ilili 
 
//./o:oh 
 
 ^X Wit ^hcolagtar & 
 
 <^^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^^ 
 
 Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. 
 
 l\llll,U^S\lll F. 1826. 
 
 1908. 
 Questions and phases of 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 OF 
 
 MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 Frank F. Ellinwood, D. D., LL.D. 
 
 Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presby 
 terian Church, U. S. A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 *'THE GRtAT CONQUEST." 
 
 AND "ORIENTAL RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 $ 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 
 1899 
 
Copyright, 1899, 
 
 BY 
 
 DoDD. Mead & Company. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The successive chapters of this book are topical 
 and claim no logical order. They present each a 
 different aspect of Christian missions. The facts 
 and principles stated are the result of many years 
 of observation in the practical work of correspond- 
 ence and administration. The difficulties and en- 
 couragements of the foreign missionary work are 
 fairly considered, though with a growing convic- 
 tion that the various elements of progress which 
 unite in the one great world movement far exceed 
 all obstacles. 
 
 Some of the chapters deal with questions of mis- 
 sionary policy. The age of romance in missions 
 is past, and the plain practical service must be 
 studied, and so far as possible the best methods 
 must be devised. It would be strange if the new 
 century now about to open should not reveal the 
 necessity for some important changes in adminis- 
 tration and in the forms of work upon the field. 
 It is to be hoped that as compared with the past 
 **seed sowing," the work of harvest may have a 
 larger place than heretofore, and that chief atten- 
 tion may be given to enlarged plans and enlarged 
 
 ill 
 
PREFACE 
 
 results. Though the time may be long before the 
 often expressed desire for a ''science of missions" 
 shall be fully realized, yet general principles of pol- 
 icy may well be deduced from the combined ex- 
 perience of a century, and in the development of 
 these a wise system of missionary economics may 
 be attained. 
 
 Other chapters relate to the reflex influence 
 of missions upon the development of the faith and 
 the life, of the church at home. The relations of 
 prayer to missions, the place of higher education, 
 and the influence of medical missions are sever- 
 ally discussed. Something of an apologetic tone 
 occasionally appears as against the stock criti- 
 cisms of the times. 
 
 The design of the author in this grouping of dis- 
 tinct topics, has been to show the place and setting 
 of the great missionary enterprise, as seen from 
 different angles of observation, and in the particu- 
 lar environment of this closing decade of the cen- 
 tury. One generation later the whole situation 
 will doubtless be greatly changed. The tide of civi- 
 lization will be far advanced, the relations of coun- 
 tries and races will be greatly modified, the conflict 
 of different systems of religion and philosophies 
 will have become more general and more decisive, 
 the means of communication and the area and in- 
 fluence of secular science will have been immensely 
 increased. Meanwhile the missionary work will be 
 far better understood by the Church and by Chris- 
 
 iv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 tian nations. Its moral and intellectual achieve- 
 ments, its relief of sickness and misfortune, its ele- 
 vation of the degraded and oppressed, its far reach- 
 ing influence for good upon all society will be held 
 at their true value. And it is to be hoped that more 
 adequate provision v^^ill be made for a crusade 
 which is charged with so great a task. 
 
 Part second relates to past and current providen- 
 tial movements in the world, and their value as co- 
 operating agencies in the progress of redemption. 
 The influence of discovery, science, commerce, di- 
 plomacy, is recognized as having acted an im- 
 portant part in God's broader work. While the suc- 
 cess of missions in the highest sense must depend 
 on the work of the Holy Ghost in renewing the 
 hearts of men, and while the specific errand of the 
 missionary is that of preaching the Gospel, yet the 
 fact must be recognized that in the divine plan 
 many collateral agencies are embraced. The mis- 
 sionary's work is not diplomacy, but God's method 
 includes diplomacy, and even the overruling of na- 
 tional strifes on the battle field. Missionary work 
 has little to do with commerce, but in God's plan 
 commerce often becomes the handmaid of the Gos- 
 pel. The development of agriculture and the 
 opening of gold fields, new channels of communica- 
 tion, and even the establishment of protectorates 
 over savage and partially civilized nations — all 
 these enter into the one great movement by which 
 the kingdom of God is advanced. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It has been one of the mistakes of the Church 
 that she has not sufficiently counted upon the action 
 and cooperation of a present and abiding Provi- 
 dence. Supernatural forces are freely recognized 
 in the past, but current history is assigned to nat- 
 ural causes. The written Gospel of the First Cen- 
 tury is indeed the wisdom of God and the power of 
 God unto salvation, but that is not all of the divine 
 resources. We have the deposit of truth and in- 
 spiration given nineteen centuries ago, but we have 
 also a living Savior, and an overruling Spirit whose 
 superintendence directs human progress along all 
 lines. 
 
 Those whose only Gospel is that of social evolu- 
 tion have at least the advantage of recognizing a 
 present active force however impersonal. They 
 would hesitate to affirm that the developing process 
 is the result of anybody's plan or purpose; they re- 
 ject all telcological arguments for the being of a 
 personal God, and yet they do recognize a goal 
 ahead, a manifest destiny of the race; they regard 
 the world order as one. Those who profess belief 
 in a supernatural and controlling providence ought 
 with at least equal claims to regard the world order 
 as one, and the world plan as one, however numer- 
 ous and varied the agencies which God employs. 
 The Kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring 
 presents. Even the wrath of man shall praise God. 
 
 The present volume deals with some phases of 
 the great mission problem which are less frequently 
 
 vi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 treated in the current missionary literature, but 
 which, nevertheless, are important in any full and 
 adequate view of the subject. It is hoped that while 
 the book may be read by many students of missions 
 of all classes, it may be found especially helpful to 
 missionaries on the field, and to pastors in the home 
 churches. On the pastors rests the chief task of in- 
 teresting the great body of believers in the procla- 
 mation of the Gospel. That which shall furnish the 
 greatest amount of material, suggestion and in- 
 spiration, for the missionary sermon is what is most 
 needed at the present time. 
 
 The book is undenominational, though it is em- 
 phatically Protestant. It builds upon foundations 
 which are emphatically Biblical and evangelical, 
 and makes no compromises of essential truth, yet it 
 magnifies charity and cooperation in the common 
 world-wide work. 
 
 It has not been thought necessary to encumber 
 the text with references and foot notes and citations 
 of authorities, but important quotations are in- 
 serted with proper credits in the body of the text. 
 There is some unavoidable repetition as between 
 different chapters, for the reason that the same facts 
 or principles often seem necessary to the illustra- 
 tion of different subjects. The author is well aware 
 that work done amid the distractions of a pu])lic 
 office can scarcely be quite free from defects. 
 
 R R ELLINWOOD. 
 
 New York, July, 1899. 
 vii 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 PRESENT HINDRANCES TO MISSIONS AND THEIR 
 REMEDIES. 
 
 Increased interest and increased opposition. Genera! 
 discussion of the subject. Hospitality of governments. 
 Careful avoidance of needless antagonism. Implied 
 conflict of Christianity with ancestral w^orship. The 
 difficulty not a new one. Need of a kind and sympathetic 
 treatment. Vague ideas of human "Brotherhood." The 
 higher scriptural view. The Parliament of Religions. A 
 just understanding of non-Christian religions. Misconcep- 
 tion of the character and the volume of missionary work. 
 Effect of the prevailing doctrines of evolution in the study 
 of races. Influence of diplomacy. Conflict with commerce. 
 Race antipathy. i 
 
 REFLEX INFLUENCE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS ON 
 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 The New Testament a missionary volume. The best 
 history of the Church is that of its missionary 
 work. Missions as illustrating the influence of high 
 and devoted personality. Its illustration of a Divine 
 providence in the world. Its relation to the indispensable 
 need of a supernatural power. The best illustration of an 
 altruistic and Christ-like spirit in the world. Its lessons 
 in comparative national ethics. Best manifestation of 
 Christian union. Relations to anthropological science. 35 
 
 THE FOREIGN MISSION BOARD A UNIVERSITY OF 
 BENEFICENCE. 
 
 It organizes and supports the services of men and 
 women in preaching and t.^aching the Gospel truths. 
 
 iii 
 
iv CONTENTS 
 
 It is a vast Church Erection Society. It is a great 
 bureau of education. It is an extensive board of aid in se- 
 curing the erection and endowment of schools and colleges. 
 It is a great publishing establishment. It is a vast medical 
 and eleemosynary society. 56 
 
 THE PLACE OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN MISSION- 
 ARY WORK. 
 Its relations to governments. Results of past experi- 
 ences. Its influence in enkindling secular ambitions. 
 The effect of education in foreign lands. The relations of 
 educational to evangelistic work. Personal tendency to 
 magnify the latter. The need of training leaders to grapple 
 with the manifold errors of the mass. The relations of 
 missionary training to science and speculation. Its re- 
 lation to social and national ethics. Illustrations in Japan. 
 The proportions of educational and evangelistic work. The 
 relation of endowed and independent institutions to those 
 under care of missionary boards. y6 
 
 MEDICAL MISSIONS. 
 
 Their scriptural warrant. Reasons for the miracu- 
 lous healing of apostolic times. The influence of 
 medical missions in opening the way for the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel, as illustrated by many exam- 
 ples. The methods which warrant and commend 
 medical missions. Peculiar appeals of the sick and 
 suff"ering in all lands. The generous examples shown in 
 Christian communities in the support of hospitals and asy- 
 lums. The noble work of the Red Cross Society as an 
 illustration of the Christian spirit. The good accomplished 
 in medical missions in educating native students and thus 
 revolutionizing the medical practice of the world. The in- 
 fluence of medical missions in delivering mankind from 
 the bondage of heathen superstition, especially from their 
 slavish fear of evil spirits and the false practices of jug- 
 glers. Dissipation of these errors by the spread of rational 
 medical science. The influence of medical missions in 
 rectifying the social wrongs of woman, and saving the lives 
 of her children. The special benefit derived from the freer 
 
CONTENTS V 
 
 access of medical women and the alleviation of the miseries 
 of their own sex. 104 
 
 THE FAITH ELEMENT IN MISSIONS. 
 
 The mission work dependent upon Divine power, and 
 therefore always a subject of prayer. The practice of 
 missionary boards in making their appropriations in ad- 
 vance, and based upon their faith in God and His people. 
 Diversity of opinion in regard to what are considered pre- 
 eminently faith missions. The relation of faith missions 
 to faith healing. The work of the late Rev. George Muller 
 at home and abroad. Methods of raising money, the light 
 of apostolic experience in this regard. Example of Paul 
 and other apostles. Medieval mission work. Faith limited 
 to a particular phase or department of work. Risks to the 
 health of families. Need of kindly discussion and Chris- 
 tian charity in weighing differences of opinion and of prac- 
 tice. 131 
 
 FAITH IN ONE'S STAR AND FAITH IN GOD. 
 
 Prayer as an element of missionary heroism. Paul's ex- 
 ample of habitual prayerfulness. Experience of missionary 
 heroes in different ages and in different lands. Living- 
 stone's heroic life closed with prayer. Reference to Nan- 
 sen's polar expedition as described in "Farthest North." 
 Dr. Felix Adler's commendation of his heroism and sym- 
 metry of character though an agnostic. The influence of 
 Nansen's Christian training as a partial explanation. The 
 higher Christian heroism of Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, 
 D. D., of the Arcott Reformed Mission, as shown in the 
 tiger jungle. 153 
 
 A BUDDHIST DOCTRINE OF SALVATION BY FAITH. 
 Original Atheistic teachings of Gautama. Changes in- 
 troduced after his death. Felt need of a Divine helper and 
 hearer of prayer. Bodisats or Buddhas to come. Bud- 
 dhist Trinities. Northward migrations of the system. 
 Changes in Nepoul, Thibet, China and Japan. Semi-Theis- 
 tic tendencies. Development of a faith element. Distrust 
 of self-merit. The mystical celestial Buddha Amitabha. 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 His great merit sufficient to cover the sins and save the 
 souls of all men. Final emergence of a doctrine of a vi- 
 carious salvation through his righteousness. Remarkable 
 approach to Christian doctrines. i66 
 
 ANCIENT HINDU DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE AND 
 THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 
 
 Sacrificial elements in all religions. Their special promi- 
 nence in ancient Brahmanism. Reasons vi^hy the modern 
 Brahmans of the Brahmo Gamaj discard sacrifice and dis- 
 own its history. The real teachings of the Vedas on the 
 subject. The testimony adduced by Dr. Martyn Clark 
 from the Vedas. The opinion of the learned Dr. Mitra 
 Lai and his explanation of the changes in the position of 
 modern Hinduism. Former human sacrifices of peculiar 
 value. Ancient foreshadowings of a voluntary Divine 
 sacrifice for the good of men. Dr. Clark's use of the fact 
 in preaching Christ. 183 
 
PART II 
 
 The chapters embraced in part second relate to va- 
 rious historic events which illustrate the interven- 
 tion of the divine Providence in opening various 
 lands to the progress of civil and religious liberty 
 and the advancement of Christ's kingdom. 196 
 
 NAPOLEONISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 An early blow to the Spanish power which has recently 
 passed away from the Western Hemisphere. The action 
 of Napoleon I in proposing the transfer of Louisiana 
 to the United States and its results. The dethronement 
 of Ferdinand VII of Spain and crowning of his brother 
 as king. The consequent revolt in Mexico and all the 
 Spanish states of Central and South America and the 
 establishment of republican governments. The subsequent 
 exchange of Texas for Florida and the Spanish claims in 
 Oregon. The revolution in Mexico and the independence 
 of Texas. The annexation of Texas and the acquisition of 
 New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California as a result 
 of the war of Mexico. 
 
 The attempt of Napoleon III to establish a monarchy in 
 Mexico and the overruling of his plans for the establish- 
 ment of religious liberty, where Napoleon had been the 
 unconscious instrument in gaining civil liberty. I97 
 
 THE REGENERATION OF MEXICO. 
 
 The first revolt in Spanish-America in the revolution in 
 Mexico of 1810. Consideration of the general character of 
 Mexico and its people. Reference to its ancient civilization 
 and religious faith. Continued influence of the aspect. The 
 three centuries following the Spanish conquest. The intol- 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 erance of the Mexican hierarchy. Struggles for liberty. 
 War of the dictator, Santa Anna, with Mexico and Yuca- 
 tan. War with the United States resulting in the cession of 
 California. Large cessions of territory made by the treaty 
 of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. Struggles of the Mexican repub- 
 lic with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The ambitious 
 schemes of Napoleon III. The protest of the United States 
 government. The fall of Maximilian and tragic fate of 
 Carlotta. The re-establishment of the Archbishop Juarez. 
 Confiscation of the Catholic Church properties. The intro- 
 duction and influence of the Bible. 213 
 
 THE DAWN OF HAWAH. 
 
 The early condition of the Hawaiian Islands. Introduc- 
 tion of the Gospel and the establishment of the "so-called" 
 Sandwich Islands Mission. Its connection with the estab- 
 lishment and early work of the American Board of Com- 
 missioners for Foreign Missions. The school at Cornwall, 
 Conn., for the education of Sandwich Islanders and other 
 heathen youth. Many interesting incidents connected 
 with it. The life and death of Henry Obookiah, The wide- 
 spread interest in the experiment. The difficulties which 
 it encountered. The final abandonment of the plan of edu- 
 cating heathen youth in this country. The inspiring influ- 
 ence which the institution had nevertheless exerted in the 
 creation of the missionary spirit. 240 
 
 THE ACQUISITION OF THE SPANISH COLONIES 
 FROM A MISSIONARY STANDPOINT. 
 The providential character of the issue between the United 
 States and Spain. The reluctance of the United States 
 government to enter upon the conflict. The leading motives 
 which prevailed. The rapid, remarkable and successful 
 naval victories, and their immediate influence and conse- 
 quence with respect to the future history of nations and of 
 the world. The apparent evidences of providential inter- 
 ference broader than mere human plans. The relations of 
 these conquests to the work of the world's evangelization. 
 The paramount duty of American Christians imposed by 
 the new possessions. 254 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 AN ANGLO-SAXON ALLIANCE IN FOREIGN AIIS- 
 SIONS. 
 The friendly tone of the British press with respect to the 
 war of the United States with Spain. The deep and often 
 manifested sympathy shown by Christians in Great Brit- 
 ain and her colonies toward American missions. The ad- 
 vantage of English occupation and government in opening 
 fields and granting protection to American missionaries. 
 Great future work of Anglo-Saxon missions. 270 
 
MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 PRESENT HINDRANCES TO MISSIONS 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES 
 
 The cause of foreign missions is manifestly 
 growing in favor with its friends, and possibly in 
 disfavor with its enemies and critics. The number 
 of its friends is steadily increasing from year to 
 year. They are greatly reinforced from the ranks of 
 the young. The prayers of Christian mothers who 
 have been enlisted in the work of foreign missions 
 for the last twenty-five years have been answered, 
 not only on the mission fields, but in the enlarged 
 knowledge and quickened interest of their own sons 
 and daughters here at home. The student volun- 
 teer movement, inter-seminary missionary conven- 
 tions, and Christian Endeavor societies are the re- 
 sults. And very naturally under such circumstances 
 an increased interest is taken by many pastors and 
 churches ; and the preaching of an earnest mission- 
 ary sermon, or the holding of a missionary congress 
 in synod or conference, is a much more frequent 
 occurrence than formerly. Theological instruction 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 in our seminaries has never before placed so much 
 emphasis on the work of foreign missions. 
 
 But on the other hand there is also an increase in 
 the forces opposed to missions. The enemies of the 
 cause are multiplied ; they are more outspoken ; they 
 are more inventive of objections ; they are more bit- 
 ter ; and this, perhaps, for the reason that the work 
 has assumed greater proportions, and by its success 
 has challenged increased attention among intelligent 
 men and women of all classes. The secular maga- 
 zines and newspapers have found it worth while to 
 discuss the subject — its progress — its economics — 
 its diplomatic bearings — the burden and bother of it 
 to western governments. This conflict of opinion 
 is an old one, but it has some new elements. Now, 
 as never before, the battle of truth with error is on. 
 And it is, on the whole, auspicious that this world- 
 wide crusade of the Christian church has at least 
 won the attention of the general public ; and that it 
 is, and will continue to be, thoroughly and unspar- 
 ingly discussed. 
 
 Every great enterprise depending at all upon hu- 
 man sagacity requires an occasional re-examination. 
 To admit this is no confession of failure ; it may be 
 only a means to a fuller appreciation of past success. 
 The work of Christian missions ''after a century," to 
 limit ourselves to the modern movement, calls for 
 such a review. It opens the way for a broader 
 intelligence, possibly for improved methods. The 
 anti-mission tirade has become a popular fad, be- 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 cause, pertaining to interests at a safe distance, it 
 can be exploited by men of little brains and still less 
 accurate information. The only remedy must be 
 found in the diffusion of full, accurate, and general 
 knowledge. Some of the stock criticisms are amus- 
 ing and often fatal solvents of each other. Accord- 
 ing to one, the fellow-mortal to whom we offer "our 
 religion" as a substitute for his own, will feel in- 
 sulted and injured because he is already a brother in 
 full sympathy with our every truly religious aspira- 
 tion; but another insists that we shall find him desti- 
 tute of any dimmest conception of God, or any re- 
 ligious emotion, and that he will probably end our 
 interview by adding us to his larder for a cannibal 
 feast. Men and women who know nothing of our 
 own Anglo-Saxon history will declare oracularly 
 that it is impossible that a great nation shall change 
 its religion; and those who never knew the reflex 
 blessing of giving for any unselfish object, are sure 
 that the work of missions tends to impoverish the 
 Church and the country. Many of these current 
 cavils may pass without notice. They have been an- 
 swered many times, though as new generations of 
 ignorance are constantly springing up they will be 
 repeated indefinitely by those who hate the cause of 
 missions or desire a pretext for neglecting it. 
 
 I propose in this discussion to inquire what are 
 some of the more formidable obstacles which con- 
 front this great enterprise in this closing decade of 
 the century, and how they are to be met. Some of 
 
 3 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 these are not new, others are, or at least they have 
 come into new prominence. 
 
 (i) One difficulty which threatens the future 
 work of missions appears in the alarm manifested by 
 Oriental governments at the success of the Christian 
 propaganda. Roman emperors like Marcus Aure- 
 lius sincerely believed that the extension of Chris- 
 tianity in their time meant the overthrow, not merely 
 of moribund superstitions, but of the whole political 
 and social fabric of Roman society. And if we place 
 ourselves in the position of the Turk or other Mos- 
 lem rulers, it will not be difficult to understand how 
 the multiplication of Protestant schools and 
 churches, the revolution of koranic ideas of wom- 
 an's position, and the general diffusion of a higher 
 code of ethics might seem fatal to Mohammedan 
 civilization; and it would not be strange if just in 
 proportion to the success of Christian missions the 
 opposition of Moslem rulers should become more 
 pronounced. To a greater or less extent the anti- 
 foreign spirit in Japan may find a similar explana- 
 tion. Japanese Buddhists have not been so active 
 and aggressive for centuries as they are at the pres- 
 ent time. In Japan, however, the great truth is 
 recognized that freedom of thought is the condition 
 of progress, and that all systems of faith or philoso- 
 phy must wage their conflicts in an open field. 
 
 Now these peculiar elements in the missionary 
 problem require peculiar treatment. There should 
 be candor in admitting whatever is good in national 
 
 4 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 faiths or customs, and an avoidance of indiscrim- 
 inate denunciation, and of whatever tends to the dis- 
 loyalty or the denationalization of non-Christian 
 peoples. The best of causes may sometimes learn 
 wisdom and discretion from the antagonisms which 
 it encounters. There is nothing so good in this 
 world, that it may not be misapprehended and 
 abused. Even Paul's resolve, to know nothing save 
 Christ and Him crucified, may be perverted by the 
 missionary into an excuse for his ignorance of some 
 things which he ought to know. No enterprise re- 
 quires greater tact, a more generous courtesy, a finer 
 sense of what is due to the moral sensibilities of 
 those whom we would win from error, or a more 
 just recognition of one's proper relations to the gov- 
 ernments under which he lives. No one on a mod- 
 ern mission field should attempt the role of a Jehu 
 or a Luther or a John Knox: the environment is 
 different: the example of Paul who taught allegi- 
 ance to the existing ''powers" is far safer. Serious 
 evils have sometimes resulted from a misjudged and 
 mistaken zeal just here. Those Roman Catholic mis- 
 sionaries in Shantung who are said, on good au- 
 thority, to offer to all converts protection backed by 
 the fear of French gunboats, against the local mag- 
 istrates, are guilty not only of moral dereliction but 
 of a suicidal folly. A recent Chinese Minister at 
 Washington, Pung Quang Yu, in a paper presented 
 at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, very 
 justly complained of the many instanQCS in which 
 
 5 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 missions, backed by their governments, had pressed 
 the rights of their native converts against the juris- 
 diction of the local authorities of their own land; 
 and he condemned this mistaken and unjust policy 
 as a fatal barrier to missionary success. The true 
 aim of the missionary is to labor loyally and judi- 
 ciously, not for the overthrow of governments, but 
 for that enlightenment which shall render the people 
 better subjects and the governments themselves 
 more just and humane. This would have converted 
 Marcus Aurelius as well as his subjects, and he cer- 
 tainly would have made a far better Christian than 
 Constantine, or Vladimir, or Olaf Tryggvisen. 
 
 (2) Another difficulty in the way of missionary 
 success among Oriental nations lies in the conflict 
 which by implication Christianity presents with the 
 prevalent worship of ancestors. In China this filial 
 reverence amounts to a religion ; and among the edu- 
 cated classes it is about the only religion. In India 
 the ceremonial sradda performed for the peace of a 
 departed father is one of the most sacred of all reli- 
 gious duties. Now, however vague the conceptions 
 of the Chinese Confucianist, or the Hindu pantheist, 
 may be concerning the condition of the dead, Christi- 
 anity teaches him that the souls of his revered father 
 and all his long line of ancestors are still living, and 
 as they knew nothing of salvation by Jesus Christ 
 the implication is that they are forever lost. This is 
 indeed a tremendous stone of stumbling. When in 
 the first century A. D., Buddhism was preached and 
 
 6 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 accepted in China it also taught that the debt of 
 moral evil must be paid in the life to come, but it did 
 not present the issue so sharply. It did not judge 
 men with regard to a definite and hopeless defi- 
 ciency. It taught simply that a man's sowing, of 
 whatever kind, must bring forth a corresponding 
 harvest. And, moreover, the doctrine of transmi- 
 gration offered many future chances; while accord- 
 ing to the logic of the Christian missionary the one 
 probation of the unblest ancestor was final. It is not 
 well to underestimate this offense of the Cross of 
 Christ as it appears to a Mongolian. An intelligent 
 appreciation of it will beget a prayerful sympathy 
 for the missionary and his heavy task. But what I 
 wish particularly to meet is the flippant cavil of those 
 who, with no interest in religion of any kind, have 
 made the most of this particular plea in their assail- 
 ments of the work of missions, as if they alone had 
 thought of it. Missionaries have pondered it more 
 thoroughly and felt it a thousand times more deeply 
 than any critic, but instead of laying aside their work 
 they have been stirred to greater diligence. When 
 Dr. Hunter Corbett was called upon some years ago 
 by a church elder who, with eyes swollen with weep- 
 ing, told him half apologetically, that he had been 
 praying all night for his deceased father who had 
 never heard of Christ, the missionary's heart was 
 stirred to its profoundest depths. And when the 
 poor man, still weeping, reproached the Christian 
 world for having so long withheld the glad tidings 
 
 7 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 which it had possessed for nearly two thousand 
 years, the natural inference from his rebuke cer- 
 tainly was not that it should incur the guilt of a still 
 longer delay, but rather that it should fulfil the long 
 neglected duty with ever-increasing zeal. 
 
 There are many sad mysteries in the past history 
 of this world. Science presents even more of them 
 than Revelation. The sceptical philosopher dis- 
 courses calmly upon the enormous waste of life 
 which the doctrine of evolution supposes; he con- 
 templates serenely the carnival of death in which for 
 "millions of years" the strong have devoured the 
 weak ; he approves the continuance of the same ruth- 
 less conflict by man against man during the long 
 ages of his prehistoric career, and he finds the final 
 cause, the justification for all this, in the higher es- 
 tate of our present manhood. 
 
 But the Christian church cannot adopt this op- 
 timistic view of the past. It recognizes the mystery 
 overhanging the bygone ages of the world, and 
 while it believes that the "world order" as a whole 
 is infinitely wise and benevolent in the mind of Him 
 who encompasses the ages and to whom a thousand 
 years are but as one day and one day as a thousand 
 years, yet it is taught to believe "that the whole crea- 
 tion groaneth and travaileth in pain together until 
 now," waiting for the full appearing of Him who is 
 the world's Light and Life. Moreover, it believes 
 that a knowledge of God which was once revealed 
 to men has been set aside by the Gentile nations who 
 
 8 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 have worshiped the creature more than the Crea- 
 tor, and that this fact, were there no other, has de- 
 layed and still delays the full manifestation of the 
 Son of God. The plea that the sad implication of 
 Christian doctrine should constitute a reason for de- 
 sisting from missionary effort, for the present gen- 
 eration in China or elsewhere, involves an argument 
 which proves too much. It would block the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel everywhere except to the children 
 of saints. For the past history of the human race 
 this generation is not responsible ; but for those who 
 believe in Christ as the only Savior of men there is 
 no option. What degrees of light the Spirit of God 
 may have imparted to men of past ages, or what may 
 be the number of those, who, having ''by patient con- 
 tinuance in well doing" sought "glory and immor- 
 tality," have found "eternal life" through the blood 
 of Christ, we cannot know. We only know that to- 
 day we have a distinct message to offer, a more sure 
 word of prophecy, Christ evidently set forth cruci- 
 fied among men. The wise missionary will not dwell 
 upon the condition of dead ancestors, but will lov- 
 ingly present the offer of redemption to the living. 
 
 Experience shows that the common people in 
 China and elsewhere receive the offer gladly, and to 
 the literati, the Pharisees of China, the inference to 
 be drawn concerning ancestors is not more distaste- 
 ful than was the preaching of Christ to the Pharisees 
 of Judea, whose ancestors had embraced idolatry 
 even after having knov/n the truth, and stoned the 
 
 9 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 prophets who had been sent to reclaim them. Nor 
 are the impHcations of the Gospel message now at 
 all different from what they were when Paul pro- 
 claimed the same doctrines to the proud sages of 
 Athens, and to the whole heathen world of his time. 
 The proclamation of the truth has always presented 
 the same alternatives as a savior of life and death, 
 and any alleged reasons why it should not be pro- 
 claimed to heathen nations now, might have been 
 urged in the Middle Ages against all Christian effort 
 among our ancestors, the Norsemen and the Druid 
 Celts. 
 
 (3) The work of missions suffers in our time 
 from the prevalence of a sentimental and meaning- 
 less plea for the brotherhood of men and father- 
 hood of God. This seems very plausible and even 
 Christ-like. It poses, however, as the very opposite 
 of ''traditional Christianity," and chides its alleged 
 narrowness and bigotry. It is a brotherhood to be 
 obtained not by transformation and elevation of 
 character, but by the elimination of all the more 
 salient and distinctive elements in the faiths and cus- 
 toms of men. It is a leveler which virtually demol^ 
 ishes; yet it passes for a beneficent gospel of love, 
 the very highest attainment of this advanced age. It 
 was not first preached on the platform of the Chi- 
 cago Parliament of Religions; it had already been 
 proclaimed by the late Cheshub Chunder Sen, of the 
 Indian Brahmo Somaj, who in a published appeal 
 invited all religionists of the world to unite in "One 
 
 10 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 Theistic Church of the New Dispensation which is 
 in Calcutta." Somewhat later the gifted Hindu, 
 Mohini Chatter ji, translator of the Bhagavad Gita, 
 took the same broad and seemingly generous 
 ground, admitting that Jesus as well as Krishna was 
 probably an incarnation of Vishnu. Mr. P. C. Mo- 
 zoomdar, disciple and successor of Chunder Sen, 
 after listening to the appeals for universal brother- 
 hood at Chicago, informed the audience that they 
 were only taking the ground which the Brahmo 
 Somaj had advocated for half a century. 
 
 Now any theory of brotherhood embracing all 
 faiths of men without distinction, welcoming the 
 purest and the most degrading systems, however an- 
 tagonistic their principles and however hostile their 
 spirit, must be fatal to the fundamental conception 
 of Christian missions. For, if men are all that they 
 should be and only need mutually to recognize that 
 fact, what necessity is there for a gospel of salva- 
 tion? If monotheism can be at one with polytheism, 
 if Buddhism can fraternize with the Christian doc- 
 trine of the Trinity, if the fierce Moslem Turks and 
 Koords can really be made to love the Armenian 
 Christians by the rhetorical enthusiasm of a con- 
 venticle, all men will no doubt rejoice in the blessed 
 consummation. But the outlook was in fact never 
 less promising than now. Christianity with its mis- 
 sions is not the only obstacle in the way of the all- 
 embracing ^'Universal Religion." No one of the 
 great faiths is ready for an amalgamation: Confu- 
 
 II 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 cianists would spurn the idea : Mohammedans would 
 trample on it with contempt. The harm done at the 
 parliament was due not to the presentation of all 
 faiths by their adherents, but to the hasty conclu- 
 sions, the childish adulation, the unthinking gush, 
 which in one instance, at least, was carried to a dis- 
 gusting extreme. Nobody had changed his opinions. 
 The old systems stiffened by the lapse of centuries 
 still sat there side by side all unchanged and un- 
 moved. As well might one have expected to witness 
 a loving embrace of the Memnonian statues, or 
 scenes of pentecostal transformation and ecstacy 
 among the mouldering pillars of Karnac, as to see 
 Hinduism and Islam fused together in an hour. 
 Even in India, Chunder Sen's appeal has attracted 
 scarcely 3,000 out of a population of 280,000,000. 
 Mohammed Webb came straight back from the Par- 
 liament of Religions, and Baalak-like hired a rene- 
 gade Syrian to "curse Jacob" on the platform of 
 Chickering Hall. Gandhi and Vivekananda began at 
 once courses of lectures against missions and Chris- 
 tianity. Others returned to India and Japan and an- 
 nounced that America seemed ready to confess the 
 superiority of the Oriental faiths. 
 
 This notion of a universal religion has undergone 
 some modification under the auspices of what is 
 known as the ''Parliament Extension." It is pro- 
 posed to unite all men of whatever race or cult in one 
 church universal, with monism as the one article of 
 its creed. One of the latest forms of monism is inter- 
 
 12 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 preted to mean the divine immanence of pantheism, 
 plus transcendence, plus divine personality. But 
 monism, whatever else it is, is in this relation only a 
 common catch-word. There can be no brotherhood 
 without unity of religious faith. Nowhere short of 
 that can the moral goal of mankind be placed. A 
 half-way ground, a truce, a compromise, where truth 
 is concerned, is a sacrifice of man's true birthright, 
 and an insult to God. Meanwhile the assumption 
 that Christianity occupies a lower or narrower 
 ground than this new gospel, is as far as possible 
 from the truth. Even in the common brotherhood of 
 humanity the teaching of the New Testament took 
 the lead of all the best and noblest philosophy of 
 Greece and Rome. Instead of the wide and cruel dis- 
 tinctions which even Plato had inculcated, it taught 
 men to regard the lowest ranks and even slaves as 
 entitled to human fellowship. Christ broke down the 
 narrow nationalism of the Pharisees by His recog- 
 nition of Samaritans, Romans, and Syrophenicians. 
 Peter first proclaimed the great truth that God is no 
 respecter of persons. Paul gave to the dictum of 
 Aratus a world-wide application which made all 
 mankind the "offspring" of a common father. From 
 the days of Paul to the present time, Christianity has 
 held the lead in all practical philanthropy. To-day 
 the Christian church is the chief organized charity 
 of the world for even humanitarian work. It sends 
 relief to the ends of the earth in time of famine : its 
 hospitals and asylums are found in all latitudes and 
 
 13 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 climes: Protestants and Catholics vie with each 
 other everywhere in the care of the sick, the orphan 
 and the leper; and on the bloody battlefields of the 
 world their angels of mercy appear amid the smoke 
 and confusion of war and under the sacred banner 
 of the Cross. 
 
 But there are brotherhoods and brotherhoods, and 
 the New Testament recognizes each in its place. 
 Paul regarded Onesimus as entitled to fraternal rec- 
 ognition while still a non-Christian slave, and his 
 kindness won his heart and led him to the truth. But 
 he had something quite different in mind when he 
 plead with his master Philemon, to regard him no 
 longer as a servant but as a * 'brother in Christ" — a 
 brother in the divine fellowship of a common faith 
 and a common union with God. No platform procla- 
 mation could have wrought this change, nor can it 
 change any man or any race of men. The Christian 
 church prefers Paul's plan to that of the Parliament 
 Extension. Almost any faith having even a modi- 
 cum of moral power is better than a vapid emulsion 
 of faiths and no faiths. 
 
 This plea for a universal brotherhood of religions 
 has been reinforced by the plausible claim that some 
 at least of the great religions are all that is essential 
 for the races that cherish them, and that so far cer- 
 tainly, missions are worse than useless. The practi- 
 cal effect of this claim is increased by the fact that 
 the average knowledge of our Christian communi- 
 ties concerning these faiths is too slight to afford a 
 
 14 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 successful refutation. But it were an error to as- 
 sume, as many do, that systems of religion which the 
 Christian world does not thoroughly understand, are 
 for that reason any more likely to prove true or 
 worthy. The masses of our people have based their 
 judgment upon the opinions of those who do un- 
 derstand them. When in the Chicago Parliament of 
 Religions, Darmapala of Ceylon, called for an ex- 
 pression from all who had "read the life of Buddha," 
 and was responded to by only five, he put the test 
 question in a misleading form, and the response was 
 therefore misleading. According to the best scholar- 
 ship there is no life of Buddha: no connected bio- 
 graphy has descended to us from the early canons. 
 Had the speaker called for all those who knew more 
 or less of Buddhism and of the settled verdict which 
 the history of the ages had put upon it, he might 
 have been answered by hundreds. 
 
 Time and space forbid that I should here enter 
 upon the question whether Buddhism is all that is 
 claimed for it as a sufficient "Light of Asia," or 
 whether Mohammedanism has proved a blessing to 
 North Africa, or is now a blessing to Armenia or 
 Koordistan. Even if we were to grant this claim, 
 which just now appears more preposterous than 
 ever, even if it were true that the philosophies which 
 appeal to the more intellectual classes in the Orient 
 are all that is alleged, and all that is needful for their 
 eternal weal, yet what shall be done for the untold 
 millions of men who find these subtle philosophies 
 
 15 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 beyond their reach, and whose plodding and un- 
 reasoning Hves are scarcely above the life of the 
 brute? 
 
 If we admit that the literati of China have reason 
 to be satisfied with the Analects of Confucius, yet 
 what of the millions, in fact the majority of the Chi- 
 nese masses, who are real spirit worshipers — to 
 whom the forests, the rivers, the mountains are all 
 haunted by animistic hobgoblins, and who drag out 
 their lives under the invisible spell of ^'fungshuay !" 
 What if we admit that in India there are thousands 
 of learned Vedantists and a few thousand mem- 
 bers of the somajes who need no further light, yet 
 what of the hundred and thirty or forty millions of 
 whom Mr. Mozoomdar himself has said that they 
 know nothing of philosophy of any kind? What- 
 ever may be said of those who worship the Krishna 
 of the Bhagavad, who shall save the degraded wor- 
 shipers of Krishna as the god of lust, or those who 
 worship cattle and apes and serpents ? Or if we were 
 to exclude all of India, China and Japan, there would 
 still be dark pagan Africa, which even down to the 
 close of this nineteenth century has remained terror- 
 stricken by a perpetual nightmare of cruel supersti- 
 tions. Such witnesses as Leighton Wilson, R. H. 
 Nassau, Heli Chatelain and A. C. Good have as- 
 sured us that the many tribes occupying the vast ter- 
 ritory extending from two degrees north of the 
 equator down to Caffraria are believers in the one 
 supreme and self-existent creator, ''Anyambe," or 
 
 i6 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 "Njambe," or "Nzambe." But they do not worship 
 this being because they have for ages been taught by 
 jugglers that their creator cares nothing for them, 
 but has left them at the mercy of countless malignant 
 spirits. These spirits oppress and torment the peo- 
 ple either directly or through the personality of men 
 and women whom they possess as witches. When- 
 ever a natural death occurs, somebody is at once ac- 
 cused of having been the cause and the accused must 
 die also. This state of things fills every community 
 with perpetual horror; it redoubles all the woes of 
 life, and fills every mind not only with a dread of 
 malignant demons, but with suspicions toward 
 friends and neighbors and even kindred. Let me ap- 
 peal to every thoughtful mind, is there or is there not 
 here a call for the work of Christian missions? Even 
 on the ground of a common humanity, should not 
 the philanthropic of all favored lands and all creeds 
 come to the rescue of these millions? To the hu- 
 manitarian, however skeptical and out of sympathy 
 with Christian propagandism, this appeal speaks 
 with resistless force, while to the true Christian, 
 "Darkest Africa" presents a practical illustration of 
 that awful thraldom which Christ meant when He 
 commissioned Paul to the Gentiles, ''to turn them 
 from darkness to light and from the power of satan 
 (in this case satans) unto God." How urgent and 
 noble an errand to assure those deluded millions that 
 Anyambe has not abandoned them to demons, but 
 
 17 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 has so loved them as to give His Son a sacrifice that 
 they may have eternal life ! 
 
 (4) While dealing thus plainly with the imprac- 
 ticable theory of a fusion of all religions under the 
 name of brotherhood, I frankly admit another obsta- 
 cle which has sometimes prevented the highest mis- 
 sionary success. In a sermon preached in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey by Dean Stanley in 1872, he gave seven 
 different reasons for increased encouragement in the 
 v/ork of foreign missions, one of which was that 
 the Christian world was coming to understand more 
 clearly the nature of heathen systems and the true 
 methods of dealing with them. The church in this 
 country was not quite ready to adopt Dean Stanley's 
 position at that time ; it is, however, much better pre- 
 pared to approve of it to-day. If the advocates of 
 universal fraternity meant only a more fraternal 
 spirit, in dealing with non-Christian systems, in re- 
 specting the sincere convictions of men however er- 
 roneous, in allowing and crediting whatever of truth 
 they have to present, in recognizing their ethical 
 standards which are in some respects high, in en- 
 couraging their love of country and race, in welcom- 
 ing them to a common fellowship as the children of 
 a common Father, in avoiding denunciation, and 
 winning them in a spirit of love ; we too would join 
 hands with all others in promoting such an object. 
 It is true that the Christian church has been more 
 or less at fault. Missionaries have sometimes seemed 
 to suppose that the most successful plan was to cut 
 
 18 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 up heathenism by the roots. It has scarcely been 
 thought necessary to know anything about what the 
 non-Christian peoples believe or disbelieve., since the 
 one aim is to tell the "old, old story," and to cast 
 aside contemptuously whatever shall hinder its pro- 
 gress and triumph. 
 
 But I am by no means admitting that missionary 
 work has been at fault in the main. With some ex- 
 ceptions, it has been from first to last a work of love 
 fully attested by the sacrifices which have been so 
 freely made. Yet there is a change, and it will be 
 more and more marked. Missionary addresses will 
 not hereafter be illustrated by the exhibition of idols 
 and other evidences of depravity (intelligent Hindus 
 and Buddhists have indignantly pointed to the im- 
 ages and pictures of the church) ; on the contrary 
 there will be more of the tact Paul used when he 
 referred to the altar to the unknown god. This will 
 not be a new method; it will simply be a return to 
 the New Testament plan ; to the delicacy exemplified 
 by Christ Himself; to the uniform kindliness with 
 which the apostles proclaimed the truth. I do not 
 forget that in the Old Testament, denunciation and 
 even ridicule, were poured upon the wickedness and 
 the puerilities of idolatry. But it were a mistake to 
 suppose that the ethics of Buddhism are to receive 
 the same treatment as that most diabolical cult of 
 Baalism which prostituted women, practiced so- 
 domy, and crowned its heaven-daring iniquity by 
 sacrificing holocausts of innocent children in the fires 
 
 19 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 of Moloch. Besides the prophets were not preaching 
 to heathen tribes, whom they would conciliate and 
 win, but to their own intelligent but stultified people 
 who were constantly in danger of lapsing from the 
 worship of their wonder-working God into that of 
 idols which a man (and this was the irony) might 
 whittle from a piece of firewood. When God remon- 
 strated with Jonah, that querulous foreign mission- 
 ary to Nineveh, He enjoined gentleness and com- 
 passion, and especially towards the multitudes of 
 children. 
 
 (5) ^ gross misconception which lies against 
 the missionary enterprise, is the ignorant but rather 
 popular assumption that it only represents the fa- 
 natical zeal of a few hundred enthusiasts who have 
 gone to the mission fields under the promptings of a 
 temperament which otherwise would have drawn 
 them into chimerical schemes somewhere else. One 
 of our leading daily papers not long ago published 
 an article entitled Moral Hysteria. The work of 
 foreign missions was drawn upon mainly for illus- 
 trations of that diseased sensibility which the name 
 implies, though certain other philanthropic enter- 
 prises were also assigned a place. Quite in the same 
 spirit a writer in one of the London papers, while 
 speaking of the troubles in which missionaries had 
 become involved in China, found some comfort in 
 the fact that this crazy enterprise had rid England of 
 a certain per cent, of impracticable and dangerous 
 ^'faddists." It is, and yet perhaps it is not, surpris- 
 
 20 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 ing that writers of this stamp should know so little 
 of what the missionary enterprise really is. Even the 
 most ignorant ought to know that behind each "fad- 
 dist" are whole communities of Christian people 
 whose intelligent interest and gifts and prayers he 
 represents. No Christian denomination, Protestant 
 or Catholic, would be without its share in the mis- 
 sionary work. Christianity itself is a mission, and 
 missions are applied Christianity. Old Testament 
 prophecy breathes a missionary spirit, and the New 
 Testament is a missionary volume. The Christian 
 nations of the world are the fruits of missions. We 
 ourselves owe our civilization to the heralding of 
 the Cross to our savage ancestors. Much of the best 
 intellectual ability has been given to this great enter- 
 prise, while in no other sphere has so lofty a moral 
 heroism been displayed. It has confessedly been 
 the broadest and the grandest manifestation of 
 our world-embracing Christianity. It has touched 
 the highest water-mark of disinterestedness and 
 Christ-likeness. It aims to overcome all selfish- 
 ness of the individual, the Church, the nation, 
 and to put upon Christian service the full meas- 
 ure of Christ's universal kingdom. It would be 
 easy to show that vast and substantial interests of a 
 secular nature have been promoted by this Moral 
 Hysteria of the missionary spirit — savage tribes 
 tamed and elevated in material comfort and the arts 
 of life, commercial intercourse advanced, oppres- 
 sions overcome, destructive wars averted, education 
 
 21 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 promoted, the havoc of disease and death arrested, 
 general science enriched and extended; but all this 
 is subordinate to the moral and spiritual enlighten- 
 ment which many a dark land has at length wel- 
 comed. 
 
 The sublimest spectacle which the world presents 
 to-day is that of scores of great Christian bodies 
 working side by side on all continents and in the 
 islands of the sea, printing their Bibles in three hun- 
 dred languages, establishing schools and colleges, 
 hospitals and churches, and demonstrating the fact 
 that the Gospel bears the same precious fruits among 
 men of every kindred, tongue and tribe. One of the 
 most needful and important services that the pulpit 
 can render just now is to extend the Christian faith, 
 to urge forward the evangelization of the world 
 as the great work for which the church exists. We 
 should take alarm when the sentiment of the world 
 has become so dead that the promulgation of the 
 Great Commission is regarded as proof of a disor- 
 dered brain. 
 
 (6) Still another hindrance to the great work of 
 missions is the subtle but widespread influence of the 
 doctrine of evolution. It may seem difficult to trace 
 its effects, but they exist. Not only does this hypoth- 
 esis assume a different genesis of religion from that 
 which is found in the Word of God, and which un- 
 derlies the plan of salvation, but it supposes an en- 
 tirely different process of moral advancement; it 
 discredits all ideas of preternatural revelation or 
 
 22 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 other special means of grace. Assuming that man*s 
 reUgious life begins with fetishism, or low forms of 
 animism, and has advanced by slow changes — so 
 slow as to be imperceptible — its presuppositions are, 
 of course, subversive of any doctrine of a new spirit- 
 ual birth. Its implication is that a sudden or even 
 rapid transformation of men by renewing grace is 
 too preposterous to be thought of by intelligent peo- 
 ple, and is especially absurd in the light of nineteenth 
 century science. We are told that these slow intel- 
 lectual and moral changes are attended by modifica- 
 tions in the tissues of the brain and nerves, and that 
 gradually as races are elevated, corresponding 
 changes will occur in the shape of the skull. 
 
 I take no issue with these hypotheses which con- 
 tain a modicum of truth, but only with their dog- 
 matic sweep. The conclusion is at once reached, that 
 supernatural religion, with its doctrine of regenera- 
 tion is an impossibility; that generations must pass 
 away before any great moral change can be wrought. 
 On the other hand, the missionary work supposes 
 that the savage man may be converted by the renew- 
 ing of the Holy Ghost so radically that not only life- 
 long habits, but the force of heredity may be radi- 
 cally changed. The missionary work has thrown 
 great light upon this subject. Over against the spec- 
 ulations of theorists it points to vast island popula- 
 tions in the Pacific which within a score of years 
 have been transformed from ferocious cannibals to 
 earnest Christian men and women who give largely 
 
 23 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 of their means, keep the Sabbath, observe family 
 worship and all the ordinances of religion, and who 
 freely offer themselves as missionaries to other 
 islands where they are aware that others have sacri- 
 ficed their lives for Christ's sake. It is scarcely pos- 
 sible to conceive of greater and more radical changes 
 than have been wrought by the regenerating power 
 of the Gospel, and that not only in our day, but all 
 along the history of the Church, where the Gospel 
 has for the first time been preached amid the habita- 
 tions of cruelty. I do not propose to enter upon any 
 discussion of the hypothesis of evolution. Whether it 
 bridges the abyss between mankind and the brute 
 creation remains still a question. In the moral his- 
 tory of mankind there have been many instances of 
 gradual development, and quite as many also of de- 
 generation. The objection which I now raise lies 
 only against the sweeping assumption that every- 
 thing in this world is to be accounted for on this hy- 
 pothesis and that the doctrine of supernatural power 
 in the redemption of the world must be laid aside. It 
 behooves the Christian church, and especially the 
 ministry, carefully to study the history of missions 
 past and present, in its relations to this subject. Its 
 achievements and successes afford a great corrobora- 
 tive support to the theology of the church. It is 
 in evidence that in our own generation, thousands of 
 converted savages have lived transformed and con- 
 sistent lives under great discouragements, and that 
 hundreds have joyfully suffered persecution even 
 
 24 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 unto death. There is no explanation that can be 
 given to the rehgious phenomena of Madagascar, 
 Uganda, Samoa, the New Hebrides, Fiji and Metla- 
 kahtla, except that the Gospel has fully proved itself 
 the power of God unto salvation to savages and can- 
 nibals, and that of many races, and in all lands and 
 climes and environments. 
 
