:; i AND " Jfc -X MOVEMENTS ;(kbMi(mn^mtiotfAM$S5es q.U+.'ofy PRINCETON, N. J. ^Jj Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. BV 2060 .F73 1904 Fowler, Charles Henry, 1837-^ 1908. Missions and world movements Missions and World Movements Missions and World Movements By ^ Bishop Charles H. Fowler An address delivered before the Eastern Missionary Con- vention of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, Philadelphia, Pa., October 13-15, 1903 \ r NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE ^ The Philadelphia Convention Addresses are pub- lished in a series of seven small volumes, of which this is one. The volumes are entitled: A CALL TO ADVANCE MISSIONS AND WORLD MOVEMENTS THE ASIATIC FIELDS THE AFRICAN, EUROPEAN, AND LATIN AMERICAN FIELDS GENERAL SURVEY AND HOME FIELDS YOUNG PEOPLE AND MISSIONS THE MISSIONARY WORKSHOP Copyright, 1903, by Jennings & Pye Copyright, 1904, by Eaton & Mains Missions and World Movements. ♦ Missions and World Movements fully stated would answer the whys of human history ; why it runs thus and thus. Mount Calvary is the key that unlocks the mystery. Redemption is God's objective point. What- ever God says goes in a Missionary Conven- tion; goes finally in human history. I have seen throngs of Hindus bathing at the junc- tion of the Ganges and the Jumna. They believed that at the junction of these two sacred rivers there was also a third, a holy and invisible river coming down from the throne of God that, mingling with the two earthly rivers, cleansed the bathers and made them fit for the kingdom of God. So we 5 Missions and World Movements. hold that where the great streams of secular events and of Church movements mingle, there is also another stream coming down from God's Almighty Providence that trans- forms these streams and orders their move- ments in the interest of the kingdom of God. This stream of Providence comes to the sur- face in the history of Israel, but it sweeps on under all history. Cyrus took Babylon from polytheists, idolaters, and extended the domains of Monotheism. Mohammed trampled down idolatrous altars. The bloody Eagles of Rome quieted and com- pacted the clashing tribes, and lifted a wide shield that protected St. Paul everywhere from the malice and bigotry of his country- men. German and English monarchs turned back the power of the pope, and made room for religious freedom. Wesley touched the dead corpse of formal Christianity; it felt the throb of new life, and stood upon its feet. Missions and World Movements. The Trend of the Ages is Godward. Latest evolutionists hold that natural se- lection is under this law. There has always been one end in view up through all animal increments to the perfected physical, up into the intellectual, and up, by the same law of selection, to the spiritual. From the first speck of mist in the universe on through the inconceivable lapses of duration there has been a steady trend toward the perfect man. This ideal of evolution Christianity has realized in the man of Nazareth. There is that in things that makes for righteous- ness. My faith does not faint or weary in this long ascent. This only gives me a good start into an endless future. The Supreme Power who has worked and watched so long will not now sleep nor forget me. On the way to the North Cape our steamer brushed against the branches of trees on the sides of the mountains that rose 7 Missions and World Movements. almost straight up out of the sea. I won- dered how it could be safe to sail so close. But marine engineers said to me: "It is safe. The shape and slant of the land above water indicates the shape and slant of the land below." So the unnumbered ages of God's thought in the past assures me of care for endless ages to come. When God tires out it will be so late, that the universe will have been rolled together like a scroll and folded away like a vesture, and we shall have grown so old and strong on the wide fields of our eternal activity that we can only dimly recall the little kindergarten patch of this world's missions. With Jesus here in our humanity, we see what is pos- sible. We can poorly realize what we shall be; but this we know, we shall be trans- formed into His likeness, our vile bodies shall be fashioned like unto his glorious body, and we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. God seeks always with all 8 Missions and World Movements. power and with all wisdom, with all unflag- ging, heartaching love to lift up and save all men. He is no respecter of persons; he willeth not the death of him that dieth, but would that all men would turn and live. God's Providence sweeps round the world and through all time. All available forces and agencies are marshaled and marched, sent into the field to help forward his re- deeming purpose. So the great world forces that seem so hard and hostile are yet handled by him. They are his messengers, his mis- sionaries. Even the wrath of men shall praise him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain. All things shall work together for good for his children and for his cause. True, many statesmen handling heathen countries for profit, many nominal Chris- tians in mission-fields for trade, many trav- elers wishing to make books for the market, and many sea-going officers who barely reach open ports, are the natural enemies of 9 9 Missions And World Movements. missionaries and of their work. The lives of many of these men are rebuked, and their practices are interfered with ; therefore they are quick to criticise what they never inves- tigate. The East India Company stood in the way of the work for years. Government officials frequently are willing to find scape- goats, and therefore criticise and complain. But in spite of all these surface views, the facts remain that missionaries usually lead the way into these lands. They furnish much information for government adminis- trators and for scientists. The secretaries and interpreters of the government embas- sies to unopened heathen countries have nearly always been missionaries. When the ministers of the civilized governments were besieged in Peking, and the whole world stood aghast hourly expecting the horrible massacre to be consummated, it was a mis- sionary, an honored member of this body that conducted the defense, without which 10 Missions and World Movements. deliverance would have been impossible. When our American troops made their way into Peking under the wall through the bed of the river, as the Persians made their way into Bablyon and into the feast of Belshaz- zar, it was a missionary of our own missions who led the troops into the city. We feel that it is high time for this irresponsible and unjust criticism to stop. Pardon me that I have turned aside a moment to repel these gorillas. To repel gorillas, did I say? No, not to repel goril- las ; only to brush away these gnats. Let me address myself to the great forces that fill this field. Our theme, like a cube in geometry, has three dimensions — length, breadth, and thickness. Its factors are nations and races ; its fields are seas and continents; its sweep is the duration of mankind. It is ethno- logical, touching all the families of men. It is political, reaching all the world govern- ii Missions and World Movements. ments. It is ethical, handling the principles of the moral government of God. It has chiefly to do with the Mongol, the Slav, the