married and unmarried men, and five years for women missionaries. In Japan and Argentine the same rule applies. In Liberia the term for all mis- Sionaries has recently been reduced to twenty-seven months, because the climate has a very debilitating effect on the missionary. For British Guiana no rules as yet have been adopted. Furlough.—The furlough period in America lasts from six to eighteen months, the shorter period for Liberia missionaries on account of their frequent fur- loughs. The furlough period is used by the mission- ary for (1) rest and recreation, (2) renewed con- tact with the home Church through deputation ser- vice, by which, also, the home Church is encouraged to continue and increase its missionary effort by gift and prayer, and (3) further preparation through Special studies. The first furlough is now regarded as the final period of missionary preparation, exper- ience having shown that the first term of service abroad reveals to the missionary, the mission and the board in what direction or department of work the missionary is best fitted to serve. HUMAN FORCES 55 The scale of furlough salaries is the same for all missionaries, irrespective of the foreign field, being adapted to the scale of living in America and the terms of service in the field. They are slightly lower than field salaries for missionaries from Japan and Buenos Aires, slightly higher for those from the other fields. Furlough allowances, also, are the same for all missionaries. Furlough salaries and allowances begin when the missionary leaves the field and end when he again reaches the field after furlough. The missionary as a rule retains his membership in the home Church, though some have preferred to identify themselves fully with the native Church by joining a local congregation in the mission field. The main reason for retaining membership in some con- gregation at home, despite long separation from it, is that the missionary should preserve his or her status as the representative of the home Church and his or her position as a mediating agent of the home Church in relation to the native Church. The con- sular, diplomatic and other agents of a government, residing in foreign countries, remain citizens of the country which has appointed them. American mis- sionaries should, also, remain citizens of the United States of America. Our experiences with mission- aries of other national citizenship during and after the war have clearly demonstrated the desirability of the protection afforded by American citizenship for missionaries in the service of American boards. What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter concerning missionaries? It is this: For foreign mis- sion service men and women are needed, to whom the foreign mission enterprise is not a matter of inci- 56 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS dental concern, of adventure or experiment, of tem- porary employment or transient enthusiasm, but a matter of vital concern and supreme importance, of loving obedience and life-service. We need men and women with deep conviction and confidence of pur- pose, who choose this service in the face of any and all objections which indifference or prejudice at home may raise, and who will persevere in this service despite all obstacles met in the foreign field. The foreign mission enterprise, more than any other un- dertaking of the Christian Church, calls for men and women who are eager to make disciples in obedience to Christ’s last command, and who want to serve Christ’s redemptive purpose for the world where disciple-making is most needed and most difficult; men and women whose minds and hearts and lives have been prepared by divine grace and trained by Christian education to undertake great things for God; humble, self-sacrificing men and women, cour- ageous, faithful, true-hearted men and women, ful- filling their high calling as apostles, messengers, martyrs, witnesses, angels of Jesus, angels of light, angels of the churches in the mission fields. QUESTIONS THE MISSIONARY Paul, the First Missionary . What position does Paul occupy in the Christian Church in consequence of his missionary work? . Into what three periods may the life of Paul be divided? . How long was Paul actively engaged in mission work? . Define the missionary character of each of Paul’s letters. . Mention some of the points in which Paul was exemplary as a missionary. =" Ol Rm co bd 12. 13. HUMAN FORCES 57 . What methods characterized Paul’s efforts to make Chris- tian disciples? . What system of church and missionary finance did Paul establish? The Foreign Missionary Today . For what purpose are missionaries sent to non-Christian lands? . Which are some of the chief qualifications for foreign mission service? . How does the foreign missionary usually spend his first year or two in the mission field? . Through whom does the foreign missionary most effectively work in his evangelistic efforts? What principle guides the Board of Foreign Missions in the payment of missionaries’ salaries and allowances? For what purpose do missionaries use their furloughs? CHAPTER III FORCES IN OPPOSITION The chief forces in opposition to foreign missions are the non-Christian religions of the mission fields. This statement will be criticized by those who re- gard non-Christian religions not as obstructive but as parallel forms of religious teaching, with lines of truth relatively shorter and less distinct than Chris- tianity. They deplore the use of the term false, as applied to any religion. They believe in the theory of religious evolution, not in special divine revelation. They quote certain parts of Paul’s sermon to the Athenians: “Whom ye ignorantly worship,” and. “that they should seek after the Lord, if happily they might feel after him and find him.” They also use the twentieth verse of the first chapter of Romans: “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead.” They overlook or ignore Paul’s conclusion: “So they are without excuse,” and again, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the crea- ture more than the Creator,” and again, “Who changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four- footed beasts and creeping things.” Paul held that all forms of heathenism show indications of religious devolution. 58 FORCES IN OPPOSITION 59 Some modernists admit Buddha, Confucius, Moham- med and other teachers of non-Christian religions as lesser lights into the temple of the world’s great men of religion, giving Christ the chief place but not granting him the ,unique distinction of being the one, true and perfect revelation of the Heavenly Father. In this they follow the example of certain philosophers of the first Christian centuries. They lay stress on the elements common to Christianity and non-Christian religions, and boast of their fair- mindedness in making comparisons. It is true that there are certain moral precepts which non-Christian religions share with Christianity; but in the sphere of morality as well as that of religion, non-Chris- tianity invariably shows marks of decline. A few non-Christian religious teachings and beliefs may seem to present similarity with certain Christian truths, but on closer examination all these resem- blances are clearly surface resemblances. There is no essential similarity, for example, between the doctrine of the triad of Hinduism—Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, and that of the trinity of Christianity— Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The idea of the avatars of Hinduism, of the popular god Krishna, as an incar- nation of Vishnu, is far removed from the Biblical teaching of the incarnation of the Son of God in the person of Jesus Christ. While the Christian missionary must never offer or accept compromises with a non-Christian religion, lest he undermine the strength and influence of his work as a missionary, he should avoid a hostile at- titude in his approach to non-Christians as individ- uals. Though he be the opponent of the non-Chris- 60 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS tian religion of his mission field, he is the friend and helper, teacher and lover, guide and brother of his fellowmen, his fellowsinners, the non-Christians. He comes to save them from their sins and errors by the preaching and teaching of the gospel truth. He comes to persuade them to believe and follow Christ. He comes to compel them to come into the kingdom of God by the compulsion of truth and love. He comes in the spirit of Jesus, “Who when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, threatened not.” He comes in the spirit of the more excellent way of missionary effort, taught in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, written by the first and greatest Christian missionary for all missionaries. Compelling Christian Convictions.