 (7) Again the work of foreign missions is im- 
 peded by the present diplomatic complications 
 among the leading powers of the world. One ele- 
 ment in the case is the ambitious effort of European 
 nations to take possession of all lands semi-civilized 
 and incapable of self-defence. Samoa had become a 
 prosperous and fruitful missionary field when the 
 scramble of European diplomacy began. Tahiti, a sa- 
 cred name in the history of missions, has long since 
 been occupied by the French with a determination, 
 at whatever sacrifice to their spiritual welfare, to 
 subsidize those islands for commercial profit and the 
 glory of France. The fruitful mission of the Pres- 
 byterian Board on the Ogowe was so hampered by a 
 French protectorate that it was thought necessary to 
 resign the mission to the Protestant Missionary So- 
 ciety of France — a society seriously crippled by want 
 of funds. The glorious history of Madagascar, the 
 martyr record of a past generation, the establish- 
 ment of a Christian government under a native 
 queen, the full demonstration of the power of Gospel 
 missions, all this has been counted for nothing. 
 French aggression has stalked across the island with 
 
 25 
 
OUESTIOXS AXD PHASES 
 
 ruthless trcavi. while the despairing apj>eal of a ter- 
 ror-stricken queen to the sympathies of the Christian 
 worlvi has seemed as unavailing as the moaning oi 
 the wind. 
 
 Another phase of diplomatic barriers is seen in 
 that deadlock of European powers which generation 
 after generation has permitted and virtually sus- 
 tained the unheard-of atrocities of Mohammedan 
 despotism towards the Christian sects in the Turkish 
 Empire. It is a grievous blemish on the civilization 
 of Christian Europe that selfishness and mutual 
 jealousy should afford imnumity to a despotism 
 which otherwise would not be tolerated in this asfe 
 of die world. It is difiicult to foresee any solution oi 
 this problem or any termination of this sad condi- 
 tion of things in the near future. The best powers of 
 human sagacity and tlie highest impulses of philan- 
 thropy are alike battled. 
 
 Still another disturbing element in this diplomatic 
 question is seen in the war-like attitude of Christian 
 nations towards each other. These nations claim to 
 represent the highest ethics and the purest philan- 
 thropy that have ever been promulgated in this 
 w^orld. They are supposed to have borrowed their 
 precepts and their supreme aims from the Prince of 
 Peace. And yet to the non-Qiristian nations what a 
 spectacle do they present? Apparently they stand 
 for war and aggression. The weaker nations are 
 held in terror while these stronger powers decide 
 which of tlie contestants shall claim them as the vic- 
 
 20 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 tor's spoil. It is impossible to exaggerate the barri- 
 ers of prejudice which this forbidding outlook of the 
 world creates in the minds of the depressed races 
 whom we would win to the Cross of Christ. 
 
 I do not overlook some qualifying considerations 
 which are commonly presented on the other side. It 
 is impossible for any philosophic observer of human 
 history to ignore the fact that the advancement of 
 civilization has sometimes been promoted by this 
 struggle for existence, and the survival of the fittest. 
 Walter Baghot has said that however men may dif- 
 fer as to the application of this evolutionary princi- 
 ple to the natural development of species, it certainly 
 holds good in the conflict of nations. There is a 
 seeming drift of destiny which renders it probable 
 that all uncivilized lands will within the next quar- 
 ter of a century be at least controlled by the great na- 
 tions known as Christian. The best that can be 
 hoped for from these governments is that they will 
 become more altruistic in their policies toward the 
 subject races for which they shall have become re- 
 sponsible, that more and more the good of humanity 
 will take the place of national self-interest and that 
 so their conquests may in the end become a blessing 
 to mankind. Meanwhile, the more assiduously the 
 disinterested and self-sacrificing work of missions is 
 carried forward, the sooner wdll the conquering and 
 ruling powers, as well as the races conquered, be 
 raised to a higher and better life. This result has al- 
 ready been realized in India and South Africa w^here 
 
 27 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 the foreign resident has become more humane and 
 just, while the native has become more civihzed. 
 
 (8) Another hostile element which is character- 
 istic of the times is that arrogant spirit, partly liter- 
 ary, partly commercial, partly diplomatic, which has 
 concluded that the work of Christian missions is a 
 disturbing influence, a discourtesy to friendly na- 
 tions, an anachronism in this enlightened age of the 
 world, in short a nuisance which should be abated. 
 During the discussions of the secular press which 
 followed the massacre of missionaries in China in 
 the summer of 1896 this spirit cropped out in all di- 
 rections. The strictures which w^ere published, some 
 of them quoted from the letters of travelers, in- 
 volved gross misrepresentation as to the causes of 
 the violence of the Chinese populace. 
 
 The chief responsibility seemed to be laid at the 
 door of a few unoffending Christian women who 
 were teaching the ''J^^us religion." It was assumed 
 that the pure ethics and moral sensibilities of the 
 Chinese were offended by the indelicacy show^n by 
 the presence of unmarried women laboring ostensi- 
 bly for the good of their sex and the instruction of 
 little children. What would be amusing if it were 
 not so wicked, was the fact that Europeans, the im- 
 morality of whose lives had long been a blight upon 
 the communities in which they lived in China, 
 should have entered into such zealous sympathy with 
 the pious protest against this foreign infringement 
 upon the high moral standards of Chinese society. 
 
 28 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 In thus ascribing the disturbances to missionary 
 work in general, the newspaper critics, even the most 
 intelHgent of them, seem to have forgotten all other 
 and deeper causes of anti-foreign animosity in 
 China : the systematic and long continued injustice 
 of the opium trade; the bombardment of Chinese 
 ports for the enforcement of the hated traffic; the at- 
 tacks of the allied armies of two European nations 
 upon the capital of the empire itself and the burning 
 of the Imperial Summer Palace; the outrageous 
 brow-beating and brutality of European residents 
 towards the people of China on their own soil; the 
 frauds perpetrated against the customs laws of 
 China, compelling the government at length to em- 
 ploy Europeans to protect it against Europeans ; the 
 unbridled immoralities of foreigners in all Chinese 
 ports; the unjust legislation of America in regard to 
 solemn treaties; the prevalence of hoodlum oppres- 
 sion and abuse towards the Chinese on our shores; 
 the fact that for the wholesale murders of Chinamen 
 at Rock Spring not one perpetrator has ever been 
 brought to justice; the fact that all the great nations 
 have claimed exorbitant indemnities, and that some- 
 times for the expense of aggressions which they 
 themselves had made ; all these things are overlooked 
 as causes of irritation. The missionaries are virtu- 
 ally charged with all the bother and expense and in- 
 jury to ''business interests." It is fair to say that 
 with many native officials, there is prejudice against 
 Christianity as against all other foreign influences of 
 
 29 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 whatever kind. All Western ideas are opposed to 
 that present order of things in which lie the glory 
 and power of the ruling classes. And the Chinese 
 minister at Washington was right when he said that 
 the cause of Christianity suffered greatly in being 
 used as a watchword by the ''Long-haired Rebels" in 
 the Taiping Rebellion of thirty years ago. It is also 
 true that in every case where an indemnity for the 
 destruction of property has been claimed, whether by 
 Protestants or Catholics, and the people have been 
 compelled to make up those indemnities, with gen- 
 erally a large extra margin for the officials, there has 
 been engendered a feeling of animosity in such com- 
 munities. And this suggests to all missionaries and 
 missionary societies great care that such indemnities 
 when claimed shall be within the measure of justice. 
 But while animosities are sometimes aroused 
 against missionaries even among the masses, yet for 
 the most part they are friendly ; they appreciate the 
 efforts put forth for them in hospitals and dispen- 
 saries, in schools and orphanages, in the distribution 
 of famine relief and in a general manifestation of 
 sympathy. They are not fools, and they soon dis- 
 cover the difference between all this and the brow- 
 beating and abuse and immoral examples of most 
 other foreigners. The testimony of Hon. John W. 
 Foster and United States Minister Denby and others 
 is that the people are generally well disposed towards 
 missionaries. And not foreigners only give this 
 testimony ; a few years ago an edict was issued from 
 
 30 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 the imperial throne warning the people in the prov- 
 inces against disturbing the missionaries, and de- 
 claring that they were benevolent in their purposes 
 and their work, studying only the good of the com- 
 munities in which they lived. In 1896 a public proc- 
 lamation was issued by a local magistrate in Hainan, 
 which shows how false rumors against missionaries 
 often arise, and how they are sometimes publicly 
 corrected. What is needed is more light. 
 
 The proclamation reads thus : 
 
 "Having obtained information that outside the 
 city on the flats where bodies are buried, or coffins 
 placed previous to their burial, certain men from 
 outside the island have come who have forced open 
 the brick receptacles and stolen the clothes from the 
 coffins, I have already sent officers quietly to investi- 
 gate and seize the thieves, and have also put out a 
 proclamation offering a reward for their apprehen- 
 sion. 
 
 "Now I also hear that in Kiungchow district city, 
 both inside and outside the gates, there are some 
 who circulate a report calculated to stir up the peo- 
 ple, saying that the Christians have opened the 
 graves and stolen the bones in order to make medi- 
 cine of them with the purpose of injuring the people. 
 This is very strange indeed! I have previously in- 
 vestigated and found that these foreigners have 
 come to Kiungchow a number of years before in or- 
 der to propagate their doctrine in accordance with 
 the treaty. The foreign missionaries have come to 
 
 31 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 preach the doctrine, to persuade the people to do 
 good, to heal without charge those who are sick and 
 to perform benevolent acts. They have healed Ki- 
 ungchow officials, literati, soldiers and common peo- 
 ple, not a few as all men know. They have not dug 
 out the bones of dead men with which to make medi- 
 cine in order to commit evil deeds. These reports 
 have been spread by evil persons who robbed the 
 graves, and who have improved the opportunity to 
 deceive the people and cause a disturbance. I despise 
 exceedingly this talk, and have ordered policemen 
 who are skillful, secretly and truthfully to investi- 
 gate in order to seize those who have invented these 
 reports, and bring them to the yamen in order that I 
 may question them. Also I have ordered the mili- 
 tary officials to charge their soldiers secretly to in- 
 vestigate, and those caught will be dealt with accord- 
 ing to law. I have also in order to inform all men 
 issued this proclamation." 
 
 If the counsels of some of the secular papers were 
 followed, and all missionaries were recalled, the 
 schools and chapels closed, the ministries of Chris- 
 tian women to the sufferers of their own sex cut 
 short, hospitals and dispensaries and orphanages all 
 shut, while only secular interests were maintained 
 and protected, wliat would be the result ? China her- 
 self would suffer, and thousands of the wretched 
 would mourn the loss; the foreign communities, 
 which in recent years have been somewhat restrained 
 by missionary influence and a higher and purer 
 
 3« 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 sentiment, would relapse into the old measures of 
 vice and impurity, and civilization itself would suf- 
 fer loss. 
 
 But to the church at home such an event would 
 bring the worst calamity of all. It would be a virtual 
 surrender, a confession of failure, a denial of funda- 
 mental principles and doctrines, a logical fatality to 
 all aggressive Christian work at home. For the non- 
 Christian masses here are no more anxious for the 
 Gospel than are the heathen in China. If we may 
 not strive by all proper means to teach more excel- 
 lent ways to men on other shores, then logically we 
 may not interfere with the beliefs or customs of 
 strangers coming to our own shores. The great truth 
 which Christ taught to his disciples on the brow of 
 Olivet was that Christianity is a world-wide reli- 
 gion, that it belongs alike to Jerusalem and Judea 
 and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 Even the tacit admission that Christianity is only 
 ethnic were altogether fatal. 
 
 Against this supercilious contempt for missions, 
 which often appears in our literature, it behooves all 
 friends of Christ's kingdom to maintain an attitude 
 of firm conviction and bold defense. It is time that 
 the world should know that the work of missions is 
 and will ever be the life of the Church. There will 
 always be missions so long as there are men any- 
 where without God and without hope in the world. 
 Should governments withdraw their protection on 
 the ground that missionaries are proselyters, and 
 
 33 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 deny them the rights which are accorded to mer- 
 chants, opium brokers, and saloon-keepers, they will 
 go without protection, as thousands have done in 
 the ages past. Should persecution and mob violence 
 cut off those now in the field, others would take their 
 places; such trials would probably only quicken the 
 zeal of the Church and call forth still more earnest 
 service. 
 
 34 
 
REFLEX INFLUENCE OF FOREIGN MIS- 
 SIONS UPON THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 I DO not refer to the advantages of the mis- 
 sionary enterprise to commerce or to science, but to 
 the blessings which have accrued to the spiritual life 
 of the Church. I have long had a growing convic- 
 tion that the greatest inspiration lies deep down in 
 the scriptural foundation of the missionary idea as a 
 vital part, nay as the whole life of the Church. 
 
 It is an age of scepticism and criticism, and the 
 chief point of attack is the work of foreign mis- 
 sions. The tactics of the enemy are various and are 
 such as these : It is a hopeless enterprise ; you can't 
 change the character or the customs of races. Or it 
 is useless; other peoples have their faiths and they 
 are much alike. Or it is inadequate ; you can never 
 dish up the ocean with a spoon. Or it is too success- 
 ful, and is threatening social and even political insti- 
 tutions. Or it is impertinent, and insults the dignity 
 of old systems which were in their zenith while we 
 were barbarians, and in fact taught us all we know. 
 Or it is misanthropic, and refuses to welcome to one 
 brotherhood all faiths and customs and conditions of 
 men. 
 
 It would be easy to show, though few stop to con- 
 sider the fact, that these flippant assailments in their 
 
 35 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 last logical conclusions strike at all our propagan- 
 dism here at home, at all our essential Christian doc- 
 trines, and at the very life of the Church. The 
 Church will never adequately accomplish her great 
 work in the world until she renounces the idea that 
 the cause of foreign missions is only a modern ad- 
 junct, an enthusiastic outside enterprise of philan- 
 thropic charity. Not until she realizes that it is her 
 very life blood, her bone and sinew, will she fulfill 
 her commission. 
 
 (i) Let us remember that the New Testament 
 is a missionary volume and the Old Testament a 
 prophecy of universal conquest. The Gospel of sal- 
 vation was no mere after-thought of a second dis- 
 pensation. Christ was ''the Lamb slain from the 
 foundation of the world," and He was always the 
 Intercessor. It was in response to His asking that 
 the heathen were eternally given Him as an inherit- 
 ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a pos- 
 session. "It is a light thing," so the divine cove- 
 nant runs, "a light thing that thou shouldst be my 
 servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore 
 the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a 
 light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salva- 
 tion unto the ends of the earth." Here in Isaiah, is 
 the full scope of a world-wide redemption. This was 
 a rebuke to all narrowness in Jew or Gentile, in the 
 centuries before Christ, or in the nineteenth century 
 after Christ. It were a small matter to establish a 
 mere ethnic faith, and there can be no monopoly for 
 
 36 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 Jew or Anglo-Saxon. Christ's own commission as 
 He read it in the synagogue of Nazareth was al- 
 most in the very terms of that which He gave to 
 Paul, and through Him to His church; *'to lead the 
 Gentiles from darkness into light, from the power of 
 Satan unto God." How can the church forget her 
 great errand in the world or be slothful in it ? Four 
 great commissions were given to Christ's apostles; 
 first, in the mountains of Galilee, second, on Mount 
 Olivet before the ascension, third, to Paul near Da- 
 mascus, and fourth, again to Paul in a vision of the 
 night in Western Asia. It was this great work of 
 missions that led Christ to overcome Peter's race 
 prejudice and widen out his conceptions by the vision 
 at Joppa. It was in this that He especially promised 
 to be in the midst of His people, even unto the end 
 of the world. The theology of the Church was writ- 
 ten in missionary letters, and for this reason it is the 
 more vital and life-giving. The work of missions is 
 applied theology, full of the touch and warmth of the 
 Spirit's power. It is the Gospel of salvation illus- 
 trated in the life and experience of the Church. 
 
 (2) The best history of the Church through all 
 her past career, is her missionary history. Looking 
 back through the centuries, the most inspiring influ- 
 ences are found, not in religious wars, not in dis- 
 putes and hair splittings of councils, which were 
 often bitter and fruitless, not in rituals and ecclesi- 
 astical establishments, and certainly not in the sad 
 history of persecuting zeal, but in missionary hero- 
 
 37 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ism and conquest. Amid all that is dark and humili- 
 ating in the memories of the Christian centuries, the 
 missionary annals of the Church constitute the 
 brightness and sunshine. They savor of the true Bib- 
 lical Christianity. They have most clearly attested 
 the presence of Christ in history and the continuity 
 of His kingdom in the world. 
 
 (3) Recall the many contributions which the 
 missionary work has made in illustration of the pe- 
 culiar power of religious truth as taught in living 
 personality. It was in accord with Christ's own 
 teaching that the Holy Spirit, as an indwelling 
 power, should illustrate truth in its clearest demon- 
 stration in the living characters of men. And in no 
 sphere has human life been raised to a higher plane 
 of Christ-likeness than in the great work of mis- 
 sions. Take the life of Paul : one of the most con- 
 vincing arguments for the truth of Christianity is 
 seen in the actual life of that great apostle. No di- 
 dactic teachings can carry such force of conviction. 
 He had been a bigoted Jew and a persecutor, but he 
 claimed to have been miraculously arrested in his 
 career and commissioned to a work full of hardship 
 and trial and persecution, with a warning at the out- 
 set that he should suffer a martyr's death. What a 
 program, and yet what a life ! How do you fit the 
 two together? This was not blind fanaticism, for 
 he evinced the clearest, calmest reason. Nor did he 
 falter as time went on, nor flag in his enthusiasm 
 when trials came: he fought the good fight to the 
 
 38 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 end. He claimed to have revelations from his di- 
 vine Master whose convincing power made the un- 
 seen world more clear to him than this world of 
 sense. He had no motive for deceiving either him- 
 self or others. He was either insane or his soul was 
 transfigured with the light of heaven. His love of 
 Christ was a passion. His faith and fortitude were 
 sublime. The personality of his divine Master was 
 so stamped upon his whole being as to carry convic- 
 tion to friend and foe. Not only the Apostolic 
 Church but the ages have felt his inexplicable power. 
 I might mention men and women scattered all 
 through the history of missions who in greater or 
 less degree have exhibited the power of a sanctified 
 and sublimated Christian personality; men who al- 
 though withdrawn from the conventionalities of 
 Christian society, and confronted with unmitigated 
 heathenism, and peculiarly and wholly thrown upon 
 the power of God, have lived so closely in His fel- 
 lowship that the transcendent power of their faith has 
 shown like the radiant face of Moses when descend- 
 ing from the mount; men like Schwartz, or Henry 
 Martyn, or David Brainerd, like Bishops Patteson 
 and Hannington, or to take one whom we have seen 
 and known, whose power we have felt, John G. Pa- 
 ton. I am sure that thousands who have heard him, 
 or read his experiences and triumphs, who have wit- 
 nessed his sustained and joyous faith in Jesus, have 
 been lifted into a clearer atmosphere of heavenly 
 reality, and have been made ashamed of all doubts. 
 
 39 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 I verily believe that the advent of that man in the 
 American churches did more to establish their faith 
 in the divine reality of the Gospel than a thousand 
 tomes of argument could have done. Even the sec- 
 ular press which is not always just, has frequently 
 declared that the highest proofs of the power of 
 Christianity in our time is to be found not in creeds 
 or the labored defenses of the schools, but in the 
 personel of living men who sacrifice all that most 
 men hold dear, that they may devote their lives to the 
 service of the ignorant and degraded in the dark 
 places of the earth. Christianity represents the high- 
 est altruism that the world has known, and the per- 
 sonal work of missions is the highest expression of 
 Christianity. 
 
 (4) The missionary enterprise illustrates in a pe- 
 culiar degree the doctrine of a divine providence 
 in the world ; it attests the presence and the superin- 
 tendency of Him who said 'To I am with you alway 
 even unto the end of the w^orld." Look out upon 
 the nations and see what has been done and how it 
 has been done, all under our eye. Within a century 
 or a little more, we have seen the strategic points of 
 the globe occupied with mission stations. As we 
 follow the coast lines of the world, beginning for ex- 
 ample with Greenland, we see along the southwest- 
 em coast the mission stations of Danes and Morav- 
 ians, and the same across the sea among the Esqui- 
 maux. Through British America, following every- 
 where the track of the fur traders, we find stations 
 
 40 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 of the Anglican or the Wesleyan Missions, along 
 the coasts of Hudson's Bay, up the rivers, the Sas- 
 katchawan, the Red, and down the Mackenzie, even 
 to the Arctic ocean ; on the west coast of Columbia, 
 and in Vancouver and more recently in Alaska, half 
 a dozen organizations are at work, some of them 
 even beyond Behring straits. In the United States 
 there have been, from the days of the early Morav- 
 ians, mission stations among the many Indian tribes, 
 and now they are scattered through nearly all of 
 Mexico. There are Protestant Missions in Central 
 America Honduras, Colombia, Peru, Chili, and 
 Southern Patagonia; in the Argentine Republic, 
 Brazil, the Guianas, Venezuela, and the West India 
 Islands; you will find them all around the African 
 coast, up the Congo, and along the Great Lakes ; in 
 Egypt and Abyssinia, in Soudan, Natal and Cape 
 Colony; in Syria and through the Turkish Empire, 
 in Persia, in distant India, in Burmah and Ceylon, 
 and even in Thibet ; in Java and Borneo and Celebes ; 
 in Australia and Tasmania, New Zealand, Fiji, 
 Hawaii, and many other groups of the Pacific Is- 
 lands; in Siam and Laos, in China, Korea and Ja- 
 pan. 
 
 Now the point of special significance is that these 
 missionary outposts of the globe have been occupied 
 not by any great compact or alliance of Christian 
 nations, or of churches ; but a variety of seemingly 
 fortuitous circumstances have led to their establish- 
 ment. Of Protestants alone a hundred different or- 
 
 41 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ganizations have been moved by an impulse so ob- 
 viously one, that they must have been under the 
 superintendence of one Mind and Spirit. On the 
 human side a thousand diverse circumstances have 
 led to the planting of these missions. For example, 
 a persecuted colony of Moravians accepted their ban- 
 ishments as a call of God to proclaim the Gospel ; a 
 Hawaiian youth pleading for an education aroused 
 the churches of New England ; the appearance of a 
 West Indian slave in London suggested a mission to 
 his people ; fur companies prepared the way for the 
 truth ; diamond fields and gold fields opened many a 
 path for missionaries ; convict colonies in Tasmania 
 and Norfolk Island were followed by heralds of the 
 Cross; a settlement of pirates on a lone island be- 
 came a missionary station ; a New Zealander, suffer- 
 ing abuse on shipboard, touched the heart of mis- 
 sionary Marsden for his people ; a scientific expedi- 
 tion reported interesting mission fields on the Paci- 
 fic and opened up Tahiti ; the horrors of the coolie 
 traffic aroused the zeal of men like Patteson; the 
 very oppressions of the South African Boers only ex- 
 tended missions toward the interior ; the wickedness 
 of the East India Company touched the missionary 
 heart of England; the schemes of the French Em- 
 peror in Mexico threw the doors wide open to the 
 truth; an unjust opium war opened China, a naval 
 squadron opened Japan; the blunder of an Ameri- 
 can naval officer led to the opening of Korea; the 
 
 42 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 finding of Livingstone and the visit to Uganda 
 awoke the zeal of all Christendom for Dark Africa. 
 
 In all this there has been no joint planning of hu- 
 man wisdom, no concert of philanthropic action be- 
 tween Christian nations. All has been chaos on the 
 human side; every kind of motive has had its play; 
 selfish, sordid, and cruel motives oftener than other- 
 wise. The wrath of man has praised God, and the 
 remainder thereof has been restrained. Whence 
 then has this work its marvelous unity ? Who but a 
 divine Intelligence has directed all these diverse 
 movements of men to one great purpose, and made 
 them one grand march of conquest. It can be noth- 
 ing less than divine! Wliat an object lesson to 
 teach us the great doctrine of God's providence in 
 the world. What better evidence could the church 
 ask for, that Christ is fulfilling his promise to be 
 with her, even to the end of the world ? 
 
 Nay, I appeal not merely to the Christian, but to 
 the philosopher, the ethnologist, the statesman, the 
 political economist — to all who study the great 
 movements of the nations and of human history. I 
 point them to this unique and world-wide crusade, 
 and ask them to explain it. There is no love of 
 money, no motive of personal ambition. Nor is it 
 a peculiar development of any fanatical sect: the 
 whole Church, Catholic and Protestant, is enlisted. 
 It is not a mere impulse of philanthropy, as when a 
 sudden calamity arouses sympathy. It moves on, 
 decade after decade, and century after century, brav^ 
 
 43 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ing all climates, subsidizing all languages, adapting 
 itself to all races. It is organized and reduced to a 
 science. It shows no abatement, but an ever-increas- 
 ing force. It is the most unselfish and unworldy 
 of all enterprises ; it sacrifices home and wealth and 
 honor and the ties of country and of most sacred 
 friendships, in obedience to the call of an unseen Re- 
 deemer. How shall it be explained ? How shall we 
 estimate its value as a proof that the great Head of 
 the Church is now over all movements of mankind, 
 and holds the sceptre of the world? 
 
 (5) The work of foreign missions, more than 
 any other Christian enterprise, brings us to the su- 
 preme test of our Christianity as a supernatural re- 
 ligion. The secular press generally treats foreign 
 missions with a measure of pity or contempt, be- 
 cause it judges them upon purely naturalistic princi- 
 ples. This peculiar work is the supreme point at 
 which our Christianity meets the prevailing natu- 
 ralism of our time. If we content ourselves 
 with building up respectable religious organizations 
 here at home, with our rubrics and our Christian 
 culture, the world will tolerate and possibly 
 commend us. It will laud our efforts for the 
 poor and debased at our door, and it will 
 see the propriety of establishing Christian institu- 
 tions on our frontiers where their conservative and 
 elevating influence has so often been witnessed. But 
 when it comes to foreign missions, that is worse 
 than a root out of dry ground. The average 
 
 44 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 newspaper reporter has no category for such an en- 
 terprise, and the popular magazine writer finds it 
 profitable to pour upon it his sharpest scorn. Well, 
 if this is the chief battle ground for the maintenance 
 of a supernatural Christianity, let us accept it as 
 such. It is the most unworldly, and from the com- 
 mon standpoint, the most incomprehensible of all 
 things. And what is very strange is that it has so 
 deep a hold upon all our Christian denominations. It 
 rises superior to all national complications, all com- 
 mercial fluctuations, all financial disasters. It is so 
 stable in its character that it can safely appropriate 
 thousands and even millions of dollars in advance 
 of its receipts, relying chiefly upon the faith of God's 
 people in the supernatural conquest of redemption. 
 
 Now it is just this folly of foreign missions, so 
 baffling and sometimes so maddening to the ^over- 
 wise scepticism of the times, that constitutes the 
 chief value of this cause in its bearing upon the doc- 
 trinal life of the Church. There are forms of Chris- 
 tianity here at home which virtually surrender all 
 that is supernatural, and yet seem to get on 
 fairly well. The nomenclature of the New Testa- 
 ment they retain. The forms of worship, with 
 prayer and song and sacrament, they reverently ob- 
 serve. They magnify the ineffable purity of Christ, 
 and regard Him as the very highest approach of our 
 humanity to the Infinite God — only they deprive 
 Him of His crown of thorns, and substitute a wreath 
 of laurel or of flowers. Living more or less upon the 
 
 45 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 moral momentum of parental influence and example, 
 they manifest many noble Christian virtues, and 
 they win our honor and respect. But when it comes 
 to foreign missions, naturalistic Christianity stops 
 short. Systems of mere culture cannot follow you 
 into that broad field. They cannot borrow your 
 message of a divine atonement, and an all sufficient 
 Savior. If then this great conquest is our high 
 vantage ground, defying all counterfeits and all com- 
 promises, and holding us up to the divine import of 
 our faith, let us rally round it and stand for it. We 
 bless God for it. 
 
 (6) Foreign missions have restored to the 
 Church the true altruistic and Christ-like conception 
 of Christian experience. Within the last hundred 
 years this movement has worked the greatest trans- 
 formation in the experience and life of the Church 
 that anything short of a pentecostal gift of the Holy 
 Ghost could have wrought. A contemporary of 
 Carey tells us that up to the time the attention of 
 the English Baptists was called to the subject of 
 missions, there had been great depression in the 
 minds and hearts of his parishioners. The old- 
 fashioned type of piety which dug forever at self, 
 and was only solicitous to know whether one's 
 frames and emotions were such as to make sure 
 the salvation of his own poor soul, was found to be 
 a starveling and shrivelled sort of Christian experi- 
 ence. But the new missionary spirit which was en- 
 kindled just then, was like a flash of sunlight on a 
 
 46 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 cloudy day, or the clearing up of a dark and murky 
 atmosphere by a fresh breeze from the mountains. 
 Men stopped worrying about self and got into the 
 current of Christian work. Their souls rose and 
 expanded with the thought of reclaiming a lost 
 world; and coming thus into the very lines of 
 Christ's own life and activity, they felt the touch and 
 the joy of the Christ-like spirit. And so throughout 
 all Protestant Christendom life was everywhere en- 
 riched and energized by the new missionary era. 
 Men laid down the question of their personal salva- 
 tion at the foot of the Cross while they asked ''What 
 wilt thou have me to do?" That transformation has 
 been worth more to mankind a thousand times 
 than the cost of all the missionary enterprises of the 
 world. Fewer diaries are written now, no doubt, 
 for men and women, and even the young, find too 
 much to do for their fellow men. Now, even 
 childhood is uplifted and ennobled by this impulse. 
 In the increased knowledge of, and sympathy for, 
 the world of mankind, you might almost say that the 
 influence of the missionary work has of itself con- 
 stituted a liberal education with thousands. 
 
 How has this impulse ennobled the Christian 
 womanhood of our time? How many, even of the 
 wealthy, who had every means of earthly enjoyment 
 and were still unhappy because dissatisfied with their 
 lives, have found in the foreign missionary work 
 the joy of noble service and generous giving, of 
 blessed fellowship with each other, and of concerted 
 
 47 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 and inspiring prayer ? How have their womanliness 
 and their abihty on all lines of organization and 
 noble activity been increased? But this blessing 
 has inured not only to individual souls, but to the 
 whole religious and eleemosynary work of the 
 church here at home. The late Dr. Mullens, in a 
 book entitled "London and Calcutta" showed that 
 nearly every one of the benevolent movements which 
 had been organized in Great Britain had sprung 
 from the earlier impulse of foreign missionary 
 work. Home missionary societies, city missionary 
 organizations, eleemosynary institutions were just 
 so many refluent currents setting back homeward 
 from the great wave of Christian sympathy which 
 had flowed out toward the races of the heathen 
 world. And I need hardly urge upon my intelli- 
 gent readers the fact that this very same thing has 
 occurred in this country. Out of the small societies, 
 organized for work among the Indians, our home 
 missionary agencies have grown. Indian mission 
 schools are now represented by some of our most 
 useful colleges. Woman's work for woman in 
 heathen lands has inspired corresponding zeal and 
 effort for all exceptional populations on our own 
 shores. Zenana bands and the student volunteer 
 movements have crystallized into a mighty organiza- 
 tion of Christian Endeavor along all lines of work. 
 
 (7) The work of foreign missions has taught 
 the Church and the world a valuable lesson in com- 
 parative ethics. It has demonstrated not only the 
 
 48 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 universal applicability of Christian ethics to all na- 
 tions and races, but also their infinite superiority. 
 We all admit that many of the ethnic faiths teach 
 ethical principles, but it is quite another thing to 
 apply them in practical form and general observance 
 — in other words — to make them effectual in gov- 
 erning society and all kinds of society. The ethics 
 of Islam could never meet the wants of Europe or 
 America. They have never elevated any people be- 
 yond a moderate degree. They have in many re- 
 spects demoralized the new races which conquest has 
 brought under their power. Islam loves the desert 
 or the sleepy and sensuous stagnation which marks 
 the character of the East ; it involves the enslave- 
 ment of woman and the restrictiveness that checks 
 and petrifies all progress. A Mohammed Webb, call- 
 ing the teeming American populace to Moslem pray- 
 ers from a third story window on Union Square, or 
 defending polygamy in a religious parliament in 
 Chicago, are certainly out of place. 
 
 The cultus of Buddhism would prove a sad *'mis- 
 fit" in any Western land. The pauperism of New 
 York is bad enough as it is: but what would we 
 think if tens of thousands of yellow-robed priests 
 were swarming through its streets with a beggar's 
 bowl as in Siam, and our bustling, matter of fact 
 people were asked to regard these as the most worthy 
 and sacred of our population? Theosophists and 
 esoteric Buddhists tell us that Thibet is the fountain 
 head of celestial wisdom — that heaven-forsaken 
 
 49 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 country, if there is one, where a large per cent, of the 
 population, male and female, are immured in the dirt 
 and squalor of snow-bound monasteries, while the 
 masses are left to their ignorance and poverty and the 
 sanctioned vice of polyandry. But we have no de- 
 mand for the ethics or the social and religious customs 
 of the Orient, and we can dispense with the occult 
 wisdom of its mildewed and moss-grown asceticism. 
 Our Christian ethics have shown again and again 
 their universal adaptation and their molding power 
 in all heathen lands. In every land and clime, among 
 peoples of every rank and grade, newly formed 
 Christian communities have developed the same or- 
 der and borne the same fruits. Disinterested tes- 
 timonies on this subject are innumerable. Even 
 Charles Darwin repeatedly expressed his surprise at 
 the moral order which missions had established in 
 the East Indian archipelago and among the savage 
 tribes of Terra del Fuego. 
 
 And not only in contrast with other religious sys- 
 tems do our Christian ethics stand forth in peerless 
 beauty and in power, but they compare equally well 
 with any cultus that agnosticism or the religions of 
 humanity have ever devised. If we may judge by the 
 actual history, either of heathen races or of philoso- 
 phic systems in our time, the true data of ethics are 
 the teachings of the New Testament. We have in this 
 missionary era acquainted ourselves with all races 
 and all cults, the best and the worst, and we fmd but 
 one power to regenerate human society. Well did the 
 
 50 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 late James Russell Lowell defy the sceptics of 
 England "to point to any spot ten miles square on 
 this globe of ours where a decent man can live in de- 
 cency, supporting and educating his children, a place 
 where age is reverenced, infancy protected, manhood 
 respected, womanhood honored, and human life held 
 in due regard, where the Gospel of Christ had not 
 gone and cleared the way, and laid the foundation, 
 and made decency and society possible." 
 
 (8) The work of foreign missions has reached 
 the most advanced position in respect to Christian 
 union, and has given the clearest demonstration of 
 its practicability. As an example, for the last two 
 years conferences have been held by the different 
 Protestant missionary boards and societies in this 
 country and Canada, for the purpose of securing cor- 
 dial comity and general co-operation in the one great 
 work. In minor things they differ : they are called 
 by different names; they have different rubrics as to 
 church order; they pursue their distinct lines of 
 operation. But while they are called to surrender 
 nothing that is a matter of sincere conviction, they 
 strive to emphasize those more essential points in 
 which they are one; namely, the fact that men are 
 ruined by sin and are in perishing need of salvation ; 
 that Jesus is the all-sufficient Savior, and the only 
 name given under heaven among men whereby we 
 must be saved; that the omnipotent power of the 
 Holy Ghost is indispensable in transforming the 
 hearts and lives of men; that salvation is by faith 
 
 51 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 in Christ, and that in order to extend that faith it is 
 necessary to go into all the world and preach the 
 Gospel to every creature. 
 
 These organizations stand together against all 
 those errors which would deny the divinity of Christ, 
 and dispense with a vicarious atonement; which 
 would explain away the personality and office work 
 of the Holy Ghost; which would weaken the au- 
 thority of the Word of God ; which would teach the 
 perfectibility of human nature without divine aid; 
 which would deny the universality of the religion of 
 Jesus Christ, and virtually remand it to a place 
 among the ethnic faiths ; which would regard Chris- 
 tian experience as a development from naturalistic 
 elements, and not the work of regenerating grace; 
 which would proclaim a mere gospel of humanity 
 and a universal brotherhood without the headship of 
 Christ; which would rest in a charity of practical in- 
 difference, and regard the great work of evangeliz- 
 ing non-Christian nations as an impertinent in- 
 trusion. Now this practical alliance, embracing not 
 merely thousands but even millions of Christians on 
 this continent, carries with it an immense power of 
 conviction and of efficiency. 
 
 It verifies and magnifies the unity of the Spirit 
 and the common bond of love in Christ. It partially 
 fulfils His prayer that all His disciples may be one, 
 even as He and the Father are one. 
 
 (9) But there is one more point in which the 
 great work of foreign missions corroborates and 
 
 52 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 strengthens the essential doctrines of the Christian 
 Church, and to that I call a moment's attention as 
 the most significant, the most incontestable of all. I 
 allude to its wonderful demonstration of the trans- 
 forming power of the Gospel, over individuals and 
 over races and nations of mankind. Calvinists and 
 Arminians differ as to the place of emphasis, but 
 they both preach salvation through Christ, and a 
 veritable regeneration by the Spirit of God. Prot- 
 estants and Catholics agree on this point. But the 
 sceptical w^orld deny that there is any such power in 
 the Gospel, and this is a crucial question of our time. 
 Aside from the teachings of the scriptures, is the 
 church justified and sustained in the doctrine, that 
 the Gospel has a transforming power over hearts of 
 men? In reply let me add that the most perfect 
 verification of this scriptural truth is found in the 
 work of missions. What we profess is the absolute 
 necessity of the new birth ; and not only the necessity 
 but the reality of the new birth, is attested in the 
 history of missionary effort among all races and con- 
 ditions of men. The Gospel does in fact transform 
 the human soul. 
 
 We read and hear much of heredity. The scepti- 
 cal world used to scoff at the idea of heredity, and 
 the responsibility which attends a race apostasy, but 
 sociologists and biologists of our day transcend the 
 strongest types of hyper-Calvinism, and make every- 
 thing of heredity. Its domination is extreme; it 
 molds not only character, but the very molecules of 
 
 53 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 the brain and nerves. On these, character depends 
 to such an extent as almost to destroy moral respon- 
 sibility, not only, but absolutely to preclude any 
 moral changes except by slow process. By the very 
 shape of the skull scientists claim to read the charac- 
 ter of generations which passed ages ago. In other 
 words, there is a physiology of the mind which de- 
 fies great moral improvement; the intuitions which 
 men have are the treasured and hereditary experi- 
 ences of past generations. The Fijian can no more 
 be changed, or the denizen of the New Hebrides than 
 you can change the instincts of animals. 
 
 Now against all this assumption of science, and 
 in favor of that despised and ridiculed doctrine of 
 a new birth, the missionary work brings forward 
 its witnesses. It places on the stand the savage Fi- 
 jian of forty years ago, the cannibal of New Heb- 
 rides, the vile, brutish Samoan, who will testify that 
 the mighty power of God's Spirit transformed them 
 in a day, and that in the course of a few years, whole 
 islands and groups of islands have been changed 
 into Christian communities, — Christian communities 
 which would put many of our churches to shame by 
 their more godly and consistent lives. Who can es- 
 timate the power of such demonstrations as this ? I 
 say therefore, in the very deepest sense the mission- 
 ary work is bound up in our doctrinal system ; they 
 stand or fall together. While on the one hand we 
 cannot possibly maintain a creed which shall be con- 
 stantly belied by apathy and indifference of an ortho- 
 
 54 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 dox but dead Christian church, and can never make 
 the world believe that we are in earnest so long as we 
 have nothing of the Christ-like pity for the degraded 
 and ruined; so on the other hand if, strengthened 
 by these attestations of our faith, we gather new 
 courage, take on new measures of zeal, and go forth 
 to the actual conquest of the world, acting out and 
 illustrating our faith, it is not in the power of all 
 scepticism or all pride of intellect and worldly power 
 to resist or even gainsay the effort and the triumph 
 of the Christian church. 
 
 55 
 
A FOREIGN MISSION BOARD A UNIVER- 
 SITY OF BENEFICENCE 
 
 The Church will never adequately prosecute her 
 work of foreign missions until she gains a more 
 comprehensive view of the variety and extent of the 
 enterprise which she has undertaken. It is well nigh 
 impossible to make it clearly understood, it is so vast, 
 so widely extended, and it embraces so many forms 
 of effort. The constant tendency is to look upon it 
 as simply one of seven or eight distinct church en- 
 terprises, all to be treated with the same strict im- 
 partiality as a family of children under one parental 
 roof. Consequently, churches which make only one 
 annual collection for foreign missions, do not real- 
 ize what it is that they are expecting to be accom- 
 plished with it, and how impossible it is to render 
 so enormous a tale of brick with so little straw. 
 
 A board of foreign missions is really a university 
 of Christian beneficence. 
 
 (i) It is an extensive missionary organization 
 in the sense of employing the services of living men 
 and women to preach and teach the Gospel. Some of 
 these are missionaries sent from their native lands, 
 and they number hundreds. Others, and generally 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 a much larger number, are native preachers, teach- 
 ers and helpers who have forsaken the faiths of their 
 fathers and have entered the army of Christian con- 
 quest. All this involves a peculiarly sacred obliga- 
 tion. In no other service is the faith of the Church so 
 solemnly plighted; since in no other is there so great 
 a venture assumed by those who are commissioned. 
 These thousands of missionaries, of whatever so- 
 cieties, leaving home and country, have entered this 
 work for life. It has cost much for their voyages, 
 and their support while learning the languages. If 
 the supply of funds should decline, shall they sacri- 
 fice all this outlay and be called back? Surely they 
 cannot be left where they are without support; they 
 are an army in the enemy's country, and far from 
 their base of supply. They have gone forth on the 
 virtual pledge of a great and wealthy constituency 
 and its good faith must be kept. The common senti- 
 ment of mankind, even though sympathizing never 
 so little with the great cause of missions, would con- 
 sider us bound by every dictate of honor to support 
 our Christian soldiers at the front. Other thousands 
 of native preachers and helpers also, at the instance 
 and persuasion of messengers from Christian lands, 
 have embarked in the same enterprise, and have so to 
 speak, burned their ships behind them. They have 
 broken with their old faiths and cast their lot with 
 strangers. They have incurred the hatred and per- 
 secution of friends and even kindred by undertaking 
 the advocacy of a foreign religion. I appeal to all 
 
 57 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 friends of missions, shall we forsake them now and 
 turn them adrift to meet the scorn of their neigh- 
 bors and to be driven to despair and perhaps apos- 
 tacy from the faith ? Such a course would bring re- 
 proach upon the whole missionary cause, nay upon 
 Christianity itself. Itwould lead critics to ask ''What 
 kind of a religion is this which persuades men to 
 renounce the faith of their fathers and break with 
 their kindred, and then forsake them?" Let us be 
 fully conscious of what we are doing, when we think 
 of abandoning or even neglecting those who have 
 enlisted under our banners. 
 
 There are many moral risks in sending missiona- 
 ries to the Orient to overthrow venerable religious 
 systems, and break up ancient social customs. Not 
 only in the view of those who believe in these sys- 
 tems, but also in the opinions of thousands of their 
 sympathizers in our own land, our undertaking is 
 wild and chimerical; nay is obtrusive and imperti- 
 nent. The trend of much of our popular literature 
 is against it. The so-called charity of an imaginary 
 and sentimental brotherhood of men condemns it. 
 On the other hand, we believe in it as the only logical 
 outcome of a supernatural Christianity whose com- 
 mission is divine and irresistible. So before God 
 and men the Church is a spectacle. She has entered 
 upon a great and openly avowed conquest, and the 
 world and the universe are witnesses. If the effort 
 is not an earnest one, is not sustained, is not thor- 
 oughly carried out, it will prove worse than a failure; 
 
 58 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 it will bring untold reproach upon the whole cause 
 of our Redeemer. The Christian Church is on trial 
 in its foreign mission work. It has thrown out its 
 challenge, announced its purpose, chosen its strategic 
 points, and actually arrayed its forces in front of the 
 enemy. How can it sound a retreat? Have we well 
 considered the responsibility which Christendom has 
 assumed in thus laying siege to so many nations and 
 systems, and with a force which relatively is less than 
 Gideon's band, or even the Syrian shepherd lad with 
 his sling? Have we rightly measured the alterna- 
 tives of success on the one hand and of failure on the 
 other? If we move forward adequately and victori- 
 ously, we shall give a greater emphasis and reality to 
 our creed than any formularies can express. 
 
 We often point to the conquests of Christianity in 
 the past as proofs of its divine origin. Many a time 
 has it been said that the greatest miracle that the 
 Christian faith can present is the wonderful history 
 of its progress in many lands, and especially in the 
 transformations which it has wrought upon the un- 
 civilized races of Europe. Is it less true that similar 
 conquests now may constitute the best evidences of 
 the divine power of the Gospel. Who can estimate 
 the possibilities of such testimony, if the Church 
 were fully awake to her opportunities ? 
 
 But there is a grave alternative to be considered : 
 if we falter and fail, we shall give countenance to the 
 jeers of the enemy who already challenge the sin- 
 cerity of our belief, and who point to the shameful 
 
 59 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 disproportion between the lavish expenditures made 
 for every form of selfish gratification and the poor 
 dole which we offer for what we profess to re- 
 gard as the supreme object of duty and of life. 
 Failure, or even apathy, in the great missionary 
 enterprise will give countenance to the often repeated 
 allegation that Christianity has lost its power and 
 become effete, that its doctrines have lost their positive 
 force, and that the Church herself has come to feel 
 at heart that all religions are much alike and that 
 each may be best suited to its environments, though 
 none are divine. This enterprise is not merely a 
 matter of so much money contributed more or less; 
 it is a great moral issue to which angels and men are 
 witnesses. 
 
 (2) A board of foreign missions is a vast church 
 erection society. Xay, it builds not only churches, 
 but homes for its missionaries. An army of invasion 
 of whatever kind must carry its armaments and 
 equipments; and also its provisions and its shelter 
 from the storm. It is impossible for those who are 
 only familiar with the comforts to be found in their 
 own land, to realize the indispensable necessity of 
 building homes for our missionaries in heathen coun- 
 tries. It were a poor economy to place them in bam- 
 boo huts under a tropical sun. or on the malarious 
 mud floors of native houses : we cannot so trifle with 
 precious lives. Even on the low ground of mere 
 business principles, our missionaries must be pro- 
 vided with houses suited to an American constitu- 
 
 60 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 tion, and it is cheapest to build them in such a man- 
 ner that they will last for a reasonable time. What 
 sagacious commander, if he expected to win success, 
 would cripple his army by needless exposure or by an 
 inadequate commissariat. A cavalry regiment or an 
 express company would deem it a wise economy to 
 maintain the health and vigor of its horses. A trav- 
 eling menagerie would carefully protect its rare and 
 expensive beasts and reptiles, from whatever should 
 endanger life or health. 
 