Saxon, and the Latin and the African races. It involves paganism, heathenism and the Greek Church, Romanism and Protestant- ism. As a map of the world can show only the few very great cities, so we can only touch a very few of the principal world movements. The Latin races in the Eastern Hemisphere have a great past, and in the Western Hemisphere they promise a great future. But we must pass these important fields with the prayer and hope that our missionary work may rejuvenate the one and emancipate the other. The African race is a far more remote dominion ; this also we must pass. Let us fix our thought rather upon the uncounted baptized and unbaptized heathen, whose movements claim our atten- tion. 12 Missions and World Movements. The Pacific the Storm-center of this Twentieth Century. The Pacific is the storm-center of the world. Low political barometers are trav- ersing its vast surface. Danger-signals are exhibited on nearly every coast. All the great Capitals are watching their ventures. The storm-center has left the Mediterran- ean and the British Channel and the North Atlantic, and now draws all eyes to the Yel- low Sea and the Pacific. De Tocqueville said : "The United States was a new factor in the world, the significance of which even the imagination could not grasp." Creasy, the English historian, in 185 1 predicted the forcible opening of Japan by the United States and ■ vast changes in the Orient. Thomas H. Benton, arguing in the United States Senate for a Pacific Railroad, pointed to the setting sun and said, "There, there, gentlemen, is the East I" William H. Sew- 13 Missions and, World Movements. ard, in Congress pleading in the interest of commerce for more accurate surveys of the North Pacific, gifted with the vision of the Seer, said: "The Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theater of events in the world's great hereafter." And again, this great statesman, in 1852, standing in the United States Senate Chamber by the side of the bier of Henry Clay, said : "Certainly, sir, the great lights of the Senate have set. We are rising to a more sublime stage of national progress, that of expanding wealth and rapid territorial aggrandizement. . . . Commerce has brought the ancient conti- nents near to us, and created necessities for new positions. . . . Perhaps connections or colonies there. . . . Even Prudence will soon be required to decide whether distant regions East or West shall come under our protection, or be left to aggrandize a rap- idly spreading and hostile domain of des- '4 Missions and World Movements. potism. Sir, who among us is equal to these mighty questions? I fear there is no one. Since these inspired words were uttered more than fifty years have joined the silent and endless procession of the past. That statesman, like the one voiceless at his feet, has passed from the stage of action into the chiseled marble and molded bronze, and into the page of history. But these "mighty questions" are standing here, like mailed warriors, to dispute our march into the fu- ture. Whether we wish to enter the lists or not, we must, with the aid of the facts dropped at our feet by this half-century, make to these "mighty questions" answers with which we can humbly and fearlessly face God. The apocalyptic angel for this twentieth century, calling the nations to judgment, stands with one foot on the Pacific and the other on the continent of Asia. The Pa- 15 Missions and World Movements. cific washes five continents out of six. Asia contains the three greatest empires on earth — British, Russian, Chinese. It cradles three-fourths of mankind. It has the loftiest mountains and the most important rivers. It has the widest stretches of arable land, and the most productive soil. It had an empire extending from the Arctic Sea to the Indian Ocean, and from Germany to the Yellow Sea. "It built the most wonderful of all cities, Babylon, and the richest of all palaces, Persepolis, and the most beautiful of all tombs, the Taj Mahal." It has given us music and the drama, gunpowder and the compass — guide on the earth, and the Bible — guide to heaven. It has generated the most philosophies, and is the birthplace of all the great religions. It has produced "the five greatest moral and religious teachers of the world — Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Mohammed ;" the wisest of kings and the bloodiest of conquerors. This is 16 Missions and World Movements. the land "where Abraham received the cove- nant, and Moses the law; where the first Adam sinned, and the second suffered." This is great Asia, whose population to-day is on the increase, and whose virility, with the aid of Russian infusions, equals its palmiest days; whose commerce is the magnet of every metropolis, and whose markets are the inspiration of every great nation and the necessity of all the dense populations. With new blood monopolizing her highways ; with rival leaders, the Saxon and the Slav, fighting with their backs to the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean, it is impossible for the imagination to measure its importance. Not a harbor open to the Pacific but feels the throbbing of its swell- ing pulse, and not a nation with a Pacific exposure that can safely sleep at the present low-tide mark. 17 Missions and World Movements. China the Problem whose Solution will Stamp the World's Civil- ization with Absolut- ism or Freedom. Turkey is the sick man in Europe, China is the sick man in Asia. I can not discuss her special mission work. I can only enter the Yellow Ward in the World's Hospital, feel the patient's pulse, look at her tongue, question the nurses, and sit down a few mo- ments with doctors and surgeons in the ante-room. The patient seems to have creep- ing paralysis. It may be Locomotor Ataxia. It may be only the trick of the old serpent. The doctors are timid about diagnosing the case. They all agree that whatever ails her body the malady has not reached her intel- lect. Her cunning has never been surpassed. The Russian surgeon has brought his chest of instruments, yet he seems to hesitate to venture an opinion. Once when the Roman Missions and World Movements. Conclave was walled in to elect a new pope, and no one of the Catholic monarchs was certain of electing his candiate, in order to gain time they elected an aged cardinal who was too sick and feeble to stand alone. As soon as the ballot was announced the sick man arose, dropped his crutches, and straightened up in vigorous manhood, say- ing, "Now, gentlemen, you have a ruler." A long and powerful reign verified his state- ment. So it is difficult to treat this sick man of Asia, who has the longevity of the for- ests, the rough endurance of the rhinoceros, the stately dignity of the lion, the cunning of the fox, and the wisdom of the serpent. The; Bulk otf China Is too vast to be handled easily in our minds. As it was lying on the map when some of us were in school, it stretched through sixty degrees of longitude and spread over forty degrees of latitude. It measured four and 19 Missions and World Movements. a half million square miles. But in the con- vulsions of recent years it has shaken off Tibet, Hi, Kashgaria, Mongolia, and Korea, and now Manchuria is also being given to the great Polar Bear. There remains one million five hundred thousand square miles of the best acreage, one-third the empire in area, with eleven-twefths