—The foreign missionary must have three compelling convictions. The first is the fundamental Christian conviction that there is only one true religion, which is Christianity. There is none other name under heaven given unto men, whereby we must be saved, than the name of Jesus Christ. Christian faith is the only faith which is adequate to meet the needs of all men everywhere. This conviction, while uncompromising towards un- truth and half-truth, will not make the missionary unfriendly toward serious-minded non-Christians nor incapable of finding and valuing all the good that can be found in any people. The second compelling conviction is the oone erent that, whatever the religious faith and moral stand- ard of non-Christians may be, they are capable of knowing the truth, of believing in Christ and of find- ing salvation through Him. No matter how far astray or how far down non-Christians may have FORCES IN OPPOSITION 61 gone, the gospel is intended for them also and for them all. The third compelling conviction is, that it is the will of God that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Salvation not only is possible but it also is provided in Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen God-man, Redeemer of the world. These convictions safeguard the missionary against intolerance and prejudice, encourage him to work against the heaviest odds, make and keep him sweet and sympathetic, patient and humble, happy and suc- cessful. THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA The religious forces in opposition to Christianity in India are Hinduism and Mohammedanism, more properly called Islam. Modern Hinduism.—Modern Hinduism is the ac- cumulated product of three thousand years of re- ligious thinking and practice apart from the revela- tion of the true God and His word. Hinduism is rooted in ancient writings called Vedas, the earliest of which, the Rig Veda, is a remarkable collection of 10,000 verses of ancient lyric poetry, addressed to the — principal Aryan gods, Varuna, Indra, Agni, Surya, Soma and others. The primitive nature worship of the Rig Veda period, probably 1500 to 800 B. C., yielded to an elaborate form of ritual, known as Brahmanism, which gave prominence to the priest and produced a priestly code, the Brahmanas, which were written in the seventh century -before Christ. They are prosaic directories of worship under the guidance of the Brahmins, the priests. Each Brahmana is a 62 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS \ handbook to one of the Vedas and was meant to teach the priest to do his part in the worship of the gods. Besides sacrificial directions and explanations, these books also contain a great deal of mythology, phil- ology, literary lore, grammar, theology, mysticism and magic. They are said to be the most tedious, absurd and uninteresting books in the world. Later than the Brahmanas are the Upanishads, books which were written as conversational specula- tions on the nature of religion. These form the foundation and starting point of India’s great Vedantic system of religious thought. One of the books, the Baghavadgita, is an epic which deserves a passing notice. For well nigh two thousand years it has swayed the mind and heart of India. It has attracted the attention and admiration of scholars in Europe and America. It is perhaps more read and studied by educated Hindus today than any other book of religion. In it the Hindu may be said to call for a Saviour, a saviour incarnate for the good of man, in- carnate to give a clear revelation of the will of God. Caste.—Institutional Brahmanism introduced the most compact and tyrannical system of social life and customs, that the world has ever known—the sys- tem of caste. This system continues to be the para- mount practical feature of the religion of the Hindus. The divisions and subdivisions of caste are innumer- able. In general the traditional divisions are: 1. The Brahmins or priests; 2. Kshattryas or warriors; 3. Vaisyas or merchants and agriculturalists; 4. Sudras or artisans. Below these are the Panchamas, the “depressed classes,” the outcasts. The members of one caste keep themselves socially separate from all —_—_ FORCES IN OPPOSITION 63 other castes, eating, drinking, living and laboring, marrying, dying and being buried in their respective castes. To break caste is the most grievous of sins, for which abject and carefully prescribed atonement must be made. The caste system for ages has strangled all personal ambition, choked aspiration and held back progress in India. It has made unity of thought, purpose and action for the common good practically impossible, and has fostered suspicion, jealousy and selfishness. Above all it has preserved the social superiority and influence of the priests as the religious autocrats of India, and has been one of the great impediments to the work of Christian missions. Buddhism.—Jainism and Buddhism, which arose in the sixth century B. C., were reactions against cere- monial Brahmanism. The Jains are noted as temple builders and have carried to an extreme the doctrine of the preservation of animal life. Almost every city in western India, where the Jains are found, has its animal hospital. In the temple at Kutch five thousand rats were kept and fed as an act of reverence. More than two-fifths of the Jains live in Bombay and its native states, including Baroda. They are mostly traders, merchants or bankers, wealthy, intelligent and in some respects progressive. The founder of Buddhism was Gautama, the Buddha, that is, the Enlightened One. He was a devout prince and an earnest seeker after truth. He is said to have become suddenly illuminated as he sat one day beneath the sacred bo tree at Buddh Gaya. He died about 477 B. C. The greatest im- petus was given to Buddhism in India by King Asoka 64 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS in the third century before Christ. He did for Budd- hism what Constantine did for Christianity. He organized it as a state religion. He assembled a coun- cil to determine the faith, issued edicts promulgating its principles, established a state department to en- courage its growth, sent out missionaries to preach its doctrines and created an authorized version of the Buddhist scriptures. Buddhism has practically disappeared from the land of its birth, but its in- fluence is deeply imbedded in modern Hinduism, and it still maintains itself as a distinct religion in Ceylon, Burma, Tibet, China and Japan. Buddhism may be briefiy defined as a system of ethical self-culture and negative philosophy. Gautama had no place in his religion for a supreme being. His teachings began and ended with man. Man unaided by any superior being may work out his destiny by his own powers. Yet man’s need of an object of reverence and worship, and his tendency to seek ex- ternal supernatural aid has led to the elevation of Gautama into deity, as an object of worship. There are today more images of' Buddha in a pagoda in Burma than there are idols in any Hindu temple in India. Doctrines of Modern Hinduism.