 But something quite different from this is often 
 applied to the missionary service. One would 
 suppose that in this high vocation the great 
 desideratum were not vigorous health and strength 
 for work, but the conspicuous and startling spec- 
 tacle of slow martyrdom, and the general sanc- 
 tifying influence of missionary graves. We are 
 aware that great wisdom and discrimination are 
 required in this matter, for there is another extreme. 
 The just medium between a wasteful economy and 
 a wasteful extravagance is sometimes hard to find. 
 Missionary boards are sometimes severely tried by 
 the inexperience or foolish ambition of some young 
 missionary who makes an unwise expenditure; but 
 there are many more cases, especially at interior sta- 
 tions, in which for want of funds missionaries are 
 living in native-built houses of dried mud walls. In 
 the rainy season these sometimes drip with moisture, 
 and liquid mold breeds disease. And the practical 
 question now presented is, — how shall all these 
 
 6i 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 manifold and pressing wants be met? With hun- 
 dreds of chapels toward which the native churches 
 can pay but a small part, and hundreds of missiona- 
 ries' houses for which they can pay nothing, how is 
 this vast structural work to be provided for ? Do the 
 churches give a well considered and adequate allow- 
 ance for this separate and extensive work as they 
 make a separate offering for church erection boards 
 at home. If not, why not? On what principle is 
 the distinction based? Why is it that we have but 
 one annual collection for the salaries of our missiona- 
 ries, for their helpers, for their chapels, for their 
 homes, and for a multitude of things not yet named ? 
 (3) A board of foreign missions is a great bu- 
 reau of education. It is true that the work is mainly 
 performed by the force already mentioned, namely, 
 missionaries and native preachers and teachers when 
 ready for actual work. But wherewithal shall we 
 recruit and enlarge this native force? Not only in 
 the current evangelistic service, but in all our board- 
 mg schools, from the lower grades to the college and 
 theological seminary, there must be sustentation as 
 well as instruction. Small tuition fees are secured 
 where it is possible, but mainly the thousands of pu- 
 pils must be clothed and fed from the one treasury. 
 In this country we have separate boards of education 
 which receive contributions for this specific object. 
 The fact is recognized that the great hope of church 
 extension in this country lies in the education of a 
 numerous, well trained ministry, and that those who 
 
 62 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 for purposes of prolonged study are withdrawn from 
 active and remunerative business, must for a time be 
 aided from some general fund. Now precisely the 
 same wants and the same conditions exist on all the 
 foreign mission fields. They exist there in a much 
 greater degree, as the general poverty is greater, and 
 the sympathy and aid of kindred and friends are im- 
 measurably less; in fact, kindred and friends have in 
 most cases become bitterest foes. Moreover, in this 
 country a large part of the expense of education, the 
 preparatory education even of the ministry, is pro- 
 vided for by the state; but it were a great mistake to 
 suppose that education in the established colleges and 
 universities of countries like India and Japan can be 
 depended upon for even a partial training of native 
 preachers, to say nothing of those countries in which 
 no government aid is rendered. 
 
 Rationalistic tendencies appear in the instruction 
 given in some of our universities in this country as 
 well as in those of India; but here they are guarded 
 against to a great extent by family influence and 
 early training, by the work of Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Associations, and by the general prevalence of 
 Christian sentiment. But there are no such safe- 
 guards for university students on the mission fields. 
 Anyone who has read the interesting book, The 
 Diary of a Japanese Convert, will have seen how 
 different from our own is the mental and moral at- 
 titude of those whose antecedents were heathen. The 
 Church through its missionary agencies must as- 
 
 63 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 sume the whole burden of ministerial education, and 
 if the work of foreign missions is to be carried on 
 adequately, and with good hope of success, there is 
 an imperative demand for positive and efficient edu- 
 cational provisions to supply the needs of the foreign 
 field. Yet this great interest too can look only for its 
 small share of our annual church collection. It is 
 readily seen that missionaries enough to convert the 
 world can never be sent from the Christian lands of 
 the West. All thoughtful men must agree with the 
 utterance so often made that, "India must convert 
 India and China must convert China;" and yet some- 
 how the Church is marvelously wedded to the notion 
 of bringing all this about by the ridiculous dole of 
 one annual collection. 
 
 (4) A board of foreign missions is an extensive 
 board of aid for securing the plants of schools and 
 colleges, with all their furnishing and equipment. I 
 have already spoken of church buildings and mis- 
 sionaries' dwellings, but there is another structural 
 department, embracing colleges and seminaries for 
 both sexes, industrial school plants and boarding 
 schools of various grades down to the orphanage and 
 the kindergarten. For the tens of thousands of pupils 
 in day schools humble buildings are rented, but for 
 the boarding schools of all ranks, permanent build- 
 ings are generally erected or purchased with mission 
 funds. The Presbyterian Board, alone, not to men- 
 tion others, has such institutions scattered over Sy- 
 ria, Persia, India, Siam, Laos, China, Korea, Japan, 
 
 04 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 Brazil, Chili, Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala. In 
 a very few instances provision has been made by 
 large individual gifts, but as a rule the one annual 
 collection is the Aladdin's lamp whose magic is ex- 
 pected to cover the earth with educational institu- 
 tions. In many of our mission fields the govern- 
 ments under the spur of missions no doubt, and the 
 added motive of rivalry, are supplying the means of 
 advanced education on a liberal scale. Fine build- 
 ings and all needed appliances are generously sup- 
 plied. The government colleges in Brazil may be 
 mentioned specially in this connection. There is a 
 great advance also in Mexico. And the influence in 
 these institutions is anything but favorable to evan- 
 gelical truth. The extent of university education 
 in India is well known, and its character unfortu- 
 nately has been rather agnostic. In Japan, the Tokyo 
 University is aspiring to be one of the first educa- 
 tional centres in the world. In proportion to its age 
 it has no rival anywhere. It already numbers scores 
 of professors and teachers. Almost every depart- 
 ment of learning is taken up on the most generous 
 scale and with ample provision. 
 
 Now Christianity has not thus far held a second- 
 ary place in education. It would be an unspeakable 
 humiliation if now, in a country which fifty years ago 
 was in the utter darkness of heathenism, the whole 
 mission work should be overshadowed and discred- 
 ited by higher grades of secular education, wholly 
 godless, and looking down upon our missionary edu- 
 
 65 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 cation with a feeling akin to pity. In these circum- 
 stances the churches in Christendom cannot measure 
 the interests of Christian education by the geography 
 of their own lands merely ; for the world has become 
 geographically one, and the interests of education 
 and the general advancement are one and the same 
 the world over. We cannot, therefore, lavish all our 
 munificence upon the institutions at our door, while 
 we leave Christian education out upon the wide bat- 
 tle-fields of truth and error to languish and sink into 
 contempt. There cannot be disease or paralysis at 
 the extremities without sapping the source of life at 
 the vital centres. Here then is a problem whose 
 gravity cannot be overestimated. Here are questions 
 touching the struggle of Christian truth with w^orld- 
 wide error which will soon demand careful attention. 
 In a word we must plan more deeply and broadly. 
 The nations cannot be converted to Christ by in- 
 strumentalities which are measured by the present 
 proportions of outlay. We are dipping the ocean 
 with a spoon. We are disregarding the Savior's 
 maxim, that he who would go to war must count 
 his forces adequately, and in proportion to the con- 
 quest which he would make. We are inviting defeat. 
 (5) A board of foreign missions is a great pub- 
 lishing establishment. In our own land religious 
 books and papers are supplied from many sources, 
 and Bibles are multiplied almost as the leaves of au- 
 tumn ; but in heathen lands there is no literature till 
 the missionary creates one. Among many tribes 
 
 66 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 neither printing nor writing is known, and some- 
 times a language or dialect is without grammatical 
 form. In some eastern lands where old religious 
 systems are found, elaborate and extensive litera- 
 tures survive, the treasures, perhaps, of a bygone and 
 more enlightened age, but they are not within the 
 reach of the people and are not read even by the 
 priesthood. Hindus are ignorant of Sanscrit, the 
 Siamese Buddhists of the sacred Pali, and the Bom- 
 bay Parsees of the Zend and the Pelavi. Here is our 
 opportunity. 
 
 A Prince of Siam said to a missionary of the 
 Presbyterian Board, 'The literature which you have 
 published is really the first religious literature that 
 the people of Siam have ever read. Your books may 
 be found in the homes of the leading classes and even 
 in the royal palace, where they have a first hearing; 
 for Buddhists, I am sorry to say, have never fur- 
 nished the people with the literature of Buddhism. 
 Even the most intelligent classes, and to a large ex- 
 tent the priests, are ignorant of it. This neglect 
 has been a great mistake, for now your Christian 
 books are read with fresh interest." 
 
 Only one who has visited the mission fields from 
 land to land can realize the popular need of religious 
 literature or the vast expenditure of labor and of 
 money by which so many mission presses are built 
 and manned, and kept at work with their daily issues 
 of thousands of pages. In translating, in writing 
 compends of theology and history, or commentaries 
 
 67 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 and tracts and school books of all kinds, the mission- 
 ary force is employed; but the added financial ex- 
 penditure in buildings, presses, apparatus, and the 
 employment of a large force of skilled and unskilled 
 laborers, is very great. In scarcely any other de- 
 partment have missions done so much to revolution- 
 ize eastern lands as in this. The work of the Syria 
 Mission in translating the Bible into Arabic, and in 
 more beautiful type than Arabs had ever seen before, 
 was a great event in the history of Arabic speaking 
 races ; and the revolution which was accomplished in 
 the printing of the Chinese language, by the great 
 dictionaries of Dr. S. Wells Williams and Dr. J. C. 
 Hepburn, both printed by a mission press, were 
 equally grand achievements. Rev. James S. Gale, a 
 missionary of the Presbyterian church, U. S. A., has 
 done a similar work in Korea. The possibilities 
 which lie along this line of effort will be realized 
 when we reflect that the Bible in whole or in part is 
 now translated into over three hundred languages 
 and dialects. The press in Beirut has issued millions 
 of pages of religious books and school books for its 
 own and other missions, and the Presbyterian press 
 in Shanghai has done the same for China, while its 
 type foundry has supplied type for nearly all the 
 early newspapers of the Chinese Empire. 
 
 (6) A foreign missionary board is a vast medical 
 and eleemosynary society, having branches in many 
 parts of the world. In China, Korea, Japan, Hainan, 
 Siam, Laos, India, and Persia, the Presbyterian 
 
 68 
 
OF MODERN MISvSIONS 
 
 Board maintains over thirty hospitals and dispen- 
 saries. This presents another very large item for 
 buildings and equipments. And the work in this 
 department must be done thoroughly if at all. Dif- 
 ficult surgical cases must be under complete control. 
 Patients must be removed from the discomfort and 
 neglect of native households and placed in hospital 
 wards, or they will die, and superstitious prejudice 
 will charge the responsibility upon our faith and our 
 whole work. Thousands of surgical operations are 
 performed every year, and hundreds of thousands of 
 persons receive medical treatment, and not only build- 
 ings but the support of the patients, the medicines 
 and appliances, and the large force of servants and 
 nurses, must be provided. The general influence ex- 
 erted by medical missions can never be fully esti- 
 mated. Not only the multitudes who have been 
 healed are rendered more impressible by the truth, 
 but grateful households and wondering communi- 
 ties. The miracles of surgery which are wrought 
 every day, become silent heralds far and near, and 
 where they have opened the way the seed sowing 
 follows. And not only this : every hospital becomes 
 a medical training school for native physicians of 
 both sexes, and through their influence medical prac- 
 tice is being revolutionized throughout whole na- 
 tions. It were a pity that such a work could not be 
 greatly enlarged. But our medical work must also 
 look for support to its meagre share of the one collec- 
 tion. It may have been a rainy day collection, or 
 
 69 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 the fortuitous loose change of the donors was low, 
 but there is no help for it : it must pass for the gift 
 of the year for all the physical wants and woes of the 
 heathen world. 
 
 In order to realize more fully the deficiencies of 
 our provision for the medical work of the vast and 
 destitute races of benighted men, let us pause and 
 consider what is done in this one department here 
 at home. What magnificent hospitals are now pro- 
 vided in our great cities ! In New York it is claimed 
 by some that we have too many. In addition to those 
 which are provided from municipal or state fund, all 
 the Christian and Jewish denominations vie with 
 each other in the most popular of all charities. Most 
 heartily do we rejoice in it. It honors and even glo- 
 rifies that spirit of Christianity which has created 
 such a sentiment and such results. One beautiful 
 feature of this charity is that all classes of the suf- 
 fering are admitted without respect to creed or na- 
 tionality. But why the difference between this work 
 which is at our door and under our eye, and which 
 often perhaps involves a certain element of pride, and 
 that which concerns so many millions of men and 
 women with far worse needs on foreign fields? Is 
 this Christ-like work for humanity a matter of geog- 
 raphy, that we should spend hundreds of thousands 
 of dollars on the mere architecture of our hospitals 
 here while we point the suffering millions of Asia 
 and Africa to our one annual missionary collection, 
 waited for as it is by more competing claimants than 
 
 70 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 ever gathered around Bethesda, and simply say to 
 them "Be ye clothed and be ye fed and be ye healed !" 
 Now these classifications suggest a general inade- 
 quacy in our methods of raising money for foreign 
 missions, an inadequacy which will continue to be 
 fatal to great success until some radical change shall 
 be made. The present plan has aptly enough been 
 characterized as merely "dabbling with missions." 
 It is something less than skirmishing : it is an impos- 
 sible sort of procedure and would hardly seem to in- 
 dicate any serious purpose or expectation of success. 
 We are trying to carry on our manifold work on the 
 great dark continents, on a principle the very reverse 
 of that which we employ in our own land. Here we 
 follow a law of expansion and ramification — there a 
 law of contraction and concentration. Here as the 
 work of the Church has grown we have multiplied 
 agencies and given to each a distinct administration 
 and a distinct support. Here we have our mission- 
 ary work divided into home missions and city mis- 
 sions, and special missions connected with different 
 congregations. In the Presbyterian church we have 
 beside these, church extension committees, and 
 special missionary agencies for the presbyteries and 
 synods. We provide separate administrations and 
 separate collections each, for education, publication, 
 church erection, the freedman, and systematic aid for 
 colleges. We make collections for Bible societies, 
 and tract societies, and the Sunday School Union, 
 for hospitals and asylums and orphanages. What 
 
 71 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 would be thought of the poUcy of including all these 
 objects in one collection, and that collection taken 
 perhaps with a mere announcement and no appeal? 
 Would not the bare suggestion be met with ridicule? 
 Would not everybody conclude that the Church 
 could not be in earnest but was only enacting a hol- 
 low and heartless farce. 
 
 But I have not yet fathomed the full difficulty that 
 differentiates foreign missions from the varied be- 
 nevolent work at home. So far from realizing the 
 inadequacy of the provision we make for the many 
 wants and woes of the great heathen world, the 
 churches are constantly depleting the resources de- 
 pended upon for the prosecution and expansion of 
 existing work, by diverting even their small gifts to 
 a hundred subordinate and divisive schemes which 
 happen to appeal to the fancy. A vague and indis- 
 criminate sense seems to be applied to the term for- 
 eign, as if the emphasis were there, rather than on 
 any great definite undertaking for the conversion of 
 men : as if it were of no consequence what the object 
 may be or where it is located, if only it is far off. It 
 may be some ill judged or irresponsible scheme un- 
 dertaken by an individual. It is rather "taking'' 
 perhaps and so the castomary annual contribution 
 for foreign missions or a part of it is set down to its 
 credit. Even the one small gift of the year for a 
 score of needy and accredited objects is diverted to 
 nobody knows what. 
 
 While the utmost economy is observed in the work 
 72 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 of the great boards, while all the extent and variety 
 of the above named operations on a score of distant 
 fields, are to be administered by from two to five 
 executive officers, and complaints are often made 
 that even that small force cannot be reduced, each 
 one of the hundred independent missionary schemes 
 is manned by an able bodied solicitor, with salary and 
 large traveling expenses, and the churches cheerfully 
 support this army while their own cheaper organized 
 agencies are crippled by debts. Unless some very 
 positive and concerted action is taken by the churches 
 to the contrary, this inadequacy of support for estab- 
 lished foreign missions seems little likely to im- 
 prove, and for the reason that the number of ob- 
 jects nearer home increases in a greater ratio than 
 the supply of funds. Expendiures within the local 
 congregation are becoming constantly larger : the in- 
 ventiveness of the people in ways and means outruns 
 the missionary spirit. Humanitarian charities greatly 
 increase in number and variety, and we would not 
 have it otherwise. Personal luxuries, family luxu- 
 ries, social luxuries of all kinds, absorb more and 
 more the means of the Church ; and the self interests, 
 and the nearer charities have the great advantage of 
 being close at hand. Objects in the foreground al- 
 ways seem large and conspicuous and their appeal is 
 strong, while "the regions beyond" are only a dim 
 blue line in the horizon, and however much there 
 may be of want and distress, the distant cry is un- 
 heard. The far off charnel houses, and scenes of 
 
 73 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 violence or suffering, are unseen. When shall the 
 dim and narrowing perspective of the world's great 
 want cease from this fatal illusion ? When shall the 
 enlarged and intelligent faith of the church come to 
 see the problem of a world-wide redemption in some 
 small degree as God sees it ? When shall we proceed 
 with this vast undertaking on some intelligent and 
 adequate plan? Vyhen shall not merely sentiment 
 and enthusiasm but common sense assume her proper 
 place in the work of missions, and a true arith- 
 metic of the finances be applied as in all things else ? 
 We look out into the future of this greatest of all 
 conquests and not a very distant future. Over 
 against the boundless wealth which God has given 
 us to do with, we see the accumulating needs and op- 
 portunities of a world overcrowded with populations 
 which increase much faster than our propagandism 
 — always poor, more or less indifferent, and yet more 
 and more demonstrating the truth that God is no 
 respecter of persons or of races. We see the native 
 preachers on the mission fields increased from hun- 
 dreds to thousands, and their congregations yet too 
 poor to assume the many lines of Christian work, 
 and we ask how are our responsibilities to be met. 
 On what plan? Shall we abolish the distinction of 
 *'home" and ''foreign," overlook national bound- 
 aries and even the wide barriers of the sea, and carry 
 out our ecclesiastical methods and our divisions of 
 labor and of contribution in all lands alike? Shall 
 the churches of various names authorize their boards 
 
 74 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 of Church Erection to build churches in India and 
 China as well as in Montana? Shall proportionate 
 educational aid be extended to students for the min- 
 istry in Mexico and Brazil as well as at Princeton? 
 Shall the Boards of Publication issue their printed 
 pages not only from Philadelphia or New York, but 
 from Shanghai and Beirut? Shall the great Bible 
 Societies of New York and London, assume not a 
 part as now, but the whole work of supplying the 
 heathen world with the Word of God? Were there 
 some such subdivisions of labor and responsibility 
 as these, the crushing burdens of Foreign Missionary 
 Boards would be greatly relieved and their supply of 
 funds, such as it is, might be devoted to specific 
 lines of work. The total would be immensely in- 
 creased. The time may not have arrived for so radi- 
 cal a change, but in the not distant future either a 
 change of the methods or a change in the scale must 
 surely come. 
 
 75 
 
THE PLACE OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN 
 MISSIONARY WORK 
 
 Fifty years ago a spirited discussion prevailed in 
 American missionary circles in regard to schools and 
 education. Within the last decade of the century 
 the relative importance of mission schools and 
 evangelization has again been widely discussed. 
 
 There is no problem in missionary policy which it 
 is more difficult to solve, owing to the manifold and 
 often conflicting considerations which ought to be 
 weighed. The wisest conclusions must ever be open 
 to modification. 
 
 The late Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D. D., told us in The 
 Missionary Review of the World, of December, 
 1898, that when he first went to India in 1865 he had 
 "a strong prepossession against educational mission 
 work, but that after many years of experience and 
 observation on the ground, though not actually en- 
 gaged in such work, he "came to modify the ex- 
 treme ground then taken." In his able and discrim- 
 inating article in the Review he presented many 
 cogent arguments in support of higher education in 
 India as a missionary necessity. But again in his 
 correspondence written later, he expressed grave 
 
 76 
 
\ 
 
 OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 misgivings in view of the political dangers of high 
 secular education under the conditions now prevail- 
 ing in India. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin Kidd in his Social Evolution has 
 said that every movement by which this altruistic age 
 seeks to raise up the ignorant and depressed, only 
 prepares them more and more, for competition with, 
 and perhaps hostility to, their benefactors; that 
 as the lower classes are always in the majority, the 
 power thus descends from the higher to the lower 
 ranks ; and that accordingly, society is always dying 
 at the top. Something like this has already appeared 
 as a result of Anglo-Indian education, and to some 
 extent, of missionary education. Within the last 
 year it has been found that university graduates, and 
 some who had been regarded as loyal sons of mission 
 schools and of the Christian church, had sympathized 
 with the Mohammedan uprisings on the Afghan bor- 
 der, and had created serious apprehensions for the 
 future. The personal ambitions of educated men are 
 always strong; they are weary of subjection to for- 
 eign rule, and their growing consciousness of pa- 
 triotism and the pride of race are so much fuel stored 
 up for any great political conflagration that may 
 occur. The possible outcome of higher secular edu- 
 cation at a time when Franco-Russian diplomacy and 
 Mohammedan fanaticism are alike menacing the 
 British Indian Empire, may well cause some hesita- 
 tion — and yet shall safety be found in popular ignor- 
 ance? 
 
 77 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 It remains to be seen how far the same dangers 
 may arise in the American attempt to enlighten and 
 elevate the inhabitants of Porto Rico and the Philip- 
 pines. Doubtless with every degree of improvement, 
 the desire for self-government will become more 
 active, and that desire will always outrun any real 
 fitness for such an experiment. 
 
 Mr. Kidd does not urge his theory as a reason 
 why the dictates of altruism should cease to act, and 
 men should forbear to benefit their f ellowmen ; much 
 less should missionary policy be so changed as to 
 leave the benighted in ignorance and degradation. 
 The social evolutionist regards the present altruistic 
 movement as an inevitable and irresistible drift in 
 our race development; the Christian recognizes and 
 obeys a far higher and more rational force which he 
 finds in a divine commission and an all controlling 
 providence. In such guidance he can safely trust. 
 The path of duty must sometimes be followed, 
 though its entire course to the end cannot be fore- 
 seen. 
 
 The circumstances and conditions of educational 
 work differ, not only in different lands, but also in 
 different periods. Some of the expectations which 
 were entertained a century ago have been disap- 
 pointed; others have met with only modified fulfill- 
 ment. It was understood that inveterate systems of 
 error would need to be overcome, and much rubbish 
 be removed before the superstructure of Christianity 
 and Christian civilization could be reared; but the 
 
 78 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 church was not quite prepared for all the changes 
 which have in fact occurred. Very generally it was 
 supposed to be the wise course to begin with the 
 young and rise from primary to higher grades of 
 schools, — encouraged by the fact that so much had 
 been accomplished by general education in Christian 
 lands. 
 
 But perhaps it was not duly considered that this 
 general education had, in our case, been a slow 
 growth, and that its sudden introduction among peo- 
 ples enthralled by old heathen customs, and steeped 
 in false philosophies might develop results somewhat 
 different from those which had been expected. The 
 task undertaken in India and in the Turkish Empire, 
 for example, involved the impact of a full-fledged 
 civilization upon other civilizations which were also 
 fully developed though on different lines. This im- 
 plied not merely persuasion, but gradual revolution. 
 Any Hindu at the beginning of this century would 
 have been justified in a prophecy that the missions 
 and the civilization of the Anglo-Saxon, if success- 
 ful, would involve the overthrow not only of the old 
 Hinduism, but of India's social and political institu- 
 tions. Where so great changes are liable to occur, it 
 is impossible to foresee all the results of education, 
 and especially higher education, upon a non-Chris- 
 tian race. And we ought not to be surprised if, as a 
 result of our progress and in proportion to our 
 progress, even greater antagonisms should yet rise 
 up against our missionary work. 
 
 79 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 One result of higher education in India and the 
 Turkish Empire, taken together with the opening of 
 increased commercial relations with other lands, has 
 been the awakening of an ambition to seek especially 
 an English or a French education as a means of busi- 
 ness thrift. The spirit developed has been disap- 
 pointing to the missionaries who had hoped for con- 
 secrated lives enlisted in winning men to the Cross, 
 but who have found instead of this, an all-absorbing 
 desire to secure advantageous positions in govern- 
 mental or commercial employments. Moreover, it 
 has been found very generally, that the education of 
 young men in the great seaport cities, where they 
 were subjected to a controlling cosmopolitan in- 
 fluence, has been attended with more or less dena- 
 tionalization. Many young men from Mt. Lebanon, 
 trained in Beirut, or Armenians from Central Tur- 
 key, educated at Constantinople, have been quick to 
 catch the foreign spirit, to assume foreign airs, and 
 to develop from their education a positive unfitness 
 for the humble walks of missionary life among their 
 countrymen in the rural districts. A later outcome 
 of the same general influence, has been the creation 
 of a desire to visit Europe or America to obtain a 
 still higher education, generally with a professed 
 purpose to return to a greater usefulness at home; 
 but sooner or later disclosing an ambition to be 
 placed upon the footing and the salary of a foreign 
 missionary. 
 
 And the influence of this movement has not been 
 80 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 confined to those who have been selected as candi- 
 dates for the ministry or for teaching, but has ex- 
 tended to hundreds of others in various ranks of 
 Hfe. Colonies of Armenians, Syrians, Bulgarians, 
 Persians, are now found in our American cities, and 
 the whole movement in its far-reaching influence 
 seems to promise a serious depletion of the ranks of 
 intelligent youth who ought to be trained at home 
 as Christian laborers. 
 
 Another unexpected result of foreign education, 
 particularly English education, has been the rehabili- 
 tation of the old false systems which it was our pur- 
 pose to overthrow. In India the educated young 
 men of the present generation have, through West- 
 ern influence, been made familiar, as never before, 
 with their own faiths and philosophies. This has not 
 all been accomplished by missionary institutions, but 
 more largely by those under the auspices of the gov- 
 ernment ; yet, to some extent, our own English edu- 
 cation has led on to the same results. While we have 
 greatly extended the English language as a medium 
 of enlightenment, there has been a revival of San- 
 scrit learning with extensive expurgated translations 
 of Sanscrit literature into English, so that hundreds 
 have been made acquainted with their own systems, 
 through our language acquired in the mission 
 schools. These changes in the attitude and equip- 
 ment of young India render it necessary that some 
 adequate knowledge of the Hindu religions and phi- 
 
 8i 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 losophies should be acquired by all who would be 
 successful missionaries. 
 
 Our agnostic speculations also have found their 
 way to India and Japan. As a result of the investi- 
 gations of a society formed in Calcutta for the dif- 
 fusion of a wholesome literature, it was found that 
 Western infidelity in various forms was making 
 quite as large a use of the English language in the 
 diffusion of infidel and immoral books and pam- 
 phlets, as that of all missionary boards and societies 
 taken together. And such literature has this advan- 
 tage, that wealthy rajahs and others more or less 
 hostile to Christian propagandism are ready to con- 
 tribute largely for the circulation of the writings of 
 Bradlaugh, Ingersoll, and Alcott, while such help is 
 not found in the dissemination of Christian books. 
 Then as to the literature of vice, French novels of 
 the worst type, translated into cheap English forms, 
 were found to be extensively imported as business 
 ventures, by corrupt and unscrupulous men. The ex- 
 tent of this evil is appalling. 
 
 A similar state of things has appeared in Siam, 
 where the late Dr. Arthur Mitchell, when on a visit 
 a few years ago, was informed that the high officials 
 of the Government were receding from their favora- 
 ble attitude toward female education, for the reason 
 that the Siamese women and girls who had learned 
 to read, were being corrupted by the vile literature 
 which was thrown upon the market at Bangkok. 
 Such discouragements as these should not be allowed 
 
 82 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 too great weight, but it is well to recognize the fact 
 that tares are sown abundantly with the wheat, and 
 that if the true husbandmen are not alert the tares 
 may exceed the harvest. 
 
 Another consideration which has raised some 
 question as to the policy of missionary education, is 
 the alleged fact that in proportion to the great ex- 
 penditure made by certain societies, especially en- 
 gaged in the higher training, the number of conver- 
 sions has seemed small as compared with the results 
 gained by other societies devoted mainly to evan- 
 gelistic work. A spirit of discontent with these re- 
 sults has sometimes manifested itself in the churches, 
 and has been made a matter of criticism by the 
 secular press, with invidious comparisons as to the 
 relative ''cost of a convert." 
 
 Now, a thoroughly enlightened estimate would, of 
 course, make little account of these criticisms, and 
 would place greater value upon the broader scope of 
 future results. Still these complaints have not been 
 easy to meet ; and more or less in response to a popu- 
 lar feeling, certain societies have been organized with 
 the paramount aim of direct evangelization, and their 
 undenominational work based upon that policy, has 
 won a large degree of sympathy and support. ''In- 
 stitutionalism," as it is sometimes rather slightingly 
 called, has been held at a discount, and men have 
 plead for the direct work of preaching the Gospel as 
 a message to the adults of this generation. In 
 answer to the argument of the "seed-sow- 
 
 83 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ers," it has been said that the fifty or sixty 
 years of seed-sowing that have been spent in 
 some fields ought by this time to bring forth 
 plentiful harvests; that the great work demanded by 
 the present generation of dying men cannot be longer 
 sacrificed to the w^ork of teaching a limited number 
 from whom results are to be expected in the distant 
 years to come. Under the influence of these various 
 disappointments and difficulties, it is not strange that 
 the whole question of missionary education should 
 have come up for re-examination, and that a feeling 
 in favor of placing greater emphasis upon the direct 
 work of preaching the Gospel to men and women as 
 it was proclaimed in the days of the apostles, should 
 have come to demand greater attention. In most of 
 the missionary organizations represented in the 
 various conferences which have been held, not by 
 Americans only, but by representatives of European 
 societies, there has been an increasing conviction that 
 the relative proportions in missionary effort should 
 possibly be somewhat changed, and that all friends of 
 missions should be emboldened to ask for abundant 
 harvests now^ or soon, in the fields in which for so 
 long a time institutional work of all kinds has been 
 carried on, and where, as yet, the results are pro- 
 portionately small. 
 
 But, on the other hand, let us fairly weigh some 
 considerations which urge the maintenance and the 
 advantages of higher education. Those who have 
 read the reports of the late Parliament of Religions 
 
 84 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 at Chicago, in 1893 must have reached the conclu- 
 sion that the Church in her conquest of at least some 
 of the non-Christian races, must expect to cope with 
 men of a high order of intellect ; men well trained in 
 the principles of their own faiths and philosophies; 
 men who have been stimulated and emboldened by 
 the fellowship and encouragement of every form of 
 infidelity from our own land; men who have been 
 made familiar with all the weaknesses and blemishes 
 found in the history of the Christian church; men 
 who are stung with indignation at the outrages 
 which, almost universally in the East and in the 
 islands of the sea, are visited upon weaker races by 
 representatives of Christian nations. 
 
 First, it is evident that some at least of our mis- 
 sionaries must be able defenders of the truth against 
 manifold error. At a summer school attended by 
 about 400 young native ministers and teachers in 
 Japan a few years ago, a summary of conclusions 
 Vv-as reached, one of which was, in substance, this: 
 "We do not deem it necessary that many more mis- 
 sionaries shall be sent us from America to preach 
 the Gospel to the masses of our people. The ordi- 
 nary work of preaching can be done quite as well by 
 educated men of our own race. JBut if our friends 
 across the ocean can send us men capable of becom- 
 ing leaders, able to teach us how we may grapple 
 with rival systems of religion or philosophy, and all 
 the burning questions which confront us, then the 
 more they send the better." Now, such a demand 
 
 85 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 means not only a high grade of training for our mis- 
 sionaries, or some of them, but also for leading 
 minds in the native church, for they especially will 
 encounter the well-trained opposers. 
 
 I know how cheap and easy it is to answer all 
 this by the taking plea, that ''what our missionaries 
 need is a knowledge of Christ and Him crucified." 
 But Paul also knew something about Christ and Him 
 crucified; and yet in placing young Titus as a mis- 
 sionary among the caviling and besotted inhabitants 
 of Crete, he enjoined upon him that careful prepara- 
 tion which should enable him ''to convince the gain- 
 sayers," the vain talkers, and deceivers, "whose 
 mouths must be stopped." And these were not mere 
 babes in knowledge, but were trained and skillful 
 cavilers, belonging — some of them — to "the circum- 
 cision," and their mouths were to be stopped, not 
 with sanctimonious platitudes nor sweeping denun- 
 ciations, but with sound arguments. 
 
 For several years The Japan Mail published a 
 monthly resume of the utterances of all religious and 
 anti-religious systems. It has maintained in reality, 
 a continuous Parliament of Religions along the same 
 line as that of Chicago in 1893. Some of the edu- 
 cated Japanese, hostile to the Christian faith, have 
 shown surprising familiarity with our faith and our 
 church history, especially its alleged blemishes. And 
 Mr. Hirai, on the floor of the Chicago Parliament, 
 hurled back the dark and blighting record of the un- 
 just diplomacy of Christian nations in a way which 
 
 ^6 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 only a thoroughly informed missionary could answer. 
 I cite these facts in order to show that not only 
 missionaries, but at least some of our native preach- 
 ers and teachers, must be fitted to defend the Chris- 
 tian faith against powerful opponents, and to show 
 the difference between the attitudes of the Christian 
 church of the West and the nations of the West. 
 One of the greatest necessities of our age is, that we 
 shall have here at home educational facilities which 
 shall enable chosen men by life-long study to speak 
 with authority on all the great issues by which the 
 Christian faith is confronted. And the same need 
 will be felt, nay, is being felt, on some of our foreign 
 fields. In educated circles in Japan there is, I think, 
 greater attention given to religious thought than 
 among us. However we may account for that fact, 
 the Japanese are philosophers by a sort of instinct. 
 The people of India are, perhaps, the most religious 
 and the most metaphysical of any nation on the 
 globe. Their literatures show that in remote ages 
 profound philosophies were elaborated, evincing the 
 deepest penetration into the mysteries of life and the 
 nature and tendencies of the human soul. Here, it is 
 alleged, we have been busy with material things; 
 there, religious speculation has long held the larger 
 place. The Vedic Magazine, published in Hindi, and 
 in English, at Lahore, has presented some very caus- 
 tic criticisms upon the habits and the characteristics 
 of the average Anglo-Saxon. It characterizes him 
 as a beef-eating and beer-drinking type of man, 
 
 87 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 whose luxurious life renders him incapable of spir- 
 itual contemplation. His civilization is one of ma- 
 terial forces only, and his only real worship is that 
 of outward display or hoarded pelf. The same mag- 
 azine quoted a few years ago some of ex-President 
 Andrew D. White's startling revelations of the cor- 
 ruptions of American municipal government, and 
 held them up to thoughtful Orientals as a specimen 
 of the results of Western civilization. This genera- 
 tion needs a new apologetic. It is no longer the old 
 battle with gnostics and manichaeans, nor the later 
 controversies with English deists or French en- 
 cyclopedists; there are special issues that concern us 
 now. And as the battle-ground will be not here 
 alone, but on some of our great mission fields, shall 
 we not prepare some of our native preachers and 
 teachers to act well their part ? If so, we must pay 
 some attention to the highest missionary education. 
 I have already alluded to the fact that young men 
 in India and Japan are well furnished with all the 
 stock arguments against the Christian faith, and that 
 they know how to use them. A young Hindu, about 
 seventeen years of age, said to his Bible-class teacher, 
 *'Do you say that God made the world for His own 
 glory?" ''Yes." ''Did it increase His glory?" 
 "Yes." "Then how could He be infinite at first?" 
 Another youth said, "Do you hold that God is every- 
 where present? Is He in every visible object and 
 even within us?" "Yes." "Then He is in that idol 
 yonder, is He not, and that is what we have always 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 held." It is evidently a mistake to suppose that we 
 have simply and only to tell the story of the Cross. 
 That there is a very important — nay a chief place for 
 that simple and direct work, I hope to show farther 
 on ; and although there are paid pundits employed for 
 the purpose of interrupting the bazaar preacher with 
 perplexing questions, it is a wise rule to avoid dis- 
 cussions, if possible. But the idea that either the 
 missionary or the native preacher needs only to be 
 taught the principles of our Christian religion, and 
 that they can always meet the oppositions of heathen 
 systems by ignoring them, is preposterous. If it 
 should turn out in any of the great battle-fields of 
 religious thought that Christianity, with all its 
 claims to intellectual superiority, had shown itself 
 unable to defend its doctrines or its history against 
 the assailments of skilful Orientals, supposed to be 
 ignorant ''heathen," it v/ould be a disaster to the 
 cause of truth. Christianity w^ould come to be looked 
 upon with contempt by those whom we have pro- 
 fessed to enlighten, and this discomfiture on the mis- 
 sion fields would soon cast its reflex influence upon 
 the whole position of the Church at home. It is to be 
 borne in mind that the world is one at last, and that 
 with respect to religious thought, the boundaries of 
 nationality are forever lost. The Parliament of Re- 
 ligions has come to stay. It began long before the 
 Chicago committee had thought of it. Truth must 
 everywhere be equipped for her final victory over 
 error. 
 
 89 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 Again, not merely in religious thought and specu- 
 lative philosophy, including a study of all sacred 
 books, but in science and in history, Christianity 
 must have a hand on all the greater mission fields. 
 A warped and distorted science taking possession of 
 leading minds, and more or less affecting every class, 
 would constitute one of the worst barriers to the in- 
 culcation of Christian truth. For example the wide 
 prevalence of materialistic evolution, claiming to cut 
 up by the roots all the religious cosmogonies of the 
 world — that of Genesis as well as that of the Brah- 
 manasorof Manu — will, if left unchallenged in India 
 or Japan, throw contempt upon our Christian Bible 
 and largely upon the whole teaching of the Christian 
 church. 
 
 In the above named article by Dr. Kellogg, the 
 writer says with respect to the importance of instruc- 
 tion to native students in science: 'They need to 
 know that as the late George Romanes has said, the 
 great advance of scientific knowledge in our day has 
 done far more for Christianity than against it. In 
 his Thoughts on Religion, edited by Canon Gore, 
 astronomy, chemistry, electrical science, geology, 
 biology, and even mathematics, when studied with 
 the eye on the mathematics of nature, all bear con- 
 sentient testimony to the falsehood alike of panthe- 
 ism and materialism, and point unmistakably to the 
 existence of a Supreme Being, who is not merely the 
 material ground of being, not merely a vague, im- 
 personal ''power that makes for righteousness," but 
 
 90 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 a God who is living and personal, the Creator and 
 Lord of all. Christian teachers need to press these 
 things on the educated men of non-Christian lands, 
 and to let them clearly understand that these and 
 other sublime and momentous inferences from the 
 phenomena of the universe, have been regarded as 
 the inevitable by a large number of the greatest 
 scientific men of our day. They ought to know that 
 such men as Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Balfour, 
 Stewart, Young, Secchi, Mivart, and many of their 
 peers have not been ashamed to express this convic- 
 tion." 
 
 And there is a like demand in the sphere of ethics. 
 That an entirely secular education left in the hands 
 of the governments, and dealing chiefly with schools 
 of philosophy and of science, would in time over- 
 throw the religious teachings of Hinduism, or the 
 Buddhist and Shinto faiths of Japan, goes without 
 saying. If, then, advanced Christian instruction 
 should be withheld, what basis of ethics would be 
 left? 
 
 And this difficulty is already being recognized and 
 seriously felt in some eastern lands. The disciples 
 of Huxley and Herbert Spencer in Japan have been 
 trying to devise an ethical basis which would meet 
 the wants of the people without recourse to the ethics 
 of the New Testament. And if a race like the 
 Hindus are by their education divested of their own 
 religious faith, and left with no substitute, by what 
 ethical restraints or promptings will that race be in- 
 
 91 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 fluenced? I am told that certain administrators of 
 the India government, after a long experiment of 
 mere secular training, which has left the minds of 
 thousands of educated youth stranded on the dreary 
 wastes of agnosticism and without fear of God or 
 man, are convinced that this policy is fatal, and the 
 most thoughtful minds are turning to Christian mis- 
 sions with increasing favor as the only thing that 
 can supply the deficiency and save the nation from 
 becoming morally bankrupt. 
 
 The ethical condition of a country in which the 
 old systems have lost their power and Christian 
 ethics have not gained a controlling force, is well il- 
 lustrated in the following extract from a Japanese 
 paper called the Jiji Shimpo and quoted in The Japan 
 Weekly Mail of November 12, 1898. 'Tn the world 
 of ethics we find this party preaching the new code; 
 that advocating the old. Here are men crying out 
 for woman's rights and the honor of monogamy; 
 there may be seen others who pride themselves on 
 keeping several mistresses. In one circle nothing is 
 heard but applause for the immemorial canons of 
 filial piety and patriotic loyalty : men sacrifice their 
 lives without a qualm at the dictates of leal fidelity, 
 and girls sell themselves into a life of shame to sup- 
 port their parents. But turn in another direction 
 and you shall hear equally strident sermons preached 
 about personal freedom and popular government. In 
 truth it may be said that Japan is at present in a state 
 of chaos. The obvious role to be played by statesmen 
 
 92 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 in such a season of seething transformation is to 
 obey the dictates of moderation and liberaHty, and 
 to suffer the course of evolution to proceed without 
 interruption. The fittest will survive, and the fittest 
 must be suffered to work out its own salvation. Yet 
 in certain directions freedom of movement is merci- 
 lessly checked and sharp restraints are imposed. 
 Such abuses are notably apparent in the spheres of 
 education and religion. Legislators and adminis- 
 trators hamper the free course of evolution; interfere 
 with the working of the great law of the survival 
 of the fittest, and postpone the nation's emergence 
 from a state of chaos." 
 
 The question has been raised, and I refer to it in 
 this close connection, whether it might not be better for 
 missionary societies to dispense with governmental 
 stipends which are given toward the support of theii 
 educational institutions in India. Were the restric- 
 tions as stringent as those imposed by the govern- 
 ment of Austria upon all Protestant missionary oper- 
 ations, there might be reason for rejecting such aid; 
 but such is not the case in India; and surely if the 
 o-overnment is looking to Missions for their moral 
 influence in the great issues which have arisen, we 
 should not be slow to enter into that alliance so far 
 as the demands of other forms of v/ork shall permit. 
 It is not to be overlooked that if Christian mis- 
 sionaries in a country like India or Japan were to 
 withdraw from the work of higher education, Chris- 
 tianity would be the only prominent religion to aban- 
 
 93 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 don the control of the more thoughtful classes, and it 
 would at once take a very subordinate place in the 
 arena of conflicting religious thought. The govern- 
 ment schools in India, though under the supreme 
 control of a Christian empire, will not undertake 
 the advocacy of the Christian faith. Meanwhile 
 Mohammedans have a college at Alighar, the Arya 
 Somaj has established one at Lahore, and Madame 
 Besant and her theosophic friends, having already a 
 college at Benares, are trying to raise it to the su- 
 preme grade of a great national university. The 
 plea of its eloquent advocate is that the government 
 education is destitute of religious elements and that 
 the Hindu religion in its modern theosophic form 
 must be inculcated if the country is to be saved from 
 ruin. All these institutions, and especially those of 
 the Aryas and the theosophists will maintain per- 
 sistent warfare upon Christianity. They will, how- 
 ever, inconsistently with their own grotesque teach- 
 ings, claim fellowship with Western agnosticism in 
 heralding the alleged victory of science over our tra- 
 ditional faith and will join in the proud assumption 
 that Christianity is obsolete and dead. There should 
 be educated Christian natives who can overthrow 
 their allegations. In Japan the non-Christian grad- 
 uates of Tokyo University already assume a super- 
 cilious air of contempt for the grades of education 
 found in the missionary colleges and training schools, 
 and this ground also must be contested. 
 
 The old universities of the non-Christian systems, 
 94 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 as for example the Azar or Mohammedan university 
 in Cairo and the Vedantin colleges of Benares have 
 less sympathy with Western science and specula- 
 tions, and are not likely to show direct and active 
 rivalry with Christian schools; they pursue in the 
 old dignified way the stereotyped and age-long 
 methods which have seemed all sufficient and beyond 
 the possible need of changes. But the mere vis iner- 
 tia of their influence upon Hindu and Mohammedan 
 thought constitutes a powerful obstacle. Only the 
 prevalence of general knowledge such as higher edu- 
 cation imparts can break the power of that arrogant 
 conceit which these institutions promote and foster. 
 Viewed then in the light of rival propaganda, the ne- 
 cessity for Christian education would seem to be 
 clear. That education cannot be confined to religious 
 teaching, that it must have reference to the 
 environments and rivalries which the pupils 
 must encounter both in the present and in 
 the subsequent life, is clear, and it should 
 not be forgotten that a public and ubiquitous 
 press with its millions of pages, good, bad and indif- 
 ferent, is to be taken into account. However we 
 might hedge our schools about, their pupils could not 
 be isolated for long. They would as readers be edu- 
 cated by the printed page, and nothing could sepa- 
 rate them from the general drift of society around 
 them. Even from the women the zenana walls are 
 not thick enough nor strong enough to entirely ex- 
 
 95 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 elude the pulse and movement of the outside nine- 
 teenth century spirit. 
 
 But in all that I have said I would not be under- 
 stood as maintaining that a large proportion of our 
 missionary expenditure should be given to what is 
 called university education in a country like India or 
 Japan. I notice that in the reports of missionary 
 conferences held in India, and in published articles 
 written on the field, one solution has generally been 
 proposed for all the difficulties which have been 
 named, namely this : "Increase your force, man your 
 institutions more thoroughly, and make this higher 
 education a power." But from the standpoint of the 
 home treasuries the difficulties are less easily settled. 
 What if every year a missionary board is compelled 
 to choose between one desirable form of work and 
 another? Can we in good conscience spend twenty- 
 five or fifty thousand dollars in the plant or the pro- 
 fessorships of a college for general education, when 
 that means a retention of eight or ten missionary 
 evangelists who otherwise might be sent, or when it 
 must necessitate the dismissal of, or at least the fail- 
 ure to employ, forty or fifty native preachers who 
 might go among the people publishing the simple 
 Gospel? While considering the needs of the higher 
 classes, we must not forget the millions of the utterly 
 benighted who will pass away in the few years of 
 this generation. While on his last visit to this coun- 
 try Mr, P. C. Mozoomdar, after speaking of the dif- 
 ferent schools of Indian philosophy, aaid that of the 
 
 9^ 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 nearly three hundred millions of India, at least two 
 hundred and twenty-five millions are of the simplest 
 and most ignorant classes, who know nothing of 
 abstruse systems or of sacred books, but are deluded 
 by the most degrading superstitions. Surely here is 
 a waiting vineyard for a class of laborers who can 
 make little claim to scholarship. And it is a grave 
 practical question how far a missionary board ought 
 to use its funds in large stipends for expensive high 
 schools and colleges in the Roman Catholic countries 
 of Spanish and Portuguese America, or among the 
 effete Christian sects of the Levant, when there are 
 such calls as this for the much cheaper evangelistic 
 work among nations who have never even heard of 
 Christ. 
 
 I have spoken of the necessity of sending out 
 some thoroughly qualified missionaries who shall be 
 able to grapple with every form of error; and I 
 would have every man to some extent understand 
 the customs and beliefs of the people among whom 
 he is to labor; but I wish it to be distinctly under- 
 stood that I would gladly see the great majority of 
 our missionaries giving themselves to the direct proc- 
 lamation of the truth, or to the training of native 
 preachers by short, practical courses in which the 
 spiritual element should preponderate. They should 
 then lead them forth as helpers to an organized work 
 in the country villages, where they would be less lia- 
 ble to disturbance from the paid agents of the Aryas 
 who are employed to thv/art their efforts by their 
 
 97 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 shrewd questionings. I most earnestly advocate a 
 great preponderance on the side of evangeUstic work. 
 If it is true that in Japan there is a native ministry 
 who can now best do the work of preaching to the 
 masses, that condition certainly does not obtain in 
 the country districts of India or among the millions 
 of China, or in Siam and Laos, least of all among 
 the interior tribes of Africa. If we were concerned 
 with plans for this generation only, and were not 
 laying foundations for an extended future, I am not 
 sure but it would be the part of wisdom to concen- 
 trate all our force and all our possible expenditure 
 upon the direct work of preaching the Gospel to the 
 neglected millions of to-day. But we cannot thus 
 neglect the foundations for the future. While on the 
 one hand we ought to labor for the men of to-day as 
 if Christ were soon to come and this generation were 
 to be the last, on the other hand we ought to lay 
 plans as broadly and deeply as if assured that many 
 generations are yet to follow. 
 
 In deciding thoughtfully and wisely where we 
 shall place the emphasis, we should not wander too 
 far from the New Testament plan. There is, of 
 course, an important differential. This is far more 
 an age of books and of schools than was the apos- 
 tolic age. The late Christopher Robert, while speak- 
 ing of the college in Constantinople, and similar en- 
 terprises, once said to me that "perhaps if Paul had 
 established a Christian college at Antioch, the Seven 
 Churches of Asia would have had a better history." 
 