in population. It is over 350,000,000 strong. It is not diffi- cult to accept the recent statement of J. W. Foster, the great authority on American di- plomacy, when he says: "It is scarcely an exaggeration in presence of its history and attainments to assert that no nation or race of ancient or modern times has stronger claim than the Chinese to be called a great people." They were an ancient people, with city and town organizations, with commerce and trade, with arts and sciences, with his- tories and heroes, three thousand years be- fore there was an Anglo-Saxon. They had printing many centuries before Faust played 20 Missions and World Movements. with his blocks ; and gunpowder long before the last great Mohammed shot down the gates and walls of Constantinople. Their compass directed their open sea voyages be- yond the sight of mountain or beacon long before Columbus picked up bits of strange wood on the shores of Italy. They dug salt- wells five thousand feet deep centuries be- fore Solomon was born, and they had civil service examinations for office ages before Abraham received the blessing from Mel- chizedec. Surely they are a great people. When I stepped upon their shores I felt that I was in another world. The ages crumbled beneath my feet, and I instinct- ively looked about me for the patriarchs and for the leaders of the primitive races. Phys- ically everything was turned around. Men I met turned out to the left ; men I greeted shook their own hands instead of mine. Scaffoldings were built first, then the houses were built inside of them. The mechanic 21 Missions and World Movements. turned his auger and gimlet and screws to the left to make them enter. The carpenter pulled his plane and his saw toward him, and pushed his drawing-knife from him. Strangers moving into a new neighborhood called on the people with whom they wanted social relations. Soon one learns that these externals are only indices of deeper differ- ences. The very modes of thought seem reversed. Their architecture and art and very laws of language are peculiar. Busi- ness methods, politics, literature, amuse- ments, and worship are all reversed. While the races of the Orient often differ widely from each other in personal appearance, in costume and speech, yet one feels a common spirit among them all. Touch Asia any- where, and you have the same impressions. It is like touching a tiger, soft and pleasant ; yet you are conscious that there are teeth and claws concealed near by. There is the same politeness and dignity in manner, the 22 Missions and World Movements. same indifference to truth, and attention to minute social laws. It is always easier for them to lie than to offend. yEsthetics anni- hilates Ethics. They respect successful falsehood, and judges who are flagrantly corrupt. They placidly accept any govern- ment with power. They admire a governor who rides over them and beheads them. Liberty would be scoffed by them. They think that there is no use of having power unless you use it. They do not believe in power that they can not see. Honesty is a myth, and a man who does not improve his opportunities is an imbecile. They are ob- livious of the value of time, and hate haste as much as if they had, like Methuselah, eight or nine centuries to kill. There is a gulf between the Orientals and Occidentals as wide as the gulf fixed between Dives and Lazarus, yet, as in that case, there are hu- mans on both sides. These are some of the characteristics of the Asiatics, from the Arc- 23 Missions and World Movements. tic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, and from the Black Sea to the Yellow Sea. These characteristics, bad as they are throughout Asia, Have Their Worst Development in China. Here their evil types are confluent and ma- lignant. The Chinaman has no public spirit. The officers are paid to administer the gov- ernment; so let them do it. The officers, almost without exception, are unmitigated liars and thieves, and the mass of the people match them in perfidy. There is not the slightest shame about lying. But it is a dis- grace not to put on the best face. Treachery is a virtue. Li Hung Chang gave safe con- duct and assurances to the seven leading captive generals of the Tai Ping Rebellion to dine with him on his boat, and the next morning their heads were knocking about \n the bay. Sir Robert Hart was so out- 24 Missions and World Movements. raged by this bloody perfidy that it is said he hunted all day, revolver in hand, for Prince Li, determined to kill him at sight. There is no limit to their mendacity. The higher the official, the more monumental the treachery. In 1793, Lord Macartney was the first English Plenipotentiary to be ad- mitted to an audience with the Emperor. He refused to kowtow, i. e., pound his head on the ground, for his king knew no su- perior. The boat that carried him up the Peiho toward Peking bore a flag saying, "Ambassador bearing tribute from the Country of England." The high officials took advantage of his ignorance of Chinese to proclaim this falsehood. It would take a supernatural chemistry to distill one drop of honorable integrity out of a nation like that. It is not strange that such a people left to themselves are incapable of gratitude. The two men who have served China most faithfully for more than half a century in 3 2 5 Missions and World Movements. most arduous and distinguished duties, are Sir Robert Hart, head of the Customs serv- ice, whose integrity and honesty and lofty character have never been questioned, and Dr. Martin, head of the Chinese College for training men for the diplomatic service of China. The greatness of these men is only sur- passed by the greatness and variety of their public services. There are no men in all Asia who deserve more from China than they do. There ought not to be a man in the empire who would not gladly protect these two men at all hazards. Yet when the outbreak against the foreigners culmi- nated in Peking, no man would lift a hand to help them, and they barely escaped with their lives into the protection of the British barricades. The empire is honeycombed with secret societies. The slyness and mystery of these organizations are adapted to the superstition 26 Missions and World Movements. and suspicion of the Chinese character. These societies afford runways from the officials and from real and imaginary ene- mies. Their thieves have a king, who sells immunity from their ravages. Their beg- gers also have a king, who fixes the price of deliverance from their importunities and offensiveness. It is an unclassified social condition, where a beggar travels his cir- cuit on horseback. Famine relief money sent to Canton was used to pay damages awarded on account of assaults made upon the foreign concession. When the emperor orders that taxes be not collected in a cer- tain district on account of famine, the offi- cials often carefully delay posting the de- cree till after the taxes have been collected. Often when relief has been distributed the tax-gatherer follows close upon the heels of the charity agent and gathers up the contributions. Possibly these two agents have a co-partnership in the business, and 27 Missions and World Movements. both thrive. I saw up in the hills along the Yang-tse the castle of a great viceroy, who had cut off within three scores of ten thousand heads, and I saw some of the heads hung out over the