—The outstanding teachings of modern Hinduism, which is an eclectic religion, derived from the above named and other sources, are: 1. The repeated appearances of deities in human form. These appearances are called avatars. This doctrine, as it relates especially to the gods Siva and Vishnu, has produced the modern cults of Saivism, Vaishnavism, and Saktiism. The devotees of these FORCES IN OPPOSITION 65 cults indicate their allegiance by characteristic marks on their foreheads and bodies. A mark in the form of a trident is universally worn by the devotees of Vishnu. Three horizontal lines drawn across the forehead and other parts of the body denote the worshipers of Siva. Tantric sects use the swastika. Saktiism is the worship of the generative force ‘as typified in goddesses, especially the wife of Siva in her many forms and characters. 2. Pantheism, the doctrine of the divinity of the universe as such and as a whole. Hindu pantheism holds that man and the material and spiritual world are manifestations of an ultimate, impersonal It, ab- solute and unknowable. It denies the existence of a personal God. 8. Polytheism and its inevitable idolatry. Hindu- ism most conspicuously manifests itself in the popular worship of millions of deities made in the forms of human beings, of animals of all kinds, of birds and creeping things, of imaginary beings, grotesque in appearance, partly human and partly animal. The elephant-headed god, Ganesha, and the monkey god, Hanuman, are popular idols. This hydra-headed poly- theism is the most offensive feature of modern Hinduism. 4. The doctrine of illusion (Maya). For all Hindus the highest aim in life is to be freed from the illusions of mind and body. These illusions create the sorrows and misery of life. The path of redemp- tion is fourfold: By works or the observance of ritual and caste rules; by faith or devotion to a personal deity; by ascetic rigor (Yoga); and by knowledge, which is the final way of emancipation. 66 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 5. The doctrine of Karma and transmigration. Karma is the law of retributive justice according to merit. This law is said to pursue the soul through millions of rebirths, requiring that the “uttermost farthing” of demerit be paid. Each soul in its rebirths “oats the fruit of the previous life, of which it neither remembers nor knows anything.” 6. The reabsorption of the individual soul into the all-soul. After endless reincarnations the soul is re- ceived into Brahm, involving a final state of absolute unconsciousness and impersonality This is Nirvana. Modern Reform Movements.—The reform move- ments of the present day contribute to the restless- ness of the popular mind in matters of faith. They reveal the fact that modern life has thrust upon the Indian people a bewildering number of new religious ideas and ideals. Some of these movements, such as the Brahmo Samaj, are animated by Christian prin- ciples and ambitions, though clinging to many of the ancestral forms of religion. Others, like the Arya Samaj, are less radical in their spirit of reform and are opposed to Christianity. All of them, how- ever, are a serious menace to orthodox Hinduism. Theosophy, which accepts some of the fundamental — principles of Brahmanism, assumes an attitude of © uncompromising hostility to Christianity, while it seeks to reduce all religions to the ashes of such elements as they may seem to have in common. A missionary who spent a lifetime in India, Dr. — John F. Jones, author of “Krishna or Christ,” and — other books and pamphlets on Hinduism, says: “Not a — belief in doctrines but conformity to certain customs — and institutions enables one positively to call himself | FORCES IN OPPOSITION 67 a Hindu. There are only two absolutely necessary qualifications for membership in Hindu society today subordination to the Brahmin and membership in an organized caste. In other respects the Hindu has very great freedom. Among other characteristic features of Hindu society are a belief in the divine origin and authority of the Vedas and a reverence for sacred animals, especially the cow.” Islam.—India has a larger Moslem population than Persia, Arabia, Turkey and Egypt combined. Of the sixty-two millions of Moslems within its borders, twenty-five and a half millions are found in Bengal, fourteen millions in the Punjab and Northwest Fron- tier Province, nearly seven millions in the United Provinces, over four millions in Bombay and four millions in South India. The Mohammedans of North India are mostly Sunnih or orthodox. The sect of the Sh-ahs does not number more than five millions in all India. Moslems divide their religion into two parts: Iman or dogma and Din or ritual. Under the head of dogma come the six articles of faith concerning God (Allah), angels, sacred books, prophets, the day of judgment and predestination. Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer in “Islam: A Challenge to Faith,” says that “the concep- tion of God is negative. Absolute sovereignty and ruthless omnipotence are his chief attributes, while his character is impersonal. The Christian truth that God is love, is to the learned Moslem blasphemy and to the ignorant an enigma.” Islam teaches that there are three kinds of angels: the good angels, the jinns or genii, either good or evil, and satan with his demoniac host. 68 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS It has four sacred books: the Law of Moses, the Psalms of David, the Gospel of Jesus and the Koran. Orthodox Moslems hold that all but the Koran now exist in a corrupted form and their precepts have been displaced by the final book given to the great prophet Mohammed. The Koran is a little smaller in bulk than the New Testament. It has 114 chapters bearing fanciful titles, such as the cow, the bee, women, the ant, the spider. It contains a jumble of verses concerning law and legends, prayers and im- precations without chronological order, logical se- quence or rhetorical climax. It is full of historical errors, contains monstrous fables, is full of Super- stition and teaches slavery, polygamy, divorce, re- ligious intolerance, the seclusion and degradation of women. Many Old Testament personages are revered as prophets of God, and Jesus Christ is classed as a prophet; but Mohammed is the first and greatest of all prophets. The day of judgment occupies a large place in the creed of Islam and the Koran. Paradise is a garden of sensual delight. The predestination of the Moslem creed is pure fatalism, which denies all free agency in man and declares that he is necessarily constrained by the force of God’s eternal and unchangeable decree to act as he does. Religion is Islam, which means resignation. La tlaha Illa’llahu Mohammad Rasulu-llah, which means, There is no God but Allah; Mohammed is the prophet of God, is repeated on every occasion by Moslems throughout the world. In the observance of their ritual Moslems pray five ee — FORCES IN OPPOSITION 69 times each day in Arabic formulas, at dawn, just after high noon, two hours before sunset, at sunset, and two hours after sunset. They fast during the month of Ramadan. They give legal alms (sakat) amount- ing to about one-fortieth of their income. They un- dertake a journey to Mecca in Arabia in vast num- bers from all parts of the world at the time of the great pilgrimage (Hajj). The Missionary’s Attitude.—In his attitude towards Hindus, Mohammedans and other non-Christians, the missionary must avoid on the one hand the extreme of denunciatory attack, which alienates, and, on the other hand, overemphasis on resemblances with Chris- tianity, which are more apparent than real. His message must be a positive explanation of Christian truth so adapted as to appeal to the non-Christians, whom he meets, and to win them for Christ. It will win them if presented in the spirit of love and not of condescension to inferiors. For the Western mission- ary today to convey the message of the gospel in the manner and with the emphasis which India needs for its full acceptance, is a task requiring great skill, wis- dom and grace. THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN Turning to the religions of Japan, we characterize briefly: Shintoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Shintoism.