 98 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 That was one view of the question before us; but if 
 Paul, on the other hand, had spent his hfe as a pro- 
 fessor of science and philosophy at Antioch, would 
 the Christian church have made equal advances into 
 Macedonia and the Roman Empire? Would subse- 
 quent ages have received an equivalent for the theo- 
 logical and spiritual teaching which we now find in 
 the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles? It 
 might have been claimed by the church at Antioch 
 that scholarly work was an important ''seed-sow- 
 ing;" but what was Paul's great and world-wide 
 mission work but a seed-sowing that has blessed 
 many nations and made Christianity a power for all 
 time ? / 
 
 An impression seems to have prevailed with many 
 since the great Parliament of Religions, that learned 
 Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucianists have become 
 too wise in our day to afford any warrant for 
 further missionary effort on our part; and in Japan 
 something like intolerance is beginning to be shown 
 toward the propagandists of our faith. But even if 
 our way were closed it would be nothing new in the 
 world; there never has been a time when, if one door 
 were shut, there were not other calls farther on. Our 
 Savior's command in such cases was to simply 
 move on till there was found a better welcome. 
 When Israel turned a deaf ear, the Gospel was borne 
 to the Gentiles. And there is no lack of needy mil- 
 lions to-day who will receive the truth gladly. The 
 late Dr. Duff once remarked that possibly the sys- 
 
 99 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 tern of caste in India would yet be regarded as one 
 of the most important and helpful factors in the great 
 work of missions, his idea being that those despised 
 classes who have least to hope for from their own 
 systems, who have least self-complacency and Aryan 
 pride, may be the first to receive with readiness and 
 delight the Gospel which respects their manhood and 
 proclaims the love of that God who hath made of one 
 blood all nations and all castes of mankind. The 
 village work of the American Methodist missions in 
 Northern India, and that of the Baptist missions in 
 Southern India, would seem to indicate that hun- 
 dreds of thousands of low-caste people and even 
 whole communities, may yet be won to the Cross of 
 Christ. God grant that such may be the future reali- 
 zation of all mission work in India. God grant that 
 in our own generation we may witness an upheaval 
 of this sub-soil of degraded Hinduism that shall 
 overthrow all the superstructures that the pride of 
 caste has reared upon it. 
 
 Already there are found among these low-caste 
 people bright and responsive minds, Avhich, under 
 the influence of the truth, develop a Christian man- 
 hood quite unlooked for. With a widespread evan- 
 gelization, and with the fair play of the British rule, 
 who shall say that a New India may not arise from 
 the lower ranks? We have considered the need of 
 higher education. We have also recognized the su- 
 preme importance of reaching in the most direct way 
 the masses that are perisliing in our own generation, 
 
 lOO 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 and here we have placed the emphasis. Now, be- 
 tween these two Unes of work there is a wide sphere 
 of effort whose importance cannot be over-estimated. 
 Obviously this wide propagandism which I have in- 
 dicated must require a large force of preachers and 
 teachers, and those of all grades. I would say, then, 
 that the most important of all departments of educa- 
 tion on the mission field is that of schools in which 
 men shall be fitted for the middle grades of work. 
 Call them colleges or training-schools, or by what- 
 ever name, they constitute our chief hope for both 
 the present and the future. A friend who had 
 visited India said to me that of all the higher insti- 
 tutions that he had seen, and he had visited many, 
 one belonging to the Methodist mission at Bareilly 
 seemed to him best adapted to meet the widespread 
 wants of a mission field. The curriculum was not 
 so extended as in some other institutions, but it was 
 more distinctively a school for the training of 
 preachers and teachers. General education was sub- 
 ordinate to this, so far as he could discover. Those 
 who were selected or admitted to the institution were 
 by preference young men who gave good promise of 
 becoming Christian workers. And my impression is 
 that the Doshisha of the American Board in Japan, 
 established and for some years directed by the la- 
 mented Neesima, attained its high success and 
 proved its eminent usefulness just in proportion to 
 the emphasis which it put upon the training of 
 preachers and teachers for the direct service of the 
 
 lOI 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 mission. Years ago the sainted Calhoun established 
 a missionary institution at Abeih in Syria. The cur- 
 riculum was fairly extended and comprehensive, but 
 the great idea which prevailed in his selection of 
 men and in the whole course of study was that of 
 well-fitted laborers who should preach the Gospel — 
 in the pulpit or in the school-room. Probably there 
 has never been an institution for higher education in 
 which a larger per cent, of graduates were found 
 available for direct and valuable Christian service 
 than in that school at Abeih. 
 
 It undoubtedly accords with the general wish and 
 purpose of those who contribute of their means for 
 the support of foreign missions, that higher edu- 
 cational work should place its chief emphasis upon 
 the training of Christian laborers who shall preach 
 and teach the great message of salvation. This 
 might include the special preparation of at least a 
 few who shall be able to defend the truth against 
 the most learned and skilful assailants of whom there 
 are in our day not a few in countries like India and 
 Japan. 
 
 We believe there is also a place for a class of in- 
 stitutions having a somewhat different aim, and 
 which are real handmaids of the great spiritual work 
 of missions. Robert College in Constantinople, the 
 Syrian Protestant College in Beirut, the Free Church 
 Christian Collegein Madras, the Protestant College in 
 Sao Paulo, Brazil, are all of this class. They have 
 all done and are doing a grand work — ^grand from 
 
 I02 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 the standpoint of Christian civiHzation, and the real 
 advance of the Redeemer's kingdom. But they are 
 supported on an independent basis. They have 
 boards of direction of their own. They are sup- 
 posed to be maintained chiefly if not ahogether by 
 the large gifts of those who wish to promote the 
 broader purposes which they have in view. Their 
 work is designed to include some classes of students 
 whom purely missionary institutions with a more 
 distinct purpose could not attract. They are useful 
 auxiliaries in the one great conquest of the truth, 
 and yet by their separate character they avoid the 
 necessity of absorbing mission funds designed by 
 their donors for more directly spiritual work. The 
 relations existing between the work of evangeliza- 
 tion and that of the college and the university in the 
 new settlements of our own country are coming into 
 view more and more in our foreign mission fields. 
 The broad and symmetrical advance of Christian civ- 
 ilization will present much the same conditions and 
 proportions in all lands. Doubtless there as here, 
 more or less of division and specialization will be 
 necessary. 
 
 103 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL MISSIONS 
 
 The principle which underhes the work of medi- 
 cal missions is very old. It appears prominently in 
 the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. The same 
 who gave the great commission to preach the Gos- 
 pel to all nations, also commissioned his disciples to 
 heal the bodies of men as well as their souls. ''And 
 when He had called his twelve disciples unto Him, 
 He gave them commandment and power to cast out 
 evil spirits, and to heal all manner of sickness and 
 all manner of disease." And the reasons which led 
 to this divine command have force in all ages and in 
 all nations alike. Bodily healing was then no doubt 
 important as a means to an end — namely, that of 
 gaining the confidence of men in order to their spir- 
 itual salvation, but it was also an end in itself. It 
 manifested the kindness of God toward mankind 
 both in their physical and in their spiritual condi- 
 tions. It was necessary in that age that the moral 
 effect of the new Gospel should be enhanced by 
 miraculous gifts both in the acquisition of language, 
 and in power to heal the sick. The two gifts went 
 hand in hand, and the healing power was doubtless 
 the more effective of the two in first attracting the 
 
 104 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 attention and winning the confidence of the people. 
 The masses were more easily and quickly influenced 
 by any kind of miracle than by the most eloquent 
 spiritual appeal. Since that day of miraculous gifts 
 all the principles involved in the case still remain; 
 bodily healing is just as necessary now as a means 
 of overcoming the prejudice and winning the con- 
 fidence of men as it was in Christ's time. 
 
 When the age of miracles ceased, it became neces- 
 sary that missionaries should learn the language of 
 the people by the ordinary means of study; and 
 necessary also that the healing art, instead of being 
 miraculously conferred should be acquired in the 
 same way. If the acquisition of vernacular languages 
 is a part of the duty embraced in the Great Commis- 
 sion, the preparation and the sending forth of mis- 
 sionary physicians is also enjoined by the spirit of 
 the same command. The divine summons to "heal 
 all manner of sickness and all manner of disease" is 
 the only warrant that is needed in support of medical 
 missions. Professor Macalister, F. R. S. of Cam- 
 bridge, England, presented this important truth 
 with great force at the Ecumenical Missionary Con- 
 ference of 1888. But it is important to remember 
 that the Scriptural warrant for medical missions 
 presupposes and emphasizes their proper relations to 
 spiritual ends. Neither the spiritual nor the physi- 
 cal healing should be overlooked. The fact is, how- 
 ever, that for centuries the Church lost sight of this 
 symmetrical and true relationship between preaching 
 
 105 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 and healing. The above named author points out 
 that the post-apostoHc church fell away from this 
 high ground for the reason that the conflicts which 
 arose from the early days of dogmatic theology 
 overshadowed the primitive philanthropy and benev- 
 olence which was so largely the characteristic of the 
 Church in the earliest apostolic times. No doubt 
 also, the increasing tendency to ecclesiastical ambi- 
 tion and the prevalence of controversy over questions 
 of hierarchical pre-eminence, the strife between the 
 Western and Eastern churches, and above all the ef- 
 fort of Rome to build up a temporal power after the 
 model of the Roman imperialism — all these had 
 much to do in modifying the supreme aims of the 
 Church as they had been taught by Christ and His 
 Apostles. Another perversive influence was the 
 gradual introduction of asceticism, reinforced per- 
 haps by the example of faiths and customs which 
 prevailed throughout the East. The tendency spring- 
 ing from this source led to a disregard of the body, 
 and a virtual dishonor upon that which Christ and 
 His disciples had honored in its place, and so far 
 tended to make the spirit of the church less humane. 
 But evidently Christ Himself gave no encourage- 
 ment to an ascetic disregard of the body, and the 
 missionary who should see only one side of his work, 
 and disregard the purely human needs and distresses 
 of mankind, would do injustice to the spirit of his 
 divine Master. It is equally plain that the teachings 
 of Christ also forbid the opposite extreme of regard- 
 
 io6 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 ing bodily healing as the only or even the chief ob- 
 ject of missionary effort. The medical practitioner 
 among the heathen entirely fails to apprehend his 
 true mission if he is not also intent upon healing the 
 souls of men. This principle was recognized even 
 before Christ's time. Professor Macalister quotes 
 from an old Buddhist writing the declaration that 
 "no physician is worthy of waiting on the sick un- 
 less he has five qualifications for the office. First, the 
 skill to prescribe the proper remedy; second, the 
 judgment to order the proper diet; third, the motive 
 must be life and not greed; fourth, he must be con- 
 tent and willing to do the most repulsive office for 
 the sake of those upon whom he is waiting; and 
 fifth, he must be both able and willing to teach, to 
 incite and to gladden the hearts of those whom he is 
 attending, by religious discourse." It must be con- 
 fessed that any medical missionary who is influenced 
 simply by love of his profession, and who, as some 
 have even boldly expressed it, regards himself as a 
 doctor and not a missionary, falls below the ideal 
 of even Buddhism, and infinitely below the high 
 standard raised by the spirit of Christianity. 
 
 It is reported of St. Isidore, a great religious 
 teacher of the fifth century, that he rebuked this mere 
 professionalism in these words : "You profess as a 
 physician to be a man of science who heals diseases; 
 you profess to heal the minor diseases on the part of 
 those who come to you; and yet you yourself have 
 not power to bring the knowledge of the remedies 
 
 107 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 for those greater maladies that afflict you, and af- 
 flict others; you yourself are failing in duty to them. 
 If you would be a proper physician, heal thyself." 
 Any medical missionary who, though a professing 
 Christian, fails to act the part of a Christian in com- 
 municating the light and hope which he is supposed 
 to possess, is open to St. Isidore's just rebuke. 
 
 One of the most touching confessions which I have 
 ever read in my missionary correspondence was that 
 of a young doctor who was asked by a dying woman 
 to tell her about Jesus Christ. She was almost wholly 
 ignorant, yet very anxious, and had possibly but a 
 few minutes to live. He had neglected language 
 study, and he had not learned to deal with souls. He 
 was a good doctor, but was helpless in this painful 
 crisis and was bowed in shame. 
 
 It is very essential that the medical missionary 
 should be actuated by the highest and most disin- 
 terested motives. He should be consciously free 
 from ulterior aims of personal ambition. Dr. W. J. 
 Wanless in his excellent little book entitled The 
 Medical Missions, states that in his tour among 
 the medical colleges in the United States he ''found 
 a number of students who expressed a willingness 
 to enter the service for a time for the sake of the 
 wide professional experience likely to be gained, and 
 who manifested an equal unwillingness to devote a 
 life to the work. Practically this was their position : 
 Anticipating difficulty on account of their own ina- 
 bility to secure a suitable practice at home, they 
 
 io8 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 would go to the mission field at heavy expense to a 
 mission board, labor for a few years and, having ac- 
 quired the desired professional experience, would re- 
 turn to America, and, through the means of their 
 practical knovvledge abroad, make for themselves 
 professional fame and wealth and social position. 
 Suffice it to say, the commendable scrutiny of can- 
 didates' credentials on the part of the missionary 
 boards prevents mai^y such persons from reaching 
 the field under their care. The medical missionary," 
 adds Dr. Wanless, ''should be a man possessed of an 
 earnest desire to save souls. Professional experience 
 and the amelioration of suffering, however good and 
 praiseworthy in themselves, are not all that a true 
 medical missionary seeks to accomplish. To secure 
 merely the physical good of a patient is to lose the 
 highest joy which the service itself affords, and to 
 fail in spiritual ministration is to cut the nerve which 
 iitself tingles with the real blessedness of the service. 
 To be able to open blind eyes, to straighten crooked 
 limbs, and to save human life, is a w^ork which for 
 its own sake brings delightful satisfaction; but to 
 save a sin-sick soul and to point multitudes of dis- 
 eased sinners to the Lamb of God is a work which 
 secures the most blessed compensation, the most last- 
 ing joy." 
 
 The broad and comprehensive influence of medi- 
 cal practice as an element in the great work of mis- 
 sions in non-Christian lands is so ramified that it 
 
 109 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 can be shown to best advantage under different 
 heads. 
 
 ( I ) Its value in opening the way for the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel is very obvious, and has often been 
 dwelt upon. He who unites bodily healing with 
 spiritual instruction, invitation and exhortation, fol- 
 lows in the very footsteps of his divine Master. 
 Jesus not only healed as well as taught, but, with the 
 same objects in view, he endued his apostles with 
 miraculous power. It was undoubtedly the wonder- 
 ful and mighty works of beneficence that at first 
 drew the multitudes within reach of the divine mes- 
 sage. None can read the Gospel history without be- 
 ing deeply impressed by this fact. It was the sick, 
 the blind, the lame that thronged about the Master 
 as he advanced from city to city, or sought quiet and 
 rest by the sea of Galilee. The higher and the lower 
 classes alike, were drawn by the tidings of his won- 
 derful healing power. Jairus asking relief for his 
 sick daughter, and the centurion for his palsied serv- 
 ant, the lepers calling in distress from afar, the 
 Syrophenician woman pleading with importunate 
 faith for her child, and blind Bartimeus seizing his 
 one opportunity as the Savior passed through 
 Jericho, all these were moved by physical distress 
 and the desire, first of all, to be relieved therefrom. 
 In one instance at least, the very roof of a house was 
 opened that the suffering one might be let down into 
 the presence of the great Physician. 
 
 But in all these cases physical healing opened 
 no 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 the way for the influence and power of the 
 truth. And so in the work of modern mis- 
 sions the potent skill, and the manifest disin- 
 terestedness of the missionary doctor must neces- 
 sarily win confidence. All must know that dealing 
 with disease, and often with loathsome disease, is 
 no pastime. And if the missionary has traveled 
 half the circumference of the globe, with no prospect 
 of emolument, but only to bless his fellow-men in 
 body and soul, then it must be a wonderful message 
 that he has to deliver. Goodness and truth certainly 
 go together, and therefore the glad tidings must be 
 true. Sometimes the confidence exercised by the 
 poor ignorant sufferers in the skill of the doctor, is 
 so great, that it is a sad disappointment to learn that 
 his power is anything short of the miraculous. They 
 cannot understand how any possible cases should be 
 incurable. In such circumstances the popular con- 
 fidence must be regulated and limited by careful in- 
 struction. For if bodily healing cannot be assured, 
 there is an opportunity at least, to inculcate a true 
 spiritual trust in the higher power of the Great Phy- 
 sician to impart that relief to which there are no ex- 
 ceptions, and which shall yield peace and joy for- 
 ever. Multitudes of cases might be given in which 
 the waiting-room of the hospital was the first place 
 in which the Gospel gained an attentive hearing. 
 
 (2) The influence of medical missions in open- 
 ing the way for Christian influence is not confined to 
 the individual patients. In many cases it has over- 
 
 III 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 come the prejudice and hostility of rulers, and opened 
 whole provinces to the preaching of the Gospel. The 
 existence of the United Presbyterian Mission in Jey- 
 pore, India, is due to the fact that a London medical 
 missionary, while on his way to the foothills of the 
 Himalayas by way of Jeypore, was the means of 
 saving the life of the Rajah's wife whose native doc- 
 tor had given her up. Though no missionary had 
 ever before been admitted to that province, this phy- 
 sician was invited to remain, and with the express 
 understanding that he should have perfect freedom 
 to preach the Gospel. He remained there fourteen 
 years, and Jeypore has now a large and prosperous 
 mission. In the vale of Cashmere, also, all effort to 
 secure an open door had been futile, until a student 
 of the Medical Missionary Society of Edinburgh 
 gained easy access, and the result is a prosperous mis- 
 sion with entire freedom to preach and teach. A med- 
 ical missionary of the London society in Travancore 
 won such influence in a single year, that upon his 
 death the whole community were ready to erect a 
 tomb for his embalmed body, at which real religious 
 worship should be offered him. 
 
 The successful effort of Dr. H. N. Allen, now 
 United States Minister to Korea, upon his first en- 
 trance into the country as a missionary of the Pres- 
 byterian Board, furnishes still another example. He 
 had just arrived when a serious conflict occurred be- 
 tween the Chinese and the Japanese garrisons sta- 
 tioned at Seoul. After a bloody night's work of 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 fighting and assassination, Dr. Allen was called to 
 attend some of the wounded men who still survived, 
 and among them }^Iin V(jng Ik, a relative of the 
 King. He was rapidly sinking through loss 
 of blood, whose flow the native doctors were 
 vainly striving to arrest by filling the wounds 
 with wax. These the foreign doctor cleansed 
 and closed so deftly by sewing and the use 
 of adhesive plasters, anrl the whole treatment 
 was so successful, that the bystanders declared 
 that he must ha\e come down from heaven. During 
 the next three days of disorder — a "reign of terror" 
 it was called — when the diplomatic representatives 
 of foreign lands all betook themselves to the port of 
 Chemul])o for safety, the missionary doctor alone re- 
 mained at Seoul. occu])ying the American consulate 
 over which he disj)layed his country's flag. '*! could 
 not leave if I would." he wrote tr) the mi->ion house 
 in New York, "and I would not if I could." Many 
 wounded men were under his care and could not be 
 abandoned. But really he was in no danger, for his 
 surgical skill was his protection. Every day es- 
 corted by a royal guard, he was borne to the palace 
 on i)rofessional visits and the consulate was guarded 
 by night. A medical missionary was the one safe 
 and sacred foreigner ! At first the flag had protected 
 hi3 vocation, but now his Christ-like vocation sup- 
 ported the flag. When order was restored, a govern- 
 ment hospital was at once established and placed un- 
 der Dr. Allen's care, r.nd from that time to the pres- 
 
 113 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ent, the hospital has been under the direction of a 
 missionary of the Presbyterian Board, and mission- 
 ary physicians of both sexes have been employed in 
 the royal palace. 
 
 No less striking was the influence gained by Dr. 
 J. H. Cochran an honored medical missionary of the 
 Presbyterian Board in Persia. He had been called 
 to treat the famous Nestorian chief Abdullah in his 
 mountain home, and by his professional skill and his 
 attractive personality, had gained a large place in 
 his confidence and esteem. The time came when this 
 well-nigh invincible chief appeared before Oroomiah 
 with a hostile army and the defenceless city was 
 filled with consternation. Only one hope appeared 
 and that lay in the influence of Dr. Cochran. Though 
 with some misgivings he ventured out to the hostile 
 camp, and was enabled to gain a day's respite ere the 
 contemplated attack should be made; and before the 
 respite was over, a large Persian force appeared on 
 the scene, Abdullah retreated, and Oroomiah was 
 saved. It is easy to imagine the gratitude of the res- 
 cued city, and the more favorable attitude of all 
 classes toward the whole work of the mission. 
 
 (3) Even on the liumanitarian plane alone and 
 aside from spiritual considerations, the work of med- 
 ical missions is one of the most clearly warrantable 
 of all the great charities. The poor appeal to us 
 strongly, but they have health and strength and are 
 not generally in extreme distress. The oppressed al • 
 ways make a telling appeal, yet they are not in acute 
 
 114 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 bodily suffering, and they are not utterly helpless. 
 But the sick are deprived of every earthly resource; 
 their days and nights are passed in bodily distress; 
 they are in peril and exposed to speedy death. Sick- 
 ness aggravates every other disability — ^poverty, 
 blindness, friendlessness, or the gloom of the prison. 
 In this country nothing so impresses one with the 
 blessings of our Christian civilization as the grand 
 and munificent provisions of a well-equipped and 
 well-ordered hospital. In our large cities all re- 
 ligious sects, Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish, vie with 
 each other in providing for the sick of all classes 
 and without respect to nationality or creed. In every 
 state, county or city, public provision is made by the 
 authorities, not only in hospitals, but in dispensaries. 
 The great general work of relief is subdivided to 
 meet the special wants of different classes of sick- 
 ness or infirmity — the crippled, the incurable, the in- 
 sane, the blind and the victims of contagious diseases. 
 Even the jails and prisons have their hospitals, since 
 no degree of guilt or unworthiness can lose its claim 
 for timely help in sickness. 
 
 How is the heart of the nation stirred with sym- 
 pathy for our sick soldiers, and marines, and how ex- 
 tremely sensitive is the public mind to any rumor of 
 neglect ! The whole populace would rise up and vote 
 as one man for any amount of public expenditure 
 for the sick in our army hospitals. In addition to 
 that, multitudes are ready to add voluntary offerings 
 almost to repletion. In emergencies there may be 
 
 IIS 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 blundering and delay, but soon the evil is remedied 
 and the nation's heroes are made to feel that the na- 
 tional heart beats in earnest sympathy for them. If 
 possible a still higher illustration of what Christian 
 civilization has done is seen in the overflowing sym- 
 pathy and helpfulness of the ''Red Cross Society." 
 Human brotherhood asserts its high claims even in 
 the smoke and din of battle, and without distinction 
 of friend or foe the ensign of humanity (the bor- 
 rowed ensign of Christianity) moves across the hos- 
 tile lines wherever the wounded need relief. And the 
 temporary hospital over which it waves — perhaps 
 only a larger army tent — opens its doors of welcome 
 to all who suffer. There is no sublimer enterprise 
 than that of the ''Red Cross Society." 
 
 Now one has only to sum up all these blessed agen- 
 cies at which we rejoice in this Christian country, 
 and then to imagine their contrast with the desti- 
 tution which prevails along all these lines in heathen 
 lands, in order to appreciate the value of medical 
 missions even to the bodies of untold millions of our 
 fellowmen. 
 
 The humanitarian relief resulting directly and in- 
 directly from medical missions has many ramifica- 
 tions. The precautionary measures which are being 
 introduced into many lands, as for example, vaccina- 
 tion for small-pox, better and safer treatment of 
 lepers, wiser sanitary safeguards against the bubonic 
 plague, means of preventing the spread of cholera, or 
 checking its first stages with simple specifics, timely 
 
 ii6 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 provision for the isolation of contagious diseases, the 
 use of disinfectants, and better methods of caring for 
 the sick, new ideas of the importance of personal and 
 domestic cleanliness and proper drainage, who can 
 trace, or adequately measure, these manifold and 
 widely extending influences which are now permeat- 
 ing the ignorant and suffering masses of the heathen 
 world ? The use of anaesthetics and the safeguards 
 against septic blood-poisoning will soon become the 
 heritage of all nations. 
 
 (4) It is important to bear in mind also the edu- 
 cational work of medical missions. By this means 
 the good accomplished is perpetuated and extended. 
 If it is much to afford blessed relief to the hospital 
 inmates of to-day, it is much more to provide the 
 means of blessing untold multitudes besides, by the 
 training of native physicians and thus gradually 
 revolutionizing the medical practice of whole nations 
 and races. Much is said and written of the feasibil- 
 ity of evangelizing the heathen w^orld within the life 
 of this generation. On this subject there is much 
 room for doubt; but that a great and beneficent re- 
 form might be effected in the medical practice of the 
 heathen w^orld in that time there is great reason to 
 believe. The wonder is that so noble an undertaking^- 
 is left almost wholly to the missionary societies, and 
 that, in addition to all their religious and educational 
 work. Why are there not hundreds and thousands 
 of wealthy and influential people who, like Lady Duf- 
 ferin, are ready to respond to this world-wide appeal 
 
 117 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 of millions who sicken and die without relief ? Why 
 do not those who ridicule the spiritual work of for- 
 eign missions at least appreciate and encourage this 
 humanitarian work? 
 
 When the world shall have advanced somewhat 
 farther along the line of ethical and altruistic civil- 
 ization, when as an incidental effect of an increas- 
 ingly Christ-like spirit the nations shall have been 
 drawn nearer together and a real brotherhood of 
 mankind shall have begun to be realized, then even 
 governments will no longer be satisfied with caring 
 for their own sick and suffering, but will devise prac- 
 tical relief for those of other lands. 
 
 (5) Medical missions have already done much 
 to rectify the social wrongs of woman. Even when 
 men began to realize some of the benefits of foreign 
 medical science, social custom still excluded women. 
 Those who suffered most must suffer still. But the 
 logic of facts and of common sense was uncompro- 
 mising. Li Hung Chang at Tientsin and the Korean 
 king at Seoul, could not withstand the conviction 
 that the same remedies which would heal the com- 
 mon maladies of the one sex would prove equally 
 effective with the other ; both saw demonstrations in 
 their own households. In India, Korea, Japan, 
 China, and many other lands, medical science and 
 old custom locked horns, so to speak, and the battle 
 had to be fought out. And nowhere is the final 
 victory any longer doubtful. Wherever there is a 
 spark of love for mother, or wife, or sister, or daugh- 
 
 118 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 ter^ relief will be welcomed at all cost. Skilful sur- 
 gery has gained special victories for both sexes. 
 When literally the blind are made to see and the 
 cripple learns to walk, the battle with false social 
 theories is won. 
 
 The general impression upon a heathen commu- 
 nity becomes still stronger when the foreign lady 
 physician also appears on the scene and wins success. 
 No brighter angel ever appeared in the zenana or 
 the harem. And yet this ministering spirit is of the 
 despised and degraded sex. Greater still is the vic- 
 tory achieved when the brighter native girls are 
 trained to be physicians and are placed over dis- 
 pensaries or are sent with sympathy and healing into 
 the thousands of homes where no such blessing was 
 ever known before. It is from just this point of 
 view that perhaps the very widest and brightest out- 
 look for woman's influence opens before us. The fol- 
 lowing testimonies quoted by the Rev. James S. Den- 
 nis, D. D., in his incomparable chapter on medical 
 missions in the second volume of his great work en- 
 titled Christian Missions and Social Progress, are 
 only two among many which might be given of the 
 great advantages to be derived from the medical edu- 
 cation of native women. The first is from Bishop 
 Thoburn of Calcutta, who says, ''I have myself seen 
 twenty young ladies, all daughters of village con- 
 verts, in attendance at a medical college. These girls 
 had spent their childhood in extreme poverty. Their 
 fathers had been accustomed to earn about two dol- 
 
 119 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 lars a month, and to occupy a very low social posi- 
 tion in the village community. But one of the girls 
 on graduation stepped at once into a position worth 
 twenty-five dollars a month, an income which in the 
 eyes of the simple villagers, no doubt, seemed 
 princely. A new career has thus been opened to the 
 womanhood of India, while relief from pain and 
 sickness in a hundred forms has been secured for all 
 coming generations to uncounted millions of Indian 
 women. All this is to-day, under God, owing to mis- 
 sionary ladies, and I am glad to be able to testify that 
 more young women are offering their service for 
 medical work abroad than ever before." The second, 
 dated May, 1887, is from Sir Chas. U. Aitchison, 
 one of the lieutenant-governors of the Punjab, who 
 says, "It was at the suggestion of the missionaries 
 that I have this year introduced a system of govern- 
 ment grants-in-aid to hospitals and dispensaries. It 
 is to the example set by missionary ladies in mission 
 hospitals, and in house-to-house visitation, that the 
 present widespread demand for medical aid and med- 
 ical training for the women of India is mainly due." 
 So far as known to the writer, the first lady ever 
 sent to the foreign mission field as a medical mis- 
 sionary was Miss Clara A. Swaim, M. D., of the 
 American Methodist Episcopal Church, North. She 
 was sent to India in 1869, and was subsequently 
 taken under the patronage of a distinguished ma- 
 harajah and supplied with all necessary means for 
 carrying on her work ; and great as was the local in- 
 
 120 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 fluence exerted by her, a far wider circle of results 
 might be traced to her example. The same idea 
 which influenced her also inspired Dr. Lucinda L. 
 Combs, who was sent to China in 1873 ^7 the same 
 Board. The rapid expansion of the movement of 
 sending out educated women as medical missionaries 
 has been phenomenal in recent years, and it is al- 
 ready leading to a general desire on the part of in- 
 telligent rulers and administrators to train up scores 
 and even hundreds of bright native women as phy- 
 sicians for the relief of their own suffering sex. Un- 
 der this general impulse, must undoubtedly be classed 
 the noble work of the Lady Dufferin Association in 
 India, which although not partaking of the strictly 
 religious character of the missionary work, is ex- 
 tending its influence for good on a large scale. This 
 association in 1898 reported 240 female students un- 
 der its charge in medical schools and colleges in In- 
 dia. Other institutions in India have adopted simi- 
 lar courses of study. 
 
 In Japan and Korea striking progress has also 
 been made through the influence of missionary phy- 
 sicians of both sexes. It has stimulated the desire on 
 all sides for a better knowledge of Western methods. 
 Medical schools and a number of hospitals with in- 
 struction in nursing, are now established under Jap- 
 anese auspices. A great world-wide movement has 
 been inaugurated for the medical training of Oriental 
 women. It reveals the possibility of woman's benefi- 
 cent power and influence, as they have never been 
 
 121 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 recognized before. In its far-reaching effect it marks 
 the dawn of a new era for suffering humanity. The 
 whole sphere of women is enlarged, elevated, sancti- 
 fied, and the darkest problems of sociology find prac- 
 tical solution. If no other result but this had been 
 accomplished by missionary efforts it would have re- 
 paid all the cost an hundredfold. 
 
 (6) Medical missions accomplish great good in 
 releasing mankind from the bondage of heathen su- 
 perstition. In all pagan nations and tribes, disease 
 and demonism are looked upon as virtually identical; 
 the sick are tormented by imaginary demons and the 
 common remedy is found in the infliction of counter- 
 torments at the hands of their friends. "Like cures 
 like" in a most tragical way. The juggler is called, 
 and orgies are commenced which would impair the 
 health of the most robust. The aching brain is racked 
 with new distresses, by dancing and the beating of 
 drums to drive away the spirits; the burning and suf- 
 focation of fever are aggravated by the stifling presence 
 of a noisy crowd of friends and neighbors; delirium 
 is redoubled by the wild and shrieking frenzy of the 
 medicine man. If the demon is supposed to be 
 lodged in a particular organ the patient is prodded till 
 the sensitive spot is found, or is made to swallow vile 
 concoctions which no demon can endure. Absolute 
 ignorance would be preferable to all this, in so far as 
 it should attempt no remedies whatever, but should 
 leave the suffering to the more quiet recuperative en- 
 ergies of nature; man would then at least enjoy the 
 
 122 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 immunity of the beast and would live or die in peace. 
 But unfortunately ignorance is supplanted by per- 
 verted knowledge, and it is for the interest of the 
 juggler to supply a merchantable counterfeit of wis- 
 dom. It is the province of superstition to caricature 
 every divine gift to man. It caricatures religion and 
 it caricatures science; it makes a mockery of com- 
 mon sense and transforms the instincts of natural 
 affection. 
 
 In many dark lands, notably among the pagan 
 tribes of Africa, a terrible aggravation is added to all 
 the above named evils, wrought by the superstitions 
 of spirit worship. The sick are not the only ones 
 who suffer. A sad fate befalls those who are sup- 
 posed to have been the instruments of the spirits in 
 bewitching the patient and causing his destruction. 
 For every death by disease some innocent victim is 
 condemned to die for having been the cause of it. 
 Of course the influence of general religious instruc- 
 tion by the missionary will go far in overcoming the 
 false allegations of the witch doctor, and breaking 
 the power of these cruel superstitions, but the posi- 
 tive demonstrations of an actual and scientific heal- 
 ing of disease will accomplish still more. 
 
 We are not of that enthusiastic class who believe 
 that science is all-sufiicient to redeem the world, 
 but it has its place, and there can be no doubt that 
 medical science especially has a great part to act in 
 the battle of truth with superstition. Even in its most 
 purely secular aspects it is a powerful ally of the Gos- 
 
 123 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 pel. From the very fact that superstition connects 
 bodily suffering with satanic influence and unites 
 perverted healing and perverted worship by one com- 
 mon bond, the two must stand or fall together. When 
 the fetish and the incantation shall give place to skill- 
 ful surgery and scientific medication, the Avhole fab- 
 ric of false religion with which they have been con- 
 nected must begin to crumble and the way must so 
 far be opened for the truth. There can be no doubt 
 that in countries like India or China the more intelli- 
 gent classes will soon recognize this change. The 
 wonder has been that in the march of social and po- 
 litical progress, superstition has been about the last 
 thing to be given up. Those who have evinced great 
 intellectual power in other directions have remained 
 mere children in this. It is said that Prince Li Hung 
 Chang, even after he had become world-renowned 
 for statesmanship, was known to appease by sacrifice 
 a wriggling snake that had encroached upon his 
 apartments. He has now become a great champion 
 of medical missions and his serpent worship must go. 
 (7) The influence of medical missions in creating 
 a general sympathy for the suffering and distressed, 
 and in overcoming the stiff prejudices and antago- 
 nisms of men holding different faiths and represent- 
 ing different ranks in society, is not the least among 
 its many blessings. A careful study of the history 
 of this truly altruistic and humane movement will 
 demonstrate its power in promoting sentiments of 
 
 124 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 pity and a deeper consciousness of the brotherhood 
 of mankind. 
 
 Undoubtedly the cruel neglect and indifference 
 shown toward the sick and the suffering in non- 
 Christian lands is the result of despair. Partly in 
 self-defense men become callous to the sufferings 
 which they cannot relieve. This is shown especially 
 in times of pestilence or great general disaster. Even 
 kinsmen, nay even parents, steel their hearts against 
 the insane or the idiotic, the crippled or the diseased, 
 for whom no remedial provision seems possible. And 
 so by degrees the ever present spectacle of unrelieved 
 distress hardens the hearts of whole communities, 
 and the tone of humane sentiment is weakened and 
 civilization itself suffers deterioration. All this is 
 gradually changed as the benign influence of medical 
 missions begins to be felt. Some humble citizen of 
 an interior village returns home from the hospital at 
 Canton or Shanghai or Peking. His neighbors have 
 thought him hopelessly blind, but now he sees : or he 
 had been rendered helpless by a malignant tumor, 
 but now he walks abroad as a living miracle. What 
 is this strange influence that has given to the lives 
 of the sick and suffering this new value? A whole 
 community becomes interested in the striking object 
 lesson. Others still suffering, are now looked upon 
 with new hope and new interest. Sympathy is 
 awakened by the belief that they too may be 
 healed and ought to be healed. In the past 
 history of countries like China the rich and the 
 
 125 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 poor have been alike hopeless under the bur- 
 dens of supposedly incurable disease. But the poor 
 suffer worst of all. The higher classes while resort- 
 ing to desperate means for the recovery of their sick 
 have no time and no heart to think of these. Every- 
 thing is dark at the best, and perhaps a pessimistic 
 faith or lack of faith, hardens the heart, and the com- 
 munity is under a spell of stupor and despair. But 
 when new hope arises for both the high and the low, 
 and the example is furnished of aiding both and all 
 alike in Christ's name, a humane sympathy takes the 
 place of despair. This accounts for the fact that in 
 recent years w^here the suffering poor were left to 
 perish, men of the higher classes are interesting 
 themselves in movements of general relief; officials 
 and men of wealth are contributing for the support 
 of hospitals, where the poor also may be healed. The 
 whole trend of public sentiment is elevated, and a 
 new value is put upon all human life. 
 
 A better illustration of the influence of medical 
 missions in breaking down the stiff prejudices and 
 conflicting customs of men, and uniting them by a 
 common bond of sympathy, could scarcely be found 
 than the following graphic description given by 
 Rev. George E. Post, M. D., of the Syrian Protestant 
 College, in the Ecumenical Missionary Conference 
 in London in 1888. 
 
 The scene which was a real one was laid in the 
 hospital of the Knights of St. John in Beirut, under 
 the care of the well known Kaiserwerth deaconesses, 
 
 126 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 and of which Dr. Post is the chief medical attendant. 
 The occasion is a Christmas festival, where the con- 
 valescent patients are assembled around a Christmas- 
 tree. With vivid descriptive power Dr. Post pre- 
 sents the heterogeneous company one by one. 
 
 First, a small boy of Jewish parentage whose sore 
 need of healing has overcome his parents' prejudice 
 against this Christian institution, and the boy has 
 been healed. Near him is a stalwart old Moslem, 
 claiming descent from the great Saladin. This man, 
 a month before, would have spat upon the ''Christian 
 dog" of a doctor, but he has received his long lost 
 eye-sight, and his fierce intolerance has been so soft- 
 ened that when he comes into the room he bows low 
 and covers the doctor's hand with grateful kisses. 
 
 A little beyond is a young Druse woman with a 
 babe in her arms — arms only, for they are without 
 hands! These she lost by a frightful accident, and 
 her brutal husband finding her no longer able to work 
 has divorced her and turned her into the street. But 
 mother and child have found kindness and help at 
 the Christian hospital. Near at hand sits another 
 bigoted Mohammedan with a green turban to indi- 
 cate his descent from Mohammed. He is from He- 
 bron and is the keeper of the sacred tomb of Machpe- 
 lah, and has had charge of the bones of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, of Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah, which 
 no Jew or Christian is allowed to approach. But the 
 man whom this bigoted Mohammedan would have 
 despised but a little time before, has restored his eye- 
 
 127 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 sight, and now he Ustens to the Gospel. A Uttle fur- 
 ther on is an Armenian priest with his pecuhar cleri- 
 cal hat and a long black veil trailing down his back. 
 This too is a great condescension, for he belongs to a 
 church which claims to have been established by 
 Christ Himself. But he too has been healed and is a 
 listener to the pure Gospel. 
 
 Beyond is a Bedouin Arab from Palmyra. He 
 has been shot in a blood feud, and finding no ade- 
 quate surgical resources in the desert city, he has 
 been brought in a critical condition, over the long 
 rough journey to Beirut, and he is very sure that the 
 healing of his wound v/as a miracle. Near him is a 
 woman on a cot whose husband by cruel beating has 
 broken the bones of the chest, involving danger of 
 septic poisoning. She too has been healed. 
 
 These are only specimens of an ever changing 
 crowd who find help and comfort in that hospital. 
 *'They are gathered," says Dr. Post, "from Jerusa- 
 lem, from Bagdad, from the Great Sahara, from 
 Turkestan, from the head waters of the Euphrates 
 and the Tigris, from the villages in Lebanon, from 
 Palestine, from Cyprus, from Asia Minor — they are 
 gathered into this hospital, and there they receive 
 the gift of healing. Now here they are, gathered 
 about this Christmas-tree, with these sweet sisters, 
 like presiding angels, going to and fro amongst 
 them, and there are the presents on the tree; each 
 one has a garment or a book, and the children some 
 toys, and the ginger bread and the candy and or- 
 
 128 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 anges are not forgotten. Everything is ready. Now 
 here is a little choir of the Deaconess' Orphan school, 
 which is just down the street. They come up every 
 Sunday to our service, and at the time of our Christ- 
 mas-tree they come to sing." Surely this is applied 
 Christianity and it is fast becoming known and read 
 of all men. 
 
 It is a significant fact that the great work of medi- 
 cal missions is mainly Protestant. There has been 
 no organized medical system pursued by Roman 
 Catholic missionaries in the past, nor is there in the 
 present anything to compare with the attention given 
 to the subject by Protestants. It is but fair, how- 
 ever, to recognize the fact that as early as the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries there were faithful 
 and devout Jesuit missionaries in India, China and 
 South America, who with very imperfect medical 
 knowledge earnestly tried to relieve human misery, 
 both of the body and of the soul. ''We must not for- 
 get," says Professor Macalister, ''that it is to them 
 largely that we owe the use of cinchona, which has 
 rendered mission work possible in fever-stricken 
 lands; we owe to them also ipecacuanha, and many 
 other remedies which we probably should not have 
 known so soon, had it not been for the labors of 
 these men." Mainly also this movement belongs to 
 this generation of Protestants. The early Danish 
 missions to India sent out some medical men in 
 1730-32. The Moravians sent two physicians to 
 Persia in 1747, and in the generation immediately 
 
 129 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 preceding this, a limited number of missionary phy- 
 sicians were sent to Persia, Syria, Asia Minor, China, 
 and to some of our Indian tribes. But it is in the 
 latter half of this century that the movement has be- 
 gun to assume world-wide proportions. As a single 
 example, of the medical missionaries under the Pres- 
 byterian Board, now numbering over four score, all 
 but three have been commissioned during the last 
 twenty-five years. 
 
 It may be said still further that this movement is 
 mainly Anglo-Saxon. Of the 680 thoroughly trained 
 missionary physicians enumerated by Dr. Dennis, 
 660 are American or British. Only twenty represent 
 the various societies of the European continent. As 
 compared with Great Britain and her colonies, 
 America takes the lead. Of all missionary organiza- 
 tions, the Presbyterian Board has the largest number 
 — eighty-three, of whom thirty-three are women. 
 Next in order stands the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church North. Of women now engaged, 127 are 
 American, seventy-three are British, and nine are 
 Canadian. Eight hundred and eighty well trained 
 physicians with their hospitals and dispensaries and 
 medical classes scattered through all dark lands and 
 the islands of the sea, would seem to be a goodly 
 host. But when we reflect that their influence is 
 only as handfuls of corn in the tops of the moun- 
 tains, whose fruits in another half century shall 
 shake like Lebanon — then only do we begin to 
 realize the value of medical missions. 
 
 130 
 
THE FAITH ELEMENT IN MISSIONS 
 
 The whole work of foreign missions is in a pecu- 
 har sense, a work of faith. So far as its supporters 
 are concerned it is a work out of sight, far away be- 
 yond the seas, among unknown races — people who 
 do not welcome our effort and from whom we expect 
 no return. It is a work done for Christ and those 
 for whom He died, and it is the best possible evi- 
 dence of a belief in His being, character and work. 
 
 It is by faith that mission boards and societies 
 make large appropriations at the beginning of their 
 fiscal years, when no funds are in the treasury and 
 when possibly they are already borrowing the means 
 by which to support their work. Often half or three- 
 quarters of a million of dollars are thus appropri- 
 ated with all the implied obligation of a solemn 
 pledge. On the strength of these pledges hundreds 
 of men and women risk their lives in the venture and 
 sail away to the ends of the earth, every year. This is 
 then peculiarly a work of faith — faith in God and in 
 His Church. It is not sufficient to say that his pro- 
 cedure is simply an observance of the law of aver- 
 ages, as in a life insurance company, for while that 
 regards merely thenatural averages of life and death, 
 
 131 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 this confidence depends upon the free action of 
 human wills, on the degree of missionary spirit 
 which may exist in the Church, on the efforts which 
 may be made by pastors and teachers, by woman's 
 societies and young people's associations, and, above 
 all and through all, on the Spirit of God moving 
 upon the hearts of His people. 
 
 Over and above all human elements there is cer- 
 tainly a divine element in the case, as seen in favor- 
 ing providences, the general conditions of finance, 
 great spiritual movements, unlooked for responses to 
 missionary efforts, revivals wrought by the Spirit of 
 God in the churches at home and on the mission 
 fields. But with this divine power there must be 
 also an assiduous use of means. This certainly is 
 the New Testament doctrine : this was the apostolic 
 method. 
 
 This faith element in missions should never be 
 forgotten. It needs constantly to be emphasized and 
 cultivated. Instead of less prayer and more organ- 
 ization, less trust in God and greater reliance on 
 skillful management, there should be exercised a 
 feeling of almost desperate recourse to that divine 
 Spirit, who alone can quicken the dead heart of 
 heathenism to life, on the one hand, and arouse, on 
 the other, a careless, easy-going church that is ever 
 forgetting its duty. One of the most melancholy 
 facts in the history of missions is the decline of the 
 Monthly Concert. This would seem to be the seat of 
 life, the very nerve centre of the whole vast enter- 
 
 132 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 prise; alas if this is atrophied! In very many cases 
 pastors have not faithfully tried to maintain it. But 
 in others where they have made earnest efforts, they 
 have been disheartened by unmistakable proofs that 
 their congregations are loath to pray for anybody or 
 anything except their own local interests. 
 
 Probably by one not interested in religious sub- 
 jects, but judging candidly upon the weight of evi- 
 dence, the lack of prayer in connection with the great 
 work of missions w^ould be regarded as the very 
 strongest indication of a want of real conviction on 
 the part of the Church. To attempt a divine enter- 
 prise without a constant resort to divine help seems 
 scarcely thinkable. 
 
 Perhaps it is this general apathy and the aversion 
 of Christian men to contribute of their substance for 
 missionary work that have led to the inauguration of 
 what are known as ''faith missions." The meaning 
 of the term, as it is generally understood, is not a 
 work which expects a greater divine blessing on the 
 use of means, but one which dispenses with certain 
 means which are ordinarily employed by missionary 
 boards and the churches which support them. So 
 far as appears in the public discussions, "faith mis- 
 sions" are those in which stipulated salaries or med- 
 ical attendance are dispensed with, and a sole re- 
 liance is placed on the Lord. Practically the mis- 
 sionaries still depend for support on the voluntary 
 gifts of God's people, but the asking must not be of 
 
 133 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 the people but of God: the contribution box must 
 give place to prayer. 
 
 It is fair to recognize honest differences of opinion 
 on a subject like this in which even scriptural au- 
 thority is variously interpreted by those who are at 
 issue on the subject. And I recognize the ardent de- 
 votion of many who differ from me. I honor some 
 of these noble organizations which, while promising 
 partial support, have depended in part upon the faith 
 principle in determining the amount. I believe that 
 a great spiritual impulse has been given to the cause 
 of missions by those who hold that view. But oc- 
 casionally some event occurs which arrests public at- 
 tention and provokes discussion. Such an event was 
 the death of three missionaries in west Africa a few 
 years ago, who to all appearances died from insuf- 
 ficient support, and from a persistent reliance on 
 faith instead of medicine in extreme sickness. Nine 
 missionaries sent out in connection with what was 
 known as the "Kansas Movement," were landed near 
 Sierra Leone. None can doubt the purity of thei** 
 motives or the sincerity of their devotion; they had 
 doubtless been pained by the criticisms of a worldly 
 church upon the "luxuries of foreign missionaries," 
 and they resolved to cast themselves on the Lord, and 
 without salary, and without even medical care, de- 
 vote themselves to the establishment of a mission in 
 Western Soudan. 
 
 For the sequel we refer the reader to a letter writ- 
 ten by the Governor of Sierra Leone to the British 
 
 134 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 Minister at Washington, who transmitted it to our 
 Secretary of State, together with a report from the 
 Colonial surgeon at Freetown. The report stated 
 that upon their arrival they began to live in native 
 fashion, eating native food, cooking and washing for 
 themselves, and collecting their own fuel even in the 
 rainy season, hoping thus to gain the confidence of 
 the natives. On the 9th of July two of the party 
 died, both of whom had been such staunch believers 
 in faith cure that they had taken no medicine. Two 
 days later a third died of exhaustion from neglected 
 fever, having been ill about nine days. As the fourth 
 patient in the list refused the services of a physician, 
 the latter reported to the Governor that the mission- 
 aries, by the course pursued, had developed a malig- 
 nant type of fever, which endangered the whole com- 
 munity. He therefore quarantined the house, and 
 advised that the survivors of the party be sent back 
 to America. Upon this the patient consented to be 
 treated. Nothing could possibly produce a more un- 
 favorable impression upon a community of foreign 
 residents, in regard to the whole work of missions, 
 than an event of this kind. 
 