street in iron baskets like ancient torchlights. This viceroy was pray- ing to his gods to spare him till he rounded up the full ten thousand. Yet he would quote from Mencius and other ancient clas- sics beautiful sentiments about "the sacred- ness of human life."' Cooke in his "Life and State Papers of a Chinese Statesman," shows that this statesman "pockets the money given to him to repair an embank- ment, and thus inundates a province; and he deplores the land lost to the cultivation of the soil." Signing a treaty he said it was "only a deception for the moment," yet he exclaims "against the crime of perjury." The supreme irony known anywhere in the world, in the united judgment of the foreign ministers, is in the inscription over the en- 28 Missions and World Movements. trance to the Yamen, where treaties are ne- gotiated, which reads, "The greatest happi- ness is in doing good." Like the wrecker, who had picked up the body of a drowned man, when asked if he tried to resuscitate him, said, "Yes, sir; I picked his pockets." This bland, two-faced perjury runs through- out the empire from top to bottom. Very rare exceptions, one in a thousand millions, are found, hardly enough to prove the law. Li Hung Chang was sent to St. Peters- burg to protest against Russian encroach- ments upon Manchuria, and he was at that very time in the pay of the Russian Govern- ment as a director in the Russian Bank in Peking. China is the supreme hypocrite of all the races and of all the ages. It is a compound of Judas Iscariot and Ananias, perfected by the training and practices of four thousand years. It has not the con- science of Judas, enabling it to commit sui- cide. It barely has the smoldering rem- 29 Missions and World Movements. nants of the moral sense of Ananias, suffi- ficient to make it susceptible to moral pun- ishment. Its chief public virtue is fear of power. The only binding force in its cove- nants is in the mouth of a double-shotted cannon. This Moral Mummy is Embalmed and Wrapped in Superstitions Four thousand years old, and more than ten thousand layers deep. These super- stitions touch every act of life and every word and every secret thought. They are victims of luck, fortune-tellers, and necro- mancy. They live in a world packed to the very stars with powerful spirits, which must not be offended. All ranks and classes from the emperor down to the poorest cooley, are steeped and boiled and parboiled in super- stition. By these superstitions the univer- sity men and the priests govern and rob and torment all classes. A priest in charge of a 30 Missions and World Movements. temple in Canton pays many thousand dol- lars ($40,000) for the control of the temple. He robs the people by his monopolies to pay this fee and enrich himself. Poor people pay to him ten times as much for an incense stick as it costs elsewhere. Only sticks pur- chased in that temple can be burned there. Women pay enormous extortions for the privilege of sleeping on mats in the temple. This privilege is said to increase their chances for male progeny. All China is robbed and persecuted and tormented by these cruel superstitions. Be- hind the viceroy's Yamen in Tientsin — that was hi Hung Chang's Yamen, or Court — there was a temple to Ta Wang, the wind and water dragon. A boat conveying a pre- fect was nearly overturned by a sudden storm. Some boatman with his pole must have carelessly disturbed Ta Wang. Care- ful search was made, and a small snake was discovered near the railroad bridge. 3i Missions and World Movements. Profuse apologies and prostrations were made to it, and it was carefully carried with the greatest pomp and ceremony to the Ta Wang temple. China is the deepest pit of heathenism, where Satan brews his most powerful charms and his most deadly moral plagues. No human plummet can fathom this sea of corruption. Two hundred thousand na- tives in Hong Kong, many of them born there or living there fifty years in close con- tact with intelligent foreigners, glad to have the protection of the British flag and the high wages of a British city, where silver is as abundant as brass on the main land, and where no mandarin can extort half or any part of their wages; glad to be taught English without cost, so as to earn the high wages of European clerks and have the free service of English physicians; glad to be under incorruptible magistrates and just policemen; glad to live in a model foreign 32 Missions and World Movements. city, where they can live as they please and follow their own customs, and worship their own gods, with everything to help them, and nothing to disturb them, — in spite of all this they are in all ranks with very few ex- ceptions, too few to count, as deeply dyed with superstitions as any who never even saw a civilized man. They are bland and smiling and silent, while nothing unusual jars the public mind. But when the plague came all their old superstitions came to the surface. They cursed and hated the for- eigners, and hid their sick from the doctors, and refused to go to the hospitals, and as- saulted both doctors and nurses, and threat- ened to burn the city and poison the wells. They believed every old superstition, and trusted their incantations and vile, filthy remedies. The influences of the clean and helpful civilization in which they had lived for half a century, but which did not con- cern itself much about their religious en- 33 Missions and World Movements. lightenment, vanished in one hour. There remained only hatred for the foreigners and the undisputed reign of Satan. No human power can save this people. Only the al- mighty grace of God, that can create anew the elements and energies of a moral nature, can make them moral and trustworthy for the uses of civilization. The one virtue in the Chinese character that has survived these long centuries of op- pression and superstition that keeps society from utter dissolution, and the State from annihilation, is the Family Tie. It begins with the devotion of children, strengthens with every year of natural life, and extends to the worlds out of sight, in an absorbing worship of parents and ancestors. There is no limit to the thoroughness and cruelty with which penalty is inflicted upon a child that kills his father. In Foochow 34 Missions and World Movements. I saw the traces of this penalty upon a young man who had killed his father with a hoe as they worked in the field. The officers chained him to a post in the execution place, and compelled his mother to cut out the first piece from his breast. Then they hacked him slowly into small pieces till there was only a heap of refuse at the foot of the stake. Then they executed the mother for having such a son, and the neighbors living next on either side for having such a neighborhood. Next the officer, like a policeman, whose duty it was to keep order in that beat, was executed. The officer above him, like our sheriff, was banished. The Tawtai, or gov- ernor, of the district was removed from office. Then they burned down the house in which the man had lived, and dug up the ground under it to the depth of two feet and carted the dirt off and dumped it into the river. They intended to wipe out that wickedness so it could not spread. 