—Shinto, “the way of the gods,” is Japan’s most primitive and characteristic religion. It is a mixture of emperor, ancestor, and nature wor- ship. Its gods are the imperial line and innumerable ancestors, whose lives were made memorable by great deeds. Its only moral code is loyalty to these. It has 70 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS no teaching concerning a future life. It is a non- ethical religion without a consciousnes of guilt and lacking an urge toward personal virtue. Its prayers are for the warding off of calamity and evil, security for the household, bountiful harvests and success. The Japanese have erected shrines on every high hill, surrounded by magnificent cedar or camphor trees. At the foot of a crag or the approach to a waterfall or around a great tree, reverent fingers twist straw ropes in token of their worship of the beautiful, the grand or the extraordinary in nature. In Japanese mythology the sun goddess, Amaterasu, is exalted as the source of life and food, as well as the ancestress of the imperial house. Shintoism glorifies simplicity and racial unity. “The shrines with their shingled roofs, simple lines and straight-grained woods, bare of ornament, foster simplicity in the worshiper. Before each shrine there is a jar of holy water, into which the worshiper dips his fingers as a symbol of the purification of his life from defilement.’’ The way of salvation for the Shintoist is the assertion of native, natural purity, following one’s own instincts, and loyalty to the emperor. Confucianism is a system of ethics and civics com- bined. It teaches faith in the order of the universe. Confucius once said, “Honor the gods, but keep far from them.” His central idea was man in his right relations to parents, superiors, brothers and friends. Bushido, “the way of the knight,” based on Con- fucianism, exalts the warrior ideals of Japan, and is an important factor in the ethical thought and life of many Japanese. FORCES IN OPPOSITION 71 Buddhism.—Japanese Buddhism is different from Buddhism in India. In Japan it is divided into twelve main sects. One sect (Zen) exalts contemplation and intuition, self-reliance and _ self-mastery. Another (Shin) offers salvation by repetition of the name of Amida, the all-pitiful one. The Nichiren sect is pan- theistic and teaches that man unaided can work out his own salvation; but it has attached itself to the Shinto belief in the rice god, Inari, who is supposed to punish those who offend him by inflicting fox- possession. The philosophy of Buddhism is elaborate and deep- going, but it has no personal god with whom man can talk and walk and work. It has no everliving, ever- present saviour, to whom the soul burdened with sin ‘ean look for forgiveness and salvation. It is a religion of despair and negation. It looks upon the world as a place of pain, an abode of evil, a source of unending sorrow. To it life is a round of unceasing rebirths, old age, disease and death. Both the world and the individual in it move in cycles, going forth only to come back to the places from which they started. History always repeats itself. The individual has no rights and no liberty, but is forever doomed to bond- age on the wheel of destiny. There is no personal ex- istence in any form. Release from existence is heaven. A remerging into nature, the first great Cause, is the goal of all life. Japanese Buddhism has no uplifting power, no saving grace, no ennobling virtue. The Christian missionary in Japan must be in- tellectually alert, sympathetic and considerate, as- suming the attitude of a friend and companion. He 72 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS must, however, be loyal to the truth as it is in Christ Jesus and lead a consistent Christian life. He must never stoop to ridicule. He must learn to work with the Japanese Christian leaders in the fullest coopera- tion. In facing the unusual religious conditions of Japan today, he must guard against creating the im- pression that Christianity is solely a system of thought, on the one hand, or on the other hand only a system of ethics. The leadership of the missionary must be of a spiritual type and must rest upon his knowledge and impartation of the great truths of the Bible, manifested in his life and conversation. THE RELIGION OF INTERIOR LIBERIA Animism.—The religion of the primitive inland tribes of Liberia, Africa, is animism, which is a belief in spirits, magic, fetishism, amulets and taboo. Animism is so complex and multiform, that no attempt to describe it in a few words can be adequate. The mind of the animist is constantly occupied with fear of the thousand and one evil-minded spirits, imps and demons around him, who inhabit and control any- thing and everything, and who would crush him, if they could. They are supposed to be constantly seek- ing opportunities to do so. The fetish, the charm, the amulet, the medicine-making, the sand-playing, the religious rites and ceremonies are all attempts to cajole or appease, to cheat or to conquer the trouble- some spirits. The underlying idea of all animism is the idea of spirits being in natural objects, working in natural phenomena and forces, and possessing men. FORCES IN OPPOSITION 73 From this notion has arisen a whole series of beliefs about the living and the dead, the state of existence of the departed and their relations to the living. In some if not all forms of animism, a vague belief in a Supreme Spirit has persisted, but he is seldom if ever worshiped, being regarded as too far away and too inaccessible to need attention. Our missionaries in interior Libera have not yet been able to give us sufficient information concerning the peculiarities of the animism of the inland tribes, and a vast field of first-hand information concerning this primitive religion still lies uninvestigated. UN-CHRISTIAN LIVES AND PRINCIPLES IN OPPOSITION Besides the non-Christian religions in our mission fields there are other forces in opposition to foreign missions, such as the non-Christian lives of nominal Christians in non-Christian lands, the un-Christian principles which sometimes animate Christian indi- viduals, groups and governments, and the glaring in- consistencies and failures of some Christians in our own land. It is the task of the home Church to over- come these opposing forces within its own gates not only for its own sake but also for the sake of the Chris- tian conquest of the non-Christian world. Dr. Arthur J. Brown in his book “Rising Churches in Non-Christian Lands,” presents a severe indict- ment against many traders, travelers and officials, who outnumber missionaries in Asia and Africa and who by their conduct create against Christians an in- 74 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS discriminate hostility. Meanwhile the men whose evil example is doing so much to prejudice the good name of Christianity abroad are the very ones who sneer at the Christians and loudly assert that foreign missions are a failure. It severely tries the new faith of native Christians to see white men openly do the things that the Bible forbids them to do—swear, get drunk, gamble, cheat, profane the Lord’s Day, insult women. The great war was a frightful illustration of the fact that nations are not Christian, although many of their citizens may be. In practically all Western lands international relationships are still based, as a rule, upon desire for commercial, territorial or political aggrandizement. Gladstone said that the his- tory of governments is the most immoral part of history. The vice-mayor of Tokio during a visit to the United States wrote: “The young people in my country can- not help seeing that Christians in America care most about material things, not about the things of the spirit; that there is little reverence in America and many evil conditions. That leads them to wonder if Christianity is really as good as the missionaries say.” Regarded from this point of view there is some truth in the saying: ‘‘Christianize America and Amer- ica will Christianize the world.” The further and fuller Christianization of nominal Christian lands and peoples is, therefore, a serious foreign mission problem. se C COTA ab 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. te 18. 