 But if public sentiment throughout Christendom 
 condemns those misguided young missionaries, what 
 shall be said of that self-excusing sentiment in the 
 churches, which is supposed to call for such sacrifice ? 
 So long as there are thousands of money-getting 
 Christians who are ready to say of the faith mis- 
 sionary, "There is the man that I believe in; he is 
 
 135 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 not after the loaves and fishes; he is not going abroad 
 to Hve in luxury, etc" — so long will sensitive young 
 men be found who would rather brave danger, and 
 even death itself, than to depend on a grudging 
 church. The principle of faith missions has undoubt- 
 edly been reinforced by the kindred doctrines of faith 
 healing. This was natural, since if the New Testa- 
 ment miracles of healing are perpetuated in our time, 
 why may not Christ still send forth disciples without 
 purse or scrip, taking no thought of what they shall 
 eat or what they shall drink or wherewithal they 
 shall be clothed, and assured that if they have faith 
 as a grain of mustard they shall remove mountains. 
 But it would be unsafe to reason that because faith 
 healing has realized a certain per cent, of recoveries 
 in chronic ailments which largely concerned nervous 
 conditions and mental states, therefore, it will un- 
 erringly overcome the African fever or provide food 
 and shelter in the desert.* 
 
 Not to trace their origin farther back, faith mis- 
 sions became prominently known forty years ago in 
 connection with the orphanage work of Rev. George 
 Miiller of Bristol. The success of the orphanage led 
 to the enlarged work of sending missionaries to 
 heathen lands. It must be conceded that the life 
 which George Miiller led at Bristol was a beautiful 
 
 * There are many most worthy and devout persons en- 
 gaj?ed in various lines of benevolent work in this country who 
 pi'efer not to solicit funds for themselves or others, but simply 
 to use what sympathizing contributors mav choose to send 
 them. None can complain of this so long as they do not in- 
 volve their beneficiaries in serious risks, 
 
 136 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 life of faith and devotion, but the history of religion 
 has shown again and again that such a life may be 
 quite consistent with honest mistakes in principle. 
 He possessed a rare personal magnetism, and won 
 many friends wherever he went and whithersoever 
 his circulars and reports were sent. But it was felt, 
 from the first, by many observers of his work that 
 while he definitely eschewed all appeals for money, 
 yet indirectly the publications which he issued were 
 the most effective of all appeals. It was evident also 
 that the exceptional and unique character of his 
 methods proved an element of success. It was a new 
 way and was striking. It implied a degree of con- 
 demnation of the old methods and thereby gained 
 the support of some who were tired of appeals. But 
 the fallacy which attended this system as a system, 
 lay in the implication that such means ought to be 
 followed by all the great missionary organizations. 
 Of course, were all to adopt the same methods, the 
 novelty and the consequent monopoly of special gifts 
 would cease. 
 
 The question therefore really resolves itself to 
 this: If all means o: raising money for missionary 
 purposes, such as the sending of circulars, reports, 
 and other information were set aside by both the old 
 societies and those of Mr. Miiller and others, and all 
 were to rely simply upon prayer, would the cause of 
 missions be more likely to prosper? If not, and the 
 use of some kind of means is necessary, then the 
 question lies between organized methods and those 
 
 137 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 which are only casual and sporadic. Now it so hap- 
 pened by way of divine example that God's own 
 method of supporting the Levitical priesthood was 
 thoroughly organized and systematic. It was pro- 
 portionate, fixed, and compulsory. No more faith 
 was required of the priest at the altar than of the 
 shepherd among his flocks. Hardly any other man 
 in the nation was quite so sure of a regular support 
 as he. And if it be claimed that the New Testament 
 shows an advanced principle and a better method, it 
 must be remembered that Paul also thoroughly sys- 
 temized the duty of benevolent-giving, and so far 
 from avoiding all resort to direct appeal lest that 
 should mar the quality of his faith, he emphasized his 
 appeals for contributions and even resorted to the 
 principle of emulation, by using the example of the 
 Macedonian church to stir up the consciences of the 
 supposably wealthier church of Corinth. He pro- 
 posed no tithes, but he urged the higher principle of 
 giving according to every man's ability. And al- 
 though he chose for special reasons to earn his own 
 support in part by manual labor, yet he did not hesi- 
 tate to become the receiver and the bearer of the con- 
 tributions made for others, and he emphasized the 
 just claim of the laborer for his hire. 
 
 In any comparison of modern missionary methods 
 with those of apostolic times, account should be 
 taken of some important differences in the whole 
 situation. 
 
 (i) Those first disciples who were enjoined to 
 
 138 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 take neither purse nor scrip were under a special dis- 
 pensation, involving if need be miraculous interven- 
 tion. Miraculous draughts of fishes could be taken, 
 and even five thousand people could be fed from the 
 most scanty provision. With the specific command 
 specific help could be expected. 
 
 (2) Those to whom the apostles were sent in 
 distant lands were possessed of greater competency 
 than those who sent them : with us the reverse is true. 
 Paul collected funds on his mission fields for the 
 poor of Jerusalem. Now in all our mission fields 
 deep poverty is the rule while the churches of Chris- 
 tendom are rich. 
 
 (3) There were great advantages also in the use 
 of a common language which had become a medium 
 throughout the east. The Septuagint version of the 
 Old Testament had proved an effectual forerunner. 
 And generally a synagogue was placed at the dis- 
 posal of those who came to preach. 
 
 (4) In nearly every place visited by the apostles 
 a few friends or at least fellow-countrymen, were 
 ready to meet them, if not with a welcome, at least 
 with toleration. In the first place Jews had preceded 
 them everywhere. This was true not only in the 
 great marts but in such out-of-the-way places as 
 Lystra and Berea. 
 
 (5) But most important of all was the fact that 
 the infant church had been scattered from Jerusalem 
 in all directions by persecution, and while feeling yet 
 that glow of love which held all things common. 
 
 139 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 Never since that time has hospitality reached so high 
 a mark as then; it is far enough from it now. 
 Whoever will study the history of Paul's experience 
 in this matter will be impressed by the frequency with 
 which he acknowledg-es the ministries of friends. 
 
 How different are all the above named advantages 
 from those conditions which confront a missionary 
 of our day in such fields as Africa or the interior of 
 China or the rural districts of India. Poverty every- 
 where; an unknown language to be mastered; ig- 
 norance and prejudice instead of friendship. If rep- 
 resentatives of his own land and race have preceded 
 the missionary they are generally hostile and their in- 
 liuence is a curse. 
 
 Doubtless in mediaeval missions the methods con- 
 formed somewhat more nearly to those of the apos- 
 tolic days. It was a necessity of that age. Then, as 
 in Paul's time, the Church was destitute of organized 
 agencies for the extended and distant propagation of 
 the faith. Whether the missionary monks who went 
 over England and the Continent from lona and Ban- 
 gor were aided by their brethren who remained be- 
 hind cannot be known, but it is doubtful. But every 
 kind of means was resorted to by mediaeval mis- 
 sionaries for their support, as exigencies required. 
 Patrick, who had been a swineherd in Ireland and 
 could live narrowly if need be, threw himself with 
 sublime faith upon the favor of the heathen chief of 
 Tara in the very midst of his pagan revelry, after 
 having wrestled with God in prayer. And he won 
 
 140 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 favor and assistance. Augustine was received with 
 favor in Kent through the influence of the Christian 
 queen, Bertha. PauHnus, through similar influence, 
 gained royal favor in Northumbria. Aidan and the 
 monks of Landisfarne were greatly aided by a young 
 prince who had found refuge from his enemies in 
 the monastery of lona. Anschar was for a time sup- 
 ported in Denmark and Sweden by a French sov- 
 ereign, under whose auspices he had been commis- 
 sioned. King Olaf of Norway had been made a 
 patron of missionaries by his own conversion while 
 lying in a Christian hospital in the Scilly Islands. 
 
 But in our age such sporadic makeshifts are not 
 necessary. They are not in accordance with the 
 manifest trend of the divine Providence. We 
 should not fail to recognize the fact that God has 
 been preparing His church as an army with multi- 
 plied appliances, wdth boundless wealth, with in- 
 creased intelligence, with ample and varied means 
 of transmission, with scriptures translated into many 
 languages, with broad openings and manifold op- 
 portunities, with more perfected organizations at 
 home, with a thousand inducements to rally the 
 whole rank and file of Christian believers, the men 
 and the women, old and young, for a widespread ad- 
 vance upon the domains of darkness. These provi- 
 dences all indicate the general policy upon which the 
 Church should act and to which she should give her 
 united and untiring effort. 
 
 Where the exercise of faith, in this particular use 
 141 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 of the word, is employed mainly in one specific line, 
 as for example, where the object in view is almost 
 exclusively the receipt of money, there is danger that 
 a doctrine of faith may be developed which will not 
 endure the test of Scripture or sound experience. It 
 becomes a sort of banking operation with an implied 
 understanding that whatever prayers of the Church 
 may remain unanswered, this or that petitioner's 
 drafts for money shall not be dishonored. I once 
 heard a discourse delivered by a gentleman who was 
 engaged in a mission to the Jews. It was mainly a 
 narrative of instances in which the speaker — who 
 discarded public collections — had asked the Lord for 
 definite sums of money needed by a given date, and 
 had in each case received the amount named. Some- 
 times the day would arrive and wear on toward noon 
 without response. In one or two instances six 
 o'clock, P. M., drew near, and then just in time the 
 amount came — perhaps from an unknown source. 
 
 Very little was said of answers to prayer for the 
 conversion of the Jews. The work did not appear to 
 have been very successful except in the mere matter 
 of raising funds. I believe that this good brother 
 was a very sincere and earnest man. But he gave 
 one the impression that he had so concentrated his 
 thoughts on this particular manner of providing mis- 
 sion funds, that he had lost sight of the symmetry 
 and proportions of the great general doctrine of faith 
 and of prayer. It is hard to believe that God is more 
 strict to grant explicit requests for the material sup- 
 
 142 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 port of missionaries than to bestow the promised in- 
 fluence of the Spirit in that great work of regenera- 
 tion, for which missionary support is only a sub- 
 sidiary human instrumentahty. It is also incredible 
 that God should be so much less careful to heed and 
 answer the great volume of prayer ascending from 
 thousands of earnest hearts for the conversion of 
 men than to keep accurate account with here and 
 there an individual whose prayers specify the self- 
 imposed restriction that he shall use no other means. 
 It looks too much like asking for blessings on one's 
 own terms and in support of his particular theory, 
 instead of relying upon God's higher and broader 
 wisdom. It must be that God estimates His own 
 great cause of Redemption more highly than these 
 few object lessons in missionary methods. 
 
 While that special exercise of faith which is sup- 
 posed to dispense with the use of means is generally 
 confined to a particular object or measure, the object 
 is not always the same. In the instance just named 
 it was the procuring of the means of support without 
 resort to solicitation. But the Christian and Mis- 
 sionary Alliance, having its headquarters in New 
 York, places its emphasis of faith on the healing of 
 disease, while in the raising of funds it employs 
 means abundantly. As a natural result young men 
 and women are applying to the different missionary 
 boards, with the understanding that they will rely 
 wholly upon faith for the healing of disease, but 
 — very inconsistently — will expect to receive full sal- 
 
 143 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ary for their missionary support, together with all 
 expense in visiting health resorts or in health seek- 
 ing furloughs in this country. This specialization of 
 particular things and the confusion consequent upon 
 it are serious matters. They create perplexity in the 
 minds of missionary candidates not only, but also of 
 native Christians on the mission fields. These nat- 
 urally ask, why this diversity of particular things in- 
 stead of testing the power and care of God in all 
 things, and why in some missions do we find medical 
 missionaries employed in the special work of healing 
 disease, while at the same station perhaps are those 
 who are under vows to take no medicine but to trust 
 in the Lord for healing? The case is still further 
 complicated where one acknowledges the general 
 necessity for medical ministration, but has reached 
 assurance that it is not necessary in his particular 
 case. His more explicit faith has been rewarded by 
 special immunity from fatal sickness for a period at 
 least. One instance is given of a medical missionary 
 who, while attending to the diseases of others, native 
 and foreign, held this inconsistent position with re- 
 gard to himself, and eschewed all medicine. 
 
 There should be great freedom of personal belief 
 and great charity for those who differ from us, but 
 a dangerous responsibility lies in the inculcation of a 
 belief among others which may involve them in fatal 
 danger and lead them in turn to disseminate among 
 still others, views which cannot be supported either 
 by scriptural authority, or by the experience of the 
 
 144 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 Christian church. The leading missionary organiza- 
 tions in this country and throughout Christendom 
 shrink from the responsibihty of sending out mis- 
 sionaries upon the faith cure basis, for they feel that 
 in so doing they would become parties to a very 
 hazardous experiment, and be exposed to public rep- 
 robation. It seems imperative that as a corrective 
 of the rash misguided zeal of young candidates who 
 have imbibed unscriptural views as to the use of 
 means, the consensus of missionary boards and so- 
 cieties should adopt a common policy susceptible of 
 universal validity, and that the churches of every 
 name should inculcate views adapted to every exi- 
 gency of life and every line of Christian duty at home 
 or abroad. 
 
 Incidentally it may be noticed that the term "faith 
 healing" is now commonly applied by secular jour- 
 nals without much discrimination to healing b}'' 
 prayer and to the operations of so-called ''Christian 
 Science." Within a few weeks the writer has no- 
 ticed several paragraphs in which under the caption 
 of faith healing, complaint of fanaticism and fraud 
 has been made against the Scientists. 
 
 In one instance where a life had been sacrificed the 
 court ordered an imprisonment of three months; in 
 another the judge expressed the embarrassment he 
 felt springing from the fact that this mode of heal- 
 ing was from a legal point of view so much like 
 that which enjoined faith in prayer. 
 
 It is significant that in the New Testament we find 
 MS 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 no such examples of stipulative prayers. Even our 
 Savior's petition that the cup of suffering might be 
 removed was subordinated to His Father's will. And 
 Paul's prayer that he might be delivered from the 
 thorn in his flesh was not specifically granted, though 
 God had a greater blessing in store. This chief 
 apostle or missionary, whose constant prayers for 
 the success of his mission work, and for the con- 
 stancy and growth of his converts are mentioned in 
 nearly every epistle, never created emergencies and 
 then prayed God to help him out without other ef- 
 fort. He did pray specifically for the rescue of his 
 fellow-voyagers from shipwreck, but he strenuously 
 enjoined upon everyone the observance of the proper 
 means. In the matter of health he advised his deli- 
 cate young friend Timothy, to take a tonic, and he 
 himself for a part of the time at least was attended 
 by the "beloved physician." Everywhere the Scrip- 
 tures teach the duty of prayer in all things great and 
 small, but prayer without the use of means, where 
 means can he employed, is a new doctrine. 
 
 It should be specially noticed that whatever means 
 were provided for the support of the apostolic mis- 
 sionaries, or those of the Middle Ages, they were 
 not accompanied by wives. The worst element in 
 these rash experiments of unsalaried faith mission- 
 aries is the increased hazard that must come to a wife 
 and children. If this aggravates the difificulties of 
 "cheap missionaries" it is still worse with "faith 
 missionaries." If single men were disposed to take 
 
 146 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 such risks alone, as an explorer would venture into 
 an unknown region, the case would be somewhat less 
 serious — though no explorer ever proceeds without 
 a thorough outfit of supplies, and the means of pre- 
 serving health. But it is a grave question whether 
 any man has a right to expose a young wife to the 
 perils of such a situation, subject as she must be to 
 the incidents of married life, and with all the addi- 
 tional burdens and trials which a woman must en- 
 counter. 
 
 Many years ago, while visiting missions on the 
 opposite side of the globe, I took occasion to call 
 upon one of George Miiller's missionaries who was 
 living with a wife and small child in a locality less 
 than five degrees from the equator, and close upon 
 the shore of a land-locked sea with an environment 
 of hills, which made the place an oven. He had no 
 fixed salary, but was partially supported on the faith 
 principle. His abode was the upper part of a ware- 
 house, and directly under a tiled roof, the hottest, I 
 believe, that architecture has yet devised. The low- 
 necked and short-sleeved dresses of the mother and 
 child revealed numerous boils and scars of boils, of 
 which, the missionary told me, they had had ninety. 
 To the intense heat there was evidently added a se- 
 rious want of nutrition, and a consequent poverty of 
 blood. The missionary informed me that his support 
 was irregular and insufficient, and that but for his 
 personal appeals to friends at home it was difficult to 
 see how they could have survived. I have no com- 
 
 147 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ments to make on the case, but these are the facts. 
 1 think it right to pubHsh them for the benefit of 
 those well-to-do Christians who criticize organized 
 and established methods which guarantee a regular 
 support and favor those less expensive missions 
 which depend more upon faith in God and less upon 
 their personal contributions.* 
 
 But is it quite safe either as theology or as fact, to 
 assume that God intends a different measure of faith 
 and a less regard to means on the foreign fields than 
 in the work at home? Is there any more reason to 
 suppose that a fortuitous support can be relied upon 
 for missionaries than for our own pastors? The 
 whole theory of "faith missions" proves too much; 
 for, unless it be assumed that God has two different 
 economies for the work of the Church, then every 
 
 *In the New York Independent of June 22, 1899, appears 
 the following editorial statement: 
 
 •' For some time reports have been coming to this oflSce 
 of suffering on the part of missionaries sent out by the Chris- 
 tian and Missionary Alliance, They have come from widely 
 separate countries and from people in whose judgment and 
 fairr es< we have every confidence. One told the story of a 
 young man of fine character and earnest devotion, left with- 
 out support in a country where it was impossible for him to 
 secure assistance, and who sickened, became insane, and took 
 his own life. Another told of not merely one, but several who 
 had been left similarly deserted, had suffered greatly with 
 sickness in consequence, and life had been saved only by the 
 relief furnished by missionaries of other boards. Similar let- 
 ters have been received by others. All have been accompanied 
 with an urgent request for investigation of the management 
 of the Society, and the exposure of the methods which had re- 
 sulted in such cruelties, 
 
 "Every effort, however, was rendered difficult by the pe- 
 culiar character of the Society, It makes no pledge ot support 
 for its missionaries, simply promises to distribute among them 
 whatever funds are committed to it." 
 
 148 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 department and every interest ought to be conducted 
 upon trust, and all salaries, all pledges, all contracts, 
 should be dispensed with. The intervention of broad 
 oceans does not change the general laws of Christian 
 service nor invalidate anywhere the divinely author- 
 ized principles that "the laborer is worthy of his 
 hire." A guaranteed support is even more indispen- 
 sable on the foreign field than at home. If one is to 
 carry economy to the verge of starvation anywhere in 
 Christ's service, a savage community in a malarious 
 country is the very last place for the experiment. If 
 the ministry cannot be self-supported in this country, 
 where they are surrounded by friends and abundant 
 resources of every kind and a great variety of occu- 
 pations which open before them, how much less in an 
 African community, where labor of every kind can 
 be secured for a pittance, where few comforts of life 
 can be found at the best, where no business enter- 
 prise presents itself as a possibility, and where any 
 missionary, undertaking to live as the natives live, 
 must be almost certain of sickness and death. The 
 world cannot be converted by a few startling lessons 
 of toil and suffering. We are not encamped before 
 Philistines whom it is God's purpose to conquer by 
 the valor of a few young Davids, while the hosts of 
 Israel simply rest upon their arms. It is wrong to 
 remove the burden of responsibility from the Church. 
 Not only do the missionaries need fixed and reliable 
 salaries to free them from anxiety and insure their 
 success, but the Church itself needs to pay those sala- 
 
 149 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ries. Its own spiritual life demands at least that 
 small share of the common burden, and any theory 
 which maintains that a fixed support is not neces- 
 sary for foreign missionaries, and which so far re- 
 moves responsibility from those who remain at home 
 is an injury to the piety of the Church. 
 
 It is probable that the conditions regulating the 
 work of foreign missions will become more and 
 more like those which obtain in our own land. It is 
 not so widely differentiated from other spheres of 
 Christian work as it was fifty years ago. The fields 
 are practically not so far off. The degree of self-de- 
 nial required is not so great. The ocean voyages are 
 pleasure trips compared with the old six months* ex- 
 periences on board of merchant vessels. Mission- 
 aries are generally supplied with comfortable homes, 
 and medical attendance, as a matter of economy. 
 The romance of tragic experiences is more rare, and 
 missionaries are coming to be thought of as are other 
 men. Yet if they are faithful, their work is hard; 
 their surroundings are often forbidding; the isolation 
 from home and friends and fatherland is depressing 
 and the climate is generally trying. At best, the life 
 of the missionary is one of self-denial. 
 
 But it is important to view this subject dispassion- 
 ately and without prejudice. I have no sympathy 
 with those who deal in sweeping denunciations of all 
 methods which differ from their own. I cannot but 
 rejoice in the variety of operations which God has 
 seemed to crown with his blessing. The China In- 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 land Mission, for example, has accomplished incal- 
 culable good. Some of its early peculiarities have 
 become somewhat modified: what some people re- 
 garded as its extreme ideas have been laid aside: 
 there is more and more a recognition of the fact that 
 means must be used in the raising of funds, and 
 means are used, differing from those of the older 
 boards, but nevertheless used assiduously, through 
 reports, missionary addresses and lectures. The al- 
 lowances for support are much more adequate than 
 formerly and are not found to differ very widely 
 from those of the older organizations. Methods of 
 work on the field are undergoing changes and more 
 of the institutional plan appears : general itineration 
 is combined with stable missionary establishments 
 such as schools, churches and missionary homes: 
 everything looks toward permanence. Meanwhile, 
 the good example of the China Inland Mission has 
 led to improvements in the work of the denomina- 
 tional boards. The earnest spirit which has charac- 
 terized not only its administrators but its mission- 
 aries, the fact which it has demonstrated, that the men 
 of the highest rank and most manly bearing in the 
 English universities, can be drawn into the personal 
 service of winning souls on heathen soil — all this has 
 inured to the benefit of all missionary organizations. 
 It has furnished to all missionary societies the good 
 example of an increased reliance upon prayer. The 
 China Inland Mission has chosen a very wise pol- 
 icy in the personal examination and training of its 
 
 151 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 missionaries before they sail and afterwards on 
 reaching the field. Their training institution in 
 Shanghai is a model : their delay in the marriage of 
 missionaries until they have learned something of 
 the language and made a beginning of missionary 
 work, is wise and salutary. It is the greater propor- 
 tionate number of unmarried missionaries and of 
 those who depend upon their own support which 
 to a certain extent renders the average cost consid- 
 erably less than that of other societies. 
 
 In conclusion I am persuaded that the whole sub- 
 ject of missionary methods demands at this time a 
 fair, courteous and thorough discussion. Among 
 the young especially there is a deep interest in the 
 subject, and it is essential that sound and Scriptural 
 views should be adopted, applicable alike to the for- 
 eign field and to all forms of Christian work at home. 
 While it is well that there should be such variety of 
 orofanization and method as shall meet all views and 
 utilize all resources, one thing seems certain: if the 
 world is to be evangelized the burden of duty must 
 rest upon all — upon those who go and those who 
 stay. The support of the former must devolve upon 
 the latter, and it is the only way in which they can 
 bear a substantial part. If the missionary's salary 
 is a needless or questionable device, then the great 
 majority of Christian people are exempt from any 
 duty in the case, for it is impossible that all shall go, 
 and the question, "How shall they preach except 
 they be sent?" is without meaning. 
 
 152 
 
FAITH IN ONE'S STAR AND FAITH IN GOD 
 
 The heroes of foreign missions have been pre- 
 eminently men of prayer. The example of the great 
 Apostle to the Gentiles is significant on this point. No 
 one can have carefully read his letters to the mission 
 churches of Western Asia and Southeastern Europe, 
 without having been impressed by the frequency and 
 earnestness of his references to prayer as an element 
 in his missionary \vork. And his petitions seemed 
 always to have been accompanied with thanksgiving, 
 whether for his success in winning men, or for the 
 grace of God manifested in the churches. ''God is 
 my witness," he wrote to the Christians at Rome, 
 ''that without ceasing I make mention of you always 
 in my prayers." To the Corinthians he said, "I 
 thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of 
 God which is given you by Jesus Christ." His faith- 
 ful and searching letter to the Galatians was intro- 
 duced by a tender benediction of "grace and peace." 
 For the Ephesians he "ceased not to give thanks," 
 making mention of them in his prayers; and he as- 
 sured the Colossians that with thanksgiving he 
 
 153 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 prayed for them ''always." Much the same expres- 
 sions introduce his letter to the Thessalonians ; — re- 
 membering ''without ceasing" their "work of faith, 
 and labor of love, and patience of hope." He tells 
 young Timothy that "without ceasing" he remem- 
 bers him in his "prayers night and day." 
 
 Well might this first great missionary begin and 
 end all his w^ork with prayer and thanksgiving, for 
 with fasting and supplication of the church at An- 
 tioch, had he been sent forth by the direction of the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 There are and always have been, emergencies in 
 the prosecution of missionary work, which called 
 for real heroism, and an all-supporting faith. The 
 hostility which Jonah feared when sent to preach to 
 the Ninevites, has confronted many a missionary 
 when venturing among barbarous nations. In cases 
 of extreme peril, as when Paul and Silas were 
 thrown into prison in Philippi, and in a great variety 
 of desperate circumstances and conditions, human 
 help has sometimes seemed to fail. Often a sole re- 
 liance has been placed upon the special interposition 
 of God. The late Bishop of Ossory in his sketch of 
 the heroic mission of Patrick in Ireland, has pub- 
 lished the very remarkable prayer which that mis- 
 sionary offered when about to make his bold en- 
 trance into the court of the chief of Tara. It was at 
 the time of a heathen festival, when danger would 
 seem to be at its greatest; and no more fervent prayer 
 
 154 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 than his has ever been recorded, and none have been 
 more remarkably answered. 
 
 Judson in the Burmese prison, John G. Paton, sur- 
 rounded by the howHng savages of Tanna, Mrs, 
 Spalding at Lapwai, committing herself to God, 
 while expecting at any moment the war whoop of 
 hostile Cayuse Indians, Mr. Duncan when threatened 
 by the savages of Metlakatla — these and many oth- 
 ers have illustrated the need and the power of prayer 
 when human resources, though faithfully used, have 
 seemed to fail. 
 
 But the age in which we live is full of scepticism 
 on this subject. In the ordinary business of life, men 
 love to trust in every sort of refuge or resource in- 
 stead of prayer. They trust in their destiny, or their 
 horoscope, or their friends, or more commonly their 
 own ability and skill. But in the work of missions 
 all use of means must be supplemented by a trust in 
 the transcendent power of God. It lies in the very 
 nature and first conception of the work, that it is a 
 conquest more divine than human, and that, there- 
 fore, supernatural forces are indispensable. Its com- 
 mander and helper is a divine Redeemer. Foreign 
 missionary enterprise without prayer, therefore, 
 would be an anomaly, and a virtual contradiction of 
 principles. And here is the point of departure which 
 separates it from all merely human undertakings, 
 even the most "heroic and successful. In these we 
 often find much to admire. We recognize many he- 
 roes and philanthropists of modern times, who laid 
 
 155 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 no claim to a religious character, but whom all men 
 will honor. But perhaps the figure which touches the 
 heart of humanity most deeply of all is that of Liv- 
 ingstone, after many years of toil and hardship, dying 
 alone on his knees in prayer — prayer that the Chris- 
 tian nations might come to the rescue of Africa, and 
 that ''the great open sore" of its age-long agony 
 from the slave-trade might be healed. And it is not 
 difficult for us now to believe that that prayer was 
 heard in heaven, when already we see all East Africa 
 brought under the power of Great Britain and Ger- 
 many with a railroad line proposed from the Nile 
 Delta to the southern Cape. 
 
 Many months ago it fell to my lot to hear a dis- 
 course delivered by Mr. Felix Adler of which the 
 heroic Dr. Nansen afforded the text, or at least the 
 leading thought and purpose. The splendid heroism 
 of the explorer, his calmness, endurance, self-control 
 and sympathetic companionship with all grades of 
 the crew were depicted in glowing terms. The sig- 
 nificant fact emphasized throughout was, that this 
 balanced, splendid, character was that of an agnostic. 
 A large congregation was thus called to notice what 
 agnosticism can do in this last decade of the nine- 
 teenth century. Special attention was directed to the 
 admirable discipline of the little crew of thirteen per- 
 sons, and to Nansen's magnanimity in treating every 
 fellow-voyager as a companion, and to the inculcated 
 idea that every man should be a sharer in the toil, 
 however humble, that seemed necessary to success. 
 
 156 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 Here Dr. Adler found a great triumph of character 
 and a grand solution of a difficult social problem. 
 By candid readers of the narrative all this will be 
 conceded, and yet with the exception of a sort of 
 observance of the Christmas festival, there is nothing 
 in the narrative that even hints at the Christian faith. 
 There was neither Bible nor Christian Sabbath. In 
 all the reported conversations concerning the tender 
 memories of the Fatherland, there is nothing to re- 
 mind one that Norway is a Christian country. Amid 
 all the terrible sufferings and struggles and dangers 
 there is no suggestion of a prayer, or any trace of 
 the idea of God as a refuge. 
 
 Felix Adler made good use of all this, and he 
 probably could not have found a better subject for 
 his purpose, or drawn a better illustration of what 
 it is possible for a human character to develop out 
 of the blank negation of modern doubt. There could 
 scarcely be a finer illustration of heroism resting 
 upon simple human foundations with no divine ele- 
 ment recognized. Strenuous toil, unflinching bravery, 
 unquenchable hopefulness, seemed utterly baffled and 
 powerless against the mighty forces of nature, and it 
 would seem as if men must look for omnipotent help 
 under such circumstances; and yet no prayer is 
 heard. There is a kind of faith indicated in some of 
 Nansen's expressions, for example, 'T trust my star: 
 it will guide me safely as it always has." "We are 
 the tools of powers beyond us; we are born under 
 lucky or unlucky stars. Till now I have lived under 
 
 157 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 a lucky one. Is its light to be darkened? I am su- 
 perstitious no doubt, but I believe in my star." In 
 the two large volumes there are two or three refer- 
 ences to God. In one, Nansen addresses himself and 
 says: ''Here in the great night (the dreary Arctic 
 night of half a year) thou standest in all thy petti- 
 ness face to face with nature, and thou sittest de- 
 voutly at the feet of eternity intently listening, and 
 thou knowest God, the all ruling, the centre of the 
 universe — all the riddles of life grown clear and thou 
 laughest at thyself that thou couldst be consumed 
 by brooding, it is so little, so unutterably little. . . . 
 'Who sees Jehovah dies.' " 
 
 Now this lack of trust in God as a helper is un- 
 natural in such circumstances. The world over and 
 through all ages and among all races the cry of hu- 
 manity ill extremis has burst forth for the sympathy 
 and help of higher and unseen powers. Nansen's 
 ancestors in their ignorance of the true God, had 
 imagined gods with supernatural attributes. While 
 they idealized the mighty forces of frost and dark- 
 ness and desolation under the guise of giants, they 
 made them subordinate to the more potent ideals of 
 Woden and Thor, and those more genial deities the 
 sunny influence of the South, before which darkness 
 and frost were driven away. Prayer in trouble is 
 as natural as our breath. Agnosticism is only a re- 
 sult of speculation. It has well been said that athe- 
 ism never exists except as a reasoned conclusion. 
 
 We find in Nansen's journal sublime thoughts, as 
 158 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 he contemplates the power and desolation that are 
 about him, as he feels the heavy weight of an Arctic 
 night resting upon him like a pall, or as he looks with 
 amazement upon the gorgeous auroral displays in 
 the heavens. And yet there is apparently no thought 
 of God or of Providence in the sense in which a 
 Christian would regard these terms. 
 
 The world problem, as it may be called, the plan 
 and destiny of this visible creation, seems to weigh 
 down his spirit with its ponderous and hopeless ma- 
 terialism. He finds no relief in those divine aspira- 
 tions which differentiate humanity from the masses 
 of rock and ice and from the mere physical life of 
 the walrus and the polar bear. In the prophetic les- 
 sons of frost and Arctic night, he foresees a similar 
 destiny for all the world in which we live. As the po- 
 lar sea with all its islands is locked in ice, so he tells 
 us, will this entire planet one day become icebound 
 and dead. In the light of geology and astronomy, 
 none can deny the soundness of this reasoning, if no 
 other interposition should occur to create '*a new- 
 heaven and a new earth." In other words, if there 
 are no powers at work in the universe above and be- 
 yond those whose operations are the subject of phy- 
 sical science, then Nansen is right, and the dreariness 
 of an agnostic system could hardly be presented in 
 more gloomy colors. While we must admit the con- 
 clusion that the earth existed for a very long time be- 
 fore vegetable and animal life were possible, and 
 that in the gradual cooling process remote after-ages 
 
 159 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 may find it again uninhabitable, yet that very fact, 
 if it be a fact, prompts the human spirit to cry aloud 
 for something more and better than science can teach 
 us. It cannot be that all that belongs to human life, 
 all there is of hope and love and aspiration in the 
 history of this race of ours, is merely an accident of 
 temperature, a mere fortunate combination of 
 warmth and moisture reached at a certain point in 
 the history of a cooling planet. Little comfort in- 
 deed did Nansen find in his dark reflections. It is 
 evident from his journal that the agnostic outlook 
 did not satisfy the wants of his soul. 
 
 It is an interesting question, after all, whether the 
 high character of a Nansen were possible aside from 
 the antecedents of early Christian training. A kind 
 of rude heroism might exist, for this has been shown 
 in many a savage, but the poise and gentleness, the 
 love of family and home, the frequent mention of 
 wife and child in terms of tenderness, the keen ap- 
 preciation of childhood's experiences of Christmas 
 as well as the generous companionship and regard 
 for others which he evinced — these certainly are in 
 strong contrast with the wild and savage character 
 of the old Vikings. They were pirates of the most 
 relentless kind. They lived by marauding and un- 
 scrupulous conquest. Surely no races of men have 
 shown a greater transformation than the Scandina- 
 vian races under the influence of Christianity. The 
 old Norsemen were proverbial for their savagery; the 
 modern Norsemen ar^ distinguished for their quiet 
 
 i6o 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 industry, love of home, and love of peace. With all 
 deference, therefore, to Dr. Adler, we would suggest 
 that this model agnostic owes much to the Christian 
 cultus which he ignores. 
 
 There is another element in the case which should 
 be considered; that is, that the heroism of this Arctic 
 crew was partly due to exuberant health and youth. 
 There was no use for the doctor, we are told, by 
 these stalwart specimens picked from a nation's best. 
 Even when the two heroes of heroes lived alone for 
 a year upon floating ice, amid solitude and desola- 
 tion which would have crushed ordinary men, they 
 remained in vigorous health. 
 
 Now a philosophy of life which can meet the wants 
 of the great masses of mankind in all the vicissitudes 
 of misfortune, sickness and feebleness of age, which 
 can sustain delicate women as well as starwart men, 
 must bear stronger tests than were experienced by 
 the selected voyagers of the Fram. In the personal 
 and domestic trials of an average parish, at the grave 
 and in the home of the bereaved, something more 
 helpful must be found, else the human race is an or- 
 phan cast forth remorselessly, with no resources but 
 its own. 
 
 About the time that my attention was called to 
 Nansen and his companions, I read Dr. Jacob Cham- 
 berlain's story entitled "In the Tiger Jungle." There 
 was depicted a heroism quite as strong and alert as 
 that of Nansen. In fact, in one brief trial he was 
 more desperately resolute, if possible, than was Nan- 
 
 i5i 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 sen, even when swimming in ice water after his tru- 
 ant boat. But in this case manly courage towering 
 to a subHme height, was supplemented by an inspir- 
 ing faith in God. Readers of Dr. Chamberlain's 
 story, which there is not space to reproduce, can im- 
 agine — can see him there, shut up in a fiat and nar- 
 row jungle between a swollen river and a mountain 
 bluff teeming with tigers, ready to pounce upon him 
 and his companions at any moment. Rain, with al- 
 ternations of blistering sunshine, was pouring upon 
 them, and night was fast approaching, when to their 
 horror they learned that the only path which afforded 
 escape was cut off by the affluents of the Godavery 
 river, now rendered impassable by the flood. The 
 men, thirty or forty in number, were so mutinous in 
 this emergency that Dr. Chamberlain was obliged 
 to ride up and down the marching column with re- 
 volver in hand to prevent desertion. It was too late 
 to turn back, for they could not escape from the jun- 
 gle before night would be upon them, unless they 
 dropped their burdens and ran for dear life. It was 
 plain to all that they could not go forward. The 
 snarl of tigers was already heard on the right hand, 
 the roar of the swollen river was on the left; they 
 seemed absolutely hedged in and doomed to destruc- 
 tion. The missionary, scarcely knowing why, com- 
 manded to move forward, afraid to allow a moment's 
 pause. Two men in the rear who had dropped their 
 burdens and were springing into the jungle for es- 
 cape were suddenly confronted by the apparition of 
 
 162 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 the missionary with revolver pointed at their heads. 
 Terror-stricken they again took up their burdens and 
 marched on, "for they knew not that I would not 
 shoot them." While there was absolutely no escape 
 that human wisdom would suggest, the intrepid mis- 
 sionary prayed as he rode up and down the lines, and 
 prayed again, and again, ''Master was it not for Thy 
 sake that we came here ? Did not we covenant with 
 Thee for the journey through? Have we not faith- 
 fully preached Thy name the whole long way ? Have 
 we shirked any danger, have we quailed before any 
 foe? Didst Thou not promise, T will be with thee?' 
 Now we need Thee; we are in blackest danger for 
 this night. Only Thou canst save us from this jun- 
 gle, these tigers, this flood. Master ! Master ! show 
 me what to do !" 
 
 ''An answer came," says Dr. Chamberlain, "not 
 audible, but distinct as though spoken in my ear by 
 human voice, 'turn to the left, to the Godavery.' Rid- 
 ing rapidly forward, I overtook the guides. 'How 
 far is it to the Godavery ?' 'A good mile.* 'Is there 
 no village on its bank?' 'No, none within many 
 miles, and the banks are all overflowed.' 'Is there 
 no rising ground on which we can camp ?' 'No, it is 
 all low and flat like this.' " 
 
 Then the missionary drew apart and prayed again, 
 while the line still plodded on, and again, came the 
 answer, "Turn to the Godavery and you will find res- 
 cue." 
 
 " 'Are you sure there is no rising ground by the 
 163 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 river?' I said to the guides, 'where we can pitch, 
 with the river on one side for protection, and camp- 
 fires around us on the other, through the night?' 
 
 *' 'None whatever.' 
 
 " Think well; is there no dry timber of which we 
 could make a raft ?' 
 
 '' *If there were any it would all be washed away 
 by these floods.' 
 
 " *Is there no boat of any sort on the river? I 
 have authority to seize anything I need.' 
 
 " 'None nearer than the cataract' (twelve miles 
 away). 
 
 " 'How long would it take us to reach the Goda- 
 very ?' 
 
 "Half an hour, but it would be so much time lost.' 
 
 " 'What shall we do then for the night?' 
 
 " 'God knows,' answered the men, and they looked 
 the despair they felt." 
 
 Again the missionary prayed, and the answer 
 came, 'Turn to the left, to the Godavery, and you 
 will find rescue." 
 
 "I cannot explain it," he says, "but to me it was 
 as distinct as though spoken by a voice in my ear; 
 it thrilled me. 'God's answer to my prayer,' said I, 
 'I cannot doubt. I must act and that instantly.' " 
 
 Strange as it seemed to the men, the command to 
 halt and turn sharp to the left was heeded, and under 
 the menace of the revolver and almost dazed by the 
 desperateness of the situation, they filed rapidly to- 
 ward the river, where, behold ! a flat boat belonging 
 
 164 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 to the British Government on the opposite shore (for 
 they were now in the Nizam's dominion) had been 
 broken from its moorings by the power of the cur- 
 rent, and floating down the river had been turned to 
 this shore and this particular point, where its two 
 occupants had tied it to a tree ! 
 
 Upon this safe refuge the whole party of about 
 forty soon encamped with their large army tent cov- 
 ering the entire boat. Fires were built on the shore, 
 and Dr. Chamberlain stood guard at the shore end 
 throughout the entire night to defend the company 
 against the tigers whose roars were plainly heard. 
 Even now there was no relaxation in the use of 
 means. 
 
 What a night for this God-trusting hero ! What 
 gratitude and strengthened faith and triumphant joy 
 were his and what an object lesson for his men ! 
 
 Now there had been no lack of even physical hero- 
 ism, no lack in the use of means. A strong supe- 
 rior intellect, inspired and elevated by a sublime faith 
 in God, had been strong enough to overcome the 
 doubts and fears of his followers, and to move them 
 forward even against their own judgment and ex- 
 perience. I admire Nansen, but he could not have 
 done this. In these circumstances the hero and his 
 men would have been at the end of their resources. 
 Here superinduced upon all that sagacity and hero- 
 ism can do was faith in a divine Helper, and it 
 brought its triumph. 
 
 165 
 
A BUDDHIST DOCTRINE OF SALVATION 
 BY FAITH 
 
 One of the most obvious duties of a missionary in 
 entering upon his labors among any people is to learn 
 something of their habits of thought, general cus- 
 toms, and traditional beliefs. Even under the com- 
 mon name of Islam, the Mohammedan philosophy of 
 Persia differs widely from that of the Turkish Em- 
 pire. And the following chapter is designed to 
 show the difference between various types of Bud- 
 dhism and the importance of missionary tact in find- 
 ing the best adaptations and the line of least resist- 
 ance. 
 
 The Buddhism of Guatama was atheistic. Such 
 scholars as Sir Monier Williams, Max Muller, Hard- 
 wick, Coppen, and Edkins, are agreed that the teach- 
 ings of the Buddhist canon adopted two hundred 
 and fifty years after the Buddha's death discarded all 
 divine help, and at least ignored a first cause. 'Trust 
 in thyself and in no other, God or man,'' was the word 
 of the Indian saint to his disciples. Contemporary 
 Brahmans certainly charged him with atheistic 
 teachings and influence, for they claimed him as the 
 
 i66 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 ninth incarnation of Vishnu, on the theory that 
 Vishnu, wishing to destroy certain demons, came in 
 the form of Buddha in order to betray them into the 
 fatal doctrines of atheism. Guatama also denied the 
 permanent and distinct entity of the human soul. By 
 a sifting process worthy of Herbert Spencer, he came 
 to consider what we call the soul as only a succession 
 of conscious experiences. To regard this as a soul is 
 an illusion similar to that of a boy who whirls a 
 lighted stick and thinks he sees a ring of fire. There 
 is no ring, but only a succession of points of light, 
 and there is no continuity of a soul, but only a suc- 
 cession in our thoughts and emotions. It is not a 
 soul then, but only a record (karma), that survives 
 in transmigration. 
 
 This Karma or character which remains at death, 
 becomes the responsible inheritance of a new born 
 successor. There is no permanent being of any kind 
 but only a perpetual becoming. Everything is in a 
 state of flux. There are ranks of intelligences supe- 
 rior to man, but they, too, are subject to the eternal 
 round of life and death, until nirvana shall cut off 
 the necessity of rebirth. Such was the early and 
 canonical Buddhism. Some of its subsequent de- 
 velopments have been complete revolutions or re- 
 versals. Consequently there are now many varieties 
 of the system, some semi-theistic, others pantheistic. 
 
 When Guatama died and became extinct, leaving 
 as was believed, an interval of four thousand years 
 before another Buddha should appear, his disciples 
 
 167 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 began to realize the cold and desolate logic of his 
 teachings. They could not worship or pray, for 
 there was no object of worship; no hearer of prayer. 
 The heavens were dark, and the universe a profound 
 abyss. The cheerless doctrine of nirvana had prac- 
 tically no attraction; what mankind longed for was 
 a divine sympathizer and helper, and, in spite of its 
 own canonical authorities, subsequent Buddhism has 
 groped its way toward some such being. It was un- 
 derstood as a deduction of the system that other be- 
 ings destined to be future Buddhas were already in 
 existence somewhere in the round of transmigration, 
 and to these '"bodisats," as they were called, human 
 expectation began to turn, and especially to the ''bo- 
 disatva," who should appear next in order. Among 
 the southern Buddhists this expected messiah was 
 called Maitreyeh, and in Ceylon his image was placed 
 in the temples as an object of worship beside that of 
 the extinct Guatama. 
 
 Pursuing the same idea as the expression of a felt 
 want which the orthodox system did not supply, 
 the northern Buddhists went still further, and by the 
 seventh century A. D., they had developed a trinity 
 of bodisats with distinct personalities. One repre- 
 sented creative power; another was the embodiment 
 of wisdom (Logos); the third was an omnipresent 
 spirit pervading all Buddhist communities upon the 
 earth. Whether this new doctrine was partially the 
 result of contact with Christianity, or whether as 
 some contend, it had crystallized various speculations 
 
 i68 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 around the Hindu trinity or trimurti, it expressed in 
 either case the want of that supernatural element 
 which Buddhism had vainly striven to discredit and 
 destroy. It was an important step from practical 
 atheism toward a return to religious faith. By the 
 tenth century the idea of trinities had assumed more 
 advanced phases. In Nepaul there were supposed to 
 be five trinities — one for each of the world systems. 
 The first person in each of these was called a dhyana 
 or celestial Buddha, destined never to visit this 
 earth. For this world system the three were Arni- 
 tahha (celestial), Avolokitcs vara (an everywhere 
 present being though capable of incarnations) and 
 Guatama Buddha who had appeared on earth. Su- 
 preme over all these and one from whom all these 
 had emanated was Adi BuddJia. This mystical being 
 was uncreated and was the source of aH things. Here 
 only, appeared a real theism. While the conception 
 of the Supreme Adi Buddha has not widely pre- 
 vailed, the first and second persons of the Buddhist 
 trinity for our world system — Amitabha and Avolo- 
 kitesvara, have attained great popularity. In the 
 Middle Ages of our era Avolokitesvara was looked 
 upon as a helper available in all places and all emer- 
 gencies : he was the hearer of prayer. The Chinese 
 pilgrim Fah Hien speaks of having prayed to him in 
 time of shipwreck. In Thibet he was and still is sup- 
 posed to become incarnate in each successive Grand 
 Lama, thus constituting the government of Thibet a 
 sort of theocracy. In China and Japan this same 
 
 169 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 popular bodisat has been found available in meeting 
 the deeper needs of humanity. The popular ''god- 
 dess of mercy" Quan Yen is believed to be a divine 
 embodiment of Avolokitesvara in his female mani- 
 festation. This notion was probably a trace of the 
 old Indian saktism which assigned a wife or female 
 counterpart to Siva and other gods, and which find- 
 ing congenial soil in the phallicism which prevailed 
 in most Asiatic countries, and nowhere more notably 
 than in Japan, extended its corrupting influence to 
 Buddhism. Now in all appeals to Avolokitesvara as 
 the omnipresent hearer of prayer, and to Quan Yen 
 as the goddess of mercy in the sad emergencies of 
 life, there was a very significant departure from the 
 fundamental principles of Buddhism. Instead of 
 self-dependence there was a cry for divine help. The 
 worship of Quan Yen became exceedingly popular in 
 China and Japan. Longing as all humanity must, 
 for sympathy, it sought a more tender sympathy in 
 the female sex. As the legend runs, Quan Yen was a 
 heavenly princess who had attained nirvana and was 
 entitled to exemption from rebirth. But on the 
 threshold of the well earned extinction, she waived 
 her privilege, and concluded to continue her exist- 
 ence for the purpose of commiserating the world of 
 mortals. Meanwhile, she went to Hades, as in the 
 dream of Dante, and beheld the woes of the con- 
 demned, that she might the better understand the 
 problems of human suffering. She has been for 
 ages the representative of divine compassion and 
 
 170 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 help, in all the wants and distresses of the millions 
 of Buddhists. Whoever has visited the temple of 
 Asokosa in Tokio has seen a large apartment filled 
 with wax figures, illustrative of many miraculous 
 rescues accomplished by Quan Yen from fire, from 
 earthquake, and shipwreck, from famine, plagues, 
 serpents and dragons. Such as it is, the worship of 
 Quan Yen is a worship of faith and prayer. It in- 
 volves a confession of human weakness and depend- 
 ence, and it belies the cold, atheistic self-confidence of 
 the original Buddhism. 
 
 But a much more striking doctrine of faith is seen 
 in the creed of the Yodo sect, found both in China 
 and Japan. In Dr. Edkins's account of Chinese Bud- 
 dhism references are made to this sect, but a fuller 
 account is given in a little book published by Bunyiu 
 Nanjio, a Japanese graduate of Oxford, and entitled 
 *'A History of the Twelve Buddhist Sects of 
 Japan."* The doctrines of these sects are taken from 
 Japanese publications, though most of them claim 
 to have been transmitted from India to China be- 
 tween the years 252 and 400 A. D. From China 
 they began to be introduced into Japan in A. D. 552. 
 According to the Yodo sect, there is a Pure Land far 
 to the westward, separated from us by a succession 
 of worlds and systems which lie between. Over that 
 
 * A pamphlet called Shin Shu Kyo Shi, containingf a 
 synopsis of the doctrines of the true sect, was issued in De- 
 cember, 1876, by the Department of Instruction of the leading 
 Buddhist sect in Japan. It is from this and from Mr. Nanjao's 
 book that the quotations in this chapter are made. 
 