35 Missions and World Movements. Every Emphasis is Placed upon the Family. It is the unit in the State. The entire fam- ily is responsible for the conduct of each member. There is a mortgage of ancient and constant custom, an unwritten law, that makes the family responsible for the debts of the father. There is only one way to dis- charge a debt in China, and that is to pay it. It follows the family like an avenging spirit, not to the third or fourth generation, but forever till it is paid. The family must take care of its own poor. One man thrives, the indolent and thriftless live on him. He must employ them even to the exclusion of competent service, and often even to the ruin of his business. This family feeling widens a little, reaching neighborhoods and clans, but fails to strengthen the empire. The family tie is the chief virtue planted in the Garden of Eden that has survived all 36 Missions and World Movements. the migrations, and all the changes in dy- nasty, and all the centuries. It absorbs all the natural vigor of patriotism and all the supernatural inspiration of religion. Its roots entwine the earth, and its branches em- brace the heavens. Another element of strength in the China- man is his Colonizing Power. He crosses all seas and burrows into all continents. He surpasses the Saxon in abil- ity to toil in all climates. He matches the Russian in enduring Arctic storms, and sur- passes the Negro in working in the tropics. He is the one cosmopolitan, at home every- where as if he owned the world. Silent, gentle, submissive, industrious, economical, temperate, all-enduring, he thrives every- where — on the mountains, in the deserts, on the plains, in the islands. As the serpent, with his one ability to crawl, competes in 37 Missions and World Movements. various fields, without fins swims with the fish, without hands climbs with the mon- key, and without feet runs with the horse, so the Chinaman with his one ability of adaptation competes successfully with the sailor on the sea, and with the frontiersman in the wilderness, and with the miner under the earth, and with the exile in wanderings. He does not ask for a fair chance. He asks only for a chance, so does not try to crowd anybody. Once landed, he abides. The in- dividual changes, but the kind continues. A human microbe, he multiplies. Not being a politician, all governments that let him alone suit him. He never breeds nor joins revolutions abroad. Not being a specialist, all industries with a possible margin attract him. He never boycotts any trade. Not being ambitious, except for more cash, all social orders that pay for services are equally satisfactory to him. He is pleasing to the greatest variety of women. He marries 38 Missions and Woru> Movements. through the widest range of races. Like a mongoose he can run through any passage- way. Though fond of a palace, he can live in a closet and make a home anywhere. As gravity draws all rivers along the lines of least resistance, so his instinct for gain draws him along lines where there is the least waste of energy. He is the supreme colonizer. All countries are his — Siberia, India, Bur- mah, Australia, all the Americas, including the Philippines. All the islands of the seas ; he has the largest colonies here and there on the earth, even larger than the English colony, Buenos Ayres. In the Malay Straits he far outnumbers the Malays. In Siam he is nearly three million strong, one-third the entire population of that kingdom. But for the fact that he could not vote in Amer- ica, and so left the politicians to oppose him in the interest of those who could vote, he might have been to-day ten millions strong 39 Missions and World Movements. under our flag. It took all the venom of local prejudices and all the power of the General Government to check this silent, creeping, ever-pressing tide. In his wide wanderings he is a factor wherever he lives. He owns and manages great steamship lines, banks, factories, mines, plantations, mercantile establish- ments, great corporations in the English col- ony of Hong Kong, in Japan, in Singapore, in India, in Burmah, in Siam. He is a constant menace to the laborer in every labor market of the world. The Chinaman is not a Soldier. You find over China statues of scholars and statesmen and philosophers and literary men, but not often of soldiers. He has no military spirit, yet he has courage when he is well drilled, commanded, and paid. There are rare instances of heroism. Some men have volunteered as substitutes to be exe- 40 Missions and World Movements. cuted. He believes in strategy, not arms. He fights behind walls, like a cornered rat ; but before an assault he runs like an ante- lope. This spirit has made it possible to live in the same world with him. When he shall find a good drill-master and an able com- mander, and prompt care when wounded, and certain pay for service, he will be a splendid soldier. Russia can furnish all these lacking requisites. England sent a drill sergeant up the Nile into the sands of Egypt to the water-carrying fellahs, and Europe and Asia were surprised to see these recruits fight like ancient Greeks. Any- thing the Egyptians can do, the Chinaman can do. What England has done for Egypt, Russia can do for China. The greatest modern Chinese statesman, Wensiang, often said to foreign diplomats : "You are all too anxious to wake us and start us on a new road, and you will do it ; but you will all regret it, for, once waking 4 41 Missions and World Movements. and started, we shall go fast and far, farther than you think, and much faster than you want." The Problem with China is This, Which Way is She Going? In recent years she has lost two-thirds of her territory, though only one-twelfth of her population. Yet there remain fifteen hun- dred thousand square miles of land, an im- mense block of available land, and 350,000,- 000 of people. She may change dynasties, she may come under the control of some for- eign Power; but she will not cease to be. She will not be wiped out. Like the king in a chess game she may be checkmated, but she can not be removed from the board. Some pawn or knight, some Japanese or Muscovite, will cover her exposure and con- tinue the game. Her very numbers is God's promise of perpetuity. The yellow race will remain the menace of the world. It lies on 42 Missions and World Movements. the shore of Asia, a huge club, only waiting to be picked up by some Hercules. China is the world's problem for the twentieth century. Who will seize this club? Russia the Coming Power. We are up against an inexorable propo- sition. As we peer into the mists that veil the future, coming events cast their shad- ows toward us. There is a huge figure ap- proaching. It has a fur cloak over its shoul- ders, and a club in its hands. It may be the coming Hercules. Looking more closely it is a Bear. The Bear that walks like a man. After our experiences during the Civil War, when the Czar sent his fleet to New York and San Francisco to defend us against intervention, it is difficult for us to fear the Bear or refuse him anything. Yet we must recognize facts. It is a Bear stand- ing on the trail. His posture does not change his nature. If Russia appropriates 43 Missions and World Movements. and assimilates China, we are face to face with the most powerful empire ever known among men. The world problem is this, Shall Russia be allowed to absorb China? This problem is full of dragon's teeth, teeth enough to seed down the world with century- long strifes. Russia is Already Very Great. She has 125,000,000 people, and 