19. FORCES IN OPPOSITION 75 QUESTIONS The Religions of Our Mission Fields ._ What are the prevailing non-Christian religions in our mission fields? . What was Paul’s attitude towards non-Christian religions? . What should be the attitude of Christian missionaries today towards non-Christian religions and towards non- Christian individuals? . Mention several compelling convictions of Christian mis- sionaries. _ What are the two great religions of India today? What sacred books are revered above all others by Hindus? . What system of social life did Brahmanism introduce? . Describe this system. . Who was Gautama? © ; 10. Mention and explain some of the teachings of modern Hinduism. Why must Islam be included as one of the religions of India? Which are the five chief doctrines of Islam? Explain each of these doctrines. What are the characteristics of Moslem ritual? Which is Japan’s most primitive and characteristic religion? Briefly define Shintoism, Confucianism and Buddhism in Japan. What is Animism? What other influences besides non-Christian religions are opposing forces to Christian missions in foreign countries? How does the saying, “Christianize America and America will Christianize the world,” apply to foreign missions? CHAPTER IV FORCES IN THE FIELD The religions of the world today are divided into two classes: Christian and non-Christian. Thirty-four per cent or about one-third of the population of the earth is Christian, the other two-thirds is non-Chris- tian. There are three general divisions of the Christian religion and three of the non-Christian religions. Christian Groups.—The smallest group of Chris- tians is that of the Greek or Eastern Catholic Church, with a constituency of 121,000,000.*. The lands which are predominantly influenced by Greek Catholicism are Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria and Greece. The next largest group is that of the Protestant Church, with 167,000,000 members. Great Britain, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United States of America, Canada and the Christianized parts of Australia and South Africa are predominantly Protestant. The largest Chris- tian group is that of the Roman Catholic Church with its center in Rome and its head in the pope. There are 288,000,000 Roman Catholics in the world, form- ing the larger portion of the population of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, Ireland, Mexico, Central and South America. The followers of Jesus Christ throughout the world constitute the largest religious division. There are 587,000,000 Christians. Non-Christian Groups.—The three non-Christian 1World Almanac Statistics. 76 FORCES IN THE FIELD 77 forms of religion are Judaism, Mohammedanism, more properly called Islam, and Paganism. The Jews, who for thousands of years have held a prom- inent part on the world’s stage and are scattered all over the earth, number only 15,000,000. Islam, with 227,000,000 adherents, had its origin in Arabia and spread eastward into Persia, Meso- potamia, Afghanistan, Beluchistan, China, India and the East Indies, and northward and westward into Syria, Palestine, North Africa and Europe. The faith of Islam may be almost entirely encompassed within the two tenets: “There is no God but God (Allah) and Mohammed is his prophet.” All non-Christians except Jews and Mohammedans are included under the general term of paganism, which embraces , more than one- half of the pop- ulation of the world or 874,-. 000,000. Pagan- ism predomin- ates in Japan, China, Siam, Burma, India, most of the is- lands of the East Indies, and the larger part of Australia, the THE RELIGIOUS DIVISIONS OF THE WORLD. CHRISTIANITY EMBRACES 34.2 PER CENT. central and south-central portions of Africa, and the central parts of South America. 78 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS The graph on the preceding page shows the rel- ative strength of the religions of the earth. Mission Business.—It has .been estimated that $45,000,000 a year are being spent by the Protestant Churches of America and Europe in their foreign mis- sion enterprises,’ that $400,000,000 have already been invested by them in mission property throughout the world, and that 40,000 men and women are engaged in this enterprise in non-Christian lands. Add to this estimate what the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches are doing, statistics for which are not readily available, and it is no exaggeration to say that modern Christian missionary work is the largest as well as the most comprehensive effort of the Church. A GENERAL SURVEY OF OUR FOREIGN FIELDS The five non-Christian peoples to whom the foreign missionaries of the United Lutheran Church in 1 The Secretaries of the International Missionary Council have obtained the following figures of contributions for foreign missions received by the societies cooperating in the national missionary organizations that are represented in the Council. Only funds for recurring expenditures in the maintenance of missionary work are included. All capital expenditures for property and sums spent on work among people professing the Christian religion, have been excluded. An annual expenditure of about $45,000,000 in obedience to the great commission of Jesus Christ is surely a clear evidence of the vitality and missionary zeal of Protestant Christianity. EA TASTY ELLE rer cei ea oe dete catenncsceediactsncecseatscudoevuseeubaansepsdccncansese $797,378 Beeler Turmm iiiee, Ciancccacesceansonsestssesrsepnestetosscsmnusuce Pidnasrecedtestcceaceree 1,889 Dern rye ee ic rr eo eater canes be ctnhaatadnasccbtacaccecsuvecesndacosccostaseues 423,940 Finland (3 SocietieS) ...cccccccccccossccessereccccccsssrsccsssscseces 8T,256 UAT CS ire eeaccceew cae choc Baa ei can dacerab Ub iheccecanceedetccpaeacosesuse sens 100,471 Germany, oars eae ee ndeaseavsubevPitecccssecccheaseersancsqedsdvoeverstaescecars 1,190 Great) Bribe imriitecadtie cdcssssciieccsecccdsscessssedautshsatusacenersdpenas® 10,695,300 INGCHEPlAN GS ibis vlccccaxcessestecucseatscentntess a eed an Poca vacatanaeer sede 393,188 CUI PLAS and [ CANAGR terieracccrscccsscoecsasdcescncecassenibarsteoeces 29,305,774 NOL WEG. He casecrireaccasesostiniatsccedes depuis senebscstosavevsaseucsbenzcefastenne 754,690 Sr Sera io rice ros cxcw ee ik boa tpcuds donvanvenk bade dencdnccchdegeteboasasnecciyeresaune 1,300,687 Switzerland | (8) Societies) fccccc..2..ccscscososssnceoncesonsovenese 249,177 Africa (4 Reformed Church Synods) .....ccccceseeeeeses 322,942 $44,421,396 NVdVf ‘OAMOL NI SAHIYVNOISSIJT GNV SNVYGHLINY ASaNVdve ‘NOILVLS NOISSIJT V LY WAH], Ad dav] SEINAWYVD ONIAWTdSIC ‘VOINdW ‘VINGEIT JO NA DNAOX NVYTHLAT FORCES IN THE FIELD 19 America are preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ represent the great racial divisions of mankind. The foreign mission flag of our Church, therefore, contains all the colors of the complexions of the human race: brown, black, yellow, red and white. For our Church the brown field in this flag stands for the Telugus and Oriyas in India; the yellow field, for the Japanese and Chinese; the black field, for the Kpeles and allied tribes in Liberia, West Africa; the red field, for the Arawak Indians in British Guiana, who are related to our North Ameri- can Indians. The white field stands for the home ‘Church, the circle of missionary influ- ence and effort. The Spanish speaking inhabitants of Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America, among whom we have missionaries, are nominal Roman Catholics. Location of our Foreign Fields.