 171 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 world presides not the Buddha nor the bodisat 
 Avolokites vara, but the dhyana or celestial Bud- 
 dha Amitabha. This sect cuts loose from a reliance 
 upon meritorious self-help, but not entirely. Its doc- 
 trine of salvation by faith is not full-fledged. Its at- 
 titude is like that of the half emancipated Judaizing 
 Christians of whom the Apostle Paul complained. 
 Its own statement is this : 
 
 ''Amitabha will transport to his realm all believers 
 who keep perfectly in memory his name for seven 
 days, or even one day, without any reliance upon their 
 own effort in any other respect." The efficacious 
 grace is his gift, only the act of faith involves a sus- 
 tained remembrance of him for at least a day. Once 
 translated to the Pure and Heavenly Land, the soul 
 of the believer may there pursue the necessary steps 
 to "arahatship" under more favorable circumstances 
 than here. This is a doctrine of faith, but it involves 
 conditions which are absurd and difficult to observe. 
 Dr. Edkins describes certain devotees of this faith in 
 China whose stupid and endless repetitions of the 
 name of Amitabha seem well calculated to annihi- 
 late the mind itself and end in idiocy. And the 
 Japanese allege that Gen-ku, their great apostle of 
 the Yodo faith, followed the rule of repeating the 
 name of Amitabha sixty thousand times a day. 
 Nevertheless they claim that the grace of Amitabha, 
 and not the repetition, is the ground of hope. In any 
 case it is an absolute abandonment of orthodox Bud- 
 dhism. 
 
 172 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 This sect is now divided really into two, the one 
 known as the "J^do" and the other as the "Shin 
 Shu." Originally they were one, taking their rise in 
 the beginning of the twelfth century under a great 
 teacher known as Honen Shonin. He taught the 
 worship of Amitabha, and also the doctrine of justi- 
 fication by faith in his boundless mercy; but he also 
 urged the value of meritorious deeds. He prescribed 
 a ritual of endless repetitions of Amitabha's name 
 which made his doctrine of faith really a doctrine of 
 works. As this w^as an intolerable burden, a reform 
 was instituted in the thirteenth century by Shinran 
 Shonin, a disciple of Honen. From his great earn- 
 estness in presenting a real doctrine by faith alone, 
 and his martyr-like devotion to its maintenance, he 
 has aptly been called the "Luther of Buddhism." He 
 submitted unflinchingly to banishment for con- 
 science's sake, and bravely maintained his school in 
 a monastery among the mountains of Takate in 
 Shime-tsuke. He is buried at Otani, on the moun- 
 tain side above Kioto. To his grave myriads of his 
 disciples make annual pilgrimages from all parts of 
 Japan. The Shin Shu sect is the outgrowth of his 
 influence, and the new Hongwan-ji temple at Kioto 
 is devoted specially to his honor. 
 
 Dr. George William Knox, long a missionary in 
 Japan, says: "This is the one sect that now shows 
 activity. It is the most earnest, influential, and popu- 
 lar. It is this sect that has sent priests to England to 
 study Sanscrit, that imitates all our missionary meth- 
 
 173 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ods, and that has built a magnificent temple in Kioto 
 at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some 
 of the great timbers of the temple were dragged from 
 distant provinces by ropes made of the hair of women 
 who piously offered their tresses for the purpose, and 
 these immense ropes now hang in the temple where 
 all may see them. This sect once ruled the rich and 
 powerful provinces of Kaga." The entire cost of 
 this great structure known as the Hongwan-ji, is 
 estimated at over $360,000 and has been met by 
 voluntary contributions from Buddhists in all parts 
 of Japan. Largely they have been given by the poor 
 and often the very poor. Like all founders of Bud- 
 dhist sects, Honen and Shinran claimed to trace 
 their doctrines from Guatama through a succession 
 of high priests and patriarchs of India, China and 
 Japan. 
 
 The efficacious "original prayer" of Amitabha was 
 rather an imprecation, and ran thus : *Tf any living 
 beings of the ten regions who have believed in me 
 with true thoughts and desire to be born in my coun- 
 try (the Pure Land), and have even to ten times re- 
 peated the thought of my name, should not be born 
 there, then may I not attain perfect knowledge." 
 "This original prayer," says Nanjio, "sprang from 
 his great, compassionate desire, which longed to de- 
 liver living beings from suffering. With this orig- 
 inal prayer he practiced good actions during many 
 kalpas (long ages), intending to bring his stock of 
 
 174 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 merits to maturity for the sake of other living be- 
 ings." 
 
 A short creed prepared by one of the later Shin 
 Shu apostles, Rennio Shonin, is as follows: "Re- 
 jecting all religious austerities and other action, 
 giving up all ideas of self-power, we rely upon 
 Amita Buddha ; our salvation is settled from the mo- 
 ment that invocation of his name is observed as an 
 expression of gratitude and thankfulness for Bud- 
 dha's mercy. Moreover, being thankful for the re- 
 ception of this doctrine from the founder and suc- 
 ceeding chief priests, whose teachings were so 
 benevolent, and as welcome as light in a dark night, 
 we must also keep the laws which are fixed for our 
 duty during our whole life." 
 
 A still more modern statement is thus given by 
 Mr. Akamatsu, a distinguished member of the sect 
 in Kioto, and published in the April number, for 
 1881, of the Chrysanthemum now discontinued. 
 *'Amita Buddha always exercises his boundless 
 mercy upon all creatures, and shows a great desire 
 to help and influence all people who rely upon him to 
 complete all merits, and to be re-born into paradise. 
 Our sect pays no attention to other Buddhas, but put- 
 ting faith only in the great desire of Amita Buddha, 
 expects to escape from the miserable world, and to 
 enter into paradise in the next life. From the 
 time of putting faith in the saving power of 
 (this) Buddha, we do not need any power of self- 
 help, but need only to keep his mercy in heart, and 
 
 175 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 invoke his name in order to remember him. These 
 things we call 'thanksgiving for salvation.' " 
 
 Here is a doctrine, not only of faith but of substi- 
 tution. And Aniitabha, thus endowed with power to 
 save, *'is known as Light and Life, with infinite wis- 
 dom and compassion. Therefore he can take hold 
 of the faithful beings with his own light, and let 
 them go to be born in his Pure Land." The be- 
 liever's faith is defined as involving three elements : 
 first, the thought of, second, belief in, and third, de- 
 sire to be born in, the Pure Land. 'Tf we examine 
 our heart," says the Japanese expounder, ''it is far 
 from being pure and true. It is bad and despicable, 
 false and hypocritical. How can we cut off all our 
 passions and reach nirvana by our own power ? How 
 can we also have the three-fold faith? Therefore, 
 knowing the inability of our own power, we should 
 believe simply in the vicarious power of the original 
 prayer. If we do this, we are in correspondence with 
 the wisdom of Buddha Amitabha and share his great 
 compassion, just as the w^ater of rivers becomes salt 
 as soon as it enters the sea." 
 
 It is interesting to see how this abandonment of 
 the all-prevailing Buddhist doctrine of works is har- 
 monized wath a proper requirement that works shall 
 not practically be abandoned. The doctrine which 
 covers this point seems marvelously at one with the 
 New Testament "faith which works by love." 'Tf 
 we dwell in such a faith," says our author, "our prac- 
 tice follows spontaneously, since we feel thankful for 
 
 176 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 the favor of Buddha, remember his mercy and re- 
 peat his name. This is the repetition of the thought 
 (of the Buddha's name) only ten times as spoken in 
 the original prayer. Of course, it does not limit to 
 the number of ten, so that the words nai shi (even to) 
 are added. There are some who may repeat the 
 name of Buddha for the whole life, and while walk- 
 ing, dwelling, sitting or lying down. Some may, 
 however, do the remembrance of Buddha only once 
 before they die. Whether often or not, our practice 
 of repeating Buddha's name certainly follows our 
 faith." 'This faith and practice," he goes on to say, 
 **are easy of attainment by any one. Accordingly, 
 the great Buddhist rules of becoming homeless and 
 free from worldly desire in order to attain Buddha- 
 hood, are not considered essential to this sect." Con- 
 sequently, even the priests are allowed to marry, to 
 eat flesh and fish, w^hile those of other sects are not. 
 The reasons given for the need of a vicarious salva- 
 tion are as follows : 
 
 'The inferior capacities of men are dark, they can- 
 not tread the Holy Path and rise to perfection. So 
 the Shodo Mon does not prosper. It is forcing a law 
 upon men who cannot practice, like urging fowls 
 to go into water. How can this be reasonable?" 
 Then it is shown that as a matter of fact those who 
 attempt the Holy Path fail in every requirement. 
 'They cannot fulfill a single one of its precepts. They 
 live in great temples and style themselves abbots. 
 Externally they exhibit worth and goodness: inter- 
 
 177 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 nally they are full of covetousness and sordidness. 
 They wear silks and satins, they sit on hair rugs 
 luxuriantly. They delude men, they deceive them- 
 selves. They forsake the world and are much more 
 worldly than ever. Alas! They drink wine, they 
 eat flesh. How can they be said to keep the prohibi- 
 tions? If they are not employed at one thing they 
 are at another. How can they have leisure for 
 meditation? Of inordinate lust, and greedy for gain, 
 what zeal in the performance of religious duty do 
 they possess ? They envy the worthy, they revile the 
 good. What patience do they possess? Certainly 
 they possess no knowledge. They cannot regulate 
 their conduct according to the truth. Thus at one 
 time they are courageous in the performance of re- 
 ligious duty, imperatively they set about the per- 
 formance of the six paramitas but they cannot con- 
 tinue. If they cannot practice the six paramitas, it is 
 certain they cannot attain deliverance." No more 
 scathing account of the practical Buddhism of the 
 Japanese has ever been given than this picture drawn 
 by a sect which calls itself "The True Sect" and 
 which is the most numerous and influential in Japan. 
 But this sect comes nearer to the teaching of Paul 
 the Apostle than to that of Guatama. It presents a me- 
 diator between karma and the sinner, a ground of 
 redemption in the vicarious merit of another, a sal- 
 vation not by "the eightfold path" but by faith, a 
 righteousness achieved not by obedience to law, but 
 by Imputation, a renunciation of all trust in works as 
 
 178 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 being ''useless as furs worn in summer," and yet like 
 Christianity it enjoins obedience, rendered not as 
 compensation, but in love. The above named author 
 says, 'Those who belong to this sect are to keep their 
 occupation properly and to discharge their duty so as 
 to be able to live in harmony. They should also cul- 
 tivate their persons and regulate their families. They 
 should keep order and obey the laws of the govern- 
 ment, and do the best for the sake of the country." 
 This is Buddhism, turning its back upon all its past 
 history and its essential doctrines. The "noble path" 
 is no longer the life of droning idleness and contem- 
 plation, but that of thrifty and industrious citizen- 
 ship ; it has caught something of Paul's terse motto, 
 "Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving 
 the Lord." Again this faith comes by knowledge or 
 by preaching. (How shall they call upon Him of 
 whom they have not heard and how shall they hear 
 without a preacher?) Thus 'Tt is necessary for us 
 who are unenlightened if we desire to be born in 
 the Pure Land, to have faith by the power of another. 
 If we desire to have faith by the power of another 
 we must hear the vow name (Amitabha). If we 
 desire to hear the vow name we must look to the 
 good and wise, i. e. Buddhist priests and teachers." 
 But like the Christian doctrine this system teaches 
 that we are dependent even for our faith. (We are 
 saved by faith, and that not of ourselves.) "Nor can 
 you be born in the Pure Land by the faith which is 
 of one's own power. You must without fail have 
 
 179 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 the faith which is by the power of another. The 
 power of Buddha is the power of another. The 
 heart which beheves clearly in the knowledge of 
 Buddha is produced by the power of Buddha. It is 
 not put forth by one's self. For one's own heart to 
 excite this, is called faith by one's own power. That 
 heart is not strong; speedily it changes; it is like a 
 picture drawn on water. But faith by the power of 
 another, recedes not from its strength. It is like 
 the diamond. Buddha (Amitabha) confers this 
 heart. He bestows it on all living beings." It is 
 worthy of notice also that in place of the doctrine of 
 endless transmigration there is a permanent abode in 
 heaven. According to the Shin sect, 'Svhen believers 
 abandon the impure body of the present life and are 
 born in that Pure Land, they at once accomplish the 
 highest and most excellent fruits of nirvana. This 
 is because they simply rely upon the power of the 
 original prayer." 
 
 We have now reached as the highest stage of a 
 long continued development in Buddhism, a veritable 
 doctrine of salvation by faith. It does not depend 
 upon any stipulated number of repetitions of the 
 name of Amitabha. It abandons meritorious prac- 
 tices totally as grounds of hope. It trusts in the 
 stored-up merit of one who is able to save all men. 
 Yet, while it refuses to depend on human merit, it 
 still recommends works as the result of faith and the 
 fulfillment of loyalty, gratitude, and love. It dis- 
 misses at once the whole doctrine and practice of 
 
 1 80 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 asceticism as well as the endless and hopeless career 
 of transmigrations. It points to a heaven to which 
 the redeemed shall go immediately after death, and 
 in which they shall dwell forever in the presence of 
 the being, by whose merits they are saved. This 
 certainly is a wonderful approach to Christianity. It 
 seems to have been worked out upon the recognized 
 w^ants of the human soul, and thus bears unconscious 
 testimony to the still more perfect adaptation of the 
 Christian faith to meet those wants. If it has bor- 
 rowed aught from the Gospel of Grace, that is a 
 tribute; if it has not borrowed, it still pays a tribute 
 to the divine wisdom which has suited the Gospel to 
 human needs. 
 
 The two sects of the Yodo and the Shin embrace 
 the majority of Buddhists in Japan, and when rightly 
 understood they present the most promising of all 
 fields for missionary effort. It may be said that they 
 are not far from the kingdom of heaven. In one 
 sense they are not; in another they are at an im- 
 measurable distance from it, in that they are trusting 
 in a myth instead of the Son of the living God. 
 Amitabha is not in the highest sense divine. He is 
 not a self-existent creator, and is not necessarily su- 
 preme. Broken cisterns were never more success- 
 fully hewn and were never more empty. 
 
 As already shown there are in Japan twelve dis- 
 tinct sects of Buddhists, while China claims at least 
 thirteen. Among these are the most conflicting 
 varieties. Some are atheistic, others the thinnest 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 nebulae of mysticism, others subtle systems of 
 pantheism, while in the two sects above named we 
 find near approaches to theism and to the Gospel of 
 Christ. What shall the missionary do who knows 
 nothing of these distinctions ? Instead of indiscrimi- 
 nate blundering, how important that whosoever en- 
 counters the believers in Amitabha should be able to 
 say with glowing heart, "Whom ye ignorantly wor- 
 ship him declare I unto you." 
 
 Professor Max Muller who values everything ac- 
 cording to its relation to what he calls the ''science 
 of religion," seems to regret these modern departures 
 from the old theoretic Buddhism of southern India, 
 and he invites young Japanese representatives of 
 these advanced sects to come to Oxford, where they 
 may study Sanscrit and learn the true Buddhism of 
 the old time. But those who hope for Japanese evan- 
 gelization can hardly share his regret. We rejoice 
 rather with the brightest hope and expectation. We 
 look for a time not far distant when those who have 
 already abandoned real Buddhism and are trusting 
 wholly in the merits of Amitabha shall transfer their 
 faith and hope to Him whose right it is to reign and 
 who alone can save. 
 
 182 
 
ANCIENT HINDU DOCTRINE OF SACRI- 
 FICE AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 
 
 It has been well said that the idea of sacrifice 
 which lies at the foundation of the Christian atone- 
 ment — is as wide-spread as the human race. It is co- 
 extensive with the idea of God. Amongst all na- 
 tions, in all ages, the need of sacrifice has been recog- 
 nized in the consciousness of sin and of want; one 
 of the uses of the fetish is to placate. And in no 
 nation in the world, not even among the Jews, has 
 bloody sacrifice had a more prominent place, than 
 among the ancient Brahmans of India. 
 
 But it so happens that in the progress of time and 
 the drift of changing religious sentiment, the old 
 doctrine of sacrifice taught in the Vedas has become 
 the most awkward and inconvenient element in mod- 
 ern Hindu thought; and this for four reasons: 
 
 First. Buddhism, which arose in India between 
 five and six centuries B. C, began, with the help of 
 various philosophic schools, a bitter and successful 
 crusade against the doctrine and usages of sacrifice. 
 Till that time the system had deluged the land with 
 blood, and had impoverished the people in the in- 
 terest of the Brahmanical priesthood. But it is very 
 
 183 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 humiliating to be obliged to confess that Buddhism 
 destroyed a system which the ''Eternal Vedas" had 
 enjoined. 
 
 Second. The doctrine of transmigration, which 
 had not been taught in the Vedas, but arose at a 
 later day, came into direct conflict with the sacrificial 
 system, since animals came to be recognized as pos- 
 sible incarnations of the human spirit, and sacrifice 
 might therefore be chargeable with murder. 
 
 Third. The later Hinduism, which is a composite 
 of all the faiths ever known in India, borrowed in 
 time from some of the earlier non-Aryan tribes, the 
 worship of cattle; and as cattle had been reckoned 
 among the most valuable victims of sacrifice, here 
 was an insuperable difficulty. 
 
 Fourth. In their desire to join with the agnosti- 
 cism, naturalism, and theosophy of the West, in their 
 sneers at the Christian doctrine of a vicarious sacri- 
 fice for the sins of men, the educated classes in In- 
 dia have found themselves handicapped worse than 
 ever, by the old sacrificial system of the Vedas. 
 
 In these circumstances the society known as the 
 Arya Somaj, and other Hindus who hold that the 
 Sacred Vedas are the authoritative sources of all 
 wisdom, are driven to the desperate alternative of 
 denying that sacrifice was ever made an element in 
 the Hindu religion. I may say in passing that 
 Christianity has no difficulty of this kind. In the 
 abrogation of the old sacrificial system of the Jews, 
 which has passed away, there is no inconsistency: 
 
 184 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 for the new dispensation not only admits its exist- 
 ence, but builds upon it as a typical institution which 
 has found its end and fulfillment in the one great 
 sacrifice made once for all. But where Christianity 
 is strongly buttressed by the old historic ritual, Hin- 
 duism is absolutely weak and contradictory. The 
 Aryas or followers of Dyananda, do not hesitate to 
 assert in the face of the clearest light and the plainest 
 facts, that sacrifices are nowhere ordained in their 
 holy books. This is the position which they are now 
 trying to maintain before the intelligent public of 
 India and the world at large. 
 
 The truth is that the Hindu Aryans carried the 
 doctrine and practice of sacrifice to greater extremes 
 than any other nation known to history. Though 
 less given to human sacrifice than some of the Aryan 
 settlers in northern Europe, or the Toltecs and 
 Aztecs of the American continent, they built up a 
 far more elaborate and extended system. Dropping 
 at an early day the peculiar significance of sacrifice 
 and regarding it chiefly as an offering of gifts, the 
 Brahmans degraded it to a mere bargaining with 
 the gods — they themselves receiving the emoluments. 
 The Aryans of those days had not become a rice- 
 eating race, and their arrogant priesthood were far 
 enough from the mendicancy of the rice bowl. The 
 flesh of slain beasts was largely theirs, as well as the 
 rice cakes and melted butter and intoxicating soma, 
 which the deluded people placed on the sacred altars. 
 The more extravagantly they could extol the merit 
 
 185 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 or trade value of offerings in the commerce of earth 
 and heaven, the larger their personal gains. They 
 taught the lower castes that the generous giver might 
 demand almost any boon, and that the gods were 
 bound to honor his draft. He who should sacrifice 
 a hundred horses might claim the throne of Indra 
 and bankrupt heaven. To give apparent consistency 
 to these preposterous doctrines, it was maintained 
 that demons had actually wrecked the universe by 
 the magnitude of their offerings, and that Vishnu 
 had twice become incarnated for the purpose of re- 
 storing the world from these calamities. 
 
 After about three centuries of this priestly domi- 
 nation, this reckless and wholesale extortion, this 
 deluging of the land with sacrificial blood, say from 
 800 to 500 B. C, Buddhism arose in protest, and 
 the six schools of philosophy joined with it in well- 
 nigh extinguishing the rites of animal sacrifice, and 
 overthrowing the high-handed sacerdotalism that 
 had enthralled them. A Buddhist military chieftain 
 rose to supreme powder, and for a century or two a 
 Buddhist dynasty ruled India and made Buddhism 
 the religion of the state. 
 
 Well versed in these facts, and qualified by his 
 thorough knowledge of Sanscrit to explore the Vedas, 
 Dr. Henry Martyn Clark, missionary of the Church 
 Missionary Society at Amritsur, aided by a native 
 Christian scholar, has taken up this contention of the 
 *'Aryas," and has discomfited them on their own 
 ground. The case illustrates the importance of hav- 
 
 186 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 ing at least some missionaries in the field who are 
 Sanscrit scholars and are thoroughly acquainted with 
 the teaching of the Vedas, and who are therefore able 
 to refute the false assertions which presume upon the 
 ignorance of the foreign community. He has demon- 
 strated to the Aryas that they cannot join the noisy 
 camp of humanitarian prophets of universal brother- 
 hood, in denouncing the Christian doctrine of vi- 
 carious sacrifice as a savage relic of a barbarous age, 
 and yet maintain the inerrancy of their own ancient 
 literature. He shows that the Vedas are not only 
 full of the doctrine of sacrifice, but that their earliest 
 hymns contain, as we shall see, strange references 
 to a Divine sacrifice for the sins of the world. 
 
 In a lecture given by Dr. Clark on the Vedic 
 doctrine of sacrifice, printed at the Albert Press in 
 Lahore, in 1887, he presents a large number of orig- 
 inal Sanscrit texts taken with chapter and verse from 
 the Vedas, and followed by literal translations, in 
 which he exposes all the false assumptions, which 
 are set forth with such an air of superior knowl- 
 edge, in the circulars and leaflets of the Aryas. 
 He opens his lecture by a quotation from Dr. 
 Mitra Lai, an eminent Hindu scholar, who, 
 though not a Christian, was at least candid and 
 honest. Dr. Mitra says: "We can nowhere meet 
 with a more appropriate reply (to the Arya as- 
 sumptions) than in the fact that when the Brah- 
 mans had to contend against Buddhism, which 
 so emphatically and successfully denounced all sac- 
 
 187 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 rifices, they found the doctrine of respect for animal 
 Ufe too strong and too popular to be overcome, and 
 therefore gradually and imperceptibly adopted it, 
 in such a manner as to make it appear a part of their 
 Shastras. They gave prominence to such passages 
 as preached benevolence and mercy to all animated 
 creation, and so removed to the background the sac- 
 rificial ordinances as to put them entirely out of 
 sight. Such a process is even now going on in Hin- 
 duism under the influence of Christianity." (The 
 Aryas have exchanged many of the old Hindu mon- 
 strosities for Christian ethics, promulgating them 
 under Vedic labels.) Dr. Mitra adds: ''The Hindu 
 mind during the ascendency of Buddhism was al- 
 ready well prepared for a change by the teaching of 
 Buddhist missionaries, and no difficulty was met 
 with in making faith, devotion, and love, supply the 
 place of the holocausts and unlimited meat offerings 
 ordained by the Vedas. The abstention was at first, 
 no doubt, optional, but gradually it became general, 
 partly from a natural disposition to benevolence, and 
 partly out of a respect to the feeling of Buddhist 
 neighbors, such as the Mohammedans now evince for 
 their Hindu fellow-subjects, by abstaining from 
 meats in various parts of Bengal. Writers found it 
 easy to appeal to the practice of the people and to 
 public feeling, as proofs even as potent as the Vedas, 
 and authoritatively to declare that sacrifices were for- 
 bidden in the present age. This once done, the 
 change was complete; in short the Buddhist appeal 
 
 i8S 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 to humanity proved too much for the Smriti (infal- 
 lible literature), and custom has now given a rigidity 
 to the horror against the sacrifice of animal life, 
 which even the Vedas fail to welcome." This is the 
 candid utterance of a high caste non-Christian 
 Hindu. 
 
 Dr. Clark proceeds to show that the Aryas of the 
 present day feel the force of this breach between the 
 Vedas and the popular sentiment and custom. *'And 
 failing to establish their assumptions in regard to 
 the Vedic teaching, they have been driven to the al- 
 ternative of either explaining away Vedic passages 
 into meaningless vacuities, or abandoning them alto- 
 gether." Not only from the Darsanas, from Manu. 
 and other traditional literatures, but also from the 
 Rig- Veda, and that in many passages, Dr. Clark 
 quotes the most direct and emphatic inculcations of 
 the virtue of sacrifices, and the duty of ofifering them, 
 and he cites directions scarcely less specific and mi- 
 nute than those of the Levitical law. These it is not 
 necessary to quote. Twenty-two different Vedic 
 passages are given in immediate succession. The 
 horse and the cow, much more generally the latter, 
 were the objects of sacrifice, though the horse was 
 considered the more honorable and valuable victim. 
 The Brahmans not only sacrificed cows, but they 
 ate their flesh habitually, and this was one of the 
 chief items of their income. Page after page of 
 quotations are given in reference to the sacrifice of 
 
 tSf) 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 these animals, the method of selecting, the process of 
 slaying etc. 
 
 If Dr. Clark were in need of corroborations, I 
 find in the Vedic Brahmanas translated in the 
 "Sacred Books of the East" some fifteen pages de- 
 voted to minute rules for sacrificing a cow. Dr. 
 Clark shows that even human sacrifices were recog- 
 nized and authorized by the Vedas. Thus from the 
 Yajur-Veda he quotes, "That men may be sacrificed 
 to Prajapatti." This practice of human sacrifice the 
 Aryas deny, but here it is in their own Vedas. It is 
 a little surprising that there should be such sensitive- 
 ness in regard to this matter, when it is but a com- 
 paratively short time since women were burned with 
 the bodies of their husbands by hundreds and thous- 
 ands; men were crushed under the wheels of Jug- 
 gernauth, by their own act, it is true, but by the en- 
 couragement of the priesthood, and Hindu women 
 threw their first-born into the Ganges. The Thugs 
 perpetrated wholesale murders under the guise of 
 religious duty and to glorify Kali with human blood. 
 Dr. Clark shows that in ancient Vedic rites men were 
 called to sacrifice themselves by drowning; accord- 
 ing to another rite the victim must burn himself to 
 death. In one of the Mandalas of the Rig- Veda he 
 finds the description of a certain sacrifice in which 
 the victim bound to a stake, pleads with the gods to 
 be released. In the Taittiriya Brahmana of the Rig- 
 Veda there is the well-known story of Haris 
 Chandra, who was about to of¥er his son in sacrifice, 
 
 190 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 when the boy was bought off with the substitute of 
 one hundred cows, which the Brahmans greatly pre- 
 ferred. In the Purusha Medha, one hundred and sev- 
 enty-nine names of gods are given, and the appro- 
 priate class of human beings to be offered to each god 
 is mentioned ; thus to one, a preacher of morality is 
 to be sacrificed ; to another a courtezan ; to another a 
 jeweler; to another a news-dealer; to various ugly 
 divinities, deformed and imperfect specimens of hu- 
 manity must be offered. Dr. Clark gives several 
 pages of proofs on this point, which render the as- 
 sumption of the Aryas, that the Hindu religion has 
 always been stainless of the blood of sacrifice, ridic- 
 ulous. The influence of Buddhism, the doctrine of 
 transmigration, the universal reverence for and virtual 
 worship of the cow, and more than a century of 
 Christian influence, have indeed proved too strong 
 for the ancient custom, but it is inwrought into the 
 very texture and life of Vedic Hinduism. 
 
 There is another most interesting fact upon which 
 Dr. Clark enlarges, namely the Vedic evidence of an 
 ancient idea of a divine and all-suflicient vicarious 
 sacrifice for the sins of men. It should be said that 
 even in the early notices of actual sacrifice, Hindu 
 offerings seem to have been destitute of a piacular 
 character. They denote a stage in the history of the 
 rite in which it had become a mercenary thing, re- 
 sembling that of Cain rather than that of Abel. But 
 there are Vedic passages which would go to show 
 that in the very earliest conceptions of sacrifice, it 
 
 191 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 had been truly piacular and vicarious. This fact is 
 brought out by Sir Monier WiUiams in his large and 
 exhaustive work, Indian Wisdom. It is still more 
 clearly presented by the late Prof. Banerjea, author 
 of The Aryan Witness, and a Brahman of the 
 Brahmans, who, in speaking of these Vedic refer- 
 ences to a divine and voluntary sacrifice for the sins 
 of men and of gods, remarks that 'Tt is impossible 
 to understand them on any other theory, than that 
 they are reminiscences of an early promise to man- 
 kind of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world." Dr. Clark dwells upon these same proofs, 
 w^hich he quotes. He says: 'Tn repudiating the 
 doctrine of sacrifice, our Arya friends really reject 
 all that is grand and noble in the Vedas; they turn 
 their backs on the one great truth which would, if 
 followed to its fulness, make them free men, and save 
 their souls. The ancient Aryans had this truth 
 burned deep into their souls, that without shedding 
 of blood there can be no remission of sin. They did 
 not know this truth in all its fulness, but still, how- 
 ever dimly and partially, they had realized that sin 
 must be atoned for. The guiltless life was taken, and 
 the guiltless blood was shed, to atone for the sins of 
 their souls. Their hope was that the sacrifice might 
 be accepted in place of the sacrificer, and that the 
 punishment of his sin might be visited on the sub- 
 stitute ofifered in his stead. This is a wonderful rev- 
 elation of the belief of the ancient Aryans; it v/as be- 
 cause sacrifice was to them the atonement for sin, 
 
 192 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 and the deliverer from death, that they called it 'the 
 principal thing' — 'the navel of the universe.' " 
 
 The following passages will show the piacular 
 character of the ancient conception of sacrifice; thus 
 from the Rig- Veda; "Do thou by means of sacrifice 
 take away from us all sins." And again in the 
 Tandya Maha Brahmana (addressed to the victim or 
 member of the victit.. about to be cast into the fire.) 
 
 "Thou art the annulment of sin committed by the 
 gods; thou art the annulment of sin committed by 
 departed ancestors; thou art the annulment of sin 
 committed by men; thou art the annulment of sir 
 committed by us! Whatsoever sin we have com- 
 mitted by day and by night, of that thou art the 
 annulment. Whatsoever sin we have committed 
 sleeping or waking, of that thou art the annulment ! 
 Whatsoever sin we have committed consciously and 
 unconsciously, of that thou art the annulment! Of 
 sin — of sin, thou art the annulment !" 
 
 Again in the Taittiriya Aranyaka, "O death ! thy 
 thousand million snares for the destruction of mortal 
 men, we annul them all by the mysterious power of 
 sacrifice." ''This is wonderful enough," says Dr. 
 Clark, "but there yet remains for us to notice the 
 most wonderful idea of all; so wonderful, as has 
 been well said, that it is a still greater wonder that the 
 Aryans, having once obtained it, should ever have 
 lost it; namely, the belief that the greatest instance 
 of sacrifice is that God has sacrificed Himself for His 
 creatures.' " Thus in the Shatapatha Brahmina, p. 
 
 ^9Z 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 836, we read, "The Lord of creatures gave Himself 
 for them, for He became their sacrifice;" again, in 
 the Taittiriya Aranyaka, 'They slew Purusha, the 
 victim — Purusha who was born from the beginning. 
 Again, in the Rig- Veda, ''The giver of Himself, the 
 giver of strength, whose shadow, whose death, is im- 
 mortality." 
 
 Dr. Clark closes his address with a direct appeal 
 to his Arya friends, in which he says : 
 
 "The great work of redemption is indeed done. 
 God has suffered for the salvation of men. He 
 humbled Himself to death, even the death of the 
 cross. He has died the just for the unjust, and by 
 the sacrifice of Himself has put away forever the 
 sins of all who come to Him. 'Thou shalt call His 
 name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their 
 sins;' through His death life eternal is now freely 
 offered to mankind, for as the Veda said long ago, 
 'His shadow. His death, is immortality.' Your West- 
 ern brethren have found the light of which their fore- 
 fathers and yours spoke so long ago. It is their priv- 
 ilege now to bring this light to you, the brothers 
 from whom they departed so long ago. Would that 
 you had accepted it as they have done, for it is truth. 
 Would that you had realized that in Christ alone is 
 the hope of India, as well as of your own souls. The 
 virtue of this sacrifice of God has saved every na- 
 tion and individual, which has accepted it, and it can 
 save you and save India. Finally — be Aryans, not 
 Buddhists; escape from the Buddhistic fetters of two 
 
 194 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 thousand years and more, and fulfill the destinies, 
 the hopes, of your Aryan progenitors." 
 
 This argument in refutation, followed by this 
 warm-hearted invitation and appeal, furnishes an ex- 
 ample of admirable missionary tact. As the early 
 apostles reasoned with the Jews out of their own 
 scriptures, so here. As the wise author of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews built up his argument for the all- 
 sufficient sacrifice of Christ upon the old ritual of 
 the Jews, so Dr. Clark urges the same cross of Christ 
 as the real fulfillment of an ancient and mysterious 
 significance of Hindu sacrifice. It is very easy to 
 say that the missionary should know only the one 
 great errand of preaching the story of the Cross, and 
 not w^aste time upon heathen literature or heathen 
 systems, but this achievement of Dr. Clark has ac- 
 complished more in the struggle with educated but 
 persistent Hinduism, than could have been done in 
 any other way. His was the most effective way of 
 preaching Christ. 
 
 195 
 
PART II 
 
 The chapters which follow in this second division 
 relate in the main to some of those marked interven- 
 tions of divine Providence which have opened the 
 way for the advance of Christian civilization and 
 the more positive and successful proclamation of a 
 pure gospel to all mankind. It seems important to 
 recognize the fact that the supreme direction and 
 control of God's spirit is as real and as active in the 
 work of the modern church as it was in the time of 
 the apostles. The faith of the Church in the final 
 triumph of Christianity would be strengthened if all 
 were to feel that the great missionary movements of 
 to-day are as really and completely a part of the 
 divine-plan as were the voyages and travels of Barna- 
 bas and Saul of the shipwreck off the coast of Malta ; 
 and that the settlement and civilization of the West- 
 ern Hemisphere was as truly providential as were 
 the conquests of Joshua or Cyrus, or the opening up 
 of Europe by the armies of the Roman Empire. 
 
 196 
 
NAPOLEONISM IN AMERICA 
 
 The establishment of the Spanish-American Re- 
 pubHcs and the great expansion of the RepubHc of 
 the United States in the first half of the present cen- 
 tury, form a chapter of history whose startling and 
 romantic character has never been excelled in truth 
 or fiction. And it is a fact very worthy of note that 
 the chief actors in this early drama builded so much 
 better than they knew, accomplished purposes of 
 which they never dreamed, overthrew institutions 
 and systems which they designed to strengthen and 
 perpetuate. It is also a striking coincidence that the 
 country which has been specially enhanced in world- 
 wide influence by its victories in the late war with 
 Spain also received the chief aggrandizement from 
 the events of the early decades of the century. The 
 enemies of liberty in Europe have unconsciously 
 proved its promoters in America; the advocates of 
 absolutism have laid foundations of republics. Surely 
 ''man proposes but God disposes." Strange as it 
 may seem, probably no man has exerted a greater in- 
 fluence in promoting the development of liberty and 
 of free institutions on this continent than the first 
 Napoleon, then First Consul of France. His mo- 
 
 197 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 tives were of course selfish. He aimed only at his 
 own ambitious schemes and the overthrow of all ene- 
 mies and all rivals. But the divine Providence had 
 nobler aims which he was to accomplish. After at- 
 taining autocratic power in France, he set about re- 
 gaining possession of those territories in North 
 America known under the comprehensive name of 
 Louisiana, and which, in 1763, had been ceded by 
 Louis XV to Spain. And having succeeded by the 
 treaty of Ildefonso in 1800 in regaining the territory 
 which, as he thought, had been thrown away, he 
 looked upon it as one of his noblest and most fondly 
 cherished acquisitions. But in the year 1803 Napo- 
 leon found himself in a bitter conflict with Great 
 Britain; and, rightly estimating the naval power of 
 his adversary, with which he could not cope, he 
 naturally became alarmed for the security of his 
 newly acquired American territories. On the loth 
 day of April, of that year, which happened to be 
 Easter Sunday, he returned from church with a new 
 idea — not altogether religious — which had struck 
 him with such force that it at once became a purpose. 
 He immediately sent for his ministers, to whom he 
 communicated the fact that he had just learned that 
 a British fleet was moving toward the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, and that he saw at once hostile designs upon 
 Louisiana. He ordered them to call Mr. Robert R. 
 Livingston, the United States Minister, for a consul- 
 tation; indicating at the same time that he was re- 
 solved, if possible, to make over Louisiana to the 
 
 198 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 United States in order to thwart the schemes of the 
 British fleet. 
 
 Meanwhile great uneasiness had arisen through- 
 out our Western states bordering on the Mississippi 
 in regard to the insecurity of our access to the Gulf 
 of Mexico; and steps had been taken to obtain from 
 France a treaty by which the left bank of the river, 
 where it passes through Louisiana, should be ceded 
 to the United States, and if possible, other territory 
 lying eastward on the Gulf. Mr. James Monroe, a 
 special envoy sent by President Jefferson to the 
 Court of France on this errand, was actually on his 
 voyage when Napoleon's scheme of transfer was 
 formed. When, therefore, he arrived in Paris with 
 only a hope of securing a limited section of territory 
 at the mouth of the Mississippi, and possibly Florida, 
 to w^hich he supposed that France hacl a claim, he 
 learned with astonishment and delight of the pro- 
 posal to make over to the United States the whole of 
 Louisiana, embracing the state now known by that 
 name, also Texas, Arkansas, Indian Territory, Mis- 
 souri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado north of the Ar- 
 kansas, Wyoming, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mis- 
 sissippi, and Montana. Without waiting for consul- 
 tation with the home government, our minister, Mr. 
 Livingston, and the special envoy, Mr. Monroe, 
 safely counting on the support of Mr. Jefferson, con- 
 cluded a treaty with France on April 30th, by which 
 this vast claim was sold to the United States for fif- 
 teen millions of dollars. In spite of the bitter par- 
 
 199 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 tisan criticism which Mr. Jefferson's administration 
 had aroused by this prompt and vigorous poHcy, a 
 special session of Congress, called in October of the 
 same year, approved the treaty and empowered the 
 President to defend the newly acquired territory. 
 The importance of this transaction, as bearing upon 
 the subsequent development of the great American 
 Republic, baffles all estimate. Napoleon, who cer- 
 tainly had no partiality for democratic institutions, 
 but represented European absolutism in its worst and 
 most uncompromising form, had become an instru- 
 ment in the hands of Providence for the accomplish- 
 ment of great ends. It would be difficult to conceive 
 of any combination of circumstances, or any other 
 succession of events, which could have placed Louisi- 
 ana in the possession of the United States. And if 
 not then, and by such extraordinary means, when 
 and how could our Government have ever hoped to 
 secure it ? Great Britain, having a few years before 
 lost her Atlantic colonies, and having at the same 
 time been compelled to cede Florida and other Gulf 
 state possessions back to Spain, would have been 
 slow to relinquish her control of this Western fron- 
 tier, and our country would have been hemmed in 
 between the Atlantic and the Mississippi River, in- 
 stead of widening out into that amplitude which was 
 now extended to the Rocky Mountains. Had the 
 motive of Napoleon been disinterested, the United 
 States would have owed him a debt of gratitude sec- 
 ond only to that accorded to Washington; and his 
 
 300 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 monument might justly be reared in the capitals of 
 our Western states. This fortunate purchase of 
 Louisiana led ultimately to still further acquisitions, 
 as will be seen further on. 
 
 Meanwhile the southern portions of this hemis- 
 phere became no less indebted to Napoleon than were 
 the United States, though they had even less reason 
 to be grateful for his interposition. When in 1808, 
 or five years after the cession of Louisiana, Napo- 
 leon, flushed with many victories, and bent upon es- 
 tablishing his influence, and building up his great 
 name in the conquered kingdoms of Europe, deposed 
 Ferdinand VII of Spain, and placed one of his own 
 brothers on the throne, he unconsciously struck a 
 blow for American liberty, the far-reaching influence 
 of which entitles it to a place among the greatest 
 events of history. The colonies of southern Amer- 
 ica had long felt the oppression of the Spanish 
 power, and would long before have rebelled against 
 it but for the prestige and romance of the Castilian 
 dynasty. Not only had the aboriginal populations 
 been crushed, and in many places well nigh des- 
 troyed, by the cruel oppression visited upon them by 
 the followers of Cortez in Mexico, and of the more 
 blood-thirsty Pizzaro and Alvarado in Peru, but the 
 colonists themselves had found all enterprise par- 
 alyzed by the rapacity of the home government and 
 its local representatives. Yet decade after decade, 
 and even century after century, had they endured 
 these wrongs, as Cuba has endured them until now. 
 
 201 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 But when they saw a Bonaparte estabhshed in power, 
 the old tie was broken. Napoleon's bold and strategic 
 act became the signal for revolt. 
 
 Within two years a revolutionary movement, de- 
 claring independence of the power of Spain, was be- 
 gun in Mexico, a Catholic priest, named Hidalgo y 
 Costilla taking the lead. He also wrought better 
 than he knew ; for while he only sought deliverance 
 from Spain, he little imagined that he was setting 
 forces at work which w^ould ultimately break the 
 tyranny of Rome. He was a man of great sincerity 
 and moral courage, as well as of intense patriotism ; 
 and although he did not personally succeed in the 
 revolutionary movement which he inaugurated, yet 
 the influences which he set on foot proved indestruc- 
 tible, and were finally crowned with complete suc- 
 cess. 
 
 Meanwhile the influence of Napoleon's policy in 
 Spain had affected not only Mexico but all the Span- 
 ish-American states. Revolutionary movements be- 
 gan in Venezuela as early as i8i i, and Chili declared 
 her independence in 1817. Other states, Bolivia, 
 Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay, 
 and the Argentine Republic, followed this lead, until 
 by the year 1828 all the states of South America, ex- 
 cept the Guianas and the Portuguese dominion of 
 Brazil had become republics. Even Brazil, feeling 
 the general impulse, became independent of Portugal, 
 and established, as a compromise, a constitutional 
 monarchy. The little states of Central America also 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 joined in this general movement, and in less than two 
 decades the power of Spain had been swept from the 
 American continent. 
 
 The government of Brazil continued for a half 
 century to be a liberal monarchy, and guaranteed to 
 the people a fair equivalent for the advantages of a 
 republican form of administration. But in the end, 
 notwithstanding the generous sagacity of Dom Pe- 
 dro II, Brazil has also yielded to the general trend of 
 American sentiment, and has become a republic. Not 
 only the United States, therefore, but Mexico, and 
 Central and South America, may all join in recog- 
 nizing the greatness of that service which the would- 
 be conqueror of Europe and the world, unconsciously 
 wrought for the Western Hemisphere. In this wide- 
 spread movement, the fact is not to be lost sight of 
 that the early example and success of the United 
 States exerted a great and constant influence. Wash- 
 ington, by his refusal of a scepter, had laid the cor- 
 nerstone of free government, and Victoria in Mex- 
 ico, and Bolivar and others in South America, ex- 
 tended its boundaries; but Napoleon's influence, if 
 not commendable, had been a useful, indeed an in- 
 dispensable, factor. He had prepared the way for 
 our Monroe Doctrine, and had left his mark upon the 
 whole nineteenth century civilization of America. 
 
 Let us now trace some further results of Napo- 
 leon's transfer of Louisiana in the development of 
 our coast lines. While the power of Spain was be- 
 ing resisted in Mexico and South America, she still 
 
 203 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 retained her claim to certain territories on the north 
 and east coasts of the Gulf of Mexico. But in the 
 year 1819, the United States secured this claim, in- 
 cluding Florida, and a strip of territory stretching 
 across the southern ends of Mississippi and Ala- 
 bama, together with the alleged Spanish claims 
 to territory on the Columbia river, in exchange for 
 Texas, which was a part of the Louisiana purchase. 
 The value of this exchange, in securing to the United 
 States free access to the Gulf, was great and imme- 
 diate; the advantages accruing on the Pacific coast 
 were deferred for nearly three decades. 
 
 Within two years after the exchange of Texas for 
 Florida, Mexico, including Texas, was lost to the 
 Spanish power by revolution, as stated above, and 
 in 1824, upon the establishment of a republican gov- 
 ernment, Texas became one of the federal states 
 of the Mexican Union. 
 
 Following the chronological order of events, we 
 turn next to those territories on the North Pacific 
 coast which Spain had included in her exchange for 
 Texas. Our claim was disputed by Great Britain, or 
 rather by the Hudson's Bay Company which desired 
 to retain the valley of the Columbia as a preserve for 
 the maintenance of the fur trade. In 18 10, John 
 Jacob Astor, and other citizens of the United States, 
 had established a trading station at the mouth of the 
 Columbia; but in the war of 1812-1815, between the 
 United States and Great Britain, the station was 
 broken up, and for many years the question of own- 
 
 204 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 ership seemed to be contested chiefly by rival fur 
 trading companies. Although the United States had 
 an original claim of her own besides the title ob- 
 tained from Spain, yet it seemed doubtful whether 
 the North Pacific coast, cut off as it was by the 
 Rocky Mountains, was of sufficient importance to 
 the United States to be worth any serious contention 
 with other powers. This doubt, however, had be- 
 gun to be dissipated by a few Protestant mission- 
 aries. Dr. Marcus Vliitman and others, who had 
 revealed to the people of the Atlantic states the value 
 and the possibilities of the North Pacific slope. 
 
 By the year 1842, the issue between the agents of 
 the Hudson's Bay Fur Company and the scattered 
 American immigrants in Oregon had become acute. 
 And in October of that year Dr. Whitman, having by 
 accident learned that plans were on foot to secure a 
 large immigration of European and Canadian col- 
 onists, who by actual residence should decide the 
 destiny of the country, started from his missionary 
 station in Oregon, with a single companion, to cross 
 the Rocky Mountains, and, if possible, secure a large 
 company of American settlers. At the same time he 
 hoped to dissuade the United States Government 
 from ratifying certain proposed treaties which for a 
 very inadequate consideration would surrender Ore- 
 gon to Great Britain. This perilous winter journey 
 was successfully made, and Dr. Whitman, by con- 
 ducting a colony of nearly a thousand persons across 
 the mountains in 1843, proved the possibility of 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 overland migration, and settled the destiny of Ore- 
 gon and Washington. The exchange of Texas for 
 Florida and the North Pacific coast, had thus se- 
 cured the permanent settlement of two, or including 
 Idaho, three, great Pacific states. 
 
 By the next year, 1844, Texas, which after declar- 
 ing her independence had attracted many American 
 immigrants, was on her application, received into the 
 Union of the United States. Thereupon Mexico, 
 which had never acknowledged her independence, 
 declared war against the United States, and the con- 
 flict known as the Mexican War began. This ended 
 disastrously for Mexico, which, after a struggle of 
 four years, not only gave up Texas, but by the treaty 
 of Guadeloupe Hidalgo in 1848, ceded New Mex- 
 ico, Arizona, and part of Nevada, and relinquished 
 California. 
 
 The results of Napoleon's transfer of Louisiana 
 in 1803, and those springing from the dethronement 
 of the King of Spain in 1808, and the exchange of 
 territory in 18 19, had united in the aggrandisement 
 of the United States ; in the one case directly, in the 
 others indirectly. They had made the country one 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Gulf 
 of Mexico to the St. Lawrence and British Colum- 
 bia. 
 
 But out of these great movements, religious as 
 well as political consequences were to spring. All 
 along the line of contact and conflict there emerged 
 the question whether Protestantism or Romanism 
 
 206 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 should prevail. As a rule, the priests of Rome were 
 on the side of foreign occupation and foreign in- 
 fluence as against Americans and American institu- 
 tions. In Oregon and Washington French ecclesias- 
 tics combined with British fur traders to keep out 
 American settlers and to suppress Protestant mis- 
 sions. The fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany desired to retard civilization and preserve the 
 forests for fur-bearing animals and Indian trappers ; 
 and the Catholics seemed ready for any alliance 
 w^hich should supplant the Protestant missions and 
 secure ecclesiastical control. It was this union of in- 
 fluences which stimulated Indian hostility to Dr. 
 Whitman and his colonists, and led to the bloody 
 massacre at ^^^aiilatpu in 1847. After half a century 
 of misrepresentation on the part of the Roman 
 Catholic church, the verdict of history lays a heavy 
 weight of responsibility at the door of those Catholic 
 fathers who had fostered the superstition and the 
 hostility of the Indians. 
 