8,670,- 000 square miles of land. The mass of her people are stout and solid, inured to hard- ship, economical, able to live as cheaply as Chinamen. They are ignorant and super- stitious, zealous followers of the Czar, tak- ing his word as final and almost divine. One block of land, from the Polar Sea to Persia, and from the Baltic to Korea, with no intervening sections of hostile or even neutral territory, — infantry could march over these wide zones without touching for- eign soil. 44 Missions and World Movements. Russia is Rendered Incapable of Subju- gation by Her Geography. She needs only to retreat into her climate to destroy all pursuers. Even the genius of Napoleon could not survive her neglect any farther north than Moscow. She can march against any foe at her own sweet will. If she wins she can absorb the conquered territory to pay the expenses. If she fails she has only to retreat, wait, recuperate, and try again. The State, as distinguished from the coun- try, means the Czar. He is the State. His wealth surpasses that of any other man's wealth. Money is more than ever before the sinews of war. The ancient David might slay Goliath and scatter the Philis- tines with a sling and a smooth pebble from a common brook, not worth more than a Chinese cash 1/18 of a cent; but the modern David who would defend his country or ex- 45 Missions and World Movements. tend her borders must have steel ships and twenty-four inch guns. It costs $800 or $1,000 now to hurl one pebble from some of our modern slings. Money is the sinews of war. It takes a key of gold to unlock the gate of empire. The Czar is very rich ; has money almost without limit. His un- mortgaged resources approach $1,000,000,- 000 a year, and would maintain perpetually a war as great as the late English South African War. The debt of Russia is $3,- 311,000,000. Great as it seems, it is less than the debt of England or of France. He has vast resources from mines and coal and timber lands. While all other nations, ex- cept some of the South American Republic wildernesses, are hunting for and planting and economizing their lumber supply, the Czar has over 300,000,000 acres of heavy timber. He has income from rents and rail- roads. He owns 25,000 miles of railroads, and some years is adding to these at the rate 46 Missions and World Movements. of 2,600 miles a year. He has vast income from the liquor trade, which he took into his own hands to control its quality and re- strict its sale, and save the peasants from utter destruction. According to latest re- ports his income from all sources exceeded all the expenses of the Government by $200,- 000,000. Out of this he put $47,500,000 into new warships, $21,575,000 into relief for the crop failure, and other millions he poured into increasing the army. In a time of financial depression he was not affected in the least. He pushed his great Siberian Railroad 7,600 miles long, his Trans-Cas- pian Railroad, his railroads in Central Asia, in Southern Caucasus, and his railroads down to the frontier of Austria and to the frontier of Germany, just as if he owned all the mines and mints in the world. This great Siberian Road, purely a polit- ical and military enterprise, is destined to change the map of Asia and mold the des- 47 Missions and World Movements. tiny of China. A great Russian statesman has said, "We shall conquer China by rail- roads." Now running along the border of China by the thousand miles this road makes it easy and inevitable to put Russian pres- sure on China at any point. The Czar has only to close a little these iron fingers on the brain or on the heart or on the throat of China, and his will will be supreme. Know- ing this, he has pushed the Siberian Road on to its objective point with all the wisdom of a capitalist and all the energy of a con- queror. He still has had a large surplus which he applies to the development of Russia's boundless resources. Mr. Ford says in an English engineering magazine: "Mighty canals are being cut, rivers and harbors deepened, arid regions irrigated, forests cleared and waste lands reclaimed; cities, villages, and workshops are being built, and colonies are being planted in new localities 48 Missions and World Movements. where modern systems of drainage and agri- culture are being introduced.'* These improvements are of the highest character; depots, government buildings, opera-houses, public halls, cathedrals are of the most modern style, and most permanent structures. The advances into new regions and toward possible conquests have all the appearance of permanent occupation. These vast outlays are no spasmodic output. The treasury is never exhausted. The na- tional debt is all the time being regularly reduced fifteen or twenty million dollars a year. New loans are floated only to pay off old bonds and carry the debt at lower rates. Not a dollar of the recent loans has gone into the treasury or current expenses. Rus- sia has large deposits in English banks. In recent years (A. D. 1890) one of the London banks had to have the support of the Bank of England to help it over a close place. Russia's deposit there was so great that the 49 Missions and World Movements. Bank of England asked Russia "not to call for her deposit till a certain date, as it would precipitate a financial crisis of the utmost gravity." Add to all this the fact that the Vast Resources of the Empire are Only Being Discovered. Coal, iron, copper, and oil are produced by the million tons, and their resources are barely scratched. Life-supporting prod- ucts are created by the hundred million tons. Improved agriculture is pushed upon the farmers. Industries are planted in every direction. Public works open new sources of knowledge and support for large numbers of the peasantry. The empire covering one- eighth of the earth's surface, and about one- tenth of the world's population, is a vast workshop. Russia is a beehive. The spirit of the great Romanoff family, the greatest family that ever sat on a human throne, in- 50 Missions and World Movements. spires all ranks of the people and of the army. They believe implicitly in the Czar. Tell them that such or such is the wish or will of the Czar, and they are quick to do it. Ask a Russian anywhere what is the mis- sion of Russia, and he will say, "To save the world." Ask a Russian officer where Russia is going, and he will point to China. Their faces are set to the southeast. It is ingrained into the Russian conviction that they are destined to reach the warm sea. It is amazing to think of the vastness of the Czar's power. All the energies of that em- pire centralize in him. The strength and momentum of two continents are com- pressed into him. He is the world's fist. With such a Power rising in Europe and Asia, nothing is impossible to it. What Does the Czar Want? That is the vital question. He must be judged by his history and his environment. 