—The five mission fields of our Church are located in the Madras Pres- idency of India; in the islands of Kyushu and Hondo, Japan; in Liberia, West Africa; in British Guiana and Buenos Aires, South America and in the Shantung province of China. The geographical diversity of these fields is strikingly interesting. India is a large peninsula, which juts out from the southeastern part of the continent of Asia. In FOREIGN MISSION FLAG 80 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS area it is about one-half the size of the United States of America; in population it is three times larger. Japan is a group of four large and a thousand or more small islands, which lie off the eastern coast of Asia and have an area about the size of the state of California, with a population of 60,000,000. If the islands of Japan were transferred to tthe eastern coast of the United States, they would extend from Maine on the north to Cuba on the south, with Tokio, the capital, opposite Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Liberia, the only negro republic in the world, is a small country on the west coast of Africa, as large as the state of Ohio, with a population estimated at 2,000,000. British Guiana and Buenos Aires, Argentine, are three thousand miles apart. The one is a small trop- ical colony of Great Britain, located in the northern part of South America; the other is the largest city in the republic of Argentine, with a population of nearly two millions. Our Foreign Mission Rivers.—The location of our foreign mission fields is facilitated by the fact that every one of them except Japan is associated with a river. The Rajahmundry field in India lies along the banks of the Godavery river; the Guntur field, south of the Kistna river. These are two of the important rivers of India, which are regarded by all Hindus as sacred streams. Our field in Liberia is bisected by the St. Paul River, the second largest river in the country, and is bounded on the north by the Loffa and on the south by the St. John River. The out- stations in our British Guiana mission field are lo- cated on the Berbice River, and Buenos Aires is on FORCES IN THE FIELD 81 the La Plata River. These are our foreign mission rivers. Latitude of Fields—Three of our foreign fields are located in the tropics. The India mission lies between 16 degrees and 18 degrees north latitude, on the same parallel as Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Liberia and British Guiana are each about 5 degrees above the equator. The Japan mission and Buenos Aires are on opposite sides of the equator, the one about 383 degrees north, the other about 35 degrees south latitude. When it is winter in Japan and the United States of America, it is summer in Argentine. Our China mission field in the Shantung province is on the 36th degree north latitude on a parallel line with southern California and southern Virginia. Travel Routes——Missionaries bound for India travel by the shortest route to Europe, through the Mediterranean, Red and Arabian seas to Bombay and then cross the peninsula by rail, or around Cape Comorin to Colombo, Ceylon, and then across to the mainland, where they entrain for Madras and Guntur or Rajahmundry. By making close connections in Europe the journey lasts about six weeks. Those who go to Japan or China cross our North American con- tinent to the Pacific coast, where they take a steam- ship for some port in Japan or China. The entire journey by land and sea consumes about four weeks. To reach Liberia our missionaries may take a direct steamer from New York to Monrovia but prefer to break the monotony of such a long sea voyage by stop- ping over in Europe. Either way the voyage lasts from four to six weeks. British Guiana is reached in fifteen days by boat from New York through the 82 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS waters of the West Indies; Buenos Aires in about a month by a sea voyage southward through the Atlantic Ocean across the Equator and along the coast of South America. Sociological Contrasts.—The sociological contrasts between the Christian converts in our foreign fields are noteworthy. In India the majority of Christians have been won from the depressed classes, commonly called outcasts and known in India as Panchamas. The caste designations of those who have responded most extensively to the preaching of the Gospel are Malas and Madigas. They are poor and ignorant people, who for ages have occupied the lowest places in Indian society. As yet not many of the middle and high castes have accepted holy baptism, but the influence of Christianity is gradually extending to these classes in many ways. In Japan most of the converts are from the middle and student classes, especially the latter. While in India there are frequent mass movements, which bring many thousands into the Church, whole villages sometimes being baptized at one time, in Japan con- verts are made more slowly by individual evangelistic effort. The influence of the Japanese converts, how- ever, is relatively greater and more effective indi- vidually, because of their better education and higher social standing. In Liberia the mission work formerly was largely confined to the Americo-Liberians, the descendants of freed slaves, living along the coast. Within recent years our missionaries have made earnest efforts to reach the primitive tribes of aboriginal negroes in the interior. In 1923 Zozo, a station near the bound- FORCES IN THE FIELD 83 ary line of French Guinea, was added to the two other interior stations, Sanoghie and Kpolopele. The non-Christians reached in British Guiana are red-skinned South American Indians and indentured East Indians and their descendants, who came from that part of British India where the Hindi language is spoken. Financial Forces.—The foreign mission work of the United Lutheran Church in America now requires an annual expendi- ture of over $800,000. The bud- get adopted by the Board of Foreign Missions for the year 1923, includ- ing missionaries’ salaries, appropri- | 94 CENTS GO DIRECTLY TO THE WORK ABROAD ated $253,000 for the India Mission, which is nearly 60 per cent of the 50¢ YOUR FOREIGN MISSION DOLLAR 3 7/10 PER CENT FOR HOME ADMINIS- TRATION; 2 3/10 PER CENT FOR LITER- ATURE AND PUBLICITY; 94 PER CENT FOR THE FOREIGN FIELDS. total. foreign ex- penditures. The Japan mission got $118,000, or about 25 per cent; the Liberia mission $44,500, or 10 per cent; Buenos Aires $26,000; British Guiana $4,700. The congregation in New Amsterdam receives an in- come of about two thousand dollars a year from prop- erty and funds left in trust by the original founders. Its funds are invested in government bonds and one hundred shares of the Royal Bank of Canada, 84 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS The home base expenditures for administration, literature and publicity, in the amount of $44,000, are about six per cent of the entire expenditure. The graph on the preceding page shows how the money was spent. While $525,000 was the sum fixed by the United Lutheran Church as the annual apportionment during the years 1921-23, less than 65 per cent of this ap- portioned amount was paid into the treasury. As a consequence the Board of Foreign Missions continued to suffer financially on account of an indebtedness carried over from the first biennium of the merger. To relieve its financial embarrassment and to provide for imperative advance work in all foreign fields a special appeal was made in 1923 under the title of the Foreign Mission Forward Fund to secure at least $300,000. To the $350,000 realized from apportionment pay- ments, the Women’s Missionary Society added $150,- 000, one-fifth of the total income, designated for the support of women’s work abroad; and the balance of the Board’s income was received through contribu- tions for special purposes, for the support of foreign mission pastors and proteges in foreign fields. Missionary Forces.—More important than the finan- cial forces in the foreign mission enterprise are the missionary forces. Money contributions are a substitute for personal service. With a confirmed membership of over 800,000 the United Lutheran Church in America has 175 missionaries in its over- seas service, an average of 4,500 members at home contributing for every missionary serving abroad. Number of Missionaries.