 In California, at the same time, efforts were be- 
 ing made to supplant the American settlers by a 
 large immigration from Ireland. In the Records of 
 the Thirtieth Congress, ist Session, under ''Report 
 of Senate Committee on Military Affairs," will be 
 found an official record, based on sworn testimony, 
 taken in 1848, of an attempt, just at the opening of 
 our war with Mexico, to forestall an American occu- 
 pation by settling in the Sacramento valley a colony 
 of three thousand families of Irish Catholics. It 
 
 207 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 was thought that these, as subjects of Her Majesty's 
 Government, could claim British protection; for, 
 pending our war with Mexico, California was still 
 supposed to be Mexican territory. As such, it was 
 under the military command of General Castro, at 
 whose instance plans had been formed for an attack 
 by Mexicans and Indians upon the American settle- 
 ments. As a reinforcement of his corps of civil en- 
 gineers. Captain John C. Fremont rallied the Ameri- 
 can volunteers, and acting in conjunction with Com- 
 modore Sloat and Commodore Stockton of the U. 
 S. Navy, helped to extend the United States flag 
 over all California. Documents secured by Fremont 
 showed that a Catholic priest, named McNamara, 
 had entered into negotiations with the President of 
 the Mexican Republic for a grant of vast tracts of 
 bnd in the valley of the Sacramento for his Irish 
 immigrants. His plea, in his letter to the president, 
 was that ''only thus could the country be saved from 
 the American Methodists." The prompt and suc- 
 cessful operations of the United States land and sea 
 forces thwarted this enterprise, the number of Amer- 
 ican settlers increased, the treaty of peace of Guade- 
 loupe Hidalgo followed in due time, and one year 
 later, 1849, ^^"^^ S^^^ discoveries brought a flood tide 
 of immigration, and the destiny of California as an 
 American and Protestant commonwealth was sealed. 
 By a concatenation of events, little foreseen by those 
 who projected them, all may be traced back to a 
 primal connection with Napoleon's transfer of 
 
 208 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 Louisiana to the United States in 1808. But for his 
 prompt and decisive act, this remarkable chapter in 
 our history could never have been written. 
 
 The war of the United States with Mexico mean- 
 while became a plowshare to prepare her soil for the 
 seeds of moral and intellectual freedom. Bibles fol- 
 lowed General Scott's army into Mexico. The cen- 
 tury-long repression which Romanism had en- 
 trenched in the very constitution of the republic be- 
 gan to break and yield. The vastly superior power 
 of the United States raised a question in the minds 
 of the people as to the cause of that superiority. The 
 liberal party in the state became tired of the stagna- 
 tion imposed by priestly domination, and were rest- 
 less and ready for light. The new, and hitherto un- 
 known, Word of God was found to be a revelation 
 indeed, and in little hamlets, where this precious 
 volume had escaped the vigilance of the priesthood, 
 the people began to read and pray in secret groups 
 and conventicles. 
 
 But now a new chapter of Napoleonism in Amer- 
 ica was opened. Another monarch of the name was 
 on the throne of France, and, flushed with the suc- 
 cess of his Franco- Austrian War in Italy, he too, like 
 his uncle, aspired to be a dispenser of thrones and a 
 former of dynasties. In 1862-63 he had published 
 a book entitled Idees Napoliennes, and he must 
 needs exploit those ''idees. " The first Napoleon had 
 given a sovereign to Spain ; the nephew would now 
 give one to Mexico. The time seemed opportune; 
 
 209 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 Mexico was embarrassed by intestine rivalries and 
 dissensions ; the great Republic on her northern bor- 
 der, her natural ally and protector, was in the throes 
 of a desperate civil war. It seemed possible to put an 
 end to the assumptions of the Monroe Doctrine, and 
 establish an empire in the very midst of the boasted 
 republics of the West. 
 
 I will not stop here to rehearse the details of that 
 ill-starred scheme which took the Austrian Prince 
 Maximilian and his young wife from their happy 
 home at Miramar on the Adriatic, and placed them 
 on a perilous throne in Mexico. It is sufficient to say 
 that without the defense and support of the French 
 invading army they were not safe for a single day. 
 Instead of the welcome which they had been led to 
 expect, they found sullen resistance. 
 
 In the prosecution of this deeplaid scheme the re- 
 actionary or church party, like the Catholics in 
 Oregon and California, cast their influence on the 
 side of foreign occupation and foreign institutions. 
 They aided the French Emperor by sending a depu- 
 tation to persuade Maximilian to take the scepter of 
 their country and put down the republic. All this 
 precipitated the liberation of Mexico from Papal 
 domination. It accentuated the issue between abso- 
 lutism and the hierarchy on the one hand, and 
 strengthened the cause of patriotism and religious 
 freedom on the other. It identified love of country 
 with toleration; it broke the long and paralyzing 
 spell that had rested upon the people. When Presi- 
 
 2IO 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 dent Juarez returned to power, and republican gov- 
 ernment was re-established, some of the first enact- 
 ments were those which struck out of the constitu- 
 tion the clause which prohibited all religious wor- 
 ship except that of the "Holy Catholic Apostolic 
 Church," and gave full religious freedom to all 
 classes and all creeds. 
 
 Still later consequences of the Napoleonic influ- 
 ence in the Western Hemisphere might be traced. It 
 has been said that God's purposes, humanly speak- 
 ing, are never completed; they are always being ful- 
 filled, and will continue to be fulfilled with broader 
 and ever broader scope till the end of time. In this 
 view the history of great movements in the world is 
 an ever unfolding history. 
 
 Applying this principle in the case before us it is 
 quite safe to say that Alaska would never have be- 
 come a part of the United States but for that series 
 of historic events which we have considered. It is 
 doubtful whether Commodore Perry would have 
 been sent to Japan to gain an entrance and an inter- 
 national footing there, but for the prospective com- 
 mercial demands of our Pacific coast. The least that 
 canbesaid, is, that the appearance of our flag and our 
 American institutions upon that coast changed every- 
 thing in our relations to Asiatic nations. It is cer- 
 tain that Hawaii would not have been annexed but 
 for the close bonds, commercial, social, and religi- 
 ous, which have sprung up between Honolulu and 
 
 211 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 San Francisco, and the peoples respectively whom 
 they represented. 
 
 Last of all, or at least up to date, is the further 
 opening of new spheres to the influence of the United 
 States in the China seas. Whatever may be the final 
 relations established between the United States and 
 the Philippines, there are at least strong indications 
 that a new and momentous chapter of our national 
 history has been opened. The Christian church is 
 not charged with the functions or obligations of di- 
 plomacy, but wherever diplomacy or the rude shock 
 of war has presented an open door and brought 
 within the reach of her influence depressed and be- 
 nighted races, there the duty of the Christian church 
 is clear. 
 
 212 
 
THE REGENERATION OF MEXICO 
 
 The stirring events of the summer of 1898 by 
 which several colonial possessions of Spain have 
 been rescued from her tyranny, naturally lead the 
 mind back to the beginning of Spanish-American 
 independence. As stated in the previous chapter, the 
 first to strike a blow for freedom from the power 
 of Spain was Mexico. Her heroic example inspired 
 all the Central and South American colonies with a 
 deathless resolve to break away from an exacting 
 foreign dominion. 
 
 Even at the risk of a second reference to some 
 historic events which have already been alluded to 
 briefly, I shall here make a wider and more specific 
 illustration of their influence upon Mexico. 
 
 The history of Mexico from the year 18 10 to the 
 present time would doubtless throw some light upon 
 the problems which now concern the Antilles and 
 the Philippines. One important lesson to be learned 
 is that even after freedom from oppression has 
 been achieved a great work remains to be done. 
 Where Spanish colonial government in league 
 with the Romish hierarchy has borne sway for centu- 
 
 213 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ries, free civil and religious institutions cannot be 
 established in a day. 
 
 Within the last thirty-five years a greatly in- 
 creased interest has been felt in the Mexican Republic 
 from the fact that in that period it has been com- 
 pelled to gain its liberty, both civil and religious, a 
 second time. That country though so near has been 
 less known to us than many others, and an intelli- 
 gent missionary interest in it will be promoted by a 
 reference to some of those striking interpositions of 
 Providence which have brought it to its present con- 
 dition. 
 
 While Mexico had a full century the start of our 
 Republic in the introduction of European civiliza- 
 tion and the knowledge of the Christian faith, she 
 has until recent years remained almost at a stand- 
 still in comparison with our progress. And the dif- 
 ference is to be traced not to any inferiority of soil 
 or climate, for in their earlier civilizations her Tol- 
 tecs and Aztecs were in advance of the Pequots or 
 the Iroquois; not to any lack of vigor or aggressive 
 enterprise in the power by which the country was 
 conquered, for the Empire of Charles V of Spain, 
 was peerless in that age; but in one word, the Bible 
 has been the differential that has wrought this con- 
 trast. The free use of the Word of God, liberty of 
 conscience, the sacredness of the family, schools, and 
 colleges, the press, and general enlightenment — 
 these have been our heritage; while Mexico, with a 
 crucifix instead of the Scriptures, and ceremonies for 
 
 214 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 instruction, and festivals and bull-fights instead of 
 Sabbaths — with foreign viceroys rather than citizen 
 rulers, and a colonial policy which robbed the coun- 
 try instead of improving it — how could she keep pace 
 with the general march of human advancement? 
 
 Yet the question arises, How has it happened that 
 Mexico and all the states south of her are republics ? 
 This was no part of the plans of their conquerors. 
 All the liberties that have been achieved on this con- 
 tinent, even including our own, have been brought 
 about by reaction against foreign oppression. And 
 there is something, therefore, in our common history 
 which should unite us in sympathy with these kin- 
 dred nations. We have here a hemisphere of repub- 
 lics. The west coast from Behring's strait to Pata- 
 gonia, save the narrow outcropping of British Co- 
 lumbia, is wholly under republican institutions. 
 Those oldest of nations across the Pacific, with their 
 conservative laws and customs, are here confronted 
 by the most recent and most aggressive forms of 
 government. 
 
 There are several reasons why we should cherish 
 a deep interest in Mexico. For fifteen hundred miles 
 the two republics have a common boundary line. 
 Railroads already bind us in the bonds of commer- 
 cial union. Our social and religious influences will 
 be more or less blended together; and as some one 
 has said, we may as well raise thistles ourselves as 
 to have them stock the farms of our neighbors. We 
 
 215 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 must cherish an interest in Mexico or suffer for our 
 neglect. 
 
 The country presents a rather singular configura- 
 tion. On the map it lies in the form of a cornucopia ; 
 and very significantly, our more favored land lies in 
 exactly the position to fill it. Mexico has an im- 
 mense stretch of sea-coast, though it is without good 
 harbors, and has no navigable rivers. It is verte- 
 brated with an immense mountain range, more or 
 less dissevered into branches or spurs; and the high 
 valleys which lie between these spurs have the ap- 
 pearance of being partially filled up with the detritus 
 of the mountains, thus forming elevated plateaus of 
 vast extent. Years ago Humboldt called attention 
 to a fact which is now being recognized by our rail- 
 road projectors, that throughout the whole distance 
 from Santa Fe in New Mexico to the old Aztec capi- 
 tal, there is a natural grade for great highways of 
 commercial intercourse. Along this plateau the 
 ancient Indian civilizations drifted southward, and 
 along this plateau we foresee the grander tides of an 
 international commerce. And along this plateau we 
 must plant our schools and churches — home mis- 
 sions on this side of the boundary, and foreign mis- 
 sions on the other, face to face and hand in hand. 
 
 In your approach to Vera Cruz from the sea you 
 already behold the distant snow peaks on a clear day, 
 and if the dingy old castle of San Juan d'Ulloa and 
 the fever-stricken city fail to interest, you will take 
 a night train on an English-built railroad, and will 
 
 216 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 pass rapidly over the Terra Caliente, whose giant 
 forests are festooned with flowering parasites and 
 whose jungles are literally packed with masses of 
 perennial vendure. At daybreak your train is slowly 
 climbing the mountains; and as you throw open 
 the car-windows, you feel that you have attained 
 your ideal of climate. Such mountain towns as Cor- 
 dova enjoy the perfection of soft breezes and mel- 
 low-tinted skies, with luxuriant growths of every 
 kind of fruit and flowers. Reaching the high passes 
 of the Cordilleras, you are confronted by snow- 
 capped Orizaba, which Bayard Taylor has pro- 
 nounced absolutely peerless among isolated and dis- 
 tinct mountain peaks. As to the railroad, in its giddy 
 precipices and intricate gorges, in the consum- 
 mate skill of the engineers, whose iron bridges and 
 trestlework seem graceful as spiders' webs, and yet 
 so firm as to be without a jar, it excels in magnifi- 
 cence even the pass of the Sierra Nevada, on our 
 California route. 
 
 At length you have reached the great central pla- 
 teau of Mexico, ranging from 5,000 to 8,000 feet 
 above the sea. Less than thirty years ago as one 
 stopped for breakfast at Esperanza, and took a sur- 
 vey of his train, he was struck with the fact that one 
 car was loaded with soldiers to guard the passengers 
 and baggage from robbers. And lest these should be 
 insufficient, five or six mounted policemen were on 
 guard at some of the stations. As late as 1879 such 
 escorts were common. And yet what wonder at the 
 
 217 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 brigandage when we look back at three and a half 
 centuries of oppression and misrule? Doubtless it 
 has been no easy task to rid the country of outlaws; 
 for of all places in the world, these mountain ranges, 
 cut and furrowed with canons and barrancas, are 
 just the theatre required; and if there is a race pre- 
 cisely adapted to the business, it is the cross between 
 the Spaniard and the Indian, when left to ignorance 
 and oppression. 
 
 But this is only one side of the Mexican people. 
 They have noble elements of character. What the 
 old Aztecs were of yore, they are, to some extent, 
 to-day. There is still a vigor in the Indians of 
 Mexico which cannot be found in any of the aborig- 
 inal tribes of our country. The race is not waning 
 there, but on the increase. The Aztecs had been in 
 the valley of Mexico only two centuries when the 
 Spaniards came; but they had succeeded to the 
 higher civilization of the Toltecs, who had been there 
 four centuries before them. 
 
 They were originally a warlike race; and, like the 
 Lombards in the Roman Empire, they took on the 
 culture of the vanquished peoples; and as the Vene- 
 tians, who, when driven by northern barbarians into 
 the Adriatic, built upon the very lagoons and 
 marshes a mighty dominion — more invincible be- 
 cause built upon the marshes, so the Aztecs, harassed 
 at first by other tribes, took refuge upon a small is- 
 land in the shallow Lake Tezcuco. This, gradually 
 enlarged by driven piles and the dredging of their 
 
 218 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 canals, became the impregnable stronghold, from 
 which they at length dictated terms to all their neigh- 
 bors, till they had built up a great empire, extending 
 from sea to sea. 
 
 At the time of the Spanish Conquest this little island 
 had become another Venice, intersected by numerous 
 canals, having 300,000 inhabitants, and subsidizing 
 the best civilization of all the tribes of Anahuac. 
 And but for the one sanguinary blot of their human 
 sacrifices, we should think of the Aztecs with won- 
 der and admiration. I cannot pause to speak of their 
 early industries and skill, their agriculture and in- 
 genious floating gardens, their jewelry and feather- 
 work, their aqueducts and architecture, their chro- 
 nology and their marvelous calendar, whose inter- 
 calations quite equaled our own in accuracy, their 
 picture language and poetry, their humane laws and 
 local courts, their kindness toward women, and their 
 hospitals for their wounded soldiers; and I only al- 
 lude to them to show that after all the long history 
 of bondage, many of these elements still remain to 
 challenge our interest and stimulate our efforts in 
 their behalf. They still evince much skill in feather- 
 work and jewelry : they are still lovers of gardening 
 and flowers. Nearly all the agriculture of the coun- 
 try is in Indian hands. It seems a little odd as you 
 pass through the villages to see Indians, not with 
 bows and arrows and rusty muskets, but with spades 
 and mattocks; not lounging around frontier hotels 
 in quest of whiskey, but laboring in the fields; not 
 
 219 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 compelling their wives to bear the chief burdens, 
 while they stalk in lordly indolence, but rather tak- 
 ing these burdens upon themselves, while the women 
 gather the fruits or make coarse fabrics for their 
 households. We cannot help feeling a profound re- 
 spect for the Mexican Indian tribes, some of whom 
 have so steadily resisted Spanish influence that they 
 still speak their own Indian tongue. There are 
 whole villages of Indians, who, in spite of priestly 
 threats and even mob violence, listen with eagerness 
 to the Word of God. 
 
 One is sometimes surprised to find those whose 
 ideas of the modern Aztecs are taken from a couple 
 of dwarfs whom some showman exhibited years ago. 
 At the capital there are full-blooded Indians, who are 
 numbered among the leading citizens. If the ques- 
 tion be raised, therefore, as it has been, whether the 
 Indian population of Mexico are worthy of our 
 Christian effort, whether they are capable of being 
 raised to a high civilization, I answer decidedly, yes. 
 Few other races, after such a history of oppression 
 and repression, would have preserved so much vital- 
 ity. 
 
 Thirty years ago there was a prominent Aztec 
 lawyer in the Mexican capital who had taken great 
 interest in tracing the distinct lines of his race in 
 several villages of the republic, and I have seen a 
 part of the New Testament, translated into the orig- 
 inal Aztec language, which had been supplied with 
 an alphabet by the Spaniards. The chief lady of 
 
 220 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 honor in the court of the Empress Carlotta was a 
 Hneal descendant of Montezuma, and a lad}^ of so 
 much culture and grace of character as to have been 
 the favorite of the palace. I shall have further oc- 
 casion to speak of some specimens of these native 
 tribes in referring to those thrilling events which 
 were connected with the achievement of political lib- 
 erty. 
 
 As to religious freedom in Mexico, and the readi- 
 ness with which she now stretches forth her hands 
 to receive our civilization and our Protestant Chris- 
 tianity, I will only say that on a voyage to Vera 
 Cruz by way of Havana, I found in a fellow-traveler, 
 one of the leaders who restored the republic in 1867. 
 And I was surprised at the statement made by him, 
 that while he was a Catholic, and hoped to die in the 
 Catholic faith, he would gladly see two Protestant 
 churches in Mexico for every Catholic church, and 
 that for the reason that it would not only promote 
 the general interests of the country, but would tend 
 to elevate and purify the Mexican church itself, and 
 place it in a position more like that of the Catholic 
 church in the United States. Similar sentiments 
 were freely expressed by the late President Juarez, 
 and by other high officers of state, and they are ex- 
 tensively held by leading men in Mexico to-day. 
 
 In tracing the interventions of Providence in the 
 remarkable history of the country, let us inquire 
 what have been the causes of this wonderful trans- 
 formation from the old regime. The three centuries 
 
 321 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 which followed the Spanish Conquest are historically 
 a barren waste. While Cortez was permitted to re- 
 main in power there was energy. The city was re- 
 built and well- built in a very short period, largely by 
 enforced Indian labor. But Cortez became an object 
 of mean jealousy, was misrepresented at the Court 
 of Spain, and was baffled and persecuted till he had 
 drunk the dregs of the very cup of ingratitude and 
 heartlessness which he had given to the generous 
 monarch of the Aztecs. The Indians were reduced 
 to peonage on the great estates of the Spanish plant- 
 ers. Foreign bishops amassed fortunes, while the 
 lower clergy of the native priesthood were allowed a 
 pittance. Immense estates were gathered into the 
 hands of the church, which finally became the chief 
 creditor of the nation. By deed or by mortgage, 
 one-third of all real property was thus held. This 
 state of things existed till the spirit of liberty and 
 independence was awakened within our own century. 
 We have seen in the preceding chapter how a 
 revolution beginning in Mexico in the year 1810 ex- 
 tended to all the Spanish-American colonies ; how a 
 chivalric loyalty to the sovereigns of Castile had 
 hitherto prevailed, however severe their oppression, 
 but how when in 1808, Napoleon II sent his 
 armies into Spain and placed his brother Joseph on 
 the throne, the charm was broken and the Spanish 
 sceptre became an object of contempt. Even the 
 church party in Mexico were in favor of an inde- 
 pendent monarchy; a priest led the revolt. This 
 
 222 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 movement may have gained some additional stimulus 
 from the fact that just at the close of the century 
 the island of Hayti, moved perhaps by the French 
 revolution, had declared her independence of France. 
 Although England compelled Napoleon to restore 
 Ferdinand VII, and although strong reactionary 
 measures were by him adopted, yet Spain itself, as 
 well as her colonies had caught the spirit of liberty. 
 In 1 82 1 Mexico, under the lead of Iturbide and Vic- 
 toria, achieved her independence. 
 
 But liberty advanced only one step at a time. For 
 three years Iturbide tried to establish an independent 
 empire, and finally lost his life in the attempt. And 
 after the establishment of a republican government 
 in 1824, the people still hoped to reconcile republican 
 principles in government, with mediaeval principles 
 in the church. In all these Spanish states it has 
 taken over half a century to learn that republicanism 
 and the old Romanism are from their very nature in 
 universal and eternal conflict; that the one encour- 
 ages the enlightenment and free thought of the peo- 
 ple, and cannot exist without them; while the other 
 must exist by authority and repression. The result 
 has been a long succession of pronunciamentos, and 
 bloody rebellions. I do not say this to the dis- 
 credit of the Mexican people. I doubt if we should 
 have done better with a constitution which positively 
 denied all freedom of opinion, and declared in plain 
 terms that ''no other religion than that of the Apos- 
 tolic, Roman Catholic church" should be tolerated. 
 
 223 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 But we come to another series of providences in re- 
 lation to Mexico, and those too which have to do with 
 our own history, and with the general advancement 
 of civihzation. In the years 1834-36, Santa Anna, 
 then President of Mexico, either from motives of 
 personal ambition, or from a conviction that repub- 
 licanism, strictly speaking, was impossible, brought 
 about a coup d'etat by which the governments of 
 the different states were abolished, and all power 
 was concentrated in the central government under 
 his dictatorship. Witness the wonderful and far- 
 reaching effect of that one act! Yucatan on the 
 south, and Texas on the north at once rebelled; and 
 so grave was the Texan rebellion, that Santa Anna 
 himself was compelled to take the field. His armies 
 attacked and dispersed the Texan legislature; and 
 prisoners of war whom they captured Avere merci- 
 lessly shot by his orders, thus rendering the recon- 
 ciliation of the people of Texas forever impossible. 
 At the battle of San Jacinto, Santa Anna was van- 
 quished, and taken prisoner by General Plouston, and 
 for ten years Texas maintained her independence. 
 
 The period intervening between 1836 and 1846 
 was an eventful one in Mexican history. The per- 
 fidious course pursued by the dictator, Santa Anna, 
 toward Yucatan was especially disastrous. Though 
 conquered and taken prisoner he managed to re- 
 instate himself in 1841, and soon made war on 
 Yucatan as he had done in Texas. His odious con- 
 scriptions for the support of the Texan war had more 
 
 224 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 and more alienated the people, who calling to their 
 aid the Maya Indians in Eastern Yucatan had suc- 
 ceeded in 1840 in driving the Mexican force out of 
 the country. Santa Anna now proposed to subjugate 
 both refractory states by drafting five thousand Yu- 
 catanos for his war against Texas and on the other 
 hand by placing an equal number of loyal Mexicans 
 in Yucatan. This hostile force was finally increased 
 to eleven thousand. A disingenuous peace was ef- 
 fected in 1843, only to be broken by the Mexican 
 Government in 1844. Santa Anna had again fallen 
 from power and been banished to Cuba, and had been 
 succeeded in turn by Herrera and Paredes. But in 
 1846 by consummate intrigue and the most glowing 
 promises he succeeded in again being recognized by 
 the contending factions as President of the republic. 
 This was at the opening of the war with the United 
 States. 
 
 Yucatan was now placed in a most precarious po- 
 sition. Some of her leaders had joined in calling 
 Santa Anna to the presidency, and this act in spite 
 of her previous declarations of independence was 
 construed by Mr. Buchanan, United States Secretary 
 of State, as identifying herself with Mexico in hos- 
 tilities against the United States. She was therefore 
 without friends on either side as she had nothing to 
 hope for from the Mexican government after our 
 war should cease. But worst of all she was now 
 attacked from an unexpected quarter. The Maya 
 Indians who greatly outnumbered the white popula- 
 
 225 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 tion in Yucatan and who had from the first conquest 
 been treated as serfs and loaded with remorseless 
 taxation, had unfortunately been armed and brought 
 into the field as allies against Mexico. They had 
 thus learned their power and they now arose for the 
 settlement of old scores. There is scarcely a paral- 
 lel in modern history to the wholesale slaughter and 
 devastation which were visited upon the white popu- 
 lation of Yucatan in 1847 and the early part of 1848. 
 Four large towns, over fifty hamlets and two hun- 
 dred ranches and plantations were destroyed, and 
 men, women and children were slain. The Indians, 
 accustomed to hardship, having few wants and 
 scarcely any impedimenta, would strike the settle- 
 ments when and where least expected, and then with 
 wonderful celerity would retreat into the dense for- 
 ests and morasses where the Spanish troops were 
 unable to pursue them. 
 
 The most pathetic appeals were made repeatedly 
 to the government of the United States for assist- 
 ance accompanied with the unrestricted ofYer of Yu- 
 catan as a dependency. In desperation similar offers 
 were made to Great Britain, France and Spain. 
 President Polk sent a message to Congress on the 
 subject April 29th, 1848, setting forth the deep dis- 
 tress but making no recommendations, except that 
 the principles of the Monroe doctrine should be in- 
 sisted upon to the exclusion of protectorates by Eu- 
 ropean powers over any part of North America. 
 
 Similar questions had arisen in regard to Mexican 
 226 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 possessions on the Pacific coast. In July, 1846, Cali- 
 fornia, influenced chiefly by American settlers, also 
 declared her independence of Mexico. 
 
 The various stages in the transfer of Mexican 
 claims in California to the United States, the con- 
 flicts of Fremont and others with the forces of Gen- 
 eral Castro have been noticed in the preceding chap- 
 ters. The United States flag which was raised by 
 Commodore Sloat at Monterey in 1846 was recog- 
 nized by treaty in 1848. 
 
 The slave power in the United States had wel- 
 comed the advent of war with Mexico over the pos- 
 session of Texas, as its broad area available for slave 
 territory would afford a balance to the expanding 
 development of free states in the west and north- 
 west. When the arms of the United States proved 
 triumphant and the question of an indemnity arose, 
 the vision of Texas stretched away indefinitely to- 
 ward the Pacific. The accession of California had 
 already been virtually accomplished. Yucatan, 
 though it was offered to the United States, was not 
 desired. But the Mexican territories lying north of 
 the Rio Grande were of greater value to the northern 
 republic than to the southern. The war had been ac- 
 tively waged through the breadth of the continent 
 by General Scott in Vera Cruz and Mexico City, 
 General Taylor at Matamoras and Monterey, Gen- 
 eral Kearney in Arizona, and Colonel Fremont and 
 Commodores Sloat and Stockton on the Pacific. By 
 the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo in 1848, New Mex- 
 
 227 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 ico and Arizona as well as Texas and California were 
 acknowledged as belonging to the United States. 
 
 At the close of the war Mexico found herself in- 
 vested with new conditions. She had a diminished 
 and more compact territory, but more even yet than 
 could be well and thoroughly governed and utilized. 
 She had learned the real measure of her relative 
 power. The people if not the rulers, saw the need of 
 reforms and greater freedom of thought. The old 
 stagnation was broken and the people demanded lib- 
 erty. With the army of General Scott the Bible had 
 entered Mexico and was at work as a leaven. 
 
 But the task of gaining a release from the yoke of 
 the hierarchy was not an easy one, nor was it to be 
 accomplished in a day. As above stated the church 
 had in the early days acquired large estates. These 
 had been increased by confiscation of the estates of 
 heretics condemned by the Inquisition. Large gifts 
 had also been made by the dying under fear of pur- 
 gatory; the church had large interests and large 
 profits in mining enterprises. And with the down- 
 fall of the Spanish rule the financial power of the 
 priests had remained undisturbed. 
 
 Monasteries and cathedrals of great wealth and 
 magnificence had arisen in all the chief cities, and 
 processions and ceremonies entertained the people 
 while their liberties were sacrificed by an arrogant 
 priesthood. The first formidable protest against this 
 tyranny had been made in 1833 when laws were 
 passed suppressing monasteries and convents and 
 
 228 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 confiscating clerical property — the proceeds to be ap- 
 plied to the payment of the national debt. 
 
 But the power of the church had not been rightly 
 estimated. It instigated successive insurrections un- 
 til the government was glad to secure peace by ab- 
 rogating the obnoxious laws. Even after the war 
 with the United States, the supremacy of the church 
 was still conspicuously manifest, and new acquisi- 
 tions of property were continually made. 
 
 Under the presidential administration of Juarez in 
 1 86 1 restrictive legislation was again passed, abol- 
 ishing ecclesiastical tribunals, suppressing monas- 
 teries, making marriage a civil contract, and declar- 
 ing church edifices the property of the state. It was 
 evident that the final crisis had come. The question 
 whether Mexico was really a republic governed by 
 the people, or as a servile dependency of Rome, 
 suffering the local control of the ecclesiastical au- 
 thorities, must be settled. The spirit of liberty had 
 greatly increased in strength. Juarez was a leader 
 of skill and power, the church party could no longer 
 depend on the recourse to popular insurrections, and 
 they were ready for any foreign alliance though it 
 should overthrow the independence of the people. 
 ''Better sacrifice the Republic than lose the su- 
 premacy of the church." 
 
 In the preceding chapter I have spoken of the 
 parallel between the ambitious schemes of Napoleon 
 I, and those of Napoleon III, with reference to 
 Spain and the Spanish-American states : also of the 
 
 229 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 fact that the latter had seized his opportunity dur- 
 ing the progress of the Civil War in the United 
 States when there would be few chances of inter- 
 vention by foreign powers. But he must also have 
 some shadow of a pretext and this he found. 
 A Swiss banker had an exaggerated financial claim 
 against the Mexican government which by the adop- 
 tion of the banker as a citizen of France, furnished 
 the Emperor with a pretext. England and Spain 
 also had claims, and an alliance was formed for an 
 armed intervention. 
 
 In 1862 the united fleets appeared at Vera Cruz 
 with their contingents of men. But England and 
 Spain, on discovering the preposterous claims of 
 France and the unscrupulous nature of the Imperial 
 policy, withdrew from the enterprise and recalled 
 their forces. The French army under Generals Forey 
 and Bazaine, fought their way over the Cordilleras 
 to the capital, where they established a provisional 
 government known as the ''Regency of the Empire." 
 This virtual French assembly, as a mere prearranged 
 formality, submitted the choice of a ruler to the 
 patronizing French Emperor, who was politic enough 
 to give it to the House of Austria, which he had de- 
 feated on the plains of Lombardy. 
 
 In the beautiful palace of Miramar, on the shores 
 of the Adriatic, resided an archduke of Hapsburg 
 with his young and accomplished wife, daughter of 
 King Leopold of Belgium and granddaughter of 
 Louis Philippe. The Duke was holding a sort of 
 
 230 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 ornamental governorship in Venetia, and possessed 
 as he was of great amiabiUty and honor, but without 
 a particle of the genius requisite for great under- 
 takings, he seemed exactly in his place in that quiet 
 paradise on the Adriatic. But there the evil genius 
 of French ambition sought him, and thither strange 
 ambassadors, half Spanish and half Indian, came to 
 offer him a crown. On the loth of April, 1864, amid 
 all the pomp of royalty, this ill-starred couple left 
 their charming abode, and embarked for Mexico. 
 Stopping at Civita Vecchia, they paid a visit to the 
 Holy City, where they received the communion and 
 the Papal benediction, and were honored with a pri- 
 vate breakfast with Pius IX and Cardinal Antonelli. 
 
 After touching again at Gibraltar, where they re- 
 ceived salutes from the British garrison, they arrived 
 in May at Vera Cruz. Their journey to Mexico 
 City was one series of ovations from the clerical 
 party. Having proceeded first of all to the great 
 cathedral to celebrate mass, they were escorted to the 
 old vice-regal palace, amid the ringing of bells and 
 the rejoicing of the reactionists that the republic 
 was dead, and an empire once more established. 
 
 In December of that same year, 1864, I happened 
 to be at Gibraltar with a friend, when a vessel ar- 
 rived from Trieste with several hundred picked men 
 of the Austrian and Hungarian armies, destined for 
 the Foreign Legion of Maximilian. Our war of the 
 rebellion was still in progress, and I well remember 
 the indignation which we felt at the evident sym- 
 
 231 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 pathy of both Austrians and Britons, with the pros- 
 pective overthrow of the Mexican repubUc, and per- 
 haps our own also; and when at the evening dress 
 parade the mihtary band played "God save the 
 Queen," and the enthusiastic soldiery joined and 
 sang their national hymn, we joined also; but we 
 sang into their song, words more consonant with our 
 emotions, '*My Country, 'tis of Thee, sweet land of 
 Liberty, of Thee I sing." 
 
 Those Austrians only reached Mexico to support 
 a waning cause, for General Sherman was already 
 on his march to the sea; and within four months 
 General Grant received that significant surrender at 
 Appomattox, which attracted the attention of France, 
 and of all the courts of Europe. From that day 
 everything went wrong with the French power in 
 Mexico. It was patent to all men that the Empire 
 would prove a failure; and the French people espe- 
 cially were vexed at the stupendous blunder of their 
 ambitious and meddling Emperor. Our Secretary 
 of State William H. Seward, who from time to time 
 had remonstrated with the Court of France, but who 
 hitherto had been but little heeded, now grew em- 
 phatic, and, as Justin McCarthy puts it, he informed 
 the French Emperor through his minister, that "it 
 would be gravely inconvenient" if he did not remove 
 his troops from Mexican soil. 
 
 Meanwhile, Maximilian and Carlotta had both sin- 
 cerely endeavored to conciliate the people; he by spe- 
 cial franchises, she by indefatigable charities. Both 
 
 23,2 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 the Emperor and the Empress had paid court to the 
 church party, even to the yearly performance of the 
 ceremony of lavation, each washing the feet of 
 twelve Mexican beggars, a task which upon such sub- 
 jects was no empty ceremony. 
 
 But in July, 1866, matters had assumed so grave 
 an aspect that the young Empress, then only twenty- 
 six years of age, set out with a few attendants to 
 visit the Court of France and remonstrate with 
 Napoleon against the withdrawal of his support. 
 Receiving only discouragement, she passed on to her 
 deserted castle of Miramar, which she reached in the 
 midst of a dismal storm, as if the very skies would 
 point the contrasts of her return and symbolize the 
 ruin of her fortunes. She next sought solace in a 
 visit to the Pope; but even before she reached Rome 
 her reason began to sink under her heavy burdens, 
 and her wild fancy was, that Napoleon had bribed 
 her friends to poison her. Her interview with the 
 Pope was most touching. She plead for protection. 
 She begged to be permitted to remain in his safe re- 
 treat, and she did remain one whole night in the 
 waiting-room of the Vatican with two or three at- 
 tendants. For days she refused all food, only pur- 
 chasing with her own hands a few chestnuts and 
 fruits at the corners of the streets. 
 
 I need not rehearse that sorrowful history. She 
 never returned to her husband ; and, for more than 
 thirty years, she has remained under the same dark 
 cloud. Nor can we dwell upon the details of Max- 
 
 233 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 imilian's fate; how, upon learning of the illness of 
 his wife, he at first resolved to leave Mexico, and 
 actually proceeded as far as Orizaba, on his way to 
 Vera Cruz, where a steamer awaited him; how he 
 there hesitated and finally, considering his obliga- 
 tions to those who had espoused his cause, turned 
 back, resolved to abide by the result. It is said that the 
 clerical party were largely responsible for this fatal 
 choice. A delegation of Bishops and notables repre- 
 senting the church, pledged to him an army and ten 
 millions of dollars, with the support of the better 
 classes and ultimate success, if he would remain in 
 the country and take up a position at Queretero. 
 
 At the same time no means were left untried to 
 reconcile the people to the Empire. Efforts were 
 made especially to excite jealousy toward the United 
 States. The ravings of a subsidized press on this 
 subject were sometimes tragic, and sometimes amus- 
 ing. A favorite line of argument was, that the 
 United States were only impeding the imperial cause 
 in order to secure the country for themselves. "You 
 will soon hear," said one of these papers, '*of schemes 
 of annexation. The sordid and aggressive Yankees 
 will overrun your land with their railroads and their 
 sharp speculations. Your mines will be exhausted 
 by adventurers, and all positions of profit will be 
 monopolized. Your very soil will grow Connecticut 
 nutmegs; and worst of all, you will see Ben Butler, 
 Dictator at Vera Cruz." 
 
 Meanwhile the republic, which for ten years had 
 234 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 existed, I might almost say in the person of a single 
 man — Benito Juarez — had returned from its exile at 
 El Paso to San Luis Potosi, and it became apparent 
 that the final conflict would center at Queretero, half 
 way between the latter place and the capital. 
 
 Pardon a single glance at this remarkable man, 
 Juarez. A pure-blooded Indian, born in the moun- 
 tains of Oaxaca, he had risen to power by his ac- 
 knowledged genius. When Comonfort betrayed the 
 republic to the reactionists in 1857, Juarez main- 
 tained the liberal cause till the next election, when 
 he was chosen President. During all the years of 
 the struggle with France, this man, with a Cabinet 
 composed of Lerdo, Iglecias, and Mareshal, and 
 with Senor Romero as his minister at Washington, 
 kept alive the cause of liberty among the people. 
 Even when they w^ere driven to El Paso on the 
 northern border, they still held their organization as 
 President and Cabinet of the republic; and sending 
 letters through the United States to friends in all 
 lands, they assured them that their republican cause 
 was not dead but would certainly triumph in the end. 
 Scarcely less remarkable than that of Juarez has been 
 the career of Senor Romero which continued to 
 the close of 1899, having extended over more than 
 thirty years of public service to his country. Proba- 
 bly no fellow countryman of his generation has ac- 
 complished more for the prestige of Mexico than he. 
 Certainly no representative of a foreign powxr has 
 proved more acceptable to the United States. The 
 
 235 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 sublime faith and devotion of Juarez and Romero 
 doubtless had great influence in shaping our policy 
 at Washington and in creating a reactionary senti- 
 ment against the Empire even in Europe. 
 
 The spring of 1867 brought the beginning of the 
 end. Maximilian's chief forces, with himself among 
 them, were at Queretero under siege. In an attempt 
 to escape he was betrayed by one of his generals, 
 placed under arrest, tried by a military tribunal, and 
 with Generals Miramon and Mexia was sentenced to 
 be shot. 
 
 In the trying scenes which followed, the character 
 of our typical Indian President was well illustrated. 
 Efforts were made by our government and by the 
 European Consuls to secure a change of sentence. 
 And when the wife of Prince Salm Salm, a member 
 of Maximilian's staff, threw herself at the Presi- 
 dent's feet and clung to his knees as she poured out 
 her entreaties, he wept in sympathy, while he de- 
 clared himself powerless as a mere executive under 
 the behests of the law. It is a strange spectacle, a 
 European princess at the feet of an Indian patriot 
 pleading for the life of an Emperor, and both weep- 
 ing as the solemn fiat is uttered. And this is the 
 man — this full-blooded Mexican Indian — this is the 
 man who for ten years of hard struggles had carried 
 a republic in his head and heart, and who, both be- 
 fore and after that solemn hour, did more than any 
 other, to restore order to his distracted country. 
 When, in a public reception, a captured French tri- 
 
 236 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 color was spread for him to walk upon, he stepped 
 aside; **No/' he said, ''the French are not our ene- 
 mies — it is only their Emperor. The French are 
 our friends, and depend upon it, that flag will yet 
 wave over a republic." A prophecy which Juarez 
 lived to see fulfilled! 
 
 I have spoken of this man for one chief reason. I 
 have desired to enkindle a deeper interest in the six 
 millions of these Indian tribes just over the border, 
 by showing that one of their number at least, has 
 held a place among the truly great men of our gen- 
 eration. And I have marked the struggle of the 
 Mexican people for their independence, in order to 
 meet the flippant talk which we sometimes hear 
 alout annexing their country to the United States. 
 I have wished to show that men whom the armies 
 of Europe could not compel to accept even the most 
 amiable of rulers, men who could carry the life and 
 soul of their republic with them, though driven all 
 over their domain, are not of a class to be handed 
 over easily to a neighboring power — exchanging 
 their independence for a few railroad lines and a 
 little commerce. We would not attempt to annex 
 Mexico; but would rather take a generous pride in 
 her independence, while by every means we extend 
 our aid in securing for her all the blessings of Chris- 
 tian enlightenment which we enjoy. But chiefly it 
 is my desire to emphasize those wonderful provi- 
 dences which have wrought out her religious liberty. 
 
 Human foresight could never have devised or 
 
 237 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 foreshadowed any train of events which could hope 
 to break the power of Rome, so protracted and so 
 entrenched. But when this attempt was made to im- 
 pose a foreign Empire upon the people, and when 
 they saw that the Pope of Rome was deep in the 
 counsels of their enemies, and that their own priest- 
 hood were helping to urge it forward, it aroused 
 them to a high and intense resolve to break away 
 from the hoary thraldom forever. It united all the 
 liberal elements in the state and rallied them for the 
 defence of their religious freedom. It created a de- 
 mand for the Bible as the foundation of liberty, for 
 schools and the press and Protestant influence, and 
 whatever should help to disintegrate the one over- 
 shadowing mass of Papal power. 
 
 Although the bitterness of the priesthood has 
 instigated many, and even bloody, persecutions, 
 and the roll of Mexican martyrs in the last twenty 
 years is not small, yet the cause of the truth and of 
 an enlightened spirit has steadily progressed, and 
 Mexico is winning an honorable place among the 
 nations. 
 
 Meanwhile the National church which Maximil- 
 ian's chaplain. Abbe Domineck, condemned as little 
 better than ''baptized heathenism," is considerably 
 improved. The hope once expressed by the distin- 
 guished and far-sighted General Escobedo, that the 
 influence of Protestant Missions might help to re- 
 form the national church and render it more like the 
 Catholic church in the United States, is in a measure 
 
 238 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 being realized. After three hundred and fifty years 
 of Spanish occupation, there is the full dawn of a 
 better day. Already Mexico has taken an honored 
 place among the nations. 
 
 239 
 
THE DAWN OF HAWAII* 
 
 Here in the beautiful old town of Cornwall, 
 Conn., I find a manuscript record of the well-known 
 mission school which the fathers of two generations 
 ago established for the training of heathen youth 
 gathered from all lands. This record has been com- 
 piled with great labor by Rev. E. C. Starr, present 
 pastor of the Cornwall Congregational Church. 
 
 In the sadly populous old cemetery on the adjacent 
 slope of one of these southern spurs of the Berkshire 
 hills, is the well-kept grave of the Sandwich Island 
 boy, Henry Obookiah, whose strange advent in these 
 New England towns in the early years of this cen- 
 tury, was regarded as a veritable Macedonian call to 
 the American churches. 
 
 Some years before this, the islanders had asked 
 the navigator, Vancouver, to send them teachers, and 
 now the actual appearance of a living representative 
 at the doors of Yale College, pleading for an educa- 
 tion, undoubtedly hastened the establishment of the 
 Sandwich Islands or Hawaiian mission. The Ha- 
 waiian mission wrought out the Hawaiian civiliza- 
 tion and the final consummation of it which so re- 
 
 *This chapter was written at Cornwall, July i, i! 
 240 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 cently has made these "Gems of the Pacific" a part 
 of our American domain. I speak advisedly when I 
 claim the Hawaii of to-day as the manifest result of 
 missionary labor and influence, for if there is one 
 land above all others which is not a conquest of mere 
 ''nineteenth century civilization" that is it. When in 
 1775 Captain Cook made his memorable first visit to 
 the islands, we are told that he set the example to 
 his sailors of unbridled immorality. Vancouver, 
 who had accompanied him, and who in 1 792 made a 
 second visit, found that already the population had 
 been seriously diminished by the diseases contracted 
 from the ship's crcw\ By the concurrent testimony, 
 not only of missionaries, but of such travelers as 
 Commodore Wilkes, Richard H. Dana and many 
 others, the bad example of Cook has been followed 
 by the merchant marine, the whalers, and even by 
 naval vessels, down to a very late period. For more 
 than half a century there was waged a constant fight 
 between the missionaries and these bad representa- 
 tives of civilized nations, over the question whether 
 Hawaii should become a Christian country or re- 
 main ''a paradise of lust." Fortunately, the mis- 
 sionaries and their descendants in the islands have 
 won the day. The original population is doubtless 
 on the wane. There are but 31,000 full blooded na- 
 tives instead of 400,000, which was the estimate of 
 Captain Cook ; but the New England spirit and cul- 
 ture have survived, as the last few years of self- 
 government have abundantly shown. 
 
 241 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 The missionary interest which centered in Henry 
 Obookiah and his fellow-countrymen, several of 
 whom received education at Cornwall, bore a strik- 
 ingly providential relation to the establishment of 
 the American Board and the American Baptist Mis- 
 sionary Union. In the year 1808 Samuel J. Mills 
 organized a brotherhood of college students who 
 pledged themselves to the work of Foreign Missions. 
 This was the first band of "Student Volunteers," and 
 the haystack at Williamstown was their sanctuary 
 and their place of power. By the year 1810 they had 
 removed to Andover, and we find them like Mott, 
 and Speer and Wilder, visiting other institutions for 
 the purpose of arousing missionary interest. Their 
 own plans ripened fast, and as early as February of 
 that year. Mills, Judson, Nott and Newell applied 
 to the Massachusetts Association to be sent out as 
 missionaries, without designating fields. The asso- 
 ciation was to meet on the 27th of June, at Bradford. 
 While Dr. Worcester and Rev. Samuel Spring were 
 driving to Bradford to attend that meeting, their 
 thoughts were full of the new challenge which these 
 four young men had laid before the New England 
 churches, and it was agreed between them that the 
 time had come for a distinct missionary organiza- 
 tion ; and two days later the association decided upon 
 the institution of the American Board. 
 
 The late Dr. Gardiner Spring, son of Samuel 
 Spring, and then a student at Andover Theological 
 Seminary, attended the Bradford meeting as a spec- 
 
 242 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 tator. In his Personal Reminiscences he states 
 that his father and Dr. Worcester were so impressed 
 by the steps there taken towards an organized for- 
 eign missionary work, that on their return and with 
 their faces set toward Salem, they turned aside into 
 a forest to pray. On returning to the road they 
 changed their course entirely and drove to Boston 
 to the residence of Jeremiah Evarts, Esq.,* "in 
 whose parlor the incipient arrangements for the 
 future operations of the Board were made." 
 
 On his return to his church in Newburyport, Dr. 
 Samuel Spring preached on Sabbath morning a mis- 
 sionary sermon, giving an account of the steps taken 
 at Bradford, and the subsequent consultation at the 
 house of Mr. Evarts in Boston. He spoke particu- 
 larly of the earnest offer of service made to the Mas- 
 sachusetts Association by the young men Mills, Jud- 
 son, Nott and Newell. At the close of the sermon a 
 collection was taken, of which Dr. Gardiner Spring 
 speaks as follows : 
 
 "My father's congregation had a large share of 
 the wealth of the place, and a large share of its mer- 
 cantile marine, composed of sea-captains and native 
 mariners. At the close of the service one of the old 
 sea-captains remarked, "The doctor has given us a 
 grand sermon, and he has preached all the jack- 
 knives out of the sailor's pockets." On returning to 
 my father's house, and laying out the collection on 
 the parlor table, there were gold, and silver, and cop- 
 *Afterwards secretary of the Board. 
 
 243 . . .'• 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 per, and not a few jack-knives. The sailors had lit- 
 tle else to give. There was an envelope, too, care- 
 fully folded, which was found to contain a gold ring, 
 and the following lines: 
 
 " * I give, but oh, my gift's so small, 
 'Tis like not giving you, at all; 
 In future, if by God I'm blest, 
 I'll pay him tenfold interest.' 
 
 "And this the first collection in the United States 
 for foreign missions, was taken up in the North 
 Church, in Newburyport, where, by my father's 
 hands I was baptized." 
 
 The formal organization of the Board was com- 
 pleted on the loth of September, 1810, at the house 
 of Dr. Noah Porter, in Farmington, Conn. A char- 
 ter was not obtained from the Massachusetts legis- 
 lature until June 17, 181 2, when after a long strug- 
 gle and in spite of a large and influential minority, 
 led by Governor Elbridge Gerry, the measure was 
 carried. It was on the same day that the United 
 States declared war against Great Britain. 
 