5i Missions and World Movements. His natural and national instinct has been forward to open winter harbors, to the warm sea. He has desired the warm sea with a greed many centuries old. This drift is a world movement. It depends neither upon individual men nor upon particular ages. It is not dependent upon any great military genius. It requires only an average ruler, open to the instincts of his people. Opposition may retard this movement, but it can not defeat it. It is a tide lifted by the stars. It is a gulf-stream sweeping onward by the century, unaffected by State funerals or the flight of time. It is silent, concentrated, perpetual. As the Muir gla- cier comes out of the Alaskan gorge from a number of concentrated, converged gorges, spurting and pushing each other forward till the advance along the main axis of move- ment is often visible to the careful observer, so this Russian political glacier comes out of all the converging convictions of the em- 52 Missions and World Movements. pire, pushes straight on by a resistless grind toward the warm sea, and it must succeed. It is a world grind, and only God can stop it. Russia will ultimately reach warm water, but she must not absorb China. Can China resist Russia? Let the drift of recent years answer. China has recently lost Siam, Burmah, Annam, Tibet, and Mongolia, Tong King, Formosa, Man- churia, and Korea. These are China's tracks, toes in toward Peking, away from the nar- rowing frontier. It is not thinkable that she should now arise and reverse her direc- tion and her history in a struggle against her overshadowing master. Russia's ad- vances are as marked as China's losses. Russia has transformed the map of Asia into a series of Russian plateaus, marking the mighty strides of Russia's progress. Look at them : The Urals, Western Siberia, Eastern Siberia, Baikalia, Kamschatka, the Amur, Manchuria, the Steppe, Khiva, Tur- 53 Missions and World Movements. kestan, the Merr Oasis, Bokhara, Samar- kand, — these are Russia's footprints, heels toward St. Petersburg, toes toward the ex- tending frontier, marking her strides over Asia. Meantime her naval base drifts south, tack by tack, Petropaulafsk, Nikolasefsk, Vladivostock, Port Arthur. With Her to Wiix is to Achieve. She moves as if she had only to pick out of everything whatever she wants. Is it Siberia? She takes it. Is it Central Asia? She takes it. Is it Port Arthur ? She takes it. Is it Manchuria? She takes it. Is it Persia ? She runs her railroads to the Per- sian Gulf and takes the Persian commerce, knowing that where Persia's heart is there will she be also. Does she want Mongolia ? She has only to say the word. The iron net is fully spread. Does she want Tibet ? She already has her hand stretched under the limb to catch it when she wishes to jar the 54 Missions and World Movements. tree. Hei railroad runs 7,600 miles from the Baltic to the Yellow Sea, and a branch is already creeping up to the Great Wall almost within cannon shot of Peking. With her railroad stations skirting the Chi- nese border for 3,000 miles, and thickly set with forts, and with her navy nosing out to the Yellow Sea, she becomes the only friend of China whose advice must be taken. The northern half of China, all north of the Yellow River and possibly down to the Yang-tse, becomes her vassal. Her rail- roads will not only thread Manchuria, but all North China. The commerce of that great empire will become exclusively Rus- sian. Differential rates on her railroads will neutralize the "most favored nation" clause of the treaties. Without firing a single shot, or taking a single step worthy of interna- tional consideration, with only the pressure Russia knows so well how to exercise, China seems certain to be brought, and is being 55 Missions and World Movements. brought, under the absolute control of Rus- sia. With a navy, now only second in rank and rapidly increasing, much larger than ours, a navy such as Russia can easily put upon the Yellow Sea and on the Pacific, and with vast armies within easy reach, there will be no Power able to dispute her ad- vance or countermand her orders. China Naturai^y Gravitates Toward Russia. Russia is largely Asiatic, all Asiatic ex- cept a little European light let in through St. Petersburg, the window which Peter the Great opened into Europe. Russia is Asiatic. Napoleon said, "Scratch a Russian, and you have a Tartar." She has the Asiatic ability to smile and lie and wait. She has no value on time. She hates haste. She has the soft, complacent, smiling, treacherous face of all Asiatics. She un- derstands and suits China. She yields and 56 Missions and World Movements. presses, and waits and holds on. She is only another arm of the same octopus. So China, repelled by and hating the Saxon straight- forward integrity and haste, naturally sinks back into the embrace of Russia. Her four hundred millions, drilled and paid and com- manded by Russian officers, can furnish armies without number, and inferior to none. Russia has supreme organizing and ab- sorbing power ; a hundred nations and tribes have been dissolved in this sea, and never one has ever been precipitated. The vast industrial possibilities of China, reached by steam and electricity over waterways and railways, projected and owned and managed by Russians, will make her as dangerous in the labor markets of the world as on the battlefields. Russia does not want a military conquest if she can avoid it. She will avoid all beyond the near presence of her armies and threats. She wants China for the sake 5 57 Missions and Wored Movements, of her incipient, and possibly boundless, commerce. She wants control of those mar- kets now ready for use, as soon as she can reach those thronging millions with proper communication and transportation. It is not Siberia for her own sake she wants, where she has to plant colonies and slowly create trade; she wants Siberia for what lies be- yond. It is China, where the population has been waiting by the thousand years for the development of commerce. Russia Wants this Empire: to Use as a Weapon against India and against the rest of Asia, and against Europe. In Russia's hand China will be a deadly weapon, and make Russia the great- est empire, ancient or modern. Establish the Czar's authority in Peking, with a continuous frontier along India, from the Upper Oxus to the Yang-tse basin on much of three sides of that populous em- 58 Missions and World Movements. pire, with a home fleet on the Pacific su- perior to the English fleets projected into those waters, making the transport of Eng- lish armies impossible, with five hundred millions of people whose flesh and blood are cheap obeying his orders, able to drop armies into India without number, unex- posed on transports, then the absorption of India will be only a matter of willing. The Russian Empire, then extending from the Polar Sea to the Indian Ocean, and from Germany to the Yellow Sea, covering Asia and much of Europe, and controlling half the human race, will put Europe in greater peril than it ever was in the days of the Mongol Empire in the palmy days of Jen- ghiz Khan, or Timurlane, Russia is already running her railroads down to the border of Austria, waiting till the Slav and German elements of Austria shall assert themselves upon the near death of Franz Joseph, the present emperor. Then the Czar will be 59 Missions and World Movements. ready to bargain with Germany and take his Slavs in out of anarchy, while William III hovers his Germans. It looks as if the old Bonaparte had the vision of a prophet, when on St. Helena he said, "In a century Europe will be all Republican or Slav," and again he said, "If a Czar, brave, hardy, gifted with warlike qualities, mount the Russian throne, he will be able to conquer all Europe." This is not a dream. The Czar, as ruler of Asia, can do much toward transforming the Pacific Ocean into a Russian harbor or highway. In