—The India mission em- FORCES IN THE FIELD 85 ploys nearly sixty per cent of the missionary forces or 115 missionaries, of whom 80 are women—wives of missionaries or single women. Some wives of mis- sionaries are placed in independent charge of mission work and all of them exert more or less missionary influence in and through their homes. Of the 35 missionaries at work in the Japan mission 21 are women, six of whom are single women. Thirty mis- sionaries are serving in our Liberia mission, of whom 19 are women—nine single women and ten wives of missionaries. In Buenos Aires there are three or- dained missionaries, of whom two are married; in the British Guiana Mission one ordained man and his wife. The wives of missionaries placed in independ- ent charge of mission work have the right of voice and vote in the organized mission; otherwise they have the right of voice only. Besides ordained missionaries unordained men are employed in two of our missions. One in India is a physician, one a teacher in the college and two are agricultural missionaries. In Liberia two are phy- sicians, one a teacher, one a builder, one an engineer and one an agriculturalist. Their standing and salary are the same as those of ordained men. Native Forces.—Not only foreign missionaries but also native workers must be counted in the mission- ary forces. Indeed, the success of any mission de- pends largely upon the number, consecration and ef- ficiency of its native workers, whose testimony con- cerning Christ and Christianity to their fellow nationals is of the profoundest and most far-reaching importance. On account of its longer history and greater number of converts the India mission excels 86 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS in the number of men and women employed as teach- ers, evangelists, catechists and pastors. It has 3,000 native workers of all grades; the Japan mission has 20, the Liberia mission 26, the Buenos Aires mission 12, and the British Guiana mission six. To produce these native missionary forces training schools of various sorts and especially theological seminaries are essential mission institutions. The human forces of men and money at work in our foreign mission fields grow stronger as the work develops in response to the increasing missionary zeal and effort of the home Church. Primarily, how- ever, the success of the missionary enterprise does not depend on the human forces of man power and money power, but on the divine forces of Christ’s almighty presence in His Church and of the mission- ary influence of the Holy Spirit upon the lives and resources of Christ’s disciples. INDIA India, the magnet for adventurers of every race since time immemorial, was first invaded about two thousand years before Christ, in the time of Abraham, by bands of Aryans who penetrated the passes of the Himalaya Mountains. As these early invasions increased in frequency and force the aborigines were driven southward into the hot plains of the peninsula and there formed the stock of the present Dravid- ians and the still more primitive hill tribes. India was probably known to the Jews in the days of David and Solomon and to the Pheenicians in the reign of Hiram, king of Tyre, as the land of Ophir, FORCES IN THE FIELD 87 the land of gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks; and if Ophir and India are identical, this wonderful land made a rich contribution to the building of the tem- ple of Jehovah at Jerusalem. Three hundred and twenty-seven years before Christ, Alexander the Great invaded India at the head of his mighty army of Grecians; but the heat of the tropics was a more powerful enemy than the Indian armies, and he withdrew from the country, not, however, ‘without having founded some cities during his brief stay, of which the present city of Haidarabad is one. Early Christian Missions. — Christian tradition claims that Thomas, one of the twelve apostles of Christ, planted Christianity in India in the first cen- tury. There is still a considerable group of Syrian Christians in the native state of Travancore, on the west coast, numbering about one-fifth of the entire Christian population of the peninsula, who call them- selves Thomas Christians. A more trustworthy tra- dition connects their origin with Thomas, bishop of Edessa, in the year 345 A. D. Many of them now owe allegiance to the pope, and others are under a bishop consecrated for them by the patriarch of Antioch. In the year 1000 A. D. India fell under the sway of Islam and Moslems ruled it for over 750 years. Under the Mogul kings some of the finest buildings in India were erected, great mosques and splendid tombs, such as the unrivaled Taj Mahal at Agra. Today there are actually more followers of the false prophet in India than in any other country on earth. Six years after Columbus discovered America 88 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese adventurer, in 1498, reached the shore of India, the land which Columbus endeavored to find but never reached. The discovery of India rather than that of America fired the mis- Sionary zeal of the Roman Catholic Church. Francis Xavier went to India in 1543, and for nearly two hundred years Jesuits and other Roman Catholic priests and monks were the only Christian mission- aries in the land. Today the papacy claims about 42 per cent of the entire Christian population of the peninsula. Protestant Missions.—Protestant missionary work was begun by two Lutheran missionaries at Tran- quebar in 1706. Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Hein- rich Pluetschau, educated at the Halle institutions, which furnished Henry Melchior Muhlenberg to the Lutheran Church in America, were called and com- missioned by the king of Denmark to preach the gospel to the inhabitants of ,his Danish colony in South India. Ziegenbalg made a good beginning. Concerning the trials and problems, history and suc- cess of the Danish-Halle Mission, of which Christian Frederick Schwartz was the outstanding missionary, one could write a separate book. In 1798, eighty-seven years after Ziegenbalg, Wil- liam Carey, the Baptist cobbler and preacher, pastor of the little church at Kettering, England, expected great things from God and undertook great things for God, when he went to India as a foreign mission- ary. He landed at Serampore, another Danish set- tlement, because the East India Company would not permit his entrance into the great city of Calcutta. In 18138 this company removed its restrictions against ee ee a FORCES IN THE FIELD 89 missionary work, and since that time Protestant mis- sions have made rapid progress in every part of India. The Government of India.—The East India Com- pany of England through its vigorous and successful trading posts in many parts of the peninsula out- stripped competitive French, Portuguese, Dutch and Danish efforts of a similar character, and in 1850, after the famous Sepoy mutiny, the government of India was transferred to the crown of Great Britain. India now represents one-seventh of the territory and three-fourths of the population of the British Empire in the world. The seven provinces of the Punjab, United Provinces, Bombay, Madras, Bengal, Eastern Bengal, Burma and Assam, are directly un- der British rule, while the kings of the 160 native ‘states have with them, usually at their capitals, a British resident, who advises the king on all impor- tant subjects. At the head of this complicated system of government is the viceroy, appointed by the king of England, who bears the title of emperor of India. On the whole the rule of England has been benign and beneficent, and generally favorable to Christian missions. Encouragement has been given to Chris- tian educational institutions by granting them finan- cial aid both for the erection of school buildings and for running expenses. | Recent Political Movements.