 The connection of Samuel J. Mills with the Sand- 
 wich Islands movement is seen in a peculiar provi- 
 dential nexus of events. While he was on a student 
 volunteer visit to Yale College just about the time 
 that he and his fellows offered themselves for for- 
 eign missions, he found young Obookiah who had 
 arrived only a few months before (the latter part of 
 1809), and for whom President D wight had pro- 
 
 244 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 vided temporary tutors. Mills was just the man to 
 have the care of Obookiah for the time at least, not 
 only for the good of the young man, but for his own, 
 and as a means of arousing a general missionary in- 
 terest among the churches. He needed an object 
 lesson. In the vacations he took his protege to his 
 own father's home at Torrington, sixteen miles from 
 Cornwall, and from thence he was passed around as 
 a converted heathen and future missionary, to 
 Goshen and Cornwall and Litchfield, where Lyman 
 Beecher espoused his cause with all his enthusiasm 
 and power. Many other places were visited and the 
 awakening of the New England churches on the sub- 
 ject of missions became general. Three of the mis- 
 sionary candidates who had offered themselves went 
 to India — of whom Judson was destined to be an 
 apostle to the Baptist churches of America no less 
 than to the people of Burmah. But Mills, on ac- 
 count of delicate health, was detained in this country, 
 where he continued to look after Obookiah and the 
 development of the Hawaiian mission; and later he 
 gave himself to the cause of home missions in the 
 West and Southwest, and last of all to the establish- 
 ment of a missionary colony for emancipated Ameri- 
 can slaves near Sierra Leone. 
 
 Among the many means of usefulness to which 
 Mills gave his attention was the establishment of a 
 missionary training school for heathen youth. It is 
 not definitely known whether he or Elias Cornelius 
 was the first to propose it; the plan was formed be- 
 
 245 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 tween them, and Mills made known the plan by an 
 anonymous letter published in the Panoplist in the 
 autumn of 1810. At its annual meeting held a year 
 before, the American Board had formally taken 
 three heathen boys, one of whom was Obookiah, un- 
 der its care. There were many, some from the Sand- 
 wich Islands, and others from the Indian tribes, who 
 also were ready for education. The plan pursued up 
 to that time was to place these youths in families 
 or family schools. But why not concentrate this 
 good work in one well-equipped missionary institu- 
 tion? What could be more rational and wise than 
 to gather together the youth of all heathen nations 
 and train them for ambassadors of the Cross to their 
 respective kindreds and tribes ? The possibility that 
 they might become denationalized by their contact 
 with American society and institutions — a possibil- 
 ity of which we have become so painfully aware in 
 the present generation, and the danger that Christian 
 people in their sentimental zeal might coddle them 
 and spoil their hope of efficiency, had not presented 
 itself. Moreover, the inception of the movement had 
 been so strikingly providential — who could question 
 it ? The wisdom of the wisest favored it, and at the 
 meeting of the American Board which met in Sep- 
 tember of that year (181 6) at Hartford, it was re- 
 solved to establish the school, and a committee, con- 
 sisting of President Dwight, James Morris, Lyman 
 Beecher, Charles Prentice and James Harvey, was 
 appointed to carry the resolution into effect. On the 
 
 246 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 29th of October, the committee met in New Haven 
 at the house of the chairman, Dr. Dwight, adopted a 
 constitution, and decided that the school should be 
 located at Cornwall, Conn. 
 
 For the cultivation of simple and economical habits, 
 and the avoidance of the various moral and social 
 evils incident to large and populous communities, no 
 place could have been more fortunately chosen. And 
 the missionary spirit which had been enkindled in the 
 surrounding towns of Litchfield, Goshen, Torring- 
 ton, Sharon, Washington, Norfolk and many others, 
 gave good promise of sympathy and support. The 
 Cornwall people gave the land for buildings and for 
 a small school farm, and contributions in money and 
 in every conceivable commodity which could be use- 
 ful in such a school, flowed in from a wide range 
 of New England towns, and finally from the middle 
 states and even from the far South. Two noble- 
 men, one in Prussia and one in Switzerland, showed 
 their interest by large and repeated contributions. It 
 is interesting and instructive at this distance of time 
 to look over the long lists of contributions which are 
 still preserved. They reveal the far-reaching in- 
 fluence of the institution in fostering a missionary in- 
 terest; one is surprised that in the brief decade of its 
 existence it should have become so widely known. 
 All classes of contributors had a share in the work. 
 Farm products of all kinds were given in large quan- 
 tities and in small. Housewives contributed the 
 products of their looms or of their knitting needles. 
 
 247 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 But the fact which appears most prominent is that 
 almost every community had its woman's society, af- 
 fording contributions in money or in clothing. The 
 work of the young people was not as well organized 
 as at the present day, but the interest in the Cornwall 
 school gave rise to scores of youthful bands, more 
 frequently girls and young ladies. So strong is the 
 resemblance to the present local missionary organiza- 
 tions, that it is difficult to realize that an interval of 
 more than eighty years has passed. 
 
 A single incident will illustrate the influence which 
 the novel spectacle of twenty-five or thirty scholars 
 once heathen produced upon the boys and girls 
 in many Christian homes at that time. In 1870, 
 during the raising of the five million dollar memorial 
 fund in the Presbyterian church, and while I was 
 riding on a train to Philadelphia with the late Wil- 
 liam E. Dodge, who had consented to make an ad- 
 dress in behalf of that effort, he told me of the in- 
 terest which, as a small boy, he had taken in the 
 Cornwall Mission School. Taking another boy into 
 partnership, and obtaining from his father the use of 
 a small piece of land, he planted it with potatoes, 
 the avails of which should be given for the support 
 of the Hawaiian and Indian boys who were to be 
 missionaries to their people. It w^as a low-lying patch 
 of ground, and the little fellows had a hard task in 
 subduing the grass and weeds. But it was a dry 
 season, and while this little field produced a splendid 
 crop, the general product on upland farms was scanty 
 
 248 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 and the boys realized a good price. "Never have I 
 seen a prouder day," said Mr. Dodge, "than when, 
 whip in hand, I walked beside the ox-cart and drove 
 those potatoes to market. And it was there," added 
 the distinguished merchant prince, "that I learned 
 the joy of giving for the cause of Christ." 
 
 Probably no other school so mixed in color, race 
 and speech was ever seen before or since, as that at 
 Cornwall. Of the ninety or one hundred students 
 there taught, eight were Hawaiians, two were 
 Greeks whom Pliny Fisk had found at Malta, three 
 were Chinese, three or four were from India, two 
 from the Society Islands, and one from Portugal. 
 But the majority were from different tribes of 
 American Indians in the eastern and middle states 
 and Canada, and especially from the Cherokee, Choc- 
 taw, Osage and Miami reservations of the South and 
 West. At the annual examinations it was not un- 
 common for the people of Cornwall to listen to a 
 Pentecostal variety of speeches in eight or ten dif- 
 ferent tongues. 
 
 Hampton and Carlisle were anticipated in the in- 
 troduction of an industrial element. Indeed, with 
 support drawn largely from the farming communi- 
 ties of Connecticut, the situation would have been 
 absurd if the boys had not been required to work 
 their little farm and attend to most of their own daily 
 wants. The pernicious practice which has obtained 
 in some modern missions, of hiring servants to per- 
 form the menial work of charity students, finds no 
 
 249 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 warrant in the example at Cornwall. In the vaca- 
 tions the boys were generally employed on farms or 
 in learning some mechanical art. 
 
 In February, 1818, Henry Obookiah sickened of 
 typhoid fever. The pastor, Rev. Mr. Stone, whose 
 house is still standing at Cornwall, took him to his 
 own home, where every attention was given him, but 
 his disease proved fatal. He had shown a rare de- 
 gree of Christian character; and as he was now 
 twenty-six years of age, he had fondly hoped to be 
 one of the first party of missionaries to his native 
 land. In his island home he had looked forward to 
 religious work, but of a very different kind. After 
 witnessing the murder of his father and mother and 
 infant brother, he had found asylum with an uncle 
 who was a priest and who put him in training for 
 the same vocation. From this distasteful prospect 
 he had turned away with strong aversion, and find- 
 ing occupation on a merchant vessel, had come to 
 America, little knowing what Providence had in 
 store for him. But he was not to preach in Hawaii. 
 He had already fulfilled his mission. His death and 
 the deep spiritual influence which he had exerted had 
 perhaps a greater effect upon the school and upon the 
 church than any living service which he could have 
 rendered. A memoir was written which aroused a 
 widespread interest and in one known case led to a 
 change in a legacy in the interest of the school. 
 
 Step after step followed fast in preparation for 
 the Sandwich Island Mission, in which others must 
 
 250 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 be found to take Obookiah's place. About a year 
 after his death, a young school teacher in the neigh- 
 boring town of Goshen visited Cornwall and became 
 deeply interested. In the summer following (1819) 
 an ordination service was held at Goshen, at which 
 this young man, Hiram Bingham, and his associate, 
 Thurston, were set apart as the first missionaries to 
 Hawaii. The students went over the hills en masse 
 to attend the service, and the influence on them may 
 be estimated by the fact that four young Hawaiians 
 and four or five young Americans who had been in 
 the school accompanied the missionaries when they 
 sailed from Boston in the ship Thaddeus a month or 
 two later. At the little meeting held on Long Wharf, 
 one of the young islanders, Hopoo, gave a farewell 
 address in English and in Hawaiian. 
 
 It would be interesting to trace the history of some 
 of the more prominent students as well as that of the 
 school enterprise itself, but limits of space forbid. 
 It is sufficient to say that after an experiment of ten 
 years, the American Board was fully prepared to 
 abandon the general policy upon which the school 
 was based. It had begun to be seen that youth taken 
 out of their proper environments and trained for sev- 
 eral years in our American customs and ways of liv- 
 ing were likely to disappoint reasonable expecta- 
 tions; that they were qualified but also disqualified, 
 for laboring among their own people and living in 
 full touch and sympathy with them; that the same 
 amount of funds invested in educational work on 
 
 251 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 the different fields would promise far greater results, 
 and that in the development of Christian institutions 
 in heathen lands, the school and the college as well as 
 the Church must have a large and permanent place. 
 
 Another difficulty, though one of minor impor- 
 tance, had developed during the brief experiment at 
 Cornwall. A young half-breed Cherokee Indian 
 who bore the honored name of Elias Boudinot, a 
 youth of fine abilities and pleasing address, won the 
 affections of a young lady belonging to a prominent 
 family in Cornwall, and in the midst of great popular 
 excitement and strong opposition, accompanied by 
 much bitter newspaper comment and correspondence, 
 the two were married. In other cases also it was 
 alleged that dangerous attachments sprang up. As a 
 result in Cornwall and the neighboring communities 
 a strong prejudice was awakened against the school, 
 and this, too, was a difficulty which has had many 
 subsequent counterparts. 
 
 At a meeting of the Board at Northampton in 
 1825, a large part of the session was occupied with 
 discussion upon the Cornwall school, Secretary Jere- 
 miah Evarts leading the opposition to its continu- 
 ance, and Rev. Lyman Beecher pleading earnestly 
 and persistently in its behalf. After a series of refer- 
 ences to committees, whose careful investigations ex- 
 tended over a year, the conclusion was reached that 
 it should be given up. 
 
 No missionary board or society has ever found 
 reason to dissent from the wisdom of that decision. 
 
 252 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 Nevertheless there has continued to be a certain 
 fascination about the idea of training heathen or 
 other non-Christian youth here for a supposed ser- 
 vice in their own land. People are interested in what 
 they see and hear, and the best work of the best in- 
 stitutions in far-off Turkey or Persia or India can 
 scarcely elicit the same interest that attaches to the 
 personal plans and appeals of a visible Persian or 
 Armenian, however unknown and however uncertain 
 his future career. In Obookiah's day there were no 
 missionary schools and colleges in Hawaii or any 
 other heathen land. Then his advent and that of 
 others wrought great good. Now Hawaii is the 
 place to educate Hawaiians. What Providence really 
 sent him for was to educate the American churches. 
 
 253 
 
THE ACQUISITION OF THE SPANISH 
 
 COLONIES FROM A MISSIONARY 
 
 STANDPOINT 
 
 The great body of the American people, save the 
 soldiers who have fought so bravely, and the sorrow- 
 ing kindred, who mourn the untimely death of sons or 
 husbands, have scarcely felt the shock of "The Hun- 
 dred Days' War" with Spain. Our shores have not 
 been invaded by hostile armies; there has been no 
 perceptible interference with the general prosperity 
 of the country; and yet seldom have issues so mo- 
 mentous been decided. 
 
 When the conflict first seemed impending, Chris- 
 tian men generally deprecated it, the better class of 
 citizens despised the reckless and mendacious in- 
 cendiarism of the ''yellow journals," and in every 
 pulpit and every prayer circle, supplications were of- 
 fered that peace with justice and honor might be 
 maintained. President McKinley did all in his power 
 to avert the calamities of war. Any European gov- 
 ernment would have followed the cold-blooded mur- 
 der of the two hundred and fifty-six officers and men 
 of the "Maine" with swift vengeance. But our 
 Cabinet and our citizens generally, manifested 
 
 254 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 a patient and dignified reserve, till the facts could if 
 possible be ascertained. Even the effrontery of the 
 false report of the Spanish investigation v^as waived 
 as a matter of secondary consideration, while the one 
 question of putting an end to a tyranny of four cen- 
 turies, and emancipating a crushed and struggling 
 people came to the front. Had Spain heeded the 
 demand for the release of Cuba there would have 
 been no conflict. The destruction of the "Maine" 
 would have remained unavenged, and Spain would 
 have lost no further territory in either hemisphere. 
 Just there was the pivotal question of the war. All 
 attempts to show that it was undertaken as a political 
 measure, or in the interest of business speculation, 
 or for territorial expansion, or to gratify the ambi- 
 tion of military aspirants, or to increase the prestige 
 of our navy, are as futile as they are sinister. When 
 the die was cast by Spain's refusal, our people rallied 
 with rare unanimity, though with the understanding 
 that they had nothing to gain, that they would all be 
 more heavily taxed, that thousands must endure the 
 hardships of war, and many must sacrifice their lives. 
 Mohammedan nations are lured to battle by the 
 prospect of booty and female slaves, if their lives 
 are spared, or the delights of a sensual paradise if 
 they die. The Spanish conquerors who four cen- 
 turies ago over-ran Cuba and nearly all the Western 
 hemisphere, were inspired by a hope of boundless 
 gold and silver. The rank and file of continental 
 
 255 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 European armies enter upon wars of invasion only 
 as a part of enforced military service. But it may 
 be doubted whether any government ever entered 
 upon a foreign war with so little prospect of self- 
 aggrandisement as was presented by this war with 
 Spain. The key-note of the President's message to 
 Congress and of his declaration of war was that of 
 philanthropy. Both were of the nature of an appeal 
 for humanity, and such was the appeal that was so 
 generously responded to. Thoughtful people soon 
 came to feel that over and above, or rather perhaps 
 underlying the action of President and Congress, 
 there were great providential designs far transcend- 
 ing the forecast of the Government and the public 
 press. From the start everything assumed grander 
 proportions than had been expected. The Govern- 
 ment had no plan for Porto Rico. Manila and the 
 Ladrones had scarcely been thought of by the people 
 at large, and it may be doubted whether the cabinet 
 had any thought of national aggrandisement. 
 
 The object which it seemed indispensable to ac- 
 complish in the far East was the destruction of 
 Spain's Pacific fleet, which if spared might work 
 destruction not only to our mercantile marine, but 
 to our defenceless Pacific coast. The complete an- 
 nihilation of the Spanish fleet and that by a single 
 conflict of a few hours in Manila harbor, was scarcely 
 to be expected. The event transcended all planning 
 and all expectation, not only in its completeness but 
 in the consequences which it entailed. Admiral 
 
 256 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 Dewey's decisive victory on May ist not merely des- 
 troyed the hostile fleet, but left the Philippine Archi- 
 pelago a helpless dependency on our hands. In the 
 destruction of her fleet as a military necessity, we 
 had rendered it impossible for Spain to govern the 
 islands, and according to the laws of law, no other 
 power had any right to interfere. It was evident 
 that the withdrawal of our forces would leave the 
 Philippines in a worse condition than before, ex- 
 posed to intestine strife, only to be followed by the 
 reckless scramble and perhaps bloody conflict of the 
 European powers. 
 
 A still further question had been precipitated by 
 our carrying the war into the Pacific. Hawaii, 
 which we had been compelled to use as a sort of half- 
 way station in the transportation of troops, was 
 placed in the sharp dilemma of either shutting her 
 ports against our war vessels or exposing herself as 
 an outlaw against the international principle of neu- 
 trality. The responsibility of this awkward situa- 
 tion was wholly ours. We had placed ourselves in 
 check, so to speak, and the only way of escape was 
 by annexation. The same Providence which had 
 been working and planning for Hawaii through 
 three-quarters of a century now again interposed, 
 and settled the annexation question in a way least 
 expected. 
 
 But the most striking element in this three months' 
 history is the way in which Providence seems to have 
 held us to the logical conclusions of our own pro- 
 
 257 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 fessed aim and intent. We had proclaimed to the 
 world that we were moved by broad considerations 
 of humanity. Cuba was merely a specialization of 
 the principle, and it was the great principle, and not 
 the mere geographical situation of an island, that was 
 supreme. We had only thought of Cuba, but it now 
 looks very much as if God had thought of something 
 more. Our enemy was guilty of other oppressions in 
 the Eastern hemisphere as well as in the Western, 
 and, as divine ordering would have it, we had made 
 our conquest in the East before Cuba was even 
 touched, and by common consent there was greater 
 need than in the Antilles. What was it then that we 
 had been fighting for ? Was it really for the uplift- 
 ing of humanity wherever oppressed, or was it for 
 some narrower and more selfish consideration grow- 
 ing out of mere vicinage and the embarrassment of 
 having a disagreeable neighbor ? Judging from the 
 standpoint of foreign missions we must refuse to 
 consider the question of near or far, and we must 
 repudiate the argument of those, some of them the 
 very best of men, who claim that because our Gov- 
 ernment had only mentioned Cuba, that, therefore, it 
 was pledged to carry its conquest no further. 
 
 Some of the arguments which have been used of 
 late in dealing with the questions of our relations to 
 our Spanish conquest would lie equally against the 
 whole work of foreign missions. The claim that 
 we set out to free the Cubans who are near our 
 shores, and with whom we have to do commercially, 
 
 258 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 and that we have no right to interfere with the out- 
 lying barbarous races in the Eastern seas, is only a 
 varied application of the trite dictum, ''we have the 
 heathen at our door and our only duty is to them." 
 Another argument often presented of late is that 
 these ignorant tropical people, whether in the East 
 or in the West are not worth the outlay. Touching 
 contrasts have been drawn between the value of ''one 
 American soldier sacrificed in battle, and hundreds 
 of shiftless Cubans." This kind of reasoning is also 
 familiar to those who are engaged in missions. 
 Eloquent ridicule has been poured upon the "attempt 
 to convert men who have no souls." Missionary 
 effort in behalf of the "bestial Hottentot," or the 
 "missing link," "the buck Indian," "the heathen Chi- 
 nee" has been subjected to jeers and bitter contempt. 
 But can we forget that the heathen are loved, not for 
 what they are, but for what grace can make of them ? 
 Can we forget that God's love even for His church 
 is based not so much upon a present estimate, as 
 upon that of a glorious perspective in which a thou- 
 sand years are but as one day? The thousands of 
 missionaries who from the time of Paul and of Titus 
 in the Island of Crete, down to those who have re- 
 cently consecrated their lives to the dwarfs of West 
 Africa, rise up as witnesses and put to shame the 
 argument that the United States have been squander- 
 ing their resources for the benefit of worthless peo- 
 ple. If we are right in believing that this has been 
 a providential war, that the hand of God has been 
 
 259 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 in the marvelous victories which have been gained 
 with such celerity and with comparatively so little 
 expenditure, we may conclude that it was in effect 
 a missionary war. If missions are simply a current 
 work of God's providence for the redemption of the 
 world, then we have fought not merely for the Cu- 
 bans of to-day or the Filipinos of to-day, but for the 
 coming generations in these tropical island groups. 
 We have lifted the arm of justice not merely against 
 the recent atrocities of Gen. Weyler, but against the 
 tyranny of four centuries. The real question has 
 been whether Cuba shall remain for four centuries 
 more as in the past, or shall take her place among 
 the enlightened and prosperous nations of the earth, 
 and whether the papal hierarchy under the flag of 
 an effete nation shall long continue to oppress the 
 Philippines as in the past, or whether the standard 
 of liberty, good government and Christian regenera- 
 tion shall be raised. 
 
 There was still another significant providential 
 force which seemed to urge upon the United States 
 the crusade which it has undertaken with so great 
 success. Three or four years ago the Christian world 
 witnessed atrocities among the Armenians which 
 were a disgrace to the century in which we live, while 
 Christian nations looked upon the slaughter with 
 folded arms. In this country there was a universal 
 outburst of indignation, and from the pulpit and the 
 press condemnation was poured upon the cold and 
 heartless policy of the great Powers across the ocean 
 
 260 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 which held each other in a deadlock of inaction. The 
 outrage seemed aggravated still further when these 
 same Powers virtually abetted the Turk in his war 
 upon the helpless Greeks. Comparing these things 
 with the more practical sympathy which at earlier 
 periods had been shown for the oppressed of Turkey 
 and the slaughtered Greeks of Scio and Missilonghi, 
 it seemed as if the shadow on the dial was turning 
 back, and the Christian world was returning to the 
 spirit of the dark ages. Humanity had apparently 
 become subordinate to political interests, and com- 
 mon ethics had disappeared from the policy of gov- 
 ernments. France had years ago been guilty of un- 
 speakable outrages upon the weaker government of 
 Madagascar, and later upon that of Siam. Russia 
 with the menace of brute force had driven Japan 
 from Port Arthur and occupied the position herself, 
 and the "mailed fist" of Germany had with indecent 
 haste wrested half a province from China upon the 
 smallest possible pretext. "Might makes right" had 
 become practically the motto of Christendom. But 
 in answer to the universal condemnation expressed 
 in America by pulpit and press, came back the retort, 
 "How about Cuba, ninety miles only from your own 
 boasted land of freedom ? We are hampered by in- 
 ternational complications which you cannot appreci- 
 ate, while your course is clear, and you have no ex- 
 cuse for your unsympathizing and inhuman neglect." 
 We were shut up to the plain logic of all that we 
 had said. We stood self-convicted before all man- 
 
 261 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 kind. For the emancipation of humanity we were 
 Hke Israel driven into the sea by forces which we 
 could not control. We can understand it now. This 
 nation was placed in the vanguard of anew and holier 
 crusade of the Twentieth Century. As Victor Hugo 
 would have expressed it, the eternal fitness of things 
 had issued its decree against the old selfish policies, 
 and had inaugurated this new principle of national 
 morality, namely — that no more can a Christian na- 
 tion than a Christian man, live unto itself or die unto 
 itself. 
 
 I am not advocating any particular theory for the 
 government of Porto Rico or the Philippines. It 
 seems probable that for the latter at least a protecto- 
 rate may be the only ultimate basis of control ; but we 
 are dealing with a situation. The Philippines are 
 actually under the flag of the United States, and on 
 the American people rests the responsibility of either 
 maintaining order and justice and protection, or of 
 surrendering them to worse chances than those from 
 which they have been delivered. Especially does it 
 become the Christian people of this country to ask 
 what are the duties which the interests of Christ's 
 advancing kingdom now lay upon us. Mr. Bryce, 
 whose published works have shown so wide and so ac- 
 curate a knowledge of our institutions, has said that 
 very evidently the great American Republic is des- 
 tined now to take a larger place and exert a wider 
 influence in the affairs of mankind, and is no longer 
 to be shut up within her own boundaries and to her 
 
 262 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 own selfish interests. It is significant that this belief, 
 very grateful to all Englishmen and very distasteful 
 to all lovers of continental absolutism, has been gen- 
 eral among thinking men. 
 
 There are some special grounds of belief that the 
 missionary influence of the American churches will 
 be greatly increased by the remarkable changes 
 which have been wrought in our national prestige. 
 It cannot be denied that politically and diplomatically 
 the American government has exerted but a slight in- 
 fluence in many of the great and difficult questions 
 which have stirred the Eastern Hemisphere. In re- 
 peated instances the efforts of an American minister 
 at the Sublime Porte have been snubbed or ignored 
 when the sharp demands of a first class European 
 power would have been granted. In various prov- 
 inces of China an American Consul has often been 
 baffled by official indifference or harassing delays, 
 when a French or Russian or British Consul would 
 have gained his point promptly. The United States 
 have scarcely been recognized as a naval power. 
 
 We would not advocate the use of gun-boats in 
 the propagation of missionary enterprise, but the 
 prestige of naval power is certainly of value. It is the 
 only diplomatic argument that a power like the Turk- 
 ish Empire can comprehend. It may often be a means 
 of maintaining peace. It should be understood that 
 the United States Government is able to defend all 
 its citizens, missionaries or otherwise, as citizens, 
 and that on its own impulse. Already the late vic- 
 
 263 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 tories of the United States over Spain have had their 
 influence. A correspondent writing from the Le- 
 vant said in a recent letter : "How this late war has 
 raised America among the nations ! Even the Turks 
 and Syrian Moslems thank Allah for giving us the 
 victory over their foes of Andalusia. I do not be- 
 lieve in booming missions with gun-boats, but since 
 the United States have already demanded indemnity 
 from the Sultan for the loss of property, they cannot 
 back down. A simple intimation that Admiral 
 Sampson's fleet was coaling up for Smyrna would 
 cause that indemnity to be paid in twenty-four hours 
 and the fleet could stay at home." 
 
 There is another thing which is worth considering 
 from a missionary point of view, and that is the limi- 
 tation which may be put upon the access of Ameri- 
 can missionaries to the depressed races of the world. 
 There can be no doubt that all or nearly 
 all of the outlying realms of heathendom will 
 soon be brought under the various flags of 
 the civilized nations. Looking far ahead what 
 will be the probable effect of all this upon 
 American Missions? Could we be assured that the 
 Philippines and Hainan, Korea and Cambodia, the 
 Shan States and the dismembered Chinese Empire, 
 would all be held under British protectorates, we 
 should have no concern about open doors for our 
 missionary labors. But if Russia or France should 
 possess the Philippines they would be about as in- 
 accessible as they have been under Spain. The well- 
 
 264 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 known policy of Russia in excluding missionary op- 
 erations from her own territory will undoubtedly 
 prevail in all her dependencies. The Presbyterian 
 Board has virtually been driven from the Ogowe be- 
 cause it is claimed as French territory. In the Ger- 
 man possessions of West Africa there is also more or 
 less of restriction. 
 
 With respect to the Philippines the momentous 
 question now being decided is — shall that great archi- 
 pelago ever be opened to British or American Mis- 
 sions ? Shall the elevating influence of Anglo-Saxon 
 civilization with its free institutions and its intel- 
 lectual and moral stimulus ever be admitted? It is 
 the opinion of all intelligent judges of the situation 
 that any attempt to place the islands under the Brit- 
 ish flag would precipitate a European war. On the 
 other hand were the United States soon to abandon 
 the islands, savage intestine conflicts would follow, 
 the very thought of which almost causes a shudder. 
 Mexico as an independent republic passed through 
 fifty years of chaotic struggles, of revolutions and 
 dictatorships, prommciamentos, brigandage and 
 intrigue, before stable government and general 
 prosperity were secured; and in the Philippines the 
 chances would be still worse ; there is a profounder 
 ignorance and far less of national cohesion. In the 
 end and not very far hence there would be European 
 interventions, and then too there would probably be a 
 European war. 
 
 A congress of the powers and the establishment 
 265 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 of another ''Congo Free State" have been suggested. 
 But the experiment now being tried in the heart of 
 Africa, certainly precarious enough, and only 
 kept alive by the special guardianship and financial 
 sacrifices of a government of which nobody is jeal- 
 ous, affords little warrant for the success of such a 
 state in a group of some hundreds of scattered is- 
 lands, guarded by half a dozen European navies 
 moved only by one common element of mutual dis- 
 trust. The major verdict of thoughtful men seems to 
 be that God in his providence has laid a burden of 
 moral responsibility upon the United States which 
 should be met in the interest — whether including 
 their own interests or not — in the interest of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 But has a nation, as well as an individual, any 
 such thing as moral obligation? Precisely that is 
 the question now at issue, and it should be settled. 
 The old prophets of Israel plainly taught that it has : 
 modern diplomacy has practically maintained that it 
 has not. 
 
 It is also for the best interest of this nation. Our 
 national selfishness would turn to mold and mildew 
 if we were shut up to ourselves. The mighty ener- 
 gies that are fast accumulating on this continent 
 must find an outlet along some line of ennobling 
 activity or they will work destruction to our institu- 
 tions. As a broad and universal truth, the nations 
 which have undertaken to maintain their isolation 
 have not prospered. Japan which threw open her 
 
 266 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 doors forty years ago has made greater advances 
 since that time than in any five centuries of previous 
 history. Korea, notwithstanding the vigor of the 
 Korean race and the splenHd resources of the coun- 
 try, is weak and helpless, largely as a result of her 
 isolation. China, which has longest contended for 
 her own self-sufficiency and conservatism is on the 
 eve of dissolution. On the other hand the nations 
 which have borne the largest part in the commerce 
 and intercourse of the world, have in proportion to 
 their territory and population been the most prosper- 
 ous. This was true of Phenicia, holding at first only 
 a narrow strip of territory, on the Syrian coast. It 
 was true of the Venetians who possessed no country 
 but the sandy lagoons on which they had taken ref- 
 uge. It was true of Holland and of Portugal, and 
 last of all of Great Britain. Had the inhabitants of 
 the British Isles shut themselves up within their own 
 boundaries, and been simply a nation of farmers or 
 pale-faced weavers of fabrics, or tradesmen with for- 
 eign lands, they would have been a very different 
 race. The India civil service, the military service by 
 land and sea, the call for brawn and muscle and 
 brain, for hardship and self-sacrifice, in many lands 
 and climes, has done more for British manhood than 
 would ever have been possible had Great Brit- 
 ain been figuratively surrounded by a Chinese wall. 
 Provided always that this nation is guided by sen- 
 timents of reverence toward God and his eternal 
 truth, I see no reason to fear for the future. If no 
 
 267 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 sentiment of philanthropy were allowed to interfere 
 with a narrow and selfish policy, if political partisan- 
 ship were to be stronger than patriotism, if sectional 
 interests or class prejudices were to prevail over all 
 other considerations, then there were grave danger 
 ahead whether our territories are great or small. For 
 the last five years there has been great apprehension 
 in regard to the perpetuity of our democratic institu- 
 tions. The national issues of 1896 seemed alarming. 
 It was not expansion that was feared : it was conges- 
 tion. It was the internal strife of clashing interests 
 — labor against capital, silver against gold, the West 
 against the East, the South against the North. It was 
 the corruption of municipal governments, the over- 
 reaching rapacity of trusts, the omnipotence of the 
 liquor interest, the venality of legislation and the 
 general manipulation of politics. The question asked 
 by foreign observers and by not a few of our own 
 citizens was **can democratic self-government long 
 survive under such conditions?" In contrast with 
 all this the late war with Spain instead of increasing 
 the general sense of danger, seems to many to have 
 brought a new measure of hope. It has revealed the 
 hand of a divine Providence in our national affairs 
 and thus inspired our trust ; it has given new encour- 
 agement to the West and overcome its jealousy of 
 the East: it has allayed the animosities of classes 
 and arrayed men of every rank and calling in the 
 common defence of our flag; it has stirred nobler 
 sentiments than those of self -aggrandisement or 
 
 268 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 class aggrandisement: it has given to compatriots 
 from every section an increased mutual confidence 
 and respect and new hope for the republic. Mr. Ben- 
 jamin Kidd has said that altruism is the coming 
 watchword of this age and he is partly right. From 
 the still higher standpoint of Christianity the Son of 
 Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister : 
 and this is the highest duty of the individual man — 
 the highest duty of a nation. 
 
 269 
 
AN ANGLO-SAXON ALLIANCE IN FOREIGN 
 MISSIONS 
 
 The friendly tone of the British press, religious 
 and secular, has been very marked since the year 
 1898. While the importance of an American politi- 
 cal alliance, formal or informal, to British interests, 
 has doubtless been more or less in the minds of the 
 statesmen and publicists who have made friendly ad- 
 vances toward us since the splendid naval victories 
 at Manila and at Santiago de Cuba, yet none can ques- 
 tion the existence of a far deeper and more sacred 
 bond of friendship and sympathy. The unity based 
 on blood relationship, common origin, identity of 
 language, a joint and blended literature, similar so- 
 cial customs, a like Protestant faith, and above all, 
 a oneness of high and earnest missionary character 
 and purpose — such unity, so diversified and com- 
 bined, is stronger as a moral bond than all commer- 
 cial interests. It is too strong to be overcome by 
 geographical boundaries or possible jealousies. It 
 is in no spirit of mere sentiment, much less of exulta- 
 tion, that we cherish the belief that the Protestant 
 Anglo-Saxon nations have a peculiar mission in the 
 interest of humanity, education, and the inculcation 
 
 270 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 of religious truth in the world. The experience of 
 American missions in many lands has shown that 
 this is not a mere empty sentiment. It has been 
 found that wherever the flag of Great Britain waves, 
 on any continent or island of the sea, there American 
 missionaries can labor with less of hindrance, and 
 more of positive help and co-operation, than under 
 any other flag of foreign nations. 
 
 Christian civilians in India, at least since the sor- 
 did regime of the old East India Company was 
 broken, have not failed to lend their influence and 
 their hearty sympathy, to every effort of our Ameri- 
 can missionaries. The Anglo-Indian Government 
 has cheerfully granted subsidies in aid of our educa- 
 tional work, and men of means have given largely 
 for the support of our medical missions and our va- 
 rious eleemosynary institutions. Great and good 
 men have also contributed for the directly spiritual 
 work of our missions. 
 
 And not only in India, but in other lands where our 
 consular service was weak, or where no American 
 diplomatic representative was present, the high of- 
 ficers of the British Government have generously ex- 
 tended their protection and lent their aid to our mis- 
 sionaries and their work; this has been the case nota- 
 bly in the Turkish Empire. A half century ago 
 American missions derived great advantages from 
 the diplomatic intervention of Sir Stratford de Red- 
 cliffe. Long ago also there was established in Eng- 
 land a Turkish Missions Aid Society, which contrib- 
 
 271 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 uted its funds through the instrumentaHties of the 
 American Board. In relation to the liquor traffic, 
 which has devastated our mission stations in West 
 Africa and in the Pacific islands — a traffic supported 
 to a large extent by American citizens — Great Brit- 
 ain has at times been more ready to join in the sup- 
 pression of the evil than our ow^n government. Such 
 manifestations of sympathy and aid have been ten- 
 dered in no other land held by European powers. 
 The obstacles and restrictions placed by the French 
 government upon our missions on the Ogowe in 
 West Africa have been such as to compel our with- 
 drawal from that region, except to aid by a stipend 
 the French Protestant mission which has taken our 
 place. In the German protectorate at Batanga there 
 is more freedom, and yet there is more or less of re- 
 striction. 
 
 As for Russia, the venerable Dr. Cyrus Hamlin 
 has often declared that greater liberty was afforded 
 the American missionaries under the Turkish than 
 could be gained under the Russian flag. The Rus- 
 sian civil government and the headship of the Russo- 
 Greek church are in effect one and inseparable. Re- 
 ligion is employed as assiduously in advancing the 
 sceptre of the Czar as is the army or the navy. Not 
 only is the church influence established as soon as 
 any new territory is secured, but it is made the avant 
 courier of political aggression. When far-reaching 
 designs are formed for any conquest by war or di- 
 plomacy, Greek church propagandism prepares the 
 
 272 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 way. Many years ago, when there was more hope of 
 absorbing Japan than there is now, the Greek Bishop 
 Nicholai, with his priests, appeared among the very 
 first missionaries. Many months ago a representa- 
 tive of the Czar's government in Korea was suspected 
 of laying plans for supplanting the American mis- 
 sionaries by a force of priests from Russia. And, 
 last of all, in Persia, where also Russia is preparing 
 for the future, she is diligently seeking the total ab- 
 sorption of the Nestorian church. Now in the 
 scramble of these Continental powers for the uncivil- 
 ized countries of the heathen world, and in the jeal- 
 ousy which they feel toward British influence and 
 the increasing prevalence of the English language, 
 Americans naturally come in for a share of distrust. 
 Their kinship and their common tongue are against 
 them in any land not under the British flag. 
 
 It is worthy of special note that the only free ac- 
 cess which American missionaries have gained to 
 Mohammedans has been found in lands ruled by the 
 British Government. Everywhere else the remorse- 
 less death sentence of Islam against all apostasy from 
 the false prophet has confronted them with its in- 
 superable barrier. In the Turkish Empire and in 
 Persia, freedom of Christian propagandism has been 
 allowed only among the ancient Christian sects ; Mo- 
 hammedans have professed belief, if at all, at the 
 peril of their lives. But in India and to some extent 
 in the British protectorates of Egypt and Uganda, 
 Moslems, in accepting the Christian faith, are safe 
 
 273 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 from governmental interference. With the increase 
 of England's power on the Nile, and throughout 
 eastern Soudan, also in Uganda and eastward to the 
 coast at Mombasa, the long-continued and intolerant 
 supremacy of Islam must be broken. Religious lib- 
 erty must attend civil liberty and enlightenment. 
 
 In the French territory of northern and north- 
 western Africa, in the German possessions eastward 
 of the great African lakes, and in Java and other is- 
 lands where Mohammedan populations are found, 
 the arrogance of Islam is doubtless held in check; 
 but none of these are open fields for English-speak- 
 ing missionaries. There, as in Arabia, the evange- 
 lization of Mohammedans must be greatly restricted. 
 It will be tolerated only while the work is insignifi- 
 cantly small and uninfluential. Looking forward 
 then over the next quarter of a century the outlook 
 for either English or American missions to Moham- 
 medans seems confined to the colonies and the Pro- 
 tectorates of Great Britain and the United States. 
 These various mission fields bid fair to present the 
 most hopeful opportunities of all lands for the evan- 
 gelization of Mohammedans, and all these seem "to 
 be specially indicated by Divine Providence for Brit- 
 ish and American missions. This natural alliance 
 should be strengthened by the closest sympathy and 
 the most hearty co-operation. 
 
 And there are not wanting indications that French 
 influence in Africa will probably be throv/n to the 
 side of Mohammedans as against the English. 
 
 274 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 The very latest communications through the press 
 warrant the suspicion that the French intrigue in the 
 Soudan, and its possible alliance with the fanaticism 
 of the Kali fa and his adherents, have caused Lord 
 General Kitchener to assume a surprisingly conserva- 
 tive attitude with regard to the prospectus of the 
 Gordon Memorial College, which he has proposed to 
 found at Khartoum, and to adopt the policy, mis- 
 taken perhaps, of discouraging Christian mission- 
 ary effort, both Protestant and Catholic, for a time 
 at least. If such a policy is contemplated the pub- 
 lic sentiment of the British nation may be heard 
 from ; perhaps also some adverse deliverances of the 
 Papal hierarchy. Some caution may be necessary 
 as a war measure till Soudan be fully subdued, but 
 whatever action may be taken as a temporary ex- 
 pedient, while the British authority in Soudan is be- 
 ing more fully established, it can hardly be possible 
 that the British Colonial policy will reinstate the old 
 errors of the British East India Company, or at- 
 tempt anew that system of catering to heathen and 
 Moslem fanaticism, which in India gained nothing, 
 and came near to losing everything in the Sepoy re- 
 bellion of 1857. Undoubtedly Russia will be ready 
 to take sides with the Mohammedans of Afghanistan 
 and the border territories of India. There also politi- 
 cal necessities may have some influence on British 
 policy, but we believe that in the main and as a rule, 
 absolute freedom of religious opinion and worship 
 will be the watchword in all possessions held under 
 
 27s 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 Anglo-Saxon flags. Plainly, therefore, in their close 
 missionary co-operation, it is not to be inferred that 
 England and America are to establish anywhere a 
 monopoly of English-speaking Protestant missions. 
 Such is not in accordance with the genius of their 
 respective governments or of their free institutions. 
 It is more in keeping with the instincts of the Latin 
 or the Slavic races, and with those types of Chris- 
 tianity which for so many ages have maintained a 
 close and tyrannical union between church and state. 
 Anglo-Saxon Protestantism is everywhere tolerant. 
 Roman Catholic or Greek Church missions are al- 
 lowed free scope throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. 
 A Mohammedan mosque freely advances its propa- 
 gandism in the city of London, while in America, 
 Mormonism, w^ith an excess of freedom, is allowed 
 to threaten the very foundations of our social and 
 political order. There will be no restraint upon Ja- 
 panese Buddhism in Hawaii, and whatever the Chi- 
 nese in California may suffer from the persecutions 
 of the labor unions or from legislative restrictions 
 upon immigration, there will be no interference with 
 the *'joss' houses, or with the issue of paper money 
 as offerings to heathen deities. Liberty, in the larg- 
 est sense and to the greatest degree compatible with 
 good government, is the pride and hope of English- 
 speaking nations. Where this is regulated and in- 
 spired by the principles of a pure Gospel it touches 
 the high-water mark of civilization. 
 
 But without the influence of Christianity, west- 
 276 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 ern civilization — even that of the Anglo-Saxon — 
 cannot inspire and elevate the depressed races of 
 men ; it is often attended with positive disadvantage ; 
 mere unscrupulous commerce is generally a curse. 
 The vices of civilization are sometimes the most 
 deadly in their influence upon simple and childlike 
 savages. It has been said of the Anglo-Saxon that 
 *'with Christianity he is the best of men; without it. 
 he is the worst." Surely, in aggressive Christian 
 work in the world he stands at the head. I do not 
 forget the pioneer Danish missions, or the matchless 
 self-denying zeal of the Moravian church. One can- 
 not fail to recognize the earnest though limited work 
 of the French Protestants in South Africa, or of the 
 German and Scandinavian missionaries in various 
 lands, but the great volume of the Protestant mis- 
 sionary movement at the close of the century flows 
 through British and American channels. The mis- 
 sionary task of present-day Protestantism lies mainly 
 with these affiliated nations of a common race. Who- 
 ever has attended any of the Ecumenical Missionar}'- 
 Conferences of the last thirty years, and has studied 
 the summaries and statistics there presented, has be- 
 come sufficiently aware of this fact. The more thor- 
 ough and complete the American and British mis- 
 sionary co-operation, therefore, the brighter the hope 
 of the world's evangelization. 
 
 As an outcome of this peculiar situation it seems 
 likely that American and British missionary enter- 
 prises will be drawn more and more closely together, 
 
 277 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 Africa is covered now almost entirely by European 
 protectorates with more or less of that international 
 jealousy to which reference has been made. China, 
 Manchuria, Hainan, and perhaps Korea, seem des- 
 tined to suffer a similar distribution. Should such 
 be the case, the American foreign missionary work of 
 the Twentieth Century must be carried on mainly 
 either under our own or under the British flag; and 
 this relationship will be reciprocal. The Anglican 
 Church Missionary Society has already so prosper- 
 ous a work in Hawaii, now an American territory, 
 that the American Protestant Episcopal Church 
 seems inclined to leave the field in its hands, while 
 Mr. Duncan, formerly of Metlakatla, British Colum- 
 bia, professes to find even greater freedom under the 
 United States flag in Alaska than under that of his 
 fellow-countrymen. 
 
 In the American protectorate of the Philippines, 
 British missionary societies will be welcomed, and 
 will be accorded equal rights and privileges. What- 
 ever may be true of commercial regulations, there 
 will certainly be an ''open door" to all, in the one 
 great common missionary work. And the same co- 
 operation will be welcomed by our Anglo-Saxon 
 kinsmen of the British colonies in South Africa, and 
 Australia. 
 
 At a certain anniversary of the American Board, 
 held several years ago, an English visitor created 
 great enthusiasm by a friendly challenge. He said, 
 in effect; "We cherish the warmest interest in your 
 
 278 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 widespread missionary work, and we welcome your 
 fellowship and co-operation. Send forth your am- 
 bassadors to the waste places of the heathen world, 
 and we will match you man for man and share with 
 you in the blessed harvest." It was a challenge wor- 
 thy of the nation from which it came, and of the na- 
 tion to which it came. It is worthy to be ratified 
 anew. 
 
 While the Ecumenical Missionary Conference in 
 London in 1888 extended its cordial invitations to all 
 Protestant missionary bodies of the world, the most 
 conspicuous fact was that so large a part of the great 
 ingathering represented English-speaking nations. 
 
 Beloved brethren of the Protestant churches of 
 France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, and 
 Scandinavia were warmly welcomed; but so great 
 was the preponderance of the Anglo-Saxon element 
 that the discussions were almost wholly in the Eng- 
 lish tongue. Not only Great Britain and the United 
 States, but Canada, India, Ceylon, Australia, South 
 Africa, and New Zealand were represented by dele- 
 gates of the one Anglo-Saxon race. About the same 
 time with this interdenominational missionary con- 
 ference a Pan- Anglican conference of Bishops and a 
 council of the Alliance of Presbyterian and Re- 
 formed churches throughout the world were also 
 held in London. Both of these great gatherings bore 
 special testimony to the prepondering volume and 
 aggressive force of the Anglo-Saxon element in the 
 advancement of Protestant Christianity in the world. 
 
 279 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 The American delegates to these great gatherings 
 in London felt it to be a privilege to mingle with 
 their English cousins in Christian counsel and Chris- 
 tian work, to enjoy their abundant hospitality, and 
 feel the atmosphere of their Christian homes, to 
 study their manifold religious and eleemosynary in- 
 stitutions, and the home life and church life which 
 have been bequeathed to us. It was like a Thanks- 
 giving visit to the ancestral roof — a family gather- 
 ing of children and grandchildren from all the Brit- 
 ish colonies. It was inspiring to visit the Great Ab- 
 bey and be reminded that England's heroic history 
 was also our history; her literature our literature; 
 her Bible our Bible; her struggles for civil and re- 
 ligious liberty our struggles; and the rich heritage 
 thus gained our heritage as well as hers. 
 
 But it was impossible to forget that it was on the 
 religious side of our kinship that this close fellowship 
 was realized, for it was very apparent that the great 
 mass of society little heeded our gatherings. While but 
 scanty space was given to the conferences of churches 
 and missions, many columns were occupied with the 
 Ascot races and the idle gossip of aristocratic so- 
 ciety. 
 
 But it is only the missionary alliance of Anglo- 
 Saxon Christians that we are considering. The whole 
 problem is not 3Tt grappled with, and the difficulties 
 are not yet all met. In all the English-speaking lands 
 above named, home missions have yet a great work, 
 which must progress side by side with the joint ef- 
 
 280 
 
OF MODERN MISSIONS 
 
 forts put forth in the ends of the earth. Another 
 great rally of missionary forces is announced for the 
 year 1900, and this will be held in New York. There 
 will be a reciprocation of hospitality, a new discus- 
 sion of plans and methods and results, and we trust, 
 a closer co-operation for the conquest of the world 
 for Christ. 
 
 Considering the missionary enterprise in all its 
 branches and departments — evangelistic, educational, 
 medical, industrial and eleemosynary — its influence 
 in breaking down oppression, banishing superstition, 
 introducing improved sanitation, alleviating the con- 
 dition of womanhood, childhood, and old age, in 
 overcoming caste and raising up the oppressed and 
 degraded; — considering all this as a great modern 
 world movement, we may safely assume that the 
 forces of our Anglo-Saxon civilization are accom- 
 plishing a large part in the sum total of its beneficent 
 results. And it is only in this broad and inclusive 
 survey that any true conception of modern missions 
 can be gained. The man who can comprehend it in 
 its fulness, can no longer indulge in the delusion that 
 it is small, trivial, unimportant. In the one depart- 
 ment of medical missions, the British and the Ameri- 
 can, or the English-speaking nations, are supplying 
 six hundred and sixty, out of the six hundred and 
 eighty Protestant medical missionaries who are scat- 
 tered over the world. In the great work of 
 education too their place is scarcely less promi- 
 nent, whether it be in the lower grades of in- 
 
 281 
 
QUESTIONS AND PHASES 
 
 struction, or in the higher seminaries and colleges. 
 In translating printing and disseminating the Scrip- 
 tures and other religious books and tracts, school 
 books and treatises upon science, American and Brit- 
 ish missions also hold the leading place. The great 
 dictionaries in China, Japan, Korea as well as in In- 
 dia and Burmah, are mainly their work also. In the 
 work of famine relief, in the extension of railroad 
 and telegraph lines, in the encouragement of agri- 
 culture and the industrial arts, and in the general up- 
 lifting of the nations with which they have to deal, 
 they have taken the lead. All this is said, not by way 
 of boasting or exultation, but only to stimulate the 
 purpose and the zeal of those who speak and teach 
 the English language, that they may aspire to a 
 broader and grander work for the Redeemer's King- 
 dom. 
 
 THE END 
 
 282 
 
Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Lit 
 
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