peace, by high duties and dif- ferential rates over her railroads, he can close all the vast markets of Asia against all non-Russian products, as he is doing to-day wherever his double-headed eagles float. He stops at no half-way measures. He seeks the accomplishment of his own will with the celerity of ambition, and with the merciless thoroughness of fanaticism. The 60 Missions and World Movements. Czar is accumulating and marshaling mighty forces, and is confident that he can absorb China, and later India and the rest of Asia. He will reach the warm Pacific. But he must not absorb China. The Powers must resist him, and set limits and bounds to his ambition and to his empire. The Lines are Being Drawn By an invisible and Almighty Hand. The Great Powers are silently wheeling into place. Sooner or later the contest will be joined. Let us catalogue the forces on each side. On one side is Russia, ambitious, seeking more territory, not for a crowded population, for she already has much room to spare, but for strategical positions for future political and military conquests. Rich beyond computation, compact in terri- tory, one immense block, buttressed on the north by the Arctic Ocean, cushioned on the south by soft peoples, stretching across two 61 Missions and World Movements. continents, with little east of her to resist, and everything to allure her, even on to the Pacific, and confronted on the west only by Germany. With 125,000,000 of devoted, warlike subjects, fanatically certain that Russia is ordained of God to conquer both Asia and Europe for the salvation of the world, with a greed for conquest fermented in the blood for many centuries, and with an experience of successful absorptions wide enough to turn the head of the Sphinx, with all this power concentrated in one unques- tioned will, can there be any doubt as to which way Russia will move? On the side of Russia will be found her ally, France, the Don Quixote of the nations, though within a few days France seems to be mak- ing friends with England. Turkey must yield to the old-time greed of Russia. So much of Austria as is of Slav origin will join the Slavs. The rest of Europe will not add much to these forces. Italy is only a 62 Missions and World Movements. name on the map. Spain is a relic. These baptized and unbaptized heathen will soon be able to rally half the human race to one standard. Against these vast hosts may possibly be gathered the Saxon and Protestant nations. Germany, That old birthplace and cradle of Protest- ism ; that camp in the heart of Europe ; that race of soldiers; that land of colleges and scholars, and statesmen, and fighters; that nation that sung its way from Berlin to Paris, trampling down all opposing- armies as if they were only knocking off the heads of toadstools; that bulwark of Europe against Russia will give sympathy, and pos- sibly aid. Since the fall of Bismarck, who always courted Russia at the expense of England, it looks as if William III has come to his senses and realizes the danger of the presence of so great and ambitious a neigh- 63 Missions and World Movements. bor as Russia, as if the faith of his fathers was asserting itself in his convictions, as if the blood of his mother and grandmother, God's most elect lady, Victoria, was work- ing in his veins, and that he is turning the prow of his Ship of State toward the Eng- lish Channel. When Napoleon was in Ber- lin he visited the resting-place of Frederick the Great. He picked up Frederick's sword that was lying on his coffin, and carried it away with him. When Unser Fritz went into Paris with Moltke at his back, and met the French commissioners suing for peace, the first thing he said was, "We have come after Frederick's sword." That sword, dropped into the scales in this strife, may tell which way the beam of Fate will sink. Let us hope that Germany will be true to her history and her instincts. It is fairly safe to expect sympathy and comfort from 64 Missions and World Movements. Scandinavia. Those sons of the Vikings and of the old pirate chiefs, those sons of the heroes of the Thirty Years' War, who single-handed against all Catholic Europe for a whole gen- eration defended and saved Protestantism and Liberty ; these Scandinavians who stood off and so defeated Peter the Great, that after one of his defeats he had the Te Deum sung in the churches, saying: "The time has at last come when three Russians can stand against one Swede. The time will come when we can stand two against one ;" these Scandinavians who have a larger per cent of people able to read and write than any other nation anywhere, who, living by their fjords and mountain streams, sing the glad songs of liberty and are as free as any people have ever been in any land or age; these Scandinavians will be true to their history, to their faith, and to their God. They will be found on the right side, 65 Missions and World Movements. It may not be too much to rely on help from Holland, That pioneer of religious liberty. Holland was the advance guard of Freedom for two hundred years. She was the discoverer of nearly every great truth out of which re- publics are made. She discovered, polit- ically the individual man, freedom of con- science, free schools for boys and girls, free press, free libraries, free judges, secret bal- lot, written constitutional limitations for the ruler, full subpoenas for the witnesses of the accused, and counsel for his defense. Holland endured the tortures of the Duke of Alva without flinching, and resisted the combined forces of the Bourbon family through the long Eighty Years' War. She can never be wanting when she is needed. 66 Missions and Wori Movements. 'down to thy people whom thou hast brought out of Egypt, for behold, they have cor- rupted themselves." Moses, poor little Moses, who the other day did not. dare to speak even to poor little Pharaoh, now in this hour of destiny stands boldly before his angered God and asks, "Why is thine anger kindled against thy people whom thou broughtest out of the land of bondage ?" God said, "Let me alone that mine anger may wax hot against them." Moses clung to the very vesture of God, and cried, "Where are thy promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob ?" God said, as if to buy him off, "I will make of thee a great people." Moses held fast, crying, "What will the heathen say, that thou broughtest out thy people into the wilderness to slay them? If thy promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob fail, blot me out of thy Book, but spare Israel." The honor of God was touched, and he was held in the grip of heroic sacri- 102 Missions and World Movements. fice. He yielded, and Israel was spared. Brothers, what vast responsibilities rest upon us who have the promises of God! If we, as a Church, will rise to the heroism of our crisis, and by relieving prayer cry, "O God, have mercy upon us, take our sub- stance according to thy will, take ourselves for any service, and if need be take even our children, but save great Asia, and bring this world into the light and liberty of the gospel !" if only we will thus pray and give and believe, God will hear us as certainly as he heard Moses. This generation of believ- ers will see the salvation of this generation of sinners, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. 103 Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 1 1012 01234 1030