—Within recent years, especially since the great war, England has exper- ienced increasing difficulty in the government of India on account of the growing spirit of self-determina- tion among the natives. The non-cooperation move- ment, headed by Mahatma Gandhi, created wide- spread disturbances by its assertion of passive re- 90 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS sistence to the English government and to all West- ern influences and institutions. England met the de- mand of leading Indians by a Reform Act put into effect in December, 1919, which has placed more Indians into responsible governmental positions and looks towards ultimate self-government. Every mis- sionary who now goes to India must familiarize him- self with the motives, achievements and aims of this indigenous political, economic and social movement, because of its decided effect on the character and con- duct of mission work. Religious and Linguistic Divisions —The ambitious plans of those who wish to see a united and powerful India, free from foreign control, are hindered by the numerous linguistic and religious divisions of the people. There are 185 distinct languages and dialects, sixteen of which are spoken by more than 3,000,000 each. Telugu is spoken by about 20,000,000, Tamil by 17,000,000, Oriya by 10,000,000. Hindi is spoken by over 90,000,000. These are the languages in which we, as American Lutherans, are most interested, be- cause our mission fields lie in the Telugu area, south of which Tamil and north of which Oriya and Hindi are spoken. Some of our missionaries are learning to use the Oriya language in the Jeypore field. Concerning the religious divisions of India the last Indian census of March, 1921, reveals interesting fig- ures. There were, according to this census, 318,- 942,480 people in India, not including the island of Ceylon. The increase in the ten-year census period was 3,786,084. Classified according to religion the census returns show that both Buddhism and Mohammedanism have advanced more rapidly than NE ee FORCES IN THE FIELD 91 Hinduism and Jainism. There are now two hundred millions of Hindus and sixty-eight millions of Moham- medans. ‘The former gained only eight per cent, and the latter a little more than three per cent from 1911 to 1921. The Christians in India number 4,754,079. Since the enumerators are non-Christians these figures may be regarded as not overdrawn. The Christian gain is 22.6 per cent during the census period, which is decidedly encouraging. The Telugus.—The Telugu area includes that part of India, which extends northward from the city of Madras along the coast of the Bay of Bengal almost as far as the Mahanandi River, to the confines of Bengal, and far inland into the heart of the Dekkan, covering a territory somewhat larger than Spain. Two large rivers flow through the Telugu country, the Godavery and the Kistna. The delta lands of these rivers are very fertile, numerous canals irrigat- ing the soil and furnishing also means of travel and traffic. The chief products of the country are rice, sugar, cotton and indigo. Palm trees of all kinds are numerous; the teak of the native forests is used in the construction of the better class of houses. The Indian banyan tree with its aerial roots, is a familiar object to the natives. Compared with the Aryans of North India they have a darker complexion, longer heads, flatter noses, more irregular features, and are shorter in stature. In lieu of physical strength and vigor they possess, to a marked degree, the power of patient endurance. By the side of a highly developed mystical sense there exists a very low standard of morality, both being largely due to the prevailing religion. 92 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS Like all India the Telugu country is a land of vil- lages. Ninety per cent of the population lives in towns and villages,‘ which, although different in size, do not vary much in general appearance. The cul- tivated land around the towns and villages is fre- quently owned by absentee landlords, called zem- indars, whose bond servants the farmérs usually are. The homes of wealthy natives are large bungalows with roomy verandas; those of the middle and lower classes are gloomy and unattractive, usually consist- ing of one or two rooms, earthen floor, mud walls and a thatched roof of palm leaves. Little furniture is used. In many homes, cows, calves, buffaloes and bullocks are received on intimate terms. A few brass plates, cups and mugs, earthen cooking vessels and water jars, a knife but no forks, are the ordinary kitchen utensils. They are kept scrupulously clean lest the food be defiled and thus the caste be broken. The ordinary daily food of the people is rice with curry, or some form of millet. Their clothing is scant, and, as a rule, children wear no clothing until they are four or five years of age. The passion of the people for jewelry, their love of display, their feasting at weddings and funerals, and the litigation in which they are often involved, frequently leave them for years in the clutches of the money-lender, who demands exorbitant rates of interest. Father Heyer.—The history of our mission among the Telugus in India begins with the honored name of Rev. Christian Frederick Heyer, M. D., familiarly called Father Heyer. He was born in Helmstedt, duchy of Brunswick, Germany, July 10, 1798, the year in which William Carey landed in India. When FORCES IN THE FIELD 93 Heyer was fourteen years old he crossed the Atlantic Ocean and went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he worked in his uncle’s hat factory. He studied theology in Philadelphia under the direction of Dr. J. H. Helmuth, Dr. F. D. Schaeffer and Dr. John C. Baker, finishing at the university of Goettingen, Ger- many. Returning to the United States he was licensed to preach in 1817 by the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, which ordained him three years later at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Until he was called to be the first foreign missionary of the Lutheran Church in America he served as a home missionary in Crawford and Erie counties, Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh, and Baltimore, in Kentucky and Indiana as an itinerant preacher, and served settled pastorates in Cumberland, Maryland, and Somerset, Pennsyl- vania. During the twenty-four years which elapsed between his licensure and his departure for India, Heyer held eight different appointments, averaging three years in each. The reason for these frequent changes may be found, in part, in a roving disposition ; but we must not ignore the fact that the work to which he was called in most of his appointments was of a temporary character. At any rate, it is evident that the Church always displayed confidence in his ability and fidelity, regardless of the task which it asked him to undertake. Today, after more than half a century, every congregation with which his name was in any way associated, refers to that association with justifiable pride. Heyer went to India and served throughout his career there as a foreign missionary appointed by the Ministerium of Pennsylvania and supported by 94 FORCES IN FOREIGN MISSIONS it. He began the mission at Guntur, Madras Pres- idency, and served his first term from 1842 to 1846. After having selected Guntur as the place to start the mission, the most interesting and romantic per- iod of Heyer’s life began. Imagine a man nearly fifty years old, possessing a burning missionary zeal, with deep devotion to duty, great strength of pur- pose and indefatigable activity, entering upon an en- tirely new and untried sphere of labor in a foreign land among a people whose language, mode of life, habits of thought, customs and religion were alien to him! O« ot S . ‘ , r ‘ z J 4% "a é baa Nie Ms Raye in ha acter ige rel iad er De Ce Saree - ' wa ei: Pune A Prt Ree 2h LO Sg) Bertha YM weer ed q agin ; ‘ ; ? . f 4 b @ —_— 5 > : rn) wie 8 Ff } i +a rae” etl wget vn ft w ait . rae eae 1 aoe wie ie iva rag YIHGe “ay (ee. a PU A XB oe _ ’ 7 tin BE A AED Sete AAS je (7, ee wed 3 ; <7 | emi Ly. (00 ag aaa | J f t f 7 7) : 44 ba a. 4 is a evr! Salat Cii08 wi ae ui hikers AN Ma Pat ii i) C © Lge enka z be) et © ae Li HELE Fi S o ia 203 2852 wt Beri 1 y A ihe Wty ny peat Qrit's 4 i